The transformation was almost instant. Tony's armor shifted. Plates retracted and realigned, the lattice becoming leaner and sharper as if the entire suit had been reforged midair. The gold and red colour of the suit turned to pitch black, while thin veins of dark crimson spread across the armor. His arc reactor's glow changed from blue to dark red.
"Overdrive mode engaged," Hermes reported. "Unibeam charging sequence initiated. Output will peak at one hundred percent in seven seconds."
Dynamo's armor split open fully at the chest, the glowing fusion core blazing brighter and brighter. The rings that circled the reactor rotated faster, sparks of unstable power leaking into the atmosphere like miniature suns bursting to life.
Vanko's voice broke through the static. "This is the end, Stark."
Tony did not reply immediately. His eyes narrowed, fixed on the HUD countdown as the bar climbed higher. Ninety-two percent. Ninety-six percent. The armor around his chest unfolded slightly, plates drawing back as conduits aligned to channel the surge. The crimson veins along his body glowed brighter, beating in sync with the reactor.
"Unibeam charged to one hundred percent," Hermes confirmed.
Tony whispered to himself. "Showtime."
The sky erupted.
Vanko fired first. The Dynamo reactor shot out a strong beam of white fusion energy. This beam was so bright that it hurt the eyes of anyone watching from the ground. It cut through the air like a spear of raw energy, and the heat was so intense that it made the upper atmosphere ripple like ocean waves.
Tony answered a fraction of a second later. The arc reactor released its full power, creating a strong beam of energy that shot forward in a bright red light. The Unibeam struck Dynamo's blast in the air.
The clash was apocalyptic.
The moment the two beams met, the world around them convulsed. A shockwave exploded outward in every direction, flattening clouds and rattling skyscraper windows hundreds of feet below. The night sky lit up like a second sun had been born, colors bleeding together in violent patterns as the beams struggled for dominance.
Communications across the city died instantly. Phones, radios, even satellite signals vanished in a screech of static. Air traffic control went dark. Car alarms wailed on the streets below as the electromagnetic chaos cascaded across every frequency.
Heat waves rolled off the collision point, distorting the skyline into a shimmering mirage. Molten sparks of raw energy rained down in streaks of red and white, sizzling as they struck rooftops and asphalt, burning deep craters into the ground. Entire street corners glowed as if touched by falling meteors.
Below, the Shadow Legion team spread out, deploying emergency shields around the city to prevent unnecessary damage and deaths due to the fight. All in all, they were working hard to keep the damage as low as possible.
Inside his armor, Tony grinned in excitement as the HUD flooded with new data. The output was beyond anything even he had tested before. Temperatures surged past projected limits, reactors screaming as they dumped everything into holding the beam steady. His secondary repair nanites were working, cooling down the temperature and repairing the area around the reactor.
Hermes spoke rapidly. "Power draw at one hundred and twenty percent. Auxiliary reactors compensating. Suit integrity at eighty-nine percent. Warning, hull microfractures forming."
"Hahahaha! Doesn't matter. Let it all out. The suit will hold just fine. The temperature limit in overdrive mode is within my calculations," Tony said, still grinning. Even the battle with Forge didn't give him this much excitement. The crimson light burned across the sky, his entire body trembling from the sheer force of it. "Activate the rear vents. Re-route the extra heat and increase the coolant nanites' energy output by 10%."
The back plating of his suit opened, as the nanites shifted, forming multiple vents, and streams of intense heat and smoke began to burst out. His suit temperature began to cool down slowly.
On the other side of the blinding collision, Anton Vanko screamed as he poured everything into his beam. Sparks burst from his gauntlets, his reactor spinning wildly as it funneled unstable energy into the discharge. For the first few seconds, it looked as if the two forces were locked in a stalemate.
But then, slowly, inexorably, the crimson light of Tony's Unibeam began to push forward.
Vanko's eyes widened inside his helmet. His systems screamed alarms and warning alerts. Armor integrity is falling. Reactor temperature breaching safe tolerance. He clenched his fists and screamed louder, his whole body shaking from the exertion. "No! I am the genius! You will fall to me, Stark!"
The Dynamo armor struggled under pressure. Cracks appeared in its red plates, with thin lines of white fire seeping through the seams. The whip coils at his sides overloaded and broke apart, showering sparks and falling useless into the dark.
