Tony didn't co alone.
The mont he confird A.I.M.'s location, he pulled in a full roster of S.W.O.R.D.-affiliated superheroes.
The first wave of A.I.M. combat personnel died so quickly they barely understood what was happening.
Most of them were vaporized by energy weapons before they could even establish defensive formations.
The battle beca a complete rout almost imdiately.
A.I.M. managed occasional resistance thanks to their advanced weaponry and bizarre experintal technology, but it wasn't enough to stop the montum.
The superheroes tore through their facilities like a divine army descending from the heavens.
In less than two days, they bulldozed their way deep into A.I.M. territory and completely surrounded M.O.D.O.K.'s primary headquarters.
That was where things finally beca difficult.
The outer facilities had been research outposts and secondary installations.
This place was different.
The core base housed A.I.M.'s strongest soldiers and the culmination of decades of stolen and developed black technology.
The heroes launched another aggressive assault like before.
This ti, they got punished for it.
Lightning bombardnts exploded across the battlefield while long-range energy cannons opened fire from every direction. The initial charge collapsed almost instantly under overwhelming defensive firepower.
Fortunately, there were no casualties.
The heroes participating in the assault had already survived alien invasions, monster outbreaks, and battles that would've shattered ordinary armies. A.I.M. was dangerous, but nobody here was inexperienced.
Still, this final fortress was a nightmare to crack.
Every bizarre prototype weapon imaginable started appearing.
One stray projectile landed in the middle of a squad and detonated into sothing resembling a miniature black hole, shredding everything nearby into spiraling fragnts.
An orange distortion beam fired from a tower behind the main gate, suddenly altering local gravity and slamming several heroes into the ground hard enough to knock teeth loose.
The heroes hadn't even reached the entrance before paying a brutal toll in blood and broken bones.
Worse, when they retaliated, every attack was blocked.
Bullets.
Energy blasts.
Heavy weapons.
Everything slamd into a translucent blue energy barrier surrounding the facility.
The concentrated bombardnt looked like a hurricane crashing against an invisible ocean. Endless ripples spread across the shield's surface, but the barrier itself remained completely stable.
Energy shield technology was still considered cutting-edge on Earth.
Only a handful of organizations possessed anything similar, and each version worked differently.
Baron Strucker's facilities used shield systems derived from data gathered through experints on the Tesseract.
Wakanda protected its capital through vibranium-based force field technology.
Tony's own armor incorporated miniature repulsion-field shielding systems.
Different principles.
Different weaknesses.
Unless soone simply smashed through the barrier with raw force.
That required even more absurd power.
Which ant it was finally Tony's turn to shine.
Inside the Iron Man armor, his HUD rapidly analyzed the shield's operating structure. Frequency patterns. Energy flow. Generator placent. Structural instability points.
Thirty seconds later, he adjusted his repulsor frequency to directly counter the shield's energy signature.
"I found the weak point!"
Iron Man and Red Hulk attacked simultaneously.
Tony unleashed a concentrated repulsor blast that destabilized the barrier's structure while Red Hulk smashed directly into the disrupted section with overwhelming force.
The shield shattered apart in less than a minute.
Nick Fury had predicted years ago that the next global arms race wouldn't revolve around conventional militaries.
It would revolve around superhumans.
The age of enhanced individuals had already arrived. Traditional armies still mattered, but Fury firmly believed future warfare would depend heavily on elite superpowered operatives capable of breaking impossible battlefields open.
A.I.M. now understood exactly what he ant.
They had spent years building this fortress.
Accumulating weapons.
Developing advanced technology.
And two superheroes had ripped it apart almost casually.
That alone proved how terrifying powerful superhumans had beco.
Once the shield fell, A.I.M. had no choice but to face the heroes directly.
After the Battle of New York, the reputation of superheroes had beco legendary.
"Fought an alien invasion head-on" was enough to terrify ninety percent of humanity by itself.
A.I.M.'s soldiers were no exception.
The mont so of them realized exactly which heroes were attacking the base, their hands started shaking so badly they could barely hold their weapons.
And these weren't ordinary heroes.
Ever since Drex helped standardize the disaster classification and response ranking system, superheroes had gradually gained a far clearer understanding of their own limits and combat roles.
Which ant the heroes deployed here were all genuine heavy hitters.
Red Hulk.
Hulk.
Abomination.
The Thing.
Juggernaut.
The five monsters simply charged straight through the battlefield in a line.
Gunfire.
Explosions.
Energy blasts.
None of it slowed them down in the slightest.
They tore open a bloody path through the facility while the others followed behind.
Above them, Johnny Storm, Iron Man, and Rhodey in his Decepticon armor provided aerial bombardnt support.
Wherever they passed, A.I.M.'s defensive positions exploded apart.
To A.I.M., the heroes genuinely looked like an unstoppable army of gods.
Layer after layer of outer defenses collapsed.
The defensive periter shrank rapidly.
Deep inside the base, M.O.D.O.K.'s massive face twisted with fury as he scread nonstop at terrified subordinates who didn't even dare raise their heads.
The heroes encountered the Extremis soldiers at the third defensive line.
The battlefield shifted into a residential district filled with apartnt-style structures. The Extremis soldiers used the buildings and terrain to launch ambushes, relying on their superheated bodies and enhanced physical capabilities to catch several heroes off guard.
It worked briefly.
Very briefly.
Tony alone had managed to deal with Extremis soldiers in other tilines.
Now the battlefield included so of the strongest heroes on Earth.
There was never any real chance of failure.
"Watch yourselves!" Tony shouted as he blasted an Extremis soldier's head apart mid-flight with a repulsor cannon.
"They can generate body temperatures over three thousand degrees, they've got accelerated healing and enhanced physical abilities, so you need to destroy the brain or heart or—"
Before he could finish, Hulk grabbed one Extremis soldier and crushed him into paste against the ground.
Red Hulk ripped another apart barehanded.
Abomination smashed two more through a building.
Juggernaut simply ran straight through several at once like a freight train made of violence.
Tony paused.
"...Actually, never mind."
At this point, even self-detonation probably wouldn't do much beyond covering the Hulks in dust.
The assault advanced with terrifying efficiency.
Soon, the heroes smashed through the final defensive periter and entered the core of the facility itself.
Resistance intensified dramatically.
It didn't matter.
A.I.M.'s chanical combat drones, photon tanks, and elite defense systems were systematically destroyed one after another.
Within thirty minutes, the entire base had fallen.
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