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 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.

 

[vtkun]

thanks for the chapter

 

[RazeByFire]

This is pretty interesting; Frank is a top tier soldier and training Enhanced individuals will give him a leg up when security companies start trying to take them into account.

Or Nick might want to poach him to do the same; Natasha and Clint can't do everything.

Frank would look for conventional firearms-based weapons first but if Randall can come up with a powered exoskeleton to carry REALLY big guns and armor the Army would certainly be a front-line customer.

I'm glad Castle will still be an element in this story.

 

[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.

 

[Cardo076]

"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.

Click to shrink...

You should pull off a Darth Vader "I find your lack of faith disturbing"

 

[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.



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[SquirtleTurtle]

Messing with Tony never gets old since it's always on the other foot.

 

[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.


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[chicozapote]

God says that he dies he will die DEUS VULT

 

[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.

 

[RustedSands]

Fury seems to have forgotten that the mc has a shit ton of grateful rich people living in Manhattan right now and it would take little to no effort to tell every single one of them "hey! the US government is trying to imprison/enslave these people under my protection in order to try and make supersoldiers!" At the SAME time.

 

[SquirtleTurtle]

Honestly there's enough money in Manhattan to make a great many career politicians be run out of Washington. Mess with their golden perfectly safe city? Not on their watch.

 

[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!


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.

 

[chicozapote]

Así que mini dios, si le gustan las chicas, bueno, ya estaba asustado, el tipo tiene un festival de salchichas en su sótano secreto, da miedo (escritor, es broma, no se depriman, la historia es buena 10/10)

 

[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.


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[Shaedy Hoe]

Since Tony was dead, he set his sights on the man who piloted a walking armour of a tank.

Click to shrink...

*Howard

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.

Click to shrink...

*signature

Thanks for the update.

 

[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 55 [September 2010, Day 1 of the Stark Expo]

–Axle Riddle–

"Here they come," He muttered to himself as he got comfortable in his cheap mattress, seeing the entire crowd enter the Expo like rabid fans. The audience was varied as well, from old tech nerds to high school students on a school trip, to children accompanied by their parents for a night out.

The Expo's audience had it all and he for one, could not find Ben Parker. He knew the man's face and was actually concerned if this was the day that Ben Parker was killed or injured in action but so far, no sign of Ben Parker or someone who was wearing an Iron Man helmet. Though, it would make sense for the kid wearing the Iron Man helmet to be Peter Parker, given his whole nerdiness.

Romanoff had split off from Pepper Potts to go check in on the whole security around the Expo with Happy Hogan, and unfortunately, she had almost stumbled upon the Hulks who were doing a very poor job of mixing in. He would have warned them about her but it was not their fault they could not escape the eyes of someone who was trained since she was but a child to spot and identify suspicious people, and Randall and Co. were certainly not blending in as much as they could.

They were neither in a group nor looking at any of the tech with interest. They were not journalists or reporters, they were not security….though-yes, he can spin it like that.

Oh, perfect timing, he thought to himself as Romanoff, after informing Happy about something, started sauntering her way straight to the Hulks in the auditorium section of the Expo. He winced as he realised they were the weakest link of the Hulks, what with the runt of the litter along with Randall, who was the most boisterous of the six, being there.

He intervened before things could escalate. He had to, otherwise these fools would end up exposing themselves even before any attack could occur. The attack might even be blamed on their heads, one could never be certain as to what lengths of stupidity people in power could go to cover their own asses.

Romanoff's confident expression faltered as she felt something holding her back. Not something like a hand but as if some unseen force had engulfed her entire body and was gently applying pressure on her body to stop her from moving, or at least discourage her from going in the same direction she was going before.

She raised an eyebrow as he gently redirected her away from the Hulks and into the backstage area of one of the empty booths. He looked at the booths and deadpanned as he realised that the booth was about the clean water efforts by Stark Industries in Africa and similarly low income countries.

Seriously, people have no value in all the things Tony does for the unprivileged people. And if this is the kind of footfall his efforts get, he could understand why it was sidelined and only the military and the cool stuff was shown on the big Stage.

"Invisible Man, I presume?" Romanoff coolly said as he let his hold over her go and tried to flood the area with his presence, as he normally did whenever he wanted to have an actual conversation with someone. It felt better that way. But, he failed this time. The distance was too much and he also needed to keep an eye on the entire range of the expo to make sure that nothing untoward happened to any of them.

So far, he had already broken the fingers of 3 molesters and broke hands of 4 people who tried to take off with kids who were not their own. Damn, people really do the vilest of things if they think they don't have company.

"Yes, Agent Romanoff. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't investigate the particular two individuals you had tagged earlier. At Least not until after the Expo is over," He said, hoping she would listen but knowing that it would be a fool's errand to think so. Romanoff was a spy. Information was her bread and butter. There was literally no way she would let this go without extracting as much information as possible from him.

