"Everybody down!" the lead robber shouted. He let off a warning shot from his AK-47 to show he was serious.
Tony Stark, who happened to be at the bank that day, did not go down like everybody else. Instead, he ran for the bathroom. The lead robber fired off a few shots at Tony, but they deflected off his backpack.
Tony entered the bathroom and ran to the farthest stall. As soon as he was in he opened up his backpack and took out the helmet of the Iron Man armor. He slipped it on, and thanks to his tech-interface suit he wore underneath his clothes, he activated the helmet with a thought.
The HUD blinked to life as Tony assembled the armor over him. First the gauntlets, then the chest plate…
The man with the AK-47 burst into the bathroom kicking in each stall and firing bullets into it. He hadn't reached Tony's stall yet, but he would very soon. He continued his pattern, stopping once to reload. He was now two stalls away and Tony still wasn't fully armored up yet.
Tony clicked the last piece of the thigh armor on and the armor did the rest, sealing and locking into place. The man kicked in Tony's stall, only to find a red and silver armored super hero waiting for him. He froze, and nearly dropped the Ak-47 he was holding.
Iron Man looked at the weapon, then back up at the man. "Are you sure?"
The man shook his head. Iron Man reached out and bent the barrel of the gun backwards until it pointed at the man holding it.
"Good choice," Iron Man congratulated, and then punched the man in the chest. Iron Man walked out of the bathroom and back into the bank, where the three other armed men were busy cleaning out the bank vaults.
"Hey guys," Iron Man greeted. "Shoot me."
All three men spun around and squeezed their triggers without even bothering to look at who they were shooting. The bullets pinged harmlessly off of Iron Man's armor, and he yawned. Finally, all three men ran out of ammo and were forced to reload. Iron Man calmly walked up to the nearest robber, took his gun from his hands, and crumpled it into a little ball. The law breaker trembled in front of the hero, and meekly caught the ball that had once been his gun.
"Hold that for will ya?" Iron Man asked, and then turned his sights on the other two men.
The hero picked up the thug who was still trembling and hurled him at his comrades, and they all fell to the floor in a heap. Underneath his helmet, Iron Man smiled.
"Alright citizens you're free to…" the hero stopped because he realized all the bank patrons had fled while he had distracted the men.
"No gratitude these days," the Iron Avenger mumbled as he lifted up all three men involved in the heist with ease. "Alright guys, let's go pick up your boss…"
"This American hero this…Iron Man," Ivan Vanko muttered. "What do we know about him?"
"Nothing, other than he flies, he's strong, and he apparently does not shoot laser beams out of his eyeballs," his comrade informed him.
"That armor…" the scientist said hungrily. "I want that armor. It must be studied, and if possible, reproduced. Imagine what Russia could do with an army of iron soldiers."
"True," his comrade agreed. "But I don't think he's going to let us burrow his armor."
The scientist turned to his dim witted comrade. "Really? What if we asked nicely?"
"Nope. I don't think he'd give it to any–"
Ivan backhanded the dim wit, shutting him up. "Of course he's not going to give us that armor you idiot! We are going to have to take it."
"How?"
"Is the Dynamo ready for testing?"
"Oh, I like how you think!"
"Why are we here?" Rhodey asked has he sat down on an old car that hadn't run in years.
Iron Man looked at his "sidekick". "I told you, I still have next to no idea what this armor is capable of. So we're out here to test it."
"And we came to the junkyard…why?" Rhodey asked.
"So no one gets hurt when I go on a destructive rampage," the hero answered simply.
"Oh," Rhodey muttered. "Yeah that makes sense."
"I know right?" Iron Man agreed. "Now let's see how strong this thing is…"
Iron Man walked over to a wrecked car and lifted it over his head as it were made of Styrofoam. He tossed it off to the side, and went about piling other heavy hunks of metal on top of it. Once he was sure they were all piled securely together, he lifted it over his head and held it with ease.
"Is that heavy to you?" Rhodey asked. "Like at all?"
