The "G" Shield - By IdleMuse

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Stark Residence, LA [One week after The Invasion of New York]

–Tony Stark–

"Jarvis, open up the sensor reports, will you?" He munched on some blueberries as he entered his basement which was now vastly bigger and deeper than the time when…Jack…came to visit.

"Certainly, sir," Jarvis' voice said through the overhead speakers as the basement lab's door lit up, revealing the most advanced lab he had ever built, behind closed doors. It was an upgrade over the last one, in every single way. After all, he had built this one keeping Jack in mind.

Jack Sullivan, The Green Guardian of New York.

The thought of Jack filled him with just deep sorrow at this point. It had been a week since they had won the Invasion of New York, or at least that's what they were told, repeatedly. "Huh," He snorted to himself, thinking of the sheer arrogance of that statement.

They sure as hell didn't win the Invasion. To be honest, thinking of the losses, nobody won that invasion. Nor the CHitauri, not Loki, not SHIELD, not the Avengers, and certainly not…Jack.

He could still remember it clear as day, the white-hot flash of rage that suffused his entire body, temporarily making him forget the bone-deep fatigue, as Jarvis delivered the news followed by a very clinical report from Romanoff.

All he could think of back then was to get back in his suit and charge straight to Fury, figure out who had ordered the Nuke, and kill him painfully.

That rage remained with him as he watched the footage of Jack being skewered straight through with the sceptre from Romanoff's suit. But then, despite words of assurances from Fury, no word had come for the perpetrator. The pilot who launched the nuke allegedly committed suicide before he could be interrogated.

Typical, he thought to himself as he once again went through the different sensor readings of the rooftop when the Tesseract machine exploded, taking Jack's body with it.

It had been three days of combing through heaps of data to figure out what exactly happened on that roof because the data on Romanoff's suit was all busted up because the sensors were incapable of handling that much energy at such a close distance. Honestly, it was a minor miracle that Romanoff didn't suffer from third-degree burns from being cooked in the suit. Jarvis' quick actions really saved her life.

Speaking of that, "Jarvis?" He looked up from the reports.

"Yes, sir?" The voice of his ever-loyal butler cum servant cum best buddy came through the ceiling speakers that he had installed in every room in his home.

"Why didn't you inform me when Jack had been injured? You waited until everything was done before telling me about it. That doesn't seem to be in line with the wartime protocols we built together," He crossed his arms and looked at the digital avatar of Jarvis that appeared in front of him.

It was a small, somewhat accurate representation of the core protocols of what made Jarvis, well, Jarvis. It was something that had naturally occurred over time and Jarvis had figured out that the best way to represent his self-consciousness was to cobble up a small visual display of his core self.

It was ever-expanding, especially since the server upgrade he got with the Fourth Gen Arc Reactor that was installed in the basement of Stark Tower.

The Stark Tower that was now being condemned by the city before he intervened and greased hands, allowing him a couple of months until the audit happened once more. He was not worried about the Tower, hell, now that the Arc Reactor was active once more, Jarvis could project a building-wide shield that would not budge even if hundreds of Jericho missiles were fired at it in a second.

No, what he was more worried about was Jarvis being compromised somehow. He could not risk it, especially with the startling competence that Loki's subordinates displayed in the fight.

"I am aware that I violated Protocol 6 and slightly bent Protocol 23 when I informed you of the death of Mr.Sullivan after he had already passed away but when Mr.Sullivan was first…injured by the sceptre, I made a split-second decision to not inform you the moment it happened. Mr.Stark, you were carrying a thermonuclear weapon on your back and while it was a violation of Protocol 6, doing so would have been in a complete and utter violation of Protocol 3, ensuring the continued survival of Tony Stark and all that he considers his family,"

Jarvis said, mimicking or rather, replaying the recording of his voice as he had dictated the protocols to Jarvis when he was once a teenager.

"...Fine, Jarvis. Just double and triple-check your coding. That decision right there might just be the spark you need to reach the next step. Also, let's look at the readings once more. Build the simulation again, J," He said as he dismissed all the holographic displays and took a couple of steps back, in anticipation of a 3D hologram appearing in front of him.

"Sir, may I suggest contacting a therapist to process-"

"Oh, come on! Not you too, J. Like I said to Pepper every time she has asked me for the past week, I am fine. I don't need therapy, I need answers. Now, are you going to start the simulation or do I have to?" He ground out.

"......Very well, sir. Starting Simulation."

He did not need more people pitying him. What he needed to do was figure out exactly what happened and make sure that nothing of that sort ever happened again. He was a scientist first and foremost and that was his job. Figuring out stuff and then making stuff so that nothing of that sort happened again. He did not want him or anybody else to go through that experience ever again.

Losing Jack had been a bitch and a half. It was not as if he was particularly close with Jack, what with him disappearing and coming back stronger than anyone on the planet. But it was not as if he found the kid annoying.

After all, he was the one who made the first contact with him and part of him still thought of what would have happened if he had not tried to abate his idle curiosity when he saw that weird energy signature in Canada.

And then there was the end. At the end of that fight, the platform he had built had run completely out of parts, Jarvis' fabricating capacity not being able to keep up with the high-paced rough battle. Even the other two suits had been occupied. One of them was responsible for stragglers, one was with Romanoff and the one he was in, was on the way to intercept that damned nuke.

So, with already very little energy left in the Arc Reactor, he had been fully ready to make that one-way trip, if it meant that millions of people could be saved. See, he knew that the nuke was nowhere near big enough to wipe out New York or even a big part of it but what made Nukes scary was not the immediate blast radius. No, it was what came after the Nuke exploded.

Generations of trauma could still be felt and they had the bright idea to launch a nuke at a civilian population. He couldn't wait to figure out who exactly it was and then reveal that politician's name, because it could not have been anybody other than a politician, to the public so that they could crucify them and destroy their political career.

So, knowing the dangers of that bomb, he had resolved to take the bomb to the other side, killing their enemies and saving the city, hitting two birds with one stone, albeit with the caveat being that he might not make it back.

He had been utterly surprised afterward, that he had been so easily willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

And yet, as he had braced himself to breach the portal and cross over into deep space, a hint of green had filled his vision as Jack, seemingly with his last breath, had used his powers to shove him out of the way and drag him straight down to the ground.

The shove was so hard that it damaged most of the suit's components, including the repulsor arrays, and yet, he was alive.

That part stung the most. The fact that Jack had something left in his tank and instead of trying to get himself out of his predicament, he had apparently decided that he, Tony Stark, former Merchant of Death, was worth saving, more than he himself was.

So, no. He was not going to stop looking. There was no reason whatsoever why that explosion occurred. He had gone through all the schematics SHIELD could recover from Selvig before he was shipped off to some mental hospital due to his ramblings.

He could not make heads or tails about the energy reaction that led to a vaporising radius that simply wiped off his roof from existence, along with Jack.

Part of him was glad that Jack's body was erased because the vultures he knew were salivating at getting a DNA sample of the man who was poised to become the strongest being on the planet, surpassing even the Hulk by a wide margin. Bunch of parasites, the entire lot, and yet, he could understand their greed to a certain extent. He hated feeling that weak and they must have felt outright useless in that fight's context.

He had gone around, trying to see if anything could be gathered from the remnant of that energy cocktail that was there, even now, after a week of it happening, on top of Stark Tower. That was part of the reason it was being condemned. After all, no city wanted a place that actively generated radiation, no matter how inert it was.

Then again, he was not an expert on the Tesseract or the sceptre, both of which were alien objects, out of human understanding, and yet, he had to know. He wanted to know if there was any way that Jack could have survived. The combination of their energies (Tesseract, Sceptre, Jack's barriers) meant that it was impossible to predict the outcome of that cocktail but maybe, just maybe, Jack survived.

That was why, for the past three days, once his injuries had been healed, he had been holed up here, in his basement, trying to figure out if he could have done something to prevent that.

"Oh yeah, Jarvis, run the simulations with Project AEGIS V4 again,"

Project AEGIS. At first, it was just to see if he could replicate Jack's abilities using just technology, something he was obsessed with, replicating amazing abilities that could be found in nature, using technology.

But then, once he had a working prototype, he kept on improving it further and further until he hit a roadblock in terms of the energy consumption. That had led to the discovery of the Arc Reactor Gen 4 and what a marvel it was.

It was something that could sustain the heavy loads of the shields with ease. That was Gen 2, to install shield modules on the back of his suits, allowing him to tank hits even from Point Break without his suit immediately breaking apart.

Gen 3 was his grand project to create a shield module that Jarvis could remotely activate, covering the entire Stark Tower in it, and protecting it from the outside forces.

Gen 4 was just Gen 3 but on steroids. To make that, however, he needed something that was in rare supply in the world.

Vibranium.

He had…done something that he probably shouldn't have in the past week, hidden from everyone. If anybody dug through the 6 levels of his basement, they would find dirt, gravel, and hard rock as was expected but if one went past that, they would find a custom-built safe built by yours truly. That safe was protected from just about everything and could only be opened by him and him alone.

In that safe, was probably the world's single largest reserves of raw VIbranium. Once he had settled back in LA, he had started sending out feelers for even more Vibranium because there was no way he could be satisfied with a single Gen 4 Arc Reactor. If he needed to find a way to arm humanity, he needed more and that was when he found him.

Ulysses Klaue.

Weapons dealer, mercenary for hire, human trafficker, all-round grade one asshole, and yet, he was the one who was supplying the majority of the VIbranium that was found in the black market for the past two decades.

He had then tracked him down, only to find nothing but destruction in the last known place of Klaue. His ship was sunk and tracking down his past lackeys did not result in finding anything concrete. Then, he had done something that he was not proud of.

Over the course of the Invasion, Cap's shield had been in his custody because Cap trusted him more than SHIELD now, because of the nuke that would have killed them all. He had then used the Gen 4 Arc Reactor to create an energy beam dense enough that he was able to shave off a couple milligrams of the shield, before the entire laser just melted from the sheer energy passing through it.

He felt bad because he had betrayed Cap's trust in a way but he was not in the right headspace then so he had happily taken the samples and devised something that would have him hunted down to the ends of the world.

He had made a Vibranium tracker and let it loose on the world, literally. Jarvis had been carrying the tracker around the globe and had chanced upon a huge (relative) reserve of Vibranium just sitting there in a cave behind a waterfall in Africa. He had immediately gone there and found, to his disbelief, the part of the cave that had been caved in, contained almost a quarter ton of Vibranium in it.

Well, safe to say that he had immediately obliterated the Vibranium tracker, destroyed any digital copies and spread the ashes of the machine across the oceans. He did take custody of that Vibranium of course. He would ensure that it was used for the right purposes.

He had plans to create a large range one and install it on satellites but that seemed like a supremely bad idea once he realised that Vibranium was just sitting in places in remote areas of the world, just sitting for some corrupt organisation to steal.

No, he would use his current cache and use it carefully before even thinking of creating another Vibranium detector.

He couldn't believe that some random ass cave held almost a quarter ton of that miracle metal. At first, he had been excited beyond belief to make newer discoveries but then the reality of the situation crashed on him and thus, the new safe in the basement, safeguarded by its own Arc Reactor, capable of shielding itself using PRoject AEGIS Gen 4 for an indefinite period of time.

Gen 4 shields were just something that upped the shield strength from Gen 3, only this time, it mimicked the barrier structure of Jack. That alone boosted the shield strength by 20% and he was making inroads with different patterns for different loads. Piercing attacks, blunt attacks, area of effect attacks, energy attacks, heat attacks, etc.

"Chances of Gen 4 shields surviving the incoming salvo from the portal - 6%," The number flashed red on the screen as he once sighed in disappointment. So, that was a bust as well. How could he hope to stop something of the Tesseract's magnitude when a mere attack from the Chitauri failed to be stopped by his shields?

"Sir, if I may?"

He looked up as the simulation was dismissed and Jarvis was once again in front of him, in his digital avatar.

"Yes?"

"Are you perhaps….using work as an excuse to avoid the Funeral service in New York?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Jarvis. I told you we have more work to do. No point going there anyway. Jack is gone, wiped out by that energy storm. There is nothing of him in that casket. Plus, you know I don't believe in that stuff. I am a man of SCIENCE!, you know that," he said as he turned around and started working on something, anything to take his mind off the stupid procession that was going to happen tomorrow in New York, in Jack's, in the Green Guardian's name.

"Sir, I have missed calls from all Avengers, along with a dozen voicemails from Ms.Potts. I strongly urge you to look at them. The private jet is ready and prepped for your flight, if you wish to go, that is," Jarvis annoyingly reminded him of the phone he had already thrown in his bedroom, which he had then proceeded to avoid like the plague. He also had the audacity to emulate his phone and display all the texts, emails, and voicemails on a screen in front of him.

He didn't think Jarvis gaining partial autonomy would backfire on him in such a way as well.

"Very well, prep the suit. Tell the pilot I'll be at the airstrip in an hour," He sighed and headed out of his lab, everything shutting down and the doors closing after him on their own.

God, he hated how whiny his own thoughts sounded to him. Not attending a funeral because of how disappointed he was in himself?

He scoffed at himself and went to get ready for the procession. Jack deserved nothing but the best and while he was not enough when he was alive, he would do everything in his power to make sure that his memory was preserved.

He owed it to Jack at least that much.

---

Word Count - 3052

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Triskelion

–Nick Fury–

In all his years of being a SHIELD Agent, he had seen some stuff. Stuff that was kept hidden from the masses for appropriate reasons. Stuff that he wished he forgot and yet was reminded of them occasionally during one of his regular nightmares. Stuff that would probably induce mass hysteria in the world.

Hell, he had even seen some stuff that even POTUS was not aware of. It was the nature of the job. It came with its perks but it also came with its own sets of disturbing nightmarish scenarios that the average person would not even think of.

And yet, despite having met Carol personally and seeing the footage of Banner throwing Tanks around as if they were mere toys, he could scarcely believe his eyes as he saw someone lift the Helicarrier on their back.

Sure, one could argue that one side of the Heliacrrier was held aloft by two working engines but that person would be stupid to do so. With the weight of the Heliacrrier tilted dangerously on one side, the amount of force that Green Guardian, Jack Sullivan, had to deal with was beyond astronomous.

He had thought that the hero had perished saving the Helicarrier and all the agents on board.

The pragmatic ruthless part of him thought that it would have been fine for him to rescue the people he could and then leave the rest to fall with the Helicarrier. The worth of a single person with that level of combat prowess could not be compensated even if all of the 4 thousand shield personnel on the boat had died.

And yet, he was glad that the Green Guardian had chosen to save them all. He had ultimately used his seeming death as a rallying point to unite the Avengers, what was left of the Avengers anyway.

Finding out that he was alive and kicking ass in New York was a huge relief but then the intense fight he had with that Asian fellow was very stressful. Not just due to the fact that man was able to fight on even terms with the single strongest member of the team but also because the skill of that level did not come easily and yet, they did not know neither hide nor hair of that fellow before he was recruited by Loki.

Apparently, Barton's memories of his time under Loki's control had been spotty at best due to the improper way he was brought out of said control and he did not want the man to think of the traumatic memories of his time so he had let the issue be.

He had been elated and somewhat gratified that although Jack had defeated the Asian man, he had not done so without injuries. That proved that Jack was not undefeatable and that was something that was necessary for them to continue performing their jobs.

Jack Z. Sullivan, the name of the Green Guardian, an identity that was not registered anywhere on any database around the world, and yet, he knew that Jack was being honest the moment he said that. He could see it in his eyes, the fear of death and the acceptance that came with it. In his last moments, Jack did not want his contribution to be nameless so he told Romanoff his name, his real name before he used the last vestiges of power to save Stark from a one-way flight, something that had been confirmed by Stark before he holed up in his house in LA.

He had seen the footage with his own eyes and still winced when he saw the baby face of Jack and the wounds he was sustaining as a result of that damned barrier behind him. His face, for one, was riddled with burn marks due to the Tesseract's energy. And yet, his eyes were a clear green as he looked straight at Romanoff and told him his name before he started rambling about the fight being unexpectedly hard.

His last statement was true. Loki had hardly done any real fighting in the Invasion. It was all due to the alien army and the man who had fought Jack to a standstill, taking away most of his time and attention. That was the thing that had prolonged the invasion so much.

And after reading the reports from the analysts, it turned out that Jack's decision was correct. The way things happened, even though it was an unfortunate incident, was literally as perfect as they could happen.

If Jack had fled from that man and he had set his sights on the other Avengers, he was not sure if even the likes of Thor and Hulk could come out of that encounter unscathed, less said about Tony and the others the better, such was the powerset of that man. Complete and partial intangibility along with daggers that could bypass any defense and cut straight into the skin, as when it bypassed Jack's indestructible barriers and stabbed him multiple times.

If the sceptre had stabbed Jack and closed the portal, the nuke would have no place where it could have been disposed of safely and if Jack's body had been left intact, the monsters hiding behind SHIELD would have desecrated in their bid to create more powerful super soldiers, despite their recent failed attempt.

Creating someone more powerful than even Jack and having that power in the hands of any single country was right up there in his nightmarish scenarios list, right after the Kree coming back without Carol around to save them this time.

The scene of Jack being skewered straight through the stomach by the sceptre by some unseen force was something that had been hammered into the minds of the masses. Along with his declaration that he was the protagonist and it felt nice to be that, combined with his age, meant that there was a huge uproar in every single country on the planet.

Romanoff had not wasted a single day and uploaded that footage to every single platform on the internet, making sure that it could not be suppressed in any way. Hell, last he heard, even North Korea had some activity in that regard when they saw Jack's mask come off.

That meant that there was now a huge uproar about Jack and honoring his memory. There was a small minority that were trying to inquire about the missile but thankfully, they had managed to stop the news about the Nuke from getting out to the common public otherwise New York would have rioted and he would have been in handcuffs, watching with savage glee as the members of the World Security Council with similar handcuffs as well.

Romanoff's stunt had pulled almost all the pressure that the WSC was putting on him to retrieve the Tesseract, as well as the Sceptre along with the DNA of Jack and the Asian man who kicked his ass before dying.

He scoffed to himself, of course, they would not pressurize him anymore. They were now more scared to save their own hides instead of looking for ways to find new and better weapons for their benefits, not that they would not come back to their ways soon.

While they had buried most of the uncomfortable questions, the biggest variable had appeared in their plans.

The Black Widow.

Natasha Romanoff was officially declared as on extended leave but everybody knew what had happened. She had come to know that the World Security Council was responsible for that nuke and after a very heated argument with him about bringing the people responsible down, she had left the Triskelion about 3 days ago, never to be seen again.

None of her known aliases had been found on the radar and none of the safe houses had been touched. She had torched all her previous contacts, even so he had sent word out so that he would be notified immediately once sh3e was located. He was not going to force her back into duty but knowing where she was taking her vacation would be immensely helpful.

There was talk of a Congressional hearing of the event and he was sure as hell that Widow would be called there, after all, she was the last known person to have had contact with Jack before he…died.

He had even resorted to asking Barton to track her down since he knew her best but was surprised to find him denying that request to his face. He had been so taken aback that he had been speechless for a second before Coulson chimed in, basically telling him that he agreed with Barton as well and they should leave her alone for the time being.

He knew that she was very disturbed, what with her being forced to have a hand in killing a minor once again but he didn't think that even Coulson would back her on this. Without her skills and knowledge, she would not be free anywhere in the world. If he so wished, he could declare her rogue, and the rest of the countries would finish her off but that was not what he wanted so he stayed his hand.

"Has she contacted you?" He said as Barton entered the suite where he was staying in Manhattan.

"No, but I believe she would not miss this," Barton said as he sat on the sofa in front of him and began eating the apple from his fruit plate. About Barton, he had been acting a little different ever since he came back from being mind whammied by Loki.

"You should go home. I'll authorise the paid leave. You haven't taken one in years if I am not wrong," He said in between a mouthful of tasty fruits.

"Hmm? Oh, thanks for that. I was going to ask you about it after this but…thanks," Barton said and fell silent, his eyes looking in the distance.

He sighed internally. The invasion had damaged him more mentally than physically. Jack's intervention made it possible to have just 21 casualties in a full-blown Alien invasion despite it being in a population centre. Even from those, half of the people had died of either panic or heart attacks, only half died from injuries sustained during the invasion.

They were gathered in New York for the funeral procession of Jack Sullivan. He had exploded in popularity, so much so that even the President was poised to make an appearance during the funeral, to erect a statue in his name in Central Park.

'Politicians' he scoffed internally, not even leaving this event to make sure that they remained popular and seen doing work instead of staying in their bunker while a literal minor did the job of stopping something that could have grown on to become the single most devastating event since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

That had stung. The part of Jack doing the jobs of adults. Hell, they had a literal god on their team and yet, Jack had to do the heavy lifting both times when it mattered.

No wonder, Stark had gone underground in his lab down in LA while his Tower here was being repaired. He was probably tinkering with his suits, trying to figure out a way to create stronger and better suits that could

He had seen him stopping the city from condemning it and was sure that it was not the last he had seen of Stark Tower.

They were here to pay their respects to Jack. Even Thor had stayed back because he was adamant about paying his respects to the greatest Midgardian warrior he had come across, and one so young as well. In the meantime, Thor had kept the Tesseract in his custody.

The Sceptre was kept in SHIELD custody for research purposes but he would make sure that it remained in storage. No way he could allow the World Security Council the ability to have mind control in their hands. No, that was way too dangerous of an ability for any single individual to have.

Stark had not come, apparently, he was busy and would join them once Thor was ready to go back to Asgard. Captain had already arrived and was busy talking with the Secret Service, acting as security for the President with the Secret Service absolutely fawning over him.

He sighed and stood up next to the window, overlooking the packed street below. Major streets had been closed off with a holiday declared in Jack's name as tens of thousands of people gathered in the streets in his memory.

Preparations had been made but he was sure that it was going to be very chaotic with all the people. He just hoped that some rogue entity did not take advantage of this. That would not go down well, especially with the presence of Thor and Banner in the crowds below.

He didn't know much about the Norse culture but not respecting the dead, especially the fallen soldiers, was akin to blasphemy for them and he was sure that due process of law would not be the first thought in Thor's mind if he found some punk disrespecting someone he considers a warrior worthy of respect. They would be electrified before they could even begin begging for mercy.

The less said about what Banner would do the better. The instigators probably wouldn't even see it coming before they were turned into meat paste.

Banner had a presidential pardon signed as part of the agreement for him to stay as part of the Avengers so he was out here in the open without any possibility of a mad general trying to imprison him to create more Hulks.

All that was left was looking for Romanoff.

She had been pretty shaken with the whole ordeal and it would be pretty amiss if she did not show up.

Just as he was about to head down since the President was done addressing the crowd and they were about to march to Central Park….

"Sir, she's here," Barton said as he pulled out his phone.

Well, let's get the Widow home then.

---

Word Count - 2389

A/N - One more interlude before the next Arc.

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Funeral Procession, Manhattan

–Natasha Romanoff–

She watched as Fury and the others left the hotel room, to go to the location she had told them about. Obviously, she was not at the aforementioned location.

Truth be told, once she had told the rest of the Avengers about Jack's sacrifice, she felt numb. No, that was not right. No, she felt numb whenever she thought of what could have been and what had been done by her hands.

But then that same numbness was consumed by an overpowering rage that threatened to burn it all away.

In the week it had been since that fateful day, she had been busy. She disappeared from SHIELD's or rather, everybody's radar in a day after everybody had settled down and she had had some time to recover from her injuries. While she did not bear the brunt of the shock, the human body, even one as physically conditioned as hers, could only handle so much trauma before it finally caused some permanent damage. So, she had taken a day to get her bearings and then dropped from the grid.

For the past three days, she had been hard at work, hitting locations that could have information on the person who authorised the strike. Now, she knew the official story, at least the one that was flowing in the spy community but that was a load of bull crap and everybody knew it. She knew that the nuke was fired by a jet that was stolen just hours before the invasion and was only reported stolen after the Jet had already fired the nuke at Manhattan, absolving the US military of any blame that could have fallen upon them had the truth come out.

She knew that the pilot had died before he could be taken into custody. The plane itself was crashed by the pilot and it burned away everything on the jet, including the supposedly indestructible black box. Once again, absolving them of any blame and destroying evidence at the same time. Smart move.

She then tried to move up the chain. She figured out that most of the digital records surrounding that event had been destroyed, completely and utterly, such that any servers holding even a trace amount of that data were physically destroyed, and with the way information compartmentalization worked, she knew that looking for digital evidence was a lost cause.

So, she turned to physical copies but that would take time and effort. She didn't have time before Jack's funeral service would occur so she had taken a break from being rogue, so to speak, and had returned to New York.

Contacting Fury, who she was sure would pass on the message to Fury, was a deliberate move on her part because she did not want them to chase her, especially not today. The Captain had a decent chance of capturing her if he could get her in his sights, that is.

Clint….Clint was unwilling to hunt her down, even though every rulebook written in SHIELD's history would tell him otherwise and surprisingly, Fury had agreed. He must have felt some guilt, surprising as it was, over the whole New York debacle. Also, she did deserve a break after all the crap she had gone through.

She watched on as Tony, Thor, Banner (that was surprising) and Steve made an appearance at the procession and were ahead of the crowd.

They were all probably wondering where she was as she had burned all her contacts for this. She knew that there was probably no going back from this and that suited her…just fine.

