Plans

As soon as I finished my greetings, Edward passed by my right, taking the paper on his way to the living room leaving Norman and I alone as we ate in silence. Halfway through the meal, Norman decided to start the conversation. "I heard that you plan on attending Empire State University in their department of chemistry, and take several other bachelor degrees online right?"

"Yes, that's indeed what I intend" I responded

"Hum... I see.". Appearing to be lost in his thought, I raised my head and met Norman's eyes. He stared at me as I stared back unblinkingly. "Very well, but remember you are an Osborn; I expect nothing but your best in any situation. Your actions are tied to me, my name and my company."

"Alright, father." I replied concisely. From our interactions during the past years, I realized that Norman never addressed me as his son, not that I particularly cared. It was just one of the many things I observed from him. Like how his legacy seemed to be all that he cared for. He also never talks about my mother in this life, not even addressing her with a pronoun.

"I plan on giving you access to the fund we set up for you. Over the years, I also added your share of the earnings the blueprints you gave the company have garnered. Have Edward guide you and start doing business but in moderation."

"Thank you father, how is the company? It'll be the tenth year of Oscorp creation next Saturday" I asked.

"All's well. I instructed Edward to take your measurements and have a new suit made, It should be arriving before the Gala. You will be accompanying me to the celebration."

We slowly quietened down, and we sunk in a comfortable silence. Silence never bothered me and neither did it Norman. We finished our meal just before 8pm. We each went our separate ways; him upstairs to his office and me to the basement.

With my palm on the pad besides the door, I entered my labs. The layout of the basement was fairly simple. I divided the basement floor in two rectangles of the same proportions. The chemistry and biology laboratory was in the upper left section, lower left is where I set up computers and the right side has been dedicated to robotics and mechanics. Each area has been delimited by bulletproof translucent glass in case of accidents. Getting down the stairs, I continued forward and pushed the door labeled BCL to observe a drop of my blood I extracted. I spent the last week analyzing my blood one last time and the result again gave me nothing, the blood extracted from my depowered parts were utterly normal.

At first, I though that my equipment was not advanced enough but I had to face the truth at last. Noting in my blood explains my immortality and healing, Since, I wasn't an expert in the X-gene, I didn't do much research with that direction in mind. Back when I was 9, I started felling a tingling sensation when I touched someone. Like in the moment of contact, I subconsciously had a choice, but I never made the choice in question because the people I came in contact with were just normal human beings. I concluded that I had a variant of Rogue's comic book counterpart powers because in the movies, she could only absorb a mutant's power, and only temporally.

Through my numerous blood extraction, I discovered that once a part of my body leaves me, it still has a connection to my realm and I could sense it, spiritually. In my realm, I could sever the connection, which causes that part to crumble and disintegrate. In my normal form, the results are even more shocking; my blood evaporated as soon as it leaves my body. I tried isolating it, freezing it, nothing worked. Silver lining, I will never encounter my clone or clones strolling through Time's Square. Sighing, I opened the laboratory door and headed straight to my computer space to work on my personal projects.

Apart from some Oscorp designs, most of my free time was put into creating drones specialized in mobility and stealth for me to get a sample from the Hulk and Abomination fight. I also undertook three projects for myself; analyzing my blood and see if my X-gene awakened was one of them, getting the atomic structure of the Badassium or Starkium was the second. Which in truth, was pretty easy after I got a look at the 1974 Stark expo model and followed the same steps Tony did in Iron man 2, except I did it in my head. The actual creation of the element will have to wait till I got my own hideout, which shouldn't take long now that I had a lot of funds. Last on the list was create an A.I and unstable particles but the formula of the particles required much more research that I though, neither the movies nor the comics had gone in detail on their creation. The A.I creation was more difficult in a way because it required more meticulous work. I estimated that I would need one year at best and three at worst for it to be up and running. At present, I just have a slightly more advanced Alexia instead of an A.I.

