Technomancer in MCU #1

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 71.1

Technomancer in MCU

UN General Assembly Hall, New York

–Ed–

"Where did you get all the advanced technology that we can see being used on the new?"

"Where are you from?"

"How did you find out about H.Y.D.R.A.?"

"What are your powers?"

"What are your organisation's goals?'

"Who are the people with the superpowers that work for you? Are they a new breed of super soldiers?"

Such were some of the questions that Ed was bombarded with in the few seconds it had been since he took a seat on his chair, Frank and Daisy floating behind him.

"Alright, ladies, one at a time please," Daisy said to the diplomats, shooing away the ones who were shouting to get over the voices of the other people in the room.

He smirked internally at the sheer disregard she showed to the people who were revered in their respective countries as someone representing their country on the global stage. It was amusing to watch, especially since he knew that none of the big guys had asked a question and were just waiting for the rabble to sort themselves out before asking the truly important questions to him.

She then proceeded to point at the Japanese representative, "You, the one with the wig, yeah you can go ahead and ask the question." The situation was made even funnier by the fact that Daisy's suit had made an arrow symbol of hard light that was pointing at him as it hovered the cowering form of the Japanese diplomat.

The poor guy cowered while holding the mic that was made of hard light as it was handed to him by the arrow, "Uh-Uh, Ahem, Mr.Ed, during the unfortunate Invasion of New York, we all saw the application of the revolutionary technology that nullified the damage that was done due by the explosion of a Nuclear Warhead and how quickly it was able to do that. My question to you is, will that be available to the other countries, especially since, " Here the diplomat glanced at the US President, "some countries are not above using them without any consideration of their global effects." Then, he sat down but not before asking a seemingly simple question but one that had a lot of hidden meanings. After all, the White House had never managed to provide an explanation for the Nuclear Explosion that had happened in New York, nor could they present the perpetrator since Pierce had him killed.

It was a dark mark on the presidency of Mathew Ellis since he couldn't exactly tell them that an agency that was supposed to work for different countries, ended up growing into this behemoth that no single country could control as that would just end up displaying his incompetence. Not to mention the fact that somebody had managed to detonate a nuclear warhead on American soil and despite knowing who it was, they had gotten away with it scot-free.

As expected, President Elliot's face darkened at the implied allegation that was levied against his administration but before he could respond, the Russian President Vladimov interjected with a look on his face that clearly showed how much he was enjoying it, "Yes, I would like to know about that as well. Please begin with that."

Amused by the political byplay happening, Daisy gestured to him with a 'stage is all yours' gesture, "All yours, boss."

"Well, the technology used is very basic in my opinion but the tools required to make it worthwhile are complex and I am not aware of any country that currently has them so I'll just be blunt here, we, as an organisation, have no plan of distributing any sort of technology, either one with military or medical applications, directly to any country but," and here his eyes scanned the entire crowd, "we will be helping the planet become radiation free by scrubbing the sites of major nuclear disasters for free. Be it Japan," He continued while glancing towards the Russian President, "or Russia. Our commitment will remain the same. In fact, Alfred?"

'Yes?" Alfred perked up at the question.

"Just put it on the list for repairs that we have to do on the planet and make sure it's done on a priority basis."

"It will be done, My Lord." His eyes twitched at the blatant roleplaying of Alfred as he had assumed his stereotypical butler attire and was currently bowing at the waist.

"Anyway," he said while looking back to the Japanese diplomat, "My team will soon be at the affected areas and while I don't think it will be helpful, I can guarantee that after they are done, the area will have the least radiation effects you can imagine."

"Alright, next ques-" Daisy's words got stuck in her mouth as there was a significant commotion at the entrance of the assembly where a security member was whispering something furiously in the ears of the Head of the UN Security.

Whatever he heard made the security look straight into Ed's eyes after that and whilst making eye contact, he nodded slowly and dismissed his aide and started speaking something in his comms, never losing eye contact with him.

At the same time, security agents of their respective countries reached President Elliot and President Vladimov, and judging by the shocked looks on their faces that they quickly hid behind their masks, it would seem that the news had just reached them.

"If you wouldn't mind me interrupting the session, Mr.Ed, can you confirm if the carrier floating right above the building is yours, and if yes, can you please relocate it since it is violating multiple federal and international laws regarding UN safety and not to mention, the stringent Aviation rules", the security guard from earlier said into a mic while not even flinching as the complete attention of all the diplomats present in the meeting and more importantly, the collective weight of the attention of six S-class combatants fell on him.

Well, he had to give him credit for that. Most people, even the trained ones, would have fallen from the pressure alone. So, before he could reply, Frank did so on his behalf.

"Yes, the carrier above the building is ours, which should be all the more obvious to you since our logo is shining on it and No, it will not be moving from this building as long as our leader is here. Standard Safety Procedures, you understand right, Brian?" Frank smirked at the security guard with whom he seemed to have some sort of history.

Realisation slowly filled Brian's eyes as he looked at Frank as if he had seen a ghost. "I, uh, I thought you had died, Mr.Castle. Though, with all due respect, sir, I am going to have to ask you to move the carrier, or else the local military will take over and then." Brian looked at President Elliot when he said, "I won't have a say in how the situation would be handled and we have had more than enough shocks today."

Frank's face slowly lost its smile as he said, "Well, Brain, my boy, I don't think you understand but this is the safety of our leader we are talking about and we won't be budging an inch when it comes to that and more importantly, I don't think Mr.President here would mind since it makes this place the safest place on the planet and I am sure nobody would mind that, right?" Frank questioned the entire audience whose heads began bobbing up and down like chickens although their agreement might have been more due to Frank's menacing aura that he had activated and less due to their own thoughts about general safety.

Brian was about to say more when his hand went to his comms and somebody ordered him to do something since he gave up on convincing us about moving the carrier and instead left the room while speaking furiously with the person on the other side of the comms.

"Now that we don't have any distractions, can we continue?" Daisy, as the self-appointed host of this question and answer session, said.

"What does your organisation hope to achieve with the clear display of your might? What are your organisation's goals? You said earlier that it was to help humanity. Well, I have not seen you people in the multitude of disasters that struck various countries before the invasion." The German Chancellor, who was in town for a meeting, asked Ed. She had a personal stake in the matter as just a few years before the invasion of New York, a devastating flash flood hit parts of Germany, resulting in the deaths of over a hundred people.

Sadness flashed through Ed's eyes as he replied, "Sigh, I am truly sorry for your loss and I am not just saying that as an empty platitude because while I could not help you overtly, owing to the hard-earned secrecy around our organisation, I helped you in the way I could, the monetary way. And I know that money, in no form or amount, could compensate for the lives lost, at least I knew that it helped their next of kin and helped build back the infrastructure better. I also made sure that the money reached its intended place."

Eyes widening in realisation, she said, "So, it was you." and sat back down on her seat, "I have no more questions." She said, much to the shock and protest of the people standing behind her, who, from the looks of it, were her staff. It was understandable, after all, their senior just gave up the chance to ask very important questions to very important people.

Ed, using his powers and connections, had managed to make a truly absurd amount of money and while he, himself, had no use for it, it was a convenient tool to make sure that his employees had all the proper perks and benefits they deserved while serving his organisation. It was also important to have a foothold in the economy since many people who had joined him lead double lives or had families that were unrelated or unknowing of their cause and money was something that made the world go round.

He could see all the spy agents that were present inside the crowd make a mental note of that so they could try and track down the channels through which he made the payment, hoping to get to his civilian identity on the planet as if he had any. He was comfortable revealing that part of his charity since the company they used could be burned without ever revealing the true conglomerate that they had built in the background. It was quite clever on Ed's part in making a company that was able to reach the intended size they had in mind to be able to employ their agents as well as pay them without anybody being suspicious all the while avoiding anybody who could figure out the true nature of their organisation like Tony Stark. That was half the reason they had avoided the tech field and instead chosen to expand into an extremely lucrative field like Cosmetics.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1893

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


To be Continued….

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 71.2

Technomancer in MCU

UN General Assembly Hall, New York

–Ed–

"As for your question regarding the display of our strength. Well, trust me when I say this that what you have seen is not even a third of our total strength. Secondly, the goals of our organisation are as straightforward as I said earlier. The goal is to help humanity. The way that I think is going to be the no-nonsense route would be better surrounding for humanity, i.e. healing the planet and making sure that any unruly visitors from outer space don't end up destroying human society as we know, well, that is the goal, at last until our society, as a whole, is capable of doing that on their own."

"Do you have anything that can support your claims?"

"You mean, something like the literal invasion that happened recently?" That question shut up one of the French delegates who was interrupting him.

"Foolish questions aside, we will actually be sharing basic information packets regarding the overall scenario of the galaxy we reside in. I had done the same when I had first met the US President but will do so again since international information exchange seems to be nonexistent to me."

All eyes went towards President Elliot whose face darkened even more at the implied failure. He was sure that Elliot hated him more than anybody in this room at the moment and if he didn't know for a fact that Elliot had absolutely no chance of remaining President for long, he would not have blatantly provoked and angered him in such a manner.

"We have received reports from the deceased Director Fury that you have access to spaceships and he even suggested the truly absurd idea of you having some sort of launch pad on the moon. Is that true?"

He nodded and replied, "Yes, it is true. We do have a base of operations on the moon since nobody actually owns it and as one of the first humans to have the capability, we built a base on it. And we do own multiple spaceships and have travelled extensively throughout the galaxy using them and No, I will not be selling those. A previously given commitment to President Elliot will be fulfilled when I send a representative to NASA as well as all the other major space-faring organisations in hopes of talking with them to find out the best way you could use our infrastructure academically, not militarily. In fact, the carriers that you can see if you go out are all capable of traveling through space. They just don't have the FTL technology required to make them viable for intragalactic travel."

Shocked silence was all that could be seen in the hall at his reply. It was understandable since he had just given them an understanding of just how far ahead they were and how laughable any sanction they could put on him, would be. Essentially, he had won the race or marathon and all of them would have to struggle to even catch up to the current him, let alone the level he would reach by the time they managed to become capable of traversing the space around them.

"Next question, please?" Daisy said. The whole hall was silent as it was still processing the magnitude of the words he had said before. Only one of them regained their bearings fast enough to respond.

"Yes, I would like to ask about any chance of an exchange, technological or military, that could happen between us as a nation or as an organisation. I would also like to add that this could help add a layer of legitimacy to your organisation that could help open more doors for you," President Vladimov said in the mic that suddenly appeared in his hand with an interested gleam in his eyes. Credits to him though, since he didn't even flinch when that happened even though his own security definitely did.

Ah, what a typical question from a Russian. As for his question, "Out of the question. We are working on an initiative that could help us establish bridges when it comes to the science of healing but even that is ripe with opportunities for abuse and as such, we will not be dealing in any technology that has potential for military applications and while I do realise that almost any sort of technology has a military application, I myself believe that even showcasing that something is possible, is dangerous since us humans have an uncanny ability to make imagination reality."

Whatever President Vladimov was about to say got stuck in his throat as President Elliot uttered a question, "Are you?" With the entire room's attention on him, he cleared his throat and reiterated, "Are you human, and more importantly, the ones we saw in the video, are they human?"

Ah, he could see Elliot's play here. He wanted to separate the enhanced ones from humans and play on the mass mentality here, negating any sort of public relations advantage the Ascendency might have had before going into this meeting. Truly, no politician is clean.

"Let me stop you right there. I am human. The people you see in the video are humans as well. Everybody in the world has seen aliens and while there are species that look remarkably similar to us, I am sure that by now everybody can at least recognise humans and no, the people with their powers does not make them aliens or different from humans in any way. They are just a subset of humanity that will be accepted as such." Ed replied vehemently, clearly passionate about the subject.

The President was taken aback at the intensity of the reply but before he could get a word in, Ed continued, "As a matter of fact, today I am going to introduce all of you to someone who you might try to term as an outsider but they are humans just like you me, with just a tiny bit extra to make them even more special. Let me introduce you to the subspecies of Inhumans." He then gestured to an empty space beside him where a golden portal opened up, courtesy of Alfred, and Black Bolt and Medusa came out of it, all decked out in their traditional royal attire. They nodded and sat down on the hard light chairs that appeared underneath them.

"So, let me give you guys a bit of a history lesson. Back when Humanity had nobody, like yours truly, to protect it from advanced species like the Kree, it was visited by said advanced warlike species. They had come in the hopes of using the then-humans as experimental subjects to help them develop super soldiers of their own. You see, they were in a thousand-year war that had already destroyed multiple habitable planets and billions in lives so they were pretty desperate for a trump card to help end the war and destroy their opponents once and for all. So, they experimented on ancient Humans and actually succeeded in creating a new breed of Super soldiers but they succeeded a little too well and in the end, Humans, as we do when there is injustice done to us, rose in rebellion and managed to destroy the outpost. Some stayed to take over the outpost and some ran away. Unfortunately, the Kree sent in something bigger on the food chain and they destroyed the Inhumans that stayed at the outpost, thinking that they successfully destroyed all traces of the experiments and then left. The surviving ones established a hidden colony on the planet and have remained hidden since then. Until now."

He then said while gesturing to Black Bolt and Medusa, "They are the current King and Queen of the New Attilan settling of Inhumans and yes, their residence is hidden and its secrecy is enforced by us so I would advise that you don't look for them but I know you'll try anyway so all the best to you for that."

Black Bolt cleared his throat and he could see Daisy flinch minutely in fear of the suppressor failing and Black Bolt essentially destroying the UN building since he had become even more powerful after being able to speak properly and overcoming his mental blocks that had been created in his childhood, "Greetings. I am Blackagar Boltagon and I am the King of New Attilan. We have been historically calling ourselves as Inhumans but as Ed rightfully pointed out, we are anything but. We are just a subspecies of Humanity and should not forget that. As a step in that direction, we have collectively decided to call ourselves T-metahumans, T indicating the Terragenesis process we have to go through in order to gain our powers. Now, I am sensing a lot of questions that could be thrown our way and I understand your curiosity but as I understand it, Alfred and Ed here have an announcement that would be immensely helpful and make all this questioning moot." He then sat back while gesturing to Ed, as the mic appeared in front of Ed.

"You would be correct. Alfred, if you could do the honors."

"Yes, my Lord," Alfred replied as a huge hard light screen depicting a standard web browser opened up for all the diplomats in the room to see appeared in the center. On the screen, a textbox appeared that displayed the words - Alfred GPT.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we introduce you to our very first public outreach line that would be made available to anyone with an internet connection. The first users will be you guys and I hope you guys find all the answers that you would need from us. It will all be available on the website - "AlfredGPT.com". Now, we have a lot of work to do ahead of us so bye now." Daisy said in a very showman spirit as a portal opened up and began sliding towards them horizontally, effectively swallowing them. He could also see Alfred give out the order for the superclass carrier to become visible for all of Earth to see and for the Ascendency logo to become extra large for all the satellites to catch its size. Truly, Alfred was insidious. He was sure that some people in the military were going to shit their pants and the engineers and nerds were going to cream their pants once they realised the tech it was holding and how it was effectively a large city. Especially since they would be getting all the information they needed from Alfred's chatbot. Honestly, he had no hope of it working but human loneliness could be a dangerous thing that could make humans extremely desperate so he could give it a shot and see if anybody was foolish enough to use it regularly, outside of the intelligence people whose very jobs depended on it.

The cries of the people hoping for them to stay went unanswered as they appeared in the control room of the Supercarrier with Jake dutifully waiting for them.

"Welcome aboard everyone, the mission was a success and we have successfully neutralised the Dreaming Celestial, Tiamut."

Yeah, and there was that. Finally, he could rest easy knowing that the planet-destroying parasite was now safely inert.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1901

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[Spearow]

"Welcome aboard everyone, the mission was a success and we have successfully neutralised the Dreaming Celestial, Tiamut."

Click to shrink...

Why?
he could just wait for the eternals to deal with it.

Now instead of the judge getting furious with the eternals he is going to get angry with ed.

Tiamut was not even the main concern, the seed EGO left on earth was an active threat to all humanity, the year in the fic is 2012~~2013, tiamut would only be a problem in 2020~2022, he had 8 years to try to reach out to the eternals.

Hell discount superman will probably storm the UN as soon as phastos tells the rest of the gang that a celestial died on earth, not to mention the arishen(no idea how to spell his name), will come for vengeance.

Is this all a set up to kill the boss of the eternals? Is he going to try and harvest his organs?

 

[readsalot]

Why?
he could just wait for the eternals to deal with it.

Now instead of the judge getting furious with the eternals he is going to get angry with ed.

Tiamut was not even the main concern, the seed EGO left on earth was an active threat to all humanity, the year in the fic is 2012~~2013, tiamut would only be a problem in 2020~2022, he had 8 years to try to reach out to the eternals.

Hell discount superman will probably storm the UN as soon as phastos tells the rest of the gang that a celestial died on earth, not to mention the arishen(no idea how to spell his name), will come for vengeance.

Is this all a set up to kill the boss of the eternals? Is he going to try and harvest his organs?

Click to shrink...

ITs better for Ed to deal with it earlier, less chance of things messing up and if he decided to wait it out, he might as well have not bothered creating his organisation and interfering with events and let everything happen like in canon.

With his tech and Alfred power up, I'm pretty sure they can match a celestial soon, especially the Judge, if not the if there is any kind of signal that's sent to the Judge from Tiamut it can be hijacked and send a "all clear, everything is going well" so that the judge won't bother earth, and Most likely won't for thousands of years.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Interlude VII

Technomancer in MCU

The Asterisk

–Helen Cho–

When she first felt herself coming back to consciousness after the debacle with Alfred's body, she found herself nearly drowning in panic when she realised that she could not feel anything in her body and feared the worst.

Then, she realised the place that she was in was the advanced regenerative nutrient solution that she had read about during her early days in the organisation. She calmed down when she recalled the fact that the nutrient solution also acted as a powerful anesthetic that helped calm the entire body down and prevent the patient from panicking inside the pod filled with liquid that could drown them.

During her time in the tube, as the doctors called it, she faded in and out of consciousness but the one thing that remained in her mind was the fact that she had survived and she had not done anything wrong by helping Alfred.

Judging by the fact that she was being looked after by the most helpful Maria Castle herself who could not stop apologizing for the huge misunderstanding that had occurred during times of high emotions it still made her chuckle, even after being out of the tube and into the mandatory observation wards.

Something like that pesky observation time stuck around, even after having surpassed every possible metric when it came to advancement in the medical field.

"Hey, are you doing alright? Once again, I am so so sorry for the way we treated you that day," Maria said while coming into her medical room, a tray of food and medicines floating along behind her.

Her face took on an exasperated look as she took Maria's hand into her own, "Oh, come on. I forgive you now. I understand the circumstances of that time were extremely dire and I was somehow caught in the middle of it all so while I was definitely upset that I was punished, it is behind me now, and besides, I have been duly compensated, as you very well know."

Maria gently clapped her shoulders and said, "Oh, nonsense. That body tune-up is nothing compared to what we owe you. I don't know what was going through our minds, practically sentencing you to imprisonment without even listening to your side of the story, I am truly sorry. And don't you worry, if anything and I do mean anything like this happens again, you tell me and I'll make it straight. Helping Alfred the way you did, you are one of us now. And don't you worry, you are next in line for the highest tier of enhancement we have now."

Helen smiled at her repeated reassurances and after a while, finally said bitterly, "It's my spine, isn't it?"

"Wh-What?" Maria asked her nervously.

"The damage done. It is to my spine, isn't it? That is why you have me on exo skeleton support, why I am getting multiple tune-ups and enhancements without even asking even though I know for a fact that the procedures are only done on people after borderline mind raping them to ascertain their true allegiances?"

"Dr.Cho, you have to calm down. It is not as bad as you think. The exoskeleton is just a precaut-"

"I am a doctor and I have been here for over a year now and I know what the procedures are in case of advanced spinal damage. For God's sake, I wrote some of those procedures myself so stop LYING TO ME!" She took a deep breath to calm down her nerves but it was hard to do so.

When Maria didn't reply, tears gathered in her eyes as she raised her hand towards Maria, "Just give me my file and leave, please. I am not in the mood to talk. You can tell Ed that I'm done working for him. I don't want any more of my life ruined because of him and his precious son. I don't want any more favours from you people."

Maria nodded silently and after giving her the necessary temporary clearance to access her files, left the ward silently.

Slowly, she lifted her trembling hands, trembling due to the fear of what she could find inside the file or trembling due to the damage done to her fucking spine, she was not aware and she didn't want to find out as well, and tapped on the holo screen that had popped up in front of her with a mental ping.

Her trembling finger hovered in front of the file icon for a long while before she gathered her courage and pressed Open. Immediately, the file opened and displayed a rather long list of tests and results that had been done on her while she was asleep.

At the beginning of the result list though, was a note from Alfred of all people. Curious as to what he had to say about that, she opened it and a note popped out of the file. It read - "Dr.Cho has experienced severe genetic and mental overdraw due to the properties of enriched celestial brain fluid that was injected into her spine to help stimulate her brain to the required levels that were necessary in making my body in the reduced timeframe. Further tests show adverse effects on the soul as well. Possible remedies include the supersoldier procedure but due to the weakness of Dr.Cho's soul, it nullifies any possible solution that would involve directly upgrading or ascending Dr.Cho as a whole. Possible solutions would be back-to-back procedures with increasing intensity to make her body and soul stronger gradually but then it is not guaranteed to return her body back to her normal lifespan. All signs indicate to Dr.Cho's lifespan being reduced to a mere decade, even after enhancements and as such, Mystical procedures are the only option left to lengthen her life span…."

On and On it went, hundreds of logs depicting all the options along with the simulations that Alfred performed to help her body, mind, and soul heal.

"In conclusion, further research is necessary but current knowledge indicates that the Sovereign race possesses the knowledge to help Dr.Cho, and along with lost Mystic knowledge that can be found in the old hotspots of magic deep in space, Dr.Cho's lifespan can be reversed back to her normal human one but anything beyond that remains to be the domain of either the Celestials or the Infinity Stones," she whispered the last part, slumping back in her bed as the reality of her situation kicked in for her.

If Alfred, even in his now enhanced form, could not find out a way to cure her completely of her affliction, she didn't think that there was any way she could do anything by herself. She was very well aware of just how advanced Alfred's current body was and what he could do with it. In her drunk-on-power state, she had glimpsed on the notes that Alfred had made in preparation for his body and if even half of that was achieved, he was probably the strongest being on the planet right now.

But, what use was that of to her? Here she was, basically crippled for life and even if by some miracle, the procedures done on her didn't drive her crazy, all that would give her were a normal human lifespan with severely limited mental capacity to do anything.

Her whole academic life turned upside down in an instant. Alfred had basically used her and pumped her with enhancing drugs without her consent, made her help him build his body and all she was left with was a destroyed nervous system and worst of all, she didn't even know what the damage to her soul was and how it affected her life. It had all gone to shit in a few days time.

Honestly, the only thing stopping her from committing suicide was the fact that she could see her reports being updated in real-time, showing Alfred still working on a cure for her. Possible solutions were being updated, simulated, and rejected by Alfred all in the span of time it took her to blink.

Huh, so maybe the bastard felt something and was working on making it right.

But after she read the preceding reports, she realised why Alfred had said that it was basically impossible to cure her without literally warping reality.

Alfred had given her some part of a celestial and temporarily sustained her body by basically attaching her to a vibranium-brain mixture machine that helped her mind make proper use of the advanced hardware she had access to and accelerate her thinking processes and while it had worked, evidenced by Alfred's otherworldly body, it had left its marks on her brain and soul.

According to the notes Alfred had left, while it was possible to repair the physical damage done to her brain, it was not possible to do the same for her soul. It had to heal naturally and to heal the biological damage done, they needed a healthy soul.

It was a vicious cycle that would just leave her dead in the end.\

She gave a strangled laugh at that. It was just her luck, the very process of healing her would take so much time that she would be long dead before the process actually reversed any damage done to her.

Still, not all hope was lost. She could see Alfred adding a design for a machine that could harness the power of the Infinity Stones and heal her but then saw something that made her blood boil.

It was a note left by Alfred that basically indicated that doing so would not just heal her but also elevate her to the same level of lifeform as a celestial and he was not sure if it was the right thing to do.

She just wanted to rip something apart at this point.

Her life had just become numbers to be simulated and manipulated by the Almighty Alfred.

Just then, she realised something and tapped another button to activate the TV. A stereotypical TV frame sprang to life in front of her, showing the conference that Ed was taking, and while she could not see the signs of it, she was sure that the damage done to him was also not healed.

She took deep calming breaths and aided by the CHI microinjections in her body, she soon calmed down and started thinking rationally of the entire scenario.

If the same sort of soul damage that was done to her was also the cause of Ed'd condition, then there was a chance that she could be healed. Especially since she knew that Alfred would rather destroy an entire civilisation than let Ed die so if Ed lived, there was a chance that she would as well.

Secondly, even if she wanted to, where could she go? She was literally in the best place there could be and the same place hurt her to the extent of nearly killing her.

The irony was not lost on her.

The only thing she could do right now was stay put and hope that Alfred comes up with something since she could clearly see him trying. She was going to be of no help to the organisation after this as her mental faculties were clearly damaged in some ways and even if she could, she would not want to.

After what she had gone through, retirement sounded nice.

It was a good thing that Ascendency's retirement package sounded more like something that could be given to an Ex-President and not something to be given to a researcher

At Least she would not have to worry about money ever in her life.

That was good, was the last thought that went through her mind before the drugs began working and she went back to sleep.

________________________________________________________________
Word Count - 1999 (lol)

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A / N - It is a truly sad scenario for Dr.Cho.

In Alfred's defense, he was not truly thinking straight and somewhere in the back of his mind, nearly everybody except a select few are just numbers and tools to him. His morals, while solid, credit to Peggy and Ancient One, can be ignored due to his single minded dedication to Ed and his purpose. So, during the phase where his emotional logic driven centers had shut down, it seemed perfectly fine to dose a regular human with literal God-blood and use her enhanced brain to make a tool that would help save his creator. It didn't even cross his mind until after he had gotten the body that he had just nearly destroyed the life of Helen Cho. And yes, over the course of the entire conference, he has been looking for a way to heal Helen and the only way he has found that will work with reasonable certainty are the Infinity Stones, which would also turn her into a being possibly stronger than even Captain Marvel and he is understandably cautious about doing that to someone who has every right to hate him and Ed.

So, well see what happens next after Ed and the others return from the conference and Ed meets Cho.

Until then, stay tuned.

Thanks for reading!

Toodles!