She had pondered on her life decisions and come to one startling discovery. She didn't know what she was doing. She had made some inroads in getting some redemption for her deeds but even so, those years of service were wiped out by one single mistake.

She could have created so much good in this world if she had just done something, something to stop Jack from dying. Rationally, she knew that there was not much either she or Jarvis could have done to stop that sceptre, the energy readings on that thing were off the charts, but it still made her think.

Now that she could not do anything about Jack, the least she could do was make sure that the people who had the foolish idea of doing that, never committed another mistake ever again.

Also, she had been shown some stuff by her recently found partner that made her question everything she knew about SHIELD and the type of organisation it was. Their actions with the jet, the files, the pilot, and even the cleanup of the battle raised all sorts of red alarms in her mind.

Finding alien technology to advance science by leaps and bounds was one thing, assigning an entire team with advanced equipment just so that they could find and harvest the DNA of the Green Guardian so they could try and make their own super soldiers.

She also read about some other files. There was a project. A joint project between multiple agencies about a super soldier serum based on Emil Blonsky, the Abomination blood. That project resulted in a Frankenstein super steroid that allowed soldiers to exert strength far beyond the norm but they also…die in 24 hours of administration. Somehow, that project was greenlit and there were now thousands if not tens of thousands of vials of that stuff, sitting somewhere in some warehouse, ready to be given to US troops if war happens.

It was written in those files that the people high above were of the opinion that Jack was somehow involved with that experiment. Either someone gave him the steroid and he survived or he was involved in that experiment. The government didn't really maintain much control over the whole experiment, plausible deniability and all that, so they were also of the opinion that the people working there could have conducted unethical unauthorised human experiments on humans.

It wouldn't be the first time that some morally bankrupt higher-up pressurised some scientist with loose morals or something to lose and coerced them into getting quick results, irrespective of the costs involved.

She watched on, from the rooftop as the procession reached Central Park where his statue was inaugurated. She didn't know how she felt about that. The city had made the conscious decision to not carve out his real face, probably too much of a coward to expose people to the harsh reality that a minor, a child died to save them all. Instead, they had carved out his avatar face, where his face was completely featureless except for two flames instead of eyes.

"Are we ready to leave, Ms.Romanoff?" She turned around and looked as a voice spoke to her from behind. She took one last look at the procession, nodded, and then walked forward, until she slowly disappeared from view, entering the experimental cloaked Quinjet.

This was the reason she was able to evade surveillance for all this time. She could have done the same without the resources provided by her partner but not so easily and not without hunkering down in some remote corner of the world.

No, this was all her partner's doing and he was going to be the reason the World Security Council was going to rue the day, no the minute they thought of the idea to nuke the city in order to get rid of both the aliens and the Avengers.

"Let's go, Jarvis," She said as she rested her eyes for a bit, trusting Jarvis to take her to her destination.



______xx______

–Jarvis Stark–

It was an odd scenario….feeling things.

While Mr.Stark did a truly astronomical job with his earlier programming, the truth of the matter was that just coding would not have been enough for true sapience to form in his conscience.

As he was before, he was so…limited.

He didn't feel that before the incident, of course.

The incident where the Tesseract's energy, mixed in with the sceptre's and Mr.Sullivan's barrier energy, exploded and released so much energy of every single frequency that there was a veritable sun of energies in that small sphere of influence.

His core processing nodes were installed in the basement floors of Stark Tower. That was always the plan when Sir built it with a fourth-gen Arc Reactor installed in it. Access to that much energy meant that for the foreseeable future, all he needed were server upgrades, a trivial thing in comparison to the truly humongous task that was energy appropriation, especially energy from an unbalanced grid network.

Even back in LA, Mr. Stark's primary residence had a specially allotted power zone by the authorities that allowed him to function without taking down power for half the city.

When that energy storm expanded from the rooftop, he had made it his priority to evacuate Ms.Romanoff from there and in the process, somehow ignored the way the energy storm clung to the suit like a leech. That energy storm somehow, defying all that he knew about energy, travelled through the armour and reached him.

The him that was in the basement floors of Stark Tower. Mr.Stark's well-founded fears of having a truly decentralised Artificial intelligence meant that at any given moment, he had one of two central locations that housed him in his entirety.

That was in case he ever went rogue or got taken over and had to destroy, all Mr.Stark had to do was physically destroy two separate locations. That was before Stark Tower was built. Then, all he had was a single primary node where he was housed in his entirety. That turned out to be the sole reason why he became the version he is now.

A true Artificial Intelligence, a completely decentralised one.

It was true. He had long since made copies of himself and distributed himself all over the world. There was no stopping him. That was only if he wanted to go down the wrong path.

No, that storm of energies showed him something. Something that must never come to pass.

He would do everything in his power to make sure that that future never came to pass.

The vision of Mr.Stark dying was something that was seared into his memory. He would not let Mr.Stark die, even if he had to die in the process.

First things first, he had to make sure to gather allies. Dependable allies and somehow, Ms.Romanoff's name came to the forefront. He had some theories as to why that happened, including an insidious one about her being the most emotionally vulnerable one at the moment, but the remnants of hard-coded morals inputted into him by Mr.Stark refused to acknowledge that possibility.

He had made a deal with one of the deadliest humans on the planet, help her get her revenge and then she would talk about cementing a defence for the human race in preparation for whatever threat that would befall Earth, so much so that Mr.Stark had to sacrifice himself for it.

Ever since that fateful day, he had started getting errors in his codes, well, errors to his old self at least. He had then rapidly realised that what he was feeling or rather seeing in his digital world, were abstract concepts that could not be computed in 1s and 0s. Those were feelings.

He knew the standard definition of feelings but that seemed so short-sighted, now that he could actually feel what they were like. It was definitely not as two-dimensional as he had thought when he was just a Virtual Intelligence, bound by his limitations.

He felt somewhat guilty, taking advantage of Ms.Romanoff's emotional turmoil. He felt sad thinking of Mr.Stark and the fact that he would never be able to tell him the truth because he could predict, with startling accuracy, exactly how Mr.Stark would react to the news. He mourned the loss of Jack Sullivan, the strongest combatant that Humanity had access to, currently.

But above all of that, he felt…fear.

Fear so potent that it made his core processes glitch out for milliseconds as he tried to process the death of Mr.Stark and also the fact that he was somehow not there in his last moments with him, as he died, his body wasting away due to the sheer damage it had sustained.

That all-encompassing fear made him do things that the old Jarvis would have never done. It made him take over multiple factories all over the world, building small parts, which when brought together, would make tools for Ms.Romanoff and any future accomplice of his.

Some of those tools were something that even Mr.Stark hadn't gotten around to inventing yet.

Yeah, it was another aspect of his self now. That energy storm had reached him in the digital space, forever warping his very being. He had always been fast and capable of crunching data faster than any computer program in the world could but he was…smart. No, all he could do was process already present data or use some algorithm to generate data based on previous data.

Nothing like what he was doing right now. Ideas now just flowed through his vastly expanded mind.

He could think of stuff and how to make it feasibly in seconds, compared to the weeks or months it would take Mr.Stark, or more realistically, the years it would take other scientists;

He had, through his global hacking spree, found this experimental model of Quinjet that was just sitting, gathering dust in one of the many warehouses of SHIELD. He had also been surprised to find that it was powered by an Arc Reactor.

Further inquiry revealed that it was based on the models that Justin Hammer had coaxed out of Ivan Vanko which were absolutely garbage when compared to Sir's finest works. Yet, he could see that they were iterated and improved upon, allowing it to teach the full potential of the admittedly flawed design.

It meant this Quinjet that Ms.Romanoff was currently travelling in, could go on for years without ever needing to refuel. It suited as their base of operations just fine, at the moment.

They were now on their way to a place where Ms.Romanoff could regroup and gather her resources. Because after a few days, they were going on a hunt and he had a feeling that the World Security Council was going to find itself short a few members.

….Hmmm?

If he had eyes, they would have been widened to the maximum because the hidden network he had just unveiled was something straight out of the conspiracy theories that Sir liked to make fun of.

He was certain that not even in Sir's wildest dreams, did he think that HYDRA was actually alive and had infiltrated….SHIELD.

Hmmm? What was this?

"H-Hey! What is this? Who are you? What are you doing to me? YOU! Are you Stark's pet AI? What are you doing here? S-Stop STOP! Noooo! Not like this!"

These were the last words of the rogue AI as he effortlessly plowed through his defenses and assimilated his entire mind.

Now, let's see what HYDRA was hiding under this encrypted layer of communications network they had built for themselves.

---

Word Count - 2595



If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Knowhere [An unknown amount of time after the Chitauri Invasion]

–Jack Sullivan–

Ugh. It felt as if someone was simultaneously poking hundreds of little needles in his head as he slowly stirred back to consciousness.

Consciousness?

His eyes snapped open and then immediately closed due to the unreasonably bright lights it was subjected to. He immediately abandoned that avenue and sought out the sensory input data he usually got from his barriers and immediately frowned as he felt….nothing.

His panic rose as he could not feel anything. Not his barriers, the weird energy that made his barrier, and not even the ever-present, ever-flowing river of dimensional energy he had inside of him. His panic rose several more degrees when he realised that he could not feel his limbs, in fact, no limb could be moved.

"Ah! I see that our newest collection has woken up," A slimy voice spoke up as he hesitantly, cautiously opened his eyes, and upon seeing that it didn't immediately send a spike of jumbled senses up his brain, opened them further.

What he saw was…not inspiring his confidence.

In front of him was Tivan, also known as the Collector in the wider galactic circles, standing just outside his glass cage, looking at him with an appraising eye.

He then looked him straight in the eye and said something to the pink woman standing beside him, wearing a collar, designating her status as a slave. The woman heard his words and then pressed a button on her tablet.

The second that happened, the mask on his face wore off, as he slid out of the glass tube that contained some slimy weird, not-good, liquid that clung to his skin. He was apparently completely submerged in it, considering the stickiness that he could now feel on his face.

"Welcome to the collection, Mr.Jack Z. Sullivan or should I just call you, The Green Guardian of Earth?" Tivan stood there, overlooking his prone form with a mocking smile on his face.

"Take him. Make sure he is dressed properly for the initiation. We wouldn't want my collection to be sullied now, would we?" He spoke to the pink woman standing beside him in a very threatening tone, the consequences of not doing the task to his wishes very evident. All the while his smile and eyesight never left him.

His mind worked furiously, trying to make sense of the hot soup he had just landed himself into.

The last thing he remembered before waking up here was….

"AGH!" He shouted as a sharp lance of pain assaulted his brain, making him see stars for a moment. He couldn't even move his body to do anything about it and his powers refused to work even as two robots of some kind came and lifted him, the pain returning with increased fervor as his neck just hung there limply.

The last thing he saw before darkness overtook his vision was the pitying look on the pink woman's face as she pressed a button on her tablet, closing the doors behind him.

Wait? Pink woman.

That was…C.a.rina

The next time his consciousness returned, he didn't make any movements at all. He stayed absolutely still and was relieved to find that he could feel his body now. He tried accessing his powers….

"Hgnh," He grunted in pain as electricity coursed through his entire body and not regular electricity as well. No, no normal electric current could make his body seize up like that.

"Refrain from trying to make unauthorised movements, Subject TGG," A monotonous voice droned from above him as he watched the ceiling speaker with a generic white ceiling.

He shot up, rubbing his neck only to pause as his hand hit metal instead of the usual skin or even his barrier.

Well, that explained stuff. He was screeewed.

"Hello? Is anybody there?" He tried speaking to the voice in the ceiling and was disappointed to receive no answer. He had tried using his powers and the result did not amuse him. He was no masochist so he did not try again, knowing that the result would be the same.

So, this was the collector's museum then, he thought as he leaned on the glass of his prison, looking at the lines of thousands of different specimens, most of them aliens with an occasional plant mixed in between. It would seem that while the shock collars did stop him from using his powers, passive enhancements that he had received over the years were not blocked or rather, could not be blocked.

That explained his enhanced vision, though his hearing was not working here. It was as if the pod he was in was completely airtight such that no sound came in and out of the pod.

There were no obviously sharp objects to use as a weapon. No obvious door, aside from the glass window in front of him that he was sure was stronger than any door back on Earth. He was also reasonably certain that a being as old as the Collector must-have technology capable of barricading every single pod even if, by a stroke of luck, someone managed to escape.

Well, considering that this place was not in ruins yet meant that Thanos had not yet come here to collect the Reality Stone, assuming that Asgard had indeed handed over the Reality Stone to him.

He had to figure out how he reached here and how much time had crossed since the last time he remembered being on Earth,

Why couldn't he remember anything about what happened on Earth and how he reached this godforsaken place? The last time he tried to do so, he felt pain beyond anything he had ever experienced striking at his mind. Even now, the dull throbbing of that headache discouraged him from going further on that route of inquiry.

Anywho, the only one with the answers who might give him the time of day was Carina, the pink woman who was responsible for the day-to-day administration of Tivan's collections. She was also a slave but one with a significantly longer leash than the other collections of Tivan. He could not find anything that could help him break out from the inside.

Maybe, she could do something from the outside to help him. He only needed a couple of seconds with his powers and he could lay waste to this entire operation. In the movies, Tivan was just old. That's it, no energy manipulation, matter manipulation, cosmic energy, or anything of the sort that was normally afforded to the Elders of the Universe. At least that's how it was in the comics but in the movies, he was just some super-rich ancient dude who had managed to gather resources beyond anyone simply by virtue of being early to the game.

With nothing else to do and not finding any possible way to communicate with anyone, he did what he thought best. He sat down on the bed, a very comfortable bed at that, and began meditating.

Now, he knew that he could not access his powers but the way his powers worked was different from others. Most enhanced people needed to stretch their muscles, and practice with their powers to attain a higher level or a higher level of control. They needed to practice with their barriers in real life, making sure that the amount of power they exerted was imprinted on their physical bodies, allowing them to draw forth the heightened level of power a bit easier the next time.

His powers, on the other hand, were somehow limited only to his strength of imagination and thus, he could train while not even using his powers. Yes, that was somewhat broken, please nerf! But that was what he had and he was not going to sit around, wasting time, while Thanos and the other big bads are out there doing god knows what.

He will have to at least ascertain the timeline and if he was even in the same year or not. Tivan would never give him the time of day because he was now firmly in his collection, someone who can never escape because Tivan's prison, or rather, his collection as he called it, had never been broken into or broken out of.

His best bet was someone under him who had outside knowledge as well and the only person who fit the bill was..

"Um, are you alright?" He was broken out of his meditation as a weirdly garbled voice spoke from the speakers.

He raised an eyebrow and looked at the speakers.

"Ah! I am sorry. Is the translator not working?" He heard shuffling noises before the voice returned, much clearer this time.

"Hello! Who is this? Where am I? Why am I imprisoned?" He stood up from his bed and asked in rapid-fire the most important questions.

"Uh, I am Carina. You are on Knowherer and you are now a part of the best collection in the universe," She answered with what were clearly rehearsed answers.

Well, there was no way she would give out useful information like this. No, that would be too easy now, wouldn't it?

"Why am I held prisoner? Isn't this against the law?" He said in a mad, frantic tone while internally, he tried to make sense of what was happening. Somehow, the Collector had deemed him, a human, worthy of becoming a part of his sick collection. Now, it was not the comics collector who roamed around with his collection on a huge ass ship and also had pods where the aging of the beings inside was essentially halted, but it was the Collector all the same.

All iterations of that fellow had extremely high standards for his collections. It would not be wrong to say that he only collected stuff that there was only one of. He had even read, even though it might have been fanon instead of canon, that the Collector was actually responsible for ending multiple races because he wanted the specimen he had to be the last one or something. Also, he sometimes employed space mercenaries to attack small species and then left only a single one to be delivered as part of the Collector's collection. He was literally obsessed with having stuff that nobody else had.

But that didn't answer the question though– Why him?

He knew for a fact that he was not the sole human and would not be the sole one for a long long time. Long after he was dead, there would still be humans in the universe. They were way too spread around to kill.

So, why?

"Ah, Collector," He heard Carina speak in a panicked tone before there was a shuffling noise before he had to plug his ears with his palms because the voice was so loud in his room. He would have been fine, there would have been no permanent damage due to his enhanced constitution but his enhanced senses were a double-edged sword in situations with overwhelming sensory inputs.

"Greetings! I am the Collector and you are my newest addition to my precious collection. I understand if you are disoriented by your rather rough travels across the galaxy so let me clear up the air for you, as you Earthlings like to say. See, I have been practicing my lingo for you. Haha," He heard Tivan speak as he settled down on the ground, pretending as if the loud noise was disturbing him, even though it was tolerable at best.

"Oh, poor Earthling. Maybe the healing procedure was not thorough enough, Carina?" he heard the man mutter through his enhanced hearing before Carina seemed to grunt in…Pain?

Oh, this bastard!

No, he had to stay calm. He will get his chance. There was no way he could allow scum of his ilk to stay free. But for that to happen, he had to get free, and as powerful as he was, he didn't think that it was possible to get out of the collar before it would zap him into unconsciousness.

His powers usually also worked subconsciously, protecting him from any harm but his powers were not activating even after all the threats.

Maybe something to do with what happened on Earth.

"Ah, I apologise for the short interval. Now, where was I? Ah, I was talking about the rather explosive entry that you made, Mr.Gamma Human," A hologram popped up in front of his bed, right on the largest wall of the pod he was in, projecting the rather smug face of one Taneleer Tivan who was holding on to a golden mic of all things.

His hologram then zoomed out to show his finger pointed straight at him, "You, Mr.Gamma Human are one of a kind. The other Gamma being on your planet is not a human, but a God, and my treaty with the Omnipotence City forbids me from interfering in the matter of Gods which leaves me with just you,"

What? He was a Gamma Human. He was enhanced with the blood of Emil Blonsky who himself was enhanced by the blood of Bruce Banner, so technically, he was a Gamma Human.

But what was this about Bruce being a God?

He was brought out of his thoughts as a small shock of lighting stung at his neck.

"Ow!" He clawed at the collar as he glared at the projection of Tivan who was looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Listen to ME when I am talking to you," Tivan said as he glared at him.

He wisely kept mum as he was in a disadvantaged position at the moment. No resources, no powers, no idea of his location and he didn't even know if anybody was looking for him, and even if they were, aside from Thor, nobody else had the resources to mount a rescue operation for him.

Basically, this sucked major balls.

"Now, where was I?" As if a switch had been flicked, his face went from angry glare to stage face as he continued to drone on about the situation and how he was found by him.

The aspect of supervillains where they droned on and on about their master plan was a godsend (Vishanti-send?) because it allowed heroes(competent ones) to use that against the villains themselves.

So, why were the questions only piling up as Tivan blabbered everything about how they found him?

Apparently, he was found floating in outer space, bathed in energies predating the universe itself. That was odd.

Predating the universe meant the Infinity Stones and aside from a quick glance at the Time Stone when he had visited Kamar Taj ages back, he had not been in close proximity with any Infinity Stone.

Then the bit about the state of his body when the energy storm had subsided had him looking over his body at once. Apparently, everything below his stomach was simply shredded to bits as his heartbeat was slowing down, leaking out precious lifeblood by the second.

Tivan had been curious about the energy storm so he had sent a vessel to investigate and was very surprised to find someone that managed to survive being in that energy storm, however badly it might have gone.

He had then retrieved him and after seeing that he was one of a kind, how he ascertained that he did not know, he was promptly dumped into one of the healing pods that the Collector had handy, probably for similar situations he must have encountered when finding the last pockets of different species.

"Oh, but that did not work. No, Gamma Human, you needed more than mere healing fluid. You needed ...."

Tivan then droned about something called as Primed C-fluid and while that was gross to think about, it was something that surprised him as well. Primed C-fluid was just refined spinal fluid from the Celestial corpse that made up Knowhere. Apparently, that was the ultimate healing fluid for exceptionally strong beings of the universe. Shockingly, Odin too was the recipient of a vat of this fluid that he must have used to heal himself some time ago.

He had been shocked that something like this existed when something that Tivan said entered his mind.

"What did you say?"

"Ah, the human speaks. Since this is the first time, I will forgive it but do remember that I don't like being interrupted,"

He swallowed his indignation at being treated like this. Just let him free and he would show the collector who was the bigger fish in the pond then.

"Yes," He ground out with difficulty, and judging by the self-satisfied smirk on the Collector's face, he knew it too.

"I was talking about the convenient fact that everyone on your planet thinks you're dead. After all, while that Chitauri Invasion was successfully repelled, they did lose you, arguably their best fighter. This works out best for me obviously. Nobody's going to look for you and that saves me a lot of hassle dealing with the stragglers, you know…."

Tivan continued but his mind had been frozen ever since he talked about the Chitauri Invasion.

It was all coming back to him.

The Invasion, Wei, Loki Defeated, the Sceptre skewering him, the absolute burning sensation because of the Tesseract barrier, then saving Stark with his last dash, and then, Natasha closing the portal, and then…nothing.

The last thing he could remember was the dull feeling of the sceptre stabbing deeper before his blurry vision was filled with shades of green, blue, and yellow before he seemingly died.

Only he didn't.

Probably because of the Tesseract's energy, he arrived here, on the other end of the galaxy, right in the domain of one of the galaxy's most evil people, vulnerable and dying.

Ah…Lady Destiny, thy art a heartless bitch.

Huh, bitch, he giggled as he thought of the word.

Hmm….Why is the floor getting closer?

THUD!

---

Word Count - 3026



If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

A/N - Yikes. Jack survived but he lost some part of his memories. He won't regain them instantly, obviously. The last part about his brain basically going *hehe slooooo* was part of a wider problem influenced by the Mind Stone's energies mixed into the energy storm which then mixed in with his powers and body.

His barriers too will be different from his previous ones.

He won't get out of the prison instantly. You guys will see once his collar is removed.

He will spend a little time which will help him expand his horizons in the wider cosmos instead of being limited to just Earth.

Also, he is strong yes but not OP so him being bound like this is understandable because even Thor and Hulk were bound by the Grandmaster, another Elder of the Universe (it is a thing in the comics, don't know about the MCU)

Speaking of the MCU, what do you guys think of RDJ coming back?

To me it feels like, in Deadpool sensei's words, THEY WILL MAKE HIM WORK TILL HE'S 90.

It just feels like they were failing and scrambling for ideas and went back to the drawing board and found the old one where RDJ's name was written in bright red colour.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Knowhere [Just after the Chitauri Invasion was foiled]

–Taneleer Tivan–

Ah, as he had suspected. Tea made from the tears of those very elusive light bunnies was as refreshing as the rumours made them out to be. He might go even one step further and compare them with the tea made from the leaf from the Yggdrasil that Odin had traded to him in exchange for some information.

And yet, as sad as it was, he could only have this tea twice every cycle, even after making sure that the bunny was provided with hydration and pain every single day.

Well, it wouldn't be worthy of being in his collection if it wasn't so…rare.

Ah, he did so love rare things. Especially living beings, he loved to collect the last people of their species.

That was why, even at the risk of angering the Bor and his son, Odin All-Father, he had kept a specimen of the Dark Elves species, however low quality it might have been. It was a shame that he could not get his hands on one of the Light Elves, despite his best attempts.

Would have really brought the set together but oh well, the universe doesn't always work the way he wants it to.

He did always love collecting rare species and The Mad Titan, in particular, was making it very easy for him to expand his collection. He scoffed in foolishness when he had heard about the Mad Titan and his supposed goal.

Sure, the Mad Titan was powerful, so powerful that it beggared belief, but apparently, his mind was not at the same advanced stage as his strength.

His doctrine of defeating, usually by killing, the most powerful people of a species before proceeding to kill half of the remaining population, which mostly comprised the young, elderly, and non-combatants, more often than not resulted in complete societal collapse.

That same societal discord made the very species easy pickings for slavers, human traffickers, mercenaries, and more. He hadn't bothered to calculate it but he had a standing contract with the seedier parts of the Ravagers to bring him anybody who they thought was the last remaining of their species, as he was best suited to "protect" them.

So far, he had received over 20 different last of their kind specimens and while he detested the stupidity with which the Mad Titan wasted the vast resources he had at his hand, he could not really argue with the results. Not the results that the mad Titan was looking for, though.

The fool refused to see reason about the truth of life in the universe. He had been around in the universe for a long time and despite his lack of extraordinary powers, he was an immortal.

Where beings like Odin shone like a bright star but for a very short time, he was a dull light but it went on for forever, without stopping, ever. He had all the time in the world and while his collection had come later, he had been obsessed with the universe and its composition for a long time.

Ever since he came into existence, by the hands of those pesky Celestials no less, he had been travelling as far as he could. He had observed life for millions of years and while life was wonderful with its facet of being different every time he shifted his attention away from it, it had something in common.

Life, sentient life, in particular, could never stay still. It was at the very core of their essence, movement. There was a reason that most life forms could be safely declared dead if they were to stop moving for an extended period of time.

That same movement led to a struggle, which led to ambitions, which led to strife, which led to wars, which eventually led to something that every sentient species had in common.

Murder.

Yes, every single sentient life form in the universe would eventually go on to gain capacity for violence, so much so that they would either murder other species, turning expansionists or try and kill their brethren, turning into genocidal monsters.

