theunderbolt
Zoom, Zoom, Iyaaan~
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Do they even have Super Laxative in the MCU?
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Silly Tales of the Super Girl (MCU Supergirl SI)
- Thread starter d.fish
- Start date
Do they even have Super Laxative in the MCU?
1.4 Steve 2
d.fish
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It was late in the evening when Steve returned to his apartment. He had several bags of groceries in one hand and his gym equipment slung over his shoulder on the other. There was a terrible tension in his shoulders, the sort of knot formed from an unresolved conundrum that bothered him greatly, but was too insignificant for him to voice.
Coming from an era of war and rations, the "super" markets of the today astonished Steve every time he walked into one. It wasn't like they didn't have markets before, but there was something awful and wrong about how every banana was perfectly yellow and without bruises, and how ever piece of meat was so marbled and delicious looking. You couldn't have that kind of meat on his table back then even if they existed; he couldn't afford it.
He never asked anybody at work (how could he when they had more important things to do?) and he didn't really understand this whole internet stuff either. Was... was he supposed to type out "Hello, Google" first and then ask his question? How exactly did that work? What kind of thanks should he type in after he'd gotten his answer? Would "Thank you, Google" be enough or should he be more courteous?
He had all of these questions written down into a little notepad he carried with him everywhere. It was the only way he knew he could catch up on popular culture. Steve didn't want to turn out like Thor after all, but Thor had the excuse of being "not human". Steve wanted to, at least if he met another alien who was actually friendly, be able to introduce politely the culture of his people, the Americans and the American Way.
Steve stopped at his door and mouthed those words, almost out loud. They sounded so...
"Hey, Mister Rogers! Did you just get back too?" Kara was back, because of course she was. Steve was starting to think she was everywhere at once.
"Yes, Kara what—" Before he could finish his sentence, a pair of dogs as excitable as the girl holding their leash ran up to Steve and started sniffing at his feet. And his hands. And his groceries... mostly his groceries, actually.
"Oh, I'm sooo sorry, Mister Rogers! I just got them and they are just adorable troublemakers!" Kara clapped her hands together as if praying to him, which was quite silly, but then again, she was too. But then she donned a rather grim expression. "Did you do you homework, Mister Rogers?"
"I, my... oh yeah," Steve fumbled, taking a moment to realize she meant his note taking. "Mind if we take this inside?"
Kara's eyebrows rose, as if Steve had just suggested something incredibly scandalous. "... Sure, Mister Rogers."
"You know, you can call me Steve, right Kara?" He asked as he turned his keys and took large strides to his refrigerator. It was a brand new one that didn't work as well as the one Howard made a long time ago, but it was still American made, which was good enough in Steve's books.
"Sure, Mister Rogers," Kara nodded as she followed him into his abode. "Whatever you say, Mister Rogers."
"... That was a reference, wasn't it?" Steve sighed, realizing he had more movies to watch on his list. Everyone seemed to have an opinion on what movies to watch, and it was getting tiresome... he just wanted to know what was the part that everyone else was so excited about. It wasn't that he didn't like catching up on culture, it was just like... well, playing golf or something... it was a thing that only people with the luxury of having too much time on their hands to not bother with doing their jobs would be doing.
"Eh," Kara shrugged. "Oh, by the way, Mister Rogers, can I ask a favor of you?"
This gave Steve a pause. This was the first time his little neighbor asked anything from him; usually she just offered to help him with just about anything, like trying to carry his groceries for him as if he were an old man, but this was different. He turned to her and tried to hide the surprise on his face, "Sure Kara, what is it?"
She smiled brightly at this. "Oh, Mister Rogers. You're too nice! But, well, I'm heading over to California and some places for a few days—some business and stuff going hot, you see some business is, well, exploding, shall we say, and I was wondering if you could babysit my puppies for me, pretty please?"
Steve was surprised, and also a bit reluctant. He had just seen how Peggy was. Even friendships felt like something he wanted to recoil from. He knew a while ago that they were changing from just being neighbors and acquaintances into something that was probably friends, but she didn't know about his identity as Captain America. How could he have a friendship without showing that side of him, something that made him who he was? He wondered if he kept himself from thinking about this simply because he wanted to spare himself, or if he wanted to spare her from rejection.
But while he was thinking to himself, Kara plowed on as if he had nodded in agreement or at least acknowledged her. "So this Golden Retriever is Thor, he's the older brother and he's seven months old. See how he's sniffing your butt now? That's him liking you, probably. And this little sulking puppers is Loki the troublemaker, he's a German Shepard and he doesn't follow the rules! Rawr! You'll have to watch out for Loki because he'll bite your fingers if you're not careful."
Steve was speechless.
"... Hello? Mister Rogers? Can you keep Loki out of trouble, please?" Kara peered up at him innocently.
Steve sighed, mentally of course. After a moment he looked down at the two small dogs, 'Thor' was sitting on 'Loki'. "I... okay, Kara. A few days, you said?"
"Yeah! I have, like everything printed out and their food and stuff, thanks, Mister Rogers! You're the best!" She tried to jump up to hug him, but she only reached his chest at best and settled for hugging his waist. After a moment she turned and ran out his door, "Just give me a minute, I'll grab that, and um, did you finish watching the Princess Bride?"
"Yes," Steve nodded awkwardly, feeling almost compelled to keep an eye on the German Shepard puppy. "It was..." surprisingly "... good."
"Great, I'll get the sequels, the Princess Diaries too, and we can binge those!" She ran down the stairs to her apartment.
Steve turned back to the two puppies. One was trying to get at his mug and the other was running around in circles. "So this is what I came out of the ice for, huh. Could be worse."
Coming from an era of war and rations, the "super" markets of the today astonished Steve every time he walked into one. It wasn't like they didn't have markets before, but there was something awful and wrong about how every banana was perfectly yellow and without bruises, and how ever piece of meat was so marbled and delicious looking. You couldn't have that kind of meat on his table back then even if they existed; he couldn't afford it.
He never asked anybody at work (how could he when they had more important things to do?) and he didn't really understand this whole internet stuff either. Was... was he supposed to type out "Hello, Google" first and then ask his question? How exactly did that work? What kind of thanks should he type in after he'd gotten his answer? Would "Thank you, Google" be enough or should he be more courteous?
He had all of these questions written down into a little notepad he carried with him everywhere. It was the only way he knew he could catch up on popular culture. Steve didn't want to turn out like Thor after all, but Thor had the excuse of being "not human". Steve wanted to, at least if he met another alien who was actually friendly, be able to introduce politely the culture of his people, the Americans and the American Way.
Steve stopped at his door and mouthed those words, almost out loud. They sounded so...
"Hey, Mister Rogers! Did you just get back too?" Kara was back, because of course she was. Steve was starting to think she was everywhere at once.
"Yes, Kara what—" Before he could finish his sentence, a pair of dogs as excitable as the girl holding their leash ran up to Steve and started sniffing at his feet. And his hands. And his groceries... mostly his groceries, actually.
