So a little late on this chapter, but here it is.

I still own nothing.

Seto was sitting on his couch staring blankly at the screen. The anchorwoman was standing in front of a long string of refugees. They were fleeing the town of Golmera, the latest city to be attacked by the increasingly aggressive Paradias.

He knew he had to do something, but he didn't know what. His investigation had turned up nothing conclusive. Gozaburo had covered his tracks too well. Still, he could not allow this to continue. He glanced at the armor. He shouldn't go, it was risky as he couldn't be sure how the suit would hold up to combat, but he had to do something. Too many people had died already because of him.

Minutes later a shining sliver object was seen streaking through the sky. Seto was having Janet run checks on everything as they flew. If anything was going to go wrong he was hoping it would happen before he ended up in combat. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest and had to stop several times so that he could open the faceplate and wipe the sweat from his face.

All too soon he could see the city in the distance. Black smoke rose into the air and could hear the occasional pop of gunfire. In the city he could now see several armed men lining a group of men against a wall. Seto knew what came next and poured on the speed. He landed and quickly blasted the nearest man through a wall. After a second of shock the rest opened fire. Unfortunately for them, nothing they had could get through the armor.

Seto froze for a second. The yelling voices were all too familiar and seeing Raphael again caused him to cry out in shock. The tall man was giving orders, and the sound of that voice frightened Seto more than the bullets that were pinging off his suit. Part of him wanted to run, wanted to escape from these people that had caused him such pain. He almost listened to that part. But then he remembered Arthur, he remembered the pictures Mai had shown him and he used the anger, the rage to throw off his fear.

He made quick work of the men near the wall and turned to see the rest grabbing women to work as human shields. Switching off his replusors, he activated a secondary weapons system that was much more precise. Once he got a weapons lock several small projectiles fired from his shoulder-mounted launchers dropping the cowards where they stood.

Glancing around he spotted Raphael duck behind a wall. Seto smiled and walked over to the wall, smashed his fist through it, and grabbed the big man and pulled him through the wall, throwing him at the feet of the people he had been persecuting. Several of the civilians had already retrieved weapons from the downed terrorists and looked more than ready to use them. "He's all yours." He said as he took off.

That had been a good start but he could see more men as well as the Jericho missile system further into the city. He started to head that way when he was struck by a powerful shell and crashed to the ground.

Pulling himself from the crater, Seto spotted a tank approaching him from down the street. It fired again but he was able to lean and avoid the shot. Lifting his right arm, he fired a small but powerful projectile he had designed for this very purpose. He heard it strike and started walking toward his next targets before the blast even went off.

The men saw him coming and started shooting, but the bullets had no effect. Activating the jets in his boots, Seto flew into the air and fired his replusors at the Jericho causing the missiles to detonate. The blast overcame the men that remained and he flew out heading for home.

Meanwhile, in a military control room, a slightly panicking officer was trying to find out what had just happened. A group of Paradias terrorists had just been taken out by an unknown force and his people were contacting every branch and unit in the area to find out who jumped the gun. Every branch had denied responsibility and now they had some kind of unknown aerial vehicle on satellite leaving the area. Completely at a loss, he called for Atem Moto in weapons development, hoping he would be able to identify the craft.

Seto was feeling pretty smug and more than a little relieved. Other than getting shot by the tank, which had hurt even in the armor, things could not have gone better. He was already thinking about next time, how if he couldn't stop the weapons from getting out, he would just blow them up when they arrived, when his HUD displayed an incoming call from Atem. Seto sighed. He really didn't want to talk to him, but figured if he didn't Atem would just keep calling till he did. "What do you want Atem? I'm a little busy to be chatting right now."

"Kaiba, a group of terrorists was just attacked by an unknown just a few hundred miles from where we found you. I don't suppose you would know what happened?". Atem asked with barely contained anger.

" What makes you think I would know anything about that? Sounds to me like someone just did your job for you. You should be grateful." Seto couldn't help but smirk. Atem sounded pissed.

"Grateful?" Atem practically shouted. "I know you've been up to something. Tea says you haven't left your workshop in weeks and won't let anyone see what you're doing. I also know you aren't the type to just accept what they did to you without looking for payback. And I think its a little too much of a coincidence that the attack came right after it was featured on the news, telling you where they were. I'm not stupid Kaiba. Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused?"