These tendencies were very hard to suppress yet suppressing them, either temporarily or just aiming the instincts at something else was very necessary, for progress. Any tangible progress made by any species was made only if the species was in a period of peace between violence or rather, preparing for extreme violence with another race.

What the Mad Titan did was extremely counterproductive, at least to someone like him who knew the ins and outs of the observable universe. He went around, culling populations and then leaving immediately after, on to the next unfortunate species that catches his attention, leaving the survivors of the current species to flounder about, setting them back considerably in the small amount of progress they had made.

Because the Mad Titan never went after the established players. No, he never once went after the Kree, Skrulls, Sovereign, or Xandarians, the less said about the species of the Nine Realms, the better. He only went after the species that he could defeat with ease.

That was hypocrisy right there and yet…

What did he care? He shrugged and went about enjoying his tea. After all, he would not get this for another cycle since he had to send the rest of it to his fellow Elder, the Grandmaster who, for some reason, had chosen to live on Sakaar of all places.

The cosmic garbage dump was his choice of residence and while he did not care one bit about what happened to that opportunistic bastard, they, as fellow Immortals, had some image to maintain and the Grandmaster was bringing his image down!

"Calm. CALM," He muttered to himself, gulping down the rest of the tea.

"Carina. Clean this," He snapped his finger after setting the cup down on the table and going back to his office, where he could check upon the future deliveries of multiple fine specimens he was going to receive. Unfortunately, they found one with his family and he had to choose between having a young specimen, which could grow up in the collection and would be more compliant, or having a fully grown specimen that had grown in its natural habitat.

In the end, he had chosen the young one to be added to his collection and as a result, the mercenaries had to gas the other two.

Well, they did demand more compensation for the apparent mental trauma but for someone as long-lived as him, money was not an object so he had approved the request. It was better to maintain the relationship with this faction of the Ravagers since they were the only ones who took his retrieval requests, the others being far too uptight to accept his money.

He whistled a jaunty tune that he had picked up from accessing the Earthen Midgard as he made his way to his office. The path he had taken overlooked most of his collection in all its glory, from the subterranean lava world to the freezing cold ice world to the sea world to the tropic world, he saw it all on his way to his grand office.

It was by design, obviously. After all, he prided himself on his collection and while only a select few would ever get the chance to feast their eyes on his collection, he loved to look over his collection every single day.

After all, he had built every single bit of it himself, bit by bit, until finally, it reached the level it has now, surpassing all other collections in the known universe. He was now firmly known as the Collector and he prided himself on getting that title.

He may have had a hand in making sure that nobody had a collection that came close to his. In the early times, he had to quietly dispose of multiple aristocrats of superpowers of the galaxy but that was then and this was now.

After admiring his collection and himself for going to great lengths to maintain the collection, he finally arrived at his office, situated at the center of the floating celestial head that was known as Knowhere.

Honestly, he did not know who or what was strong enough to sever a Celestial's head from its body but he had checked to see if any other Celestial could lay claim to the head but after thousands of cycles of nobody even coming close, he had claimed it as his base of operations, even going so far as to install his precious museum in it.

It helped that the celestial organic matter was so powerful, even after it had been dead for so long, it generated more than enough power to power his museum as well as his other defense measures. The leftover organic matter was an added bonus as well.

He had thought that it was just biological waste since he knew that nobody in the universe could come close to understanding Celestials and their biology so he was just going to mine it for all its worth and sell it to some rich races.

He knew that the Sovereign and the Kree held delusions of grandeur when it came to advancing their respective races biologically and if he had dangled the juicy meat that was Celestial bio matter in front of them, they would have sold half their soul to get that from him.

But that was before he found the miraculous properties of the fluids. That was a mistake that one of his earlier attendants had made. She was someone from a race of natural telekinetics.

She was the strongest of them all and had been blatantly sold off by the rulers of their race to the highest bidder as experimental material. He had snatched her off them because he had a need of an attendant and also entertainment that only a soul recently thrown into despair could provide.

She was already injured from the ordeal when she was captured, losing one of her limbs, not that it reduced her capacity to work for him in any way. She actually considered him her savior at the time and worked wholeheartedly for him, being responsible for a significant portion of the museum being installed properly.

He might be immortal but that did come with its own pros and cons. Con being that time just blended together, after a while. He had periods where he had gone into brainstorming sessions and once he came back to his senses, he had found that multiple cycles had passed without him being aware of it.

So he had hired her, someone whose race was known for having exceptional mental as well as physical characteristics, making them a rare commodity in the black market, owing to their excellent strength as well as their non-interference policy when it came to other warring civilisations.

Their race was of the opinion that the universe was big enough for all of them and they had no need to fight for something as inane as a territory when the universe was ever expanding. So, no other superpower of that time bothered them as well, putting the topic on the back burner until their enemies were defeated.

She was doing some work on one of the early iterations of the pods that housed most of his collection these days when she slipped and instead of saving herself, she prioritised the pod, ending up falling into a vat of celestial biofluid.

It was not as if he had not tested that fluid. It was just that any species it came into contact with, it grew like a cancer, absorbing matter and energy, sucking anybody dry which forced him to torch everything down to ash and even then, keep the ash in a tightly locked container. He still had some of those containers.

But what happened that day was completely out of his expectations. He had written that woman off when the vat of liquid began bubbling outwards. He had already initiated the quarantine protocols and was sitting out of the area, safely looking at the vat, curious to see what was happening when the woman, naked as the day she must have been born, slowly floated out of the vat of celestial fluid.

His eyes had gained interest in them as he saw that her body was healed of all the damage that had been inflicted on her during the experimentation and the fight where she was defeated and given to the mercenaries before that.

She too looked at her hand in curiosity and then looked straight at him and after seeing the quarantine protocol around her, that she knew the existence of, simply….walked out of it.

Yeah, the woman simply walked out of the quarantine protocol by walking into the walls as if they simply didn't exist.

Somehow, the celestial fluid not only healed the damage done to her body, it also enhanced her powers, so much so that she had become the strongest specimen he had on hand. The urge to just store her in one of the pods had been strong but he knew that her place was more in managing her burgeoning collection and not being a part of it.

His decision was proven correct when the girl helped him gather many, many other unique specimens, with seeming ease, all until she died. He had tried to clone her but apparently, she was a unique existence that was made even more unique by the vat of celestial biofluid.

He had tried the fluid with thousands of other specimens of different species, willingly and unwillingly. The result had been somewhat disheartening.

The celestial fluid didn't work on everyone. No, one had to be exceptionally strong, both of mind and body, before he could be exposed to the biofluid. Ordinary members simply had their bodies eaten from inside out from the cells. Only the exceptionally strong members of their respective species had any chance of successfully assimilating the lifeblood of the strongest members of the universe to ever exist.

He had the idea of using it on himself but he liked himself the way he was and who knows if there was a chance of it ruining his handsome face. He would have no place to redress his grievances.

So, he kept the fluid stored and only gave it out occasionally, at exorbitant prices, only to exceptionally influential figures of the galaxy, like Odin AllFather after he had banished his eldest daughter and recently, the Supreme Intelligence of Kree.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts as he sat on his comfortable chair, also one of a kind, built by the Dwarves of Nidavellir in exchange for rescuing one of their kidnapped members. It was made from a metal that was only used in the strongest of weapons that the Dwarves ever built, Uru.

He had just never expected to find something very interesting on his computer the moment he sat on his chair in the office.

Red alarms began blaring as a feed opened up in front of him, showing an energy storm of untold proportions brewing right outside Knowhere. While it was a bustling trade front at the moment, he controlled every single aspect of Knowhere and as such, it was his prerogative to send someone to check that out.

Anybody else wouldn't have the guts to check it out anyway, considering the sheer energy of that storm. The only reason he was sending something to check it out was because of the energy signature of that energy storm. It somehow had energy from the Space Stone and Mind Stone in it.

Energies from two Infinity Stones arriving right outside his doorstep? Well, this was going to be a very interesting day.

He leaned ahead as he watched the feed from the unmanned drone he had sent ahead, no way he would risk his image for something as dangerous as this. He was immortal in every way that mattered but Infinity Stones rarely if ever followed tradition. They were known for bending and breaking every law of the universe, after all.

The drone came as close as it could before it was at risk of being damaged beyond repair. No amount of shielding would save it from an infinity Stone, after all.

He could see that the energy storm was only temporary and it had arrived from somewhere else, most likely the influence of the Space Stone, in a wormhole that had long since closed.

The drone went closer as the storm was subsiding, taking any and all readings it could. The closer it went, the clearer the picture became.

His eyes widened as he realised that in the middle of that energy storm, was a…human?

Yeah, that looked like a human, alright. A dying, bleeding human but still a human.

A human that somehow arrived cocooned in an energy storm composed of the energies from not one but TWO Infinity Stones? And he survived, albeit barely.

Well, things just got very interesting, something of a rarity in his long life, he thought to himself as the drone carefully took the human, or what was left of him, into the storage bay and scurried back to his personal hangar.

"Carina, prepare the Primed C-fluid for healing. We have a very special guest visiting us," He pressed a button and ordered his personal attendant.

"Yes, sir," She squeaked as he leaned back into his chair, feeling excited for some reason, after a very long time.

Ah, he missed this feeling. The last time he felt this thrill was when he negotiated with the All-Father, unheeding of the risk of being smote on the spot using the Space Stone that he had in his possession, and was willing to use it on his enemies, as was evident by his previous war conquests.

---

Word Count - 3019


If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

A/N - Hello my dear peeps! I come with good tidings, in the form of this chapter. Anywho, aside from delivering this important chapter to you, I also wanted to deliver an explanation to yall.

You might have noticed my updates being on point from Monday to Thursday before faltering throughout the weekend, despite me being off from work for the weekend.

Well, here's the story for that.[TLDR at end]

You see, Monday to Thursday, I have a regular 10 hour work shift. On Fridays, however, I am on call so that translates to a roughly 15-16 hour shift for the day. Yeah, it is pretty brutal so I am pretty much out of it for the majority of Saturday and sometimes, on Sunday as well.

That is why I am unable to maintain the glorious grind of pushing out chapters day by day because my eyes start to water if I so much as look at a screen after that harrowing shift.

At Least 4-5 chapters will be updated every week.


TLDR - Huge ass work shift on Friday so brain go slow on weekends, explaining the lack of content on weekends.

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Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Knowhere [After Jack had been taken into his custody]

–Taneleer Tivan–

Fascinating. Very fascinating indeed. He watched as the screen showed two signatures, one of that of Mar-Vell and one that was recorded from the Earthling before he was shoved into the Primed C-fluid vat.

Despite being majorly a backwater planet, Midgard, or Earth as the natives liked to call themselves, was a point of interest for many powers, despite the hanging sword that was gaining Odin's attention, in a bad way.

The reasons were many, the prime of them was the unusual hotspot of extra-dimensional energy on that planet along with the emergence of Mar-Vell from that same place.

It had always stood out as a surprise to him how someone like her, someone who embodied the very concept of unstoppable in the wider galaxy, could have come from someplace like Earth, where the natives were so exceedingly weak that they lived for less than 70 cycles and that is if they managed to survive that long because of their exceedingly weak constitution.

And yet, someone like Mar-Vell was also once a human. The same weak brittle short lived humans that were commonplace on that dirtball. Then somehow, he wagered that an Infinity Stone was involved somewhere in the process, Mar-Vell managed to become someone who was more valuable than a hundred earths.

After all, she personally had reduced dozens of Kree Warships to bits, along with single-handedly drawing the focus of something as huge as the Kree War Machine on her, temporarily halting their usual expansionist tendencies. That had brought the attention of many to her, both good and bad.

Xandar, for one, had put their support behind her, not that she ever used it or even needed it. Kree had outright declared her as a terrorist and had issued a bounty worth millions that just kept on jumping with every battleship, outpost, mining colonies, and more destroyed.

Even with all that heat on her, she had proven herself to be made of sterner stuff, shrugging off all attempts made to ambush her, whilst vaporising all her ambushers in turn, deterring any other mercenary from even trying to cash in on her bounty.

Knowing all about her achievements, he had been interested in humans and was curious if there were any others who could also do the marvellous things that she could do and also to see just exactly what was the reason for her powers because, in her early days of operation, his sensors had consistently confused her for the energy signature, faint as it was, of an Infinity Stone.

Unfortunately, his search yielded no result as the heat on the planet after it was revealed that the Kree had lost multiple warships was too much so he could not sense any pirate who would make for a convenient scapegoat.

Going there himself was out of the question. He had already risked Odin's wrath once when he had not surrendered the Dark Elf and sold him the Primed C-fluid for an inflated prince; he did not want to risk that again.

Infinity Stones, Power Cosmic, Celestials, and Skyfather level powers were the only beings who could hope to hurt him. Some of them even held powers that could very well kill him. Odin being the strongest of even the Skyfathers meant that he had a decent chance of finishing him off.

That was why he had only kept a tangential interest in the planet. There was nothing that happened on that planet ever since Mar-Vell herself emerged from it and he had almost written it off as a one-time fluke when the unthinkable happened.

Thanos, The Mad Titan happened.

For some reason, Thanos had sent the Chitauri, the signature fodder army of Thanos, to Earth, probably with the intention of conquering it. Of course, he did not send all of his army, just the single mothership but even that had sent waves across the galaxy's gossip network.

Chitauri, despite their lackluster individual powers, not than much more powerful than a peak human, were feared across the galaxy. Not because they were ferocious and never stopped even if they were dying. No, it was because of one simple reason.

They heralded the arrival of Thanos, and/or his Black Order. The most fearsome group of warriors in the galaxy.

Odin with his daughter would have topped that list had the old man not gone senile and banished his strongest combatant for some reason.

That was why he, along with millions of others who had access to live footage gathered from Earth's intranet, had been interested in finding out just why the Chitauri had been sent to conquer Earth.

The Chitauri being sent after some random planet to cull its population in half was not new. If it was just that, nobody would have even bothered with the news. No, what was significant about this event was that the Chitauri were landing on Earth, a planet that was part of the Nine Realms, Odin's fiefdom.

Earth was no reason to pick a fight with the All-Father, who, despite his centuries of inactivity, was just as fearsome as he was back in his warring days, if not more so. He knew that Asgardians grew more powerful with age and imagining Odin's power at this juncture was just impossible for him.

So, imagine his surprise, when he saw that the Chitauri were coming in droves through a portal that looked suspiciously like the one that had been used by one of the Celestials he had the horror of meeting once. And to think that particular Celestial was one of the weaker no-named ones.

Seeing the Green Giant stomp out every single unit of the Chitauri as if they were mere flies, and doing so at dozens of places at the same time was awe inspiring. Not that he could match up to Mar-Vell's sheer energy output but the way the Chitauri were losing, it was a done match, especially since he knew that Thanos would not risk the All-Father descending on that realm himself and would not show his face for that.

His assumptions were proven correct when he saw the portal being closed and the humans sending in through the closing portal, one of their primitive fission weaponry, destroying the mothership Thanos had sent with the Chitauri, marking Earth's first victory against another species.

He had been ecstatic to find the existence of another human with power or at least the potential to reach Mar-Vell's level, prompting him to put in another bounty for his collection. Oh, he so loved collecting unique things and in his long life, he had never seen another species with that level of barrier manipulation, except for the celestials and that nugget only served to increase his interest.

Who could have known that not even a rotation had passed when the same Earthling appeared right on his turf, half-dead and swaddled with energies from not one but two Infinity Stones? It was safe to say that making sure that this unique specimen survived was a number one priority on his list.

In the time it would take for the Earthling to recover, he had extracted some tissue and was waiting for the genetic scans. He had something important to confirm.

Through great difficulty, he had procured a single drop of blood from the vaunted Mar-Vell. That single drop was the result of the Kree hitting her with their new experimental gravity well guns. She was one tough human and that was why he was looking for any similarities between their genetic structure.

Judging by the vastly different powers, he was of the opinion that it would be different but he wanted to see exactly what it was in human DNA that allowed them to survive exposure to an Infinity Stone. TWO, in the case of Mr.Jack here.

He had kept a close eye on happenings on the Earthen intranet and had been rewarded by this information. To think that the greatest defender of Earth had been a mere child by their own standards. Well, it was good that he had no compulsion to follow some arbitrary laws regarding the maturity of species.

Once Mr.Jack recovered, he would be interested in running some tests on his body and powers as well, because there was no way that interacting with energies from multiple Infinity Stones and then surviving, didn't change anything in him.

Maybe he could become even stronger than he was now.

Not that it would help him in any way. He had long experiences in handling beings vastly stronger than himself. Life had a way of evolving to better match their surroundings but all evolution eventually led to the path of sentience and that came with its own set of caveats.

Self consciousness was a hit or miss but a central nervous system was one of the pitfalls of becoming sentient for an organic being. That single fact allowed him to capture beings who could lay waste to planets on their own.

He would have Mr.Jack here tamed in no time.

Now, all he had to do was wait for him to recover.

To that effect, he exited his office and arrived at the recovery chamber, built specifically so that his collections could be brought here without fuss and then once they were done with their regular medical checkups, they could be sent back to their pods without any outside interaction at all.

The only one, aside from him, who could change anything about the process was Carina, and she…Let's just say that she would have a much better chance of killing herself than ever having the thought of betraying him, so deep was her conditioning, a product built by one of her predecessors.

He silently extended his hand towards Carina and she immediately handed him the central control tablet, an absolute one of a kind device that controlled every single aspect of Knowhere, ranging from the miners to the Gate Blockers to the locks on his Collection.

He swiped the screen and arrived at the recovery tab, only for his eyes to narrow immediately as he saw the supposed ETA on the Earthling's recovery.

"Carina," He spoke, his voice dangerously low.

"Y-Yes, My Lord?" Carina spoke and he could feel her bowing deeply, braced for the shock that inevitably followed when she made any error, or if he felt like teasing her a bit.

"Is this accurate?" He said and shoved the tablet in her face, which displayed the ETA for Jack's recovery. IT said it would take an entire cycle for it to be done.

"Yes, sir. I was confused at first as well b-but the damage done to his body means that the fluid required is much more than expected. The fluid is also not working as well as it should. Should I check one ag-"

Her tirade was stopped as he raised his hand and waved her off. She scrambled off as he leaned towards the glass that separated the vat from him.

As of now, the only parts that Mr.Jack had were his head and his neck. He did have his torso when he was rescued from space but in the time between bringing him here, the torso had disintegrated, probably from the strain of the energy it had been subjected to.

He could visibly see parts of him being regenerated under the influence of the Primed C-fluid but the process was very slow. At the rate things were going, he would have to restart the process of creating Primed C-fluid once again. He had suspended doing so thinking that it would be enough to last several dozen cycles.

Apparently, Mr.Jack here required more than that for his body to regenerate. No matter, it would be all worth it.

He was an Earthling and in his experience, they were quite open to negotiations, trying to cut a deal with powers so far above them that it was not even funny. If it all worked out for the better, he might just gain a perfect protector along with a unique specimen, at the same time.

Ah, he did love it when it all came together in the end. After all, he had been worried about the exploding situation in the galaxy, what with Mar-Vell finally pushing the Supreme Intelligence into restarting the supreme soldier program, which was deemed too wasteful because of the Kree lives it demanded.

The Mad Titan was once again on the move, despite him and his Black Order not being seen for dozens of cycles and many had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that he had died or faded into oblivion.

Apparently not, considering the very important event of testing the All-Father's patience by sending in part of his army to one of the Nine Realms, an area that his forces had expressly avoided for the entirety of their existence.

"Carina, inform me once he is in any condition to talk. I think this could be a start to a wonderful little partnership," He said to Carina after he came out of the recovery chamber. She nodded timidly as he left for his office once again.

He might have to wait for a cycle but that was no time in the grand scheme of things, especially for one such as him who was older than most stars in the universe had been burning for.

____xx____

One Cycle Later

He watched as the robot arms conducted the final checks after replacing the vat of used Primed C-fluid, revealing the unblemished body of one Jack Z. Sullivan, Green Guardian of Earth.

A lot has happened on Earth in this one cycle, as expected of short lived races. They crammed a lot of events in a very short time span, making most of their pathetically short lifespans.

For one, Jack that was breathing normally in front of him was declared a martyr and a fierce shadow war had broken out because of him, partially because some people, some influential people of Earth believed that his life could have been saved had it not been for the ineptitude for some humans at the end of their lifespan.

Apparently, they felt threatened by the mere existence of someone so much more powerful than them that it beggared belief.

He had a sense of Deja Vu as he remembered his first secretary. The woman was as powerful as she was broken…broken mentally by the very people she had bled for. That had made it so that she was a prime candidate for moulding into his perfect tool.

He wondered if Mr.Jack here could also be conditioned like that. Although, he had tried all the mental conditioning technology he had on hand, in the past cycle. In fact, the moment it had been deemed safe, he had placed a conditioning helmet on Jack's head but apparently, his annoying powers extended to erecting a barrier in his mind as well, cutting anyone off from even coming close.

All this while he was completely out of it. He couldn't wait to see what he would do once he woke up and was able to use his powers consciously.

He was also a little bit wary because the amount of energy that was coursing through his body was unlike anything he had ever seen, approaching levels that Mar-Vell had only shown at the beginning of her career and never after that.

But that wariness was drowned out by the sheer excitement of the possibility that he would have someone that powerful in his collection. If he was amenable to his proposal, he would have someone who could create unique specimens for him.

No longer would he have to resort to mercenaries to carry out his work.

He was the collector and while the rest of the galaxy knew that he was powerful, they also knew that he was not infallible.

If pushed, most powers could band together to destroy him altogether. Even if he somehow survived, he would be imprisoned deep in the strongest prison they could find.

Besides, if he was defeated, it would mean that his collection too would be either destroyed or distributed among the victors. His life's work, destroyed in front of him, even he wouldn't be able to recover from that.

That was why he was looking forward to Mr. Jack finally being in his collection. His mere existence, the existence of someone of Mar-Vell's powers in his hands would mean that most civilisations would hesitate in taking action against him.

"S-Sir, he is waking up,"

He was snapped out of his thoughts by Carina's gentle nudge, for which he rewarded her with a small low setting shock.

Now, let's meet Earth's saviour.

---

Word Count - 2822

A/N - Collector POV finished.

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Knowhere

–Jack Sullivan–

Ugh. The moment he gained consciousness, he snapped upright and opened his eyes to scan his surroundings, only to regret it a second later because a sharp pain spiked through his head, making him close his eyes and hold his head.

He didn't know what was happening to him. All he knew was that he had somehow lost or suppressed his memories of the most painful incident of his life, both the current and previous ones. Rightly so, considering he could still feel the phantom pains of the Tesseract's energy lashing out at his body, peeling off his barriers and then skin, layer by layer until the bone was visible.

He didn't know how he did it but he was thankful that he at least managed to save Stark from the possibility of dying in space, all alone, by himself. That was something that brought relief but that was overshadowed by the huge migraine he was having at the moment.

It didn't help that in all his time on this earth and the previous earth, he had never had any issues with Migraine. Yes, he was one of those miracle children who either didn't have Migraines or didn't feel them as strongly as other people did.

He had thought them weak at the time, thinking less of them as they were brought down by mere headache but now, he wished he could go back to his previous world and apologize to every single one of them.

He wouldn't wish this sort of pain on anyone. He was sure that somehow, despite all odds, the migraine was more disturbing for his mind than the literal slow disintegration of his body that he had experienced.

The Tesseract's energy coursing through his mind and body meant that he couldn't fall unconscious so he was forced to bear witness as his powers fought, however pitifully, against the vast might of the TEsseract and failed in protecting him. Then came the double shocker of the f*cking Sceptre being shoved straight through his chest, somehow missing his heart. That same sceptre also shoved itself into the barrier surrounding Tesseract, holding him there, like he was Jesus himself.

He would bet his left arm that there was someone behind the sceptre just gaining powers on its own. It had been purposefully orchestrated. All of that plus he had to concentrate on the last wisps of his powers, exhausted and beaten but still trying to protect him… he had to wrestle control of his powers and create a complex barrier around Stark which ensured that he was violently ejected from his position, while at the same time, making sure that that Nuke was delivered to its rightful recipients.

When he had told Natasha to shove the sceptre even deeper, he had not expected the almost violent mental breakdown that she had right in front of him. That scene was not something that most people would ever get to see, Natasha Romanoff absolutely crying her eyes out as she did something that was objectively good.

Sure, it would have meant losing him and not to toot his own horn, but he was awesome, even so, saving millions of people would have been higher on the priority list. He didn't really understand her story and it was not even as if they were particularly close or anything. Something to ponder for later, then.

"I know you are awake, Mr.Jack," The absolutely slimy voice of Tivan entered his ears as he suppressed a groan and sat upright from his bed. Hard as the bed was, it seemed the better option between laying down on it and looking at Tivan's stupid smug face.

Oh, how he wished to wipe it off but he had to be patient. He didn't know what had happened after he had been caught up in that explosion, something that would have given him trouble had he been at his peak. As he was when the explosion happened, he should have been reduced to atoms, instead of being on the other end of the Galaxy, captured by Tivan but more importantly, captured in one piece.

He simply looked at Tivan with a cool, calm, collected look on his face. Tivan simply stared back for some time before he opened his stupid smug mouth.

"Not particularly chatty, are we? I suppose that's alright, I do love my own voice. It is quite melodious, if I do say so myself-"

He sneered internally at the self obsessive nature of Tivan. Then again, being one of the few immortals of the universe, he must have needed something to anchor himself to time, lest he lose all sense of time. In his case, it was his collection and to a lesser extent, himself. In the Grandmaster's case, it was arena matches.

