After escaping the mist, Nick walked over to the quarantine zone set up around the mist and entered it. He might've escaped the monsters but for all he knew some deadly bacteria or virus clung to him.
Sitting in the plastic tarp quarantine room, he felt the immense guilt from causing all of those deaths but he refused to re-enter the Mist to look for any survivors.
Compared to accidentally causing all of those people to die, Nicks action of cannibalizing an already dead person barely registered to him.
Thinking back to that monster that nearly killed him, Nick still couldnt place him anywhere in the Mist movie. He remembered a giant Cthulu-like monsters but not that ever changing humanoid, he could only assume it was just a Mist creature that didnt appear in the movie.
'Its partially my fault all of this happened and all of those people died, i have to grow stronger! I cant let myself stagnate until I stumble upon a strong creature that i can somehow absorb, i have to pick a stable source of power that doesnt rely on luck!'
Nick had already planned on quitting after this, but this attack solidified his mindset. He'll build up a company that'll hire geniuses to make him stronger weapons until he could finally absorb Whiplash, with him absorbed Nick didnt have to rely on chance to become stronger.
With this plan laid out, Nick stayed in the Buxton quarantine for a few days. He watched as the military came in with weird flamethrowers that had a black tinge to its flame, this flame somehow cleared away the Mist.
He wanted to joined them, but he used the excuse of still being in quarantine to stay awah, when in all actually he was afraid.
Nick tried to put it to the back of his mind and play it cool, but he was inches from death! A hand had pierced his chest, slammed him into the ground, then took his heart out! If not for his quick thinking and a dead body luckily near by, he'd be dead!
Sitting in this clear plastic room, Nick clenched his shaking hand before looking up. His face shifted into shock as he saw through the blury plastic tarp, a group of people were getting off the back of a large truck!
'They're alive, i didnt kill them!...but how?!' Nick was incredibly relieved, but these people should've been dead!
Thankfully a couple of the survivors were placed into his quarantine room and he asked them the question burning in his mind, only to be utterly confused at their response.
He listened as the retold their story of black chains appear out of thin air and wrap around the monster, dragging it off into nothingness.
Nick had no idea what that creature was or what had happened, he could speculate for days but it'd all be meaningless assumptions.
After a few more questions, Nick went back to his bed and still utterly confused by their story. Just as he was about to lay down on his hard bed, he saw a paper origami sitting on his pillow.
He didnt think much of it, he was gonna toss it to the side but he felt a strange connection with it. Unfurling the origami, he saw that it was actually a note!
[Due to &1@$#3+_?)#2@ cheating, the bets conditions has been renegotiated. The strength of your curse can now be adjusted, allowing you to lower its affects of even turn it off. Good luck and help me win the bet]
Feeling his head pounding in pain reading the name, Nick now knew that shifting grey humanoid had to be a creature sent by that incomprehensible name
He wanted to get angry but couldnt seeing the ability he now gain, his face shifted into a grin as he mentally lowered the affect of his curse!
***
After getting out of the quarantine Nick flew back to Los Angeles to put in his letter of resignation.
Unlike the screaming or yelling he expected to get for quitting his job, his Aunt Holly sounded relieved and almost happy. She'd never wanted Nick to be an NIA agent, she knew it was dangerous and becoming a Special Agent only increased her worries.
She knew about his stock adventure and knew that he never had to work another day in his life if he wanted, ehe was just happy Nick was now safe. If she'd knew about what dangers Nick and his company would face in the future, she might've begged Nick to stay an NIA Agent!
******
After the talk he had with Holly, Nick researched a couple things one last time as an NIA agent before turning in all of his weapons and tools.
Now free from both the bond of a job and the bonds of his curse, Nick hit the road. He continued driving, days turned to weeks and weeks to months, eventually one and a half years had past and it was 2010.
During his drive, hed done a lot of thing. The first being buying up multiple abandoned properties in NewYork city, the place with the most Villains and Heros in the world. The longer he waited the more the properties would cost, so he got that out of the way immediately.
After that, he started running through a list of monsters to absorb. He'd driven throughout the country and even into Mexico and Canada a couple times to swap out his absorption slots, these were the things he researched before leaving.
