At the press conference, Colonel Rhodes stood tall at the center of the podium.
He raised a hand to adjust the microphone, his expression solemn as he scanned the dense crowd of reporters holding microphones: "Yesterday, an F22 Raptor experienced a sudden malfunction during a routine drill. Fortunately, the pilot successfully ejected."
"As for who or what intervened to cause the unexpected reversal of the situation in Komira Village, we are still unclear..."
...At the Wayne Group Marvel branch, Peter was watching TV when he suddenly saw Gwen stand up. He couldn't help but ask, somewhat puzzled, "Where are you going, Boss? Aren't you watching TV anymore?"
Gwen just smiled: "I'm going to watch a live broadcast."
Watching Gwen walk out, Peter scratched his head innocently.
Obadiah, the 'good uncle' who hired someone to kill, contacted the Terrorists from the cave earlier. Using a sonic device that could temporarily paralyze people, he forcibly seized the Mark I armor that they had painstakingly pieced together.
Similar to the original historical development, from Tony's perspective, Obadiah was a prime suspect.
Especially after Gwen had directly handed the USB drive to Tony at the previous dinner party.
Of course, it was a USB drive with some stolen data deleted.
However, in the chat logs, Obadiah and the other party were very cautious and did not mention names.
This made Tony very helpless. The contents of this USB drive could only indicate that either Obadiah was the one who sold weapons to the Terrorists, or Tony himself was.
Only the two of them on the entire board had the authority to do such a thing.
After some thought, he still hoped that Pepper Potts would help him gather criminal evidence.
Pepper Potts arrived at the CEO's office and quickly found the so-called Sector 16 archives.
These archives recorded Obadiah's request for those scientists to help him build a larger Iron Man suit, but it was clear that not everyone was Tony Stark; they couldn't build a miniature Arc Reactor.
Flipping further, there was a video.
It was a video of very poor quality, showing a group of Terrorists holding guns at a man.
And that man was Tony.
However, the people in the video were speaking an incomprehensible language. Through translation, Pepper Potts learned that Obadiah had ordered the attack on Tony, and if the other party hadn't been dissatisfied with the transaction price, Tony might have already died.
Just as Pepper was packaging this data, preparing to take it back to Tony, an accident occurred.
Obadiah returned.
Pepper, in a very dangerous situation, copied all the evidence and took it out, only to run into Agent Coulson, whom Tony had forgotten about on the night of the party.
With the evidence in hand and the Police ahead, Pepper decided to join forces, preparing to raid the place, temporarily forgetting to contact Tony, who was waiting at home.
The result was that Obadiah, furious that he couldn't build a miniature reactor, directly used his ingenious tools to give Tony a temporary paralysis buff.
Then, right in front of Tony, he dug out his precious item, playing with it in his hand and praising how beautiful it was.
As for Tony, he could only lie there, a helpless victim unable to move, watching the other party play with his treasure.
Afterward, Pepper and the Agents searched the entire Stark Industries tower but couldn't find Obadiah, so they decided to take the Agents to Sector 16.
Meanwhile, Tony's good friend, Rhodes, whom she had contacted earlier, went to Tony's Villa to find him.
Tony painstakingly climbed from the first floor to his Underground Room, dropping the original miniature Arc Reactor that Pepper had adorned with a glass cover onto the floor.
Then... Spidermonkey, transformed from Gwen, quietly walked down from upstairs, her linear, light purple eyes fixed on Tony's every move.
She had been there the whole time, but to avoid being paralyzed herself, she temporarily transformed into Spidermonkey, who is inherently a sonic-type superhero.
Of course, another reason was that this frequency of sound waves was indeed effective against humans.
After listening to it once as Spidermonkey, she memorized it.
Spidermonkey was entirely White, about waist-high to an average person.
Her head was round, with Black and White skin, and her two ears resembled speakers, connected to her body by wires.
Her body was slender, and she wore White boots and Black armbands.
Her arms were directly connected to the speakers, and there were Green circular objects on the backs of her hands. These circular objects were sound holes that helped her vocalize and resonate.
On her back was a square device similar to an MP3 player, adorned with the symbol "10," and connected to headphones on her head. Her calves had tape-like objects.
As for why she didn't stop it even though she was there... Compared to selfish arms dealers, Gwen usually preferred superheroes.
And superheroes, of course, need to grow.
She felt that a villain whom she had always considered to be like a father was just right.
And no matter how much they fought, it wouldn't be as tragic as in the movie.
Even if Iron Man ran out of power, weren't she and Little Spider still there?
She originally thought he would make another move, but then saw Tony lying stiffly on the cold ground, his chest barely showing any rise and fall.
After a moment of hesitation, Spidermonkey scurried over to Tony's side.
There was nothing she could do; short legs meant moving like that.
After examination, Spidermonkey confirmed one thing.
If she didn't help him, Rhodes, who would arrive shortly, would be attending Stark Industries' funeral banquet.
Helpless, her snowy White body began to split.
In a blink of an eye, another identical Spidermonkey appeared beside Tony.
And this was not the end, but the beginning.
The two Spidermonkeys then continued to split, quickly becoming four, and so on, constantly splitting. In a flash, more than a dozen Spidermonkeys appeared throughout the Underground Room.
The dozen Spidermonkeys moved quickly in the Underground Room, like a group of soldiers working in perfect coordination.
Four Spidermonkeys deftly positioned themselves on Tony's sides, pushing against his heavy body.
Three Spidermonkeys carefully held the reactor core, while others connected the wires.
The remaining Spidermonkeys kept an eye on the direction of the stairs, wary of anyone approaching.
After a great deal of effort, they finally installed the core for Tony, and the Spidermonkeys let out a cheer.
Just then, the Spidermonkey on lookout heard a voice from upstairs.
"Tony! Are you home? Tony!"
Hearing the commotion, the Spidermonkey quickly signaled the others.
Fumbling, they fused back into one, and the half-human-sized cutie quickly ran to a small corner to hide, only peeking out with curious eyes.
The man in the Black jacket rushed down the steps two at a time, his military boots thudding heavily on the Underground Room floor: "Tony?"
Only echoes resounded in the empty Underground Room. He scanned the area, his breath almost stopping—Tony Stark was sprawled face down on the cold metal floor, his pale face pressed against the ground, clearly having been attacked by an assailant.
"Tony?!" He roared, stepping forward quickly, kneeling heavily beside him, and forcefully turning him over with both hands.
Tony, whose consciousness had been muddled, was jolted by the violent shaking and coughed. His eyelashes fluttered open, and his unfocused pupils finally managed to focus on Rhodes' face: "Where's Pepper?"
Rhodes pressed on his shoulder, speaking rapidly: "She's fine. She has five Agents with her. They're going to arrest Obadiah."
After a moment of thought and connecting the dots, Tony's expression turned grim as he roughly guessed what Obadiah intended to do with his Arc Reactor core.
"That's not enough."