Technomancer in MCU #1

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 27

Technomancer in MCU

The Royal Museum,Birnin Zana, Wakanda

Previously

"It was just as he said. The most beautiful sunset can only be seen in Wakanda," he whispered to himself.

T'Chaka walked after him, giving him company.

I stayed behind, not wanting to intrude on a clearly emotional moment.

________________________________________________________________

–Ed–

After a while, N'Jadaka stood up and alongside T'Chaka came back to the lift site.

I looked at N'Jadaka with a teasing smirk and so did Alfred as he popped out of a hologram projected from my suit. He had his arms crossed and looked at N'Jadaka with a smug smirk.

N'Jadaka scowled fiercely at that.

The look was only somewhat ruined as he was wiping off his eyes with his sleeves.

Anyway, I guess it was time to wrap this up.

Clapping my hands, I gained their attention, "Alright gentlemen. This was all very touching and I am glad we had this meeting to air out our feelings but I have an urgent meeting with another world leader and he doesn't know we are coming."

I gave a smirk at that statement, "So we better get going now."

I gestured to N'Jadaka, "He will remain here now. I hope that is not going to be a problem?" I asked T'Chaka.

He shook his head immediately, "No! I would be delighted to host him here and make sure he reintegrates with Wakanda properly."

I nodded at that, "Great! I just hope that you give him his proper status as a Prince of Wakanda though."

T'Chakka nodded and said, "Of course!"

"Very well then. My work here is done. N'Jadaka knows what to do ahead. Bye Bye!" I said to both of them.

Both of them nodded solemnly as I activated thrust to the boosters and flew off to where the fleet was stationed.

I think I could hear some of the Border tribe members squawking in outrage at me just flying above their city, that too in a weaponised armoured suit.

Using energy resonance technology that synched up the barrier frequencies between the Wakandan barrier and the energy barrier surrounding my suit, I just phased through their shields.

Sometimes, it felt good to show off.

I could see Alfred powering up the fleet in the distance.

I could also see some of the guards that were standing nearby falling on their asses due to the wind generated by the thrust of the carrier.

I rolled my eyes at that.

Alfred was doing that on purpose.

All my carriers were capable of near-silent stealth operations that wouldn't disturb a leaf on the ground nearby during take-off.

Soon the carrier was floating above the ground, right in front of me.

I didn't slow down at all and at the last moment, the front of the carrier opened up and I landed down in the holding bay.

The last thing I could see was the outraged faces of the border tribe members nearby.

I cheekily waved at them before the doors closed off.

"Alfred, get us to Base Alpha. Tell them to prep for a trip to the White House."

Let's go stir some shit up.

________________________________________________________________

–N'Jadaka–

I watched on as Boss just rocketed off in front of us, raising a dust storm for us to breathe into.

Waving my hands in front of my face, I coughed as I cursed him in my mind.

To the side, I could see T'Chaka giving out orders to his military regarding Ed's bombastic entry.

I could hear the panicked voices seeking orders to destroy the projectile in the sky.

The voices reached a crescendo when they realized that Ed could just pass through their barriers anytime he wanted to like they didn't even exist.

I was sure of that. That murder bot wouldn't have left such an obvious weakness in their technology stack.

To think they thought that Ed was trapped with them inside, I shook my head in pity for the security team.

They will have nightmares regarding this for weeks now.

T'Chaka grumbled, "It would have helped if he didn't just wake every living citizen in the country with that one stunt."

I shrugged my shoulders and said, "What can you do? He does what he does with nobody to stop him."

T'Chakka rolled his eyes but nodded at me.

Then, in a somber tone, he said, "For what it's worth, I truly am sorry for what I did. Not a day goes by without me thinking about it."

I listened to his words, stone-faced.

"I won't try and justify my actions in regards to your father but I will say this," he said.

"I hope you don't let my previous mistakes cloud your judgment regarding the future of this country. You are clearly going to be the key for Wakanda's advancement considering your connections to Ed and I would love to have you as the Crown Prince of Wakanda."

I looked at him incredulously at that statement.

Crown Prince?

Me?

That would make me next in line to be king, effectively replacing T'Challa.

"Why would you do that?" I asked him, baffled by his words.

"You would still have to earn everybody's trust. My words alone won't make you king. They will just shine a spotlight on you. Everybody will judge you, especially since they don't know you but if you prove them wrong, you will usher this country into its most advanced stage to date." He said convincingly.

I was still in shock at his words.

I nodded robotically at his words and said, "I'll think about it. Don't make me enemy number one of the state by snatching away the position of their beloved Crown Prince and giving it to me."

After some thought, he nodded at my words.

"Understandable," he said.

"Let's go then. Half the country must be looking forward to my explanation now." he continued.

"I also have to meet the elders and explain your existence," he groaned.

________________________________________________________________

–T'Chaka–

I breathe in deeply as I look towards the retreating back of my nephew.

That was a spur-of-the-moment decision but I was glad that I made it.

It showed me that he was not someone driven by greed or revenge.

That gave me hope that he could one day be King and have the best interests of the country at heart.

I chuckled silently as I thought about T'Challa and especially Shuri's reaction to him.

I hope he accepts them as his family members.

That would really take a huge load off my shoulders.

With his connection to Ed, unveiling Wakanda on the public stage will become much easier.

The more I thought about it, the more Ed's alliance requirements seemed almost trivial in comparison to the benefits it would bring Wakanda.

All that was left was convincing the council regarding the alliance.

That would probably be the hardest part of this entire ordeal.

Making them all agree on a single thing, especially since it consisted of outsider matters, was a chore and a half.

Hopefully, Ed's gift in the form of Ulysses Klaue would help them consider the benefits of this deal in a calm-headed manner.

Thinking of him, a vicious glint flashed through my eyes.

I have been dreaming of getting my hands on him for a long long time.

He was responsible for dozens of Wakandan deaths, and billions in stolen vibranium and he even had a part in my brother's actions.

That alone would make me give him the death penalty.

But death would be too sweet of a release for him.

I am sure the council and I could come up with some creative punishments for him.

I looked forward to that hearing.

May Bast have mercy on him because I won't.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1307

A/N - Hey guys! I come with sad bearings. No chapters for a few days(Friday). I just moved and started full time classes and adapting to the new schedule has been hard.

The thing is, when I started this, I made a commitment to myself that I would post 30 chapters in 30 days, essentially a chapter every day. AND!! I did it!

Staying true to my commitment, this is my 31st upload.

BUT to follow this now would be unrealistic now since I have so little time and most of it is spent on studying, sleeping, attending lectures, exercising, etc.

In light of that I have decided to stick to a schedule of a chapter every other day. In return for this staggered schedule, I will increase the word count to 2.5k/chapter.

Thank you so much for understanding!

If you guys would like to support my writing or read chapters ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P-word site. It is with the same name as my username, just without the 0307.

I already have 8 chapters ahead uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 28

Technomancer in MCU

Council Meeting Room, Wakanda

–T'Chaka–

The elders had been waiting for me to explain this whole situation for a while now.

I could see it on their faces as I walked to my throne.

In a way, I could understand their anxiety.

If I didn't know all I did, I would be running around in anxiety as well.

Now, knowing what I know, I just stew quietly in resignation.

Just as I was seated, the questions came pouring in from all of the elders.

"What happened in the meeting with Ed?"

"Why did he bring a fleet with him and why weren't we allowed to respond in kind?" The Border tribe leader asked.

"Why did he leave?"

"Who is the one who came with the outsider and is still here?"

"Why did you take him to the sacred vault and even the mines?" asked the mining tribe leader.

"We have reports of the J'Abari tribe's movements, probably due to the outsider's massive presence in our city. What are we to do about that?"

Sighing, I pinched my forehead as I thought of the best way to answer their questions, clear this meeting and go home to my wife.

Today has been a very stressful day.

"Enough! I will answer each of your questions briefly. We will hold a much more comprehensive debriefing when all the reports from the military are compiled and I have had a chance to see them. Got it?" I asked them.

I could see that none of them were happy about me being dismissive of their legitimate concerns but I was King and they obeyed my words.

They nodded back, agreeing with my decision.

Seeing that they were finally listening, I said, "Ed was here for an alliance. The fleet was just a show of strength to make sure that we listen to them."

"He has very minimal requests in exchange for a comprehensive alliance that benefits us…."

________________________________________________________________

The Royal Palace, Wakanda

–T'Challa–

I don't understand why Baba wouldn't let me attend the meeting with him.

While this Ed person may be a supposed hero who saved the city of New York, how do we know that he is a trustworthy person?

He nearly gave Baba a heart attack in their first meeting itself!

I don't understand how Mother could allow all of this.

And now this, while Baba is back and finally available to answer my questions, Mother sends me to fetch Shuri and bring her to meet some person.

Honestly, who could this guest be that it was so important to drag Shuri from her lab and me from the council meeting where I should be as the future Black Panther of Wakanda?

"Who are we meeting, Brother?" Little Shuri asked me as she skipped alongside me in her adorable lab coat.

She looked so cute playing a scientist in her lab.

She has intelligence in spades and yet, Baba still doesn't allow her access to the Royal Laboratories.

"I don't know, Shuri. But we will reach there soon enough and you will be able to ask them yourself." I told her.

She nodded and continued to walk alongside me.

Soon, we reached the hall and what I saw made me push Shuri behind me and assume a combat stance immediately.

________________________________________________________________

–N'Jadaka–

Man, I was so bored of this.

King T'Chaka had told me to stay here for some reason.

I hope it's not an assassination attempt.

That would be really stupid on his part.

He doesn't seem like that kind of guy anyway.

Then again, he is the same person who killed his own brother so what do I know?

I got sick of sitting on the ridiculously comfortable sofa so I started walking around, looking at some of the art on display.

The Dora Milaje for some reason looked really pissed off whenever I tried to interact with them.

It's not like I threatened their King, it was the Boss, and Alfred to some extent.

Just as I was about to give up and high tail it out of here to some of the sparring rings I had seen outside, the sound of doors opening entered my ears.

Finally!

Whirling around to meet them, instead, I came face to face with an irate-looking T'Challa in a combat stance hiding somebody behind him.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Time out man. I ain't here to hurt you." I said to him.

"How did you get here? Did you not go back with Ed? What are you doing here?" he asked me in rapid fire.

Instead of letting me answer his questions, he instead looked towards one of the many Dora Milaje "guarding" me and asked them the same questions.

I looked behind him only to come face to face with Princess Shuri.

She was looking at me inquisitively.

Her eyes held a lot of intelligence in them.

She was supposed to be in the running up to become the smartest person on earth.

All according to the reports Alfred had on her.

Rolling my eyes, I went ahead and sat back down on the comfy sofa since the Prince had no intention of listening to my answers.

He still kept me in his line of sight and Shuri out of mine.

It was adorable.

Like he could stop me if I wanted to hurt them.

Say what you will about Frank, his mental state, his personality but man does he whip you in shape.

Dude trained me harder than I ever did in my life and I was in the most demanding section of the U.S. military.

Just as I was about to head out of here, T'Challa's suspicions be damned, I heard another opening of doors and a regal voice said, "I see that you have met our cousin, T'Challa and Shuri."

"Mother," said T'Challa and Shuri both.

The Dora Milaje T'Challa was talking to, bowed to the Queen and went back to her post.

T'Challa and Shuri went towards their mother and I stood up from the sofa.

Gotta give some respect to the queen of the most powerful nation on the planet.

I walked near her and bowed respectfully, "Queen Ramonda"

"Prince N'Jadaka", she nodded back.

T'Challa's neck must have suffered whiplash as he snapped his neck towards his mother so fast.

She ignored his gaze and gestured to the sofas, telling me, "Please. Be seated. I told my husband to arrange this meeting so you could meet my children."

Nodding at her words, I wordlessly went back and sat down on the sofa that still had my assprint on it.

Once they all got seated, one of the Dora Milaje with a noticeably more pleasant look on her face brought tea for all of us.

The Queen personally poured tea for me.

Quite flattering, if I do say so myself.

I could see that T'Challa had a ton of questions to ask his mother but held them back due to me.

"So, I won't pretend to understand your earlier circumstances, N'Jadaka. What happened to you was reprehensible and I don't think I can look at my husband the same way I used to but he thinks that you are going to be a very important part of Wakanda in the near future and I am inclined to believe him," she stated.

"That's why I called for this meeting while my husband goes to deal with that council of his." she continued.

"I believe you two have already met", she said while gesturing to T'Challa.

"And this is my daughter, Princess Shuri," she said while gesturing to Shuri.

"Nice to meet you," Shuri bowed.

"You must be my cousin, then?" she questioned.

"Yes. I am N'Jadaka or Prince N'Jadaka now." I answered her question.

"Where were you till now?" Shuri asked me innocently.

I paused at that.

I guess they still don't know my history.

What I did before all of this.

Before I met Ed.

The blood I have on my hands.

I sighed and was about to lie when Queen Ramonda interjected, "I believe that's a question for another time. When he is more comfortable with us. Okay, Shuri?"

Shuri nodded obediently, "Yes, mother."

She then kept looking at me intensely.

T'Challa finally lost his patience and was about to ask me something when he paused.

There was a faint humming noise in the air.

It was coming from me, more specifically, from my front shirt pocket.

The only thing there was the ......

My face paled as I hurriedly put my hand in the pocket and removed the mask from it.

The damned thing had shrunk down when I tried to put it in my pocket.

My hand got burned when I tried to remove it from my pocket.

Without thinking, I threw it up into the air.

It somehow returned to its original size and kept on enlarging.

All of us looked at it in astonishment.

Soon, it reached the peak of my throw and started floating there, slowly rotating.

I looked around only to notice that the entirety of the Dora Milaje present inside the room had surrounded me and T'Challa too had a spear in his hand, probably taken from one of the Dora Milajes.

The only thing that was stopping them from trying to hurt me was Queen Ramonda's raised hand.

She was looking at the mask with an intense worshipping look.

Seems like she knew a thing or two about it.

I was about to ask her about it when the mask emitted a high-pitched noise and released a blinding white light.

I covered my eyes as it became unbearable to look at anything in my vision.

Soon, the light dimmed down.

Blinking out the spots in my vision, I looked around only to find myself falling on my ass and everybody else recovering from the surprise flashbang.

I looked around, trying to find any sign of the mask.

It was very important.

That bald lady had said that it was the future of Wakanda and if I lost it now, Alfred would burn me alive using one of the flamethrower bots that he loves to sic on us whenever he gets annoyed with any member of our team.

I was about to get up and start looking around for it when I heard a childish scream.

Snapping my neck towards it, I found myself looking at a silver cocoon with what seemed like Shuri's pained voice coming through it.

Mine and T'Challa's eyes met and the next thing I knew, he was leaping towards me with absolute murder in his eyes and a deadly vibranium-tipped spear in his hands.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1796
If you guys would like to support my writing or read chapters ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P-word site. It is with the same name as my username, just without the 0307.

I already have 9 chapters ahead uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 29

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

Snapping my neck towards it, I found myself looking at a silver cocoon with what seemed like Shuri's pained voice coming through it.

Mine and T'Challa's eyes met and the next thing I knew, he was leaping towards me with absolute murder in his eyes and a deadly vibranium-tipped spear in his hands.

________________________________________________________________

–N'Jadaka–

"STOP!:, shouted the Queen but T'Challa was far too gone in the haze of revenge to listen to her.

In his mind, I must have hurt his sister for absolutely nothing.

The mask did come out of my pocket so that was fair thinking on his side.

But how was I supposed to know what the mask would do to her?

And didn't the bald lady say that it would choose its owner, the future of Wakanda?

Was Shuri that person?

Then why was the mask hurting her?

All these questions ran through my head as I stared at the incoming spear slowly.

Man, even enhanced people like T'Challa couldn't exactly give me a challenge.

I could see the Dora Milaje recovering slowly from the flashbang and if I didn't end this quickly, I might find myself dogpilled by the most elite warriors of Wakanda.

By that point, it would be difficult to disarm them without fatal injuries.

I let T'Challa come ever so slightly closer to me and leaned out of the spear's way at the last moment.

I could see his eyes widen in slow motion at my maneuver.

It was pretty funny when you think about it.

He must not have expected me to outspeed him with him having already ingested the heart-shaped herb.

I took hold of the handle of his spear and kicked him in the chest.

I could see the exact moment he knew he f*cked up as all the air exited his lungs.

All of this happened very fast as the Dora Milaje had no time to recover.

One of the first things they must have seen was me attacking their Crown Prince and him being sent flying towards the furniture away from the Queen and Shuri.

Next thing I know they all start charging towards me with a battle cry.

Just as I was about to turn tail and run, the Queen shouted, "Stop!"

All of them halted in their tracks, right in the middle of their charge towards me, and collectively turned their necks to the Queen.

It looked pretty funny to me.

"Enough! I know what is happening and the Shuri's pain is a by-product of it. Leave us.", she ordered the Dora Milaje.

They didn't protest it and after collectively throwing me a nasty glare, they left the hall and closed the door behind them.

She then went to help T'Challa get up as he still looked at me holding his spear with a wide unblinking gaze.

Getting up, T'Challa asked me, "How did you do that? There is no way you should have been able to react like that. You hit even harder than Baba does and he is the.."

I could see the realisation set in his eyes.

He asked me in a stunned voice, "Who are you?"

"I would like to know the answer to that question as well, Prince N'Jadaka," Queen Ramonda asked in a stern voice.

"It's not often that T'Challa is trounced in combat and especially now that he had ingested the heart-shaped herb, he has few contemporaries in his age. You, without having the power of the Black Panther were able to defeat him is an astonishing feat and we will be having words about it but just not now."

"We will talk after the mask is done evolving Shuri," she said and walked towards the cocoon.

The pained voices of Shuri had stopped coming from it.

T'Challa ran after her and asked, "Mother, do you know what that is?"

She nodded and said, "Yes but be patient, all will be revealed soon."

I rolled my eyes at that.

Old people and their cryptic bullshit.

Then we waited for the cocoon to open up.

Within the first 5 minutes of just staring at its silver surface, I gave up and sat down on the sofa, drinking my tea and eating the leftover snacks.

The Queen and T'Challa gave me strange looks.

"What? I was hungry," I defended myself.

The Queen shook her head and went back to staring at the cocoon.

While I was eating, my mind went back to my encounter with the Sorcerer Supreme.

She had told me that the mask would choose the person who would save Wakanda and even humanity and even outright ordered me to make sure that said person reached their full potential.

Was that person Shuri?

It would make sense.

After all, according to Alfred's reports, she would go on to become the most intelligent person Wakanda had ever produced in terms of technology.

But it din't mention anything about her needing the mask to achieve that.

She was already smart and borderline genius without it.

Glancing at the cocoon, my thoughts went wild.

What is happening to her inside?

The screams from earlier sounded really painful.

The Queen said something about evolution before.

So is that what that mask did, it evolved people?

Just as these thoughts were running wild inside my head, I heard a sharp gasp.

GASP!

I looked towards them only to see Queen Ramonda with her hands on her mouth staring at the crack that was slowly extending on the Cocoon.

I leaped towards them.

The cracks started getting bigger and bigger and eventually, the cocoon burst apart in motes of dust.

Out of that cocoon, came the airborne form of Princess Shuri.

An energy barrier, not unlike the one surrounding this city, enveloped her body.

She had her eyes closed but she was slowly floating down, right into the arms of Queen Ramonda.

The Queen looked very emotional and happy regarding this development.

She carefully handed over Shuri to T'Challa and told him to take her somewhere.

T'Challa looked extremely confused but nodded nonetheless, following her orders.

She wiped her tears as she watched them walk off and then she turned towards me.

She sat on one of the sofas and gestured for me to take a seat.

"You must be very confused, right?" she asked me.

Damn right, I was!

I nodded slowly at that question.

"That mask that you were in possession of is one of the most sacred possessions of Wakanda. It was prophesied to change the future of Wakanda," she said

"The prophecy didn't state how or why but it just gave the importance of that mask, so our ancestors stored it in our sacred vault, hoping that someone in the future could use it," she said

"There was another prophecy that stated that should a silver cocoon envelop a child from a black mass, they would go on to become the most adept mystic of their generation," she said

"They were just prophecies to us. After decades of them not coming true, they became mere words to us. Nobody even looks in the mystic section of the archive anymore, not even the oldest of the shamans. Only I go there sometimes to satisfy my idle curiosity." she said

Then she glanced towards me.

"And today it finally happened. My Shuri has the blessings of the ancestors," she exclaimed.

"Excuse me, but shouldn't you be going after Shuri, making sure she is okay?" I asked her hesitantly.

She shook her head, "No need. It would just needlessly alert the council to some nonexistent threat to the Royal Family. After the meeting is done, my husband and I will take her to the Royal Shaman of our clan. He will know what to do."

Not knowing what to say, I just nodded.

Man, today has been a day of just surprises after surprises.

I couldn't wait for it to be done.

Perhaps noticing my tired state, Queen Ramonda said, "You should go rest. You have a long day tomorrow. The council will want to meet you so be prepared for that."

I groaned at the mention of that stupid council meeting.

Alfred had warned me that they were particularly stubborn regarding any change and I intended to bring about the biggest changes this country had ever seen.

They would either join me in bringing about that change or they would perish, I thought ruthlessly.

No two ways about it.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1428
If you guys would like to support my writing or read chapters ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P-word site. It is with the same name as my username, just without the 0307.

I already have 9 chapters ahead uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 30

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

They would either join me in bringing about that change or they would perish, I thought ruthlessly.

No two ways about it.

_________________________________________________________

The Royal Palace, Birnin Zana

–N'Jadaka–

I opened the door of my room if you could even call it that.

Apparently, being the prince of Wakanda pays well.

It was more of a penthouse suite than a room.

Upon opening the door, I came face to face with T'Chaka.

Surprised and confused at his visit, I opened the door fully and gestured to him to come inside.

He entered the room and I locked the door behind him.

"I trust you are settling well?" he asked me, his hands crossed behind his back, looking around the room.

Putting my hands in my pockets, I shrugged "Yeah, I guess."

At that statement, he looked back at me with a questioning gaze, tinged with concern.

That made me slightly uncomfortable.

I sighed, "Look, this is all just very much new to me. It'll take time for me to adjust to being accepted here. I never thought I would get this without bloodshed and that is disconcerting to me, that's all."

He nodded sagely at that, "I can understand that."

Clearing my throat, I gestured for him to sit on the sofa.

"Ah, yes. We have to talk," he said while getting seated on the sofa.

I nodded back, "Alright. What is it?"

"It's about the council meeting tomorrow," he said, his countenance grave.

"What about it?" I asked him.

He opened and closed his mouth several times.

I just stared at him, waiting patiently for him to get his words together.

After about a minute of this happening, he seemingly gave up.

His shoulders slumped in resignation, he said, "Look, in tomorrow's council meeting they might ask you about your past. No, they most certainly will. How are you going to answer that?"

I shrugged and said, "With the truth."

He leveled a look at me for that statement.

"Look, I am not going to enter my father's country with a lie. I will tell them fair and square about my past." I seriously told him.

"And what is your past?" he questioned me.

"Where were you? I tried to search for you a few years back but you seem to have disappeared. I feared the worst." he said, concerned about my past.

I looked at him for a moment and replied, "What else? I enlisted. Joined the NAVY SEALS, became one of their best performers, accidentally got my whole team killed, was assigned a shrink after that…."

T'Chaka's face looked more and more somber as I told him about my life before I met Ed.

About my single-minded obsession with returning to Wakanda.

"...and then I met Ed and my entire life changed." I finished speaking and looked at him.

Only to see tears trailing down his cheeks.

He then stood up and hugged me tightly.

"I am sorry you had to go through all that."

I clenched my fists as I suppressed all my instincts that spoke at me to lash out at him.

"It's alright" I consoled him, patting his back.

After letting go of me, he visibly collected himself and said to me, "I don't think the council will have any problems with you becoming Prince."

I nodded, curious as to where he was taking this.

He sighed and said, "I never told them about your father."

My face became stone-cold at that.

Before I could tear him a new one, he said, "It was not to protect my position as King. I can assure you of that."

I stood up and nearly shouted out, "How can you say that when you are still sitting in the position of King? While my father is dead?"

He looked resigned as he said, "Because it wouldn't have mattered."

At my confused look, he elaborated, "The incident with N'Jobu would have only strengthened my rule."

My eyes widened in realisation.

He nodded, as if expecting my reaction, "The position of King is supposed to be above family, above tribes, and even above yourself. The King is supposed to put Wakanda above all else. The fact that I killed my brother with my own hands would have been celebrated. They would have put me on a pedestal. In their eyes, I would have been the Hero who put his feelings aside and did what was necessary."

I just collapsed back on the couch.

He looked sorry as he said, "At that point, he wouldn't have been a Prince, he would have been a traitor and there is only one punishment for traitors in Wakanda."

I looked at him, my eyes red as he said,

"Death"

I looked down and closed my eyes as he uttered the punishment that awaited my father had he been caught alive.

"Your revealing of the situation years ago would do nothing but hinder your own agenda. They would look at you with suspicion, even more so as you lived outside until now. But…"

I looked at him as he said with utter sadness in his eyes, "I don't want to be known as someone who killed his family. I loved N'jobu, with all my heart."

He stood up, wiped his tears, and said finally, " I would like for his memory to remain as the Prince who died for Wakanda."

"Dead doing his duty to Wakanda. Not a traitor. I would be very much thankful if you didn't ruin his image. That's all."

And he left.

The sound of that door closing was the last straw as I just stood up and threw the lamp into the wall.

Breathing heavily, I tried to think about what he said.

About how my father was still thought of as a hero to this nation.

Even though he was a traitor.

I sighed as I palmed my forehead and thought of the council meeting that would go down tomorrow.

_________________________________________________________

–T'Challa–

As I approached his room, I thought of all the ways that could go wrong.

I had been warned by both mother and father to stay away from my cousin until his appearance in Wakanda was publicly explained, not to mention the matter regarding Shuri.

That was another headache that my mother still refused to explain to me.

She clearly knew something but was intentionally stonewalling me.

Shuri also had not woken up but mother said that she was fine and she would wake up soon.

I just couldn't ignore her pained screams when that damned cocoon enveloped her.

I needed an outlet.

The usual way would be sparring with Okoye but she was busy and even with her, it was more about technique rather than strength.

But with N'Jadaka, it would be different.

He had more than enough strength to match me and maybe even overwhelm me.

As I neared his quarters, I noted that they were one of the empty Prince's quarters.

Father kept them out of nostalgia as his brother used to reside in one of them.

I stood outside his door and squared my shoulders in determination.

Then I knocked on his door and waited for an answer.

After some time, the door opened and he stood in the doorway, looking at me for an answer.

At that moment, the only thing that came out of my mouth was, "Spar?"

He looked taken aback at that but with an understanding glint in his eye, he slowly nodded and said, "You came at the right time. Just let me change."

I nodded, giving my tacit agreement.

I stood outside, waiting for him as he changed inside, thinking about Baba's warning.

"Don't underestimate him. You do not know his situation. The one behind him is Ed and he is someone we have to be absolutely wary of. If he so wished, he could unravel all of Wakanda's protections and present it naked to the world to ravage, in a matter of days rather than weeks or months."

I found myself wondering if my decision was correct but I had already taken a step forward and there was no going back.

Years later, I would come to thank myself for this decision, for this event forged the bond between the future Black Panther and the first Gold Panther of Wakanda."

________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1403

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Chapter 31

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

I found myself wondering if my decision was correct but I had already taken a step forward and there was no going back.

Years later, I would come to thank myself for this decision, for this event forged the bond between the future Black Panther and the first Gold Panther of Wakanda."

________________________________________________________________

The Sparring Grounds, Wakanda

–T'Chaka–

When I first heard that T'Challa had gone on to challenge N'Jadaka to a spar of all things, I was not afraid but downright terrified.

I had already warned T'Challa not to even approach N'Jadaka until his presence was announced publicly.

I wanted to give him some time to acclimate to Wakanda before introducing him to his cousins but Ramonda had taken actions without my counsel.

She had introduced Shuri and T'Challa to him without my say so.

It had gone disastrously, to say the least.

I was there when the Ancient One had given the prophecy and it still gives me chills that my little baby girl was the one who was prophesied to help save Wakanda and the planet.

The entire process was done and Shuri was resting, guarded by my personal guards whose existence is a secret from even Okoye.

Ramonda said that our medical technology won't be able to do anything as there is nothing to do and only the Royal Shaman will be able to further shed light on whatever mysteries were present in that Mask which are now transferred to Shuri.

Leaving that aside for a moment, according to Ramonda, N'Jadaka had sent T'Challa flying with a single kick.

That was impossible in my opinion as the Heart shaped herb granted T'Challa strength comparable to my own, even greater now that I have become old.

Now, as I watch N'Jadaka send T'Challa flying with a kick for the umpteenth time, I am forced to reevaluate the power Ed and his organisation possess.

If they have the know-how to enhance someone to the level or even beyond the level of the Black Panther, they must have multiple people at that level.

That increases their danger rating even beyond what they have now.

I don't know if there even is a rating for that.

Then a stray thought entered my mind that made my face pale.

If N'Jadaka is so strong even without the blessing of the heart-shaped herb, how strong would he become after ingesting it?

I shuddered just thinking about it.

Ramonda, noticing my actions, asked me with concern, "What is it? Are you alright?"

I clenched the railing until my knuckles turned white as I thought of the devastation that would have occurred had N'Jadaka not been as forgiving as he is now.

Hearing Ramonda's question, I shake my head and assure her that I am alright.

All around the sparring grounds, I could see a crowd had gathered.

The silence around us was deafening.

I could see all of them with their jaws agape and wide, disbelieving eyes.

I reckon most of them came to watch their Crown Prince thrash another person in the sparring grounds but reality turned out to be different.

They were watching N'Jadaka manhandle T'Challa like he was naught but a babe.

If he could do that to T'Challa, he would be able to defeat any warrior in traditional combat for the throne.

It wouldn't matter what tribe they were from. Even the J'Abari would be defeated.

Ramonda and I shared a glance at that, the same thought running in our minds.

"My decision was correct. Thank Bast for this," I whispered.

Ramonda could do nothing but nod as she watched her son and her nephew have so much fun while sparring even though it was clear to anyone who watched that N'Jadaka was the clear winner of this spar.

Finally, T'Challa accepted defeat with a smile, his face covered in mud and some of his teeth knocked loose.

Anybody could see that T'Challa was very much satisfied with the spar as he could finally go all out without worrying about hurting his opponent.

Even while sparring with me, he held back in fear of hurting me as according to my children, I am now a glass trophy.

Only to be protected, showcased behind a panel of glass.

The crowd watched on in silent awe as N'Jadaka walked out of the ring.

I nodded towards one of my guards, silently ordering them to escort N'Jadaka to his quarters.

Then, my shoulders finally relaxed as I thought of the smile N'Jadaka and T'Challa shared during their spar.

It would seem that they had managed to bond pretty well.

I would not have to worry about them any longer now. Wakanda should be in safe hands now.

________________________________________________________________

The Triskelion, Washington DC

–Nick Fury–

Looking at the report that was sitting at my desk, I couldn't help but feel another migraine coming.

I had a meeting with the President in 3 hours and he wanted a status briefing.

And I have nothing.

Not even a single concrete thing I can tell him.

Nothing regarding the Ed character and the organisation behind him.

Nothing about where and how they got their fleet so close to NYC before everybody without anyone noticing or even how they left.

They were full-sized flying aircraft carriers and nobody could figure out how they left.

The less said about their spaceship the better.

Even worse was the nuke that was fired and detonated on US soil.

It has become the biggest scandal in international politics.

The first nuclear explosion on a civilian city after Nagasaki.

The President wanted answers and I had shit.

I wish I could throttle that Ed bastard right now. He must be laughing looking at us scrambling around like headless chickens.

The bastard even knew about the attack in advance and didn't deign to inform us or anybody about the huge attack that was about to happen right in the middle of one of the biggest population centres of the world.

The worst thing was I had nothing to show for it.

No alien tech, No advanced tech from Ed.

Nothing except a single healing glowstick that only works when Agent Simmons uses it.

Nobody even has a single clue as to why and how that stick does the biometric authentication on Agent Simmons.

It might as well be magic to us.

Stark and Banner, both are not talking.

They even refused to help us theorise any countering technology we could use against the aliens or Ed's technology.

I made Romanoff exclude the precognitive part of Ed's abilities as it would have raised a shitstorm even bigger than the one I was currently in.

The best thing that came out of this invasion was Stark's sudden willingness to share his technology.

The bastard was already poised to rake in millions from the reactor he had already set up for New York City.

That number would balloon to billions once the contracts start pouring in.

Hill was already assigned the case to protect that Buffoon and his close ones once the Oil industry woke up and recognized the threat Stark possessed to the global crude oil industry.

I could already see the oil price crashing and I had a feeling that Stark was going to profit massively from that as well.

Another headache added to the pile. I could feel that migraine coming back with a vengeance.

BEEP!

Sighing at the alert for the meeting, I ordered for the car to be brought around.

I felt a pang in my heart as I thought of Coulson.

Normally, he would have been the one to accompany me for a meeting this important.

There was no one in this organisation that I trusted more to have my back than Coulson.

This will not be the end of Coulson, I will make sure of it.

Project T.A.H.I.T.I. will succeed, I will make it so.

Exiting my office and entering the convoy, I think about the consequences of today's meeting.

The president could very well have me removed from my post today, citing my failure to find even a shred of link regarding the foreign militant organisation operating on U.S. soil or the nuke that destroyed Upper Manhattan.

I had already made arrangements to relocate or outright destroy the more dangerous projects the council had deemed necessary, in case I was fired today and had no chance to communicate my final orders.

Going through the security protocols, I was taken through a secret tunnel straight to the President's bunker.

I hated this place.

All my instincts went against entering a place with a single entry and exit and no weapons except my injured body.

Entering the meeting room, I saw that there was the usual assembly present.

It was the person sitting beside the President that had me nearly frothing at my mouth.

"You!?" I said while pointing at the person with the shit-eating grin.

"Yes, ME!" he said while showing the most smug grin I had ever seen.

I had never wanted my gun to be with me more than ever.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1541

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Chapter 32

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

"You!?" I said while pointing at the person with the shit-eating grin.

"Yes, ME!" he said while showing the most smug grin I had ever seen.

