Since they could not make sense of the powered armor, they could only give up. Not everyone was Tony Stark. Understanding his design logic, sorting out the operating principles of those tangled sensors, and cleverly integrating them was enough to give anyone a headache. They could not even imitate the design by following an existing model, and worse, they did not have a model to follow. All they had for reference was 006's diary.
The Transformers could not understand Stark's designs either. Bumblebee, Shatter, and the others were either kids or delinquents, while Ironhide, Ratchet, and the rest did not have expertise in this area.
The Red Knight's group were all warriors, the sort of elite soldiers produced by Cybertron's highly specialized division of labor. An elite soldier could fly a plane, but he definitely could not build one. Put blueprints in front of him and he still would not understand them. Cybertronian technology as a whole was absolutely capable of cracking Tony Stark's armor, but these particular people did not know how to apply that knowledge.
A university graduate who did not deliberately review and use what they had learned could forget most of their high-school knowledge after only a few years.
Cybertronian lifeforms were different from humans, and their memories were certainly strong enough. But if knowledge sat in a database for hundreds or thousands of years without anyone actively studying it, that knowledge would not increase by itself!
Among the surviving Transformers, the only one who could truly be called a Cybertronian scientist was Starscream, and he was an enemy.
Bella gave comrade 006 a good round of reassurance. As for the traitors inside Weyland-Yutani, there was nothing to get angry about. It was normal. A company that large was bound to have a few traitors. She could simply send out the Assassin Brotherhood to gather evidence, then make an example of a few traitors.
These days, people with guns certainly weren't afraid of scholars.
Bella's attention was still focused on forming a Divine Body. Not only could she not stop taking the body-tempering potions from before, she needed to increase the dosage. Externally, she tempered her body with potions. Internally, she drew on the faint trickle of Divine Power from the Secrecy Portfolio to strengthen herself. The process was not fast, but at this early stage, she felt she was advancing very steadily.
At a time like this, stability mattered more than anything.
"Ha! Ha!" On the weekend, after finishing her body tempering, Bella practiced with a two-handed sword in the yard.
Charlie had come home from Washington, D.C. for two days. Watching her practice somehow made his scalp tingle. Whose daughter trained with something like that? He was even more worried that the sword might stab him by accident...
Natasha Romanoff stood nearby holding their daughter and watching, while Kitty Pryde played with the Divine Dragon off to one side. For some reason, the little girl especially loved dragon-like creatures.
"What made you suddenly decide to practice such a rough, heavy style of swordsmanship? Are you okay?" Natasha Romanoff was a little puzzled.
Bella might have been going for an androgynous look, but a two-handed sword was still far too rugged. The thing simply did not look like a weapon a woman would use.
"I'm fine. Just practicing because it feels right. I've gotten stronger lately, so the techniques I used with rapiers and short blades don't suit me anymore. I have to adjust."
Her Divine Body was forming slowly, but the physical transformation brought by Divine Power had already begun. In just two months, her strength had tripled, while her speed, constitution, resistances, and other attributes had all increased to varying degrees.
She estimated that her upper limit in strength would not exceed Loki's, probably somewhere in the range of 25–75 metric tons (27.6–82.7 US tons).
She did not have especially high demands when it came to strength. A little more or a little less made no difference. From beginning to end, what she relied on was knowledge. Magic was her foundation.
Still, once her strength increased, she had to change weapons. A rapier was too light. That was one consideration.
The other was that Bella was preparing to join the Asgardian Pantheon. Had she not seen that even pure spellcasters like Frigga and Loki carried longswords and daggers into battle? Sif, Thor's future wife, was a bona fide goddess of harvest, and what did she do? Carry a greatsword every day, drink with the men, then smash the table after drinking.
Heavy weapons, crude speech, and a booming voice! That was the political correctness of the Asgardian Pantheon. Odin did not actually support it, but for the sake of political correctness, even he had to package himself as a rough old man!
The traditions of the ancestors could not be changed. Everyone was putting on an act. Thor was probably the only one who showed up exactly as he really was...
Bella intended to do as the locals did. She did not know how to use axes or hammers, and they looked ugly anyway... Copy Frigga and Loki and use a longsword? As a newcomer, she still had to be a little careful. A two-handed sword was her choice.
Natasha Romanoff gave an "oh" and went back to playing with their daughter, leaving Bella alone. Fine, go practice however you want.
More than a month passed amid the noise and commotion outside. Tony Stark remained at the center of the storm, staying behind closed doors and refusing to see any visitors.
There was only one week left until Christmas 2005. That weekend, Natasha Romanoff was working overtime at the S.H.I.E.L.D. office, Samantha had gone to Washington, D.C. to stay with her husband, and Kitty Pryde and Elsa in Los Angeles were left in Bella's care.
"How about I take you out for ice cream?" Bella actually wanted some herself, but she did not dare eat it. She was afraid of getting fat.
Even gods had to watch their figures. Thor becoming fat later on was a living example. Eating was wonderful—cola, fried chicken! Don't hold back, eat! But once you finished eating, losing that weight was incredibly difficult. Bella often warned herself that at a critical moment like this, she absolutely had to watch what she ate. If she got fat now, it would be much harder to slim down after becoming a god...
Both children raised their hands at the same time to show their approval.
Bella drove Bumblebee in his Camaro form through the streets of Los Angeles with the two little girls and the Divine Dragon.
More than two years had passed since the earthquake. The City of Angels seemed to have recovered its old appearance. The roads were packed with cars at night, and traffic was badly congested.
"Little Sakura! Little Sakura! Don't sleep. Play with me!" Kitty Pryde adored the Divine Dragon and kept reaching out to pet him as he slept on Bella's shoulder.
The Divine Dragon had worn himself out playing that day. He casually yawned, shook his head twice, and answered with a couple of soft squeaks.
The Divine Dragon was an important companion of Bella's and could not simply be given away. She could only comfort her little sister. "If I see another dragon like him in the future, I'll get one for you. The universe is huge. If we look, there has to be one somewhere... What the hell? Everyone hold on!"
A black metal hulk suddenly stood up in front of the moving Camaro. It had a pair of blue electronic eyes. It glanced casually at the Camaro, then slid both hands beneath the chassis and tried to lift the whole car into the air.
Transformers weighed far more than the vehicles they turned into, but the black metal hulk was extremely strong as well. Bumblebee's front wheels were slowly lifted off the ground.
"What do we do?" Bumblebee hurriedly asked Bella through the car stereo.
It was dark, and Bella had not seen clearly what was in front of them at first. Even after taking a closer look, she still did not recognize the black metal hulk. But she did recognize Iron Man in red-and-gold armor standing just behind and to one side of it.