After absorbing something, Nick didn't rise to the level of the being he absorbed. Instead, the being was added to Nick's already established self, pushing him past whatever he absorbed.
Nick figured this was why he was working smarter and faster than the Vulture, the Vulture's genius IQ was added to Nick's average IQ.
It took the Vulture a decade of his life to create the first antigravity harness and then another year to upgrade it slightly. It took Nick just a month to tremendously upgrade it and extend the range of his antigravity field.
With his harness strapped to his back, Nick grabbed his car door handle and activated the extended range function on his harness. With zero effort or strain, Nick lifted his car by its handle like it was a balloon!
His harness removed all gravity from whatever Nick grabbed, making it completely weightless. The only problem he currently faced was his battery.
After lifting the car for just 15 seconds, the power in the harness suddenly ran empty, and his car fell 4 ft and bounced on its suspension.
Letting out a sigh, Nick walked back inside the building carrying multiple car batteries, giving his secretary a nod at her friendly greetings, and went upstairs.
"I'm lacking a compact energy source to further explore my antigravity technology; any further improvements will be pointless. Thankfully, I'll get one soon." Sure, Nick essentially had limitless energy thanks to the Uru generators, but he couldn't carry them into battle.
Nick could theoretically lift a mountain range with his antigravity harness. The problem was that the bigger the object, the more energy it demanded. Nick could currently lift a yacht out of the water using his 6 car batteries, but he'd only be able to do it for less than a second before his battery emptied.
It was February 11, 2011. Nick still had a full year until Avengers 1 takes place, but he still felt himself lacking for the big battle. He didn't worry about being able to beat the Army of Chitauri since they'd be defeated even without his help, he worried about the casualties of the destroyed New York City.
The entire city would be wrecked and untold lives would be killed in the attack, his plans on preventing that! He just needed to prepare.
Nick knew of a major way to better prepare for the attack: Tony Stark!
Tony Stark's birthday was next month, which meant that Iron Man 2 was about to happen! In that movie, a Russian genius nicknamed Whiplash attacked Tony Stark to get revenge. Nick planned on killing him to replace the Vulture!
Whiplash was a bigger genius than the Vulture, the man was able to create a miniature Arc reactor on his own with just the blueprints of the large Arc Reactor!
Absorbing Whiplash would remove all of Nick's worries about power sources and allow him to continue improving his Anti-Gravity! Although this would come with some downsides.
Nick assumed replacing the Vulture would remove the decade of experience he gained about Exosuits and Anti-gravity technology from absorbing him.
While this wasn't ideal, Nick's own memories about making additions to the harness built off the Vulture's memories would surely remain. Even if he lost all of his absorption slots right now, Nick was confident in being able to recreate the Exosuit and Antigravity tech as a normal human.
He was confident that with Whiplash's added genius he'd be able to greatly improve the Antigravity harness.
Whiplash would attack Tony Stark in Monaco when Tony impromptu joined a Formula One race. Nick could use this opportunity to not only absorb Whiplash but also gain a connection with Tony Stark.
Nick wanted Tony Stark's previous weapons blueprints or at least Tony's contacts from when he used to be a weapons manufacturer, he needed them because his drones were being handicapped using Nick's weapons.
Sure flamethrowers and bullets were good against street level opponents, but against opponents with actual strength he'll need explosives and missiles.
If he wanted to obtain the blueprints for his drones then he needed to negotiate. Thankfully, Nick had just the thing Tony desperately needed, a temporary cure for his lithium poisoning. Lithium Dioxide!
It wasn't that Tony couldn't get this chemical, but he didn't think about trying it. This thing would lower the levels of palladium poisoning in his body and allow him to live longer.
If that still wasn't enough, then Nick planned on showing him the path to creating a new element for his Arc reactor; this would be his trump card.
Nick might not even need to negotiate with Tony for missile blueprints. After absorbing the Vulture, his intelligence increased, but it also gave him Vulture's knowledge on exosuits and anti-gravity. Whiplash might even give him knowledge on how to create weapons greater than Starks missiles.
Whiplash's father co-created the large Arc Reactor with Howard Stark, but the man made a mistake. He openly told Howard that he planned on selling the idea to the Russians during the middle of the Cold War. Needless to say, Whiplash's father was deported from America back to Russia.
Without Howard's help, the man had trouble recreating the Arc reactors. It was nearly impossible so Russia then exiled him to Siberia! This was where the supervillain known as Whiplash was born. He was taught by his father about how evil the Starks were and was born solely to get revenge.
During his time in Siberia, Whiplash's father managed to complete the blueprint for the large Arc Reactor and teach his son everything before dying. Whiplash, who was a monstrous genius, used his father's decades of research to create a miniature arc reactor!
Absorbing Whiplash would be the equivalent of absorbing a slightly dumber Tony Stark, but Nick's own intelligence would mingle with Whiplash, pushing him closer to Tony's level!
All of this was over a month away, but Nick had a problem right now, or more like a city had a problem.
It started just a day ago when Micro said that he saw something suspicious brewing in South Dakota, a place called Raccoon City!
When Nick heard the name of the city, he immediately knew what was going on and what was going to happen!
Micro showed multiple reports of murders and missing person cases skyrocketing across the city. The company named Umbrella had pooled together a large security force and stationed it in the city.
Umbrella was a leading global conglomerate involved in diverse sectors like pharmaceuticals, computer technology, medical hardware, and healthcare, but Nick knew their real intentions. They were building bioweapons to sell to other countries for war.
Nick wouldn't even mind if they did this safely. The problem was Umbrella kidnapped innocent people to experiment on and then unleashed a virus through a city, killing nearly everyone.
Nick couldn't stop this from happening; the ball was already in motion. Within a matter of days, Raccoon City would be overrun and bombed, but Nick could help the people, not to mention... he could absorb a powerful creature!
Unlike traditional zombies in media, Resident Evil zombies are still alive and constantly mutating. This meant Nick could absorb one!
Ordering Micro to station all the spare drones in South Dakota, Nick immediately hopped on a plane to Raccoon City, not realizing it was too late...
****
"Hello, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. It appears we are having difficulty establishing communication with the flight tower. We'll be circling around until we can finally establish a connection." Nick heard these words but shook his head.
Looking out his window, it was the night and they were high in the sky so a lot was obscured by darkness but he did see fire and destruction. He couldn't see it, but he knew people were eating each other and utter chaos had descended upon the city.
Without hesitation, he immediately opened up his drone app and activated emergency protocol #16, the one he specifically created for Raccoon City.
The delivery drones that had been delivering packages or recharging in the warehouses activated, their white lights turned emergency red. They flew into the air as microphones on their exterior activated.
"This is an emergency, get to the rooftops and barricade the entrances! This is an emergency, get to the rooftops and barricade the entrances! This is..." the message played on loop, guiding the people on how to survive.
Nick's large 10ft drones also began to make their move. They lowered down to the rooftop and had civilians climb inside the cargo box.
They were dropping them off outside of the city, but when the eventual quarantine zone is established, Micro would begin directing the drones to drop the civilians off there instead.
While all of his drones were taking charge of the situation, Nick's airplane had been doing circles for thirty minutes before the pilot told the passengers that they had to land without the flight command's permission.
Without the fuel needed to land at a different city, the plane lowered. Nick mentally prepared himself for the hell that was about to come.