"Oh, are they your men? Teammates, perhaps? Our reports suggested that you only work solo but it's nice to see that you even pay attention to a huge security risk like this," Romanoff said as she continued to look around the area.

"No one is here, I already checked. And yes, they are…hired help, you could say. As I am sure your reports corroborate, I can only act in a certain range with impunity, which is to say Manhattan and its surrounding areas. Once I get out of that range, it becomes harder and harder for me to exert the same amount of force. Hence, the hired help. They will make sure that, in case of any incident, all the attendees are safe and sound, all for the cost of you not spooking them,"

"So, they are the people that escaped from Ross, then?"

He sighed and shoved another mouthful of Chinese takeout into his mouth. What? It was stressful, trying to coordinate things for an attack you knew was coming but could do nothing about.

"Yes, the seven brothers, through no fault of their own, aside from being just a tad bit too trusting of unknown people, found themselves voluntarily entering the illegal experiments that Ross was running. Luckily, they found themselves enhanced but not so much as the Big Guy. They also look the same on the outside, so I thought, why not employ them,"

"So you are running a crew then? What for?"

"Romanoff, I would love to give you the full rundown of what I do for my entire day but I have work to do, and so do you. If I am not wrong, your current boss, aside from Fury, is looking for you. Just ignore 4 more suspicious guys you might find and we'll be good. I'll be sure to hand over a report to whoever is the SHIELD liaison this time,"

Romanoff nodded at thin air, schooled her expression, and left to find Pepper Potts.

He was sure this was not the last he was going to be seeing of her but the woman was razor focused on extracting all the information she could from the conversation and it was certainly exhausting trying to talk to people like that.

"Boss, the show's about to start,"

"Yeah yeah, I know," He said to Randall as he sensed the massive amount of crowd gathering in the middle of the auditorium. He made sure that the armoured pieces were ready and accessible by bringing them in, just under the stage where Hammer was keeping his armed drones.

He could sense Rhodey in the War Machine suit as well and he had to say, even from a distance, it was awesome!

Hammer was yapping in the background and he could see the sheer exhaustion on Rhodey's face as he realised that he would have to, presumably, deal with this idiot for far longer than necessary.

Slowly, the crowd filtered into the auditorium after the myriad announcements made by Hammer, just for the event.

Rhodey couldn't look happier as he was literally told to go stand in with a bunch of zombie drones underneath a stage with pitch black darkness inside.

Damn, Hammer really was the most annoying CEO in the weapons space, even if one counted pre-Afghanistan Tony Stark.


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[Retalom]

why not call him the presence? he's not in DC so i doubt that capital G god would take offense?

 

[chicozapote]

¿Por qué no llamarlo la presencia? No está en DC, así que dudo que ese dios con G mayúscula se ofenda.
[/CITA]
porque hay uno que se parece a él aquí también y este es muy malo.

Click to shrink...

 

[Retalom]

i'm confused why your answer is not showing in english and the presence you're talking about does he even exist in the mcu continuity?

 

[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 56 [September 2010, Day 1 of the Stark Expo]

–Axle Riddle–

Axle Riddle watched as Justin Hammer, Yapper of the Yapperston University, continued to Yap on and on about the current unfair situation of Tony Stark just hoarding all of Tony Stark's tech, and not giving it to the military or better yet, to leeches like Justin Hammer who can use it to wage even better warfare.

He was not kidding when he said that the mood between the members of the audience could not have been lower. It was not like Justin was standing in a military fair, in front of decorated generals or members of the government. No, he was standing in front of an auditorium filled with regular people, students, who had taken time out of their evenings to watch….this.

Understandably, the mood was rather down. Thankfully, Justin seemed to realise that the longer he kept his mouth open, the bigger the hole he was digging for himself, so he just shut up and began doing his whole show about the drones popping out of the stage, with Rhodey leading them as the War Machine.

Seriously, it might be called a War Machine but unless Tony himself supplies his top tier weapons, he doubted there was much difference in combat levels between the normal suit sans the weapons and the suit with all the Hammer weapons in the world attached to it.

"Army!"

"Navy!"

"Air Force!"

While Hammer continued to yap, his mind was working overtime as he tried to look for something that would indicate someone who should not be here. Because he could not discount the possibility of HYDRA knowing about Vanko and then coming here to make sure that they could get the spoils. Although, if HYDRA really wanted something, they could have just coaxed old Justin over there to send over a sample of every drone to them, ahead of time.

However, competence should not always be expected, even from thousand year old Behemoths.

Aha! He finally got here.

"All units, Tony Stark has just entered my range. He should be visible right…about…now," He said to all the Hulks as well as Randall who was monitoring everything. He spied Romanoff's form along with Happy Hogan leaving the Expo for some reason. So, Romanoff had something then.

