Chapter 718: Taking the Big Baby On a Walk Through L.A.
Luke chuckled. “So, you want to send them to permanent rest at a funeral home? What will they say on TV tomorrow? The new homicidal maniac, Iron Man, killed hundreds in one night?”
Tony frowned and suddenly shut up.
He immediately understood what Luke meant.
Even if they were criminals, some of whom might be killed while he was rescuing people, if too many of them died in one night, some do-gooders would kick up a fuss.
In this society, some people protested cruelty when chickens were killed for fast food restaurants. If so many people were killed, Iron Man would definitely be labeled a murderer.
Thinking quickly, Tony suddenly realized something. “Is that why you’ve never killed anyone, or even severely injured those criminals?”
Luke glided away again. “At least you’re not stupid.”
Tony: “What?! Excuse me?”
Luke didn’t have clear memories of his previous life, but he vaguely remembered that the politicians would make a big deal out of superheroes who injured civilians.
He didn’t know exactly if they were superheroes like Tony.
His memories from decades ago might eventually become a reality, but logically speaking, this was an issue that would crop up sooner or later.
Take SWAT, for example. Hostages had been injured during a recent rescue operation which two of Harrison’s team members had been on.
After that, the two team members were taken to court by the injured hostages, and were suspended from work during the investigation.
And they were law enforcement officers just doing their jobs.
Superheroes, including Batman, weren’t law enforcement officers.
They were vigilantes! They were precisely the sort of people whom the law disliked the most.
The law was the product of the justice system.
Vigilantes, on the other hand, circumvented the system and took justice into their own hands.
They were fundamental opposites.
Luke pondered this matter distractedly as he roamed Los Angeles with the new big baby Iron Man.
A few minutes later, Tony suddenly sped up and flew in another direction. “Haha, found them.”
Luke snorted and broke the hands of two arsonists before he followed Tony.
If he could access the police comms, so could Tony.
It was just that until now, there had been no news of any large-scale criminal activity, so Tony hadn’t had a chance to overtake Luke’s score.
In less than a minute, Luke swooped down from the sky and kicked a criminal holding an AK.
Tony said, “Charcoal Head, you’re late.”
As he spoke, the pulse cannon in his hand shattered the windows of a car, and two criminals several meters away were cut by the glass from the explosion as they covered their bloody faces and screamed.
Dropping to the ground, Luke advanced quickly. He swung one fist, and the arm of a criminal who was holding a gun bent. When he saw those Transformer-like arms, the criminal screamed miserably.
“But I’m still in the lead,” Luke said. He swung around and the cape on his back hardened, the tip sweeping over the wrists of a criminal on the side who had just turned around.
Two bloody lines appeared on the criminal’s hands as they dangled lifelessly and his rifle slipped to the ground. “My hands, my hands.”
Luke said, “You can still use them to eat.” Of course, the man could forget handling a gun for the rest of his life.
In one moment, dozens of criminals outside a bank were flanked by two people.
One criminal aimed his rifle at the silver armor and shouted, “Go to hell! Go to hell, you meddling fool!”
Pushing off from a wall, Tony switched directions and landed behind the criminal, and knocked him on the head with one finger.
Dong!
There was a loud and clear rap, and the criminal collapsed with his eyes rolled back.
“Sir, you found a non-lethal way to attack,” said Jarvis without missing a beat.
Tony’s lips twitched. “I can only hit these hooligans with my fingers in my super armor.”
In the beginning, he had built this armor to face off against Batman.
The gap between expectations and reality was too big.
As he spoke, he turned around and stretched out his hand.
Bang!
A garbage can was sent flying by the pulse cannon and hit two criminals.
“This is very suitable. But, sir, I have to remind you that the power supply for the armor is starting to become unstable. It’s best to return immediately,” Jarvis warned.
Annoyed, Tony ran a few steps and directly smashed into a car to send two criminals who were hiding behind it flying.
Looking at the data from Jarvis, he did a quick analysis. “It’s just a minor problem from sustained use of the thrusters. It’ll be fine if I don’t use the pulse cannon or fly.”
This was the most common problem with experimental models: they weren’t stable enough.
A lot of defects wouldn’t become clear without continuous operation and field tests.
For Tony, this was a good opportunity to collect data on his armor, and he couldn’t miss it.
Looking at Luke, who charged forward and knocked four or five armed criminals into the wall, Tony sighed. “This guy’s skills definitely aren’t bad. His armor is a low-level model built for this sort of fighting in the city.”
Luke didn’t care at all if Tony could beat him or not.
A certain young master’s arrogance was something that spilled over the horizon. It was impossible for him to plot against Luke.
Since he had chosen Batman as his opponent, he wouldn’t let anything taint his victory.
Taking advantage of the moment when Batman was saving people, Tony directly flew over with a blast. Such a victory was meaningless.
It was like how a boxing champion wouldn’t find a bunch of hoodlums to beat up his opponent and send him to the hospital before their match.
Only by defeating his opponent head-on in the boxing ring would his reputation and takings increase dramatically.
Tony had to beat Batman fair and square to satisfy his sense of superiority.
After Luke arrived, he quickly cleaned up a few of the most dangerous criminals and rushed to the back of a small car. He picked up two female officers who were hiding behind the car and escorted them to a corner not far away.
“Wow, Batman!” The eyes of one of the female officers sparkled as both her hands groped his chest plates.
Luke tossed her firmly into a corner, before he helplessly pulled off the other girl who was also fondling his chest and said, “Hide properly.”
With that, he turned into a black shadow again and charged up the wall. He ran five to six meters over the side of the wall before he somersaulted and kicked backward.
Two criminals who had been shooting at them were kicked in the chest and sent flying ten meters away. They rolled over the ground before they stopped moving.
“Wow, Claire, he’s so handsome!” exclaimed one of the female officers excitedly.
The other officer was also watching intently from the corner. “Enough, Karen! You say everyone’s handsome! You just said that you were going to marry that iron man! Hmph, you fickle woman! I hereby declare that you’ve been removed from Batman’s number one backup force.”
Karen: “Dream on!”
Naturally, the two female officers were Karen and Claire.
Unfortunately, they had chanced upon a premeditated bank robbery.