Doorman (MCU SI)

[Orphiex]

Shutting off his laptop, he then began working on the official letter informing Ta-Lo about an impending state visit from a Princess of a foreign country.

Click to shrink...

EeeeeEEE! Shuri's introduction to Other Hidden Civilizations! Also, on a related topic, is Talokan canon in this continuity?

And of course it goes completely over his head that inviting a girl to a magical place might be misconstrued.

Click to shrink...

What, Disneyland? Or possibly Tahiti? (T.A.H.I.T.I)

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #53

Stark Industries, LA[February 9, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

Finally!

Something actually interesting was going to happen today. They were going to be taken on a tour of the Arc Reactor facility and despite its supposed not working state, it was still a very novel scientific application of forces that humanity even now could barely comprehend. Howard Stark truly was ahead of his time, to be able to understand something as genuinely abstract as an Infinity Stone and then somehow find parallels in nature and create a procedure to mimic a fraction of the original's capabilities, all the while being hamstrung by technology of his time was a miracle all on its own.

Speaking of miracles, he might just ask the Ancient One if Howard's discovery was purely his own skill or if there were some disturbances around him that coincidentally led to the discovery, just like the creation of Captain America's shield. The formula for that alloy is long lost now.

That shield was more than just Vibranium and the prevailing theory among the Sanctum nerds was that the shield had more than one isotope of Vibranium along with something else, something much harder than conventional metals to create that abomination that regularly broke the laws of physics. Yes, even Mystical laws were broken by that damned thing.

He had half a mind to see what would be the end result of a blood bonding process, wherein he would put the Shield through a ritual and blood bind it to the Captain. He was certain something amazing would happen, either it would gain some fantastic abilities or it would just outright reject the ritual. Either way, fascinating to observe.

He was brought out of his reverie when the car they were in jerked slowly to a halt. He got out without a word as his relationship with the rest of the interns had not progressed beyond friends of circumstances.

His eyes landed on the massive whirlpool shaped building, housing one of the largest experimental prototypes that Stark Industries ever built. It was a nice little PR win for SI, considering that Arc technology was touted as a viable alternative to Fusion Nuclear Reactors, as much as both of them were viable in the next century or so.

According to what little was available online, and in SHIELD servers, the Arc Reactor, this specific one still generated electricity, yes, it was positive in terms of net energy generated but it was so little that it barely made any sense to pour so much time and energy into it. It was also very expensive, the housing of the Reactor.

All in all, it was a net negative for Stark Industries, if not for the massive stock rally they had after the green hippies around the world saw the potential for clean energy.

"Welcome!" His eyes widened minutely as he saw Stane, the one responsible for Tony's continued imprisonment in Afghanistan, walking towards them, all dapper and charming smiles. He could see how the man could have fooled everyone with his act, least of all Tony who was barely sober for the past couple of years with how much he had partied around the world.

"I was told we had a new cohort of young geniuses but nobody told me they were this young. Ah, where was I?" The act was well oiled and rehearsed, easing himself into the conversation and then leading them into the building, sidelining their official guide.

He hadn't expected the man to come out here himself, what with him being in the middle of a crisis because the terrorists he paid to kill the man didn't finish their job, instead taking the money and keeping the man alive for their own purposes. It didn't take a genius to know that Stane must be so busy with damage control that he wouldn't even have time to breathe but the man was here, on an intern tour, of all things.

A charade, an act to show that he was in control, to show that he wasn't panicking. He could see it, the minor tremors, the sweat, the dark circles covered by makeup, the shrinking gut.

Wow, just a few weeks of stress and the man had lost so much weight. Wouldn't want to be him.

"Ah, I know you guys are all very smart but I have to warn you, it's part of protocol, no photography, no taking phone out of your pockets and more importantly, DO NOT TOUCH anything. It might zap you or it might not, we'd rather not find out, alright?" Stane leaned down and mock whispered to them.

"Alright." And the people replied. Wow, so gullible these people are.

After that, Stane led them towards the side with a large yellow door with the nuclear warning plastered on every inch of that door. Stane swiped his card as the door began opening with the stereotypical warning sounds.

"Alright, come on in." Stane jokingly put his hand forward and then pulled it back as if afraid of what would be on the other side. Despite all the people here being geniuses and knowing that if there was a leak in the Arc Reactor, they would all be affected, hand in the door or not, they all went along with Stane and laughed.

He would have rolled his eyes so much had he not been in such a small group.

Ass Kissing much?

Soon, they were herded into the room and the second his foot crossed the threshold of the door, he stiffened for a second and almost fell down. Only his superior sense of balance and the fact that he was last in line saved him from suspicion as he struggled to keep his expressions neutral.

The second he had stepped into the room, his powers began acting up, doing something that they had never done before. He quickly closed his eyes and entered his mind space, only for his entire face to warp in astonishment as the place where the Trees that symbolised his claimed Doors had a new addition at the moment. It was glowing blue, with discharges of lightning all around the Tree, with a glowing lightning logo seared into the bark of the tree.

"What the fuuuuuu–"

__xx__

Outside

The second they entered the Reactor room, a sudden surge of energy from the reactor was recorded by the technicians. Thankfully, the energy was bled off harmlessly because of protective mechanisms in place.

The second time it happened, the surge was much more noticeable, even to the naked eye as the housing that kept the Arc Reactor contained, crackled with energy, or lighting for some reason.

Meanwhile, Colin was standing at the back, with his eyes closed and his face scrunched up.



If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #54

Stark Industries, LA[February 9, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

This was supposed to be impossible. Everyone said so, the Ancient One, Jin'Ya, hell the freaking Vishanti were reported about the supposed working mechanism of his powers and they didn't object to any of that.

So, how–how in the hell is a tree with a Door attached to it suddenly in his mindscape, in the middle of the cycle? There were still about 7 more months before he got an extra Door that he would then attach to a dimension that would make a tree sprout in his mind, supplying him energy from that particular dimension.

This….This lighting door was not something that should have happened and had never happened in the past 7 years or so that he had his powers.

His eyes opened as he looked at the now whispering group, with Stane speaking into his phone anxiously. His gaze then snapped to the housing that kept the Arc Energy contained and noted the ebbing of the energy before it came rushing back at full force, hitting the containers. He also noted the slight tremors in the ground, generated from the containment unit getting hammered with energy.

He knew there were bleed off mechanisms in place but the question remained : For how long? How long until the output became too much for them.

Out of all this, the one thing that stood out to him was the connection he felt, with the energy inside. He could barely control himself from opening a Door and letting loose the energy from the newest door that he now had access to. This was all very new and he had never felt this level of feedback from his powers. They had always been passive, letting them be used whenever he wanted to.

Right now, he was not feeling like–

"Okay, kids, a little technical issue has arisen and that is why we will be cutting this trip short. Now, why don't you all turn around and exit the same way we entered, alright? In the meantime, I have to make some calls, okay? Alright." Stane said and then stormed off, screaming into his phone, into a door that opened just for him.

Everyone kind of just looked at each other for a moment, not knowing what to do, despite being told exactly, and then he had to take the lead. Taking a step back, he asked his fellow interns, "Come on, what he said."

As all of them speed walked out of the building, he could feel the tremors increasing as the time went by, and the attraction with his powers increasing as well, as if there was something in that energy that he needed, something that the Doors wanted.

His gaze never left the Arc Reactor Tower even as he felt the lights in the surrounding buildings dim as the Tremors began receding. He was sure that the rest of the people barely felt anything but he knew something was wrong with that specific Arc reactor, and he was going to find out what.

____xx___

Wakandan Royal Laboratory

–Shuri Udaku–

"Like I told you before, you are not following the Council's orders anymore. They don't know the first thing about science. No, you are going to do as I say or you will find yourself in need of a job. Am I clear, T'Kama?" She really had to put out an organisation wide notice someday because she was getting really tired of finding out what and how the Council had put their hands on, in the Royal Lab.

"Yes, Princess." The man bowed and left the lab, downtrodden.

She snorted as she turned around and glared at the bystanders, "What are you waiting for? You have your tasks, get on with them."

"Shuri." She whirled around before her mother could speak. "Mother." She curtly greeted her before turning around to continue working on her panel.

Today was one of the days she had expressly reserved to work with the people in the Labs so that everyone could see her work, and also to get the weekly report about everything she had put into motion. She had realised that Wakanda as a country had grown stagnant and comfortable, not just in terms of defense but also in terms of scientific discovery.

\Where most scientists gave up when it seemed like too much work, and moved on to the next method of discovery, Wakanda's scientists prioritised finishing a school of thought, thoroughly documenting it before moving onto the next stage, after exhaustive analysis of the failure. While not a wrong method per se, it still created a lot of overhead that—

"Shuri, can we speak? Private?"

She sighed and turned around, "Sure." She walked towards the smaller conference room, something she had built for herself because she needed to work on her projects she had set in motion for the outer world.

Shell Companies, Trust funds, Charities, Consultancies, Labs, Hospitals, Orphanages and everything in between. She was going to have to create such a large chain of everything to actually make sure that the medical advances she is going to share with the rest of the world are not buried in some technicality.

She was also fairly certain that even after going through this ridiculous process, someone was going to stop her and that is where Colin would come into play, or at least she hoped he would come. She hadn't had the time to see if he had replied and the isolated network she used to communicate with the best hacker on the planet was kept buried in a Vibranium shell with no connectivity whatsoever.

It had been 24 hours she had been working nonstop, perks of being Bast's chosen so she might just have to take a break and see if Colin had actually replied or–

"Shuri, you are not listening." The concerned look of her mother came into view as she sighed and leaned back into the seat. She looked out of the one way glass as people continued working under her. She already had two complaints about heavier than expected workloads but the sooner people realised that this was going to be the norm going forward, the better. They couldn't prepare themselves fast enough even if all the scientists began working exactly to her tune.

Looking back at her mother, she replied, "What is there to listen to, Mother? You know what Father did and you know my views on it. You know what I plan to do and you know the staunch opposition that I will experience. Despite knowing all of that, you still side with Father." She leaned forward, looking into her Mother's now sad eyes, "So, tell me, Mother, what else is there left to speak?"

"Shuri, your father, he made some mistakes but you have to understand that–"

"No, mother. I don't think there is anything you can say or Father can do that will make me forgive him." She then stood up, "Now, if you will excuse me, I have been working nonstop on a project that will give us some chance of being accepted properly by the rest of the world when we are exposed."

"That. Why do you say that as if it is inevitable. As if it is only a matter of time before everyone comes to know about Wakanda. We have remained safe and hidden for centuries and nothing–"

"Because people already know, mother. People already know about Wakanda. I don't think Father told you this but there is someone out there, someone I met when I went to the States last week. He was put on the hit list for the so-called Greater Good project and the guy already knew about Wakanda, about me, about everything."

She watched as her mother's eyes widened in horror and then realisation. "Yes, even if, and that it is a big if, the War Dogs were capable of silencing him, he had multiple dead man's switches that would have given away not just Wakanda's secret, but our location, our shields, Birnin Zana's defenses, the Tribe composition, how our army is inexperienced in actual warfare and more."

She kept talking as her mother all but collapsed into her seat, "The guy would have destroyed Wakanda as we know it and all of that because the War Dogs thought that he would reach our current level of computer efficiently in a couple of years."

Seeing her completely silent, Shuri stated with an air of finality, "So, Mother, no, I will not be forgiving Father and I will most certainly not be sitting back as Father continues to endanger our country's existence. I will be making it official soon anyway but since you are here anyway, I suppose you have a right to know."

She took a deep breath. Best to rip off the band-aid now, lest she regret it later on, "I am going to challenge Father for the throne, by the old rituals."

The silence in the room was deafening as she made her declaration.





If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #55

LA[February 11, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

Something was wrong, he thought to himself as he paced in his room. It had been two days since that incident and there has not been a single peep from Stark Industries about the situation. They were just sent home from the Reactor building and then an email was dropped to each and every one of them that their internship obligations were suspended until notice, and that they were free to enjoy the perks that came with the internship without doing any work.