"Randall, follow Romanoff and Happy Hogan and see if you can do something to help them. They must be going after Vanko,"

"Roger that! Oh! I always wanted to say that in real life!" Randall's voice cut over as he kept a close watch on Tony. He could see that the suit was completely new, devoid of any defects or even repair work.

So, Tony should be relatively safe in that big hunk of iron. Tony's face, inside the suit, was one of determination, with none of the sickly purple lines showing on his body anywhere. He smiled as it seemed as if, no matter the timeline Tony was in, he would pull through.

Tony Stark had officially created Vibranium, or at least some variant of it that was more useful in energy transmission rather than kinetic energy absorption.

He could feel Justin, as well as Rhodey, tensing as the entire audience silenced down, hearing the whine of Tony's repulsor. However, that same silence turned into deafening cheers as Tony Stark's Iron Man landed on the stage in his signature style.

Tony's faceplate opened up as he put his arm around Rhodey's shoulder, waving at the audience while telling RHodey something, probably about the fact that Vanko was still alive and Hammer was keeping him hidden somewhere.

He was more busy with making sure that the pieces were in place. Samuel and Tim were the ones who were chosen to become the flying pieces of grinders who would take apart those drones.

Both of them were standing right in front of the stadium, looking fearlessly at the arrayed drones, with their pieces of armour just waiting to pop from underneath the stadium. Both of them were tense, waiting for the other shoe to drop, as were the other 4 Hulks who were stationed in the other areas, waiting to evacuate the other people.

This would be it. After today, these guys would be public heroes, since, in their own words, they didn't want to remain hidden. Most of them loved the attention and since being in Manhattan meant that there was no real danger to them, they would love to become the so-called heroes of Manhattan.

…..

…

"Go!" As soon as he felt Rhodey shouting at Tony and the other drones activating on their own, he just sent the pieces of armour at Samuel and Tim. Both of them remembered their training and jumped forward in a swimming diving pose, the pieces of armour interposing around them, forming a literal clone over their head, made from the strongest titanium alloy mixture that Bruce and Randall could find.

The screams began a second later as Tony blasted his way through the glass auditorium, with the War Machine hot in his tail. Thankfully, he was able to strain his powers long enough for the glass shards to be collected in a small ball before throwing it down into the center.

"Evacuate Everyone!" He made sure to make it heard over the comms as he saw Samuel and Tim just blasting through two rows of Army Drones, scrapping them completely, before the rest of the drones began taking cognizance of them.

He could feel Tony and Rhodey blasting through the skies, with Rhodey's weaponry constantly taking shots at Iron Man while Tony tried his best to take the drones away from the people.

"Randall, patch to Tony and tell him about our people there. Also, tell him that he will have backup soon," He ordered Randall who immediately began typing furiously on his custom made keyboard.

So far, Samuel and Tim had seen the lion's share of action as the other Hulks were busy getting people away from the center of action. Most of them had resorted to shredding through the expo panels to make way for more people to get out of the danger zone.

Meanwhile, the drones, or rather Vanko had finally taken note of Samuel and Tim and were focusing the firepower of the drones on them, with most of the air force drones creating a circle around the area and constantly peppering the area with repulsor blasts.

Samuel and Tim were both doing okay, what with the repulsor arrays only stinging a bit, as opposed to punching a hole through them. Once all the army drones were taken care of, he lifted Samuel and just…rammed him through one of the Air Force drones.

Being made of lighter stuff for more maneuverability, the drone folded in pieces as Samuel just tackled it out of the sky. The next moment, Tim did the same.

Just like that, half of the total drones that Hammer had brought were scrapped right in the auditorium itself, never having the chance to get out and hurt people.

He sighed in relief as he felt most of the people getting out of the Expo and into the parking lot where the emergency services had just arrived and began setting everything up.

Not to be outshone by their siblings, the other 4 hulks arrived on the scene as well and well, lacking any means to be airborne, simply began lifting stuff and throwing them at the drones. The drones too, the ones who were not after Tony, began firing at them.

He almost laughed out loud when he saw them throwing Leny at one of the drones, what with Leny being the scrawniest of the bunch. Leny missed but with the drone's attention firmly on the falling form of Leny, it missed the literal pole that skewered the drone through the chest as the hulks made sure to capitalise on the opportunity provided to them.

He could see the drone horde closing in on Tony but it was very thin this time, allowing him to outmanoeuvre them very easily. The War Machine though, was hot in his tail, the advanced repulsors with better maneuverability meant that Rhodey was keeping up with Tony, even with the advanced reactor that Tony had this time.

He switched tactics and tried to see if the components of the drones were as cheap as he thought they were.

