"Full thrust!"
Twin jets of searing flame blasted from Iron Monger's feet as Obadiah punched the suit skyward.
He was terrified—so much that he didn't care whether the frame could survive that kind of output.
He just wanted to run.
The power spike was so brutal the thrusters began to warp and melt.
"Leon!"
Tony dropped beside Leon Ragnell, eyeing the fleeing Iron Monger with a frown. "He's at least Mach 3… hey—what are you doing?"
Leon raised his right hand toward the sky.
A slight twist of the wrist—
Destructo Disk (Kienzan).
A blue, circular saw of ki screamed from Leon's palm.
Tony froze.
Just how many tricks did Leon have that he still didn't know about?
Fwoosh!
Mid-air, before Iron Monger even had to worry about high-altitude icing, the suit was cleaved clean through.
"What the hell is that?!"
Obadiah's panic spiked—then Leon flicked his fingers and the ki disk hooked back, cutting from a new angle.
In just a few breaths, Iron Monger was in pieces.
Obadiah tumbled from ten thousand meters.
From that height—there was no coming back.
"I killed him. Are you okay handling the fallout?" Leon looked over at Tony.
Tony drew a long breath. "I'll manage the stock price. And—thanks for tonight."
Typical capitalist—first thought is the share price.
"Take care." Leon smiled, blurred—and was gone.
"So fast…" Tony Stark hissed in a breath.
...
The next day—
Tony held a press conference.
Two announcements:
First: Obadiah Stane stole corporate secrets and endangered global security; he died last night during an attempted arrest.
Second: I am Iron Man.
As for Leon—
He didn't care whether he was "public" or not. As long as no one bothered him, fine.
Right now, Leon was studying Tien's Multiform (Shishin no Ken).
The technique creates three real clones; each has only a quarter of the original's power—fundamentally different from the Afterimage Technique, which leaves only visual ghosts.
In his past life he worked in genetic engineering. Martial arts? He'd collected data, not done deep research.
Now he was digging in.
Multiform has plenty of users.
Later, during the Cell Games, Cell used a refined version against Goku—his clones matched the original's power. Still, they were brittle at the core: one solid hit forced them to recombine, so defeating them one by one still worked.
Leon wasn't content to just learn Multiform.
He wanted Cell's improved model—and if he could integrate Majin Buu's cells…
Every split‐body would be full-power. Pick them off one by one? Useless—Buu's cellular regeneration would let each clone self-revive.
Multiform's weakness—gone.
What Leon didn't know: footage of him dismantling Iron Monger had already landed on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s desk.
Nick Fury just… shrugged. He'd seen worse.
Spectacle-wise, it didn't top Thanos's snap wiping a city.
Except—
The file was stolen.
By a HYDRA mole inside S.H.I.E.L.D.
Watching the video and combing the data, HYDRA's senior agents—all of them—went quiet.
Leon's power exceeded their frameworks.
In S.H.I.E.L.D.'s director's office—Alexander Pierce, secretly HYDRA's top plant—was on a secure line with Arnim Zola and Madame Hydra (Viper).
The woman in green moved like a hunting cat; her skirt hugged her thigh, a fine gold anklet with a tiny bell chiming with each step—a signal only her "prey" understood.
Staring at Leon in the playback, Viper licked her lips. "Such strength. Compared to Rogers, he's far beyond."
Pierce drew in slowly. "Energy from his palms and even fingertips. Our S.H.I.E.L.D. biopsies suggest massive latent power in his body. We obtained some of his cells—energy is stored in the cells themselves. His genome's undergone extreme alteration."
Zola's synth-voice crackled. "Computationally, a direct confrontation is… ill-advised. We would expose ourselves. At present, he is capable of destroying HYDRA alone."
"We need deeper evaluation," Viper exhaled a smoke ring, eyes sultry. "Have the U.S. military test him. I'm sure General Ross will be very interested."
...
United States—military.
Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross studied the latest reports. Not long ago, another hunt for Hulk had yielded a sample of Hulk's blood. The gene extraction was complete. Ross needed to validate what these genes would do in ordinary humans.
Human weapons.
"General!" A staff sergeant hurried up. "We've received intel you should see."
Ross frowned—
Then watched Leon raise two fingers and erase a swath of terrain kilometers wide.
Next clip: Leon tearing Iron Monger apart.
By the end, Ross's eyes were bright.
What a perfect humanoid weapon.
(End of Chapter)
[Get +20 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 500 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]