This is the moment the MCU's foundation crumbles. This is Tony Stark as an avenging god of technology and biology.
The sky over Washington D.C. tore. A golden-red streak, moving at Mach 4, shattered the sound barrier directly over the Potomac, the sheer pressure wave blowing out the windows of every car on the bridge. Inside the Mark IV, His Cognitive Multitasking was synchronized with the suit's HUD, while his Technopathy had already reached out like invisible tentacles, seizing the Triskelion's automated defenses before they could even pivot their barrels.
"Sir, the building's automated SAM sites are attempting to lock on," JARVIS's voice was calm.
"Override them, JARVIS. Give them to me," Tony growled.
With a thought, Tony's Technopathy slaved them to his own intent. As he descended, the Triskelion's own anti-air batteries turned inward, pointing their muzzles at the very windows of the S.H.I.E.L.D. high command.
Tony landed in the center of the main plaza, the impact cracking the reinforced concrete for fifty yards.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Strike teams—Hydra sleepers and loyalists alike—poured into the lobby, weapons raised. "Drop the suit, Stand down!"
Tony's Boy Eye (Delta Level) swept the room. In less than a microsecond, the HUD cross-referenced every face against the global Hydra list Aryan had just purged into the atmosphere. Red icons blinked over twelve of the twenty soldiers.
"Hydra," Tony whispered.
The soldiers opened fire. Hundreds of high-velocity rounds filled the air. To Tony, in Bullet Time, the world turned to molasses. He watched the bullets spin through the air, vibrating with kinetic energy. Using his Magnetism (Alpha Level), he exerted a localized field. The bullets stopped exactly one millimeter from the gold-titanium alloy, suspended in a metallic cloud around him.
Tony stepped forward. With a flick of his wrist, he reversed the magnetic polarity. The suspended bullets ignited backward with twice their original muzzle velocity.
Twelve men—the ones marked red—were shredded by their own ammunition before they could blink. The eight "loyal" agents stood frozen, their weapons clicking on empty chambers, staring at the armored specter who had just performed a miracle of mass murder.
Tony ignored them. He walked toward the elevators, the metal doors ripping off their tracks and crumpling into scrap before he even touched them.
He moved through the building like a ghost in the machine. Every floor he reached, the story was the same. Doors stayed locked for the innocent; they exploded for the traitors. He used the environment. He used the building's own structural steel to impale those identified as Hydra, his Magnetism turning the very architecture of S.H.I.E.L.D. into a slaughterhouse.
Tony's descent through the Triskelion was a rhythmic harvesting. He walked, his boots clanging against the marble with the inevitable beat of a funeral drum.
As he moved through the R&D wing, his Technopathy seized the building's nervous system. He felt every electronic pulse in the walls. Automated security shutters slammed shut with a thunderous bang, sealing the "clean" agents in their offices for their own safety. But for those marked with the crimson Hydra icon in his HUD, the environment itself turned predatory.
A group of six Hydra tactical operatives tried to flank him from a glass-walled catwalk. His Magnetism reached into the very skeleton of the catwalk. The heavy steel bolts securing the structure unthreaded themselves in a blur of motion. The catwalk whipped upward like a metallic tongue, folding the six men into a jagged cage of rebar and mesh. Tony clenched his fist, and the magnetic field tightened, crushing the steel into a silent ball of scrap and bone that he discarded over the railing without a second glance.
On the fourth floor, the ceiling tiles exploded as he walked. He was simply yanking the copper wiring and steel conduits from the plenum space. With his Cognitive Multitasking, he was managing dozens of individual magnetic tethers simultaneously.
Two Hydra assassins stepped out of a concealed weapons leveled. Before they could pull their triggers, the steel door frames behind them shrieked. The heavy metal frames twisted and elongated, turning into razor-sharp spears of architectural steel. They lunged forward with the speed of a striking cobra, impaling the men against the very walls they were supposed to protect.
Tony walked past the twitching bodies, his Boy Eye already tracking the heat signatures through the next three layers of reinforced concrete. He could see their fear—the way their hearts hammered against their ribs. In Bullet Time, he watched their sweat droplets hang in the air, reflecting the red emergency lights.
In the main corridor leading to the Director's office, the "loyal" agents watched in horror through the reinforced glass of the side rooms. Tony moved through a hail of gunfire from a Hydra heavy-weapons team stationed at the far end. He used his Magnetism to catch every bullet, forming a swirling, metallic halo around his helmet.
"My father built this place to be a sanctuary," Tony's voice boomed, "You turned it into a nest."
He gestured outward with both hands. The floor's steel support beams groaned and tore through the carpeting. They rose up like the ribs of a giant beast, snapping shut on the heavy-weapons team. One man tried to run. He manipulated the iron in the floor's concrete, causing the ground to ripple and rise like a wave, literalizing the metaphor of the earth swallowing the wicked. The concrete hardened instantly, anchoring the traitor's legs into the foundation of the building.
"He's quite thorough," the Red Queen mused, her holographic form sitting on my shoulder. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is functionally non-existent as of three minutes ago. The global markets are in a tailspin, and the people are hunting Hydra agents in the streets."
I sipped my drink, the Omega-Level Telepathy bringing me the taste of the world's fear—and their budding hope.
"The old gods have fallen, Queen," I murmured. "Tony gave them the fire. Now, we give them the order."
"And Sharon?" she asked.
"She's on her way," I said, feeling her familiar psychic signature approaching. "She knows now that the Shield was a lie. There is only Umbrella."
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