The Sage of the Mind

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 31 [December 2008]

Evacuated Police precinct

–Nick Fury–

As he watched the paper human disperse into shreds of paper in front of him, his mind ran a mile a minute as he tried to process the outcome of this meeting. Sure, it might not have seemed that nothing of note happened in the meeting but for him, this was the most important meeting of the year.

Getting to know the tone of the so-called Invisible Man of Manhattan was so much more important than dealing with Ross. Oh, he could take care of Ross in a hundred different ways this second but that was never in question. Convincing the President might have taken longer if he didn't have something far more attractive on the plate in front of him.

The level of power and control that the Invisible Man had shown so far meant that he was the strongest being on the planet, if not tied with Banner when he was mean and green.

Plus, he was somehow capable of being damn near omniscient in a very large area, making him the literal definition of a perfect combatant. He was sure that if the Invisible Man made a move or was deployed in a city, he could bring that city's crime rate down to damn near zero in a day or two. The less said about military zones the better.

No, he could milk it a hundred different ways and while the President himself was not thrilled to be relying on "freaks" as he likes to call them, he is pragmatic enough to realise that they could be game changers on their own, if not that then at least powerful deterrents.

"Coulson," He called out for his trusted right hand man. He was the only one he could trust with a matter of this magnitude. Coulson looked back from where he was coordinating with the dozen teams that had arrived with him to protect him and had failed hilariously.

"Yes, sir,"

"We are moving out. Bag everything," He ordered as he sat on his chair, refusing to work on anything lest that man read it using his bullshit powers.

He had not even noticed as they continued to pepper the building with bullets and even battering rams, and not just any battering rams, SHIELD issue battering rams were capable of breaking open bunker doors if given enough time.

Somehow, that man, in addition to stopping crime in the city, had maintained a blanket of silence around them, so much so that the astronomical amount of noise made by the bullets and the battering ram went unheard by either of them.

Also, his eye narrowed as he went past Coulson, and climbed down the stairs. He looked back and his eye widened in astonishment as he could see that, despite the hundreds or even thousands of bullet shells lying around the building, there was not even a single mark on the building.

Goddamn.

What were the agents thinking, peppering the entire building with such heavy firepower? He knew he shouldn't have brought the STRIKE team with him, they were always a little heavy handed where they didn't need to be. Well, nothing a little stint in Antarctica can't fix.

"We're ready to move out, sir," Coulson said as he boarded the car, the same as him.

"Good. Let's go. We have a lot to do, today," He said and rested his eyes. There was scant little he could say in the domain of the Invisible Man that would not immediately be picked up by his prying gaze.

Honestly, he couldn't even begin to understand just how someone could perceive an entire city all at once. Even now, he watched as news reporters covered every single one of the Invisible Man's exploits, starting from that cult of his.

Thankfully, They didn't even have to step in to do anything to contain them. He had come forward himself and explained that he was no god and was just another human who was somehow blessed with powers.

His wording had been dissected multiple times with different teams of analysts at every single three-letter agency in the country. Without ever seeing the man or his body in action, there were limitations in what the analysts could do but they were sure that he was someone with heroic inclinations, obviously.

The cult was rather non violent and the gatherings were boosting the economy immensely, even though most of them went back home disappointed because the powers of the Invisible Man were pretty limited in what they could do.

Sure, applying CPR on a dying man could be done with ease but the same could not be said for terminal diseases.

Not even he has that level of fine control to target individual cells, at least that is what the analysts back home told him.

He had read some of the reports regarding the city and it was safe to say that Manhattan was currently swimming in money. It was the closest thing to a utopia on US soil at the moment.

Crime rates? Damn near zero, Traffic? Non existential. Hunger? Thing of the past with all the kitchens he had made the Mayor open and operate. Drugs? Incinerated before they could be brought into the city proper, at least the ones brought in by drug dealers.

Apparently, individual recreational use was permitted by him but that was non consequential. According to the reports, even the very air was being purified somehow but that might just be the consequence of him helping the municipal workers in cleaning the city.

Oh yeah, he was making sure that the city ran like clockwork, and in a sense, he was running the city. The city was more under his control than the Mayor's or even the President's.

He wasn't sure why there was not more uproar over the fact that a completely unknown all powerful entity had essentially taken over a major part of the most populous city of the United States.

Sure, the economic and societal benefits he brought with him were enormous, to the point that most other Mayors would sell their left nut for him to come and settle in their city. But the people must realise the consequences of giving that much power to an unchecked party.

It might be his paranoia speaking but the way the Invisible Man termed his powers were growing didn't sit right with him. Already, they had seen his effective range increase, though the more he tried to act out of Manhattan, the weaker his powers were.

He resorted to more creative uses of his power that allowed him to achieve similar effects while using far less power, as opposed to just using overwhelming brute force, while in Manhattan. He had seen him just lift 3 fully loaded semis and set them on their way out of the city while snuffing out a fire that had broken out on the other side of the city.

Oh yeah, he could not just move stuff with his mind, he could also somehow control the very air to devastating effects, the Curtain of Silence came to mind.

He had snuffed the very air out of those flames, stopping them nearly instantly.

"Coulson, move everything important out of NYC HQ. I want a skeleton crew working here only. Contact all INDEX individuals and tell them to move out of the city. We don't want them to come into contact with the Invisible Man and for god's sake, figure out a better name for him,"

It might just be paranoia but he had a hunch that the Invisible Man was not going to remain confined to a specific part of the city for much longer. Already they had predicted that with the rate of expansion, he would cover the entire city of New York in two or three years, at most.

That was an uncomfortably short timeline. The higher ups might be satisfied that the new powerful variable was somehow limited to a small area that they could light up with fire whenever they felt like it but things would not be nearly as simple as that.

For one, the fine control that he had, along with the amount of power he could bring forth, it would be safe to say that nothing short of Tesseract-powered weapons would work against his powers and those too worked best against a target. What would they be shooting against if they didn't even know who they were supposed to fight?

The underground highway that spanned the entire length of Manhattan came to mind. Doing something like that would have taken billions of dollars and an absolute eternity to make. He did that in what? 20 days.

"Sir, about Dr.Banner?" Coulson's question brought him out of his introspection. He opened his eye to see that they already exited his estimated range and even the caution zone.

HE sighed, "What can we realistically do, Coulson? We will just have to warn Ross and tell him not to come guns blazing into a residential area. If he does it anyway, well, that bout of stupidity will be on him. Meanwhile, I'll report everything to the President. Let's see what he thinks about this and then, we'll go from there,"

"Alright," Coulson said as he opened the door for him to leave. Coulson's new assignment was for him to stay here long term and monitor the situation. Technically, Ross would not do something to jeopardize civilian lives but the madman could not be predicted.

"Coulson, stay safe," He warned as the doors on the helicopter closed and he flew away to the airstrip, to go straight to DC.

He had a lot of work to do and more importantly, a lot of preparation to depose one of the most celebrated Generals of their time.

God, he could already feel the migraine coming.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 32 [December 2008]

–Axle Riddle–

Well, that was fun, at least Fury has something to base his conclusions on. He was sure that Fury would do something in exchange for an agreement regarding Banner and the continued participation of two strong people in the Avengers Initiative. He thought to himself as he whistled a jaunty tone to himself, on his way to the New York Sanctum. He had some stops to make before that though, since Master Drumm had wanted to try some new pastry store on the other side of the Sanctum.

No worries though, the Ancient One would wait for him, after all, she did always love tending to that rooftop garden of hers.

He knew there must be some special magical plants in that garden but all his attempts to ferret out the secret from master Drumm had ended in failure. He could not, for a second, believe that the garden of the Sanctum, something that was visited by the Ancient One the most after Kamar Taj, was completely mundane in nature.

There must be something in that garden. Magical Tea? Honey? Weed?

He did not know and at some point, he would have even barged into the dimensional protections around the garden to figure out, if only he didn't know what fate awaited him if he did that.

That was not a fun game you wanted to play with, the Ancient ONe's personal wards were legendary. Spoken in hushed tones because it traumatised everyone who tried to act brave and try their hands at it.

"Yes, One Blueberry Truffle Cake. To go, please," He smiled at the cashier as he handed in the exact amount of cash to her. His spatial awareness had flared out, telling him everything that had happened in the city,

Except…that was not really true anymore. Ever since his range increased to cover most of Manhattan, it had been as if something else in his mind that was unlocked. And that unlocked part was responsible for most of his actions these days.

If he didn't consciously think about it, he didn't even know what his second mind was doing, which was wild. He didn't know if it was using his TK to save some poor cat, stop an accident, or do something else. It was kinda disturbing at first, to see a somewhat autonomous mind construct using your powers but he had gotten used to it over the period of time.

Now, it was the most convenient thing. It protected him from any attacks and warned him if it could comprehend the attacks. Saving people was done on the fly as well, day and night. It didn't rest, at all. He got worried a while back and tried to shut it down for a bit, so it could rest and everything, and the ensuing headache it gave him, made him call in sick two days in a row.

Turns out, there was a reason the second mind was able to do something that he could not fathom doing himself. It was somehow designed for that and was incredibly efficient in what it could do.

For starters, it could not access his full power. No, if he had to guess, it could access about 50-60% of his TK, which was plenty once you take into account that even felling a building was not out of the question with that amount of power.

It also could not use his spatial awareness power beyond the curtain around Manhattan, which was suspicious but fine. He had to actively concentrate on most days to sense the outskirts of Manhattan and check in on how the soup kitchens were working.

He was expecting, not the worst, but certainly bad enough that he would have to raise the issue but, to his relief, everything was going as smoothly as it could. One day, just for fun, he made sure to make his presence in the kitchen known to everybody who worked there.

He made them all sit back down and relax for an hour as he took over everything. Food preparation, cooking, serving, cleaning, the whole schabang.

It probably served as a stark reminder for them to do their jobs properly and he wouldn't have to act in their stead. It was quite easy and if it meant that it stopped people from trying to take advantage of the most underprivileged section of society, then so be it.

"Master Drumm, I come with cake!" He beamed as he opened the Sanctum door, which recognised him now. No longer would he have to bear the humiliation of knocking on the door and waiting for someone on the other side to open it for him.

No, he could do it by himself now, thank you very much.

"I see that you are in great spirits, Mr.Riddle," Drumm said as he came into view, entering the large hallway through one of the zillion adjacent rooms, doing Vishaniti knows what.

"Must you throw that in my face? It's not my fault I don't have the knack for magic like you guys do," He pouted as the cake was dutifully floated over to Drumm who looked at him as if he was some unruly child and not someone who could snap a building in half with a thought.

"Like I have told you hundreds of times, Mr.Riddle, please handle food with care. Especially a delicacy such as this one. They only make this once a week and it is gone by the time I can finish my duties and reach the bakery," Drumm said as he, very carefully, went to the Sanctum Kitchen to store the cake.

"Do you need anything, Mr.Riddle?" Drumm asked him, not emphasising on the Mr. part of his name.

"Nah, I just came to see the Ancient One. Enjoy your cake, Drumm," he waved him off and headed up to the rooftop garden. Somehow, the door going out felt it had more protections than the one on the main door, at least from his fledgling vision of the Mystic Arts.

He had not told anyone about it but he could somewhat perceive magic using his spatial awareness now. Before, it was as if a void was created every time he tried to observe magic being used. Now, he could even see some enchantments and wards that had been laid down on some artifacts and the entire Sanctum itself.

Huh, in a way, the entire Sanctum itself was another artifact. An immeasurably precious one, but still an artifact.

"Hello Ancient One. Back from your work conference? All good I hope?" His mouth shot off as he saw her tend to her precious plants.

"Ah, Mr.Riddle, can't say that I have missed this part of you. And why yes, thank you for asking, the conference was good. Nothing outside the norm happened, which as you know, is extremely good in our profession. Oh, sorry, my profession," The Ancient One turned around and said with an amused look in her eye.

Her face remained stoic though. She had centuries to master her poker face, it was not as if he would have been able to read her face or even her body language.

"Yeah yeah, I know. Anywho, I wanted to talk to you about–"

"About the threat you have unwittingly invited near the Sanctum. I was wondering what triggered the red alarm, so much so that I had to rush back here instead of feasting on the delightfully light yet aromatic food of the Fae. No calories, only feels, you see,"

He did a double take at that last phrase of her, what slang was that? Wait, What? What threat? Red alarm?

The question must have been evident on his face as the Ancient One whipped out something and shoved it in his face. It was a metallic object which now showed dark red.

"It is something that allows transdimensional communication, even in the worst of interdimensional turbulences. It warned me about an incoming threat that the Sanctum faces. Red means energy levels surpassing most Asgardians, including their royalty," She continued.

She sighed upon seeing his confused doggy look, "Mr.Riddle, you have just brought in the avatar of the Rage into the city. After bringing him here, you have made him coop up in an apartment without any human contact. All Mr.Banner does is wake up, freshen up sometimes, scribble down his ideas of self-mutilation, eat, and then go to sleep. That is not healthy for anyone, let alone someone who is on the precipice of a mental breakdown. His weak mental state is a brewing pit to call in someone far worse than just Mr.Banner's alter ego,"

His eyes had widened the more she spoke, realising his mistake. But then he remembered why he had come here.

"That's why I came here, to you. You could take him, train him in the Arts, or at least help him gain control. Isn't that like your motto? Never turn down anyone who needs help. Well, Bruce needs your help very much, and quite frankly, so does the Earth," He laid his case in front of her.

"I can't bring him in Kamar Taj, for his patron would immediately notice it and try to attack it from within. Trust me, he is much safer being away from magic, at least until his mental state stabilises. His soul itself is raw as if recovering from a patched wound. I will see what I can do about him once his condition is not as volatile as it is now."

His shoulders slumped as he realized that she was not going to budge on the topic. Somehow, Banner was a danger to Kamar Taj and he didn't know why,

"Is there something you can do now? Some meditation method or an artifact for calming him down? Or something else?" He made the last ditch effort for Banner.

She shot him an amused look, "No such artifact exists, Mr.Riddle. Now, please make haste. If I am correct, you are going to be encountering multiple interested parties in the span of a week. It is certainly going to be eventful. Bye bye now…"

He blinked and found himself standing on the door of the Sanctum.

Damnit.

Taking advantage of magically disinclined people like that.

For Shame! For Shame!

Well, time to meet the Hulk then.



If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 33 [December 2008]

–Axle Riddle–

Argh, This made no sense to him. How could he solve Banner's problems if the only two ways he knows how to refuse to do it at this point in time? Banner didn't need their help ten years down the line when he would already be somewhat well adjusted.

No, they needed to help him now and by now, he meant yesterday because that man was fraying at the edges. He could tell from the way he kept moving and muttering to himself erratically.

It was as if he had lost his anchor point, as his mental being was slowly being dragged straight down. He didn't even know what to do with the other problem that had taken root in his city. One that refused to leave, no matter how many times he made her coffee spill or the number of inconveniences he had subjected her to.

No, Betty Ross was exactly someone General Ross could have sired. Headstrong, stubborn, fiercely persistent, and somehow, still good enough that he was still considering letting them meet.

Ah, what the hell, it was not as if Ross would try and use his own daughter as bait, right?

Right?

….

…

Ah, if he found them, he found them. He would have to go through him first and what was better than stopping the stereotypical villain from breaking up two lovebirds, one of whom had some incurable oddity that was trying to break them apart from each other?

He saw that Ms.Betty was having a New York style pizza slice and walking around Central Park. No, she was not walking around Central Park, she was walking towards something and that was the daily congregation they held in his name.

Oh god, please not that damned thing again. He had flat out told them that he was just a human who gained these powers by happenstance and he would not be taking any personal requests, not that most of the requests were ever in his power to fulfill anyway.

He gently nudged Betty to stop and stop she did, her eyes widening as she looked all around her, trying to spot the person who might have poked her. Her eyes then widened to saucer like proportions as she must have realised what had happened to her.

He kept nudging her, showing her the direction to walk to, eventually leading her into a not crowded part of CEntral Park. He then cocooned her entire body and just for safety, enclosed her in a curtain of silence as well, subduing all her sonic attacks in the form of the scared screams everybody would have heard, as he flew her to Bruce's apartment. Now, someone might say that flying an entire human being through the air at breakneck speeds was bound to catch attention, right?

To them, he would say: Wrong! It would have caught attention if it hadn't already happened all the time in the city. He checked in on his second mind and what do you know, they were lifting another thing in the air right now.

Only right now, it was a chopper with a failed engine making an emergency landing nearby, with both the pilot and the reporter being very excited about the entire thing for some reason. God, it was as if people did not care about their safety at all, so assured in his presence.

May the Vishanti help this city once he leaves. Well, something for future Axle to think about. God, the reporter was even reporting live on her camera about the entire thing.

Ugh, he disengaged from his second mind and focused on Betty as she landed right into Bruce's apartment through the window that had opened up just in time for her to make the surprise entry into her lover's home and then closed up after she was safely inside.

The look on Bruce's face as he looked at Betty and confirmed that she was real was equal parts sad and happy. He must have been so alone, so lonely. At Least he was safe here.

"Well, time to give them the privacy," He thought to himself before getting the bagel and leaving for his office, whistling a jaunty tone. He was oddly full of confidence today.

He didn't know why and didn't particularly care about it but he was of the opinion that today was going to go swimmingly, mostly because he had done the good deed of the day, in addition to the hundreds of good deeds that he does on the go.

Ross was a concern, yes, but not as much of a concern as the Ancient One was concerned about something happening due to Bruce's mental health.

Stark International stock was still plummeting. He didn't know what TOny was doing but he had not yet made the announcement regarding being Iron Man, even after he had already seen the news yesterday about an accident at the Arc Reactor facility back in LA.

That meant, presumably, that Stane was dead and Iron Man was already born. Tony had gone through his first betrayal and had learned some lessons, hopefully. It also meant that Tony was now going to be using the poisoning Palladium in his Arc Reactor. Well, he might have tried to help or warn him about it only that Tony Stark lived all the way over to the West Coast, which was far out of his….range.

Good Lord, speak of the devil and the devil is here.

Tony Stark, along with Happy Hogan, had somehow entered Manhattan in a limousine, followed by two SUVs full of armed bodyguards.

As if that wasn't enough, the Iron Man suit, hollow as it may be, was hovering right at the edge of his boundary. Not the boundary of Manhattan but the boundary of his Spatial awareness.

That was scarily accurate and he was sure that Jarvis must have played a crucial role in it, predicting the rate at which his awareness range grew and staying just out of it by just that much. He was somewhat off but he could not be faulted for that.

Even he himself didn't know how his powers advanced, just that they came with practice, and due to his second mind working all the time in the background, he couldn't really predict the rate at which his powers grew.

His pace quickened as he hastily made for his office and then promptly stumbled on himself as he watched Tony's convoy, after making a quick stop to get Tony a cheeseburger, headed straight towards his office. Well, it could be something else but he didn't want anything to look suspicious so he slowly, normally, made his way to his office.

"Hi! Good morning. Morning, Steve. Morning, Scarlet. Morning, Sarah," He greeted everyone and headed straight into his office. Most of them waved back at him, their smiles tinged with hesitation and uncertainty.

Well, since most of them didn't exactly know what he did in the office and he was given a corner office to boot, they were very curious but since he was mostly out of reach for them, they had resorted to his secretary but even she didn't know what he did so they were all kind of awkward around him. He tried to mingle but now was not the time to do that because, Tony Stark just alighted from his car and was entering the lobby of his office building, with his entourage behind him.

God, he was here because of the shares, wasn't he?

Oh yeah, he, or rather, his backers, collectively owned about 10% of Stark International's stocks right now. While it would not be visible to someone who was doing a cursory search since it was all held in different trusts, financial entities, and even in different countries but for someone like Stark? It was child's play to figure out who was behind all the buying up of his company's shares.

The only reason they were able to buy so much was because for one, SI's stock had been tumbling for a while now and two, he had more investors now. As it turned out, a lot of the old fogies had families worth billions just hiding away in that exiled mountain. He had made generous use of that money to buy up even more of SI's stock and Tony, as busy as he was, was never the wiser about it.

Yup, Tony just exited the elevator and was heading straight towards him. Well, he is probably wiser now.

His entourage stayed outside but Happy Hogan led Tony straight to his office. He stood up from his chair, trying his best to portray a surprised expression when Tony Stark, all but barged into his office.

Tony's face was bruised in places and his entire body felt as if he had just come out of a warzone, technically, he had but that was months ago.

"Mr.Stark, what can I do for you?" He put his best smile forward and greeted him, but not with a handshake, he did not want to put it back down awkwardly while Tony ignored it.

