"Well, to be honest, I am the Mandarin, but I'm also just an actor they hired." The so-called Mandarin, hands up with a gun pointed at his head, spilled everything without blinking.
Then he pulled out three small spheres. Under Tony's cautious glare, the fake Mandarin—whose real name turned out to be Trevor—tossed them to the floor. The spheres popped and lit up, projecting bright holograms.
"Huh, slick tech. Might build myself a set of these," Tony muttered, eyes glinting at the image.
"Mandarin, what is it now? Calling me in the middle of my evening? Looking for a bigger mansion? More girls?" In the hologram, a sharply dressed blond man scowled.
"Actually, this time it's a lot more serious," Trevor stammered, glancing at Tony.
"Well, well. Tony Stark. Didn't think you'd track my operation this fast or catch my puppet," the blond man said.
Surprise flickered over his face, then twisted into a smug grin. He clearly relished seeing Tony forced into his little show.
"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Tony quipped, lifting a brow. "If this is about pretending we go way back, get in line. I have about eighty women a year claiming I gave them twins."
The man froze, face twitching. "You don't even know me?" He nearly stammered, frustration boiling up.
Tony Stark, the man who left him stranded on a rooftop with promises of investment that never came, didn't even remember his name.
But he shook it off, face hardening. "I'm Aldrich Killian. You might not recall me, but you'll definitely recognize her."
Killian shifted the camera, revealing Pepper.
She was strapped to a chair, her skin pulsing with a sinister red glow. Pain tightened every line of her face.
"Pepper! You bastard, what the hell did you do to her?" Tony snapped, fists clenching.
"Relax. I'm helping her evolve," Killian said, spreading his hands with feigned innocence. "She's been injected with Extremis. If her body rejects it, well... I think you know how that ends."
"Killian! I swear, I'm going to rip your head off." Tony's voice was raw with fury. First Happy, now Pepper—Killian had hit him where it hurt most.
Killian only smirked. "Ah, finally. You remember my name. That's progress, Tony. I wanted it burned into your skull. Now it will be."
Ethan, who'd been quietly watching, finally stepped forward. "I don't get it. You're just a rat who built his little empire from the shadows. Now you want a puppet on the world stage? Doesn't that seem like dancing a little too close to the spotlight?"
"I know who you are. Ethan, the meta vector manipulator. Shield's favorite freak. Guardian of the Academy," Killian sneered. "Look around, Ethan. Since your hammer-wielding alien friend showed up, since aliens rained down over New York, since metas strutted out of the shadows—the old world order has cracked. The cake's fresh out of the oven, and anyone with vision wants a slice."
"Cute speech. But you're still a roach playing warlord," Ethan shot back, eyes narrowing.
"Funny coming from you metas. You used to cower in basements too, didn't you? Now you flaunt your powers like it's the new normal." Killian cut the feed before his smirk fully faded.
Ethan only sighed, turning away. It didn't take a genius to figure out Killian's plan: orchestrate chaos, kill the President, slip in a vice president already bought and paid for, then sell Extremis to create an unstoppable power base.
But Killian underestimated how many people had their eyes on this. SHIELD, the Vice President himself, even HYDRA sniffing around the edges.
A clown like Killian was always the first to get burned.
Ethan tapped his comm. "Coulson, got a lock?"
"Port of Pensacola. He's there, and he's holding President Ellis," Coulson confirmed.
"Perfect. Fury's almost wrapped up with the VP. Time to bring the curtain down." Ethan stretched, then lifted off the ground. Air twisted sharply around his feet, vectors slicing through atmospheric pressure to launch him like a railgun.
"Hey, wait! I'm coming too," Rhodey blurted. "I can't sit on my ass when the President's kidnapped."
Tony clapped him on the shoulder. "Love you, man, but you don't even have your Iron Patriot suit right now. You won't keep up."
Rhodey pointed accusingly at Spider-Man. "Then why is he coming?"
"He's... a special case," Tony muttered, side-eyeing Peter and Ethan, who both smirked.
"Unfair. Why do I have to carry two? Can't you split the load, Ethan?"
Ethan only shrugged. "I never asked you to be the carpool. Do what you want."
"Is that a threat? You know what, screw it."
Five minutes later, Iron Man tore across the sky, Spider-Man and Rhodey clinging to his back and hollering like kids on a rollercoaster.
Tony just sighed under his breath.
"Last time I take passengers. If I wanted a damn party bus, I'd have painted flames on the side."
At night, at the port of Pensacola, the current President of the United States, President Ellis, was bound to a giant crane, still wearing the Iron Patriot armor.