"Oh, I'm sooo sorry, Mister Rogers! I just got them and they are just adorable troublemakers!" Kara clapped her hands together as if praying to him, which was quite silly, but then again, she was too. But then she donned a rather grim expression. "Did you do you homework, Mister Rogers?"
"I, my... oh yeah," Steve fumbled, taking a moment to realize she meant his note taking. "Mind if we take this inside?"
Kara's eyebrows rose, as if Steve had just suggested something incredibly scandalous. "... Sure, Mister Rogers."
"You know, you can call me Steve, right Kara?" He asked as he turned his keys and took large strides to his refrigerator. It was a brand new one that didn't work as well as the one Howard made a long time ago, but it was still American made, which was good enough in Steve's books.
"Sure, Mister Rogers," Kara nodded as she followed him into his abode. "Whatever you say, Mister Rogers."
"... That was a reference, wasn't it?" Steve sighed, realizing he had more movies to watch on his list. Everyone seemed to have an opinion on what movies to watch, and it was getting tiresome... he just wanted to know what was the part that everyone else was so excited about. It wasn't that he didn't like catching up on culture, it was just like... well, playing golf or something... it was a thing that only people with the luxury of having too much time on their hands to not bother with doing their jobs would be doing.
"Eh," Kara shrugged. "Oh, by the way, Mister Rogers, can I ask a favor of you?"
This gave Steve a pause. This was the first time his little neighbor asked anything from him; usually she just offered to help him with just about anything, like trying to carry his groceries for him as if he were an old man, but this was different. He turned to her and tried to hide the surprise on his face, "Sure Kara, what is it?"
She smiled brightly at this. "Oh, Mister Rogers. You're too nice! But, well, I'm heading over to California and some places for a few days—some business and stuff going hot, you see some business is, well, exploding, shall we say, and I was wondering if you could babysit my puppies for me, pretty please?"
Steve was surprised, and also a bit reluctant. He had just seen how Peggy was. Even friendships felt like something he wanted to recoil from. He knew a while ago that they were changing from just being neighbors and acquaintances into something that was probably friends, but she didn't know about his identity as Captain America. How could he have a friendship without showing that side of him, something that made him who he was? He wondered if he kept himself from thinking about this simply because he wanted to spare himself, or if he wanted to spare her from rejection.
But while he was thinking to himself, Kara plowed on as if he had nodded in agreement or at least acknowledged her. "So this Golden Retriever is Thor, he's the older brother and he's seven months old. See how he's sniffing your butt now? That's him liking you, probably. And this little sulking puppers is Loki the troublemaker, he's a German Shepard and he doesn't follow the rules! Rawr! You'll have to watch out for Loki because he'll bite your fingers if you're not careful."
Steve was speechless.
"... Hello? Mister Rogers? Can you keep Loki out of trouble, please?" Kara peered up at him innocently.
Steve sighed, mentally of course. After a moment he looked down at the two small dogs, 'Thor' was sitting on 'Loki'. "I... okay, Kara. A few days, you said?"
"Yeah! I have, like everything printed out and their food and stuff, thanks, Mister Rogers! You're the best!" She tried to jump up to hug him, but she only reached his chest at best and settled for hugging his waist. After a moment she turned and ran out his door, "Just give me a minute, I'll grab that, and um, did you finish watching the Princess Bride?"
"Yes," Steve nodded awkwardly, feeling almost compelled to keep an eye on the German Shepard puppy. "It was..." surprisingly "... good."
"Great, I'll get the sequels, the Princess Diaries too, and we can binge those!" She ran down the stairs to her apartment.
Steve turned back to the two puppies. One was trying to get at his mug and the other was running around in circles. "So this is what I came out of the ice for, huh. Could be worse."
inverted_helix
Connoisseur.
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Short of one made by Tony I don't think that you're going to get something better. It says something about the story I'm sure that I don't know whether she just named the dogs that way as a form of light trolling, or if she somehow transformed the Asgardians into dogs as a greater troll.Probably just named them, surely Thor would try to communicate more if it was really him transformed into a dog.
U.N.Spacy000
Semi-heretical
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I wonder how long it will be before you acquire him a toy red trolley and and some sweaters along with convincing him to saying Neighbor out loud.
theunderbolt
Zoom, Zoom, Iyaaan~
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So Tony is in his come at me bro stage.
theunderbolt
Zoom, Zoom, Iyaaan~
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If it wasn't for the fact that you said this was a silly fic I would think your trying to get Steve into some puppy therapy.
d.fish
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Wait, what's wrong with puppy therapy?
ryuan
The guy who can't write smut for shit
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He's probably a cat person.
The problem is that if he tried a 'kitty therapy' he would become a narcissistic sociopath instead.
theunderbolt
Zoom, Zoom, Iyaaan~
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What?! I love dogs they keep the sneaky Tanuki away!
So you are doing puppy therapy with a side of troll!
1.5 Tony 2
d.fish
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It has been a long night. Tony has not had a moment's rest, not really, in what felt like a life time. Everything ached, he felt like he'd never ran or walked as much as he had today. Everything hurt, and even though he thought he was still at the peak of his life, he felt, almost, old. Not invincible.
It was a bad feeling that vibrated in his bones, even now as he stared into the eyes of the old woman sitting across from him. Her tired, fearful eyes darted back and forth between Tony and the woman who cuffed him... this agent whom he knew was no agent. Her hand that held her badge glowed red, as if someone had strung thick cables of LED lights along her bones, under her flesh, pulsing eerily.
Tony nearly sighed. He'd been running on adrenaline for far too long, that he didn't even feel anything now. He just turned again towards the old, tired lady, nodding towards her.
She took his cue, tossing her folder of confidential information under a table.
He felt as tired as the scared woman looked; Tony knew the urgency of the moment—the fake FBI agent woman had drawn a gun, pointing it at an innocent bystander. Tony almost didn't even listen. He couldn't bring himself to, knowing that the poor man, despite helping him, was about to die. And it was all Tony's fault.
Tony's breathing skipped a step, and he nearly tripped on his own ankles. He tried to hold it off, the anxiety, the helplessness, the overwhelming feeling of being suffocated and drowned in an utter lack of strength...
… He still had some control over himself, and he darted towards the doors. The moment was just a moment, and it had passed, for now. It might return, but not while his life was so close to danger.
Bang.
Tony didn't turn around at the sound of the gun shot. He knew what had happened.
The sheriff was dead. The woman had followed him here. It was his fault. he could have prevented this.
If only... if only he'd... if...
"Hey, Mister Stark," a young, oddly familiar voice called out to him. It was accompanied by the sound of chewing gum and cheekiness, with the sort of attitude of a rebellious child might have had back in the nineties. "Where're you goin'?"
Despite himself, Tony turned around. It was that girl again. That girl who disappeared after the Battle of New York. The one they suspected of eating the core of the Tesseract, and the head of Loki's scepter... whoever she was. The girl was holding the fake agent woman's wrists as if she were holding a half-filled grocery bag, with the bare minimum of her forefinger, middle finger and her thumb. In her other hand, she was holding onto a black, round metallic thing that shone in the dark light of the bar.
