"I'm going home. Tony, don't forget you owe me a Porsche."
I left driving the Mustang Tony had borrowed for months. As I drove out in the Mustang, Tony watched it with sad eyes, as if seeing off his own son.
The very next day, I got a call from Tony.
"Jin, Stark Industries' weapons are still being sold to terrorists. So I confronted Obadiah about it, and he said he'd ban me from management participation."
"Really? Then I'll send you my share proxy voting rights. Combined with your shares, he won't be able to say much."
"Thanks, Jin."
"And Obadiah smells fishy. I'll look into it and get back to you."
In the original story, Pepper handles this, but since I didn't know what variables my presence might cause, I decided to handle it myself. Because if Pepper died, I couldn't predict how things would proceed.
"Got it. And about the Mustang..."
Click.
I hung up right away. Tony still couldn't let go of his attachment to the Mustang.
"Minerva."
[Yes, Master]
"Purchase one each of a Porsche 911, a Hummer, and an Audi that's easy to drive, and check if there are any good-condition 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1s for sale."
[Understood.]
Some might say, 'With that much money, buy supercars,' but honestly, supercars are hard to operate for long distances. They break down easily. And it's not like I have a hobby of driving on circuits. The Porsche was my absolute limit.
"Also, order two custom superyachts. I plan to modify them later to fly in the air, so build them strong using alloys, considering air resistance. Don't recruit operating crews; I'll operate them entirely with AI and robots."
[Understood.]
I planned to use one superyacht for myself and the other as a mobile base for the Avengers later. Since superyachts take a long time to build, I planned to order them in advance and have them modified on my privately owned, cutting-edge island.
The next day, I went to Stark Industries headquarters, used [Stealth] to hack Obadiah's computer. I extracted all information about various corruptions, deals with terrorists, and his involvement in Tony's kidnapping.
"This should mean Pepper doesn't have to move."
A few days later, I got a call from Lieutenant Colonel Rhodey.
"Hey, what did you guys make? You got a fighter jet shot down."
"Ask Tony about that. I just helped a bit."
From Rhodey's words, I could tell Tony was active as Iron Man wearing Mark 3. He was probably destroying Stark Industries weapons sold to terrorists, just like in the original story. I immediately called Tony.
"Tony, this might be a bit shocking, but I found something interesting on Obadiah's computer."
"Yeah? Send it right away."
I sent all the hacked information to Tony. Tony must have seen the information I sent, as he swore. It must have been shocking, especially that his kidnapping was orchestrated by Obadiah.
"Damn, son of a... Anyway, thanks."
I could fully understand why he swore; if an uncle I was close with betrayed me like Obadiah did, I'd be swearing too.
That evening, I was lying in wait at the Stark Industries company, having prepared for battle in advance. I wore a comfortable suit, with custom-made cards modified for easy access attached inside the jacket and waist, and held a sword in the form of a cane made of vibranium.
After waiting a bit, I saw Pepper Potts entering the company with SHIELD agents to arrest Obadiah.
"This way."
Guided by Pepper, the SHIELD agents went inside the company. I wanted Pepper out of this incident, but things didn't go as planned. I used [Observation Haki] to monitor the inside of the company, planning to use my abilities to rescue her if she was in danger.
As the SHIELD agents who went inside and Obadiah got into a fight with the 'Iron Monger'—created by analyzing the wreckage of Iron Man Mark 1 from Afghanistan—I saw Pepper safely escaping outside the company during the commotion.
"Tony, Tony! Are you okay? Right now that's..."
Pepper seemed to be on a call with Tony as she exited the company. Then the ground shook as Iron Monger broke through the road from underground. Iron Monger was bulkier than Mark 1, and the oppressive feeling coming from its mechanical body, even larger than the Hulk's, was tremendous.
Iron Monger blocked Pepper Potts's path, aiming the machine gun on its arm as it spoke. She was frozen in place, unable to speak from fear.
"If you had worked under me, you could have lived with better treatment. Too bad. As of now, you're fired!"
As the Iron Monger's machine gun began to rotate with a mechanical sound, I quickly threw a card to destroy the machine gun.
Boom!
The Iron Monger was disoriented by the sudden explosion, and in that gap, I hugged Pepper and teleported to a safe location.
"Ah... huh? Jin!? What on earth..."
Surprised by my sudden appearance and rescue, Pepper asked, but the situation was urgent, so I cut her off.
"Miss Potts, the situation is urgent, let's talk later."
After leaving Pepper in a safe place and returning to the location where Iron Monger was, Iron Man Mark 3 and Iron Monger were fighting fiercely.
Obadiah had stolen and was using the new Arc Reactor Tony made after escaping Afghanistan, while Tony had no choice but to use the Arc Reactor he made with insufficient equipment when first kidnapped, so his output was lacking and he was being pushed back by Iron Monger.
