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[20 Chapters in Advance on Patre.on]
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Chapter 61: I'm Gay!!
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[Oh, those tentacles. They're giving me flashbacks to some anime I had seen.]
[Hentai? Eww, you like tentacle hentai? Tf is wrong with you?]
[That's fucking disgusting. Please link for further research.] [+1] [+1] [+1]
Adam didn't hesitate. He walked to the cradle. The chest piece detached with a soft hiss and floated to him, guided by his Mechanical Force and Technopathy.
It settled against his torso, the components locking into place with satisfying magnetic clicks.
It was light, yet he still felt its weight. The two weight-bearing tentacles extended, touching the floor, taking his weight off his feet with eerie stability.
The other four hovered like silent, predatory appendages.
He moved to a workbench. This was where the true work happened. The tentacles weren't just for show.
Two of them became his primary hands, their fine manipulators wielding soldering irons and micro-welders with precision exceeding human capability.
Another tentacle held a holographic schematic of a focused particle beam cannon.
The fourth retrieved components from across the room.
He was building weapons. Not for an army, but for a one-man war against threats he couldn't yet fully comprehend.
He wasn't even sure if such weapons would be useful against Mephisto, but he hoped they would be of some use.
Cannons that could be mounted on the tentacles. Micro-missile pods. Sonic disruptors.
His need for firepower was visceral, a direct response to feeling like prey in Mephisto's game.
It's the thing he's suffering from the most, Fear of Lack of Firepower.
As he worked, syncing a new targeting algorithm, he spoke aloud, his voice calm in the hum of the workshop.
"The problem with the warper is scale. Counter-suggestions? Assume conventional weaponry is useless."
He wasn't talking to Alice. He was addressing the voices. The [Information] panel shimmered in his mind's eye; the audience's imagination was vaster than he could ever hope to reach.
[You can't fight him directly! You need magical defense! Find Doctor Strange! Correction, Sorcerer Supreme, whoever that is in this timeline.]
[Mephisto's power is tied to deals and souls. Protect your soul! Get a psychic or a holy artifact! Learn magic!]
[Is there any way to contact Constantine? Adam, just find your way into DC! Entertain us there too!]
[Arc Reactor overload blast!? Like, find a way for it to go ka boom! And even more Ka Boom!!]
[Time manipulation is a bitch. You need precog or your own time-lock tech.]
[But Adam, conventional weaponry, if taken to the extreme, is useful. It's not as if Iron Man hadn't faced cosmic entities in the comics.]
[The issue, my friend, is time. He doesn't have time. Also, is Adam more intelligent than Tony Stark?]
[Ohh? No way just half of Doom's intelligence would be superior to Tony Stark's?]
[Well, Adam is a combination of his own intelligence and half of Doom's. Adam's inherent intelligence should be peanuts in comparison, so yeah, unlikely.]
[Steal a nuke? And throw it into Mephisto's dimension.]
[Won't it just feed Mephisto? Sounds useless, imo.]
[Honestly, Adam, just become a mutant Sorcerer Supreme. Easy.]
[Just become God, dude. Easy.]
Adam's lips quirked. "Magical defense is a resource gap. Psychic defense… Already have that. A focused, repulsor-like blast derived from the Arc Reactor, channeled through all tentacles…"
"It could be a 'Hellbore.' maybe. Noted. Time tech is beyond my current materials science."
He nodded, as if to a room full of colleagues. "Thank you. The last suggestions are noted and filed under 'Long-term Aspirational Goals.'"
[HE'S USING US AS A THINK TANK!]
[We're his imaginary R&D department! This is meta as hell!]
["Long-term Aspirational Goals." He's taking "become a sorcerer" as a serious project milestone!]
[...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [I believe.]
[Who doesn't believe at this point?]
[Give me a sec, I have to join the Illuminati.]
[There is a Cypher Cult in the neighbourhood. I think I should join.]
[I feel like I'm losing my mind watching this fucking show. Also, tf are these math formulas flying around chat?]
[Oh? Haven't you heard? A lot of scientific communities banded together to feed Adam information and continue their legacy.]
[The world is facing an insurmountable amount of hacks and breaches, and people are stealing or leaking all kinds of tech secrets to Adam through chat.]
