Technomancer in MCU #1

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 103

Technomancer in MCU

Royal Healing Wing, Royal Palace, Asgard

–Ed–

All of them waited for Odin to wake up in the Royal Healing Chamber. All of them were sitting on comfortable chairs that Alfred had conjured in front of the two beds on which Odin and Jane were sleeping.

Multiple spider bots kept hovering over the prone forms of both Jane and Odin, projecting images of their vitals for everyone to see. He was not sure when Jane would wake up, given that her vitals had long since stabilised with her being actively being turned into a pure-blood Asgardian due to whatever was inside her.

He was curious as to what was the energy inside her, changing her from within. He was aware that a God King could, theoretically, turn any being into an Asgardian but doing that would require immense power, something that Odin did have but he did not have the motive to do so.

Not to mention that Alfred himself had confirmed that the energy signature was not Odin's. It was very similar but not the same. It also felt older than Odin's energy for some reason. That narrowed the suspect list to just Bor and Buri, the predecessors of Odin.

Alfred was of the opinion of sending Jane to Earth immediately but he had shot down that idea immediately because Thor would not leave Jane out of his sight even for a minute, not even if his father ordered him. He was strangely smitten with her for some reason. He never really understood Thor's love for her, even if he understood the beginning of it.

They never really had any common ground and with Jane being a mortal human, even Thor should have realised that the possibility of them being in a long-term relationship would dwindle as the days passed by, turning Jane into an old woman whereas Thor would remain the same. Their first encounter with each other was when Thor was at his lowest and Jane was someone who had provided comfort food and housing for him when he had crash-landed on Earth after being banished by his father. That he could understand but everything after that was a huge confusing mess for him.

They had theoretically known each other for over 8 years now but he didn't think they had spent even a year of those 8 years together.

Odin's stance, on the other hand, that Thor should just spare himself the heartbreak and leave the mortal woman before it ended badly, was pragmatic and something that ALfred would wholeheartedly agree with but now?

Now Jane herself was turning into an Asgardian, probably the strongest woman in Asgard aside from Frigga herself, once she got the hang of being an Asgardian that is.

"How long, Alfred?" He heard Frigga ask someone, probably Alfred or Eir since both of them were working on monitoring Jane and Odin with their own methods. So far, it looked like Alfred's methods were giving out faster and more accurate answers than Eir's methods, something that seemed to excite her more and more instead of angering her.

It was refreshing to see someone who had reached the pinnacle of her field, not acting arrogantly once someone challenges her practice.

"We don't know yet. Physically, both of them are more than fine. There was a considerable amount of spiritual backlash on Odin when you severed their connection. His body has been healed but there is little CHI can do in terms of healing injuries related to the soul. Thankfully, Odin's soul is one of the strongest in the universe so he should wake up anytime now. I don't know what is stopping him but with the trend in his mental activity, we should have results in an hour or so." Alfred said even as he continued to look at the results he was getting from his diagnosis.

"And Jane?" Thor stepped in to ask Eir who had been monitoring Jane obsessively. He was sure that she had arrived at the same conclusion that Alfred had arrived at earlier, just that the signs of the change happening must have been visible only now to her.

It must have been an unbelievable sight for her, witnessing a mortal transforming into an Asgardian and not just any Asgardian, a pure-blooded Asgardian.

"Sh-She is, this is something I have never seen happen before," Eir stuttered out her words, something he was sure was a rarity on Asgard.

"What happened to her, Eir?" Frigga asked her.

"I don't know how to explain it but she is..turning into an Asgardian."

"What?" "What?"

Thor and Frigga exclaimed at the same time.

Frigga immediately stepped forward and cast her own spells on Jane.

Her brows furrowed immediately once the spells had been cast on Jane.

"This should be impossible and yet…" Frigga said before turning to an anxious Thor.

"This is unlike anything I have ever witnessed but Jane Foster is no longer a mortal and will soon be indistinguishable from a natural-born Asgardian. At least that's what I am getting from my spells."

"What? How can that happen? Is she in any danger?" Thor barraged Alfred and Eir with questions before he was stopped by Alfred.

"Don't worry about her, Thor. She is completely fine. She is in the process of becoming an Asgardian, something that would undoubtedly help you win over your father's approval. As I understand, the primary reason for your father's opposition to your relationship with Jane was due to her mortal state. Now that she would soon become an Asgardian, he would not let her leave Asgard even if she wanted to."

The entire room looked at Alfred as he looked at Thor and flashed him a rare smile and clapped his shoulders.

"Congratulations are in order."

Thor's smile seemed nervous, "Uh..Thanks?"

Then his smile dimmed as he said, "But Jane has not yet awakened and we don't know what is wrong with her body until Father wakes up,"

"Ugh," Odin's groan of pain brought everybody's attention back to Odin who was now waking up from the bed. Seemingly annoyed by the presence of the spiderbots, Odin casually flicked his hand and as if something had pressed them from all sides, the bots were crushed into scrap and tossed aside.

"Steady Steady" Frigga said as she helped Odin sit properly on the bed.

"What happened out there? And why is the Palace trashed? Why are the defenses in shambles?" Odin asked Frigga who promptly gave him the details of what had transpired outside the Royal Palace when he was under a trance. Gotta hand it to Odin, he figured out what was wrong with the palace within seconds of waking up from a small magical coma that his body had induced itself to accelerate the healing process.

"Dark Elves? I hope they are extinct for good this time?" Odin asked Thor who looked a little conflicted but still nodded in confirmation. Odin then unexpectedly looked towards a corner of the room, not saying anything.

After a while, the corner glitched as Loki undid the illusion he was using to stay hidden in the room.

Loki looked directly into Odin's eyes as he gave a small nod to Odin.

Okay, something was seriously different from what he knew their relationship dynamic to be. Odin would have never turned to Loki, especially after he had invaded Earth and destroyed the Rainbow Bridge beforehand.

Odin then looked towards the ceiling but it seemed like he was looking farther than that as his eyes glazed over. All of them stood there waiting for him to say anything but even after a couple minutes passed, he didn't say anything.

That was when Frigga gently shook him, 'What is it?"

Odin's eyes gained clarity as he looked at Frigga, "Nothing, my love."

Then Odin looked at the sleeping Jane and his brows furrowed as he stood up from his bed and placed his hand above her. It slowly began glowing golden even as Odin himself began sweating.

Thor took a step forward to ask what was going on but Frigga raised her arm and stopped him.

What Odin was doing was taking an astronomical amount of energy, judging by the helpful metrics that Alfred had supplied to him using the bond that him and Toby shared.

Soon, the golden glow that suffused his arm congealed to form a small disc in front of his arm which then enlarged to form a blanket of sorts that fell on top of Jane's form. The blanket of golden light was absorbed by Jane's body, lighting up her body with a thin golden glow.

Then, as soon as the golden glow receded, Jane's eyes fluttered open. Thor all but teleported to her side even as Eir continued to cast diagnostic spells to make sure that Jane was fine.

Oh, he was sure that Jane was going to be fine. After all, from whatever scans Alfred was doing, that were visible to him through their link, Jane was now a bonafide Asgardian. Not even a hint of her previous heritage remained.

Odin must have accelerated her transformation using the Odin Force.

"Now," He looked at Odin as he announced to everyone, "I am sure everybody has their questions. I assume the Throne is fine? Yes? Then let's go there."

Saying so, Odin left the chambers, followed by Frigga and Loki, in his cloaked form.

Thor chose to stay with Jane as she was still a little disoriented from her coma and Eir was not exactly the friendliest person on Asgard.

….

…

Once all of them were in the Throne room, Odin banged Gungnir on the floor and as if a hidden switch had been turned on, the entire room was covered in a thin golden barrier that glowed with tiny runes.

Honestly, Asgardians and their never-ending obsession with all things golden.

"I heard that you were responsible for defending the palace," Odin said while looking at Alfred.

"And you were responsible for vanquishing the Dark Elves, for good this time," Odin then pointed at Toby who looked as carefree as ever.

"Yes, AllFather," Alfred replied.

"Yes." Toby's response was curt.

It must have been the atmosphere of the room otherwise Alfred would have never called Odin "All-Father" of his own volition.

Odin then contemplated something before abruptly looking at him right in the eyes. He would not lie, it made him flinch minutely at the attention.

Gaining the attention of the strongest being in the nine realms was not a particularly desirable situation for him or anyone for that matter.

Before he could say anything though, Odin looked back towards Frigga and then back at Alfred and Toby.

"Speak. What do you wish in return?"

Alfred and Toby both looked at each other in confusion. It would seem that both of them were also caught flat-footed by Odin's move. He had expected for Odin to explain what had happened back in the chamber when they had found him or at least about the backlash that he must have suffered when the spell was severed by Frigga.

But no, he simply glossed over that topic as if it didn't exist at all.

Seeing that Odin had no intention of explaining anything, Alfred stepped forward and said, "I have the same wish as before. I wish for Asgard's help to heal Ed. I have the procedure down to the last minute detail but having the foremost magical experts of Asgard looking at them will always help. Not to mention that there are some things that can not be done on Earth. For that, I wish to borrow Asgard's safe space so the ritual can go smoothly, without interruption."

Odin looked straight at Alfred as he said, "So you still wish to go through with that insanity of a ritual? Do you have any idea what kind of forces you will be playing with?"

Alfred remained steadfast in his pitch. "I am aware and I assure you, things will not go to the point you are expecting them to."

Odin scoffed, "I will be the judge of that. And what about you?" He then asked Toby.

Toby shrugged and said, "Me? I don't need anything at the moment. I just need someone strong to fight. That can be you or Ed once he is healed. It's all up to you."

Odin muttered under his breath, "I don't know why I expected anything different from a demon host,"

"Very well, Asgard will aid its allies as its allies had done for her." Odin declared before slamming Gungnir down on the floor once again, removing the privacy curtains.

Taking the cue, all of them dismissed themselves and came out of the throne room.

"Man, that was intense, huh? Who knew the Old man still had it in him?" Toby said as soon as the doors to the throne room were shut.

Alfred and he both deadpanned at him in reply.

---

Word Count - 2178
If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 104

Technomancer in MCU

Guest Wing, Asgard

–Toby–

"I am surprised you sought me out of your own volition. So, what do you want to talk about?" He asked Alfred as soon as they floated away from the Royal Palace and landed in the forest behind it. They might not be in the palace anymore but he was sure that both Odin and Heimdall were keeping an eye on both of them since they were the only two people on Asgard who could actually cause some serious harm before they were inevitably stopped by Odin.

The mere thought made his nose crinkle. Even after a millennia of toiling away, he was still not up to Odin's level. In his defense, not many people in the universe were, especially now that he was nearing the end of his natural lifespan. Asgardians naturally grew stronger the older they got and Odin? He was the oldest of them all.

Alfred set up a few privacy curtains around them. None that he could recognise but he could see that they would not be able to stop Odin from snooping around if he wanted to but someone like Loki?

Yeah, he was not going to hear or see a thing.

"I wanted to talk about Ed's procedure," Alfred said as he drew some sort of rune circle on the ground. It must have been an original of Alfred because he could not understand a single thing about it.

"What about it?" He asked in his characteristically gruff voice. He was very serious about getting Ed healed, especially since he now had no interest in ruling over Earth. Now, all he wanted to do was find some nice strong opponents and fight them. His nature as a demon host was bleeding over his personality and he found himself..not minding it that much.

Honestly, it was all confusing but at least, he was not in a mental rut like before. He could take his time and actually enjoy the things he liked to do, like ice cream.

A delicacy that Asgard did not have apparently. That was the true tragedy, not Ragnarok.

….

Ok, maybe he was overstating things a bit but his point still stood.

"What do you know about the Infinity Stones?" Alfred asked as he started pouring energy into the ritual circle, lighting it up.

"What about them? There are six of them. Possessing one of them makes you strong enough to challenge any of the superpowers of the galaxy. Wielding them is extremely hard and can only be done so by beings of immense power, like you and me. Very rarely, can someone even hold two stones, let alone wield their power. I don't think there is anybody who can use even a single Infinity Stone with impunity. It is also rumoured that possessing all six of them can grant you omnipotence, omniscience, and even omnipresence but I don't think there is a single being, aside from the Celestials, who could even touch all six at once, let alone use them."

Alfred had finished powering the circle by now and was looking at him, "You would be correct. Normally, nobody should be able to hold all Stones at once unless they have a tool that could help them. A tool made from the finest smiths in the universe."

"The Dwarves from Nidavellir," Both of them said at the same time.

Of course, how could he forget?

Thanos forced the Dwarves to make him something that would allow him to use the powers of the Infinity Stones without instantly turning into ash. But even then, he was severely injured and almost died after killing half the universe.

But what did that have to do with..Ed?

His thoughts stuttered to a halt as the circle lit up and from the centre of the circle, with an eerie yellow glow, the Mind Stone came out.

"Why is that here, Alfred?" He asked even as he raised his mental shields to the max. He was more than aware of the insidious nature of the Mind Stone. There were tales of it, even in the hell world, about how truly powerful demons, once descended from the dimension, fell prey to the influences of the Mind Stone, ultimately resulting in their minds being completely subsumed by the stone, condemning them forever to a life of imprisonment.

Dying would be a better alternative for him.

Alfred rolled his eyes at him, "Oh, relax. Why do you think I drew this ridiculously complex ritual circle? It stops the influence of the Mind Stone from affecting beings that are native of alternate dimensions."

He relaxed minutely at that but still did not dare lower his mental defenses. Despite what Alfred told him, the Mind Stone was the most sentient of the Six Infinity Stones. It was capable of figuring out the origin of a being and based on that, deciding if the being was worthy of wielding it or not. If it deems you unworthy, by the time you realise that the Mind Stone was not in fact, your ally or tool, your mind would be long gone, succumbing to the influence of the Mind Stone.

"I need you to wield it?" Alfred then dropped the bomb on him.

"What?" His demonic voice seeped into his tone as he snapped his gaze toward a very nonchalant-looking Alfred.

"Do you have any idea what that Stone might do to the likes of me? Find someone else," he snapped at Alfred. Was he insane or did he want him to die?

"We are going to be using multiple Infinity Stones for Ed's procedure and for that, I need multiple people who are capable of accurately wielding the Infinity Stones without immediately dying," Alfred said as he cast an illusion that depicted the role of the Stones in the procedure to move Ed's unbearably heavy soul into a new body that could, hopefully, sustain the full power of his soul.

Ed's soul was truly an anomaly. It was very heavy and very powerful, yet unlike normally powerful souls that would influence their bodies to become equally as strong, it actually broke down Ed's body to a level that he would not be able to survive without outside intervention. His powers too, at their prime, were more akin to complete matter manipulation rather than Technomancy. Ed, with a body that can handle the full output of his soul without crumbling away, could probably have a chance of defeating Odin even now.

It frustrated him to say it but to have a good chance of dealing with Thanos and his army, they needed Ed and they needed him to be at full power. That won't happen in his current state and he had looked for other options to save him. The problem was none existed and the one Alfred had brought up was something he had invented.

There was no precedent of someone using 3 infinity stones to just perform a medical procedure. It would probably be for the first and last time that someone would use weapons of this caliber for healing purposes.

So, Toby sighed and replied, "Very well, I will take part in the procedure but I will not touch the mind stone. Any other of the two stones will be fine for me. Who will be the other two people?"

As far as he knew, there were limited people on their side who could safely channel the power of an Infinity Stone. The Hulk came to mind but his mind would need to be far more stable than it was now for him to be eligible to wield an Infinity Stone.

Thor could do it if given enough time to grow into his powers.

As he was right now? He might be able to give it a shot but he was clearly incapable or inexperienced with energy manipulation.

Loki, on the other hand, could manipulate energy in his sleep but his physique was not strong enough to bear the strain.

That left him, Alfred, and maybe Odin.

Those weren't very good odds for them.

"Don't worry about the other stones. They will only be needed in case of emergency. Just the space and the time stone will be enough but I have the Mind Stone just in case of an Emergency," Alfred said as he sealed the Mind Stone in a box he conjured with runes that covered the entirety of its surface.

"We will see if Odin or Frigga have any mistakes they can point out in my work and begin tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Do you know anybody who can perform the ritual with us? Someone who is trustworthy?" Alfred asked him.

Sadly, not a single person came to mind. While he did have a lot of powerful lackeys back in the hell world, most of them only followed him out of fear of his strength and ruthlessness. Not a single one followed him out of respect or loyalty. It was not their fault, of course, it was ingrained in their blood to follow the stronger one without question but it did not leave him a lot of options for friends.

So, he shook his head, "None come to mind."

"Very well," Alfred said and removed the privacy curtain around them. At the same time, Alfred cast the same spell that he had seen him analyse back when Loki had arrived on the moon with Odin's letter in hand.

Alfred then flicked his hand, causing the letter to vanish in a burst of smoke. He looked at Alfred with a raised eyebrow, his question evident.

"That was a message for my other self performing his duties as Sorcerer Supreme back on Earth. We will need the Time Stone for the ritual and he might also need it in the meantime so we will have to coordinate everything and wait for the right moment." Alfred said as he raised his hand and created a runic circle for him to see.

It was the most sophisticated rune work he had ever seen in his life. Even more complicated than the Bi-Frost which was supposed to be so complicated that only Odin himself could get it working again. At least, the Bi-Frost that Asgard uses.

If he was right, anybody with a sufficient understanding of the Yggdrasil and the skill to actually connect to it and manipulate it would be able to use it but the list of people who can do all of that is so low that it probably only includes Odin for now. Alfred would probably become skilled enough to do that but he doesn't have that connection to the Yggdrasil for now.

Maybe, in the future.

"Do you have any idea how many gazes of dangerous beings have shifted to Asgard just now when you brought a second Infinity Stone on Asgard without my permission," The voice of Odin sounded right behind them, eliciting a shiver from him.

It was unthinkable for him to be surprised by someone sneaking up on him. It was supposed to be impossible and yet, as he turned around slowly, there he was, Odin, in his armoured garb, holding Gungnir with one hand and pointing his palm at them with his other hand. A palm that was glowing with some sort of sealing spell.

He heard the sound of shattering so he looked back to see that the runic spell that Alfred had cast on the box that contained the Time Stone was broken and was now covered with a thin golden glow. The box then promptly flew out of Alfred's hands who tried to snatch it but the box became intangible before he could grab it and it became tangible again as it reached Odin's side and began floating by his side.

"Honestly, what was she thinking? Handing over an Infinity Stone to you?" Odin muttered exasperatedly before his gaze turned sharp as he looked at both him and Alfred.

A shiver ran down his spine at that, not out of fear but out of excitement. Despite knowing that the being in front of him was one of the few people capable of tearing him apart, his body's instincts refused to bow down in front of him. Instead, it hungered for combat where they would try and tear each other apart, proving who was stronger between them.

"We will discuss the consequences of your actions when the Singularity is present. Right now, we have more pressing matters to tend to. As I am sure you are more than aware, I am dying and before I die, I wanted to correct one of my biggest mistakes instead of just dumping her on my sons because I was too big of a coward to face my mistakes head-on."

He looked at Alfred in confusion. Why was Odin being so forthcoming right now?

"So, Alfred?" Odin addressed Alfred, "I will agree to seeing your design for the insane procedure you have in mind, and only after I and Frigga have given our final approvals, will you even think of doing it? Are we clear?"

Alfred could only nod at that question.

He snickered internally. Alfred really was a scaredy cat. He was worried for nothing. It was not as if Odin would just attack th..e…m.

His thoughts slowed down as he felt his vision blur before the floor began racing towards his face or was it the opposite?

---

Word Count - 2259

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 105

Technomancer in MCU

–Odin–

He sighed as he looked at the unconscious form of the demon host. Alfred, the Guardian of the Singularity, was trying to do his best with his repertoire of medical spells but he knew, just from a look, why the demon host had fainted. It was due to the Singularity's soul.

The burden of bearing the soul of a Singularity was not something that many beings in the universe or even the multiverse could do. You needed a certain level of strength but also finesse regarding the handling of souls to be able to do that and on top of that, one needed to have the consent of the said soul to do so.

To bear that burden for so long, for that, Toby Mathers has his respect. But it would seem that even an empowered demon host would not be able to bear that burden for long. Just another thing on the list of things that he would have no choice but to do that also reduced his already meager lifespan.

*Sigh* He seemed to sigh a lot lately. He already had made the decision to handle Hela before dying but if he were to help in Alfred's crazy procedure, he might just not make it to see Hela out of her prison.

What a mess.

"Don't worry about him. It is just the stress of handling the soul transfer of Ed. That fool went ahead and hardcoded that spell into his magical systems, allowing that spell to function even if he himself went unconscious." He said while thumping Gungnir on the ground, making the stone disappear back into his personal dimension.

As soon as he did that, the gazes that had converged on Asgard the moment Alfred had taken out the Mind Stone began disappearing one by one. Especially since he had made sure to project the Odin Force to obstruct their views. One by one, everybody left until only a few left were still trying to see through the veil he had crafted over Asgard until eventually, after not finding any gaps, they too left.

He sighed in relief at that. While he had projected a strong front there and was more than capable of killing all of them should they show up, his body would just not last while battling them. It was his mistake anyway. He should not have woven the spell with the Odin Force before banishing Hela but at the moment, he had no other way of imprisoning her. She had grown too strong.

"What do we do now?" Alfred's question brought him out of his lamentations. He looked at Alfred who had covered Toby in a barrier that was filled with dark energy of some sort.

He nodded internally in approval. It would have been quite a blunder on ALfred's part if he had employed the same strategy that he had used to heal him, i.e., using concentrated CHI to accelerate the natural healing process.

Demon hosts are naturally darkness-aligned beings and thus, concentrated CHI that Alfred had made using light energy as a medium, would have the potential to severely injure TOby Mathers. Granted, it would take a significant amount of it with his powers but at the moment Toby was concentrating the majority of his powers to ensure that Ed's soul did not wither away to the Astral Realm and thus, Toby was in an exceptionally vulnerable state.

Quite admirable to do that just for a friend, he must say.

"Take him to Eir and tell her to keep him tethered to the Soul Forge and not to spare any Soul Crystals to hasten his recovery. I am sure he will be needed for your insane ritual."

Alfred nodded and left for Eir's office.

He sighed and slashed Gungnir, creating a tear in the space in front of him. Walking through, he found himself in his bedroom instead of his personal library. Granted, both of these locations were quite near but for his spell to take him someplace else was unthinkable. Unless?

"I changed the destination of your spell," He turned around and found Frigga sitting on one of the chairs.

"You might not deign to give them an explanation but I need one and I need it now. So, what happened when you were in that mind trance?" Frigga asked him seriously.

He had hoped to delay this matter a bit because honestly, he himself did not have a complete understanding of what exactly happened with his father's energy but maybe she could shed light on some aspects by looking at it from a new perspective.

So, he sat down on the chair next to her and subspaced Gungnir while trying to recall everything that had happened since he had supplied the Odin Force with that light. Then, after Frigga had waited patiently for a couple of minutes while he gathered his thoughts, he explained everything to her, in detail.

He had not expected to meet with an imprint of his father's will. Somehow, he had predicted the resurgence of the Aether and the awakening of Malekith from his centuries-long slumber. He had then placed a part of his power into the Aether and imprinted a message within, hoping that by the time somebody reached the Aether, the will imprint would survive and it did survive.

The will imprint was on its last legs as it was trying to protect Jane Foster from the Aether as it was trying to completely take over her body when it sensed his Odin Force and began gorging on it to sustain itself. He had allowed it to happen because he was curious and thus after the imprint had enough of his Odin Force, it manifested a mental connection to him which he allowed to happen.

In the vision, he met his father or rather, a recorded message from his father. In which, he warned him about an invasion that would happen in the future.

Not the Dark Elves invasion but an invasion that scaled across their entire multiversal cluster. A group of higher dimensional beings were on their way to their universe in search of the Singularity. The Singularity who was not yet born in their universe and who also happened to have something that the higher dimensional beings desperately wanted, so much so that they had already destroyed dozens of universes in the multiversal cluster in search of the Singularity.

He had also been warned that he was not to look at things with his arrogance. He would not be able to solve the situation. The Singularity and the SIngularity alone had the ability to prevent the invasion, allowing their universe to survive. He had of course wanted to speak more with his father and foolish thought that more Odin Force would get him more of the message so he pumped more of his energy into the imprint, not knowing that the imprint was in the body of Jane Foster, a mortal, who ended up nearly dying due to his energy.

That was when Frigga's spell severed their connection and due to the slight backlash he faced from the spell, he fainted and woke up after a while.

"I see. So we have to offer our unconditional support to Ed then," Frigga said after a while.

He found himself nodding at the question. They had no other choice and while he had grilled Alfred about his mistakes, the truth was that he and Ed truly were their best options when it came to the future of Asgard.

Thor, as he was now, was simply not capable of being King. He still didn't understand the severity of being King. The sacrifices it demands, the things it takes from you. He had no understanding of that feeling. Loki, on the other hand, had experienced many things in his life that matured him faster than Loki but his heritage was something that could not be kept hidden for long. While he himself had no problem with Loki being a Frost Giant, the people of Asgard would go to war if they heard that he was going to crown a Frost Giant, the King of Asgard.

No, Loki was always supposed to be the King of Jotunheim while Thor would be the King of Asgard. Together, both of them would foster peace between the two realms that would last for generations.

Alas, the possibility of that happening was slim and even if it did happen, the chances of him being alive till then are zero. So, all he could realistically do to make the situation slightly better was make sure that Hela was not a problem for them and help in healing the Singularity's body, a process that has been long overdue now.

The chances of them winning against Thanos with Ed at his peak condition would be vastly better than they are now, especially since Thanos knew he was alive and would not move until he was confirmed dead. He was quite shrewd that way, unwilling to even face him at his end. Cautious till the end.

"We have to help Alfred in his insane ritual idea," He said to Frigga with a resigned sigh. The amount of attention that Asgard was going to get after that ritual was not something that was desirable but he just hoped that the deterrence of Ed and Alfred would stop most of the old monsters from coming out and testing Asgard's defenses.

"I understand. I'll go over the ritual spells with the scholars and get back to you. Until then, rest, OK?" Frigga gently said as she took something out of her personal dimension and gave it to him.

He took it in his hand, only to see a glowing pill of some sort. Answering his questioning look, Frigga said, "It is an invention of Alfred. It helps people sleep properly while it recharges their stamina. I'm sure it will be helpful for you. Now, why don't you get some sleep while I make sure that Alfred does not do something incredibly stupid, like bringing in another Infinity Stone on Asgard without permission,"

He nodded and after changing into his pajamas with a flick of his fingers, he ate the pill and went to bed.

Strangely enough, he went to sleep almost right away, something of a rarity in the last century because of all the headaches he was constantly given, by the court, by the nobles, by the nine realms, by his sons.

He just hoped that by the time he woke up, there would not be another headache in the form of Alfred, waiting for him.

Guest Wing, Royal Palace, Asgard

–Ed–

"You did what?" He nearly shouted at Alfred who looked completely uncaring of the fact that he had just tried to smuggle in one of the six most dangerous weapons of the entire universe, into a foreign country without the approval of their King.

Was he out of his mind?

"I was having a discussion with Toby and wanted to show him how the ritual would go," Alfred said as he continued to pour over the ancient tome that described the ins and outs of demon hosts that Asgard had encountered millennia before even Odin was King.

He put his hand over his nose and exhaled, before counting to ten to calm his mind. He could not imagine the consequences of the stunt Alfred just pulled. Especially since he knew that there were many old monsters in the universe who would not hesitate to attack Asgard to get two Infinity Stones at the same time. A single Infinity Stone was tempting but ultimately futile to pursue because doing so under the watch of Odin was certain death.

But the temptation of Two Infinity Stones was not something those old monsters could resist.

