The smoky air of the California coastline was thick with the scent of ozone and burning luxury. Tony Stark, still wearing the battered Mark III from his encounter with Stane earlier that night, hovered over the flaming precipice of what used to be his living room.
"You bastard! Who are you? How dare you blow up my house?!" Tony's voice crackled through the external speakers of the suit, raw with a mixture of disbelief and pure, unadulterated fury. He had just stepped off that podium in New York, feeling like the king of the world, basking in the shock and awe of the global press. He had barely finished his victory lap when J.A.R.V.I.S. had started screaming about a structural collapse at his Malibu residence.
Luckily, Tony had been paranoid. Before the press conference, he had secretly moved the Mark III and his primary testing rigs to the Stark Industries hangar. If he hadn't, he'd be standing on the beach in a three-thousand-dollar suit right now, throwing rocks at the sky instead of flying.
"Wait... J.A.R.V.I.S., what the hell is that?" Tony's anger momentarily shifted to scientific curiosity. He stared up at the dark, sleek vessel hovering in the clouds. It didn't have thrusters, turbines, or any visible means of propulsion. "Is that black-market tech? I've never seen anyone develop a chassis with that kind of displacement."
"Scanning now, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S.'s calm British accent sounded slightly strained. "The signature is... anomalous. Its technological level far surpasses current Earth-based capabilities, including the Mark III. Sir, the probability suggests this is an extraterrestrial craft."
"Alien spaceship?" Tony's eyes gleamed behind his faceplate. For a split second, he stopped caring that his kitchen was at the bottom of the ocean. He just wanted to know how that thing stayed in the air. "I want it. J.A.R.V.I.S., find me a way into the cockpit."
A low, vibrating hum echoed through the air as a circular hatch opened on the ship's underside. A figure drifted down—not falling, but descending as if gravity were a mere suggestion.
"Oh? You weren't in the house?" The Mandarin's voice boomed, carrying a strange, resonant frequency that made Tony's sensors spike.
The Mandarin had spent the last several weeks in a blind, agonizing rage. After barely surviving his last encounter with the 'ghost' of Chinatown, he had focused his resources on tracking down Huang Wen and Tony Stark. But because of the delay in deep-space communication during his recovery near Venus, he hadn't yet received the news of Tony's press conference. He had arrived at the Malibu cliffside expecting to find a sleeping billionaire, not a flying tank.
Like Magneto before him, the Mandarin's pride had clouded his judgment. He was so desperate to vent his frustration on a 'soft target' that he hadn't considered that the soft target might have teeth.
"Alien spaceship?" Tony muttered, his HUD locking onto the Mandarin. "But you're not a little grey man. You look like a hobo who found a magic carpet. And what is up with those arms? You look like a Lizard Arm Starman. Is that the new look on Mars?"
"Heh heh... you have some skill to build such a toy, Stark," the Mandarin sneered. His new arms were hideous—scaled, pulsing with a dark, sickly energy, and far too long for his torso. "If it weren't for your meddling and your funding of that brat in New York, I wouldn't have been mutilated. But I benefited from the misery. I lost my human limbs, but I gained the power of the Dragon! I can't find that kid yet, so I'll start by snapping you in half. Crushing you is as simple as crushing an ant!"
"So you're the one who hired those cave-dwelling losers to kidnap me?" Tony's voice turned icy. The grief for his house was gone, replaced by the memory of the shrapnel in his chest. "I've been looking for a face to put on that check. Consider this a refund!"
Tony raised his arm, the palm repulsor whining as it charged to 100%. BOOM! A streak of brilliant white light slammed into the Mandarin.
Or it should have.
The Mandarin merely waved a scaled hand, and a shimmering, translucent barrier rippled into existence. The repulsor blast splashed against it like water against a window.
"Damn it! Is everyone who can fly this annoying?" Tony cursed. "J.A.R.V.I.S., increase output!"
Before Tony could fire again, the Mandarin flicked a finger. There was no projectile, no light—just a sudden, invisible hammer of kinetic force that slammed into Tony's chest. The Mark III was sent tumbling through the air, crashing through a remaining support pillar before slamming into the rocky beach below.
"Warning: Structural integrity at 58%," J.A.R.V.I.S. reported. "The Mark III has sustained significant internal damage."
"What was that? I didn't see a launch signature," Tony grunted, coughing as the impact rattled his teeth.
"The data is inconclusive, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. replied. "Theoretically, it behaves like a focused 'qi' discharge or perhaps high-level telekinesis. It is remarkably similar to the energy readings recorded during Mr. Huang's combat sessions. I have updated the evasion protocols to prioritize atmospheric ripples."
SWISH!
The Mark III's thrusters fired automatically, jerking Tony to the left. A split second later, the sand where he had been laying erupted in a massive crater.
"Oh? Interesting," the Mandarin chuckled, drifting lower. "That tin suit is sturdier than I imagined. Maybe I'll keep it as a trophy once I've peeled you out of it."
"Yeah, you old geezer are sturdier than I imagined too," a familiar, dry voice sounded directly behind the Mandarin's ear. "Too bad you're not nearly as interesting as you think you are."
The Mandarin's blood went cold. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he spun around, his Dragon Arms twitching.
Huang Wen was standing in mid-air, looking entirely too relaxed for someone at a crime scene. He had tracked the energy spike the moment Silly Girl flagged the explosion. He looked at the Mandarin, then at the smoking ruin of Tony's house, and his expression hardened. Enough was enough. This old cockroach had survived too many chapters.
System, issue mission: Kill the Mandarin!
[Generating Mission: Kill the Mandarin] [Reward: One Legendary Character Lottery Draw] [Do you accept?]
"A Legendary draw?" Huang Wen's eyes flashed. "Finally, a reward worth the effort. Accept!"
"It's you!" the Mandarin hissed, backing away. "How dare you show up here? I will burn your soul for what you did to my rings!"
"You're the one who came to my neighborhood, grandpa," Huang Wen grinned. "But I have to ask... are you looking for something? You seem a little distracted."
The Mandarin's expression suddenly stiffened. He looked up at the sky where his massive, intimidating spaceship had been hovering just seconds ago.
The sky was empty.
"No... where is it?" The Mandarin's voice went up an octave. "Where is my spaceship? How did my huge spaceship disappear?!"
"It was a bit of an eyesore," Huang Wen said, buffing his nails on his sleeve. "So I decided to pick it up. It's mine now."
In reality, stealing the ship had been a massive drain on Huang Wen's reserves. He had to inject Silly Girl's processing power into his own consciousness and activate the Indestructible Divine Art just to expand the capacity of his Spatial Ring enough to swallow the massive vessel. It was like trying to fit a mountain into a shoebox, but thanks to Tony Stark's distraction, he had managed to do it without the Mandarin noticing.
"You... you thief! I'll kill you! I'll make you realize the true power of my Dragon Arms!"
The Mandarin was beyond reason. Every time he met this man, he lost something. First, his arms and a ring. Second, his remaining rings and his dignity. And now, his only means of escape and his greatest weapon.
"Dragon Arms?" Huang Wen looked at the hideous, scaled limbs and laughed. "They look like oversized lizard legs. Let's see if they're as easy to break as the last pair!"