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 120[May 2012]

Zurich, Switzerland

–Loki Odinson Laufeyson–

He grinned under the illusion he had cast over the machine. It was very hard for his magic to latch onto the machine because it was so suffused with energy from the Tesseract but with some light energy cleansing work, he was able to get his lightest illusion spell working which was just a visible illusion. He would still be visible and detectable to other means, far from his magnum opus which would slip his body in between spaces to make sure that he remained undetected.

The very heavy impact on his brain, when he had been rescued from the mortals, had been enough to dislodge the parasitic spell that was implanted in him. Now that he was clear in his mind, it was also very clear to him that the sceptre was only partially there to use as a weapon. It was most likely used as a link between him and the Other who would use it to reinforce the spell if needed.

That was where the overwhelming fear came from, he was sure. Nothing to do with the torture he experienced under them, he was sure of that.

Now that he had no Master commanding him, he could have done away with the Invasion but it was still true that he needed to conquer a realm, to become King, to show Odin that he was not some failure, not someone who is not worthy.

So, there he was, making sure that the machine worked as best as it could. He had dismissed all the thralls he made under the Sceptre's control and told them to go where they would be arrested with ease, and fight back. He grinned deliciously at the sheer amount of chaos it would cause.

But that was neither here nor there. No, the reason he was continuing this invasion was because he needed to make sure that Midgard remained weak. Despite his earlier notions about mortals, they had grown a lot since he last came here. They also had champions who were much stronger than he had anticipated.

The Genus Loci in the city called Manhattan alone gave him chills. The only reason the machine had reached that godforsaken place was because it was the default location set by Eric Selwig, something about the city being the optimum place for the most damage, to both people as well as their morale.

He did not agree and as such, after dumping a small squad of Chitauri, he jumped out of that place so fast. He then jumped on to the next location, which was usually some city population by the ants he was going to crush and then rule, to bring them into a new age of prosperity, away from the needless genocide they committed against one another.

It was so wasteful. He had watched a few of the documentaries, wherein they documented the crimes they committed against their own kind and he had been beyond repulsed. Even the Fire Demons, which were mostly cannibals, were better since they didn't know any better. They had no conscious thoughts.

These humans, they had empathy, and enough intelligence to realise what they were doing but they continued to do so anyway, and not just that, they had the audacity to come up with new and better ways to kill one another.

One such thing was the nukes. He shuddered as he undid the illusion on himself, and jammed his hand near the cube's barrier, where the button was. He winced as his skin was singed by the Tesseract's energy but that was a small price to pay, as he watched a blue hole appear in the sky and droves of Chitauri fly down. The only reason he was doing this one by one, with only a few Chitauri soldiers was because, one, he wanted the Other to expend his forces needlessly, and two, he wanted to whittle down Earth's defenses, slowly.

He didn't want to create a super large invasion force and then force their leaders to send in the nukes. Those were weapons that contained the power of the sun and would destroy even him, with ease. The Tesseract will be fine but he will be fine mist, even with all his power.

Hell, he reckoned that not even Thor would survive one of those attacks.

These damn mortals, how did they even come up with a way to contain the power of the sun, he would never know. Then again, if it were only the nukes he had to worry about, it would be fine. No, it was more than that. Midgard had hidden defenses in most major cities.

In some of the cities he attacked, he witnessed multiple champions emerging out of nowhere to defend the city, even though they were not really successful. He made sure that large buildings were the first ones to be toppled before he left for a new city. Even so, when he was in the city called Mumbai, one of the champions who could fly on his own, had almost collided with him before he had retreated from that zone.

He could have easily dealt with that mortal since he knew that despite their various abilities, almost all of them were vulnerable to attacks from the Chitauri but he couldn't enter the fray himself, mainly because he was still connected to the machine.

When the machine was being built, he had asked the resident Doctor a few questions, and that had elicited a couple of very interesting answers to him. So, he had changed some parameters from the original design which meant that now, instead of the portal being controlled by the Other who would prefer it to be open in a stationary location with endless droves of Chitauri arriving and destroying everything in sight, the control was held in his hands, literally.

His blood was used to control the Tesseract's portal location and as soon as his hands left the machine, it would cease to function. Activating it was no simple matter and he knew that the mortals would not let that happen again.

So, he had to make this one chance count. He could not let Thor or the champions defeat him but he could not let the Chitauri destroy everything. This was supposed to be his kingdom now.

He sighed and closed the portal above this Zurich City. It was one of the smaller cities but if he recalled correctly, it held significance in the sense that the country it belonged to, didn't enter any World War that the humans had in the last century.

He was about to leave but then his senses prickled, as he felt someone watching him. Which was supposed to be impossible because he was cloaked in his illusion and far away from the original portal location.

His neck swiveled around as he tried to look for the stalker, only to find himself face to face with a mortal, flying, looking straight at him.

He immediately backpedaled, his first instinct to get away from this place but reality around him rippled and he fled right into the woman's open palm.

__xx__

Zurich,

–Ancient One–

"Hmm, this is concerning," She mused as she withdrew her spell from Loki's mind and destroyed his memories of their encounter. She could have defeated him herself and confiscated the Tesseract, she was well within her rights but this was not going to be her era for long.

It was time for the future generation to step up and do their part, especially since the crutch everyone was lingering on, Axle, was now comatose.

Then again, it was not like she couldn't give the soon to be Avengers a helping hand, her mouth quirked into a small smile as she cast a subtle compulsion on Loki's mind, one that would unravel in a few hours but that would be more than enough time for Stark to make his move.

____xx___

–Loki–

He came to consciousness with a gasp, a feeling of terror in his heart for some reason, even though he was cloaked, perfectly safe, with the mortals in front of him scrambling to defeat the small squad of Chitaur.

He chuckled to himself. Pathetic, these mortals were.

They didn't even have any champions to protect them. He would be that champion, and once their cities were ashes, they would learn to accept him as their patron God.


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 121[May 2012]

US Airspace

–Tony Stark–

"What do you mean, we can't leave the United States airspace, are they mad? This is our chance to lure Loki into a location of our choosing instead of chasing him around the planet, which has turned out wonderful for all of us," He couldn't help but shout at their liaison with the White House who had outright denied their request to leave the States to some deserted location elsewhere, where they would be zero chances of Loki hurting anyone, well, aside from them that is.

He was thinking some desert with no people for hundreds of miles in any direction. The ocean would have been the perfect choice but not all of their fighters were flyers and he didn't want to risk the chance of death by drowning just because his suit got bunged up in the battle and he couldn't find a replacement in time.

He was really not good at swimming. The best swimming he had done, according to his humble opinion, would be the swim to become the prime zygote.

"Then what else do you want us to do? We need to bring Loki to our terms. If we continued chasing him around the world, the death toll will continue to rise because Loki is going to continue targeting major cities and not every city is as fortunate as New York," Randall stomped forward and snarled at their liaison who didn't even flinch at that, and that must be impressive because they had all seen Randall and his brothers in action at the California battle.

They were savage and very well coordinated. It was as if the brothers shared a psychic link. Thor seemed to get along exceptionally well with all of them.