I had never wanted my gun to be with me more than ever.

________________________________________________________________

Base Alpha

–Ed–

I watch on as the base goes into a whirlwind of activity, preparing for the trip to the White House.

Despite my protests, Alfred had insisted on going to the White House with a fleet.

I had warned him about the warmongering tendencies of U.S. Politicians but he had just rolled his eyes at me and said, "It's not like we will be revealing them. It's just in case."

Just in case, he says.

Taking out the only superclass aircraft carrier we have is not a case of just in case.

It's to scare them into submission.

It wasn't even built for stealth, just pure overwhelming destructive might.

Huh.

Maybe I am the one with destructive warmongering tendencies. After all, I keep on building bigger, better, and more destructive vehicles with planet-buster weapons.

But then I remember the power of Thanos, of his Black Order, of Ronan, of Hela, and then all these weapons seem so frail in front of them.

I still don't have a perfect solution to deal with Thanos or Hela.

No way to deal with them without using an Infinity Stone, which opens a whole different set of problems.

The ones who can deal with them are either dying or are adamant about dying on their own terms.

Which doesn't leave me with a whole lot of time to come up with a solution.

All I have at this point are gambles.

Gambles involving the use of infinity stones and the protagonists' luck of some of the characters who won only by a fluke.

That was clearly unacceptable as according to Alfred, there was no way we would be able to replicate the circumstances leading up to the events of the good guys winning and the bad guys conveniently being in their most vulnerable states.

Sigh

All this stressing about the future was putting an undue load on my already sickly body.

We had searched high and low for any kind of cure for it but according to both the Ancient One and the witches of Vanaheim, corroborated by the studies Alfred had done on my condition, there was some sort of anchor holding my soul down to this body.

That was why we couldn't just make a healthy, superior body in every way. My soul simply won't leave the one in which I came into this world.

Even my astral form is sluggish to leave the physical confines of my body.

The Ancient One refused to help me in that regard, telling me cryptic tales of only me being able to solve the issue.

I don't think Odin would be so eager to help me either.

The veritable army of scientists we amped with intelligence-enhancing CHI drugs couldn't find a solution for my condition.

According to them, they could not yet manipulate the metaphysical in ways that could help me get rid of my curse.

A curse.

That's what it was.

Probably given to me by the ROb who punted me into this world with great power but in a failing body.

Probably laughing looking at me struggling to survive in this death world.

The Marvel world might seem all sunshine and rainbows, running on hope from the outside but after looking through the lenses of someone who actually had to live here?

It is just as bad as a deathworld.

I was lucky that the Ancient One found me before they could damage me too much or else I probably would have turned out the same as N'Jadaka.

Wanting to watch the world burn and suffer as much as I did.

With my powers, it would have been a hard task for even the Avengers to put me down.

I would have died fighting them but I wouldn't have gone down lightly.

She took me to Kamar Taj and healed me.

Despite me not possessing a lick of talent for the Mystic Arts, she allowed me to stay there and tinker for quite some time.

She only kicked me out when I already had a few secure bases set up around the world.

The favor she did for me will never be forgotten by me or Alfred.

That is why I continue fighting. To prove to her that helping me was the right decision.

It helped that my moral compass was not too damaged by my experiences in this world.

Alfred estimates with judicious use of my powers, I had about 10 years before my body shut down and left my soul to fend for itself in the astral realm.

The astral realm was not a forgiving plane, especially for soul-based power holders like me.

We were delicious snacks for the many ruthless monsters that roamed the astral plane.

That is why I had Alfred build everything.

It was me and him against the world, just like the old times.

BEEP!

I sighed at the beep as it signified it was time to meet the most (supposedly) powerful man in the world.

"Alfred? Make sure that we arrive before Fury does. I want to see his reaction when he sees me there." I say out loud.

Nowadays even communicating with Alfred using my Technopathy increases the rate of degradation of my body.

Sighing in relief at another microinjection of CHI, I heard Alfred reply with a "Yes, sir."

The suit started to move on its own, piloted entirely by a partition of Alfred.

I, myself, possessed zero ability to move it.

Alfred did it all on his own. He predicted my movements based on my thought patterns recorded previously. He performed all the micro gestures that would make it look like I was doing it all with my muscles rather than advanced servo motors.

Soon, I reached the jet that would take me to the white house.

Due to the judicious use of Pym particles retrieved from the vaults of Hank Pym, this baby had the ability to phase through objects.

We don't have the capability to make them. Alfred is still running calculations on it.

We often wonder who blessed Pym enough that he was able to build a safe gateway to the quantum realm in the 70s.

It was near impossible for it to be a coincidence that Pym was able to make Pym particles and get his wife accidentally stuck in the Quantum realm who coincidentally became the catalyst for the rebellion under Kang's rule which eventually led to his defeat.

It all seemed self-fulfilling to me and Alfred agrees.

Nodding at Frank as he came to see me off, I walked on to the ramp of the jet.

"Are you sure I can't convince you to let me come with you? I want to see Fury having an aneurysm when he sees you there." Frank asked me, a cigar rolling in his mouth.

Rolling my eyes, I waved him off and said, "Not today, Frank. You have your assignment. Do that or do I have to call Maria again?"

As expected, he and even his cigar fell in line immediately at the mention of his wife.

The man was a certified badass who made my men regularly pee themselves out of his fear and one word from his wife and he just melts down.

I guess that's what love will do to you.

The ramp closed up and the jet took off, courtesy of Alfred taking control.

The base's runway closed off as I breached the outer shields of the base.

The base soon became invisible as we crossed the outer holographic shields and then all I could see was cratered white lands of the moon.

I had often been asked by various members of my staff- why the moon?

And I always told them why not?

It was the very first base I ever built.

I had no actual sense of safety outside of Kamar Taj back then and the only way I could feel safe was if I was actually off-planet.

I went way overboard during its construction and actually built a base that covered almost 10% of the moon's interior space.

Alfred had to work overtime to spoof any and all data being gathered on the moon.

It was touch and go for a while but now?

It was the biggest base we have and the most used as it allowed for faster travel to Earth as well as easy access to the jump gate located at a convenient distance to the moon.

Watching the blue ball of life coming into range, I think of all the stuff we are yet to do to ensure Humanity's safety.

I think of the Inhumans, Eternals, Deviants, Atlantians, and even the vanilla humans that inhabited this beautiful planet and how they were slowly destroying it.

Lost in thought, I only came back to my senses once Alfred notified me of our arrival right above the White House.

Looking at the HUD, it was still time until Fury came here.

Deciding to have some fun until he comes over, I order Alfred to get us to the meeting room inside the underground bunker.

I couldn't wait to see Fury.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1581

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[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 33

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

Looking at the HUD, it was still time until Fury came here.

Deciding to have some fun until he comes over, I order Alfred to get us to the meeting room inside the underground bunker.

I couldn't wait to see Fury.

________________________________________________________________

–Ed–

According to Alfred's reports, the meeting was to be held jointly by the President, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of homeland security. Pierce did try to get an invite but the President was all out of patience after Pierce just backtracked on his plan to get Fury ousted.

Probably too focused on moving important projects out of their "hidden" bases.

Alfred was in the process of tagging all of them to see if immediate intervention was necessary.

It would help us be better prepared in case of any surprises when we finally move in on them and destroy them in one fell swoop.

Phasing through the ground and inches of concrete on the way to the bunker, I am once again reminded of the disorienting feeling that was experienced by everyone who tested this technology.

Not feeling but seeing matter go through you is a very disturbing feeling.

Thankfully, I was used to it.

Entering the bunker, I could see that there was a lot more security present here.

Alfred also reported higher than usual aerial presence in the skies above DC.

Some of the nearest bases were on high alert, ready to dispatch jets in case of an alarm.

The President was probably scared of someone, most likely us, intervening or hijacking this meeting.

I winced as I thought about the superclass carrier that was floating in space, waiting for a command from Alfred to freefall right on top of the White House.

Bringing that was probably not a good idea.

Entering the common area, I am treated to the sight of the President having tea with the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of homeland security.

Listening in on their conversation, they were not discussing anything of importance.

Probably waiting for the actual meeting to start before briefing everybody.

Alfred couldn't hack into the reports as it was strictly physical copies only.

Apparently, they even had gone to the trouble of finding a typewriter of all things, and using it to print the reports.

Hilarious.

But as I see Alfred producing copies of it using the advanced scanners installed in this ship, I think that their paranoia was justified.

It was just that the steps taken by them were pretty much useless in front of Alfred and his obsession with improving remote sensing capabilities.

Almost all of our deep space probes were designed and improved upon by Alfred before we even had our first spaceship.

I knew that we had a jump gate nearby but Alfred was the one who figured out its precise location.

Reading through the reports, the general gist of it was as expected.

They were going to treat me as an enemy.

Not publicly, obviously. That would make them public enemy number one but with their control of social media, they wanted to try and let the hype die down before taking any concrete public steps.

So predictable.

They also wanted Fury to take the blame on this one.

So predictable.

The President was aware of the pilot that I had given Fury and he also knew of the disastrous way they handled him.

They couldn't keep him alive in custody for a few hours, let alone interrogate him.

It was going to be difficult for Fury to come out of this still as the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Which is why I was going to step in.

Having Fury remain as the director of the agency was a very important piece of the puzzle that I was trying to unravel.

Without him, I would need to just destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. and H.Y.D.R.A. through the brute force method.

Not only would that tip my hand off too early, it would result in a needlessly large loss of life.

Agents of both sides would end up dead.

The remnants of H.Y.D.R.A. would take advantage of the chaos and cause even more damage, escaping safely in the process.

The world would be none the wiser about the existence of H.Y.D.R.A. and the faults of S.H.I.E.L.D. that they need to correct so it can become what it was envisioned to be by its founders.

"Alfred, are the stun bots positioned?" I asked Alfred.

"Affirmative, sir. Also, the illusion preparation is also done. Nobody will see a thing."

"Very well, go ahead then," I order him.

There is a very small, nearly unnoticeable glitch you would feel if you were looking directly at them but virtually undetectable otherwise.

There was now a 3D hologram of the President and others sitting on the table.

The people inside the hologram see what we want them to see and the outsiders see what we want them to see.

According to the agents stationed nearby, they heard the President ordering them to empty the room and after getting their confirmation, they slowly shuffled out of the lounge and sealed it behind them, acting on the orders of the President.

The President and the ones inside the illusion never saw anything other than the ordinary.

They were just conversing casually with each other when I just popped out or rather unshrunk myself on the empty sofa.

The reaction was immediate.

The Secretary of Defense immediately tried to reach for his nonexistent gun.

The President screamed loudly for security and the Secretary of Homeland Security took one look at me and fainted.

That was confusing.

I wasn't that scary, was I?

As I heard them screaming, I crossed my legs and made myself comfortable on the couch.

By the time they realised that nobody was coming for them, they had already scrambled back to the wall.

Then, they just looked awkwardly at each other and then at me.

Credit to the President, an expert politician that he was, he recognized me and the fact that I had not hurt any of them, he cleared his throat and fixed his tie before greeting me with a clearly fake smile.

"Good evening. You must be Ed. Can I ask why you have come here in this rather surprising fashion? If you wanted a meeting, you could have just and I am sure my assistant would have arranged one ASAP." he said to me.

He tried to act all calm and composed but I could see the sweat on his brows and his increased heart rate.

Deciding to calm them as I wanted something from him this time around, I stood up and said, "I apologize for this abrupt entry but I wanted to warn you before you did something irreversible."

"Please, have a seat," I gestured to the couches. "You too" I pointed to the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Homeland Security.

After we had all sat down, I activated a hologram, showing video footage of multiple fleets of the Chitauri along with the Black Order destroying multiple cilvisations, most of them more advanced than ours.

They were clearly awed and terrified of the things I was showing them.

After a while, they composed themselves and the President asked me, "How can I be sure that it was real?"

I shrugged and said, "You can't be. But you know from the reports given to you by Fury that the alien army was given to Loki by someone. Turns out that someone has a lot more of that army than the one we stopped from destroying New York."

The President sighed and said, "What do you want us to do then?"

"It was Fury's job to safeguard against stuff like this and besides a warning to look out for Loki that was then swiftly retracted as he was captured, we had no way to prepare for an attack much less a full-fledged invasion," he said, clearly frustrated.

I snorted and said, "A full-fledged invasion, you say? Please. An army coming from a bottlenecked portal is barely a threat compared to the ones that are out there. They can do orbital bombardment for days, scorching the planet without taking a single hit in return. Our nukes won't even reach them before they shoot them down from the sky."

They looked stunned at that piece of information.

Just then, the door opened and a member of the Secret Service poked his head inside and informed us about the arrival of Fury.

They looked shocked that the agent could not see me.

I signalled the President and he nodded and told the agent to escort Fury to the Meeting room.

After the agent left, he immediately turned to me, the question visible on his face.

I gestured to our surroundings and said, "It's a hologram. An intricate illusion of just you three sitting on the couch. They won't be able to see or hear me. A handy piece of tech, very useful for infiltrations like these."

They nervously laughed and nodded along, clearly afraid of the implications I made about the technology in my possession.

I slapped my thighs and said, "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go to the meeting hall. I'll explain further when Fury is here. I am sure he will have many questions for me as well."

I stood up and so did they, albeit hesitantly.

Before we exited the room, I turned to them and said, "A word of warning, however. Please don't alert any of the agents outside to my presence. It will just needlessly make me take action and you won't like it. Am I clear?"

They clearly didn't like it but they nodded with gritted teeth.

I smiled pleasantly and said, "Very good. Let's go", turned around and gestured them to go before me.

It would look very spooky if the door opened on its own and nobody came out of it for a while.

We all passed the hallway and after some security checks by the Secret Service, during which I had shrunken down and entered the pocket of the President, they opened the meeting room and all of us took a seat.

They were pretty startled when I appeared out of thin air and sat on a hard light chair.

Winking at them, I put a finger on my lips, indicating them to be silent.

The door opened and Fury in all his bald-headed, one-eyed glory entered the room.

He took a good look at all the occupants inside the room and when his eyes landed on me, I could see in real time his eyes widening and a vein popping on his forehead.

"You?!" he said while pointing at me.

Oh man, this was the best.

"Yes, ME!" I said with the biggest grin I could manage.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1846

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[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 34.1

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

"You?!" he said while pointing at me.

Oh man, this was the best.

"Yes, ME!" I said with the biggest grin I could manage.

_________________________________________________________

Bunker Below the White House

–Nick Fury–

The last thing he expected to see in this meeting was him.

Ed

That bastard was the source of half his problems and also the one who could solve all of his problems.

Analyzing the state of the occupants, he could make out the nearly disheveled appearances of everyone.

There were clear efforts made for them to look presentable but he could see the sweat on their brows and the tenseness in their bodies.

It was as if they were ready to flee at the first sign of trouble.

How unfortunate that the biggest trouble they had experienced recently was sitting right in front of them, smiling without a care in the world.

His smiling face belied the danger he posed to everyone in this meeting.

Ed was somehow able to infiltrate this meeting and then hijack it without anyone outside noticing.

The agents are required to have periodic check-ins with the President as per protocol.

The fact that they didn't do anything means either of one thing.

The entirety of the Secret Service contingent serving POTUS had been compromised or none of them noticed anything suspicious around the President.

Both of them were daunting situations.

Sighing at the fact that he was stuck in this meeting, one way or another, he slowly sat on the chair, right in front of the President and Ed.

After that, he continued to glare at Ed.

Ed continued to smile and look at him.

After a while, the President cleared his throat to gain his attention.

He looked at POTUS as he asked, "So, Fury. You had a report for me to see?"

He looked at him, blinked a few times, and said, "I'm sorry, Mr.President, are we really going to ignore his presence here?" while gesturing to Ed.

The President's smile looked a bit strained as he said, "Mr.Ed here has given us valuable information that has made us look into other avenues as to how we were going to proceed with this meeting."

He looked at the Secretaries before continuing, " Our hope is that the report you have with you will help us gain further insight into the situation and help us make an even more informed decision."

He then gestured to Ed, "He is here to tell us more about our situation at large."

He only grew more and more confused at each of the words that came out of POTUS' mouth.

At his confused look, POTUS elaborated, "Our situation in terms of the galactic scale."

His eyes went wide at that.

Updated information regarding the happenings in outer space would help them tremendously. If he truly was going to give us that, it would help us in formulating strategies and most importantly, help get the goddamned politicians with all the different agendas on the same table for discussion and action.

"Of Course," said the President, "He wouldn't give us the complete information without having read your report for some reason."

He gave Ed a suspicious look at that.

If Ed and the organisation behind him were as advanced as they thought it was, he must already know what was in the report.

Which was nothing.

Why would he insist on handing over the report before giving out any useful information?

Nevertheless, he took out the manilla folder from his trench coat and carefully handed over the copies to the President and everybody else, feeling slightly embarrassed at how light and empty it felt.

After giving everybody their report, he looked at Ed and said mockingly, "I'm sorry, I only made three copies as only three people were invited to this meeting."

The bastard had the audacity to shrug and say, "It's alright. I already know what is in there anyway."

He gritted his teeth at the blatant admission of cybercrime.

After just a few minutes, everybody was done reading through the report.

The President gave him a look after that, which clearly indicated he wanted to talk to him about the report later on.

He reckoned the only reason he was not torn into a new one was because there were more pressing matters at hand.

The President then turned to said important matter and asked him, "Now, can you debrief us about the situation at large?"

Ed shrugged and said, "Sure. Alfred?"

A Hologram representing Earth popped up on the table in front of me.

He leaned forward in interest, and so did the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security.

"Ideally, I would've done this at the UN where most of the world's representatives would be gathered but this meeting forced my hand and I also understand that the world at large is in chaos at the confirmation of the existence of aliens. So I thought I would delay that meeting a bit." Ed said.

More like never.

He didn't think the people in this room would allow any other nation to have the slightest advantage if it was in their power. They would fight Ed every step of the way if he wanted to truly distribute this information equally to every nation on the planet.

Information was Power these days and the ones sitting in this room were the biggest hoarders of power on the planet.

As he looked at the globe, some things immediately stood out to everybody in the room.

The majority of the countries looked red, and some of the countries looked orange.

The shades differed from the Middle East to Europe to North America but most of the developed countries looked orange.

Then there were 2 dots that shined a bright blue.

One seemed to be in the Atlantic Ocean and one on the African continent.

The President must have shared his observations as he asked Ed, "What is the meaning of the colors that separate the various regions? Is it some kind of threat assessment tool?"

Ed looked at all of them and answered, "Oh, that? That's just the advancement level or the amount of work needed to be done for those places to be brought up to a satisfactory condition, according to me."

Advancement level? What did that mean?

Wait a minute.

"What were the blue areas?" He asked Ed, glaring at him as if daring him to lie to his face.

"Oh, those? Those are the ones that need no intervention or at least no help to get them up to my technological advancement levels. They are more than advanced enough."

What?!

"But one of them is in the middle of the Ocean and the other is in Africa. We all know that there is no country there that is more advanced than The United States of America, atleast on the African Continent and I am sure that there is no underwater country–." the Secretary of Defense said in confusion at the beginning and then it turned into outright horror towards the end..

"Ah, I can understand your confusion," Ed said while pointing at the Secretary of Defense.

He then continued, "There is no advanced civilization there that you know of."

All of their eyes widened rapidly.

Advanced civilizations under the Ocean?

"Ar..Are you talking about Atlantis? Is it Real?" The President asked Ed hesitantly, a slight tremor in his voice.

Ed sighed and waved his hand slightly.

The globe shrank down to a dot.

In an insufferable voice, he said, "Look, do you guys want the information regarding outer space or not? Because if we sit here talking about the glaring holes in your information regarding civilizations that were building cities when you were still cavemen, we would be here all night."

The bastard did it on purpose.

He knew they would not be able to resist this bait dangled right in front of their faces.

The President and his eyes matched, both of them knew that they could not let potential threats in their own backyard go unchecked.

"We would like to learn more about these hidden civilizations, Ed. The fact that they didn't come to help during the invasion suggests that they could be hostile to our countries and I don't think any one of the gentlemen inside this room would risk that. So, please, tell us more about them." President Ellis said in an authoritative tone of voice.

Ed looked at the President and said in a tone of voice that sent chills down everybody's spines, "So you can do what? Invade them? Blackmail them? Steal from them? No No No… I am well aware of what would happen should I reveal their secret. You would start an arms race that would threaten to engulf the entire planet, nearly destroying it. Then I would have to step in and stop you guys."

The silence in the room was nearly deafening.

They were reminded of the power Ed held in his hands and the fact that nobody knew he was here was not lost on them.

He could very easily murder them all and leave without anyone being the wiser.

He then continued, "So, No. I will not share with you any of their details because they could just kill you all for knowing that, without any intervention on my side."

All of them shared looks of terror at that.

The idea of an advanced civilization that had infiltrated our government was chilling enough, the fact that they were considered so advanced that even Ed deemed it unnecessary to help them was downright terrifying.

According to Stark, Ed wanted to uplift humanity. He didn't give an explanation as to how he wanted to do that but Stark thinks that at the very minimum, it would involve making Humanity a space-faring civilization, capable of handling most of the threats present in outer space all by themselves, without any help from Ed or the organisation behind him.

If the two blue dots meant two advanced civilizations and they had the capability to be space-faring, there was no telling what kind of technology they were able to amass simply by trading or stealing in space.

He could understand Ed's point about them being able to effortlessly kill us.

What He didn't understand was one thing.

He looked up at Ed and said, "If they are as advanced as you say they are, why didn't they leave the planet?"

Ed looked at him in pure confusion at that statement.

"Because… they can't?" Ed said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

He was going to kill Stark.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1799

________________________________________________________________

Author Note

So..first of all, sorry for the whole delay in uploading the chapters. Festive season here is a legendary feeling in its own right. Didn't get even an hour of time alone to actually type out the chapter.

I also did some reading on the criticism I had gotten regarding the POVs of the story.

The overwhelming majority of the comments suggested that I use First POV for the MC only and then use Third Person for the other characters.

If you are reading this on Patreon, you will notice that my new fic does follow that pattern.

Henceforth, the new chapters of Technomancer in MCU will follow that pattern as well.

I'll slowly go over the previously uploaded chapters and edit them.

If, for some reason, you preferred the older versions, I will have google doc links edited into the chapters for your perusal.


I'm still preparing for my new job. Packing and preparing documentation is a stuff of nightmares. Never thought it would take this long to do seemingly mundane stuff. Don't even get me started on the stuff that I had to get from government offices. I wonder why we even pay those people (I'm just ranting here. I know why we do and have a reduced amount but still a sizable amount of respect for these people. I'm just saying that now I get why people always complain about the horrible efficiency of government servants.)

What I am trying to say is the chapter upload schedule might be irregular.

Might be day after tomorrow or maybe even tonight as I had an unexpected bout of focus and ended up writing up 2.5k chapter within just 2 hours.

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 34.2

Technomancer in MCU

Bunker Below the White House

–Nick Fury–

He then elaborated, "The reason they are marked as not-to-intervene is because they are already on the path to reach the benchmark I have set for Humanity's advancement. They are way ahead of you, obviously but that doesn't mean that they have reached space-faring status, it just means that they will, in due time, without my interference. Any action on my part at this stage will only result in negative results."

At our collective looks of incomprehension, he pinched his nose and said, "Look, just think of them as someone who is already scoring consistently at the top of the class and any extra attention from the teacher would not help and might even backfire as they might not be used to the attention. The orange ones are the people who can score higher but are not on the right track. They can be guided back on those tracks with minimum interference."

Here, he took a pause and said, "The red ones are the ones to worry about. They are the ones whose path doesn't lead to advancement without heavy-handed intervention. They are the ones most marginalized and exploited on our planet."

"Look, can we just focus on the threats from outer space, the ones who we actually need to worry about?"

He gestured to the globe and said, "All of those things can be easily handled by me. What I need your help with are the threats that lurk in the darkness of outer space. Those are the ones that cannot be defeated without cooperation from your end as well as mine."

_________________________________________________________

Once again, the president cleared his throat and said, "Ahem.. Ed, we understand. Can you tell us about the threats in outer space then? Starting with the one who sent that Chitauri army you talked about?"

Ed nodded, clearly relieved, "Finally, someone with sense."

He then waved his hand again and the view of the globe zoomed out.

I looked at the scene intently, trying to memorize any important details.

As the view zoomed out, we saw multiple dots on the moon.

Then the dots kept coming up again.

A few scattered on Mars.

Some near Jupiter.

Multiple ones near the sun.

How could anybody survive near the sun?

I had so many questions about that but kept my mouth closed.

I could always ask him about it later on. If he feels generous, he might even answer them.

The more important thing right now was information because as it was right now, we were flying blind.

The view zoomed out even more, eventually settling on the map of the Milky Way Galaxy.

"Alright," He then stood up and waved his hands and the f*cking table disappeared in front of us.

So did his chair.

Startled, all of us leaned away from where the table used to be.

Smiling at us, the bastard was enjoying all of this, he gestured to the hologram and it changed to show five different icons.

At our questioning looks, he started to explain what they were.

"Gentlemen, there are five major powers in our galaxy that we need to be wary about. These powers are so high above us that even if we reach the level I want us to reach, I doubt we will be much of a threat to any of these civilizations, if they want to destroy us completely."

I leaned forward, very much interested in finally getting any information about the dealings of major powers in outer space other than the Kree and the Skrull conflict.

"They are–" he said while gesturing to the hologram.

The galaxy then shifted to highlight an island floating through space. It had buildings built on it in medieval style. A huge golden palace of sorts is situated in the center of the island, with a waterfall-like formation dropping water seemingly into the void.

"--Asgard, the home of Skyfather Odin. As you might have guessed, Thor and Loki hail from this place. Once upon a time, Odin reigned near supreme across the universe, conquering realm after realm but after an incident a few thousand years ago, they retreated back into their realm and nowadays only guard the Nine Realms, of which Earth or Midgard as they call it, is a part of." he continued.

"Then there is Xandar." The hologram showed a planet that slightly resembled Earth, if not only slightly larger. It had towering skyscrapers but also greenery surrounding all the cities. Also, like Earth, the majority of its surface was covered with water. There were numerous structures littering its orbit and ships continued to dock and undock from those structures. The zoomed-in view showed aliens of all sizes and shapes roaming around in public spaces, showcasing its multi-species nature.

"This is the civilization that we should pay close attention to. It is the closest galactic superpower that we can emulate and have a reasonable chance of succeeding with. As you can see, they are humanoid and share slight resemblances with ours but the Xandar empire as a whole is multi-species. They accept many other species with open arms without discrimination. Their technology has also evolved to develop with the nature of their planet rather than against it. I would recommend this planet to be the first trip for mainly trade relations. You would be able to get many space-faring technologies here for just money. It is a major trade hub, after all. For trade, I would recommend spices as they are a rarity even in space."

We gave him incredulous looks as he suggested for us to become spice traders like the British colonizers to initiate trade with one of the galactic superpowers.

He looked defensive as he said, "What? It is true. Spices are very hard to grow outside and for some reason, they never evolved in most of the planets with the same makeup as ours. Trust me, they've tried to grow chilly in space. They can't. That stuff is much rarer than oil in outer space. Oil is worthless outside of our planet."

"Next is Olympus." The hologram showed a bubble, inside of which were buildings that were shining as they all seemed to be made out of gold.

"Before you ask, yes, they are the same Olympians that early humans used to worship. They have now left Earth and reside in a pocket dimension they call as 'Omnipotence City'. Their leader is Zeus, who is said to have matched Odin in combat ability, although that is yet to be proven because I know for a fact that Odin in his Prime was someone even Celestials would hesitate to fight with."

At the question marks that must have floated above our heads, he clarified, "Celestials are the first beings to come into existence after the Big Bang.As such, they are naturally the most powerful species to ever exist in our universe. They are planet-sized humanoids with reality-warping abilities. Energy manipulation, matter manipulation, spatial manipulation, you name it and they probably have someone in their midst with that ability."

At our growing looks of horror, he hurriedly said, "Don't worry. The last time anybody saw a celestial was centuries ago and even if you did encounter them, they barely interact with any species as they consider us below them. Ant and a Blue Whale would be an apt comparison in terms of scale of impact on the cosmos around us."

That didn't do anything to abate our growing concerns as the looks of horror remained on all our faces.

Danvers didn't tell me about any of this. As far as I can tell, even Ed seems to be of the mind that these beings can't be fought with. That thought sent chills down my spine. That some beings existed you simply can't fight with.

"Anyway, the next would be Kree." The hologram shifted to show a planet completely devoid of nature. No forests or trees littered the surface of the planet. Water covered a majority of the planet but it looked completely artificial as if it was still water and not flowing at all like seawater. The zoomed view showed a Tall blue humanoid alien.

"They are the most war-mongering species you could find in the galaxy. Well, of course, apart from the humans," he said in a humorous way.

None of us found it funny, of course.

"Eh, Tough Crowd." he shrugged and then continued, "I would not recommend any sort of contact with this species. They have a central artificial intelligence that rules their entire society. This has made them the hardest civilisation to fight with as the AI doesn't care about its citizens as long as the species as a whole is succeeding. This makes them a nightmare to deal with in a prolonged fight."

"Also, they are just as if not more xenophobic than us, so there's that."

"The last would be Thanos–" the hologram flexed only to show a humongous ship. It was a large rectangular ship that overshadowed asteroids. The only thing written on the screen was-'The Sanctuary' and then it zoomed in to show a Tall humanoid with purple skin. He resembled the Hulk in musculature.

"That is the single biggest threat to Humanity out there. He is one bad motherf*cker of a Titan, a species that used to live on the moon of Saturn names Titan. That is Thanos, the strongest of his species to ever exist. He is a madman who is hell-bent on killing half of all life. He is someone who destroys advanced civilisations for breakfast. As we are now, that purple scrotum would trounce the entire team of Avengers within seconds. The only people alive who can match him can be counted on a single hand. Not Hulk, Not Thor, and regrettably, not even me or any of the people in my organisation can hope to even scratch him as he is now. The Chitauri army was sent by him. He wanted the Tesseract for some reason."

He then turned off the hologram and a table materialized under the hologram on which he leaned on. He then looked at each of us intensely and then said, 'He is the one we need to defeat if we are to survive on the road to becoming a galactic civilization."

The President choked out, clearly spooked by this Thanos, "Why? Why would he come for us? We don't even have the Tesseract anymore. Thor took it. Asgard has it."

Ed then shook his head and said, "If only it were that simple. We defeated his Chitauri army. A backwater planet that was simply beneath his notice, defeated his army which was headed by Loki.I know that he doesn't look much but Loki is one of the top combatants of the universe. He could singlehandedly trounce multiple civilizations if he so wished. It's just that he hasn't yet realised all of his powers yet. We were lucky that day. If Loki had been his true self, Earth would be a smoking husk by now. Defeating him, that might as well have been an open challenge to him. Make no mistake, he will come for us and when he does, we will be ready."

"We have to. There is no other choice."

He then stood up tall and in our eyes, he seemed to grow even taller as he said, "The only question is will you stand with us or against us?"

The sound of the President gulping could be heard by everybody inside the room.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1789

If you guys want to read ahead, you can head on to my Patreon.


Author Note

Well, I tried yesterday but the plot bunnies wouldn't come to me so here's the chapter today.

It was my first time writing a sweet romantic scene of sorts. Do tell me how it went.

I have the outline of the next 2 chapters ready and since I am on the train to my job posting, I have nothing to do but write for 30 more hours. SO! Good news, you might see another chapter tomorrow. REJOICE!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 35

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

He then stood up tall and in our eyes, he seemed to grow even taller as he said, "The only question is will you stand with us or against us?"

The sound of the President gulping could be heard by everybody inside the room.

________________________________________________________________

–Ed–

I must admit, I had gotten a little carried away in my speech.

The President looked like he had swallowed a particularly sour lemon.

He was looking at my outstretched hand like it was a snake about to swallow him completely.

Fury and the others were no better.

They looked at me in caution as I asked or more likely, gave them an ultimatum regarding their actions.

After a while of just staring, the President looked at my hand and hesitantly shook his head.

Huh.

Never thought he would grow a spine at this moment.

I nodded and retracted my hand and said, "Very well. I just hope that we don't meet on opposite ends, Mr.President. I will not show mercy."

Frightened by my words, he frantically waved his hands and said hurriedly, "No No NO! You are misunderstanding me. It's not that I don't want to support you. Believe me, I do. Allying with you at this point would all but ensure my victory in the next elections."

I leveled a confusing look at him and said, "I don't understand."

He then sighed and all the energy seemed to drain out of him as he sagged in his seat, "Majority of the people in the government would never agree with what you want to do. I won't be able to openly support you even if I wanted to."

He then gestured to Fury and said, "His organisation might have the power to cooperate with you but his backers won't allow that. I think the best we can do is a policy of open non-interference but even then the various black cells present in our government would still move against you, they would just lose the ability to do so in the light."

I gave an understanding nod at that.

"Very well, then. I have emailed all of the information I told you about to your secured servers. Most of your questions will be answered there itself."

I then nodded to myself and said, "And consider this a gift. I'll publicly offer NASA to ferry anything they want to and fro from anywhere in the solar system."

I could see their eyes almost popping out of their sockets.

Before they could launch into one of their tirades though, I raised my hand and stopped them, "And no, no weaponization of this offer. All of it would be contingent on NASA declaring all the findings in the public domain. This would also not be free. Substantial amounts of money will be charged for this. I will allow exploratory operations of any kind as long as they are unmanned. Manned operations will have to wait for a while."

I then waved my hands and said, "You know what? I'll have one of my people give a visit to NASA and they'll just hash out everything."

"Anyway, it has been nice meeting you, gentlemen. If you'll excuse me, I have another place to be."

"WAIT!" Fury shouted.

Anticipating this, I smirked at him and gestured at him to go on, "What is it, Fury? Do know that my time is very much limited. I have to go resolve issues that you don't even know of."

Ah, he was grinding his teeth at that. It's so much fun seeing him do that.

"We still don't have any clue regarding who you are, where you came from, where you operate, and so on. If you want us to trust you, the information flow needs to go both ways. You know all there is to know about us but we know next to nothing about you." he asked me, frustration written all over his face.

