41: Gems of Infinite Potential By: EmperorTippy (MCU)
Fic type: Si
shashank_bhatt asked me for a marvel fic and here's what I found.
By the same author as 'Magical awakening'. I really enjoyed it. The mc is reasonable and rational. He takes risks only when he is confident in its success. The story flows freely and is fast paced when needed.
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Gems of Infinite Potential
By: EmperorTippyFan
(Not my work, just for ease of access here on FF) I saw A Twelve Step Program to Omnipotence and frankly, I thought it did pretty much everything wrong with an SI story. So I decided to do it better. And yes, this is still going to be a power fantasy wank fest - it will just be one that doesn't require absurd ass pull "luck" to work out. SI/OC
Rated: Fiction M - English - Chapters: 34 - Words: 66,959 - Reviews: 50 - Favs: 360 - Follows: 398 - Published: Oct 27, 2019 - id: 13418978
Note: This was posted on ff.net by a fan for ease of access but it was originally posted on spacebattles. I will be providing links for both.
Gems of Infinite Potential (MCU SI)
By: Emperor Tippy
Link for ff.net:https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13418978/1/Gems-of-Infinite-Potential
Link for spacebattles:https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/gems-of-infinite-potential-mcu-si.645295/reader/
I have posted the first four chapters.
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Chapter 1
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I was born, or reborn I suppose, into a world of gods and monsters. A world where the legends of childhood comic books were real and where Apocalypse was coming within my lifetime.
My rebirth parents were upper middle class professionals, my father a computer programmer and engineer, while my mother was a corporate lawyer, and my childhood was one of driven ease. I knew what was coming the first time I heard the name Tony Stark and found out that Captain America was a real person, I was four then. It didn't matter if I wanted to take it easy, be lazy, or coast through life - I was in a world where only the exceptionally extraordinary mattered or had agency and survival (much less freedom) demanded that I become one of those legends.
So I didn't hold back. I had thirty five years of life experience that extended all the way to 2018, and I had been born in 1981. I smashed through the education system and was lauded as a genius on par with Tony Stark. It was a lie, that man made me look like a complete idiot, but it was still the perception. My parents' resources got me tutors and trainers to keep pushing my education (both intellectual and martial), and I graduated from MIT at 18. I made my first splash less than a month after graduation when I sold Stark Industries the rights to a little product that I had spent years working on: the iPod.
And now here I was at a New Years Eve party in Switzerland to ring in the new millennium. In truth, I cared nothing about the party. I was instead here to recruit.
I spent the party people watching and keeping a discreet eye on my target, Maya Hansen. And so I was there when she entered the hotel lobby on the morning of January 1, 2000, fuming at Tony Stark for fucking and running. Sales was ninety percent appearance, perception, and approach, and so I stacked the deck. The private investigators and profilers I had hired to study Miss Hansen had hopefully done their jobs well; everything from the cut and color of my suit to my diction was carefully designed to gain the lady's favor.
My bodyguard was discreet as he stayed back, close enough that Maya would realize he was there and yet far enough away that she wouldn't feel threatened.
"Miss Hansen, Octavian Raith." I extended a hand.
She cocked her head slightly as she extended her own to shake and said, "Of Raith Industries?"
I smiled. "The one and only. Care to join me for breakfast?"
"What's the occasion Mr. Raith?" she asked.
"Please, call me Octavian, Miss. Hansen. And I thought that we could start off the new millennium with a mutually beneficial business opportunity." I offered her my arm.
She looked at it for a long moment before taking it. "You may call me Maya, but what business opportunity would that be?"
I led us out the hotel lobby and into my waiting car, the two of us in the back with my driver and bodyguard in the front. Once inside, I opened a discreet box and put my cellphone inside and smiled slightly regretfully. "If you could, put your cellphone and any other electronics into the container."
Maya eventually relented. "What's all this about?"
Once the container was closed, I triggered the small scale EMP that would remain confined inside the Faraday cage that lined the passenger compartment of my car. "Security, Maya. I may be paranoid, but considering that the reason we are having this meeting is that I had Tony Stark's room bugged last night and that your conversations with him intrigued me, I think it just common sense and basic prudence to ensure that my privacy is actually protected."
"YOU SPIED ON US?" the woman shouted, outraged.
"Of course, I spend a lot of money keeping an eye on Tony Stark. He may be an alcoholic party boy who could put most frat members to shame, but he is still probably the smartest man on the planet. At least when it comes to moving from theory to practical products. His company, largely on the back of his own and his father's inventions, is the world leader in pretty much every even remotely interesting field of study. Weapons, power, material sciences, AI, computing; hell, even in the life sciences, they are on the bleeding edge.
