Sep — Roleplayer Guild

’...With a drop in stock price in Stark Industries since the sighting of Iron Man flying into Trasnia, Starks second hand man Obadiah Stane has been seen meeting with other members of the board. So far they have been unavailable for comment…’Previously on Iron Man

TRASNIA - SOKOVIA BORDER
"Catalyst.”

A rocket launched from a shoulder mounted launcher, hitting one of the five suits head on. It was sent careering out of the crumbling building. As the Iron Men started to approach him Tony took to a knee, an extension popping out both of his wrists as a red laser was shot out, he spun on his heel sending the beam all around him. His opponents moved to dodge or block. The beam cutting straight through steel and concrete as it came into contact with the building. <”Is that all you’ve got Stark?”>

If they could only see the smug look- Wait. What did they call him? The building collapsed, and before Tony could begin to process that they had called him by his name he kicked in his repulsors and shot out of the rapidly approaching roof. The building collapsing in on itself, landing straight on top of the Iron Men. Jarvis instantly began scanning the wreckage for any sign of movement. He flicked off external comms. “Jarvis. Is your translation software working properly?”

“Yes sir. Somehow these adversaries appear to know who you are I- WARNING! INCOMING HOSTILE!”

Tony grunted as a suit collided straight into his back, driving him down towards the ground at full thrust. Putting his hands out in front of him Tony expelled a blast of energy that forced the two of them to flip. Instead of slamming into the ground he instead slammed into a suit of   armor that slammed into the ground. He rolled himself off the top of the   armor. “Status-hng-Status report.”

“  armor shielding is down to 67%. Scans indicate there may be some minor bruising internally. Long range scans indicate inbound aircraft. I recommend withdraw-”

“Not going to happen.” He picked himself up as the Iron Men started to crawl out of the rubble, left foot forward and right back he stood side on to them. Braced for their move. Two propelled themselves in the air, while two started running straight at him. All with swords poised straight for his chest. Left arm forward he closed his fist, pulling on the imaginary trigger as the gatling gun powered up letting loose with energy pellets directed at the two charing at him on the ground. They ducked and split, focusing fire on the one on the left he raised his left hand, palm open firing a repulsor beam at the other. When he missed he tried another. The second shot collided, sending the suit tumbling off course as Tony had to dive backwards to prevent from being impaled from the two flying suits. Swinging his arms low he grabbed them both by a leg each, slammed them into one another and then tossed them aside like a toddler bored of a toy.

The last suit charged sword raised. Tony aimed a punch at the gut, then grabbing the helmet pulled. He almost threw up when there was a loud crrrrrrruuuunch. That’s when the helmet came off. Revealing no person inside. “What the…” He looked at the underside of the helmet that was still in his other hand. It was a robot. He looked around at the other suits as they attempted to return to their feet. It suddenly made sense, how they worked so well in unison. The occasional clunky movements. He smiled inside his helmet. He had been holding back because he thought that there were people in these suits. No more. Stood in a brace, legs shoulder width apart. “Now Jarvis!”

Two pods popped out of his upper back, a cluster of small missiles launching into the air. Reaching their apex they turned and started careering back down. AS they neared the ground the head of the missiles opened and five smaller warheads dropped. Tony dropped to a knee, the resulting explosion still shocking him to hise core. Warnings flared up all over his hud as the suit attempted to compensate for the amount of raw kinetic energy it was absorbing. The lights flickered off for a second. “WARNING! Suits shielding systems are dis-dis-dis-dis-dis-disabled.”Tony walked through the rubble, approaching one of the destroyed suits. It lay with its electronic guts spilled out among the rubble.

He picked up one of the helmets. “Aircraft are two minutes out sir.”He dropped it as light came out of the helmet, a hologram of a balding man appearing. A scar strewn across his face. Yuri Petrovich. The so called liberator of the Trasnian Nation. 

“I have been waiting for you Iron Man.” His voice was heavy and metallic, cold and calculating. Honestly Tony couldn’t tell if it was the helmets speaker or the man himself that sounded menacing. Thick with accent that belonged in a sixties movie about Russian spies. “I am surprised you managed to refrain from sticking your nose in my business earlier. After all you aren’t exactly known for restraint Stark.” He spat the name out. The real question was how did he know. Only one person alive knew his secret identity and that was Rhodey, and he wouldn’t tell anyone his identity. Someone else had a theory, a suspicion. That’s all it had to be, and he couldn’t let on that it was the truth. 

Tony clicked his mic on activating his external speakers. “Your English is good, I’ll give you that. You’re using my employers tech to kill and maim your own people. He can no longer allow this, stand down. Or I’m coming for you Petrovich.” 

