Hyperionthetitan
Stuck in a tree
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once the barrier lifted he can try to build a new body for him to puppet around 
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The Sage of the Mind
- Thread starter IdleMuse0307
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- #self insert fanfic marvel saga
Chapter 70 : Power Flex!
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IdleMuse0307
Not too sore, are you?
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A/N - Updates about my demise have been greatly exaggerated!
So, I had a little oopsie moment with my laptop and it spent about 3 days in the service centre before it was repaired right in front of me in little more than 30 minutes. The pressure of me standing there, just waiting for my laptop must have gotten to the poor guy.
Anywho, let the updates BEGIN!!
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 70 [October 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
"Uhh," His mind faltered as he looked at the eager and genuinely curious expression on the President's face. He did not know if this was some attempt at information gathering because they had exhausted all their other means or if it was just genuinely nerdiness that the President was infected with.
Guess he would never know.
"So, my mind doesn't work in normal ways, as you can probably guess. I have multiple "partitions" you could call them, working on different things. So, they are still a part of me but are fragmented enough that they can carry out their own tasks,"
"Fascinating. So your mind essentially creates dumbed down bots that do the job that is assigned to them and just that job, nothing more. What is your information retrieval mechanism because I believe that handling all that information, let alone memorising it, would be fatal, even for someone like you?" The President asked him and he was taken aback at the fairly technical and on point question.
He looked for any hidden speakers, comms, or anything of the sort that the President could use to communicate with his analytical team but he found none. So either he had memorised all these questions or he was genuinely interested.
He didn't know which answer he preferred.
"With all due respect, I don't believe we are here to discuss the mechanisms of my powers, some of which even I don't fully understand yet," He interrupted the flow of the conversation and watched as the President seemingly blinked in realisation and straightened up.
"Ah, yeah, you are right, obviously. Now, as I have said before, you have to understand the sheer impact you make on entire cities so please give us a heads up before you up and leave Manhattan, so that we can double-no triple the law enforcement presence in the city," He said before stowing away the Whiskey glass, along with coaster.
"Ofcourse, even that might not be enough," He muttered later on, probably referring to the triple manpower required to maintain some semblance of law and order in the city once the Invisible Man is gone.
"Very well. I promise you that when or if I have to leave Manhattan, even for a short period of time, the government will be informed. Now, I have some thoughts of my own that I wanted to share with you."
"Please, by all means,"
"Very well, it is on the topic of the Enhanced,"
He carefully watched as the President's face went blank at the mention of the Enhanced. He knew that this was a sensitive topic, one that was very favourable for the President to ignore, because by the time it became too big to ignore, he would long be out of the White House and enjoying his paid off retirement on some tropical island.
"I was afraid that this would come up so I have made some prior preparations," POTUS said before he opened one of the drawers and removed a set of files, and threw them on the desk.
"Those are all the reports that Ross sent his superiors who sent them to me when we were first informed that Ross had already moved on to human experiments and actually had one that had escaped," He chuckled sardonically.
"You will find that nowhere in the reports, was it mentioned that the experiment was a complete accident, a repeat of which is almost impossible, and the now fugitive was none other than Bruce Banner who was being hunted down like an animal,"
He gained a thoughtful look back in his apartment but then shook his head. POTUS was lying. There was no way he did not know, or at least Ross' superiors did not know the extent to which Thaddeus Thunderbolt Ross would go, to complete his experiments. And the thing about the manhunt would have been more believable if all of Bruce's civilian identities, and accounts, were not frozen.
As things stood, he had two choices in his hands.
Call out POTUS on his blatant lie, and then watch as any chance of an amicable partnership is washed away.
OR.
Go along with the POTUS' act and then get some benefits in return.
The choice was easy.
"I understand. But that still doesn't make it alright. If Bruce hadn't found his way into Manhattan, he would have been hunted down by the Army who, by the way, would not have been successful, at all. I know how much power Bruce has and he could, with ease, dismantle even Tony Stark's suit, let alone anything that the Army could throw at him," His paper avatar said.
Before the POTUS could get a word in, he interrupted, "I want a full pardon for Bruce Banner as well as the Hulk if the Hulk is registered as a separate entity, to avoid any future pitfalls. Also, the seven brothers, as I told you beforehand, need official citizenship. I will have the details sent to Fury later on but please make sure that they at least have some official protection,"
POTUS looked like he was about to reject when he finally made his statement.
"Otherwise, I would have to intervene myself and I am sure that nobody in the government wants to go against the combined influence of all the Billionaires I have in Manhattan, along with the earned enmity of myself,"
He watched as POTUS paled and then shakily nodded.
"Very well. You will have both of these requests granted by the end of the month. I will personally see to it that everything is fast tracked,"
"Now, onto even more stressful matters. About the baby that is currently in—-Ack…"
The entire hotel shook as he made his presence known to everybody nearby. Cars began slowing down, their engines working against an inexplicable pressure, all the Secret Service Agents who were rushing inside felt as if they were wading through water instead of air as they felt their breaths getting constricted.
The table in front of his paper avatar began cracking, creating fractures on the surface of it.
Then, as if the pressure was not there at all, it disappeared. He watched as the Secret Service began tumbling into the room, the cars on the street jerking forward as the pressure on the car disappeared.
POTUS was completely shaken as was evidenced by his pale face and sweaty demeanour but he was made of much sterner stuff than he had expected because he just waved off the Secret Service out of the office. As soon as the office doors locked up, "
"The baby that is in Betty Ross will remain just as it is now, out of reach of anybody that would wish it harm. In fact, anybody who will not see the baby as just a baby, will never be allowed to lay their eyes on him, no matter who it is." He said sternly because the thought of the government stooges exploiting even babies for their own agenda disgusted him to no end.
He realised that he went a bit too far today but he had to make sure that they knew the consequences of doing something that would lead to Bruce rampaging all over. He was not kidding when he told FUry about Bruce actively hamstringing the Hulk from killing too many people.
No, if the WORLD WAR HULK scenario ever came to be, he would just have to join in on the suicidal fight against the Strongest There is.
"You have to understand that as things stand now, Bruce Banner, or rather, the Hulk can be somewhat controlled, restrained. But if something were to happen to someone Bruce loved, be it Betty or the baby, then all bets are off. The Hulk turns into something that you could not even dream of. Capable of shattering islands with a single footstep, parting clouds with a single swipe of his hand, and more importantly, leaving behind just molten irradiated places even if he merely walks through the area,"
The more he detailed the consequences of Bruce turning into his most dangerous form, the paler the President got. The same must be true for all the people listening in on this conversation.
He'd hate to have to remind another set of people once again.
"..I-Is all that true?"
"Do you want to risk finding out?" He countered back, knowing the answer.
"Very well. I must admit, the meeting is going in a different manner than I had expected it to,"
He scoffed back in his room, like no shit Sherlock.
"It is against my nature to let innocents be harmed and babies are the most innocent of them all, so forgive me if I don't allow anybody from the government, the same government who was about to chase Bruce into oblivion, anywhere close to Bruce's child,"
"Still, you have to understand why everyone is concerned right? Fury's report just told us that the baby's nature is "undocumented" and he cannot say anything until he has more information but I know that the Baby will most likely be born enhanced, due to the gamma energy,"
Of Course, the man has spies in SHIELD. Someone high up as well.
"I have also heard about the complications and all the resources that are being poured into it. I can have all of the scientists we have on hand take a look at –"
"I don't think that will be necessary, Mr.President. Between Stark, my own team, Bruce Banner, and Helen Cho, along with the support staff from SHIELD, I believe we have everything sorted out." He refused any help from them, knowing the taint that would come from it.
He had already informed Randall and Stark about it, no data from the final stages will make it out of that warehouse, save for what was already stored in their brains.
"Very well, I can see that you will not budge on this. Let's move on to something else that I am sure you have a lot to talk about,"
"The official inclusion of Enhanced people in the workforce,"
Hmm. His paper avatar leaned forward, to showcase his interest.
The President smiled as he began speaking.
"So, I know that getting the public to recognise…."
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.
So, I had a little oopsie moment with my laptop and it spent about 3 days in the service centre before it was repaired right in front of me in little more than 30 minutes. The pressure of me standing there, just waiting for my laptop must have gotten to the poor guy.
Anywho, let the updates BEGIN!!
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 70 [October 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
"Uhh," His mind faltered as he looked at the eager and genuinely curious expression on the President's face. He did not know if this was some attempt at information gathering because they had exhausted all their other means or if it was just genuinely nerdiness that the President was infected with.
Guess he would never know.
"So, my mind doesn't work in normal ways, as you can probably guess. I have multiple "partitions" you could call them, working on different things. So, they are still a part of me but are fragmented enough that they can carry out their own tasks,"
"Fascinating. So your mind essentially creates dumbed down bots that do the job that is assigned to them and just that job, nothing more. What is your information retrieval mechanism because I believe that handling all that information, let alone memorising it, would be fatal, even for someone like you?" The President asked him and he was taken aback at the fairly technical and on point question.
He looked for any hidden speakers, comms, or anything of the sort that the President could use to communicate with his analytical team but he found none. So either he had memorised all these questions or he was genuinely interested.
He didn't know which answer he preferred.
"With all due respect, I don't believe we are here to discuss the mechanisms of my powers, some of which even I don't fully understand yet," He interrupted the flow of the conversation and watched as the President seemingly blinked in realisation and straightened up.
"Ah, yeah, you are right, obviously. Now, as I have said before, you have to understand the sheer impact you make on entire cities so please give us a heads up before you up and leave Manhattan, so that we can double-no triple the law enforcement presence in the city," He said before stowing away the Whiskey glass, along with coaster.
"Ofcourse, even that might not be enough," He muttered later on, probably referring to the triple manpower required to maintain some semblance of law and order in the city once the Invisible Man is gone.
"Very well. I promise you that when or if I have to leave Manhattan, even for a short period of time, the government will be informed. Now, I have some thoughts of my own that I wanted to share with you."
"Please, by all means,"
"Very well, it is on the topic of the Enhanced,"
He carefully watched as the President's face went blank at the mention of the Enhanced. He knew that this was a sensitive topic, one that was very favourable for the President to ignore, because by the time it became too big to ignore, he would long be out of the White House and enjoying his paid off retirement on some tropical island.
"I was afraid that this would come up so I have made some prior preparations," POTUS said before he opened one of the drawers and removed a set of files, and threw them on the desk.
"Those are all the reports that Ross sent his superiors who sent them to me when we were first informed that Ross had already moved on to human experiments and actually had one that had escaped," He chuckled sardonically.
"You will find that nowhere in the reports, was it mentioned that the experiment was a complete accident, a repeat of which is almost impossible, and the now fugitive was none other than Bruce Banner who was being hunted down like an animal,"
He gained a thoughtful look back in his apartment but then shook his head. POTUS was lying. There was no way he did not know, or at least Ross' superiors did not know the extent to which Thaddeus Thunderbolt Ross would go, to complete his experiments. And the thing about the manhunt would have been more believable if all of Bruce's civilian identities, and accounts, were not frozen.
As things stood, he had two choices in his hands.
Call out POTUS on his blatant lie, and then watch as any chance of an amicable partnership is washed away.
OR.
Go along with the POTUS' act and then get some benefits in return.
The choice was easy.
"I understand. But that still doesn't make it alright. If Bruce hadn't found his way into Manhattan, he would have been hunted down by the Army who, by the way, would not have been successful, at all. I know how much power Bruce has and he could, with ease, dismantle even Tony Stark's suit, let alone anything that the Army could throw at him," His paper avatar said.
Before the POTUS could get a word in, he interrupted, "I want a full pardon for Bruce Banner as well as the Hulk if the Hulk is registered as a separate entity, to avoid any future pitfalls. Also, the seven brothers, as I told you beforehand, need official citizenship. I will have the details sent to Fury later on but please make sure that they at least have some official protection,"
POTUS looked like he was about to reject when he finally made his statement.
"Otherwise, I would have to intervene myself and I am sure that nobody in the government wants to go against the combined influence of all the Billionaires I have in Manhattan, along with the earned enmity of myself,"
He watched as POTUS paled and then shakily nodded.
"Very well. You will have both of these requests granted by the end of the month. I will personally see to it that everything is fast tracked,"
"Now, onto even more stressful matters. About the baby that is currently in—-Ack…"
The entire hotel shook as he made his presence known to everybody nearby. Cars began slowing down, their engines working against an inexplicable pressure, all the Secret Service Agents who were rushing inside felt as if they were wading through water instead of air as they felt their breaths getting constricted.
The table in front of his paper avatar began cracking, creating fractures on the surface of it.
Then, as if the pressure was not there at all, it disappeared. He watched as the Secret Service began tumbling into the room, the cars on the street jerking forward as the pressure on the car disappeared.
POTUS was completely shaken as was evidenced by his pale face and sweaty demeanour but he was made of much sterner stuff than he had expected because he just waved off the Secret Service out of the office. As soon as the office doors locked up, "
"The baby that is in Betty Ross will remain just as it is now, out of reach of anybody that would wish it harm. In fact, anybody who will not see the baby as just a baby, will never be allowed to lay their eyes on him, no matter who it is." He said sternly because the thought of the government stooges exploiting even babies for their own agenda disgusted him to no end.
He realised that he went a bit too far today but he had to make sure that they knew the consequences of doing something that would lead to Bruce rampaging all over. He was not kidding when he told FUry about Bruce actively hamstringing the Hulk from killing too many people.
No, if the WORLD WAR HULK scenario ever came to be, he would just have to join in on the suicidal fight against the Strongest There is.
"You have to understand that as things stand now, Bruce Banner, or rather, the Hulk can be somewhat controlled, restrained. But if something were to happen to someone Bruce loved, be it Betty or the baby, then all bets are off. The Hulk turns into something that you could not even dream of. Capable of shattering islands with a single footstep, parting clouds with a single swipe of his hand, and more importantly, leaving behind just molten irradiated places even if he merely walks through the area,"
The more he detailed the consequences of Bruce turning into his most dangerous form, the paler the President got. The same must be true for all the people listening in on this conversation.
He'd hate to have to remind another set of people once again.
"..I-Is all that true?"
"Do you want to risk finding out?" He countered back, knowing the answer.
"Very well. I must admit, the meeting is going in a different manner than I had expected it to,"
He scoffed back in his room, like no shit Sherlock.
"It is against my nature to let innocents be harmed and babies are the most innocent of them all, so forgive me if I don't allow anybody from the government, the same government who was about to chase Bruce into oblivion, anywhere close to Bruce's child,"
"Still, you have to understand why everyone is concerned right? Fury's report just told us that the baby's nature is "undocumented" and he cannot say anything until he has more information but I know that the Baby will most likely be born enhanced, due to the gamma energy,"
Of Course, the man has spies in SHIELD. Someone high up as well.
"I have also heard about the complications and all the resources that are being poured into it. I can have all of the scientists we have on hand take a look at –"
"I don't think that will be necessary, Mr.President. Between Stark, my own team, Bruce Banner, and Helen Cho, along with the support staff from SHIELD, I believe we have everything sorted out." He refused any help from them, knowing the taint that would come from it.
He had already informed Randall and Stark about it, no data from the final stages will make it out of that warehouse, save for what was already stored in their brains.
"Very well, I can see that you will not budge on this. Let's move on to something else that I am sure you have a lot to talk about,"
"The official inclusion of Enhanced people in the workforce,"
Hmm. His paper avatar leaned forward, to showcase his interest.
The President smiled as he began speaking.
"So, I know that getting the public to recognise…."
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
Making the rounds.
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I can make a suggestion, drop the bomb that if people with superpowers are not taken care of, the monsters beyond the earth can see a delicious snack of life. He doesn't know about the old man, so you play your cards right or Galactus will eat the earth. 
Chapter 71: Introducing.....Random HYDRA analyst 1!
New
IdleMuse0307
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
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- Likes received
- 10,028
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 71 [October 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
All in all, quite a fruitful meeting, he must say. POTUS was not like the usual snivelling politician he had expected him to be. He was firm when he needed to be, and compliant in the face of a force that could level blocks on its own, i.e., the Invisible Man.
What a stupid name that is but alas, the media gave it to him and unfortunately for most people, the media is the one that runs the things that everybody's eyeballs are attached to nowadays.
He could see Fury pacing about in the warehouse, torn between going back to the safehouse to check in on the progress of the POTUS meeting and staying at the warehouse to monitor the work that was actually important.
Stark was absent but Dr.Banner, Dr.Cho, and Randall (doctorate pending) were working in tandem on something that would undoubtedly be the greatest medical invention of the year, at least when it came to the very niche field of natural Gamma pregnancies. According to his rough estimates, ones that have been corroborated by the good doctors, Betty had almost 40 days left until the pregnancy became too dangerous for her body to sustain.
He didn't know what she was thinking, being all carefree, gorging on anything and everything in her sight as she waited for Bruce to come back from work. The stereotypical role of a housewife, unless you count the housewife being an accomplished doctor herself and growing the strongest baby that would ever be born.
He was currently on a walk outside the city to get himself a Taco, he was somehow craving them these days. One of the few foods that Betty has not yet set her sights on. Due to her sensitive situation, privacy has been suspended for Betty Ross as long as the baby is not born. So, he had to witness the, although quite natural, unfortunate scene of Betty feasting on anything and everything, all at once, all by herself.
Bruce was obviously unable to say no to her and they already had an unlimited budget that was sponsored by the various billionaires that stayed under his protection.
Though, he did have to boot one of the newer billionaires that had taken refuge in the city for some reason, and was trying to take advantage of the housekeeping staff that was working in his penthouse. Apparently, the young Russian scion thought that things worked the same as his hometown here and was putting his disgusting paws on the housekeeper.
Well, safe to say that his exit from Manhattan was swift and precise. Precisely straight into the most filled dumpster he could find, which was not easy anymore because of the regular cleaning drives he initiated monthly now.
Regular occurrences of rich people being schooled made sure that most rich people in Manhattan behaved, no matter how rich they were. It served as a reminder that the one who was keeping them safe and sound in the city was also the one who could instantaneously serve an eviction notice and then act on it, with zero regard for their so-called power.
When he first began, he used to do daily cleaning of every piece of garbage across the city, to make sure that the city remained clean but then he realised that he was taking the sweepers' jobs from them. So, he made sure to only do thorough cleaning once a month, gave them the day off on that particular day of the month, and let them work the rest of the month.
The same couldn't be said for the subway though, since the subway had to be cleaned the moment it entered Manhattan. The things he had seen and had to clean from the subway stations were appalling, to say the least.
Did people not know that there were public toilets in New York that they could use? And it was not as if he could stop them from doing that.
He shook his head, trying to get rid of the intrusive thoughts, and focused on the delicious taco that arrived in front of him.
He rubbed his hands in glee, and dove into the Taco, making sure to enjoy it.
Food was one of the few things that still drove him, you know. Sex was good and all but due to the lack of enhanced females around the city, he couldn't really perform the activity without hurting the other party.
Times like these made him remember She-Hulk. She was enhanced and also very active if he remembered correctly. But even he was not that pent up to let the MCU atrocity of the She-Hulk arrive in his life.
No, that honor remained to the producers and directors of that godforsaken series.
Back in the warehouse, he could see that Bruce and the others had taken a lunch break. Aww, Bruce was facetimeting his wife as they both had lunch, just different sizes of servings on both sides.
Honestly, Betty might be enjoying the eat as much as you can part of the pregnancy more than she or Bruce realises. Her body was metabolising so many calories that she could eat and eat, and it wouldn't be enough, according to the radiation that she was emitting.
Bruce and the others were confused as to where all that energy was coming from because no matter how much food Betty ate, it would not be anywhere close enough. That is where his past lore came to mind.
He informed them that Betty was not in any danger, at least from all her energy being sucked by the baby to be born because the baby was generating its own energy, just like Bruce does when he generates his own mass and continues to regenerate without absorbing an ounce of energy or food from his surroundings.
The explanation had not mollified any of them but without subjecting Bruce to the experience of turning into the Hulk repeatedly, under lab conditions, they could not bring anything to the table that could disprove his theory.
They had scheduled the vibranium fibre production for today, once his meeting with the President was done and while he was ready, Tony Stark, as usual, was fashionably late.
Well, they were significantly ahead of schedule anyway. So, he could afford to slowly savour the delicious explosion of flavours in this Taco.
God, Mexican food was so delicious.
Huh, random Beautiful Agent was back. Well, he hoped she had her brain checked out, she did have a habit of fainting at the most inopportune times.
_____xx_____
Random HYDRA base somewhere
–Random HYDRA Analyst 1–
God, he hated this job.
"HAIL-HYDRA"
He was overworked and underpaid, the colleagues were unpleasant, and most of all, performance reviews resulted in actual bloodbaths.
"HAIL-HYDRA"
If he had any choice, he would not have joined this cult disguised as a company. Alas, he was fresh out of college, no place was hiring without experience and he desperately needed to work. He just needed a chance to prove himself, and his skills so that he could eventually move on to better companies.
"HAIL-HYDRA"
Like Stark Industries, Rand Enterprises, Pym Foundation, and more.
It was not even remote, which might have justified the low pay and extra workload but no, they needed every one of their little zealots to be in the office so that they could monitor everyone and reward good behaviour. This cold, damp, underlit dungeon of an Office.
"HAIL-HYDRA"
Ha! Like good behaviour was anything other than licking their master's assholes.
He didn't even care that HYDRA as an organisation was somehow still active. He just had to keep his head down for a few more years, state this experience on his resume, and then get back to work in the actual industry, where he didn't have to maintain the infrastructure that had to be hidden as games for them to actually work.
"HAIL-HYDRA"
Yes, yes, he loved HYDRA, said the average red eyed, energy drink infused, computer monkey while being continuously subjected to the horrendous voice that kept saying….
"HAIL-HYDRA"
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.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 71 [October 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
All in all, quite a fruitful meeting, he must say. POTUS was not like the usual snivelling politician he had expected him to be. He was firm when he needed to be, and compliant in the face of a force that could level blocks on its own, i.e., the Invisible Man.
What a stupid name that is but alas, the media gave it to him and unfortunately for most people, the media is the one that runs the things that everybody's eyeballs are attached to nowadays.
He could see Fury pacing about in the warehouse, torn between going back to the safehouse to check in on the progress of the POTUS meeting and staying at the warehouse to monitor the work that was actually important.
Stark was absent but Dr.Banner, Dr.Cho, and Randall (doctorate pending) were working in tandem on something that would undoubtedly be the greatest medical invention of the year, at least when it came to the very niche field of natural Gamma pregnancies. According to his rough estimates, ones that have been corroborated by the good doctors, Betty had almost 40 days left until the pregnancy became too dangerous for her body to sustain.
He didn't know what she was thinking, being all carefree, gorging on anything and everything in her sight as she waited for Bruce to come back from work. The stereotypical role of a housewife, unless you count the housewife being an accomplished doctor herself and growing the strongest baby that would ever be born.
He was currently on a walk outside the city to get himself a Taco, he was somehow craving them these days. One of the few foods that Betty has not yet set her sights on. Due to her sensitive situation, privacy has been suspended for Betty Ross as long as the baby is not born. So, he had to witness the, although quite natural, unfortunate scene of Betty feasting on anything and everything, all at once, all by herself.
Bruce was obviously unable to say no to her and they already had an unlimited budget that was sponsored by the various billionaires that stayed under his protection.
Though, he did have to boot one of the newer billionaires that had taken refuge in the city for some reason, and was trying to take advantage of the housekeeping staff that was working in his penthouse. Apparently, the young Russian scion thought that things worked the same as his hometown here and was putting his disgusting paws on the housekeeper.
Well, safe to say that his exit from Manhattan was swift and precise. Precisely straight into the most filled dumpster he could find, which was not easy anymore because of the regular cleaning drives he initiated monthly now.
Regular occurrences of rich people being schooled made sure that most rich people in Manhattan behaved, no matter how rich they were. It served as a reminder that the one who was keeping them safe and sound in the city was also the one who could instantaneously serve an eviction notice and then act on it, with zero regard for their so-called power.
When he first began, he used to do daily cleaning of every piece of garbage across the city, to make sure that the city remained clean but then he realised that he was taking the sweepers' jobs from them. So, he made sure to only do thorough cleaning once a month, gave them the day off on that particular day of the month, and let them work the rest of the month.
The same couldn't be said for the subway though, since the subway had to be cleaned the moment it entered Manhattan. The things he had seen and had to clean from the subway stations were appalling, to say the least.
Did people not know that there were public toilets in New York that they could use? And it was not as if he could stop them from doing that.
He shook his head, trying to get rid of the intrusive thoughts, and focused on the delicious taco that arrived in front of him.
He rubbed his hands in glee, and dove into the Taco, making sure to enjoy it.
Food was one of the few things that still drove him, you know. Sex was good and all but due to the lack of enhanced females around the city, he couldn't really perform the activity without hurting the other party.
Times like these made him remember She-Hulk. She was enhanced and also very active if he remembered correctly. But even he was not that pent up to let the MCU atrocity of the She-Hulk arrive in his life.
No, that honor remained to the producers and directors of that godforsaken series.
Back in the warehouse, he could see that Bruce and the others had taken a lunch break. Aww, Bruce was facetimeting his wife as they both had lunch, just different sizes of servings on both sides.
Honestly, Betty might be enjoying the eat as much as you can part of the pregnancy more than she or Bruce realises. Her body was metabolising so many calories that she could eat and eat, and it wouldn't be enough, according to the radiation that she was emitting.