"Um, I can feel its weight, but honestly no this isn't taking much effort," Iron Man explained. He set the pile of cars and metal aside.
Iron Man studied his armor's HUD in full. He searched through for anything interesting. He found it. One of the many messages displayed on his HUD showed what on the armor was online and what was off.
Armor primary sensors: Online
Motion amplifiers: Online
Armor AI: Offline
Repulsor safety lock: Online
Shields: Offline
Flight thrusters: Online
Armor secondary sensors: Offline
Unibeam: Offline
Extremis tracking unit: Offline
Auto-Assemble: Offline
"Hmm…safety lock huh? Let's turn that off…" the hero mused.
Repulsor safety lock: Offline
Iron Man looked at his palms as armor plating slid back to reveal a glowing disc in the center of each palm. As a test, he pointed his hand at one of the nearby cars and fired. The repulsor blast shot out, blasting the car to bits.
"Oh yeah! That's what I'm talking about!" Iron Man shouted. "Rhodey did you see that?"
Rhodey was cowering behind the beat up car he'd been sitting on earlier. He gave Iron Man a weak thumbs up. Iron Man readied his repulsors and fired again, but with more control this time. The blast wasn't nearly as big, and it merely knocked its target car on its side.
As the hero continued to practice, he soon got the hang off the repulsors. All that left to test was his boot jets.
"Stand back Rhodey," Iron Man warned. "I'm taking this thing to full throttle as fast as possible."
Rhodey stood off at what he figured would be a safe distance. Iron Man steadied himself for take off, looked to the sky, and shot up far faster than any rocket. A massive sonic boom shook the earth as he took off, nearly blowing out Rhodey's eardrums. Iron Man checked the speedometer in his HUD. He was going Mach 8 straight up. Not used to the speed, Iron Man killed power to his boot jets.
Immediately Iron Man dropped like a rock back to Earth. He fell fast, and the armor started to heat up. Iron Man was sweating inside his armor as flames licked the helmet and the rest of the armor. He struggled to move, but in his haste to turn off the boot jets, he'd turned off the entire armor. Without the armor to enhance his strength, Iron Man couldn't move his arms against the g-force. Iron Man clenched his jaw and awaited the impact. He crashed into the ground back at the junkyard, leaving a large crater. Cautiously, Rhodey approached the crater, peering down at his best friend.
"Tony!" Rhodey shouted when he saw his smoking friend.
Inside the armor, a dazed Iron Man watched as his HUD slowly winked back to life. He flashed Rhodey a weak thumbs up.
"That…was…AWESOME!" Iron Man shouted.
At the end of the day, Tony let the armor disconnect and collapse as he stowed it back in his backpack.
"Well sidekick, today we learned I'm the strongest man alive, the thrusters are very, very fast, and the armor possesses some wicked awesome weapons," Tony joked.
"I told you, I'm not your sidekick," Rhodey grumbled.
"You know your right," Tony said. He paused for effect before continuing his joke. "You're more of a butler type anyway. Alfred, go get me some cheese."
"What the? Why cheese?" Rhodey asked.
Tony just shrugged. "Because I feel like making my butler get me some cheese is that so wrong?"
"It is if I'm not your butler!" Rhodey hissed.
"Well then it's a good thing you are," Tony teased. Rhodey groaned.
The two walked home, arguing and joking like always, and once again failed to look up and notice the huge object hurtling over their heads. But this time instead of crashing in the park, the huge object crashed in the middle of Times Square. They didn't notice, but they would soon.
As they went their separate ways and Tony entered his family's apartment, his mother quickly called him to the living room.
"What is it Mom?" Tony asked.
"Look what's happening in Times Square!" she shouted and pointed at the TV.
"We're here live in Times Square as a thirty-foot tall metal menace calling itself the Crimson Dynamo is terrorizing Manhattan!" the reporter yelled. "Police attempts to bring down the metal monster has failed so far but– OH GOD! LOOK OUT!"
A huge robot with a glowing star on its chest came into view. It saw the cameras and its large hand groped forward, and then the picture went static.
