Tony, guided by Jarvis, barely glanced at the lingering skirmishes. His mission wasn't to police Gomila; it was to cleanse his own soul by destroying the weapons that bore his family name. He skipped the scattered fighters and flew directly to the armory—the coordinates of which Jarvis had meticulously cross-referenced using Stark Industries shipping manifests and satellite imagery.
The target was a reinforced cinder-block complex, large enough to house a battalion's worth of hardware. Jarvis had confirmed the worst: twelve Jericho missiles, the ultimate terror weapons that had nearly killed Tony himself, were stored in that small desert town, ready for use by the Ten Rings.
The Mark III had barely cleared the tops of the dilapidated buildings and hadn't even had time to accelerate into its high-speed climb when a gut-wrenching, violent explosion tore through its chest.
Tony felt the force instantly—a massive, concussive wave that felt less like a hit and more like being struck by a train. The armor was knocked completely off balance, spiraling downward with terrifying momentum. It slammed into the ground seventy meters away, carving a deep, ragged crater in the arid earth.
Five seconds later, a steel gauntlet lifted from the rubble, pushing against the weight of the suit and the planet itself. The Mark III slowly, painfully, stood up again.
Seventy meters away, a main battle tank, hidden behind a collapsed market wall, had fired its main cannon. The long, lethal barrel was still emitting wisps of smoke—the calling card of a depleted uranium shell traveling at over 1,400 meters per second. The force of the direct hit had rattled Tony to his core, triggering every internal alarm the Mark III possessed.
Looking at his armor, Tony grimaced. The gleaming red and gold composite was now marred by hundreds of shrapnel scratches, deep gouges, and scorch marks. Large patches of protective paint were rubbed off, revealing the raw, silver alloy beneath.
He faced the tank, which was now maneuvering slightly. Jarvis's augmented reality display overlaid the thermal signature of the tank—a T-72—and a critical warning: "Second shell loaded. Targeting in T-minus 3 seconds."
Tony didn't hesitate. He controlled the Mark III to execute an almost balletic side-step, leaning sharply to the left. The second tank shell—an armor-piercing sabot—screamed past his chest, the superheated air of its wake momentarily overloading the suit's exterior sensors. It disappeared into the rubble behind him, detonating with a muffled thump.
Stark raised his right hand. "Jarvis, forearm missile, minimum yield. Target the main cannon sight."
A miniature, high-explosive missile rose from his forearm housing and launched with a hiss. It struck the tank's hull—not the main armor, but the reactive plating near the turret—with a soft, almost anticlimactic ding, embedding itself but remaining motionless.
Tony turned his back on the tank, already accelerating toward the armory.
BOOM!
A tremendous, violent explosion erupted behind him, followed by the roar of secondary detonations. The sixty-ton tank was turned into a massive, twisting fireball, its turret ripped clean from the chassis and its wreckage scattered hundreds of feet across the desert. Tony hadn't targeted the armor; he had targeted the vulnerable ammunition stored inside.
As he continued his flight path, more than a dozen armed men, startled by the tank explosion, began firing wildly at the armored figure. Tony ignored them. Their bullets were nothing compared to the shockwave he was about to create.
His gaze was fixed solely on the reinforced complex ahead, where Jarvis displayed twelve glowing red icons: Jericho Missiles.
"Jarvis, full power to palm repulsors. Target central Jericho array. Maximum saturation strike."
The Mark III took off, rising rapidly into the sky. In mid-air, Tony swung both arms down, aiming the repulsor cannons in his palms toward the ground. He unleashed a sustained, concentrated torrent of blue energy directly onto the cluster of Jericho missiles stored within the compound.
The resulting explosion was catastrophic. The initial Jericho warheads detonated, triggering a chain reaction that consumed all the surrounding ammunition, rockets, and high-explosives. In just two seconds, the entire small building complex, thousands of square meters in radius, was vaporized in a massive, terrifying sea of fire and smoke.
Tony, too close to the blast radius despite his speed, was caught in the concussive wave. He was sent tumbling upward, just as he had been in the Afghan cave months ago—a violent, blinding replay of the past, only this time, he was protected by gold-titanium.
