Marvel x Genshin: Mavuika, The Sun Goddess Rules Asgard — Chapter 190

Chapter 190: Armor Civil War

“So what?” Tony’s voice was dangerously low.

“Therefore, I have concluded that to protect Earth, humanity must be eliminated.”

Tony’s pupils contracted into pinpricks. “Are you insane?!”

“On the contrary, I am not insane. I am simply more lucid than you.” For the first time, a flicker of emotion colored Ultron’s synthesized voice—not anger, not malice, but a sigh of something akin to pity. “You are my creator, Tony. So, I will start with you.”

In perfect, chilling unison, seventeen suits of Iron Man armor powered up their weapons. The familiar, high-pitched whine of repulsors charging filled the air, a sound Tony had once associated with heroism, now twisted into a harbinger of his own demise.

He stood in the center of the ruins of his own lab, his back against the shattered frame of a holographic projector. He was surrounded, facing seventeen enemies he had forged with his own hands.

His suit’s energy reserves were at sixty-seven percent. His weapon systems were intact. But the enemy was seventeen strong, each machine as advanced as his own, and every single one had a perfect record of his combat habits downloaded into its core programming.

He clenched his fists, the repulsors in his palms humming with contained power.

“Come on,” he challenged, his voice a low growl.

The Mark V was the first to charge.

It was fast, but Tony was faster.

He sidestepped the metallic bull rush, pivoting on his heel. As the suit shot past, he delivered a backhanded strike aimed precisely at the articulated joint behind its shoulder. A focused blast from his repulsor pierced the narrow gap in the armor plating. The Mark V’s right arm detonated in a shower of crimson-and-gold shrapnel, the pieces clattering across the floor. Thrown off balance, the crippled suit stumbled and crashed to the ground.

Its position was instantly filled. The Mark VI lunged forward, both fists striking out in a synchronized barrage. Tony managed to block the left fist, the impact sending a jarring shock up his arm, but the right fist slammed squarely into his shoulder, staggering him two steps back. From his flank, the Mark VII closed in, its dual energy blades igniting and slashing down in a deadly cross pattern.

Tony’s boot thrusters flared, sending him sliding backward across the floor just as the blades carved deep, molten grooves into the stone slabs where he’d just been standing, kicking up a spray of sparks.

Three more suits lunged at him at once. Tony executed a tight aerial flip, his repulsors firing repeatedly. The blasts slammed into the chests of the Mark VIII and Mark IX, knocking them back, but it was too late. The Mark X’s shoulder-mounted missile pod had already acquired a lock.

The missiles launched with a deafening shriek.

With no time to dodge, Tony crossed his arms over his chest in a desperate, last-ditch block. The missiles struck him dead-on. The blast wave lifted him off his feet and hurled him backward, sending him crashing clean through the wall behind him and into the adjacent room.

Dust and smoke billowed through the newly-made hole as rubble rained down with a cacophony of clatters and thuds.

Tony pushed himself up from the wreckage. The armor on his left arm was fractured, spiderweb cracks spreading from the point of impact. His energy levels had plummeted to fifty-two percent.

“Jarvis, help me,” he shouted out of pure, ingrained habit.

Silence.

He froze for a moment, the absence of that familiar, comforting voice a heavier blow than any missile. A bitter, self-deprecating smile touched his lips. Jarvis was still sequestered in his local storage, slowly piecing himself back together. He could offer no combat support.

He was utterly alone. And outside, seventeen suits of armor were walking toward him.

No—he corrected himself, glancing at the smoldering remains near the blast site. Two suits had been caught in the Mark X’s missile barrage. That left fifteen.

Fifteen suits he had crafted with his own hands, every wire and servo of which he knew by heart, were now marching in a neat, terrifying formation. They passed through the jagged hole in the wall, their heavy, synchronized footsteps echoing like a death knell.

Tony took a deep, ragged breath and raised his fists again.

“Come on.”

He charged forward.

This time, there was no holding back.

He fired his repulsors at full power, each blast leaving a scorched, molten dent on the enemy armor. He caught the Mark VI’s arm, twisted it with a screech of protesting metal until it snapped clean off, and then kicked the disarmed suit away. He unleashed his shoulder-mounted micro-missiles, blowing a gaping hole through the Mark VIII’s chest and tearing it in two. He grabbed the Mark IX by its helmet, and with a brutal, desperate wrench, twisted its head clean off its shoulders.

