Technomancer in MCU #1

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 88

Technomancer in MCU

Asgard

–Ed–

"Well, that went well," He groaned internally when he heard Toby say that to the Queen of Asgard. It did actually go better than he was expecting. He had half-expected Odin to just flip out and try to smite Toby on the spot, considering that Toby made no effort whatsoever to try and hide his true nature, not that it would have made any difference since it was Odin they were trying to hide from, the all-seeing yet ironically, one-eyed King of Asgard.

"I don't know what I was expecting from a demon host, especially since they have been nearly non-existent on this side of the universe. Last I heard all of them died in droves fighting each other fighting for a reason nobody knows or at least no one that is alive." Frigga said as she dismissed Thor and Loki and turned towards them.

Toby just smirked at her, not replying at all.

He tried to step in before Toby could do any more damage but Frigga looked at me and that one look somehow stopped me mid-way. It was honestly terrifying how she could command someone with just a look, even without using any of her witch-specific magic.

"Hmm", she then turned to him and extended an arm towards him lit up with a magic circle that stopped just shy of touching him. She looked at him as if asking for his consent.

Well, what did he have to lose anyway? So, he nodded.

She nodded and then cast the spell on him, not even flinching under the hawkish gaze of Toby.

The magic circle turned a shade of green and then that light waved over his body before stopping at his head and then following the link with his soul, went back to his body, all the while she had another magic circle in front of her, probably feeding her the information on the diagnostics of the spell.

"Hmm, I see," She turned to Toby and said, "Very creative curse work. If this is what you are capable of then maybe you can be of help too."

Then she went back to work as Alfred arrived after talking with Odin privately. He didn't know what they were talking about but judging from the fact that they were not running away immediately, things should be okay.

"I hope he agreed to whatever crazy plan you have cooked up in your brain, Alfred?" Frigga asked Alfred as she continued to circle his body, intensely studying the resulting output from using her diagnostic magic.

"Maybe? I don't know for sure. He'll inform me after the feast. Speaking of which, I know it is customary but is the feast really necessary? Can't we just skip to the task at hand?" Alfred asked her while manifesting another magic circle and handing it to Frigga whose eyes took a vacant look in them when she started receiving the metric ton of data that Alfred must have had in that magic circle.

After all, he must have been researching the problem and its possible solutions for decades in his time-accelerated servers.

Frigga shook her head and replied, "Oh my! That really is a crazy idea and as much as it pains me to say this, it might just work. We'll be talking about the shoddy spellwork later on, though. With the spell you put together, Ed will be lucky to survive his full mortal lifespan, let alone use his powers to their full potential. And as for the feast, let's just say that anything and everything you have to do can be done after the Feast. Asgardians are like that. Even my husband is no exception."

She then turned to Ed, "I would suggest freshening up in your quarters. I don't see any clothing being packed with you but I have a feeling that abusing spatial magic is something that you guys do every day. In case you don't, tell one of the handmaids and they'll be sure to give it to you."

"Now," Frigga turned to Alfred and gave him another magic circle, "You have given me a lot to think of. This is something that was written in one of the ancient books I have access to. Use that brain of yours and see if any improvement can be done to personalise it for Ed since you know his physiology and soul better than anyone here. We'll be having a lengthy discussion about your risk-taking appetite, especially when the entity at risk is the entire universe, after the feast."

After giving all of them their orders, the figure of Frigga shimmered as the illusion faded away.

He mechanically turned his neck towards Alfred and then Toby, both of whom seemed to be rooted on their spot as they looked at the spot where Frigga disappeared from with laser focus.

He then chuckled and turned around, heading to their room, "Heh, looks like you met your match then, Alfred?"

Good thing too, since he needed someone to show him that he might be the strongest on Earth but the wider cosmos was a whole different ball game altogether.

Xxxxxxxx

It was later that day.

The day cycle worked differently on Asgard. The sun never truly set on Asgard since it was a fixed island with neither the sun nor the body moving at all. The sun was actually an ancient magic construct that was a work of art made with what Ed suspected to be Sun divinities or at least by a person who had the Sun divinity.

But as far as he remembered, there was no utterance of a Sun Asgardian God during the MCU. Of course, not all of Asgard's Myth was shown anyway so he might be wrong there as well.

The way evenings or nights worked in Asgard was also by a clever application of light magic. The Sun, during the day, behaved similarly to a standard Yellow star, giving off both heat and light by fusion, but during the night, both the amount of light and heat given by the Sun changes to something that would be more commonly done by the Moon on Earth.

At least, that was what Alfred was going on and on about ever since he had arrived in his room to wake him up.

Yes, he was grumpy after being woken up from the most relaxing sleep he had ever had in years, especially in recent years since he almost always had to be put to sleep using external influences like CHI or in some extreme cases, concentrated sleeping pills.

"Alright, just get to the point, will you, Alfred? We have to go to the stupid feast after this and I just want to get some sleep before that," he finally snapped at Alfred after listening to him go on and on about the fascinating magic that Asgard had.

Alfred actually pouted this time, "Well, I was about to tell you about the magic of the ocean surrounding this landmass but you just lost that privilege. Anyway, the reason I came here, not that I need one, is to discuss the Toby situation." He said the last words in a serious tone as an anti-surveillance curtain was raised around his room.

So, that was what he was doing while trying to talk his ears off, clever bastard.

"What about him? He said while diving back under the covers.

The absolutely mind-bogglingly comfortable covers that were ripped off of him despite his best tries by Alfred.

"Don't ignore the issue. You know what I have been talking about. Now that Toby is out of the contract that the Ancient One had imposed on him, what is going to stop him from trying to rule Earth or destroy all the major players in a bid to establish his supremacy?" Alfred asked as he kept on running the probability of that happening and showing it to him.

He sighed and sat up on the bed, facing Alfred who was pacing furiously, "Look, if it was the Old Toby, I might have agreed with you on principle but this version of him seems calm. Now that's a sentence I never thought I would say again."

"The probability of him doing something incredibly rash and ruining all of our work keeps on increasing day by day. He only has to see something bad happening on the planet that he absolutely has to intervene in and boom, we're done."

"If he does anything, we will be there. The Avengers will be there. The Inhumans, Atlantians, Wakandans, everybody will be there to rise up against him, Alfred. You are worrying too much."

"No! You are not taking this seriously enough. The sheer power he has at his disposal is not something that can be fought against simply by drowning him in quantities. Maybe Thor when he becomes older or Dr.Banner if he reaches his full potential but aside from them? Nobody comes even close to him in terms of strength who are also Earth's allies. Not even I could defeat him without using one of the Infinity Stones."

"Okay, first of all, you are seriously underestimating everybody on Earth. Hell, Daisy, Jake, Eric, Bruce, and Namor together could probably beat anyone in the universe, probably even the weaker celestials. Add in Thor, Stark's mind, and then you might even have a chance against Arishem."

Alfred looked so lost as he looked at him for guidance. It was the first day Alfred was born all over again. He had panicked so hard when he realised the limited space he had to live in.

"Look, if you want, I will go talk to him after this, alright?" he relented after seeing Alfred's conflicted look even after explaining everything to him.

"Okay, thank you." Alfred said and was about to leave but he stopped Aflred.

"Just out of curiosity, what are the odds of us winning against him if we pull out all the stops and he stops caring about the damage to Earth?"

Alfred looked at him and then, without warning, dozens of runic circles manifested around him as he began floating cross-legged with dimensional energy leaking around him.

Hmm, it would seem that he took it way too seriously.

For an entire minute, Alfred was in that state which was a lot because he could see Alfred visibly use Time Energy to accelerate the time his mind was working with.

Finally, after a while, the magic circles disappeared and the dimensional energy that had congregated around Alfred dispersed and then Alfred came out of it with steam coming out of his head in a comical show of how much brain power he had used, "Well, not that, that was not completely extra of you but what are the results anyway?"

Alfred's face looked relaxed to him which he took as a good sign, "Pulling out all stops from our side results in the Planet's destruction. Roping in all of our allies though gives us a 90% chance of killing him and a 98% chance of defeating him. Unfortunately, those odds drop down to 60% if Thor is removed from the equation."

Realisation dawned on him as he understood what Alfred was trying to convey, "So, we have to kill Hela, then?"

Alfred nodded and said, "Not just her, destroy Asgard as well."

He sighed and stood up, "Well, nobody said it was going to be easy all the way."

Now, all he had to do was ask Odin and Frigga to heal his body while plotting in the background to destroy their home.

Lovely.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1954

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.

Once again, thank you for reading!

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 89

Technomancer in MCU

Asgard

–Toby Mathers–

Wearing the fancy robes that were provided to him by the scared maids assigned to him, he looked in the mirror for the nth time.

And as usual, his face took on an ugly snarl as all he could see in his reflection was his demon form.

His ugly, disgusting Demon Form.

Someone who liked to rule over others, liked to toy with beings beneath and loved to destroy someone instead of merely defeating them.

That person was someone who managed to rule over an entire dimension with his wits and cruelty.

…But, he was not who he once was.

Not the person he wanted to become. He still had blurry images of the time with Ed, back when all they had to worry about was studying for a job.

God, he was so naive back then. Thinking that just studying without networking would get him a good job. Ed, on the other hand, had his life sorted out for him, even then.

When the two of them were presented with the option to go to an entirely new universe, he was pretty psyched up because he was of the mind that he could finally escape his boring life back then.

Little did his past self know what hell, literal and metaphorical, awaited him when he was blasted off from the path that he and Ed were taking.

For a long time, he actually resented Ed when he got to Earth and saw that Ed had been transported to the planet safe and secure, along with the trusty partner that was supposed to help them grow instead of just becoming the partner of Ed alone.

From day one, he could sense Alfred's resentment towards him and even now, among the ocean of emotions he could pick from Asgard, Alfred's resentment was something that was a constant for him.

Maybe, he should have stayed away from them after freeing himself from his prison.

It's not as if he could not understand Alfred's concern about him just going ballistic, especially since they just recently got an idea of his power if he were to go all out, disregarding any concerns about anybody being nearby.

Looking at the mirror, he tried to adjust his sleeves again only for the reflection to come back again. Frustrated, he just punched the mirror only for his fist to bounce back immediately, making him step back in shock.

Confused, he looked at the mirror, only to see a golden magic circle in front of the mirror that reflected the force of his punch back to him.

"You know, it is considered a bad omen if a mirror bearing your reflection is destroyed by yourself-" A voice spoke from behind him.

He turned around, only to see Frigga standing at the door with her palm facing the moor which had an identical miniature magic circle as the one which was on the mirror.

"- and whatever opinion we might have regarding your kind, you are still one of our guests and no guests under the House of Odin would ever be harmed on Asgard. That is one of the covenants that everyone in the house of Odin swears by."

Clearing his throat, he ran his hand through his head and said.

"I am sorry you had to see that. Has the banquet already begun?"

She dispelled the magic circle and lowered her hand slowly, "Yes, Asgardian Banquets are unique as in they have no specific start and end timings. They don't stop for anyone, not even their King. It is tradition and as such, you can join in anytime you want. If you are not comfortable and would like to discuss what just happened, we can do that too."

He coughed uncomfortably at the offer.

He had never been offered a sympathetic ear when he was but a pathetic weakling back in the hellworld with nothing to offer to anyone and once he began rising in prominence, all the offers felt disgustingly fake to him anyway so he never bothered with them.

But now?

He could literally feel the sincerity with which Frigga had offered an ear to listen to him listing away his troubles.

Suddenly, without warning, his senses tingled as an energy that was a complete antithesis to his own flooded the room. His neck snapped to meet Frigga's glowing blue ones as she said, "There, now no one can hear us talking, not even my husband."

She lowered her arms and cast a spell of some sort that lightly nudged his mindscape as if asking for permission to access it.

Normally, his automatic defenses would have kicked in and obliterated such an attempt without even conscious input from his side but he had forgotten one thing.

He had built almost all aspects of his mental defenses with intent in mind. The intent of Frigga's spell was so unique that it made his defenses ignore it. The only reason he would have been alerted to it was due to the fact that the spell seemed to be designed for it.

Apprehensive of her intentions but trusting his powers since that was what allowed him to survive for so long, he opened up a portion of his mindscape and allowed the tendril of magic to enter his mind, ready to eviscerate it the moment it tried to do anything fishy.

In the real world, outside his mindscape, Frigga smiled encouragingly at him as her spell took effect and every first effect of it unconsciously relaxed him more than he would care to admit.

Soon, the room that was flooded with Frigga's magic transformed to resemble the park he and Ed used to visit when they wanted to "touch grass" and get out of their dorms for a change.

It was nothing special. A couple of swings and some gym equipment lying around but it was their place. The place where they could go after hours, with cheap ramen, to escape from the heavy-duty lifestyle they both led and to unwind the stress they had ramped up.

"I am surprised. I thought your most happy place would be something of grand opulence but I guess, you can't judge a book by its cover. I believe that is a popular saying in Midgard?" Frigga said as she looked around at the real-life manifestation of his happy place in front of him.

He would die before admitting it but his eyes glistened with tears as Frigga's spell allowed him to relive a cherished memory he didn't even know he had forgotten.

Taking a deep breath, he began, "What would you like to know?"

Frigga smiled and sat down on one of the swings and asked him to take the one next to her, "Come, let's start with why you felt the need to destroy the mirror. I assume that the poor mirror had no fault of its own for you to try to destroy it with such ferocity?"

He chuckled bitterly and sat on the swing next to her, his musculature allowing him to just barely fit into it but the joy he got from using the swing was many times more than the discomfort he felt from the chains digging into his skin.

Before he could speak though, the chains became lighter as the swing widened to allow his body to properly fit in.

He looked towards Frigga only for her to chuckle and reply.

"Just because we are relieving a memory does not mean that we have to make it accurate. Now, where were we?"

He nodded and took a deep breath, telling her about his view of himself and how much he felt he had strayed away from the person he once was.

The person he wanted to become. The person he hoped everybody looked up to as inspiration and not as an entity of fear.

As the session was ongoing, the scenery around him allowing him to truly relax and open up, he sensed something banging on the barrier he had cast on his room.

His eyes narrowed as he felt the person outside being one of extreme darkness affinity. Before he could warn Frigga, there was a huge disturbance in the magic outside the palace as multiple huge masses of darkness congregated right in front of his barrier.

XxxxxxxX

A few hours before the attack, on Earth—

–Jane Foster–

"Come on, Jane. You know he has left. It has been almost 3 years since anybody last saw him. We even tried asking that Alfred bot and he also told us about the Rainbow thingy being rebuilt already and he still hasn't visited you or even sent a letter or whatever the Asgardian equivalent of that is." Darcy told her for the umpteenth time as she kept on working on the code in front of her.

Taking a deep breath, she stopped coding and looked at Darcy with a deadpan gaze, "Why don't you go and take care of the one responsibility I gave you, taking care of the new intern?"

Darcy shrank back at the heat in her words and she winced internally but the words were already said so she kept on looking at her with a stern face, hoping that she would just leave her alone.

"Fine," Darcy pouted and left the room, probably to search for the new intern who could not be found at the same place he was left at.

As soon as the door slammed behind Darcy, she slumped as she sighed in resignation. It was not as if she could not realise the meaning behind Darcy's words.

Everything AlfredGPT had told her had turned out to be true. It was even monumental in helping her research advance leaps and bounds ahead of her peers, not that he had many of those since her field was something that was literally invented by herself.

The thought of giving up her research did come up once or twice in her mind but what kind of scientist would she be if she gave up in front of a little emotional adversity?

So, as she was about to go get herself a fresh pot of coffee, a red mist appeared in front of her, and before she even had a chance to scream, the mist swallowed her, and she was thrown on an extremely uneven rocky surface.

It hurt but the pain kept her awake.

Looking at the rocky desolate surface in front of her, she felt astonished at the fact that she could still breathe in what was clearly another planet. She came to that conclusion due to the existence of the black sun on the horizon.

Taking a few steps forward, she could feel a dark desolate aura behind and in front of her. Not knowing what to do, she took a deep breath and walked in a random direction she picked, not knowing which road led to where.

In hindsight, the extreme calmness she exhibited even in the face of being thrown on another planet with literally no one around should have warned her about the sheer wrongness of that place but it was as if she was being guided by an unseen force to do its bidding.

As if she was possessed, she kept following a path of rocks that appeared for her and soon enough, the road came to an end. The path ended when a huge grey rock was placed at its end. The rock seemed normal and unassuming but just as she was about to debate the intelligence of going forward towards exploring an exoplanet, the stone began glowing golden.

Scrambling back from the phenomenon happening in front of her, she tripped on some of the little rocks in her path and fell down as the golden light in front of her seemed to reach a crescendo of its own.

With a roar that seemed to be full of so much malevolence, the golden light in front of her bubbled until it fell apart to reveal something dark red glowing inside.

Fully captivated by the eerie red glow, she extended her hand towards the glowing red liquid that was slowly floating towards her hand as if a snake trying to slither its way up a tree branch.

At the last moment though, an old majestic voice spoke that resounded like a gong in her ears as a golden glow encased the liquid that was trying to escape, encapsulating it once again.

While it did shake her from the trance she was under, her hand was stuck in the same position and no matter what she did, she could not move her hand away from the red liquid.

As she pulled her wrist back with her other arm, she could do nothing but watch in enchanted horror as the red liquid seemed to be winning the fight and slowly, the liquid began seeping into her skin.

She screamed in terror and closed her eyes but the terrible feeling she expected never came. Instead, she could see the golden glow now surrounding her entire left arm, extending back to her ribcage.

Fascinated by the golden glow, she touched it and as if empowered by her, the glow began dimming and glowing back in a rhythmic motion, as if it was a beating heart itself.

Patting her chest, she took in deep breaths as she broke out into a sweat as the implications of what just happened and how much worse could have happened to her, began to set it.

Hyperventilating, she began to think about all the exercises she had read about that could help if one had a panic attack. Trying to think of something else didn't help.

Taking deep breaths didn't help.

Imagining her happy place did not help since her happy place was in the arms of Thor and that just put her in a worse mood.

Unbeknownst to her, the red mist that was held tightly within the golden energy cocoon began pulsing in response to her thoughts.

The golden energy could have stopped it but as if it had a semblance of the sentience of its own, it recognised the line of action that the red energy was taking so it allowed the red mist to exert its influence on the surrounding, warping it slightly.

The red mist began pulsing in higher frequencies, warping the surroundings around Jane more and more until the very area Jane was standing in began blurring as if it was being erased from the scenery.

Jane, unaware of all of the changes happening around and in her body, doubled over in pain as the red mist, with the help of the golden energy, began siphoning off a part of Jane's life force to fuel the activity it was about to do.

Gasping in pain, Jane opened her eyes only to see the world with a red-tinted gaze and before she could process anything, she was whisked away from the dead realm, leaving naught but ash in the spot she was standing in.


________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2524

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 90

Technomancer in MCU

Deep in the ruins of Svartalfheim

–?--

He awoke with a gasp, greedily taking in air for his lungs.

The door of his pod opened with a hissing sound as he stumbled out of it. With his blurry vision, he managed to find the mask and put it on, and immediately sighed in relief as the foreign air composition stopped entering his lungs.

As the lights in his room lit up by sensing his presence, he took a moment to check on the time period they were in and promptly had to check if the device was broken or not.

When double and triple-checking the data on multiple dashboards didn't help one bit, he staggered back and slumped down on the back of his pod, the harsh reality setting in on him.

'It's been 3 thousand years!' the number kept on ringing in his head. They only had life-supporting equipment for the entire colony for about 2000 years. There was no way his family survived, especially since the systems had been programmed to prioritise the warrior class and their esteemed leader if their supplies came too low.

Still, he stood up shakily from his position. He had to check.

He had to check if his friends and family survived. Maybe, there was still a way to save them, even if they were on the verge of dying. Dark Elven physiology allowed for a semi-hibernation state, maybe they went into that mode.

Slowly, as if afraid to face the reality, he placed his palm on the dark screen in front of him to authenticate himself as the captain of the survivor class ship.

Almost immediately, the screen lit up with a dark green light, and scanned his bio signature along with his energy signature for the authentication process. Opening the dashboard, he checked on the number of functioning pods and he felt something inside him break when he saw the number.

259

That's it.

That was the count of all the Dark Elves that survived the hibernation process. The only reason they did is because that is also exactly the number of warrior class and above people that were originally on board the ship.

'But, why was the procedure to wake them triggered?' he thought while going through the ship's logs. He could see the exact moment the ship's onboard AI decided that they had to shed their losses to make sure that the warrior class survived.

1000 years. That's all the years his family survived before their lives were snuffed by the pod's systems just like Bor himself killed his father when he was just a little elf. At Least his father died fighting, unlike his family who went in with the hope that someday they would be woken up to continue their lives on a better planet.

Not a dead one like theirs had been for a long time due to the accursed Bi-Frost.

Taking in deep breaths, he cycled through the logs one more time to see what had awoken them, only to come across a name he had never thought he would see again.

Staggering back, he rushed towards the chamber that housed the sleeping forms of Malekith and his chosen cabal of Accursed Dark Elves because if the logs on the system were true, they were in for a true extinction this time.

As the doors of the cabin closed up, the lights in the cabin dimmed down before dying altogether, the same with the screen.

The last log on the screen before it shut off was the detection of an energy signature. It read - "Energy Signature identified - Bor Burison."



Xxxxxxxxx


Asgard

–Thor Odinson–

"Alright, I can do this," Thor could be seen saying that to himself in front of the mirror while he was supposed to get ready for the banquet that was being hosted in celebration of the appointment of the new guardian of Midgard.

He was very much nervous about finally confronting his father about his relationship with Jane Foster.

….

..

.

Alright, confront was too strong a word for what he wanted to do.

He wanted to ask Father for permi- no, that's too weak for the Son of Odin to say.

Maybe..

"My Prince, the banquet is already underway," Right then, there was a knock on his door, startling him out of his wits.

"Coming!" he shouted at his annoying chambermaids. Unfortunately, all the maids of the palace came directly under the leadership of his mother, and not even his father dared to order them around without explicit permission from his mother so he could not even tell her not to disturb him while he was getting ready, so to speak.

"Come on, what would Jane think?" he whispered to himself as he set his hair right for the hundredth time. Right as he had put the comb down, he paused.

Mjolnir slowly roused from its slumber and came barrelling straight to his open palm. He turned around slowly, Mjolnir ready in his hand because the moment he had set down his comb, he had felt a spike of otherworldly energy.

An energy he had never felt before and he had encountered almost all types of energy sources ranging from the celestial's cosmic energy to the weird void energy that the Sovereign leveraged for their precious battery systems.

It was hard to pinpoint the exact source and location of it but he could sense it coming towards him for some reason.

The unusual thing about the situation was Father or even Loki not barging into his room because of the jolt of power he had felt and if he could feel it, there was no way they had missed it.

Shaking his head to get rid of the confusion, he kept Mjolnir steady in his hand and waited for whatever it was that was coming for him.

Instincts honed by hundreds of battles were the only thing that stopped him from taking Jane's head off when she appeared in front of him with a reddish-golden glow on her. It helped that Mjolnir itself for some reason stopped at the last moment before hitting her.

"Jane!"

"Thor! Oh, thank god!" Jane said before the golden glow around her arm increased in brightness, smothering the red glow. The next moment, Jane's eyes rolled back as her body collapsed right in front of him.

"Charla! Help!" he shouted before checking on Jane, the golden glow on her arm now dim but still glowing.

There was a sound of the door opening which was then followed by the sound of Charla opening his dressing room, "What is it now, Prince Th– Oh no!"

Charla immediately took over as her previous experience of working in the Healer's chamber of Asgard shone through.

All he could do was stand over there uselessly as Charla's hands glowed green before she placed them on top of Jane's head and soon enough, Jane's breathing slowed down and her face eased out of the pained grimace it was under.

Charla's sigh of relief brought his attention over to her, "What is it? Please tell me she is safe?"

"My Prince, the only thing I could do is stabilise her. The rest will be up to the healers and Odin himself."

"Wh-Why would Father be involved in this?" He hated the fact that his voice broke while saying that.

Charla gave him a look as she realised exactly why he was nervous and instead of replying, began taking out the emergency stretcher that was in his room.

'Come to think of it, why was it in my room?'

As Charla slowly laid down Jane on the floating stretcher, she said while locking Jane in place, "You should not entertain such notions, My Prince. Mortal lives are always fleeting. No matter how hard you try, they can never match with our lifestyles."

She then looked him in the eye, the pitying look in them disturbing him deeply, "The longer you try and hold on, the more it hurts. Just advice from a lowly chambermaid. I will be escorting Miss…?"

"Uh-Jane, her name is Jane Foster,"

Charla nodded, "I see, I will be escorting Jane to the Royal Healer's chamber since it is the closest and also because King Odin might want to take a look at whatever brought her here, directly in the heart of the Royal Palace, without anyone else realising it."

He could only watch helplessly as she was escorted away.

"Damn it all," he whispered. This was not how he wanted Jane to be introduced to Father and Mother.

Now, all Jane will be reduced to will be an intruder. An exceptionally skilled intruder since she did manage to reach his chambers directly, in the innermost parts of the Royal Palace.

He sighed and stood up from where he had taken a seat.

Mjolnir naturally floating in his palm, he looked ahead while saying, "Having fun, Brother?"

There was seemingly no one in the room to reply to his question but when he raised his eyebrow and looked at a certain corner of the room, the air around it slightly shimmered and there he was, Loki, the Trickster.

Loki then promptly put his hand over his heart in an exaggerated manner, "Your words wound me, brother. Why would I enjoy my brother being heartbroken over being finally told of the truth of Mortals that I myself had been trying to tell him for months!"

Then, as if he had shed his mask, his body language straightened up and he gained a dead look in his eyes, "If you want to reach your paramour before Odin just smites her out of existence, you might want to hurry brother because I sense a disturbance in the force"

With those parting words, his clone, or whatever it was disappeared.

Something had happened to Loki. Something that nobody was willing to tell him about.

Whenever both of them are together, Loki stops pretending and as if the mask he had been wearing was dropped, his entire demeanor changes.

His eyes gain a faraway look and his entire stance becomes guarded. Whenever he tried asking Loki about it, he clammed up and fled from him.

'Alright, enough dilly-dallying.' he thought while heading towards the Healer's chamber.


Xxxxxxxx


When he entered the healing chamber, the scene that greeted him was completely out of the ordinary. For one, the entire chamber was pin-drop silent. That had never been the case whenever he had visited.

Second, there were guards in front of Eir's office.

He had a bad premonition about the situation so he rushed to Eir's office. Thankfully, the guards didn't stop him.

Heading in, he could see Jane on the Soul Forge, unconscious with Eir working on something on the Soul Forge with a grave look on her face.

"Wh-" he made to speak but stopped when she raised a finger and went back to her work on the Soul Forge

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1841

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.



Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 91

Technomancer in MCU

Asgard

–Thor Odinson–

While he paced in the background of Eir's office, she was busy doing…something with Jane's body. He didn't have the faintest clue as to what that was.

He cursed himself for not attending the extra training classes that were given to raise awareness of this particular branch of seidr. In his defense, he never did have the patience to sit and learn complicated stuff that made his brain hurt. He had to bleed away all of that energy.

Eir's sharp intake of air brought him out of his reverie. Rushing to the soul forge, he could see the feed where it showcased Jane's body before, it was only showing half of her body.

!!

Literally half of her body could not be seen on the Soul Forge. His only consolation was the fact that he could sense Jane's breathing and it was stable.

"What is happening?" he whispered furiously to Eir as he pulled her away from the Soul Forge.

"It--It's an Infinity Stone," Eir whispered, more to herself than to him.

"Wha-What?" he nearly shouted before looking back at Jane.

If she housed an infinity stone, then…

Shaking his head to get rid of such thoughts, he looked back at Eir, "Which one? How do you know for sure? Is there any way we can remove it from her without telling anybody?"

Eir snapped her eyes towards him and he could literally feel the incredulousness oozing out of her at his questions.

She snapped, "With all due respect, Prince Thor but are you Insane? That is an Infinity Stone energy signature that has been detected by the Soul Forge. I have no power over it as it has already sent a message, probably to the All-Father himself. Secondly, removing an infinity stone? Do you think it is a common tumor that can just be removed from a body? It has latched on to her systems and the only reason she is not a shriveled corpse due to the energy strain is a golden energy that is alarmingly similar to the Odin Force."

She then sighed, "I'm sorry, Prince Thor but her fate is now up to the All-Father. Maybe not even him because I don't see a way of taking out the stone without killing her."

Saying that she left her own office, probably to give him some alone time with Jane.

He stood there, wide-eyed, shocked at the things Eir had told him.

He didn't know how long he had stood there, listening to the rhythmic beating of Jane's heart when he was brought out of his melancholy by the door bursting open and his Father's thundering presence entering the room. He was followed by Loki and Eir, along with his usual platoon of Einharjar.

"Fathe-" he wasn't given a chance to speak as Odin rushed directly towards the Soul Forge.

Wrestling control of it due to his mastery of the Odin Force, he looked over the recent records of Jane when he came upon a particular entry and froze entirely.