Something was seriously wrong about the whole situation. Why would they keep all of them away from the company? Were they infected?

Well, Arc Reactor tech most certainly did not give off any harmful radiation and by the time they left the building, the containment unit was still holding strong. There was no news later on about the incident and the data he had been able to scrape through satellites showed no noticeable change in radiation.

Even so, they were now on their 3rd day of vacation since the day it happened, they were back in their accommodations by noon itself. He was starting to feel a little cooped up in this place, despite the list of amenities. All the other interns, taking the opportunity, were working on their own stuff or were off relaxing and roaming around the city, exploring.

He had no such interests, he had no pending work for the moment because he knew these six months were going to be action packed for him so he had told all his clients that he was going to take a year long hiatus.

It was not like he needed to work anyway and taking a small break to figure out how to create a much bigger brand was worth it, or at least he thought it would be worth it but he was quickly realising that he was never going to learn how to create a big company by becoming an employee. No, he needed something more than that and he was going to find that soon enough but for now, his focus was someplace else.

Pinging Jin'Ya through their mental link, he asked, "Hey, any update on Tony?"

Wordless, Jin'Ya complied and actually supplied him with a video feed, showing Tony working on some papers, drawing what looked like schematic diagrams on top of other diagrams. He smiled, knowing that this was the birth of what would become Iron Man and after instructing Jin'Ya to keep a close eye on Tony, he cut off the connection.

With that out of the way, he hopped onto his desk and opened his personal laptop. With a twitch of his finger, the enchantments on the laptop came to life and connected him to his personal server in Kamar Taj. Honestly, doing that one thing has improved the lives of many.

It was a massive server with caches of the majority of the streaming services, along with a large storage system to make sure that everyone at Kamar Taj could use that as cloud storage, and more importantly, it gave him a computer server in a place that was literally untraceable.

After all, it was in a completely different dimension.

He opened up the SHIELD database that he had taken from their heavily encrypted archives, this one held everything about the Arc Reactor. Not Howard Stark's notes, no, those were kept strictly off the internet and in old floppy formats but these notes were what SHIELD's analysts have in their database after analysing the original Arc Reactor every year or so.

Yup, SHIELD does periodic inspection of something that might one day become the future of humanity and clean energy. Surprising.

They were surprisingly heavily encrypted and the server usage had shot through the roof because, his stupid ass, found a cache of refurbished 4K TVs through a vendor in China and took it off his hands because he knew one place that could use 30 4K displays for over a hundred people.

Kamar Taj.

Yup, so, hindsight's a bitch by the way, he went ahead, took the 30 displays, consulted with some of the Masters, and installed them in Kamar Taj, hard wired internet and everything. So, now, his server, whose main purpose was for his use, now had most of its resources sapped by the simultaneous 4k streams that now happen in Kamar Taj.

Which is why it took days to decode this thing instead of the hours it would have taken otherwise.

Even now, the ETA was about 4 minutes. Sighing, he leaned back in the chair and decided to just wait it out. No point looking for something else which would take longer than 4 minutes and his number one curiosity at this point was the Arc Reactor because it had somehow messed with his powers, creating a Door that he hadn't even used until now, which was also eating him alive.

He really needed to get out of this place for a long period of time without it looking suspicious and there were very few ways he could do that. Honestly, he was contemplating just dropping out of the process completely, such was his burning curiosity when it came to the most fascinating and important thing of his life.

His powers. The Doors.

They were a thing of beauty and the fact that he could already do so much, become one of the most powerful beings on the planet, with a mere 7 Doors was more than telling. Who knows how powerful he would become as he aged and more Doors were unlocked for him.

The fact that his understanding of his powers' mechanisms was upended by the Arc Event was somewhat unsettling because if he didn't need to wait a year to get another Door, what else could he do to gain more Doors and gain ULTIMATE POWAAAAH!

Which is why he needed to get to the bottom of–

PING

His eyes zoomed in on the message he received, from Shuri or rather, from Panther Princess. After it went through the mandatory scanning processes, he opened it and read the single text message in it.

"Agreed. State the place and time. I will be there. This is important, your cooperation is of utmost importance to Wakanda."

Okay, that was odd. His brows furrowed as he thought of the language of the text. Why would she even need his cooperation and importance to Wakanda?

Shaking his head, he began typing, "Mount Everest Base Camp, a week from now, 5 AM local time."

He was actually looking forward to that now. A week would be sufficient time for him to generate some sort of reason to get out of this internship because doing a 9-5 or even having a regular day to day agenda itself did not seem appealing to him.

Life of crime fighting and world saving sounded way better to him.

With that out of the way, he sent the message, and then turned to the decoded files. There were dozens of reports, from multiple analysts from various divisions, having visited the Arc Reactor under multiple guises.

Homeland Security.

Pentagon.

Department of Energy and many more agencies were used to hide the SHIELD analysts that took deep scans of the thing every single year, as part of the government's agreement with Stark Industries for allowing them to have what was essentially a nuclear reactor on private property with private oversight under the condition that it would never be used to power anything useful, which is why Stark Industries HQ was still powered off the grid instead of the actual reactor technology they had sitting on their campus.

As he read through the reports, it was clear that the current rendition of Arc that they had was not viable, in any sense of the word. Not viable financially, strategically, or even as a PR stunt because that thing could barely generate more power than it needs to function. Some sort of fatal flaw in starting the muons in the Arc housing which led to subpar performance.

He was sure that Tony could solve this thing by taking a long look at it and spending a couple of nights on caffeine, it's just that he had no incentive to, until now.

Year after year, analyst after analyst, told the same thing. The thing was safe, with no risk of any explosion or radiation even in an explosion. Ulteriorly, they also noted that in its current condition, it was nowhere near a threat to Big Oil and Big Coal, only serving to function as an exaggerated science fair project.

All of that was fine but that was not what he was looking for. He finally reached the last report, the earliest one, made by SHIELD when Howard was still alive, right after the inauguration it would seem.

His eyes narrowed as he saw part of that report was redacted. Many words were blackened but he could make out something from the rest of the report.

Some sort of energy canister, used to start the Arc Reactor, reported missing from SHIELD's inventory, Category-3 object, non weaponized.

He leaned back and looked straight up, as those particular phrases began revolving in his mind. Then, it clicked for him.

"Huh." He stilled for a moment as he mechanically looked at the report once again.

Energy canister? The same ones that HYDRA made in WW2? Category 3 object? Yup, that level of energy density would classify it as category 3, and non weaponized means it was used for a reactor instead of for an energy weapon that disintegrated people.

"Holy fuck!" It was the Infinity Stone or its energy. The original Arc Reactor was jump started using the leftover energy cubes from HYDRA, extracted from the Tesseract.

That was the reason his powers acted up?

Now he really needed to go to an empty place and unleash the power of his eighth Door.



If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[Petrox]

He could have asked the ancient one to take a look in his off work hours. Is not like he has travel time. And the ancient one can make time.

 

[Mastersgt]

So... Is the Door connected to SPACE(the Concept) ike the Stone is, or just energy? Why did he not unlock a Door when near the Time Stone?

 

[Tomthebomb]

So... Is the Door connected to SPACE(the Concept) ike the Stone is, or just energy? Why did he not unlock a Door when near the Time Stone?

Click to shrink...

Pretty sure the Time Stone is shielded by the Eye of Agamotto. That's why Strange has to use the Hand Signs and Movements to open it.

I bet if Colin, got near the Eye while it was open, he'd get a door related to Time.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #56

LA[February 11, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He closed his laptop with a twitch of his ginger after going through the reports twice more before he was satisfied. Leaning back in his chair, he looked up and thought of what this meant.

Intellectually, he knew that his powers were related to space and dimensions and as such, he might have some sort of affinity with the space element, i.e., the Space Stone. The same stone's energy was used to jumpstart the Arc Reactor when Howard couldn't get it up to speed, at least that is what the SHIELD records say, redacted as they might be.

Howard being a senior ranking as well as a founding member of SHIELD meant that his theft of the Tesseract energy shard was overlooked. It was the only plausible explanation as to why his powers acted up.

He closed his eyes and entered his mindscape, wherein he had painstakingly defined processes when it came to his powers. He had it down to a process that was just upended by the arrival of the Eight Door, crackling with blue. It was a nice mid sized tree as well, not CHI sized but most definitely the size of the Kinetic Lasers.

The size of the Doors was based on the rating he gave their dimensions. CHI was S-tier, Air was the same but the Kinetic Lasers were A-tier. Water and Sand were B-tier, the less said about the light dimension the better.

So, from the size of the tree, he could tell that whatever that Door was, it would be helpful. He could take a guess from the lightning logo and the electricity continuously crackling all around it but without using it extensively and testing it with Jin'Ya, he could not create a comprehensive report on it.

Opening his eyes, he exhaled in frustration. It was at times like this that he wondered whether it was even worth it to have a valid civilian identity. It was his mother's wish, to see him be so successful his name would be on a billboard or at best, on a building. He had vowed to fulfill her wish in the most outlandish way possible but so far, that seemed to be impeding his work on saving the wider world.

Sighing, he got out of the chair and began pacing around the room. He was getting out of this place, that was for certain. This was not worth his time and the prolonged period of inactivity can most certainly be used as an excuse to get out of his place. He was sure that the Dean's office would raise a fuss but in the end, it was his decision.

Seeing the time, it was just about noon right now, and in about an hour or so, the lunches would arrive. For some reason, the communal lunch system has been taken off the menu, and individual tiffins were served to every single intern. It all felt like the enshittifaction of a service, like Stark Industries was hoping that once the perks of this place were removed and the overall quality of service reduced, combined with the lack of work for a group of hard working people, the group of interns would leave on their own.

He could see it happening actually. The cracks had already started to form. Jack Slash, the oldest of their group, was already complaining about lack of work and communication whenever they were in a group setting and was also seething because they denied his request for two additional monitors so that he could do his personal work efficiently.

Apparently, the dude was a multi monitor setup guy, as opposed to the rational method which was just a large enough single screen. The new TVs were rock solid and he had a 43 inch 4k TV working double duties as a monitor and he hadn't even noticed anything wrong with it.

He noticed that he was now rambling in his mind as his pacing continued to pick up pace on the carpet. At this point, he would get a mighty static shock once he left the carpet.

"Ah, Fuck it," He cursed the situation, and immediately began packing everything. Laptop, wallet, water bottle(enchanted to always be cool), Stark Industries' ID, and after checking that nothing was kept here, he locked the door and began casually walking out of the complex.

"Sir? Excuse me, Sir?" He slowed down and half turned to see the receptionist speed walking towards him as he exited the lobby and stood in the sun.

"Yes?" There was something definitely wrong here. Why the hell would she run all the way here?

"Sir, can I ask where you are going?"

His brows furrowed as he replied, "I thought we had free rein to move about in the city whenever we were not working. Today is not a working day, ergo, today I can go to the city."

She flashed him a strained smile, "Yes, sir. I was just asking where in the city. We have a pickup and drop facility, we can have you paired with an experienced driver who can show you all the spots in the–"

He raised a hand, "Let me stop you right there. I want to roam the city, on foot. I have been cramped in that room for two days now because of no official communication from SI. So, thank you for asking, really, thank you but I would really like to leave now. Bye!" He waved her off and turned around, actually feeling her struggle to come up with words to make him do as she says.

He turned sharply to the right as soon as he exited the compound, expanding his senses to hear what the receptionist might be saying.

His senses immediately zoned in on the voice that he heard just now, "Sir, Colin Baxter left. He didn't take the company car, he said he wanted to walk on foot. What should I do now?"

A slightly hoarse male voice could be heard speaking to her. It did not sound like a phone call. Maybe a Video Call? "Shit! Do we have any idea where he went? Did he take his luggage with him?"

The man was most definitely not on campus because there was no accompanying sensory data from his presence. No breathing, nothing.

"No, sir. He just had a small backpack with him. What should we do? Should I have him followed?"

"...Yes, do that, and report to me every hour. DO NOT get noticed, we don't need a lawsuit."

"Yes, sir."

