Tony was driving down the road late at night while on a call with Harley. "Harley, tell me what's happening. Give me a full report." He requested.
The boy was in his garage with the armor, eating a bowl of candy. "Yeah, I'm still eating that candy. Do you want me to keep eating it?" Harley told him.
"Why is he having the boy eat so much candy? That is not healthy!" Glynda said in annoyance.
"If I had to guess, he's having him stay awake to monitor the armor's progress or provide other assistance where he can." Ozpin theorized.
"There are much better ways to stay awake than that. And much healthier ones." Pyrrha added, disapproving of Tony's method of keeping Harley awake.
"How much have you had?" Tony asked.
"Two or three bowls." The boy answered.
"That's ENTIRELY too much!" Winter screeched.
"What's wrong with that? I eat that many cookies all the time." Ruby said.
"And I tell you how unhealthy that is, ALL THE TIME!" Weiss countered.
"Also, you burn off all that sugar and calories easily, probably not something Harley can easily do." Blake added.
"Can you still see straight?" The inventor asked.
"Sort of." Harley said.
"That means you're fine. Give me Jarvis." Tony instructed.
"That is NOT fine." Ironwood said.
"And that's why you shouldn't be eating that much sugar, Rubes. You too, short stuff." Yang said, snatching the parfait Neo had just summoned, which would've been the second one of the movie.
"When we get back, both of you are going on a diet." Cinder told Ruby and Neo.
"You're evil!" Both the smaller girls declared.
"Jarvis, how are we?" The billionaire asked.
"It's totally fine, sir. I seem to do quite well for a stretch and then at the end of the sentence I say the wrong cranberry." JARVIS explained, although messed up the final word.
Several students giggled at this. "I have a similar problem if I run too low on power, I also mispronounce words and act as though I were intoxicated." Penny explained.
"And nothing bad happens if your battery drains too much?" Neo asked, gaining a small smirk.
"No, I will simply need to be recharged and my speech patterns will be temporarily dysfunctional." Penny assured her.
"We've got to drain that battery sometime." Coco said quietly with a smirk.
"Coco!" Velvet whisper-yelled, having heard her girlfriend thanks to her advanced hearing, punching her in the arm.
"And, sir, you were right. Once I factored in available AIM downlink facilities I was able to pinpoint the Mandarin's broadcast signal." JARVIS informed him.
"What are we talking? Far East, Europe, North Africa, Iran, Pakistan, Syria? Where is it?" Tony questioned.
"Actually, sir, it's in Miami." The AI informed him.
"Okay, kid, I'm gonna have to walk you through rebooting Jarvis's speech drive, but not right now. Harley, where is he really? Just look on the screen and tell me where it is." The Avenger instructed.
"Um, it does say Miami, Florida." Harley confirmed.
"That's not too far, is it? Compared to all the other places Tony was guessing?" Ren asked.
"It's not that far, no. You could make the drive in about 11 hours or so, give or take." Katana said.
"You knew that one pretty fast." Nora noted.
"I live in Florida and every so often, I have to drive up to Vermont to visit family. If I hustle, I can make the trip in about 24 hours without stopping. It's not a good idea, but it can be done. And that's way further than what Tony needs." Katana said. [1]
"Okay, first things first, I need the armor. Where are we at with it?" Tony asked.
"Uh, it's not charging." The boy told him. Tony hit the brakes HARD and immediately pulled over to the side of the road, heavy breathing.
"Actually, sir, it is charging, but the power source is questionable. It may not succeed in revitalizing the Mark 42." JARVIS assured his creator.
"Oh, no. Tony can't do this without his suit!" Jaune said worriedly.
"Wow, way to have faith in your hero." Emerald told him.
"You believe he can do it, Emerald?" Blake asked.
Emerald was caught off-guard by the fact she had said that, but sighed and nodded. "I mean, yeah. Sure. He has to." She said, trying to make it seem like it was obvious and she didn't have complete faith in the hero, which of course she did. [2]
"Hey, the guy's a genius. I'm sure he can figure this out." Qrow assured them all.