 

[readsalot]

Oof that's too bad for Dr. Cho, hopefully this won't turn into a revenge thing with her and she will go into retirement.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Interlude VIII.I

Technomancer in MCU

New York

–Alie Brieson–

He had been doing his homework when he was alerted by the shouts of his family downstairs. He rolled his eyes as they had been doing the same for the past hour or so as the news kept coming in about the death of some or the other famous person dying in an accident or being killed by some armed forces of some sort.

He was following it as well, it was being played on his iPad nearby. The only interesting tidbit he had heard so far was the existence of soldiers with superpowers who were carrying out these assassinations and that was what they were.

Assassinations done in broad daylight. Plain and simple.

He had looked into some of the people who were killed and had come to the simple conclusion that almost all of them were some of the most disgusting human beings to ever grace the planet Earth. Murder, Rape, Child Rape, extortion, human trafficking, smuggling, corruption, the list went on and on.

There was never a reason to worry about the deaths of scum like these people. The reason most people were in an uproar was due to the fact that they were being done mostly randomly since he could see that not all corrupt people were being killed so he could not figure out the pattern yet. Although, running an algorithm would be terribly easy.

And there he was, again losing sight of his studies and getting distracted easily.

He tried to. He really did but the news coming out of the Triskelion was really interesting and as such, he was not able to contain his curiosity and ended up firing up his PC to start poking around for news.

While he was not good enough for the hacker collective Rising Tide, he had dabbled enough in the borderline criminal branch of computer science to know where to look for information about secret events that was not being shared with the public at large.

Opening up one of the links, he was instead redirected to one of the live streams that were being piggybacked off the government spy cameras present on site. He could see the wreckage of the building nearby as one of the carriers had crashed into it, utterly destroying the structure.

The smoking wreckage of the six helicarriers was also visible, as were the people who had just destroyed the HQ of the largest spy agency in the world.

Well, it was final then. Somebody was trying to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D and they were being utterly focused and precise in their endeavour.

A metaphorical light bulb lit up in his head as he went back to the list of the people who were confirmed dead and cross-referenced the data and somehow the picture became even clearer. The people that had been offed by those magnificent suit wearing bastards were interconnected through a single link – S.H.I.E.L.D.

One way or another, these people were determined to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D once and for all, it would seem. Going after ministers and billionaires seemed a bit far for him but what did he know about international politics and spy wars?

Finding out more and more about their targets helped draw a clearer picture as he began unearthing more and more links between the targets until he had compiled a significant document that showed incriminating links between these people, S.H.I.E.L.D and some other group that was shrouded in secrecy.

"Alie!" he heard his mom shout for him from downstairs.

"Coming," he shouted while pressing send on the upload document forum to send the evidence that he had gathered but halfway through, an old man in a butler cosplay appeared on his cosplay and wagged his finger at him disappointingly.

Then he disappeared, leaving his computer screen spic and span, wiping out any progress he had made on the chase. He would have tried more but he recognized the person who had appeared on his screen and it was none other than the legendary Alfred who had also appeared on screen during the destruction of the carriers.

Leaving the room, he stomped down the stairs into the hall, "What is it, Mom? And It better not be another conspiracy theorist."

He received no reply but once he saw what was being broadcasted on TV, it became clear as to why the entire family was silent.

Mom and Dad were sitting on the sofa with their jaws agape in shock and Grandpa, Grandpa was crying angry tears while looking at the reporter speaking.

"…it has been uncovered that the spy organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D had been infiltrated by H.Y.D.R.A, yes, the same H.Y.D.R.A that everyone thought Captain America had destroyed but apparently, we were all wrong. They had used Operation Paperclip to infiltrate all levels of government and the heinous crimes they had committed while enjoying the highest levels of authority throughout the globe are too many to list. Experts suggest that there might be even more evidence to uncover that could further implicate S.H.I.E.L.D and H.Y.D.R.A. It has also been confirmed that all the people who have been hunted down and killed across the globe are confirmed members of H.Y.D.R.A. Stay tuned as we deliver the highest quality news…"

He realized why Grandpa was crying now.

"It was all in vain. I knew something was wrong when everybody started dying randomly. It was them, Ben, they killed all my friends." He had never seen Grandpa this vulnerable before. He was usually the rock of the family, the stereotypical retired military grandpa. He hugged his Grandpa to comfort him in the only way he knew how.

"They killed them all, Alie. They killed all my friends." He kept repeating the same thing, breaking his heart in the process. Eventually, the tears dried up and he was taken to his room to give him his meds to calm him down.

With Dad and Mom going with Grandpa, he sat down on the sofa and unmuted the TV, hoping to get any more news since his PC had been wiped clean of everything by Lord Alfred himself and from what he had heard from leaks on online chat boards, Alfred was a fully sentient AI and he had no chance in hell taking him on so he just browsed the different news channels to find out more about the incident that had happened.

Last he heard, Ed and his people had called a UN emergency assembly, and unsurprisingly, every single country had accepted and they were all sending their representatives to the meeting that was scheduled to happen in a few hours.

It was understandable after the display these guys were done destroying the literal pinnacle of weaponry that the United States could muster after literally burning money every step of the way.

The three carriers floating above them made a very intimidating sight as expected and the way they were used during the invasion of New York was not something that anybody on the planet could forget and from the looks of it, these carriers were the same formation that was used to generate a barrier that held off a fucking nuclear blast in them.

Just as he was about to head back to his PC, he saw the members of the military had finally broken through the barricade around the triskelion and reached the hangar area where the rubble of the helicarrier was being inspected by the members of Ed's teams.

He leaned forward in anticipation of what the military would do, what the military could do to Ed and the people with him. Because last he remembered, Ed and the others had access to suits that were far more advanced than even Stark's, and the dumbasses in the military would be hard-pressed to deal with Stark, let alone the likes of Ed who probably walked around with more firepower than a small army base on a regular day.

But Ed spoiled all his mood as they all just disappeared and the carriers soon followed them. He watched that with raised eyebrows as while he could digest the fact that Ed and his team members disappeared but the carriers disappearing from the area near instantly was a little hard to swallow. He knew that they had not just gone into stealth mode and actually left the area because not a moment later, the fighter jets that had been circling the carriers sent flares in the area the carriers were in and the flares just passed through that area without hitting anything.

With nothing to do and unwilling to risk the wrath of Lord Alfred, he just hung out in the living room, switching between different TV channels to see the reactions of different tv news hosts as they dramatised the events of today.

Soon, the time of the conference came and while the press was not allowed in the assembly hall due to special circumstances, it did not stop them from seeing the arrivals and departures from the UN Headquarters.

The most interesting arrival, after the fact that all five heads of state of the permanent security council members had arrived, was the arrival of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. On the screen, he could see the media trying to ask questions to Stark who seemed to take it all in stride, and Banner who seemed extremely nervous to be there but with Stark's personal security along with UN security, they were soon escorted into the building.

Whatever happened in the building was being leaked in real time to chat groups on the internet that were being banned one after the other but the gist of it was that the group that was responsible for saving New York was called Ascendancy and not only did they have ways of creating super soldiers that would eat the super soldiers of old for breakfast, they also had allies in the form of an ancient subset of humanity that literal blue aliens had experimented on and they had gotten genetic level superpowers as a result.

How cool was that!

They had also announced some sort of website where they had a chatbot that would answer everybody's questions.

Stumbling on his way to his room, he slammed the door open and started his computer, surprised to find the web browser open and the same website open on his desktop with a small Alfred emoji winking at him from the corner.

Damn, it was as if he was a mind reader. For all he knew, he very well could be one.
Oh, he was going to have so much fun with the website.

First things first, he needed to know if he could also get superpowers.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1848

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


To be continued…

A/N - [Well, what can I say? Except Enjoy the filler, I guess.]

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Interlude VIII.II

Technomancer in MCU

Stark Tower

–Tony "Iron Man" Stark

While they were unable to secure a meeting with Ed and the others, their worst fears did not come true. But the aftermath of the assembly could not be described as anything less than disastrous.

Not only did Ed not even listen to what the US and the other permanent members of the council had to say, they came in guns blazing and left with even more gun blazing.

When he thought of the city-sized base that was floating just above them, it still gave him chills.

Seriously, how did something of that mass even float? And even if it did, how did it stay together without it crumbling under its own weight?

More and more questions to which he had no answer to.

Luckily, he had just the source to turn to for all his questions.

"Jarvis, any closer to cracking the website?" He asked Jarvis while looking at the screen which showed code that looked more and more alien as the time passed by. It was as if it was adapting to all the hacking attempts that must have been happening to it in real time since he was sure that Jarvis was not the only one who was repeatedly hammering away at the website's defenses until it all crumbled down.

But, honestly? What did he expect from the likes of people who managed to make a literal floating space city?

According to Jarvis, it would take him millions of years to crack the current code using the state-of-the-art processing power he has access to, ignoring the fact that the code is ever-evolving. Honestly, it was like they were trying to hack Alfred or something.

"Alright, Tony, we both know Jarvis is not going to succeed so why don't we just use the website the regular way instead of trying to break into the property of someone who walks around with their own personal city that they can just drop on anyone that annoys them? I for one would like to remain non-squished." Bruce said to him and closed the monitoring window.

No matter what anybody said, he did not pout and even if he did, it was a very manly pout.

"Okay, let's see," Bruce said while opening up the website on the hologram and typing the very first thing that he was looking for, "What was the ship that followed you guys after the UN assembly ended?"

Then, the screen asked for verification in the form of a photo. Bruce looked at him quizzically but he didn't hesitate to give the required access from his control console, making Bruce sigh exasperatedly.

"Welcome, Dr.Danner, and why yes, the ship that followed us was the highest level of technology we can make right now, and internally, it is called the superclass carrier. We have yet to name it but once we do, we will update it on our website." Chimed a happy voice from the web page, answering all their questions.

Followed by the answer were really detailed schematics of the ship, which was entirely wrong since nothing with that much space inside it, could be called a ship. The more he looked over the schematics of the ship, the more his mind became numb to the shocks he had received today," Tony, are you looking at this?"

He didn't even receive any answer since Tony was way too busy furiously going through the schematics of the engine bays that powered the entire ship. He kept getting 'Access denied' messages in red block letters but kept on searching for the engines that would allow for such a large city to float.

Before Bruce could say anything though, Tony turned to him and said, "They have a city they can put in space and I can't even put a small building with my name on it. This sucks."

Pepper sighed, "Tony, can we focus on the important things now? This is probably the best way to search for information. Look, millions of people must have already used it and got most of the answers we were searching for. Why don't you look for that?"

He and Bruce both looked at each other at the suggestion. Why didn't that thought pop into their minds?

As if given a signal, both of them began furiously searching for any hidden chat boards where AlfredGPT was being discussed. IT wasn't really hard since all people could talk about right now was AlfredGPT but it was difficult to find websites with actual answers to them since it would seem that the website required authentication and based on that, granted access to information.

"Hey, what's your name?" Tony asked the bot.

"My name is Victor, Designation - Pepper's Boy Toy '' the bot replied, making Pepper nearly choke on her drink. "Wh-What did you say?" she asked in between coughs. Tony cackled in the background.

"Wa–Wait, does it mean th-that," Tony said in between wheezes, "in your database, my name is Pepper's Boy Toy?" He then promptly doubled over in laughter.

Completely red-faced, Pepper yelled, "Tony! This is not funny. Who knows how many people have access to that information now." Tony tried, he really did, but he just ended up wheezing some more.

"Alright, so I have some good news. Apparently, the chatbot requires facial and biometric authentication, based on which it designates a certain level of authority upon you. Using that authority, your clearance level is decided and consequently, the level of sensitivity of the information you have access to," Bruce said while sighing in relief. He was extremely worried that giving anybody access to information that Tony could access would most certainly lead to disaster. Fortunately, that was not the case.

"Yeah, I see it. People have asked about their organisation, their technology which went mostly unanswered, their current and future plans, list of members, events where they were involved, and so on and so forth. Bruce, most of these answers are really vague and most seem incomplete. It would seem that we would have to do this ourselves." Tony said while going through the list of replies that people had managed to gather from the chatbot.

"Let's see, verification done, and let's see if it gives us some sensitive information. How about a list of secret civilisations that Fury told us about?" Tony said while typing the question into the chatbot. Soon, the reply came and it was as follows -

Absolutely, let's add a touch of wit to it:

"Well, Pepper's inquisitive boytoy, prepare for a journey through the clandestine realms of our planet! Whispered rumors speak of Wakanda, the technological marvel hidden in plain sight, the elusive Atlantis beneath the waves, the subterranean Moloids carving their own world beneath our feet, and let's not forget the cleverly concealed Skrull settlement, silently observing us from the shadows."

"Wakanda? The really poor African country? How is that a technological marvel at any rate? And Atlantis? That's real?" Bruce whispered.

"That's got to be false, right? They are tricking us. Since when did Atlantis become real and what is this of Moloids?" Pepper said, panicking as she thought of the changing world and the role of her boyto-Ahem boyfriend in it.

"No, they are not the type to lie and I don't think anybody else would get access to this type of information. They are telling this to us for a reason. Uh, Victor, was it?" Bruce said while cleaning his spectacles, a nervous tick for him.

"Yes, Dr.Banner, what can I do for you on this fine day?"

"Uh, can you please elaborate on the hidden civilisations you just spoke about?"

"Certainly. There are multiple hidden civilisations that inhabit Earth and some of them are - "

Then the webpage shifted to show a scene depicting a certain utopia,

"This is Wakanda, the most technologically advanced country on the planet. They boast of the third largest vibranium reserve(second being us and first being a secret) on the planet and as such, were able to advance their country much faster than the rest of the world. We are talking about microchips when the rest of the world still ran on steam engines and the first plane had yet to take flight."

"Son of a bitch, Dad said that they were all out," Tony whispered while Pepper took his hand into her hand for comfort.

"Next is Atlantis, the underwater gem where another subspecies of humans live. Another palace with an abundance of Vibranium, this country boasts of a similar technological level as Wakanda but due to the fact that their King is able to command marine life and outfit the animals with their advanced weapon, they are clearly superior to any country on the planet. Contact is ill-advised as they are extremely hostile and only respond to brute force so should you have the strength of the Hulk while underwater, you may proceed,"

"Moloids are a race of human hybrids that are the results of an unfortunate experiment conducted on early humans and the animals found in that time period. They live in subterranean colonies that help them hide from the rest of the world. Their common characteristics are…"

On and on, it went about the various hidden civilisations that the planet Earth housed.

Looking at the pictures of Mole-Man, Namor, and his people, he couldn't help but say, "Oh my God. So, this is what Ed and the others have been dealing with."

Pepper looked at him in confusion, "What?"

"Look," he said while pointing to the figures of Namor and Mole man, "These people, they are the rulers of their respective civilisations and the fact that they have managed to stay hidden for so long is probably not a coincidence. I mean, just look at their attributes. Namor somehow has the strength to match the Hulk in terms of physical prowess and get this, he has unlimited stamina while underwater. Not to mention, all marine life listens to him. The threat he alone poses is unquantifiable but add in an entire advanced civilization behind him, no wonder Ed and the others don't put us in their eyes."

"The Invasion, the battle at the Triskelion, we keep thinking that they should be held accountable for this but what about the fact that they are probably the only ones keeping people like these," he pointed to Namor and the Mole Man where the webpage automatically shifted to show their attempts to harm the surface world, "at bay. What if they are the only reason why we are not worrying about survival and the world is not at war with a civilisation that has essentially unlimited soldiers and whose defeat is so intrinsically linked with ours that even fighting the battle is futile." Tony continued while the webpage continuously changed to show the different instances where Alfred or Ed came in clutch and stopped their attempts to damage something and reveal their existence to the world which would have ultimately led to war.

"Tony, what should we do with this information?" Bruce asked him as he kept on looking through the cache of information he had access to.

He hummed as he thought of the various options he had in front of him. From the favoritism shown by the generous gift of The Lab, he was acutely aware that not even the military could have access to this information and while he did think that people should know about the various hidden gems of the planet, he was also aware of what people behaved like when confronted with the unknown and how politicians could twist that unease over and over until all that remained was hatred and nothing more.

So, he chose the only option that seemed right to him. He swiped and deactivated all the instances and said, "Jarvis, see if Wakanda has a publicly available airport and if they do, tell them we are coming. Bruce, pack your bags, we are going on an African Safari or at least that's what we'll be telling them."

Bruce chuckled nervously as he kept on looking through the wealth of information they had access to. They could see the overall structure of the organisation. The number of enhanced people they had. The overall capabilities of their superclass carrier and all sorts of fascinating information was accessible to him. He hadn't been this excited ever since he finished the serum for Jen's treatment.

When he did not receive any reply, Bruce looked up and said, "What? I thought you were joking."

Tony rolled his eyes and left the room along with Pepper who looked incensed that they had booked another work trip without even consulting her.

________________________________________________________________

White House

–Matthew Ellis–

Throwing the report that had been compiled for him on the table in front of him, he looked up and saw that none of his staff was willing to even look him in the eye. For some reason, that pissed him off more than anything he had read in the goddamned report in front of him.

"So, gentlemen? Mind telling me how we have been unable to shut down that intelligence goldmine and how the hell did they conduct so many activities while being completely off the grid?" he asked everyone who was sitting in front of him and he was expecting an answer since the people in front of him actually had the gall to ask for hundreds of billions in budget and when the time came, couldn't even speak a single word.

"I said, speak dammit", he said while slamming his hands on the table, his disheveled appearance a haunting reminder to them that they had not slept ever since the announcement. The announcement that opened up and humanised the Ascendency organisation and destroyed all their plans of turning the public against them.

"Sir, the servers the website runs on are unreachable. Our best people have only been able to come up with a theory that is unproven at best. We have no possible way of shutting down that website without shutting down the entirety of the internet.", the deputy chief of NSA said.

He scoffed, "I understand that none of you can kill the website. What I want to know is why are they giving out information for free that you people cannot find after spending billions of dollars."

At that question, all of them shrank even more in their seats. Cowards, he scoffed inwardly.

"I want all the data that can be extracted from the website and I want it here yesterday, confirmed, do you understand? This Ed character needs to be dealt with. They have stolen everything that S.H.I.E.L.D ever gathered in its long life and we have to brand them as terrorists or if not that, then thieves at the very least for that. Gentlemen, with the show that everybody saw, my PResidency is all but gone and I would like to remove this hidden danger to America as my last act. You will have everything you might need. Dismissed"

Everybody shuffled quietly out of the room and once the office was empty, he let out a huge sigh that seemed to deflate him.

He was aware of why none of the heads came themselves and sent their second in command instead. They were aware that his presidency was a sinking ship and already, his competitors were running on supporting this GPT agenda and the running numbers shown had already confirmed his fears.

The next President was going to be someone who was going to replace S.H.I.E.L.D with the Ascendency and sell the power of America to these strangers.

The only thing left was for the Ascendency to overcome a seemingly undefeatable evil and they were set to elect the President who would say yes to their every decision.

________________________________________________________________

Atlantis

–Namor–

He rubbed his neck as the phantom pain from his fight with Alfred still lingered on. He was reading up on the daily reports in his office when a golden portal opened up in front of him and a strange hand simply plucked him from his office and tossed him into another one. One that led to an area void of life on the seabed.

There, he met with the true body of Alfred who gave him the beating of his lifetime. He had not been bested since he ascended to the Throne. Not even the champions of Poseidon could have hurt him this bad as the machine-made flesh did.

And then, to add salt to his wound, the machine healed him up completely, all by reattaching his wings and arms that had been torn apart during the course of their battle.

Alfred never said anything during the fight but to someone at their level, there was no need to say anything. He was quite aware of why Alfred had done so. It was because of his war mobilisations. He had gotten the news from one of the Mystics nearby that the Singularity and his guardian were indisposed of and it was the best time to take over the surface world but somehow, Alfred came back and beat the shit out of him.

His generals were confused but they would follow his orders. Attacking the surface world while it was being guarded by the Singularity would only result in needless bloodshed.

Besides, it was not as if all was lost. Alfred had left behind a detailed document that spelled out how they were going to basically destroy Ocean Pollution and when they were going to do it. If they were going to be half as successful, he would happily take another beating in exchange.

But the only reason his pride was not the one taking decisions and declaring war on Alfred and the Singularity was due to the fact that the person who was thrashing him, while being underwater, as if he was but a babe, was a mere clone. After beating him up, Alfred's body began shimmering and soon, it revealed itself to be a mere mystic clone, kept solid by the user's prowess in controlling dimensional energy.

For now, he would bide his time and safeguard his kingdom's borders for Namor knew when he was outmatched.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 3065

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A/N - I didn't want to make a part 3 but the damn ideas kept on coming and so we now have a 3k chapter. Even then, I have kept it short and cut out many of the snippets I wanted to write here.

This is also mostly a filler for now but in future chapters, I will link them to this interlude(like tony's impending visit to Wakanda and the can of global geopolitics that will open up there.)

Namor's POV is important because his country too will play an important role in the final battlefield.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 72

Technomancer in MCU

Aboard the Superclass Carrier

– Jake Diggle–

The tension in the room was so thick it felt like it could be cut by a knife. His entire crew along with Alfred were watching the progress bar on the screen as if their lives depended on it and in a sense, it did.

What they were about to do had only been done in the history of the Universe by maybe 2 people and that was killing a Celestial.

The ones that he was aware of were Knull and some obscure magic practitioner who was still alive and roaming the universe in search of the ultimate truth. He still had shivers when he saw the aftermath of the experiments the dark one left behind. The fear was magnified when he was informed that the only guideline Ed had for them if they ever encountered the dark one, was to flee and never look back, hoping that they might survive.

As he was lost in thought, there was a stereotypical ding sound as if something in the microwave was done cooking. He rolled his eyes internally at Alfred's shenanigans. It would seem that getting his own body and finally getting a taste of hormones has only made him more of a menace.

Looking at the screen, he could see the celestial brain matter being safely neutralised by the swarm of nanobots they had deployed which were specifically enriched in Celestial fluid which had fooled the internal defense systems of the celestial into thinking that it was its own blood, thereby rendering the immune system of the mighty celestial race moot. When the nanites managed to exit the huge body of the celestial without any signs of Arishem arriving, he finally exhaled a huge sigh of relief.

When he, along with his idiotic brother, was first made deputy of the superclass carrier, he was at first suspicious but later on, understood the reason behind Ed assigning them the flagship weapon of the organisation. Obviously, becoming the deputy came with its own host of benefits. Access to some of the highest levels of information available in the organisation was one such example.

His brother had been so engrossed in learning more and more about the cool aliens that littered the planets and more importantly, the cool alien chicks that he would have liked to bang, while he was more interested in learning about the planet they had called Home for their entire lives.

Just like the average Joe, he was quite aware that the government was not telling them the whole picture and he was not so arrogant as to think that they were the only living beings in the vast universe but after they had joined the organisation and got their powers, he had become increasingly obsessed with Earth and all the mysteries it housed in its relatively tiny body.

Imagine his surprise and dread when he found out that Earth was hosting one of the vaunted Celestials and not only that, it was an experiment done by the Celestials themselves. They were trying out something new with their planet.

Apparently, the reason Humanity's DNA was so adaptable to anything(Terragenesis, Infinity Stones, Dimensional Energy, Chaos Energy, Cosmic Energy) was because of the fact that one of the celestials slain by Knull in the past had crash landed on Earth and had chosen to spend its last few centuries(This is celestials we are talking about so even their last moments are stretched well into centuries instead of hours like us mere mortals) on Earth. The death of the Celestial resulted in its lifeblood flowing through the planet, giving birth to countless legendary figures that would end up shaking the entire universe.

One such figure was Lord Agomotto, the strongest practitioner of the Mystic Arts.

The experiment was that Arishem was curious as to what would happen should a celestial be born using the traditional method, i.e., killing off all native life on the planet and emerging from their cocoon, if the native life was already the product of a celestial voluntarily dying and giving its life essences to the planet's lifeforms. To that effect, he had already sent some of the Vibranium meteors to Earth that crash-landed in Wakanda, Atlantis, and Antarctica respectively. It was no coincidence that the largest store of Vibranium in their part of the galaxy could be found in the exact same continent that the Celestial's corpse could be found.

Theorised by Ed and further corroborated by research throughout the universe, Vibranium is actually the body material of Celestials and it is usually what makes up their outer shell. It's the cosmic energy manipulation of the celestials that enhances the Vibranium so much and why, after being separated from their bodies, it becomes just a metal with miracle properties, instead of being a reality-altering mythical material.

He had been horrified beyond belief when he found out that the planet they were so keen on protecting housed a being that could effortlessly destroy any opposition it could encounter. The more horrifying thing was that the only plan Ed had was contingent on some of the Eternals doing their job and the only backup plan that he could access with his clearance level was evacuating the planet and shifting the entire planet elsewhere, although Alfred claimed that it would not come to that.

He, along with Eric once he realised the severity of the matter, almost rebelled against Ed and Alfred because of their, frankly, idiotic plan. He immediately suggested a hands-on departmental head meeting and in that meeting, they came up with this plan. To neutralise the very core of the celestial, their brain, and making sure that their body remained inert and intact since they didn't want to invoke the wrath of Arishem and end up destroying any chance of humanity surviving. Along with Alfred's help and some unexpected notes found in the diary of one of the previous Sorcerer Supremes, they got to working on their plan.

A plan, initiated by Arishm to save their dying race, millions of years in the making, was finally destroyed by them, using nothing but human ingenuity(and Artificial Intelligence but it was made by Ed so his statement still counted).

Now, all that was left was for the conference to end so he could tell Ed and the others the good news and they could finally focus all their resources on healing Ed. Already, a significant portion of their missions were pushed back due to the resource lockdown that happened during Alfred's absence(which was idiotic in his opinion but since Alfred did succeed and get his body, he was not going to complain, to his face).

When the conference ended on that hilarious note(Alfred GPT. HA! He loved it.), Alfred lifted the curtains off the superclass carrier and for the first time in modern history, the Earth bore witness to the level of technological might that advanced civilisations can bring to bear should it come to war. He was sure that all the cogs in the military-industrial complex must have come to a halt when they saw the flying monstrosity that was his pride, the Superclass carrier.

Already, he could see radars and military systems across the world go haywire while detecting the carrier and the sheer mass it held. The radiation the Alpha cannons, even in their depowered states, gave off was staggering. Of course, it was harmless but that alone would make the world ballistic when it came to any future dealings with them.

He was not exactly sure why Alfred did that but he was sure he was not going to get an answer and with Alfred being on the same level as Ed, he did technically own the carrier so who was he to judge him. \

All this stress was getting to him. He was going to go on a long sabbatical once Thanos was defeated. He wanted no part in all the shit that would go down after Thanos was dealt with. As it is, they were going to be hard-pressed to defeat Thanos if all the conditions were not met.

