A minute and a half later, exactly as Jarvis had predicted, the distance closed. Leo's internal sensors—enhanced by the golden field surrounding his suit—could clearly perceive the heat signature and the distinctive, powerful profile of the Mark III armor just ahead.
Two seconds after that, the silent, silver armor, enveloped in a sheath of crackling golden light, arrived directly alongside the speeding red and gold behemoth. The sheer speed of Leo's approach created a secondary, far sharper shockwave that momentarily buffeted Tony's suit.
"Jarvis, connect to Mr. Stark. Give him the private channel," Leo ordered, maintaining a perfect lock on the Mark III's velocity.
"Leo, what in God's name are you doing here? And how in the hell did you manage to catch up? I was cruising at Mach 1.3! You don't even have visible propulsion!" In less than a second, Tony's astonished voice, laced with a familiar mix of pride and annoyance, exploded through the earpiece.
"Mr. Stark, this is also one of my low-key party tricks, activated after the… incident in the cave," Leo replied smoothly, keeping his voice light despite the circumstances. "It turns out deep-fried metal shrapnel and near-death experiences are fantastic for spiritual growth. You know me, always trying to be discreet."
Tony immediately dropped his speed slightly, settling into a high-subsonic cruise, clearly prioritizing the conversation over pure velocity.
"Leo, stop. Turn around right now. This trip is no joke. I'm not testing new toys; I'm heading into a literal war zone to clean up my mess. I don't want to drag you into it. I can handle this solo." Tony's voice was firm, carrying a rare sincerity. He continued to fly with his eyes fixed straight ahead, the desert landscape of the American Southwest blurring far below.
"They're in Gomila because of Ethan, aren't they? And because of the thousands of weapons Stark Industries delivered," Leo countered, his tone hardening. "Whether this is about revenge for a friend or an attempt to salvage your conscience, I can't stand idly by. This is as much my mess now as it is yours."
"So what is your grand plan, kid? What's the objective? Charity work?" Tony scoffed, the irony returning to mask his genuine concern.
"Destroy your weapons. All of them. And maybe, just maybe, make sure you don't accidentally get blown up by a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher or a stray tank shell. This is the first real-world, high-stress combat test of the Mark III, Mr. Stark, and I'm your live-action co-pilot. I don't want to miss it." Leo matched the Mark III's speed and altitude precisely.
Tony didn't speak for a long moment, the only sound the rushing wind around the armors. But the emotional weight of his silence was heavy. Perhaps in that moment, flying side-by-side with this self-made, silent guardian, Tony Stark finally began to truly regard Leo as an equal—a partner, not just a brilliant kid or a houseguest.
With a sudden burst of power, a stream of blue-white fire erupted from the Mark III's hands and boots. The armor surged forward, the air around it oscillating violently. A deafening BAM echoed across the desolate plains below—the sonic boom of the Mark III entering supersonic mode once more.
Leo immediately followed suit. He poured another focused surge of kinetic energy into his golden containment field. The silent, silver armor accelerated instantly, effortlessly matching the Mark III's Mach 1.3 speed. Above the vast, cotton-candy clouds, two figures—one gleaming red and gold, the other silently radiating brilliant gold—flew rapidly toward the Middle East and the desperate plight of Gomila.
"Mr. Stark, running a quick trajectory scan," Leo said, the communication crisp and clear despite the intense velocity. "Could we be being actively tracked by military satellites? We're pushing serious air traffic limits."
"Relax, Leo. We're too small, too fast, and too far off the common flight paths," Tony said confidently. "Unless the US military has suddenly decided to dedicate a geosynchronous satellite solely to tracking my personalized panic attacks, we're invisible. We're not passing through any restricted military testing airspace, either. Completely off the grid."
"Right. The panic-tracking satellite. Noted," Leo muttered. "But what about ground defenses, say, armor? Mr. Stark, do you think your gold-titanium composite can withstand a direct hit from a full-sized T-72 tank shell?"
"I've calculated the kinetic absorption and tensile strength. The armor should hold, although the subsequent impact might rearrange my organs. Why the sudden interest in heavy artillery?" Tony asked curiously.
Leo chuckled, a dry, airy sound. "Oh, I'm just thinking strategically. If a high-explosive tank shell comes whistling our way, and I only have enough time to either deflect it from hitting you or save myself… which option do you think is more efficient, mathematically speaking?"
"You worry about yourself, kid. If you get vaporized, I'll have to listen to Pepper lecturing me for the rest of my life about my 'irresponsible guardianship.' I'm not sure the Mark III can withstand that kind of kinetic force."
Leo smiled, a deep, genuine warmth spreading beneath the silver helmet. "Noted, sir. Self-preservation first."
