Doorman (MCU SI)

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #67

Ta-Lo [February 16, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He schooled his expression soon after taking off, and then landed slowly in the village square, where most of the regular consumers of his goods were already eagerly waiting for him, no doubt informed by the Village Chief, who must have been in turn informed by the Water Dragon.

In canon, the role that the Water Dragon took in the workings of the village had diluted so much that it was not until the end that everyone got to see the Dragon in its entirety, and that was because the Water Dragon was vastly weaker back then.

Now that he has been constantly getting CHI infusions, he was fine and actually on track to get to its peak, before the whole sealing Demon and keeping it sealed thing. He did not know what was really sealed inside that mountain, aside from it being pure evil so he did not want to take chances and had given the Water Dragon ample amounts of CHI every time he visited, in addition to the agreed upon CHI appointments.

Sometimes, he just wanted to get away from all the chaos so he came here, discreetly, and enjoyed the greenery everywhere he went. Plus, every single leaf of grass in this place was infused with high amounts of CHI, courtesy of yours truly as well as the Dragon, so it was infinitely calmer in this place.

Now, though, he felt tense, as if something was about to drop on him, and he could only helplessly see the shadow of it approaching. He did not like this feeling one bit and resolved to do something about it.

For now, he needed to have a talk with the black hearted cunning of a man, who ran this Village.

Waving at the people who had gathered around him, he waved his hand once, creating a portal, or more accurately, parts of a portal before the Water Dragon took over and fully opened a stable portal. He was so thankful for that, otherwise it would have ruined his carefully crafted image of a genius outsider magician who had come bearing gifts.

"Enjoy!" He said before turning around and headed to the guards, who were standing at the entrance of the Village Chief office along with the beloved Ying Nan, next in line to be Village CHief, once the old geezer retired because he could not see the man kicking the bucket anytime soon, despite his outwardly feeble and old appearance.

"Hello, Ms.Ying Nan, how do you do?" he bowed theatrically before continuing to walk forward. He paused as a very sharp knife, attached to a piece of wood that was stronger than steel was thrust towards his face, not by the guards but by Ying Nan, the beloved of the entire village.

Raising an eyebrow at the sudden action, he deadpanned at her, "That could have hurt me."

In return, she jabbed it towards his eye, making him lean back, "Hey! Whoa! Hey! What the f*ck?" He yelled as she continued to step forward and jab him with the pointy spear, making him do Olympic gymnastics to dodge.

"I sense anger within you, vast and hot. Why are you looking for my grandpa?" She questioned him as she continued to try to hit him with all her might.

His face turned into an O as he realised the reason for the sudden hostilities. With a sigh, he stopped dodging and simply raised his finger, and stopped the spear right in its tracks, making Ying Nan and the guards look at him with wide, disbelieving eyes.

Well, he hadn't stopped the spear with just his finger. If anyone looked closely, there was a small Blue rectangle that had appeared in front of his index finger, which was stopping the Spear from advancing. He was just using his superior strength to hold the shield in place, so to speak.

"What is with women in this place hitting first and asking questions later?" He mused out loud as he looked at the guards as well as the Village Chief who had now come out to watch the spectacle, along with the villagers who were no doubt whispering.

"What is happening?"

"Why are they fighting?"

"Why is she trying to hurt the Life Bringer?"

Were some of the few questions he heard from the many. Anytime now, the response should come from the other side….

"Ying Nan, stop that now!" The Village Chief had to step in as he smirked down at her, very condescendingly. It was nice to do this, especially since the girl made it her mission to try and downplay his contributions to the village at every turn since she was older than him and yet, he was stronger than her.

The earlier spars, she won all of them but later on, once he got the hang of his strength, he could just bullzone through all of her techniques and throw her out of the ring, in friendly spars, obviously. If she came for his life, the outcome would be the same, the process might differ a bit.

"You could have spared her pride, and just came to me," The Village Chief said as they both began walking side by side towards the office.

"And you could have warned me about the Bloody Vampire you deputized." He stressed about the warning as the man winced at the anger in his voice. Soon, they were in his office, with no one around to listen.

"So, what do you have to say for yourself?" he asked the man while he kept an eye on the surroundings. He knew the Water Dragon was doing an excellent job at keeping the Demon contained but it never hurt to keep an eye on everything because in canon, despite the seal, the Demonic entity had been able to contact Xu Wenwu, who resided outside the pocket dimension.

He did not know how to look for any contact residue but the least he could do was search for any demonic residue around him, however unlikely the situation might be.

The VIllage chief, whose name he did not know, sighed, "Look, I can see now, in hindsight, that it was a mistake to hastily give her Ta-Lo's seal, but you have to look at it from our point of view, the single person capable of helping our Guardian and safeguard our people from the Demon was in danger."

He slumped, again with the same argument. This was not going to fly—-

"That too, an assault on you by Hell empowered Vampires, parasitic creatures capable of doing much worse than simply death. You are the single most important person to Ta-Lo right now, more than me, more than Ning Yan or anyone else, and for that, I had to act hastily lest we lose you. For that, I apologize." The man bowed his head and that just took out all the anger in him.

"Fine," He said, defeated. "Now, I hope you know about the State visit tomorrow? I am not taking no for an answer. I know you people only reside in a 50 mile radius around the Water Dragon for protection purposes but I would like to explore the other parts of this place."

He stopped the man from interrupting and gave him the same spiel whenever he asked to roam the areas unexplored, "I will have both Jin'Ya and the Red Matron with me, so no need to worry about my safety. So, Yes or No?" He asked the man pointedly.

Before the man could respond, however, another voice made itself known in the conversation, "It is fine, Zhenzu, the Life Giver has valid points and we have erred him because of your hastiness. Life-Giver, you can freely roam these areas."

And that is how he found that the name of the Village Elder was Zhenzu.

"Thank you, Water Dragon," He cheerfully waved at the invisible yet all encompassing Water Dragon and his gaze.

Kind of what Uncle Sam wishes to be, huh?


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[Jao]

While it would have been nice to be one of the only two groups (Aakanda being the first) to have a viable super soldier serum, he knew it must have raised Bruce's alarm bells when he saw the actual end result of a successful Extremis serum campaign, so he let the man actually downgrade the stuff,, promising to use it for medical benefits as soon as it is done.

Click to shrink...

Wakanda

the stuff, promising

Privately, however, every single note, every single keystroke that Bruce and Hansen performed, was logged on a secure server. Their labs were on a constant watch and due to the dangers of the Extremis serum's plant testing, paper was not used which is why he had the record of everything he might need to,, one day, actually recreate Aldrich Killian's Fiery breath.

Click to shrink...

to, one day

Abomination was already in a maximum security prison right now, kept sedated under an increasing dosage of sedatives because his biology begins adapting to their methods. So far, they had zero alternative to just pumping drugs into his system and hoping for the best and he was hoping to have Bruce produce a viable alternative, so that he could produce it before FUry the next time they met, as a gift.

Click to shrink...

Fury

"Enjoy!" He said before turning around and headed to the guards, who were standing at the entrance of the Village Chief office along with the beloved Ying Nan, next in line to be Village CHief, once the old geezer retired because he could not see the man kicking the bucket anytime soon, despite his outwardly feeble and old appearance.

Click to shrink...

Chief

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #68

Ta-Lo [February 16, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He took in deep breaths in and out, as he floated on top of the lake that the Water Dragon resided in, flanked by both the Red Matron and Jin'Ya on both sides, a little distance behind him, ready for any mishap to happen.

In and Out.

In and Out.

In and Out.

After a while, he finally felt stable enough to open the Lightning Gate for the first time, the one that had appeared in his systems out of the bleu, when he had come close to the Arc Reactor, the same Arc Reactor that was now in the process of being decommissioned because Stark Industries was going to replace it with a newer and better model, or that is what Stane was telling the public but he knew the real reason as to why that was happening.

He opened his eyes and then found himself in his mindscape, overlooking the Eight trees that held his Eight Doors, and found himself reminiscing about his previous Doors.

It was never a dull moment when he opened any Door for the first time. His powers, while easy to master once practiced, were not beginner friendly. He had needed outside assistance to properly mitigate the effects of the Doors being opened the first time, for all the Seven Doors that he had in his arsenal right now.

The Water one just created a ball of water around him and continued to pump water into that small space, increasing the density and almost crushing him under all that pressure.

The Fire one just pumped fire all around him, almost igniting his room instantaneously. Funnily enough, the Water Door helped in that regard.

The sand one was the same as the Water one, trying to crush him under heaps of sand, some of which definitely entered his nose and mouth. That was a bad day, in general because he had to remove sand from places he had never expected to. It was bad, not just for him, but for Wong as well, who had to deal with similar sand cleaning hassle that he did.

The light one was relatively tame, simply because it did nothing of interest. Wong had actually summoned and trapped a small Imp, a very weak animal like a denizen of Hell, who just flinched upon seeing his white light and once it became clear to the creature that his light couldn't hurt him since it was not imbued with the holy attribute, the demon mocked him. Safe to say, the Demon was turned into ashes on the spot, not for any particular reason, mind you.

The CHI one was disastrous to say the least. Not because the opening was bad but because he was in over his head and wanted to open the CHI door permanently, which resulted in some very bad choices that led to his body experiencing third degree burns that he most certainly would not have survived had he not actually succeeded in opening the CHI door permanently, leading to a near constant flow of pure Lifeforce in his system that allowed him to survive as the Healers in Kamar Taj did their work.

For the last two ones, i.e, the Air and the Kinetic Laser dimensions, he had finally gotten smart enough to ask for guidance from the Ancient One and Kamar Taj as a whole, leading to a big ass ritual room reserved for him.

He was very fortunate for that, because the first time Door opening of both the Air and the Kinetic Laser dimension resulted in so much damage that the ritual room had to be broken down to be remade because there was nothing left of it after he was done with them.

The Air one just released a tornado of charged energy that it interfered with the enchantments woven into the room, and the Kinetic Laser Door resulted in a cube manifesting around him that sent full power Lasers in all directions, resulting in the enchantments overloading due to the energy being absorbed into them.

So, one might ask, why not do the same this time? Why not go to Kamar Taj, meditate in the ritual room for a couple of hours and then do the dangerous act in a semi-secured space, under the supervision of the all seeing and all powerful Ancient One?

The answer to that would be the Water Dragon and the presence of Jin'ya and the Red Matron. The Water Dragon was the de-facto owner of this pocket dimension, not much could happen in this place without his say-so, except the seal. What happened inside the seal, the Water Dragon could not sense.

He could only sense if the seal is being tampered with or being destroyed, and even that capability he only received recently. He wagered that, in canon, that the Water Dragon was asleep most of the time and only woke up at the last moment because of all the disturbance that Xu Wenwu created during his invasion.

So, the Water Dragon was now vastly stronger and as a result of that, any danger could easily be mitigated by controlling the space around him. Secondly, Jin'Ya and the Red Matron, combined, were a force to reckon with, and more than enough to act as a substitute for the non Vishanti empowered Ancient One. Once the Vishanti gave her free rein though? None on the planet could match her.

So, with that in mind, he took a step forward, and reached his hand towards the trunk of the tree, where the lightning symbol was etched, still crackling with blue arcs of energy. Honestly, he was still worried and maybe he could have chosen a better time, a time where he did not have to host a guest in a couple of hours but he had been pushing it back for quite a while now and the itch to get it done finally couldn't be tolerated anymore.

So, with just a tiny bit of hesitation, he covered the last inch and touched the lightning symbol on the trunk. He was confused when nothing happened for a second before his vision went white.

____xx____

Outside, Ta-Lo

–Ying Nan–

She trudged along the path, her spear attached to her back as she effortlessly climbed the steep incline, something she knew most people in the village would struggle to do, while kicking a rock up the path.

"Stupid Colin," She grumbled as she kicked the rock particularly hard, resulting in the rock splitting in two, and both of its pieces splitting in different directions. SHe slumped and then began walking forward once again, doing her training, even though she did not feel like taking a single step forward.

The beloved, they all called her.

Someone favoured by their Guardian himself, resulting in advanced powers that she trained, day in and day out, without fail, so as to reach the high expectations placed on her at birth.

Her sister, she was different. Not blessed and yet stronger than anyone in the village had been. Never interacted with their Guardian and yet, elected to become the wall between the gate to Ta-Lo and Ta-Lo. Never wavering in her duty, she defeated all the candidates who wanted to challenge her.

And then….

She shook her head as she thought of the detestable man her sister went with. She couldn't even imagine why her sister, the all powerful warrior who could best anyone, would abandon her post and consequently, her powers as well, just so she could be with a man she knew had done terrible things.

Even as young as she was back then, she could feel things, emotions. If you kill people, do bad stuff, get cursed at by people, it leaves a mark on you and she could sense that mark. That man, she shivered at the memory even now. He had killed more people than there were trees in the entirety of Ta-Lo.

Once her sister left, the expectations and pressure on her increased twofold, resulting in her father having to be the one to guard the entrance whenever it opened, just to ward off any pressure on her to take the post before she was ready. But now she was ready, according to her own father. The next time the gateway to Ta-Lo opened up, she would be there, ready to guard Ta-Lo with all her life.

The thought helped with her mood a bit before it was all let down by the man known as Colin, also given the title of the Lifegiver, by their Guardian himself.

The man was arrogant, snobbish, disrespectful towards her grandpa, the Village Chief, and defeated her in every single spar they had in the past year, and that too, effortlessly.

Obviously, she recognised the effect he was having on Ta-Lo as a whole, and could acknowledge that he was obviously beneficial for them but she just couldn't stomach someone, younger than her, not blessed by their Guardian, outclassing her by so much.

Just earlier today, he stopped her attack with a single finger, in front of everyone. That level of power, even her grandpa couldn't do that anymore. He stopped her beloved Spear, soaked in her blood for years, just so she could get it to recognise her, and it was stopped by a single finger.

Obviously, she knew that he was using his powers to do so but that did not make it any less disheartening.

She was told by grandpa not to make any moves on Colin anymore because he was bringing in someone as a guest to see Ta-Lo tomorrow, which further increased her resentment.

They were a hidden settlement, residing in a pocket dimension, empowered by a Mythical Dragon, with their life's goal being to stop a hidden evil that could engulf the entire outer world, not some tourist attraction.

Shaking her head, she resumed climbing the mountain until she heard a loud crackling sound.

"That's odd," She muttered to herself as she hastened her climb, jumping with all her might, to reach the peak faster because the sky had never thundered like that in all the time she could remember.

There was yet another crack, and her eyes widened as a giant blue lightning bolt struck Ta-Lo, leaving behind a series of black lines that soon healed on their own.

Alarmed at the commotion, she took out her spear and began using it to just jump her way to the top, fearing the worst, like an attack on Ta-Lo by the entity.

She was ready to sacrifice her life for the cause as she reached the peak with her spear pointed forward, mid air, when she saw a blue ball of energy with a single person clad in red, floating near it. She could also see a purple ball of energy near the person.

Her eyes widened in more than a little bit of fear as she realised that the blue bolts of energy were not lightning striking down on Ta-Lo but something that was coming from the blue ball of energy.

Before she could take a step back to climb down and regroup with the others, she froze as she felt something, something foreign and dark, and resentful, speak to her.

"Hmmm, yes, yes, y-you will do nicely"


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #69

Ta-Lo [February 16, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

It felt like….pure euphoria, like the one he experienced when he first used CHI when he was sore, when he felt the pure joy when he healed some of the kids of the people who permanently stay at Kamar Taj, the ones who work on the menial tasks.

His eyes snapped open, his vision tinged with blue as he found himself in a blue wall of energy, zapping and crackling with blue all the time.

His entire body felt light, as if he was floating on clouds, his mind in disarray as he struggled to remember exactly how it was that he found himself in this situation. Despite the confusion, he felt no panic, no rush, no stress to get to the bottom of this. All he felt was pure relaxation, as he saw his veins turn blue, travelling along his arms and legs, the crackling of lightning increasing in the small enclosed space he found himself in.

"Hmm?" he looked down at his body, his legs now mostly blue as a surge of yellow, healing and yet not as euphoric began blooming in the sea of blue all around him. He could now see that instead of regular skin, he had blue energy for legs, which now had patches of yellow all around them.

