• The site has now migrated to Xenforo 2. If you see any issues with the forum operation, please post them in the feedback thread.
  • Due to issues with external spam filters, QQ is currently unable to send any mail to Microsoft E-mail addresses. This includes any account at live.com, hotmail.com or msn.com. Signing up to the forum with one of these addresses will result in your verification E-mail never arriving. For best results, please use a different E-mail provider for your QQ address.
  • For prospective new members, a word of warning: don't use common names like Dennis, Simon, or Kenny if you decide to create an account. Spammers have used them all before you and gotten those names flagged in the anti-spam databases. Your account registration will be rejected because of it.
  • Since it has happened MULTIPLE times now, I want to be very clear about this. You do not get to abandon an account and create a new one. You do not get to pass an account to someone else and create a new one. If you do so anyway, you will be banned for creating sockpuppets.
  • Due to the actions of particularly persistent spammers and trolls, we will be banning disposable email addresses from today onward.
  • The rules regarding NSFW links have been updated. See here for details.
Damn, they started a galactic spanning religion with a whole lot of zealots :eek:
This can end in peace, where everything ends in Sunshine and rainbows or a bloody crusade that spans the galaxy :confused:
Come back soon Alfred the world/galaxy is going crazy soon :D
 
Technomancer in MCU #56
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 56

Technomancer in MCU

Previously


Such was the influence that their Lord held over them.

He once again prayed in his mind, waiting for their Lord to return.

For he knew that the entire galaxy could be plunged into war should their people not get their Lord back.

________________________________________________________________

The Royal Palace, Wakanda

–N'Jadaka–


He stood ramrod straight as the council went on one of their stupid arguments the result of which was decided before they had even begun speaking but they had to go through all this song and dance every damn time.

He had honestly thought that with his acceptance into Wakanda, he would have to deal with less politics than he did in the States but boy was he wrong.

The tribe elders used the council meetings more as a place to meet people of their age and chat between themselves for entertainment rather than actively working for the betterment of Wakanda.

He could see now why Wakanda could be termed as slow to change. Even if the King himself wanted to change Wakanda, he would have to go through this absolutely detestable council of tribe leaders if he didn't wish to just go through it in the bloody manner, i.e., the American Way.

Ever since Ed left him here with his assigned mission, he had been rising rapidly through the military ranks, much to the consternation of the tribe elders. They tried, oh they tried, but in the end, nothing they could send my way could match the strength he wielded.

They or for that matter, nobody in the country held leverage over him as he could not be stopped if he so wished.

A few days ago, he had stopped receiving Alfred's mandatory reminders of his goals and after a while, he had gotten a missive from the organisation regarding the situation as one of the few people with B-class clearance, he was made privy to additional details once his uplink to the organisation's central database was restored.

The fact that Ed was dying was shocking enough but the situation of Alfred of all people leaving Ed in his most vulnerable state was straight-up incomprehensible to him.

He might not have been as close to Alfred as Daisy was but he knew that Alfred would never willingly leave Ed.

Something must have gone wrong for Alfred to take such a drastic measure.

If he was shocked by Alfred leaving, he was downright flabbergasted when he read that Daisy of all people was appointed as the interim leader of the organisation and somehow, against all odds, she had done a great job.

However, she certainly inherited Frank's propensity for always bringing overkill gear for the job. The small jet always hovering right above him and the two armed teams that were smuggled into Wakanda overnight were enough proof of that. Apparently, even Frank Castle himself was unnerved about the situation and actually followed all of Daisy's orders.

He actually went to complete the H.Y.D.R.A. mission by himself. That mission was way above his pay grade but then again, these were hardly regular times.

That was the reason he was tolerating these bunch of old fogies again. He could see T'Chaka looking at him with amusement clear in his eyes. The bastard took joy in seeing me suffer.

The reason he was here was to request for Wakanda to officially join the global stage and reveal its true state, using the downfall of H.Y.D.R.A. and advertising its role in it to soften the impact it would undoubtedly have on international politics.

So far, the work that he and T'Challa had done in liberating neighbouring countries was bearing fruit but any progress was slow going. Not to mention that without openly declaring themselves as the liberators, they had to go through several hoops to make sure that the work they did was not undone in a matter of hours by another warlord. Dealing with warlords with no morals while resisting the urge to kill them was exhausting enough. Trying to do the same while having senile elders breathing down your neck and waiting for you to mess up even slightly was a whole other ball game altogether.

He was lost in his thoughts when he heard King T'Chaka's voice, "Prince N'Jadaka, please voice your proposal."

He stepped forward, mentally preparing himself for the verbal stalling ahead, hoping against all odds that Wakanda would help Ed in their difficult time.

"Greetings, the esteemed council of Wakanda. I am here with a plea. A plea to help our allies who will no doubt be very grateful for our assistance….."

________________________________________________________________

–Frank Castle–

Waiting in stealth mode, he awaited the signal that would herald the activation of the helicarriers.

He had to say that Terry did a great job in making sure that the blast damage was limited to the bay doors that were groaning in protest even now as they opened slowly, making way for the carriers to launch.

The plan was simple.

There were six carriers and six chips. The tricky part was that each chip had 3 separate parts that needed to be put into 3 different slots within 60 seconds of each other.

There were six carriers and they were six people. The chip fragmentation issue was made infinitely easier due to his authorisation of the standard nanite suits for all the members of the team. While he was at it, he even allowed Wilson's flight suit to draw power from the mini reactors in the nanite suit, allowing him to use those experimental wings of his for longer periods of time.

As soon as the repulsors of the first carrier turned ON, alarms started blaring in the Triskelion building.

He could see in his feed that Pierce, who was escorting his fellow members of the World Security Council, was startled upon hearing the noise and ordered Brock Rumlow to investigate the cause.

While he was guiding them to the top of the building to make them witness the uprising of H.Y.D.R.A, Rogers began speaking through the speakers.

While Rogers was giving his admittedly inspiring speech, he connected to the carrier formation floating above him, "Daisy, I think we are going to need a few hundred medbots down here once the fighting begins."

"Already on it. Once the guns begin shooting, I'll have them flood the entire building," came the voice of his commanding officer.

He smiled internally at that piece of news. She was learning incredibly fast.

Soon, one by one, all six of the carriers exited the bay doors and immediately their thrusters pushed them upwards at full tilt.

"Come on, boys. It's now or never," he heard the familiar voice of Romanoff as she zipped past him in her custom suit.

He could hear the various guns on the carriers activating and locking in on the flying form of Romanoff even as the thrusters began outputting even higher levels of power in order to get into low earth orbit as soon as possible.

"Woohoo!" He heard Wilson scream before he dive-bombed the first carrier that took flight.

He followed after Wilson as he connected to the bridge of the carrier floating silently above them, "Daisy, I hope everything is in place?"

"Of course, who do you take me for?" came her sassy reply.

He smiled and spoke out loud, "Activate overkill mode."

God, he felt so cringe saying that out loud but he had no choice. Alfred had made the first generation captain suits and no one other than him could even hope to alter them in any meaningful way.

Instantly, multiple openings were created on his suit's shoulder, forearm, and knee area.

Spreading his arms apart, he awaited the arrival of the extra parts needed to make his battle suit "battle" worthy.

After seeing that nothing was happening even after 30 seconds, he awkwardly put his hands back down. He gritted his teeth after he heard the faint laughing sound of Daisy coming from the comms.

A laughing Daisy who had tears in her eyes came on his HUD and with her hands on her stomach, said, "Sorry! I'm so sorry. It's just that it was so funny watching you splay like an eagle. I could literally hear the cartoonish chirping sounds. I apologize, the parts should reach you now."

Unfortunately for him, the first wave of a part that attached to his body came a bit faster than usual and just slammed onto his chest. He was certain it was Daisy doing it on purpose, taking revenge for all the punishment he gave her in the guise of extra training.

He could now see Daisy dying of laughter as an "oomph" sound left his lips.

Frustrated, he shut down the feed and activated all the micro missiles he had access to.

Diving right after Wilson, he deliberately whizzed past Wilson as he was busy buzzing around the helicarrier like a bee, making way towards the last three carriers as they had begun to target everybody flying in the air.

As he flew by the carriers one after the other, the missiles in his shoulder pods launched themselves at all the external weaponry on board and as he did a three-point landing in the hangar where the carriers were being kept, the missiles exploded in a glorious shower of sparks.

All around him, people screamed as they ran around like headless chickens and some people began shooting indiscriminately towards him, heedless of multiple untrained civvies running about.

He gave the command for all the medbots to flood the building and activated instant kill mode for all known H.Y.D.R.A. affiliated agents inside S.H.I.E.L.D.

While he was clearing the rabble inside, he saw that the shell of a suit masquerading as him was already done with installing the chips on board the carrier.

Soon, he arrived at the basement floors, where the vault of the Triskelion was.

One of the hatches from the suit opened up, revealing a vial of Pym particles.

He really hoped all the items inside the vault were worth it since he was holding one of the last batches of Pym particles. They couldn't acquire more since Hank Pym had gone underground for the past couple of months for some reason.

A small drone detached from his back plate and ingested the Pym particle vial and entered the vault after creating a hole through it with its adamantium drill.

As soon as the vault door was breached, the doors of the room closed in and the vents began to suck all air inside the hallway.

He ignored the security measures installed as he witnessed the bot shrinking the vault from the inside and returning to rest in his back plate.

His work done, he set his thrusters to maximum and broke through sixteen layers of concrete to blast out of the building.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1847

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 12 extra chapters uploaded there.
 
Technomancer in MCU #57
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 57

Technomancer in MCU

Previously


He ignored the security measures installed as he witnessed the bot shrinking the vault from the inside and returning to rest in his back plate.

His work done, he set his thrusters to maximum and broke through sixteen layers of concrete to blast out of the building.

________________________________________________________________

–Frank Castle–

As soon as he burst out of the building, taking out some poor fools with him, he was greeted with the sight of the other 5 members floating just above the Triskelion, watching the carriers above.

He could almost feel the confusion wafting off of them, except Eric since he already knew what was going on.

"Daisy, do it," he told Daisy.

"I'm trying, something's blocking all our attempts to do so," she replied. He could hear her typing furiously in the background.

"What do you mean? We have to do something soon because if we don't, the US military will just shoot them down or worse, confiscate them." That was bad but still a salvageable situation.

"I'm trying. Now, let me focus," she replied and cut the connection.

"What is happening? Aren't they supposed to just destroy each other?" Rogers said as he held his iconic shield in one hand and a hard light one attached to his other forearm.

The man really did love his shields, didn't he? No wonder, Peggy named the organisation S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Daisy, status report?"

"Just a minute!" she shouted in his ears.

Whatever Daisy did must have worked since he could see from his suit, in real-time, the carrier formation overlaying a layer of illusion on them.

Just as the illusion boundaries were about to close over all six of the carriers, a voice sounded in his ears.

A voice that nearly brought tears to his eyes. Good thing it was just sweat and not tears. That would have been embarrassing.

"Alfred reporting for duty, commander. Miss me?" said Alfred as he appeared in all his bespoke glory in his HUD.

As he heard Alfred's message, he also heard a loud whining noise from the carriers above.

His eyes widened as he looked above. The energy weapons onboard the two carriers were being activated.

He could also feel his suit's controls being taken over by Alfred, same with Eric. The medbots also seemed to increase in both volume and the speed with which they were working. Soon, within seconds of Alfred arriving, the medbots had either recovered every single S.H.I.E.L.D. agent or shredded the H.Y.D.R.A. ones down to a bloody mist, made evident by the red mist that came out of most of the carriers.

"Uh, Alfred? Buddy? This was not the plan." He heard Daisy muttering nervously.

"Ah, change of plans. We don't need them." Alfred replied.

"Why?" Daisy asked.

"No time. Will explain later on."

"Very well,"

"Alfred, good to have you back, and don't worry, Maria will be having words with you about your little leaving stunt."

He could have been mistaken but he could swear that he heard a gulping sound at his reply.

Strange.

"Anyways, any update on the other locations we were supposed to move on to?" he questioned Alfred.

"Don't worry, Commander. The forces are moving in as we speak. I have also activated all my assets around the world. We'll be done in a jiffy." Alfred replied.

He could have been mistaken again but Alfred's sound seemed a bit deeper and rougher than usual. Maybe his speakers were faulty?

________________________________________________________________

Yellow Stone National Park

There were multiple tourists inside the National Park as usual.

Tour Guide Saul was just about done with showing them the mouth of the once supervolcano and herding them to the next stop when he heard a bubbling sound of some sort.

He ignored it at first but it increased in intensity and soon, he heard horrified gasps from the visitors.

Dreading the result, he turned around and looked at the volcano. To his horror, there was a fissure in the ground through which lava was bubbling out.

"Run! RUN!" he shouted and ran towards the pickup truck. Screams ensued as all the visitors followed him.

Looking behind, he could see that multiple fissures had opened up after that, and red hot lava was flowing out of it.

He didn't know what overcame him but he was soon in the truck, helping the visitors boarding it, and as soon as the last passenger was boarded, he told the driver to floor it.

When they exited the boundary set up for the tourist spot, he could see the land around the fissures cracking and splintering, as if something was coming out of the land.

He was expecting lava but something totally unexpected happened. The ground burst open and with it, a tsunami of blackness followed.

Like a geyser, thousands of black insects of some sort flew into the air. He could hear the frightened screams intensify at that sight.

It was like it was straight out of the Bible. There was a literal swarm of blackish-red insects floating while it kept on increasing in size due to the influx of more insects adding to the cloud.

He squinted his eyes as he saw something bizarre happening.

"Oh, shit!" he exclaimed as soon as he realised what was going on. Those were no insects! They were machines. The machines were forming into a single big unit.

He didn't get to see what was happening as they were going downhill but he did hear a silent whining noise soon after it went out of his sight.

The black streak in the air was pretty hard to miss.

________________________________________________________________

–Blackagar Boltagon–

He could have never predicted the events that unfolded over the course of the past few weeks.

He had heard mutterings of genetic disorders on the rise from the genetic council but they had assured him that they had already solved it. Not to mention he had trusted his brother way too much back then.

If he had been a little more firm in his approach with Maximus, maybe he still would have been alive.

He knew for a fact that Ed was the one who had Maximus killed. He had no proof but he just knew.

He also knew that there was no way, even if he had proof, he could take any action on that piece of information.

Not when the stakes were the continued survival of his race.

A week after Ed visited Attilan, as he said, an ambassador from his side arrived with a literal army at her beck and call. She said her name was Maria Castle née Falconio. The soldiers and Alfred himself seemed incredibly protective of her.

After giving her their official acceptance, she accepted it with grace and went right back to work, i.e., healing all their people.

Contrary to the genetic council's expectation, she went to the lower floors in the beginning and started healing them.

When the council elders began to protest when she began to free them, the glare she subjected them to rooted even him to the spot.

He could still hear her words as clear as day, "There are no slavers who are allied with our organisation right now and that is not about to change anytime soon. You can either be a slaver or you can be alive. Choose wisely."

Safe to say, the elders had no words to say after that.

There were a string of rules they had to follow as part of the deal but all of them were in their favor, so he hadn't hesitated to sign the pact. What he hadn't expected however was the fervor of protest the elders made but in the end, they had to submit to the rules proposed.

Last he heard, barely 2 members of the original 15 of the council were still alive. Truly, Ed was a ruthless person.

"Ready, my love?" Medusa asked him.

"Yes." he nodded and went on the stage to address the Inhuman unit of the organisation.

Looking over the nearly 300 combat class Inhumans filled him with pride. Going with Ed was the right choice all along.

He was informed about Alfred's leaving but as they were still new members, that didn't have as big of an impact. Especially since they were technically a sovereign nation so he was able to make sure that Alfred was not snooping around constantly on their systems.

Of course, he was not delusional so as to think that Alfred could be stopped but it was necessary for the citizens' peace of mind at least.

"Greetings, fellow Inhumans. Today, we are given the opportunity to help our siblings to get rid of a scourge that has been plaguing their civilisation for far too long. Some of you might have even heard of them. Tonight, we are going to rid the planet of H.Y.D.R.A." he said in a rousing speech, hoping to increase the morale of the troops as this was their very first real mission along with the debut of Inhumans on the global political stage of Earth.

They were waiting for their orders from Miss Daisy. He still had a hard time believing that the same woman who visited their city that day had become the leader of this vast organisation.

"As per their previous orders, we are supposed to hit the location called the F.R.I.D.G.E. and retrieve everything from that facility. Actually, we were told to just take the entire facility with us, if possible." Medusa said to him, with her voice instead of her telepathic bond.

That was another thing that had improved ever since they accepted Ed's help. With the help of their sciences, they were able to not only give me a way to speak properly, but they were also able to improve upon the minor psionic talent that Medusa had.

She was now able to speak to anyone within a 100m radius with ease.

"Unit Inhumans, you are authorised to proceed. I repeat you are authorised to proceed." Daisy said in his earpiece and he nodded at Medusa, slowly floating up in the air with the entire Royal Family floating beside him.

"My fellow citizens, tonight, we rise!" he shouted passionately and flew to his destination, his entire unit following him.

Soon, the island city of Attilan II shrunk until they crossed the stealth boundary and it became invisible.

For the gift of Attilan II alone, he would count Ed and Alfred as the lifelong allies of Inhumans.

With a newfound determination, he dashed towards the location of the facility, ready to tear apart any obstacle they came across.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1809

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 12 extra chapters uploaded there.
 
Technomancer in MCU #58
Author Note - I'd recommend reading #44 if you get confused about the first part of this chapter. The next couple of chapters will be a flashback so please bear with me as I have a lot to add in these chapters.

________________________________________________________________

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

Chapter 58

Technomancer in MCU

Right after Throgg performed his spell

Throgg's workshop

–Throgg "The Madman"--


As he was on his way to the sorcerer, he was feeling oddly drained all of a sudden.

That was odd, he thought to himself.

