Cerion was baffled by the creature standing before him in human form. The heat signature it was radiating was phenomenal. He could see the adverse effects the creature's mere presence was having on the surroundings. Green leaves were rapidly drying up because of exposure to this unnatural heat, and some of the trees were outright burning after prolonged exposure. The air became dead, killing all gales immediately.
"Who are you?" he asked, ready for anything while floating a healthy distance away from the creature.
"As I said, boy, I'm the scourge of the seven seas. You may call me Ghost."
Cerion restrained his urge to cringe. It was a classic villain introduction that oozed almost comic evilness. If it weren't for the situation he found this creature in, he'd have found the whole thing amusing. But the burning house behind him and the increasing temperature in the area made this situation far from amusing.
"Alright, Mr Ghost. What do you want?" he asked, folding his hands against his chest while keeping his senses sharp for any surprise sneak attacks.
"It is not I who wants your attention, boy." Ghost snapped, his lone eye blazing with fire, "It is my master who has a message for you."
'Of course it is.' Cerion thought blandly, eyeing the creature before him sceptically.
"So, you are just a servant then. Who's your master?"
Ghost let out a growl that was reminiscent of a wild boar. The only difference was Ghost had flames pouring out of his mouth and nose while growling.
While the growl was most certainly intended for intimidation, Cerion was hardly moved. He merely raised an eyebrow and stood there in mid-air for Ghost to put a stop to all the theatrics.
"My master is known by many names, boy. He is the Lord of Darkness, the master of the damned. He is the Prince of Lies. He is…"
"While I'm sure you love your voice too much, can we please move this along?" Cerion snapped exasperatedly at Ghost.
Truly, what is this with these bad guys? It's as if they could not help but drone on and on. Maybe all villains suffer from some form of histrionic personality disorder. Otherwise, why were they obsessed with attention instead of just doing whatever villainous things they got to do without talking the ear off of other people?
"You don't know whom you insult, boy. My master will…"
"Oh, fuck this!" Cerion had it enough and blasted Ghost with a strong dose of laser.
He was not sure whether that would work, seeing as Ghost was no stranger to extreme heat. After all, the thing has fire coursing through its veins. But, to his surprise, his laser punched through Ghost, and a small, careful movement of his eyes saw to it that the creature was bisected vertically. Ghost fell over to the ground, spilling liquid fire all over the place, but more importantly, in two parts.
Aside from the crackling fire burning through wood and stone, there was a prevailing silence in the air. That's probably because no one lived close to this location.
'Certainly works well for me.' he thought, looking at the puddle of liquid fire that was spreading all over the area. If there were people crowding this area he'd have struggled to deal with this loon.
Taking a deep breath, he steadily breathed out, blanketing the whole area with frost. The abrupt lowering temperature stopped the spread of fire, encasing the remains of Ghost's body in planks of ice, consequently snuffing out the lava and turning it into solid chips. Feeling not an iota of remorse for what he did, Cerion decided to call it a day and took his leave by traversing the night sky of Louisiana and returning to his home in good old California.
Cerion was somewhat disturbed by the strange incident, but he put it behind him, seeing as there were no follow-up incidents in the following days. Treating the whole incident as water under the bridge, he threw himself into work, and there was a lot of work to be done. His deal with President Thicket placed him in a uniquely complicated situation. He never planned to stay too long on Earth. He had plans to explore the stars in the coming years.
When President Thicket proposed a collaboration between the two of them, he was quite surprised but not enough to turn a blind eye to the unique opportunity that presented itself before him. Considering he intervened in the September 11 attacks, the extra attention was bound to happen.
Anyhow, whether he liked it or not, he was halfway into the muddy pond of politics, regardless of his motivations to interfere in human affairs. So, what was the harm in going full-in, especially when he could leverage his position for the benefit of not just himself or the human race but the whole planet? He found no better time than now to start reversing the adverse effects of pollution that were going to crop up all over the planet.
Global warming and rapid climate change were perhaps two of the top ten threats plaguing planet Earth. In his mind, this was a threat that required far more attention than Thanos or anything else at the moment. Not because he was diminishing other threats like HYDRA, Kree, Ego and other usual villains. It was because all the other threats could be dealt with in a fixed timeframe, and Global warming or climate change cannot be tackled in a fixed timeframe. The desalination of seawater was already picking up pace, and this was one of the early signs in Krypton as well. The poles were warming up, and the ozone layer was under assault because of the aggregate dumping of harmful pollutants since the Industrial Revolution.
Some of the models projected that oxygen levels would fall in the next three decades and greenhouse gases would dominate the atmosphere. Basically, planet Earth was going to terraform because of the discrepancy in the vital life-support systems of the planet. Heat waves would change the current climate patterns, leading to rapid floods, storms and whatnot. This could not be allowed to happen as far as he was concerned. In Krypton, people had to adapt to rapid climate changes by building massive cities that could withstand superstorms, massive earthquakes, recurring floods and other natural calamities. Large tracts of land had become inarable in Krypton, forcing people who were not city-dwellers to farm underground using artificial lighting.