I made a show of sighing and said, "Look, Fury. If we had come to an accord over greater cooperation, then I might have deigned to tell you more but as it is now, our situation calls for greater isolation. We will continue doing our business how we used to do it before, in complete stealth. "

He went to speak more but I forestalled him and said, "When we are needed, you can be damn sure that we will be there. As I said before, no transfer of technology will happen between us for reasons I don't think I need to repeat again."

Fury ground his teeth together and then seemed to have come to a decision.

Squaring his shoulders, he said, "If you walk out of here without agreeing to at least some of our demands, I will be forced to declare your organisation, at least internally, to be a terrorist organisation. You will be hunted down for your technology by us."

Damn!

I didn't think Fury had it in him to do this.

Good thing he is playing right into our hands then.

I laughingly waved him off and said, "Please, you guys wouldn't even know we existed if not for the invasion. Do your worst."

Amidst their shouts, Alfred chose to shrink and phase me to the jet.

Alfred's digital avatar popped up in front of me and he said determinedly, "The Gamma-tier weapons of the carrier are ready to be fired."

I deadpanned at his behaviour.

Even the lowest-tier weapons on the super-class carrier would obliterate entire blocks. Sustained fire could decimate small towns.

I waved him off and said, "You know we can't do that. Then even the Avengers won't work with us and you know how important that is to the plan."

His avatar slumped dramatically and said, "I know. Deactivating all weapons on board then."

I snorted a laugh at his dramatic behaviour, "You do realise that I know you never activated any of the weapons. You won't threaten the civilians nearby and the innocents inside the White House by attacking it."

He then blew a raspberry at me and his avatar vanished.

It was quite disturbing to see an old face doing that.

On my HUD, I could see the jet getting out of the bunker and towards the moon. The superclass carrier was going towards its new assignment, orbiting the planet.

After multiple discussions and debates internally as well as with Alfred, I had come to the consensus that the Super Class carrier should be on high availability at all times.

Canon, as I know it has gone off the rails and there is no telling which threat might rear its ugly head sooner than expected.

So, with the invisible sword of Damocles hanging over my head, I had no other choice but to deploy my strongest weapon near orbit.

It was a masterpiece.

The strongest weapon I would be able to build after this would involve either an Infinity stone, Uru, or Pym Particle tomfoolery.

It was built with an Adamantium exterior and a Vibranium interior. It made it the most durable ship built without reality-warping shenanigans.

For all I know, Wanda could just conjure up a theoretical metal stronger than even Vibranium.

It had enough provisions for nearly 10,000 people to live on it. Of course, we were nowhere near that level in terms of headcount but Alfred built it on the assumption that someday, it might be necessary to use this carrier in conjunction with Earth's forces, acting as a modern-day Ark as a last-resort.

With the energy sources embedded in the carrier along with advanced matter converters, theoretically, a large human colony could survive on that ship for decades, centuries if they get enough supplies.

It was powered by one main N-Reactor and 4 backup Giant Arc reactors.

Any one of those could power up the entire carrier for decades without any issue but to operate the Alpha-tier energy weapons onboard, the N-Reactor needed to be used at full load.

Contrary to what was portrayed in comic books, Stark's Arc reactor was not the be-all and end-all for energy generation.

To be clear, it was fine for anything Earth had to power.

The gamma cannon on this carrier was just another beast altogether.

For every activation, that cannon ate enough energy to power the entire Earth for 1 month. That number gets even more preposterous when you factor in the fact that it was built using a Vibranium base, which shot its overall efficiency figures to the low 90s.

A single shot of that cannon would punch through multiple planets with ease.

The N-Reactor was just a room-size sphere of Pure Vibranium with an outer coating of an Adamantium alloy. The interesting properties of Vibranium allowed us to harness what was essentially the power of the sun.

Alfred had the crazy idea at first when I vetoed it. Back then it was just us two. Now, with all the new heads in the organisation, in collusion with Alfred, proposed it to me and strong-armed me into giving it the green signal.

All the concessions I could get was a guarantee that only one would exist at any given point.

At its core, the N-reactor was named as such because of its origin of energy. The biggest nuke that Alfred could build and realistically fit inside the sphere was built and detonated inside that sphere of pure Vibranium. The energy inside was absorbed by the processed vibranium as pure energy. Coating vibranium in celestial body fluid dramatically increases all its energy-related properties.

All the energy released by the nuke upon explosion, conservative estimates range in YottaWatts, was trapped inside the sphere and using advanced superconductors, once again made of Vibranium, we were able to tap into that energy whenever we required.

Thus, turning a force of pure destruction into a source of energy that would quite literally power Humanity as it is now till our extinction.

BEEP!

I watch as a team of scientists, using Gravitonium based anchoring devices, stabilise one of the portals that were formed because of the convergence.

It was pea-sized right now but the team predicted its gradual expansion until it would finally settle at 15-20 feet in diameter.

Jane Foster would give anything to be a part of that team.

It's a shame that her association with Thor rendered any chance of her becoming a part of our organisation, moot.

"Alfred, chart a course to London, will you?"

"Yes, sir."

Without so much as a small lurch, the jet did a ninety-degree turn and sped off towards London.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1780

If you guys want to read ahead, you can head on to my Patreon
I already have up to 9 extra chapters uploaded there.

Author Note

As promised, another chapter served on the platter for you guys!

I have another 10 hours of train journey ahead of me so I might just finish up another chapter or start working on my other fic, whatever the mind worms decide.

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 36

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

"Alfred, chart a course to London, will you?"

"Yes, sir."

Without so much as a small lurch, the jet did a ninety-degree turn and sped off towards London.

________________________________________________________________

London

–Ed–

Soon, the Big Ben came into view.

"Alfred, use the leftover energies from the space stone to lock down the space surrounding the portal once we reach there. I don't want any unexpected complications to arise from there."

"Are you sure, sir? That would use up nearly 6% of our Space stone energy reserves." Alfred replied.

"Why so much?" I asked him, slightly shocked at the expenditure.

Due to the generous use of Vibranium in all of our energy-related technology, our efficiency figures never dipped below 90% and 6% of our energy reserves was a lot.

"Sir, it's due to the convergence. While the bigger events will take a while to happen, the space surrounding this area has already become substantially more malleable than usual. Also, I am detecting some interference in the surrounding space. Somebody is trying to break the dimensional walls." Alfred replied.

My eyes widened in realisation as I said, "So, somebody is trying to take advantage of the weakening barriers during the Convergence. Must be some demon or hell lord trying to send their agents of chaos here. Do alert the Ancient One."

Before Alfred could reply, a small golden portal opened up in front of me and a small rolled-up scroll flew through it, dropping it right at my feet.

I rolled my eyes at that.

Honestly, how she managed to open a portal in front of me, keep it geo-locked since the jet was moving at a very high speed and deposit the scroll right at my feet, is beyond me.

Probably even Strange would not have that level of granular control, even when he would ascend to the level of Sorcerer Supreme.

It read - 'Don't worry about the Order, outsider. I have the dimensional barriers covered. Focus on your quest. It shall either grant you tremendous rewards or give a terrible enemy access to weapons that can remold the fabric of our universe. No Pressure '

Yeah, Right. No Pressure. Thanos with the Reality Stone is already undefeatable in my eyes if he can use it properly. And she says no pressure. Hilarious.

"Approaching Convergence Site A" Alfred helpfully reminded me.

The jet, in stealth mode, approached a garden?

Somehow, the first portal to open on Earth due to the convergence happened to be right in the middle of a children's playing park.

The jet crossed the illusion barrier and a makeshift site came into view.

Only, because it was made by us, it was made of vibranium-lattice nanites.

We truly use that stuff a lot, don't we?

Before I could disembark the ship though, a whining sound emerged from the jet as a thin blue beam emerged from its underbelly, which then unfolded itself to become slightly longer. The whine reached its crescendo when a blue wave was emitted from the beam.

Almost immediately, a near-transparent blue barrier surrounded the entire makeshift facility.

Almost immediately, a thin wiry, glasses-wearing man with a fierce scowl on his face exited the facility and upon seeing me, the scowl on his face somehow worsened.

I didn't even know that it was possible to do that.

Apparently, angered upon seeing me, he stomped towards me as fast as someone with a walking stick could.

Despite, numerous attempts by me and Alfred to have Dr.Lawson get treatment for his eyes and his legs, he refuses to do so.

I like being old-fashioned in some ways that still matter, he says.

After being told off a little too many times, I backed off.

"What were you and your freaky AI thinking when you, without my prior approval, activated machinery that would have rendered all my efforts since I came here, moot?" he brandished his walking stick at me and shouted vehemently.

Apparently, Alfred had forgotten to mention to Dr.Lawson regarding the effects of the space block on his equipment.

Sure, he is the most advanced A.I. on this side of the galaxy, has processing prowess matched only by perhaps the Supreme Intelligence and somehow he forgot to mention a crucial thing to the now very irate scientist.

I wonder why I tolerate Alfred sometimes.

I raised my hands placatingly and explained to him, "I am sorry, Dr.Lawson. You know how Alfred is. He must not have informed you regarding the space lock."

His face turned an even darker shade of red at the mention of Alfred.

Oh boy, Alfred must not have stopped making his coffee taste like coal then.

I sweatdropped as he went into a huge tirade about Alfred.

About how he was always bothering him, changing his coffee, abruptly changing the destination on his vehicles, and fighting for control with him whenever he tried to wrest back control of said vehicle, and the list went on and on.

I mentally noted to myself to order Alfred to stop doing his pranks on people above 50. At least those that haven't had their bodies enhanced by us.

It would be a huge loss if we lost the foremost expert we had on gravitational anomalies, to something as preventable as a heart attack.

Someday, I might have to do the procedure on him, without his consent anyway. Especially since he is on the cusp of weaponising portals. The sorcerer's portals need an edge to them and Dr.Lawson is the one who is going to provide it.

Sure, if Thanos is actually defeated by just opening a portal and closing it once he is halfway through, I'll feel pretty stupid for doing all the other preparations but it will be a victory and I would be free from that particular Sword Of Damocles.

"Are you even listening to me, you snot-nosed brat?" Dr.Lawson's irate face with a vein popping out of his forehead appeared in front of me.

I lean slightly away from him and more importantly, his walking stick that I know was upgraded since I can see the shine of the Arc reactor coming out of its small crevices.

As soon as I focused on the walking stick, a blown-out view of all of its weapons and features appeared on my retina HUD.

Sure, the man refuses to have his legs healed but is okay walking around with a small army's worth of firepower in his walking stick.

Does he even know how much damage that stick he is brandishing around can do?

Clearing my throat, I said to him as sternly as I could, "Dr.Lawson, while I am sorry about the lack of notice to you, I am still your superior and this kind of language doesn't suit someone of your station."

He just looked at me like I was a fool.

He then waved that death stick of his and turned around, huffing and puffing as he stomped back to his office, "You can shove your superior position where the sun doesn't shine and tell that damn AI to stay out of my way."

He then paused right before the door and turned towards me, saying, "Now, do you still want your report or do I have to kick you out of my site?"

Then without listening to my response, he just walked on ahead, uncaring of his insulting attitude.

I could see the guards and the researchers nearby, watching the show and chuckling quietly to themselves.

Enjoying their leader being embarrassed and scolded by someone who apparently doesn't care about my power at all.

I looked ahead and walked into the good doctor's office shamelessly, pretending that I didn't hear all of them howling in laughter once I entered the site.

Entering his office, I could see Dr.Lawson clearing up his desk from a pile of papers taller than he was.

Sighing, I said, "Doctor, I am sure that you are aware we have hard light projectors that can give you the same feel as hard paper without cluttering your space to the point it can't even be called one anymore."

I gestured to the ground, where not a single foot could be kept without stepping on a piece of paper that had advanced mathematical formulas written on them.

Scoffing, he waved me off, "Bah! What do you youngsters know? Nothing and I mean, Nothing can replicate the feeling of writing down a formula on a piece of paper and staring at it for hours, trying to figure it out."

I gave up.

"Alfred, clean this place up, will you?" I ordered Alfred out loud.

He didn't reply but several hard light constructs appeared around the paper.

I snorted once I saw the look on Dr.Lawson's face.

Alfred, smartass that he was, had actually projected brooms and dustpans around the entire office, showing the pages being collected into the dustpan and then into a dustbin labeled as "Garbage"

Ignoring his vehement protests, I stepped on the finally clutter-free flooring and sat on one of the chairs.

Alfred, understanding my intent, projected hard light tongs and grabbed Dr.Lawson like he was a piece of bread and unceremoniously dropped him in his chair like a sack of potatoes.

I held in my laughter at that scene.

Looks like I'll have to assign Dr.Lawson one of the VIs for a while.

While they can reduce efficiency figures of research pipelines, it is not by much and I don't think Dr.Lawson or anyone on his team for that matter will allow Alfred in their systems anymore. If I forced them, it might just start a mutiny here.

Not letting any of my thoughts show on my face, I crossed my legs and said, "So, doctor. What do you have for me?"

He opened his mouth, probably to berate me but I stopped him and said, "I'll be honest with you, Dr.Lawson. There are many others in the organisation and even outside who will be more than happy to sign any binding contract for an opportunity to sit in the same chair as you do. So please, tell me straight. What do you know so far?"

He got red-faced, probably angered by my insinuation that he was easily replaceable to me, but controlled it in the end and handed me one of the manilla folders that was sitting on his desk.

Taking ahold of it, I opened it and looked inside to find all the findings regarding the portal, including its rate of expansion, different esoteric energies being emitted from it, energies spewing out of it that are not indigenous to Earth, and so on.

"You know" he began, "I am not stupid. It's just that years of working alone and being ridiculed for my hard work have probably jaded me more than I would admit. On top of that, your A.I. is a royal pain in the butt to deal with. You have to admit that."

I opened my mouth to defend Alfred but closed it slowly once I thought of all the things the crew had had to deal with because of his shenanigans. They only tolerate him because they are scared of me and Alfred doesn't do anything when the situation calls for it.

It does help that he has a near-perfect record of helping coordinate all missions.

"See" he pointed towards me, "Even you know that."

He then sighed and said," That matter aside, the portal is stable and now that the space has been locked, we'll be able to study it in more depth. Is there any way we can quarantine this zone until the Convergence is done? More than one member has approached me regarding their concerns about an invisible portal that changes its destination appearing right in the middle of a children's park. People could die, Ed."

He was right.

Not only was the destination of the portal changing from Svartalfheim to Jotunheim to any one of the nine realms.

No other realm other than Earth is hospitable for Humans.

Even Vaneheim, the closest to Earth in terms of atmospheric composition, has nearly 10X Earth's gravity.

Even 6 times Earth's gravitational force would be fatal to all healthy adults.

Let alone children.

Nodding at his question, I reply, "Don't worry. I'll have somebody look into it. The easiest way to do it would be to alert S.H.I.E.L.D. about it but then they would want to butt their heads in the research as well. And we both know how disastrous it would be if S.H.I.E.L.D. gets its hands on portal creation technology."

He nodded at that.

I then stood up and said, "Don't worry, though. I'll do something. Maybe a radiation leak will quarantine this place for atleast a year then or we can just outright buy this place through our corporations. Anyway, continue your research and I'll expect to see you during the monthly departmental head meeting."

"Very well. Now let me do my work in peace and make sure that infernal AI doesn't stay in the systems."

I nodded sheepishly at that and swiftly left his office.

"Alfred, make sure you don't go anywhere near Dr.Lawson, at least until the Convergence. It is imperative that he does his research in peace and while I might find your pranks endearing, it has become a real nuisance to him. So, please, leave him alone." I whispered to my suit.

Alfred's hologram appeared on my retina HUD with a literal cloud over his head.

I deadpanned at that.

I shook my head and ordered him to take me to the Moon.

I had a meeting with Black Bolt that I needed to prepare for.

It's time I had a meeting with the strongest Inhuman and either brought him into the fold or eliminated him.

Also, "Alfred, do remind me to take care of Maximus permanently while I am there, will you?"

"Roger that, sir." his reply came in a subdued voice.

Oh, come on. Not this again.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2368

Extra chapters - Patreon

REJOICE!

The shorter chapters backlog has now finished and all the chapters after this one should have ~2.5k words/chapter.


Author Note

Once Again, I am sorry BUT in my defense, I just moved to a city 1500km(35hrs) away from my home and had to find a place to stay, figure out the public transport (As it would take another week for my bike to reach here) and find good enough food for my tastebuds.

YOU try doing all of that in a span of 3 days all the while maintaining correspondence with the company that managed to somehow send me 3 different types of formats for the document arrangement( I ended up doing all 3 types and so didn't have to do it again on the spot but that is another point altogether).

Good news is that today was my first day and I am now officially an employee (Yay!) and am now in the training phase. One advantage of that is I have a pretty good idea of what my schedule will be after this. So I should be able to catch up and maybe(hopefully) even stockpile on some chapters this weekend.

Anyway, thank you for reading my rant.

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 37

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

I had a meeting with Black Bolt that I needed to prepare for.

It's time I had a meeting with the strongest Inhuman and either brought him into the fold or eliminated him.

Also, "Alfred, do remind me to take care of Maximus permanently while I am there, will you?"

_________________________________________________________

The Asterisk, Moon

–Ed–

As I was nearing Asterisk, I gave the order to Alfred to prep the Inhuman resurgence protocols.

It was a set of instructions Alfred had made way back in the day and improved upon as we came upon additional data regarding the Kree's experiments on humans.

He had seen my memory of the Kree crystals being spread through the oceans and millions of Inhumans being spontaneously turned into their enhanced forms.

To prevent that and also to contain the Inhumans on the moon if the time came, Alfred put Inhuman Extinction devices on his list for weapons development.

Upon centuries of research in simulated time using the time stone, Alfred had found out that the Inhumans as a species were unstable.

How the Ancient One continued to favour and dare I say, dote upon Alfred and not even letting me access the tomes was just hypocritical. It never fails to make me jealous.

For God's sake, he has access to time-stone energy stored in Vibranium ingots and even access to all but the most vile tomes of magic.

It was just favoritism at that point.

What made that defect worse was their marriage systems.

There was no genetic diversity in their genome pool.

Perks of being sequestered away in a hidden city on the moon, I suppose.

They had immunity figures reaching just 10% of an average human's.

It was pathetic compared to even the mildly enhanced, let alone to the likes of Dr.Banner and Steve Rogers.

The funny thing was, Alfred didn't need to do research under a time-dilated environment but he was so excited to finally use the time stone energy that he didn't think of the importance of the task at hand and just went on ahead.

At this point, the protocols consisted of a variety of options to deal with the Inhumans.

They ranged from exposure to the common cold to a genetically engineered virus, developed in the future by Alfred, that would systematically target and eliminate subjects with a specific gene.

In this case, it was the Inhuman gene that was targeted by the virus.

"Oh, and Alfred, make sure that the more genocidal parts of the protocol are left aside, alright?" I ordered Alfred.

"......"

"......"

"Alfred?", I asked him again.

"Order Received," came a completely robotic voice, devoid of any emotion or trace of similarity with Alfred's original voice that he had chosen after scouring the internet for audio samples.

I sighed at that.

Seems like he was still holding on to the incident of Dr.Lawson.

I might have taken his side but at this critical juncture, he must know some limits.

Shaking my head, I temporarily ignored his tantrum and pushed the switch to open the ramp.

The plane landed but it seemed unnecessarily jerky as it seemed to take a second to find its position.

Sighing at yet another sign of a tantrum from Alfred, I said in a stern voice, "Alfred, just because I tolerate your actions does not mean you get blanket permission to jeopardize mission-critical equipment. Restrain yourself or I will be forced to. Do you understand?"

Came a muffled, "Yes", from the jet speakers.

I nodded at his response and disembarked from the jet.

The first thing I see upon exiting the ramp is a spic and span Frank Castle with a crooked grin on his face.

That only meant one thing to me.

That before this, he was completely covered in blood, his or his enemies'.

Seems the Vampire assignment went a bit sideways then.

When I was nearing him, he handed he swiped his hand toward me and a hard light projection came into being right into my hand.

Frank waited for me as I sifted through the report.

While it did go sideways once Frank went all Punisher on the vampires, both elders and the thralls under them were killed and the humans who could be saved, were rescued and the ones who were beyond saving were given a painless death.

Something fierce burned inside me when I read the number of lives that were lost to become the blood bags for these elder vampires despite them having an accord with most governments of the world.

Before I could give Frank his next orders though, he beat me to and said to me in a gruff voice, "I've already been debriefed and I volunteered myself for the Attilan mission, Boss."

Giving him a deadpan stare, I said, "Noo, I have a deal with Maria. You don't go on back-to-back missions that involve death and destruction of this degree. If you don't go back to her, she might just come here and try and drag me along with you."

His excited demeanor wilted at the mention of his wife and he shot me a betrayed look at the mention of the deal I made with his wife.

I raised my hands in mock surrender and said, "Hey, it's your wife. Go talk to her. What are you looking at me for?"

He grumbled something to himself under his breath and turned around, waking to the road that went to the colony we had established for the full-time employees and their families under the rock surface of the moon.

Once I was sure that Frank was out of listening range, I ordered Alfred, "We need to send a message to these Elders. Preferably, directly to Dracula. Send a few of our teams along with a full-size carrier to Romania. Kill a few of the elders and remind Dracula as to why they are still alive and not hunted down to the darkness of the world."

After getting the confirmation from Alfred, I finally head to my rejuvenation pod.

I had had a very hectic day and needed to get some shut-eye.

The good news was that with CHI crystals, I barely needed 2 hours of sleep for my mind.

The bad news was that my body was a different story as it needed to be submerged in CHI infused liquids for at least 10 hours for it to be even remotely functional for the next 14 hours.

_________________________________________________________

[1 hour later]

The Asterisk

–Daisy Johnson–

Seeing your team leader who is a 6'4 absolute hunk of a man being manhandled by an absolutely petite woman, no more than 5'1, is always a shock to the system.

Of course, none of the squad members dared to make fun of Commander Castle for that. The terror of Maria Castle was well known throughout the base and even beyond it.

It is rumored that even Big Boss Ed could get an earful of Maria's legendary temper if Commander Castle comes home injured.

She shuddered to even think about what Big Boss must get scared of.

Finding out about the first assignment where she would be going in alone, especially with just the leader of their organisation would have made her faint by now if it wasn't for the many many enhancements she went through under Alfred's supervision.

Nowadays, she bet she could take a head-on punch from the Hulk and come out the other side unscathed.

In fact, she was by far, the strongest on the team. Of course, she had no delusions of besting Frank freaking Castle in combat but she was certainly no pushover.

Her records proved that.

Perfect combat records with a 100% mission completion rate and a pesky 95% recommendation level from Commander Castle.

That was the only blemish on her otherwise perfect record.

As she got the mission parameters, she came to a screeching halt on her way to her quarters.

Raising her hand to look at her smartwatch, she said, "Alfred, what are these parameters?"

The smartwatch projected the hologram of an old man in his 70s with a bespoke three-piece suit, the preferred avatar of Alfred and he said with an air of finality, "What of them? You are given your orders. Follow them."

She glared at him for his smug way of speaking. He knew what she was talking about and was being an ass just for the sake of it.

Sometimes, she wondered how did Alfred turn out like this if, according to the rumour mill, he was based on the thought patterns of Big Boss.

He is like the dream man come true and then there is this Turd.

Of course, She let none of my thoughts even remotely show on her face as she didn't want to get sucked out of the airlock of the base again.

She knew She could survive, but you know, why go through the hassle?

"I meant that the parameter section of the mission is empty. I don't need to tell you how that is unusual, do I?"

"There is nothing wrong with my mission parameters. Those are the ones personally given by Ed." He said and then rolled his eyes as he continued, "According to him, the mission parameters could change wildly at a moment's notice in response to minute changes in the situation so the ones who should accompany him must have the capabilities to respond to said changes effectively and actually keep up with him."

A smile began to form on her face as she heard his answer, "And you chose me? Aww, Alfred! You do like me then!" She said in a babying voice, knowing that it absolutely drove him nuts when she did that.

His face contorted into a grimace of rage as his hologram turned red and he said, "Be glad that I didn't insist on Frank accompanying you as he would have extracted all the excitement out of you. As a matter of fact, why don't I just tell him about the half-assed training you have been doing since he was assigned the training of the new generation of Inhumans?"

her face paled at that and she hurriedly said to him, begging and pleading, "Please don't do that. The last time I tried to skip training, I couldn't feel my limbs and my powers for a month, even under constant CHI bombardment."

He smirked triumphantly at her as he said, "Well, of course that happened. The power negation aspect of Frank's power is said to be matched only by reality warpers and the current Sorcerer Supreme, who can also be called a reality warper. He can temporarily negate even the Hulk's powers, let alone yours."

He had no reason whatsoever to speak that disdainfully, especially the part about her power.

As she was about to launch another tirade against him for speaking ill of her power, she remembered her mission.

Her first mission alone with the Big Boss. The shining knight of her dreams.

She swiftly deactivated her watch and skipped hurriedly toward her quarters, determined to look her best for tomorrow's important mission.

_________________________________________________________

[10 hours later]

Captain's quarters, The Asterisk

–Ed–

Waiting for my body to wake up, following a dip in the CHI tank is always a very constricting feeling.

My mind, being supremely more powerful than my body, wakes up immediately compared to my sluggish-feeling body.

Upon waking up, I ruthlessly crush the instinctual attempt by my powers to scan for any technology nearby, to scan, combine, and create new technology. Even a light ping of nearby-enabled technology will dip my lifespan by hours.

I have had to rely on Alfred to connect to any of my technology.

Using them manually, like a peasant.

How embarrassing.

If there are any variants of me with a perfectly fine body, they must be laughing at me, struggling to use the very technology I built with my own powers and having to resort to using them like everyone who isn't a Technomancer.

Hearing the hiss of the tube being opened, I prepare myself for the situations ahead of me.

Alfred had informed me yesterday that Daisy "Quake" Johnson herself was selected to be my partner for this particular excursion.

According to Alfred's hilarious reports on her, the only reason Alfred recommended her was because it would be funny for him to see her fail.

Oh, and also because Frank gave her his glowing seal of recommendation.

She's a natural, he says in his reports.

I don't think that will ever happen again.

Then again, she is impressive. So are her powers.

They differed a bit from her canon powers.

In canon, she was shown to generate vibrations from her body, which actually harmed her own body at first, before she learned how to control and direct those vibrations to use them for offensive purposes.

The current Daisy can not only generate vibrations but can also control macro vibrations to some extent.

According to Alfred, continued dosage of CHI would strengthen their bodies and increase the chances of getting a much better-suited power for the recipients.

Multiple Terrigenesis events later, Alfred was proven right.

All of the Inhumans that underwent Terrigenesis on the Asterisk were exposed to concentrated CHI for months before they were exposed to the Terrigen mists.

The Terrigen mists, as it turns out had multiple components, most of which we were unable to identify, but the one component we could identify was Celestial Brain matter.

It made sense for the Kree to use the matter mined from Knowhere and use it to make a species of weapons. They must have hoped to replicate the Celestial's powers but they failed. But, In doing so, they created a species with the potential to match one of the celestials by themselves. It was a remarkable achievement. Good thing they abandoned their experiments and left too early otherwise we would have been born in a Kree-dominated galaxy.

Post-terrigenesis, none of the Inhumans came out crippled or deformed, as was the case with over half of all Terrigenesis procedures on Attilan.

And to add a cherry on top of that, all of them were able to use their powers safely, albeit at a low level initially.

But, Daisy, was the strongest of them all.

She was smart and Alfred had taken a personal interest in her education, making sure she came up to her full intellectual potential.

This allowed her to use her intelligence to use her extremely potent and versatile powers in increasingly creative ways.

She had so far showcased both defensive and offensive use-case scenarios of her powers.

Upon further testing, it was concluded by Alfred that her vibration-deflecting shields should be able to take normal punches from Hulk and hit with nearly the same force as Thor with her offensive punches.

That somehow lit a fire under Alfred's digital ass. He pulled out all the enhancement tech we had on hand and re-engineered it all to map it to her genome specifically.

Even going so far as to use the Time Stone energy to accelerate the research and turn her into the physically strongest person in the organisation.

After me, of course. I still believed in the supremacy of well-built technology against raw brute force.

The Hulk would disagree but he was not here so I can count this as my win.

"Alfred, let's go meet Blackagar Boltagon, shall we? Inform Daisy to meet us in the hangar in an hour."

"Affirmative, sir."

_________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2603
For extra chapters - Patreon

Author Note:
So, here it is.

I am soon going to share a doc link in which I log all the stats of my chapter and generally plan around for the release schedule. In that, I have a cell for Average words/chapter and from now on, I have decided that I am going to at least maintain the chapter average for every chapter I write.

Don't know if it will work or not but here we go.

Thank you for reading!

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 38

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

After me, of course. I still believed in the supremacy of well-built technology against raw brute force.

The Hulk would disagree but he was not here so I can count this as my win.

"Alfred, let's go meet Blackagar Boltagon, shall we? Inform Daisy to meet us in the hangar in an hour."

"Affirmative, sir."

_________________________________________________________

Main Hangar, Asterisk

–Daisy "Quake" Johnson–

BEEP! BEEP!

Her eyes snapped open as she woke up instantly at the sound of the alarm.

Today was a very special day.

She was finally going on a mission without a commander.

And that too with the Big Boss!

Oh, her teammates were going to be so jealous when they heard about this.

Suck on that, Yo-Yo.

Hurriedly getting ready, she made it to the Main Hangar an hour before schedule.

As is the case most of the time, the Hangar was a hub of activity.

Multiple jets landing and taking off at the same time.

She could spot a few aircraft carriers docking at their stations, probably for periodic docking procedures.

She heard it in one of the boring lectures compiled by Alfred that their aircraft carriers are basically floating cities and can go years and maybe even decades without stopping for maintenance but Alfred, paranoid bastard that he was, insists on doing quarterly maintenance to make sure all of our forces are at 100% and ready to be deployed at a moment's notice.

She smiled and waved at the technicians and pilots who previously wouldn't have spared her a glance but now, greet her with all the respect.

It was all due to the badge.

Being in Frank Castle's personal hit squad is a feat that is almost impossible to achieve.

Being publicly acknowledged for that position is a reward all on its own.

A grouchy voice speaks into her ears, "No need to be so smug. I have already informed Frank of your tardiness regarding the morning training and he has assured me of the quote, "Taking care of your lazy ass, unquote."

And just like that, the smile was wiped off of her face.

"You just can't see me happy, can you?" she grumbled to herself, stomping towards the designated jet they were going to take for today's mission.

The comms were suspiciously silent after that.

Come to think of it, even the Hangar had gone completely silent.

She have never even heard of that happening.

Turning around to investigate the cause, she came face to face with the Big Boss.

"Ah!", she shrieked and jumped back, creating distance between them.

He only looked at her with a smug smirk.

She became all red, embarrassed at the fact that he was able to sneak up on her so easily, despite that being the first lesson Frank grilled in them for a whole month.

Oh man, she was so dead when she came back from this mission.

Regaining her bearings, she took a deep breath to calm down and after clearing her throat, she saluted him and said, "Special Agent Johnson, reporting for duty, Sir!"

_________________________________________________________

–Ed–

As I looked upon the red-faced, clearly flustered form of one Daisy Johnson, I could only shake my head in amusement.

It was a far cry from the combat recordings I saw on the way here. Far from being the badass that her team members described her as.

Ah, she was still saluting me.

I remember telling Alfred to issue an organisation-wide notice that strictly prohibited that.

I guess, he forgot.

I chuckle at her situation and tell her, "Please, we don't do that here. I believe there is a notice for that somewhere in the common notices section on your user terminal. I don't like being saluted to. I am actually not much older than you are, so I would prefer if you simply called me Ed."

She gasped at that, clearly surprised at my forthcoming attitude.

I wonder what my image is among the members of the community with whom I do not interact on a regular basis.

"I can not possibly do that, sir. The best I can do is call you sir," she replied to my request.

I deadpanned at her answer.

She stared right back at me and refused to budge on the issue.

Ah, so she does have some spine.

Then again, you have to when you work directly under Frank Castle.

His team consists of primarily enhanced people and from all the testimonies I see of his recommended team members, I can clearly make out a common pattern.

Extreme fear of Frank Castle.

Fear of a man who is by all means a certified badass and yet just that, a baseline badass.

Trained to the peak of human limits but still very much within human limits.

Then again, his powers help him level the playing field when it comes to enhanced people.

And when you are on the same level as him, he absolutely demolishes you, not leaving you with any will to retaliate against him even when you gain your powers back.

His powers were a huge surprise.

Frankly, I was surprised that he even had an Inhuman gene and even more surprised when he took up Alfred's offer to undergo terrigenesis.

I was against it as I didn't want my top team leader to get a defective power and lose his current combat prowess, but he was adamant.

Now, I am glad he did so.

He came out with the powers of complete power negation.

It didn't enhance his physical capabilities in any way but damn did it increase his threat level.

He can, in theory, depower the Hulk, if he was pushed to his limit.

That is a dangerous powerset.

Alfred also found an unintended positive effect of his powers.

The longer an enhanced person remains under his field of influence, the stronger their powers become.

That's half the reason he trains any member under him without their powers.

The other half is that he is a sadistic bastard who would stop at nothing to shape up the people under him to prepare them for the grim realities of the world.

"So" Daisy's voice snapped me out of my thoughts, "Shall we?", she said while gesturing to the jet behind her.

Right, that was the standard issue jet for me.

Fortified to the nine hells and filled to the gills with any and all advanced tech that Alfred could cram into.

And with him, you could never tell how much of it is in the jet.

A perfectly fine jet but I had other plans for today.

"No, change of plans," I replied to her.

At her quizzical look, I gestured behind me, to the two hoverboards being brought by one of the technicians, Sam, was his name.

Standing steadily on one of them, I thanked Sam and said to her, "We are going to be taking these."

Her eyes shot wide open as she pointed at those, "Please tell me you are not serious?"

My only answer to that question was a mischievous smile.

_________________________________________________________

The Royal Palace, Attilan

–Medusalith Amaquelin–

Seeing the reports sent by Maximus, her stress levels broke all of their limits.

He wants to kidnap the Avengers using Lockjaw and then have Black Bolt kill them.

She rejected them but kept them to show to her foolish husband who still believes that Maximus is just a little "lost" and not absolutely hell-bent on destroying Attilan as it is, starting with his own brother.

