Knowledge is power

Obligatory Disclaimer : I do not own anything (except maybe OC characters) all characters, places, worlds, universes…etc mentioned here belong to their respective owners and/or companies.

This is purely a work of fiction. Not meant to offend or incite, but to entertain and (maybe) inspire.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.

All it took was a month since acquiring the pym Particles, reverse engineering, understanding them — maybe even better than the discoverer himself — and now, expertly producing them for my use. I was ready for the next step. I should add; I was also able to finally get my multiple doctorates in the fields I applied for, so, yay me. It's official, I'm a super genius. Oh, I'm also the world's richest man. But we all know that's not true, T'Chaka of Wakanda is the world's richest man. That guy is in his own rank of trillionaires.

I had taken time to set everything up in order for my eventual departure. To everyone else I was taking a long vacation from work and the public eye. But I made sure to use the time before the vacation adequately well, there have been so many different models and actresses on my bed that I couldn't begin to tell you a list of them.

What's not to love about me? I was young, super rich, and damn handsome. And there was no way I was going to let all that go to waste. I did things I only ever dreamed of dreaming of, believe me when I say; I rocked the world.

Back to business, General Meade got his hands on the iron man Mk 2 suit - Rhodey's suit. Which was then passed to me to refit it with weapons, to say I knew the intricacies of the Iron Man suit akin to how a spider knew its web, would be an understatement. Every. Single. Thing. I might have gone a little overboard with the weapons I put on war machine, but that was why we came to call it war machine. I would be scared of its current firepower if those weapons weren't made by my own hands.

So where's my suit of armor?Beginning with the Hammer (HM) suit Mk-1, slim powered exoskeleton, slim and light enough to be worn beneath normal clothes, specifically made for stealth and maneuverability.

The HM Mk-2 : BadGuy, full body matte black power suit with silver highlights. Made for brute force and defense. Pure unadulterated brute power, the ultimate offensive. Plasma weapon systems, arm mounted rail cannons, shoulder mounted mangog missiles, reactor beams systems and repulsor propulsion and defense systems. Pym Particles projectors for interior and exterior expansion or miniaturization and compartmentalization. Quantum channeling systems for complete invisibility, the intangibility so far is a work in progress. Life support systems for extreme environments ranging from deep water to outer space. Fully self sufficient power source provided by a Hexa reactor array. Not only running on nuclear power, but also on threads of quantum energy. I've gotta say quantum energy is off the charts, the power output ratio is unbelievable.

And that exponentially increased the offensive output of the suit. The only peculiarity was the effect it had on the reactor array, it made color of energy a deep green instead of its normal white or blue and when it's ultra active the color takes on a deep crimson hue.

I sailed through the air, staring out at the cold icy tundra, the falling flecks of crystals covered everything in a monotonous curtain of white with sparse mountain heads peeking above the blanket, aided in their defiance by the furious howling gales that swept away the snow only to deposit it elsewhere, perpetuating the struggle.

"Boss, we're here," Eve said, as I zoned in on a mountain's barely visible base. Hidden deep within the rock blanketed face were rusted metal blast doors so old that the paint was indistinguishable from the rock around it, coupled with the fact that it was covered in ice sheets the doors blended perfectly into the environment. This was the Hydra Siberia Base, one of many places that held power for the taking.

Me and Russia seem to have a certain tie, this was the country where I obtained the arc reactor plans from Vanko after all.

"Perform a deep scan of the environment, check for any life signs in a one mile radius" I spoke, sending a heat blast at the door, melting the ice off of it. And gaining access to the still functional keypad, hacked into the device.

The doors groaned to a stop, halfway open. The weathered gears and rusted, frozen mechanisms finally failing. With deep cries of resistance I pushed it wide and stepped into the dimly lit passage, an eerie quite occupied the halls only disturbed by the occasional click of expanding metal tubing and the cracking of the snow beneath the soles of my armor.

The only light source being the struggling beams of pale moonlight rushing through the opened door and the latent light radiated from my armors power source. The darkness did not impair my vision, not when I had a clear view from the night vision and thermal imaging setting of my head piece.

But it wouldn't hurt to have a few lights on.

"Eve"

"Power now online, Boss"

The neon lights came on with a loud buzz - electricity going through a transformer and circuitry. I passed the entrances of various other sections of the facility heading through another set of blast doors that led even deeper into its interior, right to my prize.

Past the large cylinders of liquid nitrogen and other freezing agents, we're the cryopods. Cubicle like housings with walls of reinforced glass and metal frames. Inside each of the five cryopods sat a super soldier in suspended animation. In other words, inside each cryopod sat a well preserved live batch of super soldier serum.

