Alex didn't wait for the armored transport to reach the mesa. Using the newly integrated Liquid Mesh suit, he executed a clean, powerful kinetic thrust, launching himself from the ancient Zola bunker and directly into the pale morning sky. The matte-black armor was a ghost against the rising sun.
[System Status: Model Zero Integration Complete. Structural Integrity: 100%. Kinetic Output: Stabilized. Arc Core: Optimal.]
The stability was exhilarating. With the full-body suit acting as a perfect capacitor, the raw RUNE energy no longer felt like a corrosive fire but a cold, infinite resource.
The target was massive: a colossal, blocky armored dropship with heavy thrusters and a terrifying, exposed weapons array on its nose. It was ugly, functional, and undeniably engineered with Zola's pre-war ethos—all brute force, zero style.
Romanoff's voice crackled, laced with urgency. "Alex, stay out of sight! That thing is running on an unstable plasma reactor. It will melt your armor!"
"Not if I take out its propulsion first," Alex countered. He fired a series of controlled kinetic bursts, weaving through the jagged peaks of the mesa, moving like a phantom. He was no longer running; he was hunting.
The Rivals in the Sky
The dropship banked, its massive, unrefined thermal cannon swiveling to track him. A blinding white-hot plasma beam tore through the air where Alex had been a moment before, vaporizing the rock behind him.
Alex needed to test the Model Zero's primary defensive function: Kinetic Dampening.
He stopped mid-air and expanded the kinetic field in a tight, spherical bubble around himself. The plasma blast struck the field. Instead of being vaporized, the energy was violently warped and diffused outward, scorching the atmosphere around him but leaving the suit unscathed.
Anya's code worked. The suit was a perfect closed system.
Before the dropship could fire again, a section of its hull opened, and a figure descended on a magnetic tether. This was the pilot and primary rival.
The figure was encased in a suit of armor that was immediately recognizable to Alex—it used the same heavy alloys and plasma weaponry as the team that attacked the Tower, but was larger, more advanced, and customized. It was a clear evolution of the tech Stane had sold.
The rival's comms pierced the frequency. The voice was distorted, guttural, and laced with supreme confidence.
"The RUNE Host. I was told your Arc Core would attract destruction. I see my employers were correct."
Alex activated his suit's external speaker. "You're a generation behind, pal. Your suit is running on stolen blueprints from a disgraced traitor."
"Disgraced? Stane was a visionary," the pilot scoffed. "And my armor—you can call it Project Hydra's Hammer. Its purpose is to retrieve the Key and terminate the unstable asset. You. You are the anomaly."
Conflict and the Cost of Power
The Hammer pilot launched himself from the dropship and accelerated toward Alex, firing a concentrated thermal beam from his palm.
Alex met him head-on, firing a counter-burst of kinetic energy. The two forces collided in a spectacular flash of white and amber, sending both armored figures reeling backward.
Alex was faster and more agile, his Model Zero suit obeying his every mental command with seamless speed. He moved into close combat, using his kinetic gauntlet not for massive blasts, but for precise, destructive Kinetic Punches.
He slammed a kinetic punch into the Hammer pilot's shoulder joint. The force was enough to fracture the reinforced alloy and send the pilot spinning, disrupting his flight.
[System Warning: RUNE Energy Reserve at 85%. Sustained Kinetic Output is Causing Micro-Fractures in the Gauntlet Casing. Monitor Integrity.]
The cost. Even the Model Zero alloy wasn't indestructible under extreme RUNE stress.
The Hammer pilot recovered and pinned Alex against the mesa wall using a concentrated stream of thermal energy. The Model Zero shield held, but the heat was overwhelming.
"You have superior shielding, I'll grant you that," the pilot growled. "But you have no sustained firepower. You run on brute force and luck!"
The Public Glimpse
Alex realized he couldn't win this with punches alone. He needed to use the full capacity of his integrated system.
He focused the nanites not on repair, but on creating an external, directional pulse. He targeted the pilot's thermal cannon, which was visibly straining under the energy required for the sustained beam.
"You're right about brute force," Alex replied, and then unleashed a massive, focused Kinetic Overload.
The energy struck the Hammer's thermal cannon, causing a catastrophic, localized explosion. The cannon was instantly destroyed, tearing a massive hole in the Hammer suit's arm.
The Hammer pilot shrieked in pain and shock, spiraling violently downward. The pilot slammed into the desert floor far below, kicking up an enormous plume of smoke and dust. The dropship, now without air support, slowly began to turn and retreat.
Alex hovered for a moment, the victorious silence broken only by the crackle of his internal comms.
"Holy hell, Stark!" Romanoff's voice was breathless, tinged with a respect she hadn't shown before. "You just totaled a billion dollars of stolen tech. You need a call sign. From now on, your designation is KINETIC."
But the fight wasn't completely private. A tourist helicopter—a bizarre fixture of the Mojave—had appeared over a distant ridge just moments before the final blast. The amateur pilot was filming the spiraling dropship and the massive explosion in the dust.
A news anchor's voice, tinny and excited, broke through a local radio frequency the suit automatically scanned: "We are getting unconfirmed reports of a military dogfight over the Mojave. Footage shows a mysterious, sleek black figure engaging a heavily armored transport. Initial social media reports are already calling the unknown armor The Shadow Man."
Alex looked down at his matte-black suit, then at the distant, retreating helicopter. His fight was over, but his identity was compromised. He was no longer just the Forgotten Stark. He was now a viral sensation.
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