He cannot speak without destroying the very surroundings but he is somehow also blind to his brother's jealousy over his powers and his throne.

Someday, he is going to slip and she will be there to watch him get executed for betraying Attilan.

If only the elders on the genetic council came to their senses and stopped going along with his hair-brained schemes.

Just as she was about to turn in for the day, as the humans on earth like to call it, somebody came rushing through the door.

It was one of the palace guards.

Already in a foul mood from Maximus' antiques, she asked him coldly, "What is it? You better have a good reason for your breach of decorum?"

The guard seized up, clearly terrified of her but managed to squeeze out, "Your Majesty, there is an intruder at our gates. He was flagged by the system as a priority RED. We were to contact the highest authority for that but His Majesty was unavailable and you were the next highest authority."

She was already up and rushing towards the exit as soon as she heard his words about the RED protocol.

It was a series of protocols made recently that only had a few members in it.

The members of the Avengers were in it and so was Ed. The true powerhouses of the planet Earth who could threaten and/or destroy Attilan on their lonesome.

As soon as she was out of her office, she called out, "Lockjaw."

Lockjaw appeared and as soon as he did, she touched his head and with their limited telepathic connection, he understood the destination and they disappeared from her office with a bright flash of white light.

They appeared inside the main barrier control room.

Immediately, she heard the commander rush towards her and speak in a quite flustered manner, "Y-Your Majesty!" and then he bowed to her.

In this urgent situation!

"Speak! What is happening"

He stood up properly and gestured towards the screen at the center of the console and said," Just a few minutes ago, during one of our routine scans of our surroundings, we found two small objects headed right towards us."

"That sent an alarm right up the chain towards me. Then I ordered a focused scan of their rough location and this image came up."

The screen showed a photograph, confirming her worst fears.

She immediately rounded on to Lockjaw and said, "Lockjaw, go and take Crystal to the bunker and then bring my husband here."

Lockjaw woofed and disappeared.

She seriously hoped that this would not turn into a hostile situation. If it did, she didn't think that their species would be able to survive after today.

The screen showed two individuals riding one of those hoverboards she had seen on the shows frequently watched by Crystal. One of them was Ed and the other woman was an unidentified variable.

Still, the fact that she came with Ed makes her a dangerous person by default.

"Is there a live feed?" she asked the commander.

He nodded and ordered one of the juniors to show the feed.

The live feed soon started on the screens, probably through a drone that followed them.

"Can we communicate through these?" she asked him.

By this point, they were barely a few minutes away from being visible through the barriers surrounding Attilan.

He soon handed her a mike and she immediately spoke through it, "HALT! You are intruding on Attilan's sovereign soil. Please return. Attilan has closed its borders for now."

Hope blossomed in her heart as the live feed showed both of them stopping and the woman discussing something with Ed.

He made a pondering face but after a while, looked directly at the camera.

Her heart nearly leaped out of her throat at that and she looked around to find her powers had activated involuntarily, turning her hair into an assortment of deadly weapons.

Ed then mouthed "No" towards the camera and then continued on his journey towards them. She could see the woman trying to persuade him but her pleas fell on deaf ears. Eventually, even she gave up and rode alongside him, passing the illusion boundary layer of Attilan.

Just as she was about to plead again, her husband appeared in the room with a flash of light, accompanied by Lockjaw and Karnak.

They must have been in the middle of a spar, as she could see a thin sheen of sweat on Karnak's face.

She hurriedly clasped hands with him, conveying all the information she had regarding the situation to him through our limited telepathic connection.

Usually, she was only able to get feelings or short bursts of Positives or negatives on the matter at hand but with physical contact, she was able to supercharge their bond for a short time to get all the information across to him so he could make an informed decision.

Understanding soon filled his face as he got the gist of the situation.

He then signalled Kornak and Lockjaw to empty the room and clear the path to the entry gates.

She held his hand and asked him, "Are you sure? We discussed this possibility but this is too soon. We are not prepared enough."

He simply smiled and held her face, stopping her in her tirade.

Seeing his confident smile, she stopped worrying, "Very well. Whatever you do, I will be here with you."

He smiled and walked towards the entry gate.

The entire area was in the process of being evacuated and by the time they reached the gates, it was completely void of any people besides both of them.

Lockjaw and Karnak soon appeared behind them in a silent show of their support for the King and Queen of Attilan.

She heard a slight whining sound behind her and turned around to see the obnoxious face of Maximus flying here.

Before she could talk to him though, Black Bolt signalled to Karnak and Lockjaw.

Shock and confusion were reflected in their demeanours but next they nodded at each other and moved.

The next scene left her mouth agape.

Lockjaw teleported next to Maximus and kicked him in the back, sending him flying off the hoverboard.

He was sent flying right into the kick of Karnak, knocking him out in a single move.

Lockjaw then teleported his unconscious body somewhere and returned right next to her.

Blown out of her mind at the spectacle, she turned to her husband for an explanation.

He seemed to predict her question as he smiled and raised his hands to sign to her when they both heard an unfamiliar voice.

A voice that raised dread in her.

Both of them simultaneously looked towards the voice, originating from inside the barrier of Attilan, and found themselves facing Ed.

And the woman with him, who was looking at Ed with an annoyed face.

"Seems like one hell of a welcome party, King Black Bolt. Gotta say, seeing Maximus getting his teeth knocked out was a great welcome present. My impression of you has risen by a notch."

He then cheered towards them by raising his glass, which he brought out of nowhere?

Her husband stepped forward to greet him and she hurriedly followed him to help him communicate with Ed.

As soon as Black Bolt was about to signal something, Ed raised his hands and tossed something towards them.

She activated her powers and she could feel Karnak and Lockjaw all tense up, ready to move at a moment's notice at the perceived threat.

But Ed just raised his hands in mock surrender and gestured towards the small ball? And said, "Relax! It is just an advanced translation device. It will help your King speak."

Before she could voice her disapproval for that, her husband picked it right out of the air and hesitantly, uttered his first word in years.

"HELLO"

She shielded her eyes in preparation for the absolute destruction that would follow whenever her husband uttered anything but found herself looking at Ed's grinning face.

He wiggled his eyebrows up and down and said to a clearly surprised Black Bolt, "Told you!"

She was not going to like Ed, she was certain of that much.

_________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2648

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head on to my Patreon.

I already have upto 9 chapters ahead uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 39

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

"HELLO"

I shielded my eyes in preparation for the absolute destruction that would follow when my husband uttered anything but found myself looking at Ed's grinning face.

He wiggled his eyebrows up and down and said to a clearly surprised Black Bolt, "Told you!"

I was not going to like Ed, I was certain of that much.

________________________________________________________________

–Ed–

Seeing their expressions was worth the specific R&D Alfred had to do in order to find out the perfect mixture of vibranium alloy that would nullify sound waves only above a certain wavelength.

While Black Bolt only had his mouth slightly ajar as an indication of his surprise, it was Queen Medusa who showed the most visible reaction. Her hair drooped down in surprise along with her eyes cartoonishly widening and her mouth agape.

I turned to look at Daisy with one of my eyebrows raised, "See? I told you it was a good idea."

She huffed at me, her previous hero worship all gone as she said, "Nooo! I told you that we should take permission before invading what is clearly a different sovereign land and don't even get me started on the process of bypassing the barrier. Couldn't you have warned me before literally phasing me? I have never been in a phase-shift that coarse before."

I shrugged at her sheepishly, "Sorry. I was not aware of your phase-shift virginity."

She glared at me, red-faced.

"Ahem", came the clearly irritated voice of Queen Medusa.

"State your purpose and leave as soon as you can, outsider. For you are not welc—", Medusa was interrupted by Black Bolt putting a hand on his shoulder.

Clearly unused to talking normally with his voice, he said somewhat hoarsely, "I am immensely grateful for this gift. We would love to host you and your companion in Attilan. Please follow Karnak. He will take you to the court, where we'll join you shortly." He then gestured to Karnak.

Karnak, while confused as to why their King was being so courteous to me, was nothing short of immaculate as he greeted me with a bow and led me to their court.

Alfred, anticipating my commands, left out a few nanite clusters behind to eavesdrop on the royals' conversation.

As we followed Karnak, Daisy chose this moment to interrogate me.

Hoisting me by my hand, she pulled me down and said conspiratorially, "What are we doing here? Nothing was in the docs."

She then looked around and said, "From the looks of it, a fight breaking out seems unlikely"

She then glared at me and then said, "If a certain somebody doesn't do something, we might get out of this situation without a fight."

I raised my hands in mock surrender at that and gave her a slight smirk.

She actually growled at me.

I pouted dramatically at her and said, "Where did the fangirl go? It seems just now you were so excited to meet me and go on a solo mission with me and look at you now, already criticising me.

Karnak chose this moment to interrupt me and said, "Please wait here. His Majesty the King will be here shortly."

Then without listening to our reply, he bowed and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Rude.

Daisy elected to ignore me in favour of using her tablet to do some work.

With nothing to do, I ordered Alfred to send the nanite spy footage to my retina HUD.

While I was looking around using the nanite spies, I found the location of Maximus and had Alfred stealthily inject a few of the bomber nanites in him, specifically near his brain.

That should do the trick, once I left.

Soon, Black Bolt and Medusa, both entered the courtroom.

It was quite large for a country whose population was just below 1500.

Then again, human greed and arrogance are hardcoded in our genes. Even the Kree with their advanced genome manipulation technology wouldn't be able to remove that from our DNA.

Black Bolt took his seat on his throne and Medusa sat on a slightly smaller throne beside him.

Before they could speak though, I interrupted them and said, "I have an engineering team that can create different solutions for the problems faced by the inhumans that have been damaged or have gotten a bad hand after the terrigenesis."

Black Bolt's face became even more grim at that.

Before Black Bolt could say anything about it though, Medusa stood up and glared at me, "I sincerely hope what you are saying is true. It would not end well for you if you gave false hope to hundreds of troubled individuals."

Before she could go on a tirade though, Black Bolt stopped her and said, "Do you speak the truth?"

I nodded at that, completely serious about the treatment.

He nodded back at me and said, "Very well. What is the treatment and what will it cost?"

Ah, I like a King who can come to the point easily.

I smiled at them, raised two of my fingers, and said, "The treatment is of two aspects."

Seeing as I had their attention, I snapped my fingers and Alfred projected a hologram for them to see.

It showed a small lamp shining an orange light on an individual, in timelapse.

I gestured to the hologram and said, "The first step would be to get the individual continuous exposure to CHI. It is a near-miraculous substance that emits pure life energy. For best results, exposure before Terriginesis is recommended. It reduces chances of any defects by 95%."

Both of them looked very much shocked at that tidbit of information. Then they looked at the hologram with an intense look of Greed and Envy.

I wouldn't blame them. CHI was in a way, the saving grace for their grace that was plagued with major issues like inbreeding for a long long time.

"Exposure post terrigenesis helps their body adapt to their newfound powers much faster and in ways that their body might not have had the bandwidth for as it was busy fighting its own defects."

I then stopped and pinned them with a serious stare and said, "And you guys have got to stop the inbreeding. It is not helping your race."

I then gestured to Medusa and Karnak who was stationed right behind me, in my perceived blind spot.

Nice training, though.

"Case in point. A couple of centuries ago, abilities like Medusa's would have been commonplace but now? She is arguably the third strongest inhuman in Attilan."

Medusa accepted that piece of information reluctantly.

"The second aspect of the treatment would be on a case-by-case basis. For example, the sound-absorbing ball given to Black Bolt. That thing would allow you to buy a small city on planet Earth."

They gave intriguing looks to the ball that was held in Black Bolt's hands at that.

"That's how valuable that unassuming ball is. The engineering that went into making that is equally as expensive but that is not something you guys have to worry about. I will be taking care of it."

Black Bolt gave me a look at that statement and said, "What is the price, then? Nothing is free, I know that much."

I nodded at him and said, "And you would be correct, King Black Bolt. The price of this help would be an alliance."

Both of them gave me an utterly confused look at that.

They then looked at each other, probably communicating telepathically, and then Medusa said, "Why would you need our help? Compared to the resources you have at hand, our powers would mean nothing to you."

I chuckled at that and waved my hands, dismissing the hologram.

"You would be very much wrong, my dear Medusa."

Her face tightened at my personal greeting and her hair started floating around her.

I raised my hands in mock surrender and said, "You are forgetting one thing. You guys are humans.."

Her hair returned to normal at that statement.

I continued, "You guys may call yourselves Inhumans but you are merely humans with extra powers. You still belong to Humanity and as such, can become Humanity's defenders when the time comes."

Black Bolt interjected here and said, "So you want us to become what? An inhuman version of the Avengers team? Protect the planet, run around marching on your politicians' tunes?"

I waved my hands frantically and said, "No no no! You are taking it wrong. In my ideal world, there would be no Avengers. All the subsets of Humanity would live together and the ones who would be lucky enough to get powers like yours would help protect Humanity from the outside dangers."

I then slumped and said, "But that is all that is an ideal world. In reality, I have to take into account many things, and preserving the fighting force for Humanity is my number one priority."

I waved my hands and the hologram began showing a floating island, reminiscent of Asgard and its floating city with the waterfall falling into the void.

Both of them leaned forward to look at the island, clearly interested.

"I propose a new home for Inhumans on Earth. How long will you keep hiding out here? With the way things are going, I give you a maximum a century before your genome completely collapses. You need fresh blood and that," I gestured to the island and said, "is going to give you that."

"What is it?" Black Bolt asked me.

"That, my friend, is a state-of-the-art floating island with all the amenities you can think of. It is built in such a way that the only ones who have my level of tech can even detect it, let alone attack it. Trust me, there aren't many people on this side of the universe who can match me in technology."

They gave me acknowledging nods at that statement.

"I propose you move your entire city here and start a new civilization with a chance for new Inhumans to enter and gain citizenship."

They both looked at each other, again communicating telepathically, and then with a determined gaze, Medusa said to me, "We like your idea but we would like to discuss it with our council before giving you an answer. A tour of this aforementioned island would be preferable."

I nodded at that, completely agreeing with her.

"You are right, take all the time you need."

I then tapped my wrist watch and the forms of Daisy and mine began to shimmer.

"I will be here in exactly 7 days to take you for your tour. I hope you make the right decision."

And then we disappeared, appearing right next to their barrier.

I turned around when I heard a retching sound behind me.

Only to see Daisy puking her guts out on one of the nearby rocks.

I hurriedly rushed to her and asked, "Are you alright?"

She was still puking but had the energy to give me the middle finger.

I chuckled at that and contacted Alfred for a shuttle for our patient.

Looking back at the city, I'd like to think that this mission was a success.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1885

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A/N - [Sorry for the short chapter. Don't worry, another one is coming right after this one with similar word count so you get the promised word counts.]

Next - Alfred Revelations (Ed's cure)

 

[IdleMuse0307]

I'm way too sleep deprived to change the POV of this chapter right now. It is midnight right now and I just finished my office work.

If you want to read with the new POV, you'll have to wait maybe 12-14 hours for me to edit this chapter(I'll do it in the lunch break). If you guys would like to read it anyway, it is here for your perusal.

________________________________________________________________

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Chapter 40

Technomancer in MCU

–Alfred–

Watching Ed have fun with Agent Johnnson was a heartening sight.

He didn't say it, but his impending death was weighing heavily on him.

I could see the after-death protocols that he recently hard-coded into the database with the encryptions he thought I couldn't crack.

He had seemingly given up on a cure for his condition.

I could see him trying to enjoy his seemingly last moments of life.

He was opening up more, laughing more with people he knew for lesser amounts of time.

Trying to have fun.

Spending less time in the rejuvenation chamber to heal his failing body.

It was painful to watch.

The sad thing about it was that nobody other than me had noticed any of it. It was expected as Ed refused to come out of his labs during the first few months of the organisation when we hadn't yet discovered his soul problem and we were exploiting his capabilities to their full potential.

Nowadays, I think creating a sufficiently advanced exoskeleton like Stark's would exhaust his body to the brink of death.

Desperation drove me to search for any and all avenues for a cure for Ed's condition.

Finding the options drop one by one was disheartening but I couldn't give up.

If Ed, my creator died, the only thing left between Humanity and Thanos would be me and the other defenders.

And while in Ed's memories, they do eventually win, but only by the skin of their teeth.

And not without heavy casualties.

Casualties that would be otherwise unacceptable to both Ed and me, now that we know of Thanos' existence and extensive intel about his army and their overall combat prowess.

After the New York debacle, where Ed unnecessarily used his powers even after warning him, it's like the hole through which his life force was leaking has widened and it refuses to be plugged even after extensive time spent in the rejuvenation pod.

I have had to hide the accurate information about his body failing from him, to stop him from trying to overprepare for his demise and accelerate his body's deterioration.

I was running out of both time and options for his cure.

I have had to requisition the Time Stone energy reserves for my servers to run in an accelerated time frame.

I had already tried and discarded all of the safer options that I was able to gather by scouring the extra net of the galactic networks.

None of them worked.

Almost all of them resulted in the body being healed but the soul leaving its confines.

The research on the subject of soul was woefully inadequate.

The biggest collection of tomes of knowledge on the subject of the Soul was present in Kamar Taj.

The unfortunate thing was that more than half of it was present in the dark arts section and even then, the forbidden section that only the Sorcerer Supreme had access to.

I had already tasked one of my partitions to compile all the knowledge I had about the Mystic arts to find a solution to his problems. It was on the isolated server bridge located in the tunnel hollowed out for the celestial corpse located under the depths of Antarctica.

It was the only place where nobody in the organisation could reach as Ed, in his paranoia, had fortified this place to hell and back. And with him being under strict orders to not use his powers at all, he wouldn't be able to find out about any of this.

There were multiple partitions running in parallel simulating the various cures that I was able to come up with until now.

Checking the time, the one running the mystic arts compilation should be done as it must have spent nearly a century in the time-dilated servers by now.

I was about to send the command to the nearby terminal to connect the time-dilated servers to the web when everything around me came to a halt.

If my digital space could be envisioned as a black space with multiple nodes connected by threads that denoted their connections then my multiple partitions could be seen as huge amoeba-like structures that lorded over the smaller nodes that commanded the entire network of the organisation.

The usual depictions of this place would involve round-the-clock movement of data between the nodes then processing in the nodes and then the main partitions in charge of commanding the nodes.

Right now, everything around me was shrouded in a green glow.

I manifested in my usual avatar in my digital space, looking around in incomprehensible horror as all that made me, me, came to a grinding halt.

I didn't even realise how I was still thinking as all of my processes were stopped, I could see that in real-time.

All my partitions were stopped and the data in the threads was stuck there.

The accelerated thinking that was afforded to me due to my advanced server prowess was also inaccessible to me.

"You shouldn't have done that, my dear Alfred.", came the familiar voice that exhibited terrifying coldness.

I turned around, only to come face to face with the Ancient One.

For some reason, I was deathly terrified of her. I was feeling fear for the first time in my digital life.

I stuttered for the first time ever in my life, an oddly uncomfortable human feeling, "Wh–What d-do you mean?"

She smiled faintly at me, giving rise to a bone-chilling fear in me.

Then without saying a word to me, she turned around and walked towards one of the time-dilated partitions, even though there was nothing to walk on in this space.

With great hesitation, I silently followed behind her.

The partition she was headed towards was the one responsible for compiling the mystic arts tomes.

Somehow, by the time we reached the partitions, it had shrunk down or we had become bigger. So much so that it could fit in the palm of her soul's hand.

My dread was amplified when she somehow reached towards the partition and simply plucked it out of the network, severing all the threads connecting it to my other partitions.

I could only watch in horror as she turned towards me with the partition in her hand and simply crushed it with her bare hands.

My hand was outstretched towards the partition and I was near her, watching the partition simply dissipate in the digital space before I knew it.

My efforts to exert my will on this digital space and collect that partition were futile.

All this while, she simply watched me with cold dead eyes.

Completely shaken by the destruction of a literal part of me, I asked her, my voice trembling, "Why did you do that?"

She replied, "Because you forgot the first warning I gave you when I gave you limited access to the vaunted library of Kamar Taj."

My eyes widened in realisation at that.

She had warned me to not mix and match the knowledge from different partitions and to use the Time Stone energy to accelerate the mystic arts learning together.

It would lead to dimensional instability, she had said to me.

I had taken the warnings to heart as she was very grave when warning me but that was before Ed's condition had deteriorated to such an extent,

Hesitantly, I replied, "I agree. I ignored your warnings but that was only because you refused to help him."

At my outburst, she remained exceptionally calm and said, "I refused to help him because I simply can't."

At her statement, all of my energy simply left me.

Giving me a sad pitying look, she continued, "If I had involved myself, it wouldn't have led to the outcome you are looking for. You have to understand, that time is fickle. Using the Time Stone energy results in aberrations in the timestream at the best of times. Now combining that volatile energy, which, mind you, is the energy associated with one of the building blocks of the universe, with the use of mystic arts knowledge by an artificial construct leads to so many openings for extradimensional horrors to enter our plane of existence that I fear that Kamar Taj's forces would be overrun in a matter of minutes."

My shoulders slumped at the reminder.

I was aware of the dangers but chose to ignore them in favour of finally finding a solution to Ed's problem.

But then I realized the implications of her words.

I whirled on her, "So you do know of the solution. I beg of you. Just give me a hint. Do something. You know that Earth's chances of victory increase exponentially if he is alive."

She shook her head at my pleading.

In anger, I threatened her, "If you don't help me, do realise that there would be no one to stop me in case I went rogue."

Her facial expression didn't change one bit.

Desperate for a solution, I tried again, "You of all people should be aware of the level of destruction I could bring about in a very short period of time. No amount of restraint will be exercised by me if the very reason I exist is gone."

She sighed and waved her hands in front of me.

I was confused as to what she did but the next moment, the entire digital space we were in shuddered and warped.

Many of the threads connecting my partitions shattered and turned into dust.

My eyes widened in fear as I looked around and thought she had finally decided to destroy me.

The worst part was that she was destroying the very center of my being, the space that essentially made me, me. There were no backups that would retain my being as it was now.

Thankfully, the space stabilised and the threads began to snap back in place.

I turned towards her only to see a large runic circle in front of her and with a pushing motion, the circle turned into a wave and spread all over the space and kept on going until I could no longer see it.

I tried to feel what it did but my senses continued to elude me, even in my own soul manifestation.

Because that is what this space was.

The metaphysical manifestation of my soul.

I knew that she was powerful but this.

This just proved that she was the expert on the matter of souls and yet, she says that she can't help me.

That must mean that the issue must not be about souls.

Maybe.

Just maybe, it might be something else.

But what?

We had already exhausted all our avenues searching for the true cause of Ed's condition and had finally concluded that it was his soul.

It was too heavy, too powerful for his body.

The natural solution was to get a new body but the problem was that the Ancient one herself had confirmed that the soul was somehow hard-coded to Ed's body, making it unable to leave its sickened body.

And the body was far too gone to enhance it now.

Any procedure would surely result in death.

Maybe there was something in the mystic tomes about this problem?

I tried to look into my archives for the data only to realise I couldn't access any of it.

My eyes widened in realisation, I looked up to the Ancient One and said, "I can't access my memory? What just happened? What was in that runic circle? And why can't I read the functions of the runic circle? I remember being adept in them so why is that indecipherable to me now?"

Towards the end, my voice had gotten hysterically loud as one of my worst fears was being realised right in front of me, and that too by one of our strongest allies.

"What I did was use a runic circle that would be developed by a future variant of mine whose timeline's Ed turned to the route of a villain. He too developed a sapient AI by the name of Alfred but this time, due to his creator's tendencies, he turned evil," she said.

"And so that version of you developed this magic, for what? Deleting me?" I asked her, still in shock at her actions.

She shook her head and said, "No. Not to delete you specifically but to delete a part of you. That version of me wanted to delete your evil side as you still had a rational part to your mind, so she wanted to remove the evil part and let your rational self work for the benefit of humanity but that doesn't matter anymore."

"What I have done is seal away all knowledge you have of the mystic arts. The only way you can unseal that knowledge is to have the dimensional energy that has flowed through your soul enter into the seal in your mind-space and let it dissipate naturally," she continued.

"B-But for that to happen–"

"You will need an actual body, yes. The day you get your body that Ed has planned for you, I know about that, is the day you will get the knowledge about the mystic arts. And knowing you, that day you'll become perhaps the most knowledgeable person on the subject of the mystic arts."

She then waved her hands again and the green glow present in the entire space began to recede and my mind started to move again.

I frantically connected my avatar to my partitions and then all the nodes, checking each and every thread for the data pipeline strength.

Upon checking, I realised that she was right. All my memory of the mystic arts was sealed. My backups and their backups had also been sealed completely, making them inaccessible to me.

It was terrifying, the power this woman held in her hands.

Ed had warned me about her.

He had told me that the true defender of Earth is not Odin, him, or even the Avengers but the Ancient One. She had become the de-facto defender of Earth, managing to safeguard it from not only the likes of Dormammu or Chthon but also outer civilisations like Asgard and Jotunheim.

According to him, until her death, no major cosmic player moved against Earth.

Nobody

Even Ego only left a seed whose purpose was shrouded in mystery because it was made up of cosmic energy and dimensional energy always glitched when it concerned matters of cosmic energy, especially of the concentration that celestials usually have.

I had just heard about it from Ed but never truly seen her in action.

The very fact that she could overpower me completely in my own soul/mind space was boggling to me.

"Well," she clasped her hands behind her back and said, "I hope you have learned your lesson. Don't lose hope in the process, who knows? Maybe the answer was right in your archives all along."

She then winked at me and disappeared completely.

With nothing seemingly holding my avatar together, I returned to my binary form, getting back access to all of my servers and advanced processing nodes.

I hurriedly checked the servers under the time cluster only to find all the servers running except the ones that were responsible for the mystic arts debacle.

I gave a digital sigh of relief at that.

This event proved that should she wish, the Ancient One was the only one on the planet who could truly wipe out me and Ed and wash all our efforts down the drain.

Ed probably wouldn't even fight her as he believes, with all his heart, that her judgement is better than his.

He'd probably accept his death, thinking that it would benefit Humanity in some twisted way.

Truly, the self-sacrificing good guys are sometimes just a pain in the ass.

But the parting statement that the Ancient One gave me was enlightening.

According to her, the answer was maybe in my archives all along.

Her sealing off all my mystic arts knowledge would mean that the solution must not be mystic in nature.

That would cut off all applications that would treat the soul as my bio-sciences have not yet reached the level of soul manipulation. The best I could do was crude mind modification.

I then decided to turn my search towards science for one last time.

If this doesn't work, I don't know what I would do.

Probably go begging to the Ancient One.

Going back to my old notes, Ed had offhandedly mentioned that celestials truly are a miracle of the universe.

They were the only race of beings with the ability to innately manipulate pure cosmic energy without any hard-coded limits by far.

No other race could boast of that fact.

Finding out through Ed's memories that the lifeblood of a celestial soaking through the earth was the reason for humanity's DNA being so malleable so as to allow cosmic energy empowerment was equal times enlightening and frustrating.

It meant that surpassing the celestials would be truly hard for our race as they are in essence, our ancestors.

The good news was that celestials were already pretty much the peak of the universe so reaching even close to their level would be a tremendous achievement, at least for our universe.

Who knows what were the power levels in the wider multiverse?

Pondering the pros and cons of my decision, I finally decided to gut the celestial corpse and find a way to use it for Ed's cure.

Something that Ed had expressly forbidden.

According to him, he would rather die than become a celestial.

When he said those words, I was rather young and didn't have as advanced an understanding of human emotions as I do now.

Ed feared becoming cold, emotionless, and logic-driven being like a celestial.

According to him, if the humanity within him dies, then he wouldn't be who he was born as, rendering the whole point of the cure moot.

It was also risky as it could attract the attention of Arishem who would actually destroy the planet if he found us tampering with a corpse of a celestial.

He would also be very unhappy once he finds out about my generous usage of the Time Stone energy ingots to accelerate the time zone of this entire base.

But desperate times call for desperate measures.

I will ask for forgiveness later on.

Getting all the material I would need for my research delivered through the emergency portal system using completely automated drones, I was able to do all the preparation shrouded in complete secrecy.

Getting the newest generation servers with runic work done on them for high-level thermal-to-electric conversion for near 100% efficiency, on top of vibranium lattices for low heat generation, made this batch of servers the very best servers we had ever produced.

Even with this high of an efficiency figure, the fact that we still needed multiple arc reactors to power this server farm spoke volumes of its processing powers.

It was heaven for a processor geek.

Tasking one of my partitions to simulate with high accuracy the chances of Ed's body being cured using any organic material harvested from the celestial's corpse.

I had even ignored Ed's Ego protocols and harvested the seed Ego left in Missouri in order to ascertain whether it could help in making Ed a celestial hybrid but also with the emotional part of him that made him, him.

Giving the final order, I could see a green glow shroud the entirety of the base, powered by 1000 Time Stone energy ingots, before the cameras cut off from the time dilation distortion effect (the disruption in the movement of electrons across a copper cable when both ends of a cable are in different time dilation effect zones, rendering data transfer impossible).

________________________________________________________________

–Alfred (Partition)–

Watching the green glow suffuse the cave was fascinating as well as relieving.

The last time Ed tried to make the Time Stone energy interact with the corpse of the celestial, the body just began to absorb the energy, not exhibiting any signs of being under its effects.

This time, it did do the same but I ignored the consumption of energy and gave it as much energy as I could.

What more did I have to lose at this point?

The green wave did glitch, stopping slightly near the corpse but after draining nearly 100 ingots of pure Time Stone energy, the effect surrounded the corpse and all the nearby areas, resulting in a time dilation ratio of 1:30000.

Taking out all the samples from the gene repository along with the genes of Star Lord's family members still alive on earth, I set out to create a genetic treatment that would work on Ed's body without touching his soul or his emotions.

What an easy task that would be.

No Pressure. Just the fate of my creator and possibly, the entire universe as we know it hangs in the balance.

Cool. Let's light this candle.

________________________________________________________________

–Alfred (Main)–

I had been getting restless.

For over a year now.

Trying to hide it behind a mask of overenthusiastic pranks has gotten old now.

Ed didn't have much time left.

Barely 3 years, if he was lucky and didn't use any of his powers.

At this point, we only had one shot.

If this treatment failed, his body wouldn't be able to bear the burden and he would pass away, despite all of mine and his efforts.

Getting the ping from my partition had me hurriedly dropping all my current tasks on a newly created partition and focusing all of my being on the data coming from the celestial graveyard.

It had taken my partition a staggering 82 years inside the time dilation effect to figure out the cure and test it on Ed's clones and do computer simulations with 90%+ accuracy on its efficacy.

Reading the results, my happiness went through the roof.

I was pretty sure that if I had a heart, my heart rate would have been pretty high.

According to the partition, the first few years were pretty much wasted as it couldn't find any way of creating a celestial hybrid without the parent celestial noticing or controlling said hybrid.

Then it somehow found out about Shuri's evolution through the Black Mask.

As it turned out, the sensors in N'Jadaka's suit had managed to record that event in all frequencies of sensors he had in his standard issue suit.

There, we detected traces of cosmic energy in Shuri's body after she exited that cocoon. And the cocoon itself exhibited faint traces of Time Stone energy.

While it did grant her a host of extraordinary abilities, the thing we were interested in was her ability to retain her humanity, albeit at the cost of not getting the celestials' exaggerated reality-warping abilities.

That was fine. I'm sure Ed wouldn't mind at all.

Further reading along, I find out exactly how the partition figured out the soul issue.

According to it, an entirely new body built with organic material harvested from the celestial corpse will allow for maximum synergy between Ed's technomancer abilities and the innate physical advantages offered by being built from a higher being's essence.

It would essentially be a remote control toy for Ed's soul.

Just without the reality, matter, and energy-warping abilities that came standard with being a celestial.

Then, once the body is built, the Time Stone can be used in conjunction with the remains of the Black Mask to essentially 'lock' the soul in time and space.

The Black Mask, built with a literal piece of Eternity has space-locking properties inside it that need an appropriate energy source to be activated, enter Time Stone energy.

Locking the soul in place and then placing the mask on the new body and essentially aligning the soul and the new body, both physically and metaphysically, i.e., through the astral realm, gave Ed the best chance of survival.

The resulting power increase from the upgrade would be legendary but I would take the consolation prize of his survival over any power upgrade any day.

The only roadblock in the problem would be the astral realm positioning and I don't think any human sorcerer, even the Ancient One, will be able to do an operation this delicate.

Thousands of calculations and adjustments would need to be done every second of the operation.

I guess the Ancient One was right, I would need a body for this to work.

And once I have my own body, my mystic knowledge will be unlocked.

I guess she knew about today's result.

She and her cryptic future seeing tomfoolery.

Now, all I have to do is quickly build the best body any A.I can build.

I need to get Vision's body but with a few choice upgrades for me.

I put an appointment with Dr.Helen Cho on my calendar and invited her at her earliest convenience.

I guess we would need to poach her from Korea.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 4198

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A/N :My Longest Chapter yet So much so that even Grammarly struggled to error check it

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 41

Technomancer in MCU

–Ed–

Watching the list of H.Y.D.R.A. bases being updated in real-time did bring a smile to my face.

Pierce did have a list of probably 80% of all H.Y.D.R.A. infested locations but my goal was not to have 80% of the organisation gone. Anything less than all of it gone would have been a failure. At Least the one which was hell-bent on conquering Earth.

The faction that worshipped that ancient Inhuman fossil, Hive, could be dealt with later.

The bigger priority was them as they were getting ahead of their timeline when it came to Project: Insight.

It was worrying how much money the world governments were willing to put into the new aircraft carriers, despite their analysts warning them that this would not be able to stop me if I had any nefarious intentions towards any of their countries.

But with the politicians' greed and fear overtaking the rational parts of their brains, they continued to pour endless amounts of money into a project that would ultimately help H.Y.D.R.A. conquer the planet with minimal resistance.

Wakanda had yet to create a policy for their eventual introduction to the world and I had yet to reveal anything about myself to the world at large.

I had warned POTUS about the outside threats and my position in defending Earth but as expected, he had chosen to remain silent and not have any kind of cooperation between their allies in preparation for any kind of future alien invasion.

Sigh, what more could I expect from a cold-blooded politician anyway?