Bruce and the others were confused as to where all that energy was coming from because no matter how much food Betty ate, it would not be anywhere close enough. That is where his past lore came to mind.
He informed them that Betty was not in any danger, at least from all her energy being sucked by the baby to be born because the baby was generating its own energy, just like Bruce does when he generates his own mass and continues to regenerate without absorbing an ounce of energy or food from his surroundings.
The explanation had not mollified any of them but without subjecting Bruce to the experience of turning into the Hulk repeatedly, under lab conditions, they could not bring anything to the table that could disprove his theory.
They had scheduled the vibranium fibre production for today, once his meeting with the President was done and while he was ready, Tony Stark, as usual, was fashionably late.
Well, they were significantly ahead of schedule anyway. So, he could afford to slowly savour the delicious explosion of flavours in this Taco.
God, Mexican food was so delicious.
Huh, random Beautiful Agent was back. Well, he hoped she had her brain checked out, she did have a habit of fainting at the most inopportune times.
_____xx_____
Random HYDRA base somewhere
–Random HYDRA Analyst 1–
God, he hated this job.
"HAIL-HYDRA"
He was overworked and underpaid, the colleagues were unpleasant, and most of all, performance reviews resulted in actual bloodbaths.
"HAIL-HYDRA"
If he had any choice, he would not have joined this cult disguised as a company. Alas, he was fresh out of college, no place was hiring without experience and he desperately needed to work. He just needed a chance to prove himself, and his skills so that he could eventually move on to better companies.
"HAIL-HYDRA"
Like Stark Industries, Rand Enterprises, Pym Foundation, and more.
It was not even remote, which might have justified the low pay and extra workload but no, they needed every one of their little zealots to be in the office so that they could monitor everyone and reward good behaviour. This cold, damp, underlit dungeon of an Office.
"HAIL-HYDRA"
Ha! Like good behaviour was anything other than licking their master's assholes.
He didn't even care that HYDRA as an organisation was somehow still active. He just had to keep his head down for a few more years, state this experience on his resume, and then get back to work in the actual industry, where he didn't have to maintain the infrastructure that had to be hidden as games for them to actually work.
"HAIL-HYDRA"
Yes, yes, he loved HYDRA, said the average red eyed, energy drink infused, computer monkey while being continuously subjected to the horrendous voice that kept saying….
"HAIL-HYDRA"
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
Making the rounds.
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So your body can resist the sauce you have to put on the taco. I have met people who like Mexican food but because they are not used to it, well according to them the walk to the bathroom seems eternal
Chapter 72 : *Sigh*
New
IdleMuse0307
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
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- Messages
- 362
- Likes received
- 10,028
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 72 [October 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
"Now, where is Tony?" His paper avatar asked Bruce and the other gathered scientists as they stood in front of a furnace type machine that was actually twice as deep underground as it was above it. There was a chimney attached to it, which blew smoke into one of the prepared containers.
He did not want to pollute the air himself when he had advocated for clean air many times. Rapid advancement should not come at the cost of the environment that made it possible in the first place.
"Jarvis says that he is on his way, probably stuck somewhere in traffic. You know how LA traffic is," Bruce said absentmindedly as he continued to look through the specs of the monstrosity built in front of them for the hundredth time.
"Uh-huh, and would you mind telling me who has a suit capable of flight and also has private jets to store said suit?" He asked Bruce who just waved at the paper avatar.
Wow, people really had lost their fear of him. He didn't know if that was a good sign or not.
In the meantime, on the other side of the equation was Betty who was laughing while watching some TV, having a bag of cheetos in her hand?
"Bruce, are you sure that Cheetos is the right snack for your pregnant girlfriend?" He asked Bruce who sighed and looked at him as if telling him :'What do you want me to do?'
Well, fair enough. She was putting her own life in danger so that baby Gamma Godling could be born. A pack, or three, of Cheetos, was hardly worth a mention when compared to the amount of processed cheese she had guzzled down in the past week alone.
Seriously, if it were not for the whole life threatening pregnancy thing, women around the world would have been thrilled to realise that they could eat anything and everything in their pregnancy days, simply because of the calorific requirements.
Betty's case was unique in the sense no amount of consumed calories would be enough for the Baby because of its unique nature but things were looking out for the good now. They had run more than enough simulations on the whole vibranium fibers.
They had already taken deep scans of Betty with a portable one that Tony flew over from his workshop and installed in the warehouse. He was the one who was tasked with handling the precious cargo, making sure that nothing in her body was disturbed as she was transported miles away, to the warehouse, without even feeling the wind hitting her face. That precise and smooth was the journey on the Invisible Man commute services.
The deep scan allowed them to pinpoint the locations in which the Vibranium fibers would be inserted. There would be some bleeding but nothing major.
Once they were manufactured today, once Stark decided to show up, Bruce and the others were going to be testing the fibre effectiveness on the irradiated lab rats. Oh, he hated this but Bruce told him that he would have to test it on someone alive.
He had also, privately of course, told him that Tony and he were in talks of developing a similar version of the fibers, to subdue the Hulk, if the need ever arose. And he had to say, both of them really had no idea what they were doing or talking of.
The Hulk was not dependent on Gamma Energy to wreak havoc everywhere. Yes, he was saturated with Gamma Energy but it was not as if he had a limited store of it.
The hulk could endlessly generate Gamma Energy. That is because he had a direct line of connection to the Guy Below. Some measly Vibranium fibers woven into his skin that could absorb Gamma Radiation are certainly not going to be able to stop him.
"Finally!" he let the paper avatar exclaim, making Bruce jump as he was the closest. When everyone looked at him, including Fury, who was still here for some reason, he replied.
"Stark's jet just landed. Once he is in range, I'll just pick him up," He said and–oh my god, Stark had this entire place bugged because Stark just froze for a second as he said that he will pick Tony up.
Tony probably knew his way of picking people up, as he was the one who was laughing endlessly at the footage of Fury screaming while flying through the air.
Well of course, Tony would have done that, bugging a project that was literally of national interest and paramount to national security as well, especially if Tony and Bruce could spin it off as developing something to help subdue the Hulk.
Tony then came out of the airport, entered the nearest parking lot, and entered his suit, rocketing his way towards Manhattan.
Well, that was no fun.
"He should be here in a minute," The paper avatar said, which was probably heard by Tony as well because the bastard purposefully steered away from the path, taking a much longer path of flight, resulting in a 2 minute delay. Just how petty can that man be?
And right on his schedule, the man of the hour arrived.
"Look who's here," His paper avatar said as Tony Stark's suit walked into the warehouse before the suit opened up, revealing Tony in all of his three piece suit glory.
"Hey, Paper cut machine. Hi, Bruce, how are things holding up? Betty fine? Great,"
He watched as Tony rizzed the crowd, for lack of a better term as he seamlessly switched from social butterfly to nerd engineer as he began looking over the machine as the holograms began blurring together at a dizzying pace, for a normal human anyway.
"Alright, let's get this show on the road," Tony said as Jarvis, piloting the Iron Man suit, carefully unpackaged a custom Arc Reactor built for the machine and slotted it in the deepest part, something that no human could do, and hence, the wait for Tony and his advanced exo suit.
Everybody, including Fury, watched the process with a hawkish gaze as Tony simply flicked a few digital switches, and then stepped back, with his arms crossed, and an inquisitive look on his face.
"Now?"
Tony turned around to meet everyone's gazes and then grinned, "Now? Now, we wait. For approximately 13 hours,"
Oh, come on.
_____xx_____
"Pierce! Is there any way to stop that menace from expanding further? According to the reports from WHite House, he is planning to up and leave the city, do you have any idea what that could mean for our operations?"
Alexander Pierce, the World Security Council Secretary, could do nothing but sigh in exhaustion.
What else could he do when he had already exhausted every manner of help that he had at his disposal. That man simply had a chokehold on the city and nothing they did, no matter how much money they threw at the sensor team, could find the person responsible fro much of the chatter that has been happening with Whitehall and Strucker.
Both of them have been obsessed with the existence of the Invisible Man and he doesn't blame them, at all. The thought of having a platoon of such people, ready to be deployed on a battlefield where the space itself would become their weapon, was tantalizing.
Alas, dreams often fade away, instead of turning into reality.
The reality was that nothing that he, or SHIELD, could do, was enough to identity the man. Sure, the man had some form of official relationship with SHIELD but that is only a one way line. He just informed SHIELD or asked for help, nothing from their end ever reached him.
They couldn't get him to reveal his identity because why would he? They had no leverage on him, aside from the city where he could effectively turn all his men into bloody mists if he so desired.
The incident with Banner and his lover did present a slight window of opportunity if they could have exploited Ross to get his daughter out of that fortress but apparently, the woman had no lost love for her biological father anymore.
Then came his influence. The sheer number of billionaires, domestic and foreign that had taken refuge under his umbrella was staggering. It would be safe to say that even HYDRA had to tread carefully around someone capable of rallying almost a third of the world's wealth.
In fact, in the privacy of his mind, he was glad that WHitehall and Strucker did not have access to Bruce BAnner and his child because he knew the amount of damage the Hulk would do, especially in light of recent information being revealed by the Invisible Man.
He did not want that chaotic power in his organisation. He wanted power, yes, but uncontrollable power was as good as no power.
No, something like the Winter Soldier was infinitely preferable to a Gamma soldier like Blonsky.
"Gentlemen, I have a plan. It is long term but HYDRA has not survived so long by being impatient. We will be….."
He began explaining to them the bare bones of a plan, the first phase of which will only be executed once the Invisible Man actually leaves the place in the first place.
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.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 72 [October 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
"Now, where is Tony?" His paper avatar asked Bruce and the other gathered scientists as they stood in front of a furnace type machine that was actually twice as deep underground as it was above it. There was a chimney attached to it, which blew smoke into one of the prepared containers.
He did not want to pollute the air himself when he had advocated for clean air many times. Rapid advancement should not come at the cost of the environment that made it possible in the first place.
"Jarvis says that he is on his way, probably stuck somewhere in traffic. You know how LA traffic is," Bruce said absentmindedly as he continued to look through the specs of the monstrosity built in front of them for the hundredth time.
"Uh-huh, and would you mind telling me who has a suit capable of flight and also has private jets to store said suit?" He asked Bruce who just waved at the paper avatar.
Wow, people really had lost their fear of him. He didn't know if that was a good sign or not.
In the meantime, on the other side of the equation was Betty who was laughing while watching some TV, having a bag of cheetos in her hand?
"Bruce, are you sure that Cheetos is the right snack for your pregnant girlfriend?" He asked Bruce who sighed and looked at him as if telling him :'What do you want me to do?'
Well, fair enough. She was putting her own life in danger so that baby Gamma Godling could be born. A pack, or three, of Cheetos, was hardly worth a mention when compared to the amount of processed cheese she had guzzled down in the past week alone.
Seriously, if it were not for the whole life threatening pregnancy thing, women around the world would have been thrilled to realise that they could eat anything and everything in their pregnancy days, simply because of the calorific requirements.
Betty's case was unique in the sense no amount of consumed calories would be enough for the Baby because of its unique nature but things were looking out for the good now. They had run more than enough simulations on the whole vibranium fibers.
They had already taken deep scans of Betty with a portable one that Tony flew over from his workshop and installed in the warehouse. He was the one who was tasked with handling the precious cargo, making sure that nothing in her body was disturbed as she was transported miles away, to the warehouse, without even feeling the wind hitting her face. That precise and smooth was the journey on the Invisible Man commute services.
The deep scan allowed them to pinpoint the locations in which the Vibranium fibers would be inserted. There would be some bleeding but nothing major.
Once they were manufactured today, once Stark decided to show up, Bruce and the others were going to be testing the fibre effectiveness on the irradiated lab rats. Oh, he hated this but Bruce told him that he would have to test it on someone alive.
He had also, privately of course, told him that Tony and he were in talks of developing a similar version of the fibers, to subdue the Hulk, if the need ever arose. And he had to say, both of them really had no idea what they were doing or talking of.
The Hulk was not dependent on Gamma Energy to wreak havoc everywhere. Yes, he was saturated with Gamma Energy but it was not as if he had a limited store of it.
The hulk could endlessly generate Gamma Energy. That is because he had a direct line of connection to the Guy Below. Some measly Vibranium fibers woven into his skin that could absorb Gamma Radiation are certainly not going to be able to stop him.
"Finally!" he let the paper avatar exclaim, making Bruce jump as he was the closest. When everyone looked at him, including Fury, who was still here for some reason, he replied.
"Stark's jet just landed. Once he is in range, I'll just pick him up," He said and–oh my god, Stark had this entire place bugged because Stark just froze for a second as he said that he will pick Tony up.
Tony probably knew his way of picking people up, as he was the one who was laughing endlessly at the footage of Fury screaming while flying through the air.
Well of course, Tony would have done that, bugging a project that was literally of national interest and paramount to national security as well, especially if Tony and Bruce could spin it off as developing something to help subdue the Hulk.
Tony then came out of the airport, entered the nearest parking lot, and entered his suit, rocketing his way towards Manhattan.
Well, that was no fun.
"He should be here in a minute," The paper avatar said, which was probably heard by Tony as well because the bastard purposefully steered away from the path, taking a much longer path of flight, resulting in a 2 minute delay. Just how petty can that man be?
And right on his schedule, the man of the hour arrived.
"Look who's here," His paper avatar said as Tony Stark's suit walked into the warehouse before the suit opened up, revealing Tony in all of his three piece suit glory.
"Hey, Paper cut machine. Hi, Bruce, how are things holding up? Betty fine? Great,"
He watched as Tony rizzed the crowd, for lack of a better term as he seamlessly switched from social butterfly to nerd engineer as he began looking over the machine as the holograms began blurring together at a dizzying pace, for a normal human anyway.
"Alright, let's get this show on the road," Tony said as Jarvis, piloting the Iron Man suit, carefully unpackaged a custom Arc Reactor built for the machine and slotted it in the deepest part, something that no human could do, and hence, the wait for Tony and his advanced exo suit.
Everybody, including Fury, watched the process with a hawkish gaze as Tony simply flicked a few digital switches, and then stepped back, with his arms crossed, and an inquisitive look on his face.
"Now?"
Tony turned around to meet everyone's gazes and then grinned, "Now? Now, we wait. For approximately 13 hours,"
Oh, come on.
_____xx_____
"Pierce! Is there any way to stop that menace from expanding further? According to the reports from WHite House, he is planning to up and leave the city, do you have any idea what that could mean for our operations?"
Alexander Pierce, the World Security Council Secretary, could do nothing but sigh in exhaustion.
What else could he do when he had already exhausted every manner of help that he had at his disposal. That man simply had a chokehold on the city and nothing they did, no matter how much money they threw at the sensor team, could find the person responsible fro much of the chatter that has been happening with Whitehall and Strucker.
Both of them have been obsessed with the existence of the Invisible Man and he doesn't blame them, at all. The thought of having a platoon of such people, ready to be deployed on a battlefield where the space itself would become their weapon, was tantalizing.
Alas, dreams often fade away, instead of turning into reality.
The reality was that nothing that he, or SHIELD, could do, was enough to identity the man. Sure, the man had some form of official relationship with SHIELD but that is only a one way line. He just informed SHIELD or asked for help, nothing from their end ever reached him.
They couldn't get him to reveal his identity because why would he? They had no leverage on him, aside from the city where he could effectively turn all his men into bloody mists if he so desired.
The incident with Banner and his lover did present a slight window of opportunity if they could have exploited Ross to get his daughter out of that fortress but apparently, the woman had no lost love for her biological father anymore.
Then came his influence. The sheer number of billionaires, domestic and foreign that had taken refuge under his umbrella was staggering. It would be safe to say that even HYDRA had to tread carefully around someone capable of rallying almost a third of the world's wealth.
In fact, in the privacy of his mind, he was glad that WHitehall and Strucker did not have access to Bruce BAnner and his child because he knew the amount of damage the Hulk would do, especially in light of recent information being revealed by the Invisible Man.
He did not want that chaotic power in his organisation. He wanted power, yes, but uncontrollable power was as good as no power.
No, something like the Winter Soldier was infinitely preferable to a Gamma soldier like Blonsky.
"Gentlemen, I have a plan. It is long term but HYDRA has not survived so long by being impatient. We will be….."
He began explaining to them the bare bones of a plan, the first phase of which will only be executed once the Invisible Man actually leaves the place in the first place.
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.
Chapter 73 : Unleashed!
New
IdleMuse0307
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2021
- Messages
- 362
- Likes received
- 10,028
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 73 [October 2010]
Manhattan [13 hours later ~~Spongebob Style~~]
–Axle Riddle–
So that is what Vibranium fibers looked like, looked kind of the same as regular steel, but that was just his spatial senses talking. It might be different if he could actually lay his eyes on it but that was not a security risk he was willing to take.
"So, I assume you guys need some sleep or should we begin the testing right away?" He asked the small group of scientists that had chosen to stay for the procedure, to see the final strands being spat out by the machine in real time. Apparently, all they needed was a specific frequency of vibration hit at specific times, the times which would be decided by the sample of Vibranium you have on hand.
And that frequency and timing between sonic treatments could only be determined once you can scan the Vibranium sample on hand, since apparently Vibranium constantly shifts its internal structure, for some reason.
Another mystery ability that makes it the most versatile metal on the planet.
"Hmm? Yeah, we should all begin tomorrow. Get some good night's sleep. I'll make sure the fingers are properly guarded," Tony said as he snapped his fingers, causing the Iron Man suit to come walking towards him, and open its back for him to walk into, then the machine that wove the fibers began shutting down, along with two Iron Men suit emerging from the pods that Tony had transported to the warehouse earlier.
"They will remain on guard until we return in the morning. Combined with Peeper over here, I am reasonably certain that the Vibranium will be safe." Tony said before taking off through the ceiling.
Oh yeah, the madlad had specially installed a ceiling that could rapidly open up and then close off just in case he needed to make a vertical take-off.
Show-off.
He watched as all of them filtered out of the room, slowly until only the SHIELD guards and Jarvis in the suit were left, keeping guard over the machine. He wondered if the SHIELD agents present were HYDRA or not but it was not as if they could do much, if anything, with Jarvis around.
"See you tomorrow, Jarvis,"
So, he dissipated the paper avatar and then snuggled up into his bed, back in his apartment, after having a nice crisp beer, that did absolutely nothing to his body due to his metabolism.
He might just need Space Viking Alcohol to actually get drunk these days but he could not complain, what with the added immunity to most poisons coming with the metabolism.
He was about to go to sleep when..
"Ah!" He softly exclaimed as a portal opened in his living room, and the Ancient One stepped through, her signature yellow cloak gleaming against the orange fiery glow of the portal.
The fuck?
"What happened?"
"We need to talk, Mr.Riddle,"
Well, that wasn't ominous at all, he grumbled to himself as he got out of the bed.
"What is it? I was just about to go to sleep, you know?"
"This is related to the godling that Ms.Ross carries in her stomach,"
Her words had him sitting upright and out of the bed in a second, following her into the portal, only for the portal to bounce him back.
"Ah, my apologies. I assumed that you could get through,"
She said and he peered at her in confusion because there was no way she did not know about….
He stiffened as he immediately jumped back, the area he was standing in, jagged Green spikes ran through, making his head hurt from just looking at them.
In a split second, his mind ran through all the possible conclusions as he jumped out of the apartment window.
One, THis was not the Ancient One. Some kind of illusion, judging by the dark portal that was now visible instead of the standard orange.
Two, He could not differentiate between him, at all, only stopping because the Ancient One knew that he could not use portals that led him outside the city.
Three, they knew his identity, and had chosen to attack him on his home turf.
They would….rue the day they tried this.
In a single leap, he was outside his apartment window. In the second beat, he had already scanned the building, confirmed the 37 living residents, and had already mapped out a path for them to get out of the collapsing building.
Because there was no way the building would remain standing after this. The third beat, he whipped his hand forward, bringing forth an avalanche of sharp matter that hit the misty face of the intruder with the force of hundreds of tons.
"AA!" "Ugh!"
Amidst the screams of the residents being forcefully evacuated, he floated with his entire body covered in a blanket stolen from a nearby store, he watched as the building floor collapsed due to the sheer weight of the attack.
Even then, he ducked as another volley of dark green spikes attacked him. His eyes went to the small piece of blanket that immediately began turning grey as soon as it came into contact with those spikes. Without hesitation, he cut that part of the blanket and stored it in a groove near the sidewalk, lest some unsuspecting person stumble upon it.
A series of other clothing items surged around him as he floated on top of the building, waiting for either Master Drumm or the Ancient One to make a move. In the meantime, he made sure that Bruce and Betty, along with the Vibranium were fine.
Vibranium could be procured once again but Betty's safety was of paramount importance. He could see Bruce twisting and turning, his face showing unease.
He once again had to duck between the spikes, their pure energy nature meaning that he could not accurately predict them using his spatial awareness, only able to track the impact they have on the surrounding air and then track them that way.
Alternatively, his sight was faster in doing so because the spikes were right in front of him.
The portal was still open but he could not sense anything past that because the portal probably led to someplace very very far away, hindering his investigative powers.
Whoever had done this, they had come prepared, if their goal was just to out him. If they wanted to kill him, they had to do better than this.
Shit!
He exclaimed internally as the spikes then began running through the building and then into the passerby.
He hastily mapped all the people and just flash evacuated the entire block, and also finally knocked on the Sanctum Wards along with doing it with enough intensity that even the Ancient One should have realised by now that something had happened.
His form was now visible to any passerby looking for it, or through the hundreds of satellites pointed at Manhattan or through the CCTV cameras, it mattered not. What mattered was this MF'er just exposed his identity and he was going to get his pound of flesh in return.
His sentiments were apparently returned because the entire building seemingly exploded, revealing a huge monstrosity of tentacles that burned Green to his eyes.
"Alright, if it's a fight you want, it's a fight, you will get," He cracked his neck as the entire block they were standing in began vibrating because he had unlocked his limitations.
He had already warned Bruce about the danger and advised him to the warehouse where an underground bunker had been built. He was in the process of packing things up when he just packed everything for him and then lifted both of them and straight into the warehouse.
He then locked the warehouse from any outside intrusion.
Did the same for all the SHIELD doctors who were staying in the city.
Then once everyone was accounted for, he simply shut down his second mind.
In one moment, he was standing in front of the monster that was still growing by the second, the next moment, he was floating with a blue corona surrounding his body, empowering him to heights he previously thought unreachable.
When he first gained the second mind ability, he was able to offload most of his psychic prowess into the second mind, allowing it to essentially run a city as huge and complex as Manhattan.
But now that the second mind was shut down, for the first time since he had discovered it, he now had access to everything.
He could now sense the energy of the being in front of him and realised that it was nothing more than an extension, something that could be regenerated over and over again by the energy of the portal.
So, he had to make sure the portal was closed but that was not his expertise at the moment.
His expertise at the moment was….
"Let's dance," He said as the entire block seemingly fractured in the middle before the entirety of the matter of the block turning into a huge monstrosity, on par with the monster.
It was time to finally let loose…..
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.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 73 [October 2010]
Manhattan [13 hours later ~~Spongebob Style~~]
–Axle Riddle–
So that is what Vibranium fibers looked like, looked kind of the same as regular steel, but that was just his spatial senses talking. It might be different if he could actually lay his eyes on it but that was not a security risk he was willing to take.
"So, I assume you guys need some sleep or should we begin the testing right away?" He asked the small group of scientists that had chosen to stay for the procedure, to see the final strands being spat out by the machine in real time. Apparently, all they needed was a specific frequency of vibration hit at specific times, the times which would be decided by the sample of Vibranium you have on hand.
And that frequency and timing between sonic treatments could only be determined once you can scan the Vibranium sample on hand, since apparently Vibranium constantly shifts its internal structure, for some reason.
Another mystery ability that makes it the most versatile metal on the planet.
"Hmm? Yeah, we should all begin tomorrow. Get some good night's sleep. I'll make sure the fingers are properly guarded," Tony said as he snapped his fingers, causing the Iron Man suit to come walking towards him, and open its back for him to walk into, then the machine that wove the fibers began shutting down, along with two Iron Men suit emerging from the pods that Tony had transported to the warehouse earlier.
"They will remain on guard until we return in the morning. Combined with Peeper over here, I am reasonably certain that the Vibranium will be safe." Tony said before taking off through the ceiling.
Oh yeah, the madlad had specially installed a ceiling that could rapidly open up and then close off just in case he needed to make a vertical take-off.
Show-off.
He watched as all of them filtered out of the room, slowly until only the SHIELD guards and Jarvis in the suit were left, keeping guard over the machine. He wondered if the SHIELD agents present were HYDRA or not but it was not as if they could do much, if anything, with Jarvis around.
"See you tomorrow, Jarvis,"
So, he dissipated the paper avatar and then snuggled up into his bed, back in his apartment, after having a nice crisp beer, that did absolutely nothing to his body due to his metabolism.
He might just need Space Viking Alcohol to actually get drunk these days but he could not complain, what with the added immunity to most poisons coming with the metabolism.
He was about to go to sleep when..
"Ah!" He softly exclaimed as a portal opened in his living room, and the Ancient One stepped through, her signature yellow cloak gleaming against the orange fiery glow of the portal.
The fuck?
"What happened?"
"We need to talk, Mr.Riddle,"
Well, that wasn't ominous at all, he grumbled to himself as he got out of the bed.
"What is it? I was just about to go to sleep, you know?"