"What's questionable about electricity? All right? It's my suit, and I can't... I'm not gonna... I don't wanna..." Tony asked, breathing heavily. "Oh, God, not again." He whimpered.
"Tony?" Harley asked as Tony got out of the car. "Are you having another attack? I didn't even mention New York." He said.
"Oh, right. A genius with panic attacks. I kind of forgot for a minute." Qrow admitted.
"Worse yet, Harley just mentioned New York. That certainly won't help him in the long run." Winter said.
"I really wish that Tony could get past this. It really hurts seeing him like this." Velvet said sympathetically.
"Right and then you just said it by name while denying having said it." The billionaire told him, leaning against the car and slowly sliding down.
"Okay, um, uh..." The boy struggled to come up with a way to help his hero.
Tony was panting heavily now. "God, what am I gonna do?" He asked himself in a panic.
"Just breathe. Really, just breathe. You're a mechanic, right?" Harley asked.
"What does that have to do with anything, you dolt?!" Weiss questioned.
"He might be onto something, Weiss. Give him a chance." Penny insisted.
"He did say that when he gets all stressed out and can't sleep, he went down to his lab to tinker." Jaune admitted.
"Indeed. After the Great War, I actually worked to come up with a number of activities, treatments and hobbies for struggling veterans that is actually still used for traumatized Huntsmen and Huntresses." Ozpin noted.
"Right." The inventor said.
"You said so." The boy told him.
"Yes, I did." Stark confirmed.
"Why don't you just build something?" The mini-genius suggested.
Tony seemed to instantly recover from this. "Okay. Thanks, kid." He said as he got back in the car.
Ruby gasped. "Is he gonna make another makeshift suit like in the first Iron Man?!" Ruby asked excitedly.
"I doubt it. He'd still have no way to power it." Ironwood disagreed.
"But he must be about to invent something good. I can tell, it's gonna be epic." Yang said.
"Whatever it is, at least he's focused and not panicking anymore." Pyrrha said thankfully.
Tony was then seen in a shop, buying supplies, grabbing a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters, dropping them into a cart with bag filled with fertilizer. He roamed the hallways, drinking an energy drink to keep himself awake, before he stopped at a number of Christmas bulb ornaments, which he also placed in his cart. Soon, he had a cart absolutely filled to the brim. He was briefly blocked from view as he passed an aisle, coming back into view to reveal he now had a second equally full cart, before he finally went to check out.
"Holy crap! That's a lot of stuff!" Coco cried out.
"I can't wait to see what he does with it." Neo said with stars in her eyes. Sure, she's not evil anymore, but she was still a bit of a sadist.
"But what is he gonna do with Non-Descript Winter Holiday decorations?" Nora questioned.
"I'm sure he has something up his sleeves." Glynda assured her.
In an unknown location, Tony was then seen with a number of random items he was turning into gadgets, apparently starting with a nail gun. Shortly after he finished with the gun, the inventor began affixing wires, metal rings and some kind of battery device to a gardener's glove. Then, he pressed the button on some kind of device with wires, a battery pack and two metal prongs, which gave off a small light and high-pitch whining sound. After this, he tested out the nail gun, tried on the glove and placed some kind of syringes with red liquid into them into water bottles.
"From what I am currently able to deduce, the glove and the device with two prongs are both likely electrical devices meant to stun foes, similar to a taser." Penny pointed out.
"Awesome! Shock glove!" Ruby said excitedly.
"Tony really is amazing!" Velvet said, taking a couple pictures here and there.
"But we didn't see what he did with the decoration bulbs!" Jaune complained.
"I'm most interested in what those syringes in the water are for." Blake said, intrigued.
"We're going to see in a few minutes. If I were you, I'd stop guessing so you don't ruin the anticipation." Cinder told them.
Tony's car was then seen speeding through Miami, Florida. A very large, impressive mansion with a wall around most of it was then shown. Tony watched from a tree using binoculars and his swatch to time the patrols of the guards, particularly the one with the guard dog. He then ran in and climbed the wall, slowly sneaking through the courtyard and up a set of stairs.