"Huh," was all he could say as the yellow began sprouting from his chest as well, making him poke the stuff curiously. He blinked as he saw his hands had turned blue as well, with the same yellow spots on them. "That's funny," He said as his hand somehow went through the yellow patches on his chest, entering what was supposed to be his chest cavity.

Smiling, he wiggled his fingers as they sank into the bluish yellow energy that was now on his body. He giggled as the patches of yellow began increasing before his vision suddenly darkened even more, resulting in the yellow being suppressed and more euphoria and happiness entering his system.

His hand, his blue hand, shot out, on instinct, to stop something as a purple something was caught in his hand, a little too late though. "Uh, oh," he said as he watched the arrow, bathed in red and purple, stab him in the chest, with only the end of it caught by his blue hand.

The purple then began spreading through his chest, leaving behind only yellow and taking out the blue all arou—

He blinked as he felt himself return, for lack of a better term.

"Huh?" he said, groggy and confused as his vision blacked out.


____xx____

[A few minutes earlier]

–Varvara Koscheyenka–

"Fuck! He's gone ballistic!" Varvara Koscheyenka, the Red Matron, swore as she saw a storm of blue conjure itself around the boy, with stray bolts of lightning hitting the water around them.

Her eyes widened as a stray bolt went to the sky, leaving a blackened trail of twisted space, which was quickly healed as she felt the humongous presence that was the Dragon come to life as the Water under the lake began bubbling.

"Calm yourself, parasite! This happens every time. Just wait and watch," The Parasitic bitch who had the audacity to call her a parasite spoke, even though she could literally feel the anxiety rolling off that dragon.

Covering herself with her energy, she floated forward, only to stop as a bolt of purple crossed her path. She deadpanned at the floating Psionic Dragon, "Do not approach him, you will not like the result."

"The Psionic Master is correct," A third, old as fuck voice spoke up as the Water Dragon, rose out of the water and finally showed himself, wretched in the colours of rainbow itself to ward off any stray attacks from the storm of cosmic energy that the brat had somehow conjured for himself.

"I sense cosmic energy from the storm and something even heavier coming out, endlessly gushing in the space all around it. I believe that the LifeGiver is the only reason why the energy has not spilled all over Ta-Lo and destroyed everything." The Water Dragon said even as it used its body, wreathed in energy, to stop any stray bolts of lightning from hitting the settlements all around them.

She flexed her energy as a giant wall of red appeared in front of the mountain where the Demonic Dragon was sealed, wincing as the lightning bolt broke through her barrier and almost stuck the seal if not for the Water Dragon coming to its senses and using its energy to fulfill its original duty, which was making sure that filthy thing never escaped, not save the pathetic humans in this place.

"You're welcome," She smirked at the Water Dragon, who was looking at her oddly, as if her aid was unexpected.

"Ahhh," Her neck snapped to the side as a pained groan left the Psionic Dragon, his body wobbling mid air as he lost his focus and began dropping. She didn't need to move as the Water Dragon lifted the Psionic Dragon up.

Huh.

Psionic Dragon, Water Dragon, and the Demonic Dragon in that seal.

This might just be the largest gathering of Different Dragon subspecies this side of the universe.

The scholar in her itched to document this event for posterity and yet, the severeness of the situation stopped her from doing her self assigned purpose of life.

"What's wrong?" She snapped at the Psionic Dragon, her patience wearing thin as she fought the urge to blast through the blue storm and bring the brat out of it.

The energy was massive, dense and almost assuredly capable of severely injuring her but she was sure that if she toughed it out, she could bring the brat out and in exchange for that, the brat would owe her a favour.

Before she could voice out the proposal beneficial for her, the Psionic/Parasitic Dragon spoke, "Too…much….energy….Two of them…fighting for dominance,"

"What?" her brows furrowed as she looked back and then her eyes widened as she saw specks of yellow splattered across the sea of blue that was in her vision.


____xx___

Project PEGASUS Facility, New Mexico [Same Time]

The cube, housed in a robust machined housing, containing mind boggling amounts of electronics and sensors, all aimed at the Cube to record even the slightest reaction were all blasted apart as the Cube released a wave of energy so overwhelming that everything within a dozen feet of it was disintegrated, leaving behind glowing blue ash.

Alarms began blaring in the entire facility as containment and evacuation procedures were enacted, as the cameras in the room were all either blown to bits or affected by the ensuing shockwave.

The facility being newly built with no scientists present nearby, everyone left the facility, as per protocols, leaving behind nothing but machines to monitor the Cube, the same ones that were now broken and not recording anything.

Which is why no one noticed as a large Blue Door appeared in front of the Cube, with streaks of Blue being sucked from the Cube into the Door.

After a minute or so of that happening, the Door abruptly closed on its own, dropping the Cube on the ground, leaving a hole in the ground as the now heated Cube dug a hole in the reinforced concrete flooring.

This left SHIELD with nothing but energy readings that showed elevated, nearly unheard of energy levels coming off the Cube and nothing more.


_____xx____

Ta-Lo

–Varvara Koscheyenka–

The Psionic Dragon was correct. There were two types of energy in that freak storm of tingling energy. Her fists clenched as she debated on just jumping in when she braced herself instinctively as a massive storm of Purple bloomed right next to her.

She saw the Psionic Dragon grow manifold as his entire body began shimmering purple.

"No! The energy will devour him." The Psionic Dragon roared as he gestured at the Water Dragon who beckoned behind him, fetching a glowing orange arrow of all things.

The Psionic/Parasitic Dragon roughly grabbed the arrow and zoomed in towards her. She tensed a bit, calling forth her own storm of energy, despite it being considered inappropriate since she was in the domain of another person but since the Psionic Dragon had already done it, she did it too, just in case.

"We need to breach the storm of energy, cast the energy drain spell, target–" The Psionic Dragon just swiped his paw through the air, gathering a little bit of that blue energy, "This energy. We need to siphon this before it overwhelms his soul. I can already feel his mind slipping away. Hurry! We don't have much time!"

He snapped at her as a dense film of red coated her hand as she held the arrow in one hand, chanting ancient spell after spell, designed to specifically block energy barriers, absorb energy, redirect energy, selective spell enforcement.

"Make sure the other energy wins. If Colin does not get enough CHI soon, his body might just turn to pure energy and we don't know what will happen then," The Psionic Dragon warned her and she resisted the urge to lash out as she finished the last of the changes.

Not having a sample of the second energy made it slightly harder to accurately pinpoint it but she got around the requirement by making energy density requirements. The Yellow one was significantly lighter of the two energies.

With that done, she removed her hand from the arrow, as it lit up in a brilliant corona of white and red, before the Psionic Dragon took hold of it, adding his own purple energy to the mix.

As far as she could see, all the purple energy did was shield the spells from the blue storm as the Psionic Dragon advanced forth towards the storm of energy that had now increased in size ten fold as the entire sky was now filled with lances of blue that left behind gaping holes in the pocket dimension around them, forcing the Water Dragon to heal them lest the pocket dimension lose its anchoring around Earth.

She saw as the Psionic Dragon waded through the thick energy storm, taking hits with barriers that broke apart on contact, forcing the Psionic Dragon to make newer ones, until finally, with a thunderous crack in the sky, the Psionic Dragon released a shockwave of energy so huge she had to make a reassessment of his strength.

That cleared the space around him for a bit as the Dragon, Jin'Ya, threw the arrow with all his strength, piercing the core of the storm, a blue cocoon with arcs of blue all around it.

Soon after, within seconds of that happening, the storm began to subside as the energy began to recede towards the cocoon, which too broke apart soon after, revealing the brat, covered in yellow.

Her lips salivated at the thought of getting even a single bite of that and yet, the cold indifferent gaze of the Vishanti flashed through her mind, stopping her in her tracks.

The Damned Bald Headed Demon, who saw right through her ruse and forced a magical contract enforced by Holy Patrons, the worst match up for her.

She stayed, floating in place as the Water Dragon, bruised and battered from shielding everyone from the unforgiving storm of energy carrying the brat to the village, presumably to heal him.

"Thank you." She blinked as the voice of the Psionic Dragon reached her ears. She looked around but Jin'Ya was no longer around, probably following the brat, since they were not sure if he was out of danger or not.

She chuckled, shook her head, and followed them, glancing behind the mountain and then at the mountain with the pulsing red seal.

With a smirk on her lips, she floated to the village with a jaunty whistle around her.

Ah, as the mortals say these days.

Not her circus, not her monkey.

So many historical events happening in one place, all at once. Perfect opportunity to record them for eternity.

Ah! This was going to be so much fun!


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[Spearow]

Is he like Carol now?

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #70

Ta-Lo [February 16, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He dreamt, for how long, he had no idea.

He dreamt of the universe, of blue, of red, of green, of yellow, of purple, of orange, and more.

Him, standing in the middle of hundreds of trees, giants towering over the entirety of the landscape, with Giant Doors carved on their trunks, pulsing with unknown energies, overshadowing him completely as he could only look up and up.

Visions of the Universe, the Crystallisation of Stones, and more.

And then, then came the blue.

Overwhelming, all consuming, bright blue that threatened to swallow him whole, drowning him, crushing him with such intensity that he could barely form a coherent thought.

Then, from deep within his being, he felt it, surging forth as a raging torrent, vastly weaker than the ocean of blue and yet, just about enough, as a shroud of yellow appeared on top of his body, safeguarding him from the blue.

Between all of this, he just floated in place, being a silent watcher as his body was being sandwiched between two flows of energy, trying to gain dominance over the other, completely helpless, as if he was in a dream.

Out of nowhere, the ocean of blue surged forth, obliterating his shroud, barely leaving behind a skin thick layer of blue, which too began to peel off under the relentless assault of the blue, as he watched, from the corner of his eyes, multiple Doors, familiar Doors, floating to the side, untouched by the chaos that was the blue ocean, looking on as bystanders.

Before he could form any other thought, the blue which looked like it was about to win in swallowing him whole, was punctured, by red and purple, with white mixed in, striking him straight in the chest.

The trail that the streak of red, purple and white left began widening as the blue receded and the yellow surged forth, flooding his vision with yellow, burning him from the inside out as he….

"AAAAA!" He snapped upright, screaming himself hoarse as he watched a shroud of yellow appear on his body, with Jin'Ya floating right in front of him. That was the last thing he saw before a wave of purple struck him right in the face and he blacked out.

The next time he woke up, it was much calmer, as his eyes showed him a wooden ceiling. He spread his senses and relaxed almost immediately as he felt the presence of Jin'Ya, with the Water Dragon's energy hovering just outside. The Red Matron was present as well but he was so confused for the moment that he just ignored her and sat up, looking over himself, to see if anything was wrong or not.

"How do you feel? Any part of you that doesn't feel right?" Jin'Ya questioned him, despite doing his own diagnostic with his Psionic energy.

He experimentally flexed all the muscles he could, moved all his toes and fingers, flashed a CHI cycle through his body and was surprised to find the amount to be almost double of what it was previously, but in the end, some rudimentary sensing told him that he was fine.

The burning question in his mind was, "What the hell happened? I opened the Door and that's the last thing I remember."

That earned him odd looks from everyone in the room, even the Village Elder and why was there a hole in the side of the building, showing the lake outside?

"What?"

Jin'Ya sighed and did his thing, a pulsing ball of purple flowing through their mental link towards him, probably containing a memory package. He immediately accepted it and closed his eyes, preparing for the memory dump.

It was probably just him blacking out and then Jin'Ya doing his thing and—

His thoughts screeched to a halt as his mind began assimilating the memories at a record speed and yet, even as his mind continued to run at higher speeds, absorbing everything in the background.

In seconds, he saw what felt like hours of high intensity crisis footage of him nearly destroying Ta-Lo and if it hadn;t been for his regular CHI sessions with the Water Dragon that strengthened the Guardian of Ta-Lo, he might just have been responsible for the greatest crime of his life, setting free the Demon sealed within that mountain.

"Oh, dear Stan Lee," he whispered, his face hitting his palm at record speeds, resulting in a nice smacking sound in the room.

"Indeed, you almost died and if not for all three of us acting in unison, you might just have turned into living energy and–"

"Who knows if I would have retained my mind or just my memories or lost all of it to become a mindless energy monster? Yeah, sounds about right," He said and then flopped down on the table.

He flinched a bit, as he cycled CHI throughout his body, noticing the ease with which he could call upon so much CHI. Pretty much his previous peak CHI output, he could bring about with a thought, without much conscious effort.

He turned to the hole in the building, and said, "Oh, god, what have I done?"

He heard chuckles around the room as everyone vacated it, even the Water Dragon's presence receded, he could feel it.

Reviewing the memory, he shuddered at the scene of the Blue Energy cleaving through the space in this pocket dimension. This was so going to get him a good lashing from both Wong and the Ancient One.

He might even get banned from using that energy ever again, though he doubted that they would go that far, especially since they know that it could turn into a valuable weapon and also because they had no real mechanism of imposing any restrictions on him and his powers.

They were as much a part of him as his nose was.

With a thought, multiple Doors spread beneath him as he floated to the centre of the room and sat cross legged, mid air, and dove deep into his mind.

Opening his eyes, his eyes snapped wide open as he saw the section where the Trees of the Opened Doors usually are. He counted Seven of them, identical tree sizes, along with different Door sizes carved on their trunks, depending on the power levels.

Okay, alright, it was fine until now. It was all according to the mechanics and systems he had identified and built for himself over the years. A proper way to showcase his powers, and also to visualise keeping a Door open forever, something that came in handy when he opened the CHI door, turning himself into an endless fountain of literal Life Force.

Not his smartest decision but hey, it worked out and bedside, he made an even bigger mistake just now.

That was when the proper mechanisms ended. For the Eighth new addition to his powerset, a completely unexpected addition, that was when the logic he set in place ended.

He looked up and up, as a Tree ten times the size of the other Tree was now planted smack dab behind the CHI Tree, with a Door the size of the other Trees carved into the trunk of the Tree.

With a thought, he floated upward and had to change course a bit as the Door began sparkling, crackling with blue energy. He reached the Door and saw a lightning bolt carved onto it and yet, the way it cleaved through space and how he got that Door indicated a connection to an energy type he dared not touch.

The energy of an Infinity Stone, more specifically, the Space Stone.

Howard Stark, doing stuff that had its repercussions felt across generations. Even dead, the man couldn't stop being an absolute genius and meddlesome fellow, as was written in every single testimony and personality report written by every single SHIELD therapist, as every single Level 7 and above agent had to go through at least one of them every year, resulting in some pretty interesting testimonies.

Yes, he was violating their privacy but he only did so because he just downloaded everything that SHIELD had on their servers about Howard Stark, and if they could be arsed to protect his original research by keeping it on a bloody Videotape of all things, they should have done so for everything else as well.

Shaking his head, he floated back down. Even if he wanted to use that particular energy, he would not do so, not here and not anywhere near the planet even.

Actually, he might just go outside the Solar System, if the Ancient One had contacts in that sector, otherwise the far off planets in the Solar System might work as well.

According to previous experiences, most of the danger in opening a Dimensional Door has passed and he should be fine the next time it was opened but this was not normal, nowhere near normal.

Why is why he shut his eyes in the mindscape and opened them in the real world, leaning back and blinking a bit as Ying Nan, who was leaning way too close to his face, appeared in front of him.

Floating back expertly, he gently set his feet on the ground and before he could ask why she was here, "The Village Chief has opened the Wards for the State Guest that you were supposed to bring today. The Wards are weakened temporarily and as such, you only have two hours to bring her in, after which the Guardian would have to do so himself because the Village Chief only has limited authority."

His mouth hung open as he remembered Shuri! The visit! The whole reason he had came to this place and all this stuff happened that he forgot about the whole thing.

"--Now, you wouldn't want to bother the Guardian for such a trivial task, would you?" She finished her explanation with a snarky tone.

Too hurried to care about her, he hurriedly slipped on a T-shirt, that was one size smaller than his regular, and began hurrying out of the door, not before replying on his way out, "Yeah, I'll go get her. Thank your Grandpa for that!"

