Everyone had plenty to say about that hands-off boss. Of course, it was only because they couldn't beat him that they had to grumble behind his back.
"Don't worry, Deputy Director Fury. I've prepared for this day," Tony said with absolute confidence. He pulled out a phone, swiped a few times, and a projection appeared in front of everyone.
It was Tony Stark's Iron Man suits.
But the sheer number was just ridiculous.
Thousands of suits, all different models, unmanned and controlled entirely by JARVIS. Their efficiency blew any human pilot out of the water. Besides being directed by JARVIS, they operated under an integrated combat system.
Veronica was an independent system co-developed by Tony Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner. During its development, the Hulk himself even took part in live combat testing. It was typically deployed in orbit as a wrapped package, ready for rapid deployment at a moment's notice.
Why such a gentle and graceful name, Veronica? The story behind it went like this:
In the American comic Archie, the rich, handsome Archie had two love interests tangled up with him. One was named Veronica, the other, her rival, was named Betty. Dr. Banner's former lover was named Betty. So the armor built specifically to take down Banner naturally had to be named Veronica...
The Veronica system contained multiple function modules. The Hulkbuster armor was just one of them, essentially acting as a field agent, while the other modules provided support and resupply. Besides the Hulkbuster, the known modules included an independent satellite communications unit, autonomous operation capabilities, battle damage support where spare parts could be called down for replacement, a prison-style containment unit, and more.
However, beyond countering the green goliath that was the Hulk, the Veronica system in this universe had also been loaded by Tony Stark with a massive amount of data on superheroes and supervillains. Countermeasure modules were generated based on this data. Simply put, Veronica had become a targeted response system.
Now that the target had shifted to vampires, it was an outright slaughter.
After all, Tony Stark's Iron Legion was something that could vie for dominance out in the cosmos. In the original storyline, Gamora's level of combat ability made her the deadliest assassin in the universe, so you can imagine just how starved the Marvel universe was for high-end fighting strength.
Granted, Zodd knew that skyfather-level beings supposedly roamed all over and single-universe entities were a dime a dozen. But honestly, they weren't all that easy to run into.
The speed at which vampires were being wiped out skyrocketed, at least ten times faster.
Zodd Sith hadn't been idle either. He'd already slipped over to the vampires' main lair.
He knew all about the low-level mixed-blood vampires causing trouble. Those vampires didn't bother hiding their use of technology, so Black Queen easily eavesdropped on all their conversations. More importantly, Zodd possessed super hearing and the ability to pick up information riding on electromagnetic and gravitational waves. If he put his mind to it, vampires held virtually no secrets from him.
"The Divine Sword Bureau's side has racked up an outstanding record, sir," Black Queen told Zodd.
"To be expected. But those mixed-blood mongrel vampires will be badly crippled this time. They came from all fifty states, so don't let a single one go back. Once that's done, the politicians and capitalists will make the best scavengers," Zodd said evenly.
The vampires that survived this purge would be a lingering blight, tough to root out completely. But politicians and capitalists themselves were the greediest vultures, wild dogs, and hyenas. The remaining vampires were practically all the wealthy, powerful upper echelon. Without a massive horde of vampire underlings to protect them and give human governments second thoughts, they'd be nothing more than rotting meat luring vultures and hyenas.
The Divine Sword Bureau wouldn't even need to bother with the mop-up.
Those politicians and capitalists would strip the remaining vampires bare far more thoroughly and patiently than the Bureau ever could, either hauling them off to a lab or seizing every bit of their property for themselves.
Zodd found it hard to understand why the vampires had made such a monumentally stupid move, but it didn't matter anymore. He had already found the pureblood vampires' main lair.
The purebloods now knew full well that a massive horde of mixed-blood mongrels was running rampant in New York, slaughtering ordinary people.
"Those idiot mongrels, what in the world is Laurence doing!" The head elder's face betrayed nothing, and his tone remained even, yet the anger radiated off him in an indescribable way.
"Are they trying to start a war?" another elder asked, his brow deeply furrowed.
"Laurence wants to show America the kind of chaos that happens when mixed-blood mongrels lose a stable blood supply."
Even within the elder council, some had taken Laurence's bribes, or genuinely agreed with his methods. After all, political infighting wasn't just a human thing.
"He doesn't understand at all that what humans fear most about vampires is our concealment and our numbers. Once we lose that massive mixed-blood population, humans can wipe us out with ease. Send word immediately to the mixed-blood mongrels and pureblood nobles in the other regions, tell them all to come here. After this, I fear humans will make a major move."
The head elder issued the command without a shred of hesitation.
Damn it all. If only Dracula hadn't been killed by Blade, they wouldn't have to be so terrified of the human response right now. If that past incident with Deacon Frost summoning the Blood God hadn't also been cut down by Blade, they wouldn't be panicking at every little stir. The head elder didn't even need to check the Blood Clan's Bible to know the Blood God summoning ritual; what they had always lacked was simply the blood of a Daywalker. So when word came that Deacon had found that Daywalker, the elder tacitly allowed him to temporarily take control of the blood clan's upper echelon, even giving him twelve pureblood nobles, just to see if he could truly summon the Blood God. As for the result, unclear, but Deacon ended up getting cleaved by Blade anyway.
If the Blood God had truly manifested, He would have swept across the globe like a storm, turning everyone into vampires. That way, there would be no reason to fear any human threat to the blood clan.
Suddenly, a deafening boom came from outside, like something had exploded.
"Damn it, have the humans already started?" an elder said, shooting to his feet. If so, then the humans really had been prepared all along.
Then the building they were in exploded as well.
A figure hovered in the air, its whole body green, two antennae sprouting from its head, completely bald and hairless, dressed in bizarre clothing. The guards of the pureblood nobles rushed out, and upon seeing it, they all froze.
"It's a monster!"
"Crap, I never thought it'd be a monster!"
The purebloods understood all too well how powerful monsters could be. A Wolf-level monster already needed firearms just to put a scratch on it.
/-\
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