He smiled, now certain that Stane suspected one of them of the Arc Fiasco, and while the old man was right about that, he would never get any answers like this. Stane also was probably looking for other reasons, so he could rule out the kiddy interns from the suspect pool because the man who could have Tony Stark kidnapped in the middle of an active war zone would most certainly have people who could take care of a few teenagers.

___xx___

Wakanda [An hour back]

–Shuri "Apostle of Bast" Udaku–

She leaned on her knuckles, showing her interest in the current meeting called forth by the previous Head Scientist who she had fired because he was more interested in serving the Council's interests than Wakanda's.

She really did not have time for this but with her impending announcement of her ambition for the throne, she could do with some public facing PR and despite the point of this hearing, showing her face should be enough.

Besides, all of this was just a small part of the ruling package. Her power alone would secure her the throne, of that she was certain. The easy going nature, the likeability of the citizens, and the bureaucrats only served to make the work happen more efficiently.

She knew she could not just threaten everyone so she had to maintain appearances here as well.

Her phone, which was on a quantum dot communications array between the sealed shut communications device used for Colin and her personal comms array built into her armour that she wore at all times, pinged.

Her eyes narrowed a bit as she subtly removed the phone and checked the message. There was only one person who could have replied and she was right.

Mount Everest?

For what? She slightly shook her head, replied in affirmative, and was about to put the phone back in her pocket when she heard a pin drop silence in the chamber. Looking up, she saw that everyone was looking at her, with most of them having disapproving gazes and glares on their faces.

Well, two could play this game, "Sorry. Important National Security Stuff. Continue."

Resuming her bored, indifferent pose, she gestured at them to continue this pointless hearing, a total waste of time.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #57

LA[February 11, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

Whistling a jolly tone, he walked on the sidewalk, with a general distance of the nearest Starbucks in mind. He had already memorised the correct route for the overpriced coffee shop including all its surrounding areas, allowing him to take as many detours as he wanted without truly getting lost.

Ever so often, his eyes trailed over the car that had been following him ever since he left the Residency. Yes, that is what Stark Industries calls what is basically the entire compound that they owned, which had housing for small time contractors or interns to like C-staff executives to stay in. It was quite large but given that they had their HQ in the same city, it kinda made sense to have something permanent installed so they were not reliant on hotels and the uncertainty that came with that, even with five star hotels.

He knew they were ordered to stay out of sight but man were these guys not the perfect fit for this job. To be fair, they thought they were tailing an ordinary if slightly genius teenager, not him. Still, not using different cars, using different routes, creating different profiles, and variations for every single interaction was a giant mistake, something that could not be excused if these guys were ex law enforcement, something that most if not all Multinational Corporations looked for their security personnel.

Sighing, he turned sharply once more, doing a complete U-turn and heading straight at the two guys in polo shirts tailing him, with visible white comms on their ears, not even consumer models, straight up professional models on people who looked like they lived and breathed Gym and also had comms on them that were only seen in the movies.

Smirking at the slightly panicking agents, he turned to the right, and hailed a bus, knowing that it led to the same block where the local Starbucks was, courtesy of his super hearing. While it was fun getting these people to run circles all around him and the city, it was starting to get hot and he had a lot of work to do, in terms of monitoring his finances, both legal and not so legal.

Getting himself a ticket, he thought of the spectacular week that was lying ahead of him, something he was actually looking forward to. First off, he was getting himself off the trainwreck that was the current cohort of internships, and then, he was going to prepare for reverse shock on Shuri, by showing her Ta-Lo.

Speaking of Ta-Lo, he hadn't heard back from the chief, despite the letter stating that an urgent response would be appreciated. That damned old geezer had the gall to fleece him with that CHI session, he was going to get this session, proprietary be damned. Ta-Lo benefited a lot from him and if the chief disagreed with him, well then, Ta-Lo's citizenry might find itself suffering from a trade embargo on very essential items.

With a slight jerk, the bus came to a slight halt as he got up from his seat to get off. People bumped into him as he stepped off and was greeted with a very bustling small marketplace. After ordering his usual overly complex sugary water, he sat down and opened his laptop. The second he opened the lid and was about to press the power button, a full body shudder ran through his body, his entire body freezing as someone, no, something just slammed into his senses..

He flinched as his mystical senses were bombarded by something or someone with reality bending levels of presence just hit his senses, and knowing how weak his pure mystical senses were, he knew that he was in the presence of a walking calamity.

His senses expanded as the sound of his heart beating uncomfortably loudly echoed in his mind. Even so, he pushed past that and tried to get some reading even as his entire being was telling him that he needed to hightail it out of this place, this city, this state even, and retreat to the nearest Sanctum so he could get either the Ancient One's help or Jin'Ya's or maybe both–

"Fancy meeting you here." His entire body trembled all at once, cold sweat running down his forehead as he looked up from his coffee and saw her.

The Red Matron, the Mistress of the Blood Veil.

In that exact moment, "JIN'YAAA!" All he could do was scream bloody murder in his mind, knowing that he was completely out of his depth here. W-What was she doing here?

___xx___

–?--

She smirked as she saw the brat freeze upon his gaze falling on her majestic form. She was using the veil to hide most of her beauty but the little Life Giver here was strong enough to look past the Veil. Not strong enough to ignore the effects though.

With a flex of her will, the Veil's effects parted around the brat as she sat down and watched with slowly rising amusement as the brat mechanically looked at her, as she sat there, leaned back, a sugary drink in her hand, and dressed for the occasion as well.

The people of this era sure had a liberal view regarding clothing, and skin showing. In her time, this little dress that she was wearing would have had the Church hunting her down and burning down entire villages if she so much as touched the area around them.

So, she deliberately stretched and smiled as the brat's gaze wandered despite the terror present in his eyes.

"W-What are you doing here? I thought the treaty prohibited you–" The brat stammered, slowly gaining steam as he tried to cite the pesky little agreement she had to sign with the Bald headed Demon years ago, when one of her more adventurous vampires had gone on a rampage that resulted in multiple deaths of the Sorcery Cult.

"Oh, this little thing?" She snapped her finger, creating a copy of the treaty in front of them. The scroll then slowly unfurled and floated down to land on the table, withering away soon after. "Poof! The treaty, it's just words, only worth the power of the signatories on it. More importantly, you humans have your way with words but sometimes, you forget that we were the original tricksters."

The brat turned even paler at her words, "B-but all these years, no one could–"

She threw her head back and laughed, "Oh, yeah. No one could approach you because your dear Ancient One threatened to disintegrate anyone who would. I still remember the screams of that Hell Demon whose soul arrived in Hell half on fire, something that was supposed to be impossible because Hellfire was supposed to help them, not hurt them."

"But, my dear little Life Giver," She leaned forward, letting her magic loose a bit as her eyes started gaining the red glow she personally designed for optimal intimidation, "Treaties and contracts, they can be bypassed, circumvented, bent if some signatories of the party wish so."

"Ah, there he comes–" She tilted her head to look straight up, sensing the intrusion of a being on her level intruding on her domain, "--your little Guardian Angel."

"Awww, how cute! Are you happy he is here now? Yes! You are!"


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[icgmaesltrom]

This sounds like a power game about to blow up in an arrogant dragon face.

Like seriously I can see Jin yaa passing the buck to the ancient one and she isn't the forgiving type for violations.

 

[Orphiex]

The Red Matron, the Mistress of the Blood Veil.

Click to shrink...

Okay, who is this? I don't remember her from any Marvel continuity. All that turns up in search results is Codeein references. Is this an OC? Did I miss this in earlier chapters?

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Okay, who is this? I don't remember her from any Marvel continuity. All that turns up in search results is Codeein references. Is this an OC? Did I miss this in earlier chapters?

Click to shrink...

An OC Vampiress, Ancient and Powerful......

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #58

Local Starbucks, LA[February 11, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

The arrival of Jin'Ya was immediately felt by him as an overwhelming corona of energy surged into his mind and pushed away the fog that had been clinging to his mind. Sure, it couldn't breach his mind yet but that was what made the Mistress of the Blood Veil so much more dangerous than anyone of her kind.

Her mind arts. The reality warping aspect of her powers came from her mind, the sheer strength of her mind and soul made it so that even people with the highest level of attainments in the mind arts could feel the weight of the so-called Veil that she carried around herself.

Hearing about it was one thing but experiencing it in real life was something that made him almost piss his pants and he was hardier than most Masters at Kamar Taj. he couldn't even begin to fathom what the end result of such a monster roaming freely around the world would be.

The next second, the world around him slowed down as Jin'Ya quite literally descended on this place, with all the wrath his giant monstrosity of a soul could muster, or at least that's what it looked like from his point of view as he was pulled into the Astral Realm, along with Varvara, the strongest Elder Vampire alive, as the massive Draconic silhouette of Jin'Ya was made visible to both of them.

He could feel the strain on his soul as time was accelerated here a thousand fold to make sure that their conversation was wrapped up early, before Jin'Ya's pressure in the Astral Realm started affecting all the humans on the planet. He could actually feel the strain as his thoughts refused to flow as fluidly as before. Man, Jin'Ya could be really badass when he wanted to be.

"What are you doing, Varvara Koscheyenka?" Jin'Ya's voice boomed in the space. Oooh, he was starting with true names this early in the match. The pressure in the Realm was starting to feel a little uncomfortable to him now, with her power counteracting Jin'Ya's in the Astral Realm.

Theoretically, there was no equal to Jin'Ya in the matters of the Astral Realm, at least in the observable galaxy and the space around it. Still, the Red Matron was not a feared figure for nothing, as she effortlessly glared up at the giant Draconic body looming over her, with not a hint of fear on her face.

"Oi! Ancient Dragon, no need to throw a hissy fit! I was not harming your Partner, on this, I swear on my magic!"

His eyes widened as a swirling vortex of red magic appeared around her Astral Form before settling down as a chain on her body, signifying the binding vow taking hold of her. Something like that was serious talk, with the consequence of breaking the vow being severe damage to the soul, and for someone of her level, any time she spent indisposed might as well be a death sentence.

"Fine, you can speak your mind. Just know that I will take great pleasure in devouring your injured soul if you break your own vow." With those words, they were back in the Starbucks, with the only difference being the existence of Jin'Ya, now floating by his side, looking at the Red Matron in contempt.

He didn't really feel like calling out her name because, for beings on her level, names meant power and also a way to mark someone. She might just learn something new about him if he tried to speak her name. Not her true name, no, that was a secret known to probably herself but her pseudo true name, something that she used to create infamy in her time.

See, True Names were not something assigned at birth. No, the names were just something that truly strong souls adopted as their own, changing the very meaning of those words in the fabric of the universe. It was like weaving your own name in the supermassive river of fabric that was the Universe. Through that, one could do a variety of stuff by borrowing the power of that river.

Now, for most beings, a single True Name was all they would get, but for some special exceptions, like mental disorders or with exceptionally old beings, like her, it was possible to gain yet another True Name. He didn't know the true extent of the possibilities but having two True Names gave them a massive advantage over methods that could hurt beings by learning their True Names.

The name that Jin'ya uttered was her second True Name, something that wouldn't harm her as much if used as a weapon but could still be used to signify the seriousness of the situation, as Jin'Ya just did.

"So, Mr.Baxter, the Life Giver, how is life treating you? I heard you have recently come into possession of something my entire race would tear itself apart for, and not only are you not actively hiding it, but you are also offering it as a service for dirt cheap rates." She smirked at him as she languidly sipped on her coffee.

"Get on with your point. We all know you were going to find out all along, which is why the conditions were added in the treaty." Jin'Ya spat out. He had a hunch that Jin'Ya absolutely abhorred this woman, and not for the same reasons as he did.

She pointed her straw at him, "Ugh, Paper Straw, melted so easily. I missed the days when you humans used stuff that would not wither for thousands of years. Made buying stuff a lot easier for someone of my age, especially since I do not have thralls to wait on me." She muttered as her eyes flashed red before the straw turned into a plastic one, with two glowing eyes on top of it.

More than the casual use of magic, it was her easygoing, carefree attitude that worried him. Just like every other significant magical powerhouse on the planet, she had signed the treaty that the Ancient One had imposed on both him as well as the other mystical powerhouses on the planet.