"And it is thanks to that spying that you are sitting here in this car and being offered the resources needed to complete Extremis." I calmly explained.
"I wonder what the press, or Tony for that matter, would think about your spying," Maya countered.
"The press would stay quiet because you have no proof, and I have very good lawyers on retainer. And Tony, well, I have information that he would do almost anything for. That is all irrelevant though, Maya. See, I am betting that you will cut the 'proverbial deal with the devil' to be able to complete your work. Extremis has the potential to change the world, and I want to realize that potential."
Maya snorted slightly. "Change the world, right. Somehow I doubt that 'the devil' is interested in my work, out of the goodness of his heart."
"You would be surprised." I dismissed it with a hand. "Oh, I'm not wholly selfless or even mostly selfless, and I will use everything I can get my hands on, including Extremis, to my own benefi. But, I also care about the world and have no interest in hoarding the fruits of our labor. Think about it: perfected Extremis is effective immortality. At a minimum, it is being in the physical prime of your life until your mind breaks down in a few hundred years. On the one hand, that is a technology worth trillions on the open market, and on the other, can you imagine how the world will change if humanity as a species is made up of what are effectively immortal re-generators? Work with me and you won't have to worry about your research being suppressed or being locked away in some secret government vault by people who fear changing the world and advancing humanity."
Maya sat and stared for nearly five minutes before finally saying, "What kind of resources would I have? And what limits would you place on me?"
I shrugged. "Whatever you need, and the only limits I will place on you are those required to ensure our security. At the moment, I am wealthy but I lack the virtually limitless funds of someone like Tony Stark. I have plans to change that, but that will take a decade or so. However, given the stage your research is at and that you are years away from even contemplating human trials, that timeline shouldn't be an issue. I have a lab facility set up back in the US already, just give me a list of whatever equipment that you need, and I will see it delivered." I pause. "I will insist that you have twenty-four-hour security, however."
"What? You want to keep me prisoner or something?" Maya said with mild anger.
"No, I have no interest in imprisoning you. Indeed, I'm insisting on the security to keep you free and unrestricted. Have you ever heard of an organization called SHIELD?" I asked.
"No, I don't think so at least. Why?" she replied.
"SHIELD, or Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division to use its full name, is an organization that was created by Howard Stark after World War II. During that war, the Nazis made use of superhumans and various bits of exotic technology, primarily under the direction of a division of the SS known as HYDRA. The Allies, of course, responded in kind, and Howard Stark was at the forefront of that fight. For the allies, the biggest, but far from only, success was the creation of Captain America, and his team managed to largely destroy Hydra.
"After the war though, a lot of HYDRA's research and resources went missing. Much of it was seized by the SSR, SHIELD's predecessor, but some ended up in hands hostile to the interests of the Allied powers. Given that fact and the more general realization that enhanced individuals with exotic technology both existed and were beyond the ability of more traditional forces to effectively counter, a secret article was added to the NATO treaty. It established a transnational black ops outfit with the primary objective of handling these extraordinary threats. While supported by the various member nations and under their nominal oversight, it was effectively beholden to none of them.
"Its founder and first director was Howard Stark. Today, Tony is only peripherally aware of the organization, but Stark Industries still provides much of its funding and allows it to use Stark Tech. Obadiah Stane handles that," I explained, sharing knowledge that had taken me years to piece together even with the advantages that my meta knowledge provided.
"Understand, Miss Hansen: if you accept my terms and work with me, then you are playing in the big leagues. SHIELD makes the CIA or NSA look like schoolyard bullies stealing your lunch money. It has aircraft carriers, strategic bombers, nuclear weapons, full access to every NATO member intelligence agency, limitless funding, access to technology that is literally out of this world in some cases, and is fully willing to engage in kidnapping and assassination to achieve its objectives. Its current director is a man named Nicholas Fury, and I will say, without exaggeration, that he is perhaps the single most dangerous human being on this planet. He is a good man and has prevented the outright extinction of human life multiple times, but he is also an utterly amoral, ruthless, bastard who will do whatever is necessary to achieve his objectives. And one of his primary objectives is to ensure that something like Extremis never sees general release, or even general knowledge.
"That all would be bad enough but when SHIELD was founded mistakes were made. Have you heard of Operation Paperclip?"
Maya seemed shocked. "Yeah, when the CIA extracted a bunch of Nazi scientists."