Tony's eyes focused on that, and he realized it... it was a bullet. But it wasn't a normal bullet, and not in the traditional sense either. The bullet had impacted against the girl's palm, but it looked like it'd been plucked out of the air at the same time, squeezed slightly down the middle of the shell. It was as if the bullet had been moved around so fast that it'd taken on the properties of a liquid, only to stop and roll around between the strange girl's fingers. It looked like, well, a piece of chewed bubble gum.
"... Uh. Out." Tony replied. He didn't know how to feel about this girl. She was clearly dangerous, but why was she here? So many questions fluttered at the surface of his mind, but Tony didn't feel like even processing through them. He was an engineer, not a detective. He didn't like dealing with these things, so out of the field that he didn't know what to think of them. He had too little information on who he was dealing with to begin with, and if this girl, whom all he knew about was that she could eat an energy source that could open wormholes—how much power that is, he had some ideas—he might as well just give up now.
"Really? But I just got here." She raised an eyebrow at him, almost as if she were a cat looking at a cornered mouse. Tony had seen that look on many a woman before, most of them thinking they had him cornered. This was familiar territory, and he almost felt safe. But she wasn't looking at him, but at the entrance behind him. Tony turned over his shoulder, seeing only a little girl shaped hole in the walls, right beside the door. She chortled, "ah, well, if I go through the door, people will expect me, see?"
"Uh huh." He inched away from her.
"Ah, please, none of that! Is, um, this lady important to you?" She turned to the fake agent, who was now nearly all red faced. The woman was not blushing, but actually glowing in the face and eyes in the same way her hands were. Actually, her wrists were glowing in the same way—hot enough to melt metals—but the little girl didn't even seem to notice.
"... well." Tony shrugged, remembering not to shrug too hard with his cuffed wrists. "Maybe? I'd rather just get away from her, if it's all the same to you."
"Now, hold on here, what in tarnation is going on?" The rotund sheriff who Tony had assumed would have died, if not for the little girl, roared at Tony. His eyes darted between him and the girl and the woman, utterly lost. "Who in the hell are you? Who in the hell is he? What the hell is going on?"
"You," the little girl dropped the bullet and poked the sheriff in the forehead, "can go get me a glass of... hm, what do I wanna drink at a bar? Oh, gimme a glass of milk."
Tony couldn't see the sheriff's expression, but from his side, he only saw the man nod and walk away.
Tony's heart skipped a beat. What the hell was that? That looked like... like when Loki stabbed someone with his spear. He suddenly felt even smaller than before, his battered ego so utterly bruised by the last few days' worth of events, Tony wanted nothing more than to roar up at the sky at how unfair things were.
Then the girl poked the woman's forehead, and Tony saw it clearly this time. The woman's eyes darkened into pure blackness, no whites, no colors, just utter darkness. And then they cleared, and her eyes glowed with an eerie golden aura. And then the girl began to speak, her eyes darting towards Tony, almost as if she were speaking for his benefit. But what were the odds of that? "So, what's your name?"
"Brandt." The woman spoke tonelessly, too calm, too fitting for the now utterly soundless bar. She didn't notice everyone else was staring at them, not even the girl seemed to notice or care, but Tony sure did.
"Right then," the girl smiled an innocent smile directly at Tony. But to Tony, it looked deceptive, and he wondered how a being like her could have such a pure smile. She could be some kind of sociopath. "Mister Stark, why don't you have a seat over there?"
He wanted to say something like that he'll stand, thanks, or something to that effect. But the girl's eyes glowed, not with the same eerie yellow-red light of the woman, Brandt, but like a multifaceted, multicolored gem... always with a sort of red rage behind it.
Clink.
Tony looked down, his cuffs were melted down the middle as if they were made of soft ice, yet he couldn't feel the heat.
Well.
It wouldn't hurt to hear her out.
"What... are you doing here? Who are you?" Tony blurted as he pulled out a chair. The sheriff had returned, with a glass of milk, before sitting down at the bar, as if he were minding his own business. But Tony saw him watching them, unblinkingly.
"I'm Kara. And I'm here because I noticed you could use an intern, Mister Stark." She puffed out her chest, as if she were proud to ask for an internship from Tony Stark.
That did sooth his ego, if a little.
Still...
"... What."
"Oh, right, before I forget, she comes in pairs." There was a blur, and she disappeared.
Tony blinked.
Kara was back, and she was holding onto a struggling, bald man.
Tony had seen this man somewhere before. Maybe? This night had become so crazy that he'd...
She poked his forehead, and he became a zombie like Brandt. And then she nudged his ribs, as if reminding him of something. He spoke tonelessly too, "I am Savin."
"Tony," He replied reflexively. He paused. "Wait. How are you doing that?"
"Oh," Kara clapped her hands. "Goodie! Exposition time! I love this part!"
Tony frowned. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but the girl had already started talking as if she were letting out a stream of sound out of a dam, as if there were no spaces between her words.
"You know that Tesseract you guys were trying to protect? Did Thor tell you what was in it? Oh, yeah how is he, did he get home fine?" She suddenly took on a look of concern, but Tony couldn't help but feel it felt a little off. How could she care so much, so suddenly, and yet not even think about it until this moment.
That was another little clue that supported his idea that she was like Thor... something not from Earth. "Yeah, there was enough residual energy for him to return. What is it, the core of the Tesseract? Some kind of treasure?" It seemed that way, with how people fought over it.
She sighed happily. "Phew! Yeah! It's one of six, like, things that were probably left from the death of a previous universe. Well, that's what I think anyway, they say it's basically something that's been around before the beginning of the universe, forged into an ingot. Ingot... that's a funny word."
Tony snapped in front of Kara's face. "Focus."
"... Uh, sure, Mister Stark," Kara deferred to his command, which was strange. She didn't seem to have that same sort of hangups that Thor and Loki had, the sort of ego and feeling of arrogant superiority... yet she could catch a bullet as if it were a softball. "So... there's six infinity stones, and there's like a thing that says if you get all of them, you're like omnipotent and omniscient and everything. And that guy who's the boss of the boss of those Chitauri you guys fought? He's this guy called Thanos, who's like one of the most powerful people in the universe, wrecks entire planets and everything."
"Uh huh," Tony wished he had Jarvis here. At least he'd be able to record this conversation. Now he had to remember all of this, somehow, and keep track of all the things the girl was saying, none of which seemed to make any sense. But he'd allow her to talk, if nothing else than to learn more... this was certainly lore that Thor hadn't shared.
Why? Why didn't Thor tell them any of this? Did he not know? But the way she talked, as if she expected Thor to know...
"What's this all got to do with you mind whammying them like," Tony motioned towards the two fake agents. "That."
"Oh... uh, so inside Loki's scepter, there's another gem... ah, right, so inside the Tesseract, there's one of the six infinity stones, the space gem. And there's one in Loki's called the mind gem." She patted her stomach proudly, "and I can use them in ways Loki could only dream! Well, no, that's just boasting, I guess I can use them pretty well."
