Hammer's Expo opened with great fanfare.
This was Justin Hammer's moment in the spotlight. He had absolute confidence in his Iron Legion.
Dancing with flashy, flamboyant moves, he even declared that he was going to replace Iron Man.
With a dramatic point of both hands, to the accompaniment of majestic background music, large numbers of steel armored suits slowly rose up on the stage.
And the former Iron Man Mark II that he had modified, the War Machine, made its first public appearance.
It is worth mentioning that after James Rhodes and Tony had a fight, when Rhodes returned to the military intending to upgrade his armor's weapons on his own, he ran into Hammer.
Hammer bragged endlessly about his weapon systems, and the one that satisfied Colonel Rhodes the most was a micro missile called "Ex-Wife."
It was said that its power was no less than any large missile.
This made Colonel Rhodes regard "Ex-Wife" as War Machine's trump card, cherishing it greatly.
Just as Hammer was basking in his pride, Tony appeared in dazzling fashion wearing the Mark V suit equipped with a new type of reactor.
His stylish landing instantly set off cheers from the entire audience.
"We've got a problem."
Ignoring the roaring crowd, Tony warned Rhodes that all of this was a conspiracy.
"Tony, there are civilians here. I'm here under orders. Whatever it is, we'll talk about it later…"
Clearly, Rhodes had misunderstood Tony's intentions.
"For the next five minutes, you have to believe me. Everyone here is in danger."
While waving to the audience below, Tony sternly reminded Colonel Rhodes.
But Rhodes did not believe Tony at all, "I trusted you once, and I ended up getting beaten half to death in your house, remember?"
It was only when Tony mentioned Hammer's collusion with Ivan that War Machine Rhodes finally showed a trace of hesitation.
"Ivan is still alive?"
Just as Tony stepped forward to question where Vanko was, Rhodes inside War Machine let out a startled cry.
"Oh oh… this is bad!"
War Machine suddenly raised its machine gun and aimed it at Tony.
Behind him, large numbers of steel armors also locked onto Tony one after another.
"I'm being locked on. Is that you?"
After receiving JARVIS's warning that he was being targeted by War Machine, Tony shouted at Rhodes.
"No, no… not me! Get out of here, the entire system has been hacked! Leave now!"
Colonel Rhodes's dark face was lit up bright red by the unauthorized access warnings on the display.
Realizing something was wrong and that he had lost control of the armor, he could only shout for Tony to get away as fast as possible.
Inside a hidden room at Hammer Industries, Ivan Vanko seized control authorization over War Machine and all the steel armors.
The revenge plan officially began.
To avoid harming innocent people, Tony immediately flew into the sky.
All the armors launched attacks in the direction Tony was flying.
Under the barrage of bullets, the high-tech ceiling shattered, and reinforced glass rained down like broken shards.
The scene triggered panic.
The audience screamed and fled for their lives, and the venue fell into chaos.
Some of the armors took off on the spot to pursue Tony. Seeing that Tony was not easy to deal with, the remaining armors headed straight into the crowd and began indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
At this moment, one armor locked onto the Iron Man mask on a little boy's head, preparing to fire.
But the boy showed no fear at all, raising his right hand to face the towering enemy, as if he were Iron Man himself and could blast the opponent straight to the afterlife with one shot.
At that instant, Tony arrived just in time and neutralized the danger with a palm repulsor blast.
"Well done, kid~"
In the audience stands, Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff, who had been accompanying Ms. Pepper the whole time, could no longer hold back and made her move.
She rushed onto the stage at once and angrily pinned Hammer to the table, forcing him to reveal Ivan's location.
After obtaining the exact location, Tony's bodyguard Happy rushed toward Hammer's factory together with the Widow.
In the car, the Widow took off her coat and changed into her combat suit. The dazzling white view made Happy wish he could shove his head straight into the rearview mirror.
The vehicle suddenly jolted.
