After his release, Emil Blonsky officially beca S.W.O.R.D.'s newest S-Class hero.
The decision triggered imdiate backlash from many superheroes.
Protests.
Complaints.
Argunts about trust and morality.
Drex Valen ignored most of it and pushed the appointnt through personally.
He had plenty of reasons ready.
The biggest one was simple:
The Saiyans were still out there.
Nobody knew when they would arrive.
Thinking back to the overwhelming terror of Raditz, people reluctantly accepted reality. During that battle, only Hulk had been able to truly contend with him.
And now Abomination had fought Red Hulk to a near standstill.
Power like that was too valuable to waste.
Earth desperately lacked heavy hitters.
In truth, Blonsky and Ross weren't the only people Drex had quietly turned into superheroes.
Most of the visible mbers of the Burning Legion had already been reassigned.
The only exceptions were people who couldn't safely appear in public, such as Bucky Barnes, Captain Arica, Rumlow, and Grant Ward.
Everyone else without problematic histories had been pushed into superhero roles.
Black Tank.
Colossus.
Steel Man.
Luke Cage.
Officially, Drex described it as long-term infiltration work for the Burning Legion.
Realistically?
He'd already started losing interest in maintaining that organization personally.
When he eventually left Earth for cosmic exploration, he planned to travel with his figurine legion instead.
The rest could stay behind.
Several years had passed.
Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Emma were finally approaching graduation.
As graduation neared, Wanda submitted her résumé to Umbrella Corporation.
Drex had never asked her or Pietro to do anything for him directly, but Wanda still wanted to repay what he had done for them.
Her academic performance had been excellent, earning praise from nearly every professor she studied under.
She hoped she could help Drex in so way.
Pietro, anwhile, had gone in a completely different direction.
After being kidnapped years ago, most of his rebellious streak had disappeared.
Drex had essentially beaten adolescence out of him through sheer psychological impact.
Now Pietro cared more about music than trouble.
He wanted to beco a rock singer.
Emma's situation was simpler.
She already worked for the Burning Legion, so graduation was basically ceremonial at this point.
Wanda sat nervously waiting for a response.
Several finance companies and major corporations had already offered her positions.
Even Stark Industries had reached out.
Still, she chose to wait for Umbrella Corporation.
"No response today either?" Pietro asked while absentmindedly strumming his guitar.
Wanda sighed softly and poured herself a glass of water.
"No..."
"Don't get discouraged," Pietro said quickly. "Umbrella's huge. They probably get flooded with applications every day. And it's graduation season. They probably just haven't seen yours yet."
In reality, that wasn't remotely possible.
The Black Queen AI could process every applicant's résumé within minutes.
Wanda's application had simply been set aside while the AI waited for Drex's instructions.
"Thanks," Wanda said with a small smile. "How's the band going?"
Pietro imdiately looked awkward.
"Pretty good... still missing a few people."
That was a lie.
He hadn't found anyone.
Currently, he made barely enough money singing in bars to survive.
And even that was inconsistent.
"Keep going, Pietro," Wanda encouraged him sincerely. "Working toward your dream is always worth it."
Unlike her, Pietro actually had a dream.
Even if it seed unrealistic.
"I will," Pietro promised imdiately.
Right then, Wanda's computer chid.
An email notification appeared on-screen.
Her eyes widened.
Umbrella Corporation.
Acceptance letter.
The tension she'd been carrying for weeks finally dissolved.
Earlier, Black Queen had asked Drex whether Wanda should be admitted.
His answer had been simple.
Let her in.
She might even prove useful later.
At this point, Drex still hadn't obtained the Mind Stone, aning he couldn't awaken Wanda and Pietro's latent powers properly.
Though honestly, he wasn't even sure he needed their abilities anymore.
If Thanos showed up tomorrow with five Infinity Stones, Drex was fairly certain he could still beat him to death barehanded.
Ever since gaining Doomsday's adaptive evolution, almost nothing truly threatened him anymore.
The bigger concern was his own mutation.
Kryptonians varied wildly across parallel universes.
Magic-based variants.
Kryptonite-based variants.
chanical variants.
Pure energy variants.
There were countless strange evolutions across the multiverse.
So Drex wasn't surprised his body had changed.
What unsettled him was the lack of control.
He occasionally worried that one day he'd wake up no longer resembling a human being at all.
Lately, he had begun using his biofield to block most solar radiation from reaching his body directly.
Strangely, neither Esdeath nor Tifa Lockhart had experienced similar mutations.
Drex still didn't understand why.
While Drex considered the problem, another crisis erupted beneath Earth's oceans.
The civilization of Atlantis ca under attack from the Deep Sea Clan.
Recently, Drex had been too busy to micromanage the monsters he created. After releasing them, he mostly allowed them to act independently.
The Deep Sea Clan had initially believed themselves to be absolute rulers of the oceans.
Then they discovered Atlantis.
Naturally, war followed.
Even without the Deep Sea King, ordinary Deep Sea Clan mbers still averaged Tiger-level monster strength.
That alone was enough to drive Atlantis steadily backward.
Eventually, the underwater civilization had no choice but to request help from the surface world.
The United States was the first nation contacted.
Governnts reacted with shock after learning an entire hidden undersea civilization had existed on Earth all along.
At the sa ti, they were deeply wary of Atlantis's military strength.
Rather than handling the situation themselves, they pushed the problem directly onto S.W.O.R.D.
Even S.W.O.R.D. found the situation unexpected.
Which was how it eventually reached Drex.
"So they surfaced on their own after all," he said thoughtfully.
It didn't take much to figure out what had happened.
If Atlantis was desperate enough to seek aid from surface humanity, then the Deep Sea Clan had probably already pushed close to their capital city.
Nick Fury spoke seriously.
"Atlantis is a civilization humanity has never truly encountered before. Until now, people only knew the na from Plato's writings and myths about Poseidon."
"But now they've appeared openly as a nation."
"That changes everything."
He folded his arms.
"Whatever S.W.O.R.D. decides here, we need to think carefully."
"Congress. The White House. The Pentagon. The United Nations. Every major governnt is watching this situation."
"No one wants a war."
"What we need is diplomacy. Contact. Negotiation. Establishing relations."
As Director of S.W.O.R.D., Drex held authority powerful enough to influence humanity's future directly.
Which ant he could decide whether Atlantis received help at all.
"Why should we help them?" Drex asked flatly.
"When humanity fights monsters every day, Atlantis stays hidden underwater."
"Now they're losing, and suddenly they want support?"
He leaned back slightly.
"The world doesn't work that way."
Fury frowned.
"Atlantis is still a powerful civilization," he argued. "That kind of strength matters."
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