I gave a nod. "Well, SHIELD was carrying out its own Paperclip at the same time, except it was extracting HYDRA scientists and cutting deals. Unfortunately for SHIELD, a lot of HYDRA's members were never detected, and over time, they managed to infiltrate SHIELD and the various governments with seats on its oversight council. SHIELD has been quite thoroughly infiltrated by HYDRA, as has the US government. To the point where I know for a fact that even some sitting Senators are card-carrying members of HYDRA. Everything I said about SHIELD, HYDRA is a hundred times worse and has ruling humanity as its end goal."
Maya seemed shaken but her voice only quavered slightly as she said, "Ok. I would say you are engaging in conspiracy theorist bullshit, but I will assume, for now, that you have convincing evidence of your claims. But why are you telling me all this?"
I pointed at her jacket pocket. "Because you already almost made it onto their radar. Aldrich Killian, the man who gave you his card last night? His think tank, AIM, was being funded by HYDRA. I'm not sure how much he knew about his backers, and I'm pretty sure that you personally haven't been noticed by them, but he was using HYDRA money. And that's why he drunkenly committed suicide last night when he stumbled off the roof of the hotel."
Her hand came up and covered her mouth as her eyes went wide. "You killed him!?"
"As I told you, Maya, this is the big leagues. A saying that I heard once and has stuck with me: 'when you play the game of thrones you win or you die.' Well, Miss Hansen, your research has dealt you into the game, and now it's time to play. So yes, I had Killian killed, and I have no doubt that I will have other people killed in the future. I can't afford to make mistakes, Maya. The stakes are too high, and my opponents won't hesitate to take any action," I answered. "Now for the million dollar question: are you in, or are you out?"
"Are you going to kill me to if I say no?" she snapped back.
"No. If nothing else, I think that you will continue your research regardless of the consequences, and there are only a handful of organizations in the world that would fund it. Given that I have methods of infiltrating those organizations, I would just steal your research from them in the future and use it for my own ends. On the other hand, if I kill you, then I have no guarantee that anyone else will figure out how to replicate or complete your work. Yes, telling you all of this is somewhat risky for me, but I am interested in a partner and not an employee. I have no desire to spin a complex lie to ensnare you or to gain your loyalty under false pretenses. I want your willing assistance and that means both sharing information with you and trusting you with information that could harm me."
After a long moment of staring into my eyes, she extended a hand and said, "Fine, I'm in, Octavian. Partners?"
I took her hand. "Partners."
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A/N
Betad/Edited by: Hmmaster
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Chapter 2
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Maya had just boarded the flight back to the US, and I was in the first class lounge waiting on my own flight when a red-headed women sat down next to me with barely a glance at my bodyguard.
"Nice work with Killian, Natasha," I said without turning to face her.
"He was an out-of-shape scientist. It's not like it was ever going to test my skills," the assassin offered. "I see that your recruitment efforts paid off."
"Yes, Maya will work out very well for us, I think. Once her Extremis is perfected, it will be more than capable of reversing that abominable procedure the Red Room forced on you." I took a sip of the scotch in my hand.
"For your sake, I hope you are correct. The money might be nice, but a potential cure is what really bought you my services."
I smiled slightly. "So mercenary, Natasha. Oh, it will take years, but you will have your cure and so very much more. Although personally, I am hopeful that friendship, mutual loyalty, and even common cause might join us in the future."
"Don't get your hopes up, Octavian. Although I suppose that miracles do happen on occasion," she said before getting down to business. "You indicated that you had my next target?"
I handed over a USB drive. "Yes, a kidnapping this time. Well, three kidnappings to be more precise: Kevin Thompson and his parents, Albert and Louise. Everything that my investigators could turn up is on the drive, but the bare bones is that Kevin's body emits a mind control virus. Anyone who is exposed to it will be under his total control until their body fights it off, which takes about twelve hours. I want him locked up in one of the isolation cells in the Wyoming facility, and his parents are about to be forcibly recruited seeing as his ability is the result of their work."
Natasha had a questioning hint lacing her words as she said, "I'm not sure I'm overjoyed with the idea of you having mind control abilities."
I waved a hand in dismissal. "That's years off. I plan on using Extremis to do the needed genetic augmentation, and that is at least a decade away from human trials. No, I'm sending you after Kevin because I want a vaccine to his ability developed post-haste, so that all of us can be safe from at least this vector of mind control. And because I want the raping piece of shit locked up, as opposed to fucking over everyone who catches his attention."
"You're the client. Timetable for this?" she replied, sounding just the tiniest bit relieved. Good acting on her part. There was no way I would pick it up if she didn't want me to.
