Extremis was like the Centipede Serum.
Interesting on paper. Limited in practice.
Other than extreme heat generation and regenerative abilities, it did not offer much else. Worse, the regeneration vanished once the core was destroyed, and its thermal abilities only worked at short range, including the flame projection.
As far as Drex Valen was concerned, Extremis soldiers were not especially impressive.
Still, if the virus could be integrated into beast soldiers, then it had value. Giving them the ability to release intense thermal energy was a worthwhile upgrade.
He could even try recreating something close to Wolverine. Extremis regeneration was already absurdly similar. The only thing missing was the metal skeleton.
"Decline the partnership," Drex told Black Queen. "And locate Aldrich Killian's base while you're at it."
He planned to take several samples of the Extremis virus for his own research. Cooperation was unnecessary. Drex disliked getting too close to villains. Besides, he had already taken in the Vanko father and son. If he dealt with Aldrich Killian too, then who exactly was Tony Stark supposed to fight in the future?
With Black Queen's assistance, Killian's location was identified quickly.
An abandoned structure in the outskirts.
A.I.M. specialized in buying places like this for experimentation. If something exploded, nobody paid much attention. More importantly, the properties were cheap.
Which was useful.
Especially for situations like this.
Drex floated high above the building, looking down.
His x-ray vision pierced through the structure easily. No lead shielding. Beneath the abandoned shell sat the real laboratory.
Killian stood inside, observing an experiment.
On the operating table was a heavily wounded soldier missing all four limbs. A researcher injected him with Extremis. Seconds later, brilliant orange light spread through the stumps where his arms and legs had once been.
Then the limbs grew back.
The soldier stared in disbelief, praising God through tears.
Then Killian's expression changed.
So did everyone else's.
A warning light flashed red across the monitoring equipment.
Another instability event.
The Extremis dosage had spiraled out of control again.
The soldier realized something was wrong almost immediately. Crimson light began shining beneath his skin. Killian and his researchers did not even bother unstrapping him. They started packing equipment and preparing to run.
"No! Help me!" the soldier screamed.
Nobody answered.
As he roared, burning light erupted from his mouth.
Then everything exploded.
The detonation from an Extremis soldier was terrifying. The entire building vanished in a storm of fire and pressure, flattened into rubble in seconds.
Drex descended slowly through the smoke.
Not far away, Killian and his surviving personnel stood frozen in an open clearing, eyes dull and unfocused.
Drex's psychic power had already taken hold of their minds.
He casually removed a metal case from one of the researchers' hands. Inside were several samples of the Extremis virus.
Then he pulled every piece of data and research information directly from Aldrich Killian's mind. His superbrain absorbed and memorized everything instantly.
Before leaving, Drex looked at Killian.
"Remember this, Aldrich Killian," he said calmly. "You hate Tony Stark. Not just because he humiliated your body. He humiliated your pride, your mind, your entire sense of self."
After kindly helping Tony Stark acquire a proper arch-enemy for the future, Drex teleported back to his base without leaving his name attached to the favor.
Only after he was gone did the psychic control over Killian and the others finally disappear.
"Boss," one of the researchers said nervously, "we moved too quickly. The Extremis samples were destroyed in the explosion."
"It's fine," Killian replied, staring miserably at the ruins of the destroyed building. "We can make more. Next time we run multiple tests at once."
The loss still hurt.
This location was unusable now. Which meant more money spent buying another site.
Funding was already tight.
Damn Tony Stark.
Back at his base, Drex immediately began researching Extremis.
Over this period of time, he had accumulated enough knowledge that he no longer felt constrained the way he once had.
The biggest problem with Extremis was stability.
Killian and his people had spent ages assuming the issue was dosage. They kept searching for the "correct" amount without realizing the problem lay elsewhere entirely. That alone told Drex how mediocre they really were.
In his hands, the flaw was solved almost effortlessly.
He barely considered it difficult.
"So that's the mechanism," Drex muttered.
Then he paused.
Extremis was a perfect counter to the vampire virus.
At first glance, the virus seemed too violent. It looked like it would simply burn vampires to ash. But its internal mechanism was more precise than that. As long as the target was not a pureblood vampire, injecting Extremis could revert them back into humans.
That discovery gave Drex another idea.
He was still researching the universal cure serum derived from Blade's modified virus, but he had concerns about long-term side effects. However, if he combined it with Extremis, the process became cleaner.
Inject the cure serum first to purge the modified infection.
Then inject Extremis to eliminate the vampire virus itself.
Problem solved.
As long as the Extremis activation was carefully controlled and removed by the immune system immediately after finishing its work, there would be no risk of turning the patient into an Extremis soldier.
At the same time, Extremis itself made an excellent anti-vampire weapon.
He could even supply it to Blade for combat use.
Although, honestly, that would be wasteful.
Giving Blade ultraviolet weapons was far more efficient.
After a series of experiments, Drex gained complete control over Extremis. He could shape and adjust it however he pleased.
The improved beast soldier serum also no longer qualified as a standard beast soldier formula.
So Drex renamed it:
Second-Generation Mass-Produced Super Beast Soldier Serum.
The new version possessed thermal energy release abilities. Combined with the organs Drex redesigned, the resulting super beast soldiers could fire concentrated thermal beams.
In close combat, very few things could survive fighting them directly. Unless someone was wearing vibranium, adamantium, or happened to be the Hulk, they would not withstand the superheated energy pouring off a super beast soldier.
The temperatures involved could melt steel almost instantly.
Granted, Drex suspected the movies had never really thought through thermal conduction speeds, but Marvel physics ignored reality often enough that he stopped caring.
β¦
After solving the potential flaws in the universal cure serum, Blade Technology Industries finally approached Blade himself and proposed cooperation.
All Blade had to do was provide one thousand milliliters of blood on a regular basis.
In return, Blade Technology Industries would supply him with advanced anti-vampire weapons.
Such as ultraviolet rounds.
Drex still remembered the events of Blade II. Even if they were supposed to happen years later, there was always a chance the timeline accelerated.
Once Blade started using Blade Technology Industries equipment, he became almost embarrassingly attached to it.
"Once a month?" Blade said. "For this stuff? Take the blood."