"Mr.Randall and Mr.Stark, the President has declared a national emergency and you, as a team, are the single most valuable resource we have to defend the country. Under no circumstances, can we allow all of you to leave the country. If the other countries cannot defend themselves without your intervention, then I am sorry to say but there is nothing we can do but pray for their safety," Saying so, the woman cut the call.

"Good Lord," Bruce whispered as he looked at a screen, which held the current casualty counter, traced by Jarvis himself, so it should be pretty accurate.

"A quarter million dead, huh?" He muttered to himself as he stormed out of the Lab, to the storage area where all the new suits had arrived, from his various production facilities in the States.

Once upon a time, that would have been just a number to him, something that would be the end result of his weapons being fired at a population centre. Sure, the numbers never reached those numbers at a time, but he was sure that the Stark name that was printed on all of their weapons, held the blood of more than a quarter million who were now dead because of Loki's invasion.

He had a plan, and Thor agreed that it would work, not to mention that it was their only plan that had any chances of working and yet, due to stupid old people and their fear of death, they were constrained to a single country.

Sighing, he rubbed his face in defeat, "Jarvis, find the most suitable area in the Continental United States please?"

If they were not going to let them leave the country and not going to tell him which area to lead Loki to, then he might just have to choose one himself.

"Also, look for an area that can be bought up quickly," He reminded Jarvis because he knew that the only reason the President was not allotting him an area was because he was a politician and then he would have to answer why he destroyed that area and not some other deserted area because frankly, the United States was full of empty areas and yet, had some of the highest cost of home ownership in the world, wonderful capitalistic phenomenon.

"Alright, gentlemen, let's hope this works otherwise the world will soon become a Nuclear wasteland," Then, he remembered something and quickly asked Jarvis, "Open a line to Thor,"

"Yes, sir."

"Thor, suppose we catch Loki, do you have any way of making sure that he cannot escape because he escaped last time," He quickly reminded Thor because even after going through hell, if they couldn't keep Loki imprisoned, it was all going to be a waste of time, effort and most probably, lives.

A small part in him reminded him that he was the most squishy member around. Bruce, the Hulk brothers, and Thor, they were all very bulletproof and mostly invulnerable to everything, except nukes that is but he was the one who would die with a well placed laser from even the Chitauri foot soldiers.

"Jarvis, prep all the suits. Bring more from the fabrication facilities. We will need everything for this. Also, contact some of the newer enhanced people that have emerged out of the ground to defend their countries. See if they can be convinced to fight Loki,"

"Affirmative, sir. Location found. The Utah Salt Flats,"

He sighed at that. He was afraid of something like this.

"But that is a protected region. Tony, we cannot just destroy a natural wonder like that," Bruce was the one who argued against the location but a single sentence from Randall shut down any incoming arguments.

Randall chuckled, "Well, we can either let Loki destroy our artificial wonders and then move on to these natural wonders or we can take the fight to him, sacrificing one of our natural wonders and stop him, once and for all,"

He agreed with that, "Jarvis. Prep the suits. Select that location and broadcast it to any enhanced we have in range, or is willing to come by. Put out an SOS for any nearby people, tell them it's a national emergency or something and lastly, check in on Axle. Is he awake yet?"

"No sir, his brain scans show an astonishing amount of activity which seems to increase with every passing moment but all vital signs are normal,"

He sighed in relief and disappointment at that. They would have won this war with contemptuous ease if Axle were awake but if they did win this war, with extreme losses, he would be very much relieved if Axle were on their side, because if an Alien invasion can occur once, it can happen again and he would very much like their juggernaut to be with them for the next one.

He already had ideas on how to improve basically everything when it came to his defense protocols, because so far, all he had focussed on was the US, his company, his home, and some key high violence zones.

Nothing that would span the globe. He might have to change that, after this, and who knows, if the rest of the world could cooperate on this, then he might just have a chance of seeing something happen that he never thought would happen.

Global Cooperation or Unification for a single cause.

Something like that would be necessary to have a planetary defense system, like a suit of armour around the world.

"Randall, tell everyone to be ready. We will call on Loki in an hour and since he can get there instantly, we will ambush him as soon as he arrives." He deflated after Randall left the lab, suddenly feeling all the bruises from the last fight.

It had been a very high speed, high tension time ever since they entered the Stark Jet to go get Loki. He hadn't had a good sleep since then. He was sure that he was going to crash for a week after this battle was–

"Get some sleep," He looked up at Bruce who was looking at him, concerned.

"We all have some powers but you don't. You can't fight on an empty tank. I've already informed Jarvis to get you an easily digestible smoothie and get the bed ready. I'll wake you up in an hour."

He was about to argue but then his eyes grew heavy and he began yawning. "Okay," he nodded and left the lab.



A/N - I realise that the fic has been somewhat serious for the past few chapters, a departure from the crack-ish vibe I was going for. All I can say is that we will return to the goofy vibe in the next few chapters.

Toodles!

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 122[May 2012]

Zurich

–Loki Laufeyson Odinson–

It was odd. He shook his head as if trying to get rid of a particularly persistent migraine, the ones he had whenever he drank something called the "Romulan Ale" that flooded the black market a few centuries back and he had bought some from the Kree Black Markets, just as an experiment, and ended up in "compromising circumstances" with a "Quadrupedal land mammal of the genus Equus commonly domesticated by humans for transportation, agricultural labor, and recreational activities, distinguished by its elongated head, flowing mane, and swift locomotive capabilities".

Just then, he was about to take out a handy invention that humans made, a device holding tiny runes that held so much information and was also connected to all the other devices across the planet. Thankfully, the tracking feature of the machine was removed by the Good Doctor before he had ordered his minions to dispose of him.

The man was probably already gone because of the magnitude of information that was forcibly stuffed in his mind. Mortals were not supposed to have access to that level of information.

Then again, he thought to himself as he looked at the immaculate construction of the portal machine, mortals can do good work, if they were properly motivated. Imagining armies being capable of not just instantaneous one side transport but also troops capable of localised movement throughout the battlefield made him shiver in excitement.

Sure, the mortals were squishy but as the handful of champions had so handily reminded him, they could be tough and if not, there was always the armour that the mortal known as Stark touted about.

Once he was King, there would be nothing to worry about. Pesky things like Intellectual Property, trademarks, and more would become a thing of the past. He always wondered why things like Intellectual rights evolved exactly the same across all of the universe, that he knew of, and then realised that the ability to safeguard materialistic things will always be the virtue of mortal species with sentience, bare as it was.

He looked through the list of cities and their location on Midgard's map, which allowed him to feed the data to the Tesseract which instantly transported him to that location, all at a paltry cost of some magic that he would never really use because of the Tesseract and his ability to call on unending hordes of Chitauri.

Well, Shanghai sounds like an Ancient city name.

Looking at the map, imaging it in his mind, he shoved the device back in his pocket, because he couldn't afford to waste his magic in opening and closing his storage space, and then shoved his hands near the sphere that covered the Tesseract. Wincing once again at the pain, despite the magic coating his hands, he shoved the image from his mind into the Tesseract and immediately pulled his hands away from the Tesseract, as his surroundings changed.

