Jasper Sitwell was looking at his SHIELD watch computer. The Nevada sun beat down on him, and on the tall, bald man standing next to him.

The other man, Obadiah Stane, consulted his Rolex. He smiled a shark smile. "That's what happens when you live fast like Stark does. No time left for anything important."

A white SUV pulled up and stopped. A beautiful young woman with short red hair and a green business ensemble stepped out. "I'm sorry I'm late, Mr. Sitwell. Tony Stark can't be here today, so he sent me."

"Hmm. And you are?"

"I'm Betty Brant, Stark's new publicist."

Stane walked over and shook Betty's hand. "Stark sent his publicist, how courteous of him . . . "

Sitwell was clearly frustrated. "Well, is Iron Man going to show up, at least?"

Almost on cue, Iron Man descended from the sky and landed on the canyon floor.

"Right here, and ready!" Iron Man said.

Stane was not impressed. "Couldn't wake your boss up out of his hangover from last night, Iron Man?"

"There's no need to answer that, " the publicist said. "You know what you have to do here, Iron Man." She glared at Stane.

Stane pressed a button on his watch, and out of the sky came his offering to the contest. A tall, threatening suit of armor descended with a roar. The armored one was bristling with weaponry - guided laser cannons, missiles, tracking systems, and numerous other devices. Next to this monster, Iron Man looked rather small and defenseless.

Stane cleared his throat proudly.

"Let me introduce you to Firepower. He represents the state of the art in weapons and personal battlesuit technology. With this suit, one man is capable of taking on an entire battalion of regular army soldiers, a tank squadron, a squadron of jet planes, you name it. The technology in this suit is far superior to what Stark currently offers."

Sitwell shook his head and made some notes on his SHIELD-issue PDA.

"Very good. I'm already familiar with the capabilities of the Iron Man suit, having seen it in action a few days ago.* I'm eager to see what yours can do, Mr. Stane."

*(Last issue, when Sitwell witnessed the battle between Iron Man and the Melter)

The two armored men stood next to each other on the desert floor. Sitwell's voice came through the comm systems in their helmets.

"This first test is a test of speed, men. Whoever is first to reach the goal point ten miles away first wins the challenge."

Iron Man and Firepower stood next to each other, each one revving up their boot jets. They waited for Sitwell's signal.

At last, Sitwell fired a flare into the sky. With a roar, the two armored suits zoomed away into the horizon.

It was really no contest. Iron Man's suit was equipped to be much faster than Firepower's. He zipped right by his heavier, bulkier opponent.

However, Iron Man picked up some sort of a jamming signal coming at him when he went by. Was Firepower trying to interfere with his suit's performance?

"You'll have to do better than that, buddy," Iron Man commented into his comm unit.

Iron Man easily reached the ten-mile point before Firepower did. He descended gracefully from the sky, down to the goal point. Firepower came up a little bit later, and landed on the desert floor much less gracefully.

"I'll win this thing yet," Firepower commented so that Iron Man could hear.

As the two armored men stood before the group, Stane cleared his throat.

"It's no matter that the Iron Man armor is slightly faster, " he said. "The Firepower armor is designed to destroy the enemy's capability to attack. There's no need for speeding away from your opponent when you have already taken him out with high-powered ordnance."

Iron Man coughed audibly, but he knew that if he discussed how wrong Stane was with him, people would think he was more than just a bodyguard, so he decided to keep quiet.

"I told you, Iron Man, let me handle this," Betty muttered. "I've handled Stane's type before. Believe me, working in New York City as a reporter, you have to deal with lots worse than Stane a lot of the time."

"So the Iron Man armor wins the speed test?" Betty asked Sitwell.

"Yes, the Iron Man armor has superior speed. Now, let's go to the firing range for the next contest."

The two opponents stood next to each other, readying the various weapons in their suits.

"You may begin," Sitwell said.

From a hidden door in the ground, a swarm of SHIELD training drones launched into the air. The insect-like drones began firing at Iron Man and Firepower.

Iron Man adjusted his settings to auto-fire his repulsors based on his sensory array. The drones went down one by one.

Firepower was doing just as well, however. He had a larger-scale laser array than Iron Man, and was able to nail more of the targets more quickly.

The test finally ended and Sitwell began to compute the hit and accuracy scores.

"Looks like Firepower gets higher ratings for this one," Sitwell said.

"Of course he does," Stane commented. "We don't call it the Firepower suit for nothing."