"Is the Stone safe now?" He asked as he continued to look at the diagnostic spells that Alfred had cast on Toby, hoping to make some sort of sense of the data being shown.

He was quite aware that Toby was the reason he was even conscious right now and while he was grateful for that, he was also aware that doing so came at a cost, even for someone like Toby, who had dozens of years of experience dealing with souls, being a demon host.

"Yes, Odin took it from me. I can no longer sense it on Asgard. He must have kept it really hidden deep within the palace," Alfred said as he continued to cast a spell that created a ring of darkness around the prone form of Toby. His body continued to absorb that darkness that Alfred had taken from some unclaimed alternate dimension but he showed no signs of waking up.

"When will he wake up?"

"According to my estimates, by tomorrow morning, his body should be in a good enough condition to wield the stone,"

"Ok. I am going to sleep now. You should also get some rest for tomorrow because I have already gotten the summons for a meeting with Odin, Frigga, and the Scholars of Asgard tomorrow."

"Very well," Alfred said, still distracted by something.

---

Word Count - 2211
If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A/N - I am sorry for the delay. I had to go to the bank for some reason and then, by the time I got time to write, it was already night. WIth the tasty dinner that I cooked for myself, it got even harder for me to sit and write this so you better appreciate it.
Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 106

Technomancer in MCU

Royal Court, Asgard

–Odin–

"In short, it has a very chance of failure, My King. The ensuing backlash from the failed ritual will ensure that neither Asgard nor the surrounding space would exist. As much as it pains me to say it, not even the powers of an Infinity Stone would allow us to survive as the mixture of energy would overwrite any protection any of us could cast. My recommendation, backed by the Scholars would be to not even entertain the notion of performing the ritual on Asgard and evict the Infinity Stones from our realm as soon as possible," The Lead Scholar, Alvis, completed his report that he had been ordered to compile within the span of the night.

Despite the short span of time he had to complete his research, he could see that Alvis had covered almost all the aspects of the ritual thoroughly and had highlighted all the areas where it could fail.

He had known about most of the failures but it never hurt to have another expert take a look at it. Frigga had also come to the same conclusion even if she was able to figure out a few more flaws of the ritual and even had come up with some possible solutions for said problems.

He nodded at Alvis, dismissing him.

"By your will," Alvis bowed and left the room.

As soon as the doors closed, he sighed, resigned to the situation.

"You know, I really hate the current situation," He said to Frigga who sat beside him, going through the thorough report that Alvis had compiled for them.

"Uh-huh," Frigga said noncommittally as she continued reading the report. He sighed internally. She was really invested in it and she had every right to be. If the ritual succeeded, they would have a surefire way of dealing with Hela once and for all, without burdening Thor and Loki with his past mistakes. The temptation was understandable but they had to be very careful with the ritual. One small mistake and they could unleash enough energy to even harm the Yggdrasil, something that should be impossible, considering its all-encompassing nature but even Ygdrassil can be temporarily harmed. Well, before it healed itself with ease, of course.

"We can't go into this blindly, Frigga. More than just Asgard is at stake here," He said to her, hoping to convince her to look at his thing from all angles.

Frigga sighed and kept the report on the table and looked at him. He was internally startled at the tears in her eyes.

"You don't think I know that?!" She said before wiping off her tears. She then stood up and started pacing around in front of him.

"It is all your fault and now my sons will have to pay the price for it. Sure, the future told me that Thor would be fine and Loki would find his purpose, his oh-so glorious purpose but-" She then pointed her finger at him as she continued, "-It also showed me my death and I had accepted that."

His eyes widened as he realised that Frigga was supposed to die in the Dark Elves invasion and he would have been unable to save her, despite all his powers. The mere thought of losing her to all those scoundrels made his blood boil.

".And yet, here I am, alive and well. Now, I don't know what is supposed to be happening but I do know one thing and that is, that Hella will soon be released from her prison." Frigga continued.

"There is no one here who is capable of beating her. Certainly not while she has her connection to Asgard. Toby might have had a chance had he not been shouldering Ed's soul but even then, it would have been completely uncertain, who would win or not," She said as she once again sat back down in her seat, completely depressed about the upcoming situation.

His fists clenched as he thought of the situation. Back then, he had had no solution to the problem that was Hela's ever-increasing bouts of madness that always led to an indiscriminate slaughter. In the initial days of the war, it was actually beneficial for Asgard as Hela had the sense to just jump into the fray and utterly destroy any enemy army they were facing at the moment, and then, came the day.

The day when he had been holding a meeting with his war generals on how to further proceed with the war, as he had been thinking of involving civilisations outside of the nine realms back then when he had received the news.

The Slaughter of Alfheim.

Alfheim had been one of the last realms they had ventured into simply because it was not worth it. The Light Elves were an inherently peaceful species and as such, had no inclination to fight them, posing no threat to his regime. Even then, he was going to make sure that Alfheim bent the knee to his rule but not in the way Hela had done.

In the first place, it was forbidden to enter Alfheim because the leader of the Light Elves was someone who possessed complete awareness of his realm. Not even a single soldier could sneak into Alfheim without him knowing about it. In such a situation, considering the control he possessed over the light of Alfheim, it was no use in sending an army that would only be destroyed within moments of them touching land.

In such a situation, where Hela was supposed to stay still until they had decided on further direction, she had experienced another one of her bouts of madness and had unilaterally decided to go on to the one realm where no allies lived, at least in her mind she thought that.

Unfortunately, the leader of Alfheim was absent from the realm that day, the reason he did not know and thus, there was no one in the entire realm of Alfheim who could contend with Hela. On that fateful day, Hela proceeded to slaughter over half of the population of Alfheim with her darkness-fueled necromantic powers before he could stop her.

The Leader of the Light Elves, after coming back from wherever he had gone to, saw the state of his people and instead of flying into a fit of rage and fighting a dying battle with Asgard, chose to transmit the deeds of Hela Odinsdottir, damaging Asgard more than he ever could have if he had just chosen to battle him.

Then, he burned his life and soul to sever the connection of Alfheim to Yggdrasil and cut off their realm from the universe, hiding their homeland from the universe. To this day, neither he nor anybody else has found the Light Elves.

The repeated transmissions of his daughter's actions served, more than anything, a wake-up call to the senseless war he had waged all over the nine realms. So, that day, he chose peace and decided to unilaterally end the war. Everybody was surprised with the decision because they had all the reasons to go ahead and spread the war even more but in the end, even Asgardians had limits so most of the people were very happy that the long war was over once and for all. Hela, on the other hand, was not a normal Asgardian. Ever since she could fight, all she knew was war. It was his fault really that he had not expected such a reaction from her. She had openly rebelled against him, threatening to destabilise his regime as the only Heir rebelling against him would have made him the laughing stock in the universe.

Thus, he sent the Valkyrie ahead, fully knowing that most of them would die, just so he could prepare a large-scale ritual that would affect the entirety of the nine realms. The ritual was such that in addition to severing Hela's connection to Asgard, and using his Odin Force as the catalyst, it also made sure that Hela Odinsdottir was forgotten from history. Nobody would remember her and over time, the rest of the universe, save for the old civilizations, forgot about her as well.

And now, here they were, sitting on the cusp of Hela's freedom because, in his zealousness of banishing Hela, he had forgotten that he too would grow old one day. He had underestimated the tenaciousness of his daughter because, to this day, he could feel her magic knocking on the metaphorical walls of the prison he had imprisoned her. He could already envision her elation at figuring out that the magic was weakening day by day, bringing her day of freedom closer and closer.

None of his sons were a match for her. Sure, in the future, once they were allowed to grow into their respective powers, they would surely be able to hold their own against her but they had grown up in a time of peace. Fighting against Hela, who was born in war, bled in war, and learned in war, they would stand no chance as they were now. It was no wonder Frigga was despairing about the situation.

No. He would not allow it. He will not allow his visions of Ragnarok to come true, not if he had a chance of stopping it.

"We will stop her," he said to a surprised Frigga. He looked at her and banged Gungnir on the ground, creating a bang that sounded throughout Asgard.

"In the name of my father and his father before, I, Odin AllFather, swear to vanquish Hela, The Goddess of Death,"

The vow, cast upon the very source of his pool of powers, the Odin Force, reverberated across the Nine Realms, heard by every being of considerable power.

In the Guest Wing of Asgard

Alfred was in the middle of recasting the spell of darkness around the barrier that he had constructed around Toby when he stumbled forward as the magical impact of Odin's vow was felt by him.

In the barrier of the darkness within, Alfred could feel Toby stirring awake by the impact of the vow as well.

Ed could feel something happening but was not able to understand exactly what had happened.

Loki, who was standing on the Rainbow Bridge with Heimdall, something that he had found soothing, was surprised as he saw Heimdall staggering. He went forward to help but Heimdall steadied himself with his sword. He was about to ask what happened but the question got stuck in his mouth as Heimdall immediately turned tail and began running towards the center of the observatory, looking far more frantic than he had ever seen him in his entire life. Soon, the Rainbow Bridge Observatory was closed down in front of him as Loki wondered what exactly was happening. He looked back to the Royal Palace in concern as he began his journey back.

The same thing was happening across the nine realms, as the erased memories of Hela Odinsdottir began returning to beings of exceptional strength and old age.

Odin's vow had a cascading effect across the universe as the universe was once again introduced to the terror that was The Goddess of Death, Hela Odinsdottir.

Royal Court, Asgard

–Odin–

"What have you done?" Frigga asked him as she helped him sit back on his throne.

He had done the thing he should have done ages ago, vowed to solve a problem he was responsible for.

"We will help Alfred heal Ed. That is the best solution to all of this mess. For that, I am willing to risk everything because if I die and Hela wins, Asgard will not survive anyway," He said to Frigga, already thinking of places where the common populace can live while they deal with Hela.

Frigga looked shocked but nodded nonetheless. She stood up, "I will ask Alfred for ways to make sure that the common population can be safely evacuated to Earth. I am sure that with their influence, they can easily accommodate our people."

"Very well," He nodded to her.

She left the room, leaving him alone to ponder on his failures and the various mistakes that he had committed throughout his life.

"Huh, look at me, regretting my life like a mortal. I, Odin Borson, have lived a full life and will go out dying like a star. Nothing can stop me from achieving that." He chuckled wryly and leaned back into his throne, feeling truly free of his burdens for the first time in centuries.

It felt good.

---

Word Count - 2110
If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 107

Technomancer in MCU

Royal Court, Asgard

–Ed–

Here they were, an hour after Alfred had recorded some sort of magical interference that ran across the nine realms. For reasons he could not understand, Odin and Frigga were suddenly on board with Alfred's crazy plan. They had also asked for ways to evacuate the entirety of the population of Asgard to a safe place, most likely, on Earth. The evacuation was supposed to be temporary of course but with the forces in play, none of them could guarantee complete success and as such, Frigga had asked them for alternate arrangements for a more permanent settlement on Earth.

He could only imagine the chaos that would happen across the planet when they realised that a society of superpowered bulletproof people would be living on the planet. More so, for people who follow the Norse religion, realizing that their Gods would once again walk the Earth. The mere thought of religion coming in and murkying the already turbulent waters made his head hurt even though it should have been impossible given he was in a puppet

Nevertheless, it was a no-brainer to evacuate all the nonrelated personnel off Asgard because of the ritual that was about to take place. He had asked Alfred about it and apparently, underneath Asgard, right below the Royal Palace actually, there existed a "safe" space. The space was intermingled with the roots of Yggdrasil, making it the place with the highest level of stability across the nine realms. It was also apparently an alternate dimension so the chances of the rest of the universe sniffing out about the multiple Infinity Stones in a single place would be quite nil. Asgard's deterrence also added another layer of safety because even if somebody did find traces of Infinity Stones on Asgard, as long as Odin was alive, not many had the guts to find out if the Old Man still had his strength or not.

So, there he was, communicating with Frank and Skye to create a settlement capable of housing just over a hundred thousand super-powered people.

"You want us to do what?!" Skye shouted across the comms. Frank just looked on dispassionately, waiting for further orders.

Skye, on the other hand, "You go for a trip across the galaxy for some important medical procedure and the next moment, you call us and you want to create a small city overnight?" She nearly shouted across the screen.

He sighed, "Look, it's just as a precaution but the chances of it being permanent are not zero. So, we have to take that into account. I am sure Alfred has already built a design for something like that,"

"I'm slightly offended that you even have to ask," The voice of Alfred could be heard speaking over the speakers in the base as well as right next to him. It was slightly creepy.

Skye's and Frank's eyes looked in another direction as Alfred must have shown them the plan for the city.

"What is this? Multiple locations? Single Access Point, Landlocked place, city-wide barrier, cloaking technology, flying island!? Multiple Large Arc Reactors, the foundation built with vibranium alloy? Are you nuts? This will cost us a fortune. Even the Inhumans didn't get anything this advanced."

He was about to explain the probable reasoning behind Alfred's actions but Frank beat him to it, "Skye, it's simple. Just compare the numbers. The ratio is 10:1 and the Inhumans can be trusted to be by themselves."

"Yes, the city is supposed to act like a natural blockade between regular squishy humans and bulletproof Asgardians," Alfred chimed in between.

"Ohh," Skye exclaimed.

He turned his attention back to Frank who was going over all of the different designs that Alfred must have made over the years, "What do you think, Frank?"

"Well, if you have said so, we have to build it. I am just looking for a city that can be built in the least possible time. The floating island will take too long and I am not about to take the chances of a floating island malfunctioning and slamming down somewhere because some angry Asgardians decided to drink a bit too much and destroy some critical infrastructure somewhere," Frank said.

Yeah, that was a very valid concern. Even here on Asgard, they must have an astonishingly skilled repair crew because things were broken by drunk people all the time. Sometimes, they were not even drunk and liked to break things for just fun. It would not be funny if, by some miracle, they managed to get past the reactor housing and blew themselves up.

He shuddered as he imagined that scenario. THor would be so angry and by the time THor grew into his powers, nobody in his employ would want to mess with God King Thor. It would just not be worth it.

"What do you think, Alfred? Which is the most optimal design?"

"Well, if we had time, we could have just built them another planetoid like this one but since we are short on time, I would suggest we go with a landlocked area somewhere in the poles, hidden by the natural cloaking abilities of the environment there," Alfred said.

"That's genius!" Skye added, "We could place the city in the most inhospitable environment possible, deterring any humans from coming nearby, and with the Asgardians being as hardy as they are, that level of cold would be nothing for them,"

"And even if they did feel cold, we can just manipulate the weather inside the barrier that will no doubt surround their city. They are space Vikings anyway, so this should be perfect for them. This should work," Frank added in his two cents as well.

He then clapped his hands, "Great! We have a location and design ready. I suggest you all get to work. We were able to build a huge section of Upper Manhattan within hours. This much should be done in less than a day, right?

He cut the call before Frank or Skye could voice their objections. This was going to put a dent in the resources they had and a bunch of manpower would probably be diverted from non-critical missions to make sure everything was done on time but they were ready. They would be able to do all the things in time.

"Ugh, this sucks. I can't even remember when I felt this week in my entire life as a demon," Toby groaned as he stumbled out of his bedroom and sat down on the dining table they had converted into their office space. It was huge so space was not an issue.

"Here, this should help," Alfred said before tossing something at Toby whose hand snapped up and caught it before it could hit his face. As Toby opened his fist, he could see a small ball of darkness that seemed to suck all the light surrounding it.

"What is it?" He asked the question Toby must have wanted to ask, Alfred.

"Oh, that is something I cooked over the night. COncentrated Darkness essence from an unclaimed alternate dimension. Should be like an energy booster for him," Alfred pointed at Toby before going back to work on his virtual workspaces that were invisible to everybody but him.

"Hmm, this feels weird but it's a potent source of energy. Much better than slowly drawing strength from the surroundings," Toby said as he continued to munch on the ball of darkness. He could see the effect too as colour returned to Toby's haggard face. Honestly, he felt a little guilty seeing his condition but it was not as if the reason he was exhausted so soon was because of Toby's tantrum. A tantrum so destructive that he had to overdraw on his abilities to help imprison him.

"Alfred, how many sorcerers can you spare with accurate portal opening capabilities?" He asked Alfred because the section of city creation was done now. Now, they had to figure out a way to transport everybody along with their items of luggage to Earth, especially to the North Pole.

"Hmm, that won't be necessary. I can create large gates on all the corners of the city. They can be easily anchored using my brand of runes. The only caveat will be that since I will be the one powering them, that too for such long distances and time, I will be unable to participate in the ritual immediately." Alfred said as he projected the schematics for the gate that would be anchored in the city. It looked pretty big in the model. At Least as large as the Rainbow Bridge observatory.

"Okay, that works. I will go and brief the Queen on this then,"

"Alright."

"Just go."

He turned around and left the dining area. Just as he was about to cross the hall, he froze and immediately turned around. Alfred and Toby were looking at some magic circle together when both of them looked up at him in confusion.

"Alfred, what is the status of Jane?"

He had a hunch that she was going to play a very important role in the upcoming events.

"Oh, she is resting currently, well at least according to Asgardian standards that is. She is now a full Asgardian and as such, needs next to no rest. Her intellect has been enhanced as well, judging by the sheer research ideas she has sent to me. Her magic has yet to be tested though,"

"I am talking about the Reality Stone inside her,"

"Oh, that. No, both Odin and Frigga have forbidden me from even touching that. So, I have no idea about that. Why?" Alfred looked at him curiously.

"What are the chances of training her under a time dilation powered by the Time Stone?"

Alfred suddenly gained an interested look on his face as he replied, "Well, normally, doing that would result in a subpar result at best and an explosion at worst since I myself am not yet capable of wielding two stones properly. Just like that, if the energy of the Time Stone washed over Jane, the Reality Stone could take that as a threat and retaliate. I would have to conduct some experiments but I could probably reach a balance where time could be slowed down for Jane as she practices her powers,"

"That was exactly what I wanted to hear. Now, calculate the chances of the ritual succeeding should the Reality Stone come into play. Even if she is unable to use it precisely, the Reality Stone should be able to alter some factors and increase our chances,"

Alfred looked at him before slowly floating away from the table and casting a spell on himself. He looked completely still for a minute or two before he opened his eyes and he found himself sighing in relief when he saw Alfred smiling.

"So, what are our chances now? Toby asked.

"Addition of the Reality Stone that alters the basic underlying parameters of the ritual in our favour increases our chances of success from 20.22% to 81.1%," Alfred said in a jubilant tone.

His body sagged in relief once he heard the news.

"I'll go tell Frigga and Odin about this new development. Do you have anything that I can give to them?"

"Oh, yes. Take this," Alfred handed him a piece of stone that was imbued with a message spell, containing all the data.

"Oh, right. Alfred, has Strange arrived yet?"

"Oh, yeah. He has already started breaking the rules of Kamar Taj. I am very delighted seeing Wong frustrated by Strange,"

"Great. Once Jane goes to Kamar Taj, train both of them in the time dilation. I am sure Strange will benefit from it as well. We are going to need all capable hands for the upcoming battle," He reminded Alfred before leaving the room.

Strange was someone who would go on to become even more skilled than the Ancient One but the reason he was able to master his skills so fast was because of the very nature of the Dark Dimension where Dormammu resided. Now that they had pretty much neutralised Dormammu and his realm, they would have to resort to artificial time dilation so that Strange could once again come into the skills and powers he knows he can reach once again.

Also, having two Sorcerer Supreme-level sorcerers backing the team up would not hurt anyone, especially against someone like Thanos who would most likely be armed with multiple Infinity Stones by the time they meet face to face.

---

Word Count - 2111
If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 108

Technomancer in MCU

Stark Tower, New York, Earth

–Tony–

"Hey Tony, are you looking at this?" He poked his head out of his workstation as he heard Bruce speak something with a shocked voice.

"Jarvis?" He spoke up as soon as he opened his eyes from the short power nap he was taking. It must be nice, to have the option to keep sleep as optional. Although, now that he thought about it, the tradeoffs were really not worth it. Bruce's powers had that one upside that helped him in scientific research and a dozen downsides that turned his life upside down, robbing him of any stability, thus stopping him from conducting any worthwhile research.

"Yes, sir. Just 78 minutes ago, the custom satellite that Sir had launched a couple of months back sensed some unusual activity in the North Pole. Due to the weather, the satellite was unable to pinpoint anything other than clear signs of human movement. Huge blocks of mass are being moved from their place in the poles, sir. Multiple Bogies are en route for a better view, Sir." Jarvis kindly explained as a hologram popped up in front of him, showing rough outlines of the activity being carried out deep in the North Pole.

The astonishing thing was that it looked like they were carrying out construction activities of some sort and the people who could do that could be counted on one finger. Hell, he was not even sure he was capable of undertaking that task under those conditions. Building another Stark Tower in less than six months? Sure. But doing anything in those conditions was not possible for any organisation he knew of, except the Ascendancy, Atlantis, and maybe, Wakanda.

He then whirled to Bruce, "Have you confirmed it with the Wakandans?"

"I have taken the liberty to converse with their budding AI, Griot and according to her latest updates, there has been no scheduled large-scale activity outside their continent, let alone on the Poles. She has also assured me that Wakanda is currently incapable of doing anything of that level in those conditions. She has also conveyed our concerns to the Second Prince as well as the King and will get back to us as soon as possible," Jarvis chimed in between.

Well, that was helpful but not to them.

Well, he had an idea of how to better tackle the situation. It had been a while since he had gone out of the Tower as well so this presented a good opportunity to stretch their legs. "How long until the scanners reach the site, J?" He asked J as he began stretching in place. Bruce looked alarmed at his actions.

Understandable since the only time he did that was when he was about to suit up and Bruce must know that he was not going to go to the Poles alone and he was pretty sure that Bruce would not let him leave alone anyway. He was a bro like that.

"Due to the launch locations being far away and taking into account the weather conditions, it will be a while before the boogies can find a suitable place to land, Sir,"

He grinned at that news, "Perfect!"

"Tony, we should let Jarvis find out more details before we just storm that place." Bruce tried to reason with him but when has Tony Stark ever let logic stop him before?

He put his arm over Bruce's shoulder and began leading him away from the lab to their respective suit stations, not heeding any of his warnings even as he tried to stop him verbally.

Honestly, he thought that Bruce too wanted a piece of that action but was always afraid to do so because of his condition, as he liked to call it. Case in point, even as he tried to fight him tooth and nail about going to the North Pole, there was not even a shred of physical resistance from the bespectacled scientist even though he knew that the moment Bruce stopped walking, he would not pester him for it.

And yet, they found themselves standing in front of their respective suits. Bruce's was a surprise that he had kept for his birthday but he could think of something else for that day.

"Whaa-" Bruce's sound of confusion pleased him immensely. After all the work he had to put into making it compatible with Bruce's alter ego, that much was expected although the form they were seeing now was not the final one. They still had to do some testing in the field before it could be ready for deployment.

Keeping that in mind, he turned to Bruce, "So, what do you think? And before you say that you don't need it, I might have agreed with you had I not known that the Hulk is only limited by his mobility and this suit," He looked at the gigantic hulking(huh, pun intended) suit and sighed in joy. It truly was his masterpiece.

Standing at over 9 feet tall, the suit was huge, even for the Hulk but he had made it with extra features in mind, tapping the nanotech that Alfred had given them access to, in the Lab. It still boggled his mind that the tech he had access to, was somehow barebones for Alfred.

"Tony, I-I don't know what to say," Bruce said, getting all sappy on him. He honestly had no idea how to deal with emotions and someday he would have to learn that, at least for his future kids but for now? He was going to just ignore Bruce's teary eyes. The best he could do for him now was just clap him on the shoulder.

"So, wanna hear the features?" He asked Bruce as he rubbed his hands in excitement.

"I'm afraid I will have to interrupt that decision, Sir," He looked up at the ceiling in confusion.

His unasked question was answered soon because a hologram was projected right in front of him that depicted the surveillance bogies that Jarvis had sent ahead. They were following the correct path to the disturbances when, suddenly, they disappeared. Not attack or anything, just disappeared from any of the surveillance Jarvis had access to and he had access to almost everything.

"Tony, just what is going on?" Bruce asked him, aghast because he was aware of what went into the construction of those next-gen satellites. Because that's what those bogies were, mobile satellites that could be deployed at any location upon demand, made from the strongest possible alloys. It wasn't made of Vibranium or anything fancy like that but it could easily take a couple of hits from the Hulk and come out unscathed. For it to just disappear like that meant something else was afoot.

"J, do you still have a direct line to Alfred?" He really didn't want to talk to Alfred before talking to Ed because of the whole Strange debacle, which has conspicuously dropped form the radar after reaching Nepal. He didn't want to think about the choices Strange must have taken after his disability but right now, he had no other option. If it was an alien invasion like last time and they had some evil plan to melt the poles to bring about the biblical Flood, they would be well out of their depths here.

The hologram in front of him shifted from showing the tracking measures to a call page. It rang for a few seconds before it was picked up.

"Hey Alf-"

"Stark, why are your satellites intruding on our construction bases? I was not aware that the Poles were of that much interest to you," An unfamiliar voice spoke from the other side.

He and Bruce looked at each other, confused as to who picked up the call. He even looked at the ceiling with a raised eyebrow, conveying to Jarvis his question who responded by authenticating the link between him and Alfred in real time.

Clearing his throat, he spoke back, "Ahem, who am I speaking to?"

"You are speaking to Frank Castle, comm- ex-commander of the ground forces of Ascendancy. You will get your scrap back soon enough, Stark. We have no time for unscheduled deliveries right now. Goodbye,"

"W-Wait!" His words fell on deaf ears as the line was cut and it would seem that it had gone offline as well, stopping them from making any sort of communication with whatever the hell they were doing there.

A construction site? What were they even building in the North Pole?

Well, time to find out then.

His grin must have unsettled Bruce because he immediately began waving his arms back and forth, "No, Tony NO! You heard him. That man was a commander, well, ex-commander and he somehow took down the most advanced piece of armour we have ever developed. I, for one, would like to know more before we go to such a hostile environment, Tony."

He didn't stop grinning when he listened to the list of reasons Bruce laid down for not going. He didn't stop grinning when he eventually wore him down and made him enter the armour. He didn't stop grinning when Jarvis gave Bruce a crash course on his armour. He didn't stop grinning even when he heard Bruce's exclamations about the multitude of features he had built into the suit that were specialised for when Bruce "Hulked" Out.

His grin only faded once they entered the atmosphere right above the snowy terrain of the North Pole. Somehow, there was a snowstorm without any being predicted by any of the weather forecasts on the planet.

"Tony, you were right. This storm doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't exist. This is clearly artificial," Bruce's voice could be heard over the comms as he analysed everything about the storm in front of them. Normally, snowstorms should move, albeit slowly, but the one in front of them seemed to be fixed with the center being the place where Jarvis had initially detected activity. Activity that seemed to be absent from his sensors now that they were close by.

It would seem that they found the hole and plugged it. Pretty fast, he must say.

"What are we going to do now, Tony?"

"Bruce, have you ever wondered what it would be like to fall through a storm, straight into its center? I know I have?"

"Tony....*Sigh*.."

That was the only reply Bruce gave before he followed him right into the storm. He was not exactly falling into the storm. More like, they were rocketing right into the storm.

Right as they had entered the center of the storm, he heard Jarvis say something.

"Sir, unusual energy currents detected. Recommend Immediate Retre-a-a-t," Something happened because Jarvis' voice cut off, and then, the entire suit lost power, leaving him barrelling straight down into an icy storm.

He could barely see from the holes in the suit since no matter what he did, the suit refused to turn back on. Even the warmth from the Arc reactor was gone. Seeing that none of the measures worked, he closed his eyes and hoped for the best. He had trust in the suit that they would not die from the impact but they would most certainly die from frostbite.

Before he could feel the impact though, he felt his suit slowing down. He opened his eyes with hope, only to be greeted with a confusing scenery.