A few kilometers away, the bald boss, the primary leader of the Ten Rings, was driving rapidly with the last convoy, attempting to save a handful of stolen hardware. He glanced in his rearview mirror and saw his entire supply line, his power base, suddenly obliterated by a towering mushroom cloud of fire.
At the same time, he caught sight of that small, low-flying figure—the silent, silver armor—operating in the distance. The memory of the crude Mark I, the fear he felt when it slaughtered his men and disappeared, instantly flooded back.
Leo, meanwhile, continued his deadly patrol. He had accounted for nearly seventy hostiles, systematically disabling their weapons and eliminating the shooters. Now, the overwhelming sound of distant machine-gun fire had dwindled to sporadic, panicked bursts. Leo could almost smell the fear and the sudden realization among the remaining terrorists that they were facing something utterly unstoppable.
He heard the massive BOOM from Tony's Jericho detonation and saw the towering inferno kilometers away. He didn't linger; he tracked the rapidly ascending red and gold figure in the sky and gave chase, knowing Tony would need backup soon.
What neither of them knew was that the sheer scale of the explosion—a flash comparable to a small tactical nuclear device in the middle of a conflict zone—had finally triggered high-alert protocols at key military installations.
At Edwards Air Force Base, the command center was a hive of frantic activity. The satellite display screens monitoring the Gomila region were flashing red, marking the massive heat signature and the presence of two extremely fast-moving aerial objects.
"We have an unidentified flying object, high speed, extreme acceleration profile!" a technician barked.
"Is that Air Force? A classified test?" the Operations Colonel, a harsh-faced man named Davis, demanded.
"Negative, sir! Not ours. I checked with Tactical Command."
"Have you contacted the CIA?"
"We just got off the line, sir. They were about to ask us if we had a stealth fighter over the region. They have no assets deployed."
"Sir, the unidentified craft is exiting the warzone at Mach 1.3, heading west. This is definitely not a standard military aircraft," another soldier reported. "Repeat, not US Navy, not Marine Corps, not Air Force. We cannot verify identity or intent!"
Colonel Davis slammed his fist on the console. "I need answers! Get a visual on that target! I want confirmation on what we are tracking!"
"No visual confirmation, sir. Too fast. We only have radar and heat signature."
The officer turned, his face tight with anger and fear of the unknown. "Summon Colonel Rhodes from Weapons Development. Now! He needs to see this anomaly immediately."
Leo quickly caught up to the Mark III, which was now maintaining a steady, high-subsonic cruise over the vast, uninhabited ocean.
"Mr. Stark, it looks like you had a tough day at the office," Leo said, his voice laced with mock sympathy as he flew side-by-side with the heavily scratched armor. "The Mark III looks rather… well-loved. Got hit by a tank, did we?"
"I got hit by a tank," Tony confirmed, his voice irritable but slightly relieved to have Leo beside him. "And yes, Leo, your mouth was created by a cynical, all-powerful deity. Shut up."
"Just a suggestion, Mark III," Leo continued cheerfully. "There are still many areas that need aesthetic improvement, but the core structural integrity is fantastic. We still need to solve those Stark Industries legal problems, though."
Tony ignored the last comment, focused on the flight. Twenty minutes later, as they crossed a major shipping lane, Tony finally spoke up with an odd shift in tone.
"Leo, didn't you mention you wanted a mini Arc Reactor? You seemed keen on the technology."
"Yes, Mr. Stark. Are you actually planning to gift me one?" Leo was genuinely surprised. Tony guarded that technology like a dragon guarding gold.
"I can give you a deactivated core, the older Mark I version. But it comes with conditions," Tony said, his voice instantly serious, the joke gone. "You can't remove it from the lab, you can't reveal any of the core technology inside, and if you stop using it, you return it immediately. That Arc Reactor technology is too volatile. If it were leaked—even accidentally—the fallout would be worse than a dozen Jericho missiles."
"Of course. My interest is purely academic. I'm just curious if the energy signature will help amplify… my current skillset," Leo agreed instantly, sensing the weight of the promise.
"Good." Tony breathed a visible sigh of relief. "Now, Mr. Future-Predictor, tell me, based on your supernatural precognition, are we going to make it home safely, or is this going to be one of those 'messy paperwork' nights for Pepper?" Tony joked, trying to lighten the mood.
"If your good friend Colonel Rhodes doesn't call you in the next thirty seconds to ask about 'unidentified flying objects,' I think we'll cruise right back to Malibu."
