CH 26: Recruitment

Alright guy's, try and comment somethings. I like reading your comments, it lets me interact with y'all and sometimes I get some new ideas too. it feels empty when y'all don't, it feels like my chapters aren't Interesting enough for people to wait and write comments, whether paragraph or chapter.

Btw, thanks for your continued support, and the powerstones.

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Enjoy....

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"Doctor…Marcus?!"

Marcus smiled and said, "Yes, it's me, Dr. Octavius."

Otto was still a little confused, "Umm, Where am I, Dr. Marcus? I remember the explosion, and ..and ..my wife's death"

Then it hit him that his dream had taken the life of his lovely wife, the most important person, who was supportive of whatever he pursued.

And then, he remembered waking up to all the corpses of surgeons and nurses in the hospital.

"I was walking out…"

Marcus interrupted, "And when you were walking out, I carried you out of the hospital safely to my secret base. Dr. Octavius, You might not know this, but I respected you as a fellow inventor, and I still do. I know how hard it is for you to cope with your wife's death and the failure of your big project-"

"My wife's death was caused by my failure. If only I had let go of my pride and switched off the reactor when it overloaded, I could have … I could have…" tears streamed down from his eyes as Octavius grieved the death of his wife.

Till now, everything had happened so fast that he didn't even get the time to know what was happening. But, after finally remembering the scene with Rosie, Octavius cried. He cried at the loss of his love. He cried at his pride. And he cried at his Idiocy.

Seeing Ocatvius's condition, Marcus didn't interrupt him. Instead, he let him grieve for some time. And only re-approached him when he was a little better.

"Dr. Octavius, I can understand your pain. I have also lost my loved ones…My parents, I lost them in a car accident. So, I can only say one thing… Be strong and honor your wife's legacy, Doctor."

Marcus patted Otto's shoulder as he gave him some reinforcement.

It seemed to work and Octavius calmed down a little, and then, like a ray of sunshine, his face lit up with a newfound determination.

"You are right, Dr. Marcus. I will honor my wife's legacy. I will go back to Oscorp and ask them to give me another chance, and this time, I won't fail."

'Bruh what? Does this guy not understand what I am Insinuating? Did he have serious brain damage from his injury?'

Octavius also saw the face Marcus was making, and he was confused, "Umm, Dr. Marcus, are you alright?"

"Huh? Oh…yeah! Yeah, I am alright. I was just thinking."

"Oh, what were you thinking, Dr. Marcus?"

"I was thinking that maybe you don't understand your circumstances well enough."

"What? What do you mean by that?"

"Here, watch this video."

Marcus tapped a few buttons on his phone and a monitor lit up. And after a few seconds, a video started to play.

The video showed the scene of an operation theatre, where a man was laid face down and four long mechanical arms were originating from a machine on his back.

After a few seconds, the nearby surgeon started his saw to cut away the mechanical arms when they suddenly gained sentience and proceeded to kill all the nearby surgeons and nurses in a gory, brutal way.

The scene looked like it was straight out of an R-18 horror movie.

And the expression on Dr. Octavius's face reaffirmed that notion.

"Th..thi…this, How could this happen? Wait! The inhibitor chip-"

Octavius's hand moved directly towards the back of his head, and after feeling the burnt chip, the expression on his face deepened even more. But after a few seconds, he realized something else.

"But, if the chip's burned. Why are these not working by themselves as in the video?"

Octavius asked, either himself or Marcus, but Marcus didn't care, he answered anyway, "I cut its connection with the power source so that until we develop a better way to control it, it remains inactive."

Otto was surprised, "But, how did you-? Ah! I forgot. You are a genius yourself, right."

Slowly he sighed, "Even if I say I didn't do any of this nobody will believe me right?"

He asked Marcus a question he knew the answer to, maybe he just wanted some false hope.

"I'm sorry doctor, but I believe you know it better yourself," replied Marcus without giving him any hope.

"Then why did you save me then? surely you aren't kind enough to help a possible wanted criminal right?" Otto asked the question that was pressing his mind.

Marcus put on his most convincing persona and said in a calm voice "Dr. Octavius, as I have said before, I respect you very much. And from that respect, stems a thought, that I can save you."

Seeing that Octavius was going to interrupt him again, Marcus raised his hand and signaled him to stop, "Please hear me out completely before saying anything."

Octavius closed his half-opened mouth and decided to listen to what he wanted to say.

"In my personal belief, the death of those people wasn't completely your fault. In the same way, it isn't God's fault if a human commits a crime. So I would suggest that rather than blaming yourself for that matter and wallowing in your guilt, you should use that God-gifted genius of yours to do some good for every person on the planet. That would be the real atonement."