Swiftly casting a stealth spell on him, he looked around and was satisfied to see a bustling city with a proper amount of people. Huge artificial metal abominations littered the skyline, no doubt filled with people already.

Good, this was a place worthy of being called a city, for the mortals that is. Some of the previous cities he attacked barely had any people worth mentioning.

Just as he was about to open the portal to the Chitauri, he heard an annoying voice. His hands paused as he instead looked all around him, at the hundreds of shining lights that had turned black and were buzzing at a very frequency, something that affected him but didn't seem to deter any of the humans.

He sneered at that. Inferior beings with their inferior senses.

"Um, hello? Mic Check? Working? Okay. Good," His neck snapped up as he glared at the black boards that now projected the face of Stark, the one mortal who could match up to him, in his weakened form of course. The rest were clearly no mortals.

The Genus Loci of Manhattan could have posed a threat but he was not going to touch that city, not without having the rest of the world under his thumb. Let that spirit act as the guardian host, the last haven of Midgard and then let the rest of the Midgardians watch as he crushes their last stronghold, finally breaking the spirit, both literal and metaphorical, finally completing his invasion and conquest of Midgard.

"Um, hi? Everyone, as you know, we are suffering from a terrible crisis at the moment. The reason for that crisis is just one small coward, jumping from place to place because he is afraid that we will catch up to him. Now, I don't want to say that he is compensating for something with those giant ass whales but what do I know? "

His nostrils flared as he felt a white hot spike of rage at Stark, at the drivel he was spouting. Bereft of his sceptre, he could not fire any energy blasts, not ones that wouldn't deplete his already meagre mana pool but by the Allfather, he wished he had the sceptre that could burn a hole in Stark's pea sized brain.

"Anyway, Loki Laufeyson-" He growled at that, he was no Frost Giant,"--You can come to these coordinates. If that is too complicated for you, this is a picture since I am sure you cannot read and write properly, your brother's words, not mine!"

"See you there, bitch!" Stark said before the large screens turned to their black states, with the pathetic mortals scrambling beneath him. HE smirked at their patheticness, panicking at such a small crisis.

He would have to whip that out of them when he became their King. It might take a few generations to whip them into discipline and obedience but they were mortals anyway, a few generations would pass without him even noticing anything about it.

Now, to the pest problem that he hoped to push until later on but…

"Stark!" He growled and uncaring of the pain, he thrust his hand into the Tesseract and conveyed the location. Feeling the change, he found himself in a vast land that was white in colour.

Choosing not to dwell on that oddity, he surveyed his surroundings and found them bereft of Stark and his ilk. He sneered internally, typical mortals. Too cowardly to face their superi—

His senses blared at him as he hurriedly dropped the spell holding the machine up in the air and dropped a few feet, only to be ragdolled by the shockwave of whatever it was that passed him. Desperately holding on to the machine, his hand brushed against the sphere of energy, triggering the portal.

As a result, the ragdolling ceased instantly as the machine stabilised itself, him barely holding on to the machine. His neck on a swivel, he looked at where Stark's suit should be but his eyes narrowed as he found an explosion looking back at him.

His shoulders tensed as he realised that he barely avoided death just now. In his current mana depleted state, he would not be able to cast a shield spell and if he managed to survive that, his body would be in no condition to heal itself or keep him alive long enough for Thor to arrive.

That stupid naive fool would still try to save—

He looked up abruptly as he saw thunder right up above him heralding the arrival of his brother. He squinted as he saw the glowing form of his brother, arcs of lightning surrounding his body as Thor raced straight at him.

His jaw hung agape as Thor seemed to be in no hurry to slow down. He barely had the sense to hunch right behind the machine as Thor, clad in lightning, struck the machine and him with it.

The last thing he remembered was a white flash of pain on the back of his neck before darkness claimed his vision.



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 123[May 2012]

Utah Salt Flats

–Tony Stark–

With their plan in motion, they stayed put, thousands of feet above the place where they had just goaded Loki into coming. The atmosphere aboard the Stark jet was very stifling, everybody held their breath because there was a chance that Loki would just ignore them and not even think of coming into such an obvious trap.

They were also currently ignoring all calls from all government entities, even as he saw Jarvis tracking multiple fighter jet departures from all the nearby military bases, converging directly at their current location. He knew that the President couldn't give a direct order himself because his position was quite strenuous at the moment, but choosing a mostly empty location such as this was also going to generate a lot of backlash, especially from the environmentally maniac people.

He has dealt with them before, but that was about protests about his personal property, like the Arc Reactor or his many other weapons but this was different. He had just effectively declared an entire zone that was thousands of acres, a no mans land.

Jarvis was doing all he could to buy up everything at double, triple the price but he knew that he would need to burn a lot of favors to avoid jail time after this, since it was his face that was all over the world, practically inviting Loki to destroy a precious natural phenome–

Sirens began beeping as Jarvis tracked a heavy energy arrival in their area.

This was it, "Jarvis! Prep it and as soon as you have a lock, go in full throttle."

"Affirmative, sir. Project Big Sh*t activated,"

He expertly ignored everyone's looks when Jarvis uttered the original name of the project, something that he had cooked up during one of his many drunken tinkering sessions back when he was in college.

"Thor, can you hit the machine with your strongest attack? Preferably a physical attack since energy attacks don't seem to work?" He asked Thor since he was the only one, aside from the Hulk, who could hit with a strength that would destroy most things on the planet.

Also, The Hulk couldn't fly. He tried to tell Bruce about the foot repulsor units he could fix up but Bruce was confident that the Hulk would not care for those and would rather destroy them himself instead.

"Aye, Friend Stark. I will need a few moments to gather the lightning but I can hit the machine with all my might,"

"What about your brother?" Everyone looked at Randall who continued to type on his workstation, trying to work on something to interfere with the workings of the machine while also simultaneously recording everything so that they could detect such portal openings to the last meter, in the future, should the need arise.

Randall then stopped and turned to face Thor fully, with an intense look in his eyes, "What if you hold back at the last moment? How can we be sure that you will not destroy our one chance at stopping Loki?"

He was taken aback at that. He didn't expect Randall to be so straightforward, especially since his patron, The Invisible Man was still comatose, something that should create many problems for them from the government but Randall was…fine.

Thor opened his mouth to speak but Randall beat him to it, "820,000 people are dead, Crown Prince Thor."

Thor winced at the reminder of his brother's borderline genocide. The worst disaster to hit the world in terms of human death count in the 21st century.

"I will admit that my brother has erred and he deserves to face full justice for his crimes. Facing the full brunt of my attacks can kill Loki, I acknowledge that but know this, I will never, never hold back because the lives of thousands of more mortals hang in the balance. I, Thor Odinson, vow on my powers that I will not go easy on Loki just because he is my brother,"

He looked around as the words reverbed all around the jet, even though the sound isolation in the Jet was supposed to be top-notch. Some magical bullshit then.

Randall's face didn't change one bit but he had a hunch that THor had just done some significant thing which basically guaranteed what he just said.

"Portal confirmed," Jarvis' reminder put everyone on high alert as Thor left for the hangar bay, which was opened, just in case Thor needed to rocket out of the jet. Jarvis had also increased the thrust on all the repulsors to increase the stability of the Jet, couldn't have the Stark Jet tumble out of the sky just because the God of Thunder jumped out of it.

