Marvel's Iron Lady

As the sun rose, the Ten Rings terrorists awoke from their dreams, realizing it was yet another day of slaughter.

Since Miss Stark had successfully destroyed one of their bases, the Ten Rings' local reputation had swiftly declined, and for a terrorist organization, reputation was something built on massacres.

The Ten Rings could not stand by and watch as Miss Stark effortlessly crushed their hard-earned fear factor. To reassert their power, they had gone mad, indiscriminately slaughtering defenseless people in a desperate bid to regain their lost prestige.

Gulmira—a small town long ravaged by war, reduced to ruins with only a handful of desperate survivors left.

The town's elderly had already been slaughtered, and any men who refused to join the Ten Rings met the same fate. The women and children were being herded into trucks, destined for a life of torment and an inevitable death.

This was the reality of a terrorist organization, a collection of individuals united by a shared contempt for society, country, and humanity, engaging in brutal acts of terror.

"Hurry up, you pigs! Load the women and kids onto the trucks, leave the weapons here, and round up everyone else! Move it!"

In the center of Gulmira's ruined town square, a burly, bearded man barked orders, kicking one of his subordinates hard in the backside, causing him to stumble.

The kicked terrorist dared not retaliate; he forced a wry smile and vented his frustration on the others, ordering them to clean out the town.

Of course, "cleaning out" didn't mean handing out brooms to sweep up debris. It meant dragging out any survivors hiding in the ruins.

Women were prizes to be taken and loaded into the trucks, children were prime candidates to be trained as killers, and the men—they could either join the violence, turning their weapons on their own brothers and sisters, or die. The organization didn't lack manpower.

The unarmed civilians were gathered in the central square, a few assault rifles aimed at them enough to quash any thought of resistance. After all, nobody wanted to die here; they clung to the faint hope of survival.

Soon, more civilians were dragged out of the rubble by Ten Rings terrorists and forced at gunpoint toward the crowd. They were a simple family, watched by the crowd with apathetic stares.

The woman was dragged roughly aside and thrown onto a truck with a brown tarp covering it. Her children watched helplessly as their mother was taken, collapsing to their knees and crying out in terror, while their father knelt with them, embracing them with a look of pure hatred in his eyes.

To these anti-social, inhumane terrorists, their own people meant nothing—less valuable than animals.

"It's time. Load them up! Drag that one over there too, line him up with the others, and execute them."

The bearded man checked the gold watch on his wrist—undoubtedly looted from a dead body—and scowled impatiently, ordering two of his men to haul the father up and toss him in line for execution.

The woman screamed, her children clinging to her as the terrorists held them down at gunpoint, stifling her pleas.

Driven by a courage he could not explain, the father managed to break free from the grip of his captors. His children, seizing the moment, wriggled out of their mother's embrace and dashed toward him.

The father's face softened as he hugged his children tightly, knowing this might be the last time he would see them.

But this tender moment was soon shattered as the Ten Rings militants regained their composure. The bearded leader stomped over, kicking the father to the ground with a steel-reinforced boot and returning the children to their mother's side.

"Damn it, you idiots can't even handle one guy! What if he'd had a weapon? Finish him off—I don't want to dirty my hands."

After a few kicks, the leader walked away, leaving orders to kill the man. He muttered something under his breath, but it was too faint to be understood.

The man's face twisted in agony, and his wife could only watch helplessly as the terrorists dragged her husband to his knees, aiming their guns at his head.

Clutching her children tightly, she covered their eyes, trying to shield them from seeing their father executed. She sobbed helplessly, repeating her husband's name over and over.

No one cared about them. No one cared about this family on the verge of destruction; it was a scene that had become all too common on this war-torn land.

Perhaps it was the sight of this family's suffering, or perhaps God Himself had grown weary of the terrorists' cruelty, but suddenly, a strange sound filled the air—a distant roar, steadily growing closer. The noise put the terrorists on high alert.

Afghanistan was a conflict zone with daily missile strikes from above, any of which could come crashing down on them. Immediately, the terrorists looked up at the sky—and what they saw left them stunned.

A figure, crimson and gold, was descending from the heavens. Just before crashing into the ground, it ignited thrusters a mere dozen meters up, landing with a thunderous impact that made for an awe-inspiring entrance.

The surrounding Ten Rings members stood frozen, dumbfounded by the sight before them.

But while they hesitated, Miss Stark didn't. She swung her metal fist, delivering a powerful punch to the nearest armed terrorist, sending him flying until he crashed into what remained of a nearby wall, reducing it to rubble.

The Ten Rings members didn't fully understand what was happening, but they knew enough to realize that the curvaceous female figure in robotic armor was here to attack them. Without hesitation, they raised their guns and opened fire.