"Eve dear, deploy miniaturized mobile lab from compartment 14, and supplies from 4. We're going to be here a while."

"Yes, sir, Boss man. Please call me more endearing names"

"Huhh, did you say something?"

"Nope, Boss"

|*. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *~~X~~*. *. *. *. *. *. *. *|

Three Weeks Later.

I've got good news and bad news. Good news ; I was able to extract a lot more of the serum from the super soldiers than I previously calculated. Bad news ; I had to dig deep into their bone marrow and spinal fluid to extract the body fluids where the serum was most concentrated…and harvest some of their organs as well. What exactly is the bad news? Well they all died. I Was meaning to save them and turn them into my soldiers but I guess we all can't have what we want. I did miniaturize their bodies though, I have them sorted in a Pym cryostorage the size of a match pack. I would be putting their bodies to good use soon.

I docked the last of 19 delivery tubes filled with a neon blue substance into the upstanding metal pod, that looked like a futuristic Iron maiden chamber with large flexible tubes running along its edge. I ran diagnostics for the umpteenth time in the span of two hours. It was a given considering the high chance of death. I have eliminated as much failure percentage as I possibly can. But it still left a success margin of 50% and a failure margin of 50%. 'Perfectly balanced, as all things should be' Thanos would be proud.

I can't put this off anymore by joking around, I can't be afraid of dying when I should be looking forward to living. Risks, yes I understood the risks. If you never take a risk you'll remain where you are, stagnant and eventually left behind. I can't afford that. I clapped my hands to rouse myself, 'I will survive! I. WILL. SURVIVE!' I yelled mentally.

"Let's go, Eve. Prime the machine" I directed, unclothing myself and taking a dip in sterilizing fluid. I looked at myself one last time in the mirror, my beard and long hair was gone. Shaven down to a low almost nonexistent buzz cut.

I offered a silent prayer to whatever being had my back, and to the laws of fantastical science that governed this universe, to allow me a comic book-like success.

"Ready when you are Boss" I stepped into the machine at Eve's prompt. "Wish me luck" I said leaning into the compartment, feeling the soft gelatinous materials encompassing me.

"You Don't need it Boss, I know you'll succeed. Although my protocols dictate that I should once again list the things that could go wrong, I'd rather dedicate my processing power to ensuring your success. And then there's also the backups we made should the procedure fail."

"Eve, you're my Guardian angel"

"I know Boss"

"Commerce operation." I spoke finally, receiving the rubber mouth guard.

"Commencing operation in 5…..4….3...2...1. Delivery systems initiated."

The cold but oddly comforting metallic arms clamping onto various parts of my body.

"Ugh!" I grunted in pain and irritation as countless micro needles stabbed into deep tissue on various sections of my body. It made me want to furiously itch every inch of my skin with a metal brush.

"Beginning infusion"

There was a momentary numbness. And then acid entered my veins. I wanted to scream and shout as it ate through my internal system, but I was paralysed. My eyes widened to the point where I thought they might pop out of their sockets. I haven't mentioned the word pain yet because I never truly knew it until now.

"Beginning introduction of Vita-rays and exotic quantum energy beams. Intensity at 20% and rising…..30%...40%...50%...60% Bio readings rapidly climbing."

I screamed my head off when the bright purple lights with spots of orange flooded my pod. The pain overwhelmed the paralysis, like an elephant stomping on a mouse, it was utterly squashed. My vocal cords strained raw to accommodate my screams of agony. My bones were shredded, my tissues liquified and my organs stewed in the acid blood with jagged pieces of bones in them. In that moment I was nothing but a pupa going through metamorphosis. Myision went blank when my nerves began to reset. And then the restructuring began; it was ten times more painful than the destruction. The warm energy streamed into my body, the chemicals drank of the energy and them started to do their jobs. Splinters of bone painfully exited my organs and tissues which began rebuilding themselves with help from the chemical, which was currently setting my cells on fire.

I never even paid attention to Eve's voice. The torture I was going through had me asking myself if dying truly was as bad as it seemed, because at the moment it was more preferable to this, S.U.F.F.E.R.I.N.G. An agony I knew well of began to surface. It was the cold touch of death, her bony fingers caressed my soul. Gesturing for me to follow, for me to rest from all this pain… I considered it.

"78%...83%...94%...99%...100% Operation complete! Bio readings wildly fluctuating! Current rhythms destabilized!..administering lifeline systems… ineffective! Repeating administration procedure..in 3..2.-"

"ARRRGHHH!" I refused! Slapping away her bony fingers, I rejected her offer of rest. I roared in fury and held on to my spirit. It was my spirit! No one would take it from me! I found myself in the material world again.