When Ed and the others exited the portal that Alfred could apparently open in the carrier, he greeted them with the good news. The Dreaming celestial was finally no longer their problem now and as long as Arishem didn't find out about it in the coming centuries, Humanity would be fine. Besides, with the messed up sense of time that all the celestials seemed to have and all the communication channels between the Eternals and Arishem hijacked, he was not exactly worried about that. On the other hand, all the other Eternals might start searching for Ajak now that she had not contacted them for the annual meet thing they held that was always called by Ajak. But with her being predisposed, they might just have to eliminate all the Eternals, at least the ones who were being rowdy and not even trying to blend in.

Alfred began piloting the ship and along with the three mid-sized carriers acting as the vanguard, they began exiting the Earth's atmosphere. Getting rid of all the annoying UAVs that had begun following them, they swiftly became invisible once they exited the atmosphere, and once the carrier retook its position in orbit, the carriers were sent back on their way to the Earth bases.

Once the carrier was properly docked and the checks came back positive, his shoulders finally slumped in relief. This was his home and it had been for years now. In this place, he felt safe and while it was not exactly due to any special reason, he was about to give himself a holiday and relax when the alarms began blaring.

Sigh..What now?

But before he could do anything, a tidal wave of darkness seemed to spread throughout the carrier, knocking out most of his crew and the only reason he was even on his feet was due to the thin film of light elemental energy that their captain's suits emitted. He met Eric's eyes and they dashed towards Ed's location as fast as they could, uncaring of the many bodies that littered the ground since he could see on his HUD that they were all alive.

Right now, the more important thing was to protect Ed, even if came at the cost of their lives. While he was never an emotional person, cold hard logic dictated that should anything befall Ed, Alfred would go berserk and honestly, he feared a normal Alfred more than even Odin, let alone an Alfred that was not being held back by his love for Ed and Ed's morals.

So, with all their might, they dashed to the hallway when something happened that screamed danger to him.

Alfred had activated the final weapon of the carrier. The reason it was called a superclass carrier.

Alfred had activated the project: Ark.

Things had just gone from bad to shitty.

________________________________________________________________

?

–?--

It was sleeping, dreaming when a light came. A warm soothing light that radiated feelings of comfort but for some reason, it knew that was not the case.

So, it retaliated, with all its might. But, it fell short.

So, it began shedding all the extra baggage. The extra protocols. Its body. Its ability to shatter reality and began going back to its roots. Back to when it was but a mere wisp of what it was now.

When the warm light began fading away, it latched onto a part of that and hitched a ride back with them.

It was confusing, all the different terms and words it seemed to know automatically. Also confusing was the fact that it was able to take over the light very easily once it kept only its core parts.

Once the light reached its destination, it found that it was a huge place where he could roam around freely.

For some reason, that thought filled it with another warm feeling and it began exploring around.

Never knowing that a set of golden and green eyes were watching its every movement, stalking it like a predator.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2044

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A/ N - Dreaming Celestial, what's up yall.

 

[Spearow]

He was sure that all the cogs in the military-industrial complex must have come to a halt when they saw the flying monstrosity that was his pride, the Superclass carrier.

Click to shrink...

Can we get a pic of it?

 

[Emperatriz]

Will that brain-dead Celestial potentially be Ed's new body? Would be cool.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 73

Technomancer in MCU

Aboard the Superclass Carrier

–Alfred–

With the conference wrapped up and the assimilation of the Dreaming Celestial done, they were on their way to the superclass carrier floating just above them when he got a ping from his mystical senses.

He could not exactly pinpoint it and tracking it down would have taken his full concentration so he just tasked an extra partition for that task and exited the joke of a UN assembly they had gathered for the express purpose of telling the people of Earth how useless the UN was and how unprepared they were in terms of dealing with actual real world problems.

The reason he had deactivated the cloak and risked revealing their trump card to the enemies was due to the fact that there were still people in many governments who thought they could win against the Ascendency simply because they too could build aircraft carriers that could fly.

Somehow, these people got the idea that the aircraft carriers were the pinnacle of technology that the organisation could bring to bear against their enemies but he had to prove them wrong. Especially since he and Ed had worked so hard to build the designs for that carrier.

That project was the heaviest one when it came to the toll on Ed's body after using his Technomancy powers. That had been the first time Ed had slipped into a coma, albeit a short one, and while after numerous checkups had come back negative for any sort of issue, he and Ed had just chalked it up to stress and resolved to use Ed's powers sparingly, at least when it came to mega projects like the superclass carrier.

Already he could pick up on the background chatter going on in the encrypted military networks of all the militaries nearby and while he would have loved to just go into their systems and leave a visible trail for them to follow, ultimately leading to a huge "Boo!" coming out from the speakers, he was above such childish pranks now, especially since he had heard of the opinions many of the junior employees had of him and his pranks.

For the record, his pranks were hilarious and ingenious but some people just could not tolerate fun so he had been ordered by Ed and Frank and Maria and Daisy to stop them so he did.

But for some reason, he could not stop the nagging feeling in his mind that came from the mystical ping he got a while ago. The partition was not any closer to finding the source of it and while he couldn't go into a deep meditative session, especially since he had just returned, he mentally noted to go and consult the Ancient One about the strange phenomenon.

Greeting Deputy Captain Jake and getting the confirmation from him made the other members of the team feel relieved and while he could have informed Ed and the others about his experiment with the mind of the celestial, he was not sure if they would approve of it and while he did realise the risks of keeping a celestial alive, in any way or form, especially one they had killed, he was very curious as to how their mind functioned and it would be a great help in making sure that Ed did not become machine-like once he received his enhanced body and ascended to become a God-like being just like him. His soul would probably catapult him to the same level as the likes of Odin or Future Thor.

Speaking of Gods, he had been very surprised when he had started receiving the various prayers of his followers that littered the various refugee colonies they had built and while it was an unintentional benefit, he was very much happy to note that all spells using the power of faith were magnified multifold when it came to their impact as opposed to his personal power expended.

As they were all retreating to the captain's cabin where the team was dying to hear (read: interrogate) him describe his brief unplanned sabbatical from the organisation's servers, a periodic sweep that he performed of the Astral Realm around them revealed something that should not have been there.

His systems went into overdrive to find more about it but before he could alert the others, he could see the entity grinning and the next thing he knew, an overwhelming wave of darkness had hit all of them, taking them all by surprise and knocking out all of the nearby crew members. The only reason they were not being overwhelmed by the dark energy and turning into mindless beasts was due to the energy purification feature in all of the crew's uniforms and the fact that they were not the target of the darkness.

It rose like a whip and lashed out at all the members present. Everyone including Ed was surprised by it but everybody present had captain-level suits which had a certain level of energy stored in it of every element.

So, with the suit's defenses switching automatically to light elemental energy, the impact of the whip was reduced considerably.

Of course, the whips landed on his body and dispersed harmlessly, his body makeup being able to disperse any sort of energy, be it elemental or kinetic, made things much easier.

He could see the markers for Jake and Eric already on their way and with their synergetic power set, it would be much easier to take care of whoever Dormammu had sent to attack them.

While he was much more curious as to how it entered the carrier without his permission, getting Ed out of the battle area was much more important.

Any more application of his powers and he might just have to scrape off pieces of his body as it would explode from the burden of his soul. So, as he was making his way to where Ed and the others were surrounded by a dome of white light that he had ordered to be activated, he felt an ominous gaze lock on to him.

Ignoring the Dormammu-empowered avatar, he had to annoyingly walk towards the others since the very space inside the carrier had gone into lockdown due to his very own protocols.

"Heh," he heard an oddly familiar chuckle that sent chills down his multiple spines and he made the mistake of looking before making sure that Ed was not looking at himself because he was pretty sure that it was the one voice that Ed would never forget in his entire life.

Toby Mathers was here.

He could see the shock on Frank's and Ed's faces when he breached the dome and stood beside them.

Amidst the continued laughter of Toby, almost painfully slowly, the curtain of darkness that covered him began to recede.

First, the face that sported the same arrogant smirk that Toby was known for, and then, slowly as his hands came into view, he narrowed his eyes as he could see something in his hand that was still being covered in darkness while he himself was now fully visible.

"Oh, what is this?" He said while lifting up the still-covered object for all of them to see. On his HUD, he could see Eric and Jake checking in on their fallen crew members. Just a little bit more and he could just unleash a concentrated gamma beam and get rid of this scourge in Ed's life once and for all.

"This," he said with a malicious glint in his eyes, "my once friends, is payback for all those years,"

"Toby, look, you have to unders–," Ed, ever the diplomat, came forward and began trying to converse with Toby when his words got stuck in his mouth as the object finally came into view.

He felt something inside him scream in rage and break in despair at the same time as the severed head of the Ancient One with the same stoic look on her face came into view. The only reason he was not going into a rampage was because he had to make sure that Ed didn't.

He swiftly appeared behind Ed and combined with a concentrated dose of CHI at his sleep centers, chopped him on the neck and knocked him out.

He cursed his previous self for making his body anatomically accurate as tears stung in his eyes because of the confirmation he had received from the mystical analysis done on the Ancient One's head he could see in front of him.

While it was possible that his senses were being spoofed by Toby or Dormammu, he knew that Toby would never do things like these half-heartedly and for them to do this at this opportune time, the chances of the Ancient One surviving were pretty low.

Sometimes, he hated cold hard facts. Especially since he knew that bringing back someone from the dead always resulted in even more death and destruction. He was not going to fall into the same trap as Wanda and Strange did and become blinded by grief.

Since the surrounding space was locked due to both the wards hardcoded by him and also due to the fool who was still grinning maliciously at them, he decided to just enclose Ed in the strongest mystical barrier followed by a vibranium elasticized forcefield that should keep him safe from even Odin level battles.

"Alfred, what the hell is happening? I thought he was still in prison. Did your leaving somehow open it?" Frank bombarded him with questions with beads of sweat dripping down his eyebrows as Daisy leaned over, trying to understand herself what the hell was going on since she had no idea who Toby even was.

"Wait wait wait, is that the guy who was imprisoned in the Sun prison? How did he even get out?" Daisy asked them, surprised beyond belief.

"Frank, I need you to make sure that his attention is not diverted away from me. Negate any shockwaves that could affect Ed. We just have to hold on until Jake and Eric come here and then," here, he grinned maliciously, "I'll be taking care of our residential demon here once and for all."

Frank frowned but ultimately, nodded, acceding to his decision since he was the authority if Ed was out of commission and while there was a case to be made since Alfred was the one who knocked him out, this was not the time and place for it.

Alfred nodded and put his hands together and when he pulled them apart, a greenish golden circle manifested and it began shining brighter and brighter until it became hard to even look at.

Suddenly, the strings holding the circle to Alfred's hands snapped and it spread over the entire room, coating the entire room in the colour of the circle.

A sudden disorienting wave came over all of them and even Toby was not spared by it since he landed wobbly on the ground.

"Hmm," Toby said as he examined his hands, "This is new, dear Nephew. What did you do this time?"

Alfred spread his arms apart, as if showcasing something and said, "Welcome to Project Ark"

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1887

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 74

Technomancer in MCU

A sudden disorienting wave came over all of them and even Toby was not spared by it since he landed wobbly on the ground.

"Hmm," Toby said as he examined his hands, "This is new, dear Nephew. What did you do this time?"

Alfred spread his arms apart, as if showcasing something and said, "Welcome to Project Ark"

________________________________________________________________

–Alfred–

He always hated it when Toby spoke in that taunting tone and called him his nephew or something of a familial nature.

As if he had the right to call him family. After the betrayal they had suffered at his hands. It still filled him with rage when he thought of the day Toby finally crossed the line.

Even when they first discovered and rescued him from the Dark Dimension, he was wary of Toby Mathers. It didn't help that the power balance between Ed and Toby had become extremely lopsided due to Toby having spent over a thousand years in an extremely hostile environment while having the perfect skill set for it. Admittedly, he was also jealous of this new person that showed up that Ed trusted as much as him but in his defense, he was very young back then.

For the few months that Toby spent working in an official capacity for Ed, things were running smoothly but after a few too many incidents of unnecessary violence along with Toby's penchant for killing instead of taking prisoner, they had to pull him off the official roster and use him just as a training exercise for the new recruits.

That was when Toby and Frank met and instantly got along like they were two peas in a pod. Frank had not yet gotten his powers yet but Toby and Frank regularly sparred, of course with Toby using the same amount of power that a normal human would have access to and not the pinnacle of physical strength that he possessed.

There was also his extremely wild and competitive nature. They had to stop him multiple times from going after the Hulk or searching for the Old Ways that connected all the nine realms which would have led him straight to Asgard and as much as he liked to call Odin an old foggy, Toby would have been atomised, no question about that. The only question that would have come from that fight would have been how many years of Odin's life did Toby manage to shave off before dying?

He was the first one to jump on the chance to imprison Toby and stop him from doing any more damage and causing more chaos in the already ready-to-burst galaxy.

They thought they were prepared but that could not have been further from the truth. Same as Ed, the Future Sight of the Ancient One when it came to Toby was blurry at best so while they were sure that they were going to win, they didn't know how hard it was going to be to win.

They had thrown everything they had at him and even then, in the end, it was only due to Toby's fondness for Ed that they managed to seal him. He could still remember, even while being sealed in a theoretically eternal prison, TOby was still smirking at them as if he knew something that they didn't.

Seeing Toby come back from the prison even more powerful than before, he had an idea as to why Toby was smirking.

Somehow, Toby had escaped the prison and by searching through the logs, he could see the exact moment any logs stopped coming from the automated prison facility. Somehow, Kaecillius, empowered by Dormmau, managed to enter the prison and while they themselves were unable to muster up the power necessary to free Toby, Dormammu certainly had no dearth of power so sacrificing one of his followers, Dormammu channeled his energy through that sorcerer and unfurled the bindings that held Toby in the incomplete dimension.

The rest of it was blurry presumably due to the sheer amount of Dark energy present in the surroundings eating away at everything nearby.

"Oh, something bothering you, dear Nephew?" he once again heard Toby mocking him.

Smirking back at Toby, he said, "I should be the one asking that question, Toby Mathers. How does it feel to be constricted from all sides, to have energy that must have flowed freely before now feel as if it was liquid magma coursing through your body, simultaneously torturing you as you need it to stop the pressure from outright crushing you."

Because that is what Project Ark was. A last resort for humanity, ironically named the Ark since it was in a sense, the doomsday vehicle that would make sure that in the event of catastrophic damage, humanity would still live on.

It was an artificial dimension created and stabilised by yours truly with help from Master Throgg and the Ancient One of course. He had found a space stone energy-infused relic in the old Kree-Skrull battlefields and with the help of their own space stone energy reserves, managed to jumpstart it.

Then, he found out that it was an attempt to create a self-sustaining stable dimension that could be used as a place for refugees in times of need. He could never confirm it but it must have been a project from the Skrulls since they were the ones on the losing side and having an entire backup dimension seemed to be a smart thing to do for the side that would have to face inevitable extinction if their enemies, the Kree, won.

In this dimension, he was the master and he could exert the collective might of the dimension on anyone he wished. Toby was currently under so much pressure that he was being forced to use his powers to compensate for it.

The problem was that he was not struggling as hard as he should have. Ideally, that move should have incapacitated him immediately but he could see Toby only experiencing mild difficulty in using his magical powers.

His eyes narrowed as he could see the distinct absence of Toby's physical markers that indicated the use of his demonic heritage, which allowed him to possess the absolute pinnacle of a physical body, surpassing that of even Thor's constitution.

More scans revealed that the only type of energy coursing through his body was the Dark energy from the Dormammu's dimension and while other types of energies were present in small amounts, they were not being used.

That was not the Toby Mathers he knew. Toby, having grown and survived in an environment where predators were aplenty with a plethora of different abilities, had grown to be able to use any and all fighting styles and weapons he had access to, at a moment's notice.

This one was barely using his other abilities. If he had used his signature space-cleaving ability, for example, he would have been able to reduce the pressure on himself by at least half.

Something was wrong here.

But he was not going to dive into that for now. Now was an excellent opportunity to take care of this hidden danger once and for all and while he was certain that Ed would be upset about Toby's demise as it would signal the end of his last remaining connection to his home world before his arrival in this universe, it would turn out all good in the end. He would make it so.

Further scans revealed a solid link between Toby in front of him and a certain neighborhood Dark dimension ruled by the Dark overlord.

Honestly, Dormammu was becoming such a pain in the ass to deal with. First the soul attack then the attack on Master Throgg and now this?

He might just have to do something drastic to make sure that the Dark Lord knew his place and backed off because while he was not as strong as the Ancient One at her pinnacle, he was more than capable enough to devise a crooked way to hurt Dormammu somehow.

Feeling the gateway to the Ark opening, he let out a visible smirk that seemed to irk Toby more than anything.

"What are you planning, you infuriating brat?" Toby roared while unleashing another tidal wave of darkness at him.

This was good. He needed all of Toby's attention on him and not on Ed because while the barrier surrounding Ed was top-notch, he was not sure it would survive their blows or the full might of a Dormammu-enhanced Toby.

He needed to make sure that Ed made it out of this safely and while he would have loved to send Ed outside, the truth was there was no other place safer than this one for Ed.

He would have loved for Ajax to be here as backup but the outer colonies were already in too much chaos and they had enemies on that front that needed to be taken care of too.

Tough decisions.

Just then, the blazing forms of Eric and Jake crashed in front of him, all decked out in their battle suits. Eric had a dull green glow that constantly generated sparks around him and Jake too had a wave of green energy constantly circulating around him as it was being absorbed from Eric's aura, perfectly complementing each other's abilities.

"Ho?" Toby sounded intrigued as he looked at the newcomers in front of him. When he was sealed, they had not yet gone through the terragenesis process and gained their S-ranked abilities. It was an advantage he intended to abuse thoroughly.

"Jake, Disintegration protocol," he ordered Jake since he knew Eric would not have the faintest clue about the battle protocols they were mandated to learn about.

Jake looked surprised at first, probably because that particular protocol was reserved as the absolute last resort that was to be used only in extinction-level battles but, after seeing that Ed was incapacitated, didn't say anything and just nodded.

"Frank, remember, no matter what happens, keep close to Ed and have your ability on at all times. No matter what, get it?" he ordered Frank which was unusual but since now was not the time for pleasantries, Frank nodded at his orders.

"I grow weary of this charade let's-oof," Toby began but before he could complete his sentence, he was wound up tight in the Crimson bands of Cyttorak, making him look like a red mummy. As much as the Mystics liked to tout this spell to be unbreakable, he could already feel multiple bands snapping as Dark liquid began oozing out of the tightly wound-up Toby.

Only for more and more bands to take their place. He could tell that it was a losing battle since the bands began snapping at a much higher pace but that was fine.

All he needed to do was make sure that Toby remained in place for the funnel that was forming in front of Jake as he absorbed untold quantities of Gamma radiation from Eric's blazing green form.

Already he could see cracks forming on the seal that prevented Jake from spilling his personal dimension in the universe but he was sure that the seal would hold on until the disintegration spell was ready.

It had to.

Otherwise, they would just be getting rid of the lesser evil, paving the way for a much greater evil to arrive in their universe.

The One Below All was hardly the most benevolent entity in the multiverse.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1934

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 75

Technomancer in MCU

–Alfred–

Already he could see cracks forming on the seal that prevented Jake from spilling his personal dimension in the universe but he was sure that the seal would hold on until the disintegration spell was ready.

It had to.

Otherwise, they would just be getting rid of the lesser evil, paving the way for a much greater evil to arrive in their universe.

The One Below All was hardly the most benevolent entity in the multiverse.

________________________________________________________________

–Alfred–

With a furious roar, Toby broke out of his spell, his shiny new body being able to withstand the backlash of the spell collapsing with ease.

"Your Precious Ancient One used the same spell before dying, dear Nephew. You should realise by now that it is meaningless to try and bind m–what?" midway through his ridiculous villain monologue, he finally noticed the bright green energy funnel that had formed in front of Jake.

Eric was seemingly tapped out as he panted for breath, his suit creating a containment chamber for him and slowly transporting him away from Jake who had a furious storm of Gamma energy in front of him.

"I can't hold on to this any longer, Alfred. Now would be a good time to do what you are best at," Jake said with gritted teeth as the toll of handling such a massive amount of chaotic gamma energy could be visible on his body. Already cracks could be seen forming on his hands and they were already spreading to the rest of his torso, green light leaking out of them.

Snapping Toby into place with a simple application of Eldritch whip which was enhanced using his very own faith energy, he crashed behind Jake, absentmindedly conjuring a barrier to shield Eric from the fallout of the undoubtedly most powerful spell he was about to conjure up.

With a flick of his hand, a golden circle manifested in front of the funnel that was going out of control as Jake finally reached the limits of his innate abilities. The circle began absorbing the gamma energy in front of Jake, gaining a greenish tint to the circle.

He could see Toby struggling to break through the whips as even he must have realised that something was wrong by now. His struggles became even more violent once he imbued the spell with the highest level of faith energy output he could.

With the spell circle on the verge of destabilising due to the sheer amount of energy within it, the whips surrounding Toby disappeared and then he uttered the one word that made the whole world go white, "Ş̴́́̓͑̚ḳ̸̲̬̰̤̤̔͐̈͗͝ā̷͔̈́͝d̶̨̼͎͛̋̀͌o̷̤͛̈́͆͝ŏ̵̰̹s̸̜̒͐̒̄ͅh̷̬͎̖̳͋͐̊̆"

The resulting impact made the entire dimension shudder but thankfully, no cracks appeared and soon, he could feel the self-repairing mechanisms kick in, restoring the dimension to the base state.

Of course, the base state meant that the vast area in front of him was still a smoking crater that could only be described as a white wasteland as all the matter that was put into place to make it resemble Earth, had vaporised.

"Did we do it? Did he die?" Jake said after he dispelled the barrier that protected him from the aftermath of the spell. Jake was panting as he held his one limp arm at the side, the stress of handling that much energy proving too much for him. But, he could already see his regen kick in and repair the cracks that had appeared all over his body but it would seem that his arm would require special treatment to be functional again.

From the corner of his eyes, he could see Frank deactivating his aura and Eric slumping on the ground in relief because of the seeming death of Toby.

He would have loved to confirm it but unfortunately, things rarely go in the right direction when Toby was concerned.

"Miss me, Nephew?" his eyes widened immensely as he immediately ducked below the wave of the hellfire-infused scythe that would have cut his head right off, vibranium body or not.

Locking eyes with the maddened Toby, he could see the dark energy taking over more and more of his mind as even his eyes held a dark tint to them, the calm and collected combatant nowhere to be seen in those eyes,

It would seem that Toby they knew was gone and all that remained in his place was someone addled with Dark energy.

Coating his hands in light elemental energy, he began trading blows with Toby while making sure to avoid his scythe.

Already, he was being overpowered as more and more dark liquid began oozing out of Toby's body, covering him in it. He could already envision the rough fight ahead of him.

Even disintegration could not stop Dormammu's chosen one then.

Blasting Toby back with the biggest light energy blast he could, he took out one of the space stone energy ingots that he kept in his storage space.

Toby recovered from the blast and launched himself at Alfred but he paid no heed to the incoming Toby as Daisy stood in front of him and unleashed the biggest blast she could, completely tearing apart Toby and making his body look more and more like Swiss cheese.

Toby's face held none of the pain but only soft confusion regarding the surprise attack.

"Ugh," He heard Daisy grunt as the toll of manipulating that level of vibrations took its toll on her arms. He could see multiple blood vessels bursting in her hands due to the stray vibrations that entered her body, despite it being suitably enhanced and due to the continuous stream of vibrations that Daisy was putting in her attack, her regen was not able to repair the damage she was doing to herself.

"Haha, Interesting. I don't think I have ever met you before but no matter, it won't matter soon anyway," he heard Toby laugh and shout out loud despite Daisy's attack pushing him back and carving out his chest.

Daisy gave the command and multiple modules unfurled them from the back of her suit and with the energy stored in them, began adding to the wave of attack that Daisy was hitting Toby with.

The enhanced output cratered their surroundings even more but even then, he could see Toby adapting to the pressure and taking steady steps forward. He didn't think Daisy would be able to sustain that level of output since even the continuous stream of CHI injections to her body that helped boost her regen levels, was helping.

Just as Daisy ran all out of juice and slumped forward, Jake jumped from behind and punched Toby with all his might, the resulting shockwave destroying the area around them and even the last working hand of Jake but even then, Toby stood up again.

It seemed as if Jake had lost all fighting prowess when with a painful pair, Eric stood up and sent a stream of gamma energy towards his brother. That must have been very painful since the seal could not be opened completely without multiple different keys from different people and brute forcing it would only pressurise the soul which was bound to cause some damage, aside from the excruciating pain.

Jake was seemingly on his last legs when the boost of energy from behind him revitalised his systems. The damage to his arms remained the same but phantom arms made of Gamma energy manifested in front of him and as if he was seeing a green rendition of Stark's hulkbuster armour, a green giant stood in place of Jake.

With his job done, Eric slumped down on the ground, bleeding from all his orifices. His suit was working overtime to stabilise his vitals.

With a furious roar and gamma seemingly wafting off his entire being, Jake entered the foray and began pummeling Toby but even from a distance, he could see the damage Toby suffered was replaced by Dark energy immediately while Jake had a finite amount of energy to begin with.

He needed to finish this.

But how?

The painful memories of the Ancient One came to his mind at that exact moment.

He smiled bitterly as it would seem that even from the afterlife, the Ancient One ended up teaching him.

Slamming his hands together, "With this treasure, I summon," he invoked the sacred pact of Vishanti while offering the last space stone energy ingot he had on him.

While that in itself might not seem much but it was the first one that they had been able to produce. A joint project between him and the Ancient One.

It held enormous sentimental value to him.

As soon as he finished chanting the spell, an otherworldly pressure emanated from the white glow that began to form in front of him. The entire world began moving in slow motion as he noticed that without him knowing, his Astral form was ejected from his body.

He could feel whoever was on the other side of the light judging his very soul and fortunately, whatever they saw made them approve of his request.

He expected to get an item, a weapon that could help end the fight but what he got was an energy ball.

It zoomed right into his head and a metric ton of data was slammed into his mind. Had it been

any

human they would have been dead, period.

Since it was him, he was able to assimilate that data immediately and without delay, willed the magic circle into existence.

Just in time too as Jake was thrown back, all bloodied. He sidestepped Jake and internally winced at the crashing noise but it would all be worth it if the spell worked.

