[Main POV]
From January 1992 – August 2001, we hit our golden years, a decade of dominance.
Artemis and I continued to compete in the Summer and Winter Olympics, dominating in both. Unlike our first Olympics, we were more chill, but still won gold in everything we did.
Combined, we had over 400 gold medals. When we won our fourth gold medal in the marathon in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, I genuinely felt bad for our competition.
Apollo Enterprises was also doing quite well. I could give a monologue regarding each invention, but I'll give you the CliffsNotes instead.
In terms of inventions, we released the smartwatch in 1994. In 1996, we released an electric self-driving car. And in 1998, we opened nuclear fusion plants, providing power for a cheap price. On an unrelated note, I was now banned from stepping foot in an OPEC nation.
Our collection of applications grew as well. Along with Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon, we released a smaller application every year. Starting in 1993, we released one every year: PayPal, Spotify, Wikipedia, Twitch, Twitter, Steam, Robinhood, GitHub, and Desmos. All these applications did exceptionally, except for GitHub, which was used regularly by developers, and Desmos, which was religiously used by 12th grade students in taking Calc.
A Song of Ice and Fire and Harry Potter books were continued to be released until the end of their respective series (1992 for A Song of Ice and Fire, and 1997 for Harry Potter). I decided to stop 'writing' books after them.
I had exhausted the list of fictional book series I knew, and it would only go downhill after Harry Potter. Apollo Enterprises still published books, just not my books.
However, I didn't hold back when it came to games. War Thunder, Call of Duty and Mortal Combat were all put on Steam and on Xbox. Some mobile games we made are Plants vs. Zombies, Clash of Clans, Pokemon Go, Candy Crush, Angry Birds and Jetpack Joyride, along with simpler games like 2048 and Flappy Bird. In addition, Apollo Enterprises worked with Nintendo (through Yuka as a liaison) to make Mario Kart and Super Smash Brawl. However, instead of just Nintendo characters, Apollo Enterprise characters were included as well.
Apollo Enterprises also released Pokemon games every two years. So, by 2001, we were on generation 8 (Sword and Shield).
On YouTube premium, animated movies were also released. Sorry Walt, I took your entire lineup. Our princesses in order of release included: Ariel, Jasmine, Belle, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida, Elsa, and Moana. Other animated classics include the Lion King, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Cars, Ratatouille, Up, and Zootopia.
In order to secure Apollo Enterprises' cinematic future, I ended up getting Marvel. Unfortunately, I didn't get the popular characters like Spider Man, or the X-Men, I ended up with the unpopular characters like the Avengers (the characters that would end up making trillions in the box office).
To make sure Apollo Enterprises didn't look like a predatory monopoly, we didn't outright buy Marvel. Instead, I loaned them money, delaying their collapse. Then when they went bankrupt, Apollo Enterprises collected the IPs as debt collection.
Which was good thing, since I already wrote the scripts for the future movies (with some fixes of course (hindsight is 2023)). They were set to be made starting at around 2005.
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As for the anime, Kuroko's Basketball, Sword Art Online (just the first season), My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, The Devil is a Part Timer, Golden Time, and My Hero Academia were all released between 1992 to 2000.
But this year I released the big hitters. Attack on Titan, Avatar the Last Airbender, and Love is War.
Attack on Titan was the most mainstream anime in my past life. The mystery, the betrayal, the themes, everything was on point.
Avatar the Last Airbender technically wasn't an anime, but it wasn't exactly a cartoon either. It was something in-between. This show adopted Eastern cultures to create a fantastic epic story, a modern Odyssey.
Love is War was the best romantic comedy anime. Period. While I wanted to make Love is War earlier, there were certain cultural references that I needed to exist. After waiting over 10 years, the high school environment had sufficiently changed for the show to be viable.
Attack on Titan was heavily advertised using clips from the Berlin's revolution. Olivia's footage was finally paying off.
Cavalry charges were shown on a split screen alongside the charge of the Volkswagens. My songs played over clips of the scouts getting ready for battle, as the wings of freedom waved on their cloaks.
Additionally, I made sure not to show any titans in the trailers. The audience was in for one hell of shock when they watched Eren's stepmom eat Eren's mom.
Love is War was advertised as a love story between Artemis and I. While not outright stated, we voiced the main characters and the opening song was the one Artemis sang for me in Berlin. So it was pretty obvious to everyone.
Thus far, we had kept our relationship on the downlow, so the public was eager for any slivers of information they could get, leading to the show being a big hit.
Due to the two monsters it was competing against, Avatar the Last Airbender was overlooked by most ordinary people. However, it still had a loyal following, and I expected everyone to discover it eventually.
All three shows turned out well. Which was good, because after the shows ended, I was out.
Apollo Enterprises could run without me. We had an army of people managing everything I created, and another army producing new shows, inventions, and applications.
Apollo Enterprises also collaborated with other companies to automate their production lines and improve the technology in other buildings. The best part was the security on most of these systems was protected by passwords managed by Apollo Enterprise servers. So, I could easily hack into basically anything I wanted.
That, plus the hundreds of billions from satellites (providing internet, telecom service, weather observations, etc.), made it virtually impossible for the company to fail, or for a competitor to start up without our interference.
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Artemis Enterprises was also doing well. There were five departments: Aid, Community, Conservation, Education, and Military.
The Aid Department handled disasters and hunger. One of their goals was to ensure no American child would go hungry. In all low-income schools, students would receive healthy food at no personal cost.
Their other goal was to help people after natural disasters. It was kind of funny when Artemis Enterprise workers showed up before FEMA after Hurricane Andrew hit (1992).
The Community Department oversaw the preservation of historical and cultural sites and was the only Department that operated internationally. Along with their regular work, they bought a bunch of land in major cities and constructed grand temples, dedicated to Artemis and me. Of course, they couldn't stick our names in front of it, so they were always dedicated to Helios and Selene. Needless to say, this department had the heaviest concentration of cult members.
The Conservation Department is self-explanatory. It worked to conserve natural habitats and the animals that lived within them. Artemis spent the most time with this particular department, and we regularly went on trips to the places we were conserving. Since Artemis Enterprises bought the land, these places doubled as our private parks. Corrupt? Yes. Was it worth it? Also, yes.
The Education Department focused on teaching students the most up to date information in the technology field. In other words, it created a fresh crop of students to be hired by Apollo Enterprises.
The Military Department worked with veterans to help them get jobs after their service. This mostly meant working for Apollo Enterprises Security Forces. At this point we had a 2 million strong army armed with sci-fi equipment. Piotr was in charge of this Department, while Dankus continued to head the Security Forces.
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Personally, I had more money in the bank than most countries' GDPs. I owned properties consisting of villas and Sunscrapers all over the world. On top of that, I had a huge portfolio with stocks in every major company (that wasn't a competitor), along with holding at least a third of every country's bond market (the stable ones).
Not to mention the devotion, loyalty, or gratitude of tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people. It was safe to say that my future was secure.
Simply put, I won.
Also, I had a hot girlfriend.
What else could a guy need?
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AN: That's the end of Arc 2.
Arc 3 coming up tomorrow!