Impersonating Iron Man

Apocalypse knew that Ivan was about to pull off something big.

What a pity, villains always died at just the right moment.

If he had attacked earlier, before Iron Man finished synthesizing the New Element, the outcome of the subsequent battle would have been hard to predict, and Ivan might even have had a higher chance of winning.

But now... the two of them shared a tacit understanding, looking at each other and smiling.

With the New Element, Ivan's double-loop Arc Reactor was like a joke.

Iron Man suddenly remembered and said, "Oh no, in 40 minutes, it's Hammer's weapons exhibition. Pepper Potts and Natasha went to the exhibition, and they are in danger."

Even without foreknowledge of the plot like Apocalypse, Iron Man knew that something big was definitely going to happen at the exhibition, and he immediately put on the armor.

"Tang, this is another suit of armor tailor-made for you. It's only equipped with some long-range attack weapons, and everything else is mainly focused on boosting flight speed."

"Then I won't be polite," Apocalypse said.

The current armor could transform into a suitcase, greatly improving portability, and was already ready for use.

Although it wasn't as convenient as future nanotech armor, you couldn't become a fat man in one bite, right?

Given Apocalypse's strength, close-combat weapons didn't need to be designed. He only lacked long-range attacks, so Apocalypse was equipped with some basic weapons like micro-missiles and lasers.

Iron Man's armor was gold and red, very flashy and good-looking, while Apocalypse's was sky blue.

Apocalypse didn't have a particular preference for colors. Making it sky blue was mainly to reduce the probability of being spotted while flying in the sky.

The two sets of armor flew out of Iron Man's home one after the other.

Apocalypse ordered the artificial intelligence to accelerate with all its might!

"Whoosh--"

The blue flames of the thrusters beneath his feet suddenly surged, and after a short while, he vanished from Iron Man's sight. A few seconds later, with a "bang" sound, he seemed to crash through something, and a circle of white mist appeared around the armor.

Sonic boom cloud!

In just a few seconds, he accelerated to the speed of sound!

The 0-to-100 acceleration of sports cars was weak sauce compared to the armor.

Only Apocalypse's freakish body could withstand this kind of acceleration. Apart from feeling his body sink, he didn't feel anything else unusual.

Iron Man himself wouldn't dare to play like this; otherwise, the G-force of instantaneous acceleration would be enough to tear his internal organs apart.

Reaching the speed of sound, Apocalypse didn't stop and continued to order acceleration!

He wanted to see what the limit speed of this armor was.

Mach 1...

Mach 2...

Mach 3...

All the way to Mach 3.5, the armor's speed finally reached its limit.

Apocalypse was extremely satisfied. This speed was much faster than him jumping around.

You could also make phone calls inside the armor. There was still some distance to reach Hammer Industries, and Apocalypse remembered something, calling Yinsen: "Did you bring back the bird from Siberia?"

"Mr. Tang, it has already been brought back. However, because the climate here is different and this bird is suited to survive in the cold regions of Siberia, I built it a miniature refrigerator birdcage and simultaneously airlifted some Siberian bird food back. Its condition is all well right now."

"Good job!" Apocalypse praised.

Scientists were just meticulous when doing things. If he had gone himself, or asked S.H.I.E.L.D. to send agents, they probably would have overlooked these details, and this bird might have died due to maladjustment to the local climate.

Apocalypse thought for a moment: "Bring the bird to the botanical garden in the city center. Be careful, find a good place to hide. There might be a big battle there."

According to the original plot, Ivan was the one beaten to submission in a botanical garden in the city by Iron Man and War Machine working together.

Regardless of whether the plot would still unfold as originally planned, he would pre-arrange it just in case.

Even upon hearing that there was going to be a big battle, Yinsen didn't question it too much and immediately said, "Okay."

Hailing from the Middle East, having experienced countless flames of war, this little scene wasn't even worth mentioning. Anyway, whatever his BOSS said to do was right.

The Hammer weapons exhibition.

CEO Hammer was proudly introducing his new model—the Hammer Unmanned Iron Soldiers.

The Steel Soldiers were divided into four major categories: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, etc., with each major category having different specialized functions.

Every time a category was introduced, a row of Steel Soldiers made a neat entrance, and the towering machines carried an extreme sense of oppression, from time to time eliciting gasps from the audience.