"There's still one test left, Mr. Stane." Betty reminded.

A little while later, Sitwell, Stane, and Betty had seated themselves inside an armored SHIELD testing bunker. Sitwell was speaking over a radio to Iron Man and Firepower.

"Now it's time for the final test. You two are even so far. This test will decide who gets SHIELD's funding: Stark Enterprises or Stane International."

For the final test, Iron Man and Firepower had been told to stand on opposing cliffs over a gaping canyon.

"This final test is the Duel to Destruction. You are to use any means necessary to disable the armor of your opponent."

Iron Man's weaponry was primed and ready to take on Firepower.

Before Sitwell said that they could begin, Firepower had already launched a missile at the place where Iron Man was standing. The Armored Avenger managed to leap into the air with his boot jets to avoid the blast.

"That will be points off for starting too early!" Sitwell yelled over the radio to Firepower.

"Jumping the gun a bit, Firepower?" Iron Man joked as he soared up into the air. He accelerated up, and then zoomed into a downward dive, firing a barrage of lasers at his foe. A few of them hit Firepower, but with little effect. Firepower aimed his massive cannon square at Iron Man and fired.

The blast came too quick for Iron Man to avoid it. His force field array had to deflect the force of the blast. But Iron Man used his proximity to his foe to release his laser scythe, a tightly concentrated band of energy that could slice easily through most materials. He focused it at the stacks of missiles on Firepower's back.

The laser scythe was able to cut right through two of the missile carriers on Firepower's back. Iron Man's opponent had to lift off from his perch to avoid possible detonation as they bounced against the ground.

As soon as Firepower got into the air, he simultaneously fired his heat beams at Iron Man. Iron Man's force field took the brunt of their hit, but amount of power that Iron Man could shunt to the force field was decreasing.

Iron Man knew that he could not stand up to the barrage much longer. With all his energy being concentrated on maintaining his force field, he would not be able to direct enough firepower against his foe to do any damage. He decided to lock on to Firepower with some concussion buds that he had just designed into the suit.

Iron Man fired, and watched the little bombs harry his foe. The Armored Avenger was about to let loose with a repulsor and pulse blast combination when his proximity sensors picked up a lifeform reading. He almost ignored it; he knew there was another lifeform nearby; it was Firepower.

But he decided to take a look at the reading. There were three readings, actually, from the caves up above.

He knew that Jasper Sitwell, Betty Brant, and Obadiah Stane were miles away, monitoring the battle from the armored SHIELD bunker, so the lifeforms could not be them.

Iron Man decided to fly off to investigate; Firepower would need a couple of moments to get ready to pursue him, anyway.

"He's turning, and flying up there to the caves," Sitwell commented. "I wonder what he's doing?"

"It's clear that Firepower's tactical abilities are too much for him," Stane boasted. "I bet he's getting ready to signal his surrender."

Betty did not like Stane's general tone at all. She had met men like him before, but usually they were mobsters or other corrupt figures that she was trying to take down with the award-winning stories she had written while she was in New York City.

This simple test of armor versus armor was more like a battle to Stane, a battle whose consequences he did not care about beyond winning. Betty was just hoping that Iron Man would make it out of this contest alive.

"Alta, señor! Alta allí si tirare a ústed con esa pistola!"

"Hold on there, mister!" Iron Man said to the man, who emerged from the cave carrying a rusted pistol. He put his hands up so that he could seem like he had no weapons. "Habla ústed ingles? I'm not here to hurt you."

The man's wife and teenaged daughter emerged from the shadows of the cave. They were beautiful, but they looked like they hadn't had anything decent to eat in a long while.

"My father does not speak English, although I am teaching him," the teenaged girl said. "Please don't hurt us."

"Don't worry, young lady," Iron Man replied. "You need to get out of here. We're testing dangerous weapons, and if one of them exploded near here, you would get hurt."

"We know that. That's why we're here," the girl answered. "The immigration people would never wander out here to try to catch us."

Iron Man thought hard. There were innocent people in the testing site, and they couldn't just get up and leave their temporary home. He had to stop the contest now, even if it meant forfeiting it.

First he had to tell Firepower to hold off. Then he could get in touch with Sitwell and Betty and inform them of the situation.

"Stay here. Hide in the cave until I can make sure that the testing has stopped. I'll come back to let you know, O.K.?"

Before leaving, Iron Man looked back at the rather scrawny family. He had detachable water and food supplies in his armor, so he gave these to them.

