One year later...
This year was very productive for me.
Perceiving objects in slow motion was incredibly useful and combine that with good long-term memory? It's a completely overpowered ability that could be dangerous in the wrong hands. I abused the hell out of that studying various subjects such as Coding, Chemistry, Commerce, Physics, and Biology, perfecting them all as much as possible.
I also made sure to learn how to fight. Even without the speed force, I had to be strong to not accidentally reveal my powers if I get robbed or held at gunpoint. Boxing and Judo are the two main fighting styles I'm continuing to learn. Combining that with the MMA I learned from my other self made me a decent street-level fighter without my powers.
I set up my lab in the basement of my house with as much security as possible. Cameras were almost in every nook and cranny of the room since I was definitely NOT taking any chances. I took a few supercomputers from the company and set them up in a way to suit my needs. A 3-D printer was the only thing I stole from Oscorp which I also, once again modified. This was used to design my suit which I would use in the coming future.
Speaking of my suit, I designed it to resemble the Godspeed suit from the comics except the colors were changed. The lightning was still bright yellow but the white part was changed to metallic gray. The suit was mainly composed of reinforced tri polymer to make it comfortable which was then surrounded by a layer of graphene. In the future, I'm going to try and get my hands on vibranium since graphene so far is the strongest substance I currently have. I also added animated eyes like the one the spider suit had from Spiderman: Homecoming.
No I hadn't made an A.I. yet. It was still a bit too advanced for me.
I continued to experiment with my powers. Seeing that I could no longer use the nearest running track, I looked for the nearest abandoned house(or just any large empty place). I managed to find one around 70 km away from my house that remained unused for about 3 years which was why it was still in decent condition. Hmm, I hope no one finds out about it for another year at least.
So far I've managed to reach a speed of Mach 6 maximum for now but obviously, that's not my limit.
Alright so about my other powers...
The first thing I did was to get control of them, stopping myself from using it accidentally and only when I want to use it.
If I combine my speed along with my natural strength, I could amplify it to superhuman levels easily.
During my first test run, I hadn't destroyed anything in my path which meant I had the speed force aura.
Phasing was something all speedsters did by vibrating themselves at the same frequency as the particles they had to phase through. So far I could phase through most metals and objects like stone, wood, cement, concrete, etc. If the object absorbs vibrations like vibranium I would not be able to pass through. Hmm, going to have to figure something out for that.
The throwing lightning trick worked easily. I just had to run around in a circle multiple times before throwing the lightning out of my hands which caused one of the walls to break off.
Vibrating my vocal cords to change my voice also would come in handy in case I needed to disguise myself.
Aerokinesis was done by rotating my hands fast enough. I got it done in about 15 minutes although not without destroying parts of my surroundings.
Electrokinesis was another ability I did my best to train whilst not destroying too much of my surroundings. I could now shock people without killing them and instead, knock them out. Killing was something I would stay away from unless the person before me was completely unredeemable like members of HYDRA or Thanos. Fuck those guys.
Moving on, light projection was quite easy to do. Just project large amounts of energy from my body.
I could steal kinetic energy but so far I only tested that by throwing objects and touching them with a finger while the object is midair. Speed force stealing was something I needed to learn no doubt since I was 80% sure there could be other speedsters I have to battle in the future. Whether they knew the future or not that was the only problem.
Clones were something I worked on and it took me a month to figure out how to divide my speed force into two. The drawbacks however were that it halved my speed and it would cause me pain if I left it for too long. Too risky unless I absolutely had to use it.
I wasn't remotely as fast to use the infinite mass punch so super-speed punches for the win.
So that was as far as my powers went currently. I still had plenty of time before Tony Stark shows himself so I didn't need to worry unless another speedster exists who I had to keep an eye on.