With a small smile on his face, that came out of nowhere, he conveyed his message to Jin'Ya and opened a small portal, which was enlarged by the Water Dragon using their superior magical control, as he blasted through the portal, with both Jin'Ya and the Red Matron hot on his tail.

Ugh, it felt like bringing Mom and Dad to meet a Girl.

"I heard that, and disgusting"

He laughed heartily as he was exposed to the snow of the Mount Everest, not needing any additional heating since he was superhuman, Jin'Ya a psionic Dragon piloting a drone, and the Red Matron, on top of being cold hearted, also did have an actual cold heart since she was a vampire and they were naturally cold blooded creatures, both biologically and emotionally.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #71

Mount Everest Base Camp [February 17, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He took in a deep breath, getting the fresh mountain cold and dry air that was not nearly as pristine as some of the remote areas he had been near the Poles but still, miles ahead of the usual city pollution he had to deal with.

He ignored the two planetary level entities who were apparently just going to babysit him as he flew down near the Base Camp, spreading his senses as he searched for an anomaly in the general airspace as he was certain that Shuri had come in some sort of cloaked aircraft.

Suddenly, he was pulled behind by Jin'Ya, "She's right there. No guards."

Hung in the air, he looked in the direction that Jin'Ya nudged him to and found a small, very small space where air parted. Usually, sensing something this sensitive meant that he had to focus on that space very hard but due to the buffeting wind speeds all around them, he could sense the irregularity in the flow of snow and wind quite easily.

As for the no guards comment from Jin'Ya, "Well, don't count out any artificial intelligence or the absolute ton of weapons she might have crammed into that small thing."

With that, he flew towards the ship, ready to uncloak himself but found himself surprised as the ship became visible first, and he came face to face with a very threatening glowing tip with visible arcs of energy all around it, aimed straight at him.

Smirking, he removed the spell, confident in the fact that Jin'Ya and the Red Matron employed vastly superior methods of stealth that Shuri should not be able to detect, at least not yet.

After a second of the weapon clearly not deactivating, he looked in the general direction of where Shuri should be and raised an eyebrow in question. The weapon slid back into the small, very small jet soon after and the top hatch opened up, from which Shuri, in a very Iron Man-esque suit flew out, completely silent.

"Greetings, Princess of Wakanda," He said in a mock bow as he floated mid air.

"Greetings, Colin, I assume you called me here for a reason? I have been here before and I don't think there is anything special about this place aside from a tourist standpoint."

"Ah," He nodded at her and then raised a finger in the universal wait a minute gesture. Then, he turned around and deliberately waved his hand in the air, concentrating extra hard to make sure the Portal opened on the first try and as if Stan Lee himself was looking down on him, the portal opened on the first try.

A tiny, basketball sized one but it opened and the next moment, he let go of the portal's control as he relaxed and turned around, trusting the Water Dragon to do the needful.

"That," He said as the glow of the red and orange was reflected around them because of the snow, "is where we'll be going. I assume your ride has self park?"

He asked the question, mostly as a joke because even if it did, who would ever leave out such valuable equipment out in the open, away from—

"Yes, it does." Shuri said and then, as if locking a car, she tapped her thigh two times, which made the spaceship light up twice, as if it was a f*cking car instead of an uber advanced jet. Then the thing just disappeared and then shot right up, disappearing from his tracking range soon after.

"Neat." He commented at that, and then gestured at the portal behind him, after getting the confirmation that his two babysitters were not going to leave before him at any cost. "After you."

Just what was the value of those Blood Apples to the Red Matron that she would do such demeaning, at least in his opinion, protection jobs?

Her suit floated effortlessly towards the portal, now big enough to house two of him going side by side and across as well, resulting in a rather noticeable light show but this was fairly secluded since they were high up and any reportings will just show an orange and red light cluster instead of them so they were safe.

The moment they crossed the threshold, he expected the abrupt environmental backlash to have some sort of effect on Shuri but apparently, that was just not something that Black Panthers had to deal with anymore. He had noticed during their very brief brawl back in Seattle that Shuri was enhanced and not just a little enhanced, like running Dimensional Energy Body reinforcement but like beyond Captain America enhanced which could only be possible with the Heart Shaped Herb.

Before he could even get a word in, Shuri flew up in the air, probably to get a higher vantage point and he followed suit, cognizant of the fact that his babysitters had followed through.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" He commented as he floated side by side with Shuri, overlooking the Great Lake, the Mountain as well as the expanse beyond, covered with a thing layer of fog, expanding as far as his vision could go.

That was the boundary of the current guarded area of Ta-Lo. See, the powers granted to every single human as well as animal born here came from two things.

The bloodline granted to them due to all of them technically being part children of the Water Dragon or more accurately, living in an enclosed space suffused with the essence of the Water Dragon, made them tangentially related.

Secondly, it came from being in the proximity of the Water Dragon. The Water Dragon can choose to empower a particular piece of human who had its essence in them, i.e, were born in Ta-Lo. The circle in which the Water Dragon can perform effortless empowerment is 50 miles, after which the Water Dragon's ability to empower humans wanes drastically, likely because of its weaker overall health.

Now that it was healing bit by bit, it should be able to do more but for now, that was the line drawn in the sand and everyone in Ta-Lo had to abide by it.

Well, almost everyone.

"It is, and yet, I fail to see what is so special ab–" Shuri stopped in the middle as the tiny drone floating by her side beeped and a bunch of data popped up in front of her, her focus zeroing in on the data.

"How is this possible? Even Wakanda has.." She whispered then continued to read through the stuff before turning to him, as he had a smug smirk already plastered on his face, fully expecting a completely bamboozled Shuri with no answers and a ton of questions.

"We are not on Earth anymore, are we?" And instead, got a perfect guess in the first try, stumping him as he could not do the cool guy with all the answers act anymore.

Coughing into his fist, he replied, "Yes, we are not on Earth anymore but it's probably not what you think it is. We are—" Aaaand, she was gone. Yup, apparently, looking at screens was much more interesting and probably, a much faster way of getting information.

Three more of such tiny drones got out of her suit, which lost some of its mass, which meant that Shuri was way ahead in the whole nanotech stuff than he had expected her to be, as three different Holo displays popped up in front of her, with a fourth one exclusively being used as a notepad, which wrote down the rapid Xhosa that was overflowing out of her.

Sighing, he slumped mid air and then straightened up a bit as he unleashed a gust of wind, point black as the displays glitched for a bit before returning to their original shape.

"What?" She did not quite snap but he had a hunch that he was getting close to the annoyance territory.

He then suddenly smiled as he got a message from the Water Dragon or more like, he felt the Water Dragon approaching the surface. He then pointed towards the Lake, "Look."

Just in time for the Water Dragon, bruises and injuries all gone, to burst out of the water in all their glory, shining resplendent. With the water backdrop and the sun behind them creating a rainbow, he thought it looked absolutely magnificent.

Shuri…on the other hand, had a dozen different blasters poking out of her suit, looking at him with utter anxiety on her face which was then covered in her armoured suit, which locked itself down.

Sighing, he facepalmed so hard. This was so not going according to his plan.

He could just feel Jin'Ya laughing, cackling in the background.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[Scherazade]

you know it's a good date when the lady draws a gun on a dragon.

good instincts, shows that she's willing to slay a dragon for you. and probably slay you afterwards for bringing her to a dragon.

Standard dating advice innit, 'if they'll duke with a drake, then make no mistake, this lady ain't no flake'

 

[Petrox]

That's for trying to look cool and mystical.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

A/N - Sorry for the inactivity guys. I usually have a continuous update record(5ch/wk) but this week, I had to act as the chauffeur for my parents for a work thing they both had and couldn't write because I was just too exhausted, having driven 1000 miles to get to that place, and then move around in the city as well.
Ugh, anyway, I am home now, so regular updates should be back (hopefully!)
Enough with the rant, enjoy the chapter!

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #72

Ta-Lo [February 17, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"In hindsight, it might not have been the best idea to introduce you to the Water Dragon," he offhandedly commented as he munched on some chips that were on the table in front of him. After the whole Water Dragon almost being hit by Shuri's strongest weapons fiasco, he had moved the venue and they were now sitting on one of the nearby mountains, overlooking a cliff with a small patio setup, hoping to get a small debriefing done before they moved ahead with the tour.

"You think?" Shuri snarked right back as her eyes continued to move from one screen to the next as she was immersed in the sheer amount of information she must be getting from her four drones that were still working furiously on scanning anything and everything they could get their hands on.

Shuri's suit had to be shrunken down, to get the necessary mass required to make the tools she was using right now. She had no face plate and nothing on her hands as well. Her advanced nanotech suit was just pants and a T-shirt right now.

"Hey," he tried to defend himself, however futile it might have been, "You were the one who couldn't be bothered to stop and listen to what I had to say before flying off to get your own data. That's reckless and you should know better,"

Shuri rolled her eyes at him and he was about to continue his lecture when he sensed something being thrown at him as his eyes lit up, scrambling out of the chair, running towards the edge of the cliff.

"Colin? COLIN? Hey!" Shuri shouted in alarm for some reason. Didn't she know he could fly?

Boosted with an Air Door, he reached the necessary height and bagged everything that Jin'Ya had thrown towards them. A small sack full of carefully cut meat, some veggies, spices, oil and more.

Perfect for the best Barbecue that the Princess of Wakanda would ever have in her life.

"So, that's the stuff we were waiting for? Food? Are you just here to waste my time?" Shuri asked him as he began setting everything up.

He sighed, continued doing his stuff as he replied, "Look, I brought you here to show you some of the other stuff on Earth, so that the Point of View of Wakandans that they are the only shadow realm type civilization on the planet is debunked. And yes, we are still on Earth, sort of."

Shuri thought about it for a moment before swiping down on the screens, shutting all of them down before leaning forward, "Okay, explain sort of, because every single test that I have done indicates that this place is thousands of years old. I have not been able to get any Radio waves, not even the ones that we sent out decades ago in every direction which means we are way far out and the presence of the sky means we are still somewhere in space, not in some locked box."

He smiled at the reply, all technical and very plausible but because she did not have one important context, she got it all wrong. After he set the fire, he turned around with a smug smile. Now was his time to shine.

"You see, my Dear Lady," He said as he sat down next to her and used one of the most underrated and yet, sadly unused skills in his arsenal.

Eldritch shape summoning.

Shuri looked at the orange construct of the Earth with interest as he continued his lecture, "As you can see, this is Earth," He stopped her from interrupting him, "Ah! Please save any questions for later."

"Ahem, as I was saying, this is Earth," With a slight flex, the rough location of Wakanda was pushed forward out of the land, "-and this is Wakanda. Now, there are multiple special hidden locations, connected to Earth," A dozen or so smaller spheres appeared all around the Earth, connected to the planet using thin strands, "-that I know of, like the one we are in right now. Now, you must be wondering how–"

In the middle of his explanation, Shuri sat upright, "We're in a pocket dimension?"

Aaand, she was gone. Once again, his shoulders slumped as the eldritch energy summon winked out of existence.

"I want to know how you did that as well. It was not hard light but some other energy. We'll get back to that later on but THIS IS A POCKET DIMENSION?" Shuri said with the whole nerd maniac energy as she began hammering away at her holo screens.

"Ahem," he mentally called on to the Water Dragon and the Water Dragon responded as all the screens around Shuri shut off, with the Drones falling to the ground in a puddle of nanotech as well, with small bits of white lights sticking out of the puddles.

"Hmm," he mused as Shuri looked at her failing technology with confusion, "So you've gone with a mix of solid as well as nanotech, then? Wise choice, especially with the power source. The Arc Reactor is a solid and reliable choice, especially because it can be scaled either way very efficiently. I wonder how you could incorporate that into nanotech if you wanted to go full nanotech in the future."

"What just happened?"

"That," he said as he turned around and hopped to the Barbecue station he had built to the side, "was the Water Dragon, the one you almost shot with who knows what. They are the owner of this pocket dimension."

"So, that was a real dragon? Not just some monster or an alien? Because we've met some aliens but they were mostly humanoid in nature and most definitely, could not fly." Shuri rapidly fired, walking behind him as her favourite tech just fell apart in this place.

"Eh, you can call them aliens if you want to. There are a lot of subspecies of Dragons in this universe and some of them evolved in different dimensions and then spilled over into the Universe, some were born here, some came from Space but yeah, the one you saw was the Water Dragon and they are the one holding this entire pocket dimension together." He went into a tirade of explanation as the heavenly scent of food began wafting in the area.

He had to immediately send a promise of doing this once again later, to Jin'Ya lest they lose half of their food suddenly.

"How do you know all of this?" Shuri asked him, her gaze unconsciously locked at the food. Well, speaking as someone who knew how it felt like eating the food of this place for the first time, it was going to be hard for Shuri to get used to the food back home.

It was something to do with the Draconic essence in every animal, that made it extra nourishing and humans, Ancient humans, probably did eat magical meat sometime so it must be in their DNA as well, to actively go out and seek magical animal sustenance for better, well, everything basically.

The people in Ta-Lo do not get sick, even after he came in, carrying modern pathogens and introducing them to what was basically a closed system that had stayed closed for centuries.

If the people at the CDC heard of what he had done instead of taking this opportunity to do valuable research and develop protocols for First Contact scenarios, they would probably put out a bounty on him.

Not a single animal, or human got sick because of him and that spoke of the strength they had. Plus, the meat here was not mass produced, so the animals actually lived in their natural habitat for their natural lives and only when they died, were they used as food, and that too, only for greedy people like him.

All the natives were vegetarians, probably because they never needed to eat animals for sustenance, with their grains being super grains, providing everything they needed.

"That," he Answered Shuri's question, "is classified."

"I know you have questions. Ask away, we will begin the tour once we've had our fill,"

"Do you call advanced esoteric energy manipulation Magic?"

Wow, did she begin with the most loaded questions?

"Well, you see, the two things that you mentioned, both of them are the same. Magic or Sorcery," he ignored the snort, "is the art or science of manipulating reality itself with our mind. The Energy and Matter manipulation comes from the mind, not through some machine."

"You're delusional," She shook her head at him, not believing him at all.

He merely deadpanned at her and then snapped his fingers, creating large energy constructs behind him, with all of them being weapons of some sort, along with two Doors right above them, releasing Kinetic Energy from one into the other.

"Okay," Shuri said, a lot more believing now, "that is a little hard to explain with just technology," She then shook her head, "But I still refuse to believe that you can just do that with your mind. You had to have some sort of biological advantage for this to happen. I don't believe, even for a second, that everyone can learn that, as you alluded earlier."

He snapped his fingers, dispelling everything and gave her a look that screamed: Oh, you sweet summer child.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #73

Ta-Lo [February 17, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He was happily munching on the food, same as Shuri, creating a temporary truce between them because just moments prior, they were furiously arguing about their respective perspectives on the very reality as they knew it.

Shuri refused to believe that minds could change reality as they knew it, without any external biological interference. Her argument about having some sort of genetic markup that created mutations leading to energy and matter manipulation might have some merit, considering humanity as a whole was an aberration in the wider universe.

Borne from the lifeblood of Celestials, the pinnacle of living beings of this universe, humans had the most malleable and adaptable DNA in the known universe. That is what he really believed humanity's trump card to be.

Sure, on the surface, the main power of humanity lay in their intellect, their ability to build tools to build tools to build giant fuck off weapons. While nice to have, weapons themselves were not going to be the thing that would set Humanity apart from the rest of the civilizations in the universe.

People like Carol Danvers, Hulk, Spider Man, Inhumans, and yes, even The Leader, were going to be the ones who were going to define the era going forward. Those faces were going to be used as Earth's representation in the wider universe because that's just how things worked in the wider universe, especially if a civilization was trying to gain an Ascendant status, as Asgard did.

And no one knew, atleast to his knowledge, the sheer potential humanity had to churn out more and more of those powerhouses. Entire species and multiple planets have been ruled with an iron fist by people weaker than Carol Danvers, Hulk or hell, even Spider Man.

If the rest of the superpowers realised that Humanity's DNA could make people like that, and that Carol Danvers was not just a one time freak accident, well then, they might as well just say goodbye to Earth as a whole as it will be turned into a large breeding factory with humans being placed in the same cage where humans put mice in, for research purposes.