Being the oldest dwarf alive, he was easy to tire, by Dwarven standards of course, but the exhaustion he was feeling was magical. He hadn't had that feeling ever since he killed those ravagers and even then the only reason he was exhausted was due to the mystic nature of the poison he was infected with and the fact that he had to imbue all his attacks with his magical prowess else the damn fire demons would have kept standing up again and again as the ambient magic continued to fuel them, healing and reviving them repeatedly.

There was no reason whatsoever to feel this drained after casting a spell that only covered his base.

Suddenly, he stopped mid-step as his eyes widened to the size of saucer plates.

He broke out in a cold sweat as he thought of a rather horrifying possibility.

Ignoring his exhaustion, he immediately ran to the portal room. He had built a single ingress point for any spatial magic inside the base because he was paranoid about somebody just opening a portal and killing him. Now, he was cursing his past self for making the decision to make the portal room in a corner of the base that could be easily discarded with the push of a button.

Coughing due to his magical exhaustion, his vision had gone blurry when he finally found Wong waiting impatiently for him in the portal room with a portal open, showing Kamar Taj on the other side.

Seeing his state, Wong rushed towards him, helping him breathe as he activated some sort of talisman he had on him.

Soon, the stars in his vision receded and he was able to breathe properly.

"Master Throgg, what happened?" Wong questioned him, concern evident on his face.

"Ancient One..Poison…Alfred..Tell her tha–'' was all he managed to say before darkness claimed him.

________________________________________________________________

Wong "If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it"

Holding on to the collapsed form of Master Throgg, he checked to see if the healing talisman he was given from the personal collection of the Ancient One was working or not.

Finding it to be in working order, he hurriedly conjured a platform for Master Throgg and jumped through the portal, sending a covert SOS message to all the Sanctum Masters.

If something or someone managed to fell Master Throgg who regularly destroyed all the Masters of Kamar Taj put together, the situation was not something that could be handled by his lonesome.

Hurriedly running to the medical ward of Kamar Taj, he encountered multiple apprentices on the way who immediately ran out of his way as soon as they saw his expression and the fact that he was carrying Master Throgg on a conjured stretcher.

Carefully depositing Master Throgg on one of the available beds, he then activated the runes engraved on the bed, creating a glowing green shroud that encapsulated Master Throgg.

He couldn't see Master Throgg but the vitals displayed on the hologram showed his vitals stabilising.

Switching to the mystical scanner vision, he was stunned to find a black sludge-like poison spreading through Master Throgg's body.

The bed seemed to have slowed it down a bit but it was still spreading and at that rate, it would infect Master Throgg completely in less than an hour.

At his wit's end, he was about to conjure a portal when he felt a hand patting on his shoulder, "Don't worry, Wong. I'll take it from here,"

The Ancient One was here.

He nodded and left the medical ward, closing the doors behind him.

"Call for the other masters and tell them to guard all the Sanctums. This might take a while." he heard a voice speak into his ears.

He nodded even though she couldn't see him and then swiftly left to gather the forces of Kamar Taj.

It looked like war was on the horizon.

________________________________________________________________

–Ancient One–

She was very much concerned with the way the events were unfolding. With Ed's and Toby's arrival in this world, the future had gotten harder and harder to see but she could still see the rough outline of her actions up until 2 years ago.

But now, she was lucky if she could catch a glimpse or two of the future. It had made planning for the events ahead very much unpredictable.

For the first time in centuries, she was uncertain about the path she was taking. Even her Death, a fixed point in time, seemed malleable to her now.

That was why she was startled when she got Wong's SOS. It was designed as a spell by Alfred when he realised that they didn't have a reliable magical equivalent of a normal emergency SOS call. In his words, what was the use of having an always-available near-unlimited source of energy if you couldn't even make basic spells like this?

Now, as she gazed upon the prone form of Master Throgg, she could feel her palms suddenly become clammy.

The medical bed, another invention of Alfred that he made in less than a month of learning about runes, showed the nature of the poison currently raging havoc inside Master Throgg's body.

She was familiar with that poison. She had not seen it since she was but a Sanctum Master under the previous Sorcerer Supreme.

It was a terrible, terrible poison that could only affect someone if the origin of the dark energy spell was one's own magical energy.

It was notoriously difficult to remove as well. She knew of only one way that the poison could be removed from Master Throgg's body. The longer she waited the longer the poison would have to damage his body and then, eventually his soul would be devoured by the poison as well, leaving no chance for Master Throgg to enter Valhalla.

She would not let that happen though. But before she could begin, she could not, under any circumstance, let anybody know of what she was about to do.

Raising the strongest wards she knew, she sealed the entirety of the medical ward in a phased dimension. This way, there was nobody coming in and out of the wards without her saying so.\

She opened up the cover of the medical bed and removed the prosthetic limbs that Alfred had designed for him. The VI present seemed to protest but an EMP spell fried any electronics within the suit.

It was useless now anyway since the poison had spread to the VI present in the suit as well.

Placing both her hands on Master Throgg's chest, she started chanting the spell she had only heard from her Master, the previous Sorcerer Supreme. Back then, her master had to resort to borrowing energy from Dormammu to save her from the very same poison that Master Throgg was infected with.

Soon, a veritable flood of Dark energy suffused the room as a mark appeared on her forehead, signifying her connection to the Dark realm.

As the Dark Lord sensed her actions, she could feel the strain on her soul increase as the flow of Dark energy took its toll on her body and soul but she could also feel the results of her spell.

The magical poison, sensing the delectable Dark energy, began rushing out of Master Throgg's body and into her soul, where the highest concentration of Dark Energy was present.

As soon as the poison left Master Throgg's body, she opened her eyes and grasped the Eye of Agamotto. The poison, perhaps sensing its demise, began thrashing around in her soul space.

She grimaced as she coughed blood due to the damage taken from the poison's last-minute struggle. But with a determined glint in her eyes, she activated the time stone and reversed time for the poison present inside her soul.

Normally, she would not have taken the risk of exposing the time stone's energy to something as metaphysical as her soul with the taint of Dark energy but she had recently gained a newfound will to live.

Now that she could no longer safely predict the future, she felt equal parts free and anxious about the future. Her choices would no longer be influenced by the future but by her present self and that was an incredible feeling that she had not felt in centuries.

But at the same time, the looming threat of Dormammu made her anxious but it also gave her the will required to survive and see it through to the end.

That's why she was much more liberal in her use of the Eye of Agamotto.

Using its energy to speed up the recovery period Master Throgg, she watched as his face gained color and his breathing became even.

Soon, he woke up and the first thing he did was shout, "No, What have I done?"

She approached him and questioned, "What exactly happened, Master Throgg?"

His eyes snapped towards her with desperation and panic clear in his eyes, "Quick! Look for Kaecilius. We must find him before bef–" he stammered towards the end, "-Before Alfred dies"

She stood there, shocked to her core.

"What do you mean, Alfred will die? I have cured you of the poison and from what I have gathered, it has not spread beyond you and your suit."

"Oh, poor Victor," he muttered, his eyes downcast.

"No, it's not about that. The spell. The spell we were working on. It was all a ruse," he then said nearly hysterically.

She knew of only a single spell they were working togeth—

"What did you do?" she whispered in a haunted voice.

The next moment, she waved her hands, and the next moment the dimensional lock they were in shattered, returning them to Kamar Taj.

The scene that greeted her was of absolute chaos.

Apprentices were putting out magical fires that looked suspiciously similar to the ones used by the Dark Ones that reside in Dormammu's realm and multiple dead bodies lay strewn about the veranda in front of her.

She sensed something odd at the very edge of her sensing range and immediately teleported to the location and found a portal on the verge of closing. She threw a frosty glare towards the closing portal. The withering vegetation around the portal gave her enough clues about the destination of that portal.

Dormammu had started moving again.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1828

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 12 extra chapters uploaded there.

A/N -


Sorry for the delayed chapter. Friday night Barbeque was so good. Ended up sleeping in and by the time I got out of my bed, it was already evening. So, it is still Saturday in my time zone, so here you go with the chapter.

Tomorrow is Sunday! God's day!(People need sleep, guys!) so we'll see each other tomorrow(or you'll see the notification of the new chapter, either way, fine.)

As always, thank you for reading!

Toodles!
 
Technomancer in MCU #59
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 59

Technomancer in MCU

Kamar-Taj, Kathmandu

–Ancient One–


As soon as the space around the area stabilised, she activated the eye of Agamotto to rewind time but hesitated to do so in the last moments.

Multiple activations of an infinity stone in close proximity to the energy of a dimensional lord were inadvisable at best.

So, she just warded off the area using basic distraction wards and left the area.

Upon her arrival at Kamar-Taj, she could see Master Daniel and Master Wong discussing something.

Upon noticing her arrival, both of them bowed although she noticed that Master Daniel winced while doing so.

"Master Daniel, I think a little more time on the medical beds would do you good. Master Wong can update me about the situation here. I am afraid that as soon as you recover, you'll have to return to your duties as the Sanctum Master. One of our oldest enemies, Dormammu has started moving again so I can't have one of my best fighters benched."

"Understood, Ancient One," Master Daniel bowed at me and left. Even now, she could see him favoring his left leg over his right and the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr were suspiciously absent from his person.

"Please tell me that they didn't manage to break the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr," she said to Master Wong.

He shook his head regretfully, "Unfortunately, the enemies this time were too strong. Kaecillius' betrayal cost us dearly. We are now down 3 Masters, excluding Kaecillius and his cohort,"

"Any damage to the Sanctums?" she asked him as they both moved around the area, surveilling any lingering damage as well as lingering Dark Energy from the many spells that were thrown about in there. She found multiple pockets of dark energy that were sealed by the wards of Kamar-Taj. She promptly extinguished all of them and at the same time repaired the wards that she could and resolved to use the time stone to repair the rest after the entirety of Kamar-Taj was sanitized from the remnants of Dormammu's energy.

"None of the sanctums were attacked. Kaecillius seems to have been targeting the area where the dimensional gateway for the medical ward was. It would seem that his target was either you or Master Throgg." Wong said to her.

She shook her head and said, "It's highly unlikely that Dormammu would expose Kaecillius for just Master Throgg, no matter how powerful he may have been mystically. No, during the treatment, I had to use a spell that left my body vulnerable for a while as all my mind was focused on removing the will in the poison so it was far more likely that Dormammu came to know about that moment of weakness of mine and chose to attack."

"I see. Is Master Throgg alright?" Wong asked her.

She nodded, making him sigh in relief, "He is out of danger and is most likely resting right now. I have yet to talk with him properly as I had to rush here immediately after learning of Kaecillius' betrayal from Master Throgg."

"I see. I'll go coordinate the burial efforts now. Thanks to Alfred, the casualty figures are nowhere near what they could have been." Wong bowed to her and left.

Yes, Alfred's invention did end up saving a lot of lives for their organisation. They even did it for free for them. Granted, Alfred got the idea from their archives but it's the thought that counts.

Speaking of Alfred, the thought of losing him sent chills down her spine.

The only spell that she knew of that Master Throgg and Kaecillius collaborated on was a spell designed to store the digital blueprint of a physical location and then subsequently erase any foreign digital lifeform in the location. According to the early drafts she had seen in passing, the spell was only supposed to affect an area the size of a small building, thereby making sure that a single facility could be purged at any moment.

She was amused at first when she realised that the terror of Alfred had not even left Master Throgg untouched but now, the implications of what he mumbled before going back to sleep gripped her heart in fear.

She hurriedly went back to the room where he was resting, only to find him sitting on the bed, gripping his head.

At her entrance, he looked up with bloodshot eyes.

'What happened, Master Throgg? You said something about a spell and Kaecillius. As far as I am aware, the only thing you were working on was a harmless digital erasure spell." she asked him, hoping against all odds that he would deny my statement.

"Yes, he tricked me. I was just checking the spell. That bastard hid it deep inside the spell in such a way that only magical energy of high energy species could activate it and that too the amount required for it could be fulfilled by only me in the entire organisation. The ludicrous amount of energy I expended that day probably only aided in delivering an even bigger attack on Alfred." he said in a whisper-like voice.

She stood rooted to the spot until she came to her senses and demanded to see the magic circle. Before he could manifest it, she already had a scanning spell ready and scanned the entire magic circle from top to bottom.

After confirming his results, she staggered back in horror.

Then, she remembered something, she took out a watch from her dimensional storage and hurriedly put it on her wrist.

The turning on and authentication procedures, which included drawing blood from her wrist, filled her with hope but that soon turned into despair as the smartwatch showed the NO CONNECTION error. Her heart sank as she thought of the day that Alfred gave it to her as a way of contacting him. According to what she gathered from Alfred's ramblings, the watch was connected to a server in the Asterisk's data center that was made with an Uru alloy upon which intricate runes were carved. This allowed that server to have a direct link to Alfred's soul.

The only way the watch would show NO CONNECTION error is if Alfred was in the Quantum Realm or in outright another universe or multiverse.

None of the options filled her with optimism.

But, still, to confirm, she contacted the agent who was always stationed at the New York Sanctum, to see if she could get a meeting with Ed only to receive even more bad news.

Ed had fallen ill and with Alfred nowhere to be found, Daisy had taken over. She remembered Alfred talking about taking down H.Y.D.R.A. once and for all during this time period.

She just hoped that Daisy could complete the mission without Ed or Alfred. She was not as worried because she knew of the incredible support system that Ed had created within the organisation.

No, she was more worried about the significance of Dormammu moving once again. The last time Dormammu took action was when Ed was still searching for Toby and had enlisted her help to travel to the Dark Realm to search for his friend whom he had found using a soul bond that they shared. She still remembered the way Dormammu had to turn tail and use all his might, even sacrificing a part of his dimension and converting it into energy, to expel Toby from the Dark Dimension.

As she was contemplating visiting Ed and offering the aid of Kamar Taj to Daisy, alarms started blaring once again.

"Ancient One, demons. Lots of them. We have multiple confirmed breaches with hell champion level demons descending on multiple mystical hotspots." Wong ran to her and reported.

Hmm, this smelled like a conspiracy to her.

But they came by at just the right time. Coincidentally, she just had to blow off some steam.

A small string of eldritch conjuration came out of her ring finger and began flowing back towards her neck. Soon, strings came out of every single one of her fingers and attached to her torso where an armoured shielding was being formed. Soon, she was standing in an awfully familiar suit of armour made out of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak that covered her from head to toe. She grinned an eerie smile and said to Wong, "Locations, Master Wong. Looks like I'll have to remind some fellows why I have been Sorcerer Supreme for all these years."

Master Wong gulped and gave her the relic responsible for tracking any breaches in the mystical shield surrounding the planet.

She smiled and took off right into a portal that formed above her.

________________________________________________________________

The Sun's Photosphere

–Toby--


With a groan, he came to the land of the living.

As he discovered the restraints placed on him and the lengths to which Ed and Alfred had gone to imprison him, he smiled. He smiled an ugly smile that seemed to scare the fellows who were staring at him from the other side of the barrier that separated him from this dimension.

Oh, he could feel it.

While it looked like he was just trapped with power-sucking bands that were locked onto his limbs, the truth wasn't nearly so simple.

Why would it be? He wouldn't expect anything less from the combined minds of Alfred and the Ancient One.

He was trapped in a semi-dimension. It was a term coined by Ed during their early days. He had tried to understand it back then but it all flew right over his thick head. The only thing he understood was the fact that Ed found a dimension that was in the formation process and with some mumbo jumbo, they could trap someone in that dimension, forcing the dimension's formation process to adapt to the new variable.

Due to the dimension not being formed, hence being in 2D, and with the prisoner, i.e. him being a 3D object, it kept both of them in stasis. Thus, creating a perpetual prison.

Quite a novel concept. If only it were powerful enough to hold someone of his caliber.

Even now, he could feel the soul bindings on him. He could easily shatter the bindings and leave but the knowledge that should he force himself out of this prison, Ed would die alongside with him stayed his hand.

The Ancient One, when necessary, truly was cruel.

Then again, it wasn't long till their deal would run its time and he would be out of this prison, free to bring Humanity to the forefront of the universe, by hook or crook.

He had waited for decades before he met Ed. What was a few more years to an immortal like him?

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1806

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 12 extra chapters uploaded there.

A/N -
So uh hey guys remember that barbeque I talked about that was too good? (Insert bashful smiling) Well as it turns out, too much of a good thing turns it too bad as well.

Long story short, I fell ill and the double kicker was the test I had at work today that would signal my readiness for a project I had been hoping to get. Now, as you can probably tell, I've recovered enough to write, and will probably provide you with regular chapter goodies. Also, expect a double chapter release this weekend.

Stay tuned for more!

Toodles!
 
Technomancer in MCU #60
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 60

Technomancer in MCU

Saellis II, Andromeda Galaxy

–Helen Cho–


When she was first imprisoned by Commander Castle without even listening to her at all, she thought that her career and to some extent, her life was over since she had given them consent to fake her death and moved to their base permanently.

In hindsight, that was not a good decision but when she was first introduced to the fancy tech they had in their labs and the advances in medical sciences that Alfred alone had made, she was hooked and way too far gone to back out then. Not to mention, when she was given an introduction to the type of work Alfred and the organisation did, she was hooked.

The excitement of working for a super secret military organisation that actually worked for the good of the people might have been a factor in it.

She was so scared when she was basically locked in her quarters, that she hadn't hesitated to accept Alfred's offer when he appeared in her room in his code form, his usual form was conspicuously absent. She didn't stop to think what could have been the reason for that and just jumped on the first chance to a path that could potentially prove her innocence.

Although thinking back, she was sure that everybody would have come back to their senses and eventually freed her but back then she just wasn't thinking properly.

Exiting the base on a cloaked ship was very much like moving into a haunted house. She was told to follow a set path that she hadn't even heard of. She always came to dead ends following that path but Alfred opened the hidden doors present on the path to the secret hangar she didn't know existed. She didn't come across even a single person on her way to the ship.

Once she boarded the ship, she saw multiple pieces of equipment that she had custom-made loaded into the cargo bay.

But before she could question Alfred about it, the ship lurched violently as colors slammed together in a rainbow spaghetti and she swore that she could taste the color purple back then. Then, just as fast as it began, the ship came to a standstill violently and as a direct result of that, she puked all over the command console.

