Hundreds of high-caliber rounds, which were originally aimed at Tony as he ascended through the open ceiling, were suddenly left suspended in mid-air.
The massive glass ceiling slab that was moments away from shattering under the barrage was spared and preserved, held together by an unseen, powerful force.
However, the sight of the intense gunfire frozen in time and the subsequent shower of sparks, combined with the earlier dramatic takeover, still caused a monumental, panicked riot among the crowd. People were trampling each other to get out.
Rhodes's massive steel armor, now the War Machine suit, activated its thrusters first, soaring through the gaping hole in the roof to pursue Tony.
Of the other thirty-two Steel Soldiers, only eight Army Steel Soldiers were unable to fly—they were heavy, ground-based assault units.
The rest—the Naval, Air Force, and Marine Corps models—activated the powerful jet propulsion devices in their hands and feet. The light blue Air Force Steel Soldiers, with their lightweight bodies and streamlined shapes, were particularly fast, quickly soaring upward to join the chase.
Amid the chaos, Pepper Potts stumbled backward, panic etched on her face, mostly out of genuine concern for Tony's safety, having just seen him fly into an ambush.
Natasha Romanoff, who had been following her discreetly, had already noticed the odd anomaly. Her superhuman eyesight allowed her to vaguely see the bullets floating in stasis above the crowd.
The glass that should have violently broken and rained down did not.
Justin Hammer, meanwhile, ran like a terrified rabbit to the backstage of the showroom. "What the hell happened out there? Did the remote control malfunction?"
"Sir, the core operating system software has been maliciously modified," replied the Hammer Industries employee who had been operating the computer controls.
"What? What do you mean the software has been modified? I locked that crazy Russian up!"
"He has bypassed all our protocols and has taken complete control of the Steel Soldiers," the employee explained, his voice shaking.
"Impossible! I had two guards standing watch there to prevent Ivan from causing trouble!" Hammer screamed, frantically dialing security on his phone.
He didn't know that no sooner had he left than his two massive guards had been quickly and efficiently neutralized—and hanged from the ceiling rafters—by Ivan, who, despite his fifteen years in prison, was far from being a soft target.
"The telephone lines in the office suite have all been cut, sir."
"And we're completely locked out of the mainframe controls," the staff member replied, typing uselessly on the keyboard.
"Who's keeping you out of the mainframe, you idiot?"
Pepper and Natasha rushed over to the chaos backstage, Pepper yelling, "Justin! What did you do? Shut it down!"
"Please, get out of here, both of you! Get out of here! I can handle this!" Hammer yelled back at the two women.
"You can handle this?" Natasha said coolly, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes! This wouldn't have happened if that arrogant idiot Iron Man hadn't shown up and drawn fire! Go away, thank you!!" Hammer looked down at the two women with utter disgust and snorted, "We need to get rid of these two stinky old hags who are in the way."
Natasha, deciding this was the fastest route to information, strode over and slammed Hammer's head onto the metal table, pinning his right hand behind his back with surprising force.
"Tell me who's behind this!!" The pressure on his pinned hand increased, threatening to break his wrist.
"Ivan! Ivan Vanko! The crazy Russian!"
Hammer, who had never experienced such brutal, sharp pain before, instantly blurted out the name.
"Where is he now?" Natasha demanded, her voice dangerously low.
"At... at my main manufacturing plant! He was making something there!"
Upon receiving the crucial intel, Natasha immediately released him, turned, and left without another word. Her years of experience as a secret agent told her that at this moment, not a second could be wasted. This was a direct threat to the US military and potentially global stability.
Pepper, equally pragmatic, then quickly called the New York City Police Department headquarters directly, ignoring the terrified babbling of Justin Hammer.
Back in the main exhibition hall, Leo held Peter's hand firmly. Peter, still wearing his glowing Iron Man helmet, was staring at the dramatic display of the thirty-two motionless robots.
Leo's invisible control over the air and metal was absolute.
The eight Air Force Steel Soldiers, which had accelerated and soared more than ten meters into the air, were forcibly halted against gravity, their jets spewing flames uselessly as their thrusters overloaded.
The remaining twenty-four steel machine soldiers, which were beginning to stride out of the hall following Ivan's malicious orders, preparing to wreak havoc in New York, were also stopped.
Leo took a light step forward, and all the scattered Steel Soldiers instantly flew back together in a massive, chaotic, but tightly compressed bundle.
Thirty-two robotic warriors were forcibly and tightly bound together by an unseen metallic force field, unable to move a single joint. The reactor on each Steel Soldier's chest still shone brightly, working diligently, trying to force movement.
However, they were unable to make any physical movements, standing together like a massive, glowing pile of incredibly heavy metal models.
Ivan, who had been leisurely smiling in front of the computer with a toothpick in his mouth, watching the initial mayhem, immediately became rigid and focused.
Looking at the surveillance footage on the computer, he was utterly shocked.
'What in the absolute hell happened!!'
He stared at the cluster of thirty-two green dots huddled tightly together on the screen. His tracking data showed them motionless, jammed together like magnets.