Countless bullets flew toward Miss Stark, but not a single one could pierce the powerful defensive plating of her Mark-7 Iron Man suit.

A sharp sound hummed from her palms, and two searing particle beams shot out from the repulsor cores, easily burning large holes through two nearby enemies' chests—the intense heat instantly vaporizing blood, bone, and organs, leaving behind grisly wounds.

Originally, the suit's flight stabilizers weren't meant for offensive use; they were purely for maintaining flight posture and providing extra thrust.

The Ten Rings force dispatched to Gulmira's ruins was small, just over a dozen men. Against unarmed civilians, they were dangerous terrorists. But against the Mark-7 suit, they were nothing more than panicked civilians themselves, screaming and fleeing in terror.

The Iron Man suit was equipped with an array of weapons. Aside from the flight stabilizers in the hands, the shoulder armor and the outer thighs had slight metallic bulges, housing honeycomb-like missile pods packed with mini-missiles.

These mini-missiles, though no larger than a human finger, packed the punch of a C4 explosive, capable of easily destroying a vehicle.

Each forearm contained two Stark Industries micro-missiles with tremendous explosive power, and on each wrist was a mini laser cutter—a scaled-down version of the device Miss Stark once used to cut Rogers free.

With Miss Stark controlling it, the Mark-7, transformed into a veritable war fortress, toyed with the lightly armed terrorists like a bully in a playground.

Seeing their numbers quickly dwindling, the Ten Rings fighters began to panic. Realizing they were no match for this armored woman, they broke ranks and fled, none daring to stay and resist.

They scattered wildly, running in every direction as if hoping to split Miss Stark's attention, giving them a chance to outrun her.

"So boring…"

Watching them flee in all directions, Miss Stark felt a tinge of disappointment. Rather than giving chase, she deployed the shoulder-mounted honeycomb launcher.

Stark Industries satellites effortlessly locked onto the fleeing enemies. A dozen mini-missiles launched in all directions, following the terrorists and kicking up clouds of dust with each explosion.

The ones taken down by her flight stabilizers at least left behind bodies, perhaps even enough for someone to bury. But for those running away? The missiles tore them apart, leaving no remains.

In the town square, the people of Gulmira could scarcely believe they had survived. They had not been killed by the terrorists, nor taken as slaves to be sold. They were alive—but what exactly was this armored creature?

The survivors, though grateful for their lives, were wary of Miss Stark, standing in the square's center. She was their savior, but her intimidating presence made it hard to breathe.

Miss Stark's expression remained impassive as she watched a child calling out, "Father!" running toward his father in the distance. Although she didn't understand what they were saying, she felt the deep bond between them.

Even she didn't realize that as she watched this tender reunion between father and son, a slight smile tugged at her lips. Seeing a scene like this, protecting defenseless people—she felt that everything she had done was worth it.

"Miss, I don't mean to interrupt, but I've detected a satellite phone signal."

Jarvis's voice suddenly brought her back to the moment, reminding her of something she had overlooked—the bearded leader. He had vanished, likely hiding and using his phone to call for backup.

With that thought, she activated the infrared scanning system in her helmet, searching the ruins for the man's heat signature. Soon, she spotted him huddled behind a wall, clutching a satellite phone and trembling.

The two-meter-tall Iron Man suit walked through the crowd, striding toward the building ruins. Just a thin wall away, the bearded leader anxiously awaited a connection on his phone—unaware that Miss Stark had already jammed all satellite signals in the area.

Just like a scene out of a horror film, the classic "The Shining" moment, as the bearded man nervously awaited his call, an iron-clad hand suddenly burst through the wall beside his head, grabbed his face, and yanked him through the wall.

She flung him to the ground like a ragdoll. Glancing at the useless, buzzing satellite phone, Miss Stark smirked and stomped it into pieces. She lowered her helmet's faceplate, revealing her fair-skinned face.

"Making a call? Did you get through?"

No one could have expected that the face inside the iron shell would belong to a woman, and such a striking one at that.

No one would have guessed that this woman had just ruthlessly wiped out a group of blood-stained terrorists.

"I... I... No, it didn't connect…"

The greasy-faced man's eyes were wide with terror, still reeling from how quickly he had been yanked out. At least he could speak English, allowing him to converse with Miss Stark.

Hearing his reply, Miss Stark's face twisted into a mocking smile as she leaned down to meet his eye level, speaking slowly.

"Do you know why that is?"

The man shook his head.

"Then let me tell you. Right now, at this very moment, six more suits like mine are attacking six other Ten Rings strongholds."

"Just like you can't stop me, they won't be able to stop my Iron Legion either."

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