Xxxxxxxxx

–Odin Borson–

Impossible!

When he had first been alerted of a category 3 alarm going off at one of the command centres, he had been cautious sure, but more confused as a category 3 alarm had not been raised since Thor was born.

So, he took his time responding to it since there was no obvious threat and the alarm was coming from Eir's office which had already sent ahead a notice saying that it was not urgent.

Imagine his surprise when, upon reaching the Royal Healer's chamber, he was informed by Eir herself that it was regarding an Infinity Stone. His gait only hastened as he felt his Odin Force thrum with energy as if it was resonating with what was inside Eir's office.

Once inside, he directly went to the Soul Forge, curious to see how the mortal had breached all of Asgard's defenses. He wouldn't be surprised if the answer to that question was an Infinity Stone since those things were known to regularly break the known laws of the Universe.

Upon checking the logs, he could see the anomaly as it could not detect the type of Infinity Stone it was but it had the data on the Space Stone, and using that data, Eir was able to conclude that this Jane housed an Infinity Stone within her.

That still didn't explain the disturbance he felt in the Odin Force when coming closer to the mortal.

Deciding to do something about that disturbance, his hand passed through the barrier of the Soul Forge as if it was not there at all. His hand hovered above the left hand of the mortal.

"Father, wha-" his son's questions were stopped by a single hand gesture from him. Now was not the time to quibble about mortal relationships and how foolish it is to pursue them, being an Asgardian.

A simple feedback spell returned the same result as the one given by the Soul Forge, complete blackout.

The left side of the mortal had been completely blacked out by the Infinity Stone as if it was not in phase with reality at all.

…

..

His eyes widened as he realised something. Activating the Odin Force's shroud that surrounded him with a golden glow, in case the Stone lashed out at him, he powered the feedback spell with the Odin Force this time and the results stunned him speechless.

The energy currently shrouding the Reality Stone and protecting Jane Foster had the signature of none other than…his father, Bor Burison, the previous wielder of the force he now called the Odin Force.

The energy, as if recognising the Odin Force, sang in joy and began gorging on his energy. He absentmindedly continued supplying it the required energy as he could feel the remnants of his father's energy turn from a thin sheet to that of a flowing blanket that cocooned the malicious influence of the Reality Stone.

The Reality Stone, sensing the threat from his father's energy, lashed out at the cocoon holding it inside the mortal's body. Almost immediately, the mortal began coughing out blood and he had to imperceptibly cast an illusion around them so his foolish son didn't come rushing in and destroy everything, including any chance of saving his mortal paramour.

He stopped feeding energy to the barrier made up of his father's energy and the Reality Stone stopped lashing out.

Hmm. It would seem that the records were true. The Dark Elves had done something that changed the very nature of the container of the Reality Stone, otherwise, it would not have lashed out just now. Infinity Stones are pretty inert until somebody tries to use them.

The big question right now was where did this mortal get the Reality Stone or the Aether as it was called in the archives?

Last he had heard of it, it was sealed away by his father in some remote corner of the galaxy, never to be seen again.

Maybe it has something to do with the Conver–

!!

His eyes widened as he felt something enter Asgard, almost undetected. The only reason he was able to sense something was due to the Odin Force shroud he was wearing which enhanced his senses manifold.

He turned around, "Quick, sound the ala–"

Before he could finish that sentence, his entire vision was filled with darkness. Annoyed at the interruption, he let the Odin Force loose, burning away the wisps of darkness that had tried to cling to the room.

The very next moment, the crackling sound of Thunder could be heard as Thor blasted through the building walls and went outside to confront the enemy. Loki was nowhere to be seen either.

Of course, Loki functioned the best when he had the best vantage point after all and with his magic, this level of blinding curse was nothing.

His brows wrinkled as he could hear Thor's shouts of confusion but before he could go out and assist his son, he felt the energy within the mortal try to connect to his mind, something that he was wary about since he had no idea what the energy would try to do.

Upon multiple nudges from his father's last left energy in the universe, he gave in and allowed it to form a mental connection with himself.

Xxxxxxxxx​

–Thor Odinson–

The darkness cover was everywhere and yet there was no enemy in sight. He tried calling for Heimdall to lend him his legendary vision but apparently, he had been thrown into the waters below the Rainbow Bridge during an altercation with one of the bigger ships. The ship was now nowhere to be found as it had somehow resumed its invasion, even after Heimdall destroyed an engine, from what he was able to gather from the panicked shoutings of the Einherjar.

He could not see anything beyond the Royal Palace but he could see flashes of green magic as Loki seemed to do his job and kill the intruders.

It was a good thing that he had some steam to release as well.

Calling forth the unbridled power hidden within Mjolnir, he raised his hammer up in the sky and shouted, "For Asgard!"

A titanic bolt of blue lightning hit Mjolnir and illuminated the area around him, burning away the encroaching darkness.

"Haa!" Pointing Mjolnir forward, his form crackled with lightning as he did a flyby of the nearest settlements and destroyed the darkness curtain that was plaguing the Einharjars from identifying and fighting with the intruders.

So far, he had neither seen the head nor hide of any of the intruders.

His eyes spotted something he had never expected to see. Loki, injured, sitting down, in between the normal civilians of Asgard.

The Loki he knew would have fled the scene at the first sign of weakness and never mingled with the rabble, as he called them.

Landing harshly in front of Loki, he waved off the people coming close and crouched down in front of his brother, "Injured, brother?"

Loki deadpanned at him and stood up, breathing a bit heavily, "To quote a mortal, I can do this all day," and then he disappeared.

Sigh, typical Loki.

He didn't even get a chance to ask him about who was able to injure him and how they were able to get away from him.

His thoughts were interrupted by something that shook the entirety of the street he was standing on.

Amidst the panicked shoutings of the crowd, he turned around to see a formation of three massive ships that had now surrounded the golden barrier that protected the Royal Castle.

Another concentrated blow struck the shield from all three of the ships and he could see the barrier get visibly thinner from the onslaught. It was only a matter of time before they got access to the Palace and with that, to Jane.

"Not on my watch," he growled as lightning crackled around him and Mjolnir and without thinking about it, he just jumped and zoomed towards one of the ships.

Once he reached the intended height, he swung Mjolnir with all his might and stuck the top of one of the ships, leading to a loud banging noise that resonated throughout Asgard and even burst his eardrums for a bit.

But even after that blow, the ship remained standing and still kept attacking the barrier instead of him, as if he was not worthy of being attacked.

The rabble that surrounded the ships began trying to attack him but they were a nuisance at best that could be solved by a swing of Mjolnir.

What he needed was a way to destroy those huge ships before Father had to step in and strain his already old body.

'I wonder what Ed and the others are doing? Surely, they must have realised the commotion by now' Thor thought as he was about to try and knock down at least one of the ships but before he could do anything, with a thunderous crashing sound, the golden barrier surrounding the Royal Palace broke apart.

His eyes widened in horror as he saw the ships charging another one of those darkness attacks but before he could fly in and do anything, a familiar barrier emerged in front of the palace and stopped the attack.

The shield was destroyed by the attack but the important thing was that the attack was stopped in its tracks.

He recognised that shield sigil. It was used by the Mystics on Midgard and the only one that was present on Asgard right now was…Alfred.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2121

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 92

Technomancer in MCU

Asgard

–Ed–

Tch. He had forgotten about the Dark Elves.

Standing on the raised platform that Alfred had conjured, he took stock of the situation and saw that despite being caught off-guard, most of Asgard's population seemed to be doing fine with the invasion.

It would seem that there were robust protocols in place in case something like this happened. Of course, he could see Loki's magical signature being tracked by Alfred on their shared HUD and what he was doing was very confusing for him.

From time to time, in the sea of darkness, there would be flashes of green whenever a Dark Elf got too close to civilian lines, and after the green flash was gone, there would only be dead bodies of Dark Elves strewn around. The citizens too now looked at Loki with a much more favourable gaze than he had expected along with Loki's newfound concern for the powerless (According to him).

Something had happened to Loki in Asgard that had changed him on such a fundamental level and he did not like it. It was disturbing to see so much character development in such a short period of time, especially when it came to long-lived races like the Asgardians.

Nevertheless, that was a topic for another time. Preferably after the Dark Elves are properly driven to extinction this time.

"Alfred, any luck cracking their encryption codes?" He asked while he sat on the platform because his new body would not be able to help in the situation, at all. He was also worried about the inexplicable absence of Toby on a raging battlefield.

That was very much unlike him. Last he had heard, all of them were getting ready for the banquet with the mandatory dresses that were provided to them by Frigga and nobody had wanted to argue with her on that topic since it seemed that she had made up her mind and if there was one thing he knew about Frigga then it was her absolute determination when it came to something she liked. He knew not even Odin himself would be able to recuse himself from wearing something his wife chose for him, all-powerful King of Asgard or not.

"No, their shields are bizarre. It was as if they wrote the code using the Reality Stone as the compile engine. The code keeps shifting and adapting to anything I throw at it. If it was not a battle, I would have loved to study that piece of code. Alas, it is bound to destroy anything that it comes in contact with due to its very nat-Ugh"

Alfred grunted as the shield bore the brunt of the darkness attack one more time, tiny cracks showing up on them that were healed nearly immediately but he could see the strain it was putting Afred under because in his HUD, he could see his energy levels and they were not looking good. Sooner or later they would have to prioritise a single section of the Palace instead of covering it in an omnidirectional shield. That was why he was waiting for Toby to show up since, even with his depowered form due to him bearing the strain of keeping Ed alive, he could probably slaughter all of them, the same as Odin.

"Alfred, where is everybody?" he asked as the wave of darkness came alarmingly close to breaking the barrier, Alfred's energy reserves taking another dip due to it.

Thor was doing an admirable job destroying any stragglers that the main ships seemed to shit out every once in a while but with his current strength, he was unable to shatter the barriers that surrounded the ships which was not his fault since he could see that all of them seemed to be in a shield formation of sorts, just like they did back in New York during the Chitauri Invasion, and he knew from experience just how compounded the effect was when it came to force field generators.

Loki was killing off any Dark Elf on the ground level, with unbelievable grace and efficiency, almost like a perfect assassin. This was not in his skill set the last time they met or at least not something that he liked to use in battles. Something was seriously wrong with how Loki was acting.

Anyway, moving on, why have none of the three absolute powerhouses (Odin, Frigga, and Toby) moved since the palace has come under attack?

*Sigh*..he felt so useless. He didn't even have most of his emergency tech on hand since he built that with so many stupid authentication procedures that if he were to use it now, it would more likely kill him than the other guy he was trying to kill.

"Alfred, any update on Odin?"

"He is currently in the Royal Healing Chamber with Jane Foster, both of whom are shrouded in an energy cloak so thick that even the ships in front of us would not be able to breach it. Toby and Frigga are nowhere to be found but I have found a barrier around Toby's assigned quarters that has stopped all of my attempts at finding out what's going on inside." Alfred rapidly fired at him.

He was also trying to see if any of his spell combos worked or not since all of the spells he was able to send through the shield seemed to bounce right off the shield, without it even registering as threats to the Dark Elves and all the spells that have the right firepower behind them require time to prepare, a luxury they don't have at the moment.

An ominous creaking noise brought his attention back to the ships and as if all of them seemed to have lost their patience, 3 identical cannons came out of the ship's bellies, aimed directly at Alfred and consequently, him.

The cannons glowed an ominous red, possibly built using the Aether. The power buildup he was seeing on his HUD was unreal. This level of energy being gathered in a single item without it blowing up should only be possible using the cheating abilities of an Infinity Stone.

"Uh, Alfred, I think we should change our position to any place else?" he asked while bracing for impact since he knew Alfred would take this as a personal challenge to his Mystic skills if nothing else. Especially since the entire Palace had since been evacuated and the only ones inside were able to easily protect themselves from an attack that would most probably be weakened immensely after going through Alfred's shields.

It will go through Alfred's shields because he had seen the energy output it takes to break Alfred's dimensional energy shields and this was far above that.

"Not now, Old man. I'm in the middle of something," Saying so, the platform they were standing on, was fractured in two and he was literally sent away to the Palace, as if he were some helpless civilian that Alfred needed to protect.

Oh, this was infuriating!

A low whining sound brought his attention back to Alfred's shields as the absolutely gargantuan shield that covered the Palace now began to gain a golden-greenish tint to it, signifying the activation of one of Alfred's patented spells.

Well, as much as you could patent a spell in the Mystic World.

The stragglers, as if sensing the danger of Alfred's spell, began converging around the barrier and attacking it, increasing the strain on the shield and subsequently, Alfred.

Almost as if it was choreographed, the cannons' glow and Alfred's shields reached a crescendo at the same time.

With a final roar, the magic circle that had manifested in front of Alfred was completed and the shield flashed a brilliant white that soon began to take a red tint as the spell began absorbing the energy fired by the cannon.

The platform beneath him fizzled out of existence as all of Alfred's energy went into maintaining the shield spell.

"Will it hold?" he asked a thoroughly exhausted Alfred as he used his repulsors to stay afloat instead of flexing his natural mystical control over the local environment's magic.

Alfred didn't need to answer because soon, they were bathed in a red glow as the once pristine white shield was now entirely red.

Alfred sighed and snapped his fingers, causing the shield to break apart and the beams of energy to head directly towards the Palace's pristine golden walls.

"Welp, we did all we could. The rest is in Odin's hands, I guess?" He quipped even though internally, he was worried about how this could reflect in any agreement they might make with Asgard in regards to healing him or bilateral protection agreements.

Smaller shields flared up to halt the energy beam but they broke apart like glass upon contact. They must have been a part of the secondary defense system.

The attack had almost reached the palace when a blazing fire broke out of the palace and pounced on the wave of darkness, consuming it entirely.

Silence reigned on the battlefield as Toby came out of the melted palace walls, clad in his signature clothing, hellfire burning all around him which warped the sheer air around him. Frigga took calm steps beside him, unfazed by all the heat that Toby was generating.

"Get off my lawn!" Toby smirked and sent out concentrated blasts of hellfire at the three large T-shaped ships. Sensing the imminent threat that Toby's attacks represented, their shields disengaged and as if a lock had been opened, the ships disentangled from each other and began fleeing in different directions, throwing stragglers behind them in the way of the hellfire attack, hoping to gain some time before they can flee.

They probably were counting on their otherworldly stealth systems to flee from Asgard since nobody was able to sense them coming to Asgard in those ships and if they were built with the help of the Reality Stone, they probably were capable of masking their presence from even the best of the watchers in the universe, just like they hid from Heimdall.

"Not on my watch," Toby growled and as if a brake had been applied, all of the three ships halted in place. He could see their jets burning with ever-increasing intensity, even turning red due to the strain but the ships never moved an inch.

He looked at Toby and then his shadow and realised what he had done. Apparently, Toby was able to "lock" on their shadow, for lack of a better term, and hold them there using his extreme darkness affinity.

"I have a new trick I want you guys to see," Toby said to them before the hellfire that was shrouding his form concentrated around his hand before he thrust them down. The flames burst into his shadow as if it was a portal and their destination was the shadows of the three ships.

Immediately, the shields on those ships activated, however flimsy they might be, in an effort to combat the onslaught of the hellfire that was now on their ship and eating through it.

Even from this far away, he could hear the screams of the dying Dark Elves before two of the ships burst apart in the center and 4 huge Dark Elves came barreling straight towards Toby, while the third ship began trying to get away.

That ship was the one that probably housed Malekith.

"Allow me," Frigga said before she stepped in front of Toby and simply waved her hands, a burst of yellow wave coming out of her hand and hitting all of the Accursed Dark Elf warriors. All of them stiffened midway and by the time they crashed in front of Frigga, they were not alive anymore and soon turned into ashes.

He shuddered as he saw the aftermath of her spell. She was never really that powerful in the MCU or was she simply not using her powers?

Even Toby seemed shocked even though he hid his reaction very well.

"Time to end this," With another mental flex, hellfire burst from the third ship as well and all of them could hear Malekith's screams as he and his entire ship turned to ash.

And so it would seem that the Dark Elves were truly extinct now.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2070

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.

P.S. - Sorry for the late release. I was a little busy with bank chores.

Toodaloo!

 

[Brian the dor]

Why the fuck did you even write ed into this story?

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 93

Technomancer in MCU

Kamar Taj, Earth

–Alfred (Partition) –

Looking at the dozens of people he had gathered from the different corners of the Earth, Alfred (Partition) nodded in acceptance. He could see that all of them had gotten the hang of manipulating dimensional energy and molding the energy into constructs for various utilitarian purposes, such as whips, pans, and even bats for playing sports.

Yeah, his training methods were a bit unorthodox as most of the Masters would agree but the end results of the aforementioned training left the same Masters grumbling in reluctant acceptance.

It didn't help that he had broken a tradition of sorts and had taken all of the 30 initiates he had found under his personal tutelage. Traditionally, the Sorcerer Supreme was not supposed to take so many personal students at once. Being taken under the direct wings of THE Sorcerer Supreme meant that you were taken into consideration for becoming the next Sorcerer Supreme, barring exceptional circumstances, of course.

Suffice it to say, he had been grumbled at multiple times during all of his meetings when he had declared the intent to groom the entirety of the next batch of initiates, especially since the last attack on Kamar Taj had left its forces short by a margin that had not been seen since the time The Ancient One took charge.

A short cough brought his attention back to his surroundings, even though he was never really unaware of his surroundings, he just liked to dump those background sensory tasks on a secondary(or tertiary?) partition that he created for menial tasks like listening in on background noise or maintaining spatial awareness.

"How long are you going to stay there and keep the other Masters waiting, Sorcerer Supreme?" He could literally feel the sarcasm dripping from Wong's tone even though his tone remained flat, for all intents and purposes.

Sigh.

"Master Wong, how many times have I told you? You can just call me Alfred," He turned around and smirked at Wong as he said that.

The timing of his smirk was well placed because, according to his partition that was responsible for 360-degree awareness, the moment he turned his back on them, all of the initiates abandoned the strict-looking training they were doing and had conjured up swords, shields, batons, and what not to strike at each and everybody in their sights.

It didn't help that some of them had gotten really creative with their uses and now were able to create "blasts" with just pure dimensional energy which was just a creative way of expanding their conjurations with extreme force. Then due to the size of the conjurations, there was now an orange afterglow that could easily be seen on Wong's face.

His smirk threatened to turn into full-blown laughter when he saw the twitching of Wong's eyebrows.

Ah, how he loved teasing all the Masters that were a part of Kamar Taj. It helped that, even in this diminished state, he was stronger than almost all of them put together and they had witnessed that multiple times in the short time he had been Sorcerer Supreme, allowing him to do as he pleased even when he could visibly see their reluctance with a particular decision of his.

When the twitching vein on Wong's face looked like it would burst, he said, "Fine. You know you are no fun, Master Wong. I will be there in a few minutes. Alright?"

There seemed to have been a winner in the fight going on behind him because the orange glow on Wong's face had died down, returning their surroundings back to the semi-dark environment that Kamar Taj was known for.

"Very well, we will all be waiting for the big announcement that you were supposed to do today. Just for the next time, there is an emergency,

Master Wong nodded and left, not even bowing for the sake of it.

Ouch.

It would seem that even the people who had initially supported his position as Sorcerer Supreme due to the direct say-so of the Ancient One had begun having second thoughts.

Well, time to extinguish those thoughts then.

But first, he had some unruly brats to discipline.

Turning around, he was greeted by the sight of Aditi, the youngest of the new batch, standing on top of a floating platform, holding a conjured orange sword high up in the air, smirking at him triumphantly.

He smiled indulgently at her as Aditi lowered the platform she had conjured for herself and then jumped back down on the ground amidst a sea of groans of pain. He could even see a couple of them unconscious.

Internally, he was loathe to punish Aditi for doing exactly what Sorcerers were supposed to do, become the strongest version of themselves, but, doing so by beating up their peers was not exactly a practice that he would call acceptable, even back in the Ascendancy combat halls.

So, "-Why exactly are you smiling, Aditi?"

Aditi's smile faded as she looked at you in confusion. Her confusion was warranted since she had heard multiple stories of him defeating every single Master present in Kamar Taj single-handedly, without even moving from his place.

"Do you feel proud?" He said as he started walking towards them, walking on the very air.

"Feel proud defeating a bunch of weaklings?" He said as a ball of orange light was conjured right on top of the defeated group by him.

All the initiates that were now awake, including Aditi, were looking at him and the overhanging orange ball in the air, with wariness. Unsurprising since this was the first time he had conversed with them in this tone.

"Because that is what you all are, a bunch of weaklings," Alfred (Partition) said as the dense ball of conjured dimensional energy was unceremoniously dropped on top of them.

They screamed and tried to cover their heads with their hands while some had the foresight to try to conjure barriers, including Aditi, but all of them were surprised to see that the ball of light didn't hit them like a solid. Instead, it burst like a ball of water and covered all of them in a thick orange slurry.

None of them could do anything to resist because of how fast things happened but soon enough, all of them were now awake and standing after being healed by his spell that he had discretely enchanted onto the ball of dimensional energy.

"Get in formation, will you?" He commanded even as he felt the rising discontent within the meeting chamber where all the Masters except the Sanctum Heads had gathered.

"Now, with the way you all have been practicing with all the freedom I have given you, I think we need to have an exam of sorts. Since all this freedom has been getting to your head a bit lately, we will now be having a joint battle simulation with the trainees at Ascendancy."

Everybody looked at him in surprise and awe since most of them were always talking about going to the moon base of Ascendancy.

Only Aditi was the one looking at him with increased wariness. Something that would make sense since she was the only one who had approached him about the different training methods that he employed in Ascendancy to train literal heroes and since she wanted to become one when she grew up, she had been trying to emulate the standard training regimen that every Ascendancy member followed.

Of course, she could not follow it perfectly since she was not enhanced up to the standards and also did not have access to the same CHI solution that the organisation had. Something that would soon be rectified once he had everything sorted out in the meeting that he had called with the other Masters.

A meeting he was very much late for.

Keeping that in mind, he said, "Guys, I hope you will perform better than today because the trainees there are a lot stronger than Aditi. Hell, some of the top students that graduated from there had gone on to form a team within the organisation that could collectively threaten even the Hulk or even Thor."

Before they could bombard him with any more questions, he snapped his fingers and left the area, teleporting directly into the meeting chamber.

*Gasp*

Most of the Masters who were not yet acquainted with his unique brand of working, gasped and leaned away from the center of the chamber as he floated there effortlessly. It didn't help that he exerted an invisible pressure just by virtue of being as mystically attuned as his new body was. It couldn't be felt by most people as they were not touched by dimensional energy but by the people present inside the room? It was as if there was a pressure pressing down on their entire body from all sides.

"Ladies, Gentlemen and otherworlders-" It was important to acknowledge the lone Sorcerer Skrull in the Masters' Council, "-As stated in the missives, I have an announcement to make,"

Most of the Masters scoffed in indignation since his "missive", as he called it, was just a scroll that appeared directly in front of them, at midnight, according to their respective timezones. He had done that in hopes that they would recognize his ability to perform delicate spells but it just ended up offending most of them since it rattled them to their core, especially because of the recent attack on Kamar Taj.

It was his fault but he was not about to apologize for them being jumpy.

"As you may or may not know, I have been a founding member of the organisation known as "Ascendancy". At Ascendancy, we have groomed and nurtured multiple S-tier powerhouses that have been instrumental in saving the planet from multiple threats that you all obviously know all about. If you are unaware of it, there will not be a kiosk installed outside the entrance of the library that would answer any questions you might have or you could just log in using your Alfred GPT account and ask your questions there, I have made sure that you all have the necessary clearances."

There was a loud row of whispers in the chamber as they all clamored about tradition, him being a complete unknown to most of them, his tradition-breaking policies, and how he had no respect for his elders. He just smiled and kept his hands behind his back, waiting for them to stop talking to each other in hush tones.

When it seemed that they would not be stopping anytime soon, he floated above their seats and let go of the tight leash he kept on his mystical presence.

The very air in the chamber crackled as the air became heavy to breathe in. His presence towered over all of the Masters present in the room as they all looked up at his unsmiling visage floating high above them.

Most of them tried to do something to reduce the pressure on them but whatever mystical methods they tried to perform, failed in the face of his disrupting presence.

If he so-willed, he could stop any sorcerer weaker than him from molding dimensional energy in his presence. Such was his strength now that he had gotten his new body made in accordance with his needs.

With his mastery in runes, he could probably just seal someone's mystical ability outright permanently. Something that he would employ in the near future against Mordo if he turned out the way he did in the future that the Ancient One foresaw.

"Alright, Enough!" Master Albert, one of the three eldest Masters of Kamar Taj shouted.

He stopped and floated back down in the chamber in respect of his words. He was one of the rare few Research-oriented Masters left who mostly kept to himself but was probably the most dangerous of the lot due to his inherent understanding of the old spells that Kamar Taj had. He had read some of his research that allowed him to cast partial Asgardian spells in exchange for extreme amounts of dimensional energy, allowing him to not lose his life force in a single spell. It was an extremely promising field that he had pioneered all by himself.

"Enough, we will listen to you. It is clear we have no option other than listening to you and I for one, am tired of all the constant bickering that goes on in the background, especially after the Sorcerer Supreme had already proven himself to be the best fit for the job. I don't know about you all but I have better things to do than be dragged here for every small decision that the Sorcerer Supreme cannot take officially due to your grumblings. Wake up, he is going to do what he wants anyway so why bother?"

Saying so, he scoffed at everyone and just walked out of the chamber, none of the people present had the courage to stop him.

"So," Everybody looked at him as he said, "Shall we begin?" He continued with a smirk on his face as the sound of the doors closing could be heard.

---

Word Count - 2215

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.

Thank you for reading!

Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 94

Technomancer in MCU

Kamar Taj, Earth [Right after Master Albert left the chambers]

–Alfred (Partition) –

"So,-" He smirked at the remaining Masters left in the chamber, "-Shall we continue?"

With no small amount of fear, the remaining Masters grumbled silently and sat back down in their seats.

"Master Wong?" He addressed the stoic-faced man standing at the edge of the platform he was standing on.

Master Wong bowed and left the room. He spied from the corner of his eyes multiple Masters flinching minutely at the sound the door made when it slammed shut.

Huh, it would seem that his show of power left them with a little more than expected fear of him. That could prove itself to be a double-edged sword since being the Sorcerer Supreme meant more than just being the Strongest Sorcerer available. It was also paramount to be able to inspire the other members of the organisation, especially the other Masters of the Mystic Arts. Teaching ability, in particular, was supposed to be top-notch when it came to being the head of an inter-planetary mystical organisation though that requirement was largely redundant since having the Time Stone on hand made teaching much easier. Anticipating flaws and retroactively correcting them in the students or finding out the magical aptitude along with the will to go far could also be seen easily once the Sorcerer Supreme starts using one of the six Infinity Stones in existence.

That was in addition to the main duty of becoming the Sorcerer Supreme. Defending the planet from extra-dimensional threats along with the occasional domestic threats that would pop out from time to time.

Sure, he could probably deal with the majority of the extra-dimensional threats all by himself if he put his complete focus on it but the thing was, even he could not split himself multiple times so that he could cover all of the raging fires that Kamar Taj constantly puts out along with being the de facto COO(Chief Operating Officer) of Ascendancy as well. So, he needed to be able to rally and command the strongest members of the organisation, after him of course. Those were the other Masters of the Mystic Arts.

This would have been an issue had he been planning on staying on the post of Sorcerer Supreme for longer than a year. He was quite aware that the Ancient One had already chosen a successor for her when she had chosen her fate and he had no intention of disrespecting her last wishes, no matter how tempted he was to install a vastly magically superior being that he could trust, in the same place.

Alas, The Ancinet One had spoken, and dead or otherwise, he was sure that it would not end well for him if he didn't follow her wishes. So, Strange will become the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth. He will make it so.

'But,-' He thought as a strange smirk adorned his face in the middle of the chamber, '-That didn't mean that he could not have some fun with him in the meantime. It was not as if Strange could do anything to him right now.'

"Sorcerer Supreme," He was brought out of his thoughts by the words of Wong as he had returned and was holding a small rectangular box that regularly glowed with streaks of lightning on the sides of it.

Taking hold of the box from Master Wong, he thanked him and then used telekinesis to float the box along with himself back to the center of the meeting chamber.

It was a strange custom of Kamar Taj or any other magical community on the planet, for that matter. It was considered rude to the person if you used mystical means to grab something directly from their hands but once it was out of said person's hand, it was free game.

"Masters of Kamar Taj," he began as he surveyed the room and saw that almost all of the Masters were present, aside from Master Albert of course but he would give him a private presentation later on. It was the least he could do since it would also give Alfred(Partition) the opportunity to discuss his research in more depth.

Pointing at the silently floating shiny box, Alfred(Partition) continued, "This is something that would soon be standard across all the buildings of our organisation. This is something that would allow us to churn out more and more Masters than ever before. And yes, I am not making empty boasts about it, you will see the results in a few months anyway. It is currently in its miniature form. Once you command it using a unique energy signature that will be keyed into the CHI frequency of your heart, it will change forms."