Tony held up a hand. This was a fucking lot to take in. "Six 'infinity stones' that, combined, make the owner omnipotent and omniscient. And you have two of them." He made air quotes.
"Three, actually," Kara shook her head cutely, as if she were a regular middle schooler. "I got the time gem too."
"Three," Tony deadpanned. What the hell was the world coming to? "And why are you here?"
"I want to be your intern?" She smiled up at him hopefully, as if she hadn't been dropping bombs on him for the past five minutes. "Like, do you think if you gave me a space ship, it'd be my internship intern's ship?"
Tony cupped his face into his palms. He didn't need this right now. In fact, he wished he was facing the Mandarin instead. This was too much madness, too soon, for his life, even for him. As if he were asking God, he sighed, "Why me?"
Kara shrugged. "This universe of marvelous heroes and cinematic events sort of started, in its modern form, with you doing the Ironman, no?"
It sounded nice, but it wasn't what he wanted to hear.
And as if she'd notice she was being watched by the rest of the bar, Tony saw through the gap between his fingers Kara turning around and smiling and waving at everyone else in the bar. "Hail Hydra everyone! … I'm just kidding, it was a joke, bro! Or is it?"
Tony sighed. Where was that anxiety attack when you needed it?
It was a bad feeling that vibrated in his bones, even now as he stared into the eyes of the old woman sitting across from him. Her tired, fearful eyes darted back and forth between Tony and the woman who cuffed him... this agent whom he knew was no agent. Her hand that held her badge glowed red, as if someone had strung thick cables of LED lights along her bones, under her flesh, pulsing eerily.
Tony nearly sighed. He'd been running on adrenaline for far too long, that he didn't even feel anything now. He just turned again towards the old, tired lady, nodding towards her.
She took his cue, tossing her folder of confidential information under a table.
He felt as tired as the scared woman looked; Tony knew the urgency of the moment—the fake FBI agent woman had drawn a gun, pointing it at an innocent bystander. Tony almost didn't even listen. He couldn't bring himself to, knowing that the poor man, despite helping him, was about to die. And it was all Tony's fault.
Tony's breathing skipped a step, and he nearly tripped on his own ankles. He tried to hold it off, the anxiety, the helplessness, the overwhelming feeling of being suffocated and drowned in an utter lack of strength...
… He still had some control over himself, and he darted towards the doors. The moment was just a moment, and it had passed, for now. It might return, but not while his life was so close to danger.
Bang.
Tony didn't turn around at the sound of the gun shot. He knew what had happened.
The sheriff was dead. The woman had followed him here. It was his fault. he could have prevented this.
If only... if only he'd... if...
"Hey, Mister Stark," a young, oddly familiar voice called out to him. It was accompanied by the sound of chewing gum and cheekiness, with the sort of attitude of a rebellious child might have had back in the nineties. "Where're you goin'?"
Despite himself, Tony turned around. It was that girl again. That girl who disappeared after the Battle of New York. The one they suspected of eating the core of the Tesseract, and the head of Loki's scepter... whoever she was. The girl was holding the fake agent woman's wrists as if she were holding a half-filled grocery bag, with the bare minimum of her forefinger, middle finger and her thumb. In her other hand, she was holding onto a black, round metallic thing that shone in the dark light of the bar.
Tony's eyes focused on that, and he realized it... it was a bullet. But it wasn't a normal bullet, and not in the traditional sense either. The bullet had impacted against the girl's palm, but it looked like it'd been plucked out of the air at the same time, squeezed slightly down the middle of the shell. It was as if the bullet had been moved around so fast that it'd taken on the properties of a liquid, only to stop and roll around between the strange girl's fingers. It looked like, well, a piece of chewed bubble gum.
"... Uh. Out." Tony replied. He didn't know how to feel about this girl. She was clearly dangerous, but why was she here? So many questions fluttered at the surface of his mind, but Tony didn't feel like even processing through them. He was an engineer, not a detective. He didn't like dealing with these things, so out of the field that he didn't know what to think of them. He had too little information on who he was dealing with to begin with, and if this girl, whom all he knew about was that she could eat an energy source that could open wormholes—how much power that is, he had some ideas—he might as well just give up now.
"Really? But I just got here." She raised an eyebrow at him, almost as if she were a cat looking at a cornered mouse. Tony had seen that look on many a woman before, most of them thinking they had him cornered. This was familiar territory, and he almost felt safe. But she wasn't looking at him, but at the entrance behind him. Tony turned over his shoulder, seeing only a little girl shaped hole in the walls, right beside the door. She chortled, "ah, well, if I go through the door, people will expect me, see?"
"Uh huh." He inched away from her.
"Ah, please, none of that! Is, um, this lady important to you?" She turned to the fake agent, who was now nearly all red faced. The woman was not blushing, but actually glowing in the face and eyes in the same way her hands were. Actually, her wrists were glowing in the same way—hot enough to melt metals—but the little girl didn't even seem to notice.
"... well." Tony shrugged, remembering not to shrug too hard with his cuffed wrists. "Maybe? I'd rather just get away from her, if it's all the same to you."
"Now, hold on here, what in tarnation is going on?" The rotund sheriff who Tony had assumed would have died, if not for the little girl, roared at Tony. His eyes darted between him and the girl and the woman, utterly lost. "Who in the hell are you? Who in the hell is he? What the hell is going on?"
"You," the little girl dropped the bullet and poked the sheriff in the forehead, "can go get me a glass of... hm, what do I wanna drink at a bar? Oh, gimme a glass of milk."
Tony couldn't see the sheriff's expression, but from his side, he only saw the man nod and walk away.
Tony's heart skipped a beat. What the hell was that? That looked like... like when Loki stabbed someone with his spear. He suddenly felt even smaller than before, his battered ego so utterly bruised by the last few days' worth of events, Tony wanted nothing more than to roar up at the sky at how unfair things were.
Then the girl poked the woman's forehead, and Tony saw it clearly this time. The woman's eyes darkened into pure blackness, no whites, no colors, just utter darkness. And then they cleared, and her eyes glowed with an eerie golden aura. And then the girl began to speak, her eyes darting towards Tony, almost as if she were speaking for his benefit. But what were the odds of that? "So, what's your name?"
"Brandt." The woman spoke tonelessly, too calm, too fitting for the now utterly soundless bar. She didn't notice everyone else was staring at them, not even the girl seemed to notice or care, but Tony sure did.
"Right then," the girl smiled an innocent smile directly at Tony. But to Tony, it looked deceptive, and he wondered how a being like her could have such a pure smile. She could be some kind of sociopath. "Mister Stark, why don't you have a seat over there?"
He wanted to say something like that he'll stand, thanks, or something to that effect. But the girl's eyes glowed, not with the same eerie yellow-red light of the woman, Brandt, but like a multifaceted, multicolored gem... always with a sort of red rage behind it.
Clink.
Tony looked down, his cuffs were melted down the middle as if they were made of soft ice, yet he couldn't feel the heat.
Well.
