Zander
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Chapter 8
🕑 Added 2025-08-15 00:58:09 +0000 UTCChapter 8
The warm orange glow of the city passed beneath them in streaks. Tony’s HUD was a cluttered mess, flashing warnings, power draw spikes, and heat levels creeping too high. The Mark III wasn’t designed to carry a man in a suit of armor that weighed of at least half a ton and fly.
“You’re like a building with legs, you know that?” Tony’s voice cracked over comms, strained from the suit’s groan.
“Then fly faster, Stark,” Gaius rumbled, his voice a low metallic growl inside the helmet. His massive gauntlet gripped Tony’s right shin as the billionaire’s thrusters strained against gravity and weight. “This is no time to complain.”
“Yeah, well, tell that to my battery.”
Below, Los Angeles glittered quietly, most streets thinly populated at this late hour. They cleared the last line of high-rises when the familiar outline of Stark Industries came into view. The tower’s lights shone over the stillness of the surrounding business district.
“Almost there, hang on!” Tony grunted. His arc reactor output dipped into the red. He dropped altitude fast, letting gravity do some of the work.
At the last hundred feet, Gaius released his hold. The sudden loss of weight almost made Tony shoot upward, but he corrected in time.
The giant in ultramarine and gold fell like a meteor.
When Gaius hit, the sound was less an impact and more a detonation. Pavement buckled, chunks of concrete sprayed outward, and a car parked nearby groaned as its suspension gave from the tremor. Alarms shrieked into the night.
A handful of late-night pedestrians stopped mid-step. Two couples outside a diner stared slack-jawed at the figure in the crater, their fries forgotten. Someone muttered, “Holy… what is that?” Another voice, cautious: “Some new military thing?”
Gaius rose slowly from his landing crouch, armored boots cracking the pavement further as he stepped out. In the spill of streetlamps, he was an overwhelming sight, easily eight feet tall, his armor engraved with gold trim, helmet’s eyes glowing faintly.
Tony landed beside him, his thrusters whining from the strain. “You always make an entrance like that?”
“It serves its purpose,” Gaius replied flatly, scanning the building. (Ps.to looked cool, to intimidate?)
Inside Stark Industries, Obadiah Stane was hunched over the stolen arc reactor, securing it into the massive torso frame of his Iron Monger armor. A faint vibration from the impact outside rattled the tools on his workbench. Frowning, he crossed to the nearest window.
His gaze fell on the scene below, the blue-and-gold armored figure beside a man in red-and-gold plating.
Tony.
Obadiah’s chest tightened. He survive from me taking out his reactor. And that other thing, what the hell is that?
Panic twisted quickly into action. He slammed the lab door shut and stalked toward the final assembly bay. The Iron Monger waited, hunched like a predator in the shadows.
Tony’s HUD marked movement inside. “He’s in the east wing lab, second floor. He’s not gonna run.”
“Then we take the fight to him,” Gaius said, starting forward. Each step made the asphalt groan.
They were halfway to the front doors when the building shuddered. A window above exploded outward in a rain of glass.
The Iron Monger emerged.
It wasn’t just big, it was monstrous, the steel plating thick enough to shrug off small arms. The arc reactor in its chest burned cold and white, casting hard shadows across its angular frame. Hydraulic limbs hissed, and a shoulder-mounted launcher rotated into place.
For a heartbeat, there was stillness.
Then the launcher’s targeting light blinked red.
Before the missile could fire, Gaius’ bolter came up in one smooth, practiced motion. A single thunderous report split the air. The mass-reactive round hit home, detonating the launcher in a flash of sparks and twisted steel.
Obadiah roared in the cockpit as the shock rattled the armor. “You’ll regret that!”
“Doubtful,” Gaius replied, stepping forward like a siege engine.
Tony broke right, repulsors flaring. “You take the front, I’ll flank.”
The Iron Monger’s claw shot forward, hydraulic pistons hissing.
Gaius didn’t sidestep, he caught it. The impact rang like a cathedral bell, his massive blue-and-gold gauntlet locking around the steel fingers. His boots dug twin gouges into the asphalt before his stance set like stone.
“You fight like a brawler,” Gaius said, voice deep through his helm’s vox, “but fight demands precision.”
In a single motion, he twisted, the Monger’s arm hydraulic shrieking under the torque. The armored behemoth stumbled, gouging trenches in the pavement. Before Obadiah could react, Gaius let the arm go, only to draw the weapon on his back.
With a hiss of ancient power fields, the power sword came alive. A shimmering edge of light danced along the blade, humming with lethal promise.
Tony’s repulsors flared, peppering the Monger’s side. “Uh, giant smurf with a glowing sword, mind explaining that later?”
“No,” Gaius said simply, stepping in.
The Monger swung a massive steel fist the size of a wrecking ball, Gaius moved like a duelist. The blade traced a perfect arc, slicing through the arm at the elbow joint. Molten metal sprayed as the severed limb crashed to the ground.
“Impossible!” Obadiah’s voice barked from within the suit.
“Nothing is impossible,” Gaius replied, “only inevitable.”
Pepper Potts arrived in a black sedan, stepping out to a wall of sound, metal clashing, hydraulics straining, repulsor blasts cracking the night. Her eyes locked on Tony, and her breath caught, but the blue giant fighting alongside him made her hesitate.
“Who~?” she started, but the nearest S.H.I.E.L.D. agent cut her off. “Ma’am, stay back. This is a live engagement, we might get into the crossfires.”
The Monger lunged with the other arm, but the power sword sheared through it in one fluid stroke. Sparks and smoke bled from the stumps as Gaius advanced. Obadiah tried to backpedal, heavy servos whining, but the Space Marine was relentless, each step was like the march of judgment itself.
Tony blasted the Monger’s legs to slow him. “You’re gonna cut him in half, aren’t you?”
Gaius didn’t answer. His sword flared brighter as he brought it down in a diagonal slash that carved straight through the Monger’s torso. The top half of the suit slid off the bottom with a sound like tearing steel, crashing into the street in a shower of sparks.
Obadiah’s cockpit was exposed, his helmet knocked free in the chaos. He looked up at the towering warrior, eyes wide.
“This… this isn’t your fight,” he croaked, coughing and gasping from the heat and severe injuries.
Gaius didn’t answer. The only reply was the cold, unblinking glow of his red lenses, locked on Obadiah like a predator judging its prey.
With one armored hand, he seized the reactor housing, ripped it from the chest cavity, and let the remains of the Iron Monger collapse into a smoldering heap.
Tony landed beside the wreck, breathing hard. “Remind me never to fight you.”
“You wouldn’t last,” Gaius replied without arrogance, just stating fact.
Sirens wailed, Pepper’s voice calling faintly in the distance. Gaius deactivated the power sword, its lethal hum fading into silence.
(Ps. Quite busy.)
