บท 11: Time Off
"Oh! Oh yes! This is satisfaction! This is perfection!" I cried as I used my mind to peel and dice garlic.
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Kate scoffed as she poured herself another drink.
"You don't understand! None of my superpowers make working with fresh garlic any easier. Nor onions now that we are on the topic." I grinned and raised up the Mind Stone, "But this beautiful stone and its ability to grant permanent psionic abilities has given me the perfect tool for working with stubborn ingredients. Look at that dice work." I commanded as I dumped my processed cloves into a pan with hot olive oil.
I pulled my baked potatoes out of the oven, soft on the inside, with crispy salted skins. Delicious. Then I put them in a bowl, shredded them with my mind and poured the garlic and olive oil on top before giving it all a thorough mix.
"Perfection." I whispered to my delicious taters.
With a few thoughts I evenly sliced my rested tritip steak, plated the meat and potatoes with a side of grilled asparagus, and set the table with a chilled red wine and hot red candles.
"Oh God. This is the true gift of the Viltrumite Empire." Kate moaned as she bit into her steak.
I fixed my unamused gaze on her as she smirked.
"I'll have to remind you of just how silly that statement was… multiple consecutive times." I growled and went to work on my dinner with surgical precision and meticulous organization.
After washing the dishes with my mind I went to throw Kate over my shoulder when I felt the space around me lock.
"Having problems, honey?" she teased as her hand glowed blue from the Space Stone hidden within.
"We'll see…" I grinned as I yanked her to me with a thought forcing her to either use her Immortal powers or ram right into the spatial lock.
With my lover in hand I ran us to the bedroom to reeducate her in the matters of the true gift.
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"Are you really sure you don't want to start using the Mind Stone?" I asked Kate as we settled in to another Infinity Stone training session.
"I am absolutely sure that I don't want a semi-sentient rock adjusting my mind." Kate denied and went straight to her Space Stone training.
"The Infinity Stones won't work outside of their home universe. The Space Stone will be a cool paper weight after we leave, but the psionic powers granted by the Mind Stone continue working after it's power is removed. They are a part of me now." I explained to her.
"Don't care. And don't talk about her like that. " Kate petted the glowing blue rock and I just shrugged and got to work meditating.
Only three of the six stones offered permanent power ups should we travel to somewhere beyond their scope, the Mind Stone and any psionic abilities I develop with it, the Reality Stone and any biological advantages I create with it, and the Soul Stone and any spiritual changes I make with it. Not that I am going to work with that stone. I am quite happy with my Soul as it is.
Of course I have to make these changes intelligibly. If I make a change to my biology that only works so long as the Reality Stone makes it work I could outright die when I cross to a new dimension.
Ideally I could capture a Kryptonian in DC, bring him or her back here, put him or her in an Asgardian Soul Forge to figure out how the Krytonian powers actually work, then use the Reality Stone to put those power producing organs into me minus the wonky weaknesses. Just the solar powered goodness.
Best part is that even if I don't have any yellow solar radiation powering me up I'd still be a Planet+ level powerhouse rather than a baseline human.
Anyhow, I have a year to plan out uses for the Reality Stone. Something that will be far easier once I figure out Mental Parallel Processing. I have already worked out Telekinesis and am in the process of growing that skill, and Tactile Telekinesis came automatically once I grabbed the stone in the first place, building off my affinity for comic book physics. The last change I made was based far more in my extensive study of my biology when I massively boosted the rate at which electricity moves through my brain and nervous system, allowing me to think and react as fast as possible. I can fortunately slow down the former process so I am not thinking so fast that seconds feel like days. That would have been something I'd kill myself over.
Getting trapped in my own mind while the world around me crawled to a near stop was a chilling near miss that I didn't need to fully understand the dangers of the stones, but the utility is worth the risk. I'm not some bitch that lets opportunity pass me by because I am afraid. That's what courage is for after all.
Needless to say, as I gripped that glowing gold stone in hand, my heart was full of courage.
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"An orgy in the foyer!" shouted Mordo in true Chivetel Ejiofor style while Daniel Drumm looked on in disappointment, "How long has this been going on?"
"Three days." I told them.
"So this started when I left for my last mission with Master Mordo?" Daniel questioned.
"No, this session started three days ago, but Kate and I have been doing this for over a thousand years." I informed them and laughed as their jaws dropped, "And it wasn't an orgy, it was a reverse gangbang. Kate isn't into selfcest."