Most freshwater lakes were contaminated in Krypton, and that was the case more so for oceans where rising ocean temperatures killed millions of species. This, along with a red star that assaulted Krypton with ridiculous heat flares, made Krypton a living hell. They had to develop and sustain ridiculous artificial shields, and other vices through their biggest cities. Sustaining the defences of cities required enormous energy, which in turn worsened the condition of Krypton because of increased mining.
There were no perfect solutions to the catastrophe lurking in Earth's future, just like Krypton. With the huge amount of hydrocarbons expelled into the atmosphere, it was almost impossible to eradicate the rising sea level. But if he could manage to introduce cheap energy and alternate mining spots for precious minerals, then Earth's climate catastrophe could be offset somehow or at least weaken its worse effects.
To this effect, he started the work on introducing green energy far earlier than he was prepared to. Obviously, he won't be able to take it public on the fly, but he started working from Vex Corp HQ in California. He was still working out some cogs in his planning as there were some issues he had to deal with if he was to go forward with his plans. The sales of Vex Corp's laptops were booming, but he was still in the beginning stages. This was why he negotiated a tax deal with the President for emerging new technologies, especially green energy. Of course, he'd have to put up some people to speak with the RNC policy team to include every little detail that'd make it easier for his company to rapidly spread across the US with the green energy initiative he was planning to launch.
Cerion doubted he, or anyone for that matter, could eradicate climate change or global warming in its entirety. But, there were ways to mitigate and reduce its impact on the earthlings. He was going to tackle the issue using three prongs. One, the rapid introduction of green energy to replace almost all fossil fuel burning as fast as possible without disturbing the current energy sectors too much. Two, expedite the space fairing capabilities of the human race so that they may seek out resources from the stars rather than exhausting Earth's mineral wealth. Third was the hardest option of all. It requires humans to use their resources judiciously and responsibly. The extravagance associated with rapid wealth generation has to be mitigated, and this can only be achieved by raising mankind's collective consciousness.
As any sane person would advise, options one and two must function in tandem, but option one was definitely going to get priority. Without a credible renewable source of energy, it would be nigh impossible for people to get any traction and switch from fossil fuels. Just look at how people switched from coal to petroleum and then to electricity in the last century. In his opinion, the switching of railway companies across the world to clean energy ought to be studied more closely. When it became economically viable, they made the switch. The same had to happen in future green energy projects.
Those activist types who harp on solar energy probably didn't realise that the production of those panels was far more hazardous to the environment with present technology. The same goes for wind, which does not even offer enough energy compared to solar. These two options were just a band-aid, not a solution.
The solution lay in the Arc Reactor, but Cerion can't just take the reactor public, considering the fact that Stark Industries own the patent for Arc Reactors. They were twiddling their thumbs with the reactor, and Tony Stark had only shown a proclivity to blowing stuff up instead of helping the world. Not very surprising because the guy was a narcissistic nutter living in his own bubble; at least, that was the word in Silicon Valley.
Whatever the case, maybe it was paramount that he had a chat with Tony Stark. There was a lot they could do together, and as such, he charged one of his assistants to arrange a meeting. If Stark did not cooperate, Cerion would be hard-pressed to accelerate some of his plans. Mostly cause he was facing a lack of infrastructure and resources. He had already pushed his luck with the rapid expansion of Vex Corp by setting up shell companies in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Europe to increase foreign investments in the company. The high tax rates plus the cost of building anything in the US was double that Hong Kong or Taiwan had forced his hand. It was one of the reasons why he was planning to expand the production facilities of Vex Corp into Hong Kong and Singapore following the success of Taiwan.
The only reason why he was able to put SolPrime on the market was because of his production facility in Taiwan. And even that capacity was being challenged as days went by. His present production facilities in California were not enough to satisfy the market requirements of the state, much less the nation itself. If it weren't for Taiwan, his company would be a dead fish in the pond. So, he saw the need to attract more capital in a short amount of time to expand facilities in the US and abroad. Cerion gathered a joint project between Stark Industries and Vex Corp, which could increase his reach into investors and thereby stack up legitimate investors rather than cooking up more shell companies across the globe. Otherwise, he'd be forced to lay off some of his stocks in YouStream to increase his immediate purchasing power. He was sure he could attract more investments after New Year's Eve or if he waited patiently for the fiscal year to end.
He was a little bit concerned. After all, he was not just planning on staying in the computer market. He had plans for smartphones. Already, one such design was staring back at him from the screen of his laptop. He planned to launch the first smartphone with a touchscreen before Christmas next year, and that required substantial investments.
A few light taps on the glass door of his office made him look up from the laptop screen.
"Come in, Deborah."
