Chapter 66: Battling the robot drones.

Tony lands on the stage. "We got trouble," he said to Rhodes. 

"Tony there are civilians here," Rhodes thought Tony was giving him trouble for the suit, but his friend said, "All the civilians here are in danger." 

Tony whispers "I think he is working with Vanko" 

While Tony is speaking to Justin, Rhodes' suit automatically locks up the Iron Man suit as a target. His machine gun on his shoulder is activated and is pointed at his friend. 

"Tony this is not me! I'm locked out of my suit! " Rhodes yelled urgently.

All the other drones point their weapons at Tony.

"Get out of here, all the systems have been compromised.!" Rhodes can only yell. He can't do anything being locked in the suit.

"Let's take it outside! "Tony flies away, moving the targeting drones to shoot up.*Drrr* machine guns firing at him.

The glass ceiling shattered and shards fell onto the audience. A young boy is looking upwards to see Iron Man. His eyes glittered looking at his hero. A shard of glass is on the pathway to his eyes.

The 5-year-old boy doesn't understand the situation. All the other people in the crowd are ducking down.

The shard of glass is now in front of his pupils. It stopped there without managing to injure the boy's eyes as it was trapped between someone's finger. Ryan had stopped the glass.

The boy looked at him innocently. He smiles at the boy. " Go outside with your mother." He ordered the boy and his parents.

It quickly becomes chaos with people screaming and drones shooting. 

10 air force drones and Rhodey flies up to follow Tony. "There are 30 left." Ryan analyses the situation. 

He moves to the control room as he sees Kai is helping people evacuate. 

In the control room. "I think he slaved the drones " an explanation is being given to Justin by his IT support. 

"He locked us up from the mainframe." The support said.

"Who locked you up from the mainframe?" Pepper Potts walks briskly to confront Justin with her secretary. 

"Please go away, If your guy hadn't come up all of this would've happened. Just go away." Justin tries to blame Tony while ordering Pepper to go away.

Natasha isn't having any of it and walks to Justin. She slams Justin on the table while twisting his arm "Tell me who's behind this!" 

Justin is scared and in pain. "Ivan,... IVAN VANKO!" 

"Where is he?" Natasha asked coldly. She doesn't know what Kai is doing outside. She needs to settle the incident as soon as she can.

"He's at my facility," Justin Hammer said. Natasha releases Justin when she got what he needed.

"Ooh feisty." a different voice is heard in the control room. Pepper recognized him instantly. "Ryan!" 

Natasha's eyes widened a little bit. But the situation is urgent. She hurriedly leaves to apprehend Vanko. 

While she was passing Ryan, he said, "Nice  job, you got promoted to a secretary from a cat burglar."

She ignored him.

He walked to the monitor and ordered, " Give me the control". 

Pepper agrees with him. The guy is on Tony's level. Tony will fight with him constantly, so Pepper knows about it. 

"You don't have the"... Before the control guy could say anything, Ryan grabs him by the collar and yanks him away violently. 

"Did I say it is a request?" His killing intent makes people scared to get near him. Except for Pepper. 

He sits at the control panel and quickly gets into the system. 

"Could you do anything?" Pepper askes.

*Tap tap * His finger is moving extremely fast across the keyboard.  "I can, the program is built sub-dependently. I can take control of the drones one at a time bypassing the mainframe." 

Pepper asks, "What about Rhodey?"

"Tony is already working for that. If I interfere he might lose his progress." Ryan checked.

With Ryan's existence, Tony's technology has become much more advanced than the original timeline. Now, Tony is at 50% progress in taking over Rhodey's iron suit. He doesn't need anyone else's help for that.

Ryan connects to Tony in the communication channel.

 "Old man, I will give you a 2-second assist. Try to shoot down as many drones as you can. Move to central park, there is no one there. All drones are following you, you understand me? "

Tony, who is chased by the air force drone right now says hurriedly. "I know. Stop nagging."

