The soft, internal lighting of the VR pod gradually brightened, pulling me out of a deep, code-filled sleep.
"CRACK!" My back gave a faint protest at the less-than-ideal sleeping arrangement.
'Right. I wasn't in my bed.'
I popped the seal on the pod with a quiet hiss, the cool air of my room hitting my face. And then I saw her. Kate. Still out cold, tangled in my sheets, one leg kicked out, her hair a dark mess across my pillow.
Even asleep, she looked completely wrecked. A smug, possessive thrill shot through me.
'Yeah, I'd done that…. I've wrecked my Aunt Kate asshole so much… it was glorious as fuck,' The memories of the night before were… vivid. And awesome.
But damn, she looked exhausted. I knew my own… enthusiasm… could be a lot. And my libido, especially first thing in the morning, has the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The last thing she needed was me waking her up for Round Whatever. She needed to actually recover.
So, I'd done the gentlemanly thing and bunked in the pod. It was fine for a nap, but my spine was definitely filing a complaint. I rubbed the back of my neck, looking from Kate's peaceful form to the clutter of my room—the banks of servers humming quietly, the multiple monitors, the drawing tablets. It was a geek's paradise, but it was getting… crowded.
"I really need to buy us a bigger house," I muttered to myself, the thought feeling more like a concrete plan than a wish. This apartment was home, but it wasn't built for an empire. Or a harem. Definitely not both.
Leaving Kate to her well-earned rest, I stumbled through my morning routine on autopilot: a quick shower, pulling on a fresh pair of sweatpants, grabbing a protein bar. My mind was already elsewhere, buzzing with the next phase of the plan.
I slid into my chair, the familiar creak a comforting sound, and woke up the main monitor. "Sunday, you up?"
"Always, Sir," her voice chimed softly through my ear, a stark contrast to the chaos about to unfold.
"Alright. Time to go shopping. Meteor Creative needs its foundation. Let's start with the big ones." I cracked my knuckles.
"The entire archives… of Marvel and DC. Everything... Comics, movies, character, the whole shebang... I don't care what the price is. Make it happen."
"Initiating acquisition protocols," Sunday replied, her tone all business.
On a secondary screen, a dizzying cascade of legal documents, and corporate databases began scrolling at an impossible speed. As the information and data packets, were download into my brain and my electronics, It was like watching a digital blitzkrieg.
"Next, novels. Let's get… hmm. Let's get the smutty one that everyone pretended to hate but secretly read. 'Fifty Shades of Grey'…. Then the kid stuff. 'Percy Jackson' series. 'Harry Potter.' And the heavy hitter, the one that'll show them how you do political fantasy—A Song of Ice and Fire. All of it."
"Acknowledged. Purchasing digital and intellectual property for specified literary works."
"Oh, and Sunday? Take The Walking Dead and the Terminator franchise. I want novelizations for them… Full series… Make it happen."
"Processing…. Adapting cinematic and televised narratives into novel format."
"Now, for the manga. I need the classics. The big three can wait; let's start with the perfected ones. Naruto. FullmetalAlchemist. And Attack on Titan. I want every chapter, every side story, every anime adaptation…."
I leaned back, watching the numbers on a separate financial screen fly by. It was a staggering amount of money. A life-changing amount for anyone else. For me, it was just… seed money.
"Transaction summary: Total expenditure for all intellectual property acquisitions amounts to twenty-five million dollars. All assets have been secured and transferred to Meteor Creative holdings. The repositories are now fully integrated into our central database."
"Twenty-five million… phew~" I let out a low whistle. I'd just spent a fortune on a library of stories. And it was worth every single penny.
I scrolled through the newly acquired assets. There it was. Everything. Spider-Man's first appearance. The Dark Knight Returns. The Iron Man script. The entire Game of Thrones series. The first chapter of Naruto. It was all mine.
This wasn't just buying a bunch of old books and comics. This was buying cultural nuclear codes. I wasn't just getting the stories; I was getting every movie, every game, every cartoon, every piece of merchandise that had ever been attached to them. The value wasn't in the paper or the data. It was in the decades of built-in love, the iconic moments, the characters people across my old world would die for.
This world had nothing like it. They had their hits, sure, but they were shallow. Flash-in-the-pan stuff. I'd just purchased a century of proven storytelling power.
A smug smile spread across my face. Let the critics of this world try to "kill" The Empire Strikes Back or The Death of Superman. Good luck with that. The money was already forgotten. All I felt was the excited thrum of anticipation.