Chapter 36: Peaceful Interlude

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"A wise man can learn more from his enemies than a fool from his friends."

–Niki Lauda, (Rush)

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<(Atem POV) >

Taking Romulus as a prisoner after that was more than easy. He surrendered way too easily and was almost glad to be taken away from me. Most of his subordinates who were not under his brainwashing or his pheromone-oriented mind control surrendered themselves willingly as well. However, those who were heavily under his mental control had to be telepathically subdued to make sure that they could not make things difficult for us later.

As for what happened with the mutated lupine-soldier clones that Romulus specially bred, they were all slaughtered by the Beast Wolf Squad without even a single one of them remaining alive. It seemed that a full-blown war had freed their predatorial instincts which were hidden deep behind their human emotions and moralities. It had forced them to embrace their animalistic bloodlust, thus making them go on a bloody rampage on the battleground until no one was left. 

"Have you still figured out how to remove the mysterium from Romulus' body?" I asked Zoya with a bored face while playing Mortal Kombat on my PlayStation. 

It has been about a couple of weeks since the fight with Romulus and his lupines. Right now, everything was calm and peaceful around the planet (at least subjectively) something I quite enjoyed and also found slightly ominous like something big was going to happen after this. The only excitement I had for the last couple of weeks was... having wild sex and a couple of dates with some of my girls including my newest and currently 'temporary' girlfriend Susan Storm.

I genuinely wanted this peace to last. At least until it was time for me to attend the space shuttle launch of the Fantastic Four. I was half sure that some sort of villain might attack the team after they get their powers due to some bullcrap comic logic and I was already mentally prepared to help them out especially since they now worked for me and I had a sense of responsibility to protect my investment.

"I have. However, I have been trying to come up with a more efficient way to do it since the only method I have found till now includes melting off Romuus' entire skeleton with the temperate of a supernova but that could lead to loss of some concerning amount of the metal in the extraction process making this entire method not as efficient as I originally wanted it to be.

However, I have successfully collected the Mysterium that was encircling and protecting Romulus' castle from supernatural threats. So, I already have some amount of pure mysterium in my reserves if you have some specific urgent plans for the element." Zoya answered, her tone not bearing any sort of happiness in it, most likely because she was disappointed in herself for not finding any solution to a problem given by me her master, despite spending so much time on it.

"Ohh. And, how much mysterium will be lost during the extraction through the melting process exactly?" 

"Upto 0.7 percent of the total element can be lost if the process is not carried out properly but I think I can bring the number down to 0.4 percent through my ultra-precise calculations even though it's not a huge improvement," Zoya responded honestly.

"... Why the hell then do you think this is not efficient?" I asked with a deadpan.

"Because even 0.4 percent of that metal is invaluable and cannot be measured in terms of human wealth. Wasting even that much should be unacceptable." Zoya reasoned.

"It's okay, Zoya. I really don't care about that 0.4 percent wastage. I have a feeling that if we somehow figure out the origins of that element, we will have a lot more of it. All we have to do is just extract it and find out everything we can about it by running every single test possible." I ordered.

"Understood Sir. Also, I assume you don't have a problem with Romulus dying, do you? Because I doubt he is going to survive a concentrated supernova which will be used to slowly melt all his bones and claws."

"Look at me. Do you think this is the face of someone who cares?" I said with an expressionless face.

"I see. I will then start arranging the extraction process. Should I schedule it after the Baxter rocket launch this week, sir?" 

"Yeah, sure. Oh and try to find out if there are any better uses for the element. We can always use it for droids or armors but if there are other uses, we should consider those too." I commanded at which the mother box seemed to nod at me and the voice of Zoya became silent again, probably making herself busy working on her assigned tasks.

Mysterium huh? It will be pretty useful if I get my hands on some more of that stuff. Maybe I can even make an armor out of it or something like the Destroyer Armor of the Asgardians. 

That reminds me, I should start hoarding all the adamantium and vibranium I find before things become even bigger a mess. I think there was someone named Ulysses Klaue who had stolen a pretty good amount of illegal vibranium from Wakanda. Maybe I could visit him for some heart-to-heart. Selene had already secured the Savage Island for me, so I could also begin mining there for anti-metal whenever I wanted. 

'By the way, I wonder how things are going back in the Nornheim? My army should have grown quite a bit there. I can feel the presence of Karnilla still in that dimension due to the master-servant bond between us. She seems to be growing strong as well.' I thought to myself as I wondered about my beautiful city of Zenith floating in that dimension and what would happen if a brute like Odin ever found out about it. 

Nornheim even though wasn't directly a part of his empire was still technically under his safeguard because here in this particular universe, the nine realms are dimensional pockets, each as big as a mini-universe itself. Nornheim was a newly separated pocket dimension that Karnilla had created in a bid to bolster her pride as a queen but that didn't change the fact that her realm was still under the jurisdiction and thus the protection of Odin and a part of the Yggdrasill.

"So many things to do. I really can't laze around all day on my Play Station anymore, can I?... Also, should I start searching for that Vanko guy from Ironman 2? I mean Vanko Junior was smart and all but was he truly someone I could seriously think about hiring?" I mumbled to myself as I failed to find any single reason why I should hire him.

Instead, wouldn't it be great if he could instead cause the downfall of Hammer industries like in the canon? That way I would be able to buy it out at an extremely cheap price later on. Hammer without any real competition from Stark Industries could profit a lot from the American Defense market and even have some considerable influence among the more... conservative politicians.

"Yep, that is a very good plan." I praised myself as I thought about all the various opportunities the future held for me.

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(A/N: Forgive me for the slightly smaller chapter today but it seems that this keeps happening whenever I write a massive chapter and break it off into two.)

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