It wouldn't hurt to hear her out.
"What... are you doing here? Who are you?" Tony blurted as he pulled out a chair. The sheriff had returned, with a glass of milk, before sitting down at the bar, as if he were minding his own business. But Tony saw him watching them, unblinkingly.
"I'm Kara. And I'm here because I noticed you could use an intern, Mister Stark." She puffed out her chest, as if she were proud to ask for an internship from Tony Stark.
That did sooth his ego, if a little.
Still...
"... What."
"Oh, right, before I forget, she comes in pairs." There was a blur, and she disappeared.
Tony blinked.
Kara was back, and she was holding onto a struggling, bald man.
Tony had seen this man somewhere before. Maybe? This night had become so crazy that he'd...
She poked his forehead, and he became a zombie like Brandt. And then she nudged his ribs, as if reminding him of something. He spoke tonelessly too, "I am Savin."
"Tony," He replied reflexively. He paused. "Wait. How are you doing that?"
"Oh," Kara clapped her hands. "Goodie! Exposition time! I love this part!"
Tony frowned. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but the girl had already started talking as if she were letting out a stream of sound out of a dam, as if there were no spaces between her words.
"You know that Tesseract you guys were trying to protect? Did Thor tell you what was in it? Oh, yeah how is he, did he get home fine?" She suddenly took on a look of concern, but Tony couldn't help but feel it felt a little off. How could she care so much, so suddenly, and yet not even think about it until this moment.
That was another little clue that supported his idea that she was like Thor... something not from Earth. "Yeah, there was enough residual energy for him to return. What is it, the core of the Tesseract? Some kind of treasure?" It seemed that way, with how people fought over it.
She sighed happily. "Phew! Yeah! It's one of six, like, things that were probably left from the death of a previous universe. Well, that's what I think anyway, they say it's basically something that's been around before the beginning of the universe, forged into an ingot. Ingot... that's a funny word."
Tony snapped in front of Kara's face. "Focus."
"... Uh, sure, Mister Stark," Kara deferred to his command, which was strange. She didn't seem to have that same sort of hangups that Thor and Loki had, the sort of ego and feeling of arrogant superiority... yet she could catch a bullet as if it were a softball. "So... there's six infinity stones, and there's like a thing that says if you get all of them, you're like omnipotent and omniscient and everything. And that guy who's the boss of the boss of those Chitauri you guys fought? He's this guy called Thanos, who's like one of the most powerful people in the universe, wrecks entire planets and everything."
"Uh huh," Tony wished he had Jarvis here. At least he'd be able to record this conversation. Now he had to remember all of this, somehow, and keep track of all the things the girl was saying, none of which seemed to make any sense. But he'd allow her to talk, if nothing else than to learn more... this was certainly lore that Thor hadn't shared.
Why? Why didn't Thor tell them any of this? Did he not know? But the way she talked, as if she expected Thor to know...
"What's this all got to do with you mind whammying them like," Tony motioned towards the two fake agents. "That."
"Oh... uh, so inside Loki's scepter, there's another gem... ah, right, so inside the Tesseract, there's one of the six infinity stones, the space gem. And there's one in Loki's called the mind gem." She patted her stomach proudly, "and I can use them in ways Loki could only dream! Well, no, that's just boasting, I guess I can use them pretty well."
Tony held up a hand. This was a fucking lot to take in. "Six 'infinity stones' that, combined, make the owner omnipotent and omniscient. And you have two of them." He made air quotes.
"Three, actually," Kara shook her head cutely, as if she were a regular middle schooler. "I got the time gem too."
"Three," Tony deadpanned. What the hell was the world coming to? "And why are you here?"
"I want to be your intern?" She smiled up at him hopefully, as if she hadn't been dropping bombs on him for the past five minutes. "Like, do you think if you gave me a space ship, it'd be my internship intern's ship?"
Tony cupped his face into his palms. He didn't need this right now. In fact, he wished he was facing the Mandarin instead. This was too much madness, too soon, for his life, even for him. As if he were asking God, he sighed, "Why me?"
Kara shrugged. "This universe of marvelous heroes and cinematic events sort of started, in its modern form, with you doing the Ironman, no?"
It sounded nice, but it wasn't what he wanted to hear.
And as if she'd notice she was being watched by the rest of the bar, Tony saw through the gap between his fingers Kara turning around and smiling and waving at everyone else in the bar. "Hail Hydra everyone! … I'm just kidding, it was a joke, bro! Or is it?"
Tony sighed. Where was that anxiety attack when you needed it?
inverted_helix
Connoisseur.
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This line just cracks me up so much. Mmm yummy yummy in my tummy.
Kind of curious about that one actually. Given magic generally works against Kryptonians as well as it does against anyone else, I'd have expected its defenses to actually stop her.
Also she hasn't actually demonstrated the level of utter bullshit the time gem would allow.
Though she hadn't actually used any of them until now, but the time gem would have negated the need for someone to watch her dogs.
OverReactionGuy
The only Sane one left
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Dead pool would love her.
CrossyCross
LADY OF LOVE
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This is old school kryptonian. Reality isn't cardboard so much as taffy they can twist and distort as they please. Magic? Fuck that. They'll just forget they were ever vulnerable to it and bullshit some rando explanation as to how suddenly they're messing with it.
Wait, can someone explain to me where the third one came from? One from the tesseract, one from Loki's scepter, where's the third?
Evillevi
Shadow Pika!
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Dr Strange Eye of Arganomot (However you spell it) is implied to be the gem of time.
OverReactionGuy
The only Sane one left
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Guarded by the sorcerer supreme in her temple thingy place.
CrossyCross
LADY OF LOVE
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Thanks. I never watched doctor strange so I didn't know.
theunderbolt
Zoom, Zoom, Iyaaan~
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The universe was not ready for the arrival of Superfish.
inverted_helix
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This makes me wonder if her stomach is going to eventually figure out how to digest Infinity Stones.
Though as it is I'm kind of wishing this story was slower paced. It's very funny, but it's burning through plot way too fast. She's already way OP, she's going to get all 6 infinity stones and be truly omnipotent in short order at this rate.
Would enjoy this story being 3x as long with more creepy cheery student/neighbor/intern action.
1.6 Interlude 1
d.fish
Lés Bien
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Notes: I seem to remember something being the inspiration of this chapter... but I can't seem to remember what it was...
He ran into his office in a panic. His face was pale and covered in a sheen of sweat, and his hands shook with the anxiety built up from the past few weeks. His fingers slipped twice off of the doorknob of his olden styled, cramped office before he forced open his door. It always jammed the first time he opened the door each day, he had to lift it up almost a millimeter before the windowed door would creak open.
His office was filled with files, some half packed and some sticking out of filing cabinets. The mahogany desk that sat at the center of his room like the nucleus of the room held many stacks of papers. It wasn't that he needed them, but with the on goings since the now named Battle of New York, everything had changed. No one watched his show anymore, not after the truth of aliens exploded into existence through the wormhole in the sky...
