Fury looked at the sheets of paper scattered over the room in one of his hidden safe houses and not more than once had he asked himself if he was really doing this—the answer to that was yes.
He had sat back out of paranoia and watched Xavier and Magneto catapult themselves farther in whatever plans they had cooked up in those old heads of theirs. Xavier could be considered softhearted but the man was no fool, and Magneto was neither softhearted nor a fool, and yet both of them had easily taken to that little shop without any hint of distrust of an unknown factor.
The two of them had been the litmus test for Isaac and so far the results have been promising, so naturally now was the time for him to make his move.
He picked up a few pieces of paper and reread them— each line noted every single thing of value that was 'retrieved' from Ulysses Klaue, with the most prized item being the little over half ton of Vibranium.
Finding that had been one of the highlights of his career. He and his tight-knit crew of agents have been on a gold-digging world tour for the last two weeks and the net worth of what they had acquired was nothing short of ridiculous, and enough to make Stark's dazzling career look outdated.
Klaue had been one of their biggest finds, but nowhere near the biggest. That honor belonged to Trask and the treasure trove his unearthing revealed.
Not only was the man alive(had been alive but his deceased status had been factually reinstated) but he was sitting on some of the greatest inventions in the last two centuries.
The first had been the Master Mold—a supercomputer with a fully functional sentient AI made by Bolivar Trask to efficiently chaperone his upcoming attempt into the list of 'Top 10 Genocidal Maniacs in History'. Luckily for them, the big ass machine had yet to be plugged in.
Another thing they had been able to acquire were some of the carcasses of experimental Sentinels. Fury could go another lifetime without having anything to do with another Sentinel outbreak and it still wouldn't be enough lifetimes. They were not able to acquire a lot of these carcasses because of the audience present along with the untimely arrival of Magneto.
All that was good, but the most valuable thing they were able to acquire right from under the mutants' noses were the notes of the late Dr. Abraham Cornelius, Logan's rightfully hated benefactor. Notes that precisely detailed the exoteric process of 'cooking' Adamantium as well as notes from the other two deceased doctors that were present during Logan's procedure.
The contents of those notes were more than enough to trigger war, but what would have countries quickly resulting in their nuclear option was the location of the last hidden facility that still contained vats of cryo-sustained Adamantium alloy. Still kept in their cooled liquid form even after decades of the Weapon X Program shutting down.
This was the most literal definition of invaluable Fury could come up with.
He did wonder what the hell Trask had in store for the Adamantium, even if he knew fully well that it scaled high on the expansive list of 'nothing good'. Maybe he wanted to use it to mold a bunker to store his murder computer and stash it under the sea, who knows. As funny as the thought was, Fury knew Trask wasn't that dumb.
If anything, the absolute madman was more likely to synthesize the alloy with something else and use it to coat his precious Sentinels, making them truly indestructible. The only problem with that was that mixing Adamantium with other alloys won't make it suddenly more pliable or flexible.
The Sentinels' mobility would be dead.
The only way Fury could see the Adamantium working with the Sentinels was if Trask somehow figured out how to incorporate a degree of instantaneous adaptation into them.
He left it at that. Why would he go around and try to simulate the thought processes of dead men, especially Trask, in his free time? He was paranoid, not mad.
The only thing that would make this pile of gold more complete was if he acquired an Arc Reactor. Unfortunately, he had no intentions of butting heads with Stark anytime soon.
He looked at the list of documents, notes, secrets and autobiographies scattered around, some with their original copies even, and all he saw was currency. He had already made copies of everything so there was loss there. The only worry was if this would come back to bite them in the ass. He pushed everything aside as he made the first utterly reckless decision he'd made in decades.
.
...…..
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He walked calmly into Isaac's shop and once again found the fresh quality of air inside too weird. It was a difference that was easily noticed and that was what made it jarring, almost unnatural even.
Fury didn't care or react to it, only noting it, and made his way towards Isaac's station with the gait of a man who has been in weirder places.
"Isaac, my man." He was sure there was a gleaming smile on his face as the false greeting came out but that was okay as the smile on Isaac's face matched his own, even eclipsing it. Unlike his own however, Isaac's looked more real.
"Nicky, long time no see! How's it been?" Just like the first time, Isaac committed to the bit wholeheartedly. The first time Fury had done it, it was to slightly throw him off, and the second time he did it was still to throw him off and yet none worked. Even the timing of Isaac's response had felt natural.
"You do that to everyone who walks in here?" He asked with his only eye raised at the man.
"They don't, so I don't." Isaac replied easily as he took off his glasses and cleaned them softly before them back on. "And besides, I can't exactly kill my customer's enthusiasm before they've even got the chance to buy something from me. If playing a harmless bit helps that decision then I don't see why not."