"2-second gap in 3…2…1…" Ryan took over the lead air force drone, blocking the other's path. Tony doesn't miss his chance, he shoots 3 drones down with his palm cannon. 

The hacked drone manages to take out 2 others in his suicide charge. Tony finally manages to reboot Rhodes. The Iron Patriot is now back online. 

"Now we're talking!" Rhodes is excited. He uses his machine gun to blast 2 more of the drones.

In the convention stage. Ryan is doing crowd control. To be honest, the drones aren't attacking civilians. Only those who are in its path and something that can become a threat.

Quickly, he takes control of one of the drones. The drone point-of-view camera is seen on the screen. 

He controls the marine drone to shoot 2 other drones. However, his drones are attacked by the others.

"Damn, too quick", He said while trying to take over another. The other guy behind Ryan there is in awe. 

In the Hammer Industry. Ivan Vanko is still controlling the drones." Interesting." He noticed Ryan's feat, so he made some adjustments, making it harder for Ryan to take over.

He also sent 3 drones to Ryan's current place.

At the square. Kai is helping people evacuate. "Move, move!" He drags the crouching random citizen up and pushes him so he would run.

He sees that a drone is trying to attack a woman who is in its path. He pulled out his sword from his cane and blocked the bullets with his sword. 

*Tang Tang* The bullets collided with the sword producing sparks of fire.

The woman who is on the path is in surprise! The reporter for his vigilante era, April O'Neil's eyes widened. "V!!" She yells in surprise. 

Kai looks at her weirdly. "I'm not a V lady. Will you please move away right now? Otherwise, the bullet will hit you. "

April snaps out of it and moves away. With her out of the bullet path, He jumps and stabs the drone's head with the sword. *Bzz bzz* The army drones are shutting down. 

"Quickly, go to a safe place." 3 drones come to where he is standing. He pulls out his sword from the previous drone head and dodges the machine gun while rolling. "DAMN IT, My Suit!" 

His Giorgio Armani suit is now dirty. Ryan took over one of the drones near Kai and shot the one beside him. Kai runs and jumps to slash the head of another. 

"It's easy when I aim for the gaps." Kai jokes. 

Kai and Ryan's drone stood back to back, before heading in the opposite direction. 6 more drones are encircling them.

'This is fun. We should do this more often.' Kai said telepathically to Ryan.

'Should we go to the universe? There are a lot of places at war right now.' Ryan plays along.

The marine drone started to attack them first. Kai and Ryan's bot split up to avoid the attack.

Ryan uses a suicide charge, making gaps for Kai to attack. The swordsman destroyed another two robots by stabbing their head.

Ryan's bot is destroyed. But another one is born and attacks the one beside it.

They had destroyed 6 more drones in the center square. 

"All others are now in Stark position," Ryan said in the communication channel.

Natasha arrived at Hammer Industries. She got blocked by the security, and that was a big mistake for the team. 

She is pissed, and she has been strengthened. Now, she has reached almost 3 times the strength of a man. 

She leaves the men moaning in pain in her path. Happy the bodyguard who is following her is scared shitless.

Natasha arrives at Vanko's position, but he is no longer there. She connected to the communication line with Tony and Ryan.

"Vanko is gone." She reported. She tries to shut down the robots, but 

"It won't work. Vanko had made them autonomous now. They only have a mission to kill Stark now. Man, the Russians must really hate you." Ryan said.

"It's hard being so popular. There are so many haters. " Tony joked while defending against the army of drones in his position. 

"Cat Burglar, I need you to connect me to the mainframe," Ryan said calmly to Natasha.

Pepper is confused. 'Why a cat burglar?' she thought. She has questions, but she keeps them inside for now as Ryan is focusing.

Ryan in the control room said to Pepper. "We should evacuate." The NYPD has already come in and arrested Justin Hammer. 

"This is all a conspiracy against me!" Justin yelled. The police are dragging him away when 3 drones break over their position and start to open fire. Hammer who is in the front is shot. 