"Oh god," Tony whispered. "Mom I have to go, I uh…promised I'd help Rhodey study!"
"Be home by eleven!" his mother called as he took off.
Tony raced to the alley behind his home and donned the armor as fast as possible. As soon as it was on, he fired up his boot jets and flew off into the late afternoon sky. Iron Man soon caught sight of the destruction at Times Square. There wasn't a single building that hadn't been smashed up by the Crimson Dynamo, and it didn't even look like it was done smashing.
The Crimson Dynamo didn't look very well put together, and his armor plating looked like a patchwork of various sheet metals found at the junkyard. Not to mention he was painted with at least forty different shades of red patched across his body. The only thing that looked remotely impressive was the brilliant blue star on his chest. Oh, and the whole thirty-foot tall thing.
"Hey ugly? Is that a star n your chest or are you just happy to see me?" Iron Man joked as he slammed into the robot at the speed of sound.
The Crimson Dynamo only staggered back before swatting Iron Man out of the sky like a fly.
"AHH!" Iron Man screamed as he fell. "Curse you Newton!"
He smacked into the pavement hard enough to leave an Iron Man shaped imprint in the pavement. Slowly, the hero stood up.
"So…" Crimson Dynamo slowly spoke. "You are the famous Iron Man?"
"What if I am?" Iron Man lashed out.
The Crimson Dynamo slammed its hand down and would've crushed Iron Man if he hadn't dodged with superhuman speed.
"Okay. You wanna play rough? Fine by me!"
Iron Man shoved his hands into the pavement and tore out a chunk of the street. He lifted the rock over his head and hurled it at the Dynamo. The rock hit full force, but the Dynamo barely staggered at the impact. Iron Man soared up into the sky to meet his opponent face to face. He smacked the Dynamo across the face, followed by a left jab, right hook, right elbow, left knee and finishing off with a mule kick, all to Dynamo's face. The robot staggered under the onslaught before rocket launchers slid out of his shoulders and trained themselves on Iron Man.
"He has rockets…of course he does," Iron Man complained.
The rockets streaked forward, all aimed at Iron Man. He shot up into the sky, but the missiles followed. Iron Man turned, now flying backwards as he fired off his repulsors. The repulsor shots struck all but one of the missiles, and Iron Man performed a tight loop and flew back toward Crimson Dynamo. At the last second, he performed a barrel roll off to the right, but the missile continued forward, smashing into Crimson Dynamo.
Crimson Dynamo responded by raising his left hand, and paneling slid back to reveal each of his fingers was really a…Vulcan minigun. Great. Just great.
"You gotta be kidding me!" Iron Man shouted as he dodged a storm of bullets. They tore into the pavement and buildings, but none hit Iron Man. Well not at first anyway. But the next thing he knew a stream of bullets clipped his shoulder plate, and he veered out of control through the sky. He crashed into a nearby building, no wait, through a nearby building and out the other side.
He shook his armored head as he stabilized himself. As soon as he had his wits about him, he shot up and over the building he'd crashed through and then slammed back down on Crimson Dynamo. He followed up by blasting the star on Dynamo's chest with his repulsors, and then finished the onslaught by delivering a mule kick to the chest, complete with a burst of power from the boot jets.
Crimson Dynamo fell backward, slamming into the nearest skyscraper and bringing a good portion of it down in the process.
Back in Russia, Ivan Vanko, who was controlling the Crimson Dynamo, was not happy.
"Argh! That wretched little fool! I will have his head for this! Computer! Set the Dynamo to self destruct! See if "Iron Man" survives that!"
"Crimson Dynamo huh?" Iron Man wondered as he landed on top of the defeated robot. "I suppose that's a fancy way of saying made in Russia. Based on this, I can safely rule them out as my armor's builder."
Iron Man tried to run a scan of the Dynamo, but a message flashed on his HUD.
Armor secondary sensors: Offline
Using his HUD, Iron Man quickly diverted power, bring both the secondary sensors and by sheer luck the Armor AI online.
"Armor AI online," the armor announced. "Running full scan of Crimson Dynamo unit."