Just another form of confirmation that most of the things he did was reflecting an act to a customer. Fury might not be a field agent but those idiots wished they were a tenth as good as him in casual extraction.
Isaac studied the look on his face and smiled so wide that pure excitement twinkled in his eyes. This kind of expression on another person would have been off-putting to say the least, but clearly that did not apply to Isaac. It was another weirdness Fury had noticed about him. Everything he did looked and felt natural. Too okay.
"Junk 'N Stuff at your service." He smoothed over the nonexistent crease on his shirt. "What can we do for you today?"
"Roll out the carpet and wine while you're at it." Fury made a show of tolling his one eye. "For your information, I'm also rolling the other one."
Isaac laughed softly and upon seeing the genuine-looking expression, Fury wondered if any expression Isaac had ever shown was real. There was a lot to insinuate that he was way older than he looked. Natasha had told him Isaac's answer to her question of how long he had been a Merchant and Isaac's reply had unsettled him. Slightly.
"How long? Hahaha. Well I've been one for so long that I don't think I've never not been a Merchant."
Not even Thor would say something like that.
"Where's my tab?" He asked only to find a slip of paper that certainly hadn't been there sitting barely a centimeter from where his hand was resting on the counter. "You keep pulling shit like that and I'll draw my gun."
He picked up the slip and read through it twice before putting it down.
—Imperial II-class Star Destroyer(Star Wars): Forget a war on terror, there will be nothing left to terrorize once this star fleet completes its assignment.
This predecessor of war machinery is a staple in every successful orbital campaign. It possesses communication towers with signals that span multiple star systems, advanced deflector shields, energy generator, reinforced structures and heavier cataclysmic armaments.
Port to starboard, ye blubberheads!
Price: $739,000,000,000.
Seven hundred billion.
He had known the amount and yet still, seeing it almost made him do a heel turn. He didn't, instead he read over some of the specifics of the craft— like its 1.6 km length, dozens of divisional droids, heavy turbo lasers, Ion cannons, TIE fighter complements, walkers and troop division droids, planetary bombardment capability, shielding systems, multiple reactor systems, hyperdrive… etc.
Reading the fine print made him realize why Danvers had said that earth couldn't afford a galactic war. He had thought she meant their attack force but seeing the list made him understand that she was talking about the logistical and economical side of it.
Seeing the Star Destroyer's capabilities made Fury aware that even if they sold all of earth's mineral resources, it still wouldn't be enough to purchase the starcraft from the galactic black market.
There was no world where something like that would otherwise cost a measly seven hundred billion. He was getting it for cheap and he knew that, as well as Isaac. He would even call a hundred trillion too cheap for something that could make lightspeed jumps and crack planets while at it.
According to the little he knew, only galactic empires – the type that owned thousands of star systems and galaxy quadrants – would have the means to purchase something like this or even have need for it. And this wasn't even the most expensive starcraft Isaac had on a catalog.
Other than the mental parade, his composure did not break as he read the specs and nodded calmly to himself. He was slowly figuring it out.
If he was right then buying things with cash placed a heavy limit on purchasing power. There was only so much cash someone could strung up.
If Isaac was truly a Merchant like he always liked to advertise, then he should be aware of where he was setting down shop and how much profit streams he would be getting. Which meant he knew the general financial level of the planet. And this also meant that he was sure his customers here could buy his ridiculously cheap goods.
But how could they do that? He slid the slip back to Isaac as he came to his answers. The one resource earth had that would be valuable anywhere in the whole universe.
Powers.
Mutants, mutates, enhanced, magic—and not to forget people too, and the worth of their memories, talents and abilities.
The real currency here was not anything tangible. Everything that Isaac had advertised so far was based on one concept, the one concept that ALWAYS favors a trade — Rarity.
That was the real service of this shop. They did not have what he sold and he did not sell what they had. There were no Arc Reactors, no serum, no Vibranium, no Pym Particles, no mutagene except the ones he'd bought from mutants here.
His eyes met Isaac's and all there was on his face was a smile. A simple smile. A knowing one. The type you would give someone who was in on a joke while everyone else remained oblivious.
Just like everything else, he noted the look and cataloged it in a mental file that held Isaac's name.
"Will you be clearing the tab?" Isaac asked.
"Probably." He sighed. Yelena, Natasha and Clint had used the fact of purchasing the Star Destroyer to add other 'cheaper' purchases to the tab so he could clear them all out at the same time.
Well, they couldn't say he wasn't a good boss. He'll probably have to pick out something for Hill and Coulson so that it wouldn't be only the kids with the new toys.
He could already tell which item was for who.
—Banuk Powershot Bow(Fully Modded) (Horizon Zero Dawn): An enhanced Hunter Bow made by the Banuk Tribe because they were probably bored. As we all know, bored people make terrible choices—and one of them is this bow.