"This is related to the godling that Ms.Ross carries in her stomach,"
Her words had him sitting upright and out of the bed in a second, following her into the portal, only for the portal to bounce him back.
"Ah, my apologies. I assumed that you could get through,"
She said and he peered at her in confusion because there was no way she did not know about….
He stiffened as he immediately jumped back, the area he was standing in, jagged Green spikes ran through, making his head hurt from just looking at them.
In a split second, his mind ran through all the possible conclusions as he jumped out of the apartment window.
One, THis was not the Ancient One. Some kind of illusion, judging by the dark portal that was now visible instead of the standard orange.
Two, He could not differentiate between him, at all, only stopping because the Ancient One knew that he could not use portals that led him outside the city.
Three, they knew his identity, and had chosen to attack him on his home turf.
They would….rue the day they tried this.
In a single leap, he was outside his apartment window. In the second beat, he had already scanned the building, confirmed the 37 living residents, and had already mapped out a path for them to get out of the collapsing building.
Because there was no way the building would remain standing after this. The third beat, he whipped his hand forward, bringing forth an avalanche of sharp matter that hit the misty face of the intruder with the force of hundreds of tons.
"AA!" "Ugh!"
Amidst the screams of the residents being forcefully evacuated, he floated with his entire body covered in a blanket stolen from a nearby store, he watched as the building floor collapsed due to the sheer weight of the attack.
Even then, he ducked as another volley of dark green spikes attacked him. His eyes went to the small piece of blanket that immediately began turning grey as soon as it came into contact with those spikes. Without hesitation, he cut that part of the blanket and stored it in a groove near the sidewalk, lest some unsuspecting person stumble upon it.
A series of other clothing items surged around him as he floated on top of the building, waiting for either Master Drumm or the Ancient One to make a move. In the meantime, he made sure that Bruce and Betty, along with the Vibranium were fine.
Vibranium could be procured once again but Betty's safety was of paramount importance. He could see Bruce twisting and turning, his face showing unease.
He once again had to duck between the spikes, their pure energy nature meaning that he could not accurately predict them using his spatial awareness, only able to track the impact they have on the surrounding air and then track them that way.
Alternatively, his sight was faster in doing so because the spikes were right in front of him.
The portal was still open but he could not sense anything past that because the portal probably led to someplace very very far away, hindering his investigative powers.
Whoever had done this, they had come prepared, if their goal was just to out him. If they wanted to kill him, they had to do better than this.
Shit!
He exclaimed internally as the spikes then began running through the building and then into the passerby.
He hastily mapped all the people and just flash evacuated the entire block, and also finally knocked on the Sanctum Wards along with doing it with enough intensity that even the Ancient One should have realised by now that something had happened.
His form was now visible to any passerby looking for it, or through the hundreds of satellites pointed at Manhattan or through the CCTV cameras, it mattered not. What mattered was this MF'er just exposed his identity and he was going to get his pound of flesh in return.
His sentiments were apparently returned because the entire building seemingly exploded, revealing a huge monstrosity of tentacles that burned Green to his eyes.
"Alright, if it's a fight you want, it's a fight, you will get," He cracked his neck as the entire block they were standing in began vibrating because he had unlocked his limitations.
He had already warned Bruce about the danger and advised him to the warehouse where an underground bunker had been built. He was in the process of packing things up when he just packed everything for him and then lifted both of them and straight into the warehouse.
He then locked the warehouse from any outside intrusion.
Did the same for all the SHIELD doctors who were staying in the city.
Then once everyone was accounted for, he simply shut down his second mind.
In one moment, he was standing in front of the monster that was still growing by the second, the next moment, he was floating with a blue corona surrounding his body, empowering him to heights he previously thought unreachable.
When he first gained the second mind ability, he was able to offload most of his psychic prowess into the second mind, allowing it to essentially run a city as huge and complex as Manhattan.
But now that the second mind was shut down, for the first time since he had discovered it, he now had access to everything.
He could now sense the energy of the being in front of him and realised that it was nothing more than an extension, something that could be regenerated over and over again by the energy of the portal.
So, he had to make sure the portal was closed but that was not his expertise at the moment.
His expertise at the moment was….
"Let's dance," He said as the entire block seemingly fractured in the middle before the entirety of the matter of the block turning into a huge monstrosity, on par with the monster.
It was time to finally let loose…..
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.
Chapter 74 : Tony Whipped HAHA
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IdleMuse0307
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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 74 [October 2010]
Kamar Taj
–Karl Mordo–
"Are you sure about this, Wong?" He asked one of the strongest Masters of Kamar Taj, on par with himself, and as much as it pained him to admit it, Kaecilius as well. Three of them were seemingly on the same step as each other but even then, the gulf between them and the Ancient One was more of a chasm than a step.
That was why he had chosen to faithfully follow the Ancient One. Because she was the one who kept the realm safe and without chaos.
"Yes, those were the orders straight from the Ancient One. If you want, we can go and confirm them," Wong suggested and he gave him a look. There was no need to go that far when he was just asking a question.
Still, the requirements for this ritual were somewhat odd. Then again, rituals themselves were odd, not odd in the sense that they were out of order because the principle of equivalent exchange was still followed in most of the rituals. Odd because the ritual also took into account esoteric properties, like the love for an object, feelings held towards an object, memories, etc.
That was why he was shocked when the Ancient One asked the Staff of the Living Tribunal to be borrowed, so that she could conduct some kind of ritual.
"No, if these are the orders, then, by all means," He said as he parted with the relic that had saved his life more times than he could count.
"Thank you. Now, come, we need to draw the ritual circles once again," Wong hurried back to the massive underground ritual room that was situated right below the training grounds of Kamar Taj.
"What? Why again?" He found himself asking Wong as they sped towards the ritual room, the urgency in Wong's movement evident.
"Because, I forgot to connect a line before I sneezed, alright?" Wong said to him as he continued walking. Meanwhile, he almost tripped at the reason.
"Very well. What is the ritual for? And why is the Ancient One doing it herself? Last I remembered, the only time she did something–"
"Was when one of the leylines under the Hong Kong Sanctum had misaligned due to some foolish Atlantean mages, I know. But, if I am not wrong, this has the potential to turn into nearly the same level of tragedy, so we better hurry,"
Wong's words shocked him. He could still remember the state of panic that Kamar Taj had fallen into when one of the major ley lines, out of the seven that criss crossed the planet, one of them had been thrown out of natural alignment by the actions of a supposedly rouge mage of Atlantis.
The Ancient One had to go personally to Atlantis to school the people there and then had to conduct a massive ritual, over the course of an entire week, where she communed with Gaia to restore the natural alignment of the leylines, allowing the planetary shield to function at its full strength.
Soon, they had drawn the entire ritual circle, the complexity of which was mind boggling.
Just as he had stood up from the ritual, he heard her speaking.
"Great work, Master Mordo, Master Wong."
The Ancient One had arrived in the ritual room.
"Now, please guard the ritual room. There are nefarious entities that will stop at nothing to hamper our efforts," with those ominous words, she snapped her fingers and he found himself outside the ritual room, facing the closed door which glowed orange for a moment, then seamlessly melded right into the wall, such that there was no viable entry point into the ritual room now.
A small part of him wanted to question her on what the hell was going on but the larger part of him was glad that he had his orders that he could follow.
A rigid structure. Order.
Some of the favourite things in his life.
So, he stood guard.
For hours on end.
After the fifth hour, there was an alarm that rang throughout Kamar Taj, a shrill voice echoing throughout the complex. He exchanged alarmed looks with Wong as they both realised something had gone wrong with one of the Sanctums.
This was a specific alarm that could only be raised by a Sanctum Master and should only be raised when the Sanctum itself was in danger of being destroyed.
"We need to go, now!" Wong said as he snapped at him incredulously.
"Are you foolish? The Ancient One has given us clear orders. We need to guard the Ritual Room. IT could be a ploy to get us to leave her here. Besides, Master Drumm is a capable Master, and no doubt, other Masters of Kamar Taj must be rushing to help him. What we need to do is follow orders," He said and then stood guard, his wary gaze inspecting every corner of the surroundings.
He knew that he came off a little rigid in his ways but that was the only way he knew how to live his life now. He was broken when he came to Kamar Taj and Order, that was the one thing that he clung to as he tried to rebuild himself, resulting in this semi broken person known as Mordo.
Oh, he knew that he was not healed, not by any stretch of the imagination, but at least he had a purpose now. At least, he could rest easy knowing that he did all he could for his family. He now knew that there was no feasible way of bringing back his family, not without desecrating their memory in ways most foul.
Multiple Masters approached them after they had realised their location but they were under express orders to not leave, so they ordered all the available forces to reinforce the New York Sanctum and then told the rest to stand vigil over Kamar Taj itself.
______xx_____
Meanwhile, in Manhattan, things had heated up.
Axle Riddle, having finally released all the blockers, or rather, limitations of his powers, stood atop a towering beast made up of material scavenged from the surroundings, standing in front of an eldritch monstrosity made up of dark green and purple tentacles.
The Monster was still growing but Axle had had enough of this farce. He flooded his presence on the avatar that he had created and to his visible surprise, his entire body along with the entire avatar gained a blue hue as he could now feel as if the avatar he had created was an extension of his limb.
"Well, that was new," Axle muttered to himself as he experimentally punched the monstrosity. He did not know if this was the right approach or not, especially since all his attempts at closing the portal or sending in enough barrage of things to overwhelm the caster of the portal had gone unsuccessful.
But since all the surrounding areas had been evacuated, with thousands of people finding themselves standing in Central Park with his COngregation having standing orders to help the people there, he didn't have to worry much about collateral damage.
All he was worried about were the people…and Bruce.
The timing was completely suspicious and his mind wandered to BRuce and his connection to the Guy Below.
A chill ran down his spine when he realised that if he was involved in this, then he was way out of his league. It was a small mercy that he was unable to enter that portal. Who knew where it led to?
He probably would have been dead now. He was powerful, yes, but it was his mind that was more powerful. His body, while still stronger than most, was woefully inadequate when it came to foes such as the ones he was fighting with.
His punch had clearly pushed the tentacled monstrosity through a couple of buildings behind him but there was no visible damage done.
He winced as he saw the portal had disappeared as well.
Due to his newfound powers, it was as if he had teleported, when he came to the warehouse with Jarvis' suit along with the SHIELD guards, standing guard over a room that housed the scientists as well as Bruce and Betty.
He was just in time too because a small green mist had appeared in front of the warehouse, out of which a long green limb came out, followed by more and more of the same limb.
He didn't wait around for the portal to open even wider, as he took the excess vibranium that they had, and infused it with his power. His eyes revealed a surprised look as he could feel some sort of connection with the small piece of Vibranium before it too began glowing blue.
He thrust the Vibranium at the portal's limbs, the sharp edge of the Vibranium shedding through every little piece of it, throwing dark green blood all over the warehouse floor. The blood melted through the flooring as he threw all the SHIELD security inside the warehouse into another room, separate, from Bruce and Betty.
"Jarvis? Where is Tony?"
"Sir, is in LA. He has sent an additional two suits to assist you and is in the process of convincing Ms.Potts to let him go," Jarvis' voice filtered through one of the suits which continued to fire beam after beam at the limbs, doing some damage but not enough.
Meanwhile, he was piloting the avatar on the other side of the city, both giants duking it out in one corner of the city. He couldn't let the eldritch monstrosity further into the city but he also couldn't let it get out of his range. So, he was in a stalemate, at least until the masters arrived.
"Oh, come on!" He shouted in frustration as the limb seemed to go on forever. In a fit of frustration, he threw the vibranium at the edge of the portal itself, the green mist giving way to the blue celestial material.
He blinked in shock as the vibranium seemed to do some real damage to the portal.
Well, it would seem that he had a new weapon now.
Not wasting time, he threw the vibranium at the edges, making sure that the limb stopped using his powers, even though it was gaining ground slowly due to the sheer power behind the limb.
He could feel the limb fracturing as it hit a wall made out of pure psionic energy but even then, it seemed to push.
Thankfully, the vibranium came in clutch as it seemingly cut through the portal, destroying it slowly until the portal became too unstable to maintain and winked out of existence.
His shoulders slumped as he relaxed. But the fight was not over yet, he thought to himself as he watched another portal open on top of the eldritch monstrosity, another series of purple tentacles coming through the portal.
Just where in the hell were the Masters of the Mystic Arts?
"Jarvis, stay here. Make sure that only Bruce and Betty are in a single room. Once those two suits arrive, task them to Bruce and BEtty only. They are the priority, understand?"
"Yes, Mr.Invisble Man,"
He nodded at Jarvis and then set off towards the tentacle monster, resolved to end it now, armed with his newfound crude albeit effective weapon.
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.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 74 [October 2010]
Kamar Taj
–Karl Mordo–
"Are you sure about this, Wong?" He asked one of the strongest Masters of Kamar Taj, on par with himself, and as much as it pained him to admit it, Kaecilius as well. Three of them were seemingly on the same step as each other but even then, the gulf between them and the Ancient One was more of a chasm than a step.
That was why he had chosen to faithfully follow the Ancient One. Because she was the one who kept the realm safe and without chaos.
"Yes, those were the orders straight from the Ancient One. If you want, we can go and confirm them," Wong suggested and he gave him a look. There was no need to go that far when he was just asking a question.
Still, the requirements for this ritual were somewhat odd. Then again, rituals themselves were odd, not odd in the sense that they were out of order because the principle of equivalent exchange was still followed in most of the rituals. Odd because the ritual also took into account esoteric properties, like the love for an object, feelings held towards an object, memories, etc.
That was why he was shocked when the Ancient One asked the Staff of the Living Tribunal to be borrowed, so that she could conduct some kind of ritual.
"No, if these are the orders, then, by all means," He said as he parted with the relic that had saved his life more times than he could count.
"Thank you. Now, come, we need to draw the ritual circles once again," Wong hurried back to the massive underground ritual room that was situated right below the training grounds of Kamar Taj.
"What? Why again?" He found himself asking Wong as they sped towards the ritual room, the urgency in Wong's movement evident.
"Because, I forgot to connect a line before I sneezed, alright?" Wong said to him as he continued walking. Meanwhile, he almost tripped at the reason.
"Very well. What is the ritual for? And why is the Ancient One doing it herself? Last I remembered, the only time she did something–"
"Was when one of the leylines under the Hong Kong Sanctum had misaligned due to some foolish Atlantean mages, I know. But, if I am not wrong, this has the potential to turn into nearly the same level of tragedy, so we better hurry,"
Wong's words shocked him. He could still remember the state of panic that Kamar Taj had fallen into when one of the major ley lines, out of the seven that criss crossed the planet, one of them had been thrown out of natural alignment by the actions of a supposedly rouge mage of Atlantis.
The Ancient One had to go personally to Atlantis to school the people there and then had to conduct a massive ritual, over the course of an entire week, where she communed with Gaia to restore the natural alignment of the leylines, allowing the planetary shield to function at its full strength.
Soon, they had drawn the entire ritual circle, the complexity of which was mind boggling.
Just as he had stood up from the ritual, he heard her speaking.
"Great work, Master Mordo, Master Wong."
The Ancient One had arrived in the ritual room.
"Now, please guard the ritual room. There are nefarious entities that will stop at nothing to hamper our efforts," with those ominous words, she snapped her fingers and he found himself outside the ritual room, facing the closed door which glowed orange for a moment, then seamlessly melded right into the wall, such that there was no viable entry point into the ritual room now.
A small part of him wanted to question her on what the hell was going on but the larger part of him was glad that he had his orders that he could follow.
A rigid structure. Order.
Some of the favourite things in his life.
So, he stood guard.
For hours on end.
After the fifth hour, there was an alarm that rang throughout Kamar Taj, a shrill voice echoing throughout the complex. He exchanged alarmed looks with Wong as they both realised something had gone wrong with one of the Sanctums.
This was a specific alarm that could only be raised by a Sanctum Master and should only be raised when the Sanctum itself was in danger of being destroyed.
"We need to go, now!" Wong said as he snapped at him incredulously.
"Are you foolish? The Ancient One has given us clear orders. We need to guard the Ritual Room. IT could be a ploy to get us to leave her here. Besides, Master Drumm is a capable Master, and no doubt, other Masters of Kamar Taj must be rushing to help him. What we need to do is follow orders," He said and then stood guard, his wary gaze inspecting every corner of the surroundings.
He knew that he came off a little rigid in his ways but that was the only way he knew how to live his life now. He was broken when he came to Kamar Taj and Order, that was the one thing that he clung to as he tried to rebuild himself, resulting in this semi broken person known as Mordo.
Oh, he knew that he was not healed, not by any stretch of the imagination, but at least he had a purpose now. At least, he could rest easy knowing that he did all he could for his family. He now knew that there was no feasible way of bringing back his family, not without desecrating their memory in ways most foul.
Multiple Masters approached them after they had realised their location but they were under express orders to not leave, so they ordered all the available forces to reinforce the New York Sanctum and then told the rest to stand vigil over Kamar Taj itself.
______xx_____
Meanwhile, in Manhattan, things had heated up.
Axle Riddle, having finally released all the blockers, or rather, limitations of his powers, stood atop a towering beast made up of material scavenged from the surroundings, standing in front of an eldritch monstrosity made up of dark green and purple tentacles.
The Monster was still growing but Axle had had enough of this farce. He flooded his presence on the avatar that he had created and to his visible surprise, his entire body along with the entire avatar gained a blue hue as he could now feel as if the avatar he had created was an extension of his limb.
"Well, that was new," Axle muttered to himself as he experimentally punched the monstrosity. He did not know if this was the right approach or not, especially since all his attempts at closing the portal or sending in enough barrage of things to overwhelm the caster of the portal had gone unsuccessful.
But since all the surrounding areas had been evacuated, with thousands of people finding themselves standing in Central Park with his COngregation having standing orders to help the people there, he didn't have to worry much about collateral damage.
All he was worried about were the people…and Bruce.
The timing was completely suspicious and his mind wandered to BRuce and his connection to the Guy Below.
A chill ran down his spine when he realised that if he was involved in this, then he was way out of his league. It was a small mercy that he was unable to enter that portal. Who knew where it led to?
He probably would have been dead now. He was powerful, yes, but it was his mind that was more powerful. His body, while still stronger than most, was woefully inadequate when it came to foes such as the ones he was fighting with.
His punch had clearly pushed the tentacled monstrosity through a couple of buildings behind him but there was no visible damage done.
He winced as he saw the portal had disappeared as well.
Due to his newfound powers, it was as if he had teleported, when he came to the warehouse with Jarvis' suit along with the SHIELD guards, standing guard over a room that housed the scientists as well as Bruce and Betty.
He was just in time too because a small green mist had appeared in front of the warehouse, out of which a long green limb came out, followed by more and more of the same limb.
He didn't wait around for the portal to open even wider, as he took the excess vibranium that they had, and infused it with his power. His eyes revealed a surprised look as he could feel some sort of connection with the small piece of Vibranium before it too began glowing blue.
He thrust the Vibranium at the portal's limbs, the sharp edge of the Vibranium shedding through every little piece of it, throwing dark green blood all over the warehouse floor. The blood melted through the flooring as he threw all the SHIELD security inside the warehouse into another room, separate, from Bruce and Betty.
"Jarvis? Where is Tony?"
"Sir, is in LA. He has sent an additional two suits to assist you and is in the process of convincing Ms.Potts to let him go," Jarvis' voice filtered through one of the suits which continued to fire beam after beam at the limbs, doing some damage but not enough.
Meanwhile, he was piloting the avatar on the other side of the city, both giants duking it out in one corner of the city. He couldn't let the eldritch monstrosity further into the city but he also couldn't let it get out of his range. So, he was in a stalemate, at least until the masters arrived.
"Oh, come on!" He shouted in frustration as the limb seemed to go on forever. In a fit of frustration, he threw the vibranium at the edge of the portal itself, the green mist giving way to the blue celestial material.
He blinked in shock as the vibranium seemed to do some real damage to the portal.
Well, it would seem that he had a new weapon now.
Not wasting time, he threw the vibranium at the edges, making sure that the limb stopped using his powers, even though it was gaining ground slowly due to the sheer power behind the limb.
He could feel the limb fracturing as it hit a wall made out of pure psionic energy but even then, it seemed to push.
Thankfully, the vibranium came in clutch as it seemingly cut through the portal, destroying it slowly until the portal became too unstable to maintain and winked out of existence.
His shoulders slumped as he relaxed. But the fight was not over yet, he thought to himself as he watched another portal open on top of the eldritch monstrosity, another series of purple tentacles coming through the portal.
Just where in the hell were the Masters of the Mystic Arts?
"Jarvis, stay here. Make sure that only Bruce and Betty are in a single room. Once those two suits arrive, task them to Bruce and BEtty only. They are the priority, understand?"
"Yes, Mr.Invisble Man,"
He nodded at Jarvis and then set off towards the tentacle monster, resolved to end it now, armed with his newfound crude albeit effective weapon.
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.
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Chapter 75 : YOUR SAVIOR IS HERE!
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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 75 [October 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
Damn, that is huge. He looked at the three tentacle monsters now standing in front of the lone trash monster that his powers had conjured up. Chunks of it were missing but that was not a big problem.
His powers worked as another few tons of matter were added to the trash robot, which then began marching towards the tentacle monsters when it became clear that all three of them were about to take off in different directions.
Could not have that in his city, now could he?
Well, things were going to be rough after this. The existence of this Cthulhu like monster was going to give many of the organisations worldwide, cult like organisations, more ammunition. And that didn't even take into account what the response of his cult, no- the people who follow him would be. God, things just couldn't be nice and peaceful until he could get Bruce and Betty a nice cozy beach retirement set up somewhere.
He winced as one of the tentacles missed his avatar and ended up slamming into a nearby street, puncturing a high pressure water line and also sewer lines as both of these things began pooling in the street.
That smell is going to take ages to wear off.
The good news was that his avatar was doing reasonably well…as well as it could, in holding off the monsters from rampaging through the city. Meanwhile, he was floating in front of the standoff, pouring more and more of his "amped up" energy as he liked to call his new form, into the Vibranium cutting tool he had on hand because the last stunt of cutting through that portal somehow drained the weapon of its energy.
He still could not sense any portal opening but Jarvis had assured him that he would be warned that in the millisecond a portal of any sort opens within a mile's radius of Bruce and Betty.
He had also spotted two afterburner marks, signalling the arrival of two more drones but no sign of Tony or his stupid smug voice and face anywhere. So, it would be safe to say that the man had not arrived yet.
Huh, Pepper really has him whipped then. No way was Tony Stark going to miss this sort of action but to be fair, he was really far away, and getting all the way here in just his suit was illogical and by the time his private jet made it here, the issue will most likely have resolved itself.
Seeing that the Vibranium block, which was now beginning to change shape, he had noticed, could not take any more of his psionic energy, he used his powers to create vines made up of building material and held off all the three tentacle monstrosities that the Guy Below had made for some reason.
For some reason, probably due to the high energy being generated over their skin, his powers could not "hold" the monsters as he would for normal people. It was as if his powers were trying to latch onto something that would just pass through the net that his powers were trying to cast.
So, he had to improvise. Destroy surrounding infrastructure to create giant hands and ropes to restrain monsters that would most likely irradiate and destroy that part of the city once they were destroyed.
Another option was to catapult them out of his range but he had noticed the way they shrugged off his glancing blows, capable of duking it out with his avatar, even in his amped up mode. He was not going to risk them getting out of Manhattan, where his powers would be even weaker.
Seeing the three monsters weakened and the giant avatar from before, crumbling due to the damage done to it, he let the Vibranium block which had now changed shape and turned into a ninja star, for some reason, into the air in front of him.
The reason was not important at the moment but the timing of the shape being formed was a very nice touch.
He could not hold the star conventionally using his powers either but it was as if the Vibranium had bonded to him and he could control it with a thought, without ever having to use his powers to do so.
He willed the star to begin spinning, creating a small localised star that gave off blue stars. The star then created a trail of energy as it whizzed towards the tentacled monsters. As if realising their demise was near, the monsters renewed their struggles but it was not meant to be for them.
He knew that because he was not there in front of them anymore. No, he was already recalling the ninja star that had already created hundreds of holes in the bodies of those monsters, because he was standing in front of Bruce who was standing in front of a heavily pregnant Betty, already turning faint shades of green.
All because of a small portal that had appeared right in the room where they were stashed away safely. He had a hunch something was wrong when the monsters were not healing their wounds nearly as fast as before and were also unable to exert much power on the vines imprisoning them.
From the corner of his eyes, he saw the two scrapped Iron Man suits and the hole in the door, and yet, if it were not for him seeing the portal with his own two eyes, he would have thought that everything in the warehouse was normal.
Even now, he could see all the other scientists in the other room, huddled together, with all the Guards. Jarvis piloted all three suits and kept a close eye on the entry, exit, and interior of the staff room where bEtty was kept.
Even as his powers continued to feed him that information, he ordered the ninja star to start cutting through this portal as well but the moment the star came into close vicinity of the portal, the unthinkable happened.
Like lightning, a hand shot out of the portal and grabbed the star and then, with a thunderous crack, broke the fucking Vibranium with its bare hands. The backlash of that happening was immense to him as he began bleeding through his ears and mouth, his vision dizzy and his ears ringing as the hand grasped the edge of the portal and pushed.
He staggered back and actually had to be held upright by Bruce as he saw the portal slowly expanding.
While this was happening, he could see the blood of the tentacled monsters flowing deliberately into the sewers without anything there to stop him. His mind felt so weak and fuzzy, that he could not muster up enough force to stop that blood from contaminating everything in the city.