"Um, thank you?" Iron Man thanked his armor. "Uh, computer, commence full reboot of armor systems and functions?"
"Reboot commencing," the armor informed. "Standby."
"I'll be honest I didn't think that would work," Iron Man said with a smile.
"Reboot successful. Full system scan in progress."
"Okay I really need to get used to you talking," Iron Man told his armor.
"Indeed you should sir," the armor agreed.
"Whoa! You can understand me?" Iron Man asked.
"Affirmative. System scan complete sir. Would you like to review the results?" the armor asked.
"Sure…why not?"
Armor primary sensors: Online
Motion amplifiers: Online
Armor AI: Online
Repulsor safety lock: Offline
Shields: Online
Flight thrusters: Online
Armor secondary sensors: Online
Unibeam: Online
Extremis tracking unit: Online
Auto-Assemble: Online
"Scan of the Dynamo unit is complete sir," the armor reported. "Warning. Crimson Dynamo unit is set to critical. Self-destruction imminent. Suggest immediate evacuation of the area."
"No way. Can the armor support that kind of weight in flight?" Iron Man asked.
"Calibrating. Crimson Dynamo's weight is well within armor's limits."
"Let's do it," Iron Man ordered as he flew underneath the Dynamo and began to lift it. At first it was difficult, but soon he managed to lift it into the sky and support the weight on his shoulders.
He carried the Crimson Dynamo with him high into the sky as he tried to get it as far away from the city as possible. He began to feel weak as the armor's power levels dropped.
"Sixty-five percent power remaining," the armor reported. "Crimson Dynamo destruction in five…four…three…two…"
The explosion rattled Iron Man inside his armor, and he fell back to Earth as a fiery hunk of metal. Inside the armor, Tony Stark was cooking.
"C'mon…reboot you stupid piece of–"
"Flight systems restored," the armor reported.
"Halleluiah!" the hero shouted and fired up the boot jets to maximum to slow his fall. He still crashed into the middle of Times Square, but he was still standing when the dust settled.
"Running armor diagnostic check now," the armor announced.
Iron Man checked his HUD, and saw the armor had green lights across the board still. He checked the damages to the armor's exterior. Minimal scratches, but no real damage had been done to the armor.
"What is this thing?"
"Sir, we've located the Mk VII," the soldier reported to the captain. "It appears to have fallen into the possession of a local Earth boy. Tony Stark. Interestingly, he seems capable of controlling the armor."
"He has the armor?" the captain asked.
"Yes sir. We intend to acquire it immediately, as we have already sent the scouts–" the soldier began, but was cut off by his captain.
"The scouts are no match for the Mk VII, even if it is in the hands of a human boy. No…get me the assassin. Tell him I have a job that requires his…skills."
The soldier smiled at the thought. "Yes sir!"
"There's hardly a scratch on it," Rhodey said as he inspected the armor. "Tony, what is this thing?"
"I don't know," Tony admitted. "I've been studying it every chance I get and I can honestly say this is the craziest thing I've ever seen. I'm starting to wonder if humans even built it."
"C'mon man. Aliens?" Rhodey asked in disbelief.
"What else?" Tony asked. "I've been going over the armor data banks with Jarvis–"
"Who's Jarvis?" Rhodey asked.
"The armor's onboard AI," Tony explained. "I sorta named him."
"You named him/it/whatever?" Rhodey asked.
"So what if I did?"
Hey, it's Rhodey. Ever watched your best friend battle a bunch armor aliens bent on ripping armor off of his cold, dead corpse? No? That proves that only I have to deal with this! Tony's up to his eyes in Extremis alien scouts and I'm stuck dealing with this Whiplash character! Next time on Iron Man Galaxies: Working with Whiplash! Whoa!
Ya yep 2 is up! Why will no one review this? C'mon people I live off reviews and mustard, so REVIEW if you read this! If you haven't noticed, Iron Man's fights cause lots of destruction. Anyway, review, next ep is next Sunday, blah blah blah. Iron Man rules!