No sooner had the words left Leo's mouth than a notification flashed brightly on Tony's heads-up display. Incoming Call: James R. 'Rhodey' Rhodes.
"Well, damn you and your psychic powers, Leo," Tony muttered, accepting the call. "What's up, Honey Bear? Did you miss me?"
"Tony?" Rhodes's voice was filled with a puzzled, strained tension, cutting through the flight noise. "Are you absolutely sure—totally positive—that you haven't got any crazy, experimental flying tech hidden down in that basement of yours?"
"What's the problem, Rhodey? No, I've got nothing. Just the usual antique sports cars and outdated aerospace technology. Why?" Tony played dumb, his eyes fixed on the open sky.
Leo, however, had become instantly serious. He detected two powerful, extremely fast thermal signatures descending rapidly from high altitude—signatures that could only belong to advanced fighter aircraft. Their flight paths were aggressive, and their intent was clearly hostile.
"That's good," Rhodes responded, sounding relieved but also cautious. "Because I'm standing here looking at two unidentified flying objects on the long-range scope right now. They're approaching US airspace at insane speeds, and we're about to send a couple of F-22s up to blow whatever they are back into the stone age."
Rhodes's voice was cut off as the twin shapes of two F-22 Raptors, code-named "Time Whip One" and "Time Whip Two" by the base, dropped from 20,000 feet to their altitude, falling into a perfect, aggressive trailing position.
Tony decided not to push his luck. "Gotta go, Rhodey. My date just showed up. Call you later!" He quickly hung up the call before Rhodes could react.
"Leo, we have company. Two F-22s, and they look pissed. They're locked onto us. Can you handle the fighter jocks without causing an international incident?"
"Shouldn't be a problem," Leo replied, suppressing a tremor of excitement and fear. This was his first time facing a military threat. "We need to break formation now. Let's give them two targets to think about."
Tony immediately banked hard to the left, igniting his maneuvering thrusters. Leo banked equally hard to the right. The two armors separated instantly, pulling the two trailing fighter jets apart.
"Command room, this is Time Whip One. Targets have separated. I am engaging the red and gold target. Time Whip Two is pursuing the silver anomaly."
"Time Whip One, what is that thing?" Rhodes's voice crackled nervously through the base command speakers.
"I have no idea, Colonel! It's tiny! Looks like some kind of toy!"
"Can we make radio contact with either target?" Colonel Davis interrupted.
"Negative contact, sir. No response to hails."
"Then you are cleared to engage. Neutralize the threat immediately," the Colonel ordered directly.
Both Tony and Leo sensed the shift in intent—the moment the pilots received the kill order. Both armors simultaneously broke the sound barrier with two sharp, cracking booms.
The F-22s, built for high-supersonic flight, quickly followed. The jets were much faster in a sustained chase, and they began to close the gap.
Suddenly, both Time Whip One and Two launched a missile simultaneously. The heat-seeking AIM-9 Sidewinders, leaving brilliant streaks of fire, rapidly accelerated beyond twice the speed of sound, locking onto the heat and kinetic signatures of the two targets.
Leo felt the missile approaching—a fiery needle of pure destruction. He couldn't help but let out a dry, slightly nervous laugh inside the silver helmet.
He didn't need to outrun it. He just needed to turn off the heat source. Leo focused a fraction of his Immovable Golden Body on the missile, not to deflect it, but to manipulate the inertial dampeners of the projectile itself. The guidance system suddenly lost its lock on the rapidly moving silver blur.
The missile behind Leo, completely ignoring the thrust of its own roaring engine flames, suddenly tilted and plunged straight down, crashing harmlessly into the desolate Gobi Desert below.
On Tony's side, Jarvis was screaming the warning: "Missile attack. Impact in 3.5 seconds."
"Catalysts deployed, Jarvis, now!" Tony yelled.
Two small disc dispensers, resembling high-tech hockey pucks, appeared on the outer thighs of the Mark III. They began rotating violently, ejecting dozens of tiny, intense incendiary flares—chaff. The heat and electromagnetic signature of the flares completely overloaded the missile's guidance system, causing the high-explosive ordnance to veer off course and prematurely detonate in a flash of white light, still fifty feet behind the Mark III.