The moment the ceiling exploded and the Iron Man armor descended, the entire squad of A.I.M. robots turned their guns in unison, seemingly determining that the threat level of this suddenly air-dropped steel battle armor was higher than all the intruders in the room combined.
All the machine guns opened fire simultaneously, and the dense hail of bullets instantly surrounded the Mark VI armor in the center. Countless warheads danced on his red and gold armor with continuous explosions, yet the effect was only like scratching an itch.
Occasionally, rockets were mixed in, but it seemed their effect on that armor merely upgraded from scratching an itch to an exfoliating fireworks scrub; at most, perhaps they could only scrape off some paint.
Inside the battle armor, a large series of targeting boxes simultaneously appeared in front of Tony, instantly locking onto all the mechas before him in sequence with AI assistance.
Jarvis: "Full salvo, Sir?"
Tony: "Yes, Jarvis, full salvo."
The Mark VI assumed a pose with both palms raised.
Dangerous arcs of light flashed simultaneously in the palms of both hands, and the reactor hummed pleasantly as it operated. At the same time, the armor's wrists, forearms, shoulder mechanisms, waist sides...
A wide variety of weapons popped out from all over the body simultaneously, literally a "full salvo."
In the next second, the arc pulse cannons from both hands had already pierced through two machine soldiers respectively. Their steel chests were pierced like a thin sheet of paper, leaving holes exposing broken circuits and melted parts.
The micro-missile array poured out like a beehive, exploding boom, boom, boom on several other mechas. Eight armor-piercing projectiles tore through the composite armor at supersonic speeds, burning penetrating charred holes inside the mechas' bodies. The unspent energy then ignited the ammunition magazines within the machines, triggering a rumbling chain of explosions.
Continuous explosions, a string of wanton bombardment, sounded like two fully armed modern armies pouring firepower into each other.
And the entire process actually took less than ten seconds in total.
Yes, only ten seconds.
Within ten seconds, this mecha squad that had just been insufferably arrogant, this advanced weaponry that had just made the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents despair and seem invincible, was instantly turned into a pile of scrap metal on the ground.
An instant kill of the entire field!
Captain America held his shield in front of him, blocking the aftermath of the explosion. As the heated smoke screen dissipated, he looked again and saw that not a single machine remained.
This red and gold armor gave him the feeling that a person was wearing an entire fully armed military fortress on their body. And this fortress was equipped with all kinds of new weapons that didn't exist in his era.
And in fact, what they didn't know was that Tony hadn't even used his full strength. Because he realized there were unrelated bystanders in this room.
He didn't want to cause unnecessary trouble, so he didn't use any equipment on the armor that was too powerful or had too large a range, and he actually controlled the power of the arc pulses as well.
Otherwise, the Mark VI's output firepower was actually much stronger than what had just been demonstrated.
Not to mention Captain America, this old antique, even these agents who were the elite of modern S.H.I.E.L.D. were now dumbfounded, mouths agape and speechless.
Who am I? Where am I?
What just happened?
What is this thing?
Since when did this Earth have such a heaven-defying single-soldier combat unit?
Looking at the pile of scrap metal that had been wiped out before them, they felt it was a bit unreal.
However, in this whole team, Cap, the old popsicle, was actually the most accepting. Although the other party seemed to be on their side, he didn't let down his guard. He first asked over the team comms via his earpiece: "Is this thing a friendly?"
A voice soon came from the logistics support on the channel. But judging by the voice, they seemed equally shocked by the scene before them: "Not... not sure. I just searched S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal database, and there's only one similar item. The data says this armor seems... seems to possibly be Stark Industries'... bodyguard?"
The tone sounded very uncertain; evidently, logistics also found this description in the database ridiculous.
"Stark?"
This name actually gave Captain America a slight sense of familiarity. It was one of the few names that could span from his era to the modern day and make him feel familiar.
Back then, Steve and Howard Stark had a pretty good relationship.
"Corporate bodyguards are like this nowadays?"
Cap looked at this domineering battle armor and pondered for two seconds.
He began to miss the era when he was the most advanced technological creation again.
Tony was also a bit surprised to see S.H.I.E.L.D. and Captain America here. He hadn't expected to bump into S.H.I.E.L.D. taking action against this A.I.M. laboratory so coincidentally, just like him.
But immediately, his heart tightened.
Could S.H.I.E.L.D. have also realized that Ivan Vanko sold the reactor blueprints to A.I.M., followed the vine to get the melon, and also wanted to acquire the Arc Reactor technology?
Thinking of this, Tony immediately became alert and was in no mood to greet Cap.
One bad thing about being a rich person is that you have too much, so it's easy to suspect others are eyeing your stuff.
Especially with a creation like the Arc Reactor that could change the world structure, he had every reason to suspect any force of having designs on him.
Tony strode forward and accessed the main control room console with the Mark VI armor.
A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent boldly spoke up: "Sir, this is a S.H.I.E.L.D. mission. All assets and data here are already under S.H.I.E.L.D. supervision. You have no right..."
The Iron Man armor tilted its head slightly and looked at the agent.
He said nothing, merely glancing through the cold golden faceplate.
But with just this one glance, the agent seemed to instantly associate the opponent with the firepower coverage that was as tough as the truth just now, immediately swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue, and squeezed out an awkward smile.
"No... nothing, I was just saying."
So Iron Man turned his head back and continued working.
Tony instantly wiping out the mechas in the entire field looked visually exaggerated, but for the Mark VI, it wasn't even a warm-up.
He assessed the strength of these mechas, estimating they were roughly close to the sea, land, and air drone mecha squad Ivan Vanko sent out at the end of the original Iron Man 2 movie. And in the movie, that squad was just cannon fodder to be easily beaten before the Iron Man Mark VI.
However, the Earth's technological performance in the first phase of Marvel hadn't strayed too far from reality yet. Things like drone mechas were still immature new technologies before Tony and Ivan revealed them. Suddenly popping up here and catching these traditional agents off guard was normal.
Tony even suspected that this robot combat squad hidden here by A.I.M. might also be technology bought from Ivan?
Jarvis connected to the main control computer: "Cracking system... Cracking complete. Preparing to download..."
Tony quickly browsed the cracked content while downloading.
Naturally, he was most concerned about the Arc Reactor. Although Ivan's version of the reactor blueprints was much more outdated than his own, it was similar technology after all, and he still didn't want it leaked.
Sure enough, the technology bought from Ivan was indeed here. And luckily, the blueprint data hadn't been sent elsewhere yet.
From the downloaded information, Tony learned that this seemingly had a bit to do with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s credit.
Important scientific research data like this is usually transmitted through encrypted channels. Recently, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been watching A.I.M. closely, so the laboratory needed to be very cautious about both physical and data entry and exit. Coupled with the fact that purchasing the data from Ivan was an independent action of this laboratory, with no intention of sharing it with other A.I.M. departments or headquarters, there was no leak.
So for Tony, simply deleting the data and destroying the blueprints from this base would completely prevent his technology from leaking.
This was also his main purpose for hurriedly tracking it here. With this matter resolved, a major worry in his heart would be immediately put to rest... at least one of them.
However, continuing to look at the downloaded data and glancing at some of the research materials of this laboratory, Tony immediately became interested.
There was actually an unexpected harvest!