"Considering that my flight is about to board and I have no idea how long this will take, there isn't really a timetable. Just make sure that Kevin doesn't make you his slave; that would be very bad," I said as I rose.
"And what's in Nepal?" Natasha asked, remaining in her seat.
"An old woman that I hope will teach me how to perform parlor tricks. Wish me luck." I finished my drink and headed towards the plane.
"Good luck." She floated after me.
Gaining the services of the Black Widow had been a real coup but worth all the effort and expense. With the fall of the USSR, she had gone from being an agent of the Red Room to being an agent of the KGB, but Russia's economic woes had led to her KGB handler going rogue and selling her services to the highest bidder. When she found out, she killed him and went independent, around three years ago.
Since then, she had quickly made a name for herself as perhaps the world's best contract killer and spy. Getting a meeting hadn't been easy, but I had been putting significant effort into understanding this world's darker underbelly since I became aware of what universe I was in. The right contacts had caused her to show up in my room six months back wondering why I was trying to get in touch. Information on SHIELD and HYDRA had been enough to interest her, but an offer to fix the sterility that the Red Room had inflicted upon her was what got her on retainer. Well, that and a lot of money. Between her, my security detail, the lab facilities, and my cover activities, I was bleeding money, but thankfully, I was also making it.
The first smartphone should be ready for demonstration within the next six months, but the real money was going to come from the video streaming. I was shamelessly abusing future knowledge for ideas, but I didn't really care. Besides, the world could use Netflix. The infrastructure for that should be up and running before the year was out as well, and with Natasha conducting a little industrial espionage and blackmail, it had been relatively easy to gain the digital streaming rights to a significant back-catalog of movies and TV shows.
Until that was up and running though, I was having to supplement my income with dead drug dealers. Having the Black Widow raid stash houses was massive overkill, but one did what one must.
Regardless, with the more immediately time-sensitive issues out of the way, it was time to see if I could learn magic. I might never be Sorcerer Supreme material, but even basic magical abilities would be a huge boon.
With the knowledge that Kamar-Taj was in Kathmandu, Nepal, it had only taken throwing around a relatively small amount of money with the beggars and downtrodden before one of my people had found the location that I now stood outside. It didn't look like anything special; just a little hole in the wall door, and yet, inside it housed an Infinity Stone, and the woman, who in terms of pure, raw, make the universe your bitch, power, was at the very top of Earth's heap.
I debated, again, whether this was the right choice. Unlike with Hansen, I was walking into a situation where I had literally zero control. The Ancient One was so utterly beyond me that a random ant had a better chance of killing me than I did surviving her wrath, if she wanted me dead. And yet, by the same token, trying to avoid her was utterly pointless: she was Earth's Sorcerer Supreme. I had no doubt that she had been aware of my existence, and that I would be standing here outside this door long before I was ever born in this world. She already knew how our interactions would progress. The women held dominion over the Time Stone; to think that time was not her bitch was absurd.
And so with a sigh, I squared my shoulders, turned to my two guards. "Mark, Bruce, wait here, and if I haven't come back out within the next six hours, then go back to the hotel."
Mark said, "You sure boss? What if something happens, and we aren't there to protect you?"
I gave a chuckle at that. "Mark, if the person I am about to meet wanted me dead, then the entire US military couldn't protect me. I'm going to bargain with a god, and I use that word advisedly. Don't worry, you and Bruce have done your jobs more than adequately. In the event that you don't see me again, I've set aside some money for you two. Miles has the details."
With that, I walked up the steps and was about to knock on the door when it opened before me. A woman in flowing red monk's robes silently indicated that I should follow before leading the way into a larger chamber.
Sitting at a low table was a bald woman in white robes, pouring from a tea pot into two cups. "Please, have a seat Mr. Raith. Tea?"
"I would be honored, Ancient One." I took the indicated seat. I waited in silence until she passed the cup, and after a long sip - it was very good tea - I continued. "Delicious. Although I am at something of a loss for words, how does conversation work when one of the participants has already seen every variation on the conversation and knows what will be said before it is said?"
The Ancient One smiled slightly as she drank from her own cup. "I've found that it works best to just speak, for with every word spoken, some possibilities are trimmed. In the end, there is only one outcome, and yet, what that outcome will be is only fixed after it has happened. For example, a hundred years ago the chances of you being here before me were minuscule. A handful of possibilities among countless trillions, and yet, once you drew breath, it became a near certainty that we would be having this conversation."
