Thud. Thud. Thud.
The heavy, rhythmic footsteps of the Terminator armor crushed pavement and debris. Nolan walked through the lingering, acrid smoke of the expo, his helmet filtering the worst of it. In one of his huge metal palms, he held the headless body of Ivan Vanko, still completely wrapped in its pitch-black armor. The body was a dead weight, armor clattering against armor as he moved.
In fact, Nolan hadn't wanted to kill the other party. Even if he were captured alive and thrown to Raditus to be transformed into a servitor, that would have been a good, practical thing.
But he had to admit, the pose he other party maintained at that time was really too good. The fire array, controlled by the recently installed servo-arm, was connected directly to Nolan's neural thinking. He had just subconsciously thought about the opening, and the bolters that had been aimed at him fired without permission...
"The sensitivity of the fire control system is too high." Nolan, wearing the diamond-shaped helmet, muttered to himself. "Raditus needs to lower it a little."
Then, he thought about Stark again. The purpose of Nolan's operation, other than trying to obtain the 'Ark Reactor', was, in fact, most importantly, to find some new enemies for the damn Hydra.
Using a tragic story from the past to stimulate Stark's extreme hatred for Hydra, combined with the 'Ark Reactor' that the other party would personally deliver... it was far more cost-effective than grabbing a handful and running away without caring about the other person's life or death.
Dear Tony, do you need some powerful help to take revenge on Hydra? I'm basically free, as long as you occasionally share your scientific research results. I can help you destroy the other party's secret base at any time...
"Poor Bucky will have to pay a heavy price... I wonder if the simulator can obtain a more effective healing potion? Or I could simply put the dying Bucky into the stasis field, and wait until I have better medical methods? But if I do this, I'm too immoral, right?"
Nolan moved in Terminator armor forward, his mind racing with thoughts.
When Nolan piloted the Terminator armor to the hidden location where the Valkyrie transport plane was parked, he was surprised to find, in the open space just outside the cabin ramp, a middle-aged black man in a silver-grey suit of armor, who was still in a deep coma.
Nolan, wearing the diamond-shaped helmet, glanced at the opponent's face through the faceplate. He quickened his pace, his heavy boots clanging on the metal ramp, and quickly entered the cabin.
At this moment, David, who was squatting on the metal floor and teasing a crude mechanical parrot, slowly stood up. He shook his metal head.
Facing Nolan, who casually threw the headless body to the floor with a heavy clang, he said helplessly:
"Dear my lord... Oh, is this one of your goals to 'capture' alive?"
"...David, it's just a mistake. Can you tell me what's going on with this mechanical parrot and this steel armor?"
Nolan, who had just taken off his diamond-shaped helmet with a hiss of seals, raised his hand and pointed at the mechanical parrot that was jumping on the ground and flapping its metal wings. Then his fingertips turned.
Pointing at the War Machine armor standing inertly inside the cabin, he asked with a puzzled expression.
"The mechanical parrot seems to be a pet made by this headless human, and this suit of armor can be regarded as a trophy for me saving the opponent. Even if Raditus doesn't use it in the end, you can also use it to decorate the hall of your base. Many power armors are temporarily unavailable, so you can use Terra's local specialties to fill up the appearance," David said respectfully.
The next moment, Nolan, who bared his fangs in a smile, raised his huge palm towards David. A metal thumb shook up and down a few times towards the other party.
"David, you are indeed the caring butler who knows me best... This operation has been successfully completed, and we can leave."
"As you command, my lord."
On the parking platform of the underground base, the automatic servo-robots quickly took over the many harvests from the cabin.
The Servo Skull Raditus flew around David and Nolan repeatedly, its vox-emitter singing of the great Primarch's bounty with endless, high-pitched prayers of praise. This continued until Nolan's servo-arm controlled the fire array and aimed it at Raditus, who was buzzing like a fly.
The servo-skull then happily drove its anti-gravity engine to fly towards its foundry. One after another, the automatic servo-robots were like its lackeys, following behind with their trophies in hand.
With a helpless expression, Nolan turned to look at David, who seemed to enjoy teasing the mechanical parrot. He shook his head slightly.
Later, Nolan casually summoned a team of automatic servo-robots and walked towards the base hall. He was preparing to disassemble the Terminator power armor he was wearing.
Stark cheered up the emotional Pepper Potts, who was wrapped in a shock blanket. Then he asked his friend Rhodes about his medical condition.
After getting the reply that everything was fine, the pale Stark, wearing steel armor covered in traces of battle damage, limped heavily towards his laboratory.
"Sir, you still have some soft tissue contusions and a slight concussion in your body. Do you need to arrange a medical team?"
As the laboratory door slowly hissed open, the mechanical sound from Jarvis slowly reached Stark's ears.
However, the distraught Stark just opened his bloodshot eyes and said nothing. He staggered to a corner of the laboratory, his damaged suit servos whining quietly. He used his two metal hands, covered with their red shells, to pry open a pile of old sundries that had been placed randomly for many years.
Then, Stark, his expression softening considerably, carefully found an old, dust-covered photo that had been discarded for a long time among the sundries.
It was a family photo of the Stark family.
In the photo, the young Stark stared at the camera in front with an arrogant look. Right beside him, his father, his expression tense, and his mother, her eyes gentle, looked at the young Stark with two different expressions, but with equally loving eyes.
"Jarvis, create a secret file. Set the mission objectives: the International Security Council and all members of S.H.I.E.L.D!"
"Sir? Are you sure? If you attack the other party without authorization, you will face the official forces of most of the world. Moreover, you don't know whether what the stranger said is true or false. Do you remember the super artificial intelligence I told you about? I suspect that the other party is the owner or partner of that super artificial intelligence..."
The next moment, Jarvis's mechanical voice seemed full of worry. However, the words from his Creator still made it execute the specific process of the secret file without hesitation.
"Of course I will investigate carefully." Stark's voice was rough. "And he could have killed me to seize the 'Ark Reactor', but he didn't. That means his target is not the 'Ark Reactor' at all."
"He just wants to use me to deal with Hydra! So, he gave me a reason that I can't refuse at all!"
"On the whole earth, except for the destruction of the world... what else is more worthy of a human being paying every price for than the blood feud of his parents?"
"Jarvis, you can't understand my feelings at all... Those people killed my mother!"
"So... even if I become the enemy of the whole world, I will do it!"
"Because, blood debt can only be paid with blood."