Doorman (MCU SI)

[Spearow]

so, she is going to cut off his arms and let it regrow? like a lizard?

 

[Sovereign Of All]

Dude deserves it, his ignorant stupidity and superiority complex making him view himself as the protagonist, who gets away with zero consequences, his is a reality check that the guy should have gotten earlier.
Also his simping Shuri and Wakanda is going to be a problem, cause like it or not in my opinion they're mostly a lost cause, and the guy should give up on them.

 

[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 #85

Ta-Lo [February 18, 2008]

–Jin'Ya–

He was standing right outside the room, looking for any changes and the second the void that separated it from outside was removed, he moved in. Within a fraction of a second, he blocked the space all around the room. Realistically, that would not have been enough to stop the Ancient One from leaving if she wanted to but this was not about trapping her, this was about stopping her from leaving, a message that they needed to talk.

Just as he expected, he felt just a single poke against his spatial barrier before the Ancient One materialized before him. The Red Matron had long since abandoned her post, feeling secure in the fact that the Ancient One was right there with Colin, so her contract would not be void with her leaving Colin defenseless.

"I assume you have something you want to say to me?" The Ancient One prompted but before he could get a word in, another party joined the meeting as the scenery around them blurred, before they were in a small spherical chamber, with water and fish outside, with a magical projection from the Water Dragon appearing in front of them.

"I would like to be a part of this conversation as well. I assume this is about Colin and the way recent events have been carried out?" He nodded at the unasked question.

"Will his hands be healed?" He asked, to both the Ancient One and the Water Dragon, because he had never seen any of his injuries stick for so long, no matter the damage done to them. Hell, he had seen burnt bones, so brittle they could break with a touch, heal with the help of Chi, returning Colin to his healthy form.

Seeing injuries that remained for days without changing much was really a first for Colin.

It was not the Ancient One who answered but the Water Dragon, "I am not optimistic about full recovery."

A small magical projection appeared in between them, showing a human body with the arms glowing red with the rest of the body appearing fine. There were veins of red criss crossing across the torso section that were rapidly being eliminated by a yellow wave.

"I have seen Colin's condition and the damage done by his powers was not limited to his arms, it spread to every part of his body but as you can see, his innate healing has wiped out most of the damage, save for his arms. I believe that being the areas where most of the energy was channeled through, both of these arms are just beyond healing, at least for Colin."

The news, while disheartening, was not the end of the world. He knew that Colin knew about many things that could either create replacement limbs like prosthetics or outright grow him new ones.

Turning to the Ancient One, he said, "The damage is not in the soul, it is just physical." If it was, he would have been the first one to feel it, and his mental inspection, however brief it was, showed him that Colin's soul was intact.

The Ancient One nodded.

He seized the opportunity, "So he can regrow them? We can amputate these ones and then have him regrow new ones? I am sure he knows if not the how then the where we can find someone who can do so."

"I assume you cannot use the Eye to reverse time on his arms?" The Water Dragon questioned the Ancient One while he tried to remember if the Extremis could heal Colin's arms, especially at this stage. Bruce Banner had taken the research to another avenue, where it could be used to stabilise patients first, then treat injuries, then move on to treatable diseases, then terminal diseases and in the very end, make Extremis capable of regrowing limbs.

That was the flow of the Extremis Research that everyone involved agreed upon and at the time, it was fine but now? Now they might just have to change the course of the research.

"No," The Ancient One replied, "The eye cannot be used to reverse time for this, not because I don't want to but because the energies involved are too complex to do it safely. We might just end up harming Colin more than his arms if we do it. As the Guardian of the Eye, it is my duty to safeguard reality as we know it so that is out of the question."

"So, what was all this for? Why let Colin go through all of this? Was there even a point?" He asked her, finding it hard to keep the anger out of his voice.

She nodded, "Yes, there was. This was all an outcome, stemming from Colin's own actions. A series of steps, small on their own, resulting in a catastrophe."

"It was the Door opening, wasn't it?" He asked her, mentally rewinding every single one of Colin's decisions that led to him coming here, despite his next appointment for the Chi infusion being months away.

"No, actually," He looked up at her, "It was when he decided to casually reveal his identity, instead of hiding it. I get that it was his choice but just like butterflies, that single choice led to him coming here, with someone who could not defend themselves, during a time he should have been in the Red Hearth, safely opening the Door, with proper safety procedures."

"It is fact that Colin opened a Door, a dangerous procedure by any stretch of his imagination, within visible range of a Demonic Seal, and then proceeded to tour areas, as if they were a picnic spot, that had been deemed dangerous by you," She pointed at the Water Dragon who looked sufficiently chastised.

"This is all a series of decisions, and yet, I let it happen. Why? Because it is one of the better timelines. I have seen where Colin never made it out of his soul being overwhelmed. I have seen ones where he was ambushed by invisible predators and killed because he was not paranoid enough. I have seen him get burned from inside out, and die in that place before he could open a portal.

I walk a fine line between letting people have free will, and having to guide events to a better future. I won't let people who trust me become dolls, beholden to my will, my version of time but at the same time, I can't let people make decisions that will obviously, to me, lead to their doom."

The Ancient One took a deep breath before replying, "The burden of bearing the eye is heavy and I would not wish it on anyone and yet, I have to prepare Colin to take it, because I have to prepare for every single outcome possible."

She turned around as a portal opened in front of her, "Colin's soul is intact. The energy within that Door is now infused with his cells, mutating them beyond healing. Now, it is his choice to do with the mutated hands as he pleases. Know this, this was the better outcome, for all of us, for all of reality."

With that, she entered the portal as he was safely brought out of the Great Lake, and deposited right in Colin's room as he slept peacefully. The hands were charred beyond recognition and he could feel the energy within the hands.

It was nothing like the usual Chi cycling that Colin's body did on its own. It was something entirely different, something so dense that it crushed Colin's hands and barely saved his soul because he was using so much of it.

"I assume the lifegiver will be using this energy in the future, even to his own detriment?" The Water Dragon asked him mentally.

He nodded, knowing that Colin would use everything in his arsenal if he had to, "Yes, but I don't think it will be that big of a problem later on. It was the same with his other Doors, just on a lower scale of damage. Once he gets enough practice, I think he can do good modulation over the power flow."

"Will he be alright? Mentally?"

He shrugged, "I hope so."



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 #86

Ta-Lo [February 18, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

His eyes fluttered open, awareness slowly returning to him as he looked up at the wooden ceiling of the room. Recent events came back to his mind as he thought of what happened, his reactions to them, and the end result of it all.

The pain coming from his hands at the slightest movement was a very good reminder of that. Chi was still working, moving through the rest of his body, with no blockages, he checked that. Nothing on the hand front though, both of them gave him no feeling other than pain.

By now, it was not as unbearable as before but he didn't know if it was just him adapting to the pain or the remaining nerves in his hands dying out, numbing down the pain coming from them.

Sighing, he manifested a Door to his right, that slowly slid itself below the back and then pushed him up, putting him in a better seating position. He was feeling really lazy hence the lack of any effort that involved moving physically.

He looked out of the window and saw that it was Dark outside. It was really fascinating to him in the beginning that the Water Dragon had to create what was essentially a 24 hour day and night cycle, exactly like the one that exists on Earth.

The cycle of evolution meant that humans were hard coded to live in places with half days worth of natural illumination, heat, and half days worth of darkness and cold, roughly that is. Apparently, it created problems in the beginning so the Water Dragon had to expend a chunk of their energy to create a day and night cycle in this place.

It was yet another area of research that would need to be done before humans can really go on years or maybe decades long missions to Outer space, who knows.

He wondered how long it would take for humanity's genetically coded instincts about day and night to go away. It should not hamper the current generation of people living in Ta-Lo too much because they were what were essentially pseudodragons, with the base of a human and a tiny tiny portion of a dragon.

Sighing, he manifested another door which pushed him back and propped his body up against the headboard. One of them dissipated while the other moved to the other side of the room, where a pitcher was resting. He needed water before he could speak. The last time he was awake, and boy was that a rollercoaster of emotions, it was day, and now it was night.

So, safe to say, he had been asleep for quite a while, or more probably, the Ancient One knocked him out when he began behaving like a deranged person. It might even be more than that though, who knows?

He resisted the urge to cringe as his panicked mutterings from earlier came to the forefront of his mind. "Oh, Stan Lee, why!" he whined as he leaned back, drinking from the pitcher of water that his Door brought back.

There was a reason he was doing a general wellness check when it came to his powers. All seven of his Doors were working properly, along with all the corresponding size and shape changes, the cycling between Doors was seamless as well, and so was the dissipation as well as creation process.

Manifesting multiple Air Doors, he noted that the process of coordinating multiple Air Doors had gotten easier on his brain, requiring much less focus to work properly, and as he exerted pressure on the miniature Platform made with six even tinier Doors, he could see that he could change the thrust exerted from each Door on the fly, reacting instinctively to any weight changes on it.

"Nice." He commented as the room he was in, illuminated only by the natural(well, Artificially created) moonlight coming in through the room, was illuminated by the colours of his Doors being manifested and used.

Unconsciously, a smile found its way to his face as he watched his powers, his Doors in work, revolving all around him, spitting out tiny Kinetic Lasers, small gusts of wind that moved the curtains, tiny flames that lit up the candles that were put out by the wind and water that did not taste good now for some reason, along with a pile of sand on the ground.

The light Door worked as well as he imagined the three small Doors to be fixtures as they were attached to the ceiling, creating a uniform glow in the room.

It was all so….magical.

"Man, am I stupid," he commented to himself, shaking his head as he criticised himself for panicking over something as menial and inconsequential as losing his hands. Even if it was written by the OAA that he was going to be an amputee for the rest of his life, it did not change anything, not anything of value anyway.

He still had his powers, he could work on his Sorcery, which was long overdue anyway, what with the Super Vampire threat hanging over his head, and do all the things he wanted to do.

His Doors worked just as well with mental commands, better in the case of the Air Door, as they did with his arm gestures. Sorcery was something that he would have to put in effort but he already had a guideline on how to reorient the whole Dimensional Energy flow within one's body because Master Hamir already went ahead and did it all by himself, creating a journey detailing everything in exhaustive specifics, creating an easy shortcut for himself. So, that should not take more than a year, to become just as proficient, if not more with Sorcery than he was now, since he did not use much of that school of magic, other than Portals and a little bit of enchanting here and there, especially the parts where he could create something that was a meld of magic and technology.

That was the best piece of magic in his opinion, since that was the one field where he could make advances that some old fuck some centuries ago did not already do and record in magically enhanced paper that would last for centuries more.

Slowly, the Doors in the room began dissipating as it was once again bathed in the moonlight, every other light source having been either dissipated or put out by him, as his gaze slid downwards, towards the two burnt twigs he had for arms now.

He could barely move the tips of his fingers now, he wondered how he opened that portal back then. The sling ring was removed, thankfully. Chi hit a roadblock when it reached the joint of his hand, blocking any further movement.

Taking a deep breath, he muttered, more to himself than to others, "Well, that settles it then."

With a mental nudge, he called in Jin'Ya 'Yeah, I know you're here. Just come out.'

With a flaky purple wave of energy, Jin'Ya manifested in front of him, looking oddly sombre. He wondered when he mastered the art of reading the facial cues of an automaton and not a human automaton but a draconic one.

He might start writing a book later on in the future, as the only expert in Draconic human relationships(not that kind! Eww!), once the magical world was commonplace knowledge throughout the world and not the hush hush it was now.

"So," he began, shrugging as he leaned back, "Stuff happened, huh?"

"Yes." Jin'Ya before beginning to apologize, "I know nothing I say will heal your arms but–"

"Duh. Look, no need to apologize. I've had some time to process stuff and you know what? It's fine."

"It's fine? Your hands, they're gone!"

"Eh," He waved or would have waved with his arms as he shrugged off his worries, "Tomato-Tomahto. I can do everything I want without them anyway. I am in a far better position than normal people who had to deal with this. Plus," He pointed at the flying lizard, "We have Extremis!"

That was when the Water Dragon entered the conversation, "I have talked with him about this Extremis but I'm afraid that the chances of the serum just regrowing your limbs are slim. It will almost certainly affect the rest of our body and your body already being as strong as it is now, we have no idea what might happen. In any case, I suggested doing the research for that, but preparing for failure."

His smile dimmed a bit but then he shrugged again, "No problem. Hey, the universe is such a huge place, anything is possible. If not Extremis, then something else. Even then, if it does not happen. Well, I've always wanted a mechanical hand. It would be so cool!"

There was a silence in the room that felt oddly uncomfortable to him as Jin'Ya was the one who broke it, "Are you fine, Colin? Are you sure?"