That would be….uncool.

"Uh-huh. Axle, was it? Mind telling me how some wet behind the ears kid somehow controls a tenth of my company?"

Well, so much for subtlety. It was his fault, really, to expect something as subtle as small talk before getting to the big part from someone like Tony Stark who represented more of a hammer than a scalpel.

He sighed, "What do you want, MR. Stark? I can assure you that I have not broken any law in acquiring your company's shares. So, what warrants this personal visit?"

Tony's smile was all teeth as he replied, "Well, Mr.Axle, how about we make a deal, right here and now?"

Well, that was not good.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 34 [December 2008]

–Axle Riddle–

Well, that smile was not good. If there was anything he knew about Stark, as he was now, fresh out of the trauma factory that was his initiation into the superhero world, he was, let's just say, assertive.

Ruthless would be a much better term but it was all in the economic sense, so that would not be apt. Tony would have to be. There were vested interests in making sure that clean green, unlimited, energy never made it to the open market. That was probably the reason Howard Stark didn't pursue it that much, despite having the holy mother of all golden geese in his hands, in the form of the Arc Reactor.

Probably also the reason why there have not been that many advancements in the nuclear energy sector, despite this world being more advanced than his previous one in all the measurable metrics.

To that note, "What sort of deal, Mr.Stark?" He sighed, leaned back in his chair, and asked Tony. Since he had been outed anyway, there was really no point in making some false persona of being timid in front of Tony anyway. Not only would he figure it out within seconds, but it would also create a wrong image of him, especially since he was in Tony's camp.

Tony blinked at the sudden change in his attitude but then soldered on and sat down on one of the chairs, Happy staying outside his office, standing guard and most likely, preventing anyone else from coming into his office.

He was, of course, not worried in the slightest. While he could not exactly squish the suit that Jarvis must be piloting right on the edge of his awareness, he was more than capable of destroying it and every single weapon that Stark's bodyguards have on them, within the span of a second.

All of that was contingent on Tony acting out, and using weapons in his city, which was next to impossible unless the truly worst happened because, well, the reputation of the Invisible Man preceded him.

"I know the money has to come from somewhere and while I have tracked some of it back to parts of Asia and Europe, the trail goes dark there. So, why don't you tell me the people you are working for and I can make sure that you don't go to jail or just disappear because you misused a lot of money from some truly powerful people? Trust me, kid–"

Tony stopped as he scoffed out loud at his statement. So, that was how he was going to do this. He was disappointed. Tony expected him to just be some patsy, a scapegoat for when the government or the almighty Iron Man came knocking, to shove all their crimes on a single person. Man, that was the farthest from the truth.

"Oh, Mr.Stark, I am not some patsy that my patrons have installed in this place. I built this place and as of now, I own over 10% of your company and not my patrons. At least, that much you can confirm using your superior skills,"

Tony's eyes narrowed at that blatant provocation.

"Besides, I am not your enemy, Mr.Stark. With you holding on to the lion's share of Stark Industries, the company will go in the direction you want it to, anyway. I, for one, happen to agree that, despite your myriad flaws, you happen to be the best person to decide how your company runs. So, I am not in it to impede you in any way."

"Then what are you in for? Did you know about my kidnapping? Why else would you be buying stocks in a company that has been declining and was, for all intents and purposes, doomed to fail," Stark asked him scathingly.

Well, wasn't that a loaded question? One that he had no answer for. All he could do was deflect then.

"Look, Stark, your company was valuable enough as is. With you back, I am sure it will reach even greater heights. Especially since you haven't done anything to remedy the fall your stocks have been taking since you shuttered the weapons division, your bread and butter. You must have something on your mind to— Oh, excuse me, I have to take this," He was howling inside at the prank he was about to pull on Tony Stark himself.

"Hello? Yes. Yeah, I told you, grab all the lots you can find, and empty the balance if you have to. I don't care, today might be the last day we get it all for cheap. Yeah, text me when it's done. Already done? Great. Bye." He made a show of talking to someone on the other side of the phone and then after hanging up, he turned to Stark, who was also looking at his phone.

Oh boy, the smile on his face was very strained. He must have gotten Jarvis' notification of another round of stocks being bought by him. He was sure that SHIELD must have picked up some stocks as well, especially since Tony came back. HE was of the opinion that he might have to deal with SHIELD, down the road, if they wanted Stark Industries to make them weaponry that he didn't personally want to make.

Obviously, that plan was doomed since Tony himself must have taken measures against someone else to gain control over his family's legacy.

"Ahem, so as I was saying, I am sure you have something to turn everything around so let me ask you, once again, why are you here? I am not going to just hand over the shares, just so you know," He said with a completely straight face. He didn't know he did it but he managed to hold it in long enough for Tony to give him a truly venomous look before he stormed out of his office.

As soon as the door closed behind him, he howled in laughter. Ah, it was so fun messing with Tony Stark of all people, the quintessential hard to deal with person in the entirety of the MCU.

He could see Tony fuming as he entered his line of SUVs and furiously typing on the holographic keyboard that popped out of his phone. Man, he sure had all the good toys. Having that phone would be tempting but it would probably take ages for something like that to hit the open market and something tells him that Tony Stark would not be amenable to make a custom phone for someone who he believed was somehow involved in his kidnapping.

It was the logical conclusion. When the entire world was selling SI stocks, even Obadiah apparently, to later buy them at a lower price, he and his firm were the only people who were picking up the stocks in bulk, which slowed the fall but didn't stop it. The only reason someone would waste tens of billions of dollars like that would be because they knew something others didn't.

In this case, Tony's kidnapping and his eventual escape. But what Tony maybe failed to realise was that Tony was supposed to die there, at least according to the offshoot of the Ten Rings that had taken him, hostage.

He was sure that the real, the Wenwu led, Ten Rings had nothing to do with the kidnapping, otherwise, Suit or no suit, Tony would not have been able to get out of that cave in one piece.

He tracked Tony at the edge of his awareness range, continuously typing on his phone before he left his range. As soon as that happened, the suit Jarvis was remotely piloting left the area as well, heading somewhere he did not know; it was out of his range.

In the meantime, he had scanned the entirety of Stark's suit with such pinpoint precision that he could draw even the smallest of parts with ease. But what would be the point of that if someone didn't have the means of powering it, The Arc Reactor?

He had read in the news that yesterday was the day there was a huge explosion, commotion, and spark of lightning, that took out most of the city's power and the source was traced back to an experiment gone wrong at Stark Industries. That was probably Obadiah Stane dying.

This meant that any day now, Tony would go up on stage and declare himself as Iron Man. That was when he would finally turn a profit on his investment and it was not as if he would allow the old fogies to ever exit the company. They were bored in their high-up exiled abode and he was all too excited to hold a position of power in the company that would probably shape the future of Earth.

Convincing them with some grandiose visions would not be hard and it wouldn't even be false assurances. Tony would make that come true, one way or another. All they had to do was wait, and time was something they had plenty of, considering they didn't work, like, at all.

Only a couple of years left now, to the time he would be free from this city.

Now, let's see what the love birds have been up to, for all the time he had left them alone and even given them privacy, deliberately not scanning that area.

It had been hours, their reunion must be done by now.



If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 35 [December 2008]

–Axle Riddle–

Now, let's see what the love birds have been up to, for all the time he had left them alone and even given them privacy, deliberately not scanning that area.

It had been hours, their reunion must be done by now.

He had facilitated that meeting for one reason and one reason only. The warning that the Ancient One gave him still rang in his ears. Apparently, something to do with the fraying mental health of Bruce Banner, and that allows something else to descend on their plane. That something else was dangerous enough to spook even the Ancient One, she went as far as to disbar Bruce from getting help from Kamar Taj.

And he thought that was their whole shtick. Not turning away anyone that would turn up at their doorstep, looking for help. That was probably how Kaecilius was not turned away, given the chance to climb the ranks of the MAsters of the Mystic Arts, despite the Ancient One always knowing that the chances of Kaecilius turning to the dark were high.

Despite knowing that the person would be eventually responsible for her own death, she allowed him in and helped him recover, at least somewhat, he hesitated to ask her, just what was in Banner to stop her from helping him.

So, with the first plan out of the way, he had to resort to Plan B. That was getting some help from one of his billionaire buddies, or rather, billionaire minion now that he was staying under this protection, to locate and escort Betty Ross to Bruce and hoping that she would be helpful in healing Bruce's psyche.

Because, let me tell you, he might not have the whole mind aspect of the Sage Force, he could tell, even just by looking, that Bruce was not in a healthy state of mind. And not just the, I am tired and this means nothing stage, no, he had passed on to the dangerous "what's the point of living and wants to kill himself" stage.

No, he could not have that. The Bruce in the movies was an incredibly depressed, broken man, and that was just a sad state of affairs for someone with more than enough power, someone who deserved to be treated like royalty, as was the case with most of the galaxy.

Unfortunately, humans, in particular, had the most noteworthy capability of being racist and discriminatory even if death itself stared them right in their face, such was the stubbornness inborn in humans.

It was called the indomitable human spirit and unfortunately, it didn't have any worthiness criteria or anything. Any human with sufficient motivation and the correct mindset, could display the indomitable human spirit and will stop at nothing to achieve their motives, be it good or bad.

So, removing the curtain he had raised around the apartment where Bruce was staying, he tried to peer in and…

Back in his office, he was slowly sipping coffee from his favourite bodega downstairs, a huge mistake in hindsight, when he finally saw the duo, and promptly spit out his coffee, right on his computer. It was a good thing, he had enough granular control to allow the water to spill over away from the computer without it seeming as if he had something to do with it.

God damn, he thought to himself as he violently cut off his powers from that area, something he could do for a while now. Draw an area using his mind and then shut off surveillance in that area.

Now, he had seen many a people engaging in their….fornication, as it came with the job. But the thing was that ever since he gained his second mind, that part was offloaded and he never had to see some dude naked again.

His mistake, he should have expected something like this to happen but hot damn! Apparently, they were missing each other more than he expected, and considering the now enhanced physique of Bruce Banner, even in his base form, he wagered that they would be at it, for quite some time.

His enhanced physique allowed him to not get burnt as some of the coffee had spilled over his T-shirt and since he didn't really like stuffy clothing, he had chosen a T-shirt that was very very slim. That combined with burning hot coffee would have ensured second degree burns on a normal human.

As he was now? It was nothing more than a warm trickle, almost comfortable even. What was not comfortable was the Air Conditioning in the room, which made the shirt stick to his body. Sure, it created an outline of his rock hard abs and he was sure that if he went out of his office looking this like, there would be more than a few catcalls from the ladies at the office, not to mention Sofia….but he was not in the mood for that, maybe later.

Right now, he had to make sure that the city was safe and work on his powers, hoping that Dr. Banner would be done within a few hours, at most.

As he cleaned himself the normal way, considering that Stark was in this very room a scant few hours ago, he thought of the sheer time he had spent in this reality.

It had been over two years since he was thrust into this life and he had to say, he had never really encountered something that stumped him. Sure, he had a couple of close calls but even those could not really be called close calls because of his particular skill set.

He had somewhat neglected his body because aside from his regular weighted workout, he didn't do much to hone his body.

'I should probably look into that' he thought to himself as he opened up his computer and searched Self defense and combat classes in Manhattan, New York.

The first couple of results were immediately discarded on the point of being either too flashy or being just plain wrong, as they were out of Manhattan and well, geo locked man here.

There were a couple of them that looked legit, apparently run by former Military guys, and just as he was about to click on them, he saw something at the edge of the monitor. He casually scrolled down to take a better look and lo and behold, his hand paused as he somehow found himself looking at the listing of the Chikara Dojo, with the face of Colleen wing plastered on the ad.

God damn, he just jinxed himself really hard, didn't he.

The location matched as did the competence. The HAND were a bunch of pansies, way too cowardly to properly face their deaths but they were also very old and skilled. In martial arts, they would probably rank in the top ten on the planet.

That would be the best choice for him. Just that he didn't know if it would be wise to go there to train. After all, the likes of Bokuto or Coleen herself would easily notice his enhanced physique and try to convert him or something.

Well, might as well try and get rid of something that plagues society then. The only reason he must not have gotten this place on his radar was because the Dojo was actually doing good. Coleen ran it and she was actually a kind soul, just in the wrong company.

HAND must have seen the results of doing something wrong in his territory and that must be why he could sense no ninjas in the city. He could see Coleen though and she was on a break? Reading books and all.

He would have to think about it. He might be able to defeat and make sure that somebody stays dead, but he didn't know the method of immortality that he HAND followed.

Did it need an intact corpse? Could they make do with a drop of blood? Was it time sensitive?

Lots of questions and way too few answers, so he was going to stay put at the moment. Might check out the other martial arts classes.

He could strike at them but his limitations meant that they would not make the mistake of coming into the city and certainly, not all at once.

Argh, damn his limitations.

Oh well, he would look into that later on as well. Anyhow their time was limited on this earth because once he was free from this place, theirs, along with multiple other heads, were going to roll, in a spectacularly surprising manner.

*Ring* *Ring*

"Uh, hello, is this the Castle classes for Martial Arts? Yes, I was calling to enquire about self defense classes. For me, yes,"

As he spoke on the phone with the other side, something about the gruff voice and the way of speaking alluded to something. Something tickled at the back of his mind but he couldn't pinpoint it at the time.

"Okay, great. I will see you tomorrow. Thank you," He hung up the call.

He looked up and swung his chair as it spun, creating a warped ceiling. He sometimes liked to do this if he was way too bored to surf the internet as well. Honestly, he was shocked that none of the upper management in the firm had come to meet him because of the rather explosive meeting with Tony Stark. That would have staved off some of the boredom.

Tomorrow, he would have to be careful. Make sure that no one at the Castle classes…..

SHIT!

His chair stopped as he immediately concentrated on the address.

"So that is how it is going to be," He muttered to himself as his shoulders sagged in resignation.

He should have known the universe would throw a curveball his way.

Apparently, the Castle Classes for Martial Arts was run by none other than former NAVY Seal, Frank motherf*cking Castle.




If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon, for upto 5 extra chapters.

A/N - Regular updates will resume from Monday.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 36 [December 2008]

–Axle Riddle–

"The truth is…..I am Iron Man,"

He watched as Tony Stark outed himself as Iron Man on live TV, despite having the same note as he did from Coulson. Well, nice to see that canon has not been derailed all that much despite his existence.

To be fair, the circumstances that led to Tony becoming Iron Man were so far removed from his area of operations, that the chances of him having some sort of influence on it were downright negligible.

Now, all he had to do was dodge the board meetings until he gained his freedom and that was going to be simple enough because, on paper, he didn't really own all that much of Stark Industries. But, if one looks beyond the norm, one will find that he and his various financial entities own just about 11% of Stark Industries.

Now, that number, while nowhere near the majority, gives him more than enough power. He was now the second largest individual shareholder of Stark Industries, right after Tony Stark himself, who owned over 50%, as of today. He had been buying up everything that people had been offloading, probably waiting for the day he would gain the majority before he could make some sort of major announcement.

Now, he watched as Tony made the briefing announcement turn into some sort of product placement as he unveiled revolutionary new ideas regarding…clean energy. Huh, that was new.

Tony was apparently talking about a new alloy he had designed that allowed for spikes in power delivery in the power grid. That usually happens when one uses a solar energy mixture in the power grid capacity. Wow, that was…revolutionary.

The king of figures Tony was talking about, it would probably lead to massive savings in transmission losses, with or without clean energy. Not to mention, the base was aluminum, for some reason. That meant that the recyclability of this alloy should be through the roof.

Damn, what a shock to the scientific world then, he thought to himself, as he sipped his coffee, clad in his pajamas.

Well, it was the weekend and he didn't really like working on the weekends. Obviously, that didn't count his second mind working overtime to make sure that Manhtanna remained a safe place.

Though he wondered what would happen to it once he left, that was a question for the future him and he loved using that tactic to get himself in trouble. Ah, good times.

Well, nothing to be worried about. He would get more than enough chances to leave this city. He could fake his death during the New York Invasion fiasco. He could finally reveal himself and then pretend that he overused his ability and died in the process.

Maybe the Ancient One would be amenable to making sure that the illusion stuck?

Or would he have to stay in this place until Spider-Man and his team (hopefully) took charge of the city's protection? If he remembered correctly, there was a group of people, just like the Avengers but more street level and less alien level.

Yeah, the Defenders. But that was far off in the figure because he could see Rand Enterprises being run by someone who didn't have the enhanced constitution of Danny Rand.

He could sense Pops' barber shop open with customers brimming, sharing stories and laughter. The sight of it unconsciously brought a smile to his face. Man, he loved the way Pops lived his life. A convicted ex-criminal successfully turns his life around.

He mentored the current generation of youngsters and those youngsters went on to become gang leaders, but they didn't forget Pops and his kindness, thus, the creation of a neutral zone in Pops barbershop.

He was not going to let Pops die this time, especially not due to some drive-by, because some gangster couldn't be patient enough for his target to leave Pops' shop before killing him.

Hmm, he could not sense Luke Cage or anyone resembling that level of density anywhere in his range so it would be safe to say that the team-up he was expecting was just not in the cards right now.

Maybe once his range expanded again, he could try searching for Miss Jessica Jones. She should be active around this time….per...iod.

SHIT!

He totally forgot about Jessica Jones and that bastard Killgrave. Well, he didn't know at what point in time they met but he would have to stop that from happening. That single event, that single meeting…broke Jessica Jones and it was part of his duty to prevent that from ever happening.

He mentally noted it down and advised his second mind to be on the lookout for Jessica Jones, after imprinting the image that he remembered of her in the MCU.

She could be changed for all he knew but his second mind was already tasked with identifying those with abnormal physiques due to the scans everyone goes through. Weirdly enough, he could not, for the life of him, scan the bodies of those that use magic.

After questioning, he realised that dimensional energy flows through their bodies at all times, in small amounts, which allows them to shrug off minor divination as well as scanning spells.

His powers must have registered as scanning spells to them then. Still, it chipped at his ego a bit that his powers were being stymied by a basic protection that was only capable of stopping low level spells.

No worries, he had other, bigger fish to look for.

It was the next day. Banner had the entire night to himself. He was sure that he must have calmed down by now. So, it would be safe to approach that apartment once again.

And, it was safe. It was actually wholesome to watch Betty cook scrambled eggs for Bruce as he snored away in his bed. He had never seen Bruce sleep that peacefully in his bed.

Obviously, the state of the apartment left much to be desired and if he were the landlord and the owner of all the furniture, he would be pissed. Fortunately, the owner was someone else, and that someone else didn't mind losing money as long as he was provided protection and assurance that his heart would not stop beating as long as he was in the city.

Oh yeah, he made that deal with the old, scared of death, billionaire. He could do that as well. Flood his presence in the vicinity and then gently force the heart to beat artificially, making sure that that person would not die even if their heart failed to beat. This billionaire had a rich family history of heart failures in their middle age but this one had made it to 65 so he didn't know what was worrying him so much.

He looked as Betty served breakfast in bed to Bruce whose eyes snapped open as if he had been awoken from a rather good dream, and after confirming that Betty was actually with him, he smiled with tears in his eyes as they both kissed.

Eugh, Romance.

He rearranged the strewn about furniture in the living room, making sure to make enough noise to alert Banner. The result was obvious, breakfast in bed forgotten, Banner jumped in front of Betty, shielding her with his body as he slowly came out of his bedroom.

As soon as he saw the mess of floating objects in his living room, he relaxed. The furniture, too, as if caught in its tracks, froze for a moment before continuing on.

He rang the table on top of which the notebook was kept. Not a pen and paper notebook but a digital one. Banner had set this one up for him.

Two keyboards hooked up to a single screen, allowing him to chat with him without revealing his location.

"Had fun, Dr.Banner?" He teased Bruce, gladdened to see Bruce flush up to his ears as he looked at Betty who was sitting behind him. The elevated heart rate, relaxed body told him one thing and one thing only.

Bruce Banner needed Betty Ross if he was to ever become one with the Hulk.

"Yeah, I did. Thank you for bringing Betty here. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me," Bruce typed out and after seeing that, Betty awwed at Bruce and they started kissing again.

Okay, okay, no need to get burned by a loving couple expressing their love.

That was what he thought in the beginning but the small kiss was evolving into something steamy and he was not comfortable with that so he gently separated both of them and lifted Betty up in the air, her legs flailing about.

"Air Jail," He typed out on the screen before Betty was floated out straight into the bathroom.

"O-Okay, I get it. Whooo!"