On the people side of things, professor Xavier was an accomplished physiatrist. He hadn't created his school yet and the general public was not aware of the existence of mutants. My search for one Grayson Creed, founder of the group known as Friends Of Humanity proved that he didn't exist in this universe. Additionally, I hacked in the military and General Ross's files to compile a record of all his crimes. Not to forget William Stryker, who at present is an army lieutenant general deployed for a government secret operation: Project Weapon X, two months ago. His son and wife were still alive, his son being 14 this year, I could absorb his powers before his father discovers them. However, I didn't know if I could absorb a mutant power before it manifested.

Moreover, I kept track of Bolivar Trask, and he hadn't started project Sentinel as yet, I would have to kill him within a few years and delete his files if he has any. But is killing Trask enough to stop the sentinels from making their apparition? Or are the sentinels just going to get replaced by another codename project? I don't know but I prefer acting against a known enemy then not act because of an eventuality that may never happen. Then again, if I do kill him, I would have to be on the look out for such projects getting in the hands of people that would use it for their own gains. I was a little giddy just thinking about killing a human being, what would it be like? Would I feel guilty? Dirty? I honestly didn't know but I was eager to find out.

Glancing at the clock, it was already 1pm, I put project A.I down and got working on transforming my drones into killing machines, K-drones. Entering the robotics lab, I tapped on my phone, causing the glass to act as a one way mirror. I closed the door, and set my eyes on the dozen drones laid on the table opposite to me. I based their design on Mysterio's (Spider-Man far from home), but black instead of white. I also wanted to recreate his hologram technology for my drones because why not. They already had the best stealth system: optical and digital. The drones are encompassed with retro-reflective panels and are undetectable by means of present technologies, besides maybe Wakanda tech. The drones could also create an electro-magnetic pulse before self-destructing if detected. All I had left was do the same with guns then integrate them to the drones. The next step of my drone project was to create bots, small enough to be invisible to the naked eye, that will act as my eyes and ears. I had many ideas on that front, maybe steal Pym particles and formula to reduce my bot's size or figure out a way to create nanotech. Either way, I would need to finish my A.I to make my drones act as one because of the magnitude I was aiming for.

I worked until my 6am alarm sounded. I took off my shirt and headed to a room on the right corner of my lab, specially designed for energy training. It was a 3x3m in dimensions with nothing save a raised platform in the middle. I sat down on the platform then took a deep breath. Energy rushed immediately in my body until I reached my limit of my energy capacity, then I pushed further. Squeezing inch by inch as my muscles and body cried in pain only for the pain to transform into a feeling of soreness, again and again. My base strength, speed and durability were being enhanced towards superhuman levels. I knew there would come a day that I would be near invulnerable even in my depowered form. In which, I was already near human peak in term of strength and speed, with durability not far behind.

Three hours later, I released all the energy, save for the bit to keep barrier I enveloped my mind with in case someone tried to read my mind. I couldn't tell if it would work but I had seen Frost and Iceman block mental assaults after transforming. I once tried to transform my brain into light energy, and flame energy, the two attributes of my realm and they resulted respectively in option one: my brain running at light speed, and sucking so much energy off my body that I almost became a mummy. I regenerated just as quickly but with such perception of speed, I perceived time more than one hundred thousand times slower. Option two: turning into Johnny Storm or blackout, I could turn parts or my whole body in light or flame but if I turned a single part that was inside my body in flame, the organs nearby will have to adapt. With my brain 'flaming on', the liquid in my cranium evaporated and built up pressure. I had to either to completely transform in flame or be brain dead till my body repaired itself. The joys of being immortal.

Then, I practiced my energy manipulation and projection, I had discovered that I could create an entry/exit point for my realm in my immediate surroundings. I generated a ray of energy that I moved in a series of irregular loops giving the illusion that the ray were passing through my body when what I was actually doing was create an entry point to my realm every time the ray was in proximity of my body and an exit point in the loops trajectory for the ray to exit my realm and continue the loops. While simultaneously creating a flame floating above my hand. As time passed, I increased the number of rays and also altered the shape and size of the flame, having them shift into various forms, animals and people. Mentally drained, I exited the basement, and headed to the back of our manor to begin my combat training of the day. I wanted to fight like it was second nature for my body, which is why I had my physical immediately after my concentration exercises, less thinking, more fighting like my teacher likes to say.