"Even if Mr. Devonshire doesn't have the technology to make me stronger," Blonsky said with a grim expression as he looked at Ross, "he definitely has a way to alleviate my deterioration. If Mr. Devonshire could foresee my condition, that means he's more of an authority on the super soldier issue than anyone else in the world."
Clenching his fists, Blonsky recalled the moment he was rammed and sent flying by that Decepticon rhino. The memory filled him with a mix of fear and humiliation.
"I may have recovered," he said darkly, "but I know full well that if I face that Decepticon rhino again, the result will either be severe injury or death. So I need more power—faster speed... or stronger defense."
"Stronger defense?" Ross instantly understood what Blonsky meant. "You want Devonshire's battle armor?"
"That's impossible," Ross sighed, slumping back in his leather chair. "Ever since the Devonshire battle armor was introduced, we've been trying to get our hands on it. But those idiots back home… William has already upgraded to fourth-generation space armor, and they still can't even get their hands on the outdated second-gen models he gave to Kingsman. And now? It hasn't even been that long, and he's already scrapped the fourth-gen. He's wearing the fifth-gen flight-capable version and operating super-sized sixth-gen armor that can take out Transformer Elders."
Ross rubbed his temple in frustration. "I don't even know if by the time our people finally manage to reverse-engineer something on par with his second-gen suit, Devonshire's personal armor might already be capable of wiping out the entire U.S."
Cough cough.
Blonsky cleared his throat deliberately to remind Ross they were getting off-topic. Despite being British, he was enjoying the praise for William—but there was still a point to this conversation.
Realizing his tangent, Ross straightened up. "The second-gen armor won't do much for you."
He pulled up footage of the battle in Egypt from a few days ago. Watching the Kingsman agents wearing second-gen armor still get taken out by oversized Decepticon weaponry, Blonsky nodded, waiting for Ross to continue.
"As far as we know," Ross went on, "only one three-man Kingsman team and a mercenary group called the Expendables have clearance for the third-gen suits. But that merc team's basically retired now, and only gets gear for specific missions.
The only ones with regular access to the third-gen are the four-person protection unit of Lena Devonshire."
"As for the fourth-gen suits," Ross added with a pause, "only two of William's… women have worn them. We're not even sure what species they are, so I suggest you don't get your hopes up about the armor."
"Giving them to his women is understandable," Blonsky muttered. "But what do you mean by not sure what species?"
Ross hesitated. "Would you believe me if I told you there are vampires and werewolves in this world?"
Blonsky was stunned. But then he thought—if aliens are real, and he himself had become a superhuman, why not vampires and werewolves too? Clearly, Ross wouldn't mention it if it weren't real.
He nodded.
Ross continued, "We suspect those two women are vampires. According to intel we've quietly gathered, they really are. But they're not bloodthirsty, they're not vulnerable to silver, and they can walk in daylight. So we don't know how to categorize them anymore."
"Vampires with no weaknesses," Blonsky murmured, and then his eyes lit up. He figured William must've found a way to eliminate the traditional vampire weaknesses.
But before he could ask further, Ross cut him off, warning, "It's not that simple. If you turn into a vampire or werewolf, pray William doesn't notice. Because if he does—he'll kill you outright."
Ross tapped away at his computer and pulled up classified intel recently received from the highest levels, focusing on William's dealings with vampires and werewolves.
"From the data we've collected over the years," Ross said seriously, "William not only despises vampires, but he's absolutely merciless toward werewolves. Two years ago, he killed over four thousand werewolves in a single night somewhere in Europe. Since then, not a single large werewolf clan has appeared on the continent.
And after the mass slaughter, he didn't stop. He continued to issue underground bounty contracts to wipe out the rest. He won't stop until they're extinct.
That bounty—fifty Devonshire gold coins per head—has drawn many American monster hunters to Europe.
London and Oxford haven't seen a vampire or werewolf for two years now."
"This is... this is incredible." Blonsky was proud of William as a fellow Englishman, but he was also confused. "If vampires and werewolves have really been around for centuries, why haven't they tried to take revenge on William?"
"Revenge?" Ross snorted. "They'd need the power to do that.
Those werewolves ended up like this because they attacked William's spaceship manufacturing plant while he was trapped on Mars. Their little retaliation got their kind practically wiped out in Europe. Most had to flee to America just to survive."
Ross suddenly remembered a fellow general of equal rank who had tried to mess with William—and not only failed, but had his base overrun by a werewolf horde.
And wait... hadn't his whole family been "reunited" too?
Ross shivered and stopped himself from saying aloud that maybe William had taken control of a werewolf clan. The thought alone chilled him.
He realized now that telling Blonsky all this was only making William look more powerful, while making himself seem small in comparison.
But he wasn't without his own successes. Even if Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, was uncontrollable, wasn't Blonsky here his own long-standing project?
The only missing piece now was finding Banner. If he could get a blood sample from him, maybe he could replicate the Hulk's abilities in Blonsky.
Wanting to win Blonsky's trust, Ross tapped his computer again and pulled up footage of the Hulk escaping the lab.
Watching the massive, unbelievably strong green giant on the screen, Blonsky stammered, "G-General, you're not saying… this thing is also one of your creations?"
Ross smiled with satisfaction at Blonsky's astonished face. Puffing his cigar, he nodded slowly. "You're not America's only achievement in recent years.
Besides you, there's also Captain America… and—" Ross's face darkened as he pointed to the screen— "the Hulk."
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