"Dr.Banner, I don't need to alarm you but we need to talk. You can't live your life like this, hidden away from everyone. You need control and unfortunately, one of my contacts didn't come through. But, I did get into contact with an agency that could help get you a pardon, provided you work with them,"

"...Not as muscle but as brains." He added hastily after seeing Bruce tense up at the mention of a government agency. Yeah, that was a bad move on his part. His history with the government would not allow him to trust anyone.

"Are there any other options?" Bruce typed out, looking rather despondent as he looked at the bathroom, where Betty was showering, probably. He didn't look there, he was not a pervert.

"...There is but I don't know if you would prefer it. After 2012, a host of other options will open up to me. If you can stay in my domain for four more years, I can help you control the Hulk in less than 1. That is a promise from me," He said after thinking about it for a bit.

Four more years, hidden away in the city would be a bit much, even for Bruce but he had hope, seeing today. If Betty stayed with him, it would be much more bearable for him to live in the shadows.

"I understand if this is very heavy for early in the morning. Unfortunately, I am out of options at the moment and did not want to give you false hope. You can live in that apartment for as long as you want, with Ms.Ross ofcourse. Ah, there's the daily delivery of your groceries."

"Ah, for your information, I have cut off your apartment from my surveillance regime so I will not understand if you are calling for me if it is not dire and you are not turning green. I will check in with you tomorrow morning. Until then, enjoy the cake I sent, it's blueberry flavoured."

He cut off that part from his range after that. Good lord, the situation was busted.

Well, nothing he could do about it for now.

The Army had not come knocking yet, so that was good. Besides, he was sure that even if they did come, they would not come in tanks and guns blazing, they would send in specialised extraction teams.

Stealthily they would carry out that operation and unfortunately, that was never going to happen.

"Hmm," He chuckled as he saw the same Random Beautiful Agent 1, staying in the same safehouse, once again, in her PJs.

Didn't she learn anything from last time?


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 37 [December 2009]

–Axle Riddle–

It had been over a year since the day he offered Bruce a place to stay. It had gone swimmingly since then.

For one reason and one reason only, Betty Ross had agreed to stay with Bruce, for however long it took for Bruce's condition to get better. Now, he was aware that Betty Ross was in occasional contact with her father but she had never hinted at anything that could lead back to Bruce but the thing was, the General might be brash and stubborn, but he was not a fool, well, not that much of a fool. The man also contacted her, once a month, on the 15th day, like clockwork.

So, General Ross probably knew that Bruce was in the one city where he couldn't reach him. Not just him, but no police, no FBI, and nothing will be able to reach him. The only way someone could capture Bruce was to bring him out of the safe zone he had built around Manhattan.

And for that, they needed leverage. And where would they bring said leverage from?

General Ross and his allies made no mistake in destroying Bruce's life's work. He had no academia left, no family left, no friends left, nothing.

The man had nothing to lose…except Betty. And that was the only card that Ross had to lure Banner into a trap.

And he had made sure to hammer that into their minds, the only reason Ross could contact Betty and ask her to come out of the city, would be to lure Bruce out as well. So no matter how rough things would become, he had all but ordered them to stay put and not step one foot out of his range.

And so far, things have been going pretty smoothly. They had relocated Bruce to a bigger duplex, instead of just a two-bedroom apartment. The duplex also had lots of windows, so lots of natural light in the room, making it not dreary.

Bruce didn't step out much, even though he could guarantee this safety. BRuce's reasoning was that he could not risk it. Betty was the one who did all the outside chores and Bruce was the one who maintained the house.

Yeah, they had turned into the stereotypical white family, only living in a house that 99% of families would not be able to afford. It was a huge duplex penthouse, with all the amenities imaginable, with its own patio, gym, sauna, theatre room..everything.

Once again, his dubious billionaire friend who is afraid of heart failures, came in handy when he needed a very nice home for his friend to move into. The expanded space gave Bruce some form of freedom as he moved about his apartment.

As you can imagine, the task of maintaining such a huge place was humongous but apparently, Bruce was all too happy to do it. His body had gained some characteristics from his Hulk form, as was evident by simply scanning his body.

Denser muscles, Denser bones, increasing muscle mass, greater lung capacity, lower heartbeat.

Somehow, Bruce was shaping into a pretty decent-ish enhanced person, even without transforming into the Hulk. Well, that was a surprise and a half. He was also gaining height somehow.

Now, Axle assumed that it would be good news for Bruce, considering that he was getting some of the enhancements he had as the Hulk, without all the mental changes.

Turns out, not so much. Bruce had pretty much freaked out the moment he was told that his base form was starting to gain characteristics similar to that of the Hulk. Maybe, he should have worded it better but Bruce had taken that as him becoming the Hulk permanently, losing his mind and identity in the process.

Safe to say, Betty had glared at a screen very hard, as she had furiously typed expletives at him, warning him to put all information through her first, before telling anything to Bruce.

He had backed off immediately, obviously. It had taken almost a month for Bruce to come out of his shell. The man had serious mental health issues that needed to be resolved yesterday but who could he consult?

There was no therapist that focused on the trauma of super powered individuals, as far as he knew. And even if someone like that did exist, Bruce would not have gone there.

All in all, Bruce was happy where he was, doing what he was doing. He had never had an episode for the entire year he had been living in that apartment, wanted for nothing, and didn't have to work for a living.

He had even abandoned his research regarding creating a cure for the Hulk. That was good, in the sense that he was not afraid of the Hulk anymore.

Now, onto other things.

He had expanded his range, a lot, in the past year alone. He could now cover part of Brooklyn and Queens, the majority of the Bronx but nothing on Staten Island.

That was quite an increase in a year and he was proud of all the work he had put into it. He wagered that by this time next year, all five boroughs will be in his range. With an increase in his range, came an increase in the amount of force he could exert outside the Orange curtain that surrounded Manhattan.

He could now finally throw around cars, outside of his range as well. Well, only in the periphery of Manhattan but even that was a win.

As one could imagine, the crime rate had dropped drastically across the areas he had access to. Organised crime, in particular, was down to historic lows.

His second mind could somehow process all of that extra information without even breaking a sweat, at least he thought so. He didn't feel any extra strain on his mind even when he tried to increase his range further.

His body had come along swimmingly as well. He could now bend metal.

Yup, he had bent the rebar with his bare hands. He could run very fast and go without sleep for days now. Not that he did the last thing.

He needed his beauty sleep.

He had half expected Tony to just drop in for a talk, especially since he had not met the man even once during the board meetings, but he had not made a peep in his direction. Obviously, he was more than aware that Jarvis was probably constantly spying on him but that was fine as well.

It acted as an exercise for him, to not show any outward reaction while doing all sorts of stuff with his mind. He was sure that he had the AI fooled for now, mainly because of the greater control he had over his body language.

Really, books were such a cheat once you knew that you could literally shape your mind and body with the knowledge found within.

Tony would probably leave him alone as long as his stooges continued to say yes to every plan that Tony would bring to the table.

That would change though, once Tony showed signs of the madness brought about by the knowledge of his impending death. That was when he would make the motion to have him ousted and have Pepper Potts become CEO. He was unsure if it would have any impact on their eventual romance so he had held things off.

From the looks of it, the Monaco Grand Prix was scheduled for early next year, so he had a bit of time before he could make the motion.

He had not heard from the Ancient One or from Master Drumm who had gone to, get this, vocational school for the Masters of the Mystic Arts.

Yeah, apparently there was this whole other world of magic where one could learn obscure magical languages, arts, and lessons for certain fees.

That was something that was never covered in the movies but it makes sense. The magical history of Earth itself was vast and rich, so there was no way that Kamar Taj, being the single oldest human founded organisation on the planet, did not have connections with lost magical civilizations.

"Hmm?" He perked up as he pretended to look at the street below, from his balcony when, in fact, his mind was focused on the man that just entered the edge of his range, in the Bronx.

The person's physical characteristics were off the charts, and somehow, he was radiating some sort of energy field around him as he walked through the sewers underneath. He failed to recognise the face but he could identify similar markers in Bruce as well.

So, Ross sent someone then. Time to see if this is Blonsky or not.

But before that, he had to let him come closer, in his range, so he could hold him still and then decide if he was worthy of being spared or just being ripped apart.

It was a good thing that Fury left Random Beautiful Agent 1 in the safehouse. He could contact Fury once again through her and this time, he hoped that she would not faint at the sight of a floating pen.




If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

A/N - I am down with the flu and so, this will be the last chapter for the week. Good news is that I have completed the 4/week quota. The bad news is that no more updates for the week.

See you guys, hopefully, on Monday.

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 38- [December 2009]

Shield Safehouse in Manhattan

–Random Beautiful Agent–

Hmm. This is nice, actually. She thought to herself as she lounged on the sofa, once again, clad in her PJs, scrolling through a catalog of TV Shows and Movies that had been provided to her by the higher ups at SHIELD.

Of Course, her beloved MySpace profile was still out of reach so she probably was hemorrhaging followers as of right now, but the job was still her number one priority. The validation from online strangers was nice but it didn't pay her bills…yet.

Someday, hopefully, in the near future, she hoped to turn her MySpace profile into some sort of revenue generation stream. She didn't even want it to cover all of her expenses. Just the start of it would be more than enough for her to ditch her current job.

She had to jump in through a lot of hoops for this job. Technically, she was being paid by some private company but as far as she was aware, this was a government gig and ever since childhood, her father had drilled it into her head that a government job was the ONE thing, the one thing that would set her and her parents up for life.

Well, she had the job now but she didn't have her parents to set them up with a nice cozy retirement somewhere warm and pleasant. Now, she had all the money coming from the gig and nowhere to spend it. Currently, it is all parked up in some investment fund that SHIELD recommends to all its agents.

Hey, if the literal spy agency advised someone to invest in something, then there is no other thing to do. Just invest and leave it because if the people hoarding national security interests didn't know about the stock market, then who would?

She made a cool 100K a year, with all the benefits one could possibly get. As of right now, she wasn't even paying for her living expenses, even. Even after the total fiasco last time where she fainted at the first contact attempt of the Invisible Man, causing her senior to come here in person and then leading to a massive shootout, the marks of which were still visible now, SHIELD had seen fit to not just continue her tenure at SHIELD, but also send her on the same mission.

She didn't know if it was a punishment or if the Invisible Man requested it specifically. All she knew was that her senior was very upset and she didn't want to upset her more by asking for more information. So, she had just asked Agent Ross' assistant for more information and came here…to her work location.

She then read everything and then totally did not abuse the privilege given to her in the form of SHIELD Site Service or SSS privilege that was only given to Level 7 and above operations. SSS was basically a logistics geek's wet dream.

It is the wing of SHIELD that is responsible for procuring, preparing, transporting, and delivering basically anything from any part of the world in under 16 hours, to her SHIELD Safehouse.

So far, she has tried French Pastries, Italian Pizzas and pasta, Indian Butter Chicken, and more. She was cautious at first but over the weeks, she had grown brazen until one fine day, she saw the bill that she had accrued because of her spending spree.

Well, safe to say that she never opened that application on the SHIELD issued phone again. She wondered why nobody had contacted her to yell at her about the extravagant spending but apparently, this mission had more budget than she could fathom. Still, it was not as if she could abuse it for long, after all, she liked, no, loved the French Pastries, but not more than her cushy job.

The job was fine and all, and the current assignment was very dreamlike. It's just that….

"Ugh, it's so boring," She muttered to herself as she shut the TV off and threw away the remote. She didn't understand why there could be no live cable in the safehouse.

It was not as if watching Live News was going to threaten her mission or anything.

She would just have to make do with watching another rerun of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Though, she wondered why some of the higher ups at the NYC HQ liked to watch it in their down time and laughed, very loudly, when any scene of Mace Windu came on the TV.

She liked his character, if only for the purple lightsaber that only he seems to have but other than that, the movie was fine for her.

She was about to turn on the TV again when…

"Ah!" She yelped as a small, very small man made up of paper was standing on top of the coffee table, on top of which her legs were resting on.

She hastily stood up and stumbled behind the sofa. She would have fallen on her head had the city's guardian not been in front of her, in the flesh. Well, more like in the paper, but she got her point across.

"Ahem. Um, what can I do for you, Mr.Invisble Man, sir?" She coughed out into her hand and said, at least what she hoped it to be, in a professional enough tone, as if he had not just caught her in her PJs.

God, she really had to stop wearing this stuff as if it was her home and not the workplace. In her defense, the standard shield suit was very tight now. When she had given the physicals in the beginning, she was very…fit. Now, she had put on some French Pastries weight and she would not be shamed for it, dammit!

Oh no! She forgot she was in the presence of the Invisible Man and still, her thoughts wandered off, away from the current situation and as it had been told to her numerous times, she had a very expressive face.

Would the Invisible Man be offended by her?

"Ahem," An electronic voice snapped her out of her thoughts. She looked to see the paper avatar was now floating mid-air, almost at face height. The avatar somehow looked….concerned?

"Hello, I am sorry for the last incident. I should not have startled you," The paper avatar spoke. Her mind short circuited for a moment as she tried to process the words he had just uttered. She took a moment to find her words before replying to the all powerful entity present in front of her.

"Ah! No need for that. Actually, it was my fault, I was too distracted and did not carry out the proper procedure for the mission. Speaking of proper procedure, what can I do for you?" She repeated her previous question in a much more professional manner this time.

The avatar tilted its head at her before replying, "If you say so. Anyway, I have a message for your superior. Just pass this on to Fury or Coulson, if you can. Tell them that "Ross has made his move,""

She nodded her head, determined not to screw it up this time, "Understood. I'll make sure it is passed on. Anything else I can help you with?"

The avatar just shook his head and dispersed slowly, revealing a small burner phone that had her immediately scrambling for one of the cabinets.

She put on some gloves and immediately secured the evidence. The phone was easy enough to store but the pieces of paper were very difficult to store, especially since it was basically shredded.

Well, not her headache if nothing came from the evidence but it was her job to secure it, and just for safety, she also rang the button that would alert her handler at SHIELD who would be looking at the security cameras of this place 24/7.

"Phew, finally done right," She collapsed on the sofa once all the evidence was marked and bagged properly.

She wondered what he meant by that though. Something about Agent Ross, the NYC HQ Head?

She shook her head, dismissing those questions. She had learned from the plenty of spy movies she watched, foolishly thinking that it would help her prepare to work in an actual spy organisation, that one should not question what is above one's pay grade.

And it was definitely above her pay grade, considering that the Invisible Man blatantly told her to pass it on to Fury or Coulson, both of whom were legendary names in the agency, and also because she was at the very bottom of the totem pole, a level 2 agent.

The only ones below here were the garbage incinerator people. She would have thought that Janitors would have lower clearance but apparently, they were the ones who had access to very sensitive areas and were present in those locations when there was no other staff on duty, making their security clearance quite an issue.

The agent who onboarded her told her that most Janitors have a clearance level of 5 and above. The ones that work at sensitive locations might even have 7 or more.

It had broken her mind back then but as all things do, the thought left her mind soon after.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 39 [December 2009]

–Axle Riddle–

Hmm.

He hummed to himself as he watched, with his spatial awareness, the energies surrounding Bruce Banner and the mystery person who had now taken root inside one of the underground tunnels that crisscrossed most of the city.

He had noticed the energy aura before but had not looked too deep into it, for some reason. Now, as he compared the two auras of both the people, he could immediately tell the difference.

Bruce's aura, for one, was not as rough, for lack of a better term, as the mystery Hulk's was. Especially since he was now living with his better half, his edges had mellowed out and his aura was pretty stable now. Nothing like the jagged mess he had sensed the first day he had encountered him.

The Mystery Hulk, because who else could have almost the same aura with a similar body composition as Bruce, was now resting in the tunnel but not doing anything special.

He must be waiting for something but what? He was quite deep into his range and he could not sense anything else coming in his direction or anyone with heavy weaponry, or more Hulks as well. Nothing of note was happening in any of the areas that were under his observation.

He made sure to suspend the privacy privileges that Bruce and Betty had and was now actively monitoring them. It helped that it was the morning so they were not doing anything that would make him feel single.

Though, the scene of Bruce reading his notes and drinking coffee while Betty was cooking pancakes in the kitchen, was more than enough to raise a bout of jealousy deep in his heart.

He tried to look deeper into the Hulk's body, to see if he could find anything interesting inside but apparently, that feature was pretty much limited and he could not use the microscopic scanning that far from his location.

God, he hated that restriction. Maybe the Hulk had something inside his body? The blood that flows through Bruce Banner is markedly different from Betty Ross', even without the whole other DNA in there. It was as if his powers registered the blood of enhanced beings as different.

He never really got the chance to ask Bruce if there was ever another experiment that failed, before the one that turned him into the Hulk. He, for one, did not want an army of Hulks that were now under the command of Ross because there was some failed experiment out there whose blood could be used to mass produce cheap Gamma powered super soldiers.

If it were true though, it would not have been silent. Noise would be generated over something like that and he did not see any notice from Fury to be careful or something.

For one, he had already sent the message to SHIELD, and while chances of Fury hearing about it immediately were quite nil, Fury would not have anything to blame on him once he inevitably damaged "government property".

This clearly enhanced person would probably count as property to the concerned people, the constitution meaning nothing to them considering that there was no amendment inside it that could facilitate the consideration of enhanced people as "people".

In a bigoted society, they could just as easily be labelled as "cattle" or "subhumans". That was somewhat pessimistic and dark but considering the sheer history of humans labelling other humans as "others" and then committing atrocities on the other side, without flinching and justifying it as being done to "things" instead of "people", he had to consider that angle as well.

Oh, well, there is nothing he could do about it right now. That was a long political uphill battle that he had no interest in. He had much bigger and more importantly, much more immediate concerns, like Thanos and the humans themselves.

He still couldn't believe the balls on Ross if he had the guts to send someone to the city, and for what? He had no hopes of getting Bruce back unless he threatened him with Betty and as far as he knew, Betty had no lost love for her father.

Honestly, this smelled like something else but he didn't know what. Fury must have done something that stopped Ross from even coming close to New York, for over a year and now, suddenly, Ross was sending in some bunged up experiment.

Something was fishy and unless and until the discount Hulk came in his range. Well, deeper into his range, because as soon as he reached the peripheral areas around Manhattan, he would have enough leverage to immobilise him and if not that, then at least catapult him into Manhattan's air space, where he could, very easily, hold him mid air, or do a number of other things to completely neutralise him, like stopping the airflow to his body or just tweaking his muscles, bones, veins, and even his organs, slightly, shocking his body into shutting down.

Honestly, he should not have read all those medical books. His mind absorbed that like a sponge and now he had a bunch of really creative, really easy, ways to kill or disable people without even breaking a sweat.

Though he had a hunch that the Hulk's regenerative factor might pose a hurdle in that but he knew that even that has its own limits, especially since they would not be, essentially, gods, allowing them to harness the power of an entire dimension.

Theoretically, the Hulk could go on forever, without ever taking an ounce of energy from this universe but the other Hulks could not. That was why they had limits while the Hulk did not. He was taking in energy from some other plane, for which he was the owner.

He did have a line straight to Pepper Potts because major shareholder, but he didn't know if involving Tony in this was a good idea or not. Especially with the situation being as it was, he didn't know if Tony's involvement would light the powder keg or if Tony would even involve himself, given his past connections with the Army.

He was watching as the Random Beautiful Agent scrambled to secure the evidence and call home but after that, she was just there, sitting ducks. Probably waiting for some orders from high above but he had kept his message purposefully short and vague.

So her immediate superior would have no idea of what to do with her now. Only Fury should know IF this is Ross' doing anyway.

Besides, if it wasn't him then-

He stopped midway in chopping the onion, as six other people, with the exact same aura around them, entered the city as well, all in the back of the same truck, huddled together. His eyes narrowed as he immediately abandoned the thoughts of cooking for lunch as he went into the living room, put on the headphones, and let his favourite music drop as he leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes, focusing completely on the six new dangerous people that had just entered his range.

The people were heading straight to Manhattan. He could see the driver but he didn't seem….okay. He was shivering for one, despite having a coat on him.

Sadly, he could not check temps in an area using his powers but he could wager, judging by the air coming out of the blower, that the person was cold?

The truck travelled through twists and turns, without rhyme or rhythm but he could see that they were inching closer and closer to the first one who had entered the city and was waiting for them, apparently, in the sewer.

HE watched as the truck ran right above the first Hulk, which somehow woke him up as he started running right below the truck. He was pretty heavy too, judging by the cracks he made as he ran as fast as he could.

At some point, the truck stopped at a signal but the one running underground made no move of getting out of the sewer and into the truck.