The portal was clearly unstable now because there were fissures of lightning occurring around the portal but the hand seemed to be determined in widening the portal for some reason. He didn't know why because at this point, even the Hulk could have walked through that portal, provided he hunched his back and walked.
He slowly straightened himself as his somewhat enhanced body began repairing itself. His mind was still shaken from the link between the ninja star, which was probably some sort of bonded weapon at that point, and his mind being broken so abruptly.
He took a step forward as blue flashes of barriers appeared on his body but he was evidently unable to sustain it as he dropped down to his knees within the next moment. He was about to try again, not knowing what else to do to save Betty, but as if his prayers had been answered, orange filled his vision as he saw some squiggly lines on the ground and then happily passed out, uncaring of the fact that he was still covered in only a flimsy piece of blanket.
That cheap blanket being the only thing stopping people from outing his hidden identity. But at that point, he was way too injured, dazed, confused, and out of fucks to give, to care about that. He just welcomed the darkness that claimed his vision, the last scene that he managed to see was a giant orange circle to light up underneath the portal, as pure white chains wrapped themselves around the hand as well as the portal.
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.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 75 [October 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
Damn, that is huge. He looked at the three tentacle monsters now standing in front of the lone trash monster that his powers had conjured up. Chunks of it were missing but that was not a big problem.
His powers worked as another few tons of matter were added to the trash robot, which then began marching towards the tentacle monsters when it became clear that all three of them were about to take off in different directions.
Could not have that in his city, now could he?
Well, things were going to be rough after this. The existence of this Cthulhu like monster was going to give many of the organisations worldwide, cult like organisations, more ammunition. And that didn't even take into account what the response of his cult, no- the people who follow him would be. God, things just couldn't be nice and peaceful until he could get Bruce and Betty a nice cozy beach retirement set up somewhere.
He winced as one of the tentacles missed his avatar and ended up slamming into a nearby street, puncturing a high pressure water line and also sewer lines as both of these things began pooling in the street.
That smell is going to take ages to wear off.
The good news was that his avatar was doing reasonably well…as well as it could, in holding off the monsters from rampaging through the city. Meanwhile, he was floating in front of the standoff, pouring more and more of his "amped up" energy as he liked to call his new form, into the Vibranium cutting tool he had on hand because the last stunt of cutting through that portal somehow drained the weapon of its energy.
He still could not sense any portal opening but Jarvis had assured him that he would be warned that in the millisecond a portal of any sort opens within a mile's radius of Bruce and Betty.
He had also spotted two afterburner marks, signalling the arrival of two more drones but no sign of Tony or his stupid smug voice and face anywhere. So, it would be safe to say that the man had not arrived yet.
Huh, Pepper really has him whipped then. No way was Tony Stark going to miss this sort of action but to be fair, he was really far away, and getting all the way here in just his suit was illogical and by the time his private jet made it here, the issue will most likely have resolved itself.
Seeing that the Vibranium block, which was now beginning to change shape, he had noticed, could not take any more of his psionic energy, he used his powers to create vines made up of building material and held off all the three tentacle monstrosities that the Guy Below had made for some reason.
For some reason, probably due to the high energy being generated over their skin, his powers could not "hold" the monsters as he would for normal people. It was as if his powers were trying to latch onto something that would just pass through the net that his powers were trying to cast.
So, he had to improvise. Destroy surrounding infrastructure to create giant hands and ropes to restrain monsters that would most likely irradiate and destroy that part of the city once they were destroyed.
Another option was to catapult them out of his range but he had noticed the way they shrugged off his glancing blows, capable of duking it out with his avatar, even in his amped up mode. He was not going to risk them getting out of Manhattan, where his powers would be even weaker.
Seeing the three monsters weakened and the giant avatar from before, crumbling due to the damage done to it, he let the Vibranium block which had now changed shape and turned into a ninja star, for some reason, into the air in front of him.
The reason was not important at the moment but the timing of the shape being formed was a very nice touch.
He could not hold the star conventionally using his powers either but it was as if the Vibranium had bonded to him and he could control it with a thought, without ever having to use his powers to do so.
He willed the star to begin spinning, creating a small localised star that gave off blue stars. The star then created a trail of energy as it whizzed towards the tentacled monsters. As if realising their demise was near, the monsters renewed their struggles but it was not meant to be for them.
He knew that because he was not there in front of them anymore. No, he was already recalling the ninja star that had already created hundreds of holes in the bodies of those monsters, because he was standing in front of Bruce who was standing in front of a heavily pregnant Betty, already turning faint shades of green.
All because of a small portal that had appeared right in the room where they were stashed away safely. He had a hunch something was wrong when the monsters were not healing their wounds nearly as fast as before and were also unable to exert much power on the vines imprisoning them.
From the corner of his eyes, he saw the two scrapped Iron Man suits and the hole in the door, and yet, if it were not for him seeing the portal with his own two eyes, he would have thought that everything in the warehouse was normal.
Even now, he could see all the other scientists in the other room, huddled together, with all the Guards. Jarvis piloted all three suits and kept a close eye on the entry, exit, and interior of the staff room where bEtty was kept.
Even as his powers continued to feed him that information, he ordered the ninja star to start cutting through this portal as well but the moment the star came into close vicinity of the portal, the unthinkable happened.
Like lightning, a hand shot out of the portal and grabbed the star and then, with a thunderous crack, broke the fucking Vibranium with its bare hands. The backlash of that happening was immense to him as he began bleeding through his ears and mouth, his vision dizzy and his ears ringing as the hand grasped the edge of the portal and pushed.
He staggered back and actually had to be held upright by Bruce as he saw the portal slowly expanding.
While this was happening, he could see the blood of the tentacled monsters flowing deliberately into the sewers without anything there to stop him. His mind felt so weak and fuzzy, that he could not muster up enough force to stop that blood from contaminating everything in the city.
The portal was clearly unstable now because there were fissures of lightning occurring around the portal but the hand seemed to be determined in widening the portal for some reason. He didn't know why because at this point, even the Hulk could have walked through that portal, provided he hunched his back and walked.
He slowly straightened himself as his somewhat enhanced body began repairing itself. His mind was still shaken from the link between the ninja star, which was probably some sort of bonded weapon at that point, and his mind being broken so abruptly.
He took a step forward as blue flashes of barriers appeared on his body but he was evidently unable to sustain it as he dropped down to his knees within the next moment. He was about to try again, not knowing what else to do to save Betty, but as if his prayers had been answered, orange filled his vision as he saw some squiggly lines on the ground and then happily passed out, uncaring of the fact that he was still covered in only a flimsy piece of blanket.
That cheap blanket being the only thing stopping people from outing his hidden identity. But at that point, he was way too injured, dazed, confused, and out of fucks to give, to care about that. He just welcomed the darkness that claimed his vision, the last scene that he managed to see was a giant orange circle to light up underneath the portal, as pure white chains wrapped themselves around the hand as well as the portal.
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.
ImperialMage701139
Know what you're doing yet?
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What are you talking about that was clearly an alien invasion, after all magic isn't real.
Chapter 76 : Dummies Guide to Astral Realm
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IdleMuse0307
Not too sore, are you?
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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 76 [October 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
With a gasp, he came to consciousness, as his mind returned to awareness of its surroundings. As soon as it happened though, he winced.
"Ow…" He had to forcibly control his power and wind it tightly within his mind for his head to stop hurting.
"Ow indeed. I assume you are finally feeling the effects of the stunt you pulled earlier?" He looked to the side as an invisible pressure forced him back on the bed, with the Ancient One reading a book while nonchalantly sipping tea.
"W-What happened?" He croaked out, his mouth feeling completely dry. He muttered a quick thank you as a glass of water slowly flew over to him. He ignored how it continued to be full despite him chugging down most of it within moments.
"What happened Mr.Riddle is that within a span of an hour, you managed to tangle yourself with one of the most dangerous beings in the universe, pulled off a ridiculous move of combining your latent potential with your partitioned mind which granted you phenomenal levels of power, proceed to battle his avatar using your own avatar, bonded with a block of Vibranium using your powers, and then suffered a backlash from said weapon being destroyed, and then still managed to reach Bruce Banner and Betty Ross to help defend them, where in we found you collapsed,"
"When you put it like that, anything will sound stupid. Where were you, anyway? I had to fight with that guy who was not even taking me seriously and winning, and that was with my shiny new upgrades, you know,"
He conveniently left out the part where he could not really use his powers right now. His head felt bloated as if it was filled with way too much water and was about to spill out of it. He didn't have the courage to use his TK, that was how intensive the damage was. The shiny new powers did not come without a cost then.
"That, Mr.Riddle, is someone who can suppress the Vishanti all by himself if there was not someone else of equal power stopping him. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do about him. He has a vested interest in Dr.Banner and more importantly, in his unborn progeny."
"But he is restricted in how he can act so he pulled that stunt. Wait, are you telling me that was him at his weak point?" He asked her incredulously. While he was more than aware of the existence of the One Below All, *chills*, he was of the opinion that the One Above All *Stan Lee Flashes by* was the one keeping him contained.
If this was his fractional power then….
"What happened to Betty?" He asked her urgently, his mind fighting the urge to just let his powers go and find out for himself since he was pretty sure this was the New York Sanctum and the warehouse was not that far away from here.
"Ms.Ross is fine. You have been unconscious for three days now. Full recovery will take at least a month," She said, calm as a cucumber.
"A month?! We don't have a month. Betty is due in a month and a half. What if something happens until then? And what about the city? Oh, dear god, there must be pandemonium in the city," He panicked and began blubbering.
It had been years since he had felt this blinded, this helpless. Without his powers, he was unable to keep an eye on the city or keep them safe from the dangers by instilling the fear of god in the minds of criminals.
Oh, Shit!
"What about the city? Those tentacled monsters? Their blood was acting as if it was alive and was deliberately spreading to the sewers. I couldn't do much about it because I had to save Betty and Bruce but did you find out anything?" He asked her, his heart sinking as he saw her brows furrowed as she leaned forward, the cup of tea and her book disappearing as if it was never there at all.
"No, Mr.Riddle. The remnants have been taken into custody by the government and we have purged as much as we could of the mystical influence of those foot soldiers but nothing is permanent. I am afraid that some of the blood that you are talking about, which is cosmic ichor, must have escaped." She said before snapping her fingers.
He blinked as he found himself sleeping in his clothes and not the medical PJs from before.
"Here," He looked up to see an armour floating towards him. He yelped a bit as it seemed to sink into his body and then sighed in relief as a warm pleasant sensation spread throughout his body.
"That is the armour of the Vishanti. It will help you against dark influences, be it from the Astral Realm or the real world."
Why would he need to go to the Astral Realm all of a sudden? He was not even that good at it. As if answering his question, another book appeared in front of him. He took hold of it and read the title of the book, and deadpanned at the Ancient One who looked just as serene as before, as if this situation meant nothing to her and did not affect her one bit.
"A Dummies guide to safe passage in the Astral Realm and the ways to heal one's spirit"
"That was a mouthful, wasn't it?"
"The author of that book is not human, Mr.Riddle. The Astral Realm is home to many species, and while the material universe has found itself devoid of most dragons for eons now, there are some species of dragons that evolved to survive in the Astral Realm, as psionic entities. One of those dragons, quite an eccentric one, managed to inhabit one of the homunculus that we had in possession at the time. That dragon is the reason we know so much about the Astral Realm."
"You will do well to respect Master Jin'ya as he is the only reason you will recover your soul within the span of a week. In the meantime, I assume you will come to appreciate the struggles of being an ordinary person. I have taken the liberty to inform all of your minions, as you like to call them, that you will be out of commission for a month."
He opened his mouth to argue when she forestalled him, "Do not worry about them. They will be fine. Just in case, I have also assigned one of the newer Masters to shadow them at all times. Nobody is going to come in and take them from the city,"
He sighed in relief. His existence was really the only thing stopping the vultures from descending into Manhattan, or Bruce and even Betty herself. He liked to think that Ross would not stoop so low so as to hurt his own daughter or his own grandchild for power but he could never be sure with that man.
For all he knew, Ross could consider the baby as an abomination, a monster, and in his mind, he could be doing Betty a favour by getting rid of the monster in her belly.
He shook his head to get rid of those dark thoughts. Nothing he can do about them other than heal up and get back to work.
"I suppose I will have to learn this by myself?" He asked her, smiling weakly when she nodded. It was not as if he did not understand the books, the books related to mind and Astral Realm were surprisingly easy to understand. IT was just that the books were really boring and mostly relied on the user's mind's imagination to function properly.
"You will be fine, Mr.Riddle. Now, I have a lot of work to do to strengthen the shields to make sure nothing of this sort happens near one of the Sanctums so…off you go," She made a shooing gesture and he found himself standing outside the Sanctum once again, holding onto the book with one hand, and his wallet with the other.
Well, time to live life like a normal human.
_____xx____
–Nick Fury–
"Yes, Mr.President, we have taken all the samples into our custody,"
"Yes, Mr.President, multiple blood samples have been found at all the locations of the battle but we are yet to find anything concrete."
"Yes, sir, I have tasked my best men on it."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," He hung up the phone and had the urge to just throw the phone and disappear from the world for a month.
"Fucking Invisible Man. Not so invisible, are you now?" he muttered as a series of photos, clicked using both SHIELD as well as US Government satellites were laid on his table. All of them were from different angles, the darkness making the photo blurry, but it was unmistakable.
The Invisible Man was a human and had to come out of his hidey hole to fight something of that calibre.
But then again, it was understandable, he thought to himself as he came out of the makeshift tent office and looked at the now pulverised six blocks worth of an area, filled with nothing but rubble.
It was good that the Billionaire army that the Invisible Man had raised, along with his cult, had taken all responsibility to rebuilt everything, down to the last brick. Money had already poured in, permits were being granted at an expedited pace, and construction crew had already begun working on the areas that SHIELD had cleared, and declared safe from contamination.
Contamination from what exactly? He did not know.
SHIELD Was supposed to be the first line of defense against motherfucking aliens and they somehow entered their backyard without anyone noticing.
It was their luck that they came to Manhattan, and just Manhattan, where the powers of the guy were the strongest. Otherwise, who knows what kind of death and destruction they would have had to face.
Well, he had received the news from Banner and Tony. The Invisible Man was injured in the fight and will not be back for atleast a week. That news will never make it into any of the reports because that was just begging for another disaster to occur.
What was important was that the Invisible Man was just healing, he was not gone. HE will be back and things will turn to normal. In the meantime, he had this headache to deal with.
How did the fucker do it anyway?
According to the records, there was a giant ass orange magical circle that appeared all around the island, and then white chains came out of those circles and restrained the tentacles.
Then, just as they came, they were gone, leaving behind dead husks of those monsters. They had testimonies of the Invisible Man falling unconscious just before the whole white chains came out of the magic circle thing but he did not have access to either the Invisible Man or his closest people to interrogate.
And even if he did have a brain the size of a pea to try and strongarm his people into an interrogation, he would not do so because he could not do so.
Everyone had gone underground, save for Banner and Tony, both of whom were individually capable of wrecking anything he sent their way.
So, there he was, standing amidst the rubble, waiting for the main guests to arrive so that he could finally understand what the fuck had happened!
"Ow, Motherfucker," He cursed as he almost tripped over a piece of rock.
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.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 76 [October 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
With a gasp, he came to consciousness, as his mind returned to awareness of its surroundings. As soon as it happened though, he winced.
"Ow…" He had to forcibly control his power and wind it tightly within his mind for his head to stop hurting.
"Ow indeed. I assume you are finally feeling the effects of the stunt you pulled earlier?" He looked to the side as an invisible pressure forced him back on the bed, with the Ancient One reading a book while nonchalantly sipping tea.
"W-What happened?" He croaked out, his mouth feeling completely dry. He muttered a quick thank you as a glass of water slowly flew over to him. He ignored how it continued to be full despite him chugging down most of it within moments.
"What happened Mr.Riddle is that within a span of an hour, you managed to tangle yourself with one of the most dangerous beings in the universe, pulled off a ridiculous move of combining your latent potential with your partitioned mind which granted you phenomenal levels of power, proceed to battle his avatar using your own avatar, bonded with a block of Vibranium using your powers, and then suffered a backlash from said weapon being destroyed, and then still managed to reach Bruce Banner and Betty Ross to help defend them, where in we found you collapsed,"
"When you put it like that, anything will sound stupid. Where were you, anyway? I had to fight with that guy who was not even taking me seriously and winning, and that was with my shiny new upgrades, you know,"
He conveniently left out the part where he could not really use his powers right now. His head felt bloated as if it was filled with way too much water and was about to spill out of it. He didn't have the courage to use his TK, that was how intensive the damage was. The shiny new powers did not come without a cost then.
"That, Mr.Riddle, is someone who can suppress the Vishanti all by himself if there was not someone else of equal power stopping him. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do about him. He has a vested interest in Dr.Banner and more importantly, in his unborn progeny."
"But he is restricted in how he can act so he pulled that stunt. Wait, are you telling me that was him at his weak point?" He asked her incredulously. While he was more than aware of the existence of the One Below All, *chills*, he was of the opinion that the One Above All *Stan Lee Flashes by* was the one keeping him contained.
If this was his fractional power then….
"What happened to Betty?" He asked her urgently, his mind fighting the urge to just let his powers go and find out for himself since he was pretty sure this was the New York Sanctum and the warehouse was not that far away from here.
"Ms.Ross is fine. You have been unconscious for three days now. Full recovery will take at least a month," She said, calm as a cucumber.
"A month?! We don't have a month. Betty is due in a month and a half. What if something happens until then? And what about the city? Oh, dear god, there must be pandemonium in the city," He panicked and began blubbering.
It had been years since he had felt this blinded, this helpless. Without his powers, he was unable to keep an eye on the city or keep them safe from the dangers by instilling the fear of god in the minds of criminals.
Oh, Shit!
"What about the city? Those tentacled monsters? Their blood was acting as if it was alive and was deliberately spreading to the sewers. I couldn't do much about it because I had to save Betty and Bruce but did you find out anything?" He asked her, his heart sinking as he saw her brows furrowed as she leaned forward, the cup of tea and her book disappearing as if it was never there at all.
"No, Mr.Riddle. The remnants have been taken into custody by the government and we have purged as much as we could of the mystical influence of those foot soldiers but nothing is permanent. I am afraid that some of the blood that you are talking about, which is cosmic ichor, must have escaped." She said before snapping her fingers.
He blinked as he found himself sleeping in his clothes and not the medical PJs from before.
"Here," He looked up to see an armour floating towards him. He yelped a bit as it seemed to sink into his body and then sighed in relief as a warm pleasant sensation spread throughout his body.
"That is the armour of the Vishanti. It will help you against dark influences, be it from the Astral Realm or the real world."
Why would he need to go to the Astral Realm all of a sudden? He was not even that good at it. As if answering his question, another book appeared in front of him. He took hold of it and read the title of the book, and deadpanned at the Ancient One who looked just as serene as before, as if this situation meant nothing to her and did not affect her one bit.
"A Dummies guide to safe passage in the Astral Realm and the ways to heal one's spirit"
"That was a mouthful, wasn't it?"
"The author of that book is not human, Mr.Riddle. The Astral Realm is home to many species, and while the material universe has found itself devoid of most dragons for eons now, there are some species of dragons that evolved to survive in the Astral Realm, as psionic entities. One of those dragons, quite an eccentric one, managed to inhabit one of the homunculus that we had in possession at the time. That dragon is the reason we know so much about the Astral Realm."
"You will do well to respect Master Jin'ya as he is the only reason you will recover your soul within the span of a week. In the meantime, I assume you will come to appreciate the struggles of being an ordinary person. I have taken the liberty to inform all of your minions, as you like to call them, that you will be out of commission for a month."
He opened his mouth to argue when she forestalled him, "Do not worry about them. They will be fine. Just in case, I have also assigned one of the newer Masters to shadow them at all times. Nobody is going to come in and take them from the city,"
He sighed in relief. His existence was really the only thing stopping the vultures from descending into Manhattan, or Bruce and even Betty herself. He liked to think that Ross would not stoop so low so as to hurt his own daughter or his own grandchild for power but he could never be sure with that man.
For all he knew, Ross could consider the baby as an abomination, a monster, and in his mind, he could be doing Betty a favour by getting rid of the monster in her belly.
He shook his head to get rid of those dark thoughts. Nothing he can do about them other than heal up and get back to work.
"I suppose I will have to learn this by myself?" He asked her, smiling weakly when she nodded. It was not as if he did not understand the books, the books related to mind and Astral Realm were surprisingly easy to understand. IT was just that the books were really boring and mostly relied on the user's mind's imagination to function properly.
"You will be fine, Mr.Riddle. Now, I have a lot of work to do to strengthen the shields to make sure nothing of this sort happens near one of the Sanctums so…off you go," She made a shooing gesture and he found himself standing outside the Sanctum once again, holding onto the book with one hand, and his wallet with the other.
Well, time to live life like a normal human.
_____xx____
–Nick Fury–
"Yes, Mr.President, we have taken all the samples into our custody,"
"Yes, Mr.President, multiple blood samples have been found at all the locations of the battle but we are yet to find anything concrete."
"Yes, sir, I have tasked my best men on it."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," He hung up the phone and had the urge to just throw the phone and disappear from the world for a month.
"Fucking Invisible Man. Not so invisible, are you now?" he muttered as a series of photos, clicked using both SHIELD as well as US Government satellites were laid on his table. All of them were from different angles, the darkness making the photo blurry, but it was unmistakable.
The Invisible Man was a human and had to come out of his hidey hole to fight something of that calibre.
But then again, it was understandable, he thought to himself as he came out of the makeshift tent office and looked at the now pulverised six blocks worth of an area, filled with nothing but rubble.
It was good that the Billionaire army that the Invisible Man had raised, along with his cult, had taken all responsibility to rebuilt everything, down to the last brick. Money had already poured in, permits were being granted at an expedited pace, and construction crew had already begun working on the areas that SHIELD had cleared, and declared safe from contamination.
Contamination from what exactly? He did not know.
SHIELD Was supposed to be the first line of defense against motherfucking aliens and they somehow entered their backyard without anyone noticing.
It was their luck that they came to Manhattan, and just Manhattan, where the powers of the guy were the strongest. Otherwise, who knows what kind of death and destruction they would have had to face.
Well, he had received the news from Banner and Tony. The Invisible Man was injured in the fight and will not be back for atleast a week. That news will never make it into any of the reports because that was just begging for another disaster to occur.
What was important was that the Invisible Man was just healing, he was not gone. HE will be back and things will turn to normal. In the meantime, he had this headache to deal with.
How did the fucker do it anyway?
According to the records, there was a giant ass orange magical circle that appeared all around the island, and then white chains came out of those circles and restrained the tentacles.
Then, just as they came, they were gone, leaving behind dead husks of those monsters. They had testimonies of the Invisible Man falling unconscious just before the whole white chains came out of the magic circle thing but he did not have access to either the Invisible Man or his closest people to interrogate.
And even if he did have a brain the size of a pea to try and strongarm his people into an interrogation, he would not do so because he could not do so.
Everyone had gone underground, save for Banner and Tony, both of whom were individually capable of wrecking anything he sent their way.
So, there he was, standing amidst the rubble, waiting for the main guests to arrive so that he could finally understand what the fuck had happened!
"Ow, Motherfucker," He cursed as he almost tripped over a piece of rock.
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.
Chapter 77 : A Sobering Realisation......
New
IdleMuse0307
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
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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 77 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
Okay, this was incredibly unsettling.
He was walking back towards his home, and yet, it felt more like he was walking through a warzone instead of a normal sidewalk. The ability to always be aware of one's surroundings in advance was not something that could be taken for granted then.
He had bumped into no less than 7 people in the 15 minutes he had been walking on the sidewalk, it was maddening. People just kept walking, sparing no attention to whom they were walking into. It was as if the prerogative to move was on the other party, not them.
He couldn't keep track of the cars, and people running into the cars' tracks. Nothing.
All he could do was keep his head down and head back into his apartment. He had already called in sick and told them that he would not be coming to work for atleast a week because he just did not have time for Corporate work right now.
"Thank you," He said to the hot dog stand owner as he bit into the first real food he had eaten since he woke up from that power overuse coma.
Apparently, getting yourself a fancy little spirit weapon is all nice and good, only until someone vastly stronger than you gets hold of the spirit weapon and crushes it to bits. He didn't even know it was possible to crush Vibreanium like that. Break it, bend it? Sure.
But that hand did not even flinch as his Baby Ninja Star, only half formed, was crushed in its grasp. The soul injury was not affecting his normal cognitive functions since he could think just fine, it was only inhibiting him from using his powers, even in their lowest state.
He had never been without his awareness for so long. Even when asleep, his second mind continued to work in the background, making sure that he knew where everyone and everything was.
If needed, the second mind automatically intervened on his behalf, allowing him to take it slow or fast, or focus on other tasks, or not work at all, all without the guilt of having to use his powers for the common good, all the time.
Soon, his apartment building came into view….or lack thereof.
"Shit," He paced around in front of the yellow tape that cordoned off the area around his building and a very large area around it as well.
How could he forget?
After all, he himself brought down his apartment building while attacking that hand that came through the portal.
"Well, so much for not going to the office," He said and then turned around. He always kept a go bag in the office handy in case he needed to secure his identity or just grab that bag and run away from this place since it was so freaking scary!
