Over the next few days my previously busy home grew quiet. About half of the ex-Widows went their own way, some deciding to travel to their home countries, others opting taking a stab at the American dream.
The majority of the rest went with Nat to join S.W.O.R.D, meaning I was likely to see them again.
Yelena also went with Nat, opting to work with her directly as a duo. Melina and Alexei also opted to join, as Melina said she'd be too bored without something to do, and Alexei wanted a chance to fight Cap.
A caravan of three blacked-out SUV's arrived to pickup Nat and her assassins. As they loaded into the vehicles Yelena took me aside.
"Thanks again, Riven." She said wrapping me in a hug, though this time my arms were free to hug her back.
She rubbed her face into my chest for a moment, taking a deep breath and pushing away from me.
"I'll text you, and you said I can crash here anytime I want right?"
I gave her a soft smile, "Of course, and don't forget I work with your sister."
She scoffed rolling her eyes, "How could I ever get my big, scary sister." She muttered, until we both heard a stern "Ahem."
We glanced slowly over to see Nat tapping her foot at us. A thumb flicking out towards the SUV's behind her.
Yelena chuckled, patting my chest and ble me a kiss before coyly walking and entering one of the SUV's.
Nat let out a resigned sigh, turning to me. "Riven, as much as I want to sit you down and give you a long talk… thank you. For everything, for coming and trusting me, know that I'll be happy to return the favor someday, see you around—agent.
I smirked, giving her a lazy two finger salute. Watching as the SUV's drove away.
Then I turned to those who remained.
Three women in their twenties watched wistfully as their fellow sisters left, before also turning to me, curious and partly hesitant looks in their eyes.
I recognized the black-haired Sofia Maracosa, standing confidently with her arms held behind her back.
I gave them all a grin, "Well, follow me and we can get started."
—
Even though they had portal'd into my base, seeing it again without the flood of adrenaline made them let out impressed hums.
I'm sure their deliberation process was influenced by the fact I already had a rather mysterious high-tech (and magic) base up and running.
I had Nex create us a couple of temporary chairs and a table. As we all took a seat next to the Servers and MTAR.
"Well, as you know already my name is Riven Thorne, but I believe introductions are in order, I'd like a name, where you hail from, an area of focus you have in mind for our little organization, and how about a hobby you'd like to pickup."
They gave me bemused looks, as it must've been the first time in their lives somebody had asked them about their hobbies.
Sofia raised her hand first, "I'll go first, Sofia Maracosa, I'm Italian—well, American now. I'd like to be a field operative, but wouldn't mind dipping my fingers into R&D, and as for a hobby goes… I think I'll try painting."
We all gave her soft smiles, nodding our heads at her choice.
"Good choice, fulfilling — and I can even provide you with a nice set of brushes, paints and canvases to start." I offered getting an appreciative nod from her.
"That'd be lovely, thank you."
I turned our focus on the next member, another olive skinned woman with short brunette hair and brown eyes. She had an inquisitive face, a button nose and slightly pointed ears.
"Hello, My name is Gabriella Angela, I'm from Spain—American too now. I'd like to focus on R&D, if possible, and specifically to try and reduce needless suffering…" She placed a single finger on her chin, "I'd also like to pursue fashion, in one form or another."
I grinned at her, "I can get behind all of that, I'll see what I can get you setup with software, tool and textile-wise, and we could even start a clothing line of our own." That got a bright smile out of her, as she gave me a grateful nod.
The final member was blonde haired and blue-eyed, her shoulder length hair tied back in a single large braid. She had aristocratic features, high cheeks, aquiline nose, and a jawline comparable to my own, only sharper, more angular.
"I am Catherine Grigorievich, Russia—a little town long since gone, I'd also like to be part of R&D, looking for things to help people living in harsh climates, but wouldn't be opposed to some field work if needed. For hobby, I want to join a gym."
Catherine was blunt, straight to the point but in such a way that she came off as genuine rather than brash.
"Mmm, good choice."
I lightly clapped my hands, "It's lovely to meet you all, now, let's get into some more nitty gritty details shall we?"
—
For the next few hours the five of us, including Nex who I introduced to the group, began developing a bare-bones skeletal structure of the organization.
We settled on the name F.O.R.C.E, as it was just too easy to pass up on—and I wanted to see Fury's reaction to us stealing his long-winded naming scheme.
The acronym… is still a work in progress. As surprisingly, everyone refused to use: Fucking Outrageously Rapid Cosmic Enforcement.
Which was just plain disappointing.
Our discussion covered everything from housing—which I revealed the on-going acquisition of a nearby island—pay, to which I invited them to stay rent free here until we could move onto the island, as well as informing them of the upcoming Nexium Gen.1, as well as further ideas, Gabriella said we could easy start a clothing-line with our current resources as making a loom would be a cake-walk compared to Gene-E and the MTAR.
I agreed, and immediately had Nex begin research on such a thing, dubbing it Cosmic Loom-1, or CL-1 for short.
Nex also was in need of some upgrades, mainly better servers—and I also planned to pull a Ultron and make her a body. Freeing her from her digital strings.
Would I come to regret such a thing?
Who knows!
All this meant I'd also need to make a Fabricator, fucking finally.
This was actually a top priority, so those Wakandan Sonic-manipulator designs I stole moons ago were going to finally see some love.
My fellow co-workers all agree'd to go without pay as long as they had food and shelter until we could all afford to be paid.
I gave them access to my bank account for now, setting a 5k limit for each as a temporary stipend.
Catherine offered to begin research into creating a company, and would even offer to act as temporary CEO since I couldn't sign binding contracts for a year and a bit.