It was slightly his fault as well because he was young and hot headed, and the Ancient One, being the wise elder she is, saw right through his intentions and rightfully predicted that he would end up dead in a ditch with the number of fights he would end up picking in his quest to "cleanse" the planet of the multiple blights that had been allowed to survive for far too long.

He could understand the reasoning for Ancient One's inaction because her actions were dictated more by the Time Stone and the Vishanti than her own mind but he was free. In his mind, he was a free agent, with the power to back it up, or at least he would have that power one day.

Which was part of the reason why the treaty was brought forward. Normally a regular periodic signing, a treaty brokered by the overwhelming power of the Vishanti, there was quite a significant outroar when there were new terms added in the treaty, forbidding going after enhanced humans who were underage in mystic terms, where a century was considered underage.

In return, the Ancient One, Kamar Taj, and the VIshanti themselves would step in to pull back any human mystic who was a minor from harming the interests of any mystical enclave on the planet.

Kun'Lun, Ta-Lo, Atlantis, Transilvania, Romania, and more, along with individuals like the Red Matron were signies of the treaty, which all but guaranteed his survival up to the age of 100, granted that he was not offed by Thanos.

That treaty was the reason why he had to ask for permission every damn time to enter Ta-Lo, despite his stellar relations with them. It was also why he could not just raid the vampires' strongholds he knew the location of, despite having an inbuilt glorified flashlight that would work on most thralls, which were the majority of the workforce of these vampires.

It was also why Jin'Ya, someone who mostly ignored all the laws of all the civilisations he ever met in his long long life, abided by the treaty, because he too, was a signee of the scroll.

That scroll was part of why he had been very lackadaisical with his mystical training because he knew he had time and had set aside decades of his life, once the Thanos situation was resolved and he could let the world try to destroy it for a while before the heroes inevitably had to step in once more to save it, from itself or from some outside threat, only time would tell.

Now, she was here and telling them that the threat was being subverted somehow? The same one that had been used for over a thousand years by the strongest Sorcerer Supreme in generations, was being bent?

It was a cause of massive concern, maybe more so because of the bearer of the bad news being her, one of the last people he expected to come here to warn him.

Something was wrong with the whole thing here and he did not like it, not one bit.

Jin'Ya must have felt it as well, because the dragon growled at the woman, "Get on with it, you parasitic scum. I have other matters to tend to."

She just raised an eyebrow at Jin'Ya, "Look who's calling me a parasite? What do the humans say about situations like these? Ah, yes. Pot calling the kettle black, you understand?

He groaned at that. Get to the point, woman!



If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #59

Local Starbucks, LA[February 11, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"As I was saying, before someone very rudely pulled all of us into the Astral Realm very haphazardly, I am here because I have credible news of someone successfully bypassing the rules of the treaty that I have signed. Someone from the Line of Cain, one of the Elders most probably, has made some sort of pact with the Lords of Hell, allowing him significant leeway when it comes to the–"

"But that's impossible." He butts in, "All extradimensional contractual pipelines have been sealed, as far as I know. They should not be open for another five years, Kamar Taj sees to that. If there was a stray crack somewhere, the Ancient One would've–"

"Oh, wake up to reality!" He leans back at her outburst, "You think your Ancient One is so perfect? That Kamar Taj can monitor every single sub dimension, every single dimensional outflow, every single call request, every single dimensional spill? No, that would be impossible, kid. I haven't yet figured out how they converted one of the smaller pipelines into a full blown dimensional connection but I will."

The hunger in her eyes scared him at the moment. That was another scary aspect of the Red Matron, her scientific rigor. Once burned as a witch with a curiosity never seen before, she represents the pinnacle of vampiric magical research, so much so that even the denizens of Transylvania, along with their ruler, respect her. Her words of the dimensional mechanisms ran straight over his head since, as mentioned before, he thought he had time to go through that stuff later on.

As it turns out, someone somehow contacted the Hell Lords to gain extraordinary powers, powers strong enough to bypass the Treaty.

"My point is, someone has done it and they have done it for a single goal, as far as I can tell. They need something, the Hell Lords, and for that, they have risked significant backlash by aligning with us Vampires. All to get something or someone."

His eyes widened at that.

"Colin," Jin'ya stated with an air of finality.

"Yes." She nodded solemnly, "Your little charge, the Life Giver's fame has now reached the halls of Hell and they now demand the one who can give them nearly limitless life force." She then turned to him with an amused smirk on her face, "Isn't that right, Colin Baxter?"

"Be that as it may, that still doesn't explain how you could approach him without breaking the laws," Jin'Ya asked her.

She then beamed at them, "Ah! That's where the beauty of reading and comprehension comes into play. You guys used English for the treaty, which, fair, was something that the majority of the members spoke and understood, but it is also something that has a vast potential to be misused or misunderstood."

His brows furrowed as he realised where she was going with this. She probably used some sort of loophole in the treaty to get around the no approaching him rule. He was sure she would reveal it soon enough because someone like her–

"You see, the Demons from Hell, while powerful and greedy, are not stupid. They have not hedged all their bets on a single vampiric faction, however powerful they may be. No, they have also approached another entity, sealed and vastly weakened from its peak, but in very close proximity with their target."

"Ta-Lo" he whispered, as things finally began making sense.

"Yes, my dear Life Giver. You see, the treaty left a certain leeway in the way you can do things, i.e., how you can build allies. The ones who you deem trustworthy are elevated in terms of getting around some of the stricter stuff on the treaty. As you can guess, when I politely requested a meeting with the Village Chief of Ta-Lo and relayed my concerns–concerns that were confirmed by the Water Dragon, he was more than happy enough to give me permission to approach you on my own, effectively making me a member of Ta-Lo as far as the treaty is concerned."

"Wow." That was all he could say as she smirked, basking in her supposed sense of superiority. She then faltered as he asked, "All of that? For what? Just to meet me? Because no matter how much you help me, I am never going to give you CHI, let's be very clear about that."

She then, honest to Stan Lee, pouted at him, "Oh! Come on, why be a spoilsport? I came all the way here just to warn you, that has to count for something, right?"

He snorted as her effect of intimidation just slid right off of him as Jin'Ya was right beside him. Bitch, using psionic manipulation in front of a Psionic Dragon. You wish to die? Was something he wished to say to her but he did not have a death wish as of now.

"I have been more than aware of the effects of my CHI on your king. If given freely, it is the greatest elixir for your kind, instantly elevating you above your base desires and granting you relief from any hunger for decades, maybe centuries based on the amount I can provide BUT I have also been warned by the foremost user of Time Magic that going down that route leads to nothing but devastation, as a new class of Vampires begins to take hold and exert their authority on your entire species." He stated before standing up.

"Now, I have a lot of work to do, something that I have been neglecting for a while now. If you have names, locations, or any other info, now is the time to share it but do note that you will not be getting CHI in return. Something else can certainly be negotiated." He did his best to sound serious because this woman meant business and while he was mostly a greenhorn when it came to mystical dealings, he had JIn'Ya with him who would correct him if he went off course.

"That's the thing, little Life-Giver." She stated with an air of superiority around her like she knew something he didn't, which was most likely.

"That's my only condition. A little sliver of what you pump regularly into Ta-Lo, pumped directly into me in exchange for all the information I have."

Ewww, that made it sound gross. There was no way he was going to do what came to his mind to a woman that old, despite her looks. Obviously, he did not let any of it show on his face, he was not dumb.

"Then I am sorry to say but we have no deal. We will look for them on our own. In exchange for bringing this to our attention, I promise to overlook this incident but know this, if you try this again, I can and will shatter your soul and feed the remains to Astral Terrors, do you understand?" Jin'Ya leaned forward as his soul exerted pressure on the very reality around them, making the space around them wobble as if it would break apart at any point.

"Oh, sod off with the threats, they don't work. I am your equal, if not in the Astral Realm, then in the material universe. I won't go down that easily and any battle between us will just force the others into action, so calm down, will you? You stupid Dragon." She grumbled as she just gave him a look and he blinked as he found himself back in his seat.

"Now," She flashed him a strained smile, "I know that you are very hesitant in creating a deranged hungry monster addicted to CHI but I am different, I can guarantee my own sanity. I have done similar stuff before."

"Really?" Jin'Ya scoffed, "When?"

She shot him a nasty look and then quieted down, "Even if I agree to stay in the Mirror Dimension for my research with the only key being in your hands?"

He immediately countered "If the key is in the Ancient One's hands." Like hell, he was going to trust himself for a task of this magnitude.

She scoffed, "Oh, that bald headed demon would just love that. She would never let me out. I might as well just present my True Name and True Heart on a gold platter to her."

She then looked at him with a gleam in her eyes that honestly made him feel uncomfortable. She then glanced at Jin'Ya before replying, "What if I made the same deal as him," She jutted her chin at Jin'Ya.

He was confused for exactly a second before the world around him blurred and then he was left in that booth with Jin'Ya and the Red Matron nowhere in sight.

"Well, damn." He sighed. This was going to be messy.

He pulled out his sling ring and went to the bathroom. He might need to call in the Ancient One on this. Jin'Ya would not take kindly to this and the last thing they needed was a fight of that level, destroying part of the planet.

"Oh, man, she is going to be pissed. Stupid Village Chief," He cursed that old man for this, and to some extent, the Water Dragon but the Water Dragon was chill so most of his anger was placed on the Chief.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #60

Stark Industries Accomodation[February 12, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

He got out of the cab, very exhausted, mentally as well as physically because standing in the middle of three very powerful and very angry beings was taxing on his soul and body as well.

The moment he called in the Ancient One with his personal SOS, she arrived with her patent pending disappointed glance around. Knowing her, she already knew about the encounter but hadn't expected Jin'Ya and probably also the Red Matron from behaving so childishly.

From there on out, she then had to deal with the temper tantrum of two beings capable of destabilising the very planet they lived on. Scary stuff, it was to see both of them being lectured by the guardian of Reality itself, backed by the full might of the Vishanit.

Oh yeah, that was a hell of a thing to witness. To see the Ancient One bring forth power so vast, capable of punting both of them in the mirror dimension with the slightest effort, was humbling. The Vishanti really were the biggest powerhouses on the planet, smacking down anyone that acted out.

After almost an entire day of fierce negotiation, wherein the Red Matron cited part of the treaty they signed to get away from the worst effects, they came to a simple agreement.

The Ancient One could not really see the Hell powered Vampires, not with the Time Stone even. It was probably because of the power being pumped into them along with some eldritch complex powers that he could not really understand yet.

To the best of his knowledge, Dimensional Lord level entities were somewhat exempt from the snooping around of the Time Stone because of various factors. One of them being that the Infinity Stones of a universe only function in that same universe. Dimensional Lords existing outside the main material universe and in an alternate dimension somewhat negate the Infinity Stone's powers.

Secondly, it also depends on the user of the Time Stone. No matter how powerful the Ancient One might be or Stephen Strange might get in the future, they were ultimately humans and as such, have hard limits with what they can do, because of their very souls.

Now, somehow, those same entities had figured out how to bypass the Time Stone's spying in the material universe by likely imparting a portion of their aura, likely a taxing and difficult thing to do so they were not really expecting an army of undetectable, superpowered hellish vampires but even a single one was capable of much harm.

Which is why the Ancient One made a temporary deal with the Red Matron. Giving her CHI, especially his dimensional untainted pure CHI was out of the question. What was still up for debate were other more lucrative terms for the Red Matron, the details of which he was not privy to.

All he knew was that he was being targeted, tracked and in the very near future, there was going to be a massive attack, not just on him but every single mystical hotspot known to be friendly towards him, which is why he was point blank ordered to leave his internship, take a gap year if I have to, and come back to Kamar Taj.

Now, if it wasn't clear before, Wong was something fierce when it came to his academics and the fact that even Wong didn't argue him taking a gap year for this meant that it was serious.

It was so much information in so little time, not to mention being in constant vicinity with soul breaking creatures, that he didn't even get the chance to tell the Ancient One or even Jin'Ya about the new Door he got and the likely reason for how he got it.