I flexed my arm, the metal clamps strained and cracked open, allowing me to slam my fist against the pod doors. Sending them flying clean of the bolts and embedding themselves in the walls meters away. I fell to my knees on the hard cement floor. Taking greedy gulps of air to get oxygen back into my lungs. Then came the vertigo that made me unable to even stand on my own feet as the ground itself was spinning beneath me.

I tried to focus on my senses, I shouldn't have, the sensory overload that slammed into me like a jackhammer nearly drove me out of my own mind.

"BOSS! BOSS! AarRE YOoUu OkAYy?." Eve's voice was in various pitches and tones. The crackling electricity whispered to me through a megaphone. The flickering neon lights occupied my vision, even through closed eyelids.

I turned over facing the floor, clamping my hands over my ears and holding my breath. I slowly drifted off to the best sleep I had ever had since coming here.

A whole five hours of sleep.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.**.*

I look like Superman. My torso, my goodness look at that thick torso, the rock solid abs, the boulder like pectorals, the deltoids. Look at my legs! Like I never missed a leg day workout since birth. My body looked as if it was sculpted by a Greek god of bodybuilding and aesthetics. I went from being 5ft8 man with a relatively well defined body to being a 6ft3 towering hunk of absolute human peak physique - like a War Hammer 40k Primarch in definition and bone structure.

My beefed musculature was defined down to the most minute of details. I know I keep bringing that word up one too many times, but it's the most fitting word I can think of to describe my state and it still feels like I'm not doing it justice.

Captain America went from twig physique, to tree - trunk levels of beef. I went from branches to super-support-pillar. I looked like I'd been bodybuilding without rest since the day I learned to walk.

And all these - damn fine - muscles weren't for show; I could lift weights in excess of tons like it was nothing. I could pry thick sheets of reinforced steel apart with my bare fingers like it was soft dough.

The density of my skin, tissues, organs and muscles was off the charts.

My enhanced senses were so sharp, I could even hear my own blood flow! And see clearly in low light conditions!

'Holysh¡t! Holysh¡t! Holysh¡t! I've got super powers!'

"Ahhhahahahahahaaaa! I. Have. Got. Super. Powers! HAHAHAHA-"

"Boss, we might need to run another psych eval on you." Eve said, waking me from my excited stupor.

"Eve, I told you, I am fine." I shook my head, pulling my backpack even closer.

"You keep having outbursts of laughter, I don't think that's 'fine'"

"That, baby, is because I'm so happy" I smiled, ignoring the looks I was getting from people as I waded through the crowded temple.

Look, I know others in my situation would get all stoic and whatnot and act like it's not even worth mentioning. And maybe they're right, on the scale of powers I might be above your olympic medalist human and maybe some asgardians. But in the Cosmic scale, hoo boy I'm next to nowhere high on that scale. I know; but as a person coming from a world without any of these things. It is beyond words to describe how it feels to wield power that was once only fictional to you.

To know that I am advancing on my path to Transcendence, is just beyond words to properly describe. I never was a super genius, I never was rich or wealthy, I never had powers, I was pleased and comfortable with my life even without none of those things . But all of that changed when I got here. I didn't sit on my ass and got handed anything. I got up and got my hands dirty. I walked with my own two feet to where I am now. Oh, but Justin, wasn't Hammer Industries already successful when you got it? Are you kidding me? The only reason it came that far was because Stark Industries dropped out of the arms-maker race. And even then Hammer's weapons were a joke, things were barely functional. The company was a paper boat just floating about, it was going to sink in the end.

But look at what I did. I made it better. And I brought tech advancements decades ahead of what this world should have, into the now through my various branches. So yes, I know I damn right deserve the praise where it's due.

Going off topic, my bad. Back to my enhanced body.

My perception, reaction, agility, constitution, strength and vitality were dialed to eleven. My neural pathways were enhanced, further increasing my already impressive intellect.

My vision was beyond what I thought was blessed, I had no need for glasses anymore. Not when my eyesight was like wearing hi-def binoculars without the tunnel vision.

When I cut myself, which in and of itself is not an easy task to accomplish, my wounds closed up at speeds visible to the naked eye, as flesh rushed to reknitt itself.

My stamina felt virtually limitless, I felt like I could run a marathon forever and not get tired. My heart was a perpetual self sufficient engine that not only pumped blood through me, but hints of warm energy. Which as I suspected was an aftereffect of the minute amounts of Exotic quantum energy that still lingered in my veins, circulating in my system.