Good Lord, how did people even function in this chaos without having something like his powers? He was only now coming to realise the huge gift he had, that allowed him to perform well even in mundane day to day tasks.
"Hey!" He had just taken a step when his enhanced senses allowed him to hear the heavy bounding footsteps of someone running towards him.
"Hello?" He asked the SHIELD Agent, trying his best to look harmless, which he probably was, just not to her. He might not have his mind powers but he had his body which was more than enough for him to barrel through whatever they had on hand, unless they managed to shoot him in the head multiple times.
"Hi, I am Special Agent Paige from SHIELD. Are you one of the tenants of the buildings that were collapsed yesterday?" She asked him as she took out her tablet and began going through a list.
"Ahem, yes, I lived in building C-3, Apartment 204, Axle Riddle," He told her all the information she needed and her face brightened a little as she opened a series of documents about something, he did not know.
Man, not having his eyes everywhere was really jarring for him. He could not wait for the healing to be done.
"Ah! Yes, you are on the list. Mr.Riddle, the attack on Manhattan was unfortunate and your situation is even more so. So, until the reconstruction work is done, the government will foot the bill for your stay. Please wait here, I will have someone escort you to possible rental locations so that you can choose one from your–"
"No." His reply made her freeze as she looked at him in confusion.
"Ah, thank you Agent but I will find alternative arrangements. I only lived here because of nostalgia. Thank you for the good work though. I was only a tenant, please compensate the other people fairly. Farewell," He bid her goodbye and left the place.
"That's weird," he heard her whisper before she put him on the list of Person of Interest for some reason. Well, let them come and investigate.
As of right now, he was actually just some normie and not the S-class mind combatant that the entire city's criminals feared. Speaking of criminals, how was the crime rate doing anyway?
In the hour that he had been walking the streets of Manhattan, he had not noticed any significant change but this was the first day itself. Who knows what could happen in the span of a week?
He couldn't even contact Tony or Bruce or even the Seven Hulks because he had not met any of them. The perks of keeping one's identity completely secret were many but there were cons as well, as he came to realise right now.
"Good Morning, Mr.Riddle, I heard what happened to your building, are you alright?" The employees at the firm asked him well intentioned.
"Yeah, I was not there last night. Thankfully." He assured them that he was safe and entered his office. Opening the safe, he found the documents, one of his credit cars that he kept here for safety along with a bundle of cash.
Welp, time to experience luxury then, he thought to himself as he shoved the "Dummies Guide to Astral Realm" into one of the backpacks he had in the office, along with the office laptop, and then headed to the nearest Five Star Hotel.
He had less than a week to make sure that the fear of the Invisible Man was not reduced in any way, making sure that Manhattan did not turn into a crime den, especially because of all the rich people who might begin indulging themselves.
'Anyway, I will be off, Shaun. I will be back next week. The events of yesterday….I have a lot to think about, just don't call or text me even if anything happens because I will be unreachable," He told Shaun, the person who sat right in front of his office.
He did not actually know what Shaun did just like nobody knew what he did for a living but Shaun nodded and smiled brightly at the notice.
As he checked into his hotel room for the next week, he couldn't help but notice that he had no real friends.
Just acquaintances.
In his bid to maintain his secret identity, he had detached himself from the people of this world. He had not cultivated interpersonal relationships, and while he did show up at work regularly, he never really talked with anyone there.
He was just so focused on making sure that he did his "duties" with his powers while being on the other side of the city, miles away, that he forgot to have an actual life as well.
He could have had a vibrant outgoing life with all the resources he had available to him. Money, Time, Youth, Energy.
He had it all, and not much responsibility as well due to his second mind being the one that did most of the heavy lifting, and yet, all he did was stay cooped up in his apartment or his office, cook good food, train his body, and then sleep.
Ah, who was he kidding? That was a great life too!
It's just that…"I should probably look into getting friends as well," He said before he dove into the book that Master Jin'ya had written for Kamar Taj who was apparently a psionic dragon who lived in the Astral Realm.
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.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 77 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
Okay, this was incredibly unsettling.
He was walking back towards his home, and yet, it felt more like he was walking through a warzone instead of a normal sidewalk. The ability to always be aware of one's surroundings in advance was not something that could be taken for granted then.
He had bumped into no less than 7 people in the 15 minutes he had been walking on the sidewalk, it was maddening. People just kept walking, sparing no attention to whom they were walking into. It was as if the prerogative to move was on the other party, not them.
He couldn't keep track of the cars, and people running into the cars' tracks. Nothing.
All he could do was keep his head down and head back into his apartment. He had already called in sick and told them that he would not be coming to work for atleast a week because he just did not have time for Corporate work right now.
"Thank you," He said to the hot dog stand owner as he bit into the first real food he had eaten since he woke up from that power overuse coma.
Apparently, getting yourself a fancy little spirit weapon is all nice and good, only until someone vastly stronger than you gets hold of the spirit weapon and crushes it to bits. He didn't even know it was possible to crush Vibreanium like that. Break it, bend it? Sure.
But that hand did not even flinch as his Baby Ninja Star, only half formed, was crushed in its grasp. The soul injury was not affecting his normal cognitive functions since he could think just fine, it was only inhibiting him from using his powers, even in their lowest state.
He had never been without his awareness for so long. Even when asleep, his second mind continued to work in the background, making sure that he knew where everyone and everything was.
If needed, the second mind automatically intervened on his behalf, allowing him to take it slow or fast, or focus on other tasks, or not work at all, all without the guilt of having to use his powers for the common good, all the time.
Soon, his apartment building came into view….or lack thereof.
"Shit," He paced around in front of the yellow tape that cordoned off the area around his building and a very large area around it as well.
How could he forget?
After all, he himself brought down his apartment building while attacking that hand that came through the portal.
"Well, so much for not going to the office," He said and then turned around. He always kept a go bag in the office handy in case he needed to secure his identity or just grab that bag and run away from this place since it was so freaking scary!
Good Lord, how did people even function in this chaos without having something like his powers? He was only now coming to realise the huge gift he had, that allowed him to perform well even in mundane day to day tasks.
"Hey!" He had just taken a step when his enhanced senses allowed him to hear the heavy bounding footsteps of someone running towards him.
"Hello?" He asked the SHIELD Agent, trying his best to look harmless, which he probably was, just not to her. He might not have his mind powers but he had his body which was more than enough for him to barrel through whatever they had on hand, unless they managed to shoot him in the head multiple times.
"Hi, I am Special Agent Paige from SHIELD. Are you one of the tenants of the buildings that were collapsed yesterday?" She asked him as she took out her tablet and began going through a list.
"Ahem, yes, I lived in building C-3, Apartment 204, Axle Riddle," He told her all the information she needed and her face brightened a little as she opened a series of documents about something, he did not know.
Man, not having his eyes everywhere was really jarring for him. He could not wait for the healing to be done.
"Ah! Yes, you are on the list. Mr.Riddle, the attack on Manhattan was unfortunate and your situation is even more so. So, until the reconstruction work is done, the government will foot the bill for your stay. Please wait here, I will have someone escort you to possible rental locations so that you can choose one from your–"
"No." His reply made her freeze as she looked at him in confusion.
"Ah, thank you Agent but I will find alternative arrangements. I only lived here because of nostalgia. Thank you for the good work though. I was only a tenant, please compensate the other people fairly. Farewell," He bid her goodbye and left the place.
"That's weird," he heard her whisper before she put him on the list of Person of Interest for some reason. Well, let them come and investigate.
As of right now, he was actually just some normie and not the S-class mind combatant that the entire city's criminals feared. Speaking of criminals, how was the crime rate doing anyway?
In the hour that he had been walking the streets of Manhattan, he had not noticed any significant change but this was the first day itself. Who knows what could happen in the span of a week?
He couldn't even contact Tony or Bruce or even the Seven Hulks because he had not met any of them. The perks of keeping one's identity completely secret were many but there were cons as well, as he came to realise right now.
"Good Morning, Mr.Riddle, I heard what happened to your building, are you alright?" The employees at the firm asked him well intentioned.
"Yeah, I was not there last night. Thankfully." He assured them that he was safe and entered his office. Opening the safe, he found the documents, one of his credit cars that he kept here for safety along with a bundle of cash.
Welp, time to experience luxury then, he thought to himself as he shoved the "Dummies Guide to Astral Realm" into one of the backpacks he had in the office, along with the office laptop, and then headed to the nearest Five Star Hotel.
He had less than a week to make sure that the fear of the Invisible Man was not reduced in any way, making sure that Manhattan did not turn into a crime den, especially because of all the rich people who might begin indulging themselves.
'Anyway, I will be off, Shaun. I will be back next week. The events of yesterday….I have a lot to think about, just don't call or text me even if anything happens because I will be unreachable," He told Shaun, the person who sat right in front of his office.
He did not actually know what Shaun did just like nobody knew what he did for a living but Shaun nodded and smiled brightly at the notice.
As he checked into his hotel room for the next week, he couldn't help but notice that he had no real friends.
Just acquaintances.
In his bid to maintain his secret identity, he had detached himself from the people of this world. He had not cultivated interpersonal relationships, and while he did show up at work regularly, he never really talked with anyone there.
He was just so focused on making sure that he did his "duties" with his powers while being on the other side of the city, miles away, that he forgot to have an actual life as well.
He could have had a vibrant outgoing life with all the resources he had available to him. Money, Time, Youth, Energy.
He had it all, and not much responsibility as well due to his second mind being the one that did most of the heavy lifting, and yet, all he did was stay cooped up in his apartment or his office, cook good food, train his body, and then sleep.
Ah, who was he kidding? That was a great life too!
It's just that…"I should probably look into getting friends as well," He said before he dove into the book that Master Jin'ya had written for Kamar Taj who was apparently a psionic dragon who lived in the Astral Realm.
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
Stuck in a tree
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While not exactly happy for his nerf he did indeed need to find his own hobby and life.
Plus its the big dog himself who did it.
Plus its the big dog himself who did it.
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Chapter 78: News Delivered!
New
IdleMuse0307
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
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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 78 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Bruce Banner–
His mind was still reeling from yesterday's events that he was all jittery and unable to sleep. In the meantime, to ward off his incoming panic attack, he had taken to cleaning and cooking for Betty. So far, he had been able to make everything she wanted him to make, courtesy of the grocery number given to him by the Invisible Man and online cookbooks.
Thank god for Betty's pregnancy because some of the food that he had made, he couldn't eat himself, let alone feed it to another person. He thought at first that Betty was probably only eating all that stuff so that he wouldn't feel bad but nobody would be able to eat all that food without uttering a word of complaint, even if it was someone they loved dearly.
"Oh God," He muttered to himself as he realised something, his movements freezing entirely.
He hadn't even proposed to Betty yet.
Good Lord, what a rookie mistake. He should have done that the moment he found out she was pregnant with his child, instead of floundering about.
But in his defense, he had some expectations of how his marriage would go. How it would be a small but private ceremony with some of his closest friends. It was another thing entirely, that the people he could call his closest friends at the moment were either eccentric Billionaires, God like people whose face nobody had seen, or enhanced Gamma mutates like himself, like Randall and company.
He chuckled self deprecatingly as he realised that he was thinking like someone who lived in a fair world. In a fair world, he wouldn't have to watch all his work being thrown down the drain by someone who was so much more powerful than himself that he couldn't even be touched, politically speaking.
Sure, he could turn into the Hulk and overpower anything they could throw at him, but that was not controlled. When he transformed, he let everything loose, nothing was off limits. Anything in sight could be a target and he hated himself for doing that because the moment he was jerked back into the driver's seat of his body, he could instantly memorise all the things that the Other Guy had done.
All the soldiers he killed, all the buildings and cars that were destroyed.
And now?
Now that he had finally found someone who was willing to be with him, long term, and in an environment that was undoubtedly safe, life had to go ahead and put that in jeopardy as well.
"Bruce, how are you holding up?" He almost jumped at Tony's voice but by now, he had gotten used to the Eccentric Billionaire's casual but wildly illegal invasion of his privacy.
He had somehow hacked everything, or rather, Jarvis had somehow hacked everything. Every phone, computer, even the Refrigerator was somehow hacked by Jarvis. He didn't even know why Fridges even had computers inside them, especially ones that could connect to the Internet.
"I am fine, Tony. I am just worried about our work flowing down the drain." He alluded to the manufactured Vibranium fibers along with the machine that made them.
Tony made an "Ah," Noise in understanding.
"Do not worry, My Friend. The machine is in complete lockdown, the schematics of which can only be found in my head. Any sign of intrusion, the machine will kill itself, making sure that the designs do not fall into–"
"I don't care about that!" His voice took on a guttural hue as green blazed in his vision, and he almost snarled at Tony.
"Oo-kay. Look, Bruce, we are all tense about the situation. But unless and until we can get confirmation from the Invisible Man, we cannot proceed any further, you both know that,"
His words brought clarity to his mind. Yes, that was true.
Unless and until the Invisible Man was back from wherever he went after that huge fight, they could not proceed with anything. No, it would be too risky, for both Betty as well as the Baby, The less said about the collateral damage to the city, the better.
"Any leads on him?" He asked Tony after taking in several deep breaths, hating the pitying look in Tony's eyes.
"Noo. I have been looking for him for ages, and still no luck. I don't see why it would be any different right now. Besides, the fighting back there was intense, there was no way it did not drain the big guy, despite his powers," Tony said as multiple videos of the aforementioned fight appeared on the huge screen of the Refrigerator.
"Also," He looked up at Tony as he replied, "In the end, when both of my suits were instantly torn apart by whatever came through that portal, he seemed to be trying his best but was apparently too exhausted to make any difference. And that was when the weirdness began…" Even Tony was disturbed by what he saw, and the entire world saw.
Huge orange circles, spanning the majority of the city had appeared, and the white ethereal chains that shot out of the circle had taken hold of all the three tentacle monsters that were about to go loose rampaging throughout the city. The chains only appeared for a second or two before they disappeared with the magic circle as well, leaving behind the monsters but the monsters did not move and only collapsed on the spot.
"Yeah, you think it was the work of Invisible Man?" He rolled his eyes and flipped the sandwich, as Randall inserted himself into the call as well, his face looking visibly shaken from the entire ordeal.
"Could be," Tony shrugged, not even phased by his hacked call being hijacked by someone else, "But if he could have done all of that, couldn't he have done that at the beginning?"
'Some sort of last resort, then? Something that leaves him so exhausted that he would end up falling down to his knees, like he collapsed in front of Dr.Banner here," Randall added his two cents.
His mind went back to the nightmarish scene. They were safe and protected, so they thought, what with both the Invisible Man looking out and Tony's Iron Man suits being remotely piloted by Jarvis but they were wrong.
A mist appeared in the middle of the room, throwing out a shockwave that seemingly burst apart the Iron Man suits, and then shot out a hand that was reaching for Betty.
At the first sign of trouble, he had already shielded her with his body, ready to let go of the control to let the Other Guy out because he knew that if there was one thing common between both of them, it was the fact that both of them would never do anything that could hurt Betty.
That was unneeded as the Invisible Man appeared in front of him in a flash, clad in blue, just in time to stop the hand. It had worked as well but the hand, even after bending in grotesque ways, seemed to go on.
The Invisible Man threw something at the portal but the hand had somehow caught it and crushed it.
After that, the Invisible Man crashed on the ground.
He was still too shocked to see the white chains and the portal itself closing, too busy in making sure that Betty was safe, that he completely missed how the invisible Man left the complex.
"Yeah, I think the Invisible Man is not alone. I went through the available footage and the only working camera at the end was one of the infrared ones on one of my suits."
He and Randall both looked on curiously as video footage of the attack was played and in the end, it looked as if…
"Yeah, it looks like the land itself swallowed him and it is possible if the Invisible Man used his power, but I checked the sil and it is completely undisturbed. That means that there is a high chance that a portal was involved."
"...."
"Very Impressive, Mr.Stark. No Wonder he speaks so highly of you," A voice interjected in between as he watched Tony's face cycle through a number of emotions as a fourth member was added to the conversation.
"Who is this? How are you doing this?" Tony's face morphed into one of intense concentration and he too dropped the spatula and grabbed his computer, Randall probably doing the same off screen.
"Don't bother tracking this call. It is beyond your means, just like the Invisible Man is beyond your means. I am his acquaintance, you could say. He is currently healing from the injuries of the fight. I was also the one who was responsible for disposing of the foul monsters. The Invisible Man will be back in a week's time, that is all I can say about that,"
"What the hell…" Tony muttered, probably because he could not find any link going to anyplace other than the three nodes that he, Randall, and Tony was using.
"How are you doing this, lady? There is no code for this," Randall exclaimed.
"The How is not important, Mr.Randall. What is important is the fact that Ms.Ross' pregnancy has advanced into its final stage and the birth of such a powerful being has attracted quite the attention. That was the reason for last night's fight."
His face sank as his fears were confirmed.
Millions in property damage, thousands of people homeless, all because of him.
"Do not fret, Dr.Banner, for no lives were lost. Also, I will be working round the clock until your baby is delivered, to make sure nothing of this sort happens again. In the meantime, please continue working on your approach."
"Holy hell!" Tony exclaimed just as the mysterious fourth part left the chat.
"I just received a data packet and you are not going to believe it…."
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.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 78 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Bruce Banner–
His mind was still reeling from yesterday's events that he was all jittery and unable to sleep. In the meantime, to ward off his incoming panic attack, he had taken to cleaning and cooking for Betty. So far, he had been able to make everything she wanted him to make, courtesy of the grocery number given to him by the Invisible Man and online cookbooks.
Thank god for Betty's pregnancy because some of the food that he had made, he couldn't eat himself, let alone feed it to another person. He thought at first that Betty was probably only eating all that stuff so that he wouldn't feel bad but nobody would be able to eat all that food without uttering a word of complaint, even if it was someone they loved dearly.
"Oh God," He muttered to himself as he realised something, his movements freezing entirely.
He hadn't even proposed to Betty yet.
Good Lord, what a rookie mistake. He should have done that the moment he found out she was pregnant with his child, instead of floundering about.
But in his defense, he had some expectations of how his marriage would go. How it would be a small but private ceremony with some of his closest friends. It was another thing entirely, that the people he could call his closest friends at the moment were either eccentric Billionaires, God like people whose face nobody had seen, or enhanced Gamma mutates like himself, like Randall and company.
He chuckled self deprecatingly as he realised that he was thinking like someone who lived in a fair world. In a fair world, he wouldn't have to watch all his work being thrown down the drain by someone who was so much more powerful than himself that he couldn't even be touched, politically speaking.
Sure, he could turn into the Hulk and overpower anything they could throw at him, but that was not controlled. When he transformed, he let everything loose, nothing was off limits. Anything in sight could be a target and he hated himself for doing that because the moment he was jerked back into the driver's seat of his body, he could instantly memorise all the things that the Other Guy had done.
All the soldiers he killed, all the buildings and cars that were destroyed.
And now?
Now that he had finally found someone who was willing to be with him, long term, and in an environment that was undoubtedly safe, life had to go ahead and put that in jeopardy as well.
"Bruce, how are you holding up?" He almost jumped at Tony's voice but by now, he had gotten used to the Eccentric Billionaire's casual but wildly illegal invasion of his privacy.
He had somehow hacked everything, or rather, Jarvis had somehow hacked everything. Every phone, computer, even the Refrigerator was somehow hacked by Jarvis. He didn't even know why Fridges even had computers inside them, especially ones that could connect to the Internet.
"I am fine, Tony. I am just worried about our work flowing down the drain." He alluded to the manufactured Vibranium fibers along with the machine that made them.
Tony made an "Ah," Noise in understanding.
"Do not worry, My Friend. The machine is in complete lockdown, the schematics of which can only be found in my head. Any sign of intrusion, the machine will kill itself, making sure that the designs do not fall into–"
"I don't care about that!" His voice took on a guttural hue as green blazed in his vision, and he almost snarled at Tony.
"Oo-kay. Look, Bruce, we are all tense about the situation. But unless and until we can get confirmation from the Invisible Man, we cannot proceed any further, you both know that,"
His words brought clarity to his mind. Yes, that was true.
Unless and until the Invisible Man was back from wherever he went after that huge fight, they could not proceed with anything. No, it would be too risky, for both Betty as well as the Baby, The less said about the collateral damage to the city, the better.
"Any leads on him?" He asked Tony after taking in several deep breaths, hating the pitying look in Tony's eyes.
"Noo. I have been looking for him for ages, and still no luck. I don't see why it would be any different right now. Besides, the fighting back there was intense, there was no way it did not drain the big guy, despite his powers," Tony said as multiple videos of the aforementioned fight appeared on the huge screen of the Refrigerator.
"Also," He looked up at Tony as he replied, "In the end, when both of my suits were instantly torn apart by whatever came through that portal, he seemed to be trying his best but was apparently too exhausted to make any difference. And that was when the weirdness began…" Even Tony was disturbed by what he saw, and the entire world saw.
Huge orange circles, spanning the majority of the city had appeared, and the white ethereal chains that shot out of the circle had taken hold of all the three tentacle monsters that were about to go loose rampaging throughout the city. The chains only appeared for a second or two before they disappeared with the magic circle as well, leaving behind the monsters but the monsters did not move and only collapsed on the spot.
"Yeah, you think it was the work of Invisible Man?" He rolled his eyes and flipped the sandwich, as Randall inserted himself into the call as well, his face looking visibly shaken from the entire ordeal.
"Could be," Tony shrugged, not even phased by his hacked call being hijacked by someone else, "But if he could have done all of that, couldn't he have done that at the beginning?"
'Some sort of last resort, then? Something that leaves him so exhausted that he would end up falling down to his knees, like he collapsed in front of Dr.Banner here," Randall added his two cents.
His mind went back to the nightmarish scene. They were safe and protected, so they thought, what with both the Invisible Man looking out and Tony's Iron Man suits being remotely piloted by Jarvis but they were wrong.
A mist appeared in the middle of the room, throwing out a shockwave that seemingly burst apart the Iron Man suits, and then shot out a hand that was reaching for Betty.
At the first sign of trouble, he had already shielded her with his body, ready to let go of the control to let the Other Guy out because he knew that if there was one thing common between both of them, it was the fact that both of them would never do anything that could hurt Betty.
That was unneeded as the Invisible Man appeared in front of him in a flash, clad in blue, just in time to stop the hand. It had worked as well but the hand, even after bending in grotesque ways, seemed to go on.
The Invisible Man threw something at the portal but the hand had somehow caught it and crushed it.
After that, the Invisible Man crashed on the ground.
He was still too shocked to see the white chains and the portal itself closing, too busy in making sure that Betty was safe, that he completely missed how the invisible Man left the complex.
"Yeah, I think the Invisible Man is not alone. I went through the available footage and the only working camera at the end was one of the infrared ones on one of my suits."
He and Randall both looked on curiously as video footage of the attack was played and in the end, it looked as if…
"Yeah, it looks like the land itself swallowed him and it is possible if the Invisible Man used his power, but I checked the sil and it is completely undisturbed. That means that there is a high chance that a portal was involved."
"...."
"Very Impressive, Mr.Stark. No Wonder he speaks so highly of you," A voice interjected in between as he watched Tony's face cycle through a number of emotions as a fourth member was added to the conversation.
"Who is this? How are you doing this?" Tony's face morphed into one of intense concentration and he too dropped the spatula and grabbed his computer, Randall probably doing the same off screen.
"Don't bother tracking this call. It is beyond your means, just like the Invisible Man is beyond your means. I am his acquaintance, you could say. He is currently healing from the injuries of the fight. I was also the one who was responsible for disposing of the foul monsters. The Invisible Man will be back in a week's time, that is all I can say about that,"
"What the hell…" Tony muttered, probably because he could not find any link going to anyplace other than the three nodes that he, Randall, and Tony was using.
"How are you doing this, lady? There is no code for this," Randall exclaimed.
"The How is not important, Mr.Randall. What is important is the fact that Ms.Ross' pregnancy has advanced into its final stage and the birth of such a powerful being has attracted quite the attention. That was the reason for last night's fight."
His face sank as his fears were confirmed.
Millions in property damage, thousands of people homeless, all because of him.
"Do not fret, Dr.Banner, for no lives were lost. Also, I will be working round the clock until your baby is delivered, to make sure nothing of this sort happens again. In the meantime, please continue working on your approach."
"Holy hell!" Tony exclaimed just as the mysterious fourth part left the chat.
"I just received a data packet and you are not going to believe it…."
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.
Chapter 79: Minions! Tonight, we protect the city!
New
IdleMuse0307
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
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- Messages
- 362
- Likes received
- 10,028
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 79 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
Okay. Good news.
The city had not gone to the shitter yet although he was already seeing the signs of his absence. Traffic jams were more common, and theft was on the rise but as far as he could see, there was nothing that signified that Violent crimes were on the rise.
Then again, it had only been two days since he was cooped up in this hotel room, just waiting for his mind to heal so that he could go back and do what he loved best.
Eating Good Food and enjoying life without the guilt of not having used his powers for the greater good.
His second mind partition was perfect for that, allowing him to not overly fixate on the areas of maintaining near constant surveillance on the city so that most crimes could be stopped before they were committed or were in the process of being committed.
Alas, he had a hunch that his latest stunt in assimilating every single bit of his powers and consolidating it had removed the possibility of ever getting the second mind back.
It did make him supremely powerful though. Powerful enough that he could affect beings with high energy auras around them
See, ever since he had encountered the Sorcerers using his spatial awareness, he had noticed something around them. For lack of a better term, he called it aura.
