The reason everything fell apart was simple.
Tony Stark was still Tony Stark.
Three blockbuster hero careers and worldwide fa hadn't changed the fact that he fundantally refused to sit quietly and follow orders.
He hated blind obedience.
And when sothing slled wrong, his first instinct was always to rip the curtain down himself and expose whatever was hiding behind it.
If Drex Valen had been present, Tony probably wouldn't have dared push things this far.
But Drex's near-mythical habit of disappearing for long stretches had created a dangerous vacuum.
Which naturally led Tony to suspect Nick Fury and the Arican governnt were using S.W.O.R.D. for things beyond its original purpose.
The organization had been founded to protect the planet and eliminate monsters.
That was it.
Nobody was supposed to exploit its resources or power for political agendas.
So Tony tead up with Bruce Banner and hacked into S.W.O.R.D.'s classified systems.
What they found was ugly.
So of it was rely embarrassing.
For example, Fury had quietly redirected enormous amounts of taxpayer money into researching follicle regeneration technology for his deteriorating scalp.
Tony and Banner simply touched their own healthy hairlines and exchanged amused looks at that one.
But the second discovery wiped the smiles from their faces imdiately.
S.W.O.R.D. had been using the Tesseract's energy to develop weapons of mass destruction.
That changed everything.
The two geniuses confronted Fury directly.
His vague answers and evasive responses only made them angrier.
Then Fury stopped denying it altogether and simply stayed silent.
That silence detonated the room.
Thor.
Iron Man.
The Hulk.
Black Widow.
Nick Fury.
And Ben Grimm, who had been dragged into the argunt solely because "he deserved to know too."
Within minutes, the room fractured into competing sides.
The loudest target quickly beca Fury himself, partly because of his decisions and partly because the overhead lights reflected aggressively off his bald head.
Thor crossed his arms.
"You experinted with the Tesseract," he said bluntly. "That is why Loki ca here. To the rest of the universe, your actions signaled that Midgard was preparing for higher forms of war."
Fury's face darkened imdiately.
Everything he had done was for Earth's survival.
And now everyone was acting like he was the villain.
He pointed directly at Tony and Banner.
"You want to know why I developed those weapons?"
"Sure," Tony said casually. "We're listening."
Fury jabbed a finger toward Thor.
"Because of him."
Thor frowned instantly.
"?"
"Yes. Because of you people. Gods from Asgard."
Thor's expression hardened.
"When you arrived on Earth, your conflict with your brother destroyed an entire town. That incident proved sothing terrifying."
Fury's voice grew colder.
"It proved Earth isn't alone."
"And it proved there are civilizations out there stronger than us. More advanced than us. More powerful than us."
Thor stepped forward.
"Asgard protected Earth for centuries. We are not your enemies."
"But the universe doesn't revolve around Asgard," Fury shot back imdiately.
"And alliances change."
"There are too many threats out there, and humanity is weak."
That shut Thor up for a mont.
Nobody in the room was the type to back down from their convictions.
Every one of them was exceptional.
Every one of them believed they were right.
And none of them were capable of convincing the others.
Nearby, Loki's scepter rested quietly in the lab.
The Mind Stone embedded within it emitted faint pulses none of them noticed.
Invisible waves spread silently throughout the room.
Negative emotions intensified.
Suspicion.
Anger.
Jealousy.
Pride.
All of it slowly sharpened beneath the stone's influence.
Eyes reddened.
Tempers escalated.
Only Drex Valen remained completely unaffected.
Hidden nearby through a combination of magical abilities, telepathy, Phoenix Force energy, and Kryptonian perception, he silently observed the chaos while maintaining invisibility.
His attention wasn't even on the argunt.
It was on the Mind Stone.
"So close," Drex mused thoughtfully.
"Should I take it now?"
The debate rapidly deteriorated into shouting.
Shouting beca shoving.
And shoving looked dangerously close to becoming a full-scale superhuman brawl.
At that exact mont, a transport aircraft slowly approached the Helicarrier.
"Transport craft 66B," the control tower transmitted. "Transmit proper identification. Your aircraft appears in the registry, but we have no approved flight record or docking authorization."
"What cargo are you carrying? Respond imdiately."
Inside the aircraft, Hawkeye calmly answered:
"Weapons and ammunition. Over."
The tower operators exchanged confused looks but still didn't feel threatened.
"Transmit your mission authorization code. You are not cleared to approach further until verification is complete."
"We will maintain current distance. Over."
"Continue holding pattern pending confirmation."
It was arrogance.
Pure, deeply ingrained arrogance.
Arica still believed itself untouchable.
Still believed nobody would dare attack them directly.
And then reality arrived like a sledgehamr.
BOOOOOOM!
A massive explosion slamd into the Helicarrier.
The heroes inside the lab were thrown violently off their feet.
Warning sirens instantly scread across the entire vessel.
Combat personnel flooded critical defense points.
Security around Loki's holding cell tripled imdiately.
On the original S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, an attack like this would've caused catastrophic structural damage.
But this wasn't S.H.I.E.L.D.'s outdated carrier.
This was the Helicarrier designed by Drex Valen.
And after the smoke cleared…
The attacking transport crew stared in disbelief.
The Helicarrier was completely unhard.
Then sections of the ship's armor shifted open.
Five massive rows of gun batteries erged.
Each row contained more than a hundred cannons.
Close-range defense systems.
After all, the enemy had already reached point-blank range.
Each weapon was an eleven-barreled 55mm rotary autocannon equipped with dual ammunition feeds.
Every turret could independently lock onto one hundred targets simultaneously.
Maximum firing rate:
Two hundred rounds per second.
And because every component had been constructed using secondary kryptonite alloy, overheating simply wasn't a concern.
The barrels could maintain continuous fire for nearly one hundred hours before even beginning to glow red.
That was the terrifying advantage of Drex's materials science.
Fewer weapons.
Far greater efficiency.
Ridiculous combat performance.
Inside the transport plane, Clint Barton's face went pale.
"…Oh, shit."
Then the Helicarrier opened fire.
BRRRRRRRRTTTTTT!
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