“Warning! Detecting incoming signal!”

“What kind of signal?”

“Goodbye Iron Man.” Tony looked down at the chest piece of the suits as they flashed red. A low whining started building up from within the chests of the suits. 

STARK CORPORATE HQ - SAN FRANCISCO

Obadiah Stane sat with a glass in hand, swirling the golden liquid contents. The cubes of ice clinking against one another and the glass itself. He raised the tip of the glass to just below his nose, the aroma jolting his senses. The bitterness striking a cord in his brain. The two other members in the room sat looking at him. Eric Lynch. Empty husk of a man, yet surprisingly deceitful. The man didn’t have a creative bone in his body, but he knew how to navigate the corporate structure and how to make money. It’s why Stane brought him onto the board shortly before Tony inherited the company. He needed a public enemy for Tony, while he himself kept working on things behind the scenes. 

Abraham Zimmer, the old man in the corner was his biggest opposition. His own company had been failing, some form of non-profit. Tony had seen some kind of value in him and had brought him in, as much as Obadiah hated to admit it the man did have a way with people. The biggest problem with the bleeding heart was that they couldn’t openly discuss some of their deals in board of director meetings anymore. Instead they had to sneak around for fear of discovery, whereas before Tony’s change of heart after Afghanistan they openly plotted against him. He was their biggest opposition.

Simon Gilbert wasn’t so much as opposition as competition. Another long term friend of Howard, Gilbert was ruthless and deceitful. Had their plan to be rid of Tony been successful then Gilbert would no doubt have had a plan to take him out as well to leave him as the president of the company. Given a suitable amount of grace time between the two killings of course. “It’s safe to assume that Tony isn’t going to make a surprise return for this meeting, so shall we just start?”

He looked around the room as everyone nodded. “The stocks taken another dive after Iron Man was sighted in Trasnia. Tonys not out of town, we need to address this now. Kords tech demonstration is coming up, and Luthor will no doubt be close on his tail. We need to put something new out there and fast.” Eric nodded while Abraham just stroked his beard, looking pensive. It was Simon  that spoke first.

“The announcement that we will be selling weapons to S.H.I.E.L.D is a step in the right direction. At least Tony hasn’t lost his mind completely, even if it would have been nice for him to inform the board beforehand.” He threw a look at Obadiah that would melt anyone of lesser mettle than a Stane.

“That was unforeseen, and while it will give our profits a boost we still need to think about long term gains. As far as we know we’re not releasing any form of new product to the general public. The Jocasta virtual assistant is still one of the most popular for smartphones and offices across the world when compared to our competitors. Despite this we’ve probably peaked at the potential profit from that line of thinking.”

Simon looked around the room. “I’m going to be the one to say it. We need to get Tony to get us the plans to the Iron Man   armor. Shield are practically drooling to get their hands on that tech, not to mention the Marines,  Army, Airforce… and that’s just in this country. Not to mention the possible developments in other technologies the   armor gives us.”

“I agree, however Tony isn’t going to give us the design of the suit.” Obadiah stroked his beard as he took a minute to think through what was going on. “We have teams of people attempting to engineer the technology based on what we have, and what we’ve seen. With, mixed results.” Simon gave him a knowing look, whereas Eric just nodded and Abraham looked between the three of them.

“I for one think what Tony is doing is probably the best course of action. Keeping the platform only for someone he trusts, and using it to clean up the mess that Stark Industries has created all over the world. Let us not forget that somehow weapons that this company designed are still getting into the hands of criminals and terrorists.” Obadiah had to refrain from rolling his eyes. How Abraham had ever managed to own a multi-million business he’d never know, though it was understandable how he had managed to run it into the ground. “The point is we’re already seeing what a weakened variety of this technology can do in Trasnia right now. If the actual Iron Man armor was replicated and mass produced? I’d hate to see what that would look like.”

“You can’t really be so naive Abraham. If Trasnia proves anything it proves that this technology is already out there, it already exists. We need to get it into the hands of the right people.” Finally Eric spoke up, a subtle point as always. There was no speaking off profit, only of saving lives. That was exactly how you spoke to Abraham. He was good. Abraham just nodded to the suggestion.

“Matter of the fact is. This company needs to do something. The Iron Man suit is the obvious answer to all our problems. Increasing profit for the company, as well as protecting people from terrorists and super villains. Rumour has it Kord scientists have… something that could be a potential weapons platform. I don’t know what exactly it is, or if it’s any real competition to the Iron Man armor but we need to jump on this before someone else picks this up.” Obadiah took a sip of his drink, the cold liquid burnt its way down his throat. Warming him from the inside. Tony always bought the best stuff, he had to give him that.