Tony's beam pushed forward another meter, then another. The point of impact moved toward Vanko slowly, sapping the Dynamo's strength with each passing second.
Inside his cockpit, Anton felt despair creeping in. His chest burned, his lungs fought for breath, sweat stung his eyes. He could feel the armor shudder around him, failing, collapsing. And still Stark's voice echoed through the comms, maddeningly calm.
"You have knowledge and technology. And look what you have done with that. The path you took... You could've done so much more... so much good. But instead, you decided to use your creation for what? Petty revenge because I somehow hurt your ego? Why did you choose this path, Anton?"
The Dynamo reactor cracked. A spiderweb of fractures split the core housing, spilling unstable light into the sky.
Anton realized then, with the clarity of a man staring at his own end, that he had been wrong. He had spent years convincing himself he was equal to Stark. That jealousy had driven him to copy, to outdo, to destroy. Yet here, in the clash of their greatest works, he understood the truth.
Tony Stark had not even used his cosmic abilities. He had fought him with nothing but machines of his own design, and still the gap between them was insurmountable. If Stark had truly wanted to end this, a single cosmic-empowered strike would have reduced the Dynamo armor to ash in seconds.
And yet Tony chose to fight him fair. Engineer against engineer. Machine against machine.
Anton's eyes watered as his body trembled. His voice broke through the comms, ragged and loud. "Listen to me, Stark! This was never only my mission! Russia sent me! They wanted Stark Industries sabotaged, your empire broken! I was their weapon!" His chest heaved as the reactor cracked further. "But I was also jealous. I admit it! Jealous of you, Stark. Jealous that you created what I could only dream of. Jealous that the world loved your brilliance and never even knew mine existed."
The Dynamo armor split open with a deafening shriek. Panels tore free, spinning into the night. His beam faltered, shrinking, retreating against the flood of crimson power pressing him down.
Anton's voice wavered but steadied with something unexpected. A smile. "I wish… I wish I could have worked with you. Together, we could have built something greater. Something better than petty jealousy and sabotage. Maybe even something the world truly needed."
The words hung for only a second before Tony's Unibeam finally overpowered the Dynamo completely.
Tony used his Mind Stone to gain maximum clarity and used his cosmic energy to cover Anton's body. He smiled, knowing that while standing on the brink of death, Anton realized his mistakes. He gained the clarity one experiences in slow motion when facing death. So, Tony decided to save him and use him for Earth's future. With Anton's help, he'll be able to increase his orbital weapon project before the calculated time limit.
The crimson torrent consumed Vanko's reactor, detonating it in a blinding eruption of light. The explosion carved across the sky, shockwaves hammering down to rattle skyscrapers and set off alarms across half of Manhattan. Molten fragments of Dynamo armor rained like meteors, glowing trails streaking downward until they vanished into the streets below.
There was a moment of silence. The sky, once filled with bright flashes, was now calm except for the soft sound of fading plasma. Clouds hung torn and glowed faintly red from the afterburn.
Tony hovered in the air, his armor steaming as repair nanites scurried across the scorched plates. Warning indicators flickered in the HUD, but the numbers were already stabilizing. The overdrive mode had pushed the suit close to its limits.
His faceplate retracted with a soft hiss, exposing his sweat-soaked face to the cool night air. He let out a slow breath, a wry grin tugging at the corner of his lips. "Well. That was fun."
Before him, suspended in a shimmering cocoon of cosmic energy, Anton Vanko hung unconscious. The Crimson Dynamo armor was shattered beyond recognition, fragments burned black and melted into useless slag.
"You'll live," Tony muttered, studying the man's slack face. "Lucky for you, I'm in a generous mood. And I'm gonna make you work to your bones."
He flicked his wrist and opened a comm line to the car still parked below. The AI immediately linked the feed, showing Pepper sitting tense in the back seat, eyes glued to the distant sky.
Tony cracked his knuckles and flew over to Anton. He aimed his finger at him as nanites flowed out, wrapping Anton's body and forming a suit.
"Legion, take him to the tower and ask Elena to prep the medbay. When he wakes up, give him one of the spare rooms," He ordered his AI.
"Affirmative," Legion replied as it took control of Anton's suit and flew toward the tower.
Tony then flew down beside his car and deactivated his armor. The nanites flowed into his wristwatch since it was in repair mode. He then opened the car's door and entered.
"So," He looked at Pepper. "Dinner and wine?"
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