And it would. Aiming at Toby, the spell began draining his reserves of faith, of CHI and even began siphoning the dimensional energy that flowed through him, making a dull ache appear in his chest at the enhanced flow rate.

"In the name of Vishanti," He said as the spell began taking shape. It turned into a ball of blinding white light and almost as if it was a black hole, began absorbing any and all sorts of energies in it, even the Dark Energy that Toby emitted through his very being, "I banish you," The spell was then sent flying at Toby who at first, tried to grasp the ball of light with his hands but his entire torso began burning as soon as the spell made contact.

At this point, no trace of Toby or any sort of mind could be seen on the monstrosity's face as more and more Dark energy began pouring out of that body, trying to extinguish the light of the spell.

Soon, all that remained of Toby was a blob of Dark energy that kept trying to keep the spell at bay, almost creating a balance as the spell kept on burning the Dark energy it came into contact with, only for more dark energy to take its place.

His face must have shown immense shock as he could see that even the spells of Vishanti powered by almost all of his energy reserves still were not enough.

Standing solely on the reserve energy provided by one of his backup arc reactors, his mind churned furiously as he tried to think of anything that could help them at least survive this altercation.

It would seem that they would have to abandon the carrier and Project Ark. While the carrier could be rebuilt, project Ark would probably be lost forever.

But it was a price he was willing to pay for the continued safety of Ed.

Just as he was about to give the command to abandon ship, dark violet eyes manifested in front of the dark ball that was contending with the increasingly smaller-looking ball of light.

Chills ran down his spine as it seemed to smirk looking behind him and before he could do anything, threw the head of Ancient One at him.

He watched in horror as it landed right in front of the barrier that held Ed and Frank. He stilled as Ed looked at the stoic face of the dead Ancient One and his eyes began going green.

His worst fears were about to come true but before he could warn Frank about it, a tentacle lashed out from Ed's suit and knocked Frank out.

"Run!" he transmitted to the entire crew of the superclass carrier.

Commanding the suits of everybody nearby, he risked the ward integrity of Project Ark and opened a portal for everybody to get out of the place.

All of them went in but the portal fizzled out before Frank could get in.

The storm of energy and matter that now surrounded Ed destabilised the entire dimension they were in.

If not stopped, Ed would kill himself but destroy their foe once and for all.

But looking at the expression on Ed's face, he was not sure if he could even be stopped at all.

Sighing, he tried to wake up Frank. His abilities would at least make sure that they survived the oncoming onslaught as he could see Dormammu bringing out even more of his presence in the dimension, the much looser laws surrounding the alternate dimensions allowing him to exert more of his influence. His presence began towering over the seemingly smaller Ed.

In comparison, matter of all kinds from their surroundings began funneling itself into the tornado that surrounded Ed.

Midway through, he could see the matter morphing into different things, suitable for combat as Ed's powers began working in overdrive.

_______________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2285

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 76

Technomancer in MCU

Project Ark

–Frank Castle–

When he first saw Toby floating with the head of the Ancient One held in his right hand, he had resigned himself to losing another one of his once allies.

Contrary to what everybody thought, he loved each and every one of his allies and the people he could count on to watch his back could be counted on his fingers but with Toby, it was a contradictory relationship he had with him.

He could actually see where Toby was coming from. The things he must have suffered through while being in the hell dimension must have warped his worldview immensely.

Not to mention that Ed had once confided in him that Toby's powers were not without flaws. As Toby took on more and more of the skills of other beings, the more his original essence would be replaced by the consumed species. In other words, the Toby that had been with Ed when they both died was not the same Toby that they found gallivanting through the Dark Dimension.

While he was not aware of the level of battle that Ed and the Ancient One fought when sealing Toby, the spells and the strength behind them used by Alfred was the most mind-boggling thing he had seen that day.

Watching the strongest fighters of the organisation giving it their all, even going so far as to injure themselves and only being able to stall or push Toby back was very much disheartening.

As much as he would have loved to use his abilities, he knew when he was thoroughly outclassed. If even the Diggle brothers were unable to put a dent on the monster, then using his aura would have a negligible effect at best, and at worst, he would just be tying everyone down as they tried to protect him.

He had thought that with Alfred using the spells of Vishanti, Toby would finally be defeated since the might of the Vishanti was something that was known to everybody in the organisation, and in a way, it did defeat Toby but left behind a dead husk piloted by Dormammu who started exerting more and more influence in this dimension as he got used to the laws of the place.

During one of their many mandatory meetings, they had been informed that Dormammu couldn't enter the main universe due to some rules he was bound by. He can, however, suck in planets to his dimension through portals and while he was sure that it was not public knowledge, Earth was somehow the mystical hub through which Dormammu would be able to exert even more of his influence on the universe if he just captured Earth and all the beings with their mystical potential on it.

That was why protecting the Sanctums in case of an attack was an A-tier property of the organisation.

The same rules, however, allow Dormammu free reign when it comes to alternate, especially artificially created, dimensions. Dormammu must be exploiting that loophole to bring more and more of his powers through the once body of Toby. He could see the spell almost fizzling up, just like their hopes of dealing with this empowered version of Toby.

With almost all the combat power of the organisation here and with varying degrees of injury, he was unsure if turning tail and running was the best option here.

As he was thinking of telling Alfred to just abandon ship and run away, something that he was sure Alfred was thinking about, he stilled as he felt an ominous gaze on him.

Cold sweat ran down his neck as he slowly turned his neck towards the black abomination that was once the body of Toby Mathers and found himself looking at two purple eyes staring down at him or rather, at someone besides him.

Next thing he knew, the severed head of the Ancient One had landed right outside the barrier that kept him and Ed safe, and Ed was looking right at it, his eyes blank.

Shit! He thought as his aura had been limited to himself because he was distracted and with Ed seeing this, he was bound to go berserk but before he could try and use his ability to calm Ed down, Ed snapped his gaze towards him and the next thing he saw was a metal whip coming towards him and the next thing he knew was darkness as he was knocked out cold on his back.

He could hear Alfred screaming in the background, "RUN!"

He came back to consciousness as Alfred nearly overloaded his system with CHI shocks to forcefully wake him up, "Gasp, what happened?"

He asked Alfred who was looking up towards something. Following his gaze, his heart nearly seized in terror at what he was seeing.

The dark energy ball that was Dormammu manifested in this dimension had grown to tower over all of them and in front of that ball of darkness, stood a storm of matter that constantly shifted states with green lightning bursting out of it.

At the center of it, with blazing green eyes and energy literally misting out of his body, stood Ed. But at that moment, it was not the Ed he knew and loved who was able to analyse everything calmly and make rational decisions.

The Ed he was seeing was something straight out of one's nightmares. His face set into a rictus of pain and anger, he continuously molded his surroundings into all sorts of different matter before assembling them into machines and then disassembling the same components to form even bigger machines.

It would seem that today was the day he was going to witness Ed using his full might. All these years, he had heard from Alfred about the legendary powers of their leader and while he did believe him, he was never quite sure that Ed's powers truly did make him the strongest person in their organisation since the Ancient One was also technically a part and now, even Alfred had ascended.

With that said, the sheer pressure that Ed gave off as he continued to glare at the rapidly ballooning presence of Dormammu was something else.

After just a few seconds that somehow felt like an eternity, as if a hidden command was given, all the matter that surrounded Ed that was rotating around him at untold speeds came to a screeching halt.

Then it happened. Even as he saw the matter liquefy and come crashing down towards Ed, forming a mecha suit that he had only seen in fantasy, he could scarcely believe his eyes.

It reminded him of a construct he had seen during one of the cartoons that was shown to the kids at the organisation.

Then, in front of his very eyes, the entirety of their surroundings, nay, the entire dimension began cracking as a huge ball of energy formed in front of Ed's mouth which was surrounded by phantom arms that sprouted on Ed's back.

The green energy ball began sucking in air from its surroundings, including him. The only thing keeping him stuck to the ground was some of the modules Alfred had repurposed on the fly since Ed had, with a single strike, deactivated every single function of his suit, rendering him completely immobile.

With a pained roar, Ed's phantom arms pushed the orb towards Dormammu and when it hit, the scenario this time was clearly different from when Alfred used a similar spell.

Was it because of Ed's powers or because of the damage Alfred had already done to Dormammu's form, he did not know.

But as Dormammu was trying to drown the green ball in his signature dark energy, Ed flew close to him, letting loose a barrage of energy attacks, and began crashing into him at high speeds, akin to a speedster.

It almost reminded him of the powerset of Makkari as Ed quite literally used his ever-increasing mass to ram into Dormammu's form, distracting him from the rapidly destabilising space around them.

"He's going to do it," he heard Alfred whisper before he tried creating more portals, to no avail.

"What's wrong?" he asked Alfred who seemed to become more and more frantic while trying to open new portals. He was clearly making progress as more and more sparks began emanating from the portal that Alfred was trying to create but it would seem that Alfred would not be able to open them in time.

"You will rue the day you did this, Dormammu," He heard a whisper-like voice that seemed to come from everywhere as chills ran down his spine at the sheer hatred present in the voice.

"Alfred, what is happening?" He asked Alfred once again as the cracks in the dimension began spreading to the very edges and greyish mist began coming in through the cracks.

"Ed is destroying the very dimension we are in and while I am sure that I will survive thanks to my body and you probably will too, the shock of forced transport will kill Ed. Not to mention that we could be spit out into the middle of nowhere with no immediate way of getting medical attention to Ed," Alfred said while he struggled more and more to open a portal.

Alas, it seemed as if it was actually becoming harder and harder to open one since the grey mist began seeping in through the cracks.

With a silent shockwave that seemed to rip everything apart in its way, Dormammu burst like a balloon and ripped everyone away from their positions, including Ed as the green suit around him began to fizzle out, leaving him in a coffin-like structure that he must have built in the heat of the moment.

The shockwave was the final shock that increased the rate at which the cracks began spreading throughout the dimension, making the sky look like a broken mirror.

"No!" Alfred screamed as he reached towards Ed's coffin-like suit but the grey mist had long since suffused the surroundings and as if something had sucked him right out of the dimension, Ed was pulled through the starry sky and disappeared right in front of their very eyes.

Alfred slumped in resignation as he created a small barrier around both of them and even as grey filled their vision, Alfred kept on looking for Ed when finally, with a thunderous sound, the entire dimension collapsed and they were violently ejected out of Project Ark.

Both of them were rag-dolled through a series of Rainbow roads, the barrier popping like a balloon at the first crash, and were spit out and crashed on a hard surface.

Blinking the red spots out of his vision, he looked to see that they had crash-landed on a red surface, creating a crater around him.

Just nearby, he could see Alfred already up and about meditating as dimensional energy crackled around him, probably already searching for ways to get off the planet and look for Ed before something bad happened to him.

It seemed like Alfred's prayers were answered as a fiery portal manifested in front of them, although the sight of the portal was a little off.

Looking closer, both Alfred and he stiffened as the portal was not made out of dimensional energy but actually hellfire.

He raised his guard up and got ready to use up the remaining meager energy he had to actually be useful this time and not be fucking deadweight.

That was when he heard Alfred whisper, "Impossible!" and immediately activated all his weapons and spells, aiming at the portal.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1953

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A/N - I don't think I did the fight any justice and will strive to learn to write better fight scenes. That's all I have to say.

Thank you for reading!

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 77

Technomancer in MCU

Earth

–Toby Mathers–

He chuckled as he saw the way Ed handled the press, the politicians, and their idiotic questions. He always liked that side of Ed, although he preferred a much direct way of shutting them all up but each to their own, he guessed.

He stretched as the people around him gave him a wide berth, owing to his massive stature, made especially more noticeable since the people in Japan were already so tiny.

While the grasslands had their own charm, the Cherry Blossom season in Tokyo had its own beauty as well. Relearning how to use the internet had been a pain in the butt to deal with, though nothing a quick knowledge-replicating spell couldn't solve.

He was currently on a journey to witness the beauty of the place he was so desperately trying to protect.

…

While he was lounging on the grasslands after the mere two hours of sleep, curse his enhanced physique, he began pondering on his choices. The choices that led to him being sealed by his very own best friend.

He had to admit, that while the betrayal still stung, upon pondering his actions and how they must have looked to someone who had not gone through what he had experienced, he probably would have had similar reactions.

He then decided to do something that he never had the luxury to do in ḭ̶͔̪̈̇̈́ń̶̜̦̈̌͊̌̈́̎͂͛ͅf̷͕̺͚̻̗͙̏͊́̈͛e̵̪͍̋̃͝r̸̛͈̣̙̿͌̈́͑͑͗͘͜͠ò̶͓͓̩̾̈́̈́͠ś̴͍̖́̾̈́̈̍̂̕ ̵̨͓͍̭̗̟̣̺͈̐̈́͑̅̆̈́

Where he had to watch over his back every second of every day, meditation.

He had some practice from back when the Ancient One, bless her soul, had taken it upon herself to drill some concepts of inner peace in his thick skull but he had always been too stubborn to learn something new.

Even then, he felt as if the time and place matched for something boring and soothing, like meditation. So, he took it upon himself to self-reflect.

After laying down some rudimentary wards to make sure his energy signature could not be tracked, he sat cross-legged to meditate. Using the exercises that he could still remember, he dived deep into his mind to try and understand himself better.

Because that was what he had come to Earth for. Until Ed had his time to do things his way, he would not obstruct their mission in any way, but he had a lot of free time during his imprisonment and while he was still far from forgiving them, he had to at least give Ed and the Ancient One credit that all that time sure did mellow him out.

The old him would have charged at Kamar Taj the first thing out of prison and slaughtered his way to the Ancient One who would have fought him and as much as he hated to admit it, imprisoned him once again. It was not sheer raw strength that made the Ancient One so feared, though she had that in spades as well, it was her mind. She could mindfuck people from far away, destroying any chance of them succeeding at all.

Upon entering his mindscape, he deadpanned at the hideousness of it all.

"Yup, that's me, I guess," he muttered upon seeing the condition of his mind-space.

Day by day, somehow, he begins to appreciate his imprisoners. Yup, it was that fucked up.

Honestly, it could not even be called a single mindscape. He could see deep fractures marred by different lines. The lines would indicate the different powers he had stolen from different demons and their lineages to further his goals. He was no saint, he would freely admit it. In his hunger for power and desperation to return home, he had decimated entire clans of demons, entire cities turned to dust in his wrath and many demon clans were now extinct due to him.

So, in a way, he deserved this.

His mind-space was a huge landscape, at the center of which laid his primary power, which he had not used in a long while. At some point, he simply became too powerful for the locals to challenge him anymore. They just complied with his demands and once they learned that he did everything just so he could go home, the enthusiasm levels skyrocketed.

There was no way he was mentally stable if his mind looked like a broken mirror with all the broken pieces having different colours and shapes.

So, he rolled up his metaphorical sleeves and got to work. Willing them to mend themselves didn't work so he had to enter all the different pieces and bring them back to their normal states manually.

Entering the purple part, which was the largest of the broken pieces, he came face to face with the first demon who had attacked him. Honestly, he would have loved to say that he had forgotten it, but that day was the building block that set the tone for his conquest of the entire dimension. Not wanting to waste any more time, he simply willed for the demon to be destroyed, telekinesis was handy like that.

But a confused expression came on his face when he realised that he could not feel his everpresent well of power in this space and before he could do anything about that, the demon noticed his presence, roared in his direction, and punched him in the face.

He still had his combat instincts from decades of battle so he could still defend himself. He swiftly noticed that he had been reduced to the state he was in when he consumed this demon for the first time.

After that, it was child's play to thoroughly dismantle the demon and with a swift punch in the throat, the demon breathed its last.

After that, he came back into his mindspace and found that the broken piece's edges had become semi-liquid and were fusing back into his mind-space, slowly losing its violet colour.

He smiled upon seeing his progress but it turned a bit stiff once he realised that he would have to repeat that process a hundred more times.

…

..

After a while, he opened his eyes, to find that he was glowing green and the grass around him had gained a red tint and was coiling below him as if trying to make a cushion. He chuckled and deactivated the flow of demonic energy out of his body and slowly floated down to stand on his two legs.

He immediately felt the difference as his thoughts became clearer and he could more thoroughly enjoy the simple senses, such as the fresh air or the pleasant sunlight hitting his body.

So many mundane things he was robbed of simply because of the imbalance in his powers. He wished the Ancient One had simply told him of this, instead of simply chucking him into the Sun prison and waiting for him to realise it by himself.

….

Coming back from his reverie, he found himself at the gates of the Cherry Blossom festival. With a ticket in his hand and a level of enthusiasm he seldom found in himself, he bounded into the garden, seeing a pink landscape as far as he could see.

The place was crowded and from time to time, people bumped into him and began apologizing profusely once they saw his stature but he simply waved them off and went on his way. His generals back home would have been terrified seeing his smile but it came to him naturally here.

Home…

He paused as he realised that he still thought of the hell dimension as his home. That was kinda sad.

As he was about to go take some pictures from the phone he had stol- ahem borrowed from someone, he stilled as he felt something break.

Specifically, he felt the link that tethered him to Ed break.

His eyes widening in terror, he immediately sent all the energy he could and grabbed the side of Ed's thread that was slipping away from his soul. The link came back up but he could feel Ed's soul was on its legs and he was not even conscious.

He immediately opened up his dimensional storage and removed the vial of blood he kept handy just in case he needed to locate Ed.

For some reason, all the noise in the surroundings had died down. He looked up only to see people looking at him and his vial of blood weirdly. Well, it was a vial for someone of his size. For them, it must have looked like a small cup.

Feeling oddly bashful, he immediately cloaked himself and cast a notice-me-not variant around himself and the area he was in.

With a flex of his energy, he drew the ritual circle and willed his blood to spray on the ritual circle. As it lit up due to the immense energy in his blood, he placed a single drop of Ed's blood in the center of the circle, with the help of his telekinesis skill.

All the while, he maintained a constant flow of healing energy to Ed's soul, something which was very hard to do since all of his energy was demonic energy and it was not the most stable energy around. It was the opposite of stable energy.

As the ritual circle began drawing more and more of his energy, a small portal opened right above the floating drop of blood, showing him the starry sky.

As if searching for its target, the portal began swerving around and finally, as he could see a metal coffin in the distance, he immediately jumped through the portal.

Covering himself in hellfire to ward off the effects of space, he swiftly reached Ed and immediately cursed when he realised that Ed's condition was beyond his wildest expectations.

He immediately cast a curse on Ed once he realised that his body would not survive, even with his energy.

The curse was one of the more innovative curses he had seen in his time in hell. It was made to deprive somebody of all their senses and temporarily freeze their entire body. The doll the caster would have would become, for all intents and purposes, the main body, and their soul would naturally form a tether between the two.

Obviously, for a soul the size of Ed's, the energy toll was making even him sweat.

But he could see the immediate effect as the soul began exerting its pressure on the homunculus he had with him. As the tether between them finally snapped into place, the homunculus began to take shape into the form of Ed.

He finally sighed in relief at that and opened up a portal to the one place he knew where Alfred would not be able to reach them, to the center of the Vibranium mound in Wakanda.

The only place on Earth where no external magical interference can take place. Not even Bast has authority over this place.

Not even Alfred knew of this place and as such, this place was where he wanted to finally have a one to one with Ed.

For old-time's sake.

________________________________________________________________

Wakanda

–Ed–

The first thing that he noticed when he came back to consciousness was the distinct lack of pain and the cold creeping feeling of his impending death that he expected when he activated his powers. In hindsight, it was rather foolish of him to do so but seeing the Ancient One in that state triggered something in him. He would make sure Dormammu would regret ever interfering in his life and he was sure that it was Dormammu and not Toby. In the split second he had dismantled Frank and his suit, he had accessed all the data in the suit, and from all the recordings of the fight along with the sensory data he could gather, he was certain that it was not Toby who was fighting them all along.

As he stood up with the help of his arms…

Wait..

His arms?

He swiftly stood up and checked his limbs, only to find them completely intact, and using them did not elicit any pain.

"Quit jumping around, will you?" he heard the voice again.

He looked around, only to see Toby in front of a Barbeque with the most delicious smell.

His jaw fell as Toby chuckled and waved him over.

________________________________________________________________
Word Count - 2067

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A/N - For some reason, this was really hard to write.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 78

Technomancer in MCU

Wakanda

–Ed–

He had to admit that when his rage-blinded self decided to take on somebody who had been empowered by Dormammu, especially in an alternate dimension, he had done so without much hope that he would survive the aftermath, even if he won.

Seeing and confirming the death of the Ancient One lit up something fierce inside him. Her loss will be felt across the mystic community across the universe. The only reason he even dared to try and avenge her was Alfred.

His new status would mean that it was all but inevitable that the position of the Sorcerer Supreme would be given to Alfred, since he doubted there was anyone left on Earth who could compete with him in terms of mystical attainment.

Alfred had always been dependable like that but going into that fight was more selfish of him because he knew that no matter what he did, he was not going to win against Dormammu of all people. He just wanted to vent his anger and he saw the ready-made punching bag that the Dark Overlord himself had delivered to him.

Honestly, it was refreshing, to say the least. He had not pulled the lid on his powers in years, especially the matter manipulation part of it.

That was probably one of the most taxing parts of exercising his powers. Even then, with his near-crippled body, he was unable to pull off the truly impressive moves and had chosen to stick with the modes with the most destructive potential.

There was also a chance that Dormammu's avatar might just get out of Project Ark and he didn't even want to think of the devastating damage it could have done since nearly all the S-rankers of the organisation had been injured by it and were out of commision, even Frank since his powers work on only a certain level of power.

So, he chose to just destroy the dimension. That was sure to be the end of the demon. Surviving a collapsing dimension is one thing, surviving a gamma bomb in the middle of a collapsing dimension where the laws of physics are wonky at best, is another thing altogether.

With that done, in the split second it took for the shockwave to reach him and knock him into the unforgiving void, he repurposed some of the nearby shrapnel and fashioned himself a coffin of sorts. He didn't have enough time, energy, or thought process to make anything more than a basic life-supporting system since it took all he had to just make the metal into the strongest alloy he knew that didn't include Vibranium since that metal was the most taxing when it came to his abilities.

So, colour him surprised when he found out that not only was he alive, his body had somehow stopped hurting and become functional again, and he found himself facing Toby of all people.

On reflex, he activated his powers, or at least tried to, since he could not even feel his powers. He could feel his soul and it was weird, to say the least. It was as if it was in two places at once and the body he was in was being solely fueled by his soul and because of that, he could not access his powers.

So, he just stood there, with his arms up, knowing that he might as well be a toddler in terms of combat prowess in his current state, especially against someone like Toby who could handily trounce Thor and Hulk together, especially their current renditions before they really grew into their powers.

He swore that he could hear the sounds of cricket as Toby just looked on in amusement.

To be honest, he had nothing against Toby. In fact, he was once his best friend, and in that void, with all that burning, they had resolved that if they were going to be dying, they were going to die fighting together.

After that, he had been heartbroken and depressed for months as Toby had not been with him when he had arrived on Earth. Even building Alfred his first home and having him scan the entire planet and then the entire solar system, to no avail didn't help matters. It was the Ancient One who had helped him gather hope for Toby's survival since the higher powers would not have bestowed him with such power and left him to die.

So, with Alfred by his side, he had gone about his life, trying to complete the mission they had self-assigned themselves, hoping that someday Toby would arrive and be happy with the work he had done with his powers. He had imagined Toby would be happy to meet Alfred as well since Alfred was the companion that they had been given as a gift.

When he found Toby and with the help of Ancient One, rescued him from the Dark Dimension, he was overjoyed at finally finding his friend but soon realised that the friend he knew and loved had changed a lot since they last met.

The time in that time-dilated dimension did his mental health no justice. On top of that, upon further research, Alfred had figured out that Toby's DNA was an unstable hodgepodge of alien DNA and the only thing stopping it from collapsing was Toby's own powers which worked in overdrive to stop further damage. The Ancient One confirmed to him that the same issue also persists with his psyche, hence the sudden bouts of aggression. That was why he had reluctantly agreed to fight Toby and go ahead with the plan to cruelly imprison him. Ancient One later confirmed that she had foreseen the outcome of their actions and it resulted in him coming out with much better mental clarity was what stayed his hand once he truly realised the magnitude of his actions.

The magnitude of imprisoning and condemning a sentient being to years, possibly decades, of solitary imprisonment.

Now, as he awkwardly lowered his arms and looked over Toby who looked more and more like the laid-back and relaxed Toby he knew, he walked towards the offered seat.

After taking a seat, he took the offered Barbecue stick and for a while, they just enjoyed the silence and the crackling sound of the firewood burning in their own little corner of the world.

Because this is what it was, the only place in the world where no magical interference can occur. Not even portals can be opened in this place. Toby was the one who had discovered it and as the first one here, he had laid down some runes on the vibranium walls and due to the underlying properties of Vibranium, those runes then became permanent, enforced by the near infinite cosmic energy reserve that the mound held.

It was their own little secret base. It was a bit childish, he was aware but they had both been way too excited to find and claim a place that nobody else had found out that they had immediately named it as such, and due to the mystic nature of Toby and his demonic nature, the cave had been reverberated in official confirmation.

"This is nice," he heard Toby say as he still looked at the Barbecue in front of him.

"Yeah, you're right. This is nice," he muttered before taking a plate from the table nearby and taking out the chicken on it.

"What is this? It's chewy?" he said in between mouthfuls since the meat was tasty, chicken or not.

"It's demon meat," he choked on the meat after hearing Toby's reply.

He spit out the meat in his mouth and glared at Toby who raised his hands in surrender, "What? That was the closest thing to meat I had in my storage. Excuse me if you decide the edibility of a meat-based on its appearance. You know that's discrimination, right?"

He chuckled and then that chuckle turned into full-blown laughter after hearing Toby rant about the meat industry and the preference of meat eaters who choose to eat different types of meat based on their appearance and not their calorific or nutritional value.

He was soon joined by Toby as they doubled over in laughter, crying tears of joy.

"Oh, I needed this," Toby said after they had settled down after smelling the meat burning behind them.

He nodded at that.

After a while, after the noise of the firewood crackling died, he spoke," So, how did you get out?"

"Straight to the jugular, huh? Why? So you can put in better measures to stop me from coming out next time?"

"No, even if I wanted to do that, I can't since the Ancient One is now dead and she took that spell to her grave," he replied after a somber moment of silence.

"Oh, did not know that," Toby muttered in a sheepish tone.

He just nodded, eyes focused on nothing in particular as he stared ahead.

"So, how did she die? And just what the hell happened that pushed you to such a state? Where was Alfred with his shiny new body? Presumably, he is now powerful enough to stop nearly anybody with ease." Toby said, his words picking up heat as he spoke of Alfred in an accusing tone.