"Package secured," A robotic voice was heard outside his suit.

He was startled when his face mask was wrenched open. He blinked in response to the sudden light in his eyes but when his vision came back, he could only gape in awe.

He could see Bruce's suit being held aloft by a robot, the same with his suit. That was not the surprising part. The surprising part was the city that was being built in front of them.

A flying city!

Oh, this was going to be so awesome! He could just feel it in his bones.

….

…

"You will remain here until Commander Frank returns," The robot said before shutting the gates of their prison after removing their suits.

On second thought, maybe not so awesome.

"Well, at least it's not cold?" He offered to Bruce who was looking at him reproachfully.

---

Word Count - 2070
A/N - A slight detour from the mainline but the end is near. I can feel it. Maybe a dozen more chapters before the story ends. I can't wait to have my first ever fanfic finished. Oh, it will be such a relief.
If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

[A/N - Double Release Today.]


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

Chapter 109

Technomancer in MCU

Guest Wing, Asgard

–Ed–

"..Sigh… Just what was Stark thinking, barging in recklessly like that? Anyway, that's Frank's problem to deal with. How is the city coming along?" He asked Skye who was on the other side of the call. It had been almost 6 hours since they had given out the orders for the city to be built and the entirety of the Ascendancy was mobilised to make that happen.

Skye looked annoyed at that as well. Honestly, none of the people in the organisation had any time for the Billionaire turned-hero but they could not just ignore him either. God knows what that man would end up doing if he was kept alone for long. Frank and all of the departmental heads were busy, coordinating with each other as they diverted resources from everywhere to the construction site that was being built at the North Pole. Already, he could see the number of people who were actively working on the project increasing as time went on.

Honestly, somewhere along the way, he had amassed so many people and so many means to accomplish stuff that now that he was finally seeing the entirety of his organisation moving at the same time, it was kind of shocking.

For someone like him, who had expected to fight against Thanos, the big bad of the MCU, with Alfred, Toby, and maybe, the reunited Avengers, this was all very surprising. He could honestly say that, as they were now, they would be able to triumph over the current roster of Avengers without much difficulty or even any casualties.

And wasn't that a terrifying thing to think about? The greatest champions of Humanity, defeated by something that he had started after getting an offhand comment from Alfred about him overworking himself and needing some sort of support system to help stem the flow of tasks.

"We are done with the foundations of the city, which was the easiest part. We already had a model for that from the New Attilan city so we just copy-pasted that along with adding sturdier vibranium alloyed foundations as per the requirements," Skye reported to him. He nodded along, fully aware of the requirements of a bunch of rowdy Asgardians who could just as easily tear off a metal bar as an adult human tearing a piece of plastic bag.

"What about the accommodations?" He found himself asking her because while accommodations were a priority, luxury accommodations were not something that was necessary, especially since that could be built later on if–when Asgard was destroyed. Right now, all they needed to build was makeshift structures with enough resources to safely sustain the entire population of Asgard for at least a week.

It would not take anywhere that long to complete the ritual but for a safe side, Alfred had made that a requirement.

"Temporary accommodations are being constructed as we speak. We should have more than enough for everybody but if we need more, we can just project hard light constructs as per requirements. Hard light constructs were chosen to be installed at every possible place to ensure maximum coverage across the city, for both accommodation as well as security purposes. Alfred assured me that the newer hard light projectors will have the necessary throughput in them to stop even the stronger Asgardians from breaking through," Skye continued, reading through a bunch of reports that were being continually fed to her through her retinal HUD, that were active even now as she spoke with him.

"What about Asgardian weapons, though?" He asked Skye when it crossed his mind. Asgardian weapons were more often than not, made out of better materials and also enchanted at times. Allowing them to be sharper than most things on Earth. He was curious as to how it was going to be handled.

Skye grimaced at that question, "Well, blunt weapons can be stopped to a certain point. Certainly not Mjolnir but an enchanted hammer can be stopped, probably, but enchanted sharp weapons like a sword or an axe would most likely cleave right through the hard light barriers. The solution that I have come up with, and Alfred agrees with it too, is to abandon that section of hard light immediately and cover the entirety of the weapon, along with its wielder, in Hard light, rendering them immobile. The other option would be increasing the throughput of the Hard Light projectors but with the power we have on hand at the island, what with only a single Large Arc reactor being installed along with 4 Small ones for backup, we cannot increase the strength of the barriers. I see in the schematics that Alfred has created the infrastructure for a future upgrade to an N-reactor in the future but for now? The Arc reactor would have to do."

"What if there are other people who can help the imprisoned weapon user? What is the strate-"

"Ed, I am going to stop you right there. I have a lot of stuff to do and reporting everything to you will take more time than it is worth now. I know you trust everyone to do their jobs so why the sudden interest in everything?" She sighed, turned off her retinal HUD, and asked him the question that he feared.

Yeah, why was he pestering her for such small details when he knew that Alfred was there with her, along with every single person in the Ascendancy on her speed dial, ready to drop everything and assist her in the current project because it has been assigned importance level "SSS" by Alfred himself. He had no reason to pull her aside from her duties and demand updates that could just be given to him on a tablet that Alfred no doubt updates in real-time.

He was just…

He sighed, his shoulders drooping as he replied, not finding it within himself to look right in the concerned eyes of Skye, "Look, I don't know what to do, alright? I guess I am a little bit scared as well. I had already given up on healing my body and resolved to go out with a bang, at least heavily injuring Thanos before you all took him down for good,"

Skye just looked at him with compassion in her eyes as he continued to talk about what he was feeling at the moment.

"Now, Alfred says that we have a very high chance of succeeding, and in my mind, I want to believe him but the what-ifs keep running in my head. What if the ritual fails and instead of restoring me back to my peak, what if it ends up hurting the strongest people we have on our side because that is what is on the line? Toby, Alfred, Thor, Loki, You, and Banner are all the strongest people in the fight against Thanos and I fully believe that even without me, you will eventually defeat him but Alfred's insisting on competing in the ritual and I guess, even I have gotten a little hopeful about it,"

He then chuckled wryly, "I'm sorry. Just ignore my ramblings. I am sure you have a lot of work to do," He was about to cut the call when Skye spoke up.

"No. No, you are correct in that regard and I don't think there is a single thing that you can do to convince Alfred and the others to stop, not now of all times." Skye spoke. She then did something and Maria Castle of all people was added to the call.

Before he could get a word in, Maria spoke, "Hello, what do you need, Skye? Oh, hello, Ed. What's going on?:"

"Oh, yeah, Maria, Ed is going into a tirade about how risky the ritual is and how we should just let him die instead of risking hurting all of our strongest players in the ritual."

He glared at Skye, betraying him like that. Getting a lecture from Maria was the last thing he wanted to do today.

Skye then waved her hand towards him and said, "Continue…" Then she skedaddled out of the call.

He looked at Maria who looked equal parts angry and hurt, the worst possible combination when it came to her, "L-look, I can explain…"

North Pole, Earth

–Skye–

She sighed after getting out of the call. Honestly, what was Ed thinking? Of course, they would try anything and everything to get him healed. He was their leader.

Before she could get a moment of respite, somebody barged into her makeshift office which was just a hard light conjuration.

"Commander Skye, Commander Castle has returned from Atlantis,"

"Ex-Commander," She corrected the person who had come in.

"Um, Mam?"

'Sigh, Just go. I'll be there in a second,"

"Yes, Mam!" He saluted and left her office.

Frank had gone on a warpath on the planet, making sure that no chaotic element remained that could distract the organisation from working at peak efficiency. From the mystic hotspots that had innumerable mages to the hidden civilisations like Atlantis to the scattered small groups like the Skrulls, Eternals, and even the Deviants. Each and every one of those people was intimidated by the might of Ex-Commander Castle, backed by the might of Ascendancy.

All that was left was the United States along with the Avengers. It was a good thing that Stark himself came to them before Frank sought him out. With Stark's ego, who knows what would have happened had they clashed?

Actually, she knew exactly what would have happened. Frank would have easily dismantled any attack Stark would have thrown at him and then they would have had to deal with a Hulked out Bruce Banner which was honestly, easier than she had thought.

The Hulk was terrifying because there were very few things that could survive a straight bout with him. Then, the solution was simple. Don't interact with him at all. The first sign of Bruce Banner turning green, multiple nano pockets would be launched at him that would continue to cling to his body, eventually burrowing inside his skin and lathing themselves to his bones. Then, the bots would go down to the soles of his feet and emit repulsors at the highest settings, vaporising his legs but to ensure that the Hulk would not be able to just remove the bots, it was a small price to pay. It would be painful, sure, but Bruce Banner would thank them for it, especially since the foot would keep on regenerating as long as Bruce was green.

She sighed, she was going on more and more tangents ever since she was given command of this project. Honestly, why couldn't Frank take the lead this time? She was just a baby and given this task was kinda overwhelming but Daisy Johnson was made of sterner stuff and she would prevail over this admitted huge task.

She slapped herself on the cheeks to get out of the rut and stormed out of the office, her tablet floating behind her.

She marched straight towards the temporary hangar that was built on the floating city. Well, it was temporary for their organisation but if it was compared to any hangar on the planet, it would be better than all of the hangars and runways that any country had ever built. It helped that their jets were all running on anti-gravity technology though. That, and Repulsor jets made it very easy to make jets with VTOL [Vertical Take-Off & Landing] capabilities.

Once she was inside the Hangar, she saw Frank speaking to his team while handing over his stained uniform to a bot that had appeared by his side.

"What happened in Atlantis?" She asked him once he was in hearing range.

Frank turned around and after looking at her, dismissed his team, all of whom had varying degrees of wear and tear on their suits.

"What happened to their suits?"

Frank looked at her and sighed, "Long Story,"

She found herself nodding even though she was very curious as to who and what could force Frank to fight himself instead of employing the vast firepower they had access to, especially since Alfred had mass produced captain-class armours and distributed them en-masse to all field agents. Frank was, essentially, carrying around a large country's army around with him at all times so them encountering any opposition that was not immediately overcome was kind of surprising.

"But we are go for mission Asgard then?" She asked him. They had been sent a list by Alfred with things to do before the main forces of their organisation could be shifted to Asgard, to act as security for the ritual.

It included eliminating a ton of people and destroying a couple of organisations that were still budding along with tasking the current rules of various countries to make sure that their dissenting organisations were nipped in the bud. Various stray organisations that had built up in both Atlantis and Wakanda had to be destroyed before they could make their moves. It was also to act as a reminder to both of the countries' Kings that they were still under the surveillance of the Ascendancy.

"Yes. The list is done. We can go to Asgard once the city is done. Namor was surprisingly understanding once I beat him,"

His last statement raised her eyebrows in surprise. Defeating Namor, especially underwater, was a task even for the Hulk then how did he…

"Oh, Namor is a mutant by his species' standard and you just nullified his powers?"

"I was able to do that barely but it was enough to convince him. Oh, what's this I hear about Stark intruding on the base?"

"Oh, you are not going to like this," She grimaced as she reported the situation to Frank, who looked more and more resigned as time went by.

"Fine, lead the way," Frank said, resigned to dealing with the most troublesome member of the Avengers.

She would be lying if she did not find the situation a bit exciting. The billionaire was known to push the right buttons of everybody around him and she could not wait to see how Frank would react.

---

Word Count - 2386
If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 110

Technomancer in MCU

Royal Palace, Asgard

–Ed–

"So, I just had a long chat with Maria and she revealed an interesting fact to me. Care to listen, Alfred?" He asked Alfred who was busy doing who knows what on the literal hundreds of windows he had opened in front of him. Some of them showed progress on the city's infrastructure being built, some of them showed old obscure maps of the universe, and some of them showed magical symbols that he couldn't make heads or tails of.

The bottom line was that Alfred was very much busy and yet he had found through his talks with Maria that Alfred had been the person who was just as nervous as he was. Granted, a degree of concern was expected from someone who was the closest thing he had to a son in this universe but Alfred really liked to project this cool suave image of himself so he thought, maybe, he could come here and rib him a little bit, like he does to his "old man" even though he is not even in his 30s yet.

Damn, 30 and still hadn't even kissed a girl in this universe. Once he is healed up, maybe he should just advertise that fact to the world. Heaps of girls would just jump on the chance to date him. By then, he would be rich, handsome, powerful, and "gifted" in all the right places.

"What is it, Old man? Can't you see that I am a little busy here? Even for someone like me, balancing the careful act of maintaining the facade that everything is alright while also making sure that sufficient forces are stationed at every single one of our colonies is a huge task. It is not made easy by the fact that almost all of the top-tier combat prowess of our organisation are either going to be busy participating in the ritual or busy protecting the ritual room. The only available S-tier combatant who would be free and available for deployment would be Grand Priest Ajax and even then, we don't have enough skilled sorcerers who can open portals across the galaxy on demand. So, once again, what do you want?"

Alfred went on this huge ramble about his workload even though he knew that his brain was literally built to handle tasks thousands of times more complex than this. He could understand Alfred's dilemma, to be honest. They did have a surplus of technology and resources that would make handling any civilisation a piece of cake but what they didn't have were people strong and skilled enough to safely operate that technology. Alfred was going to cut himself off from everything when the ritual was taking place which meant the entirety of the organisation would have to run by themselves.

It was good that they had a trial run when Alfred gave them all a jump scare a while back when he went to make his body. The second part was that all of the strong people were going to be needed on Asgard to make sure that the ritual room was protected. In Alfred's words, "If this is not the time for overkill, I don't know what is," And he agreed with him.

But seeing the list of people who were going to be on Asgard for his protection would have made his teenage nerd self cry with joy and awe.

"I was just concerned about the fact that you seem to be concerned about the ritual, despite all the calculations you have no doubt done to be sure," He said to Alfred off-handedly, quite aware that he doesn't like that.

Alfred sighed, "Maria told you didn't she,"

"Yeah,"

"There is nothing to worry about. I mean, there is something to worry about but I don't think it will be so much of a problem that the entirety of our gathered forces will be unable to deal with,"

He caught on to Alfred's meaning immediately, "So you are positive that it is time for "it" to come out,"

"Very soon. The strain of the ritual would most probably release "it" from its prison,"

He nodded along, agreeing with Alfred's predictions. The reason they were bringing in so much outside help was for many reasons but the major one among them was Hela Odindottir, Goddess of Death.

Alfred had confided in him, under closed barriers, that it was a near certainty that Odin would weaken himself to such an extent, during the ritual, that the prison surrounding Hela would break apart with ease, unleashing the Goddess of Death once again onto the nine realms. Defeating Hela was very simple, at least in his eyes since he was aware of what Thor did to defeat her in the movies, but the complication arose when they had need of Asgard's ritual room since there was no other place in the entire known universe where they could field so much of their forces while also getting the best possible environment for the ritual.

No, it had to be on Asgard and it had to be done using the Infinity Stones. Stones that could not be wielded by many people on their side. Odin being one of the very few beings who can do so, cannot be excused from the ritual, and in doing so, if Odin weakened to the extent of making one of their bigger enemies appear in a place already armed to the teeth and ready to take out any threat with extreme prejudice, then nobody can blame them for that coincidence.

"Are we sure of your plan working against"it "?" He asked Alfred who looked annoyed at having his plans questioned by nearly everyone in the organisation. To be fair to them, it was a very unorthodox method but nearly everyone was sure that Alfred could not be wrong regarding this yet the uncertainty gnawed at them. Because Hela was someone who had a birthright connection to Asgard itself. A connection that was only temporarily severed by Odin. The connection would slot itself back into place once the prison surrounding Hela was broken and she stepped foot on Asgard. The very energies surrounding Asgard would empower her to such a degree that defeating the likes of Thor and Loki would be child's play for her. Once she was fully acclimated to being the Queen of Asgard, even someone like Thanos would undoubtedly struggle against her and even be eventually defeated, given that Hela was an Asgardian who was undoubtedly in her prime.

"Yes, I am sure. Well, as sure as I can be against someone of that caliber. Let's just say I have a 90% certainty," Alfred added in the end, not gaining any points on the certainty front.

"That's reassuring to hear. Certainly, better odds than anyone who has ever faced my daughter has ever said,'' Odin's voice sounded directly in their ears. He looked at Alfred who just looked annoyed that their conversation was being heard by Odin, despite all their protective measures. It would seem that as long as they were on Asgard, no amount of measures could keep them from the prying eyes of Odin All-Father.

He looked behind him, only to see no one.

"Meet me in my study," Was the only thing Odin's voice said to them before it became silent in the room.

"That old man has no sense of privacy, does he?" Alfred asked rhetorically before waving his hands, closing down all the windows that were opened by him. They were mostly for anybody who could walk in on him working because as far as he was concerned, Alfred could do that a thousand times over without even breaking stride.

"I don't think you would be required to sit in on that meeting. Why don't you go and check on the evacuation processes?" Alfred asked him uncharacteristically.

He was taken aback at that question. Why would Alfred not want him at that meeting even though he too heard Odin's voice and he was pretty sure that Odin did not make a mistake when he projected his voice across the palace? He was old but not that gone yet.

He was about to ask Alfred about it but his question was stuck in his mouth when he saw the very serious, nearly pleading look on Alfred's face. He closed his mouth and just nodded at that.

"Okay, then. I will see you later. I'll just go and check in on what Thor and Loki are doing." he said and walked out of the room as Alfred just turned intangible and started floating straight through the floors of the Royal Palace.

The thoughts of that meeting kept plaguing him until he exited the palace and headed straight toward the market centre where Thor and Loki were stationed to solve any problems that might arise during the evacuation process. The real evacuation was still hours away but the preparation for that was being done right now. He could see that he was also being followed by a bunch of guards ever since he had exited the palace. Must be done on Odin's or Frigga's orders which was good because his current body was barely stronger than an average human and he had a hunch that it was not going to be enough if there was a stampede-like situation. As he was now, even a teenage Asgardian could tear right through him.

A thought that made him pat himself on the back for coming up with the idea to create a floating city, especially in the North Pole. It gave the Asgardians the option to move to a better area once it became permanent but it also allowed them to be isolated from the regular squishy, non bulletproof humans.

"Ah, Ed! Welcome to Thor's Evacuation Preparation Centre!" Thor said to him in his usual booming voice.

"For the last time, we are not calling it that," Loki said to him snidely before focusing back on the woman who had brought some sort of luggage to him.

Thor ignored his brother without even a hint of his sunny smile fading, "What can I do for you, Ed? I don't think you have any luggage that is not packed, do you?"

He smiled and shook his head, "No, I don't want any help with my luggage. I just wanted to talk to you,"

"Oh, Just give me a moment. I'll be there with you in a second," He then put his hand on his face and mockingly whispered to him, "I am not actually needed here. I just came to give company to Loki. I am sure Loki will handle it just fine," Thor then turned around to presumably order some of the soldiers to man the station but before he could do that, he intervened.

"Actually, I wanted to talk to the Princes of Asgard, both of them," he said with a smile on his face, hoping that it didn't look suspicious to them.

Loki and Thor both looked at each other in confusion and then at him with suspicion. He kept his smile plastered on his face as is.

Loki looked at him deeply for a moment before nodding at Thor would immediately began ordering some soldiers to take their place on the station before gesturing for him to follow them. Thor took him through some twists and turns before they found themselves in front of a small lake with children either playing in the playground in the center of the lake or just frolicking away in the lake's pristine water, unaware of the dangers their country was about to be.

"Envious, isn't it?" He heard Loki speak as all of them sat on the stairs in front of the lake's entrance.

"Hmm?" He looked questioningly at Loki who looked somewhat sad as he looked at the children playing.

"Their blissful ignorance. It's envious to me how they can be so carefree, so unknowing of the dangers they live with. To be so free, to enjoy everything without any second thoughts," he did not expect Loki of all people to initiate the conversation with him.

"Aye, brother. I feel the same sometimes too but it is because of us that they can enjoy that childhood full of innocence and ignorance. A period of time before they are exposed to the ugliness of the world and how it changes and affects the world around them." Thor said.

"So, how goes the preparation for our new home in Midgard?" Loki asked him, using the word "home" inconspicuously in the conversation as if that was not a dead giveaway that he knew about their plan.

"Wh-what are you talking about, brother? We are only going to stay in that place for the duration of the ritual. After that, everything goes back to normal, right, right?!" Thor's smile faded as he looked at the solemn look on his face.

"I don't know, brother. Ask him. Ask him what would be the after-effects of the ritual, even if we did succeed, and why they have no doubt started building a permanent residence for all Asgardians on Midgard." Loki said as he looked right ahead.

Well, Damn.

---

Word Count - 2219
If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 111

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

"Wh-what are you talking about, brother? We are only going to stay in that place for the duration of the ritual. After that, everything goes back to normal, right, right?!" Thor's smile faded as he looked at the solemn look on his face.

"I don't know, brother. Ask him. Ask him what would be the after-effects of the ritual, even if we did succeed, and why they have no doubt started building a permanent residence for all Asgardians on Midgard." Loki said as he looked right ahead.

Well, Damn.

Royal Palace, Asgard

–Ed–

Ah, this was not good. They were not going to reveal it to Thor or Loki, not right now at least. It would just undoubtedly complicate matters with Thor being one of the very few beings capable of matching Thanos, even in his empowered form, after inheriting the Odin FOrce along with getting the connection to Asgard. The Asgard that was made from its people and not the place because that was what Alfred had theorised about.

The collective population of Asgard generated an energy pool that was so dense that, in conjunction with Odin Force, the force was able to propel Thor's power levels to such levels that even the other SkyFathers of other pantheons were unable to match him. He personally believed that Thor had become strong enough to even match or exceed some of the weaker no-name celestials in combat prowess and that was saying something.

So, for something like this to come up at the last moment that could turn Thor against them was very much undesirable, both for the ritual and the eventual fight against Thanos because nowhere in Alfred's simulations had he calculated for Thor's animosity towards their organisation.

He had to clear things up, or else they could have a huge problem on their hands right before the ritual.

"Er, I can explain?"

Honestly, not a great start to an explanation.

"What is going on? Explain," Thor's voice boomed out as he stood up and loomed over him, his powers responding to his mood, causing thunderstorms to occur over Asgard.

Damn. All that with just a word? Impressive.

Seeing that he had no way out of the situation without placating the Crown Prince, especially in his weak body, he sighed and slumped down on the ground even more, if that was even possible.

"Look, you know about the ritual? It is the only method to heal my body and the reason Alfred is so hell-bent on healing me is because–"

"It's because of Thanos, isn't it? I mean, I get that he will do anything to save his master/creator but for Odin to agree to it, there has to be another reason for it." Loki interrupted him. He was also spot-on with his explanation.

The only problem was that the word seemed to hit a sour spot with Thor as the thunder in the air intensified and the smell of ozone filled the air.

"What about Thanos?" Thor asked him, only this time, it lacked any of the bombastic flair that Thor was known for. This time, it was a deathly quiet whisper that managed to even scare him. Why would Thor be so mad at…

"Does he know about Thanos then? How he was the one who enslaved you?" His gaze snapped to Loki.

Loki looked consterned at the question but nodded slowly nonetheless. So, that was the reason for Loki's freedom.

"So that was why you were not punished? Can you tell me how Asgard managed to not declare war on the Mad Titan after the fact was made public?" He found himself asking Thor as Thor took deep calming breaths and once again took a seat on his side, looking over at the lake in front of them.

"It was Father. He forbid us from retaliating against Thanos in any form. He said that we would have our chance and Thanos would eventually pay for what he did to Loki, so I stayed my hand," Thor replied instead of Loki.

So, that's what happened. Even then, he was kinda surprised that Thor would follow Odin's orders regarding that. Then again, past experiences must have taught Thor that going against Odin's express orders probably would not have gone well for him again.

Well, time to rip off the bandaid then. Besides, he was pretty sure that Loki was aware of the consequences of the ritual anyway so might as well tell them before they fell off even more in Thor's eyes.

"Look, the ritual is going to be very energy intensive. The energies released from the ritual, even if it is successful, will create an explosion that will most probably engulf all of Asgard. Even if we are successful, Asgard, or rather the rock that Asgardians live on right now, will be no more but on the plus side, all Asgardians will be safe and the city we are building for you is better than this one in every conceivable way," He said before bracing for impact.

"I see," Thor's voice was normal, which was oddly alarming for him. The winds began picking speed as it started raining all over Asgard as far as he could see. He expected THor to last out at him but the last thing he expected was for him to feel a crater forming right beside him as Thor had flown away, heading straight for the Palace.

Loki sighed beside him, "He will not be taking it well and if I know Father, he will not be taking it well either. I would not recommend being there when their clash inevitably happens and Ed, I realise that Asgard is where all the Asgardians are but you can't expect for us to not fight for the place we are brought up in?" Loki asked him before his form just fizzled away, his real body was probably already at the palace or maybe they were talking to an illusion or a clone for all this time, who knows. You never know that with Loki.

He sighed once again; it would seem he was doing that a lot lately. He turned around and looked at his entourage which was no longer hiding. Some of them looked pretty shocked about their Princes' abrupt departures and the rest of them were looking at him with suspicion and wariness. Well, it was not like he could do anything about that. Ultimately, if they succeeded or not, he was going to be the reason for the destruction of the place where they were born and brought up. Even with the new city, he reckoned that it would take a long time for them to forget about their home, especially with most of them easily living to a thousand years old. God, they were a long-lived race.

"Well, fellas, I suppose we should go to the Palace then?" He asked his guards rhetorically as they nodded and waved him along, escorting him through the market streets.

Odin's Study

–Odin–

Honestly, what sort of mess were those troublesome people going to put him into now? Taking the name of his daughter and not expecting him to notice, that too on Asgard itself. Did they think he had gone senile? He may have lost the ability to channel large amounts of Odin Force through his body without damaging it but he was still Odin Borson, the strongest Asgardian to ever live.

"What's wrong?" Frigga, sensing his mood change, asked him.

"Nothing, they were talking about her and I sensed her name being uttered so I called them over,"

Frigga nodded, "I see. I would not be surprised if they already know of her and were thinking about how to deal with her even before we told them about it,"

"Yeah, they do seem like the people who would have troublesome information like that before everybody else," he grumbled to her.

It was already damaging to his pride to have to ask for help from someone, even if his pride was slightly soothed by the fact that they also needed something that he was going to provide. Now, he had to deal with the fact that Thanos was probably on his way here to get some of the Infinity Stones that have no doubt appeared on his radar. The more frustrating thing was that there were even more Stones to come before they were ready for the ritual.

He was sure that there was nothing in the world that could deter someone like Thanos from coming here and getting the Stones, even if it meant fighting someone like him.

Although, looking at his frail hands, was he even strong enough now? To fend off someone like Thanos who no doubt already possessed at least a single Infinity Stone on his side.

The sound of his door opening brought him out of his morbid thoughts. He looked up to see Alfred entering his study; sitting in the chair in front of his desk and then looking at him expectantly.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" He asked Alfred, hoping that he would show some remorse in conspiring to kill his firstborn but no..

Alfred shrugged and replied, "Well, what do you want me to say? Your daughter is a major threat, not just to the ritual but to the continued peace that the nine realms enjoy. One of said nine realms just so happens to be Earth and we will do whatever it takes to protect it,"

That…was not an unreasonable thing to expect from them. Also because the city they were building for New Asgard was also on Earth and despite their claims of it being a flying city, he had qualms about the city being sturdy enough to fly out of Midgard's atmosphere, after all, it was built by mortals, on Midgard.

"We get it. Hela needs to be dealt with but I hope you know the problem with doing that while the ritual is ongoing?" Frigga asked Alfred, getting to the crux matter at hand.

Alfred nodded, "Yes, I am aware of Hela's connection to Asgard that she gained as her birthright. We have different solutions for that but her domain being the Goddess of Death kinda screws things over. We have plenty, well not plenty, but multiple people on our side who can soundly push her back and with collaboration, even kill her,"

He scoffed at that. There was no killing Hela. He of all people was more than aware of that. As long as Asgard existed, she existed.