I was basically an evolved human. Peak specimen of our collective species, without an access to energy manipulation ...yet. Of course the law of equivalent exchange still applied, I needed to consume an insane amount of calories to sustain my body. While the serum did somewhat lessen that burden by half, - if I had obtained such a body without the effects of the serum, then my calorie consumption would become utterly obscene - I still needed food, oxygen and water to survive.

The effect of the serum on me was subsequently more pronounced than on Cap'n America. That was firstly - and largely - due to the effects of the exotic quantum energy beams I added to vastly compliment the vita-rays and secondly to the high concentration of the serum I administered to myself.

The quantum energy has varying unexplainable effects in its native realm, those effects get even more strange when brought out of its native realm and into the larger scale world. Take ghost for example, she was mutated by the quantum energy shockwave that resulted from the explosion of a quantum tunnel. The mutation left her with a quantum imbalance, a type of disequilibrium, in her unique quantum state that caused her to phase in and out of reality - as she was trying to exist in the quantum zone and in the large scale world at the same time - which granted her the intangibility powers she had along with her enhanced strength and slow aging. That is one example of quantum energy mutations.

Another one to consider is that of Janet Van Dyne, who learned how to manipulate the same energy to grant her various abilities after being trapped in a level of it for decades. You should realize that the quantum zone is a different dimension altogether, and within that dimension there are many planes of existence and levels within levels. Like how our universe has planets, so does the quantum realm has places of habitation and native life. But that is a topic for another day, as I am still trying to map it out with the use of various quantum tunnels for different entrance points.

I am reverse engineering some aspects of the quantum tech to allow me a certain amount of sympathetic manipulation. All in due time, back to the process.

What I did was isolate a certain type of strange quantum particles that bore a very close energy signature to vita-rays. Testing the energy on organic beings resulted in various effects, ranging from disequilibrium to chronal displacement, (Yes, somewhere out there is a time traveling mice) but the most prominent effect was, physique enhancement. Albeit, the mice did die after a week, from their bodies not being unable to sustain the strains of the drastic changes. From there on out, I was able to hone in on the specific particles I needed after a backbreaking series of experiments and simulations, I isolated the specific energy signature of the particles and successfully harvested them, I call them; Exotic Quantum Energy particles.

It did have one quirk that I couldn't hammer out no matter how hard I tried. The exotic quantum energy caused a sort of chronal absorption. What did that mean? It reverses your aging at mildest and at most pronounced, it causes you to revert to pink primordial goo.

Hence the reason why right now, instead of looking like a man in his late twenties to early thirties. I instead looked to be in my very early twenties.

Coupled with my amazing physique, I was barely even recognizable to the man I once was.

Ok, I'll come clean. I was actually aiming to create the sentry serum. I did everything I could, made the serum as concentrated as the materials on hand allowed me access to. And then with the energy beams to further supplement the change. All to become the Marvel Superman, but well, we don't always get what we want. What we do always get, is what we work for, and I was working on a way to harvest the great power that lay dormant in the quantum realm, waiting for a wielder. That was something for the future.

I was pleased either way. I rubbed my short hair to ease the frustration of nearly kicking stunned people over as they continued to bump against me. It wasn't a full head yet, it was just short carpet of hair with a darker brown pigment at the roots, mixed amongst the blond tips. I looked like your average tourist, complete with a travelling backpack and sunglasses — if your average tourist was the representation of peak human physique.

"Hello" I greeted the stoic asian man in monk styled garments who stood statuesquely before the decorated wooden doors bordered by aged red bricks. "I'm Justin Hammer, I made reservations." I smiled, offering a handshake.

He observed me for a moment, his gaze as steely as the expression on his face.

"Welcome, Mr. Hammer. Please come with me" He spoke then swiftly turned – ignoring my outstreched arm – entering the wooden tiled passageway, I followed after him. Bending my head to not let it slam against the passage. I entered the humble temple, the scent of sandalwood incense touched by beams of sunlight that poked through the windows added a soothing touch to the quiet serenity of the room. It felt like the perfect place for a nap — it was disarming.

"I see you've arrived Mr. Hammer. Welcome to the Kamar Tajj" Said an approaching voice. I laid eyes on her, a simply dressed woman without any hair on her head and a worry in the world. She took steps with barely any sound in them, displaying her graceful poise even as she held onto a teapot. Placing in the short antique table, she slowly poured the fragrant, aromatic tea into two cups, handing me one of them.

She then gestured for me to take a seat on one of the stools. "Mr. Hammer, please tell me why I should let you leave these premises with your life intact" She said without a hint of emotional fluctuation, the disarming smile never even leaving her face as she stared right into my eyes. It would seem that I was in deep shit, and rather than panic, I burst out into silent laughter for seemingly no reason at all.

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