Marvel-ous Ninjutsu

00168. One year in a flash.

With no easy solution to free Hela from her current prison, Ezekiel decided to try and cheer her up. Instead of visiting her once a week like before, he started going two to three times a week. He couldn't stay as long most days, but he always made sure to stay for at least long enough to watch a movie or a couple episodes of a tv show.

On the days he stayed longer they would either watch a full TV series, a few movies or play games. With that added to his routine, his life settled into a comfortable rhythm. Wake up, breakfast with his family and then go to school. After school he helped out at his dad's shop for a few hours till he went home to eat dinner with his family. Afterwards they would hang out for a while and play board games or something else till it was time for bed.

That's when Theo made his clones and started to train. Depending on the day or what was happening at the base he might stop in for a while. But with his clones and the ninjas now having bodies, it wasn’t really needed. Plus they had no important projects currently going on and the group as a whole was in a training and growing phase. Well mostly, since some groups were out doing small missions every week. But the overall group had no project to focus on currently besides Hydra.

Basically everyone was taking classes from the ninjas and learning how to control chakra. Since everyone had their normal jobs and lived in different parts of the world. The training courses were split into six different times so that everyone could easily make a class each day.

As for what they learned, it was mostly split into different aspects of being a ninja. Sure most of the people were spies, Shield agents or former military. But none of them were ninjas and none of them had chakra before. So everyone had to go through what was basically a modified ninja academy.

Besides the normal ninja stuff they were taught, there were also specialized and advanced classes people could take. Most of them were designed for people to learn how to better control their chakra. But other classes focused on infiltration with the use of henge jutsu and ways to make it better. How to change your voice with chakra to make you indistinguishable from the person you replaced and more.

All the training was for the next part of Theo's plan to destroy Hydra. He planned to have a lot of people be replaced inside of Hydra so they could gather more information. He thought about replacing a key figure or two like Alexander Pierce, but decided against it.

A bunch of lower level people would be easier to replace and have them work up through the ranks. While a high ranking member would be too much trouble since they would have to scrub the person's mind for information. They already did that a few times for the people Fury targeted, but found a lot of the higher ranked members had mental blocks in place.

Apparently Hydra found some decent telepaths and used them on important high ranking members. The worst part was if the blocks were messed with or bypassed, they would erase the information hidden inside. Sure they tried to fix the damage, but so far they had no luck. As for the lower ranked members it didn't matter since Hydra was so compartmentalized, no one had much information. They did end up killing the people and using edo tensei to gain the information, but Theo would rather not waste the technique on stuff like that. The less time they do it, the less he needs to worry about someone coming to see what exactly is happening with people's souls. 

As for Theo’s personal training, he focused on chakra control, the mystic arts, fuinjutsu, taijutsu and ninjutsu. He also wanted to add in physical training with weights, but he still needed to wait a little while longer to not damage his body's growth. So while he did do physical training it was all based on body weight and sparring.

When he didn't train or visit Hela, Theo made time to visit Tony and also checked in with Adrian on the Vibe building. The Vibe project was going well and about half of the demolition portion was completed. Adrian still only hired a handful of work crews so far, but their work quality and efficiency was really high.

As for Tony, they've worked on a bunch of random and small projects. Besides the home automation equipment that was launched, Tony invited some affordable 3D printers. He also created some really high-end models after being inspired by some of the alien technology Theo gave him.

With all of that going on, over a year passed by quickly and it was almost Christmas of 2004. During that time frame Stark Industries became known more as a major consumer manufacturer than a weapon manufacturer. Sure they still created weapons, but their consumer side of things currently made five times the revenue of the weapons division and the stock price for the company more than tripled.

Theo also spent a bunch of time that year attempting to get Tony and Pepper together. It was still a work in progress, but for the past six months Tony hasn't had a single one night stand. He still hasn't made an official move on Pepper, but Theo was sure it was only a matter of time. Right now they both acted like awkward teenagers who didn't want to confirm their feelings for each other.

It was hilarious to watch and Theo had JARVIS capture every single one on camera. He planned to make a nice video edit montage of the best ones as a wedding present. He also thought about uploading it to Vibe one day, but that might be a little too much… But knowing Tony, he might upload the video himself just to get more views and followers.

As for Genosha, the economy was almost self sustainable and Theo only had to help it out a little. With the use of magic and automation, Genosha created all its own food. They still imported some things like meat, since it would take up too much land to grow it themselves. But fruits and vegetables were all grown on the island throughout the main city and in a large indoor hydroponics farm.

