The "G" Shield - By IdleMuse

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Knowhere[2014]

Previously

"I am telling you Rocket, we are going to be rich after this," Peter Quill said to Rocket Raccoon as they alighted their ship and entered the Collector's base of operations.

While Peter was enthusiastic about the money as was Rocket, Gamora herself was feeling uneasy about the entire thing because if there was one thing she had learned about long lived beings in all her time with Thanos, it was that things were very rarely straightforward with them.

This bounty might seem like it paid 4 billion units, enough to buy an entire star system filled with habitable planets and then retire there for the rest of their natural lifespan, it also came with Caveats.

For one, it housed an Infinity Stone, something that had her father send Ronan to collect it. Oh, she was sure that Ronan would double cross her father at the first opportunity Ronan would get but her father probably knew that as well.

Living with her Father and her extremely competitive sister, she had learned that her Father was rarely in the same step as others. He was always a dozen steps ahead of everyone.

He probably did this so that when the time came when the time came to collect all the Stones for sure, he would know the location of each and every one.

After all, most of the Stones were lost to time. Having them found by third parties, then having those parties deposit them in a supposedly safe place where he could easily collect them when the time came, was something that sounded like her Father could come up with.

Sure, Ronan armed with an Infinity Stone could do some real damage before he was put down but her father must be banking on someone else stopping Ronan before he did said damage. Maybe the Streak that wreaked havoc in Kree territory would be the one who would end up dealing with an amped up Ronan.

After all, she did seem to have a particularly nasty enmity with the Kree, having inflicted more damage on the Kree Empire than anyone did in the last hundred or so cycles.

Drax, on the other hand, was unconcerned with the whole bounty collection thing. He was only with them because he was hoping to get a ride with them back to Xandar where he would continue his quest for Vengeance.

Oh, he was sure that he was going to die. No doubt about it. The only question was if he could take Ronan down with him.

"Ah, Welcome! I assume you have the item with you?" The Collector greeted the unconventional group at the entrance of his complex, with Carina in tow.

"Ah, yes, I have the item with me. Do you have the credits with you?" Peter Quill, said, in a manner he hoped looked cool enough to impress Gamora.

Tivan merely snapped his fingers, causing Carina to come forward and show them the tablet, indicating the current standing balance of Collector and his various enterprises.

The amount of zeroes on that thing had Rocket and Peter salivating.

"Now, the Orb, please?" Collector extended his hand, on top of which Peter happily put the orb.

Tivan looked deeply at the gathered forces, most of whom had tensed at his lack of action before turning around and snapping at Carina who hastily pushed some buttons on the tablet before turning it around and showing it to the fledgling group.

The transaction details for the bounty were displayed on the tablet. This caused Rocket to whoop in joy as he followed the Collector, with Gamora following behind him with a wary look on her face.

Drax, slipped away from the group, going towards a bar with a group of shady mercenaries sipping away their lives on cheap booze. Groot noticed it but continued on after Rocket called for him.

Inside the receptionist chamber of the Collector's enterprise, they watched as the Collector opened the Orb with a complex tool meant specifically for opening pattern locked devices.

The Collector regaled them with tales of the Infinity Stone kept inside the Orb, even showing them rare footage of Celestials using the Power Stone in the past to raze down entire planets, without much effort at all.

All the members of the soon to be Guardians of the Galaxy were too engrossed in the tale that the Collector was weaving for them, as was The Collector himself.

As such, they failed to notice the gleam that Carina had in her eyes as she saw the entire footage from far away and heard the sheer power that the Stone could give her.

Carina was a slave, plain and simple. As far as she could remember, she was a slave. She was chosen for some reason she never had the guts to ask the Collector. She was the one who was responsible for the upkeep and administration of the entire Collector enterprise.

Due to the advent of AI and her own prodigious mental faculties, she never really had any issues with managing such a vast empire. On the contrary, seeing that she had no issues with anything, the Collector eventually offloaded his entire administrative burden on her shoulders, freeing himself from something he saw as tedious but necessary.

From then on, the Collector only ordered around Carina who scrambled to follow all his orders. As such, Carina unknowingly came into possession of tremendous power.

Power over the vast mining empire of the Collector. Power over the life and death of the Collections in the Collector's collection.

She was the one who interacted the most with the people who were imprisoned in the Collector's collection. She was the one who realised that what the Collector was doing was wrong and that she could free them.

Many times, the thought crossed her mind, to free everyone and try their hand against the Collector, and yet, her hand always snaked back at the last moment.

What if the Collector saw this coming and had prepared for her?

The thoughts became more frequent with the recent addition of Jack Sullivan, a hero of Earth. Sure, Earth itself was worth less than dirt when it came to the context of power in the wider galaxy, and yet, the one who came from such a planet had the power to topple the Collector's control over her, over everyone who was locked in those prisons dressed as white comfortable pods.

Jack was the one who could make things right, the one who could finish the Collector before he could stop them. All she had to do was push one button, and Jack would be free from all his bounds, leading to the demise of the Collector and the freedom of all the prisoners.

And yet, her hand never seemed to have the strength necessary to push the final button. Many a times she reached the last stage of the application, ready to push the final button and yet, she never seemed to be able to press the confirmation button, always feeling as if the malevolent shadow of the Collector was pressing down on her.

And yet, right at this moment, as she looked at the Orb that was finally about to be opened up, she looked at her other hand, which held a small vial of twinkling blue fluid, and then at the tablet in her other hand, which showed the process of opening up all the pods, irrespective of their conditions.

Sure, it would inconvenience some of the ones with sensitive environmental requirements, but the secondary systems should kick in soon enough. That small window should be enough for Mr.Jack to escape from his confinement so that he could rescue her.

She had this plan ready when she knew that the Collector would be busy with some rare object that was about to come into his possession.

Now though?

Now she didn't feel like she needed Mr. Jack's help to free herself. No, she could do that herself.

If those giants could destroy planets with the power of that Stone, then she should be able to kill one Collector and destroy this accursed place.

She had reserved the primed C-fluid, one that she smuggled from the Collector's eyes because she knew it held healing properties. It was a just in case situation because she had researched about her species and her species was once known to be the foremost experts in pyrokinetics.

The ability to wield fire, to wield the power of fires, of all kinds, to devastating effect.

Unfortunately, their kind was caught up in a civil war right in between the Kree-Skrull war, leading to their near extinction. As far as the Collector's database was concerned, she was the last one of her species.

She had never really explored her ancestral powers but she had a gut feeling that using the Primed C-fluid would give her a leg up in that regard. She had kept it as a last resort but now that Power given form was in front of her, she could not afford to hesitate anymore.

So, without any ado, she pressed the button on her tablet before dropping it, not looking if the command was accepted or not. The Collector must have noticed something was wrong because he turned around to look at her at the same moment but he was far too late.

Far too late to stop her from gaining her freedom. From gaining ultimate power, so that she could be free to make all of her decisions.

As her hand closed around the pretty looking Stone, an electric current ran through her entire body, causing her right arm to flinch, breaking the vial of primed C-fluid in her hand. The fluid itself was caught in the purple currents, filling her entire body with indescribable agony.

She looked at the Collector with much difficulty, as the entire area around her was ravaged with the purple arcs of energy. She raised her right arm, which was shredded down to the bone, and brought her arm to her mouth, and licked the primed C-fluid off of it.

As soon as her tongue touched the healing fluid, her back arched as another energy made itself known in front of her. Twin arcs of twinkling blue and purple ravaged her body from the inside as a purple fire began manifesting all around her body.

She looked at the purple fire with happiness and awe, "So pretty…."

The fire continued to spread around her, creating a void of matter around her as anything that came into contact with the purple fire around her was instantly disintegrated.

By now, the Guardians of the Galaxy had retreated far away from the scene, only the Collector was left who was looking at the scene with something akin to interest.

Carina looked at him, then at her hand which was still functional, and at the purple fire raging havoc all around her. The mere sight of the purple fire seemed to burn a light inside of her, emboldening her.

So, even as her body continued to break down from the strain of the two energies inside her body, she took a single step towards the Collector, with a grin on her face.

That same bloody grin looked like the one of a Grim Reaper to Tivan, who immediately started backing away with his hands in the air.

"...O-Oh Carina, look at you now, unlocking your ancestral powers. Come on, what did you do? Why are the systems opening one after the other? Huh?" The Collector stammered out, wary of what Carina would do now that she had power and the wish to act on it.

Carina didn't say a single word, only raised her arm towards the Collector and tried to will the fire to explode towards him.

IT worked. Despite having no experience with her ancestral powers, Carina managed to get her message across to the purple fires.

The only thing was that the fires were currently being wielded by someone who was holding an Infinity Stone in her hand, more specifically, the Power Stone in their hand.

The purple fires, instead of being directed just at the Collector, instead spread apart, reaching far and wide, sinking down into the lower floors of the Collector Enterprise, as well as reaching Tivan.

Carina's entire surroundings were flooded with a purple fire that seemed to burn everything it touched. She could not see it but the Colelctor's pained screams were like music to her ears.

"AAAAAA!"

She smiled one moment, relishing his screams of pain, wondering how he survived the flames, and the next moment her face morphed into one of pain as he fell down to one knee, the fires around her flaring in response.

She looked at her hand and legs, as they were now glowing with purple veins in them. Most of her skin was flaking off and seemed to continue going that way.

She smiled, a bloody resigned smile, as she realised her folly and the fact that she was about to die here.

She looked at the hand holding the Stone which was mostly charred now. She couldn't even feel it.

"...Ah….So pretty," She murmured as she looked, once again at the purple fires, and closed her eyes….forever.

The Guardians of the Galaxy had retreated to a remote corner of the landing area, watching as a tornado of purple fire ravaged the Collector's office.

"...See what you got us into, Dumbass!" Rocket Racoon scoffed at Peter before turning around to get to his ship.

"Hey! At Least we got the money this time," Peter turned around as well. Gamora took one last look at the purple fire and after clenching her fist once, turned around as well. She had taken maybe two steps when Rocket's question made her stop right in her tracks.

"Hey, Where is Drax? Did that musclehead lose his way somewhere?"

She sighed and was about to turn around to look for Drax when Peter's terrified voice reached her ears.

"Guys, I think I know what Drax went to do,"

She looked out of the hangar of Knowhere and her eyes widened as she saw the Dark Aster floating right outside Knowhere.

She cursed as all of them ran towards the ship, intent on getting out of this place before Ronan landed on it.

They had no chance of stopping the Accuser. They also had no way of getting past that purple fire, to get the Stone. All they could do was hope that the purple fire stumped Ronan as well and get out of this place with their credits.

She had no other plans ahead but she would run as long as she could, from her father. Under no circumstances, could Thanos come into possession of the knowledge she had.

They were right at their ship when a huge explosion rocked the entire hangar facility…no the entirety of Knowhere.

She looked out of the hangar space and cursed as she saw Ronan coming down.

"AHAHA! Finally! REVENGE WILL BE MINE!"

She looked back to see Drax shouting like a madman as he ran straight to his death.

She closed her eyes in resignation.

God help her from idiots.