My work as a scientist at Oscorp went smoothly. I met Dr. Otto Octavius and he was a surprisingly nice guy. None of that insanity of the comics was present in him currently and he seemed to be happily married to a woman named Mary Anders. He said he fell in love with her whilst working in the US Atomic research center which somewhat aligned with his origin story in the Spiderman comics or at least mostly. The future supervillain was also extremely intelligent, helping me occasionally where I would fail. What I wasn't all-knowing and by sheer knowledge, he was still slightly ahead of me but I would catch up sooner or later.
Despite my first impression of Osborn being a nice guy, he still did shady shit such as illegal experimentation behind everyone's back. The only reason I wasn't included in his little circle of thugs was that the me from this world was against his illicit ways. The work for the Oz serum had also started. I contemplated working and gaining the benefits from the Oz serum without the insanity factor but decided against it.
The spider experiments had started to which I contributed to keeping an eye out on the experiments. I intended to gain spider powers since the benefits to it were a boon such as spider-sense, wall-crawling, and super-strength without utilizing the speed force. Oh, and I had to make sure that Peter got bitten by the spider. Spiderman was one of my favorite superheroes as a kid and I wanted him to become a hero. I could also probably save his uncle to get him to trust me since I wanted to work with him as a partner in the future. Is that manipulative? Probably.
I also made sure to visit my dad as much as possible and also make sure his house was as safe as possible just in case someone wanted to use him hostage against me. I was scared I'd put those I love in danger, can you blame me? The Marvel Universe was quite dangerous.
Speaking of dangerous, telepaths. Yes, telepaths. They could read minds, mentally manipulate weak people and destroy the weak-minded individuals from the inside. A really strong telepath was one of my weaknesses that brought me to my next destination, the New York Sanctum.
I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
"Let's see how well this goes." I mumbled to myself.
The door opened to reveal a black teen who looked like a younger version of the actor Chiwetel Ejiofor who played Karl Mordo in the movie Doctor Strange.
"Speak young man. What have you come here for?" said the person in front of me.
"I came here to learn how to protect myself better from certain threats." His eyes narrow in suspicion and I instantly raise my hands. "I promise I'm not weaponized at all, you can check it out yourself."
I made sure not to wear anything suspicious looking and I had no other objects with me other than my car key. Once Mordo examined me completely, he led me into a place that looked exactly like how the movie Doctor Strange portrayed it to be. It was a lot more mesmerizing seeing it in person. I had to do my best to keep my grin from showing just seeing my immediate surroundings. We walked for about a minute with neither of us conversing with each other.
"The Ancient One will see you know." A man who managed to like both Gandhi and Jesus says. I wonder how enlightened he is?
"Umm, thanks," I mumble out. Oh, I was nervous, very nervous but I had to keep a calm facade.
And that's when a woman appears dressed in yellow robes looking exactly as portrayed in the movies.
"Thank you, Master Chen," she then turns to the teen, "thank you Karl", she then turns to me and I had to stop the sudden urge to fidget.
I hear shuffling which meant both the other sorcerers had left the premises.
She pours both of us a cup of tea along with honey. Handing me one, I accept it with a quiet thank you. She then takes a seat in front of me.
"Now Mr. Langston I suppose introductions are in order?" she says.
"Since you already know my name I don't think that's necessary."
"Indeed. You are the one with the ability to run at speeds much higher than human capacity, and can resist the side effects caused by this speed by surrounding yourself with extra-dimensional energy."
"And you know all this how?" I couldn't help but ask even though I knew she had the time stone.
"You'll forgive me Mr. Langston but because you draw on extra dimensional energy for your powers, I had to observe you discretely during some of your training sessions."
"Uh-huh. You're sounding like a stalker." I dryly comment.
She gives a slight smile at that. "It is my duty as a sorcerer supreme to protect the Earth from otherworldly magical forces and entities of different dimensions. The energy you use to travel at superhuman speeds did not exist before you came into the picture. Which begs the question, how exactly did your counterpart arrive in this dimension?"
"If I'm being honest a lot of it was hazy, but as far as I can remember I was struck directly by lightning on a rainy day. In this world, I was blown up when trying to make a new element and the experiment backfired. Both of our souls fused and well... I am the result." I reply.
