Anita stood in the workshop in her Mark Two suit, conducting the first tests of the new Mark Three prototype arms. While Augustus was out of sight, Stark sneaked out of her villa and tested the Mark Two suit in flight. During the tests, she noticed many flaws in her suit that she wanted to fix.
The blueprints for the new Mark Three suit had already been drawn up. The new one differed from the old prototype by increased aerodynamics, a tighter fit to the body and protection from icing. Thanks to the protection, the permissible flight altitude limit was significantly increased.
During the design of the Mark Three, the girl also thought about the armament of the suit. Conventional grenade launchers and machine guns were disgusting to Anita's new look, and she wanted to create a non-lethal weapon.
The new weapons were repulsors. Originally conceived as a way to stabilise the flight of armour and provide additional manoeuvrability. Stark discovered that by focusing their energy, she could create powerful energy discharges to use against her enemies.
Only the arms were made from the Mark Three project so far, they were converted from the Mark Two arms. As the power of the repulsors increased, so did the energy costs of the repulsors. Anita was already looking for a new power source for the future.
"Miss Stark, you have a video call from an unknown number.
"Put the call through to Joanna.
A transparent hologram appeared in front of the girl. It showed a bloody Pepper tied to a chair. Potts was unconscious, behind her stood armed girls in black balaclavas. A voiceover threatened Stark.
"Joanna, trace the device where the call was made.
"Stark, you have two hours to come here and deliver $2 million in cash or your girlfriend dies. You have to come alone and without the police.
The hologram of the video call disappeared. Anita slowly shifted her gaze to the desktop. The unfinished torso of the Mark Three costume lay on it. The girl's mind was scrolling through options for further action.
"Are you alright, why is your face so serious? - August came down to the workshop with a bag of hamburgers in his hands.
"Pepper's been kidnapped! - A hologram of the city appeared and Anita pointed to the point of the recent call. - It's a construction site on the outskirts of town. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of two million in cash.
"Yes, and they also asked you to come alone and without the police? - Stark nodded her head. - 'It's an obvious trap, you must realise that.
"Let's pack up, Joanna put the rest of the Mark Two on me and join hands with the Mark Three prototype," the girl commanded and walked to the special booth. The platform under the stand opened up and manipulators appeared from there. They carefully attached a metal helmet to the suit and joined the arms of the new prototype to the old suit.
"Miss Stark, the arms from the Mark Three prototype are not compatible with the Mark Two design.
"Do as I say," Anita interrupted her artificial assistant. - August I'm going to need your help, get ready.
"Yes, yes, I'm on my way," the man muttered grimly and went to the ground floor to arm himself.
The mercenary went into his room, put on his off-load and stuffed grenades and ammunition into it. On his back he hung his swords, which had been smeared with poisons beforehand. He didn't forget a special magazine with phosphorus bullets. White phosphorus was a last chance weapon for him. If the situation got out of control, he wouldn't hesitate to use it. The downside of such an ultimatum weapon was its killing thermal power. A single shot would be enough to create a terrifying out-of-control fire with poisonous emissions. Stark had strictly forbidden the use of phosphorus rounds in the city centre.
"How much longer do I have to wait for you? - Anita, dressed in her costume, walked unceremoniously into August's room.
"I'm ready.
"Then let's go, - the couple in suits went to the helicopter pad of the villa. - Grab hold of me, we're going to fly.
"Are you sure it's safe? - August couldn't help but ask, looking at Anita's unfinished costume.
"Don't be afraid, I've flown many times in the suit, as you can see I'm fine... - the girl stopped talking. - I think I said too much, didn't I?
"We'll talk about it later, Stark," the mercenary said unkindly, flashing an eye from under his mask.
August walked over to Anita and wrapped his arms around her neck, holding her securely in place. The repulsors on Stark's arms and legs kicked in and she soared into the air, gaining altitude. The artificial intelligence built into the suit corrected the flight, and the girl flew to the right place. Somewhere near the end of the flight, one of the arms of the Mark Three prototype failed, the repulsor stopped releasing energy. The suit wiggled in the air, losing control.