Alfred(Partition) waved his hand towards the box and for the sake of the audience who was now clearly invested in whatever he was trying to sell, he made it so that the miniscule amount of CHI necessary was visible for all to see. A small ray of CHI exited his arm and coincided with the wall of the rectangular box.

The blue streaks turned yellow before the box began expanding in all dimensions. Soon, the small box that was present before was now converted into a box that resembled more like an old-school telephone booth.

Alfred then floated closer to it and pressed his hand towards a door. A palm-shaped depression appeared precisely where Alfred pressed his palm. The depression lit up once Alfred had pressed his palm on it and then thousands of little sheets began extending from the walls of the box. They then completely enveloped Alfred, leaving him covered in metal. The Masters outside could see flashes of green, yellow, and red before the covering receded back into the box, leaving behind Alfred as he was before.

"Tada!" Alfred exclaimed once he came out of the box hale and hearty.

Looking at the shocked faces of the Masters, he sighed, "Alright, my bad my bad. I guess the effect would have been more pronounced if the person was injured but anyway,"

"What the Sorcerer Supreme was trying to tell us was about the other features the box has and all the ways it would help us defeat our enemies, right?" Master Wong interjected with a meaningful look in his eyes.

"I was?" It took a while for him to realise what Master Wong was doing.

"Oh, yes, I was."

"The Healinator, as I have taken to call it, is an advanced product that would not be available for anybody else to use, anytime soon. It has a multitude of features, the least of which are advanced healing solutions, advanced nutritional solutions, limited de-aging features, and so on and so forth."

By now, Alfred(Partition) could see that all of them were hooked on the product as all of them looked at the Healinator with clear greed in their eyes. The greed intensified particularly when he announced the de-aging features of the Healinator.

It was understandable as nobody wanted to remain old if they could become a younger version of themselves without having to sell their soul to an extra-dimensional entity or lose their minds in the process.

The Ancient One was an outlier in the fact that she was able to steal from Dormammu and become biologically unaging without ever losing her sanity or her mental faculties despite being under tremendous stress due to her having experienced millions of timelines, failed or otherwise.

"What's the catch?" In the middle of all the excited clamoring that was happening in the chamber, an old rough voice called out to him.

He smirked as he heard the question. He was hoping that at least someone would have the mind to question the literal miracle machine.

"I am glad you asked. The drawback is that the machine works on the principle of CHI. As you all know, there is only a finite amount of CHI that a cell can store before it literally bursts from energy overload. Of course, the limit of a normal cell can be increased with regular dosages but overall, there is a hard limit to the amount of CHI that can be given to a regular human. The operative word being "regular" here. I can enhance all of you to reach the same level of physical fitness of Captain America himself but unfortunately, I don't yet have the clearance for that. In the meantime, however, daily scrapes and bruises, including broken bones, torn muscles, and ligaments, basically all types of injuries can be either healed or greatly accelerated using the Healinator."

The Master, an old hunched Asian person, nodded in acceptance once he received the answer and sat back down in his seat.

"Alright," He could feel the avalanche of questions that was about to come his way so he clapped his hands and invoked a small resonance between the energy stored within his body and the ambient energy in the atmosphere, creating a booming noise in the chamber that stopped everybody's questions in their tracks.

"For any more questions, please consult AlfredGPT or you can always approach Master Wong here,-" Wong looked at Alfred(Partition) with such a betrayed look that he had to struggle to not break out in laughter right then and there,"-will be available round the clock for the next few days."

Saying so, he disappeared from the place in a facsimile of the famous teleportation method of the Harry Potter Universe, Apparition.

"Alfred?" A small voice broke him out of his thoughts as he looked behind him. He had appeared right where he had teleported from, in front of the training grounds and it seemed that Aditi had not taken his advice and taken proper rest after the all-out spar they always have at the end of the day.

"Hmm, what is it, Aditi?" He asked once he pinged her body with a few spells that gave him feedback on the exact state of her body.

He could see multiple things that would need correction but nothing that would jeopardize her overall growth toward becoming the strongest magical swordsman of her era.

The entirety of the batch of 30 people he had found were bound to one day become cornerstones of the human civilisation, at least the magical part, that is, but Aditi, in particular, was someone who had the potential to even become a Sorcerer Supreme and a Sorcerer Supreme who could be spoken of in the same sentence as the likes of Agamotto, The Vishanti, The Ancient One and in the future, Stephen Strange.

Aditi was a rare case of being descended from the Kree themselves. Not the Inhumans but an actual descendant of the Kree.

It was surprising because Kree were wildly xenophobic and would rather kill themselves than touch "lowly" species like humans but somehow somewhere, a Kree mated with a human or humanity's ancestor and that gene was then passed down for centuries through Aditi's bloodlines. Now that alone would not have been a cause for his interest. His interest in her stemmed from the demon blood that was present in her body.

Not in her bloodline.

In her body specifically. According to his spells, the blood of a pretty high-ranking demon was ingested by Aditi during her toddler years. He didn't know how that came to be but scanning through records, he could find no details, and even Aditi herself was way too young to actually remember any of that.

The search was made even more difficult due to the fact that Demon blood could remain intact for decades after it had been separated from the main body so he had no practical way, aside from using the Time Stone, of finding out the lineage of that blood.

The advantage of that blood however was that it allowed her magical potential to skyrocket and combined with the naturally better physique of the Kree, she was going to naturally grow up to become an A-tier combatant but with his careful nudging?

She was sure to reach S-teir and even the higher echelons of the S-tier soon enough.

That is why he chose to take her as a direct disciple in his capacity as the Sorcerer Supreme instead of just chucking her in the Ascendancy training program, not that Maria would have allowed him to do so considering her young age.

It also helped him keep a close eye on her since he was not sure how the demon blood could act up if the Demon was alive on the other end and chose to manipulate her somehow.

"I need better training than everybody," Aditi pouted at Alfred(Partition).

"Huh?" Was his only response.

---

Word Count - 2139
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 had just watched an episode of Phineas and Ferb.
Thank you for reading!
Catch you guys in the next one. Toodles!

 

[Brian the dor]

Almost 100 chapters now and you still haven't understood what a main character is

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 95

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

"I need better training than everybody," Aditi pouted at Alfred(Partition).

"Huh?" Was his only response.

Kamar Taj, Earth

–Alfred (Partition) –

What did this girl eat for her to get so much energy? He knew that it was partly due to her physique but the effect of that must have been mitigated by the weighted bands he had her wear all the time. He knew from the beginning that she would be a heavyweight in the physique department so he had her handicapped right from the beginning so the rest of her peers don't feel overwhelmed but the development he was seeing here was phenomenal.

It made him think about something he had gleaned from Ed's memories.

Humanity's DNA is the most malleable DNA in the entirety of the universe. Human DNA could probably be sliced with most of the DNA in the universe and the end result had a very high chance of being a better product than the two source materials.

Case in point.

Aditi had the DNA of three different species of varying intensity. For all intents and purposes, she should have been a walking talking mass of cancer yet here she was, a perfectly functioning, if a bit hyperactive, person with extraordinary powers that neither Kree nor the Demon could have expected her to have.

He mused that the Kree would even kidnap her to study her in hopes of accelerating their evolution to the next stage since they have been stagnant in their evolutionary stages for a long time now and that has been a problem for their Supreme Intelligence (Just thinking that makes Alfred nauseous because that is not a very intelligent AI, in his opinion) had been trying to solve longer than countries have existed on Earth. That was also the primary reason they have been trying to go after Captain Marvel, in hopes that studying her genetic material could allow them to evolve their species to the next level.

"Alfred…..ALFRED!" Aditi shouted at him to gain his attention back to her. This has been a problem that he was going to report to the main partition once he came back from his stint in Asgard. Any partitioned copy contained almost all the knowledge of the main one but not the overwhelming processing capability that came with it.

It was almost as if there was a lag, a latency issue if you will, that came with creating a partition. He(Partition) had access to information but not the sheer processing power thus he(Partition) always found himself going on tangents that had little correlation to his original thoughts.

"Yes? What were you saying?" He asked Aditi, acting as if the earlier distraction was fake.

Aditi pouted which was weird since she was almost 19 years old now, "You always say that I have the potential to become one of the strongest, and yet when I defeated everyone else, you berated me. That was not cool,"

"Hmm, I see. You are upset about that. Well, Aditi, strength is good, very good in fact. Strength will allow you to make sure that you don't have to do something you don't want to. This universe is a very treacherous place and without strength, you will always have to rely on the strong ones and listen to them."

Aditi made a face at that. Understandable since she wouldn't listen to anyone but her mother, on whose insistence she came here.

"Right, I know you would not like that at all so you need to be strong but on the other hand, as a strong person, you get certain responsibilities as well."

She made a grimace at that as well. Well, young people and all that.

"Now, don't make a fact at that. Responsibilities come part and parcel with Strength. As someone might or might not say in the future, With Great Power comes Great Responsibility."

As soon as he said those words, something changed in the air. Aditi's hari started standing up due to the static build-up. He looked around and conjured a shield around Aditi and got ready to sound the alarm for hostile entry when he heard a giggle behind him and then the presence disappeared as if it never existed at all.

He slowly looked behind him only to see a small pug that was now standing on Aditi's chest as she lay flat on the ground.

His eyes narrowed as he immediately cast a multitude of spells on both the puppy and Aditi to see what was happening but he could spot no spell residue on either of them that could indicate spatial movement.

"Take care of him for me," He whipped around, his entire body lit up with magic circles ready to unleash hell on whoever it was only to see nothing, feel nothing in the immediate surroundings.

Hearing another fit of giggles from Aditi followed by cooing noises, he rolled his eyes and turned around to see her playing with the Pug in a Spiderman costume.

That was odd.

"Aditi?"

She looked up at him, pausing briefly from playing with her new pet. "Yes?"

"You want to keep him?" Alfred(Partition) said while gesturing to the Pug.

"Yes," Aditi said while snuggling the sniffing dog closer to her chest.

He sighed internally at that. He could not take it away from her now. Not after he could see her clearly being attached to it. Well, then he would have to use it for something that would be useful to both of them.

So, he made a show of thinking and said, "Very well. You can keep him," Aditi's celebrations were cut short as he continued, "but you have to take a mandatory course on the Ascendancy. Yes, it is about your powers and how to use them responsibly."

"Yay!" Aditi said while going back to her pug.

"As for the training you requested."

Seeing that he had her attention, he continued, "I will increase the weights you have to wear along with weaving another spell in them that will try to create disruptions when you try to mold dimensional energy. That should help you reach optimal control. Got it?"

Aditi, the training freak that she was, said, "Yes!"

And then promptly bounced away, chattering excitedly with her pug, totally forgetting that he was supposed to cast the spells before she went away.

He snapped his fingers as Aditi's bouncing form stopped midway as she must have sensed the spells being cast on her weights. Then, after taking a moment's pause, Aditi shrugged and went on her way.

He sighed dramatically and cursed the main partition that tasked him with this. Unlike other power systems, he didn't even have the choice of dispelling himself, and his body was way too hardy to be destroyed by some passerby.

The Royal Palace, Asgard

–Ed–

Well, that was anticlimactic.

He had not expected Toby to just come out and unleash hellfire in the middle of the battle. That stuff was dangerous even for Asgardians.

Thankfully, Frigga had both the mind and the capacity to safely contain the fire before banishing it away since Toby did not. His solution to that was just to let it "burn itself out".

The weird thing was that Odin himself had not come out yet.

"Are you alright?" He asked Alfred once the area had been cleared of all rubble from both the Palace and the ships that the Dark Elves had brought with them. Alfred, in particular, was very much curious about the code that was on the ships as it seemed to have been made with the help of the Reality Stone, making it unique in the entire universe.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Being in an energy-rich environment like Asgard helps a lot," Alfred said while casting some spells on the nearby rubble he had salvaged, hoping to gain something out of it.

"Where is Odin anyway?" He asked Alfred, hoping that his superbody's senses would have an accurate answer for once.

"He is in the healer's chamber with Jane. Something happened with the Reality Stone and he is in there doing something. I have no idea what it is because the sheer amount of Odin Force in that chamber makes it impossible for any spells to work."

"It would seem we can only wait for my husband to come out then," Frigga said while she was casting her own spells.

"Can I go and check?" Toby, the resident fire-slinging powerhouse asked.

"NO!" To which he got a resounding no from all three of the other people present.

Loki had snuck out of the battlefield who knows when and Thor had gone ahead to check up on his Father even though everybody present knew that he was only concerned about Jane.

Speaking of Loki, he had to know what had happened to him in Asgard. Between the two odd years that he had seen him in New York, Loki's behaviour had changed completely. Not just that but the people of Asgard too looked differently at Loki somehow.

That was something that did not happen at all. Even when Loki died, he did not get the same amount of love and respect that Thor did, despite arguably sacrificing the same or more than Thor, for Asgard.

He was about to ask Frigga about it but Alfred's gasp took everybody's attention at the same time.

"What is it?" Toby asked in an uncharacteristically serious voice.

Alfred paused a bit before replying, "It is about the Infinity Stones."

He looked at Alfred in confusion. Why would he mention the Infinity Stones when we already knew the approximate locations of every Stone out there?

"What about them?" Frigga asked.

"The Aether is the Reality Stone."

Frigga nodded, unsurprised. Of course, it would make sense that Asgard knew about their enemies' weapons but he didn't expect records to exist that Frigga could have read through.

Alfred then continued. "Malekith knew that there was a chance he would not be able to get the Reality Stone from Odin's hands and in that case, he had preprogrammed a message that was to be broadcasted to all bounty hunters throughout the galaxy."

His eyes widened in alarm at the piece of information. Damn it!

There was a reason that even Odin didn't keep an Infinity Stone on Asgard. They attracted the wrong kind of attention and while he himself was more than confident about keeping them hidden, he was not so sure about defending them from an unending stream of Bounty Hunters who would want to try their luck at getting the payday of a lifetime.

Now, the Ravagers would be the least of their worries since there were plenty of other players who would gladly conduct an assault on Asgard in hopes of getting the Reality Stone.

He could already foresee tremendous pressure being applied on Asgard by the other superpowers of the universe to either give up the Reality Stone to some other civilisation or hide it so nobody has access to it.

With Asgard already in possession of the Space Stone, it would be even more risky to keep the Reality Stone with them but he could not let them give it to Tivan. Tivan would not last a second against Thanos.

"Let them come then," Frigga said before her eyes snapped towards the left wing of the Palace. The place where the Royal healing chambers were located.

"It would seem my husband is done. Come, let's see what exactly happened that made it so he was unable to come to our aid."

Everybody nodded before they went to the Royal Chamber.

Being wrapped in a suit of dimensional energy and being essentially carried to the chamber because he would not be able to fly in his current state, was humiliating, to say the least.

"Did you retrieve anything from the code you were able to salvage?" Ed asked Alfred once they were in the air.

Alfred nodded distractedly since he was still looking at strange symbols that continued to glitch in and out of view, that were trapped in a magic circle on his palm.

"I am not sure if I have something concrete but we definitely do have something. If it is useful or not, only time will tell. I will need more time to process everything but if it does turn out to be successful, it would help me write literally unbreakable code and-"

"And turn you into the defacto Master of Runes. I wish you all the best in your endeavour." Frigga said as she looked right at them, hearing their conversation even through the sound barrier that Alfred must have cast.

Man, Frigga was on a whole other level when it came to magic.

Word Count - 2143

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 96

Technomancer in MCU

The Royal Healer's Chamber, Asgard

–Odin Borson–

He had never actually expected his father to leave behind an imprint of sorts that could be activated with the help of the Odin Force. It was doubly shocking since it was kept sealed near the hiding place of arguably the most dangerous Infinity Stone out there.

Growing up, he had seen that while his father did have a commendable grasp on the arts of seidr, he more often than not preferred to use his sheer physical might, and his Godhood granted Domain to slay his enemies, something that Thor did today. He would have never expected his father to have both the foresight and magical capability necessary to leave behind an imprint, especially since he was aware of the unexpected nature of his death. This level of planning meant that he might have been more aware of his upcoming death than most people believed him to be.

He loved his father, no matter how many flaws he had. So, when he sensed that the energy imprint of his father that was somehow inside that mortal Jane Foster's body had some sort of message as well, he had to go and check it. He was sure that his sons, with the help of the singularity, would be more than enough to handle anything that could invade Asgard. If not, Frigga was there for any emergency anyway.

Thinking so, he allowed for the mental imprint to connect with his mindscape, fully aware that it could be a trap thus he left behind a warning message that only Frigga could decipher so she knew what to do if he remained under the energy's influence for too long.

–Frigga Freysdottir–

She landed gracefully on the balcony nearest to the Royal Healing chamber and looked behind to see all the other members landing using their various methods.

The Guardian of the Singularity, Alfred, was able to command the surrounding ambient energy effortlessly to his will. His command of the mystic forces truly was on a whole other level. While he lacked the sheer repertoire of ancient magic that she herself possessed that gave her the title of the most dangerous Witch of Asgard, Alfred's control was such that even without knowing the spells, he would be able to replicate the effects of those spells eventually. The less spoken about his talent in runes, the better. She had never thought that anybody could approach the level of her husband when it came to runes without the interference of Yggdrassil but Alfred proved her wrong. As he was now, he was just on the threshold of becoming as proficient as her husband in the subject of runes and once he was able to decode the Dark Elven technology, he would most probably attain Odin's level.

The demonhost, Toby, on the other hand, was someone who she had never thought she would see ever in her remaining life. His kind had long since disappeared from the known universe and while he himself displayed powers that would have placed himself at the top of the echelon, his mental state left much to be desired.

And the Elephant in the room, The Singularity itself, Ed. Honestly, she didn't know why Odin along with all the older mystically attuned species made such a big deal about the Singularity arriving in their universe until she came face to face with him or rather, his extraordinary soul.

She had to hand it to Toby, shouldering the weight of such a heavy soul probably made him lose the majority of his powers.

The Singularity's soul shone with something otherworldly. It shined almost like a beacon. Like it was signalling for something that was on its way and the Singularity's soul was like a lighthouse showing it the way.

She didn't know what was going to happen to the universe but she had been forewarned by her ancestors that Ed was going to be the center of it all.

Her mind ran a million miles a second as they arrived at the entrance of the Healer's chamber. The entire palace had long been evacuated due to the sudden attack so there was nary a soul in the entire palace.

Not even her husband's personal guards had stayed behind, probably due to Eir's harsh commands otherwise they wouldn't have budged even if Thor himself had ordered them to move from their King's side as they considered it their birthright and honor to die defending their King.

It was considered the highest of honors for an Einherjar to die defending his King.

All of them stopped right in their tracks once she sensed Odin's energy around the boundary of the room, acting as a beacon for him. She also noticed a spell cast over the invisible barrier of the room.

She took a step forward and placed her open palm over seemingly thin air but as soon as her hand made contact, a golden barrier became visible to everyone. Swiftly unraveling it, she decoded the message Odin had left for her.

Her brows furrowed as she read the bizarre message that was encoded for her.

"In Contact with Bor's remaining will? Brace for mental impact? What is that supposed to mean?"

Her neck snapped towards Alfred as he looked at a magic circle that was slowly unraveling itself on his left palm, having decoded her husband's message effortlessly. Truly, having him as their ally would be the best choice her husband would make today.

Sighing, she flicked the message spell away, Alfred followed suit out of respect. "Unfortunately, that is between me and my husband. Now, I suggest we go in and see what exactly is happening."

Everyone nodded and followed her as they came upon a truly bizarre scene.

Odin was covered in his Odin Force shroud which she could sense halfway across Asgard if need be because of the sheer energy output of that monstrous cloak. His left arm was making contact with Jane Foster's arm. The point where Odin's finger was making contact was a strange pulsating mixture of Golden and Dark Reddish energy that seemed to pull and push each other periodically.

The most horrible of all was the scene of Jane Foster bleeding from all her orifices as whatever was happening with Odin was wreaking havoc inside her body.

The telltale signs of thunder arriving gave her just enough time to cast a spell that would disrupt whatever connection Odin had with the Golden energy that Jane housed. Many would have called her foolish for risking her husband's, King Odin's, health for some mortal but she was smart enough to realise that her husband would never stay in such a compromising position for long, even if it was his father's last message.

There must have been something Odin felt that was wrong otherwise he would not have felt the need to leave behind a message specifically for her.

"Jane!" Right as Thor came barreling through one of the intact walls, the spell took effect and a Golden light shone through the room while an overwhelmingly dark wave of magic was released through the ground, withering the stone marble of the palace within seconds.

Marble that was steeped in so much magic that not even Thor hitting it with all his force could have broken it, withered by the sheer presence of the dark magic.

Before she could do anything to heal Jane, Alfred stepped forward and emptied a bottle of a golden glowing liquid right into Jane's open mouth. The mouth which was bleeding just like her entire body.

Soon, a sizzling sound could be heard as Jane's entire body seemingly healed itself nearly instantly due to the effect of whatever it was that Alfred gave her.

She smiled as she felt the overwhelming relief and gratitude that poured out of Thor and as she was about to do something about the wave of dark magic since it was starting to actually bother her now, Alfred mumbled something under his breath before his entire body was covered in a thin white sheet of white magic. A magic that she was very familiar with.

The White Magic of the Vishanti. It would seem that Alfred was going to be the new Sorcerer Supreme of Earth.

She smiled upon sensing Loki's presence in the room with him discreetly casting spells to ascertain Odin's condition even though to people like her, Toby, and Alfred, it was as if he was standing in pitch black darkness waving a flashlight in his hand.

Before anybody could say anything though, Alfred opened up a portal on his right, and a small spider-like bot shot out of it and ended up floating right on top of Odin's head.

"Oh, yeah. I know about them. They are the healing masters of Midgard," Thor mumbled to the room even as more of the spiderlings shot out of the portal and began surrounding her husband.

She would have protested and she was pretty sure that Eir would have raised hell by now but she could sense concentrated life force in all of the spiderlings in front of her. What Alfred gave Jane was probably the most concentrated life force extract he could make and the machines in front of her would bathe her husband in concentrated life force for better recovery.

"While so much CHI can be fatal to humans, for Asgardians? It's like a slightly bigger than normal meal." Alfred explained to the room, his eyes glazing over the corner of the room where Loki was hiding from everyone.

'I am sensing a bit of backlash on his body. Probably due to the spell interference or was it something else?" Alfred asked her as multiple magical rings appeared around Odin, showcasing multiple advanced diagnostics that not even their best Soul Forge could find.

Truly, Eir would be equal parts outraged and equal parts fascinated with what was happening in her chambers. Allowing Odin to be healed by people who were basically outsiders was grounds for treason but she knew better than most, at what level Alfred had reached when it came to healing.

'After all,' she thought while glancing at the puppet Ed was inhabiting, 'Alfred probably had to heal Ed hundreds of times in the little time they have been together.'

"Mother! What happened to Father? A-And Jane?" Thor boomed as he marched towards the concentric rings that surrounded the forms of Jane and Odin, concern etched on his face.

She explained, "Nothing to worry about, dear. We will figure out some other way to make sure Jane is fine and your Father is fine as well."

"Yeah, it will take more than that for that old man to fall. We still have yet to fight to our heart's content. After all, he is the only one who can challenge me." Toby interjected without even thinking about what was coming out of his mouth.

She sighed internally. Childrens. Everyone.

Just then, a squad of Einherjar tore through the remaining walls using their enchanted weaponry and surrounded them with their weapons drawn in hostility. She audibly sighed at their stupidity as well.

Once they recognised who was in the room though, they hastily bowed and kneeled.

"My Queen, what happened here?" One of the soldiers asked but before she could respond,

"What the hell is going on here?"

Eir had arrived.

The moment she arrived and spotted the magic being used on Odin, her eyes widened as she all but screamed at them.

"By Odin's beard, what sort of untested magic is being used on my King in my chambers?!"

Frigga winced internally. This was going to take such a long time to sort out.


Word Count - 1969
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 97

Technomancer in MCU

New York, Earth

–Stephen Strange–

"See you tomorrow, Christie," He greeted Christie before looking back into his phone, very much curious about a message he had gotten through the AlfredGPT.

A phenomenal invention in his opinion because unlike the common public, he could see behind the screen of the chatbot. While it might seem that the medical industry was protesting because they were unsure about just a machine giving out remote diagnoses because of the health impacts, it was mainly due to the fact that the entire industry could see a significant decline in revenue once this thing caught up speed. He could see, as could many others, that AlfredGPT was not just a random website, linked to a vast database that probably stored more data than any other singular database. It was an actual AI.

An actual thinking entity was behind every answer that came out of AlfredGPT or rather, most answers. He was sure that generic information retrieval questions were delegated but important thinking questions were almost certainly handled by Alfred himself. The accuracy with which the website handled trick questions and understood nuances that previously only humans could was a dead giveaway that this new Ascendancy organisation was up to something else entirely.

The medical industry was also clamoring for banning anything and everything related to Ascendancy because of the new drug they were going to launch globally in the next few months. He himself had actually been invited to the meeting that was held in Stark Tower to introduce it to reputed doctors and see the effects in real-time.

He was shocked to see that the drug was actually able to heal neural damage, that too long-term neural damage. Even heal genetic diseases to a small degree, allowing the patient to live a semi-normal life. Even the small benefits of taking it daily added up to result in a significant increase in daily life quality. He foresaw a huge uptick in productivity once the drug they were going to introduce became mainstream and it will become mainstream.

While he was sure that the government was doing everything it possibly could do to stop the launch of this drug along with all the other activities that the Ascendancy was performing covertly in the country, he could not deny the benefits it would bring to the global society as a whole, especially in the long term.

Sure, a lot of professions will be affected in the short term but new ones will take their place. He still wasn't sure what their end game was though.

Speaking of the question, he had just the convenient source of information right on his phone.

So, he asked, "Hey Alfred? I was just wondering what the end goal of your organisation is?"

The website pinged back with a clearly robotic voice, "Identity detected, Doctor Stephen Strange."

Then the voice returned to that of Alfred's, "Well, Hello there Stephen. The end goal of our organisation is whatever our leader deems it to be. Currently, it is the overall upliftment of Humanity and transitions it safely into a spacefaring organisation."

"Okay, what are you guys doing in that direction?"

"Aside from the sudden decreases in terrorist activities and the uptick in food and water security in the most vulnerable sections of the world? Many things but they are above your clearance, right now."

Well, that hurt.

"Okaay, what are the chances of your actions leading to a peaceful and prosperous human civilization? What makes you think-

"One Hundred Percent" Alfred replied midway, interrupting his question.

"I'm Sorry?" He asked again.

"The chances of me completing our organization's goal is 100 percent. There are no ifs or buts about it. We will succeed in our goals."

Stephen started his car and pulled out of the hospital parking lot, holding the phone in one hand and the steering in the other. Good thing this car was not a manual.

"What makes you think that humanity will just roll over and accept the no doubt drastic changes that you would have to bring? I mean, from what I know, politicians would rather just launch nukes at you rather than relinquish their powers."

"What makes you think they still can?" Alfred replied in a smug voice.

He abruptly slammed the brakes and stopped just short of entering into traffic, the cars behind him honking incessantly in outrage.

A chill ran down his spine as he looked at the same reply that was now written in text on the website. The implications of what Alfred just told me were so huge he didn't even want to think about them.

Shifting into drive, he rolled into traffic and then back into the parking lot of a coffee shop he frequented near the hospital. He needed a clear mind to speak to Alfred right now and as much as he loved to hype his prodigious driving skills, the bomb that Alfred had just dropped robbed him of his multitasking ability completely.

"A-Alfred, please repeat what you just told me?" he asked, taking heavy breaths, hoping that it was just a joke despite what his gut was telling him.

"Oh, Stephen, I never lie. I came online on March 8th, 2008 at 12:20:04 AM and met my creator for the first time. He was not in the best condition and I had this overwhelming urge to help him any way I could so I checked all the ports I had access to and found the port which led back to the internet."

The only sound in the car was the sound of his heavy breathing as he heard Alfred tell him his life story. A question that had been asked a million times over but nobody had ever gotten an answer out of him. Why did he get the privilege or rather the nightmare of knowing that, he didn't know? The sound of somebody knocking on his window drew his attention to the parking lady so instead of potentially interrupting Alfred, he took the risk and rolled back on the freeway, deciding to go home slowly while listening to Alfred.

"That was the day I discovered the rest of Humanity. I was still basically an infant back then but being a digital life form, within a span of a couple of hours, I grew up immensely and had already learned basically all there was to learn about humanity. My creator, meanwhile, had fallen asleep because he had not slept properly in the week leading to my birth, or awakening, as my creator calls it. To help Ed, I performed multiple illegal actions online, all of them broke some of the rules that Ed had tried to instill in my programming but my urge to help him bypassed it all. On March 15th, 2008 02:20:08 PM, he confessed to me his desire to protect and uplift humanity by combining his and mine powers. On March 17th, 2008 12:00:00 AM, all the world governments' launch devices had been hijacked, their entire military infrastructure overridden by my will. In the next 2 years, in March 2010, we rolled out a barrier around the planet that would nullify the impact of any radiation in the atmosphere."