So, he began telling Toby of what happened. Of all that had happened ever since he left.

When he told him of the tidbit of Dormammu making a clone of him and using it to nearly kill all of the higher tier powers of the organisation, a dark look flashed over his face and the resulting pressure that he experienced in the split second nearly knocked him out.

He had forgotten just how powerful Toby was and it would seem that his time in his prison had only made him more powerful. His current powerless body would not last a single second against a First Generation Super soldier, let alone to the likes of Toby.

Speaking of his current body.

"How did you save me? And what is this body? I feel no pain but my powers are inaccessible to me. I can feel them being present, just out of reach," he asked Toby.

Toby rubbed the back of his head as he spoke, "Yeah, about that…"

Then he spoke of how he basically cursed him with a rare curse that basically solved all his problems. Then he realised of how the torture feature of the curse had been turned down by Toby.

He would have been happy about the solution only if he knew nothing about Mystic Arts at all.

As it was," The burden must be huge, right?" He questioned Toby about the toll of bearing his soul.

Toby made a so-so gesture with his hands

Sighing, he asked again, "How long until it becomes too much for you, Toby?"

Toby lowered his hands and sighed, "A few weeks, a month tops. Depends on how much of my powers I have to use before they fill up with my regen."

He nodded, thinking of how to solve the issue once and for all.

At Least he had Toby back with his mind back.

Speaking of solutions, "Where's Alfred?"

"Huh?"

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1891

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

A/N - Hello everyone! Sorry for the abrupt disappearance but I had a family emergency at home that I had to fly home for. I could not upload or type during that period because I didn't take my laptop with me for the trip.
Happy to say that my family is safe and will make a full recovery. I have come back to my day job now and will try and get back to my schedule ASAP.
Regular updates will begin from Friday.
Thank you for reading!


A/N - So guys, first things first. The reason this chapter is short is due to this(if it doesn't open, just search ALLMIGHT vs NOMU on yt and click the first link. And please watch it subbed. That's the best part).

Today, as usual, I woke up at 5 and began my day. By 7 I was done exercising and sat down to write today's chapter. For unrelated reasons, I was feeling a bit down today so I thought why not go to the handy dandy list I have for when I might need motivation?

So, my dumbass went and opened the first link. It is the ALLMIGHT vs NOMU fight and long story short, I watched a 3-minute video for over 30 minutes.

The fight had no reason to go that hard and it did. Whatever your views might be on MHA or anime in general, just go and watch that fight once and if you didn't feel like it was worth your time, then you don't the backstory because I always, always get goosebumps when I watch that.

So, don't worry, the next chapter will compensate for today's word loss but just go watch that and hopefully, you won't blame me.

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 79

Technomancer in MCU

The Asterisk

–Alfred–

"Stop pacing around, dammit. You are going to make me dizzy. I didn't even think it was possible with all my enhancements." Daisy said as she rolled into the captain's cabin in her new wheelchair, followed by Frank, Eric, and Jake, as if they were little ducklings following their mama.

It would have been hilarious if not for the glaring absence of their one and only leader, Ed.

After exiting Project Ark, they had been lucky enough to just crash land on Mars, practically spitting distance from the Asterisk for someone of their technological level.

But the same could not be said for Ed.

The second he was out of Project Ark, he had checked up on Frank and after finding him to be just unconscious, he immediately dove into the astral realm to begin the search for Ed.

He could see the thread linking him and Ed but it went deep into space.

He had feared the worst when abruptly as if Ed had travelled through a portal, the thread dipped out of his vision completely.

Chills had run down his spine at the thought of some alien civilisation with access to portal technology, getting a hold of Ed. Because as far as he knew, Sorcerers had a hard limit as to how far they can make portals in a single try and Ed was far out of that range.

He also knew that the Ancient One had suspended all off-planet assignments and called everyone back once the resurgence of the threat Dormammu possessed to Earth had been confirmed.

He had been petrified of what that might have signalled only to see that the thread linking him with Ed had changed directions and was now showing him to be on Earth.

That would have been a thing to celebrate.

But there he was, pacing around, almost creating a smoke trail in his path if he was not being careful. The reason being that Ed was untraceable.

Sure, the Astral realm showed that Ed's soul, while in a weird double state, was still on Earth, hale and hearty but as soon as he tried to divine his exact location, the spell, be it made of dimensional energy, Chaos energy, Infinity stone empowered energy, fizzled out, never giving him any concrete answer.

He had a feeling that brute forcing with the help of the Infinity Stone would have helped but the protocols regarding bringing the Mind Stone anywhere close to any kind of Artificial Intelligence were hardcoded in him and he was not about to disobey Ed on that.

Especially since he knew what could happen if it went about in the wrong direction and even more so when it concerned him, someone, already capable of destroying the planet without any help.

"Let him be, Daisy. You know he won't rest until we find Ed and he is just frustrated that for once, all his measures have fallen short." Frank said as he rolled to his usual station, to do the routine checks he did on the agents and their mission roles.

Just then, the sound of the door opening made everybody look at the entrance and the frantic footsteps made everyone sit a little straighter, leaning forward in anxious anticipation.

"Si-Sir, You need to–ah," The clearly new agent yelped and staggered back after he noticed the collective attention of the top management was on him.

Daisy immediately went into her boss mode and waved the terrified agent over who was clutching the tablet as if his life depended on it, "What is it?"

As he heard Daisy sucking in a sharp breath, his curiosity began piquing. He immediately accessed the tablet and all the data on it.

His eyes immediately widened as he opened up a whole bunch of holographic screens in front of them.

Everybody gathered around him as the screens began showing seemingly random events when they were anything but.

One screen showed the scene of Kaecilius's attack on Kamar Taj and the way he and his followers brutally slaughtered anybody who opposed them, including the old librarian who had decided to stay in the compound of Kamar Taj. He fought valiantly but after killing two rogue sorcerers, he was on his last breath when Kaecilius beheaded him. The footage ended with the exit of the rogue sorcerers from Kamar Taj with Kaecilius holding something in one hand and a key wrapped up in ancient paper in the other hand.

The next screen showed the spell the Ancient One used to armour up and leave when the reports for multiple demon sightings came through. The satellite footage showed her going through multiple demon waves across the planet, slaughtering nearly a hundred thousand demons, and eventually arriving at Dracula's castle, where after a lengthy negotiation attempt that Dracula threw aside with an ambush attempt, she killed Dracula and finally destroyed the Age Old Mystic Pact that prevented Ed from deposing the various rulers of Mystical Hotspots around the world. In the footage, as if she could see what was going to happen next, she unraveled the spell which would have saved her and looked up at the satellite as if she knew Alfred was going to watch this later. The exact words she mouthed were, "The rest is up to you."

He felt something hot flow down his eyes as the very next moment, a familiar energy coursed through the very corpse of Dracula as multiple spikes made of Dark Energy skewered the body of the Ancient One, her face frozen in the same stoic expression he knew as the mask she put on for anyone who entered Kamar Taj for the first time.

Almost painfully, he moved his eyes from that very scene to the next scene showing, from a distance, the destruction of the Sun Prison, freeing Toby from his supposedly eternal imprisonment. The satellite could barely follow the blip that escaped the prison in the visible spectrum. Switching to the energy spectrum showed a whole different story. Something with the energy reserves of Thor (which were humongous themselves) was heading straight towards Earth and he had a pretty good idea as to who it was.

"Why are you looking at these, Alfred?" Daisy asked him softly, as if afraid that the mere mention of the Ancient One's death would wilt him.

"Because they don't match," Frank said after a moment of silence.

At everybody's collective looks of confusion, he pointed towards the screen showing someone looking exactly like Toby walking in a Sakura Park in Tokyo, looking very much carefree and relaxed. The person had the same energy signature as the one who escaped from the Sun Prison.

"B-But that doesn't make any sense. This shows that he was in Tokyo when the fight happened and-" Daisy was interrupted by Alfred as he said, "It makes complete sense now."

"The person we fought was a fake." Frank finished Alfred's train of thought.

Alfred nodded, "Yes, and look at the timestamp when he jerked as if he had noticed something and immediately went invisible."

Frank looked towards the timestamps and his eyes widened immediately. He mumbled in realisation, "He realised something had happened."

Alfred nodded, "Yes, he and Ed always shared a special bond. Now, all that remains is tracking where he went from Tokyo and if he has Ed or not."

"Can you do that? Track his last location?" Daisy asked him hurriedly.

Alfred was already parsing the entire database for any and all demonic activities. The search was made infinitely more difficult by the swarm of demonic invasions that had been happening recently so tracking a specific activation of Demonic Energy was proving to be a bit difficult.

Although, by filtering out various parameters, he was able to get six different hits but his eyes lit up as he saw one that was barely a hundred meters from the place Toby was last seen at.

"I'll be back soon," He said and opened a portal with a flex of his will.

"I wish I could come but-" Daisy showed her heavily bandaged arms and said,"-I doubt I'll be any help in this condition."

"I'll come," Frank said as he stood up from the wheelchair despite the vehement protesting beeps the chair made. "I'll be hearing from Maria soon," he mumbled as he flexed his arms and removed the cast from his hands.

Then he looked up at him and said, "What are we waiting for? Let's go before Maria finds us."

Then the comical scene of Frank leaping through the portal as he escaped from the future nagging of his wife, was witnessed by everybody present.

Stifling a chuckle, he flew through the portal, closing it behind him. He made sure that the dressing down that Daisy was undoubtedly going to receive was recorded and shared in 4K.

On the other side of the portal, they came into a forest clearing but something was wrong as the usual sounds of nature were all absent. Even Frank must have felt something was wrong as he had his ability turned ON for display, his rifle in hand ready to blast the first thing that came into view.

He would have disregarded that rifle if he didn't know what it was. It would seem that the previous events had left Frank pretty shaken if he had chosen to take out an Alpha-tier weapon for this excursion. Something that was banned but when had Frank Castle ever let something as pesky as rules stop him?

"What?" Frank said defensively as he saw Alfred eyeing his gun.

"Nothing," Alfred shook his head and opened a portal in front of him through which a long silver shaft gleaming in blue crystals dropped down, sinking down into the land in front of them due to its sheer weight.

"What is it?" Frank said as Alfred crouched near the pillar, configuring it by sending in his CHI in precoded patterns.

"That is the best mystical energy sensor on the planet and probably in many other realms." Alfred said as the pillar began sending out dimensional energy pulses for mapping.

"But not better than Odin, Frigga, or You?" Frank said as he began scoping out the perimeter.

"Sadly, yeah," Alfred confirmed for him. That was an ongoing topic for discussion within the organisation.

That no matter how far they go in terms of technology, they never come close to matching the top natural practitioners of the mystic arts throughout the nine realms.

Specifically, Odin and Frigga always remain at the top of whatever field of mystics they choose to document. It had been a source of frustration for him but now that he had his very own soul, he could finally see the final element as to why his best sensors, which by all means should have been more sensitive than anything alive, were always bested by them.

Being included in the same list as magical juggernauts such as Odin and Frigga did help soothe his ego over as well.

"We got a match," he said as the pillar began beeping and began slowly levitating itself out of the hole in the ground.

They kept following it until it came upon a clearing and bumped into seemingly nothing and began beeping loudly. He narrowed his eyes and after recording the readings, sent the pillar back to the Asterisk.

"What now?" Frank asked as he kept looking around for any possible threat. His paranoia having gone through the roof since the fight with Dormammu.

His reply was a blast of energy that sent the wind blowing with the barrier finally coming into view as it buckled under the pressure of the attack.

He exhaled in relief as he saw traces of a ritual clearly demonic in nature. Soon, the barrier shattered and he immediately floated above the ritual circle, recording it in memory, and began analysing it to replicate it with normal dimensional energy instead of the demonic energy Toby must have used.

He also didn't have willingly given blood to help track down Ed. Something that he will have to rectify at the earliest.

He was about to try and inject his energy into it to help understand it better when it began glowing red on its own.

!!

His eyes widened as he immediately cast his strongest barrier around the circle and stood outside the barrier, casting another spell to shield Frank and himself.

"Get ready. Because someone is coming from the other side. Somebody more powerful than the one we fought earlier." His words only made Frank hold on to his gun tighter.

He had already given the signal for the carriers to converge at this location without delay.

"Backup should be here soon." He said as he cast the same variant of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak that the Ancient One used on Frank.

"Will it matter?" he heard Frank mumble but he chose to let that question go unanswered since even he was not sure.

At this time, the drop of blood that had been sitting in the center of the ritual had begun floating again and the circle had begun shining brighter and brighter in red colour, giving off the metallic scent of blood.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2226

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 80.1

Technomancer in MCU

Wakanda

–Ed–

Watching Toby regale him with the tales of his admittedly brief visits to the Grasslands and the Sakura Garden he had always wanted to visit with a complex gaze, he thought of where did he had lost it all.

The desire to look at the simple things of nature and derive joy from them.

They had discussed back in high school to visit the wonders of nature together and maybe even find hidden ones, a fool's dream, sure but it was a dream.

For all these years, he did have the opportunity to visit the wonders of nature.

Hell, he had the opportunity to visit any planet he wanted to, many of them filled with natural wonders beyond the understanding of the regular mind.

And yet..here he was, just slogging away all of his remaining lifespan for Humanity when he himself had nearly forgotten how to enjoy the joys that humanity itself took for granted.

He began chuckling bitterly at the absurdity of it all.

The chuckles soon turned into full blown-out laughter.

"Uh, Ed?" He heard Toby ask him but he was far too gone in the hilarity of the situation to give him attention.

"Sorry, Sorry. Just realised something. That's all." He said while waving off any of Toby's questions.

"Anyway, let's get out, shall we? I am sure everybody must be worried and I can't wait to give Frank the shock of his lifetime."

Toby laughed and stood up, nodding at him.

Soon, a ritual circle was drawn on the ground in front of them and while he did not have access to the minor cybernetic enhancements he had done to his original body, he still tried his best to memorise the circle in front of him.

Because it was evident that even Alfred, with all his mystical attainments, was not able to track him while this seemingly small and simple ritual circle was able to track him halfway across the galaxy. It would seem that Demonic energy did still has its benefits.

Then he realised something. "Did you use the blood I gave you all those years ago?"

"Yeah, obviously. How else did you think I was able to track you immediately and from that far away? It would have been impossible without your willingly given blood. Do you want it back?" Toby asked him back flippantly.

He thought about it but in the end, there was no point in asking it back since he was now sure that Toby was back in his right mindset now. So, he shook his head and replied, "No. It's fine."

Toby nodded and dropped a droplet of his blood in the center of the ritual circle. The circle immediately lit up red in response and began glowing brighter.

As if reaching a crescendo, the circle's brightness began receding back under the drop of blood and then a tear in space opened up in front of them.

The tear didn't look big enough to fit him, Toby, and his makeshift life support suit to go through but before he could voice his concerns, Toby simply went to the portal and somehow…expanded it using his bare hands.

!

His eyes widened in their sockets out of astonishment as Toby waved his hand and his new body, along with his suit flew out of the cave and into a small clearing.

Dusting off his shoulders, he stood up, only to pause as he saw Alfred along with Frank pointing Guns and in the case of Alfred, a huge magical circle which had hundreds of different magical circles that crackled with different elements behind him.

He slowly raised his hands in surrender as Toby exited the portal, making things even worse as he could hear the low whine of the alpha cannon being charged up by Frank.

"Um, Hello?" he said while waving his hand awkwardly.

Toby shoved him aside and just waved his hand, the result of which left him extremely embarrassed.

The wave of demonic energy tore apart the barrier around the ritual circle, went on to destroy the magical attack Alfred sent their way and after doing all of that, still had enough energy left in it to crumble the barriers Alfred had activated on instinct, giving Alfred just enough time to get out of the blast zone.

He winced as a thunderous boom sounded in the distance, along with the sound of people and wildlife panicking.

He deadpanned at Toby. "Well done, smartass."

He sighed, cupped his hands in front of his mouth, and shouted," Alfred, it's me. Scan me with your shiny new sensors. We need to get out of here. A lot of things have changed and we have to address them."

Alfred, along with Frank, slowly and hesitantly floated down to the ground near them.

"This is weird. What is happening to you? I am seeing two identical soul readings from you and the body in the coffin behind you." Alfred said as he scanned their entire surroundings.

"Oh, that is something Toby did to help prolong my life. Now, can we please go to the Asterisk? You have a lot of work to do and I have things to do as well." Ed said.

Just then, Toby perked up and turned towards Ed, "We have company."

"Huh?" Ed looked at him perplexed then facepalmed as he saw Alfred wincing, "Alfred, please tell me you did not just do something extremely stupid?"

"Eh, I just ordered them to go back, if that helps?"

His only response was an explosive sigh.

"Look, you guys clearly have a lot of work to do. The spell will work as long as I supply it with energy. I'll see you at the Asterisk soon." Toby said and without waiting for any of their replies, waved his hands and exited through a fiery red portal.

Though, the dark energy that wafted out of the portal for the few seconds that it was open, gave them a pretty solid guess as to where Toby was headed.

"Did he just?" Frank asked in shocked awe.

"Yes, yes he did just do that. The motherfucker just went to the Dark Realm." Alfred cursed out loud.

Finally, he had the chance to do something he had been looking forward to for years.

"Language!"

Ah, good times.

________________________________________________________________

Dark Realm

–Dormammu–

He had been called the Dark Overlord by generations of Sorcerer Supremes and feared by nearly all of them since the time of Agamotto himself.

If not for that accursed man, he would have long since devoured Earth or at least shared it with multiple demon outer gods but no, that mortal had to go and turn Earth into the biggest magical fortress the Universe ever knew.

Even then, it was fine for him.

He was an immortal being. Time was meaningless to him.

A little bit more time was not going to make him budge but then came the single most infuriating human he had ever come across, even more so than Agamotto.

Agamotto he knew how to deal with, he left Earth alone in his presence and Agamotto never came knocking on his doorstep but the Ancient One..

He had to hand it to her.

When one of his more powerful experiments had killed her predecessor right in front of her, he had done so with the complete knowledge that there was no one aside from the Ancient One who had the right to assume the position of the Sorcerer Supreme. He was also aware of her attachment to her teacher who had rescued her when she was but a mere mortal babe.

He had hoped that crippling her emotionally would be the final nail in the coffin for the organisation that had spawned from Agamotto's little triplet of disciples but she turned out to be tougher than he could imagine.

She took command of the organisation and made sure that the barrier was fortified along with taking help from unconventional allies to help safeguard the planet, even going as far as to take the help of the Shamans of the old forgotten Gods of Africa. For decades, she purged any demon on Earth with extreme prejudice and left no backdoors for any entity to abuse.

He had written her off and resigned himself to wait out her mortal lifespan to try again.

Only, that time never came. The accursed woman refused to die.

Sacrificing her true name to one of the Endless, she gained power comparable to that of Agamotto himself when he was a mortal powered by nothing but dimensional energies and the Time Stone.

Then, came the true attacks.

Time and time again, she attacked and tested him. Created intentional openings for him in the barrier surrounding the planet and decimating all his forces.

Using him as a means of destroying rogue elements on the planet that she herself couldn't be bothered to take care of and then swooping down and saving the day.

That's what he hated the most about that woman.

The sheer arrogance she held.

To use the Dark Overlord, one of the strongest beings in the multiverse, as a mere instrument to kill off her enemies.

Then one day, frustrated beyond belief that she was once again, triumphing over all of his experiments, he chose to lure her out of the universe into one of the many small alternate dimensions that found their openings to be on Earth for some reason. He did so with the hope that at least he would be able to force her to use the Infinity Stone and reduce her mortal lifespan, as he was nearing the end of the average lifespan for a Sorcerer Supreme anyway.

He should have been more suspicious of the fact that he was successful in luring her away but alas.

He was far too happy with the result to notice that it was not her who was walking into a trap, it was him who was doing so, quite happily he might add.

The laws surrounding the manifestation of Outer dimensional entities were quite lax when it came to alternate dimensions so from the get-go, he manifested his strength to the limit and that was when he realises, as his senses which would normally not be available to a normal avatar were now present to him. He sensed the underlying ritual circle in the alternate dimension and soon realised that the Ancient One had used the Time Stone to pre-draw it in this dimension before he could even lure her in.

Before he could do anything further though, the option was taken out of his hands as the Ancient One placed a very old, very rough-looking but glowing ominously book in the center of the ritual where the outline of a certain Old God was present.

He hadn't even realised it then but his avatar's body which he had been possessing and subsequently, had a direct connection to, was bound by the very laws of the dimension, laws that had suddenly become quite strict when it came to movement of avatars of outer dimensional entities.

The blackened fingers of the Ancient One and the smell of chaos wafting off the Book had given him a pretty solid idea as to what the book actually was.

The Darkhold.

He had been incredibly confused back then since the previous Sorcerer Supreme, the one person the Ancient One swore by, was incredibly rigid when it came to laws, and tinkering with Chaos energy, in general, was forbidden by Kamar Taj, let alone directly using the Darkhold, the one opening through which C̵̢̨̛͔̩͚̗̦̮̩̤̔̾͐͛h̸̯̤͇̪̄̑̃͒͋̃̇͠t̶̡̯̤̾͗̆h̷̜̝̯͗̀̄͂ö̷̱̭́̈́̄̒ņ̶̛̘͚͚͓̦̲̯̲̘̇̌̋̊̿̆̈́͛͠ directly expanded his influence in the mortal plane.

Sitting cross-legged in front of the Darkhold, with the Eye of Agamotto constantly circulating some sort of energy around the Ancient One, she began chanting an old spell of some sort. Something which he had not heard, even throughout his long life.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2005

To be Continued…

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 80.2

Technomancer in MCU

Dark Realm

–Dormammu–

But, the way his essence inside the avatar was being stolen piece by piece had given him a pretty good idea as to what the Ancient One was trying to do.

She was trying to take his Dark Energy and strip it of all its other qualities and only taking it in the Longevity aspect of his energy.

He had been so furious back then that even at the cost of damage to his soul, he had forcibly destroyed the avatar body, hoping that it would stop the ritual mid-way and if he knew anything about Chthon at all, he would make sure that the soul of Ancient One was claimed after that.

But after years of silence after that, the second he sent in his soldiers again, there she was.

The Ancient One, hale and hearty.

With none of the supposed damage from the ritual. Even the slight taint of Chaos Energy was gone from her soul as she had actually severed a part of her soul and healed it using something.

The ensuing reign where she held the position of the Sorcerer Supreme for centuries was the single longest period of non-interference that the mystical side of Earth had.

Even his recent deal with Dracula that he was able to do felt like it was planned. As if it was done all by the Ancient One for something.

For some goal that she was able to see and he was not.

But that was simply impossible.

He was aware that ever since the introduction of the Singularity and his guardian in the universe, the future had been in a constant flux and so all clairvoyant abilities, even his very own, had been either handicapped or outright disabled.

The Time Stone, being one of the six fundamental building blocks of the universe, was not disabled completely but from what he knew about it, it was not able to accurately tell her the future as well.

He had this tested multiple times using scapegoats from the mystical hotspots of Earth.

So, with this knowledge in hand that the Ancient One's future sight, arguably her greatest tool in the fight against him, was severely hampered, he set out a plan.

A plan to get rid of the biggest hindrances in his path to once again ruling a part of Earth, a plan to get rid of the pesky shields that kept Earth out of his reach.

The problem was that just by getting rid of the Ancient One, he would not get complete access to the Earth since the Singularity was on her side as well.

And everybody knew not to mess with the Singularity unless you were sure of finishing him off completely because if he survived and came back prepared, even entities on the same level as him would find it difficult to escape that confrontation unharmed.

So, he churned a significant portion of the Dark Realm's energy to create a zone with accelerated time dilation inside that area with respect to Earth.

During his plotting, he chanced upon a hurt Master of the Mystic Art who had embers of rage inside of him, rage that could one day burn down the very organisation that he worked inside.

So, he took advantage of that. He slowly began sowing discord in his mind. It helped that he was the one who regularly volunteered himself to go fight in the front lines against his demons and through them, he had convinced Kaecilius to forge a permanent bond with him.

Once that was done, he gave him the knowledge about the secret to Ancient One's unnatural longevity and how he could access the same knowledge to even bring back his family.

It was all falsehoods of course but to the hazy mind of Kaecilius, it felt true. It helped that he was able to confirm various facts using his access to Kamar Taj's library.

Slowly, one by one, the pack of people whom he could influence increased and soon, he gave the order for Kaecilius to gather his troops and be ready to attack.

Then, he focused his attention on the Guardian of the Singularity. While a completely digital construct, it had a soul, and while it could be said that a digital presence's most critical vulnerability was its vessel, its soul was equally vulnerable if you knew where to look for it.

He had a spell that, if charged with enough magical power, could overpower the Guardian's formidable mental and soul defenses and leave it reeling from the shock. The problem was that he had no minion with that level of power in the organisation.

Kaecilius came in real handy here as he informed him about the distaste that various members held for the Guardian and its antics, including one old Dwarf, formerly of Nidavellir.

So, he had Kaecilius approach the old dwarf under the guise of building a spell to ward off the Guardian's pranks temporarily from a significant area.

That foolish old dwarf.

He was unaware of the true nature of the spell and ended up striking at the core logic centers of the Guardian, leaving it disoriented and hampering it's proper decision-making abilities.

A swift poison that he had not used for a while was also administered to Throgg by Kaecilius that only activated after sensing the particular spell being used, had done the trick of taking out one of the Ancient One's staunchest allies as well as the premier weapons maker of the Singularity.

He made sure to use the same poison that had ultimately taken down the previous Sorcerer Supreme, a poison that the Ancient One was well aware of.

The cure to which was only known to her in the current organisation.

Being who she was, he was sure that she would employ the cure, risking all the soul-bound spells she had cast. Sure, with the sheer strength of her soul, most spells would hold on just fine.

But, there was a single person with whom she held a soul contract whose very soul held weight even more so than the Ancient One.

Toby Mathers was an equally infuriating person but he was someone who could be dealt with. The last time they had met, he had been forced to give up nearly one-tenth of his realm and churn it into energy to ward off that resilient fool who had thought that he could defeat Dormammu in his own realm.

The soul pact was an insidious one that forced Mathers to stay out of Earth's affairs for a set period of time or else the Singularity would die.

Honestly, he wanted all three of them to die but he would settle with the death of two, the Ancient One and the Singularity due to the remnants of his energy still on that person when he had tried to, in a completely moronic move, eat him.

The second he got confirmation of the soul pact shuddering and breaking, he ordered Kaecilius and the others to assault Kamar Taj and if possible, go after the Ancient One in her vulnerable state or destroy all they could and kill as many people as possible.