He sucked in a deep breath as he leaned back, nodding as he replied, "Well, Yes and no. It would be a shock to anyone, to lose both arms, they are how I interact with the rest of the world so it was a shock in the beginning. But now? I can see a life I can live without them. It might be a little inconvenient in the beginning but once I have the basics down, I can do stuff better than if I had my biological hands."

Jin'Ya slowly nodded, like he didn't believe Colin but was willing to humor him for the sake of the situation, "Fine. If you say so."

"Alright," He said, peppily, as Doors appeared beneath him and pushed him off the bed as he jumped down, flexing his legs to see if any muscle damage occurred, of which he could find none, "let's go home."

"Colin," Jin'Ya began, "I think you should stay here, under supervision for a dew–"

"Jin'Ya," He interrupted the dragon, "We're going home."

After all, there was work to do.



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 #87

Washington DC [February 23, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

It was odd, having nothing for arms. It kinda made all his T-shirts look droopy, with the sleeves just hanging. Well, no matter what, it looked way better without the mutated flesh he had going on before.

The day he went to the Red Hearth, he stopped whatever it was that Banner was doing and tasked him with scanning his arms because whatever scans that Jin'Ya and the Water Dragon might have run on his hands, they were magical in nature. A scientific look was necessary in his opinion, as Banner gave him the same answer as the others did.

Amputation was necessary and inevitable, in his case because his hands no longer looked like functioning hands and instead began looking like weirdly mutated energy and meat combos that had potential in other fields, according to Bruce anyway.

Despite the actual real life pouts he got from Bruce and Hansen who swore up and down that his arms were actually the key to getting Exrtremis working, he took the executive decision to lock his arms away safely.

He had a lot of work to do and in some corner of his mind, it was being argued that the reason he was throwing himself into work was because he was procrastinating dealing with the loss of his arms but he just shut down that part of his mind and focused on stuff that would help them.

Authorising research on his destroyed arms that contained the energy of an Infinity Stone was not high on the list he wanted to do these days so once he got a proper proposal from the Mad Scientist combo back on Mars and he agreed with them, he might consider giving them access to his former body parts.

So, once the amputation process was done, which was completely painless, he moved on to the next task that was present in his list before he was all sucked into the whole almost dying and potentially killing everyone who was in Ta-Lo because he was such an idiot.

God, it felt like such a long time despite it barely being a couple of days for the events to go from start to end, with the end result in him coming out with two extra pieces with him.

The next task, on hand, before he left for Ta-Lo was…Ross.

General Thunderbolt Ross, someone who was given cancer by yours truly, because the man really did deserve it, and yet, after that, instead of retreating from public life, taking voluntarily retirement and enjoying the medical perks and pension that came with serving Uncle Sam, he found Ross giving press briefings, creating a certain media presence about himself.

All hale and healthy, without an ounce of cancer showing anywhere on his body. No weakness, no trembling body, nothing. Instead, what Colin saw was a healthy man doing tasks people his age should not be able to do, no matter the training they took to remain healthy at that age.

At the same time, he found that the Leader, the other part of the gamma menace, was dead, on paper anyway. The dots connected and which is why he was here, floating high above a very posh locality in Washington, surrounded by security because most of the top brass of the Army lived in this place, cloaked under spells.

Jin'Ya was with him but as was the case with most of his outings, he was going to remain hidden and away from him and would only intervene if there is a credible threat to his life.

Ross was certainly not going to be a threat to the life of the person who just survived being bathed inside out with the energies of an Infinity Stone. Compared to that, Ross and even Leader for that matter seemed like harmless people to him.

So, with a mental flex, the Air Doors situation all across his body calibrated their air output as he slowly began to float down. Usually, doing something like this would go against the spirit of stealth since sensors could track the flow of air and find out that there was an artificial flow around him but for now, it would suffice.

This was not Wakanda, despite the clear show of opulence all around him.

With ease, he slipped into Ross' office, knowing full well that the man was somehow working well into the night, despite working the entire day. It was as if the man had suddenly become a workaholic, which he was before but he was obsessed like this with only his own projects, not the work he was doing right now, which was cleaning up.

Yup, Ross was disbanding his own team, making sure that the people under him got out safely and were redistributed into other teams while his current projects were either wound down safely or transferred to his peers.

It definitely raised some eyebrows and honestly, if anyone on the outside looked at Ross' actions, they would definitely be confused but if someone knew who exactly was pulling the strings here and why, they would definitely know why this was happening.

The Leader was having Ross clean up his look. He would bet his non-existent arms that soon, there won't even be a paper trail showing Ross' litany of issues and accidents along with his most vocal opposition either quietly disappearing or blackmailed into submission.

All so that Ross could gain more power and provide it to the Leader, who probably had not set his sights on higher pursuits and was content with gaining the power of the President by having a puppet sit on the throne of POTUS.

Well, good for him actually.

"Jin'Ya, got anything?" He mentally asked the Dragon as he casually lounged in the man's chair. There was nothing digital in the man's house, even in his office as even the single computer was hardlined, with no cameras, no sensors, and no wireless networks. Even cellular did not work in this place.

Well, clearly, Ross forgot to include jammers for psionic communication.

"Yes, I have the last known location of the Leader and you were right, Ross was being manipulated with such ease, he really is an idiot."

"Chances of Leader still being there?"

"Pretty high. From what I saw, the Green one was very confident and Ross last met the guy a week ago."

Still, that gave the Leader plenty of time but it wouldn't hurt to check out the base for now.

"In your range?" He asked Jin'Ya who only replied with a short, "Hold on," Before the line went silent. A second later, Jin'Ya was back on the line, "The big Head is knocked out. He was in the process of figuring out that something was wrong with Mars and would have probably figured out the location of the Red Hearth soon enough."

He sighed in relief. "We'll collect him later on." Finally, something that went his way. He had the Leader knocked out and once Bruce was mentally stable enough, he could introduce him to the Gamma Menace and then they could work on getting the Leader depowered.

As he was now, the Leader would just manipulate Bruce into escaping together and despite his boasts, he knew that the Red Hearth would get damaged if Bruce tried to escape and he would have to then find and save Hulk and the Leader from getting themselves killed.

So, indefinite imprisonment for Leader, which, technically, was not illegal on Mars since he was the sole authority on that palace and he was fine with that, for now.

Plus, what Bruce didn't know wouldn't hurt him, so win-win.

With that secured, he moved the vase with the Door and dropped it, such that the voice echoed throughout the home, which was in an eerie silence, only shattered by his actions.

Ross, confident in his current body and paranoid bastard that he was, pressed the alarm button that he had installed within arm's reach in every single room of this giant home, headed straight up, not before acquiring some firearms obviously.

Jin'Ya stopped the alarm from ringing, disconnecting that single button from the network of alarms as Ross headed straight up to his office.

Jin'Ya had taken a look inside Ross' head and transferred the data straight to him, showing what Ross had planned to do.

Slowly, bit by bit, he planned on gaining authority and his initial step was going to create an artificial encounter with the Hulk, one that would preferably include civilian casualties and then, instead of coming after the Hulk with the power of the military, he was going to resign and rally against the government and the army, portraying himself as the hero who hunted down the Hulk but was stopped by the evil government who clearly don't care for the lives of its citizens.

It sounded like a cliche plan but people were predictable and it had a pretty good chance of succeeding. Obviously, events like the New York Invasion would put a wrench in his plan but then again, it would also introduce newer targets for Ross to rally against, to create an atmosphere of fear, that he would get elected.

Well, clearly, all of that was never going to happen because Ross was not going to remain alive for that.

With his senses, he could feel Ross approaching, despite his commendable attempt to be silent.

He was about to begin with a snarky comment ready, along with the classic villainous pose of reclining into a very expensive chair while being in a semi dark office but his phone vibrated at the last moment.

With an application of his powers, he opened his phone and saw that it was a message from Shuri, which was kind of sad because the contents of the message were innocuous, if taken without any context but since he knew what was happening behind the scenes, he did not reply to the message.

"Hi! I hope you are doing fine! I checked everywhere but you have just disappeared. Hope you remember our agreement. Get back to me once you have time."

It's like she was acting completely out of character and no one even noticed.

He sighed as the door creaked open. Just in time.

"Hello, Ross." He said as the man probably recognised him, judging by the now lowered gun as the orange onesie was the same one that he wore the day he and Ross officially met.

Welp, time to act like a Bond Villain.

Another item off a mental checklist he was never going to show anyone. Ever.



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 #88

Red Hearth [February 23, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

After giving Ross a more permanent treatment, he came back to the Red Hearth as Jin'Ya had already retrieved Leader from his prison which was also his lab. Ross really was stupid, to give Leader even the slightest bit of freedom.

Which is why the Leader was going to remain sedated for quite a while now. It was not humane or ethical but it was the best he could do for now. Once he had some more robust imprisoning enchantments active and installed, he might consider letting Leader get a bit more freedom but even then, there was a very real risk of Leader learning magic of all things from the small bits of enchantments that are always active.

It was always very risky to keep the intelligent types alive because they could pull solutions out of thin air for problems you thought to be unsolvable. It was the same reason why he kept Hansen on close watch at all times and had given Jin'Ya authority to knock her ass out at the first sign of discrepancy.

Sighing in exhaustion, he threw his head back and stared at the ceiling. He had a few more things to do about the whole Ross thing but aside from figuring out a way to keep The Leader safely imprisoned, this chapter was pretty much behind him for now.

Killing Ross was not something that would be acceptable in the eyes of any member of the law or even any Avengers but if they knew the sheer damage he could do in the future and what level of power he could amass and then hand over to a terrorist in all but name, they might agree.

Shaking his head, he tried to banish those thoughts. Killing someone was never easy, especially a human. Demons and the Dark Ones, he could kill aplenty before he began feeling any shred of sympathy for them but for humans, it left a mark on him which is why he avoided killing anyone unless and until it was the last resort.

Leaving that aside, he went down into the ritual room, the one with the most dimensional energy synergy in the whole of the Red Hearth, because he was in dire need of a Dimensional Energy flow restructuring. His body was used to the flow of DImensional Energy in a certain manner. Well, that flow was certainly destroyed now and while Dimensional Energy as a whole would flow through everywhere given the chance, he needed to relearn everything else because spells needed precise Dimensional energy activation.

Thankfully, Master Hamir was someone who had done the exact same thing, having lost an arm during a Demon raid, resulting in him having to redraw everything in his body, essentially creating a translation layer for standard spells to work.

It was fairly easy to follow, just time consuming to master, and needed regular practice. So, there he was, in the sealed ritual room, working on the most basic thing that is taught to apprentices in Kamar Taj.

Eldritch Shape Summoning.

Using Dimensional Energy to create energy constructs, whose strength depends on a variety of factors, primary of which was the overall strength of the mind of the caster, i.e., him. Now, he had a pretty strong soul and mind so his constructs, prior to losing his hands were top notch, unbreakable against most spells if he kept his focus on them.

But now?

Well, he sighed as the Eldritch constructs he tried to create in place of his arms cracked and dissipated for the tenth time. Well, just last week, he couldn't even get sparks in the air so it was progress but it was much slower than he had expected it to be.

"You do realise it is because of your mindset right now, right?" Jin'Ya chose this moment to chime in, telling him something he already knew.

"Well, yeah, I know that. If you are not going to suggest something to help with that, then you are not helping."

"I am just saying that the day we came here, you have only stepped out to work. Nothing else. Might I suggest something else? Something to take your mind off of everything." Jin'ya said in a tone that suggested he knew something that Colin did not.

"What?"

_____xx____

"Whoa!" his jaw hung agape as he looked at the three suns that orbited Xandar, creating a very mesmerising background.

"How did you do it?" He asked Jin'Ya, who was floating by his side, in front of the watching deck as they waited for their ship to be cleared for landing before they could go out and earnestly enjoy all that Xandar had to offer.

Jin'Ya smugly replied, assuming his floating izard form since they were quite literally on an alien planet so they had nothing to hide, "Well, one does not get to be my age and be an interstellar traveller, without picking up some favours and contacts along the way."

"Oh yeah?" he replied dryly, "And how long had it been since your so called contact died and you had to scramble to find someone else?"

"Hey! It's not my fault most species die out so soon. That man didn't even pay me back for the favour I did for him."

"Well, not everyone can be a member of the pseudo immortal dragons, Jin'Ya."

Jin'Ya rolled his eyes at him but didn't say anything else, which was a win in his book.

Jin'ya was right, obviously. He needed a change, something to keep his mind away from everything that had transpired in the last month, and what better way to run away from his problems than by literally running away from his problems?

After all, they couldn't bother him if they were confined to Earth, literally millions of miles away, probably even more than that. He hadn't bothered counting.

"Well, I have to say, this is really good. And you say that you have arranged a meeting with someone high up in the chain of command?" He asked Jin'Ya as he turned around and sat on a chair that was right behind them, following his butt, ready to cushion his fall wherever he might decide to take a seat. It was a pretty nifty thing and a cheap alternative to the very expensive hard light projector suite that has to be installed to create chairs or seating furniture anywhere you wanted in a room.

