Leaving behind his baby mount, which could only travel through the ocean, Luke flew south through Greenland and North America toward the west coast.
He arrived in San Francisco at dawn, and couldn’t help but heave a long sigh.
He couldn’t be sure when the event would happen.
From the drawing, however, it looked like it might be in rainy or stormy weather during the day.
In other words, he wasn’t too late.
But the weather in San Francisco was gloomy today, and the ocean was blanketed in dark clouds.
The weather forecast also said that there would be a storm today, so Luke turned vigilant — this matched the weather in the second drawing.
Selina was still in New York and hadn’t come.
However, the Level 1 clone had already been here for a few days. It had dropped by Los Angeles and taken Gold Nugget No. 2 from Claire.
The mysterious old man told Claire that he was taking a few days off, and told her to go to New York to stay with Luke.
Claire was baffled. How can you go on strike? Didn’t you say that you would always help a one-in-a-million genius like me, you liar?!
Even as she cursed, she did as Gold Nugget No. 2 said and went to New York.
San Francisco was only 600 kilometers away from Los Angeles, and was also by the sea.
If a fight broke out, the bat-winged monster would only need to flap its wings a few times, and might end up in Los Angeles.
Besides, all the members of the Bat Squad, including Luke and Selina, were in New York, which was absolutely the safest city in the world.
Only Eddie Brock, a PDD employee who lived in San Francisco to begin with, and Wanda and Pietro, two backup members of the Justice League, were here in person.
These three weren’t responsible for fighting, and were only responsible for evacuating and protecting civilians.
Tony, on the other hand, had chosen to personally participate in this operation. After all, he had rebuilt his Malibu villa.
Despite the explosion, this guy hadn’t wanted to relocate his lab.
This was a decision based on confidence, fearlessness, and… hm, arrogance.
Natasha, Hawkeye and Steve weren’t here.
Natasha had been downcast after Banner’s disappearance.
Hawkeye had to look after his daughter and his pregnant wife, and Steve had to train the newbies whom the Avengers had taken in.
1
There was no need to bother them over a mission with unclear parameters. It wasn’t like the world would stop spinning if none of them came.
The Avengers and New SHIELD had many cases that could be classified as global threats which they basically dealt with separately.
Unless it was an apocalypse-grade mission, nobody would ask for help so casually.
For example, Tony had gone to Grand Rapids purely for revenge against the Enchantress, and the Bat Squad had handled the rest.
With Cobra’s nanomite warheads, it was Natasha who had invited Knight on the operation. While White Wolf had taken his place, basically no one else had participated.
Tony, for example, was still working at his Malibu villa at the moment.
As the leader, he didn’t have to be responsible for too many specific things.
He had casually instructed Maria Hill to give the Bat Squad enough logistics support.
Maria Hill was very cooperative.
This could be considered a mutual exchange of benefits. After this, the Bat Squad would pay with credit points.
The rules for credit points were very detailed. There were credit points for helping out in battle, and credit points for helping with logistics.
Maria Hill had earned a lot of credit points from the Ultron incident.
She didn’t need to buy too much combat gear, and had more than 2,000 credit points left.
But after hearing some news from Natasha, she suddenly felt very poor.
1
It had hence been perfect when she was asked to help with logistics and resource allocation this time.
Otherwise, given her personal combat ability, it would be hard for her to earn a lot of credit points.
Now that his Level 2 clone had arrived, Luke wasn’t in a hurry, and gave Tony a call when he was free. “Help me pick up 200 Iron Man cheeseburgers and send them to San Francisco.”
After a brief silence, Tony retorted angrily, “Big Spoon, are you awake? Do you think I’m a delivery guy?”
Luke snorted. “Come on, you have a bunch of spare Mark suits in your villa. You can pick up the food on your way to San Fran, right? If it isn’t because you get priority in that burger joint, I wouldn’t have looked for you.”
Tony thought that made sense, and nodded. “Scram.”
Half an hour later, a Mark suit dropped from the sky and landed on a hill by the San Francisco sea.
Directly opposite the hill was the Golden Gate Bridge, which was shrouded in dark clouds. A cargo ship was slowly traveling under the bridge and out into the misty ocean.
The Mark suit which had just landed was holding a large metal box with both hands.
The Big Dipper clone, who was wearing his typical T-shirt + combat pants outfit, was sitting on a long wooden bench.
Seeing the Mark suit land, Big Dipper went over, took the box, and took out a burger for a bite.
Tony’s impatient voice rang out from the Mark suit. “Hey, Big Spoon. You’ve eaten the burger. Where’s the intelligence?”
Big Dipper was still eating unhurriedly. He asked casually, “What intelligence?”
Tony: “…Don’t tell me you arrived so late and made me come over with burgers because you have nothing better to do?”
Big Dipper nodded. “That’s right. I’m free for now. I just want to eat something delicious.”
Tony said, “You think I won’t send an anti-Big Dipper suit over to deal with you?”
Big Dipper said, “You won’t. You’ve been saying that for almost two years.”
Tony: …
He really hadn’t made an anti-Big Dipper suit.
Firstly, he and Big Dipper in fact basically had no conflict with each other.
Secondly, the requirements for dealing with Big Dipper were a little high.
Strictly speaking, the best strategy to use against Big Dipper was to clean up the area from a distance and never approach him
If that was the case, a bunch of missile launchers would be enough; there was no need for a suit at all.
Seeing Tony choke, Luke told him the really important information. “You can pray to God. Even if nothing happens today, we have another strong helper.”
Tony grew interested. “How strong?”
Luke thought for a moment. “It’s a small pet the bigshot just acquired. What do you think?”
Tony was stunned. “The bigshot’s… small pet?”
Luke grinned. “That’s right. You’ll be surprised.”
Looking at that sharp smile, Tony felt that things might not be simple.
What kind of ‘small pet’ and ‘surprise’ would it be?
It had to be pointed out that ever since the bigshot appeared, there had been no record of him taking action directly.
But nobody was surprised.
Using money to solve everything was a big businessman’s specialty.
Not only did the bigshot have money in the ordinary sense, he also had credit points, an extremely solid currency.
A group of superheroes could do the work; it was more in line with a black-hearted businessman’s professional code not to take action.