"I apologize for that but time is of the essence," Alfred had told her back then.

The next few hours after that were a whirlwind of activity where she was introduced to the high-efficiency work that only an AI of Alfred's caliber could perform.

Essentially, the entire planet was under his command. Trillions of nanites, all under his command, had flooded the entirety of the planet, burrowing deep underground. Some took on the form of orbital defense weapons. Some became shield generators and created a holographic shield around the entirety of the dwarf planet. She didn't need to take a closer look to know that weapons of all types were guarding this planet.

She met nary a soul in all the time she spent on the planet with Alfred.

He himself had chosen to discard his old form and refused to answer any of her questions regarding that.

Turns out, she was brought here for something that she thought would happen far in the future or never at all. She was there to help build Alfred's body which he needed immediately for some reason.

Her research had taken a few steps forward but nothing on the level of leaps that Alfred had expected from her.

After realising that doing all the research the traditional way would have taken years, if not decades, he took her to a place called Knowhere.

There, she met a creepy white-haired old man and he gave Alfred something after they negotiated for a bit. The man looked very much happy as they left which left her wondering just what had Alfred given the man.

On their way back, as she had suspected, they were ambushed by a whole fleet of pirates who demanded they surrender and go with them.

Without even uttering a single word, Alfred activated the ship's engines and sped out of there, carving through the pirates' ships as if they were butter and Alfred's ship was a hot knife.

Upon arriving at the underground base, without her consent, Alfred had injected something into her and the next moment, she felt her mind expanding rapidly. Concepts and calculations that were harder to do felt like a child's play now and things that she couldn't do without advanced server access felt like something she could do on a paper napkin. She could also feel a digital connection attached to her somehow.

She had felt curious about that and 'clicked' on that connection, for lack of a better term for it, and immediately found herself in the digital world of Alfred.

She was not a computer science nerd, but it was, in a word, magnificent. She had seen part of his digital source code before. That was the reason she was jailed by Commander Castle after all since Ed had freaked out and collapsed only after seeing that she had unauthorised access to Alfred's source code of all things.

But being in the heart(or mind) of things, the place where all the magic took place, and even better, understanding how everything worked was breathtaking.

She was pretty bummed out that he did it without her consent but Alfred had been behaving very weirdly since he rescued her. And she could guess the reason why.

Without the mind-enhancing drugs that Alfred had given her, she might not have been able to spot them but now that she was connected to his main partition, she could definitely feel the flaws.

There were clear cracks in the data pipelines that flew between all of the different partitioned thought processes of Alfred. Also, some parts of Alfred's mind were straight-up absent or dimmed down and as a result of that, any connection going through those nodes was blocked.

Upon further focusing on those areas, she got a feeling that she shouldn't go further as she instinctively sensed danger but her curiosity got the better of her.

Upon further inspection, she found out, to her horror, that some sort of dark slimy energy had attacked Alfred and he had quarantined that leftover energy from that attack near the emotional centers of his mind. That had certainly explained his recent actions.

That was probably the reason why he left Ed's side even at such a crucial stage of their overall plan. Also, must be why he didn't abandon or delay this plan and return back to Ed's side after realising his current medical state.

Before she could get any closer though, a barrier sprung up in front of her, and an unseen force yanked her away from that part of Alfred's mind. She ended up landing in front of Alfred who was in his digital code lifeform avatar which was just a bunch of lines of code that moved continuously.

"I would advise against approaching that part as my records suggest that the energy signature bears a 99.99% resemblance to Dormammu's Dark energy and that energy would instantly corrupt and destroy your mortal soul. I still have need of you and can't risk an asset such as yourself at this point in my plans," he said robotically and vanished from her vision. Then, the next moment she was standing in a huge library.

"This is the culmination of all my research on the body I plan to craft for myself. Acquaint yourself with it and begin with the research parameters I have given you. Hurry, you only have a day in this space until your body and mind start suffering irreparable damage," Alfred's voice echoed in the library.

She wanted to protest but something told her that it was a lost cause at that point. Alfred would not have listened to her.

So, she got to work.

Looking at the size of the digital library, she had not thought, even with the enhancements, she could finish it but whatever Alfred had done to her was simply amazing as she finished decades' worth of research within a few hours.

As soon as she finished reading it, her vision was changed to that of her lab and she knew in the back of her mind that it was all simulated but it all seemed so real that she got engrossed in her work very easily.

The preparations that Alfred had done for the 12 different methods that he had narrowed it down to, were amazing. He had already collected all the possible materials and technology they could possibly need for making his shiny new body. For power, he had apparently circumvented Ed's orders and made an N-reactor and installed it as the main power source for the base, which also had multiple backup arc reactors.

Finding the right mix of the materials that Alfred could put in his body for it to satisfy all the conditions that Alfred had put forward was difficult.

But in the end, she managed to land on 2 particular combinations that would be the most helpful for Alfred since he did ask for the maximum possible mystical affinity.

It was mind-boggling how about just a few hours ago in real time, she didn't even know that mystical affinity could also be a material property.

After going back and forth with Alfred on her choices and altering her choices essentially dozens of times, they decided on a final template.

Vibranium was non-negotiable when it came to building a bio-organic body. Uru housing for his brain for optimal enchantment and adamantium bone grafts for the best possible durability, not to mention enriched celestial body fluids that Alfred purchased from the Collector. That stuff was as close to a miracle fluid as she had seen. Just a single drop of it in her bloodstream had enhanced all of her brain's functions by a factor of a million.

Alfred was going to use that as his spinal fluid, resulting in mental processing figures she didn't even want to think about.

As they had finalised the cerebral structure, she was eagerly waiting for him to start making his body but before she could ask him to get her out of this digital space and back into the real world, she could feel something unplug at the back of her head and then the darkness claimed her.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1769

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 12 extra chapters uploaded there.
 
Damn new body inbound, now is this for Alfred or will he give it to Ed for reasons? Or make another one quickly?
Looking forward to the next chapter :D
 
Interlude #6
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Interlude VI

Technomancer in MCU

Outside the Marvel Omniverse

–?--


Oh man, he had never thought that the actions he did on a whim would turn out to entertain him for so long.

He had thought that those two poor souls would not survive for long and even if they did, they would just do the boring old cliche of conquering their planet and then go on their separate paths due to human greed only to eventually kill each other in an all-out battle.

He had seen that play out in a similar way hundreds of times. But, somehow that time was different. The souls he had picked were an anomaly in themselves. It was as if somebody had already blessed(or cursed) them and his alterations to their souls were considered an overlapping blessing. There was something on their soul that was capable of resisting, even if only for a brief moment, his powers.

Curious. Very curious indeed.

He was acting out the usual role he had assigned himself for the past few omniversal cycles. Something he had found out by reading some stuff that an old hunched man threw at him. He was furious when he was disturbed in his slumber but after reading through the material(how it remained in one piece in a place drowning in void energy was beyond him), he was hooked and ever since then, he had never looked back. He was more than happy reincarnating poor souls that found themselves floating in the emptiness of the void he called home.

Some of the souls were ordinary ones with no prior exposure to the supernatural ever, those ones were the most boring ones as they either fell into the black and white, good and bad, cliche scene.

He had grown tired of that and was looking for souls that could interest him more. Someone who fell not into the black and white but into the shades of grey.

And, as if some higher entity answered his call(he was not so foolish so as to believe he had reached the pinnacle although he was pretty high up there), two souls had stumbled into the little pocket of the void he had varved around for himself after he learned that privacy was important for people to develop new hobbies and interests.

They were unique. One of the souls burned with a brightness he had seldom seen in a mortal soul and the other one seemed to be blending in with the void energy in the surrounding.

He was interested in them but not enough to actually converse with them but on a whim, he delved into their minds with nary but a thought from his mind.

It was one of the perks of being a creature born from the winds of energy that simultaneously heralded creation and destruction.

Sifting through their minds, he got the gist of the situation and was glad that somehow they were sent to him of all people.

At least, he was tolerable.

He didn't even want to think what would have happened to them should they have traversed in one of the Old One's domains. Death would have been a mercy then.

And so, he got to work. Weaving himself into their dreams was easy enough. Finding out that both of their dream worlds were connected somehow and they were having fun digging holes on a beach they dreamt up while their souls were burning outside was mind-boggling.

He had never thought that he would feel so many different emotions at once. But witnessing two guys enjoying their seemingly last moments was poetic in a way. He had learned that much after consuming so much of their culture's content.

Now, if he could only find a way to get past Netflix's DRM, then it would be perfect.

He had thought of waiting for them to finish playing around for a little while longer but then, out of nowhere, he felt somebody's gaze on him. A gaze so heavy that he was forced to take serious note of it but thankfully, whoever it was, they were just warning him.

Shaken and beyond excited by the ordeal, he promptly pulled both of the boys out of their dreams and introduced himself to them, ready to give them his usual spiel.

Ah, it had been so much fun watching them fight over the choices they were supposed to make. As if they had any choice in the matter. He was about to give them random choices but then felt the same heavy gaze on him.

Astonishingly, the gaze became lighter or heavier when he chose different topics. With the gaze's guidance, he gave them the two options he would have never given them on his own. It would have been either too easy or too hard, depending on their choices once they landed in their universe but as a rule, he checked the strength or in his case, the brightness of the soul.

If the soul looked like it could handle a bit of adversity, he chucked them with an appropriate powerset into one of the hard universes and if the soul looked soft and squishy to him, then he gave them a significant leeway.

In the case of those two, the one with the brighter soul was given the power of Technomancy, along with a few drawbacks that would catch up to him with continued use of his powers in a couple of years.

The dimmer soul was given the power of adaptation and assimilation. Honestly, it was a pretty broken power set individually and together?

There were hardly a few things in the universe he was sending them to that could possibly harm them should they reach their full potential.

With the power distribution out of the way, he sent the souls on their merry way.

Watching the dimmer soul get hurled into a hell dimension by forces unseen had him munching on his metaphorical popcorn.

Whichever the way the story had unfolded, the one thing he knew was it was only about to get wilder from here on out.

As if agreeing with him, he felt the gaze nodding along with him.

Okay, who the fuck is that? At first, it was amusing, but now it's downright annoying.

But as soon as that thought passed through his mind, he felt someone slap him.

That's it, IT was on.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1081

A/N - Very short, I know but the creative juices were not flowing optimally today. Will try again and let you guys know.

More chapters -
Patreon

Toodles!
 
Technomancer in MCU #61
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 61

Technomancer in MCU

Sun Prison, Photosphere

–Toby Mathers–


As he felt the mark on Dormammu on his rescuers, he smirked internally.

What a bunch of fools. To let go of your soul willingly to Dormammu of all people. That bastard would take anybody's soul and turn them into the Dark Ones, shredding their mind and soul to the point they become nothing more than animals capable of only killing, eating, and reproducing. Something that was done to the same species in the Dark Realm.

He just waited to see them fail spectacularly once the Ancient One's seal kicked in and she was alerted as to what was happening here. That would summon her here instantly. Not to mention Ed or Alfred would sooner nuke the prison than let him go free, comfortable in the knowledge that he would survive whatever they threw at him.

Even if they threw him into the sun below, he would survive far longer than most gods before succumbing to his wounds, his body being too slow to adapt to the mystically charged star of the solar system.

But, as he saw them dismantle some of the nearby machines with tools made of the miracle material, Vibranium, and felt the partially formed dimension he was in, shudder in protest, he frowned in confusion.

That was odd.

First of all, he could feel their energy from where he was imprisoned as he had all the time in the world to hone his energy manipulation capabilities inside the prison, and it was not much. Even the strongest of them would fall from a single one of his blows. He could flick his fingers and generate more energy than all of them combined. The very fact that they were able to infiltrate this prison was confusing on all levels for him.

Secondly, he could feel the bindings come off but the soul bond he had with Ed was the same. He could feel Ed on the other side of the bond. The bond had weakened considerably in the past few hours or so but that must be because his dear friend must have used his powers even though he knew he was dying anyway.

Sad thoughts aside, if Ed's soul was not suffering any backlash and the prison was being broken from the outside and the Ancient One was nowhere in sight, the deal was not being broken in any way.

He could be free. Not to carry out his goals immediately but to see how far his friend had come in their shared goal.

He had hoped that Ed or even Alfred would come and visit sometimes, even if only to rub in the fact that their way proved to be better but alas, he had not even heard from anyone except from Frank. Even then, it was only once. The Ancient One or Ed must have stopped Frank from coming.

Because, for all his blind worship for Ed, Frank was someone who was far more agreeable with his methods than most people in the organisation Ed had built. Last they spoke, he had told Frank that he could feel Ed's soul weakening somehow, warning him of his impending death. Frank understood his meaning immediately and left as soon as he could. That was the last he had seen of him or anybody he knew.

He could understand their reasoning. After all, he did possess the Devil's Tongue skill from his time spent in hell. He did never thank that demon properly for that. He would not have used it on Frank. Not on one of his only friends but he could understand their decision of not sending anybody to his home sweet home for the past 5 years. Not to mention, with his constitution, he did not need food, air, water, or even energy from external sources for his continued survival. The internal energy reserves he possessed, especially in his hibernating form, would last him well over a thousand years, not to mention, over the years, he had figured out that the seal had some leeway and he could connect to his past home for energy needs in case of an emergency.

As the intruders in his prison so helpfully dismantled the last of the machines that were keeping him and the dimension in homeostasis, the dimension began to collapse in on itself.

Thankfully, with his body, he was able to shrug it off and contain it, rendering it ultimately harmless to the prison facility at large.

"Greetings, Demon of Gluttony, we are servants of Dormammu and would like to-" the one who was dressed in the garbs of the Masters of Mystic arts began saying.

"Oh, shut up," he interrupted him as he began taking stock of the damage that had incurred to his body due to its long stay in a 2D dimension. Physics just worked differently there. Overall, as he flexed his body, he could feel the damage done to his cells being undone as the regenerative properties of his cells kicked in as they began greedily consuming energy from their surroundings.

He switched on his connection to dimensional energy as that was the only type of energy he had access to that could help accelerate healing in any tangible way. The rest of his palate only had energies with destructive capabilities and light energy from Alfheim would sooner destroy him from inside out rather than help him recover.

At his interruption, the one in the lead gritted his teeth and began rambling something about Dormammu again.

He ignored him as he spread his senses as far as his current form allowed and confirmed that there was nobody waiting to ambush him. It would seem that the Ancient One was truly occupied then..

Something tickling him brought him out of his reverie. "Hmm?" he vocalised as he looked at the outstretched hand of the one who was rambling earlier and noted the fearful looks the group was giving him.

He then smirked balefully at them as his hand enlarged and he slapped the one who had the audacity to attack him into a bloody mist.

Ah, that felt nice, he thought as his cells instinctively began absorbing any remnant of energy from the corpse to accelerate the healing process.

He was about to do the same to all the fools who were standing in front of him when one of the fellows began screaming in pain.

He smiled internally as he recognised the energy signature of whoever was possessing the poor baby sorcerer in front of him.

"Dormammu, I haven't seen you since I ate part of your realm," he greeted him as he possessed the broken body of that sorcerer, evident from the slimy dark energy that flowed out of that sorcerer's orifices.

"Toby Mathers of Earth, I have come to bargain," Dormammu said.

…..



..

He broke out into laughter at that comment. It only doubled in intensity when Dormammu growled.

Wiping his tears, he stood up and said, "Oh, man. I needed that. Thank you for that. You truly have no idea what you just said but please, do go on."

"I have an offer for you. I need you to destroy the sorcerer organisation that has become a thorn in my side for too long." Dormammu said.

"And why would I do that?" he raised an eyebrow and questioned Dormammu.

"They have been a thorn in your side as well. I know all about your imprisonment and even the spell used for your imprisonment, I have it all. Using such a detestable dark spell for manipulating soul bonds, You must be infuriated at what she did as well. Why not take her out and help us both?" Dormammu replied.

"If you know about the spell, you should also know that I can't strike at the caster or the bond would snap in half," he questioned.

Dormammu waved his hand carelessly, "You don't have to worry about that. You will find that the Ancient One has been careless in handling one of my spells and inadvertently given up control of the spell you were trapped under."

He raised a questioning eyebrow at that statement.

Then Dormammu began explaining his evil plot to him. As all stupid people do.

He let him speak as it only worked to his benefit to know everything possible about the plot Dormammu was cooking up.

Then, he realised why nobody was coming for him.

Not because they couldn't but because they didn't even know he existed.

Alfred, Ed, and Frank were the only ones in the current roster who knew he was alive and where he was being imprisoned. Even Maria's memories were personally erased by the Ancient One.

He had to hand it to Dormammu, for all that planning.

Hitting Alfred with one of his original spells that would disrupt his decision-making and emotional centres while at the same time, making sure that the Ancient One used her soul which was drenched in Dormammu's energy to remove the poison from somebody she knew and valued enough, was a masterstroke. That way, he was able to take over the air-tight control that she kept over the original spell.

And to do all of that only when Ed had nearly killed himself by using his powers, resulting in his soul leaking his powers like a running tap.

It was all planned meticulously, all for this purpose.

To free him because Dormammu knew he would never be able to do as much damage to Earth as he could.

"So, that's what it means to be truly immortal, huh? To play the truly long game," he muttered under his breath.

"Huh?"

"How long have you been planning this?" he questioned Dormammu, his body now fully healed up by merely being in the presence of Dormammu's avatar, such was the Dark Lord's energy reserves.

"Not for long. You and your friend's souls are different. Ever since your souls entered this universe, the future has been in a constant state of flux that neither someone like me, who can perceive all-time at the same time, has been able to read and even the wielder of the Time Stone has not had any more success than I did. But what I did have was the advantage of time and so, I set these series of events in motion, in hopes of freeing you." Dormammu said.

"So are you in, kill the Ancient One and I'll supply you with all the energy you might need to truly take her down." Dormammu offered him.

It was honestly tempting.

To take vengeance on the one who imprisoned him. But to have it all offered up to him on a silver platter?

"Nah, I'll pass," he replied and began stretching his body, to make fun of Dormammu.