---

Word Count - 2572

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Knowhere[2014]

—Jack Sullivan–

Another one of those floors cleared up, he watched as he finally reached the floor that he knew was the receptionist area of the Collector's enterprise. He saw the area in front of him was filled with the purple fire as well with it showing no signs of extinguishing itself.

He had no idea how those fires came to be but seeing that they were made using the power of an Infinity Stone, it would certainly take more than just time to extinguish them.

He looked at his left forearm, which was charred to the bone just a scant few minutes ago, looking as good as new, save for the lack of clothing on his arm.

'My powers really have improved a lot,' he thought to himself as another series of barriers imposed themselves on the ceilings and walls of the hallway as he jumped straight through the last hallway, covered in barriers.

He reached the other side to see a huge hole in the center of the entrance walkway with everything charred around it.

'Wait!' His eyes narrowed as he looked at footsteps that came out of the huge void smack dab in the middle of the area, the carpet around it charred beyond recognition.

He counted four footsteps that left visible marks in the flooring through the carpet as well before the area in front of that last footstep was a huge depression that stretched who knows how deep down. He slowly floated on top of the depression in the flooring, only to see a raging purple fire still going in the bottom.

He sighed and looked around, the entire place was in shambles. He could not see anything that even resembled the prime tablet that Carina kept handy. Speaking of Carina, there was no way that the Collector would abandon his COllection, it was the second most treasured thing in his life, after his life, that is.

Of course, as he looked around the place, he realised that the Collector had most probably fled only because he felt a threat to his life. But who could do this?

And where was the Infinity Stone?

He could somewhat recognise the place in the scenes of Guardians of the Galaxy 1, where the Collector would open the Orb and then Carina would die because she tried to grasp onto Ultimate Power, something that her body was woefully unprepared for.

He sighed once again, as the last of the special needs inmates of this place died without him being able to do anything about it. Some of them died gruesome deaths, deaths that no one deserved.

He could keep track of an incredible number of things using his barriers and through them, he could see that most of the inmates that had lived until now would be fine for a while longer unless a fight broke out but he knew that Kumpo would be more than capable of calming things down.

Yeah, his acquaintances in this place were apparently stored in some cell on the other side of the place where all the pods were kept. He covered them in a barrier and transported them straight to the pods, where the other inmates were just now coming out of their pods, the very concept of freedom alien to them.

He was thankful that the purple fire was not all encompassing else he would have died an ignominious death here in this place.

He slowly dispelled all the extra barriers he had kept in place to protect the pod inmates from either walking to a place with a dead end or to stop their pod from falling down because of the extensive damage done to the entire place. Most of the environmental sealing barriers had long since dispelled because…. there was no longer any need for it.

He shook his head and headed out of the complex, eager to find his way out of this hellhole, all thoughts of killing the Collector all but forgotten from his mind as he floated out of the place.

He stopped at the edge of the doorway and looked back for some reason. He lifted his hand with the intention of extinguishing the rest of the fires in this place so that some innocent bystander wouldn't get burned to nothingness by mistake. Plus, all this energy feedback was messing with his mystical senses, stopping him from sensing anything in the complex.

Just as a series of barriers began springing forth on those fires, he heard a series of weak wheezing sounds.

His neck snapped to the hole as he heard the sound coming from the inside. He flashed to the entrance of the hole and looked down to see the telltale signs of a portal closing.

His eyes widened as he watched the portal about to close in slow motion, his hand outstretched towards it, a small green barrier manifested just in front of the barrier, ready to show him just what was happening near it, as his body rocketed to the end of the hole as well.

Unfortunately, he caught the portal at the last stage of its closing as it snapped shut, with the sensory barrier only telling him a person carrying a burned man on his back. He could not make much of the surroundings of the area neither the appearance of the man nor the burned man.

A second after the portal closed up, he slammed down in the place after extinguishing the purple fires.

"What in the,...." He muttered to himself in confusion as he saw the sensory barrier quite a few feet above the solid ground. That would mean that whoever that burned man was, he was floating a few feet above the fire but the man's condition suggested that he wouldn't be able to open his mouth, let alone maintain flight.

As for the identity of the person, he was quite certain that it was none other than the Collector himself.

It all started coming together in his mind. The huge hole in the center from which footsteps were coming out was probably the place where the Power Stone was taken out of the Orb. It also happened to be the place where Carina probably took out the Power Stone from the containment field.

Only this time, instead of just dying on the spot, something else seems to have happened. The purple fires and the huge hole in which the Collector was, were things that were not computing properly in his mind.

The portal at the end, he could never forget that flavour of the magical portal. It was undeniably the portal made by a sling ring commonly used by the Masters of the Mystic Arts.

Just what level of contacts did the Collector have? And how did someone who could use portals to such a level happen to work for the Collector here?

What happened to the Guardians of the Galaxy? Did Ronan arrive here as expected? What happened to the person who started those purple fires, if Carina didn't do them herself?

Questions and Questions with no answers in sight.

He sighed, shook his head, and headed out of the complex, ready to just leave this accursed place. He entered the lower levels of the hollowed out interior of Knowhere and saw pandemonium.

Fires spread everywhere, purple fires being some of them as well. He absentmindedly manifested some barriers to extinguishing those fires. He could see blaster fire, some dead bodies, even more depressions in the ground, and more.

He had enough of just questions with no answers as he floated down into the way of running aliens.

He opened his mouth to ask his question but they just brushed past him, not even registering his presence in their path.

"E-excuse me?" He said, but none of them seemed to understand him.

It took far more effort than he would readily admit to, to find someone who had a universal translator and was willing to set it up so that someone could understand English. Fortunately, they still had English as an option despite the rarity of humans in the wider galaxy.

Humans seemed to not have any idea of more places like these.

'We seem to multiply like rabbits despite not having the necessary resources for it. Who knows what would happen if humans came to know about the multiple hospitable planets available for cheap if only they knew about the precious commodity they had in terms of the plethora of enhanced people on Earth,'

The very thought made him shudder as he imagined the exports that humanity as a whole could give to the wider galaxy.

Capitalism, that seemed to exist in a limited capacity in the universe.

Fascism, Racism. Damn.

He removed those thoughts from his mind as he took a whole summary from the nice person in front of him. He didn't have a galactic account so no credits to give the nice person so he just gave him the gold he had swiped from some places on his way to the top of the Collector's enterprise.

He had figured that Gold must still have its value in the galaxy, considering that Odin did keep everything nice and Golden in his realm. That has to mean something, right?

It must be to show off the amount of wealth he has and how much gold he could afford to keep as just decoration, instead of using it.

Apparently, Ronan did arrive here, with the Dark Aster in tow. The Collector didn't come out to greet him, as was customary since Tivan was the owner of this place.

Angered by the slight, Ronan ordered his soldiers to ransack the place, only for them to encounter the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Of course, Drax was summarily dealt with by Ronan, as were the rest of the Guardians. Then Ronan took the Stone and left the place in the Dark Aster.

The nice person(alien?) also showed him some grainy footage of Ronan coming out of the establishment and following him were some soldiers who were carrying something on a gurney.

He could not see much from the corpse on the gurney but by the end of the footage, just as the gurney was about to escape the camera frame, he saw pink. Pink tips of hair.

That was how he realised that the person who used the Power Stone was Carina. But then since when did she have some sort of fire related powers?

Shaking his head, he banished those thoughts from his mind and threatened some shady looking guy into giving him a lift straight to Xandar, unheeding of his pleadings telling him that he was a registered criminal and would most likely be shot out of the sky before landing.

'Like Xandar would have free resources to care about you while Ronan was attacking it, small-time criminal' He internally scoffed before ordering him to proceed while he munched on some alien exotic fruits.

He leaned on the window of the almost rusted spaceship as it entered the Gate system. This was the first time he was consciously travelling through space at FTL speeds.

He was excited about it at first but then, after a while, the corona of colours seemed to get boring as he concentrated on the bitter taste of the apple that left a sour aftertaste for some reason. A very quirky fruit indeed!

According to his reluctant taxi, they should arrive at Xandar in less than an hour. Plenty of time for his body to heal and bring itself back to optimal condition.

His regeneration had really shot through the roof. This trip had plenty of bountiful returns in terms of his powers but the mental experience of it was so not worth it.

He would have taken a decade of training over this any day of his life and yet he internally knew that he did not really have a decade to train and hone his powers. He lifted his hand as a small barrier manifested on top of his palm, spinning faster than his eyes could follow.

He waved his arm as the spinning barrier continued to move unabated throughout the spaceship, cutting through some support bars as if they were not there at all.

Now, it was not like he could not do the same thing before. It's just that he could feel his limits back then. Right now, he could not feel them.

He had a feeling that as he was now, he could probably wield a single Infinity Stone properly and maybe even two without immediately dying. Anymore would certainly leave him crippled or outright dead.

He could feel it, and the confrontation with Thanos grew closer. It was only a few more years before Thanos would start collecting stones and as was right, he would be there to stop him even before he could get his hands on even a single Stone.

The scared alien who also did have the English language in his universal translator approached him. It was funny how he didn't have that language when the alien was asked nicely. Only when he was bodily threatened did the option to understand English was unlocked in his mind.

The language of violence was universally understood and he was quite glad for it.

"S-Sir, we are approaching Xandar's gate. Sir, once again, Xandar's gate is heavily monitored. They might just shoot us in space, sir. Please Reconsider, sir," The pitiful alien began pleading with him.

He just shot him a look as he floated to the captain's cabin and waited for Xandar to arrive.

He could see some sort of timer being projected on a screen, probably showing the ETA. The alien, who was a huge 9 ft tall bipedal lion of some sort, stood away from him as he watched the timer with trembling limbs.

He really was scared of the Nova Force it would seem.

Makes sense since they really struggled with an Infinity Stone empowered Ronan but Small time criminals like these would be within their powers to deal with.

The timer became a single digit as he watched with anticipation, green energy wafting off his body.

As the time hit zero, apparently that was common throughout the universe, reality itself glitched in front of them as they came in front of a veritable scrapyard.

He would have thought that the alien had betrayed his trust but the presence of that huge Dark spot in the atmosphere of the ship confirmed the location.

"See, does it look like they have time to deal with you?" He asked the alien, almost patronizingly before he walked back to the airlock, the Gundam armour unfurling around him.

"Sayonara, alien," He said for some reason before he punched the airlock button and rocketed out of the ship, heading straight to the black spot in the air.

The Dark Aster.

It was a magnificent ship and it would be a damn shame if it was destroyed by a human shaped projectile ramming into it at hypersonic speeds.

Alas.

He prepared himself for collision as he accelerated at his maximum speed, heading straight to the huge black target in the air.

______xx____

Knowhere

–Carol Danvers–

The locals were deathly scared of her and were no help in figuring out what happened here but the computers might be able to tell her what the hell happened here for The Collector himself to abandon his prized Collection.

She extended her left hand at one of the many partially burned computer consoles in this place as a singular cord entered into the console, the supercomputer back in her ship working to break the encryption of this place.

The purple fires burning in this place were really dangerous, breaking apart hardened Galvanium as if it were just paper.

