Introducing....HARDWARE

"HARDWARE has arrived"

Edwin Alva sat on his private jet, scratching at the five o'clock shadow beard he had developed over the past few weeks. Sleepless nights and significant jet lag had taken its toll on the business tycoon, and he barely paid any attention to Pierre as he plopped into the seat across from him.

"They've already arrived sir." Alva's only friend, if a man such as he even had such things, and trusted bodyguard informed him with a sigh. "If I can be frank, sir-"

Alva rolled his eyes and finally casted a loathsome look at Pierre, one he could barely manage to muster. "You don't need to tell me anything I didn't already anticipate. The fact that they came to Dakota at all is reason enough to worry." Pierre's eyes fell to his lap as Alva grunted out his ill-tempered response. "Make sure security triple sweeps the perimeter before I arrive. I've had enough surprises to last me a lifetime."

"Understood sir." Pierre fumbled for his cellular device to follow through on Alva's instructions.

Just a half-hour later, the G-Wagon driven by Alva's personal chauffeur creaked to a stop in front of the main headquarters for Alva Industries. Security personnel flanked around the car, with Pierre as the lead body, as Alva stepped out of the vehicle and entered the building. His group of armed guards didn't leave his side even when he stepped onto his private elevator, one that led directly to his ever-expanding office on the 45th floor. As he stood inside the lift, watching the numbers pass above the doors, Alva felt something he honestly couldn't remember feeling since he was a child: fear.

The doors to the private elevator opened, and the guards shuffled off the lift before Alva followed suit. He stepped between his protective entourage and felt his heart skip a beat at the sight of the man waiting for him. Vandal Savage stood in a dark plum suit near the window, admiring the sight of Dakota city from where he stood. He let out an amused chuckle once he saw the fright Alva was clearly trying to stifle.

"All that you have accomplished Edwin, and look at how you shiver. Throwing away everything just to end a man's life. As if such a task is difficult." Savage shakes his head, letting his disappointment ring throughout the room. Alva took a seat behind his desk and did his best to puff his chest out, but not to signal any sort of disrespect.

"This visit was most unexpected. Forgive me if I seem ill prepared." The excuse from Alva did nothing but annoy Savage, who left the window and approached Alva's desk. As he passed each of the bodyguards, they either recoiled or took a couple steps back from the immortal as he went. Savage stopped in front of Alva's desk and pushed the chair across from it out of his way, opting to tower over the sitting CEO.

"We didn't give you the opportunities you've been provided to hear excuses. A man of your standing here should understand that better than most." Savage glared at him, and Alva did everything he could not to wither in his chair.

"Now you were...recruited into our S.Y.S.T.E.M. to not only be an asset but because you had lofty aspirations yourself. But it appears you have a rather grating stumbling block before you."

"I offer no more excuses then, Savage. But a guarantee, a promise that things will return to schedule." Alva leaned forward, not breaking away from the stare that Savage bore into him.

Savage scoffed, uninterested in Alva's affirmation. "Your whimpering and sniveling should be saved for the Demon's head or the Vampire queen. Blind groveling won't sway me one way or another."

Savage turned away from Alva and marched across the room. "Too much attention is on your facilities lately, and that is something we just cannot have at this critical juncture." Savage paused in the center of the room, glancing down at the expensive rug that had the Alva Industries logo embroidered in the middle. "I know you consider yourself an outlier, one of a kind even. But I have lived long enough to know that there is no man on this earth like that, save the one standing before you now."

Savage headed towards the door with one final warning to Alva as he exited. "Let us hope your usefulness was not over-exaggerated on your part. Mary is far more vicious about time being wasted than I."

The heavy cherry wood doors slammed shut behind Vandal Savage, and Alva leaped from his chair. "I want every head of our defence and security team in this office within the hour. And get Lord on the phone. I want to know if his tech division has finished the first wave of prototypes."