"Alright, ladies!" He looked at the gatherings of their team, their faces set in excitement, anger, and even some fear as they prepared themselves for a very hard fight. The fight of their lives even, and honestly? He mirrored that sentiment but he couldn't let it show on the outside now, could he?

"It's showtime," With his words, a screen appeared in the centre, showing the energy blob that was the TEsseract;s location. Sure, they couldn't get a visual on Loki but that was due to Loki's illusions, something that was just a fancy way of bending light.

"3..2….1" And with that, he saw one of the Stark Industries' satellites that he'd put up in space a year back, spit out a projectile, a missile but it didn't have any thrusters on it. It was just a missile that he had hastily installed in the Satellite because he hadn't installed the hyper dense tungsten projectile that he was going to install because he felt that holding an Orbital Canon over everyone's head would be wrong.

As it turns out, it would have been illegal and treasonous but it would have been the perfect thing for such an occasion.

Instead, they had this.

On the screen, as soon as the missile was dropped out of the satellite, two different suits of his appeared on the screen, and their hands, which were not really hands but devices made to latch onto the circular body of the missile appeared.

"Alright, let's go," He muttered as he suited up in the Stark Jet, ready to get to the battlefield, if it didn't work as were everyone else but they couldn't risk going in early because Loki might sense them and flee the place.

The cameras on the suits along with a handy map on the screen showed the missile, its speed, and its ETA to hit Loki.

It was already going way faster than anything that Earth had ever built, including Rockets for orbital launches. He also knew that the President tacitly approved his actions because he was yet to see any response from the no doubt hundreds of missile silos that would activate almost instantly if any missile of unknown origin was approaching US soil at such breakneck speeds.

His decision to stay in the jet was proven correct when just as the missile was about to breach the clouds and enter Loki's vision and destroy him, Loki's head snapped up and he immediately ducked down, dropping a couple dozen feet, and then immediately flying up high, his body very much wobbly because of the shockwave. Loki struggled to hold onto the portal machine even as the air around him continued to ragdoll the machine as well as Loki.

It would seem that without the portal being active, the machine didn't have any way of stabilising itself.

That single move saved his ass as the missile exploded on the salt flat and since the yield of the makeshift missile was not as high as he wanted it to be, the impact was not significant, either on the Salt Plains or on Loki.

"Alright, move OUT!" He shouted as the entire floor moved to create a circular hole, through which he jumped. Even as he was going through the tunnel, he felt the entire Jet jerk to one side, as his head hit the wall of the narrow tunnel.

"Damn it, THor!" He cursed as he exited the Jet and saw the rapidly flying form of Thor.

Then the idiot went ahead and did something that stabilised the machine but also activated the blue portal from Hell right above them, this one being the largest one ever recorded.

"Unusual Meteorological activity detected," Jarvis' warning was unnecessary because he saw, in real time, the darkening of clouds and the buildup of lighting in the atmosphere, seemingly following THor's flight trajectory.

He followed suit, making sure to remain at a distance because he did not want his suit to be damaged by friendly fire. He wasn't sure if his energy redirectors and the Arc Reactor itself along with the wiring, could hold on to the total energy amount of an actual lightning bolt.

Those things were scary, actually.

Apparently, Thor didn;t get that memo because instead of going straight down, Thor just jerked up, right into the middle of the biggest thundercloud Jarvis had ever recorded on this side of the planet.

He was about to continue on his path to Loki when Jarvis' warning came in the form of the suit being thrown back by the repulsor thrusters as he saw, in slow motion, as Thor, wreathed in crackling white light, flew straight down, towards Loki.

Thor's hammer in particular was just white now, with no hint of its previous grey in sight.

In just a second, he saw all this unfolding and then he took control, following after Thor, activating the extra shields he had on the back, just in case some friendly fire did occur in this game.

The world's most dangerous, high stakes, high pressure, and crappy story game.

……

….

His jaw hung agape as Thor, seemingly not taking into consideration the safety of his brother, continued on his path, and stuck the machine.

The cameras in the ruined suits underneath Loki and on the Jet, the satellites as well as the suit he was wearing could not see what was happening because the machine was just a blur of white, with a blue beam sticking out of the mass of blue.

"Shit!" He shook his head as he moved onto the horde of Chitauri coming out of the portal now. After pulling off a move like that, even Thor must be tired.

They couldn't let the CHitauri spill out because these guys were nasty AF and did not care about harming children, women, or the elderly. For them, everyone else was a target.

"Alright team, keep an eye on the situation. I'll deal the first round," He announced before a series of micro missiles ejected his suit as well as the two almost ruined suits on the ground, heading straight for the horde of Chitaur.

"Jarvis! Any updates?"

"The energy storm around the machine continues to persist, with no possible way of calculating the energy levels in the sphere, I can't calculate a precise ETA,"

"Then get me rough figures!" He shouted as he shoulder checked one of the chariots, making it swerve and crash into another Chariot.




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 123[May 2012]

Utah Salt Flats [2 hours after Loki was detained]

–Tony Stark–

"Please stay still, Mr.Stark," He resisted the urge to snap at the nurse who was nursing his wounds. Wounds that he had sustained in the hour long non stop fight that he was a part of, destroying Chitauri Chariots left and right, before the cavalry showed up.

It was official, Thor was powerful. Uber powerful one could say if they calculated even a tenth of the energy in Thor's hammer when he hit the machine with his big fuck you attack, and then they would have to weep in despair because even that didn't kill the machine, the machine somehow being protected by the pure energy barrier around the Tesseract.

THey had nothing in their arsenal capable of closing that whole thing down. They'd tried everything at this point and the only thing that would surpass Thor's sheer energy attack was a nuclear strike and he had been in a very heated argument with POTUS, Defense Secretaries and some analysts as to why that was a very bad idea.

A fucking stu[pid idea if there ever was one.

Good news, Loki was contained, if with some limbs missing, but Thor assured them that Loki would live. He was being held in a specialised cell, with Thor being very clear as to what would happen to Earth if anything happened to his brother while Loki was in the custody of the US military.

He waved off the nurse who wanted to give him a painkiller. Sure, it would help with the pain but it would also take the edge off and he was not sure if he would remain standing if the pain was not there to remind him of the current events.

God, he was so very tired.

Loki was taken into custody, which was fine. The Tesseract was right in front of them, going nowhere, which was good. But the damned thing was just out of reach for everyone save for Loki who somehow was touching the damned thing when he was taken out by Thor.

He was certain that had Thor hit Loki head on, with that level of power, not even ashes of Loki would have remained. IT would seem that the Crown Prince took his vows, especially the ones taken magically, very seriously. The attack legit would have killed his brother and Thor was willing to do it because Thor knew that if he held back then, hundreds of thousands of more lives would have been lost.

Speaking of lost lives, they had a zero casualty count in the military forces that had arrived here and that was only because of the scenery at the portal.