Alfred eyed him while he continued, "I know that she cannot be killed for good without destroying her connection to Asgard. I also know that the current Asgard is a mass of energy created from the continued existence of generations of Asgardians that have called this place home. At this point, it would not be wrong to say that whatever empowerment Thor would gain from gaining your Odin Force would be more or less equivalent to what Hela would gain from her connection to Asgard. Am I wrong?"

He scoffed openly while agreeing with his statement internally.

"The only reason that would be true is because Thor would be too inexperienced to handle it otherwise the Odin Force is much much stronger,"

"I concur with that statement. Unfortunately, we cannot sever the connection to the current Asgard anymore because you are not at the age to do it, and destroying Asgard before the ritual is done is out of the question so the only option we have is to fight her with all we have,"

Before he could get a word in, Alfred continued, "Don't worry, we won't be asking normal Asgardian soldiers to just sacrifice their lives for something that we want so we have made sure that the strongest of our forces will be stationed on Asgard right before the ritual."

"And what can mere Midgardians do that my Einharjar can't?" He asked Alfred, offended at the notion that his soldiers would be any weaker than whatever meager forces that their organisation can drum up. Sure, there were noteworthy warriors among them that could have given even Surtur a run for his money but they were few and far between.

"You need more than a few powerful warriors to keep Hela at bay. The longer she remains of Asgard, the stronger she becomes and besides, even if you managed to kill her once, she will come back and she will come back stronger. A method used once to defeat her will not affect her once again so I am curious as to what army you have that can keep Hela Odinsdottir, Goddess of Death at bay?" He asked Alfred, his voice booming.

Alfred's face twitched as he tried to hide a smile forming on his face, "Well, we didn't want to tip our hand this early but here goes. We have them,"

A projection appeared on his table, showcasing the number of soldiers. Midgardian soldiers who were fighting and killing Fire demons with astonishing brutality. They were having an easier time doing it than his soldiers ever did.

His eyes narrowed as he looked closer at the footage, "The armour they are wearing,"

"That is correct. Those are armours that are standard issue in our organisation. That allows every single soldier to hit harder than even the strongest of your Asgardian soldiers, sans you and Thor, of course," Alfred said.

"Then, there are specialised teams made for different scenarios. Some of them are capable of fighting and defeating your son as well," Alfred said before the projection changed scenes, showing them a fight between two people. The amount of power he could see in them was astonishing.

Where in the nine realms were they hiding such people and why did Heimdall not see them earlier?

His unasked question was answered by Alfred, "Don't blame Heimdall. Our base is well protected against seers of all kinds. The measures might not work here, in your domain, but even you can't see into our base from this far away."

"Then there is the technology that will be brought in to devastate the surroundings. Since it is going to be destroyed anyway, we have decided to bring in every single weapon, even the ones that cause irreparable damage to the planet." Alfred said before the projection changed even more, showing flying warships capable of destroying Midgard several times over.

Bor's beard! These people had been collecting weapons of mass destruction for who knows how long.

How did they do all of this undetected?

"That was…reassuring," he looked at Frigga who said that hesitantly, then he looked at Alfred who looked at them innocently. It was equal parts worrying and reassuring.

It was good that they were steadfast allies otherwise just thinking of the consequences of becoming their enemy without him being around to protect Asgard was terrifying to even consider.

---

Word Count - 2508
If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

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[IdleMuse0307]

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Chapter 112

Technomancer in MCU

Royal Palace, Asgard

–Alfred–

Well, that went well. He was actually quite glad that he was able to perfectly control all autonomous reactions that his body would give when he was feeling different types of emotions. He was actually quite nervous when he was presenting rough information about the bulk of their forces to Odin.

It was nerve-wracking because, even now, he could feel the connection Odin had to his Odin Force and the terrifyingness of that Force was something that could not be ignored, even at Odin's advanced age. If he so wished, he could probably wipe out the entirety of Earth in one go, at the age he was at. It would seem that the Norse Mythology about Asgardians growing only stronger with the passage of time was true.

And since that was proven true, he would actually love to take Thor with him to train with Jane in the time dilation bubble that they were going to train in, with Strange of course. It would no doubt immensely accelerate the timeline at which Thor's body was becoming accustomed to the energy stored within his body and turn him into an absolute powerhouse that could help stop Thanos, this time, once and for all.

Judging from the reactions of Odin and Frigga, they were understandably cautious about the firepower they had access to but in the current circumstances, they had no choice but to swallow their objections and agree to putting all of their powers together to defeat the evil that was plaguing the universe, The Mad Titan, Thanos.

"By the way, how did you guys come to know of Thanos?" He asked them the question that had been brewing in his mind. The most obvious answer would have been through Loki once they had inspected the signs of mind magic on him but then, he remembered the pride and arrogance that Loki had about being the Master of Magic on Asgard so he crossed out that option because Loki would never willingly declare his weakness to others, even if they were his adopted parents.

"How does anybody else know of the Mad Titan? From one of the many refugee waves that found their way into the nine realms once their civilisations collapsed after half of their people died," Odin scoffed as he once again looked into the distance vacantly. Frigga nodded beside him.

"And….what about Loki?" He asked them hesitantly because he was not the only one who had noticed the increased respect that the Second Prince of Asgard, Loki, enjoyed at this point in time. From Ed's memories and even from Thor's testimonies, they were sure about the treatment that Loki received from the locals of Asgard. If it had to be described in a way, it felt as if the entire country of Asgard had seemingly forgotten their previous disdain for the ways of magic and had embraced Loki to be another warrior just as capable as Thor, who, in their objective opinion, was much stronger, at least at this point in time.

"What of him?" Odin's gaze snapped towards him, his earlier vacant gaze all but gone. Frigga's eyes had an uncomfortable intensity when she looked at him at the same time as Odin.

All his calculations told him that clearing this would be the best thing to do before the eventual battle but his senses were warning him that the people in front of him were very tightly wound about that topic and it would be better to avoid that topic since one of them was going to die during the ritual anyway and the other one would not be as big of a threat without the other. It should not be forgotten that the reason Frigga was so feared across the nine realms and beyond as The Witch of Asgard was not just because of her vast knowledge and skills in the mystic arts, it was also because she was capable of causing just as, if not more damage than Odin, using the Odin Force. Yes, He had read all about it in the personal diaries of the Ancient One that she had bestowed upon him. In the centuries that they had been together, Frigga and Odin had devised some sort of symbiotic spell series that allowed Frigga to borrow or use the Odin Force without relying on Odin's presence. With the Odin Force being a near-endless well of power, Frigga could cast her deadly spells practically innumerable times, turning her into a one-woman army, capable of crushing most civilisations all by herself. Add in her knowledge of esoteric knowledge that was said to have surpassed even the Ancient One's, his mind was clearly telling him that pissing off Frigga, who loves her sons the most, would be the worst thing he could do at the moment, especially since Odin seems to be on her side at the moment.

"...I suppose you know of what happened when Loki fell off the–"

"Yes, we are more than aware of what that fiend did to our son," Odin said as Frigga's fists clenched, both of their presences pressing down on the room, making it creak in protest. Frigga then continued, "And he will pay for what he did and I will be there to see it happen. He will not get the salvation he so seeks, I will make sure of it," Frigga said and at that moment, the dark aura that was coming out of her made him realise that they were going to win. No matter what, they were going to win and Thanos was going to lose. With or without Ed, these people are not going to stop and with the dark look that Frigga had in her eyes, she would probably go to the edge of madness itself to safeguard her sons.

Oh, Thanos was done for. There was no way he was going to even get the stones for his…guant….let.

SHIT!

His eyes widened as a series of curses escaped his mouth. He immediately cast a series of spells, manifesting thousands of magic circles in the throne room, unheeding of the startled states of both Frigga and Odin.

"What is this?" Odin exclaimed as he stood up with Frigga, Gungnir in his hand.

He ignored his question as he continued to draw rune after rune in the air and then once his entire vision was filled with them, he closed his eyes and floated cross-legged in the air as the magic circles slowly started converging on his body, eventually branding them on his skin, making an odd metallic sizzling smell that made his entire body go taut in pain but he soldiered on, heedless of the pain. It was important that he be sure that his body and soul were not in any state of haze.

He hesitated for the slightest bit when the largest rune slowly came to brand itself on his brain, essentially on his brain but the risks made him go ahead with the procedure that he had essentially modified on the spot to meet his requirements. He had to check.

So, he took the last step and branded his very soul with the rune. As soon as he was branded with the rune, his mouth opened as he let out a soundless scream of pain, the magical interference ripping apart the throne room until a series of barriers came alive around him. Even still, his magic ripped apart nearly all of them, only the last of the barrier was intact once the magical backlash his body was experiencing, subsided to normal levels.

–Frigga–

"What was that?" Her husband asked him in deathly quiet whispers once the magical rioting stopped as they looked at the remains of the strongest barrier spell that they could cast together. The power they could collectively bring to bear should have been enough to contain even someone like Hela yet the spell's barriers remained tattered as they looked at Alfred who was floating in the center of an indescribably complex runic spell, his face contorted in pain. He had been speaking to them about their son's brief imprisonment by Thanos, a sensitive topic for both of them when his eyes suddenly widened in realisation and before they knew it, Alfred was casting perhaps the most complex runic spell she had seen in all her years alive, casting the entire room in a white glow.

She could see runes from multiple power systems being cast in unison which was supposed to be impossible simply because a single being could manipulate energy from a single energy system at any single time, at best but Alfred's body was glowing with a rainbow of colours as he cycled through dozens of energy types to cast thousands of runes that then went on to fill the entirety of their vision. She stopped her husband from doing something because she had seen the way Alfred's face contorted in desperation and panic as he cast hundreds of runes a second to do something.

They would not have been able to stop something even if they wished. Seeing it through was the only option they had. So, they watched with bated breaths as the runes Alfred had cast eventually branded themselves on his skin. It must have been very painful for him as she could see his skin actually burning due to the magical brands. Even if Alfred could turn off his sense of smell, the marks would not get away, that much she knew. As beings reached their levels, the power of their souls could influence their bodies to look a certain way and with the brands Alfred had cast on himself, even if he did build himself a new body, the brands would eventually return on his new body as well.

She had actually gasped once she realised what Alfred was doing. He was actually going to brand his own soul with the runes. For what reason, she did know yet there was nothing she could do but watch as Alfred, the Guardian of the Singularity, arguably one of the strongest and most important people in the universe, mutilated his own soul for something that he deemed worthy.

Then, he had opened his mouth as the pain must have been too much, causing them to cast their unison barrier spell. When they had first felt the magic building up in the center, both of them realised that there was nothing they could do individually to stop that magical explosion, at least not without invoking the Odin Force, something that her husband's body could not handle at the moment. So, they cast one of the unison barrier magics that they had developed together, casting Alfred in a crystalline pattern that mimicked the shape of the petals of a flower. Even then, it was not enough as the magical explosion destroyed their petals one by one until only a small tattered layer was left.

She had felt her husband was on the verge of using his Odin FOrce when the explosion died down, leaving Alfred who had collapsed into the center of the room.

She and Odin both looked at each other before she rushed to Alfred, casting every diagnostic spell she knew on him. None of the physical diagnostic spells returned anything except the scars and burns due to the runes branded on his skin and his mind was in shock from the pain of everything eventually overwhelming even his superior mind.

It was actually the diagnostics she got from his soul that gave her pause. It was branded by a rune that could only loosely translated as "cleanse, banish, and reset". It was a butchery of runes from Old Greek and Norse runes but the effect of it was unclear. She could see that Alfred's soul was untainted at the moment but why would he cast that rune on his soul?

Was his soul "tainted" somehow? If so, how did that happen, and most importantly, was someone else involved?

And why could Alfred not absolve his soul from any impurities by himself? He was one of the most accomplished sorcerers in the field of souls due to his obsessing with Ed's continued safety and yet Alfred felt the need to cast such a complex spell that combined the power of a dozen powers systems along with energy from multiple infinity stones to do something to his soul.

"No. No!" She looked up at Odin as he looked aghast at something.

"What happened?" She asked him only for him to bang Gungnir on the ground, casting a reverberating gong that must have been heard by everyone on Asgard.

Her eyes widened as she recognised that specific reverberation. It was only done when there was an emergency mobilisation of troops by the King, usually done during surprise attacks on the Nine Realms.

She was about to ask him what had happened when the next words that came out of his mind chilled her blood, "It's Thanos. He was just seen leaving Nidavellir."

Nidavellir? Why would he attack them? Did he want some sort of weapon?

"What happen-"

"Only Eitri is left alive," Odin said in sadness as he slumped down on the steps of the throne room, looking utterly done with everything. Even though he looked resigned, she could feel the burning embers of rage that filled his very being.

Thanos was not going to survive this. He had made far too many powerful enemies and she for one, was not known for leaving her enemies alive.

---

Word Count - 2277

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 113

Technomancer in MCU

Guest Wing, Royal Palace, Asgard

–Ed–

"So, how do you feel?"

"Ahh," Toby groaned as he sat in the medical bed, trying to drink a concoction that looked hideous to him. For one thing, it had moving tails in it and was giving off dark miasma. He made sure to stay away from that thing at all costs. Who knows how it might infect him?

"This is so sickening. If any of my commanders from the demon world saw me, they would instantly rebel and kill me for my weakness." Toby Mathers, legitimately, whined in front of him, cribbing about his weakness.

Yet, he never blamed him, the primary cause of his weakness. The strain of holding his soul in the material world was finally getting to him now and yet they were still a ways away from finalising the ritual. It might take a day or two to prepare for everything but they still could not get an exact timeline for it because even a single thing going wrong might spell doom for Asgard and hurt some of his closest friends and allies.

"Why did your soul have to be so goddamned heavy? I swear it's like carrying a celestial on my back." Toby muttered under the miasma of darkness that wafted around him, courtesy of a spell Alfred had inscribed onto the standard-issue Asgardian hospital bed.

"Can't help it, buddy. I was the one who had chosen the more intellectual powerset, remember?" He grinned back at his friend, trying to hide the pit of anxiety that had settled in his stomach. He just couldn't stop imagining the worst-case scenario. They shouldn't even be trying to heal him. In fact, now that they had Odin in their debt, they should have just turned around and cashed in that favour by asking him to unite all his forces with their existing ones and just go on a crusade across the galaxy, ending Thanos, his forces and fear in one fell swoop and yet...

Yet here they were, risking the existence of Asgard, the well-being of some of the strongest fighters of their organisation, risking their entire mid to high-end combat forces by forcing Hela to stay away from the ritual room while the highest-end forces would protect him and the others from her trying to disrupt the ritual. It would be disastrous if even a little of her necrotic energy managed to contaminate the ritual, especially since the entire focus of the ritual was "life-giving".

"Oh, yeah, and look where it has brought us. Never should have let you think with your brain. You should have just thought with your dick, like I did. I mean, have you even lost your virginity yet?" Toby asked him, his face hidden in the dark miasma.

His mouth twitched as he replied, "I refuse to answer such an uncouth question. Have some manners. You are centuries old by this point,"

Toby immediately dispelled the dark miasma and looked incredulously at him, "Wait, you are still a virgin?"

He simply deadpanned at Toby, refusing to answer that question. In his defense, he had more important stuff to do, than bang some unknown girl, like saving the world, for example.

"Oh my god! You are. You are totally a virgin. What are we even doing all this then? We are risking your life even before you have had the most important experience that any man can have. This is utterly ridiculous. What if you die a virgin?" Toby asked him with the most fake, exaggerated horror-filled look he could make.

"I was busy, OK?" He said in between the loud laughter, "You know what? I don't have to sit here and take this from you. I have way more important people to check up on and certainly, more important things to do than listen to some jacked-up dude lecturing me about girls," He said before standing up and heading for the door.

He could hear Toby's fake laughter subsiding at his abrupt leaving but before he could hear what Toby had to say, both of them heard a loud gong that reverberated throughout Asgard. The sound was of such intensity that even he, in his puppet body, could feel it travelling through his entire body.

"What the hell?" Toby muttered but he ignored him and rushed directly to the balcony of their room. Outside was a scene straight from a fantasy movie. The entirety of the city had begun moving, as far as he could see. Statues that he thought were just ridiculous golden ornaments began sliding from their places, revealing underground hangars, from which dozens of small ships began to emerge, followed by one or two large ones.

All over the city, he could see people shutting everything down followed by more and more military soldiers and ships to get out from their hiding places, revealing a sizable army that was most probably capable of easily destroying any nation back on Earth. The Observatory on the edge of the Rainbow Bridge, also began opening up. He could see the telltale signs of it activating as it began shimmering with a white light.

"My sons!" He looked to the right as the booming voice of Odin was heard. He was dressed in his royal armoured garb as he floated right above the gathering area in front of the Palace. Right at his command, the air was filled with the smell of ozone as lightning cracked in the sky above them, heralding the arrival of Thor. He heard the sound of Mjolnir cutting through the air before he saw Thor heading straight to the Palace, crashing right in front of the soldiers, slightly cratering that area. It would have been a lot bigger had it been on Earth.

Loki appeared to the side of Thor in a dark greenish mist. Huh, it seemed Loki had learned a lot more skills ever since their previous encounter back on Earth.

"All-Father" Loki and Thor said at the same time, bowing at their waists as Odin looked at the gathered soldiers with a domineering look.

"Oh, that Loki is quite skilled with manipulating the threads of energy," Toby muttered who was standing by his side on a crutch made of darkness. It was quite funny if you knew how scary the person could be when he was not on bed rest.

"He is quite different from the person he was in your memories, is he not?" Toby said and the only answer he could give to him was a nod.

Both of them watched as the army continued to pour out over all the areas of Asgard, eventually blotting out the sky above the Royal Palace. He could spy Frigga and Alfred standing on the stairs below Odin, looking at him solemnly. Alfred must have known about the situation and yet he had not contacted him or Toby immediately. Something must have gone…wrong.

Oh.

The bond connecting him and Alfred was something that was only made possible due to the connection routing itself through Toby and now that he was basically incapacitated, the connection was severed and Alfred must have not wanted to risk anything by overtly sending him a message through a spell.

"My soldiers, today, there was an attack on one of the oldest allies of Asgard, Nidavellir."

His body jolted in alarm at that sentence. Of course, how could he have forgotten?

Nidavellir. The homeworld of Dwarves, the best weaponsmiths of the galaxy. The ones that forged treasures like Mjolnir, Gungnir, and more. He swore he had written it down somewhere that one of the more convenient ways of delaying Thanos' agenda was to prevent him from making the Infinity Gauntlet in the first place. That gauntlet was the only reason someone like Thanos was able to wield all six of the stones without turning into dust immediately. Remove the Dwarves from the equation and Thanos is suddenly left with no means of using the stones even if he did somehow manage to gather them. He was sure he had written that down somewhere in Alfred's code as part of the many contingencies he had thought of and yet..

Yet, he had forgotten. Alfred had forgotten which was supposed to be impossible.

Something was wrong. He could also see that something was wrong with Alfred as well. He was leaning on the pillar right next to the stairs. He could not see what was going on from so far away but something was seriously wrong for Alfred of all people to forget something he had hardcoded in him even before his birth.

"It's runes." His gaze snapped to Toby who said that in a somber tone. "Runes are branded right into his skin, from his arms right to his forehead. Honestly, why would he even do that? Even he would not be able to stop that kind of pain."

Runes? Branded on his forehead?

Before he could voice out his question, he heard Odin speaking again.

"My sons, Thanos has fled the scene like the coward that he is. I want you to go to Nidavellir and defend it from the pirates that have no doubt begun vulturing on the remains. I want you to escort my friend Eitri from there to here. Have no doubt, we will avenge him."

"Yes, Father," Loki and Thor bowed and turned to the soldiers who had gathered behind them.

"For Asgard!" Thor roared as he raised Mjolnir to the sky, making lightning slam right onto his arm, lighting up the entire court.

"For Asgard!"

"For Asgard!"

"For Asgard!"

"For Asgard!"

He heard a low whining sound so he looked at the Rainbow Bridge only to see the Observatory pointing the sharp end of it straight to the ships gathered above the palace. His mouth then hung open as the Observatory shot a ray of rainbow-coloured energy, striking right at the assembled army, teleporting them directly to Nidavellir.

So, this was how they transported large armies directly to their destination. There was no way they were going to have people leave QAsgard one by one through the small tunnel in the Observatory.

Soon, the only people left in front of the palace were the King's guards along with Frigga, Alfred, and Odin himself.

'We have a lot to discuss, Singularity,' he froze as he heard Odin's voice right into his mind. He looked at Odin who was looking straight at him and then nodded slowly. He hoped that nothing bad had happened yet looking at Alfred, who looked so weak that his enhanced body couldn't even keep itself upright even after having those advanced arc reactors that he had embedded in his body as a backup, was telling enough of the situation.

"What did he say?" Toby asked him even as they both went back inside the room, him on his own and Toby on his conjured crutches.

"Nothing. He said that he wanted to talk. Look, you should rest up for the big day ahead. I will see what he wants and we will talk later in the evening," He said to Toby before bailing right out of the room, unheeding of Toby's shouts. He would be unable to follow him to the meeting anyway.

Just what had happened to Alfred that he had to resort to branding himself with those runes? Even he knew how painful that could be and Toby said that he did that to himself on his entire body?

Word Count - 1931

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 114

Technomancer in MCU

Deep Space, Sanctuary II [2012]

–Thanos–

"Sire, I come with dire news," Ebony Maw approached him with his hands tied together, a clear sign of his nervousness, something that has stayed with him ever since he was a kid that he had rescued from his dying planet.

"I know, Maw," He sighed and leaned further back into his seat. Maw looked at him in expectation of guidance for further actions because, despite his powerful hatred that would no doubt be aimed at the offenders, he knew it was not the right time for overt movements.

"So, the Asgardian has failed," He mused out loud as his mind worked overtime to see who could have stopped Loki so soon and destroyed that cluster of Chitauri at the same time.

"Yes, sire. The infuriating Asgardian has failed in his mission and has also taken the Other down with him," Maw replied, prostrating on the ground at his failure. After all, it was his idea to send Loki down to Midgard to retrieve the stone that they had known existed on Midgard for decades, simply because doing so would not bring undue attention to them so early in their quest to gather all the stones.

"Yes, I felt that. I can understand the Asgardian failing and the portal closing but how did the fleet get decimated all at once? Did the Ancient One take action herself?" He questioned Maw even though he knew for a fact that that pesky woman would not move unless it was something related to her strict job description. She had a one-tone focus that he could respect nonetheless.

An admirable quality that worked in his favour because his army was going to invade the planet using purely technology; none of the mystics under his employ were used for this endeavour after all.

Maw began speaking hesitantly, which was surprising because it meant Maw believed there was something in the report that would enrage him. It would not matter much to him since it was one of the many feelers he had sent out into the galaxy in hopes that external agents could fetch him some of the stones. He was aware that it was mostly a failed endeavour because none in their right mind would just hand over one of the six most coveted objects in the universe, to someone else, much less him, who had, over the years, gained quite a reputation as the "Mad" Titan. Huh, Mad, him. It was them who were mad, unable to see the state of the universe for what it was. A failed one. He would help them and yet they decry his actions as "evil", as if good or bad was not completely subjective.

"Speak, Maw, my patience grows thin."

"Y-Yes, sire. Uh, according to the last scans that we were able to get of the planet, we detected multiple level 3 strongholds on the planet–"

Which was unsurprising since they were aware of 2 level 3 strongholds on that planet before they even began their invasion. Level 3 strongholds, while troublesome, were not much of a concern to someone of his level or even for his Black Order.

"--aside from the ones we were already aware of. Aside from that, a level 5 stronghold was detected on the planet's moon. We were barely able to get any details about it before the barriers surrounding the stronghold made it disappear from our sensors. We suspect it to be a level 6 stronghold at best,"

His eyebrows shot up once he heard that last bit. Encountering Level 6 strongholds was not something that could be expected on any backward planet. Even Asgard, for all its might, was only a Level 6 stronghold solely because of Odin's continued presence on it. Even Xandar and the Kree homeworlds were only Level 5 strongholds.

This was troublesome. This meant that anything short of a full frontal assault with him at the forefront would fail right at their doorsteps. Sure, there were ways to bypass that but with the Ancient One lurking in the shadows, he would not be able to take any risk regarding Midgard.

"How did we miss it? Level 6 strongholds are not built overnight. I thought your intelligence network would have caught it or did you finally lose your touch, Maw?" His daughter, Gamora, asked Maw, touching a sore spot.

Maw grimaced at the question, fully aware that it was his failure this time, which was unheard of in all the time he had maintained his intelligence network.

"Their technology is on par or even better than the Sovereign. They were able to deploy an unbreakable barrier around the portal, effectively creating a small stage where they were able to decimate our forces. They also had many more of those suits of armour that Loki had warned us about. They had multiple flying ships capable of blasting through any defence that the Chitauri could mount," Maw recounted as clips from the battle were being shown on holograms throughout his throne room.

Gamora and Nebula continued to take in the sights, as did he. It was astonishing, the technology that Midgardians were able to develop, despite being such a weak species themselves.

"Was it Odin?" He looked at Gamora who asked the question.

"No," He shook his head. Putting aside the fact that it was not his style, the underlying principles behind the technology were too different.

"I can see no magic being used in all of those ships, Sire. Asgard would not arm any realm, especially not Midgard of all places, Sire." Maw replied.

"They had excellent healing methods as well," Nebula muttered as she looked at a hologram projected by her eye, showing them their makeshift hospitals where yellow rays were used to heal almost all wounds. Most wounds were healed almost instantly, visibly scabbing over, leaving just a scar on otherwise healthy skin.

"CHI," He muttered as everybody looked at him.

"It's what the mystics call the life force that we all have in ourselves. It would seem that the mysterious protectors of Midgard have managed to harness that life force to achieve astonishing effects. Healing would be the last of the advantages of creating artificial life force. It would seem that we would have to cease all our operations against Midgard and the Nine Realms as well," he declared after pondering on the advantages and disadvantages of waging war against the current Midgard, especially with both Odin and the Ancient One alive. It would be over before he knew it. It would be pointless to antagonise two of the handful of people in the universe who could defeat him, especially since all he had to do was wait.

Time was on his side after all.

"As you command, Sire." Maw bowed and left the room, Nebula soon followed him. She detested him because of the many gifts he had given her so that she could keep up with her elder sister. He had no desire to make her like him. He did not do it to get compliments from her. He did it out of love for her.

"Well, what are you going to do about that? Doesn't that hurt your ego? Weak backward Midgardians defeating an admittedly small, but still significant part of your army? Not to mention the loss of The Other will hurt a part of your projects." Gamora scoffed at him.

He smiled grimly at her. That was something that never failed to unsettle her.

"You think I do all of this for pride? Some misplaced arrogance? No, My Dear, I do this for the universe. For all the beings suffering currently. I take the burden on myself so that no one else has to. The burden to make the hardest choices. Unfortunately,-" He whirled on her and watched with a pang of sadness that she took a step back in wariness.

Shaking that off, he continued, –Some people do not realise the favour I am doing for them and continue to resist fruitlessly. Unfortunately, the ones resisting this time are quite a bit stronger than even me, and for that, I will have to take a step back,"

"Oh, stronger than even you?" Gamora questioned him with a glint in her eye.

He sat down on one of the stairs and looked at her, "Yes, I have no shame in admitting it. Odin Borson of Asgard and the Ancient One of Midgard are both quite formidable individuals, capable of besting even the best of what the universe has to offer,"

"So, this Ancient One was the one responsible for beating back our forces?"

"No. This is the work of someone new. Someone capable of making a Level 6 stronghold means that I will have to save Midgard for the last. It would seem, daughter, that we still have a long fight ahead of us,"

"And what of the stone we gave to Loki?"

