POV Rio
It did take a long time, with me having to stop every few days of mining to resupply the dead statue with mana. Though the Xeno's seem to catch on that something was up by the third time and tried to seal the statue in a cocoon. That didn't do anything to stop me or the statue. But it was interesting. That was how things worked for two weeks. Mine, smelt, mana, repeat. With the occasional break in between. I had to make sure no one thought I had gotten eaten. Then there was the meeting with Selene, Lara, and Tony, as they all got to hear what happened to me.
Tony mocked me for becoming familiar, but shut up when I said I knew how to make someone a familiar if he was so amused. It was nice to have some time to relax and just chat with friends. It also helped that I wasn't in a massive rush to clear out Wakanda. The hive alone was likely over 500k strong, and that would take a while for the statue to work through all of them. And the Vibranium still had a decent amount left to mine and turn into blocks. Though on the bright side, I wouldn't need to use all of my Minecraft inventory to store it all.
One Week Later...
'And that should do it for the Vibranium.'
I finished dealing with the Vibranium, and that only left the hive. Which was getting there. But there were likely somewhere in the vicinity of 200k Xeno's left. Which is why I chose to give up on that idea. Instead of waiting that long, I chose to deal with things myself. To do that, I started by storing the Statue and absorbing it, which nearly doubled my inventory space to 500 cubic meters. Then I used the data I had gathered to locate the Vibranium Warhead that had been buried under the city in case it had fallen into the wrong hands. Finding it was a bit annoying, but once I did, I activated the self-destruct sequence and then teleported to the cloaking device before taking that for myself right before the warhead went off.
BOOM
Then, after the dust had settled, I went back and made sure that there were no survivors and left for the last time. Sure, there was now a large crater and perhaps some people noticed the explosion, but that wasn't my problem. Wakanda and Shield could hash it out. Though I highly doubted Wakanda would ever reveal what really happened. When all was said and done, I walked away with somewhere around 900k tons of Vibranium and a cloaking device strong enough to hide an entire civilization.
'I guess I still need to find Ulysses Klaue for his Vibranium and even perhaps Talokan.'
I mean, I did technically have more than I could ever need, but what can I say, I feel it was better off in my hands than a criminal or a xenophobic surface dweller hating race of merpeople. But that was just my opinion.
I also felt something was a bit off with the world.
'I have a feeling a certain someone has been ensuring that the nuclear strikes were effective.'
By all my various calculations, it made no logical sense that the massive nuclear strikes were able to nearly wipe out the Xenomorphs. Sure, there were somewhere in the vicinity of 50k nukes, but the sheer amount of space they had to cover made it impossible they would be able to wipe out all of them. And there were survivors, but far fewer than there should have been. My most generous calculations still predicted that nearly 6 million Xenomorphs wouldn't be wiped out by the nukes. And yet the real numbers suggest that at most only a million survived the strikes. Which while I admit that calculations can be off. But this is far too much of a discrepancy.
'Maybe there are more people that I don't know about that helped.'
Regardless of the oddities, I wouldn't complain as they made it far easier to wipe out the remaining Xenomorphs. In the meantime, I would need info on Ulysses Klaue, but that wasn't easy. If I could get something of his, I could track him, but that could wait for now. Instead, I figured it was time to make a visit to a certain retired killer.
I teleport back to New York and get in my car before driving towards the home of the man I wish to speak with. It was a nice enough house, though a bit too undefendable for my taste. I parked my car near the home and walked to the door.
Knock Knock Knock
I wait for a hot minute until, eventually, a man answers the door.
"John Wick?" I ask.
"Yeah, who are you?" John asks with clear caution.
"Could I come in? I wish to discuss something with you. Don't worry, I mean no harm to you or your family," I say politely.
"Uh, sure, come in," John says a bit skeptically.
'He's lucky I'm not a Fae or a Vampire, I guess.'
We enter the living room and take a seat across from each other.
"So who are you?" John asks.
"I'm Rio Pines, and I'm here to offer you a cure to you wifes illness," I reply calmly.
John hides it well, but I can see the subtle reactions. His pupils narrowed, his muscles tensed, and a slight bit of fear.
"Why would I even entertain such nonsense?" John asks with a deadly tone.
"Hmm, well, you can see for yourself if you like. I'm sure you have plenty of old injuries that you always deal with. You can test it out first and see if what I claim is even possible," I offer.