[You must be living under a cave. How have you not heard about most of GTA6's code and resources being leaked through chat?]
[You cannot be tracked through the show's chat unless your username is actually your real name or the same username on other platforms.]
[All is gettiing leakeeed, even medicl formlas, codes, and shit. Ctazy mnan, itzcrazy i tell ya!]
[I feel ya man, I also escaped to getting high to cope with this crazy shit! The world's goign insaanne maan!!]
He was a general preparing for an unknowable war, with the collective, chaotic intelligence of an entire world's worth of comic book fans as his strategic advisors.
Truly, everyone became comic book fans just to support him and learn more about Marvel.
Well, it's not all that lovely; a lot of chat is just typing misinformation on purpose and all kinds of bullshit.
But it was still insanity. The entire World was his teacher: scientists, engineers, biologists, nerds, and all in between.
It was the ultimate cheat code.
The serene flow of his work was shattered by a soft chime. Alice's voice, now richer, more nuanced, filled the room.
"Master. Incoming priority call. Jean Grey. Her biometrics indicate extreme distress."
A cold finger of premonition traced Adam's spine. He accepted the call on the main screen.
Jean's face appeared pale, somewhat panicked. There was noise and movement behind her; she was in the Blackbird, in flight.
"Adam! Thank god you're there!" Her voice was tight, on the verge of breaking. "We're on our way to you. We need you. We really need you!"
"Jean, breathe. What's happening?"
"It's the Professor! Scott, and Ororo! They've been taken! Kidnapped!"
Adam's mind, so full of particle beam schematics and demonic countermeasures, went blank for a full three seconds.
What?
Why?
How?
The questions were a silent scream. A familiar, confused complaint rose in his mind, a protest against a universe that made no fucking sense.
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
How the fuck did Professor X get captured? Is he fucking braindead?
[OH SHIT! THE X-MEN ARE UNDER ATTACK!]
[Adam's face! He's so done! The universe won't let him build his murder-tentacles in peace!]
[He just went from preparing for a devil to dealing with a mutant crisis. This man cannot catch a break.]
[Mark my words, it's Mephisto's doing! He has a hand in this!!]
[I knew Hydra won't let Adam have some peace.]
[Hydra? Tf does this have to do with Hydra?]
[Dude, it's always Hydra. I slept with ya mama last night... Because of Hydra.]
[Tf? I know for a fact u didn't sleep with my mom, I slept with my mom yesterday!]
[?????????????????] [Ok, I'm done.] [Lmao!]
[Damn, I'm so fucking jealous. My stepmom is hot too, but... I have a micropenis.]
[...] [...] [...] [????] [My condolences.] [You guys are unhinged.]
[Professor X kidnapped?!]
[Why are u surprised? He gets kidnapped every other day.]
[True, it happened many times in canon.]
[Mutant crisis is a common occurrence. No need for surprise.]
[But how did Professor X get captured? Can't he just mind fuck everyone?]
[He can, but he's usually on the receiving end. He likes to take backshots.]
[...]
Only minutes after the call ended, Adam sat in the high-backed leather chair in his office.
His posture was regal, almost statuesque, his head resting on his steepled hands.
His expression was unnervingly calm, a placid lake surface hiding churning depths.
Inside, his mind was a war room, maps and probabilities flashing behind his cybernetic eye.
Professor X, Cyclops, and Storm. Kidnapped.
The audacity was staggering. How?
It spoke of inside knowledge, of planning that circumvented the world's most powerful telepath and a woman who controlled the weather and Scott's destructive eyes.
It reminded Adam that everything and everyone can be outplayed, can be plotted against, to never underestimate anyone.
His first, cold thought was of a smiling man in a tan suit. Mephisto. Was this the first tangible twist of the board? A distraction? An attempt to shatter one of his few nascent alliances?
The X-Men's frantic debrief via Jean had given him names: The Purifiers. A fanatical anti-mutant militia, all fervor and firepower.
And behind them, a more dangerous mind: U.S. Army Colonel William Stryker.
A man with resources, authority, and a pathological hatred for mutation that bordered on the religious. No, it was even zealous.
He let his gaze drift inward, to the endless stream of the [Information] panel.
The audience was having fun with that information.
[Damn, chat's moving so fast. If I say it, no one would notice... I'm Gay!!!]
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