Especially since he had also seen Drex Valen this ti.
He had not expected Drex Valen to co back to Earth.
What caught him off guard even more was that Odin, old as he was and prone to wanting extra sleep, had still been able to see and hear plenty even in that slumbering state. Once he sensed that his foolish son had returned to Asgard, he seed to realize that if he kept sleeping any longer, the family business might get ruined even harder than before.
It was probably ti to wake up.
"So what exactly is the situation now?"
Nick Fury ca knocking soon after Drex Valen returned.
"The conflict in Asgard is not nearly as catastrophic as you imagine. As long as Odin is alive, the flas of war will not reach Earth. That said, after you reported the existence of alien civilizations, I imagine the major military powers on Earth have already started feeling threatened."
Fury's expression darkened imdiately.
Not just threatened. By now, strategic nuclear missiles were already being prepared. The whole thing probably felt to him like the opening move of a planetary cold war with extra fireworks.
"The Asgardian heir has a favorable opinion of Earth," Drex went on. "To be precise, he has already said he intends to form an alliance with it."
As he spoke, Drex pointed toward Jane Foster, who was sitting in front of them, staring blankly up at the sky.
"Because Thor likes that Earth woman. As an immortal, Odin will never allow a mortal like Foster to beco Thor's wife. But for a hundred years or so... I doubt Odin would care all that much."
Fury looked at Foster's back for a long mont.
"So within a hundred years, Asgard will be Earth's ally, and the bond holding that alliance together is Jane Foster."
The two idiots on Asgard had probably finished their fight by now. But Thor had not returned to see Foster imdiately.
Either those idiots had smashed the Bifrost and left him stranded, or he was busy cleaning up the kingdom.
Either way, Foster waiting here like this was a little silly, but that was love for you.
Dr. Selvig looked positively heartbroken. He had promised to look after Foster, and now the fresh cabbage in his care had been plucked by an alien.
Thor, didn't you have a childhood sweetheart in Sif?
No, actually, whether it was Foster or Sif, the biggest rival in all of this was Loki.
"Of course it will not be that stable," Drex said. "Friendship or hostility still depends on Earth's own strength."
Fury gave a small nod. "When your fist is hard enough, that's what becos the truth."
"Exactly," Drex said. "Only when your fist is strong enough will other people sit down and speak to you calmly."
Then Fury smiled.
"Convenient timing. We've got a chance to improve ourselves, don't we? The steel armor from Asgard, and the corpses of Frost Giants."
"Mm."
Drex nodded.
Fake stuff. Easy enough to take away.
And then he got an earful from Tony Stark.
"Why didn't you wait for ?"
Stark was not pleased.
Drex glanced at him. "Do you actually want to deal with Asgardians that badly?"
Tony gave him a look. It was less about wanting the fight and more about being left out.
"I an, I was curious," Tony said, "but I could have just asked you later, right?"
He shook his head, then scowled.
"I am annoyed that you didn't include ."
In truth, once Jarvis transmitted the satellite feed to Tony, he had upgraded his armor at top speed. From breakfast ti onward, he had been staring at his phone with a hamburger in hand. By lunch, he was doing the sa thing with a pizza, waiting for S.W.O.R.D. to call.
No rescue request.
No call from the people he thought of as his friends.
Not even Drex had contacted him.
By the ti the armored Destroyer appeared, Tony had finally given up on waiting for S.W.O.R.D. He told Jarvis to prepare entrance music and the most dramatic pose possible. Tony had even already prepared the lines.
Then he put on the armor and flew toward New xico.
Only for the satellite feed to drop out for a mont.
And then Jarvis inford him that the battle was already over.
Bullshit.
None of them had even thought about Iron Man!
"The king of Asgard wrote a growth script for his two sons. Nothing especially worth studying," Drex said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pair of black-rimd glasses. The mont he put them on, his entire expression changed.
"I uploaded the Asgard files into S.W.O.R.D.'s Level Ten archive already."
Tony blinked. "You uploaded the whole thing?"
"Everything relevant."
Tony rubbed his face. "And what about the Destroyer armor? You know, the fire-spewing tin can."
"That should be of so interest to you," Drex said.
Tony scratched his cheek. "So interest, I guess."
Then he frowned.
"It's just ugly. Not very compatible with my extrely subtle aesthetic."
Right. Tony Stark, the man in the gold and red spotlight armor, talking about subtlety.
Drex rely shook his head.
Thor 2 would still take a while. At the very least, Loki still had to lead the Chitauri invasion before that happened.
Though this ti, the Chitauri were probably going to have a much harder ti getting anywhere near Earth.
After the Destroyer incident, Umbrella Corporation had received another flood of orders for War Machines and Iron Mongers.
And this ti, the clients had been generous enough to request all of them with lower-grade Kryptonian custom fabrication.
The number of War Machines already in circulation worldwide had passed ten thousand.
Iron Mongers had reached two hundred.
This round pushed War Machines past fifty thousand and shoved Iron Mongers up to a full thousand.
Umbrella Corporation was swimming in profit, and Drex Valen had also used the opportunity to develop the third generation of War Machine in anticipation of the Chitauri threat.
"Sky Tyrant."
A complete sky-dominance weapons system. A lower-grade Kryptonian shell. A flight speed that reached an unprecedented Mach 9. It outclassed every aircraft on Earth by a ridiculous margin, and its endurance plus combat range were both absurd.
Most of its weapons were air-to-air energy systems.
The only conventional armant was air-to-ground missiles, but even those were faster and deadlier than Hellfire missiles. They were also compact enough that carrying over a hundred was no problem at all.
The price was three billion dollars per unit.
Missiles were extra.
And yet, after seeing the Sky Tyrant's sleek design and the way it completely overpowered every military system humanity currently had, the entire world got greedy.
What was three billion dollars?
Any country on Earth could scrape that together.
And since it was Drex Valen's product, it was famous for being simple enough that even a beginner could use it without a manual.
Because the whole thing worked through brainwave connection and control, the weapon systems could either be operated directly through thought or assisted by built-in artificial intelligence.
So even if India bought it, there was no need to worry about a crash.
France, on the other hand, was probably going to end up getting ninety-percent-new Sky Tyrants from every direction.
"Selling lightly used Sky Tyrants!"
"Only landed once!"
The oil kings in the Middle East were even throwing money around like it had no weight at all, buying Sky Tyrants just to take photos and show them off.
Ever since War Machines first appeared, the rich had shifted their usual status-symbol flexing from luxury cars, fighter jets, private planes, and yachts to combat armor.
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