He grinned, hobbling towards where Thor and the less tech savvy members of the Hulk brotherhood were standing, looking at the greatest fireworks festival Earth had ever seen.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" He asked everyone as he watched the near continuous rain of missiles that was happening at the mouth of the portal. The machine was floating mid air as well but as they had learned in the previous two hours, no amount of explosions was going to dislodge the portal machine so right now, they were focused on making sure that the enemies didn't make it past a certain perimeter around the portal.

He looked up as fighter jets continued to roam the skies.

"Mr.Stark!" he looked back to see a trooper running towards him with a satellite phone in his hand, "POTUS is on the line,"

Great. He had to deal with politics even now. He would have thought that now of all time humanity would come together and try to solve this together but nooo. Somehow, the United States of America was still dragging their feet in granting clearances to other countries' militaries to help them contain this threat.

"Stark, how long until your Jericho missiles are back in stock?"

He sighed at the question. Honestly, that was one of the harder things he had done in this invasion and he had personally weathered laser blasts and had dislocated both his shoulders during the fight, relying on JArvis to pilot the suit because there was no way he was backing down until backup got to them.

Restarting the production of weapons that he had sworn to never do again, was akin to throwing away all the progress he'd made in the past years. Pepper was fully supportive of him and had told him, in no uncertain terms, that she would rather fight the government on this than let Tony make a decision he would regret.

And that had been the thing, wasn't it? Regret. He would have regretted any single person dying just because the government had been forced to turn to a substandard weapons supplier. Oh heaven forbid, they went to Hammer?

They would all die then.

"Mr.President, I have repurposed some of my facilities but it will take time. My people are working on it. The first missile should reach the nearest military bases in about 3 more hours. That's the best I can do. Also, we have redesigned them for the portal's purpose so they can target a much narrower target,"

"Alright. Any word from our prisoner?"

He sighed once again, glancing at Thor from the corner of his eyes, who still sported some cuts, and scuffs on his armour from the massive dogfight he had been in when two of the Chitauri space whales had descended on him, judging him to be the bigger threat of the bunch, which was a mistake because Hulk had proceeded to absolutely gut another space whale, and roar at the Chitauri which made every one pause.

"No, Mr.President. Loki is pretty bunged up from Thor's attack and I don't think he will be waking up anytime soon. We are on our own for this. Any words from the recovered mind control victims?" He made sure to emphasise on the word "victim" because he knew that this was wartime and the US government performed enough human rights transgressions as is, he couldn't imagine what they would do in wartime.

He was making sure that the agents recovered were just that, victims of Loki's crimes and nothing more.

"No, Stark. The victims are all still in a coma apparently. Analysts say that they were given orders to surrendered to the closest authority, and after that, their minds shut down,"

He closed his eyes at that. So chances of permanent brain damage after being subjected to extensive time periods of mind control.

"Mr.President, is Congress still dragging its feet with the permission to have foreign militaries on our soil? I seem to remember the President having unprecedented powers during wartime," He reminded the older man, knowing that having coordination from other militaries was best.

Plus, while the US military looked like they had the situation handled, they didn't. The US was vast and if the entire war machine was mobilised, it would have been another thing but the President was a weak minded simpleton who did not want to step on anyone's toes, so he was only mobilising forces as the situation demanded.

There was a sigh on the other side, "Tony, son, look, it's not that simple. I can't create a precedent for something like this. It makes us look weak. Plus, we have more than enough reserves to last weeks of sustained battle, if the numbers I am seeing are correct. In the meantime, we can always produce more, and with your–"

"Mr.President, you and I both know that this is not going to be resolved with just missiles and nukes. We need the enhanced, the hidden people who jumped out of their hidey holes during the invasion. We need explicit permission to make sure that they would not be prosecuted by the government for simply helping in a human crisis. Hell, that girl, with the intangibility powers alone would be very helpful if she could somehow lodge the Tesseract out of the machine,"

It would seem that his words were going above the man's head because the next words came out very hastily, "Great! Then we can have her to your location within the day, I will personally write her VISA so she does not suffer from any consequences,"

He sighed, and went along with the drivel, despite knowing that there was no way any law enforcement agency was going to be able to catch her, especially since she seems to be extremely adept at hiding from everyone and everything, including Jarvis and since it was India, she did not have as much of a digital footprint as an Average American.

Also, the President was missing the point entirely. He needed to create a precedent so that he could create America enhanced friendly, just like it becoming Immigrant friendly made it the economic powerhouse it was today.

They couldn't generate that many enhanced but they sure as hell could bring them to the greatest nation in the world and employ their services, and something like that wasn't going to happen with a one time return VISA, wherein she would likely be ambushed during her return trip if she somehow survived the battle at all.

Times like these were what SHIELD was for but as soon as he heard Fury was dead, he knew the reason why the agency was nowhere near this invasion and was instead being actively sidelined by the President in every matter that was significant.

He flinched a bit as a particular loud keening noise was heard, closing his eyes. He opened them when a squelching noise was heard, as yet another Space Whale was killed or burned alive in the explosives that were now staining the atmosphere around the portal.

The now dead space whale landed on a pile of already dead Chitauri, with their blood pooling around the space, the salt plains and staining everything, also likely poisoning everything as well.

Good Lord, this was going to be an environmental disaster of epic proportions.

"Jarvis, any updates?" He asked Jarvis the one question that he had been asking for hours now, a question that was probably in the minds of most of the people in the government and all the people in the team.

Just when will the fucking Invisible Man wake up?


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 123[May 2012]

Manhattan [3 hours after Loki's detention and Portal Invasion in Utah]

–Frank Castle–

"That's the last of 'em," He grunted as he hefted yet another pair of Chitauri soldiers and dumped them on the growing pile of waste that he and the Captain had created after the Invasion was over.

"You sure? I think I can still smell them, everywhere," The Captain, huffing and puffing, asked him. The picture was ridiculous for him. The Captain was dragging, with him, two of those Chariot type things while talking to him. Sure, it made him exert his strength but he couldn't even move one of those damn things if he didn't have this armour on him.

"Yeah, Jarvis says so, so it should be pretty accurate," In the time he had spent as part of the invasion counter force, he had come to respect Jarvis as an information provider.

"You still think we should stay here? With the fight still happening in Utah?"

And that was probably half the reason why Jarvis was keeping them down here, doing grunt work instead of having his probable army of drones do it for them.

"Yes, Captain. You've seen the aliens, there is not much you could do in a fight of that level. Plus, the fight is happening in a totally controlled area, with no civilians." That had been a major selling point to placate the anxious captain who just had to jump in and help people whenever he could.

Ah, the Perfect Boy Scout.

"Mr.Castle," Jarvis' words were accompanied by the suit's faceplate slamming shut and a small visual appearing on the HUD. "What am I seeing, Jarvis?"

The visual increased in size to fill his vision and all he saw was some sort of line, and hundreds, no thousands of dots heading straight to the line.

"Mr.Castle, I am detecting a full scale invasion of the Mole People. We need to prepare for their arrival. I have already extended the stay in the Tunnel and have informed the Mayor of funnelling all the people either out of state or into the Tunnel," Oh. Oh, Hell Naw, not this shit again! Weren't the Giant Space whales enough?