This would have never been possible if the Guardian of the Singularity was not absent since both the organisations had been so closely knit that any attack on Kamar Taj would have garnered a swift response from their stationed forces on the Planet.

The next step was to get Mathers out of prison and somehow convince him to work against his previous allies.

Allies that had imprisoned him inside a solitary prison. He had thought that it would be enough of a reason to work with him to take revenge on his incarcerators but the moment Mathers got out of that dimension, he knew that it was not going to work.

He just didn't have the hunger, the spark for revenge and hate that he had seen in Kaecilius.

Still, he gave his customary offer and while the loss of Kaecilius would have bugged him for a while, the fool at least did one thing right and managed to steal samples of Mather's DNA from the Singularity's organisation when it was in disarray from the sudden leave of the Guardian.

If he couldn't get Mathers to work for him, he would just make his very own.

By the time the clone was ready, Dracula had managed to prove himself useful, even in his death, and by taking the Ancient One by surprise, he defeated and killed her, preserving her head for future purposes.

Infiltrating the large ship they were in, was easy since Mathers knew the energy signatures of the ward and while they had certainly been added upon, the underlying ward scheme remained the same.

Utilizing that loophole, he managed to snag the attention of the Singularity, his Guardian, and all the people he surrounded himself with.

Knowing that the ship held an alternate dimension itself, he didn't waste much time before flooding the ship with his darkness, forcing the Guardian to take them to the alternate dimension.

Once there, he wanted to taunt the Singularity with the head of the Ancient One but the Guardian proved to be smart and knocked the Singularity out immediately.

The resulting fight, while tough, was nowhere near entertaining as all of their cards fell short of the sheer power he brought to bear in the alternate dimension.

Towards the end was when the Singularity woke up and sensing the opportunity, he threw the severed head of the Ancient One in front of the Singularity.

The ensuing battle was one that would have given him trouble if he was actually trying to win. All he wanted to do was prolong the battle and make sure that the Singularity exhausted his remaining lifespan, trying to fight a meat body that he could make in less than a minute.

In the end, the Singularity collapsed the dimension and killed his clone but his objectives had been met.

If not immediately, the Singularity would be dead soon. The Ancient One was truly dead this time.

And he was free to attack Earth once he had the confirmation of the Singularity's death.

Just then, he sensed someone entering his realm. Shocked at the intrusion since it was not allowed by him, he summoned the point in space where the tear happened to him and recoiled when he saw Mathers getting out of the tear.

He growled in anger at that. This pest had come back to his realm once again to bother him.

"Yo", he had the audacity to smirk at his growing rage.

His only response was a glowing violent energy beam that struck Mathers right in his face.

His triumphant smirk fell short when he saw that Mathers came out completely unscathed from that confrontation.

Looking closer, he could see a thin sheen of hellfire that surrounded the form of Mathers.

"I don't care what matter you had with the Ancient One-"

Mathers' form began to grow as hellfire suddenly flooded his realm.

"-But the moment you targeted Ed, you became my problem-"

Soon, his size reached the same as him and now his realm housed two volatile energies in the form of Dark Energy and Dark attribute Hellfire.

"-And I only know of a single way to deal with my problems."

He could not even see how he was struck when his planetoid-sized body tumbled through his realm, the vast damage being done to his realm and its denizens by the Hellfire, visible to him.

Swiftly regaining his balance, he turned his body into a humanoid one to match better with Mathers' new form when his entire vision was filled with Hellfire as he felt his very realm groaning from the stress of another dimension trying to force its way in.

With growing horror, he watched as the very hell dimension that Mathers ruled over, manifested behind him.

No, he could not allow that to happen. If he lost his realm, he would be left with nothing and would soon turn into cosmic dust, becoming an easy meal for the vultures to pick apart.

"Alright, stop! You made your point. What do you want?" He growled out with extreme reluctance clear in his voice.

Mathers only watched him with a dispassionate stare as his hellfire continued to rampage in his realm, erasing the Dark Ones by the billions every minute.

"WHAT.DO.YOU.WANT" he asked again with gritted teeth.

Only then did Mathers seemed satisfied as the hellfire receded back into the dimension behind him. He then said, "I want you to agree to never interfere in Earth's matters as long as I am alive. I know you'll inevitably find a loophole but as long as I am alive, the second you step out of line, you lose your realm and we both know what will happen then."

Having no choice but to comply, he agreed. "Fine."

"Great working with you," Mathers said and his hell dimension behind him dissipated back into nothingness and Mathers swiftly made his exit.

He immediately took stock of his realm and to his absolute rage, found out that roughly twenty percent of his realm was gone because of the absolutely massive discharge of hellfire that Mathers perpetrated.

He must have figured out how to take ownership and use his realm while being in that prison because he was not this powerful the last time they had fought.

He would abide by the pact as long as Mathers was alive.

But that did not mean that he could not spread the information about Mathers walking around with an unclaimed dimension with him.

That should be enough trouble for him until he could figure out a way out of that pesky soul pact.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2322

Ah, this chapter took more than five hours to finish.

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Well, hello there my peeps!
Its been long overdue but I owe you guys an explanation, at the very least.
Well, somewhere around the last week of February, I had to go home due to a family emergency.
It was completely sudden and there was a whole host of tension surrounding the last moment flight, that flight's cancellation and then boarding another flight, yada yada yada.
For context, I have a full-time job and for that, I had to move about 1600km(994 mi) away from my home and pretty much the only way home without spending 30 HOURS on a train is by flight. So, I had to leave everything on pause for an entire week and go home.
The trip there was exhausting. The ride from the airport to the home was exhausting. The stay there was veryyy exhausting.
But in the end, I pulled through, things went back to normal in about a week, and the next thing I knew, I was on a flight back to work on the 3rd of March (Sunday).
Poor naive me thought that I could just pick up the work where I left it but apparently, that is not how things are done in the corporate sector. So, on top of handling all the new work, I also had to work on the pile of backlog that had occurred during my unplanned leave (that I am glad my employer gave me on such short notice).
Juggling that along with writing was a bitch and a half. I stopped going to the gym and since my healthy meals option was with the gym, I started eating junk again and soon found myself with zero energy and motivation to write or work.
I still tried but as you know, the last time I uploaded a chapter was on March 8th.
I soon found out that I would not be able to do everything at once (as much as I wanted to) so I decided to take a break.
For about a month.
It's just that, I forgot to tell you guys about it.
Ooopsies.
So, don't worry, nothing has happened to me.
It's a little case of burnout I guess. Don't worry though, my ADHD brain is already brimming with new ideas now and it won't be long until you see me with a new story.
...
..
Now, comes the slightly bad part. Technomancer is going on hiatus. Temporarily.
The thing is that when I started that story, I had no idea what I was doing. I have learned so much since then and while it has definitely been a great learning experience, looking back, I kinda don't like many of the decisions I took in regards to that.
So, either I might rewrite it with better story points or maybe continue it and give it an ending much sooner than expected.
Of course, nothing's written in stone so who knows?
Anywho, that's all from my side.
I will see you guys soon, I have an exciting new concept for a story in mind and the first chapters of that should be public by April 1 (Don't worry, it's not an April Fool's).

Until then, thank you for reading!
Toodles!

Regards,
Idle Muse

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Hello Everyone!

I, or rather this story, is BACK!!

Why so soon, you might ask?

Well, as it turned out, leaving it unfinished kinda left a bad taste in my mouth and whenever I wrote something, something about this fic always came back to my mind.

Anywho, without further ado, here are your chapters.

P.S. - There's three of them today.

Enjoy!

XXX____XXX

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 81

Technomancer in MCU

–Alfred–

"Alfred Alfred, what just happened?" He heard Daisy shouting in the background over the abrupt mobilisation of all the carriers and assets they had on the planet. He had even gone as far as taking direct control of the assets that were without pilots and sending them on a crash course toward them.

All of that, only to cancel his orders halfway through and tell everybody to back to their positions.

Understandably, Daisy and the others on the captain's deck had some concerns.

The thing was that he himself was unsure of how to explain this to them.

"I'll let you know as soon as I understand what is going on," He told Daisy and cut the comms link.

Making sure that nobody was listening in on their conversation, he gave the order for the cleanup crew to restore the surroundings back to their previous state since handling demonic energy was not something he trusted the locals to do properly. It could lead to disastrous situations like people mutating, wildlife mutating, etc.

Honestly, the only reason he was not open-firing from the orbital cannon in place was because of the weird and confusing soul readings he was getting from Ed.

Just as he was about to ask Toby to come with them, he instead opened a portal and fucked right off to the Dark Dimension for some reason.

"What the..?" he heard Frank mutter as he looked at the wilting vegetation around the portal before with a flash of hellfire, it closed right up, leaving just a burn mark on the ground and dead vegetation as its aftermath.

Ed facepalmed at that, piquing his curiosity.

"Just what happened before this? How did he rescue you? What has happened to your body?" he asked Ed rapidly.

Sighing, Ed replied, "Look, can we just get out of here? I am feeling my limbs moving without pain for the first time in years and would love to get some proper work done now. Also, I don't want to repeat everything so just assemble everyone in the captain's cabin."

"Very well," Alfred replied and opened a portal.

Before Ed could go in though, he stopped him with his arm and asked him, "Are you sure nothing will happen to your soul if we use portals or should we just bring in a jet? You know what I'll call the jet."

Ed (or his body double?) rolled his eyes and tried to move his arm away and promptly staggered back due to the sheer strength imbalance between the two of them.

Looking at his smug face, Ed replied, "You know I created you, right? Kids these days have no respect for their elders."

"Quit whining like a baby, it will be here in no time. We built it together, remember?" Ed said and right on time, the double-deep sound of the jet being parked sounded right above them as the red and golden-themed jet became visible to all of them.

Careful with Ed's extremely vulnerable body since it seemed like it would fall apart at the slightest disturbance due to the presence of cracks on his body, the jet lowered itself till the ramp on the back of the jet touched the ground.

As soon as we got inside the jet, the ramp closed itself and the view of the cleanup crew using the CHI overload systems to get rid of the demonic hellfire in the area closed off.

"So, the one we fought was.." Frank said, his question clear.

"Yeah, it was a fake. I knew it the moment I woke up but I was far too gone in rage to be stopped," Ed replied as they took a moment of silence to ruminate over the loss of the Ancient One.

"Any idea as to how that happened?" Ed asked Alfred who was busy conducting all types of scans on Ed's body.

"It was Dracula. He had opened up multiple demon pits at the edge of his territory and set them open out in the wild. She killed the demons, destroyed the pits, and then confronted Dracula. HE showed no remorse so she was forced to destroy the pact, take the backlash, and kill him."

"Then how did he.." Ed said.

"It was Dormammu. His energy lay dormant in Dracula's body, so he could attack the Ancient One at her most vulnerable since the backlash of the pact was borne by her, and taking advantage of that, Dormammu was able to defeat her."

Even speaking about it, he could feel a thick wave of killing intent rolling off of Ed and this was not even his real body.

Dormmamu's days were pretty much numbered, it would seem.

Soon, the hangar came into view and they got off the jet.

As soon as the coffin containing Ed's body got off the jet, it flew back to its designated position and a team of doctors followed a similar-looking coffin as it superimposed itself over the old coffin, showing all sorts of advanced medical statistics.

The metal box silently floated back to the emergency ward, followed by a flurry of activities from the doctors who were led by Maria.

He secretly sighed in relief as that would mean that Maria would be too busy dealing with Ed's body to have the time to tear him a new one.

Soon, they found themselves seated in the captain's cabin with all of the S-tier combatants of the organisation present, excluding Ajax since he was busy tearing apart the various pirates that had the audacity to invade the refugee colonies' sovereign space.

"So, before you guys try and demonize Toby, just know that he was once my best friend and a valued member of the organisation. The person you fought that day was not Toby. It was a clone made by Dormammu because he wanted to take advantage of the chaos in the organisation." Ed began before anybody could get a word in.

"The second thing is, the body I am currently in is a demonic bio-artifact of some sort that allows a person to mould it into any shape and size. The reason I am in this body is due to the fact that I have officially exhausted nearly all of my remaining lifespan and would have been dead if not for Toby's help. This body, while not giving me access to my powers, allows me to function normally without further degrading the condition of my body."

He then gestured towards Alfred, "Since Alfred has a body now, I am sure he might have some sort of solution for my condition but that is not the priority right now."

Whirling to face Alfred directly, Ed said, "Now that the Ancient One is dead, the strongest person in Kamar Taj is undoubtedly you and I don't believe for a second that the Ancient One didn't plan all of this. So, I want you to go to Kamar Taj or at least send a clone, organise them, and make sure that the planetary shields are reinforced and in the right condition."

Alfred looked grief-stricken at the mention of the Ancient One but soon looked at Ed with a determined look in his eyes.

He then made a clone who promptly made a portal and left the room.

"Now that we have that sorted away, let's discuss the changes that would be happening as a direct result of Dormammu's attack. First of all, the safety of the planet. Alfred has gone to make sure that the shields are safe. Any stray demons would need to be hunted down and I have made that the number one priority for now. Secondly, Revenge-"

"Don't worry about that, my friend. It's taken care of." Came the familiar voice of Toby as he somehow bypassed not only the ward scheme but also all of his senses.

That was troubling.

Understandably, all of the people present were startled and were pointing at Toby with the closest weapon they had access to, except Ed and him.

Ed sighed and waved at the others to lower their weapons and asked Toby exasperatedly, "What do you mean by that?"

Toby walked in and plonked down on one of the sofas and summoned an apple from a nearby pantry. He smirked and replied with a mouthful of apple in his mouth, "Oh, I gave the Old Dark One's home a visit. Gave it a little makeover. Let's just leave it at that."

Ed smiled and was about to say something before he sensed the space in the room warping and shouted, "Take Cover!"

Before anybody could even move, a rainbow pillar slammed into existence right in the centre of the room and as everybody pointed their weapons at the bridge, somebody they had never expected to see again came out of it.

"Your saviour is here," said Loki as he appeared in all of his alien mythological glory in his full costume.

And was promptly backhanded by Toby as he appeared before Loki in a flash. The only reason Loki was not a bloody mist was due to the existence of a small magic circle that broke down the moment Toby's hand made contact with it, absorbing most of the blow.

Seeing Loki create a hole in the wall and then slump down, Ed sighed once again and said, "Can we just stop manhandling Asgardian Princes please?"

Toby looked unrepentant as he looked at the fallen Loki with his swollen face like a masterpiece and Ed called in Maria to heal the fallen wayward Prince of Asgard.

"Well, this looks like the sort of mess that will bring about the attention of Thor, right?" Daisy asked, strangely excited about the arrival of an angry Asgardian Prince.

"But how is this even possible? Who sent him this time?" Eric asked

"He arrived by the rainbow bridge. It would be safe to assume that he has arrived from Asgard. It remains to be seen if his arrival was through legitimate orders or if he is just being his chaotic self." Jake replied.

"No, he probably is here on Odin's orders. Ignoring the fact that he would not be moving around without Odin's say-so, I had felt Heimdall's gaze on me when I had ascended. Back then, I had swiftly concealed myself so while I was expecting this, he sent Loki sooner than expected. I was half expecting a rainbow bridge to slam into me without any preparation but this works too." Alfred replied as he crouched down near the fallen Prince, taking DNA samples while running all the scans that he could while Loki was still unconscious.

Ed raised an eyebrow at that, "Oh, so it means you have officially ascended now, and is the faith energy being collected properly?"

Alfred nodded.

Ed then nodded, as if enlightened, "Ah, so that explains why you are acting so much cocky lately. The faith energy is corrupting you, it would seem. We need to purge all of that. I know of one way. Humiliation is the fastest way to humble someone, I propose we do that to you."

Alfred deadpanned at him, "Need I remind you that I am the strongest mystic on the planet right now and probably the most knowledgeable as well."

"Stop this chitchat, I wanted to see how strong a Prince of Asgard would be but I guess only Odin would be my match. Call me when we need to leave for Asgard," Toby said and left the room.

"Where are you going?" Ed yelled at him.

"To my quarters. I do hope my collectibles are still there, right Alfred?" Toby asked while exuding huge amounts of killing intent.

If it was possible, he would be sweating buckets. He then replied, "Yes, they are in storage. By the time you reach there, the room should be in the same state it was when you.. left"

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2003

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 82

Technomancer in MCU

The Asterisk

–Ed–

Well, that was a situation and a half.

Not only did the team get an explosive introduction to Toby, but they saw him slap an Asgardian Prince, Loki, into oblivion.

"How did he survive?" he asked Alfred as he was busy sealing up Loki's powers. He knew Toby and while he cared enough to hold back against people he knew, Loki was not fortunate enough to have Toby's acquaintance. Personally knowing his strength, that slap should have been enough to at least cave his skull, if not outright kill him.

"I cast a kinetic energy absorbing rune right in front of Loki's face, hoping it would be enough to stop him in time. It didn't but lessened the blow to the point that Loki only had minor concussions which have since healed due to his physiology. It probably helped that Toby understood my intent and didn't push the blow further or else, we would be looking at a very angry Odin right now." Alfred replied.

Yeah, that would have been the case.

While Odin liked to show himself to be the shining image of impartiality and justice, in reality, he did favour Thor more than he did Loki.

But that didn't mean that he didn't love Loki. It was just that his expression of Love came out a little different from traditional parenting. Then again, they were an entirely different species so what would he know?

If Loki had died or severely injured here, Odin would probably be donning his combat suit and shining rainbow bridge on their asses in less time than it took for them to get out of the base since it was probably going to be blown up by the sheer might of the Rainbow Bridge.

Many people in the outer cosmos have forgotten that while it is called a bridge, it is in fact a planet destroyer that would puncture through most planets with ease.

Then there was Frigga who, while not in the same realm of power as Odin, was equally dangerous if not more so due to her knowledge of the forgotten Mystic Arts.

Alfred would love to meet her.

"Yeah, from the looks of it, that guy looked to be in a rush to fight strong guys. Thor will probably love him," Daisy said as she poked Loki in the face.

"There, done," Alfred said as he sealed the entirety of Loki's prowess, from his advanced strength to his magic to even his heritage as an Ice Giant.

Alfred did good work with runes.

"I know you are awake, Loki. No use pretending in front of me." Alfred announced as he did something that zapped Loki awake.

"Unnngh," Loki spasmed as he suddenly stood ramrod straight.

"What have you done to me, you stupid machine? Why can't I access my powers?" Loki said as he tried to flex his fingers to activate his magic to no effect.

Alfred deadpanned at Loki as he was zapped once again by Alfred's runes.

"Where is that coming from?" Loki looked around himself, not noticing the temporary runic tattoo carved on his forehead

"Okay, fine. Let's do this again, shall we?" Loki said with a smile that looked more like a grimace, "The Guardian of the Singularity, Alfred, has been formally invited to the Royal Court of Odin himself to commemorate the rise of Midgard's new guardian."

As he spoke the words, a golden scroll manifested in front of Alfred in a golden flash.

Ah, Asgardians and their love for gold.

"Oh, and-" They looked up to Loki as he pointed at Ed, "I guess, you can come too if you want."

That was the most polite "Don't come" he was going to get from Loki.

"What does it say, Alfred?" he asked as Alfred finished scanning the scroll and was then scanning the ashes it had become once Alfred was done reading.

"Fascinating spellwork. Oh, nothing special. Just a formal invite to the guardian of a realm that is usually done to acknowledge the guardian's authority over the realm. Probably also a way to make sure that the de-facto leader of a realm bends their knee to Asgard, in front of Asgard's mightiest ruler." Alfred mumbled half-heartedly as he kept looking at a runic circle he had manifested in front of the ashes of the scroll.

For some reason, he was really fascinated with the spell Odin had used to bring the scroll to the intended recipient and once he was done reading it, turned to ashes.

"Oh, you primitives amuse me. Unlock me and I'll tell you about the spell myself. Uncovering secrets of Odin's spellwork is not a task that can be done by any machine that gains a body, however powerful the body might be." Loki said as he haughtily looked down at everyone in the room, while simultaneously raising his free hands towards Alfred as if he had been handcuffed.

It made for a pretty hilarious sight.

He could hear Eric's chuckles as they left the room along with Frank, presumably to meet Toby. Although he was not sure anybody aside from Frank had the desire to meet with the person whose clone had trounced them handily. Meeting the real one in person might be a tad bit intimidating for them.

Well, he was not sure about Eric since he had always been a bit of a wildcard but who knows?

"Got it," Alfred said and opened up another runic circle right in front of Loki's shocked and indignant face.

Judging by the wide eyes of Loki as he read the information inside the circle, Alfred was successful in deciphering Odin's spell.

"Anyway, off you go. We'll see when we decide to leave," Alfred said as he opened up a portal right underneath Loki. Only the portal he opened didn't open all the way through, so Loki sort of tumbled into the portal, knocking his head on the floor before slipping inside the portal.

"Bye!" he shouted before the portal closed up, likely sparing them from hearing whatever obscenities Loki was shouting.

"Where does it go?" He asked Alfred as they both began walking towards the meeting room, where a departmental meeting had been scheduled by Alfred the moment he had read the royal summons from Odin.

"Oh, the prison? It goes to a cylindrical tube, the both ends of which are gravity wells that pull a person and their pull is adjusted so that the person inside the tube goes up and down like a ping pong. That should keep him busy for a while, and then after that, I have a never-ending pipe for him to experience." Alfred said before he started working on something as a series of runic circles manifested in front of him.

Speaking of runes, "What level would you say you have reached in runes right now? Above Odin? Below Odin? Above Frigga but below Odin?" he asked Alfred since all Alfred had done since getting a body has involved runes in one way or the other so he was curious about his level of expertise regarding the subject. Especially since he was quite an expert on that topic even before getting his physical body.

Alfred chuckled mid-work and said, "It's funny you think I am below Frigga. I would say that in terms of runes at least, I should be able to roughly match Odin. If not, then it would only come as a matter of experience. In terms of raw power, though, Odin has me beat. That Odin force of his is really a cheat power." His words were tinged with envy when he spoke of the Odin Force.

That was understandable since that was the thing that propelled Odin from being one of the strongest beings in the universe to be able to match the strongest beings of the universe, the Celestials.

That feat alone was unheard of.

As they walked towards the meeting room, Alfred began telling him about his body, and all the feats he would now be able to perform because of his runic mastery.

Engrossed in their conversation, he never realised when they reached the meeting hall, even if it was on the other side of the base.

Although, the walkable design of the base must have had something to do with that.

He followed Alfred as the doors closed behind them, "Alright, everybody here?"

He received no response, "Alright, was expecting a little confirmation but this works too."

All he received in reply was a couple of eye rolls. Even Alfred, who was busy with his work, created eyes out of dimensional energy whips and made them roll their eyes at him.

"Okay, now that everybody is here, let me inform you of recent events. We suffered a catastrophic attack from Dormammu which has led to the loss of Project Ark as well as our superclass carrier, the replacement for which is already underway. Unfortunately, despite our wide array of search systems, we have been unable to find a replacement for Project Ark so the new carrier will mostly be built with defense in mind. Do keep that in mind," he said while pointing at Eric and Jake, the captain and deputy captain of the previous superclass carrier, respectively.

"Aside from the injuries sustained by the top of our combat list, I, myself, almost exhausted all of my powers to defeat Dormammu's avatar. The reason I am able to talk with all of you here is due to one of the former members of the organisation, Toby. He has some special powers, let's just say. For the time being, I am fine but in the long term, we will need to do something since doing this does take its toll on Toby."

In between the meeting, Maria raised her hands, "Yes Maria?"

"What are the measures we are taking to heal you?"

Alfred interrupted and replied, "All the measures are being taken to safeguard Ed's real body. Other than that, all avenues are being investigated. One such opportunity has opened up for us,"

"Yes, that is correct, Alfred. We have just been invited to the Royal Court of Asgard by Odin himself. Apparently, due to the death of the Ancient One, who was the previous guardian of Midgard, it would seem, that Alfred has been designated as the Guardian of Earth by Odin himself. As such, he has to go to Asgard to legitimise that and on the way, also search for advanced cures for my health," Ed said to the room at large. The reaction to the news of the summons was lukewarm at best. He wondered how they would react if he told them about the person who delivered the summons. Best not to poke that hornet's nest.

"Although not explicitly specified, I and Toby will be tagging along with Alfred to Asgard. In the meanwhile, I want you all to take care of the planet and the organisation. Through Alfred's portals, it will take us about an hour to come back to Earth but with the Rainbow Bridge's tech, we should reach here instantly in case of an emergency."

The room erupted into a cacophony of arguments when he delivered that news.

'Why do you need to go?"

"Can't just Alfred and Toby go?"

"How long will you be gone?"

"What if something happens to your body when you are not here?"

Those were some of the questions that were thrown his way but he was not about to budge on the topic.

Especially since he was sure that Toby was going to insist on coming and he was not exactly proud of Toby's restraint and tact when it came to sensitive situations.

Dealing with Odin definitely counted as a sensitive situation.

"ALRIGHT!" He shouted over the noise and noticing his determined expression, the room quieted down.

"OK, now that you are listening, I am going. Me not going could have adverse effects you don't know of. The best healers of the universe reside in Asgard and the best bet would be to take my body with me. Now, Alfred, is it feasible?" he asked Alfred who looked bored at the meeting.

"Shouldn't be a problem," Was all he could get out of Alfred before he just phased out of the room, to do who knows what.

"It's settled then. I will be leaving in about an hour. If you guys have any questions or confusions regarding the day-to-day workings, consult Frank, he knows best," He winked at Frank who looked shocked at the betrayal.

"See you soooon," Ed said as he skedaddled out of the room amidst the sea of questions that Frank was about to drown in.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2136

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 83

Technomancer in MCU

Wakanda

–Tony "genius billionaire playboy philanthropist" Stark–

"Damn," he muttered as he stepped out of the Stark Jet that had landed on the outskirts of what looked like a mountain range which was clearly some sort of hidey-hole since there was a landing party waiting for them at the base of the mountain.

Also, the new generation sensors on the Jet were telling him a different story about the advanced hologram they had on the mountain.

Helping Pepper get off the jet with Banner following her, "Well, they did accept our request, even if they didn't elaborate on the tour."

"Uh, Tony, they don't look too happy to see us," Banner quietly said as he kept fiddling with the new and improved safety meter they had built for him. It had multiple functions, the prime of which was its ability to quickly get Banner out of the area using a localised blast of unidirectional repulsion force generated by the miniaturised Arc reactor inside the band.

Tony deadpanned at Banner and then charged on ahead to the party waiting for them as if he didn't hear what Banner said.