After observing the Sorcerers, Ancient One, the Hulk, and the Seven Hulks, he could confidently say that Aura was an expression of the energy of a being, be it internal or what they could wield through outer means.
Whenever he tried to use his powers on beings with substantial auras around them, it just slid right off them. The only way to breach that aura is to simply have more power than the other party.
Now, that was not an issue when it came to most people, save for the Ancient One and the Hulk.
For the life of him, he had this mental block that he knew he would not be able to breach the Hulk's energy aura, making him fear the possibility of the Hulk rampaging in his city and him being helpless to stop said rampage.
The only way he could deescalate that situation, according to his calculations, would be to overwhelm the Hulk with sheer mass and then punt that mass, either into space, which was unlikely, or straight into the Ocean, very far away.
Now though? Now, he could feel the sheer power in his mind and could actually breach through the Hulk's aura this time, allowing him to do all sorts of grisly stuff to his insides should he ever act out.
He took a step out of the study that was also present in the suite, and looked down at the hustle and bustle of the city, and then at the skyscrapers that littered the skyline.
He wondered what the seven brothers were doing. He knew that Tony was making rounds around the city because of the nearly constant coverage of Iron Man flying through the buildings of Manhattan, being shown on TV.
Good, that meant that the work had not stopped yet. Betty's pregnancy was very important, especially after the events that transpired recently.
He could not believe his shitty luck when he saw that One Below All *Chills*, one of the supreme bad fuckers of this universe had decided to ambush him. He counted himself lucky that he could not actually get into the portal.
He could only imagine the grisly fate that would have awaited him on the other side of that portal.
Also, he could accept the complete failure of his spatial awareness if it was that person on the other side. The guy was the de-facto reality warper of the setting, it would be a piece of cake for him to somehow bypass his powers, especially since he had not fully grown to his full potential yet.
Still, the guys knew everything. His identity, not that it was hard for someone like him to locate him.
But also his interpersonal relationship with the Ancient One, along with his connection to the birth of the golding.
Seriously, Bruce's life was fucked up and he was glad that he did not have that power. All the power in the world, which the Hulk technically has, would not be enough for him to get involved with the Guy Below.
His powers were the best, in his humble and totally impartial opinion.
Speaking of his powers, he was making steady progress towards his eventual unlocking of his spirit.
See, his injury was not an injury of the soul, not in the traditional sense anyway. It was not as if his soul was damaged and he had to heal the soul itself to use his powers.
No, his soul was fine. It was the delivery of the powers that was the problem.
The pipeline between his soul which had the power, and his mind which could effectively use that power was effectively unwound, by his act of brute forcing everything.
At least, that was what the book told him. Very insightful stuff written in the book though.
Now, all he had to do was either mend the connection or create a new one. He chose to create a new one, which was less hassle and also better for future powerups if there were any.
He had made steady progress and would actually be done ahead of schedule, because it should not take more than three days to get the connection done and once the connection was slotted into place, he would be the almighty Invisible Man once again.
Ah, he missed having supreme power over millions of people and one of the largest cities on the planet.
Guess it is true, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Well, better make sure that he doesn't have absolute power then. He would have to leave the city in 2012 anyway so it was all for the better.
'Alright, time for some ~~Room Service," He giddily rubbed his hands as he was about to partake in, in his opinion, the best thing about good hotels.
Good, round the clock, Room Service.
Just as his hand took hold of the landline to place the order, he flinched as he heard a gunshot go off. His shoulders slumped as the gunshots kept going as if multiple people were firing rounds.
He tried to ignore the cries and screams of help from the people, unused to needing protection in Manhattan but alas, there was not much he could do at the moment.
Didn't mean that it still didn't hurt like a bitch though.
He stopped from putting on his headphones as he heard…cheering?
He ran to the window and his jaw hung agape at what he was seeing.
Right there, on the edge of the street, were three people standing, waving at the nearby people, standing next to a crumpled up car with multiple police cars behind them.
"Minions!" He cheered as he saw the heroes of the day.
It was the seven brothers. Well, three of the seven brothers.
He sighed in relief once he realised that they were helping protect the city in his absence. The costumes were a bit tacky especially since all law enforcement must have some idea about who they were and where they lived but it was the thought that counts, he thought to himself.
Well, seeing that everyone else was stepping up to the task, he should see to it that he is not left behind in any possible way.
"Time to grind," He muttered to himself and entered the study room, the sound treatment in the room was the only way he could actually concentrate without having to enter the Astral Realm.
Another skill that he was still in the process of mastering.
Once that was done, he wanted to see if he could still use his powers in the Astral Realm. Now, that would be quite cool. Not much would change considering his current powerset but it would be nice to take another step in the direction of the mind and soul.
He hoped to one day hone his skills to such a level that he could at least get some rudimentary telepathy. Sorcerers could train to get that ability but he, with all his vast psionic energy, could not do that on his own.
He had to learn, and for him to learn properly, he would have to remove all limiters on his powers, both from the ROBs and his own mental blocks.
So much to do, and so little time.
If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 79 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
Okay. Good news.
The city had not gone to the shitter yet although he was already seeing the signs of his absence. Traffic jams were more common, and theft was on the rise but as far as he could see, there was nothing that signified that Violent crimes were on the rise.
Then again, it had only been two days since he was cooped up in this hotel room, just waiting for his mind to heal so that he could go back and do what he loved best.
Eating Good Food and enjoying life without the guilt of not having used his powers for the greater good.
His second mind partition was perfect for that, allowing him to not overly fixate on the areas of maintaining near constant surveillance on the city so that most crimes could be stopped before they were committed or were in the process of being committed.
Alas, he had a hunch that his latest stunt in assimilating every single bit of his powers and consolidating it had removed the possibility of ever getting the second mind back.
It did make him supremely powerful though. Powerful enough that he could affect beings with high energy auras around them
See, ever since he had encountered the Sorcerers using his spatial awareness, he had noticed something around them. For lack of a better term, he called it aura.
After observing the Sorcerers, Ancient One, the Hulk, and the Seven Hulks, he could confidently say that Aura was an expression of the energy of a being, be it internal or what they could wield through outer means.
Whenever he tried to use his powers on beings with substantial auras around them, it just slid right off them. The only way to breach that aura is to simply have more power than the other party.
Now, that was not an issue when it came to most people, save for the Ancient One and the Hulk.
For the life of him, he had this mental block that he knew he would not be able to breach the Hulk's energy aura, making him fear the possibility of the Hulk rampaging in his city and him being helpless to stop said rampage.
The only way he could deescalate that situation, according to his calculations, would be to overwhelm the Hulk with sheer mass and then punt that mass, either into space, which was unlikely, or straight into the Ocean, very far away.
Now though? Now, he could feel the sheer power in his mind and could actually breach through the Hulk's aura this time, allowing him to do all sorts of grisly stuff to his insides should he ever act out.
He took a step out of the study that was also present in the suite, and looked down at the hustle and bustle of the city, and then at the skyscrapers that littered the skyline.
He wondered what the seven brothers were doing. He knew that Tony was making rounds around the city because of the nearly constant coverage of Iron Man flying through the buildings of Manhattan, being shown on TV.
Good, that meant that the work had not stopped yet. Betty's pregnancy was very important, especially after the events that transpired recently.
He could not believe his shitty luck when he saw that One Below All *Chills*, one of the supreme bad fuckers of this universe had decided to ambush him. He counted himself lucky that he could not actually get into the portal.
He could only imagine the grisly fate that would have awaited him on the other side of that portal.
Also, he could accept the complete failure of his spatial awareness if it was that person on the other side. The guy was the de-facto reality warper of the setting, it would be a piece of cake for him to somehow bypass his powers, especially since he had not fully grown to his full potential yet.
Still, the guys knew everything. His identity, not that it was hard for someone like him to locate him.
But also his interpersonal relationship with the Ancient One, along with his connection to the birth of the golding.
Seriously, Bruce's life was fucked up and he was glad that he did not have that power. All the power in the world, which the Hulk technically has, would not be enough for him to get involved with the Guy Below.
His powers were the best, in his humble and totally impartial opinion.
Speaking of his powers, he was making steady progress towards his eventual unlocking of his spirit.
See, his injury was not an injury of the soul, not in the traditional sense anyway. It was not as if his soul was damaged and he had to heal the soul itself to use his powers.
No, his soul was fine. It was the delivery of the powers that was the problem.
The pipeline between his soul which had the power, and his mind which could effectively use that power was effectively unwound, by his act of brute forcing everything.
At least, that was what the book told him. Very insightful stuff written in the book though.
Now, all he had to do was either mend the connection or create a new one. He chose to create a new one, which was less hassle and also better for future powerups if there were any.
He had made steady progress and would actually be done ahead of schedule, because it should not take more than three days to get the connection done and once the connection was slotted into place, he would be the almighty Invisible Man once again.
Ah, he missed having supreme power over millions of people and one of the largest cities on the planet.
Guess it is true, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Well, better make sure that he doesn't have absolute power then. He would have to leave the city in 2012 anyway so it was all for the better.
'Alright, time for some ~~Room Service," He giddily rubbed his hands as he was about to partake in, in his opinion, the best thing about good hotels.
Good, round the clock, Room Service.
Just as his hand took hold of the landline to place the order, he flinched as he heard a gunshot go off. His shoulders slumped as the gunshots kept going as if multiple people were firing rounds.
He tried to ignore the cries and screams of help from the people, unused to needing protection in Manhattan but alas, there was not much he could do at the moment.
Didn't mean that it still didn't hurt like a bitch though.
He stopped from putting on his headphones as he heard…cheering?
He ran to the window and his jaw hung agape at what he was seeing.
Right there, on the edge of the street, were three people standing, waving at the nearby people, standing next to a crumpled up car with multiple police cars behind them.
"Minions!" He cheered as he saw the heroes of the day.
It was the seven brothers. Well, three of the seven brothers.
He sighed in relief once he realised that they were helping protect the city in his absence. The costumes were a bit tacky especially since all law enforcement must have some idea about who they were and where they lived but it was the thought that counts, he thought to himself.
Well, seeing that everyone else was stepping up to the task, he should see to it that he is not left behind in any possible way.
"Time to grind," He muttered to himself and entered the study room, the sound treatment in the room was the only way he could actually concentrate without having to enter the Astral Realm.
Another skill that he was still in the process of mastering.
Once that was done, he wanted to see if he could still use his powers in the Astral Realm. Now, that would be quite cool. Not much would change considering his current powerset but it would be nice to take another step in the direction of the mind and soul.
He hoped to one day hone his skills to such a level that he could at least get some rudimentary telepathy. Sorcerers could train to get that ability but he, with all his vast psionic energy, could not do that on his own.
He had to learn, and for him to learn properly, he would have to remove all limiters on his powers, both from the ROBs and his own mental blocks.
So much to do, and so little time.
If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.
IdleMuse0307
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2021
- Messages
- 362
- Likes received
- 10,028
I update this story about 5 times a week. Yeah, I wanted this story to have a bigger connect with what the readers think so kept the backlog short. This way, I can quickly change the future storyline if I see something interesting from you guys (which happens a lot).
For my other story, I have 15 in stockpile plus they are also much longer. Conversely, that also means that there is no room for me to maneuver once I see something interesting in the comments or something because the story is already 40k+ words ahead of the public release.
Thank you for reading!
Toodles!
Chapter 80: GLORIOUS!
New
IdleMuse0307
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2021
- Messages
- 362
- Likes received
- 10,028
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 80 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Tony Stark–
"So, how goes SCIENCE! My boys?" He added after seeing the deadpan stare from Dr.Cho and Dr.Simmons, "--and ladies?"
The ladies turned around without addressing him, seriously his charisma had dropped dangerously ever since everyone in the lab came to know that the reason he was unable to come to the Manhattan Tentacle Fest was because Pepper didn't let him.
It was BLASPHEMY! It was a huge spot on his otherwise clean sheet of honor but alas, the lady sayeth and he do as the lady sayeth.
"Ah, Mr.Stark, you are on time. We are just about to process the fibres, once again," Bruce emphasised on the once again did not go unnoticed by him.
Yeah, they were redoing the entire thing from scratch. That is, they were taking the already made vibranium fibres, melting them down, and then recreating them exactly, except with just one difference. The time difference in getting all that done was getting on Bruce's already frayed nerves.
That one thing would, if successful, make all the difference in the world.
"I am not sure if the hocus pocus liquid will even work, Mr.Stark," He deadpanned at Cho who actually used those words in a professional setting. It meant that his unique brand of snark was being imprinted on her.
Nice!
"I don't know about you guys but Bruce and I were there to see it, and we know that it should be something." He said, not knowing how to explain the call hijacking that was done, with no trace whatsoever. The real kicker was the small bottle, made from nearly indestructible glass (Jarvis was still trying to break, shatter, melt, dent, or otherwise change the shape of the bottle in any meaningful way), containing a yellow and white liquid.
One would think that those two colours would mix and give rise to light yellow but now, it was as if the liquid itself was completely mixed with each other, but the liquid sometimes emitted yellow light and sometimes white light.
"Did you get anything from your reports?" Bruce asked him and his mind went back to the weird behaviour he noticed, from himself. He had immediately asked Jarvis to get him checked out, his paranoia meant that he had a full medical suite installed in his workspace down in the basement in LA.
State of the art, top of the line equipment with custom code written for everything meant that the chances of failure were pretty low. So, he had been feeling extremely peppy when he had gotten himself checked out, and apparently….
"Yup, Bruce. That lady just gave us some sort of miracle liquid. I am sure that if I drink that, I will become 20 years younger, back to my peak."
And that was true. Bruce nodded back in confirmation.
After all, Bruce was the one who received the documentation about the liquid and how to use it properly. He just received the liquid itself.
Why the segregation he did not know but after seeing the information about the liquid, he was sold on the fact that the Invisible Man was not alone and was probably working with some sort of organisation, in a bid to do something but becoming the de-facto King of Manhattan must slot into their plans somehow.
He had noted it down in his head because apparently, they could hack anything and everything, going through painfully built and rebuilt firewalls as if they were not even there, and then leaving no trace behind whatsoever of their intrusion.
God, what a nightmare from a cybersecurity perspective. That lady could probably just go into a bank's systems, or log into hundreds of banks worldwide, and get herself a small amount, like a million dollars, and then fuck right off, as the banks scrambled to find the data.
"I know that. I was there when we conducted the experiment. What I want to know is did you get anything negative from your reports? And just because it worked properly with you does not mean it will work well for Betty. She is also pregnant," Bruce began pacing around in front of him, something that he did when he was nervous, which was always nowadays.
Especially since the attack on him. He still did not know who that was, and how they got past the all encompassing presence of the Invisible Man, and how that tentacle monster was able to overwhelm the Invisible Man enough for him to actually come out and fight him, with his powers.
He had seen footage of entire buildings being dissolved into dust just because of a wrong demolition somewhere. The tentacle monsters were big but not too much on the scale of things that the Invisible Man could handle.
Then there was the blue glowlight he became and how he disappeared just as fast, after doing honest to god magic. Well, sufficiently advanced science would be just as indistinguishable from the normal person.
It galled him to admit that for the person capable of maintaining awareness over an entire city, he must really look like a caveman in comparison.
"Bruce, have some faith. We will be conducting tests before we do anything. And the Invisible Man should be back in just three more days. Everything is going to be fine," He reassured Bruce even though he himself was facing some of the heat right now.
The presence of NYPD in Manhattan had to be quadrupled after the news of the Invisible Man coming back in a week reached the seedy underbelly of New York.
The criminals who had avoided Manhattan like the plague had come back in droves. Jarvis was currently out there, piloting two remote suits and busting drug rackets, day after day.
People were scared to come out. Thankfully, the Congregation of the Invisible Man was also somewhat armed and they had taken it upon themselves to guard the city in their patron's absence as well.
So, that was good. The kitchens were working fine, nobody wanted to hit that.
Jarvis predicted that if the Invisible Man did not return on the exact specified day, crime would skyrocket on top of the rates they had right now. Right now, they are just risking it and taking advantage of a rare window that had opened for them.
If they think that the city is completely devoid of protection. Well, then, let's just say the government coming in and trying to take away Betty would be the least of their concerns.
Oh yeah, Betty. Bruce and Betty found themselves being the very first semi permanent residents of the warehouse they were in. Both were pretty shaken and having an Iron Man suit on hand, along with SHIELD security gave them have a peace of mind.
"Alright," Bruce muttered to himself and then turned around to look at the beauty of a machine making the fibres. Damn, just where in the hell did the Invisible Man get the data for that machine, he would love to know.
Only if they had the means and the Vibranium to actually study, experiment, and waste the metal, could they make such a sophisticated piece of machinery. Nobody in the world wanted to waste what little Vibranium one could find on hand. Hell, last he heard, he had the second biggest stockpile in all of America, outside of the US government.
"Oh, there we go," He said as the machine began glowing yellow. The machine was supposed to be completely isolated from the rest of the world, only opening when the fibres were done but the solution that lady had given him did not conform to the standards of the world, so what did he know?
"What?"
Oh right, he hadn't told anyone else of the why of today's process.
"Oh, Dr.Cho, this is a special process developed for some truly phenomenal effects. Please, once it is done, you will be the first to test it." He told the bewildered doctor and then went back to watching the machine do its work.
The light seemed to brighten and brighten, until most of his vision was just a big splotch of light, even after wearing sunglasses.
"GLORIOUS!" He didn't know what overtook him at the moment but he ended up shouting that out as he flipped the switch on the sunglasses, turning them into goggles that covered his entire face from the nose up.
And yet, despite the intense heat that should be followed by such bright lights, all he could feel was….
"Oh, this is so gooood," He almost moaned out in relief as the light hit every part of his body, and reduced pains that he didn't even know existed. It was as if the light was healing everything about him.
Unfortunately, the light soon reached its crescendo and began dimming down. The glow was then concentrated on a single location that was moving.
The fibres, he realised. They were done.
With the entire rest of the team still in shock, and a shocking number of the scientists now sporting guns in their hands, he walked forward, Bruce right behind him, as they unloaded the machine, and had to immediately stop looking as the fibres were bright.
Immensely so.
After a moment, the glow died down and as he looked at the fibres, the difference was night and day.
It was completely yellow and white, interchanging colours at the drop of a hat.
"Son of a bitch, it worked," His neck snapped to the side as he heard Bruce swear. Bruce never swore!
"Yeah, it did." He giddily said as he entered the suit that had silently reached behind him. Why would he need tongs or industrial safety equipment when he had the safest suit of them all?
He gingerly took the fibres and dipped them into a specialised container made, just for this. Once the container was nicely sealed, he looked to the warehouse and saw that everyone was looking at him, probably for some sort of explanation.
"What are you looking at? Get back to work!"
Ah, he always wanted to say that.
And look at them, they scrambled back to work even. Did they not know that they were employed by Fury and not him?
"Anywho, let's begin the testing, Dr.Cho. I assume you have suitable mutilated animals on hand to test their healing effects?" He asked Cho who looked very bewildered and confused about the whole thing.
Ah, he forgot she was not from around here.
If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 80 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Tony Stark–
"So, how goes SCIENCE! My boys?" He added after seeing the deadpan stare from Dr.Cho and Dr.Simmons, "--and ladies?"
The ladies turned around without addressing him, seriously his charisma had dropped dangerously ever since everyone in the lab came to know that the reason he was unable to come to the Manhattan Tentacle Fest was because Pepper didn't let him.
It was BLASPHEMY! It was a huge spot on his otherwise clean sheet of honor but alas, the lady sayeth and he do as the lady sayeth.
"Ah, Mr.Stark, you are on time. We are just about to process the fibres, once again," Bruce emphasised on the once again did not go unnoticed by him.
Yeah, they were redoing the entire thing from scratch. That is, they were taking the already made vibranium fibres, melting them down, and then recreating them exactly, except with just one difference. The time difference in getting all that done was getting on Bruce's already frayed nerves.
That one thing would, if successful, make all the difference in the world.
"I am not sure if the hocus pocus liquid will even work, Mr.Stark," He deadpanned at Cho who actually used those words in a professional setting. It meant that his unique brand of snark was being imprinted on her.
Nice!
"I don't know about you guys but Bruce and I were there to see it, and we know that it should be something." He said, not knowing how to explain the call hijacking that was done, with no trace whatsoever. The real kicker was the small bottle, made from nearly indestructible glass (Jarvis was still trying to break, shatter, melt, dent, or otherwise change the shape of the bottle in any meaningful way), containing a yellow and white liquid.
One would think that those two colours would mix and give rise to light yellow but now, it was as if the liquid itself was completely mixed with each other, but the liquid sometimes emitted yellow light and sometimes white light.
"Did you get anything from your reports?" Bruce asked him and his mind went back to the weird behaviour he noticed, from himself. He had immediately asked Jarvis to get him checked out, his paranoia meant that he had a full medical suite installed in his workspace down in the basement in LA.
State of the art, top of the line equipment with custom code written for everything meant that the chances of failure were pretty low. So, he had been feeling extremely peppy when he had gotten himself checked out, and apparently….
"Yup, Bruce. That lady just gave us some sort of miracle liquid. I am sure that if I drink that, I will become 20 years younger, back to my peak."
And that was true. Bruce nodded back in confirmation.
After all, Bruce was the one who received the documentation about the liquid and how to use it properly. He just received the liquid itself.
Why the segregation he did not know but after seeing the information about the liquid, he was sold on the fact that the Invisible Man was not alone and was probably working with some sort of organisation, in a bid to do something but becoming the de-facto King of Manhattan must slot into their plans somehow.
He had noted it down in his head because apparently, they could hack anything and everything, going through painfully built and rebuilt firewalls as if they were not even there, and then leaving no trace behind whatsoever of their intrusion.
God, what a nightmare from a cybersecurity perspective. That lady could probably just go into a bank's systems, or log into hundreds of banks worldwide, and get herself a small amount, like a million dollars, and then fuck right off, as the banks scrambled to find the data.
"I know that. I was there when we conducted the experiment. What I want to know is did you get anything negative from your reports? And just because it worked properly with you does not mean it will work well for Betty. She is also pregnant," Bruce began pacing around in front of him, something that he did when he was nervous, which was always nowadays.
Especially since the attack on him. He still did not know who that was, and how they got past the all encompassing presence of the Invisible Man, and how that tentacle monster was able to overwhelm the Invisible Man enough for him to actually come out and fight him, with his powers.
He had seen footage of entire buildings being dissolved into dust just because of a wrong demolition somewhere. The tentacle monsters were big but not too much on the scale of things that the Invisible Man could handle.
Then there was the blue glowlight he became and how he disappeared just as fast, after doing honest to god magic. Well, sufficiently advanced science would be just as indistinguishable from the normal person.
It galled him to admit that for the person capable of maintaining awareness over an entire city, he must really look like a caveman in comparison.
"Bruce, have some faith. We will be conducting tests before we do anything. And the Invisible Man should be back in just three more days. Everything is going to be fine," He reassured Bruce even though he himself was facing some of the heat right now.
The presence of NYPD in Manhattan had to be quadrupled after the news of the Invisible Man coming back in a week reached the seedy underbelly of New York.
The criminals who had avoided Manhattan like the plague had come back in droves. Jarvis was currently out there, piloting two remote suits and busting drug rackets, day after day.
People were scared to come out. Thankfully, the Congregation of the Invisible Man was also somewhat armed and they had taken it upon themselves to guard the city in their patron's absence as well.
So, that was good. The kitchens were working fine, nobody wanted to hit that.
Jarvis predicted that if the Invisible Man did not return on the exact specified day, crime would skyrocket on top of the rates they had right now. Right now, they are just risking it and taking advantage of a rare window that had opened for them.
If they think that the city is completely devoid of protection. Well, then, let's just say the government coming in and trying to take away Betty would be the least of their concerns.
Oh yeah, Betty. Bruce and Betty found themselves being the very first semi permanent residents of the warehouse they were in. Both were pretty shaken and having an Iron Man suit on hand, along with SHIELD security gave them have a peace of mind.
"Alright," Bruce muttered to himself and then turned around to look at the beauty of a machine making the fibres. Damn, just where in the hell did the Invisible Man get the data for that machine, he would love to know.
Only if they had the means and the Vibranium to actually study, experiment, and waste the metal, could they make such a sophisticated piece of machinery. Nobody in the world wanted to waste what little Vibranium one could find on hand. Hell, last he heard, he had the second biggest stockpile in all of America, outside of the US government.
"Oh, there we go," He said as the machine began glowing yellow. The machine was supposed to be completely isolated from the rest of the world, only opening when the fibres were done but the solution that lady had given him did not conform to the standards of the world, so what did he know?
"What?"
Oh right, he hadn't told anyone else of the why of today's process.
"Oh, Dr.Cho, this is a special process developed for some truly phenomenal effects. Please, once it is done, you will be the first to test it." He told the bewildered doctor and then went back to watching the machine do its work.
The light seemed to brighten and brighten, until most of his vision was just a big splotch of light, even after wearing sunglasses.
"GLORIOUS!" He didn't know what overtook him at the moment but he ended up shouting that out as he flipped the switch on the sunglasses, turning them into goggles that covered his entire face from the nose up.
And yet, despite the intense heat that should be followed by such bright lights, all he could feel was….
"Oh, this is so gooood," He almost moaned out in relief as the light hit every part of his body, and reduced pains that he didn't even know existed. It was as if the light was healing everything about him.