"I never said I did anything. You're jumping to conclusions. I assure you I have no idea what you're' talking about."

"That's good." Atem said with a slight smirk. "Then you won't miss whatever it is we are about to blow up."

Seto was going to ask what he was talking about when his proximity sensors picked up the two fighter jets rapidly closing on his position. "I'll call you back." He told Atem before terminating the call and increasing his speed. The jets, however, were able to keep pace with him and opened fire. Fortunately, he was such a small target only a few a of the bullets actually hit him.

Seto was just starting to think he was going to be okay when alarms started going off and Janet informed him that one of the jets had acquired a weapons lock. He took a quick look behind him a could see the missile slowly gaining. Throwing himself into a loop he tried to evade but realized that despite his best efforts the missile was still with him, and getting closer.

"Flares!" Seto shouted as he activated the countermeasure he had installed. Twin disks emerged from his armor over his hips and began launching flares in every direction. The flares succeeded in throwing off the missile's targeting computers and it struck one of the flares.

The resulting blast threw Seto through the air and nearly knocked him unconscious. Fortunately the extra shock absorbers he had installed took enough of the impact that he was able to recover. The fighters began firing their guns at him again and Seto knew that he needed to do something. While the few hits he was taking didn't do much damage, if one hit and knocked out his boot jets he would be in real trouble.

'OK, time for something drastic.' He thought. Throwing his arms out front of him and firing his repulsors slowed him enough that the jets streaked past him and he quickly flew under the nearest one and grabbed on.

Back at the control room everyone was puzzled by where the object had gone. Atem wasn't sure what it had been, he hadn't seen anything like it before. Even the fighter pilots, who had seen it up close were confused. Well, whatever it had been, it was gone now. He was about to leave when his phone began ringing. The caller ID showed that Kaiba was calling him back. He sighed as he accepted the call. "What do want Kaiba?"

"Atem, look, it's a suit OK? And I'm in it. I need you to call off the fighters." As Seto finished talking the fighter he was holding on to suddenly started to spin. He lost his grip and was ripped from under the plane. He was about to engage his boot jets when he felt himself collide with something.

Atem watched in horror as the satellite image showed the suit containing his long time rival shear the wing off of the fighter jet that was following behind the one he had hidden under. The plane went into a spin and it looked like the pilot ejected but he didn't see a parachute. Kaiba fell for a few seconds but now looked like he had regained control. Atem was about start yelling at Kaiba when he heard the officer in charge order the second fighter to re-engage. "I don't think that's a good idea. We don't even know what we're dealing with." Atem tried to reason, the officer in charge gave him a glare before repeating his to re-engage. Atem clenched his jaw. 'Kaiba don't get killed, Tea will murder me if I let you die.'

Seto was really getting sick of being shot at and wanted to make a run for home. The problem was that the pilot of the plane he had hit was falling without a parachute. It had either jammed or the pilot was unconscious and unable to deploy his backup chute. Seto would be damned if he was going to have another death on his conscience if he could help it and dove after him. It would have been easier if the other plane wasn't still shooting at him but it stopped as he got closer to the pilot, afraid of hitting him by mistake.

Seto could see the pilot pulling desperately at the release lever for his chute and put on some extra speed till he was able to pull even with the man. With a quick motion Seto used his suit's tremendous strength to rip the lever free and deploy the chute. With the pilot safe Seto dove into the hills and poured on the speed until he was sure he was clear. Once his heart stopped pounding in his ears he heard Atem trying to get his attention.

"Kaiba! Answer me damn you!"

" What!?". Kaiba yelled back. The adrenaline was starting to wear off and his head was pounding. He really didn't feel like dealing with Atem right now.

"What the hell did you think you were doing? Attacking terrorists and then getting into a dog fight with two fighter jets! Have you lost your mind?" Atem vented.

"To be fair I only planned on attacking the terrorists. The planes I wasn't planning on. Still I think things went pretty well."

"Well? Well!? You took out a brand new fighter jet! How the hell am I supposed to explain that!?" Atem was fuming.

