Notice-
There was a screw-up in the chapter order during the bulk release. This has now been fixed!
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The Medical Bay
Johann Schmidt, now the Red Skull, gestured to Dr. Erskine with a hand that looked like raw meat.
"Tell him," Schmidt rasped.
"Tell him how you failed me."
Dr. Erskine stepped forward, his face gray with exhaustion.
He looked like a man who hadn't slept in weeks.
"After you left, Dr. Ernst... the research moved fast. Too fast," Erskine admitted, his voice trembling.
"I felt... inspired. It was as if the formulas were writing themselves. We moved to animal trials within days. The mice survived. They thrived."
"So I took it," Schmidt interrupted, his eyes burning.
"I took five doses. The first four were magnificent. I felt the power of a god flowing through my veins. But the fifth..."
Schmidt shuddered, a rare show of vulnerability.
"It was as if my blood turned to acid. My skin boiled. My muscles convulsed. I was stripped of my humanity, layer by layer."
Ernst listened, his face impassive, but his mind was racing.
Erskine isn't this sloppy, Ernst thought.
And research doesn't just 'move fast' by accident.
Was it fate? Or was it Ares?
In this merged universe, the God of War was active.
Ares whispered ideas of destruction into the ears of men like Doctor Poison.
Had he whispered to Erskine too?
"Dr. Ernst?" Schmidt snapped.
"Do not tell me you are daydreaming."
"I am analyzing," Ernst corrected calmly.
"I need samples. Blood, tissue, bone marrow. If I am to fix God's mistake, I need to know what broke."
Schmidt nodded.
"You have three days."
He stood up, grabbing a latex mask from the table.
As he pulled it over his crimson skull, he looked almost human again, a grotesque parody of the man he used to be.
Three Days Later
The atmosphere in the lab was suffocating.
Schmidt sat at the head of the table, tapping his gloved fingers.
Erskine stood in the corner, looking like a prisoner awaiting execution.
Ernst placed a file on the table.
"I have the answer," Ernst said.
Schmidt snatched the file, but the scientific jargon was dense.
He glared at Erskine.
"Translate it."
Erskine read the summary, his eyes widening.
"Mein Gott... it is thermodynamics."
"Explain," Schmidt demanded.
"It is simple energy conservation, General," Ernst interjected, taking control of the room.
"The Serum is a catalyst. It rewrites your DNA to handle massive output. But that rewriting process requires fuel."
Ernst walked to a whiteboard and drew a simple diagram.
"The first four doses burned through your body's natural reserves, fats, sugars, ATP. When you took the fifth dose, the tank was empty. The Serum needed energy to fuel the transformation, so it took the only source available: your own cells."
"It cannibalized you," Ernst said ruthlessly.
"It ate your skin to feed your muscles. You didn't evolve, General. You starved."
Schmidt sat back, stunned.
"Starved? I have the strength of ten men."
"Should have been thirteen, actually," Ernst corrected.
"But you look like a corpse because your body paid the price. To fix this... we need to unlock the door again. But this time, we don't just use a key. We kick it down."
Schmidt leaned forward.
"A second generation Serum?"
"Correct," Ernst nodded.
"We re-inject you. But this time, we flood your system with external energy simultaneously. We saturate your cells with Vita-Rays and raw nutrients so the Serum feeds on that, not you. It will be agonizing. If your will falters, you will explode. But if you succeed..."
Ernst let the sentence hang.
"I will ascend," Schmidt finished, a greedy light in his eyes.
"I accept. What do you need?"
"Two things," Ernst said, raising two fingers.
"First, Dr. Erskine is mine. He answers to me, not you. His intuition is valuable, even if his methods were... rushed."
"Done," Schmidt waved a hand.
"He is yours."
"Second," Ernst paused, his expression serious.
"The catalyst. The raw material provided by the Dark Wizard. I know you've been rationing the extract, keeping the source hidden. But if I am to build a Gen-2 Serum, I need to study the artifact itself. I need the source code."
Schmidt hesitated.
The artifact was his most guarded secret.
"It is dangerous," Schmidt warned.
"I am a scientist, General. Danger is part of the job description."
Schmidt studied Ernst for a long moment. He saw no fear, only intellectual hunger.
"Very well," Schmidt relented.
"I will have the artifact transferred to the secure vault tomorrow. You may study it... under guard."
"Acceptable," Ernst smiled thinly.
"Give me three months, General. I will give you the world."
As Schmidt left, Ernst adjusted his glasses, hiding the triumph in his eyes.
He didn't care about fixing Schmidt's face.
He wanted the artifact.
With his new brain capacity and the Reality Stone, he would tear its secrets apart and claim its power for himself.
Let the Red Skull dream of divinity,
Ernst thought. I'm the one building the throne.
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Authors Note:
I have analyzed the physics of 'Writer Motivation.'
It turns out, my typing speed is directly correlated to the number of shiny blue rocks (Power Stones) in my inventory.
200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
10 reviews = 1 bonus Chapter