Unfortunately, the light soon reached its crescendo and began dimming down. The glow was then concentrated on a single location that was moving.
The fibres, he realised. They were done.
With the entire rest of the team still in shock, and a shocking number of the scientists now sporting guns in their hands, he walked forward, Bruce right behind him, as they unloaded the machine, and had to immediately stop looking as the fibres were bright.
Immensely so.
After a moment, the glow died down and as he looked at the fibres, the difference was night and day.
It was completely yellow and white, interchanging colours at the drop of a hat.
"Son of a bitch, it worked," His neck snapped to the side as he heard Bruce swear. Bruce never swore!
"Yeah, it did." He giddily said as he entered the suit that had silently reached behind him. Why would he need tongs or industrial safety equipment when he had the safest suit of them all?
He gingerly took the fibres and dipped them into a specialised container made, just for this. Once the container was nicely sealed, he looked to the warehouse and saw that everyone was looking at him, probably for some sort of explanation.
"What are you looking at? Get back to work!"
Ah, he always wanted to say that.
And look at them, they scrambled back to work even. Did they not know that they were employed by Fury and not him?
"Anywho, let's begin the testing, Dr.Cho. I assume you have suitable mutilated animals on hand to test their healing effects?" He asked Cho who looked very bewildered and confused about the whole thing.
Ah, he forgot she was not from around here.
If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.
Chapter 81: Human Greed, Life blood, and a study into the effects of men on the traffic systems!
New
IdleMuse0307
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2021
- Messages
- 362
- Likes received
- 10,028
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 81 [November 2010]
Experimental Warehouse, Manhattan
–Tony Stark–
"Right, I forgot you don't know what is happening here," Tony told Dr. Cho who looked highly interested in the totally exotic looking fibers he had in a container on hand. The container was expressly transparent as well, for this exact purpose.
Even now, as he held the container in his hand, the suit having returned to its patrolling duty around the warehouse, he could feel the effects of the fiber on his body. Whatever liquid that woman had given him, it had miraculous properties.
He couldn't believe that they had been somewhat skeptical of the woman's tall claim.
"This, Dr.Cho, is the vibranium that we are going to use for the operation of Dr.Betty. Also–" He scrambled around, and took out a piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it over to Dr.Cho,"--this is the way we are going to do it. The insertion points and the optimal depth, along with how the fibers should be connected to each other are perfectly mentioned in that,"
She took one look at the paper and her face instantly fell for some reason, "Dr.Stark, this is completely baseless. For one, this fiber position will mean that we might puncture the umbilical cord. Also, we agreed that we have to calibrate everything while we are taking real time scans from the womb so that we don't risk anything happening to the natural support system of the baby."
He sighed internally. He knew how it looked but the proof of that woman's words was literally in his hands, sending soothing energy all over his body.
God, this was an addictive feeling. He might just ask the Invisible Man to sell him some, if he had some more.
"I realise your concerns, Dr.Cho but please, just….Look, you'll know once you test this," He reluctantly handed over the plastic container holding the fibers.
"Dr.Stark, my ethics will not allow me—Ooh," Her tirade was stopped mid way as she held on to the container.
"Yes, Dr.Cho. That is correct. The fibers are now literally life giving. I want you to test it on every single animal you have on hand. Please be careful and use them on smaller animals only, because this is all we have and I don't know how to get into contact with the original supplier," He said, making sure that his hands were in motion and he was concentrating on something else otherwise he would have just snatched the container right out of her hands and done the testing himself.
God, that stuff was strong and addictive. Especially so for Tony because his body had already been going through the ringer for a couple of years. With the suit, the palladium poisoning, all the alcohol, some drugs, and even the caffeine he consumes on a daily basis. Not to mention the processed food that he inhales every day.
It was inevitable that he would find something that literally begins healing someone, addictive.
"Tony, are we sure about this?" Bruce asked him, still worried about the consequences of using technology that was clearly so far ahead of the rest of the world, and even him, that it might as well be magic.
"Well, Bruce, even if we can't believe her words, we should be able to confirm them, right? After all, that is our job as scientists," He couldn't believe he had to tell this to Bruce of all people but he could understand. Becoming a father, and especially the father to a very special case baby like the one they were about to have.
The baby had a very thick energy layer around it, so most modern machines wouldn't even be able to take a scan of Betty. Fortunately, he was able to make something that could give them the rough positioning of the baby but even that was enough to create so detailed of a map that had arrived in his email, most probably from that woman herself.
The email was odd too. "Dontlookintothis@magic.com"
Probably some practical joke that he couldn't get. Who knew what went through the minds of people who could make portals, create literal panaceas, and simultaneously stretch their minds across an entire city?
It was, quite literally, out of his comprehension which was still limited to the normality that he was so used to.
The plan was so detailed, it was as if the woman had seen the future and told them the exact details of the baby at the exact time and place, even with the minor changes that might happen because of the position of the mother.
"..Yeah, yeah, you are right. I'll go help Helen with the tests," Bruce all but ran after Helen into the bio lab, specifically made to hold any biological material coming from the baby or the mother.
Eww.
"Alright, My work here is done, for the moment. Jarvis?"
'Yes, sir," A suit arrived behind him and opened up. He took a step in and grinned as the familiar pain of the back plate latching onto his waist and spine for safeguarding, did not elicit the same level of discomfort as before.
So, it was true then. The health benefits of that fibre were not temporary. Well well well, it would look like the Invisible Man was hiding so many more secrets than he had thought before.
It would seem that he would have to track the man down, now that he knew that it was most definitely a human behind all that power, courtesy of the tentacled monster attack on the city.
If he had any more things like that miracle liquid lying around, well, then it would be in his best interest to track him down, not to like soup himself up but because that stuff was really revolutionary, and in the wrong hands, really dangerous.
Now, he wasn't saying that his hands were the right ones but he was really curious. Just so, so curious.
"Hey! No shoplifting!" He slowly floated in front of a woman who was running from a store manager, with goodies in her hands with his index finger pointed at her.
She promptly dropped all the stuff and then raised her hands up. The store manager finally caught up, thanked him, collected the items, and then ran back once again, not even waiting for the police to come.
So, that is how things worked around here. They just trusted the always watching man to just solve the problem for them. To hold the system accountable and make sure that the perpetrators did not get off scot free.
In his early days, that would translate to him breaking the thugs' body in such a way that it would keep them alive and nothing more, and everyone knew the back breaking burden of using any healthcare system in all of America.
Nowadays though? No thug or even organised crime across America did not have any designs on the wealthiest, most influential, with the least threat of law enforcement, a city in the wealthiest country on the planet.
All because of the actions of a single person. He had probably retired many people just based on their rental portfolios alone, and had also driven out corporations from buying out all the single family, or double units so that they could charge a bomb for any rental.
Even Stark Industries was unable to buy any apartments en masse for its; employees. They had to resort to dealing with an owners association who then allowed them to negotiate leases for entire buildings so that the employees that would eventually go on to work in Stark Tower, would have someplace to stay.
God, the real estate in this place was beyond expensive but it was also worth it. Clean water, air, and food, along with guaranteed zero crime and express problem solving by none other than the de facto strongest entity on the planet.
Or so they had thought. As it turns out, there is someone out there, it could be the tentacle monsters, or whoever had sent them through the portal, that could actually rival or even defeat the Invisible Man.
That single act of absence meant that the rats had started coming out of their hidey hole. In conjunction with the NYPD, he had already recovered and burned off tons of hard drugs, let alone Weed and the other soft drugs.
Things were rapidly devolving and he did not know if the city could take another two days before a major incident happened.
For one, the Mayor, who had taken some harsh decisions regarding many things, affecting multiple communities, based on the expected backing of the Invisible Man, was currently scrambling for protection.
That was a person of interest for Jarvis. The NYPD was scrambling because crime across all areas was increasing. Not skyrocketing yet, but increasing nonetheless.
Shoplifting had increased dramatically, mainly because all the shops in Manhattan had simply not invested in their security. Years of safety meant that they had probably already forgotten the basic safety measures that everyone in the rest of the parts of the world practiced, like security staff for high end stores.
He shook his head as he had to intervene in yet another cop chase that was disturbing the overall traffic environment of the city. The traffic was yet another thing that he had never thought of the Invisible Man interfering in.
Now it made sense why the traffic in the city was completely manageable despite every millionaire in town owning some sort of luxury vehicle because the Invisible Man had built underground multi level car parking near every major destination, with the permission of the city.
The proceeds, ofcourse, went to charity.
So far, he has deployed 7 of his suits to this city alone. That was more effective than a small army in terms of the sheer firepower he had on hand but the suits were built with modern warfare in mind, not urban law enforcement. Otherwise, he would have built them to have much friendlier faces, instead of faceless masks that were badass but could be scary to the children.
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.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 81 [November 2010]
Experimental Warehouse, Manhattan
–Tony Stark–
"Right, I forgot you don't know what is happening here," Tony told Dr. Cho who looked highly interested in the totally exotic looking fibers he had in a container on hand. The container was expressly transparent as well, for this exact purpose.
Even now, as he held the container in his hand, the suit having returned to its patrolling duty around the warehouse, he could feel the effects of the fiber on his body. Whatever liquid that woman had given him, it had miraculous properties.
He couldn't believe that they had been somewhat skeptical of the woman's tall claim.
"This, Dr.Cho, is the vibranium that we are going to use for the operation of Dr.Betty. Also–" He scrambled around, and took out a piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it over to Dr.Cho,"--this is the way we are going to do it. The insertion points and the optimal depth, along with how the fibers should be connected to each other are perfectly mentioned in that,"
She took one look at the paper and her face instantly fell for some reason, "Dr.Stark, this is completely baseless. For one, this fiber position will mean that we might puncture the umbilical cord. Also, we agreed that we have to calibrate everything while we are taking real time scans from the womb so that we don't risk anything happening to the natural support system of the baby."
He sighed internally. He knew how it looked but the proof of that woman's words was literally in his hands, sending soothing energy all over his body.
God, this was an addictive feeling. He might just ask the Invisible Man to sell him some, if he had some more.
"I realise your concerns, Dr.Cho but please, just….Look, you'll know once you test this," He reluctantly handed over the plastic container holding the fibers.
"Dr.Stark, my ethics will not allow me—Ooh," Her tirade was stopped mid way as she held on to the container.
"Yes, Dr.Cho. That is correct. The fibers are now literally life giving. I want you to test it on every single animal you have on hand. Please be careful and use them on smaller animals only, because this is all we have and I don't know how to get into contact with the original supplier," He said, making sure that his hands were in motion and he was concentrating on something else otherwise he would have just snatched the container right out of her hands and done the testing himself.
God, that stuff was strong and addictive. Especially so for Tony because his body had already been going through the ringer for a couple of years. With the suit, the palladium poisoning, all the alcohol, some drugs, and even the caffeine he consumes on a daily basis. Not to mention the processed food that he inhales every day.
It was inevitable that he would find something that literally begins healing someone, addictive.
"Tony, are we sure about this?" Bruce asked him, still worried about the consequences of using technology that was clearly so far ahead of the rest of the world, and even him, that it might as well be magic.
"Well, Bruce, even if we can't believe her words, we should be able to confirm them, right? After all, that is our job as scientists," He couldn't believe he had to tell this to Bruce of all people but he could understand. Becoming a father, and especially the father to a very special case baby like the one they were about to have.
The baby had a very thick energy layer around it, so most modern machines wouldn't even be able to take a scan of Betty. Fortunately, he was able to make something that could give them the rough positioning of the baby but even that was enough to create so detailed of a map that had arrived in his email, most probably from that woman herself.
The email was odd too. "Dontlookintothis@magic.com"
Probably some practical joke that he couldn't get. Who knew what went through the minds of people who could make portals, create literal panaceas, and simultaneously stretch their minds across an entire city?
It was, quite literally, out of his comprehension which was still limited to the normality that he was so used to.
The plan was so detailed, it was as if the woman had seen the future and told them the exact details of the baby at the exact time and place, even with the minor changes that might happen because of the position of the mother.
"..Yeah, yeah, you are right. I'll go help Helen with the tests," Bruce all but ran after Helen into the bio lab, specifically made to hold any biological material coming from the baby or the mother.
Eww.
"Alright, My work here is done, for the moment. Jarvis?"
'Yes, sir," A suit arrived behind him and opened up. He took a step in and grinned as the familiar pain of the back plate latching onto his waist and spine for safeguarding, did not elicit the same level of discomfort as before.
So, it was true then. The health benefits of that fibre were not temporary. Well well well, it would look like the Invisible Man was hiding so many more secrets than he had thought before.
It would seem that he would have to track the man down, now that he knew that it was most definitely a human behind all that power, courtesy of the tentacled monster attack on the city.
If he had any more things like that miracle liquid lying around, well, then it would be in his best interest to track him down, not to like soup himself up but because that stuff was really revolutionary, and in the wrong hands, really dangerous.
Now, he wasn't saying that his hands were the right ones but he was really curious. Just so, so curious.
"Hey! No shoplifting!" He slowly floated in front of a woman who was running from a store manager, with goodies in her hands with his index finger pointed at her.
She promptly dropped all the stuff and then raised her hands up. The store manager finally caught up, thanked him, collected the items, and then ran back once again, not even waiting for the police to come.
So, that is how things worked around here. They just trusted the always watching man to just solve the problem for them. To hold the system accountable and make sure that the perpetrators did not get off scot free.
In his early days, that would translate to him breaking the thugs' body in such a way that it would keep them alive and nothing more, and everyone knew the back breaking burden of using any healthcare system in all of America.
Nowadays though? No thug or even organised crime across America did not have any designs on the wealthiest, most influential, with the least threat of law enforcement, a city in the wealthiest country on the planet.
All because of the actions of a single person. He had probably retired many people just based on their rental portfolios alone, and had also driven out corporations from buying out all the single family, or double units so that they could charge a bomb for any rental.
Even Stark Industries was unable to buy any apartments en masse for its; employees. They had to resort to dealing with an owners association who then allowed them to negotiate leases for entire buildings so that the employees that would eventually go on to work in Stark Tower, would have someplace to stay.
God, the real estate in this place was beyond expensive but it was also worth it. Clean water, air, and food, along with guaranteed zero crime and express problem solving by none other than the de facto strongest entity on the planet.
Or so they had thought. As it turns out, there is someone out there, it could be the tentacle monsters, or whoever had sent them through the portal, that could actually rival or even defeat the Invisible Man.
That single act of absence meant that the rats had started coming out of their hidey hole. In conjunction with the NYPD, he had already recovered and burned off tons of hard drugs, let alone Weed and the other soft drugs.
Things were rapidly devolving and he did not know if the city could take another two days before a major incident happened.
For one, the Mayor, who had taken some harsh decisions regarding many things, affecting multiple communities, based on the expected backing of the Invisible Man, was currently scrambling for protection.
That was a person of interest for Jarvis. The NYPD was scrambling because crime across all areas was increasing. Not skyrocketing yet, but increasing nonetheless.
Shoplifting had increased dramatically, mainly because all the shops in Manhattan had simply not invested in their security. Years of safety meant that they had probably already forgotten the basic safety measures that everyone in the rest of the parts of the world practiced, like security staff for high end stores.
He shook his head as he had to intervene in yet another cop chase that was disturbing the overall traffic environment of the city. The traffic was yet another thing that he had never thought of the Invisible Man interfering in.
Now it made sense why the traffic in the city was completely manageable despite every millionaire in town owning some sort of luxury vehicle because the Invisible Man had built underground multi level car parking near every major destination, with the permission of the city.
The proceeds, ofcourse, went to charity.
So far, he has deployed 7 of his suits to this city alone. That was more effective than a small army in terms of the sheer firepower he had on hand but the suits were built with modern warfare in mind, not urban law enforcement. Otherwise, he would have built them to have much friendlier faces, instead of faceless masks that were badass but could be scary to the children.
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.
Chapter 82: Spa, Food & Sleep : THE TRIFECTA
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The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 82 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
Ah, that was the stuff, he thought to himself as he had a 5 star in house spa treatment at the hotel he was staying. It was really nice to be able to use his functionally unlimited cash reserves to finally do something nice to his body.
Now, he was sure that he was not getting the full treatment because his body was simply not built the normal way, which would be evident if one took a look at the effort the masseuse was having to expend just so that he could feel something.
Also, his control over his body meant that he could soften the tissue or muscle at the point where she was working, and even then, it must be an uphill battle for her.
How did he end up in a spa instead of his hotel room, where he should be cooped up, working to remove the blockage on his powers?
Ah, yes.
Boredom.
Yes, Boredom was the simple one word answer to the question as to why he was not prioritising the work that could end up restoring order to a city housing millions. Yeah, he felt guilty and terrible but the thing was, he was only human, even if a vastly overpowered one.
That meant that his mind was human as well, at least he liked to think so. So, it wandered off, unheeding of its own priorities. It led to stagnation, where he couldn't think of the book and its solutions and how to better use the psionic energy within oneself, resonate it with the Astral Realm, and then use that amalgamation to soothe one's spirit. In his case, heal his soul from the backlash of his bonded weapon being destroyed.
Good lord, how stupid was he to just think that he could tangle with the One Below All *chills* There it was, once again, even thinking that name would bring him chills.
There was probably a reason why he was so strong and he had an active interest in Bruce and his child. For now, he was assured that the Ancient One was protecting the city from undue interferences like that and Tony was having a field day in the city, already having deployed at least 7 Iron Men suits to help fend off the growing wave of crime.
Yeah, he had noticed the crime.
From the day that Randall and Co had to stop that car chase to today, it had been 4 days. There was only a single day left until the deadline given to the city by the Ancient One ends.
And even now, he was not sure if his solution would work or not. See, the Astral Realm was not like a tangible place that one could mark and then go to the same address.
It doesn't work like tha…. "Ah, yes, that's the spot," He almost moaned as the masseuse finally started working on his neck muscles, which he had to consciously soften to make it possible for her to work on.
So, where was he?
Ah, yes. The Bullshit that was the Astral Realm.
Everyone had an imprint in the Astral Realm. Even non sentient animals, they too had much smaller imprints in the Astral Realm. The way to heal the spirit was to look for that imprint, which was very hard, considering that the Astral Realm was shared by the entire universe, and as he said earlier, there was no definitive address to the Astral Realm.
Then use the psionic energy that every being had in minute quantities, resonate with your own imprint which was now filled with energy from the Astral Realm, and then use the mixture of energies from both sides to bring both the imprints to equilibrium, i.e., a healed state.
To do that, however, he had to locate his imprint, which he did. Quite easily, in fact, because his imprint was just that much brighter than the rest of them. He also found out that there were other Astral Dragons in the Astral Realm, just like Master Jin'Ya but far more bloodthirsty or rather, soulthirsty, because he had to fend off three dragons like that.
And it was not fun, because while he could use his psionic powers in the Astral Realm, and even manipulate the surrounding energies to augment his soul, the dragons were that much more used to the energy, trying to eat him up.
He won, obviously but that whole encounter left him more exhausted than he would care to admit.
Now, he had found his imprint in the Astral Realm, learned all there was to learn about this healing method, had gotten into a fight with Astral Dragons, and more importantly, won.
Now, all there was left to do was complete the resonation process, and then the Astral Realm would do the needful. There was no complicated soul surgery procedure or anything. The Astral Realm will precisely heal as much as can be healed.
The process was almost done, ahead of schedule. He was overjoyed and was about to dive into it when he realised that he had done nothing but read, work, and eat all the past 5 days, and he was exhausted a bit, mentally speaking.
Being of the opinion that anything related to the soul should be handled with extreme caution, he decided to unwind for the rest of the day, and then work on the resonation in the morning, after a good night's sleep.
Ofcourse, for him, a good night's sleep is barely more than two hours so he will be up in the very early morning and hopefully, healed up by noon, so he could make his huge debut.
"Alright, Trisha. Thanks, but I think, for now, this is enough," He said out loud and Trisha let out a quiet sigh of relief that she didn't think he could hear.
"Okay, Axle,"
The sound of the door closing had him hopping into the shower and changing into a fresh pair of clothing, delivered by the hotel itself. Seriously, five star hotel concierge, combined with an Amex Card, meant that he could have anything he wanted, hand delivered to him at his room.
That was how he got any clothing for the past week. Everything he had, was burned down in the fire.
Thank goodness that he kept all his LEGO collectibles in a fire resistant, flood resistant storage container in the center of the city. It cost a pretty penny but hey, NOTHING is too expensive to safeguard his Death Star.
"Your finest wine and anything the chef recommends for the day. Surprise me," He said to the waiter when he was about to give him the menu. The waiter nodded mutely and left the table.
He looked around and really looked, not just use his eyes to fill in the colour with the data he was getting from his powers. He saw various people, mostly very rich ones with their families, girlfriends, and second girlfriends, having fun in the hotel.
Well, he knew this was coming when he created a safe haven for everyone. Rich people, indulging in their vices, with girls half their age, well, that was to be expected.
He couldn't really stop them from making bad choices. The girls were adults, that much he could confirm and that was that.
Also, he had a standing no crime policy anywhere in the city, it didn't matter if you were a billionaire or a hundred billionaire, or a humble taxi driver.
So, that probably helps the girl in making sure that least they won't be killed and the matter hushed by the obviously rich and powerful.
Shaking his head to get rid of what old unethical men do with their money and power, he instead focused on the steak that had arrived in front of him.
It looked delicious.
"Thank you,"
"Enjoy your meal,"
Pleasant interaction aside, the wine was great. And the steak was immaculate.
Unfortunately, even after drinking an entire bottle, something that drew strange gazes from the waiter assigned to him, he could feel no buzz.
So, that was 10k down the drain.
He came back to his room and sighed as he saw the book, exactly where he kept it, its deceptively small size hiding the gargantuan number of pages inside the book and the even more exhaustive amount of information inside.
Well, he couldn't exactly fault Master Jin'Ya for being thorough with his information. This was a book about the soul and anything missing can, and will, result in shredded souls.
"Ah, this sucks!" He grumbled as he changed into his pyjamas, manually, and entered the sheets, the heavy comfy sheets.
"Nighty night!" he mumbled to himself as sleep finally claimed him.
_____xx_____
His eyes snapped open as he looked out of the window. It was still dark. His eyes went to the bedside clock.
4:00 AM. Good.
He got up and got ready which took a lot more time than it would have taken if he still had his powers.
"Yeah, I need a cab. Yeah? To 177A Bleecker Street. Great." He called the room service and booked himself a premium cab.
Grabbed everything that he felt he needed, and went down to the receptionist.
"Mr.Riddle, thank you for staying with us. We hope to host you soon in the future."
"Yeah, me too." The pretty receptionist smiled at him as she gestured him towards a person waiting at the entrance.
The person was the driver who drove a black limousine, probably from the hotel itself. He saw a nice charge being added to the bill for chaperone services, but that was fine.
He was loaded anyway.
"Mr.Riddle, I have been instructed by the Ancient One to provide you access to the ritual room. Please, this way." Master Drumm said as he was ushered to the ritual room, a room strengthened by the best wards so that any outside influence doesn't exceed the ritual room's premises.
Perfect for his purpose today.
"Alright, let's begin," He muttered as he began the ritual that would change everything he knew about the limitations imposed on him.
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.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 82 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
Ah, that was the stuff, he thought to himself as he had a 5 star in house spa treatment at the hotel he was staying. It was really nice to be able to use his functionally unlimited cash reserves to finally do something nice to his body.
Now, he was sure that he was not getting the full treatment because his body was simply not built the normal way, which would be evident if one took a look at the effort the masseuse was having to expend just so that he could feel something.
Also, his control over his body meant that he could soften the tissue or muscle at the point where she was working, and even then, it must be an uphill battle for her.
How did he end up in a spa instead of his hotel room, where he should be cooped up, working to remove the blockage on his powers?
Ah, yes.
Boredom.
Yes, Boredom was the simple one word answer to the question as to why he was not prioritising the work that could end up restoring order to a city housing millions. Yeah, he felt guilty and terrible but the thing was, he was only human, even if a vastly overpowered one.
That meant that his mind was human as well, at least he liked to think so. So, it wandered off, unheeding of its own priorities. It led to stagnation, where he couldn't think of the book and its solutions and how to better use the psionic energy within oneself, resonate it with the Astral Realm, and then use that amalgamation to soothe one's spirit. In his case, heal his soul from the backlash of his bonded weapon being destroyed.
Good lord, how stupid was he to just think that he could tangle with the One Below All *chills* There it was, once again, even thinking that name would bring him chills.
There was probably a reason why he was so strong and he had an active interest in Bruce and his child. For now, he was assured that the Ancient One was protecting the city from undue interferences like that and Tony was having a field day in the city, already having deployed at least 7 Iron Men suits to help fend off the growing wave of crime.
Yeah, he had noticed the crime.
From the day that Randall and Co had to stop that car chase to today, it had been 4 days. There was only a single day left until the deadline given to the city by the Ancient One ends.
And even now, he was not sure if his solution would work or not. See, the Astral Realm was not like a tangible place that one could mark and then go to the same address.
It doesn't work like tha…. "Ah, yes, that's the spot," He almost moaned as the masseuse finally started working on his neck muscles, which he had to consciously soften to make it possible for her to work on.
So, where was he?
Ah, yes. The Bullshit that was the Astral Realm.
Everyone had an imprint in the Astral Realm. Even non sentient animals, they too had much smaller imprints in the Astral Realm. The way to heal the spirit was to look for that imprint, which was very hard, considering that the Astral Realm was shared by the entire universe, and as he said earlier, there was no definitive address to the Astral Realm.