"Relax I'll buy you another one. Besides don't you guys usually just say it was a training accident when you lose one?"

Atem sighed. "Its not that simple..."

Tea was watching Atem read a statement about how a fighter jet had crashed during a training mission the previous day. 'At least no one was hurt.' She thought. A sudden noise from downstairs caught her by surprise and she headed downstairs to Kaiba's workshop.

She certainly wasn't prepared for the sight that greeted her. Kaiba was wearing a suit of what looked like some kind of armor. He was also suspended between several machines that were trying, and failing, to remove the suit. The suit itself looked like it had been through a war, covered in scratches and dents. "What the hell is this!?" She shouted.

Seto looked over and sighed. He had hoped to keep Tea from finding out about the suit. It was bad enough that Atem knew, but Tea was far more likely to worry once she found out what he was doing. "Look I'll explain later. For now could you please leave. I'll be out of this in a minute and I'm not wearing anything underneath." It was a total lie but he was hoping it would buy him a few minutes to figure out what he was going to tell her.

It worked. Tea turned as red as a stop sign and bolted from the room. Seto smirked slightly as his robot assistants finally worked the bolts loose and began removing the suit. After it was off he got Janet started on the repairs. He decided to put off talking to Tea for now, at least until he was sure what he wanted to tell her.

Dartz was watching his men comb through the sand. They were a little over a mile from where they had held Seto Kaiba. Certain that the armored man who had attacked his men was the overly resourceful CEO, he had begun looking for the suit that Kaiba had used in his escape. It had been impressive, and obviously Kaiba had improved it immensely. Perhaps if he found it, he could replicate it, with some help.

He placed his hand to the long ugly scar that covered the right side of his face. Soon he would repay Kaiba for what he had done. Very soon. Several of his men were shouting at him, one of them holding a face plate that he had no trouble recognizing. He smiled a cold smile.-

It had taken most of the afternoon to gather the pieces and now they were piecing the suit back together. Among the things they had salvaged from their old base had been the drawings that Kaiba had used to build it, so now they were just putting the pieces they could identify in place. Once Gozaburo arrived he would take it for mass production. In return for giving him the suit, they were receiving one hundred of the new, improved suits Gozaburo was going to make. That was the deal.

Dartz was watching his men work when he heard the sounds of vehicles approaching. Gozaburo hadn't been kidding when he said he was leaving immediately. Dartz was glad for that. The sooner he turned over the suit the quicker he would have his army. A moment later Gozaburo entered his tent, escorted by a guard. Dartz quickly ordered his people outside. He wanted to discuss business in private.

Gozaburo glanced around and snorted before looking at the vaguely human shaped pile of metal on the floor. "Doesn't look like much, does it?"

"Not at present, but assembled it is quite formidable." Dartz assured him.

Gozaburo snorted again. "Can't believe the little shit had it in him. He's been holding out on me."

"Most assuredly. On his own he is brilliant, with right the motivation he is also very dangerous." Dartz said.

"Well if you had killed him like I said, you'd still have a face."

Dartz shrugged, ceding the point. "If I had we wouldn't have this now." He walked over to a table to get himself a drink. "So how soon can I expect my sol.." A high pitched whine cut him off mid sentence a Dartz found himself unable to move.

Gozaburo removed the protective ear plugs and smiled. "There has been a change of plans. You betrayed me by not killing Seto as I ordered. Even if it did work out, I don't forgive disobedience."

Gozaburo walked out of the tent where his men had the entire camp kneeling with their hands behind their heads. He looked at one of the men. "Be sure not leave anything behind.". The man nodded. In a louder voice he said "let's clean up." He walked to his car, gunfire erupting behind him.

Once back in the States, Gozaburo got all his best people together and got them working on putting the suit together, then redesigning and massively increasing the suit in size, firepower, and sophistication. The only problem was the power source. Even his best engineers couldn't figure out how Seto had successfully created an arch reactor so small, and nothing they had of comparable size could produce enough power.

'Looks like I'll just have to "borrow" Seto's' Gozaburo thought with a smile. Once he had it, it shouldn't be too hard to make more. He was almost grateful that Dartz had disobeyed him. This suit was going to make him millions.