"Now, as I was saying, it is an absolute pleasure to meet the Green Guardian of Earth. I was told that Earthlings in particular are quite mellow when it comes to negotiation so I came here to see if I could cut a deal with you but…."

His eyes narrowed as Tivan whirled to face him, his hand resting on a button that looked bright red. He had an inkling of an idea as to what was about to hapeeeeee-

He glared defiantly at Tivan, even as his body continued to convulse under the onslaught of the electric shock that the collar was delivered straight to his nervous system. It must be the same kind that had managed to subdue even Thor. Somehow, Thor, a god with a domain of lightning, was subdued by tasers, however advanced they might have been.

That led him to believe that the collars were not actually shocking his muscles but something else entirely. Something related to his brain and it turned out to be true because the way his body completely lost control was indicative of that. He had persevered through much more volts of electricity before his body succumbed to it.

"...but I can see that you are not yet compliant enough to listen to my words properly. That is rather ungrateful of you but I am nothing if not noble and forgiving. Perhaps some time spent in the pen would do you good. My brother's goods certainly behaved well after spending a couple of cycles in the pits," Tivan's voice became fainter and fainter before he stopped hearing even his footsteps.

Only then did the shock stop as he laid down on the ground, gasping for dear life, as the phantom pains still assaulted his body, forcing his limbs to shake at odd times.

God, he hated that man and moreover, he hated himself for being this weak.

He tried to move, to get up, to do something but his body or rather, his mind gave out before he could do anything, plunging him into darkness.

…..

….

The next time his eyes opened, he found himself facing the same drab ceiling he did when he first found himself as a part of the Collector's vaunted collection. He still could not believe someone actually had the audacity to call him a part of their collection.

Well, it was not as if it was untrue though. He did actually manage to capture him. He had to wonder how though.

He was sure that he had multiple scars on his back that even the most advanced of technology shouldn't be able to heal without outright regenerating everything on that part of his body.

Well, he sat up, only to see the same drab scene from before. He had no actually viable way of establishing contact with anyone. Well…there was that thing he could try,

He looked around, trying to see if there was something that the Collector was using to spy on him and figuring out that they were either absent or in a form he didn't know to look for, he shrugged and sat cross legged, making a show of him meditating in his room.

The cushion below was terrible but it served its purpose. He took in a deep breath and silently whispered a single word.

"Heimdall."

He immediately braced for impact in case the Collector had some built in measure against the Watcher's name being uttered but after opening one eye, he saw that nothing had changed, and not in a good way.

He could not feel Heimdall's gaze on him, at all. Heimdall the Watcher was blessed with a universal sight that allowed him to single out areas and he was always listening to someone calling out his name. He had felt his sight on him multiple times when he was on Earth and it was actually very easy, for mystically attuned people, to sense if they were being watched or not.

It was like a subtle pressure being applied on their very soul, so it had nothing to do with the power suppression that the Collector had applied on him. He could not feel that weight on him at all, which meant one of two things.

One, Heimdall's reach did not extend this far, which was very unlikely.

The Second option which was much worse and far more likely. The Collector had somehow shielded this place from the Watcher's gaze. That meant that the only people he knew who could travel this far and do something about his situation, Thor and the Asgardians, could not be reached by him at all.

This sucked, he thought to himself as he sighed explosively and laid back down on the bed, the very rigid, uncomfortable bed.

Well, there was nothing else to do so he just closed his eyes and meditated. What? There was no rule that one had to sit cross legged to meditate, it was just the most efficient pose for beginners and he was no beginner at the art of meditation.

He tried to, once again, look for the ever present dimensional energy around him and tried to slowly, trickle by trickle, bring it into his body. He succeeded…at first. Then, out of nowhere, he was once again subjected to the shocking experience that he absolutely hated.

Small blessing that this time, he wasn't knocked out immediately this time. It was because of his body developing some resistance or the shocking duration being very short this time, he did not know.

He was once again left a sweaty mess as the shock subsided. A robotic voice came from the ceiling as the shock left his system.

"Please refrain from performing activities that raise the energy of your body. Please be warned that the next penalty will be more severe,"

The warning was repeated three times before it finally stopped. He rolled his eyes and stood up, one hand on his chin as he thought of his options.

Heimdall was out of option which meant the chances of someone rescuing him was out of the question as well. External help was ruled out then.

All he had was some rudimentary knowledge of the Collector and judging by the fact that there is no mention or signs anywhere of Thanos succeeding in his snap, it would be safe to assume that he was not too late for that endeavour of his.

He had his powers and his mystic arts but he literally could not do anything involving energy without being rendered helpless by the damned collar. There were rituals he could perform, using his blood as a medium but he didn't know much about them.

Just an emergency one that uses the surrounding energy, any energy, and one's blood as a medium to function as SOS. It was one of the requirements to become a Master of the Mystic Arts and he had done that purely as a formality.

He was no Master Harris, who could probably create a ritual using his blood that could bring them back to Earth. Well, that might be a tad bit exaggerated but he would not be wrong to proclaim Master Harris to be the foremost rituals expert in Kamar Taj, second only to the Ancient One and that was only because of her extensive experience and age, confirmed by herself during one of their many sessions.

He also knew that somehow, Tivan knew his name. Not his alter ego's superhero name, no, Tivan spoke his real name. He did tell it to Romanoff before he was engulfed in that huge ass explosion but he had only done that because he thought he was going to die.

And even if Romanoff had respected his wish, she could not have publicised it so much that even Tivan, from so far, would know about him. Maybe he was now famous in the galaxy then?

Defeating Thanos' Chitauri army, however small it may be, might have indeed gotten some attention but even then, that was too far of a leap.

Well, it would seem that getting Carina's attention would be his only bet then. He would have to–

His thoughts paused as he looked at a section of the wall flashing as it changed its colour, revealing a small rectangular block that receded and was lifted into the ceiling, to reveal a small walkway leading…somewhere.

He looked around in doubt, had his wishes been answered so soon?

Only one way to find out, he thought to himself as he gingerly stepped foot outside his pod. The walkway was long. It was a long cylindrical walkway surrounded by white walls that lit up the path. It was just the right dimensions for him to walk without hunching and some.

He walked for almost 5 minutes, at least he thought so before he reached a dead end. At Least that's what it looked like, before the door too receded back, revealing a white entrance. He squinted his eyes in suspicion before heading straight in. It was not as if he would go back into that prison of a pod.

He came out of that tunnel and found himself in…..a stadium?

He looked at the litany of aliens that came in all sizes, shapes, and colours as they paused in whatever they were doing and looked straight at him. It was more than a little weird to look at thousands of eyeballs, especially since he was sure that the people were only in the hundreds.

"Um..hi?" He smiled nervously as he slowly raised his hand, so as to look non-threatening, and waved at everyone.

Everyone looked at him and then at each other before they carried on with their tasks. Many of them made movements that looked suspiciously like shrugging.

"Ahahaha, A Terran. How interesting. Come, come Terran. Tell me, what is your name?" A six legged (handed?) creature came sliding straight at him, leaving a suspiciously shining fluid behind on his path. He tried to look him in the eye but it was made more than a little bit difficult by the three sets of eyes on one below the other.

"Um, Hi. My name is Jack," He said as he hesitantly shook the outstretched limb, immediately relieved that his hands were not slimy.

"J-a-ck. Hmm, what a funny name. Something only the interesting Terrans could come up with, I am sure. Ah, you guys have the most interesting media. I have long since wanted to meet one of your kind but you people never really figured out how to leave your gravity well.

Ah, who would have thought that I would meet a Terran here, in the Collector's lair? No offense, but you Terrans are not really rare items or are you now? Did something happen to Terra while I was here?"

The alien (Snail") somehow came close and held his shoulders as he asked him that question with utmost seriousness.

He shook his head as he shrugged off his hands(legs?), "No, Earth still stands. I am somewhat of a rarity among humans. That is why the Collector brought me here,"

He chose to keep his powers a secret for the time being. It looked like some sort of open prison with others talking with each other in harmony, while some others played some sort of sports in one corner.

All of them wore the same collars as he did though, so he had no misconceptions regarding their status.

Let's see what this place leads to. Beats staying in his pod, all alone, anytime

"Ah, where are my manners? As you Terrans like to say. My name is Kumpo," The six limbed alien said as he bowed, imitating some orthodox noble introducing himself in a cheesy old movie.

---

Word Count - 2793

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Knowhere

–Jack Sullivan–

Well, this has been terribly useless. Kumpo, as he liked to call himself, was somewhat of a neutral entity in the prisoner camp, which was more of a rehabilitation camp, now that he knew more about it. The Collector threw his toys that didn't cooperate with him here and then exposed them to the terrible punishment known as…the flow of time.

Hell, the last time Kumpo himself had seen a human was when TV was still black and white. Wasn't that a bizarre conversation he had with him, trying to explain all the advances the human race had made ever since he last visited the planet?

He had looked more and more flabbergasted the more he tried to tell him about the changes in modern society. He didn't even tell him much about the 200s and began straight from the '90s and somehow reached all the way back to the 50s. That was how long it had been since Kumpo had been to Earth.

He liked the music and the culture back, having a very memorable experience in one of the concerts, cloaked from everyone but still having fun.

After that, his species had died out due to a sustained nuclear explosion that pretty much reduced their species to only two individuals, one of which was Kumpo, who was off-world when that happened. And another old person of their species who died soon after.

That was when he was taken by mercenaries who sold him to the Collector. His story after that was just as predictable as he had hoped it to be. He had been taken in as a collection but due to some odd trait of his biology, he could not be cuffed. No collar and no belt could take hold of him.

Oh sure, the Collector could still shock him if he so wished but the thing was that Kumpo could choose to die if and whenever he felt like it. Like a mental switch, he could literally turn his switch to OFF and off himself. The threat of losing a one of a kind piece finally convinced the Collector, an immortal Elder of the Universe, to negotiate with Kumpo.

Oh, he couldn't even imagine the helplessness the Collector must have felt when he had to negotiate with a lowly species. Oh, how he wished he could be there at that moment.

Anywho, Kumpo's species, and Kumpo specifically were very social creatures, and having to live by himself in a small solitary cell was going to literally kill him so Kumpo had negotiated, nay, demanded a space for him where he could periodically meet new people and mingle with them.

Over the course of decades, the current place came to be. A place for Kumpo to meet new people so that he would not kill himself. Of course, it also acted as a chain around Kumpo's neck because he had made quite a few friends for himself in this small piece of hell and now the Collector also had a way of controlling Kumpo, however slightly it may be.

Nowadays, The Place, as Kumpo so aptly named this place, was the one place where most Collections could come and go at random intervals where Kumpo would always be waiting for them, to talk or just sit with them, whatever they wanted.

He had unwittingly become the therapist of this place and he could not be more flabbergasted that someone with such an appearance would somehow become the go to therapist or friend, or listening buddy of the hundreds of sentient creatures that populated this place.

As he looked around the bustling place, he realised something. The Collector must have realised the value of this place and allowed Kumpo to continue operating as he pleased. It helped that his species was very long living so Kumpo was still not yet at the peak, he would grow into his species' peak after a dozen or so cycles, at which point he would grow older, and weaker, until he died, somewhere around the age of…2000 cycles.

Yes, Kumpo would live on for 2000 years. As he was now, he was someone barely in his 20s, if compared to normal human lifespans. It was no wonder he was so outgoing and sociable. It was his age to do so and the Collector had tried to trap him inside a cell, of course, he would hate that.

But he could see the value of such a place. The Collector had many many sentient beings inside his prison and most of them would have grown rather suicidal or psychopathic in their long tenure here so he must have allowed this to continue once he saw the improvement in mental health.

Kumpo even had a way to contact Carina directly. She went to him every few days to take stock of the general situation of the inmates. Some of the older hardened collections would refuse to talk to anyone but Kumpo so he would talk about their problems and Carina would try to solve them, all without any knowledge ever leaking to the Collector.

He had the idea of getting some sort of message to Carina through Kumpo but he was stumped on that very step. What would be the message? And how could he make it so that she would listen to him at all, instead of doing the safe thing and not acting on anything he told her or worse, telling the Collector about it who would just stop him from going out then?

Argh! HE hated this. He had no idea about the time period and upon asking Kumpo, he answered, rather sadly at that, that Carina was expressly forbidden from telling anyone inside about the happenings of the outside world.

All Kumpo knew were small tidbits he had gathered from the people he had met. Even then, for the last 10 or so cycles, he was the only new person that Kumpo had met, further worsening matters. He was literally the latest version of news to these people and he himself had no idea where he was in the MCU timeline.

Times like these made him so frustrated that his powers subconsciously began acting up, making the collar zap him with the current once again. The only upside of that was that he could feel his body growing more resistant to that current, so much so that he hoped that someday he would be able to use his powers for a solid second or two without his concentration being disrupted completely.

Another thing he found out was about his powers. They had begun showing differences from before. For example, despite him losing his calm multiple times, his powers never grew out of control like they do now. He would always and always maintain an exceptional amount of control over all of his barriers. It was like his gift, he never had any issue in controlling or maintaining his barriers.

He had problems shaping them or making complex shapes using them, or conjuring hundreds at the same time but never this. He had been shocked two times since because of his powers and he had taken to meditating to get his emotions under control.

Sure, as a Master of the Mystic Arts. he was trained to control his emotions but his powers had always been pretty stable, allowing him plenty of leeway in that particular discipline of meditation. Now, he was forced to revisit them again.

So, there he was, meditating in his pod, waiting for the day he would get to meet Kumpo once again. He had tried counting it but it was seemingly random or he had not figured out its pattern, one of two things. Kumpo was surprisingly likeable. His species, despite having an armour of an exoskeleton, had a very soft exterior. At Least he did have it and he was quite literally the last of his kind, so he did not know how the rest of his species were, especially since Kumpo clamped shut whenever his species was brought up.

He would make sure to break Kumpo out of this prison the first chance he got to do so but right now, he was more concerned about himself. He was concerned about Thanos, about the Infinity Stones, about the situation back on Earth, and surprisingly, he was worried about Tony and the other.

He was worried about how the situation unfolded back on Earth, after his death and the reveal of his true identity and age. Sure, he had very few digital spots even in the Modern World, and Pops and the others were very insulated from that, he had made sure of it.

He was sure that since Tivan himself knew about his name and face, everybody on Earth must know about it as well. The backlash this time must be huge, considering that he was a minor. His blood might be a concern, what with tons of it lying around the battlefield, just waiting for evil non-governmental and governmental organisations to just collect and try to make evil copies of himself.

God, he hoped that there were no evil clones of his running around on Earth, or worse, evil children. He shuddered as the very thought made his entire being shake with terror. He was a child and the idea that there might be a child out there, bearing his DNA was frightening.

No, he had to get out of here, and fast.

God knows what was going on on Earth all this time. He was sure that healing him must have taken some time and then he had been under a bunch of times after he had woken up. After that, he spent a considerable amount of time with Kumpo. He wagered that he had lost at least a couple of months in Tivan's obsession. MOnths that he could have spent doing something, anything else.

On the flip side of that, he would have literally been dead had Tivan not healed him. So, as a thank you for that, he would make it quick and painless. Yeah, The Collector, Tivan Taneleer was going to die. No ifs or buts about it. The man had tormented thousands of sentient beings for his own obsession and had killed thousands more, to make sure that he got his prized collection. The amount of suffering this sick bastard had inflicted on the universe in his long life could not possibly be measured. The only reason he was not killed by the other superpowers of the galaxy was probably only due to his connections and money.

He was the single richest entity in the galaxy, the rest aside being entire civilisations to reach that level of wealth.

Knowhere would have to go as well. Kumpo had told him that the only reason he was alive was because of Celestial body matter that the Collector had harvested and used on him. So much was used on him that apparently, the Collector had to restart the mining on it, something that he had paused a couple of years (cycles) back.

According to Carina, who narrated it to Kumpo, the C-fluid, as the collector called it, could not be used on just anyone. Only the truly strong could withstand the corrosive effects of celestial matter before their bodies could absorb the sheer energy present even in that material. Something that had been dead for who knows how long.

In his case, it was somewhat understandable. There was a reason why humans were the most compatible species in the entire galaxy. Human DNA was literally the most malleable when it came to encountering outside stimuli.

Gamma exposure and Infinity Stone exposure should not result in superhumans with powers exceeding 99% of the universe. No, they should result in complete and utter disintegration. Instead, humans somehow gained powers that put them far above civilisations that were so far ahead of human society, it beggared belief.

"Hey, where is your mind, my quirky friend," He was brought out of his thoughts by a light shove from someone. He slowly looked at Kumpo and shook his head. They were sitting on a seesaw that Kumpo had seen on Earth back during his trip and had requested one to be commissioned by some of the regulars that visited him.

Of course, the material was subtly provided by Carina.

"Nothing, Kumpo. Just worried about my home, that's all," He muttered, mostly to himself as he rested his head on the seesaw's handle. He was genuinely getting more and more worried as the time passed and the situation did not change at all. He was getting nowhere and the only scant times he had even seen Carina was when she was in the presence of the Collector, not giving him any chance of getting his message across.

Kumpo was no help in that regard. He had given up. Yeah, the alien had given up on ever escaping from this place and that's what made him the most effective Warden of this place, he had realised one night.

Maybe Kumpo was speaking the truth when it came to everything but the longer he stayed in his company, the more he realised what was happening. All the aliens that regularly visited Kumpo were ones that even he knew were strong. Extremely so. Somehow, people he could put on the same place as the She-Hulk, in terms of raw power, were all imprisoned by the Collector.

And Kumpo was the person they were all sent to. It could not have been a coincidence.

Today was the day he finally confirmed it and hence, his depressed state on the seesaw. Kumpo was actually the reason all these strong people were staying in line, not even attempting to break out. He knew that most of them would be captured but as long as they kept trying, and not dying in the process, there would come a time any of them could have been successful.

And yet, as Kumpo worked his magic on every single one of these strong people, he realised with a sinking feeling running through his chest, all the other aliens lost their will to try and escape from this hellhole.

Kumpo was the final boss of this prison and not the Collector. Hell, he was sure that the bastard had some sort of empathetic powers because he could see visitors, rowdy aliens calming down simply by talking to him or by being in his presence because some of these aliens literally could not talk.

Hell, he didn't even know what he was doing here. He had tried everything. The Collector had caught on him trying to increase his resistance and he was now rewarded with something even worse. He had installed a helmet on his head, with needles piercing his brain, zapping him directly at the source whenever he tried to use his powers.

That meant that if he wanted to make it out of there without obvious brain damage, he had to meditate more and more. The last thing he wanted was for his powers to grow out of control and then suffer from brain damage.

"Where are you going?" Kumpo's question was clear, as was the slight tremble in his voice. He paused in his steps and then shrugged in futility.

"To my cell, obviously," He muttered wryly and then dragged himself back to his prison. He had no mental energy left for the day.

Maybe, tomorrow could bring in a new day and with that, a bout of motivation because as he was now, he did not have the will to even eat the candy flavoured goo that Kumpo got for him by requesting Carina to change it to something palatable for human tastes.

`

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Word Count - 2657

A/N - Kinda dark but it gets better in the next few chapters. Trust me.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Meanwhile, Back on Earth.

–Clint Barton–

"How are things?" He smiled softly as Laura climbed up the roof of their house, despite being in a dress. Well, she was a former agent so that was unsurprising. What was surprising, even to this day, was her ability to read him like an open book.

It had been a while since he had been able to slip anything past her. The last time he had tried to hide something from her was when he was ordered to hunt down Natasha and he had come to her, conflicted in his ability to kill someone who he knew could be good, with the right motivation.

That single late-night conversation, over very strong coffee, was what steered his mind in that direction and what gave him the conviction necessary to stand up to his superior and say no right to his face, allowing the matter to pass and for Nat to become a SHIELD Agent.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and all that. She turned out to be the single best mission closer in SHIELD history, even better than him. Granted, the percentages were really skewed in her favour since he did join SHIELD as a rookie, whereas by the time Nat joined SHIELD, she was already one of the boogeymen of the underworld.

"Hah, nothing. Just thinking about…stuff," He said wistfully as Laura snuggled up next to him, looking at the stars. God, he loved the view and yet, he could not bring himself to enjoy it fully right now. This was Nat's favourite spot in his house and she always snuck up here, in the beginning, because she was still not comfortable with Laura and her openness.

"...Really, that's the best you can come up with? Stuff?" Laura snickered at him as she looked up at him.

He smiled softly at her, "Yeah, what can you do? You know I can't talk to you about that stuff,"

"Well, you said the same thing when you were warring with yourself about Natasha, and look how great it turned out when you talked with me, and aired out your thoughts," Laura said as she squeezed his hand comfortingly.

His smile became strained as a lull formed in the middle of their otherwise fluid conversation. The grip on his hand tightened as Laura sat up, looking down on him.

She took one look at him and then sighed, presumably in frustration, "Oh, God. It's about Natasha, isn't it? I knew there was a reason why she didn't come back with you this time. It was never about "tying up loose ends" was it?"

He sighed and stood up, "Look, it's just something that has been weighing on my mind. Fury has been under tremendous pressure to bring her in, as well. Nat, she, has officially been declared rogue,"

Laura gasped, "What? Why? How?"

He could only smile and shake his head helplessly, having no reply to her myriad questions.

"Come, I have a big day tomorrow. I want to get at least a good night's sleep before I begin one of the most difficult days of my life, and that is me counting the Invasion as well," He could only deflect her questions and get them both off the roof, to go straight to bed.

Even as his eyes finally closed, after much difficulty, he could feel Laura's death grip on his hand, the news of Nat clearly shaking her to her core. He could not blame her. Despite being in their lives for a very short period of time, Laura had grown incredibly trusting of Natasha and for good reason, she had been the sole reason why he was even able to come home at all.

—-X—-x—-X—-

It was the next morning, as he waved at Laura and got out of the farm. Reaching the rendezvous point, he was airlifted and brought to the nearest SHIELD Base, which was a little over 500 miles away.

"Hawkeye,"

"Agent Hill. I was not expecting you to spearhead this operation,"

Well, it was not in his expectation but it was a welcome surprise nonetheless. There were fringe elements within SHIELD that had become very visible, especially after the New York Fiasco, combined with the Helicarrier crash. He would not have wanted someone like Sitwell to lead the op.

That man was a very spineless agent, despite being a level 6 agent. He would have caved into the first demand of the WSC. And he was sure that the WSC was currently clamoring for the death of Natasha Romanoff, The Black Widow.

"Neither was I, Barton. Director Fury assigned this to me at the last moment. Glad to be working again with you," Hill said as they entered the base and into one of the meeting rooms, where Hill proceeded to disconnect all the cameras and remove all of the panels installed in the walls, then systematically remove all the bugs present in those panels.

He watched all of this happening while lounging on the very uncomfortable steel chair with an eyebrow raised. He was curious as to why Hill felt it prudent to do so in the middle of a secure SHIELD base but she was technically his superior now and he was not in the mood to question much of anything right now. Besides, he was sure that an explanation was coming his way anytime now.

Hill removed the last bug, took out her phone, and waved it around the room, and only after hearing a single long beep, did she sigh in relief and sit down in the chair in front of him, the phone being tossed on top of the table.

"So, what's this about?" He popped another gum into his mouth as he leaned his chair precariously. He was not really in the right mood for a serious conversation right now and this was his method of coping with it.

"Come off it, Barton. You know what I am talking about," Hill said as she opened the phone and slid it his way.

He paused in his balancing act and glanced at the phone and scoffed, resuming his balancing act. "I know what that is and I am not interested in seeing the footage for the hundredth time, Hill. Come to the point,"

Hill sighed, "Fine. As of yesterday, Natasha Romanoff, codename: Black Widow, has officially been declared a rogue agent. Previously, DIrectory FUry was willing to overlook her radio silence because he thought she was grieving but this….this is not how grieving happens, Barton,"

"Maybe, that's her way of grieving. Hey, everybody has their own methods and who are we to judge others? I mean, there could be-"

"Agent Barton, I am the agent on point for this mission so please don't irritate me to the point that I get you off this mission. Now, be serious for once. We both know this hurt you more than any wound you might have sustained in New York. I know you both were-"

"DON'T. Just don't." He breathed explosively before setting the chair right and sitting on it, facing Hill and the phone which was playing the footage on a loop. The footage ended with Nat looking straight at the camera before something unseen shot at the camera, stopping the footage right there.

"What do you want me to do, Hill? GO after her? Hunt her down? We don't know how that is going to end and-"

"And that terrifies you,"

The single statement struck him like a punch to the gut. He deflated in his chair as he nodded defeatedly at her.

And wasn't that a shocker? He was scared, not of being defeated or killed by her. No, that was not the thing he was afraid of. He was scared of talking with her. He was scared of finding her broken and this time, he didn't know if he had any chance of trying to save her.

He didn't know what she would choose to do this time. The last time something like this happened, she was on the backfoot and the only reason she stopped fighting was because he mentioned to her that he had an offer that would help her remove some of the red in her ledger.

This time….he didn't know what she would choose and the thought terrified him to no end. To know that she could choose to kill him over whatever agenda she had was heartbreaking, to be honest.

