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"Shut up, J.A.R.V.I.S.!"
"I've slept with hundreds of cover models, and not one of them said I was fast!" Tony snapped, his irritation clear.
His eyes never left Ben. This creature's movement speed clearly surpassed what his own eyes could track. A single moment of distraction, and he'd be in serious trouble.
"To be accurate, Sir, its movement speed has reached three hundred miles per hour."
J.A.R.V.I.S. didn't understand why Tony was lying about his romantic history, but it had already calculated Fasttrack's speed through its systems.
Three hundred miles per hour. Roughly four hundred eighty kilometers per hour.
Objectively, the Mark 3's maximum flight speed was faster than a fighter jet. Four hundred eighty kilometers per hour was nothing.
The problem was, the suit being able to fly that fast didn't mean Tony could react that fast.
Everyone knew that for most speedsters, the real power wasn't just movement speed it was their reaction time.
Why was a speedster like A Train such a mess?
Because without the reaction speed to match, he was practically useless.
It was like driving on an empty road. Pushing two hundred kilometers per hour was manageable. But if the road was packed with traffic, any driver would struggle to react in time.
For Ben to move at this speed inside a confined factory proved his reaction time and processing speed were far beyond human. If this became a real fight, the Mark 3's raw performance stood no chance.
No.
To be precise, as long as the suit was being piloted by a human's reaction speed, it could never defeat him.
Furthermore, three hundred miles per hour was just Fasttrack's casual speed, like a human walking.
His absolute top speed was something the human eye couldn't even register, requiring machines to slow the footage down multiple times just to catch a blur.
"Where the hell did this monster come from?!" Tony cursed under his breath.
The truth was, still new to being Iron Man, the world he saw was still mostly a normal one.
The real demons and freaks hadn't even started showing up yet!
Ben stretched his limbs, ready to go on the offensive.
"Round two, Tony Stark!"
He crouched low, adopting a sprinter's stance. The faceplate on his helmet slid shut, and his voice, filtered through the black material, sounded cold and deadly serious.
With several minutes of transformation time available, he had more than enough time to play with Tony.
"Bring it on, Dino boy!" Tony taunted, seemingly not taking Ben seriously.
But in reality, knowing full well his own reactions were too slow, he had already instructed J.A.R.V.I.S. to initiate an attack protocol and had handed over partial control of the suit.
In his visual display, Ben was now fully locked on by J.A.R.V.I.S.'s targeting system. Simultaneously, weapon ports on the suit's elbows and shoulders slid open.
"You said you'd finish me in three minutes. Let's see... you have two minutes and fifteen sec "
WHAM!
Tony's witty retort was cut short as a blur of black instantly filled his entire view no, even before his eyes could register the movement, Ben's attack had already connected.
It felt like being hit by a high speed train. Tony was sure the ribs under his armor were about to snap!
He'd known his reactions were no match for Ben, which is why he'd given J.A.R.V.I.S. control, relying on technology to track Ben's movements. The suit was supposed to counter attack the moment Ben moved.
What he hadn't anticipated was that even the suit's high speed cameras couldn't track Ben at his full velocity.
And even if J.A.R.V.I.S. could process the data, translating that into physical movement for the suit took precious milliseconds.
"Mark 3 integrity at 88 percent."
J.A.R.V.I.S.'s cold voice echoed in Tony's ear, but he had no time to process it.
Because Ben didn't let go after the initial impact. His strange, three fingered hands clamped onto the Mark 3's helmet like a claw machine and he blasted straight out of the factory, dragging Iron Man with him!
The instant g forces were unbearable for a normal human.
If J.A.R.V.I.S. hadn't instantly fired reverse thrusters to dampen the acceleration, Tony would have blacked out immediately. Even with that, his head was spinning, his stomach churned violently, and his brain felt numb and scrambled.
And Ben wasn't done.
After rocketing out of the abandoned factory with Iron Man in tow, he kept accelerating. His slender but powerful arm held the suit tight as he raced forward, suddenly slamming Tony into the side of a building along the route.
SCREEEECH!
Sparks erupted like a fountain!
The concrete structure shattered like cheap drywall under the impact!!
Even the titanium gold alloy of the Mark 3 showed instant, widespread scraping and wear. The beautiful red and gold paint on its back was a ruined mess.
"Suit integrity at 74 percent," J.A.R.V.I.S. continued its warnings.
"Thanks! Then why aren't you pushing him off?!" Tony finally regained enough awareness to snap back. To make things worse, the violent maneuver had made him vomit this morning's breakfast inside his helmet, which then splattered back onto his face.
"Next suit definitely gets a vomit bag!" he growled to himself.
He then gripped Ben's arm with both of his own and pushed all his thrusters to their absolute limit.
WHOOSH!
Fire roared from his back and boots!
Tony shut down all thrusters on his left side, keeping only the right side active. This completely broke his stable flight posture.
Ben's sprinting form immediately tilted. He lost control instantly, forced to let go of Iron Man. His own momentum sent him tumbling forward at an even more terrifying speed!
Losing control at that velocity would have shattered the Iron Man suit into pieces. But for a Kineceleran, this was a minor hiccup, no different from a running human tripping over their own feet.
Of course, if handled poorly, he could still end up just as bruised and bloodied as a human.
Instinctively, he curled his body into a ball, using the spherical shape to disperse the massive kinetic energy.
Even so, it was far from pleasant.
Every time he hit the ground, he carved a small crater into the earth, like a stone skipping across water. It was only after the craters became progressively shallower that he finally regained control, uncurling and standing up with a pained grimace.
In that single, chaotic moment, he had been thrown several kilometers. Thankfully, he'd initially been heading away from the city to avoid attention, or who knows what kind of damage would have been caused!
"Now I get why Kinecelerans need such strong regeneration," he muttered, flexing his limbs, which felt like they'd been rattled apart. "With weaker healing, a lot of them would probably just die from tripping."
Back with Iron Man, the moment he was released, he quickly stabilized himself. Thrusters on his hands and feet flared, he spun mid air to bleed off momentum, and came to a hovering stop.
"One minute and nine seconds left. Not enough time to make it to the zoo now, is it, kid?"
Tony hadn't forgotten the timer. Or more likely, he'd just glanced at the AI's virtual display.
"It's more than enough for me," Ben retorted coldly. "I just hope you have enough time to get back to Stark Tower and install another iron heart for yourself."
A bad feeling shot down Tony's spine. "What are you planning?"
He got no verbal response. The attack was the response.
This time, Ben targeted Tony's greatest weakness the Arc Reactor!
The moment Ben finished speaking, Tony realized his intent. He tried to evade, but it was already too late.
Ben moved like a literal bolt of lightning!
CRACK!
A black, clawed hand, moving at immense speed, pierced straight through the reactor's outer casing
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