He focused on the foot repulsors and after some fidgeting around, he grinned as just unplugging some wires, he was able to make the repulsor fizzle out, unbalancing the whole drone, leading him away from Tony. He then started pulling wires from all the repulsor arrays from all the drones, creating a completely hilarious situation where the drones kept facing Tony but their repulsors kept flickering in and out, drawing them further down, or away from Tony.

He grinned as the drones never saw Leny, Samuel, and the others coming as the Hulks, combined made very short work of the remaining drones.

"Good work, team. Now rendezvous at Tony's location, the Big One is coming," Randall said into the comms before the Hulks began heading to the clearing Tony and Rhodey were talking in.

It would seem that Romanoff had finally infiltrated the facility and rebooted everything.

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 or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[chicozapote]

Retalom ,If the god of the universe needs to be seen as losing prestige and the MCU for me is like a playground for children, there are strong things but nothing like the other universes (because of English, it is not my native language, I thought I wrote it in English but I put it in Spanish because of the dream

 

[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 57 [September 2010, Day 1 of the Stark Expo]

–Tony Stark–

Well, today was certainly not going, according to expectations.

Normally, that would be a bad thing, what with his penchant for extreme SCIENCE! adventures, but today it actually turned out to be a good thing.

Today has actually been good for many reasons. He finally figured out how to create the new element that his father had designed all these years ago, only being unable to create it due to the limitations of the technology at the time.

Hell, even he was limited to the technology of his time, the only difference was that he lived in a much more connected world than his old Pops did, so he was able to source all the parts and use the combined knowledge of the world's geniuses, to make the makeshift particle accelerator, however stupid it might have been to make on in one's basement, and create the new element for his Arc Reactor.

He named it Starkium, after his father. Ah, him and his atrocious naming scheme.

Oh well, he thought to himself as he dogged yet another round of lethal repulsor volleys before turning hard right, grinning to himself as he further thinned the hoard that was after him because Hammer was too cheap to install advanced turning compensation mechanisms in his suits.

Well, what could one expect from a copycat anyway?

"Six bogies remaining, sir." Jarvis helpfully reminded him even as he watched the red dots on his HUD disappear one by one. Jarvis, without any prompting, opened up a feed from one of the many cameras nearby, and the visuals he was seeing left him stunned for a moment.

If he was not wrong, he was seeing a bunch of humans, though judging by their sheer strength, they were anything but regular humans, just throw one of them at the drones. The even more strange thing was that the person would find themselves airborne and then land in the dit without a scratch, all the while the drones were being skewered lift, right, and centre by anything the people could throw at the drones.

Poles, Chairs, Rocks, and even some experimental showings from some companies that had come to the Stark Expo for exposure. The items themselves were certainly not lethal to metal drones by any stretch of the imagination. What was lethal was the speed and strength at which the group was throwing the objects, as well as each other.

"Jarvis?" He yelled as one of Rhodey's repulsor blasts came way too close for comfort. While the Hammer Bots had quantity when it came to repulsor blast quality, the suit Rhodey was wearing was made by him and such, was top notch when it came to quality. While the Arc Reactor itself was the last gen, the power output was not the issue when it came to the last gen, it slowly killing him was.

"Only 2 remaining bogies, sir. Colonel Rhodes' suit is being scrambled by outside code." Jarvis helpfully reminded him, even though he was stating the obvious.

He grinned as he had an idea, "Jarvis, point me to the strongmen," Yeah, he was going to be calling them the strongmen since they were strong.

"Any luck in scrambling the signal, Jarvis?" "No, sir,"

Yeah, he thought so. So, he just turned a hard left and then a hard right, and so on and so forth, until the drone itself was somehow malfunctioning, with its repulsor arrays flickering in and out of the stable stasis field that was required for the muons to safely generate thrust. He grinned and just clipped the drone, shoving it straight into the direction of the strongmen who took great joy in viciously tearing apart the drone with their bare hands, the stings from the repulsors apparently not even drawing blood from their skins.

Well, that was scary.

"Tony TONY! I am back in control." He sighed in relief as Rhodey finally got the armour in control. They then landed in a small clearing around the Expo.

"Thank god," Rhodey said as the faceplate of his armour opened up.

"Yeah, I don't think it was God who rebooted your Armour, Rhodey. We have a Miss Rushman to thank for that," He said even as Jarvis relayed the details to Rhodey's HUD as well.

"Stark, you have an incoming bogie, and be careful, the energy signature on this one is incomparable to the drones before," Romanoff's voice sounded in both his and Rhodey's suits as their respective faceplates slid over their faces.

Both of them stood with their backs to each other as the bigger energy signature came closer and closer. Both of them looked up at the sound of something big coming through the air, seeing a huge black behemoth of a suit dropping down in front of them.

His face scrunched in distaste by instinct as he examined the monstrosity of a suit in front of him. It was easily over 9 feet tall and was completely grey and black, with two-no three Arc Reactors embedded inside the suit for some reason. It was not as if he had some energy intensive application that required–

CRACK! SIZZLE!