Just as Jarvis finished speaking, there was a thudding sound right behind him. He turned around, and saw that the Captain's armour had arrived.

"Captain, we need to go," He said to the Captain who didn't question anything and entered the armour. His form rocketed up in the air.

"Jarvis, you said Mole People? What intel do you have on them? Also, can we funnel their entry into a single point?" He asked Jarvis as various entry points on the HUD were being marked as they crossed over the entire borough, with his heart sinking as he realised that they were going to enter Manhattan, through everywhere.

"The Mole people are a subterranean species, capable of burrowing through hard soil and stone with ease. They are bulletproof and their blood is acidic enough to melt concrete. Their main weaknesses are their brains which are protected by bulletproof skulls. They can also not tolerate bright lights as much as we can but that is not something we can rely on to kill them, only temporarily stun them,"

"Great! Bring out the big lights then!"

"Already on it. ETA - 4 mins,"

"...And ETA on the Mole guys?"

"...2 mins.."

He cursed as he raced through the sky, followed by the Captain along with a dozen other drones being piloted by Jarvis, spreading throughout the burrow.

"Jarvis, plot the entry points with the most Mole people that have the largest concentration of people around them. Target those first and then spread out from there. Inform all the law enforcement people around us, inform them that they only use high calibre rounds, normal rounds won't help, even if they targeted the eyes." Apparently, that was something that Stark and his team had tested way before, because the Invisible Man was able to easily repel their previous attempt and also secure a fresh corpse for the scientists to study.

The document held dozens of pages with all sorts of information, leading from the composition of their claws, to the size of their brains being small because they didn't have as much sensory information to process, being buried so deep underground, with only heat and pressure to temper and accompany them.

"Captain, are you seeing this?"

"Seeing? Yes. Still working on believing," Came the reply as the Captain continued to usher in the people who were still out into the various entry points of the Tunnel that they had blasted open because the invisible Man was counting on himself being available to do the job anyway.

"Jarvis, where is the Invisible Man?" Something didn't add in this situation and if he was being honest, if the situation was this bad and the Invisible Man still hadn't arrived, it would probably mean the end of the road for the Invisible Man because public opinion would surely turn against him or at least made to turn against him because a lot of powerful people were after him, who wouldn't hesitate to turn the city into a warzone to get to him, if the Invisible Man showed even the slightest hint of a weakness.

"That is classified information. I am not authorized to disseminate that information. I have marked the areas of high volatile activity." Well, that was to be expected.

"Jarvis, we can't use any of our weaponry that you built for the Invasion, can we?" He asked the question that popped into his mind when he thought of ways to mitigate the damage from this invasion as well.

Wasn't one enough, these people had to pop up today only?

"Unfortunately, aside from the Class 2 drones alongside the Shields mounted in the Tunnel as well as the Stark Tower, precise weaponry capable of sniping down single mole units is not something we have."

"Okay, can you create a perimeter around the Stark Tower and give people access to the safer floors? I assume that power will not be an issue with the Arc Reactor you have in the building?"

"Affirmative. Designated safe zone created: Stark Tower. I've informed the relevant authorities about it and have changed the repulsor outputs. No mole people should be able to breach the perimeter there,"

He sighed in relief. At Least they had something other than shoving people in a tunnel.

"Okay. Make sure that the TUnnel entry points are not clogged, either by people or by these Mole People."

"ETA - 30 seconds,"

He and Captain, both were floating right in between a series of high rises, which unfortunately still held a bunch of people who had not evacuated at the right time. The ground seemed to shake with each passing second, with people nervous peeping through their windows, doors and what not. He kept an eye on the countdown while also looking at the movement of the Mole People.

There!

"Captain, head to the Empire State Building, a bunch of them just split apart," He told the Captain as Jarvis had asked him to assume command of the entire operation, Jarvis' protocols not allowing him to dictate everything, something that the military followed as well. Computers could not replace the commanding capabilities of an experienced soldier.

Captain's suit, blue with stripes, rocketed towards the building, the wreckage of the Chitauri lying a few hundred metres away from the Empire State Building.

Just then, as if the ground itself was boiling and frothing, the pavement, the roads, and even some of the nearby stores which had thankfully all been evacuated, burst apart as giant humanoid figures with brown skin and hunched backs emerged from the ground and immediately began attacking and destroying everything in sight.

His suit, now the battle version, not the rescue model, held enough firepower to flatten the entire area and even that was not enough so he had to ration the missiles and draw their attention away from civilians, and more importantly, from high density zones to open areas where their main weapons could take care of the Mole People, once and for all.

With a single missile that blew apart a single Mole Person, he drew the attention of every single invader in sight, of him. A chill ran down his spine as they roared and as if the earth itself was responding, more and more of the Mole People erupted out of the ground, including something that was creating an even bigger ruckus than normal Mole People.

He had already flown quite a big high up but was still using his weapons to kill one Mole person at a time, which was proving to be quite tedious because as of this second, Jarvis counted 3,491 Mole people above surface and just above double of that, below the surface, waiting for something.

The continued assault had the Mole People climbing buildings, scaling concrete walls by digging giant holes in concrete with their claws as if the walls were made of paper. He hastily rose even further up, dodging a few that came alarmingly close, and pushed back most of them with the repulsor lasers but even then, the Mole People simply shook their heads and got up, ready to begin the assault anew.

"Jarvis, a little help here?" He asked Jarvis, his inexperience with the suit showing. Jarvis had informed him earlier that the suits were using an outdated version of the Arc Reactor and thus the suit could not sustain the repulsor firepower required to punch a hole in the Mole People, without burning out the suit's electricals.

And then help came.

A giant blue beam just about grazed him and slammed right into the center of the street, aiming for the giant hole that was only enlarging as something was about to come out and he did not want to be the one to confront it.

A large roar resounded throughout the block as the beam crashed into the ground and despite the beam, out came a hand. Heavily burned and bleeding but a hand came out that was taking the beam and surviving. The hand then slammed on the road, grabbed the road itself and then chucked a huge piece of concrete at the drones which were using the repulsor beams at speeds that generated gusts of wind in the block.

As expected, the repulsor array made by 4 different drones was disrupted and the hand pulled its body out of the ground.

He immediately scanned it and pulled even further up, not so much that their attention would be distracted but just enough that he had time to react if a repeat of the concrete bullet happened.

This was a Big Boy.

It was over 20 feet tall, along with a tail that created craters as it slammed seemingly lightly on the ground.

This was….not good. As if this wasn't wasn't enough.

"Steve here, requesting backup. I have three unusually large mole people with none of my weapons capable of killing them. I have drawn their attention to me but I don't know how long until they get annoyed and move on."

Great.


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 126[May 2012]

Utah Salt Plains

–Randall–

"What?" he heard Tony exclaim all the way from his tent so he rushed over to see what was wrong since he was in the Military tent, trying to get an idea of how much the military could do to sustain this whole firepower thing. As far as the military was concerned, they could do this for weeks, with ease.

Also, the military industrial complex had already been fired up, ready to supply weaponry until the end of all time. So, they clearly had time but the longer this went on, the more damage to their surroundings, and that was something everyone clearly wanted to avoid, especially Stark since this was not an officially sanctioned operation.

