The warehouse had changed.
What was once empty concrete now pulsed with light and machine-song. Alien alloys melted in vats of nanometal flame. Servo-skulls floated overhead in silent procession, some carrying stolen Stark processors, others dragging half-melted Chitauri plating to the smelter.
Alex Price hooded, crimson optics glowing watched it all with quiet satisfaction. The Forge was no longer just a hiding place. It was alive.
On the altar before him lay fragments of Spider-Man's suit. Stark's handiwork was crude in form, but efficient overengineered, redundant, relying too much on AI correction. Alex traced the memory alloy weave with a mechadendrite, whispering the Rite of Analysis.
[Weakness Confirmed: Energy Transfer Vulnerability in Arc-Nodes.][Weakness Confirmed: EMP Susceptibility.]Opportunity: Integrate Arc-Node Schematics into Servo Systems.]
Nanometal tendrils split the plating open, exposing its power-routing lattice. Alex modified one servo-skull to project an electromagnetic pulse. Another was outfitted with a harpoon emitter, designed to overload and sever external power nodes.
If Stark ever stood before him, Alex would know how to unravel the golden man's armor piece by piece.
But knowledge of steel was not enough.
Even as his servo-skulls sang in binary, Alex's thoughts turned toward the question of flesh. Humanity was weak hydraulic pressure crushed bone, viral code crippled neurons. Yet in this world, some corporations sought to improve the organic.
Oscorp.
The servo-skulls had already mapped its shipments, traced its experiments in cross-species genetics, viral serums, neural augmentation. Primitive, dangerous work—but promising.
The system itself whispered:
[Quest Available: Harvest Genetic Data.]Target: Oscorp R&D Wing, Manhattan Tower.]Reward: Hybrid Augmentation Blueprints.]
Alex recited another litany as he planned.
"Steel is eternal, yet flesh still binds. Flesh must be improved, or cast aside. Let their science be stripped, their failures redeemed in my Forge.
Midnight. Oscorp Tower.
The building gleamed like a pillar of glass and pride. Inside, guards patrolled sterile white halls while locked vaults housed dangerous prototypes.
Above them, unseen, Alex moved. Cloak rippling with nanometal camouflage, servo-skulls flitted ahead like silent bats.
One skull disabled security cameras with a pulse of static. Another injected false clearance codes into electronic locks. In less than fifteen minutes, Alex was deep inside Oscorp's R&D sector.
He passed cages of mutated spiders offspring of the one that had created Spider-Man. Samples of experimental serums. Prototypes of neuro-enhancement helmets. He took them all.
[Genetic Data Secured.][Blueprints Unlocked: Hybrid Neuro-Interface | Adaptive Regenerative Matrix.]
The Forge would not only build machines now. It would learn to rebuild flesh, perfect it, merge it with steel.
As he withdrew, alarms began to wail. Not because of him because Oscorp was already under secret investigation by S.H.I.E.L.D.
Through a servo-skull's optics, Alex saw them: agents moving in, black-clad, armed with containment crates. They would sweep the labs by dawn.
But Alex was already gone, his stolen prizes stored safely in system space. By the time the agents found empty cages and missing files, the trail was cold, with-ought any trace.
Back at the docks, the Forge roared with activity. Oscorp's hybrid data was fed into the nano-forge, cross-referenced with Stark tech and Chitauri alloys. New designs took shape:
Servo-Skull Mk III: Stealth drone with hybrid sensor arrays, able to mask both heat and bio-signatures.
Adaptive Carapace Plating: A blend of Stark alloy memory-weave with Oscorp's regenerative bio-polymers. Self-healing armor.
Neural Splice Interface: A bridge between flesh neurons and machine circuits, laying the groundwork for cybernetics that could surpass human limits.
Alex stood amid the glow, mechadendrites weaving like priests at prayer, his voice low and resonant.
"The Forge grows.
Steel learns from flesh.
Flesh learns from steel.
Soon, they will be one.
Soon, the Omnissiah's
light will burn across worlds."
Above him, the servo-skulls spread out into the night, silent hunters carrying his will into the city.