Drinking water in between inhaling his food, he looked at Shuri who was trying, unsuccessfully might he add, to restrain herself, both from eating the food and asking about the food.

"This is so gooood! I can't believe there's nothing artificial in this. Not even a hint of microplastics, even in the seasonings. What is this place?" She mumbled, both for herself and to him as both of them worked on demolishing the giant stock of food that the Village CHief had arranged for them, bless his blackened greedy heart but hey, at least the man knew how to apologize properly.

"This," he said as he spread his arms wide dramatically, with a fork still in his right hand, "is one of the few places on Earth more magical than Wakanda, full of wonders that even I have not fully explored yet."

Shuri nodded but then went right back to the food.

Both being enhanced, they could put away a lot of food before either of them could start feeling anywhere near full enough, perks of being people with enhanced metabolism.

Speaking of enhanced, he had been meaning to ask this since their little encounter back in LA, "So," He wiped some of the barbecue space off his space as he set down his plate temporarily, "what's up with you becoming the Black Panther all of a sudden. I thought T'Challa was already Black Panther, and next in line."

Shuri stilled, for less than a second before she relaxed and shrugged, continuing to eat her food, "Who says we can't have more than one Black Panther at once? And the succession stuff is not set in stone yet."

On the outside, he nodded repeatedly even as his mind churned at the implications. Not yet set in stone? Is she planning on challenging her brother and her father for the throne?

As for the Black Panther stuff, "True, there is no rule as such but in all of your recorded history, I believe this is the first time that there has been two Black Panthers. There must be some reason for that. I'm just surprised that the Strict priests guarding their treasure gave you the Heart Shaped Herb."

He was quite skeptical about the degree of willingness of the Priests when they handed over the Heart Shaped Herb to Shuri. If he was not wrong, patriarchy at some level was still ingrained in the really old people who comprised the bulk of Wakanda's ruling class so he could imagine some sort of struggle from Shuri's end when she became the Black Panther.

She stopped eating and pointed her fork at him, "You…know a lot about our country, things you shouldn't know and would probably have been executed for, if it were someone else instead of me here."

"Really?" He rolled his eyes at that, and leaned back arrogantly, "As if you or your people could do anything to that," With his neck, he gestured at the giant lake in the distance, referring to the Water Dragon here, not that it would ever come to that.

Jin'Ya alone would obliterate Wakanda, and that too without even breaking a single brick, if only the Ancient One had not nerfed him and stopped him from using mass mind control on Heads of State, Heads of Organisations, Heads of Armies, Major politicians, and most rich people.

Basically, everyone who had a shred of power on the planet was off-limits to Jin'Ya's massive mental magic, unless he was in danger, which was really nice as well as really suck of the Ancient One.

It meant he would have to advance his agenda on his own but also meant that if he was ever in danger, he had someone who could scramble the minds of everyone on Earth if need be.

Shuri tilted her head and nodded, agreeing with his argument, "True, I doubt there is anything we have right now that can do anything to your Water Dragon but if I am not wrong, the Dragon cannot leave this pocket dimension but you will have to. Then, you are free game."

"Oh, please," He rolled his eyes extra hard at that, "I am way stronger than anyone in Wakanda, not even the Black Panther's powers will give you an advantage over me. Also, yes, Vibranium weapons are scary but only if the people using them know how to use them properly. Wakanda doesn't have an army but groups of soldiers sent from Tribes who have not trained with each other. No cross tribe exercises, no coordinations, nothing."

In the middle of his rant about Wakanda's stupidities, he failed to notice that Shuri had put down her plate and was recording everything he was saying.

"The only force that the King has under his control exclusively is you, i.e., The Black Panther or Panthers now, the Dora Milaje, and the staff at the Royal Labs, that's it. Don't you ever read history books? Having decentralised power is nice but so much decentralisation makes you vulnerable to defections, betrayals, not to mention the obvious chances of defections from the Dora Milaje as well because of their connections to their tribes."

He then used minor telekinesis, one of the few things that Jin'Ya taught him successfully, and beckoned a piece of potato, yes, they had also grilled veggies, he was not a picky eater, as he spoke, "Don't even get me started on the whole isolation stuff that you are looking to change, kudos on that by the way. I could maybe understand if the rest of the world was still backwards ass but it is now catching up and it is doing so without a crippling reliance on Vibranium. Sure, you can mine your Great Mound for thousands of years without running out and you guys keep track of every single milligram of Vibranium, even the one that is scattered throughout the world because Vibranium is 100% recyclable."

Shuri was halfway through throwing in her argument when he shushed her and continued to speak, something that definitely angered her but she was willing to listen, probably because of all his good points.

"But what will you do when you get out of this planet?"

That single question stumped her as he could see Shuri's mind try to think of an argument.

It really amazed him how foolish some really smart people could be, how they could be blind sided by stuff. In this case, Shuri knew about aliens, and by her humanoid comments, it was probably the Kree and yet, even after that, her mind did not drift towards emergency procedures on how they could evacuate their country, how their reliance on Vibranium, a rare mineral even in the rest of the universe, would be the one thing that would hamper them from ever becoming as powerful in space as they were on Earth.

"Yeah," he said, self assuredly, munching on some crunchy veggies, "Think on that."

Future Queen of Wakanda.

That…was an interesting event and he would love it if that happened because as far as his interactions with Shuri went, he would actually prefer her as the Monarch of Wakanda because she was somehow more liberal than T'Challa.


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[Spearow]

They just need 1 ship and then raid some space pirates like the ravagers and capture some destroyed ships, use the vibranium on the factories and mass produce milanos.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #74

Ta-Lo [February 17, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"Huh," was all Shuri could say when confronted with the reality that while they were advanced, they were also building a wall around themselves. Each new invention that required Vibranium to function, made the wall bigger and wider, crippling their potential of ever becoming an independent space faring civilization.

Leaning back into the chair and looking at the now finished food, he said, "In my opinion, you guys should have already explored the entirety of the solar system and begun working on getting to the outer universe. That," he pointed at her as he telekinetically began wrapping up their barbecue session, "would have made you the most advanced country on the planet, having off planet bases that you could then use to either reinforce your position, creating a bigger moat of technology around your planet or to conquer the rest of the countries."

Shuri was deep in thought so he added his last little nugget, "But no, you guys had to remain steadfast and smug about being born in the right geographical zone at the right time without thinking ahead. I am sure that for the majority of Wakandans, the outside world is still full of savages and backward people." Shuri winced at those words.

He made sure to emphasize those words because he knew those were the exact two words used by the common people in the schools, in reports, and in the stories written by the Wakandan Authors because, as it turns out, the people of Wakanda did not have unfettered access to the rest of the internet, which was obviously just an overall good thing.

He was of the opinion that no one should get to see what the degenerates that are constantly online do on the internet. It was frankly just an eyesore and most probably made people pull their eyeballs out so they wouldn't have to see the level of degeneracy on the internet.

But that censorship created a void of sorts, stopping normal Wakandans from ever relating with the rest of the people on the planet, creating an invisible yet very real divide between Wakandans and the rest of the humans on the planet. It was not like Wakandans were a whole other species or sub species, they were probably millennia away from evolving due to the background radiation that the Vibranium gave off into the surroundings.

"It was the best choice at the time?" Shuri offered a weak defense and he snorted at that, carefully putting away all of the stuff on the mountain. He literally could not litter in this place since they did not have a garbage disposal system. The Water Dragon being the one who fulfilled that role for them, since most of the stuff they used was biodegradable and contained the Water Dragon's essence, making it infinitely recyclable.

Plastic chairs and bags? Definitely not. The Water Dragon would most certainly break that down but why be a bad guest?

Switching tracks for a moment, he decided to give Shuri another hint, "I assume the effect of Vibranium on the surrounding Flora and Fauna and the consumption of said food is heavily researched?"

"Huh? What?" Shuri asked him, clueless and he internally sighed in resignation as he realised something, something that he would unfortunately be unable to tell Shuri.

Still, just as a trial, he continued, "The plants in the Vibranium mine, they must be different from the rest, right?"

"Yes," Shuri nodded enthusiastically, "The radiation that Vibranium absorbs and emits has given birth to some mutated plant species but we usually just collect them and once they are tagged, keep them in storage since they cannot be used in any meaningful way."

He nodded, internally cataloguing her responses.

"Colin boy, it would seem your theory was correct," Jin'Ya spoke in his mind as he gave no outward signs of being in contact with the Psionic Dragon, even as he told Shuri that their next stop would take some time so she should take all the samples and readings she wanted now.

"Yup, Bast is going to be a problem." He confirmed mentally and sighed. Problems on top of Problems on top of Problems.

They continued to pile up. It was nice that at least for the hell vamps, he had two very powerful people who were contractually obligated to protect him, one with even his life.

Seeing Shuri happily work on taking samples of every little thing and recording anything and everything in sight, his mind went back to the time he had this thought for the very first time.

All the way back when he first hacked Wakanda or tried to anyway. All he could do in the first attempt was hit a wall and then try his absolute hardest to stop their reverse hacking attempts despite knowing that he was quite literally magically secure from locating attempts.

Bast. The Patron Goddess of Wakanda.

According to Lore, the one responsible for the creation of the Heart Shaped Herb and then subsequently, the Black Panther who then went on to create Wakanda itself, a carved out piece of country with stable human population providing faith energy to Bast at a steady pace and in regular intervals, given that Wakanda's population had almost stopped growing altogether, stabilising at a cool 5 million people.

He also knew that Gods, overall, had weakened a lot and had made the choice to move to Omnipotence City by severing their faith gathering abilities and becoming humanoid entities with powers, instead of semi conceptual beings whose existence revolved around the people from whom they gather faith energy.

Bast, was one of the very few Gods, who remained on Earth and continued to gather faith energy from a select group of people. She is very smart about it too, refusing to venture out of the small little African country, so very little chance of suspicion as well as retaliation from the Sorcerer Supreme.

But that also meant that her control over Wakanda and its citizens was near absolute because the King had an absolute say in what Wakanda did. The same position that had always been occupied by the Black Panther ever since their country was founded. Ultimately, it meant that Wakanda was in Bast's tightly wound fist.

Their thoughts, their overall sentiments, their mentality, their progress, all of it was controlled or at least encouraged to go a certain direction, by Bast herself.

It was all just a theory, but interacting with Shuri and watching her ignore certain avenues of thoughts, begin acting odd about certain trains of thoughts, refusing to connect the links when he all but fed it to her.

All of it confirmed it for him. Bast was a parasite, one that had unfortunately taken quite a deep hold of Wakanda.

Bast was why Wakanda had never ventured past Earth, never sending a manned mission despite them having the capability to do so well before America did.

Bast was the reason why Shuri, even now, does not do what she should do to advance her agenda of opening Wakanda's borders, i.e., take control by force and make everyone do her bidding.

Bast was the reason why Wakanadans were openly discouraged from going out, from forming bonds with outside people, and why no other deity was allowed to exist inside Wakanda.

Why Wakanda had never made an attempt to help their fellow people, even covertly. He could understand most Black Panthers being indifferent to people's plight but he could not compute a single one of them having a little empathy for the rest of the people on the Continent.

No, it was all just the subtle mental hand of a thousands of years old Goddess who had quietly carved out a nice little seat of power for herself.

And…he did not like it.

Neither did Jin'Ya.

He shivered, as for some reason, he got a flash of an image. Of him grinning in what could only be called an evil way with Jin'Ya being revealed right behind him, in a flash of lightning, grinning in a similar way as well.

Made both of them look quite like the villains.

Looking at the unknowingly compromised Shuri, he shook his head as he resolved to find a way to get Bast either out of Wakanda or get a private compromise of staying away from Wakandan's minds, soon. Very soon.

"I suppose we are leaving for Wakanda, then?" Jin'Ya said, almost resigned and yet, Jin'Ya could not fool the person with whom he shared a literal mental bond. The excitement and the thirst for battle was palpable in the Psionic Dragon.

"As if you even have to ask."



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[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #75

Ta-Lo [February 17, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"So, you say that even you have not explored these areas?" Shuri asked him as both of them stood atop one of his Doors, which was being gently propelled forward, away from the area of influence of the Water Dragon.

"Yup," He nodded as he steered the Air Door with his mind, senses carefully peeled, just in case something unexpected happened, because this was the part of Ta-Lo that he had not been allowed to see, at all.

Ta-Lo, as a magical hotspot and pocket dimension was odd, even amongst the dozens of magical enclaves around the planet. He had not been to all of them but he most certainly knew how they functioned. Ta-Lo was unique in the sense that a Dragon was the one that powered the whole thing or at least kept it all together. The same Dragon that had been weakening over time, leading the Dragon to cede territory of the pocket dimension they were in.

The original size of the pocket dimension was huge and only over time, did the bubble of influence of the Water Dragon shrank so much, culminating in a small radius around the Great Lake where the Water Dragon currently resided.

That didn't mean that the pocket dimension itself was losing its size. No, the entirety of the pocket dimension was maintained by the Water Dragon, and in maintaining the small bubble where it reigned almost supreme, the Water Dragon made sure that the entire pocket dimension was stable.

It just didn't have the strength and energy to regulate and lord over the entirety of the Pocket dimension….Until now.

Yup, even as he crossed the invisible threshold stopping anyone from Ta-Lo ever visiting the uncontrolled lands, he could feel the invisible sight of the Water Dragon, the pulsing strength of their soul. Yup, it was confirmed, the Water Dragon was much, much stronger than they were in the movies.

It gave them a much better chance with dealing with the Demon from the End, when Wenwu would come knocking. He mentally noted to himself, to track down the madman to either stop him from enacting his foolish agenda and confiscate the rings, or kill the man and be done with the rings. He did not have any mercy for centuries old warlords with a kill count in the tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands, given that he was Asian.

Man, Asian conflicts, not even full scale wars had casualty figures that would rattle anyone who was just accustomed to major World Wars having that high number of casualties.

"Should I be worried?" Shuri asked him, her drones nowhere in sight as her suit had gained the bulk it had before, leaving only her face exposed and even then, he could see the nanites around her neck in a constant state of flux, moving around subtly, as if they were ready to be deployed at a moment's notice and shield Shuri's face from any incoming harm.

"Why?" He asked as he remained ready, his senses detecting a small surge of magic at the edge of his sensory range, something that the Water Dragon probably could not sense anymore because he could not feel the invisible gaze of the Water Dragon anymore.

They were now over 100 miles from the edge of Ta-Lo, and he was finally starting to see some signs of activity now. The scene in front of him was straight from a horror movie. No sign of any life yet but the fog, the eerie silence, and the limited visibility, even after Shuri used whatever high powered lights she had in her suit. It all painted a very grim picture.

Shuri replied after a couple of minutes, "Because you, the strongest person, physically, that I have met is tense as if they were about to face death. Your heart rate is elevated, your muscles are tense and your eyes continue to move in a pattern that screams of you looking for something that might jump out."

"Well," he replied, still not looking at her, "thank you for the compliment and yes, I am expecting some attacks but don't worry, they will not be anything major. Hell, I wager that you would easily be able to handle them with your suit alone."

And if not, he had two overpowered bodyguards just waiting for something to jump him so they could blow off some steam and just obliterate the poor guy.

"If you say so," Shuri said but still, the liquid nanites around her continued to inch up slowly. Well, she was a Princess of a nation so her safety was probably paramount to her.

Speaking of which, "How are you here without Wakanda being turned upside down by your family? I thought all of the members of the Royal Family were either tightly monitored or accompanied by a member of the Dora Milaje at all times?"

"Well, let's just say that my relations with my family are not at their peak."

"....You declared your intent on becoming Queen?"

Shuri's neck whipped so fast it had to have been the nanites that helped her achieve that speed. "....."

"Too soon?" He offered as he raised his hand in front of them and cycled through his Doors. Well, it might tell Shuri and to an extent, Bast as well but he didn't mind that, since the Goddess was soon either going to fall in line or fall out of relevance, courtesy of yours truly.

He truly had no patience or mercy for mind control. It was truly one of the most detestable things you could do, and he knew the hypocrisy in that statement because Kamar Taj regularly employed spells that altered people's perceptions, removed memories of mystical encounters, and more.