The state of Utah is probably going to ask for a bankrupting amount of compensation for destroying one of their natural wonders after the invasion but that was something to deal with later on. The case can be made in the Supreme Court for there was no other alternative that could be arranged on short notice, especially with a terrain that wouldn't be hostile to them, otherwise, they could have just used some small part of the Great Basin Desert.

"What? What happe–" his words were stuck in his mouth as he watched the hologram in front of Tony. It was a warning from Jarvis and he knew very well what those red dots and the blue line represented.

"The Mole people.." he whispered, horrified at the realisation.

Tony looked at him, despondent, with bags under his eyes, "Yeah. The freaking Mole people have decided that this was the perfect time for them to invade Manhattan."

A chill ran down his spine as he saw the ETA for them to breach the surface being mere minutes, with very few resources in Manhattan equipped to deal with them.

"Tony, they have nothing, nothing, that can help them deal with the Mole People. They are relatively small, they can hide in buildings, travel through the roads. They won't be able to–"

"Yeah, the railguns are useless as are the large scale repulsors. I have already rerouted the completed suits to Manhattan, and Frank Castle has already ordered Jarvis to create the Stark Tower as a designated safe zone," Tony said, his shoulders slumping as the light left his eyes.

He was not even trying to work, to find some sort of solution and that was bad, very very bad. As much as he liked to tinker and think of himself as a smart person, he knew that he was hilariously and hopelessly outclassed when it came to Tony Stark. The man was a genius and that was the only superpower he needed. If there was anyone who could bring them out of this crisis, it was Tony Stark.

"Tony, please! Don't lose hope. We will get out of this," He tried to console TOY while trying to find something in his large list of weapons prototypes that could help Jarvis or Frank deal with this.

Hey, look! Captain was being enlisted as well and Jarvis used his prototype Captain America suit to help the Captain since the Mole people were way out of his league. Bulletproof, heat resistant, capable of scaling buildings, and more.

The mole people were, in a way, even better foot soldiers than the low quality ones that the Chitauri seem to have. It was only that the mole people did not have the sheer quantity that the Chitauri had thrown at them.

Speaking of the Chitauri, another keening noise was heard as yet another Space Whale was killed by the combined efforts of all the branches of the military. Well, not the Navy since Utah was landlocked but the Navy was already as close as it could get, with multiple aircraft carriers locked and loaded on the coast.

This was an all out emergency situation and none of the politicians were risking anything so anything that the military asked for, was granted. Billions had already been used up in the continuous bombing spree near the portal, so much so that in every breath, he could smell the gunpowder and even taste it on his lips.

If this went on for any longer, the people here would have to wear masks to even survive properly. Tony was already exhausted and despite being the weakest physical member of their team, he had kept up with all of them.

"Tony, why don't you get some shut eye? I will see what can be done about the situation. Hopefully, most of the people have already left the city and the rest can be corralled into the safe zones."

Tony didn't even respond as he gestured to one of the military guys to take TOY to the resting quarters. They were not comfortable by any stretch of the imagination but they did have beds, and Tony would probably pass out the moment he laid down.

"Alright, how to do this," he opened his personal dashboard and saw all the assets they had, something that he had spent years building, using the unlimited resources from the Russian oligarchs who enjoyed the protection that the Invisible Man provided.

"Rubber Ducky, gone. Captain America suit, gone. Hulk's mace, destroyed," Oh yeah, the Hulk had apparently destroyed his face when he one shot a Space Whale, caving its skull in with a single smash. That was when he had gotten particularly angry and frustrated with the continuous onslaught.

Right now, he was still Hulk because he refused to let Banner out for some reason. Even Betty trying to convince him didn't work because Hulk felt Banner was safer if Hulk was out, which was true but they needed Banner's intelligence as well.

With Tony out of the picture, that just left him as the brains of the operation. The military had some people but he couldn't exactly trust them and they were not really that exceptional anyway.

"Okay. Jarvis?"

"Yes, sir."

"I am granting you full access. Use anything you can. Make sure that the panic rooms are all stuffed full of resources because we do not want Bellina to be in any danger. Also, make sure that the Protector Titan suits are not all being used. Make sure that at least three, one for each person surround the Panic room, alright?"

"Browsing Class 3 resources. Lists updated. Parameters updated." The screen showcased Jarvis going through a number of resources before he saw the ejection sequences at the bottom of the bay being activated and dozens of uber powerful suits being ejected out, to hopefully reduce the casualty figures.

The current counter was at 800,000 which was a very high figure but the rise in numbers had stopped ever since they detained Loki. Now, all they had to do was figure out how to stop that portal and also how to kill all those Mole people because they did not have enough sentience in them for negotiation.

Wait…

He instantly logged into the Stark satellite portfolio, "Jarvis, activate all the long range ones and search for a specific signal that is common between all the Mole People. I think I know how to stop that invasion. There must be someone controlling them if the majority of them are still below the surface and are waiting for something,"

"Affirmative. ETA for Satellite positioning - 12 minutes."

Okay. That was one problem semi resolved, at the moment.

The other one was the problem with the Tesseract. The good news was that they no longer had to rely on Coulson's database access to get information about the Tesseract since the President had ordered for SHIELD to stay away from the site and as much as the WSC liked to think they were above their respective countries, they were not, at least not yet.

They had been continuously scanning the damned thing but all they were getting was a single constant reading, despite the numerous bombardments done on the Cube. The only time it spiked was when the Portal was opened and it had remained there until now.

He opened the footage they had of Loki with the Portal machine captured by numerous cameras situated all around him, giving him a pretty good view of the man and the machine.

He could see that Loki's hands were stained red, either by the blood of someone or maybe due to some injury but that was odd because Loki had never entered the fray in any of the invasions, choosing to stay invisible rather than fight himself.

His primary weapon, the sceptre…..

Oh shit!

"Jarvis! Where's the sceptre? Scan the sceptre. Also, I want it prepped for transport," He ordered Jarvis before he looked at the image once again. It was being continuously refined and while the military had software that could refine it more, he already had what he needed.

"Thor!" he called out as he exited the tent assigned to their team after shutting down everything. He had a hunch that they could try before the sceptre got here. If he was correct, they might just close the portal down all at the tiny cost of some injuries on Thor's hands that would heal soon enough anyway.


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 127[May 2012]

Manhattan [Inside Axle's Mind]

–Axle Riddle [Ặ̸̧̨͈̙̳͈̐̅̎̂͝͝w̴̡̬̹̣̭͖̥̞̞͉̮̙̬̎́̏̃̇̓̐͒̓̄̂͑̚͘͝͠ä̵͚̼̟̜͕̯̖̥̲͍͙́͗̿̈́́͗͜k̷̢̞̬̱͎̳͍̞̱̜͕̠̺̱̲͆̑̍͋ë̵̪̱̩̩̣̩̬͚̲̺̥̤͎̻̝̙͚̊̆̎͐̌͑̚͝͝͝͝n̶̢̧̢̜͙̜̖͕̭̟̦̝͎̭̻̔̈͜ę̵̡̨̮̫̬̫͎͔̥̹̅̈́̄̃͂̅͑̓̒̍̐͝ḑ̴̟̟͕̙̼͔͎̠̬̭̃̇͆̏̀̆̈́̍̽͋̕]–

Huh. So this is what it felt like to have the Sage Force, the complete Sage Force, Axle thought to himself as he floated in what felt like space but he couldn't really confirm anything. All he knew was that his entire memory base was being scanned, optimised, and torn down once again, for new defenses to take their place.