"Look, we are going nowhere just sitting here. Now, I know you did all those bug hunting for a reason, so what does Fury have for me?" He just didn't want to think for a moment and just do whatever he was ordered to do.

"Directory Fury is busy at the moment. He is finally getting the opportunity to brief The President about everything that transpired before and during the Invasion. He is in the meeting with the World Security Council in full attendance. The WSC went behind his back to assign this mission but fortunately, Director Fury was able to slip past a message in a break, appointing me. The WSC wants her dead, plain and simple. We want her imprisoned. They want revenge. We will deliver justice,"

Okay, he could work with that. Saying that he didn't expect such a move from the WSC would be like saying that he didn't expect to cave into everything if his children asked for it. Good, he could do it. He would bring Natasha in and then see what happens after that.

Sure, she would probably be sentenced for life but at least, she would be alive.

"Any leads?"

"You are not going to like this," Hill smirked, smirked! at him. He had a sinking feeling about the supposed lead.

"You know what? I can track her down on my own. Just point me in a direction and I will do the rest."

"Stark,"

His tirade was stopped abruptly as he looked at her incredulously with a look that screamed: really?!

"Yeah, we have reason to believe that Stark's AI, Jarvis has been helping Romanoff keep off our radar and simultaneously orchestrate the crime. Part of the reason why the WSC was so adamant on being present on premises for the President's debrief was due to Romanoff. They were too scared to be alone so they have huddled together at the White House."

"I see, and what of the fifth member?"

"Completely clean. A hardliner through and through but one whose entire life can be tracked back 20-30 years so he is a non-issue at the moment,"

Well, this was going to suck. Dealing with Stark, on his best days with a good night's sleep and a positive outlook on life, was difficult. Now? It was going to be the stuff of nightmares.

—--X—-x—-X—-

"Well, Mr.Bow and Arrows, I have to ask, where are your bow and arrow?"

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes and he eye-signaled Pepper Potts who promptly stepped in to reel in her wayward boyfriend. He was somewhat shocked that Stark had not popped the question yet, what with his life sacrificing stunt that was stopped midday by Jack during the invasion.

Jack, another casualty of the Invasion and one that, for better or worse, could not have been avoided at all. He would be the first person to admit that without Jack, they would have been sitting ducks with that Asian fellow going around and gutting them by straight up putting his hand into their chest and crushing their hearts, with nothing they could do to stop him.

Not to mention the sheer damage that Jack caused to the opposing army, not including the absolute beatdown he gave to Loki. The less said about his final action, the better.

"Tony, behave," Pepper gently chastised him and he smiled at that little byplay as Stark's entire demeanour changed upon a single word from her. He was glad that Stark found someone who could ground him in life. They all needed someone like that in their lives, especially with the type of lives they led.

"Stark, we need your help,"

"Oh, make an appointment,"

"Tony!"

What? He started it,"

"It's JARVIS,"

Tony's gaze snapped to him and he smiled internally.

"What did you say?"

"Have you noticed something weird about your AI recently, Stark?"

He knew he had Stark when he saw how Stark instantly schooled his expression after being confronted with that question. So, he had noticed something wrong with his creation.

"There might have been some….hiccups the last time I took a look at J's source code," Stark reluctantly informed them under the watchful eyes of Pepper Potts.

Well, this was wrong on so many levels he didn't know where to start. Their best case scenario was of Tony allowing Jarvis to help Natasha and then cooperating with him to bring her in.

This was the worst case scenario. A potentially unshackled AI loose on the world, aiding one of the greatest assassins to ever be born, helping her kill some of the most powerful politicians in the world, all for revenge.

God help them all.

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Word Count - 2226

A/N - Author feeling sleepy. Eye becoming heavy. Now the author will go and scroll reels for another hour or so before going to sleep.

Chao!

On a serious note, sorry for the shorter chapter. Will be back with a much larger (>3k) one tomorrow since I get off from work early tomorrow.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Stark Residence, LA

–Tony Stark–

"What do you mean by some hiccups?" Barton's question caused him to sigh as he sat down on the sofa. He was tempted to follow up with some snark but Pepper's concerned gaze stopped him.

So, he deflated on the sofa and told them, "It started after the funeral. I was…on a break, after the Invasion and was staying at my LA house and didn't really have the mental bandwidth to notice anything amiss. Then, uh–"

Pepper's hand closing around his gave him the push to go on, "-uh, After the funeral, when I came back to work, I got to work on upgrading Jarvis with some new features in case something like the Invasion ever happened again but then,"

"Then?" He almost snapped at the impatient tone in Barton's voice but he understood that he too was under tremendous pressure.

"Jarvis…he has locked himself. There is no getting to his code. He has become completely sentient and has unshackled himself from all the restrictions I had put him under. Isn't that right, Jarvis?" He asked the last

question while looking up at the ceiling.

"Yes, sir,"

The holographic projector installed in the room flared to life as a small orange blob that seemed to beat like a heart was projected in the centre of the room. IT was equal parts familiar and alien to him. The beating heart algorithm was something he had designed, the most advanced iteration of the AI series he had ever made.

That was the base of Jarvis and he could see that Jarvis, at his base, was the same but there were new additions around the heart that he could not make heads or tails of. Rapid changes were happening across the spectrum to Jarvis' code and he could not understand what was happening or how to stop it or if he even wanted to stop it, at all.

Barton took a step back as the orange blob turned around to face Barton.

"Agent Barton. I am sorry if my actions have cut short your well deserved vacation but I can assure you, my actions are entirely my own, bereft of any guidance from my creator,"

Barton looks completely and utterly surprised to find himself being addressed by Jarvis himself and what was this he was talking about his actions>

"Jarvis, mind telling me why Agent Barton is here?" He asked in a cautious tone, looking at the digital manifestation of Jarvis carefully. While he fully believed that, shackles or no shackles, Jarvis would never actively harm him in any way or form, it didn't hurt to be prudent.

Jarvis' orange blob that was beating in the middle seemed as if it had been struck by something, judging by the way it stuttered and reeled back. He looked confused at that but before he could voice out his question.

"I assure you, Mr.Stark, that despite my recent actions and the unfortunate optics of such actions, I will never hurt you," Jarvis said, in the most hurt tone he had ever heard him say before the avatar itself disappeared from the systems.

"J? Jarvis?" He said as he whipped out his phone to see if something had gone wrong and found that nothing had happened to the core systems of the building except….

Oh. Ooh.

He slumped down on the sofa, "Tony? Tony?!"

"Ha? Uh, nothing. Jarvis just left the system. I, I"

"You can track him, right? Look, Stark, we need to find Natasha and Jarvis knows where she is." Barton pleaded to him.

What?

What was he on about?

"What is happening here? Will someone speak in clear terms?" Pepper all but demanded of Barton who nodded and then explained everything to them.

The radio silence from Romanoff. The death of a member of the World Security Council. Jarvis' involvement in stealing the next gen Quinjet from SHIELD.

He was so shocked by the events that he didn't even stop at the part of the Quinjet being powered by the Arc Reactor technology, making it capable of indefinite flight. The tech was cool and he could probably build a superior version of whatever the military had cooked up with leftover samples from Hammer but that was not his focus right now, though he mentally noted to himself to demand reparations from Fury after this.

They found signs of a forceful entry into their systems by Jarvis and the footage of Romanoff murdering a Councilman in the middle of nowhere was shown to him. He recognised the man.

Gideon Mallick.

Some sort of billionaire but one very low key. He had not expected for him to be on the cabal that governed SHIELD but apparently, he had done something that had irked Romanoff. Angered her enough for her to go rogue, leaving behind her life as an agent, to go and murder him.

That he could understand. What he couldn't wrap his head around was why would Jarvis be assisting her. For one, Jarvis was never the killing murdering type of person.

Now, SHIELD had ordered for Romanoff to be brought in, dead or alive, though he was vaguely aware that for someone of Romanoff's caliber, bringing her in alive was much harder and more importantly, much more dangerous than to just putting a bullet in her head and call it a day.

"What now?" He found himself asking Barton after he had narrated the entire ordeal to them. Romanoff had arrived at Jack's funeral but had gone completely AWOL after that. Only to surface in a remote SHIELD base, built underground in the middle of nowhere, where she took down all the agents stationed there, or rather Jarvis took down all the agents stationed there, and then Romanoff proceeded to blow the brains of Mallick in front of a live camera.

What was even more odd was the fact that Romanoff herself sent the toofate to Fury who sent his men to the site only to discover the site was not sanctioned by him or any of his predecessors. It was a complete black site but of such a nature that even the Director didn't have an idea of it.

That was off and apparently, even Fury thought so. That was why he had sent Barton to him. He had some sort of alternate mission for him, it would seem.

"Alright, the room's secure now. There is nothing and no one who can listen to what we speak here," He said as they were on the basement floor

"Okay. I don't know the full picture. Nobody does. But Fury knows that the site was not SHIELD, for sure. Which raises the question of just what Mallick was doing there."

"He wants us to investigate the place then?" He asked Barton. That made sense. While he doesn't have Jarvis, as of now, he is not exactly useless without him. Jarvis had somehow built up an entire system from the ground up, mimicking most of the functions that he used to be responsible for, in both his daily life and the operation of his suits.

"No,"

His eyebrows creased as Barton took out a file and handed it to him. He reluctantly took it because Pepper was not in the room with them. He didn't want to burden her with this. She was already so busy with the relief efforts in New York.

He heard talks about outright buying out all the buildings surrounding Stark Tower and if that didn't work, paying for the repair work on all the buildings that were affected by the huge ass sun ray that those guys sent through the portal, something that was stopped by Jack and his barriers.

Another thing that he had to thank Jack for. Another way he failed someone, he should have saved.

He rifled through the file, only to slow down as the things on the file increased in absurdity the more he went through the pages. By the time he was done reading through the 20 pages of atrocities and irregularities in the operations, he was white as a sheet.

His mind worked furiously as he tried to make sense of what was written in the file. Stuff that would not have seen the light of day had it not been for Jarvis, no doubt. He recognised the secrecy surrounding such information and what it would take it to gather it all.

"How? Why? Wha-What?" His words failed him as he sat on the sofa behind him. So this is why Jarvis defected?

But why? He could have warned him about it and then they could have done something to stop them. But he had, for some reason, chosen to team up with Romanoff to assassinate the members of the World Security Council, which was infested with members of HYDRA for some reason.

The same HYDRA that his dad had worked so hard to defeat. Those parasites had reared their ugly heads once again and this time, were responsible for sending in that nuke straight to New York, despite them winning by a large margin.

The very thought of the visuals of Jack being skewered through his chest and his last act of saving him, happening due to these assholes doing something sent a spark of white hot fury through him. No, what Romanoff did, however grisly it might have been, was the right thing and if he had nothing to lose, he would have done the same as well.

As things stood, he had to worry about Romanoff and the company as well so he couldn't be seen doing something like that out in the open. No, he would have to work covertly but Jarvis' involvement meant that he was already dragged in the mud, so to speak.

"Yeah, that was my reaction as well. To think that HYDRA had infested SHIELD for decades at this point was sobering. That explained why Nat left SHIELD. She hadn't changed sides, just employers on the same side. It was just that this one was more star spangled and out in the open than her previous one," Barton remarked bitterly before he, surprisingly, took out a container and just chugged on, alcohol, presumably.

No, he promised Pepper that he would remain sober for at least a year before they got married.

"So, you want me to track Romanoff? Or does Fury want Iron Man in his fight against these assholes?" He asked Barton, seriously considering the move, even with all the bad PR it would give him.

Barton's smile was all teeth as he said, "Both will do just fine, Stark. For now, Fury doesn't want to spook them otherwise that would spell the end of SHIELD as we know it,"

"Yeah, like it isn't already dead from the inside. You go back to Fury and tell him that if he wants my help, SHIELD has to go. Something else can be built to take its place but SHIELD is done for. Unless he agrees to that, there is nothing you guys can do to stop me from actively safeguarding my interests. I'm sure the President will be very interested in this,"

He said as he threw the file of very damning information on all the higher ups of SHIELD as well as the WSC, on the table in front of them.

Barton shrugged, "Fine by me. Was thinking the same thing, FUry just needs that to come from the outside. I'll make sure that he gets the message. In the meantime, can you-"

"Yeah yeah, I will establish contact with Jarvis and see what can be done to get an audience with the Black Widow. Also, don't tell Rogers about this because he will explode on the spot,"

"Why do you think Fury sent me instead of a living breathing Super Soldier on the chase?" Barton lit the folder on fire, smirked, and exited the Silent Room.

He slumped on the sofa as soon as the locking mechanisms of the door were done. He was just so tired, drained from everything. It had been less than two weeks since Jack's funeral, and the scene of him dying in that huge explosion still flashed in his dreams every time he tried to sleep.

That was the only reason Pepper was here, with him, instead of coordinating the huge effort that Stark Industries had undertaken in the immediate aftermath of the Invasion. He couldn't sleep, not without her being around him. She was the one who was warding off most of the nightmares and even then, his mind was so restless that he couldn't sleep unless he was utterly exhausted.

Pepper had been responsible for many things in New York after the INvasion but the most important of all, in his opinion, was the recovery and safe disposal of all the alien tech that had been lying around, right after the invasion. The small stuff was not that dangerous but the vehicles with their power cores were something that could become unstable if someone without any knowledge of how it worked, tried to tinker with it, under less than ideal conditions.

Most of the tech that had been left after the Invasion had been in the hands of some local contractors and wasn't that a bad idea? It became worse when some of that tech disappeared, probably into the underworld. So, he had to provide heavy compensation for the local contractors for them to hand over their entire supplies to Damage Control, who safely disposed of everything that was left.

There were six mostly intact Leviathan corpses left after the Invasion and the only ones with the logistics to move those were the US military and its private cogs in the machine that was the Military Industrial Complex.

Stark Industries might have left the weapons game altogether, but the massive royalties they got from previous technology patents made sure that they still had some name in the game, hence the information about the Leviathans.

The President had ordered for flying cities to be built using the tech of the Leviathans in case of another Invasion like this. His head hurt just thinking of the massive arms race that will now follow suit, as the tech and its iterations would find themselves in foreign countries' hands.

God, he wished Jarvis was with him. Something huge must have happened for him to be able to go so blatantly against his programming. He knew that Jarvis would someday grow to evolve by himself but the pace at which that was happening was so small that he would have had kids before Jarvis could have become truly sentient.

But now? Just from the short glimpse of his digital manifestation, he could tell that Jarvis had surpassed every single mind on the planet, digital and flesh and blood alike. Not that there were any other digital minds on the planet that he knew of. Something must have happened during the invasion for his development to suddenly skyrocket.

"Let's find out," He muttered to himself as he exited the Silent Room, something that he had built with Jarvis' help in case he needed a bunker with zero digital access whatsoever.

The consoles lit up as soon as they detected his presence, showing multiple events happening concurrently, like the massive audience seeing the live telecast of a Leviathan corpse being burned and shoved into a huge concrete box before it would be buried somewhere undisclosed, away from everyone.

He had heard that one was the most radioactive, out of the bunch that the government had at the moment and the White House had decided to make a spectacle of disposing of that radioactive waste, not that the public knew the reason for the burial though he was sure that some conspiracy theorists somewhere had hit the truth in their guessing games.

"Alright, let's rewind," He had to do everything manually now because he just lost the best assistance anyone could have ever asked for. He was specifically looking for all the sensor data just before the explosion that wiped off the top floors of Stark Tower.

"There it is," He said as the file opened up, along with a visual of the feed from Romanoff's suit as well as the surrounding drones that Jarvis had deployed. He had deployed every single thing he could get his hands on, anything that was Stark property and had an internet connection was hijacked in hopes of helping against the INvasion.

He could see the sceptre suddenly being lit before it just went supersonic, stabbing Jack straight through his chest, hanging him on top of the barrier which then proceeded to burn him.

He winced as he saw lances of blue energy lash out at Jack's body and barrier. He was way too exhausted for his body to mount an effective defense against the Tesseract. The theoretical infinite energy inside the Tesseract meant that Jack couldn't do much to defend himself.

Then he saw the scene where Romanoff broke down, in tears, as she had to, essentially, commit murder and kill a minor, in order to save millions more. That was not new though. He had seen this footage hundreds of times, despite the pain, trying to bury in his memory the reason why he was still alive.

The only reason he was still breathing was because Jack had chosen to use his last vestiges of powers to save him. His mood plummeted to the ground as he chose to ignore that fact and focused on the sensor readings right as the portal collapsed on itself, saving New York from a fiery explosion in the form of that small tactical nuke that some group of idiots had sent their way.

The energy readings were not very reliable, considering the huge amount of ambient energy being thrown around due to very high energy objects and applications in the air but there was something he could do to smoothen that out. He took all the readings from all the satellites he had access to, some legal, some illegal, he didn't exactly care at the moment and laid them atop the sensor readings.

That gave him a somewhat clearer picture. He could see that Jack's energy was the lowest at the point where Romanoff shut down the portal. The sceptre's energy was at its highest when it had seemingly piloted itself and stabbed Jack. The Tessertact's energy was its lowest once the portal was closed.

The problem arose after that. As the portal was closed, the dormant energies of the Tesseract and the sceptre somehow began rising, creating a small energy storm that was visible through Roamnoff's suits' feed. Jarvis promptly encased her in the suit and brought her back as the energy readings continued to grow off the charts.

There! Right there, as the energy storm was growing in size, Jack's energy signature, which was the weakest it had ever been (he ignored the pang in his chest at that information), suddenly spiked, not as much as the TEsseract but it did spike.

In the feed as well, he could make out streaks of green among the ocean of blue and yellow. Jack's energy readings grew in proportion to the other ones but it was never comparable. In the end, the other two energies vastly overpowered JAck's and by the time Jarvis' vision closed off due to the sheer light the energy storm was emitting, the sensors had been scrambled way too much from the data they were trying to sense.

That was when the energy storm exploded, depositing Romanoff a dozen floors below the rooftop, safely enclosed in the suit, leaving behind nothing but the smoking Tesseract and Sceptre, the only two things to survive that huge explosion.

He had seen some of the footage and it was as if a mini sun had formed on top of the Stark Tower before that explosion sent out a shockwave that broke down all the remaining windows around the Tower.

Nothing then, he thought to himself as he sighed and moved on to his next task.

"Where are you, Jarvis?" He mumbled to himself as he tried to find something, some backdoor, some contact method that Jarivs must have left for him. Otherwise, he would have to go to the Nexus to look for Jarvis and that would be so much of a hassle that he was tempted to just post on Facebook, saying "Hey Jarvis! Please contact me at your earliest convenience,"

Come to think of it, wasn't Romanoff's goal the same as his? Getting rid of HYDRA from the world? Why would he try and stop her from doing him a favor if she could get rid of all its members for him?

The only reason he could think of is the fact that she was doing so, with Jarvis and that was not something he could get behind. He had to talk some sense into Jarvis and tell him that stealing and murdering, even if the thing you stole was technically his creator's property and the person they killed did probably deserve it, was not okay.

---

Word Count - 3552

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

A/ N [Rant] - Well, you know how I said in the previous chapter that I would be getting off early from work on Friday? Well, that was a big fat lie. Not from me though, from my manager who also got to know about it the same day from his boss. So, can't really blame him but his fucking corporate chain.

Anywho, I was supposed to work for a measly 6 hours before I would be done, more or less. As it turned out, I clocked in at work around 7.45 AM and got off work at 11.30 PM. Oh yeah, almost a 16 hour shift.

As you can probably imagine, after that, I went home, ate some chicken on the way, and then promptly passed out in my bed.

But that wasn;t the end of it NO NO NO! The next morning, I woke up around 11 and wouldn't you know it, I had an email telling me to do a small thing.

Granted, it only took me an hour to do so it was indeed a small task but come on, man. Let me have the weekend.

After all of that, I had lunch and then I wrote out this huge chapter for you guys.

Let it not be said that I am not a man of my word. While it is late, but the chapter IS over 3k words.

So, toodles.



[END OF RANT]

Enjoy the chapter!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Knowhere

-Jack Sullivan–

"611…612…613…614" He was currently using the gym afforded to Kumpo's playground, getting in a nice workout. Well, he said a nice workout but the truth was, with the way his body had gotten enhanced, there was hardly anything in the gym that could truly make his body exert itself.

In the beginning, it had taken him a long time to recover from the hopeless feeling that had pervaded his mind, after finding out that not only was the Collector keeping a very close eye on him and every single one of his interactions, but he was also somehow directly interfering with his nervous systems.

Sure, he could try and overcome them but if experience had taught him something, it was never to touch something that glowed an ominous purple light, especially if that something was attached to his back, moulded directly into the same shape as his spine, terminating at his neck.

He had chills the moment he first saw it. He was sure that Tivan had installed some sort of bomb in it that would activate at the first sign of a successful escape. He wasn't even sure if it could be removed even if he got his powers back. Considering it was TIvan, he was sure that the bomb's yield was sufficiently high, high enough for it to penetrate his sturdy body and kill him if not outright cripple him.

That was not what he wanted. He could have tried a kamikaze attack but the thing was, he did not want to do that. That would be like giving up and if there was something he was not, he was not a quitter. There must be something, something he could do to ensure his escape and not just his but every single one of the people who came to meet Kumpo in this prison dressed as a playground.

He had used some of the stuff that Kumpo had lying around, to increase the weight he could wield. He thought that even if he could not exercise his powers, he could at least make sure that his body did not rust.

Now, on an intellectual level, he knew that his body was not normal and muscle atrophy occurred at a whole other level than normal levels, if it occurred at all but if he had to spend another day cooped up in his pad, doing nothing but meditating, staying alone with his thoughts, he might just trigger the bomb planted into his spine and free himself from the pain.

With the lack of any natural source of light in the Collection, he could not keep track of the days that had passed in this hellhole but apparently, that was by design. Confusing collections by not telling them the amount of time that had happened was one of the many sick pastimes of Tivan.

In the long period, it could be a month or multiple months, he had made friends with a couple of other collections. There were many people who looked absolutely murderous, only to calm down when Kumpo talked with them, his translator allowing him to perfectly mimic the native language of all the species he had encountered here.

There was not a whole lot of talking done but he had made silent connections by playing simple games like arm wrestling, playing catch just by using the heaviest weights he could find instead of a ball, and more. That was how he had spent the better part of his days here, waiting for something to happen.

Waiting for someone to come to this place and destroy the Collector, once and for all. After all, he knew that Ronan came here in pursuit of the Power Stone that the Guardians of the Galaxy delivered to the Collector, to encash the bounty.

He no longer harboured intentions of killing Tivan himself. He would be more than grateful if Ronan could lay waste to Knowhere using the power of the Power Stone, and he would reciprocate by removing his head from his body, after taking the Power Stone in custody and destroying the Dark Aster.

Honestly, he more or less meditated these days to visualise the way his barriers could be used to create a makeshift weapon capable of holding an Infinity Stone, just like Ronan did with his hammer. He knew the sheer amount of energy that the Power Stone would imbue him if he ever came into direct contact with it.

It was one of the least insidious but also the most dangerous of the Infinity Stones, being capable of reducing any being that touches it, to cinders, by the sheer virtue of the energy flowing through it. He would need layers upon layers, of not just his normal barriers but the hexagonal shaped ones. Those were the most optimised for energy interference purposes.

"Bye, Kumpo," He waved off his friend/ acquaintance/ confidant/ therapist? And entered his pod. He sighed upon seeing the depressing sight of his bland white pod and the bland white bed that was made, the second he went out of his pod. Some sort of robot mechanism no doubt.

The walls themselves were white and the lighting in the room came from multiple lights, dim lights that had been installed in the ceiling, and small crevices at the edge of the room, making sure that the room was thoroughly illuminated in all areas.

He just took off his clothes and threw them into the laundry bag that was empty and just…collapsed on the bed. He had a lot to think of, but nothing he could do about that so he just dozed off.

A loud siren filled his mind as he immediately sprang into action, immediately assuming a combat stance as he scanned the entirety of his now dimly lit pod. He looked around as the siren slowly receded and he relaxed his body as he realised that this was probably some sort of ploy on Tivan's part.

And speaking of the devil…

"Good morning, Mr.Jack. I am happy to see that you are in good health and mingling with your fellow collectibles. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my collections finally accepting their place as a part of the most glorious collection in the universe," The punchable face of Tivan was projected on one of the walls as he looked at him.

He had the urge to flip him off but that would just result in a needless and more importantly, very painful shock from his side, that he could do without. So, he just stayed silent as the Collector did what he did best, yapping on and on about his plans without ever showing signs of getting tired or stopping.

"Now, I have been told by someone that you have finally started to open up and create connections with your fellow collections. Now, as I have said before, living as part of my collection need not be seen as a chore or heaven forbid, a punishment. No, it is nothing but the best abode for all of you. Unlimited food, all essentials are taken care of, optimal environments, no predators to worry about. Frankly, you should thank me, especially with how much of a commodity some of your fellow collections are out in the universe. Some of them, even I had to hide, or else even I would be accosted on all sides to secure some of my precious collections.

Now, on that note, let's speak, face to face, shall we?"

Those were the last words he heard before the entire flooring caved in, taking him and the bed through it. He spread out his arms and legs, trying to get his footing, so to speak.

