Battle

"Remember, you just have to delay him as much as you can and then leave the rest to me after passing through the portal," Fanny reminded Tony of the plan on their way.

If Obadiah was equipped with the armor, Tony would be the vanguard to buy time so Fanny could open a portal. After they're all transported to the proper battleground, the real battle could begin.

"Kid, are you underestimating me?!" Tony was dissatisfied with Fanny's plan. He felt he could match Obadiah on his own and only agreed to the plan for safety's sake. Though he still grumbled along the way, "I'm the one who made that armor."

"Yes, yes!" Fanny replied halfheartedly.

Actually, the current Tony could just fight the Iron Monger head-on. The ark reactor in his chest was the first prototype, but it had had some time to spool up to full power while they were resting. With Mark II's agility and technological advantage, Tony could definitely beat an Iron Monger or two.

The two of them crashed into the building—using Tony's key card would alert their enemy anyway, so they might as well just announce their arrival.

As Fanny predicted, Obadiah didn't give the miniature ark reactor to his scientist to study and replicate, but he immediately tested it to power the Iron Monger armor. After all, the ark reactor technology was not new; this one was just shrunk. His priority was to finish his armor suit.

They came face to face with the Iron Monger the moment they entered the building, towering several times larger than the Mark II with somewhat pudgy looks.

"So ugly!" Tony stared incredulously at the Iron Monger armor like a child whose toys had been taken away. He continued to complain, "It's an insult to my technology. Even my Mark I was better than this."

"You're making things up. That suit was built from your Mark I blueprint." Fanny interjected.

"That means he changed all the good points," Tony plainly bragged that he was almost unbeatable.

Having found their target, the two lost their sense of urgency and even started joking around.

Their bickering caught the attention of Obadiah, who was testing the armor inside it. Obadiah's arrogant voice boomed from the armor, "Tony! I didn't expect you to survive. Did Pepper save you? You should've obediently died back there. Witness my armor; it is much more advanced than your little gadget."

"Well, if you only refer to the advancement in its ugliness, then you are indeed several steps ahead!" Tony started to argue with Obadiah, lacking any sense of danger.

Obadiah, on the other hand, had no patience for Tony's petty arguments. He knew from Fanny and Tony's appearance that they weren't here for a debate.

"Tony, you shouldn't have come here. Is this your only backup?" Obadiah glanced at Fanny, who kept his silence. He continued, "I'll demonstrate to you that you can't be the best in everything you do."

"You had the chance to upgrade your armor, and I had mine. I clearly made better use of that chance than you did."

Obadiah charged forward with wide stomps. Tony started complaining again, "I can't fathom how someone could make my technology this much worse."

"Shush. He's coming."

The defensive capability of 'Demon Armor Incursio' was unrivaled, but Fanny didn't have the hobby of being thrown around. He immediately retreated upward with Sky Dance when he saw Obadiah rushing over, preparing to open the portal.

"It's past work hours, so there won't be anyone here. Let me play around with him first; you can open your fire portal after I finish."

Unfortunately, Tony was still the same old Tony Stark. His arrogance made him suddenly change Fanny's battle plan, or perhaps it was because he felt competitive with Obadiah to prove who built the better armor from the same base blueprint.

Fanny gritted his teeth when he saw Tony also charge forward. He lowered his hand, canceling the portal.

He still didn't have full control of the teleportation portal, so he couldn't move the portal coordinate at will. It was already difficult to open a stationary portal big enough to accommodate the Iron Monger, so he needed Tony to kite the Iron Monger towards the portal.

Fanny watched the battle between the two armored suits below him. He was a little tempted to join the battle out of boredom, but he decided against it after hesitating for a while.

He also secretly decided to never join Tony's fight.

"If it wasn't for the sake of experience and the entire 85 sets of armor that Tony would build in the future, I would never go along with his abrasive attitude," Fanny thought silently in his heart.

The battle between the men in armors gradually escalated, and the noise they created became louder and louder. After all, both of them deployed all kinds of modern weapons: bombs, machine guns, and energy weapons, all of which are lethal weapons.

This was also why Fanny decided against joining the battle. It was better for him to hide alone; joining the battle now carried too much risk of getting accidentally injured.

"Tony!" Fanny frowned at the intensifying battle and shouted at Tony, reminding him that they couldn't go on like this.

Fanny's shout snapped Tony back to reality. He realized that he took too long to take down the Iron Monger and finally stopped acting on his own. He turned around and flew to Fanny's side, prepared to proceed according to the plan.

However, Obadiah misunderstood Tony's action as an attempt to escape. After their battle, Obadiah had to admit that the Iron Monger armor that he had carefully designed and upgraded wasn't much stronger than Tony's armor and was even weaker in terms of flexibility.

Obadiah was pretty miffed. He regretted not killing Tony immediately and was determined to not let Tony escape.

"I built this company from scratch, Tony. I can't have you destroy it like this. You have to die right here and now."

Obadiah fired a barrage of missiles at Tony; the number of explosives flying in the air numbed Fanny's scalp. He quickly increased his altitude to get some distance.

Tony was shocked to face so many simultaneous attacks. He silently cursed when he saw that Fanny didn't even hesitate to let Tony fend against the attacks on his own. He hurried to find a cover.

"Boom!"

Flame and smoke soared into the sky, and the explosion almost shook the entire New York.

The world had no scarcity of people with a malfunctioning sense of danger, especially when tempted with something as alluring as information about Tony Stark. A flock of reporters that closely monitored the surrounding of Stark Industry came like moths to fire when they noticed the commotion.

The fences and barriers that denoted the restricted area had been destroyed, giving the reporters a clear view of the battle between Tony and Obadiah.

The first thing a normal person would think when they saw a battlefield filled with gunfire would be to escape as soon as possible, but these reporters were definitely not very normal. Their first reaction was immense excitement upon discovering a massive scoop involving the Stark Industry.

Tony and Obadiah were both wearing armors, so the reporter couldn't recognize them. But it was enough that they recognized them as belonging to the Stark Industry. This would bring the dissipating hot topic about the company back into the headlines.

Some of the reporters even greedily started live broadcasts, dumbfounding Fanny, who had descended closer.

"These people really…."

Fanny had no word to describe them. He didn't know whether to call them dedicated or reckless.

Fanny had thought that his intervention would prevent Tony's identity from being exposed, but he couldn't have predicted the current situation.

Was it just impossible for someone like Tony to keep his persona as Iron Man a secret?!