From there onwards, as fast as they could, all seven of them made their way to Manhattan. He watched with bated breaths, just itching to take action as they were now within a distance, where he could just take ahold of them and then throw them into Manhattan, if not hurt them right there.

But he waited because they had not done anything wrong, or illegal. There is a distinction there but right now was not the time to go into that.

The driver was twitching increasingly as he came closer to Manhattan. By now, he had scanned the truck in its entirety a hundred times over, and yet, he could not find anything wrong. No bombs, no liquid, no solid, no sus artefact that he could not identify, not even guns and pistols. That was the elementary stuff and these guys didn't even have that.

So, the question was, why were they here?

He watched as they were headed straight into Manhattan, only to turn at the second last turn and head towards one of the soup kitchens.

What could they want there?

The kitchens were just a place with food and homeless people. Nothing noteworthy enough for a team of enhanced people to head there.

The driver's twitchiness increased, to the point that he was amazed at the scene of him driving properly, if at all.

He watched with bated breaths as they reached the parking lot of the soup kitchen, the driver letting all the six people out of the back of the truck before driving off, just as twitchy as before.

The seventh person was waiting right around the corner or rather, in the sewer right under the corner.

He flooded the entire soup kitchen with his presence, solidifying everything and covering the people with a small imperceptible shield that should be more than capable of deflecting debris from hitting them. Some of them probably realised something was wrong but his fine control over his powers, especially boosted by his Second Mind, meant that most of them didn't even realise as they were covered in a layer of energy that was almost bulletproof.

The six people also probably realised that something was wrong, considering that the one in the front stopped mid step before continuing. He could see no weapons on them and yet, he could not shake off the feeling of worry as the six people, dressed in rags, stepped into the soup kitchen.

Most of the staff in those places were used to seeing people in less than optimal clothing and condition so none of them batted an eye as these six people entered the kitchen.

They were directed to a changing area where they were given clean, if not a bit worn out, clothing. The difference was night and day as they stepped out of the changing room and into the kitchen, where they were handed a plate and told to go in line to receive their food.

He was hyper focused on their movements, even the slightest of twitch and he would have them thrown into the East River before drowning them until they were fit for interrogation.

They dutifully received their food and sat on the rows of tables arranged for all the people to eat. The soup kitchen was frequented by not just the homeless but some low income people. The food in the place was made properly, with hygiene, and was nutritious enough so some gig workers made the soup kitchen their dinner place once or twice a week.

Honestly, he didn't mind it that much, considering that the billionaires residing in Manhattan took it upon themselves to donate plenty of money to the venture when they found out that the Invisible Man was the one who had pushed for the formation of these places.

They probably thought that doing so would bring them in his good graces.

Well, as long as it kept the kitchens stocked and staffed, he was fine with it.

Still, he could not shake the itch of just grabbing one of them and then bringing them back over the river, just to scan them down to the smallest scale he could scan.



If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 40 [December 2009]

–Axle Riddle–

He continued to keep a hawkish gaze on the six people who had entered the soup kitchen. For the life of him, he could not find the slightest odd behavior from any of them, even the one who was currently sitting down in the sewer, looking oddly pensive as he kept a straight gaze at the six people eating in the soup kitchen as if he could see straight through the earth.

Now that they were closer, he was a lot more confident in his ability to handle them, should they act out of turn. It had been over 45 minutes since they had entered the soup kitchen and he had flooded the area with his presence. Even now, all the workers of the soup kitchen and the people who are currently eating were covered in a thin layer of micro barriers that were subtly protecting them.

At this point, it was getting slightly tedious but the way the wiry muscles in all the six people were tensed, as if in preparation for some fight, he could not afford to be lax in the security of the innocent people eating there. At this point, the kitchens were running so smoothly and efficiently that most low income families and workers had one of their meals of the day in the kitchen.

Sure, it could be said that they were capable of procuring their own meals and were stealing meals from the mouths of the ones that truly needed it, and to them, he would say: Back OFF!

Food should not be denied to anyone, in his socialist opinion but the way things worked, he was sure that the Billionaires that benefited from his protection would not mind paying a modest fee to make sure that tens of thousands of people ate properly. It was not even chump change for them.

So, no, he was more than happy that the soup kitchens were so properly maintained that even families felt that it was both safe and hygienic enough for them to bring in their children. He was very happy when he saw that happening at first and he had to, very politely, remind the police that had been called in by some bystander who felt as if the soup kitchens were his own property, that no anybody could eat there.

Case in point, he could see some of the older NYPD gentlemen enter the soup kitchen, talking and laughing, feeling safe in the fact that nothing and nothing untoward would happen to any of them as they were now officially in the Invisible Man's territory.

The second the police entered their vision, he was ready to take action and remove the six hulks completely from the equation but aside from widening eyes and a slight pause in eating, the six continued as if they were completely normal and not enhanced people who could probably take bullets to the face and come out the other side unscathed.

So, he stayed his hand, once again. He was unsure as to how to proceed from now on. On the one hand, he could completely disregard them and their strength and bring them into his territory with ease, wherein they would be completely under his mercy. On the other hand, they literally hadn't done anything worthy of his notice, aside from being enhanced underneath the normal facade they had going on.

It was kind of amazing how they had the distinct aura of a Hulk but they looked completely normal from the outside. He could see that it was completely authentic, no illusionary method of any sort present on their body.

Bruce Banner did not get that privilege but these people did. He wagered that Bruce would be very interested in seeing how these people ticked, not that he had any lab equipment set up. That was another thing that he had yet to do.

Betty's arrival did alleviate many things but Bruce's drive to get rid of his alter ego was only dimmed, not snuffed out. He was sure that once news of this incident reached Bruce's ears, he would once again start pestering him for lab equipment.

Sure, he could get him some elementary stuff that he could set up in a small space but the thing was, Bruce now lived in Manhattan. It was absurdly expensive even before he made it the de facto world leader in crime rates, them being down that is. He was sure that it was probably the safest city in the world, for its population.

Some crimes like hate crimes, jaywalking, conspiracy to murder, and some weed sales that were illegal by the US law but not in his mind, still happened and the police were more than happy to register them so as to make themselves feel useful but overall, violent crimes had been dropped to near zero.

He had even had the opportunity to witness the tradition of Scandinavian countries migrating to Manhattan as well, where the mothers would often leave their babies out in the snow, unattended, so as to acclimate them to the weather. That was not something that was very clever but it was absolutely nice to see it happening naturally, the people of Manhattan are no longer afraid of crimes against their babies happening.

He watched as one of the police officers flirted with one of the employees at the soup kitchen. Yes, they had employees instead of volunteers because employees could be properly trained and compensated for their time and effort, instead of just exploiting volunteers with little to no training in handling volatile situations that could probably pop up at such places.

Another thing was all the employees at all the soup kitchens, were the people who attended the Congregation at Central Park, making them almost perfect employees as they worked with zeal, didn't complain, not that he gave them any reason to, accepted the wages he gave them (He paid them fairly), and didn't= even blink at his additional requests to, if possible, help all the people that come the kitchen in need.

The six hulks kept a close eye on the police officers, always managing to keep the police in sight even as they moved out. Eventually, the police settled down in their usual places and scarfed down the food provided to them, as the six hulks left the place.

He saw them enter the parking lot and just…..look at each other, in confusion and fear for some reason. He was just debating whether to give them a joyride through the air when the largest one looked up for some reason.

"Um, Hello? Invisible Man?"

When he took a moment to reply, the other one furiously whispered to the other five, "You guys said that this is how we could contact him. Now see, he is not responding. I say that we-"

His words were cut short as he lifted all six of them and just slingshot them straight into the city. Their screams were muffled by a mobile application of his Curtain of Silence as they headed straight into an alley.

As they were about to crash, the earth seemingly parted itself to reveal a deep dark hole that led straight to the underground highway that he had built before.

Time to see just what was going on here.




If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 41 [December 2009]

–Axle Riddle–

"Not so fast," He muttered to himself as he watched the seventh Hulk about to hightail it out of the area, presumably sensing the sudden movement of his other accomplices. It was quite hilarious to watch, even from his non visual senses, the flailing about that the absurdly dense and heavy Hulk did as he was flown straight into the water.

He must have been so surprised when, instead of getting a mouthful of water as he crashed into the river, he entered a completely dry, empty space as the river seemingly parted for him. He dumped him straight into a hole in the riverbed, which led straight to the huge hole dug right under the city, landing right beside his six other acquaintances, on his legs.

He then proceeded to look around widely, recovering remarkably faster than the other Hulks. Unfortunately for him, the tunnel was a secret from the wider public, mostly in part to SHIELD, and it was nothing more than a huge dark tunnel with splatters of light scattered here and there, remnants of the inspection that the city tried to carry out before SHIELD came hammering in with their weight and took over the entire project.

He had been in talks with the city to get it approved, mostly because it was just sitting there, at the moment, gathering dust but red tape was hindering progress. The national significance of the city and the added scrutiny that came with his presence in it meant that the tunnel would not be open to the public for a long time to come.

…And he was fine with that.

After all, this was going to be his emergency evacuation shelter when the Chitauri started pouring down from the blue portal from hell. He had already started making conduits and makeshift rooms in the tunnel, which could be filled with the required emergency supplies a day or two before the Invasion.

How would he even know about the Invasion, you might ask? Well, for one, he hoped to establish some sort of collaborative relationship with SHIELD before that, one that would have them trust him enough to divulge such critical information.

Secondly, he hoped that Tony Stark might let it slip, especially since Coulson supposedly came to Tony Stark in the almost finished Stark Tower in canon, but that was not a guaranteed solution to the problem that was the consequences of his limited range of powers.

What was a surefire way of gathering information were the people that lived in Manhattan, under his umbrella of protection. All kinds of people lived in Manhattan, having either brought out a property at the absurd prices that it was selling for these days or rented it for an equally absurd amount of money.

Most of the locals had probably retired, settling outside the city, even New Jersey, as they cashed in on the boom of real estate prices within the city. His mere presence in the city meant that every Tom Dick and Harry, with a bit of money, wanted to stay in Manhattan.

Now, normal middle class people certainly wanted to stay safe, in general, but the people who were more afraid for their lives, valued their lives more than anyone else, were the elites, the Billionaires.

…And thanks to the universal protective umbrella he gave to any person that wandered into his range, most of the Billionaires on the East Coast had found themselves a penthouse in the wealthiest neighbourhood of New York City.

Those people were his last resort when it came to gathering information about the invasion if none of the other options panned out. He would surely notice the surefire influx of rich immigrants into the city, hoping that they would be safe from the forces of Loki, in the safest city on the planet, not knowing that this was precisely going to be the ground zero for the Chitauri Invasion.

Sure, the thought of Loki not choosing New York did cross his mind, what with his reputation of being an all seeing god, but if that happened, well, what would be the point of all this?

He would either have the ability to influence things or he wouldn't, no two ways about it. Plus, the sheer power of the curtain that kept him imprisoned within the city meant that there was a high chance that the INvasion would happen and it would happen in this very city.

He didn't know if it would happen in the same location as Stark Tower, or would Loki figure out something else to open the portal, unlikely as it may be.

Ah, stuff to worry about later, he thought to himself as he poured another cup of coffee for himself and settled down to read a nice book, the spicy kind. Of course, it was all a sham for the Personal Investigator that somebody had hired to spy on him and him specifically.

Most probably Stark because of their latest encounter. He didn't know more because the PI arrived in the city just a few days ago, continually stalking him at his office and then at his apartment, probably looking for something to report back to Stark.

It was good that he had literally nothing of value in his apartment and nothing of note in his office as well.

While he pretended to read his book, he shifted to give the PI better angles as he continued to read on his balcony, his mind wandered around the city as the Hulks regrouped and began trudging through the tunnel in near darkness, all the while Bruce and Betty enjoyed a nice movie, snuggling into the couch.

Ah, the joys of being in a loving, committed, heterosexual relationship. He wished he knew that as well but, oh well, duty calls.

He cut off the spying on the happy couple and focused on the Hulks.

Now that they were in his range, he scanned them down to the lowest level he could, revealing pretty much the same as before. They were enhanced, very…organically, in fact.

See, he had some theories as to the process of enhancements that happen artificially. Using Bruce Banner as an example, the process of turning into the Hulk was a very painful and uncomfortable one, a sign of it being artificial or not yet settled power.

Once that power probably settled down, Bruce would become the Hulk completely, having both his powers and intellect in a single package, making him far more formidable than he was now.

These Hulks, on the other hand, were quite clearly recent, considering that Bruce had been the Hulk for less than two years now. He could spot no abnormality, no deficiency, no useless organ, no disproportionate organs…nothing.

Well, the only way to find out anything about them would be to talk to them, and considering that one of them had actually called him out, he was sure that they had someone to say to him.

So, flexing his powers, he flooded the area in front of them with his presence, gathering some foliage and then burning them to create some light in the otherwise nearly pitch black tunnel.

All of the seven came to a stop as he recreated his iconic paper avatar, floating in front of them, only this time, just for shits and giggles, he only made the head.

Understandably, before he could get a word in, the Seventh Hulk, the one who landed in the sewers, just jumped in with his fist cocked back, ready to deliver a powerful haymaker at the paper head.

Predictably, he went straight through, landing on the other side, looking at the reforming paper head with confusion before he once again jumped the head, this time, with the help of his six other Hulks.

Well, time to show them the alpha dog of this place then.

With a flex of his will, all seven of them felt as if a huge boulder was pressing down on them and all of them found themselves in a crater the size of their body. He had made sure that none of them were hurt, not that it was hard considering the durability of their bodies.

"Now," He made the same menacing sound by creating vibrations in the air, the same one that made Agent Ross shoot him in panic, "What do we have here?"


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 42 [March 2010]

–Frank Castle–

"So, what do you think about the new batch that's coming in today?" He looked up from his cleaning to see his wife, his beautiful wife, sitting on the receptionist counter, looking out the door.

"...I don't know. It is mostly young guys this time though," He grunted before resuming the sweeping of the Dojo.

Never in his wildest dreams had he thought that his life's trajectory would end up leading him here, in a small dojo, teaching self defense to normal civilians. Maria was not exactly the receptionist for the Dojo, she had her own practice as a nurse at one of the private hospitals in Manhattan, fetching her a hefty salary.

The payout from the incident that changed everything in his life, was just enough for him to buy the building they were standing in. He had ownership of the building and due to the recent surge in real estate prices, he was getting more than enough rent out of the rest of the tenants in the building.

He had started this Dojo, more or less out of boredom. He had sought out one of his son's friend's parents who was tech savvy and had him build a website for the Dojom, considering everything was online right now.

He had not expected much if not any success at the get-go but apparently, word got out and now from the paltry batch of 2 that he had in September of 09, his Dojo had now expanded to have 2 classes of 15.

That's 30 people in total and he knew every single one of them by their name. One of his classes had retired a week back and the new batch was going to come in today. The batch induction was done early morning, around 6 AM, so here he was, sweeping the Dojo since he couldn't realistically ask the cleaning lady to come to clean the Dojo at 4 AM, now could he?

Maria was very sleepy, anyone could see that, and yet, she woke up to accompany him. He smiled softly at the act of love. He looked back at her to tell her to go to sleep only to pause when she was already snoring away, lost in the dreamworld.

He deadpanned at her, if she was only going to be sleeping anyway, why not do it in the bed, If she wanted to stay with him, she could take a broom as well but noo.

Women.

He shook his head as he thought of the miracle that was the continued presence of his family in his life. His countenance darkened as he thought of the day that he thought he had lost it all.

–Flashback–

He could still remember it clear as day. It was October of 2008. He had just come back from his tour and was given a couple of months off with his family.

He had taken out the kids on an outing in Central Park, mostly to visit the Congregation that prayed–okay worshipped the Invisible Man. The kids were infinitely fascinated with the idea that there was someone who was always watching over them, irrespective of who they might be, as long as they were in the areas surrounding Manhattan.

God, the world was so much simpler before then, or was he too ignorant to know the reality of the world before that?

When he first heard of the abnormality that was the Invisible Man, he had mostly shrugged it off, as rumours but then he saw the whisperings about the great deeds of the Invisible Man increase, to the point that everyone in his unit and more was continuously talking about the Invisible Man and his powers.

He had been uninterested at first but then it was confirmed by the higher ups in the military that the Invisible Man was, in fact, real and was operating out of Manhattan. He had feared that it was some sort of evil entity and their soldiers would be deployed to fight it off, losing many of them in the process.

And yet, once he had gingerly entered Manhattan, he had been amazed to find the difference. The very feeling in Manhattan was different from the rest of New York.

Roads were clean, there was no traffic, kids frolicked around the streets, void of any fear, and the tourists.

So many tourists came to Manhattan for a chance to see the Invisible Man in action. Well, they did see him in action that day.

He was having a nice picnic in Central Park when Maria was called in by her work for an emergency, so they cut the picnic short and got into a taxi, with the idea that he would take the kids to have lunch after dropping Maria off at her job.

Now, the situation did not raise any alarm bells for him because this sort of stuff was routine for Maria. What was not routine however was the bullet that had shot his taxi driver. He had thought him dead but apparently, he was only unconscious because of the shock.

The next moment, he felt a force acting on him as the entire taxi was overturned and a hole was punched through the roof of the car, showing the road on the other side.

He could do nothing but watch as presumably, the Invisible Man dragged his unconscious kids out of the taxi and then into a manhole cover that closed itself once the kids were inside. He sighed in relief at that but the situation was still unresolved. He could hear the bullets pelting the taxi's underbelly and it was a small miracle that the taxi was not on fire yet.

Due to the sudden jerk and probably due to shock, Maria had been knocked out as well. The taxi driver was out of commission, he did not have any weapon on him, and from the sound of it, the attackers were closing in.

He had a hunch that the Invisible Man was slowing down the bullets instead of outright stopping them for some reason, allowing the relatively fragile frame of the Taxi to survive the onslaught of bullets that had still not stopped!

He was broken out of his thoughts when the bullets momentarily stopped before the panicked shouts of people faded away. He flinched as a small explosion went off near the car, or at least the sound of one.

His hand snaked out to protect Maria as he felt movement from the hole in the roof of the taxi. His worries were unfounded however as he saw the small pistol that had landed right in front of him, followed by a combat grade knife followed by rifles, magazines, and more. More and more, as a veritable arsenal landed in front of him.

He snapped out of it as his training kicked in, snapping the knife first before cutting himself loose. He checked on Maria and after carefully cutting her out of the seatbelt, he placed her on one side before checking the conditions of the gun provided to him.

The gunfire had returned at this point with renewed intensity and he didn't know how long the Taxi could sustain all the damage it was taking, so he did the only thing he could at that point. He leaned on his training.

He armed himself to the teeth, his face pulled back in a snarl as he looked around, trying to get a vantage point when he felt a nudge on his pants. The next second, there was a piston in his hands pointed down, only to see a small sentence formed on the road

"Maria is safe. Go - IM"

He must have looked horrible back then, to the attackers, as he was continuously changing guns as all of the arsenal that was given to him floated around him, ready to switch at a moment's notice.

The worst thing was, he recognised some of those people and most of the equipment used as he slaughtered every last one of these bastards, with the help of the Invisible Man of course.

He had sustained no less than two broken ribs because of the slowed down bullet impacts.

But the good thing was that the kids and Maria came out unscathed from that encounter and he had found who was after his life.

If he had lost any of his family, he would have left all caution to the wind and hunted down every single one of them, down to the last corpse.

But…he still had Maria, the kids. He couldn't afford to do that. So, he had called in some of his trustworthy contacts.

It had galled him to use money acquired through illegal methods but he swallowed it all for his family. A hefty sum was used up to buy an entire building at the edge of Manhattan, nothing fancy.

The building was not fancy but it was…safe.

Yes, they were finally safe. They transferred their kids to a private school here in Manhattan, Maria joined another hospital after a few months of job search and he opened the Dojo.

All in all, a very peaceful ending to something that could have been the most violent time of his life.

"Alright, done!" He shouted the last part to Maria who flinched awake.

"What? I'm awake! I'm awake!" Maria said before she realised Frank had pranked her.

She pouted at him as he hugged her.

Yes, life was safe but more importantly, good here.

He would not trade it for the world.

"Excuse me? Is the Dojo open right now? The email said 6 so it is 5:59 right now," Maria separated from him, drawing an annoying look from him as he looked at the man standing at the entrance.

The moment his eyes landed on the person, his entire body tensed as he looked at the smiling face of the person who was probably the most dangerous person he had ever met in his life.

His thoughts started to wander off before he remembered that he was in Manhattan and this was the territory of someone who could tell the US Military to go fuck itself.