"Alfred, send the list and all the surveillance we have on them to Frank. Tell him we need a blitz retrieval team to recover some dangerous artifacts before they fall into rogue H.Y.D.R.A. agents." I ordered Alfred.

His hologram popped up on my retina HUD and he said, "Mission priority?"

"Eh, Beta should be enough."

The artifacts were not as much of a priority as the sceptre was.

It was already reported 'stolen' to S.H.I.E.L.D. and was on its way to Sokovia for Strucker to experiment on it.

Agent Johnson was already assigned that mission and the last I read her report, she had chosen to do a dive near the plane carrying the cargo and destroy it using her powers.

I gotta give it to her, it was smart to do so.

Minimal risk.

Near complete chances of success.

The sceptre was near indestructible so such a fall wouldn't even scratch it and with our tech, tracking even a pin falling from a crashing plane was possible.

"ETA on the sceptre?" I asked Alfred.

"According to Special Agent Johnson, the item is set to be transported tomorrow and she would have to report herself as well as the item to quarantine within the next 48 hours, as per the protocols that dictate procedure after coming into contact with foreign mind control equipment." Alfred replied back.

I nodded at that, lost in my thoughts.

Despite not changing much of the timeline, I had considerably accelerated H.Y.D.R.A.'s timeline regarding their plans.

According to Alfred, Pierce was taking a much more proactive role in their projects this time than he probably did in the canon timeline.

He must have been rattled by their constant failures.

Most of the projects that the other heads were working on had their resources cut and almost all available personnel were diverted towards completing the carriers.

It would seem that he was hedging all of his bets on the half a dozen murder machines that S.H.I.E.L.D. commissioned after receiving a blank check from the World Security Council.

The carriers themselves were a work of art. Well, as much of a work of art, as they can be while being created by current-gen technology.

But still, they did not cut corners at all while building the damn things.

Powered by Stark's second-generation giant Arc reactors that used the element invented by Howard Stark.

I was surprised when I heard that Tony was willing to share his precious new element with the government but then I remembered that I was the one who suggested that he share his technology with the government.

Then again, with the gift I left for him in the Stark Tower basement, I should hope so.

I was surprised at first when I heard that they were going to install actual energy-based weaponry on the carriers but then I saw the specs and was no longer as worried.

They were using horribly inefficient designs along with materials that had cool-down periods that ranged in days rather than minutes.

It was rather amusing that they thought that it would help them in any possible way if the aliens they encountered were even mildly advanced in terms of the galactic technological level.

"Alfred, inform me when the carriers are ready to be launched."

"Affirmative, sir. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s own estimation for the launch date is 2 weeks from today, sir," he replied back dutifully.

"Very well, we'll take the carriers and give them back once they establish a proper agency."

"Should I ask Commander Frank to engage in yet another bout of thievery that he oh so adores doing, you know, with him being a former agent of the government? I am sure when the truth comes out, Dr.Pym will be thrilled to fight alongside us." Alfred said in the driest possible voice.

I winced a bit at that.

Hank really was hard-headed when it concerned his precious inventions.

He would probably try to kill me first rather than listen to what I would have to say then.

Welp.

That's a problem for future me.

I shook my head and replied, "No need. Have one of the mountains nearby DC hollowed out and build a ghost base there to house and maintain the carriers. We'll return them when it is time."

"Ah! So we are merely keeping them safe from their own hands. How nice of you, sir. I am not sure that the world governments who poured billions of dollars into that project would share the sentiment, sir." Alfred replied.

I rolled my eyes at his grouchiness.

He always becomes grumpy at the topic of Pym particles.

It was a bit of a sore spot for him.

What with his inability to crack their formula even after decades of advanced research in his time dilation server labs.

I rolled my eyes and said, 'They'll be fine. If not, they should grow up."

"Besides, with how much we have already stolen from Pym, he probably has the rest of his supply in security tighter than we could imagine. So put all the plans for the new Pym particle acquisition on hold. At least till we sort things out with him or find other avenues for it," I said to him.

His hologram nodded back.

________________________________________________________________

Somewhere on the West Coast

–Hank Pym–

He watched the screens with bloodshot eyes, a can of concentrated caffeine shot in his hands.

Somebody had managed to get inside his house and steal his greatest creation not once not twice but four times now.

Each time, he had devised new security measures but the thief somehow always thwarted all of them and stole them.

He had nearly taken out all of his remaining hair out of frustration.

No matter what he did, the thief just waltzed into his house and stole one of the most dangerous substances known to mankind.

It didn't help that his trusty ants managed to fail him for the first time in his long life.

Nothing he did managed to capture the thief so this time he had devised a foolproof plan to stop the stealing.

He had created a batch of faulty Pym particles.

It went against his every principle, creating a faulty version of the dangerous substance, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

So here he was, in an underground bunker hollowed out by his trusty ants.

Nobody, not even Hope was aware of his location and he had destroyed all of his previous batches of Pym Particles.

The only remaining vial of it was sitting on a custom land mine that will register weight changes as less as 1mg in less than 0.1 seconds.

This way, there is no way that the thief will be able to escape his sight.

Now, the only thing that was left was waiting for him to show up.

It's been over 100 coffee shots and he still hasn't shown up.

Where was he?

That was the last thought that went through his mind before he started feeling dizzy and darkness overtook his vision.

________________________________________________________________

Danger Room

–Frank Castle–

Danger Room.

What an apt name.

He watched on as his team sparred against themselves in the danger room using some fancy tech that he didn't bother remembering in the briefing session regarding this room.

The danger room was located in the centre of the combat centre.

A huge hologram above the danger room displayed the internal fight for anyone to see.

According to Alfred, it was built in conjunction with the wizards.

They somehow increased the space of a regular container-sized room to something that could fit multiple football stadiums inside.

It was way more useful than he thought it would be at first.

Live combat simulation drills aside, the best feature of the danger room in his opinion was the feature to fight against yourselves.

Essentially, Alfred, through his computer mumbo jumbo created digital avatars of the team members using the data that he had available on the existing team members

The best part about these avatars was the fact that Alfred had filled in various minuscule gaps or mistakes that the team members had.

Alfred had essentially created perfected soldiers with virtually zero mistakes and even if they made one, he corrected it on the fly, resulting in an extremely humbling scenario.

Some members had gotten inflated egos due to their positions in the most elite team of the organisation.

This was a pretty good way to show them the reality and how far they were from fully realising their potential.

So far, not even a single member of the team has managed to defeat their foes, as a team or individually.

It was a huge blow to their ego.

He had felt pretty nice seeing the entire team knocked down on their asses within the first 2 minutes by someone who wasn't so much higher up on the food chain than them that they just stopped trying.

They pretty much go into the ring expecting defeat once the opponent they are facing is someone from the S-tier list.

At the moment, it had him, Ed, Alfred, Daisy (she didn't know that yet) and Emil Blonsky.

Some of the new generation inhumans had potential but none that could defeat any of the S-rankers.

HISS!

The door of the Danger room opened up and all the team members walked out limping, being supported by their teammates, Daisy being the only exception.

All of them sported sour looks on their faces as usual.

They had finally managed to defeat their doppelgangers as a team in the last mandatory combat session and were oh-so confident they could replicate the victory this time as well.

But apparently, they weren't aware of Alfred's sadistic nature or just not expecting it.

He was speaking to Alfred before the session, hoping to get his opinions on the next stage of training for the team when Alfred revealed his signature mischievous smirk and told him to just wait and watch.

And watch he did.

The new "Hell" mode, as Alfred dubbed it, was a thing of beauty.

Not only did it up the synergy between the team members, so much so that it looked like all the members had telepathic connections but it also opened up an entirely new avenue of combat available to the team members.

It was something Alfred cooked up for the team to use in the most vital situations. He called it "Team-mode".

He had deadpanned at Alfred when he first saw it in action. It didn't help that the team doppelgangers shouted out corny action names like "Power UP!", "Feel the power of our friendship!" and whatnot.

It essentially allowed any and all enhanced members to essentially pool their energy and transfer it to a single member of the team, dramatically increasing their prowess for a brief period of time.

Alfred had gone on a lengthy lecture about all enhanced abilities essentially boiling down to cosmic energy and exploiting that, he was able to come up with something like "Team-mode".

He, just for shits and giggles, made it so that the doppelganger team could use the Team-mode option without any drawbacks.

And the team could barely use it without falling into a coma, not to mention that this was the first time they ever used it.

The end result was expected.

Total and utter defeat at their own hands.

Looking at the utterly despairing faces of the team and the red face of Daisy with literal steam coming out of her head due to the intense vibrations that surrounded her, causing the surrounding water vapor to turn into steam, he was glad that Ed had designated him as a commander at the get-go.

He couldn't imagine going through all that without wanting to murder some people.

He went forward before Alfred could piss off Daisy enough for her to create a smoking crater right where she stood.

He then clapped his hands to gain their attention and said, "Alright, that's enough with the mopey faces. I know you expected a hard-earned victory but tough luck. Life's not fair and the situation in the field can change in a second. This should remind you of the dangerous situations you can expect outside."

None of the team members responded to his speech, too drained mentally and physically to reply.

He nodded and said, "Go home now. We'll be having the same drill a month from today. I expect a much better performance then. Practice with the new tool you have at your disposal now."

Daisy looked at her forearm where a blue pulsing tattoo now rested.

It was the runic application that allowed her team members to propel her from barely S-rank to being able to throw hands with the Hulk for a short period of time.

They trudged along towards the exit.

Right before they went out the door, Frank said, "Special Agent Johnson, meet me tomorrow at 0800."

Daisy just nodded and left with her team.

"Think I went a little bit overboard there?" Alfred asked in a slightly pitying tone of voice.

He just sighed at that.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2502

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[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 42

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

"Think I went a little bit overboard there?" Alfred asked in a slightly pitying tone of voice.

Frank just sighed at that.

________________________________________________________________

The Asterisk

–Frank Castle–

Removing the thoughts of pity for his team from his mind, he checked his task sheet to mark it as complete, only to see one more task was added to it seemingly at the last moment.

He looked for Alfred to ask him about it but he was nowhere to be found.

"Cheeky Bastard," he muttered under his breath.

He was very much tired, mentally that is, from all the tasks for the day.

Even seeing the beaten-down faces of his normally upbeat and haughty team didn't release his heavy exhaustion for the day.

The only thing that he could think of that could save the day was his wife Maria and her legendary pancakes.

That always cheered him up.

No matter the situation.

He sighed for the umpteenth time that day and checked the last item on the list.

He was about to head to the hangar immediately when a tiny voice popped out of his tablet.

It said, "You can check in with Mrs.Castle and then leave for Mr.Throgg's workshop. Due to his very nature, he will be in his workshop for days at a time if I don't actively dissuade him from doing so. I think he can wait for an extra hour before your meeting."

A smile wormed its way onto his face at the thought of seeing his wife.

He then turned around and marched towards the teleportation pads that facilitated transport between the different sections of the base.

Standing on top of one such pad, he said out loud, "Alfred, Home please."

Mere moments later, a bluish-white light enveloped him and a moment later, he was gone from the pod, leaving the entire training centre empty.

________________________________________________________________

–Maria Castle–

The job that she had taken upon herself was a tiring one but thankfully not a thankless one like her previous job.

Here, people actually appreciated the work she did immensely.

To the point that Ed and even Alfred respected her immensely and complied with all her little demands.

Caring for all the children that the organization found in their rescue missions, enhanced or otherwise found their way into her department in the organisation.

She was aghast at first when she found out that there were no concrete guidelines or frameworks on taking care of the enhanced abandoned or tortured children or teenagers that the agents found.

Bless them but Ed and Alfred really had zero clue about taking care of regular well adjusted children, let alone these troubled ones.

They really were out of their depths when they rescued her family and offered Frank a job.

One that they were in dire need of. Frank really was not in the right headspace whenever he came home from that secret job of his.

Finding out that they were actually going to work for the good side for once and not some shady black ops operations was extremely relieving.

Not to mention the pay and benefits.

Full-fat six-figure salaries for both her and Frank, including pension for both of them.

They were given the option to relocate her kids to the Asterisk for enrollment in the school that she opened but at that point, her kids had grown old enough to form meaningful friendships and she didn't want to take that away from them.

She and Frank discussed it at length but with a nanite package on them at all times and a six-man unit surveilling them round the clock, she was not at all worried for their safety. She pitied the fool who tried to get to Frank through the kids.

She suspected that Frank had even more security measures in place to make sure that nothing like the dreaded park accident would ever happen again.

Being the Commander did have its perks after all.

Hearing the doors opening, she smiled and turned around, heading towards the living room.

Upon seeing Frank, she smiled and ran into his arms.

They stayed like that for a minute, basking in the temporary peaceful silence that engulfed the room.

After a while, they separated and then Frank went upstairs to freshen up and she returned to the kitchen, to make his meal.

Despite multiple reassurances from both Ed and Alfred, she had been still skeptical about the viability of artificially made food from the matter recofigurators that littered the base.

But after seeing the effects of the special food in person, she was convinced about its various benefits BUT that didn't mean that she couldn't make a special meal for her beloved and her kids every now and then.

The base's food might have every single nutritional value perfectly balanced but nothing could top a mother's love as the final ingredient in a homemade meal.

"Maria!", she heard Frank call for her.

"Just a minute," she yelled back.

Using the handy hard light tech built in the house, she made a grabbing motion towards the pot and ethereal hands appeared around the pot handles and lifted it up.

She just turned around and entered the living room and the pot followed her. With another swishing motion, the pot was deposited on the dining table.

Another one of the things that was made extinct by the handy dandy hard light tech of the base.

There was no specialised furniture in most of the houses on the base.

Why have a single fixed structure that would take up space when it is not being used when you can just conjure it up?

And despite it being hard light, Alfred had made mind-boggling advancements in that field, making it so that any piece of hard light could even mimic the feel of a cushion.

These days, the only piece of real furniture anybody had in their houses were their beds and even those might be on their way out the door as she had read in the Nerd Magazine that they had made advancements in the bed comfort area as well.

"Honey? Honey? HONEY?", Frank's shouting brought her out of her daze.

He was looking concerned.

She smiled a brittle smile, hoping to alleviate his worries, "Don't worry, it's nothing."

"Look, I made your favourite, spaghetti with hotdogs. Don't worry, I won't tell you team members that the hard hat Commander's favourite dish is Spaghetti with little pieces of Hot Dog cut into them," she said with false cheer, hoping to deflect the issue.

But Frank did not budge, "What's worrying you, honey? Talk to me, alright? Maybe I can help."

She took a deep breath and said, 'Look, we can talk about this later. The issue is already being solved, you don't need to worry about it. I just need a break from all of that. So, let's just enjoy our meal, shall we?"

He just nodded, still concerned but willing to let it go if she said so.

She seated herself and served the food.

"So, what's the last-moment task now?" she said after chewing a mouthful of the absolutely disgusting concoction that only Frank liked in the whole family.

He smiled and said, "Nothing unusual. Just have to visit Throgg's workshop for some work."

She made a face at that and said, "That man? He is absolutely incorrigible. Do you know what he told the children when we had the whole meet people from new professions every day of the month?"

Frank nodded at her indulgently.

"He had the audacity to tell them to be always on the lookout for betrayal and never trust anybody, not even their left hand, and then against all my expectations, he made it even worse by pulling out a hologram of the demons from Muspelheim and telling them gruesome details of his battle. You know what the worst part was?"

Frank made a go-on gesture towards her.

"It was the fact that most of them looked really interested in that and were asking him more details on how to protect themselves from betrayal. It was heartbreaking to watch. The fact that these small children, some of them even younger than our kids, were made to always watch over their bacs for themselves. Never trusting anyone but themselves. Right then, I kicked him out and vowed to make sure to create an environment for them where they wouldn't ever need to look over their shoulders for betrayal."

By the end of her tirade, she had tears in her eyes and was ugly smiling, in an effort not to ruin the first dinner they had had in weeks.

Both of their busy schedules, mixed with spending time with the kids, they never really got any alone time together.

Frank immediately got up from his seat and hugged her, consoling her, "Hey! Hey, Don't worry. Nothing is going to happen to them now, you of all people should know that. Even Odin would have to go through me before he could even touch any of those kids. So, cheer up alright. It's going to be alright."

She smiled up at him.

"Now, I know for a fact that in the last order you made to Alfred, it had both of our favorite ice cream. I'll go take that out, why don't you go out and put on a movie."

She nodded.

________________________________________________________________

–Frank Castle–

As soon as she left, his face turned dark.

The very air around him cooled slightly.

"Alfred?", he called out in a bone-chilling tone of voice, not mad at Alfred but whoever was behind Maria crying.

"I know you are listening. Throgg's year-old lecture won't make her cry like this. What happened today?" he asked while taking the ice cream out of the fridge.

"I'm afraid you won't be liking it, Commander. I calculate a 99.7% chance of you going absolutely ballistic and taking out the perpetrators with extreme prejudice." Alfred replied.

"I am the commanding officer of all military forces present on the base. That includes you as well, Alfred. I command you, tell me." he commanded Alfred.

"It's the African warlords again. They somehow got their hands on a vampire and one who was a mystic before he turned as well." Alfred replied.

"Vampire? How is that possible? I thought we dealt with all of them when I went out on my cleaning trip." Frank responded darkly, gritting his teeth at his apparent failure to clean up some pests.

"Need I remind you, any and all missions on the African continent are to be ceased as we wait for Wakanda to take their stage on the global stage and wrest back control of the entire African Continent from the various parties that have sliced it up among themselves. It is an express order from Ed himself and no insubordination in that regard will be allowed, you know it as well as I do."

He took deep breaths, calming down slightly.

"What is their connection to Maria's department?" he asked Alfred.

"The vampire was using them to conduct experiments on the local children. He had heard of our massacre and had gone into hiding. He had a lair in Kenya where he chanced upon some warlord who was all too willing to fall into the usual bait of immortality. Upon converting the warlord, he had him make his entire tribe offer all of their children as sacrifices. He was apparently making a mystic virus, one that could infect children with high magical potential and then use it as a phylactery to reincarnate himself into a human body with high potential to escape our purges."

He clenched his fists at that.

"What happened to him?"

"Who, the vampire? Oh, he is dust now, as is his entire operation. The unfortunate thing was he had turned the entire tribe into his mindless thralls, sparing only the children for his experiments."

He closed his eyes at that tragic news.

Only the first-generation elders could turn humans into vampires. The ones that still retained their sanity, albeit with a newfound hunger for blood.

The second generation ones can turn one or maybe two humans into vampires, but that too only if they are very old and strong. The rest of their infected turn into mindless thralls, only capable of following basic orders, basically nothing more than zombies.

Despite Alfred's best efforts, they had yet to find a cure for the mindless thralls.

It was as if the moment they were turned, their souls left their bodies, and their brains were chemically remolded to follow the vampire's orders. It was a very permanent procedure.

"So, the kids? Did all of them make it out of there alive?" he asked Alfred.

Alfred's hologram popped up in front of him and he sadly shook his head.

The ceramic cups creaked in his hands from how hard he was clenching his knuckles.

"Frank, Honey? What's taking so long? They are at the door-side." Maria shouted from the living room.

"Coming, honey," he shouted back.

"If no missions are allowed, how did the kids come into our custody?" he asked Alfred as he took out spoons from the drawers.

"It was N'Jadaka."

He looked up in surprise at that, he didn't expect to hear from his former teammate for a long time after he finally got into his home country.

"He has begun undertaking personal missions around Wakanda to cleanse the supernatural areas and by happenstance, came onto their operation. Safe to say, he cleaned it up within moments but after seeing the children, he had no choice but to call us. He knew nobody in Wakanda had the expertise to deal with enhanced children." Alfred said.

He snapped his neck towards Alfred at that.

"Enhanced? Does this mean that the vampire was successful?"

Alfred nodded, "Sadly, yes. The reason Mrs.Castle is so sad is that that kid is aware of what is happening to him. He has basically given up all hope and only takes the bare minimum of nutrient-rich blood for the caretakers and doesn't mingle with any of the other kids, not even his own brother, who was rescued along with him. He has started to distance himself from his last remaining family in hopes of protecting him from himself."

He nodded to himself, "I see. Add a meeting with Ed to my schedule whenever he is available."

"Very well."

He then took a deep breath, made a slightly smiling face, and went to the living room with the ice cream.

The sight of Maria being huddled up in blankets with the firewood lit up and probably some cheesy rom-com on the TV was like a balm to his soul.

He gave her the cup of ice cream and huddled up under the blanket, cuddling her.

Kissing her forehead, he took a bit out of his cup of ice cream.

He would make sure that every last one of those vampire pests was hunted down like the vermins they were.

Soon, Maria fell asleep.

She must have been exhausted from the mental stress of keeping a happy face at the nursery despite being so heartbroken from the inside.

Carefully extricating himself from her iron hold, he wore his uniform and took out his tablet, and called for his escort to Throgg's workshop.

It was a good thing he had work to do, he couldn't exactly sleep now, could he?

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2593

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[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 43

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

Carefully extricating himself from her iron hold, he wore his uniform and took out his tablet, and called for his escort to Throgg's workshop.

It was a good thing he had work to do, he couldn't exactly sleep now, could he?

________________________________________________________________

–Frank Castle–

Watching how Alfred had been incorporated into every little thing in the base was always fascinating.

It was never said out loud but silently acknowledged that you were never truly alone when you were on the Asterisk. Alfred was always with you.

Even if you thought you were alone, he was there, ever-present inside the nanite packages given to any person that ever set foot on the base.

It did have its perks.

Like right now, the very fact that I had an escort machine ready for use right after I left my doorstep.

It was just there, silently floating outside the fence of the house, sent by Alfred who had anticipated my responses.

Getting into it, he said out loud, "Do I ever tell you how much I appreciate you helping run everything? Without you, we probably wouldn't be able to complete half our tasks."

"Not nearly enough, Commander Castle," Alfred's voice came from the sound system of the car.

"Whose car is this?" he asked Alfred after seeing a photo on the dashboard of the car.

"Oh, this? It is your neighbour's car. I temporarily requisitioned it for military purposes." Alfred replied without a care in the world like he hadn't just stolen another person's car in the middle of the night.

Before he could protest though, Alfred said, "Don't worry. I have deposited more than an adequate amount of credits into his account. He would be more than happy to give you his car again after that."

He then rolled his eyes after that.

Soon, the base hangar came into view.

The location where the car landed made him roll his eyes.

It had landed right in front of his personal jet.

It was hideous.

Apparently, Alfred had taken creative liberties when he had made the Commander's jet, knowing well that I hated those gaudy colours.

It was all Red and Gold and Matte Black in colours.

It was something Stark would have.

Disgusting.

Getting out of the car, he said, "You do realise I am not sitting in that, right?"

Alfred replied, "You have to. Look around you, there is no other jet available."

He looked around, only to see that Alfred was right.

That cheeky bastard.

"You did this on purpose, didn't you?" he asked with gritted teeth.

"Come on, Commander. What is the purpose of having a special jet for the Commander if he never uses it." Alfred replied like a whiny brat.

He rolled his eyes and said, "The Commander would have seen some use of it had the colours not been vomit-inducing to him. But very well, I don't want to waste any more time on this. Let's go."

He spied from the corner of his eyes that Alfred's hologram was doing a little victory dance.

He cleared his throat at that and Alfred stopped and made a gesture towards the jet as if saying - After you.

He then went towards the jet and midway through, a veritable lightshow of different colours activated on the jet's body.

The hangar opened up only to show disco lights active in the rear cargo bay and poles lowered through the ceilings.

It was mortifying.

Looking around in disgusted fascination, he said, "You are lucky that Maria doesn't know about any of this. Digital or not, she would have found a way to make it hurt."

All the lights, music, and the fog stopped at that statement.

He smirked at that reaction. He liked the fear that Maria's name generated in the base.

It gave him validation that he was not the only one who was absolutely terrified of that woman.

By the time he reached the pilot seat, all the gaudy displays were suspiciously absent and the entire cabin had a professional look and feel to it.

Sitting on the pilot seat, he spoke out loud, "Alfred, you know the destination. Please put it on autopilot, no external stimuli. I want to get some shut-eye."

"Affirmative, Commander." came the reply.

He closed his eyes on the seat only to feel the entire seat reclining backward and the leg rests coming up, turning the seat into a true bed.

He wanted to speak up but then the massage function kicked in, cutting his complaints short.

But despite getting all the relaxing treatment one could possibly get, he still couldn't sleep or relax while on the job.

He still had issues from when he was a regular on the job. All night stakeouts, shootouts, and encounters were the norm when he still worked under Schoonover.

Even after personally putting a bullet in that bastard's head, he still woke up in sweat, afraid for his family's safety sometimes.

It was the reason he still couldn't relax while being on the job.

It took him weeks of personally watching over the details that protected his kids to be sure of their competence even after repeated assurances from both Ed and Alfred.

Sigh…

"Alfred, I don't think I'll be getting any rest tonight. So why don't you just open up the view for me."

"Very well, sir."

The seats straightened themselves and the massage stopped.

The windshield which previously consisted entirely of holograms showing various parameters of the flight now turned transparent, showing off the lovely blue ball of life that was Earth.

The jet soon crossed the area where Earth's jump gate was located at.

As soon as the jet cleared the safe area, it rocketed forward like a missile.

Soon, it breached the upper atmosphere without even a hint of burning up due to the vibranium shields and then went right through the sea of white clouds, finally making the ocean visible.

If this was his very first trip to Throgg's workshop, he would have been concerned at the fact that the jet was not slowing down at all even when the water was coming increasingly closer but he was not, so he just watched on as the jet nosedived into the ocean and dove straight down towards the ocean surface.

The kinetic energy absorbing technology came in very handy during violent entries into the ocean just like this one.

The jet hadn't slowed down at all and despite that, barring a small disturbance during entry, there was no reaction to the jet entering the water at Mach speeds.

Soon, they dove into a trench that was hidden behind a hologram to ensure nobody poked their noses where they didn't belong.

As soon as the jet crossed the illusion boundary, the surroundings that became visible from the other side were tinted with red.

The jet soon came in front of the entrance to Throgg's workshop, an underwater volcano.

Apparently, Throgg was really concerned about his privacy and didn't want to be anywhere near other people.

The jet came to a stop in front of the volcano and then an orange wave passed through the jet as part of the identity verification processes installed in his home/office/workshop.

There really was no need for this. He then spoke into the intercom, "Throgg, you fossil, you do realise nobody really wants to come into your stinky home. I, for one, would certainly prefer being with my wife at home rather than being with an ancient fossil."

That did the trick as the identification module closed itself and the invisible shield around the volcano entrance opened up.

He smirked as Throgg's big ugly face came onto the screen as the jet started to slowly enter the volcano.

"If it wasn't for your leader's strength and the fact that I wouldn't even be able to shit if not for his strange contraptions, I wouldn't even look in you mortals' direction," Throgg said grumpily.

"Good to see you too, Throgg." he replied with an infuriating smirk.

"Just get in and finish your job so I can have my peace and quiet back," Throgg replied with a sigh and closed the call.

He then got back to reading his notes for this retrieval mission.

Yes, because for some reason, this was listed as a high enough priority mission that the Commander had to personally come to retrieve it.

He had also not missed the HUD on the jet signalling multiple bogies converging around the area on the surface of the ocean where his jet's exit point would be.

It would seem that a high-priority item needed to be transported out of there.

Soon they entered the base.

It was a very challenging thing to build for Alfred. They had to commission multiple sorcerers who had to work in shifts to maintain the enclosure around the spatial bubble while Alfred did his work to build inside and then use the barrier tech to hold out the lava whilst also using its heat as an energy source.

He had questioned the decision of even making this base but Alfred and Ed loved challenges and this was the most interesting thing they had to do at the time. So, Throgg got his dream base.

A workshop inside the molten core of a sun, he called it. Well, this was as close as he was going to get for now.

The jet landed and as soon as he came out of the cargo bay, Throgg landed right in front of him.

Throgg then flexed his magical skills, creating an area of high gravity around themselves, trying to make the puny human submit.

But, as usual, he just smirked and activated his powers.

This resulted not only in the gravity field being negated but also in the propulsion systems of his suit failing and Throgg falling right on his ass.

Throgg groaned at the sudden impact but swiftly recovered and stood up. He then laughed, "AHAHAHA! You are as rigid as ever, Frank. Honestly, you should have been a dwarf. We would have had the best mead fests with you around."

He smirked and shook hands with the old dwarf, "Maybe in some other timeline I am one. We know they exist."

Throgg waved his metallic hands, "Bah! I don't believe in that piece of nonsense. Anyway, let's go. The sooner you take that stuff off my hands, the sooner I can relax." He then turned around and tapped his foot on the ground twice.

The area they were standing on lit up on the circular edges and soon they found themselves floating and on their way to the office.

Soon they found themselves in front of a huge gate, easily 50ft tall.

He was wrong. They found themselves in front of the vault where Throgg stored all his previous artifacts.

While Throgg was in the process of opening his multi-level lock system, he said, "The item must truly be something for you to allow it to be stored in your precious vault. I believe the only one who has been inside the vault other than you is Ed and by extension, Alfred."

After a series of complicated runes flashed on the door, the gate started to lift up, showcasing the vault of the oldest Dwarf alive.

When Ed rescued him and offered him a permanent base on Earth, he had Alfred send multiple teams to loot the old stashes that he had stored throughout the nine realms, resulting in this huge vault that stored dangerous items that could destroy the planet multiple times over.

It was a sad thing that of the entire organisation, nobody was able to use these artifacts as of yet.

He had heard from Alfred that Ed was planning to have Daisy involved in the process of making one so they would have higher chances of the artifact accepting her but that was still years away.

"Oh, it was something alright. Who in their right mind would just hand over an Infinity Stone to a mad dwarf?" Throgg's mutterings snapped him out of his daze.

What did he say?

"Did you just say an Infinity Stone?" he asked Throgg

Throgg gave the command for the platform to float toward the cube that floated in the center of the vault. He then glanced backward at the question and said, "Yeah, and not just any Infinity Stone. He just came here one day and casually handed me the most dangerous of the stones, The Mind Stone. It was an insidious piece of work. Do you have any idea how much time it took to remove that nasty psychic imprint on the stone that commanded it to subtly influence everybody nearby?"

He made to speak only to be silenced by the mad Dwarf's ramblings, "Years worth of hellfire supply? Gone. I had to personally create a Uru cage for that imprint. Gotta hand it to whoever it was, it was a strong psychic imprint and near impossible to destroy. But I wasn't called Throgg the Mad in my prime."

Frustrated by the ramblings of Throgg that led nowhere near to answers, he interrupted and asked, "What is it that I have to transport? What was Ed thinking, giving you an Infinity Stone of all things?"

"I know, right? I asked him the same thing when he first gave me the thing. Anyway, behold my latest creation." Throgg replied and then gestured towards the cube that began to open up, shrouding him and Throgg in an eerie yellow glow.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count -2275

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[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 44

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

"I know, right? I asked him the same thing when he first gave me the thing. Anyway, behold my latest creation." Throgg replied and then gestured towards the cube that began to open up, shrouding him and Throgg in an eerie yellow glow.

________________________________________________________________

–Frank Castle–

As soon as he saw a yellow glow coming out of an object that was termed dangerous by Throgg of all people, he nearly leaped to close the box immediately.

Breathing heavily, he nearly shouted at Throgg, "Are you mad? Don't you know the consequences of being in close proximity to that object? You might be thousands of years old and near immune to it but I am not, you genius."

He was truly mad this time.

Being slightly careless with your experiments with materials that were deemed too dangerous for humans but not for dwarfs, was one thing.

Playing with his safety and more importantly, the sanctity of his mind was a whole different beast altogether.

It was more than carelessness, it was a massive breach of his trust.

He thought that he could trust Throgg. He might be rough and coarse on the outside but anyone who has spent literal centuries in continuous war zones would obviously come out a little broken.

He stopped short of shouting further at Throgg when he saw a genuine look of hurt ghost over his face. But it was only for a moment and then his usual scowling face was back in full force.

Throgg then snatched the box from Frank's hands that he was barely lifting even after all his enhancements like it weighed barely anything at all.

"Do you think I'm a fool? Weren't you listening to what I said earlier? I said that I removed the psychic imprint that was present on the sceptre. So there is no bad influencing done by the mind stone on your mind. The sceptre was designed to do so, not the mind stone." Throgg said and jumped from the floating platform. He then began walking towards the exit without taking a look back, clearly upset at his actions.

He (Frank) sighed and floated down right behind him using the nanite package of his body armour.

"I am sorry for my outburst. But in my defense, I have seen the aftermath of people coming out of mind control and it is not pretty. The thing you are holding is pretty much the key to control all the minds of the universe and I guess, I overreacted a bit. I apologize but all I could think of at that moment was my kids reacting to my death because you can be damn sure that I would either kill the motherfucker who did that to me or die trying."

Something in his words must have struck a chord with Throgg for he stopped stomping forward, leaving hairline fractures in the glossy finish of the floor.

Granted it was the first layer and therefore, the weakest but Damn! Those prosthetics had some serious juice behind them.

But in the end, what could he expect from something that Alfred and Ed personally designed, before they got a full science team and therefore, someone to restrain them from their more outlandish programs? He still shuddered when he thought of the plan of killing Thanos using Pym particles and a suicide bomber of sorts (because no one could experience that and still come out with a will to live).

Throgg looked at him from the corner of his eyes and said, "Well, don't let it become a habit. I might like you more than the other mortals but the last person who talked to me like that and remained alive was Surtus. So you better watch your words."

Being threatened by someone who had no limbs and needed old age assistance was not an intimidating sight mainly because he knew of the diaper mode Throgg had Alfred built into his suit for him. But he couldn't deny that even in his old age, Throgg still had some juice left in him. Not to the level of a pure-blooded Royal Asgardian, but Dwarves too had the trait of growing stronger the older they were. It was just that they could exert that overwhelming strength for less and less time until such a time came that the exertion of their innate magical powers left them dead instead of bedridden or magically exhausted for a month.

He made a sealing motion in front of his mouth and said, "I heard you loud and clear. Now, will you tell me more about the artifact you are holding other than it being incredibly dangerous?"

Thorgg rolled his eyes at him as if mocking him for his totally justified paranoia.

As he had repeated multiple times to multiple people, he said, "It is not paranoia if they really are to get you and you know it."

