There was no helping it. The War Machine had beco too useful.
The more Drex Valen used it, the more impossible it was to ignore just how versatile the thing really was.
It could function as an aerial strike unit, link up with satellites, launch attacks beyond visual range, and even stand in as a strategic missile platform.
On the ground, its mobility and anti-materiel firepower made tanks feel obsolete. At low altitude, helicopters had no chance against sothing that fast, that agile, and that heavily ard.
Reluctantly, countries across the world started cutting back on fighter jet and tank developnt. Money that would have gone into those programs was being redirected into their own War Machine projects, or into research ant to copy what Blade Technology Industries had already made.
The na "revolutionary weapon" had not been an exaggeration. It had rewritten the age of military hardware.
The idea of a single person being a force of war was no longer just a figure of speech.
Of course, research of this level was not sothing just anyone could reproduce. If Tony Stark or Reed Richards did not personally step in, no one else was likely to solve it. Even then, Stark was unlikely to produce the sa result. Richards, on the other hand, given enough ti and one of those absurd "I wonder if…" monts of his, might not just build a War Machine. He might end up inventing a suit of bleeding-edge battle armor that made the whole thing look modest.
The rewards tied to the unrestricted combat tournant had drawn fighters from all over the world. Naturally, there were also people who ca for reasons that had nothing to do with money, but Drex did not care about them.
rcenaries were allowed to enter too. Profession mattered less than results.
Three months later, Police Commissioner George Stacy sat in his office rubbing at his temples.
New York had beco crowded with strangers. n and won with no clear background, no obvious reason for gathering in the city, and docuntation so clean that the police had almost nothing they could use to stop them.
Drex knew the tournant would attract all kinds of creatures out of the dark.
For so people, a no-weapons rule did not count as much of a restriction at all.
And among the many faces that showed up, one in particular amused him.
Wade Wilson.
At the mont, he was still just another rcenary. Not yet Deadpool. Not yet the walking disaster he would eventually beco. But he was already as talkative as a man trying to use his mouth as a survival tool.
He was also confident enough to announce that he only wanted one of the one hundred War Machine units as a prize, and that the rest should be sold off to the highest bidder.
First co, first served.
Drex saw the whole tournant as a sort of field test.
A way to see how many people with latent abilities, unusual genes, or hidden mutations would show themselves when the reward was large enough.
He understood Marvel Earth well enough to know that it was full of off-world bloodlines and strange inheritance patterns. The planet might look like a backwater in the middle of nowhere, but it had no shortage of hidden aliens and descendants of aliens.
So of them lived quietly. So of them stayed invisible.
Others were complications waiting to happen.
The Skrulls were the best-known example. Future events involving them would beco a ss of secrets, impersonation, and political poison. Nick Fury had once operated off-world while a Skrull replaced him on Earth, and that had almost turned into a disaster on a planetary scale.
Drex had no interest in dealing with so-called hero characters if he could avoid it. They were too much trouble. Too much righteous stupidity. Villains were easier. At least with villains, you knew exactly why they were terrible, and you could plan around that.
This tournant was about two things.
Finding suitable candidates for super bio-enhanced soldiers.
And collecting genetic material from anyone who turned up because of the prize money.
If so superhuman rushed in for the reward, that was practically a gift delivered to his doorstep.
Though, in a universe without mutants, the people who might show up for the tournant would mostly be the product of mutations, technological alterations, wormhole exposure, experintal drugs, biochemical accidents, or, at best, Inhumans modified by Kree engineering.
That narrowed the field nicely.
Drex had already sent bio-enhanced soldiers out looking for street-level heroes like Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and the Purple Man. Their genetics would be worth studying. If one of them could be found, it would be a huge gain. If two appeared, it would be absurdly profitable.
No one objected to the tournant's physical examination requirents.
A comprehensive dical screening seed normal enough. Probably a precaution against sudden illness disrupting the match.
Still, the process was suspiciously thorough. Blood samples, bone marrow, subdermal tissue. The whole thing.
With Black Queen handling the analysis, Drex's workload dropped dramatically. What would normally have taken dozens or even hundreds of trials, plus entire research teams, was now being pushed through at speed.
As expected, the tournant produced more than a few unusual individuals.
None of them knew that they had already beco promising material in Drex Valen's eyes. They were just fighting for a prize that seed important to them and trivial to him.
Whenever soone dropped out, unconscious or broken, the tournant staff moved fast to get them off the floor and into the hospital.
Specifically, Blade Technology Industries' new dical departnt.
The place had already earned a reputation for being able to save anyone who still had a pulse.
It was not quite miraculous yet. Not until Drex completed cloning technology and the necessary equipnt. Once that happened, brain tissue and neural structures could simply be transplanted into a new body, and that would be that.
For now, the injured received careful, professional treatnt.
And the ordinary bio-enhanced soldiers were still short on manpower, so the hospital was also a convenient place to recruit more of them.
The fights continued smoothly.
Then Drex spotted soone he had been waiting for.
The Hydra's top model.
Barnes.
Bucky.
He stood in the ring with a flat, unreadable expression, his tal arm hidden beneath a layer of synthetic flesh. To the naked eye, it looked ordinary enough.
To Drex's X-ray vision, it was impossible to miss.
"Didn't expect Hydra to show up," Drex murmured to himself. "But then again, one hundred War Machines would be hard for them to ignore."
That fit perfectly.
Bucky dropped his final opponent with one clean punch.
Drex rose and walked toward the ring himself.
"The champion is this gentleman!"
He did not care that Barnes might be dangerous at close range.
The Hydra agent assigned to watch Bucky was breathing faster now, clearly thinking the sa thing Drex had.
Could this be the chance to take him?
Drex Valen was standing right there.
No visible bodyguards.
No armored escort.
And the Winter Soldier was close enough to reach.
Emil Blonsky, standing nearby, shifted subtly toward the platform. Protecting a boss who could defend himself was one thing. Letting soone else get stupid was another.
Bucky kept his face blank.
The crowd roared around him, but he acted as if none of it existed.
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