by Alex Irvine
“Not bad, huh?” Tony said. “Let’s do it.”
Rhodey nodded. “You need me to do anything else?”
Tony nodded back and said, “Keep the skies clear.” With a sound like a jet engine taking off, his boot rockets fired and he soared out through a ragged hole in the workshop roof.
Rhodey watched for a moment, in awe. Then he remembered the other suit of armor—the silver one. He pulled the helmet off the rack, and admired it.
“Next time, baby,” Rhodey said. He raced to the garage on the far side of the lab, picked out the fastest car he could find, and zoomed off, chasing his friend.
Pepper dodged through the lab equipment, trying to keep out of sight. Something terrible had happened, but she couldn’t be sure what. From behind the empty hooks, a set of lights had come on… like eyes, and an Arc Reactor. Like a much larger version of Tony’s armor. Then it burst out into the huge armory space. They had all been on the run since.
Gunfire sounded from somewhere nearby. Bullets burst pipes, spewing steam into the semidarkness. Pepper moved in the opposite direction, trying to put as much machinery between her and the gunfire as possible.
She plugged her cell phone into her ear and tried to get a signal. Nothing.
Something exploded, and a big piece of metal zipped past. It smashed through several pipes, sending more steam into the air.
An agent stumbled out of the mist toward her. “Agents down! Agents down!” he called into his radio. Spotting Pepper, he added, “Get out of here!”
He pushed her toward the exit, which she could barely make out through the smoke. She ran for it.
Behind her, the lab entryway shattered into a spray of dust and debris, but Pepper didn’t dare look back. She ran up the stairway, slowing to catch her breath only when she reached the third landing.
The wall below her shook as something smashed through the door. But the thing was too big for the stairwell; it got stuck in the debris. It was a huge metal suit of armor—much bigger than the one she’d seen hanging in the lab or the one Tony used. It looked like a cross between a man and a tank. Its red eyes glowed in the semidarkness.
Pepper turned and ran as fast as she could. She didn’t look back.
When she got outside, she punched Tony’s number on her cell phone. Much to her relief, he answered immediately.
“Tony, thank goodness I got you!” she said. “Listen to me—”
“Pepper,” Tony replied, “where are you?”
Suddenly, the ground beneath her shook. She toppled sideways, and her earpiece fell from her head. An armored fist blasted through the pavement at her feet. Another fist punched through, widening the hole. The hands peeled the asphalt back like a flimsy candy wrapper.
The armored form of Iron Monger burst up through the crater. It was the first time she’d gotten a look at the whole suit, and it was terrifying. It stood maybe fifteen feet high, maybe twenty, and it was as wide as four or five men. Missiles bristled from launchers on its shoulders and arms. Pepper backed away, stumbling over the broken pavement. The iron giant towered over her.
“Look…” Pepper said, backing away.
Iron Monger stepped forward, pieces of asphalt and rebar showering down around him. “Where do you think you’re going?” his amplified voice growled through distorting speakers. “Your services are no longer required.”
CHAPTER 18
Pepper threw herself flat on the ground as Iron Man zoomed over her head, activating the repulsors in both hands. The blasts hit Iron Monger, and he staggered backward. Iron Man kept coming, smashing his fists into the giant’s armored chest. “For thirty years, I’ve been propping you up!” Stane roared. “I built this company from nothing and nothing is going to stand in my way! Least of all you!”
Iron Monger was bigger, heavier, and much stronger. Tony had to get away and use his quickness or he wasn’t going to live very long.
Iron Monger swiped at Iron Man and grabbed hold of Tony’s outstretched gauntlet. Both of them tumbled into the crater Iron Monger had ripped in the pavement.
They smashed through a cement wall and then through the retaining wall that separated the Stark Industries buildings from the nearby highway.
Drivers slammed on their brakes and cars careened out of control as the metal titans crashed down in the middle of the road. An experimental hydrogen-powered bus skidded and slammed into the retaining wall. As Iron Man and Iron Monger stepped apart, the bus’s passengers ran for safety.
Iron Monger grabbed a station wagon and hefted it over his head. The family inside the car screamed.