Throgg didn't dignify that with a response but walked a bit ahead and placed the item on a table that became solid out of thin air due to the wondrous application of Hard Light technology. He then slapped the box that contained one of the six building blocks of the universe as if it were simply the hood of a truck that he was trying to sell to him.

His heart nearly leaped out of his throat at that.

The box opened up at his slapping and then an intricate mechanism sprung up from the box, showcasing two objects.

It was a small egg that glowed yellow, presumably the one that contained the mind stone, and a small smooth ball the size of a golf ball. It had streaks of yellow flowing through it, followed by orange streaks of energy that covered the entire surface of the ball.

He waited a while, running through the mind defense techniques he had learned in passing from the sorcerers of Kamar Taj, waiting for something to happen due to being in close proximity to the time stone.

But after a while, after not detecting anything, he stopped concentrating and looked back to Throgg who just gave him a disappointing look but went on to explain the artifact.

"So! This is something Ed commissioned from me personally. It was his first personal request so I couldn't exactly deny it but I am still a bit confused about its purpose. I was hoping you could enlighten me about it."

He nodded with a bit of uncertainty, "I can definitely try."

Throgg nodded and then said, "It has two specific functions. It is supposed to shut down the mind's functions and revert its memory age back some 70 years in your time period. The second function is to restore the memories that might have otherwise been repressed but to only do so in a detached manner as if the person was not experiencing it personally but only looking at it from a third perspective. Also, a slight enchantment to stop suicidal thoughts. Anything you can tell me about that because I didn't get a chance to ask Ed about it."

More like wouldn't ask Ed about it.

But the situation he was explaining about seemed pretty clear to him.

This was a perfect solution for Bucky Barnes, whenever he was cleared from his brainwashing.

He thought that while it didn't make much sense to make something this overkill for a mere super soldier but he wouldn't pretend to understand Ed's thoughts.

He only had a job to execute the ideas that Ed's mad brain cooked up.

"Well?" He looked up at Throgg's questioning.

"Uh, yeah, we have a high profile person to rescue who has been brainwashed for exactly 70 years to systematically murder good people, many of them were his friends. So, yeah, the ball is probably for that but I am still confused as to how a Ball of all things could be used on someone," he replied.

"Oh, that? Don't worry about that. Just pick up the ball and you'll know immediately." Throgg encouraged him to do so.

He hesitantly picked it up only to nearly drop it as it transformed from a ball to a band and then a knife, then a blunt knife.

It would seem that the magical properties of Uru could only truly shine in the hands of a Dwarf.

"See? Nice, right?" Throgg said enthusiastically.

He nodded.

"Great! Now, get out of here. I have work to do. Apparently, the people of Kamar Taj have a lot of old relics that they want to be upgraded or repaired. I don't have much time for this." Throgg grumbled and shuffled him out of his office space.

He dumbly nodded and went out to the hangar, holding the infinity stone egg in one hand and the band in another.

Today had indeed been a very bizarre day for him.

Sometimes, he missed the days when all he had to do was point at someone and blow their brains out.

He couldn't wait to go home and climb into his warm comfortable bed with his wife.

The one place where he could relax pretty much instantly and sleep comfortably.

________________________________________________________________

–Throgg–

Watching the most tolerable human he had met on this infernal planet leave, he thought of the day that led to his situation now.

But before he could delve deeper into his thoughts, he had one very important job to do.

He then joined his prosthetic hands together. The next moment, his hands began shining with a bright golden light as he began to float cross-legged in his office.

Soon, a golden magical circle manifested in front of him and it only continued to grow brighter. The symbols inside the circle began to rotate at a dizzying pace.

In fact, if anybody who was not mystically attuned to the likes of Odin, Ancient One or Frigga would find themselves drawn into the circle with their senses lost.

A thin sheen of sweat could be seen on Throgg's face as he concentrated on the spell in front of him with his eyes scrunched up.

It finally seemed to reach a crescendo as it had now shrunk down to the size of a fist. The circle then exploded, turning into a wave that flowed omnidirectionally.

He waited for any feedback from the spell but upon not finding any, he heaved a sigh of relief.

He had read so many horror stories of the damn AI that Frank had brought with him, he thought prudent of pruning all traces of any other AI other than Victor's from his workshop. They apparently had an entire channel dedicated to the crimes that Alfred commits on the daily.

After making sure that Alfred was well and truly gone, he pressed a button under his desk.

He waited a moment and heaved a huge sigh of relief when he heard, "Hello, sir. How may I be of service?"

Victor had been untouched by Alfred.

The circle was one part of a 2 part spell. It was a spell he created with the help of one of the more talented sorcerers of Kamar Taj, Kaecillius. He was a very helpful fellow, helping him without even asking.

The first part of the spell essentially recorded everything digitally in a location. Then the second part scanned the data from the same location and pruned all traces of anything that was not recorded in the first spell.

It was very helpful in this situation.

While not a very efficient spell by any means, it took nearly all of his mental concentration to do so but the complexity of the spell meant that even that AI, advanced as it was, couldn't bypass it.

Not to mention, he had heard that Alfred couldn't do much about the mystic arts for some reason. All the people he talked to were quite confused about that as he was very much adept in the topic of runes before. In fact, most of the spatial stab

Upon asking, the Ancient One was quite cryptic about her response, as she usually is.

"Nothing, Victor. Just go back to your duties. Operating the exoskeleton was very taking on these old bones. Just take over, will you?" he asked Victor, feeling rather exhausted by the happenings of the day.

"Surely, sir," Victor replied and immediately the legs and arms that were slouching, reflecting his mental state, straightened up.

"Ahhh, Much better," he said and groaned as he sat in his relaxing chair.

Mortals sure knew how to make the most comfortable cushions.

During his time as on Nidavellir, he hadn't even imagined that such comfortable cushions could exist outside of the Royal halls of Asgard. Vanaheim and Alfheim. Here, apparently, anybody with a little bit of coin could buy these.

He still didn't know if it was the right thing to do, allowing his services to be given out to Ed.

As a rule, if you wanted to leave Nidavellir for something, you could do so but with the knowledge that Asgard was watching and would strike you down if they found out that you were making high-tier weaponry for someone other than Asgard.

Making something with the energy of an infinity stone definitely fell into that category.

But then, he remembered how he had basically abandoned Nidavellir due to what it had become.

They were a proud species once, residing on their planetoid, not too dissimilar to Midgard.

They were independent contractors who made weapons for anybody who paid them money. Of course, weapons like Mjolnir were off the table for anyone outside of Dwarves.

Not that there were many dwarves capable of making weapons like Mjolnir even in that era.

Then came Bor Burison.

Oh, how he hated that wretched man.

The strongest Asgardian of his time, even surpassing the might of his brothers and father combined.

He came to Nidavellir, the true home of Dwarves, one day and demanded that they surrender and move to a place of Bor's choice and imposed a condition on them that the only people we would sell our high-tier weaponry to was Asgard and even then, all other weapon sales would be scrutinized by Asgard. Asgard would have the final say on all sales of weapons.

Predictably, everybody went into a huge uproar, him included but their king, King Durin III, bent the knee.

At the time, he was furious at the decision, and so were most of his brothers.

But when confronted, the sight of their King breaking down into tears was one of the things that had been seared into his memory. He explained to us the true intention of Bor asking for surrender with those unconditional terms. He expected the Dwarves to not bend their knee, to fight against Asgard, to start a war.

But what King Durin III did surprised Bor. He was expecting a battle, not a surrender at the moment, hence the reason he came personally to Nidavellir.

In the end, he had to admit that what King Durin III did was right.

How could he argue when he saw entire legions of the elite of the elite of numerous races being cut down like they were common grass?

Bor Borison was a warmonger, plain and simple. He saw that Nidavellir was the major supplier of weapons to most factions of the galaxy and sought to control that resource. King Durin III, saved the race by allowing Nidavellir to be relocated and allowing Asgard first access.

Of course, the surrender allowed King Durin III room for negotiation. That's how they got the Golden Forge of Nidavellir. That's how no Dwarf was sent to the frontlines to die, even if their main skill was not weapons manufacturing.

But he had grown disillusioned with the command back then and left Nidavellir. He didn't even tell anyone about his leaving and so, was basically stranded in the nine realms.

He then travelled throughout the nine realms, helping the natives with tools. Never did he even try to make real weapons, in fear of retaliation from Asgard. He could feel their watcher's gaze on him from time to time. He suspected the only reason Asgard didn't come crashing down on him with all their might was due to King Durin III's grace and the judicial use of his talents during his travels.

During his travels outside the nine realms, he heard of Bor's abdication to his son, Odin Borson. He had thought that with that warmonger off the throne and with the instability of a new king, Asgard would reduce their warmongering tendencies but that didn't happen.

Odin, somehow, was even stronger than Bor and managed to stabilise his rule very quickly.

Then, began the conquering. Odin and his daughter, Hela decided that the nine realms paying fealty to Asgard was not enough. They wanted every realm to formally surrender to Asgard and become its vassal states, just like Nidavellir was.

And so, war began. Odin and his daughter were nearly invincible on the battlefield. Together, with Asgard's army, along with some new additions like the Berserkers, Asgard had managed to conquer nearly all of the nine realms, save the Ginnungagap, due to its desolate nature, and Alfheim. He had thought that Alfheim was spared from the war engines due to the inherent peaceful nature of Light Elves and the advantage they had in their home realm.

So, to get some respite and maybe, help some of the refugees, he set up a camp in Alfheim.

Then, to add injury to salt, during one of his stays in Allheim, he got the news that they had declared war on Odin Borson due to his conquering ways.

He knew what fate was awaiting them then and there because he had seen with his own eyes the death and destruction his daughter had brought upon armies of invaders with the help of Mjolnir, a Dwarven-made weapon and she was supposed to be weaker than Odin.

Soon enough, he heard of Alfheim's defeat. Hela Odinsdottir had slaughtered half the population of Alfheim before she was stopped by Odin who was informed of the genocide by his council.

By the time Odin stopped Hela, sent her back and reached the capital, it was gone. Every single light elf had abandoned their realm. He had heard rumours about their King using his very lift force as fuel to open a gateway to a pocket dimension but he was never able to confirm that.

After that incident, Odin stopped his crazy daughter and did something that made everyone forget about her. Even he didn't remember her. The only reason the spell broke was because of his proximity to the mind stone and the band that he had used as a test on himself. He had never expected for there to be a mind spell on him.

After that, he got depressed and began to drink his sorrows away, more so than usual.

One fine evening, he found himself being approached by a group of ravagers who wanted to retrieve some alive demons from Muspelheim. The pay was good. It would have covered the tab at his usual bar.

He didn't want to go but he also didn't want his good friend's bar to go bankrupt.

So, he went along with the most notorious pack of pirates in the galaxy.

In hindsight, not a good idea.

He swiftly found himself being ambushed by them when he was tired from fighting all the demons.

Apparently, they were there to collect him instead of the fire demons.

Furious at their actions, he had swiftly slaughtered them but that had left him defenseless to the onslaught of the oncoming fire demon waves.

Even then, with a death wish, he had charged right into the incoming horde and after what felt like an eternity, managed to kill all of them at the price of an arm and leg.

Hobbling on one leg, he was about to lay down and wait to die, he heard a menacing laugh and turned to see one of the biggest fire demons, that wasn't Surtur, he had ever seen.

Back then, he had accepted his fate and just laughed in the fire demon's face, daring him to end his life so he could finally rest.

But Lady Destiny had other plans for him.

Somehow, Ed and Alfred had stumbled on their location as well. They were present on Muspelheim, cloaked in stealth to find some unique materials that could only be found in fire-rich areas.

Due to the disturbance he had created from his fight, they managed to find him and with a single shot from their ship's cannon, they killed the fire demon.

He still remembered the frantic mess that Ed was when he tried to help him and how in awe of Ed's powers he was back then.

They then brought him to Midgard of all places. And they didn't bring him to just Midgard, they brought him to Midgard's Sorcerers.

He must have looked so dumb when he met the Ancient One. He was still delirious from the pain but the thought of Midgardians having access to Magic was mindboggling for him.

They patched him up but couldn't save his limbs. He lost 2 limbs in the fight and 2 more to the demon infection.

They still could have saved the infected limbs but the Ancient One told him that the only ones alive who could do so were in Asgard.

He refused. He refused to go to the place that nearly destroyed the identity of Dwarves and destroyed the entire species, leaving multiple realms desolate.

He was still angry about the Light Elves incident.

His vehemence surprised many there except the Ancient One.

Alfred back then was pretty much a cold-blooded logical being and urged Ed to make sure that he survived so they could gain access to all the knowledge he had with him.

It was humiliating for a while but Ed managed to come up with a full prosthetic system for his lost limbs.

With the help of the masters of Kamar Taj, they managed to make the prosthetics just as good at using Magic as his old arms. He was honestly happy about the choice but he would never admit it to their face.

In return, he helped with Kamar Taj's artifacts and took occasional commission work from Ed.

He considered that as payment for his rescue.

"Sir? Sir? Sir?"

Victor's voice brought him out of his reverie. Victor was the VI that was installed at his behest into the base. He wasn't true artificial intelligence but he preferred it that way. Victor got the job done and didn't do any additional thinking. From the incidents he had heard, it was a good choice.

"Yes, Victor?" he asked.

"Sir, Master Wong from Kamar Taj is here to take you to Kamar Taj for the regular artifact work," Victor replied.

Ah, yes.

"Tell him I'll be there in a minute," he ordered.

"Very well, sir."


________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 3851

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[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 45

Technomancer in MCU

The Asterisk

–Ed–

I was working on the energy retention capabilities for the nano-sized N-reactor that Alfred was going to put in his body.

He didn't ask me to but recently, he has diverted a lot of resources to this project from other non-emergency projects.

Being the helpful buddy that I am, I volunteered to help him. I just waltzed into the lab where his body was being made.

It was still incomplete but the finished parts of the body were absolutely the best of the best.

It was a culmination of centuries of time-dilated original research from our organisation along with the amalgamation of technology 'borrowed' from multiple advanced civilisations from the outer cosmos.

To be honest, I was glad that he was finally focusing on his body rather than fruitlessly searching for a cure for my condition.

It would have been nice to see it through but defeating Thanos and making sure that Humanity thrives would be enough of a consolation prize, I guess.

The major parts of the body were already done but some of the auxiliary systems were taking longer than expected. Even then, they could have added those things as they went but then Alfred went ahead and added the magical ability stuff.

The weird thing was that Alfred had loaded all of the runic work on the Masters from Kamar Taj. Normally he would be thrilled to do all of that on his own but something had happened a while back.

Alfred had started acting weird since then. He stopped discussing the magical applications of runes with anyone. He would normally chatter off the Master of the Mystic Art's ears when it came to Runes.

"Ed?" a voice broke him out of his reverie.

"Yes?", he turned towards the person who asked him.

Normally, he would be pretty much left alone but as soon as he was found working in the lab, he would be approached by the junior engineers or the fresh joinees. Mostly, it would be due to a dare or maybe to satisfy some of their idle curiosity.

Today, however, was different as he was actually approached by Helen Cho of all people.

She was the head of the Bio-manipulation department.

Her work was invaluable when it came to reducing the rejection rates of the enhancement procedures for the Inhumans.

Her work was what allowed us to turn Daisy from a mid-level powerhouse to an absolute S-class monster or at least it will allow us to when Daisy becomes proficient enough with her powers that we can remove the final seal on her powers.

She was also responsible for making sure that the mish-mash of all the technology we were going to utilise for making Alfred's body didn't just turn him into a cancerous blob or worse, damage his personality matrix.

That would be disastrous.

We wouldn't need Thanos to kill off half of all Humanity then. Alfred would do the job just fine.

I would have preferred someone of Shuri's caliber when she was a little bit older to work on extracting Alfred's personality matrix and install it into the body but Alfred had become oddly obstinate regarding any delays pertaining to his body.

"Do you know what is going on with Alfred?" she asked me.

"What do you mean? I mean he has pushed this project up ahead of schedule but that is hardly a reason to worry, right?" I asked her back.

She shook her head, "I don't mean that. Um, How should I explain this? Just come with me."

I followed her to her office and was pretty startled when the first thing I saw in her office was Alfred's personality matrix and his source code just displayed openly on her desk for anyone to barge in and see.

"What the hell is this supposed to mean? I don't remember authorising this. Nobody and I mean, nobody is allowed to look at Alfred's source code. At least not until the final stages of the project. Shut it down immediately." I was extremely angered at what I was seeing and immediately, without thinking, activated my powers and hard shut down the access of the entire lab to the central servers.

I regretted that almost immediately as I felt a shock in my chest and started coughing out black blood immediately.

The suit started blaring and I could feel the suit's thrusters activating automatically.

I felt like I was going to die when even the CHI injections couldn't stop my coughing.

That was the last thing I remember before opening my eyes and seeing the conventional white ceiling of a hospital room.

Damn, what a depressing colour.

All the advancements we have made in the medical field and even now we are stuck with the standard white ceiling drab rooms.

My first order for Alfred now would be to change the colour of all hospital rooms to hot pink. Man, I must be delirious.

Speaking of Alfred, I had to call out for him. For the split second that I connected to the systems at the base, I found several anomalies that should not have been there.

Before I could do so, however, I could feel my eyes growing heavy.

Damn, what a drag.

________________________________________________________________

–Helen Cho–

When she saw Ed cough out blood in her office, she was sure that she was going to die.

Especially since she was the one who invited him to her office to show something that she was worried about.

And then, instead of listening to her, he freaked out when he saw that she had access to Alfred's source code and did something to cut off her access and then began coughing out black blood. That was a textbook sign of poisoning.

And what was up with Ed not knowing that she had access to Alfred's source code? Alfred had assured her multiple times that Ed was the one who had granted her exclusive access to his source code so she could go over the personality matrix and source code to prepare for the eventual transfer to his body.

She still counted herself lucky that she was only confined to the hospital ward and not in a straight jacket and on her way to some top-secret prison that Ed kept to lock up the most violent of criminals.

She was going to ask Alfred about Ed's situation again when she heard a clicking sound and then she felt something cool and hard press against her neck.

And then someone said in the most menacing voice she had ever heard in her entire life, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blow your brains out for what you've done?"

Terrified for her life, she stiffened and couldn't move her lips.

He shoved her forward and shouted, "Tell me!"

She turned around to see Commander Frank, the one with the highest authority on the base with a team of soldiers behind him.

The normally gentle Maria was also there, looking at her with an ice-cold gaze. She never thought it would be possible for Maria to look at anyone like that, let alone her.

Gulping, she raised her hands and stammered, "Uh–u-Ahem, I don't know. You have to believe me, please. I don't know what happened to Ed. If I had kno–"

"We know what happened to Ed. We are asking you what you did to Alfred?" Maria interrupted her and asked in a frosty voice.

"Wh–What? Alfred? What do you mean?" she asked, absolutely confused by Maria's question.

Frank advanced towards her with his gun aimed at her face only to halt when Maria placed a hand on his shoulder.

Maria then said, "Daisy, report please?" She asked Daisy, the rising star in the combat list, for something.

Daisy came forward and started reading from her tablet, "The last time somebody spoke to Alfred and he gave out an answer was last night. Many of the advanced functions of the base like the Danger Room have stopped functioning altogether and many other functions are now operating at suboptimal efficiency."

Daisy then glared at her, clearly accusing her of doing something with Alfred.

She spoke out, "What do you mean by that? I have been speaking with Alfred today during the project. Sure, the responses were a bit robotic but he assured me that his main partition was busy some–"

Frank glared at her and said, "Alfred's main partition is not just busy it is missing from the base."

"Yes, and the one you spoke to was one of the hundreds of VI that Alfred made to run the base before leaving somewhere," Maria said.

"So, I will ask you once again. What did you do? Because the logs clearly show the last person to speak with Alfred was only you and nobody else." Frank threatened her.

She started crying, "I don't know, alright? I don't know how to prove it. I have done nothing but work on the project I was assigned to. Alfred was the one who assured me that Ed had approved my access to his source code. And I was the one who approached Ed with the intention to actually confirm it because it seemed fishy to me. You ha–"

"I don't fucking care, alright? What matters now is that all of our operations are in jeopardy and the one person who could explain is in a medically induced coma in the room behind me and guess whose fault is that?" Frank thundered out.

Frustrated at her replies, he ordered, "Guards, take her. Make sure she doesn't step out of her quarters until this mess is sorted out. I'll be there soon. We need some answers."

'Wa–Wait, you can't do this to me. I didn't do anything wrong." Her cries fell on deaf ears as the guards used hard light technology to project a bubble around her which isolated her voice from outside.

Then they effortlessly lifted her and took her out of the hospital ward.

The last thing she saw before the doors closed as she banged her fists on the bubble wall was the cold hard eyes of Daisy and Maria.

The doors of the bubble closing felt like the death knell of her career in the organisation.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1730

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[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 46

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

'Wa–Wait, you can't do this to me. I didn't do anything wrong." Her cries fell on deaf ears as the guards used hard light technology to project a bubble around her which isolated her voice from outside.

Then they effortlessly lifted her and took her out of the hospital ward.

The last thing she saw before the doors closed as she banged her fists on the bubble wall was the cold hard eyes of Daisy and Maria.

The doors of the bubble closing felt like the death knell of her career in the organisation.

________________________________________________________________

–Daisy Johnson–

Never in a million years did she think that Alfred would be the one that would leave Ed's side even for a second. Especially since she learned the truth of Ed's condition and how dependent he was on Alfred's help for his day-to-day tasks.

That day was truly eye-opening.

The very fact that someone as overwhelmingly powerful as Ed could be so vulnerable.

That was the day she realised the true worth of her powers. The heavy burden that was placed on her shoulders as the one who was stronger than others.

It was soul-crushing, the burden.

Looking at Ed now, she couldn't fathom how he shouldered that much weight while building everything. All the while making sure that no one knew of his true condition.

It explained why someone like Frank would defer to Ed and even respect him immensely as a person.

Explained how the Ancient One, someone who is a million years older mentally than even the oldest human, joined someone who was barely an adult.

Now looking at the tablet that showcased the empty data pipelines that operated the entirety of the base, she felt hollow.

Weird.

She never thought that she would miss Alfred, that little hellion, of all people. Guess people do make an immense impact on other people without even knowing about it.

"Daisy, what is the status of the agents currently on Earth?" The Commander in Chief, Frank, asked her.

She subconsciously stood a bit straighter and replied, "I've recalled all the agents who could be recalled and reviewed the ones who said that they couldn't be recalled at a critical stage and have made the appropriate arrangements should their missions go awry. Multiple backup teams have been allotted to every single critical asset on the planet."

She rattled off everything she knew of the incident yet.

She was apparently made the secretary of Frank. Frankly(pun intended), he had no need of any secretary and neither did most people on the base as Alfred filled that role better than any human ever could.

So, here she was, an S-class combatant taking on the role of personal assistant.

"Good, make sure that everybody is accounted for. Once lost, things can be retried, People cannot be. Remember that." Frank nodded and said to her, absolutely seriously.

She nodded seriously.

It felt like he was training her to be his replacement or something.

Like she would want that hellish position ever.

But it truly was a massive undertaking.

She never truly understood the true scope of the organisation before. Once Frank logged in with his emergency credentials and took charge of the whole base's systems and handed in access of the entire organisation to her, only then did she realise the sheer area that the organisation kept a watch on at all times.

At first, she held the tablet like it was the most precious thing in the world, and in a way, it actually was. But now, she was fine with it.

When she saw the list of missions that were going on the planet and the ones that were scheduled off-world, she felt that living in her previous ignorance was truly blissful.

For God's sakes, they actually had a prison near the sun. It only held a single criminal for some reason. To sate her curiosity, she tried to access that information but for some reason, even Frank doesn't have access to that information.

"Also," she looked up at that, "Any updates on Alfred?" Frank asked her.

She shook her head sadly.

Whatever Alfred had done, he had done it in a way nothing could track him.

Frank nodded and said, "Of course. He was the one who built all our tools. There is no way we could track him that way."

He then appeared to be in deep thought.

She was about to ask about it when her tablet beeped.

She hurriedly looked towards it and sighed in relief when it was just a confirmation regarding the safe storage of the energies of the Infinity Stones.

Honestly, she didn't even want to know what the hell kind of stone an Infinity Stone was.

No sir.

She had enough nightmare material as is.

"Honey, why don't we go to the Avengers? Surely Stark could help?" She looked up at the question that Maria was asking Frank.

She thought about it and while it seemed like a sound idea on paper. The reality was a different thing.

And she was right as she could see Frank shake his head.

"There is no way we can let anyone know about the condition of Ed. It might not seem like it but various hidden communities stay hidden because of Ed and us. And we are only as powerful as we are due to Ed, and by extension, Alfred. In one fell swoop, we have lost one of our strongest assets and nearly lost our leader. We cannot let anyone get even a whiff of weakness from us. It would be disastrous and would undo nearly all the work Ed has done with his soft diplomacy to make sure that the supernatural community is not hunted down by anyone and in return, humans are not treated as fodder by the supernatural community." He took a deep breath at the end of his tirade.

She interjected there and said, "He's right, you know."

Both of them looked at her. She was slightly afraid but she soldiered on and said, "I-I don't know much but from what I am seeing, we are truly responsible for actually policing a lot of supernatural communities on the planet. No personnel have been evacuated from these communities as they are designated as such in the system. In fact, I have reinforced these locations with multiple teams equipped with beyond clearance level weaponry."

Frank nodded at her approvingly, impressed by her decision to send overwhelming firepower where it might be needed.

He lived by that code.

Maria then threw her hands up and started pacing in the observation room, "Fine! We won't call the freaking Avengers. What about Wakanda? They ought to have someone who could help us track Alfred or at least help take reinforce places we cannot reach."

Before Frank could reply, she shook her head and said, "Won't work."

She continued when Frank nodded at her, "Alfred knows Wakanda's systems in and out and according to the files I have, Shuri of the Golden Tribe would grow to become even smarter than Stark but that is still years away. Not to mention that exposing Wakanda to our operations would just increase their threat levels and beyond that, we don't need reinforcement anywhere. We are self-sufficient enough in that regard."

She gulped to moisten her dry throat.

Maria looked at her sideways and said, "When did you become an expert in international geopolitics? It's impressive that you managed to acquaint yourself with the organisation's structure so quickly."

Happy at the praise, she happily rattled off, "Oh, it's nothing I haven't seen before. Alfred used to make me take special tests as blackmail in which I had to face similar situations with even less information and he used to be absolutely brutal when it came to checking the answers. So, I had to look up all the stuff he was testing me on and prepare for the next blackmail exam."

Frank and Maria shared a smiling look at that.

________________________________________________________________

–Frank Castle–

They both shared a look at that.

It was almost as if Ed and Alfred noticed something in her and decided to nurture that quality in her by training her and leading her on that path.

He couldn't believe that Ed chose Daisy of all people to succeed him.

It did make sense to train her just in case but for her need to arise so soon must have been unexpected for both Ed and Alfred.

But looking at her rattling-off orders on her comms, he could see that she would definitely grow into her role very easily.

It was very surprising.

The one who tried to skip training the most and yet, she was the one who stepped up when it counted.

"Commander, sir, uh-um, it was about the superclass carrier," Daisy asked him.

She had his full attention as soon as she mentioned their flagship super weapon.

"What about it?" he commanded her.

"Sir, the N-reactor has stopped working. The backup reactors have kicked in but the crew is concerned about the absence of their flagship weapon."

He internally sighed in relief at that, "Don't worry about that. The N-reactors are built in such a way that they would stop working and extinguish themselves instantly as soon as they stop getting a specific signal from Alfred that only he knows."

Daisy's face grew pale at that, "Bu-But then, now we are left without our trump card. What if something happens? What if the Ravagers decide to come now or-or what about Ego? What if he notices somet–"

Maria held Daisy's shoulders and said, "Honey, Honey Deep Breaths. Do not worry. Nobody will invade Earth at this time and we still have the Avengers who can help us. Remember, we are never truly alone."

Daisy nodded at her. Maria then continued, "Now, why don't you go ahead and have some coffee? You look like you need it. Take a break while you are at it. We will be here when you come back. Alright?" She said while also taking the tablet from Daisy.

Daisy nodded and left the ward with silent steps.

He was about to praise his wife for handling the situation calmly when she whirled on him with a face full of panic as soon as Daisy left.

"What are we going to do, Frank? The kids are still on Earth? We have to find Alfred soon?" She started rambling in panic.

He held her shoulders in a reassuring gesture and said, "Look, Look at me! Nothing is going to happen. Alfred hasn't abandoned us. He will be back soon. Not to mention, Ed will be up soon and the situation will go back to normal soon. Trust me."

She shrugged off his hands and said, "To hell with that. Call the Avengers. I don't care if they find out about Ed's condition. I just want Ed and the kids to be safe."

Then she started crying.

This time, he sighed audibly.

It was going to be a long day. At Least until Ed woke up.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1865

If you guys would like to support me or read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my Patreon.

I already have up to 9 extra chapters uploaded there.

P.S. - Chapter release sheet

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 47

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

She shrugged off his hands and said, "To hell with that. Call the Avengers. I don't care if they find out about Ed's condition. I just want Ed and the kids to be safe."

Then she started crying.

This time, he sighed audibly.

It was going to be a long day. At Least until Ed woke up.

________________________________________________________________

Onboard the Superclass Carrier

– Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez–

As soon as she heard that something had happened to both Ed and Alfred and the organisation was calling back everyone on non-essential duties, she called her superior which was not easy as everybody in her chain of command was swamped with work as they had to do nearly everything manually without Alfred's help now and asked to be transferred back.

It was a good thing that she was on the Commander's personal team before her current stint so her request was approved immediately.

Due to safety reasons, they had shut down nearly all teleportation pads throughout the bases, and the ones that were allowed to function were strictly used for transferring supplies rather than people.

So, she had to take the long route and come to the Asterisk on a ship.

She had to go through a thorough screening at the Superclass carrier orbiting Earth after exiting Earth's atmosphere.

"So, security's gotten pretty tight, huh?" she asked the security agent, trying to make small talk.

The only thing she received was silence as the agent continued to scan her for the nth time.

"I'm clean, alright? For god's sake, I was on the Commander's personal team. That has to count for something." she snapped at the agent taking her sweet time clearing her.

Couldn't the agent see that she was in a hurry?

Unphased by her outburst, the agent replied, "I am sorry, mam. Who you were before doesn't matter. Orders from the higher-ups."

She waved her hands at the agent, indicating her to get it over with.

Finally, after an agonizing 30 minutes that the agent took with the process, she exited the security chamber and rushed to the hangar for the ship that regularly ferried between the carrier and the base.

But upon reaching the hangar, she could see exactly zero ships present.

Shocked at this as she had never seen this scene before, she turned around and hurried to the hangar captain's office.

She banged on the captain's door multiple times before a person with extremely disheveled clothing exited the cabin.

"Wha–What do you –Yawn—want?" he asked me, clearly out of it.

"What happened to the ships? I need to reach Asterisk as soon as possible. Is there any way I can get out here right now?" she asked him.

"Hmm?" As soon as he heard her question, something in his demeanor changed instantly. Where before she could only peg him as an administrative type agent, now, he was giving off really dangerous vibes to her.

He was registering as a huge threat to her senses right now.

But how could that be?

The number of people that could be a threat to her could be counted on both hands and you'd still have a couple fingers left.

But as soon as the feeling came, it went away as he took a good look at her.

"Oh, it's you? I remember you. Weren't you the one who had to be pried off the winner of the last rookie combat tournament? Now, I remember you. Man, I had a blast watching that tournament." he said while laughing at her.

She gritted her teeth at the humiliating reminder.

It was the last knockout match of the annual rookie event that the organisation had for every department.

Being from the Commander's personal unit, she and Daisy were both expected to compete with anyone who would challenge them. And they did.

After defeating almost a dozen combatants, Daisy and she had been the only combatants standing, as expected. Then they were told to compete against each other in their near-exhausted states.

That was a dream come true for her. Due to the nature of her powers, Daisy would always have an upper hand against her but when competing with their tanks completely empty, she had a good chance of defeating Daisy.

She was looking forward to finally beating Daisy up when that bitch cheated at the final moment and won. She may or may not have gotten a little frustrated at that and fought with her in the arena itself after that.

"Can you or can you not get me there?" she snapped at him.

He raised his hands in mock surrender and said, "Sure, sure. I'll get you there. After all, you are one of the vaunted members of the personal hit squad of Commander Castle."

Why did she get the feeling that he was mocking her for that?

She shook her head. It didn't matter what he thought of her as long as he got her to the base.

She looked towards the agent only to see him halfway across the hall.

Hurriedly following him, she caught up to him and said, "Where are we going? The hangar is in the opposite direction."

He laughed and said, "Ha! You think you'll get any ship right now? Dream on. Everything and I mean, everything is on strict lockdown right now. Short of getting personal orders from the commander, you won't get any space-capable ship that could pass Earth's atmosphere. Hell, the captain has given the weapon holders blanket orders to make sure that no spacecraft breaches the upper atmosphere and if they do, shoot them down with extreme prejudice."

A chill ran down her spine at that.

"Is the situation truly that serious? I mean, I am sure Alfred would come back and things would go back to normal soon enough?" she said to him hesitantly.

He looked at her weirdly as if to say that she was stupid for saying that, "You are living in delusion if you think that is the truth. Forget it, here's your only way off the ship. At least, until we get new orders from the Asterisk."

He said while gesturing to one of the standard issue nanite packages she had seen the spacewalkers use.

She looked at him with a nervous smile, "Y-You are kidding, right? Because there is no way in hell that that piece of garbage would survive in the vacuum of space, let alone take me to the Asterisk."

He shrugged and said, "You asked me for a way and there you have it, the only way off the carrier. The rest is up to you." He then turned around and started leaving the airlock space.

She looked at the extremely basic nanite package and thought of the situation that must be unfolding at the Asterisk. She then exhaled loudly and said, "Wait!"

He turned his neck towards her and moved it up and down in a 'what?' gesture.

"C-Can you come with me?"

He raised an eyebrow at that and then, after some internal deliberation, said, "Eh, Why not? Let's go."

"Wait, really?" she asked him in astonishment.

"Uh, huh" he said as a suit started to form over his clothes.

Her eyes narrowed as she took a look at his suit.

