Marvel's Kryptonian Scientist Chapter 290 290

Tony Stark understood perfectly well that Drex was doing him a favor.

Under normal circumstances, no amount of money would be enough to hire Umbrella Corporation's special operatives.

"I'll help Rhodey investigate the attacks," Tony said. "You just make sure Pepper stays safe."

"I'll handle it."

The operative assigned to Pepper Potts was Clare.

A tall blonde woman carrying an enormous claymore across her back.

Honestly, it was absurd overkill.

Clare alone could probably slaughter every superhero currently working under S.W.O.R.D. Sending her to protect Pepper ant any Extremis soldier foolish enough to approach would likely die before realizing they'd been detected.

Unfortunately, Umbrella's roster was still limited.

Sephiroth was imdiately disqualified for one obvious reason:

He was male.

Tony would never allow Sephiroth anywhere near Pepper.

Partly because the man was outrageously handso. His popularity had already reached international celebrity levels, rivaling movie stars at this point. The only person consistently ranking above him in public attention was Drex himself.

And partly because of the height difference.

Even wearing the Iron Man armor, Tony still wasn't as tall as Sephiroth.

That bothered him more than he liked admitting.

As for Wanda...

Absolutely not.

She was still undergoing training, and her chaos magic remained dangerously unstable. Sending her to protect Pepper sounded like the fastest possible route toward catastrophic collateral damage.

Los Angeles had largely returned to normal after reconstruction.

The streets were crowded.

The nightlife was alive again.

People behaved as though the alien invasion from months earlier had already beco distant history.

If the catastrophe had changed society at all, it was probably the explosion in people suddenly dressing like superheroes and wannabe vigilantes.

The city itself had healed surprisingly fast.

The fear underneath it hadn't.

"Tony asked you to protect , didn't he?" Pepper asked with a slightly awkward smile.

She glanced sideways at Clare.

Tall.

Blonde.

Beautiful enough to make Hollywood actresses nervous.

Built like soone sculpted specifically to trigger Arican beauty standards.

Pepper suddenly understood why Tony had insisted on female bodyguards instead of male ones.

Still...

There was one thing she really wanted to complain about.

"If you're acting as security," Pepper said carefully, "shouldn't there be at least a little effort to blend in?"

Clare was openly carrying a gigantic sword through downtown Los Angeles.

Not hidden.

Not disguised.

Just strapped to her back in plain sight.

Thankfully, Earth's standards for "weird" had changed dramatically after Drex's rise to prominence. Superheroes, enhanced humans, alien tech, and bizarre costus had beco increasingly common.

A few years ago, the LAPD would have arrested her instantly.

Now people mostly just stared and took pictures.

"It's fine," Clare replied with a faint smile. "We accepted the job. That's all."

One hundred million dollars per day.

Only Tony Stark would casually spend money like that.

Granted, Drex himself didn't care about money either. Realistically, soone at Clare's level should have cost far more.

Pepper laughed awkwardly.

"You know, when I was younger, I actually thought about becoming so kind of badass fighter."

She tilted her head slightly.

"Sounds embarrassingly edgy saying it out loud."

"What happened?" Clare asked.

"I tried boxing lessons," Pepper admitted. "The instructor hit so hard I couldn't get out of bed the next morning. That pretty much killed the dream."

"Learning to endure pain is the first step toward becoming stronger," Clare said calmly.

Pepper imdiately shook her head.

"No. Absolutely not. Most normal people do not enjoy getting punched."

"That's why warriors are rare," Clare answered with a small smile. "Ordinary people vastly outnumber them."

Then she vanished.

One mont she stood beside Pepper.

The next, she appeared behind a man several ters away.

"First one."

She never even drew the sword.

The man split cleanly in half from head to groin.

Blood sprayed across the pavent.

People nearby erupted into screams.

Before panic could fully spread, Clare disappeared again.

This ti she appeared beside another man trying to move closer to Pepper.

Again, the sword remained sheathed.

Again, the target died instantly.

His skull separated into two perfectly smooth halves.

She was so fast it barely looked like she'd attacked at all.

Pepper stared in stunned disbelief.

"What... what is this?"

"People with killing intent toward you," Clare said pleasantly. "Most likely the attackers."

Extremis soldiers were dangerous.

If their central nervous system wasn't destroyed properly, their bodies destabilized and exploded with devastating force. A single detonation could demolish an entire building.

That was why Clare chose imdiate lethal strikes instead of capture.

Her gaze swept across the street.

"There are too many."

More than fifty hostile targets.

"Pepper," she said quietly, "find sowhere safe and stay there."

Gunfire erupted.

Rifle rounds scread through the air toward Clare.

The bullets stopped inches from her body as though they'd slamd into invisible steel before dropping harmlessly to the ground.

She looked mildly disappointed.

"They're still using weapons this outdated?"

Honestly, in Earth's current military environnt, conventional rifles were becoming increasingly obsolete. Heavy-caliber weapons and anti-armor systems were far more common now thanks to the spread of powered armor and chanized infantry.

Against modern war machines, ordinary firearms barely slowed anything down.

Then Clare sensed it.

Fifty heat signatures.

Each one burning at extre temperatures.

The attackers charged forward wrapped in blazing heat like living furnaces.

Extremis soldiers.

Clare's eyes narrowed.

Technically, she could've ended the entire fight instantly with freezing breath.

She simply didn't like fighting that way.

Instead, she drew the claymore.

The sound of steel leaving its sheath echoed through the street.

Then she disappeared.

When Clare reappeared, she had already passed through all fifty Extremis soldiers.

A heartbeat later, their bodies exploded apart into severed limbs and burning chunks of flesh.

The heat generated by the Extremis virus lted through the newly rebuilt road beneath them. Asphalt liquefied into glowing rivers of molten rock.

The street looked like the aftermath of a volcanic eruption.

anwhile, Tony wasted no ti tracking down Advanced Idea chanics directly.

A.I.M. might publicly masquerade as a scientific corporation, but its resources and territory rivaled those of major global powers.

Much like Hydra, the organization had quietly embedded itself across governnts, industries, and private sectors throughout the world.

Most countries on Marvel's Earth were secretly influenced by one hidden organization or another.

So were controlled by several simultaneously.

A.I.M.'s problem, however, was simple.

They were scientists.

Not soldiers.

Even M.O.D.O.K. himself was fundantally a researcher at heart.

And researchers generally had no idea how to fight a war against Tony Stark.

...

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