He forcibly relaxed his body before stowing away the broom and replying,

"Yes, this is the Dojo. I am Frank Castle and I will be your instructor here. You can wait in that room there while the others join us,"

"Okay, Thank you. My name is Axle Riddle, by the way,"

He shook hands with the absolute monster before sending him away.

Well, time to see just what curveball life had thrown his way this time.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 43 [March 2010]

–Axle Riddle–

Hmm, this was nice.

He could see that Maria was not just alive but happy which meant they were probably a whole family, including the kids as well.

It made him sigh in relief because it meant that his presence in the city had had a positive impact on some people's lives. IF Frank Castle could be made into a suburban Dojo instructor while acting lovey dovey with his wife instead of the death machine he becomes in canon, then there was hope.

Hope that he could change things and if he could change something so big, he would most likely change the course of the events that led to the Snap.

He looked on in amusement as he saw the people of his batch filter through the doors, dressed in various costumes that they thought would help them with the mobility of the class.

He didn't even know what he was doing here. He could already lift a car without even straining his muscles, using just his body. That level of strength meant that he would never have to worry about fighting with a baseline human, no matter how well trained they might be.

Sure, technique helps but if he was just plain faster, much faster than his baseline human opponent, no amount of technique would help them, now would it?

And yet, he found himself stagnating when it came to his physical fighting prowess. He had reached some sort of upper limit with his Telekinesis as well, mostly owing to limited ways of practicing it.

He still worked on increasing his range though, so that was slow going as well but it was advancing and that was important.

He didn't have a lick of idea when it came to hand to hand combat despite watching Frank do it hundreds of times in his Dojo. Yeah, he had been spying on Frank Castle when he came to know that he had opened a Dojo right here in Manhattan.

Apparently, he was the sole owner of the entire building he was in right now. That was some generational wealth right there, especially with the current property rates in Manhattan.

The thing with his second mind was that he could do things autonomously, without any conscious input from his side, once he had set the programming in the beginning. He had set it so that all violent crimes, collisions, and natural calamities are avoided without him even noticing it, even the ones that are outside Manhattan.

There were limitations of course, in the creativity of the solutions. That creativity was mostly required only outside Manhattan, because of the force constraint. Inside Manhattan, his second mind could uproot buildings with ease so stopping people and cars was an easy thing.

That was why he had to take over whenever there was an emergency at the edges of his range. That was how he had saved Frank Castle from those gunmen, only at that time he had no idea that it was Frank Castle whom he was saving.

His curiosity as to why such a force was deployed to kill a family drove him towards identifying the man and that led to him scanning the tag Frank had on him and that was how he realised that he was in the middle of the situation that would drive Frank to become the Punisher and kill hundreds of criminals in his one-man war against crime.

His response was not even in question as he immediately pulled both the kids into a nearby manhole cover, and then gave Frank all the tools he needed to do his job. Once Maria was secured, he watched as Frank rained holy fire on all the assailants, even sustaining two broken ribs because he could only slow down some of the bullets that were about to hit him centre mass.

After that, Frank drove off with his family, once the emergency services arrived of course. After that, he went out of his range so he completely forgot about it. He had no idea that Frank had bought an entire building in Manhattan, man he must have raided some drug lord for all his life's savings for Frank to be able to afford an entire building.

He had then never come up in any incident. Nothing special had happened in that area and he never really focused on Manhattan anymore as his second mind was more than enough to control everything and if something did happen, like multiple lives being snuffed out despite the second mind's efforts, only then he was alerted.

Since nothing like that happened, he had no idea that Frank was living here and running a Dojo of all things.

Now that he was here, he could see that life inside Manhattan had been good for Frank, judging by the little weight he had put on compared to before. The building was in good condition as well, having multiple tenants, so he must be getting a good amount of rent as well.

Well, glad to see that Frank Castle, one of canon's punching bags had his life turned around.

'All right people, take your positions, stand in marked spaces, and begin with your introductions. Today is your first day so we'll be taking it easy today." Frank began with an actual smile on his face.

That was….unexpected.

He stood in his position, surrounded by clueless people in their 20s, some middle aged people as well as one old lady. Wonder why she needs self defense classes at this age.

Frank didn't bat an eye as he began instructing the diverse group of people in his class, once the introductions were done.

The movements came easily to him as he did the motions, of course, while being under tons of weight by the subtle application of his powers. He had some problems in the beginning with blood flow because of the weight that was being applied on his body from all sides, as if the very atmosphere was pressing on him from all sides, but that was solved now.

The first time he did that without warning, turning off the pressure directly, some of his blood vessels had burst apart, knocking him out for hours. Fortunately, there was no brain damage….that he knew of, and now his blood vessels had come back stronger.

He had to do only a couple more times before his body didn't have an absurdly negative reaction to the pressure difference.

God, he really was becoming discount Goku, wasn't he?

The first session came to an end, with a small stretching session. Well, Frank really was a very good instructor, judging by the way complete laymen could do some stuff with a fluid motion just at the end of a 2-hour session.

He was currently helping the old lady stretch properly while telling her what movements to avoid, as most of the participants began leaving the Dojo, him following behind. He could feel Frank's gaze on him as he left the Dojo, right up until he left his field of view.

He grinned as he realised that Frank must have felt something. His instincts had not rusted yet, that's good.

He will make a good addition to the team then. Still, it was way too early to decide that. He would consult with the team before finalising the offer that he would give to Frank.

Oh yeah, he had a team now.

An actual superpowered team now.

"Samuel, keep an eye on him and his family," He used a Bruce Banner invention, [Patent Pending] that allowed him to easily communicate with his team members. It was a small pad that was hypersensitive to pressure, only the pressure pads were covered with a layer of hard plastic, making it impossible for anybody else to use it but himself. He applied pressure on specific points to convey his message, allowing Samuel, one of the Eight (Nine if you count Bruce) members of his team.

He was one of the Hulks who was blessed with immense power but more importantly, immense flexibility. His body could contort in ways that would leave gymnasts weeping with envy.

He was also the stealthiest of the bunch, capable of reaching anywhere without much effort, the best suited for surveillance.

Well, Randall could do it as well, what with his invisibility but the man was such a wuss, afraid of heights. He was adept with a computer, his skills only increasing after gaining his powers so he was the resident Computer Man of the team.

This was the first official mission he had assigned to any member of the team, and it was pretty easy too.

He did it mostly as a test to see how they would work together. He expected them to work through the mission like a breeze because they were all brothers.

Let's see, he thought to himself as he hailed a cab to get to his coffee. He had a hot shower waiting for him there.

So what if he couldn't act out of New York until the Invasion came? He could create a team right now which could help him act in far off areas, as long as they were trained properly. Once he could go out with them though, they would remain as his replacement in Manhattan and New York so that the city doesn't immediately fall into chaos and crime.

At Least for a while, until things stabilised once NYPD took over.

Things were finally looking up and he couldn't wait for Loki's stupid face to enter his range so he could punch his lights out. He hadn't decided if he wanted to do that with his fist or his mind though.

A question for later, then….


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 44 [May 2010]

–Axle Riddle–

He could feel it in his bones. With undeniable certainty. He couldn't deny it anymore.

He just knew that….he was a fool.

"God…" He sighed and muttered to himself as he watched the seven hulks brawl with each other, play fighting as if they were kids instead of fully grown adults. Though the Hulk enhancement made it so that it would be almost impossible to tell their age through sight alone, he knew that they were well into their 30s at this point.

They looked in their prime though, so that was it, but this kind of behaviour was not something that was expected from them, especially not from his team who he was hoping to mold into the world's best superhero team.

The competition was not there yet but he would be ready for them.

The Avengers.

The Defenders. Though, he wondered how much of that part of canon he had screwed over with his actions. Frank's rescue alone would derail some of it but he had a hunch that he would get to interact with some of that show's protagonists sooner or later.

Actually, that one of the protagonists of that team, was going to be the first real mission he would have them do.

Jessica Jones. If his memory served him right, it would be right about this time that she would encounter Kilgrave and serve an extended period of time under his tender mercies. That would set the tone of her life for several years to come, wreaking havoc on all of her relationships, familial or otherwise.

He wondered if Kilgrave could affect Samuel and the others. If that happened, it would be disastrous. They were certified powerhouses, definitely above even Spiderman level powers.

They were nowhere near Bruce Banner's Hulk level but they were certainly a grade above the street criminal level not to mention their sheer durability and endurance, making them walking pieces of tanks that would shrug off damage that any modern weaponry could inflict on them.

He had tried to crush them by just exerting force on their skin and it had taken a lot more effort than he had anticipated to make them feel pain. Of course, Tim, being the special case since he could transform between his solid state and semi liquid state with ease.

Tim could take the most damage but conversely, he was also the most vulnerable once he was back in his solid form. All in all, the team was well rounded, filling any gaps their brothers might have.

He could still remember his bewilderment when he first interrogated this bunch of brothers.

Apparently, Daniell Whitehall was involved with the Inhumans on a whole other level. He had never really stopped his pursuit of his human enhancement goal. Encountering one of their kind had only further fueled his hunger to find more of their king to experiment on.

Armed with Jiaying's organs, through which he regained his youth, he had probably continued committing atrocities wherever he could.

These seven brothers were special in the case that they were born of two Awakened Inhumans, at the same time. Yeah, it must have been quite a doozy for their mother to carry all of them at the same time.

They were born together and after undergoing terrigenesis at the same time as well, they emerged as formidable powerhouses.

Yeah, Jiaying apparently thought that their shared existence was some sort of sign regarding their powers so she ordered a custom Terrigenesis chamber to be built. All seven brothers were tossed into that chamber and exposed to the Terrigenesis crystals, kickstarting the Inhuman process.

Her gambit paid off because all seven of them came out, looking exactly the same as they did before, except with the seven glowing eyes.

That's it, that was how their powers manifested in the beginning but after extensive testing that every Awakened Inhuman goes through, they found that their powers were linked together.

Yes, all of them had a single power only. The power to live and die at the same time. A type of shared immortality, if you will.

As long as a single one of them lives, you can't kill all the other six. That doesn't mean that they heal any faster though. When they were just Awakened Inhumans, they could fight together as one, channeling everybody's strength into one, or sustaining fatal injuries without going down, like nothing happened.

In that dark tunnel, he had conducted a thorough interrogation of them, as to how they reached Manhattan, how they turned into Hulks, and what their motive was.

And that's how he found out what had actually happened.

Jiaying, in her quest to absorb more life force to extend her lifespan, had approached her parents with a proposal.

Apparently, it was just an open secret in the small village that Jiaying led that she was killing some of the Inhumans to absorb their life force. So, Jiaying openly approached the brothers' parents and presented her proposal to them.

She proposed to absorb limited amounts of life force from all seven of them, such that they won't die. As long as a single one of them was alive, the other six would remain alive as well. Jiaying wanted to turn all seven brothers into her personal life force furnace.

What a disgusting thing to do.

She had even successfully convinced their parents and that had been the last straw. The brothers, after a small scuffle, left the village after realising the extent of Jiaying's brainwashing of the whole village.

They left the village, to then explore the rest of the world. They travelled as far as they could, doing odd jobs to survive. They never really came to America though, too afraid of immigration, they told him.

After travelling for years, they decided to go home and see if their parents could be convinced, or rather, they were just feeling nostalgic since they certainly knew that their parents would be the same as they left them.

On their way to the village, they encountered Whitehall who immediately recognised their oddity. Oddly, he didn't immediately capture and dissect them. That seems to be his MO.

Unaware of the continued existence of HYDRA, the brothers were tricked into following after Whitehall who had all the resources in the world. He promised them to help topple Jiaying, after being surprised at her continued survival of course.

That was when Ross was contacted by the Heads of HYDRA in his quest to gather resources to make another batch of Hulks. As interested as HYDRA was in that exact plan, they didn't mean to make any overt movements regarding it as they knew it would bring undue attention when they still weren't ready to complete their goals.

As such, the seven brothers were bribed and "loaned" to General Ross for his experimentation, on the condition that all seven would undergo the experiment at the same time.

In normal times, General Ross would have denied that without a second thought, it would have been too risky to make non American people into Hulks, if the experiment succeeded that is.

Unfortunately, Ross must have been at his wit's end, what with no official support from the government on top of the hounding that Fury must have subjected him to. As such, he took the resources that HYDRA had given to him in exchange for the test subjects.

He must have justified it to himself by telling himself that the method to make more Hulks would remain with him.

That was how these seven brothers came into existence.

They came out of the test tubes, looking the same as before but vastly changed underneath. Ross must have been disappointed with the results and had ordered them to be dropped near Manhattan.

They were given orders to create distractions in Manhattan so that the Invisible Man's attention would be drawn away.

Well, that sounded like a lie to him, Axle thought to himself.

Fortunately, one of the brothers, Randall, was smart enough to do some research beforehand. He realised that antagonising the Invisible Man was a death sentence, even with the amped up powers.

So, they approached the soup kitchen, hoping to get some sort of audience.

And they did.

And now, he was stuck with a superpowered team of seven people.

Sure, it was way too risky on his part to trust a group of completely unknown people but the solution for that was provided to him by none other than the Ancient One.

She had been quite exasperated with him when he approached her with the problem he was having.

Something about having power but not knowing how to use it, she muttered to herself as she handed a book to him.

The book was titled: "A Dummies Guide to Spiritual and Soul Contracts".

So, yeah, that was how he got seven legit superpowered minions, someone who could not betray the contract conditions without him being notified immediately about it.

No, he did not make them sign slavery contracts. He was not evil.

But some reasonable restrictions that, when broken, would alert him immediately, in exchange for a safe space, was a viable deal in his opinion.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 45 [May 2010]

–Axle Riddle–

The contract with Randall and the others was quite simple. After the Ancient One had assured him that it would all work out and despite having literally zero experience with the Spiritual Contracts, he would not hurt the seven brothers, he went on with his learning experience with the book.

Sure, it was quite easy to make living arrangements for the Hulks. He didn't know if Ross even knew about them but they were out and about in the city quite often, more than enough for someone high up in a surveillance state to track down a couple of individuals.

He told Bruce about them immediately after getting permission from the Missus, i.e., Betty Ross. Both of them expressed quite a bit of interest in the only surviving Hulks aside from Bruce himself, especially the ones that looked quite normal, despite having the benefits, vastly reduced as they may be.

He knew from the downcast looks from Bruce that he would trade his vast amount of strength and potential, along with instantaneous regeneration, in a heartbeat for a chance at a normal life. And if that normal life somehow came with advanced benefits like those to protect his loved ones, that would just be icing on top.

Obviously, the brothers had not seen Bruce yet and that would remain for as long as it took him to trust them. Sure, he had the contracts now, but the contracts were not enforced.

They only served as a warning system, telling him if they ever betrayed him by breaking the scant few rules he had written in the contract from his side. He had not practiced the soul bounds on them because, for one, he never really planned on revealing his identity to them.

Secondly, it was absurdly dangerous to try and work with souls. Sure, his vast Astral energy gave him a leg up over others in the starting, but the finish line was still very far away. He didn't even know how he would begin mastering this field.

Sure, animals were plenty, and even they had souls. Actually, they were the perfect starting point because their souls were not that strong, so they couldn't resist the manipulation done by a much bigger and stronger soul.

Unfortunately, the very idea of doing that made him squirm in disgust. Using animals like that didn't sit right with him. That was why it had stumped him in the beginning.

Then, he turned upon the part of making a soul pact, a completely voluntary one that created a symbiotic relationship between the familiar and the master. He had not yet picked one animal to make that pact with but he was inclined with a species that could be evolved to something more combat oriented.

How cool would it be to have a murder kitty made even more murdery by his soul?

Ah, he could just imagine the day his murder mittens would rip out the throat of some Chitauri and then purr as she approached him for pets.

He was broken out of his thoughts by the brawl about to spread to the electronics section of the base.

"Guys! Look out!" Ah, Randall, the wise one noticed it but he was a tad bit too late.

As soon as it was obvious that they were on a direct crash course with some very expensive computer equipment, and some other electronic stuff that Randall had ordered, the purpose of which he had no heads or tails of.

Randall's warning fell on deaf ears as the rest of his brothers continued to come near the huge expensive setup that Randall was in the process of setting up.

He had enough as he flooded the entire underground base they were situated in, with the entire weight of his soul.

The stiffening of all the seven brothers told him that they recognised that something was probably wrong.

He bodily, or mindly(?), took hold of all the brothers, sans Randall, and made them float in the air. All of them realised what was happening and didn't even say anything as they were made to float mid air.

Randall opened his mouth to say something, probably in his brothers' defense but no words escaped his mouth as his mouth hung agape, witnessing the small tornada of the Hulk brothers he had created in the middle of the base.

The winds created from the thorough beating they took from each other's bodies crashing into each other were enough to scatter papers in the vicinity. After a minute or so of this, he unceremoniously dropped them on the floor.

"Now, Randall, show me the progress on your project," He communicated using the air vibration technique, producing a much more natural and smooth voice now, owing to months of practice.

Randall, clearly torn about tending to his brothers or following the commands of someone who was literally the only reason they were alive, chose the correct option and scrambled over to his station.

Now, he really did bash them against each other at speeds and forces that would have had Randall cleaning brain matter from the flooring but since all of them had particularly hard skin, all they did was groan as they collected themselves up from the ground.

"Um, Yeah, as I said before, we need some way of tracking everything that goes on in the city so we can effectively utilise all our resources," Randall started speaking as his station booted up, showing patchworks of the city's map.

Some areas of the map were brightly lit, but most of it was greyed out. It was as if the city was a game map and the brightly lit areas were the areas the player had explored beforehand.

"As you can imagine, the lit areas are the places where I can confidently say, with 100% certainty, that we can detect something happening and reach that place with a speed that would make it viable for us to act upon," Randall rambled on as he told him about the various paths he had mapped out of the subterranean base he had carved out for them, straight into various parts of the city.

He had been upfront with the Hulks, especially Randall since he was going to be the brains of the entire operation, that he was going to have them become his replacement, well as far as someone could replace an omnipresent power.

They had been shocked and afraid at first, thinking that he was going to die or something. He very easily reminded them of the fact that he was as powerful as ever with a simple application of power when he created this base for them, right in front of them.

Now, Manhattan is built upon some pretty tough bedrock but it was still rock and it broke under his powers as he expected it to. That same tough rock was the reason why the New York Skyline even existed, really.

The amount of weight that the high rises put on the soil could not be underestimated. He went into some sort of nerd trance and found out that, had it not been for the rock-solid bedrock that Manhattan was built upon, it would have been all but impossible for New York as a city to grow, because there was no space to expand since it was surrounded by water.

The bedrock was the only reason the city would grow up instead of growing out like LA has.

The good part about it was that public transport was developed as it should have been and everything became accessible within walking distance.

The bad news for them was because everything was so densely packed together, they could not really build some vigilante base in the city. No, it would be easily found and that was not something the Hulks could afford to happen.

They might have the strength necessary to hold their ground but they don't have the sheer leverage he does when he can, essentially, hold an entire major city hostage.

The amount of fighting he could do, at any point was tremendous and the sheer utility of that could not be measured in any way.

"What about the areas that are lit in green and blue?" His voice rumbled out in the small underground cavern he had hollowed out for them.

Randall's face lit up as he continued to speak while pointing at the screen, showing the lit up area that was broken up into the two colours.

"Ah! Those. The green area of the city is the area that we can feasibly reach without using any risky methods of transportation. The blue area is the one where we might have to use publicly available methods, where we could be traced back to the base because of it. I am working on getting stealth tech up and running but that would require experiments and while I am thankful that we have a place of operations. The power we are getting from the small makeshift hydro plant here is just not enough. We need more and doing so without getting attention is impossible so I have decided to look into the Arc Reactor,"

If he was present there, his eyebrows would be raised into his hairline as he saw that Randall was not spouting bullshit. He was actually seriously going to look at something that took two generations of geniuses to devise and improve.

Well, if he could actually crack the Arc Reactor, then maybe his powers had improved his intellect more than was obvious. If he could crack that, then maybe a couple of CHitauri tech samples should give him enough technological arsenal to figure out some truly dangerous pieces of technologies.

As for their worries about silent and discreet methods of transportation once he was gone, well, they shouldn't be worried about that.

Once he was free from the curtain of Imprisonment that shrouded Manhattan, he was going to approach the Ancient One with a proposal. A proposal to have someone willing from the Masters of the Mystic Arts to come to work for him.

Now he was 80%, maybe 70% sure that she was going to reject his request but there was no harm done in trying.

If the Seven Brothers proved trustworthy, he could just ask the Ancient One to train some of them. He was reasonably certain that the link to the big guy Below was not the same in all the Hulks.