Ryan pries away his attention from the screen and confronts the drones. He throws a marble size orb at the drones attacking them. The orb morphs into steel cable and ties up the drone.

He controlled the wire, and it cut the drone into pieces! He did it so quickly.  Pepper is shocked, the NYPD is shocked, and the injured Justin Hammer is also shocked.

Ryan said to the NYPD officers.  "Evacuate all of the citizens, especially the ones near the drones. There's a built-in self-destruct function on the drones. It can be activated by Vanko." 

After he connects to the mainframe, he already shuts down the automatic self-destruct function.

NYPD members quickly nod and move hurriedly. Ryan becomes the leader of the entire operation.

At the same time, Kai is carrying an unconscious man out of the convention site in his left arm. On his shoulder, a 7-year-old girl is sitting there. In his right arm, he is holding the hand of a 10-year-old boy. 

"How could someone be so nervous that he slammed himself in the door and passed out." Kai sighs.

The unconscious man is the children's father. Kai appreciates his effort to save his children, but the guy is too clumsy.

In the park, Tony and Rhodes are working together. 

Natasha said to Tony." You got your friend back and did a good job with the new chest piece." 

"I'm reading significantly higher output and all your vitals look promising." She added.

"Yes, for the moment I'm not dying. Thank you." Tony said awkwardly. 

Pepper is befuddled "What do you mean you're not dying? DID YOU JUST SAY YOU ARE DYING?" 

They are bickering right in the middle of the fight. "Hey hey hey save it for the honeymoon," Ryan said.

Iron Man and Iron Patriot stand back to back and fight the drones. The last incoming is Vanko in an iron suit of his own.

"This can't be good. I'm gonna bust his bunker with the Ex-wife." Rhodes feels ominous, so he is ending the battle early. Well, he tried to.

"The what?" Tony is puzzled.

Rhodey fires up a small missile which it bumped from Whiplash suit and didn't even explode.

"Let me guess, Hammer tech?" Tony mocked.

Both of them fought Whiplash which has his ionized whip, but they are losing. 

They have to connect plasma blasters to get the resonance to kill Whiplash.

A partially destroyed robot turns itself back from the wreckage. It is targeting the place Tony and Rhodes are battling Vanko.

It fired missiles at Vanko. It can barely do so, so the missile's power is really weak. Vanko is stunned. He takes a look at who is shooting the back of his head. 

He sees his drone with a smoky arm. The robot drone arm is waving at him. Then it turned into a middle finger. His eyes widened behind the steel mask.

Tony and Rhodes at the time already finished setting up the blow. "Crank it!" Tony said while their palm cannon is connected in front of Ivan's armor. *BOOM* A massive explosion occurs!

Tony looks at the dying Ivan Vanko. 

His last words are "You lose". He realizes that Ivan is talking about the self-destruct function. The blow damages his communication line. 

He flies as fast as he can to save Pepper. 

Exactly a minute later, a terrible explosion occurs in the conference hall. *BOOM*. 

Luckily all the people there have been evacuated. 

"It means that Stark had won", Ryan thought in his heart. He sees Iron Man and The Patriot flies in his direction as he is with Pepper. 

Unlike in the movies, he didn't save Pepper at the last moment. 

Pepper is freaking out anyway. "I quit as CEO. My body literally could not handle the stress!" 

"I never know if you're gonna… kill yourself... Or wreck the entire company." 

Ryan watches as the guys are being lovey-dovey. 

Tony comforted Pepper, "I've been in a tough spot, but you get me through it" 

Pepper sighs and calms down. Tony is inches away from her when suddenly a voice says 

"Just kiss her already". Ryan, who had just been ignored, chimes in. 

Tony didn't disappoint as he kissed Pepper deeply. 

Ryan smiles and said again "Now, go get a room" 

Pepper blushes while Tony is dissatisfied the kiss ends early. 

"You mood wrecker," Tony exclaimed.