"Yes but that is for later, once we have explored everything else. I believe you would love some of the adventures they have on Xandar, along with some deep sea and deep Earth exploration trips."

And just like that, his attention was, once again, diverted to another new shiny thing.

____xx____

Red Hearth

–Bruce Banner–

He sighed, and after heavy deliberation, finally pressed the button. The button did not do anything substantial, it just moved all his current research of turning Extremis into a viable product that could be used for the good of the world, into another folder because they had pushed that later down the line.

"You know that they are not exclusive to each other, right? The research we have to do." Maya replied as she was the one who was unloading and securely storing the samples they had into long term cold storage.

He nodded, "Yeah, I know but you know that once we are done with this heavily weaponized version of Extremis, it won't be the end of it? Today, it is Colin. Tomorrow it could be anyone else. When does it get to the point that it is distributed to the bad guys as well?"

"Well," Maya shrugged, "That's not my problem. I was given an order, and I am going to follow it. Boss man listens more to you anyway but this time, I don't even think you have a choice in this matter."

No, he did not because while Colin might have been cordial in his request, Jin'Ya, the resident Dragon guardian of this palace was very clear as to what they needed and the Dragon was most certainly not going to accept anything else.

"Yeah, you're right," he muttered as he began downloading all the scans of Colin's arms, along with the previous medical scans Colin had of everyone on base, and began the work for molecular compatibility.

Colin needed his arms back and while it was a little disheartening to know that he had no other choice, at least he knew that Colin was overall a good guy and would not abuse it, at least he hoped Colin wouldn't.

Only time will tell.

____xx____

Triskelion [2 days later]

–Nick Fury–

"They found what in his body?" He exclaimed as Sitwell finally gave him the report he had asked yesterday. Apparently, Ross was found dead in his house and they only found out when he didn't get out of the house or show up on his scheduled meetings.

"Yes, sir. Forensics have reported a Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer with a possible heart attack being the cause." Sitwell reported as he looked in his other screen, showing Ross talking to the media, which was odd in and of itself but what was more interesting was Ross himself.

"Well, Agent," He drawled as he saw the timestamp on the footage being only a week old, "You tell me how a stage 4 cancer patient was able to take a press conference, speak for hours on end without any change in his voice and was able to walk back to his car. Hell, I even have footage of him undergoing light training with his troops in the Military that is barely a month old."

"I-I don't know what else to say, sir. I have triple checked everything but–"

"Check again and make sure you get a copy of everything." He cut the feed as he leaned back and thought about this.

Ross was making some odd moves before this, which put him on Nick's personal radar but nothing that would signal this.

Ross did not look like a man who was going to die and was certainly not making decisions that way. He looked as if he was going to win, with confidence that was absent even 6 months ago.

Something was wrong and he had a hunch that their mystery orange guy was involved, even in this.

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[Spearow]

oh shit, you just plain murdered ross? lol
and the leader, cant you just enslave him with magic? seems pretty basic magic stuff to me, and you have a psychic dragon, just cleanse the things memory and start over fresh, he is smart enough to make a new personality pretty fast, and he does not look like his past self, and he should not have pics of his new appearance anywhere

 

[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 #89

Main Docking Station, Xandarian Orbit [February 23, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He gave Jin'Ya the side eye as they, along with their meager luggage which was floating by their side, were being taken to the shuttle that would take them to Xandar, because someone forgot to tell Colin that this ship would only transport them till the Docking station.

Here, they would have to go through the Xandarian version of Immigration before they could be allowed to set foot on Xandar's soil.

"Some ancient Dragon with vast connections you are," He snarked as they both walked, with dozens of other people in a single file as armed guards standing on both sides kept a strict watch on all of them.

"Hey! I don't see you having a way to get past here so just shut up and follow my lead." Jin'Ya snapped at him before turning away from him, pouting. He rolled his eyes at that, turning around to look out of the window, enjoying the view of numerous ships zipping past the Docking station, some attaching themselves to smaller Docking stations which were just fueling stations that could be used without entering the planet or undergoing immigration procedures.

His eyes also spotted dozens of star-shaped small ships, the signature guards of the Nova Force zipping into the sky, leaving yellow trails behind them. Smaller ships getting sucked up into much bigger ones was a common sight as were the dozens of variations of limbs, face, colour, size, height, and more when it came to the aliens.

All in all, a fascinating experience.

Hell, someone who was travelling with them had four arms, along with three limbs, which made for some very odd images but it seemed to work for the species so he did not bother them.

No reason to show himself as a hillbilly tourist from Earth. He did not want to be the reason why the rest of the galaxy considers humans as little more than monkeys, even if that opinion was already spread throughout the galaxy because of some encounters that alien species had with Earth thousands of years ago, before Odin locked the whole Nine Realms down.

Best to figure out the computer as well as their internet equivalent situation before getting all his information from that place, instead of exposing himself as a Tourist.

Soon, the entire passenger list of the ship was deposited into a hall that was very oddly reminiscent of a DMV.

So, bureaucratic nonsense went beyond the confines of a single species then. Even Xandar, one of the five de-facto Superpowers of the galaxy could not escape the evil that was paperwork, it would seem since he could see papers being used, even in this day and age, and in this place.

Seriously, how could they have cold fusion figured out before they did a paper replacement?

Keeping all those questions to himself, he patiently waited in line, as slowly, bit by bit, the queue moved forward. Until finally, it was his turn.

"Name and galactic registration," He looked at Jin'Ya with confusion but the dragon refused to look him in the eye. Turning back to the lady at the table, he hesitantly replied with a nervous smile, "Colin Baxter and, um, I don't have one?"

The look she gave him, for a second, he debated conjuring a Door in front of his face, to shield himself from her glare. The glare remained for a second before a rather familiar resigned and a tired sigh escaped her lips as she took a piece of paper and slid it towards me.

"Since this is obviously your first time, human–," He did not like the way she said the word human as if it was beneath her, "--I will let it go but please remember that there is a fine for entering the express line without galactic registration or an equivalent ID. Fill out this form and get in that line. Next!"

He carefully took the form with a Door which did not elicit any more reaction other than a raised eyebrow, thanked her with a smile, and moved out of the line, teeth clenched as Jin'Ya gave him a smug smile before rattling off a number in some alien language before Jin'Ya was given clearance.

He took the form, looked at it, and sighed in relief as it was just basic information, without any need for currency, bank account, or even any address proof. Then, he reached the door that led to the line that the lady at the desk was talking about, and the second the door fully opened, his jaw hit the floor, as his eyes found thousands of people standing in dozens of lines.

And the noise. Oh, the noise itself was deafening.

"Ah, I forgot to tell you about that. If you had not been snarky the whole time here, I might have been generous enough to declare you as my pet and take you inside but alas, I know you are too prideful for that. So, enjoy!" Jin'Ya mentally reminded him before the psionic dragon fucked off, before he could get an earful.

Grumbling mentally, he swiped a pen off the side of the entry door which had tons of them, and stood in line. This was going to take a while.

___xx____

He exited the pod that took them from the Immigration center in orbit to the central docking station on Xandar, grumbling all the time, cursing Jin'Ya, until finally the doors opened and he went outside.

The clear skies, ships flying overhead, alien children running around, in all shapes and sizes, aliens of all species walking calmly without any interruption. Silent markets all around.

No cars honking, no dangerous driving, no ugly SUVs with a single occupant inside.

Nothing.

"It's nice, isn't it?"

He whirled around, Kinetic Laser Doors manifested right in front of Jin'Ya's stupid smug face.

"Put that down. We both know you won't hurt me."

"Chances are rising by the second," He countered.

"Please," Jin'Ya scoffed before continuing, "It's a remarkable place, only because of what it has accomplished in the form of bringing people together. Of how this place continues to stand despite being a hotspot of activity and multiculturalism. Reminds me of your home country."

"Yeah," he agreed. "This is what Earth should be, I hope it will be like this some day."

"Yeah, right," Jin'Ya scoffed as they began walking through the sea of aliens, "I have seen what your kind does to your own people who just look a little different. I shudder to imagine what they would do to entirely different species' who do not have the strength to protect themselves from humans."

"Yeah," he said, defeated, "You're right about that too." Nothing to argue there. Humanity had a great capacity for good, and equally, if not more capacity for evil, as was evident throughout history. It was the reason why he was against giving humanity a helping hand, why he was not going to take anything from this place to take back homie, not even for himself.

A fusion reactor to study might be neat, and especially since scientists on Earth seem to be close enough for a breakthrough anyway, in about a decade or two so taking that would not be too day, since he needed an independent no magical power source for the Red Hearth, to make it a truly redundant place.

"So, what do you want to do first? I assume that is going to be collecting information but before that, I wish to visit a place. Their delicacies are to die for. After that, we can move on to your information hunt."

"Fine." He agreed to the small detour.

After all, he was in a literal alien paradise and the closest thing to utopia in the galaxy, that did not have a single species or was enforced upon the denizens by an Iron Fist.

Taking a deep breath, he smiled and walked forward, with renewed hope.


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 #90

Xandar [February 23, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He resisted the urge to gag as a series of plates with stuff that was way too moving for it to be properly cooked arrived on their plate, right in front of Jin'Ya since he had refrained from ordering anything until he was certain that he could eat alien meat without taking super parasites back home.

He mentally added a way to sterilise his body as well as clothing to the list of things he needed to figure out before he could go home. He was offered chopsticks of all things but he refused with a shake of his head, which was still the universal symbol for yes or no.

Funny how that worked out.

He failed to contain his gag as Jin'Ya just ate the dish that had too many moving parts in it. In the end, all he could do was avert his eyes and plug his ears with his Air Doors, redirecting the flow of air around his ears so that sound would not reach him. He was not particularly successful, because he was sitting just 3 feet away from the horrible food but he couldn't just sit there and do nothing.

So, there he was, sitting in an alien hotel, worried about alien pathogens either eating him from the inside out or taking alien bacteria back home where it would wreak havoc on any ecosystems, looking out of the window when he spotted something, or someone.

He was out of his seat before Jin'Ya could slurp down another serving of 'too many moving things' as he sprinted to get out of the restaurant and into the streets. He burst out of the doors, looking for someone who was not supposed to be here for many years, only for his sight to lose them.

Closing his eyes, he tried to focus, to get some sort of dialogue because he knew that this particular person was very chatty, at least he would be in the future. He shook his head in frustration as he could not pinpoint anything from the ocean of noises that was all around him.

Jin'Ya was apparently too lost in the sauce to be of any help so he took matters into his own hands. With a thought, two Air Doors appeared beneath his feet as he took off, startling some of the people in the streets.

He was 90% certain that this was an offense of some sort, civil not criminal, to use powers in a public space or cause public disturbance but since they were going to meet the Nova Prime anyway, this should be something that could be swept away with ease, if Jin'Ya's claim of being some known hotshot was true anyway.

He shot up even more, surpassing the height of the restaurant, looking all around the foot traffic that was passing through the business district, in an '8' pattern. His eyes roamed over the entire thing, only for a single branch to enter his vision.

The next moment, his Air Doors blasted a concentrated shockwave, propelling him straight to his target. Now, one, he was very excited to meet the people in question, and two, he did not think that the Nova Force would be this fast to respond to any reported public disturbance.

This is why he was very surprised when he had to stop himself using an Air Door, giving himself whiplash as a yellow net conjured itself right in his way. Snapping out of it, he saw that he had lost Groot, or at least someone from his species, and then looked up, irritated, only for his bravado to disappear as he saw not one not two but 5 Nova ships, collectively casting a net all around him.

"This is Officer Milo. Sir, you are in violation of Xandarian Airspace Regulation 1457. Unauthorized personal flight within civilian zones constitutes a Class C public safety breach."

Uh-oh.

"Sir, identify yourself. Do you possess registration for enhanced mobility or an approved flight device?"

"Um, no?" He offered his best innocent smile to the officers on duty, potential Groot meeting forgotten as he tried to de-escalate the situation. Then, a yellow beam came out of one of the ships, scanning him from top to bottom.

"Mr.Baxter, newly registered, human," Wow, he could feel the raised eyebrow from even through the hardened shell of these ships, "Sir, you are not authorised for flight, using any means. We will have to file an incident report for this. Please power down your means of flight and ground yourself so we can proceed further. Do so calmly, do not give us a reason to escalate."

Ending that statement with a literal gun turret coming out of one of the Star ships was a very good intimidation tactic. Too bad it did not work on him. The threat of having his first alien trip ruined and getting a permanent criminal record on his name?

Now that threat worked very well as he slowly descended, dispelling the Air Doors soon after as the net disappeared and the ships all left, save for one, who stayed right above him, as half a dozen different officers emerged from the crowd, weapons ready.