Bruce should have the strongest link because he was the strongest there was. It made sense for the Ancient One to be worried about Bruce coming into the hallowed halls of Kamar Taj.

Now, someone like Randall, who was so obviously in control and vastly weaker than the Strongest Hulk would stand to reason that he also had the weaker link to the guy Below.

Maybe that would be reason enough for the Ancient One to teach him, at least the basics like portal creation.

Learning that alone would solve all their logistical worries. That would open a lot of doors for them, like setting up bases in remote parts of the world, inaccessible to most people.

He knew at least one such place in the Antarctic that would be perfect for them.

Though that was talk for a far away possible future. There was no way he was going to let some untrustworthy people get access to the Celestial Corpse in the South Pole.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.
A/N - See you guys on Monday. Gonna sleep like a baby this entire weekend. CIAO!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 46 [May 2010]

–Axle Riddle–

Hmm, this was going to be tricky.

He was looking over the plans for the Stark Expo and found, much to his chagrin, that he would not be able to exert enough force to actually destroy all the mechs that Vanko would send after Tony.

No, at most, he would be able to inconvenience them, using subtle applications of his power. Now, the only frame of reference he had was the Stark suit that Jarvis was remotely piloting the day Tony came to meet him at his office and that thing didn't have much in terms of what could be exploited by applying the most minimal of forces.

So, it might be that Hammer stuff would be wildly lower specced than one of Tony's suits and that stands to reason, considering Hammer Industries' reputation and history, but he couldn't exactly take that risk there.

The expo was in September, so he had just over three months to maximise his range as much as possible, increase the load of his powers, and train the seven hulks to help with the rescue operations.

Oh yeah, the good thing was that the expo, the entire expo was within his range, even the fringe areas with all the warehousing. So, the worries were not if he could cover all of the Expo, the worries were if he could do something worth a damn.

The hulks were a good option, they were varied, they had unique powers, were human looking so the crowds wouldn't panic but they just had the strength and not the mobility and sheer area of effect that he did.

Randall didn't have the operations set up so that they could hack into satellites or something to track everything happening in the expo so they could give real time updates to the rest of the team, allowing them to do their jobs better.

Then, as if a metaphorical light bulb lit over his head, his eyebrows rose as another idea formed in his head.

He hurriedly began downloading the expo map that was so graciously provided to anybody with an internet connection by Stark himself. He looked through the entire thing and was satisfied that it should not be too complicated to cover the entire thing with his powers.

Sure, stopping the mechs themselves should be out of his capacity, especially if he was doing something else at the same time, but getting people out of the way should be much much easier.

He could already see multiple underground levels with a single entrance that would be perfect to stash people and keep them safe inside it, all the while the other Hulks would destroy the other robots.

And if some Arc Reactors and drone samples managed to disappear from the rubble of the expo, well, it was not as if someone would miss the literal trash that Hammer and Vanko were going to peddle to the US Government.

Stark might notice, and SHIELD might notice as well but what were they going to do? Demand compensation from him?

Well, he will see to it when that happens.

Now that they only had three months of preparation time, it was time to see if he could do what he had thought of.

If he could feasibly achieve granting flight to all the seven Hulks at the same time, well, it would become far too easy to stop Vannko before he caused any real damage.

Sure, in the movies, they didn't show if anybody actually died or not but even if he considered the best case scenario and hoped that no one died, the glass shards from that huge auditorium being shredded by machine gun bullets from the drones alone would have caused multiple minor if not major injuries.

Sheesh, he couldn't even begin to think of the check that Stark Industries probably had to give to the victims of the attack. Well, he wagered that Sueing Hammer Industries for all its worth would have covered that.

Anywho, he had hoped for a quieter year, so the Stark Expo being in Queens thing completely slipped out of his mind. He had to even look out for the young Peter Parker who would be first introduced during the expo as well.

Might as well make sure that Uncle Ben doesn't die here as well. Sure, doing that, in all of Marvel Continuity, had had some major consequences, most of them not good but he didn't think that it was okay on his part to let an excellent man die just because his nephew, all but son, Peter Parker would grow up to become one of the greatest heroes of all time.

Sure, Peter did more good as SpiderMan than he would do as regular old scrawny Peter Parker but what would it say about him if he knowingly let Peter's father figure die?

Who-Okay, that just sent chills down his spine.

Maybe getting into a potential enmity with the Spider Man would not be a good idea for his continued good health.

Yeah, he mentally noted down to make some arrangements to have the Parker family moved into Manhattan, or if not, then as close to Manhattan as possible.

Now that that thing was sorted out, the spooky encounter with someone, most probably Madame Web, not counting…

"Randall," He called out using his badass voice in the house they were all crashing in. He had dug a hole straight through the basement of the house, into the subterranean cave that he had built for them as a base of operations.

Once again, a Russian Billionaire owned the house. The Billionaire doesn't ask any questions, just completes his request and he can live risk free in the wealthiest neighbourhood in the wealthiest country on the planet, without having to worry constantly about someone about to kill him.

Apparently, just being out and about without any hint of worry of an assassination plot was something that the Billionaire valued enough to complete any of his requests without question.

Billionaires should lead dramatic lives. Assassination attempts.

He scoffed to himself before refocusing on the house that the Nulks were living in. Watching them all scramble to wake up Randall who himself was so lost in the dream world that eleven his admitted badass but still very distinct voice was unable to rouse him, was cathartic.

In the end, Samuel got a mischievous glint in his eye as he went to the washroom and came with a bucket of water and just poured cold water on top of Randall's face, startling him awake.

"What? What? I am awake!" Randall exclaimed as he woke up and furiously tried to get the water off his face. Sometimes, he wondered exactly how comic book physics and biology worked because Randall, along with all six of his brothers, were borderline bulletproof.

Sure, Randall theorized that even Missiles might have a hard time against them, save for some armour piercing rounds, but he was not so daft as to declare them completely bulletproof.

That was the path of arrogance and that was how they got one of their teammates killed. Though, that possibility was pretty much negated by how their powers worked. Sure, for the power to work at its best, they would all have to be pretty much in sight of each other but even the weaker usage of their powers, which allowed them to live, without sharing each other's strength was more than enough.

"Yo! THe big guy's calling for you. Wakey wakey!" Samuel cackled as he slapped the top of Randall's head, creating a dull boom in the bedroom, as all six of Randall's brothers exited his bedroom.

"Uh, can you give me five minutes?" Randall asked out loud and he obliged. He might be a slave driver but he was not going to deprive people of their basic rights and dignity. That path led to a rebellion from his minions and that would just be tedious to handle.

"Look up Stark Expo and memorise everything about it. We are expecting an attack on the Expo. Figure out which one of your brothers can handle being thrown about through the air by my powers. We are going to need a wrecking ball and one of you hard skinned ones is going to be that," He declared as Randall booted up his makeshift workstation in his bedroom.

He said workstation but it was just a monitor with a hardline connection down to the subterranean base. Man, digging with his powers was a piece of cake. Especially in his domain where he could exert his full power with impeccable control as well.

Looking at the cost of building subways, he should charge the city a fraction of the cost to build those tunnels, at scale, so that the people of New York could have reliable and cheap public transportation to everywhere.

Though looking at the state of public transportation in not so densely packed cities, he had to shake his head and sign in mourning of the potential of public transportation in those cities.

Alas, the car lobbies won and now the government was just printing highways everywhere.

Traffic due to more cars with only a single person inside them? Just build another lane.

But reduce the dependency on cars? NOooooo.



If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 47 [August 2010]

–Randall Bo–

"Alright guys, gather up!" He shouted to the dorks as they were busy playing video games instead of training as he instructed them to. Well, at least they completed the bare minimum that was expected from him so that was good.

Only if it wasn't enforced by the fear of going in the bad books of their almighty lord and savi–ahem, He meant, Boss and saviour, the Invisible Man.

He felt the thumps as all six of them left whatever they were doing, with reluctant groans as they gathered around him.

In front of him, was the love of his life. The best thing money could buy in his opinion. The very best workstation setup that money could buy. Sure, he was a little constricted in terms of how much power he could use without tripping someone off but at the moment, they were fine with what little they could scrounge off the grid.

He was so very close to cracking the Arc Reactor that even if he got a glimpse into the workings of a finished one, he would be able to start making his own en masse. And wouldn't that be the dream?

To have a completely off the grid man cave with all the computers and toys one would ever need.

Ahem, before he could start drooling, he opened up the Stark Expo Map that he had compiled using the map that was publicly available on Stark Industries' website as well as their submissions to the fire and safety departments when they applied for the permits.

"Now, the good news is that the Expo is a fairly spread out event, so the density of people at any given place should be pretty low, barring some special event. That means that our job would be slightly easier to corral the people to safety."

"Um, wouldn't it be even tougher because then we would all be spread apart? You know our powers don't work normally when we are not in sight of each other," Bolton, the scrawniest of the brothers, hesitantly raised his point.

He pointed his stick at him, "You would be correct, but that is only before we were turned into beings capable of taking bullets to the face without flinching…."

"Speak for yourself…" Bolton murmured.

"Now that we are enhanced, I don't think we even need our base powers for this to succeed. All we need is a way of hiding our identity while making sure that the people are saved, i.e., handing them over to the emergency services."

All the brothers nodded at his explanation, finding it reasonable. After all, none of them had any training or powers that could help people heal or anything like that, so the next best thing they could do was make sure that the panicked people reached the people with the appropriate expertise.

"Now, to the main event,"

All of them exited the first floor of their base and entered the lower areas. At first, all they had were the areas above them. Only a single floor for all the equipment they had.

Sure, the amount of space on the first floor was enough to cram in all the equipment they had currently but what about in the future?

The answer to that question was six more underground floors, custom built by the Invisible Man on his demands. Well, more like suggestions but the point was that the floors were made with his inputs in mind.

He didn't know how to thank Ross for what he put them through, because he came to the other side a completely changed man. Well, all of them changed completely but he was not talking about their tough bodies.

No, he was talking about his own mind.

He could now think at dizzying speeds, and keep up with multiple trains of thought, all the while he maintained a normal conversation with someone else on the outside. Never in his wildest dreams could he have thought of reverse engineering the Arc Reactor just by watching some footage and seeing some old Soviet Era research papers he found on the internet.

Apparently, Howard Stark was not the only one who was responsible for making the Arc Reactor. There was some other Soviet scientist who also helped and probably knew much more so he approached the Invisible Man with this finding, hoping to get in touch with this Vanko guy to get some insight as to how the darned thing worked.

Unfortunately, that particular Vanko was dead and Vanko Jr. was the reason they were going to be deployed to the Stark Expo as he was the one who was going to attack the Stark legacy.

Vanko Jr. believes Stark to be responsible for his father's demise, and Howard Stark kind of was, but that was no reason to commit acts of terrorism and endanger the lives of innocent citizens.

"Well, this is what we will be after. Obviously, it is a crude imitation but consider the real opponent to be much harder than this because they will be able to fly as–"

"AAAAA" WIth a loud charge, Leny, the youngest of them(by seconds) charged at the crude construction of the Iron Man Drone.

He did a double take as Leny shoulder tackled the Drone into oblivion, scattering all its parts on the floor.

Apparently, Leny miscalculated the force required to destroy the drone so he stumbled once the drone fell apart with minimal force and almost face planted into the ground.

His shoulders shook as he held in a chuckle in exasperation. Leny was always the youngest and the most impatient out of all of them.

"See, wasn't so tough, now was it?" Leny stood up from the ground, dusted off imaginary dirt from his shoulders, and looked at them expectantly, as if waiting for someone to praise him for a job well done.

Of course, even the daftest of them (looking at you, Tim) was not fooled with the display. If it were this easy to destroy their enemies, then Randall would not be busy planning the entire thing and making sure that everybody got the training they needed for the D-Day.

"Invisible Man, if you please?" Randall sighed and looked at the ceiling, well not the ceiling but at the nearly omnipresent deity that watched over all of Manhattan and most of New York as well.

"Uh?" was the only thing Leny could say as he was bodily lifted by the Invisible Man and deposited on the side of the brothers, where he was promptly slapped on the back of his head by Randall.

"See? Watch and learn," Randall said as all of them felt the heavy presence of the Invisible Man in the room.

He watched, transfixed as all the components of the Iron Man Drone floated before coming together, seemingly held together in thin air.

Leny was then pushed forward by someone, "Now go try it out,"

Leny gulped but then, as if he got a rush of courage from somewhere, he straightened his shoulder and looked back at them, giving them a thumbs up, "Ha! Just a scrap of metal. I'll destroy it in no time,"

He then turned around and with all the bravado he could probably muster, charged at the Drone who, somehow despite being literal metal, managed to convey the feelings of boredom from its posture.

He watched in amusement as the Invisible Man piloted Drone now toyed with Leny and all his attacks. Sure, they had trained a bit in the past months but they were neither professionals in normal human baseline fighting nor experts in enhanced combat.

He had discussed it at length with the Invisible Man and they had reached the consensus that Frank Castle, the middle aged Instructor at a nearby Dojo was a good choice for it. His record indicated that he would rather die than betray someone and as long as his family was safe, he would do anything one asked of him.

Seeing that his entire family lived in Manhattan and expressly avoided going out of the borough meant that he was concerned for their safety. And what better way to get Frank to thank the person who was protecting his family by working for him?

Having Frank on their team, even in just training capacity would help a lot because, from his files, Frank was an absolute monster when it came to hand to hand combat. They could definitely learn a lot from him.

"Oooof!" He winced back as the Drone decked Leny with a particularly hard uppercut that pushed Leny a couple of inches in the air before he was dropped on the ground, breathing heavily.

Leny just lay there, pointing his one finger at the Drone, his mouth moving but no words coming out of them before his hand fell and he closed his eyes.

Randall rolled his eyes internally because there was no way that amount of damage was enough to actually knock out Leny. he was just acting out because he didn't get a chance to inflict a single blow on the Drone while the drone completely destroyed him.

Well, that is what you get when you try to fight someone who is nearly omnipresent, can act on different things all at once, and is capable of ripping apart buildings at their base.

Thinking like that, this outcome was obviously expected.

"Come on, form a line. Everybody gets a go,"

"What?"

"At the Murder Bot?"

"What did we ever do to you, Randall?"

"You mean aside from the constant bullying, emasculation, and more?"

"...."

"....."

"That's what I thought. Now, GO!"

"..Fine…."

Ah, it warmed his soul to see all his brothers gang up on a single machine and still fail as the Invisible Man summarily kicked all of their asses.

In the end, all six brothers lay in a heap as they groaned in pain, which was totally unnecessary because he knew the amount of force with which the Drone could hit them, they had calibrated it beforehand.



If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 48 [August 2010]

Stark Expo

–Axle Riddle–

He was currently in the Stark Expo, or rather a 3D render of the Stark Expo. Of course, by "he", he meant that his awareness was there in the underground base where the product of Randall and Bruce's big brain colliding together was being used to create a rather lifelike rendition of the Stark Expo that was about to happen in September.

So far, he had been monitoring the news, and as hidden as it was, he could see it in Tony's behaviour, both in public and in terms of the moves he was making with his company.

Huge philanthropic donations.

Multiple parties. And more.

It was clear for him to see that Tony thought that he was going to die and was making all these moves. He had also stopped going out as Iron Man. Probably because he knew doing that would only poison him more and kill him from within.

The Grand Prix was scheduled for the last week of August and the Stark Expo was scheduled for the second week of September. The events in the movies moved fast which meant that Stark went from being completely poisoned, almost dying from the Palladium, to creating an entirely new element and then kicking ass with Rhody, all in the span of 15 days.

Damn, the man was good when it came to his field.

Yeah, he had made the executive decision of letting Bruce meet Randall because what's the worst that could happen?

…..

….

He just tempted Murphy, didn't he?

Oh well, moving on, he elected to, after discussion with Betty ofcourse-you don't offend the Missus of the Banner house, introduce Bruce to Randall and co. Betty wanted to come as well, to meet the new generation of Hulks but Bruce was against it so they decided that she would join them once Bruce deemed them trustworthy enough.

It was justifiable, from Bruce's perspective because nothing had ever been able to kill or stop him before, so he was not in any real danger from the Hulks but Betty was still a regular human so risking her life was not justified in any sense of manner.

Once Bruce and Randall were introduced to each other, they quickly bonded with how big their heads were. Seemingly shouting off random things, Bruce just handed a list of items to thin air that he then immediately transferred to the Russian Billionaire, what's his face.

He didn't bother learning about people he could replace as shady Billionaires like him were dime a dozen in Manhattan and were more than willing to use their money if they felt like they could gain the Invisible Man's favour by doing so.

Money was literally the cheapest thing for them. They could burn a bag of it every day and still not care or have to worry about where the money would be coming from, at all.

The Billionaire probably realised the weirdness and how wide ranged the list was but didn't complain as he organised the drop off in the river as fast as he could. The method for delivery was something else as well. First off, he took the delivered machines and then had them placed in a sewer, where they were checked by Randall with a device that could detect bugs of all kinds.

Thankfully, the Russian what's his face had more intellect than he gave him credit for because there was no sign of any breaches on the equipment.

So, the Billionaire gets one more chance to be of help to the Invisible Man. Good for him.

Then that equipment was transported down to the subterranean base and kept there until Bruce and Randall were ready to work on it. Apparently, they didn't need that exact same machine, they just needed the parts of it to create something new.

He looked at the scrapped remains of the machine and had the urge to tell them that he could have just ordered that specific part instead of them having to gut what was presumably quite an expensive piece of equipment.

They ordered a couple more of these machines from which they took specific parts and left the rest as storage, finally creating their magnum opus, as Rnadll liked to call it.

He was pretty sure that this was just another month for Bruce Banner whose head ran at speeds competing with geniuses like Shuri and Tony Stark.

The holographic system.

Now, they had a 3D rendering of the Stark Expo and all its routes projected in front of them, at 1/20th of the scale, which was still pretty big. Damn, the Stark Expo really was a very big deal if the size of it is any indication.

And all of it was house full as well. All the companies worth a damn in the modern world had purchased a spot in the Expo, to showcase their products or to attract investors or just for brand recognition, it mattered not.

The Stark Expo was the place to be if you want your company, especially Tech Company, to be considered as part of the ones that had the potential to change the world.

Not in a good way, mind you. But change the world, nonetheless.

"Now, I am all for innovation but can someone please tell me why we had to waste over 10 days on this holographic system when a normal monitor or at most, a projector screen would have worked?" His voice rumbled in the underground cavern they were standing in.

Bruce and Randall both looked at each other and then replied in unison, "It was cool?"

He almost facepalmed in frustration back in his office. Here he was, hoping for it to be something cool like a device that would track down every single Hammer Bot and destroy it but it turned out to be a Holographic projector, something that Stark had in his basement already.

He created a sighing sound to let them know he was disappointed in them. 'Come on, guys. You are better than this. The expo is just a month away now. Where are we on the Arc Reactor for energy? Speaking of which, I had to go through so many hoops to procure that power load, just for this demonstration?"

The twin winces he got from Bruce and Randall were telling already.

It was not as if he didn't see them make the machine. He just didn't know what they were doing, not being scientifically inclined and all. He did see them dismantle a couple of Stark Tech as well but the end result of that seemed to be a small ring which was once again, installed in the projector as well.

So, his hopes of that being the Arc Reactor were once again dashed.

"Told you we could fool him…" All of a sudden Randall turned to Bruce.

What?

"Hey! Invisible Man? Take a look around and see where the wires to the projector are going and track them down." Randall shouted in the air as he gleefully rubbed his hands and advanced towards the projector installed in the middle.

Apparently, the projector needed to be in the center of the image being rendered.

He followed the trail of electricity and found it to be exactly as planned. It was split into multiple connections which were then burrowed underground to reach multiple properties owned by Whats-his-face, all of them commercial electricity lines.

So what was the catch here? Even the switches were turned on so he was not getting what the joke was.

In the meantime, he watched as they began dismantling the projector as well for some reason.

Just as he was about to explode in frustration, Randall reached into the core of the projector and removed the same ring that they made from Stark Tech.

Hope bloomed in his mind as he watched Randall carefully put it on top of a table and then remove the cover, revealing what was underneath.

"Tada!" Randall declared as he pointed at the Arc Reactor on the table.

How could he have not sensed that?

"When we first made it, we realised that you could not sense it, at all. All you could see was probably a ring so that got us thinking.

You, Invisible Man, cannot see energy, can you? Pure energy is invisible to you. It is visible to you now because we made adjustments to the energy frequencies, allowing some of the heat to be turned into visible light,"

Bruce went into a long winded explanation but he was not listening to any of that.