He pushed his speed slightly higher, feeling the incredible strain on his control, but finding a new plateau of power. The subtle surge confirmed his internal hypothesis: this deep focus, this absolute necessity, was accelerating the development of his Immovable Golden Body ability faster than any amount of deliberate meditation. The crisis was forcing the breakthrough.
Hours later, as the dawn broke over the dusty, war-ravaged landscape, the two armors slowed their descent. Below them was the small, anonymous town of Gomila—a nightmare etched in stone and sand. Only skeletal remains of buildings stood, their walls riddled with countless bullet holes. Desperate, muffled cries echoed from the wreckage.
The local "freedom fighters"—fighters who turned out to be the brutal, well-armed militia of the Ten Rings—were engaging in a frenzied, organized massacre. They seemed to kill for twisted sport, firing their heavy machine guns randomly into the few refugees who dared to run.
In one devastating incident, they herded seven terrified refugees into a small, dark room, bolted the door, and then tossed a fragmentation grenade inside. The muffled thump of the explosion was followed by a chilling, immediate silence.
In a small square, shielded by the ruins of a mosque, several soldiers had captured a group of women and children. They forced the men—about twenty terrified civilians—to kneel face down against a crumbling wall, hands locked over their heads, preparing for a mass execution.
Standing in the center, barking orders in a harsh dialect, was the bearded deputy leader—the same man who had helped keep Tony alive in the cave, only to reveal his own complicity in the arms trafficking.
"Get those women and girls into the car, now! Load the captured weapons onto the other truck!" he roared, kicking a struggling man. "Get every last survivor out of those houses! Don't leave any witnesses!"
They spotted a man attempting to flee, clutching his two children and his wife. Soldiers clubbed the father to the ground with a sickening crunch of a rifle butt and dragged the shrieking woman and children toward a heavy military transport truck.
"Kill him! Add him to the pile of the worthless!" the deputy leader ordered, waving his hand dismissively.
As two soldiers dragged the man toward the execution wall, his young son, a boy no older than five, broke free from his mother and wailed, "Dad! Dad!" He ran blindly into the legs of the nearest soldier.
The father struggled, ripping his arms free from the soldiers' grip, and lunged forward to protect his child.
The deputy leader walked up, grabbed the boy by the collar of his faded shirt, and viciously hurled him backward into the dirt. He then stomped down with all his might, crushing the father's feet several times.
"Kill him! You useless trash!" he spat at the nearest soldier. He then turned and walked away, scanning the horizon for any sign of resistance.
The soldier, stone-faced, pulled the father up, forcing him onto his knees. He pressed the cold muzzle of his rifle against the back of the man's head. The mother could only cover her daughter and remaining son's eyes, bracing to witness her husband's death.
A soaring, metallic WHOOSH sound sliced through the thin desert air.
Every head—refugee and terrorist alike—snapped skyward.
A figure of red and gold steel descended from the sun-drenched sky, fire streaming from its feet to brake its velocity. It slammed down onto one knee, the impact generating a small cloud of dust. Tony Stark had arrived.
But he was not alone.
Beside him, another suit of armor descended. It was pure, clean silver, three-fifths the height of the Mark III, landing with the soundless grace of foam. It stood perfectly still, radiating a faint, almost invisible golden light, and seemed even more unnerving than the massive red and gold war machine next to it.
The initial shock was brief. A Ten Rings militiaman, fueled by adrenaline, immediately opened fire on the two intruders. The brass 7.62mm bullets hammered against the gold-titanium armor in a futile shower of sparks, pinging harmlessly off the composite shell. The man stared, his mind unable to process the failure.
The Mark III stepped forward. Before the gunman could move, Tony delivered a brutal, kinetic punch to his chest. The force sent the man flying seven or eight meters, a broken ragdoll, until he impacted the stone wall of a second-floor bungalow and collapsed, dead instantly.
Three consecutive, focused repulsor cannon blasts fired from the palms of the Mark III, striking the chests of the next three gunmen who dared to raise their rifles. The men disintegrated in brief, blinding flashes of blue energy.
Tony pivoted, pointing his palms at the soldiers who were binding women and children near the transport truck.
However, all five men, seasoned killers, immediately yanked the hostages in front of them, using the terrified women and children as human shields.
The energy light in Tony's palms slowly faded. He couldn't risk the lives of the innocent. But Jarvis was already at work.
"Targeting confirmed, Sir. Five hostiles. Non-lethal shot probability: zero. Fatal shot probability on target heads: 99.9%," Jarvis droned calmly.
Tony's shoulders split open. Two rows of miniature, motorized machine guns deployed—the hidden shoulder-mounted cannons.
BRRRTTT!