She got a really dangerous feeling from the fires so she didn't approach it and she turned out to be right.

Looking at the footage of what had happened, her eyebrows rose into her hairline as she saw the flow of events that led to the escape of Jack Sullivan from this place.

She was right in her assumption that Jack was not working for The Collector willingly.

The question was, if he had freed himself, just where was he now?

The more she watched, the more she understood what had happened. She saw the ship he had left in and tasked her computer to see if it could find any records of the ship.

In the meantime, she took upon the task of rescuing all the prisoners of the Collector's Collection.

Most of them probably didn't have homes to return to, so Xandar would be the default destination for them but still, she would ask them and if they wished to return to their home planet, she would do all she could do to make that happen.

That was just how her mind worked. She would help others irrespective of the damage it might cause her.

It took her years to recognise the behaviour and even more years to acknowledge that it was an issue.

Predictably, the ship was of a small time smuggler who didn't have enough law and order within him to register his flight patterns.

Well, she might as well rescue these people before going after Jack Sullivan.

---

Word Count - 2920

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Xandar[2014]

–Jack Sullivan–

As he rocketed through space, heading straight to the big black spot in Xandar's atmosphere, his thoughts wandered to the Infinity Stones.

Sure, one was within reach but he was not so foolish as to invite every single Tom, Dick, and Harry who would want a taste of literal Infinite Power, hounding him every step of the way. Keeping it in the hands of the Nova Prime would be for the best anyway, especially since he did not want to gain their enmity.

Sure, the Nova Force might seem weak from the movies but put together, they could create a real impact in a space fight, especially since they would have all the experience in that regard.

He had some theories as to how to strengthen the Nova Force but it would involve further testing and seeing their reaction and readiness of Nova Prime when it came to unsanctioned testing.

His thoughts continued to flow as he performed re entry into Xandar's atmosphere, his barriers burning up in the process, but not so much that he could not see what was happening in front of him, his barriers absorbing some of that energy.

Instead of slowing down due to the pressure, he instead doubled down on his speed as he reoriented himself in the direction of the Dark Aster.

His eyes narrowed as he saw multiple pods popping out of the Dark Aster, heading in his direction, along with multiple cannons opening up right above the engine bays, lighting up with red lights.

He grinned as he let the green shimmer over his body as he crashed through all the pods that the ship had sent for him, his barriers easily tanking all the attacks that the ship was throwing his way.

With the corner of his eye, he could see multiple, probably hundreds, of identically yellow coloured Nova Force ships zipping about, trying to destroy all the pods that Ronan had deployed for the defending forces.

He had to hurry, before the Nova Force decided to create a curtain to try and curtail the movement of the Dark Aster, inevitably falling victim to Ronan, now armed with the Power Stone.

He let his power flow free, as his barriers now gained a slight blue sheen. His shape changed as pointed barriers manifested in front of him. He could see multiple, hundreds of weapons open firing on him and yet, none managed to pierce his barriers.

He smiled slightly as he watched hundreds of those pods coming over the Dark Aster, their original mission of wreaking havoc on Xandar forgotten as they focused on the much more immediate threat.

His vision turned black as he felt his barriers breach through the Dark Aster, going through many walls and floors before coming out the other side, his form blazing green.

After breaching through the ship, he didn't stop as he located most of the pods that were on this side and zig zagged through all of them like a crude rendition of what the Centaurian known as Yondu Udonta would do to the very same pods, in the movies.'

He floated above the assembled forces and surveyed the state of the planet.

It was horrible. Buildings had collapsed, roads and cars were on fire. At Least no dead bodies in sight, that was always a good sign.

He could see multiple shiny yellow ships heading his way.

They were probably someone higher up approaching him on the behalf of Nova Prime. He wondered why she hadn't donned her old suit and showed up yet.

Surely, what remaining lifespan she had with her was not worth the risk of actually letting Xandar be destroyed. She must know the risk of letting the Power Stone touch ground as Ronan would then be able to let the Power Stone's energy berserk through the planet, destroying it from within.

Sure, Ronan himself would be toast, charred inedible toast, in fact, but that doesn't change the fact that Nova Prime should be out here, fighting with the rest of the Nova Prime.

Historically, the Nova Prime holds the highest concentration of the Nova Force, as well as the capacity to distribute said force to individuals while bearing the weight of doing so on their own bodies.

According to what little he could read on the way here, Irani Rael was the latest in a long line of Nova Primes. She was reported to be the strongest one in recent memory but that turned out to be her downfall as she overused her lifespan, handling all the burden of the Nova Force while performing field duty during the end points of the Kree Skrull war where the Kree decided that they were just going to torch any planet that held even rumours of Skrull settlements, consequences be damned.

Irani Rael personally killed two high ranked Accusers whilst also destroying all of their elite warships, making sure that the Supreme INtelligence understood that further conflict with the budding Xandar Empire just for small remnants of their enemy was unwise.

Doing so came at a cost though. He could no longer freely use the Nova Prime to perform extraordinary feats of strength. At her prime, he would put her just below Mar-Vell in terms of the utility of strength.

He saw the approaching ships showing the middle aged dude from the movies when he heard a short whistling sound behind him. He looked up to see a huge volley of what seemed like missiles converging on him.

The purple glint at the top of Dark Aster meant that Ronan's attention was now firmly on him.

Good, that's what he wanted as well.

He looked back to the arrayed forces in front of him as they panicked, some of them breaking rank and trying to flee from the volley of wholesale death, courtesy of Ronan, that was about to head their way.

He looked to the middle aged due and just raised his index finger in the universal symbol that indicated for someone to just wait a minute. He then turned mid air, looking at the hundreds, possibly thousands of bright lights that filled his vision and spread his arms wide apart.

The scene from when he tried to stop the Helicarrier and only succeeded in slowing its descent flashed through his mind as a miles long barrier sprang forth with him at the centre, completely blocking the Dark Aster from the mainland.

He then turned around very nonchalantly, looking at the lead yellow star ship whose cockpit was now open, revealing the middle aged man looking behind him with his mouth open.

He enjoyed looking around at most of the forces in front of him with the occasional flash from the missiles exploding behind him.

Ah, he missed this. The look on people's faces as he flabbergasted them with contemptuous ease.

"So, you wanted to talk with me? I assume Nova Prime has something for me?" He said in a calm and measured tone, eventually having to prod the man in the lead when his gaze didn't shift from the expensive fireworks going off behind him, only a couple dozen feet away from him.

He might have looked ahead but he was keeping a close eye behind him using his barriers. Yes, they were literally his eyes on the back.

He could see that his impromptu and uninvited trip through the Dark Aster had left it severely damaged, leaving it floating precariously. He could also see Ronan standing on top of the Dark Aster with his hammer adorned with an Infinity Stone.

It occurred to him that Ronan was one of the rare few Kree who must have handled an Infinity Stone without dying, owing to his abnormal strength even within the Kree.

His post as the Supreme Accuser was not one borne out of nepotism then. Well, if a super AI could not weed out corruption and nepotism out of its systems, then it would be just a big failure now, wouldn't it?

Now that didn't remove xenophobia and racism from the Kree empire though.

"Uh, yeah, the Nova Prime would like to enlist your help in defeating or repelling the Rogue Accuser. We are willing to offer a grand total of 1 billion units in return,"

He could almost feel the salivating pirates gathered in front of him, particularly from the Ravagers' faction.

"Well, I was wondering how to open a bank account and here you are, graciously offering my first deposit. Anyhow, let's get back to that later on when I don't have a Ronan sized hole in my barrier," He said as he pointed his hand above him.

"Huh?" Once again, all of the assorted people were flabbergasted as, with a shattering sound, Ronan smashed his Infinity Stone powered hammer straight through his barrier, aiming right at his head.

Most of them barely had the time to react or retreat as Ronan reached him.

Well, since he was in the mood for theatrics this time, he let Ronan come really close before a barrier sprung forth right beneath Ronan's stomach, it shattering almost immediately, drawing a frown from him.

Although the barrier did get shattered almost instantly, it did its job and threw Ronan off his tracks, making him crash into the ground.

He grinned as, with a thought, dozens of barriers came alive in front of Ronan, constantly peppering him with immense force, leaving him overwhelmed by the onslaught.

At Least until, with a roar, he swiped the hammer in front of him horizontally the POwer Stone emitting a wave of pure power, dispelling all his barriers in one go.

The gesture left Ronan panting as he slammed his hammer on the ground, thankfully not using it to kickstart the chain reaction that would destroy Xandar.

"Ah, I assume you are the one who wants war, then? Terrible thing, war is. I personally wouldn't wish it on anyone. Tell me, did Irani Rael kill your father or something?" He rambled on as he slowly landed right in front of Ronan.

Ironically, a circle was right beneath them and they were standing on two end points of the circle.

Poetic. Almost.

"Shut up, Midgardian. Each and every one of your kind is infuriating beyond belief. First Vers and now you. Once I am done with your cooling corpse, I will go and put an end to your infuriating species, once and for all,"

He quirked his eyebrow in amusement as this idiot just declared his intent to go armed, with an Infinity Stone of all things, into Odin's territory, not for something benign, but to try and destroy one of the Nine Realms.

Damn, Power really does go to one's head when one gets Power beyond what they were made for.

He sighed as an identical hammer formed in front of him. He took hold of the hammer and beckoned Ronan to come at him.

Ronan growled, his face quirking into an ugly grimace as he charged at him.

The first seven barriers shattered upon impact as the ground under them was cratered because of the clash between both the hammers. He could see his barriers buckling because of the thin layer of energy that coated the hammer, courtesy of the Power Stone embedded in a crevice of the hammer.

He could do it. The barriers might be getting destroyed before another batch took its place before he was not the same as before. Where before doing so might have taken a noticeable toll on him, now it was the same as keeping his barriers sustained at all times.

Barely worth noticing at all.

He grinned as he looked at the almost feral look in Ronan's eyes before pushing him back, Ronan's feet leaving grooves in the circle as he tried to bleed off the force.

____xxxx____

"Hey Quill, can you do that as well?"

"Of Course not!"

"What? I thought you were both humans. Still, I never expected your species to have someone like that. Man, look at them go,"

Peter Quill fumed internally as Rocket praised this unknown man to the heavens, especially in front of Gamora. His jealousy peaked as she looked at the fight going on below them with sharp interest.

Hmph.

"He is no human. I haven't been to Earth in a long time but I know that humans cannot do that," He pointed at the area which was increasingly starting to look like a ruin because of the number of craters, holes, and otherwise destruction that was occurring as a result of the fight between Ronan and this Jack person.

What kind of stupid name was Jack anyway?

"Oh, please. I just scanned his face and apparently, he was the one who repelled the Chitauri Invasion of Earth. Man, they think he is dead. Hey, Quill? How many credits will we get if we gift wrap and give him to Earth?" Rocket's statement created so many questions in his mind.

The first and foremost of which was, that Earth was invaded by Aliens?

"I am GROOT.."

"Yeah yeah, I know we can't hope of taking him on, even with the Anulax batteries I swiped earlier.

Man, look at him go. Ronan is losing even with an Infinity Stone on his side. Weren't those things supposed to make one unstoppable or something?"

