"Too slow... still too slow."
Tony was holding a high-frequency laser cutting knife and frantically gesturing on a scrapped titanium alloy plate.
The Mark 3 is a formidable weapon, a mobile arsenal, but its cumbersome nature will be its Achilles' heel when facing that monster.
That bastard who killed his parents, that ghost named Barnes, possessed a mobility that defied the laws of physics.
" JARVIS, completely overhaul the Mark IV's propulsion system."
Tony threw the cleaver on the table.
"I don't need stable flight; I need explosive power with instantaneous overload! If I can't sever that bastard's neck in one second, this pile of scrap metal has no reason to exist!"
"Sir, that would cause irreversible overload damage to your body; your internal organs probably couldn't withstand it..."
"Then fill the cockpit with cushioning gel! Or just cut off my pain receptors! I don't care about the process, JARVIS, I just want that monster dead!"
Tony grabbed a bottle of whiskey, about to gulp it down, when the red light on the workbench suddenly started flashing wildly.
"Sizzle--Sizzle--"
The piercing alarm made Tony's nerves tense.
"Sir, an unusual S.H.I.E.L.D.. frequency communication has been intercepted."
Location: Florida, Jacksonville, First National Bank. Facial recognition system detected a highly matching target at the edge of surveillance footage.
The holographic screen zoomed in, and in one corner of the surveillance footage, a figure dressed in strange dark green armor flashed by.
The insect's compound eye helmet.
That repulsive green carapace.
And that left arm... it looks incredibly grotesque even in low resolution.
"He's there..." Tony's voice was low. "He's finally crawled out of his mouse hole."
"Sir, according to thermal imaging analysis of the scene, at least thirty people are being held hostage inside the bank, and there are several armed men carrying heavy weapons. The police have already..."
"Prepare the car."
Tony interrupted JARVIS.
"Okay, the Rolls-Royce Phantom is ready..."
"No."
Tony turned and walked toward the steel behemoth that had just wreaked havoc in the Middle East and whose surface still bore traces of gunpowder.
He opened his arms, his eyes burning with a ghostly blue Flame.
"I mean, preparing for war."
Florida, Jacksonville.
This once sunny city is now shrouded in a cloud of fear.
The gate of the First National Bank had been blown to pieces, and several police cars riddled with bullet holes were parked haphazardly on the street.
The police officers who had set up a cordon hid behind cover, their faces covered in cold sweat.
"Damn it! What kind of monster is that?!" a sheriff shouted in despair, "Our bullets are having no effect on them!"
Just then, a sharp whistling sound came from the horizon.
The sound was initially far away, but in the blink of an eye it burst through the clouds and plummeted downwards.
There was no slowdown, no negotiation.
A meteor pierced through the bank's earthen dome, crashing heavily into the center of the lobby amidst a cloud of debris and dust.
A dark gray mech slowly rose to its feet.
Several Shocker Combatant let out strange cries and raised their modified weapons, firing wildly at the Steel Intruder.
"Jingle bells--"
The beam struck the Mark 3's thick armor, leaving only shallow scorch marks.
Tony raised his right hand, revealing a miniature bunker buster hidden in his wrist.
"Puff!"
It burrowed into the ground, launched, and embedded itself in the chest of a combatant, then—
"Bang!"
The combatant's upper body exploded into a cloud of blood mist.
This is Tony's current fighting logic: leave no corpse intact, and avoid unnecessary movements.
" Barnes! Get out here!"
Tony roared, his back thrusters blasting out, smashing through a load-bearing pillar before grabbing a Shocker Combatant by the neck and slamming him to the ground.
The hydraulic transmission device emitted a piercing shriek, and the combatant's cervical spine snapped.
Faced with a technological gap, these mass-produced combatants, whom Shocker considered "elite," were as vulnerable as turkeys.
Tony was in a killing frenzy.
JARVIS's radar was scanning frantically, trying to lock onto that specific biosignal.
"Warning! High-energy heat source reaction at the three o'clock position!"
JARVIS's voice suddenly became urgent.
At the broken section on the second floor of the bank, a Shocker elite combatant who had been hiding for a long time picked up an RPG Rocket.
They were too close.
The Mark 3's heavy-duty design sacrificed maneuverability, leaving him no time to evade.
Damn it!
"Call out--"
A purple trail of flame sliced through the air.
At the critical moment.
A red and blue blur flew in through the broken window on the side.
"BOOM!!!"
The unique sound-absorbing properties of Vibranium were on full display; the Rocket deflected and blasted a large hole in the ceiling.
Tony lowered his arm guards, the mech's visor turned in that direction, and a look of surprise flashed in his dark blue electronic eyes.
Steve Rogers.
He glanced at the scattered limbs and severed bodies on the ground, his brows furrowing tightly, his deep blue eyes filled with disapproval.
He then focused his attention on the steel Giant.
"Whoever you are, soldier."
Steve's voice was calm and powerful, carrying a natural leadership quality that was clearly audible even on the battlefield. "This is a city, not your private firing range. Remember your rules of engagement."
Tony Stark, inside the cockpit, was somewhat surprised.
He certainly recognized the uniform.
When I was a kid, my unreliable dad, Howard, would mutter this name every year when he was drunk, and he even spent half a billion dollars to retrieve this "old popsicle" from the Arctic Ocean.
In his childhood memories, the name " Captain America " represented the villain who stole his father's love.
And now, this fossil, which only existed in history books and his father's drunken ramblings, was actually standing in front of him, pointing fingers and gesturing at him?
"Ha..."
Tony let out an utterly absurd, cold laugh.
The mask popped open.
Tony revealed a face etched with arrogance and anger.
" JARVIS, am I hallucinating because of lack of oxygen?"
Tony pointed at Steve. "I've seen this outfit in a museum. Which circus did you run away from? And who gave you the right to call me 'soldier'?"
Steve looked at that face.
Those brown eyes, that sarcastic tone, and that arrogant demeanor.
They look so alike.
He's just like Howard Stark, who always blows things up in the lab and then shrugs innocently.
Steve's grip on the shield tightened slightly, and his expression became complicated.
"You are Howard's son."
Don't mention that old man to me.
Tony rudely interrupted him, "And put your frisbee away, old man. This is a 21st-century battlefield, not a WWII stage play. If you don't want osteoporosis and shattered pieces everywhere, stay away."
"Bang!"
Tony fastened his mask back on, and the thrusters roared.
" JARVIS, where's that green bastard?"
"Sir, a violent energy fluctuation has been detected in the vault; the source of that signal is moving!"
"Trying to run away?"
The missile pods on the back of the Mark 3 suddenly popped open, locking the vault doors.
"Wait!" Steve tried to stop them, "There are still hostages there! You can't just bomb them!"
"That's Shocker's stronghold! It's full of Deadman and dying people!"
Tony ignored him completely; his shoulder cannon was fully charged.
You have no idea what we're facing!
Steve raised his shield to block Tony's path, his tone stern.
"That's Bucky! He's been taken down! We need to capture him alive, not blow him to pieces!"
Upon hearing the name " Bucky," the Iron Giant's mechanical arm turned towards the annoying guy.
It was almost touching the captain's shield.
"What did you say?"
You want to save him?
"That bastard who killed my parents... you want to save him?"
Captain America looked at the trembling steel machine before him and suddenly realized that " Howard's son" hadn't come to uphold justice.
He is a vengeful demon.
" Stark, that's Hydra's fault, Bucky..."
"Shut up!"
"Boom!"
A pulse beam struck the Vibranium Shield at point-blank range, blasting the unsuspecting Steve away and sending him crashing into the bank counter.