Ivan bit clean through the toothpick in his mouth and started frantically typing on the keyboard, unleashing powerful reboot commands.
"Has Stark invented some new, high-powered magnetic weapon in five minutes? F**K!!"
No matter what malicious override or restart command he sent, the Steel Soldiers remained stubbornly unresponsive. His program was perfectly functional, yet the hardware was paralyzed.
There must be a powerful external, non-magnetic force preventing the mechanical movement; the hardware has fundamentally locked up.
Seeing only the War Machine armor still chasing Iron Man in the sky, Ivan clenched his fist and slammed it hard on the table. He knew he couldn't waste time figuring out this anomaly.
"Fine. You want a show, Stark? Let's have a truly spectacular, blinding explosion!"
Ivan let out a somewhat morbid, psychotic smile and quickly tapped a few keys, bypassing the shutdown sequence.
Seeing that the self-destruct program had been successfully activated across all thirty-two drones, Ivan didn't hesitate. He immediately logged off and left the control room alone to don the terrifying Whiplash Armor that he had prepared beforehand.
Since the Steel Soldiers' planned urban attack failed, he would now take matters into his own hands and get his direct revenge.
Leo, still standing calmly at the back of the exhibition hall, gave a low, disappointed laugh as he looked at the fragile, bundled robots.
"Brother Leo, why aren't these robots moving? And they're not good-looking at all. Iron Man is much cooler, but Iron Man has already flown away."
Peter took off his plastic mask and looked up at Leo, who was now nearly 1.5 meters tall and growing rapidly.
"Brother, let's go outside and find Iron Man. Maybe we can see him flying in the sky."
Beep... beep... beep beep!!
A faint, but rapidly escalating, electronic beeping alarm sounded from the thirty-two metal figures dozens of meters away. Leo, whose sensitive hearing was enhanced by his gold bones, caught it instantly and turned to look.
All the robotic soldiers on the platform emitted a rapid, pulsing red warning from their chest reactors, and the frequency of these sounds increased rapidly.
Although most of the surrounding crowd had fled the main hall, a few stragglers and cleanup crews were still there.
Leo didn't want to hear the resulting catastrophic explosion.
With a flick of his finger, all the head receivers used to receive the malicious signals flew up from the drones and were casually tossed to the ground.
However, the self-destruct program was now internally activated; continuous signal reception was no longer required. The threat was imminent.
Leo's eyes glowed slightly as his gaze pierced through the mech's outer shell, directly seeing the internal workings of the pressurized Arc Reactors.
All the reactors were operating at a catastrophic overload, with an internal, external force—the self-destruct command—pressing down on the energy containment devices. He calculated they had maybe two or three seconds left.
The energy would accumulate to the very top—like a balloon that has been overblown, about to be punctured by a needle—causing a violent, multi-megaton explosion.
With thirty-two reactors now gathered in a compressed bundle, the resulting power would be multiplied. If it were to explode here, the entire, massive exhibition hall would be instantly reduced to smoking ruins.
He raised his right hand and made a sharp, grabbing motion in the air.
In a flurry of impossible motion, all thirty-two Iron Warriors simultaneously floated high into the air and were forcefully separated from the bundle. Their chest reactors were violently, magnetically removed, while the remaining gray mechanical bodies dropped back down, lying helplessly on the ground.
With a tight, decisive clenched fist, all thirty-two bright, dangerously humming reactors instantly twisted and collapsed inward on themselves. The matter-manipulation force crushed the energy devices before they could breach containment.
In just one second, each reactor was transformed into a tiny, dense metal bead, floating harmlessly in the air.
An explosion? Not even a single wisp of black smoke came out. The energy was contained.
As for the remaining thirty-two machine warriors without their energy cores, Leo didn't want to leave any viable hardware for Hammer or Ivan to potentially use again.
With a slight, cold frown, a single Steel Soldier figure rose slightly, accompanied by the agonizing sound of twisted, stressed steel.
With a soft bang, the drone instantly shattered into thousands of harmless metal fragments.
However, Leo was still somewhat dissatisfied with the size of the pieces and casually broke the remaining palm-sized chunks of metal into more than a dozen smaller pieces of debris.
The remaining thirty-one Steel Soldiers all followed suit, exploding one after another in a silent symphony of controlled destruction, turning into metal fragments scattered harmlessly all over the floor.
No one would have imagined that the Steel Warrior array, which was so imposing and powerful just five minutes ago, had silently turned into a large, useless pile of shredded rubble and pulverized metal.
Leo then quickly led Peter off the field, pulling him through the chaos and toward the safety of the main street.
Why not absorb these metals? These inferior metals, designed to be mass-produced and shattered by enemy fire, were beneath Leo's notice. He was used to absorbing only the purest gold-titanium alloys; absorbing this sludge would only dilute his perfect internal structure.
On the other side, high above the frantic cityscape, Rhodes was forcibly locked inside the War Machine armor—the Mark II chassis—being controlled by Ivan Vanko to chase after Iron Man.
The situation was dire. If the armor were to perform any truly inhumane actions, Rhodes, trapped inside, would definitely suffer a terrible, slow death as a puppet.