"Sir, for your safety as well as ours, we are now placing mobility restraints on you. Please do not make any sudden movements as that might constitute as assault and that would automatically elevate your charges into criminal territory." The man calmly explained as they walked towards him with a white spherical device that glowed, you guessed it, yellow.

Man, what was with the Nova Corps and the color yellow?

The lead officer just came up to him, saw his amputated status, and just placed the device on his chest. He was surprised to see lines of yellow just come out of it and cover his entire body, before a small bar made up of hard light covered his feet, restraining him, potentially.

Resisting the urge to flex and check the strength of these handcuffs since it was something that was sorely needed back on Earth, a way to keep the super strength jerks in check, he calmly said to the officer, "Lead the way."

He raised an eyebrow as the ship above him projected a yellow field, again, that lifted him up. Hmm, a tractor field then. His first time experiencing that as well.

It felt the same as before honestly, like he was standing on solid ground, but moving. Like an elevator. So, they projected solid ground below the target and then pulled the ground up, or was it just for any civilian arrests done on the planet?

Because he could not imagine doing the same for any large spaceships because that would just crush the behind of that spaceship, having to sustain that much load.

He could see the officer who arrested him dispersing the crowd as well as talking to the rest of his team members. Huh, very well organised, no panicking, and very civilian friendly.

Kinda neat. He wished the police back home had this attitude. Alas….

The ship rose quite a bit in the air, as the business district was a blur to him. He was certain that Jin'Ya was watching from a distance, or not, because he could just sense Colin from anywhere on the planet since Xandar was just a tad bit larger than Earth, with a population of 12 billion, a staggering 50% increase over Earth and yet, Xandar did not feel crowded, not at all.

Hell, even in what could be described as the planet's capital, there were only a couple of high risers with trains and public transportation zipping around through every corner, with markets being street level only. No giant complexes, malls or anything like that.

Huh, he wondered why. Were zoning laws equally a pain in the butt here as they were back home?

Yet another reason he needed a freaking library or a computer to connect to their local interweb. He knew that there was no such thing as a global information repository, aside from some commonly hosted ones that displayed bounties and other criminal data, but a galactic network used exclusively for information? Non-existent.

He just hoped that Xandar had one, so that he could finally start making sense of things in this place.

Soon enough, they crossed a forest of sorts, a layer of greenery that seemed to separate the streets and the tallest building he had seen yet.

"Welcome to the Xandarian High Citadel." An automated message read out to him from somewhere, since the tractor forcefield around him definitely did not have any speakers in it.

The ship then veered off course, heading straight down, with the ground coming alarmingly close, to the point he was just seconds away from using his powers to get out of this place when the lawn split open, revealing a runway of sorts, with a couple of other star shaped ships coming in from different entry points, each containing some people in forcefields.

This place must be massive because he did not see any other ships nearby.

He was dropped to the ground with care as another officer came forward with a tablet in his hand. "Mr.Baxter? Human. Don't get a lot of your kind here. It states here you were using unidentified means of flight. Can you please confirm the device used and where it is installed so that we can register it for future use?"

"...Actually, it's not a device. It's an innate ability I have."

"It says here that you are a human. Last I checked, humans do not have the ability to fly."

"Well, I am a different kind of human."

"..Hmm, I see. Can you please come with me so that we can get you checked out?"

"Sure?"

Well, this was going well.



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[gaouw]

MC keep acting like a squirrel on meth.

But then again, he is a teenager permanently doped up with Chi.

So I guess it was par for the course?

 

[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 #91

Xandar [February 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He was escorted to a processing chamber of sorts, where a number of people with similar restraints were waiting, entering a glowing door, which was yellow, one by one. He was told to sit and wait for his turn, as the sphere placed on every single alien beeped once before they got up and walked into the glowing door calmly.

"So, how goes your first space trip?"

He sent a sudden spike of anger through their mental link as Jin'Ya finally blessed him with his presence. "Where the hell were you? I thought you had links with Nova Prime. Get me out of here right now."

"Well, think of it like this. We were going to register your abilities anyway so might as well do it this way, and don't worry, this is just a civil offense. They will just write you a fine and leave you back in the city."

"I don't have much money on me, certainly not enough to pay any fine." He hissed back, mentally, as he waited for his turn to enter the glowing door.

"No need for that. They will just put negative units in your bank account. We can pay that off later on."

With that, Jin'Ya cut off the conversation before moving on to do whatever he was doing. Meanwhile, he saw that only two more people were left before it was turn, and honestly, he just couldn't wait for this to be over so he can finally start enjoying his trip.

He knew that Jin'Ya was loaded and he had no intention of letting that dragon screw him over, so, he was going to enjoy the finest hospitality that Xandar had to offer, on Jin'Ya's money of course.

Once he was out of custody, obviously.

___xx___

Wakanda [Same Time]

–Shuri Udaku–

With a grunt, she threw her brother back, as he impacted the wall of the training area, far above the training ring. It was quite comical to watch T'Challa slide down from the wall, as if he was being held by something to the wall.

"You will have to try much harder than that," She commented about T'Challa's move, trying to put her in a deadlock. Well, thanks to her many tests, she knew exactly how much T'Challa could handle which is why she never went easy on him.

Her bother dragged his tired and battered body back to the sparring ring, barely getting through without collapsing, as he raised his fists towards her, apparently eager to get beat up again.

Well, she was not so, sparing her brother's pride, she replied, "Let's take a break. I am really tired."

T'Challa smiled as he relaxed and all but collapsed on his behind, "Really? I can do this all day, Shuri."

"Sure you can."

She sat by his side, drinking water filtered through Vibranium blocks, something about the entire process doing something to the water, enhancing its taste and also creating water that could not be contaminated. Like, if she took this water and poured it in the river water that was found outside the borders of Wakanda, she would find this water to be its own solid mass, without mixing with the rest of the water.

She'd already built the purifiers into all the Royal Palace filtration systems and would soon have that installed at the entry points of all the Wakandan rivers, including the three underground ones that they pulled up from the ground for Wakanda's water safety, before they had the power and technology know how to just harvest unlimited seawater.

They also had a direct pipeline to the ocean, buried a hundred feet below the sea bed, completely untraceable, supplying essentially unlimited amounts of water, gravel, salt, and some other minerals to the Wakandan water processing stations built underground.

They were one of the very few Wakandan facilities built outside of the dome that surrounded Wakanda since secured water supply was something that was taken very seriously a hundred years before, which is why Wakanda had over engineered, and overpowered water systems.

There was a moment of silence that was broken by T'Challa's somber voice, "Does it really have to be this way?"

She sighed, and replied, "You know it can only be this way. The Council and most of Wakanda will not accept me unless I defeat you and Father in direct combat."

"Then why doesn't Baba wish to give you the throne? Why is he preparing, even at this age, to somehow defeat you?"

She snorted at that as if anyone in Wakanda could defeat her at this point. She'd checked with the High Priests, who were already notified of her visit by Bast, it would seem, and after some trial and error, they were able to confirm that the potion blessed by Bast that can be used to strip away Bast's blessings does not work on her.

She literally could not be depowered anymore, which is the only scenario where she could see T'Challa winning because he was always the better fighter of both of them. That was all before she had to take some drastic steps and turn herself into Bast's chosen, the strongest Black Panther that Wakanda has ever seen.

"You know as well as I do that I cannot be defeated."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Princess. I mean, sure, now? You're freaking unbelievable. But once we are both on the same–"

"We can't be on the same stage anymore, T'Challa." She said, standing up. Pulling T'Challa up, she continued, "The High Priests confirmed it for me. My blessings, unlike yours, cannot be stripped away. So, the fight? It's pointless. I've already won."

Her piece said, she turned around, heading to her lab. She still had some work to do before she could begin scouring the Earth for any entrances to folded spaces, or pocket dimensions like Ta-Lo.

___xx____

Ta-Lo

–Red Matron–

"You know, I know this is like within the terms of my contract but I don't like it." She made sure her opinion was heard by everyone involved as she floated in the air, waiting and watching as the Bald headed demon and the Water Dragon did something to the seal that kept the being that made chills run down her spine, at bay.

As usual, it was the Water Dagon who replied, "We are just making sure that nothing in the seal was altered, in the chaos before we can move on to the next step."

Ah, yes. The next step. Apparently, all of the fights that the brat went into was just so the Bald headed demon could confirm something. Something that she could not see and needed that brat's help to confirm, was the presence of the Dread Lord, in the abandoned areas of Ta-Lo.

It was quite funny, the way that the brat and everyone in here believed that their great Water Dragon was the one who made this space. Well, the Water Dragon certainly carved out a place for themselves, creating an atmosphere that is habitable for humans and other animals.

What they most certainly did not do was create this space. That was clear the moment she stepped foot in this space in the first place. This was clearly a much larger plane, abandoned for some reason by their ruler, that the Water Dragon then found and made their home here.

Which meant that none of them knew about the Dread Lord's infestation that was happening in the areas beyond the Water Dragon's sight.

Dormammu. A being beyond time.

Her eyes glanced at the glinting metal around the Bald headed Demon's neck, as she thought of the threat they were about to face. Apparently, she has called in the big guns for the extermination they were about to carry out today.

The Dread Lord spreading his realm into other empty realms was an ongoing concern for everyone with an iota of rational thought but she never imagined that the Dread Lord had gotten this close to the planet, without anyone realising.

Hell, this was one of the few ways that the Dread Lord could bypass the shield around the planet and send his forces everywhere.

Kamar Taj must have been both pissed and afraid of this becoming reality. She too did not want to live in eternal anguish, which is why she would have gladly provided her services to the noble cause, for a fee of course.

But signing that damned contract put her in a fix once more as she was forced to help, for free, which hurt her damned soul.

Once this was done, she was going back to Colin's side. At Least the chances of gaining neutral CHI increased a lot when he was close by.

All she could get from the bald headed demon was trouble and misery.


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 #92

Xandar [February 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"You know I am going to get you for this, right? One day, you are going to regret doing this to me," He made sure to stress the threat as he walked out of the detention facility, with a thorough profile built for the Nova Corps, along with total body scans, showing an uncomfortably precise amount of information.

They even let him see what all was being scanned and what data they had in their database and he had to say, it made him drool over what they were capable of scanning, and to what level.

The SCIENCE! bros would just go mad in this place, if they were allowed to buy that technology on the open market. Realistically, as long as something was commonplace enough that it was available in a dozen different places, it was bound to be stolen and sold on the black market. Another thing that he wanted to do before he had to leave, added to the mental to-do list.

"Sure, I will await the day you do something," Jin'Ya smirked at him as they both exited the facility, by flight. Yup, he could legally fly now, he had the license to show for it. The license had nothing to do with speed or how high he could fly. It was all about speed and the small ring in his hand.

Placing it above his eyes, he smiled as it unfolded to secure itself on his face, creating a slightly tingly sensation before that too faded away, revealing dozens of different roads in the sky.

A real time Air Traffic controller, he realised, as they both began floating on the small path that was marked blue for him, which meant that was the path he could use right now. The rest of them were either orange or red.

Orange meaning civil fines, could be used in case of an emergency but reckless use will result in fines and after sustained fines, eventually imprisonment came into the equation.

The red roads were meant exclusively for pre-authorised high value vehicles. Nova Corps patrol ships, government vehicles, shipments for Nova Corps, high net worth private ships carrying expensive cargo or people, and more.

Even here, the rich got preferential treatment which was to be expected but he was fine with that as long as the ones on the bottom got good enough treatment, which, judging by the way facilities were maintained and how he was treated as an absolute nobody, were very good.

He really needed to find out what policies they had in place to combat corruption and abuse of power. Maybe something he could eventually introduce to Earth, possibly?

"So, where to?" He asked the dragon as they eventually crossed the forest that separated the High Citadel from the rest of the capital and slowly landed on the ground as the area ahead of them was not cleared for their travel. Jin'Ya apparently had the same clearance as him, which might have been grounds for making fun but he was on the same level, so the joke would have been on him so he let it go.

"Well, I asked around and while there are no equivalent global networks in this place, to the one that you humans have built on your planet, they do have a library of sorts, but you will have to pay, a lot," Jin'Ya said and he smiled sweetly at that. After all, he was not the one who was going to have to pay, now, was he?

"What is with that smile? It looks creepy."

He ignored the statement and jumped on the air roads as soon as one turned blue for him. The system was heavily organised as it also indicated a gap in existing roads for him to use, to ascend to the higher altitude roads. A system like this might become a necessity on Earth once jetpacks become ubiquitous enough. Then again, considering the durability of normal humans and how regularly people die from falling down, it might be a good idea to never bring jetpacks into the mass transportation equation.

He followed Jin'Ya as he was the one with the mental map as they, after almost 30 minutes of slow flight, landed on the ground, and then walked a couple of minutes before finally reaching the unassuming looking storefront, right in front of the main street.