He mentally justified those practices to himself because some mystical encounters actually left people insane, their minds unable to comprehend the scenery in front of them, and the most that the Sorcerers at Kamar Taj did was remove memories, not actively control anyone, let alone an entire Country.

As he let loose a mid sized air shockwave, Shuri spoke, her suit of armour probably scanning the whole thing, "I won't ask how you know that but yes, I have decided to become Queen of Wakanda, challenging my brother and my father for the throne. As you can tell, not the greatest family bonding exercise one could do."

"Understandable," He nodded and then cycled to the next Door in line, the Fire one, "Mentally finding the one with the biggest Fire geyser, he opened the Door and watched with a raised eyebrow as the stream of fire literally disappeared into the fog, barely raising the temperature around them but doing nothing to the Fog."

"Huh."

Changing gears, since he could not feel anything now, not even the reassuring presence of Jin'Ya behind him, "Don't be alarmed."

A deep dark red Door appeared in front of them, alarming Shuri to some extent as she took a step closer to him, "What is that?"

Instead of answering, he resized the Door and let loose the biggest barrage of Kinetic Laser he could at the moment, lighting up their entire surroundings in a bright red, that finally cleared some of the fog and removed whatever interference there was that was jamming his senses.

He smiled as he heard some grunts and registered some pings on his magical radar as well. Still nothing from Jin'Ya though but that was fine for now. The mental link was always there if he needed it but the magical presence was gone, which was not new because the Psionic Dragon was so much better than him at hiding and everything else as well.

"Since when can you do that?"! Shuri asked him as they slowly inched forward bit by bit.

____xx____

Romania

–?--

"Sire, we have lost track of the LifeGiver." In the shadowy room, a small movement indicated a thrall entering the chambers of one of the Elder Vampires, the only sign of movement in the room being the door closing on its own.

After a suffocating moment of tense silence, two bright red eyes snapped open, illuminating the chambers in their fiery glow. The gaze pinned down the thrall, making the air feel heavier in the room.

"And the Matron?"

The thrall kept its head bowed, knowing what fate befell its comrades because they were unfortunate enough to lay eyes on their Sire. "We have confirmed contact, Sire. We have lost track of her as well."

There was a deep, gravelly chuckle in the room that made the very chambers vibrate as the very air was suffused with power. Power unlike anything the thrall had ever felt before in its life, burning its clothing and fusing said clothing with its skin. Despite the pain, the thrall kept its head bowed and its body still, knowing the fate it shall suffer if it made any mistakes.

"So, she took the bait. Good. Good."

"Begone," The thrall scrambled out of the room like its life depended on it because it actually did.




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[Emptiness]

Hello Dracula, trying to find your human pixie stick?

I love how off footed the Queen-to_be is. It is simply so satisfying to see here out of her depth. Has she actually had a full "all the scary stories are real" talk yet, or will plot force that upon her?

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #76

Ta-Lo [February 17, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"Since when can you do that?"! Shuri asked him as they slowly inched forward bit by bit.

He shrugged, "For a while now." With that, he fired yet another volley of lasers as the fog was starting to creep up on them once again. It was really odd and dare he say, magical, how the fog could mask all his senses just by being in his proximity.

The faint magical signatures he sensed began to dim as the fog began recovering the lost territory. It was all kind of all horror coded?

Shuri shook her head and took a step forward, giving him a look as dozens of small blasters emerged out of her hands, and two giant ones, glowing a concerning purple, protruded out of her back. All of them aimed at the fog.

With a raised eyebrow, he dropped his hand, dispelling the Red Door as Shuri took center stage, a whine of energy ringing in his ears as all the blasters on her suit began glowing. Blue, purple, white, all of them.

His brow twitched as her feet suddenly bulked up and dug themselves into his Door as he had to reorient the Air Blowers on the fly due to the sudden weight being applied in a single direction. A warning would have been nice but…sigh.

With a thought, a small groove appeared near her legs as Shuri's suit found its footing.

Then, came the attack. It was not an explosion, far from it but the way it cut through the fog, magical or otherwise, creating a straight path for them, illuminating their surroundings and also hitting something on the other end, judging by the roars that came back, was illuminating.

Nice to know that Shuri did pack some very high end firepower in that small of a suit. The lasers from her big back blasters fizzled out first, as four small rings of Miniature Arc Reactors burst out of the arms, sizzling due to the heat, as the rest of the blasters soon gave out as well, resulting in a very long hole in the fog, with the end being a deep red, which was either the colour of the landscape or the more likely answer being that Shuri's blast burned anything that was present upon impact.

He noted two more Arc Rings discarded from her suit, as the blasters retracted back into the suit, with Shuri stepping back to survey the damage she did with her suit.

"I assume you can't do that that many times, can you?" He idly commented as a series of smaller Red Doors appeared around their Alladin's carpet in a series of three so they could still see in between the barrage of Kinetic Lasers, making quite literally a mystic sight in front of them.

"No," Shuri said as she looked at the scene in front of her with awe, at least that's what it looked like to him, as three smaller rays of red punched through the ever so slowly creeping fog, creating a pathway for them.

"That is so cool," Shuri whispered, confirming his guess as they continued to move deeper.

As they moved forward into the fog, he was also aware that the path behind them was closing up as well, but he was not in the mood to clean that up right now. If things escalated to the point that he would be unable to secure a retreat, he would just call on Jin'Ya, which, yeah, was kind of irresponsible of him, to rely on him so much but hey, the bond between them was actual life and death so who knows.

"Brace yourself," he warned Shuri as she covered her face and planted her feet into the groves on the Door, as the Door was propelled forward with a gigantic shockwave of air, making him lean back a bit as a transparent Door was covering his face just in case something went splat.

Soon enough, they reached the end of the fog and the second that happened, it felt like he had crossed dimensions. The red hot hole in the small mountain was present, a result of Shuri's beam.

His eyes narrowed as he swiped through the air, reorienting the Red Doors and sending forth a giant barrage of beams that seemed to have struck something mid air. Shuri's suit rearmed itself, without the giant f*ck you arms as a flying Dragon? Demon? of sorts became visible and was then summarily blasted into the land and then buried a couple of feet as he continued the attack.

"What the…" he whispered to himself as he felt the energy of this place. It was like they had left Ta-Lo and ventured into the Dark Dimension itself. It was all very alarming, to be honest.

Slowly floating down, his form sizzled with a dim yellow glow as he called upon his CHI, preparing to strike down any Dark Energy infested Demon, as he ventured to check on the Demon he had just blasted into the ground. He still heard pained grunts and a little movement from within the hole so that level of output was clearly not enough to kill the Demon, which was fine because he needed some answers.

"Stay Back," he told Shuri as a box of Red Doors appeared all around her, enclosing her in something that would release an omnidirectional wave of Kinetic Energy on command.

He slowly floated down, mindful of any subtle changes in the air, which was how he first found out about this Demon. The energy masking capabilities of this one was off the charts, escaping his senses entirely and only becoming visible to his Air Senses due to his overall sensitivity to changes in the air flow in a small radius around him.

The Demon was in a bad shape as well. Seven glowing yellow eyes, veins of Dark Purple criss crossing across its entire body, leaking yellow pus from its injuries, with one of its wings having a hole punched through with the other one twitching weakly.

He counted a concerning amount of teeth arranged in multiple rows. Combined with the sharp four claws, it was a killing machine and yet, as he gazed into the eyes of this creature, he realised that there was no sentience here.

No mind to read, to interrogate so, with a wave of his hand, a Giant Red Door appeared above him, out of the hole, and blasted the land with a large Kinetic Laser. The laser hit him but as he had practiced beforehand, the laser stuck the Red Door above his head and continued its way through the small Red Door below his feet, effectively creating a safe enclosure for him.

He watched as the Demon was reduced to chunks before they too were burned off, leaving a smoking red hole all around him, with chunks of land either red from the heat or Dark because of the sheer amount of Dark Energy present in the land itself.

Slowly floating back up, he met Shuri, "So? Any idea where we are? Or is this some really elaborate plan to kill me?" She asked him nonchalantly and he resisted the urge to deadpan at her.

As if this was necessary to kill her.

"No, all of this is new to me as well. In the beginning, this was just going to be a short tour of the core area, where we came from but then, it snowballed into this but now, I am not so sure about this anymore." He said, hesitantly as his senses picked up on some faint magical signatures, in the distance, beyond the mountain.

"So, what will it be? Are we going forward or are we retreating?" Shuri asked him, trying to goad him for some reason.

"Do you want to go ahead for some reason?" He asked her as they were now floating high above the hole, surveying the areas around them to see if any new Demon pops out or not.

"Well, I wouldn't mind a sample or two of the exotic energies you keep throwing out plus a DNA sample from any more flying exotic fauna wouldn't be so bad, now, would it?"

"......"

"......"

"I see." he nodded and then flew down to the hole. Gesturing at the hole, "Please, see if you can get any DNA but let me warn you, it might just get all confiscated if the people above me do not like you tinkering with stuff beyond regular science, okay?"

Shuri gave him a confused look but he did not elaborate any further on that. If the Ancient One wanted to remove the possibility of flying Demons being inducted into the Wakandan Army, she would have to talk to Shuri herself.

Maybe taking a SCIENCE! nerd to an obviously magical place was not his best decision.

Well, hindsight's 20/20 and all that.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #77

Ta-Lo [February 17, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"All done?" He asked Shuri who had floated back up on the platform as he kept watch over the surrounding area by relying on all of his senses, which was a pretty good training exercise in hindsight. He had never really required all of his senses to be used all at once, mostly because one or more would just clash with the environment, giving him false positives many times.

Also, because he never really needed to use all the tools in his arsenal to deal with something before. Come to think of it, all of his adventures so far had been completed, not easily, he wouldn't use that word but with the odds of success being far higher than they would normally be.

Shuri's faceplate slid off as she glared at him, "If someone here could have modulated the output of their lasers, there would have been more than just chunks of meat for me to gather."

He smirked at her as they began their journey forward. One Door Magic wielder, one Bast's chosen, on an adventure.

"So, I got nothing. I couldn't even find that Demon on any of my sensors. You got anything?" Shuri asked him as her suit, which apparently had its own small lab of sorts, analysed the remains of the Demon.

"Something," He said as they moved forward, slowly, braced for an attack as he remained on alert. It came and went but after a couple of warning shots of the Kinetic Lasers, he felt a weak magical signature through his senses but sensory input was never really his strong suit. It was always Jin'Ya's specialty so he knew he couldn't really rely completely on his senses.

For all he knew, the weak energy signature might as well be something way stronger hiding itself. "What? Another Demon? Can you leave it somewhat intact this time? Maybe instead of doing an indiscriminate attack, prioritise precision? A headshot? If you will?"

Hearing Shuri's words, he stopped abruptly, "Huh."

"What?"

He looked at her and grinned, "Maybe you are right. This needs another approach."

"What?" Shuri snapped at him but he was already moving up, gaining altitude rapidly. Despite doing that and travelling almost a kilometer straight up, the mountain seemed to remain the same, with its peak hidden above the fog that acted as a boundary of this whole place.

"What are you doing?"

As they reached the appropriate height, he tapped his foot lightly on the Door and jumped up a dozen feet, both of his hands raised up, palms facing the sky, as a humongous Red Door appeared above him, eclipsing all his previous Doors.

The strain was felt immediately as unlike any Door before, just manifesting this one put a significant amount of weight on his body. His Chi began cycling instinctively, repairing any damage before it could take hold as the Door began expanding, bit by bit, and also began glowing red, as he combined two features of his Doors into one, and that too at such a large scale.

"What the hell is that?" Shuri shouted from below, her suit now stuck in those same grooves as he made sure she wouldn't fly off from fright or something as he charged the Door as much as he could, dying the world below them in a deeper shade of red.

He smiled as he felt multiple magical signatures begin popping up on his radar, some strong, some weak but they were a hell of a lot more than there were before.

He grunted as he aligned the Doors to the mountain in front of them, the one thing that seemed to be the very centre of this place, this hellish place that he never expected to exist in the same pocket dimension as Ta-Lo, a magical paradise. It was difficult to reconcile the fact that both of these visuals could be from roughly the same place.

Smiling at the now audible roars as he felt the magical signatures just popping off on his radar and also heading straight towards him, he unleashed the Kinetic Laser at the mountain, making him tumble back a bit due to the sheer force behind it. Unfortunately, it also misaligned the Laser and as a result of that, there was now a molten red line on the mountain, which looked kinda cool, if someone were to ask him.

Dispelling the Door, which took actual effort because it was not his run of the Mill Door, he slowly floated down to all but collapse on the sweet sweet Air Door as he immediately turned course and began hightailing it out of the place as he could now see a swarm of those same Dragons coming from the direction where the laser had last been.

Oddly enough, there was a hole in the swarm, as if someone had taken a mosquito bat and swatted that section of Demon Dragons out of the sky.

"Wow!" he exclaimed as he had a goofy idea. Bowing at Shuri, "There you go, My Lady, all the Genetic Material you could possibly need," He gestured at the swarm behind them.

Shuri swiped her suit's claw at him as he leaned back, released her feet from the grooves, and then immediately told her, "Brace yourself," With that single warning, he immediately increasing the speed, manifesting two smaller Red Doors in front of him to clear the fog as they fled the Demons.

He was having too much fun as he turned around and used his Red Doors as sniper shots, to shoot down Dragon after Dragon from the sky.

His smile soon vanished though, because soon after that, his fears were confirmed as the fog receded upon impact by the Lasers but did not show the path they had taken before. He had taken the right direction to dive into the fog but it would seem that they were lost now.

Come to think of it, how would these Demons intrude in Ta-Lo, and how? What was that mountain and how were those Dragons remaining hidden from everyone?

Not just the Water Dragon but Jin'ya? The Red Matron? Freaking Ancient One had been inside and she never stopped him from coming here as well.

With that, he came to a slowed down halt, and slipped on his sling ring. Time to bring out the big guns, or the big shots.

…….

Alas, as luck would have it, him waving his arm in the air while concentrating fully did nothing but make him look constipated in front of a beautiful girl.

No sparks, no small holes in reality, nothing. It felt like he hit a wall. The dimensional energy flowed into his body and into the ring but after that, it felt like it found nothing to latch onto.

That happened only when he either had no imaging regarding his destination or if it did not exist. Both of these conditions were not met which meant that Portals were blocked in this area.

"Ow!" he was smacked upside the head by a very hard, metallic glove as Shuri's incensed face came into his view, "What are you doing, you idiot? Get us out of here!"

He wordlessly complied as they began accelerating once again. Well, calling the Big Guns didn't work so time to fall back on the backup.

Calling on his mental link, he sent a message with the feelings feedback turned on. He wagered that he was feeling angry, annoyed, and a little confused about the whole thing with a touch of anxiety topped off over the salad bowl that was his feelings about this whole situation. "Hey, Buddy?"

*Crickets*

"Huh, that's odd."

____xx____

Meanwhile, back in Ta-Lo

The whole mountain with the Demonic seal was on fire. Purple Fire.

The residents of Ta-Lo were running around, safeguarding themselves in bunkers that were installed on the recommendation of Colin who supplied them with all the necessary supplies to build them.

The village Chief and his granddaughter were responsible for making sure that no one from Ta-Lo died, and the fight was left to the ones who could actually make a dent in their enemy.

In the distance, right above the giant lake, three beings floated, of incredibly varying sizes and yet, the auras manifesting around them were not small by any means.

White, with the colors of Corona.

Red, with shades of dark blood in it.

Blazing Purple, with the insignia of a dragon on it.

All three of them floated side by side, in an unlikely alliance as a fiery portal, tinged with fire and evaporating the water below the portal, creating a steaming hole in the Great Lake, manifested in front of the mountain where the Dark One was sealed.

"They took the bait," Jin'Ya, the Psionic Master intoned as Purple blazed all around his tiny form, leaving behind cracks in the reality around them which were swiftly healed by the Water Dragon.

The Red Matron scoffed, "Of course. Who do they take me for? Amateurs."


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #78

Ta-Lo [February 17, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"Well, that's not good," He said to himself as they continued to fly at medium speeds, fleeing from the incoming swarm of Demon Dragons that now filled the small hole in the fog he was creating with the small sustained blast of the Kinetic Lasers.