"I thought you're gonna do everything I said." Ryan mocked.

"You should take a tonic first before doing it. It's not like you're still young." He added, making Pepper blush even more.

"Stop talking about it!" Tony said irked. 

Ryan ignores Tony and continues "Your child's age gap with me will be the same as yours with me." 

Tony blows his top off. "I'm not 50! DO I LOOK LIKE I'M 50?" 

He turns to Pepper for affirmation."I didn't look that old right Pepper?" 

"Well…." Pepper joins in teasing Tony. "Hahahaha" Ryan laughs out loud. Rhodes is now flying here.

"I will go now. So far there are no casualties, but there is a lot of property damage. Make sure to compensate the victim accordingly."

Pepper asks "What, what about the cat burglar?"

Tony is confused. "What cat burglar? She is an agent."

The female agent returned to the blown-up convention site.

The incident is now over, EMT is all over the place treating the victims.

Natasha sees a man in a black suit is bandaging someone's head. She approaches him…or rather, she wants to.

"Romanov, where are you?" Shield is contacting her from the earpiece, making her stop in her tracks.

She got an order to return to base as the place will be crowded with reporters. As an assassin, she can't be exposed.

She takes one last look at Kai, who is smiling and talking to the frightened children before she disappears. 'Our world…is just too different.' She thought.

Kai feels someone is staring at him. He turns back to see the back view of a woman in a black skin-tight suit. He watches her back until she disappears.

"Hey, what's your name?" April tries to get an exclusive interview from Kai. 

He snaps back to reality. "Any questions will be answered by my lawyer." He smirks.

…

The next day, Skye is watching the news. "It's you right? The man in the suit who is fighting the robots." She interrogated Kai who just wanted to relax on his last day off before he opened his clinic.

"Nope," He answers curtly. Skye is dissatisfied. 

"It's you!!!" She is very confident on the matter. "A black hair and eyes, wearing a suit, carrying a sword disguised as a cane! There is no one else but you who matches the result."

She didn't care about Iron Man or the new Iron Patriot, but she is interested in the new superhero called the Kingsman. 

It's what the man joked with a kid while calming them down. The report added the information in the briefing. She is 99% sure it is Kai as he made a similar joke with her before. 

Kai smirks but he doesn't answer. Their house door is knocked on, and Skye lets the guest in.

"Matt, what did they say?" Kai asks his lawyer.

Matt Murdock replied, " There is no non-disclosure agreement or anything. They are paying compensation for any damages, so you're getting a new suit."

Skye interjected. " Don't they want to give him a medal for fighting the robot?" 

Her trick won't work on Matt. "I don't know. They didn't tell me." The government did ask, but it's lawyer-client confidentiality. He couldn't tell Skye without Kai's consent. 

Skye pouted. "No one will tell me anything. Don't regret it when I find it out myself!" She storms into her room to hack into places. She called her friend. "Ava! Help me!"

In the living room, 

"Are you rejecting the honor?" Matt asks.

"I don't need it. Besides, that is just a PR stunt for the military. I won't involve myself in it." 

Another person had the same answer.

"Are you sure?" Tony asks Ryan. 

"Yes. To be honest, this is the military and government's way to fix their strained relationship with you. I will not involve myself in the matter. "

Ryan then changes to solemn. "There is bad news. Before Vanko died, he had sold 8 arc reactors to the black market."

Tony's eyes widened. "Where!?"

Ryan said, confused. "The black market?" 

Tony rolled his eyes. "Any exact location?" 

"I don't know the exact location. I have managed to intercept 3. The rest will be left to you." He wiped his hand away from the matter. He needs to focus on another thing right now. It's almost time for the hammer to fall.

The islander girl is helping him track down the arc reactor, but that's it.

"Hey, your cable wires…did you make it against me?" Tony changes the topic.

"Yes, I thought it'll be fun to tie you up" Ryan displayed a beautiful smile that made Tony confirm he is a psychopath.