Rumble!!
A deafening roar erupted from the underground sectors of Stark Industries.
"Pepper!"
"Are you playing hide-and-seek with me?"
"Pepper, Tony is finished."
A rough, deep voice lingered menacingly nearby. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson, who was currently squatting in a dark corner, couldn't help shivering.
He turned to Pepper Potts, whom he had pulled into hiding alongside him, and spoke in a deeply depressed tone. "Why does Obadiah have an Arc Reactor?"
Coulson truly felt like his luck had been absolutely terrible recently. The fallout from the Blue-Eyes White Dragon incident still wasn't completely over yet.
Now, Tony Stark's own company was a complete disaster, and rogue shareholder Obadiah Stane had somehow managed to procure this massive mechanical behemoth. S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't even managed to acquire an Arc Reactor for themselves, but Obadiah had clearly gotten his hands on one.
It seemed he had already made his lethal move against Tony Stark. The entire situation was an unceasingly tangled, chaotic mess.
Pepper had just personally witnessed several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents being brutally killed by Obadiah. She spoke with a mixture of sheer panic and deep guilt.
"It's impossible."
"I saw Tony reject him with my own two eyes."
"We need to flee first, we will have tactical support here soon," Coulson whispered.
Coulson secretly shook his head as he carefully looked around their hiding spot. Suddenly, his eyes widened in absolute terror.
He grabbed Pepper by the arm, violently pulling her to roll out of the way. In the very next instant, their former hiding place was mercilessly stomped on by a nearly four-meter-tall robot.
The concrete bunker was then directly blown to pieces by a volley of small missiles launched from the machine's bulky shoulders. This colossal robot was exactly the Iron Monger armor currently being piloted by Obadiah Stane.
It was heavily equipped with lethal weapons, boasting multiple rapid-fire cannons and missile pods that made it look extremely hideous. Obadiah's voice sounded distorted and muffled from inside the robotic suit.
"You may not fully understand exactly why I have this," Obadiah taunted.
"Tony is really stupid."
"He didn't take away the battle armor he worked so incredibly hard to develop when he escaped Afghanistan."
"It was even accompanied by a complete set of design drawings."
"It's absolutely ridiculous."
Coulson and Pepper didn't want to stand around and listen to Obadiah's arrogant explanation at all. Coulson quickly got up to cover their retreat, urging Pepper to run away as fast as she could.
Coulson firmly believed there was nothing wrong with this tactical retreat. He assumed that Obadiah's primary goal would be to eliminate the federal agent attempting to arrest him.
Showing this kind of selfless dedication, Coulson genuinely felt that he was acting a bit heroic at this particular moment. It was a massive pity that Obadiah did not pay any attention to Coulson whatsoever.
Instead, the Iron Monger went straight after Pepper, the very woman who had caused his grand corporate takeover plan to miscarry. Obadiah had originally wanted to master complete control of Stark Industries in a silent, unstoppable manner.
Resorting to this wildly radical method of public murder was simply the forced next step. He was fully determined to make this meddling woman suffer.
Pepper stepped heavily in her high heels, panicking as she desperately sprinted forward. Hearing the heavy, metallic thumps of the iron giant right behind her, her terrified heart leaped completely up into her throat.
She scrambled through a small industrial passage, finally reaching the ground-level exit. However, the Iron Monger violently broke straight through the ground.
It aggressively smashed through the reinforced concrete right in front of Pepper, cutting off her escape route entirely. As the giant mechanical head loomed over her, Obadiah grinned maliciously.
"Everything..."
BOOM!!!
A horrific crashing sound directly interrupted Obadiah's arrogant words. A blinding beam of blue light fell violently from the sky like a descending meteor.
In a mere flicker of motion, the massive Iron Monger armor was completely suppressed and pinned down. A devastating explosion then rocked the underground sector with a thunderous boom.
Jagged cracks continued to aggressively expand across the pavement. The solid ground violently shook like a thrashing, trapped beast.
"Ahhh!"
Pepper couldn't stand firm amidst the tremors and was just about to fall backward into the growing chasm. Suddenly, she was directly pulled to safety by an incredibly strong hand.
Looking back in shock, she saw a breathtakingly heroic blonde woman staring at her. The woman's crisp tactical attire was completely full of futuristic, science-fiction aesthetics.
"Who are you?" Pepper asked breathlessly.
"My designation is Genoko," the woman stated.
"The Master ordered me to protect you until Tony Stark arrives."
Genoko spoke with a completely blank, robotic expression. At the exact same time, she instructed the highly doubtful Pepper to retreat far away from the dangerous pothole.
The female cyborg's glowing optical sensors constantly scanned the immediate area for further threats. In the very next moment, a countless storm of heavy metal bullets poured out to attack Genoko.
The Iron Monger, breathing roaring jets of fire from the soles of its massive feet, flew back up to the surface level. At this exact moment, Obadiah was feeling incredibly uncomfortable inside the cockpit.
