Rhodey felt a powerful wave of dizziness wash over him. Even his years as a pilot hadn't prepared him for this.
Just before he was about to slam into the ground, his armor's radio system came back online.
He heard Tony's heart-wrenching cry of "No!"
His beautiful life flashed before his eyes. With his eyes closed, Rhodey saw his great-grandmother, who had died long ago.
Rhodey: (¦3[▓▓]
Looks like this is it for me. Is every pilot destined to die in a crash?
If possible, I hope Tony equips his armor with a parachute.
That way, the next time he loses power, he won't fall to his death like me!
But why am I still not dead after thinking about all this?
Does time outside stop when your life flashes before your eyes before you die?
Tap, tap, tap!
Huh?
I should be dead by now, shouldn't I? Why does it feel like someone's knocking on my faceplate?
Tap, tap, tap!
"Brother, did you really pass out?"
Rhodey opened his closed eyes and found the familiar armor interface in front of him.
The faceplate rose, and he discovered someone was holding him upside down.
All he could see were the shoes of the person holding his foot, about to kick him in the face!
"Hey, hey, hey!!! I'm awake! Let go already!"
Watching those boots draw closer and closer to his face, Rhodey could only shout helplessly.
Then the person tossed him into the air, and he righted himself with the help of his armored suit.
He landed in a superhero pose, then stood up and spotted a familiar face!
"Su Zhou?! Why are you here?"
"I took the stairs."
Su Zhou had already changed into his own Batman suit, but hadn't had time to put on the mask.
He had changed into his gear while Natasha was working on the computer.
He had also taken down the bodies of the two unlucky bastards hanging from the roof beams. There was no other reason for it.
He had deliberately left his fingerprints on them just to give S.H.I.E.L.D. some trouble during its investigation.
Then he had realized something was about to go wrong on Tony's end. After all, Tony should have already dealt with the robot soldiers pursuing him by now.
He should have been trading mechanical punches with Rhodey one-on-one, but things hadn't followed the original plot.
So Su Zhou had hurriedly opened a portal targeting Rhodey. Before he could even step through,
Rhodey had plunged headfirst into the portal. If Su Zhou hadn't reacted quickly enough to grab his foot,
he would have crashed into Hammer Industries' ceiling and died!
Holding Rhodey by the foot, Su Zhou walked through to the other side of the portal.
The portal closed the instant he stepped through, leaving Natasha alone at the computer.
Well, there were also the bodies of the two unlucky bastards.
It sounded complicated, but from the moment Su Zhou grabbed Rhodey to the moment he left and closed the portal,
not even three seconds had passed. Apart from a floor tile Su Zhou had cracked under the weight of his armor,
he had left no trace whatsoever, so before Natasha could even react,
Su Zhou was already gone!
Natasha: (;OдO)
Did something just flash?
Su Zhou opened a portal and ran off?! He left me here all alone?
"Su Zhou, how dare you leave me here all alone and run off?!"
Natasha shouted over the radio in a decidedly unladylike manner, startling both Tony and Rhodey!
Su Zhou had just put on his Batman mask when he heard Natasha's roar.
He could only scratch his head sheepishly and say quietly,
"I'll take care of things here first, then come back for you!"
"Hmph!"
Natasha still sounded furious, just short of saying nothing could appease her.
An ordinary man would have said something like, "I'll take you shopping for clothes afterward."
But Su Zhou was no ordinary man. A single remark cured Natasha's problem outright.
"I'll open a portal for you. How about you come over now?
"There are at least a dozen fully armed robot soldiers in front of me. The kind with cannons."
"I'm not coming. You three boys have fun!"
Natasha could actually see the robot soldiers' locations on the screen too. The densely packed markers
had completely surrounded the three of them. She didn't have any superpowers.
If she went over now, she was guaranteed to get riddled with machine-gun fire!
"By the way, I suggest you deal with those robots quickly, because another huge wave is heading your way."
"Got it. Busy right now, so I'll stop chatting."
Holding Rhodey as a shield, Su Zhou rapidly closed in on one robot soldier after another.
The Adamantium Blade was incredibly sharp, slicing through the robot soldiers' armor like tofu,
piercing their power cores or cutting off their weapons.
At first, when Rhodey realized Su Zhou was carrying him around as a shield, he had been against it!
But then he discovered it was actually pretty sweet. All he had to do was aim and shoot.
The armor Tony had given him could block these robot soldiers' bullets,
while the weapons in his hands could punch through their armor.
That could only mean two things. First, the armor Tony had made offered incredible protection: it was the toughest shield in the world.
Second, the weapons Justin Hammer had installed for him were pretty good too. But the sharpest spear in the world-
was the blade in Su Zhou's hand!
What Rhodey couldn't understand was why the robot soldiers made by Hammer Industries had such poor defenses!
Even if they were going to sell them to the United States military, wasn't this far too much corner-cutting?!
Tony, up in the sky, also saw Su Zhou using Rhodey as a shield and resolved not to land under any circumstances.
He engaged the airborne robots in ace aerial combat, sending sparks flying everywhere.
Robot soldiers reduced to scrap scattered everywhere, and several nearly hit Su Zhou on the ground!
But Su Zhou didn't care at all. Instead, he laughed as he dismantled the robots.
He had already given up on the Justice Points here, but to think that after clearing the Hammer Industries dungeon,
he could still farm some experience in this dungeon. He couldn't have been happier!
"Su Zhou, could you lend me that blade to study? It looks like a material I've never seen before!"
Tony shot down the last airborne robot soldier with a palm repulsor and said to Su Zhou, who was finishing off the survivors,
"Just like those stockings you gave me the other day! Definitely not something from Earth!"
"Stockings?! What stockings? Were they black?"
Before Su Zhou could reply, Natasha successfully picked out the key word in Tony's remark!
Remembering the pair she had lost, she was now one hundred percent certain Su Zhou had stolen her stockings!
Su Zhou looked up at Tony in exasperation, then used [Super Vision]
and spotted a big fellow rapidly approaching, blue flames shooting from its rear!
"Is now the time to talk about stockings? Can't you see that big fellow in the sky shooting blue flames?!"
"What big fel... Aah-!"