"An interesting explanation, and one filled with insights that I will treasure. If nothing else, it is a relief that even for one with dominion over time, the future is not fixed. Living in a world where nothing matters because it is all preordained would be pointless, so I will take joy in knowing that existence has at least some point," I said, before taking another sip of my tea. "I have come to ask that you train me in the mystic arts."
After her own sip, the woman gave a small smile and said, "Why else would you come? Before I answer though, I have two questions for you."
"Ask, and I shall answer."
"Why do you want to become a Sorcerer, Mr. Raith?"
I thought for a moment about lying or trying to spin a tale but in the end decided that honesty was the best policy. "Power. Oh, I will never be Sorcerer Supreme; Dr. Strange will replace you in that role when the time comes. And I will never make the sacrifices demanded by those entities you must bargain with to reach the highest levels of mystical power, but even the skills of a relatively modest sorcerer would serve me well in my goals. So, I come to be taught them."
The Ancient One nodded. "And why should I grant you this power, Mr. Raith?"
"Because we are entering an age of gods, and this world will need its champions. Your end is approaching, and while Dr. Strange will defeat the one who calls the Dark Dimension home, that is only one of the lesser in a litany of potential apocalypses. The Asgardians will walk the Earth openly once more, a Celestial will die, the armies of Thanos will invade, Odin will fall and Ragnarok will come. And all of this will be merely a prelude to the wrath of Thanos. He comes for the Infinity Stones, and he will use them to offer half the population of the multiverse to Death herself as a courting gift. All of this will occur within the next few decades.
"I seek power because I know what threats are coming, and I will stand against them. If I have to tear down the heavens and flay gods to protect humanity, then I will. And yet, that task takes power on a scale that all but a handful of this world's population would consider pure fiction. Humanity's other champions may hate me for what I do in the name of power, they may label me a villain, and yet, I will still do what needs to be done."
I answered honestly and fully, for here in the heart of the Sorcerer Supreme's power, with just the two of us present, I had little doubt that no one could eavesdrop.
"Conviction. Good. You will be interesting, Mr. Raith. It is a pity that I won't be around to see what you become in the fullness of time. You will have your training. Finish your tea, and I will start breaking your mind," she said with a positively evil smile.
Once I set the cup down, her hand lashed out faster than I could track and smacked into my chest. Suddenly, I was floating behind my slumped over body while feeling like I was tingling all over. The Ancient One's soul seemed to walk out of her body as she joined me on the Astral Plane. She struck me again before I could say anything, and my soul went spinning through realities.
It went on for countless eons, and yet, it was instant. What I saw defied any description I could give; the worst acid trip wouldn't even begin to compare to dimensions where words did not exist to even start describing what I saw. When it was over, and I found myself back with the Ancient One, I said, "Whoa, that was trippy as fuck. Why did you have me experience it though?"
"To use the mystical arts, you need a connection to things that can do what you want. Hand gestures and words are meaningless without the power to back them up, and humans don't naturally have any power to alter reality with nothing but their will.
"Agamotto was the first human Sorcerer, and he became one by finding the Time Stone one day. It took him back to the very instant of creation, and to the very instant of cessation. At those two points, there is only one place, one reality, and when the human soul is exposed to a reality, it absorbs the smallest fraction of that reality while creating the smallest of links to that reality. Thanks to the Time Stone, Agamotto was connected to every possible reality, and over time, he learned to harness that power to his own ends. Eventually, he even learned how to temper and direct the process so that he could expose others to those infinite realities, and since then, we have all experienced that trip," she explained. "Congratulations, Mr. Raith, you are now a Sorcerer."
"Power without the knowledge to control it is nothing but the death and destruction of all you care about. I may have the potential to be a sorcerer now, but I must dispute my possession of the title for the moment," I countered.
"As you wish. I'll have Wong show you to your quarters and provide you some introductory texts to read. Don't stay up too late reading though. Your real training starts bright and early tomorrow morning, and you won't want to be tired."
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A/N:
As I said, this is going to be a power fantasy and I make no bones about it. Do not read if you want a good story, read if you want a mildly amusing time waster to veg on one day. Hope you like my explanation for where "magic" comes from. It will be expanded on some more in the future but that is the basic idea.
Betad/Edited by: Hmmaster
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Chapter 3
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I tried to listen to the Ancient One, I really did, but magic was just too fucking cool, and so I found myself going through what appeared to be unarmed combat drills in the courtyard with the other initiates while having been awake for twenty or so hours.