… No one believed his shows. They didn't even bother calling it pseudohistory anymore, they just called it fake. After all, why couldn't he predict it? Everything was collapsing around him, and after working on his shows for this long? He didn't know what to do. Everything in his life ended that day at New York, even though he wasn't there.
"Mister..." A voice startled him out of his moment of rest—he'd almost had a second of calm—and filtered out from beyond the hills of unsorted and unboxed papers. "... Su kalos?"
"Tsoukalos," Giorgio replied heavily, not even caring to make a fuss about someone somehow sneaking into his office and sitting down in his chair. He looked up and saw the almost cherubic visage of someone who had too smooth of skin and too fine of hair. But Giorgio knew these types of people. They were young, beautiful and talented, the perfect type of carrier of bad news. He braced himself for the worst—it can't get any worse than having his show, Ancient Aliens, canceled, could it? "What can I do for you, Miss...?"
"Zorelle, Kara Zorelle," the girl replied with an almost knowing grin. She said her name with a sort of accent that Giorgio couldn't quite place, as if it wasn't spelled the way he envisioned it in his head. But then she tilted her head to a side questioningly and reached out to shake his hand. "Hi!"
"Hello," Giorgio demurred. "So... Zorelle like the character from the Wheel of Time, huh?"
The girl, Kara, blinked and frowned. "No... Wheel of Time, you say? I should get to reading that eventually. You know how you feel like you have all the time in the world and that only makes you want to procrastinate more?"
He used to, but that was a lifetime ago, when he wasn't in a position of responsibility. Even before he was a promoter, perhaps back when he was in school, he'd have procrastinated once or twice. People thought he was the type from how wild his hair was, but it was just a look, really. He didn't even believe everything that his show said... well, not completely, anyway. He always though there were aliens out there, but not... well, he was getting off track. Giorgio shook his head, "I don't have much time for anything, Miss Zorelle. Is there something I can help you with? And can I ask how you get into my office?"
She started up at him and then down at her outreached hand that had been left unshaken. Then she blew out a sigh and rolled her eyes at him, as if this was what she'd expected of the lunatic who was turned into an internet meme about aliens. She allowed her hand to fall down to her lap, where she steepled her fingers and a shadow fell over her eyes.
And suddenly, Giorgio Tsoukalos was very, very aware of how the formerly innocent-looking blonde sitting in his old chair had eyes that glowed like they held the fires from the pits of hell. He gulped audibly.
His mind cluttered with ideas—both for a new episode, and for the scenario. He could make something of a girl with glowing eyes on television, but what did it mean? Was she a demon? Was she an alien? Everything changed after New York... everything was possible.
This scared him.
"Mister Tsoukalos," Kara Zorelle tasted his name on the tip of her tongue as if she were Agent Smith and she was enunciating Neo's name with painful slowness. "What would you say, if I were to tell you that you were... on the right track?"
"... Excuse me?" He did not expect this, even though he should have. This was... this was what he needed. The possibilities flooded into his mind, he knew what those words meant, but he almost couldn't comprehend them when they were put together. Think of it... the very idea of actual ancient aliens...?
She took a deep breath in a way that was a cross between a person trying very desperately to hold back laughter and a sigh of exasperation, but it came out to seem like she was almost disappointed in him. "I am here because I thought you were a person who made a show about aliens. Most people don't do that. Most people don't believe aliens existed on earth, well, before..."
"New York," Giorgio finished her sentence for him.
"Yeah," she nodded.
"Are you saying... what I think you're saying?" Giorgio's lower lip trembled. There was certainly something surreal about this situation, about what they were talking about, but all he could think of was the laughter of his peers. His mind flashed back to when he went to reunions, how even his classmates who became the least successful of their class—people who had to do stints in places like McDonald's and Starbucks—would mock him. He thought of family reunions.
Yes, he couldn't control how his lower lip trembled. Validation was withing sight, coming out of nowhere, and the more he looked down at the little girl—too small, as if she were just a freshmen in highschool or something, still dressed in baggy Levi's jeans and a sweater with a Stark Industries logo printed on it that was more to the size of a grown adult man than for a girl—he thought she looked almost angelic.
He wanted to thank her, hold her hands and cry, as if she were a prophet of old.
"Yeah?" She stared at him warily, and he realized he was being too emotional.
No, Giorgio Tsoukalos was a professional, first and foremost. He straightened his back and fixed his posture, a posture that was too fixed to look good on television for a camera's angle and actually looked quite awkward in real life, and he reached out to shake her hand. "It is... an honor to meet you, Miss Zorelle, but what do you want from me?"
He was too familiar with the world of show business.
It was always going to be a matter of give and take... that was why he could only take the scraps he could get. And that was why his show was scrapped.
She seemed amused by this. "Do you have your crew?"
"Only," he swallowed thickly, "only the bare bones. Everyone else is already on other projects."
"Well, that's fine. You want an interview? Or do you want to have some evidence?" Her eyes darted down to her nails, as if she were trying to convey with obviousness that she was growing bored of their conversation.
That, Giorgio could understand. He realized this was an alien who looked human, and yet she was also very intimate with human actions.
Those were some very precise microexpressions on her face, he noticed as he stared at her.
"B-Both?"
She chortled.
"Okay."
He rushed to get something set up, even if it was to take place in his office.
There wasn't anywhere else they had, at the moment, with the proper lighting, and he felt like he couldn't just ask her to stay. He couldn't take that sort of rejection, and he wouldn't jeopardize this endeavor for the sake of perfection. He had to get the word out there... he could have one final episode, something to end and tie it all together. So what if they canceled his show? His name would live on forever if he could do this right.
And so they gathered a camera man and an intern to help with the lights, and they got to work. And of course, an inner nerd part of Giorgio's mind was shaking with glee.
He was about to interview a real, living alien... with proof.
And then they began, and she blew his mind, over and over again, and he knew they had gold.
"The world is older than you know, Mister Tsoukalos, beings far older than humanity, as you are now, have come and gone on earth. You guys seem to think you know this, even before, you know, New York. You got dinosaur bones," Kara leaned back, starting slow. That was fine—they could edit footage later. But of course, an unedited version would definitely make a definitive Blu-ray sales go through the roof.
"So how do you fit into all this?" He asked excitedly.
"Well, I was on Earth a couple thousand years ago. And a while before that... I visited a few earlier time periods. The Earth is a very interesting place, dinosaurs certainly were, but... it was really around the time of the Romans that, um, people got to knew Earth, outside of Earth. They still call this planet Terra, on other planets, you know?" She added.
"Terra... so there's a story behind that?" He asked, thinking he'd definitely have to ask one of his friends, a professor from DeVry University, to add extra commentary on this. It wouldn't be the History Channel without that.
"Oh, yeah, definitely. So, there have been people trying to invade Earth, or Terra, for thousands of years. There's even things from strange dimensions without time trying to get in... I wasn't always around to save the world, and you guys didn't have your first Avenger until Hitler's time." Kara mused on this for a moment. There was a lull in the conversation, but he didn't dare interrupt her thoughts, not when she was about to drop another bomb.