“Don’t,” Tony told him. “This is our fight.”
“Collateral damage, Tony,” Iron Monger replied. “It’s part of the game.”
Tony hit his repulsors, but nothing happened; probably they’d been damaged in the fight.
“Divert power to chest RT!” Tony said.
“Power reduced to nineteen percent,” Jarvis said.
“Now!”
Energy surged through the RT in Iron Man’s chest plate. A powerful repulsor burst blasted forth and struck Iron Monger full in the chest, making him stagger. As the giant fell, he heaved the car toward Tony.
Iron Man caught the vehicle, but the weight forced him to his knees. The armor’s servos whirred, but their power had been drained by the massive repulsor blast. Tony’s old RT heart didn’t have the energy of the new one Stane had stolen.
Iron Man’s armor buckled and the station wagon fell on top of him. Iron Monger recovered and thundered toward his victims once more.
“Go, Mom! Go!” a kid in the station wagon cried. The woman inside stomped on the gas and the car took off, dragging Iron Man with it. Sparks flew as Tony’s armor scraped across the pavement.
Iron Monger followed, stepping on some cars, batting others out of the way. Drivers that were caught on the roadway stopped and fled from their vehicles.
Tony finally managed to pull himself out from under the station wagon. He staggered to his feet, his armor smoking. Iron Monger grabbed the front wheel of an abandoned motorcycle and smashed the bike into Iron Man.
Pepper’s voice came over the headset. “Tony,” she said, “this is not looking good.”
Iron Man sailed through the air for a hundred yards and smashed into the retaining wall right next to the hydrogen-powered bus. Iron Monger blasted off, his immense bulk hurtling forward like a cannonball.
Tony tried his hand repulsors again; still no luck. “Jarvis!” he said.
“Working on resolving the problem, sir.”
Iron Monger landed on top of Iron Man and pressed one huge boot into his chest.
Tony grunted with the impact and tried to lift the boot off. But saving the station wagon had depleted even more of his power reserves.
Slowly, Iron Monger applied pressure to his boot, crushing Iron Man into the ground.
CHAPTER 19
Iron Man felt his armor buckling. Iron Monger towered above him, easily twice his size and three times his weight. A roaring sound filled Tony’s ears. At first, he thought it was the rushing of his own blood.
Then twin headlights blazed in the darkness as a sports car sped right toward them. Iron Monger spotted the car and turned—too late. The car smashed into the giant’s other leg. The leg’s armor buckled and Iron Monger careened through the air, his jet boots crippled.
He crashed into a parked bus, bursting its hydrogen tank. Iron Monger struggled to free himself from the wreckage, but his metal fingers set off a spark and… WHOOM!
The whole bus went up in a huge fireball.
Tony staggered to his feet. The sports car that had saved him was crushed and mangled, but he still recognized it—and the driver inside.
“Rhodey!” he called, ripping the wreck open so his friend could climb out.
Rhodey grinned at him.
“Did you have to use my car?” Tony asked.
Rhodey shrugged. “It’s not like you don’t have more.”
; The two of them stared at the bus, now just a mass of flames and molten metal.
“Get this area evacuated,” Tony said. “The Arc Reactor is about to melt down.” As he spoke, Jarvis finished rerouting his armor’s power reserves. Iron Man activated his boots and jetted into the air.
“Impressive! You’ve upgraded your armor!” Stane shouted up into the sky.
Then rockets fired in Iron Monger’s massive boots, and it, too, rose into the sky. “I’ve made some upgrades of my own!” Stane added.
“Sir,” Jarvis said, “it appears his suit can fly.”
“Duly noted,” Tony said. “Take me to maximum altitude.”
“With fifteen percent power,” Jarvis protested mildly, “the odds of reaching—”
“I know the math!” Tony shouted. “Do it!”
He rocketed higher, with Iron Monger close on his tail. “Thirteen percent power, sir,” Jarvis said. “Eleven percent… seven percent…”
“Just leave it on the screen,” Tony snapped. “Stop telling me!”
Iron Monger was close to catching him. “You had a great idea, Tony,” Stane shouted over the collective blast of their rockets, “but my suit is more advanced in every way!”