Twelve high-velocity, small-caliber rounds fired in a precise burst, ensuring that each of the five armed men received two fatal blows directly to the cranium. They fell instantly, their weapons clattering.
The rapid-fire machine guns retracted into the shoulder housing, but the terrifying noise still caused the bound women and children to recoil, their eyes filled with deep, fresh terror.
It wasn't until the young boy rushed out of the group and tearfully embraced his father—the man who had just been moments from execution—that the refugees realized what had happened. They collapsed onto their knees, overcome by shock and fearful gratitude.
Tony, however, wasn't done. He hadn't forgotten the bearded deputy leader. "Jarvis, thermal and motion scan. Find the main target."
"Target identified, Sir. The individual matching the profile is currently concealing himself behind the eastern wall, attempting to initiate a satellite phone call."
With a single, devastating punch, Tony shattered the reinforced cinder block wall. He reached through the dust and rubble, grabbed the bearded man by the neck, and yanked him into the light. Tony didn't execute him; instead, he hurled the man violently into the crowd of freed, traumatized refugees.
"He belongs to you now," Tony's synthesized voice boomed, leaving the man to the justice of the people he had brutalized.
"Mr. Stark, don't you want the satisfaction of pulling the trigger yourself? After all, he's one of the primary architects of this mess," Leo, who had observed the entire devastating exchange from his silent vantage point, asked.
"No, Leo. Killing him myself would be too much of a relief for him. Let the people decide his fate. It's what he earned." Tony raised his hand, charging the repulsor beam. "I have bigger things to blow up. I'm heading to the weapons depot. Jarvis's scan showed the main supply bunker three clicks northeast."
"Okay. I'll go to the other side then. I think this sector needs a silent cleanup crew," Leo replied. "You continue with the demolition job; I'll come find you after I've finished mowing the lawn here."
Leo and Tony parted ways. Tony ignited his jets and blasted off toward his target. Leo stayed grounded, utterly confident in Tony's ability to handle heavy combat. After all, the Mark III had the plot armor of a protagonist; Leo needed to focus on sheer, efficient suppression.
The surrounding area was still a cacophony of brutal fighting, a one-sided massacre of defenseless civilians. This small square was merely the entry point. Leo moved swiftly toward the most intense fighting nearby, his silver armor flowing through the rubble like liquid mercury.
He saw three soldiers attempting to use a heavy-caliber machine gun to suppress a group of villagers hiding in a basement.
Leo didn't waste energy on brute force. He focused his electromagnetic power—the true core of his Immovable Golden Body—purely on the soldiers' weaponry.
The three machine guns instantly seized up. The steel mechanisms inside fused and twisted. The triggers, subject to Leo's focused will, warped and stretched outward into wickedly sharp, finger-severing blades, instantly amputating the firing fingers of the men in two places.
The guns clattered to the ground, but before they could hit the dust, they floated up again. Leo manipulated the metallic density and kinetic speed of the weapons, turning them into self-firing, floating turrets.
Dozens of high-velocity bullets burst out from the barrels, turning the three howling men into bloody sieves.
More and more fighters noticed the strange, silent, silver figure. Their guns, ranging from antiquated AK-47s to newer, Stark-designed rifles, swung toward the threat.
In a fraction of a second, hundreds of brass and steel bullets, fired from a dozen guns, halted three meters from Leo's armor, fixed in the air as if encased in transparent resin. The golden aura surrounding the silver suit pulsed once, briefly visible, and then vanished.
The next instant, all the trapped bullets reversed direction. Guided by Leo's precise mental control, they shot back at their originators, each bullet aiming for the forehead.
A dozen heads exploded in simultaneous, sickening bursts. Leo showed absolutely no mercy. These were not soldiers; they were murderers using weapons forged from his friend's guilt.
Leo lifted into the air, flying silently and low over the sprawling battlefield like a terrifying, ethereal harvester. Wherever the Shadow of Midas passed, all armed fighters died instantly.
They all carried metal guns, metal knives, and metal shrapnel in their pockets. With a single thought, Leo could turn the fragments of their own weaponry into projectiles capable of piercing their brains.
He accelerated, honing his efficiency. He wasn't relying on massive telekinetic slams; he was using targeted, microscopic electromagnetic pulses to fuse their triggers, sever their fingers, and then turn their own bullets back on them. It was surgical, ruthless, and devastatingly fast.
If my spiritual energy wasn't stuck at nineteen control points, I could clear this entire valley in ten seconds, Leo thought, feeling a faint internal strain. I need to be quicker. I need to conserve. The weapons depot is the real problem.
He flew toward the outskirts of the town, where a convoy of trucks, laden with boxes bearing the Stark Industries logo, was attempting to flee. The silver armor became a silent, unstoppable force, leaving a trail of broken metal and lifeless bodies in its wake.