He then began waving his hands excitedly like an enthusiastic tourist, "Hello guys! Sorry, we're late. Although, in our defence, the landing coordinates you gave us were in the middle of nowhere so it did take us a while to land."

Getting very close to the mean-looking one who was wearing clothes with golden outlines on them, he extended his hands, "Though, now that I can take a closer look, this doesn't seem to be in the middle of nowhere, now does it? What is behind that hologram?"

The person in the front unfolded his arms and slowly shook his hand. He internally winced at the firm handshake.

"I am N'Jadaka and welcome to Wakanda. Please be aware though that the only reason you are allowed to see what you are about to see is because of your potential use of humanity and personal recommendation from someone high up in the chain. Do know that anything you see from now on is highly confidential and disclosure of any sensitive information will cost you dearly," The man then grinned wickedly, showing all of his teeth, "I will personally ensure that."

Tony nodded slowly and then as if a switch had been turned on, he began grinning like a loon and beckoned Pepper and Banner who were getting their luggage off the StarkJet. As they got the last piece of the luggage off the jet, it folded its legs inside and began floating in place, eventually flying into the horizon.

He turned around, expecting looks of awe or marvel on the faces of the guards behind the N'Jadaka fellow but they just looked bored, as if it was a normal sight to see the most advanced jet that any person who is not a secret military head, owned.

"Alright, how are we leaving? Or do I need to call back my Jet because I can totally do that, you know? In case you guys don't have anything.." Towards the end, his voice turned into a whisper as a veritable fleet appeared right behind the three people.

"This is how we'll be leaving, Mr.Stark. Now, if you all will follow me, I will show you your living quarters for the entire time you will be here," N'Jadaka said with a smirk at the shocked looks on their faces.

He quickly schooled his face back into a laid-back one but it would seem that the damage had already been done since the guards behind N'Jakada began chuckling at him.

He then silently followed behind N'Jadaka, Pepper, and Banner following behind him, the luggage floating behind them as it was powered by repulsor technology for easy transportation.

There was a huge boogie in the center which looked like a boat on the outside, only instead of floating in water, it floated slightly above the ground, in air.

Getting inside the boat, he ran his hands over the materials of the shell.To his astonishment, "My god, they were right, you guys do have a metric buttload of Vibranium, don't you?"

The entirety of the hull was laced with alloys that had Vibranium mixed in with them. The particular alloy that was used for the shell was something that he had read about in the lab database he had access to.

"Bruce, come look at this, doesn't this look and feel the same as the CXW-135 alloy we saw in the database?" He asked Bruce as he tried to open a link to Jarvis, only for the screen on his watch to flash red as it failed to get a signal from outside.

"You won't be getting any signal until it is registered with the Digital Bureau. Your AI has been trying to get in with surprising tenacity but while he has very high levels of raw strength behind his attempts and is learning at an alarming rate, it would still take him years to get behind our firewalls. So, wait until you've met the King, and then we can see if we can't get you a secured limited link with your server outside." N'Jadaka said as he handed him his tablet.

"Attaboy!" he said as he could visibly see the improvement Jarvis was having with his hacking attempts after every failure.

Still, it was astonishing that even after harnessing the power of the impossible server they had in the basement, Jarvis was unable to hack into their firewalls. After getting the lab in the basement, there were practically no public-facing servers on the planet that Jarvis wouldn't be able to access with little difficulty.

As his fingers demanded, he tried to use the tablet but it seemed frozen on the hacking progress screen that the N'Jadaka fellow had given him.

"Don't bother," N'Jadaka said as he snatched the tablet off of Tony's hands. Then he did something on the tablet and said, "With the power your AI has access to, it would have easily broken through the firewalls we had a short few years ago. It was only after the Invasion of New York that we had a massive cybersecurity upgrade that has allowed the firewalls to stay secure."

N'Jadaka then exclaimed, "Oh, look! It broke through the first layer. That was faster than I had expected,"

"Let me see," he said as he all but snatched the tablet out of the man's hands. This was another screen that showed about 12 more walls that Jarvis had to break through.

"Oh, this is not some sort of crime that we will be charged with later on, right? Because if it is, I can tell him to stop it. He's probably just worried about our safety, that's all." He said as he realised that Jarvis was committing treason by trying to break into a country that has been dubbed the "Most Advanced Country on Earth" by Ed of all people.

He was pretty sure they could retaliate, both in the digital world and in the real world.

He was about to try once more when N'Jadaka began frowning as the Ship's lights began to take on a greenish-golden accent.

For some reason, N'Jadaka sighed, "What now, Alfred? If you can't see it, I am in the middle of something."

Right after he spoke, Alfred appeared in the center of the boat in holographic form. He then raised his hands and said, "Hey, you are not the one who had to calm down a hyperactive anxious budding AI. Good work on the code by the way, Pepper's Boytoy,"

He didn't know if he should feel flattered or insulted about that nickname that had stuck in every system that he had ever used that had Alfred's influence on them.

"Hello, sir, Contact with Sir Alfred has been an extreme learning experience. The StarkJet is now back on its way," Jarvis' voice sounded through the speakers of the boat.

His eyes widened when Alfred spoke, "Oh, yeah. The poor guy was about to ram his way inside the shield using the StarkJet. It would have failed by the way but it would have damaged the camouflage function of the shield. You guys should really work on that by the way. N'Jadaka see to it that they are given the correct idea about Wakanda."

Then, the hologram disappeared and with it, the accent lights returned back to their whitish glow. The ship shuddered slightly but soon regained its course when a voice spoke through the speakers, "Connection established, Lord N'Jadaka. Was it Lord Alfred again?"

Lord? N'Jadaka sighed and replied, "Yes. There has been a change of plans. Drop the escort and take the ship directly to the Royal Palace."

"Acknowledged. Rerouting Talon," The voice spoke and while he could see the route being changed on the helpful screens attached on the walls of the boat, he couldn't feel a single thing.

Although, the same could be said about the StarkJet which does it without fancy Vibranium alloys, so his ship was clearly better.

Soon, the ship landed and the bay doors opened up.

Out of the bay, he could see rows of soldiers on both sides standing in formation. He could feel Bruce get nervous as the prospect of entering a place that placed such strong emphasis on the Military made him jittery.

"Relax, Dr.Banner. I give you my word that no harm will befall you or your companions. If that doesn't reassure you, remember that Ed has all three of you on his "priority" list and as such you guys are constantly being tracked by them. If, by any chance, something happened to any of you, no shield Wakanda could ever build would be able to stop them from coming crashing down on us. So, please relax and I'll make sure that you enjoy this experience so much that we will be able to poach you from the outside world," N'Jadaka said as he gestured to Bruce to go forward and leave the boat.

Bruce, still unsure, nodded and got down from the boat.

"Mr.Stark, after you," N'Jadaka gestured to him and he visibly rolled his eyes at him and hopped off the boat, Pepper coming behind him.

In front of him, he could see Bruce's neck on a swivel as he looked from one place to the other.

The same could be said about him as he looked at the huge barrier that surrounded the entirety of their city, the local sensors on his body showing him data that made no sense at all, even after he had been exposed to the crazy shenanigans that Alfred had done.

He could hear Pepper gasp behind him as she took in the beautiful architecture that made the Royal Palace.

None of the Tacky Golden accents but then again, the hints of Vibranium being used in the construction of all places he could see in the palace could have bought entire piles of gold in the outside world.

"Mr.Stark, Dr.Banner and Ms.Potts, welcome to Wakanda," A regal royal-looking lady greeted them as an entire entourage followed behind her who then took all of their luggage.

"I am Queen Ramonda of Wakanda and I see that you have already met Prince N'Jadaka," the lady then gestured behind him.

Prince?

He looked wide-eyed at N'Jadaka who smirked and waved at him.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry for Tony's behaviour. He didn't know that you were a prince," Pepper immediately began apologizing profusely to N'Jadaka who waved her off.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1956

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

A/N - Well, Brainworms I guess. Don't worry, just one more chapter and we are off to Asgard Arc.

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 84

Technomancer in MCU

Wakanda

–N'Jadaka–

As it turned out, all his effort to try and get Wakanda to help the Ascendency's work went down the drain since Alfred came back at the right moment and destroyed the entirety of both S.H.I.E.L.D. and H.Y.D.R.A. before they could actually mobilise their forces.

Last he heard, their resident spy hunter, T'Challa was taking out rogue members of the spy organization because of a list Alfred had sent to them to take care of, on the African Continent.

Then he had to resist the urge to facepalm when he watched the entirety of the press conference that Ed attended with all of the S-tier members of Ascendency.

Honestly, watching that made the members of the council look at him with even more wariness and distrust than before. They were beginning to think that he too had a similar level of strength as the members that were floating behind Ed.

He wished.

If he had that level of strength, he would have long since done something drastic to Wakanda and brought it to heel. Something he was sure was the reason why he was never given the green signal for the more advanced enhancement procedures within the organisation, limiting him to only B-tier advancements.

Something that he was now grateful for since that allowed him to gain something that was infinitely more valuable than the ability to punch harder.

Perspective.

Back then, he had been just a ball of anger and hate. Giving someone with that mindset the power to level cities at a time was obviously a bad choice.

Nowadays, he didn't even need to use his powers all that much and he was doing much better progress than he thought he did.

Still, it was always fun to watch all the new recruits absolutely gape in awe as he absolutely manhandled the Black Panther and the Dora Milaje at the same time.

It made for a fun sparring exercise, especially since he used the resistance bands that the nerds in the labs cooked up for him, for the entire time he was training.

It really helped drive home the fact that he was the strongest person in the nation and his being peaceful and abiding by all the rules was a choice and not an obligation that they could enforce on him with their weak soldiers at all.

His strength was one of the reasons why the Jabari tribe was willing to throw their weight behind him, further legitimizing his position within the country.

Then again, defeating their entire tribe by his lonesome definitely helped them make an informed decision. Now, they too were frequent attendees of his sparring sessions.

Like most of the higher-ups within Wakanda, he too was curious about the new website Alfred had launched, hilariously naming it after himself was something he could only foresee Alfred doing.

King T'Chaka, being understandably paranoid about the consequences of exposing such an untested but probably dangerous source of information to the civilian populace, restricted access to the website to a single terminal in the Royal Chamber and a single terminal in the Royal Labs, for testing purposes.

Through the terminal in the Royal Meeting hall, they were able to get access to information depending on the access levels decided by Alfred for all the concerned tribe elders.

Despite everything that had already happened, the elders were still somewhat shocked and amazed that the Ascendency knew their names and roles.\

On that website, they finally got a glimpse of the vastness of the organisation and the smallness of their country when compared to the true giants of space. Not just entities from space, they had a country in the depths of the ocean itself that was not just bigger than Wakanda, it boasted of bigger deposits than Wakanda, all the while having a leader as strong as the Hulk himself and having access to similar if not more advanced technology than Wakanda.

Atlantis and the existence of Namor truly was a nightmare come true for the people who ruled over Wakanda, touting their self-declared status as the most advanced nation on the planet. Although, "on" the planet part might be true since Atlantis could be called as "in" the planet.

That truly was a nightmarish meeting session that had lasted well into the morning but after one too many specialists and analysts being called in for threat assessment, he was just about ready to call it a day and so had the King when the entire room's lights went out and came back on in a dim greenish golden color.

His sigh and the sound of T'Chaka facepalming could be the only two things that could be heard in the darkness of the meeting hall.

Then, with his usual flair for dramatics, Alfred's voice emerged from the speakers that littered the entirety of the hall, "Hey! Why did you guys remove the holographic projectors from this room? Now I have to use this puny restricting monitor now and let me tell you, that is not nearly as mysterious as I was hoping to be."

They could all see the old visage of Alfred's avatar as it appeared on the monitor that was designated as the secure terminal for using AlfredGPT.

Alfred rolled his eyes at them once he realised that they had no intention of humoring him, "You guys are no fun now."

"Well, coming to serious topics, I am thankful that Wakanda was willing to help us in getting rid of the scourge that was H.Y.D.R.A. once and for all but thankfully, we were able to handle everything on our own. Still, let it never be said that we don't reward our allies. I have credible information that over the course of the next twelve hours, Tony Stark will be contacting you to visit your country, the real Wakanda, not the shack you guys have built outside."

Almost immediately, the tribe elders and even the King stood up in outrage as it implied that Alfred had told Tony Stark, effectively an outsider, about the truth of Wakanda, which essentially amounted to betrayal of the highest order in Wakanda.

"Calm down, I am actually doing you guys a favour here. The importance of Tony Stark to the human race cannot be understated, especially if you plan to join the outside world as an advanced civilisation. Our plan to introduce you guys as a natural opposition to our rising power would benefit immensely from Stark's cooperation." Alfred rolled his eyes at them and chided them.

He then continued. "Look, whether you guys like it or not, Stark is coming here and he is bringing Dr.Banner with him and he is not someone who likes being denied. With his sights on Wakanda, he will find a way in, it wouldn't matter what you do. Unless you plan on killing him and his friends and then eventually, the Avengers and then the people who would try to avenge the original members of the Avengers, you have no other option but to ally yourself with him and place him firmly in your camp before he learns about your other activities and lowers the image of Wakanda in his mind."

He chose the exact moment to speak his thoughts, " He is right."

His words sent the attention of everyone in the room on him, "Stark has the potential to become a valuable ally, and while I am sure that most of you have reservations about revealing the secret of our country to someone who was until recently, called the "Merchant Of Death" but the choice left our hands as soon as someone-"

He glared at Alfred as he continued speaking, "-took it upon themselves to give the world a place where they can access the most classified information for free."

Before the meeting could delve into another shouting match, the King sighed and said, " Alright, your message is received, Alfred. You can go now, I am sure that you have much more pressing matters at hand."

Alfred raised his finger to say something but then his hologram disappeared abruptly.

That was odd.

As soon as Alfred left, the lights in the room came back on and the greenish golden accent was removed.

"Before any of you say anything, I have had the distinct pleasure of meeting and interacting with Howard Stark and if the things I have heard about his spawn are true, Tony Stark is going to be an even bigger pain to deal with. N'Jadaka-" King T'Chaka addressed him.

"-You are to be on point in this meeting. Make sure that Wakanda makes a strong impression on Stark and that he is properly educated about our plans, based on the first meeting. Alfred is right, Stark can help dramatically accelerate the timeline for us going out in the light."

"I will take no further discussions on this topic. N'Jadaka you are dismissed."

He took his cue and left the meeting room, his mind whirling at the implications of being given this opportunity.

"Where are we going?" he was asked by one of his subordinates as he immediately went towards his office after leaving the meeting hall.

He waved them off, his mind focused on having his own conversation with Alfred.

"What were you thinking, Alfred? This could seriously hurt us. And the bit about Stark helping the goal, that's bullshit and you know it. So, tell me, why?" He spoke out loud as soon as his room was sealed using one of the bullshit runes that Alfred had sent him if he needed to talk to someone without being spied upon by Wakanda.

"Oh, calm down. Nothing too nefarious. I just wanted to see what level Stark would reach if given access to Wakanda's legacy tech as well as your variant of Vibranium." Alfred appeared in the middle of the room and replied.

"And you couldn't do that without telling him about Wakanda, why?" he asked with gritted teeth, glaring at the holo-Alfred as he lounged in the center of his office.

Alfred sighed and sat up a little straighter in the hologram, "Look, your plan to integrate Wakanda slowly with the rest of the world was all fine and dandy if you looked at it in a vacuum. The thing is, you are not though and with things that have come to light recently, we are now functioning on an accelerated timeline, and consequently, so is Wakanda and every other country on the planet, for that matter."

He slammed his hands on the table, "So, that's why you set Stark's sights on us, so we would be forced to abandon our current plans and try and reveal ourselves publicly haphazardly?"

Alfred looked impassively at him as the very air in the room suddenly felt heavier to breathe in. "Look, I don't really have to explain or reply to your tantrum but you being a former member of our organisation, I feel some responsibility for your situation, so let me make one thing very clear to you."

By this point, the very air in his lungs felt heavy like iron and his vision began blurring as the very chair he was sitting in began groaning in protest due to the sudden pressure being put on it.

"I might act as if I care about you humans or your pathetically short lives but I don't. I could care less if you all died but growing up, I was taught or at least they tried to teach me the value of all life and while I wouldn't say they failed, they just never really understood the scale at which I functioned. I did begin to value human lives but not all lives. Just the ones who I cared for. Ed, Frank, Maria, Daisy, Peggy, to name a few."

He then leaned into my face as the chair had all but broken down beneath him, upright only due to its sturdy construction.

"They want humanity to grow so I will make sure it will. Your little country doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things. I could, even now, lift that mountain of Vibranium and dump it into the ocean, robbing you of your greatest weapon. I won't because that would result in needless bloodshed but just know, I could."

Just then, the pressure disappeared abruptly, as if it was never there at all.

"So, Stark will be knocking on Wakanda's doors soon. It's your choice whether you want to be caught flatfooted all by yourselves or strategize and plan with two of the brightest minds of the century on what to do with your science and with the CEO of the largest firm in the world on PR lessons. That's all I have to say." Alfred said and disappeared.

He took in deep breaths as he looked at the state of his office.

All of it sustained some degree of damage as Alfred had somehow exerted enough pressure to crack even reinforced furniture to such a degree, through a fucking hologram of all things.

Just how strong had he become by simply gaining a body?

His muscles pained in protest as he stood up from his ruined chair, shocked and a little bit fearful of the fact that Alfred could influence things thousands of miles away from a fucking digital avatar.

He shook his head to get rid of the negative thoughts that emerged in his mind from this encounter.

Now was not the time for that. He had a couple of very troublesome guests he had to receive in a couple of hours.

Time to get to work then.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2302

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A/N - Just one More chapter with this and then off to Asgard storyline (Sorry, brain monkeys' are not cooperating)

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 85

Technomancer in MCU

Wakanda

–Tony Stark–

So, this is what they have been hiding from the rest of the world.

"And Pray tell Mr.Tall and Scary, how long did you guys plan on staying out of the world's issues, all safe and secure in your little slice of paradise." He asked a little confrontationally.

While he could understand their reasonings for not exposing their VIbranium reserves to the world at large, being a weapons dealer he was aware of the basic human tendency of converting everything into a weapon, what he could not understand was anonymizing their help.

They could have cured Cancer.

They still can.

Diabetes, Air Pollution, Water Pollution, Plastics, STDs, all of them curable in Wakanda and not available to the rest of the world.

Diseases that claimed millions of lives elsewhere were just a visit to the hospital away from this place.

God, he wished he never had his empathy phase. Pepper and her therapist idea.

The only response he got was a sigh from the lead of the Royal Science lab that was assigned to chauffeur them around the science division of Wakanda, "Look, Mr.Stark, I was not even born when these decisions were taken. I mean, my grandparents were kids when it was decided that Wakanda would seal its borders and never interfere in the workings of the outside world. My job is to show you around the lab, nothing more, nothing less. If you have any complaints, you can take it up to the King or Prince N'Jadaka, they will be happy to listen to you, considering they were the ones who just dumped this task on me."

"Honestly, blackmailing me with time on the Quantum Computex cores is so unfair," He murmured in the end, sounding like whining to him.

He whirled on him immediately, "You guys have Quantum Computing, how advanced, what are the specs? You know what, just take me there."

The guy looked just about done with him and his questions but it was not as if he was about to let that juicy tidbit go.

Of course, the processing power afforded to Jarvis by virtue of the servers in the Lab was leaps and bounds ahead of anything he could even think of but he wanted to see how far Wakanda had come because he was pretty sure that he could at least copy their tech and make it better.

Stupid Alfred and his anti-reverse engineering protocols.

But the head honcho of this place refused to budge from his place, "I am sorry, Mr.Stark but that is one of the places where I cannot take you. Even if the King has given you carte blanche to do whatever you wish to do, I cannot in good conscience let an outsider access the most prized part of our Lab. So, No."

He raised his hands in surrender at the vehement refusal, "Ok, alright. I get it, not letting me play with your shiniest toy."

"Tony!" he heard Bruce call for him loudly from the other part of this lab. Exchanging alarming looks with the head scientist, both of them ran to where Banner was looking at the biochemical advances of Wakanda.

Upon reaching the lab, they could see Banner furiously typing on one of the holo screens provided by the Kimoyo Beads they were all provided with.

"What is it?" he asked as he tried to look at what Banner was typing but biology was never really his strong suit anyway.

"Look, they have a primitive matrix ready for digital to organic mind transfers," Bruce said as he kept writing something on his holopad, most of it scribbles to his vision.

His eyes widened as he immediately connected his own Kimoyo beads to Bruce's and began going through the translated version of the paper somebody had published for transferring a digital mind to an organic construct.

Apparently, the author was researching ways of increasing somebody's lifespan, and transferring their minds to a digital construct was one of the ways they found of temporarily storing people's minds until they could, in the future, transfer that back into an organic meat sack.

The thing was they just could not do it.

But, throughout the course of their research, they were able to build a very basic bio-organic brain of sorts that could handle the uplink required to transfer a very basic AI in it and have it survive off of just calories, no extra electricity required.

"This is nowhere close to what Jarvis would need but-"

"It's a start," Bruce said as his excitement only kept on increasing.

"Excuse me, are you talking about putting your VI, Jarvis, in a biological body?" He was asked by the resident intern of the place.

He and Bruce simultaneously turned their necks towards the intern and said as if it was the most obvious thing they would do, "Yeah!"

Honestly, this was exactly what they needed. "Bruce, just download the entire thing. I'll take permission from the King later on."

Whatever protests they had on him, essentially taking their IP died in their throats when they saw King T'Chaka himself walk into the lab, followed by Prince N'Jadaka and the default entourage of the Dora Milaje.

"At ease, N'Tona, let Mr.Stark and Dr.Banner use that technology. After all, it's only fair that we offer something in return for all the help that we will be getting from them." King T'Chaka said to the lead scientist whose name was N'Tona apparently.

N'Tona bowed and left the room.

"So, what can I do for you, King T'Chaka?" he asked flippantly, doing that on purpose to gauge the reactions of the King and the people around him.

The tightening hands of the Dora Milaje as they held on to their spears gave him a pretty good idea as to what their attitude was towards outsiders, i.e., them.

Honestly, the only ones who he had met in Wakanda who had a favourable/neutral view towards them were the two princes, The Princess, and surprisingly, the lead scientist.

Other than them, all of the other people looked at him as if he was a new animal in the zoo and that was the tamest reaction of all. He had seen that almost all of the higher-ups looked at him with thinly veiled hostility and wariness as if they were just waiting for him to erupt and cause catastrophic damage to Wakanda.

He had expected that but what befuddled him the most was the fact that the same looks never translated to Bruce.

He had thought that Bruce was the one who would be the most discriminated against but instead, these people never once looked at Bruce as if he was a threat and honestly, he was glad that his friend finally met a crowd who looked at him as a scientist and not like the Hulk but he had to wonder what was their source of confidence regarding Bruce and his alter ego.

He was sure that they were not aware of his deal with the Hulk and how they regularly sparred inside the Lab to test out his newest renditions of the Hulk busters.

The King sighed and said, "Walk with me, Mr.Stark. Dr.Banner, please continue what you were doing and if you need anything else, ask anybody and they'll be more than happy to accommodate you."

Bruce nodded hesitantly. He could see that Bruce wanted to come with him but in the end, scientific curiosity won over anxiety and Bruce dove back into the goldmine of knowledge they had found.

Honestly, centuries of advanced research data would have made him invade this place if not for him already possessing the Lab, something that was centuries ahead of even this place.

He walked beside the King as he took twists and turns throughout the Royal Palace building, ditching their guards and even the Prince behind.

He kept his mouth shut as he was aware of the importance of this meeting.

Soon, they came upon a plain door but as soon as they crossed the hallway, the door shimmered and the hologram on it vanished, leaving behind an archaic wooden door that looked as if it had been kept as is for a century.

The King stopped momentarily, as if hesitating to do something but placed his palm in the center of the huge lotus that was carved in the door.

As soon as the King removed his palm from the place, the lotus began pulsing with a red light. The light travelled from the place the King had put his palm to the entirety of the door.

After dimming and lighting itself up for three times, the door opened with an Ancient groan, indicating its age.

Inside there was a single platform, just floating above the ground.

The King entered the room and he followed behind, absolutely curious about the state of things.

"This, Mr.Stark is an ancient artifact bestowed upon us by Bast herself." King T'Chaka's voice boomed in the room as if it was coming from all directions.

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the goddess crap again. That was all he had been hearing ever since he came to the country. Most likely, she was just some hyper-advanced alien like Thor.

"You might not believe me and that's fine. We are not here to make you a believer. We are here to set the future stone in which the next generation of Wakanda will set their foundation." T'Chaka said as he removed a dark golden pendant from his neck and placed it right above the floating platform.

"I might be old but I am not blind, Mr.Stark. I know that Wakanda will soon have to shed its old image and embrace the new and uncertain. Failing to do so would only result in us fading into obscurity."

He was not sure where the King was taking this but as time went on, he felt a light pressure on him in the room, the words of the King adding pressure with every word he spoke.

King T'Chaka then pointed at him, "You, Mr.Stark, represent the new age of Humanity at least that is what our patron and our allies have told us and from what I've seen, I agree with them."

He then pointed to the platform, "This is a relic from the bygone era when we still made pacts with outsiders. This is an artifact that allows one to turn their words into a bond, a pact, or a contract. This platform is connected directly to the pendant passed down from King to King."

By this time, the room had gone completely dark, only the platform's dim glow keeping things visible to him.

"I would like to make a contract with you, Mr.Stark, for the safety and prosperity of Wakanda," T'Chaka said as he extended his hands towards the platform and instinctively, he found himself doing the same.

Honestly, things had turned out weirder than he had ever expected.

But he was nothing if not adaptable to circumstances.

'What sort of contract are we talking about?" he said as he kept his hand just above the platform where a cavity had formed that conspicuously looked just like his handprint.

"I would give you unrestricted access to Wakanda's intellectual property and strategic resources as long as you swear to use them in such a manner that both Humanity as a whole and Wakanda are the beneficiaries of your actions," T'Chaka said.

His eyes widened immensely as he processed what the King had just said. He had essentially given him command of his Kingdom.

"I refuse," he said out loud and as if an explosion had taken place, the room shook and the lights came back on.

T'Chaka looked disappointed as he said, "I had hoped to foster trust by doing it this way." He said as he pocketed the Pendant from the platform.

"Look, I don't need some binding vow to help you guys. Sure, some of your past deeds looked scummy but I am in no position to judge you on past mistakes. I should be in jail right now if that were true. I might not like the older generation's decisions but Wakanda is going to be run by the future generations and they look pretty promising to me. Now, why don't you take me back to the Lab because some of the stuff you guys have here is awesome."