Oh. Ooooh.

His face turned grim as he watched a veritable storm of energy gather around Vanko's suit as multiple whips came out of the suit. So, that was why he was packing so many Arc Reactors.

"DUCK!" Rhodey said even though he was the first one who moved out of the way, as two whips came blasting down on the ground he was standing on, leaving nothing but a gaping hole with molten sand around it, due to the sheer heat generated by the whips.

"Jarvis!"

"Getting into direct contact with the whips is inadvisable, sir," Jarvis, oh so unhelpfully reminded him. The HUD Showed energy readings far beyond the pale, somehow the whips could generate enough energy to overwhelm the suit's energy dissipation capabilities, so if even one of them touched him, it could shear the suit in half, and him in the process.

"Argh!" He grunted in pain as the tail end of one of the whips caught one of his legs, melting through the repulsor arrays, creating a small localized blast of energy that shrugged off the whip but also sent him careening straight into the mud.

He propped himself back up, only to see Rhodey trying to unload every single one of his payloads into Hammer but from a distance.

"Jarvis!" He said as he peppered Hammer's suit from behind with his repulsors, only for the third whip to begin rotating around his back as if it was some sort of energy shield and it was actually working.

Holy SHIT! Hammer actually worked out the concept of an energy shield. Damn, if only he wasn't a villain vying for his bloodline, he would have made Stark Industries a boatload of money.

"No viable weak spots detected, sir," Jarvis' analysis meant that they couldn't do much but flee.

"Rhodey! Leave!" He shouted over the comms and Rhodey's suit immediately began backpedalling but the whip, the damn whips came too close and sheared off part of his chest piece, along with the Arc Reactor.

"RHODEY!" He shouted as he blasted towards Rhodey and picked up his prone form. Jarvis' sensors indicated he was having third degree burns on his chest and a broken rib or two due to the impact but nothing life threatening as long as medical attention was given to him in a few hours.

He slowly dropped him down a distance away before turning to face Vanko, with fury in his eyes.

"Jarvis, reroute all power to the Chest piece,"

"...Affirmative,"

He looked on his HUD as the power levels began climbing, charging the chest piece which would then unleash a single devastating beam of repulsor blast, capable of cutting through steel like paper.

The UniBeam was only charged halfway through when, with a roar, multiple beings came barreling through the forest clearing around them, seemingly throwing themselves on top of Vanko.

Vanko, clearly caught off guard, struggled to deal with the small people who were just shoving his gigantic suit around.

He recognised those as the strongmen. It was about damn time.

The UniBeam continued to charge as his eyes spied on the reddening skin and burn marks on some of the strongmen. Yeah, this was hurting them as well, the whips clearly being on another level than the repulsors.

Seeing the UniBeam almost charged, he shouted, "Hold him STILL!"

They clearly heard him as all six of them, at the same time, charged and held on to his whips and pulled.

Vanko struggled but the strongmen held on, even as their fists sizzled by the temperatures.

With a loud whining sound, he braced for impact as his feet drove into the ground, the UniBeam tore through the air and then slammed straight into the chest piece of Vanko's suit, punching through it like it was paper.

The beam fizzled out after a moment as the suit unfurled around him, the Arc Reactor dropping down to dangerous levels. His eyes unfocused, he managed to point at the injured Rhodey before falling down on his face, darkness claiming 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.

 

[Spearow]

call them the pillar man

 

[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 58 [September 2010, Day 1 of the Stark Expo]

–Axle Riddle–

Well, that was something alright.

Due to the UniBeam being pure energy manifested from the Arc Reactor, in quite a dangerous way, if Randall's words were to be believed, he could not really "see" it as he did with his spatial awareness but this time it was different. While he could not detect pure energy by his extra senses, he did manage to sense the effect of the beam on the surroundings.

While he was still way off from sensing "space" or rather, space that was not being affected by Magical portals, he was able to figure out the effects of an energy beam punching through the very air and then through the very thick plates of armoured steel as well.

"Randall, tell me the bombs are gone?" He said to Randall, tensely awaiting the answer as he prepared to try and move all the mechs in a single location, though that was mostly done by the Hulks because they were all actually gathered in a single location and the drones naturally homed in on their location, with them being the primary threats to the drones, even before Tony.

"...Just a second aand, DONE! All Arc bombs have been deactivated," Randall's voice made him slump down in the cheap chair that the hotel owner was providing to the guests here.

"Alright team, gather the scraps, and make sure to get out of there as planned," He ordered them to take as much as they could and escape that place.

"Take Tony obviously," He ordered Leny, the weakest of the bunch but also the fastest of the bunch, to take Tony. Leny then hilariously began pulling the Iron Man suit by its legs as he slung Tony over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and after sharing a nod with Randall, headed out towards the emergency area.