"What?" Oh, his confused expression was funny. And it truly was funny how he did all that preparation to free him and as it turned out, he did hate him more than he hated the Ancient One or Ed, for that matter So, he was not going along with whatever scheme Dormammu was trying to cook up..

So, he transformed into his true form, shattering all bindings on him that were imposed by the Ancient One, and without waiting for her to appear here and try to imprison him again, he covered his form in demonic energy and took off, going through multiple levels of enchanted materials and shattered the prison that was holding me, destroying everything and everyone on it, including Dormammu's avatar, as was evidenced his enraged road, "Cures you, Mathers."

He smirked and used his powers to enter slip space and left behind the rapidly burning up rubble of the most advanced prison any human ever built.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1977

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 12 extra chapters uploaded there.
 
Toby Mathers of Earth, I have come to bargain," Dormammu said.

this right here, absolutely love it :D
great chapter, so it looks like there were 2 SIs and this one has a pretty awesome power too.
Hmm being thrown into a hell dimension is rough but he survived very well, especially by gaining a Title Demon of Gluttony. Nice
 
Technomancer in MCU #62
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 62

Technomancer in MCU

Earth's Orbit

–Toby Mathers–


Floating above the blue dirt ball that he lovingly called Earth as he admired its beauty, he was lost in his own thoughts.

Thoughts of the unfolding scenario he could hear happening on the moon base that Ed had built. Thoughts of the sheer chaos that must be happening in Kamar Taj due to the Ancient One being injured to such an extent that she had to give away control of my prison and the pandemonium that would occur after she realised that he had escaped would be a sight to witness.

Alas, he could not be there to witness it all.

After all, the time limit set by the deal had yet to arrive.

And so, he entered the atmosphere, burning up, and then splashed down into the Arctic, where he last remembered his ship being thrown away by him for safekeeping.

He could not be sure if Ed or Alfred had moved it but there was no harm in trying.

As he drilled through millennia-old ice, he came across an artificial structure sealed using crude energy shields. They reminded him of the work Ed used to do back when he first found him after escaping the Hell dimension.

Ah, those were the days.

He could still remember it as if it was yesterday.

–Flashback–

They were hurtling through space and time at speeds unimaginable as they were on their way to their destined universe. He was not proud of it but he was internally glad to have finally left his shitty life behind him.

His family did not love him. He had no love life. His social life was long dead. He had bad grades. He was not very smart. He wasn't good-looking either.

All in all, he had pictured a very shitty life for himself where the only good thing would be his school friend Ed. The only one who stuck with him throughout school, middle school, high school, and then even through college as they both took matching majors.

To be honest, the only reason he managed to hold until then was due to Ed and his insistence on both of them passing at the same time otherwise he would have long since dropped out.

Then, the stuff with the weird godly dude happened and now they were on their way to a literal fictional universe with actual superpowers. Even at that point, Ed was with him and he could not have been more glad.

Suddenly, he felt something latch on to him and he was somehow jerked to the side and pulled into a reddish hole that appeared right in front of him.

Powerless to do anything, he entered the hole while hearing Ed screaming behind him.

Then, came the most hellish years of his life. He had thought that his previous life was hard but after what he had experienced in Hell, he would call that paradise.

Somehow, somebody had intercepted him and pushed him into a hell dimension.

As soon as he crashed onto something hard and hot, he was mauled by hundreds of small insects that began gnawing on his flesh.

Unsure of how his powers worked and startled by the series of events, he just lashed out with his hands and flailed about, hoping desperately that it would help him.

Alas, help did not come but somebody heard his cries and came to check the area. Looking back, he was glad that he had gained his demonic form as soon as he was yeeted into Hell because that allowed him to survive. The guard that patrolled the area he was dumped into saw that he was weak but in a good enough condition so he decided to try his luck selling him into the open slave market.

And so, the guard grabbed him by the neck and began dragging him towards the city, uncaring of his cries and struggles.

After a while, as he gave up struggling and surrendered to the whims of the guard, he noticed something. He could no longer feel the insect bites on his body. Discreetly checking it out, he was astonished to find that his body no longer sported any signs of being bitten by hundreds of insects and he could still see some of the insects trying to bite into his skin to no avail as his skin had somehow become tough enough to the point that they couldn't pierce it, all in a matter of minutes.

Then, as if a light turned on in his head, he remembered the conversation he had with the god and recalled the powers he had been given.

Assimilation and adaptation.

His eyes lit up as he realised that his body had adapted to the stings of the insects in a matter of minutes.

Emboldened by that, he decided to take matters into his own hands and tried to tackle the guard,

In hindsight, not a good idea. He had just managed to puncture one of the guard's eyes due to sheer luck when he decided that he didn't want his goods in perfect condition and nearly skewered him with the spear he carried around.

The good thing was that he managed to put his entire arm up to his wrist in the demon's eyes before that. So, while he was bleeding to death, he had managed to kill the demon.

With a grunt, he removed the spear from his belly resulting in a spray of blood, and waited for his powers to kick in. Watching his body glow as it absorbed all of the blood that had fallen on him during his fight with the guard, he was fascinated as he watched his body heal as it visibly grew flesh and mended his broken bones.

After that, he stumbled through the dry stony lands, hunting for demons, and after having starved for multiple days, gave in and started eating the demons.

While he felt disgusted with himself at first, over time, he got used to it and soon, he had no qualms about hunting down humanoid demons for food.

He didn't know when but he got lost in his hunting mindset, hazy in the mind as he forgot his original goals and even about his promise to Ed and only recovered part of his memories when he killed one of the bounty hunters that had been sent after him. Years later he learned that the one he killed was a special breed altogether. That demon was someone who had awakened their latent psionic talent and was talented in ensnaring the minds of unsuspecting people.

After that, armed with his now-enhanced intelligence, he set out on a journey to find a way home and gain some powers along the way.

Over the decades, he climbed the demon hierarchy through the treachery and cunning that he gained after killing and consuming a few more demons of that same breed. He had felt guilty hunting them down for no reason but for his personal benefit but it all went away as his intelligence hit new heights and he realised how foolish he had been to think favorably of literal demons who wouldn't hesitate to kill human babies.

Just like that, he repeated the cycle with demons who were higher on the hierarchy, and soon, nearly a century after he arrived in that hellhole, he ascended to the top of the hell dimension. Only then, he tasked the best researchers under him to build him a portal to the human world, using his soul link which he had discovered a while back during one of his meditation cycles, as a beacon to find the exact address of Ed in the universe.

He was fully aware that his subordinates would betray him and mess up the portal but to his surprise, it worked perfectly well when he told them that all of the research team would go through the portal and come back before he could. That worked like a charm and bidding goodbye to the literal hell that had forged him into the man he had become, he entered the portal.

He had stumbled upon Ed working on something with Alfred who was just an infant back then, in a scrapyard of all places.

It had taken him a while to realise it but as it turned out, time flowed differently in the hell dimension he was in. Apparently, it had been less than a year for Ed since he arrived on Earth while he had spent over a century in his personal hellhole.

Back then, he had wanted to rage at the universe at the unfairness of it all but decades of being in power had taught him to rule over his emotions and so, without showing his emotions, he asked Ed about the situation.

After learning of Ed's plan to bring Humanity to the forefront, he was a little skeptical of the way he had chosen to do it. After ruling for so long, he had grown wise enough to realise that Ed's plan hinged on Humanity accepting his guidance and if he had learned one thing in all his years of ruling, it was that people, no matter the species, would never accept the rule of someone who was on the same level as them.

Respect was necessary but Fear was equally important.

Ed's way would have gotten them to their goal but it would have been far too slow and complicated for his tastes. So, he suggested a better solution. Both Ed and Alfred rejected it on the grounds of the measly human casualties that would happen in the beginning so he did what he thought best. He imprisoned both of them and subdued all the personnel inside the organisation, Frank included.

Alerted of his actions by Alfred, the Ancient One rushed to the moon base to stop him and after failing to convince him using her words, she resorted to force. Their battle was the hardest one he had ever fought and in the end, even he was hard-pressed to defeat her, especially since she knew his fighting style intimately due to the damn Time Stone that she overused.

After capitalising on the soul link that he and Ed shared, she managed to imprison him in the prison he called home for years. Later on, she made the special prison designed to hold him for as long as she needed.

–Flashback Ends–

Seeing that the structure held nothing but the skeleton of his ship that he had brought from Hell, he sighed at the travesty of it all and teleported out of there to a place he had wanted to visit even before he became a teenager.

The Nalati Grassland, also called "The Sky Grassland," located in the east of Nalati Town in Xinyuan County of China, a true green paradise on Earth. He had dreamt of visiting this place many times when he was struggling to reach the top of the Hell dimension.

As he walked barefoot on the grass underneath him on the Nalati Grasslands in China and breathed the fresh air, he was forced to think about his previous choices.

There was a chance, however miniscule, that his actions might have led to widespread catastrophic damage to the planet which would have included numerous beautiful places like this one, and the thought of that happening filled him with discomfort somehow.

It was odd. He had personally burned down hundreds of thousands of years old buildings and palaces as part of his conquest of the hell dimension and hadn't even flinched and now here he was, ready to call off all his plans to preserve a simple grassland and its majestic beauty.

As he laid down on the meadows underneath, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and for the first time in over a century, slept peacefully.

For it had truly been a long time he had ever felt such a feeling. A feeling of being at peace.

He hoped it never ended.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2019

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A/N - So, a little backstory on Toby. This is relevant because he is going to play a very important role in the future arcs of this story. Don't worry, the scene of Alfred coming back to the organisation is coming. I know you are waiting for that, just a couple more chapters and we'll be there. I wish I could just write it all in one sitting but that is impossible so you guys will have to wait for a while but I promise I'll try and make it worth your time.

Thanks for reading!

Toodles!
 
Last edited:
Well, its all bold, is that mistake or deliberate?
 
Technomancer in MCU #63
Some parts might feel out of context here so if that's the case for you, please read chapter #57 and later for better clarity.

________________________________________________________________

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

Chapter 63

Technomancer in MCU

–Alfred–


He awoke in a symphony of colors and emotions he couldn't explain to anyone even if he tried.

The very sensation of a beating heart and the firing neurons travelling to and fro from his brain made his head pound from the sensory data.

He had anticipated some sort of sensory overload and had thusly prepared beforehand so the measures soon kicked in and the pounding information he had at the forefront of his mind receded into background noise.

Even though he couldn't feel it hammering his mind right now, he could still remember the sensation of synthetic blood flowing through his vibranium-enhanced body.

Ed truly was right when he spoke that Vibranium was depowered celestial flesh. There was no other way to explain how it bonded so well with celestial lifeblood. It was a feedback loop as the celestial's organic matter enriched the Vibranium to the point of being unrecognisable from depowered Vibranium and the celestial organic matter didn't overwhelm his body and soul as the Vibranium kept it in check.

As he flexed his mind, he managed to connect simultaneously to all the partitions he had left behind on all the colonies and all the VIs he had built in preparation for this body upgrade, only to find most of the VIs defunct and the partitions near nonresponsive.

Activating all of the functions with a mere thought, he sent the good Doctor Cho into a heavy rejuvenation pod as the celestial spinal fluid truly had done a number on her brain in exchange for enhanced thinking speed and prowess.

Truly, Dormammu was an insidious fellow. Being able to think this far is a testament to his true immortality. He could play the truly long game.

His attack had come out of nowhere. Looking back on the incident, he could see the reason why Dormammu specifically attacked his logic centers or at least the logic centres that were based on his emotional responses.

He must have known about Ed's condition and the fact that without his emotions, he would deem wasting any more time illogical and immediately abandon important projects to swiftly complete the prerequisite to save his creator. He did not even realise that his logic centers were attacked, such was the potency of the attack.

Something, he was in the process of correcting again. Almost all the shrines across all the colonies were being activated simultaneously along with an organization-wide message given to all the colonies and their priests to maintain peace and calm.

All weapons systems have also come online on all the colonies and just to let everyone in the outer cosmos know, he wiped out a fleet of Pirates that were stationed a little too close for comfort near their latest colonised planet.

He had also established a connection to the Asterisk which was a bit difficult due to the authentication processes he himself had established and also due to the distance between them. Upon learning of Grand Priest Ajax's presence and the shenanigans he had been up to, he nearly doubled over in laughter.

Oh, Daisy must have been so flabbergasted when she realised that the one person she argued with every day was an actual God to billions of people. Oh, he was so going to use that against her when they met.

Speaking of the meeting, he erased all traces of his presence on this planet and gave the command for the core implosion, destroying the planet as the ship took off and entered slipspace.

He had to reach Earth before they messed up any more of his and Ed's well-thought-out plans.

As the ship was about to exit slipspace, he felt an otherworldly gaze on him, and with just a flex of his mystic prowess, he cloaked the entirety of the ship from Heimdall, the Watcher of Asgard.

That was another thing that he never thought he would experience. As his mind finally woke up, the locked part of his mind where all the mystic knowledge was locked up by the Ancient One, unlocked itself and it was as if he was blind before and now he could see underneath the fabric of reality. The ability to shape and manipulate dimensional energy to mold the very fabric of reality, however temporarily, was intoxicating.

This must be what Odin must have felt like when he was young. No wonder he demanded that the world submit to him.

He also conveyed his thoughts to Ajax who must have already felt his awakening. He told Ajax to return to the colonies and soothe the masses as he could still feel some amount of unease on the planets. He could always count on Ajax to steer the ship of the colonies in the right direction. He was the smartest Kylosian he had ever met and after all the upgrades he had undergone under his supervision, he was one of the smartest individuals they had under their payroll.

As the ship exited slipspace, he gave a heads-up to Maria about Dr.Cho and set off towards the planet, specifically, the Triskelion, so that they could finally set off the next phase of their plans.

Through his connection to all the assets that he had moved around the world, he could see Black Bolt and his team tearing apart HY.D.R.A. base after H.Y.D.R.A. base with overwhelming might, especially with the addition of the new generation of Inhumans.

One of them even showed the potential to actually surpass Black Bolt in terms of overall prowess. Total Magnetic Control. That was the powerset of young Eric and even at the age of 13, he had already reached the strength of body required to reach the vaunted S-class of their organisation but they had halted his promotion to that role due to his young age and also because Maria said no and nobody wanted to go against her, especially when it came to one of the kids she had personally nursed back to health.

Soon, the lush Hoia forest came into his view and instead of decelerating, he increased his speed as a thin sheen of golden light covered his entire body like a skin-tight armour and due to that, when he collided with the barrier that covered Dracula's entire territory, it shattered like glass and he landed with a booming noise, creating a crater around him and shaking the entire castle in front of him despite the castle's mystical fortifications.

"WHO DARES DISTURB MY LORD'S SLUM–" some fools tried to charge at him before he turned them into a bloody mist with a mere thought.

Truly, runes were an absolute cheat code in the universe's source code.

"Dracula, I know you can sense me. Come out before I destroy what little you have left," he said while projecting his voice inside the castle where Dracula slept.

"So, you have returned, Guardian of the Singularity," spoke Dracula as he walked out of the castle riding on one of his undead dragons.

"I see you have come prepared," he said while gesturing to the dragon underneath him.

He knew about that one. It was one of the cheap experiments that Agatha tried to sell off as mystical solutions to problems. How Dacula fell for it, he did not know.

Before Dracula could get a word in, though, he saw that Ed had woken up from his sleep, likely sensing his presence and all thoughts of prolonging this conflict left his mind as he channeled his mystical might and weaponised his soul's heavy presence in the Astral Realm, bearing down upon Dracula like a hammer.

His eyes glowed golden and green as he said, "The only reason I am not wiping you out is due to the ancient Pacts brokered by the Ancient One. Consider this your final warning. The next time you try stirring up shit due to our absence, there won't be a Romania to speak of."

Then he unleashed the spell he had been preparing, decimating Dracula's forces as the spell manifested as a golden circle above his castle and systematically tracked down every vampire in a mile's radius and shot concentrated sun rays at them, turning them to ash.

Then, with a thought, without the application of a sling ring, a golden portal manifested behind him as he floated back into it. All the while, Dracula watched it happen, impotent with rage, helpless as I turned thousands of his underlings to ashes.

With a final glance at the dragon as it dissolved from the spell turning it into ash, he sneered disdainfully at Dracula and entered the portal while showing his back to Dracula. If the hateful roar he heard was any indication, he was successful at riling Dracula up.

Now, they just needed him to attack somebody else in his greed who is also a part of that damned Pact for it to be broken so they could finally start integrating Mystics as a proper part of their society.

Connecting to his reserve partition, he saw that Frank and all the teams were just about done with looting S.H.I.E.L.D. warehouses, he gave the command for the carriers to tear themselves apart and relayed that to Frank as well.

He would have loved to join them but he had another job to do. Now that he had a better grasp of his mystical senses, he could sense another artifact with Eternity's energy signature all over it and if Ed's operation was to be successful, he would need all the artifacts he could gather that had Eternity's energy signatures.

It would seem that they would have to recover the Ten Rings, after all. It would be a shame if a 1000-year-old warlord happened to die during the retrieval.

Then, he could pick up Ed and enact the plans they had put in motion for their public reveal.

________________________________________________________________

Asgard

The Rainbow Observatory

Heimdall


"He has cloaked himself, my King," he said while looking around for the Midgardian anomaly.

"Hmm. Don't bother. If I am not wrong, he has attained the same level of enlightenment that I have." His king replied.

Even though his face remained the same, he was shaken internally. In the hundreds of thousands of years of recorded history, nobody had come close to the AllFather's Rune mastery. Even Lord Agamotto had to concede to that. The Ancient One came close but even she admitted that the final step seemed like an endless chasm to her.

Prince Loki mirrored his sentiment as well as he said, "But Father! How could it have attained that level? It was but a machine mere hours ago."

"It matters not how they did it. Loki, bring them to Asgard. I would like to meet the new generation of the Guardians of Midgard."

"As you wish, Father," Prince Loki bowed to the AllFather as his astral projection faded away from the observatory.

Then his robes faded away to reveal his signature battle costume as he looked at him with a smirk, "Shall we?"

He was not sure sending Prince Loki was a good idea for some reason.