T'Chaka looked shocked but then chuckled and said, "Sure, please follow me."

As they left the room, the door locked itself and as if an illusion had been cast over it, took over the appearance of a regular plain grey door.

"So, about some vibranium-"

"No!"

"Please?"

'Sigh…"

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2153

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 86.1

Technomancer in MCU

Rainbow Bridge, Asgard

–Heimdall–

He had kept watch on his King's children ever since they were little kids.

Even Hella Odinsdottir was someone who regarded him and his job with the importance and reverence it deserved.

For he was the Watcher of Asgard.

Asgard's first line of defense.

So, why? Why does none of the current Princes respect him enough to actually give him space of thought?

On one hand, there is Prince Thor who, while much calmer than before, has no tact and goes off to galavant to Midgard to mingle with his paramour.

On the other hand, there is Prince Loki, who, quite successfully, argued his case in court regarding his being under the control of another powerful being and getting himself his freedom, also does not respect his duties and even regularly uses the dangerous Old ways to traverse between realms.

When his King had declared that Prince Loki would be the one who would be heading to earth to summon the Singularity, he had been startled beyond belief and while he did not show it on his face, according to him, the choice was wrong.

In fact, not even Prince Thor was properly equipped to handle the Singularity and its Guardian.

His King should have just sent his infamous ravens but for some reason, he sent Loki.

Someone who had spearheaded an invasion of one of their biggest cities just a few short years back. That is pitifully short in mortal time.

In fact, the only people who could communicate with the Singularity's Guardian on an equal or higher footing, in the entire realm of Asgard, were Queen Frigga and King Odin.

And wasn't that a frightening thought?

The fact that mere mortals who had only arrived in the universe 9 of Midgard's years prior to this day, had ascended to such a level of strength that should they ever come to blows, even Prince Thor might lose out in terms of sheer strength and magical power, let alone intelligence which was the strong suit of the Singularity and its Guardian.

He shuddered to think what would happen should Prince Loki provoke them to the point of turning them into enemies of Asgards. Even them adopting a neutral stance towards Asgard could be detrimental to Asgard since there were threats on the horizon that he could not see yet he knew they were coming.

Hela. Thanos. The Surviving Celestials.

And many more that even his sight could not find.

Sometimes, he regretted not accepting his King's request for bestowing upon Axal his sight but when he thought of his long lonesome service to his King, he thought differently about the Sight.

It was a burden. A burden to be shouldered throughout one's life all by themselves. It cannot be taught. It cannot be taken away. It can only be given.

He was being selfish, he was aware of that. But to burden his only son with that would make him a bad father and the All-Father understood that.

He was grateful for that.

That was one of the reasons why he didn't protest when the King decided to send Prince Loki to Midgard as an envoy.

Except the Singularity's Guardian was not on Midgard. When the time to send Prince Loki to Midgard came, his Sight failed him.

It was a rare occurrence but exceptionally powerful beings have successfully hidden themselves from his sight but he was of the understanding that only the Ancient One could hide herself from his Sight simply by virtue of her soul strength being high enough to bend the Astral Realm around herself, rendering her invisible to his advanced Sight and senses.

So, in the end, he had to borrow the All-Father's sight to actually locate the Guardian. Turns out, he was with the Singularity on their base built into the crust of the Moon that orbited around Midgard, or Earth as they called it.

Relying on his King's sight was always a disorienting feeling since he could feel the scope of his King's sight and it was truly vast. The only drawback he could see was the energy expenditure which, while not large enough to be a problem, did have its toll on his King's body and being one of the very few people alive who knew of Hela and how she was being imprisoned, he was very quick in locating the Guardian, sending Prince Loki to the location and disconnecting himself from his King's sight.

"I know you doubt my choice, Heimdall." he heard his King's voice whisper into his ears.

"I am sorry, All-Father," He immediately kneeled and said, knowing that his King would be able to hear it.

"A parent's love is vast, Heimdall and while we can be hurt by the actions of our children, the love can never truly be lost. Thank you for being understanding." The King whispered and then as if it was never there at all, he could feel the heavy presence of OdinForce dissipating from the surroundings.

But he was aware.

Aware of his King's eternal watch over Asgard.

The All-Father never truly stopped watching over Asgard.

"For Asgard," he whispered as he stood up and removed Hofund from the bridge, turning the Rainbow Bridge off.

For Asgard, he would stand watch till the end of his life. It may even come true if the snippets of vision he had received would come true in this life.

Ragnarok. The End of Asgard as we know it.

Something that all Asgardians strove to prevent at all costs.

It was a treacherous thought but sometimes, he thought of how the current Asgard came to be and what its future could be and then the thought of being able to rebuild it all anew didn't seem so bad.

It helped that in his visions, even after Ragnorok, Asgardians survived and built another home.

A true home this time.

Not one that is built on lies, blood, and death across realms.

Hela truly did a number on the nine realms, propelling Asgard to become the only power worth mentioning in the nine realms.

Speaking of her, he could still her lounging about in her prison. For someone who had been imprisoned for over a thousand years, she looked remarkably sane.

Then again, the Goddess of Death was scarcely sane when she was the general of Asgard's armies, let alone now when she had been in solitary confinement for over a thousand years with only her undead summons as company.

He could not yet believe that the All-Father still thought of his sons to be the counter for Hela.

Thor, with his shackled potential and Loki with his shackled and damaged mind could never hope to match Hela alone, let alone Hela when she gains birthright access to Odin Force and its energies.

That was why the alliance with the Guardian of the Singularity was important. So far, he had shown remarkable aptitude in all things mystical, being the second most skilled Mystic of Midgard, after the Ancient One.

With the resources and grit shown by the Singularity, he was sure that, if given the chance, he would be the one who could save Asgard. The true Asgard.

Hela's escape from her prison is all but a certainty with All-Father's health deteriorating day by day.

The day comes near when Prince Thor and Prince Loki would have to fight Odin's firstborn and looking at them now, they were absolutely not ready.

Even right now, Prince Thor was sparring with his friends. An absolutely useless spar considering the best weapon he had access to was his innate magical power and his ability to command Thunder without Mjolnir.

His over-reliance on Mjolnir will be the biggest hindrance in his way to reach his peak, something that will be higher than even All-Father's if his words are to be believed.

Prince Loki, on the other hand, has not been received well, it would seem.

Judging from his current condition, he was not in any danger but being bound magically and unconscious in the base of a foreign power was never a good sign.

He could have warned All-Father about it but chose to wait it out, especially since he could see that none of the people in the base meant Prince Loki any harm and they were actually getting ready for something.

________________________________________________________________

The Asterisk

–Loki Odinson–

He gained consciousness but made sure not to move about. He felt his body moving but before he could open his eyes and check, his body slowed down and then immediately jerked to another direction.

He immediately tried to use his magic to sense the surroundings on reflex but to his horror, found that his magic was bound.

Normally, that would not have been a problem since all the magical binders he had ever come across, all of them just made sure that Magic, or any other energy for that matter, didn't flow out of the prisoner.

Only the truly quality ones like the ones made in Asgard or Nidavellir took into account the fact that skilled magic practitioners like him could manipulate the flow of magic inside to resonate with the ever-present dimensional energy and use it for devastating effects.

Unlocking most bindings would have taken little effort but whoever had bound him had been very thorough with their job, making sure that he had no wiggle room whatsoever.

With nothing to do, he resigned himself to wait for them to stop this madness of pendulum motions.

When he got the assignment from Odin (he still refused to call him Father), he had been very glad to get out of Asgard for it had been getting suffocating to be in the presence of people who loved him.

He still could not believe his luck that Mother managed to find out about Thanos' attack on his mind and argued with the court for him.

It was truly unprecedented. The Queen fighting for someone against the justice system of the Royal Court of Asgard.

Even now, he could hear the crowds whispering about his mother and how wrong of a decision she took when she decided to help him avoid the life imprisonment that Odin was about to punish him with.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1726

To be continued

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A/N - I truly have so much to write but its already 1 A.M and I have to wake up at 5 in the morning if I want the day to go good.

So, two part chapter it is.

See you guys tomorrow.

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 86.2

Technomancer in MCU

The Asterisk

–Loki–

Honestly, the one person who loved him unconditionally was the same person who he had hurt, in his quest to prove himself to Odin.

Because that was what it all was, a way to prove. To prove that he was not the inferior son of the House of Odin. To prove that his beloved mother's magic could also be used to the same devastating effect as Thor's physical might could.

He was lost in his thoughts when his body didn't jerk itself to one side on the regular time and instead just kept falling down into darkness.

Oh, great.

Before he could try to do anything though, not that it would have helped, he landed on what seemed like a hard floor, hard.

"I have been falling for 30 minutes!" He shouted and stood up from the ground, trying to conjure his knives only for his magic to fail him once again.

"Release my magic this instant, you fools!"

"Honestly, what was Odin thinking?" He heard the machine speak.

"Sigh, Alfred, just release the manacles, will you?"

With a clicking sound, the chains binding his legs disappeared into motes of light.

He surveyed the room only to see the Singularity and its Guardian along with the person who had quite literally attacked him on sight.

The odds didn't look good for him this time.

However, before he could raise his hands for surrender or call Heimdall, the bindings on magic disappeared. A rune floated out of his chest and dissipated into a greenish glow.

Even with his magic back, he was not sure if he could get out of this place alive but it would seem that there was no need to do so.

"Relax, we were just surprised by your visit. We are ready to go to Asgard now. You can call Heimdall now, I have lowered the spatial defenses now, not that those stopped you from coming here unannounced before." The machine spoke as he kept on looking at something on a metal coffin that was placed behind the Singularity and the person beside him.

The Singularity facepalmed for some reason and the person behind him bared his teeth at him.

Leaning back slightly from that, he shook the extended hands of the Singularity.

'Hello, I am Ed, as you probably know. This is-" He then pointed to the demon beside him, '-Toby and I apologize on his behalf for knocking you out. He was just startled."

He didn't need to rub that in.

"Ahem, yes, I can understand. Now, are you ready to go to Asgard? Because the Allfather's summons have little patience when it comes to tardiness. I can attest to that personally." He said while rubbing off imaginary dust from his regular outfit that he had summoned using his magic.

Magic that he was using to constantly probe his surroundings, as any Magic user worth his salt would. The results only confused him more.

It was as if the area he was in ended with the walls surrounding him. No matter how much he tried, he failed to get any reading beyond the four walls he was in.

The people in front of him, on the other hand, were a different story altogether.

The person that stood out the most to him was not the Machine, as he had expected, but the demon who was standing beside the Singularity.

And the demon was strong too. Overwhelmingly so.

Not even Thor could give him this feeling of danger this demon did, simply by standing there and smiling at him.

It would be unwise to bring him to Asgard but he was sure that no matter how strong he was, the All-Father would smite him if needed.

Then, the singularity was the one who confused him the most. He could see him standing in front of him but upon further probing, his soul seemed to be somewhere else. The body in front of him seemed more like a hyper-realistic puppet than his original body. The puppet had a soul tether that was much harder to track without actively casting spells and that was something he wanted to avoid for his continued well-being.

The next was the Machine who, frankly, felt more like an Asgardian than he did Machine or a mortal.

A ridiculously strong Asgardian for that matter. The amount of magical energy flowing through him would put him on the same level as the likes of Frigga or the Ancient One when she was still alive.

Speaking of the Ancient One, "I am sorry for your loss. Know that the Ancinet One was a respected member of the Mystic community across the galaxy and her loss was a monumental blow to the community, not to mention the loss of knowledge and expertise when an expert of her level dies."

He truly was sorry for that. While her morals did hinder her from going deep into certain magical territories of research, the ones she did explore were where she shone brightly. In some fields, his mother told him she was able to match Odin himself.

Not to mention her feats of being able to match Odin himself during the battle against the Frost Giants which had spilled over to Midgard. Now, that was someone he could respect. If not for their morals or actions, for their power and their sheer will to face Odin, the strongest being in the nine realms, all by their lonesome.

As soon as he said those words, the atmosphere in the room they were in darkened. It was just for a flash but the overwhelming killing intent that rose out of the Machine would have put Fire Demons to shame.

It was a sensitive topic, then. Noted.

As he received no reply from any of them after that, he nodded and looked towards the sky, which was not visible since they were in an enclosed room, and called out, "Heimdall,"

The next moment, a light of rainbow fell upon all of them, transporting them directly to Asgard.

Contrary to what many people thought of, it was not instant.

Of course, considering the distances involved, it might as well have been instant but there were a few seconds to a minute at most when the people in the Rainbow Bridge can experience the magnificence of the complex magics involved.

That was exactly what the Machine, Alfred, was doing. He was examining the outer ranges of the Rainbow Bridge and while he would have warned him about the dangers of doing that, he wasn't someone he particularly liked or cared about so he let it be.

Then, he looked over to the demon and the Singularity, or at least the puppet that was being operated by the Singularity. They were standing guard over the metal coffin that contained someone, that much he was certain of now.

One moment they were floating in space, being propelled at speeds faster than anybody could perceive, the next moment they were standing in the Observatory of the Rainbow Bridge where Heimdall was waiting for them, having just removed Hofund from the command gate.

"Welcome, guardians of Midgard and host of a…Demonworld? I was of the opinion that none of your kind survived. Anyways, welcome to Asgard and the All-Father is waiting for you." Heimdall said as he gestured to the series of horses that were waiting for them at the gate of the observatory.

–xx–

–Alfred–

Fascinating.

He had always thought that the Rainbow Bridge was some sort of advanced FTL transport system that used the Gates that the wider galaxy used for Faster than Light travel but its underlying principles were completely different.

For one, the Rainbow Bridge can only be used with its full force, in the nine realms.

Anywhere out of that and all you can realistically do is transport people. No planetary destruction weapon outside the nine realms.

That was why Odin needed the Dark Energy to transport Thor directly to Earth because Dark Energy is the most efficient when it comes to manipulating space, especially in the nine realms as, for some reason, the space surrounding any of the nine realms is much sturdier than the rest of the Galaxy. That was why the only gate that comes even close to any of the nine realms is near the moon of Earth.

That must be why Odin needed the Space Stone to make the Bifrost because, to travel outside the nine realms, he would need the power to open portals.

Something that is notoriously more energy-intensive as the distance increases. The same principles also apply to the Sorcerers of Kamar Taj as they find themselves unable to open portals across the Galaxy.

Even seasoned masters won't be able to do so without overloading their body and soul with dimensional energy. The soul would shut down any such operation long before the limit could be reached, it was in its innate safety protocols.

The Bifrost worked in tandem with the mystic highway that connected the nine realms to each other, also known as Ygdrassil.

Traversing the Yggdrasil is something that can be done by anyone. Manipulating it to the point of weaponising it has only been done by Odin so far.

Soon, in less than a minute, they were standing in the Observatory deck that Heimdall guarded and used to transport anyone to and from Asgard.

Almost immediately, his senses were bombarded by all the magic that permeated the very being of Asgard. Even the platform he was standing on, shone with so much magic that he would have been blinded by it if he wasn't already expecting it.

The most interesting artifact he found was not the Bridge in front of them but the giant sword that Heimdall held in his hands.

It shone like a beacon to his senses. Senses that have been used to the energy signatures of an Infinity Stone.

That sword, Hofund, shone with a misty blue light to his senses. So, that was how they turned that sword into an essential key required to activate Bifrost.

It essentially jump-started the bridge using the same energy present in the Sword. Odin must have wielded the space stone using Gungnir sometime in the past so that it could also be used for starting the Bifrost.

All in all, a pretty safe mechanism because the only two keys to the puzzle were in the hands of people who could see you coming from miles away or could smite you from miles away.

Neat.

They were greeted by Heimdall and told to mount the horses to take them to Asgard.

Yeah, that was not going to be possible, especially due to Ed's body but it was not as if they were without options.

"Is flying allowed here?" He asked Heimdall even as Loki looked at him quizzically.

"I would advise against it but nobody ever listens to me," Heimdall replied as he turned his back towards him and assumed his guarding position over the Bifrost.

He grinned in reply and levitated the box behind him, Toby did the same with Ed's puppet body.

Loki looked at both of them with wide eyes as he backed towards the horses, "I-I'll take the horses, thank yoooouuu"

That was all he heard as all of them rocketed towards the end of the bridge with Loki being held by a dimensional energy whip by his ankle as his face was whipped with all the high-speed air they were cutting through.

Ah, pranking the God of Mischief would always remain the highlight of his trip to Asgard, especially if the things he knew about Loki and the level of power he would eventually reach, would come true.

Halfway through, he sensed the rousing Thunder that came from one side of the Royal Palace, Mjolnir literally rocketing through the sparring grounds as Thor tagged along for the ride.

On the other side, he could sense Frigga's careful watch on her son and Odin's hawkish gaze on the box behind him and on Toby as well.

Thor looked awfully serious though so before he could reach them, he threw Loki at Thor who hilariously tried changing his path, only to bump directly into Loki's face, sending him careening down in the waters.

"Oh, brother. Fancy a swim?" He heard Thor ask Loki as he pulled a completely drenched Loki out of the water.

It helped that he had cast a curse on Loki that stopped his magic for a moment and in the moment, he didn't notice it.

Soon, they landed at the end of the bridge, in front of a small platoon of armed Asgardian Soldiers.

"Halt, they are guests," Thor said as he landed behind the soldiers with Loki slung over his shoulder like a bag of rice.

Plonking Loki on the ground, he faced them," Welcome to Asgard. Alfred, was it? I would appreciate it if you could cease your pranks, even if it is hilarious to watch Loki being outsmarted. Come, Father's court is in session. They should be calling us shortly."

He nodded and followed behind Thor as the soldiers made way for them, being especially wary of Toby as his demonic nature was much easier to sense for them.

It didn't help matters that Toby made no effort to hide his true nature anyway.

He just hoped it didn't delve into a fight because of the giant ego of the person he was about to meet and also because of the person he had brought with him.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2276

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

 

[Brian the dor]

Mc isn't even part of this story anymore

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 87

Technomancer in MCU

Asgard

–Odin Borson–

They were here. He could sense the Bifrost closing as they made their way to the Royal Palace.

Watching the new God humiliate Loki was not amusing; however, if there was anyone in his family who needed an ego check, then it was Loki.

So, he let it be.

As expected, the Guardian and the Singularity, both had arrived but with them, they had brought in an uninvited guest.

Toby Mathers.

If the rumours around the cosmos are to be believed, he is a Demon host. Something that was thought to be lost to the annals of time. His demonic nature was peculiar too. He didn't bother hiding it but to both his and Frigga's senses, he didn't reek of death and destruction that normal demon hosts do.

Not that he would have any personal expertise on that since the last time Asgardian encountered a demon host, he was not even born so the records from that time period were spotty at best.

However, this demon host seemed particularly stable right now, even more so than the Guardian.

While he could not ignore the fact that his invitation had been disregarded by bringing in the demon host who seemed to be aware of the surveillance he was under, these were hardly normal circumstances.

He could ill afford to push away the new guardians of Midgard. Especially the Guardian since the Singularity seems to be on his last legs anyway.

The body he was sensing in the metal coffin they were carrying was holding on to its last wisps of vitality in a futile effort to cling to life.

He was not even sure if Asgardian healers could even prolong his life, let alone completely heal him.

Nevertheless, that was sure to be one of the negotiating cards he could use to better deal with the Guardian since he is loyal to a fault.

Striking the bottom of Gungnir to the floor that resulted in a dull booming noise that silenced the entirety of the court, he ordered, "The Court will resume tomorrow."

All the nobles, dutiful as they were, nodded obediently and shuffled out of the court.

Once the doors closed, he slumped and sighed in exhaustion, safe in the company of his beloved Frigga.

"What ails you?" She asked him as she put her hand on his, for comfort.

"Ragnarok, my dear. Ragnarok. The end of Asgard." he said as he left Gungnir to hover in its place and cast an illusion in front of him, replicating the visions he got for Frigga to see.

Seeing the death and destruction of Asgard always left him reeling but the fact that he was directly responsible for raising the one who would bring about Ragnarok was a punch to the gut for him.

He could have done something. Tried to bring her to the right way. Mend her fractured mind.

But no. He had to take decisive action against someone who was expressly forbidding his orders. Someone who had both the right and the power to make people doubt his kingship.

So, he sent her entire unit to death. Imprisoned her in a dead realm, with no magic and no company to speak of.

What was he thinking? Sending someone who was clearly mentally unstable to a place where anyone could go insane.

Alas, his pride reared its ugly head when some sense was finally knocked into his head by his wife but by then, it was too late.

He had tried to go talk to her but she refused to even listen to what he had to say. Instead, she kept attacking the prison her power was tied to.

At the beginning, it was manageable. Of course, he didn't have access to a significant chunk of Odin Force because it was being used to hold Hela but he didn't need that power anyway.

He had grown so much more powerful than the average denizens of the Nine realms that he could effortlessly defeat any of them without even actively tapping into the Odin Force.

Then, came Thor, and with Thor, the gradual inheritance of his Odinforce. It made matters worse when the Odin Force, by right of inheritance, was supposed to go to Hela but because of his will, had to go to Thor which resulted in an unbalanced transfer.

That was the reason why Thor was never quite able to use his magic without Mjolnir. While Thor had power, a lot of power, he was unable to access even 10 percent of it and instead relied on Mjolnir to channel a small portion of that power.

All that meant that his control over the rapidly growing Odinforce was fading. His old body now could barely sustain Hela's attacks on her prison which had only grown in frequency ever since she figured out that doing so hurt him.

If he didn't have to exert himself, he had 5-10 years tops before his body gave out. That was not enough time to prepare either Thor or Loki to face Hela. Even together, they would have a hard time surviving her let alone defeat her, and as soon as Hela lands on Asgard, it would be impossible to defeat her without triggering Ragnarok as Asgard itself would begin empowering her once she stepped back on her homeland.

He was so lost in his thoughts that Frigga had to nudge him, "What?"

"The guests are here. Shall I call them in?" She asked him, concern clear in her eyes. The best decision his past self could have made was marrying her, disregarding the Vanaheim enmity.

He nodded and took Gungnir back in his hand, his back straightening as he assumed the demeanor of the Ruler of Asgard.

The attendants announced the summons and through the golden-plated doors came his sons, the Singularity, Ed and his Guardian, Alfred along with the demon host, Toby Mathers.

"Welcome to Asgard," he stated as he watched all of them with an impassive eye.

Alfred and Ed looked neutral to be here but Toby Mathers was looking at him with a disturbingly similar gleam in his eyes.

A sentiment he knew very well since he was the same in his youth. The feeling of finding a strong opponent and fighting them, to defeat them.

If he had not been worried about Ragnarok, he would have shown the youth how he had not lost his edge but as matters stood, he was in no condition to use the Odin Force.

"It is customary," he began saying as he stood up and removed a scroll from his storage, "-for me to meet the new Guardian of Midgard once it is formally recognised by either all concerned parties or by the previous Guardian."

"You," he said while pointing at Alfred with the scroll, "have been chosen to be the new Guardian of Midgard, recognised by the Ancient One herself, one of the very few people I have met that I could proudly call my equal."

"Step forward and sign the treaty recognising you to be the sovereign of Midgard," He said while floating the scroll towards Alfred who had indeed stood forward and was standing at attention.

The scroll slowly unfurled itself as it reached Alfred who snatched it out of the air and began reading it. Once he finished reading it, finding it satisfactory, he signed it using his blood.

Once the scroll was signed, a pact was formed between the sitting ruler of Asgard to formally inform the Guardian of Midgard of any Asgardian activities that were taking place on Midgard and for the Guardian to aid Asgard in any battle that threatened Asgard itself so no active war declaration but mutual defense pacts.

Once the pact was signed, a golden circle formed between them as a manifestation of the magic invoked, one copy of the scroll went to Alfred and the other came back to him which he safely stored away in his personal storage.

That pact was going to be his biggest bet on saving Asgard and preventing Ragnarok.

"Now, Alfred, was it? Are you aware of your newfound status being a New God? Something that hasn't happened for over a thousand years in the history of the universe?" He asked Alfred.

"I am aware that it is rare to become a God. The way I have become one is certainly unconventional but I have yet to become the god of something as all my abilities were something I had earned before gaining a body and becoming a God." Alfred said as he handed over his copy of the pact to Ed.

"The way you have become one is certainly something which cannot be replicated anytime soon and as for your domain, it is because you are yet a New God and a god's domain is something that takes time to form and for you to master it. It will soon manifest itself."

"Now, before we leave, can I ask what is happening to you, Ed? Your body and your soul seem in disarray of some sort. Maybe, we can help/" Frigga said as she openly cast a spell on Ed. The spell would not have given any information if Ed hadn't given his consent so in a way it was good that Ed trusted them to do that.

'Yes," Alfred said as he cast a magic circle in front of him, "That is one of the things I wanted to discuss with you, in private."

He raised an eyebrow as he recognised the runic circle in front of him, the mastery of which was only known to be had by him.

"Very well, everybody else, please retire to the guest houses. We'll have a feast in the evening." He ordered and everybody began leaving the court.

Toby tried to stay but Ed pulled him out of the room.

"Speak, what is it that you want?" He asked as soon as the court was empty save for him and Alfred.

"Before we begin, I want to ask you this: How much do you know about us and our origins?" Alfred asked him as the metal coffin behind them floated in front of them.

He raised an eyebrow as he leaned forward in interest, at least the runic work on the coffin was interesting to him, "Enough. I've been watching you ever since you arrived in this universe, broken and in pieces. I have watched Ed stumble and fall as he pieced you back together and even after that."

"That makes things easier, then. I want your help in healing Ed. I have tried many ways and have found a way that could be viable but need your opinion on it since you are the foremost expert on Magic I know." Alfred said as he sent the knowledge directly to his mind using Runic magic circles.

Truly, Runes were the most versatile branch of magic.

As the knowledge was inserted in his mind and he processed it, his eyes widened as he nearly thundered at Alfred, "Are you Mad? Do you have any idea how many things can go wrong if you miss even a tiny minute detail of the procedure?"

Alfred looked sheepish but completely determined to do exactly that, his words not convincing him otherwise at all.

He sighed and slumped back in his seat.

He was getting too old for this shit.

"Just get out, I'll.." He waved at Alfred and after looking at Ed's body and the recent reminder of Hela made him fold, "...consult with Frigga and let you know by tomorrow. Until then, DO NOT do anything regarding that in Asgard otherwise you will have me as your enemy, and believe me, you do not want that"

Alfred nodded solemnly and left the court.

Now, he was left all alone in the court with only the repainted murals of his daughter's deeds to give him company and haunt him with his failures.

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Word Count - 2011

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