He might just have to try something with the Time Stone one of these days, despite the Ancient ONe expressly forbidding him from doing it.

Who knows, he might just get another Door that could be an S-tier in strength.

"Hi. Where were you? We tried reaching you but your phone was switched off." The receptionist asked him, somewhat hurriedly. He sighed at that, not in the mood for this.

"I just had some urgent personal work. Listen, I will be moving out today, it has been a very tiring 24 hours so just tell the people in charge that they will receive an official mail from me sometime in the next 24 hours about me withdrawing my candidature from the program." He turned around and resumed his walk to the elevator. He had some stuff to get before he was out in the wind.

"That's the thing." He slowed down and looked back to see her running after him with a tablet in her hand, "Everyone left. Look!"

She handed him the tablet, showing a video of all of his members coming down to the reception at once, giving up their keys, having a normal discussion with her, and then just leaving.

"Huh," he remarked to himself as he smirked and left her standing there, all confused.

He did not expect that today.

"Colin boy, there's been a development with Tony Stark," Jin'Ya spoke in his mind as his eyes sharped at the news.

"What is it?"

____xx____

At the same time

– Some cave in Afghanistan–

"What is it, Stark?" Ho Yinsen, the man who's worked tirelessly for the past three weeks keeping Tony Stark alive, asked the man himself who was holding three pieces of paper and clearing out a desk space for himself at 4 in the morning.

They were given a clock by their captors when asked, somewhat of a luxury, Yinsen mused to himself as prisoners were not usually allowed to keep track of time and since they were in a dark cave, a decommissioned mind of some sort, it was impossible to keep track of time using the sun's movements.

"That…Yinsen, is our exit strategy." Tony said as he overlaid the three different blueprints atop one another, revealing a suit, a giant suit with a hole in its chest.

"What goes here?" He asked, instinctively, pointing at the hole in the chest.

Tony Stark gave him his best smile, "I'm glad you asked." Then proceeded to retrieve another set of blueprints, overlaying on top of the existing ones, revealing a small circular object, with an astounding amount of complexity.

"Is that?" He whispered, shocked at seeing Stark's audacity.

"We're breaking out of this place, and you're going home to your family." Stark remarkably quietly, looked at the pieces of paper as if they were his family.

"And what of you? What will you do?" It was nice, to fantasize like this. Yinsen had long since given hope but if he could do something to rekindle the fire in Stark, then it might just be the best thing he could do with his remaining time in this world.

____xx____

Wakanda

–Shuri Udaku–

She was hunched over her special workstation, the one not connected to anything in the country, except a single quantum communicator array connected to a dozen satellites in space communicating with each other over a single lane information highway, monitoring LA and the cities around it for special exotic energy.

Seattle was also part of her surveillance but for now, knowing the current location of Colin meant most of her satellites were concentrated on that area. Obviously, they were all either under stealth or obfuscated as commercial satellites.

Yesterday, they recorded a huge spike in energy never seen before, quickly reaching levels only seen in nuclear weapons before. She was in meetings the whole day yesterday so she had been unable to check in on it, which was a huge design flaw, she could see it now.

In her quest for absolute secrecy and security, she didn't even link that compute unit to her watch, which was already secured for a single link to the communicator computer in her Personal Labs.

She has done that now but the question remains. If that much anomalous energy was congregated in a single space, in a very short area actually, how was LA still standing? No sign of any fight. Nothing.

Very curious, and yet, that was not the main focus of her search.

Colin Baxter quit from the Internship program, arguably the best internship program on the planet. Not just him, but everyone else as well, all on the same day.

She had this overwhelming urge to ask the guy what exactly happens in his day to day life for him to be involved in so much interesting stuff.

She was the Princess and now Premier Superhuman Guardian of a nation that is the most advanced on the planet, hidden under shields capable of tanking the most powerful weapons on the planet, housing a Mine that produces the world's supply of Vibranium every single minute and despite all of that, it felt like she was the one who had the boring life.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #61

??[?]

–Alexander Pierce–

"So, we are sure there is nothing left?" He asked, one more time, in front of the Heads, because they wanted to be included in the investigation into the disappearance and probable death of a very influential and important Head of HYDRA.

Sure, their philosophy of cutting off one head, two will emerge worked wonders when it came to low level or even middle level grunts but when it came to Heads of HYDRA, especially the one who was responsible for much of their exotic high end superhuman research?

Yeah, the difficulty in replacing someone like that was a lot higher, especially someone like Strucker because that man had his hands in so many pies no one knew about that it would be all but impossible to replace him.

"No, sir. We have scanned all of the known bases, confiscated all the electronics we could, a massive amount of physical paper as well, and interrogated all of the known associates but no one knows his whereabouts."

"And what of his assets? His hidden research facilities around the world?" He rolled his eyes at the hunger evident in Whitehall's voice as the two usually butted heads for resources, especially human resources during their meetings and Whitehall would probably like nothing more than to get his hands on his rivals' precious research, probably catapulting his standing above everyone else.

Like he would ever let that happen. After all, while the research both of them did was helpful to some extent, he firmly believed that the future of humanity was not becoming some monster or undergoing painful procedures just to become a bit more biologically resilient. No, it was order. Perfect order, something that his branch was working relentlessly for, and if recent successes are any indication, they were on track to succeed, if not in the next decade, then the decade after that.

BUT they will succeed.

Rumlow, ever the loyal soldier, said straight-faced, "We have been unable to locate any of the primary research centers of Herr Strucker. Despite our many attempts, the location data of any of these facilities has not been found in any of the data caches we have recovered. We are currently in the process of sifting through hundreds of thousands of [pages worth of physical data to get any clues."

"I see. Any clue about his latest scheduled trip to Lagos?"

And that was the clincher of the whole thing. As part of the whole making all the Heads accountable to the council, it was made a rule that for every risky meeting that a Head might go into, they were supposed to report it to the council who might provide a hand to their fellow colleague, should the need arise.

Obviously, all of them were way too prideful to ever ask for help BUT it did help in making sure that no one stepped on anyone else's toes. They did not want a repeat of what happened to his team when they set foot in Eastern Europe without informing anyone. That would just drop morale between their forces.

"About that, we have agents currently scouring the entire city for any clues but according to what digital surveillance we were able to collect, Herr Strucker was last seen heading out of the city. Nothing after that. The cars and the men that went with him have not been seen since."

"I see. This is highly irregular." Malick stated and he had to agree. They have been operating in the shadows for decades at this point, without any major failure across the board. He couldn't pinpoint a single time in the past multiple decades where they had to worry about the safety of the Heads.

Most of them were either way too well hidden or on important posts in important governments, practically guaranteeing their security. The only ones who have been assassinating heads of state and doing it successfully have been HYDRA itself and to have someone not just target but successfully take out one of their Heads was disturbing, to say the least.

"Motion to raise a highest level emergency clause: Authorise all asserts." He whistles internally, once he was on mute obviously. He hadn't expected all of the others to be this spooked, to agree to pool all their resources to get to the bottom of this.

Well, it worked in his favour, since he was the current Head of the Council and as such, their resources were now his to command. Obviously, these snakes would never hand over everything they had but even the part they were willing to hand over to his already large pile would make his next actions very smooth.

"Seconded."

"I Agree."

"I Agree."

"Agreed/"

"Agreed. For HYDRA!"

With each vote, his smile grew as he, at the end, pressed the button and said, "For HYDRA! HAIL HYDRA!"

"HAIL HYDRA!

"HAIL HYDRA!

"HAIL HYDRA!

With that, he swiped his hand on the table and the Video Conference shut off, revealing an empty office, the door to which opened soon after, revealing Rumlow.

Greeting the man with a smile, he asked the most important question, "So, what actually happened?"

Rumlow smiled and took out a tablet from his back and presented it to him, "This is the site we found. A hidden military bunker, buried under rubble. We are still in the process of digging through the whole thing but we have found one of the cars that Strucker used to exit the city."

"Hmm," He went over the footage. "And all the records have been deleted?"

"Yes. All digital as well as Physical copies have been deleted. One of the government archive floors caught on fire and destroyed all the copies of a series of bunkers around the country."

"Well done." He praised the man as he read through the rest of the report. "You think the bunker imploded?"

"Yes, sir. According to the schematics and what little we have been able to analyse based on the layers of debris, the base shouldn't have collapsed on its own. The boys think that some sort of high yield explosives acting on specific load bearing areas along with some strategic impacts on the concrete ceilings brought down the whole thing. We are talking tons of debris, sir."

"So, we might never know what happened down there." HE stated as he negligently swiped through the map on the tablet and then his eyes narrowed.

"Wait a minute. This-" He pointed at a closed building. "I know this place. This is one of Strucker's old facilities. Housing experimental organs purpose built for emergency transplants. Search this place as well. It is an underground basement with a ghost staff."

"I will send people to check it out. Any hostilities expected?" Rumlow asked him, which was fair of him because not all of HYDRA knew they were working for HYDRA.

"Just clean the entire facility. I don't want any ticking bombs from Strucker's side. Make sure to relocate the whole thing. It might help since Strucker must have visited that facility before leaving the city."

"I see. Thank you, sir. HAIL HYDRA!"

He waved the man off and then leaned back in his chair, looking up, smiling.

Strucker might have gone off and died somewhere and it might be a short term loss for HYDRA as a whole but his branch? They were about to get the biggest shot in the arm for all of their activities.

Over 80 Billion Dollars and counting, already in the process of being moved across shadow accounts across the world, to be used as funding to increase the pace of their work.

Sure, the Project INSIGHT was still a concept at this stage, but with additional funding and a little risk when it came to Zola, he might just get the entire thing built within the next three years.

After all, what good was freedom and free will if the entirety of the human race was in chaos?

He stood up and walked to the windows of his office, overlooking a small lazy river that went through the complex, an absolutely state of the art community where most of the occupants were HYDRA, just so he and his family could live a secure as well as luxurious life.

He could see it now. The savior of Humanity and the Earth, the leader of HYDRA.

It would not be long before Humanity realised that they needed HYDRA, needed him.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[Lovegoodlovesgood]

sustain itself now that she had injected herself with the extracted and refined juices from 11 Heart Shaped Herbs,

Click to shrink...

Is that a KFC reference?

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Is that a KFC reference?

Click to shrink...

Lol, I didn't even mean to do that but now that you pointed it out, yup. It is the Colonel's fine work

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #62

Kamar Taj[February 14, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"Ah! I'm so bored. Why can't I go back to the Red Hearth again?" He whined, yes, whined about his current stay in Kamar Taj. It had been over two days since he was brought here by the Ancient One once he had officially given up the Stark Internship.

He had told the Dean about a personal problem that might stretch into weeks, and he might just have to take a rain check on the exams, to which the Dean replied in a very calm and concise manner, but the underlying meaning was clear.

What the fuck is wrong with you? That is the premier Internship program in the world.

With a little back and forth, along with an official email from Stark Industries explaining the abrupt and unfortunate cancellation of the program for confidential reasons, was more than enough for the University to get off his back. He now had 3 weeks till his finals, and if this whole Hell Vampire fiasco lasted beyond that, he might just have to take a gap year.

Speaking of the whole Vampire Fiasco, he turned to his side and saw the freaking Red Matron in the same room as him, casually munching on Apples. "What the fuck are you doing here? Isn't this like sacred land? Why aren't you up in flames yet?"

She kept eating her apple and then after spitting out the seeds like some kind of barbarian–very strong barbarian because the seeds created slight indents in the walls of the secure room he was holed up in, looked at him, "What fucking idiot taught you the basics of sorcerey, you illiterate fool. The designated guardian of a sacred place, ergo, your precious Ancient One, can invite someone in with stipulated conditions. Ergo, me being here without going up in flames."

"Oh yeah?" He snarked right back. All this time spent cooped up in a single place was not good for his mental health, "Like you have the guts to do anything in Kamar Taj. The Ancient One would skin you alive."