The books had explained the fundamentals of how magic worked, and it was interesting. Power was drawn from whatever reality best served a given spell, channeled through the body, and directed by the mind. Raw power was something that everyone was equal in as a general rule. You needed to do something like cut a deal with the god of a given realm if you wanted to draw more than a bare fraction of power from it, but how much power could be thrown into a given spell relied on how much power you could channel through your body. A stronger, tougher, more durable body could handle more power, and so a Sorcerer needed to be in good shape. How that power was then expressed and directed was the realm of the mind. So a strong body and a strong mind was required if one wanted to be a strong Sorcerer.
After several hours of exercise, the Ancient One came and got me. "I told you to get some rest. Hopefully you will listen in the future."
I replied as we walked, "I'll try, but magic is simply interesting."
"Well then, let's start you off with one of the first pieces of magic that I teach. How would you like to learn to teleport?" she asked as we reached a side chamber with what appeared to be random objects strewn about.
"Teleportation seems cool, although one would suppose that teleportation would be pretty advanced," I offered as she dug out a small object that looked like two rings joined on top by a piece of metal.
"It is, and it isn't. Teleportation without a sling ring is far beyond your capabilities. With a sling ring, it is incredibly simple." She tossed me the ring as she spoke. "Put it on."
I examined the ring for a moment before sliding it on. "What is it, and how does it work?"
"Physically, it is nothing but a bit of bronze. Mystically though, it is a direct link to the Time Stone. The link doesn't provide the required power, but it does handle the vast majority of the spell direction. With the ring, you can effectively step through space."
I was stunned and said, "Wait, how does that work? I mean, wouldn't that be the power of the Space Stone?"
"You know that Time and Space are linked, right?" the Ancient One snarkily asked. "I assume that you are aware of Einstein's work."
"Sure, but I don't quite get how the Time Stone is allowing teleportation through space. And can a sling ring let you step through time?" I asked.
"As I said, go back in time far enough, and every space is in the same place. The sling ring uses the power you provide to open the most minuscule portal back to the instant of creation, and then uses the energy present then to create a much larger portal between two locations in the same time. It's effectively a wormhole. As for stepping through time, no, that is beyond the power of a sling ring. Existing outside of your time makes you a walking paradox, and only with the full power of the Time Stone can you overcome the issues inherent in being a walking paradox. You can use the ring to accelerate or decelerate time in a limited area for a small duration however, if you know what you are doing."
She held out her right hand, her own sling ring extended forward. Holding her right hand still before her, she started waving her left in a circle. In a few moments, a flaming circle appeared in the air, and on the other side of it was a snowy mountain cliff. "Since the sling rings are designed for this, all you need to do is concentrate on a detailed mental picture of your desired location and will the portal to open."
It was two weeks before I managed my first portal, and a month more before I learned that you could effectively "store" locations in a ring. If both you and that specific ring were at a location, then with a very minor exertion of power, you could effectively fix that exact location into the ring, so that you could return to that exact location without the need for a clear image of your destination.
I was a full time student of the Ancient One for nearly two years, not that I lived in Kamar-Taj the whole time. With the ring, I was never more than a step away from the place, and so I was much like a college student who lived off-campus. Could I have progressed faster if I dedicated all day, every day to learning magic? Yes. Could I dedicate that kind of time and keep my other plans on track? No.
Still, relatively little of note happened during those two years beyond relocating my research facilities to under the surface of Mars. Magic was a hell of a tool. With some high quality pictures courtesy of NASA, I became the first human, to my knowledge at least, to walk on the red planet. More magic opened up a nice, large, hole in the ground and reshaped steel into my desired structure before the surface was returned to its natural state. No one, not even the people working there, needed to know that facility's actual location.
Kilgrave's parents spent their days locked up under effective house arrest in my hidden lab, while they worked on understanding Kilgrave's mind control virus. Maya Hansen was chugging along with Extremis and making slow but steady progress. Considering that I don't think it was seeing human testing until around 2010 in canon, I had no complaints on that front. All in all, I was fairly confident in my security arrangements given that people only got to or from the facility when I chose to open a portal.
On the business front, things had been progressing nicely. With sixteen years worth of future memories to draw on for ideas and a Black Widow to create less than legal advantages, it wasn't hard to build up Raith Industries. Our current moneymaker was Netflix, but the various patents that had been the result of telling the scientists and engineers under my employ what I wanted developed also brought in a nice chunk of change. I had thought about bringing out the iPhone under my own brand, but the infrastructure costs were just too high, and so I had licensed the patents to Stark instead.
Now though, well, it was time to advance my more important plans. Natasha had finally tracked down Ulysses Klaue, and it was time to make all of that nice shiny vibranium disappear into the black hole that was Mars Base.