"So, does this mean that?"

"Yes, the base will soon be on uninterrupted off-the-grid clean power so we can begin some of our more energy intensive experiments soon," Bruce continued as they put the ring on top of the Reactor and placed it into a small container.

Well, Damn.

It was good that they figured out how to create the damned Arc Reactor but it was even better that they managed to figure out an apparent weakness to his power.

He could sense power but not pure energy for some reason. So, the Infinity Stones' energies and attacks would mostly be invisible to him.

Good to know.

"What are we waiting for then? Let's get this show on the road…" He gave the orders for them to go ahead and forward him the list of materials they might need and went on with his day, starting with a long meeting with Sarah.

He was just about to get to the good part when Tony freaking Stark entered his range, clad in his black Armani suit as his jet just landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Damn.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 49 [August 2010]

–Axle Riddle–

Huh. This was unexpected.

Tony Stark coming to New York was not surprising, what was surprising was the way he came here. In his jet.

In the back of his mind, he knew that Tony would definitely want to meet the person who owned a tenth of his company so this meeting was expected but what he didn't expect was for him to come at this time.

At this point in time, Tony knew he was dying but his actions were not that reckless. The real recklessness would begin from the Grand Prix next month but this was fine as well, he could take the opportunity to see if he could do something about the Palladium in his bloodstream.

If he could, he might just have another billionaire's favour, only this time, the favour would be much more valuable because it would come from Tony freaking Stark.

Although, he could just be here for the Tower that he was presumably going to build sometime in the future.

His doubts were kept unresolved as Tony, after exiting his private Jet, donned a hoodie and track pants, and entered a yellow cab, all clad with sunglasses, even though it was not even a sunny day.

Damn, this was shady and he had a feeling that Tony was going to end up right at his office doors.

"Sarah, I think I'll take a raincheck for now, I'm not really feeling well at the moment. I'll be back tomorrow" He said to Sarah as he donned his suit and exited his office as well.

Since Tony wanted to meet him clandestinely, let him meet in one of the most open areas in the entirety of New York, Central Park.

When Tony first came within his range, he had scanned him from top to bottom, including the Arc Reactor as well but he had thought nothing of it when he couldn't scan the ring of the Arc Reactor, the place with the pure energy.

He had then uploaded, for the lack of a better term, that scan into the Second Mind thing he had going on with his mind and programmed it to alert him once someone with the same scan popped up in the range of his spatial awareness.

That same alert popped up right now so he was on his way to the Central Park now. As soon as he exited the office building, he could see Tony put his finger on the comms that he had placed in his left ear and then tell the driver something.

Well, that seals it. He was coming to meet him. Why in such an attire, he did not know but this could be fun.

This had the potential of spooking Stark. Well, he was a dying man at the moment so he could not do any overt moves but let's see.

____xx___

Tony Stark was not a man who would readily admit his weaknesses. And yet, he had to accept that he was dying now.

The Palladium in the Arc Reactor, the same thing that was keeping him alive at the moment, was also killing him. Slowly but yeah, it was killing him.

Already he could feel the symptoms, and the more he used the Arc Reactor and the Iron Man suit, the faster the poisoning rate. If he stayed away from the suit completely, he could probably stretch it to two or more years.

If he tried to match his normal routine, he would be lucky to survive for 6 more months.

He had tried everything. Every known combination on the periodic table and none of them stuck. Nothing and absolutely nothing could replace palladium in the Arc Reactor.

So, here he was, on his way to meet the guy who owned a tenth of his company, in a hobo disguise. He had to make sure that this Axle person did not pose a threat to Pepper's control of his company once he inevitably passed away.

Yes, he was going to give everything he ever owned to Pepper. She is the only thing he has left in his life.

"Huh, what a sad, lonely life," No Siblings, Parents, nobody. Aunt Peggy's condition had destabilised again, from what he had heard from her retainers.

Maybe, he should meet her before he croaked.

"Did you say something?" The cab driver looked back at him as he must have heard his murmurings.

"Ah, no. Nothing," He said as his mind went to the conversation he was about to have.

Threats would not work because he had nothing to work on here. Sure, the records of those transactions could work as ammunition at the SEC but there was no guarantee that the US government could not be lobbied to drop the case in exchange for phenomenal wealth.

No, he had to talk with him and get his measure. So far, this Axle person has not made a single move in the company. His representatives came and just agreed with everything that he proposed, no questions asked.

In fact, his representatives on the board actually pushed, much more aggressively than others, to expand the Arc Reactor lineup as a commercial product and sell it to everyone on the planet.

They had some good ideas as well. Already, there was the first Arc Reactor powered Cargo ship being built in the Netherlands along with an Arc Reactor powered Subway line in China. Both of them were first-generation products but he could definitely see the potential in them, especially the Cargo Ship part.

That alone would revolutionize the Shipping industry. It would also mint Stark Industries a lot of money but as he was now, he was not really into that so the geeks at Stark Industries were working on it, with Jarvis informing him if something happened that required his attention.

There was also the part of giving powered fusion reactors to a foreign communist government like China in the first place but so far, they had not received a single backlash. So, the folks on the board were optimistic.

"Thanks," He gave the cab driver a crisp 100$ tip and came into Central Park, the one place where it doesn't smell like New York.

Jarvis gave him directions as to where Axle was. That led him to a secluded corner of the Park with a bench under the shade of a large tree.

That was convenient.

"So, you knew I was coming then?"

"Hello, Mr.Stark. What can I do for you today?"

'Don't play coy with me. How did you know that I was coming?"

"Mr. Stark, how did you know I was right here? You have your sources, I have mine,"

"Fine. How much for your shares?"

Axle merely deadpanned at him, "That's your idea? You come here, out of nowhere, spooking me, and then tell me that your great idea to secure your company's shares is to buy them from me?"

"Fine. What do you want then?"

"Let me make this clear to you, Mr.Stark. Me and the people with me mean no harm to you or your close ones. We just want a better world and the Arc Reactor tech alone would make sure that the damage we have done to the planet in the past 100 or so years would be resolved in a couple of decades at most if you worked proactively, that is."

"So, that's it. I am supposed to believe that you invested billions of dollars just for a better world. You don't seem like the altruistic type to me, Mr.Riddle,"

"Well, Mr.Stark, unlike you, I am very young and have a lot to live for. You are an old man in your 40s and as such, might not see the value of growing up in a cleaner world. I do. So, if that is all, I'll take your leave. I am not selling any of my SI shares anytime soon."

He watched as Axle just left after waving at him.

"Jarvis?"

"Voice analysis along with heartbeat monitoring says that there is a 97% chance that it was the truth."

"Alright, good enough," He gulped his coffee in a single gulp and stood up, his eyes falling on the large gathering of people in front of him.

"Uh, Jarvis?"

"That is the daily congregation for the Invisible Man, sir. I believe they are there to ask for help." Jarvis helpfully supplied.

"...Maybe, you should try it as well, sir. Your issue-"

"Hey, J, we are not into that hocus pocus stuff. We are men of SCIENCE!, remember?"

"WHOOOA!" He said, shocked as he was dragged back down on the bench he was sitting on before.

"Jarvis?"

"Sir, I believe it is the Invisible Man,"

"Greetings, Mr.Stark," An electronic voice greeted him as a small phone popped out of nowhere in front of him.

His throat ran dry as he realised that someone who could rip apart buildings was talking to him at the moment. He had never felt so powerless, even if he did technically have the suit on standby outside the city.

"Um, Hi? I am not going to call you that stupid man, by the way," He snorted as he leaned back into the bench, trying to get comfortable.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 50 [August 2010]

–Axle Riddle–

He snorted as he got into a Cab and sped off to his apartment, the one that was undoubtedly tagged by Jarvis to be surveilled 24/7. After all, he was one of the few people who could become a thorn in Pepper's side once Tony was dead, at least that is what Tony must have thought.

The man was a giant baby. He would live, no worries about that.

He was currently holding Tony Stark kind of hostage as he wanted to get his opinion on the existence of the Invisible Man and all that he entailed.

Back in Central Park, he used the same tactic he did when he didn't want to scare people off by doing his neat trick of generating sound out of nowhere. Unfortunately, that voice was scarier than what most people could handle.

So, the classic text-to-speech software work around it is for now.

"Greetings, Mr.Stark. What brings you to the Big Apple, aside from the stalled Tower project you were working on?" He asked Tony.

Tony leaned back into the bench, trying to get comfortable but he could see that he was deeply uncomfortable with the situation he had landed himself into. His muscles were tense and his heartbeat was rising.

He was…scared.

"Mr.Stark, rest assured, I am not here to hurt you."

"Oh, then I can leave right now if I wanted to?"

"I just wanted to have a chat before you leave." He tried to defend himself. This was going horribly. Stark was way too defensive right now.

"No, Thank you. Make an appointment like the rest of 'em" Stark said before he got off the bench in a single move and marched past the phone that was floating mid air.

At the same time, he could feel a fully assembled Iron Man suit enter his sensing range, on a trajectory aimed directly at Central Park.

"The Palladium…" Tony stopped right in his tracks at the word, "--It's killing you, isn't it?"

The phone then floated back in front of Tony who looked at it with wariness and caution. The speed of the suit coming in here increasing as Jarvis must have sensed Tony's distress.

"H-How do you know that?"

"I know a lot of things. Also, you should know that I can scan things down to a very minute level the moment they enter Manhattan. As such, I can see the gunk in your bloodstream even now,"

"I see. Well, I am not going to beg for your aid or something. So, what's it gonna cost me?" Tony tried to project a nonchalant stance but he knew that he was desperate for something. Something to help him live out a normal human lifespan.

Too bad, Tony was someone who had a fate, and humans with their own grand fate rarely lived to old age. It was an ugly truth but it was the truth.

Except, he was here now and he would not let his childhood favourite heroes to become the punching bag of the universe's will.

"I can do many things, Mr.Stark but that is even beyond my powers. I cannot cure you–"

Tony's face closed off as he began processing his statement before he could hear the end of it.

"---but I can help alleviate the symptoms." He said as the parcel from the base finally reached Central Park, through his very own fastest delivery system, i.e., flying through the air.

"What do you— Who- HEY!" Tony said as he stumbled back and removed the needle that was stuck in his neck.

The suit suddenly activating all the repulsor arrays and weapons suite before presumably aiming everything at him because Jarvis detected a threat to his creator.

He merely glanced in the direction of the suit, freezing it in place with his powers as it had entered Manhattan's airspace by now. He then willed for it to slowly come closer. He could feel its servos straining to make some movement, any movement but his powers were absolute in this space and as such, he was able to shut down the servos as well.

"That should keep your head clear for quite a while as you work on solving your problem," He said over the sounds of Tony vomiting out Dark Blood over to the side, the lithium dioxide doing its trick.

For some unknown reason, he remembered the name of the compound that Romanoff gave Stark when she revealed her secret identity as a spy. So, he used his handy dandy Russian Billionaire cash and ordered it. He then confirmed the scenario with Bruce who confirmed that it would work with Palladium poisoning and also that no element on the Periodic table would work aside from Palladium, for the power core in the Arc Reactor.

He was the person who had reverse engineered a freaking Arc Reactor without any schematics or anything. Well, Randall did help too but from Randall's own words, Bruce did most of the heavy lifting anyway.

"Oh, And–" He said as Tony's suit finally reached him, bound in his ethereal grip as it was, "--Here's your suit back,"

He finally let go of the suit and realigned the servos back to their original position as the suit immediately unfurled around Tony Stark and then wrapped around his form once he was done vomiting.

"WHAT.THE.FUCK. was THAT?" Tony's voice boomed out of the suit once he turned around before he broke into a coughing fit.

"That, Mr.Stark, was lithium dioxide, one of the few things capable of stemming the Palladium poisoning of your system."

"Great, I just need a crateful of them then,"

"--Let me finish, you overgrown man-child. That can only stem the symptoms and never treat the root cause. You will have to do something about the PAlladium in the Arc Reactor. That is just a temporary solution, one that will only make you feel better but won't actually do anything to cure you. Remember that,"

"Crystal clear. Quick question before I leave you to your scary stalking duties. Did-"

"Bold of you to assume I am not doing my duties even right now, Stark," He had quite a fun time interrupting Stark mid sentence as he liked to do to other people.

"...Like I was saying, did Banner help you with this? Because there is chatter all over the military comms about the Hulk taking refuge in Manhattan under your umbrella,"

"And what if it is?"

It was weird how even through the armoured plating, he could actually feel Tony's grin. "Nothing. Just making sure that one of my SCIENCE! Bros was fine, that's all. If that is all, O' Almighty benevolent peeper, I will take your leave," Stark said, bowed mockingly, and then blasted off, ruining what was perfectly good overgrown grass.

People these days have no respect for nature, overgrown lawn as it was anyway.

The phone was then summarily crushed into fine pieces, the dust of which was then swept away by a gust of wind he had generated.

He wondered how things would go because Tony was still not out of the red but at least his mind would be much clearer as he was now. Hopefully, he doesn't perform the same stunts he did in the movies where he let Rhodey get a suit.

His attention was brought to Bruce who was watching TV.

"Yes?" He asked Bruce as he formed words using sand. Betty had the brilliant idea of doing that to reduce E-waste where it was unnecessary. The sand was mixed in with a color that contrasted with the white light being emitted from the plate on which the sand was resting.

As such, he formed words with the sand and then it was immediately visible because of the contrast ratio.

The couple had multiple such frames hung in all the rooms and in various corners for him to communicate with. They also added an aesthetic vibe to the place, as Betty would say.

Bruce pointed at the news which showed Tony Stark's Iron Man blasting out of Central Park. News reports theorised that Tony Stark was here to meet the Invisible Man.

"Why is that idiot using that suit even with the Palladium poisoning?" Bruce almost yelled as he pointed at the TV once again, showing that Tony was using the very energy intensive flight function of his suit.

"I don't understand the way the minds of geniuses work, Bruce. More importantly, the dose worked but it is not a cure. We will see to that problem when the time comes. Besides, with the Stark Expo in Queens, he is bound to come here eventually. I will see what we can do then, alright?"

"Alright."

"Speaking of the Expo, would you and Betty like to go? Only on the first days," He hastily added after Bruce deadpanned at thin air.

"Look, I know that your range extends to Queens as well but we both know that it is not as…powerful as it is in Manhattan. I don't think it's wise of me to endanger not just Betty but all the innocent people there, on top of the Drone attack that you said would happen there. So, no, I am happy staying in Manhattan. Besides, I have a lot of places left to visit."

"....Fine,"

"Just next weekend, we have a date planned for the entire day, from morning yoga to the full body massage at night. I am looking forward to that.

I have started looking forward to just dinner with Betty because it's not just dinner, it's dinner with Betty, you know?

I just wanted to thank you for allowing me to experience normal life. It is more than I could ever ask for. I just don't want to do anything that could risk things."

"....I understand," he said before receding from the apartment.

Damn, didn't think Bruce felt like this.

Still, this was good. It meant that Bruce had finally moved on from his fixation to "fix" himself and was finally allowing himself to enjoy the good things.

When will he get that, he wondered to himself as he resolved himself to another long day of crime stopping and moping about his future partner even though he made no effort on his part to go out and meet new people.



If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 51 [August 2010]

–Axle Riddle–

Welp, there goes his expectations of Tony Stark not doing anything reckless out the window.

Axle watched as Tony Stark entered the F1 Car and still took part in the Grand Prix, despite his mind not being addled by the increasingly tainted blood he was carrying around in his body.

He sighed as they telecasted the fight Tony had with Vanko. Vanko was still sporting that beat up suit with the whips. He winced as one of the whips sheared the very expensive Rolls Royce Phantom in half while Tony suited up with his very portable, probably lightweight suit.

It was kind of awesome to watch on TV, watching something that would only be CGI in his previous world. Then, he witnessed the somewhat anticlimactic battle, mostly because he knew what the end result of that was going to be.

The Hulk brothers in the base were not cursed with the same knowledge so they were on their toes, watching as the battle between good and evil culminated in the victory for the good. He rolled his eyes as he watched Randall cheer when the camera panned around to show Tony Stark's Iron Man looking around with his stoic faceplate, with Vanko lying at his feet with the knock-off Arc Reactor crushed.

"Alright boys! The good news is that Stark Survived. Bad news, this means that the Expo will happen and the attack is now even more likely to happen in the Expo. So, chop chop!" He said as the hulks began their training on the now vastly bigger floor that he had carved out for them underground.

Randall was not being trained because he was going to be the "Guy in the chair" in his own words, the one who would type on the keyboard and counter hack the hack that the bad guys would do.

"I assume you want some samples from the fight?" He asked, with his voice lowered down. After training it, he could now make it so that the source of voice could be manipulated and he was now projecting his voice from just behind Randall.

"Jeez! Stop doing that," Randall said as he continued to work on some sort of schematics in front of him.

"Don't worry about the hack part. With Bruce assisting me, we can defeat whoever it is on the other side. Shouldn't be much of a problem. The problem is on your side, you do know that, right?" Randall said nonchalantly as he continued to work on his computer. Pesky things like eye fatigue and blue light radiation not mattering to someone who could take bullets to the face and not even flinch.

He did know. They had conducted some tests, in conjunction with Bruce, and to his shame, they had found that at a given time, he could only "pilot" two hulks by swinging them around in the air, to help Tony against the small army of drones that Vanko was going to throw at them.

Vanko, in his huge suit, should not be much of a problem for the Hulks because while the suit was significantly bulkier than other renditions, well, he could just throw one of the Hulks up and up in the air, and then simply…drop them, making for a truly devastating bullet that would turn Vanko into little more than pulp.

As for the part that came after Vanko's death, his little kill switch of every Arc Reactor exploding would be taken care of by him with ease. He might not be able to lift all the hulks in the air at the same time, dozens of lightweight Arc Reactors were another thing altogether.

"Alright, we have less than a week. Let's make sure that it doesn't come to the point of Bruce getting "stressed" out if you know what I mean," He whispered to Randall whose body went stiff as he shivered minutely the moment he mentioned Bruce stressing out.

And for good reason.

Randall, with his big head, had advanced by leaps and bounds as he learned all there was about hacking, and after getting curious about this Bruce person and how they were to be around tiptoes around that person, on the Invisible Man's orders, Randall had gotten curious and ended up hacking into some Military contractor's databases.

It was apparently much easier to do that than trying to hack into the Army's databases, which could also be done, according to him.

There, the brothers finally saw the footage of The Hulk and just how much stronger he was compared to all of them. Sure, they were almost untenable when it came to the perspective of a normal human but the gulf between the brothers and the OG Hulk was just as much if not wider than the gulf between the brothers and normal humans.

From then on, Randall began treating Bruce with reverence during all of their talks. It was kind of a win-win in his books. Bruce got someone academically inclined, aside from Betty to talk to. And Randall understood who and what Bruce was and conducted their interactions civilly. This meant that none of the other brothers ever got into a direct conversation with Bruce without supervision.

'Alright, have you decided on which two will be the ones who will be in the air? So that we can begin creating plating of armour and weapons for them," He asked Randall because while the Russian Billionaire had essentially unlimited funds and connections, even they took time to reach Manhattan because of the increased scrutiny around the entire area due to his presence.

"I will give you the list by the end of the day. Now, will you please give me some peace and quiet so that I can work?" Randall sassed at him and was' that a change in their behaviour from before. They used to quiet down and stiffen whenever he declared his presence but, at least for Randall, it doesn't quite do the trick anymore. He is not scared of the Invisible Man anymore.

Speaking of the Russian Billionaire, he was quite a useful little fellow and while the extent of their conversation never exceeded past him creating a list and putting it into his hands, he should probably look into him a bit. He never really had the need to look into the Billionaire, especially since he never really tripped on anything.

He lived in a penthouse suite, sure but so did all the other billionaires. Private security was made redundant by yours truly so most ultra rich people didn't have an entire convoy surrounding them as they walked through the streets. Now they looked like regular people in regular clothing walking around the city, going to regular places in regular subway trains.

The Russian Billionaire frequented a deli that he liked, had a favourite pizza place, a favourite coffee place. He went to all those places using the subway system, which was very clean these days.

Courtesy of yours truly.

He was sure that the cleaners of the Subway system worked very hard but he was also sure that they were, as was common in most parts of the world, understaffed, underpaid, and overworked.

So, he did one more good deed in his name. All the trains that entered Manhattan were cleaned thoroughly by him. Not a single speck of vomit, dust, food, etc. was kept in those trains as they passed his area. He also made sure that the Mayor got a stern warning from him about the cleaners.