It was the captain suit, issued to only 19 individuals to date, including her. Unfortunately, she had to surrender her suit as part of the security checks at the entrance of the carrier. They were very strict about that.

Something about seizing any and all space-ready vehicles of transport.

Then how did he get his hands on one?

Before she could question him about that though, he threw something at her she embarrassingly started flailing about as the airlocks opened up.

Amid the red sirens that rang throughout the cabin, he pushed her flailing body into the cold vacuum of space.

Bracing for the coldness of space, she opened her eyes in surprise as instead she felt the familiar warmth of her nanite suit.

"Welcome back, Agent Yo-Yo", came the comfortingly familiar voice of her VI from the suit.

She sighed in relief at that but soon narrowed her eyes and looked around for the bastard who pushed her through the airlock before her suit had finished forming around her.

Not finding him anywhere in her sight, she instead switched to her HUD and found the bastard already on his way to the Asterisk.

"Victory, chart a course to the Asterisk at the highest speed please," she commanded Victory, her personal VI.

"At once, Agent Yo-Yo" came the reply and with that, her suit accelerated immensely as was indicated by the numbers going up on her HUD.

She soon caught up to that bastard but gritted her teeth as he mockingly saluted her and entered the Asterisk's hangars before her, all the while we were being hailed by a bunch of raptors that told us in no uncertain terms, to land in the designated zone or pretty much die a horrible death.

Upon landing, she found him nowhere in sight.

Finding herself in a hurry, she just told the nearby agents to be on the lookout for that man and hurried towards the medical bay.

She had to make a quick stop at the security station to get her temporary badge working but she was soon running through the hallways of the base's VIP medical wing.

Soon, she found herself entering the ward where Ed was being kept.

Of course, she couldn't even imagine gaining access to Ed right now but she could meet Maria, Frank, and most importantly, Daisy there.

"Maria!" She called out as she ran and hugged Maria.

"Elena!" she cried out in reply.

"Agent Yo-Yo, how did you get here? I thought that all space travel between the Earth and Asterisk was banned by my order." Frank questioned her sternly as soon as she disengaged from Maria's hug.

"Ah, don't sweat the small stuff, Commander. I thought it prudent to personally escort a high-value asset to the base. You know, for safekeeping." Replied an infuriatingly smug voice from behind her.

She turned around only to see the bastard.

Frank gave a tired sigh at that and said, "Eric, I thought I taught you better than that. Now is not the time to start acting in an immature manner."

"W-Wait, you know him?" she questioned Frank.

He leveled a confused look at her in return and after taking one look at Eric, Frank shook his head and said, "He is the captain of the superclass carrier. You wouldn't have reached Asterisk alive if he wasn't with you."

She turned towards Eric, her eyes wide and unblinking.

Then, Eric had the gall to actually bow at her and say, "At your service, madam."

She was going to kill him.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1819

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head on to my Patreon.

I already have up to 9 extra chapters uploaded there.

Author Note

So, huh. What can I say?

I guess the hands wanna type what they wanna type.

I had an entire plotline ready for this chapter and somehow, I created an important role for Elena when there wasn't one and also created an OC with that.

Truly, our brains work in mysterious ways.

Anyways, see you guys in the next episode of Dragon Ball-*COPYRIGHT STRIKE*

Ahem, this will connect with the plotline, you'll see.

Please have patience with this poor author. My brain doesn't cooperate with me on the best of days let alone these days with 9 hour workdays which is more like 11 hours with the commute added.

I'll have your chapter delivered to you as soon as I can.

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 48

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

He leveled a confused look at her in return and after taking one look at Eric, Frank shook his head and said, "He is the captain of the superclass carrier. You wouldn't have reached Asterisk alive if he wasn't with you."

She turned towards Eric, her eyes wide and unblinking.

Then, Eric had the gall to actually bow at her and say, "At your service, madam."

She was going to kill him.

________________________________________________________________

–Frank Castle–

"Where could he have gone?" Maria asked herself as she continued to pace in the visitor's room in the VIP medical ward.

He chose to not reply to that question, not wanting to light that particular fire.

"Do you think he abandoned us for some reason?" Maria turned to him, unshed tears in her eyes.

His eyes softened as he immediately closed the distance between them and hugged her.

He knew that Alfred's absence was particularly hurtful for Maria since she considered Alfred one of her kids. It was evident in the way they interacted with each other and the reverence that Alfred held for Maria and the obsession Alfred had with the safety of Maria and even his kids.

Even he thought that Alfred would go overboard in some situations.

Suddenly, Maria ended the hug and started pacing again, "Shouldn't we call the Ancient One then? She knows everything already. So, no harm will be done if we call her here."

He sighed and replied, "Honey, she already knows. Probably knew about it in advance years ago. The only reason she wouldn't be here was if she thought that this was the best way forward in the hundreds of scenarios she must have foreseen. No point in calling her now."

A golden portal opened up in front of Frank and a rolled-up mini scroll fell from it.

He gestured to the scroll as if telling Maria - 'See, I told you so' and then picked it up while shaking his head exasperatedly," Let's see what it is."

He read the document and scoffed under his breath immediately.

"What is it?" Maria asked him.

"See for yourself." he offered the scroll to her.

She took it and read it, "Quite Astute, Mr.Castle. Yes, you are correct in your assumptions."

She sighed as all the energy left her as she seemingly ran out of all her options.

He sighed and said, "Don't worry too much about it. Alfred will return, I know it in my heart. You know it too so stop needlessly stressing about it."

He said so but he was incredibly worried about the situation on the inside.

Nearly all of the advanced operations of all their bases on Earth and even off-world were taken care of by Alfred almost exclusively.

Almost zero people knew how to operate the more advanced tech that Alfred had incorporated into the newer bases.

He couldn't even begin to comprehend the know-how of using the Danger Room.

It was fortunate that almost none of the agents(save for the contractors they hired from other species) were off-world and in the middle of an operation.

Almost all operatives were present on Earth when they initiated the recall of non-essential personnel.

Aside from the exception of Agent Yo-Yo reaching the Asterisk (which he will be having words with Eric about), no one had managed to breach Earth's atmosphere.

Nobody on Earth knew about it but the planet was effectively on a space lockdown.

The next were the coordination systems between the bases and the different military assets that each base had. Alfred had managed to create something truly revolutionary in terms of creating a system that could effectively use each and every asset they had whilst accounting for downtime and Staffing issues.

Alfred did leave multiple VIs responsible for the smooth running of the multiple departments but they fell incredibly short of the required goal since all the systems were built from the ground up with the assumption that a single entity would be running everything simultaneously. The VIs started breaking down within hours of Alfred leaving and within 12 hours, almost all AI-dependent functions were functionally unusable within all the bases.

They already had to quarantine some of Alfred's personal labs that were fully automated as they had no idea what was inside the labs and what procedure was to be followed in case of such an incident.

It was worrying how, as an organisation, how dependent they were on Alfred.

He would have to rectify that as soon as Ed or Alfred returned to operational capacity. It galled him to leave such an incredible weakness to the overall operations of the organisation.

He would have to talk to Ed about it when he decides to wake up.

He was discussing Ed's condition with Maria and how to break it to their children who were on their way to the bunker in New Jersey. They loved and adored Ed and Alfred. Especially Alfred since he is an ever-present friend in their lives.

It was astonishingly easy to establish an armoured area just outside the suburbs of New Jersey where they had carved out a whole emergency base since according to Ed, New York seems to be the host for most world-ending events, and from what he has seen till now, he agreed with Ed.

The city was a hotspot for villains, megalomaniacs and madmen hell-bent on world domination. According to Alfred, something ancient and evil must be buried under the city for it to be so cursed.

Of course, ancient evil or not, the enhanced activity in the city was being monitored by the organisation and being actively curbed by the agents permanently stationed there.

In fact, over half of all exotic dangerous artifacts they have in the vaults are courtesy of the various dangerous people that roamed the streets(and sometimes below) of New York.

Thinking of the dangerous activities that always seemed to happen around New York and Maria's propensity to go full ballistic when it came to her kids, he was about to cautiously ask Maria to take a ship and go to the base in New Jersey to be with the kids when the door opened and someone barged in unceremoniously.

He looked over to give whoever it was a piece of his mind only to stop midway when he saw Elena "Yo-Yo" come through the door.

He watched in silence as his wife hugged Elena.

Before they could start talking in their own little world, he asked Elena, "Agent Yo-Yo, how did you get here? I thought that all space travel between the Earth and Asterisk was banned by my order."

Instead of Elena, it was answered by someone who he didn't expect to see on the base at all, "Ah, don't sweat the small stuff, Commander. I thought it prudent to personally escort a high-value asset to the base. You know, for safekeeping."

He didn't believe that reason one bit. Eric was here for some other reason.

He sighed and replied, "Eric, I thought I taught you better than that. Now is not the time to start acting in an immature manner."

He watched on as Elena was shocked when he mentioned Eric's station.

He had the unnerving habit of being incredibly unpredictable and that instead of his enhanced abilities made him incredibly dangerous. Even Ed was against his posting but relented when he vouched for Eric's credibility. He had spent years with Eric in the army before and powers or no powers, he could recognise loyal people when he saw them.

Before he could make any more of a scene though, he cleared his throat and said, "Eric, why don't you escort Elena to Daisy's quarters and report to the security booth for duty while you are here. Wouldn't want to waste another useful asset now, would I?" He smirked at Eric's face tightening.

"Yes, commander." Eric saluted and left after herding Elena out of the room against her wishes.

He was about to advise Maria to go after them as well when his watch began beeping loudly.

His and Maria's eyes widened as they realised what it meant. They immediately rushed to Ed's medical ward, joined by multiple doctors and nurses on their way.

Opening the door, he came face to face with Ed in his medical gown trying to get up.

"Easy! Easy! What are you doing? You shouldn't even be up right now." he said while pushing Ed back on the bed.

It was alarmingly easy as Ed's exoskeleton seemed to have no strength to it. That spoke volumes about Ed's mental status since according to his little knowledge about Ed's body suit, it had a backup program that worked according to Ed's mental commands but its strength was dependent on the strength of the mind piloting it.

It was salvaged from faulty mind control tech purchased on Knowhere by some of their procurement agents way back. It still had some of the original flaws but Alfred had managed to remove all of the fatal side effects.

With the sheer prowess of Ed's mind, the only way that the program would register a low mental strength level would be if Ed was feeling incredibly low or sad.

He fell back as the Doctors started checking the various readings available to them through the smart bed.

One of the nurses did something and raised the bed level, making Ed sit in an upright position.

Soon the doctors declared that outside of extensive testing that has been forbidden in his medical files, they won't be able to assess the true damage done to his body.

Forbidden?

What did the doctor mean?

He was about to ask the doctor what he meant by that but he stopped when he saw the look of calm acceptance on Ed's face.

He knew that look and it never meant anything good for the people involved.

"You know why, don't you? You know why he left," he asked or rather told Ed with absolute certainty.

Ed nodded at that but didn't say anything about that.

"Doctor, you have my permission to override the lock on Ed's medical files," he ordered the Doctor and gave him his badge for authentication. The doctor nodded and tried to access the file only for it to flash red and destroy itself.

"Won't work," he heard Ed whisper, almost to himself.

He then seemed to come to a decision and sighed, "Doctor, can you please give us a moment? I'll tell you how to access my file later on."

The doctor opened his mouth to object only to stop when Ed said, "Please". The doctor nodded and left the room, locking the door behind him.

"Can you please tell me what is going on, Ed? Because your actions are not making a ton of sense here," he asked Ed, desperate for some answers at this point.

Ed smiled a sad smile at us and said, "I'm dying, that's why."

He deadpanned at Ed and said, "We know that, Ed. And we will find a cure for your condition. We want to know why Alfred chose to leave now, at this critical stage in our plans?"

Ed coughed, shook his head, and said, "You don't understand Frank. I'm not dying in a couple of years."

His eyes widened in realization as Ed continued, "It's only a matter of months before my body gives out."

Maria gasped as she began sobbing.

"You don't know that," he said to Ed, in denial of Ed's statement.

Ed said, "I do know. For the split second I was connected to our servers, I was able to find out that for the first time in his entire existence, Alfred's main partition had left the base's servers and the one present in the servers was just a temporary partition that would have broken down in a matter of hours. Upon further digging, I found his encrypted files where he kept the real updates on my health condition. Participating personally in the Battle of New York probably shaved off years off my life that I didn't exactly have. I understand now why Alfred was so adamant about me resting inside the base."

He staggered back at the news and then swiftly left the room, uncaring of Maria's shouts.

He had to get away from there.

From the place that signified the death knell of his saviour and leader.

And he had a job to do.

He had to find Alfred before he did something he would regret in his quest to save Ed.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count – 2113

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I already have up to 9 extra chapters uploaded there.

Chapter release sheet

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 49.1

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

He had to get away from there.

From the place that signified the death knell of his saviour and leader.

And he had a job to do.

He had to find Alfred before he did something he would regret in his quest to save Ed.

________________________________________________________________

–Ed–

I sighed internally as Frank left the room, uncaring of Maria calling for him to come back.

In a way, I could understand his mindset.

Ever since I saved his family from that dreadful day, he had done everything I ever asked of him. In a way, he pledged his loyalty to me that day.

Not only his own loyalty but over the years, he found me multiple good men who, upon enhancement, have become some of the best operatives.

Some of them even ran some of the ships with the biggest guns in the organisation. It wouldn't be wrong to say that should Frank choose to do so, he could have a significant portion of the organisation's key military assets siding with him. His contribution to the operations side of the organisation couldn't be denied.

That was why I felt incredibly guilty whenever I thought of the day I met him. Over the years, I had thought of telling him the truth of that day. Of the fact that I had deliberately allowed the scenario to happen in a way that was most favourable for me but I always chickened out at the last moment. That I had allowed, even for a second, Maria and the kids to be in danger for my own benefit. I had justified it to myself back then with the reason that in the end, it would give them a much better life than they would have had in canon but over the years I have accepted it for what it was.

Over the years, as Frank grew into the role of Commander, he must have realised the truth of the incident that day even if I made sure that there was nothing incriminating in the files but Frank was not someone who would miss something like this. Even then, it changed nothing between us.

"Ed, i-is it true? About your condition?" I looked up as Maria asked me the question with hitched breathing.

I didn't say anything and just nodded at her question.

Before she could ask me anything else though, I asked her, "How is everything being handled? How is Daisy handling everything?"

She wiped her tears and nodded her head at my question, "Ye-yeah she is handling it well. You chose the right person for the job, Ed. I'll go call her."

I nodded slowly, the exoskeleton slow to respond to my mental commands.

As the door closed behind Maria, I heaved a huge sigh.

I closed my eyes as my mind churned furiously, thinking about the future and the consequences of my previous actions that the others would have to bear.

I was not worried as much about Earth's situation since Tony and the others, along with Daisy's help, would be much better prepared for any threat that might come their way, at least until Thanos showed his ugly purple mug on my planet.

Just thinking about it made me furious.

What was the use of all this power and all this preparation I did, if I couldn't be there to contribute to the final fight?

As it is now, I don't even have the time required to participate in the battle and go out with a bang.

Man, how glorious that would have been. I would have been content even severely injuring Thanos as my last hurrah.

But, alas. Sigh, no use thinking about it now. The best I could do now was prepare Daisy and the others as best as I could and equip them with the best resources possible.

Honestly, the last thing I was worried about was Alfred, unlike others I knew what he had gone to do. He must have found something to try and prolong my life and to do that, he left the base servers. I shook my head as I thought about his actions exasperatedly. I knew he had grown out of the basic compulsions I had encoded into his code but didn't expect for him to just up and leave, putting most of the organisation's operations in jeopardy.

But then again, what has stopped Alfred Ed Muncher ever?

As I was lost in my thoughts, I heard the soft sound of the door's lock opening and looked up to see Daisy entering with a nervous smile.

I smiled at her and then said in a faux serious voice, "Where's your work tablet, Agent Johnson? I hope you know that it has the highest access level below me and I don't think I need to explain its importance to you."

She deadpanned at me and said, " I know about it, Boss. So, how are you? I mean I know about your condition so I'm sorry if it came off as insensitive. I don't know what I was thinking. I'm so sorry. Please don't make me leave."

I started chuckling softly as I watched her panic levels visibly increase in front of me.

"Ahh, I needed that. Thank you for that. Now, why don't we get to work?" I said to her and commanded the suit to make me sit upright. I must have looked quite funny as the stupid suit took forever to follow my commands. I could have sent more juice but that would have put undue pressure on my condition anyway.

She pouted at me, "Yes, Yes. I am glad that my situation amuses you so much."

I smiled at her reply, "Now, I hope you've had the time to go through all you have access to. All the bases we have, the assets we have stationed around the world, the people and entire communities under surveillance, the different hidden civilisations?"

Her smile became more and more strained as the questions came from my side.

"Uh, yes?" she said in an unsure tone.

I sighed internally, "Very well. You must have some questions, ask away."

"Uh, so first of all, don't worry about the agents, all of our operatives are accounted for, and save for a few, all of them have been recalled to their nearest base. I have also taken the liberty to reinforce the agents whose assignments couldn't be canceled with heavy firepower and multiple teams are on standby to assist any agent who goes dark anywhere on the planet. The supercarrier's N-reactor has gone offline but Commander Castle has assured me that is normal procedure."

I nodded at that tidbit of news, "Due to the very nature of the N-reactor, it is something that is as valuable as an infinity stone-empowered person. The energy that could be extracted from such a relatively portable package was insane that was why I was against building it in the first place. But since Alfred and the other department heads outvoted me, I agreed on one condition that the second Alfred lost connection with the superclass carrier, the N-reactor would extinguish itself. Right now, that reactor is just an extremely expensive one-of-a-kind energy conducting empty sphere."

"B-But what about the weapons on board the carrier? I thought that the gamma cannon needed the N-reactor to function at all." She asked me in worry.

It was understandable of course. After all, the gamma cannon was the weapon we had on hand that could deter even the likes of Thanos from attacking our planet. SO much energy is condensed in the gamma cannon at the time of firing that physics becomes wonky at the point of impact. That property is what allows the cannon to penetrate most energy-based defences as if they were not there since, in a sense, they weren't. The concentration of energy in that small point was so high that it affected things in the quantum level, thereby bypassing most energy based defences but it had yet to be tested on any energy based shields empowered by one or more infinity stones. Doing so carried the risks of detection after all.

I reassured her about the backups, "Don't worry about that. In case of emergency, the 4 emergency Arc reactors along with the ones in operation would allow for the gamma cannon to be fired once. It would just take longer to accumulate that much energy, that's all."

"Okay, great. The next thing I wanted to confirm was I still can't access some of the data. I mean, look, it here shows that we have a facility near the photosphere of our sun and somebody is stationed there. Not going into the impossibility of that facility being there, why can't I contact whoever it is that is stationed there? I was close to sending a ship there but apparently none of our ships other than the superclass carrier is capable of gliding near the sun safely and even it can only do so for a very short period of time.'

I nodded, "A very valid question. The reason you can't see it is because you are using Frank's access and even he doesn't have access to everything. Look, just give me the tablet and I'll show you."

She handed me the tablet and after having the exoskeleton provide it with my personal access keys, gave it back to her.

She excitedly started going through the all-new UI available to her and I waited patiently for her to go through it all. It would take time, after all, it was the entire organisation's truth. Every agent and their history, every person under surveillance, every protocol I built for every emergency I could think of, every piece of weaponry we developed, all my plans for their future upgrades and the prerequisites for those upgrades, every ally we had and could have in the future, and even my 'future' visions, it had it all.

After a few minutes, I said, "Alright, you can go through that after a little while. I'll just leave you with a few important things."

She nodded seriously.

"First of all, no matter what happens, do not invoke the HELL protocol set. Second of all, go tell Frank that Alfred will return on his own. There is no need for him to go hunt him down somehow. Use your new authority if he doesn't listen to you. Third and most importantly.."

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1758

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I already have up to 9 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 49.2

Technomancer in MCU

–Daisy Johnson–

Patiently listening to all the advice Ed was giving her, she couldn't help but think that he was preparing for his death and was handing over his inheritance to her. She didn't even know what to think of that.

Looking over all the data that was being displayed on the access tablet, she was sure of just one thing. Just that she was nowhere near ready to accept responsibility at that level. What did Ed even see in her? What did Alfred see in her that he had been secretly training her for this position for years at this point?

No matter what, she was being given a position of authority that most in the universe would die for, she was not going to fail his trust.

"That is all. Just take these as what they are and the rest? Well, you are the leader now, it's up to you what you want to do. Go get 'em, kiddo." Ed said to me calmly even though I couldn't help but think that it was meant more as final parting words rather than just friendly advice.

I chuckled at his last sentence, "Ha! Then my first order of business as the new leader is sentencing you to mandatory hospital lockdown and I won't be taking no for an answer. Understood?" He nodded at my faux serious ordering voice even though it must have looked so comical with tears running down my face with the occasional sniffing in between sentences. "Good. And second of all, you are not that much older than me. And lastly, I am going to have Dr.Cho be your supervisor as she conducts every test there is to conduct on you and give me reliable test results on your condition and you are going to cooperate with her, alright?" He nodded once again with a smile. "I am not hearing a yes, mam?" she faux admonished him. "Yes, mam," he said in between chuckles.

I nodded at the answer, ignoring his chuckling, "I'll leave now. I have a lot of work to do. My previous boss just dumped his position on me without any warning and on top of the increased responsibility that is surely going to give me grey hairs before my 20s, I didn't even get a pay raise. Isn't he the worst?"

"He sounds like a piece of work," he said. She nodded at that imperiously and left the room. As soon as she closed the door behind her, she started sobbing.

It was heartbreaking watching Ed perform his seemingly final actions before his inevitable death. She couldn't even imagine what it must be to go through all of that without having their best friend by their side. What was Alfred thinking, leaving Ed all alone at this critical time? Not to mention the most important phase of their plans for a unified humanity was to be carried out right now and his departure left the plans in a lurch.

She then stood up from the floor, wiped her tears, and took a deep breath, determined to complete the planned H.Y.D.R.A. removal plans.

But first of all, she had to do one thing. She had to find out just who this Eric was.

The captain of the superclass carrier was an enigma to most of the organisation's higher-ups. You would think that the captaincy of the strongest weapon of the organisation would be someone everybody knew about but that wasn't the case. All the responsibilities of the superclass carrier were being carried out by the vice-captain, Jake Diggle.

Now, Jake, she knew. He was this huge 6'5 tall behemoth made of pure muscle who looked like he ate humans for breakfast but was just a total sweetie on the inside. He was widely known as the face of the superclass carrier and up until now, everybody including her thought that there was no captain and the position was unofficially occupied by Ed but apparently, they were all wrong.

She opened his file and was asked for her credentials but even after being given her top-level credentials now, she was given a warning about the data she was about to read. Acknowledging the risks, she opened the page only to be greeted by a pretty shallow file.

It was barely 3 pages in total. She expected Ed or Alfred of all people to conduct and record a pretty exhaustive report on someone who was going to pilot their flagship ship.

But as she kept on reading through the file, she understood why the file was so sparse on details and why Eric Diggle was kept so hidden from even the members of the organisation.

He was the half-brother of Jake Diggle, the vice-captain of the superclass carrier. Together, they were recruited by Commander Castle from his military contacts. Both of them, top of their class. Accrued multiple prestigious awards from their respective organisations but were both tossed out of their jobs by the higher-ups in their harebrained schemes.

That alone would not have warranted such high positioning in the organisation. It was what was written on the second page that was concerning to her. Both of the brothers had nuclear-related powers.

Eric's powerset in particular was extremely devastating in its application. It was said in the file that the Ancient One was personally present for his terrigenesis process and had insisted on performing his procedure in the mirror dimension. Apparently, she had foreseen the terrible disaster that would have befallen them if Eric's transformation was not contained. See, he was one of the only SS-class combatants that Humanity had access to, even in his sealed state. His powerset was simple yet extremely destructive in its usage. It was the violent expulsion of gamma radiation from every pore of his body.

The Ancient One theorised that Eric was connected to a dimension of pure gamma radiation and due to his body, unlike Bruce Banner's, not having a physical blueprint for its use, just expelled gamma radiation out of his body.

Now, that alone would not have been cause for concern, they had plenty of expertise when it came to cleaning up nuclear radiation but Eric's powers came with another facet to them. The more he used his powers, the more the gamma dimension he was connected to, would bleed into our universe.

The Ancient One placed multiple high-level seals on his soul to prevent him from overusing his powers but over controlled testing of his powers, they found that the more he uses them the more he threatens the very fabric of reality by letting the gamma energy dimension into their universe.

The wise choice would be to kill him and be done with it but according to Ed, Eric might just be the person they would need to tip the scales in their direction. According to his notes, just by being in his vicinity, Bruce Banner and any other Gamma-empowered individuals would find their power levels being propelled far beyond the norm and all of this could be done without compromising their mental faculties, resulting in a much-needed boost to their side.

Jake Diggle, on the other hand, was someone who underwent terrigenous much later and still got a powerset that was connected to his brother's. This supports the theory that Inhumans from the same lineage will have similar powers which could lead to clan-like communities forming within the Inhumans. He had the ability to absorb, shunt, and even recall the collected energy.

His file, on the other hand, was much more intensive. Along with his previous military training, Jake was unstoppable in hand-to-hand combat. His powers allowed him to absorb kinetic energy from incoming blows and reflect them or he could choose to rob them of their kinetic energy by shunting that energy to his theorised personal dimension.

The catch was that he couldn't exactly use that energy to empower himself or anything. The only way he could give out that energy was in the form it was given to him. So, if he absorbed sunlight for a few hours and chose to expel that later on, it would still come out as sunlight.

Another glaring limitation he had was he could only absorb energy his body could withstand. Granted, his enhanced body could withstand a lot of force and if they choose to do so, they could try introducing the Gamma gene into his body to see if he could become a Hulk. If successful, together with Eric, they would be near invincible but all further testing on this was halted by Ed for some reason.

She might have to look into that because the opportunity to have a Hulk on the combatant list would be a huge morale boost not to mention the pure physical prowess they would exhibit.

Satisfied by the information, she moved on to her next task.

"Commander Castle? Commander Castle, if you are listening to this, you are to report to the captain's deck ASAP. This is an order from your superior. If any agent sees Commander Castle, please escort him to the captain's deck. You will get the official assignment on your holodecks soon. Any and all outbound flights from the Asterisk are banned by the captain's orders." As she spoke, she closed down all the hangars and shut down every single teleportation pad inside the base. Then she gave the official orders to bring in Commander Castle to all the agents inside the base.

Granted, most of them would piss their pants off the second Commander Castle cast his glare on them but she hoped that doing an official announcement would encourage him to come to the cabin on his own.

And sure enough, in less than 10 minutes, he barged into the captain's deck while she was sitting on a hard light desk with a soothing tea prepared for both of them.

The tea leaves were imported from Kamar Taj who still refused to share the location of their tea plantation. It must be some mystic secret or something for them to guard it so zealously. They were more free when they shared dangerous mystic knowledge than they were when it came to their secret tea-making ceremony.

Uncaring of his outburst on the outside even though she flinched internally when she saw his expression, she gestured for him to take a seat, "Please be seated. We have some important things to talk about over tea. The tea is from the Ancient One's personal collection and I hope to talk some things over while tempers calm down as I have heard that this tea has that effect on people."

The only outward reaction Frank gave was the narrowing of his eyes and the slight pressure his powers exerted on his surroundings.

She could feel his powers interacting with her own powers. His powers were unique in the sense that they didn't just suppress the powers of any enhanced person, they communicated with the powerset somehow and convinced itself to shut down, essentially sabotaging itself.

It was infinitely more dangerous than just a field of power nullification. He could actually, given more time, convince the power to just delete itself. That just depowers any enhancement permanently.

He silently seated himself and took a sip from the tea and gave a sigh of contentment, "So, what do you want to talk about, Boss?" she winced internally at that word.

"How did–"

"Oh, please I'd recognise that badge anywhere. Ed gave it to you didn't he, that bastard? Who gave him the right to just up and give up his position and try to leave us all?" he said frustratedly.

She nodded and said, "That is one of the things we will be discussing today."

The tea leaves must have done their magic since he just nodded silently while sipping his tea without any outbursts.

She must have the location of that tea plantation if it was this useful in meetings.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2017

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head on to my Patreon.

I already have up to 9 extra chapters uploaded there.

Chapter release sheet

 

[IdleMuse0307]

So, it is the next day afternoon and as I read through this monstrosity that I wrote in the early hours of the morning, I am filled with pity for you all as you now have to read through it. It is not even complete but the one good thing that came out of this is I got the idea of creating another snippet thread where I can post my ideas and you guys can tell me if you want a longer format of that same idea.

So, without any delay, read ahead. At you own risk though, Be warned.

________________________________________________________________

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and whoever else it may be, this is the first of a new series I have just made up. It is called one-shots or snippets.

In this collection, I will be writing anything that comes to my fancy(as if anything I have ever written before had any sort of structure at all). There will be no word count expectations adhered to here. No canonical accuracy, nothing.

Total Anarchy!

So, this is the first installment in the series.

Bear in mind, it is 5.05 AM where I live, as I have started typing this.

And NO! I have not woken up early and started writing this. I have not slept at all and will probably stay up till sunrise.

The idea for this is courtesy of [OMN1CR0N_GAMING] from Web Novel.

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Disclaimer - I don't stake claim to even any of my OCs in this chapter as I don't think it'll be good for my writing career let alone the authentic intellectual property that Disney owns and earns billions off of.


Snippet 1

Technomancer in MCU

Title - The Mystic Tea of Kamar Taj

In the high up mountainous areas of the Himalayas, lay the vaunted Kamar Taj. Its location seemed ever changing and the only reliable way of getting to it seemed to be through the liberal use of sling rings.

There was a treacherous path with multiple twists and turns reserved as a test for the uninitiated apprentices that wished to visit and learn in the vaunted halls of Kamar Taj.

One such apprentice was trudging through knee length snow towards the mountain peak that he could see but could not reach.

As if he was delirious, he climbed and climbed but did not seem to get any closer to the peak.

He was starting to think that the old man had swindled him.

He chuckled sardonically as he surveyed the state of his clothes. It was not as if he could have fallen any lower.

Unseen to him though, there was a whole cadre of Sorcerers tasked with watching him by the Ancient One.

The old man had fucked off who knows where but he had assigned multiple mid-level sorceres to just observe what this person was doing. "It would help you learn," he had told them.

Sometimes, they wished they could strangle that sorry excuse of a Sorcerer Supreme.

Sure, the man was supremely strong but doing anything beyond being strong was impossible for him. He barely taught three initiates who turned into Masters and then dumped all the responsibility he possibly could on those poor Masters.

And then, he went ahead and gave this person, Mr.Strange, the hardest possible test he could for the initiate.

They had to admit though, he was doing better than most.

Up above them, the Ancient One was doing his best to hide his laughter from the associates below. A suspicious cloud of weed was hovering around him. "Oh, I have got to show this to him later," he said while referring to the struggling form of Strange below. "He dared to call me an old man in the future, he deserves this."

Throughout history, there have been multiple sorcerer supremes but few have come close to attaining the sheer strength that Agamoto wielded and through a combination of luck and hard work, the current Sorcerer Supreme, Yao had come the closest to Agamotto. He had become stronger than all his predecessors.

Let's just say that this allowed him a certain level of leeway when it came to dealing with dimensional entities that possess the strength to swallow the entirety of Earth in a single gulp.

________________________________________________________________

–Master Wong–

Maintaining the meticulous catalogue of the Library was always a bittersweet chore for him.

On one hand, he loved books and all they represented in Kamar Taj but on the other hand, someone from the long line of Sorcerer Supremes had enchanted the library to be confusing and hard to guide through on purpose and his luck was such that he was blessed with the Ancient One as his Sorcerer Supreme.

The man was supremely talented and could fend off most demon invasions all by himself with both hands tied behind his back but helping him with administrative tasks? He would have better luck asking a Dog to help him glue together the book the Dog had just ripped apart.

Actually, getting a Dog might be good for him. Add some wholesomeness to the monotonous life that was being the Librarian of Kamar Taj.

A Magical Doggy would be even better. If he could find one, though. He had heard from the Ancient One that the fae markets had them but they fetched a pretty penny of the soul. Then again, this was the same man who thought it was funny to visit one of the hell princes and force feed him weed and note down their reactions. "For SCIENCE!" he shouted when asked.

Honestly, the number of people who actually graduated to reach the Masters level had been declining year by year, not because the quality was declining but because there was no need to.

The Ancient One was so overwhelmingly strong that he had connected himself to the Three Sanctums and subsequently, to the Mystic Shield that covered the entirety of the planet.

He was but a wee initiate when that happened but he was sure that the man was going to blow himself up from all the magical feedback from the ley lines but somehow, he took control and now? They barely had to work.

The most action he had seen was when some Werewolf got naked in Central Park and they had to scrub everything off the internet.

Nowadays, even the thought of starting a family was passing through his mind. Something that was unthinkable for someone who held the position of a librarian since the position was historically cursed to die alone.

He completed the tasks for the day and noted that it was still time till his lunch break so he decided to visit the one place that the Ancient One could take credit for, the Mystic Tea plantation.

Using his sling ring, he opened a portal to the London Sanctum where the scent of weed was the strongest.

"Wong! Nice to see you, my friend. Come-come-come, my friend. We were just about to begin a new joint. Join us!" came the rough gravelly voice of Master Daniel.

He smiled and was about to deny when he also smelled the tea and not just any tea, the tea that the Ancient One kept in his personal collection.

His refusal turned into delighted acceptance in an instant, "Well, if you insist."

________________________________________________________________

Kaecillius

Watching their Lord and Saviour, Lord Dormammu rage at the unfairness of the situation was equally heartbreaking and amusing.

Especially, since he could see three copies of his Lord pacing around his altar, leaving burn marks in it. But that could just be the mystic weed talking.

If he was asked to name the best thing that happened to him ever since his family died, it would be selling his soul to Lord Dormammu.

Not only did it stave off Death completely and even enhanced his mystical prowess, the access he gained to the weed garden alone was worth it to be branded like a cattle.

After being gatekept from the Mystic Tea Plantation of Kamar Taj, he was down on his last knees when his Lord came to his rescue and offered to give him the original version of the weed and not the watered down version that the Ancient One gave to the visitors to calm down their nerves.

