Compared to Drex Valen's efficiency, everyone else suddenly felt painfully useless.
So Drex decided it was ti to show off a little more.
Nanomachines flowed across his arm and gathered in his hand, rapidly forming a weapon.
The gun looked aggressively futuristic. Sleek, angular, and unmistakably high-tech.
Tony Stark watched the transformation closely, deep in thought.
Fusion lter.
The weapon fired compressed spheres of thermal energy roughly the size of basketballs. Upon impact, the spheres released temperatures reaching several thousand degrees or higher, enough to lt or outright vaporize almost any target.
A Deep Sea creature lunged toward Drex.
He calmly pulled the trigger.
A blazing energy sphere erupted from the muzzle and slamd directly into the monster.
FLASH.
The Deep Sea warrior vanished.
Not burned.
Not blasted apart.
Gone.
Johnny Storm's eyes widened.
"What the hell?! That thing's insane!"
Even several Deep Sea creatures standing nearby ended up with scorched scales from the residual heat alone.
Reed Richards adjusted his posture slightly, entering the sa dangerous "thinking scientist" mode Tony Stark had fallen into monts earlier.
"An energy weapon generating ultra-high temperatures in an instant…"
Elsewhere, Nick Fury stared at the combat footage with widening eyes.
That weapon looked familiar.
Far too familiar.
One shot.
Total disintegration.
Just like HYDRA's energy weapons during World War II.
Of course, Fury wasn't about to suspect Drex Valen of secretly being HYDRA. Captain Arica supposedly destroyed HYDRA decades ago.
But without the Tesseract, Drex had still developed sothing terrifyingly similar.
And possibly even stronger.
As Fury watched the endless stream of monsters overwhelming conventional forces while superheroes remained dangerously understaffed, a bold idea quietly began forming in his mind.
Drex, anwhile, wasn't thinking about any of that.
Just like the ti he publicly revealed his ability to break through Earth's atmosphere, this was simply another display of "power."
Technological power.
Because unlike personal strength, technology could be mass-produced.
Replicated.
Industrialized.
Who knew how many Fusion lters Drex could manufacture?
Against advanced energy weapons, conventional ballistic firearms suddenly looked prehistoric.
The Fusion lter itself was powered by a magnetic-confinent fusion reactor capable of sustaining continuous high-temperature plasma rounds. Tony Stark's chest-mounted Arc Reactor, by comparison, could probably fire the weapon five tis before draining completely.
Truthfully, the Deep Sea Clan only appeared this dangerous because the battle was happening inside New York City.
The military couldn't fully unleash heavy weapons in an urban environnt.
Otherwise?
A single large-scale artillery bombardnt would have flattened the invasion.
Naval guns from offshore fleets could have saturated the coastline.
Even if the Deep Sea creatures resisted bullets, enough artillery shells would eventually bury them through sheer volu alone.
And that didn't even include missiles, fuel-air explosives, infrasonic weapons, and other truly destructive military hardware.
Drex understood that perfectly.
He had intentionally chosen the battlefield.
Urban warfare created the illusion that Arica's military was weaker than superheroes and private technology companies.
Public perception mattered more than reality.
After today, military credibility would plumt while faith in superheroes and Drex Valen skyrocketed.
Brand managent.
That was all this really was.
At least for now.
Maybe once he eventually left Earth and expanded into the cosmos, he'd stop caring about public relations.
Still, if this fight had happened sowhere less important than New York's wealthy districts, the military probably would've started carpet-bombing the area hours ago.
Once Drex entered the battlefield personally, the war dragged on for another three hours before finally ending.
No more Deep Sea creatures erged from the coastline.
The military breathed a collective sigh of relief.
The battle had cost them enormous losses.
And sohow, despite fighting nonstop, public trust in them had still dropped even further.
But there wasn't really anyone to bla.
This had been a sudden crisis.
And in situations like this, they genuinely couldn't compete with superheroes.
Especially Drex Valen.
From the public's perspective, he had practically turned the tide single-handedly and saved the city.
Naturally, military leadership beca extrely interested in his energy weapon.
That gun's destructive power was impossible to ignore.
Unfortunately, Drex's carefully cultivated public image worked against them here. He was too influential, too admired, and too publicly valuable for the military to openly pressure.
The military couldn't act.
But Nick Fury could.
Later that day, Drex returned to his office and imdiately saw Natasha Romanoff standing beside his desk.
"Natalie," he said calmly, pretending not to recognize her true identity, "what exactly are you doing in my office?"
"First official eting, Mr. Valen."
The office chair slowly rotated around.
Nick Fury sat behind the desk with both hands clasped before his face, radiating maximum intimidating-spy-director energy.
Drex looked at him for two seconds.
Then he pressed a button.
"Security. I have intruders in my office."
Nick Fury froze.
Seconds later, several heavily built security guards stord into the room wearing Blade Technologies uniforms.
Zoanoids.
Natasha moved instantly.
She attempted to neutralize the guards before they could escalate things, hoping to force a proper conversation between Fury and Drex.
It went poorly.
Extrely poorly.
The Zoanoid guards were enhanced far beyond Natasha's physical capabilities. One of them caught her almost imdiately and slamd her to the floor before she could properly react.
Natasha blinked in confusion.
What just happened?
Where the hell am I?
HYDRA headquarters?
Leviathan?
Since when were corporate security guards built like classified Soviet bio-weapons?
"Natalie," Drex said calmly, "I have no idea what you thought you were doing, but you're fired."
He folded his hands behind his back.
"I'll also be consulting legal counsel regarding possible attempts to steal Blade Technologies trade secrets."
Then he glanced toward Fury.
"As for you and the bald gentleman, leave."
"Wait," Fury started quickly. "Mr. Valen, we're not—"
The Zoanoids imdiately interpreted the interruption as resistance.
They grabbed Fury before he could finish speaking and slamd him face-first onto the floor beside Natasha.
A level ten S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.
Pinned like a drunk bar fighter.
Then both intruders were dragged out of the office together.
Once they were gone, Drex calmly contacted Urd.
"Have maintenance throw everything in this office away."
He glanced around the room with visible disgust.
"Furniture too. Replace the walls while they're at it. Full renovation."
He didn't need to hear Fury's pitch anyway.
The man's thoughts were practically screaming.
"So he already wants the Avengers Initiative in 2002…"
Drex stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking New York City.
Interesting.
Had Drex's own actions accelerated Fury's tiline?
Then he shook his head slightly.
Trying to steal his future team?
Delusional.
anwhile, outside the building, Fury's face had gone dark with frustration.
"What the hell was that?"
He rubbed his shoulder while glaring toward the tower behind them.
"Don't tell Blade Technologies hires forr Leviathan agents as security guards."
Natasha frowned thoughtfully.
"No."
Her expression turned serious.
"I could feel it the second they moved."
She exhaled slowly.
"They weren't normal humans."
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