Target Lost!

Bang!

Tony fired into the sky.

The flare traced an arcing path, shooting a hundred meters into the air before slowly descending.

The crimson illumination stood out vividly in the nighttime desert, bright enough to clearly light up the faces of the two men on the ground.

"Alright, wait a few more minutes and someone will come pick us up." Tony casually tossed aside the flare gun.

A flare had appeared near the garrison base. The Americans would definitely check it with their satellites, and then they would find him here and immediately send a rescue team.

Tony looked at Yinsen. "Come to the United States with me, Yinsen. Bring your family too."

He could tell Yinsen had wanted to say something since earlier.

Yinsen's expression was complicated. "My family is already dead. Actually, Tony, I'd rather return to Iran and do everything I can to help more people in need."

The words Tony had just prepared caught in his throat. He realized that the man who had saved his life had endured an even more painful past.

But that only made him more determined to bring Yinsen to the United States.

"Yinsen..." he began, full of guilt and heaviness. "I didn't know... about your family. I'm sorry."

Yinsen shook his head to show that it did not matter.

Tony continued, "I understand why you want to return to your homeland."

He could tell Yinsen clearly harbored a death wish. Returning home meant he wanted to do something self-sacrificing.

He paused. "But Leon was right before. When I go back this time, I'm going to help more people."

"The contribution I can make to this world..."

"Shouldn't just be making things that explode."

He tapped the Arc Reactor in his chest with a fingertip, his gaze burning. "Yinsen, you can come with me. We can better help people hurt by violence, then change this world and make it better."

Yinsen stared blankly at the Arc Reactor. It truly was technology capable of changing the world, and he hesitated.

Boom!

Suddenly, the rumble of an engine came from afar, growing louder and louder.

A patrol plane approached from the distance.

"The flare was only fired half a minute ago, and the rescue plane is already here?" Yinsen could not help exclaiming. "They're incredibly efficient!"

Then he watched helplessly as the plane passed overhead and flew into the distance.

"...It doesn't seem to be a rescue team. It looks like a light patrol aircraft. I'm guessing it's going after Leon. The base must have spotted him."

Tony watched the fighter jet fly away. "But it hasn't even reached the speed of sound. They can't catch Leon."

"Let's wait a little longer. Leon's entrance was too flashy, so he drew all their attention."

"But next time, once I put on the Mark armor, I'll definitely catch the attention of those rednecks in the military even better."

Tony paced a few steps in place. "And of course, yours too. You'll need your own armor by then."

"Then we can have a team called... the MK Squad? No, that doesn't sound right. Maybe..."

Three minutes passed amid Tony's endless chatter, and another dense roar of engines faintly came from the horizon.

It was a formation of three helicopters.

"Oh! Look, our rescue team is here!"

Parched from staying in the desert, the two men jumped and waved from the ground.

Elsewhere.

Just as Tony had said, Leon was not caught by the patrol plane.

After all, in half a minute, he could have flown back and forth several times over that distance.

By the time the patrol plane reached halfway, he had already carried the Mark armor and blueprints out of Afghanistan.

Unexpectedly, however, when Leon entered California, he encountered another group of fighter jets intercepting him.

—After retrieving Tony's treasure from the collapsed cave.

He carried the armor through the skies over Afghanistan, flying to the thermosphere at the edge of the atmosphere.

Then he accelerated to Mach 30.

In just twenty minutes, he crossed most of the globe and returned to North America.

He descended over the west coast of the Pacific, slowed to low supersonic speed, and entered California.

The Stark family mansion stood on the coast of western Los Angeles, California.

He only needed to cross the coastal mountain range within California to arrive.

But because he had slowed down too much, yet not enough, he was caught by an overhead satellite the instant he entered the country.

On the monitoring screens at a U.S. military base.

A figure moving above the mountains at nearly twice the speed of sound caught the operators' attention.

After enlarging the image, they were shocked to discover it was a small flying unit.

For some reason, the target's image was blurry under the cover of a biological force field.

But it looked very much like a humanoid object in flight.

The soldiers immediately reported the situation to their superiors.