He suddenly leaned back into the chair, a slight chill running through the room as the Red Matron was suddenly way too close for comfort, "Watch your mouth, little Life-Giver. You might be able to hide behind your precious Ancient One or even the Psionic Dragon but for how long do you think you will survive without either of them? Know your place, baka~."

He blinked as the woman was back in her seat, munching on apples that never seemed to end, which might just be true considering what he knew about Sorcery and the infinite dimensions that the average sorcerer can see and can access, under the right circumstances.

The Vishanti's power probably made the process vastly easier, though, giving the Ancient One access to, for example, an entire dimension filled with apples.

One of the many handy dandy perks of being the head of a thousand year old order that practiced magic and not just any magic, interdimensional reality warping magic. The best kind.

He then blinked again, his brain taking a while to catch up, despite its enhanced status. "D-Did you just quote anime to me?"

The woman had the audacity to ignore him. Argh, he was so fed up with this.

He checked his laptop for the nth time he had been here. No progress on anything whatsoever.

Sure, there was some progress on the Extremis end but it was all technical jargon and more importantly, just a thinly veiled request for even more ridiculously specialised equipment that was hard as fuck to source on the open market, unless one was a private research company or a freaking country.

Which is why he was ignoring that email, for now. Procrastination for the win.

No reply from Shuri either and nothing on SHIELD's end as well. No new updates for their new satellite systems. He knew it was Project Insight but he just needed something to expose them once and for all. Sure, it might take down SHIELD with it but he was fine with that, as long as they served their purpose.

In his opinion, the single most significant thing that SHIELD ever did, at least in this century, was help in the creation of the Avengers. Sure, with or without their help, a group of heroes, with the same will to save people, would have gathered under a single umbrella to defend Earth from Loki and the Chitauri.

It just would have taken longer for all of them to gather in a single place, a little more time to establish a command structure, more time to get used to each other's moves, and probably would not have gotten a badass name like Avengers.

Probably would have been named something lame like Avengers League.

Which is why it was acceptable to him for SHIELD to become a casualty if the cancer that is HYDRA was rid of this world, once and for all.

*SIGH*

"Why, Stan Lee, Why?" He looked up at the ceiling and asked Marvel God, not Marvel Jesus, no, that is Deadpool, about his current condition.

He swore to Stan Lee himself, the timing of the door creaking open was so perfectly matched as he whirled around, almost dropping out of the ultra comfy chair he was sitting in, hoping for blissful release from boredom, the bane of everyone in his generation and it was…Wong.

"Aww…" He collapsed in his seat, and then turned around, shooting a Kinetic Laser at the Red Matron, who didn't even flinch as a veil of red appeared in front of her face and devoured it easily. She didn't even acknowledge the attack, so busy she was stuffing her face with apples.

How could she eat so much anyway? She hadn't even let him touch them while she continued to eat them by the dozens.

Wong came behind him and stood right by his chair, "I hope the Blood Apples are to your liking, Ms.Koscheyenka?"

The air in the room seemed to ripple as he looked up at Wong, who was looking placidly at the woman who had stopped eating what were apparently Blood Apples, and was straight up glaring at Wong.

He tensed, fingers barely restrained as he got ready to call forth everything he could muster up, just in case the crazy nutjob tried to attack them, and the protection the Ancient One put in place failed to completely stop her.

He couldn't hope to stop her at her full strength but if she was crippled by the protections of Kamar Taj and could only use a fraction of her strength? He could stop one of her attacks, more than long enough for both him and Wong to flee, come with backup and then crush her, Ancient Treaty be damned.

Abruptly, as if the previous bloodlust was just an act, she relaxed in her chair and began munching on the rest of her apple, before speaking, "I see that the Bald Headed Demon's attack dogs have gotten significantly more daring in the time I have been inactive. I don't suppose you know of–"

"--Of the Transylvania incident? Yes, I am more than aware of how you bit more than you could chew and had to call upon the Blood God's powers, which triggered Kamar Taj's protections, resulting in you being handily defeated by the Ancient One." Wong then smiled at her, which only seemed to rile her up even more.

Damn, the protections placed in Kamar Taj or more specifically, the restrictions placed on her by the Ancient One must be truly powerful or else, Wong would have been dead meat by now.

Then, as if on cue, all three of them looked to their side as a glowing orange portal opened up and the Ancient One came out of it. He squinted his eyes and heard a painful groan as the pure, absurdly blinding light coming out of the closing portal meant that the Ancient One just had a one to one meeting with the Vishanti.

He looked to the side and saw the Red Matron only looking mildly annoyed at the burns on her skin, which were visibly repairing as the portal closed.

"The Vishanti have spoken. Koscheyenka, you are hereby ordered to help us with the Vampire problem. Deal with the infestation and the Vishanti guarantees 1 billion Blood Apples, over the course of the next ten years."

His eyes widened as the Red Matron, unheeding of her injuries, skipped over and extended her hand to presumably handshake to seal the deal.

Instead, he saw her visibly stumble as a pair of Apples appeared in the sky, one zooming into her chest and the other disappearing into the sky, presumably leaving for the dimension that the Vishanti resided in.

"And the agreement is sealed. I hope you fulfill your end of the deal." The Ancient One said calmly and then turned around.

Before he could get a word in about these absolutely horrendous living arrangements, especially for a teenaged hyperactive mind, the Ancient One spoke, "You can go to the Red Hearth, Colin. I have updated the wards, and please, do tell Dr.Banner that he cannot access his powers as fluidly as before in that enchanted space. Do with that what you will."

Before he could even pump his fist at that, the scenery around him blurred, and he found himself standing right outside Kamar Taj, in the company of…

"Why are you here?" He pointed at her, who was, once again, eating a Blood Apple.




If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[0Densin]

This story is quite amusing and I like reading it. So what follows it just my personal criticism and I meen no offense by giving it, I just felt the need to put it out there as it were, and I hope that it may even be constructive even though I kind of suck at discerning when something is or is not constructive criticism. With that said, I wish to appologise ahead of time, and state that you have an interesting story. In fact my only problem with this story is centered around the characterization of Colin himself, which is that he is kind of... lacking? Yes, Lacking might be the right word to describe him as he is now. He just doesn't seem to be growing as a character in a lot of ways as of yet, but especially in the mental department, since he keeps expecting things to follow what he thinks he knows about Marvel, despite being repeatedly smacked in the face with proof that what he knows is at most a shallow reflection of the reality of things at this point.

Puberty and teenage hormones can account for a lot of his more undesirable personal traits (I think most of us as a species are inclined toward being arrogant whiny assholes who don't appreciate what we have in our teens, unless life beats that inclination out of us, we get raised just right by our parents/community, or we take up the pursuit of self awareness and enlightenment), so I try to overlook them and wait to see how he grows out of them.

But that mental inflexibility to learn from his mental failing is a bit of a headache inducer for me, since he keeps making similar if not exactly the same mistakes, and it makes me feel like my IQ points are dropping every time I see it happen (I think its because I have autism and his seemingly purposeful disregard for using what seems to be a perfectly functional and normal brain twigs something inside my psyche to screem in frustration *Shrugs*). Honestly I keep expecting it to bite him in the ass more than it has, so he must be getting a lot of help from behind the scenes, that he isn't aware of or willfully disregards.

Also what is with his, seemingly over the top, hate/disdain toward so many of the supernatural beings in the setting, to the point of him taking refuge in as of yet undeserved arrogance or being genocidally opinionated towards them about, anyway? Is there going to be a backstory about why he is like that? I'd think it was a religious thing, if his actions and attitude didn't com of as irreverent towards all the gods and demons, and I'm inclined to believe from how he comes off as a person that he doesn't even respect any of the ones he knows exist except when its convenient for him.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #63

The Red Hearth, Mars[February 14, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

"This is quite a quaint little place you have built for yourself. Nothing compared to my Blood Veil, obviously, but still, a good little place for the little LifeGiver."

He groaned and slid a hand down his face as the absolutely horrendous and nothing like the rumours about her would indicate, Red Matron skipped in the hallway after the Portal Room of the Red Hearth.

"Don't you know? As part of the agreement, I am also supposed to guarantee your safety, and I can't do that while you galavant around the world. My Blood Apples are on the line, you know." She patronisingly explained to him as if he were a toddler, which, well, he was, if taken in relativistic terms but goddamn, he was an adult and it stung to be treated like that.

So, there he was, getting out of the portal room, with the Red Matron, accused of multiple massacres, into the most sacred place he had built in his life. If it was up to him, he would have never agreed to this but alas, it was something agreed to by Jin'Ya, who was the officially and more importantly, mystical guardian of this place and also the Vishanti who were the de-facto boss of the Ancient One, which made them the bosses of his boss.

"For the record, I absolutely hate this and if you go a single step out of line, I will call down Jin'Ya so down on your ass–"

He was interrupted by her snort as she refused to even look at him, "Oh, that's cute. Relax, little LifeGiver, I am just here to get my Blood Apples, plus your Psionic Dragon has left his traces all over this place. A single command, and I fear that I might just find myself in need of a new body and you in need of another planet. Pro Tip: look for something slightly more hospitable instead of just looking for the closest planet."

He rolled his eyes and ignored her recommendations, though he mentally noted to himself to ask Jin'Ya about the traces that had the potential to blow up the Red Hearth, his one and only true home, something that he literally poured litres of his blood into, to comply with the blood binding process, turning this place into the de-facto house of one Colin Baxter.

Once they were clear of the portal room, he made a sharp right, intending on housing her in one of the medical prison cells, having no interest in getting her even a bit closer to–

"Ooooh, I sense someone, someone strong, and another vastly weaker, and then another completely human. What an interesting combination. I assume we are heading completely away from them?" The latest and greatest headache in his life asked him, though she still followed him without complaint, something he was grateful for because if she just remained obstinate, he had no real way of enforcing any rule all by himself.

Which was kind of saddening, because he had hoped to not encounter reality warping individuals for another decade at least, when he would have gained reality warping level powers of his own.

He really needed to get his mystical training in order. So far, he had just been using his powers, not understanding them. Getting control over his powers on a mystical level would probably elevate his powers scale to levels reaching Thor and, hopefully, with time, the Skyfather level as well.

"Ah, the silent treatment. I see that Humans have not changed in the 5 centuries that I have gone without talking to any human, well, peacefully anyway." She mused out loud, and he noted every little piece of information he got from her chattering away for later analysis, though he was self aware enough to know that she was a thousand year old Vampire, who survived.

As was the mantra, respecting the elderly was important, even more so in the supernatural world because living past a certain age, especially being an objectively evil being on the same planet as the Ancient One meant that she was exceptional, powerful in ways that very few were.

Beings on this level would never slip up and give him anything of note.

Sighing out loud, he flushed his body with CHI, just in case this woman was doing her blood magic on him, however unlikely it might be, and had to witness the incredibly uncomfortable display of the Red Matron, the boogeywoman of Vampires, moan with her eyes closed and her mouth op–

He blinked, shaking his head to banish the image away and snapped at her, taking a step back due to the sheer oddness of the situation, "Stop that! What is wrong with you?"

"Ha. So, that was—wow, that was some really strong stuff. I apologize for losing control, but you have to realise–"

"Alright, that's it," With a snap of his finger, he exercised his control over the wards in the Red Hearth and just displaced her to the prison cell and she didn't even resist as the hallway was finally empty and he could relax.

"Who knew CHI could do this to her?" He wondered out loud as he began walking backwards, to the kitchen, where Bruce was already waiting for him. Hansen was still in the lab, and JT James was still in a coma, which was already starting to weigh on Bruce, he could tell.

"I knew, we all knew. Vampires cannot survive pure life force flowing through them, but if they did, they would instantly elevate their bodies and souls to another level. Why do you think we all steamrolled that treaty without any consideration for any other changes?" Jin'Ya chimed in his mind, reminding him that the Psionic Dragon was watching over him at all times.

"Please," he could feel the Dragon roll his eyes, "I am more worried about dealing with a Blood God level being than you getting in a honey trap."

"So, what? Just because my CHI is untainted by the cycle that is life, not having emotions and little bits and pieces of precious lifeforms, it can be absorbed by Vampires?" He asked JIn'Ya through their mental link as he reached the kitchen floor.

