42 42: Good Day for the Company
Chapter 42: Good Day for the Company
—
Enrique's old world was complex, but for a man who understood the complexity, things became easier to do—life turned easier to live. In this new world, such rules still apply, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs exist in this world too. Yet, the truth was, these modern legends aren't shit in the grandest scheme of things.
They weren't the ruler of their own home planet, of this earth, so what were they in this ginormous universe?
In this universe where purple men held the power to roll the dice and decide if you were the lucky half, Enrique Nova would be a fool to not try to be the best version of himself. To do that though, he alone wasn't enough—not yet, anyway. That led him to the decision that he needed to make a Superhero Team on his own, one that wouldn't end up separated like the Avengers, as he planned to play the role of both Steve Rogers and Tony Stark by himself.
With that plan in mind, it wouldn't be so smart of Enrique to let White Tiger and Tigra leave his clutch after finishing his training. Enrique needed them on his team, for they were too good to go to waste.
That was the plan, and the sole thorn to realizing that plan was a certain Ava Ayala. However, Enrique needed the 'White Tiger' in his team, and that didn't necessarily have to be Ava. As the White Tiger's Amulet was an artifact, anyone could be the White Tiger; say, for example, Anna Marie.
…But before deciding Ava's fate and destiny, Enrique reckoned he was kind enough to give her one last chance. A chance that would be presented by Tigra, and then it would be up to herself to choose what fate awaited her.
"The Cat's Amulet came in clutch, it seems."
It will be the year 2012 soon, and Loki will soon attack earth—this was the perfect time to officially form his super-team.
* * *
Sound of loud bangs filled the area of Enrique's new villa, one that was much larger and overall better than his previous one, as he trained with Tigra inside the custom battle-gym located in one corner of the villa.
The bangs have been resounding for a long while at this point, the result of powerful blows clashing against each other. It continued for five more minutes before finally coming to a stop.
Tigra fell on her back, on the pristine white marble floor, while Enrique sat down on the ground with a thud. The tiger-woman breathed heavily, her sports-bra-clad chest moving up and down in an alluring manner, while sweat trailed down her defined abdomen.
"Quite hot, aren't we?" Enrique chuckled, also breathing roughly. "Thanks for the fight."
"Quit with your pun, will ya?" Greer breathed more sharply compared to him. "Holy shit, I am burning."
The air-conditioner was running at full power, yet both of them were burning hot. For a while neither of them spoke, allowing the cool air to help them calm down. A few minutes later, Greer looked at Enrique's form with an unreadable gaze.
"You are learning to control your form." Greer said, "Lucky bastard."
"Thank Mut that I am," Enrique released a breath. Earlier, when the first ended, Enrique was halfway through transforming, but now he looked almost normal. "You have no idea how bothersome it is to cancel the form every time by sleeping."
"Oh, fuck you." Greer scoffed with a mocking smirk. "You are just poking fun that I can't retransform to human form. Tell you what, if I had my Cat's Amulet, I could transform back-n-forth with no issue whatsoever. But ugh, that was taken by those Hand bastards months ago."
"Huh."
"Hey, won't they return it if we ask them nicely? Now that we are not enemies, shouldn't they return it?" Greer sat up as she looked at Enrique hopefully.
Enrique stared at her for a bit, and then commanded his Suit that had transformed into gym-wear to transform into normal white pants. As was discovered by Enrique a long time ago, connected to Mut's personal dimension, her heaven, each different or 'new' costume model had different pocket spaces. As in, a thing kept in one costume's pocket couldn't be accessed by another costume's pocket.
In this particular pant-template, Enrique had an amulet. He slipped a hand inside and took it out; The Cat's Amulet.
"You mean this thing?" Enrique raised the thing in the air, asking Greer. "I bargained with the Reid woman for this earlier today."
Greer Nelson paused in her spot for a moment, blinking a second later, before a wide smile crept upon her face and she jumped to hug him.
"You bastard, you should have told me right when she left! You wanted to surprise me, didn't you? You sweet bastard, maybe you're not as bad as I thought you were." Greer exclaimed while laughing sweetly, extremely happy that this man was looking after her so nicely.
"Now, quick, give it to me! I missed this darling for so long." Greer, turning her body around to push her back against his chest, reached out her hand to grab the Amulet. But Enrique raised his hand just enough to make her unable to touch it. "Ugh, come on, I don't have the patience to play this game~ Give it to me already, hey?"
Greer turned her head upwards to look into his eyes—and froze.
Sitting behind her, while he looked down on her, Enrique wasn't wearing a playful expression; far from that. Enrique Nova looked down at her with no emotions at all.
As if to make the scene creepier, the song 'Hope' began to play in the music player in the far corner, making Greer's eyes shake as she once again remembered who this guy behind her truly was.
"Greer Nelson," Enrique said. "We are not friends. We are strangers, simply working together because of our one-month contract. That means I am not obliged to give you this amulet for free. So tell me, what do I gain from helping you out?"
"…."
With shock, which soon turned into rage, Greer glared at this bastard of a man.
For the poor her, sadly, this bastard of a man already had planned what he wanted to gain from her.
* * *
The end of their talk left Greer in the sourest mood since when Hand first attacked the Dojo. Enrique didn't care about that and just waited until the next day with a not-so-nice smile on his face.
When the next day finally came, Enrique left the villa thirty minutes before the agreed-upon time to go meet the CEO of Hardy Corporations.
For once, Enrique didn't wear full-white clothing. As this was a business meeting, he reckoned a black suit would look better. So he wore his Hero Suit in the form of a white shirt and thin trousers, worn under a black business coat and black pants.
