Bang!
Tony fired the flare into the sky.
A bright red arc blazed upward, lighting up the desert night before descending slowly. The intense glow illuminated Tony and Yinsen's faces clearly in the darkness.
"Alright," Tony muttered, tossing the flare gun aside, "Give it a few minutes. Someone will pick us up."
Any signal fired near a military garrison would trigger a satellite check. Once they spotted him, the rescue team wouldn't take long.
Tony turned to Yinsen. "Come with me to the United States. Bring your family too."
Yinsen hesitated. His expression darkened.
"My family is gone, Tony," he said quietly. "Honestly... I'd rather return to my country. I want to help as many people as I can over there."
The words Tony had prepared got stuck in his throat. The man who had saved him had endured even worse.
Still, Tony couldn't leave him behind.
"Yinsen…" he said, voice heavy, "I didn't know about your family. I'm sorry."
Yinsen shook his head. "It's alright."
"I understand why you want to go back," Tony continued. "But I also think Malrick was right."
He tapped the arc reactor embedded in his chest. His eyes gleamed with conviction.
"This time, I'm going back to do things differently. I want to build something better. Not just bombs."
He looked Yinsen in the eye. "Come with me. Together, we could help more people than you ever could alone. We can change the world."
Yinsen stared at the reactor, silent. The tech could change the world. He hesitated.
Boom!
A sudden roar of engines cut through the night.
A patrol aircraft approached overhead, engine noise growing louder.
"They're fast," Yinsen said in surprise. "The flare was barely up for half a minute."
Tony squinted at the plane's silhouette. "That's not a rescue jet. It's just a recon bird. They're probably chasing Malrick. He must've been spotted."
He watched the aircraft shrink into the horizon. "They won't catch him. That thing doesn't even break the sound barrier."
Tony smirked. "Honestly, Malrick's flashy escape might've drawn all the attention. But when I put on the MK armor, then they'll lose their minds."
He paced a little, heat rising in his voice. "You'll have your own suit too. We'll be a team… MK Team? Sounds kinda cool."
As he rambled, another deeper roar came overhead. Three helicopters emerged from the dark sky.
Tony pointed up. "There they are! Rescue team incoming."
The two men, dry-throated from heat and dust, cheered and waved.
---
Meanwhile…
As Tony guessed, the patrol plane hadn't stood a chance. By the time it reached the cave, Malrick had already crossed into another continent.
After recovering the Mark I armor and blueprints from the wreckage, he soared into the thermosphere over Afghanistan, then accelerated.
Mach 50.
In less than ten minutes, he crossed half the globe and re-entered US airspace over the Pacific Coast.
He dropped altitude just above the California coast, reducing speed below the sound barrier as he approached Los Angeles—Stark's mansion lay just beyond the coastal mountains.
That's when it happened.
Satellite Lock.
---
U.S. Military Command Center, California
"Sir! We've got something."
The operator zoomed in on a figure streaking across the mountain range at nearly Mach 2.
"Is that… a person?" one technician said, stunned.
"It looks like a small, humanoid flying unit," another confirmed, "But it's blurry—some kind of interference or shielding."
"Radio them," the commander barked. "Tell them to land for inspection. I don't care if it's the CIA or Navy—get that thing down here!"
"No radio response, sir!"
"Sir, both the CIA and the Navy just contacted us. They spotted the same object. Neither claim it."
"We've got nothing in our database even close to this," another tech reported.
"Radar can't get a lock—target cross-section's too small!"
"Satellite imagery's too distorted!"
"Then what the hell is flying over our heads right now?" the commander exploded.
No one had an answer.
"Get me high-altitude interceptors. I want that thing down."
---
Malrick was flying smoothly, enjoying the quiet, when his ears picked up the distant roar of engines.
He glanced back.
"Satellite caught me already?" he muttered, annoyed. "Guess I slowed down too much."
"Subsonic flight's just too easy to detect. Maybe next time I'll cruise at Mach 10."
Just then, a pilot's voice crackled through military radio—audible even at this altitude.
"Target locked. Awaiting fire order."
"Shoot it down," came the commander's voice.
"Missiles away!"
Several fighter jets emerged from the clouds, unleashing a barrage of Mach 5 missiles.
Malrick turned his head and spotted the contrails. His vision cut through the cloud cover easily.
The missiles blazed toward him like angry comets.
They would've vaporized any jet in the world.
But Malrick barely blinked.
He actually considered catching one mid-air and walking through the explosion just for the dramatic effect.
After all, what's the point of having a body of steel if you never show off?
Maslow's Pyramid, he mused. Self-actualization means flexing your powers sometimes.
But then he smirked.
Let Tony be the one who gets hit next time. It'll be funnier that way.
There's no better time to make a grand entrance than when your genius billionaire best friend thinks he's the star of the show.
Grinning to himself, Malrick looked up again—and vanished.
Mach 20.
A sonic boom cracked across the upper atmosphere as he shot out of radar range.
Back at the command center:
"Target lost!"
"Repeat—missiles missed!"
"Object disappeared from satellite tracking!"
"Could it have stealth tech?!"
The commander stared at the screen, speechless.
"What… in God's name… was that?"
No one had an answer.
But one thing was certain—the entire Pentagon would be on edge for days to come.
---