He looked confused as the door opened and a being with far too many legs and eyes slithered out of the door. Wait, was that a monocle? For a single eye out of the 9 he could spot?

"Greetings, Hoarder. I wish to access your hoard, for a short period of time."

His eyes widened as he took a step back, Doors already appearing in front of him as he was assaulted by a very potent Killing intent, coming from the alien in front of him who hadn't even spoken a word regarding Jin'Ya's proposition.

"And why ss-should I grant you acces-ss?" Oh, the stereotypical snake talk. Lovely.

"Because we can pay, handsomely." He finished the sentence for JIn'Ya before flashing an innocent smile at the dragon who grumbled but took out a card and floated it towards the snake.

"Here, take 50000 credits for a one day pass, for whole access."

One of the limbs was floating towards the card, only for it to freeze as soon as Jin'Ya said the last part. Then it lashed out and flicked the card back at them, the card slowing down as Jin'Ya did his part.

"You think me a fool, Dragon? Your boy here," Why did that sound extremely insulting and derogatory to him? "Has barely been an entry in the Nova Corps registry for a day. I will not be risking everything I have for that. 300,000 credits or you can leave the same way you came from." The snake literally hissed at them, just without rolling its 'S' this time.

"Do you know who I am?" He looked to the side, somewhat surprised as Jin'Ya had assumed his draconic form, towering over everyone in front of him, releasing a concentrated blast of psionic energy, aimed at the snake in front of them.

Jin'Ya did his thing for about 10 seconds before the bored voice rang out, "Are you done?" Jin'Ya deflated back into his tiny form after his failed method of intimidation.

"Yeah, sure." Jin'Ya said before flicking the card back at the snake who eagerly took it inside, not before ordering them, "Wait here."

He mentally asked the dragon why he backed down and the reply he got made him deadpan at the Dragon.

"He is one of the older ones, not quite at my level but still strong enough, at least mentally, to sustain my regular psionic output. Plus, he has friends in high places so harming him was never an option. Even Nova Prime would have to request for information as he is known for hoarding every piece of information he can find." Jin'Ya mentally replied.

"So, he is our best bet then?"

"Yes."


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 #93

Xandar [February 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

After about a minute or so of just standing outside a store, he was starting to get antsy. The damned snake could have at least invited them in. What was taking so long for just a normal transaction anyway?

Before he could voice out any of his concerns, the door slid open and the snake tumbled out, throwing the card back at Jin'Ya who stored it in the pockets of his outfit, which was probably magically enlarged to store a freaking house in there if need be.

"Go to the docks. Someone will take you to the Archive. Remember, if you die down there, no refunds."

Jin'Ya just nodded calmly at the insane demands that the snake put forth and he was standing there, shocked about the conditions of refunds. Die down there? What does that mean?

"Is the archive not here? We have to go somewhere else for that?"

"Human," once again, did not like the way it was used as a derogatory term, "Were you born yesterday? Why would I keep myself and my treasure in the same place?" saying that, the snake slid back into his store, without giving them anything to confirm. No receipt, nothing.

Jin'ya began floating by so he did the same. Catching up, he was about to ask the multiple questions on his mind when Jin'Ya beat him to the punch, "No, there are no receipts. The product we are about to receive is not legal and is only allowed to exist by the major powers of the galaxy because it is equally helpful to everyone and also because the Old One is conscious of the fact so he deliberately withholds anything that can destabilise the current status quo."

He nodded, deciding to keep his questions to himself as they changed lanes and floated into the first entry lane, heading towards the Main Docks. He couldn't wait to get his hands on sweet, sweet information.

___xx___

"Huh," Standing on the edge of the ramp, he looked at the vast forests that dotted his vision, smelling the fresh air, he couldn't help but be speechless. This was…not what he expected when he was told that they were going to a secret underground information archive that was apparently equally coveted by many major players in the world.

He hesitantly floated down and yup, it was a tropical rainforest all right. No illusions, magical or otherwise, because the one thing that is really hard to duplicate without the power of Chaos Magic, is the sense of smell.

Nevertheless, a Door appeared in front of him and shot out a wave of air, and he nodded as the trees all wavered a bit, and one even dropped some sort of odd fruit from the top, confirming that it was indeed a forest.

"This is as far as I can take you. You'll have to reach the location on your own. I will be back here in exactly one rotation, and will not wait for long so be on time." With that rude statement, the ramp closed on its own and the ship rocketed up to the sky, forcing him to use a large Door to ward off all the sand that was displaced from the launch.

Once the jet was gone, he looked up at the giant trees that extended as far as his eyesight could go and then jumped, using Air Doors to propel himself further and further, until he finally reached the top and…

"Holy SHIT!" he cursed as he saw the view. Greenery as far as his eyes could reach and even then, they were all composed of trees that were about the height of the current one. As far as his knowledge went, none of the trees on Earth that were alive anyway, had reached this height and they probably never will.

He might have to thoroughly decontaminate himself before leaving for Earth because he couldn't imagine it being good for Earth's ecosystem, to introduce an alien species to the mix.

"Come on," Jin'Ya said as he flew forward, at very high speeds so he did the same, keeping in mind to keep a Door in front of his face, turned almost transparent because he did not want a bird just drilling into his face, and then cracking his neck due to the whiplash.

One time was more than enough, thank you very much. It was a very unpleasant sensation, to crash into a forest, and be unresponsive for a couple of minutes, unable to do anything, as the Chi door worked on getting his body back to operating limits.

Fun times.

Soon, he was left far behind Jin'Ya, who then had to cocoon him in Psionic energy before their speeds increased further, turning the landscape below into a green blur. Curiously, there was no hint of blue in those blurry shapes, despite them covering a very large distance.

Did this planet not have large rivers? Or were the giant trees covering all of it?

All of his questions however were pushed aside and replaced by a single one as they finally slowed down.

"What the f*ck is that?" he pointed ahead, at the massive, and he meant it, a massive volcano that had sprouted out of the ocean, with lava continuously streaming down from the volcano's sides, with small openings facilitating the flow, resulting in a constant steam being generated because the lava fell into the ocean, or lake of sorts because the whole water body was surprisingly short, way shorter to hold a volcano of that size.

"What is this place?"

"This is the Archive," Jin'Ya stated as their journey picked up pace once more, as they headed straight to the mouth of the volcano. Knowing that Jin'Ya could easily survive this, he still had some concerns.

So, naturally, he voiced them, "Um, why are we headed to the one dangerous thing in this place?"

Jin'ya did not answer but the change of trajectory was confirmation enough as they veered off course and just dunked themselves straight into the bubbling lava. He had already summoned Doors, on instinct but then dispelled them as Jin'Ya took them both straight down through who knows how deep layers of Lava before their bubble finally hit something solid.

He watched as it hit some sort of energy field, as Jin'Ya stopped. He couldn't hear anything legible because lava did not conduct sound like normal substances but he could most definitely hear movement of sorts all around them.

Soon enough, the answer was clear because the Lava all around them was being sucked away into a large opening on the wall beside them. He looked up from the bubble and saw a similar energy field holding the lava at bay, as the area around them was cleared of any lava before the energy field below them was opened up, allowing them entry.

Jin'Ya exited the bubble first, presumably to check if the atmosphere was hospitable for him or not as he kept observing the entire process of how the second energy field collapsed, allowing lava to furiously crash on the force field right above him, making him duck a bit on instinct.

A second later, the bubble dispelled, as he looked around him and saw a fairly nondescript room with a similar snake person pushing some buttons on a console nearby, presumably the one that operated everything about those forcefields.

He wondered how others came to this place? A ship small enough to protect from lava and traverse this opening would almost certainly be a rarity.

That left superpowered beings throughout the galaxy who could make this and there were certainly a handful who could but even between them, the ones who could make it as effortlessly as Jin'Ya would be few.

The snake person did not even look at them as he began walking towards a door that was previously a wall. He followed suit with Jin'Ya, as the view made his jaw drop.

"Surprised?"

Surprised wouldn't even begin to convey the feeling he was having right now. In front of him, for what must have been miles long, there were books, and shelves. A library.

"A literal library, on paper? What are you, the 80s?" The statement blurted itself out before he could process anything.

"Alright, let's move on," Jin'Ya said as they sailed to the platform in the middle, the elevated one.

"It is not as bad as you think it is. There is an index and the file you request comes to you instead of you having to navigate this whole thing. So, don't worry. Secondly, I am granting you level 1 access."

"What? I am being restricted? Why?" He exploded as he stood up. The thought of being denied potentially salivating information was unacceptable to him.

"There's stuff in here that would drive even you mad so yes, level 1 access so only stuff you wanted to find. General information, technical know-how for everyday systems, and a little bit more." Jin'Ya waved his hands and a small card flew out of his pockets before it landed on one of his Doors.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some stuff to find. Feel free to read whatever you have authorisation to access." Saying that, the dragon f*cked right off, leaving him with a watered down access to such a cool place.

Hell, he could even feel traces of magic, strong Asgardian magic, somewhere in this place and because of Jin'Ya, he couldn't even access it.

He had no doubt that forcibly trying anything would just make things worse so he just resolved to get the stuff he needed.

Such a spoilsport, Jin'Ya.



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]

No insult meant, but I feel the emotion driven need to react to what I see characters doing, and I'm not sure if it is at all constructive.

Wow Colin, just wow. Its like he thinks that he is entitled to things that he hasn't earned, just because it exists in his proximity, and hasn't learned a damn thing about messing with things that could kill you or drive you insane just by being in said proximity. Little to no maturity or common sense as of yet, despite the potential lessons and triggers so far. Guess the hands weren't abject enough a lesson to grow up a little or learn to be more cautious. What could be worse than that which could be done to him next. Well there is always some rather terrifying lessons to be learned from sticking it in crazy. He could always get himself puppet-ed like a meat suit for a few chapter, as whatever entity is wearing him like a glove tears down everything he takes pride in, all while he can do nothing but watch from the back of his everything. And of course if all of that still fails... He can get the Dean Winchester treatment and be killed, get forcibly sentenced to being tortured in hell for a few eons, and then get ripped out of it by someone with good or at least neutral intentions.

I like the story, its not worse than a lot of the Light Novels I have read. But how many arcs are left until he grows up enough to not be ruled by his hormones, develops some consistent common sense, and stops coming off as one of the more arrogant self-absorbed protagonist... from one of the half decent Chinese Cultivation Novels? Which isn't exactly an insult, but it isn't a complement either, as this is Marvel... not Against the gods. Colin certainly isn't Yun Che and marvel doesn't have enough Immortal Cultivation tropes underlying the foundations of its realities to explain away why he isn't maturing normally besides his constant influx of pure Chi. Because I've started to develop a twitch in my left eyebrow that acts up every time I see him backslide again.

 

[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 #94

Xandar [February 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"So, no interconnected network in any galaxy? None? The Kree have a TV program of sorts that continuously blasts propaganda at their faces but aside from having to see that ugly mug's face, nothing else?" He muttered to himself, parsing through record after record on the digital screen, feeling utterly confused and fascinated with the progression of media in various alien civilisations.

Xandar, for one, was the highest on the list to have properly developed arts, including movies, plays, music, and more. Probably a direct consequence of having pro immigration policies and becoming a hotspot of cultural diversity.

As much as that would have been a positive measure, he could see that it would not have had as much success as it did if not for the overwhelmingly powerful but gentle hand of the Nova Force pressing down on them, reminding them that the safety they enjoyed came at a cost.

There was nothing on the air traffic control system that he wanted, or more accurately, it was not available in his Level 1 access that JIn'Ya so generously granted him.

Nothing about the Infinity Stones.

Nothing about the Supreme Intelligence, Thanos or even Odin. Some brief surface level information about Ronan, the Black Order, and the Asgardian siblings was present, and even in that case, there was no mention of Hela or the Goddess of Death.

He really did get shafted with the reduced access levels.

____xx____

Warrior Falls, Wakanda

–T'Challa–

He stood in the stands, witnessing people quietly shuffling in under the close guard of the Dora Milaje. He was not supposed to be here this early and it showed. Everyone from the priests to everyday citizens were whispering about his presence.

According to traditions, it was the security that showed up first, then the civilians, the witnesses, then the King and his Royal Family, and in the end, the contenders for the battle to become King of Wakanda.

In his opinion, this practice, while functional until now, would not hold weight in the future, when physical prowess would not equate with a good king. He might just have to abolish this tradition or more accurately, have his sister do it because it is not appropriate for the greatest nation on the planet to choose their ruler based solely on their physical and combat ability.

The J'Bari would make excellent Kings and Queens if that logic was applied universally.

Him being here this early, earlier than even Okoya was a signal, a sign that he was not going to be a part of the competition to become King. He was not going to be the one who was going to fight his sister for a chance to become King.

He still did not know exactly what it was that set off the loving relationship that Baba and Shuri had into fire, that forced Shuri into becoming the strongest Black Panther ever, but he was not about to challenge Shuri to a fight he knew he would not be able to win.