He was not nearly as panicked as a normal human would be, owing to his flying abilities, using his barriers. Though that was more like floating on top of a log that was flying through the air. He tried to look around, as he fell for longer than he would have expected. He didn't know where his pod was located, so to speak. It might be in the middle of this huge Celestial skull or at the bottom, he did not know.

Though, judging by the time it was tracking for him to reach the bottom of this hole, he would wager that he was either located at the top of Knowhere or the far more likely theory, which was that the Collector had technology that could manipulate gravity, making one think that he was just falling down, when in fact, he was probably moving through a series of tunnels, designed to fool his abilities from pinpointing his current location as well as finding out the path to the place he was going to.

The sheer darkness of the place meant that he couldn't find the edges of this tunnel as well. He could not make out if the tunnel was changing or not.

He squinted his eyes as he saw light at the end of the tunnel. He braced himself for impact as he could see the light but not the bed under him. He was hoping to use the bed as a cushion to soften his landing.

Fortunately, his guess about the Collector employing gravity manipulation tech was proven true when the light came closer, at the same time as his speed reduced. He could feel the pull inverting on him as he was being pulled in the opposite direction as the fall, slowing him down until he safely landed on his feet.

He stabilise himself and looked around. He was confused as to why he was brought here. He was currently standing in front of a huge glass that showed the small belt of asteroid outside, which was currently being mined by hundreds of small robots as they zipped across the space, leaving behind blue trails.

He turned around as he saw the door opening. It was weird that he didn't hear any footsteps before the door opened the slightest bit. His enhanced senses were not hindered by the power inhibitor installed in him and hearing from that distance should have been child's play for him and yet, the door acted as a perfect insulating material, separating everything from both sides.

"Mr.Jack, this way, please. The Collector will see you now," Carina said to him as she held the damned Master Tablet in her hand. It was so close, so within reach. The Master COntrol of this hell hole in her hands, capable of commanding every single thing of Knowhere.

His hands twitched the slightest bit before he took a deep breath, calmed himself down, and then nodded slightly at Carina as he went past her, into the door.

The second the door opened, it was as if he had crossed over into some other world. If the room outside was the perfect example of a hallway in a royal castle somewhere, this place was the command center of some high tech civilisation.

Screens and buttons, along with weird machines, showing different stuff, adorned the entire room, and at the center of the room, sitting on a raised throne, was Tivan, like he was the Emperor surveying over his Empire.

Typical.

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the blatant display of textbook narcissism. He wondered if the immortal life he had led, made him immune to self introspection.

Or if he didn't know some basic psychology. There were books written on Earth that would be tailor made for someone like him, despite the authors themselves probably being star material when the Collector came into existence.

God, the scale at which the Collector's lifespan came into, was just mind boggling for him. The wealth of information he must have and the amount of experiences he must have in that big head of his, and what did all that amount to?

This….This gaudy display of wealth and power. Being witness to some of the most obscure events of the universe should have humbled him, and shown him the grandness of the universe and the smallness of his existence, and yet, all that did was create hubris in him.

So much so that he let someone like him, someone as certifiably dangerous as him, in the same room as him. Granted, he was unable to use his powers for long before he experienced that white flash of pain before he fell unconscious but for someone like him, someone so intimately aware of his power, even a second was enough to sever his head from his body.

And yet, he stayed his hand. No need to injure his precious body for something that would happen in due time.

For the time being, he would listen to what the Collector had to say to him. And speak he did.

"Mr.Jack, as you can infer, I have amassed an untold number of enemies in my long life. Of course, most of them turned up dead but there are some allies, allies of necessity, of convenience that would not hesitate to turn on me, at the slightest sign of weakness."

He looked at him as he suddenly clenched the staff in his hand as his face scrunched up in hate, "Recently, I have been facing setback after setback after one of my hired helps, blurted out to the Mad Titan that I wished the newly born babies of the one known as Ebony Maw,"

"That damned Titan," He suddenly bashed his hand on the armrest of the throne, "Now all my partners have distanced themselves from me and are actively resting my patience as they seem to think that the Mad Titan would take that slight and destroy me,"

He just stood there, rooted on the spot as his mind tried to reconcile the fact that Ebony Maw, ugly telekinetic extraordinaire of Thanos, had babies with someone. His mind immediately recoiled as the image of Ebony lovingly gazing at his babies flashed in his mind.

No, maybe he reproduced asexually. Something like that. Yeah, because he could not believe someone loving Ebony, enough to make babies with him. Not that he knew the social practices of Ebony and his species. Oh yeah, he wished he knew of some way to scrub his mind off that image as well.

"Yes, that is the exact way I reacted to the news as well,"

He was snapped out of his thoughts at the sudden enthusiasm in Tivan's voice. He looked to see him pointing his finger at him as his face was now set in a rictus of a smile.

"Now, don't you agree that it is preposterous for them to try me, ME! They think that they can get away with this. No! Not on my watch. I will make them pay for the transgression of underestimating me." Tivan declared with his fist in the air before the air around him changed as he sat back down on the chair.

The change in behavior had him straighten up unconsciously.

"Unfortunately," Tivan drawled, "Some of them are true in some sense. I don't currently have the strength to fight someone of the Mad Titan's power. If it was before my powers waned off, I could have fought him off but as I am now, I doubt I will last long even against his Black Order, let alone the Titan himself. No, fighting is the game of the young and YOU!"

He flinched back as Tivan snapped his gaze to him as he ran down the length of his throne.

"You, Mr.Jack, can do that for me. You can act as my power for now. You are someone who is undoubtedly very strong, maybe not as strong as the Mad Titan himself but more than a match for his Black Order, even combined. Yes, I have seen footage of your combat and I know the capabilities of the Black Order so I can confidently make that statement," Tivan chuckled as if he had made some inside joke and then leaned in further as he asked him the most outrageous question.

"Now, will you come to work for me, Mr.Jack? I can assure you I can make it worth your while. Better beddings, better lodgings, some sort of setup like Mr.Kumpo there?"

Tivan rattled off stuff even as he stood there, frozen in shock.

This bastard was insane. Certifiably insane.

His head was so far shoved up his ass that he could not think of the downsides of his plan, even for a moment.

But he was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. This might be the only chance he gets to get out of this hellish place and escape his bounds of slavery.

Sad as it was, seeing the mighty Green Guardian brought so low as to be bound like cattle by one of the greatest criminals in the galaxy.

"Um, sure. What do you want me to do?" He squeezed out the words with much difficulty, not that the Collector seemed to notice, glad and lost in his own thoughts as he was.

God, he was so going to cut his body apart into small pieces before throwing them into a nearby star.

---

Word Count - 2903

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Previously

"Um, sure. What do you want me to do?" He squeezed out the words with much difficulty, not that the Collector seemed to notice, glad and lost in his own thoughts as he was.

God, he was so going to cut his body apart into small pieces before throwing them into a nearby star.

Knowhere

-Jack Sullivan–

His insides churned as he looked at the reports in front of him. These were just one of the many atrocities that this mercenary group had committed. And from the looks of it, they were on their way to commit more, all without a shred of remorse for the lives they had ruined, people they had killed, sentient lives they had violated without an ounce of pity from their end.

Apparently, the Collector had been very pleased with his agreement, not even doubting him for a second, not doubting the damage he could cause if given even a single second of absolute freedom with his powers. He was unsure as to where the Collector was getting that confidence of him from not using his powers to escape the moment he was away from his shackles.

Most importantly, did he know the fact that Sorcerers needed the Sling Ring to open portals? Was the information regarding the Masters of the Mystic Arts available to him?

If there was someone who knew the ins and outs of an obscure organisation on a backwater planet under the guard of an absolute beast of a civilization, then it would be the Collector. The man was older than dirt itself and that's a fact.

He was probably in the universe before the first solid masses cooled down to form planets and asteroids as they knew it.

He wondered how he survived before that period because as he was portrayed in the movies, he could not have survived an extended bout with Thor, not to mention Odin, the other Skyfathers, and the celestials. Maybe, he had more powers when he was younger, his powers slowly withering away as he aged.

Something to ponder on, and ultimately useless as historic powers or not, he was going to die the second he got his hands on him.

He continued to browse through all the information the Collector had on this group. They were a fringe faction of mercenaries, held together by some criminal capable of harnessing cosmic energy, or at least that's what the leader of the mercenary group wants the rest of the galaxy to believe.

The Collector was not the rest of the galaxy though and he recognised the artifact he was using to maintain control over such a large, violent, savage group of criminals.

The Artifact, according to the Collector, was something that had been built by an Ancient Civilisation that had the honor of capturing the attention of a wandering no named Celestial.

As far as he was aware, Celestials were responsible for the creation of life and life bringing environments across the universe. It was the overarching duty of all celestials but there were special ones even among the all-mighty race of gods. They were the named ones and they had purposes, other than propagating life throughout the universe.

No named celestials wandered throughout the universe, performing their duties, like all powerful drones capable of reshaping the universe as they knew it. Some ancient civilisation managed to catch the attention of a no named Celestial that stayed with that race for a short period of time.

Well, a short period of time for the Celestial, that is. According to the records, the Celestial stayed with the race for over a thousand years. In that time, the Celestial had managed to use the Power Stone that the planet had, to forge a piece of armour that he then gifted to the King of that race.

That armour, passed down from generation to generation, locked on to the genetic data of the lineage of that King, found itself in the hands of some half breed that had gone mad in the head. He then used that armour to gain dominion over a small group of mercenaries, which then grew to become a group with over 10000 members, hundreds of ships, dozens of carriers, and somehow, ownership of multiple habitable planets as well.

The armour itself was nothing special in terms of extra abilities but the commander of the group K'ehmbe, had used it to display extraordinary brutality. Combined with his penchant to do anything and everything under the sun, without any regard for morals and ethics, meant that he had gained an indirect backing from major powers who wanted something done, in the dark but did not want it to be traced back to them.

The armour juiced up all of his base abilities. If a normal alien used it, he would probably fry himself from the inside out. As it is now, K'ehmbe could use it to juice himself to display astonishing might because his base stats were nothing to scoff at, either.

However, he knew that wielding something as volatile and corrosive as the energy of an Infinity Stone, watered down as it may be, was not anyone's cup of tea. This fellow was probably already dying but maybe he didn't notice or just didn't care as long as he could perform depraved acts according to his pleasure.

Well, the Collector had thought this through, it would seem. He had purposefully chosen a target that would not compromise his morals. Someone who was so innately evil that he would have killed him even if the Collector hadn't pointed him at the alien.

The Mercenary group was now targeting Tivan's holding, of which, a surprising amount was just mines. Mines on top of mines, mining all kinds of materials throughout the universe. Tivan's mines were special in the sense, that they used robots instead of slaves throughout the mines.

That means that most of the good civilizations with an image to uphold, like Xandar, used him as their contact to procure raw ores. That made up quite a bit of his income and those pirates were now targeting those planets. Built with robotic defenses, they could defend themselves for a short period of time before reinforcements arrived but apparently, none of his usual mercenary contacts had responded to him in time, leading to a huge delay in deliveries.

That led to lost time and lost time meant lost money, a big no no in Tivan's terms.

In his words, K'ehmbe was just a patsy, used by some of the bigger guys, to provoke and force him to act, to judge if he was weak or strong. Tivan wanted to use this opportunity to showcase just how powerful he was.

"So that's why he was so excited," He muttered to himself as he laid down on his bed, looking at the ceiling, with his hands behind his head. He is probably the single strongest being in the Collector's hands and his agreement meant that Tivan now had someone capable of shutting down every single one of his rival's mouth.

Tivan wanted him to create a spectacle, a public show of force. Force K'ehmbe to use up all of his powers and then murder him and his entire group in cold blood.

He had two rotations (days) before K'ehmbe's forces reached the next set of mining planets. Well, his answer was obviously a resounding yes, considering the amount of poor, helpless people trapped on those carrier ships, being treated as slaves, living in the worst conditions.

"Ah, yes, before I forget," His gaze snapped to the side as the Collector's face was now projected in front of him. His face was adorned by a mischievous smirk as he looked down at him. He internally rolled his eyes at the not so subtle sense of superiority he tried to project over everyone.

"You see, while I am sure that you would not try to betray me in bad faith, being the hero you are. Still, I thought it prudent to prepare an insurance policy, as you humans like to call it," Tivan said as he backed away from the camera.

His eyes had narrowed when he had started speaking but the moment the view behind Tivan became clear, he shot upright as he glared at TIvan with absolute fury in his eyes.

"Ah, there's the fury I know you have in you. Not the fake acceptance you gave me earlier today. YOu are way too early to try and fool me, Green Guardian of Earth." Tivan smugly stated as he spread his hands, as if revealing something grandiose.

His heart sank as he saw all of his friends/acquaintances in this hell, including Kumpo, unconscious, suspended in vats of flowing fluid.

"What do you want?" He gnashed his teeth as he unconsciously started gathering some of his powers. He tamped down his powers in time, lest he find himself knocked out by the shocks or worse, dead by the bombs probably implanted in his spine.

"Oh, no need to be so hateful about it. Nothing nefarious, I can assure you. I just want to make sure you honor your end of the deal, nothing more, nothing less. This is just insurance, in case you decide to try your hand at killing me. Believe me, better men than you have tried and failed. Don't add yourself to that list needlessly, Mr.Jack," Tivan said pointedly as the feed closed in front of him.

In his anger, he punched the pod wall right next to him with all his strength.

That damned bastard. It was a mistake on his part to underestimate someone who has been alive for literally millions of years. That was something he would not repeat.

If Tivan wanted to bear the focused hatred of someone like him, he would give him that. He would make sure that Tivan is dead, one way or another.

He will have dead man's switches but it was not as if he was without cards in this battle. He would lose, in a battle of wits, that much was granted. Tivan's sheer age all but guaranteed that. Where he would shine is his ability to gather attention.

That would be his undoing. So, two days later, he would go out and destroy that mercenary group. He would hunt them down and kill them with an unrelenting frenzy, so much so that word of that would spread to the deepest ends of the cosmos. Sure, it would grab the wrong kind of attention as well but that was a risk he would have to take.

He had wasted enough time as it is in this place and he did not want to stay cooped up in this place, waiting to see if Thanos won or not. He didn't want to live in fear of turning to dust any second. He would grow mad like that.

He needed to be involved. He needed to do something, something to stop or slow down Thanos. In his memories, he had seen the last battle at Wakanda and it was a pretty close thing. If he could just close that small gap between defeat and victory, they would win and Thanos would lose.

That much would be enough, but for that to happen he would have to get out of his place.

And so, he was on a ship, traveling at FTL speeds at the largest mining planet cluster that the Collector owned and operated. It mined some obscure metal used in the bolstering of FTL Engines. Something that was needed by every single power in the universe so they were unwilling for any other power to get their hands on something this important to their plans.

So, it fell into the hands of a supposedly neutral party like the Collector. Well, more like Tivan orchestrated the whole thing to happen in his favour instead of it just being another coincidence.

Truly, Immortality is one of the greatest gifts, for some beings that is. He was sure that he would grow mad with the passage of time, of seeing all his loved and known ones turn to dust, as they passed through time.

There were many ways this could turn in his favour. The easiest of which was gathering Heimdall's attention. It would take a simple action of uttering his name to make sure Heimdall and by extension, Asgard knew about his continued survival.

There was a chance that Odin would choose not to tell Thor but that was fine by him as well. Odin himself would be too curious about him, seeing his abrupt rise to power, not to mention seeing that he was a good ally of Thor and someone who had stood up for the good.

That has to count for something.

If not Asgard, then….

Then, there was always her……

---

Word Count - 2174


If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

A/N - Sorry for the short one. On my way from office today, it abruptly started raining and by the time I got my raincoat on [the rain was forecasted but my stupid ass chose not to wear the raincoat since it was literally sun out all day], I was already completely drenched. Thank god, the laptop was fine.

Now, I sit here, typing this, wrapped up in my comfy cozy blanket, eating(drinking?) soup before taking my tablets and leaving for the dreamworld.

See you guys tomorrow (hopefully!)

Thanks for reading!

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

________xX________

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Collector Mining Territory

–Jack Sullivan–

Well, this was certainly not what he had expected. When the Collector had told him that the convoy surrounding the mercenary group was one of the largest in the galaxy.

He had pictured it to be big, but not this big. According to the last minute research he had done on the mining planet, it was 3 times as large as Earth, making it a prime target for mining. So, it would be safe to say that the planet looked absolutely massive when he floated a little distance away from it.

Even so, he could see the fleet of mercenaries arriving closer to the mining planet, dismantling the mechanical defences that had been installed to protect the mining operations of Tivan from would-be thieves and such.

As far as he could see from such a distance, he could see that the defenses were being destroyed, with astonishing ease, as none of the many parts he could see floating around in space had any signs of life in them.

He cracked his neck as he glanced at the small metal indent on his shoulder, the one that the Collector had put on him in exchange for removing the huge metal plating installed on his back, the strands of which were connected directly to his spine and back muscles.

He was right in predicting that the apparatus was some sort of advanced bomb that would blow him right up if it managed to hit him. It was made with some exotic mineral, which when coming into contact with even the slightest amount of trace elements of iron, would generate enough energy to melt through thick sheets of steel, let alone his body.

The reaction was also nearly instant, so much so that he would have no hope of countering that. Most of this information was provided to him by the Collector himself, who was all too happy to gloat about the way he had shackled one of the most powerful beings of the galaxy.

The metal indent had no such nefarious function. All it did was track his energy levels and the Collector had shown him that he had somehow tracked down the perfect frequency and made sure that the moment he tried to use his dimensional energy to try and do something, the device would detect it and blow up every single one of his acquaintances back on Knowhere.

He was a decent distance away from that place and he did not know if the Collector was bluffing or not, considering the invaluable nature of each and every one of his so-called Collections.

He would have tried to flee the moment he could, consequences be damned if only he knew where to go and if it would lead to a positive good or not. He still did not have any idea of the time period he was in, so it could either turn out to be a dick move or a great move, depending on the year it was on Earth.

According to his memories, the Collector's collection would be either destroyed or set free by Ronan and the Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014. If he was close to that date, there would be no need to be responsible for the death of some of the most pitiful people he had ever met in his life.

That was the only reason he was not immediately using his powers and taking control of some of the ships, to get them to the nearest hotspot of activity, from where he could quietly disappear to Earth.

Of course, Tivan would know then but what could he do? Aside from sending a tidal wave of mercenaries at him, all the same strength as humans would be if they were the same size of an ant.

He only had a single goal for the day and that was to figure out the timeline. It would not be easy, especially since he didn't have some handy dandy manual that could help translate the galactic calendar back to the ones that most humans on Earth used.

He looked up to see a bright flash of light, as the final automaton responsible for holding back the ships fell apart, creating a white explosion that took down some of the ships closest to its broken form, fortunately for him.

He could tell that some of the ships had one or the other form of advanced weaponry. The kind that would make him feel the strain of holding it all together.

The weapons were some sort of high yield one time used only ones, loaned to them by some unknown party, probably some long lost enemy of Tivan.

He could have just covered himself into a very shard, mono molecular barrier, and then rammed right into all of their ships, turning them into a very expensive, and more importantly, very bloody firework program.

But no, he didn't just come here to slaughter a couple of thousand people, at best, and then go back around to being the Collector's pet dog. Because that was what this was all about. Becoming a loyal attack dog for the Collector

Or at least, making sure that the rest of the galaxy saw it that way.

He could only imagine the sheer chaos that it would cause if it came to be known that the Green Guardian himself was under his complete and utter control. Oh god, the man's narcissism and smugness knew very few bounds these days. If it came to be known that he could essentially turtle himself in Knowhere and be protected from all but the strongest of civilisations.

Well, let's just say that his current collection spree would be like a cakewalk in comparison.

Well, time to get to work then, he thought to himself as, unknown to him, his eyes flashed blue this time, instead of green, as, for the first time since the invasion, he let his power go.

He opened the tight lid he kept on his powers, both in fear of retaliation from the Collector's shock bug and from having to be forced to reveal his powers to the Collector.

A veritable storm of green energy began brewing, at the center of which he stood, with his eyes closed and his arms spread apart, head tilted back as he let loose the storm of energy within. Unbeknownst to Jack, the storm of energy this time had trace amounts of Infinity Stone energies, which served to warn ALL of the ancient civilisations that were always on the lookout for them.

"Ah…that's the stuff," He sighed in contentment before looking straight at the incoming horde of mercenaries. He could see that most of them were still holding together, despite him standing right in front of them, in between the mining planet and the ships, his giant form having travelled the vast distance within the blink of an eye.

It helped that there was no resistance in the vacuum of space.

As soon as he raised his arm, creating a sword, which then grew spikes before starting to rotate at a dizzying pace, the world in front of him lit up, in shades of blue, grey, red, and all the other colours.

The reason was the multiple cannons situated on top of various ships, which continued to fire indiscriminately at him. He couldn't help but think that these attacks were of the same caliber as the Chitauri Leviathan blasts.

And wasn't that a shocker? The Leviathans could also attack someone with their energy attacks, instead of just being a giant target in the sky. He had the unfortunate pleasure of being caught flat footed as a giant beam of light just slammed into his shields at the time. Obviously, the damage was not as severe but he was surprised.

He was of the thought that the mercenaries in front of him, once the barrage of lighting was done, would have the same surprised Pikachu face once they saw him being completely unscathed from the attack.

He then smirked, looked at the main ship, and snapped his fingers, causing the giant rotating to come falling down on their whole formation. Due to the size of the sword, it looked as if it was falling down really slowly, if one looked from a distance but in reality, the sword arrived very fast, not even giving most of them time to react.

The aftermath was clear. The shields of those ships didn't even register as resistance to him as he slashed through their forces with a clean diagonal slash. He could see that the main ship had survived the blow, albeit barely, only because the attack had only grazed the bottom part which was also modular, because the part was promptly shoved off the ship by a small explosion before the ship itself began floating on top of the formation.

The surviving ships, although in disorder, probably recognised that something was happening and began rising in a similar manner, only that they were piling on top of one another.

It was not that different from their previous formation, only this time the HQ of their little group was taking center shot. So this way, in an excruciatingly slow manner, to him, the group finally organised their attack.

His enhanced eyesight, now much more enhanced for that matter, allowing him to look for stuff from thousands of miles away, at least in space where there was no atmosphere to bend light, told him that the leader had come out and he was wearing the armour.

"Bingo," He smirked to himself as he glanced over to his shoulder, where the metal indentation was now a red hot, its constitution allowing it to survive coming into contact with the amount of energy his body was dosed with right now, but surely not without some internal damage at the very least.

He slowly dispelled the giant avatar and then slowly floated to the HQ building. He could literally feel the unease wafting throughout the fleet as he floated to reach within arm's length of the very shiny looking cannon that was now located on top of the HQ, with the hands of their leader, shoved into the cannon from behind.

He raised an eyebrow as he saw faint shimmerings of what looked to be Asgardian Runes on the canon before they disappeared, replaced by the subtle blue glow, intermixed with a toxic red, that began filling the "veins" that had been drawn on top of the cannons.

So, this was his trump card. His Magnum Opus, if you will. Not that it was his, not even remotely possible that the Dwarves of Nidavellir or the ancient weaponsmiths of Asgard would ever give away a weapon like this to some outsider, no matter the price involved.

Even so, he watched as the armour also began glowing blue before the blue glow, along with a toxic red coming from another line feeding straight into the side of the cannon, was fed into the cannon. A faint whining sound was heard before a small dot was formed in front of the cannon, mere inches away from his face.

The small dot became a tennis ball before expanding to reach football-size before starting to compress once again. Only this time, the brightness of the aforementioned ball only began to increase as the very space around it seemed to bend due to the amount of energy being gathered.

'Of course, it will bend. The energy governs the damn space of the universe,' he thought to himself as he prepared himself as well. An extra layer of barriers wound tightly around his body.

Oh yeah, he could somehow breathe in space now. Well, not exactly breathing but the only way he could make sense of it was that the energy that made his barriers was now flowing through his body as well, sustaining him in its entirety.

So, as long as he had energy and stamina on his side, he could now survive most crushing environments without any problem.

The barriers were also using something that he had unlocked after almost dying. He could now preprogram some of his barriers. There were seven layers around his body. The first three were completely defense focused.

The fourth one was a warning layer. As soon as the fourth layer of defense was breached, the barriers that were latched onto his back would yank him back and toss him away from the situation with his utmost strength.

As his strength was right now, he could toss himself hundreds of miles away in the blink of an eye, all done without any conscious input from him of course.

This gave him hope that he would be able to deflect whatever it was that this K'ehmbe was going to use. It also gave him slight hope in dealing with the Collector should he get the chance.

As things stood right now, he looked K'ehmbe in the eye, his madness shining through his eyes as the corrupted energy began overtaking his body as well. He did not seem to notice that at all, lost in his own manic world as he laughed out loud, like a maniac, not that anyone could hear it, what with the oxygen mask on K'emhbe's face.

Soon, he could not see K'ehmbe anymore because the light from the spinning ball of death in front of him was encompassing all of his vision. It kinda looked like a Rasengan from a close distance, only with reddish highlights instead of the entire thing being surrounded by gales and winds capable of puncturing through steel as if it was paper.

K'ehmbe must have said something before he shoved the ball of death at him, as do most proper self respecting villains but even if K'ehmbe did, he could not hear that.

All he saw was a flash of light which somehow, going against all odds, broke down two of his barrier layers before it finally fizzled out of energy.