After taking a direct hit from a plasma cannon, the thick armor on the suit's right shoulder had been directly melted into slag. Fortunately for him, the sheer bulky size of the Iron Monger prevented the suit from being instantly disabled.
But Genoko just ran forward with effortless, terrifying speed. She seamlessly deflected and threw the lethal bullets behind her back.
She then gracefully circled right back to her original defensive position. Running with incredibly light footsteps, she flung the remaining useless projectiles behind her and stood her ground.
"Who the hell are you?" Obadiah demanded.
"Are you Tony's helper?"
Obadiah hid safely under the sturdy casing, viewing her through the suit's external probes. He spoke to her in a highly solemn, threatening tone.
"This corporate matter has absolutely nothing to do with you."
"Let me go."
Ordinarily, the ruthless Obadiah wouldn't say such compromising things at all. But this blonde woman's advanced equipment seemed incredibly dangerous, and she had already almost destroyed his unstoppable machine.
"You had better stand completely still," Genoko warned.
She stared him down as her cold, synthetic voice drifted into Obadiah's ears.
"Otherwise, you will be terminated."
In this precarious situation, Obadiah felt he was being treated like absolute garbage. If he sat still he was doomed, and if he moved he would surely be attacked.
This utter lack of respect made Obadiah absolutely furious. He had momentarily been afraid of this strange woman, but her blatant verbal threats ignited his pride.
"Go to hell!" Obadiah roared.
The heavy rotary cannon mounted on his arm began to rapidly spin. A continuous stream of deafening gunfire spewed massive tongues of flame into the night.
Genoko didn't even need to directly greet the incoming fire, easily raising her arm as she dodged.
Clang! Clang!
The harsh sound of metal crashing echoed everywhere as the bullets struck Genoko and her hastily formed liquid metal shield. Not a single high-caliber round successfully penetrated her poly-alloy body.
The crushed lead tips simply lost all kinetic energy and rained down onto the shattered ground.
"What the hell is this material?!" Obadiah shouted in disbelief.
Absolutely everyone who saw liquid metal for the first time couldn't help but exclaim in pure shock. Even a highly experienced commercial arms tycoon like Obadiah had no idea how to process the defensive power of such an exotic material.
But the seasoned villain didn't just panic, turn around, and blindly run away. He knew this cyborg woman wanted to close the distance, but his Iron Monger machine could easily deliver ten tons of blunt force trauma.
Going head-to-head in a brutal melee brawl was not entirely without a chance of victory. However, the impatient Obadiah simply didn't want to wait for her to close the gap.
Seeing that his heavy machine guns yielded absolutely zero results, he immediately fired three explosive missiles in a rapid row. The deadly missiles, trailing bright plumes of exhaust flame, were about to hit the cyborg directly head-on.
Genoko instantly calculated through a rapid optical scan that the resulting blasts would cause moderate structural damage to her chassis. She smoothly executed a flawless, gymnast-like acrobatic flip, perfectly evading all three incoming missiles.
Obadiah sneered viciously from inside the cockpit.
'What use is hiding when these missiles possess advanced tracking capabilities?' he thought arrogantly.
But in the very next moment, the ruthless billionaire was completely dumbfounded. Right after Genoko gracefully straightened up her posture, she swung her hand backward with inhuman precision.
She violently swatted the tracking missile that was curving back toward her head. The deflected missile in the middle was instantly destroyed by the kinetic strike, melting into a useless hunk of scrap.
The targeting surfaces of the other two missiles emitted a loud, electrical crackling noise as their guidance systems were completely fried. The two compromised explosives then fell in a direct parabolic arc to the ground, instantly becoming harmless dud bombs.
Obadiah exclaimed in absolute horror, "She has an electromagnetic interference emitter?!"
Genoko acted as if she had just swatted away a mildly annoying fly. Without a single trace of tactical stagnation, she rushed directly to the Iron Monger's side in the literal blink of an eye.
"Incineration Cannon, fire!" Genoko ordered her own weapon systems.
Genoko stepped deeply into a stable lunge, violently pushing her right arm forward. The glowing mechanical markings on the side of her synthetic arm expanded hugely as immense core energy rapidly poured in.
Her robotic fist suddenly clenched tightly, opening six distinct exhaust vents along her forearm. A violently destructive, golden-red energy beam suddenly burst outward from her palm.
The overwhelming plasma blast smashed directly into the Iron Monger in an instant. A surging, apocalyptic Bang! resounded loudly throughout the world.
Immediately after Genoko fired the weapon, absolutely everything in front of her was cleanly erased in a massive, circular fan shape. The solid asphalt road beneath their feet had been completely burned into a flowing river of glowing, molten slag.
When the thick, choking smoke and dust finally dissipated, Obadiah Stane and his massive Iron Monger robot had disappeared completely. This sudden battle was simply not an equal contest from the very beginning to the very end.
It wasn't that Genoko was struggling to challenge the heavy firepower of the Iron Monger suit. Instead, the crude terrestrial technology had been utterly, effortlessly crushed by an advanced cyborg from across the century.
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Word count: 1784
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