"Scoping out the perimeter. Nice job." Qrow said, quite familiar with infiltration tactics from his time in the tribe and working for Ozpin.
"And timing the guards' patrols. Tony certainly knows what he's doing." Winter said. She'd coordinated several missions against White Fang bases and although her troops did watch for patrols to pass, they didn't take the time to time said patrols and were caught when the guards returned.
"Blake, Cinder, I think you guys got some competition, because Tony's being an epic ninja/spy right now." Yang told them, causing them both to pout.
He peered around the rounded staircase to see a guard at the top of the stairs above him with his back turned. Tony then pulled out some form of small, weighted object on a cord, spinning it and wrapping it around the man's leg to yank him down the stairs so he hit his face on the top step, knocking him out. Tony then pulled out the nail gun and fired a form of homemade sleep dart at another guard close by. The guard held his neck in pain, but wasn't down yet and he reached for his gun, so Tony hurried over, grabbed the arm reaching for the gun and delivered a knee to the thug's groin, causing him to collapse. Another thug came at Tony and grabbed him, but Tony revered it and electrocuted the man with the pronged device as an improvised taser.
"Amazing." Weiss said in awe. She never thought Tony would be able to get nearly this far without his suit, but not only was he surviving, he was winning!
"Sensational! Truly, Tony is Iron Man even without the suit!" Penny cheered.
"Okay, I'll admit it, I'm impressed." Emerald admitted.
"Thank goodness those were only tranquilizer darts." Velvet said in relief.
Two more thugs were standing guard near a fountain, before one of those ornament balls was tossed toward them. One of them picked it up and inspected it, only for it to figuratively and literally blow up in his face. The other one turned and pulled out his gun, but Tony was quicker on the draw with his dart gun and shot the man four times, causing him to fall back into the fountain, which Tony tossed another ornament grenade into, knocking the man out.
The military crew was shocked at this. "He made grenades of of simple glass ornaments?!" Ironwood said in disbelief.
"How could that be possible!? What did he use to make them explode?!" Winter questioned.
"That's gotta hurt! Shards of broken glass right in your face!" Nora laughed evilly.
"And dang, that was brutal, Tony. You already got the guy who fell in the fountain, but you still got him with a grenade." Yang said.
"I like it." Neo said with a smirk.
Now out of ammo, he tossed the dart gun and made his way into the house. He found a woman lying on a table, but no one else, certainly on his target. In the next room, a different woman lying on a sofa with a man sitting at a desk. "Why is it so hot in here? I told you to put it at 68." the woman complained.
The man watching over her scoffed. "My fault again. Let me tell you something, sweetheart. I am not your personal air con..." The man taunted her, before Tony put his gloved hand on his head, electrocuting him. He got the gun off the table, looking at the woman on the couch as she jokingly made a finger gun at him, which he shrugged off and left the room.
"Oh, yeah! Shock glove in action!" Ruby cheered.
"And now he's got a REAL gun. Ho-ho-ho." Cinder said with a smirk.
"You watch Try Hard?" Blake asked.
"It's a great movie. Probably my favorite Non-Descript Winter Holiday movie." She confirmed.
"He's done very well to get this far. Let's see how he handles it against the Mandarin himself." Ozpin wondered.
He made his way to the bedroom and pulled the duvet off the bed, revealing two girls. Tony shushed them and the toilet flushed. "Well, I wouldn't go in there for 20 minutes." The Mandarin laughed, but had a British accent, a far cry to what he sounded like earlier.
Everyone's was stunned at this, in utter disbelief of what they just heard. "D-did they just use toilet humor... for the leader of the terrorists?" Winter asked.
"N-no. Surely we must have heard wrong. Or it was a simple slip-up." Glynda denied.
"It better be." Coco said darkly.
"Now, which one of you is Vanessa?" The terrorist asked, moving to a tray full of fortune cookies.
"That's me." One of the girls said, raising her hand.
"Ah! Nessie. Did you know that fortune cookies aren't even Chinese?" He asked, tossing them each a cookie.
"Yeah, you said that already." Yang said, getting annoyed quickly.
