Regarding Obadiah's betrayal, Tony never expected it whatsoever.
Recalling after his father Howard's death, since he and Obadiah took charge of Stark Industries together, Obadiah's various actions—Tony only felt waves of chills in his heart.
During the company's difficult period, Obadiah had persuaded him to sell part of his shares, which led to the current board of directors. Then the company's listing, company structure and departmental and personnel adjustments—actually many things were deliberately weakening his authority in the company.
And now, Obadiah had finally gotten his wish, kicking him out of the company and solely grasping Stark Industries' management authority.
Originally, if Obadiah could manage the company well according to his principles, Tony wouldn't mind being a hands-off boss. But he'd sold weapons to terrorists for profit!
Weapons he manufactured falling into bad people's hands, being used to harm innocent civilians—this was something Tony Stark absolutely couldn't accept. So he decided to take back all these weapons!
While Chen Mo wasn't in the laboratory, Tony, face full of frost, stepped onto the automatic equipping platform, equipped Mark II, and flew to several terrorist and anti-government militant locations marked in the materials Phil Coulson gave him.
After Tony flew away through the passage, Chen Mo slowly walked down from upstairs.
"JARVIS, display Mark II's real-time images and position, status information."
Chen Mo commanded the intelligent butler JARVIS.
"Very well, sir."
Tony had given Chen Mo the same highest authority as himself, so JARVIS directly executed Chen Mo's commands.
The display screen beside him immediately lit up, showing a satellite map with Mark II's position clearly marked and moving at high speed. Currently he was crossing the Atlantic, flying rapidly eastward.
One side of the screen displayed real-time images Tony saw plus Mark II's flight speed, altitude, suit status and various other information.
Several hours later, Tony crossed the Atlantic and reached the target area.
Relying on the powerful Iron Man suit, Tony easily found weapons produced by Stark Industries that Obadiah had secretly sold and destroyed them all completely.
The terrorists' counterattacks had no lethality before the Iron Man suit. Various bullets hitting the suit were all directly bounced off. Even tank shells couldn't threaten Mark II. No one could stop Tony Stark's cleanup.
After visiting all locations in the intelligence and destroying all weapons, Tony finally felt the oppressive feeling in his heart lighten somewhat. After confirming nothing was missed, Mark II took off into the air amid the intense firelight of massive ammunition explosions and flew rapidly back the way it came.
However, during the return journey, Tony encountered US Air Force fighter interception.
After Chen Mo discovered two F-22 fighters appeared on screen, he immediately called Agent Phil Coulson.
Soon, Edwards Air Force Base flight command received a phone call.
After the on-site commander answered, his originally stern expression instantly relaxed.
Putting down the phone, he turned to everyone and said loudly.
"Alert lifted! Recall fighters—it's a secret department executing a mission."
The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division's name was still quite useful. This was also why Chen Mo wanted to obtain this layer of identity—convenience.
However, Tony Stark obviously wasn't clear about these things. He thought he'd successfully shaken them off relying on performance more formidable than F-22s and higher speed, and cheerfully returned to the villa secretly.
Tony didn't stop there. His company was still in Obadiah's grasp. Even if he'd already destroyed those sold weapons, Obadiah would continue selling weapons produced by Stark Industries to others. He had to completely bring him down and end all this.
He'd already made mistakes before—disregarding consequences, only knowing to manufacture powerful weapons according to interest, letting Obadiah exploit them and do so many bad things. Now, he absolutely couldn't let this mistake continue.
So after returning to the villa, Tony entrusted Pepper Potts to return to his office for him, use equipment he provided to hack into the company's mainframe and help him copy all the company's shipping manifests as evidence of Obadiah's behind-the-scenes arms deals.
Because he'd now been stopped from work by the board and couldn't enter the company, this mission could only be completed by Pepper.
As the person Tony most trusted and was closest to, after Pepper learned his thoughts, to help him make up for his mistakes, she returned to the company without hesitation.
After Pepper successfully hacked into the company mainframe, she not only found evidence of Obadiah selling arms to terrorists but discovered an even bigger secret.
It turned out Tony Stark being kidnapped while demonstrating the Jericho missile in Afghanistan earlier was actually instigated by Obadiah behind the scenes. Moreover, his requirement then was for the terrorists to directly eliminate Tony to clear obstacles for him controlling the entire company.