If they suddenly found themselves out of a job, well, he didn't know what he would do but the Mayor would certainly find himself living in the same filth that he would clean from the subways every day.

He could see the Russian Billionaire in Central Park on his afternoon run. So, he wrote down on the special notebook that he kept in his wardrobe, that he would get a list of items in the evening that needed to be delivered expeditiously.

He continued to work on his range, in the meantime. He wanted to at least be able to lift and fling around three hulks before the expo. He had 15 days for that to happen and he had a hunch that he was going to need all the power he could bring to bear if he wanted to finish the Stark Expo without even a single injury, let alone any casualty.

He would have even kept Vanko alive if not for the fact that he would only be busted out of whatever prison they put him in, and then made to create cheap half working Arc Reactors to be sold to the world.

Now, he was not some paragon of capitalism and intellectual property rights but he knew that Stark's Arc Reactors were eventually going to be distributed to the rest of the world, but for projects that were exclusively nonmilitary.

Vanko's reactors, if he made any, would first find themselves in the hands of bad people before the good. So, Vanko dies.

Nonnegotiable and he was going to die anyway, what with the Bulky armour not having the same reinforcement for the user that Stark's suits did. The Hulks would take care of it and if not them, then he didn't need much force to make sure that one suffered from a heart attack as well as vein bursting in their brain.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 52 [September 2010]

–Axle Riddle–

It was less than a week for the Stark Expo now. They had prepared for everything they could. He had tried to expand his range as much as possible but he was unable to generate enough force to lift the third hulk BUT he was able to increase the force with which he would be able to throw his projectiles.

The Hulks were all suitably armed to the gills. All of them knew how to fight and blessed with their bodies as they were, they would need very little defense. Still, Randall was updated about the repulsor blasts, and together with Bruce, they had figured out a much weaker and inefficient version of the same. After testing it on various metals and then eventually, on the Hulks themselves, they had come to the conclusion that….

Meanwhile, in the underground base, one of the brothers was holding a box that was attached to the ground with a power cable, which then went straight to the Arc Reactor. He was aiming it at Randall.

"Ow! That hurts, you idiot!"

"Oh yeah, what are you gonna do, crybaby?"

Yeah, the repulsor blasts, even at the somewhat higher intensities hurt the Hulks' skin but not puncture it outright. Randall had recorded some of the footage of Tony Stark's escapades and had come to the conclusion that the higher ranked Repulsor blasts could get through their skins but even then, it would not be a one shot kill and would only injure them.

That injury would then be rapidly healed, presumably because Bruce was not on site and he hasn't done anything that would truly injure the Hulks. However, judging by the basic package that one gets when they are Hulked out, advanced healing should be standard as well.

Yeah, they had figured that the Arc Reactors were very necessary for localised repulsor blasts, especially multiple of them in succession. No other power source came close when it came to portability and power output, which is required for the repulsor blasts.

He had seen the news of the party that Tony had hosted in his house, which led to some sort of altercation. Videos of the showdown between the two Iron Men suits were quickly taken down from the internet but Randall managed to find some of them.

After going through them, he realised that his help was completely wasted on that man. He would get healed when he would get healed. The fact that Tony let Rhodey get away with his seat meant that he had, once again, given up on being Iron Man, or rather, alive.

He should know that repeated use of the suit would accelerate the Palladium poisoning and yet, there he was, using the suit as a party trick.

Fury should close in on him soon enough and with Howard Stark's notes, Tony should have the new element figured out within a couple of days. That puts the timeline of things into perfect sense.

According to the movies, Tony had just tested out the newest gen Arc Reactor and then had immediately come to the Stark Expo, in his suit or on a plane, he did not know.

The Hammer display was set for the first day as well, primetime slot. Apparently, Tony would give his rival every chance to embarrass himself if he paid the dime to do it on live TV.

Justin Hammer was so going down. Also, if the movies were anything to go by, the facility where Vanko was held should be close to the Expo as Romanoff had reached the facility and disarmed everyone by going in a car.

And yet, he looked for Hammer Industries' nearby facilities and found nothing of note, just regular old guns and bullets, no drones with no Arc Reactors and Repulsor tech.

Well, all he could do was wait then.

After spending some time with the Hulks, he could say, with confidence, that at least Randall was worthy of his trust so he had sent Randall to the Ancient One who took a single look at him and then dismissed him completely. In her words…

"He is a man of science and set in his ways. He won't be able to join the Masters of the Mystic Arts,"

Alright, fair enough. But his argument about Strange being the same fell short as she told him that Strange had his own destiny, fate itself guiding his movements, so his predisposition to Science! didn't matter much in that context because he was always going to become the Sorcerer Supreme.

Well, half of that mambo jumbo went over his head but he understood that Strange was going to become the Sorcerer Supreme because it was destined to happen, and Randall was not. He then asked her if any other Hulk would suffice, because if even a single person on the team could master Portal making, it would be a huge help but she refused even that.

For reasons only she was privy to.

That put him back to square one.

____xxx____

After a few days

His attention was drawn to a small convoy of blacked out SUVs heading straight to the place where the Random Beautiful Agent was, once again, lounging in her PJs.

"Damn, she is so going to get fired this time," He muttered to himself as he watched a very fuming Nick Fury on his way to the SHIELD safehouse.

Soon, the entire convoy came to the safehouse but only Fury entered the place where Miss RBA was reading a magazine, a Cosmo from the looks of it. The sheer terror on her face when she nonchalantly looked up and found Nick freaking Fury on her doorstep was a hoot.

He rolled his eyes as, predictably, her eyes rolled into her head and as she fainted, with her head hitting the table with a nice thunking sound.

Fury ignored her and looked about the room before looking straight up. He leaned back in his room as even he had a jumpscare with Fury's one good eye looking straight up at him.

"What can I do for you, Director Fury?" The phone that had been designated for his use slowly rose up in front of him and spoke in an electronic voice.

"Don't you try and pull that shit in front of me," Fury snapped as his face morphed into one of confusion, thinking of anything that he could have done to offend Fury. Oh well, the man was a walking talking mass of paranoia and bitterness anyway so…

"YOu would have to be more specific, Fury. I have done a lot of things that could have offended you,"

Fury took a deep breath at that.

"First you take in Banner. Fine, the man didn't deserve what was happening to him anyway. Then, you take in the General's daughter, the sole daughter under your protection. Fine, she is a big girl and can make her own decisions. Then, you had the audacity to let them walk around in public for everyone to see,"

He was amused as Fury kept on rambling as he paced back and forth in the safehouse, unheeding of the fact that he was babbling around probably higher clearance level information in front of someone who was barely a SHIELD agent in terms of clearance levels.

"Then there's the seven menaces. The escaped experiments who, by all accounts, have become enhanced enough that they could fold Captain freaking America in half! And you!! You even let them out freely. Do you have any idea how much of an embarrassment that is for the people in the Army?"

"They see all these people walking around, and they fume silently because they are now allowed to do anything. Because-"

"Allowed?" He said, not through the phone but through his other method, which was much more efficient when it came to conveying tones through his voice.

"They are living, breathing people, Fury. And as long as they are under my domain, they will get their full rights, as do every other person who lives in my protection. I will not allow their rights to be trampled over just because some power hungry person sitting in his cozy place in Washington deems it so. You can tell this to whomever it concerns, Bruce Banner, Betty Ross, and all the seven brothers, are under my express protection. Whoever wants to come after them, will have to go through me and we both know how difficult that is, Fury,"

Fury looked like he had sucked a particularly sour lemon at his declaration.

Honestly, what did the man expect? That he would just roll over and hand all of them over to Fury?


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 53 [September 2010]

–Axle Riddle–

"Look, I have had it with Stark, you don't have to start being a thorn in my side as well. Just give me something so that I can make the vultures get off your back because you must know that I have been keeping people away from this place," Fury pleaded to him, for something to show to his superiors.

Unfortunately, "Then let them come, Fury. I have nothing to fear, especially with anything that you guys could throw at me. Ross crossed the line when he didn't stop at just Banner and had the harebrained idea of creating more of his kind. Thank the one above that they came to me and not some mercenary group who could have taken full advantage of their powers."

Fury's one eye narrowed as he looked at the phone in front of him, "So what? Am I just supposed to forget their existence? Forget the fact that the most dangerous person on the continent, if not the world, is staying in Manhattan in a quaint little apartment with his lover, going on fun and artsy brunch dates?"

"Yes!" Fury reeled back at the simple answer.

"So you don't plan on using his power at all, then?" Fury probed once more.

Good lord, what is with this man and his paranoia?

"Fury, I am going to say this for the last time, I have no need of any of the people under my protection. I am plenty powerful all on my own. Power is the least of the things that I lack,"

"What about the shipments from Mordashov?" Fury asked him, out of the blue.

"Well, what about those?"

"We have kept a close watch on all the shipments that come in and out of the city, along with what the people in the city have been ordering, and Mordashov's order lists seem a little bit too random to my people so I have another question for you, what are you building in here?" Fury leaned way too close to the phone, not realizing that this intimidation tactic was not going to work here. He actually looked way too funny doing that, with his trench coat and everything.

"You can leave, Miss Agent," He said out loud, drawing a squeak from the now awake agent who scrambled to get out of the safehouse under Fury's scathing glare. God, she was really fired this time around.

A shame, he liked her shenanigans.

"You wanna know what I have been doing here, Fury?"

"It would help me sleep a little better,"

"Fine. An Arc Reactor,"

"What?"

"An Arc Reactor, Fury. You know, the one that Stark uses to fly around in his death suit, that one."

He could literally feel Fury's mind cogs turning furiously as he tried to process this information.

"Why?"

"That information is not for today, Fury. Now, If you don't have anything of value to tell me, I'll be leaving,"

"Wait! So that's why you have BAnner working for you. You don't need his muscle, you need his brains. The man's a genius as well so it works out why you would protect him," Fury said, as if he had an epiphany. All that was left was for him to get naked, go running into traffic, shouting "Eureka! Eureka!"

The poor man couldn't even fathom someone helping out someone from the goodness of their heart, not that he was doing that but still.

"And I do have important news for you. POTUS has a single question, as does everyone else in the world. Why New York?" Fury asked him and he actually had to think of an answer.

Sure, he knew the logical one, the truth of it being one Sorcerer Supreme fucked him over so the Vishanti and the ROB came up with some sort of deal that allowed him to reach his destination but in doing so, used the VIshanti's energy so they imposed some restrictions on his powers for some reason, not that he was complaining in any way, mind you.

"It was where I got my powers, Fury. The world is a vast place and even I, with all my powers, might find myself on the backfoot if I encountered the true monsters of this world,"

"You know something,"

"Of course, I know things, you fool. I am well on my way to becoming one of those monsters but until that happens, I will put my ass in this city, safe and sound. The helping part is just a side project of mine, allowing me to put my powers to use and train them while I get ready to take my place among the big boys,"

His tirade finished, and he parted the safe house with a single warning to Fury.

"Make sure that no politician takes a step too much against the city because I can assure you that you would not like that, FUry. I have some ways that can help SHIELD stave off the political pressure but that will take time. I will inform your ambassador when I am ready. Stay safe, Fury. After all, if you left Goose unattended for long, she might just start eating humans for snacks,"

The way Fury's face looked as if it was set in stone was hilarious. Still though, POTUS huh?

So even the big wigs were starting to get on Fury's case about him then. Well, he might have to do something, establish some sort of dialogue without going too deep into anything because if he knew one thing about politicians it was the fact that they were scums of the highest order, ready to take advantage at the slightest sign of weakness, and never to be trusted with anything important of note.

Well, he might be a little biased but that is what his opinion was and he will be sticking to it.

It's been two days since the party incident in Stark Residence, LA. Tony should have been grounded by now and must have gotten access to SHIELD files on Howard Stark's research documents.

Hopefully, the birth of the new element is close by. Not that he needed it in particular.

The one with the Palladium core works fine for the moment.

Man, the addition of the Arc Reactor has been game changing. Randall requested another floor, exclusively for him to tinker in, and he had to say, if he had allowed Randall to just draw power from the city, half of his experiments would have shut down the grid or not been viable at all.

Most of all, it was all nontraceable now. They did not have to worry about pesky things like power budgets since they made their own power now. He was particularly excited about the flying car that Randall was trying to make, all with Repulsor technology.

Once he was successful with that, he would commission a truck with the same tech and make that his mobile base as he travelled around in his search for ways to defend Earth.

Yeah, he was going to go full on RV mode as he gallivanted across the world in his highly advanced truck, enjoying all the planet has to offer in terms of scenery.

Who knows? Once Randall is advanced enough in his tech skills, he could make a spaceship with the same specs. Now, THAT would be truly epic.

____xxx____

Just like that, days passed and the Stark Expo was supposed to open in a couple of hours. He had already sensed the shipments of Hammer Drones being put into position. He could also see the dozens of different Vibranium armoured guards as Princess Shuri and Prince T'Challa were waiting in a 5-star hotel nearby.

Apparently, their security was casing out the whole thing before the expo, to make sure that the probably impromptu visit was not dangerous to the Princess in any form or manner.

Prince T'Challa, he was sure could handle himself, judging by the abnormality in his body's, well, everything. His muscles were denser than any human's he had ever sensed, the same for his bones.

He was clearly the Black Panther as of now.

The thought brought him relief because that meant he had one more hero to count on when things went sideways.

Unfortunately, no sign of Tony himself anyway. Pepper Stark had long since arrived at the Expo and was coordinating everything with everyone to make sure that the event that had not happened in decades would go through successfully.

Well, she was the CEO of the Company.

The Hammer Show was well into the evening and it was still noon right now. The Expo had started drawing crowds, heaps of attendees from all around the world, waiting to see the latest cool thing that the tech industry had to offer.

He could also see Romanoff with Pepper, helping her coordinate with the Expo staff in her capacity as PA.

She was….attractive, that is all he would say on that topic.

Seriously, there was no way, no freaking way she was not enhanced in at least some manner because that body and those curves did not look natural at all.

Welp, time to shift focus before his mind went on a tangent.

He focused on the entry and exit points of the expo as the 6 hulks had already taken their positions in the nearest Sewer line. Once the Expo started, they would mingle with the crowd, especially since the Expo was open to all.

There was no charge to enter so no tickets were required.

The hulks would swoop in once he registered Tony's armour flying to meet Rhodey.

Alright! He was PUMPED!


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[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 54 [September 2010, Day 1 of the Stark Expo]

–Axle Riddle–

Man, what he wouldn't have given for Frank to be the commander for this operation, preferably with the protection he was looking for, that would help Frank lead a team of super powered bulletproof manchildren.

"Team 1, all clear,"

"Team 3, all clear,"

"Team 2, all clear,"

The six of them were distributed into three teams each. All of them were in civilian clothing with no armour underneath. He was able to sneak in the armoured parts that any two hulks could wear at any given point in time so that he could use them as over glorified smash balls against the drones that have arrived at the back of the Expo.

He couldn't get a complete scan of them from this far away but just by a rudimentary one, he could see multiple weak points where they were normally hidden in Tony Stark's Iron Man suit.

The three teams were stationed separately in three different sectors of the Expo. There was the store part of the Expo where companies set up shops to sell their tech, along with a food court for the entire Expo. The second part was where companies showcased their products, needing large flat areas for them to be able to showcase their latest tech.

Somehow, there were multiple companies he could recognise from the bunch that was displaying their products.

Oscorp was one that stood out the most to him, so was Pym Industries (soon to be Cross Industries if Hank doesn't do anything about it), and lastly Rand Enterprises. Huh, he hoped to meet some of the big people associated with these companies but he could not find any sign of a high level delegation from either of the companies.

They must be here just to maintain a presence then.

Then came the third section of the Expo, the Stage. Hammer was actually given the primetime stage for the event, he must have shelled out a lot of money for that. That Stage was then modified according to his requirements, that was where the popping up of the drone part must have come from.

The wrecking ball equipment was stationed exactly in this auditorium. As soon as the first sign of attack on Iron Man appeared, he was going to let loose. He knew that the chances of anything happening elsewhere were quite low but he was not going to risk it.

He just hoped that Tony did not go out of the auditorium using the glass windows, shards of glass were a pain to deal with, especially at the edge of his range. It just got more and more difficult to multitask the farther he was from the object. For this purpose, he had rented a room at the very edge of Manhattan. It was not good and obviously not worth the price but it is what it is so he adjusted for the sake of the innocent people, to make sure that nobody was hurt in Vanko's stupid quest for revenge.

Seriously, how hard was it for him to realise that Anthony Stark was not Howard Stark, who was admittedly a dick in many things he did throughout his life, so it was not that far fetched to think that Howard had Vanko's father ousted from the project because he did not want a Russian to be working on what was in all but name, a Fusion Nuclear Reactor.

They did not have the best of reputation at the time and that certainly did not help his case. As a result, Anton Vanko rotted away in Soviet Russia and Ivan Vanko grew up with a deep seated pathological hatred for the name Stark. Since Tony was dead, he set his sights on the man who piloted a walking armour of a tank.

"Randall? How are things looking on your end? Is Bruce's help required?" He asked Randall who was busy hacking into the Hamer Industries records to see if they could find anything helpful.

Randall had done it a dozen times beforehand as well but there were no records about the drones or anything of that regard, anywhere in the manifesto. It must be kept all off the books to help Hammer maintain plausible deniability later on.

So, now that there was an official trail to the factory through which the Drones came from, Randall was trying to see if everything could be traced back to Vanko and if his systems could be hacked or not, nullifying the need for the Hulks to take action in the first place. Though killing Vanko while he was unarmed would be akin to cold blooded murder, he had long since resolved himself that one day, he would have to kill someone and for the greater good, he would have to take that burden upon himself. It would be better than killing him after he had threatened hundreds of innocent people and blown up prime real estate in New York.

The property damages alone would have cost Vanko a life sentence in prison, before he was inevitably broken out of the prison by parties interested in the Arc Reactor, renewing the cycle of revenge that would only be broken once Vanko was dead.

"Um, I don't know? Look he is doing something, that's for sure but unless the link to the drones comes online, I can't do anything without actual physical access to the servers. I could try and bomb the servers but we don't know if the drones have some sort of limited autopilot or not, that could turn out to be more dangerous," Randall warned him.

Yeah, that would definitely be more dangerous because, in the original setting, the drones targeted one thing and one thing only.

Iron Man.

They didn't see the civilians, law enforcements, or anything else. The entire target of the algorithm that had taken over everything was Iron Man, so while it did make things difficult for Stark, he was in a suit of advanced armour so he was fine. The civilians, on the other hand, would die if they took on even a mid sized blast of Repulsor Arrays.

So, making sure that if they were unable to disable them from afar, then at least making sure that their target is a highly advanced, protective shell around a man would be a good priority.


____xxx___

"I still think we should have taken a venue closer to Manhattan," Pepper Potts, the CEO of Stark Industries voiced out her thoughts to her newest, and so far, very capable PA, Natalie Rushman.

"And displayed what? A few stalls? Because that is all the space we could get. Don't worry, I have heard that the Invisible Man acts in a limited capacity in this area as well so law and order should not be a worry plus, when I mentioned the Invisible Man to the NYPD, it was as if it lit a fire under them. You can see the results of that statement over the Expo," Natalie told her.

"Yeah, I can see the police but you do realise that Tony has enemies that cannot be handled by the police. And he was already feeling sick and after the party, *sigh*" Pepper sighed as she remembered the string of controversies Tony had found himself in, lately. He even forgot to sign on important documents that were necessary for the Expo to run in the first place. She had to forge his sign, as she had done many times in the past but this was the limit of what she was going to tolerate.

Once the Expo was wrapped up, Pepper Potts was going to tender in her resignation as CEO of Stark Industries. She loved Tony but being around him was stressing her way too much. She even started finding grey hair, for Pete's sake.

Her worries stemmed from the attack on Tony last month. If she was closer to the Invisible Man's territory, she would feel much safer considering that whoever it was, they made sure that their area remained void of crimes, no matter how large or small.

She was sure even the Vanko guy from before would find it tough to do even a single thing before the Invisible Man had him in his, well, Invisible grip.

"Any update on what Hammer is going to showcase today?" She found herself asking Natalie, just to pass the time because her anxiety was not helping things today. This was the single largest event that she had coordinated in all of her career in Stark Industries.

Everything has to go perfectly.

"Something about Robot drones, though, judging by the previously leaked footage, it is probably nothing noteworthy," Natalie tried to reassure her and she was probably right and yet, she could not help but shake the feeling that something was wrong.

"Natalie, I want you to go with Happy and check the security of the plaza. Make sure that nothing is amiss. I don't want Hammer crying later on," Pepper ordered her before she started taking her calls.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.