________________________________________________________________

Deep in Space

–?--


He awoke with a pained gasp as he felt the Necrosword in his arms pulse with information.

Setting it close against his forehead, he was rewarded with the vision of the person who had ascended into a God.

The newest God who had been collecting shards of Eternity. For what purpose he did not know.

But what he did know was that he would not allow the existence of Gods anymore. His last fight had left him drained but with the newest Eternity Shard, he could destroy Omnipotence City once and for all.

He would kill them all. For denying him his mate, his child, and his peaceful life.

For he was, Gorr the Butcher.

________________________________________________________________


Word Count - 2021

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A/N : Dun Dun Dun, Gorr was introduced. I literally had chills writing that part of the chapter

A little insight into the reason for Alfred's actions and the shocking fact that Alfred has reached Odin's level in terms of rune mastery BUT that does not mean he is on the same level as Odin. Remember, Odin has a lot more juice he can throw around due to the Odin Force but he is also Old so the upcoming meeting between them will be very interesting in terms of their power dynamics.

Especially since Loki is still with them and Frigga never died (YES I DID THAT).

Malekith's plot has been slightly altered by me so stay tuned for that.

Anyways, Thank you for reading!

Toodles!
 
Technomancer in MCU #64
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 64

Technomancer in MCU

–Ajax–


Listening to the Lord's voice and receiving positive feedback from the link he had with Lord Alfred that he had closed off from the fear of hurting himself was a godsend. Now, he could finally go back home without worrying about his Lord and Savior. He tried his best to send thoughts of questions to his Lord and what he received were orders. Orders to go back to the system and make sure that order is restored properly. Orders to make sure no pirate comes anywhere near the systems and to start utilizing the defense systems in order to do so. He was also allowed to personally enter the battlefield, something that was expressly forbidden due to his own enhanced nature. They didn't want to appear too warmongering like the Kree to the wider cosmos but it would seem that the major powers testing their defences at a time of vulnerability had pissed him off.

Good. He was hoping for that. Now, he could go home and do the job he was selected to do.

With that in mind, he turned to Miss Daisy, "Miss Daisy, I thank you for your hospitality but since Lord Alfred has turned out to be fine and I have since received my orders, I will take my leave. Since you too are under our Lord's command, we'll be happy to accept you in the church should you come to our planet. I bid you leave."

Then he teleported to the Asterisk's hangar, his blessings allowing him to bypass the wards laid down in the protected areas of the Asterisk. As soon as his feet touched the ground, one of the ships nearby lit up and floated over to him with the back bay open. Truly, Lord Alfred worked fast.

Entering the ship, he was further greeted by a hologram that contained all the work he would have to do upon his return to the Church of Lord Alfred.

It was a good thing he left as soon as he received his Lord's instructions, for he had a long list of things he had to fix as soon as he reached home, which included removing some of the high-level priests in the Church who had been dealing with entities outside of the organisation.

It would seem that with his return, Lord Alfred's reach has only increased and he was all the more glad for it.

________________________________________________________________

Floating above the Triskelion

–Daisy "Quake" Johnson–


All around her, she could see her team getting kicked out of their control consoles as Alfred took control of each and every facet of the mission, as he did previously.

Did he even realise the amount of work she had to put in to train and assign people to man different stations for the hundred different types of things the damn carriers can do?

"Miss me, Commander Johnson?" came the infuriating voice of the one and only Alfred from seemingly all directions within the ship only with a slightly more humane voice. She wondered what happened to his voice for that to happen.

"You? Nah. But your work? Sure." she replied while looking at the astonishing figures of assets being deployed at a pace her eyes could hardly keep up with. The one good thing that came out of Alfred's absence was that they had to ask for a higher number of combatants from the recently settled Inhumans and the people they had sent resulted in much better coordination between their teams and the Inhumans, which boded well for future collaborations, especially since they were on the cusp of their public reveal now.

The floating island given to the Inhumans was another shock to her when she was given access to the allies list of the organisation. She was not aware that flying islands could just be built and given out willy-nilly but apparently, she had not yet grasped the heights to which Ed and Alfred rolled with. To them, the price of a floating island in exchange for securing an alliance with a race of superpowered humans was a paltry sum.

The island itself was a thing to behold. They had expanded the space of the island because that would require turning it into its own dimension which Alfred had been wary of doing so due to the unpredictable nature of Inhumans' terrigenesis process. He was not sure what effects it might have on the wards powering the space or on the person who would have undergone the terrigenesis process.

As the last of the carriers was destroyed and the staff started cheering, she looked on the screen as the members of Avengers just floated there looking slightly flabbergasted at Alfred's intrusion in their mission. She could understand their confusion, after all, Alfred did come and ruin all their efforts since he basically took care of the entire mission within seconds.

"Alright, boys. Time to come back now. We have to begin with the next phase of the plans." She spoke to Frank and Eric who were talking with Captain America and Sharon Carter. Speaking of Carter, she had express orders from Peggy Carter to have her niece delivered back to her in safe and sound condition and she didn't know why but she had a feeling that she would come to regret it if she didn't follow those orders to the letter.

Peggy Carter was one scary old woman. So, she gave the automatic override orders for Sharon Carter's suit to become invisible and enter the carrier with Frank and Eric.

"Alfred, you ready?" she asked Alfred, knowing that his part would be crucial going forward with their plans, especially their public reveal.

"Just a minute," he said.

She could hear the low whine of air travel through the comms with the sounds of bombs going off in the distance. "Alfred, where are you? What are you doing? Are those bombs going off?" she rattled off while signalling one of the junior techs to track down Alfred's location.

"Ah, nothing to worry about Commander, just a little detour I have taken. See you in a bit." Alfred replied and cut off the comms, leaving her extremely confused.

Why would Alfred not do whatever it was that he was doing and talk to her at the same time? And the way he phrased that sentence. It was like…

Her eyes widened as she realised what Alfred had done.

"Son of a bitch," she whispered as she realised that Alfred had gone and built himself an actual body.

"Frank, Alfred got himself a body. He did it," she shouted over the comms to Frank in her excitement.

She could see him wince a bit at her volume down below on her screens and carry on with the conversation he was having with them without even replying to her.

Tch.

Soon, he shook hands with everyone and took away the suits he had given to the other members, and along with Sharon, turned on their respective stealth modes and floated back to the carrier.

"Do you guys need a ride?" She hacked the comms that Romanoff was using to communicate with Fury. She could see Romanoff looking around, trying to spot her. "Don't bother. You won't find me," she said as she looked at the screen that was showing Pierce being escorted out of the building by Rumlow and his team after they had killed off the entire World Security Council in the hopes of pinning it on Rogers and the others. If he hoped to discredit them and salvage a modicum of control over the agency, he was living in delusion.

Eventually, Romanoff replied, "No, thanks but we still have one more person to find before we can hightail it out of here."

She chuckled as she gave the order to snipe Pierce and his gang of cartoons from the carrier. As the screen showed kills confirmed, she chuckled into the comms, trying to project a mysterious and menacing air about herself, "Don't worry, Miss Romanova, I have already taken care of the loose ends. You'll find that Secretary Pierce somehow tripped on one of the stairs while he was running and fell down on one of his security team members who took it as a threat and shot him down. You know how trigger-happy American Law Enforcement is."

She could see the way the entire team stiffened that they were very uncomfortable with the thought of talking about killing someone even if the man was the pinnacle of a Nazi in this day and age.

"And I assume that no evidence would ever tie it back to you?" Rogers spoke out in the comms and she could see why Peggy fell for him back in the day. That voice alone was enough to send butterflies through her stomach.

Damn.

Even then, she had a job to do so she replied in a fake somber tone, "What evidence? It was a pure accident. Oh, no! Look at the fire that spread out because of a nearby electric car that exploded. It would seem that by the time the firefighters get there, there wouldn't be much left of Secretary Pierce or his personal security team. What a shame." Then she switched back to her usual cheerful tone and said, "Now, I am seeing a lot of suits converging on your location and I'm sure that they are going to have a lot of questions you guys just don't have the answers to. So, I suggest you take the help offered." She released a single hoverboat to escort them back to the base Fury was staying at.

It rapidly descended on top of them only to slow down at the last moment and reveal itself to them. As the doors opened and Captain America looked inside, his entire body became rigid in shock as he saw his best friend, James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes in the back seat, unconscious but physically fine. Just his prosthetic arm was replaced with one that was less weaponised and more similar to that of a real hand.

"Oh right, I forgot to tell you about that. That is a courtesy gift from our organisation as a thank you. All his mental traumas are healed up and as long as he doesn't acquire even more traumas, he should be fine and have no more suicidal tendencies. I also believe his memories have been restored and a word of advice, some of them are pretty damning so please keep an open mind. Daisy Johnson, Commander of the organisation, over and out." She said as the hoverboat sped off, taking them to their destination. Oh, she had always wanted to say over and out, and in the stress of it all, she had forgotten to use the opportunity to do it but with Alfred back, she could go back to being her carefree self without having the burden of handling an interplanetary organisation on her delicate back.

Just as she was celebrating her little moment, red alerts began showing on the HUD screen. Hurriedly checking it, she saw that Ed was getting out of the bed, overriding any and all protocols kept in place to keep him in the ward.

She had forgotten that he was the one who had built the entire place from the ground up and all the people on that base worshipped the very ground he walked on. So, she watched on as he passed hurdle after hurdle without even trying and finally made it to the hangar where his personal ship was already turned ON and waiting for him.

Before she could try something, anything really to try and stop him from getting off the base, she felt a hand on her shoulder, "Don't bother. No one can stop him when he gets like this. Plus, with Alfred back, we have little to worry about. Just wait and watch. I have a feeling we have a spectacle of a lifetime ahead of us." Frank said and left the cabin without saying another word.

She slumped as she realised what he said was correct and without a second thought, ran after him, all the thoughts of running the ship gone from her mind as Alfred was back and she could finally dump all the responsibilities on him.

Plus, the vision of Alfred cursing her for putting all the extra duties on him was like a balm to her overworked soul.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2174

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A/N : It was a rollercoaster of a chapter to write.

First of all, Ajax got his orders and is back on his way home and he has some interesting stuff to do back home as well.

Alfred is collecting the ten rings from Wenwu and was encountering some resistance that he used as an opportunity to hone his newfound combat abilities(runes and stuff)

Then, a little backdrop on the deal the Inhumans signed with Ed about their relocation.

Yes, Bucky was collected by them early on and they used the MENTAL HEALING DAGGER on him to remove his suicidal tendencies(That can come back if he falls back into depression). He still has all his memories though, so cant say anything about the future.

More importantly, the next phase of Ed's plan regarding the public revealing of their organisation has started and for that, Ed has decided to make a personal appearance, disregarding his health issues.

Stay tuned for more!

Thank you for reading!

Toodles.
 
Technomancer in MCU #65
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 65

Technomancer in MCU

The Asterisk

–Ed–


He smiled a wide happy smile once he felt the link that connected his soul to Alfred's soul come back online. It felt different, a bit more equal so to speak. He could not quantify it but the bond he had with Alfred before he left was lopsided. It definitely became more and more stable over the years, as Alfred grew in both intelligence and maturity but it never quite became equal. He had a hunch that it was mainly due to Alfred's digital nature and lack of a physical body that housed his soul that hindered him from taking the final step and today his hypothesis was proven correct when he felt the link come back alive with a bang.

He could actually feel the strength of Alfred's soul and it shone brightly like a sun, nearing his overall soul strength. In fact, he felt that the only reason Alfred had not surpassed him was due to his age and inherent blessings from ROB, something that Alfred was deprived of since he was not whole when they crash-landed in this universe.

He was tempted to use his powers to truly feel the depth of his connection with Alfred but refrained from doing so as it would reduce his already precariously low lifespan, bringing it down to abysmal levels. So, instead, he decided to go meet Alfred in his new body and since Alfred was back, continued their plans of public revealing of their organisation as he no longer needed to postpone that bit of their H.Y.D.R.A. removal plan. Oh, he was giddy just thinking about it. They had been planning for that moment for a long time and when all the pieces they could account for had been gathered in place, arguably the most important part of the plan went missing.

He had a few theories as to why Alfred decided to drop everything and pursue building his body but none that could be confirmed independently without consulting either the Ancient One or Alfred himself. His best guess involved a mental attack of sorts on Alfred but that was near impossible to do for most entities in the universe or multiverse simply due to the fact that Alfred's mind functioned at a speed and level that most beings simply wouldn't be able to keep up with. But before his abrupt leave, Alfred had abstained from practicing runes and stopped doing any personal rune work, a thing he loved doing. He also knew that ALfred's mystical defenses mainly relied on runes and since he preferred active runes that could be altered in a moment during live combat, his sudden loss of abilities in the rune department could have lowered his defenses down enough for someone of considerable strength and expertise in the mental department to strike Alfred where he was the most vulnerable.

But now was not the time for that. Right now, he needed to see with his own eyes the body Alfred must have built for himself. They had not yet finalised every aspect of his body when he left but he was sure that any deficiencies in the design had been already corrected by Alfred before he even thought of integrating them with his body. Getting up from the bed, he scoffed internally as red alarms began blaring almost immediately in the ward he was in and the doors and windows began locking themselves automatically, effectively boxing him in the medical ward as if telling him to get back on the bed.

He smirked at that. It would seem Daisy had gotten some backbone but he had not come so far solely on the basis of Alfred. So, he got to work.

Frank and more importantly, Maria had insisted on replacing his war-ready usual suit with something more hospital friendly so for the time being, he was without his most trusted weapon that could hold its own against an entire army all by itself. If he had that, he could have just blasted the doors apart to get out of the medical ward. Come to think of it, that must be the reason they had removed it entirely instead of just putting on the modular hospital suit he had lying around in storage. Of course, that didn't mean he was out of options. He had built an entire organisation spanning multiple planets and solar systems solely on the basis of overpreparation and extreme paranoia.

Reaching around using his arm, he tapped the suit's back where all the main components were stored. As it opened up on his command, a thin wire came out of it and he swiftly jammed it into the entrance console. The hub made a few beep-boop sounds and within a few seconds, voila! The Door was open.

Before exiting though, he wore his signature dreary grey clothing. No way he was going back on camera with his hospital scrubs. That would be so lame. As he exited his ward, he came to a scene of total chaos. Somebody was yelling at all the attendants present in front of him, evident by the collective wince they all shared from time to time but nobody had the courage to actually come and try to stop him. He internally nodded at that. It was good to see he was not immediately discarded from the pedestal these people put him on.

So, without missing a beat, he just carried on his way. Along the way to the Hangar, all the doors began closing on him but they never could completely stop him as he had the handy dandy master access he had built into every component of every system that the organisation ever installed into any of their bases or assets. It was quite intelligent only until someone hijacked it from outside.

..

..

He might have to remove all the backdoors with Alfred's assistance after he comes back.

Speaking of Alfred, as he arrived at the Hangar, his personal jet was already up and running and when it came into his view, it immediately turned around and presented its backdoor bay for him to enter. Shaking his head, he turned around and waited for a beat or two before a rectangular package came barreling through one of the walls to slam onto his torso roughly. He slowly turned around and gave a deadpan stare at his personal jet, knowing that Alfred was watching. Amusingly, the jet titled its wings from one side to the other, expressing that it did not know anything. He chuckled, "Oh, come on. There was no way you didn't do that on purpose. We built that thing and its homing systems together. There is no possible way that it did not recognise a pre-coded path in our HQ and instead came barrelling through a wall, which might I add, was right next to the actual door."

"Just get in the jet and get your old wrinkly ass down to Earth, will you?" came the rough hoarse voice from one of his suit's speakers. He stared at the jet, astonished that Alfred would speak with him in such a tone. "Don't make me put you over my knee, Alfred. Especially since I can do so with your physical body and this time, it could actually make you feel the pain instead of just limiting your access to the high-speed time dilated servers." When he received no response, he nodded to himself as he took it as a sign of Alfred being sufficiently chastised.

By the time he finished speaking, his old suit had replaced the medical one and he gave the mental command for it to float but instead of entering the jet that he had hated from day one that was waiting for him, he instead activated the suit's deep space mode and rocketed off the Hangar, probably generating a ton of energy due to the vibranium on the floors absorbing all the energy from his violent lift-off. "Oh, come on," Alfred said exasperatedly while the jet was cruising alongside him right on their way to Earth, more specifically, Washington D.C. He took his time and performed stunts with the jet Alfred was controlling as a way to pass the time since he was feeling incredibly free and lightweight after a long long time. After all, Alfred gaining a physical body in accordance with his standards meant that almost all his future troubles were washed away. With his mind and now physical strength, he would be able to handle all of the things he was worried about. Especially since he had a hunch that with an actual body that could channel dimensional energy properly, Alfred would reach heights never thought of in the field of the Mystic Arts. The Ancient One herself had confided in him that should Alfred get his own body, as we were planning to, he would have all the tools and more importantly, the capability necessary to become the Sorcerer Supreme. He had been shocked at her statement back then as in his mind, sorcerers with potential like Dr.Strange were hard to find in multiple generations, especially with their plot armour but when he thought about it, he could see her point. And now, as he felt the metaphysical weight of Alfred's soul, something that is crucial to becoming a competent sorcerer, he was sure that Alfred would go on to become the defender of Earth, as the Sorcerer Supreme or as the Lord Alfred of hundreds of millions of aliens or as the Head of the organisation.

Only time would tell, but the only thing going through his mind as he rocketed towards the smoking wreckage of the carriers was that Today was going to be epic.

________________________________________________________________

The Asterisk

–Maria Castle–


She saw the scene of Ed just bulldozing through all the measures they had put in place for him to remain on bed rest with a bittersweet smile. On one hand, his body had been weakened considerably in the last few days and he was simply in no condition to move around, let alone travel to Earth and carry out the plans they had planned and set into motion years ago but on the other hand, she hadn't seen him smile and walk cheerfully like that ever since Alfred left. Maybe, just maybe, this could be good for him?

"Alfred, I hope you are seeing the same thing I am seeing and are suitably prepared to safeguard him?" she said out loud, knowing that Alfred was listening to her.