Meanwhile, he examined Rhodey's injuries and winced upon seeing the blood pooling in this suit. With no way to remove it altogether, he simply lifted the armour and made it follow Leny who was now jumping with the suit, and Tony.

He could not simply hand over Rhodey and the War Machine armour to any Tom, Dick, and Harry. It would have to be either Romanoff or Pepper Potts because there were probably more people wanting this suit of armour than there were screws in the whole thing.

The suit of armour was making it really hard for him to do anything meaningful to tend to Rhodey's injuries but the distance itself meant that aside from artificially stopping the bleeding and making sure that he was in an ideal breathing position, there wasn't much he could do.

The Arc Reactor housing was damaged badly and as such, there was no energy in the suit so Jarvis could not be contacted to help open up the suit. Looks like they would have to cut through it.

Or..

"Randall, can you communicate with Jarvis?"

"What? Stark's AI? Yeah, what do you want me to tell him?"

"Ask him for a way to open up Rhodey's suit without any power from the Arc Reactor because his injuries are worsening. We need to open up the suit so that emergency services can actually help him,"

"Doing that right now. Still, it is kind of risky to let an AI know that we exist at all, let alone establishing a direct communication corridor with him,"

He waited a few moments as the huge parking lot where all the emergency service workers were pooled up came into view. Most of the attendees had been evacuated from the Expo by shuttle buses arranged by the company. He scanned the entire expo and was relieved to see that nobody was left behind in the Expo. No child, pet, or man, was there.

This meant that it was the prime opportunity to steal Arc Reactors, even if they were of questionable quality.

"Yeah, Jarvis says there should be an emergency release mechanism inside the armoured hip joint,"

No sooner did he hear those words, than he ripped apart the hip armour, rolling his eyes at the stupidity of installing a release valve under a thick plate of steel but that was most likely Hammer's genius shining through instead of faulty design on Tony's and Jarvis' part.

He could see Pepper Potts and Romanoff rushing towards Leny as they saw Tony completely out of it.

They also gasped upon seeing Rhodey and the deep gash on his chest. The EMT came rushing in as he gently deposited Rhodey on the gurney.

After handing over Tony to Potts and leaving the Iron Man and the War machine suits at their feet, Leny jumped back and disappeared into the woods. Or more accurately, into the line of sewers that criss crossed the underneath of the expo land, joining his brothers.

They were still not out of the clear yet. No doubt Ross and co, or HYDRA had already noticed the escaped experimental subjects and were already on their way to "apprehend" them based on some BS law.

The good news was that the closer they were to him, the better he could help them.

"Oh, there they are," He muttered to himself as he watched armed members with no uniforms somehow pinpoint the direction of the Hulks and chase them in that direction. Well, no doubt they could tag and trace the energy signature of Leny and the others but couldn't do much until they were out of Manhattan.

Now that they were here, it was just like tangling a juicy bait in front of a hungry dog. The Dog couldn't help it and had to leap towards the bait. He nudged Romanoff who was coordinating efforts to secure all the armour, back in the Expo and informed her about the incoming tail on the Hulks and how he expected SHIELD to handle it.

"In exchange, I will reveal some critical information to Fury," He promised her, not yet deciding on the information that will be revealed to Fury but that can be decided later on.

Right now, it was more fun to watch the cars and the assailants faltering as he made sure that sharp objects were wedged into the tires and the steering were turned in the wrong direction, or brakes were applied, or the transmission was jammed.

Tony was now awake and discussing something with Pepper while Stark Industries employs collected the Iron Man armour as well as the War machine armour. Rhodey was being carted to the nearest hospital, thankfully, his breathing has returned to normal.

Most of the debris from the drones had been collected but some of it was left, which would no doubt be collected by the alphabet soup companies in the next few hours or so.

The assailants were now in a pretty sad shape as their cars continued to betray them, with sharp things hitting their windshields, entering their cars, and mildly injuring them as well.

The tag game went on for a minute before the Hulks came close enough to Manhattan that he just lifted them out of the sewers through a manhole cover and then catapulted them straight into Manhattan. Far from the scary mess they were the first time he did this, they whooped and hollered as they entered his domain and were thus safe.

The assailants, probably realising that, stopped their attempts and tried to turn around. Tried being the keyword as he had just busted all their tires and loosened all the screws he could, leaving them stranded in what could only be called a shell of a car.

"Randall? How soon can we get the prototypes working?" He asked Randall who had proposed to him a remote base of operations. A huge rectangular ship, kept afloat by Repulsors and Arc Rectors so that it doesn't have to come down for months at a time.

Once he was free, something like that would be immensely helpful. Randall and Bruce could have cracked the Repulsors given time but a working sample would reduce the time required to bring it to production.