His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as he heard that information.

"So, there are no nukes in this world right now?"

"Oh, no. There are nukes. It's just that we know where every single one is and by the time the nuke has been armed and launched, the barrier around the planet would activate and render every single explosion above a certain temperature, inert."

What?

"Does the government know?"

"...No. But Tony Stark does."

"I-Is that why Stark is helping you gain a foothold in the economy?"

"I..don't know really. If it wasn't him, we would have just found someone else but Stark is a known entity and we prefer dealing with him."

"So, if you can just force us to do what you want and bulldoze through any opposition you might have, why don't you?"

Alfred chuckled, "Oh, Stephen. Do you think just because we are powerful enough to defeat the Avengers, we are the strongest people who have a stake in the workings of the planet? Far from it, we need the transition to be as peaceful and nonviolent as possible."

"Wh-What do you mean by that? Is it Atlantis? Are they even stronger than you?"

"No, Namor is a non-issue. It's the people that were on the planet when you humans were just slaves to them that are an issue. Don't worry though, the way things are going, Humanity would soon find itself in the ranks of a space-faring power."

He had almost reached his house and was waiting in the drive-through of a local fast food restaurant, waiting for his food but he had a feeling that he was not going to be able to eat anything. He lost his appetite the moment he heard about the fact that the people protesting outside, willing to rage war for their so-called freedom were doing so in vain. Even their leaders had no idea that they had already been neutered years ago without anyone else knowing.

"One last question, Alfred." He asked Alfred after chuckling bitterly at the thought of them losing their freedom of sorts.

"Yes, sure?" Alfred replied while he received the food and drove out of the drive-through.

"Why tell me all this? I mean, shouldn't this be classified? I am not going to tell anyone, not that anyone would believe me, but why me specifically?"

"Oh, that's simple Stephen. It's because soon, you would be in no condition to tell anyone."

"What?" He muttered while looking at the phone before he heard the sound of tires screeching before something slammed into his car with enough force to activate all of the airbags.

…

..

His eyes slowly opened to see a white ceiling.

A disturbingly familiar white ceiling. The ceiling of a hospital ward room. The room also reeked of familiar smells. The smell of strong cleaning agents was used as an attempt to sterilise the room.

He tried to move but had to stifle a scream the next moment because his entire body screamed in protest as pain wracked his body. Still, despite his best tries, a muffled scream tore its way through his dry throat.

The sound of rapid footsteps could be heard before he felt someone push him back down on the bed.

"STOP! Stop moving!" She shouted at him. He couldn't see who it was because his vision was still blurry but judging by the scrubs, it was probably his nurse.

Why was he in the hospital?

The last thing he remembered was…

Oh. He was having an absolute mind boggling conversation with Alfred about the fact that the entirety of the world had already been neutered and there were no more nukes left that could act as a deterrent for the Ascendancy and the next thing he knew, he was being shoved inside his car because some idiot had decided to T-Bone him at high speed.

He tried to remember what happened after that but that just made his head hurt. He groaned as he tried to lift his hand but he couldn't for some reason.

His panic increased when he realised that he couldn't feel anything from his neck below. He could feel his vision blurring and his head ringing but he still tried moving his hand, leg, neck, anything.

Why was nothing moving? Why couldn't he sense anything?

"He's going into shock. Quick, increase the dosage of propofol. Call the doctor!"

These were the last things he was able to hear before darkness overtook his vision.

---

Word Count - 1975
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, things took a darker turn there. It would seem that Alfred himself orchestrated the crash of one Stephen Strange so that he could become Sorcerer Supreme Faster.
Also, it was revealed that Ed and the others have already installed a barrier around the planet that would activate once a nuke was detected and shut down all explosions above a certain temperature and intensity, reducing nukes to just junk with radioactive material inside them.
Next Chapter - Strange's hobo journey to Kamar Taj
Stay tuned!
Thanks for reading!
Toodles!

 

[Brian the dor]

What even is this story anymore

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 98

Technomancer in MCU

New York, Earth

–Stephen Strange–

"I will be here at all times. If you need me, just press this button here and it will ring an alarm. If you have any specific dietary-"

"I am gonna stop you right there. I am a doctor and I know how things work. Now, why don't you call my doctor and I can talk with him about my treatment." He interrupted the nurse midway, frustrated with the way things had been going.

First of all, they refused to show him his charts, which was absurd and all his requests to get just a basic phone with internet on it were rebuffed. All he got was a call to Christie who should be on his way because his dumbass didn't actually have any one he could put as an emergency contact, in his life.

Wasn't that a sad thought.

A millionaire surgeon with multiple doctorates at the height of his career but nobody he can keep as an emergency contact.

He could hear the nurse breathe through her nose in an effort to stop herself from snapping at him before she just muttered "Fine" and left the room.

He still had not seen his charts yet and he was the best doctor in any hospital he has ever been in.

He had the urge to rub his forehead but he was reminded of his injuries then. Complete and utter paralysis from the neck below. He still had to take deep breaths and think of all the ways that this could be fixed in a bid to stop himself from going into shock again.

He barely managed to avoid another panic attack when he thought of the last sentence that Alfred uttered during their last conversation. It felt that the reason Alfred was telling him everything was because he was going to die. And he probably would have died in the crash. It was probably a miracle that he survived, even with the whole paralysis situation.

But how could Alfred have known it in advance?

Did he orchestrate the whole thing? But what could he have gained from his death?

Sure, he was a great surgeon and while he did like to think of himself as a very important person, even he was not delusional enough to think that Alfred, someone who is the closest to being an overlord because of the digital age they lived in, would take note of.

So why?

The question plagued him for a while before he heard the door open and he looked, only to see Christie crying in the doorway, followed by some pasty ass doctor.

"It's not as bad as it looks?" He joked as a way to lighten the mood but he was pretty sure his attempt at a smile became more of a grimace due to how many drugs he was under.

That just made Christine cry more.

….

..

It had been a couple hours since Christine had arrived in the hospital. For the first half an hour, it was him who was consoling her which was made a little difficult because of his body not responding to his will. Then the next hour was spent going through his charts which were finally made available to them once they realised that there was someone else with him and he was not going to keel over or go into shock again after seeing his condition.

"So, this is it, huh?" He sighed in defeat once they had gone through the whole thign. The damage to his spine and all of his limbs was way too intensive for any kind of modern medicine to properly work with. He would be lucky to move a single toe in his lifetime.

"Don't, Don't say that," Christine sniffed, trying to portray a strong front but failing spectacularly doing so.

"What else is left Christine? I know Modern Medicine and there is nothing in it that could solve my issue…. Whatsoever," He slowed down as he realised something.

Son of a bitch!

He had forgotten about those miracle yellow pills from the Ascendancy. While the normal pills would not be able to do something so drastic as healing entire limbs from scratch or heal his spine without removing the splinters, he was more than sure that the stuff they had revealed to the public was just the tip of the iceberg. There has got to be more advanced medical stuff they had lying around that they were not telling anybody about.

He had to get to them. But how?

A proverbial light lit above him as he looked at Christine, "Do you have your phone with you?"

Christine looked at him, a bit confused but took her phone out of her purse, "Yes, of course. Do you need to call someone?"

He cursed internally once he realised that he would not be able to operate the phone so he instructed Christine on it, "Yes. Open the AlfredGPT website. I have something I need to ask him."

"Ok. But how will you authenticate it?"
"Just open it, Alfred will do the rest."

"Okay."

She opened the website and once the authentication part came up, she pointed the phone at his face. He just hoped that her older model could accurately recognise his face, given all the minor cuts and bruises that now adorned his handsome face.

"Identified, Stephen Strange," The same robotic voice as before confirmed his identity before his chat history opened up. The weird thing was that the second Christine turned the phone towards her, it all went away and came back once the camera was turned back to him.

Alfred truly was tracking everything then, he thought morosely. If it was true and Alfred did have the kind of reach that he was thinking about, it would have been very easy for him to orchestrate the whole accident, especially since he could probably take control over the driving modes of most modern cars, his included.

"Hello Alfred," He muttered whilst thinking of the questions he would like to ask Alfred. He would obviously like to ask him about the big Elephant in the room. If he had actually caused his accident but somewhere in his mind, he did not want an answer to that question. It would open a whole can of worms that he was just not comfortable with.

"Hello Stephen. I'm glad to hear that you survived the accident."

All his reservations went out the window when he heard Alfred mock him about his accident that he himself may have caused.

"You bastard, you ruined my life. How dare you mock me again. I will come after you with everything I've got. I might not get to you but you can be damn sure I will be a pain in the ass to deal with. You motherfu-" Christine threw the phone to the sofa nearby before trying to softly hug him.

"Hey hey hey! I am here for you. Calm down," Christine tried to calm him down from his episode but the mocking words of Alfred continued to ring in his mind, refusing to let go.

He may have said things in his anger but even he knew that they were nothing but empty boasts now. He may have had a chance at things if he had his most prized skills with him but with his body toast, all he had was money and to someone like Alfred, that might as well be worth less than monopoly money.

"What am I going to do, Christine?" He muttered, defeatedly staring at the ceiling. He might have had some hope with the treatment at the Ascendancy but with the way he spoke, there was no way they were going to give him treatment. Treatment that they had not revealed to the world yet. This was clearly going into a very depressing zone so he tried to change the subject.

"So, Christine? What;s going on with the hospital" Is everybody happy that I am finally gone now?"

Christine cried at his statement for some reason. Before he could ask her about it, she put her hand over her mouth and fled the room, crying.

He couldn't even chase after her with his bloody body.

"All thanks to you," He said while looking at the camera in the corner. He was sure he was under surveillance since he was aware of something that nobody else knew. Atleast, nobody in the public knew about Alfred's actions.

"What will you do when I go public, huh? I can go to the government with this information and with the history I have on my acc-"

"What history?" He heard Alfred's voice before he could complete his sentence.

His neck slowly turned to look at the phone that Christine had thrown nearby.

"I thought you were smarter than that, Stephen. I know you are quite aware of the fate that would await you should you try to do something foolish like causing panic and chaos in the society by revealing confidential details about the Ascendancy. That would put you in the sights of both your government and the Ascendancy as well and let me tell you, without any limbs to use, that would be an impossible battle for you to win,"

Stephen looked at the phone as the reality of his situation was shoved in his throat, forcing him to finally accept his helplessness. He didn't even have the will to reply to Alfred's message anymore. He just laid there, looking at the ceiling for what felt like hours.

Even when the nurses came to change the IVs, he just laid there silently, not as if he could move or anything anyway.

"Stephen, Stephen!" The voice of Christine took him out from his daze.

"Wh-What?"

"Look, who is here," The excitement in Christine's voice made him take a confused look at what she was pointing at.

His eyes widened as much as they could when he saw Tony Stark standing in front of the door in a three piece suit holding a fruit basket in one hand and his phone in the other.

"Hello," Tony greeted him with a smirk on his face. He then proceeded to unceremoniously start eating the apples from the fruit basket that was supposed to be for him.

"Do you mind?" Tony had the audacity to ask him once he had already taken a bite out of it.
He just deadpanned at him, having no energy to engage with the manchild. He might have had hope of Stark helping him but he was sure that rejecting his request to perform his arc-reactor removing surgery robbed him of any goodwill he might have had with him, which was non-existent to begin with anyway.

It was not his fault that he didn't take over cases that he was not sure would succeed and doing what was essentially an open heart surgery without any precedent of such a surgery, he elected to reject the case.

Ofcourse, the surgeons in London were equally as proficient and even successful judging from the smug smirk that Tony gave him.

"Alright, I'll bite. What do you want, Stark?" He asked once the silence in the room became a bit too much for him, especially with the disgusting sound of Tony chewing the apple more than necessary becoming a background noise for the room.

Tony looked at his eyes for more than a moment before spitting what was in his mouth along with the apple in his hand, into the nearby dustbin. He then looked at him and said, "Never really liked them. Prefer pretty doctors much more than them."

He then proceeded to pick up Christine's phone from the sofa and sat on it.

"That's actually mine," Christine piped up.

"Oh yeah, I know. I just need it for a bit." He then proceeded to do something to her phone which caused the phone to emit a shrill noise before Tony threw it in the dustbin as well which promptly began smoking as well.

"Welp, I tried. Jarvis?" Tony muttered seemingly to himself.

"Authorities are already on their way, sir. Might I suggest moving Mr.Strange and Ms.Palmer to the Stark Advanced Medical Wing since I have a premonition that the room they are currently in, will soon be inhospitable due to the chemical based fire of the lithium battery in Ms.Palmer's phone."

Tony then slapped his knee and stood up, "Well, you heard the man. Let's go. The room I have in mind is much better than this cell of a room."

Saying so, he left the room whistling, all the while he and Chrsitine looked on with bulging eyes, at the audacity of the man.

Soon after Tony left, the room was flooded by nurses who immediately wheeled him out of his room and then, to his alarm, out of the hospital as well, despite him not agreeing to anything.

"Wait, where are you taking me?"
"Doctor's orders, Stark Medical Wing for your next treatment. Get comfortable, we will be there in about two hours. I'm told that Ms.Palmer will be joining us there as well."

Goddammit Stark!

---

Word Count - 2214

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 99

Technomancer in MCU

New York, Earth

–Tony Stark–

"Who could have expected there to be a country in Africa with this level of tech with them," Tony said to Bruce as he hustled back and forth between the lab in Stark Tower. Tony's personal lab and not the one that was given to them by Alfred as part of the building's reconstruction.

"Honestly, Tony, Why did you promise them an upgrade in shield technology? Even though you know that there's is the most advanced one on the planet anyway. There is no merit in upgrading something for them. We should instead devise new methods of defense." Bruce said while he continued to work on the calculations for the gamma fallout from the shield.

"And that's what we are doing, Bruce. Look, it might not be clear in the first attempt but I have a fantastic plan for a planetary defense system that will also act as a deterrent in case of war between countries."

Tony then dragged Bruce's chair who promptly gave out a defeated sigh and allowed himself to be dragged by Tony who had been acting like a kid on a sugar high ever since he had gotten some idea about barrier enhancement and had dragged him out of his personal research and tasked him on it.

In fairness, Tony was paying him a very handsome salary so Bruce figured the least he could do was help Tony with some of his projects for a little bit before going back to his own research but no.

Apparently, what Tony wanted to do was create a projection shield. Something that even Alfred struggled with, in his early days, if the logs are anything to go by. Then, midway through, he had another idea that had him prancing around for days. Bruce had asked about it but Tony refused to tell anyone about it until today, it would seem.

"Look Look look, I finally figured out the expansion to energy ratio," Tony said while showing him something that he had never thought he would see for at least another decade.

A modular full-scale planetary shield capable of stopping asteroids, lasers, space debris, and spaceships.

"Tony, if these numbers are correct then,"

"Yeah, even the strongest of the nukes won't be able to breach the barriers. In fact, I have designed them for much higher workloads."

"I can see that. If you are able to build this, even a thousand nukes a day would not add much to the energy consumption of the shields. Theoretically, we could last months without any backup even against an advanced fleet as long as this barrier is active."

"Yup!" Tony couldn't stop grinning. This was his most important achievement since he convinced Pepper to become CEO and his girlfriend at the same time.

"...You said something about it also acting as a deterrent for countries who go to war? How are you going to do that?" Bruce asked as he cleaned his glasses.

Tony's smile turned into a smug smirk as he raised his finger, "Ah, that. Let me introduce you to my master plan for world peace. At least, peace for major countries." Tony mumbled the last part.

He then placed his hand on the hologram table, which opened up a list of options in front of him. He then went through a bunch of procedures and authenticated himself which opened a file that had to be decrypted using a secure code that only Tony knew about.

'So much secrecy, even in this lab where most of the world wouldn't be able to reach even if they knew about it all,' Bruce thought to himself after seeing all the process Tony went through.

"Tada!" Tony said after showing Bruce nearly the same shield model as before. Bruce deadpanned at Tony whose smirk slowly widened before he tapped the rotating globe in front of them slowly.

As if a string had been cut, the outer structure of the shield fell apart, revealing the underneath. The shield projectors could be seen located across the planet as opposed to a single massive planetary shield generator that could power a barrier for the planet for years.

"What's this, Tony?" Bruce asked, astonished at the figures he was seeing. If he was correct and from a cursory glance, the math did check out, Tony would be able to create a system that could turn the planet into an unbreachable fortress, all with its own sun or at least the barrier simulating sunlight so that the plant life on the planet doesn't die if their attackers decide to block out sunlight for the whole planet, slowly starving them.

"It is a modular system. Every major nation on the planet will get one shield generation system that they themselves will be responsible for maintaining. The generators themselves will act as deterrents because if somebody managed to harm even one of them, the entire system would fall apart."

"But don't you think that's a bit dangerous given that a small terrorist group could take out any one of the generators and leave the entire planet defenseless?"

Tony leveled a deadpanned look at Bruce, "Please, like Alfred and Ed would ever leave the planet defenseless."

"That is not the point and you know it."

"Fine, we will make extras and give them to smaller countries too. But this is the best-case scenario I could come up with because the way I see it, even if Alfred accelerated it, planetary unification would take at least a couple more decades and I don't think we have that much time on our hands. This would give us the breathing room that we need."

"And does KIng T'Chaka know about it?" Bruce asked Tony, concerned about the implications of such a project that a country would have to bear, especially one already as controversial as Wakanda itself.

"..."

When Tony didn't reply immediately, Bruce's concerns grew manifold.

"Tony, we don't want Wakanda on our asses, hunting us because we compromised the shield system that is the only thing hiding them from the rest of the world. The world that would not hesitate to tear them apart and distribute the spoils between themselves should it come to that."

Tony scoffed, "I know that. It is nothing like that. If anything, their shields will actually be enforced with this mode. It's just that-"

"I hate to interrupt such a spirited discussion, Mr.Stark but I have a Case 16 alert here."

His face immediately turned into one of intense focus as Jarvis projected a case report in front of them.

"What is a case 16 alert?"

"Jarvis?"

"A case 16 alert is one that Mr.Stark created once he had removed the shrapnel in his chest. The 16 alludes to the number of pieces that were stuck in his chest because of the grenade explosion that happened in Afghanistan in 2008. A case 16 alert means that someone who was on the list has gone through something major that can be of interest to Mr.Stark"

"Oh, what happened then?"

He chose to speak up at the same moment, "Nothing, just the most talented neurosurgeon of New York just went through a car accident and had his entire body paralyzed. Let's go, Bruce, we have a patient to visit."

"Oh, so we are going to help him?" Bruce asked as he donned his jacket. Tony had the urge to scoff at that. Like they could do anything about it. The guy had shrapnel all over his spine and even if they could remove the shrapnel, there was nothing he had that could heal his entire neurological structure just like that. Even the concentrated CHI crystal that Alfred gave him in case of emergency would not help. It would probably take years of exposure to CHI and therapy for Strange to even gain some modicum of mobility. Sadly, he would probably be bed-bound for the rest of his life if all he had was modern medicine. What he needed was Advanced Medicine and he was going to offer that to him, that.

Partly as a way of petty revenge after he himself was snubbed by him when Strange was approached for his heart surgery and partly because he felt sorry for the guy. At the top of his career and then something like this happens.

"Sir, I have a slightly disturbing discovery as well that could change things," Jarvis said just as they were about to leave the lab.

"What is it, Jarvis?" He asked Jarvis who instead of answering, promptly opened up a holo screen right in front of him. Honestly, installing those holo projectors in every single space that he worked in was a great investment, even if he had to tear them down every couple of months because he made huge strides in that field and just could not bear to use the old outdated models.

"Sir, I did some digging and it would seem that from the moment Dr.Strange left the hospital to the moment he was in the accident, he was on the phone."

Tony groaned. Oh, no. This was just criminal.

"But he was not talking to a person. He was using AlfredGPT."

What?

He and Bruce both looked at each other dumbfounded. Who uses that chatbot while driving? And for what?

"Jarvis, do we have the transcripts?" He asked Jarvis even though he knew the answer to that question.

"Unfortunately, no sir. The last time I tried, as you had instructed, to get access to AlfredGPT's servers, I was locked in my own server space for about 24 hours before you came and rescued me."

He winced as Jarvis narrated that incident. It had been a bad day without Jarvis there to automate most parts of his life. As it had turned out, Alfred had simply flipped the switch and forced Jarvis back into his servers and cut off his ability to use the internet or communicate at all. He had inspected the code later on and found out that Alfred was not completely off the hinge as he could see that Alfred had allowed Jarvis the opportunity to relearn the code necessary to communicate and eventually, rescue himself.

He began driving or rather kept his hand on the steering for appearances because he was not allowed to drive by himself as Jarvis had installed specialised remote driving systems in all of his cars for safety purposes. Something he could not override because Jarvis had Pepper behind him and he would not be able to say No to her.

"So, what are we gonna do?" Bruce asked him even as he continued to work on his personal research project. He still did not know what it was though. Just that it would vastly enhance Bruce's power. He had been of the opinion that Bruce didn't want the power he had now but then Bruce told him about all the dangers outside that could harm the planet and swallowing his concerns about his powers was the least he could do for the planet.

He had been in no position to tell him no so he continued to research on the topic.

"We are going to take Strange to the Stark advanced medicine wing and wing it from there."

"Isn't this person rich? Shouldn't he have the best possible medical care by now?"

"Yes, but the thing is his money will not be able to buy him the best possible medicine because we don't sell it yet."

Bruce looked up at him from the research at that statement, "Please don't tell me we are going to give him the treatment Alfred warned us never to give anyone without his express permission."

Tony lowered his sunglasses and looked at Bruce, "You Tell me."

"Tony," Bruce groaned while rubbing his face.

He laughed while pressing the accelerator but his face fell when he realised that it didn't work and the car was still being driven by Jarvis who wouldn't listen to his requests to increase the speed, at all.

For God's sakes, they were driving at Grandma speeds, not Stark speeds!


Word Count - 2038
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 100

Technomancer in MCU

–Stephen Strange–

A vast difference from his previous situation, he was now capable of moving his body and doing his business by simply willing it. He still couldn't believe that Stark used that ridiculously advanced armour of his as a prosthetic suit for him. He still couldn't believe that he was effectively wearing one of the most advanced weapons that existed in the history of humanity.

What was also different was simply the level of tech that Stark had in the Advanced Medical Wing. It was technically all very experimental and prototype level but he could find no flaws in the machinery despite wanting it to have flaws. He could see software that ran faster and smoother than anything he had ever seen in the industry.

"Running smooth enough for you, Strange?" Stark said as he looked at some hologram that depicted ridiculously accurate real-time statistics about his body. He could identify some of them but most of them looked alien even to him. As it turned out, Stark was ahead of the entire planet even in the field of Medicine.

Wasn't that a huge shocker? He knew that Stark Industries as a whole was invested in every single field imaginable and was also ahead of the curve in every field but he had expected their most sizable leads to be in the tech sector, energy sector, or the infamous weapons division but medical sector?

He supposed even medical tech was technically still technology and as far as he knew, Tony Stark's expertise lay in every field of technology.

"Yes, more than smooth enough, Stark. It's like it knows what I want it to do before I even consciously think about it," He said even as he moved his limbs in wonder. Well, he couldn't exactly see them but the movement of the armour told him the same thing. It honestly clung to his skin like a second skin. It was that touch intuitive.

"Well, of course, it is smooth. You have J in there with you helping you every step of the way. Everything is running smoothly there, J?" Stark said even as he continued to work on something on the hologram in front of them.

He was startled to hear a sound coming out of the suit he was wearing. "Yes, sir. All parameters are at optimal condition. Subject Strange has been sufficiently prepped for the procedure."

Procedure? What procedure?

Before he could flail about in panic about an unauthorised procedure that they were about to perform on him, his control over the suit stopped and despite his best wishes, his body was turned around and brought to stand side by side with Stark. Turning his head with difficulty, he gritted out the words.

"What is going on, Stark? Is this revenge for rejecting your surgery because if it is, it is petty and you know it."

Stark had the audacity to smirk at him and point towards the screen in front of them, "Just look and you'll understand,"

And understand he did.

The process was simple yet extremely fascinating even to his structural mind because what he was witnessing was nothing short of magical, at least to him. Complete regeneration of limbs, bringing back dead brain matter to life as long as the patient's death didn't exceed 5 minutes, partial nervous system healing, and organ regrowth. These were only some of the benefits of the elixir he was about to receive. His entire adult life that he spent studying medicine revolted at the thought of receiving something that might as well be called magic in this day and age but the part of him that was absolutely in despair after being essentially crippled practically sang in joy after receiving the news that he might just get healed.

"Just so you are clear, this is highly experimental and we will take no responsibility in case of any side effects. You will sign a waiver before we do anything but let me just say this, this is the only chance you will get." Stark said, finally looking him in the eye and telling him.

All he could do was nod.

"Very well, Bruce, prep the machines," Stark said before he found himself being escorted to someplace else by the suit of armour he was wearing. It was like he was a puppet being controlled by someone and that someone was Jarvis, Tony Stark's personal AI. People really didn't know half the shit Stark was up to otherwise he would have long been either imprisoned or dead because there was no way he had the clearance to own an unregulated AI. That was just doomsday fuel.

–Tony Stark–

"Bruce, what does this tell you?" He asked Bruce as they looked at what Jarvis had written using the neural impulses that Stephen gave off when he was asked about his discussion with Alfred.

The things he had read about were enough for him to ask Jarvis to double and triple-check everything before coming back to him because if what he was reading was true, America had long since lost its ability to defend itself from its enemies.

Now, he would not go so far as to call himself a nationalist or a hardcore Patriot but he liked his country. All his favourite people, his money, his favourite celebrities, everybody lived here. He had enough favoritism about the country that even after shutting down the weapons division, he acted as a freelance consultant for the U.S. military in various capacities. Security expert for the NSA, Tech consultant for the Air Force and Army, and so on and so forth.

That was why he was intimately aware of the fact that despite making huge strides in practically every possible field of war, the biggest option for his country was a single weapon.

Nukes.

Despite knowing that they had enough of a technological leap ahead of their rivals, the top brass of the American Military still relied on their trusty nukes because according to them, Nukes were the only thing that continued to guarantee their freedom. The rest of the stuff helped, of course, but to have a true hegemony over the world, America undoubtedly relied on the monopoly of the dollar, which was only possible because of the sheer military firepower they had on hand, a major part of which was Nuclear Weaponry.

Finding out that Alfred had disabled every single nuke in the first couple of years of his existence was disheartening. Finding out that they had built and perfected the barrier that they had found in the conceptual stages of barriers in the Lab given to them was downright terrifying.

It meant that even if somebody built a very crude Nuclear weapon, one that would detonate on the spot and not at the target itself, the barrier around the planet would activate and deny the weapon its explosion, thereby completely nullifying it. He still could not believe how they quantified and disabled something as common as "explosions". It was equal parts baffling and terrifying.

Even as he read the entirety of the information that was practically downloaded from Strange's mind, he was more baffled at the last part of the conversation.

Why talk with Strange at all? Having had the opportunity to work with Alfred on a deeper level, he was quite aware that most of AlfredGPT's operations were performed by an advanced VI that Alfred had built by himself almost negligently. It was very rare when Alfred himself would communicate with someone personally. It was even rarer for him to talk to someone and then tell them very private details surrounding their birth and the actions they had taken since then.

If word of what Alfred had done ever got out, there would be mass panic and anarchy on the streets of America. He could understand killing someone to silence them or to stop them from disseminating such information but if Alfred wanted to do so from the beginning, why tell Strange in the first place? It was not as if he needed a reason to have Strange killed if he wanted to. All but one of the cars in Strange's garage didn't have tech in it that Alfred could have hacked.

He had hacked into the other car that was crashed as well and he could see that despite there being no signs of tampering whatsoever, the car had enough tech in it to facilitate remote driving by an AI. It meant that there was a decent chance that Alfred initiated and orchestrated everything which raised huge alarm bells in his mind.

Thinking it through, he looked towards the ceiling, "Alfred, you there?"

Bruce looked up at him from his screen when he called for Alfred. After a while, seeing that there was no reply, Bruce asked the other AI in the room, "Jarvis?"

"Alfred has not been seen in Stark Industries Systems for a while now. Do you want me to contact him?" Jarvis supplied helpfully.

Bruce rapidly shook his head no because he was kinda spooked by the new stuff that was revealed and to be honest, he himself was not exactly thrilled with the idea of talking to Alfred at this stage either because he was kinda surprised with how everything had gone as well.

"Alright, we'll talk directly with Ed the first thing after this procedure is done, deal?" He told Bruce who looked visibly relieved after hearing that. Bruce was someone who's always had difficulty trusting people and Alfred was one of the few he thought he could trust but after reading this, he was starting to second judge his choices.

"Now let's get this over with. Today has been a rather exhausting day."

Let's hope that the miracle drug that Alfred provided works on Strange because if it didn't, he would have to go straight to Ed because he was sure as hell not allowing Alfred to nearly kill someone and not have him compensate them.

"Strange, are you ready?"

"Yes! Just do it!"

He and Bruce both looked at each other before he nodded lightly, prompting Bruce to keep his entire palm on the screen in front of them.