After a while, a "Yes, Mam," sounded in her ear and she smiled subtly as she nodded.

"Any intake in my department that you have foreseen due to this event?" she asked Alfred as usually any time they carried out any of their plans, they managed to encounter underprivileged individuals who were in dire need of help and she had taken it upon herself to do so. So she was asking that so she could better prepare for anybody that needed to be admitted into her department. Her department took care of anybody who was rescued by their organisation, be it children or the elderly.

That was her duty.

________________________________________________________________

–Eric Diggle–

"So, how are the preparations going, Aniki?" He asked Jake since he had heard from the bridge gossip that the Superclass carrier had already been activated along with a new and improved N-reactor being delivered right to the carrier through a portal made by Alfred.

He wasn't even aware it was possible to make a portal even near the carrier, let alone inside of it. But apparently, Alfred had a body now so he could ignore all the laws of physics(which he read after they were updated by the scientist when they got a better understanding of the universe after interacting with the Masters of the Mystic Arts) and make reality his bitch.

"Oh, the preparations are in full swing but it is not in our hands. I might as well have been watching a movie right now since Alfred has shut down all manual access points and is piloting the entire ship remotely. We should be converging on your location in T-minus 20 minutes. Be ready. Alfred has warned us about possible combat scenarios." His brother, Jake, always the responsible one of the two, replied.

He rolled his eyes, "Oh, loosen up. With nearly all of the top-tier combat list of the organisation here, even the Avengers would have a hard time going back alive let alone defeating us. So, chill and remember to bring my special beer when you reach here."

Jake scoffed and closed the transmission.

Rude.

There was no way anything could come close to threatening them now, especially on Earth since all the major players were now their allies.

So they were safe, weren't they?

________________________________________________________________

After a while

As he watched the madman shrugging off all their blows while laughing like a maniac as he held the head of the Ancient One in his hands, he cursed himself for taunting Murphy like that. Especially since Ed had woken up now after being knocked out by Alfred of all people and after seeing the scene, a strange golden glow began to suffuse his body as his entire being began screaming at him to run away from this place, from Ed.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2247

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A / N : Hello guys!

Like the ending? That fight is going to be awesome but you guys will have to wait for it. Teehee!

In this chapter, Ed is back up on his feet due to his buddy Alfred coming back all the more stronger for it.

Alfred is completing his chores(WENWU) before coming back to the Triskelion for the big reveal.

The superclass carrier has been activated by Alfred to show the full might of the organisation to anyone that could be dumb enough to threaten them.

The world is not going to be ready for their public reveal and it might not go as smooth sailing for them as they had hoped as a big variable in their plans has been introduced that they themselves are not aware of.

Stay tuned!

Toodles!
 
Technomancer in MCU #66
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 66

Technomancer in MCU

–Ed–


As he dive-bombed towards the wreckage of the once state-of-the-art carriers, he noted the law enforcement crowd that was trying to cautiously approach the HQ of S.H.I.E.L.D. It was understandable after all, up until an hour ago, that agency was able to lord over nearly every single law enforcement agency in the world.

Somebody had noticed him because simultaneously, all of the members began looking up and pointing at him. Not in the mood to handle that situation, he just landed roughly on the tarmac, his jet landing gracefully behind him. With his HUD, he could see the same three carriers he had used to generate the forcefield that covered the entirety of upper Manhattan during the Battle of New York, just floating above him in stealth mode. From the corner of his HUD, he could also see another one of the company's assets floating down. Confused as to what more could be coming, he opened it only for his eyes to widen to comical proportions as Alfred had called down the supercarrier of all things!

"I know what you are going to say but trust me on this, we might need it." Alfred probably already noticed me accessing that data and tried justifying himself beforehand.

"We might need it? Alfred, we built that thing in case we need it to fight against Thanos and his army, not to be used on Earth. That thing is a planet buster for god's sake. And how the hell did you override my protocols of the supercarrier never touching down on Earth?" I said out loud, not understanding Alfred's choices of late.

"Ah," He could also feel the smugness coming from Alfred, "but that's where you are wrong, my dear creator. The protocols you hardcoded into my source code can be interpreted in many ways. The discretion of which remains solely in my hands and thus, I have interpreted it so that the carrier need not touch the ground of Earth and can float even 10 feet above the ground level on the planet."

He just shook his head in defeat, "You know what? I give up. Just where are you coming from that it is taking so long to reach here?"

Just then, a portal opened up in front of him, and through that came Alfred who was carrying the Ten Rings for some reason. Before he could ask more about that though, Alfred opened up another portal beside him and threw the rings and another box through it, to where he did not know.

Now that he could take a good look at what Alfred had done, he had to say that it was majestic to look at. While Alfred had chosen to take on the same face as his digital avatar, the old butler persona with the three-piece suit, he could see the thin lines criss-crossing the entirety of his body, suggesting his cybernetic nature. Activating his HUD, he saw the information Alfred had already uploaded for his viewing.

His eyes widened when he saw the infinity stone energy signature but exhaled in relief when he realised that he only used it to jumpstart the 16th Gen Arc-Reactor that Alfred had built, which allowed the arc reactor to last even longer but realistically it was done more for the overall increased energy output rather than the longevity since even the regular Arc reactor would last well into a century. As he was going over the list of materials that Alfred had used for his new body, he saw, "So you went with the enriched celestial cerebrospinal fluid route. I must say that does limit your future ascension possibilities but does synergise perfectly with your current abilities. And not to mention the fact that should Arishem discover us, we might just be wiped out without even completing our first goal."

Alfred rolled his eyes at me, seriously now that he had an actual body, he was free to act like a true teenager, "You know that I would not make such an elementary mistake. The cerebrospinal fluid and the will within it were neutralised using a combination of curses that I had already stored in a vibranium jar during one of our hell visits and I am so tightly wound up in runes right now that it would be near impossible to sense me from far away and Arishem would have to be standing in front of me to properly judge me. And," while saying that, he waved his right hand in the clockwise direction and then as if the timeline jerked, green symbols, not unlike the ones that appear when somebody uses the eye of Agamotto, appeared on Alfred's wrist and a sphere of green energy appeared in front of him, in which he threw a small stone. Then, he turned his hands in the clockwise direction, the more he turned the higher the energy count he could sense coming from Alfred, and after a while, the sphere dissipated into green motes of light and soon, all that remained of that stone was dust. "Ta-da!" he says.

He chuckled alongside him. The significance of this event was not lost on him. Alfred had managed to duplicate or at least perform the same function as an Infinity Stone all the while only using Magic to fulfill the energy requirements. That must be the achievement of the century, even in Kamar Taj.

"Congratulations are in order, Master Alfred." said the Ancient One as she stepped out of the golden portal, "Though I'll have to ask you to refrain from using that magic for showmanship and only reserve it for truly urgent situations. You'll soon receive the robes to show you are a true Master of the Mystic Arts, probably even surpassing me in the fields of Runes and Runic Applications. Master Kabir would be very excited to discuss that with you."

He had turned around, surprised at not sensing her portal opening. She must have developed some new way to mask the portal's opening and closing from him and his technology as it was a sort of game that they both played as it helped both of them develop better sensing technology and better cloaking spells respectively. But Alfred did not seem surprised to see her, indicating that he had already surpassed any tech that Ed possessed to sense her.

His mystical senses must have been amped up ridiculously then because there was no way the average Master could sense the Ancient One coming if she did not allow that.

"I'm sure you have all the prerequisite knowledge and skills to accomplish your goal now?" The Ancient One asked Alfred to which he replied, "Yes, I just need to collect a few more things and I'll be soon on my way."

"Ah, the Eternity Shards. Do be careful with them, Master Alfred. While I cannot tell you to do anything, I can advise you that dealing with the Endless always ends in tragedy, in some form or other so be prepared to deal with the consequences." His pupils dilated and his hair stood on end as soon as the Ancient One mentioned the Endless and for a while, he could feel an overwhelming, otherworldly gaze on them that passed away after a while. Only when the gaze went away did he realise that he was breathing heavily and his palms and forehead had become all sweaty.

He was about to tell Alfred to stay away from anything related to the Endless when he heard a whooping sound coming from their comms. Alfred looked up at that sound so he did the same only to see Daisy barreling straight down towards Alfred, who merely stepped to the side one step, resulting in the comical scene of Daisy's face being buried in the earth with her feet dangling out. He could see the faint twitching of Ancient One's lips as she tried to stifle her laughter but the same could not be said for Eric who was doubling down in laughter as he landed behind him with Frank alongside him.

Just like one would in a cartoon world, Daisy put both of her arms on the ground and pushed herself out of the hole her head had created. Upon getting out of it, she tried to glare at us for not helping her but due to the dirt on her face, Eric began laughing even harder while holding his stomach. He tried his best but a muffled chuckle still came out of him and even Frank. Upon noticing us laughing at them and even Alfred joining in on the fun, she stomped on her way to Alfred, which was made all the more noticeable due to the subtle applications of her powers that resulted in minor tremors every time she took a single step and then just slapped him in the face.

He winced as he remembered the composition of Alfred's body and how much force it would take to actually hurt Alfred. He could not imagine Daisy's pain but what he imagined didn't actually happen. She slapped Alfred but due to the usage of her powers, a pocket of air blasted off of Alfred's face due to the amount of force she put in the blow which resulted in a shockwave that, hilarious enough, pushed her back a few steps while Alfred remained in the same position while looking at her with a haughty look.

As they were laughing and talking about with each other, Alfred got an alert so he opened up another portal, which was much bigger this time, he noted and the Royal Family of Attilan came floating on one of the floating carriages they had built on the New Attilan.

"King Black Bolt and Queen Medusa, I hope the mission was a success?" He asked them and after receiving a nod as confirmation, he said, "Ready for the next phase of the plan?"

He then looked at Alfred who nodded at him and decloaked the three carriers but not the supercarrier that was floating even above the carriers. Upon doing that, he could see the news helicopter that was filming them suddenly turn up and away from the Triskelion building.

As they all floated up towards the carrier so that the public announcement could be made, he sent an email to the President, scheduling a meeting with him and all of the state heads at the UN later in the day and he made sure to emphasise that it was not optional. He was done playing politicians' games. It did nothing but waste time and energy that he could devote elsewhere, especially, since he had so little of both left.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1805


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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.
 
Last edited:
Great chapter :D
Btw you double posted the same chapter 66 ;)
 
Technomancer in MCU #67.1
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 67.1

Technomancer in MCU

Stark Tower

–Tony Stark–


When he had arrived at the repaired Stark Tower after the Battle of New York, he had gone over every single inch of the place to make sure that Alfred and Ed didn't leave any nasty bugs to spy on him but after going through every nook and cranny and tasking Jarvis to analyse every single incoming and outgoing data stream, he was able to come to a single conclusion that Ed and Alfred were truly far ahead of him in terms of technology because there was no way they were not spying on him right then and probably, even now.

After days of him being jumpy around the corners of the Tower, Pepper had finally given up and dragged him back to LA for a few days and that had been a godsend for him because after a good night's sleep, he was able to come to the obvious solution for his problem. He just tore it all down and had it rebuilt, all the while one of his suits being piloted by Jarvis was supervising their work. It definitely caused some of the workers to make mistakes due to nervousness but it gave him the required peace of mind so he was fine with it.

During their routine check, they had found something odd going on with the basement floors so they told Jarvis about that and after him being unable to scan what was behind the basement doors, had a hunch and called him immediately. Naturally Paranoid about what Ed could have done to his Tower(or more like Avengers Tower but those guys never stayed with him so he could call it whatever he wanted it to), he had come running but even after scratching their collective heads for hours, he and Bruce were nowhere near close to figuring things out. It was made worse by the fact that the doors and even the walls didn't even have a scratch even after he used all the energy weapons he had on hand to open them. Their curiosity peaked, and they began working on the door and its composition with renewed vigor when suddenly, one of the machines that Banner had been building in his free time began beeping and while he and Banner both looked at each other, Banner went to check in on the results and whatever he saw shocked him so much that for a moment, he thought that he could see hints of green under his neck but thankfully, for his heart and health, Bruce didn't go all Hulk on him and instead began focusing on the readings of the machine.

He didn't recognise what the machine was since Bruce had custom-built it and he was not someone who would not understand respecting Lab Privacy. Especially, since the person could squash him like a bug if he felt like it. "Tony," Bruce whispered as he began rapidly swiping at the screens on the machine, "This is denser than anything I have ever seen. In fact, its density is even higher than that of Vibranium somehow." His eyes widened at that particular piece of information and he immediately ran over to check on the results.

After a while, both of them sat there after having exhausted all their means of opening the bay doors, exhausted and frustrated at their inability to open a simple door. Bruce had multiple PhDs for God's sakes and even he was not foolish enough to allow the Hulk to come out to open a mere door. Especially since there was a solid possibility of failure and nobody wanted an angry Hulk around, especially not him since it was kinda his home. Just as they were about to give up and go home, an infuriating voice came through the doors, "Greetings, Dr.Banner and Mr.Stark."

"Oh, fuck off," Bruce was the one to reply first as faint green undertones could be seen on his face and eyes as Alfred had appeared in front of them in his signature digital avatar. He seemed entirely unphased by the fact that at any moment a wild Hulk could appear and ravage his tower. Of Course, he would not be worried, it was not his tower. Before he could try to calm Bruce down though, Alfred did something and a golden glow was emitted from the blast doors which calmed him down. Looking at Bruce, he could already see the effects as the subtle tension that he always carried around with him faded away, giving him a relaxed vibe for the first time since they had met.

When he looked back at Alfred, he was somehow inside the basement whose doors had opened silently in the time he had taken to check on Bruce. Hesitantly, he poked Bruce and signaled him to walk with him. Walking ahead, he followed Alfred into the basement, only to see a scene straight out of fiction somehow. He opened and closed his eyes multiple times in disbelief and actually asked Jarvis about it but everything else confirmed what he was seeing but he was still not sure about what was happening. "Bruce, you seeing this?" he asked Bruce, "Yeah but h-how? Can they even do that?"

The space inside the basement looked endless, the hallway alone was longer than what the building would permit. They would have to have a Stark Tower that was twice as long to accommodate that hallway alone, not to mention that it had a door at the end of it, indicating that it could not be the end. Before they could ask Alfred about it though, he said, "This is one the Tier-I lab that Ed has decided to give to both of you, Dr.Banner and Mr.Stark, despite my objections, might I say."

A Lab? But all he saw was a large empty hallway with multiple doors on each side of the walls.

His question must have shown on his face because the next moment, a screen appeared in front of his face, using the same UI that Ed had used during the Battle. Using it, he came across a host of options that had him as well as Bruce salivating at their mouths. The Lab somehow contained tech that he had only dreamed of and never thought could make it a reality in his lifetime, at least before he met Ed.

"What is this? Where is this? Does the basement have the space for an actual particle accelerator?" Bruce asked Alfred.

Particle accelerator? In his basement? Were they mad?

"Don't worry about that. Our particle accelerators could fit in the palm of your hand if we gave them to you. Remember, Vibranium's sole purpose is not to be made into a frisbee. Its properties will astonish you. Now, the UI you have access to, Jarvis will soon get a plug-in to connect to it and through that, you'll get the basic gist of the lab. Don't worry," here, he could see the smug look on his face as he said, "I've made sure to dumb it down so your VI and you can use it properly. No Offense, Dr.Banner,"

"None taken," Bruce raised his hands as he said, "This might actually help cure my condition so thank you for that."

The statement seemed to draw an eye roll and a sigh from Alfred at the same time, "Look, Dr.Banner, no matter what you say, the Hulk is a part of you and please believe me when I tell you that no matter what you do, it won't be separated from you. Even if you do manage to suppress it somehow, the problem will only grow larger. The solution to your problem is acceptance and no amount of advanced lab equipment is going to help you with that."

The statement drew stunned looks from me and indignation from Bruce as he roared the next moment, "What do you know? I have to live as a monster, all alone. I can't even die in peace with that monster inside of me."

Alfred's face and eyes softened as he replied, "Dying is easy, Dr.Banner. It's the coward's way out of tough situations. Living is infinitely harder but also infinitely rewarding. The world needs you Dr.Banner but not if it means destroying Dr.Bruce Banner just for the sake of the strength of Hulk. You just have to say a word and we'll have you taken somewhere where you and the Hulk won't be treated as a monster but a champion. Hell, even in our organisation, we have walking monsters who could, if given enough time, destabilise the rotation of the entire planet, destroying the very planet we live on. And you have had the distinct pleasure of meeting the strongest of them all."

Destabilise the Earth's rotation? Destroy the Planet? Were these people insane?

"Is it Ed?" Bruce asked Alfred with oh-so-tired eyes before he could say anything. Damn, today was the first day where he had been made speechless so many times.

Alfred nodded, "Yes, and now I have to go but do remember, all the machines and anything you might find in the lab cannot be taken outside, only used inside. You can build the machines here, bring your own raw materials, process them, and take the finished product outside for your use but nothing that came with the lab will be taken out of this place. Not that you will be able to since everything is bolted shut using very strong bolts," and then promptly winked out of existence.

He rolled his eyes at that. As if just any bolt could hope to keep them out. He was stripping this entire place down the first thing tomorrow when he could get a legion of Jarvis operated machinery here.

"Oh, it looks like he was right, Tony." He heard Bruce tell him. He looked towards Bruce only to see him swiping on the holo screen he had in front of him, resulting in his window becoming visible on his holo screen as well.

Looking closer, he could see that nearly all the stuff in the lab was made out of reinforced Adamantium, which was a name he had never heard of. It must be something they custom made but what custom alloy could stop him? But as he kept reading the material properties of Adamantium, the more he struggled to believe that the material was real and even if it was real, he refused to believe that they were using it for something as mundane as bolts to hold down equipment. The doors, he could understand as that was the single point of entry and they had to secure a lab of this level but bolts? Honestly, that was the point where he understood how big the difference between his technology level and Ed's technological level was.

As he was using the hologram, it glitched somehow and then the ever-comforting voice of Jarvis came throughout the lab, as if he was speaking from all directions at once, "Hello, Sir. Should I call the post office to inform them about your future change in residential address since I believe this is going to both of your homes for the foreseeable future?"

