Watching Peter effortlessly subdue the female agents who had just caused him quite a bit of trouble using Conqueror's Haki, Tony's expression couldn't help but turn slightly strained.
Fine, I'm already tired of saying how envious I am!
Tony and Natasha touched down on the snow, moving to stand right beside Peter. Almost the exact second her boots hit the ground, Natasha's brow furrowed into a tight frown.
"Why did they react as if they were expecting us? Don't tell me... Melina set me up?"
"Don't go thinking the absolute worst of everyone." Peter patted Natasha gently on the shoulder, offering a reassuring smile. "It's highly likely that a bastard like Dreykov simply planted a hidden wiretapping device somewhere near your mother without her knowledge."
Natasha cast a brief glance at Peter, but in the end, she didn't interject with her usual retort of "she's just my fake mother."
"Who cares about any of that anyway!" Tony chimed in from the side, rolling his shoulders. "The fact that they all charged out in one massive wave actually saves us a hell of a lot of trouble... Come on, let's head inside and see what kind of tricks that old piece of trash Dreykov still has up his sleeve."
Without waiting for a response, Tony was the first to charge straight into the subterranean base. Seeing this, Peter and Natasha naturally followed suit, trailing him as they descended level by level into the facility.
True to Tony's prediction, because the vast majority of their combat forces had foolishly rushed outside to secure the perimeter, the defensive resistance within the upper levels of the underground complex was laughably thin.
Peter and his companions breached the first four defensive sectors with minimal effort.
However, the exact moment the three of them stepped onto the fifth subterranean level, the tactical situation reversed entirely.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
A series of heavy, metallic thuds echoed from behind them as the automated blast gates slammed shut in rapid succession, completely sealing off the corridors leading to the upper four levels.
Immediately following the lockdown, a dense, dark mass of figures flooded out from behind the reinforced doors.
They were entirely female, and every single one of them was clad in a matching set of black combat suits. The design of these suits was exceptionally crude, lacking full-body armor plating.
However, one look at the miniature arc reactors glowing with a faint blue light on their chests—coupled with the pair of metallic whips crackling with violent, snapping arcs of electrical energy wrapped around each agent's forearms—was enough to confirm that these suits were the real deal. Furthermore, it was bleedingly obvious that this entire arsenal had been mass-produced by a single hand.
Almost the exact split second that name flashed across Peter's mind, the Whiplash army parted down the center like a receding tide. A tall, grim-faced man with long, unkempt hair stepped out, a thoroughly twisted, mocking smirk plastered across his face.
He wore a significantly more advanced, heavy-duty iteration of the exoskeleton armor. Not only was his suit far more massive, but the metallic whips trailing from his hands were noticeably thicker, scraping against the reinforced floor with a grating, metallic screech that set one's teeth on edge.
It was none other than Ivan Vanko—the very man Peter had previously tasked Maria Hill to investigate, only to be provided with an official record of his death!
"What a truly delightful surprise!" Ivan Vanko declared, pointing a trembling, manic finger squarely at Tony. "Before I could even set off for America to hunt you down, you little thief actually delivers himself right to my doorstep?"
"Thief?" Tony's brow furrowed slightly, genuinely baffled as to what kind of delusion this lunatic was suffering from.
Seeing Tony's head tilt in genuine confusion, Ivan's temper flared instantly. He began to bellow with manic rage:
"Damn you, Stark! Your entire family is nothing but a pack of hypocrites!"
"Your father stole my father's technology, casting him out to rot and die in Siberia! And now you actually have the nerve to stand there acting completely clueless? Did you truly believe that your family could continuously steal other people's scientific achievements and just peacefully enjoy your ill-gotten wealth forever?"
Hearing the key triggers of "father" and "Siberia," Tony—who had long since reviewed the old archival film reels left behind by Howard Stark—felt his expression turn entirely cold.
"Oh, so it's you," Tony's tone suddenly became incredibly casual, laced with a heavy dose of biting mockery. "And here I was wondering who could be making such a racket.