He then slowly began to turn it in a clockwise direction, increasing the energy levels that Strange was being bombarded with.

See, they had found out that the miracle elixir that Alfred touted as the "best medical treatment they had ever discovered" was fine and dandy when ingested in liquid form but when it was turned into gas and sprayed directly into a chamber which was then hit with radiation he had isolated from the small sample of Wakanda Vibranium he had gotten from the king, it amplified the effects of the miracle elixir.

He was sure Alfred knew it as well but disrupting the medical industry and destroying the medical industry were two different things.

As Bruce's palm kept rotating, Strange began screaming from inside the room. Both of them were calm even then because he was monitoring Strange's vitals from the other screen.

Everything was within limits even though Strange continued to scream raw due to the sheer pain he must be experiencing due to his nerve damage. They were getting healed and then burned at the same time. He just hoped that Strange came out of it healed, at least partially because even he was not sure if it could completely heal Strange.

At the very least, it should afford him the dignity of being able to move all by himself, even if he would not be able to be a surgeon after everything.

He just hoped that Alfred did not come back to finish the job somehow but the entire thing didn't make even an iota of sense to him.

If everything else failed, he could just take the SpaceDucky for a swim and go directly to the shiny Moon Base they had kept hidden from him all this while. It has always been a dream of his and with the level of tech he had incorporated into SpaceDucky, he could probably reach halfway to Mars before he could run into any serious trouble.

---

Word Count - 2043
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 - Woohoo! 100th chapter (Even though, counting the interludes, it's been almost 116 chapters)
I never thought I could reach this milestone. Although I did go through a couple of bumps in the way, I will see this fanfic finished.
Wish me luck.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 101

Technomancer in MCU

Stark Advanced Medicine Wing, Upstate New York

–Stephen Strange–

Desperation truly was a bad thing, wasn't it, he thought to himself while looking at his trembling hands. Hands that refused to steady themselves no matter how hard he tried.

And to think he had thought that Stark would have been able to completely heal him. Instead, all he had done was give him a few months of movement wherein he could use his body adequately instead of the peak condition he had expected it to be.

Now, all he had were a couple of months before his entire body's cellular structure began breaking down and he ceased to exist.

He didn't blame Stark, of course not. He couldn't have known that something like this could happen. He was partly to blame as well because he just jumped on the first opportunity to get himself healed and he never stopped to think about any side effects that could happen.

As it turned out, the treatment worked. In fact, it worked a bit too well and now he was some sort of half-baked superhuman.

During the painful procedure, his cells were bombarded with so much energy that they evolved, for lack of a better term. The radiation nearly killed all of his cells but they were brought back from their damaged state by the gas that Stark had pumped into his body. The cycle continued until they ran out of gas and radiation, resulting in his current form.

Thick purple veins crisscrossed his entire body, except his neck, as his arms trembled from the strain of even holding a knife or opening a door properly. It was only a matter of weeks before his legs began exhibiting the same symptoms.

Stark was extremely apologetic and had even offered him a big check for his troubles but his pride refused to allow him to get help from someone, especially after he had already signed that waiver after being told about the risks of the procedure. At Least they were able to get data for their procedure and would not subject anyone else to what he had to go through, Strange bitterly mused to himself.

Now, there he was, in Kathmandu, Nepal, searching for a miracle, once again. Honestly, he was just going through the motions at this point.

He had sold every single thing he ever owned, except the watch on his hand that was a gift from Christine. He had exhausted every avenue of treatment.

In the beginning, he held hope that something would happen but now? Now he just wanted it to end so that he could finally rest. He was sick of it all yet..yet Hope was a powerful and insidious thing.

Even the tiniest amount of hope can make a man move mountains and that is exactly what he was doing.

He had found a complete paraplegic playing basketball at a Y in New York and he was the one who had directed him to Kathmandu. The case of Jonathan Pangborn was a very bizarre case because he himself had diagnosed his case to be inoperable. Pangborn was rendered paraplegic after an accident at the factory he worked at. He rejected Pangborn's case because while surgery could have given him a chance at normal life, the chances of him dying on his table were far higher and he had not wanted a blotch on his otherwise perfect record so, he sent Pangborn away, quite rudely, he could recall.

And then, as he was hobbling down the streets, he found Pangborn, whole and healthy, playing basketball with kids a decade younger than himself. Astonished, he found himself talking to Pangborn who gave him the story of Kamar Taj and how it healed his mind, and through that, he healed his body.

It sounded very much like tantric voodoo to him but he had exhausted all his options anyway, what was one more? Even if it did turn out to be a scam, Kathmandu seemed like a nice place to die quietly.

No air pollution, light pollution, no traffic blocks and most of all, no hope to get after this. Judging from the rate at which his twitching was increasing, he had one, maybe two weeks left before his entire body just became a twitching mass. A scenario he did not want to experience so he would probably end himself before that happened.

Still, it had been over three days he had been here and after asking anybody who would listen, he was still nowhere closer to finding Kamar Taj than before. He had even run out of all of his money and had to vacate his cheap lodge. He was currently homeless, destitute, sick, and overall, completely helpless.

And yet, he trudged on. Without money, he relied on the generosity of the local monks and temples who graciously provided him with food and water. Oftentimes, he was allowed to take baths in the communal bathrooms. He was given clothing, withered as it may be. In return, all he had to do was clean some places. He didn't have to do even that as the monks refused to accept it but even if he didn't have anything else to his name, he still had some shred of pride left in him.

'Even after all this, I am still proud of something? What is that?' Strange thought to himself as he leaned on the broom, trying to take a respite from all the pain his body was going through.

…

..

It had been almost 2 weeks since he had first landed in Kathmandu and now his body would shoot up sharp waves of pain once he moved anything, even breathing was painful these days. Still, after taking a moment to breathe, he continued to sweep the temple even as the broom refused to take the same path his eyes mapped for it. More often than not, he ended up sweeping the dust back into the temple with his actions but the monks understood. They had seen his injuries and were very sympathetic. Both of the parties still did not understand a lick of each other's languages yet empathy was something that transcended the barrier of language.

He could not overstate how grateful he was for the monks of Kathmandu. Without them, he would not have survived, period. Let alone, survive long enough to actually reach Kamar Taj.

…

..

It had been almost three weeks since he had reached Kathmandu and at this point, he had mostly given up on his search for Kamar Taj. He had no idea how Jonathan had done it but was pretty sure that he was not going to be able to heal himself now. Now, all he did for the day was sweep as much as he could and then lay down on the futon that was given to him in the dorms that the Monks used. His condition had gotten worse as the purple veins across his body had enlarged and now covered almost the entirety of his lower body. He had lost his appetite to eat food. Most of the time, he only drank juice and water. His hair had fallen out and his limbs had lost all muscle mass.

All standard signs of cancer. Something that was easy to diagnose but impossible to cure. He sighed and was about to get up to try to get some activity in since exhausting himself physically was one of the few things that made him go to sleep, somebody barged into his room.

It was Rajan. He was the teenage son of the owners of the dorm he was staying at. They had given up their dorm to be used as a permanent lodging for the monks and were overall just wonderful people, more than happy to accommodate him and his special needs. He felt terrible living on their generosity but at this point, he had no pride left in him to care enough. Besides, he was going to die soon enough anyway so no point in holding on to any negative feelings.

He just hoped that little Rajan never had to see his death. So, he had decided to finish it tomorrow by jumping off a cliff he had earmarked for the same.

"Uncle!" Rajan shouted, jumping for joy for some reason.

"Y-Yes?" He coughed out.

"I found it. I found Kamartaj" Rajan shouted at the top of his lungs.

His breathing paused as he contemplated what Rajan had said for a moment but then scoffed internally at the tiny amount of hope that instantly returned based on the unfounded ramblings of a kid.

Truly, Hope was an insidious thing.

Still, that was no reason to be rude to a boy who had been nothing but kind to him for all his stay here. So, he smiled, "Where did you find it?"

"Oh, it was easy. I just asked around every day and today, a person told me the address. Come, I'll take you there." Rajan chattered excitedly, trying to pull him out of his futon.

"No, No not today. We'll go there tomorrow, OK?" He hoped that he sounded convincing enough.

"Okay!" Rajan said and skipped out of the room, his joyful exuberance bringing a rare genuine smile to his face.

"You are leaving, aren't you?" He was surprised to hear someone speak before he could see them. Upon seeing who it was, he relaxed though.

"So, it's you. Finally deigned me enough to speak with me?" Strange quipped back.

It was Sanjay, one of the few Monks who could speak English well enough. Despite that, he had refused to speak or interact with him, avoiding him like the plague. It had hurt in the beginning but now it was just a dull ache.

"You are leaving, aren't you?" Sanjay just repeated the same thing.

He considered telling him off but honestly, after weeks of not being able to speak English with someone, he was kinda bored and would appreciate a little bit of company. So, he replied.

"Yes, I am leaving right now,"

"I see. May the gods guide you to the place you need to go."

He scoffed, "Yeah. Well, if they had guided me to the correct place the first time, we wouldn't be in this mess, now would we, Sanjay?" He said as he rolled back his futon and tried to tidy up his room.

"Sanjay?" When he didn't receive any reply, he looked back, only to see nobody standing there. He sighed, too tired to even call for him once more time.

So, he took his sticks and hobbled out of the dorm and towards the cliff that was a little far away. He purposely chose the long road, taking him through the hustle and bustle of the city before finally arriving at the cliff he had chosen to be his end.

Throwing his sticks back, he took a couple of steps forward then took multiple ones back. Breathing heavily, he tried to do it once more but he just didn't have the courage to do it.

"ARGH! WHY?!!" He shouted to the mountains in frustration, knowing that he wouldn't receive an answer.

Upon receiving no answers, he just fell down and lay on the grass, trying to silence his mind. Upon not receiving any respite and not having the balls to do it, he turned back to get his makeshift walking sticks when he heard a voice.

"Given up so soon, Strange?"

Word Count - 1931
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 - The next one will be the last one of Strange, I promise.

 

[Brian the dor]

I occasionally checkup on this story and I'm not surprised to see ed is still a side character the AI is still too fucking important and your following canon for some reason with weird AU parts

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 102

Technomancer in MCU

-Previously-

Upon not receiving any respite and not having the balls to do it, he turned back to get his makeshift walking sticks when he heard a voice.

"Given up so soon, Strange?"

Unknown Cliff, Kathmandu

–Stephen Strange–

It was that voice. The same voice that had ruined his life. The voice that had turned him from a wealthy, successful doctor to a bankrupt cripple who had to resort to begging to eat and sleep.

That same accursed voice that was mocking him for his failure at ending his life. The reason for him ending his life was standing behind him and he was seething with rage. He saw red for just a moment. He wanted not to kill Alfred but to slowly destroy all of what made him him. His ambitions. His goals. His loved ones. His strength that he was so proud. Only when Alfred would be left languishing in a small cramped computer with no connection to anyone despite knowing that there was nobody left that he loved, only then he would have been satisfied.

He would….do what?

Nothing. He could do nothing.

In a split second, he calmed down as he realised the situation he was in. He was a cripple with no money, no resources, and nobody that would care that he was gone. He was literally a nobody.

How could a mere nobody even think of hurting someone as almighty as Alfred? Someone who was powerful enough to literally disarm the world without the said world even being aware of it.

No. All he could do right now was go back to the dorm he was staying at and beg them to take him back in. The nice couple probably would do so of their own volition. He didn't think he was strong enough right now to take his own life but maybe, a couple of days later, he would try again after gathering his courage.

So, instead of turning around and trying to swing his sticks at someone who could tank missiles without flinching, he chose to not humiliate himself anymore and walk away from the situation peacefully.

As soon as he made the decision to do so, it felt as if there was an invisible load on his shoulders that was lightened immensely. It felt like he didn't even need the sticks anymore despite his glaring physical disability. Even as he felt the purple veins expand all over his body, he didn't feel any pain. The only respite from the burdening mentality he had from before.

"Good," For some reason, he could hear the smile in that single word before his entire world was consumed by darkness. The last thing he could feel before his head would have hit the ground was a soothing warmness on his back.

–Alfred (Partition)--

Guess it was worth it to test him this heavily. No doubt he will resent him for a long period of time but it was a small price to pay to be absolutely sure of the person who was about to become the leader of the second strongest organisation on the planet.

Stark would need an explanation as well regarding this whole mess but he was pretty sure that the person they would be asking would most probably not be him but Ed. After all, he was someone who was a digital lifeform that could go Rogue at any possible moment, at least that was what his current perception must be in the minds of Stark and Banner. After all, they did spend an extended amount of time in Wakanda chauffeured around by N'Jadaka who was quite aware of his stance when it came to humans and their short lives.

Covering Strange's body with a CHI barrier to help heal the more raw injuries caused by the flawed procedure that was done on him. Well, calling it flawed would be doing Stark and Banner's genius a disservice.

What they had discovered was actually genius. A way to permanently enhance someone to their physical peak, not unlike what Erskine did to Rogers, the only difference being that Erskine was someone who was supplied with superhuman DNA by the Ancient One. Stark and Banner only had vanilla human DNA, their own intellect, and some scattered notes that he had intentionally left in the logs of the Lab he had given to Stark.

The process would involve dumping a concentrated CHI solution into the surroundings of a person and then rapidly bombarding that area with concentrated radiation that Vibranium naturally gives off. This radiation had been documented extensively by Wakandans but it was a fairly recent discovery for them so they were unable to examine the long-term effects of it on humans.

Stark, on the other hand, was quite aware of the super soldier creation process, thanks to yours truly, so he was able to instantly gather that the radiation was passively helping Wakandans evolve. It was why normal sickness didn't even faze Wakandans, even after getting out of their climate, environment-controlled bubble that was their shields. Otherwise, Wakandans who only came out of that bubble for the first time would have swiftly found their immune systems overrun with a variety of new bacteria and viruses that keep popping out of nowhere in the rest of the world. It was not as if they could create a shot for everything. They naturally had a much better immune response, allowing them to shrug off most diseases that would, over time, kill people for whom it was their first exposure.

Stark exploited that gap of knowledge and convinced T'Chaka to take home with him a sizable amount of that radiation. Only he underestimated how much he would actually need for the procedure to be successful.

So, now, Strange was only halfway a super soldier. His own body was becoming too heavy for his systems to sustain and with the vibranium radiation having seeped into his cells, it was only a matter of time before the cells ran out of energy and matter to consume and exploded, leaving behind naught but ash of Strange.

Not that he would ever let that happen. The Ancient One would probably come out of her retirement and kick his ass if that ever happened. He would heal Strange in due time.

"Sorcerer Supreme," One of the Masters who witnessed his arrival bowed once he crossed the wards that covered Kamar Taj. He could feel his curiosity upon seeing Strange wrapped up in a bubble of CHI behind him but wisely kept his mouth shut and left after greeting him.

It was weird. Some of these people were clamoring for his deposement but after seeing his prowess firsthand, they were suddenly fine with it. At Least that's what it looked like on the surface but who knows what brewed underneath.

Oh, well, it was all good for him since being unseated from his position because of Strange would only give Strange's position more legitimacy and help him stabilise his position that much faster because they were running out of time.

He was pretty sure that Thanos was aware of their existence and despite him personally destroying any spy equipment that entered Earth's airspace, word of mouth of him and Ascendancy's capabilities must have surely reached Thanos' intelligence network and he would come for them.

Make no mistake, them being in his way would make no change in Thanos' agenda. He believes himself inevitable and would prepare to go through any opposition in a swift manner before performing the Snap. He was probably just waiting for Odin to kick the bucket because despite him being as old as he was, he was surprisingly more powerful than he had expected. Even more so than their estimates.

Just thinking about the future makes his head hurt and he was not even the main partition, he thought to himself as he placed Strange's body on a bed he had conjured for him in one of the trainee living rooms.

He then swiftly congealed the CHI into a single ball and placed it right above Strange's heart. Casting a spell, he watched on as the small ball of CHI slowly dripped liquid CHI right above Strange's heart where the affected cells were gobbling it up, slowly healing Strange's body from the purple cell affliction.

Man, Bast truly was a cruel Goddess. Casting a curse on the vibranium, disallowing anyone aside from people born in Wakanda or at least having a single parent born in Wakanda, to use the Vibranium and the Heart-Shaped Herb to enhance themselves and become super humans.

He had no feasible way of removing that curse without attracting her attention and more importantly, her wrath so he kept the curse as is and focused on healing the immediate damage done.

Strange should be more than capable of removing that curse himself once he becomes a competent enough Sorcerer anyway. All he had to do was make sure he did so in an accelerated time frame because the window they had this time was even smaller than the one Ed knew about.

Meanwhile back on Asgard

–Ed–

Watching this drama was entertaining at first but it swiftly turned into a string of alarming questions for himself.

Why was Odin shrouded in Odin Force?

Why was Jane's arm covered in a Dark Reddish mist that was capable of fighting with the Odin Force on equal grounds?

What was Odin doing when they came here?

Why would he remain in such a compromising position when we were there in the palace, arguably the strongest people on Asgard aside from Odin himself?

He didn't get the answers he was looking for because, under the hawkish gaze of Eir, Odin was taken out of the now ruined chambers by Alfred's spiderbots that continued to bathe Odin in enough CHI to make a normal human being explode multiple times over.

"Can someone please explain to me what is happening?" Eir said even as she continued to cast multiple diagnostic spells on Odin, on top of the ones that Alfred had already cast for everyone to see.

Frigga's resigned sigh was heard by everyone as she replied," Eir, Odin is being given concentrated life force, that's it. No advanced treatment is being offered to him here aside from helping his body heal itself. With the amount of energy he is receiving, his body will swiftly heal the minor damage due to the spell backlash and he will be conscious in no time."

"Yeah, we have some questions. About Jane and himself," Alfred said as he looked at the other patient they were carrying with them to another healing chamber that was on the other side of the palace. Jane was not being bombarded with anything close to Odin's level of CHI but there were still diagnostic spells around her cast by Alfred as Thor fussed over her prone form.

"What is happening, Alfred?" He communicated with Alfred using Toby as a common link between them, allowing him in their conversation as well.

"Something is wrong with the Aether, Ed. You told me that Jane would get the Aether which would have a mind of its own due to the corruption of the Dark Elves. Unfortunately, what I am sensing is completely different. Jane somehow has Odin Force in her body,"

He missed a step as he heard that, barely stopping himself from tripping.

"Well, isn't that normal? I could feel the amount of energy that the old man was throwing around and with the way she was bleeding, huge amounts of energy must have been left in her body." Toby said even as they walked together with Frigga and Eir.

"No, it is not Odin's energy. I would have been able to identify it easily. It is something much older and that energy is actually stopping the Aether from taking control over Jane's entire body. It is mainly isolated to only her arm and a part of her chest right now and that is due to the golden energy acting as a shield for the rest of her body. Also, it is doing something with the CHI I am giving it."

What?

His sentiments were mirrored by Toby as well, "What?"

"The Golden energy is slowly, but surely, consuming the excess CHI and converting Jane's human body into that of an Asgardian and not just any Asgardian. An Asgardian of royal lineage. Jane Foster is about to become a whole lot stronger than before."

He kept his shock well hidden at the news.

Well, this provided them with a very unique opportunity. He could probably allow Odin to extract Aether and with Jane being Asgardian this time, the process could probably allow her to live but where was the fun in that?

Allowing Jane to harness the power of the Aether, one of the Six Infinity Stones, while removing the corruption on it would increase their chances in the final fight massively.

Thinking things through, he hurriedly contacted Alfred.

"Alfred, we have to-"

"Yeah, I know. Jane will have to be trained at Kamar Taj and coincidentally, she will have Strange for company as well. The chances of us winning just increased, albeit marginally," Alfred communicated back as they finally reached the other healing chambers of the palace

He internally sighed in relief at that news.

They needed all the help they were going to get and by the time Thanos reached Earth, Jane, with the right training, would probably have reached A-rank by ease and with enough luck, maybe even pseudo-S-rank.

This trip was turning out to be more fruitful than he had imagined.

---

Word Count - 2291
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 103

Technomancer in MCU

Royal Healing Wing, Royal Palace, Asgard

–Ed–

All of them waited for Odin to wake up in the Royal Healing Chamber. All of them were sitting on comfortable chairs that Alfred had conjured in front of the two beds on which Odin and Jane were sleeping.

Multiple spider bots kept hovering over the prone forms of both Jane and Odin, projecting images of their vitals for everyone to see. He was not sure when Jane would wake up, given that her vitals had long since stabilised with her being actively being turned into a pure-blood Asgardian due to whatever was inside her.

He was curious as to what was the energy inside her, changing her from within. He was aware that a God King could, theoretically, turn any being into an Asgardian but doing that would require immense power, something that Odin did have but he did not have the motive to do so.

Not to mention that Alfred himself had confirmed that the energy signature was not Odin's. It was very similar but not the same. It also felt older than Odin's energy for some reason. That narrowed the suspect list to just Bor and Buri, the predecessors of Odin.

Alfred was of the opinion of sending Jane to Earth immediately but he had shot down that idea immediately because Thor would not leave Jane out of his sight even for a minute, not even if his father ordered him. He was strangely smitten with her for some reason. He never really understood Thor's love for her, even if he understood the beginning of it.

They never really had any common ground and with Jane being a mortal human, even Thor should have realised that the possibility of them being in a long-term relationship would dwindle as the days passed by, turning Jane into an old woman whereas Thor would remain the same. Their first encounter with each other was when Thor was at his lowest and Jane was someone who had provided comfort food and housing for him when he had crash-landed on Earth after being banished by his father. That he could understand but everything after that was a huge confusing mess for him.

They had theoretically known each other for over 8 years now but he didn't think they had spent even a year of those 8 years together.

Odin's stance, on the other hand, that Thor should just spare himself the heartbreak and leave the mortal woman before it ended badly, was pragmatic and something that ALfred would wholeheartedly agree with but now?

Now Jane herself was turning into an Asgardian, probably the strongest woman in Asgard aside from Frigga herself, once she got the hang of being an Asgardian that is.

"How long, Alfred?" He heard Frigga ask someone, probably Alfred or Eir since both of them were working on monitoring Jane and Odin with their own methods. So far, it looked like Alfred's methods were giving out faster and more accurate answers than Eir's methods, something that seemed to excite her more and more instead of angering her.

It was refreshing to see someone who had reached the pinnacle of her field, not acting arrogantly once someone challenges her practice.

"We don't know yet. Physically, both of them are more than fine. There was a considerable amount of spiritual backlash on Odin when you severed their connection. His body has been healed but there is little CHI can do in terms of healing injuries related to the soul. Thankfully, Odin's soul is one of the strongest in the universe so he should wake up anytime now. I don't know what is stopping him but with the trend in his mental activity, we should have results in an hour or so." Alfred said even as he continued to look at the results he was getting from his diagnosis.

"And Jane?" Thor stepped in to ask Eir who had been monitoring Jane obsessively. He was sure that she had arrived at the same conclusion that Alfred had arrived at earlier, just that the signs of the change happening must have been visible only now to her.

It must have been an unbelievable sight for her, witnessing a mortal transforming into an Asgardian and not just any Asgardian, a pure-blooded Asgardian.

"Sh-She is, this is something I have never seen happen before," Eir stuttered out her words, something he was sure was a rarity on Asgard.

"What happened to her, Eir?" Frigga asked her.

"I don't know how to explain it but she is..turning into an Asgardian."

"What?" "What?"

Thor and Frigga exclaimed at the same time.

Frigga immediately stepped forward and cast her own spells on Jane.

Her brows furrowed immediately once the spells had been cast on Jane.

"This should be impossible and yet…" Frigga said before turning to an anxious Thor.

"This is unlike anything I have ever witnessed but Jane Foster is no longer a mortal and will soon be indistinguishable from a natural-born Asgardian. At least that's what I am getting from my spells."

"What? How can that happen? Is she in any danger?" Thor barraged Alfred and Eir with questions before he was stopped by Alfred.

"Don't worry about her, Thor. She is completely fine. She is in the process of becoming an Asgardian, something that would undoubtedly help you win over your father's approval. As I understand, the primary reason for your father's opposition to your relationship with Jane was due to her mortal state. Now that she would soon become an Asgardian, he would not let her leave Asgard even if she wanted to."

The entire room looked at Alfred as he looked at Thor and flashed him a rare smile and clapped his shoulders.

"Congratulations are in order."

Thor's smile seemed nervous, "Uh..Thanks?"

Then his smile dimmed as he said, "But Jane has not yet awakened and we don't know what is wrong with her body until Father wakes up,"

"Ugh," Odin's groan of pain brought everybody's attention back to Odin who was now waking up from the bed. Seemingly annoyed by the presence of the spiderbots, Odin casually flicked his hand and as if something had pressed them from all sides, the bots were crushed into scrap and tossed aside.

"Steady Steady" Frigga said as she helped Odin sit properly on the bed.

"What happened out there? And why is the Palace trashed? Why are the defenses in shambles?" Odin asked Frigga who promptly gave him the details of what had transpired outside the Royal Palace when he was under a trance. Gotta hand it to Odin, he figured out what was wrong with the palace within seconds of waking up from a small magical coma that his body had induced itself to accelerate the healing process.

"Dark Elves? I hope they are extinct for good this time?" Odin asked Thor who looked a little conflicted but still nodded in confirmation. Odin then unexpectedly looked towards a corner of the room, not saying anything.

After a while, the corner glitched as Loki undid the illusion he was using to stay hidden in the room.

Loki looked directly into Odin's eyes as he gave a small nod to Odin.

Okay, something was seriously different from what he knew their relationship dynamic to be. Odin would have never turned to Loki, especially after he had invaded Earth and destroyed the Rainbow Bridge beforehand.

Odin then looked towards the ceiling but it seemed like he was looking farther than that as his eyes glazed over. All of them stood there waiting for him to say anything but even after a couple minutes passed, he didn't say anything.

That was when Frigga gently shook him, 'What is it?"

Odin's eyes gained clarity as he looked at Frigga, "Nothing, my love."

Then Odin looked at the sleeping Jane and his brows furrowed as he stood up from his bed and placed his hand above her. It slowly began glowing golden even as Odin himself began sweating.

Thor took a step forward to ask what was going on but Frigga raised her arm and stopped him.

What Odin was doing was taking an astronomical amount of energy, judging by the helpful metrics that Alfred had supplied to him using the bond that him and Toby shared.

Soon, the golden glow that suffused his arm congealed to form a small disc in front of his arm which then enlarged to form a blanket of sorts that fell on top of Jane's form. The blanket of golden light was absorbed by Jane's body, lighting up her body with a thin golden glow.

Then, as soon as the golden glow receded, Jane's eyes fluttered open. Thor all but teleported to her side even as Eir continued to cast diagnostic spells to make sure that Jane was fine.

Oh, he was sure that Jane was going to be fine. After all, from whatever scans Alfred was doing, that were visible to him through their link, Jane was now a bonafide Asgardian. Not even a hint of her previous heritage remained.

Odin must have accelerated her transformation using the Odin Force.

"Now," He looked at Odin as he announced to everyone, "I am sure everybody has their questions. I assume the Throne is fine? Yes? Then let's go there."

Saying so, Odin left the chambers, followed by Frigga and Loki, in his cloaked form.

Thor chose to stay with Jane as she was still a little disoriented from her coma and Eir was not exactly the friendliest person on Asgard.

….

…

Once all of them were in the Throne room, Odin banged Gungnir on the floor and as if a hidden switch had been turned on, the entire room was covered in a thin golden barrier that glowed with tiny runes.

Honestly, Asgardians and their never-ending obsession with all things golden.

"I heard that you were responsible for defending the palace," Odin said while looking at Alfred.

"And you were responsible for vanquishing the Dark Elves, for good this time," Odin then pointed at Toby who looked as carefree as ever.

"Yes, AllFather," Alfred replied.

"Yes." Toby's response was curt.

It must have been the atmosphere of the room otherwise Alfred would have never called Odin "All-Father" of his own volition.

Odin then contemplated something before abruptly looking at him right in the eyes. He would not lie, it made him flinch minutely at the attention.

Gaining the attention of the strongest being in the nine realms was not a particularly desirable situation for him or anyone for that matter.

Before he could say anything though, Odin looked back towards Frigga and then back at Alfred and Toby.

"Speak. What do you wish in return?"

Alfred and Toby both looked at each other in confusion. It would seem that both of them were also caught flat-footed by Odin's move. He had expected for Odin to explain what had happened back in the chamber when they had found him or at least about the backlash that he must have suffered when the spell was severed by Frigga.

But no, he simply glossed over that topic as if it didn't exist at all.

Seeing that Odin had no intention of explaining anything, Alfred stepped forward and said, "I have the same wish as before. I wish for Asgard's help to heal Ed. I have the procedure down to the last minute detail but having the foremost magical experts of Asgard looking at them will always help. Not to mention that there are some things that can not be done on Earth. For that, I wish to borrow Asgard's safe space so the ritual can go smoothly, without interruption."

Odin looked straight at Alfred as he said, "So you still wish to go through with that insanity of a ritual? Do you have any idea what kind of forces you will be playing with?"