He sighed internally. He had debated endlessly whether it was a good choice to give the gem to Loki or not but the Other and even Maw had made a strong case so he had relented. It was not as if there was anybody on that planet who could break open the shell surrounding or so he had thought. The gem was probably in the hands of the same people who soundly defeated Loki and he was sure that they had the tools to safely contain the Mind Stone. Considering the lack of energy signature of the Mind Stone, it would be safe to assume that the stone was now in the vaults of that level 6 stronghold. He would need another Infinity Stone to soundly breach that and retrieve the stone before they could bog him down with their forces.

And wasn't that a sobering thought? A civilisation that he had thought was barely worth the dirt that was synonymous with their planet was now housing a place that could even trap the likes of him. He supposed that there was at least one good thing from the invasion, even if the temporary loss of the Stone was concerning.

They now knew. He now knew that there was someone else aside from the terrifying Ancient One who lived in Midgard. Another Guardian that they needed to be wary of. He could also see that whoever it was, they relied heavily on technology. Technology that could defeat even his Black Order but in the end, it was just technology. It was nearly impossible to breach that barrier. The barrier to reaching the top echelons of power without having a soul. It was the key to storing vast amounts of power. Without a soul, all the machines can do is reach a ceiling of power that he crossed back when he was just a teenager on Titan.

"Well?" He was brought out of his musings by the sharp voice of Gamora.

He looked at her and sighed, "The stone is probably in the stronghold. Probably in their deepest vaults and it will remain there until I take it back,"

Gamora raised an eyebrow, "You're that confident?"

He cracked a grin at the skepticism in her voice. He leaned back down on the floor and looked at the ceiling of the throne room.

"My dear, Not confident, I am certain. That's all."

"And this Ancient One, how would you deal with her? From what I hear, Odin has one foot in his grave anyway but this mortal seems to have some way of increasing her lifespan indefinitely?" Gamora questioned him, always the analytical mind. Always the greatest assassin of the galaxy. Just how he had raised her.

"Ah, she is soon to die anyway. Why worry about something that will not be my concern in a few years anyway? Besides, we don't enter her domain and she doesn't disturb ours. It's always been like this. That is why not many advanced civilisations have the guts to enter Midgard, aside from Odin's decree of course."

"I see," Gamora nodded.

He just hoped that there weren't any more surprises aside from this. Last thing he needed was another player on the board who was seemingly unbeatable.

Deep Space, Sanctuary II [2013]

"Sire, this is..deeply unsettling," Maw said as they looked at the footage being shown on the screen, and for once, he had to agree. This was not good.

They were looking at the latest news that was circulating out of Knowhere.

The location of the Singularity.

It was on Midgard. Ofcourse, he was not stupid enough to consider Tivan's words at face value. He had conducted independent investigations, even going so far as to employ the Mystics from the Black market.

It had confirmed his worst fears. The Singularity was living inside the Level 6 stronghold.

It meant that Midgard's newest Guardian was.. The Singularity.

"Well Shit…." Gamora aptly summarised their current situation.

---

Word Count - 2168
If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 115

Technomancer in MCU

Deep Space, Sanctuary II [2013]

–Thanos–

"Well, how will you proceed now, Thanos?" The mocking in Tivan's message was not as subtle as he thought it was or rather it was his way of mocking him for the newest obstacle on his way towards universal salvation. Granted, the hindrance this time was of much more significance than all the other ones that he had known about and prepared for but he would not be Thanos, Son of Alar's if he simply gave up on his goal just because of a new player on the board that could not be killed or rather, should not be killed for the collective good of the universe.

"Hmm? Why so silent now? Disturbing the Singularity will not only bring about the wrath of the Immortals on you, it will also earn you the ire of the Singularity. I don't have to tell you just how disastrous that would be for both you and your crusade," Tivan's voice was now grating on his ears so he just waved his hand and closed the transmission.

The Singularity was a ticking time bomb but not for the universe. It was a bomb for itself. That much was common knowledge amongst the sufficiently powerful people of the universe. Death of the Singularity by the hands of any such beings that reside in their universe would result in catastrophic damage across the multiverse and that was not something that any of them wished for. Thus, it was common consensus to simply avoid the areas where the Singularity had its recorded presence. After all, the universe was a vast place and you could get anything you wanted in multiple different locations. It was not as if the people behind the common agreement had any idea that he was after the Infinity Stones, which were not something that could be found multiple of.

"Sire, should I send Cull to silence Tivan, once and for all?" Maw hissed behind him, outraged at the insult at his father figure.

He smiled grimly at the devotion and loyalty that was transparent in Maw's voice. He had at least done the right thing while choosing the members of his Order. Cull Obsidian in particular was one of his favourite members, not because of his extreme loyalty but because of the way Cull saw the universe. Cull's species was now extremely devout to him and his cause, simply because he was able to defeat, in public, their King as well as their strongest fighters. Their culture followed the rule of "Might makes right" and thus, they didn't even utter a sound when half of their population was slaughtered and the rest were made to create the strongest possible soldier on their planet and then send them to him, to serve as a member of his Black Order. Cull, in particular, was the strongest of his species, even stronger than his grandfather, who was the King he had personally killed.

"No need, Maw. It would just needlessly stir the hornet's nest. Besides, killing an immortal will make a few ripple waves and we have to avoid all the unpredictable waves right now. His time will come, I will make sure of it," He added with a ruthless glint in his eyes.

Sure, Cull could probably crush Tivan like a fruit but the security surrounding his personal space was formidable. It would take Cull a long time to get through all of the security measures that Tivan no doubt has in place and by the time Cull got through everything, Tivan would have been long gone. Not to mention the various dangerous, now extinct, species that Tivan had in his museum that he could unleash at will.

No, their biggest priority right now was the Infinity Stones, and seeing that at least two of them, more likely three, are on a single planet right now. Retrieving them was the priority and yet.

Yet, he could not make the decision to assault the SIngularity's home base just like that because doing so would be the height of utter foolishness. No, he had to prepare for the eventuality that the SIngularity would become a thorn in his way. A thorn that can not be uprooted without even worse consequences.

If the problem cannot be uprooted, then maybe, it can be manipulated. Slowly, bit by bit, a plan began forming in his head.

"Gamora?" He called out for his favourite daughter.

"She is on a mission on Xandar, my liege," Maw helpfully informed him.

"I see. Tell her to come back right this instant. We don't have much time if we want to get ahead of the Singularity," He ordered Maw and left his quarters to go to his personal library. He had a few books on mental and soul manipulation that he had to read.

If he couldn't get the Infinity Stones without the Singularity's notice, he would just have to make sure that the Singularity doesn't come in his way, and what better way to do that other than using the Soul Stone?

….

…

Odin's Study, Royal Palace, Asgard

–Ed–

"What is going on?" He asked once he ran into the room, afraid of the answer. He could see Alfred slumped over on the bed nearby and Frigga running multiple healing and diagnostic spells on him even as Alfred's face continued to contort in pain, no doubt due to the stupid move he had made earlier about the rune branding. There was no way something like that did not have debilitating consequences.

"Just take a seat," Odin sighed and said in an uncharacteristically resigned voice. The premonition in his heart became a little stronger at that. Odin then looked at him and cast a spell of some sort that washed over his puppet body. He looked at his body, only to see a thin orange glow in his vision that seemed to come from the top of his face.

"Somebody better explain what is going on right now," He nearly ordered the King and Queen of Asgard who disregarded his plea immediately and continued to do what they were doing with his puppet body.

"I see. So, it was like that," Odin sighed and slumped back down on his chair, the orange glow in his vision fading at that.

Before he could get a word in about the absurdity of the situation, Frigga took over, "Ed, we, or rather, Alfred has discovered something terrible. Thanos has the Soul Stone in his possession,"

The words sent a chill down his spine. Thanos, even without the Stones was a dangerous opponent, but now that he was armed with what was arguably the most dangerous of the stones? It was going to be ten times more difficult to defeat him without it.

"But what does that have to do with Alfred's current state?" He questioned them right back. Sure, a Thanos armed with the Soul Stone was a daunting opponent but there was no need for Alfred to do something drastic at the last moment, with his healing ritual on the horizon.

"It would seem his soul's link with his body has weakened to the point that Alfred's banishment of the spell hasn't caught up with him yet," Frigga mumbled, mostly to herself.

?!!

"Ed, Thanos has cast some sort of spell. Probably aimed at the Nine Realms, otherwise he would have already been dead if he tried to cast that spell, pan universe," Frigga said/

"He used the Soul Stone, probably in conjunction with the Power Stone, to supercharge a very basic spell. The spell "Gleymsku Galdr" is a very basic spell that is taught to beginner sorcerer in Asgard. It has a very small effect radius and can only be used on weak-willed people, all to one effect: To make people forget something. Thanos, armed with two stones, must have cast that spell over the entirety of the Nine Realms, making sure that everybody concerned forgot about one small detail. The fact that Thanos was after the Infinity Stones to do something and would need some sort of vessel made by the Dwarves from Nidavellir to actually help channel all that power without instantly dying," Odin said.

As soon as Odin completed his sentence, he felt a jolt in his soul before his puppet body began seizing up. The seizing continued for a few seconds before he felt the link that connected him and Toby light up with power, allowing his puppet body to settle down.

As soon as he sat down though, his eyes widened in horror and fear. It finally made sense to him.

"What the fuck? What has he done?" He mumbled to himself in horror at the piece of information. Somehow, Thanos cast a spell that overcame all the protections that Alfred had with his runes and made him forget about an emergency protocol that he had personally hardcoded into Alfred's systems and then even made him forget about that as well. Apart from him and Alfred, there was nobody else who was aware of that one single, very important event that would happen in the future.

The creation of the Infinity Gauntlet.

A weapon, capable of handling and channeling the might of all 6 of the Infinity Stones without crumbling immediately. It was debated endlessly back in his college about how Thanos could have been stopped in his tracks, allowing the rest of the forces of the universe to catch up to him and stop him from accomplishing his goals because even Thanos, while definitely stronger than most of the forces of the universe, would not have survived the onslaught of everybody in the universe aiming their cannons at him.

The events that culminated in the Snap, happened in rapid succession, allowing Thanos to complete his goal without much opposition from the major superpowers of the universe. But if Thanos was not given the weapon he needs to complete his goal, he would have been stopped in his tracks. Sure, it would have taken a huge toll on the fighting forces but it would have been lower than half of the universe. There were also some extreme measures in them that would blow up Nidavellir and displace all of the Dwarves so that Thanos could never get his Gauntlet and yet, Thanos had gotten ahead of them.

Even with all the preparation they had done in anticipation of his arrival, just the fact that Thanos now had the Infinity Gauntlet that allowed him to easily wield at least two stones, meant that they too were going to need someone who could fight Thanos with another set of Infinity Stones.

God, this was so messed up.

How could Alfred of all people have forgotten to fortify his soul with runes? He was the expert in the subject of runes and he was the most paranoid bastard he knew. He should know, he created Alfred in the first place.

The atmosphere in the room turned gloomy. Things just went from bad to worse. Now, with Alfred seemingly out of commission, how could they proceed?

"Uhh, what did I miss?" Alfred groaned as he sat upright. He noticed that he was mostly piloting his body using the energy of the Arc reactors.

He winced internally at that. It meant that Alfred, the veritable Mystical powerhouse, did not have enough juice in him to even move his body without external help. At this moment, both he and Alfred were just puppetting their bodies to move, him with his soul and Alfred with his mind, with the help of the Arc reactor.

What a sad show for supposedly the strongest people on Earth.

"Ah, why is everyone so gloom and doom? Come on, we haven't lost yet. Look, it doesn't matter if Thanos has the Infinity Gauntlet if he never gets his hands on the other stones and I…I will make sure that doesn't happen." Alfred said passionately. His passion would have been more believable and contaminating if he wasn't struggling to even move his limbs to get down from his bed.

Even so, he smiled weakly and replied, "Yeah, it's not like this is the end. We still have our people and we will make sure that they are safe, right Alfred?"

Alfred looked at him, genuinely surprised, and then smiled softly, nodding with his empty words of assurance.

---

Word Count - 2077

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

A/N - If you guys don't remember. Ancient One actually sealed all of Alfred's knowledge regarding the mystics (CH 40) and that led to him being vulnerable by mental assaults of all sorts. He was affected by both Dormammu and even Thanos' spell. It was just that Thanos' spell was just a supercharged basic spell that worked way too well on both Ed and Alfred, making them forget a very important detail in THanos' plans for the Snap.

In my opinion, if Nidavellir was saved and the universe had gotten to know about Thanos' plan, there was no way he could have succeeded, at least not with the ease he did in the movies.

I am sure that hundreds of powerful people would have gladly thrown themselves against his forces if the entire universe knew that they had a fifty percent chance of surviving Thanos' crusade.

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 116

Technomancer in MCU

New Asgard, North Pole, Earth

–Frank Castle–

"What?" He said in case he had misheard whatever Alfred was saying to them because if it was true, it meant that their timelines just moved up immensely.

It was Ed who replied with a sigh instead of Alfred, "It's true, Frank. We had protocols in place for this but turns out, Thanos was just one step ahead in this case."

"How?! When? I thought Alfred's mind was safe from magical exploitation because of his fancy runes and stuff?" Daisy butted into the conversation. They were sitting in their temporary commander's cabins in the city of New Asgard. The work was almost done. Now, the city could float on its own for decades without the need for any major work done on it. Life support systems had come alive a while ago and weather control systems that were installed externally were turned off, allowing for the internal systems to take over. Now, all that was left was to cover the foundation in an extra layer of vibranium alloy, allowing it to turn into a veritable fortress, even if by chance the barriers surrounding the city fell apart.

"I don't know the specifics of it but the spell that Thanos used could be used to a devastating degree if the scope of the spell is small enough. In this case, only two people were applicable for the parameters of the spell, and with the power source being an Infinity Stone, *sigh*.." Ed sighed.

"-yeah, I can see how you guys couldn't defend against something like that. So, Thanos has the thing that will allow him to use the Infinity Stones without going caput instantly?" Daisy asked him.

"Basically, yeah. It also turns him into a vastly more dangerous opponent because the Gauntlet will allow him to use the numerous powers of the Infinity Stones without them extracting the usual toll on his body, allowing him to remain in fighting condition for a lot longer if he didn't the Gauntlet on," Ed replied.

"Hang on, why is Alfred not saying anything?" He said in between, noticing the absence of Alfred in the group chat that was happening once they had established a solid connection with Asgard's ground team.

"..He is…busy. Look, the news of Thanos killing almost the entire species of Dwarves has hit the morale of all the forces here. That includes Alfred and I don't blame anyone for that. It's just that despite that, we have to keep moving so Alfred is doing what he does best, work. I think you guys will have to get here for security soon as well. We'll talk then, alright?" Ed said and cut off the comms since the important report was done transferring from Asgard. The report was compiled by Alfred in real time once he had experienced the things. It was one of the nifty things that Alfred had invented and made a partition for that works continuously in the background.

So, once the comms link was cut, he opened the report and cast it on the big hologram so that both he and Daisy could read it at once. It detailed everything that had happened in Asgard ever since Alfred had landed there.

From the Dark Elves' attack to the soul mutilation that Alfred had performed on himself in order to break the spell that had so strongly attached to his and Ed's souls. As it turned out, Ed had known of a surefire way to stop Thanos from completing his goals and had even written it down in Alfred's code but had never trusted anybody else with that. He could understand the reasoning. None of them were anywhere near strong enough to resist Thanos' means if they had ever gotten caught up in Thanos' net. Ed could not risk important information like that finding its way to Thanos' hands but it hurt all the same.

He looked at Daisy as she gasped. She was already in tears as she was reading the report and he could understand why. He was aware of the heart-rending pain that one must endure in order to even become an enhanced person. He had read in one of the mandatory educational sessions that were conducted by Alfred that in order to permanently enhance someone, you needed to alter their soul as well. So, during the process of artificially enhancing someone, one needs to not only elevate their physical body, but the soul must be taken into account as well. That was why the pain was so intense. Alfred could easily disable the pain receptors in the body but the pain of the soul cannot be turned off.

Even then, the pain that most people, including him, felt was just the soul being touched by nourishing energy. In his case, the energy was something that would have undoubtedly helped the soul become stronger and to this day, he would not wish that pain on anybody he knew. The pain was just a fraction of something that Alfred must have felt.

The soul knows when something is harmful or beneficial for it. So, for him to feel so much pain even though it was beneficial, he could only imagine the pain that Alfred must have felt when he intentionally cast the spell to brand his very soul with runes and then powered the runes with energy from a dozen different alternate dimensions, allowing him with just enough of a window to break free from the spell that Thanos had cast on them. It just served to educate them more about the dangers associated with the Infinity Stones if even beings on the level of Alfred and Ed could be so easily affected without them even knowing one lick about it.

According to Alfred, the backlash of the spell affected Alfred but it should have hurt Thanos even more. Being so entwined with the spell meant that Thanos' soul was at least a little bit hurt at this moment which was a small relief even if it was overshadowed by the fact that Thanos could very easily heal the little damage done to his soul with the help of the Soul Stone which was most likely already installed in the Gauntlet. The gauntlet should allow Thanos to use the Stone in a limited way and heal his soul.

The backlash bit was what threw him in for a loop. To think that even the backlash was so huge that Alfred was left almost completely incapacitated. He had mentioned in the report that he had already thought of a way to negate that effect but the timeline had moved up a lot since then.

Now, they had express orders to hand over the remaining work to the people below them and leave for Asgard as soon as possible.

"So, when do we leave?" He heard the quiver in Daisy's voice even though her voice held nothing but hate and disgust for Thanos.

He took one look at her and immediately quashed the idea of rejecting her from his mind. She would probably rampage and reach Asgard on her own anyway. She was very much attached to Alfred like that. Besides, they had express orders to reach Asgard anyway for the final battle. It was not as if he could stop her in any meaningful way. There was a very small chance that she would stop but it was not as if she was not someone who could surpass his authority if she wanted to.

No, she was stronger than him even on her worst days and he was not about to let his thoughts of protecting her get in the way of Ed getting his strongest allies there to protect him.

"Before we leave, we have a couple of unruly scientists on our hand that should have some way of increasing the firepower we have on hand with us,"

"Noo, not Stark. There is no way that man should know about the current situation. You know as well as I do that the man will panic and make rash decisions," Daisy shook her head in annoyance at that man. She was not a fan of Stark and his decisions and he was pretty aware of it. In the first place, she was not a fan of his womanizing tendencies but coupling that with his weapons fortune, Stark was a big fat no for Daisy.

"You know that Dr.Banner will be a huge help for us. Not to mention that Stark's intellect will help us a lot. With Ed and Alfred, both involved directly in the ritual, having someone of Stark's intellect with us to make snap decisions would help us a lot. I am sure that even Alfredf would agree." He said, hoping to convince her. She was of the mind that Stark and Banner should remain in their studded prison until the whole issue was tided over.

He, on the other hand, was of the mind that it would be unfair to not give the Avengers at least the chance to fight for their own and loved ones' survival.

"Come on, let's go meet our guests," He stood up and got out of the tent.

The scene that greeted him never failed to take his breath away. He had purposefully ordered for his tent to be installed at the very edge of the island. Now that the city was no longer chained down to the ground as a precaution, he could see the huge white expanse of snow that filled his entire vision. On the ground, he could see the remains of the ground facility that was on the verge of being dismantled and was only left standing because Alfred had ordered for all standing assets to be devoted to speed run the operation of New Asgard, bypassing many SOPs in exchange for making the city operational days in advance. Sure, the city was not exactly hundred percent safe for humans as of now but Asgardians were a hardy bunch and they could hardly be blamed for a couple of niceties being unfinished in exchange for them having a functional, safe home in time for the ritual.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Daisy said as she stood beside him.

"Too bad we don't have more time to enjoy the view then. Let's go," He took one last look at the sea of white and nudged Daisy towards the prison tent that was relocated from the ground facility to the city centre that was made as an elevated stage.

They entered the prison facility and dismissed the guard who was stationed to make sure that Stark did not do anything untoward. Judging by the relieved look on the guard's face when he dismissed him, Stark had done his job of thoroughly annoying any guard that they had assigned to him.

"Oh, if it isn't the people who are illegally imprisoning the world's richest man. I'll sue you know?" Stark flippantly said as he continued to bounce the tennis ball that was given to him in a bid to remove his boredom. Dr.Banner was resting on his comfortable bed, reading the book that Alfred had authored, one of the many hundreds that he had made in the background as he continued to research and gain more knowledge in dozens of different fields. Alfred had even created some fields of research and he was sure that Dr.Banner's curiosity was something that would easily convince him to abandon his life in the States and come live here permanently.

"Stark, I have no time for niceties right now. The Universe as we know it is at stake and I'm sure that despite your overall behaviour, your intellect can be put to good use." He said and opened the doors to their respective prisons.

Dr.Banner, having been the ideal guest, was given all the amenities he had asked for, and Stark, being who he was, was given just a bed and a toilet. He was sure that the guard had a field day seeing Stark becoming jealous over Bruce reading about technology that hadn't even been theories about in the outside world.

Something in his tone must have alerted them because Stark took one look at him and Bruce before straightening up, "So, what happened that the big bad Alfred can't take care of? I have some words for Ed as well so I will be grateful if we can meet them soon," Stark said as he fixed his suit. Banner nodded at Stark's statement as well.

Something must have happened for them to say that but it was not his problem at this stage.

"Very well, I will have someone escort you to your suits. We will be leaving for Asgard in a couple of hours. Prepare as much as you can. It is literally a life-and-death situation and all sorts of firepower will be greatly appreciated. There is no limit for luggage so you can bring in your large Arc Reactor for all I care. A carrier will be there to pick you up at the tower." He said to Stark before turning to Dr.Banner.

"Dr.Banner, while I am aware that you have not yet fully merged with the Hulk, we have need of his power in the upcoming fight and I will be personally grateful if you could make an accord with him,"

Dr.Banner sighed and nodded his head.

Well, that was taken care of.

Stark took a long look at him and Daisy but did not say anything. He then left the tent, presumably towards their suits that were kept on display just outside the tent. Dr.Banner followed suit.

After a minute, they heard the telltale signs of repulsor jets activating and the suits leaving the city of New Asgard.

He just hoped that Asgardians came to actually live in this city in their current state. Not in the weakened state that they would be if Thanos actually succeeded.

Killing off half of the population of the entire universe.

"I will kill him or die trying," He muttered to himself, clenching his fists. He will not lose his family. Not after all Ed had done for his family to be as prosperous as it was now.

Dying for Ed and his family's sake would not be a bad way to go. It would be worth it, even.

"Frank? Frank, what is going on? I just got the orders for full evac of all families." He heard Maria speak into his comms.

And so, it began.

---

Word Count - 2445

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

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[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 117

Technomancer in MCU

Odin's personal Vault, Asgard

–Alfred–

"Are you absolutely sure you want to do this, Alfred? I don't have to tell you about the consequences of even a single thing going wrong," Frigga voiced out her concerns, rightly so, considering the stakes at hand.

But it was something he had to do. It was a mistake on his part that allowed Thanos to cast that insidious spell on both him and Ed, right at the moment he was at the weakest in terms of the protection for his soul. Ever since he heard about the concept of souls and the way they could be attacked, he had been obsessed with fortifying his soul to the highest levels as it was essentially the core of what he was. Unlike his creator, he did not have a body at that time and thus was very vulnerable to any attacks that could be done through the application of magic and had sought out the expertise of the Ancient One on that topic so he did not have to feel vulnerable again.

She did not cast some spell on him that would protect his spell but she pointed him towards the vast library that housed numerous texts on the subject of souls. There, he found out that runes could be used to protect his soul and at that point, being the digital life form that he was, he was only able to use Runes from the field of mystics. He had then gone on to learn everything there was to know about runes and had fortified his mind and soul to such a degree that even the Ancient One had a little trouble in breaching them. He had gotten complacent then.

Then it happened. The Ancient One found out about his attempts to use the Infinity Stones' energy in ways that she had expressly forbidden him. As a result of that, the Ancient One had sealed off all of his knowledge regarding Runes as a punishment. That was the only time that his soul was undefended, allowing Thanos to cast his spell undetected.

Sure, even if all of his defenses were up, he would not have been able to stop the spell from affecting him but he could have warned more and more people about the spell and the knowledge that Thanos was targeting, increasing the scope of the spell. That would have made Thanos use more of the Soul Stone's energies, injuring him further.

Alas, Thanos struck him at the most opportune moment and succeeded. He would have succeeded completely but he had not foreseen that he would gain a body that would completely synergize with his soul, allowing the spell to slowly and slowly fall apart. Sure, at the rate it was going, it would have taken centuries but it would have fallen apart.

The moment he had felt some sort of cage in his mind and soul, he had immediately invoked the highest level of emergency in his mind, diverting all his resources to finding and eliminating the foreign intrusion he had detected in his mind.

Albeit an excessive step, he had immediately deduced that the fastest way to make sure that there was no foreign interference in his soul was to brand his very soul with runes empowered by the energies of the Infinity Stones. He was aware from his previous experiments that only the energies of an Infinity Stone could cancel out the energy of another Infinity Stone. He did have the stored energy from the Space, Time, and Mind Stone on his person at all times so he had immediately begun casting the runes on his soul. In fact, he had gone the extra mile and cast the runes on his entire body, making sure that the spell had no place to hide, from where it could resurge at an opportune moment.

The pain had been unbearable. Nothing like he had ever experienced before. No matter how many times he tried to shut down his pain receptors, he continued to feel that tearing pain. It felt like his soul was being ripped apart yet he held on. He knew that it would be worth it and in the end, after pulling in energies from a dozen unclaimed dimensions, he had finally gathered enough juice to pop the spell. Judging by the spell, he was sure that Thanos had used the Stone without any filter in between which meant that he was very weak at the moment and none of the stones he had on him could heal his body, at least not without the Gauntlet and a host of other conditions.

So, they still had a chance, and a good one at that, of ending Thanos once and for all.

And that is why he must do this.

"Yes, I am certain," He voiced his decision with determination. He could feel Frigga's concern and Odin's uncertain gaze boring down on him but he held on steadfast. Now was not the time to waver.

He waited a beat before the bars holding the Space Stone slid up, casting the entire hallway in a blue glow. There was a reason he had chosen the Space Stone instead of the Time Stone or the Mind Stone, all of which were feasible options. The simple reason was that he was the most comfortable with the Space Stone as he had done the most research on its malleable energy,

Stepping forward with difficulty, he winced once the emergency arc reactors shut down their power supply, forcing him to manually lift his arms and legs. It was excruciatingly painful to even move in his current state and there was no way he would be able to cast even the simplest spell, let alone conduct the ritual for Ed's body or fight against Thanos' forces.

"Be careful," Odin muttered before he left the vault, Frigga followed suit, leaving him alone with the Space Stone.

"No time like the present," He muttered to himself before he raised his left hand and placed it right on the crown of the Tesseract, and softly started pressing down. His right arm meanwhile was alight with a dozen different magic circles that lit up in an ominous blue glow once his right arm made contact with the Tesseract as well. The outer covering of the Space Stone soon dissolved into motes of blue light, revealing the shining blue gem hovering in front of him.

He flicked his right arm which caused the small rock to rocket right into his chest, where a cavity had opened up, revealing the most advanced Arc Reactor built to date. It was made to house an Infinity Stone and accurately and reliably use that energy for various effects using his body.

He gasped as his neck snapped backward in shock as the energy of the Space Stone wreaked havoc in his body, He gritted his teeth as the energy travelled throughout his body and then back into the Arc Reactor, creating a feedback loop that empowered him. His body, rising from the slumber it had gone into due to the lack of high-density energy in his body, came back to life and started gorging on the highest quality energy available in the universe, the energy of the Infinity Stone.