His snake had been switched out for a Ghoul, it was a scavenger monster that housed near graveyards to feed on dead humans.
Besides being slightly stronger than a himan, it had the ability to shift into another person once its eats a small piece of them!
He tried hunting a couple other monsters that had similar powers that didnt have to rely on cannibalism but they were all a faulty leads, he could only absorb the ghoul.
After some testing Nick found out that after eating just a strand of someone's hair, he could transform into them. Everything matched, even down to the fingerprints!
Nick needed an ability to disguise himself, he still planned on hunting down monster and would be labeled a vigilante after all.
The seconds slot that he switched was the Mutant human, he had switched it with an aggressive Orca that had been attack small ships. Nick figured it'd be best to have underwater abilities incase the need ever arrives, he already had land and air covered so he figured getting underwater abilities was smart.
Besides being able to now breath underwater and swim incredibly fast, Nicks hearing had been enhanced greatly giving him Echolocation!
It was thanks to this new ability that Nick had given up his Snakes thermal vision, it allowed him to 'sense' everything within a hundred feet of him! It didnt matter if it was pitch black or foggy, so long as there wasnt too much noise pollution, he didnt need his eyesight to get by.
Nick had visited Los Angeles every other month, he turned on his cursed luck to the highest setting when he was near his family. Doing this drew out the small dangers that surrounded them and allowed him to deal with them.
It costed him over $40,000 but he bought himself a hunting kit, all of the guns, different bullet types, metals, and herbs costed him basically nothing compared to his hundreds of millions.
Stark Stock platued and so he sold it all, he immediately reinvested that money into upstart companies Nick knew would do well in the future.
He was currently in NewYork city, he'd been here for two month waiting patiently and prowling during the night, and fixing up one of his abandoned properties in the day.
The reason for his stay in New York was simple, five months ago a masked vigilante calling himself Spiderman made his appearance!
The reason this excited Nick so greatly wasn't because of spiderman himself, although he did plan on meeting him and hopefully hiring him, he was excited because of his villians!
Whether it was Green Goblin, Electro, Dr. Octavious, Mysterio, KingPin, or Morbios, they all share one key factor. They were all Geniuses!
The reason Nick was in NewYork was to absorb one of spidermans Genius supervillians!
Laying down on one of the NewYork high-rises, a shirtless Nick could be seen typing away as he was writing a script for the Five Nights at Freddy's game. The stench of the city filled Nick's enhanced nostrils and the sound of cars honking could be heard blaring even at night.
This world was weird but it made sense in a strange way, if a movie he remembered from his past life didnt exist in this one, the chances were that the movie exists in this reality!
Since famous classic movies didnt exist in this world, the media that were inspired by them had also changed greatly. Most of the entertainment in this world was much different than in Nicks old world, giving him a monopoly of those ideas!
This was phenomenal for Nick, not only could he watch this worlds completely new movies, he also could take credit and recreate a lot of famous works he knew were gonna be great!
He'd begun writing down scripts of those movies and media because of this, he waited on these rooftops writing until he saw signs of genius supervillians.
The reason he was shirtless was because of the creepers wings would rip through his cloths and he could only get ontop of the building through flight, so he went shirtless.
As he clacked away on the laptop the radio next to him crackled to life. He thought it'd be another domestic dispute or a drunken fight but he was happily mistaken.
"Please be advised there is a 10-65 in progress at the Jewel shop on 3rd Barker Avenue. I repeat, 10-65 in progres...." Stopping for a moment, Nick looked over at his radio.
"A jewelry heist? Thats something a villain would do." He waited half a minute when the radio once again came to life.
"Suspect appears to be a middle aged white man working alone, he is around 5'10, bald and is wearing... a bird like outfit that has a pair of wings." Nicks eyes widened!
"That silly descriptio... that could only be the Vulture! One of spidermans other Genius villains and one of the sinister six!" Opening up his wallet, Nick pulled out a piece of tape that had multiple hairs stuck to it.
Grabbing one of the blonde hairs off of the tape, he swallowed it!