Enrique reckoned he didn't have a car yet, even though he had quite a large load of money from his game (plus the bit he scammed from SHIELD). Sadly, UBER and stuff weren't a thing in this world yet, and taking a taxi just seemed unprofessional. So the solution was simple—Enrique flew to the location, at the building of Hardy Corps.
Of course, he earned a lot of stares on his way, but when he landed nobody wanted to approach him—fearing the possible dangers. Enrique was rather fine with that as he walked into the building, passing the security guard who hesitated to stop him but couldn't find the courage in the end.
"Hello, miss." Enrique walked to the receptionist, smiling at her, while she looked up slowly. She was busy with something on her desk, so she hadn't noticed him flying here. "I am here for an appointment."
"Ah. Please wait a bit, sir." The girl stared at his silver eyes for a moment, shivering in a goosebump as she went to check the papers.
It seemed she was one of the minorities who found his gray eyes creepy, rather than attractive.
Enrique told her his name, she searched for it, and quickly found it.
"Ah. It's an appointment with the CEO. Go to the 45th floor, she is there."
"Thanks."
Enrique left the reception and walked towards the staircase. These tall buildings still had stairs in 2011.
"Uh, excuse me, sir!" the receptionist called from the back, seeing him approaching the stairs. Was he planning to walk to the 45th floor? "The elevator is that way—"
The young woman couldn't finish her words, her voice jammed on the end of her throat, as she witnessed the man in a business suit jumping up and flying upwards through the gap between the stairs.
"What the hell…"
* * *
Lydia Hardy was sitting in her office, in front of her mac computer, as she reviewed a few projects.
Her eyes flickered on the time every now and then, noting that it was nearly the time for her meeting with Enrique Nova. It was usual for her to keep note of meetings this sharply, and admittedly nervously, but she couldn't help herself. This was her first time meeting a superhero in person, after all.
Sure he was coming here as a businessman and all that, but that didn't change the fact that he had the ability to bring thunderstorms at will and should therefore have the ability to electrify her to death as well.
Lydia Hardy was 40 this year; she got married when she was 20 and had Felicia when she was 22. Only a decade ago did she find this company, after her husband got caught by the police because of his theft-kink.
With her husband captured, as she was a lawyer back then, Lydia clearly wanted to fight for him in court—but her husband didn't like that, knowing that his case couldn't be won and so it would only hurt her career. Later, her husband died in his prison cell and Lydia couldn't forgive herself for not fighting for him. So she quit her career as a lawyer, and approached entrepreneurship instead, for which she had a hidden talent and therefore rose in the ranks in no time.
That was her story, and some might say it's just the beginning of it since she was still 40 years old. However, Lydia felt so tired sometimes, so down and drained, that she thought she was more than 80 already. Her daughter was one of the things that made her feel at ease, but she couldn't spend much time with her, for which she guessed that Felicia hated her.
Lost in thought, Lydia nearly went into a daze, but a knock on the door woke her up. Her eyes shot to the time and she realized it was just on point for Enrique Nova to arrive.
'I have mixed expectations for this meeting,' Lydia thought while permitting an entry. 'Hardy Corps is mostly cosmetics and things focused on fashion, not game stuff. Let's see where this talk goes.'
The door opened gently and a young man walked in. Looking clean and neat, his expression, posture, and overall feel gave a confident air that most didn't have.
"Super-Nova. Or should I say Mr. Nova?" Lydia gave him her professional smile. "Regardless, it's an honor to have a superhero in my office. Please take a seat."
"Thank you." Enrique nodded and took a seat in front of her.
The two businesspersons began speaking soon, starting with light stuff, with Lydia thanking him for saving her daughter. Lydia admitted that was one of the reasons why she decided to hold this meeting, to begin with. However, his and his company's potential was the main reason behind this meeting.
Over the course of the meeting, Lydia couldn't be more surprised as she conversed with Enrique who was leading the conversation smoothly. It didn't feel like she was dealing with an amateur, no, sometimes she felt this young man in front of her was somewhat superior to her at this game…? Lydia didn't take her thoughts seriously though, telling herself it was just a subconscious feeling since she was a normal human while he was super.
The meeting lasted longer than Lydia had expected, as Enrique wasn't talking only about business—he was good enough to keep her engaged with jokes, some mundane stuff, and thoughts on the business world's future. Those were things she usually hated, talking about those things in a meeting came out as unprofessional. But somehow, this guy pulled it off.
'It couldn't be that he is some old wise vampire who has experience in this from before?' Lydia couldn't help but think so as she stared at his beautiful silver eyes. 'Hah, that's not possible. Super-Powers sure, but Vampires can't be real. I hope.'
Still, Lydia had other meetings to attend. So even though Enrique took more of her time than this meeting should have, she needed to end it.
The deal came to a close soon, with both sides satisfied, though Lydia will admit she planned a more profitable deal compared to this. From an outer perspective, it would seem as if Nova Games was taking most of the stuff, though for whatever reason Lydia didn't feel unsatisfied, so she didn't mind.
"Haha, thank you for your time, Enrique." Lydia stood up while shaking his hands. "Perhaps next time I can introduce my daughter? She is a big fan, and might want an autograph from you."
"A selfie, Lydia. Autographs are getting old." Enrique corrected her. "Keep in mind the things I said about technology and the changes it will bring to the 21st century. Selfies are getting more popular than ever; indeed, the world is changing."
Lydia's eyes shone, seeing a vague image of this future he spoke of, as she smiled. "Indeed. It was a good talk, Enrique. Let's meet up some other time when I am free. I am interested to hear more of these future predictions of yours."
"We'll see." Enrique shook her hands one last time, and then took his leave.
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