“How’d you solve the icing problem?” Tony asked.
“Icing problem?”
Stane hadn’t been paying attention. He’d been too focused on catching Tony. But now ice had built up in such thick chunks over the Iron Monger suit’s controls that abruptly its rockets cut out.
“Might want to look into it,” Tony said as Iron Monger began the long fall back to earth.
“We are now running on emergency backup power,” Jarvis noted. Tony dove back toward earth, hoping he wouldn’t end up in free fall, too.
Iron Monger crashed into the top of the Stark complex and through several levels of service tunnels into the subbasement lab. Tony followed, splashing down amid a lake of water and cooling fluid from ruptured pipes. For a moment, steam and debris obscured everything.
As Tony struggled to his feet, the whole building shuddered. Warning lights flashed and a Klaxon horn sounded. The heads-up display in Iron Man’s armor relayed a message from the Stark Industries computer systems: ARC REACTOR HOUSING CRACKED. MELTDOWN IMMINENT.
Iron Man walked through the rubble of the lab, but he didn’t see Iron Monger—or, for that matter, Obadiah Stane—anywhere. Tony set his systems to scan for his enemy.
“Pepper…” he called over his communications link.
“Tony!” she called back. “Are you okay?”
“I’m almost out of power,” he said. “I’ve got to get out of this thing. I’ll be right there.”
He started to lift off out of the crash site, but Iron Monger caught him. “Nice try!” Stane laughed.
“Weapons status?” Tony inquired of Jarvis.
“Repulsors off-line. Missiles off-line?”
That left… “Flares!” Tony shouted.
The flares went off in Iron Monger’s face, blinding Stane, who reflexively let go. Tony had a new idea, but each of his new ideas was getting more desperate. He wouldn’t have too many more chances.
“Pepper?”
“Tony!”
“This isn’t working. We’re going to have to overload the reactor and blast the roof.”
“How are you going to do that?” She sounded worried.
“You’re going to do that,” Tony replied.
“Me?”
“Yes. I want you to go to the central console and open up all the circuits. When I get clear of the roof, I’ll let you know. You’re going to hit the master bypass button.”
“Okay, I’m going in,” she said.
Tony kept scanning for Iron Monger, but the steam, debris, and water were fouling up his imaging systems. He headed for the roof on the last dregs of his power. Pretty soon, the suit would be no more protective than a medieval knight’s plate.
He found the cable he would need to complete the feedback circuit and channel the reactor overload. “Pepper,” he said, “I’m about to complete the circuit. Once I do, it’s going to discharge all of the reactor’s power and channel it up through the roof. Get ready to push the emergency master bypass—”
“I’ve found it!” she called.
“—but not until I’m off the roof,” he finished. “It’s going to fry everything up here.”
He detached his left gauntlet, leaving the cable clamped in place. The screen on his heads-up display flashed: CIRCUIT COMPLETE.
Tony flipped up his faceplate and wiped the sweat from his eyes. “Pepper,” he said, “wait until I fly clear, and then hit the button.”
The roof shuddered, and Tony wheeled as Iron Monger landed twenty feet away. Flames still licked around Iron Monger’s blackened armor as he lumbered toward Iron Man.
Tony barely managed to get his faceplate down before Iron Monger struck. The giant’s huge armored fist smashed into Iron Man’s chest.
Iron Man skidded back across the rooftop and tumbled to his feet. He blasted off, flying straight for his enemy. Schematics of Iron Monger armor appeared on Tony’s heads-up display, showing the probable location of the giant’s hydraulic control systems.
Iron Man reached for the controls with his remaining gauntlet, but Iron Monger spun and caught him in a massive bear hug. Tony gasped as his armor began to crack under the pressure. Inside his helmet, the heads-up display crystals splintered and went dark.
“Jarvis,” Tony gasped. “Deploy countermeasures!”
Instantly compartments on the armor flipped open and a thousand particles of chaff exploded, filling the air with smoke, flame, and bits of metal.
Surprised, Iron Monger lost his grip and Tony rocketed free. He landed behind his foe and ripped Iron Monger’s hydraulics loose. “You ripped out my targeting system!” Stane shouted.