“The Arc Reactor-” Before Abraham could even finish his thought Simon stepped in. 

“The Arc Reactor is not going to make us the same kind of money the Iron Man suit will.” Obadiah ground his teeth together. That complete and utter ignorant fool. Bringing money into the equation, that was just going to make Abraham harder to deal with.

“The Arc Reactor is a viable project. With the construction of Stark Tower in New York City underway, the newly built reactor should be able to power the entire skyscraper on green, clean energy as well as the surrounding blocks. We’re just waiting for our lawyers to get approval to plug it into the grid. Obviously the power companies are giving us a bit of push back about it.” Abraham turned to simon with a scowl. “While I agree that it may not be the as instantly profitable as selling a killing machine to governments around the world, it’s a more noble cause. Sometimes that is more important Simon.”

Erik cleared his throat raising hands at both Simon and Abraham. “Now Gentleman, this infighting is getting us nowhere. Let us focus on the clear issue presented by everyone here, and agreed upon. We can come back to the Arc Reactor in a moment, Abraham?”

Abraham nodded at Erik, and Obadiah had never felt more proud, or glad to have brought Erik on board. As Erik nodded at him Obadiah placed his glass down on a coaster, a single droplet of condensation crawling down the glass towards the piece of wood. “Gentleman. I propose we bring an ultimatum to Tony. As much as I hate to say it-” Obadiah paused, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. All for dramatic effect of course, to show that he really cared what he was thinking about. That this was a hard decision, in truth he had been waiting to do this for months. “-We should call for a vote of no-confidence and have one of us replace him as president. He’s jeopardizing the company-” He looked directly at Abraham “-the livelihoods of all our workers-” he turned now to Simon “-and everything we’ve built. In order dress someone up to play Superhero. We should demand access to the Iron Man technology-” He raised a hand as he could see Abrahams lips about to move.

“-not for replication, but for study. We can decide what to do with it once we have access. We should also demand the name of the pilot, so that we can have him recognised as a hero to the American people. More importantly we need to distance ourselves from these recent judgement calls. Tony Stark is going to bring the government down on us, hard. We can’t let him sink this company.”

He placed his hands on the table, head held low. Holding it, needing to look remorseful. Not for Erik or Simons benefit, they needed a full vote to replace the president of the company. This was for Abrahams benefit, if he could convince him that this was really in their best interest, and not just financially. They would have it. “What say you my friends?”

”...Warning to viewers. Some may find this content disturbing.” The screen changes to a shaky cam, in the middle of a debris ridden village. In the centre of the village stand five Iron Men. Their armour rough, grey. Nothing on the sleek design that Iron Man possesses. A bald man stands with his back to the camera, turning as it approaches. In his hands, Iron Mans helmet. A crack in it from the top of it’s temple all the way down, burn marks all over it. He steps to the side to show the rest of the Mark 7 armour, battered, bruised and covered in scorch marks.

“I warned him, I warned the UN.” The man’s accent is thick, and heavy. Subtitles follow at the bottom of the screen. “Iron Man is no more. Send more of your heroes to Trasnia and they will suffer the same fate. I have no wish to expand my borders, all I wish is for my people to live in peace and prosperity. I am doing what needs to be done.” He threw the Iron Man helmet away. “You have been warned-” The footage cut out. 

The video returned to that of the news anchor, on the right hand side of the screen an image taken of Iron Man. “There has been no official statement from Stark Industries, or Tony Stark regarding the announcement that Iron Man has been killed. The UN have called an emergency assembly after satellites picked up a large explosion in the town of Velinsky near the Sokovian border that nearly levelled the town, the very explosion that is believed to have caused the… death of Iron Man. We’ll keep you up to date as the story progresses, now over to Sandra in New York, where a so-called vigilante ‘The Man-Spider’ broke into the Daily Bugle headquarters…WHiH News

Remember how last time they dealt with the scepter/tesseract all of them needed to work together, parts of NYC ended up destroyed and the entire city was almost nuked? Going out on a limb, so hear me out, but maybe that's why they decided to work together again?@Byrd Man

Well to be fair they knew the Tesseract was an infinity stone but they didn't for the sceptre. I mean I suppose there's also Widows speech at the end of winter soldier about them being needed. Here's a follow up in Universe. Rhodey isn't activitely involved as he's USAF. Makes sense. Why not Falcon? Yes he's trying to track Bucky, which in the end he fails to do and joins up with the Avengers at the end of the film for the cocktease Avengers assemble, but why not at Sokovia? There's time for Fury to get Rhodey and a helicarrier there. Why is Sam just like 'Nah I'm good fam'

Sep Member

Migs Mayfield - Core

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