"So you got struck by lightning directly and ended up fusing with your counterpart from this world?" I nod. "Those are some truly special circumstances Mr. Langston and since it is quite hard to lie in this room, I see that you're telling the truth."
"Thanks." Before I catch up to something else she said. "Wait did you just say that the speed force did not exist before I fused with my doppelgänger?"
"The Speed Force so that is what you have named it", she says to herself before focusing her gaze back on me. "To answer your question yes it didn't. But because of you, that extra-dimensional energy has traveled through space and time both forwards and backward surrounding the multiverse. You Mr. Langston, have created an entire different dimension."
That meant I was like the Barry Allen of this universe. Which was both good and bad news. It also meant I had the most potential out of any speedster or at least I'd like to think so.
"Now I have a question for you Mr. Langston, how did you know about this place? It isn't exactly advertised." The Ancient One interrupts me from my thoughts.
I take a sip out of my tea before answering. "In my original dimension there was no magic. However, it did exist in fictional entertainment. It took me a while to piece it but the fact that people like Dr. Osborn and Tony Stark exist was enough proof that yes I was in that fictional universe. Willem Dafoe is the look-alike of Dr. Osborn and he was an actor whilst Robert Downey Jr. is a copy of Tony Stark who is also an actor." I took a deep breath before continuing, "I took a gamble coming here to see if you exist just like your counterpart in that universe and well here we are."
There was silence for a while before the sorcerer supreme spoke once again. "Hmm, that is quite interesting, a world where magic is fictional. So far I can see that you have told me nothing but the truth. But your main reason to visit the sanctum here is to learn the Mystic Arts."
"Yes."
"Why?" she asks.
"Pardon?" I ask.
"You are already one the most powerful individuals on Earth currently and in the future that power will only grow. So I ask you again why do you want to learn magic?" she asks me with an eyebrow raised.
"I have multiple reasons. Firstly with my abilities, I can only affect the physical plane which means mystical threats are impossible for me to counter. Secondly, I want to be immune to telepaths to not be a danger to humanity and to those I hold dear. And lastly, should any other speedsters like me have wicked intentions I might be able to have the upper hand over them. I want to be prepared for anything that would be a threat, including myself." I say while looking at her directly in the eyes to project my sincerity. This was all true because I had no intention of antagonizing humans along with the fact that I wasn't ruthless by nature.
"Very well." The easy acceptance catches me off guard.
"So I'm ready to learn magic? I'm not a threat am I." I couldn't help but worry slightly.
"Do you believe that you are a threat, Mr. Langston?"
"I'm not sure... but as they say 'absolute power corrupts absolutely' which is true in a way."
"That is true, yes, but in every future I've seen of yours or at least those that are visible to me, in most if not all of them you are amongst Earth's greatest allies." Thank the lords, I was pretty scared of myself. "However I must warn you that the more you delve deeper into the secrets of the universe, the more challenges arise and the more conflict comes your way. You must be ready for them all." She says in a firm tone.
"I will Master," I automatically reply. There was a pause before, "So uhh... when do we start?"
"Right now," a portal appeared underneath me. Now normally I'd be able to react to it but it seems the Ancient One already knew that. Somehow she managed to open a portal while we were conversing. How she did that without me noticing was beyond me. But then again this was a being that could manipulate reality with the flick of her fingers.
"Shi-" and down the rabbit hole I go.
"In order to become a master of the mystic arts, a sorcerer must be proficient in the use of the sling ring," Master Chen announced. I and multiple other aspiring sorcerers stood in rows and columns at equal distance from each other. All of us wore red Asian monk robes which were surprisingly comfortable.
"They allow us to construct portals that aid us in our travels across the multiverse," He continued. "All you need to do is focus, clear your mind, and visualize the destination in you wish to transit to." I imagined the warehouse I trained in daily as clear as possible. "Look beyond the world in front of you. Imagine every detail. The clearer the picture, the quicker and easier the gateway shall open."
