Chapter 717 - I'm Iron Man!
After Luke was done, the silver armor flew over with flames trailing behind it. “I’ve taken care of the congestions in the east and south. I’ve won this bet. I’m going to make a winner’s request…”
Luke, however, chuckled. “No, you didn’t win. Don’t tell me your math teacher didn’t even teach you how to count heads, right?”
I didn’t have a math teacher at all! Tony frowned. “Jarvis, count the number of people we saved.”
The locations of all the cars in the east and south flashed past his eyes, and a number popped up: 156.
And the number of people here in the west: 197.
“Sir, excluding the last three people on the bus, you still saved 41 people less than the other party,” Jarvis reminded him.
“Damn it. There was a lot of traffic on the west side, and there was also that bus.” Tony cursed in frustration.
With Jarvis’s help, he instantly knew why he had lost.
Luke had picked the road with the most number of victims. Including the dozens of people on the bus, it added up to more than ten cars’ worth of passengers.
Luke, on the other hand, didn’t say anything. He knew that Tony had Jarvis, and it wouldn’t take him more than a second to calculate the numbers.
He simply flew up. “If you want to compete with me, come with me. Let me see what your big metal toy is like.”
Tony chuckled. “He actually said that I’m a big metal toy? Me, a big metal toy?”
Luke was disinclined to indulge the tycoon. After all, the man had a poisonous tongue.
There was no need to give Tony Stark face since he didn’t need anyone to do so; he would fight for his own honor.
Two figures charged into the city one after another.
In the air, Tony exclaimed, “Apart from the exoskeleton, you also have an auxiliary propulsion system?”
But it was just one instant, and his poisonous tongue came out once more. “Look at this secondhand product. The parts are from the Soviet Union. Are you Russian? Ukrainian? Georgian?”
Luke smiled. “No. I’m American, and the first superhero in America.”
Tony choked.
For now, he couldn’t confirm that the guy was American, but he couldn’t say that he wasn’t.
However, it indeed was a fact that Batman was America’s first superhero.
No matter how arrogant Tony was, he couldn’t change the collective acknowledgement of the people.
The two of them were very fast. Naturally, Luke’s auxiliary propulsion system wasn’t as good as Tony’s; the tycoon was a top “player” who only used good stuff.
Luke had deliberately used a bunch of illicit Soviet Union parts to cobble together the propulsion system. It was truly lousy, and purely an experimental system.
But the thought that a certain tycoon would be wavering between “Russian” and “American” when he returned home tonight gave him some pleasure.
He hoped that Stark didn’t have OCD, or he might not be able to sleep for days.
There was a huge difference in their speed, but it didn’t make much of a difference over short distances.
A few seconds after Tony charged into the city, Luke was right on his heels and dropped directly onto the street to kick at two hoodlums who were robbing a woman of her jewelry and bag.
The rescued woman looked at Luke in fear while Tony landed behind him.
The woman turned her head to look at Tony’s silver armor and was even more surprised. She exclaimed, “Batman?”
Tony’s face darkened. “I don’t look like Batman at all! You’re seriously colorblind. Go get your eyes checked.”
But Luke had already slipped away, and he said from afar, “Then what are you called? John Doe?”
Tony choked again and increased the power in the thrusters under his feet as he chased after Luke once more. A rock song played again, and mixed into it was his voice: “I’m — Iron Man!”
Hearing the name, Luke wasn’t surprised at all. He simply grumbled inwardly, Right, right, right. You’re Wang Jinxi[1]**!
Tony, who was following him, very quickly found out what the next competition was.
Beating up people!
He beat up a lot of people!
As Batman roamed about, he quickly found all sorts of offenders committing violent crimes like armed robbery, murder, arson, rape, and so on.
Less than five minutes later, Tony received a reminder from Jarvis. “Sir, you don’t have any non-lethal weapons, and you can kill these criminals with even just your fists and feet. In this complicated environment, you’re not as nimble as Batman.”
Tony was angry. “Of course I know that.”
He wasn’t stupid.
On the contrary, he was an extremely smart person.
But after beating up several criminals in the beginning, he realized the problem with this new competition.
Compared with Tony’s armor, Batman’s armor fell far short.
But in a city like this, where there were too many things to worry about and the battlefield was very small, the other party could fully utilize his low output and high dexterity to quickly enter and end a fight before moving to another battlefield.
Luke could even open windows and chase criminals through cramped apartment buildings.
If Tony wanted to enter, he could only smash through the windows and walls.
These apartment buildings and houses were filled with ordinary people.
If Tony smashed through the walls of these buildings, he would probably injure these ordinary people first.
This wasn’t a problem with Tony’s skills, but because he had too little time.
It already defied scientific common sense that metal armor made in a mere month could already be used in actual combat.
It was unrealistic to expect the armor to be perfect in every detail and to be able to swiftly adapt to battle in the city streets.
After all, Tony had never considered such a “small” battlefield.
This young master had never in his life thought about beating up hoodlums.
He didn’t need to beat up hoodlums at all.
If he wanted to, he could send hundreds or thousands of hoodlums to prison with a single phone call.
And if the prison was packed, he could still pay to build a big prison especially for these people.
Of course, Luke had done this on purpose.
There was nothing to be gained in winning against Tony.
He had basically won the first round of saving lives.
Lose? That was impossible.
Tony’s armor, which hadn’t even been painted yet, had a lot of problems. It would be too easy for Luke to lay it flat.
But he had a free and powerful helper who could help maintain law and order in Los Angeles; why would he take him down?
“It seems there’s quite a few problems with your armor.” Luke took down another bunch of hoodlums in an alley.
He threw them into a dumpster and didn’t forget to taunt Tony. “You broke dozens of that hoodlum’s bones with that hit just now, right? He only had a small knife. Are you going to use a missile next to blow up this block?”
Tony gritted his teeth. “He dared stab at me with a knife; am I supposed to send him on a holiday at a five-star hotel?”
[1] A well-known Chinese socialist known as “Ironman Wang”
