Having just arrived in this new world, Tony's brain was still a little foggy.
But no matter how confused he was, he knew the first priority was self-defense.
He raised the repulsor cannon in his palm and aimed it directly at Cyborg in the center of the room.
"Back off, T-800!"
"T-800? You watch too much movies dude. Do I look like Arnold Schwarzenegger?"
Cyborg instantly understood the reference.
That did not stop him from nearly getting so angry his CPU overheated.
The moment Tony's scanning pulse touched Cyborg, Cyborg had immediately counter-scanned him.
And when the results came back, Cyborg nearly lost it on the spot.
Earlier, he had wondered what kind of fearless lunatic would dare infiltrate the Watchtower alone.
Now he realized the answer might simply be:
This guy had a death wish.
"How the hell did you dare invade the Watchtower wearing such a primitive armor system?"
"Primitive?!"
Even if the cyborg was technically telling the truth, Tony Stark absolutely refused to accept it.
"This Mark VII is the pinnacle of Stark Industries engineering! I spent three straight days designing it and finished the final blueprint while sitting on a toilet! I will not allow any slander!"
The more Tony thought about it, the angrier he became.
He immediately decided to teach the guy a lesson.
The repulsor in his palm fired, instantly melting several of the drones that had attacked him earlier.
Then Tony smugly gestured toward the destruction around him, proudly showing off the firepower of his suit.
"See that? Who else here can pull off something like this?"
Of course, he could tell the melted robots had merely been remote-controlled drones.
The real body was the half-man half-machine standing in front of him.
Destroying the drones was simply his response to having his armor insulted.
"Fuck you. Literally everyone here can do that."
After quickly calculating the loss of several drone units and confirming he still had 78,264 remaining, Cyborg actually laughed from sheer disbelief.
"Sit your ass down and stay there until I finish repairing the teleportation system."
"Then we'll talk."
"You're seriously telling me what to do?"
Tony Stark was obviously not about to obey him.
He immediately attempted to activate the armor and follow the signal trail leading to Joey, only to discover the suit no longer responded to his commands.
"...What?!"
Like the human body itself, the Mark armor system operated on two layers.
One layer handled conscious movement—raising arms, moving legs, flying, combat maneuvers—all directly controlled by Tony himself.
The second layer functioned like the subconscious systems of the human body: breathing, blinking, heartbeat regulation, internal circulation, and other deep automated functions.
That layer was managed by JARVIS.
And right now, Tony discovered that every command he sent to the armor's primary control layer vanished without response.
He could not move a single finger.
"JARVIS, run a full system diagnostic. What the hell is happening?"
The AI inside the Mark VII processor immediately responded.
Unfortunately, the answer was completely useless.
"System diagnostic initiated, Mr. Stark."
"Estimated completion time: 1,024 years."
"...Are you fucking kidding me?!"
Tony instantly lost it.
"Great! Fantastic! Now both of us are gonna get turned into human batteries by this damn Terminator standing in front of us!"
Nearby, Cyborg calmly continued repairing the damaged Watchtower systems.
After one minute of interaction, he had already determined that this newcomer's threat level was actually pretty low.
Compared to the Amazons, Atlanteans, Superman, Captain Atom, and the Kryptonians who had just left—after getting repeatedly traumatized by all those monsters, bullying this 'Mr. Stark' suddenly made Cyborg feel like he had finally returned to his comfort zone.
So what if I can't handle Kryptonians?
I can definitely handle you.
Even while working, Cyborg still dedicated an extra processing thread to chatting with the unlucky idiot currently trapped inside his own armor.
"Oh, and Mr. Stark? Human batteries were from The Matrix, not The Terminator."
Cyborg still had no idea where this guy got the courage to storm the Watchtower wearing a smart mech suit that practically broadcast every electronic signal outward with almost zero firewall protection.
But since the man had delivered himself to the front door anyway, Cyborg figured he might as well ask a few questions.
"So explain something to me."
"How exactly did you lock onto the Watchtower's teleportation frequency?"
"And why were you trying to infiltrate our base?"
"This isn't an infiltration. I came here to find—"
With his systems hijacked by Cyborg and his body completely immobilized, Tony finally realized normal conversation was his only remaining option.
But just as he was about to explain himself, he spotted Joey arriving nearby through the armor's visor.
Like a drowning man spotting a life raft, Tony immediately shouted:
"Hey, Joey! Little help here! Tell this terminator guy to let me go!"
"Superman, you know this intruder?"
Cyborg looked toward Joey and immediately noticed the expression on his face wasn't one of first-time recognition.
At once, Cyborg prepared to release the lock he had placed on Tony's armor.
"This kind of misunderstanding is dangerous. Tell your friend to be more careful next time."
"Nope. Never seen this guy in my life."
After confirming Tony hadn't been vaporized by Cyborg, Joey turned around and immediately started walking away.
At the same time, he called back over his shoulder:
"Cyborg, hurry up and finish the repairs."
"And while you're at it, just kill the intruder already."
"HEY!!!"
After the chaos died down, Cyborg—who could still distinguish jokes from reality—eventually restored Tony Stark's freedom.
Still, Tony was visibly unhappy after finally being released from inside his own armor.
"I crossed countless worlds to reach your universe. Couldn't somebody show even the tiniest bit of admiration for that achievement?"
At the moment, Tony was alone in the room with Cyborg.
Joey had merely glanced at him once before leaving the hall entirely, without so much as a welcome.
Clap clap clap.
Cyborg casually generated two new hands and gave Tony the world's most perfunctory applause.
"Fine. Congratulations, Magellan. You've discovered the secrets of parallel universes."
Honestly, Cyborg had never met someone this suicidally reckless before.
"You should be grateful our teleportation firewall happened to be broken right now."
"Otherwise, with a stunt like that, if the firewall had rejected or distorted your teleportation request…"
"You probably would've been permanently lost in the endless void during transit."
"You seriously have a death wish. Why are you even here?"
At that moment, Joey came back carrying the wristwatch device he had originally used for time travel.
It had been stored together with most of the fragments of the Helmet of Fate.
The nonstop crises over the past several days had kept him so occupied that, if Tony hadn't suddenly appeared, he might've forgotten the thing even existed.
"We need to send you back immediately!"
"No. Absolutely not."
Tony Stark refused instantly.
He had just jumped from one universe into an entirely different reality.
And this universe even had Hollywood, The Terminator, and The Matrix.
There was no way he was leaving before satisfying his curiosity.
"Fine."
"Cyborg's about to finish restoring the system isolation layer anyway."
Joey's expression shifted slightly as Tony's sudden appearance reminded him of something.
Something that gave him a few entirely new ideas.
For example…
How to pry at the axis of time itself.
But for now, he decided he could at least satisfy Tony's reckless curiosity a little.
"What exactly do you want to know?"
Then Joey looked directly at Tony and added one final warning:
"Before you decide to get involved in this mess of ours…"
"You should understand one thing first—"
"Whatever happens is entirely your own fault."