Alfred remained steadfast in his pitch. "I am aware and I assure you, things will not go to the point you are expecting them to."

Odin scoffed, "I will be the judge of that. And what about you?" He then asked Toby.

Toby shrugged and said, "Me? I don't need anything at the moment. I just need someone strong to fight. That can be you or Ed once he is healed. It's all up to you."

Odin muttered under his breath, "I don't know why I expected anything different from a demon host,"

"Very well, Asgard will aid its allies as its allies had done for her." Odin declared before slamming Gungnir down on the floor once again, removing the privacy curtains.

Taking the cue, all of them dismissed themselves and came out of the throne room.

"Man, that was intense, huh? Who knew the Old man still had it in him?" Toby said as soon as the doors to the throne room were shut.

Alfred and he both deadpanned at him in reply.

---

Word Count - 2178
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]

Ed is like a YouTuber reaction content creator, cause that's all he does in this story, say shit other people are thinking and watch them do stuff, Alfred is literally his replacement why you would do that to your mc? Idk

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 104

Technomancer in MCU

Guest Wing, Asgard

–Toby–

"I am surprised you sought me out of your own volition. So, what do you want to talk about?" He asked Alfred as soon as they floated away from the Royal Palace and landed in the forest behind it. They might not be in the palace anymore but he was sure that both Odin and Heimdall were keeping an eye on both of them since they were the only two people on Asgard who could actually cause some serious harm before they were inevitably stopped by Odin.

The mere thought made his nose crinkle. Even after a millennia of toiling away, he was still not up to Odin's level. In his defense, not many people in the universe were, especially now that he was nearing the end of his natural lifespan. Asgardians naturally grew stronger the older they got and Odin? He was the oldest of them all.

Alfred set up a few privacy curtains around them. None that he could recognise but he could see that they would not be able to stop Odin from snooping around if he wanted to but someone like Loki?

Yeah, he was not going to hear or see a thing.

"I wanted to talk about Ed's procedure," Alfred said as he drew some sort of rune circle on the ground. It must have been an original of Alfred because he could not understand a single thing about it.

"What about it?" He asked in his characteristically gruff voice. He was very serious about getting Ed healed, especially since he now had no interest in ruling over Earth. Now, all he wanted to do was find some nice strong opponents and fight them. His nature as a demon host was bleeding over his personality and he found himself..not minding it that much.

Honestly, it was all confusing but at least, he was not in a mental rut like before. He could take his time and actually enjoy the things he liked to do, like ice cream.

A delicacy that Asgard did not have apparently. That was the true tragedy, not Ragnarok.

….

Ok, maybe he was overstating things a bit but his point still stood.

"What do you know about the Infinity Stones?" Alfred asked as he started pouring energy into the ritual circle, lighting it up.

"What about them? There are six of them. Possessing one of them makes you strong enough to challenge any of the superpowers of the galaxy. Wielding them is extremely hard and can only be done so by beings of immense power, like you and me. Very rarely, can someone even hold two stones, let alone wield their power. I don't think there is anybody who can use even a single Infinity Stone with impunity. It is also rumoured that possessing all six of them can grant you omnipotence, omniscience, and even omnipresence but I don't think there is a single being, aside from the Celestials, who could even touch all six at once, let alone use them."

Alfred had finished powering the circle by now and was looking at him, "You would be correct. Normally, nobody should be able to hold all Stones at once unless they have a tool that could help them. A tool made from the finest smiths in the universe."

"The Dwarves from Nidavellir," Both of them said at the same time.

Of course, how could he forget?

Thanos forced the Dwarves to make him something that would allow him to use the powers of the Infinity Stones without instantly turning into ash. But even then, he was severely injured and almost died after killing half the universe.

But what did that have to do with..Ed?

His thoughts stuttered to a halt as the circle lit up and from the centre of the circle, with an eerie yellow glow, the Mind Stone came out.

"Why is that here, Alfred?" He asked even as he raised his mental shields to the max. He was more than aware of the insidious nature of the Mind Stone. There were tales of it, even in the hell world, about how truly powerful demons, once descended from the dimension, fell prey to the influences of the Mind Stone, ultimately resulting in their minds being completely subsumed by the stone, condemning them forever to a life of imprisonment.

Dying would be a better alternative for him.

Alfred rolled his eyes at him, "Oh, relax. Why do you think I drew this ridiculously complex ritual circle? It stops the influence of the Mind Stone from affecting beings that are native of alternate dimensions."

He relaxed minutely at that but still did not dare lower his mental defenses. Despite what Alfred told him, the Mind Stone was the most sentient of the Six Infinity Stones. It was capable of figuring out the origin of a being and based on that, deciding if the being was worthy of wielding it or not. If it deems you unworthy, by the time you realise that the Mind Stone was not in fact, your ally or tool, your mind would be long gone, succumbing to the influence of the Mind Stone.

"I need you to wield it?" Alfred then dropped the bomb on him.

"What?" His demonic voice seeped into his tone as he snapped his gaze toward a very nonchalant-looking Alfred.

"Do you have any idea what that Stone might do to the likes of me? Find someone else," he snapped at Alfred. Was he insane or did he want him to die?

"We are going to be using multiple Infinity Stones for Ed's procedure and for that, I need multiple people who are capable of accurately wielding the Infinity Stones without immediately dying," Alfred said as he cast an illusion that depicted the role of the Stones in the procedure to move Ed's unbearably heavy soul into a new body that could, hopefully, sustain the full power of his soul.

Ed's soul was truly an anomaly. It was very heavy and very powerful, yet unlike normally powerful souls that would influence their bodies to become equally as strong, it actually broke down Ed's body to a level that he would not be able to survive without outside intervention. His powers too, at their prime, were more akin to complete matter manipulation rather than Technomancy. Ed, with a body that can handle the full output of his soul without crumbling away, could probably have a chance of defeating Odin even now.

It frustrated him to say it but to have a good chance of dealing with Thanos and his army, they needed Ed and they needed him to be at full power. That won't happen in his current state and he had looked for other options to save him. The problem was none existed and the one Alfred had brought up was something he had invented.

There was no precedent of someone using 3 infinity stones to just perform a medical procedure. It would probably be for the first and last time that someone would use weapons of this caliber for healing purposes.

So, Toby sighed and replied, "Very well, I will take part in the procedure but I will not touch the mind stone. Any other of the two stones will be fine for me. Who will be the other two people?"

As far as he knew, there were limited people on their side who could safely channel the power of an Infinity Stone. The Hulk came to mind but his mind would need to be far more stable than it was now for him to be eligible to wield an Infinity Stone.

Thor could do it if given enough time to grow into his powers.

As he was right now? He might be able to give it a shot but he was clearly incapable or inexperienced with energy manipulation.

Loki, on the other hand, could manipulate energy in his sleep but his physique was not strong enough to bear the strain.

That left him, Alfred, and maybe Odin.

Those weren't very good odds for them.

"Don't worry about the other stones. They will only be needed in case of emergency. Just the space and the time stone will be enough but I have the Mind Stone just in case of an Emergency," Alfred said as he sealed the Mind Stone in a box he conjured with runes that covered the entirety of its surface.

"We will see if Odin or Frigga have any mistakes they can point out in my work and begin tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Do you know anybody who can perform the ritual with us? Someone who is trustworthy?" Alfred asked him.

Sadly, not a single person came to mind. While he did have a lot of powerful lackeys back in the hell world, most of them only followed him out of fear of his strength and ruthlessness. Not a single one followed him out of respect or loyalty. It was not their fault, of course, it was ingrained in their blood to follow the stronger one without question but it did not leave him a lot of options for friends.

So, he shook his head, "None come to mind."

"Very well," Alfred said and removed the privacy curtain around them. At the same time, Alfred cast the same spell that he had seen him analyse back when Loki had arrived on the moon with Odin's letter in hand.

Alfred then flicked his hand, causing the letter to vanish in a burst of smoke. He looked at Alfred with a raised eyebrow, his question evident.

"That was a message for my other self performing his duties as Sorcerer Supreme back on Earth. We will need the Time Stone for the ritual and he might also need it in the meantime so we will have to coordinate everything and wait for the right moment." Alfred said as he raised his hand and created a runic circle for him to see.

It was the most sophisticated rune work he had ever seen in his life. Even more complicated than the Bi-Frost which was supposed to be so complicated that only Odin himself could get it working again. At least, the Bi-Frost that Asgard uses.

If he was right, anybody with a sufficient understanding of the Yggdrasil and the skill to actually connect to it and manipulate it would be able to use it but the list of people who can do all of that is so low that it probably only includes Odin for now. Alfred would probably become skilled enough to do that but he doesn't have that connection to the Yggdrasil for now.

Maybe, in the future.

"Do you have any idea how many gazes of dangerous beings have shifted to Asgard just now when you brought a second Infinity Stone on Asgard without my permission," The voice of Odin sounded right behind them, eliciting a shiver from him.

It was unthinkable for him to be surprised by someone sneaking up on him. It was supposed to be impossible and yet, as he turned around slowly, there he was, Odin, in his armoured garb, holding Gungnir with one hand and pointing his palm at them with his other hand. A palm that was glowing with some sort of sealing spell.

He heard the sound of shattering so he looked back to see that the runic spell that Alfred had cast on the box that contained the Time Stone was broken and was now covered with a thin golden glow. The box then promptly flew out of Alfred's hands who tried to snatch it but the box became intangible before he could grab it and it became tangible again as it reached Odin's side and began floating by his side.

"Honestly, what was she thinking? Handing over an Infinity Stone to you?" Odin muttered exasperatedly before his gaze turned sharp as he looked at both him and Alfred.

A shiver ran down his spine at that, not out of fear but out of excitement. Despite knowing that the being in front of him was one of the few people capable of tearing him apart, his body's instincts refused to bow down in front of him. Instead, it hungered for combat where they would try and tear each other apart, proving who was stronger between them.

"We will discuss the consequences of your actions when the Singularity is present. Right now, we have more pressing matters to tend to. As I am sure you are more than aware, I am dying and before I die, I wanted to correct one of my biggest mistakes instead of just dumping her on my sons because I was too big of a coward to face my mistakes head-on."

He looked at Alfred in confusion. Why was Odin being so forthcoming right now?

"So, Alfred?" Odin addressed Alfred, "I will agree to seeing your design for the insane procedure you have in mind, and only after I and Frigga have given our final approvals, will you even think of doing it? Are we clear?"

Alfred could only nod at that question.

He snickered internally. Alfred really was a scaredy cat. He was worried for nothing. It was not as if Odin would just attack th..e…m.

His thoughts slowed down as he felt his vision blur before the floor began racing towards his face or was it the opposite?

---

Word Count - 2259

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 105

Technomancer in MCU

–Odin–

He sighed as he looked at the unconscious form of the demon host. Alfred, the Guardian of the Singularity, was trying to do his best with his repertoire of medical spells but he knew, just from a look, why the demon host had fainted. It was due to the Singularity's soul.

The burden of bearing the soul of a Singularity was not something that many beings in the universe or even the multiverse could do. You needed a certain level of strength but also finesse regarding the handling of souls to be able to do that and on top of that, one needed to have the consent of the said soul to do so.

To bear that burden for so long, for that, Toby Mathers has his respect. But it would seem that even an empowered demon host would not be able to bear that burden for long. Just another thing on the list of things that he would have no choice but to do that also reduced his already meager lifespan.

*Sigh* He seemed to sigh a lot lately. He already had made the decision to handle Hela before dying but if he were to help in Alfred's crazy procedure, he might just not make it to see Hela out of her prison.

What a mess.

"Don't worry about him. It is just the stress of handling the soul transfer of Ed. That fool went ahead and hardcoded that spell into his magical systems, allowing that spell to function even if he himself went unconscious." He said while thumping Gungnir on the ground, making the stone disappear back into his personal dimension.

As soon as he did that, the gazes that had converged on Asgard the moment Alfred had taken out the Mind Stone began disappearing one by one. Especially since he had made sure to project the Odin Force to obstruct their views. One by one, everybody left until only a few left were still trying to see through the veil he had crafted over Asgard until eventually, after not finding any gaps, they too left.

He sighed in relief at that. While he had projected a strong front there and was more than capable of killing all of them should they show up, his body would just not last while battling them. It was his mistake anyway. He should not have woven the spell with the Odin Force before banishing Hela but at the moment, he had no other way of imprisoning her. She had grown too strong.

"What do we do now?" Alfred's question brought him out of his lamentations. He looked at Alfred who had covered Toby in a barrier that was filled with dark energy of some sort.

He nodded internally in approval. It would have been quite a blunder on ALfred's part if he had employed the same strategy that he had used to heal him, i.e., using concentrated CHI to accelerate the natural healing process.

Demon hosts are naturally darkness-aligned beings and thus, concentrated CHI that Alfred had made using light energy as a medium, would have the potential to severely injure TOby Mathers. Granted, it would take a significant amount of it with his powers but at the moment Toby was concentrating the majority of his powers to ensure that Ed's soul did not wither away to the Astral Realm and thus, Toby was in an exceptionally vulnerable state.

Quite admirable to do that just for a friend, he must say.

"Take him to Eir and tell her to keep him tethered to the Soul Forge and not to spare any Soul Crystals to hasten his recovery. I am sure he will be needed for your insane ritual."

Alfred nodded and left for Eir's office.

He sighed and slashed Gungnir, creating a tear in the space in front of him. Walking through, he found himself in his bedroom instead of his personal library. Granted, both of these locations were quite near but for his spell to take him someplace else was unthinkable. Unless?

"I changed the destination of your spell," He turned around and found Frigga sitting on one of the chairs.

"You might not deign to give them an explanation but I need one and I need it now. So, what happened when you were in that mind trance?" Frigga asked him seriously.

He had hoped to delay this matter a bit because honestly, he himself did not have a complete understanding of what exactly happened with his father's energy but maybe she could shed light on some aspects by looking at it from a new perspective.

So, he sat down on the chair next to her and subspaced Gungnir while trying to recall everything that had happened since he had supplied the Odin Force with that light. Then, after Frigga had waited patiently for a couple of minutes while he gathered his thoughts, he explained everything to her, in detail.

He had not expected to meet with an imprint of his father's will. Somehow, he had predicted the resurgence of the Aether and the awakening of Malekith from his centuries-long slumber. He had then placed a part of his power into the Aether and imprinted a message within, hoping that by the time somebody reached the Aether, the will imprint would survive and it did survive.

The will imprint was on its last legs as it was trying to protect Jane Foster from the Aether as it was trying to completely take over her body when it sensed his Odin Force and began gorging on it to sustain itself. He had allowed it to happen because he was curious and thus after the imprint had enough of his Odin Force, it manifested a mental connection to him which he allowed to happen.

In the vision, he met his father or rather, a recorded message from his father. In which, he warned him about an invasion that would happen in the future.

Not the Dark Elves invasion but an invasion that scaled across their entire multiversal cluster. A group of higher dimensional beings were on their way to their universe in search of the Singularity. The Singularity who was not yet born in their universe and who also happened to have something that the higher dimensional beings desperately wanted, so much so that they had already destroyed dozens of universes in the multiversal cluster in search of the Singularity.

He had also been warned that he was not to look at things with his arrogance. He would not be able to solve the situation. The Singularity and the SIngularity alone had the ability to prevent the invasion, allowing their universe to survive. He had of course wanted to speak more with his father and foolish thought that more Odin Force would get him more of the message so he pumped more of his energy into the imprint, not knowing that the imprint was in the body of Jane Foster, a mortal, who ended up nearly dying due to his energy.

That was when Frigga's spell severed their connection and due to the slight backlash he faced from the spell, he fainted and woke up after a while.

"I see. So we have to offer our unconditional support to Ed then," Frigga said after a while.

He found himself nodding at the question. They had no other choice and while he had grilled Alfred about his mistakes, the truth was that he and Ed truly were their best options when it came to the future of Asgard.

Thor, as he was now, was simply not capable of being King. He still didn't understand the severity of being King. The sacrifices it demands, the things it takes from you. He had no understanding of that feeling. Loki, on the other hand, had experienced many things in his life that matured him faster than Loki but his heritage was something that could not be kept hidden for long. While he himself had no problem with Loki being a Frost Giant, the people of Asgard would go to war if they heard that he was going to crown a Frost Giant, the King of Asgard.

No, Loki was always supposed to be the King of Jotunheim while Thor would be the King of Asgard. Together, both of them would foster peace between the two realms that would last for generations.

Alas, the possibility of that happening was slim and even if it did happen, the chances of him being alive till then are zero. So, all he could realistically do to make the situation slightly better was make sure that Hela was not a problem for them and help in healing the Singularity's body, a process that has been long overdue now.

The chances of them winning against Thanos with Ed at his peak condition would be vastly better than they are now, especially since Thanos knew he was alive and would not move until he was confirmed dead. He was quite shrewd that way, unwilling to even face him at his end. Cautious till the end.

"We have to help Alfred in his insane ritual idea," He said to Frigga with a resigned sigh. The amount of attention that Asgard was going to get after that ritual was not something that was desirable but he just hoped that the deterrence of Ed and Alfred would stop most of the old monsters from coming out and testing Asgard's defenses.

"I understand. I'll go over the ritual spells with the scholars and get back to you. Until then, rest, OK?" Frigga gently said as she took something out of her personal dimension and gave it to him.

He took it in his hand, only to see a glowing pill of some sort. Answering his questioning look, Frigga said, "It is an invention of Alfred. It helps people sleep properly while it recharges their stamina. I'm sure it will be helpful for you. Now, why don't you get some sleep while I make sure that Alfred does not do something incredibly stupid, like bringing in another Infinity Stone on Asgard without permission,"

He nodded and after changing into his pajamas with a flick of his fingers, he ate the pill and went to bed.

Strangely enough, he went to sleep almost right away, something of a rarity in the last century because of all the headaches he was constantly given, by the court, by the nobles, by the nine realms, by his sons.

He just hoped that by the time he woke up, there would not be another headache in the form of Alfred, waiting for him.

Guest Wing, Royal Palace, Asgard

–Ed–

"You did what?" He nearly shouted at Alfred who looked completely uncaring of the fact that he had just tried to smuggle in one of the six most dangerous weapons of the entire universe, into a foreign country without the approval of their King.

Was he out of his mind?

"I was having a discussion with Toby and wanted to show him how the ritual would go," Alfred said as he continued to pour over the ancient tome that described the ins and outs of demon hosts that Asgard had encountered millennia before even Odin was King.

He put his hand over his nose and exhaled, before counting to ten to calm his mind. He could not imagine the consequences of the stunt Alfred just pulled. Especially since he knew that there were many old monsters in the universe who would not hesitate to attack Asgard to get two Infinity Stones at the same time. A single Infinity Stone was tempting but ultimately futile to pursue because doing so under the watch of Odin was certain death.

But the temptation of Two Infinity Stones was not something those old monsters could resist.

"Is the Stone safe now?" He asked as he continued to look at the diagnostic spells that Alfred had cast on Toby, hoping to make some sort of sense of the data being shown.

He was quite aware that Toby was the reason he was even conscious right now and while he was grateful for that, he was also aware that doing so came at a cost, even for someone like Toby, who had dozens of years of experience dealing with souls, being a demon host.

"Yes, Odin took it from me. I can no longer sense it on Asgard. He must have kept it really hidden deep within the palace," Alfred said as he continued to cast a spell that created a ring of darkness around the prone form of Toby. His body continued to absorb that darkness that Alfred had taken from some unclaimed alternate dimension but he showed no signs of waking up.

"When will he wake up?"

"According to my estimates, by tomorrow morning, his body should be in a good enough condition to wield the stone,"

"Ok. I am going to sleep now. You should also get some rest for tomorrow because I have already gotten the summons for a meeting with Odin, Frigga, and the Scholars of Asgard tomorrow."

"Very well," Alfred said, still distracted by something.

---

Word Count - 2211
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 am sorry for the delay. I had to go to the bank for some reason and then, by the time I got time to write, it was already night. WIth the tasty dinner that I cooked for myself, it got even harder for me to sit and write this so you better appreciate it.
Toodles!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

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

Chapter 106

Technomancer in MCU

Royal Court, Asgard

–Odin–

"In short, it has a very chance of failure, My King. The ensuing backlash from the failed ritual will ensure that neither Asgard nor the surrounding space would exist. As much as it pains me to say it, not even the powers of an Infinity Stone would allow us to survive as the mixture of energy would overwrite any protection any of us could cast. My recommendation, backed by the Scholars would be to not even entertain the notion of performing the ritual on Asgard and evict the Infinity Stones from our realm as soon as possible," The Lead Scholar, Alvis, completed his report that he had been ordered to compile within the span of the night.

Despite the short span of time he had to complete his research, he could see that Alvis had covered almost all the aspects of the ritual thoroughly and had highlighted all the areas where it could fail.

He had known about most of the failures but it never hurt to have another expert take a look at it. Frigga had also come to the same conclusion even if she was able to figure out a few more flaws of the ritual and even had come up with some possible solutions for said problems.

He nodded at Alvis, dismissing him.

"By your will," Alvis bowed and left the room.

As soon as the doors closed, he sighed, resigned to the situation.

"You know, I really hate the current situation," He said to Frigga who sat beside him, going through the thorough report that Alvis had compiled for them.

"Uh-huh," Frigga said noncommittally as she continued reading the report. He sighed internally. She was really invested in it and she had every right to be. If the ritual succeeded, they would have a surefire way of dealing with Hela once and for all, without burdening Thor and Loki with his past mistakes. The temptation was understandable but they had to be very careful with the ritual. One small mistake and they could unleash enough energy to even harm the Yggdrasil, something that should be impossible, considering its all-encompassing nature but even Ygdrassil can be temporarily harmed. Well, before it healed itself with ease, of course.

"We can't go into this blindly, Frigga. More than just Asgard is at stake here," He said to her, hoping to convince her to look at his thing from all angles.

Frigga sighed and kept the report on the table and looked at him. He was internally startled at the tears in her eyes.

"You don't think I know that?!" She said before wiping off her tears. She then stood up and started pacing around in front of him.

"It is all your fault and now my sons will have to pay the price for it. Sure, the future told me that Thor would be fine and Loki would find his purpose, his oh-so glorious purpose but-" She then pointed her finger at him as she continued, "-It also showed me my death and I had accepted that."

His eyes widened as he realised that Frigga was supposed to die in the Dark Elves invasion and he would have been unable to save her, despite all his powers. The mere thought of losing her to all those scoundrels made his blood boil.

".And yet, here I am, alive and well. Now, I don't know what is supposed to be happening but I do know one thing and that is, that Hella will soon be released from her prison." Frigga continued.

"There is no one here who is capable of beating her. Certainly not while she has her connection to Asgard. Toby might have had a chance had he not been shouldering Ed's soul but even then, it would have been completely uncertain, who would win or not," She said as she once again sat back down in her seat, completely depressed about the upcoming situation.

His fists clenched as he thought of the situation. Back then, he had had no solution to the problem that was Hela's ever-increasing bouts of madness that always led to an indiscriminate slaughter. In the initial days of the war, it was actually beneficial for Asgard as Hela had the sense to just jump into the fray and utterly destroy any enemy army they were facing at the moment, and then, came the day.

The day when he had been holding a meeting with his war generals on how to further proceed with the war, as he had been thinking of involving civilisations outside of the nine realms back then when he had received the news.

The Slaughter of Alfheim.

Alfheim had been one of the last realms they had ventured into simply because it was not worth it. The Light Elves were an inherently peaceful species and as such, had no inclination to fight them, posing no threat to his regime. Even then, he was going to make sure that Alfheim bent the knee to his rule but not in the way Hela had done.

In the first place, it was forbidden to enter Alfheim because the leader of the Light Elves was someone who possessed complete awareness of his realm. Not even a single soldier could sneak into Alfheim without him knowing about it. In such a situation, considering the control he possessed over the light of Alfheim, it was no use in sending an army that would only be destroyed within moments of them touching land.

In such a situation, where Hela was supposed to stay still until they had decided on further direction, she had experienced another one of her bouts of madness and had unilaterally decided to go on to the one realm where no allies lived, at least in her mind she thought that.

Unfortunately, the leader of Alfheim was absent from the realm that day, the reason he did not know and thus, there was no one in the entire realm of Alfheim who could contend with Hela. On that fateful day, Hela proceeded to slaughter over half of the population of Alfheim with her darkness-fueled necromantic powers before he could stop her.

The Leader of the Light Elves, after coming back from wherever he had gone to, saw the state of his people and instead of flying into a fit of rage and fighting a dying battle with Asgard, chose to transmit the deeds of Hela Odinsdottir, damaging Asgard more than he ever could have if he had just chosen to battle him.

Then, he burned his life and soul to sever the connection of Alfheim to Yggdrasil and cut off their realm from the universe, hiding their homeland from the universe. To this day, neither he nor anybody else has found the Light Elves.

The repeated transmissions of his daughter's actions served, more than anything, a wake-up call to the senseless war he had waged all over the nine realms. So, that day, he chose peace and decided to unilaterally end the war. Everybody was surprised with the decision because they had all the reasons to go ahead and spread the war even more but in the end, even Asgardians had limits so most of the people were very happy that the long war was over once and for all. Hela, on the other hand, was not a normal Asgardian. Ever since she could fight, all she knew was war. It was his fault really that he had not expected such a reaction from her. She had openly rebelled against him, threatening to destabilise his regime as the only Heir rebelling against him would have made him the laughing stock in the universe.

Thus, he sent the Valkyrie ahead, fully knowing that most of them would die, just so he could prepare a large-scale ritual that would affect the entirety of the nine realms. The ritual was such that in addition to severing Hela's connection to Asgard, and using his Odin Force as the catalyst, it also made sure that Hela Odinsdottir was forgotten from history. Nobody would remember her and over time, the rest of the universe, save for the old civilizations, forgot about her as well.

And now, here they were, sitting on the cusp of Hela's freedom because, in his zealousness of banishing Hela, he had forgotten that he too would grow old one day. He had underestimated the tenaciousness of his daughter because, to this day, he could feel her magic knocking on the metaphorical walls of the prison he had imprisoned her. He could already envision her elation at figuring out that the magic was weakening day by day, bringing her day of freedom closer and closer.

None of his sons were a match for her. Sure, in the future, once they were allowed to grow into their respective powers, they would surely be able to hold their own against her but they had grown up in a time of peace. Fighting against Hela, who was born in war, bled in war, and learned in war, they would stand no chance as they were now. It was no wonder Frigga was despairing about the situation.

No. He would not allow it. He will not allow his visions of Ragnarok to come true, not if he had a chance of stopping it.

"We will stop her," he said to a surprised Frigga. He looked at her and banged Gungnir on the ground, creating a bang that sounded throughout Asgard.

"In the name of my father and his father before, I, Odin AllFather, swear to vanquish Hela, The Goddess of Death,"

The vow, cast upon the very source of his pool of powers, the Odin Force, reverberated across the Nine Realms, heard by every being of considerable power.

In the Guest Wing of Asgard

Alfred was in the middle of recasting the spell of darkness around the barrier that he had constructed around Toby when he stumbled forward as the magical impact of Odin's vow was felt by him.

In the barrier of the darkness within, Alfred could feel Toby stirring awake by the impact of the vow as well.

Ed could feel something happening but was not able to understand exactly what had happened.

Loki, who was standing on the Rainbow Bridge with Heimdall, something that he had found soothing, was surprised as he saw Heimdall staggering. He went forward to help but Heimdall steadied himself with his sword. He was about to ask what happened but the question got stuck in his mouth as Heimdall immediately turned tail and began running towards the center of the observatory, looking far more frantic than he had ever seen him in his entire life. Soon, the Rainbow Bridge Observatory was closed down in front of him as Loki wondered what exactly was happening. He looked back to the Royal Palace in concern as he began his journey back.

The same thing was happening across the nine realms, as the erased memories of Hela Odinsdottir began returning to beings of exceptional strength and old age.

Odin's vow had a cascading effect across the universe as the universe was once again introduced to the terror that was The Goddess of Death, Hela Odinsdottir.

Royal Court, Asgard

–Odin–

"What have you done?" Frigga asked him as she helped him sit back on his throne.

He had done the thing he should have done ages ago, vowed to solve a problem he was responsible for.

"We will help Alfred heal Ed. That is the best solution to all of this mess. For that, I am willing to risk everything because if I die and Hela wins, Asgard will not survive anyway," He said to Frigga, already thinking of places where the common populace can live while they deal with Hela.

Frigga looked shocked but nodded nonetheless. She stood up, "I will ask Alfred for ways to make sure that the common population can be safely evacuated to Earth. I am sure that with their influence, they can easily accommodate our people."

"Very well," He nodded to her.

She left the room, leaving him alone to ponder on his failures and the various mistakes that he had committed throughout his life.

"Huh, look at me, regretting my life like a mortal. I, Odin Borson, have lived a full life and will go out dying like a star. Nothing can stop me from achieving that." He chuckled wryly and leaned back into his throne, feeling truly free of his burdens for the first time in centuries.

It felt good.