But after a minute, he got antsy and impatient and asked, "So who protected the Ea... er, Terra before?" He'd have to get used to calling the planet that, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
"Oh, all sorts of people. One of my teachers, a human, who only calls herself the Ancient One, she protected the world for a few hundred years." Miss Zorelle revealed, as if she were just talking about the weather.
And that shocked Giorgio.
It was like she was just talking about something that happened yesterday... but he knew she was talking about something that must have happened hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.
"... So this Ancient One, she was a human and she taught you? Have other aliens come to Terra for teaching of mankind?" He asked.
"Oh, sure. Why, I know there's a Celestial who even came here and fell in love." Kara grinned, but then she paused. "Ah, but I'm getting off topic. See, the Ancient One is actually the leader of an ancient order sworn to keep the world safe... they had a lot of names in the past, but you guys called them 'sorcerers', and that's what they call themselves."
"Sorcerers," Giorgio repeated. He was already thinking about how he could get someone who was an expert on Arthurian legends from the University of Phoenix to talk about how Merlin was actually a defender of the entire world. He could see it... this episode had enough information for a two-parter.
He could even make a new episode talking about how alien technology was just human magic! Let them call his show pseudoscience after that! Ha!
"Yeah, so, they sort of have bases in like, New York, and Hong Kong, and some place in Nepal. Yeah." She paused and then tried to count off one by one with her fingers. "Yeah, that should be right. So, um, there's a Celestial who visited earth back during the Hippie ages. Oh, right a Celestial is basically a cosmic god. Not like Thor—he's just an Asgardian, so he'll just live, like, five thousand years or something. A Celestial is someone who basically lives forever and has enough power to blow up planets like hotcake. Did I use that right?"
"Um," Giorgio tried to wrap his head around Miss Zorelle's previous statement.
"What even is a hotcake? I'd like to try one. See, I skipped a lot of human history, so there's that problem... maybe I'll look it up. Wikipedia is really helpful," she added.
"... Yeah."
"Hey, you wanna see the little house I left here one of the times I visited your past?" She asked suddenly.
"Sure," Giorgio replied before he realized what he was agreeing to. He hadn't asked all the questions. There was so much more he had to know—about the invasion of New York, even!
She waved a hand, and a hole appeared on the wall of his office. A blast of cold air drifted in, and he had to turn away at the biting chill. The hole... the portal... was similar to the one that appeared above New York, it was lined by a glow of blue light and it showed a wintry land on the other side.
"Erm, where are we going?" Giorgio asked uncertainly. He wasn't sure if he was properly dressed for this.
"Antarctica!" She grinned like a shark. "A couple million years ago, I put a little outpost there and named it Atlantis, but I think it's like, really covered in snow now. Well, we can portal right into it and I can just get it out of the ground or something. It's like my Fortress of Solitude, but you know, I guess the word got out or something, right? It actually had some stuff to do with ancient humans, maybe? I don't know, honestly. I just put it together.
I do have a little gate to other planets down there though...
"
Ah, Giorgio Tsoukalos realized it finally. It wasn't going to be a two-parter. He'll have enough content and footage to make a new season, if not a whole new show!
---
He ran into his office in a panic. His face was pale and covered in a sheen of sweat, and his hands shook with the anxiety built up from the past few weeks. His fingers slipped twice off of the doorknob of his olden styled, cramped office before he forced open his door. It always jammed the first time he opened the door each day, he had to lift it up almost a millimeter before the windowed door would creak open.
His office was filled with files, some half packed and some sticking out of filing cabinets. The mahogany desk that sat at the center of his room like the nucleus of the room held many stacks of papers. It wasn't that he needed them, but with the on goings since the now named Battle of New York, everything had changed. No one watched his show anymore, not after the truth of aliens exploded into existence through the wormhole in the sky...
… No one believed his shows. They didn't even bother calling it pseudohistory anymore, they just called it fake. After all, why couldn't he predict it? Everything was collapsing around him, and after working on his shows for this long? He didn't know what to do. Everything in his life ended that day at New York, even though he wasn't there.
"Mister..." A voice startled him out of his moment of rest—he'd almost had a second of calm—and filtered out from beyond the hills of unsorted and unboxed papers. "... Su kalos?"
"Tsoukalos," Giorgio replied heavily, not even caring to make a fuss about someone somehow sneaking into his office and sitting down in his chair. He looked up and saw the almost cherubic visage of someone who had too smooth of skin and too fine of hair. But Giorgio knew these types of people. They were young, beautiful and talented, the perfect type of carrier of bad news. He braced himself for the worst—it can't get any worse than having his show, Ancient Aliens, canceled, could it? "What can I do for you, Miss...?"
"Zorelle, Kara Zorelle," the girl replied with an almost knowing grin. She said her name with a sort of accent that Giorgio couldn't quite place, as if it wasn't spelled the way he envisioned it in his head. But then she tilted her head to a side questioningly and reached out to shake his hand. "Hi!"
"Hello," Giorgio demurred. "So... Zorelle like the character from the Wheel of Time, huh?"
The girl, Kara, blinked and frowned. "No... Wheel of Time, you say? I should get to reading that eventually. You know how you feel like you have all the time in the world and that only makes you want to procrastinate more?"
He used to, but that was a lifetime ago, when he wasn't in a position of responsibility. Even before he was a promoter, perhaps back when he was in school, he'd have procrastinated once or twice. People thought he was the type from how wild his hair was, but it was just a look, really. He didn't even believe everything that his show said... well, not completely, anyway. He always though there were aliens out there, but not... well, he was getting off track. Giorgio shook his head, "I don't have much time for anything, Miss Zorelle. Is there something I can help you with? And can I ask how you get into my office?"
She started up at him and then down at her outreached hand that had been left unshaken. Then she blew out a sigh and rolled her eyes at him, as if this was what she'd expected of the lunatic who was turned into an internet meme about aliens. She allowed her hand to fall down to her lap, where she steepled her fingers and a shadow fell over her eyes.
And suddenly, Giorgio Tsoukalos was very, very aware of how the formerly innocent-looking blonde sitting in his old chair had eyes that glowed like they held the fires from the pits of hell. He gulped audibly.
His mind cluttered with ideas—both for a new episode, and for the scenario. He could make something of a girl with glowing eyes on television, but what did it mean? Was she a demon? Was she an alien? Everything changed after New York... everything was possible.
This scared him.
"Mister Tsoukalos," Kara Zorelle tasted his name on the tip of her tongue as if she were Agent Smith and she was enunciating Neo's name with painful slowness. "What would you say, if I were to tell you that you were... on the right track?"
"... Excuse me?" He did not expect this, even though he should have. This was... this was what he needed. The possibilities flooded into his mind, he knew what those words meant, but he almost couldn't comprehend them when they were put together. Think of it... the very idea of actual ancient aliens...?
She took a deep breath in a way that was a cross between a person trying very desperately to hold back laughter and a sigh of exasperation, but it came out to seem like she was almost disappointed in him. "I am here because I thought you were a person who made a show about aliens. Most people don't do that. Most people don't believe aliens existed on earth, well, before..."