I remembered a quote from the movie Dr. Strange: "Surrender and use its power as your own."
By the 5th try, I heard a faint crackling sound before finally a circular shape formed. It grew larger and larger as I continued channeling eldritch magic into it until it finally grew large enough that I could probably walk through it.
I looked around and saw that I was the 6th one to create the portal without using the speed force to increase my thinking speed.
Eldritch magic was like coding in a way although a decent amount of it didn't make sense. Then again to quote the Ancient One: "Not everything does. Not everything has to."
Using Eldritch magic, a sorcerer could fabricate reality to form weapons, constructs and shape it up according to his or her desire. A sorcerer could also conjure specific shapes and geometric patterns with yellow-ish orange energy that could both produce light and warmth.
It could also be used despite disabilities as portrayed by Master Hamir. Even without his hands he could use magic and knew it like the back of his hand. Seeing him create portals despite the loss of a limb in person was way more astonishing than through the movies.
"Stop," came the commanding voice of Master Chen. Everyone instantly disables their portals. It was done by stopping the flow of energy through the sling ring itself.
Before I could leave I needed to ask a question that had been bugging me the entire time.
I went up to Master Chen. "Is it possible to create portals without the use of sling rings?" I asked him.
He raised an eyebrow before answering, "No. Even the Ancient One uses sling rings to conjure up portals."
Hmm, that's inconvenient. I better not lose this ring. "Thank you Master Chen." I bow to him.
Alright, enough training for today.
'Hmm, I wonder where I should eat today', I thought to myself.
"How the hell are you eating so much?" a voice to my left asks me. Rachel Harlow was her name.
"Huh? Could you repeat that?" I mumbled whilst chewing my food.
"I asked how the hell are you eating so much? And don't talk while eating your food." She says. Oh right this girl sitting in front of me was one of my partners at work. She had raven hair, brown eyes, a light brown complexion, moderate bust size, and a very cute butt. What can I say she was attractive in my opinion. She also lived close to my house with her parents, which was about a 10-minute drive.
Okay, she noticed. Play dumb, "Eating what?"
Not that dumb!
"I'm not stupid, normally you eat a maximum of a single burger and one side order of fries. Now you've eaten three burgers with 4 side orders. Somethings wrong with you David, and I want to know what it is?", she inquired hotly with eyes narrowed in skepticism. Yeah, she was quite hot-headed and stubborn.
"Wow, I'm surprised you noticed considering the doe eyes make whenever Tony Stark's onscreen. Are you sure you haven't built a shrine of him in your house?", I reply deflecting her question once again.
Her cheeks tinted pink before she visibly schooled her features. "I have done no such thing," she says indignantly.
"Riiiiight... yup I totally believe you." She opened her mouth to protest but I spoke up once more, "how's the spider project going on by the way?"
Rachel calms down before frowning. "So far a lot of the spiders died when exposed to radiation. We haven't had much success in developing spiders that make more produce more powerful venom. Some spiders develop the ability to change the color of their skin but then they too die almost immediately. So yeah, so far not the best results."
I swallow another bite before asking, "So where do the dead spiders go?"
"I'm not quite sure honestly. They mostly dispose of them through a tube." She pauses. "I think that they're burnt. The leftover ash is then purified and then disposed of in landfills."
"Glad they realized it could pollute the environment."
"How's your father by the way?" she asks. Good, she forgot about my eating habits.
We continue talking about mundane things before I bid her farewell. If I ever was interested in pursuing romance it would be with her. She was my age, hot, intelligent, and caring. But I simply couldn't date her because I was scared she would be used hostage against me should someone figure out my identity in the near future which is highly likely. Protecting my father always came first and I would not let anyone use other people close to me, against me.
Hmm, yeah I'd rather be a loner than endanger those close to me. I'm too much of a sap for that.
AN: This is not a Harem by the way in case you're wondering.
Thank you for your reviews I've read them and will take them into consideration.
Any ideas for pairing?