Apocalypse didn't know if this was because Hammer's technology wasn't good enough, so he could only divide them into four major categories and couldn't achieve the all-encompassing versatility of Iron Man? Or was it a sales strategy, intentionally separating them?

However, with Apocalypse's understanding of the plot, he leaned more toward the former.

After all, the micro-missile he had modified for War Machine—the Ex-Wife, had almost failed to laugh Iron Man to death.

After introducing the products, Colonel Rhodes made an entrance wearing an Iron Man armor.

Hammer shamelessly said that this was his prototype machine, named "War Machine," which was actually just an old suit of Iron Man armor that Colonel Rhodes had taken away.

Now, after being modified by Hammer Industries, some weapon systems were installed, and a new color was sprayed on, it was packaged as his own product.

Colonel Rhodes didn't expose him either. Due to suffering trauma in the Middle East, Iron Man now extremely detested weapons and didn't want to design weapons for the United States military at all.

Then, the military didn't have many choices now, and Hammer, whose strength was second only to Iron Man, became the first choice.

Off stage, Pepper Potts and her nominal assistant, Black Widow, were also in the audience.

Ordinarily, this kind of exhibition usually wouldn't invite competitors. Hammer deliberately sending an invitation letter to Stark Industries was clearly an intentional display of intimidation toward Iron Man.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are now entering the Q&A session. Does anyone have any questions?"

Before the reporters off stage could raise their hands, Apocalypse fell from the sky like a shooting star!

With a soft "thud" sound, the sky-blue armor landed steadily on the stage.

The airflow brought by the high speed blew Hammer so hard he could barely stand, almost knocking him down.

"Iron Man! Iron Man is here..."

There was a burst of cheers off stage.

Hammer wore a dark expression. This Tony was too detestable; his spotlight was stolen again, yet he couldn't lose his temper.

Because he was the one who sent the invitation letter to Iron Man.

"Welcome, welcome, Tony, you still love showing off so much," Hammer said with feigned poise.

He didn't know that the person inside wasn't Tony Stark, including Pepper Potts and Black Widow in the audience. After all, in everyone's view, Iron Man's armor was never lent out—there was only this one, with no second branch.

Of course, that War Machine set was considered a deliberate "accident."

Apocalypse turned on the armor's loudspeaker and shouted, "Everyone hurry up and leave here, there is danger here."

Yet no one listened to him, instead wearing expressions of watching a good show.

Everyone knew that Iron Man and Hammer were mortal enemies, and with Tony Stark's personality, if he didn't come, fine, but once he came, he would definitely stir up trouble.

They didn't expect Iron Man to smash the venue as soon as he arrived. The audience became even more excited, all watching to see how Hammer would handle it.

Hammer wore an angry expression. This guy stole his spotlight as soon as he arrived, and even wanted to disperse his guests—too detestable.

Hammer said, "Everyone need not worry. My Steel Soldiers can reach subsonic flight speeds. Even if there is danger, they can quickly take everyone away from here."

"Oh? Only subsonic? So slow? I just spent 5 seconds to accelerate to 3 times the speed of sound."

You wouldn't know without comparing: even with Ivan's help, the gap in technology between these Steel Soldiers and Iron Man was still too huge.

"Impossible!" Hammer said loudly. "Accelerating to 3 times the speed of sound in 5 seconds would crush a person flat—simply impossible!"

"Nothing is impossible. It's just that you can't imagine it."

"Tony," Colonel Rhodes stepped forward and said, "Could you do me a favor and not make trouble here. We aren't forcing you to build weapons for the military, but you can't stop us from buying weapons either."

"Rhodey, you've overthought it." Apocalypse didn't reveal his identity either. "You ask Hammer, who designed these weapons? Right now, is the control of these Steel Soldiers still in Hammer's hands?"

As soon as the words fell, the weapon systems of the Steel Soldiers lit up, and the gun barrels slowly turned, aiming at the people off stage.

Ivan, who had been monitoring this place all along, saw Apocalypse exposing his plot and knew there was no time to lose, directly activating the Steel Soldiers.

"Oh no, these piece-of-crap machines are out of my control," Hammer screamed.

He frantically pressed the laptop in his hands, but the Steel Soldiers couldn't be stopped at all.