"So, he's immature and senile. Getting REALLY disappointing, REALLY fast." Neo said, equally angry.
"And don't forget a womanizer." Pyrrha said, facepalming.
"There's some guy over here." Vanessa told him.
"They're made by Americans, based on a Japanese recipe." The terrorist repeated the information he once shared over TV.
"Why!? He was so dark and intimidating at first! Now he's a joke! You completely ruined him!" Blake cried out. [3]
"He shot a man in the head! On screen! You almost can't ruin someone after that! But they succeeded!" Weiss shrieked furiously.
"And WHAT is the deal with the fortune cookies? They were good, but not worth obsessing over!" Qrow snapped.
"That reminds me, a friend of mine actually came up with some fortunes for you guys." Katana said, having fortune cookies appear in everyone's hand once again. [4]
"Mine has two." Ironwood said.
"One is for Clover, even though he's not here." Katana explained. They nodded at this and read the fortunes.
Cinder: Power is not measured by strength, but by the will to move forward.
Emerald: The only thing of universal worth in this world is time and love.
Jaune: To grasp ones goal, they must touch tomorrow.
Blake: To retreat is the same to advance to future victories.
Ren: The pain of life is what makes us grow and appreciate the hope the day brings.
Pyrrha: Fate is final, but destiny is ever changing, oneself chooses how they live.
Nora: To discover one's self, they must look from within.
Ironwood: A leader's hold on ones comrades is only as strong as their bonds.
Glynda: One is never fully dressed without a smile.
Qrow: A life of solitude is no life at all.
Ozpin: The best solutions are often the most simple and the right answers are found in the right questions.
Ruby: The grandmother shall rise from the belly of the beast as the wolf sinks to the abyss.
Yang: Passion is the ultimate form of freedom and will burn as hot as one's will to move on.
Weiss: Even in the cold, one can find a warm heart.
Neo: Mistakes are the dirt we grow from and our path to redemption.
Winter: To protect others is to sustain ones will and to carry a grudge is to drain one's self.
Clover: Your lucky numbers are all of them.
Velvet: Do not rush in, slow and steady wins the race.
Coco: The shy and timid are often the most hyper in disguise.
Everyone took a moment to think about the fortune from their cookies, but in the end, they couldn't argue with the wisdom and smiled at the messages. "I think they were great." Cinder admits, holding Ruby happily.
"Definitely. Too bad this villain is TERRIBLE!" Nora screamed.
"Hey!" Tony called, pointing his gun at the terrorist, to which The Mandarin raised his hands.
"Bloody hell. Bloody hell." The Mandarin said in shock.
"Don't move." Tony warned.
"I'm not moving. You want something? Take it. Although the guns are all fake because those wankers wouldn't trust me with the real ones." The supposed Mandarin informed Stark.
"Are you kidding!? They didn't even let him have guns?!" Jaune shouted.
"Th-then what about Tom!?" Nora cried out.
"It must have been staged." Ren said, angry both because they faked the outright execution of a man and because the villain who'd been spin-chilling for so long throughout the movie, who they wanted to see fight Tony in a climactic battle, turned out to be an absolute joke.
"He was doing so good! He was scary! He was evil! But this makes Saturday morning cartoon villains less of a joke! And that's saying something!" Velvet said, disappointedly.
"I'd even say the guy makes Ross seem competent." Qrow said, disgusted he even said that, but he couldn't deny compared to this goofball, the general obsessed with weaponizing the Hulk earned a gold star.
"What?" The billionaire questioned incredulously.
"Hey, do you fancy either of the birds?" The Mandarin look-alike questioned.
"Heard enough. You're not him. The Mandarin, the real guy. Where? Where's the Mandarin? Where is he?" Tony demanded.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. He's here. He's here, but he's not here. He's here, but he's not here." The man tried to explain, but was doing a very, very, VERY poor job of it.
"That doesn't make any sense! Speak coherently or get shot!" Ironwood shouted.
"I truly wish I could argue with you, James, but sadly, I can only find myself agreeing with you." Ozpin admitted.
"Perhaps there's a chance that he's a body double?" Penny asked.
