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.
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