Everyone in the room, from the hardened agents to the brilliant scientists, stared at me in shock and disappointment.
Cecil, however, simply sighed, rubbing his temples as if he had expected this kind of bullshit. "Fine. How much is your fee this time? I will wire it to your card accounts immediately."
I shook my head, wagging a finger. "Ah, no wire transfers or arbitrary numbers in a bank account. I need hard cash. But for now, a hundred-dollar bill will work for a good demonstration."
Cecil grumbled something profane under his breath and looked at Donald, who quickly reached into his tailored suit, pulled out his personal wallet, and handed me a crisp, freshly minted hundred-dollar bill.
"Watch closely, Doc," I said.
I placed the bill in my palm. I slotted in Greedy Healing and focused as my hand instantly ignited with a brilliant, shimmering colour of refined bullion. I reached out and pointed a glowing finger directly at the director's nose.
The skin glowed bright gold for a second, then it spread to cover a patch of his fake skin. The crisp hundred-dollar bill in my hand dissolved into motes of golden light and completely vanished into the ether.
"Weird," I murmured, staring at my empty hand. "I thought some skin graphing would only take about ten dollars, does new skin cost that much? Inflation really is a bitch."
Cecil reached up, looking distinctly uncomfortable with the new look. Smooth unblemished skin, the kind of stuff that itches and takes him back a few decades. He's right, this power is damn miraculous.
Dr. Riya gasped, clapping her hands over her mouth in sheer amazement. She immediately yelled at an assistant to take samples of Cecil's skin…or she was before Cecil promptly shut her down.
But Cecil's mind was somewhere else. I could practically see the gears turning behind his eyes as he figured out the true mechanics behind my healing.
"Wait," Cecil said slowly, his voice dropping an octave. "Are you telling me... you literally need hard cash to heal injuries?"
I clapped my hands together. "Bingo! But not entirely just cash. It works on any physical asset. Gold bars, silver, platinum, bearer bonds, and real estate deeds. As long as it has a solid, universally recognized material value. No crypto or NFTs, though. The healing power had a weird sense for highly volatile stuff."
Dr. Riya lowered her clipboard, looking at me with a mix of horror and scientific fascination. "What kind of capitalist, dystopian nightmare is this kid from? Are you sure you are not just making a fool of us, young man?"
But Cecil ignored her. His eyes widened slightly as a grim realization settled over his expression.
"So that's why..." Cecil muttered, looking at the floor and thinking. "That is why you stopped at stabilizing Sebas's bleeding back in Chicago. You didn't run out of energy. You ran out of money."
I became downcast as the sarcastic humour drained from my body. I nodded slowly.
"Yeah," I admitted, my voice thick again with lingering guilt. "I had about ten million dollars in liquid cash sitting in my inventory. But Sebas... his existence is way higher on the power ladder than I am. Not to mention, he was in two pieces by the time I arrived. Bringing someone of his caliber back from the brink of death required so much more than I had on me."
As the memory of Sebas's sacrifice filled the room, the mood turned somber.
"Sebas..." Dr. Riya said softly, her eyes lowering respectfully. "He saved thousands of lives that day. He was a real hero, Mr. Kaisen. We truly are so sorry for your loss."
Cecil took a long, heavy minute of silence. Then, he turned to his second-in-command.
"Donald. I want you to go to the primary vault. Get as much precious metal and hard cash as you can physically carry on a hover-cart. Now."
And so, we began the most expensive medical procedure in human history.
It turned out to be an incredibly good training exercise for me. Guided by Dr. Riya's anatomical knowledge and decades of experience.
We started with Shrinking Ray, as her injuries were purely structural.
I laid my hands over her cast, and Donald nervously pushed a cart of solid gold bars next to me. As the golden light flared, enveloping her broken body, the gold bars began to dissolve into shimmering dust.
I used it to knit torn muscles, fuse shattered bones, and repair complex neurological pathways
When the light faded, Ray, still anaesthetised, took a deep and painless breath, now completely healed.
I looked down at the cart's scale and noted about ten kilograms of solid gold had vanished.
I think I actually saw a tear drop from one of the GDA accountants in the observation booth.
It had cost the agency roughly fifteen million dollars to heal her.
Cecil swallowed hard. "So... healing a severely broken hero takes about fifteen mil. Good to know."