Honestly, things were not looking too good at the moment. The fog was relentless, and so were the Demon Dragons behind him, and while he could, with a bang, take out most of them, it would drain him severely. Who knows what level of forces they had surrounding that mountain because that thing seemed to be the thing they were guarding and what provoked this response because he ended up decorating that giant mountain with a slash.

Jin'Ya was not responding, no portals, no GPS or magical honing spell to navigate him back to the tropical heaven that was Ta-Lo instead of this demon infested hellscape.

"Uh, Shuri?" His voice hesitant, as he continued to wrack his brain for any ideas to get out of this predicament without flying too fast lest they completely lose their way, "I think there might be a problem."

"Might be?" Shuri snapped as she aimed her hand at the hoard behind them and with a whining sound, sent what looked like a small white arrow, aimed precisely at the flying Demons who were closer to them, taking out one after the other, only this time she was using much less powerful shots so there were no ejected flaming Arc Rings, yet.

His stamina, on the other hand, while vast, was also draining quite rapidly, having to coordinate multiple Door openings at the same time whilst also wracking his mental faculties as to how they could get out of this predicament he had put the Princess, Soon to be Queen, in.

Multiple applications of his powers always took more effort than it was worth it, especially if he had to coordinate everything instead of just the output. Modulating output was fine but if he had to open and close the Doors, on top of stabilising the Air Door enough for an operational flight? That took some real effort.

He wagered that he had maybe 10-12 more hours of the current sustained loads he was under but the kicker was that at any point, he might have to escalate the power levels or enter an even more stressful situation, requiring more power and mental gymnastics.

"Hell of a tour, huh?" he quipped back as he had to swerve heavily to the right, a veritable explosion of Air snapping the entire Door to the right as he blasted apart the invisible flying Demon that had, once again, gotten alarmingly close before he could sense the little currents in the air.

"Are you mad?!" Why did he have a hunch that Shuri was probably just a few steps away from aiming one of her lasers at him?

______xx_____

–Jin'Ya–

"I assume this is a strategy that you employed on my domain without informing me?" The Water Dragon spoke in his mind, not loud but still, the intent behind the voice was enough for him to realise that the Master of Ta-Lo was not happy about being left in the dark about something that was coming alarmingly close to setting free an Ancient Dark One. None of them wanted to see that happen but some things he couldn't say without being sure that no one was listening.

Before he could say something in justification though, the Red Matron, the Parasite, spoke up, bluntly, without any care for future relationships, "I wouldn't be so uptight if I were you. Look who's the one who loosened the seal enough for the Dark One to awaken."

The Water Dragon fell silent as he had no reply to that. The granddaughter of the Village Chief, the one named Ying Nan, lay dead near the seal, her soul sucked in to be used as nourishment for the Dark One residing within, providing enough energy to combat the Water Dragon for its hold on the pocket dimension.

Thankfully, the Water Dragon was a lot stronger due to the regular Chi infusions but even then, it added a battle they were previously not expecting, taking away significant combat prowess from one of the only three beings in this place he expected to be able to participate in the fight ahead of them.

The portal, the one tinged with the dirty energies of Hell continued to spin in place, expanding ever so slowly, releasing energies so vile that life itself began withering around the portal, forcing the Water Dragon to quarantine that area and pull all the Water in the Great Lake away from the portal.

"While I do not like the insinuation, I admit that Ying Nan has succumbed to something she trained all of her life to resist. So, forgive me if I am not in a forgiving mood today."

Wow, that was…..aggressive.

He had not expected the Water Dragon to give off such bloodlust, something that was usually reserved for the more battle hungry(read: foolish) members of the Draconic lineages.

Water Dragons, as far as his extensive knowledge went, were not known for their battle hungry nature. They were known for extensive masteries over a wide discipline of magic, mostly support in nature and notorious for being hard to find due to their elusive nature, wherein they spent most of their time hidden, learning new magics.

Magics that, while supportive in nature, made them absolute monsters to fight as they almost certainly had something that could directly counteract your main attacking attribute.

His head perked up as he felt something from Jin'Ya, a mental message. He blocked it for the moment, as per the instructions he received from the Ancient One. The woman was not someone he could cross, not without incurring massive soul damage anyway and it was not like she would hurt Colin on purpose anyway.

The entire village behind them was evacuated by now, sealed in bunkers reinforced by Colin to become truly sealed spaces, having enough resources for the entire Ta-Lo's population, to last at least a week. More than enough time to decide if abandoning the entire pocket dimension was necessary or not.

"You do realise that this might just shatter this space if we are not careful? Because whoever comes through that portal might not be as careful as we are in acknowledging your sovereignty over this space." The Red Matron spoke the question that was on his mind as all three of them floated, alert, waiting for anything to come out of that hole.

There was a moment of silence before the Water Dragon spoke, "While I have come to love this place as my home and had just about resigned myself to die here, meeting the LifeGiver has given me options and time. So, while I urge you to exercise caution, if the time or the opportunity comes, feel free to ignore any restraints, as I will focus on safeguarding my people."

He nodded at that, as did the Red Matron, mostly because doing so was a very important decision for the Water Dragon as this pocket dimension was built from the very essence of the Water Dragon, essentially acting as a second body. Destroying it would hurt the Water Dragon, no matter how much stronger it had gotten from Colin's continuous Chi infusions.

Silence reigned once more as they watched the seal mountain light up in purple fire, as the portal in front of it continued to expand at a steady pace, as if unafraid and uncaring about the situation here, unhurried.

He snorted as he resisted the urge to let go of his restraints and sent a bolt of maddening energy through the portal. It might not affect the Hell Lords or any beings near that level but the vast majority of the forces of Hell would be afflicted by his curse, turning them on each other and even on their own bodies, resulting in cannibalism and more.

Pretty much a death sentence for any army not well versed in psionic defenses of the highest order, one of the many things that made him a nightmare to deal with, and why no being alive had ever seen him use it because merely seeing him use it was enough to send most beings into a bout of madness, usually resulting in them killing anyone and anything around them and then killing themselves.

A pretty nasty escalation technique, Colin called it after forbidding him from ever using it near any human, understandably.

The thing was, they couldn't spook any of their would be attackers from fleeing, despite the chances of that happening being pretty slim due to their egos being too big as opposed to their powers.

So, all three of them waited patiently, keeping an eye on their surroundings, ready for any surprises.

The one most surprised today was destined to be Colin though, of that, he was certain.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[Orphiex]

Huh. What exactly did Ying Nan do? Was she outright possessed by the Dark One, or just tempted enough to do something stupid?

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Huh. What exactly did Ying Nan do? Was she outright possessed by the Dark One, or just tempted enough to do something stupid?

Click to shrink...

She was outright possessed because she had negative emotions in her mind. That along with her overall naivety and age, allowed the Dark One to possess her effortlessly.

There was yet another factor to that but that would be Spoliers.

Thank you for reading! Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #79

Ta-Lo [February 17, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He huffed at the incoming horde of Demons as he waved his hand through the air, releasing multiple smaller bursts of Kinetic Lasers that impacted the Demons, reducing them to mere chunks, only for them to be replaced by another wave of Demons.

"Tch. There's no end to them," He remarked as they continued to swerve out of the way of any stealth Demon he could sense. Unfortunately, he could only sense through the air within a very small distance, about 30 meters or so and that distance was way too little to react properly to a Demon who could cover that distance in a second, resulting in poor ride quality.

"Sorry," he winced as he heard a particularly angry Xhosa phrase, which was bound to be expletives as Shuri's suit was bombarded with yet another Blast from the Demons. It was not like the attack ever hit them directly but in the hour that he had been running from the Demons, they had somehow found themselves in a pincer attack, resulting in near constant bombardment as well as evasive manoeuvres from his side.

It was not the attack themselves but the residual energy as well as the heat from those that hit Shuri's suit. Thankfully, it was made of Vibranium and thus, could absorb most attacks.

"So, should I be worried about the blue glow?" He commented casually, despite his mind running parallel tasks at levels he had never thought himself capable of, directing the Air Door beneath them properly whilst also sniping any Demon closer with a bout of Kinetic Lasers.

"Uh-huh," Shuri grunted as she shot yet another blast from her suit, "Just throw me at the biggest gathering on my signal."

"What?" He turned around, surprised, only to see her entire suit now glowing blue, top to bottom. His eyes widened in horror as he realised just how close he was sitting to a very strong kinetic bomb.

"What the–" Was all he could get in before Shuri's feet began releasing some very strong vibrations, prompting him to release her from the grooves on the Air Door, grab her outstretched hand, and then throw her at the incoming swarm of about a dozen Demon Dragons..

"So long, Captain!" He mock saluted as Shuri, now a glowing ticking bomb, was sent like a rocket toward a group of about a dozen flying visible Dragons, sending all manners of attacks at the flying missile.

Alas, the missile refused to conform to their version of reality and advanced unfettered, eventually reaching them and exploding in a spectacular explosion that lit up everything in his vision, forcing back literally an entire side of the Demonic Dragons as his enhanced eyesight saw a couple dozen more getting shredded to bits from the shockwave before even his eyesight was overcome by the sheer brightness of it.

Still, closing his eyes, he relied on his other senses and recollection of her last position to reach her because an explosion of that magnitude could not have left her unaffected, despite her Vibranium suit because, despite her best efforts, that was not pure Vibranium which could have protected her from the harm 100% but would have literally been unwieldable to make a suit out of.

Soon, the blast subsided but his skin still tingled due to the sheer amount of energy in the air as he opened his eyes and raised his hand to subtly manipulate the air around the falling object, bringing Shuri's suit back to the Air Door as the massive blast gave them a small respite in constant attacks as he commanded the Air Door to move forward at relatively slower speeds.

The entire suit was smoking and for a moment there, he was worried that he might have to figure out a way to break the suit apart but Shuri, as it turns out, was an excellent engineer, as the faceplate slid away seamlessly, turning into liquid nanites that then slid off the rest of her body as well.

"Well, thank you for the save. I don't think my suit is in any condition to fly anymore," Shuri commented as she stood up and surveyed their surroundings.

His eyes caught movement as he saw the suit wiggle and move in the liquid pattern with a few solid pieces sticking out of it, "Uh?"

"What? Oh, that? It's self repairing but that is still an experimental feature. It won't be back to full functionality after that but at least I won't be armourless for long."

"I see."

____xx___

–Jin'Ya–

His head snapped up, the purple corona around him flickering for less than a second as he sensed something or someone coming through the portal.

"I assume someone is coming?" The Red Matron noticed the infinitesimal change in his aura, ofcourse. He nodded, signalling the Water Dragon to step back and focus on safeguarding the humans behind them.

That was the top most priority, according to the Ancient One's words and he knew Colin enough to know that if anything happened to the citizens of this place because of Colin, well, let's just say that he had never really seen Colin in rage before and despite their difference in powers, he does not wish to see that sight.

"Good that you sent him away. As it is now, the Water Dragon would only hold us back," The Red Matron casually said as both of them floated towards the portal. The parasite was making a show of stretching despite both of them being mostly energy beings at this point, only holding on to a thin suit of meat to cling for convenience.

As for her belief of the Water Dragon being weak, he snorted at her statement, "See to it that you don't end up becoming dead weight."

Whatever insult she had at the tip of her tongue was swallowed back as a vicious blast of Hellfire came pouring out of the portal, forcing him to seal the surrounding space with a corona of psionic energy, to stop any more damage from occurring.

His eyes narrowed as he felt the sealing crack, right in front of the mountain where the Dark Demon was sealed, as Dark Energy gushed out of that seal, tainting the air around them.

His eyes narrowed as he left the Dark Energy contamination to the Water Dragon as he focused on the heavy souls he could feel coming out of that portal. He didn't have to wait long as two Vampires-no, it would be wrong to call them that.

They felt too wrong to be parasites as even those ones had something resembling order to their mind and soul. A purpose, a direction, even if he detested it.

This…thing in front of him, he had to actively resist looking away, so hideous was its soul.

The second that thing stepped into the space around them, the air in the pocket dimension felt heavier as the air itself was lit on Hellfire. It was also followed by an entourage of smaller things, with varying levels of stitching on their souls. He could see that the rest were just small fries, forcibly elevated to their current levels, and would die off very soon as their soul unravelled due to the power coursing through it.

A very crude but effective and more importantly, time efficient method of creating disposable pawns capable of carrying far more power than they would have been able to, in their lifetimes.

Soon, the portal closed behind them, leaving behind twelve small fries and—

He blinked as a massive tidal wave of red assaulted the Demons, uncaring of anything in its path. He had to actively strengthen the space he had sealed, just so that the attack could reach its intended target, else it would have escaped into the fissures of space that would have been torn open by the storm of energy.

"AAAA!" The Head Demon roared as a blinding torrent of Hellfire burst out of that guy to defend himself, but apparently, it was not as smart as it was strong, as the Hellfire barely hit him and instead, took out the small fries behind the stronger Demon.

By the time the brute noticed anything, it was all alone in the space, it's little hype party long since burned to ashes.

Well, let it never be said that the Red Matron was hesitant in her attacks.

"Well, are you waiting for a fucking invitation?"

He didn't give in to the goading but joined in with his own energy, lashing out with mental attacks that just seemed to slide off the brute. It looked like the Demon didn't even feel his attacks, which was an anomaly of its own.

No one could just ignore his attacks. Even the Ancient One herself would have to actively fight his mental attacks, even if she was wearing the shroud of the Vishanti.

What had they done to the soul of this creature for it to remain oblivious to mind rending attacks?


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[NinjaMAster]

...Maybe a lost or traded Hydra LMD?

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #80

Ta-Lo [February 17, 2008]

–Jin'Ya–

As he sent yet another attack laced with poisonous psionic energy, his eyes narrowed as all the attack did was burn the skin of the Demon before it was all healed back in a burst of Hellfire. Someone did a very good job in creating a dumb brute, who was doing a very good job withstanding their attacks but aside from that, there were no overt movements from the demon.

'This is not the real attack, is it?' The Red Matron asked him mid battle as a particularly powerful Blood Curse had the Demon's skin peeling before it was all washed away by the very powerful Hellfire, replacing the skin with fire before the fire left, leaving behind unblemished skin.

He shook his head, floating back a bit as they had to reassess their attack patterns now. 'No, this is just a puppet, juiced up on who knows what to get to this level. The real threat is not here.'

The Red Matron flew back to his side as they waited for the puppet to do something but all it did was stand there, hellfire blazing around its form, corrupting the very air around them.

"It's not doing anything."

"It's just a delaying tactic. We need to erase this one before we can move on," He commanded her and she hesitated only for a second as she called forth powers beyond what this space could handle.

He had to move back a bit as her blood aura was clashing with his own as both of them removed their self imposed limiters. This fight just felt wrong to him. The demon was just programmed to fight anyone who attacked it, nothing more. No, the ones behind this plot must have some other way of reaching here.

The space around them was too turbulent now to open another portal, courtesy of the Dark Energy as well as the hellfire in the air so the only other way they could do this was to enter Ta-Lo before this.

He did not sense any portal in his range, and his range only hit a wall with the fog that was beyond the range of Ta-Lo.

His eyes narrowed as the possibility of the Super Vampires entering the same place where Colin was, entered his mind, and yet, the orders from the Ancient One were clear. Safeguard the Dark Demon seal, and don't leave the Water Dragon's territory, Colin will take care of himself.

But how will Colin take care of himself and Shuri if he has someone so far above him, going after them?

He shook his head, and called forth on more power, silently apologising to the Water Dragon at the same time, ready to blast this demon to bits.

"Wait!" The Red Matron interrupted him as her aura fizzled out, stopping the space from destabilising anymore. He followed suit as he watched her close her eyes for some reason.

Before he could ask what she was doing, her hand shot out as a silhouette became visible to both of them, just behind the portal, close to the seal. Alarmingly close to the seal.

His eyes widened as he flexed his powers, pressuring the target that was about to escape from the Red Matron's grasp and violently pulled him towards them. In doing so, the Bigger Demon finally reacted, snarling as it bounded towards them, Hellfire blazing all around its form.