Octavius was still a little wary after hearing Marcus' speech, he was almost sure he would be used by him possibly for his creation. But he still thought of the family of those poor souls his rogue creation had killed. Maybe his invention can be used for humanity as a whole and can give him a semblance of peace for the things he had unknowingly caused

"I know what you're thinking, Doctor. And I wish I could say "No, I'm not doing this for your invention at all". But sadly that is not true. I'm not that kind-hearted. Those families will be taken care of by the money you will make from your inventions and of course, my company would also pay them a subsidy but the Hunt industries will claim ownership over your intellectual property. You can supervise them yourself of course to see we aren't just taking advantage of you but the decision remains up to you. One more thing, any invention you make, will be patented by my company's name, but your name will be kept as the inventor and you will be given 20% of the profits our company makes from it."

Octavius was surprised, to say the least, he didn't think Marcus would outright say his intentions openly. After hearing Marcus' speech, he also agreed with his statement that it was better to use his brain for the betterment of humans than to let it rot in a prison cell.

"And now, if it helps, I hope to show you that you are in better hands than Oscorp. Here…I don't think you would want to work with a company that sells biological weapons to the enemy of the state."

Marcus took out a file in which there was some forged evidence he had readied for convincing Octavius. Although, if a professional was to look at it, they would notice some glaring discrepancies. But Octavius wasn't a professional, he was just a scientist and he saw what he needed to see.

And that was enough to convince him, and with Marcus' earlier persuasion, he agreed to not go back to Oscorp.

"You made a good decision, Dr. Octavius. Here at Hunt industries, we can provide everything and even better to replicate your experiments. And then, very soon, the power of the sun would be in the palm of our hand."

Octavius had a feeling of Deja vu when Marcus repeated the same line he said before the start of his experiment, but he didn't pursue that line of thought and instead thanked Marcus for the help he provided.

"Also, about your mechanical arm, I have an idea. Now, because it is permanently fused to your spinal cord, we cannot remove it currently, but we can make it better. I will change the internal AI to something far better and controllable, and also make a better inhibitor chip for you. It won't take much time. Probably in less than a day, you would be up and ready to restart your project."

As for covering up the murder, Marcus had his plans for that.

******

The same night…

"...Reports suggest that a humanoid Lizard has been wreaking havoc in the streets of Manhattan. Current casualties are unknown but it has destroyed a few buildings, including a nearby hospital. Witnesses suggest that the Mutant detection alarm didn't go off when it appeared…We are currently following his movements, and it appears that it has breached the police barricade. Firearms aren't working on him either…"

"Breaking News…Breaking News…It appears that a masked man has dropped down from the sky and he is engaging the Lizard monster…"

A fight was going on in the streets of Manhattan.

A man wearing black Armor, with red light radiating from the pores, was fighting a Lizard monster.

The monster was easily over 6'6", was green in color, and also had a tail. Its body had scales all over it, and the hands had big claws.

The fight was being broadcasted live by a news helicopter.

The man in the Armor ran towards the Lizard and threw a punch towards its face, but before the punch could reach it, the Lizard turned around and whipped its tail towards the Armored man.

The Armored man saw the tail coming towards him and dodged it by jumping over it. That movement kept his momentum and he gave the Lizard a flying punch directly at the back of its head, causing it to faceplant in the concrete.

After the Lizard's face was planted, the armored man jumped on his back and started to rain down punches on the back of its head. And those punches caused the lizard's face to get buried in the concrete even deeper.

But just when everyone thought that the fight was won by the armored man, the Lizard used his hands to jump up from his position and threw off the armored man from his back.

If people were nearer, they could see that underneath the dust-covered face of the Lizard, there was no damage.

After getting back on his legs, the Lizard let out a bloodcurdling roar and charged toward the man that had attacked it.

The armored man on the other hand just stood there, but if one were to look carefully, they would see that his gauntlets were melting and a hand, which looked like it had molten lava flowing through it, came to view.

The molten metal from his gauntlets kept dripping down as the Lizard was charging toward the armored man.

And just as the Lizard swiped its claw toward him, the man dodged the attack with his inhuman agility and stabbed his hand directly in the Lizard's gut.

The hand went through the Lizard's tough skin like a hot knife through butter.

Such a painful wound caused the Lizard to stumble before it shrieked and attacked the man again.

The man dodged the attack fluidly by ducking underneath the incoming claw. And this time, he charged his punch, causing it to glow before he threw the punch towards the Lizard's abdomen again.

The punch tore through its body and came out of its back. The sound of sizzling flesh came out of the Lizard's body and steam came out from its insides.

Even after taking such a blow, the Lizard was still alive. With green blood dripping down its mouth, its body lay atop the standing man.

But the man wasn't done yet, he kicked the Lizard away and with the same momentum, caught and pulled out its spine through its abdomen, permanently ending its life.

Green blood dripped down from the spine held in the man's hand and the Lizard's carcass was some distance away with a hole in its abdomen and a pool of blood had accumulated underneath it.

The man didn't stop there, he walked up to the corpse and the lower part of his helmet opened up, showing his mouth.

After that, he opened his mouth and breathed fire all over the Lizard's carcass. The fire was so hot that it melted the concrete around the place it was spewed on.

And just a few seconds later, the carcass had turned into a Black goo mixed with molten concrete.

The man then turned around and burned every single drop of the Lizard's blood on the sight and then flew away with the spine, leaving a yellowish-orange streak of light behind him.