Chapter 306: Reed Stands at Attention
Inside Baxter Building, Tony Stark's palm repulsors fired continuously, killing more and more dinosaurs pouring through the full-wave projector's vortex.
Beside him stood armor in silver with blue accents—Rescue One, just deployed from Stark's satellite. Originally built for Peter Parker.
Except right now, the person inside wasn't Peter Parker. It was Reed Richards—the man whose tinkering with the full-wave projector had escalated what should have been a contained dinosaur incursion into a full-scale invasion.
Reed wasn't piloting Rescue One. His feet stood together. His arms pressed rigidly against his sides. He stood there like an oversized action figure.
Tony Stark was furious. He knew he shouldn't have trusted Reed. Shouldn't have given him the opportunity to study the projector while it was active.
He also knew he bore responsibility. If Batman didn't make it back safely from that primitive world, Tony would charge through himself—no matter what.
But right now, Tony planned to lock Reed up for a while first.
Rescue One currently functioned as Reed's prison.
"Tony! Let me out!" Reed shouted inside the armor. But the suit's shock absorption and soundproofing reduced his voice to barely a whisper.
"The whiskey I've been drinking must be fake." Fury edged Tony's voice. "Otherwise why would I be stupid enough to let you study that projector?"
Reed fell silent for several seconds, apparently thinking.
"Because I don't know if it'll be able to open vortexes to other worlds again?"
"I'm not asking you to repeat that reason! I'm asking myself!"
Tony blasted a palm repulsor at a dinosaur that had never existed in Earth's prehistory—something with a broken neck and trunk-like nose, as if a mammoth and dinosaur had produced offspring. He shouted at Reed with barely contained rage.
"Oh. Then you might have actually drunk fake whiskey. I can ask Johnny or Ben for some bottles from their collections—"
Before Reed finished speaking, Tony rapped his knuckles against Rescue One's helmet.
"What you need most right now is to shut up!"
Tony's words had barely left his mouth when both heard massive glass shattering from below.
CRASH!
Then came the heavy THUD of something hitting the ground, followed by Hulk's roar.
"RAAARGH!"
Hulk had been fighting carnivorous dinosaurs on the lower level, restraining his strength to avoid causing more structural damage to the building.
Having finally killed all the first-wave large predators, Hulk smashed through the windows and leaped out, intending to return to North Brother Island.
The moment he landed, Hulk found himself surrounded by three Carnotaurus.
He glanced around. At some point, dinosaurs had appeared throughout the city streets, rampaging freely. Primitive people covered in thick hair ran about shooting arrows and throwing spears randomly.
When Hulk spotted two Baryonyx chasing an isolated teenager hundreds of meters away, he couldn't suppress his roar.
He stopped restraining his strength. One kick punched a foot-shaped hole clean through a Carnotaurus's abdomen.
Then he grabbed another Carnotaurus by the tail and hurled it over three hundred feet. It crashed heavily into the two Baryonyx in the distance.
SPLAT!
Dinosaur bodies collided with tremendous force. Blood and chunks of flesh sprayed everywhere, terrifying the already frightened teenager into screaming again.
The last Carnotaurus apparently sensed fear and turned to flee.
Before it managed a few steps, Hulk caught up with massive strides, grabbed the creature's spine, clamped down with fingers like hydraulic presses, and yanked.
The Carnotaurus's spine ripped clean out. Its body collapsed lifeless to the ground.
"HULK!" The green giant roared again, stomping the solid pavement and creating an enormous crater. His body launched high into the air, searching for more dinosaurs.
FWOOSH!
A golden electrical flash streaked past. Electro Max Dillon had already burst from Baxter Building, using his speed to race through the streets—rescuing people and killing dinosaurs.
Hearing the massive commotion from Hulk's location, Max immediately flew over. Seeing Hulk's clearly modern purple shorts, he understood this wasn't a primitive.
No time for deeper thought. Electro transformed back into golden lightning, seeking other humans requiring emergency assistance.
BOOM—
Four hundred meters from Baxter Building, the sound erupted. Electro appeared instantly.
A yellow-green vortex hung over sixty feet above ground. Below, two dinosaurs—one large, one small—fought viciously.
Obviously the thunderous noise came from both crashing to earth together.
CRACK. CRACK.
As the two dinosaurs battled, trees thick enough to require two adults linking arms splintered like toothpicks. The sharp broken stumps jutting from the ground couldn't even pierce either creature's hide.
Max was about to give both a massive electrical shock when helicopter rotors overhead made him change plans.
Thanks to Tony Stark's two anti-armor missiles and full-power chest beam, armed NYPD helicopters already surrounded Baxter Building.
Even on the horizon, multiple black dots approached rapidly—reinforcements from other government departments concerned about Reed Richards's safety.
Max didn't want these forces knowing about his existence. He turned and vanished in a flash of electrical light.
Compared to dinosaurs that would easily become targets for armed forces, Max focused more on rescuing ordinary humans being chased by primitives and dinosaurs.
"Open fire! Fire!"
From the armed helicopter, following frantic orders through noise-canceling headphones, the gunner aimed at the two battling dinosaurs below and squeezed the trigger without hesitation.
BRRRRT!
Bullets poured downward in a torrent.
The large and small dinosaurs were the giant horned T-Rex and Lizard Professor, who'd fought from the primitive world straight into the modern city.
Hulk at least had shorts. The Lizard Professor had nothing. Aside from Batman and the North Brother Island scientists, practically nobody could identify that sixteen-foot creature as the Lizard Professor.
—And even if they knew, the New York government would kill him anyway.
One, two, three helicopters...
Three helicopter gunners fired at hundreds of rounds per second, bullets striking both the Lizard Professor and the giant horned T-Rex.
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