He glanced at the sun and knew that any minute now, the King and the Royal Entourage, consisting of the Elder Council as well as the Royal Family would arrive. Shuri was nowhere to be seen but with what little he knew about her and the tech she kept secret from everyone else, she could be in her lab one minute, and the next, she would drop down from the sky, ready to fight anyone who dared.

"Prince T'Challa, does your presence here indicate what I think it does?" Okoye asked him as she continued to monitor the peaceful procession of witnesses on the stands built around here.

"Yes." Was the only reply he could give, and she did not ask for an explanation either.

"All Rise! For King T'Chaka!" The High Priests announced as Baba arrived with the Royal Entourage. He nodded slightly at Mother who nodded back as they passed before him and sat in the Royal Seats.

He had already informed Baba and Mother about his choice beforehand, along with informing them about Shuri's odd resistance to the portion that strips Bast's blessings from the Black Panther. That information did not seem like news to Baba so the High Priests must have already informed him about that but he considered that information to be the most he could do, in this apparent match between his family.

Soon, everyone was seated and the High Priest began their lecture, about Wakanda, its founding and the principles it was built on. How Bast protected everyone, blessed the Black Panthers to become the protectors of the country, to save Wakanda from outsiders and threats beyond the capability of normal people.

On and on, they went, taking turns to narrate different parts of traditions, until finally, it was all done. And the High Priests declared the challenger section to now begin. As usual, the J'Bari were absent but he expected at least a single candidate from any of the Five Tribes but no, no challenger from the Tribes.

A minute after the High Priest finished her declaration, his neck snapped up, so did Baba's as they both heard something that only the ones blessed by Bast could hear, as a very tiny whine or pressurised air could be heard before Shuri, clad in her armour, dropped down from the sky, landing on the ground without a sound, and only a little disturbance in the water.

There was a surprised gasp from the witnesses but everyone that was important here knew that the Princess was going to make a play for the throne so they were relaxed.

"I, Shuri Udaku, challenge T'Chaka Udaku, for the throne of Wakanda!"

Wow, that was surprisingly passionate for Shuri, who usually took this whole thing with an air of nonchalance, as if she had already won and only the formality of the official declaration was left, which, in a way, was true.

If the potion could not strip Shuri's blessings away, then even if he and Baba combined fought her, they were destined to lose. Sometimes, he had nightmares, thinking of the reasons why Bast thought it prudent enough to bless someone with so much strength to become the Black Panther, on top of the already existing ones.

Was Wakanda headed into such a grave disaster that this level of strength and intelligence was necessary?

There was little surprise among the populace because it was public news by now that the Princess wished to become Queen. The only surprise would be him taking back his candidacy for King and when Baba made eye contact with him, he slightly shook his head to indicate as such.

As much as it made him sad that his Baba was going to lose, in some way, he could not realistically interfere without knowing the full story and no one was willing to tell him anything as Baba had expressly forbidden everyone from ever speaking out about that specifically and the one person who ignored Baba's orders did not wish to speak about it as well.

So, there he was, in the dark, about to witness a one sided fight between his sister and his father, when out of nowhere, a clear voice rang out across the clearing.

"I wish to challenge the Princess for the right to become a Challenger."

He caught the slight smile on his father's face as he looked up to see someone completely unknown drop down, right in front of Shuri.

His eyes narrowed as he sensed danger from the man in front of them whose body was riddled with marks.

"The long lost son of Prince N'Jobu, N'Jadaka will be fighting in my stead, for the throne of Wakanda."

His gaze snapped to Baba, who looked pleased and calm about the whole ordeal as Shuri looked confused about the whole thing.

The people in the stands, they were different. They were cheering and shouting, celebrating the discovery of Wakanda's long lost son.

Then why? Why did it feel like he was just watching someone who could end up being a danger to Wakanda, instead of a blessing?

This….This did not feel right to him. And he was sure that Shuri must be feeling the same.

Alas, it was a ritual that Shuri asked for so no one save for Bast herself could interrupt it.

All he could do was trust his overpowered little sister.



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]

Well. This is going to cause many many issues. Certainly if Colin finds out that Bast brought in Kilmonger, his dislike of the goddess is going to intensify.

 

[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 #95

The Archive, Uncharted Planet [February 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"I hope you found what you wanted here," He waved off JIn'Ya who was back from his gallivanting as he was pouring through another book on the specifics of a cautionary tale of the galaxy.

It was kind of the go to story that everyone referred to whenever the topic of uplifting entire civilisations was brought up. Surprisingly, it was the same tale that was thought of as fiction back home.

The story of giving Advanced nuclear fusion reactor, a singular reactor, so that the people who were in the industrial age and were capable of consuming electricity would not die out in their first winter. The locals were obviously very happy for an unlimited, non polluting source of electricity, and the requirements of the entire civilization, apparently, could be fulfilled by that single reactor.

Alas, it happened. The thing that he knew would happen, as such was the nature of sentient life with emotions.

Jealousy. Resentment. Anger.

The placement of the reactor meant that people naturally closer to it became more prosperous and fearing the loss of said advantage, began zealously guarding their sacred treasure, leading to widespread losses and conflicts.

In the end, the civilisation that wanted to give a fledgling species a chance to survive a brutal winter that would have guaranteed a 50% loss of life, lit the spark for a war that decimated 80% of all life on that planet.

This was the boogeyman story used to justify or scare off any civilisation that truly wished to help other civilisations prosper. Now, on the other end of the spectrum, species like the Kree actively descended upon helpless civilizations and made them their slaves, or mined their planets for resources, using the native population as slave labour.

In his opinion, when the opposite end of the spectrum that was interference in natural civilisation development, as the Kree existed, there should have been some sort of framework that would have helped other species to advance and become member states, instead of being ruled by fear.

HE discarded the book and turned to Jin'Ya, "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I am not sure. I have found something but I'm not sure if it will work."

He shrugged, "Okay. How much time do we have in here anyway?"

Jin'Ya retrieved a card from his pocket space, and replied, "We have about 7 hours left."

Huh, time moved a lot faster when he was engrossed in reading stuff that literally nobody on Earth had any idea of.

"So," He turned to Jin'Ya, "I've read here that they don't allow people from obviously backward civilisations to take home any piece or know how of technology that might result in disproportionate growth. Any way we can circumvent that?"

"You do realise that the Good Ways laws, accepted by most of the galaxy, were written for a reason, right? I understand your wishes but to hand over any sort of technology to humans of all races would be the height of folly. No, I did not bring you here so that you could bring back technology."

"Then why?"

"Well, for one, we needed you out of the equation while the rest did their work, and two, I don't think the Hell Vampires have their claws in Xandar so that you can work on getting back up to fighting speed. Also, I think a change in scenery is good for you humans."

"Huh," Was all he could say to that as JIn'Ya flew off to do…things.

He then turned around and changed the course of his study. Since he was here to get back to fighting shape and it was probably going to take a while to do that, might as well study stuff about challenging terrains he can find where he can do his training.

Like the ones Fat Thor would undergo to become Fit Thor again, in the future. Maybe.

So, with renewed gusto, he dove back into the index, which was just a handy dandy little tablet that had all the books, and papers and news, gathered by genre, date, time modified, most accessed, most popular, least popular and more. It was surprisingly intuitive, as he would just select a book, and then a robot would float from underneath the platform and would just disappear into the ocean of books here.

Then, after a minute or so, it would return into the chambers beneath the platform and then, he would have a book in his hand, or rather, a temporary copy of the book. That technology was also very sweet because the book would just be recycled apparently, turning the old paper into blank paper, stripping the ink and then reusing it. A masterclass in sustainability apparently, as all the power in this place came from harnessing the heat from the lava on top and below the entire facility.

There was a book on the workings of this place as well. They had these tubes, running around the entire facility, which allowed for the movement of high pressure lava from the bottom of the facility to the top of the facility, allowing for a small cavity, wherein this huge space was created. He had no doubt that spatial magic was used in the creation of this place because the size of that volcano would never be able to fit this place inside it, especially considering the shape of a volcano and the long space that this library had.

They also used Vibranium to get the energy from the high pressure lava, to run the whole thing all the time.

With his training montage in mind, he dove back into the books, searching for interesting planets and terrains. After all, he could not just hope that whatever Jin'Ya found with his access level in this place would actually work on his arms or not.

Also, he wondered what Jin'Ya meant by the rest doing their work.

____xx___

Ta-Lo Space

–Red Matron–

"You know, I never thought I would say this but I kind of wish the Parasitic Dragon was here right now." She said and then snarled as she had to pull off yet another invisible demon who clung to her body by literally ripping it in half.

These pesky demons were very tenacious, sticking their claws in her body even when dead and ripped into two.

It had been nothing but hours and hours of this, ripping apart demons who came in their way, and as far as she could see, the only way here was through them. She was doing her part, casting a wide area blood net, allowing for nothing to pass through undetected and the Water Dragon was casting wide area light spells, cleansing the weaker demons and weakening the stronger ones, so she could finish them off with ease.

All the while, the Bald Headed Demon, the supposed strongest of their group was floating with her eyes closed, her entire body glowing golden as she pointed them at their target. She wondered how that brat even survived an hour in this place, if this was the intensity of the attacks on him.

No wonder the brat thought losing both his arms was a worthy trade off to get out of here. Still, it elevated the brat's position in her mind, to have survived all of this, and that too with a dead weight hanging off of him? Impressive.

All thanks to that neutral Chi. Ah, how she wished she could get a taste of that. That was probably the only reason she was going through with the whole plan with the level of enthusiasm she had right now. Any way she could increase her chances of getting her hands on that, it would be worth it.

That didn't mean that she couldn't get absolutely angered and frustrated at the unending hordes of Demons that the Dread Lord was sending their way, doing nothing but making her angry, as her face twisted in an angry snarl, sending forth an omnidirectional wave of blood disintegration spell, making the Demons flop uselessly to the ground in a circle around all of them.

Only for another horde to come barreling through, crushing the Demon corpses below.

"How long?" She shouted at the Bald Headed Demon but received no reply as they continued to make slow and steady progress towards the epicentre of Dormammu's invasion of this space.

She knew intellectually that the Ancient One, clad in her Vishanti's cloak, would be their best bet at repelling Dormammu but that still put destroying the vast majority of their obstacles on her and the Water Dragon, who was not as strong as her but was useful in weakening most of the fodder that was sent their way.

Argh, she would have to bathe in the tears of the Dark Elves when she went back to get rid of this Demonic stench.



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 #96

Xandar [February 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"You know, you could at least tell me what you found there. I could help," He offered to Jin'Ya who just looked down at him and then scoffed, resuming floating languidly towards their rooms.

"Come on!"

They were back on Xandar, and Jin'Ya had booked a complete relaxation package for him. Jin'Ya, being in an artificial body, did not have much need for that, but apparently, Jin'Ya knew that Colin needed all the massages he could get.

Essentially, a forced pampering session that was imposed on him despite his many protests to turn the ship around and dropping them at 4 different planets he found with higher gravity than Earth and in various adverse environmental conditions.

Hell, two of them even had oxygen rich atmospheres. But noooo, the pickup and drop service was only to and fro from Xandar, nowhere else.

He bickered, right up until they reached their rooms and Jin'Ya phased through the door, while he had to use his Doors to push open the Door and go inside. Honestly, that was becoming second nature to him, using his Doors as Hands.

They had more range than his hands since they could float away, had more versatility and more importantly, could be sacrificed without any issues, something that could not be said of his hands. The only major drawback he could think of, was the use of a sling ring.

Dimensional Energy had to be guided through a soul and into the sling ring using one's body, and he did not think that his Doors counted as part of his body. Maybe if he could do something even more drastic, like the time he ripped apart the door on the Chi Door, allowing him permanent access to neutral Chi.

Before he could even think of entering his mindscape to figure out if anything else could be done, he heard Jin'Ya essentially shout through their mental link.

"Don't even think about it!"

Well, he would have done it either way but he was not in a hurry. Who knows, whatever Jin'YA found in there might end up working or even better, help them perfect their existing methods.

He was not that worried about them now, not nearly as much as he was when he was back on Earth. Part of it was seeing multiple alien species with fewer limbs and mobility thriving and living happily in this place.

Honestly, if he was not already so invested back on Earth, he might have settled here. Sold some Vibranium, used his powers as services for the high class, paid his taxes to the Nova Corps, helped defend Xandar if need be, and then lived a very happy life on this planet.

Then, he sighed. Alas, he loved Earth and would love to see Earth take steps in the right direction, even if he intellectually knew that he would not be able to see Earth adopting even a fraction of Xandar's policies in a human lifetime.

___xx___

His eyes fluttered open, as he found himself facing the ground. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes as he remembered how he had fallen asleep. Who knew a massage by someone with four limbs would be so relaxing?