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A/N:
I told you it was a power fantasy. Besides, if you have teleportation without range limits and want secure facilities then you may as well locate them on another planet. It is such a nice security boost.
There will be more time skips in the future as well, simply because Iron Man 1 isn't set until 2009. Even Matt Murdock doesn't start law school until 2003.
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Chapter 4
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I was in the Kilgrave lab on Mars with Natasha and the labs two primary scientists, Albert and Louise, standing by my side. In my hand was a clear vial with a purplish-red liquid inside, while Natasha was examining a perfume bottle.
"And you are sure this works?" I asked the two of them.
"Yes, we've managed to isolate the virus that Kevin's body produces. The perfume interacts with the wearer's natural scent to produce a unique chemical tag that interacts with the virus and triggers it. One whiff of the perfume and anyone dosed with the liquid will be under the perfume wearer's complete control for twelve hours. Black Widow has worked with us to test it, and it has functioned perfectly in all human trials," Albert explained as I held the first concrete fruits of two years of labor and nearly seventy million dollars in funding. "Although I would like it noted that we have no testing data involving enhanced individuals, so we can't guarantee performance with regards to them."
"Application method?" I asked.
Louise indicated an assortment of items on the table; small pills, a liquid, what looked like gas grenades, and even some things that looked like band-aids.
I picked one up. "What are these?"
"DMSO slap patches. Put one of those band-aids on someone's skin, and the virus will be in their bloodstream within seconds and into their brain within a few minutes," she explained.
"Ah. Interesting. How long before the gas becomes inert? And can it be absorbed through the skin, or does it require inhalation?" I continued with the questions, checking to make sure that the memos I had received had been accurate.
"Ten minutes and just skin contact, but it is both colorless and odorless in the needed concentrations," she offered.
"Very nice, good work. How are we coming on the vaccine research?" I queried, thinking that it was a pity it was still incomplete, as with it, those gas grenades would be very useful.
Albert cleared his throat. "At least another ten months. This virus is like nothing I have ever seen before. It is blood-borne until it passes into the brain, where it infects those parts of the brain responsible for motor function and creates what appears to be an entirely new structure that connects virtually every part of the brain. When an order is given, the new structure seems to hijack the host's brain to interpret it and then sends the needed commands down the nervous system.
"We are looking at two potential approaches to a vaccine: one that will kill the virus in the blood and the other that will destroy it in the brain. Both look to be viable, but neither is ready for human trials yet. That the virus doesn't work on anything but humans is seriously slowing down our research."
I nodded. "Keep working on it and write a memo stating how many you think you need. The world has plenty of criminals it would be better off without. Where are we on the genetic mapping?"
"The virus is fully mapped, and we have a full DNA record for Kevin, but isolating what gene combination caused him to produce the virus is very slow-going. At least five more years, unless we make some kind of major breakthrough," Louise answered.
I thought over some of my future plans for a bit, thinking about the practicalities of speeding some of them up. "What would the time table look like if your computer processing power increased by several orders of magnitude?"
"If it increases to the point where we can efficiently model the entire gene-map and compute what the results of given changes would be on the body, then it would shave years off of that prediction. Between Dr. Hansen's team and our own people, we have a pretty good grasp on accurately modeling the macro scale effects of DNA changes. But even with the supercomputers running perfectly, it still takes days to complete the model for each gene-map. Speed up that process, and pretty much everything we are doing will have its completion dates moved forward significantly," she explained.
I took a moment to think it over and then gave a decisive nod. "Make the long-duration-tailored Kilgrave virus your top priority. I have someone in mind with exotic technology that will solve the computing problem, but there is no chance he works with us of his own volition."
"We'll need the DNA sample fairly soon, then. We can have it at the point where individual tailoring is needed in a month or so," Albert answered.
"Then we know what Natasha's next mission will be. But for now, the two of us are off to work," I said, before Natasha and I left the lab.
As we walked towards the gym, I said, "I'm thinking that you meet up with Klaue tonight, and while he is out, I open a portal into his bedroom and dose his drinks with Kilgrave. Then you bring him back, get him to have a drink, and he is under your thrall. Just have him take you to the vibranium vault and take a few pictures for me, before heading back to his room. I'll empty the vault, we drain his accounts, and then we kill him before I bring in a few thousand pounds of C4 and blow the place sky high."
"It should work, but why kill him before we blow him up?" Natasha asked.
"Because Wakanda really wants his head, and I might need a future favor from them, so kill him and preserve his head in cold storage against future need." I explained, before asking about Natasha's primary project. "How are the plans for the Black Thorn coming?"
