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Beyond the armored shell of Iron Man... he was also Tony Stark—genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. A man whose brilliance had reshaped entire industries, whose intellect had revolutionized warfare itself.
And now—
The biotechnology cradled in his manicured hands might very well be something even more "peaceful" than nuclear weapons. Something that, in its own cold way, made atomic devastation seem almost merciful by comparison. A technology that didn't merely end life—it perverted it, twisted it into mockeries of what once was.
To recklessly provoke such a man when the full scope of the situation remained shrouded in uncertainty?
That would be nothing short of excavating one's own final resting place with deliberate, methodical precision. Suicide disguised as strategy.
General Ross's glacial, razor-sharp gaze cut across the polished mahogany of the conference table, pinning each person present like specimens beneath glass. In that crystallized moment, everyone assembled—hardened military commanders who had faced down death on battlefields across the globe—remembered the primal fear of being utterly dominated by a superior predator. A visceral chill slithered down their spines, vertebrae by vertebrae, freezing them in place.
Tony Stark...
He wasn't some powerless, isolated individual they could simply disappear with a midnight raid or neutralize with a well-placed bullet. He was a colossus of industry whose corporate tendrils reached into every corner of the global economy. A genius whose intellect had repeatedly accomplished the impossible. A living legend whose name was whispered with equal parts reverence and fear in the darkest corridors of power. A superhero who had stood against threats that made governments tremble. Definitely not someone to be cornered, threatened, or pushed to his limits.
Using lofty ideals of national security and greater good to force him into submission? Utterly useless—like trying to cage a hurricane with chicken wire.
The single proposal raised at the emergency meeting was instantly incinerated by the cold fire of Ross's logic. The room plunged back into dead silence, the air growing so thick with tension it seemed to acquire physical weight, pressing down upon their shoulders like an invisible hand.
"Invasion... of another world..."
An elderly general—his chest heavy with medals earned in conflicts many present were too young to remember—locked his rheumy eyes on the screen that had just faded to darkness. His pupils trembled not from age but from something deeper, more primordial. They quivered as though trying to decipher the fate of their world hidden within that digital void, reading prophecies in the empty pixels.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters
"Thank god..."
The words emerged as a prayer, exhaled from lungs that had been holding their breath without conscious awareness.
"Thank god... it's Tony."
Nick Fury slowly released the tension in his body, muscle by muscle, as he stared at the final broadcasted result. The perpetual tightness in his jaw—a feature as much a part of him as his eye patch—eased ever so slightly, the first genuine relaxation he had permitted himself in days.
It hadn't been Natasha who received the alien technology. Much as he trusted her—perhaps more than anyone in his orbit—even she would have been overwhelmed by the magnitude of such responsibility.
But Tony... Tony he could live with. Perhaps even more than live with—there was a certain rightness to it.
Nick had maintained surveillance on Stark for years, building dossiers thicker than war novels. He understood the man on a level that perhaps only Pepper Potts could match—arrogant to the point of self-parody, yes, but not reckless when it came to matters of genuine existential significance. At least not when confronted with technology of this horrifying magnitude.
Fury was abundantly confident that Stark wouldn't use it to conduct widespread human experimentation, wouldn't be tempted to create armies of the undead. More likely than not, he'd seal it away in one of his impenetrable vaults, perhaps studying it under the most stringent containment protocols.
That outcome was infinitely preferable to the alternative—the technology falling into the hands of a true megalomaniac, someone whose ambition wasn't tempered by any lingering humanity.
Besides—
Stark's power, his immeasurable influence that extended from corporate boardrooms to the halls of government, coupled with his arsenal of increasingly sophisticated suits, were just enough to keep that kind of firepower hermetically sealed. At least for now, at least until other measures could be implemented.
Fury was far more concerned about the broader threat looming on the horizon—a future that looked increasingly like the bio-apocalypse they had just witnessed. A cascade of horrors that could reduce civilization to hunting grounds for creatures born of nightmares.
And yet, what troubled his battle-hardened mind even more...
Was this precise moment. The eternal now that threatened to birth countless tomorrows of escalating danger.
"So this is merely the overture..." he murmured, the words barely disturbing the still air of the command center.
His thoughts weighed heavy as depleted uranium, his singular eye locked on the screen with the intensity of a sniper tracking a target. The invaders had withdrawn from their beachhead. The feed had terminated. In their place, a stark black monitor now displayed an ominous countdown and several cryptic lines of text, their clinical precision somehow more terrifying than any overt threat:
[First Wave Invasion Complete][Infected World: Resident Evil — Frozen][Second Wave Invasion Incoming][Countdown: 48 Hours]
"This... this so-called dimensional invasion recurs every two days?" Fury's voice was calm, but beneath it ran an undercurrent of something rarely heard—genuine uncertainty.
His brow furrowed deeper, creating valleys in his forehead that might have been carved by glaciers. He meticulously scanned every character on the screen, searching for hidden meanings, for strategic implications, for warning signs of what new hell awaited them at zero hour.
Given any choice in the matter, he would have preferred to keep S.H.I.E.L.D. entirely disengaged from this spiraling, out-of-control threat. To observe from the shadows, to gather intelligence without becoming entangled.
But that luxury of choice had evaporated like morning dew under a merciless sun.
The only viable option remaining was to seize the initiative with both hands and refuse to release it.
To ensure that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't merely weather the coming tempest, but somehow emerged from it stronger, more capable, better armed for whatever nightmares waited beyond the next dimensional breach.
At the very least, they'd established a foothold, secured an initial advantage in whatever cosmic game they'd been unwillingly drafted into.
