The New Year did bring a few surprises with it but nothing phenomenal. The least of things that happened was my net worth increasing to 300 million dollars, but I couldn't care less at this point. Money truly had lost its value to me.
I had over 25 billion dollars in ghost accounts from my past year heist and when I massacred an auction full of crime lords.
All across the world, people would think that I was the most lucky entrepreneur of the time, since all the success was attributed to Marky's genius in strategizing and business know-how. Poor sap was over the moon with his new found fame and worked even harder to bring more fame and renown to his name.
'All according to plan.'
Aside from Marky's lifetime misfortune, and the movement on awareness of metahuman in the media nowadays, everything else I took with disregard.
Ororo finally made the decision to move out of the Mansion after one of our recent dates. Apparently, Emma had been discreetly teleporting some metahumans to Krakoa and having them help make the place habitable.
The amount of work force and money needed to make it resemble even a backwater city was astronomical that not even Frost Pharmaceuticals could handle.
This had driven the White Queen to actually disregard the earlier threat I gave to both her and Raven, to come to my doorpost after she found out that trying to reach me through my company had absolutely no chance of working.
I didn't even know how many floors the building had or how many workers were in it. Hell, I didn't even know how many members of the Board of Directors I had.
I don't know how she got my address because I was sure Ororo didn't give it to her since she would have told me, but I can't say I was surprised given who she was.
The reason for her visit had been to see if I could help them, sort of like a monetary aid.
While she made it abundantly clear that the island was a very big help, she alone with just Raven and Ororo would not be able to do anything that would amount to something substantial.
They were trying to build a city and then expand from there but the problem was that she was the only one with enough financial capabilities to even think on the matter.
I had two choices then: one was to be the usual asshole that I was on a cranky day and the other was to be the mellow person I was gradually becoming.
It's not like I had any use of money and I doubt I ever will, so I gave her a whopping 20 billion dollars. She had been quite surprised that I would do something like that but I made it pretty clear that what I gave her was synonymous to hush money.
What else could I give them?
I already gave them an island bigger than most countries for free and 20 billion dollars for the initial development.
My basically donating the living island of Krakoa to them wasn't a stupid choice on my part, but rather an absolute genius move.
I was not leader material and definitely did not give enough fucks about what happened to them to want to care about their general well being. That was the prime reason why I did not take any sort of helping stance when it came to the metas.
I like the limited peace I had, thank you very much.
After driving out Emma, which was me warping her back to her office in Manhattan, which I think scared the crap out of her based on what Ororo told me, I finally closed out the chapter of the metahuman from my life.
They were better at solving their problems on their own. They had numerous groups like the X-Men, Raven's Brotherhood and Emma's Hellions. That was more than enough for any army on earth.
Closing the page, one of the few things of interest was what happened to me.
As it currently was, I had a feeling that I wasn't actually human anymore. The amount of energy in my cells were all working together to keep me in my peak state.
Other than a few defining features on my face such as my new haircut and how I styled my beards, I didn't look a second older than I did two years ago.
Yelena had been the one to point it out casually once but when I looked into it, I found out that my cells were constantly rejuvenating. The amount of energy I gained every day was easily twice the amount of energy I lost on a stressful day.
And I could feel it.
All I needed was that final push and I would evolve. This would be my first major evolution and I knew what catalyst was needed for it.
I could forcefully evolve if I wanted because the amount of energy in my body, if each and every single unit of it was used, was enough to sustain the entire earth's power supply for decades.
The reason I didn't push forward to evolve was because I had a feeling that it would not be worth it and would actually make the next plateau that much harder to reach.
I had been delaying my evolution for weeks now because I knew exactly what could and would go wrong.
It was the reason why…
"So you finally decided? Why now?" I sat in front of the Ancient One after I decided to rip the band-aid off.
"I have nothing to do. I've pushed it far enough." I said as I poured tea for the both of us this time.
"Do you understand what the consequences of your actions would bring?" She looked solemn as she asked me that.
"I am fully aware. I can grow strong, yes. But it would take too long. The reason why I even grew this fast in the past six months was because of the Space Stone, you know that." Why most of my abilities grew at a steady pace as they always had, my spatial abilities alone made me that much stronger that I could defeat the me from any point in last year with just using space manipulation.