"New York," Giorgio finished her sentence for him.
"Yeah," she nodded.
"Are you saying... what I think you're saying?" Giorgio's lower lip trembled. There was certainly something surreal about this situation, about what they were talking about, but all he could think of was the laughter of his peers. His mind flashed back to when he went to reunions, how even his classmates who became the least successful of their class—people who had to do stints in places like McDonald's and Starbucks—would mock him. He thought of family reunions.
Yes, he couldn't control how his lower lip trembled. Validation was withing sight, coming out of nowhere, and the more he looked down at the little girl—too small, as if she were just a freshmen in highschool or something, still dressed in baggy Levi's jeans and a sweater with a Stark Industries logo printed on it that was more to the size of a grown adult man than for a girl—he thought she looked almost angelic.
He wanted to thank her, hold her hands and cry, as if she were a prophet of old.
"Yeah?" She stared at him warily, and he realized he was being too emotional.
No, Giorgio Tsoukalos was a professional, first and foremost. He straightened his back and fixed his posture, a posture that was too fixed to look good on television for a camera's angle and actually looked quite awkward in real life, and he reached out to shake her hand. "It is... an honor to meet you, Miss Zorelle, but what do you want from me?"
He was too familiar with the world of show business.
It was always going to be a matter of give and take... that was why he could only take the scraps he could get. And that was why his show was scrapped.
She seemed amused by this. "Do you have your crew?"
"Only," he swallowed thickly, "only the bare bones. Everyone else is already on other projects."
"Well, that's fine. You want an interview? Or do you want to have some evidence?" Her eyes darted down to her nails, as if she were trying to convey with obviousness that she was growing bored of their conversation.
That, Giorgio could understand. He realized this was an alien who looked human, and yet she was also very intimate with human actions.
Those were some very precise microexpressions on her face, he noticed as he stared at her.
"B-Both?"
She chortled.
"Okay."
He rushed to get something set up, even if it was to take place in his office.
There wasn't anywhere else they had, at the moment, with the proper lighting, and he felt like he couldn't just ask her to stay. He couldn't take that sort of rejection, and he wouldn't jeopardize this endeavor for the sake of perfection. He had to get the word out there... he could have one final episode, something to end and tie it all together. So what if they canceled his show? His name would live on forever if he could do this right.
And so they gathered a camera man and an intern to help with the lights, and they got to work. And of course, an inner nerd part of Giorgio's mind was shaking with glee.
He was about to interview a real, living alien... with proof.
And then they began, and she blew his mind, over and over again, and he knew they had gold.
"The world is older than you know, Mister Tsoukalos, beings far older than humanity, as you are now, have come and gone on earth. You guys seem to think you know this, even before, you know, New York. You got dinosaur bones," Kara leaned back, starting slow. That was fine—they could edit footage later. But of course, an unedited version would definitely make a definitive Blu-ray sales go through the roof.
"So how do you fit into all this?" He asked excitedly.
"Well, I was on Earth a couple thousand years ago. And a while before that... I visited a few earlier time periods. The Earth is a very interesting place, dinosaurs certainly were, but... it was really around the time of the Romans that, um, people got to knew Earth, outside of Earth. They still call this planet Terra, on other planets, you know?" She added.
"Terra... so there's a story behind that?" He asked, thinking he'd definitely have to ask one of his friends, a professor from DeVry University, to add extra commentary on this. It wouldn't be the History Channel without that.
"Oh, yeah, definitely. So, there have been people trying to invade Earth, or Terra, for thousands of years. There's even things from strange dimensions without time trying to get in... I wasn't always around to save the world, and you guys didn't have your first Avenger until Hitler's time." Kara mused on this for a moment. There was a lull in the conversation, but he didn't dare interrupt her thoughts, not when she was about to drop another bomb.
But after a minute, he got antsy and impatient and asked, "So who protected the Ea... er, Terra before?" He'd have to get used to calling the planet that, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
"Oh, all sorts of people. One of my teachers, a human, who only calls herself the Ancient One, she protected the world for a few hundred years." Miss Zorelle revealed, as if she were just talking about the weather.
And that shocked Giorgio.
It was like she was just talking about something that happened yesterday... but he knew she was talking about something that must have happened hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.
"... So this Ancient One, she was a human and she taught you? Have other aliens come to Terra for teaching of mankind?" He asked.
"Oh, sure. Why, I know there's a Celestial who even came here and fell in love." Kara grinned, but then she paused. "Ah, but I'm getting off topic. See, the Ancient One is actually the leader of an ancient order sworn to keep the world safe... they had a lot of names in the past, but you guys called them 'sorcerers', and that's what they call themselves."
"Sorcerers," Giorgio repeated. He was already thinking about how he could get someone who was an expert on Arthurian legends from the University of Phoenix to talk about how Merlin was actually a defender of the entire world. He could see it... this episode had enough information for a two-parter.
He could even make a new episode talking about how alien technology was just human magic! Let them call his show pseudoscience after that! Ha!
"Yeah, so, they sort of have bases in like, New York, and Hong Kong, and some place in Nepal. Yeah." She paused and then tried to count off one by one with her fingers. "Yeah, that should be right. So, um, there's a Celestial who visited earth back during the Hippie ages. Oh, right a Celestial is basically a cosmic god. Not like Thor—he's just an Asgardian, so he'll just live, like, five thousand years or something. A Celestial is someone who basically lives forever and has enough power to blow up planets like hotcake. Did I use that right?"
"Um," Giorgio tried to wrap his head around Miss Zorelle's previous statement.
"What even is a hotcake? I'd like to try one. See, I skipped a lot of human history, so there's that problem... maybe I'll look it up. Wikipedia is really helpful," she added.
"... Yeah."
"Hey, you wanna see the little house I left here one of the times I visited your past?" She asked suddenly.
"Sure," Giorgio replied before he realized what he was agreeing to. He hadn't asked all the questions. There was so much more he had to know—about the invasion of New York, even!
She waved a hand, and a hole appeared on the wall of his office. A blast of cold air drifted in, and he had to turn away at the biting chill. The hole... the portal... was similar to the one that appeared above New York, it was lined by a glow of blue light and it showed a wintry land on the other side.
"Erm, where are we going?" Giorgio asked uncertainly. He wasn't sure if he was properly dressed for this.
"Antarctica!" She grinned like a shark. "A couple million years ago, I put a little outpost there and named it Atlantis, but I think it's like, really covered in snow now. Well, we can portal right into it and I can just get it out of the ground or something. It's like my Fortress of Solitude, but you know, I guess the word got out or something, right? It actually had some stuff to do with ancient humans, maybe? I don't know, honestly. I just put it together.
I do have a little gate to other planets down there though...
"
Ah, Giorgio Tsoukalos realized it finally. It wasn't going to be a two-parter. He'll have enough content and footage to make a new season, if not a whole new show!
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OverReactionGuy
The only Sane one left
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I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to do it.
God damn I did it.
God damn I did it.