Turns out it's just the mutt of that worthless old dog who desperately clung to my father's coattails to barely scrape together an arc reactor design, only to immediately try and steal the tech to sell it for quick cash, and then refused to show a single shred of remorse even after he was caught red-handed."
Hearing Tony openly refer to him as the pup of a worthless dog, Ivan's face turned an ugly shade of livid purple. His knuckles turned white as he white-knuckled the hilt of his whips, the metallic tendrils crackling violently with arcs of lightning in direct response to his mounting fury.
"Kill them!"
Lacking the verbal wit to formulate a proper comeback, Ivan chose to let his weapons do the talking.
With a roar of command, the dozens of mechanized Red Room female agents surrounding them activated their whips simultaneously. Blinding arcs of electricity interlaced within the narrow corridor, weaving a brilliant, lethal net of light that surged furiously toward Tony's trio.
Faced with the aggressive onslaught of the female agents, Tony reacted almost entirely on instinct. He raised both hands, firing off compressed repulsor blasts from his palms that slammed squarely into the lead attackers, flipping them violently onto the ground.
Tony initially assumed that would be more than enough to take them out of commission.
However, to his absolute bewilderment, the three female agents who had just been forcefully upended scrambled back to their feet within fractions of a second.
Even though portions of their mechanized exoskeletons had suffered catastrophic structural failure—and despite the fact that their flesh bore severe, agonizing burns from the residual heat of the repulsor beams—not a single line on their faces wavered.
It wasn't a matter of them gritting their teeth and bravely enduring the agony; it was as if they simply couldn't register the concept of physical pain to begin with!
"What the hell?" Tony was completely stunned.
If it weren't for the fact that genuine, crimson blood was actively oozing from their wounds, he would have honestly believed these women were some advanced iteration of lifelike androids.
"This is exactly how agents molded by the Red Room operate," Natasha's icy voice echoed from behind him. "The mission parameters take absolute priority over everything else. As long as the objective is secured, personal survival means absolutely nothing."
"I understand the psychological programming, but this completely defies fundamental human instinct!"
Tony watched in horror as a female agent whose exoskeleton had shattered found herself pinned beneath the crushing weight of the heavy metal frame.
Yet, behaving as though she felt absolutely nothing, she continued to claw her way forward frantically, going so far as to ruthlessly tear her own pinned legs completely free from her torso without so much as a flinch!
Staring at the Red Room agent who now possessed only a functioning upper body, yet was still desperately dragging herself forward to claw at him, Tony felt a cold wave of goosebumps break out across his scalp. He instinctively took a half-step backward.
It was precisely because of this momentary lapse in focus and subsequent retreat that a metallic whip whistled through the air from his blind spot, striking him viciously across the torso.
Immediately following the first strike, a second, a third... a veritable downpour of metallic whips rained down, wrapping tightly around Tony's frame.
Tony didn't think much of it at first. In his current state, he possessed absolute, one hundred percent confidence in the nano-Vibranium composition of his armor. Even if he were to endure a relentless barrage of a hundred consecutive strikes, his armor wouldn't sustain a single scratch.
Vibranium tech, kid!
However, before he could even trigger the kinetic energy release function, a rapid succession of flashing red warning prompts suddenly hijacked his HUD.
"Warning! Critical energy drain detected, Sir!"
"Weapon systems temporarily offline!"
Only at this exact moment did Tony finally experience a sudden shock of clarity. These whips weren't being used to inflict physical damage upon his frame; rather... they were designed to siphon his core power!
"Damn it!" Tony's expression shifted drastically. "Their whips are actively draining the energy straight out of my arc reactor!"
Seeing that Tony had finally caught on, Ivan Vanko let out a low, incredibly smug laugh that echoed through the chamber:
"Do you like it, Stark? This is a masterpiece I custom-tailored specifically for you."
"Let's see just how long a pathetic thief like you can hold out under my leash!"
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