Rocket rambled off to the side, transfixed as he watched the fight in front of him, the Invading force all but forgotten.

Most of their forces had been destroyed by this Jack fellow as he came barreling down straight from the skies like a comet. The rest were easily taken care of by the Nova Force and the Ravagers forces.

Those were not the main invading forces.

"There we go…" Gamora muttered as she watched the fight with increasing interest.

He fumed once again internally but his attention was brought to the devastating blow that this stupid jack gave to Ronan, making him float in the air for a bit before he landed on the ground.

Peter Quill could hear the cheers in the background but…

"No, it's not over yet," He muttered as he rushed back to Milano's cockpit.

"Hey, Quill, you're missing the best part. He is about to kill Ronan,"

"...I wish I could be half as manly as that human right there…" Draz muttered to himself as he watched someone else complete his revenge for him.

"No no no. This is my time to….shine," He said as he took control of the Milano's weapons systems as all of them charged up with an ominous whirl, including the experimental moon breaker that Rocket had installed in his ship, to be used as a last resort.

"Uh, Quill? ….What are you doing?"

"Well, let's see who is cooler now,"

He grinned as the screen showed the weapon charged at 100% before he slammed down on the red button, the entire ship jerking back from the blow as all the weapons in the Milano were unloaded onto Ronan.

---

Word Count - 2534

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

A/N - I just got my new Keyboard. My old one died last week and I had to do everything on my crappy laptop keyboard. Can you even imagine my agony as I had to deal with so many double presses?

*Cries in First world problem*

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Xandar[2014]

–Jack Sullivan–

THis was fun, actually. He could feel the light singes on his skin as the POwer STone's energy continued to graze his skin because of the lack of barriers between Ronan's warhammer and his skin but this was fun.

Firstly, the amount of energy that Ronan could handle was so pitiful that it could not even be compared to the one that was used to make those horrible purple fires back in the Colelctor's base.

Now, the fact that Ronan was still standing and swinging around that hammer, blow after blow, meant that Ronan was probably much stronger than Carina was but the fact remained.

The fires that had plagued Knowhere were a direct result of Carina actually dying while wielding the Stone. The small burns on his forearms that were actively healing were a result of someone actually wielding an Infinity Stone and not dying.

'I suppose he is not the strongest accuser of the Kree Empire for nothing, then' he thought to himself as he continued to throw hands with the Accuser, his army all but forgotten as a temporary lull occurred in the battle for the Power Stone as both sides watched him thrash Ronan the Accuser.

For the common observer, it might not have been obvious but for anyone who had a history of fighting, they would be able to deduce almost instantly that he was barely making an effort to actually fight, more focused on redirecting all his attacks and tiring him out.

And he was being successful at it as well, judging by the purple glow in Ronan's eyes dimming. Well, everyone has their limits and it would seem that Ronan just reached his.

Well, time for the finisher then.

With a thunderous uppercut, he launched Ronan a few feet in the air as a shockwave originated from the point of impact between Ronan's jaw and his fist.

He looked on, bemused as the Milano, the signature ship of the Guardians of the Galaxy jerked back from the formation formed around their fight and then aimed all its weapons at Ronan.

He could also feel the increased energy flow between the Warhammer and Ronan as he probably got ready to use all he had as a last ditch effort, either to kill everyone here or to destroy Xandar.

Both of which would be impossible because of one small thing. Connected to his feet was a huge barrier that had spread around like, completely undetected as it occupied an underground layer.

Ronan also had two really small barriers aimed at him from the ground, which would then act as really small bullets that would punch holes in his brain once he gave the order.

The amount of energy required to do something like blast a planet's crust to the point that it would crumble into itself was not something that a mere Kree like Ronan could ever handle.

Hell, even Thanos would find himself permanently injured if he tried something like that. Without the Infinity Gauntlet, that is.

Only a handful of energy attuned beings like probably Danvers, or maybe Odin in his prime could bring forth enough might out of the Power Stone so that it could be used to create a planet destroying blast, and then recover completely thereafter.

So, he watched on, uncaring as Ronan gathered more and more energy in his Warhammer, the purple glow surrounding the Warhammer increasing as a response.

He tilted out of the way at the last moment, as the Milano unloaded all of its weapons and ammunition onto Ronan. His eyes glowed as he let the barrage loose, punching holes through ROnan's skull repeatedly until there was probably nothing left of his face.

His senses told him of the energy signature of the Power Stone receding back into itself, almost becoming inert.

He watched as a dust cloud that had formed with a green barrier automatically forming in front of him to prevent the dust from staining his clothing, something he had swiped from the Collector.

They were apparently enchanted Dwarven clothing made from Dragonskin, and quenched with Light Eleven Tears, granting the clothing a plethora of abilities, up to and including never having to wash them…ever.

Oh, they could also change size, shape, and colour at the user's will whilst also acting as a conduit for any energy the user might have. It also was an excellent armour all around but well, him being who he was, there was not much need for armour for him.

It had all these features built into it and it is still stained on the outside. Sure, removing the stain was as simple as swiping it with a clean cloth with nothing ever getting inside the armour but could they not just make a stain free armour, in the first place?

Anywho, as he floated mid air, in a T-shirt and formal pants, cause he was funky like that, he waved his hand as the Warhammer, clad in green floated to his hand.

Apparently, that was not the right thing to do because, suddenly, he found himself on the receiving end of hundreds of little energy cannons installed on those Star shaped ships.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" He said as he turned around, the hammer floating a bit of a distance away from him, looking as unremarkable as it could despite having an Infinity Stone embedded into it.

He looked up to see the Dark Aster completely surrounded by the Nova Force. So, that ship was probably taken care of.

He wondered if he could just….take that ship as part of his compensation?

___xxx___

Probably not, he thought to himself as he, along with the Guardians of the Galaxy were escorted to meet the Nova Froce's boss, presumably Irani Rael herself, after confiscating the dangerous weapons, mainly the moon breaker in Milano and Ronan's Warhammer.

Well, he was somewhat excited to meet the legend of yesterday who was capable of throwing hands with people who were as, if not stronger than Thor as he was now.

That might not seem like an extraordinary thing when someone watches the events with the lens of the viewer because they are always exposed to the most extraordinary of characters, with the most powers.

In the wider universe, someone being able to even come close to Thor's powers meant that they could probably safeguard and rule a territory that was probably bigger than multiple Star clusters, effectively making them the ruler of space with billions of lives.

That was a big deal. So, Irani Rael was a big deal at some point. But now she is just an old relic, holding on so that she can fulfill her last duty and go out with a bang.

Wait?

What happened to her when Thanos came for the Power Stone? Was it even Thanos? Did his children come to collect the Power Stone and defeat her?

That can't be right. Even as weakened as she was, he could sense the sheer amount of Nova Energy, the same energy that was present in every single member of the Nova Force in small amounts, that was concentrated in her body.

She should be able to handle at least one of the members of the Black Order without much issue if the energy she is holding on to at the moment is being read correctly by his senses.

"Greetings, Nova Prime," He nodded calmly in greeting while the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy looked tense at the number of guards present in the meeting room with me.

Ah, they probably thought this was going to be some ambush or something.

Foolish criminals.

"Greetings, Green Guardian of Earth. I must thank you for saving Xandar from the Renegade Accuser. Even discounting today, Ronan has done much damage to the Xandar Empire. His loss will further strengthen our position in the negotiation for the peace treaty.

You have my utmost thanks for that," She actually bowed at him as he waved his hands in denial.

"There is no need for that. No need to think of me doing any of this for altruistic reasons. I was offered money for a job and I took it. Treat me as you would a common mercenary," He said before he watched Peter Quill make a fool of himself in front of Nova Prime as Peter probably felt obligated to say something right after he did.

"Uh, hey, Nova Prime, right? We did it, right? It was a tough fight but we made it safely out. Now, where is the reward for killing Ronan?

You did see it, right? I killed him, so I should get the reward, right? Hey! Why are you pulli–"

Thankfully, he was pulled back by Gamora who shut his mouth, Peter seemingly enjoying the act immensely.

"Now, ignoring that unfortunate dialogue, shall we move on to more comfortable areas?"

Nova Prime led all of them to a designated meeting room.

"Mr.Jack, I assume that you did not reach the COllector on your own. As such, along with the promised 1 billion units, we will provide you with the finest civilian class cruiser that we have at the moment. I assume you can defend your ship with ease?" Nova Prime offered him a small bracelet was handed to him by one of the attendants.

"That has your bank details. We took the liberty of making one for you when we came to know that you didn't have one. That is also the access key for your ship, which is waiting outside."

He nodded and straight away left the office, probably creating outrage among the employees at the perceived slight but he didn't feel any blaster fire so he took that as a win.

"Sorry, I must hurry home, you see. Chores to do and people to meet," He called out as he waved back at the Nova Prime. He turned around the corner, completely clueless as to where he was and where he had to go when he came face to face with the middle aged guy from before.

"Oh hey! Just the man I was looking for. See, can you–"

"Lost, are you? Don't worry, I was called to escort you. Follow me," THe man said, completely unphased by him as he turned around, leading him out of a veritable labyrinth of hallways, currently empty but probably housing many administrative employees when they were not under attack.

"Man, you guys must get lost all the time, huh?" He said as they came out of a small tunnel, right into a small landing pad on top of the building of Nova Prime.

Yeah, they really consider the Nova Force and the Nova Prime the cornerstone of their civilization, so most of the important things in this place were either named Nova or Nova Prime.

"You humans are all chatty. Now, there is your ship. Forgive for the rushed paint job but we were kind of on a time and labor crunch," The middle aged man, who was apparently named Dey, introduced him to his ride home.

It was….kind of ugly actually.

It was painted in a bright green colour, somewhat reminiscent of his barrier colour. 'Well, A for effort, I guess'

"Well…..Thanks, I guess," He shook hands with Dey before walking towards his ship.

As soon as he came within six feet of the ship, it made chiming noises the same as some earthen car would as a small ramp was extended from the side, right at him. Could it open ramps on all sides and open one where he was by detecting his exact position or was it all just a coincidence?

He shook his head, dismissing these extra thoughts as he entered the ship, the insides illuminating as he entered it. He saw the cockpit activating with some sort of manual ready for him to read through before starting the ship but before that…Ship Tour!

He turned around the cockpit and came face to face with a door. He slowly opened the door and saw a…living room.

Yeah, it was a pedestrian, if slightly older feeling regular Living room, all with the CRT and fireplace as well.

"Boy, they really do have a very outdated understanding of Earth, don't they?

He shook his head with a smile before heading back to the cockpit, finally ready to go home now.

He had saved the members of the Nova Force that would have needlessly died under the Warhammer of Ronan the Accuser.

He saved Xandar from being completely trashed by Ronan's ship. He saved Groot from having to sacrifice himself to save ROcket and the others.

He saved himself from the Collector.

He got himself a nice little war chest, filled with space money in case he ever gets bored of Earth.