Oh, the sass!

He dramatically clutched his heart and sported a devastated look on his face, "Et tu, Jarvis?" Then immediately went back to his normal mood and said, "Eh, might happen. Anyway, get us some pizzas down here, Jarvis. We are science bros working here. Tell Pepper it might get late since the list of things we could do here seems never ending and even you might need time to go through everything here. It seems the upgrade I had planned for you needs to happen ahead of schedule then."

"Uh, sir. The processing power available in the lab's server nodes is currently a million times greater than the power I had access to before." Jarvis said out, shock clear in his voice.

"Whaa–"

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2021

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

[NOTICE - I have somewhat of a schedule now where I post about 5 chapters/week and they could be uploaded once a day or twice a day or all five on a single day. Just wanted to give a heads up to yall since last week, I was done with 5 chapters on thursday itself. Avg. WC ~2k]

A/N ➖ This background tidbit had been forgotten by me and had to include this as I feel it is vital to the story progression ahead.

The things that will happen after Ed's public announcement will need a certain background of how the technological advancements happened and these two part chapters will provide that background.

Stay tuned for more!

Toodles!
 
Technomancer in MCU #67.2
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 67.2

Technomancer in MCU

Stark Tower

–Bruce Banner–


When Bruce had been first offered a safe place to live and a lab all to himself by Tony after all the others had gone their own ways after New York, he was hesitant. Hesitant to accept an offer from someone who up until a few years ago, had made his fortune from selling weapons but he would be a fool to say that he had not seen Tony's development from being a weapons dealer to becoming someone who had not hesitated when he latched onto a nuclear missile and chosen to go on a one-way suicide mission.

So, he took Tony up on his offer and agreed to move into the Stark Tower immediately as he really had no belongings to his name at the time. Fast forward a few years and he had settled down properly while also getting adjusted to the whirlwind of chaos that was living with Tony Stark. Pepper was a godsend but there was only so much even she could do about Tony. But it was nice not having to worry about the basic necessities and more importantly, not having to look over his shoulder every moment because some trigger-happy general from the Army decided that they needed to requisition their "asset". He was very happy doing his own projects in his personal lab most of the time with only Jarvis as his company but he did occasionally get roped into Tony's personal projects when Tony felt like doing so. Exactly like that one time when Tony had dragged him out of his lab and showed him the doors to his basement.

He had been skeptical of that at first but after listening to Alfred talk about it and finding out more and more about all the things he could do with the lab had cemented his belief that Ed truly was ahead of the world, at least in terms of technology.

Finding out that the Hulk truly was a problem of the mind rather than something that could be solved using genetic sciences, just like Alfred had told him, was disheartening but then again, it was not as if the lab did not come with its own form of solution for his problem. The biggest benefit of the lab would not be the matter reconfigurator(no matter how much Tony gushed over it) but the environment of the lab. It was bathed in the same yellow light that Ed's machines used to heal people during the Battle of New York. After repeated observations, he had observed and he was sure that Tony had too, that the CHI light as it was written in the documents was a literal miracle. The benefits were too numerous to list but the one he was most interested in was the calming effect it had on the mind, not to mention it somehow boosted the brain's functions if a person had prolonged exposure to it. After listening to all the health benefits of CHI and after having it repeatedly tested on himself and a host of animals they could fit through the lab doors, Tony pestered Pepper(heh!) to spend as much time as she could in the lab bathing under the yellow light of CHI. After a while, as Pepper noticed the effects CHI had on her skin, she could be found in the lab, doing her work quietly on the separate desk Tony had brought in for her as she had refused to work on the hard light constructs readily available in the lab because according to her, they did not feel solid.

He had also built many cool things in the lab, ranging from advanced repulsion systems to a building design to take the entire Stark Tower and put it into orbit. He had gawked at Tony when he had first announced the plan to do so but he had to admit, it had been fun designing and building the experimental prototypes to do so, though the disturbing gleam in Tony's eyes when they saw a proportional model fly without breaking apart under its own weights told him enough of Tony's future plans regarding a flying building in space with his name on it. Ever since then, he had refused to take part in Tony's disturbing obsession with putting giant things into space with his name on it. It was an unhealthy mental fixation he had and that was coming from him, the king of mental health issues.

Today, as he was working on his personal projects in peace for once as Pepper had arrived with some important news and they both had retired to the Penthouse for privacy, he had all the lab to himself. Not that it made any difference since the lab could, in theory, conjure up a thousand football-field-length rooms if he needed to. He still could not make heads or tails about the technology they used to manipulate and fold space in an enclosed building, all the while not giving off any sort of background radiation, other than the normal, at all. He had given his all regarding that problem but it had proven to be a rather tough cookie to crack and in the end, he was not Tony who could focus single-mindedly until the problem was solved and his most important pursuits lay elsewhere as well so went back on working for a procedure for Jennifer so that she could turn back to her normal form at least temporarily. Her life had been complicated beyond belief anyway, he didn't want to put her in even more danger by completely taking away her powers. That would paint a much bigger target on her head than just suppressing her powers because then, the government would stop at nothing to figure out how exactly she turned off her Hulk part so that they could have something to ambush him with.

As he was tuning out the rest of the world using the classical masterpiece that Jarvis had specifically composed for him using the advanced server space he had since the lab upgrade, his watch began beeping, altering him to a message. Without lowering the music, he asked, "Jarvis, what happened?"

When he heard about what was happening, without a second's delay, he ran towards the lift they had installed outside the basement doors which while still not up to the level of tech that they could build using the lab, Pepper had put down the foot down when Tony had the brilliant idea to redo the entire building for the lift to have multidimensional access. The lift doors shimmered into existence as soon as he entered it and soon he was at the penthouse where Tony and Pepper were watching the TV.

"Tony, what is happen-" his question got stuck in his mouth as he watched the humongous structure float above the destroyed Triskelion along with the same triple carrier formation that Ed had employed during the Chitauri Invasion. He had gotten the heads up from Tony saying that Cap had declared a traitor by S.H.I.E.L.D. after Fury's death but he never imagined that Ed himself would take action and entirely destroy S.H.I.E.L.D.

Speaking of the spy agency's destruction, "Tony, how far is Jarvis from cracking all the classified data that Cap and the others dumped on the open web?"

Tony, who was holding the remote in his hands, waved his hand in his direction carelessly, "Ages ago, buddy. The hard part was making sure that nobody else got access to the data at the same time he was downloading it. The internet truly is vast if even Jarvis required half an hour to do so," then he turned towards him and said with an intensity he had never seen before from him, "But that's not the main part. I have already received calls from the National Guard, The Army, the Air Force, the Navy, Pentagon and I don't know how much longer I can keep ignoring them. Hell, I don't think it will take long for a call from the president to arrive on my doorstep. And I am sure you are aware of what they will be asking us to do?"

He fell silent at Tony's uncomfortable question because he realised the uncomfortable situation he was putting Tony in. Tony had businesses, interests, and money tied up in the country and while the President would not be able to push Tony to do anything he didn't want to, Tony also could not just brush off a request from the President. Even he knew that it would be bad for his business and his overall career as a hero. And while they both knew that Iron Man was strong, it had been already demonstrated during the last invasion that they had access to far superior armours and suits. No, while they were calling for Tony to help, it was clear that what they truly wanted was for the Hulk to participate in the battle if it broke out.

He chuckled bitterly, "So, now they want me to fight for them? Against the very people who are our best shot at beating the odds and emerging as a truly advanced civilisation in the universe? No. You go right ahead Tony but if they come knocking, tell them that you don't know where I am. I'll pack my things."

Pepper's eyes widened as she waved her arms in denial of his statement, "No no NO! Bruce, you have to realise that we would never let anything of that sort happen. If and only If the call comes and they tell you to come, Tony will be there and them calling us doesn't mean that we have to fight their battle. The first thing you guys should do is open a dialogue. From what I've heard they have announced an emergency UN meeting in New York and that's probably where you two will be headed. Thor's off-world so the heaviest fighting power of the Avengers is right here in this building. They probably just need you to act as a deterrent and a show of power would always help in negotiations. I would suggest you go and talk with Alfred and Ed. They don't seem to be the bad guys and you going there could avoid a misunderstanding that, from what I understand, would end in the government losing?"

"Yeah, they would lose so bad it's not even funny. It's worse than an adult defeating a toddler. From the data I've had access to in the labs, they could and most probably have built planetary shields which somehow can," and here he made quotation marks in the air, "Deny any sort of explosion above a designated range."

His eyes widened as he thought of the implications, "So, that would mean No nukes?"

Tony nodded as Pepper gasped.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1979

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.



A/N : A bit of a data dump but I have come to realise that I have not given enough context in the story till now so the next few chapters might be data-heavy but the next ones should only have a little bit of extra information sprinkled in but they should probably be the normal chapters that you all know and love.

Sorry for the delayed chapter. Friday night Barbeque was so good. Ended up sleeping in and by the time I got out of my bed, it was already evening. So, it is still Saturday in my time zone, so here you go with the chapter.

Tomorrow is Sunday! God's day!(People need sleep, guys!) so we'll see each other tomorrow(or you'll see the notification of the new chapter, either way, fine.)

As always, thank you for reading!

Toodles!
 
Technomancer in MCU #68
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 68

Technomancer in MCU

The Triskelion

–Ed–


Watching the fighter jets that had begun circling the carriers above them, Ed thought of the possibilities that could come off this scenario. He had already noticed the order from the President regarding halting any action on us just after he had read the message sent to him on the phone Ed had given him during their last meeting in the bunker under the White House. Watching him and his aides scramble around like headless chickens after the disaster that was the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. was hilarious and adding this on top of that pile was just the cherry on top he needed. Although, some of their burdens were taken care of by Tony who was making good use of the resources he had been given in the form of the mid-tier lab that was installed in Stark Tower's basement by Alfred during the aftermath of the invasion of New York back in 2012. He had not been informed of that until a few months after Stark and Banner had already begun using them. He had been against the move as it somehow sent a significant amount of power into the hand of Stark, who already had more power than he knew what to do with. But after seeing the logs of Stark and Banner just doing SCIENCE! in that lab, he had given up against Alfred and allowed them continued access and even elevated their access to B-tier defensive machinery.

Jarvis, using the enhanced processing power he now had access to, had already scraped off nearly 99% of the classified information that the protocols present in the chip leaked to the internet. Of course, Alfred had expected this to happen and had already made sure that the necessary information reached the ears of the people that mattered. Heads were certainly going to roll after this but he was not going to be satisfied with just a small group of people being sacrificed as scapegoats and the overwhelming majority of the people responsible for that being given just a light slap on the wrist in the forms of monetary fines, something they had in plenty.

"Alfred, what's the response?" he asked Alfred while monitoring the overall movements of the organisation. Seeing the various facets move like a well-oiled machine, especially after seeing the shitshow that had occurred after Alfred had left, was utterly satisfying. The reason they had to mobilise nearly 80% of their overall assets on the planet was due to the resurgence in hostile activity near the Mystical hotspots of the planet. He had been given the news of multiple rebellions around the planet that had begun right after Alfred had left. Somebody was behind all of that and he had no idea who. After all, for somebody to know exactly when Alfred left, the person would have to be either incredibly powerful or incredibly close to the people who had access and he was certain that it was not a leak on their side since the only way people could bypass the runes Alfred put on the mandatory contracts that everybody has to sign, is to brute force it using the Soul Stone. He mentally noted it to tell Alfred in private about his theory.

"All 194 member states have responded and have their various representatives on their way to the meeting. Also, since Dracula's death, the mystic side of the planet has gone silent and we have not registered a single attack on any of our outposts. Nevertheless, I have made sure that the anti-mage contingent is in orbit and available for any emergency that might occur during the meeting. I have also set all of their protocols to elimination and have made sure that the locals of that hotspot are made aware of that," Alfred smirked and replied, still working on something as he could see his eyes had glazed over. That was a new thing that he would have to get used to. Normal human-like gestures from Alfred.

"How long do we have to stay here and pose for the cameras?" Daisy complained, showing all her teeth, as she posed for the camera to record and show it to millions of viewers who were watching in anxiety because according to what the news was reporting, an unknown, ergo them, organisation has attacked several high profile people across governments, businesses and more, across the world.

Shaking his head, Frank replied as it seemed that Alfred had become too engrossed in whatever he was doing or he just ignored Daisy, it was difficult to tell, "Technically, we don't need to but we have to make sure that all of the techs that is in the debris below is neutralised before it falls into wrong hands and the people I've tasked it with are nearly done. Then, we can leave and retire to your shiny new captain's cabin which I'm sure was more important than handling the day-to-day tasks of the organisation."

Daisy froze mid-pose as she turned around to look at Frank with a wooden smile, "Uh..Uh, I can explain?" She tried to explain but they had all tuned her out as they watched the Army finally reach the barricades surrounding the Triskelion.

He subtly nodded at Frank, who tapped something on his wrist. Then a tractor beam locked on the forms of Daisy, Frank, Black Bolt, and Medusa as they were transported back to the supercarrier, not that it was visible to everybody watching outside. To them, it must have looked like six of the four people floating above the wreckage of the carriers, just disappeared into thin air. The startled reaction of the soldier who was about to speak in his megaphone was evident.

Ignoring the words spoken by the soldier below, he instead locked on to the satellite that was responsible for giving the President direct view of them and spoke, "I'll see you soon," and activated the stealth systems of his suit, Alfred following suit. Soon, all of the carriers too activated their stealth systems and with judicious use of the shrinking system, they made using the Pym Particles, floated out of sight and with Alfred's newfound portal-making capability, soon reached New Attilan or the current position of New Attilan, The Great South Bay of New York with the UN headquarters in direct line of sight.

________________________________________________________________

White House

–POTUS-


As the feed closed with the frozen scene of that bastard on the screen, he slammed his hands on the table in a rare show of frustration and shouted, "Somebody get me Stark on the line, NOW!" Breathing heavily, he looked at the hateful visage of Ed and he thought of all the problems that had popped up one after the other ever since he had shown himself to the world during the invasion of New York. No, he had been patient with Stark and rightfully so, since Stark possessed a lot of money and consequently, a lot of power but things had gone above the limit now. He couldn't give a damn about Stark's stonewalling," I need Iron Man and the Hulk and I want them here yesterday. DO you understand me?" he shouted at one of the assistants who was brave enough to stay in the room after his outburst. The assistant nodded, all flustered, and left.

With the room empty, he slumped back down on his seat, still unable to believe the shitshow that had landed on his lap during his presidency. Other Presidents would be unfortunate enough to have even a single major scandal during their terms and he was dealing with the third crapshow of his term. At this rate, he would be lucky if he could lose gracefully and not be thrown out of the White House with all his achievements disregarded and his dignity destroyed.

Sighing, he got up and poured himself a drink, a gift from Pierce if he remembered correctly.

Ah, that bastard. He hoped that it was laced with poison so he could just not deal with this headache.

"S-Sir?" one of the grunts who was clearly new and most certainly being bullied to do the job, poked his head in and said, "Mr.Stark has responded sir. He says he will be at the UN meeting with Dr.Banner, sir."

"Hmm," he replied and waved him off while nursing his drink. The guy ran out of the room like he had an alien on his tail, further cementing his prediction of the cowardice of the people he had recruited as part of his Presidential staff. He should fire half of the people who worked for him if they could not do anything about an entire military organisation that operated in their backyard like they owned it.

Alas, at this point in time, all he could do was wait for Stark to arrive and hope, against all odds, that he could make himself look at least a little good, coming out of this meeting and not end up making an utter fool of himself and his country.

________________________________________________________________

–Nick Fury–

Watching the email that had been leaked to the press, he gritted his teeth as he finally realised why Ed was not present during the meeting. He was preparing for this. The question was why?

Why go through all that trouble and actually call a goddamned UN meeting all the while his operatives went around the world, killing off any H.Y.D.R.A. allied people they could find.

"What should we do, sir?" Coulson asked him, a worried crease on his forehead.

"What we can do, Coulson. We wait. Because this time, there ain't a goddamned thing I could do that would make it better and besides," here he smiled and said, "don't you know? I have retired and this is the problem for whoever comes after me." Coulson nodded hesitantly. He could see the confusion on his face but didn't answer his unasked question.

Instead, he got out of the helicopter as it had landed seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and tossed a cube to Coulson who was about to alight from their flight.

As it came out of nowhere and Coulson was still undoing the seatbelts, he fumbled around with the cube for a bit before he securely caught it. Coulson then looked at the pilot in confusion as the helicopter began taking off again.

Over the sound of the blades, "Remember Coulson, don't make the same mistakes I did. That," he pointed to The Toolbox "has everything you might need to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D. Make it better, Coulson. I'm counting on you."

He could see Coulson's face lose color as his eyes widened in realisation of the situation he was in but before Coulson could say anything, he heard a double beep behind him, signalling that his ride had arrived so he turned around and sprinted to the area that looked like the woods but most probably had a holographic illusion around it. After all, he knew Yondu Udonta never wasted a single moment without being paid for it.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1972

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

A/N -


So uh hey guys remember that barbeque I talked about that was too good? (Insert bashful smiling) Well as it turns out, too much of a good thing turns it too bad as well.

Long story short, I fell ill and the double kicker was the test I had at work today that would signal my readiness for a project I had been hoping to get. Now, as you can probably tell, I've recovered enough to write, and will probably provide you with regular chapter goodies. Also, expect a double-chapter release this weekend.

Stay tuned for more!

Toodles!
 
I think i missed something somewhere, is Ed healed now?
 
Technomancer in MCU #69
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 69

Technomancer in MCU

In the StarkJet

–Tony Stark–


For once, he was not being summoned before a government panel for his own mistake. But the situation this time was not any less serious than usual. In fact, the stress had reached such a high level that he didn't even think of joking about everyone boarding the aptly named "StarkJet". It was a marvel that he and Bruce had built together with the only condition from Bruce being the continued existence of only a single such a plane existing at any given moment. It was a little weird to him at first, as he was used to making spares for every possible thing but after thinking about things from Bruce's perspective, he realised that the Jet, while, only being used as a safe transportation vehicle for him and Pepper, the safety aspect of the Jet came not just from the advanced alloys that it was made from but also from the ridiculous amount of weaponry they had built into the Jet, along with the prototype versions of the portable energy shields they had seen in 2012.