Beneath him, barrels of oil and blazing torches were already set up, ready for a grim display.
President Ellis had it all: a thriving political career, a picture-perfect family, and even a first lady whose popularity often outshone his own.
He was the embodiment of the modern American dream. Yet now, he stood as proof of how quickly fortunes could turn, set to be the centerpiece of a barbaric spectacle streamed to the entire world on Christmas Eve.
Eight high-definition cameras were positioned at every ideal angle to broadcast his torment.
Killian, orchestrating the entire event, hacked into major TV networks across the country.
In an instant, the feed went global, and the world watched as President Ellis, trapped inside the Iron Patriot suit, became a helpless hostage.
But just as Killian prepared to announce the President's supposed crimes, seven of the eight cameras suddenly went dark.
"What the hell is happening?" Killian roared.
"Boss! It's Stark! Iron Man is on our tail!" a panicked operative shouted.
Killian's expression darkened. "So, Tony finally decided to show up. Good. But he won't find this easy. Keep to the plan! Deploy every Extremis soldier we have. Finish them!"
A thunderous blast cut through the night. Tony Stark, in his armor, smashed through a soldier's skull, then used a razor-sharp energy edge along his palm to cleave another soldier's head clean off.
"Come on, you walking barbeques! Is this all you got?" Tony taunted, his voice filled with adrenaline.
Ever since discovering the Extremis program, he'd felt like he was racing the clock. Now he was eager to unload.
But a couple Extremis soldiers weren't enough. Tony wanted to test himself against ten. No, twenty.
He got his wish. Dozens of Extremis-enhanced operatives poured from the cargo ships, their bodies igniting with eerie orange glow as they charged.
"Yeah... I take that back!" Tony muttered, then shot a repulsor blast into the ground and vaulted backward—straight behind Ethan.
Ethan smirked. Without missing a beat, he walked over to a small freighter docked nearby.
Placing a hand on the steel hull, he reversed the directional vectors of the gravitational force acting on the ship, reducing its effective mass to nearly zero.
With a simple upward motion of his arm, he hurled the entire ship overhead like it weighed nothing.
"Catch!" Ethan yelled, spinning on his heel and whipping the freighter toward the swarm of Extremis soldiers.
The ship slammed into the dock with a deafening crash, splintering concrete and sending a towering wave surging over the port.
"Looks like Killian put everything on the table tonight," Ethan said, eyes narrowing as nearly a hundred Extremis soldiers regrouped, already regenerating burned limbs and shattered bones.
"Annoying little pests, aren't they? Their regenerative matrices just need an intact brain stem to rebuild everything."
"Tony! Whatever you're hiding, get it ready. We still have to save Pepper," Ethan barked, glancing back.
"Yeah, yeah... actually, I miscalculated the timing. The fun's just starting." Tony's voice lost its playful edge at the mention of Pepper.
From the north, bright flames zipped through the night sky and arranged themselves into formation—newly built suits of Iron Man armor, sleek and combat-ready.
"Took long enough for the auto-combat protocols to finish installing," Tony said, shedding his blood-smeared armor and stepping into a fresh suit. "It's not my sharpest set, but I'll make do. Can't channel the micro-magnetic fields right now anyway."
Rody was already cracking his knuckles. "They look nice. Give me one."
"Sorry, buddy. All custom-fitted. Just for me."
Rhody scowled. "How am I supposed to tear through these freaks and save the President without one?"
"Maybe I can help," Spider-Man piped up, firing a web line, but Ethan grabbed his shoulder.
"Not this time, kid. Stick close, clean up the stragglers. Leave the heavy lifting to us pros."
"Pros?" Spider-Man started to protest, but his voice trailed off as a Quinjet descended above the crane.
The last operational camera swung up, perfectly framing the S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem on the aircraft.
At the height of chaos, S.H.I.E.L.D. made their dramatic entrance. Coulson and May rappelled down, cut the restraints, and hoisted President Ellis to safety.
"Mr. President, we're with S.H.I.E.L.D. We're here to get you out," Coulson said calmly.
President Ellis gaped. "S.H.I.E.L.D.? I signed the bill banning you from law enforcement on U.S. soil!"
"We're under a U.N. peacekeeping directive now. Please cooperate. We'll keep the hostages safe." Coulson was ready for this.
"Peacekeeping? In America? Who approved this? I never signed—"
"Your Vice President did." Coulson gave a slight, knowing smile. "And if you ask me, staying alive right now is a pretty sweet deal."