Not wanting to lose someone who could somehow escape his senses, he pushed forward with all his might, stumbling the Bigger Demon whilst pulling their target towards him.

"Restrain him!" He bellowed as he jumped into the fray, rays of white hitting the Demon from below as the Water Dragon made its presence known, harassing the Brutish Demon while he worked on figuring out a way to dismantle the defenses of the Demon.

The Red Matron worked her magic as her Blood Magic began seeping into the Vampire whose mind he could finally sense and yet, it had the same quality which allowed the vampire to escape from his mental attacks, forcing him to rely on the Red Matron as she was more well versed in the Blood Arts.

His energy covered the blazing firestorm that was the Demon now, entering through the crevices formed by the constant barrage from the Water Dragon, that was halfway to healing, to figure out a way to do the obvious from the inside.

His senses were peeled to the maximum, as he made sure to keep the struggling vampire in his sensory range, just in case the Red Matron failed, as he simultaneously pumped his energy into the body of the Demon in front of him, its body bloating slightly as rays of purple began puncturing its body from the inside.

Despite the visuals, he knew that the rate of damage being done was only slightly surpassing its rate of healing, it really did have an amazing healing factor, as the Demon fought against the wave of psionic energy that he had laid around the Demon's form.

It was a very significant strain, maintaining the web of psionic energy around the Demon that it continued to struggle against, maintaining the flow of energy into the Demon, with the Hellfire pushing back and also keeping hold of their mystery Super Vampire.

It was something that he didn't have to do often, using most of his powers. The Vampire was a very strong one, far stronger than he had expected it to be, forcing the combined efforts of him and the Red Matron, just so the Vampire could be contained properly.

The Red Matron's silhouette had changed completely by now, turning more and more into her true form by the minute, as she was forced to bypass frivolous things like maintaining a more humane look and focusing on getting her Blood Magic to work on a being whose very body rejected all types of energy.

As the Red Matron got closer to her goal, the Demon in his trap seemed to get wilder, desperate as it thrashed about in his trap, generating more openings for his energy to get into, creating a feedback loop, in his favour, obviously.

The Ancient One was right, once more as the Vampire was, for some reason, more interested in releasing the Demon instead of fighting them at first. By his knowledge, and Colin's, the Demon, while strong, was something that was defeated by a new user of the Ten Rings.

It would be child's play for him to get rid of that thing, especially since he had the Red Matron and the Water Dragon on his side, who was also much stronger this time around. The way the Ancient One stresses about the importance of that seal and the way the fog interferes with his senses, told him that there was something rotten within that seal and it would be disastrous to loosen that seal.

Even as the thrashing from the Demon increased, he kept a steady hold on the Demon and on the Vampire as well, making sure that he blough the Red Matron all the time she needed, until, with a wild screech, the Vampire slumped forward, trapped in the Red Matron's magic.

Simultaneously, the Demon in his grasp stopped struggling as well, even as his energy continued to wreak havoc in its insides, injuring it further. Releasing his hold on that vampire, he instead focused on the Demon and after just a minute or so of concentrated attacks, was successful in exploding the Demon from the inside, collecting the remnants in a small container just in case they needed something to research later on.

Floating back, he let go of his hold on the space around them, and faced the Red Matron who was studying the Vampire in front of her with a grim look on her face.

"So?" He asked her, since she was the expert in this stuff, having been cast out by most Vampiric covens when the news broke about how she spared no one, not even Vampires or even Elder Vampires, for her research, all in a quest to become stronger, even when she was already the strongest awake vampire, by far, with Dracula being the only one who was stronger but he was asleep by choice.

"This one," She flicked her hand as the chest of the Vampire was torn open, revealing a small ball of darkness where the heart should be, "Is not the one we were looking for. Just a meat puppet."

As she finished saying her words, the vampire in her grasp began withering away, soon turning into nothing but dust, "See."

The same happened to the remains of the Demon in his grasp as well.

"He's clever, I'll give him that. I assume that the little LifeGiver is still alive? Unless the Bald Headed Demon wanted him dead for some reason?" He raised an eyebrow at that statement and checked on their mental link. He nodded as he saw that Colin was still alive, just not sending a message for help anymore.

He wondered what happened in that part.

The Water Dragon joined the conversation as all three of them began floating to the now pulsing Seal Wall. Thankfully, the seal held and fixing it was very easy as the Water Dragon was the one who made the seal in the first place. "I assume that we are not done yet."

"No, these fuckers were just a probing squad, here to see what we could do. Unfortunately, the fucker destroyed the connection before I could use the Darkness to trace the origin." The Red Matron, uncouth as ever, replied.

"And the Lifegiver?" The Water Dragon asked, concerned.

Before either of them could reply, a massive shockwave rippled all over Ta-Lo, destabilising the space all around them as he had to hold the space around them together, lest they all be attacked by Spatial Rifts or what came through them.

"What was that?"

His gaze met the tense gaze of the Red Matron as the world around them was lit up in a blue glow, the same one that Colin used up earlier, nearly breaking apart the space around him as well as his body.

If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #81

Ta-Lo

–Colin Baxter–

"So, is this it, then?" Shuri asked him, sounding genuinely defeated as they continued to run through a barrage of Demons, despite the regular cullings they both had done for the flying Demons. The ultra stealthy Demons who could get really close before he could detect them had stopped attacking him so either they were all killed by him or they were trying to get his guard down.

But Ha! The joke was on them because he was one paranoid son of a sweet woman, so he kept his Air senses at their max, just in case they got a lucky shot in and got both of them.

Both of them were mostly out of options at this point so her pessimism was warranted, if only they were completely out of options. He still had one last thing left in his arsenal but he was hesitant to use that until the last moment because he had just opened the Door the one time and it was not a pleasant experience, by any means.

Taking a deep breath, he braced himself for the impact and just continued flying in the direction of Ta-Lo, hoping that they could outrun the fog but they had no such luck until then.

"We haven't tried everything, yet." He said as he called upon the powers of the Blue Door, flinching as the Door seemed eager to be used, almost jumping into his mental landscape, in joy to be used.

"What?" Shuri snapped as she turned around, firing through one of the blasters she had made out of cannibalised parts from her own suit. All that was left of the Vibranium suit she had, in the beginning, was just a suit around her, protecting her core areas with the ends of her limbs partially exposed.

"Brace yourself," Was all he could say as he called forth the Door, tightly holding it together in his mind, hoping for it to backfire or atleast fight back but to his pleasant surprise, aside from a mild tingling all over his body, nothing else happened as a man sized Door crackling with Blue appeared in front of them, lighting up their surroundings in an extremely bright blue colour.

"What is that?" Shuri asked, worried yet not as worried as she would have been had she had access to her full suite of sensor arrays and sensed exactly what the door was.

"Well, a last resort option. I was really hoping not to use it," He said, hiding the wince that had almost shown on his face as the energy from the Door zapped him, burning him slightly. He couldn't imagine what would happen if that happened to a normal person. He was way more resistant to heat than a normal person, courtesy of his varios pyro-related experiments.

Not wanting to get zapped once more, he shoved the Door forward, toward the largest horde of the Demon Dragons, these things were really grating on his nerves now, and perhaps the Door sensed that as a wave of blue emanated from the Door in all directions and he had to stop the Air Door beneath him and stop his jaw from dropping as the very sky itself shuddered for a second as lances of blue stuck all the Demons out of nowhere, embedding them in their bodies, which then withered to Dust, disturbingly similar to what would happen to people who were hit by Hydra's Tesseract weapons.

"Holy Shit!" He whispered as they came to a stop, looking all around him as the sky itself was full of the dust that the Demons turned into, which was swept away by the breeze.

"Argh!" He grunted as the Door was dispelled and he fell on his knee, the Air Door flickering beneath him as his hands burned, and no amount of Chi cycling could stop the burn, or heal the marks on his hands.

"What was that? What is happening? Are you alright?"

"Just," He grunted, his vision reddening as he tried to stop himself from screaming out loud, "Peachy."

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he could feel the pain receding, not completely disappearing but returning to a level he could manage. Huffing as he stood up, he looked all around him and saw that while the Fog had receded quite a bit, the only thing that was visible was the giant mountain in the distance, with the slash mark he had carved on its side with his Kinetic Lasers.

The Blue Door was safely tucked away in his mind, now not crackling and its light dimmed completely. He cautiously poked the Sleeping Bear and sighed in relief when he saw that the Door was completely non responsive, as if the energy stored within was drained.

With great difficulty, he managed to stand up, and fish out his sling ring from the pockets of his under armour, which held specially made pockets to keep Sling Rings secure, courtesy of Kamar Taj's standard loadout for Masters.

Slipping it on his finger, he flinched as his nerves lit up with pain at the movement.

"What was that? Are you opening a portal? I thought you couldn't do that anymore." Shuri babbled, probably way too tense about the whole situation but he didn't have it in him anymore to respond or try to calm her down about the whole thing because as far as he was concerned, he was getting out of here, no matter what.

So, he just raised his index finger, telling her to stop, as his hands, burning and leaking blood, pus, and whatnot from every which hole, all the while he furiously cycled Chi through every inch of his body, waved in the air.

He had never hated this stupid waving motion more in his entire life. He fought the tears that came because of the sheer pain the motion was causing as whatever the Blue Door did finally caused the space around him to agree to a portal as sparks of a small hole appeared in the sky.

"W-when," He spoke in between shaky breaths, clenching his teeth when the pain became too much, "it opens f-fully, just jump through. A-and take me, k?"

Without waiting for an answer, he continued the motion, abandoning Chi cycling for a moment because he needed to focus and just maintaining flight was getting too much by now, as the portal slowly, bit by bit enlarged.

"N-no," He whispered as he felt his hold on the portal slipping, whatever it was that restricted portals coming back in full force as hope itself seemed to be running from him as the portal's glow began to dim down.

Renewing his efforts, despite the pain, he tried to fight back but it just wouldn't budge, the wall that was stopping his–

He sighed in relief as he collapsed on the ground, arms dangling uselessly by his side as he mentally commanded the Air Door to move forward, the portal having stopped shrinking and instead, the familiar yet overwhelming magic of the Water Dragon coming through and pushing the portal to its larger size, allowing both of them to pass through.

He couldn't even maintain flight until they landed safely as the sight of the Great Lake was enough for him to relax, making him black out instantly.

If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #82

Ta-Lo [February 18, 2008]

–Shuri Udaku–

She watched as the falling, battered, and severely injured form of Colin was hoisted mid air by someone, the same as her but Colin was the one who was whisked away to land immediately, surrounded in a white glow while she looked at her body covered in a purple energy.

She looked back, as her body was slowly being rotated, the events of the day weighing heavily on her mind as she barely escaped death today, and despite going through all of that, she did not have a single major injury on her so she was prepared for some interrogation, since understandably one does not remain scot free while being with someone who looked like they were on Death's door.

Her eyes widened as she came face to face with a woman who could only be called as otherworldly. If she still had her suit intact, she could have used it to scan everything about this woman but as it was, her senses warned her of multiple things.

Before everything else, there was a blaring sense of danger coming from the woman, as if she could kill her just as easily as snapping her finger. Secondly, it was as if the woman had some sort of charm, something that she used to ensnare people but the blessing from Bast was keeping the effects at bay.

"Hmm," She said and the voice itself was odd, feeling completely artificial, as if tailor made to sound the best to the listener, "So you managed to survive, uninjured? Impressive." Despite the words, she did not feel as if the woman was really impressed with her.

Before she could speak, because that was all that she could do in her vulnerable position, suspended mid air as she was, without her suit and she had a hunch that her enhanced physical powers were not going to matter in this confrontation, someone beat her to the punch.

"Leave her be, Parasite." The voice was old and gravelly as something else came into her view, from the back of the woman in red. The woman's face twisted in obvious displeasure and yet, she backed off and Shuri could feel the effects on her mind disappear.

Her eyes widened to their max as she saw what she could only describe as a floating lizard come into view. She resisted the urge to rub her eyes in disbelief as the floating lizard talked, not with her but with the enchantress in red.

They spoke something which she could not hear, despite them not making any visible attempt at masking their voice, after which, she was dragged with them, to the centre of the city, the one that looked eerily empty and silent now, compared to what it was before.

After that, the events of that day were a blur to her, as the shock of how close she had come to death finally caught up to her, as the people did their best to heal her and house her. It was not until the next day that she finally snapped out of it, her enhanced physique meant that she recovered from injuries far faster than normal people, especially since her injuries were not that deep from the beginning anyway.

Eating food that was remarkably tastier than anything she had eaten before, she thought of what she could do after this. The priority would be to phone home, obviously since she was pretty sure that half of Wakanda must be looking for her by now, since she had not checked in with either her mother or her brother.

She was unsure if there was any time dilation between this pocket space and the outside world but she could not risk it. Second things, she had to talk with Colin because the admittedly dangerous trip had opened her eyes to many, many things and the curiosity within her mind burned ever brighter, as did the sense of heightened anxiety as she finally realised just how outclassed she was, when beings like Colin could barely get out, after doing intense self harm in the process.

She really needed to work on Wakanda's defences and the urge to work non stop until she was sure that Wakanda could take out anyone was never as strong as it was now.

Once she was finished with her food, she cleaned her plate, as was customary in this place, by hand, and got out of the small home that was assigned to her. They apparently did not have any empty homes but one of the people who lived alone made accommodations for her as they moved back in with their extended family for as long as she needed to recover.

It would seem that people in Ta-Lo did not expect visitors, ever, really. It was kind of fascinating to witness, really, to see and interact with people untouched by the outside world and consequently, most of the ugliness and darkness as well. Sure, she knew that as long as humans lived, there would be darkness somewhere within them, they did not need the darkness multiplier that was unchecked capitalism for that but to see people who lived in harmony, only indulging in conflict for stuff that would not even register as crime in the outside world was kind of nice, in a way.

"I hope you are not forcing yourself. We know you injured yourself, along with the LifeGiver," One of the nice old ladies said as they took the plate from her and put it in a cart that she was dragging around, collecting utensils from everyone.

Also, yes, the LifeGiver, a title spoken with immense awe and respect, given to Colin. The people here had kept Colin on a really high pedestal, uncomfortably close to that of a monarch and their people. In fact, she did not think that she would enjoy this level of respect and love from her people when she inevitably became the Queen of Wakanda, not at first anyway.

She had refrained from prying any further into that title, because she wanted to respect Colin's privacy, especially after he had risked his life to get them out of that hellhole, not that she did not blame Colin a tiny bit for putting them in the dangerous situation in the first place.

He really did not know what would happen in that place and to be honest, even she was not really sure what exactly happened in that place. All of it was a blur and also, a whirlwind of activity as they were attacked non stop and both of them had to fight back with all they had, right up until Colin pulled something that destroyed his arms but created an opening to allow them to escape.

She had never felt as helpless as she had felt at that time, forced to rely on someone who was obviously in no shape to take care of himself.

The last time she felt anything remotely close was when she was taken in by the previous Head of the Dora Milaje for training, sans supervision from either of her parents, which was a condition that was put forth by the previous Head. To this day, she could not flinch a little when she went to pay her respects to her teacher, the previous head of Dora Milaje, Aneka.

Smiling at the sweet old woman, she waved off her worries and helped her carry the cart, something that helped her immensely because she was starting to feel cooped up in her room. No one was allowed out of their houses for extended periods of time because they were still cleaning the exotic energies from the air, something that could apparently affect people's minds. Especially since there was already a recorded casualty, that being the village chief's granddaughter.

The old woman was one of the few she had seen move around the tightly built community she was living in, through the windows so the woman must be someone special and she needed to talk with someone of authority, to get out of this place and also to inquire about Colin's current status.

Both of which, the old woman answered with gusto, "Oh dear, the LifeGiver is out of danger for now though he is still resting and no one is allowed to go near. Also, if you wish to leave, I don't think anyone other than the LifeGiver's companions can help you but I doubt they would leave without the LifeGiver."

She figured as much. Still, she followed the woman and entered the village chief's office, hoping to make her case because she really needed to be back home or at least check in. Maybe she could help in some way.

Colin was an outsider and it would really not do her campaign to become Queen any favours but if there was anything that Wakandan medical sciences could do to help Colin, she would do it.