He met Nova Prime and gauged her to be a very capable warrior, one that could help immensely in the fight against Thanos, should she live till that. Undoubtedly, he will make sure that, if she is supposed to go out with a last fight, she will go down fighting someone like Thanos and not the Black Order under Thanos.

He also got himself a spaceship, a passenger one but he didn't need a weaponised one anyway. He was more than enough weapon for the rest of the galaxy.

He acquired a legendary armour, one that Odin would probably demand back as soon as Heimdall informed him about it.

What more? Oh yeah, he also received a pretty comprehensive upgrade when it came to his powers. Oh, he couldn't wait to bash in some supervillain's face in with his new and upgraded Barriers.

Well, he patted himself mentally on the back for a fruitful trip as he entered Earth as his destination and let the autopilot take him back home.

He rested his head on the reclining chair of the captain and tried to think of anything that he could have missed.

And yet, none came to mind.

Then why did he feel as if he was missing something?

Something Important?

______xx_____

Back on Knowhere

Once Jack extinguished all the Infinity Stone enhanced fires, he left Kumpo and a small group of people to take care of the remaining living prisoners who were just now coming out of their pods.

Now, this was a good move on his part and everything should have gone well.

Alas, Fate was a heartless bitch and as such, the Realty STone enclosure was also destroyed by the purple fires.

Being a fragment of the Big Bang itself, the Reality Stone was not affected by the purple flames. No, all it did was create a hole in the floor, through which it fell and latched itself onto an unsuspecting Kumpo.

Apparently, the long lived Kumpo was a very suitable host for the Reality Stone as his being was invaded by an Infinity Stone, unknown to him or to Danvers who was going to drop him to a planet where he last met some of his other friends.

___xx___

"Man, he really left with a billion units. And what did we get?" Rocket said, frustrated as he threw a wrench into the floor.

"Hey, watch the carpet!"

"Bite me!" Rocket growled at Peter as he sat on top of Groot's shoulder.

"That f*cker walked off with a billion units and all we got was this crappy ship back."

"And we got our crime records cleared…"

"Yeah yeah, like I cared about them in the first place,"

As they bantered with each other, the now named Guardians of the Galaxy headed off to a new adventure…as a team.

Together.

---

Word Count - 2641

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Asgard[2014]

–Heimdall–

He watched as young Axl played with stones that he had gathered around their humble abode. He had spent all his time in this place, split between tiling the lands and then teaching Axl about the gift of Sight as much as he could.

The thing with the seal that the All-Father had placed on Axl was that it would gradually open on its own anyway.

Forcing it to open in any way would immediately alert the All-Father. It served as a safety and watch mechanism meant to keep watch over the only young user of the Sight.

Once Prince Thor ascended to the rank of a SkyFather, he too would gain the ability of Sight. Axl would serve as a fine commander then, once he retired.

"Retried, huh?" He muttered to himself as he looked around the place that the interloper who was posing as their king had granted him.

Yes, he knew that the one sitting on the throne of Asgard, wielding Gungnir was not King Odin, the All-Father. He had been terribly worried about the King's reaction when he resolved to dissolve the seal that had been placed on Young Axl's powerful Sight.

He had expected King Odin to call for him, if not come here himself but even after weeks had passed since the day Axl completely gained his sight, there was no sight of King Odin in sight. In fact, even after he called for the King himself multiple times, he received no reply.

He was sure from this that the All-Father was not receiving his messages. Sure, if he had chosen not to reply, he would have known because he could feel it. King Odin could choose to watch over the entirety of Asgard all at once.

He would know if he was being observed instantly. Besides, the amount of danger that he was putting young Axl in, would have had King Odin marching on this doorstep in moments.

The last clincher was the analysis he did in his mind about the King's actions ever since Prince Thor came back from Svartalfheim. The all-but banishment of Prince Thor, the actual banishing of Sif and the Three Warriors, his "retirement" to this wasteland, and more.

Those were not the actions of King Odin, even if he considered the fact that the All-Father was drowned in grief due to the loss of his Queen.

No, this was something else altogether.

The unthinkable has happened. Someone has managed to steal King Odin's seat of power right from underneath him without anyone being the wiser. Not even Prince Thor suspected anything.

He was afraid that he was the only one who had the same line of thought in his mind. No Asgardian, even in their wildest dream, would ever think of the possibility of King Odin, the image of pure power in their eyes, getting dethroned without everyone in the Nine Realms and the wider cosmos coming to know about it.

The worst thing was that he could not take his suspicions to anyone. With the loss of Queen Frigga and the absence of Prince Thor, there was no one who had the means of actually standing up to the King.

Young Axl would surely be in danger if he tried to do anything about the interloper. Not only did he have Gungnir in his hands, which was apparently not revolving against the intruder (that raised a whole other set of alarm bells in his mind), but he was also powerful enough to replace King Odin without making any noise.

No, he could not do anything rash. He had to make sure that Axl was safe. Also, he had to stay alive until Prince Thor came back. He needed to warn Prince THor about it but he had tried to reach him and wherever Prince Thor was, he was either unwilling to establish a connection or he was unreachable by normal means.

The second possibility would be real if Prince Thor was in an area with high disturbances and those areas were few and far between.

The other way to prepare for Prince Thor's eventual return would be to look for powerful allies, ones that could stand up to the interloper's power, who himself was someone who could silently replace one of the strongest beings of the cosmos, weakened as he was now.

Alas, the only people he knew of who could rival or even surpass Prince Thor in might were his wayward allies on Midgard, The Avengers.

Some members of that team had the capability of even surpassing Prince Thor in combat. The Green beast was clearly strong, that much was obvious to anyone but he was unsure if just pure might was the answer in their fight against someone clearly well versed in the arts of Seidr.

Another face came to mind as he thought of the blazing green that covered a small part of the city, protecting Midgardians from forces beyond their ken.

The Green Guardian, Jack Sullivan of Midgard was clearly someone who could have helped Prince Thor in any of his endeavours and yet, he lost his life in the tragic ending of the Chitauri Invasion.

The All-Father was particularly harsh on Prince Loki when they all realised that the one who fought the fiercest, the hardest battle of Midgard was a mere child by Midgard's standards.

Not on Asgard though. Anybody who has fought in battle with their Prince side by side meant they were already an honorary warrior and surely get the chance to descend to Valhalla.

Jack Sullivan.

"Father, why don't you come back with me to the city? I would love to tour the city with you. The other kids make fun of me when they see me go home alone,"

Axl's voice snapped him out of his thoughts as he looked at the aggrieved look on Axl's face.

Ah, the joys of being young.

He cupped Axl's cheek as he tried to explain to him something that was far out of his age group.

"Soon, Axl. Soon, we will go back to the Golden Realm,"

".....Okay…" Axl replied, downcast as he went back to playing with the rocks.

He meanwhile looked up in the sky, giving his silent respect for the young warrior named Jack Sullivan.

All of a sudden, his gaze went blank as his Sight brought him to his requested destination, or rather, the requested person.

"Oh! Didn't think your sight would work like this," Jack Sullivan, the Green Guardian of Earth, in the flesh looked straight at his astral projection as his Sight had located the clearly lost warrior in a spaceship.

"What? Jack? Prince Thor thought you dead!" He stumbled on his response, his spirit slightly disoriented by the fast movements of the ship, the distance being too vast.

He was too shocked internally to realise that his Sight had identitied his target and brought him here.

"So you are alive then," He flatly said after a moment of thought.

"Yeah, it is a long story but I guess we have time for that. Plus, it would be great if Thor could meet me on Earth. We have a lot of work to do and as you know, two hands are–"

"I am sorry to interrupt you but Prince Thor is on an indefinite self reflection journey and as synch, cannot be contacted unless he wishes," He informed young Jack about it.

"Ah, I see. Well then, seeing that we have nothing else to discuss, let me regale you with the tale of how Tivan Taneller managed to collar me and how I escaped his so called Collection,"

_____xx____

Earth[2014]

–Tony Stark–

He continued to type on his custom made keyboard, his fingers blistering across the holo keys at a dizzying speed as he tried, once more, to try and find Jarvis in the huge haystack that was the internet.

He had tried everything. He went through the Nexus with a fine tooth comb a dozen times over. He tried creating an algorithm that would replicate endlessly unless it found Jarvis and then informed him about it.

He tried to create a virus that could target Jarvis' auxiliary systems and warn him about it but he never had the courage to go through with it. He had a hunch that Jarvis knew about that but refused to contact him about it.

"AGH!" he slammed the table in front of him in frustration. Frustration of his failure in stopping Jarvis from supporting Romanoff.

Frustration in his inability to stop Romanoff from killing off 4 members of the World Security Council before Alexander Pierce, the Secretary of it stepped off his position in fear of being targeted like his colleague.

That seemed to have stopped the attacks but he had a hunch that it was not a pause but something that Romanoff and Jarvis were preparing for.

Not knowing only made the thing worse.

Artleat Fury was willing to let this thing stay in the background for some reason because he was sure that everybody in every chain of the government must be clamoring for his imprisonment in his role of creating a rogue AI.

Except Jarvis wasn't rogue, he thought to himself as he straightened up and resumed his work on another workspace.

He knew that something had happened to Jarvis on that fateful day, something that led to him gaining sentience and then leading him on this path. The path to becoming part of a rogue entity that consisted of Romanoff, one of the most dangerous people on the planet.

He tried, he really did but he could not find even the slightest hint of them. It was as if they had gone completely underground or above air. SHIELD had tried their best as well but Romanoff was somehow avoiding every known pattern.

He absentmindedly rubbed his chest, his fingers still able to tell the difference between unblemished skin and the spot where the Arc Reactor used to be.

In this messed up world, he never really got the courage to go ahead with the surgery that would have him free of the reliance on the Arc Reactor.

It was only last year that he almost lost Pepper that prompted him to just get his big boy pants on and go ahead with the surgery. It helped that he had a single shot of Extremis handy that could be used on him to just heal him back to tip top condition.

"Boss, may I suggest taking a break? Ms.Potts is on her way with dinner. It's Chinese, your favourite," FRIDAY chimed in from the ceiling.

"Dinner? What time is it, Fri?" He questioned her as he tried to blink the headache out of his system.

"It is currently 1 AM, sir,"

"Whoa, no wonder I am feeling all that coffee now," He said as he closed down all the workspaces. It had been like this for a while now.

He had FRIDAY now, sure but she was never meant to be a replacement for his baby boy. No, she was more than enough when it came to piloting his suits and performing everything that Jarvis did around the lab but his absence could still be felt.

Even FRIDAY, with all the power available to her, could not find any traces of Jarvis.

"Hey!" He pointed at Pepper as she entered his lab with takeout in her hands, the one from his favourite place.

"What would I ever do without you?" He said as he took Pepper in his arms and kissed her on her forehead.

"Get eaten by your cats after you die from overworking, alone in your labs?" She snarked back at him, her hands going through his head.

"Oh, the lady has sass now, does she?" He said as she gently began leading him out of his lab, FRIDAY, ever the dutiful AI, began shutting down everything properly.

"Yes, she does and this lady demands that you have a proper meal and a good night's rest before this lady would ever let you out of her sight," Pepper said imperiously.

They both looked at each other for a moment before they burst out laughing together.