Iron Monger staggered, and Iron Man punched him. The giant fell back, flailing desperately. His metal fingers latched onto Iron Man’s helmet. He whirled, tossing Iron Man like a doll.
Iron Man bounced to a halt atop the bank of skylights above the Arc Reactor core. Tony gasped as the evening breeze ruffled his hair. Iron Monger had ripped off his helmet!
The giant laughed as he crushed the depowered helmet like a tin can.
Iron Man staggered to his feet, standing atop the skylights. He and Iron Monger faced each other. Iron Monger lumbered forward, and Tony realized, for the first time, that the giant’s armor had built-in machine guns.
Tony jumped aside as Iron Monger sprayed the roof with bullets. The huge glass skylights shattered beneath Iron Man, but without his helmet controls, he couldn’t fire his jets.
He caught on to the side of the roof at the last instant. He heard a gasp below him and, glancing down, saw Pepper standing near the reactor core. As Tony pulled himself back onto the roof, Iron Monger kept shooting.
Iron Man’s armor stopped a few glancing blows, but Tony knew that without his helmet, sooner or later his luck would run out.
“How ironic, Tony! Trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it its best one ever!” Iron Monger cried out. Stane had really gone around the bend, Tony thought.
“Pepper!” he shouted down through the skylights. “Hit the button!”
“You said not to!” she shouted back.
“Just do it!” Tony cried as another bullet dented his armor.
“But you’ll die!”
“Pepper, we have no choice! We have to stop him! Do it now!”
CHAPTER 20
Pepper hit the button and dived for cover under the nearby consoles.
A pulse of electromagnetic energy flashed upward along the reactor housing and through the cable Tony had rigged up. The energy arced across the satellite dishes, vaporizing the roof between them.
The pulse spread outward, killing the power of everything it touched. The lab went dark, then the building, then the rest of the Stark Industries compound. And, on the roof of the Arc Reactor, the power to both suits of armo
r died as well.
Iron Monger and Iron Man stopped dead in their tracks, frozen like statues.
More energy burst forth. The roof shuddered and began to buckle and sag. Tony glanced down at his chest. His RT heart was dark and cold. He knew he didn’t have much time.
Iron Monger’s armor, which was closest to the section of roof that had been vaporized, toppled over. Only by luck did its depowered fingers catch the edge of the roof as it slid down the slope.
Tony’s heart pounded in his chest. Sweat poured down his head. Using every bit of strength he possessed, he forced his armor to move, reaching out to save his enemy.
“Take my hand!” he called to Iron Monger.
But Tony suddenly realized that his foe wasn’t trying to escape from the crippled giant’s armor; he was trying to manually winch open his rocket launcher.
But doing so loosened Iron Monger’s grip on the sagging roof. With a sudden jolt, the giant began to slide again.
“Noooo…!” Iron Monger called as he plunged over the ledge and into the reactor core. A pillar of energy rose into the sky, dissipating into the clouds. With a roof-shaking hiss, the white-hot plasma swallowed him and Iron Monger vanished forever.
Tony shook his head. Now he would never understand why Stane had done what he did. Just out of greed? It didn’t seem worth it. He closed his eyes and waited on the roof, trying to steady himself. But with Iron Monger gone, the roof didn’t sag any further. Ten minutes later, a pair of flashlights played across the surface of Iron Man’s lifeless armor.
Tony opened his eyes and saw Rhodey and Pepper running toward him.
They pulled him away from the precipice and off the roof. Eventually, Jarvis—whose mainframe had been far enough away to avoid the electromagnetic pulse—managed to restore the armor’s power.
Tony looked at the RT heart in his chest. It glowed faintly. Tony breathed a sigh of relief. He’d had a very close call, but Iron Man would live to fight another day.
The next day, Tony and Pepper walked along the hallway of Stark Industries. All the destruction had drawn enough attention that everyone wasn’t just going to ignore it. So, against his will, Tony agreed to do a press conference. Pepper, who was carrying a stack of newspapers and documents, shoved a typewritten paper into his hands.