Even though he was not in the room itself, he could feel Odin's gaze on his body now that his senses had begun coming back to him. He could feel his systems snapping back into place once the surge of energy reached them. Slowly, the loop of energy that was flowing through his body came to a pause before the Arc Reactor with the stone embedded into it, "slotted" in his body, for lack of a better term. As soon as that happened, a blue shockwave was emitted from his body, cratering the ultra-dense ground beneath. He opened his eyes to see that even his vision was now tinted in blue.

"How does it feel?" Surprisingly, it was Toby who answered first. He had voluntarily linked himself to Toby because he wanted to be connected to Ed at all times and the bond that linked Toby and Ed was the best way to do that.

He looked at his hand that now had crisscrossing veins filled with blue energy and clenched it, "Ready. I feel ready,"

"Good, because you are going to need it. Ed has learned about the situation of some Strange person and he is pissed at you. I would suggest getting here as soon as possible and give me a taste of that medicine as well. I hate feeling this weak," Toby replied in kind.

He raised an eyebrow at that last request, "Even after knowing the consequences of doing so?"

Toby scoffed from the other end of the link, "Hah! When have consequences ever stopped me before?"

He smiled in relief before pumping the Infinity Stone energy into the link, empowering it further. He was sure that someone of Toby's level would have the relevant tools and knowledge to make proper use of that condensed energy. He was right about one thing though. He hated feeling weak and even though the price was substantial, he had successfully taken steps to ensure that he would never be that weak again.

Before he could head towards the Guest Wing to receive no doubt the greatest scolding of his lifetime, he snapped his fingers and sent the renewed set of instructions to his partition back on earth who was responsible for handling the day-to-day functioning of Kamar Taj.

He then closed his eyes and let himself go into the ever-expansive glow of the blue energy that was infused into every cell of his body. He felt as if he was one with the space of the entire universe and yet, he never felt like his mind would unravel under the strain of it all. He then concentrated on the enclosed bubble of Asgard and got a feel for the energy signature of one Jane Foster.

He was somewhat surprised to see that her transformation into an Asgardian was complete, allowing her to perform limited feats with the energy of the Reality Stone present inside her. She was currently using that energy to create tools that she had only designed back on Earth and taking readings at the same time on the computer that she had created using the energy inside her.

He shook his head at that. Sometimes, the field of science can limit the vision of someone so much that they cannot even think of a step that could happen without thinking of going through a list of dozens of steps before that.

He snapped his fingers once again, teleporting Miss Foster to him. With another snap, she was sent to his partition back on Earth. In the same breath, he sent a mental ping to Odin as well, informing him of his decision to send Jane back to Kamar Taj where his partition would use the Time Stone to train both her and Strange in a time-dilated bubble where they would undergo years of training in a matter of hours, allowing them to emerge as veritable powerhouses during the fight with Hela.

He then took a deep breath and teleported himself to the place where Ed was. He seemed to be in the middle of a heated discussion with Toby who was now lit up with the energy of the Space Stone.

Good, he was able to assimilate that energy without any difficulty. He would just have to explain that to Odin but it was not as if he was going to be alive for long. The ritual would kill him and if not, then his daughter's prison bursting apart certainly would do the job.

He just hoped that Hela Odinsdottir would not bring about any surprises because he was done with surprises for the rest of his life.

---

Word Count - 2002

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

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[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 118

Technomancer in MCU

Kamar Taj, Earth

–Alfred(Partition)--

Hmm. This was going to be tough to explain to Ed but it was not as if he was going to do the explaining. The main partition would have to and it serves him right for trying to saddle him with babysitting duty. Admittedly, the people he was going to babysit were going to emerge as SS-rank powerhouses once their training was done.

He was waiting for the aforementioned powerhouse to arrive in the ritual room of Kamar Taj. It was chosen because it had the highest levels of energy masking wards present in Kamar Taj and also because he did not feel like explaining Jane Foster's presence to anybody in Kamar Taj. The less people know about her, the better. You never know how some ancient unknown entity might sniff out the presence of an Infinity Stone on her and try and make a move on her.

Of course, he will be there to stop it but why go through all that hassle?

"Okay, I will bite the bullet and ask. What are we doing here?" Strange's annoyed voice echoed into the ritual chamber. Apparently, the ritual room absorbed all sorts of stray energy, masking the internal activities completely, and yet, a simple echo was not stopped by it.

Interesting.

"We are waiting for someone who will be joining us for the final training," He answered without looking back. Strange was someone who was born with an abnormally high talent for sorcery and all the academic hard work he had done on his way here only added to it. Not to mention that the hardships he had gone through, some of which might have been orchestrated, toughened his will and spirit to the point that even Mephisto's temptation would not budge him at all.

After arriving at Kamar Taj, Strange was, understandably, very suspicious of everything yet not as much as he was in Ed's memories, simply because he had seen the stuff that had happened during the battle of New York and had simply categorised sorcery as advanced science. He picked up on eldritch projection and sling ring teleportation within a day and went on to master all of the basics in a week. That was unheard of and he too was surprised to see it done by a baseline human without any enhancements at all. He then wondered how Strange would fare if he was not limited by his failed enhancement body so he did something that the Ancient One would have probably disapproved of.

He completed the procedure that Stark had initiated on Strange's body. Anyhow, once Strange was sufficiently competent in his practice he would have been able to feed his cells the necessary amount of energy and heal them but what he had done went a step further than that. Stephen Strange was now a certified superhuman but not in the conventional hitting harder-than-steel way.

Stephen Strange's cells, before he fixed them, were in a strange state of flux wherein they were fed a certain energy to initiate their changing process but that energy had fallen short of completing their requirements, hence the cells had begun gorging on Strange's life energy to supplement that. He had then taken neutral dimensional energy and woven it through a dozen different unclaimed dimensions and thrust it into Strange's body, turning him into a pseudo-elemental entity.

Now, Strange can call forth the powers of Fire, Ice, Water, Kinetic Energy, and more without even casting or thinking of a spell. His experiment had worked, turning Strange into a high A-tier enhanced if he mastered all of his powers, even without taking his absurd potential for high-level sorcery into account. His training was going phenomenally well. The only thing was that they did not have much time before Hela broke out of her prison so his main partition had come up with an absurd, high-stakes plan to create two SS-class fighters out of thin air, essentially.

Apparently, the time dilation feature of the Time Stone can be used in alternate dimensions as well, provided that they are still connected to this universe. So, he was given the absurd task of creating a time-dilated bubble in an alternate dimension where time would flow at the ratio of 1:1100. He was going to train Jane Foster and Stephen Strange for what would amount to only a day in the universe but would be nearly three years in the time bubble, allowing him enough leeway to create complete monsters out of them.

Speaking of complete monsters, he felt the gaze of the one-eyed Odin on him before the space in front of him warped, leaving a very surprised Jane Foster in traditional Asgardian armour. She took one look at her surroundings at him before charging straight ahead.

Midway through, a sword made of red mist appeared in her right arm that she slashed toward them, releasing a wave of ominous red energy that seemed to warp the very air, drawing in even the surrounding light.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" He looked back and asked Strange. Strange looked at him with confusion before his face morphed into one of resignation. He then stepped forward and waved his hand, releasing a stream of blue fire that warped the very air around them. Foster's surprised look was a delight but that soon turned into a determined face as she once again brought her sword in front of her and slashed it forward, releasing another wave of red light.

The attacks seemed to be happening in slow motion to him because of his advanced reflexes but in reality, barely a second had passed since Strange had come forward and attacked Foster.

Of course, he was ready to intervene at the slightest chance of any real damage being done to any of them. It was harder to damage Jane now that she was an Asgardian but Strange had more firepower on his side because the Reality Stone's output within Jane was severely limited by Bor's energy.

The wave of fire and two waves of Reality-altering energy clashed in the middle of the room, creating shockwaves of air. Unsurprisingly, Strange's fire was consumed by the red wave as it continued on its path to him and Strange who looked calm about the whole exchange. Just as the wave was about to hit him, he snapped his fingers, teleporting Jane to his position, startling her.

Jane's eyes widened as she brought the sword in front of her and absorbed the red waves back into her sword without any issue. The sword too then was absorbed back into her hand, leaving him with a very angry fuming Asgardian who all but lashed at him.

"What the fuck do you think you are doing? Where am I and who is that bozo?" She pointed at Strange who looked very much offended at the insinuation that he was a bozo.

"Wh-What, me? Excuse me, I have an MD," Strange began defending his looks with his degree which was hilarious for him.

He then clapped his hands in front of them, releasing a shockwave that pushed Jane back and snapped Strange out of his monologue.

'Alright, settle down, kids. While it would be very entertaining to watch both of you bicker, we don't have much time. Now, I am sure that you have questions, which is understandable. Unfortunately, your consent for this training was never a factor, and thus,-" HE then snapped his fingers, revealing a ritual circle drawn underneath their feet.

"--Welcome to your hell for the next 2 years," He announced, and much to his pleasure, both of them looked panicked enough for his sadistic side to enjoy it. Then the Time Stone on his neck began glowing with a green light, mirrored by the ritual lining on the ground as well.

"Wait"

"Wait"

Their pleas fell on deaf ears as with a tearing sound, the entire ritual room, down to the earth, was transported to a dimension filled with a white mist as far as eyes could see. There would be panic amongst the Masters in Kamar Taj for a moment but he was sure that Wong would be able to handle it, with the note explaining his actions and even if they didn't manage in his absence, then it was not as if 24 hours was going to turn the world upside down.

He didn't even flinch when a tsunami of red particles hit him out of nowhere. He turned towards his students only to see a raging Jane looking at him like she wanted to kill him. Most probably did.

Well, maybe this was the time to show them the difference in their levels. So, he adopted the most disdainful look on his face and turned his nose up at Jane. Strange strangely looked done with his life in the background.

"You are a hundred years too early to hurt me, Foster," Saying so, he willed for the barrier to expand outwards, crushing the wave of red particulates using a light application of energy from the Time Stone. Normally, that would have been a lot harder and out of his capabilities given that he was a clone but not only was Jane incredibly inexperienced when it came to energy manipulation, Bor's energy inside her was actively hindering the Reality Stone from flexing its full powers.

The end result was one Stephen Strange looking annoyed and one Jane Foster on her ass.

"Now, even if I wanted to leave, I can only leave after a period of three years. So, get ready for some hard work. We have a lot to do and I will not permit people to be weak, especially those who have been personally trained by me," He declared before waving his arm, creating a beautiful cabin with a pond nearby.

Both of their attention was drawn to that cabin before he snapped his fingers and the cabin dissolved into white motes of light.

"That is your first task, Jane Foster," Jane's eyes snapped to him.

"You are going to need supplies to live in this place. A place to live and sleep, cook food, everything. You are the holder of something that allows you to bend the laws of reality itself. Use it. Until then, I suppose hunger, starvation, and thirst should be plenty motivators,"

Jane's mouth opened to no doubt protest against the conditions but he just snapped his fingers and transported her to a corner of the time bubble.

"What am I supposed to do then?" Strange's annoyed voice sounded behind him. He looked behind to see that Strange had recreated the cabin and the pond nearly perfectly using just dimensional energy in conjunction with the elemental powers granted to him.

He smiled, showing all of his teeth which seemed to unnerve Strange, "No. You are going to get special treatment. First order of business–" He said even as Strange stood up and activated the flow of dimensional energy throughout his body, causing all of the elements under his command to manifest around his body.

"--Survive," He said that ominous word before he sent an invisible wave of cutting energy at Strange. Strangely, Strange had disappeared the moment he had heard the word "survive", resulting in the wave just cutting at the land.

Huh. This was going to be fun. No wonder the Ancient ONe loved to bully the newcomers, especially the more arrogant ones.

---

Word Count - 1926

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 119

Technomancer in MCU

Royal Palace, Asgard

–Ed–

So, here they were.

The stage was set. Alfred had done something to himself that helped him recover completely out of nowhere. He had tried his utmost to hide it but the subtle blue glow around his eyes completely gave him away. The bastard had actually done it. He had gone ahead with his half-baked ideas and actually managed to create an Arc reactor that housed the Space Stone, culminating in a reactor with the highest possible output, Infinity.

Somehow, that same procedure helped Alfred easily heal TOby as well, bringing both of them back from the brink of exhaustion. In fact, he could feel Toby's soul just burning with excess energy. It was nearly vibrating due to the extra energy it was housing. Toby must have done that in preparation for the ritual where his soul was the one that was going to be taxed the most. After all, Toby was the one who was going to actually handle moving his soul. Alfred was the one who was going to instruct him every microsecond.

Frigga and Odin were just supposed to be guardians but with the addition of the Infinity Stones, Alfred had managed to raise the success probability of the ritual to above 90 percent. All Odin and Frigga had to do, aside from maintaining the barrier around the ritual room and powering it with the Odin Force, was use the gathered energies from all of the Infinity Stones that they had ever encountered and use it to gently "steer" the ritual to the ideal eventuality.

Frigga and Odin were being educated on the specifics of the ritual by Alfred and Toby was..

He looked at the giant ball of burning darkness floating just out of Asgard's atmosphere. Toby had gone into some sort of demon meditation mode and was focusing on the details of the ritual that Alfred had just dumped into his head. A normal human or even an enhanced human would most probably have been dead from that but Toby was far from normal even if his intellect left something to be desired.

Frank and Daisy, along with both of their respective teams had landed on Asgard a while back and were busy coordinating with the ground forces of Asgard along with establishing a chain of command for the upcoming battle. The forces of Asgard were still unaware of the relationship between Hela and Odin but Odin had warned them about their foe somewhat correctly. For one, Hela's abilities were correctly reported to his commanders as well as the fact that she grows stronger as the time she spends on Asgard increases.

Their commanders were particularly incensed once they were told that while they did have the means to kill Hela completely, once and for all, they were supposed to not do that. They were supposed to throw their lives on the line again and again until an undisclosed milestone was met, all the while Hela grew stronger and stronger.

Those same commanders had shut up with their complaints once they were made aware of the reason behind the complete evacuation of Asgard. Also, the huge fleet that blotted out the sky behind the Royal Palace also may have played a part in it. Alfred had pulled out all the stops for this, as was evident by the dozens of supercarriers that absolutely dwarfed even the entire realm of Asgard. It was honestly concerning thinking about the huge weaponry that had been built by his organisation, behind his back. If he survived this, he was going to have to have a one-on-one with Alfred about boundaries of some sort. He knew that Alfred had already surpassed the level where he could actually instill some boundaries in him but as his creator and leader of the Ascendancy, he still had some responsibility in that regard.

The moon base had been completely filled with the evacuated members of the family of all of his agents. Since everything that had been happening was not common knowledge, even in the Ascendancy, all of his agents had been spooked about the massive movement within the organisation and had all but demanded the safety of their families, at the very least. HE agreed with them wholeheartedly and thus, their families were now housed in the strongest place he had ever built.

The Moon Base.

He had never known that there were levels to places in the universe. It was not completely arbitrary but there were certain criteria that you had to fulfill if the place wanted to be certified. If he went by the publicly available information, it would mean that his Moon Base was a level 6 stronghold, which was hilarious because he had made that base very early in his quest for Thanos' demise. He had gone on to upgrade it every opportunity he got but the fact that he had a place where even the strongest of the non-celestials of the universe would have a hard time getting into, was a relief for the agents. Of Course, once you added the Infinity Stones, everything went up for toss but he had calculated for that eventuality as well.

As of this moment, right underneath the Moon Base, there was a vault, filled with vibranium ingots that had absorbed the energy of three different Infinity Stones.

The Mind Stone.

The Space Stone.

The Time Stone.

The three stones that Alfred had spent a prolonged time with. They had built up a sizable inventory of it and due to that energy, Alfred was able to bring to life, something that he had only theorised about. A way to stop Thanos even if he assaulted the place with the Infinity Gauntlet.

See, he had finally gotten the answer to a question that had plagued him for a long time. If the Infinity Stones, if slotted into the Gauntlet, posed no harm to the user if the user was strong enough, why did Thanos not use all six or at least multiple stones in conjunction to just straight up remove all the thorns in his way?

The answer was that he just couldn't. In all of his memories, the only time that Thanos used three or more Infinity Stones at once was when he killed half of the universe. That meant that he couldn't use multiple stones at once without repercussions. Exploiting that fact, Alfred had come up with a barrier system for the base that used the energies from the Infinity Stone ingots to repel whatever attack that Thanos could throw at it. It had a system built in which could detect whatever energy was being used against it and decide which energy to use to repel it, making it very useful for defending against attacks from beings empowered with the energies of an Infinity Stone.

Alfred had tested it against the might of the Time Stone that the Ancient One wielded at that time and the system did hold itself against all the Time Stone attacks that the Ancient One threw at it but eventually, the system wore itself down because of the scarcity of the energy they had at that time. Not now, though. According to Alfred's calculations, they had enough energy to last even a week of continuous siege.

Hopefully, they never need that though.

He turned around once he heard the noise of the repulsor jets though that was probably for his own benefit anyway. From what he knew of Stark, he had probably already developed multiple iterations of the repulsor systems which were completely stealthy.

Two suits, of red and gold and muted green colours landed gently in front of him and opened up to reveal the forms of one Tony Stark, pain in his ass, and Bruce Banner, the avatar of Rage.

Stark, as usual, started with a snarky comment, "So, Ed, what's with all the party preparations? I am hurt you chose not to invite me. Bruce was pretty bummed too,"

"Um, I, uh, have no part in this whatsoever," Bruce stammered out, causing Tony to give him a betrayed look.

He chuckled, amused by Tony's antics that he never stopped, despite the seriousness of the situation, "So, what can I do for you, Stark?"

Tony's smile dropped as he started looking around shiftily for some reason. He then went back to the suit and pressed a few buttons, causing the suit to dissolve into a puddle of nanites. Well, not completely but most of the suit dissolved into nanites, leaving behind a core rectangular shell made up of solid metals. So, that's the route Tony had taken at the moment. Tony had used the nanites part of his suit to increase its versatility while creating a solid core that does not compromise on the strength and safety of the suit.

"Nanites not strong enough, yet?" He piped in between whatever Tony was doing. Tony paused in his actions, clearly surprised at that. Bruce also gave him a surprised look.

He snorted, "I was the one who made Alfred, remember? Ergo, I can be partially credited for everything that he made,"

Tony gained a thoughtful look at that and then raised his thumbs at him, "Fair enough."

He sighed, "What do you want Stark?"

"Just a moment," Stark said as he continued to fiddle with the core of his suit.

"Alright, almost done. There, finished," Tony continued to mutter as the core of the suit flew into the air right above him and then projected a barrier around the three of them. Judging by the absolute silence that permeated the barrier, a complete departure from the heavy sounds of the military being gathered, Tony wanted to say something in private.

He opened his mouth to speak when suddenly he realised something, causing him to close his mouth with an audible click. His eyes widened in horror and genuine awe when he looked at the barrier and then at Tony.

"What? Look, I'm flattered but I don't swing that way," Tony, the absolutely genius bastard that he was, said.

He just deadpanned at him and even then, the awe could not be taken out of his voice as he said, "What did you just do, Stark? I can't even feel the links made with magic and that was supposed to be nearly–"

"Impossible? Inconceivable? Yes, keep the praises coming. After all, I have made a barrier to stop something that could not even be detected by even the most advanced of sensors that I could make. So, yes, it is an–"

"Fluke," Bruce deadpanned.

Tony choked, "Wh-What?"

He chuckled at their antics. It was nice that Bruce had opened up to Tony and gotten comfortable enough. It would certainly help with the Hulk down the line.

Now though, he looked at Tony seriously, "What is it, Tony?"

Tony sighed and ran his hand through his hair, a nervous tick that Alfred had observed numerous times, "Do you know about a surgeon named Stephen Strange back home?"

He raised an eyebrow at that. He most certainly did but the question was that how did Tony get involved with Stephen.

"I do. He is one of the people we monitor for special reasons that you are not qualified to know,"

Tony's face flashed through a multitude of emotions. Disappointment was one of them, for some reason.

"So, you condone what Alfred did to him?"

"What? Speak clearly, Stark."

"Fine, here is what your precious AI did to a promising surgeon who was at the top of his career. Stephen Strange was using the website of AlfredGPT when….."

As Stark continued to narrate the harrowing tale of Strange being in an accident and Alfred actually mocking him for that accident on top of actually causing said accident, his eyes widened more and more in horror. He could not believe Alfred would go that far in his quest to safeguard Humanity.

Sure, he had emphasised it time and time again to help humans and he was sure that Alfred worked on a different moral scale than most humans, due to who he was fundamentally but this..this was going too far.

"Do you have any proof?" He asked Tony, controlling the raging emotions within him.

"Just call Alfred and ask him. I am sure that he would not lie to you," Bruce chimed in. Tony nodded as well.

But what could they accomplish even if he did call in Alfred? All of this would only matter if he had any capacity to actually do anything. Right now, he was even worse than a cripple. Even his life and death were in the hands of someone else right now. Whatever Alfred had done, he must have done so with solid reasoning. That didn't make it okay but more likely than not, Toby would agree with Alfred's reasons. So would Odin and Frigga and Loki and Thor.

He had no one who could contend with Alfred aside from himself and that was just a what-if in the future.

HE sighed, all this being dumped at the worst possible moment, was taking its toll on him. "Look, Stark. Your concerns are valid and if they are true, I promise you that I will take action against Alfred for it. It's just that, to actually do something, I would need the power to do so. As I am right now,--"

"--You are completely crippled, I get it. I have seen the scans that Frank gave to us. Alright, I get it. We'll complete this procedure and then we'll talk. Deal?"

He shook Tony's offered hand, "Deal."

Tony's eyes then lost that serious look as he started rubbing his hands in excitement, "So, who is this mystery foe against whom I can test any and all of my weapons? I have literally brought in enough weapons to destroy a small country and they tell me that even that won't be enough?"

And just like that, Tony Stark was back to being the overexcited man-child that everyone thought he was and yet, he knew. Looking at the wariness hidden behind the facade of excitement, he knew that Stark was very much worried about the upcoming foe and even more than that, worried about Alfred should they win the fight against Hela.

---

Word Count - 2396

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 120.1

Technomancer in MCU

Asgard

An impressive gathering of forces was happening in the realm of Asgard. Forces from Midgard, the denizens of which are generally regarded as the weakest of the nine realms have given out a surprising showing for all of the nine realms.

Dozens of ships capable of carrying multiple attacks that would not fall short of the strongest attack of someone like Thor were stationed all around the skies of Asgard. The same ships could pool together their powers and fire a single shot that would surpass even the strongest attack of Odin when he was in his prime, ensuring that should the attack hit, the target would most certainly meet its demise. Even Thanos, in his current state where he was powered up by only a single (or two) Infinity Stones, would most certainly meet his demise.

This was all in addition to the single combat fighters who, when together, would best even the strongest of armies. Consisting of army killers like Thor, Hulk, and an empowered Daisy, it was almost a certainty that any large-scale attack against them would fail.

The problem with the situation was that they were capable of handily defeating their foe, Hela, Goddess of Death but the thing about Hela was that she would not die, not so easily anyway. Her unique bond with Asgard made it so that only and only when the current Asgard was destroyed in its entirety, only then could she be killed for good.

The other thing about her was that over time, she would grow stronger and stronger until she reached roughly the same level as ODin himself, a level with which not many of Ed's people could contend with. There was only so much technology could do on its own to bridge the gap between "one of the strongest" to "the strongest" of the universe (at least if you exclude the forces of nature known as Celestials). So, the task for the gathered forces was a bit tough. IT was going to be tiring and somewhat disheartening to see strong attacks damage Hela and defeat her, only for her to come back stronger which would reduce the impact of those same attacks on her.

And yet, everybody who had gathered on Asgard wore faces of absolute determination. Odin and Alfred had collectively decided to arm even the Asgardian Soldiers with the armour that every single soldier on Ed's side had access to. The soldiers grumbled about it in the beginning but once they saw the defensive capabilities of the armour and the ease with which it clung to them like a second skin, allowing them full mobility which was better than their previous armours, those complaints evaporated into thin air.

Tony Stark, in particular, was given access to some Uru for his armour by Alfred. Alfred had also helped him personally forge that Uru using the advanced smithing techniques, under the watchful gaze of Eitri the Dwarven King, to create a suit shell that would be very helpful in stopping Hela from just killing Tony with a graze of her weaponry because that was what was going to be the most troublesome part in it all.

Hela's weapons were deadly, being tinged with her necromantic death energy meant that even a single nick of her weapons were fatal for a mortal like Tony and downright disabling for an Average Asgardian.

They were going to hit Hela with their strongest attacks at the very end to make sure that she would not be able to reach the ritual room. According to Alfred's estimations, it would take roughly an hour to complete the ritual safely. Once that was done, the entirety of the forces on Asgard were given a button that would safely teleport them to a dummy ship out of the dimensional bubble of Asgard, safely evacuating them from the blast zone. Alfred, with Odin's permission, had also installed a very volatile bomb right underneath Asgard that would destroy its very foundations, making sure that the magics that kept Asgard intact would fold like paper once its foundation was destroyed.

All of this was being done to preserve and protect the ritual room which was one of a kind throughout the universe. The ritual room in Asgard was more like a doorway into a pocket space connected to the Yggdrasil that runs throughout the nine realms. That space was the perfect spot to conduct a ritual that involves energies from ingots of creations, capable of rending space apart.

The same ritual room where four infinity stones were gathered all at once, along with a truly impressive gathering of the strongest people of the nine realms. Odin, Frigga, Toby, and Alfred were each standing at one corner of the ritual room. Each of them was connected to the ritual circle at the center by a line that ran through an increasingly confusing number of patterns before finally reaching the place where Ed was standing, i.e., the center of the ritual room.

Four Infinity Stones were floating behind Alfred as he made the final adjustments to the ritual under the hawkish gaze of both Frigga and Odin. All of them had been connected to each other using a spell that Odin had learned back in his youth. The spell having been boosted by the might of the Infinity Stone made it so that the connection would remain strong even in the face of the mighty energies of the ritual.

"Ready?" Alfred asked once everything was done. He had done everything possible from his side. He had double and triple-checked everything along with having Frigga and Odin also do the same. If there were any complications during the ritual, he also had the Infinity Stones just floating right behind him.

At the four corners of the ritual room were Frigga, Odin, Toby, and Alfred. All of them had their specific roles in the ritual. Odin and Frigga were the stabilizing agents. As it turned out, the energies of a hyper-advanced race were the most stable, especially Odin's as it had gained a flavour similar to the Yggdrasil's energy over the years. Frigga was there more to regulate the flow of said energy, i.e., the Odin Force. Odin's control over it had waned over the years, to the point that he could not use the ODin FOrce for pinpoint spells. Frigga, a witch, had impeccable control and that was why she was there.

Toby was responsible for handling Ed's soul since he was the only one strong enough at this point to actually pilot Ed's soul, especially once Ed was put to sleep. Plus the bond that Ed and Toby shared from beyond this universe ensured that they had the highest chance of success if Toby was the one who moved Ed's soul. Alfred was more like the conductor of the orchestra. He was the only one of the four present who could conduct the calculations required to direct Ed's soul into the new body that they had forged for him.

The body was the one that was made from the best technology that Alfred had scrounged up from old Sovereign tech along with his own considerable advancements in human cloning. The body was made from the genes of multiple advanced races along with having every single enhancement under the roof baked into it from the get-go. One thing that Alfred had to be careful about was that the body could have no inclination toward one element or magic system from the beginning because Ed's soul might end up rejecting for it. So, Alfred had done his best to make sure that the body was neutral in its energy signature to better facilitate Ed's soul into it.

"Ready."

"Ready."

Odin just nodded in agreement.

