Doom was frozen in place, then sealed inside a growth pod and lowered into the floor.
Killian was stored beside him as well, waiting in the dark until the ti ca for Drex Valen to release them.
...
In S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury's face grew even darker than usual.
"So his Black Knight armor can actually reach outer space now?"
He had not expected Drex Valen's armor to already possess the ability to break free of Earth's gravity and operate in orbit.
That changed everything.
S.H.I.E.L.D. would have to tear up every prior assessnt of Drex and start over. The first thing that had to be revised was his threat level.
If Drex could breach the atmosphere on his own and enter space, then it ant that whenever he wanted, he could destroy an entire nation's communications satellites in an instant.
Humanity did not yet have space-based counterasures or weapons.
As for Drex's War Machine armor, there was no need to flatter it. A raptor could fly only so high, and War Machine could only go that high as well. Push it any further and it would freeze up and fall out of the sky.
"What exactly is he trying to do?" Fury muttered.
He believed Drex must have secretly developed so kind of space-capable battle armor and revealed it at this mont for a reason.
S.H.I.E.L.D. was not stupid. Drex's repeated rescues of civilians and his supposed defense of justice had always looked like a performance.
Still, the genius had also taken a great deal of pressure off their hands by not bothering to personally intervene in every little thing. So Fury had mostly left him alone.
The police had initially worried Drex would undermine their credibility, but in practice he only stepped in against criminals they could not handle. Most of the ti, he was nowhere to be seen. That had made them breathe easier.
A genius who knew how to stage himself was dangerous. That ant he was deliberately hiding his true nature.
"Could he be sending a warning to the governnts of the world?" Fury asked himself.
He fell into thought.
It was not impossible.
Lately, a few people had started getting ideas. Drex had probably noticed sothing, and that was why he chose to reveal his armor's new ability so brazenly now.
Cross , and I will cripple your entire communications network.
Think about it. There were so many satellites in orbit. If Drex destroyed them all...
Humanity would not exactly be thrown back hundreds of years, but the economic damage would be catastrophic.
Replacing satellites would not take long, of course. Every nation kept backups in case of accidents.
But Drex could destroy the replacents too.
"Fuck," Fury muttered. "Is he trying to stand above the whole world?"
That thought struck him hard enough that he almost felt he had finally grasped Drex's intention.
If that was really his plan, then Drex Valen would beco the Sword of Damocles hanging over the entire planet.
"No," one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s researchers said grimly. "Director, if that's what he's trying to do, the threat is even worse than that."
Fury turned to him.
"You know what his Black Knight armor can do?" the researcher continued. "It has enough power to push an asteroid into a collision course. There are plenty of sci-fi stories about orbital kinetic weapons. It's the sa principle. Give him a big enough asteroid, and he could wipe out all of New York City."
The Arican side had already begun studying the armor technology Drex had just revealed.
"Impossible," soone else said. "Don't forget, Blade Tech Industries is still on Earth. He has to live here too, doesn't he?"
"Once soone has force no one in the world can do anything about, that person becos the new king," Fury said coldly. "And are you certain Drex only has one Blade Tech Industries? Are you certain he only has one Black Knight armor?"
The Air Force general saw an opportunity there.
And he was right. No one could guarantee that Drex only had Blade Tech Industries. No one could guarantee he only had one Black Knight armor either.
The Black Knight armor outclassed the world's military technology across the board. Radar could not lock onto it or even reliably detect it. All anyone could do was watch Drex fly across Arican airspace again and again. And now he had appeared in outer space.
"We cannot let the fact that he hasn't committed a cri stop us from taking action!"
In truth, there were plenty of things to worry about.
Did Drex have a hidden steel army?
War Machine, though still far inferior to the Black Knight armor, was already more than enough to crush most human weapons.
But when other nations' scientists tried every thod they could think of to replicate the discarded War Machine design, they all failed. Even now, no one had managed to reproduce it.
As for Stark Industries, the samples of Tony Stark's armor left behind before his death were laughable. Tony had not even finished designing the miniature Arc Reactor yet. Even if Drex had pushed him into building the suit early, Stark would still need ti to invent the power source that, in the original tiline, would not have been completed for another eight years.
So those suits were nothing but shells.
No matter how much Obadiah invested, it did not matter. So things were just impossible.
While the argunts about Drex's intentions and how to counter him raged on, none of them knew the truth.
Drex was simply rattling the trees to scare the monkeys.
Lately, he had indeed been annoyed.
And the worst part was that the pests bothering him were all insignificant little things.
The Hydra he was actually waiting for still had not made a move. He did not know whether they were holding back so big play. The other national-level intelligence organizations were also strangely quiet.
So Drex, thoroughly irritated by the small fry, had decided to make a statent.
I already have the ability to fly into outer space. I can threaten the whole human race whenever I feel like it. If you do not want to die, sit down and behave.
As for whether that would push the entire world into frantic overreaction, Drex did not care in the slightest.
If they jumped, he would shove them back down.
If they did not, that was fine too.
And then the nations of the world remained calm, as if Drex rescuing people were just another ordinary thing.
Whether there were hidden currents beneath the surface, Drex did not know.
He could have distorted every electromagnetic signal across the United States, used himself as a central hub to receive and filter all information, and pulled intelligence that way.
But he was busy with research, and with further developing electromagnetic and gravitational power.
He had no interest in playing with a bunch of people he could beat without effort.
"Susan."
Reed Richards found his forr girlfriend.
Doom had vanished.
People assud he had run away because he could not face the fact that he had lost everything.
His Doom Industries had been declared bankrupt by the bank, and its assets were being auctioned off.
User Comments
0 comments from readers