Feeney had figured he'd wait for Billy to return at today's opening ceremony, get rid of the two nuisances beside him, and then enjoy a proper tour before heading home.
But things often took an unexpected turn. Just as Feeney and the two women watched Tony finish his speech and prepare to head backstage, something went wrong.
A commotion suddenly broke out in a corner near the stage.
Then a burly man dressed in filthy clothes, a toothpick in his mouth, an upgraded Miniature Arc Reactor on his chest, and an Energy Whip in each hand strode onto the stage.
"Holy crap!"
Feeney blurted out without thinking. He hadn't expected things to take such an unexpected turn. Whiplash, Ivan Vanko, had made his entrance like this.
"This is Tony's turf!"
Ivan's appearance had taken Feeney completely by surprise. He never would've imagined the guy would show up at this time, in this way.
But after thinking it over, he suddenly felt that Ivan's appearance wasn't so hard to accept after all.
Tony had always been a super-rich celebrity, and now he was Iron Man too—the biggest star of them all. His whereabouts weren't something an ordinary person could track, though Ivan Vanko clearly wasn't ordinary.
Especially since Tony, who hadn't gone through the despair of being poisoned, wasn't recklessly throwing himself into danger everywhere. That made it even harder for Ivan to find him and take revenge.
So it wasn't all that surprising that the grand Stark Expo had become Ivan's primary target. Feeney just hadn't expected Ivan to show up in such a "low-budget" way.
"Isn't he afraid someone will shoot him dead!?"
Looking at Ivan Vanko, most of whose body was exposed, Feeney couldn't understand what was going through his head. He didn't have Tony's Iron Man Armor,