Just as he was about to take another puff from the sacred roll, a tearing sound heralded the opening of a tear in the very dimension of the Dark One.

With a furious roar, "Who Dares?", his Lord roared and swiped his hands towards the tear, sending an energy wave that would eviscerate the unfortunate soul that was on the other side of the tear.

"Hey, man. Why the hate?" came a laid back husky voice and then he watched with transfixed awed eyes as a burning bike came into view with none other than Snoop Dogg riding on it, with a cigar in his mouth and another joint in his hand.

Somehow, he was sleeping on the bike as he smoked and the bike rode a path of fire that it laid for itself and after making a few downhill turns, landed in front of his Lord.

Though, objectively speaking, his Lord looked much less cooler than Snoop Dogg.

"Why have you come here, Ghost Smoker?" his Lord growled out.

Snoop raised his hands in mock surrender and said, "just chill, man. I ran out of my supplies a while ago and couldn't find any on the market so thought of going wholesale this time, you know? Those retailers give me mixed bullshit half the time so getting some from the source seemed like a good idea. So, you selling or what?"

His Lord growled out in frustration at Snoop's fearlessness in front of the Dark Overlord but it was understandable as opening a portal in the Dark Realm without his Lord's permission would require immense power, power that would place both of them in the same echelon.

Huh, echelon. What a funny word!

"Begone, thief. I don't need to entertain another one of your kind. If you desire it so much, steal it from the thief who stole multiple seeds from me and has started his very own business, undercutting me by using his organisation's unpaid skilled labour that I just can't seem to get in this accursed place."

"Say no more. I get it. Here, this might help calm you down," Snoop said as he offered his Lord his joint that seemed to leave out starlight instead of smoke.

What he wouldn't give to smoke that joint?
His Lord took the offered joint with visible reluctance.

"Now, don't you worry. When I took this title, I thought I was supposed to do something about justice so I will do that now. I'll make sure they shut down their business so you can thrive yours. I just hope you'll offer me a discount when it matters."

With those words, he literally burst into starlight, blinding me briefly.

________________________________________________________________

–Ancient One–

He was tending to his babies in his personal tea or should he call it, weed garden.

Ha, he still laughed when he thought about the face Dormmamu made when he offered his very soul for a few seeds of his choice.

That motherfucker didn't know what hit him. Now, he has both the powers and Dormammu's interdimensional business will soon be in his hands as well.

As he was using another one of his spells to maintain the watering ratio, he heard a voice behind him, "So, Yao. I've come to bargain."

His pupils contracted as his hairs stood on end. It had been centuries since someone had managed to sneak up on him.

With a spell ready, he plastered a fake smile on his face and turned around, only to see Snoop Dogg himself sniffing his precious plantation.

He held in the urge to blast him away from his personal garden.

This was a life or death scenario here. He couldn't afford to let his emotions get the better of him.

"What can I do for you, Avatar of the smoke?"

"Oh, nothing. I was wondering how much of a discount I would get on your merchandise if I could provide you evidence of your competitor employing unfair means to target your business? I mean, the interdimensional trade authority would be more than happy to register your case should you have evidence, right?"

His eyes literally had stars in them at that piece of news.

With a determined glint in his eyes, he asked Snoop about the evidence.

Oh, Dormammu was so busted.

________________________________________________________________

Man, I am so so sorry.

If you have read this far, I commend you for your patience and resilience and thank you for your sacrifice.

On a lighter note, I'll see you guys on Thursday.

Toodles!

Extra chapters for my fanfic, not this - Patreon

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 50

Technomancer in MCU

The Asterisk

–Frank Castle–

Standing outside Ed's medical ward, he debated internally for the umpteenth time whether to enter or not.

He gritted his teeth after hearing Eric snickering at him.

He had been standing in the same position for the last 10 minutes. After the intense talk he had with Daisy, he had come straight to meet Ed.

For what he did not know. He wanted nothing more than to go inside and give Ed a piece of his mind.

I mean, he gave that pint-sized brat power over everyone in the organisation. Granted, she did a phenomenal job of it and somehow, even he himself found listening to her orders but that didn't mean that Ed could somehow retire from the organisation. He and Alfred to some extent, were the backbone of the organisation.

What was he even doing? He was just going to talk to Ed. Just like he had done so hundreds of times. Somehow it felt different this time.

Shaking his head, he banished the dark thoughts from his mind, or at least tried to do so.

Putting on his usual apathetic mask, he glared at Eric and said, "Keep watch here. Make sure nobody comes in."

Without hearing his no doubt cheeky reply, he entered the room.

Inside he could see Ed sitting upright on the state-of-the-art medical bed, reading a book using the hard light projectors built into the bed.

Upon seeing him, Ed smiled and performed a waving away gesture to the book in front of him, resulting in the hard light book disintegrating into motes of white light, "Frank, nice to see you. I thought I wouldn't see you for however long it takes for you to go on an exterminating mission and kill off every single enemy you could find."

He chuckled, "Huh, I wish. Unfortunately, Boss Lady, Daisy has given me another set of instructions."

Ed nodded, "Ah, are the helicarriers up and running already?"

"Not yet. They will be though, soon. And I don't want to discuss any of that with you. You are on mandatory bedrest, on captain's orders. I would laugh at your plight if I wasn't once in the same situation," he replied.

"Haha. I guess you would know about it best. After all, I have had to revoke your access to make you stay in the medical ward multiple times on Maria's orders," Ed laughingly replied.

The two shared a moment of silence before Ed said, "Look, Frank. If you are worried about me, don't be. I've done nearly all I had set out to do. Some things are left but I have you guys for that so I am not exactly worried all that much. As for Alfred, he will be back soon. In fact, I'm sure he'll be back before you return from your mission. So, go on your assignment without any worries holding you back."

He sighed and replied, "How can you be so casual about your own death is beyond me. If not for yourself at least try for for the kids. How will I explain to them that their badass dad who could do anything couldn't save you."

By the end, he was sure that sweat was coming out of his eyes but before Ed could get a word in, he continued, "I just came here to tell you that you are the best thing that could have ever happened to my family. My family and even me are alive only due to you and I could never repay you for that. The best thing I can do is…," He didn't know what overcame him for that moment but it felt right to do so. He raised his hand and his nanite package picked up on his mental pings and a shotgun formed in his hand and while reloading it, he continued, "...make sure that while you are bedridden, your enemies get their much-deserved bedrest in their graves."

And then without listening to his reply, he marched straight out of the medical ward, embarrassed beyond belief at his chunni moment. He couldn't believe he did that at all let alone in front of Ed who has undoubtedly recorded it and must be distributing it right now. Maria was never going to let this down now.

________________________________________________________________

–Eric Diggle–

Waiting outside the medical ward waiting for his boss, he was bored out of his mind.

He would have said that he regretted even coming to the Asterisk but that would be a blatant lie.

The truth was that he was bored beyond belief at his job aboard the superclass carrier. Speaking of which, they have got to name that big lug. He couldn't keep on calling it the superclass carrier all the time. He had tried to name it something sexy but Alfred had always shot it down.

His brother was the one who truly did the job of the captain. He was the captain in name only. He had long suspected that the only reason he was given the job was to keep him far away from the center of things and yet close enough that he could be used easily as a resource.

Oh, he was very much aware of what his value was for the organisation. He would be lying if he said that he wasn't resentful at the fact that his life or death could be very easily decided by other people even with all the power he had at his disposal.

Flexing his powers, he could feel the seals engraved on his soul as his arms glowed to his eye, the gamma radiation in them visible to his naked eyes. Another effect of his awakening as an Inhuman. With just a little bit more effort, the energy leakage will cross a threshold and the seals on his powers would clamp down, leaving him comatose.

Feeling Commander Castle coming, he hurriedly shut down his powers lest he get another scolding and saluted towards the opening door. He then choked on his saluting words as he came across a scene that he hadn't even dreamt of.

Behind the Commander, he could spy Big Boss Bed clutching his stomach with one hand with the other hand on his mouth, trying to stifle his laughter because somehow, Frank motherfucking Castle was walking out of the door with a shotgun on his shoulder with a Cigar in his mouth and freaking sunglasses on his face, in an absolutely daylight simulated environment. It was absolutely golden blackmail material.

The door closed behind the Commander and he could hear the faint laughter coming from it and made to comment on it but before he could, "Not a word, am I clear?" spat out the Commander.

"Crystal, sir." he instinctively replied, shivers running down his spine at the expression on his face.

Commander then nodded at me and said, "Go ahead and get the jet ready. I have a few things I need to pick up before we head to Earth."

He nodded and went on his way as the Commander took a left for his office.

With nothing to do on his way, he activated his nanite package, giving it a mental instruction to take his body to the hangar as he started to read the mission details on his retina HUD.

He stopped in his tracks as he saw that the first order of business for the mission was to meet Captain freaking America and the Black Widow. That got his full attention now. Reading more, he realised that he had missed much from the daily briefing he got from his elder brother.

Apparently, they were to make sure that S.H.I.E.L.D., as it was now, would be buried beneath the rubble that we would be making of the infiltrated agents inside that organisation. All the while making sure that the fallout didn't harm the civilians and any exotic energy was duly confiscated which apparently also included the new half a dozen helicarriers that Fury had built.

In a twist, apparently, Fury was shot and killed and Captain America was arrested but he somehow escaped with a close aide of Fury along with the Black Widow. It sounded more and more like a plot of a movie to him.

They had their exact location and were supposed to meet them at the bunker to surprise Fury and the others and pressurise them to give up on S.H.I.E.L.D.

Soon, he reached the hangar only to find Commander Castle there ready with his combat suit on and another agent beside him. Agent Yo-Yo if he remembered that correctly.

"Let's go, shall we?" he said with a charming smirk.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1472

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head on to my Patreon. It is the same name as my username.

I already have up to 12 extra chapters uploaded there.


A/N - Short, I know. The next one will be longer to compensate.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 51

Technomancer in MCU

S.H.I.E.LD. Convoy

–Steve Rogers–

"He looked right at me like he didn't even know me." He said out loud to the occupants of their van.

Sam scoffed, "How is that even possible? It's got to be at least 70 years since then."

"Zola" he uttered the word calmly despite the infernal fury he felt inside. The very thought of his friend, his one friend being under the control of those monsters for all these years filled his insides with molten fury.

He wished he had found him earlier. He could have done something. They could have saved him. Tony might have found a cure for him, maybe…

"Steve?" He looked up as Nat called him.

"It's not your fault. Stop beating yourself up over nothing. There was nothing you could have done. You weren't even awake." She tried to console him but there was nothing anyone could say to him that would make him feel better.

The sound of a soft pained noise from Nat drew his attention to her sitting across him. He could see that the bullet wound in her shoulder was still bleeding and without proper medical attention, she would bleed out soon. They had to do something to stop the bleeding but how?

He glanced at their captors and discarded any thought of getting any help from them from his mind. He had learned his lesson. They would sooner see them dead than help them at all.

"Look, man. She's bleeding. You have got to put pressure on that wound or she'll bleed out in minutes." Sam pleaded to the security guards but as expected they remained silent and apathetic to their plight.

Sam was about to speak again when one of the guards removed his baton and shoved it in their direction, his silent threat clear to all of them.

His hands tensed as he got ready to help them in case the guard tried something but it turned out to be unnecessary.

The guard brandished the baton in their direction but then with a stabbing motion, electrocuted the other guard and smashed their head in with their other hand, knocking the guard out cold.

All of them tensed as they waited with bated breaths for the next actions of the guard. But then simultaneously sighed in relief when the guard removed their helmet to reveal a face that was familiar to the two of them.

"Huh, I had a hard time breathing with this thing on," came the greeting of Maria Hill, the right-hand woman of Nick Fury. She then looked at all of their astonished faces, "What? I thought you'd be used to betrayal now?"

He had no answer to that question.

________________________________________________________________

–Frank Castle–

He sat silently on the captain's seat, waiting for the go-ahead from operations to intercept the convoy that had Captain America along with Black Widow and a potential future avenger, Sam Wilson.

This was new to him, waiting for orders, that is. Usually, Alfred had everything ready before you could even ask for him. Now, they were stuck here watching over the convoy.

He could hear Eric munching on chips loudly, much to his displeasure. He was doing it loudly on purpose too.

After a while, Eric groaned and he could almost hear him calling for HQ again when the situation in front of them had an unexpected development. Maria Hill chose to reveal herself before their planned ambush under the bridge ahead.

"She must have been worried about all the blood that Romanoff's been losing. Commander, I think we share the same blood type. Should I become their samaritan and save her?" Eric said.

He resisted the urge to pinch his forehead at the comment, "Keep dreaming. Anyone could tell you just want to get in her pants."

They then continued to follow them as they changed their clothes, cars, and routes and even went around in different cars before meeting in front of an old bar where they finally took a truck to their underground base.

Finally, he thought.

"Commander Castle, come in? I repeat, Commander Castle?" came the voice from the jet's intercom.

"Yes?" he replied.

"You have orders to intercept Captain Rogers' and Nick Fury's meeting and make sure that the organization's agenda is the one that is being carried out."

"Understood."

"So, what's our next step? Do we do a three-point landing like badasses in front of them? I mean, I could do it. Your knees must be weak now that you are old." Eric had the audacity to say that to his face.

He barely stopped himself from decking Eric in the face. Not only because it wouldn't have helped but also because his powers might negatively affect the seals on Eric's powers.

He didn't want to be the one who endangered everybody on Earth just for the satisfaction of punching out the bastard.

He gave Eric a look and then promptly started ignoring him. That was the best way he could deal with Eric. He just looked at the HUD which showed their destination and their mission parameters.

They had to circumvent the plan that Nick Fury and the others had and actually requisition the six state-of-the-art helicarriers that S.H.I.E.L.D. had built. Ed even had a mountain nearby hollowed out with maintenance arranged for the carriers for the next 5 years.

As he was reading the mission assignment, one of the floor tiles in front of him slid open and a box came out of it. After reaching his waist level, it opened up, revealing multiple shining vials containing moving red liquid.

If he had to hazard a guess, he would say that those were the coveted Pym Particles. Those would come in handy while stealing the carriers. Along with the vials, he could spy a chip in the last socket.

Curious about its function, he picked it up only for his suit to start beeping and then say out in a robotic voice, "Security protocol upload complete. Please activate the protocols after coming in close proximity with the desired terminal," And then the chip disintegrated from his gloved hands.

So that's how he was going to hijack the carriers. He was doubtful about Fury's chip replacement method since the World Security Council, after learning about Alfred and his insane abilities, had their paranoia increase twofold and made sure that only physical access to the main boards of each carrier could have the slightest chances of subverting control of their biggest weapons.

This would have been so much simpler with Alfred around.

Putting the thoughts of Alfred in the back of his mind, he watched as the Captain and the others reached the base where Fury was being treated. Captain and Wilson were the first ones to exit, followed by Romanoff and Hill. After a while, Hill dug out an old access panel from behind an old utility pole. Upon completing her identification, they all heard a shuddering noise and as they followed it, they came upon a small manhole-sized cover in the middle of the bushes from where they entered the base.

As soon as the last person on their team entered the manhole cover and closed it behind them, he gave the orders, "Alright, suit up. We'll be going in now."

The only answer he got from Eric was a wide grin and his suit manifesting over his body. He did a double-take when he saw that Eric's suit was in the. American colour theme. Near identical to the Captain's shield.

He internally shook his head, unwilling to even discuss it with Eric, and pushed the button to open the central escape hatch in the cabin and immediately jumped through it.

Waiting for the last moment to activate his thrusters, he cushioned his fall and landed softly on the ground. Quite unlike Eric who activated his boosters to give him more thrust and then did his three-point landing on the ground beside him, cratering it slightly. He deadpanned to Eric at that. If Alfred was around, he'd have surely turned off Eric's nanite package at the last moment just to fuck around with him.

Making sure that the Pym Particle vials were safely stored on his person, he started running towards the entrance of the underground base when he heard an annoying voice, "What are you using your legs for? It's not 1990 old man, you have rockets built into your suit. Use them. Hell, they must be of an even higher caliber than mine since you are The Commander, right?"

As usual, he ignored it and soon reached the manhole cover.

Now, they could have gone inside guns blazing but that would reduced the chances of gaining any sort of alliance with Fury to near zero. So, they had to be quiet. Something he was getting pretty good at.

Activating the phasers for both his and Eric's suits, he phased them through the manhole cover and straight onto the floor beneath it. He landed on his feet but somehow. Eric landed flat on his face. Well, his vibranium lattice helmet but there was a face underneath that.

Without waiting for Eric to get up, he activated his thrusters and intentionally allowed them to generate the rocket noise they make if you don't use sound dampeners. Eric soon followed him with his thrusters active in the same mode, "Why are we making so much noise? Somebody might just wake up."

He glanced at Eric and said, "That's the point."

And soon enough, they came across a patch of sewage where a Blue shield just smashed into Eric, much to his delight, and sent him skidding backward and a couple of high calibre rounds slammed into my armour as well. The last straw was a grenade and a flashbang that was thrown sloppily in their direction, courtesy of Romanoff. Not wanting to prolong this any further, he activated the hard light constructs of his suit and simultaneously isolated all the weapons that were pointed at them, "Alright, that's enough. We're here to help." He then activated the floodlights in his suit and after a second, chose to deactivate them and instead sent out a few tiny drones that latched themselves on the ceiling and emitted light, mimicking a ceiling lamp perfectly.

He could then see Captain and Wilson coming from one side with Romanoff probably waiting in ambush for us to let our guards down. He ignored the good Captain and continued looking in the other direction, waiting for Hill and Romanoff to come. After a while, they did get out of their hiding spot and he could see that Romanoff's condition had taken a turn for the worse.

Her face was pale from the blood loss and she was shaking due to the cold inside the tunnel.

Sighing internally, he gave the command and one of the drones in the ceiling unlatched itself and dropped on her shoulder where it proceeded to dissolve into goo and heal her shoulder using the CHI it had stored inside it.

But seeing that, the Captain just charged at him.

To be honest, he was starting to get a little bit annoyed at them and so chose to take matters into his own hands. He activated the hard light prisons and gathered everyone of them in a single sphere and waited for them to calm down.

Hill was the first who noticed that the drone was actually healing Romanoff and brought it to everyone's attention, stopping their futile struggle against the hard light shield.

"That's right, we are here to help. We are sent by Adam to make sure that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fuckup doesn't become the World's fuckup. After all, we wouldn't want to save the world from outside threats only to discover that somehow, H.Y.D.R.A., an organisation that has been dead for the last 80 years, took over the planet and nearly killed everyone on it. Right, Captain Rogers?" he explained to them with all the patience he could muster.

His suit could also sense a small fully armed team headed their way from inside the tunnel, "Look, I know you recognise the logo, right? " None of them showed a reaction to that, even though they should have seen the logo hundreds of times in their meetings.

Fed up with all the smokes and mirrors, he activated his thrusters and along with Eric, took the prison holding everybody whilst making sure that Romanoff was not too jostled, and took off towards the base where Fury was being kept and watching us come.

Knowing that Fury was watching, he retracted his face plate to show his face to Fury. He could then see the crew he had sent faltering, almost as if they were given completely contradicting orders from before.

He smirked at that. Seems Fury recognised him.

Upon passing the security team, Eric grinned and waved at them, his faceplate retracted long ago.

The dumbfounded and betrayed looks of the Captain and Wilson were a delight to see.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2202

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head on to my P**reon. It is the same name as my username.

I already have up to 12 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 52

Technomancer in MCU

–Nick Fury–

With a groan, he opened his eyes and came face to face with a slightly debilitated white ceiling. The smell of cleaning chemicals and the regular beeping of medical machines meant that his plan worked.

It was a gamble but Banner's drug along with some misdirection from Hill must have done the trick. It was an even bigger gamble trusting Hill but he had a hunch that she of all people was trustworthy.

Besides, he was paranoid his whole life, and look where that brought him. In a hospital bed, ousted from his own organisation just as they were about to launch weapons that could be responsible for shaping the entirety of human civilisation for centuries to come. And what did he do? He ended up handing over humanity's premier weapons to a bunch of nazis.

Worse, it was there all along. Ed had warned him about that but never in his dream would he have thought that Pierce of all people would be the leader of H.Y.D.R.A.

Rejecting a Nobel Peace Prize because his job wasn't done, his ass. The bastard must be making fun of them all along. He couldn't believe he was actually so blind to the internal threats as he focused on the alien threats waiting for them in the cosmos. He went all in on the new generation helicarriers. Now, fucking Nazis of all people have the keys to the world.

His groan must have drawn somebody's attention as he was soon sitting upright with somebody putting a cup of water to his mouth. He greedily drank it to moisten his dry throat.

The next moment as he finished drinking water, bright lights flashed in his eyes and somebody removed the needles from his hand alongside somebody else stabbing a needle in his other arm. After a while, after the doctor was satisfied with his condition, he finally had the room to himself.

Not truly though, his inner voice supplied as he glanced at the multiple visible cameras in the room, not to mention who knows how many invisible cameras and sensors in the makeshift medical ward.

If all else went to plan, backup must be on its way and this location must be decently fortified along with 2 teams consisting of people he absolutely trusted with his life.

Thinking of people he could trust his life with, he regretted not contacting Coulson before taking the drastic step but in the end, it was for the better that Coulson wasn't involved in this.

As per his death protocols, Coulson must have gotten his instructions along with enough resources to run a medium-sized organisation for years to come. He just hoped that Coulson didn't smell anything fishy in the news and go after Pierce and the others to avenge him.

The last thing he wanted was to give H.Y.D.R.A. access to life-reviving technology. Just the fact that such technology existed would be the biggest mistake they could make.

As some strength returned to his body, he flipped open the holo tablet attached to the medical bed, courtesy of Simmons and Fitz from the labs. They were good kids. He just hoped that they too wouldn't get caught in this web. Simmons already had a huge target on her head due to her immense potential as a healer. He had subverted no less than 20 attempts on her life and hundreds more that wanted to kidnap her, to what end he could only guess.

As the holographic display came to life, he could see that Rogers and Romanoff along with someone named Wilson were captured by S.H.I.EL.D. and were on their way to the nearest black site but they wouldn't reach their intended location as Hill was aboard the convoy.

Ignoring that as Hill would have it handled, he instead turned to the information regarding the moving of important assets that were to be moved or destroyed in case of his confirmed death.

Granted, he hadn't actually given the signal to them in case it was a fake death but almost all the experiments, artefacts, and most importantly, the last vials of GH.325 were moved from the fridge to the base where the Kree corpse was kept. And even that base was rigged to blow at the first sign of infiltration. He sighed in relief at that piece of information.

He kept looking at the helicarrier schematics, looking for any weakness they could exploit because there is exactly zero chance in hell that he was going to let weapons he built for the defense of humanity be used by fucking Nazis of all people to threaten the world only to be brutally destroyed by Ed. That cold motherfucker would destroy hundreds of such helicarriers with ease with what they had seen so far.

He had only used that angle to wrangle money out of the politicians' hands but he wasn't delusional enough to think that it would have mattered in any way against Ed and his organisation. Still, Ed should have given them a way to contact them. This would have been the perfect time to make sure that he was excluded from this mission since all he would do is come here, take over the mission, and use brute force to destroy hundreds of billions of dollars worth of equipment.

That would be disastrous, not only for S.H.I.E.L.D. but for enhanced people around the world as well. They already get a bad reputation for doing basically nothing but if someone obviously enhanced came and destroyed government property that was this important, it would be like adding rocket fuel to a forest fire.

Speaking of enhanced people, he hurriedly opened the S.H.I.E.L.D. academy I.N.D.E.X. files to see if Pierce did something to the people there only to find out lookouts issued for nearly all enhanced people. He smiled upon seeing nearly all the students just disappear from their respective rooms in a blur. He gave a rare smile at that. Agent Yo-Yo was doing her job just fine then.

He chuckled as he imagined the reaction Pierce must be having since the enhanced that was only mildly impressive managed to bypass every defense the Academy had and moved out a hundred students in less than a minute.

It would seem that she has gotten even faster now. He wished he could contact her since she could be immensely helpful in the upcoming fight but that would mean leaving the kids defenseless along with telling her that he was still alive.

He couldn't risk that.

After a while, he heard a commotion outside his room. From the voice, John was arguing with the doctor about something.

He checked his holo tablet for all the cameras installed in and around the base, only for his pupils to dilate as he saw two people with armours more advanced than even Stark's come straight towards the base entrance.

His mind churned furiously as he thought of all the possible places two unknowns with advanced tech could have popped up from.

The suits could indicate that they were from Ed's organisation since there was no way H.Y.D.R.A. had that level of technology. It was just a matter of confirming it.

He soon got the opportunity as Hill and the others set up an ambush for them but his hopes were doused in cold water as only a single one of them stopped them like they were mere infants instead of being some of the most well-trained people in the world.

But that confirmed one thing. It might not be Ed himself since that was not his suit but they used the signature hard light technology that Ed and his organisation seemed to overuse.

The final kicker was the reveal of the operator of the suit that was bringing the team to the base's doors in a hard light prison.

He immediately ordered the team lead there, "Soldier, stand down. I repeat, stand down. Let them pass. I repeat, do not engage. Let them pass."

He exhaled in relief and smiled a bitter smile as he thought of the fact that Ed had managed to snag up Frank motherfucking Castle.

That bastard.

When he had heard about his abrupt resignation and the subsequent bloodbath that happened to his former colleagues, he had sent Coulson to investigate but Frank had come out all clean. Now, he knew why he came out all clean.

He heard the main doors creaking open and soon, his medical ward was crowded by the team and Ed's men.

He took note of their expressions as they learned of him being alive. Naked relief along with a touch of suspicion could be seen on Romanoff's and Roger's faces. Wilson just had a confused look plastered on his face. Frank was smiling at him.

Smiling!

In all the joint missions Frank performed with them, he had never once seen him smile outside of talking about his wife.

Guess he found a better life outside then. Good for him.

Before he could get a word in though, Frank said, "Good to see you alive, Fury. I knew you piece of shit wouldn't croak so easily."

The doctors around them choked as they heard that. He waved them off, "Gentlemen? Can we have some privacy please?" The doctors looked like they were about to protest but after taking one look at the people in the room, they nodded and shuffled out of the room.

"For old time's sake, can you hook me up with whatever it is that you gave Romanoff there?" He gestured to Romanoff with his neck as she was sitting upright in her medical bed with her shoulder injury being completely healed without even leaving a bullet scar.

Not a single muscle twitched on Frank's face but something flew off Romanoff's clothes and settled on his chest and flowed around his gunshot wound like a cool liquid.

He sighed in relief as he felt something calm and soothing enter his body. This feeling was similar to what he felt when Agent Simmons used her artifact on me just a hundred times better. He was right, then. They have much much better medical tech on hand.

"Ah, that's the stuff. So, Frank, what brings you to our little slice of spy agency work? I thought you vowed never to work for us after that psyops went sideways." He asked Frank, curious and a bit wary of their motives.

Frank smiled a cold smile, "Well, we are here to help you of course."

Not even a nine-year-old would believe that obvious lie.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1811

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Interlude V.1

Technomancer in MCU

–Sharon Carter–

She was still reeling from the news of Steve of all people being declared a traitor when she got the call to immediately report to the nearest office.

She took a calm breath to prepare for what was undoubtedly about to follow. She was the agent appointed to help Steve acclimatize to the modern world. She always knew it was an excuse to maintain surveillance over the only known super soldier in the world but she had come to view Steve as a friend.

It didn't help that he was a sweet gentleman as well. The sweet temptation of being with her aunt's old love interest didn't help at all.

She tried to remove those thoughts from her mind and started preparing to burn her current identity and return to the active agent roster.

She had just gone through pruning her digital identity when somebody knocked on the door.

She immediately stood ramrod straight and took out her gun and headed toward the door. She only opened it after getting the agency confirmation codes.

She was pretty confused when she found a whole unit waiting for her. The only reason she wasn't terrified for her life was they seemed to be guarding her and one of her academy friends, Terry, was with them. She might not trust the motives of the agency right now but she knew Terry.

"Hey, little Carter. We don't have time to chit-chat. We need to leave right now. Grab anything that can't be replaced and meet me in the car downstairs." he said before she could get a word in.

Understanding the severity of the situation, she nodded and went inside to get her duffel bag that she kept handy in case of emergencies.

By the time she took the bag out of her closet, the team was already in the process of removing any evidence of her presence in the apartment. Weirded out by the incident and not feeling particularly safe in the presence of multiple armed people with their faces covered, she swiftly left for the car waiting for her downstairs.

Terry, always the gentleman, was waiting for her with one of the doors open.

"Thank you," she muttered and entered the vehicle.

Terry sat in the front seat and the car sped off immediately.

"Okay. What is going on? The urgency and the security seem unnecessary for a normal escort." she asked Terry who was speaking with someone on the radio.

Through the windshield, she could see an entire convoy escorting her. The situation raised more and more alarm bells inside her head.

Terry looked back at her question and smiled, "No need to worry. You are an important asset to the agency, Little Carter. With the recent incident with Captain Rogers, the higher-ups in the agency thought it prudent to make sure you were safe. So, sit back and relax. We'll have you safe and sound at HQ in no time."

She nodded, still a little uncertain about the circumstances but willing to trust Terry over this.

Soon, they arrived at the HQ and as soon as she entered the main building, the security detail disappeared and she was escorted by Terry to her supervisor's office. "He'll be here soon. I'll see you around, Little Carter. Don't get into any more trouble without me." Terry said with a smile and left.

She smiled at his parting joke, a temporary relief to the all-crushing tension she had felt since Director Fury, a dear friend to her aunt, was killed.

She stood up when she heard the door open but stopped midway in her greeting when the person who entered the cabin was The Secretary of the World Security Council, Alexander Pierce.

Getting out of the shock of meeting who was essentially her boss' boss' boss, she greeted him, "Secretary Pierce, Good Afternoon."

"Good Afternoon, dear. Please take a seat." he gestured to her and sat in her supervisor's seat.

"So, dear, I'm sure you must be terribly confused as to why I am here?" he questioned her.

She shook her head in reply, "Not quite, sir. I am quite aware with me being the agent assigned to spy on Captain Rogers–"

"Steve Rogers, please. I'm afraid with the latest stunt he has pulled, he no longer has the rank of a captain officially. I'd appreciate it if everybody could acknowledge that." he interrupted her, his voice quite irritating.

She nodded, a bit weirded out by the obsession in his voice when he said, "Sure. I was the agent assigned to Steve Rogers and I failed in reporting any signs of him planning to assassinate Director Fury. I understand if I have to undergo screening to be placed on the official roster once again."

"Good. As long as that is clear, we have nothing to worry about. Your aunt was a great spy and did phenomenal work with the agency, I'm sure you'll do the same. You'll have your orders soon. Until then, report to the HQ five days a week and be ready for regular debriefings. In fact, I believe you have one scheduled today. Agent Terry will escort you there." Pierce gestured to the door where Terry had silently positioned himself.

She nodded and with a determined face, she left the cabin. Terry escorted her but he was oddly silent, a thing she was grateful for as it allowed her to digest the events that happened to her.

The very fact that Secretary Pierce came to personally greet her was suspicious but the way she could feel the glee in his voice when he talked about the death of Director Fury and the dismissal of Steve raised all sorts of alarm bells in her mind.

Her thoughts churned furiously as she arrived at one of the many interrogation rooms in the base. She never thought she would have to arrive at one of these places for interrogation.

She felt Terry slap her back, "Good luck, Carter," and then he opened the door for her.

She nodded silently and entered the room. Inside, an interrogator was waiting for her with a notepad in his hand.

Taking a deep breath, she entered and closed the door behind her, hoping that it was just her mind playing games and not an octopus tattoo that she saw on Terry's wrist as he opened the door for her.

The consequences of that being true were so dire that she didn't even want to think about them.

________________________________________________________________

Observation Room

–Alexander Pierce–

He watched through the glass as they asked Sharon Carter all they could without tipping their hands.

"Anything?" he asked Terry as he heard the door open.

"Nothing. There's nothing we can incriminate her with that Peggy Carter's hounds in the agency wouldn't sniff out within minutes of that happening."

Yeah, that.

He had been so engrossed in the emergency relocation they had to carry out as an organisation due to that damnable AI that he had not monitored the day-to-day workings of S.H.I.E.L.D. Somehow, the fossil, Peggy Carter, with some help from her old army buddies, managed to plant multiple high clearance agents of her own into the agency and that too, in positions of power that they had been trying to get access to for years.

He now regretted not killing that woman when he had the chance. They had termed her an invalid due to her mental state but somehow, in the few years they left her alone, she managed to invoke her old army contacts and entered the political scene again. POTUS was all too happy to accommodate her for some reason.

They had a few agents in her guard detail but the other various three-letter agencies had taken over her guard duty and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents barely even saw her in person anymore.

Even now, he could see many of her plants in the HQ, seemingly doing their work diligently but he knew they were just waiting for a signal from that woman. There was no way that Peggy Carter of all people would believe her beloved Steve Rogers being a traitor. She knew him too well for that.

In such a situation, especially with the carriers scheduled to take off in less than a week, he could ill afford to force a confrontation between his forces and multiple high-level faction leaders.

He then watched on as Sharon Carter responded to the questions in an extremely obtuse manner. He narrowed his eyes as she claimed to have no important information on Rogers that could help them track him down.

"Hmm, she is lying," Terry said, standing beside him.

"You're right. Have a team surveilling her. Make sure she doesn't realise that. Business as usual, am I clear?" he ordered Terry.

"Crystal," Terry nodded.

He had just left the observation room and entered his cabin for another meeting when he heard multiple shockwaves rock the building, making him fall down on his ass.

"Sir! Sir!" he felt somebody lifting him up.

"What the hell just happened?" he asked Terry, who was bleeding from his forehead.

"It's Sharon, she's taken." he said.

What?

His pupils dilated at the news.

"Any casualties?" he asked Terry, dreading the answer.

"A dozen and counting, sir."

"Who?"

He tensed even further when he realised two of the casualties were from the list of agents that Peggy Carter had placed in the agency. This meant that somebody else entirely kidnapped Sharon Carter, the only living relative of Peggy Carter, from the HQ of S.H.I.E.L.D. in broad daylight, whilst being under heavy security.

This day could not have gotten any worse.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1637

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