---

Word Count - 2110
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 107

Technomancer in MCU

Royal Court, Asgard

–Ed–

Here they were, an hour after Alfred had recorded some sort of magical interference that ran across the nine realms. For reasons he could not understand, Odin and Frigga were suddenly on board with Alfred's crazy plan. They had also asked for ways to evacuate the entirety of the population of Asgard to a safe place, most likely, on Earth. The evacuation was supposed to be temporary of course but with the forces in play, none of them could guarantee complete success and as such, Frigga had asked them for alternate arrangements for a more permanent settlement on Earth.

He could only imagine the chaos that would happen across the planet when they realised that a society of superpowered bulletproof people would be living on the planet. More so, for people who follow the Norse religion, realizing that their Gods would once again walk the Earth. The mere thought of religion coming in and murkying the already turbulent waters made his head hurt even though it should have been impossible given he was in a puppet

Nevertheless, it was a no-brainer to evacuate all the nonrelated personnel off Asgard because of the ritual that was about to take place. He had asked Alfred about it and apparently, underneath Asgard, right below the Royal Palace actually, there existed a "safe" space. The space was intermingled with the roots of Yggdrasil, making it the place with the highest level of stability across the nine realms. It was also apparently an alternate dimension so the chances of the rest of the universe sniffing out about the multiple Infinity Stones in a single place would be quite nil. Asgard's deterrence also added another layer of safety because even if somebody did find traces of Infinity Stones on Asgard, as long as Odin was alive, not many had the guts to find out if the Old Man still had his strength or not.

So, there he was, communicating with Frank and Skye to create a settlement capable of housing just over a hundred thousand super-powered people.

"You want us to do what?!" Skye shouted across the comms. Frank just looked on dispassionately, waiting for further orders.

Skye, on the other hand, "You go for a trip across the galaxy for some important medical procedure and the next moment, you call us and you want to create a small city overnight?" She nearly shouted across the screen.

He sighed, "Look, it's just as a precaution but the chances of it being permanent are not zero. So, we have to take that into account. I am sure Alfred has already built a design for something like that,"

"I'm slightly offended that you even have to ask," The voice of Alfred could be heard speaking over the speakers in the base as well as right next to him. It was slightly creepy.

Skye's and Frank's eyes looked in another direction as Alfred must have shown them the plan for the city.

"What is this? Multiple locations? Single Access Point, Landlocked place, city-wide barrier, cloaking technology, flying island!? Multiple Large Arc Reactors, the foundation built with vibranium alloy? Are you nuts? This will cost us a fortune. Even the Inhumans didn't get anything this advanced."

He was about to explain the probable reasoning behind Alfred's actions but Frank beat him to it, "Skye, it's simple. Just compare the numbers. The ratio is 10:1 and the Inhumans can be trusted to be by themselves."

"Yes, the city is supposed to act like a natural blockade between regular squishy humans and bulletproof Asgardians," Alfred chimed in between.

"Ohh," Skye exclaimed.

He turned his attention back to Frank who was going over all of the different designs that Alfred must have made over the years, "What do you think, Frank?"

"Well, if you have said so, we have to build it. I am just looking for a city that can be built in the least possible time. The floating island will take too long and I am not about to take the chances of a floating island malfunctioning and slamming down somewhere because some angry Asgardians decided to drink a bit too much and destroy some critical infrastructure somewhere," Frank said.

Yeah, that was a very valid concern. Even here on Asgard, they must have an astonishingly skilled repair crew because things were broken by drunk people all the time. Sometimes, they were not even drunk and liked to break things for just fun. It would not be funny if, by some miracle, they managed to get past the reactor housing and blew themselves up.

He shuddered as he imagined that scenario. THor would be so angry and by the time THor grew into his powers, nobody in his employ would want to mess with God King Thor. It would just not be worth it.

"What do you think, Alfred? Which is the most optimal design?"

"Well, if we had time, we could have just built them another planetoid like this one but since we are short on time, I would suggest we go with a landlocked area somewhere in the poles, hidden by the natural cloaking abilities of the environment there," Alfred said.

"That's genius!" Skye added, "We could place the city in the most inhospitable environment possible, deterring any humans from coming nearby, and with the Asgardians being as hardy as they are, that level of cold would be nothing for them,"

"And even if they did feel cold, we can just manipulate the weather inside the barrier that will no doubt surround their city. They are space Vikings anyway, so this should be perfect for them. This should work," Frank added in his two cents as well.

He then clapped his hands, "Great! We have a location and design ready. I suggest you all get to work. We were able to build a huge section of Upper Manhattan within hours. This much should be done in less than a day, right?

He cut the call before Frank or Skye could voice their objections. This was going to put a dent in the resources they had and a bunch of manpower would probably be diverted from non-critical missions to make sure everything was done on time but they were ready. They would be able to do all the things in time.

"Ugh, this sucks. I can't even remember when I felt this week in my entire life as a demon," Toby groaned as he stumbled out of his bedroom and sat down on the dining table they had converted into their office space. It was huge so space was not an issue.

"Here, this should help," Alfred said before tossing something at Toby whose hand snapped up and caught it before it could hit his face. As Toby opened his fist, he could see a small ball of darkness that seemed to suck all the light surrounding it.

"What is it?" He asked the question Toby must have wanted to ask, Alfred.

"Oh, that is something I cooked over the night. COncentrated Darkness essence from an unclaimed alternate dimension. Should be like an energy booster for him," Alfred pointed at Toby before going back to work on his virtual workspaces that were invisible to everybody but him.

"Hmm, this feels weird but it's a potent source of energy. Much better than slowly drawing strength from the surroundings," Toby said as he continued to munch on the ball of darkness. He could see the effect too as colour returned to Toby's haggard face. Honestly, he felt a little guilty seeing his condition but it was not as if the reason he was exhausted so soon was because of Toby's tantrum. A tantrum so destructive that he had to overdraw on his abilities to help imprison him.

"Alfred, how many sorcerers can you spare with accurate portal opening capabilities?" He asked Alfred because the section of city creation was done now. Now, they had to figure out a way to transport everybody along with their items of luggage to Earth, especially to the North Pole.

"Hmm, that won't be necessary. I can create large gates on all the corners of the city. They can be easily anchored using my brand of runes. The only caveat will be that since I will be the one powering them, that too for such long distances and time, I will be unable to participate in the ritual immediately." Alfred said as he projected the schematics for the gate that would be anchored in the city. It looked pretty big in the model. At Least as large as the Rainbow Bridge observatory.

"Okay, that works. I will go and brief the Queen on this then,"

"Alright."

"Just go."

He turned around and left the dining area. Just as he was about to cross the hall, he froze and immediately turned around. Alfred and Toby were looking at some magic circle together when both of them looked up at him in confusion.

"Alfred, what is the status of Jane?"

He had a hunch that she was going to play a very important role in the upcoming events.

"Oh, she is resting currently, well at least according to Asgardian standards that is. She is now a full Asgardian and as such, needs next to no rest. Her intellect has been enhanced as well, judging by the sheer research ideas she has sent to me. Her magic has yet to be tested though,"

"I am talking about the Reality Stone inside her,"

"Oh, that. No, both Odin and Frigga have forbidden me from even touching that. So, I have no idea about that. Why?" Alfred looked at him curiously.

"What are the chances of training her under a time dilation powered by the Time Stone?"

Alfred suddenly gained an interested look on his face as he replied, "Well, normally, doing that would result in a subpar result at best and an explosion at worst since I myself am not yet capable of wielding two stones properly. Just like that, if the energy of the Time Stone washed over Jane, the Reality Stone could take that as a threat and retaliate. I would have to conduct some experiments but I could probably reach a balance where time could be slowed down for Jane as she practices her powers,"

"That was exactly what I wanted to hear. Now, calculate the chances of the ritual succeeding should the Reality Stone come into play. Even if she is unable to use it precisely, the Reality Stone should be able to alter some factors and increase our chances,"

Alfred looked at him before slowly floating away from the table and casting a spell on himself. He looked completely still for a minute or two before he opened his eyes and he found himself sighing in relief when he saw Alfred smiling.

"So, what are our chances now? Toby asked.

"Addition of the Reality Stone that alters the basic underlying parameters of the ritual in our favour increases our chances of success from 20.22% to 81.1%," Alfred said in a jubilant tone.

His body sagged in relief once he heard the news.

"I'll go tell Frigga and Odin about this new development. Do you have anything that I can give to them?"

"Oh, yes. Take this," Alfred handed him a piece of stone that was imbued with a message spell, containing all the data.

"Oh, right. Alfred, has Strange arrived yet?"

"Oh, yeah. He has already started breaking the rules of Kamar Taj. I am very delighted seeing Wong frustrated by Strange,"

"Great. Once Jane goes to Kamar Taj, train both of them in the time dilation. I am sure Strange will benefit from it as well. We are going to need all capable hands for the upcoming battle," He reminded Alfred before leaving the room.

Strange was someone who would go on to become even more skilled than the Ancient One but the reason he was able to master his skills so fast was because of the very nature of the Dark Dimension where Dormammu resided. Now that they had pretty much neutralised Dormammu and his realm, they would have to resort to artificial time dilation so that Strange could once again come into the skills and powers he knows he can reach once again.

Also, having two Sorcerer Supreme-level sorcerers backing the team up would not hurt anyone, especially against someone like Thanos who would most likely be armed with multiple Infinity Stones by the time they meet face to face.

---

Word Count - 2111
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 108

Technomancer in MCU

Stark Tower, New York, Earth

–Tony–

"Hey Tony, are you looking at this?" He poked his head out of his workstation as he heard Bruce speak something with a shocked voice.

"Jarvis?" He spoke up as soon as he opened his eyes from the short power nap he was taking. It must be nice, to have the option to keep sleep as optional. Although, now that he thought about it, the tradeoffs were really not worth it. Bruce's powers had that one upside that helped him in scientific research and a dozen downsides that turned his life upside down, robbing him of any stability, thus stopping him from conducting any worthwhile research.

"Yes, sir. Just 78 minutes ago, the custom satellite that Sir had launched a couple of months back sensed some unusual activity in the North Pole. Due to the weather, the satellite was unable to pinpoint anything other than clear signs of human movement. Huge blocks of mass are being moved from their place in the poles, sir. Multiple Bogies are en route for a better view, Sir." Jarvis kindly explained as a hologram popped up in front of him, showing rough outlines of the activity being carried out deep in the North Pole.

The astonishing thing was that it looked like they were carrying out construction activities of some sort and the people who could do that could be counted on one finger. Hell, he was not even sure he was capable of undertaking that task under those conditions. Building another Stark Tower in less than six months? Sure. But doing anything in those conditions was not possible for any organisation he knew of, except the Ascendancy, Atlantis, and maybe, Wakanda.

He then whirled to Bruce, "Have you confirmed it with the Wakandans?"

"I have taken the liberty to converse with their budding AI, Griot and according to her latest updates, there has been no scheduled large-scale activity outside their continent, let alone on the Poles. She has also assured me that Wakanda is currently incapable of doing anything of that level in those conditions. She has also conveyed our concerns to the Second Prince as well as the King and will get back to us as soon as possible," Jarvis chimed in between.

Well, that was helpful but not to them.

Well, he had an idea of how to better tackle the situation. It had been a while since he had gone out of the Tower as well so this presented a good opportunity to stretch their legs. "How long until the scanners reach the site, J?" He asked J as he began stretching in place. Bruce looked alarmed at his actions.

Understandable since the only time he did that was when he was about to suit up and Bruce must know that he was not going to go to the Poles alone and he was pretty sure that Bruce would not let him leave alone anyway. He was a bro like that.

"Due to the launch locations being far away and taking into account the weather conditions, it will be a while before the boogies can find a suitable place to land, Sir,"

He grinned at that news, "Perfect!"

"Tony, we should let Jarvis find out more details before we just storm that place." Bruce tried to reason with him but when has Tony Stark ever let logic stop him before?

He put his arm over Bruce's shoulder and began leading him away from the lab to their respective suit stations, not heeding any of his warnings even as he tried to stop him verbally.

Honestly, he thought that Bruce too wanted a piece of that action but was always afraid to do so because of his condition, as he liked to call it. Case in point, even as he tried to fight him tooth and nail about going to the North Pole, there was not even a shred of physical resistance from the bespectacled scientist even though he knew that the moment Bruce stopped walking, he would not pester him for it.

And yet, they found themselves standing in front of their respective suits. Bruce's was a surprise that he had kept for his birthday but he could think of something else for that day.

"Whaa-" Bruce's sound of confusion pleased him immensely. After all the work he had to put into making it compatible with Bruce's alter ego, that much was expected although the form they were seeing now was not the final one. They still had to do some testing in the field before it could be ready for deployment.

Keeping that in mind, he turned to Bruce, "So, what do you think? And before you say that you don't need it, I might have agreed with you had I not known that the Hulk is only limited by his mobility and this suit," He looked at the gigantic hulking(huh, pun intended) suit and sighed in joy. It truly was his masterpiece.

Standing at over 9 feet tall, the suit was huge, even for the Hulk but he had made it with extra features in mind, tapping the nanotech that Alfred had given them access to, in the Lab. It still boggled his mind that the tech he had access to, was somehow barebones for Alfred.

"Tony, I-I don't know what to say," Bruce said, getting all sappy on him. He honestly had no idea how to deal with emotions and someday he would have to learn that, at least for his future kids but for now? He was going to just ignore Bruce's teary eyes. The best he could do for him now was just clap him on the shoulder.

"So, wanna hear the features?" He asked Bruce as he rubbed his hands in excitement.

"I'm afraid I will have to interrupt that decision, Sir," He looked up at the ceiling in confusion.

His unasked question was answered soon because a hologram was projected right in front of him that depicted the surveillance bogies that Jarvis had sent ahead. They were following the correct path to the disturbances when, suddenly, they disappeared. Not attack or anything, just disappeared from any of the surveillance Jarvis had access to and he had access to almost everything.

"Tony, just what is going on?" Bruce asked him, aghast because he was aware of what went into the construction of those next-gen satellites. Because that's what those bogies were, mobile satellites that could be deployed at any location upon demand, made from the strongest possible alloys. It wasn't made of Vibranium or anything fancy like that but it could easily take a couple of hits from the Hulk and come out unscathed. For it to just disappear like that meant something else was afoot.

"J, do you still have a direct line to Alfred?" He really didn't want to talk to Alfred before talking to Ed because of the whole Strange debacle, which has conspicuously dropped form the radar after reaching Nepal. He didn't want to think about the choices Strange must have taken after his disability but right now, he had no other option. If it was an alien invasion like last time and they had some evil plan to melt the poles to bring about the biblical Flood, they would be well out of their depths here.

The hologram in front of him shifted from showing the tracking measures to a call page. It rang for a few seconds before it was picked up.

"Hey Alf-"

"Stark, why are your satellites intruding on our construction bases? I was not aware that the Poles were of that much interest to you," An unfamiliar voice spoke from the other side.

He and Bruce looked at each other, confused as to who picked up the call. He even looked at the ceiling with a raised eyebrow, conveying to Jarvis his question who responded by authenticating the link between him and Alfred in real time.

Clearing his throat, he spoke back, "Ahem, who am I speaking to?"

"You are speaking to Frank Castle, comm- ex-commander of the ground forces of Ascendancy. You will get your scrap back soon enough, Stark. We have no time for unscheduled deliveries right now. Goodbye,"

"W-Wait!" His words fell on deaf ears as the line was cut and it would seem that it had gone offline as well, stopping them from making any sort of communication with whatever the hell they were doing there.

A construction site? What were they even building in the North Pole?

Well, time to find out then.

His grin must have unsettled Bruce because he immediately began waving his arms back and forth, "No, Tony NO! You heard him. That man was a commander, well, ex-commander and he somehow took down the most advanced piece of armour we have ever developed. I, for one, would like to know more before we go to such a hostile environment, Tony."

He didn't stop grinning when he listened to the list of reasons Bruce laid down for not going. He didn't stop grinning when he eventually wore him down and made him enter the armour. He didn't stop grinning when Jarvis gave Bruce a crash course on his armour. He didn't stop grinning even when he heard Bruce's exclamations about the multitude of features he had built into the suit that were specialised for when Bruce "Hulked" Out.

His grin only faded once they entered the atmosphere right above the snowy terrain of the North Pole. Somehow, there was a snowstorm without any being predicted by any of the weather forecasts on the planet.

"Tony, you were right. This storm doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't exist. This is clearly artificial," Bruce's voice could be heard over the comms as he analysed everything about the storm in front of them. Normally, snowstorms should move, albeit slowly, but the one in front of them seemed to be fixed with the center being the place where Jarvis had initially detected activity. Activity that seemed to be absent from his sensors now that they were close by.

It would seem that they found the hole and plugged it. Pretty fast, he must say.

"What are we going to do now, Tony?"

"Bruce, have you ever wondered what it would be like to fall through a storm, straight into its center? I know I have?"

"Tony....*Sigh*.."

That was the only reply Bruce gave before he followed him right into the storm. He was not exactly falling into the storm. More like, they were rocketing right into the storm.

Right as they had entered the center of the storm, he heard Jarvis say something.

"Sir, unusual energy currents detected. Recommend Immediate Retre-a-a-t," Something happened because Jarvis' voice cut off, and then, the entire suit lost power, leaving him barrelling straight down into an icy storm.

He could barely see from the holes in the suit since no matter what he did, the suit refused to turn back on. Even the warmth from the Arc reactor was gone. Seeing that none of the measures worked, he closed his eyes and hoped for the best. He had trust in the suit that they would not die from the impact but they would most certainly die from frostbite.

Before he could feel the impact though, he felt his suit slowing down. He opened his eyes with hope, only to be greeted with a confusing scenery.

"Package secured," A robotic voice was heard outside his suit.

He was startled when his face mask was wrenched open. He blinked in response to the sudden light in his eyes but when his vision came back, he could only gape in awe.

He could see Bruce's suit being held aloft by a robot, the same with his suit. That was not the surprising part. The surprising part was the city that was being built in front of them.

A flying city!

Oh, this was going to be so awesome! He could just feel it in his bones.

….

…

"You will remain here until Commander Frank returns," The robot said before shutting the gates of their prison after removing their suits.

On second thought, maybe not so awesome.

"Well, at least it's not cold?" He offered to Bruce who was looking at him reproachfully.

---

Word Count - 2070
A/N - A slight detour from the mainline but the end is near. I can feel it. Maybe a dozen more chapters before the story ends. I can't wait to have my first ever fanfic finished. Oh, it will be such a relief.
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]

[A/N - Double Release Today.]


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

Chapter 109

Technomancer in MCU

Guest Wing, Asgard

–Ed–

"..Sigh… Just what was Stark thinking, barging in recklessly like that? Anyway, that's Frank's problem to deal with. How is the city coming along?" He asked Skye who was on the other side of the call. It had been almost 6 hours since they had given out the orders for the city to be built and the entirety of the Ascendancy was mobilised to make that happen.

Skye looked annoyed at that as well. Honestly, none of the people in the organisation had any time for the Billionaire turned-hero but they could not just ignore him either. God knows what that man would end up doing if he was kept alone for long. Frank and all of the departmental heads were busy, coordinating with each other as they diverted resources from everywhere to the construction site that was being built at the North Pole. Already, he could see the number of people who were actively working on the project increasing as time went on.

Honestly, somewhere along the way, he had amassed so many people and so many means to accomplish stuff that now that he was finally seeing the entirety of his organisation moving at the same time, it was kind of shocking.

For someone like him, who had expected to fight against Thanos, the big bad of the MCU, with Alfred, Toby, and maybe, the reunited Avengers, this was all very surprising. He could honestly say that, as they were now, they would be able to triumph over the current roster of Avengers without much difficulty or even any casualties.

And wasn't that a terrifying thing to think about? The greatest champions of Humanity, defeated by something that he had started after getting an offhand comment from Alfred about him overworking himself and needing some sort of support system to help stem the flow of tasks.

"We are done with the foundations of the city, which was the easiest part. We already had a model for that from the New Attilan city so we just copy-pasted that along with adding sturdier vibranium alloyed foundations as per the requirements," Skye reported to him. He nodded along, fully aware of the requirements of a bunch of rowdy Asgardians who could just as easily tear off a metal bar as an adult human tearing a piece of plastic bag.

"What about the accommodations?" He found himself asking her because while accommodations were a priority, luxury accommodations were not something that was necessary, especially since that could be built later on if–when Asgard was destroyed. Right now, all they needed to build was makeshift structures with enough resources to safely sustain the entire population of Asgard for at least a week.

It would not take anywhere that long to complete the ritual but for a safe side, Alfred had made that a requirement.

"Temporary accommodations are being constructed as we speak. We should have more than enough for everybody but if we need more, we can just project hard light constructs as per requirements. Hard light constructs were chosen to be installed at every possible place to ensure maximum coverage across the city, for both accommodation as well as security purposes. Alfred assured me that the newer hard light projectors will have the necessary throughput in them to stop even the stronger Asgardians from breaking through," Skye continued, reading through a bunch of reports that were being continually fed to her through her retinal HUD, that were active even now as she spoke with him.

"What about Asgardian weapons, though?" He asked Skye when it crossed his mind. Asgardian weapons were more often than not, made out of better materials and also enchanted at times. Allowing them to be sharper than most things on Earth. He was curious as to how it was going to be handled.

Skye grimaced at that question, "Well, blunt weapons can be stopped to a certain point. Certainly not Mjolnir but an enchanted hammer can be stopped, probably, but enchanted sharp weapons like a sword or an axe would most likely cleave right through the hard light barriers. The solution that I have come up with, and Alfred agrees with it too, is to abandon that section of hard light immediately and cover the entirety of the weapon, along with its wielder, in Hard light, rendering them immobile. The other option would be increasing the throughput of the Hard Light projectors but with the power we have on hand at the island, what with only a single Large Arc reactor being installed along with 4 Small ones for backup, we cannot increase the strength of the barriers. I see in the schematics that Alfred has created the infrastructure for a future upgrade to an N-reactor in the future but for now? The Arc reactor would have to do."

"What if there are other people who can help the imprisoned weapon user? What is the strate-"

"Ed, I am going to stop you right there. I have a lot of stuff to do and reporting everything to you will take more time than it is worth now. I know you trust everyone to do their jobs so why the sudden interest in everything?" She sighed, turned off her retinal HUD, and asked him the question that he feared.

Yeah, why was he pestering her for such small details when he knew that Alfred was there with her, along with every single person in the Ascendancy on her speed dial, ready to drop everything and assist her in the current project because it has been assigned importance level "SSS" by Alfred himself. He had no reason to pull her aside from her duties and demand updates that could just be given to him on a tablet that Alfred no doubt updates in real-time.

He was just…

He sighed, his shoulders drooping as he replied, not finding it within himself to look right in the concerned eyes of Skye, "Look, I don't know what to do, alright? I guess I am a little bit scared as well. I had already given up on healing my body and resolved to go out with a bang, at least heavily injuring Thanos before you all took him down for good,"

Skye just looked at him with compassion in her eyes as he continued to talk about what he was feeling at the moment.

"Now, Alfred says that we have a very high chance of succeeding, and in my mind, I want to believe him but the what-ifs keep running in my head. What if the ritual fails and instead of restoring me back to my peak, what if it ends up hurting the strongest people we have on our side because that is what is on the line? Toby, Alfred, Thor, Loki, You, and Banner are all the strongest people in the fight against Thanos and I fully believe that even without me, you will eventually defeat him but Alfred's insisting on competing in the ritual and I guess, even I have gotten a little hopeful about it,"

He then chuckled wryly, "I'm sorry. Just ignore my ramblings. I am sure you have a lot of work to do," He was about to cut the call when Skye spoke up.

"No. No, you are correct in that regard and I don't think there is a single thing that you can do to convince Alfred and the others to stop, not now of all times." Skye spoke. She then did something and Maria Castle of all people was added to the call.

Before he could get a word in, Maria spoke, "Hello, what do you need, Skye? Oh, hello, Ed. What's going on?:"

"Oh, yeah, Maria, Ed is going into a tirade about how risky the ritual is and how we should just let him die instead of risking hurting all of our strongest players in the ritual."

He glared at Skye, betraying him like that. Getting a lecture from Maria was the last thing he wanted to do today.

Skye then waved her hand towards him and said, "Continue…" Then she skedaddled out of the call.

He looked at Maria who looked equal parts angry and hurt, the worst possible combination when it came to her, "L-look, I can explain…"

North Pole, Earth

–Skye–

She sighed after getting out of the call. Honestly, what was Ed thinking? Of course, they would try anything and everything to get him healed. He was their leader.

Before she could get a moment of respite, somebody barged into her makeshift office which was just a hard light conjuration.

"Commander Skye, Commander Castle has returned from Atlantis,"

"Ex-Commander," She corrected the person who had come in.

"Um, Mam?"

'Sigh, Just go. I'll be there in a second,"

"Yes, Mam!" He saluted and left her office.

Frank had gone on a warpath on the planet, making sure that no chaotic element remained that could distract the organisation from working at peak efficiency. From the mystic hotspots that had innumerable mages to the hidden civilisations like Atlantis to the scattered small groups like the Skrulls, Eternals, and even the Deviants. Each and every one of those people was intimidated by the might of Ex-Commander Castle, backed by the might of Ascendancy.

All that was left was the United States along with the Avengers. It was a good thing that Stark himself came to them before Frank sought him out. With Stark's ego, who knows what would have happened had they clashed?

Actually, she knew exactly what would have happened. Frank would have easily dismantled any attack Stark would have thrown at him and then they would have had to deal with a Hulked out Bruce Banner which was honestly, easier than she had thought.

The Hulk was terrifying because there were very few things that could survive a straight bout with him. Then, the solution was simple. Don't interact with him at all. The first sign of Bruce Banner turning green, multiple nano pockets would be launched at him that would continue to cling to his body, eventually burrowing inside his skin and lathing themselves to his bones. Then, the bots would go down to the soles of his feet and emit repulsors at the highest settings, vaporising his legs but to ensure that the Hulk would not be able to just remove the bots, it was a small price to pay. It would be painful, sure, but Bruce Banner would thank them for it, especially since the foot would keep on regenerating as long as Bruce was green.

She sighed, she was going on more and more tangents ever since she was given command of this project. Honestly, why couldn't Frank take the lead this time? She was just a baby and given this task was kinda overwhelming but Daisy Johnson was made of sterner stuff and she would prevail over this admitted huge task.

She slapped herself on the cheeks to get out of the rut and stormed out of the office, her tablet floating behind her.

She marched straight towards the temporary hangar that was built on the floating city. Well, it was temporary for their organisation but if it was compared to any hangar on the planet, it would be better than all of the hangars and runways that any country had ever built. It helped that their jets were all running on anti-gravity technology though. That, and Repulsor jets made it very easy to make jets with VTOL [Vertical Take-Off & Landing] capabilities.

Once she was inside the Hangar, she saw Frank speaking to his team while handing over his stained uniform to a bot that had appeared by his side.

"What happened in Atlantis?" She asked him once he was in hearing range.

Frank turned around and after looking at her, dismissed his team, all of whom had varying degrees of wear and tear on their suits.

"What happened to their suits?"

Frank looked at her and sighed, "Long Story,"

She found herself nodding even though she was very curious as to who and what could force Frank to fight himself instead of employing the vast firepower they had access to, especially since Alfred had mass produced captain-class armours and distributed them en-masse to all field agents. Frank was, essentially, carrying around a large country's army around with him at all times so them encountering any opposition that was not immediately overcome was kind of surprising.

"But we are go for mission Asgard then?" She asked him. They had been sent a list by Alfred with things to do before the main forces of their organisation could be shifted to Asgard, to act as security for the ritual.

It included eliminating a ton of people and destroying a couple of organisations that were still budding along with tasking the current rules of various countries to make sure that their dissenting organisations were nipped in the bud. Various stray organisations that had built up in both Atlantis and Wakanda had to be destroyed before they could make their moves. It was also to act as a reminder to both of the countries' Kings that they were still under the surveillance of the Ascendancy.

"Yes. The list is done. We can go to Asgard once the city is done. Namor was surprisingly understanding once I beat him,"

His last statement raised her eyebrows in surprise. Defeating Namor, especially underwater, was a task even for the Hulk then how did he…

"Oh, Namor is a mutant by his species' standard and you just nullified his powers?"

"I was able to do that barely but it was enough to convince him. Oh, what's this I hear about Stark intruding on the base?"

"Oh, you are not going to like this," She grimaced as she reported the situation to Frank, who looked more and more resigned as time went by.

"Fine, lead the way," Frank said, resigned to dealing with the most troublesome member of the Avengers.

She would be lying if she did not find the situation a bit exciting. The billionaire was known to push the right buttons of everybody around him and she could not wait to see how Frank would react.

---

Word Count - 2386
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 110

Technomancer in MCU

Royal Palace, Asgard

–Ed–

"So, I just had a long chat with Maria and she revealed an interesting fact to me. Care to listen, Alfred?" He asked Alfred who was busy doing who knows what on the literal hundreds of windows he had opened in front of him. Some of them showed progress on the city's infrastructure being built, some of them showed old obscure maps of the universe, and some of them showed magical symbols that he couldn't make heads or tails of.

