Stark Industries had gone through a quiet but profound transformation in recent months.
After decades of being the world's top weapons manufacturer, the once-proud War Machine of corporate America was bleeding money, reeling from internal pressure, external scrutiny, and Tony Stark's personal revelations.
But with a substantial injection of funds from Osborn Industries, under the condition that Stark shut down the Weapons Development Department for good, Tony had finally done what no Stark before him had dared.
He pulled the plug on war.
It was a move that divided shareholders, shook the boardroom, and sent defense contractors into a frenzy, but it solidified Tony's control over his company. For the first time in his life, Tony Stark was free to build for the future instead of the battlefield.
But today, Soren wasn't here to discuss ethics or investments.
"Mr Macaluso." Pepper Pots said with a polite smile.
"Tony isn't in the building. He's at his beach villa. And, well… probably making inappropriate metaphors with fruit salad and poor beach wifi."
Soren raised an eyebrow, amused.
"Should I call him?" Pepper offered. Her tone was professional, but there was a flicker of that familiar mix of affection and exasperation she always had when Tony's name came up.
Soren chuckled. "No need. I was hoping to take a look at his office. If that's alright?"
Pepper blinked at the odd request. "Sure. I suppose there's no harm."
Tony Stark's office was not what one might expect from a billionaire genius with an ego the size of Manhattan.
No gold statues. No glass floors. No flashy arc reactors buzzing in every corner.
Just elegant, minimalistic design. A mix of function and aesthetic. And on one wall standing quietly, yet unmistakably, was a small display case housing a miniature city model.
Soren stepped closer, eyes narrowing in recognition.
"That." Pepper said, walking up beside him, "Was designed by Tony's father. It's been up there for years. It's more sentimental than scientific, but Tony insists on keeping it."
Soren nodded slowly, his mind already working.
"May I take a photo?"
"It's not classified." She said with a smile. "Go ahead."
With a quick snapshot, Soren captured the model and the key hidden within it.
He thanked her, took nothing else, and left the building with purpose behind every step.
And as a trusted shareholder and the man who helped Tony, acquiring a few advanced tools and resources through Stark's inner network wasn't a problem at all.
Back at the medical clinic, hidden beneath reinforced walls and protective wards, Soren had already begun converting his theory into reality.
With a secure and sealed-off lab space, he arranged for Pepper's team to discreetly send him equipment and materials pulled directly from Stark's advanced engineering reserves.
Everything arrived in sealed crates, precision lasers, micro-reactor coils, vibranium-aligned circuitry, and energy stabilizers. All state-of-the-art.
But the most important item wasn't hardware… it was the data.
The photo he took of Howard Stark's model was a blueprint, the disguised schematic for a new element, theorized by Howard but never constructed in his time.
It had taken decades for the tech to catch up to his vision.
Soren stripped away the artistic embellishments from the model using holographic enhancement, revealing the hidden lattice geometry beneath, a revolutionary atomic structure capable of unimaginable energy yield.
"Genius." Soren gawked at the glowing data. "Tony's father was ahead of his time. He couldn't build it then… but I can."
Armed with Energy Research Level 8, engineering knowledge rivaling the best in the world, and the advanced tools at his disposal, Soren began the synthesis.
The process took hours, painstakingly detailed, impossibly precise.
The triangular reactor core slowly formed inside the containment unit, pulsing with a soft, cerulean glow. It didn't just look powerful. It was alive with raw potential, more energy in one inch of matter than the entire New York grid could produce in an hour.
Soren reinforced the medical hall's substructure with triple-layer shielding. If anything went wrong now.
But nothing went wrong.
With careful reverence, Soren lifted the core and placed it into a weapon frame he had constructed alongside the synthesis.
The result was unlike anything on Earth.
A weapon that looked like a massive hybrid between a futuristic sniper rifle and a missile launcher, sleek, angular, humming with restrained fury.
The chamber in the center cradled the triangular core, which glowed ominously, ready to unleash a singular blast of annihilation.
This wasn't a battery or even a generator.
It was a bullet made of a star.
Soren called it The Ark Reaper.
This facility was a covert branch of HYDRA, one that was split from the main command but retained all its brutality and none of its politics.
Inside a sealed chamber, Max Dillon, formerly known as Electro, was strapped down on a surgical cruciform, his body riddled with wires, electrodes, IV tubes, and surgical clamps.
His muscles spasmed violently as a blue surge of energy exploded from his fingertips, bouncing off the walls of his reinforced cage.
Three days had passed. Three long, nightmarish days of endless pain and forced evolution.
The room stank of ozone and chemicals. The lights flickered. Every scream from Max shook the base's integrity.
From the observation deck above, HYDRA scientists monitored dozens of biometrics on flickering displays. Heart rate. Cortisol levels. Energy retention. Cellular mutation. Neural integrity.
"We've reached 92% neurological override," one scientist reported, fear barely hidden in his voice. "But there's a problem."
The lead officer, clad in a long black coat emblazoned with HYDRA's red insignia. "Speak."
"It's Dr Soren." The man said, swallowing. "The weapon's mind clings to that hatred like a religious conviction. We can't overwrite it. No matter how deep we go, no matter how many psychic blocks we implant… he still burns for vengeance."
The leader's eyes narrowed.
"He'll never obey orders while that man lives."
There was a moment of silence before he turned back to the glass window, watching the man inside convulse as another serum dosage entered his bloodstream.
"Then we let him kill that doctor."
The chamber fell quiet.
"But not as a weakling. We make him more. Push the super-soldier serum to its highest possible configuration. We give him strength, resilience, regenerative capability, everything. And then we let his rage do what brainwashing cannot."
He turned, voice steady and cruel. "Let's see if our monster can hunt."
The procedure was unlike anything in modern science. It fused super-soldier augmentation, electro-kinetic amplification, and bioelectric mutation into a single hellish evolution.
A mix of adrenaline-based steroid cocktails and synthetic cellular repair agents kept his body from ripping itself apart during the change.
Electrodes injected deep into his spine regulated the surging voltage now produced by his blood. Plasma filtration systems kept him from literally igniting from within.
And through it all, Max never stopped screaming.
Not for a second.
Pain so intense it could crack the mind into pieces.
But his mind didn't shatter.
Every flicker of agony only deepened his obsession.
SOREN
The name replayed in his head like a dying echo across the void. Every time he thought he'd pass out or fall apart, that name brought him back. Gave him reason.
Gave him rage.
On the fourth day, silence fell.
What was born was something else entirely.
His body had changed. Scales of crystalline metal now covered his skin like an exoskeleton, reflecting light with a shimmering blue hue.
His face, once human, had transformed into something serpentine. His eyes were no longer eyes, but vertical slits that glowed with pulsing arcs of blue lightning.
The scientists and soldiers around him stared in awe. The machines monitoring his vitals had long since shorted out.
No man should still be alive.
The lead HYDRA officer approached with reverence.
"Your enemy… Soren… he is but an ant beneath your feet."
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
Dare you peek into my other tales? The opening three chapters of select stories are free to all.
PhantomDream