He slowly lifted himself using his Doors, looking around the empty massage room, really thankful for the great sleep he had just now. Man, Jin'Ya was right, this was the best massage place on the planet. HE wondered how that dragon knew about it but he just chalked it off to ancient contacts having other contacts pointing him to this place.

He knew that despite Jin'Ya's claims of having contacts in every sector in very place, the reality was that the dragon had contacts who probably were alive at some point in time. The dragon had a horrible sense of time and probably had naps that were longer than humans lifespans at some point.

One of the quirks of having an extremely long, almost indefinite lifespan, he supposed.

Quickly getting dressed, he saw that he had been asleep for about 2 hours, which was a lot for him because he barely needed to sleep 3-4 hours each day and that was pushing it because he slept extremely lightly, such that after the first hour, he could be awoken by a small rustling sound as well.

"Thank you," he thanked the staff, and the receptionist as he exited the massage place, which was built into the hotel they were staying in, and went into the elevator. It was frowned upon to use flight abilities inside the hotel so he just went with the regular method.

In his opinion, getting rid of his mandatory 7-8 hours of sleep per day requirement was one of the better things he had received from his powers. He just had more time in a day than most people on the planet and that helped him a lot, for multitasking.

"I suppose you are well rested enough to begin your training?" Jin'Ya was waiting for him at the door.

He raised an eyebrow, curious about Jin'Ya's method of training but willing to finally work on his situation. "Yeah, just give me a second to change."

"No need. The place we are going, none of your clothing can survive."

"What?"

He did not receive a reply as he was covered in purple psionic energy and whisked out of the hotel. "Wait! I didn't get my stuff!"

"It's paid for, for the entire month. So, quit squirming!"

____xx___

"Uh, what is this?" He asked Jin'Ya as the ship was parked in orbit around something he would hesitate to call a planet. It was just a swirling mass of purple and pink, oddly reminiscent of the colour of Jin'Ya's psionic powers.

The shape continued to change as well, and it was a free planet with no star or satellites around it, which made him question if the thing had substantial mass or not.

"That, Colin boy, is the training that you were so desperately asking for."

"No!" He snapped at the dragon, "I did not ask for this. What I asked for was a planet with a breathable atmosphere, with some minor tweaks in environment and gravity. Not this!" He pointed at the swirling mass, through the glass.

"Well," Jin'Ya shrugged, "this is the best training spot, trust me. We will have your energy routes redesigned in no time."

Then, he was covered in an air bubble and the ship's bay was opened, exposing them to the vacuum of space as they slowly drifted out of the ship, as the ship itself moved away from the purple mass.

Jin'Ya spoke into his mind as they slowly went closer to what he suspected to be a mass of psionic energy mixed with some other energy, "You will need to work on getting a proper defense mounted against the flood of energy, other than your Chi. This is the fastest method to get you back up to passable levels in Dimensional Energy manipulation."

"What?" He had so many questions but before he could vocalise any of them, Jin'Ya spoke a final warning into his mind, "Don't worry. I will be right here, just in case something unexpected happens. Don't worry though, no limbs will be destroyed today. Some layers of the skin can disintegrate but most of your muscle and all of your bones should be fine."

There were so many things wrong with that sentence that he couldn't even begin to list them out.

"F*ck yooooou!" He snarled through their mental bond as the air bubble he was in, abruptly accelerated and punted him into the energy cloud.

Within a second, he had already covered himself in Doors, sealing himself within, as an Air Door pumped it full of air that was roughly the same composition as the current atmosphere back on Earth.

The purple bubble of energy around him moved away from his Doors and was turned into a rectangular box. He could see it all through the transparent doors. One moment, the entire rectangular box was empty and the next, thin strands of purple energy came pouring in.

"It is a diluted form of extremely heavy energy. It will hurt but once you have Dimensional Energy manipulation down, we can move on to denser energies. Yes, Dimensional Energy is capable of blocking this, if you have the will to do it." Jin'Ya answered his question before he could ask so he shrugged and sat down, cross legged.

This time, it was a lot easier to just get a clear coating of Dimensional Energy on his head and torso, along with manifesting two arms.

He looked up as the sealed Door space he was surrounded by, changed shapes, eventually creating a very small Door that he could shrink in order to create a small opening for the external hostile energy to come through.

He also made sure there was enough space to trap that energy if he could not dissipate it.

Taking a deep breath, he removed the other hand, and just kept his right hand manifested. In a single motion, he shoved the hand towards the smallest Door, just in time for a small stream of energy to come crashing through to directly hit the hand made up of Dimensional Energy.

He blinked as it shattered immediately on impact, as he jumped back a bit and summoned a Door to lock that energy down.

"Uh, this was going to be a long day," he sighed and sat down once again, determined to create an even stronger hand. If he could make something that could survive this, he would have made conjurations that would be stronger than even his body.

The mere thought of it filled him with excitement.


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[Spearow]

losing hands and being forced to overcome the disability with his powers, special treatment by the ancient one... lol, she is grooming him to become the next sorcerer supreme, like strange, she even let him keep the fucked up hands as some kind of canon event thing, all her successors must have fucked hands

 

[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 #97

Middle of Nowhere [April 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He took a deep breath in, visualising Dimensional Energy to be a raging flow of river, as it wrapped itself around him, not drowning him but covering him in a protective embrace.

Then, he opened his eyes and smiled. For he was floating in the middle of an energy storm, the likes of which would have shredded his arms off just a scant few weeks ago, and yet, there he was, floating in between, covered by a seemingly thin layer of Dimensional Energy, with nothing else to protect him from the onslaught of the very heavy energy.

He uncrossed his legs and stood on nothing, looking all around him as he could feel the energy taking its toll on the full body barrier he had around him, micro cracks forming on the outer layer but his control had advanced to such a point he could continue the cycle of casting newer barriers with Dimensional Energy by matching the rate of destruction, minimising energy expenditure.

Jin'Ya came into his view, with a small load of stuff with him, that he promptly threw at Colin. With a mental flex, a hand made out of Dimensional Energy shot out of his chest and caught the purple bubble, bringing it closer to himself as the shroud of Dimensional Energy expanded to form a small room, as the stuff that Jin'Ya brought him was dumped into the box he had formed around himself.

"Hmm, much smoother than before. Still, you missed a spot," Jin'Ya pointed at the corner of the room, where a small piece of the heavy energy outside was nestled in, having made its way in during the expansion of the barrier.

With a small rearrangement, he sacrificed a small barrier and removed that piece of energy from his bubble of Solitude.

Ha! It made him crack up whenever he thought of that term in his mind. Also, he might be going a little crazy doing nothing but training in this palace for what he estimated to be months now, so there was that as well.

Jin'Ya wouldn't tell him how long they had been at this, only that they would leave once he could leave the cloud of energy on his own, which, fair, he still couldn't do. Not while actively defending himself from Jin'Ya attacking him from all angles. Yup, that was the prerequisite to pass the training here which was harsh in his opinion, but necessary if he wanted to have a shot at defending himself against opponents at the same level as the Red Matron.

The treaty with the Ancient One and Kamar Taj was still active, as far as he knew but if the Red Matron could somehow get around it, then so could someone else so he was not taking chances with his safety and if he could meaningfully become better at using Dimensional Energy, then he would do so, time be damned, as long as he did not end up spending years here, though he was sure that was not the case.

Taking the stuff that Jin'Ya brought him, he took the largest spherical object and pressed the top of it and took a single step back, allowing for the world's most portable bathroom setup to emerge from it. Then, he attached the water tank, the waste tank, and took out the toiletries.

This had been the routine for the past few months or so, as he did his training, as Jin'Ya told him, waited for the dragon to come, and he came right on time, with this essential package.

He then bathed himself, and put on fresh new clothing. Clothing from Xandar was very comfortable and soft, but sadly, they did not have much in terms of fashion. Denim, apparently, was not used on Xandar much because many alien species were allergic to it. Another interesting tidbit that Jin'Ya told him when he was in the middle of his meditation to get into the proper mindset to build stronger barriers.

"So, finally going to tell me how long I have been doing this? You know this counts as some sort of torture scheme, right?" He asked Jin'Ya as he tore into a sandwich, with meat from some sort of chicken adjacent family that is commonplace on Xandar.

He gave up the questions about the food long ago because one got very hungry doing the same mentally and physically demanding task again and again.

"Two months." He did not choke on his food because it was not as shocking. He continued chewing and after swallowing, replied, "Oh, that's not too bad. How long do you think we'll be here until we can leave?"

"Actually, we can leave now if you want to."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, you've progressed very well, far more than I expected you to, and frankly, you deserve a small break from this. So, we can either go straight to Earth, or go to Xandar. Your wish." Jin'Ya offered him and he peered suspiciously at the man. This was way too good of an offer from him, especially considering his actions over the past two months, bordering on torture.

__xx__

"How long till we reach Earth?" He asked Jin'Ya who was piloting his spaceship. That's right, who has two limbs and a personal spaceship? The guy sitting in the co-pilot's chair with his two remaining limbs on the dashboard.

Yes, that guy!

"I really should have downloaded the English language pack before we left Xandar," Jin'Ya grumbled because the ship was showing all sorts of data in a completely alien language to him. With the universal translator that was gifted to him by Jin'Ya, he could understand and speak most alien languages as if they were speaking English but reading and writing was a whole other beast.

Which is why this old, beat up spaceship that he was the proud owner of, did not have all the languages downloaded in it, especially not English, because it was a language spoken on a planet that was literally named as Dirt, in the wider interstellar community.

It was also why Jin'Ya was slightly irritated with him because he was endlessly curious about everything that was being shown to him on the dashboard, as well as the multiple written warnings on many parts of the inside of the ship.

"As for your question, it will take another hour before we finally leave the Jump Gate near the Moon."

"Alright."

"So, how do we fuel this thing on Earth?" Alas, that was not going to be the end of his line of questioning and he had a feeling that the chances of Jin'Ya just turning this thing around and buying him an English Manual and downloading the English language pack were increasing by the minute.


___xx___


Slowly, the ship came to a halt right above a clearing in the middle of Nepal, a few hours away from Kamar Taj, Kathmandu. As the ship descended on the clearing, there was a ripple effect mid air, as they parked the ship on the clearing, away from cities, roads. It was impossible to just stumble upon this place by accident and the cloaking ensured that there was little to none emission of energy.

With a quiet hiss, the bay doors opened up but the engine, no, it did not go down quietly. There was a very gravelly sound that came from the engine, resonating throughout the ship as it was finally turned off.

Still, it might sound old and was probably older than he was, but hey, no fumes!

Jin'Ya floated out of his seat as his conjured hands picked up his luggage, as he walked towards the ramp. "As for the fuel used, no, we would not be able to refuel on Earth but I already have placed an order for fuel which should be delivered in about 10 Earth days. Once we have a functioning depot setup around the Red Hearth, you should be able to make most trips without much issue."

And there was that.

This whole ship placement was a very temporary thing. Once he spent a few more weeks in Kamar Taj, experimenting with his newfound mastery over Dimensional Energy and brushing up on some advanced enchantments, they were going to expand the area of the Red Hearth.

No, the building would remain the same, it was not going to get an expansion. He already had more space than he needed, no need to add more. What they planned was an expansion of the environmental shield around the Red Hearth or if it went according to his plan, it would be a second environmental shield on top of the existing one, just at a much larger radius.

Then, the underground depot as well as the hangar will be built, with the eventual end goal being a proper hangar facility that he could then lend to his fellow allies.

Earth's first fully functioning spaceship depot, if you will.

He knew, for sure, that there were people at NASA who would cream their pants if they knew that such a thing existed.

All in all, it should be done within a few months, at most, especially since he was going to buff up his arsenal of spells, and there was no shortage of offensive spells that could be used to dig up bigger holes on Mars.

Jin'Ya opened a portal and left for the Red Hearth, to check in on Bruce and the other and also to see if the methods they found for his hands worked or not. He was not really interested in that, at the moment.

He was far more interested in getting his personal spaceship hangar and at a close second, came the checking of his life. His absence must have been noticed, despite his many contingencies to make sure that none of his work was too messed up in his absence.

His money was all in a trust anyway, so no issues there.

He shrugged and then floated up. He needed an internet connection and the fastest one in all of Nepal was in Kamar Taj, installed by yours truly.


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[garnax]

no drinking until you are 21, according to the human customs

Click to shrink...

I think that is the exception rather than the rule..

 

[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 #98

Kamar Taj [April 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"Welcome back, Master Baxter," The first one to greet him was Wong, who looked very stoic, but he knew that internally the man was very happy to see him. Well, he hoped, anyway.

He knew the man was using official terminology because they were in the open, and the man was very stingy when it came to breaking his character in front of the vast majority of the people here at Kamar Taj, so he played along.

"Glad to be bad, Master Wong. Anything exciting happened while I was gone?" For some reason, Wong's face twisted briefly before returning to his usual stoic face, with an intense expression.