Looking at one of his lead managerial employees in YouStream, he was reminded of what was at stake. It'd not be just his stocks at stake; the entire YouStream staff's position would be in jeopardy. After all, he was offered a hefty price by one of the tech giants to acquire YouStream. That offer was only going to get a substantial boost as SolPrime's demand soared in the market. The success of a product in the market increases confidence in the company. Not to mention, he used YouStream's platform to advertise SolPrime, which turned out to be a phenomenal success. It was only a week, and the launch video already had 538K views and climbing.
Keeping that all aside, Cerion focused on the person before him.
"Everything all right?"
"We may have to modify the compression programs and even add a few more servers. Our viewership is increasing faster than anticipated."
Now, that made him frown. "Last I checked, there was no problem of that sort."
Deborah nodded. "There wasn't until three days back you wanted 480p to be added before Christmas Eve. I did send you a file explaining just that yesterday."
Cerion eyed the stack of files that he had pushed to the far end of his table with some trepidation. He wondered what else he missed because of his dallying mind.
"Is everything okay? You seem disturbed," asked Deborah, with some concern bleeding into her tone.
"No, I have a meeting arranged with Tony Stark next week."
These days, it feels easier to lie than tell the truth.
"Is this about that automation deal?" asked Deborah.
"No. It's something else. Tell you what, why don't you come with me? It'd be good to have someone along while facing the Merchant of Death himself," said Cerion, snorting at the moniker.
With epithets like that, it was no wonder Stark became what he was today.
"Yeah, about that… I don't think I can do that."
"Huh, why?" Cerion asked, noticing Deborah was getting a bit red on her cheeks.
"I'm getting married."
"What?"
Of all the things that he expected, this was not one of them. But he quickly got over his shock and sat up straight in his seat while shaking her hands.
"Congratulations, Deborah."
"Thanks. I'd appreciate it if you keep it to yourself. It's not exactly a traditional wedding per se." she said, looking a bit uncomfortable.
"What do you mean?" Cerion frowned.
"Well, I'm not a straight player."
"Oh." Cerion nodded, understanding why Deborah remained cautious in sharing that detail. "Wait. Then how are you getting married? I don't think that's legal in the US."
"I'm not marrying in the US. My partner is a Dutch citizen. Same-sex marriage has been legal in the Netherlands since April." she said, shrugging.
"Huh, I didn't know that." Cerion leaned back in his chair.
"Here, take this," she said, handing Cerion a pink envelope, "It's the invitation card."
Cerion opened the envelope and ran through the elegant gold-coloured lines.
"My marriage. It won't be a problem, right?" Deborah asked hesitantly.
"Oh, yes, it's going to be. I have to find a suitable gift for the wedding after all."
The relieved smile gracing Deborah's face was a good thing. She's going to need a lot of courage and support, in his opinion.
XXXXXXXX
"Marv, should we call someone?" Billy asked, looking at the frost-covered home that looked like it had burned down.
"Who'd you reckon we should call?" asked Marv, scratching his head while looking at the strange sight before him.
"The Sheriff, duh." said Billy.
"Are you crazy? That prick might pin this on us." said Marv, shoving his friend away, "Let's get out of this place man. It's giving me the creeps."
"Oh, come on, Marv. What if someone died in a fire or something?" Billy was not so willing to let this go and so he stopped Marv from opening the door to their car. "It's almost Christmas. We should do a good deed, don't ya think?"
"I don't want to be in any trouble, Billy. Let's just get out of here and forget we ever saw this," Marv suggested before trying to yank open the door.
"A little late for that, gentlemen."
Marv and Billy jumped startled by the voice, which turned out to be from an old man in a black coat and walking stick.
"Who…who are you?" asked Marv, staring at the old man who appeared out of nowhere.
"I've had many names across the millennia—so many that I can no longer remember my true name," said the old man.
"This guy is a loon, Marv. Let's get out of here," Billy said, freaked out by the old guy.
"Oh, you can't go. How else would my servant feed and regain his strength?" the old man said, tapping his walking stick on the ground.
It was as if a storm suddenly swept them off their feet. Marv and Billy were in the air, blasted away by an unseen force. They screamed in their loudest voice, but it was for nought. The frost consuming the are cracked, and the earth split open. From within the cavity, two gigantic long hands stretched out and captured Marv and Billy. The hand suddenly started dripping a black tar-like substance that consumed Billy and Marv, who screamed to their end.
There was a bright flash of fire, and Ghost was made whole again with his bellowing red coat. The reformed Ghost promptly fell on his knees.
"Forgive me, master."
"I'm a forgiving man, am I not?" the old man said, letting out an amused chuckle.
All of a sudden, the laughter was abruptly cut off.
"It's no matter, my dear Ghost. You faced one of His creations, after all. I can smell the stench of that hypocrite lingering in the air."
"What should we do, master?"
The old man let out a laugh that echoed throughout the area.
"A prey has stepped into my domain, my dear Ghost. And so the hunt begins."