"Die!"
Obadiah Stane hurled the sedan with savage force. He didn't care why a child had fallen from the heavens; it changed nothing. He intended to crush both the boy and Tony Stark into a bloody pulp beneath the weight of the vehicle.
"No!"
Tony's face paled behind his HUD. The boy was standing directly between him and Obadiah. If he fired his Unibeam, he risked hitting the child. His previous combat strategy was instantly scrapped.
He prepared to fire his boot thrusters to maximum, hoping to intercept the car in mid-air and catch it. But doing so would drain his already critical power reserves to near-zero. Worse, the moment he caught the car, he'd be a sitting duck for whatever Obadiah fired next.
But there was no other choice. If he didn't act, the family of five and the strange boy would be pulverized.
"Dammit, why is there a kid falling out of the sky now?" Tony cursed under his breath as he surged forward.
However, someone was faster.
Before Tony could even clear the ground, Goku leaped. He caught the sedan in mid-air with both hands, landed firmly on the asphalt, and effortlessly absorbed the momentum. He set the car down gently on the sidewalk as if he were placing a toy on a shelf.
"Oh! So you want to challenge me? I accept!"
Goku dropped into the classic Turtle School stance. In a blur of motion, he appeared directly in front of Obadiah and threw a punch.
*BAM!*
The massive Iron Monger suit was lifted off the ground, hurtling backward until it smashed through a brick wall across the street.
"This is impossible!"
Obadiah struggled to make the suit stand amidst the rubble. He looked down at the massive, jagged crater in the Iron Monger's chest plate—a plate forged from Stark Industries' strongest military-grade alloy, designed to withstand tank shells. It had been nearly punched through by a child's bare fist.
It defied all logic. Obadiah's mind raced; he momentarily suspected the boy wasn't human at all, but some kind of hyper-advanced bio-android.
"I'll blow you to hell!"
Obadiah slammed a trigger. A micro-missile pod swiveled from the Iron Monger's shoulder and launched a high-explosive projectile at Goku. It didn't matter if the boy was a robot or a monster; he had to go. The missile might have been small, but it packed enough punch to vaporize a main battle tank.
"Watch out!"
Because Goku had saved the car so quickly, Tony's intercepting flight had carried him past the scene. As he looped back, he saw the missile streaking toward the boy. He tried to intercept with a repulsor blast, but he was too far.
His worry, however, was entirely misplaced. At his current level, Goku could have stood still and tanked the explosion with his bare skin. And even without that durability, the missile was moving far too slowly to ever touch him.
But Goku didn't dodge. There was no need.
"Flavido!"
Just as the missile came within half a meter of his face, Goku pointed a finger. A spark of magical light struck the warhead. Instantly, the deadly missile transformed into a colorful, harmless balloon that drifted away on the night breeze.
Among all the spells he had learned over the past year, Goku favored Apparition and Transfiguration the most. One was perfect for combat; the other was perfect for improving the taste of his dinner. Naturally, they were the two spells he had mastered most thoroughly.
"What?!"
On the ground, Obadiah stared. In the air, Tony's jaw dropped.
"Is this... is this some kind of magic show?" Tony muttered, bewildered.
"Hey! Keep going!" Goku called out, dropping back into his fighting stance. "Your body is pretty tough. Let's go again!"
Obadiah's vision went red with rage. He refused to believe that his "invincible" Iron Monger, the pinnacle of weapons engineering, could be outperformed by a brat.
He forced the suit to leap into the air, drawing back a massive, millstone-sized iron fist. He channeled over half of his remaining reactor output into his right arm.
He would grind this kid into the dirt.
Tony saw the suit diving and started to charge his repulsors to assist, but a loud shout stopped him cold.
"Mr. Stark! Stay back! He is no match for Mr. Son!"
Agent Coulson had emerged from the Stark building followed by a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Earlier that day, Pepper had handed Coulson the evidence of Obadiah's treason. They had come to make an arrest, only to be tossed around by the Iron Monger like ragdolls.
But now, Coulson stood his ground, his eyes fixed on the boy. S.H.I.E.L.D. had spent eight months searching for Son Goku after his disappearance from the quinjet. They had scoured the planet and found nothing. The boy had simply vanished.
Coulson knew the intel. He knew that even in a suit of armor, Obadiah was outclassed. He stopped Tony primarily because he didn't want the billionaire to get caught in the literal crossfire of a monster-tier fight.
"Here it comes! Eat my full-power punch!"
Seeing the giant iron fist descending, Goku felt a surge of genuine excitement. In his first strike, he'd used maybe thirty percent of his strength. This time, he decided to let loose.
It had been so long since he'd really punched something. Back in the Hebrides, a full-power strike had nearly killed the Dragon King in one hit, so he'd been holding back ever since. But this "robot" seemed durable, and even if it broke, it was just a machine. He wouldn't be hurting anyone real.
*BOOM!*
Goku's small, bun-sized fist collided with the Iron Monger's massive metal hand.
"I... I don't believe it..."
The impossible happened. The Iron Monger's hand didn't just dent; it shattered like an eggshell against a diamond. Shards of high-strength alloy rained onto the street as the entire right arm of the suit disintegrated.
The force of the impact sent the massive machine spiraling through the air once more.
Obadiah lay on his back in the cratered asphalt, staring blankly at the sky. "My Iron Monger... how could it lose to a child? My invincible machine... to a child... a child..."
He muttered the words over and over, his voice trailing off into a broken whisper. His pride, his ambition, and his belief in his own superiority had been utterly pulverized. His will was gone.
***
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