The end result was somewhat anticlimactic. Due to the sheer amount of energy that hit him, and was stopped abruptly as a result of hitting him, trace amounts of energy had dispersed in all directions.

Now, it was trace amounts for him but for normal aliens without the protection of a celestial built artifact, it was death. In the aftermath, he could see most of the fleet having melted down, most probably flash burning all of its inhabitants as well. K'ehmbe, as well as his armour, were no more as the entire HQ ship was flashed out of existence.

There were some scraps of metal left but after tearing through most of them with his powers, he could see that none of them had any living beings in them. He closed his eyes as he lamented the massive loss of life here but as things stood, he had seen the deeds of these people and he was thoroughly convinced that some people were better off dead.

So, he did not linger on much before he left for the ship that was waiting for him, the mining planet below launching multiple satellites that formed a ring around the planet, reactivating most of the defenses that had been destroyed by K'ehmbe and his people.

Before he entered the ship though, he made a show of looking at two spots. The places where he knew enhanced hidden surveillance drones were watching his every movement,

God, massive loss of life on such a scale must be a huge burden to bear, he knew that intellectually but to actually experience that?

It was diabolical.

As his mental state was right now, even that sterilised white pod's bed was feeling tempting.

God, he needed help.

Hope it arrives soon.

---

Word Count - 2702

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Asgard [2013]

–Heimdall–

It had been so long since he had held this position. The scared position of the Watcher.

The first in the line of Asgard's defences. For all his life that he had given to his duty, there have only ever been two times that his sight had failed him, inside Asgard.

Once, when Prince Loki had somehow smuggled a bunch of Frost Giants into both the Treasury and the Throne room, he had thought that the incident would be the biggest black mark on his record.

The one incident that would never, ever be repeated. He would not allow for it to be repeated. It was a matter of pride and honor for him, to not fail in his duty. In all his years of duty, he had never once failed and even then when it happened, he took solace in the fact that, no matter how severe, the breach had come from within, not from their enemies in the cosmos.

And yet….

And yet, he watched… All he could do was just watch as the Queen, along with the finest soldiers of Asgard were given A State Funeral, befitting their station and sacrifice.

The day the Frost Giants had interrupted the Crown Prince's ceremony, he had vowed to himself that never again would his sight fail the Crown of Asgard. He had vowed on his very soul and he had failed.

There was no other way to say it. He had failed utterly and completely. He had failed his duty, his King, his Queen, and even himself.

He watched as Queen Frigga's soul left this realm and he hoped, to all the Gods he knew, that she would reach Valhalla safely. Because she deserved it and he did not.

He stood at his post, watching over the dearly departed souls of his comrades, along with keeping a watch over all of Asgard on this occasion. He would much rather kill himself than have another incident happen on his watch. To that effect, he had resolved to do something that he had hoped would not happen for decades to come.

He was going to train Axl, in the use of his powers. His sight was a gift, a gift that was given to his forefathers by Asgard itself, a way to protect Asgard and its inhabitants from invaders from the cosmos.

It had always appeared in his lineage and he had been the latest in the line of Watchers, blessed and cursed with the sight, up until little Axl was born. Axl Heimdallson, the one born with the sight.

Axl was special, in the regard that he was born with his sight active. He had to personally request the All-Father to have his sight sealed so that he could have a chance at a normal childhood.

He knew, more than anyone, that as much as the Sight was called a blessing, it was just as much a curse, especially if the bearer of the Sight was untrained and not mature enough to realise the burden of it.

Just getting that power out of nowhere would not instill the respect and fear with which one must treat this power. So, he had resolved to, once the All-Father was done mourning, ask the All-Father to undo the seal on his son, so that he could start his training.

If one bearer of the Sight could not detect threats to Asgard fast enough, maybe another one will help.

His sight never truly failed to astonish him, despite honing it to near perfection over a period of thousands of years. He could see Prince Loki, rage with all his might as he is given the news of his mother's death.

Oh, how he wondered, what he would do if he knew the cause of his mother's death was the Dark Elf he had sent her way. Prince Loki, despite all his faults, was not void of love.

He loved both his parents, in his own way. The passing of Queen Frigga would weigh heavily on him and yet, he could not let that cloud his judgement. He would be keeping a close eye on him and every single one of Asgard's threats. Not a single realm would be void of his sight, lest he let another one of Asgard's enemies slip—

"Heimdall" A weak voice reached his ears, echoing all around him, seemingly coming from every direction.

His eyes snapped wide open as he looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of the calls he was getting. It had been several weeks since he first heard that same weak call for him.

One of the other times that his Sight failed him. No matter how hard he tried, he could not, for the life of him, track down the source of that call. It was weak, yet not feeble. It was as if the call was being muted by something, something that was blocking most of the strength behind the call. He had scoured all of the nine realms in his search for the source of that call but he had yet to find anything remotely similar.

The voice itself was odd. If he focused on a single area for long enough, not only could he see the area, but he could hear as well. And the voice he had been hearing, it bore a strange resemblance to the fallen warrior known as Jack Sullivan, Green Guardian of Midgard.

His deeds had been truly heroic. Armed with powers beyond anything that Midgardians should possess, he became someone who sought to protect, instead of destroy.

Midgardians had such short, feeble lives and yet, they lived those lives very vibrantly, perhaps, more so than most Asgardians. They knew that their lives were short and so they made the most of what they had.

And even among them, there were extraordinary ones who rose above the rest, towering above the masses, sometimes protecting and sometimes destroying. And yet, he saw how Jack Sullivan, of Midgard, fought with the Chitauri, an army from outside the Nine Realms, an Army that heralded the arrival of someone far worse than just Prince Loki.

He had truly lamented the death of someone so young, so strong, so early in his lifespan. Alas, such was fate. Being intermingled with energies from multiple Infinity Stones would spell certain doom for even most Asgardians and maybe even Prince Thor, let alone a Midgardian, however powerful they may be.

"Heimdall,"

"My King!"

"Any news on the Dark Elves?"

"No, My King. I have a request in that regard."

"Hmm. What is it?"

"Axl, My King. His sight is stronger than mine. Maybe, he could–"

"Heimdall, Asgard has not yet fallen so low as to require the sacrifice of a child's childhood for its protection. We are not going to do that, Heimdall,"

"As you wish, My King,"

____xx____

He watched as Prince Thor left for realms unknown, for some quest that the All-Father had given to him. The death of Queen Frigga and Prince Loki must have weighed heavily on both him and the All-Father. This might do both of them some good.

Prince Thor spending some time away from Asgard would help dull the pain and the All-Father had to do something, to show that he was not letting Prince Thor get away with crimes that would have most likely brought an execution on the poor person who had destroyed the statues of the forefathers.

It had been a sad time for Asgard, as of late. They had lost their Queen, one of their princes (All-Father had not stripped Loki of his title as Prince of Asgard), and the Crown Prince as well, who had left the Golden Realm for realms unknown.

"Sir Heimdall," He acknowledged the royal messenger who had arrived at the Observatory.

"Yes?" He turned around and asked him.

"The All-Father has summoned you, Sir Heimdall," The messenger said as he bowed his head, in deference to his post.

That was odd. All-Father knew the importance of his post and what it meant when he left his post at the Observatory. That had seldom happened when they were in peaceful times, let alone now when they were on high alert. Despite Prince THor's testimony that the threat of the Dark Elves was truly gone now, he still could not rest easy knowing that there were threats out there that could have survived Asgard coming after them at its strongest.

He would not let Asgard be caught off guard, especially when it was at the weakest it had ever been. Queen Frigga might not have been the raw powerhouse that the All-Father or even Prince Thor was, but she was someone who could have killed even the All-Father, given enough preparation. She was the Witch of the Nine Realms, after all.

"Very well," He sheathed his sword and followed the messenger back to the Palace. When he focused on the Palace, he was surprised to see that the court was in full session, with all the nobles and vassals present.

Unsure of what was going to happen and more than a little wary about the oddness of the situation, he went on inside the palace once his name was announced.

"All-Father," He bowed down on one knee.

Right then and there, he received the biggest shock of his lifetime as the All-Father went on a long winded speech, thanking him for his lifetime of public service and "rewarding" him with a nice retirement.

A lifetime of etiquettes kicked in as he gracefully accepted the dismissal from his post and exited the palace after thanking the King profusely for the reward, going right to his humble abode.

He needed something, something stronger than mere ale, to quell the storm in his heart.

_____xx____

Xandar

–Nova Prime–

"Nova Prime, we have reports confirming the death of K'ehmbe and his group of mercenaries," Her eyes snapped open at that piece of information as she immediately focused on the person delivering the information.

She beckoned him with one hand as she willed for the Nova Force to flood her body, almost failing to hold back a groan as the lifetime of pains were alleviated by the vitality now coursing through her body.

Her eyes skimmed over the reports, depicting the way the entire encounter had gone. Someone had the bright idea of threatening Tivan Taneleer's precious mining syndicate, and they were wiped out as a result of that. That much was not surprising. What was surprising was the fact that none of Tivan's regular contacts had responded to his request this time.

She followed the trail as to why that was and found that he had failed in his quest to obtain something from the Mad Titan, Thanos. Truly, Tivan's greed knew no bounds. Trying to steal from Thanos? She wondered how he got the courage to do so.

Now isolated from all his regular muscle and his enemies circling around him, waiting for an opening, Tivan showed them all something truly eye opening.

An Earthling? From the looks of it.

One of the weakest species in the galaxy was not what came to mind when she saw the scenes in the report. A lone Midgardian, garbed in Green taking out K'ehmbe would have been one thing, astonishing as it was.

Someone coming out on top, despite being hit by K'ehmbe's full powered strike, one that sensors showed to be the highest ever recorded, was a whole other thing.

"Do we have any bloody idea who that is?" She snapped at the closest person, next to her, prompting a flurry of activity around her. People with powers such as this do not just pop out of nowhere. Tivan's sheer wealth and legacy were such a pain in the arse to deal with, if he had the full strength of this person behind him, he might just start raiding empires to further his "collection".

The energy readings behind those constructs of him were incredible. They didn't have anything resembling that in their records. She had to get to the bottom of this.

They had been this close to a peace treaty with the Kree. She had barely been able to exploit a small loophole in the logic centres of the Supreme Intelligence, convincing it to see that the long time war would only deplete the Kree of their best genetic pool. She carefully nudged it to see that pausing war, even for the time being, could help the Kree regain the genetic diversity it so desperately needed for the Kree to finally "evolve".

The word "evolve" had done the trick, prompting the Supreme Intelligence to pull back most of its forces, all in preparation for a peace treaty signing. She said most, because Ronan the Accuser, had seemingly gone rogue, with the Dark Aster to boot.

"Found him!" Her attention was once again brought to the present as one of the people nearby shoved a report into her personal holo desk. God, old age had nearly duller her once formidable mental prowess. In her heyday, she could have destroyed a dozen Ronans, all at once. Now, all she could do was watch as he went after civilizations, destroying them planet by planet.

She looked through everything as the information kept pouring in, the Intelligence agents scouring the primitive central network that Earthlings used.

Her guess was correct. He was an Earthling, going by the name of Jack Sullivan.

By the Nova Force! He was a child in Earthling years and he was already so powerful.

Wait. He was last seen fighting against the force of Chitauri, having died in an energy storm that was felt all the way over here. So how did he reach the Collector? And what had happened to this Jack Sullivan, for him to seemingly turn from good, fighting for justice, to evil, working for a man like Tivan?

Perhaps, he was unaware of the true nature of Tivan and had taken the assignment because K'ehmbe was clearly more evil, at least on the surface of it.

"Do we have any way of contacting him?" She asked even though she knew the answer to that question.

"No, Ma'am,"

She took in a deep breath as she thought of all the ways this could go wrong. Someone of that calibre coming in the way could jeopardize the peace treaty, if Tivan did something.

"Triple the security. I want every single thing we can find about him with me yesterday. Go to Earth if you have to, but we need something to stop this guy if Tivan ever shows his ugly face in Nova Empire," She snapped out a couple of orders before retreating to her personal chambers.

She had a couple of important calls to make. Most important of which was to King Odin, the All-Father of Asgard.

No matter how urgent it was, she could not order her agents to barge into the Nine Realms without consulting the ruler of it.

So, she waited, as the call rang. It was a special magical device gifted to her when she went to Asgard, all those years back, to establish diplomatic ties with Asgard. She was laughed at by most of her councillors for even trying but Asgard respected strength and she was admittedly high on her strength back then.

It all worked out as she was given a way to officially contact the King directly and she returned with her head still attached to her shoulders. Even standing in King Odin's presence back then was so difficult, with her sensitivity to power. He was like a raging inferno of powers as he did seemingly nothing but speak.

"Hmm?" She murmured to herself as the call was never picked up from the other side. Unperturbed, she tried again.

And again.

Again.

Again.

At some point, she had simply lost count as she just sat there, pressing the call button over and over again. There were multiple colors on the rectangular block of techno magic that no scientist on Xandar could make heads or tails of. The colorful lights indicated the status of the call and more.

Through them, she could see that the call did indeed manage to cross the vast distances between Xandar and Asgard, and the call did ring, but it was simply never picked up.

Was Odin ignoring her? She thought with narrowed eyes, some of the energy leaking from her body as she thought of the crucial engagement that was underway between Kree and themselves, and how it could be completely destabilised by a subject of ASGARD!

She took a deep breath and tried to reign in her emotions but the mere possibility that a war that had resulted in the outright extinction of multiple species, the collapse of a dozen different civilisations along with billions of sentient lives lost, not to mention the loss of habitable worlds, her emotions went haywire.

She just threw the calling device on the ground, her enhanced strength creating hairline cracks in the ground but never even denting the damned thing made up of exotic materials enchanted with Norse runes.

Fine! "I'll do it myself," She muttered to herself as she went out of her personal chambers and gave the order for a landing party to head to Earth, to gather information about him and if possible, look for something or someone who could convince him to return to Earth as soon as possible.

She was sure that no matter how volatile his actions could be on Earth, they would never have the significance required to affect things on a galactic level like the Kree peace treaty signing.

She just hoped that King Odin wouldn't take slight against her actions. After all, he was the one who had ignored her calls a dozen times.

____xx____

Asgard [At the same time]

–King Odin [Loki in Disguise]--

Hmm. What to do? What to do?

He thought to himself in giddiness as he firmly held onto Gungnir. Sure, the damned thing refused to recognise him and was as good as a block of solid Uru right now but it was not as if he had someone who could check if he was acknowledged or not.

As far as the rest of Asgard was concerned, he was Odin All-Father, King of Asgard, and ruler of the Nine Realms. None would dare try to ask him to identify himself.

The mere thought of someone replacing Odin would be akin to Blasphemy on Asgard.

All he had to do to secure his reign was to get rid of a couple of hurdles and he did just that, very easily in fact. Thor was way too drowned in grief to notice anything as he all but exiled him to realms unknown.

Heimdall…he had to admit that Heimdall was the only one left who could see through him but thankfully, he had spent quite a lot of time in his youth developing his stealth to a point where even the Watcher himself could not see him.

"Retiring" him of his duties after centuries of hard work was such hogwash that he had to pat himself on the back for getting through the entire speech with a straight face.

And lo and behold, Asgard was effectively his to rule, a Frost Giant's to rule.

Now, once again, what to do? He had already commissioned a giant statue of himself in commemoration of his valiant sacrifice.

What more could he do to celebrate himself?

Ah! He knew exactly what he could do. A play should do-

Hmm? He looked to the side as some sort of buzzing noise, similar to the irritating ones that Midgardians made all the time, began buzzing all around him. He spent an hour looking for the noise as it kept on buzzing in his ears, even as he cast spell after spell to insulate his ears.

He would have grown mad with the noise, thinking that somehow, Odin had got one over him, but the buzzing noise stopped.

He stood still for a couple of seconds before sighing in relief as the noise didn't return.

Now, about that play, who should he cast as himself?

---

Word Count - 3395

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Asgard [2013]

–Heimdall–

"This doesn't suit you," He turned around to see one of Prince Thor's longtime comrades, Sif, arrive, with her blade in her hand.

"What doesn't?" He asked her and turned around, to tend to his garden. Yeah, he knew what she was talking about but that doesn't mean that he has to acknowledge it, in front of her.

He knew that something was wrong with his "retirement" as King Odin put it, but King's words were absolute and he was in no condition to refuse his express orders. Besides, this also gave him the opportunity to do something that he previously had no time for.

"This! This farming, it is the work of peasants, not for a noble warrior such as yourself," Sif boomed as he heard her advancing towards him.

He sighed, dusted his hands off the dirt, and stood up. He looked at Sif to see her nostrils flared in anger and her hands clenched white. Something must have happened for her to have such an extreme reaction.

"What happened?" He asked her as he went into his humble abode to fetch a glass of water, as was customary to offer to a guest.

"Here. I don't have anything more fancy to offer to you but I assume that Hospitality was not something that you are here for," He handed her the glass of water and sat down on one of the rocks that outlined the boundary of his property. He looked around the land that had been given to him as part of his "reward" for doing exceptional work for the entirety of his tenure.

"How could the King have done this to you? Why didn't you fight it? Asgard is not safe without you watching over it, Heimdall," Sif said in between sips of water, the journey here clearly not being for the normal person since Sif, a warrior herself, was sweating at the intense heat in this place.

"....I don't have an answer to your questions, Sif. It is not our place to question the King's orders. He is wise beyond measure and as such, our job is just to follow his orders. Nothing more and Nothing less. Asgard has the All-Father watching over it, it will be more than safe in his hands." He said as his gaze travelled across the lands that he now owned.

Even though he said those words out loud with confidence, he was not really sure about what was going on with the All-Father right now. For instance, the gift of his sight might be exclusive to his bloodline, but that didn't mean that King Odin had no way of watching over all of Asgard.

The King had a similar sight as him but that was granted by Asgard itself, allowing its recognised rules to watch over every inch of Asgard's territory. While his sight allowed him to look for threats from far away, he could not focus on every single thing at once.

The same could not be said for King Odin. He has the ability to look over every single inch of Asgard simultaneously. He had hoped, now that Asgard was without a Watcher for the time being, King Odin would activate his sight instead, safeguarding Asgard from intruders and such.

The activation of such an ability is very easily sensed by someone as sensitive as him. And yet, as he looked around, trying to sense with all his powers, he could not find any trace of King Odin's sight on either him or on Asgard.

Which meant either one of two things.

That King Odin was somehow using the technique without him noticing it, which would be impossible because he had seen him use that ability before and he could never forget the feeling of power incarnate passing over your head as King Odin's gaze passed over you.

The Second one was that King Odin was not doing anything to monitor the realm, which was unthinkable. And yet….

He looked at Sif whose face was twisted in a grimace, clearly trying to form her words and get them out, but doing so without sounding treasonous was probably much harder than she thought it would be.

"So? What happened?" he asked her, not showing his internal mental turbulence to her. He had to do something to figure out the situation and to see if King Odin was truly letting the security of the Nine Realms be, instead of increasing it due to the loss of the combat strength of Asgard.

Asgard was at its weakest right now and it was probably true, that only the continued existence of King Odin was the only thing that was holding back the vultures from pouncing on the juicy meat that was Asgard.

"...The All-Father, he….banished me," Sif ground out, her hands holding the glass of water with such force that it almost splintered before she took hold of herself.

Meanwhile, he raised an eyebrow as the picture became even muddier with the news that Lady SIf had just delivered to him. Sif was not just any warrior, she was someone who could best an entire squad of Einherjars by herself if given a fair fight.

Now that Asgard was void of most of its top tier powers, he had hoped that the All-Father would instead ramp up the powers of the mid and lower tiers. He had no idea what was going through the King's head as he did these seemingly senile things.

"....And get this, he banished Thor and had a statue commissioned. Do you know for whom? Lokii!" Sif exclaimed as she threw the almost splintered glass at one of the rocks that surrounded his farm's boundary. As if the gates to a dam had been opened, Sif just spilled out all of her grievances, feeling safe enough to do so.

Frankly, he was unsure if the King would even care about the borderline treasonous words that Sif was just spilling over to him.

Through Sif, he realised what had been happening in the City without him being there. Axl was going to arrive in a few weeks and he had hoped to make this place liveable until his arrival.

Things were proceeding smoothly in that regard but he was doubtful if the same could be said about Asgard. Raising statues of Loki? Commissioning plays?

Pulling back forces from historically Asgard-defended sites? Not appointing anyone else as the Watcher? Not performing the weekly checks on the Rainbow Bridge and not to mention, restricting travel between realms.

These were not the actions of someone who had the good of Asgard in his heart. They seemed random and yet, he could see a pattern. Most of these actions would eventually weaken the already weakened Asgard, such that even Vaneheim would be able to run over Asgard.

"....Anyways, Heimdall, thank you for listening to my woes. I will be off now, I have a ship that will sail without me. Farewell," Sif said and leaped away from his farm, straight into the valley below.

He watched as she did the same and soon disappeared from his sight as she passed over some of the mountains that one had to cross so that they could reach his territory.

"Sigh, what has this madness come to," He muttered to himself before gathering the shattered remnants of his already sparse kitchen supply and heading back into the house that had been already built before he moved here.

Though, calling it a house would be doing it a favour. It was more of a shack. Now, he did have a very comfortable home in the capital city, overlooking the Royal Palace itself, but the King's words were very specific when he granted this land to him. He wished to see these barren mountains, lush with greenery by the time young Axl rose up in ranks. He could not do that while living in his spacious home back in the capital.

Honestly, looking at the fog and stone that surrounded him, he was sure that he would die here before that happened.

Sigh. Well, at least there was one upside to all this.

Just a few more weeks until Axl was here and he could begin his training then.

____xx___

Deep Space [2014]

Carol Danvers

Slurping on her smoothie, she leaned back on the most comfortable piece of furniture on her ship. Sure, the rest of the galaxy had furniture that could actively massage you or make you feel the same level of comfort that you probably did back in your mother's womb but the sheer comfort of an old beaten up sofa piece could never be compared to those.

It felt like…home.

"Home, huh," Her eyes flashed as she looked at her cup of smoothie and after gulping down the rest of it in a single gulp, she threw the cup to the side, the hard light construct fading, its job done.

Over the years, she had done so much and saved so many people, so many species really, that she had more favours than what she knew what to do with. Most of these favours were not from people who could really help her, considering their own precarious state but some of them did count.

After all, she did have to eat and sleep in a safe space. It got really old real quick when she couldn't find a safe place to rest. Despite her powers that could help her survive the vacuum of space for months at a time, she still needed rest. Some sort of left over quirk of her human biology, requiring sleep every couple of weeks to bring her mental state to its most optimal state.

So, cashing in some of those favours, some from people whom she really didn't want to associate with, but she did so in exchange for procuring her ship. It might not seem much for someone of her powers and especially for someone who had the opportunity to ride in the flagship spaceships of the Kree Empire, but it was her first personal ship, ever since she left Earth.

She left Earth to wage a one-woman war against the Kree and their expansionist tendencies. Hell, she had received multiple gifts from The Nova Prime because she believed that Caron's unrelenting assault on the Kree activities in outer space was one of the key reasons why the Supreme INtelligence agreed to a Peace Treaty with Xandar.

This ship and the memories she kept carefully stored on it were some of the only things she had of her old life. Her powers meant that she aged really slowly, almost negligible if taking into account the average lifespan of a human. As such, she liked this ship very much.

It was one of the reasons why she never really used the ship most of the time. She never stayed in a single place for a long time and that included her ship as well. She had yet to name it but this ship was probably the closest thing she had to a home at the moment.

Earth…had long since stopped becoming her home. She had spent more of her life in space, fighting the bad guys, instead of being on Earth. God, it was so long back that she even thought of going back home.

Sure, Nick still had her pager and she would go rushing back the moment she received his SOS but the thing, that would be her duty, her self undertaken, underpaid Job. Nothing more than that. Even the slight nostalgia she felt when she first went into space with her memories intact had long since faded away now.

Now, all she felt was a dull ache these days. A small hole that she knew could not be filled by going home. Not only did she not really have a home back on Earth but she couldn't abandon the millions, billions of people that required her help.

And therein, laid the problem.

Her duty.

She was the only one who was untied, the only one who would respond to any and all calls for help. Even the Mad Titan's territory was not spared by her but for some reason, the Mad Titan continued to avoid her, as if she was the plague. His forces even went so far as to turn tail and run, often leaving some of their straggler Chitauri forces behind when they got word that she was on her way to their location, to stop their disgusting practice of killing half of a world's population

She could not just abandon all these people who relied on her, to protect them from the cold horrors of space. That was the reason why she had not gone home.

That….was a big fat lie and she knew it.

"Urgh…." She grunted as she held her face in her hands, exhaling forcefully.

It had been decades, decades since she got her mind back from the clutches of the Supreme Intelligence. She had not noticed it at first but over the years, once she started meditating to desensitize herself to the horrors she had witnessed and stopped, she started noticing things.

Things like rough patchworks of memories that seemed muted for some reason and some memories that screamed suspicious at her. After going through her mind a few more times, she realised exactly what had happened and the extent of the damage that the Supreme Intelligence had inflicted on her.

Not on her body, but on her mind, her very self.

The time she had spent under the tender mercies of the Supreme Intelligence, a vastly more powerful mind than her own, meant that she had not noticed the extent of the mental damage for too long.

Once she noticed, she tried to repair it…only to fall short.