"What is that? Open communications with it and tell it to land for inspection! Whether it's the CIA or the Navy, make that fancy thing land so we can get a look at it first!" The commander looked grave.

"Sir, no response from the target over the radio!"

"Sir, the CIA and Navy just contacted us, asking whether that flying object is ours and demanding intelligence!"

"Ours? Do we have something that compact, capable of nearly Mach 2, and with such enduring range?"

"Not for now, sir!"

"Shit! Get the weapons research division! Bring Colonel Rhodey over here!"

"Colonel Rhodey has gone to Afghanistan to find Tony Stark, sir!"

"Goddamn it! Then compare it against the database! Lock it with radar! Lock it with satellites! Get me the clearest satellite image!"

"Reporting, sir! No similar records in the database! The target's cross-section is too small for radar lock! Satellite images are blurry due to unknown interference! What do we do, sir?"

"...WTF? Can someone tell me what the hell this thing that appeared out of nowhere and is flying right over our heads is?"

"I don't know, sir!"

"Damn it! Are there any high-altitude surveillance units in the western coastal mountain region? Send them out and shoot that thing down!"

"Yes, sir!"

Leon had originally been silently flying toward Los Angeles in boredom.

Suddenly, his ears twitched. He tilted his body and looked upward.

He heard the roar of four engines veering off course and approaching him.

"Did a satellite spot me?" Leon guessed, slowing down slightly to assess the situation. "It must be because I wasn't fast enough, so they noticed me. What a hassle."

"Flying below the speed of sound is too slow, while low supersonic speeds make satellites notice the anomaly and lock on immediately."

"Maybe next time I should consider maintaining a speed above Mach 10."

Then another sound came through his ears.

"Target locked!" a pilot shouted over the radio.

"Missile launchers ready, awaiting final orders!"

At the U.S. military base, the commander gave the order. "Take aim! Fire! Shoot down that flying object!"

"Global Hawk acknowledged!"

"AWACS acknowledged!"

The four aircraft dived from high altitude. Though they still had difficulty closing the distance with Leon, they could launch airborne missiles that would hit the target.

"Fire!"

Missile after missile launched, their speed climbing above Mach 5 within seconds as they pursued Leon.

Leon turned around, his gaze piercing through the clouds to see the flaming missiles several thousand meters away.

They were powerful weapons capable of destroying any aerial vehicle.

But to him now, they could not even scratch an itch.

Leon suddenly had the urge to stop, catch the missiles, then walk out of the flames without a speck of dust on him and blow the minds of everyone in the U.S. military.

After all, having a body of steel and not showing off was like walking at night in fine clothes.

Showing off was a deep-seated desire engraved in human genes.

Abraham Maslow had once placed the need to show off at the fourth level of humanity's five levels of needs.

Once people were full, safe from threats to their lives, and had some degree of social interaction, they would naturally want to show off.

Leon could not escape that worldly desire either.

But after thinking about it.

Tony would definitely make new armor and run out to show it off after he returned.

There was even a scene in the movie where Tony's attempt to show off failed and the U.S. military bombed him with fighter jets.

So rather than show off now.

It would be more satisfying to wait until Tony was brimming with pride and then got slapped in the face by the U.S. military before making his entrance.

After all, showing off in front of a good brother brought the highest level of psychological satisfaction.

Thinking of the expression Tony would make then.

Leon could not help grinning.

Now that he had Superman-like powers, he had no desire to become some Homelander or say nonsense like, "I don't eat beef."

He only wanted to keep growing stronger, and while growing stronger, do things that made him happy.

For example—showing Tony off in ways Tony wanted to but could not.

With that thought.

Leon looked up at the incoming missiles above the thick clouds. With a thought, his speed instantly surged to Mach 20, and he vanished from the U.S. military satellites' lock.

"What the hell! The target disappeared!" the pilots cried in shock.

"Reporting! The missiles did not hit the target!"

"Target lost! I repeat, target lost! Suspected stealth capability!"

At the U.S. military base, the commander stared blankly. "What? Impossible! Absolutely impossible! Continue searching the entire area. You must find it!"

The command room immediately descended into chaos.

It was foreseeable that, for some time to come, the entire Department of Defense would be jumpy and uneasy.