A bow that pushes everything to unnecessary extremes: speed, accuracy, penetration, damage, unfair range. This now is simply the bane of anything you need dead.
It easily shreds heavy machines apart, and coupled with its absolute lethality, its speed, accuracy and range, it becomes a fact that every arrow that leaves this bow is a death wish.
Overdraw: Banuk bows come with the Overdraw feature that enables it to be drawn past its limits which in turn increases its power. On the flip side, not drawing it to the limit reduces the power. Basically high skill, high reward.
*Thankfully, the creators were not bored(inspired) enough to make it without flaws. But they were bored enough to make that flaw a decision, not a fact.
*The bow is slow to draw, but most of it can be offset with the correct modifications.(See what I mean?).
Price: $233,000.
That had Barton written all over it and Fury couldn't help but commend the man's sheer balls to choose a weapon worth two hundred thousand.
There was also a Quiver of Anariel that apparently refills the arrows in the quiver, including magical and divine arrows, and stops them from ever running out—and it was also ten times as expensive as the bow. At least he was smart enough to only highlight it and not add it to the main tab.
Compared to the bow, what the sisters chose were infinitely cheaper. Guns, some kind of stun gloves and even stealth fabrics, some mini-gadgets, spy accessories and everything reasonable. The combined cost for their purchase was barely half the cost of that bow.
He tapped the clamp of his watch and the top of it disconnected from the strap. He turned it over and on the back of the center piece was two rings. Two storage rings.
Yes. Nick Fury had been walking with a storage ring that currently held stasis vats of Adamantium alloy and another ring that contained the Master Mold, the notes and the Sentinel carcasses.
He had no intention of messing with the AI inside the Master Mold, especially when it had already been giving its directive. Even if he wanted to, he had already copied the schematics of the Master Mold and the Sentinels from the notes so he wasn't really losing anything on that front.
"How much are the things inside those rings worth?" The Adamantium vats were the linchpin for the price. Not only was it Adamantium, but it was also the last of Cornelius' brew and also the largest supply of Adamantium in the world, or even the universe. He seriously doubted that anyone had vats of Adamantium sitting around in their basement.
This was also to test the reliability of Isaac's ability to accurately determine the true worth of something.
Isaac took the rings and this time Fury watched intently as a glow appeared in Isaac's eyes as he looked at the rings in his hands.
"Wow. Just wow. Pure Adamantium alloy in its liquid state." The glow receded but its departure plastered a grin on Isaac's face.
Fury briefly wondered what it meant for Isaac to have vats of an indestructible alloy in his backroom but quickly reminded himself that it was out of his hands to do anything about it, literally.
"How about 1.3 trillion?" Isaac asked.
Jackpot. He was right.
The Merchant wasn't doing this to earn sales in currency, now he was sure. Even if he was making an earning, it wasn't from the money from the sales.
Rarity. That was the whole game with the shop. It was also why the bow Clint chose cost more than the guns the girls picked.
And he had just given him the rarest thing to be found on earth.
"Add something to the top and it's yours." Fury said just because. Xavier and Magneto and everyone else could pursue their ambitions and leave him to protect earth because that was his job.
Isaac looked at him for a second and sighed. "1.34 trillion. That's the most I can do."
"Sure." Isaac chuckled upon seeing the grin on his face.
He waved his hand over the rings before promptly handing them back to Fury who looked surprised at the ease of it but nevertheless accepted his rings.
"Home delivery or would you like it to go?"
"I'll take it with me." He had a storage ring so there was no need for that. The only problem now was the ship. "I just have to figure out where to park the thing. At least for now."
"If you're interested, I have livable pocket dimensions. They can function as a vacation spot, as a garage, or even a safe house."
The last part instantly got Fury's attention. Which of course was what the fucker wanted.
"Give me a lis…." He stopped himself and wordlessly picked up the book in front of him. As he flipped through the pages, he idly asked Isaac something his curiosity kept poking at.
"If you wanted to sell Adamantium, who would be the prime customers?" The question was harmless enough since there was no customer's confidentiality being broken as the question was purely theoretical. How much would people pay for a truly indestructible object?
As expected, Isaac didn't mind and replied easily enough. "Oh, cultivators, easy. Especially those who use weapons. A Transcendent or a Martial God will readily trade their collection of star systems and secret realms for an ingot of this… well as long as you can first survive them trying to rob and kill you."
But since they could not access that market, in a manner of speaking, it lowered the value of the Adamantium in their hands. Like a child with a million dollars. It was worth something in the child's hands, but it'll be worth infinitely more in the hands of an adult.
"Hmm." He said nothing after as he simply browsed through a list of escape plans.
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Patreøn*com/1stDepth
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