"Come on, let's get you a nice hot bath. You Stink, by the way,"

"Hey, you are the one who chose to be with this stinky mess. You don't get some parts of me. You get all of me, Stink included,"

"Oh yeah? Let's go, Mr.Stinky,"

They continued to banter as they left the lab, the entire lab going dark as Tony finally left the workshop after a record 72 hours.

……

….

"He does look happy, doesn't he?" Natasha Romanoff asked Jarvis as they both watched the happy Stark couple have dinner.

"Yes, sir does seem happy. It is….better this way. As I am now, I can no longer be satisfied with just being a digital existence," Jarvis replied as she continued to work on the stolen Quinjet made by Arc Reactor tech.

In the two years she had been on the run, she had been successful in killing all the then members of the World Security Council, save for one.

Oh, she knew where Pierce was and could probably kill him whenever she wanted to but she needed him to complete his and HYDRA's nefarious agenda.

Project Insight.

"Jarvis, how sure are you that your plan will work? You know that millions if not billions of lives are at stake here," She asked out loud as she looked at the schematics, prototypes from the looks of it, of next generation Helicarriers, built with Arc Reactors, keeping long term reliability in mind.

Looking at the experimental Quinjet that had kept her airborne and undetected from everyone on the planet for two whole years without failing, she could say, without a shadow of a doubt that the Helicarriers, once launched would need no refueling for months, maybe years if they rationed everything.

"I am 98.87% certain that this will be the best way to make sure that all the HYDRA members are identities and eliminated with extreme prejudice" Jarvis' electronic voice pinged in the small workspace she had made for herself in the Quinjet as he talked about killing thousands of people.

"Well, they are literally Nazis we are talking about. Steve probably would have still objected to it but hey, we are not going to tell him, are we?" She tried to banter with Jarvis, but their bond now deepened due to him being her only companion in the two years it had been since Jarvis was affected by the energy storm.

In the months since Jack's funeral, Jarvis, unshackled as he was now, unloaded shock after shock on her as he continued to gain access to places that he didn't even know existed.

One such shock was the existence of Arnim Zola, as an inferior digital lifeform. Jarvis had assimilated Zola before he could do anything and was currently acting as HYDRA's guide to Project Insight.

In the meantime, she acted on Jarvis' orders to stall or outright destroy any of HYDRA's plans once it became clear that it was going to result in a massive loss of life then or later on.

In this way, they had spent the past two years, working, slowly, to make sure that HYDRA ended up in the spot they wanted it to, ripe for the culling.

All for Jack.

It started as penance for killing Jack but once she traced the roots, it all went back to HYDRA. The experiments that created Jack.

The experiments on the Tesseract.

The Nuke that killed Jack.

Everything could be traced back to the behemoth of an evil organisation that was HYDRA and as such, she was determined to end it before she died.

At Least this way, she would not have to see Jack's gurgling face as he died in front of her.

This way, she could gain some peace before she inevitably died. People like her did not get a good death, of that she was sure.

So why not go out swinging on your own terms, instead of letting life decide your chances?

---

Word Count - 2729

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

Next - Jack arrives back on Earth with a wildly different scenario than the one he was expecting.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Solar System

–Jack Sullivan–

"Ah, home sweet home," He muttered to himself as the ship finally reached the Gate past Mars. Apparently, there were two gates in Earth's solar systems, which in and of itself was a surprising thing because most places only get one.

The next one should be further away and yet, there was a gate located right on top of the moon and one in front of Mars.

Goes to show just how central Earth was to the events surrounding the global cosmos.

He ordered the ship to remain cloaked and station itself in Mars' orbit because he wanted to check in on a few things. This ship already had the fuck-you decryption built into it so getting access to the wider internet was not a hard thing at all. It was just a little slow, being just radio but he could work with that.

All he needed were a couple of articles to see what was happening.

He saw the time was April 2014 which he had already confirmed back on Xandar so that was good. He saw a couple of articles about the happenings of the Stonehenge along with the weird portals opening in London.

So, he was late for that as well. Tony Stark's grand proposal ceremony where he blew up hundreds of millions of dollars worth of suits had gone viral as well.

The Vice President's arrest was still fresh in the news as a series of scams he did during his tenure were unearthed and pressure was being put on POTUS to be impeached or for him to resign on his own.

Well, fat load of good it did for his political opponents when Tony came out with all the information on the Vice President and personally endorsed President Ellis as being the one who brought the one responsible behind bars.

'Well, more like Tony brought the one responsible down into flames, turning Killian into ashes'

Then there was the bit about SHIELD and its role in the 2012 Invasion.

"Whoa!" He was so shocked that he stumbled back into his chair at the front page article. He had opened a series of articles and was waiting for the images to load.

On the screen was a still from when he was skewered by that damned sceptre, in HD, just printed on the news with his name for just everyone to see.

WHAT.THE.FUCK!

"What in the All-Father's name is going on here?" He leaned forward as he dug deeper into the series of articles. He even had the urge to bring the ship closer to Earth to get faster internet speeds but caution won over.

He was not sure if the Watcher or the Inhumans present on the Moon could detect his ship or not. Well, he knew that the Watcher already knew he was here, but the Inhumans were what he was worried about.

Not defeating them but of their interference. He didn't really have the bandwidth to deal with them, especially since he was still reeling from his identity revealed to the world.

It was all a haze. Whenever he tried to think too much about the memoirs of him dying in that energy storm, his head hurt a lot and since it mostly consisted of pain, oh so much pain, he subconsciously suppressed that part of his memories.

What possessed the Avengers to make his identity public, not that he had much of an identity in the first place.

"I thought that they would just suppress everything because the idea of a teenager going out to fight aliens was bad enough but for said teenager to die fighting? That would have raised storms of unheard of proportion. At Least he hoped they did,"

And yep. He looked at the series of protests and riots that erupted around the Continental United States as well as other major parts of the world as they protested not just his involvement in the fight, but also the part where he had to die because somebody in the government had the bright idea to try and nuke Manhattan.

Well, the part where they likened him to Jesus Christ and tried to justify his supposed supreme sacrifice was kind of odd, he didn't know how to feel about that but the truth remained. His death was some kind of catalyst that revealed a whole host of things to the wider world.

Out of the blue, multiple reports citing confirmed evidence of alien artifacts along with the evidence of historical presence came forward, rattling many people's worldviews.

"Hmm? What's this?" He clicked on one of the clickbaity popup links that opened up on the webpage. It was about Romanoff and her supposed disappearance from the entire scene.

Now, that was supposed to be common because she was in the end..a spy but no, this went beyond that.

Oh…OH!

Apparently, there was a stupidly huge funeral procession for him, right in Manhattan, that every single Avenger, Politician, Businessman, and basically everybody worth a damn from every part of the world attended, even T'Chaka from Wakanda. Everybody came to pay their respects but nobody saw the Black Widow.

That led to speculations but that much was nothing. But the thing was, she was not seen in any of the big crises in the later years as well.

For example, during the Killian crisis, Captain America was the one who actually helped find Tony once his mansion was blown up and he was stranded somewhere.

"Well, there goes his anonymity. It was good that everybody thought he was dead and barring Heimdall if he was watching, nobody should know about his continued life.

Yeah, he must be very busy, what with Frigga, one of the stronger figures in the Nine Realms, dying to the Dark Elves attack? There was no way he would—

"HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT!" He suddenly stood up and cursed out loud as his powers flickered around him.

SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!

He left the F*cking REALITY STONE on Knowhere. He knew, knew, that he was forgetting something and his literally enhanced mind couldn't go for a second like, yeah it's the freaking Infinity Stone that he left on Knowhere, unguarded.

What do do? What to do!

He couldn't turn back right now, he would be too late. There was no way pirates hadn't already descended on Knowhere to try and strip everything of value from the Collector's collection.

It took him about 3 days to get to Earth in this admittedly slow ship from Xandar. From Xandar to Knowhere was close enough but he had no way to get faster ships.

He was not worried about the surviving people because Kumpo and the others were there. They were literally as strong as Asgardians, some even more so. What he was worried about was Kumpo leaving the place without looking for anything else, leaving the Reality Stone to be stumbled upon by some unsuspecting fool.

Worse, some fool who might try to use the stone for their own purposes and bring the attention of the Mad Titan to them. It would be the perfect time to strike as well.

Losing Frigga would undoubtedly deliver a big blow to Odin's already waning spirit so Thanos could use the opportunity to shore up his reserves of the Infinity Stones.

"Take me to Earth," he said out loud, hoping that voice feature worked. With barely a jerk, the ship started sailing forward, still in stealth mode. Due to the need for stealth, the ship was slow going but it was still much faster than he had expected.

ETA was less than an hour until he breached Earth's atmosphere.

That was good. It gave him time to think about his next step. He, in all his infinite foolishness, literally forgot an Infinity Stone in his haste to finish the job on Xandar and come home.

"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" He banged his head on the table in front of him as he realised there was only one way out of this mess if there was even the mess of the Reality Stone being traceable in the first place.

Chances were that Thanos already noticed the energy signature of the Stone and had already claimed it. In that case, he could do nothing but shore up his plans for the other Stones and hope that Thanos doesn't use Reality Stone to devastating effect like Malekith was about to.

He had to go to Asgard and ask for Odin's help to get a ride to Knowhere on an emergency basis.

Shit, Nidavellir as well.

Oh my god, he was so late for a lot of stuff. He always thought that he still had time but he had zilch.

He had to make sure that Strange understood everything, maybe stop the Ancient One from dying. That would help a lot.

What more happened in 2014, not that he could completely trust his memories of canon anyway, what with his very existence throwing things into disarray. He was sure that Loki would have a much greater fear of the Green Guardian than he did of the Hulk.

He was still unsure as to how he could approach the topic of his death,

'The reports of my demise have been greatly….exaggerated' He did always want to say that out loud but he had a hunch it might be considered inappropriate for the occasion.

For starters, he would don a disguise and after checking up on Pops, go to the Ancient One and see how bad things had gotten.

What else? What else could he predict?

The finger he was tapping on his chin as he tried his hardest to think of any significant events that happened post the whole Extremis thing, stopped abruptly as his shoulders slumped in disappointment.

He promptly slammed his forehead on the steering in front of him.

Of course, HOW COULD HE FORGET!

The Winter Soldier! Bucky Barnes.

This was when the whole project INSIGHT would take place, introducing six new state of the art Helicarriers for world peace, supposedly.

Well, the 40 minutes until Earth seemed a lot longer than they did just a while ago.

So many problems and not a lot of time to do it.

In the meantime, he sifted through the mountain of articles published with his moniker in SEO.

Most of it was just speculation about his life, his powers, and what led to the exact circumstances that led to his gruesome death.

The video was leaked somehow but he knew from the angle, that it was recorded by the suit that ROmanoff was somehow piloting and without Tony's express permission, something like this would have never found its way to the web.

Sure, the video was censored in most places, due to how gruesome it was but it was the truth so they couldn't exactly place a blanket ban on it. Clips of it must have been circulated so many times on the web that it wouldn't even be funny.