"Yes! That has to be it!" Cinder declared, pointing at Penny.
"What do you mean?" The Avenger asked.
"It's complicated. Hey, it's complicated." The 'terrorist' stammered.
"It is?" Tony questioned.
"It's complicated." The Mandarin insisted.
"Uncomplicate it. Ladies, out. Get out of the bed. Get into the bathroom." Tony ordered, the two girls complying and going into the bathroom, instantly regretting it and making sounds of disgust.
"Gross!" Neo gagged.
"I actually feel bad for those girls." Winter admitted.
"You would think that a high-class mansion like this would have a fan to suck out nasty bathroom odors. Or if not, at least some spray or a match, dude." Emerald said, shuddering at the thought of going into a bathroom after Mercury. The assassin's son really enjoyed his spicy foods.
"Sit." Tony ordered as the girls closed the door. The Mandarin made a slight movement, resulting in Tony firing off a warning gunshot, to which the women exclaimed in fear.
"My name is Trevor. Trevor Slattery." The supposed Mandarin introduced himself.
"What are you? What are you, a decoy? You're a double, right?" Tony questioned, unable to process how different this version of The Mandarin in front of him appeared to be.
"What, you mean like an understudy? No, absolutely not." Trevor said indignantly, but Tony pointed the gun at his face. "Don't hurt the face! I'm an actor." He pleaded.
Everyone's jaw dropped at this. "So everything WAS totally fake! I can't believe it!" Coco shouted furiously.
"We saw they had what looked like a movie set, but I thought that was just for making his videos when he sat there in that chair!" Weiss snapped.
"Please stop making him so disappointing!" Blake groaned/pleaded.
"Make this scene be over!" Jaune yelled.
"You got a minute to live. Fill it with words." The Armored Avenger threatened darkly.
"It's just a role. 'The Mandarin', see, it's not real." Trevor explained.
"Then how did you get here, Trevor?" Tony asked.
"Um. Well, I, um, had a little problem with, um, substances. And I ended up, um, doing things, no two ways about it, in the street, that a man shouldn't do." The actor admitted.
Emerald shuddered once again. "I really don't want to think about how close I came to that sometimes. But at least for me, I only stole to get myself food and shelter." She said.
"It's a shame, but drugs make people do terrible, irrational things." Glynda said sadly.
Katana smirked and the screen switched to a man with slightly lighter skin than Emerald's with dreadlocks, sitting in a very fancy chair. "Cocaine's a hell of a drug." He said, laughing a bit.
"I've even seen some Huntsmen and Huntresses lose it over 'the good stuff'." Qrow said with air quotes.
"Next?" Stark questioned.
"Then, they approached me about the role and they knew about the drugs." Trevor told him.
"What did they say? They'd get you off them?" The billionaire asked.
"They said they'd give me more. They gave me things. They gave me this palace. They gave me plastic surgery. They gave me things." The "terrorist" told the hero just about everything, before his head fell back and he began snoring.
Everyone's jaws now hit the floor. "H-he just fell asleep..." Ren began.
"With a man pointing a gun at him!" Pyrrha cried out.
"This is so stupid! STOP BEING SO STUPID!" Ruby screamed.
"Still, that's terrible they gave him more instead of helping get him off the drugs." Penny said disapprovingly.
"He was addicted, Penny. He didn't want to get better, he wanted more." Blake explained to her, regretfully familiar with the situation, also having seen fellow Faunus abusing drugs do to the abuse they got from humans.
"Did you just nod off? Hey." Tony tried to rouse the man, snapping his fingers, before kicking him.
Trevor woke up at this, eager to talk about a few other perks. "No and a lovely speedboat. And the thing was, he needed someone to take credit for some accidental explosions." He explained, mimicking an explosion.
"Yeah, that YOU'RE on the hook for now! Not Killian, you idiot!" Neo snapped.
"Honestly. We knew we'd be destroying Vale in Salem's plan, but she also had a plan to get us out and we all thought we'd be ruling the world alongside her. This idiot just took responsibility for bombings because he wanted drugs!" Cinder said, barely able to process the stupidity she was hearing.
