Drex Valen had no intention of refusing the request to develop a more advanced generation of War Machines.
There were simply too many possibilities.
Watching Hellfront soldiers charging into battle inside powered armor had reminded him of Spartan supersoldiers from old science fiction.
And then another thought hit him.
Gunfire alone lacked a certain... brutality.
A certain glorious madness.
Modern weapons had become so advanced that combat was starting to feel detached. Clinical. Efficient.
Maybe the aesthetic needed to shift toward something closer to Gantz.
Ordinary humans armed with absurdly advanced technology, hurling themselves at godlike monsters with horrifying casualty rates.
Desperate.
Violent.
Heroic.
Still, compared to the SCP Foundation, Gantz practically looked merciful.
At least Gantz operatives had futuristic weapons.
Foundation task forces fought eldritch nightmares with modern military equipment and blind optimism.
Against entities capable of warping universal laws, survival rates bordered on mathematical impossibility.
Drex suddenly found himself oddly tempted.
"An immortal reptile... a murderous Santa Claus..."
As a scientist, the idea of containment anomalies fascinated him endlessly.
Besides, this was the Marvel universe.
Surely reality here could survive a few extra horrors.
And if humanity could endure that level of terror, then Earth would become the most dangerous planet in existence.
After all, if people survived the impossible enough times, fear itself eventually lost meaning.
With those thoughts in mind, Drex began designing a new War Machine model.
This version abandoned the traditional heavy armor philosophy entirely.
Too slow.
Too bulky.
Too focused on ranged firepower.
He had more than enough fictional inspirations to pull from anyway.
The final design was called:
Ripper.
Unlike standard War Machines, the Ripper model relied on secondary Kryptonium reinforcement rather than massive armor plating.
Its primary weapon was a high-frequency vibration blade.
Fast.
Violent.
Close-range specialized.
Its mobility and physical strength far surpassed conventional War Machines, though it sacrificed most heavy artillery capability in exchange. Long-range combat options were limited to palm-mounted energy cannons.
But once it got close?
Even Iron Mongers could be carved apart effortlessly.
The high-frequency blade could cut through virtually anything.
Vibranium.
Adamantium.
Neither mattered.
A normal human wearing a Ripper suit could potentially overpower heroes like Iron Man or Black Panther in direct combat.
Umbrella Corporation released the specifications publicly almost immediately.
And the internet collectively lost its mind.
"Fifty billion dollars for one suit?!"
That was the universal reaction.
The technology wasn't the issue.
The problem was that Drex's products were catastrophically expensive.
Still, with monster disasters escalating across the globe, and the Ripper's combat demonstrations looking horrifyingly effective, governments and private buyers alike became very interested.
Especially the arms dealers who had spent years tracking Drex Valen's every move.
Fifty billion dollars suddenly didn't sound so unreasonable anymore.
Money meant nothing if a monster flattened your city overnight.
And relying on S.W.O.R.D. rescue teams meant surviving long enough for them to arrive.
That realization triggered a wave of emergency orders.
Meanwhile, Nick Fury had become unexpectedly idle.
His position as Deputy Director of S.W.O.R.D. originally existed to limit Drex's authority and quietly wrest control away from him over time.
Then the monster disasters began spiraling out of control.
Now the politicians backing Fury no longer cared about power struggles.
At this point, surviving the apocalypse mattered more.
Nick Fury understood priorities well enough not to play games during an actual global crisis.
Unfortunately, that left him with almost nothing to do.
Every S.W.O.R.D. employee around him worked themselves half to death while Fury sat in his office eating donuts and drinking coffee.
Honestly, he had predicted this outcome months ago.
At this rate, he'd probably coast into retirement unless monsters somehow disappeared first.
Then Natasha Romanoff walked into his office carrying a file.
"Arizona?" Fury looked mildly surprised.
He genuinely hadn't expected Drex to assign him field work anymore.
Natasha nodded.
"There've been reports of monster activity. Director Valen wants you to investigate personally. Everyone else is tied up."
Despite everything, Natasha still retained some old loyalty toward her former boss.
Not much.
But some.
To be fair, both Fury and Drex worked people brutally hard.
The difference was that Drex at least gave raises.
That alone had done wonders for morale.
Compared to the endless assassinations and covert operations of S.H.I.E.L.D., Natasha actually preferred S.W.O.R.D.'s mission.
Fighting monsters felt cleaner somehow.
More honest.
Maybe even redemptive.
Though whether redemption was truly possible for someone like her remained another question entirely.
Fury stood immediately.
"I'll leave now."
No hesitation.
No complaints.
S.W.O.R.D.'s dedicated transport aircraft were absurdly advanced. Faster than the world's best fighter jets, yet smooth enough that passengers barely felt acceleration at all.
Which meant Fury arrived in Arizona very quickly.
Prosperity Town.
A forgotten mining settlement buried in the Arizona desert.
Compared to Phoenix, the Grand Canyon, or Hoover Dam, Prosperity Town was invisible to the rest of the world.
Three hundred households.
Less than a thousand residents.
Most of the younger generation had already left years ago, leaving behind an aging population and a dying local economy.
The town existed because of the mine.
And like countless mining towns before it, once the resources dried up, decline became inevitable.
When Fury arrived, S.W.O.R.D. agents had already established containment procedures.
Though calling it a "cordon" barely did the scene justice.
This wasn't police tape.
A massive concrete wall surrounded nearly the entire town.
Ten meters high.
Two meters thick.
Rapid-dry cement reinforced with steel supports.
The kind of barrier normally used for warzones.
Fury stared at it briefly before turning toward the local field commander.
"How bad is it?"
The agent snapped into a salute before answering.
"Seventeen people missing so far, sir."
Fury noticed the man's identification number immediately.
Two digits.
An old operative.
Experienced.
That alone made Fury take the situation more seriously.
"Any confirmed visual on the monster?"
The agent nodded grimly.
"According to the locals... they found something huge inside the mine."
...
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