Just waiting outside the door, he heard Jin'Ya's reply, "Precisely. CHI comes from life itself, that is a fact, but you have somehow found a dimension that contains CHI that did not come from any life. It just exists. That makes it more valuable than the Blood God's blood for vampires. Like I said, there was a reason we rushed that thing in to save your pale ass."

He snorted at that reply and shook his head as Jin'Ya left his mind. Even in his care, Jin'Ya never failed to insult him. Truly the best person to bring him down a notch, especially since he was starting to feel a little too important in the wake of having so many valuables stuffed into his very soul and body.

Pushing the door open, he saw Bruce sitting at the table with nothing but a tablet in front of him. The time spent here in the Red Hearth was truly good for the man. He was starting to not look like stick and bones now.

Some of his wrinkles had faded away and the man actually looked more muscular now, no doubt courtesy of their findings that showed them that Bruce was actually decently superhuman, without needing to change a single shade.

"Good evening, Bruce." For simplicity's sake, they had just decided to adopt Pacific Daylight Time since he spent most of his time in Seattle, in the Red Hearth. Not like he needed COngressional Approval to change timezones in this place.

He could just change it to Eastern Daylight Time when he inevitably settled in New York, the capital of public urination and Superhero fights.

"Good evening. I heard that there was an emergency and also read about the internship cancellation. Is everything alright?" Bruce asked him, concerned.

His brows furrowed at that, "What? How did you know about the internship thing? It's barely been a day."

"Well, it's a big thing in the social circles that I used to frequent, at least online. Stark Industries doing this, along with Tony Stark's disappearance, has the academic community talking about Stark Industries' Research future."

"Ah, that's what it was. Makes sense." He nodded and swiped away the small blog post, along with a little note at the end talking about the Arc Experiment's permanent shutdown procedures being initiated.

Well, he was curious about the way Stane would die this time then.

"Enough about me. As you can see, I am completely fine. Due to some other unrelated stuff, I might have to spend a lot of time here, so you might see a lot of me from now on, depending on how many times I can leave my office. Anyways, any updates about Extremis–aside from the equipment requests." He hastily added after seeing Bruce getting geared up.

That took the wind out of his sails as Bruce smiled hesitantly, "Yes, about the man. I know you said—"

"Ah, about him. I am so sorry about that. I still need some stuff to prepare an attractive proposition for him. Until that is done, even if we did wake him up, he would just end up as a prisoner in this facility. Look, Bruce, I know you don't like this, but think of it this way. I am completely responsible for everything, for you, for Hansen, for this place."

Bruce nodded, looking deep in thought. He continued, "IN a way, this is a prison, for you and Hansen, however pretty the package might look like."

He raised a hand and stopped Bruce from interrupting him, "I know you don't think of it like that, but it is the truth. You can't leave, and if you do, you will be hunted down unless you find a safer place, which I don't think you will find. So think of it like him being a prisoner and me being the warden. I have a need for him, and once we have what we need, I will let him go. Until then, I am willing to be the warden who is illegally imprisoning him here. Understood?"

Bruce was silent for a minute before he nodded hesitantly, "Yeah, I get it. I assume that he will get the same perks as me and Hansen?"

"Provided he cooperates with you. We don't want a little pyromaniac and pyrokinetic loose in this place."

He then leaned back, "Now, enough about that. Want to hear a fascinating story about my life? Something that happened just now? It has something that will help you as well."

Might as well use the new and restricted wards to help the man get closer to the Hulk now that the flow from the Guy Below is restricted by the wards that the Ancient One, or rather, the Vishanti, cast on the Red Hearth.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[Emptiness]

Crap. The One Below All is in play? Might add on to the treaty that no one pokes any green doors.

Wait....

Doors......

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Crap. The One Below All is in play? Might add on to the treaty that no one pokes any green doors.

Wait....

Doors......

Click to shrink...

*blinks* *blinks some more*
*agressively writing down stuff*

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #64

The Body Temple(Gym), The Red Hearth, Mars[February 14, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

BOOM!

With a grunt, he collided with the impact measuring machine, something he picked up from a university in China, a college project for some engineering course. Anyways, it was built to measure impacts, crumple zones, calculate the effectiveness of the crumple zone, all the auto stuff.

He, however, saw a different use case for the thing.

Boom! (Since it was a much smaller sound than his)

"Nice!" He clapped as Bruce shoulder checked the machine with all he had. Yeah, he had another commissioned from the group, just in case he needed parts for one that broke down. IT was a nice little thing he did, giving a group of broke students a little pocket change since he wasn't even scammed in the deal.

This was a perfectly working, normal impact machine.

Bruce came to stand before him, now in gym clothes that did nothing to hide his muscles, with the little flab he had on his stomach gone, huffing with both his hands on his waist, "This is–" He took a breath in between before continuing, "--It's more fun than I thought it would be."

"Right?" He clapped the man's shoulder with a grin as they were currently in the Gym. His story about his supernatural adventure was taken with a huge grain of salt by Bruce, and the only thing he found true, or rather, plausible about the whole thing, was the new and advanced wards on the Red Hearth.

Bruce explained to him that he had been feeling a little odd for a couple of hours before, and could not pinpoint it. So, that got both of their SCIENCE! signals tingling as they both came to the gym.

"So?" He asked Bruce, "Feel any difference?"

According to his theory, Bruce should feel a little less interference from the Guy Below, a little less anger and rage as well. Aside from that, Bruce being enhanced even in his base form was new territory for him, so who knows how that went with the new wards. Though the impact machine definitely told him that Bruce was enhanced, even right now.

Not Luke Cage enhanced, but definitely Captain America enhanced. Him, on the other hand? Spider Man category, the movie one, not the comics one, that one sometimes duked it out with Thor, and he was in no position to do that as of now.

Mjolnir alone would just break through all of his Doors, and the best he could do was use his Kinetic Lasers since using Air, one of his A-tier abilities, would do nothing to Thor, since Storm was his domain, which also included limited aerokinesis. The Kinetic Lasers, as well, would just push Thor back and give him some burns. Burns that Thor's body would heal in seconds, if not minutes anyway.

"Yeah," Bruce said in between gulps of water, "I can definitely feel it in the recovery. I was never this tired, though I never did this strenuous exercise anyway."

He noted those observations down, acting as a good research assistant to the actual Doctor in this place, which was Bruce Banner with his seven PhDs. Wonder what happened to them now that he is declared a criminal?

Not a traitor, not yet but definitely a criminal, and with Ross soon either dead or out of active service, hopefully, Bruce will not get the giant red tag of a traitor like he did in canon.

Still, he was not going to voice out his question like an insensitive idiot.

"So, call it a day?" Bruce asked him and he nodded, "Yeah. Just–here you go, I have catalogued them according to your previous format."

He handed over the perfectly calculated readings along with a little doodle of Bruce punching at the machine, even though that was totally not what they were doing here.

"Thanks! This will help, a lot. Also, while I don't necessarily believe what you just told me earlier, this right here," Bruce gestured at the gym and the machines around him, and then at the pad as well, "-Is real and for that, I am thankful. It's still too early to tell if what your Ancient One did was helpful for me or not, but a change has been recorded, and only time will tell if it's helpful or not." With these words, Bruce just fucked right off.

Once the gym door closed, he sat on the bench and sipped on his Glacier water, all with prehistoric bacteria and viruses, and shook his head, "Man. What a guy."

Stepping into the shower, instead of turning on the shower that drew upon water from the Red Hearth's reservoir, he drew upon a Door and blasted himself with cold water.

The benefits of having an entire dimension of water at your beck and call meant he could get wet anywhere in the world. Okay, that came out wrong.

He shivered a bit because, despite his enhanced physique, he was still susceptible to cold, and the water he had summoned was very, very cold. It was one of the bottom layers of water.

Absurd not conforming to reality's laws, fact, the Water dimension was essentially just an ocean. He did not know if it was spherical or rectangular. All that mattered was that there was an up and there was a down. There were levels to the water.

So, when he opens a Door, he can decide from which layer he wants to get the water from. Ranging from lukewarm to straight up water that has not frozen over only because it did not have the appropriate atmospheric conditions to do so.

Not opening the dimension of Fire to just dry himself off since that would just burn him, even if only a bit, he wiped himself down with a towel and then headed to his office.

The thought of Ross had him itching to know the man's current condition. Hopefully, out of military service already, if not dead. He knew the people in charge wanted an attack dog they could conveniently put the blame on and Ross probably knew that but even Ross and his unique brand of madness must know that if he had limited days to live, he might as well use the fortune and power he had amassed to give himself a comfortable ride to Death.

He still felt a little odd about the whole thing, not because he was the one who gave Ross cancer, but because he felt nothing while giving Ross cancer. Sure, it was done in the haze of rage, after having discovered his willingness to kill soldiers to pin more crimes on Bruce, but even after having performed the act, he felt nothing.

No regret, no guilt.

Just a quiet satisfaction that Ross will not be–

He choked on thin air as he saw a video. Checking and double checking the timestamp, he saw that it was shot just yesterday, showing Ross, hale and healthy, if only a bit red.

Not just healthy, but even a bit more jacked up than he was that night.

"What the f*ck?" He whispered as he got closer to the monitor and started getting to the bottom of things.

He knew, for a fact, that Ross should have been at least hobbling with a stick, if not bedridden entirely. He did not give the man benign cancer. No indication of sickness, no hospital visits, aside from mandatory Military ones that had nothing anomalous in the reports.

Obviously, the reports were doctored, but the video was not. It was a public event, and for some godforsaken reason, Ross was fine.

His eyes widened as he sat ramrod straight. Immediately, he began hammering away at his keyboard while saying the same thing over and over again.

"No, no, no. SHIT!" He exclaimed as he saw the paperwork.

Samuel Sterns….was declared dead.

The Leader….is on the loose.



If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[Orphiex]

Ohh snap. Colin didn't have knowledge of the canonical Brave New World events, did he? He knows enough to recognize what's happened, but only after the fact. This should get interesting.

 

[Petrox]

Always kill your villains no matter how insignificant they are or they are going to get the villain's jackpot with a Diabolos ex machina

 

[0Densin]

Yeah. Colin forgot one of the golden rules in Superhero Comic Land(s). It isn't over until you've burned the body and the soul in a very dramatic and redoubtable fashion that leaves not ability to ask "Is it dead?", because anything less is just asking for an enemy to show up later, with a power-up, or causing more overarching problems that you will have to deal with.

 

[Spearow]

as long as Ross lives, he can always become the Red Hulk in some manner.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #65

The Red Hearth, Mars[February 16, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

Just like that, two days passed in a fugue on the Red Hearth, with no major activity reported across all the spectrums that he monitored. No more shenanigans from the Red Matron as well.

IT was like she was content being near him and was meditating whenever he saw the footage from the CCTVs installed in the common areas of her room. She knew she was being watched, not from the CCTVs but when he was watching the screen. Some advanced observation magic right there.

Still, it was one less headache for the time being so he ignored her, ignored Jin'Ya because the dragon was absolutely grouchy and grumpy that he had to share his space with the Red Matron and explicitly told him, in no uncertain terms, that only to call him when he has actionable intel, because he was itching to go for a fight.

May Stan Lee save the man or demon who would find themselves facing an irate JIn'Ya who hadn't found a suitable activity for release yet.

Bruce and Hansen were both making steadfast progress on the Extremis program. As far as he could understand, Maya's thought process was to make sure that Extremis reached the next step, through any means necessary. That meant that she moved on to the next strain without resolving any issues from the previous rendition, resulting in overall higher performance but with a myriad of unsolved issues, which was obviously not going to work on a large enough scale.

Bruce, rightfully so, suggested, which was like an order to Hansen, that they start from the bottom. The very first strain, used on some plants, that Hansen remembered. Bruce told him later on, in private, that Maya might need an actual therapist, which should have been obvious in hindsight.

He also explained to him that the Extremis that he was currently focusing on would cut back drastically on the enhancement part, entirely cutting out the fiery stuff, and would just focus on getting the body to overall peak condition, something entirely in the human realm of possibility.