The bottom line was that Alfred was very much busy and yet he had found through his talks with Maria that Alfred had been the person who was just as nervous as he was. Granted, a degree of concern was expected from someone who was the closest thing he had to a son in this universe but Alfred really liked to project this cool suave image of himself so he thought, maybe, he could come here and rib him a little bit, like he does to his "old man" even though he is not even in his 30s yet.

Damn, 30 and still hadn't even kissed a girl in this universe. Once he is healed up, maybe he should just advertise that fact to the world. Heaps of girls would just jump on the chance to date him. By then, he would be rich, handsome, powerful, and "gifted" in all the right places.

"What is it, Old man? Can't you see that I am a little busy here? Even for someone like me, balancing the careful act of maintaining the facade that everything is alright while also making sure that sufficient forces are stationed at every single one of our colonies is a huge task. It is not made easy by the fact that almost all of the top-tier combat prowess of our organisation are either going to be busy participating in the ritual or busy protecting the ritual room. The only available S-tier combatant who would be free and available for deployment would be Grand Priest Ajax and even then, we don't have enough skilled sorcerers who can open portals across the galaxy on demand. So, once again, what do you want?"

Alfred went on this huge ramble about his workload even though he knew that his brain was literally built to handle tasks thousands of times more complex than this. He could understand Alfred's dilemma, to be honest. They did have a surplus of technology and resources that would make handling any civilisation a piece of cake but what they didn't have were people strong and skilled enough to safely operate that technology. Alfred was going to cut himself off from everything when the ritual was taking place which meant the entirety of the organisation would have to run by themselves.

It was good that they had a trial run when Alfred gave them all a jump scare a while back when he went to make his body. The second part was that all of the strong people were going to be needed on Asgard to make sure that the ritual room was protected. In Alfred's words, "If this is not the time for overkill, I don't know what is," And he agreed with him.

But seeing the list of people who were going to be on Asgard for his protection would have made his teenage nerd self cry with joy and awe.

"I was just concerned about the fact that you seem to be concerned about the ritual, despite all the calculations you have no doubt done to be sure," He said to Alfred off-handedly, quite aware that he doesn't like that.

Alfred sighed, "Maria told you didn't she,"

"Yeah,"

"There is nothing to worry about. I mean, there is something to worry about but I don't think it will be so much of a problem that the entirety of our gathered forces will be unable to deal with,"

He caught on to Alfred's meaning immediately, "So you are positive that it is time for "it" to come out,"

"Very soon. The strain of the ritual would most probably release "it" from its prison,"

He nodded along, agreeing with Alfred's predictions. The reason they were bringing in so much outside help was for many reasons but the major one among them was Hela Odindottir, Goddess of Death.

Alfred had confided in him, under closed barriers, that it was a near certainty that Odin would weaken himself to such an extent, during the ritual, that the prison surrounding Hela would break apart with ease, unleashing the Goddess of Death once again onto the nine realms. Defeating Hela was very simple, at least in his eyes since he was aware of what Thor did to defeat her in the movies, but the complication arose when they had need of Asgard's ritual room since there was no other place in the entire known universe where they could field so much of their forces while also getting the best possible environment for the ritual.

No, it had to be on Asgard and it had to be done using the Infinity Stones. Stones that could not be wielded by many people on their side. Odin being one of the very few beings who can do so, cannot be excused from the ritual, and in doing so, if Odin weakened to the extent of making one of their bigger enemies appear in a place already armed to the teeth and ready to take out any threat with extreme prejudice, then nobody can blame them for that coincidence.

"Are we sure of your plan working against"it "?" He asked Alfred who looked annoyed at having his plans questioned by nearly everyone in the organisation. To be fair to them, it was a very unorthodox method but nearly everyone was sure that Alfred could not be wrong regarding this yet the uncertainty gnawed at them. Because Hela was someone who had a birthright connection to Asgard itself. A connection that was only temporarily severed by Odin. The connection would slot itself back into place once the prison surrounding Hela was broken and she stepped foot on Asgard. The very energies surrounding Asgard would empower her to such a degree that defeating the likes of Thor and Loki would be child's play for her. Once she was fully acclimated to being the Queen of Asgard, even someone like Thanos would undoubtedly struggle against her and even be eventually defeated, given that Hela was an Asgardian who was undoubtedly in her prime.

"Yes, I am sure. Well, as sure as I can be against someone of that caliber. Let's just say I have a 90% certainty," Alfred added in the end, not gaining any points on the certainty front.

"That's reassuring to hear. Certainly, better odds than anyone who has ever faced my daughter has ever said,'' Odin's voice sounded directly in their ears. He looked at Alfred who just looked annoyed that their conversation was being heard by Odin, despite all their protective measures. It would seem that as long as they were on Asgard, no amount of measures could keep them from the prying eyes of Odin All-Father.

He looked behind him, only to see no one.

"Meet me in my study," Was the only thing Odin's voice said to them before it became silent in the room.

"That old man has no sense of privacy, does he?" Alfred asked rhetorically before waving his hands, closing down all the windows that were opened by him. They were mostly for anybody who could walk in on him working because as far as he was concerned, Alfred could do that a thousand times over without even breaking stride.

"I don't think you would be required to sit in on that meeting. Why don't you go and check on the evacuation processes?" Alfred asked him uncharacteristically.

He was taken aback at that question. Why would Alfred not want him at that meeting even though he too heard Odin's voice and he was pretty sure that Odin did not make a mistake when he projected his voice across the palace? He was old but not that gone yet.

He was about to ask Alfred about it but his question was stuck in his mouth when he saw the very serious, nearly pleading look on Alfred's face. He closed his mouth and just nodded at that.

"Okay, then. I will see you later. I'll just go and check in on what Thor and Loki are doing." he said and walked out of the room as Alfred just turned intangible and started floating straight through the floors of the Royal Palace.

The thoughts of that meeting kept plaguing him until he exited the palace and headed straight toward the market centre where Thor and Loki were stationed to solve any problems that might arise during the evacuation process. The real evacuation was still hours away but the preparation for that was being done right now. He could see that he was also being followed by a bunch of guards ever since he had exited the palace. Must be done on Odin's or Frigga's orders which was good because his current body was barely stronger than an average human and he had a hunch that it was not going to be enough if there was a stampede-like situation. As he was now, even a teenage Asgardian could tear right through him.

A thought that made him pat himself on the back for coming up with the idea to create a floating city, especially in the North Pole. It gave the Asgardians the option to move to a better area once it became permanent but it also allowed them to be isolated from the regular squishy, non bulletproof humans.

"Ah, Ed! Welcome to Thor's Evacuation Preparation Centre!" Thor said to him in his usual booming voice.

"For the last time, we are not calling it that," Loki said to him snidely before focusing back on the woman who had brought some sort of luggage to him.

Thor ignored his brother without even a hint of his sunny smile fading, "What can I do for you, Ed? I don't think you have any luggage that is not packed, do you?"

He smiled and shook his head, "No, I don't want any help with my luggage. I just wanted to talk to you,"

"Oh, Just give me a moment. I'll be there with you in a second," He then put his hand on his face and mockingly whispered to him, "I am not actually needed here. I just came to give company to Loki. I am sure Loki will handle it just fine," Thor then turned around to presumably order some of the soldiers to man the station but before he could do that, he intervened.

"Actually, I wanted to talk to the Princes of Asgard, both of them," he said with a smile on his face, hoping that it didn't look suspicious to them.

Loki and Thor both looked at each other in confusion and then at him with suspicion. He kept his smile plastered on his face as is.

Loki looked at him deeply for a moment before nodding at Thor would immediately began ordering some soldiers to take their place on the station before gesturing for him to follow them. Thor took him through some twists and turns before they found themselves in front of a small lake with children either playing in the playground in the center of the lake or just frolicking away in the lake's pristine water, unaware of the dangers their country was about to be.

"Envious, isn't it?" He heard Loki speak as all of them sat on the stairs in front of the lake's entrance.

"Hmm?" He looked questioningly at Loki who looked somewhat sad as he looked at the children playing.

"Their blissful ignorance. It's envious to me how they can be so carefree, so unknowing of the dangers they live with. To be so free, to enjoy everything without any second thoughts," he did not expect Loki of all people to initiate the conversation with him.

"Aye, brother. I feel the same sometimes too but it is because of us that they can enjoy that childhood full of innocence and ignorance. A period of time before they are exposed to the ugliness of the world and how it changes and affects the world around them." Thor said.

"So, how goes the preparation for our new home in Midgard?" Loki asked him, using the word "home" inconspicuously in the conversation as if that was not a dead giveaway that he knew about their plan.

"Wh-what are you talking about, brother? We are only going to stay in that place for the duration of the ritual. After that, everything goes back to normal, right, right?!" Thor's smile faded as he looked at the solemn look on his face.

"I don't know, brother. Ask him. Ask him what would be the after-effects of the ritual, even if we did succeed, and why they have no doubt started building a permanent residence for all Asgardians on Midgard." Loki said as he looked right ahead.

Well, Damn.

---

Word Count - 2219
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 111

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

"Wh-what are you talking about, brother? We are only going to stay in that place for the duration of the ritual. After that, everything goes back to normal, right, right?!" Thor's smile faded as he looked at the solemn look on his face.

"I don't know, brother. Ask him. Ask him what would be the after-effects of the ritual, even if we did succeed, and why they have no doubt started building a permanent residence for all Asgardians on Midgard." Loki said as he looked right ahead.

Well, Damn.

Royal Palace, Asgard

–Ed–

Ah, this was not good. They were not going to reveal it to Thor or Loki, not right now at least. It would just undoubtedly complicate matters with Thor being one of the very few beings capable of matching Thanos, even in his empowered form, after inheriting the Odin FOrce along with getting the connection to Asgard. The Asgard that was made from its people and not the place because that was what Alfred had theorised about.

The collective population of Asgard generated an energy pool that was so dense that, in conjunction with Odin Force, the force was able to propel Thor's power levels to such levels that even the other SkyFathers of other pantheons were unable to match him. He personally believed that Thor had become strong enough to even match or exceed some of the weaker no-name celestials in combat prowess and that was saying something.

So, for something like this to come up at the last moment that could turn Thor against them was very much undesirable, both for the ritual and the eventual fight against Thanos because nowhere in Alfred's simulations had he calculated for Thor's animosity towards their organisation.

He had to clear things up, or else they could have a huge problem on their hands right before the ritual.

"Er, I can explain?"

Honestly, not a great start to an explanation.

"What is going on? Explain," Thor's voice boomed out as he stood up and loomed over him, his powers responding to his mood, causing thunderstorms to occur over Asgard.

Damn. All that with just a word? Impressive.

Seeing that he had no way out of the situation without placating the Crown Prince, especially in his weak body, he sighed and slumped down on the ground even more, if that was even possible.

"Look, you know about the ritual? It is the only method to heal my body and the reason Alfred is so hell-bent on healing me is because–"

"It's because of Thanos, isn't it? I mean, I get that he will do anything to save his master/creator but for Odin to agree to it, there has to be another reason for it." Loki interrupted him. He was also spot-on with his explanation.

The only problem was that the word seemed to hit a sour spot with Thor as the thunder in the air intensified and the smell of ozone filled the air.

"What about Thanos?" Thor asked him, only this time, it lacked any of the bombastic flair that Thor was known for. This time, it was a deathly quiet whisper that managed to even scare him. Why would Thor be so mad at…

"Does he know about Thanos then? How he was the one who enslaved you?" His gaze snapped to Loki.

Loki looked consterned at the question but nodded slowly nonetheless. So, that was the reason for Loki's freedom.

"So that was why you were not punished? Can you tell me how Asgard managed to not declare war on the Mad Titan after the fact was made public?" He found himself asking Thor as Thor took deep calming breaths and once again took a seat on his side, looking over at the lake in front of them.

"It was Father. He forbid us from retaliating against Thanos in any form. He said that we would have our chance and Thanos would eventually pay for what he did to Loki, so I stayed my hand," Thor replied instead of Loki.

So, that's what happened. Even then, he was kinda surprised that Thor would follow Odin's orders regarding that. Then again, past experiences must have taught Thor that going against Odin's express orders probably would not have gone well for him again.

Well, time to rip off the bandaid then. Besides, he was pretty sure that Loki was aware of the consequences of the ritual anyway so might as well tell them before they fell off even more in Thor's eyes.

"Look, the ritual is going to be very energy intensive. The energies released from the ritual, even if it is successful, will create an explosion that will most probably engulf all of Asgard. Even if we are successful, Asgard, or rather the rock that Asgardians live on right now, will be no more but on the plus side, all Asgardians will be safe and the city we are building for you is better than this one in every conceivable way," He said before bracing for impact.

"I see," Thor's voice was normal, which was oddly alarming for him. The winds began picking speed as it started raining all over Asgard as far as he could see. He expected THor to last out at him but the last thing he expected was for him to feel a crater forming right beside him as Thor had flown away, heading straight for the Palace.

Loki sighed beside him, "He will not be taking it well and if I know Father, he will not be taking it well either. I would not recommend being there when their clash inevitably happens and Ed, I realise that Asgard is where all the Asgardians are but you can't expect for us to not fight for the place we are brought up in?" Loki asked him before his form just fizzled away, his real body was probably already at the palace or maybe they were talking to an illusion or a clone for all this time, who knows. You never know that with Loki.

He sighed once again; it would seem he was doing that a lot lately. He turned around and looked at his entourage which was no longer hiding. Some of them looked pretty shocked about their Princes' abrupt departures and the rest of them were looking at him with suspicion and wariness. Well, it was not like he could do anything about that. Ultimately, if they succeeded or not, he was going to be the reason for the destruction of the place where they were born and brought up. Even with the new city, he reckoned that it would take a long time for them to forget about their home, especially with most of them easily living to a thousand years old. God, they were a long-lived race.

"Well, fellas, I suppose we should go to the Palace then?" He asked his guards rhetorically as they nodded and waved him along, escorting him through the market streets.

Odin's Study

–Odin–

Honestly, what sort of mess were those troublesome people going to put him into now? Taking the name of his daughter and not expecting him to notice, that too on Asgard itself. Did they think he had gone senile? He may have lost the ability to channel large amounts of Odin Force through his body without damaging it but he was still Odin Borson, the strongest Asgardian to ever live.

"What's wrong?" Frigga, sensing his mood change, asked him.

"Nothing, they were talking about her and I sensed her name being uttered so I called them over,"

Frigga nodded, "I see. I would not be surprised if they already know of her and were thinking about how to deal with her even before we told them about it,"

"Yeah, they do seem like the people who would have troublesome information like that before everybody else," he grumbled to her.

It was already damaging to his pride to have to ask for help from someone, even if his pride was slightly soothed by the fact that they also needed something that he was going to provide. Now, he had to deal with the fact that Thanos was probably on his way here to get some of the Infinity Stones that have no doubt appeared on his radar. The more frustrating thing was that there were even more Stones to come before they were ready for the ritual.

He was sure that there was nothing in the world that could deter someone like Thanos from coming here and getting the Stones, even if it meant fighting someone like him.

Although, looking at his frail hands, was he even strong enough now? To fend off someone like Thanos who no doubt already possessed at least a single Infinity Stone on his side.

The sound of his door opening brought him out of his morbid thoughts. He looked up to see Alfred entering his study; sitting in the chair in front of his desk and then looking at him expectantly.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" He asked Alfred, hoping that he would show some remorse in conspiring to kill his firstborn but no..

Alfred shrugged and replied, "Well, what do you want me to say? Your daughter is a major threat, not just to the ritual but to the continued peace that the nine realms enjoy. One of said nine realms just so happens to be Earth and we will do whatever it takes to protect it,"

That…was not an unreasonable thing to expect from them. Also because the city they were building for New Asgard was also on Earth and despite their claims of it being a flying city, he had qualms about the city being sturdy enough to fly out of Midgard's atmosphere, after all, it was built by mortals, on Midgard.

"We get it. Hela needs to be dealt with but I hope you know the problem with doing that while the ritual is ongoing?" Frigga asked Alfred, getting to the crux matter at hand.

Alfred nodded, "Yes, I am aware of Hela's connection to Asgard that she gained as her birthright. We have different solutions for that but her domain being the Goddess of Death kinda screws things over. We have plenty, well not plenty, but multiple people on our side who can soundly push her back and with collaboration, even kill her,"

He scoffed at that. There was no killing Hela. He of all people was more than aware of that. As long as Asgard existed, she existed.

Alfred eyed him while he continued, "I know that she cannot be killed for good without destroying her connection to Asgard. I also know that the current Asgard is a mass of energy created from the continued existence of generations of Asgardians that have called this place home. At this point, it would not be wrong to say that whatever empowerment Thor would gain from gaining your Odin Force would be more or less equivalent to what Hela would gain from her connection to Asgard. Am I wrong?"

He scoffed openly while agreeing with his statement internally.

"The only reason that would be true is because Thor would be too inexperienced to handle it otherwise the Odin Force is much much stronger,"

"I concur with that statement. Unfortunately, we cannot sever the connection to the current Asgard anymore because you are not at the age to do it, and destroying Asgard before the ritual is done is out of the question so the only option we have is to fight her with all we have,"

Before he could get a word in, Alfred continued, "Don't worry, we won't be asking normal Asgardian soldiers to just sacrifice their lives for something that we want so we have made sure that the strongest of our forces will be stationed on Asgard right before the ritual."

"And what can mere Midgardians do that my Einharjar can't?" He asked Alfred, offended at the notion that his soldiers would be any weaker than whatever meager forces that their organisation can drum up. Sure, there were noteworthy warriors among them that could have given even Surtur a run for his money but they were few and far between.

"You need more than a few powerful warriors to keep Hela at bay. The longer she remains of Asgard, the stronger she becomes and besides, even if you managed to kill her once, she will come back and she will come back stronger. A method used once to defeat her will not affect her once again so I am curious as to what army you have that can keep Hela Odinsdottir, Goddess of Death at bay?" He asked Alfred, his voice booming.

Alfred's face twitched as he tried to hide a smile forming on his face, "Well, we didn't want to tip our hand this early but here goes. We have them,"

A projection appeared on his table, showcasing the number of soldiers. Midgardian soldiers who were fighting and killing Fire demons with astonishing brutality. They were having an easier time doing it than his soldiers ever did.

His eyes narrowed as he looked closer at the footage, "The armour they are wearing,"

"That is correct. Those are armours that are standard issue in our organisation. That allows every single soldier to hit harder than even the strongest of your Asgardian soldiers, sans you and Thor, of course," Alfred said.

"Then, there are specialised teams made for different scenarios. Some of them are capable of fighting and defeating your son as well," Alfred said before the projection changed scenes, showing them a fight between two people. The amount of power he could see in them was astonishing.

Where in the nine realms were they hiding such people and why did Heimdall not see them earlier?

His unasked question was answered by Alfred, "Don't blame Heimdall. Our base is well protected against seers of all kinds. The measures might not work here, in your domain, but even you can't see into our base from this far away."

"Then there is the technology that will be brought in to devastate the surroundings. Since it is going to be destroyed anyway, we have decided to bring in every single weapon, even the ones that cause irreparable damage to the planet." Alfred said before the projection changed even more, showing flying warships capable of destroying Midgard several times over.

Bor's beard! These people had been collecting weapons of mass destruction for who knows how long.

How did they do all of this undetected?

"That was…reassuring," he looked at Frigga who said that hesitantly, then he looked at Alfred who looked at them innocently. It was equal parts worrying and reassuring.

It was good that they were steadfast allies otherwise just thinking of the consequences of becoming their enemy without him being around to protect Asgard was terrifying to even consider.

---

Word Count - 2508
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 112

Technomancer in MCU

Royal Palace, Asgard

–Alfred–

Well, that went well. He was actually quite glad that he was able to perfectly control all autonomous reactions that his body would give when he was feeling different types of emotions. He was actually quite nervous when he was presenting rough information about the bulk of their forces to Odin.

It was nerve-wracking because, even now, he could feel the connection Odin had to his Odin Force and the terrifyingness of that Force was something that could not be ignored, even at Odin's advanced age. If he so wished, he could probably wipe out the entirety of Earth in one go, at the age he was at. It would seem that the Norse Mythology about Asgardians growing only stronger with the passage of time was true.

And since that was proven true, he would actually love to take Thor with him to train with Jane in the time dilation bubble that they were going to train in, with Strange of course. It would no doubt immensely accelerate the timeline at which Thor's body was becoming accustomed to the energy stored within his body and turn him into an absolute powerhouse that could help stop Thanos, this time, once and for all.

Judging from the reactions of Odin and Frigga, they were understandably cautious about the firepower they had access to but in the current circumstances, they had no choice but to swallow their objections and agree to putting all of their powers together to defeat the evil that was plaguing the universe, The Mad Titan, Thanos.

"By the way, how did you guys come to know of Thanos?" He asked them the question that had been brewing in his mind. The most obvious answer would have been through Loki once they had inspected the signs of mind magic on him but then, he remembered the pride and arrogance that Loki had about being the Master of Magic on Asgard so he crossed out that option because Loki would never willingly declare his weakness to others, even if they were his adopted parents.

"How does anybody else know of the Mad Titan? From one of the many refugee waves that found their way into the nine realms once their civilisations collapsed after half of their people died," Odin scoffed as he once again looked into the distance vacantly. Frigga nodded beside him.

"And….what about Loki?" He asked them hesitantly because he was not the only one who had noticed the increased respect that the Second Prince of Asgard, Loki, enjoyed at this point in time. From Ed's memories and even from Thor's testimonies, they were sure about the treatment that Loki received from the locals of Asgard. If it had to be described in a way, it felt as if the entire country of Asgard had seemingly forgotten their previous disdain for the ways of magic and had embraced Loki to be another warrior just as capable as Thor, who, in their objective opinion, was much stronger, at least at this point in time.

"What of him?" Odin's gaze snapped towards him, his earlier vacant gaze all but gone. Frigga's eyes had an uncomfortable intensity when she looked at him at the same time as Odin.

All his calculations told him that clearing this would be the best thing to do before the eventual battle but his senses were warning him that the people in front of him were very tightly wound about that topic and it would be better to avoid that topic since one of them was going to die during the ritual anyway and the other one would not be as big of a threat without the other. It should not be forgotten that the reason Frigga was so feared across the nine realms and beyond as The Witch of Asgard was not just because of her vast knowledge and skills in the mystic arts, it was also because she was capable of causing just as, if not more damage than Odin, using the Odin Force. Yes, He had read all about it in the personal diaries of the Ancient One that she had bestowed upon him. In the centuries that they had been together, Frigga and Odin had devised some sort of symbiotic spell series that allowed Frigga to borrow or use the Odin Force without relying on Odin's presence. With the Odin Force being a near-endless well of power, Frigga could cast her deadly spells practically innumerable times, turning her into a one-woman army, capable of crushing most civilisations all by herself. Add in her knowledge of esoteric knowledge that was said to have surpassed even the Ancient One's, his mind was clearly telling him that pissing off Frigga, who loves her sons the most, would be the worst thing he could do at the moment, especially since Odin seems to be on her side at the moment.

"...I suppose you know of what happened when Loki fell off the–"

"Yes, we are more than aware of what that fiend did to our son," Odin said as Frigga's fists clenched, both of their presences pressing down on the room, making it creak in protest. Frigga then continued, "And he will pay for what he did and I will be there to see it happen. He will not get the salvation he so seeks, I will make sure of it," Frigga said and at that moment, the dark aura that was coming out of her made him realise that they were going to win. No matter what, they were going to win and Thanos was going to lose. With or without Ed, these people are not going to stop and with the dark look that Frigga had in her eyes, she would probably go to the edge of madness itself to safeguard her sons.

Oh, Thanos was done for. There was no way he was going to even get the stones for his…guant….let.

SHIT!

His eyes widened as a series of curses escaped his mouth. He immediately cast a series of spells, manifesting thousands of magic circles in the throne room, unheeding of the startled states of both Frigga and Odin.

"What is this?" Odin exclaimed as he stood up with Frigga, Gungnir in his hand.

He ignored his question as he continued to draw rune after rune in the air and then once his entire vision was filled with them, he closed his eyes and floated cross-legged in the air as the magic circles slowly started converging on his body, eventually branding them on his skin, making an odd metallic sizzling smell that made his entire body go taut in pain but he soldiered on, heedless of the pain. It was important that he be sure that his body and soul were not in any state of haze.

He hesitated for the slightest bit when the largest rune slowly came to brand itself on his brain, essentially on his brain but the risks made him go ahead with the procedure that he had essentially modified on the spot to meet his requirements. He had to check.

So, he took the last step and branded his very soul with the rune. As soon as he was branded with the rune, his mouth opened as he let out a soundless scream of pain, the magical interference ripping apart the throne room until a series of barriers came alive around him. Even still, his magic ripped apart nearly all of them, only the last of the barrier was intact once the magical backlash his body was experiencing, subsided to normal levels.

–Frigga–

"What was that?" Her husband asked him in deathly quiet whispers once the magical rioting stopped as they looked at the remains of the strongest barrier spell that they could cast together. The power they could collectively bring to bear should have been enough to contain even someone like Hela yet the spell's barriers remained tattered as they looked at Alfred who was floating in the center of an indescribably complex runic spell, his face contorted in pain. He had been speaking to them about their son's brief imprisonment by Thanos, a sensitive topic for both of them when his eyes suddenly widened in realisation and before they knew it, Alfred was casting perhaps the most complex runic spell she had seen in all her years alive, casting the entire room in a white glow.

She could see runes from multiple power systems being cast in unison which was supposed to be impossible simply because a single being could manipulate energy from a single energy system at any single time, at best but Alfred's body was glowing with a rainbow of colours as he cycled through dozens of energy types to cast thousands of runes that then went on to fill the entirety of their vision. She stopped her husband from doing something because she had seen the way Alfred's face contorted in desperation and panic as he cast hundreds of runes a second to do something.

They would not have been able to stop something even if they wished. Seeing it through was the only option they had. So, they watched with bated breaths as the runes Alfred had cast eventually branded themselves on his skin. It must have been very painful for him as she could see his skin actually burning due to the magical brands. Even if Alfred could turn off his sense of smell, the marks would not get away, that much she knew. As beings reached their levels, the power of their souls could influence their bodies to look a certain way and with the brands Alfred had cast on himself, even if he did build himself a new body, the brands would eventually return on his new body as well.

She had actually gasped once she realised what Alfred was doing. He was actually going to brand his own soul with the runes. For what reason, she did know yet there was nothing she could do but watch as Alfred, the Guardian of the Singularity, arguably one of the strongest and most important people in the universe, mutilated his own soul for something that he deemed worthy.

Then, he had opened his mouth as the pain must have been too much, causing them to cast their unison barrier spell. When they had first felt the magic building up in the center, both of them realised that there was nothing they could do individually to stop that magical explosion, at least not without invoking the Odin Force, something that her husband's body could not handle at the moment. So, they cast one of the unison barrier magics that they had developed together, casting Alfred in a crystalline pattern that mimicked the shape of the petals of a flower. Even then, it was not enough as the magical explosion destroyed their petals one by one until only a small tattered layer was left.

She had felt her husband was on the verge of using his Odin FOrce when the explosion died down, leaving Alfred who had collapsed into the center of the room.

She and Odin both looked at each other before she rushed to Alfred, casting every diagnostic spell she knew on him. None of the physical diagnostic spells returned anything except the scars and burns due to the runes branded on his skin and his mind was in shock from the pain of everything eventually overwhelming even his superior mind.

It was actually the diagnostics she got from his soul that gave her pause. It was branded by a rune that could only loosely translated as "cleanse, banish, and reset". It was a butchery of runes from Old Greek and Norse runes but the effect of it was unclear. She could see that Alfred's soul was untainted at the moment but why would he cast that rune on his soul?

Was his soul "tainted" somehow? If so, how did that happen, and most importantly, was someone else involved?

And why could Alfred not absolve his soul from any impurities by himself? He was one of the most accomplished sorcerers in the field of souls due to his obsessing with Ed's continued safety and yet Alfred felt the need to cast such a complex spell that combined the power of a dozen powers systems along with energy from multiple infinity stones to do something to his soul.

"No. No!" She looked up at Odin as he looked aghast at something.

"What happened?" She asked him only for him to bang Gungnir on the ground, casting a reverberating gong that must have been heard by everyone on Asgard.

Her eyes widened as she recognised that specific reverberation. It was only done when there was an emergency mobilisation of troops by the King, usually done during surprise attacks on the Nine Realms.

She was about to ask him what had happened when the next words that came out of his mind chilled her blood, "It's Thanos. He was just seen leaving Nidavellir."

Nidavellir? Why would he attack them? Did he want some sort of weapon?

"What happen-"

"Only Eitri is left alive," Odin said in sadness as he slumped down on the steps of the throne room, looking utterly done with everything. Even though he looked resigned, she could feel the burning embers of rage that filled his very being.

Thanos was not going to survive this. He had made far too many powerful enemies and she for one, was not known for leaving her enemies alive.

---

Word Count - 2277

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.