"They're coming, but we still need the drug supply. Without a steady and secure supply, taking over the drug trade carries too much risk of exposure. I've completed preliminary selection for the kill teams, and I think we can question them under Kilgrave to weed out any spies or dishonest applicants. Distribution shouldn't be an issue once the kill teams get to work. Assuming that we have a supply, the street gangs and syndicates will buy from us because we will be the only game in town. Laundering the projected profits is going to be difficult though," she explained, discussing our plan to take over the drug trade first in the US, but eventually in most of the first world. Stopping the flow of drugs was impossible so long as the demand existed, so I would prefer to control it instead of letting everyone else get the money and influence.
I sighed slightly. "My idea for buying gold in Africa for cash and then moving the gold into Europe won't work then?"
"It will for a percentage of the take, but we are looking at tens of billions per year in hard cash, perhaps more. Short of the willing help of a national government with a major economy to launder it through, we are looking at close to a decade to build up the front companies and identities. It would be easier to use electronic transfers, but the security concerns make that nonviable."
I hummed. "Well, lets keep working on it. If our next acquisition goes well, then we should be able to divert the needed scientific knowledge to the synthetic drug production. Who knew it was so hard to produce commercial quantities of synthetic cocaine?"
We had reached the gym and headed towards the training mats for our daily session of Natasha beating the shit out of me in a spar. She asked, "Whose the target?" even as her right fist came rocketing towards my head.
I diverted it with my arm while moving to lock her leg and punch her in the stomach. "Hank Pym. He's a super genius who developed a formula for what he calls Pym Particles, and those let you reduce the distance between atoms in an object along with doing weird things to mass. In simple terms, with them you can shrink an entire office building into a carry on and stick it in the plane's overhead bin without issue. The man and his wife were heroes working with SHIELD back in the day, but she sacrificed her life to stop an ICBM headed for the US, and then he retired."
Natasha reversed the leg lock, dropped me onto the ground, and had her fist about to punch through my trachea in an instant before she said, "Seems interesting, although I'm not exactly sure of the use. I assume you have a more complete briefing package put together?"
I got back to my feet. "I'll get one completed in the next day or so. And yeah, I think his tech is going to really complement your abilities." With that, we readied ourselves to continue sparring for nearly two hours.
We ended up delaying until the next day, but as the sun set off the Venezuelan cost, Ulysses Klaue's current base of operations, Natasha was eating dinner with him on his boat. I quickly popped into his bedroom and dropped Kilgrave into all of the drinks on his private bar, before returning to Mars and waiting by the nearly microscopic portal I opened up under his bed, so that I could hear what transpired in the room.
It was almost two hours later that they entered. A few minutes of idle conversation between the Widow and her mark passed, and she said, "I've got him."
I opened a portal over the bed and pushed through a hidden camera for her to use.
A moment later, she said, "Change of plans. He has the vault wired with surveillance video that he can access from his computer here. Come look at the screen, and you can port right in."
I did just that, and after ascertaining that the vault cameras could only be viewed from this station, I opened a portal and walked through. I quickly started emptying the vault, for the four hundred and seventy nine pounds of vibranium present in it had a market price of around 2.2 billion dollars. Not that I was going to sell so much as a gram of this precious metal. In a handful of minutes, I had the vault emptied and was back in Klaue's room.
Natasha was at the computer, and so I asked, "How's it going? Vault's empty."
She was quiet for about thirty seconds. "So are his accounts, almost seven hundred million, all told."
I opened a portal to the armory on Mars. "Start moving the explosives then, while I deal with Klaue."
With that, I cast a spell to create a glowing orange blade and chopped off his head in a single swing. The blade cauterized the cut so rapidly that not even a drop of blood spilled.
As I dismissed my blade and helped Natasha with the C4, I thought back to the early days of my magic training. I had found it odd that Sorcerers fought mostly with magically created blades, as opposed to fireballs and the like, but the explanation provided made sense. When you threw a fireball, you needed to create the stable spell structure, fill it with the desired energy, and direct it to the target. At which point it would explode and release all of that energy at once. If, however, you created a whip and filled the structure with that same amount of energy, then it would easily burn through whatever it contacted while the spell structure would stay intact, and no energy would be wasted on the environment. It was simply much more energy efficient.
With the timers set for thirty seconds we returned to Mars, the news reports the next morning made mention of a massive explosion on a ship off the Venezuelan cost. It was suspected to be smuggling weapons.
-x-x-x-
A/N:
Yah, shiny super metal. Who wants to see the Black Widow in a Vibranium super suit equipped with Pym Particles?
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