So, no superhuman super soldiers there.

While it would have been nice to be one of the only two groups (Aakanda being the first) to have a viable super soldier serum, he knew it must have raised Bruce's alarm bells when he saw the actual end result of a successful Extremis serum campaign, so he let the man actually downgrade the stuff,, promising to use it for medical benefits as soon as it is done.

Privately, however, every single note, every single keystroke that Bruce and Hansen performed, was logged on a secure server. Their labs were on a constant watch and due to the dangers of the Extremis serum's plant testing, paper was not used which is why he had the record of everything he might need to,, one day, actually recreate Aldrich Killian's Fiery breath.

That was far and away into the future though, for now, he had two things that he needed to absolutely focus on.

Finding Sterns, the Leader, who had apparently begun getting his hooks into Ross this early on in the timeline, because there was no reason the man should have been able to walk around, let alone look like he was actively shaving off years of his life. All of this in the span of a month was brutal. It meant the curve of progression for the Leader's intelligence was astronomical, if he was already developing drugs capable of suppressing Cancer and then making someone healthy.

He was sure that the Leader would never give Ross a cure, instead of dangling a cure in front of him and then making sure that Ross agreed to every one of his demands. A subscription based cure, if you will.

The second thing was tomorrow, at 5 AM, Shuri was going to (hopefully) arrive at Mount Everest Base Camp for the Ta-Lo tour.

In the chaos of all that happened in the past few days, he had almost forgotten the fact that he had promised Shuri a tour of Ta-Lo, an even more mystical, hidden, and hard to access place that Wakanda had no idea of. It would be fun to break her scientifically rigorously trained mind, to see an actual Dragon of all things, provided the Water Dragon complied obviously.

He was not going to ask the Guardian of an entire dimension to become a circus animal of all things. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"Argh! Why is this so hard?" He grumbled to himself, rubbing his eyes because he had spent over 12 hours sitting in the same place, hammering away at the keyboard because he needed to find the Leader before he became too smart, too intelligent for his own good.

In the comics, the man was said to have invented parallel timestream travel, which, while not immediately damaging to the original timeline, was just as hazardous to the multiverse as a whole. Not to mention his ability to create powerful Gamma Mutates, not on par with the Hulk or even the Abomination, but in larger numbers.

Abomination was already in a maximum security prison right now, kept sedated under an increasing dosage of sedatives because his biology begins adapting to their methods. So far, they had zero alternative to just pumping drugs into his system and hoping for the best and he was hoping to have Bruce produce a viable alternative, so that he could produce it before FUry the next time they met, as a gift.

To show that he was not some lawless dangerous freak but just someone operating outside the purview of the law.

He pushed his chair away from the desk, and his chair's back hit the vending machine in his office with a THUNK!

He sighed and then turned around, pushing the right buttons to get himself an ice cold soda and a bag of chips. He needed to get rid of the Leader, in ways that did not sound ethical. The Library at Kamar Taj had various spells that could be used against him.

The easiest one and one that had the most potential for misuse was the magical contract way. Just try to create an ironclad magical contract and then have him sign it, only thing is that magical contracts signed under duress don't generally count, not with the Vishanti anyway.

Magical contracts could be self enforced but it was just generally safer and more assured if a Patron is the one who enforces the contracts, i.e., the Vishanti here at Kamar Taj. And they don't uphold forcefully signed magical contracts. The person has to be fully willing to do so, and he was not going to go looking around for some shady Patron God who might be willing to do that.

The second option was what appealed to him the most. Strip away the Gamma. Take the mutation away from him and then destroy any notes he might have had, removing the most dangerous weapon he had in his arsenal.

His intelligence.

Without that, he is just a talented but not overly so, Scientist. Mostly harmless that way.

He still hadn't figured out how to broach the subject with Bruce, who would just take it negatively, wiping off any progress they might have made to one day Bruce reintegrating his Hulk persona and becoming Doctor Hulk, the best version of Hulk, Smart and Powerful.

Bruce might just get tempted to use it on himself and then he would be responsible for Earth losing a major ally.

No, that was out of the question. Maybe sometime in the future when Bruce was mentally stable.

So, for now, the best he could come up with was to locate him, which would be easy with Jin'Ya's help, knock him out, keep him sedated and imprisoned, and then wake him up when the De-Gamma serum was ready and then release him as a non-powered person.

Sure, multiple violations of every humanitarian and ethical law, would be wildly unpopular with Bruce, but then again, to prevent the horrors that the Leader might actually unleash in this timeline, it should be tame in comparison.

Sighing, he gulped down the soda, still hesitant on what to do. He might just have to consult with the Ancient One over this.

Before all of that though, he had to find the Leader and as of now, with only his skills, it seemed impossible. He was up against Tony Stark level intelligence and he was not that smart, yet.

TING!

He straightened in his seat as the signal from Ta-Lo arrived, through the server at Kamar Taj.

They were ready.

Well, he had some choice words with the Village Chief, before his tour with Shuri.

Might as well get that out of the way.


If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

DoorMan #66

The Red Hearth, Mars[February 16, 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

Shutting down everything on his workstation, he whirled out of the office and went to his personal living quarters. He still had a couple of hours before Shuri arrived at the designated location, plenty of time to have a talk with the Village Chief, to warn him about the dangers of deputizing dangerous vampires, allowing them to bypass treaties meant specifically to safeguard young, talented humans.

He didn't really need to pack anything and this time, he was a little angry with them so him going empty handed would have been totally reasonable but his beef was with the Chief, not with the others. So, with a sigh, he went down to the lower levels, the cold storage floors, and gathered everything he needed before dumping them into the goods carriage section of the Portal Room.

When the time came, he would just open a portal, which would then be held open by the Water Dragon and then he could just send in his Doors to get the stuff out. It still kinda amazed him how easily the Water Dragon could just hijack his portal. It was not like it was harmful or anything but every time the Water Dragon did the trick, he tried to take back control or to push back in some meaningful way and yet, it was like pushing against an ocean with just two hands.

His hands would just sink into the overwhelming energy the Water Dragon had, as the energy parted around him and reached its goal, without caring even the slightest bit.

Very cool, if you ask him.

Once he was done cataloguing the stuff, he marked everything down and then headed back to the kitchen. He needed to check in on how much of the Ta-Lo meat was left. He kept about 10 pounds of it hidden in his personal cold storage and the rest in the fridge with a warning: DO NOT EAT but he was not sur—

"What the–" His words were stuck in his mouth as he stood there, at the entrance of the kitchen, watching her, the Red matron, eating the Ta-Lo meat, raw!

BLASPHEMY!

A few seconds after he laid his eyes on her, a red mist appeared around her that dissipated soon after, alarming the Red Matron who immediately looked up with wide eyes, still chewing on the heavenly meat.

He watched as her eyes darted all around her, staying on him a second longer before moving on, as the mist slowly dissipated. He connected himself to the ward systems to get an idea as to how she was able to move about freely without him being alerted by the wards when the last of red mist disappeared and a very familiar rumbling was heard throughout the Red Hearth.

The sound of a supremely angry Psionic Dragon.

Sighing, he put all his power into the Air Door that appeared behind his right foot and braced for impact as he was essentially mach-punted right towards the Red Matron. He winced as he felt the muscles tear at the strain but he was right in time as the first hint of the purple energy was appearing right to the side of the Red Matron, heralding the arrival of Jin'Ya.

He could also see, in slow motion, the Red Matron looking at the mist of energy and the remaining meat, as if debating eating the rest of it before Jin'Ya. IN that single flash moment, the confusion of the importance of that meat rang in his mind and he noted to ask the Village Chief about its effects on any vampire, as he finally arrived right before the Red Matron, his leg screaming in pain as it was actually steaming at this point.

"WAIT!" He shouted, imbuing his command into the wards as well, making the purple mist actually pause a bit. He then commanded the wards, which could now see that the Red Matron was not in her designated spot and was giving him alarm bells, to banish her back to the prison wing. She pouted and then disappeared after giving him a two finger mocking salute.

As for the resident angry dragon, "Look, it's just meat. That's not important, what is important is the fact that she escaped and tried to act in bad faith. I need to leave for Ta-Lo right now and I would rather not leave her in Red Hearth alone. Can you just–"

"Out of question!" "Out of question!"

Two replies rang around him at the same time. HE mechanically tuned his neck and saw a small red circle right next to the floating purple one.

The red one pulsed angrily, "According to the agreement I have with the bald headed demon, if anything were to happen to you, I would not just lose the Apples but also be punished severely, leaving me vulnerable for decades to come. No, I can't afford that. I am coming wherever you are going, that is non negotiable."

He opened his mouth to rebut but Jin'Ya butted in, "Yes, she is correct. I know the details of the deal and as much as I detest the parasite with every fiber of my being, I have to agree that she can be the best meat shield against the Vampires coming for you. Also, I cannot leave you alone with her, so I will be coming as well."

"Then it's settled." Both of the energy balls pulsed angrily at him with that declaration.

He shrugged, "Suit yourself." It was not the best case scenario but good enough for him. This way, Bruce and the others will be safe and so will he, under the protection of two Dragons, Jin'Ya and the Water Dragon, whose name he still did not know, despite literally saving the life of the Dragon.

With that statement, he walked out of the kitchen, not before checking with the wards if his share was secure, and was relieved to find the cold storage untampered.

Perk of having magical enchantments at beck and call was that cold storage became supremely easy and simple in terms of operation. No electricity, no maintenance for components, no dealing with defrosting and everything. Just a sealed box with a bunch of squiggly magical words cast on it and voilà! You have your own cold storage, at whatever size he wants.

Arriving at the portal room, he turned to the now small floating lizard, Jin'Ya, "If you would do the honors."

The dragon rolled his eyes before flicking his tail as a purplish portal bloomed into existence, but not without the entryway open. The center of the portal was still purple energy because the Water Dragon had yet to give them permission. After a couple of seconds of waiting, where he actually felt the Water Dragon poke at the portal with its energy, the view cleared up to reveal green grasslands.

The Red Matron hovered at the back of both of them but he was not worried about any cowardly attacks because he had Jin'Ya behind him. Damn, he sure was a dependable ally.

Maybe he deserved a doubling of his Ta-Lo quota.

The second the portal closed, he felt the Water Dragon speak to him mentally, "Greetings, Lifegiver. I see that you have made it out safely from the Hell empowered attacks."

He did not say the word but his expression sure did say a single word: What?

Then, after a second of deliberation, his face turned into an O as he realised what the Red Matron had done to get the approval and cooperation of Ta-Lo as a faction, because that needed express permission of the Dragon.

She lied to them about an impending attack, well, more likely she omitted information instead of outright lying, which led them to denote her as an ally in panic and emergency because the Water Dragon could not leave Ta-Lo and also could not send any warrior because the farther they were from the Water Dragon, the weaker they became.

Not wanting to resolve yet another fight that involved a Dragon, he mentally conveyed his gratitude and asked for a meeting with the Village Chief, which was swiftly granted.

After he sensed the Water Dragon's gaze receding from them, he swiftly threw a Laser at the Red Matron, knowing it would not hit but to express his anger.

"If you pull off a stunt like that again, I will make it my personal mission to exterminate you, either by turning you into a mindless husk or by vaporising you, take your pick." He spat out, deliberately releasing ANGER CHI which would give regular humans cancer but was like the worst poison to her kind, because if willingly given neutral CHI was like ambrosia or elixir to them, the Anger CHI was like the antithesis to that.

She shrunk back as black burns with yellow leaking out of them appeared on her body, the scars disappearing seconds after he let the CHI dissipate.

"Remember that." He warned her and then flew into the air with a shockwave, aiming at the village center.

This whole thing felt fishy to him and he had a hunch that the Red Matron was somehow involved in it, not just someone with knowledge of it. It was all just so convenient and yet, he could not do much because people (Jin'Ya and Ancient One) much more experienced and paranoid than him had not questioned the whole thing.

He needed something more concrete before he could start interfering in the workings of beings that had the Vishanti among them.



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