"Soone as smart as him was never going to miss that Yinsen was off. You just left too many openings. He caught on."
Drex Valen's voice ca through flatly.
The Beastn on the other end had been assigned to keep Tony Stark under constant surveillance. Hundreds of them had been watching one man, all day and all night.
And their cover story had been that they were terrorists.
Terrorists did not go around looting.
Terrorists did not spend their ti picking fights with everyone in sight.
On top of that, the Beastn treated firearms with a kind of casual contempt that bordered on absurd. Sotis they even loaded empty magazines into the guns like they were fooling around.
Tony Stark had not been stupid. There was no way he would not notice sothing that sloppy.
Yinsen's acting had been full of holes too.
By the ti the second Yinsen showed up, the language had changed, and soone might have assud Tony would take ti to learn it. Instead, the man was a freakishly fast study once he got serious. Even the few offhand phrases Yinsen dropped had been enough for Tony to piece together the truth.
"Forget it. If he ran, that's fine. We were going to let him go anyway."
Drex thought for a mont.
That made the Beastn on the line relax a little.
Then he added, "But being spared from death does not an you get to avoid punishnt. Every single one of you is going to Africa to look for the Antarctic Bear. If you do not find it, you are not coming back for the rest of your lives."
He hung up.
"…Boss is angry, right?" one of the Beastn asked, scratching his head with a stupid look on his face.
"Damn it," another snapped. "Did becoming a bug hybrid rot your brain too? Of course he is angry."
The first Beastman blinked. "Then do we really have to go to Africa to look for the Antarctic Bear?"
The others exchanged looks.
Setting aside the fact that they had never even heard of an Antarctic Bear, what exactly were they supposed to do? Catch a polar bear in the Arctic, drag it to Antarctica so it could live there for a while, and then take it to Africa?
In the end, they had no choice but to head for Africa.
Drex's psionic control ant they could not betray him even if they wanted to.
Of course, he was not actually angry.
He was not the sort to lose his temper over this kind of thing. Sending the Beastn to Africa was just an excuse. What he really wanted was to use them to flush out Wakanda's Black Panther.
At the very least, he was not going to let Wakanda keep playing dead for another decade and change.
Either way, the Beastn were all obsolete stock now.
A new hierarchy had begun taking shape inside World Serpent.
At the very top was Drex, of course.
Below him were the Four Emperors: Black Queen, White Queen, Black King, and White King.
Below that ca the fixed command structure: three generals, seven senior generals, and sixteen lieutenant generals.
After that ca the lower ranks, all the way down through major general, brigadier general, colonel, lieutenant colonel, major, and finally the ordinary World Serpent soldiers.
For most of World Serpent's mbers, who were soldiers by background anyway, the hierarchy was easy to accept.
Only Bronski found it strange that he had been assigned the rank of lieutenant general, but since it was Drex's direct order, there was nothing he could do but swallow it.
anwhile, Tony Stark had escaped.
Using his crude suit of armor and the physical conditioning he had built up, he successfully made it out of Afghanistan and reached a U.S. military base there.
The officer in charge stared at him in complete confusion.
Hadn't Tony Stark been missing for more than a year?
Hadn't he even been confird dead?
"Get Colonel Rhodes..." Tony said, then imdiately passed out.
When he woke up again, he was lying in a hospital bed.
"Tony!"
Standing right beside him was his best friend since childhood, Air Force Colonel Jas Rhodes, one of the military's current War Machine pilots.
"You've been gone for over a year. Where were you?"
Rhodes asked, worry all over his face.
"Rhodey..." Tony murmured, sounding almost emotional. A year and a half apart had made it feel like a lifeti.
He had changed. He had grown up. He was different now.
After talking with Rhodey and learning that Stark Industries had effectively beco Obadiah's company in his absence, Tony did not seem especially bothered. In his eyes, Obadiah was still the good uncle.
When Obadiah heard that Tony was back, his face darkened for a mont. He quickly composed himself, though, and instructed his secretary to prepare a car so he could visit Tony at the hospital.
"Tony!"
Obadiah pushed open the hospital room door, ready to deliver a carefully prepared, emotional reunion. But the expression froze on his face.
Tony Stark did not look weak. Not at all.
He looked healthy. Strong. His bare upper body showed clear muscle definition across his chest, abs, and arms. Nobody would have believed he had been kidnapped and held for a year and a half.
That was because Drex had designed his confinent as a kind of brutal fitness camp.
Every day Tony had to forge steel and hamr tal.
His als were three vegetarian dishes and one at dish, plus a hard-fiber al every two days. Extrely healthy.
To prevent caffeine and alcohol dependency, he had not been allowed coffee or liquor at all. Only juice and vegetable drinks. Detox, skin care, and apparently a better complexion too.
And because he slept plenty, with no nightlife to distract him, Tony's mind was clear and his eyes were bright.
"Obadiah!"
Tony saw family and imdiately leapt off the hospital bed with real excitent.
He moved so fast that Rhodey just stood there for a second, stunned.
He knew Tony was healthy now, but he had not expected him to be that agile.
That was partly because Tony had spent twelve hours a day doing physical labor. The Beastn did not even feed him properly. He had to fight for als in the cafeteria himself, and if he was a second too slow, those monsters would strip the food clean.
Drex had told them this was good for him.
Skip a al or two, and he would not eat people.
As long as he got breakfast, he would be fine. The point was just to keep him from getting gallstones.
Under those conditions, Tony Stark had developed an impressive talent for vaulting over obstacles and making sure he got to the food before anyone else.
Since Obadiah was in a wheelchair, Tony could only give him a quick half-hug.
"You're back. That's what matters. You're back," Obadiah said, patting Tony on the back.
His palm stung.
Tony was solid.
"By the way, Tony," Obadiah said carefully, trying to prepare him, "while you were gone, the police said you might be dead. To keep Stark Industries from going under, I had to..."
He was worried Tony might misunderstand. For soone like Obadiah, it was easy to assu Tony cared deeply about the company and would take the whole situation personally.
Tony just waved it off.
"Don't worry about it. Stark Industries can belong to whoever. Anyway, I want a cheeseburger. Where's Happy?"
He looked around casually.
Obadiah coughed awkwardly. "Uh... after you disappeared for over a year, Happy resigned."
Tony blinked.
"Then where's Potts?"
He did not seem surprised for long.
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