A golden red streak, moving at Mach 3, shattered the sound barrier directly over the Potomac River. The sheer pressure wave blew out the windows of every car on the bridge and sent a tidal wave of river water crashing against the banks. Inside the Mark VIII, Tony Stark was a symphony of rage and calculation. His Cognitive Multitasking was synchronized perfectly with the suit's HUD, processing billions of variables, while his Technopathy reached out like invisible tentacles, seizing the Triskelion's automated defenses before they could even pivot their barrels.
"Sir, the building's automated SAM sites are attempting to lock on," JARVIS's voice was calm, a stark contrast to the violence in Tony's heart.
"Override them, JARVIS. Give them to me," Tony growled, his eyes glowing with the blue light of the interface.
With a single thought, Tony's Technopathy slaved the guidance systems to his own intent. As he descended like a meteor, the Triskelion's own anti air batteries jerked unnaturally, turning inward. Their muzzles pointed at the very windows of the S.H.I.E.L.D. high command.
BOOM
Tony landed in the center of the main plaza, the impact cracking the reinforced concrete for fifty yards in every direction. The dust rose in a choking cloud, instantly blown away by the hum of his repulsors.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Strike teams… a chaotic mix of Hydra sleepers and confused loyalists… poured into the lobby, weapons raised, shouting over the alarms. "Drop the suit! Stand down! Identification!"
Tony's Eye Boy swept the room. In less than a microsecond, the HUD cross referenced every face against the global Hydra list Aryan had just purged into the atmosphere.
Crimson icons blinked over twelve of the twenty soldiers.
"Hydra," Tony whispered, the word tasting like ash.
The soldiers opened fire. Hundreds of high velocity rounds filled the air, a wall of lead designed to shred armor.
To Tony, Bullet Time engaged. The world turned to molasses. The roar of the guns dropped to a low drone. He watched the bullets spin through the air, vibrating with kinetic energy, leaving heat trails that only he could see.
Using his Magnetism, he exerted a localized field. The bullets stopped exactly one millimeter from the gold titanium alloy of his chest plate, suspended in a metallic cloud around him.
Tony stepped forward. The loyalist agents watched in paralyzed horror as the Iron Man walked through a frozen storm of ammunition.
With a flick of his wrist, Tony reversed the magnetic polarity.
The suspended bullets ignited backward with twice their original muzzle velocity.
Twelve men were shredded by their own ammunition before they could blink. The eight "loyal" agents stood frozen, their weapons clicking on empty chambers, staring at the armored specter who had just performed a miracle of mass murder without touching a trigger.
Tony ignored them. He walked toward the elevators, the heavy metal doors ripping off their tracks and crumpling into scrap metal before he even touched them.
He moved through the building like a ghost in the machine. Every floor he reached, the story was the same. Security doors stayed locked for the innocent, they exploded inward for the traitors. He used the building's own structural steel to impale those identified as Hydra, his Magnetism turning the very architecture of S.H.I.E.L.D. into a slaughterhouse.
Tony's descent through the Triskelion was a rhythmic harvesting. He walked, his boots clanging against the marble with the inevitable beat of a funeral drum.
As he moved through the R&D wing, his Technopathy seized the building's nervous system completely. He felt every electronic pulse in the walls. Automated security shutters slammed shut with a thunderous bang, sealing the "clean" agents in their offices for their own safety. But for those marked with the crimson Hydra icon in his HUD, the environment itself turned predatory.
A group of six Hydra tactical operatives tried to flank him from a glass walled catwalk above. His magnetism reached into the very skeleton of the catwalk. The heavy steel bolts securing the structure unthreaded themselves in a blur of motion. The catwalk whipped upward like a metallic tongue, folding the six men into a jagged cage of rebar and mesh. Tony clenched his fist and the magnetic field tightened, crushing the steel into a silent ball of scrap and bone that he discarded over the railing without a second glance.
On the fourth floor, the ceiling tiles exploded as he walked. He was simply yanking the copper wiring and steel conduits from the plenum space. With his Cognitive Multitasking, he was managing dozens of individual magnetic tethers simultaneously.
Two Hydra assassins stepped out of a concealed weapons locker, rifles leveled. Before they could pull their triggers, the steel door frames behind them shrieked. The heavy metal frames twisted and elongated, turning into razor sharp spears of architectural steel. They lunged forward with the speed of a striking cobra, impaling the men against the very walls they were supposed to protect.
Tony walked past the twitching bodies, his Eye Boy vision already tracking the heat signatures through the next three layers of reinforced concrete. He could see their fear, the way their hearts hammered against their ribs and the adrenaline flooding their systems. In Bullet Time, he watched their sweat droplets hang in the air, reflecting the red emergency lights.
In the main corridor leading to the Director's office, the "loyal" agents watched in horror through the reinforced glass of the side rooms. Tony moved through a hail of gunfire from a Hydra heavy weapons team stationed at the far end. He used his Magnetism to catch every bullet, forming a metallic halo around his helmet.
"My father built this place to be a sanctuary," Tony's voice boomed over the intercoms, distorted and terrifying. "You turned it into a nest."
He gestured outward with both hands. The floor's steel support beams groaned and tore through the carpeting. They rose up like the ribs of a giant beast, snapping shut on the heavy weapons team. One man tried to run. Tony manipulated the iron in the floor's reinforced concrete, causing the ground to ripple and rise like a wave, literalizing the metaphor of the earth swallowing the wicked. The concrete hardened instantly, anchoring the traitor's legs into the foundation of the building.
———
Far away, in the silent office of Umbrella HQ, Aryan watched the carnage unfold on a holographic display.
"He's quite thorough," the Red Queen mused, her holographic form sitting on his shoulder, swinging her legs. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is functionally non-existent as of three minutes ago. The global markets are in a tailspin and the people are hunting Hydra agents in the streets of Paris and London."
Aryan sipped his drink, his Omega Level Telepathy bringing him the taste of the world's fear… and their desperate hope.
"The old gods have fallen, Queen," he murmured, watching Tony Stark tear the heavy blast doors off the Director's office with a wave of his hand. "Tony gave them the fire. Now, we give them the order."
"And Sharon?" she asked.
"She's on her way," Aryan said, feeling her familiar psychic signature approaching the building, radiating a mix of grief and resolve. "She knows now that the Shield was a lie."