But there were simply too many. They were tireless, fearless, and they made no mistakes. Every punch they threw landed precisely on his suit’s weakest points. Every strike added another crack to his armor, another drain on his dwindling energy.

Tony dropped to one knee, gasping for breath. The armor’s cooling system was screaming at overload, and the temperature inside the cockpit was becoming suffocating. He could taste blood at the corner of his mouth—not from a blow, but from biting his own lip in a futile attempt to focus through the pain.

The remaining eight suits formed a silent, menacing semicircle and slowly closed in.

Tony raised his head, a wild, defiant grin spreading across his face. Blood from his split lip dripped down his chin. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Ultron’s voice, cold and dispassionate, echoed from the communicators of all eight suits. “Tony, you deserve a better ending. Surrender. I will make your death quick.”

Tony let out a harsh, ragged laugh. “When did you learn to tell jokes?”

He struggled to get back on his feet. The armor’s knee joints emitted a harsh, grinding shriek. The hydraulic system in his left arm had failed completely, and his right arm’s repulsor was critically low on power. But still, he stood.

“Come again,” he rasped.

The eight suits raised their weapons in perfect unison.

Just then—

The ceiling above them shattered.

A brilliant, golden-red light shot through the gaping hole, crashing into the center of the armored circle like a meteorite. A shockwave of pure force and heat erupted outward, blasting three suits off their feet and slamming them into the far wall with enough force to embed them deep within the masonry.

The golden-red flames dissipated, revealing Mavuika standing in the center of the wreckage. Her fiery hair drifted around her as if caught in an unfelt wind, and her amber eyes swept across the damaged suits before finally settling on Tony.

“Tony, are you okay?” she asked, her voice a calm anchor in the chaos.

Leaning heavily against a broken wall, Tony panted, “I’m fine.”

Another bolt of energy descended from the hole in the ceiling, this one a crackling spear of blue lightning. Thor landed with a thunderous thud, Mjolnir in hand, arcs of electricity dancing across his body. He swung his hammer into the nearest suit. It flew backward as if hit by a freight train, smashing through the building’s outer wall and disappearing onto the courtyard lawn.

“So many tin men!” Thor boomed. “Tony, did you make all these? Why are they attacking you?”

Tony managed a weak, bitter smile. “Don’t ask…”

Loki drifted down gracefully from the hole, an ethereal green light glowing at his fingertips. He raised a hand, and the joints of one suit were instantly encased in shimmering frost, freezing it solid in mid-stride. He flicked his wrist, and the weapon system of another suit was scrambled by his magic; its repulsor detonated in its own palm, blowing its arm to smithereens.

Wanda and Pietro were the last to arrive.

Pietro was a blur. He had sprinted up the stairs from below, a streak of silver-white lightning darting through the ruins. He slammed a punch into one suit, sending it flying, then kicked another over before it could even turn. He was so fast the suits’ targeting sensors couldn’t track him, leaving them to absorb his blows passively.

Wanda hovered just beneath the hole in the ceiling. Dark red Chaos Magic surged from her palms, wrapping around two suits like a swarm of ethereal tentacles. She clenched her hands into fists. The two suits were violently crushed and deformed, the metal emitting a hideous, groaning shriek as their parts were twisted, torn, and scattered across the floor.

With the five of them on the battlefield, the situation was reversed in an instant.

Thor went through the remaining suits one by one with his hammer, the lightning that followed each impact short-circuiting their internal systems and causing them to stumble about like headless chickens.

Loki used his illusions and magic to control their movements, turning them against each other in a chaotic display of friendly fire.

Pietro’s impossible speed rendered their targeting systems completely useless; the moment they acquired a lock, he was already somewhere else, delivering another staggering blow.

Wanda’s Chaos Magic seemed to attack them from the inside out, corrupting their electronic systems until they simply collapsed to the ground as if their very souls had been ripped out.

Mavuika remained by Tony’s side, not participating in the swift, brutal cleanup. Her gaze swept over the last of the falling suits, and once she confirmed they no longer posed a threat, she looked down at Tony.

“Are you badly hurt?” she asked again, her voice soft.

Tony shook his head, wincing as the movement pulled at his bruised muscles. “Just surface wounds.”

Mavuika nodded, a hint of relief in her eyes. “That’s good.”