"Let's try it on Black Samson," I suggested. "He's technically a peak human without his powers right now. It'll give us a good baseline standard for severe trauma."
But as I began healing him, watching about a million dollars' worth of platinum evaporate to reattach his severed arm and fuse his spine, I remembered something crucial from the original show. I remembered that Samson naturally regained his lost superpowers after getting beaten to a bloody pulp by Battle Beast.
Just as the thought crossed my mind, the golden light surged, triggering the dormant super-cells within his physiology, causing about Twenty Million worth of Platinum to melt into motes of light.
Suddenly, the monitors flatlined and exploded in a shower of sparks.
Bright, crackling yellow lightning erupted from Black Samson's body as it levitated a few feet off the medical bed, his eyes snapping open and glowing with energy. The massive static pressure in the room shattered the glass vials on the nearby counter.
"What did you do now, Kaisen?!" Cecil yelled over the roaring electricity, ducking behind a console.
"Ah, well! I just thought it would be neat if the old man got his powers back!" I yelled back, casually walking away from the floating, electrified hero. I turned to Cecil, offering a teasing smile. "My bad! If it ruins your budget, I can just reach back in there and make his powers dormant again!"
I raised my glowing hand, making a dramatic, scooping motion toward Samson.
Before I could do anything else, Donald lunged forward and physically grabbed my wrist with both hands, blocking Black Samson from my view.
"Mr. Kaisen... sir! I really do not think that will be necessary! Please!" Donald begged, his usually stoic face covered in a sheen of terrified sweat.
"But Cecil here is yelling at me," I teased, knowing full well the GDA had just miraculously regained one of their heaviest hitters.
"Ah, the Director?" Donald stammered, frantically trying to appease me. "The old man is just a grumpy asshole, sir! Please do not mind him and leave the powers alone!"
I burst out laughing, seeing the shock on Cecil's face upon hearing his fiercely loyal right-hand man completely throw him under the bus and curse him out to secure a superhuman asset.
As Black Samson finally floated back down to the bed, the lightning calming into a steady, powerful hum beneath his skin, the medical team quickly rushed in to move him to an isolated testing bay.
The only one remaining was Monster Girl.
I walked over to her hulking, sedated form and looked back at Cecil.
"You do know that instead of putting her in a medically induced coma, you could just wake her up, right?" I pointed out. "Her curse completely heals her physical body every time she transforms into her human form and back into her troll form. But hey, if you are eager to burn tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer cash just to watch me do it, I'm down. She is physically way stronger than Shrinking Ray, so this is gonna cost a fortune."
The next moment I lit my palms up with a blinding golden light, hovering them over her chest.
Cecil practically materialized next to me, grabbing my palm and turning me away from the hero. Forcefully, he shook my hand up and down.
"Thank you for all your help today, Mr. Kaisen! That will be all for today!" Cecil said rapidly. I could practically see the agency's budget cuts flashing before his eyes.
[Feat Achieved! Heal the New Guardians]
[Reward: +1x Silver Random Gacha Ticket]
A fake billion-dollar bounty was one thing, but a million dollars a pop just to fix a broken arm was clearly where Cecil drew the line. What's a few more weeks off Amanda's life?
"Alright, alright," I chuckled, stepping back. "But I expect my consultation fee for saving your heroes."
TWANG.
A golden tatami gate slid open behind me, revealing the dimly lit yet oddly comforting wooden halls of the Infinity Castle.
"Sure, sure," Cecil waved dismissively, already looking at his datapad to assess the damage to his vault. "Let's do a hundred million this time. I'll have Donald authorize the transfer."
I stopped at the threshold of the gate and looked back over my shoulder.
"But dear director, I am still in a bad mood because of the fact that you blindsided me with the Nolan news. Or have you forgotten that I literally grabbed you by the collar twenty minutes ago?"
A look of dawning horror slowly crept across Cecil's scarred face.
"I want a cool one billion dollars for my services today, plus Psychological damages dealt," I said, my voice dropping back in an unapologetic tone. "Don't worry. I take cash, gold bars, silver, or even platinum. Whatever you can scrape together from your black budget."
I stepped backward through the sliding wooden door, closing it shut behind me. As the gate sealed, I delighted in the certainty that I had just given the manipulative, two-faced bastard the mother of all migraines.
[A/N]: If you too wanna get a cool Billion, Drop Them Stones!!
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