When Tony Stark learned that Obadiah had been ambushed and forced to amputate a hand and a leg, he was furious.
Right now, Tony still treated Obadiah like family. In his eyes, this was an attack on soone close to him, and whoever had done it was going to pay for it.
No exceptions.
As for the War Machines that Blade Technology Industries had put into the market, Tony already had a direction in mind. He was preparing his own counterasure.
The defense system had only been a warning shot. A signal.
A way of telling Drex Valen that he was about to move.
Neither man had treated the anti-War-Machine system as the real battle.
Not yet.
anwhile, Osborne Industries was on the verge of collapse.
The arrival of War Machines had hit them too hard. Shareholders were already circling the corpse, ready to tear whatever remained of the Osborne empire apart. Blade Technology Industries stepped in at that mont and bought thirty percent of Osborne Industries' shares.
By then, most of the other investors had already dumped their stock.
From a business perspective, Blade Technology's move was almost certainly a loss.
Urd had warned more than once that Osborne Industries was a dead end. But Drex had no intention of watching Norman and Osborne Industries go under.
He needed the lab where they had researched the super soldier serum.
He needed the data.
He needed the equipnt.
Norman Osborne, for his part, had complete confidence in the situation, so he handled the shareholders without the slightest panic.
This was, in truth, part of Drex's cleanup.
Even the military had bailed out when Osborne's stock started tanking. Drex's thirty percent stake was only a large slice of what remained, not the whole pie. Norman himself had also bought back a good number of shares.
By the ti the board eting settled down, the only serious figures left were Norman, Harry, and Drex.
The smaller shareholders were no threat.
That was exactly why Drex felt comfortable handing the beast soldier production and research over to Norman.
Norman Osborne had already accepted beastification himself.
Drex had granted him one of the beast soldier slots. As for the super beast soldiers, those could only be prepared at Blade Technology's base.
To improve its market value and steady the stock, Osborne Industries held a press conference.
"Mr. Norman Osborne, how do you view Blade Technology Industries investing over a hundred billion to acquire Osborne Industries shares?"
A blonde reporter pushed her way to the front, holding a microphone. Her bright red lips were impossible to miss.
Norman smiled.
"I'd say it's a partnership. Going forward, Osborne Industries and Blade Technology Industries will be working together on biological research. As everyone knows, the biological field…"
He was in a good mood.
After becoming a beast soldier, it was almost like he had joined the World Snake. Aside from one warning about not casually getting soone pregnant and causing genetic complications, Norman felt lighter than he had in years.
The hereditary disease that had haunted his family for generations was finally solved.
He no longer needed periodic injections of expensive dication.
The next step would be seeing whether Harry could be brought into it too.
"Mr. Osborne, are you saying Blade Technology Industries wants Osborne Industries to handle a biological collaboration? What exactly is this project? Who is leading it? Will Mr. Drex Valen be involved?"
The other reporters imdiately perked up.
This was huge.
Blade Technology Industries had fully replaced Stark Industries in the public eye. Every appearance they made now turned into a world-shaking event.
People had only one complaint.
"Can you people speed up production already?"
The special dicine for rats, cockroaches, mosquitoes, and flies had sold out completely. Demand was sky-high and supply was a disaster.
Blade Technology just could not manufacture it fast enough.
The sa problem applied to Vitamin Infinity.
Sa bottleneck.
Sa shortage of production lines.
Secondary kryptonite was no different.
War Machines were no different.
"Because of confidentiality, I can't reveal the project," Norman said. "But with the na Drex Valen attached to it, I'm sure you won't be disappointed. Osborne Industries and Blade Technology Industries are already standing on the edge of the next era. Please look forward to it."
With that, he ended the conference.
In truth, the project Drex had given him had nothing to do with biology.
It was energy-related.
Norman did not really understand it. Blade Technology already had the Firestarter reactor. Why bother researching another source of power?
Still, he followed Drex's instructions and went looking for a physicist nad Otto Gunther Octavius.
Octavius specialized in physical science and had beco a remarkable nuclear physicist. His field was atomic energy physics. He had already published a number of well-received papers and was currently searching for investors who could fund his tritium reactor.
When Norman ca looking for him, Otto was genuinely surprised.
But once he heard that it was Drex Valen who had sent Norman to him, he relaxed.
In Otto's mind, before life had had a chance to grind his pride into dust, Drex Valen was basically this century's Einstein, Tesla, and Joule rolled into one.
A once-in-a-century monster genius.
Soone like that had already built a compact cold fusion reactor, sothing even more difficult than a tritium reactor.
Stark Industries already had cold fusion reactors, sure, but theirs were massive and had been developed over generations.
Drex had no such foundation.
No inherited data.
No old research.
He had made a miniaturized cold fusion reactor from scratch.
So it made sense that Drex would recognize him.
A genius recognizes another genius.
Of course, Otto also had questions of his own.
If Drex already had a better, cleaner cold fusion reactor, why co to him at all?
To Otto, Drex Valen and the Firestarter reactor were basically the wall in front of him. Before Drex appeared, Otto's tritium reactor could still attract investors and sponsors. Even if Stark Industries' cold fusion system had the bigger market, there was still room for a competing energy source.
But after Drex Valen introduced the Firestarter reactor, Otto's tritium reactor was basically finished.
Too outdated.
Too dirty.
Too weak.
With a better, greener, superior power source already on the scene, there was no reason for anyone to chase tritium anymore.
The man had spent half his life researching sothing that was now dead on arrival.
He was at one of the lowest points of his life.
Fortunately, his partner had never left him.
And now Otto had finally been ready to abandon the tritium reactor and move on to sothing else.
"Scientific progress cannot move down only one road, Dr. Octavius."
That was Drex Valen's answer to his question when they t.
Then ca an academic discussion.
Drex did not have Kryptonian physics, but he had studied plenty of Earth's atomic energy theory, and he had even trained under Anton Vanko and Ivan Vanko.
That was more than enough to handle Otto.
A genius only yields to soone even more monstrous.
Otto experienced that firsthand and found himself unable to disagree.
"Na your funding requirents," Drex said, placing a blank check on the table. "As long as the work is worthwhile, I'll cover it."
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