"What could you possibly want from me?" John asks with narrowed eyes.
"Information. I don't need your skills as a killer; what I need is the info you have on the High Table. Who controls what, how the hotels work, notable enforcers, what families are on the High Table, and anything and everything else you can think of," I offer.
He responds with a sneak attack, but I don't even try to block it as I don't need to. Nothing he can do can harm me at this point. Case in point, he strikes my nose and hurts his hand.
"Huh? I almost felt that," I comment.
He goes for a kick instead, but ends up injuring his shin. He follows with several other attacks while I sit down and take it. After a while, he's limping, his hands are bleeding, and he seems out of breath.
"You seem tired, want some tea?" I ask while pulling out a tea set with already prepared hot tea.
"What... What are you?" John says while breathing heavily.
"Does it matter? Despite you attacking first, I haven't struck back whatsoever. Now, I've been very patient and even kind, but if you keep acting like a barbarian, I will rescind my offer and erase your memory. Now, do you want a chance to save your wife's life or are you refusing?" I ask coldly.
"I... I... Sigh. Fine. Can I try it out first before agreeing to anything?" John says while taking a seat.
"Sure," I respond.
I give him the locket and explain how to use it, and while he seems really skeptical, he tries it anyway. I drink my tea while he does that and even do some reading. But it didn't take him that long, just over three hours.
"W-What? How?" John says as he feels around himself.
He checks the time and even tests some movements before looking at me with a far more excited look.
"If you guarantee that you can save Helen, then I will give you whatever you want," John says firmly.
"Then it's a deal. And don't worry, I don't expect you to request more info or even come out of retirement. I just want to know what you know right now, and even anything you can think of that might be useful for me. And if you know of some assassins that might be willing to sell more info, then point me towards them," I reply.
We get up, and John says he will see about getting Helen from the hospital.
"Oh, that reminds me, don't speak a word of this to anyone. Obviously, if they have a gun to your head or Helen, you can say, but depending on the person, I don't think they can be trusted to keep their word, but that's just me, do what you want," I reply.
I wasn't too worried about getting revealed anymore, as I was much more capable than I was before. That and I knew enough about John Wick to know the guy wouldn't betray me if I delivered on my promise. The man would wipe out an entire criminal enterprise and even defy the High Table for a dog. I'm confident he would go to hell and back if it meant protecting his wife.
Part of the reason I wasn't that worried was that I was filthy rich. Like absurdly rich to the point where it is very plausible that I would never run out in my eternal life. And that's assuming I never make money from now on, which is ridiculous, as I have a slow but steady income from Minecraft, and I might make more from the future released materials. Social Media apps are mostly done as I can code while offline, and that was what I did while I was in the FOZ world. Heck, I had enough spare time that I programmed a lot of things. Medieval worlds are really boring, okay. There really isn't much in the way of entertainment.
But back to John. I waited at his home while he handled getting his wife out of the hospital. And when they got back, I gave him the locket and let it do its thing. Given how sick she was, I figured it would take a while, so I left John and Helen alone while I went home for a bit. They had my contact info, and I figured after doing some tests and scans, John would contact me to start talking about what he knows.
In the meantime, I can do some additional coding. My next big project is Pokémon. That would be a cash cow, and since it doesn't exist in this timeline, I might as well make it. Though I intended to make sure Gen 1 was released without being riddled with bugs.
'I should also release the next version of Minecraft.'
As I was thinking about this, I read a surprising news report. The Presidential Election was delayed this year.
'That's odd. I don't think that has ever happened before.'
The reasoning for the change was due to the drop out of all the major candidates. Which in itself was really odd. This was basically just a few days before the election. The elections were moved to late December, and everyone was really confused by this really strange move by all the parties involved. Smaller candidates, such as those from the Libertarian Party, are still in the race, but seeing as they are projected to get somewhere around 5-10% of the vote, they cannot be elected as president even if by default.
'Hmm, maybe I should use this chance to influence the candidate.'
With the parties backing out this late in the game, everyone is likely confused and a bit disoriented, which means I might just have the chance to place a new candidate. I have lots of money, and if I rope in Tony, I am sure I can get more people to vote for whoever I choose, and let's not forget that the Pines Family name is also somewhat influential in certain circles. Or maybe it won't work, but it was worth a try.
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Author's Note:
Bonus Chapter for Mother's Day!