Having the Space Stone in hand would magnify that to planetary at least.
"I know that. But what I don't know is why would you insist on doing it when you know what could possibly happen? There are other ways…"
"There are other ways, but none of them are this fast. You of all people should know that I am running out of time. We are running out of time." I said.
"But what about the universe? It might end up being destroyed due to your actions." She asked flatly.
I chuckled as she said that. "Since when did you care about the universe?"
"I care about it very much, Mr. Cross."
"No, you care about it when it affects the Earth." It was the truth. She wasn't a messiah that would care for all. The Sorcerer Supreme's duty was protecting the Earth from threats. It was only when the safety of the Earth was in danger were they concerned. A healthy way to live if I was ever asked. They were almost as reclusive as the Wakandans.
"As long as you are prepared, then I have nothing to say against it." I nodded at what she said and stood up to leave.
I stopped and turned to her, "I'll be needing your help."
"I know." She said, this time with a smile.
…
I held the Space Stone in my palms as the countdown kept ticking.
"Remind me again why you are absorbing an Infinity Stone?" Strange looked as if I had grown another head.
"Because I need to, Strange." I replied.
"That's not an answer. Do you understand what it is that you are doing? Have you even read the books at all? This is mass genocide!" On a very rare occasion, Dr. Strange lost his cool.
"I assure you, Strange, I am perfectly aware of what will happen."
Wong stood to the side and remained quiet after chiding me against the actions I was about to take. The Ancient One remained calmly seating forgoing her beverage this time.
"Why? Why do you want more power than what you already have… and why are you even siding with him?! You of all people should be against this." He looked between me and the Ancient One before giving up and retreating.
"It's time." Better get this out of the way and focus on other things.
The three masters, the only ones I had some degree of trust in, stood around me and started a spell.
"You can proceed." At the Ancient One's call, I started.
I must have been crazy when I first thought of absorbing one of the Infinity Stones, but there had been a flaw in that plan.
I couldn't absorb the infinity of space, there was no way that was possible.
So instead of trying to drain the energy from the Stones, how about I fuse with the Stones.
The Stones were crystallize essences of an aspect of the universe.
So rather than absorb an infinite amount of energy, it was more easier to directly fuse with the Stone. Basically, I was swallowing it rather than eating it.
And to do that, I needed the Ancient One's help. I couldn't just swallow the stone and expect myself to fuse with it as there was no way that something like that would work.
I cut open my palm and put the stone inside the wound before closing it.
The moment the wound closed, the Ancient One along with Strange and Wong restarted their spell. I felt as if a cool breeze blew past me but I pushed that aside and focused on the energy that was entering my body.
The way this would work according to what me and the Ancient One theorized, was that I would draw out the entirety of the energy in my body, down to the last unit, and fuse it with what was entering my body.
Since I was the one fusing with the stone and not the other way around, and also the fact that my energy was negligent compared to the energy of the stone, it was rather easy. Another plus side was that the Stone didn't have any sentient mind inside it.
Sure they all had some sort of intelligence, but it wasn't what would be called sentient but rather instinct.
"Concentrate, Mr. Cross. Try not to lose yourself." I heard the Ancient One's warning in my mind but before I could ask what she meant, I felt as if I was dumped inside a vat of viscous liquids.
I tried to crawl my way out but the more I tried the more I fell in quicker so I just stopped.
As I submerged in the feeling of sinking, I felt as if… I was endless. It was a new feeling.
With the Space Stone, I had the feeling that the rest of the universe was just a thought away but this was different. It felt as if I could feel and see the vastness of the universe.
Before I could try to do anything, I found myself in a rather familiar place.
My mind.
Compared to the last time I was here, which was two years ago, what I was seeing was way different than what it was.
The stars, almost looking like a galaxy millions of light-years away, were all lit.
"Back to the basics, I guess."
I had an infinite amount of energy at my disposal. There was no way I could fit them all in so rather than have them be their independent star, I drew all of the energy from them and proceeded to create what was essentially a black hole in the middle of space, where I would dump all of the energy and have them mix together. Pretty efficient that way.
"Guess I'll be here for the next few hours."
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