If it was ready before the Invasion, they might just have their very own weapons platform for the Chitauri Invasion.

If the invasion was going to happen anyway, he might just let it happen for far longer than it did during canon, to really drive it home. The impact of an actual alien invasion in the heart of the most powerful country on the planet.

With him around, no civilian casualties would be recorded but even if the world could see the material devastation that the aliens could bring about, perhaps that would spur the moment of global cooperation to present a united front for the things that awaited them in the deep darkness of space.



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.

 

[Hyperionthetitan]

Speaking of herb,maybe he can go find some from namor stash , that one had no gods hoarding it

 

[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 59 [September 2010, Day 1 of the Stark Expo]

–Axle Riddle–

Well, this was quick, he thought to himself as he watched Nick Fury, along with Natasha Romanoff arrive straight into Manhattan in a helicopter. Fury's trust in him had certainly reached new heights if he was so confident in coming here, in his domain where he was the undisputed power holder, without much backup.

Thinking from Fury's perspective though, it must be incredibly frustrating to be in that situation but in Axle's perspective, it was incredibly amusing to watch Fury, and to an extent, other higher authorities, bend themselves in front of him because they simply didn't know enough about him.

And that was one of the main reasons he was never going to reveal himself to the world. The world would never, if he could help it anyway, see him personally leaping into action. He believed that his powers would be more than enough and if they weren't, it's not like his physical prowess is anything to be awed about.

Sure, he could bend steel and jump higher than multiple-story buildings in a single leap, but that didn't mean that he had the sheer versatility that he did with his Telekinesis, especially when combined with his spatial awareness.

He still took regular hand-to-hand combat classes with Frank though and he was sure that Frank had caught on by now, to the fact that he never sweated, was never tried, never had to take a break, or caught off guard by anything that Frank or the other students did, Frank had yet to say anything about it.

He could see that Frank was giving him a noticeably tougher time than the others, especially in the spars because he outclassed everyone in his class a long time ago. Yet, he never really did anything about it, and that kinda made him respect Frank more.

The ability to not give a fuck and mine one's own business is a trait that is very rare in the marvel universe which is filled with goody two shoes who would not hesitate before putting their nose where it does not belong.

Well, he was one to say, he was the biggest peeper the planet had ever seen, aside from the Watcher but he operated on a cosmic, nay, multiversal scale so that utter hack didn't count.

"I heard that!" He could almost hear the whispers in the smooth suave voice of the Watcher, but that couldn't be right, he was sworn to non interference, right?

Anyway, he, once again made sure to flood his presence in the designated SHIELD safehouse where the Random Beautiful Agent was still snoring away, it was still 7 in the morning so he could excuse her for that.

Now, Axle Riddle, the helpful senior executive whose role no one in the office knows about, would have excused that. The Green Guardian, he might have excused that but Nick Fury?

Nick, the one eyed spymaster of Earth, Fury? Well, he was about to see what would happen then in real time as he maintained a curtain of silence around the Random Beautiful Agent, helping her sleep better.

Jeez, these people are making her sleep in the same safe house, day in and out with all that she could ever need, delivered straight to her door, plus a handsome salary to boot. Damn, this was a bed-rotter's wet dream. Not to mention all the benefits she must be getting, being an employee of a technically extra government but still coming under the government for all intents and purposes.

Fury and Romanoff were joined by another squad of armed SHIELD agents who then began escorting them straight to the safe house. The poor girl was about to get the attack of a lifetime. He didn't know if she was informed beforehand about the visit and simply overslept or was unaware of the visit entirely. He bet on the second option, mainly because Fury was a paranoid fuck.

He was also keeping a close eye on the news cycle as well. The Stark Expo was shut down, clearly. After all the damage that had been done to the physical Expo as well as to the brand now that it was revealed that an active terrorist attack happened on US soil, the Expo was bound to go down in flames.

The good news was Justin Hammer and Hammer Industries as a whole were officially things of the past now. The clear cut proof Hammer Industries Drones attacking and terrorizing the Expo were circulating on the web anyway but the final clincher was the evidence that was released about Hammer helping Vanko escape from Jail and then having him work to create the Arc Reactor technology.

Another lawsuit that Stark Industries had slapped on Hammer Industries, Justin Hammer himself as well, further hammering down the nail that was the bankruptcy of Hammer Industries. No matter what anyone says, Pepper Potts was a vicious woman when it came to business.

His neck snapped to the side as he sensed Bruce writing something on the pad that had been designated for him.

Before he could respond, however, his eyes widened as he almost choked on his breath, reading the message that Bruce had written with clearly shaky hands on the pad.

"Betty is gamma irradiated"

Shit!