"Too white, couldn't see clearly."
It was hard to tell whether Happy couldn't see the road or something else.
Leaving aside the fact that Happy went all out and only managed to take down a single enemy, the Widow had already cleared an entire corridor of guards.
Corin, who had just flown above the expo, arrived right in time as Tony took to the air to draw enemy fire.
"Perfect timing!"
Corin quickly surveyed the battlefield and discovered that the combat armors on the stage were lifting off one after another to chase Tony, while the rest were walking out of the venue to launch indiscriminate attacks on nearby buildings.
The successful men and women who had been attending the expo moments ago now deeply hated the design of the formal wear they had on.
"Damn it! This is way too unsuitable for running!"
As they ran past a power box, they despairingly discovered a rocket speeding straight toward them.
Just as the power box was about to be hit and explode—
Corin flashed to the spot, casually backhanding the massive shell away.
BOOM!
The shell exploded not far off.
It rimmed Corin's crimson silhouette with a dazzling golden outline.
The rescued gentleman behind Corin stared in shock.
'Wearing the same formal wear, how could you be this amazing?'
Only when a certain lady recognized Corin and let out an excited scream did everyone realize who it was.
"Ah! It's the Crimson Silver Duke!"
Only then did people see the metallic sheen of the mask on Corin's face.
"Take off your high heels before you run!"
Leaving that line behind for the excited women, Corin charged toward the armor firing the cannon, brushing his hand over it.
"Exchange!"
[Exchange successful! +12 million USD. Account balance: 515.1 million USD]
Without even waiting for the system to finish appraising it, Corin turned the armor in front of him into smoke and dust, gaining 12 million dollars.
"Nice~"
Having successfully converted one armor into account balance, the long-lost thrill of looting the battlefield surged through Corin again.
"Keep going…"
Looking at the war machines developed by the Hammer Group one after another, Corin seemed to see piles of banknotes waving at him.
In an instant, he turned into a secondhand armor recycling station, flashing in and out of the venue.
One suit after another turned into streams of data and slipped into Corin's pocket.
When Black Widow and Happy forcefully broke into the control room where Ivan was issuing commands, the place was already empty.
Only a computer monitor remained, still displaying the interface for controlling the armors and War Machine, not yet logged out.
As a veteran agent, upon realizing that the primary mission target had been lost, Black Widow quickly made the correct decision.
She released control over Colonel Rhodes's War Machine.
———
Elsewhere on the battlefield, as Tony flew out of the venue, he vaguely spotted a red figure in the sky.
After JARVIS zoomed in, Tony recognized Corin.
"Silver Duke? What's he doing here?"
But at that moment, pursuers were closing in behind him, led by his good friend Colonel Rhodes.
Tony had no time to think about why Corin was here. After casually resolving a few civilian crises, he stepped on the gas and flew into the distance.
After all, the Mark II was personally built by Tony himself. Its mobility was not inferior at all to the Mark V he was wearing now.
War Machine clung tightly to Tony, the machine guns on its body firing large-caliber rounds wildly.
Only after Tony used a giant sculpture to filter out the blindly pursuing Hammer armors did War Machine remain alone in the sky following Tony.
When they reached a hillside, War Machine's bullets finally hit Tony, disrupting his flight balance, and the two suits tumbled down into a small stream.
Just as Tony was struggling to pry away the Gatling gun firing point-blank at his face, Black Widow finally remotely rebooted War Machine's system.
She shared the results with Tony over the link.
["The new reactor is pretty cool. Data shows a significant increase in energy output, and your vital signs are stable."]
Tony had long known her identity.
"Thanks, Agent Natasha. Yeah! I'm not dying just yet… thanks~"
Ms. Pepper bristled when she heard their conversation.
["What do you mean not dying? Are you saying you were about to die before?"]
Just as Tony was struggling to divert Ms. Pepper's attention, Black Widow saw even more armors flying toward Tony on the display…
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