"You mean that you have been committing these debauched acts for over a thousand years?" Mordo hissed.
"Pretty much." I grinned, "We obviously have periods of lesser and greater activity, the last few years since we came to this universe being a definite period in the greater category. Like a sexual Renaissance, and I am one hell of a Renaissance man." I growled at Kate.
"Yes you are, Daddy." Kate moaned back.
"I can't even…" Mordo groaned.
"And I have to live with them." Daniel shook his head at his partner in this interrogation.
"You are both respected Masters of the Mystic Arts." Mordo declared, "Show the rest of us the respect you have been given and keep such acts confined to your quarters."
"Sure thing man. We'll keep it classy." I nodded.
"What we saw today was not classy." Daniel complained.
"But it was horizon broadening." Kate chuckled and we left the two to their Puritanism.
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Author's Note: The Why of Kate
I know I need to expand Kate's point of view, but I honestly hate both writing female PoV's and rehashing prior events from a different perspective. I blame Naruto Shippuden for that last part. So I chose to instead explain the Flaxan Dimension Dupli-Kate in an essay style.
First off an brief explanation of base Dupli-Kate and why her character works quite well with my version of Mark. Kate's core traits are quiet, critical, and opportunistic. We see this in the comics in the way she silently analyses and moves between affairs and quickly wraps The Immortal around her finger without ever revealing her deepest secret to him in the form of her designated survivor Zero Clone, allowing him to believe she was killed in battle until she could free herself from her self built Fallout Style Vault. This meshes very well with Mark who is focused, critical, and ruthlessly opportunistic. And while it isn't one to one, the small differences are what makes their chemistry work.
So now onto Flaxan Kate. She started out as a Clone Six, who while being a part of a telepathic network was still an individual person despite her likely temporary nature. She made an impulsive but decisive decision to pursue Mark into the Flaxan dimension much in the same way the original Kate quickly pursued The Immortal in the comics. This landed her into immediate hot water as she was now cut off from the network and directly in the way of Mark's plans.
Without the safety blanket of the telepathic network ensuring her continued existence, the Flaxan Kate compromises her stance as a superhero in the face of a pointless death, and further compromises this when her need for affection causes her to push down her resentment and brings her back to a romantic relationship with Mark.
It is important to remember that Mark compelled her co-operation with his plans, not any sexual or romantic entanglements, but despite that there is obviously nowhere for her repressed resentment to go, and that has been a fine line for me to walk as I do not want their relationship to become overtly abusive on either side. I've had to catch myself several times and rewrite sections where things cross the line.
So at the same time Kate is simmering with repressed resentment, she is also dealing with severe depression from the fatigue of living so long. One impressive bit of writing from the original story was The Immortal's backstory of a man regularly reinventing himself, and while you may think it was primarily about keeping others in the dark to his Immortality, it was actually about keeping his own life fresh. The Immortal was able to stoically live for thousands of years this way, but the cracks in the façade became apparent when he started living his life as his true self when he became a superhero.
Now free of the lies, the Immortal had to deal with his baggage minus the distraction of living a new life every couple of decades. You start to see the damage in some of his conversations with Black Samson and it really becomes apparent in the brief visit to the dystopian future where Mark put the Immortal in charge of the whole Earth and the day to day humdrum drove him absolutely insane over the course of a handful of centuries.
Kate never got that refreshing feeling of reinventing herself, as she was Mark's open lover and partner in crime for a thousand straight years. Mark didn't care, he is a Viltrumite, his biology is made to sustain that kind of life span, Kate was not.
I wanted to display a less intense inverse of the Jack and Grunt relationship, where it was the MC now operated as the focused pillar of strength supporting the love interest without things turning melodramatic like typical romantic fiction.
Both characters are strong people, but everyone and every relationship deals with issues such as this.
I am very interested to know if I managed to relay this information well through Mark's PoV, so let me know in the comments.
Author's Note: Story Ideas
I am also very interested in ideas for the Reality Stone. Remember that Mark needs to be able to study something in tremendous depth to make it work with the Reality Stone as it is not as enthusiastically cooperative as the Mind Stone was portrayed. Also it would have to be something on the level of his kryptonian plan otherwise it would be superfluous and would weigh down the narrative needlessly.
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