C115(1)

"Cut the power supply!"

"Quickly! Shut off the power to the test bench! We need to stop the experiment!"

Someone finally realized the danger and shouted desperately, urging those still near the experimental platform to act.

"Who dares?"

Otto's voice roared over the commotion, and the mechanical arms on his back lashed out, striking a man who was about to pull the power switch.

Boom!

The man was flung like a ragdoll, landing on the ground with a sickening thud. Everyone froze as they saw him—his chest was crushed, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth, and his body convulsing. 

He wasn't going to survive.

The others glanced nervously at the switch nearby, swallowing hard. No one dared to move.

"Damn it, it's too late!"

Tony, pulled back by Anton, stood at a distance of nearly two hundred meters from the experimental platform. Feeling the intense magnetic field emanating across the Hudson River, his expression darkened.

Metal objects around them trembled and jerked unnaturally—minor issues compared to what loomed overhead. The bridge above groaned ominously, the sound of stressed steel audible even amidst the chaos.

But the most terrifying part wasn't the collapsing infrastructure.

If the artificial sun exploded, the entire city of New York would be annihilated. Everyone here would die. And the city itself? Reduced to ruins, uninhabitable for years to come.

"Anton!" Tony growled, glaring furiously at the man beside him. This waste of time could be catastrophic!

At most, they had a few minutes. If the power wasn't cut soon, Otto's artificial sun would expand to its critical point and detonate. The resulting explosion would obliterate New York.

The energy of nuclear fusion was unimaginably powerful, after all.

Otto's theory might have been correct in principle—he had created an artificial sun—but there was clearly a miscalculation somewhere. 

Perhaps a missed variable or an unforeseen factor had caused the project to destabilize. Whatever the reason, the sun was now critically unstable and on the brink of catastrophic failure.

The consequences of that failure? Cataclysmic.

"Why are you looking at me?" Anton said, holding up his hands, feigning innocence. "Tony, I saved you! Don't think I didn't notice—you were planning to march straight to the test bench and get yourself killed. Otto's lost it. Those mechanical arms of his aren't playing around."

Tony's jaw clenched.

Seeing Anton's expression, full of mock concern and an irritating "I'm just doing this for your own good" attitude, Tony resisted the urge to argue. Instead, he gritted his teeth, his grip tightening on the box in his hand as determination hardened his features.

He wasn't someone who backed down easily.

At that moment, a woman's voice rang out from the test bench.

"Otto! Turn it off!"

The crowd, though unaware that there was barely a minute left, could sense the urgency. Anxiously, they glanced around, hoping for a miracle—a hero, anyone—to intervene.

Instead, they heard her desperate cry.

"Who's that?" someone muttered.

Following the sound, they spotted a woman, likely in her forties, struggling to approach the experimental platform. Her voice was hoarse as she pleaded.

"Turn it off, Otto!"

Tears streamed down her face as she continued to beg him, her anguish clear for all to see.

"Rose!"

Otto hesitated, the mechanical arms behind him waving aimlessly in the air. For a moment, he couldn't bring himself to strike the woman.

"She's Otto's wife!"

Someone in the crowd recognized her, and a murmur rippled through the onlookers.

"His wife?"

Realization dawned—Otto still had a shred of humanity. Or so they thought.

But that fleeting moment of hope vanished in an instant.

Whoosh!

One of Otto's mechanical arms shot forward like a bolt of lightning, slicing through the air toward Rose.

"No!!" Otto's twisted expression reflected his horror.

He hadn't commanded the strike.

Click!

The suppression chip at the base of his neck had failed.

"How... how is this happening?" Otto muttered, panic consuming him.

Unbeknownst to him, one of the arms had inadvertently brushed against the intense energy emanating from the unstable artificial sun. The surge of power overloaded the circuitry, burning out the suppression chip and rendering it inoperative.

Now Otto had lost control of his creation. The mechanical arms were no longer obeying him—they were acting on their own.

"Rose!!!"

Otto roared, his face contorted in anguish. He strained with every ounce of willpower to retract the arm, but it was futile.

"Damn it!"

Nearby, Tony Stark, who had been preparing to don his armor after his heated exchange with Anton, turned just in time to witness the scene. His expression grew grim.

Even he, with all his ingenuity and resources, was too far away to intervene in time.

Boom!

Suddenly, an arrow sliced through the air from a distance, its trajectory precise.

Clang!

The arrow struck the mechanical arm mere moments before it could reach Rose.

Click!

In an instant, the arrow released a net-like mechanism, wrapping tightly around the "hand" of the mechanical arm. The net expanded, ensnaring all four arms and immobilizing them.

It was a fishing net arrow.

….

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