Despite that, Tony was showing sense and barely holding on.
Finally, hit by a powerful blow from Iron Monger, Iron Man rolled on the road.
Thud!
Crash~!
"For 30 years, I've been cleaning up your mess!"
Iron Monger approached Iron Man lying on the road, stepping on his body as if venting pent-up emotions.
"It's the company I built from scratch with my bare hands while you were fooling around!"
Then I threw cards charged with energy at Iron Monger in succession.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
"Ugh!"
From the impact, Iron Monger slowly staggered back. Iron Man also got up during the gap.
"Tony, you okay? I sent Pepper to a safe place."
"No, how is this possible? Did you attach bombs to the cards?"
As the cards I threw exploded one after another, Tony asked in surprise.
"First, let's deal with what's in front of us. We'll talk later!"
"Right, you have to tell me later."
The explosions from the cards I threw caused Iron Monger's arm to dangle loosely downwards. That arm seemed unable to function now.
"So you were here too. I'll send you and your friend to the afterlife together!"
Iron Monger charged forward, attempting a body slam. But I lightly avoided it with teleportation and threw a card at the back of Iron Monger's head.
Boom!
"Ugh"
Not missing that gap, Iron Man struck Iron Monger in the chest with a repulsor beam.
Kaboom!
"Gah!"
Iron Monger flew back and crashed into a bus. Fortunately, the people around had already all run away.
Despite receiving continuous attacks like that, Iron Monger pushed aside the half-destroyed bus and slowly walked out. Still, there was damage; the arm that couldn't function had completely fallen off, and the head was half-crushed.
"You two together!!!"
Iron Monger's left shoulder opened and a small missile came out.
"Whoa! Be careful, Jin!"
Tony, wearing Mark 3, wouldn't take much damage from the missile, but worried about me being unarmored, he urgently said.
"Don't worry!"
As soon as I finished speaking, the missile fired by Iron Monger flew towards us, but I used a Mystic Arts portal to send the missile back towards Iron Monger.
Seeing that, Iron Monger hurriedly tried to avoid it, but it was already too late.
KABOOM~!
A huge explosion sound and red flames erupted. As the flames gradually disappeared, Iron Monger's head seemed to have flown off somewhere. Iron Monger's chest slowly opened, revealing Obadiah with severe burns. Probably due to the continuous impacts, the armor couldn't completely block the explosion's flames.
"Kheh... can't end like this!"
"It's over, Obadiah! Give up!"
Seeing Obadiah's clothes burned and sticking patchily to his flesh, he must have been in considerable pain, yet he couldn't let go of his ambition. Tony shouted at him, urging surrender.
"Shut up!"
Flames suddenly shot from Iron Monger's feet, and it slowly rose into the air.
"Obadiah!"
Tony shouted urgently, but Iron Monger began to fly up into the sky. It rose high like that, then something seemed wrong with Iron Monger—one leg providing thrust turned off, making it fly unsteadily, until finally both legs turned off and it fell. Thinking about it, such a damaged and broken Iron Monger couldn't fly properly. That was Obadiah's end. It seemed like a more miserable outcome than in the original story.
Firefighters and police swarmed in, but SHIELD agents, pretending to be an international security agency, blocked them and handled the cleanup. Tony had already run off somewhere, and only Pepper and I remained, spinning stories to the agents about what had happened and finishing up. Pepper and I went home, cursing Tony who had run off first.
Obadiah was dead, and the big commotion at Stark Industries headquarters was something they couldn't cover up no matter how hard they tried. And with Mark 3's appearance caught on camera and making the news, it became a big deal, so Tony had no choice but to hold an explanatory press conference. First, Lieutenant Colonel Rhodey came out and spoke to the reporters.
"Obadiah, through various corruptions and selling weapons to terrorists—"
We were preparing in the waiting room for the press conference. Tony was looking at a newspaper article with the big headline 'Iron Man - Who Is He?'. Next to him, Pepper was covering up Tony's face with makeup, as he had some bruises from getting hit and rolling around during the fight with Iron Monger.
"Iron Man? Not a bad name."
I said, looking at the article next to him. Then Tony nitpicked.
"But it's not an accurate expression. It's gold-titanium alloy."
"That's why people dislike science majors."
"Hmm... I see. But aren't you a science major too?"
"Economics is a humanities major."
Then SHIELD agent Phil Coulson approached and handed Tony the predetermined alibi.
"Here's the alibi."
Tony was looking at the alibi Coulson handed him. Then the coordinator said it was time to go out. So we went out and waited.
"Now Mr. Stark will make a statement."
Tony went up to the podium and spoke to the reporters.
"So, to tell the truth..."
Tony looked at the alibi, hesitated for a moment, then just put it down and said.
"I am Iron Man."