In the woods a hundred meters out, Franklin heard Jason's command and grinned. "Boss, it's finally my turn to shine."
With that, his eyes hardened. He stared at the distant Iron Man suit and activated his power.
"Beep! Beep! Beep!"
A string of red warning symbols flashed across Rhodey's HUD. He frowned in confusion. "What the...?"
The internal system immediately blared a warning. "WARNING! CONTROL LOST!"
Rhodey had no idea what the hell was happening to the suit, and a sudden panic seized him. He immediately yelled, "Get me out of here! Now!"
"WARNING! CONTROL LOST!"
Tony saw Jason's eerie smirk and heard the confusion in Rhodey's voice. He knew instantly something was wrong.
"Rhodey, what's going on?"
Rhodey was frantic. "I... I don't know! The HUD just says 'CONTROL LOST.' I can't pilot the suit!"
"What?" Hearing this, Tony's brow furrowed in shock.
He had designed the Iron Man suit himself. The development process had thrown up plenty of weird bugs, but this one—'CONTROL LOST'—had never shown up before.
Jason tilted his head up, looking at Tony's anxious face, and grinned. "Like I said. The show's not over, and the host isn't allowed to leave."
Tony looked down, his expression grim. "What are you doing?"
Jason smiled and nodded. "Franklin, bring them down."
The moment he spoke, Rhodey's suit began to descend slowly, completely out of his control.
"NO!" Pepper screamed in despair, watching herself get closer and closer to that demon.
Tony urged him, "Rhodey! Do something! Think of something!"
Rhodey was sweating bullets. "You're the one who designed this goddamn suit! If you don't know what to do, how the hell should I know?!"
Tony: "Try rebooting the system!"
Rhodey: "Already tried! It's useless! The system itself is compromised!"
Tony: "Okay, try this..."
Tony and Rhodey racked their brains, trying every override they could think of, but the suit didn't respond at all. It continued its controlled descent and landed hard on the ground.
Jason walked up. "Franklin. Cut the power."
As he said it, the arc reactor in the suit's chest went dark.
Jason reached up, ripped off Rhodey's faceplate, and smiled. "Colonel Rhodes. In this situation, do you still think I can't kill you?"
Staring at the face that haunted his nightmares day and night, Rhodey's forehead beaded with sweat, his breathing suddenly turning rapid and shallow.
The PTSD from six months ago came crashing back down on him.
Jason clapped him on the shoulder and chuckled. "Relax. I'm not going to kill you."
Hearing this, Tony looked at him, stunned. "You're being 'nice'? That's a first. Pigs must be flying. Can I ask why?"
Jason held up the arc reactor in his other hand. "Because of this!"
Tony frowned, not understanding what Jason meant.
Jason said, "Just now, when I was looking at this arc reactor up close, I had a revelation. You, Tony Stark, aren't just some guy. You're the goose that lays the golden eggs."
Tony: "..."
Jason smiled, feeling the analogy was perfect, and continued, "The media says the arc reactor technology is at least twenty years ahead of the rest of the world. I believe it."
"To shrink a reactor that big down to this size... you're the only one on Earth who could do it. So I realized, it'd be a waste to kill an inventor as brilliant as you. It's much better to... appropriate you."
It clicked for Tony, and his expression turned to one of fury. "You want to kidnap me?"
Jason smiled and nodded. "That's right. The Joker Organization wants to rule the world, and a few super-powered individuals aren't nearly enough. We need a massive, modern army. And the Iron Man suit is just perfect for that."
"I'm going to build a Joker Iron Legion, and I'll use it to smash the defense systems of every nation on Earth. To do that, I need you to upgrade the arc reactor, make its power output even greater. I need you to invent even more lethal Iron Man suits for me—suits that can effortlessly slaughter any modern army."
In front of the entire world, Jason laid his ambitions bare, completely undisguised.
Hearing this, Tony looked at him with utter contempt and snorted. "You're dreaming! I will never put the Iron Man suit in the hands of a psycho like you, and I sure as hell won't help you upgrade it."
"Is that right," Jason said flatly. Then, he slowly reached for Pepper.
"Ah!! Gkkhh!!" Pepper cried out for a moment before Jason's hand clamped around her throat, choking her.
"Let her go!" Tony roared, grabbing Jason's arm and trying to rip it away.
He wasn't Jason's match even in the suit. What the hell could he do bare-handed? He couldn't budge Jason's arm an inch.
Watching Tony's desperate, panicked expression, Jason mocked him, "I honestly didn't believe it. The infamous playboy Tony Stark, risking it all for one woman. But now I see it's true! Ah, how noble! Such moving, fucking love!"
"Aghhh!!" Tony put all his strength into his arms, his face flushing red, veins bulging on his neck.
But Jason's arm didn't budge a millimeter. Instead, his grip tightened. Pepper's breathing was cut off.
"Enough! I'll do it! I'll join!" Tony's resolve shattered instantly. He roared, his arms falling limply to his sides.
Jason's triumphant smirk returned, and he slowly released his grip.
"Soon, with a genius inventor like you joining up, the Joker Organization is about to enter a period of high-speed development. I'm always very... generous... to my own people. So as long as you don't try any funny business, I can guarantee..."
Tony gasped for a few breaths, then held up a hand, cutting Jason off.
"Fine. I'll work for your organization. No problem. But on one condition..."
"What condition?"
Hearing a faint whistling sound in the distance, Tony's despairing expression instantly vanished, replaced by a strange, dark smirk.
"The condition is... you have to survive what's coming."
Hearing this, Jason frowned, confused.
Just then, David's voice crackled in his earpiece. "Boss, bad news! We've got more Iron Man suits incoming!"
"What!" Jason looked genuinely surprised.
Do these fucking suits breed?
First Tony, then Rhodey, and now another one?
"How many suits?"
"Too many! I can't count!"
The words had barely left his mouth when a massive swarm of black-and-grey-colored suits flew in, completely surrounding Jason. At a rough estimate, there were at least a hundred of them.
The pilots in these suits didn't waste time on words. They raised their arms and attacked simultaneously.
In an instant, hundreds of pulse beams shot toward Jason.
Jason's brow tightened. He quickly dodged to the side, but the legion of suits pursued him relentlessly.
Seeing the reinforcements arrive, the three of them finally let out a breath of relief.
The reason Tony had dared to come alone wasn't because he was arrogant or blinded by rage. It was because, as of yesterday afternoon, the first batch of one hundred "Air Force Special Edition" Iron Man suits had been delivered. That was Tony's real ace in the hole.
But Jason's terrifying power had still exceeded Tony's calculations, so he didn't dare take any more chances, immediately calling in three soldiers for an emergency escort to get them out.
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You can read advance chapters and view R-18 images of the characters on pat reon page.
pat reon.com/GreenBlue17
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