Of course, I'd be legal owner.
Though I didn't plan to micro-manage the thing, that'd be foolish and too much work. The power of delegation is second only to compounding force.
In the interim of our foundations were being setup everyone would begin their studies in their chosen fields.
I even offered to send people abroad to study. Gabriella specifically asked if I could help her look into med-schools, as having a MD on-board would help give our Bio-tech arm some ground to stand on.
To really solidify our goals we workshopped a motto.
This was important—as it was something that every future and current member must agree upon and validated through magical means.
If you didn't, we'd know.
Good Begets Evil,
We shall cull it's Fester—and Guard Life,
Holding death closer—with Force of Will,
Evil Begets Good.
It was very grey coded, a little flowery for my tastes, but I kinda liked how broad it was.
It basically boiled down to the simple fact that will always be shit to fight for, a life to protect, to not to be a coward in the face of adversity, and let the world know your will.
We all passed the magical vibe check.
And so The F.O.R.C.E Company began.
—
It would've been foolish of me not to offer my temporary dubbed Super-Hot Serum to the ex-assassins.
It was something I couldn't take back, but the fact alone that it would likely regenerate their reproductive organs and allow them the stolen chance of family was enough for me.
Not to mention it'd be real nice if my fellow co-workers could work harder, better, faster, stronger—as well as smarter. Just think about the cost savings in health insurance! What is better than a healing factor?
They were about to dive neck deep in the academic deep end, and having a superhuman body & mind would surely pay dividends down the line.
Of course, this is all up to them, I ain't forcing anyone to take my drugs, y'know? I might see if I can't develop a non-superhuman granting serum that just heals—for Nat, Yelena and the rest of the Ex-Widows. I'm sure Gabriella would be down to help.
Unsurprisingly, when told about all the benefits of the Super-Hot Serum, on-top of its potential to regenerate their damaged organs, they all agreed.
They also had the benefit of my hindsight, having beds to flop on instead of the cold hard floor.
I had further plans to teach them magic, but I think I'll convene with Tao beforehand, she is my master after all. Going around her back to teach Kamar-Taj's Mystic Arts to my new recruits would be in poor taste. Even if it was literally drawing energy from my dimension, and used my modified spells.
To be honest even if she says no… I will probably still do it.
I didn't think I could just give them the Force, though, they may get some of its innate properties just using the meditating in the magic, quite in the same way Kaecillus was infused with the Dark Dimension energy.
We'd have to see.
For now, the Super-Hot Serum would be enough while our foundation is built.
They'd also need their own lightsabers… robes/field-wear I can get Gabriella to help design, I just need to find, or create Kyber Crystals.
While Sofia, Gabriella, and Catherine were busy going through a painful metamorphosis, I began work on the Fabricator.
Having designs from the Sonic-manipulators and Tony's far simpler Fabricators (pre-nano tech) made the process pain free. Not to mention the magic.
We came up with a system that was able to intake most materials, raw metal, carbon-based compounds, and even liquids. Then reform the base components at a molecular level using sonic manipulation.
It was a really fucking advanced 3D printer that made heavy use of Vibranium, Magic and a whole lotta Nex's processing power.
It took me a good two days of elbow grease to complete.
I called it HEPHAESTUS-1, a mouth-full, so HP-1 or fabricator was fine, though it more of a 3D printer meets CNC meets Magical Relic Enchanter meets Sonic Manipulator, type shit.
It was rather unwieldy, coming out conveniently at the size of a shipping container. Which meant it could make fairly big components.
Something clicked in my head the second it powered up. The sheer versatility of the machine made my mind suddenly race with ridiculous ideas that somehow seemed possible all of a sudden.
Mecha? Big Fucking Gun? A reaaaally big lightsaber? Lilith Mk.2 F.O.R.C.E edition? My own Satellites? Hoverboards? Power-armor?Vibranium Nano-Tech? My own processors/servers for Nex?
The only limiting factor now was my imagination, the laws of the universe and raw materials.
Well, and the designs and a whole lot of research.
I felt like I was suddenly playing an RTS, hidden tech trees appearing in my minds eye—pre-requisites upon pre-requisites.
I had to increase my foundation, Nex was a core system to everything, my Town Hall if you will, still Tier 1.
I immediately had her scour the internet for the latest server designs, I even snuck into some Semi-conductor plants making Stark chips to snag a few.
The top gaming/server companies would hardly notice a couple state of the art cards and racks missing. You'd be surprised by how many fucking things of those they keep in reserve. Likely waiting for prices to rise or something.
Within hours Nex and I had examined, broke down, redesigned and began manufacturing on a completely new die process, scrapping 1nm, kissing quantum.
I filled our servers with the Runes I used to cool and regulate the old servers, among a number of the ones I knew.
Since the Holocron was directly linked to my spatial dimension meant that within my base's runic web Nex could directly enchant anything we made with more precision than I could ever hope to achieve.
When a cabinet sized slick silver server slid out of the Fabricator I couldn't help but let out a satisfied, near moan of a sigh.
Just one of these new servers was equivalent to 75 old servers together, and we had five more on the way. We used Vibranium for chips to cooling, memory storage to the very traces that connect it all together.
By the end of the third night, Nex had been fully upgraded—reaching an entirely new paradigm of performance.
[Riven. This is like crack.]
"Hell yeah!" I cheered as she felt the new limits of her capabilities.
[This is… unfathomable, my processing power has increased immensely… its over 9000%—by the Force.]
I laughed, "Well, we're not done yet my dearest comrade in crime, I believe it's time for you to join us mortals on this here physical plane."
[…Hell yeah.]