"Gracias, señor," the father said.

Iron Man looked at the three of them. "I know you think you are safe here," he said, "but you really should think about living in another place."

The teenaged girl gave him a bit of a bemused look. This gringo superhero did not know how desperate their situation was.

"If you can get to California somehow, contact my employer, Tony Stark." Iron Man used a printing device in his armor to generate Tony Stark's business card. "He can help you apply for citizenship, and get you work. I'll recommend you to him personally."

As he turned to leave the cave, he noticed that Firepower was hovering right outside.

"Take cover!" Iron Man ordered as he flew outside. The family scuttled down into the bowels of the cave.

A cannon blast from Firepower hit Iron Man full on. His defense systems were weak, and he wasn't really trying to fight right now.

"Firepower!" he shouted into his short-range radio. "We need to stop!"

"Oh, so you give up?"

"Not exactly," Iron Man replied. "There's an innocent family living in this canyon, and they could be hurt by our weapons."

"They knew the risk, hanging around here." Firepower let loose with another burst of lasers, which Iron Man only barely withstood. He had to let himself float down to the canyon floor, to conserve energy.

"You cold-hearted . . . "

Firepower landed deliberately on the other side of the canyon from Iron Man.

"My boss told me to disable your armor, Iron Man. Permanently. If I whack some immigrants while I'm at it, then that's a few less illegals that the border patrol has to chase down."

Iron Man could hear Firepower's coarse laughter over his short-range radio. His sensors, although barely functional, told him that Firepower was warming up his short-range missiles to deliver the final blow.

He searched his armor's hard drives for a remote control script that Oracle had sent him once. His friend had written in the readme for the script that if properly executed, the script would allow remote control of most other armor systems. He needed that script to work now.

"Execute code Couch Potato," Iron Man said to his armor.

"Password required," his armor responded.

Iron Man saw the missiles on Firepower's armor getting ready to fire. He had hardly any time left.

"Oracle!" Iron Man urgently e-mailed his friend. "What's the password for the Couch Potato script?"

"Whoa, man! Who are you using that script on?" Oracle replied.

"Doesn't matter! If it doesn't work now, I'm history!"

"Okay . . . Let me see," Oracle answered.

The missiles were now in the air and heading toward Iron Man.

"Oracle!! The password! Give me the password!"

Oracle sent Iron Man the password, which he entered. The missiles were almost on top of him when they suddenly stopped mid-air.

Iron Man could tell that Firepower was confused. He used the Couch Potato script to deactivate the warheads on three of the missiles, while leaving one of them live. He then fired the missiles right back at Firepower.

Firepower was so amazed by what had happened that he forgot to evade the one live missile. It hit his armor square in the chest, and there was a massive explosion. Iron Man was able to soar away to avoid the blast, which did not hit the cave area.

Hen wondered whether there would be anything left to clean up. When the smoke cleared, an amazing sight appeared.

Firepower's armor was now a smoking ruin. Apparently his defensive systems had absorbed enough of the blast to keep him from being killed; Iron Man still detected life signs. The man in the Firepower suit would not be getting out anytime soon, however.

A SHIELD hovercar pulled into the canyon. A couple of Stane's technicians ran over to the smoking armor and tried to figure out what to do next.

"It looks like you win, Iron Man." Sitwell exclaimed. "SHIELD is proud to be associated with Stark Enterprises."

"I'll have to talk to you later about Firepower's actions during this test," Iron Man replied. "Let's just say Stane doesn't care about civilian casualties too much."

Stane was fuming, but he had to have the last word. "Sitwell! You'll find out Stark's weapons are inferior someday, probably when you need them the most. You'll regret not going with Stane International!" Stane yelled. "And you just watch your back, Iron Man," he whispered as he walked away to check out the damage to Firepower.

"Great job, Iron Man," Betty Brant said as she examined the hero's damaged armor. "I wish Tony Stark had been here to see you."

"He knows me pretty well," Iron Man replied. "He knew that I wouldn't let him down."

Iron Man reflected on the results of the contest. He had won, but had he proved anything? Had this contest been just a game - a fight between pawns, for the pleasure of the gameplayer SHIELD? Would he have to do it all again the next time some rival industrialist tried to court SHIELD's favor? He would have to see.

Not very far away, a pair of robotic eyes watched Iron Man. If Iron Man were here, his creator would not be far away. And it was almost time for the robot to meet up with his creator again.