Then use the psionic energy that every being had in minute quantities, resonate with your own imprint which was now filled with energy from the Astral Realm, and then use the mixture of energies from both sides to bring both the imprints to equilibrium, i.e., a healed state.
To do that, however, he had to locate his imprint, which he did. Quite easily, in fact, because his imprint was just that much brighter than the rest of them. He also found out that there were other Astral Dragons in the Astral Realm, just like Master Jin'Ya but far more bloodthirsty or rather, soulthirsty, because he had to fend off three dragons like that.
And it was not fun, because while he could use his psionic powers in the Astral Realm, and even manipulate the surrounding energies to augment his soul, the dragons were that much more used to the energy, trying to eat him up.
He won, obviously but that whole encounter left him more exhausted than he would care to admit.
Now, he had found his imprint in the Astral Realm, learned all there was to learn about this healing method, had gotten into a fight with Astral Dragons, and more importantly, won.
Now, all there was left to do was complete the resonation process, and then the Astral Realm would do the needful. There was no complicated soul surgery procedure or anything. The Astral Realm will precisely heal as much as can be healed.
The process was almost done, ahead of schedule. He was overjoyed and was about to dive into it when he realised that he had done nothing but read, work, and eat all the past 5 days, and he was exhausted a bit, mentally speaking.
Being of the opinion that anything related to the soul should be handled with extreme caution, he decided to unwind for the rest of the day, and then work on the resonation in the morning, after a good night's sleep.
Ofcourse, for him, a good night's sleep is barely more than two hours so he will be up in the very early morning and hopefully, healed up by noon, so he could make his huge debut.
"Alright, Trisha. Thanks, but I think, for now, this is enough," He said out loud and Trisha let out a quiet sigh of relief that she didn't think he could hear.
"Okay, Axle,"
The sound of the door closing had him hopping into the shower and changing into a fresh pair of clothing, delivered by the hotel itself. Seriously, five star hotel concierge, combined with an Amex Card, meant that he could have anything he wanted, hand delivered to him at his room.
That was how he got any clothing for the past week. Everything he had, was burned down in the fire.
Thank goodness that he kept all his LEGO collectibles in a fire resistant, flood resistant storage container in the center of the city. It cost a pretty penny but hey, NOTHING is too expensive to safeguard his Death Star.
"Your finest wine and anything the chef recommends for the day. Surprise me," He said to the waiter when he was about to give him the menu. The waiter nodded mutely and left the table.
He looked around and really looked, not just use his eyes to fill in the colour with the data he was getting from his powers. He saw various people, mostly very rich ones with their families, girlfriends, and second girlfriends, having fun in the hotel.
Well, he knew this was coming when he created a safe haven for everyone. Rich people, indulging in their vices, with girls half their age, well, that was to be expected.
He couldn't really stop them from making bad choices. The girls were adults, that much he could confirm and that was that.
Also, he had a standing no crime policy anywhere in the city, it didn't matter if you were a billionaire or a hundred billionaire, or a humble taxi driver.
So, that probably helps the girl in making sure that least they won't be killed and the matter hushed by the obviously rich and powerful.
Shaking his head to get rid of what old unethical men do with their money and power, he instead focused on the steak that had arrived in front of him.
It looked delicious.
"Thank you,"
"Enjoy your meal,"
Pleasant interaction aside, the wine was great. And the steak was immaculate.
Unfortunately, even after drinking an entire bottle, something that drew strange gazes from the waiter assigned to him, he could feel no buzz.
So, that was 10k down the drain.
He came back to his room and sighed as he saw the book, exactly where he kept it, its deceptively small size hiding the gargantuan number of pages inside the book and the even more exhaustive amount of information inside.
Well, he couldn't exactly fault Master Jin'Ya for being thorough with his information. This was a book about the soul and anything missing can, and will, result in shredded souls.
"Ah, this sucks!" He grumbled as he changed into his pyjamas, manually, and entered the sheets, the heavy comfy sheets.
"Nighty night!" he mumbled to himself as sleep finally claimed him.
_____xx_____
His eyes snapped open as he looked out of the window. It was still dark. His eyes went to the bedside clock.
4:00 AM. Good.
He got up and got ready which took a lot more time than it would have taken if he still had his powers.
"Yeah, I need a cab. Yeah? To 177A Bleecker Street. Great." He called the room service and booked himself a premium cab.
Grabbed everything that he felt he needed, and went down to the receptionist.
"Mr.Riddle, thank you for staying with us. We hope to host you soon in the future."
"Yeah, me too." The pretty receptionist smiled at him as she gestured him towards a person waiting at the entrance.
The person was the driver who drove a black limousine, probably from the hotel itself. He saw a nice charge being added to the bill for chaperone services, but that was fine.
He was loaded anyway.
"Mr.Riddle, I have been instructed by the Ancient One to provide you access to the ritual room. Please, this way." Master Drumm said as he was ushered to the ritual room, a room strengthened by the best wards so that any outside influence doesn't exceed the ritual room's premises.
Perfect for his purpose today.
"Alright, let's begin," He muttered as he began the ritual that would change everything he knew about the limitations imposed on him.
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.
Chapter 83 : Soul scape, Enlightenment, and then back to Ball crushing!
New
IdleMuse0307
Not too sore, are you?
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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 83 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
"So, where did it go? Ah-hah! There it is, the restructuring of a standard ritual room to better manifest one's own psionic form without leaking into the Astral Realm…" He muttered to himself as he held the book in one hand, and followed Master Jin'Ya's explicit instructions with the other.
Because while the ritual room was standardised for a number of reasons, it did not offer the best efficiency when it came to dealing with psionic energy as well as the Astral Realm. So, he was altering the symbols etched on the ground with a tool that was present inside the ritual rooms as a standard etching tool, mystical one with orange and red accents as well.
Really went well with the theme of the room.
"Alright, here goes nothing," He safely stored the book inside one of the book vaults in the ritual room, sat down in the center of the ritual circle, took out a bottle pre filled with his blood this morning, taken out with a syringe of course. He was not crass so as to cut his finger open and then draw blood from it.
Not only was it unsanitary and did not guarantee an accurate drop location, in his case, it would not be enough because his healing factor would close the wound so fast that there would barely be a few drops of the material.
So, he had to use extra pressure on his skin, on top of using the strongest syringe he could find, to actually penetrate his skin, and then take out his blood. Which was very precious, by the way, because the blood of a being could be used for a number of nefarious rituals.
Come to think of it, rituals as a field itself leaned heavily to the dark than the light. And in his case, it was willingly given blood, which could be used to even more devastating effects.
Thankfully, almost all of Blood Rituals had been purged from every single library on the planet, save for some in Romania along with whatever personal collection Dracula has. That limited the usage of such vile rituals but as you can see him mutter gibberish that he knew not the meaning of, some Blood Rituals still remain within Kamar Taj's library.
He closed his eyes as his body seemed to continue muttering the gibberish he learned inside Master Jin'Ya's book, as he found himself floating in a space that was oddly familiar to him.
He could feel that his powers were still not back so the ritual was not entirely done. Unfortunately, the process of unlocking one's spirit blockade was unique to every single person out there, so there was not much the book would help him beyond this point.
He was currently barefoot, wearing a simple T-shirt and Jeans, along with a cap, overlooking a vast expanse of grasslands that led to a huge mountain. The sun was overhead and yet, there was a cool breeze with the sunlight being gentle on his skin.
It was nice. It was nice to know that he had such a pleasant soul scape.
With nothing else to do, but reach the mountains, since that was the defining character of this picture, he started walking towards the giant range of mountains.
In the meantime, he could feel his body slowly heat up, not from the sun, he would know that because he was feeling the same under the shade of a nearby tree as well.
No, it was as if some sort of pressure was being built up.
"No!" His eyes widened as he booked it towards the mountain with all his might. The pressure was building up but it was not in his body.
No, he was feeling it in his current avatar but he was a soul projection. The psionic pressure was building up right in his soul and if he did not find a way to unshackle his soul before the pressure reached its peak, well, then, bye bye Axle Riddle.
Mid way through his sprint, he found himself jumping higher and higher, the land going farther away in every jump. It was kinda scary especially since he did not have his powers to fall back upon but time was of the essence and he could be a pussy later on.
Taking wide jumps, like the Hulk, he soon found himself at the base of the mountain, after crossing over a river of crocs that looked oddly translucent, with the same colour of energy as his empowered self when he combined his second mind with his primary one, granting himself a phenomenal boost in power.
The pressure was quite literally visible now in his avatar as he looked at the huge blue door etched on the side of the mountain, its silhouette visible from afar. Looking at the shiny and very slippery sides of the mountains, he abandoned any plans of climbing it and decided to try his luck jumping straight at it.
"1…2…3…Jump!" He backed up a bit and after taking a bit of a run, jumped with all his might. He did not know what he was expecting but face planting on the side of the mountain was not it.
He tried to gain leverage of any sort but the mountain was bare, as if someone had drawn it without taking into account any natural crevices or depression that mountains get when they are formed, naturally, that is.
"Alright…Once more," He tried to psych himself up but that was a bit hard with the ever increasing pressure in his body. It was bearable now but he did not know how long he could hold on.
With each jump, he could feel himself getting closer but with each jump, the pressure also increased. He did not know what to do when he saw his hand carved through the ground as if it was butter, because of the blue hue that now surrounded his body, courtesy of the ever increasing Psionic pressure in his body.
He looked back at the trees and had a brilliant, possibly stupid and suicidal, but brilliant idea.
His hands worked like an axe, as he mowed down trees after trees. If he could not reach the door on his own, he would build something that would take him there.
Midway through skinning one of the trees, he froze and slapped his head as he forgot to try one thing. If his aura, as he liked to call it now since he could not direct the flow of that energy anywhere, could carve through stone, sand, and trees, maybe it could do the same for the mountain over there.
He jumped as far as he could, reaching the mountain in an instant, and then jabbed his fingers at the mountain, hoping to at least create some leverage so that he could slow down his descent.
Nope, no such thing. Instead, he felt his fingers hitting blocks of steel that refused to so much as ripple, as he plummeted down to the ground.
Thankfully, this was his soul world and as such, no physical damage occurred to him but the blow to his ego was another thing.
Seeing that his conjecture was wrong and there was no way the universe would let him take the easy way out, he set out to build a seesaw. Well, originally, he wanted to build a trebuchet so that he could take practice runs, really aim it right at the door, and then do the deed but as it turned out, in the real world, there is only time for fast and barely working, not perfectly working and slow.
So, he had to mimic the deadlines that corporate overlords set for their employees and stand on one side of the tree, holding a huge rock he took out from the river, after batting away the translucent crocs ofcourse. They were no match for his mighty aura, as he dug out the rock and flopped to the side of the river like a dying fish, the pressure now almost too much to bear.
"Alright…let's fucking GOOOOO!" His voice echoed in the distance as he threw the rock on the other end of the seesaw and found himself being flung at the mountain at breakneck speeds. Now, he had done some rough aiming of the seesaw but there were bound to be some irregularities with such crude applications.
"AAA—Ack!" As such, he found his glorious jump over the grasslands, culminating in face planting on the side of the mountain, once again. The shiny surface made sure that he slid right down.
Thankfully, he had the presence of mind to hold onto the handle of the door as he slid on top of the door. Atleast his jump led him above the door.
He pulled himself up using one hand, balancing his entire body weight on a single hand, holding onto the door handle which was decidedly human sized while the door itself looked as if it was made for Surtur.
How the hell was he supposed to open something like that without his powers?
"Hmm…..Oh! What the hell." He just shoved his blue auar-ed hand into the lock of the door, his hand easily swallowed by the giant lock on the door.
Thankfully, his gambit worked as he could feel the pressure in his body being sucked by the door, the door itself lighting up in a blazing blue as he felt his hand get sucked in.
He panicked a bit as he found his body being pulled in an inky black substance but there was nothing he could do as he found himself swallowed whole.
______xx____
Information.
Information all around.
His eyes snapped open, if they could even be called "eyes" at the moment as he took in the mountain of information available to him at all times.
His mind had expanded to such a level that he could process trillions of data nodes simultaneously, all the while pondering upon his life upto this moment and how he would achieve what he wanted to achieve in the near future.
He couldn't really be called Axle Riddle at this point. No, that was just someone who was playing around with the powers that were given to them.
Not much of a plan, somewhat of a wuss because he did not even fight against the restrictions that were imposed on him.
Incompetent enough that he believed that he could not master Telepathy, even after having so much psionic energy at one's disposal. A baby could have learned Telepathy if given the right instructions.
Instructions that were within reach, if only the fool asked.
But NO! The restrictions are absolute. The ROB's word was absolute.
He was only a partial avatar of the Sage Force.
Bullshit!
There was no such thing as a partial avatar.
There was the Sage Force and all it encompassed.
And he, somehow, had found himself in one of the most dangerous multiverses, with a broken down power. But no, the power itself was not broken, it was just muted…subdued by an outside force.
He sneered as his mind immediately ran a million simulations and found a multitude of answers as to why the ROB would do that.
Entertainment being the most likely answer.
Unfortunately, his current enlightened state was only sustained because of the blockade that allowed the Sage Force to force open the gate for a few moments.
Once the blockade was cleared and his powers returned, he would return to being the dumb old Axle Riddle.
No, this was a travesty.
The sheer amount of power he could wield now, even for a few moments, dwarfed whatever he had thought of the Sage Force before.
"I understand now. Thank you," He bowed to the unseen all encompassing force that had facilitated this exchange.
"Now, how to fuck over the bastard that put me in this position?" He asked himself the question and with the Sage Force fully accessible to him, he received hundreds of answers instantly.
His eyes lit up as his mind read, comprehended, and chose the option most fun for him.
Because while he might be an intellectual in this state, his base state was still Axle Riddle and that asshole loved to mess with people, especially those in positions of authority.
Downloading the plans into Axle Riddle's subconscious because his puny mind would not be able to comprehend the vastness of the plan, he cut the connection and sadly…returned to being Axle Riddle.
____xx____
GASP!
He awoke with a gasp, his throat dry, his heart pounding as he looked around him. He sighed in relief once he felt his powers return, much stronger than before.
No, not stronger, just easier to use somehow. He did not need the second mind now to process the sheer amount of background information.
Also, his TK felt much more powerful than before. He had to be careful, uncalibrated TK would just tear apart people.
He floated over a pitcher of water tailor made for such situations and gulped down all the water he could.
His mind whirled with new possibilities as he took hold of the city.
Drug dealers found themselves flung outside the city, one or two major limbs broken depending on the drugs they were peddling.
Subways found themselves clean again.
Thieves, shoplifters were brought gently to the nearest NYPD officer.
All guns, save for law enforcement, were confiscated and crushed to form a large ball, which was then deposited in front of the nearest precinct.
Seven active rapists had their balls crushed.
Six murderers had their offending limbs crushed.
All in all, quite a nice way to declare his return.
Then why did he still have that emptiness in his heart when he did all that? As if he was supposed to do something else, something greater?
If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.
A/N - Whoa Boy! This was a doozy and a half to write. Also, probably the longest because my fingers just refused to stop.
Anywho, enjoy!
Spooky ENLIGHTENED Axle Riddle!
More messing to come!
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 83 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
"So, where did it go? Ah-hah! There it is, the restructuring of a standard ritual room to better manifest one's own psionic form without leaking into the Astral Realm…" He muttered to himself as he held the book in one hand, and followed Master Jin'Ya's explicit instructions with the other.
Because while the ritual room was standardised for a number of reasons, it did not offer the best efficiency when it came to dealing with psionic energy as well as the Astral Realm. So, he was altering the symbols etched on the ground with a tool that was present inside the ritual rooms as a standard etching tool, mystical one with orange and red accents as well.
Really went well with the theme of the room.
"Alright, here goes nothing," He safely stored the book inside one of the book vaults in the ritual room, sat down in the center of the ritual circle, took out a bottle pre filled with his blood this morning, taken out with a syringe of course. He was not crass so as to cut his finger open and then draw blood from it.
Not only was it unsanitary and did not guarantee an accurate drop location, in his case, it would not be enough because his healing factor would close the wound so fast that there would barely be a few drops of the material.
So, he had to use extra pressure on his skin, on top of using the strongest syringe he could find, to actually penetrate his skin, and then take out his blood. Which was very precious, by the way, because the blood of a being could be used for a number of nefarious rituals.
Come to think of it, rituals as a field itself leaned heavily to the dark than the light. And in his case, it was willingly given blood, which could be used to even more devastating effects.
Thankfully, almost all of Blood Rituals had been purged from every single library on the planet, save for some in Romania along with whatever personal collection Dracula has. That limited the usage of such vile rituals but as you can see him mutter gibberish that he knew not the meaning of, some Blood Rituals still remain within Kamar Taj's library.
He closed his eyes as his body seemed to continue muttering the gibberish he learned inside Master Jin'Ya's book, as he found himself floating in a space that was oddly familiar to him.
He could feel that his powers were still not back so the ritual was not entirely done. Unfortunately, the process of unlocking one's spirit blockade was unique to every single person out there, so there was not much the book would help him beyond this point.
He was currently barefoot, wearing a simple T-shirt and Jeans, along with a cap, overlooking a vast expanse of grasslands that led to a huge mountain. The sun was overhead and yet, there was a cool breeze with the sunlight being gentle on his skin.
It was nice. It was nice to know that he had such a pleasant soul scape.
With nothing else to do, but reach the mountains, since that was the defining character of this picture, he started walking towards the giant range of mountains.
In the meantime, he could feel his body slowly heat up, not from the sun, he would know that because he was feeling the same under the shade of a nearby tree as well.
No, it was as if some sort of pressure was being built up.
"No!" His eyes widened as he booked it towards the mountain with all his might. The pressure was building up but it was not in his body.
No, he was feeling it in his current avatar but he was a soul projection. The psionic pressure was building up right in his soul and if he did not find a way to unshackle his soul before the pressure reached its peak, well, then, bye bye Axle Riddle.
Mid way through his sprint, he found himself jumping higher and higher, the land going farther away in every jump. It was kinda scary especially since he did not have his powers to fall back upon but time was of the essence and he could be a pussy later on.
Taking wide jumps, like the Hulk, he soon found himself at the base of the mountain, after crossing over a river of crocs that looked oddly translucent, with the same colour of energy as his empowered self when he combined his second mind with his primary one, granting himself a phenomenal boost in power.
The pressure was quite literally visible now in his avatar as he looked at the huge blue door etched on the side of the mountain, its silhouette visible from afar. Looking at the shiny and very slippery sides of the mountains, he abandoned any plans of climbing it and decided to try his luck jumping straight at it.
"1…2…3…Jump!" He backed up a bit and after taking a bit of a run, jumped with all his might. He did not know what he was expecting but face planting on the side of the mountain was not it.
He tried to gain leverage of any sort but the mountain was bare, as if someone had drawn it without taking into account any natural crevices or depression that mountains get when they are formed, naturally, that is.
"Alright…Once more," He tried to psych himself up but that was a bit hard with the ever increasing pressure in his body. It was bearable now but he did not know how long he could hold on.
With each jump, he could feel himself getting closer but with each jump, the pressure also increased. He did not know what to do when he saw his hand carved through the ground as if it was butter, because of the blue hue that now surrounded his body, courtesy of the ever increasing Psionic pressure in his body.
He looked back at the trees and had a brilliant, possibly stupid and suicidal, but brilliant idea.
His hands worked like an axe, as he mowed down trees after trees. If he could not reach the door on his own, he would build something that would take him there.
Midway through skinning one of the trees, he froze and slapped his head as he forgot to try one thing. If his aura, as he liked to call it now since he could not direct the flow of that energy anywhere, could carve through stone, sand, and trees, maybe it could do the same for the mountain over there.
He jumped as far as he could, reaching the mountain in an instant, and then jabbed his fingers at the mountain, hoping to at least create some leverage so that he could slow down his descent.
Nope, no such thing. Instead, he felt his fingers hitting blocks of steel that refused to so much as ripple, as he plummeted down to the ground.
Thankfully, this was his soul world and as such, no physical damage occurred to him but the blow to his ego was another thing.
Seeing that his conjecture was wrong and there was no way the universe would let him take the easy way out, he set out to build a seesaw. Well, originally, he wanted to build a trebuchet so that he could take practice runs, really aim it right at the door, and then do the deed but as it turned out, in the real world, there is only time for fast and barely working, not perfectly working and slow.
So, he had to mimic the deadlines that corporate overlords set for their employees and stand on one side of the tree, holding a huge rock he took out from the river, after batting away the translucent crocs ofcourse. They were no match for his mighty aura, as he dug out the rock and flopped to the side of the river like a dying fish, the pressure now almost too much to bear.
"Alright…let's fucking GOOOOO!" His voice echoed in the distance as he threw the rock on the other end of the seesaw and found himself being flung at the mountain at breakneck speeds. Now, he had done some rough aiming of the seesaw but there were bound to be some irregularities with such crude applications.
"AAA—Ack!" As such, he found his glorious jump over the grasslands, culminating in face planting on the side of the mountain, once again. The shiny surface made sure that he slid right down.
Thankfully, he had the presence of mind to hold onto the handle of the door as he slid on top of the door. Atleast his jump led him above the door.
He pulled himself up using one hand, balancing his entire body weight on a single hand, holding onto the door handle which was decidedly human sized while the door itself looked as if it was made for Surtur.
How the hell was he supposed to open something like that without his powers?
"Hmm…..Oh! What the hell." He just shoved his blue auar-ed hand into the lock of the door, his hand easily swallowed by the giant lock on the door.
Thankfully, his gambit worked as he could feel the pressure in his body being sucked by the door, the door itself lighting up in a blazing blue as he felt his hand get sucked in.
He panicked a bit as he found his body being pulled in an inky black substance but there was nothing he could do as he found himself swallowed whole.
______xx____
Information.
Information all around.
His eyes snapped open, if they could even be called "eyes" at the moment as he took in the mountain of information available to him at all times.
His mind had expanded to such a level that he could process trillions of data nodes simultaneously, all the while pondering upon his life upto this moment and how he would achieve what he wanted to achieve in the near future.
He couldn't really be called Axle Riddle at this point. No, that was just someone who was playing around with the powers that were given to them.
Not much of a plan, somewhat of a wuss because he did not even fight against the restrictions that were imposed on him.
Incompetent enough that he believed that he could not master Telepathy, even after having so much psionic energy at one's disposal. A baby could have learned Telepathy if given the right instructions.
Instructions that were within reach, if only the fool asked.
But NO! The restrictions are absolute. The ROB's word was absolute.
He was only a partial avatar of the Sage Force.
Bullshit!
There was no such thing as a partial avatar.
There was the Sage Force and all it encompassed.
And he, somehow, had found himself in one of the most dangerous multiverses, with a broken down power. But no, the power itself was not broken, it was just muted…subdued by an outside force.
He sneered as his mind immediately ran a million simulations and found a multitude of answers as to why the ROB would do that.
Entertainment being the most likely answer.
Unfortunately, his current enlightened state was only sustained because of the blockade that allowed the Sage Force to force open the gate for a few moments.
Once the blockade was cleared and his powers returned, he would return to being the dumb old Axle Riddle.
No, this was a travesty.
The sheer amount of power he could wield now, even for a few moments, dwarfed whatever he had thought of the Sage Force before.
"I understand now. Thank you," He bowed to the unseen all encompassing force that had facilitated this exchange.
"Now, how to fuck over the bastard that put me in this position?" He asked himself the question and with the Sage Force fully accessible to him, he received hundreds of answers instantly.
His eyes lit up as his mind read, comprehended, and chose the option most fun for him.
Because while he might be an intellectual in this state, his base state was still Axle Riddle and that asshole loved to mess with people, especially those in positions of authority.
Downloading the plans into Axle Riddle's subconscious because his puny mind would not be able to comprehend the vastness of the plan, he cut the connection and sadly…returned to being Axle Riddle.
____xx____
GASP!
He awoke with a gasp, his throat dry, his heart pounding as he looked around him. He sighed in relief once he felt his powers return, much stronger than before.
No, not stronger, just easier to use somehow. He did not need the second mind now to process the sheer amount of background information.
Also, his TK felt much more powerful than before. He had to be careful, uncalibrated TK would just tear apart people.
He floated over a pitcher of water tailor made for such situations and gulped down all the water he could.
His mind whirled with new possibilities as he took hold of the city.
Drug dealers found themselves flung outside the city, one or two major limbs broken depending on the drugs they were peddling.
Subways found themselves clean again.
Thieves, shoplifters were brought gently to the nearest NYPD officer.
All guns, save for law enforcement, were confiscated and crushed to form a large ball, which was then deposited in front of the nearest precinct.
Seven active rapists had their balls crushed.
Six murderers had their offending limbs crushed.
All in all, quite a nice way to declare his return.
Then why did he still have that emptiness in his heart when he did all that? As if he was supposed to do something else, something greater?
If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.
A/N - Whoa Boy! This was a doozy and a half to write. Also, probably the longest because my fingers just refused to stop.
Anywho, enjoy!
Spooky ENLIGHTENED Axle Riddle!
More messing to come!
Hyperionthetitan
Stuck in a tree
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2018
- Messages
- 3,205
- Likes received
- 18,861
Well it isnt ROB who done him in aint it ? Its the vishanti . ROB is even nice enough to deal with them and resurrect him.
The partial thing is just him dumbly misinterpreting the word "partial"
The partial thing is just him dumbly misinterpreting the word "partial"