As for other sectors of the economy it was mostly sustained through tourism. While Genosha still wasn't completed to Theo’s imagined goal, a lot of the facilities he wanted were done. The amusement park, water park, golf course, theaters and other projects were finished and past final inspection over the last year. He had one more major project planned, but it was still in the design phase.

While over the last year the island had plenty of visitors, the official opening would be early next year. It would also be when all of the facilities would be opened to the public at the same time. A big event was planned for the whole thing and Theo expected Genosha to be self-sustained by the end of next year.

vvvvv

Ezekiel stepped through a portal that opened up into Tony's workshop and found Tony asleep at his desk. In front of Tony was a disassembled piece of alien technology that at one point was part of a starship. Ezekiel walked closer and after a few moments realized it was part of the ship's artificial gravity system.

When Ezekiel explained to Tony what it was originally meant for, he became obsessed with the thing. He wanted to reverse engineer it and produce an antigravity engine he could place into whatever he wanted. So far Tony didn't have much luck though.

Ezekiel shook his head before he started to smirk. He moved right next to Tony, stuck a finger in his mouth for a moment before he jammed it into Tony's ear and wiggled it around. Tony jumped up in shock and waved his arms around for a moment before he saw Ezekiel.

Tony frowned slightly as he said, “You know there are better ways to wake a person up.”

Ezekiel smirked as he henge'd into Pepper wearing a form fitting business suit but the top was cut low to show off cleavage. He leaned forward towards Tony and squeezed his arms together which accentuated the deep valley of cleavage as he said in a copy of Peppers voice with a sultry tone, “I’m so sorry Mr. Stark, I’ll try my best to do better next time.”

Tony was completely frozen in shock as he stared open mouth at Ezekiel disguised as Pepper. Ezekiel reached forward and gently closed Tony’s mouth as he said in that same tone of voice, “Please control yourself Mr. Stark, I know I’m beautiful but you don’t need to stare.”

“Who are you and how did you get here?!” A raised voice said from behind Ezekiel.

Ezekiel turned around to find Pepper standing next to the door with a handful of documents in her hand. He smiled at her and gave her a wave as he said in her voice, “Me? I’m Mr. Stark’s personal assistant. You can call me Pepper.”

Pepper froze in place as her mouth dropped open in shock before Tony kicked Ezekiel hard in the back. As Ezekiel collapsed forward Tony yelled out, “WHAT THE FUCK MAN!”

Ezekiel turned slightly before he hit the ground to land on his butt and after a moment pouted as he asked in Pepper's voice, “Did I do something wrong Mr. Stark?”

“Shut up and change back you jackass!” Tony said as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Ezekiel changed back into his normal self as he stood back up and said, “Man, you can’t take a joke can you?”

Tony pointed at Ezekiel as he said, “That wasn’t funny.”

“Are you sure? Because I thought it was hilarious.”

“I have to agree with Ezekiel. Your reaction was quite amusing. I can play it back if you would like to see it.” JARVIS said.

“No, just delete it. I don’t want anyone to see that. Ever.” Tony said with a frown.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Tony.” JARVIS said.

Ezekiel started to laugh as he said, “Nice one JARVIS, but next time tone it down a little more so you sound more like HAL.”

Tony let out a frustrated groan as JARVIS said, “Understood.”

Pepper finally recovered from her shock and glared at Ezekiel as she said, “I have no idea what you two idiots were just doing and I don’t want to know. But don’t you ever change into me again!”

Ezekiel wanted to smirk and give a smart remark but the baleful glare from Pepper made him shut his mouth and nod instead. Pepper turned her gaze from Ezekiel to Tony before she held up the documents in her hand and said, “These need to be signed by tomorrow.”

She placed them on the counter next to her and turned around to walk out. Ezekiel turned to Tony after she left and said, “I think she’s mad at you.”

“Me? You are the one who made her upset, not me!” Tony said with a slight glare.

Ezekiel shrugged as he said, “Maybe, but I’m not the one trying to date her, so I don’t need to fix it.”

“I hate you sometimes, you know that, right?” Tony said as he walked towards the documents Pepper left.

“That’s the sign of a good friendship.” Ezekiel said with a cheeky grin.

Tony picked up the files and started to look through them before he asked, “A toxic one maybe… Why did you come here anyways?”

“I was gonna ask if you wanted to get some food and pick your brain on a project I have coming up.”

Tony glanced up from the files in his hands with interest as he asked, “Oh, what do you want to make this time?”

Ezekiel smiled before he plugged a usb into Tony’s computer and said, “JARVIS, pull up the file called project Mars for Tony.”