The usual intro sequence wrapped up, and the text crawl began.
[July 1st, 2006: You spawned in New York, totally broke and solo. Right next to you was Flushing, a melting pot of Chinese and other Asian immigrants. You used some dice cup tricks to swindle your way to your first 300 bucks, then decided to chill before things got out of hand.]
[July 2nd, 2006: You shelled out $170 for a Glock. Even a good guy needed to be strapped. You hit up Clinton on Manhattan's west side, aka Hell's Kitchen. You set up your dice cup hustle again and scored another $400.]
[July 3rd, 2006: The local lowlifes finally wised up. You got jumped seven times in one day, netting a sweet $3,200. Seriously, these guys were amateurs!]
[July 4th, 2006: You continued your, uh, community outreach, getting "mugged" four more times for a total of $1,600. The last one introduced you to some weirdo in a blue onesie calling himself "Super Duper," who thought you were the bad guy. You couldn't be bothered to explain, so you just beat his ass too.]
[July 5th, 2006: More "fishing." Crime rates were surprisingly low today, with only one mugging. At least you finally hit the $5,000 milestone. Guess you were cleaning up the streets. (Net Worth +1)]
[Late July 2006: You hunted down John Wick and, after some serious persistence, became bros. Even though you were broke, you pushed him to get his wife a medical checkup. A few days later, John Wick found you, gave you a hug, and thanked you for saving his wife's life. She had early-stage cancer, but it was totally treatable. You had no clue what happened to John Wick after your screw-up in your past life, but you just smiled and said it was all good.]
[August 2006: At your request, you started training with John Wick to up your gun game. In late August, you found Martin Li in Chinatown and scored an SSN for $3,000, finally getting a legit ID in this Marvel world.]
[September 2006: With $5,000 in seed money, you played a dozen casinos in Long Island and Queens, carefully balancing your wins and losses. Your sick gambling skills quickly built up a fat stack of cash. By the end of September, you'd set up a small lab and started digging into energy research. (Net Worth +2)]
[October 2006: After a lot of thought, you decided to take on the cell phone industry. After some hardcore research, you published a paper on graphene in Nature, sending the science world into a frenzy. You claimed graphene batteries were a total game-changer compared to lithium-ion.]
[November 2006: You forked over $2,000 to register a phone company, calling it "Pineapple." This time, you cranked out a working prototype fast. The main deal was figuring out how to use the intercalation and deintercalation of lithium ions on the graphene surface and electrodes to make a battery that was 15 years ahead of the curve. Since similar stuff had already shown up in 2021 in your past life, it wasn't rocket science for a big brain like you to copy it after a month of work. You finally cracked the graphene battery code.]
[December 2006: You dropped another paper in Nature spilling the beans about your breakthrough and saying a phone with this graphene battery was coming soon. Besides its slick design and killer specs, the battery had triple the juice of the current top dog and could fully charge in under 15 minutes. The whole world was shook.]
[January 2007: Your Pineapple phone launched. All the other specs were straight from your past life's data, including the Retina display and IPS tech. The PPI was triple that of other phones at the time, and the battery was, obviously, graphene. As you figured, even though it launched four months earlier than in your past life and with two months less ad time, the phone—which was four years ahead of its time—and your two Nature papers generated crazy hype.]
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[February 2007: Your company was another slam dunk. The Pineapple 1 was crushing its past-life numbers, even with a 20% markup. It was bodying Nokia, which had 75% of the US market, becoming the ultimate status symbol phone—because it was legit future tech. (Net Worth +8)]
[Late March 2007: Your success was off the charts, like every other lucky SOB who caught the wave. Your net worth was exploding. In the US, your phone was the go-to for ballers. Even big shots like Norman Osborn and Tony Stark were rocking it. (Net Worth +11)]
[March-April 2007: You found the broke-ass Ivan Vanko in Russia and bought the Arc Reactor tech from him for a boatload of cash. In mid-March, you built an even bigger lab and started pulling in scientists for top-secret research on AI and upgrading the Arc Reactor. You had the cash, you had the gear—nothing could stop you. Not even God.]
[May 2007: Kingpin seemed to be sniffing around. You hired John Wick as your bodyguard, and he was down to help. At a party, you bumped into Tony Stark again. Just like in your past life, your similar vibes and skills made you both rivals and decent friends. But friends or not, you weren't going to let him off easy after his stunt before.]
[June 2007: Pineapple went public on NASDAQ, and the stock went up 40% on day one. Your wealth was going through the roof.]
[July 2007: After six months of grinding, your AI project was done first. You named it "Keeves." You immediately hit up Tony Stark to flex. Even though he was salty, he had to admit it was just as good as his J.A.R.V.I.S.]
[August 2007: Thanks to John Wick, Kingpin's hits on you totally flopped.]
[November 2007: After over a year of hardcore training, your shooting skills were way better! You learned the skill: C.A.R. System (Intermediate). You learned the skill: Mozambique Drill (Basic).]
[December 2007: With the help of 30+ scientists, the new Arc Reactor was finally a go. As the head honcho, you designed the mini reactor in a rectangle shape, still using palladium. You had a feeling about a new element to swap out palladium, but that would probably take more dough and some luck.]
[January 2008: Business was booming. You were hiring like crazy, and the Pineapple 3 was flying off the shelves.]
[February 2008: The new Pineapple HQ, the Pineapple Tower, was finished.]
[March 2008: Based on the Mark II armor you remembered, whipping up a copy was easy peasy for a science whiz like you. Inspired by the flicks you'd seen, you even made a portable suitcase armor ahead of the game. After manual activation, the case popped open, letting the user grab the glove structure. The back armor's metal skeleton and the chest armor's metal skeleton then auto-locked into place. The arm armor on both hands also snapped onto the arms. Finally, the outer armor layer closed up, firing up the main power until the whole suit was on—a seriously genius idea. You called this bad boy "K-Mark 1" because, screw it, why not? You learned the skill: Precision Machining (Expert).]
[April 2008: Some dude named Wesley came by again, repping Kingpin and wanting a piece of your company. You weren't about to let him get a slice, so you told him to kick rocks. In late April, a bunch of your phone stores got trashed and looted. Your ride even got sprayed with bullets by some thugs. Even John Wick caught some damage. In the dead of night, a metal suit blasted off from the Pineapple Tower.]
[April 2008 (cont.): Your Iron Suit wrecked most of Kingpin's crew, and he himself got messed up bad and went into hiding. You started doing some hero stuff around New York. People started calling you "Iron Man."]
[May 2008: You called up Tony Stark and showed off your Iron Suit. The look on his face was pure gold.]
[Late May 2008: S.H.I.E.L.D. finally caught on. A hot chick named Natalie Rushman applied to be your secretary. You knew right away who she was—Black Widow, no doubt.]
[June 2008: Hormones did their thing, and you and Natalie Rushman got it on. After hanging out for a while, you thought she might actually be into you. So, after one last round in the sack, you called her out on her real ID: S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff. The look of "you're such a player" on her face was one for the books.]
[Mid-July 2008: Natasha Romanoff came back with a VIP pass from S.H.I.E.L.D. to join the future Avengers Initiative. They even handed you a script to play it cool and deny being Iron Man. But, when all eyes were on you, you tossed the script and shouted to the whole world, "I am Iron Man!" (Legendary Status +1). You scored the achievement: Iron Man.]
At this, Julian Thorne couldn't help but crack up, slapping the table. For real, if he had transmigrated, he would've done the exact same thing. Payback's a bitch, Tony Stark, for flexing at his grave! (In his past life, that is).