Fury's penetrating gaze shifted sideways to the silent figure standing beside him—Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow. Her face betrayed nothing, a perfect mask forged through years of training and trauma, but Fury could read the calculations running behind her emerald eyes.
A small measure of comfort settled in his war-weary heart. If anyone could adapt to this new paradigm of interdimensional threats, it would be her.
They needed to commence the next phase immediately.
Deconstruct the martial techniques designated as the Rokushiki—mysterious fighting arts from a world not their own. Teach them to their most elite agents, integrate them into training protocols. Arm their trusted operatives with combat knowledge forged in the crucible of another reality.
Every advantage, no matter how slight, could mean the difference between civilization's continuation and its collapse.
Asgard
"Infection-based transformation? The perversion of lifeforms into monstrosities?"
Odin's ancient brow furrowed as he sat upon the gleaming golden throne of the All-Father, Gungnir clasped in his gnarled hand. The weight of the Nine Realms pressed down upon his shoulders, each decision a stone added to an already impossible burden.
Such biotechnology wasn't unprecedented in the vast tapestry of the cosmos. Countless alien races and galactic empires throughout history had experimented with bioengineering, with forging living weapons for conquest and subjugation. The dark annals of universal history were filled with civilizations that rose and fell on the backs of flesh made monstrous.
Asgard, however, had never favored such methods of warfare. The Realm Eternal had always relied upon divine strength and ancient mysticism, the glory of honorable combat rather than the grotesque manipulation of living tissue. There was no honor in twisting life against its natural course.
It wasn't that the technology itself was particularly remarkable by cosmic standards.
What stood out to Odin's single all-seeing eye was its rapidity—the unprecedented infection rate, the brutal efficiency with which it restructured genetic material at the most fundamental level. Even among the darkest corners of the universe, few contagions worked with such merciless speed.
But even that clinical observation wasn't what troubled the All-Father as he sat brooding on his throne, the golden halls of Asgard stretching out before him like a dream of perfection.
What concerned him most deeply...
Was what lurked behind this technology. The disturbance it created in the delicate balance of cosmic forces, the ripple that threatened to become a tidal wave.
One after another, devastating powers were being unleashed upon Midgard with calculated precision. The realm of mankind—so fragile, so volatile—teetered precariously on the knife-edge of chaos.
"How many more will rise from the shadows?" Odin murmured, his voice carrying the weariness of millennia. "How many more entities hungry for dominion over the mortal realm?"
There was unmistakable pity resonating in his weathered voice. He had grown increasingly merciful with the passage of eons, no longer the vengeful god of war whose name once made worlds tremble. That younger Odin—the conqueror, the unforgiving—had been tempered by time and responsibility.
His own divine life force was gradually fading, the immortal spark of the All-Father dimming with each passing day like a star approaching its final transformation. The Odinsleep claimed more of him with each cycle, leaving less of the ruler behind when he woke.
He had strategically withdrawn from active involvement in the affairs of the Nine Realms, focusing the remnants of his waning power solely on Asgard's preservation. His sole concern in these twilight years was ensuring the continuation of the divine legacy he had spent millennia building.
But his chosen heir...
Thor?
Odin released a deep sigh that seemed to come from the very foundation of his being.
A long, wistful exhalation as his penetrating gaze turned through the gleaming golden walls of the palace, beyond the sparkling, ethereal halls of Valaskjalf, to where his sons stood in their perpetual opposition—two sides of a coin that could never face the same direction.
"Hmph! What a vile, utterly abhorrent power!"
Thor growled, his eyes blazing with righteous fury as he studied the mystical projection displaying events from Midgard. His massive hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, instinctively seeking Mjölnir's comforting handle.
He couldn't stomach even looking at those twisted, monstrous creatures for long—beings that had once been human before something fundamental was corrupted within them. The manipulation of living flesh and blood, the perversion of the natural order, revolted him to his very core. It offended everything he stood for as a protector of the realms.
He wanted nothing more than to descend upon Midgard and crush this abomination beneath Mjölnir's righteous weight, to purify with lightning what had been defiled by human arrogance.
"Vile?"
A voice like silk wrapped around steel echoed from the shadows of a nearby alcove.
"Oh, you simple-minded brother... power has never possessed a moral alignment. It simply is."
Loki stepped gracefully from behind an ornately carved stone pillar, arms crossed elegantly across his chest, an amused smirk dancing at the corners of his thin lips. His movements were liquid, predatory, a study in controlled economy.
To him, the raw strength demonstrated by the Tyrants—beings who now rivaled common Asgardians in their physical might—was utterly fascinating. A testament to what science could achieve where nature had set limits. And Tony Stark, the mortal who had somehow defeated these behemoths? Even more intriguing, a puzzle worth solving.
Loki had endured centuries of mockery for his physical "frailty" by Asgardian standards, for choosing sorcery and cunning over brute strength.
So how could he not be drawn to this... gift? This promise that biology itself was merely another system waiting to be hacked, another rule set awaiting exploitation?
"Another wave of invasion," he said softly, almost to himself, savoring each syllable like a rare delicacy. "How very... exciting."
His emerald eyes—so like and unlike his mother's—glinted with dangerous intelligence as they turned toward the projection, watching the inexorable countdown tick away the moments until the next incursion. Each second bringing them closer to new possibilities, new powers to study, to understand, perhaps to claim.
The game had only just begun its opening moves.
And Loki? Loki intended to play it with greater skill and subtlety than any being across the Nine Realms could imagine.
After all, chaos had always been his most faithful ally.
To Be Continued...
THROW GEMS