It happened so subtly, she couldn't even feel it when something invisible took hold of her, holding her in place so delicately that she performed the walking and pushing motion, not even realising that she was doing so without moving an inch, so engrossed in her own thoughts.

"I assume you want to leave?" The same old and gravelly voice spoke to her, not in her mind, she checked but directly in her ear as the same floating lizard, covered in a thin membrane of purple came down from the sky.

She found herself almost agreeing on the spot but held her tongue at the last moment, "How is Colin? Wakanda has the best medical services on the planet, we can–"

"No." She reared back, as if slapped. Why would they reject her help even before listening to her proposal?

"No, you don't understand, Wakanda can surely help, no matter the injuries. We have technology that can–"

"No." This time, the reply was more forceful as she stumbled with her words, confusion lacing her mind.

She looked back as something gently poked her in the back and found her suit, now barely a hunk of vibranium, not even capable of any molding, floating right behind her.

Her eyes widened a bit as the same purple energy covered her body as she realised what was happening.

"W-Wait! I can–" Was all she could say before the picturesque green horizon shrank as she found herself back in the icy darkness of Mt. Everest, "--Help!"

Her suit clattered uselessly behind her as she stood there, shell shocked.

Then, she snapped to action as the familiar sound, created only for her benefit, of her rocket landing behind her, forced her to move.

As the cockpit bay closed around her, she vowed to return. She would pay back her debts.

After all, if she could not do something as trivial as healing energy burns, she would not be worthy of being called the Queen of Wakanda.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[Vlad]

What is their problem?

 

[IdleMuse0307]

What is their problem?

Click to shrink...

Stay tuned for an explanation
Tommorow

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #83

Ta-Lo [February 18, 2008]

–Jin'Ya–

He watched as the girl, woefully ignorant about Bast's manipulation, flew back to her own country, probably thinking that her thoughts of bringing Colin, especially in his vulnerable state, to Wakanda was her idea.

Shaking her head, he closed the micro portal and flew down to the most important room in Ta-Lo, as of now.

"Took care of her, did you?" Were the first words that the Red Matron spoke to him as they were both stationed near Colin, to protect him at all times though it was doubtful that anyone would dare attack him here but they could never be too careful, especially since they did not manage to track down the true threat to Colin, the Vampire empowered by Hell, the one being on this planet, who could freely track down Colin and attack him anywhere, without any restraints whatsoever.

He nodded as his gaze went to Colin's unconscious form. It had been almost two days since Colin forced himself through that portal, and even in that time, his injuries had barely begun healing. The wounds themselves were mostly cauterized due to the high amount of energy running through Colin but the sheer damage done to his internal organs was not something anyone could survive.

Colin too would have been dead, if not now then in a few years, if he did not have a near constant amount of Chi being pumped into his body, into his cells that have since adapted themselves to take in copious amounts of Chi, essentially disregarding cell aging as they almost violently reproduce in order to heal the body, ignoring any energy costs since they had uninterrupted access to the best source of lifeforce in the world.

His hands, they were the worst affected. His entire body was subjected to that energy but his hands were fried from inside out. It was a minor miracle that the boy was able to hold on long enough to open the portal. The Cosmic energy also blew away any spatial locks that might have existed in that plane, allowing Colin to barely open that portal.

He just wondered exactly what was going through the mind of–

Both him and the Red Matron tensed as twin auras of red and purple surged through the room, carefully safeguarding Colin's vulnerable form as they stared at a corner of the room. A moment after, orange and red sparks bled together to form a gaping hole in reality, through which the Ancient One stepped through.

Speak of the Devil, and the Devil shall appear.

The funny thing was that there were many beings on the planet, and in dimensions adjacent to the planet who would overwhelmingly agree with his statement of the Ancient One being a Devil.

After all, to them, she was not a human, she did not fear, she did not cower, she did not flinch from genocide and if it came to it, would gladly engineer one if it meant safeguarding the planet. She had become a mostly unfeeling engine for the past century or so, depending completely on the Infinity Stone around her neck, aiding her immensely in her quest to maintain order, for as long as she was alive.

Still, despite knowing it was her, he did not let down his guard, maintaining his energy within the room and more importantly, around Colin, just in case he needed to flee.

"Prove it." He said as the Ancient One gazed at him and after a tense moment, her left hand rose up and snapped its fingers, creating an immense pressure in the room as for the split second that the Ancient One donned the Mantle of the VIshanti, their combined auras were blown away out of the room.

It was a split second, too fast for anyone else to catch but he relaxed, knowing that it was the Ancient One as no one else had the Mantle of the Vishanti, and even if someone else became the Sorcerer Supreme, there was no guarantee they would even be offered the Mantle from the VIshanti, let alone master it over the centuries.

No, he was firmly of the opinion that Kamar Taj as a whole was going to undergo a vast weakening once the all powerful Ancient One left. After all, the bigger the giant, the larger the shadow, or that's what the humans say these days.

Shaking his head, he addressed the Ancient One who was currently running diagnostic spells over Colin's prone form, "So, what exactly happened here? You forbid me from helping Colin, did you see this happening?"

There was silence in the room for a moment, as the Ancient One silently did her job. He could observe Colin's breathing easing as some of the Ancient One's spells did something to heal some of his internal organs. Yet, his hands remained the same, as the spells washed over them, breaking as soon as they touched Colin's hands.

Finally, after casting a spell that created a protective dome over Colin, the Ancient One turned to him, "No, I did not know what would happen in the space beyond Ta-Lo, as we know it. All I knew was that Colin would make it out of there, in one piece, learning something very important both about himself and his powers, whilst uncovering something that even the Eye refused to show me."

"So, you used him." The Red Matron remarked, and he found himself agreeing. There was no reason to send Colin to deal with foes beyond his ken if the Ancient One herself had gone to great lengths in strong arming most beings on the planet from approaching him in the first place.

"I don't expect you to understand or agree with my decisions. Once Colin is awake, I will explain myself to him. Know this, however, that Colin's actions have unlocked a new horizon for him, a new path that might just pave the way for the planet's, and dare I say, the galaxy's salvation."

Saying her piece, she faded from view as she used one of her signature teleportation spells, using the Old Ways of the Nine Realms to travel freely, without much in the way of blockades.

"So," The Red Matron said as she leaned against the protective dome around Colin, "How long do you think I'll have to stick around? Those bastards didn't take the bait, and instead sent a puppet."

"For as long as the threat remains unresolved, you will dedicate the majority of your time to protecting Colin, that's what the agreement says." He declared and exited the room, satisfied with the protective arrangements done by the Ancient One.

_____xx_____

[Two days Later]

–Colin Baxter–

His eyes fluttered open, pain being the first feeling spreading throughout his body as a pained groan escaped his dry throat.

The very next moment, a steady stream of floating water entered his mouth as he greedily slurped on the water, his throat aching from however long he had been out. The pain was still there, he could feel it but compared to the haunting nightmare that was the pain he felt when the Blue Door closed? It was almost trivial in comparison.

He felt the familiar telekinetic hold of Jin'Ya around his body as he was moved into an upright position, his eyes finally adjusting to the bright light around him, as he saw that he was in a room with Jin'Ya, the Red Matron, and the Village Chief who looked like he had aged decades since he last saw him.

"How," he croaked out, "How long was I out?"

"Almost four days," The village chief said as he stepped forward, actually having to use a stick to walk and he could see that it was not just for show as the man's legs and hands trembled ever so slightly as he walked forward.

Whatever explanation he expected from the man, he did not expect the man to actually bow his head to him. He tried to get up, using his hands, only to hiss in pain as red hot pain shot up his nerves.

He finally looked down and his eyes widened at the state of his arms. Before he could voice out his question, the village chief spoke.

"I thank you, Lifegiver, for allowing our village to exist for one more day, for not letting my mistake wipe out my ancestors' work."

He shot a confused, as well as pained, look at Jin'Ya who immediately opened their mental link and sent in a ton of information. Information that he processed nearly instantly as he had mostly healed by now, with only his hands being in the terrible state they were now.

"No," He whispered, "Not like this." His voice cracked as he saw the broken, drained form of Ying Nan, lying near the seal as the Demon beyond the Seal sucked her soul, strengthening himself.

His head bowed, as he spoke, to someone who was within the room and yet, invisible and undetectable to everyone, "How dare you? How could you?"

For he knew that Ancient One was in the room, with all of them, waiting to justify her crimes, committed on the basis of the fucking Time Stone.

God, he was coming to hate that stupid piece of rock.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #84

Ta-Lo [February 18, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He could feel the confusion within the room as he uttered those questions, laced with unmistakable hostility. The confusion didn't last for long as the golden dome around him, which had turned invisible as soon as he had woken up, flickered to life as the Ancient One appeared in front of him.

The memories he received from Jin'Ya told him that the Ancient One was the one who'd cast the golden dome around his prone form, something that was very similar to that of the dome that was cast around Odin when he went in his infamous Odin Sleep.

"Can I have the room?" The Ancient One said out loud, which was not a question but a demand as all of the people began shuffling out of the small room, and the moment everyone left, the dome that was visible around him expanded to mold itself to the shape of the room, covering every single surface, which was probably a privacy filter for their conversation.

"So," He began, voice bitter, "Do you have anything to–"

"What were you thinking, Colin?" He blinked in confusion.

"W-What do you mean?"

"I mean, what were you thinking? Opening a New Door, in an unsecured place? Near the seal holding back the Demon of all places? Did you lose your mind?"

"Do you have any idea what would have happened if the destabilising space was not sealed shut by Jin'Ya and the rest of them?"

His eyes widened as he finally realised the folly of his actions. The implications of what could have happened were not lost on him.

"B-but you would have–"

"Let me make one thing very clear to you, Master Baxter. I am not all seeing nor all knowing, and certainly not when it comes to you. Your powers make it very hard to see your future. Which is why I have time itself flow around you, just so I can make decisions with some semblance of certainty."

And then, she laid it all out, clearly.

How she foresaw a life altering, life threatening event that he would undergo, one that he would only escape with an inch of his life, using something that would only be its second ever application.

How if he didn't have a prior and very recent experience doing the same thing, he would not have survived, resulting in a chain of events that would have led to the genocide of Wakanda, as Wakandans would not have stopped in their search for Shuri, inevitably stumbling upon Kamar Taj, wherein the Ancient One would have had to finish off the entire country, with none being the wiser, just so they could avoid any possibility of war in the future.

He got chills hearing her speak so clinically about killing off an entire civilisation, of the battle spreading across the Astral Realms, with her finally killing off Bast and dying after, just because he wanted Shuri to see this cool place.

"I knew you were going to perform stupidity of the highest order, and yet, I could not stop you in any meaningful way because doing so would have just led to death and destruction this world has not seen in centuries."

And the worst thing was, that he knew she would do it. More than the certainty in her voice when she spoke of what she could and would do if it came down to that, it was the historical records in Kamar Taj, detailing how the Ancient One, using her powers to see the future, brought down entire civilizations, from the outside, using subtle manipulations of various pawns or directly, by slaughtering people down to their last member.

All of it was available to be read in Kamar Taj's library, once you became Master and got the respective privileges. All the Masters in Kamar Taj knew the length to which the Ancient One can go and has gone to ensure the future she deems good, is brought to the forefront.

So, the fact that his single decision, to show Princess Shuri something she likely would have never experienced in her life, might have brought about genocide and deicide, it shook him at a level he was not sure he could mentally process yet.

"With all that being said, I am glad that what I saw has come to pass, and your body was not taken over by Kamar Taj's greatest enemy."

Wait, what? Greatest enemy? But that was…

"Shit!" He whispered as another bout of shock hit him, the realisation of just how close he had come to the biggest of the big bads of Kamar Taj bringing yet another chill to his body.

The Ancient One nodded, "Yes, part of the reason I allowed this to happen was because I could not see beyond the fog. The Time Stone, a fundamental part of the universe itself, could not show me what lay beyond the fog. I analysed the remnants of the matter you had on your body when you came here, and aside from your own blood, I found mystical DNA consistent with that of the Dark Ones."

Dormammu.

So, that's where that mountain and the Demonic Dragons were coming from.

"But how?" He asked, the shocks piling on top of each other. He was nowhere near ready to even be in the presence of Dormammu, let alone confront him in any capacity. His soul would shred itself if he somehow found himself right in front of Dormammu's true body, such was the Dread Lord's strength and his relative soul weakness.

It was one of the reasons why he would never even attempt to fight Dormammu, if the Sanctums were destroyed in the future, because he knew for a fact that he did not have the necessary strength, the conviction, then the strength of soul, to stand in front of the Dark Lord and tell him to f*ck off. That part was better left to megalomaniacs like Strange and to an extent, the most dangerous woman on the planet, who was standing in front of him with a very bad look in her eyes.

"So, Master Baxter, yes, you do still have the tag, if only because it would take a lot to disbar you, the second Strongest member of Kamar Taj, this is your last warning. No spontaneous experiments, magical or otherwise. No performing dangerous magical stunts to impress girls. Kamar Taj is a place to heal, to protect, to learn but it is not a place where you can learn Sorcery to do something as mundane as impress women."

He bowed his head, knowing that he was in the wrong here, no matter from what angle anyone looked at this.

"As for your arms," His gaze drifted to his arms, still black, blue, and bruised, unleashing an ungodly amount of pain through them as the slightest movement made him wince, "I suppose by now you have realised what you have done and how lucky you are that you only had to give up your arms."

"What?" His neck snapped up, incredulity in his voice as he tried to stand up, only for his hands to fail him, "What do you mean?" there was no way he could hide the fear in his voice.

"What?" The Ancient One gave him a confused look, as if he was the one who was being irrational, "Or did you think handling a fraction of a fraction of the shard of Infinity was going to just give you some burns and bruises that would heal on their own?"

"B-but I healed just fine. The Chi healed all of it when I first opened it and we both know that the first activation is the one that is the most dangerous then how could–"

"Let me explain something to you. The Infinity Stones, they are not the most rational objects out there, their energies are not something that can be quantified or rationalised in most ways. You could predict them, learn their patterns but even then, it's barely worth it."

He barely listened to her words as he cycled Chi through his body, focusing on his arms, to the point that his entire body glowed golden, Chi leaking through his skin as he flooded his body with Chi, as little beams of light began leaking out of the injuries on his hands and yet, nothing.

"Like I said, Infinity Stones don't operate on logic, at least not something we can comprehend. The first time, it did not damage you that much, so your Chi was able to heal most of the damage. This time, well, the only way I can see you regaining complete use of your hands is if you somehow manage to cut off and regrow your limbs."

"Nononononono," He continued whispering as his hands continued to stay the same, no change even as he pumped enough Chi in them to power the freaking Elder Dragon present in that lake.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry." Before he could come up with any meaningful reply, he felt a spell being cast as sleep overtook him.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[0Densin]

Tss... Harsh. But then again... He has on many occasions been kind of an idiot up to this point and a harsh reality check was feeling more and more relevant with every passing chapter. Colin seemed like he had been feeding and taking refuge in a bit of a superiority complex for the entire story so far. So maybe this is the wake up call he needed and a lever towards the character development that he needs to stop being so - the word isn't quite enough to describe what I've thought of his attitude at times so far - Arrogant.

Then again... since the other occasions, that should have humbled an person capable of voluntarily partaking in meaningful self-reflection, didn't stick up to this point... I can only hope he doesn't pull a 'My Name is Reed "Lets Play God" Richards' and try doing something worthy of a dozen Darwin Awards, just to make an attempt to avoid the consequences of his Hubris, and get his hands back.

Really the most obvious solution, in my mind, is to either replace your hands with Tech or chop your arms off and regrow them... Touching Infinity just isn't something you Get better from after all. A modified version of Extremis sounds like a decent Idea for fixing his hands. Marvel has the Technology. It can can rebuild him. It can make him better, than he was. Better, stronger, faster, and more capable of rubbing his brain cells together in meaningful ways. Though the chances of success are questionable, but infinitely better than if the damage had been caused by the Reality Stone, which would simply have made it is a fact of reality that his hands are janked up to the nines, rather than whatever is preventing Colin from regenerating them.