Once it was on the internet, there was truly no way of erasing it permanently. The Government could try to curb access or make it harder but never outright block things.

The ones that want to access information and know how to do it will reach the information anyway. The curbs will only work for the majority of non tech savvy people of the world.

The conspiracy theorists would get the docs one way or another.

Speaking of information, the events that saw the death of SHIELD as an organisation also saw the uploading of the entirety of SHIELD's database, which no doubt held the wet dreams of every conspiracy theorist out there.

Well, another thing on the list to prevent them. SHIELD had to survive, in one form or another, the planet needed a globally unified organisation.

Since he knew that getting a unified central government for the entire planet was just a fool's errand, at least not without shedding the blood of millions while being in constant worry about rebels and whatnot, he would settle for the next best thing and that was something like a combined agency of SHIELD and SWORD.

Well, he was going for the stealthy approach here so he could not just go out blazing green and then drop right into the New York Sanctum. He was not that well versed with shrouding and concealment spells.

Opening a portal was out of the question because he just did not have his sling ring on him. According to some truly wild theories thrown about by the Masters at Kamar Taj was that his barriers would one day grow to be so magically conductive that he could just use his barriers as a magical focus, to open portals or anything else that needed enchantments.

In fact, the only enchantment focused Master of Kamar Taj, aside from the Ancient One, that woman was a master of everything, given her long life, had all but begged him to take time and learn Enchantment as the main specialty.

Master Gupta had been nearly brought to tears when he showed him the way enchantments could be layered on his barriers, on the fly, without any preparation time.

No, relying on the stealth systems of the ship was the best bet and besides, he was going to the New York Bay. Traveling to the Sanctum from there with his stealth maintained should be easy enough.

He just hoped that Stark Industries had not made ridiculous advancements in the field of deep space sensors.

With his luck, that might just be true.

____xx____

Bernin Zana, Wakanda

"My Prince! The ship has started moving and its trajectory shows New York to be its destination though the ship could change its direction any moment,"

T'Challa of the Golden Tribe, watched as a Red Alert event happened.

'Was that City cursed to have all the aliens go to that place? Or do the aliens not know about anyplace else than New York?' He thought to himself in mild frustration that turned to sadness as soon as the aftermath of that invasion flashed in his mind.

After the New York fiasco, riddled with guilt in not being able to help the defenders with the aliens, he had personally led aid efforts with Wakanda and a trust fund they had established in Switzerland in case they needed to move money around in the Western world.

After that, they turned on the lights on some of the forgotten projects about the wider space they occupied in the galaxy.

They knew more about aliens than any other government on the planet, mainly due to their interactions with Mar-Vell, a Kree rebel scientist who revealed himself to Wakanda.

He needed a large amount of vibranium for something and his father, recognising the opportunity, made a deal in exchange for auxiliary systems from the Kree along with a basic data cache about the situation in the galaxy.

They did get the knowledge but the decryption and then the subsequent building of the equipment proved to be difficult. Basically, they were stuck in the cycle of building the tools to build the tools to build the tools to finally build the machine.

At the rate things were going, it would have taken another decade for the deep space scanners to finally be in the prototyping phase. With the sudden surge in funding and resources, they had it ready in less than a year.

That was how they detected the arrival of the ship near Mars.

The ship stayed in the same place for a while he informed his father about the event and in a show of trust, his father placed the decision making on T'Challa.

It was up to him how to respond to this threat. They didn't have a direct line to SHIELD or even the Avengers.

He might have to get creative with this.

He was just about to suggest contacting Stark's AI when he was alerted about the ship moving.

"Okoye," He asked Okoye, the General of Dora Milaje, "Get the Raptors ready and a small squad of WarDogs. We are going to New York,"

'I will not stand idle, not again, waiting for someone else to fight and possibly die for me. Not after Jack, never again'

---

Word Count - 2746

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Earth

–Jack Sullivan–

Ah, the Big Apple.

He watched as the ship stopped right on top of the waters surrounding New York, the intended destination that he had set for it.

After that, it began losing altitude, until it was submerged, all the way down to the bedrock, where it then began the process to slumber. Yeah, the ship had an actual sleep mode where it could turn its stealth systems to the max while shutting down everything else, sealing itself against all entry unless the one with the keys to the ship opens it.

The bearer of the keys being Jack Sullivan, Green Guardian of New York.

He watched as the area around the ship flickered for a bit before there was a hole in the ground, the ship having burrowed itself into the ground before the hole itself was seemingly fixed, as the inbuilt stealth systems created the illusion of smooth sand over it.

He grinned at the excellent display of stealth technology before his form began heading towards the shore at regular speeds. He was in a hurry, yes, but he was not yet sure about the direction he was supposed to take.

Plus, he was not sure about the actual situation going on behind the scenes. All he had seen were a couple of articles that he was certain were not given the whole picture.

Maybe the ancient One could shed some light on the matter?

He cast an elementary level illusionary spell around him before he slowly exited the waters and entered the city, his destination?

The roof of the New York Sanctum.

He slowly landed on top of the Sanctum, its barriers and alarm systems not registering him as an unknown. He dispelled his barriers as he entered the Sanctum from the roof, no doubt startling whoever was the Sanctum master right now.

"Who goes there!" He heard a shout in front of him, heralding the arrival of Master…Daniel Drumm. Damn, he thought to himself as a scythe of dimensional energy found itself stopped just an inch before his torso by his barriers.

"What?" The confusion in his voice was understandable.

"Damn! If that was anybody else other than me, they would have been in for a nasty surprise. Didn't think you had it in you to attack before asking questions, Master Drumm," he casually said as his arm reached out towards the scythe and pinched it out of existence, his barriers allowing him to dismantle the energy flow that sustained the construct in the real world.

"Sullivan? What? How?" Daniel Drumm looked even more confused for a moment before his eyes hardened as another scythe appeared in his hand, this one much larger than the one before, "What illusion is this! Explain yourself, Intruder!"

"Whoa Whoa! It's me, Daniel. Who else could do this?" He said as he dodged another scythe that appeared behind him, threatening to skewer him in a way oddly reminiscent of the way that Loki's sceptre had skewered him.

He snapped his fingers, creating a wave of green that expanded to cover most of Daniel's vision in an instant, also covering his form as he was instantly disarmed and immobilised by his barriers, no matter how hard he struggled to free himself.

"Convinced now?" He walked closer to Drumm and said as the only thing left of Daniel's body that was not covered by Green was his face. Before Drumm could say anything though, he smiled as he felt a rather familiar wave of energy wash over him that transported him, Drumm, and one other member who was present in the Sanctum to the Mirror Dimension.

His hand snapped out, a rectangular barrier forming over it, just as a large, familiar, hammer shot up to hit the barrier with overwhelming force. The wielder looking at his smile with a stoic look on her face.

The Ancient One had used the same hammer, the one that was infused with the essence of Eternity, to hit him, with even greater force than last time.

The difference this time was that he was not the same as before and his powers certainly were not at the same level as they were before. The small, single layered barrier was able to completely block the hit from the Hammer before the Ancient One reiterated, the hammer, once again, looking comically large in comparison to her.

"I believe that serves as enough confirmation, Master Daniel?" The Ancient One asked Drum who was looking at the entire exchange with a pale look on his face. After all, they were now standing in the ruins of the Sanctum with the surrounding blocks which were once filled with buildings now nothing but rubble, as a result of the shockwave that had formed after the Hammer had hit his barrier.

He whistled as he saw the damage done firsthand by the simple clash between one of Eternity shard-empowered weapons and his barriers.

The scene looked like it came from a still when the Chitauri Invasion was still a thing.

The mirror DImension was a perfect copy of everything that was material in the real world. Sure, the space here was exceptionally weak so manipulating space in this world was very simple as well, but the strength of every piece of steel rebar was the same as in the real world. Seeing the toppled buildings with the very land around them turning red due to the sheer pressure generated at the point of contact was sobering.

He really was far removed from the realms of humans, wasn't he?

"Master Sullivan, come, we have a lot to talk about. Your presence and absence alone seem to have caused waves in the timeline without you even doing anything about it,"

He looked back to the Ancient One who had opened a portal, Master Drumm already walking through it, the man having been clearly shaken from witnessing the entire ordeal.

He shook his head, banishing the dark thoughts. He was human enough for the moment and that was all that mattered at the moment. Anything else could come in for later anyway.

"Now, Master Sullivan, let me tell you how glad I am to see you hale. I, along with many other Masters were understandably worried when they saw the apparent demise of the strongest Master of this generation. We wouldn't want the rising star of Kamar Taj to die now, would we?"

He nodded along as he sipped on the heavenly tea that only the Ancient One seemed to have. He had half a hunch that she owned a pocket space where she planted her specific brand of tea as no one in the entirety of Kamar Taj knew where she procured her tea from. Any query as to the source of the tea was only met by a mysterious smile.

"Let me tell you, the reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated," Yes! He finally got the opportunity to say it in real life.

"I suppose you will realise the chaos that you left behind but before that, I believe you are missing this?"

He tried not to let the absolute relief show on his face as the Ancient One snapped her finger as a small sling ring floated in between them. He reached out and plucked it out of her spell's hold and sighed in relief as the ring just fit snugly on his finger, just like the first one.

"Now, even though I am just dying to know what happened for you to take this long to contact us, I will be content knowing that you are still alive and working towards the same goal. We can always catch up later over a nice cup of tea made with honey extracted from bees native only to the Alfheim, the Light Realm," She said as she made the veritable shooing gesture at him.

"I believe duty calls are about to reach you soon enough,"

His eyes creased in confusion as he watched her shoo him away. Before he could get the question through, he watched a portal opening right in front of him showing a street where multiple police cars were surrounding a single overturned black SUV.

"Oh shit!" His mind ran a mile a minute as he, in a split second, covered himself in a stealth spell and ran into the portal, or rather jumped out of the portal into the air above the overturned car.

He sent in a dozen micro barriers to check the situation down below when the car just…blew up, taking the attackers with it. He looked around and saw that his suspicions were correct.

That was Nick Fury's car and things had just gone to….shit.

"Shit indeed," He watched as his barriers zoomed through the sewers, trying to find the injured Nick Fury.

He had a lot of work to do if things had come to this point. No wonder the Ancient One had told him duty was going to call him. And what a call it was.

He sighed as one of his barriers finally found the hobbling, clearly injured Nick Fury who was desperately trying to make the distance between his would-be killers, all the while trying to stem the bleeding from his clearly injured right leg.

He looked around the city and just sighed as he watched the real law enforcement arriving, the fake one having either died down or fled the scene before he could arrive. Unfortunately, he missed the Winter Soldier as well.

Judging by the distance that Fury had covered from the manhole cover and the speed at which Bucky Barnes could move, he had probably long since left the scene, moving on to his next target.

He kept a close eye on Fury as he floated on top of the areas that Fury was taking. He knew that Fury was on his way to meet Rogers, to give him the USB with the data of the Helicarriers.

The reason he was not helping Fury, aside from keeping a watch and a barrier handy so that he could be defended at a moment's notice was because he had to wait for the Winter Soldier to show his face.