He immediately flooded his presence into their apartment, foregoing his usual privacy concerns, and immediately scanned Betty down to the smallest level he could. He could not find anything immediately concerning but if Bruce was saying something, it must be true. Bruce would not joke about this, no matter what.

"Did it happen because….?" He asked on, trailing at the end because he realised the nature of his question. Yeah, all the sex they must be having could have resulted in this but they should have used protection every time. Both of them were scientists for God's sakes and as far as he could tell, none of them wanted children, especially at a time when their own safety was contingent on someone else vouching for them.

Bruce nodded with a haunted look on his face, "Yes, it is because of me. Something must have happened but I have triple checked everything. The amount of Gamma Radiation coming off of her is more than the necessary amount for it to be fatal. And it is only growing, at alarming speeds,"

His breath hitched back in his apartment, "Do you mean, she is pregnant?"

Bruce nodded as tears began streaming down his eyes, and the man slumped down in the chair, defeated. He scanned Betty once again and realised that yes, there was a clump of cells, very small right now but judging by Bruce's words, it would only grow rapidly.

He didn't know what to say in this type of situation, especially if the motive was to comfort someone. He didn't know anyone who could either. All he could do was..

"Bruce! What are you waiting for then? You fool, we have to make sure she is safe and sound. Tell me what do you need, scratch that, I will consult with the doctors nearby and if they can't do anything, we can always call in doctors from all corners of the world," He said with his air pressure generated voice before immediately zoning on the figures of Fury and Romanoff who were just now exiting the elevators.

At the same time, he mentally catalogued the list of all the specialised doctors nearby, ordered Randall to order everything that Bruce might need in such a scenario, ordered What's his Face Billionaire to comply with Randall's list with haste, and also searched for Stephen Strange, who was nowhere to be found in Manhattan.

He debated whether to tell Fury or not but the simple truth was that unless he could call for Wakanda's help, there was no one who was technologically advanced enough to help deliver a half hulkling, especially if they wanted Betty, the mother to survive.

Stark's expertise might help as well.

Shit! Why was he panicking so much?

He watched as Bruce just sat there, unheeding of his words, and he was suddenly reminded of the fact that this man had gone through so much loss, and suffering, and for what?

For the plot? No, he would reject such machinations of Fate. Bruce would get a happy loving family in a safe environment, he would ensure it, damn it!

Just when the man had a semblance of a stable life and a happy enough outlook on life, something like this had to happen and almost screw up his life.

"Fury, I am in an emergency situation of sorts and would love your organisation's assistance at this point. I would be more than happy to give you all the information you need in exchange for you calling in all the experts you have on Gamma Radiation and its effect on human biology, along with anybody you know who can handle uncommon pregnancies," He said once he created a curtain of silence around Fury and Romanoff, throwing off their guards a few feet back.

He could see Fury tense and Romanoff's calm expression crack as they both realised what he had just requested.

Gamma Radiation and pregnancy.

That combination of words did not bode well for anyone wishing for the East Coast to still be standing if Bruce's child doesn't make it. Hell, even he was not sure if Bruce Banner's World War Hulk could ever be contained and that possibility would only become clearer if Betty didn't make it.

"Call Stark! Tell him I don't have time for his excuses this time. Get Helen Cho on the line, and tell her to get her ass to Manhattan yesterday! Call in every nerd we have on Gamma Radiation," Fury snapped orders at Romanoff who nodded and immediately left for the stairs, jumping down floors at a time to reach the lobby faster.

Fury then snapped his glare towards the floor, "You! Take me to Banner!"

"Absolutely NOT!" He growled back. Banner was already in a fragile enough mental state as is. He would not risk Fury risking things further.

"Bruce would remain with Betty as long as we don't have a solid strategy or unless a doctor needs to personally examine her. We will see what can be done about the child but saving Betty is paramount. Without her, well let's just say, that even I don't have confidence of dealing with a Hulk that has his emotions amplified by Bruce's grief,"

His voice took on a razor thin edge as he replied, "You think the Hulk was problematic to deal with until now, Directory Fury? That was Hulk with Bruce actively hamstringing everything. Imagine what would happen if Bruce LET.IT.GO!"

The paling of Fury's face and increased heart rate told him all he needed to know.

Satisfied with the warning, he said, "I will be continuously monitoring Bruce and Betty. Make all the arrangements you need, I will see what can be done on my end. Good day, Fury,"

Damn Fate, sending crisis after crisis for the protagonists of the world.


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.

 

[RustedSands]

Axle: damn everythings been going great!

Deadpool: oh you shouldn't of said that

Axle: wait what are you doing here this is the MCU not the fox owned marvel universe

Deadpool: i've been allowed to cameo to tell you you fucked up! Haaaavvvvee fun!

Axle: ......shit

 

[chicozapote]

that's what I like author you know what a beast the hulk is you know he either kills everyone because of the pain of losing her or literally sends him to space like Doomsday