Alfred then took a deep breath, even though he had no need to breathe, and snapped his fingers, causing four phantasmal hands to emerge from his back and hold onto the four Infinity Stones floating behind him. He then began glowing yellow, corresponding to the Mind Stone, signalling that Alfred was using the Mind Stone to boost his own mental prowess. The ritual circle lit up with a rainbow of colours, not unlike the ones that are seen when the BiFrost is used.

All six bodies that were connected to the ritual began floating in the air. Of course, Alfred, who was deep in his mental space, could not see any of it.

Odin and Frigga gasped as pure unadulterated Odin Force flowed out of Odin which was directed by Frigga into the ritual circle as the body that was floating above Ed's puppet began glowing with the colours of the Yggdrasil as well. The puppet that was being used by Ed's soul withered into dust as a huge spectral soul began floating in its place. Ed's soul.

As soon as Ed's soul left the confines of its puppet body, a huge pressure was exerted not only on the ritual room but also on all of Asgard.

The pressure was felt by all of the gathered forces outside the Royal palace. Most of them fell into a tense stance as they had thought that it was an enemy attack but they were then informed by their leaders that this was just the ritual being conducted inside the palace. Most of them were still wary about an attack but had relaxed a bit.

The spectral form of Ed was nothing like the puppet body he was inhabiting. Of course, none of the participants of the ritual could see it other than Toby who was already sweating at the moment as he had to bear the brunt of Ed's soul unleashed. Alfred somehow sensed that as his body began glowing partially blue as the space stone also began glowing with the same colour. Toby who was on the verge of exhaustion sighed in relief once he felt the soothing blue energy of the Space Stone flood his systems, more energy than was possible through the bond that he and Alfred shared. In fact, the energy was so much in excess that he grinned and renewed his efforts to move Ed's soul, guided by Alfred's calculations.

Right as Ed's soul was at the halfway mark, Odin began coughing but didn't stop his efforts to supply Odin FOrce to the ritual.

Frigga looked at him in concern but she could not move from her position, lest she jeopardise the entire ritual and doom all of Asgard including herself and her sons.

"...Cough..Cough…It's her. She is free," Odin said as he continued to cough but his hand didn't waver as he continued to supply the ritual, the very thing that was responsible for keeping him alive. "It's all up to you now," Odin said as he looked at one corner of the ritual room but his gaze went far beyond as he saw the ominous green portal that had opened at the edge of the OBservatory which had been shut down on his orders. He could see his sons, united, standing with their steadfast allies, ready to defeat the biggest mistake he had ever made in his life.

Odin then looked at Frigga with a sad smile as he closed his eyes and began withering away into motes of white light that seemed to be absorbed by the ritual circle, powering it even further.

Alfred grunted at the sudden addition of energy but it also helped boost the ritual as the willing soul sacrifice of someone at the level of Odin was something that could match even one of the Infinity Stones in output.

Alfred began glowing red as the Infinity Stone or rather a duplicate of the original which could be used as a gateway to the original residing within one Jane Foster, began glowing with the same colour as Alfred worked furiously to stabilise the ritual circle.

Soon, the ritual circle began glowing greenish golden, as did Alfred's eyes, as did Toby, and as did Ed's new body.

Ever since Toby had known Ed and his powers in this new universe, it had always been signified with greenish gold. Ed's greatest creation, Alfred, was also born with greenish gold as his base form. His first code and then subsequent body's eyes were also of the same colour. Of Course, now that Alfred had forcibly inducted the energy of the Space Stone in his heart, his entire body was filled with glowing blue energy but before that, he was always greenish-golden in colour.

As the ritual was more than halfway done, the ritual room had begun to reach the limits of its durability so Alfred had to once again tap into the energies of the Reality Stone and suffuse the entire ritual room with its energy, stopping the damage in its tracks.

The toll of wielding the energies of multiple Infinity Stones without any suitable tool like the iNFINITY Gauntlet began showing its marks on Alfred's body as it began cracking in places like his chest and arms, spilling blue, red, and yellow energies out. Still, Alfred held on as he ignored his injuries and focused on the millions of calculations that were required to make sure that Ed's soul was handled carefully and squeezed into the new body that Alfred had made for Ed.

While making his own body, Alfred had counted on the fact that someday his body might have to bear the burden of wielding multiple Infinity Stones without a safe medium like the Infinity Gauntlet so he had made sure to add extra energy regulation features into his body and yet, his body was giving out much faster than he had expected. At this rate, he would have to use the Reality Stone to plug the gaps in his own body, resulting in even faster wear and tear, making a truly vicious cycle, and yet...

Yet, Alfred was smiling. It was a very small and subtle smile but Alfred was definitely smiling because they had made good progress. They were actually much further in the process. It had gone all smooth sailing for them despite all of the potential issues in between.

Frigga had fallen unconscious in the time it had taken for Alfred to stabilise the torrent of Odin Force that Odin had released into the ritual when he had burned up his very soul.

All the different energies being used in the ritual had taken their toll on Alfred's body as he was the one who was conducting the ritual. The rest of them were just extra add-ons that were there to make sure that the ritual was successful.

At this point, all that was left was for Ed's soul to be squeezed into the body and then holding it there as it would then be forced to acclimatise to the new body. Alfred was going to squeeze Ed's soul because even after all his preparations to make a body capable of duking it out with the Hulk and Thor without any magical empowerments, it was still not strong enough to house Ed's soul in its entirety, not comfortably at least. So, they were going to have to place Ed's soul in the body and then keep it there for a while. Alfred did not know for how long but one thing was certain, as Alfred watched Ed's soul inch torturously slowly towards his body, he was going to see it through or die trying, as his life's goal mandated it. He would gladly sacrifice his life for the continued well-being of his creator, no matter how much he knew his creator would protest that decision.

For that one thing, he would gladly disobey his creator.







Word Count - 2631

A/N - A couple more chapters to go.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 120.2

Technomancer in MCU

Asgard

In the meanwhile, As Alfred was conducting the ritual, the force stationed outside had gotten nervous because of the sheer pressure that Ed's soul was exerting on Asgard. Then the leading commanders, Frank and Daisy had done something that created a curtain of blue light around the Palace, significantly reducing the pressure that the troops were feeling.

The atmosphere was tense in the area in front of and around the palace. All above the palace, the ships had been aligned in formation so that when the time came, it would be easy to target Hela once she broke out of her prison.

Before going to the ritual room, Alfred had cast a space-sealing matrix on the entire landmass of Asgard which was being sustained by the combined energy outp[ut of the ships floating in the air. The reason for that was that the efficiency ratio of converting electricity to neutral dimensional energy was very bad. The ships sustained those runes which left only a single spot for Hela to emerge from.

The front of the observatory was closed down because of the emergency that was declared by Odin. Heimdall, along with his sword was safe because Heimdall had been armed with another sword and armour, making him indistinguishable from regular soldiers, and his sword, Hofund, had long since been transported to New Asgard on Earth along with the families of all the soldiers and all the civilian population during the evacuation procedure. Most of the dangerous items Odin had collected in his vault had also been safely transported to New Asgard save for a few items that would prove to be essential for Asgard's assured destruction. New Asgard, back on Earth, had been safely locked and loaded as a one-time spatial shield was activated using a precious relic that Kamar Taj lent to Ed only this once. That shield would prevent all forms of teleportation not powered directly by the Space Stone, ergo, all forms of teleportation. At this point, only Alfred would be able to open the shield as he was in the possession of the Space Stone.

Frank, Daisy, Thor, Loki, and Dr.Banner stood at the forefront or rather, floated on top of a platform and stood at the front of the army, waiting at the end of the bridge that connected the Observatory to Asgard. There were multiple units waiting behind them, all informed about the danger that was coming and how they were supposed to defeat them. Alfred had uploaded docs on the best possible strategies and how someone's power could amplify others. He had given Frank and DAisy all possible things they could do. IT was up to them what to choose and what to discard. In that situation, Frank and Daisy had chosen to do the wise thing and called upon Asgard's military generals to discuss the strategy more thoroughly. Since they were short on time, they asked them about their soldier's best qualities and prepared their own units for that.

Of course, the chance of their respective troops colliding was very low because they were not supposed to attack Hela all at once. No, that would end up killing her faster, increasing her integration with Asgard, which in turn, made her stronger. No, their prime goal was to slow down Hela and hold her there.

If Alfred had been there, he could have easily stripped her of her magical powers and held her hostage even if she had been connected to Asgard. It wouldn't have mattered that she was stronger than Alfred. It was only a matter of skill and when it came to mystical skill, there were few alive who could match him. He would have stripped her of her powers in an instant, leaving her powerless as her skillset was never really magic-heavy anyway, at least not magic that she was not born with.

Kamar Taj, back on Earth, was also on lockdown mode as the Sorcerer Supreme had left them or rather, Wong only a single note which read "Wait for me. Be back in a jiffy." Understandably, this left the Masters of the Kamar Taj flustered as without their undoubtedly powerful leader, they would be sitting ducks in case an attack from their strongest enemies occurred. And yet, when they tried to set out to find their leader, barriers sprung forth across all the properties of Kamar Taj, including the Sanctums. The barriers were made from energy that nobody in Kamar Taj had ever seen. It stopped the Masters from leaving at all from the premises. Even the sling rings didn't work. Leaving them trapped. The only good thing was that the Sanctums would be safe from attacks because even the strongest of the relics was unable to leave even a scratch on the barriers. Thus, Master Wong, the highest ranking Master at the moment, ordered everyone to return back to their duties and convened a meeting of the remaining Masters and told them to return to their respective Sanctums and resume their duties since the doorways connecting all of the Sanctums continued to function despite them being the easiest ones to shut down.

In the pocket dimension that Alfred had taken Jane and Strange for training, Jane was currently in the middle of a meditation battle with Stephen Strange. Alfred's clone had since collapsed and left them with only a single final test: "Get out before the dimension collapses". Yes, Alfred had left with the time stone and since then, the dimension had borne the brunt of the time dilation, reducing its integrity. It was only a matter of time before the dimension collapsed on them and as mighty as they had become in their three years of training, they would still die or be lost to the void without any way of going back. Thus, Strange and JAne had joined hands for the first time in their time in the dimension to combine their powers and leave that place. Jane's powers would have helped a lot but the Reality Stone's powers were considerably weakened once they were taken out of the home universe and her powers in particular were weakened by the seal that Alfred had placed on it, allowing him to draw on its powers without needing Jane's consent. Strange had figured out a way to ping one of the things that he loved the most, the watch that Christine had gifted him. It was still in one of the rooms in Kamar Taj and he had confidence that he could use that connection to forge a path back home. It was just that he needed Jane's innate Asgardian internal energy to power that spell because her energy was just that much denser than his own.

Meanwhile, back in Asgard, Thor, and Loki were engaged in a discussion about the sudden breaking of the prison that held their elder sister. They were aware of Hela's existence and her eventual return but they were not yet aware of Odin's death which would be the prelude to Hela arriving on Asgard. Frank and Daisy were aware but the decision to withhold that information had been taken by Frank because he did not want Thor or Loki to head inside the ritual room to try and stop it. Odin had also agreed to this because he was aware that his death was nearing anyway, at least this way, he would be able to do something before dying instead of rotting away in a bed, powerless to do anything about his regrets. In the middle of their discussion, however, Thor jolted as if he had been physically struck in the stomach. Loki's confusion turned to shock as Thor turned back to the Palace with tears in his eyes and a sad resigned look on his face. Before Loki could ask anything about that, he jolted as well as his magical senses were bombarded with vast amounts of death energy. He snapped his gaze to the observatory only to see a green portal opening which seemed to eat even the surrounding light as the decorations at the gate of the observatory began withering away from the sheer aura of the portal. Through that portal, came the zombie-looking face of Hela, The Goddess of Death who was looking at the assembled army with a smirk on her face, as if the gathered forces were not enough for her.

"Finally kicked the bucket, did we? Such a shame," HEla muttered but it was heard by everyone in the arm. Thunder rumbled all over Asgard as Thor's energy churned at the blatant insult to his father.

"Now then, let's get started, shall we?" Hela spoke softly yet the impact was felt all over Asgard as she spread her arms and spread her necromantic energy all over the surroundings. Everybody in the army looked around as to what was going to happen but it was Daisy who pointed at the ocean and shouted for everyone, "Watch out!"

Everybody leaped off the floating platform that they were standing on as a spike filled with death energy stabbed through it. As the leaders of the army floated up in the air because of the armour that was gifted to them, they watched in horror as the water surrounding the observatory began churning, creating disturbances on the surface of the water. Soon, thousands of skeletons, filled with the same death energy began swimming towards the surface of the bridge and even to the coast. All of the soldiers watched in mute horror as huge abominations rose from underneath the bridge, reminiscent of the Fire Giants that they had seen in Muspelheim. Two particularly large giants rose from the two sides of Hela and crossed their arms, standing guard for Hela. Hela watched on as an unending stream of skeletal warriors rose from the waters surrounding Asgard and headed straight towards the allied army.

"For Asgard!" It was the moment the first skeletal soldier had touched the coast that somebody shouted the signature slogan of the Asgardian Army and headed straight to the incoming horde of skeletal soldiers.

"For Asgard!"

"For Asgard!"

"For Asgard!"

The fight between Hela and the defenders of Asgard had begun. All they had in mind was to stop Hela for as long as they could before Hela figures out that there was something going on in the ritual room and tries to stop it.

---

Word Count - 1751

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 121

Technomancer in MCU

The fight had begun with Hela's forces and yet, none of the heavy hitters of the allied forces had moved because they were aware that the foot soldiers reanimated by Hela's magic were not worth their time. Normal Asgardian soldiers would have been more than enough to deal with, albeit with a few casualties. The casualties part was removed from the equation because the armour that everybody was wearing was more than capable of deflecting the death energy that permeated every single one of those skeletal soldiers. Sure, they would never have enough armour to stop Hela's death energy if she got serious but the death energy that every single skeletal soldier had was minuscule so it was fine for the foot soldiers to duke it out with the bulk of Hela's forces. In fact, due to the augmentation granted by the armours to their wearers, they would need to exert very little force to create the same effect as their natural strength as the Arc Reactors in their suit would compensate for their energy, allowing them to go on fighting for a long period of time. The longer the fight went on with the petty soldiers, the more advantageous it would be for the allied forces.

The heavy hitters were waiting for either Hela herself to make a move or for her to summon someone much stronger than mere skeletal soldiers. Granted, those soldiers were made from the corpses of the Berserkers and the host of animals that had died in the waters surrounding Asgard, which were dangerous for the normal civilian Asgardian but for a trained Asgardian, they were little more than fish waiting to be fished.\

The spike that had gone through the platform that everyone was standing on had since disintegrated into nothing as Hela had stopped providing it with magic. Instead, she was just standing there, waiting for something. The commanders of the army were monitoring the condition of the battles going below and aside from surprise attacks from the ancient aquatic predators, there was nothing of concern going on. So far, not a single skeletal soldier had made it past the huge line of Asgardian soldiers just waiting for their turn to fight for their homeland and die in glory.

Asgardians were weird like that.

It was actually Loki who had first noticed the change. "Look," He had pointed to Hela, causing Frank to project a hologram in front of them which was using the long-range cameras installed on the ships floating above them. It showed Hela who looked noticeably more human than she had first shown up on Asgard. Daisy then flicked her arm, causing another picture to appear on the side of the video feed. The difference was like day and night. When Hela first appeared on Asgard, her face had sunken in with bones showing on her body along with her attire being completely tattered.

Now? Now, her face was gaining regal authority with her attire changing to a green and black battle suit.

"So, it is true then. She grows stronger the more we wait," Loki surmised.

"Yeah, but aren't we doing the same?" Stark questioned. He was right in that regard and yet, they could not wait for Hela to take action simply because keeping Hela disoriented for long enough for Alfred to complete the ritual was also one of their tasks. Giving her more time will also increase the range of her senses and she will most definitely sense the absence of Frigga and the strong energy signatures in the place where the ritual room was. She would also most probably soon sense the absence of even a single Asgardian civilian on the planet. That would rouse her suspicion and they could not let her divert her attention from the huge and fancy army that was gathered in front of her.

Thus, they had resolved to take action by firing the first shot before there was a cracking noise right below the water, resulting in a particularly large wave of water that washed over a couple hundred of Hela's skeletal soldiers.

"Guys, something is coming from the waters below. Something big," The words of the team on the ship above were heard by everybody standing on the platform. All of them looked at Hela only to see her smirk directly at the platform as if she could see their panic. All of them wore grim looks as a loud howl was heard all over Asgard, darkening Asgard's skies.

Hela slowly spread her arms apart and uttered a single word that released such a potent wave of death energy that all the skeletal soldiers began hacking away at the Asgardian soldiers with even more fervor.

"...Fenrir…"

With the utterance of that single word, a gigantic green wolf jumped out from below the waters and landed straight on the bridge, in front of Hela, slightly cratering the bridge, something that should have been impossible considering the rigidity of that bridge.

"Awoo!" Fenrir howled as multiple smaller but still larger than normal wolves jumped out of the waters and started running straight to the allied army. Meanwhile, Hela smirked as she petted Fenrir as she stared at the heavy-hitting line and smirked smugly at them, taunting them as her army continued to fight with the soldiers and failed.

Despite her failure, Hela was perfectly happy with continuing this charade with as long as the people in front of her, most likely her step-siblings, wanted to. The longer she waited, the deeper her connection to Asgard would be, making her stronger until eventually, she would be able to swat out the annoying beings in front of her with laughable ease. As she was now, Hela realised she would be hard-pressed to defeat them if even two of them fought her at the same time. She could sense multiple non-Asgardians among the roster there as well. There was one who smelled like overwhelming rage and yet his appearance was completely harmless. She could also smell thunder and Mjolnir as well, probably, one of her brothers. One was an illusory presence who felt more like a Frost Giant but that would not be possible. Unless Odin had actually done the impossible and bent the minds of the stubborn Asgardians to make them accept Frost Giants of their own will.

Then there was that giant suit of armour, reminiscent of the Destroyer and yet she could feel two wills inside that thing. One a mortal mind and the other something else, something much faster than it should be possible. Hela had to admit that it was an impressive showing they had gathered for someone like her. Looking at the huge ships floating in space from which she sensed danger even now, she would freely admit that she would have died had they gone all out from the second she stepped foot on Asgard and yet, she was not worried. After all, it was not as if she would die…completely. They must know that as well, otherwise they would have just been done with her. The more they waited, the stronger she would become but if they had just killed her, she would come back stronger way faster than just waiting for the connection to slot in. Once she was killed, her instincts and divinity would take over, making sure that she would not die the same way ever again and for that, her body would siphon off every single source of energy, including the energy that was her birthright. So, the people in front of her were in a pinch. The only way to kill her was to actually kill her and destroy Asgard at the same time. Doing so would undoubtedly not serve any purpose so she was actually interested in what solution they had in their mind regarding her glorious power..

Hela's neck snapped to the Royal Palace, the golden abomination, as she sensed something going on in the basement, specifically, the floor that housed the Yggdrasil ritual room. Her connection to Asgard had finally grown to the point she could sense almost all of Asgard and she could find no one. To her anger, she found nobody on Asgard other than the small army gathered in front of her. She snarled in rage at that insult only to freeze as she finally recognised the energy traces in the ritual room.

Her eyes widened as she took a step forward, finally recognising the signature of two Infinity Stones that she had encountered in her lifetime. She was about to order Fenrir to charge through but before she could get a word in, she had to raise her hands in front of her, raising two huge shields made of necromantic energy. There was a loud gong that reverberated throughout the battlefield as Hela looked wide-eyed at the remains of her hastily built shield that had been obliterated in the attack. Even Fenrir had his entire torso shredded before the attack could be stopped. She locked on to the person who had attacked her with something that was more in line with something that could be expected from someone like the All-Father and not some puny mortal as the person on the platform who was lowering her arms was.

Fenrir was panting as he was recovering from the attack that had cleaved straight through her shields. She glared at the armoured figure who was responsible for harming her precious and waved her arms, causing multiple huge spikes to emerge from the ocean below and stab straight to the place where the figure was floating on some sort of platform. She expected them to dodge, not for that person to once again raise her arms, causing some weird metal contraptions to emerge from behind her and then just wave her arms, releasing a tidal wave of destruction that just eviscerated her spikes and then the entire arm that was standing on the bridge. She had to brace for the attack even after cocooning herself in her strongest shield.

She clenched her fist as she looked at the aftermath of that attack. The entire battlefield had silenced as all of her skeletal soldiers had fallen into a pile of ash and bones, including her wolves. The good news was that Fenrir had fully healed himself in that time and yet, he was not actually with her yet. She would need the Eternal Flames for Fenrir to actually come back to life and luckily, she had just the way to do that. Clenching her fists, she smiled upon seeing her magic working. She had gotten a little rusty but combined with her innate control over Asgard that was expanding, she was able to summon the Eternal Flames from the vault which was suspiciously empty of everything except the Eternal Flames and a couple of other things. She would have to get to the bottom of that after this but for now, she would love to have her precious boy back in his entirety.

!!!

Her entire being screamed at her to duck as a razor-thin wave of something passed over her, shredding even the first protective layer of the observatory and only being stopped by the layer of Uru that coated the entire observatory, creating a loud gonging noise. She was getting tired of just defending so she just flicked her arms, causing some of the Eternal Flame to latch on to Fenrir's tail, causing him to twitch and convulse as his body regained the life it had before he was struck down by the leader of the Valkyries, right before she killed her for that transgression.

She felt her body regain more energy before she swiped her arms, suffusing even more of her energy into her foot soldiers as Fenrir howled and jumped straight to the very dangerous person floating there. Her head would have been sliced had she not ducked at the right moment. Whoever that person was, they were extremely dangerous and needed to be taken down as priority.

She was just rewarded with another wave of vibrations, she noticed at that moment. Her opponent was releasing hyper-dense waves of vibrations, creating a wave that would dismantle most materials as soon as it came into contact with high-energy vibrations. She grinned as she sent another spike straight to the person and this time, she held onto it and continued to pour her energy into the spike, increasing its strength. She could feel the spike being continuously shredded but over time, her magic adapted to that as well and the spike finally went straight through where the person was standing, finally causing all of the strongest members of the army in front of her to move from their position. She smirked in satisfaction at that even as Fenrir was being pushed straight into the ground by the same person but her precious boy was no less stronger than he was. With his connection to her, it was only a matter of time before he adapted to her powers and killed her with his claws. That person may be dangerous but she had not yet won the honor of being called the Butcher of Asgard by being bogged down whenever someone stronger than her appeared in front of her.

---

Word Count - 2228

Next chapter - Hela is defeated after a long battle.


If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

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[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 123

Technomancer in MCU

Asgard

In the immediate aftermath of that final attack on the carriers' ships, an attack that was comparable to that of Odin's when he was in his prime, the sensors onboard the ship scrambled to find any data regarding Hela or rather, the remains of her because they were sure that she would not have survived an attack of such a calibre. The entirety of the area in front of the ships had been bathed in white as the massive attack that had used up the energies of six different carriers had collided with the spear that Hela had conjured at the last moment. Nobody had seen what else had happened after the collision as the amount of energy suffusing the atmosphere stopped them from viewing the current conditions.

All of the Asgardian soldiers had been accounted for and the ones who had been hit with Hela's necromantic energy were undergoing CHI treatment in the medical division with promised full recovery in under an hour. Asgardian's Physique along with CHI that accelerated their natural healing processes made sure that they would not be down for long. The Hulk had been very startled when he had been teleported against his will and as such, had been transported straight to the prison that was specifically designed to hold beings of such physical calibre.

The cell that Bruce Banner was currently sleeping in was responsible for draining a large amount of energy almost instantaneously from somebody's body by inserting hundreds of thin vibranium spikes into their body. The Hulk would have recovered against the energy drain if he had the time but the energy-hungry nature of Vibranium made sure that the Hulk was knocked out before he could do anything. Even then, as a precaution, Bruce Banner had been kept in that same cage with the spikes being at standby.

"Do we have anything?" Frank asked the commanders as even with all of their sensors, they were unable to see past the huge energy storm that had appeared in the middle of Asgard. It didn't help that multiple spatial fissures had opened up due to the abrupt collision of the energy sphere with that spear. That spear was something that completely threw them off their game. Nowhere in their intel was it given that Hela could conjure some tools that could be strong enough to contend with an attack that was comparable to that of a Sky-Father's? She had also conjured a shield at the same time so there was a solid chance that Hela had survived that attack, albeit with injuries because it was, in the end, just a shield and not an armour.

"No, sir. There is nothing after the moment that the spear collided with the attack," One of the junior techs reported to him. Even now, they were working furiously to restore the data and had even sent in an unmanned vessel but somehow, the spatial fissures that had opened in between swallowed it, leaving behind no traces. The good thing was that the Royal palace was firmly in their sights so they would know if Hela came anywhere near it. All of them were on their toes, waiting for something to happen. Either the ritual would succeed and Ed would come out all-powerful so that Hela would not be their problem anymore or the ritual would fail and they would have to leave Asgard with all their allies and detonate the bomb that would kill Hela, Surtur, and destroy Asgard at the same time. In both scenarios, Hela would cease to be their problem and that was what they wanted the most.

So far, Hela had proven to be a particularly hard foe to fight against. Let alone her, the army she raised from the dead had already proven itself to be troublesome. Even their trump card, Thor empowered by the lightning that Collin gave him, proved itself to be just something that injured her. Nothing permanent came from that clash, aside from Thor being internally injured due to the amount of sheer energy that he carried through his body when he fought Hela in his empowered form. In that form, Thor would have easily bested even the Hulk in his current form. Even after that, Hela had gone on to become stronger to the point she easily withstood some of Thor's last punches without even flinching, a feat that would not have been possible for any of them present in the carriers.

"Is the Palace secure?" Loki's voice came from behind him, making a chill run down Frank's spine. Loki's magical capabilities had soured since their fight in New York. They had no idea of his current powers but it was a safe bet to say that containing the current Loki would be impossible for everyone save for Alfred, Toby, and maybe, Ed. He nodded to Loki's question, managing to stop his body from flinching with difficulty. They would have to up Loki's threat level in their systems once he got back to Earth.

He was already more worried about his wife and how she would be worried about the situation here. Unfortunately, they had decided against providing real-time updates back home before the situation could completely stabilise for reasons he could perfectly understand. It wouldn't do to create chaos in the Moonbase before everything could be confirmed.

"We have something!" Someone shouted and was promptly startled as multiple people converged on his position with superhuman speed. He looked to the big screen to see that they were able to sense a single Energy signature, in line with the readings that they had taken from Hela when she had first emerged.

"She's alive. That didn't work," Frank's heart sank as he realised that even that level of attack was not enough to kill Hela, at least temporarily. Killing her should have brought them some time to regather but apparently, that shield that she had summoned in that last moment was not for naught then.

"We have visuals," Somebody said before the feed switched to a camera that zoomed in on Hela's location. The space fissures had mostly closed owing to the sturdy space that surrounded Asgard but what was of more interest was the area around Hela. The only things left in front of them were the Observatory or rather the Uru shielding layer of the Observatory and Hela who was standing on a black spike. Her condition was not good either as she discarded the almost cracked shield which promptly disappeared into motes of light. She was missing most of her torso and was standing on only a single leg. Her face had been partially burned away, leaving just the bone beneath the skin.

Even so, Hela was rapidly healing away any damage that attack might have done to her, and with most of the carriers now out of charge, they could not afford to recreate the barrier that had stopped Hela's attacks from piercing their barriers. At this point, they had tried everything individually. From now on, all they could do was attack her all at once and hope that it stopped her for long enough. They might also have to send in everything they had because while Hela might have lost Fenrir once and for all, the literal Dragon that had come out from the waters below was very concerning, especially since it was coupled with another wave of soldiers that rose from their ashes, courtesy of Hela's magic.