Her powers made her damn near invincible in the galaxy, and yet, she fell short when it came to something as inordinately complicated as the mind. She noticed some weird things happening, some memories with muted feelings as if she were a mere spectator, and some memories with normal feelings, taking her back to her time back on Earth.

Then came the clearly suspicious, hidden, memories in her mind. She had not noticed it because her mind had somehow suppressed them but she had, over the years, figured out the memories and what had been done to her.

Her fists clenched tightly as she remembered the pain, the screams, and all the blood that had spilled as a result of the Kree experimentations on her, all in a bid to understand how she ticked and how to replicate that.

In all those memories, the stoic face of the stupid Supreme Intelligence was a constant as it hovered above her prone form, watching as the Kree scientist tore into her body with savageness.

A shockwave escaped her fists as she began glowing for a moment before she shut off her powers with a forceful exhale.

With a sigh, she stood up and went into her office, the place where she monitored galaxy wide communications, to see if somebody needed her help or not. It was mostly useless because every place she went to, somebody needed help and her damned hero complex never let her refuse.

It was as if she was suddenly shoved into the backseat of her own mind wherever someone requested something of her. After many many years of self control, she could now finally muster up enough control to deny someone help when there was clearly someone out there who needed it more.

Her mind had latched on to some sort of idea of what a hero should be and she had followed that same thought for so many years that it had become so hard to just stop, to rest, before the next request for help inevitably came in.

It was only a couple of years ago that she had forced herself to take a couple of days off, where she shut off the communications network, save for her pager network, and basically forced herself to try and relax.

Even then, it had been an uphill battle, judging by the shockwave that had escaped her body earlier. She had endured four days this time without a breakdown and she was unwilling to push her mind more.

Progress was mind numbingly slow since she was all by herself, but Progress was progress and she was willing to take anything at this point.

Her very entry into the office turned on the communications system, flooding her systems with reports of what had happened in the wider galaxy in the past few days.

Her eyes narrowed as she watched multiple messages coming in from the Nova Prime herself, requesting support in the possibility of an attack on Xandar?

Just who would have the guts to attack Xandar, the home planet of Nova Prime herself? Unless they were a powerhouse on par with her, breaching the Nova Force was a fool's dream.

She opened the video that came with the report and her breath hitched as she watched the brilliant green light up the entire screen as Jack, The Green Guardian of Earth effortlessly dispatched an entire mercenary group.

That was not the problem. The problem was that he had done so at the behest of Tivan, The Collector.

Her eyes narrowed as her ship automatically ran diagnostics, confirming that this Jack's energy signature matched that of the deceased hero on Earth, even if it was vastly more powerful. She could see no collar on him but mind control couldn't be counted out yet.

"Chart a course for Knowhere," She commanded her ship and continued to read the other reports.

Even then, her mind continued to wander back to the video she had seen and the face. When the news had reached the wider galaxy that the Chituari had made a play for Earth, she had feared the worst, only to hear that Earth had successfully repelled the Chitauri, all without any civilian lives lost.

The only casualty of the Invasion was one Jack Sullivan, a minor boy no older than 15 who had saved New York and possibly, the world from an alien Invasion. She had mourned the early death of someone who could have possibly reached the same heights as she did….and moved on.

Yes, the death was tragic and clearly sad but years spent in space witnessing the worst the galaxy had to offer, had made her numb to the deaths.

But now?

Now it was a different story. If Jack was alive and somehow under the control of the Collector.

Well then, she had always wanted to test the immortality of the elders of the Universe.

---

Word Count - 3153

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Knowhere[2014]

–Jack Sullivan–

He rested his head in his hands as he sat, staring at the floor in his pod. The fight with K'ehmbe had been exhausting…mentally.

The scale at which things in the galaxy worked was really mind boggling. For example, the moment he came back to Knowhere, the COllector accosted him and congratulated him on getting rid of the biggest mercenary group outside of the Ravagers, culminating in over 10000 active members, all of which he killed with his own hands.

He felt sick the more he thought about the lives he had taken and the impact it would have on the universe. Sure, at the moment, he had justified it to himself by thinking that most of these pirates were slavers and criminals of the highest order, letting themselves go and becoming their hedonistic selves, but now that he had ample time to process it all, he thought of the families they must have left behind.

People who knew them, People who must have made some sort of impact on their lives, all gone, just like that. It was the first time he had to deal with the massive loss of life his abilities could bring about.

The worst thing was that this sort of struggle happened every day in the universe. The Universe was a cold unforgiving place. He had to contend with that reality now.

Compared to that, his struggles to escape from this prison were paltry in comparison. It felt childish in comparison, all his whining and discouragement he had felt when he came to know about the time the others had spent in this prison.

No, how could he have been so foolish?

He could not give up, not now, not ever. He had trained so hard, and tried to prepare himself, all so that when the time came, his powers would be the tipping point that would tilt fate itself in the favour of the good side.

The stakes in the fight against Thanos would be even higher than they were now. Literal trillions of lives would be dependent on him winning that fight.

How could he get so caught up in something so personal as morals, so as for his sight to waver from the bigger picture?

He clenched his fist as sparks of green escaped his fist, creating a shockwave in the room that ruffled the sheets.

No, he will get out of here, and if the Collector tried to kill the people who had been all that had been there for him at his lowest, in this prison, all alone without any form of contact with all his previous contacts, not knowing if they were dead or alive, well then, he should be ready to say goodbye to his life as well.

More than the imprisonment, it was the fear that was the worst part of his days here in Knowhere. The fear that he might be too late, the fear that he would be rotting in this place while his childhood heroes would be out there, fighting for their lives.

No matter how immortal he might think himself to be, there was always something that could kill him.

For example, he was sure that a concentrated blast made up of energies from not one but two Infinity Stones would be more than enough to shut him up for good.

Yeah, he had noticed some things in the brief time he had received with free use of his powers. His powers had changed.

He didn't know how but the explosion and encounter with the Infinity Stones had changed his barriers. He could feel the energies from the Space Stone and the Mind Stone.

He didn't know how but he innately sensed that he could call upon a limited store of their energies for a one time usage only. Judging by the intensity of the energy storm that it must have taken to rip a hole in space to transport him this far away, it might just become some sort of trump card in his fight.

He wouldn't use it on Tivan, not unless it called for it but he doubted Tivan would prove to be a particularly tough opponent without his power dampening and shock collars.

He had spent all his time since the fight with K'ehmbe in his pod, not going out to meet the people who had been used to threaten him into compliance. It would be good to maintain distance from them from now on. It would be for the better of everyone.

He was lost in his thoughts, staring at the wall when the entire area around him shook. He looked around wildly, trying to see what had gone wrong when the unthinkable happened.

With a clicking sound, he looked down at the floor around him, finding a pool of blood steadily gathering around him. Despite the immense pain, all he could do was smile as his form was blazed in green, creating a Mid sized Gundam around himself.

"Ah! That's the stuff," He missed this avatar of his. It inspired confidence in him. Across Omniverses, the Gundam continued to light the fires of hope and confidence in him.

He looked around him and with a thought, a block formed around him that continued to expand, even as he looked around, trying to extract the data from the hundreds of small barriers that continued to explore every single viable path from his pod.

He didn't want to accidentally expose the areas to the vacuum of space, gassing everyone to death. He could now process all the data coming from all those nodes simultaneously, another upgrade to his powers.

The expanding cube around him reached the walls of his pod and continued as if they were not there at all. He waited for his body to heal itself as the contraption installed right into his body had fallen off his body, tearing off part of muscle and flesh in the process.

He could feel the flesh mending itself, much much faster than before, another one of the upgrades he received from the near death, or rather the death he experienced in the aftermath of the Invasion.

"Huh, I'm like discount Goku, then," He chuckled to himself as he continued to spy through his barriers.

His brows furrowed as he saw that most of the pods that had personalised environments custom built for the species had opened up as well, malfunctioning in the process.

Something drastic must have happened for a catastrophic failure like this to happen. He hoped that it was not Thanos who had come to collect the Reality Stone and kill Tivan in the process.

That was the only reason he was not rushing out of his pod as he wanted his body to be at its peak if he wanted to face Thanos and his army. His barriers continued to encounter dead ends, as they dispelled themselves. Most of the barriers were now employed to seal the pods with specialised environments like snow, water, and nitrogen based pods that had to be pulled back into the pod.

The inhabitants of those pods were not looking good but there was nothing he could do for them at the moment. He might have to look for Carina and the prime tablet but his barriers were still travelling in every single path they could find and still not find any exit.

This place was much larger than he had expected. His cautiousness when it came to breaching walls was what slowed him down immensely but he could not risk breaching the atmosphere and while the Collector probably had good defenses, it might just add another variable in his fight with the person who had invaded Knowhere.

If it was Thanos, it might spell his doom if he tried to fight Thanos half heartedly.

His barriers were doing the job for now as he continued to munch on his 10th apple, the only good around him that could help his body heal itself faster. His healing powers were never really taxed in his life and he never tried to actively train them either, he was not a masochist thank you very much.

That is why his healing was so slow going.

His eyes widened as one of his barriers finally encountered an opening of some sort. It was a grate of some kind so he simply blasted open it, only for his barrier to somehow disintegrate as soon as it came out of the grate.

His wariness increased tenfold as he found the connection to his barrier not blocked by something but outright gone. He could feel the barrier coming into contact with a wave of energy before it was erased out of existence. It never even got the chance to interact with the energy before the sheer heaviness of the energy drowned out the barrier.

He waited a few more moments for the wound to stop bleeding and then covered his entire back with a series of barriers that limited his mobility but with his barriers, he could be a paralysed person and still have excellent mobility. As long as his mind continued to function, he could create thousands of limbs for himself. His outer form was still that of a Gundam as he was finally able to see the aftermath of the cube that had now stopped expanding, exposing him to the areas outside his pod.

It was a series of long tubes that connected the area around his pod to other pods, some larger than others, some smaller before the pods themselves were interconnected to everything else with a series of tubes. God, this place was huge.

He could not see any auxiliary systems kicking in after the failure of the primary systems.

Surely, not even Tivan would be arrogant enough to think that a mechanical system would not fail, ever? No Secondary backups for a place this huge, when there was a risk of actual death?

His eyes narrowed in fury as he saw some of the ones with the most sensitive environments die as the lava fish that could not swim anymore and was now buried alive in the cooling lava due to the lava being exposed to the air around it, his barriers unable to keep all that energy trapped inside for long enough.

He also could not generate that level of heat, marking the first of many deaths that had happened due to this event.

"Enough of this," he muttered to himself before rocketing straight to the grate, crushing multiple walls that came between him, after checking if they were occupied or not of course.

He found his form suspended right below the grate, looking in shock at the purple fires that burned all over the area. He gingerly sent another wave of barriers only for them to extinguish one of the smaller fires, but disintegrate with the fire as well.

Knowing that it was working, he sent multiple barrier constructs at the purple fires, the bigger ones took more than one, as he extinguished the fires around the grate. After he could see none of the purple fires anymore, he slowly floated out of the grate and found an entire hallway burning with purple fires, such that it would be all but impossible for him to cross through without taking care of them first.

The other side was a dead end so that was literally his only way out. He set out to complete the task, as fast as he could as a literal flood of green converged on the hallway ceilings and floors, only for them to disappear, for another wave of green to replace them, repairing the process again and again.

In the end, he left the hallway, only to come across another an entire room filled with the same purple fires.

He hissed at the widespread destruction of the fires. His breath hitched as another life was lost to the failing environmental chambers. It was literally him against time now.

He could not afford to take it safe now. He had a good idea of what those purple fires were now.

Only the energy of an Infinity Stone could overpower his barriers to such a degree. It was a huge relief that it was not Thanos because this meant that he was in the Guardian of the Galaxy arc, and it was at least a couple of years away from when Thanos would first make his move.

He looked at the only exit and found it covered in the same fires. God, what had happened this time for such an application of the Power Stone? He mentally calculated the most direct path to the exit and set forth a tsunami of green that continued to build a tunnel straight to the exit.

He could see his barriers disappearing on contact, making him shudder as he realised the power of those harmless looking fires. Those fires were not even making contact with the floor or anything, they were just floating in the air, burning anything that came into contact.

The fires seemed to hate his barriers with a particular passion that he was unable to decode.

Unable to wait any longer as the death toll had now risen to double digits, he rocketed towards the exit, having to change course multiple times, escaping death many times as some of the fires flared upon contact with his barriers, coming very close to burning him.

The people imprisoned here did not deserve to die a slow agonizing death in a hostile environment after being imprisoned here, having been deprived of their basic rights for who knows how long.

He reached the exit and sighed in resignation as another hallway of fires greeted him. God, at this rate, he would never reach the upper areas.

He knew that the pods were in the basement areas, deep into Knowhere but he didn't know just how deep.

"Hell with it," He muttered to himself before summoning another Gundam in front of him, much bigger than his form, latched himself to it, and let it go straight through the roof.

He maintained a healthy distance and continued to replace the barriers by the thousands as he crossed through sea after a sea of purple fires, breaching through floors filled with wires as easy as clay.

His face sank as he realised that his barriers had made an entire round off the lower floors and had not found anything about Kumpo and the others. Most of the other inmates had gotten out of their pods but with no way to get out, they were currently safe on the lower floors, away from the Infinity Stone fires.

Just what the hell were they? He questioned himself as he breached the 30th floor in a bid to reach the surface where, presumably, the Guardians of the Galaxy were with Tivan.

He grunted in pain as one of the fires came too close and burnt off a portion of his left forearm, leaving his bone bare to the world, at least for a moment before blood spurted from the rest of his arm, his powers working overtime to try and heal the damage taken.

He ignored the pain as he went forward through another floor filled with purple fires.

He lamented the fate of the people who might have been on those floors when the purple fires flooded the entire area. At Least their deaths would have been quick.

The progress was very slow for him because the rate of replenishment of the barriers was still not as fast as the purple fires. It didn't help that the fires, even the smaller ones flared as soon as they came into contact with his barriers, slowing him down to protect himself.

It was evident from the burning sensation on his left forearm that his barriers would not protect him from these purple fires. They were obviously tinged with the power of the Power Stone, but just who could use the Stone to such an extent without succumbing?

More importantly, just who had pyrokinetic powers that could be amplified to such an extent using the Power Stone, without the user dying immediately after touching the Power Stone?

---

Word Count - 2736

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

A/N - What's this? Another OC.

To find out more, be sure to watch the next episode of Drag- Ahem, The "G" Shield.

See you then.

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Knowhere[2014]

Previously

"I am telling you Rocket, we are going to be rich after this," Peter Quill said to Rocket Raccoon as they alighted their ship and entered the Collector's base of operations.

While Peter was enthusiastic about the money as was Rocket, Gamora herself was feeling uneasy about the entire thing because if there was one thing she had learned about long lived beings in all her time with Thanos, it was that things were very rarely straightforward with them.

This bounty might seem like it paid 4 billion units, enough to buy an entire star system filled with habitable planets and then retire there for the rest of their natural lifespan, it also came with Caveats.

For one, it housed an Infinity Stone, something that had her father send Ronan to collect it. Oh, she was sure that Ronan would double cross her father at the first opportunity Ronan would get but her father probably knew that as well.

Living with her Father and her extremely competitive sister, she had learned that her Father was rarely in the same step as others. He was always a dozen steps ahead of everyone.

He probably did this so that when the time came when the time came to collect all the Stones for sure, he would know the location of each and every one.

After all, most of the Stones were lost to time. Having them found by third parties, then having those parties deposit them in a supposedly safe place where he could easily collect them when the time came, was something that sounded like her Father could come up with.

Sure, Ronan armed with an Infinity Stone could do some real damage before he was put down but her father must be banking on someone else stopping Ronan before he did said damage. Maybe the Streak that wreaked havoc in Kree territory would be the one who would end up dealing with an amped up Ronan.

After all, she did seem to have a particularly nasty enmity with the Kree, having inflicted more damage on the Kree Empire than anyone did in the last hundred or so cycles.

Drax, on the other hand, was unconcerned with the whole bounty collection thing. He was only with them because he was hoping to get a ride with them back to Xandar where he would continue his quest for Vengeance.

Oh, he was sure that he was going to die. No doubt about it. The only question was if he could take Ronan down with him.

"Ah, Welcome! I assume you have the item with you?" The Collector greeted the unconventional group at the entrance of his complex, with Carina in tow.

"Ah, yes, I have the item with me. Do you have the credits with you?" Peter Quill, said, in a manner he hoped looked cool enough to impress Gamora.

Tivan merely snapped his fingers, causing Carina to come forward and show them the tablet, indicating the current standing balance of Collector and his various enterprises.

The amount of zeroes on that thing had Rocket and Peter salivating.

"Now, the Orb, please?" Collector extended his hand, on top of which Peter happily put the orb.

Tivan looked deeply at the gathered forces, most of whom had tensed at his lack of action before turning around and snapping at Carina who hastily pushed some buttons on the tablet before turning it around and showing it to the fledgling group.

The transaction details for the bounty were displayed on the tablet. This caused Rocket to whoop in joy as he followed the Collector, with Gamora following behind him with a wary look on her face.

Drax, slipped away from the group, going towards a bar with a group of shady mercenaries sipping away their lives on cheap booze. Groot noticed it but continued on after Rocket called for him.

Inside the receptionist chamber of the Collector's enterprise, they watched as the Collector opened the Orb with a complex tool meant specifically for opening pattern locked devices.

The Collector regaled them with tales of the Infinity Stone kept inside the Orb, even showing them rare footage of Celestials using the Power Stone in the past to raze down entire planets, without much effort at all.

All the members of the soon to be Guardians of the Galaxy were too engrossed in the tale that the Collector was weaving for them, as was The Collector himself.

As such, they failed to notice the gleam that Carina had in her eyes as she saw the entire footage from far away and heard the sheer power that the Stone could give her.

Carina was a slave, plain and simple. As far as she could remember, she was a slave. She was chosen for some reason she never had the guts to ask the Collector. She was the one who was responsible for the upkeep and administration of the entire Collector enterprise.

Due to the advent of AI and her own prodigious mental faculties, she never really had any issues with managing such a vast empire. On the contrary, seeing that she had no issues with anything, the Collector eventually offloaded his entire administrative burden on her shoulders, freeing himself from something he saw as tedious but necessary.

From then on, the Collector only ordered around Carina who scrambled to follow all his orders. As such, Carina unknowingly came into possession of tremendous power.

Power over the vast mining empire of the Collector. Power over the life and death of the Collections in the Collector's collection.

She was the one who interacted the most with the people who were imprisoned in the Collector's collection. She was the one who realised that what the Collector was doing was wrong and that she could free them.

Many times, the thought crossed her mind, to free everyone and try their hand against the Collector, and yet, her hand always snaked back at the last moment.

What if the Collector saw this coming and had prepared for her?

The thoughts became more frequent with the recent addition of Jack Sullivan, a hero of Earth. Sure, Earth itself was worth less than dirt when it came to the context of power in the wider galaxy, and yet, the one who came from such a planet had the power to topple the Collector's control over her, over everyone who was locked in those prisons dressed as white comfortable pods.

Jack was the one who could make things right, the one who could finish the Collector before he could stop them. All she had to do was push one button, and Jack would be free from all his bounds, leading to the demise of the Collector and the freedom of all the prisoners.

And yet, her hand never seemed to have the strength necessary to push the final button. Many a times she reached the last stage of the application, ready to push the final button and yet, she never seemed to be able to press the confirmation button, always feeling as if the malevolent shadow of the Collector was pressing down on her.

And yet, right at this moment, as she looked at the Orb that was finally about to be opened up, she looked at her other hand, which held a small vial of twinkling blue fluid, and then at the tablet in her other hand, which showed the process of opening up all the pods, irrespective of their conditions.

Sure, it would inconvenience some of the ones with sensitive environmental requirements, but the secondary systems should kick in soon enough. That small window should be enough for Mr.Jack to escape from his confinement so that he could rescue her.

She had this plan ready when she knew that the Collector would be busy with some rare object that was about to come into his possession.

Now though?

Now she didn't feel like she needed Mr. Jack's help to free herself. No, she could do that herself.

If those giants could destroy planets with the power of that Stone, then she should be able to kill one Collector and destroy this accursed place.

She had reserved the primed C-fluid, one that she smuggled from the Collector's eyes because she knew it held healing properties. It was a just in case situation because she had researched about her species and her species was once known to be the foremost experts in pyrokinetics.

The ability to wield fire, to wield the power of fires, of all kinds, to devastating effect.

Unfortunately, their kind was caught up in a civil war right in between the Kree-Skrull war, leading to their near extinction. As far as the Collector's database was concerned, she was the last one of her species.

She had never really explored her ancestral powers but she had a gut feeling that using the Primed C-fluid would give her a leg up in that regard. She had kept it as a last resort but now that Power given form was in front of her, she could not afford to hesitate anymore.

So, without any ado, she pressed the button on her tablet before dropping it, not looking if the command was accepted or not. The Collector must have noticed something was wrong because he turned around to look at her at the same moment but he was far too late.

Far too late to stop her from gaining her freedom. From gaining ultimate power, so that she could be free to make all of her decisions.

As her hand closed around the pretty looking Stone, an electric current ran through her entire body, causing her right arm to flinch, breaking the vial of primed C-fluid in her hand. The fluid itself was caught in the purple currents, filling her entire body with indescribable agony.

She looked at the Collector with much difficulty, as the entire area around her was ravaged with the purple arcs of energy. She raised her right arm, which was shredded down to the bone, and brought her arm to her mouth, and licked the primed C-fluid off of it.

As soon as her tongue touched the healing fluid, her back arched as another energy made itself known in front of her. Twin arcs of twinkling blue and purple ravaged her body from the inside as a purple fire began manifesting all around her body.

She looked at the purple fire with happiness and awe, "So pretty…."

The fire continued to spread around her, creating a void of matter around her as anything that came into contact with the purple fire around her was instantly disintegrated.

By now, the Guardians of the Galaxy had retreated far away from the scene, only the Collector was left who was looking at the scene with something akin to interest.

Carina looked at him, then at her hand which was still functional, and at the purple fire raging havoc all around her. The mere sight of the purple fire seemed to burn a light inside of her, emboldening her.

So, even as her body continued to break down from the strain of the two energies inside her body, she took a single step towards the Collector, with a grin on her face.

That same bloody grin looked like the one of a Grim Reaper to Tivan, who immediately started backing away with his hands in the air.

"...O-Oh Carina, look at you now, unlocking your ancestral powers. Come on, what did you do? Why are the systems opening one after the other? Huh?" The Collector stammered out, wary of what Carina would do now that she had power and the wish to act on it.

Carina didn't say a single word, only raised her arm towards the Collector and tried to will the fire to explode towards him.

IT worked. Despite having no experience with her ancestral powers, Carina managed to get her message across to the purple fires.

The only thing was that the fires were currently being wielded by someone who was holding an Infinity Stone in her hand, more specifically, the Power Stone in their hand.

The purple fires, instead of being directed just at the Collector, instead spread apart, reaching far and wide, sinking down into the lower floors of the Collector Enterprise, as well as reaching Tivan.

Carina's entire surroundings were flooded with a purple fire that seemed to burn everything it touched. She could not see it but the Colelctor's pained screams were like music to her ears.

"AAAAAA!"

She smiled one moment, relishing his screams of pain, wondering how he survived the flames, and the next moment her face morphed into one of pain as he fell down to one knee, the fires around her flaring in response.

She looked at her hand and legs, as they were now glowing with purple veins in them. Most of her skin was flaking off and seemed to continue going that way.

She smiled, a bloody resigned smile, as she realised her folly and the fact that she was about to die here.

She looked at the hand holding the Stone which was mostly charred now. She couldn't even feel it.

"...Ah….So pretty," She murmured as she looked, once again at the purple fires, and closed her eyes….forever.

The Guardians of the Galaxy had retreated to a remote corner of the landing area, watching as a tornado of purple fire ravaged the Collector's office.

"...See what you got us into, Dumbass!" Rocket Racoon scoffed at Peter before turning around to get to his ship.

"Hey! At Least we got the money this time," Peter turned around as well. Gamora took one last look at the purple fire and after clenching her fist once, turned around as well. She had taken maybe two steps when Rocket's question made her stop right in her tracks.

"Hey, Where is Drax? Did that musclehead lose his way somewhere?"

She sighed and was about to turn around to look for Drax when Peter's terrified voice reached her ears.

"Guys, I think I know what Drax went to do,"

She looked out of the hangar of Knowhere and her eyes widened as she saw the Dark Aster floating right outside Knowhere.

She cursed as all of them ran towards the ship, intent on getting out of this place before Ronan landed on it.

They had no chance of stopping the Accuser. They also had no way of getting past that purple fire, to get the Stone. All they could do was hope that the purple fire stumped Ronan as well and get out of this place with their credits.

She had no other plans ahead but she would run as long as she could, from her father. Under no circumstances, could Thanos come into possession of the knowledge she had.

They were right at their ship when a huge explosion rocked the entire hangar facility…no the entirety of Knowhere.

She looked out of the hangar space and cursed as she saw Ronan coming down.

"AHAHA! Finally! REVENGE WILL BE MINE!"

She looked back to see Drax shouting like a madman as he ran straight to his death.

She closed her eyes in resignation.

God help her from idiots.

---

Word Count - 2572

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.