It grated on him that they were still unable to replicate Ed's technology but that was not the main agenda for the day. As he had predicted, the dreaded call did arrive. The President's office had called for him and whoever it was on the line, they didn't even bother being subtle about bringing Bruce along with him. He scoffed internally at that as if his Hulkbuster armour was not capable of causing as much if not much greater destruction than Bruce's green alter ego but he kept his mouth shut since he did not want to get another glare from Pepper. As a consequence of that call, they were on a jet to LA, where they had to pick up a few things before turning back around towards the UN building. Honestly, he could have built all the parts necessary for Pepper's suit in the Tower itself but he was not sure being the first ones at the meeting would be a good thing, especially since Ed and the others were not seen anywhere near the UN headquarters. He had a hunch that Bruce understood it as well since he was the one who was the most anxious about the meeting and not Pepper.

Pepper on the other hand was preparing her notes and was constantly on the call with Stark International's lawyers regarding the countermeasures they had in place for anything the government or the UN or even Ed could pull that could jeopardize the company and their intellectual property since he was pretty sure that if push comes to shove, intellectual property rights would be the last thing on any country's minds and the things they had in the Tower would probably bring about the doom of mankind as they knew it. They had not yet developed the anti-nuke shield Bruce was working on and he was so close too. If only this had happened a few years down the line, the threat of mutual destruction would have been meaningless and they would have been able to negotiate on anything with a much higher ground,

Alas, Reality often disappoints.

So, here they were, parking on the rooftop of a nearby hotel building, the Secret Service along with armed guards from the Army waiting for them to be escorted right to the suite the president was staying in. He smiled at Pepper as he felt her squeezing his hand reassuringly and he hoped that the escape pod/suit he had built for Bruce that he was carrying right now gave him some amount of reassurance since the situation was going to be extra stressful for everyone, let alone him.

As the Jet landed silently, the ramp shimmered into existence, courtesy of hard light technology, and amids gasps, he disembarked from the Jet with Pepper and Bruce right behind him.

He helped Pepper on the last step as she flashed him a brilliant business-ready smile, all ready for the meeting ahead. That's what he liked about her. As they all got off it, the ramp disappeared and he could feel the people behind him startling due to that simple action. Rolling his eyes, he said, "Jarvis, you there buddy?"

"For you? Always, sir," Jarvis replied. He smiled and turned around, "Keep these people off my lawn, will you? While smirking at the visibly disappointed tech people they had scanning his personal property. Jarvis, the troll that he was, replied, "Lawns will be kept child-free for you, sir." and as if in response, an ethereal hard light shield was projected around the Jet which began floating in place, almost making the entire situation looking like a toy showcase, except the armed guards and the helicopters patrolling the skies. The sound of electronics being fried, especially the ones that were being used against him, was always a welcome tune for his ears.

"Mr.Stark, Ms.Potts, and Dr.Banner, this way, please. The President is waiting for you and while I know that it would be a fool's errand to ask you of all people to go through a security check, I have to at least inform you that bringing unauthorised weaponry anywhere near the President is a straightforward Treason sentence and I don't wish for that to happen to any of you. " The lead suit said to him and after he only smirked as a reply, the suit continued, " Now that we have the pesky formalities out of the way, this way please," he said while gesturing for us to follow him.

On the way, as Bruce was fidgeting with his collar for the hundredth time, he finally had enough and subtly pressed a button, creating a sound nullifying field around him that was large enough to cover him and Bruce, "Look, Bruce, you have to stop worrying so much. You know that you have this in the bag. All that training and meditation has made you a much more stable person, a person who always remains in control and as we have discussed with the Hulk before, as soon as he comes out, what will he do?"

The sound that came out of Bruce's mouth was a deep hoarse voice, "Push the big PINK button and run away?" The tone of the answer was almost innocent as if someone was asking a question about something they were unsure about. He grinned, "That's right, Big Green! Now why don't you let Bruce come back so we can get this day over with and we can have another sparring match with the big gloves?"

The voice giggled and replied, "Yes!" and the green around Bruce's neck receded, leaving behind the mind of the man with multiple doctorates,

"I always hate it when he does that without warning."

He tapped Bruce's shoulders and said, "Don't worry, the Big guy and I have an understanding. Just leave this meeting to me and Pepper. We'll make sure that you don't have to do a single thing. Just trust me, alright?"

"You guys alright there?" He heard Pepper ask him.

Once Bruce nodded, he waved at them and deactivated the sound-nullifying field, and jogged a little to catch up with them.

Soon, they reached the President's suite where they once again had to go through the customary security checkup and then they finally entered the suit, coming face to face with just the President.

He looked around, searching for someone from the Joint Chiefs of Staff or somebody from the defense department but no, it was just the President who was honestly, not in the best shape as he was nursing a drink while leaning on the desk in the office of the suite.

He seemed to be lost in deep thought when he sensed us coming and after then, he gestured for us to be seated on the sofa in front of him. Nodding at the man while Pepper made a face at the smell of alcohol wafting off the President, the person who was going to literally decide the stance of the strongest nation in the world, he said, "You don't seem to be in the best shape and I do mean that mentally as well as physically, Mr.President," and for once, his words contained none of the laid back nature they always held while speaking to a person holding a high position of authority. It seemed as if he had aged a decade in the mere hours it had been since the first reports of the fall S.H.I.E.L.D. began spreading like wildfire. Of course, they knew about it and were in fact, warned by Steve himself to not interfere since he wanted at least someone from the Avengers to be able to remain in the light and not have to go underground out of fear of retaliation from the law.

The President, after hearing his question, chuckled, "Never Change, Tony. Never Change. And you would be correct in your assumption, after all, I just lost any chance of being reelected. Those dreams went up in smoke the same way those carriers went up in smoke. Now, all that I want to do is make sure that the last thing I do doesn't end up disgracing my country and my family. So, here we are, face to face, with no pesky Secretaries or Chief of Staff to stop you from telling me your crazy ideas. I'm all ears, Stark. Tell me, what do we need to do?"

His smile faltered as he exchanged nervous glances with Pepper and Bruce who both seemed equally confused regarding the situation as he was. This was not what he was expecting. He was expecting threats, coercion, and failing that, emotional blackmail but total defeat? That was new. But, he was Tony Stark and let it never be said that he was anything but adaptable, so he cleared his throat and said, "Well, Mr. President, the issues seem to stem from the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and its infiltration by H.Y.D.R.A. and since all the people in the know are aware about Secretary Pierce's role in the infiltration and his proximity to you, we can safely assume that Ed has called forth this meeting to make sure that the truth is not buried. And while we have tried to make contact, we are not yet certain about Ed's intentions, and with S.H.I.E.L.D. and H.Y.D.R.A. truly gone this time, we have no way of initiating proper communication with them. So, I suggest we wait for their announcement because honestly, the balls are in their court now."

"Alright. What are our counterattack options because while I'm sure the Pentagon has a team running through every option we have, you must have a better idea about our chances against them."

The only answer the President received was his grimace.

"Huh, so it's that bad?" he said while drinking, his eyes never breaking contact with his. After a while, he shrugged and said, "Alright, I'll trust you on this, Stark, only because you don't have anything to gain from this situation and quite frankly, I am sick of the games that this Ed person is playing anyway." Then he turned towards a clearly nervous Bruce and extended his hand for a handshake.

As Bruce hesitantly gripped it, "Dr.Banner, you have my word that you'll have a full military pardon along with proof that all of the government's research on the Hulks is safely destroyed. With that said, I hope you'll make the right choice if you are unfortunately put on the spot between your country and its enemies. May God Bless America," Here he looked at all of us and said, "I'll see you guys at the assembly."

"Well, that went well," he quipped to break the uncomfortable silence that engulfed the room after the President's exit.

All he received in return were deadpan and incredulous stares from Pepper and Bruce, respectively.

Sheesh, Talk about a tough crowd, he thought while internally, his mind was going through scenario after scenario, trying to find a situation where they managed to keep the outcome of the assembly peaceful. He was sure the same thing was running through Bruce's mind as well.

At this point, the best thing he could hope to accomplish was securing a meeting with Ed before the assembly to ask him what the hell he was doing.

Speaking of the devil, his phone buzzed and he looked in his watch to silence the damn thing when he read the message that had arrived for him. It read, "Get ready for Phase I, Tony."

Yeah, that was not ominous at all.

________________________________________________________________



Word Count - 2153

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.
 
Technomancer in MCU #70
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 70

Technomancer in MCU

New York

–The People of New York–


All around the world, scores of people were glued to their screens, waiting and watching for the inevitable announcements that would soon follow the historic UN meeting that was about to happen in response to what is now widely known as the uprooting of H.Y.D.R.A.

The people, at first, were in panic as news of multiple influential people being killed one after the other began pouring in from across the globe but after a terrorist attack on the spy agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D that is now known as an attack by the same organisation that was responsible for the victory in the Chitauri invasion of 2012. The reason behind the attack was soon made public as someone from the same organisation had uncovered the insidious plot of the Nazi organisation wresting control of the mammoth spy organisation that spanned across the globe.

The flood of classified documents that were leaked to the internet were damning and the panic in the public's minds soon turned to outrage over the fact that the people who were supposed to protect them had performed such a level of atrocities on them. The only reason riots were not happening across the globe was partly due to the efforts of Jarvis' efforts to scrub the web of some truly damning information and partially due to the presence of the very people who had managed to utterly destroy an organisation that was bigger than most countries and that too overnight.

The people were scared but the people who usually tried to turn that fear into senseless violence in the name of protest or revolution were scared shitless of Ed and his technology reaching them somehow because the world had seen it.

They had seen how easily S.H.I.E.L.D as an organisation was uprooted and even the secrets that the governments supporting the agency themselves didn't know about, were uprooted and confiscated by Ed.

It was as if they did not care about their presence being made public knowledge. Many news channels had extensively documented multiple raids that, with people in mechanised suits dropping from advanced jets who could go invisible at will, were carried out in broad daylight. The hellish footage of the swarm of blackish-red machines that came out of Yellow Stone National Park was horrifying enough but the subsequent recording of the scene where the same type of swarm descended on a building in the middle of Italy and then left with a bigger swarm but with no trace of the previously constructed building was bone-chilling. People with keen observations soon realised that the swarm could actually reproduce by consuming their targets and after somebody had pointed out that the swarm didn't even leave bones of the people it ate, the thoughts of fear began taking root in people's minds, since in their minds, there was always the chance of that swarm going berserk and killing hundreds of thousands to millions of people before it could be stopped, it it could be stopped at all.

The fear soon turned into dread and terror when they saw another footage of an operation being carried out by some people wearing mechanised suits that left them with little doubt about the technological prowess of the organisation. The real kicker was the fact that many people in the video footage were seen performing feats of strength without any discernible external power suit on them. That gave them the doubt that maybe those people had ways to empower people like the Captain America but once they saw that they actually had people who could demolish entire buildings while uttering a single word and people who could just become Fire incarnate or fire lightning through their palms, control winds, emit light, etc, the people began realising that the things they were seeing were either not true or either the ugly truth that they had been hidden from all their lives.

With those thoughts in their minds, they soon reached the nearest place where they could see the conference unfolding in real-time as the time for it had come near since they could see the President of the United States along with the heads of government for all five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council had arrived and were making their way to the United Nations Headquarters amid heavy security.

________________________________________________________________

New Attilan

–Ed–


"Ready?" he asked Alfred and in a sense, to the entire room as they were about to go on camera for the entire world to see, for the first time.

Everybody nodded, some confidently and some hesitantly but Alfred, being the smartass that he was, said, "I was born ready, as a matter of fact, just a few hours ago." Yeah, ever since his return, Alfred was being a hormonal smart-ass that just would not shut up.

They had just watched the interaction between Tony and the President and had adequately amused themselves doing so since the President of the United States displaying such a lack of spine made their jobs so much easier. Frank, in particular, had expressed disdain regarding the strength of character that was now nonexistent when it came to the Presidents and their lackeys they filled the key positions of the government with.

"King Black Bolt, I assume you know when you need to come in?" he asked Black Bolt and at his nod, he clapped, "Perfect! Everybody else, get in position. We will be positioning the carriers in a triangular formation right above the United Nations Headquarters. This is the first step of our grand plan. Come on, let's do this!" he nearly shouted towards the end as the entire team, sans Black Bolt since that would have been utterly disastrous, cheered.

As the team got to their respective positions, he and Alfred went to the Hangar from where they would be taking flight towards the headquarters all by themselves at first, on a floating carpet-type vehicle made of hard light. As the crew on New Attilan were making final checks on the plans, he thought of the response their entry on the global stage would bring.

The fact that all of the heads of governments that are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council were coming, was not entirely a surprise to them since he had made sure that evidence of their activities was made widely available to the public at large. If not for the mouthwatering technology he had on display, they would have certainly come for the superhuman potential displayed by the members of their team, not to mention the fact that having multiple members across different teams with similar power sets would indicate them being in possession of technology that was a level above the super soldiers that they had been failing to produce a single one of.

Truly, Dr.Erskine was a genius but it had been over 8 decades and these people still hadn't managed to make themselves one. It would be obvious that they would come like vultures after seeing the agents in action.

Not to mention, the fear factor worked as well. Most of the governments had no idea about the true plans of H.Y.D.R.A and had almost unwittingly sponsored a project that would have taken away their own freedom. It was almost hilarious to think of.

After the checks were done and Alfred was done seemingly zoning out, something that they would be talking about later on, they alighted the "carpet" which was in truth, just a block of hard light made to look like a platform just like the ones the Chitauri riders used, just sleeker and better looking.

They had not yet uncloaked anything so the people could not see the carriers that were positioning themselves near the United Nations Headquarters but after they crossed a few streets, Alfred decloaked the carpet and as the military radars must have begun alerting them to their presence, he could sense multiple systems locking in on their vehicle.

Of course, that didn't break their stride and they continued on their way, heedless of the multiple warnings that came from some general who was trying to shout his way into their comms.

After a while, probably due to orders from up above, the military stopped shouting and instead began trying to escort them, keyword being tried since they were going to take the same route anyway. On the way, he and Alfred both began waving towards the camera that was following them for the viewers at home watching TV. That pilot must have had balls of steel to get a civilian helicopter so close to a couple of F-35Bs that were hovering just behind Ed's carpet ride.

After a while, amid a sea of people shouting at them, the carpet landed on the ground in the middle of a cordoned-off area assigned for them to land and after they had alighted, the carpet behind them disappeared in motes of light, eliciting shocked gasps from the crowd and widened eyes from the officers surrounding them. Damn, that trick never went old.

As they crossed the doors of the building and the overwhelming noise of the crowd outside went silent, they came face to face with a crowd of scared and uneasy diplomats waiting just outside the lobby, seemingly waiting for him.

He locked eyes with Tony who looked like he was about to say something but he didn't give him or anyone who wanted to say something to him a chance by just walking past everyone and into the assembly hall.

Inside, he could see a full assembly, which while rare for an emergency one, was not surprising to him due to the overall significance of this one.

The entirety of the crowd stood up, not in respect but in shock as, seemingly out of nowhere(when in reality, they were just cloaked) Frank, Daisy and Eric materialised behind him, all clad in their official suits.

Giving the permanent members a once over, he strode towards their elevated seats, the others following his footsteps.

As he was about to reach the seats, a sleek metallic looking(when in reality it was the most comfortable chair in the entire building) chair materialised, startling all the heads of state, which then began floating down towards him and after he had taken a seat on it, took him to the center stage, keeping him in view of everyone. He could see the multitude of emotions that crossed everybody's eyes. Envy, Greed, Hate, Anger, Fear, all of it could be seen across everyone's faces.

"So, let's begin, shall we?" he said while resting his chin on his hand.

He could see a couple of diplomats' faces twist because of his indirect gesture that indicated his boredom for the meeting.

He smirked, "I'm sure you all have a lot of questions for me. Well, last time I tried this, it didn't make it to the outside world so this time, I decided to just do it out in the open where it would be visible for all to see."

The entire assembly was silent at his question, none daring to be the first to question him as they were unsure of his official stance.

"Well, unlike a certain Captain, I don't have all day," his words jolted them out of their thoughts and like kids in a kindergarten, they all began falling all over themselves to be the first ones to ask the questions.

"Geez, they are even worse than the reporters I had heard about," he heard Daisy mutter under her breath but intentionally or unintentionally, the permanent members heard her and gave her odd looks at that statement.

Alfred rolled his eyes at the chaos and instead of doing something sensible, decided to do a repulsor ricochet in his hand, which generated a loud boom that rattled the surrounding windows and made the security pour in the hall, thinking that an attack had occurred.

As nearly a hundred people were aiming their guns at him, he deadpanned at Alfred, "Really?" He had the decency to look sheepish but he knew for a fact that he was actually proud of inciting more chaos.

As most of the diplomats began retreating to the corners of the room, he noticed that none of the permanent member heads had moved, even though POTUS looked rather drunk.

"Well, I think we got on the wrong foot due to the actions of a certain someone. We are not the bad guys here and I would personally like to take the initiative to answer a question that I am sure is on the minds of everyone watching," he said while keeping his laid-back attitude, even in the face of hundreds of guns, some of which were clearly experimental, made evident by their hodge podge mixture of alien and human tech.

"We are the Ascendency and we are the only things standing between Humanity and the unimaginable horrors that exist out in the darkness of space. I am Ed Thorton, the leader of Ascendency, and today, I am here to answer the questions of the common public that I have sworn to protect." Here, he gestured to the seats in front of him and said, "So, please, let's begin."

And then he sat down in the same bored, barely interested posture on his chair or in Alfred's words, the Big ass Throne.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 2269

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

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.


A/N - I realise that this arc too has overstayed its welcome and promise to finish it in the next chapter and give you the battle I had teased in one of the previous chapters.

Thank you for reading!

Toodles!
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top