It had been nearly three weeks since Tea had walked in on him removing the suit. He had been avoiding her, something he really wasn't proud of, but Seto just wasn't ready to explain why he felt he needed to fly into a war zone. But now he needed her help, and he figured he'd been hiding long enough.

He had called for her to come to the workshop, had even asked nicely, but he was worried. Not that he thought she'd say no, but because what he was going to ask could be risky, and he didn't want her to get hurt.

Tea walked into Kaiba's workshop with a feeling of trepidation. Kaiba had actually asked her nicely, and she really wasn't sure what to make of that. She looked at the sleek silver suit, now fully repaired, and then at the man who had created it. Kaiba was dressed in casual, comfortable clothes, yet he looked tense. Tea decided to keep things casual until she found out what he wanted. "You called?"

Seto's lip twitched briefly, suppressing a smirk, before replying. "As you know I've been trying to find evidence linking Gozaburo to the weapons that Paradias had." At her nod he continued. "I've come to the conclusion that my efforts are in vain. There are several servers at Kaubacorp that cannot be accessed from outside the facility. Gozaburo's personal server in one of them. I didn't even know he had one till yesterday. So I need to be at a computer that is hardwired into the mainframe." He paused to hand Tea something that looked like a fat USB drive. "I need you to go to Kaibacorp and get the data. All you need to do is plug this into the computer. It will do the rest. I'd go myself but I'd be watched the minute I walked in the door. You're there all the time. Hopefully you can get in and out without being noticed."

Tea looked at the device. "If I do this, I want you to promise me that you won't go flying into anymore war zones."

Seto looked down for a moment. "I can't."

"Then I won't help you" Tea said, tossing the drive onto the table and beginning to walk out.

"Why the hell not!" Seto shouted. He really hadn't expected her to say no and he had no backup plan.

Tea turned and looked at him like he was stupid. "Do I really need to spell it out for you? How many bullet holes did you have in that suit when you came back?"

"Only thirty-seven. And technically they were dents, not holes."

"Whatever!" Tea yelled. "The point is that you seem to be intent on killing yourself with that thing." She pointed at the suit, "and I will have no part in it."

"Why do you care what I do? I don't need your permission." Seto snarled.

"I care about you." Tea said quietly. "Don't ask me why or how but somehow you found your way into my heart. It's why I won't help you with this. The thought of you getting hurt...tears me up. It frightens me in ways I can't explain. I need you too much to lose you to some...crusade of arrogance. I need you." She finished with tears in her eyes. Tea started to leave but Seto's hand on her arm stopped her.

"I need you too. More than you'll ever know. But this isn't about my ego. I've spent years designing tools of destruction. I was able to sleep at night because I didn't know what they were being used for, the faceless victims they hurt. But the victims aren't faceless anymore. I can't just hide under the covers and hope that the monsters go away. I've seen the monsters, and I've seen the people who don't have the option to hide. Someone has to take a stand, and while I wish that person wasn't me, I made the mess. It's my responsibility to see that it gets cleaned up. Believe me, I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't think it was necessary. I wouldn't use the suit either, but I NEED to do this. For the good of my soul."

Tea looked into Seto's eyes and for the first time she could truly see the man behind the mask. How could she refuse him? She walked back to the table a picked up the device. "Alright. You owe me big for this.". Tea then turned and began to leave.

"Thank you, Tea." Seto said.

Tea felt an odd tingle at his words. "You welcome, Seto." She replied. She left with a smile. He hadn't corrected her.

There you go, tell me what you think. Sorry if it seems like everything is crammed together, for some reason my line breaks don't want to save.

Some people have PM me asking if I am planning on doing other stories to make an eventual avengers fic. I doubt that I will just because of how huge such a project would be. I'm not going to discount it as long as I can come up with some plots that work. Having to shoehorn other characters into this universe will be a pain, as will finding characters that work. For example I had an idea how to convert Full Metal Alchemist in a Captain America story, but it would involve twisting it to fit this universe. Not sure if I want to commit to such a project. Also I have no idea what to do for the Hulk. Any ideas you guys could throw out would be a help in determining if I try this or not since my anime knowledge is a bit limited.

Thanks,

OZ