He just hadn't expected the terrorists to discover Tony Stark's true identity, not killing him and even having Dr. Yinsen, whom they'd previously captured, save the severely wounded Tony, making him manufacture weapons for them.
Pepper also discovered Obadiah obtaining Mark I's design blueprints and establishing Sector 16 for Iron Man suit research. After copying all this evidence into a USB drive, just as Pepper prepared to shut down and leave, Obadiah, learning she'd come to the company and entered Tony's office, became suspicious and rushed over to block her inside.
Pepper couldn't help but feel somewhat panicked. Obadiah arriving so coincidentally at this time obviously meant he'd already become suspicious of her arrival. From the materials she'd just seen, Obadiah clearly wasn't any good person. Once he discovered she'd copied his criminal evidence, he definitely wouldn't let her leave safely.
"What are you doing on Tony's computer?"
Obadiah walked directly toward Pepper with a grim face, obviously planning to directly check. The atmosphere instantly became tense.
Just as Pepper somewhat panicked thinking how to escape, the office door was pushed open again. Agent Phil Coulson with a serious expression strode in.
"Miss Potts, the Commander sent me to take you back."
The two in tense standoff before the desk simultaneously turned to look.
Seeing Agent Phil Coulson, Pepper's heart relaxed. With someone else present, Obadiah shouldn't dare act rashly, let alone since who came was a senior agent.
Only then did she remember Tony's legendary godfather Chen Mo was also a high-level member of a special organization.
Although she didn't know much about that organization, Chen Mo being able to rush to Afghanistan the first moment the incident occurred, take over command of the rescue operation from the military, and finally successfully rescue Tony and return to New York by military aircraft—from this series of events one could see Chen Mo and his organization called the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division must be very powerful.
Obadiah's feeling was exactly opposite. Phil Coulson's sudden appearance made him very angry.
After Tony was rescued by Chen Mo earlier, he'd specifically investigated this mysteriously appearing figure's background, including that subordinate who'd always been by his side—the very Phil Coulson appearing before him now.
He'd mobilized all forces he could deploy but in the end found no results, only knowing they came from a mysterious organization called the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. As for this organization's detailed information, no one revealed anything to him. The only advice he received was not to provoke them.
Obviously this mysterious organization was an existence no weaker than the FBI and CIA, possibly even more powerful.
Looking at the serious-faced Phil Coulson with sharp gaze, Obadiah knew he couldn't keep Pepper and could only rise to let her leave.
Unwillingly watching Pepper Potts walk out of the office under Agent Phil Coulson's escort, Obadiah withdrew his gaze and sat before the computer.
After some checking, he quickly discovered many encrypted important files in the company mainframe had been accessed and copied, including his behind-the-scenes deals with terrorists and evidence of him instigating terrorists to attack and kill Tony Stark.
Obadiah knew his actions had been completely exposed. Since that was the case, he simply planned to burn his bridges. Don't forget he still had a trump card.
The Iron Monger designed based on Mark I had been manufactured—only the energy aspect hadn't been resolved.
Anxious to put Iron Monger into use, Obadiah hurriedly rushed to Stark Industries' large original arc reactor.
Those engineers under him had researched this large original arc reactor for a long time. Unfortunately, they'd never had any results, always believing miniaturization of the arc reactor was completely impossible.
Hearing this, Obadiah was exceptionally furious, roaring angrily at the person in charge, Dr. William.
"Do you know what Tony Stark made it with in that cave?!"
"With a bunch of scraps!!!''
Facing the furious Obadiah, Dr. William said softly.
"I'm sorry. I'm not Tony Stark."
His criminal evidence had already been obtained by Pepper Potts. They might take action against him soon. He had to take desperate risks and immediately put Iron Monger into use. As long as he eliminated Pepper and Tony Stark, no one could threaten him anymore.
Since his subordinates couldn't manufacture a miniature arc reactor, he could only take it from others.
The already somewhat crazed Obadiah thus came again to Tony Stark's seaside villa, used a neural paralyzer to paralyze him, and removed the second-generation arc reactor from his chest.
Thinking Tony would surely die, Obadiah no longer concealed himself and openly admitted all his actions.