Chapter 131: Stark Industries. 1940 CE

In a Convention hall somewhere in New York, many well dressed men and women were sitting calmly in front of a podium, listening to a man that was speaking rather confidently. Among those men and women are Pluto, sitting in the right corner of the room, watching tentatively, Thena didn’t come along however, as she was scouting for a land in Queens Boulevard, as they were planning to build a home there, because it’s rather annoying to go from upstate to the city back and forth every day.

The man that was speaking was Howard Stark. He, along with his newly built company Stark Industries was explaining something towards the masses in front of him.

“Vibranium,” he said. “Stronger than steel, third the weight. It is also one of the rarest metals on earth, maybe even the universe….”

Stark wandered around the podium rather patiently, calming himself down from excitement. “My team and I managed to get some Vibranium, courtesy of Mr. Smith from the Smith Enterprises, he’s generous enough to give us some of his Vibranium collection to us to study, and I assure you, Mr. Smith, we discovered many things.”

Stark took a deep breath, and continued. “You see, one of the reasons that the Simians of the Zimera Kingdom were able to quickly develop, is because of the versatile uses of Vibranium. It could be used for combat, as we have seen countless examples in the Great War that it could easily block bullets, artillery shells, and so on and so forth… that is why they banned the free trade of Vibranium, well, for good reason, if it falls to the wrong hands, it could be a deadly thing. It might be a hypocritical thing for me to say, as my company deals with weapons… but… the property of Vibranium is so rich with possibilities, that I might just shudder from the weapons that could be made from them. We already see the Ornithopters of the Zimerans that even to me, while it looks like it breaks the laws of physics at first, but when you look at the material that it's made of, it makes sense…”

Stark looked around the audience, and smiled at Pluto. “There is also the possibility of medical uses. I believe in the near future, tiny robots made out of Vibranium could be used to cure even the deadliest of cancers in a matter of days, hours even. If we could just get our hands on those vibranium, the ‘tomorrow’ from those sci-fi movies might just be reached in a matter of decades, our lives would be much better… but I understand that it could also be much worse, if an evil gets their hands of those tech, we’ll be doomed.”

Stark then continued to talk passionately, and the audience heard him talk, seemingly mesmerised with his voice. As he finished talking, the audience gave him a standing ovation, to which he just bowed, thanking them for their attention.

—

Pluto and Howard Stark were now in a car, travelling through the streets of New York as it rained from above, wetting the road below.

“The government just approached me, giving me an offer to work on a project,” said Stark.

“That’s good. You’ll get more protection from that.”

“I don’t know Mr. Smith…” Stark sighed. “Making a deal with the government is just…”

“A war is coming Howard.” stated Pluto. “Although I specifically said to my company to not support wars in any way, you still can, especially that you’re talking about revolutionary technology over here, spies are around us, you could be killed at any moment..”

Howard sighed. “I understand, Mr. Smith…”

Pluto clicked his tongue. “Please, I told you to call me William.”

“All right… William…” Howard murmured. “I must thank you once again for the Vibranium you got me, how do you get it anyway?”

“It’s easy enough, I know the Zimeran King.” Pluto shrugged, making Howard’s eyes widened.

“You’re joking… right?”

Pluto hummed lazily at Howard’s question, and changed the topic. “Where do you go from now?”

“I guess I should take up your advice, working with the government.” he said. “Although I still don’t know what I need protection for.”

As soon as he said that, Pluto’s instinct flare up, and a bomb suddenly blew up from the side. Pluto saw the car was speeding through the road to catch up with them, and they caught up. Pluto quickly conjured a shield, protecting him and Howard as their car blew up to pieces.

Pluto and Howard got knocked onto the side of the street, the barrier still surrounding them. Pluto looked around, he used Juno’s power to scan the surroundings, and he discovered the group of assassins. He just raised his hands, and mere seconds later, heads started to drop in front of him, blood running down the rainy road.

“W-Wha—” Howard stuttered, scared by the sudden gore in front of him. He was also surprised to see Pluto do weird things in front of him. Pluto turned to Howard, making him flinched.

“You alright son?” he questioned.

“Y-Yeah…” Howard stummered.

Pluto hummed. “Do me a favour, don’t tell anyone, or I have to remove the memory myself.”

Howard gupled at the words, he looked at the bodyless heads in front of him and he thought that he was threatening him with that. Howard nodded. “I-I promise Mr. Smith, I will carry this secret until the day that I die.”

Pluto sighed. “I told you, call me William.”