"The Storm Swordsman is a menace to society! Every day he wears high-tech battle armor and flies over our heads, threatening our safety. The government has already issued a decree calling on him to voluntarily hand over his armor technology to the United States so that we can better protect the country and its people!" The voice of some congressman boomed from the screen during a hearing where he spoke pompously about the good of America, its people, and the world. Noah listened to these speeches and barely suppressed a laugh. He had encountered such manipulative tactics many times before.
This was typical behavior for the American government in the Marvel universe. They had previously used similar methods against Iron Man when he was on the verge of death from palladium poisoning. Back then, Tony relented and handed over one of his suits to his friend Rhodey, who served in the military. This move helped smooth over the conflict between Stark Industries and the government.
However, Noah wasn't going to make such compromises. Unlike Tony, he hadn't revealed his identity, so the authorities could only scold the Storm Swordsman on TV, which he intended to ignore.
He had never felt any sympathy for the US government in the Marvel world, as they made too many foolish decisions. For example, they researched dangerous artifacts like the Tesseract, even though S.H.I.E.L.D. mainly handled it, but they acted on orders from above. Or their attempt to launch a nuclear missile without considering the safety of hundreds of thousands of citizens. Even though that hadn't happened yet, he already considered their decisions insane.
"These people are unbearably annoying," Noah said, turning off the screen. This wasn't the first time they had held hearings on this matter. Tony had mentioned it and even offered his help, but Noah refused, considering it all unimportant.
However, when a pesky fly constantly buzzes around your face, it starts to get annoying sooner or later. He decided that Lissandra would teach these guys a little lesson. It was unlikely that any of those holding the position of senator could boast of impeccable honesty. If it turned out that someone was truly clean, he would simply leave them alone.
"Let them jump around for now," Noah thought. When he had enough power and technology to control Earth, he would unite all countries into a single Earth Alliance and lead the planet into space.
But those were matters for the future. Now he was more concerned about the upcoming confrontation with Thanos and the Celestials. American problems seemed insignificant to him – just minor obstacles easily kicked aside.
"Let's see how Banner is doing," Noah switched the screen to the gamma detector interface, displaying the level of gamma radiation around Banner and in the forest near his location.
"Hmm, nothing yet. No professionalism," Noah muttered.
It was already midday. Banner had spent the night in the forest, but nothing dangerous had happened. Apparently, he would have to wait longer. Noah didn't care, as he wasn't in the forest, but Banner was having a hard time. To alleviate his loneliness, he had given him an untraceable phone so Banner could communicate with his girlfriend, which pleasantly surprised the scientist.
"By the way, I can check on one 'beast'," Noah suddenly remembered. He was wondering when the Leader's henchmen would go after Banner and what kind of mutant they would send to find him. But then it dawned on him: he had his own creature that would soon "break out of its cage." He got up and headed to the underground laboratory.
Reaching the "PROJECT" experimental zone, Noah approached the computer and pressed a button. The metal cylinder in front of him began to open, revealing a figure bound by numerous blue energy tubes. In the dim light, its outline could be discerned – a four-legged creature with beastly features. When the lights around it came on, its appearance became clearer: it was Warwick, from "PROJECT: Warwick," a mechanical beast.
"Time for the beast to be unleashed," he pressed a button, and the energy tubes detached from Warwick's body. The massive mechanical figure landed heavily on the floor with a metallic clang.
After a short pause, Warwick's eyes lit up, and its body began to emit a blue glow, as if announcing its awakening.
"R-r-ra-a!" a low growl escaped its throat as the mechanical beast raised a paw and carefully examined its glowing claws. Its gaze slowly shifted to Noah, standing before it. The beast took a step forward; its tail glowed faintly and twitched slightly.
Noah hadn't equipped it with complex artificial intelligence, limiting it to a level comparable to Blitzcrank's. This level of AI was sufficient for his purposes. He often wondered how Lissandra perceived these AIs – did she consider them equals or lesser beings, like humans viewed monkeys? He valued Lissandra's opinion, so he only created AIs at Blitzcrank's level, no higher.
"Boss, want me to go hunting?" Warwick spoke in a low, raspy voice, addressing him.
"Boss?" Noah was slightly surprised by this form of address.
"Noah, you said you didn't like being called 'master,' so I programmed them to call you 'boss'," Lissandra said, appearing behind him.
"Well, it sounds good," Noah replied, turning around. Today, Lissandra was dressed in a loose tracksuit, comfortable and cozy. He also liked wearing such clothes and was currently dressed in a similar suit, sewn by Miss Gwen, a master of her craft.
Today, he planned to test Warwick's abilities. Ever since he acquired its data, he had been working on creating the mechanical beast under this name. Finally, over the past few days, the work was completed, and now it was time to test its capabilities.
Noah decided to send it to the forest where Bruce Banner was located, so it could lie in wait for the arrival of the mutated creatures. When they appeared, Warwick would engage them in combat, allowing him to assess its fighting skills.
"By the way, I need to set parameters for Banner so Warwick doesn't accidentally destroy him," Noah thought and started adjusting the data, including information about Banner and the mutated creatures. He had several mutant corpses that could be used for calibration.
...
Meanwhile, while Noah was testing Warwick in the laboratory, their common enemy, the Leader, was in a factory building near the military base in New Mexico, arguing with General Ross. More precisely, General Ross was shouting so loudly that his face turned crimson with rage.
"Why haven't we started hunting Banner yet?!" General Ross was clearly dissatisfied. He had already tracked Banner's location, but the Leader wasn't in a hurry to send mutants to capture him. If Bruce weren't in another country, he would have already scrambled jets and sent tanks.
They stood on a metal walkway connecting two sides of the factory floor. Ross spoke loudly, his voice echoing through the empty space.
"Don't rush, General. You've been fighting the Hulk for years and should understand his power. If we go in unprepared, we'll just waste time, or worse, scare him away," the Leader, with his oversized head, spoke calmly, without any undue haste.
"So when do you plan to start the operation?" Ross calmed down a bit. The recent events with the Hulk had severely frayed his nerves, and he often flew into a rage.
Instead of answering, the Leader just smiled and clapped his hands twice.
As if these two claps activated some mechanism, the lights in the factory floor instantly turned on, which surprised Ross. "Voice control? Why didn't the lights turn on when I was shouting?"
The general, full of bewilderment, approached the railing and looked down. His pupils constricted at what he saw, as if he had witnessed something truly terrifying.
"What do you say, General?" The Leader approached Ross and stood beside him, clasping his hands behind his back.
What Ross saw below truly astonished him: the factory floor was filled with mutated creatures created by the Leader. And there were a lot of them. These creatures were significantly more powerful than the previous mutants; some of them had traits of different biological species. But it seemed there were no creatures mutated from humans; the Leader hadn't yet reached such heights in his experiments.
"General, I need you to transport these 'soldiers' to Mexico. There are too many to send directly; they might attract attention. You wouldn't want our plan to be exposed prematurely, would you?" the Leader addressed Ross.
"Hmm... Alright," Ross considered the proposal and agreed. Then he asked:
"When will you be able to apply your technology to soldiers?"
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