The final robber stood paralyzed with shock, but Jerry remained in perfect control. Leveraging his superhuman state, he closed the distance between them in an explosive burst of speed.
Reality finally penetrated the criminal's stunned mind. He would share his companions' fate if he didn't act immediately.
Discarding his now-useless softened rifle, the man frantically reached for the pistol concealed in his pocket.
Jerry couldn't afford to let him draw. With a powerful leap, he launched a devastating knee strike directly toward the robber's groin.
Seeing this incoming attack, the robber's eyes widened in alarm. Any thought of retrieving his weapon vanished as he instinctively moved to protect his most vulnerable area with both hands.
But he had grossly underestimated Jerry's enhanced capabilities.
In his superhuman state, Jerry's strength nearly matched the adult criminal's. Combined with perfect biomechanical execution and full momentum, his knee strike carried tremendous force. Despite the robber's defensive reaction, the impact transmitted brutal kinetic energy directly to its intended target.
The man's body curled inward like a shrimp, a strangled gasp escaping his lips as excruciating pain radiated through his core.
Jerry maintained his relentless offensive. His super-charged brain coordinated a complex follow-up without pausing, using the man's hunched shoulders as leverage points. Jerry propelled himself upward and rotated through the air to position himself directly above the robber's head.
In one fluid motion, his legs wrapped around the criminal's neck with python-like constriction. Every muscle in Jerry's body engaged simultaneously as he executed a violent rotational force, similar to twisting off a bottle cap.
Crack!
The robber's head wrenched a full one hundred and eighty degrees, instantly severing his spinal cord. Death was instantaneous and unambiguous.
Jerry disengaged with an athletic dismount, scanning his surroundings to confirm all threats had been neutralised. Satisfied, he immediately deactivated both his superhuman state and the refreshing function.
"Oof... that's painful," he muttered.
Though the combat had lasted only two or three minutes, the neurological burden had been significant. A momentary dizziness swept over him before his system stabilised.
The physical aftermath proved more intense, and his muscles protested as if he'd run a marathon without training. The sensation reminded him of the delayed soreness that follows an unprecedented workout, the kind you feel most acutely the morning after.
Despite these aftereffects, the superhuman experience had been exhilarating.
If his combat skills normally hovered around amateur level, the enhanced state had temporarily elevated him to elite proficiency, the difference between a weekend hobbyist and a professional fighter.
After allowing himself a brief recovery period, Jerry approached the robber, whose eye socket still housed his dagger. He extracted the transformed weapon and proceeded toward Smith, the unconscious leader who lay crumpled on the floor.
Without hesitation or remorse, Jerry plunged the dagger directly into the center of the man's chest.
"Cut the roots to prevent regrowth," he murmured. Jerry harboured no sentimentality toward these criminals, men who had undoubtedly taken multiple lives before today. Moreover, Smith had likely glimpsed Jerry's face during the assault; loose ends couldn't be afforded.
Despite this being his first act of lethal violence, Jerry experienced only mild revulsion rather than moral anguish. Perhaps his own previous death, crushed beneath that truck's wheels, had fundamentally altered his relationship with mortality.
Death no longer held the terrifying mystique it once had.
"Well, that's certainly a significant level difference!"
Opening his status panel, Jerry's eyes widened at the display, his Little Red Star count had skyrocketed to 2,000, eliciting genuine surprise.
Two thousand stars represented the equivalent of several years' worth of conventional good deeds. All acquired in one decisive intervention.
It seemed that mundane acts of kindness, helping with trash disposal or assisting elderly pedestrians, paled in comparison to neutralising four armed bank robbers who had endangered an entire school bus of children.
Despite this windfall of Little Red Stars, Jerry knew he couldn't immediately return to the "Harry Potter" small world.
Each transition between worlds required a mandatory cooling period. Furthermore, after his initial trial period, each day in the magical world would consume 100 Little Red Stars. His current 2,000 might seem substantial but would sustain only twenty days of immersion.
Additionally, accelerating his magical studies at Hogwarts would require further expenditure of these precious resources.
His strategic mind was already calculating methods to accumulate additional stars for future consumption.
Closing the panel, Jerry approached the central table where, among scattered beer bottles, sat a large bag containing what he estimated to be millions in stolen cash.
The recent battle had dislodged numerous banknotes, which now littered the floor around the table.
Jerry casually collected eight or nine hundred-dollar bills, tucking them into his pocket as he justified the action to himself: "Helping recover millions of dollars... seven or eight hundred isn't excessive. Perfect for buying Elsa that Snow Princess doll she's been wanting."
As an eleven-year-old in this world, Jerry's financial resources were severely limited. His father provided minimal allowance, and what little extra he acquired came from intimidated classmates.
Several hundred dollars represented a significant sum to him, yet remained insignificant enough that banking authorities wouldn't prioritise its recovery.
"Now to wait for the police rescue mission," he murmured.
Sensing his magical energy beginning to replenish, Jerry used a Restoration Charm to revert the dagger to its original form, a simple chair leg. He then returned to his makeshift prison room, sealed the door with a Locking Charm, and stretched out on the bed to rest his exhausted body.
"The police should find this place soon... those gunshots were hardly subtle."
Unbeknownst to Jerry, barely minutes after he'd closed his eyes, a figure clad in gold and crimson mechanical armour had already positioned himself above the warehouse.
The timeline rewinds approximately one hour.
The billionaire industrialist examined blueprints for his Mark 5 suitcase-deployed armour system inside Tony Stark's expansive mansion.
"Sir," JARVIS announced, "a bank robbery has occurred in Queens. The perpetrators have hijacked a school bus containing elementary students and have successfully evaded police pursuit."
Tony set aside his technical diagrams and strode purposefully toward his armour deployment station.
"Perfect timing for a field test, and some creative inspiration," he remarked.
Since publicly revealing his identity days earlier, Tony had prioritized developing more portable armour configurations for rapid response. Condensing his sophisticated suit into suitcase dimensions presented formidable engineering challenges.
Standing on the automated platform, Tony watched as JARVIS efficiently assembled the Mark 4 armour around his body. With the Mark 3 severely damaged from his confrontation with the Iron Monger, this newer iteration served as his primary system.
The Mark 4 maintained nearly identical functionality to its predecessor, though with subtle aesthetic refinements.
Activating the suit's repulsor thrusters, Tony launched himself skyward, accelerating to fighter jet velocities as he headed toward the criminals' last known coordinates.