"Sweetheart, you're not going to start praying too, are you?" Root asked, mildly worried.
Miss Harmon had been thoroughly shaken by the encounter with the seraph, but her faith was undiminished. Back on Clone Island, she resumed her prayer rituals with the same quiet devotion as before.
Shaw gave Root an odd look.
Root smiled and said nothing.
With both Miss Harmon and Shaw resurrected, Bella shut down the clone cultivation lab.
She had no one left who needed reviving, and she wasn't keen on pushing the angels too far again anytime soon. The Time Stone's deterrent power was real, but if she started resurrecting people by the thousands, even the angels would draw the line.
Good enough.
Shaw and Root were the first to leave Clone Island. They needed to rebuild their relationship from scratch. The whole artificial sperm debacle and whoever got left holding that bag—none of that was Bella's concern.
They were grown women. They could sort it out themselves.
Miss Harmon was sent off as well. The girl had been dead for four years; had she lived, she'd be twenty by now.
She wanted to travel. Bella added her to 006's summer camp roster—over a hundred people; one more wouldn't matter. Whether Miss Harmon chose to visit her parents was her own business. Bella didn't pry.
After monitoring the timeline and confirming the angels weren't retaliating, Bella returned the Time Stone to Kamar-Taj.
The Ancient One wore her usual expression of I'm not forcing you—every choice is yours alone. Bella sighed inwardly. Even knowing better, she still couldn't help thinking... the Time Stone was just too damn good.
...
More than a year had passed since the Theron invasion of Earth.
The technology projects the Black president had placed such high hopes on were making little progress.
Even with manpower, resources, and funding—even with salvaged alien technology to reverse-engineer—the pace of scientific advancement remained painfully slow.
Weyland's space telescope had detected a moon roughly the size of Earth in the Alpha Centauri system, about four light-years away.
The moon's atmosphere was saturated with ammonia and methane. Humans couldn't survive there without life-support equipment. But Weyland's scientists speculated that the world might harbor life.
The Brotherhood had stripped Bella of her naming privileges. The last one—Patrick Star—what the hell was that? Bizarre, and not an ounce of assassin about it. These classicists who never missed a chance to invoke the Greeks chose a suitably Hellenic name for the new world: Pandora.
Public reaction to Pandora's discovery was lukewarm. Four light-years away, with no faster-than-light engine? Even a twenty-year flight wouldn't be out of the ordinary. Twenty years—that was several presidential administrations. Policies died with their champions.
The discovery did nothing to boost the Black president's reelection prospects. On the other hand, the cosmic storm research being jointly conducted by Victor Von Doom and Reed Richards—and the chance it offered to analyze human genetic structures—had attracted considerable attention.
The experiment's costs were staggering, though. Both Von Doom and Richards were betting everything they had on the preliminary preparations.
While most companies stalled, an arms manufacturer called M.A.R.S. Industries took an unconventional approach.
They spent a fortune purchasing a trove of eccentric inventions from Reed Richards.
Among the mixed bag, they found a technology called Nanomites.
Originally designed for medical use, the Nanomites were repurposed into weapons. An M1 Abrams main battle tank could be completely dissolved in ten seconds, and the effect on Decepticons was equally devastating.
M.A.R.S. Industries' CEO demonstrated the weapon before dignitaries from across NATO. He used Blackout's corpse as a test subject. One warhead, a swarm of dark green Nanomites gnawing away, and within thirty seconds, Blackout's remains had been reduced to a heap of slag.
"Excellent! This is outstanding!"
"Truly remarkable! What's the production rate on these warheads? We need five!"
"We'll take ten—money is no object!"
America's international standing and military dominance had both slipped to varying degrees. They immediately played the NATO card, roping allied nations into every initiative.
The Theron invasion had cost the rest of NATO dearly too, so they didn't refuse the senior partner's call.
The existence of the Decepticons was still highly classified among NATO member states. When the Americans wheeled out a Decepticon corpse, the assembled officials nearly jumped out of their seats. The Nanomite warhead demonstration promptly erased that fear. With fear dispelled and confidence restored, every delegation clamored to place bulk orders.
M.A.R.S. Industries secured contracts from across the alliance, rocketing to prominence in the international arms market and quietly beginning to eclipse the established titan, Stark Industries.
...
Natasha had grown so bored in Arendelle that she threatened Bella: if she didn't get her freedom back, she was going to commit regicide. Armed with the formidable excuse of a post-wedding honeymoon, Bella had no choice but to bring her back to Earth.
The pregnancy wasn't showing yet, so the timing was perfect for a trip.
After some deliberation, they settled on Europe for the honeymoon.
Spain, France, Italy, the Balkans, and Turkey were all on the itinerary.
"I'm so bored! Where are we going next?" Natasha asked Bella as they left Madrid.
"Paris. I have some business to take care of there, so you'll need to stay with me for a few extra days. I need to sit down face-to-face with those two old men at Chanel."
"Works for me!"
Weyland's acquisition of Yutani had left Bella flush with cash.
From her perspective, it was just moving money from one pocket to another. But to the outside world, it looked very different.
Weyland and Bella had no official connection—none whatsoever. Yutani, on the other hand, had always been registered under her name, Isabella Swan. She'd originally just wanted to sell candy and earn pocket money in Japan. Who could have predicted the Osaka Brotherhood would be that dedicated?
To outside observers, the transaction looked simple: Bella had saved Weyland's boss, Peter Weyland, during the tsunami. That forged a connection, and after the disaster, Weyland leveraged it to formally acquire Yutani.
The deal severed Bella's public ties to Yutani entirely. She walked away with $380 million in cash—all legitimate, all above board.
That money wasn't going to sit in a bank collecting interest. She'd set her sights on a target she'd had her eye on for a long time: Chanel.
The two old Jewish gentlemen who controlled Chanel had taken devastating losses in the triple catastrophe of earthquake, tsunami, and alien invasion.
Their real estate companies, entertainment ventures, and broadcasting firms had all sustained massive damage.
Their cash flow had snapped, and they couldn't figure out where to begin the salvage operation.
Bella had sent intermediaries to discuss an acquisition at precisely the right moment. The two old men were interested.