"Ah!" Anita sighed voluptuously as Augustus cursed through his teeth at the mad multi-billionaire and put one arm around the girl's breasts. - I didn't realise you were such a man, August. Waiting for the right moment to attack me.
"Shut up and fly normally! The last thing I want to do is crash because of your shitty suit! - The mercenary shouted irritatedly, already calculating in his head whether he could survive if he fell from the height at which the two of them were flying. And the height was not small, as much as two kilometres.
After a couple of minutes, the repulsor that had failed on his arm started working again, but the energy output from it was significantly reduced. The Mark Two portable nuclear reactor in the centre of the chest was not properly powering the attached Mark Three arm prototypes. In flight, Anita tried to somehow resolve this situation and almost "manually" delivered power to the attached limbs.
"Stop on that roof, from it we'll see the place we need! - shouted the mercenary in Stark's ear.
She listened to him and began to reduce speed, almost at the very roof the repulsors on the girl's arms failed, and the couple landed hard. August unhooked himself from Stark during the fall and did a roll, standing on his feet. Anita simply collapsed onto the stone slab of an unfinished high-rise, miraculously not breaking through it.
"If she'd fallen on me in her costume, she'd have crushed all my legs!"
A belated thought flashed through the mercenary's mind. Anita recovered quickly from her fall and got to her feet.
"What shall we do? - The girl approached August, pretending that nothing had happened.
The man again looked at her unkindly, which made Stark a little ashamed, and then answered:
"We need to assess the number of opponents and their armament. If there are any superfreaks or hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers, it is better to know about it in advance, - August remembered well his unexpected meeting with Shocker and Scorpia. He didn't want to repeat the same unexpected encounter with another set of freaks, so he sat down on the edge of the roof and looked through binoculars at the construction site. The place where Stark had been summoned by the kidnappers.
Anita sat down next to her mercenary and through the suit's optics also examined the construction site.
"Ten gunmen, heavily armed, but nothing special about them. Pepper is in the centre of the excavated pit - August reported briefly.
"Actually fifteen, five are sitting in ambush and waiting, - the helmeted girl smiled with the inbuilt thermal imager, having checked the whole construction site. - Wait, there's another heat source on the roof right in front of us!
"Fucking America! - August reacted instantly, bursting to his feet and fending off the throwing knives flying in their direction. Four of the knives he managed to deflect with his shoulder pads, the fifth one hit his unprotected shoulder, and five more flew past and hit Stark. The girl's armour withstood three hits, the other two entering the joints between the old suit and the new arms. Anita was unhurt, but the suit was irreparably damaged. The knife thrower was a master at his craft.
Augustus drew his pistols and looked at the person throwing knives at them. The thrower turned out to be a girl in a black ninja costume with a target tattooed on her forehead. She smiled at the mercenary looking at her and waved her hand. Then she slowly pulled out ten more knives and turned towards Pepper, who was tied to a chair in the centre of the construction site.
(Unknown Girl.)
Stark also saw the unknown girl's actions and therefore immediately snapped out of her seat. Augustus opened fire on the ninja. The tattooed one, as the mercenary nicknamed her, fled.
The noise of gunfire woke up the kidnappers at the construction site and they prepared to meet their guests. Anita's iron suit was hard to miss in the air, and the kidnappers' fire was concentrated on her.
Stark reached Pepper and grabbed her along with a chair, pulling her out of the excavation. One stray bullet struck the unconscious assistant in the thigh, and blood spurted from the resulting wound.
"Am I in the Marvel universe? This isn't DC, is it? - August jumped down from the roof and with two heavy pistols began to fight his way through the gunmen to Anita's landing point. Something had happened to her suit, and she had covered the bleeding Pepper with her iron body and stopped moving.
"Well, she couldn't have been penetrated through the suit by ordinary bullets, could she? Couldn't...? - the mercenary asked himself aloud, running up to Stark frozen in the suit.
***
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