____xx____

–Master "Wongers" Wong–

The moment Colin asked him that question, his mind flashed back to the memory of the fight from two months ago, when the Ancient One unexpectedly rounded up all of the strongest Masters and went somewhere, handing him the responsibility of looking after Kamar Taj in her absence.

It was the first time a responsibility of that level was placed on her and he understandably panicked since she was taking every single Master his seniors with her, for an undisclosed mission that might end up threatening the planet beyond anything they had ever seen.

Only a few threats could warrant a movement of that sort but he did not have the time or the urge for any clarification from the person who was organising a massive expedition not seen in his lifetime, to combat a dangerous foe, so he decided to investigate on his own, later on, when he was saddled with the responsibility of looking after the place that had nurtured generations of protectors of Humanity.

Curious about the whole event, he had used his unprecedented access to check on everything, essentially. Everything that was being actively monitored by Kamar Taj and could be checked, he checked on.

The three Sanctums and their respective shield modules? Intact.

The six backup lines established in case any Sanctum falls? Intact.

The 17 demon seals on the planet? Intact.

Spells cast on multiple public sites to deter any civilian from stumbling into them? Intact and in need of a recharge in about 70 days.

Nothing that could tell him about that event was found so he did what he could. He waited, instructed some of the newer initiates and walked around, inspecting everything and maintaining a constant state of vigilance just in case some stupid decided to attack Kamar Taj at their weakest.

He expected an update, a signal, a call for more reinforcements, something, from the party that left but alas, he did not receive a single peep from them for over a week. After which, everyone came back, save for the Ancient One.

From the people that came back, he learned about what had happened. These people had gone to Ta-Lo, not to fight but just in case something happened, to help evacuate the entire place and create a last defense for Earth around the entrance of Ta-Lo.

No injuries, nothing, which was a good sign and he took it as such, right up until the Ancient One arrived, and she did not come alone.

With her, she brought the downed form of the Red Matron, one of the strongest beings on the planet, capable of low level reality warping with her blood magic. Someone like her was severely injured, to the point that he couldn't even feel any threat coming from her despite being just a few feet away.

Usually, being in the same vicinity as her was enough to trigger a reaction from his instincts but back then, she was just down. He thought for good and in some part of his mind, he thought that it was for the better but the Ancient One, likely due to some obligation, decided to heal her.

Then came the state of the Ancient One. Her face was covered in soot, her one hand hung limply by one side and even the Eye of Agamotto had some scorch marks on it, indicating a fierce fight had gone by.

He had not had time to even ask her what had happened because the only ones who knew had either recovered and left Kamar Taj hastily or were in meditation. The Ancient One had given strict orders to only wake her up once Colin had returned.

He wondered if she would finally tell everyone what the hell happened in Ta-Lo, now that Colin had returned.

___xx__

–Colin Baxter–

"Master Wong? Hello? Wong? WONG!" He had to shout to finally get the man out of some sort of reverie that he was in.

"Huh, what? Oh, Master Baxer. The Ancient One has been waiting. Can you stay in the library until I can inform her?" Wong asked him, somewhat excited for some reason.

He shrugged it off, "Sure, I was headed to the library anyway. And she probably knows I am here anyway, but, sure."

Wong swiftly turned and began briskly walking as he turned and made a beeline to the library. He had some experimenting to do and what better way than to start with spells he never had the accuracy for, now that he has tremendous accuracy.

Waving and nodding at some of his acquaintances, he crossed the threshold of the library and smiled upon feeling the familiar sting of the wards identifying him before deciding not to smite him as he entered the Masters' section of the library.

Kamar Taj's motto of no knowledge being forbidden was true, but only to a certain extent. The hidden part that was barely ever said out loud was that some knowledge would be withheld from people until they were ready and the one judging people would be the Ancient One.

Which is why even he did not have unfettered access to everything. Some of the Ancient One's personal collection had stuff that literally had to be chained up by chains made up of some magical metal, which was like Uru but not Uru. Odin, for some reason, had exclusive ownership of every single Uru made weapon in the galaxy.

Well, he knew why Odin had control of a very strong and volatile material. It was because he was strong, simple as that. The Dwarves believed in might makes right, which is why no Uru weapon shall ever be made for anyone without Asgard bearing down on them.

Getting near the Restricted section, he was rewarded with the same feeling of ominous doom that he got whenever he tried getting near them before but this time, it was noticeably dimmed down, as if the cursed feeling had difficulty getting to him.

Hmm, progress then.

"Nice," He smiled and stepped back to see if he could find a spell he could practice without having to go to the largest sparring ring, but also one that would be high level enough that he could get an accurate reading as to where he was in his progress.

Come to think of it, how did Strange ever get anywhere near her collection without going at least a little bit mad in the process? Was it because he was already mad, or was it because she was already playing favourites and clearing the path for him. Because having the Eye of Agamotto out in the open, with Strange being cleared for the pedestal enchantments and having the Book of Cagliostro out in the open, just begging to be used? It reeked of outside intervention.

Moving on, he began browsing the books of spells available here.

"Separating different gases from the air and poisoning Demons? Pass." No way to check on the efficiency without some sacrifices and he didn't think the Ancient One had it in her for his shenanigans right now.

"Magnetic pole manipulation? Creation of a mystical magnet? Nah." Too much metal around here. He didn't want to think what could happen if he could not modulate the strength of the magnet and ended up even slightly moving the metal racks in the library.

Too bad that the Mirror Dimension was now unavailable to him, due to his loss of a working limb. He paused from his browsing as a thought occurred to him.

He slowly looked down and flexed his toes. Hmm, maybe?

"It is not feasible, Master Baxter," He whirled around to see the Ancient One, with the same placid smile on her face.

"The Sling ring on your toes, I mean," She continued, "It will not be feasible for combat and the effort required to, once more, relearn will not be worth it. I am sure you will figure something out but I can tell you this, that is not a viable solution."

He nodded, "Alright. I will look into something else."

"See that you do," Then, she looked at him, as if she was peering through him, "Remarkable. To do so in such a short period of time. I did not believe him when he said so, but I believe that you have surpassed your previous uninjured self in raw Dimensional Energy manipulation in such a short period of time. Congratulations are in order."


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[Emptiness]

"And before you even begin to wonder, your third choice on where to put the ring results in a minature portal to the Dimension of Blades on the inside of the ring."

"....Why do you know that?"

"How do you think evil Eunuchs' became a thing? I am far less cruel than my predecessors."

 

[IdleMuse0307]

"And before you even begin to wonder, your third choice on where to put the ring results in a minature portal to the Dimension of Blades on the inside of the ring."

"....Why do you know that?"

"How do you think evil Eunuchs' became a thing? I am far less cruel than my predecessors."

Click to shrink...

Oh my god!
I just spit water all over my phone because of this.
Hilarious

 

[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 #99

Kamar Taj [April 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"See that you do," Then, she looked at him, as if she was peering through him, "Remarkable. To do so in such a short period of time. I did not believe him when he said so, but I believe that you have surpassed your previous uninjured self in raw Dimensional Energy manipulation in such a short period of time. Congratulations are in order."

"So," He stretched the word out a bit as he worked on his reply, "There is very little chance that I am getting my arms back, is there?"

"I can't comment on that part, Master Baxter, but what I can tell you is this. You will not lose any functionality, strength or sleep over whatever might occur in the near future. From the looks of it, you have already accepted the fact and moved on, which is an admirable quality."

"Yeah, if you say so." He said as a hand conjured itself around his stub and then moved around in all the different ways he could manipulate it for now. It was very odd, comparing his current hand to his previous one. For one, he knew that he could not bend his fingers like that, and it could be useful in the future.

"An apt demonstration. Now, if you'll follow me," She said and then snapped his fingers, making him roll his eyes as the scenery around him blurred and they found themselves sitting in one of the meeting chambers, tea already ready and steaming with the tea aroma already wafting towards him.

"So, the rule of no teleportation within the library?" He asked her as his conjured hands snaked their way towards one of the cups.

"The position of the Sorcerer Supreme does come with its own set of perks."

"I assumed so," He said, giving a sharp look at her forehead in response.

She ignored it, obviously, "The day you left, we began the clean up of Ta-Lo,"

The memories of those Demons, Dragons and that massive mountain with that never ending fog came to his mind as he nodded, sipping on his tea, his hand trembling just the slightest as the pain flashed through his mind once more, "And?"

"And we were able to push Dormammu back. With the help of Ms.Koscheyenka and the Guardian of Ta-Lo, we were able to push through Dormammu's forces that he had accumulated in that place for a truly long period of time, and banish the mountain that was acting as his anchor to that plane."

He remained silent, his mind whirling at how close Dormammu had come to, potentially, invading the planet. And if he had, Earth would have been caught with its pants down. No Strange, no Avengers, no one who could oppose him. She could do so but he had his doubts if she could actually push back if Dormammu actually came at her with his full might.

Honestly, trying to predict the thoughts of someone who can perceive all time simultaneously was headache inducing because Dormammu was not bound by time, he was outside of it and as such, could not be comprehended by beings bound by time.

"Do we know how he got so close?" He asked her.

"It is difficult to predict the thoughts as well as the actions that someone like Dormammu can take. We have no idea when he planned to invade the dimension, how long he planned for that and what little actions he planned, culminating in Kamar Taj remaining unaware of that for so long."

"So, if I had not been there, in the right place and at the right time, then?"

She nodded, her expression grave, "Yes, then Kamar Taj might have been caught unaware of the invasion until it was too late. Your healing of the Guardian Dragon of Ta-Lo meant we were able to detect the anomalies early and your confirmation was all I needed to move and eliminate the threat."

"Why didn't you ask Jin'Ya? He might have been helpful."

"True." She agreed. "He would have been of tremendous help but you have to understand that Dormammu is not the only problem we have on our hands. The very nature of our work is that our enemies only have to win once whereas we have to win every single time."

"I see." was all he could say because what else could he say, especially since he could see the result of their fight. They might have succeeded in repelling Dormammu and derailing one of his many plots to conquer Earth but it was clearly not without a cost.

The right hand of hers that hung limply at her side was proof enough. He had to ask though.

"Was it because of Dormammu or was it backlash from using the Time Stone?"

"The latter. I had to sacrifice a part of myself to shorten the time needed to cast a spell, which had been supercharged with energy from the Eye of Agamotto."

"I see. Any way we can–"

"It is an injury of the soul. An order of magnitude deeper than your injury. I foresee no future in which I have both my arms functioning again."

Well, that killed off the mood.

Standing up, he said, "Anyways, I have a lot to catch up on. A lot of data to parse through. Also, I will be borrowing a couple of books, to practice my Sorcery, if that's alright with you?"

"Wong will get you anything you need, that you can have authorisation for."

"Perfect. Bye!" He said and got out of the room, ready to take that magnet spell creation. He bet that Bruce had some really interesting experiments he would like to try if he can work on getting the spell to the extreme ends of magnetism.

A nice little experiment for both of them in the ritual room in the lower levels of the Red Hearth. Once he was confident in that, he could start working on getting a hangar up and running on Mars.

Ah, he couldn't wait for that!

____xx___

"The books you asked for," Wong handed him the books and then, once he tried to take them from the man's grasp with his conjured hands, Wong did not let go. Instead, he pulled the books forward and said, "If there is even the slightest damage on anything, I swear to Vishanti that I will–"

"Okay! Okay! I swear I'll be careful. Chill!" He said and then took the books, from a distance, because he had already taken a long step back when Wong had gotten all serious, in his face and began screaming warnings at him.

"That is….new," Wong commented on his new arms as they shrank and brought the books to him.

He shrugged, "Well, you'll be seeing a lot of new things. Be prepared." He then used his conjured hands to mock salute the man as he mentally called in Jin'Ya as a portal opened up behind him as he walked backwards, while looking at Wong, like a badass.

The portal closed up and he turned around to find himself in the portal room, as expected. He knew that the enchantments would keep on working for almost a year without any intervention but it was nice to get confirmation that everything worked even without an active Magic user supercharging their environment with Dimensional Energy, allowing the wards to run off of ambient energy, instead of drawing on stored reserves.

The spell to create those reserves was extremely difficult to cast and the only one who could do so with a 100% success rate and was willing to do it for him was the Ancient One, so he kinda only had one of those reserve stones and would rather not see it benign used for a non emergency.

Taking a deep breath, he entered the kitchen, only to find it empty. Connecting himself to the wards, he realised that both Bruce and Hansen were asleep, and Jin'Ya was in the lower levels, with a giant DO NOT DISTURB sign plastered on their mental bond.

So, with nothing else to do, he hopped in the shower and then jumped on his bed, his bed. Within moments of that happening, he set the temperature and the air currents in the room to optimal conditions and dozed off.

Nothing like sleeping in Home Sweet Home.



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