Drex Valen had no intention of bringing Pietro back immediately.
If the kid didn't properly experience suffering, he'd never understand how valuable his current life actually was.
Wanda, at least, understood.
According to Urd, Wanda had enrolled in multiple advanced courses while majoring in management, most likely hoping to eventually work for Blade Technologies.
And she excelled at all of them.
Every instructor had given her top marks.
These weren't ordinary teachers either. Drex had spent absurd amounts of money hiring elite private instructors who normally worked exclusively for the children of the wealthy upper class.
At first, most of them refused to switch from one-on-one tutoring to group education.
Then Drex added another zero to the payment.
Suddenly, they rediscovered their passion for "nurturing talented youth."
Money truly was the universal motivational language.
Pietro, on the other hand, had started out behaving reasonably before slipping into truancy, partying, and delinquency.
That annoyed Drex more than anything.
Pietro had already experienced what it meant to lose everything and become an orphan, yet somehow he'd adapted to comfort so quickly that he treated his new life as something guaranteed.
Drex intended to correct that mindset thoroughly.
Five days later, Pietro barely resembled a human being anymore.
Then suddenly, screams erupted outside his cell.
Violent screams.
Moments later, the iron door burst open and a figure stepped inside.
"Pietro?"
The armored helmet split apart automatically, revealing Drex's face beneath.
The moment Pietro saw him, he broke down completely.
Ten straight days of physical abuse, hunger, isolation, and psychological torture had hollowed him out. His face was gaunt, his body thinner, his eyes exhausted and lifeless.
"All right," Drex said calmly as he pulled him to his feet. "Let's get you out of here. Wanda's been worried sick."
He guided Pietro out of the dark room for the first time in days.
Then Pietro saw the bodies.
Corpses covered the warehouse floor in grotesque pieces.
Some had been torn completely in half.
Others had massive holes blasted straight through their torsos, cavities large enough to fit a basketball inside.
Pietro stared at the carnage.
And for the first time since his imprisonment began, he felt satisfaction.
Good.
They deserved it.
Drex escorted him directly to a hospital owned by Blade Technologies.
The moment Pietro left, the corpses scattered into drifting particles and vanished.
They had never been real bodies in the first place.
Just atomic constructs created by Drex.
"Thank you, Mr. Hiss!"
Wanda practically sprinted into the hospital after hearing the news.
The moment she saw Pietro unconscious in the hospital bed, tears immediately flooded her eyes as she rushed to his side.
Several minutes passed before she finally stood up again and thanked Drex repeatedly.
"You don't need to thank me," Drex said.
Which was technically true.
After all, he was the reason Pietro had ended up there to begin with.
Still, Wanda proved far more resilient than her brother. Pietro's condition forced her to mature quickly and hold herself together.
Drex and Urd, ultimately, were outsiders. There was only so much emotional support they could realistically provide.
Fortunately, Pietro's condition looked worse than it actually was.
While the Zoanoids beat him daily, they had also injected him with specialized nutrient solutions afterward. The formulas accelerated metabolism and healing, preventing long-term damage despite the abuse.
Once Pietro was stabilized, Drex left the hospital.
Urd stayed behind with Wanda.
And meanwhile, New York had a new problem.
Monsters.
Again.
This time, the Deep Sea Clan had launched an assault on the city.
According to intercepted broadcasts, they were seeking revenge for the death of the Deep Sea King.
Massive aquatic humanoids began emerging from the coastline one after another, triggering immediate panic across the city.
This time, however, the United States military reacted much faster.
After the humiliation of being helpless against Elder Centipede and relying entirely on superheroes, they were desperate to restore some credibility.
Ten Iron Mongers purchased from Blade Technologies were deployed directly to the battlefield alongside dozens of War Machine units providing support fire.
The superheroes responded quickly as well.
"Those things are enormous," Reed Richards muttered while watching the advancing creatures. "What exactly do they eat down there?"
The Thing cracked his rocky fists together and charged straight at a shark-headed Deep Sea warrior.
The two collided head-on.
And Ben Grimm failed to move it.
His punch carried nearly one hundred tons of force. Under normal circumstances, that should have crippled almost anything alive.
Instead, the Deep Sea creature merely staggered slightly. Several scales near its neck cracked inward, but that was it.
Ben stared.
What the hell was this thing made of?
Its biology felt absurd. The defense reminded him less of flesh and more of layered ballistic fiber or shear-thickening armor gel. Ordinary firearms probably couldn't hurt these things at all.
Which was true.
Against normal humans, bullets, explosions, and shockwaves were devastating.
Against monsters specifically engineered to survive crushing deep-sea pressure?
Not so much.
Drex had recreated the Deep Sea Clan exactly according to specification. Creatures evolved beneath oceanic pressure naturally possessed physical abilities that completely eclipsed humanity.
Defensive lines had already been established along the shoreline, but the average Deep Sea warrior stood over two meters tall and smashed through fortifications with horrifying efficiency.
Heavy machine guns unleashed overlapping storms of fire powerful enough to shred armored vehicles.
The Deep Sea creatures simply lowered their heads, shielded their eyes with one arm, and charged straight through the barrage.
Dark figures rampaged through the battlefield.
Some died.
Most didn't.
Several slammed directly into the five-meter-tall defensive walls.
And then the Iron Mongers intercepted them.
Since Drex had specifically marketed the Iron Mongers as weapons designed with the Deep Sea King as a projected threat model, he naturally ensured they lived up to the advertisement.
At minimum, ordinary Deep Sea warriors wouldn't rip them apart casually.
One Deep Sea creature tilted its head while examining an Iron Monger.
"Never eaten this kind of human before," it growled. "Looks like the meat inside would taste good."
Inside the armor, the American pilot swallowed hard and opened fire.
The Iron Monger's left arm deployed a mounted autocannon chambered in .50 BMG, the kind of weapon normally mounted on helicopters or armored vehicles.
At point-blank range, the barrage hammered directly into the Deep Sea creature's face.
The monster responded by slapping the entire cannon apart.
Its second strike came immediately afterward with terrifying speed, but the Iron Monger's AI reacted instinctively and blocked the attack.
Then the mech countered with a brutal uppercut.
The punch landed squarely beneath the creature's jaw.
Followed by another.
And another.
Each blow carried dozens of tons of force, enough to visibly crack the Deep Sea warrior's face apart.
"Yes!"
Several military officers clenched their fists excitedly while watching the battle unfold.
"Blade Technologies actually pulled it off!"
Nearby, the Fantastic Four were struggling through their own fight.
Ben Grimm had already figured out that directly overpowering the Deep Sea creatures was inefficient. Instead, he focused on restraining them physically while Susan Storm created invisible force fields inside their bodies and detonated them internally.
Then Johnny Storm incinerated the remains to prevent regeneration.
As for Reed Richards?
He was mostly standing around being academically concerned.
From atop a distant rooftop, Drex watched the battlefield with his arms folded.
Electromagnetic manipulation distorted the magnetic field around him, hiding his existence from both technological detection and superhuman senses alike. He may as well have been standing in another dimension.
"Just a few Tiger-level monsters," he said calmly, "and the current generation of superheroes is already struggling this badly."
His eyes swept across the battlefield below.
"They really don't train enough."