"Worst. Movie. EVER!" Nora yelled.
"'He'? Killian?" Tony questioned.
"Killian." Trevor confirmed.
"He created you?" The billionaire asked.
"He created me." The actor admitted.
"Custom-made terror threat." Tony realized.
"Yes. Yes. His think tank thinked it up. The pathology of a serial killer. The manipulation of Western iconography. Ready for another lesson? Blah, blah, blah. No. Of course, it was my performance that brought the Mandarin to life." Trevor boasted.
"Yes, your performance that killed people!" Winter snapped.
"Remember, Winter: he said they didn't trust him with guns. No one actually died during his performance. But his performance came from the death of countless people, which is still atrocious." Ozpin said, glaring at the man.
"And Happy got hurt by one of their guys." Velvet reminded them, reigniting their anger towards the actor and Killian.
"Your performance? Where people died?" Tony demanded.
"No, they didn't. Look around you. The costumes, green screen. Honestly, I wasn't on location for half this stuff. And when I was, it was movie magic, love." Trevor explained.
"Oh... Right..." Winter said, face-palming at the fact she forgot this.
"Still, it certainly doesn't excuse his actions or the fact he's shifting the blame away from Killian." Glynda pointed out.
"Right. The Mandarin's a joke, but Killian does need to be stopped." Blake agreed.
"I'm sorry, but I got a best friend who's in a coma and he might not wake up. So you're gonna have to answer for that. You're still going down, pal. You under..." Tony began, but Savin hit him around the head, knocking him unconscious.
"Okay, Trevor, what did you tell him?" Savin demanded.
"Oh, crap! We totally forgot about him." Ruby said.
"Of all the things Tony planned for, he didn't have a plan for someone coming in behind him." Penny said sadly.
"This is why it would have been better for him to be on the other side where he could still see the door." Coco said, knowing how to cover a room and keep an eye on the points of entry thanks to her extra year at Beacon above teams RWBY and JNPR.
"I didn't tell him anything." Trevor assured him.
"Nothing?" Savin pressured him a bit.
"No." Trevor insisted.
"You should have pressed the panic button." Savin told him.
"Well, I panicked, but then I handled it." Trevor explained.
They couldn't help but laugh at this. "Okay, I gotta admit: that was funny." Yang said.
"The only good thing about this guy now." Qrow agreed.
"They ruined such a good, imposing villain! He was almost topping Loki!" Weiss cried, hugging Penny.
"So, thoughts?" Katana asked.
"That was so cool up to The Mandarin, but that was SO disappointing." Ruby complained.
"I can't believe we thought he was as clever as Salem." Cinder groaned in disappointment.
"Please tell me that's the last time we ever see him." Yang said.
"Sadly, no. He shows up one or two more times." Katana told them.
"Still, Tony's proven to be quite the challenge, even outside of his armor." Ozpin praised.
"Most definitely. I quite enjoyed his infiltration of The Mandarin's base." Penny agreed.
"Luckily next time we'll be back to the REAL villain soon enough." Emerald said.
"I hope they don't do anything to Tony, Pepper or Rhodey." Velvet said worriedly.
"Oh, yeah. All three of our big names are in danger. This is gonna be interesting." Neo said eagerly.
"Yeah. Let's keep watching. I GOTTA see what happens next!" Jaune pleaded, so Katana continued the movie.
A/N: Thank you all for reading, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! So, as you probably noticed, I decided to take out the talking before the viewing. It seems kind of redundant after the final words from the previous chapter and I'm sure the characters would rather just keep going rather than stop and talk more.
[1] Yes, I have done this multiple times before. I hate doing it, but it's for family, so I tolerate it.
[2] Oh, Emerald! You're so Tsundere!
[3] I only realized the irony of having Blake say this halfway through writing the line. I was wondering who should say the line, then I realized it fit Adam perfectly, so I had Blake say it.
[4] Thank you, Chronosign! Sorry I couldn't come up with profound reactions, or reactions at all to each of them, but while I see how they fit with the characters, I wasn't exactly sure what every character could/would take away from them.