He could feel the Sage Force, he could feel its connection to his body, a body that was becoming increasingly feeble compared to the mind it was housing.

Despite the significant boost that the Sage Force gave to its bearers to allow their bodies to continue functioning despite housing a vastly more powerful mind, his body was not up to par, certainly not with the mind he currently had.

He sighed in resignation. Once again, he would be shackled, only this time he would have to do it of his own volition. He couldn't feel anything beyond his body but he knew that he was currently on a cold hard surface, with the smell of the hospital wafting through. Combined with the periodical beeping of the equipment around him, he knew that he was in some sort of hospital.

Which could be both good or bad, depending on where he was. The New York Invasion meant that hospitals would be overburdened with patients and that could affect the ICU ward that he was undoubtedly in, because he was certainly declared comatose on top of that building.

There was also a very real threat to his identity being discovered and him being kidnapped but judging by the lack of sedatives in his bloodstream and chains on his body, he knew that he was not in hostile company.

Regardless, that limited his options vastly. He knew that New York was under attack because why else would the curtain break and embed itself in his body? A fact that he was still getting used to because as it turned out, that curtain, that thing that was keeping him locked down in Manhattan and was stopping his powers from working properly outside a certain range, that curtain was what was left of his connection to the Sage Force.

It was just sitting there, encapsulating him, slowly gathering energy, from the universe, from his broken connection, and from everywhere it could, all so that by the time came, that entire energy could be dumped straight into him, turning him from an incomplete Sage Force avatar into a complete one.

Somewhere along the way, something was lost in translation, he had a feeling because he was not just going from an incomplete avatar to a complete one. He was going from an incomplete Sage Force Avatar into a fully realised Avatar. The difference between both of them was so immense that his body was buckling under the pressure of housing his mind.

Already, he could feel his hard earned muscles atrophying because the body was rerouting precious energy to the brain which was also struggling to hold onto the sheer weight of his power. This could not go on, he could tell. In this struggle, only he would be the loser but despite having all this power, he couldn't exactly control any of it.

It was all a raging ocean with multiple massive earthquakes going off under the ocean at all times, and he was trying to jostle that energy back into something that resembled calm. He was trying since what seemed like forever but the ocean refused to budge and why would it?

He was just a tiny speck in comparison. It was just flowing through him, nourishing his soul, mind and body as well but the body aspect was just not happening as fast as it should because of some reason.

His mind was fine somehow but as far as he knew, it was only because his mind had already been prepared. It was as if someone had left behind a set of instructions and had already stretched his mind, for a lack of a better term, beforehand, so that it would have no problems adjusting to the very real power that coursed through his mind.

He sighed and was about to try again when a light bulb appeared above him. No, an actual light bulb did appear because it was his soul scape and anything he wished could be manifested. He looked at the odd bulb for a moment before it smoked out like a cartoon, dropping a scroll on his head.

He fumbled to grab it lest it fall into the endless void he was falling into and be lost to him. He also looked up to see that the smoke from the bulb had formed the word "EUREKA" right above him, before that too dissipated slowly.

He shook his head and unfurled the scroll.

"Hello Dumbass, although since you are me, I guess we are both dumbasses. Do you have ANY idea how embarrassing it was to see you bumbling around? You are literal cosmic power given form and I had to hear you whining about not having telepathy. GROW UP!

He leaned back as the HELLO DUMBASS resounded in his very being and then his eyes widened as he read more and more of the scroll…..

__xx__

Utah

–Randall–

"Thor, how close can you get to the machine?" He asked Thor, coordinating the missile strikes so that there would be a lull in the invading forces, allowing THor some time to do what he thought could end this battle.

"Very. I can reach the machine with ease, these lizards are no match for the Mighty Mjolnir," Thor did the perfect rendition of an overexcited Viking as he raised his hammer to the sky, with the rest of the military personel ducking around him as lighting thundered in the sky.

"Okay, alright. Great, what I want you to do Thor is to try and get past the barriers with your hands," He slowly asked THor of what he was sure was going to sound outrageous but he had a hunch that they were going about this whole thing in the wrong manner.

The Tesseract was an object of unexplainable origins and unexplainable properties. Something that could literally not be explained and anyone who touched it found themselves dying or with their hands melted due to the sheer energy output of the damned thing.

Maybe, just maybe, the Tesseract was not supposed to be just part of a machine that could open portals.

That maybe it was something that could also be used by a person. More specifically, someone who could handle holding onto the Tesseract long enough to actually wield it as a weapon. Someone strong enough to resist the effects and not end up with melted hands or as just ash.

He had a theory that Loki did the same but his hands were reddened and injured because he was probably trying to do the entire thing manually, which made sense because the portal was not stationary, in a single place like it is now. No, it was moving, dumping Chitauri in places before moving on to the next population centre.

That had to require some finessing because the Tessertact, strapped to a machine could not possible do all of that, or maybe it could, and he was wrong and they were all doomed to fight them until the Invisible Man came along, and held the portal open and clear for long enough for them to dump Earth's entire nuclear payload into the damned portal as humanity's last "Fuck you"

He took a deep breath, coming out of his morbid thoughts as he looked at Thor who had gone utterly still at his words. Before he could say something and defend his hypothesis, thunder rumbled as Thor hugged him, lifting him off the ground in doing so.

He could only take it, as Thor said, "Yes! That is perfect. How could I forget? When the Bifrost was not being used, my Father used the Tesseract with his bare hands to devastating effects."

His eyes widened as hope surged within his heart. Thor's next words dimmed it a bit… "Although I am not as proficient as my father in the arts of Seidr, it was always Loki's expertise, I can try to stop the portal. It should be easy enough, Loki could do it,"

What the hell, despite that hope dimming, at least that there was some hope now. They weren't just waiting for their Lord and Savior to come and save them, sitting around like ducks.

Now, all that was left was, "Clark!" He beckoned the junior most analyst that was assigned to them as a clear snub because the military did not like clearly enhanced people running their operation. He'd heard more than one general mutter "freaks" whenever the Generals were in sight.

Clark scrambled over, his tablet held tightly, "Yes, sir?"

"Get me a status update on the Mole invasion of Manhattan. Hulk should be arriving shortly along with two of my brothers, so the urban areas should be secured soon enough. Also, relay these missile patterns to the High Command. I want these precise paths followed by the missiles in an hour or so. Tell them it is non negotiable, or I will have to call the President,"

Clark clearly went pale at that, having to face the daunting task of convincing his clearly biased superiors or risk having the President called on them, who everyone knew was favouring the team of supers who were risking their lives for free.

"Go!"

"Yes sir!" Clark saluted and ran away with shaky legs. God, how did that man ever get into the upper echelons of the analysts in the army was a mystery to him.


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