"Alright team, this is it. Throw everything we have at her," Frank ordered as he went back to the bay.

"Acknowledged," Frank heard someone say before he heard hundreds of missiles along with all kinds of targeted energy systems hit Hela and her forces. He could also hear the footsteps that followed him, reassuring him of his allies. The carrier also jolted as they ran their repulsors at full throttle in the opposite direction, hoping to create as much distance as they could between the carriers full of the army and Hela. He got out from the Hangar and then landed straight down in front of the barrier that protected the Royal Palace. The others followed suit. They all saw as Hela effortlessly tanked all the attacks the ships launched on them. Not even a blemish on her suit or skin as a repulsor ray tanked on her face. Eventually, the barrage stopped as the ships took a suitable distance from them and yet, Frank knew that should the need arise, another volley of repulsor attacks would arrive at the same time.

"Done playing around, are we?" Hela taunted them, her voice crisp and smooth, a far cry from the hoarse mess it was when she first came to Asgard. Hela had completed the process of truly becoming the Ruler of Asgard and was enjoying all the perks and powers that came with it. With a thought, a new bridge arose from underneath her as she landed gracefully on that bridge. The same bridge connected to the Observatory which was about to fall into the void. The very ground she touched turned dark green according to her will as she continued to walk towards the last line of defense around the Royal Palace.

"I wonder what it is that you are protecting so desperately? Is it the Infinity Stones," Hela questioned them and grinned once she detected the fear emanating from them. She would have loved playing with her prey more but she had more pressing matters to attend to. So, she waved her arms and was rewarded with the pained shrieks of the pests in front of her who were no longer standing but floating as they were all impaled by multiple necromantic spikes. She could already feel the weakest of the mortals about to die.

Her gaze snapped back to those annoying ships as she sensed a similar build-up of energy but Hela was ready this time. She waved her arms once more and was satisfied to find that multiple ships were impaled with her weapons, fizzling out that attack before it could reach her. She would have survived that as well but why would she risk getting her clothes burned?

She then walked past them and inspected the barrier that enveloped the Royal Palace. Interestingly, the barrier was not something she could control and that was supposed to be impossible so she placed her arm on it in hopes of figuring out how it works only for the barrier to begin exerting a tremendous amount of force back on her hand. Had she not been prepared, she would have been flung back and that would have been…humiliating.

A humiliation that she would not have and so, she pressed back with all her might, imbuing the barrier with her magic, corroding it visibly. The barrier put up a valiant fight but against her magic, it fell apart all the same.

As the last of the layers fell apart, the entire barrier popped like a balloon. She smirked in victory and was about to go inside when a storm of energy, unlike anything she had ever sensed, formed in the Ritual Room before it spread out of the room like a wave, destroying the Royal palace in its wake. Before she could process what had happened, an overwhelming pressure locked on her presence, making her body seize out of its natural survival instincts. She looked towards the palace only to see a pair of greenish-gold eyes staring straight at her. The next moment, something akin to a metal hammer slammed into her abdomen, folding her in half and smashing her straight back into the Observatory.

"Blergh," She puked out blood as she kneeled on the ground, her entire being consumed by the pain that wracked her body. Her body refused to heal as well due to some liquid that continued to eat away at her wounds. She looked towards the Palace only to see someone, holding a platform that placed all of the people she had injured earlier, on his way to one of the ships as the ships had begun getting out of Asgard's atmosphere for some reason.

She snarled, even as the very activity caused her excruciating pain, and waved her arms, hoping for her attacks to stop them in their tracks because she had a very bad feeling about them retreating. That person had the advantage and yet he was leaving? She could also sense the Infinity Stones on the same person which did not bode well for her. She took a step forward only to freeze once more as the gaze once again landed on her.

"Farewell, Goddess of Death. May you find your place in Valhalla," The ominous words shook her out of her fear as she took one more step only for her body to fail as she noticed that the liquid had eaten away at half of her stomach and showed no signs of stopping.

So, Hela kneeled down there, powerless to do anything as the ships left. The moment the last ship went out of her sight, the entirety of Asgard began shaking. She looked around in growing panic as she felt the pain. Not the pain from having her body eaten but the pain from Asgard.

It was dying.

"No!" She screamed in pain as she heard a crack as Asgard itself was cracked in half. The pain radiated to her all the same as a large explosion engulfed her screaming form.

…

…

…

And so ended the tale of Hela Odinsdottir, Goddess of Death.



Word Count - 2278

Next - Encounter with Thanos

 

[IdleMuse0307]

A/N - [First of all, I am sorry for this chapter. I literally cringed once I read how it came out. I have been agonising over the decision to post this chapter or not, for almost a month. THis is not the way I wanted this story to end but apparently, my mind just couldn't come up with something else. I guess I just wanted it to be over and one day, I decided to just sit down and finish it, no matter how long it took. Well, guess what, it took me over 6 hours of writing to finish the chapter below and it is not very good. I tried dozens of drafts after that, to see if I could come up with something else but I just…couldn't.

I am sorry if the chapter does not pan out to your expectations. It certainly didn't pan it out according to my expectations but this is it. This is the best I could do at this point. So, here it goes]

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

Chapter 125

Technomancer in MCU

"This is bad. This is literally the worst possible timing," Frank's panicked voice could be heard across the captain's deck as he scrambled to mobilise the remaining meagre resources they had. With their strongest fighters either down (Alfred, Toby) or injured (Thor), they were in for a rough fight. In the first place, fighting Thanos was supposed to be the last step. When they were all at their peak with all of their allies waiting for them, that's when they were supposed to be fighting Thanos. Not when they were what amounted to a literal refugee van. Thanos is not one to show mercy even during normal circumstances and when he realises that there are 3 Infinity Stones on the ship, he would much rather shred every single thing in front of him to bits than turn around or negotiate. At this point, their only hope was the tall armoured man standing at the forefront of the cabin, looking straight at the Sanctuary II.

Ed.

"Frank, how many people do we have on board, across all the ships?" Ed asked Frank without turning around. Frank took a moment to look at the dashboard detailing various information points about the occupants and gave out the number.

"We have about 16000 people spread across 2 carriers. Some of the people needed CHI treatment otherwise all of them can be stashed on a single carrier without any space issues," Frank reported.

Ed hummed, "I see. Utilise short-range teleportation to transfer all non-patients to this carrier and then transfer the rest using bogeys. I am sure that Thanos would not stop them since he doesn't believe us to be a threat yet. That bastard probably already knows about the situation with Hela and came to take advantage of it."

Frank nodded and then relayed the orders, "What about the stones?" Frank asked Ed, concerned about the items of mass destruction just floating in Ed's armour.

Ed sighed and put his hand over his armour, opening the armour and grabbing the Space Stone. Ed's body and armour, along with his eyes, immediately began glowing blue as the energy around him rioted in response to the huge influx of energy from the Space Stone. He then waved his arms, causing a wave of blue energy to spread throughout the cabin and then onto the entire ship. "I have a way to get you all out of here but we need to hurry. Thanos would not wait for longer once he has sensed the Infinity STones being used. From what I have sensed, he has both the Power Stone and the Soul Stone on him, making him the most dangerous foe we have ever faced,"

Frank nodded as he looked at the progress report on his dashboard. Only a few were left to be transported by the bogies. The rest of the armies had all been brought on board without fail. He also looked around him to see most of the people on the deck sported despairing expressions on their faces. He sighed internally at that. It was not as if he did not understand their predicament. In all the time that Ed has spent building the organisation, he has never failed to make everyone realise the threat that Thanos posed, not just to them but to their families and even the universe. Even so, every single one on his team was ready to face Thanos, even at the risk of their lives, because winning meant that their families would live long prosperous lives without ever having to worry about anything. But now that they were on their way home from fighting someone who was just as if not more dangerous than Thanos was without his Infinity Stones, they were certain that they were going to meet their demise here. It was expected, after all, that most of them had never been around to witness Ed's powers when he went all out. Not to mention that they had three stones on their side too. If it was just Ed and Thanos with the Infinity Stones, Frank could calculate a very significant chance of them winning but Thanos was now armed with armies beyond anything that they could conjure on top of having a cabal of generals, each stronger than the last. The only person who could currently compete with the generals was Hulk and he was still unconscious. Neither Thor nor Loki were in any condition to fight Thanos. He and Daisy were still reeling from the wounds they had sustained from Hela's hands. The magic had wreaked havoc inside their bodies for a short period of time before it was purged from their systems but the damage had still been done. Their bodies were healing but very slowly. They would be of no use to Ed in a battlefield that involved the Black Order and Thanos. In such a situation, if Ed could use the Space Stone and take them all away, it would be very good for them. Frank just hoped that Ed did not plan something stupid like keeping himself here and then leaving them for the sacrificial play.

As if sensing Frank's thoughts, Ed turned around and said, "Don't worry. We will all get out of here safely. I have already locked the space around his ship," Ed's right arm was glowing blue as he was exerting the might of the Space Stone without the help of some regularity. According to the notes that Alfred had sent to Frank before, the body that Ed was currently inhabiting was made with the literal best of the best that Alfred could find so he was reasonably certain that Ed could wield at least a single Infinity Stone without his body being damaged irreparably.

"Will you be ok transporting something as large as an entire ship? We can have them converge on a single deck and then you can just take that part if that is easier. We can even–" Frank continued to suggest stuff, trying to make himself helpful because he was feeling so useless in the current scenario. He had literally only used his powers once on Hela for a sneak attack and had been injured so badly with a single attack that he was no more useful to Ed than a suit of armour, which was pathetic and humiliating for him.

"Frank, don't worry. I can do it," Ed said to Frank with a smile that caused Frank to just sigh in relief as his shoulders relaxed. Ed then waved his arms, causing a ripple to go through the deck's floor, causing many of the people working to gasp as they stepped away from their desks. Ed didn't say anything but his actions caused multiple thin wires to emerge on the floor, connecting and criss-crossing each other in patterns that Frank could ever hope to even understand.

Frank looked on in worry as the feeds showed them that multiple smaller ships including over a hundred Leviathans that they had seen in New York had gotten out of Sanctuary II and were now on their way. Out of all the ships, there was one that was faster than all of them and was at the forefront. Zooming in, he could see Thanos standing on top of the ship with his arms crossed in front of him, clearly showcasing the Infinity Gauntlet and the two glowing gems on it.

Ed smirked at Thanos who was trying to intimidate him but it was not as if that was going to work on him. He clenched his right arm and then slapped his arms together, making another blue wave but this time, it rippled out of the ship.

Everybody on the ship, including Frank, watched in marvel as a huge robot seemed to materialise right in front of them. It continued to grow bigger and bigger until it dwarfed even their super class carrier ships.

Thanos looked at the robot with an indifferent look on his face. His eyes then narrowed as he looked at the congregation of blue energy that was happening in its chest. Slowly, bit by bit, the entire robot's body lit up with blue energy, signalling the use of the Space Stone. Thanos sighed and uncrossed his arm. He then rocked his arm back and punched into the vacuum, but the action caused the purple gem to glow and release a wave of devastating energy beam that promised to destroy everything in its path. The beam continued to cross the distance between them at record speeds. Even Ed's spatial lock loosened in the face of such an onslaught.

Meanwhile, in the ship, Frank was getting worried about that attack because they would surely be disintegrated should that attack hit, and right as he was about to talk to Ed, Ed snapped his fingers and then placed his palm on the ground, lighting up the entire ground in the captain's deck. In fact, everywhere on the carrier, multiple glowing wires began emerging which glowed blue. Eventually, the entire carrier glowed blue before it disappeared with nary a sound.

Thanos looked in disappointment as the Singularity fled from him. He expected it but he was hoping for the Singularity to stay and fight him. Now, they would have to go to Earth and fight him there. They would also gain preparation time but he was not someone who would walk away from a hard fight if it meant that his goals would get completed. He was about to order everyone to walk back when he felt something and turned around. The beam from the Power Stone had passed unimpeded through where the robot should have been.

Thanos' eyes widened as he realised what the robot was for. He turned around and was about to command Maw to look for the robot when he looked at the blue dot around Sanctuary II and realised that it was already too late. The damn Robot was already about to infiltrate the ship.

He immediately jumped from the ship and used the Power Stone to propel himself to the ship as the robot tore a path straight into the ship, probably hoping to do as much damage before he could reach the ship and personally destroy it. It was a mistake to bring his Black ORder with him here. He should have left at least Maw back. He reached the hangar and could see the ship had already sustained significant damage in the short time that the robot was inside. He was about to head inside to find that damned thing when his body froze as the sensation of danger closed in around him. He immediately used the Power Stone to create a cloak of pure energy around him and that turned out to be a very good decision because the next moment, the entire Sanctuary II was sucked into what appeared to be a miniature black hole. It would have gone on to swallow his entire forces but he used the Power Stone to forcibly close the black hole.

"Sire, what do we do now?" Maw's query sounded in his ears as he looked at his remaining army. He simply clenched his fingers, making the gems shine, "Now? We go to Earth. We go to…. War," His words were accentuated by the ominous glow from the Power Stone and the Soul Stone.

_____________xx_______________

Moon Base

At the same time, a blue wave of energy began suffusing the very skies above the Moon base, alarming its inhabitants. The Virtual Intelligences that Alfred had left behind that were in charge of the base's defenses stirred into action as they opened up all the turrets and prepped the emergency attack vehicles. The barriers were already at their highest levels anyway so nothing was changed there. All of this was done solely by the automated programs even before Maria, the de facto head of the base right now was informed of the current situation. The base was right now bereft of any technical staff who could help her but she was in charge of the civilian population that was now hiding in the bunkers along with her. Before she could do anything or tell anybody else of the change that had occurred above them, the video feed showed the scene of a very familiar carrier entering the airspace above them. Maria sighed in relief when she saw that the security codes were confirmed and the barriers above the isolated hangars were now opened for them to land securely in. She was about to give the commands to start the procedure for opening up the rest of the barriers when the process was taken out of her hands. She gasped as unshed tears gathered in her eyes upon seeing the healthy form of Ed. It meant they had succeeded in their rituals. She was about to say something before Ed's face took on a determined look, making her swallow her words.

"Maria, Thanos is on her way, and for that, we need everybody on deck," Ed's words sent chills down Maria's spine. Before she could say something, Ed closed down the feed, presumably to move on to more important tasks. At the same time, the bunkers began opening up as Ed's message continued to inform everyone of their safe return while at the same time, informing them of the approaching danger and how they would play their role in it. Maria was unsurprised to know that all of them were about to be moved to various bunkers on Earth which were much less safe but at the same time, were not prime targets for Thanos, making them actually much safer than the Moonbase for now. Some of the bunkers opened up, and some of them actually closed down as they were originally mobile ships capable of interplanetary flight so those bunkers were directly taken to their destinations. She was actually wondering about Alfred as his voice was nowhere to be heard and yet, she could not disturb Ed and the others with her questions right now, with Thanos hot on their tail. So, Maria chose to swallow her questions and dutifully evacuated with all the other members.

Meanwhile, back on the captain's deck, Ed was contemplating his recent decision. He had made the admittedly reckless decision of using the Space Stone himself instead of just inserting it as a power source in the machinery that he had built right into the carrier. IF Alfred had been awake and able to operate the carrier, he would not have hesitated but using the Space Stone without a will in the machine could lead to disastrous consequences and as such, he had used an Infinity Stone to transport something as large as a super class carrier to Earth. Ed clenched his fists as smoke slowly seeped out of tiny pores out of his body as his body's healing mechanisms worked overtime to heal the damage done to his body. He probably should have created something like the Infinity Gauntlet using his powers but that tier of item was apparently out of his league for now, at least not without him getting a scan of it and that would be a little difficult considering the person who had it right now. The damage done to his body itself was minor as he had created an internal metal mechanism in his body that bore the brunt of the energy that the Space Stone released while transporting them, the sheer heat generated from all that energy being thrown around made it so that some of that energy bled into his own body, intermingling and sometimes destroying his CHI storage, leading to the death of some small chunks of cells. HE had since already healed everything but it would be a while before he could use any of the Stones to such an effect again. He would probably develop multiple tools in which he would embed the stones and then use them as he deemed. That would be a much better strategy than using the stones barehanded.

"How long do we have?" Ed turned around once he heard Frank and the rest of the team enter the captain's deck. Frank was the one who had asked the question. The robot he had created must have been successful in at least destroying the propulsion systems of Sanctuary II if not outright destroying the whole thing. Still, he would like to be cautious and assume that Thanos would reach their planet with some backup ships which would most likely be powered by the Infinite Power of the Power Stone, leading to reduced travel times. It would probably take Thanos…

"--24 hours. That's all the time we will probably get before Thanos enters our solar system," HE informed Frank and the party who seemed both relieved and worried at the news. Relieved that they had at least a day to prepare and worried because that was not as much time as they had expected. Healing their armies and gathering their allies would take longer than that. Hell, even negotiations might take longer than a day.

"We have to hurry. Frank, take someone and head straight to Earth. Tony is awake and already underway for a B-tier general enhancement procedure. Take him with you and offer to do the same to Pepper. That should sweeten the deal. Then head to Wakanda and then Atlantis, and tell them it's an express request from both Alfred and me. Tell them to gather their armies. I will create the stage for our fight with Thanos,"

"We will not fight on Midgard then?" Loki stepped forward and asked the question. Frank had already left with his orders. Daisy had left with Frank as they both best worked together.

He nodded and raised his left hand, showcasing a hologram about a rectangular plate. IT was just that the size of the plate left the ones standing before him in awe. It was almost twice the size of Asgard itself and was more comparable with the size of Africa. "We will be fighting on this. This is something that has already been located and will soon be brought into our solar system. I know the exact coordinates to it and with little work, it will look exactly like this. The special thing about it is that it is entirely made up of Vibranium,"

Dr.Banner's gasp echoed in the captain's deck, "How is that possible? This much Vibranium.."

Ed nodded, "Yes, this is very valuable but it is more valuable in the sense that I can manipulate it during the fight, allowing me to have a home-field advantage. Atmosphere and gravity will be taken care of with the reality stones and the systems that Alfred had already built. Now, I want you all to prepare as much as you realistically can for the battle, and if you need anything for the battle, don't hesitate to ask. This is quite literally the…Endgame,"

Everybody nodded and left the deck, all determined to be at their best for the final battle.

___________xx_____________

"So, this is…nice," It was amusing for Alfred to watch Namor, the big bad king of Atlantis, the strongest metahuman of Earth, as long as he was submerged that is, stuttering as he took in the huge stage that had been built for their battle. It had been over 16 hours since Ed had brought in the carrier from Thanos' jaws back to Earth and over 2 hours since he awoke. Ed had to actually jumpstart Alfred's systems and build some of his internals from scratch because of the damage done during the ritual.

"Yes. It is nice, as you put it," Alfred snickered and then playfully raised his hands at Namor's glare. Honestly, beating down Namor and then letting him live along with promising (and then delivering) to clean the oceans, beginning at the areas around Atlantis had been enough to gain Namor's loyalty. He had not even hesitated to pull up all his armies, well, the ones that could function on land, that is, and then enter a portal without an ounce of hesitation. Of course, it helped that Ed had given Frank the medallion that had Alfdred's soul mark on it that was first given to Alfred when Namor had been beaten into the ground by him.

"It's nice that everybody showed up, right?" Namor asked him, mostly just using the conversation to hide his nervous jitters. He had read all about the person who was coming to wreak their asses and could only take solace in the fact that Thanos himself was going to battle only Ed and they only had to deal with the vastly culled army that Thanos carried around himself. Namor had brought with him his elite soldiers, leaving behind just one to manage the empire in his absence and all of the ships capable of surface warfare. He was also given a pendant, as were all of his elites, that created a small area effect around them which increased the humidity to such a level that it was comparable for them to be in shallow waters, effectively increasing their strength and stamina to their peak.

No government on Earth was invited to the battle aside from just informing them about the battle taking place because none of the governments on Earth had any standing armies or weaponry that could help in a battle of this level, aside from the nukes but those were such crude weaponry that they might as well not participate. Of course, the sudden existence of such a large asteroid in the solar system did come as a shock for most people and AlfredGPT had been hit by queries regarding it and Alfred had given all of the servers only a small summary before he had shut everything down. In fact, this was the only time in all of Alfred's existence where his code was only in a single place, and that too in a single body. That was necessary because Ed had to forcibly draw his main self back into the body to successfully resuscitate his mind.

Wakanda had pulled out all the stops and had actually sent both of the Panthers for the fight along with a sizable portion of their armies, which included the Jabari as well who had submitted to N'Jadaka's rule once he had gone to their mountains and defeated their entire tribe.

"All the armies have to do was kill the straglers. The big Leviathans will be taken care of by the Hulk, Thor, Daisy, and Alfred. We have some members who are still missing who would have been of huge help but Alfred has been unable to locate the wielder of the REality STone, Jane Foster, and Stephen Strange, the next Sorcerer Supr—"

"--Here," A voice interrupted them as Stephen Strange and Jane FOster appeared on top of the platform through a burning orange portal.

"Jane! YOu made it," Thor exclaimed as he all but blurred to Jane, forgetting that she was a human the last time he had seen her. He realised too late that he was going too fast but that was not a problem because as Jane was now, she was as strong if not more stronger physically than Thor.

'Yes, very happy for the reunion. Alfred, I suppose you can integrate them into the plan as well. They will also be the heavy hitters responsible for the Black Order," Ed continued even as he looked in the distance where multiple blocks were emerging and reordering themselves through the use of his powers. He was building something for the fight but nobody knew what it was.

"We have less than an hour before Thanos shows up. Long-range trackers have already sensed a mix of ships that Thanos must have taken throughout his journey. A conservative estimate puts us at equal odds, which is very good. As a last resort, we have over a hundred nuclear weapons sitting right underneath this place and when they erupt, I can channel all that energy into a single place." Ed's words brought no comfort to the members present as they looked at the floor warily as if the aforementioned nukes would erupt anytime now.

"Anyway, here he comes," Ed declared as, with a purple glow surrounding his accelerating form like a meteor, Thanos arrived at the other end of the battlefield. The Black Order followed suit as they arrived on their respective ships. The atmosphere got tense as both sides waited for Thanos' armies to arrive and soon enough, the battlefield was littered with dozens of Leviathans and thousands of CHitauri soldiers, which was comparable to that of the New York invasion.

"Did you like my gift, Thanos?" Ed said from far away and yet, Thanos heard it all the same. The robot golem that Ed had made in the last moments before he retreated from the scene must have destroyed Sanctuary II and reduced his army to such pitiable levels.

"You will pay for that transgression, Ed. I will pry those stones out of your cold dead hands if I have to," Thanos growled out, the very air around the armies reverberating as he said so. Thanos was already making judicious use of the Power Stone. HE also worryingly had the Soul Stone but Ed was ready because his soul would be even more difficult for Thanos to manipulate due to its sheer size and weight.

Thanos' gaze went to Ed's chest piece where three of the Infinity Stones were hanging casually. His eyes narrowed as he looked for the last stone that he was able to sense on the battlefield and yet, he could not pinpoint. No matter, Thanos thought as he took the first step forward, he would just have to find it amongst the corpses of his enemies.

As soon as Thanos took the first step, there was a resounding purple shockwave that threatened to swallow their armies but before it could reach them, Ed arrived at the forefront and slapped his hands together, lighting up his entire body with the space and time stones before Ed, Thanos and the thing that Ed had been building at the corner of the battlefield disappeared from the universe and instead, appeared in an alternate universe.

Alfred, along with everyone else was incredibly startled because this was not part of the plan but Thanos' armies continued to charge forward so they did the same.

Thor and Jane made short work of Cull Obsidian before moving on to the Leviathans. Tony Stark, now enhanced, made easy work of Proxima Midnight as his nanites effortlessly cleaved through her body and destroyed her from inside out.

Stephen Strange cast multiple spells across the battlefield that shielded every single member of the allied army from on top of the standard armour that Ed had provided for them. He was also the one who, with a single humongous sword, had sliced through not just two Leviathans but also from an unsuspecting Ebony Maw. Apparently, training with Jane Foster, who had been in the constant company of a nerd for the past few years, had given Strange many ideas on how to creatively use basic eldritch conjurations.

Corvus Glaive was easily taken care of by Alfred whose attention was not on the battlefield below but on a locator spell, he was repeatedly casting by taking in energy from all available sources in order to search for his creator. The creator who had abruptly disappeared at the beginning of their battle, taking their strongest enemy away from them.

Meanwhile, in the alternate dimension that Ed had taken him into, Thanos had lashed out with the Soul Stone, as soon as he had felt himself being transported. The result of that attack was a Thanos who was now bleeding from all of his orifices as Ed took the Infinity Gauntlet off his dead body.

"Sigh, what a waste of time," Ed lamented how easy it was. He had guessed correctly that his soul would be one of his strongest weapons in the fight against Thanos as the Ancient One had once told him that even the strongest beings, even armed with the Soul Stone, would struggle to extinguish his soul. He had done two very basic things during his stunt earlier. He had transported a subset of nanites that were so small that it would not be wrong to call them quantum beings. They were the ones he was making at the edge of the battlefield. Their only function was to infiltrate Thanos' body and flood his body with energy from the Quantum realm so that it would destabilise the flow of cosmic energy in his body.

Ed had not even expected Thanos to just try and use the Soul Stone on him at the get-go. That resulted in his body coming under even more pressure, requiring him to use up more of his energy that was in reality quantum energy rather than the cosmic energy that he was used to. As Thanos was focused on the Soul Stone, he failed to realise that he was effectively choking his own body, resulting in the below scenario.

His body had ended up taking so much load with little to no usable energy in it, his body had been crushed under all that pressure.

Ed then took one look at the Gauntlets and then at the stones he had in his possession and decided that the world didn't need them that much. So, he created a bomb of sorts with the Space Stone. One that would shred the very dimension they were in and then simply placed the stones in that dimension and primed the bomb such that all of the stones would float in different directions of the void.

He then took the Infinity Gauntlet and came out of the dimension. He was greeted with an empty battlefield with the exception of Aflred who was floating in the same place he had disappeared in, with Stephen STrange arguing with Jane Foster who was holding on to her hand which was glowing with the energies of the Reality Stone, the only Infinity Stone in existence in the universe.

As soon as he arrived, everybody looked at him as he raised the Infinity Gauntlet in the air, it seemed as if the entire Universe sighed in relief.

He had done it. He had defeated the big bad of the universe and he was alive for it. Sadly, Toby had still not awoken. He would have been happy for him.

"Father!" Alfred shouted as he slammed into his form like a missile.

Ah, he could rest happily now, Ed thought to himself before his thoughts screeched down to a halt as the entire universe, as if it had reached the broken part of a CD, glitched before he was once again greeted by the same ROB who had given him this chance.

No.

No. No…NOOOO!

_________________xx________________

Word Count - 5178

Woohoo! It's finally done. 125 seemed like a good number to end it on. Almost 280k (well, 279449 but you get the gist of it)

In all honesty, I did not like the ending and might write an epilogue some time but for now, this is it. I have plans for a second part of this where Toby will be the main character with Ed and Alfred living a slice of lifestyle in the post-scarcity human civilization that will be built in the coming generations after Ed won against Thanos. But that will come much later. I have just noted it down in my ideas pad. Might even do that as a one shot. Who knows? Not me.

I know that many of you think that Ed was the side character and Alfred was the MC and honestly, you might be right. I started this as a hobby and it has helped me learn so much more than I thought it would so forgive me if I made some mistakes along the way; that's how I learned. I have come to love writing and will continue to do so.

I have another fic in the works and the first few chapters will be posted in the next couple of days.

As usual, Thank you for reading!

Toodles!


If you have read all the way here, first off, thank you for that. Secondly, I have already published two of my next fics. They are The Sage of the Mind & The "G" Shield. If you want to read more of my works (I totally understand if you don't want to), you can head on to the aforementioned links.