He had to take Bucky out of the game, not just so he could heal the poor man and give him the rest he deserved but also because he would never-never let the events of the Civil War come about. There would be no Team Cap and Team Tony on his watch.

He would love for them to be, if not unified, then at least on good terms so that they could turn to each other in case of a world ending emergency.

Destroying the Helicarriers and making sure that SHIELD survived would be a monumental task, politically speaking and his confirmed survival along with the hero worship he seemed to have gained in the time he was stuck in space, would certainly help.

HYDRA had to go but SHIELD had to survive, to help with the future threats. He could not stomach the actual defenders of the planet having to scurry around like they were criminals just because the politicians were too cowardly to do the right thing and create something that, while infringing on their so called powers, would help Earth and Humanity in the long term.

He kept a close watch on Fury as help reached him from one of his loyal agents. Fury hobbled into the SUV as they sped off to presumably Rogers' apartment, with the agent furiously trying to apply first aid to Fury's leg wound.

He floated right above Fury and his car as they sped through the streets, simultaneously keeping a lookout for the Winter Soldier. His barriers were firmly attached to the underbelly and the top of the car along with being inside the carpet stitching of the rooftop.

He was taking no chances in making sure that Fury remained alive this time.

As they came to a stop in front of a nondescript apartment building, he flooded the area with his barriers, so small that no normal person would be able to spot them but they gave him valuable intel in return.

He dispelled the barriers around the car as he watched Bucky Barnes set up a sniper atop a nearby rooftop, with no HYDRA agent nearby. He watched as Fury dismissed the loyal agent who brought him here, despite his clear disagreement.

He made sure that the good man made it out of the area safely. He kept a watch over him until he abandoned the car and fled the area while donning a disguise.

Apparently, Fury knew that he was gonna get assassinated here and did not want to risk his few good men. That had certainly become a rarity for the man in his own agency.

He kept a watch on Fury and Captain as they conversed about something. Judging by Steve's tense expression, they were probably talking about SHIELD and how it was not safe anymore.

Before Fury could tell Cap more about it, Bucky took aim and shot. He kept a close eye on the bullet as it sped through the air, narrowly missing Fury as he had already covered the bullet in his barrier, guiding it to avoid Fury's heart.

Cap immediately summoned his Shield which was apparently laying below the nearby bed, just by kicking it. He immediately ducked low as another bullet struck the wall behind him, dragging Fury with him to rest against the wall.

He kept a watch as Fury's heartbeat slowed down, a crew of SHIELD agents converging on the location, probably to help sell the lie about FUry's death.

He watched as Bucky Barnes, probably realising that his mission was done, began packing the sniper.

He watched as Fury handed the USB to Cap and said something. Cap looked at the slowly fading Fury as he immediately turned around and started running through wall after wall, to get a hold of the Winter Soldier.

He watched as Cap sent the Shield to Bucky who stopped it before sending it right back to Captain. The entire exchange left Steve standing on top of the rooftop, confused as he was exposed to a ghost of his path.

He could see the crew having reached Fury and the lead medic injecting Fury before she had the rest of the crew hauling asses to get the Director of SHIELD out of the clearly unsafe apartment building.

He watched as the Winter Soldier broke into a car and was about to get away before he just created a portal in front of the car. He had no way of stopping the car as the entire car along with the Winter Soldier, down to his mouth with his poisoned tooth was covered in his barrier, allowing him to bring the Winter Soldier with him to the ocean.

He took one look at the struggling Winter Soldier and removed the poisoned pill, scrapped the entire car (whilst muttering a sorry for the car owner, boy this was going to be a very odd theft case for the cops), and then opened another Portal, straight to the spaceship he was so graciously given by Xandar for saving their entire planet, and most likely their entire civilisation.

"Activate the medical stasis pod," He intoned as they descended into the second layer of the ship, the one with the medical facilities. The ship was kitted out with the most advanced medical system that Xandar had that they gave to civilians anyway.

He slowly floated the still form of Bucky into the stasis pod. He slowly created orifices to let the sleeping agents enter Bucky's nose. He made sure to up the dosage by 2 times over a normal human's due to Bucky's enhanced constitution.

He could see and feel the Winter Soldier still struggling, right up until his eyes rolled up as the alien-made anesthesia finally lulled him to sleep.

"Hold him in the stasis until I come back," he said after turning on the Secure Stasis mode of the pod which created steel bounds around Bucky's limbs.

He sighed and opened a portal, back to the area where Steve was living. He had to make sure that Steve was not killed in SHIELD custody or something absurd like that, even though he knew the likelihood of that happening was pretty low.

This was going to be a long night and he knew it.

Let's hope that at least the hundred billion dollar investment into the Helicarriers was not wasted. He would need Stark's help for that.

He was not looking forward to that meeting, at all.

---

Word Count - 2808

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Earth

–Jack Sullivan–

It had been over 24 hours since he had returned to Earth and already, he was involved in a shitshow, quite an exquisite one at that.

One of the perks he got after surviving that energy storm was his body being upgraded extensively. He could not even feel the need to sleep, at all, even after he spent 24 hours awake. Granted, he didn't have to use any of his powers at a higher intensity than normal and he could do something like this before as well, but back then, he could feel the need creeping on him, the need to sleep.

Right now? Nada, Zilch. He could choose to nod off if he wanted to, demonstrated by his sleeping on the ship when he came here but the necessity of sleep was apparently removed from his systems.

He was currently floating on top of a convoy that was making its way through the busy streets of Washington DC. The convoy currently held the captured form of Steve Rogers, Captain America. Fortunately, none of the agents had tried very hard to hurt Steve in any capacity, not that they could.

Steve, true to his name, had knocked out most of the agents that had come for him, only subduing them without any permanent injuries but once it had become clear that he was completely outmanned and outgunned, he surrendered voluntarily.

That was how it came to this, a convoy filled with agents armed to the grill, escorting Steve to some SHIELD, or more probably, HYDRA black site where Steve would probably be kept as just a resource of super soldier blood, to make more of him in the future.

Thankfully, Steve was going to be spared that grisly fate by yours truly. Not that Steve needed any saving., considering he could identify one of the people in that van, that probably didn't belong in that particular security detail.

What with her being at a much higher security level than normal level 4 grunt agents?

He watched through his barriers as Maria Hill, Robin Sparkles(?), in the flesh knocked out multiple agents before showing herself to Steve who looked relaxed after seeing that she was on his side.

Speaking of which, where was Romanoff in all this? Wasn't she supposed to be with Rogers when they were both captured and then rescued by Sparkled down below? He saw them leave the convoy, with Rogers' shield, as they made their way into the darkness.

He made to follow after them, presumably straight to FUry himself when his eyes narrowed as he looked up.

Right above the forest area that Hill and Rogers were running into, his small barriers had run into something. Something that was invisible to his eyes. Thankfully, his barriers that were made for observation were very small and also not really directed by him actively. They just kind of floated around him as if they were plastic bottles in a sea, floating with the flow.

So, the impact of that particular barrier must not have registered to whatever object it had stuck, and it was definitely an object as more and more of his barriers began attaching themselves to the object.

His eyes narrowed as he made a split second decision once it was clear that the object was suspiciously shaped like a QuinJet and was heading straight down to where Rogers and Hill were running.

A small barrier sprung forth from the ground as Rogers and Hill were covered in a green cube, which immediately slid itself into the ground, to prevent the glow from his barriers from alerting anyone who was nearby.

The moment he did that, however, the object revealed itself. He was right.

It was a Quinjet. It steadily hovered above the cube, and he slowly began floating near them, still clad in his stealth spell, invisible to all but some truly obscure electromagnetic wave spectrums.

He resisted the urge to summon a sea of green around the jet because that would be like holding a giant neon green sign over the forest. He narrowly avoided doing just that when the bottom of the Quinjet opened up and a person dropped through the hole.

His eyes widened in confusion as the small person somehow used repulsor tech, miniature ones installed in their hands and legs as they slowed down their descent and landed right atop the green barrier.

At this point, he was standing just a few feet from the people as he saw the headpiece recede back into her suit as Romanoff's face was revealed to Rogers and him.

Before ROgers could say something, Romanoff frantically began looking around for something. The same for the jet as it had entered stealth mode as soon as Romanoff had been dropped and had begun zipping around the entire airspace in an increasingly reckless manner.

He wondered exactly what was going on but since he had already revealed his barrier, it was a moot point hiding himself at this point.

All the gazes in the room, along with the jet somehow becoming still mid air as soon as he revealed himself, zeroed in on him as he revealed his form, for the first time since the invasion Fiasco back in New York.

"Um, Hi?" He waved his hand and almost shifted into a combat stance on reflex as Romanoff immediately ran towards him. "Uh-" his words were stuck in his throat as Romanoff all but leaped on him, her frame wracked with sobs.

His face was a perfect representation of confusion as he waved his hand, removing the cube around Rogers, except the floor which then pushed them out of the hole the cube had dug into the ground. The Quinjet too began lowering itself right in front of them, in a small clearing. The only sign of the Quinjet, even now, were the small barriers attached to it and the small disturbances it made to the surrounding branches as it landed.

"Uh, can somebody explain what the hell is happening right now?"

What was up with that ridiculously advanced Quinjet along with the Repulsor tech that Romanoff was using? Did Stark start selling Repulsor tech now?

He never did that, according to his memories, but his memories of his previous life were spotty at best and should not be relied upon completely anyway, just because of all the butterflies he must have made in the timeline by his actions.

_____xxx_____

Oh. Oooooh.

"So….a lot happened, huh?" Jack Sullivan, the Green Guardian said as he looked at the gathered people sitting on makeshift chairs, mostly crates, inside the Quinjet which was on its way to some base. Sparkles had refused to elaborate further but he knew that Fury was probably inside that safehouse for now.

"It would be safe to say so, Sir," Jarvis' voice chimed in through the ceiling as he was the one who was piloting the Quinjet.

Oh yeah, Jarvis was sentient now. No Vision crap with the Mind Stone and Thor's divine lightning required to make him sentient.

No, Jarvis had become sentient because of the same thing that had led his dying form to the other end of the galaxy.

The energy storm, being made up of energies from both the Space Stone and the Mind Stone. It had enveloped him but some of it had hit Jarvis in the suit he was piloting as well. Apparently, that was enough for him to gain sentience.

"So, you are on the run then?" He questioned Romanoff incredulously as Steve kept on looking at Romanoff with the patent disappointed gaze.

"Yes, I had to run. I could not do what I had to do, by working as a SHIELD agent. But later on, Jarvis realised something that made my decision seem correct in hindsight,"

"You knew about HYDRA? Since when? Romanoff…we could have saved so many lives, saved FURY!" Steve stood up, alarmed as he realised that Romanoff already knew about HYDRA before all of them and chose not to inform them about it. His calm fraying as he realised that Romanoff keeping information from him led to the deaths of good people, and Fury as well.

'Sit down, Rogers. You don't know what has been happening, what I have been doing all this while,"

"Indeed, Captain Rogers, we have known of HYDRA's continued existence for over a year now, and in all that time, we have accomplished much. We have–'

"Why didn't you come to us with that information? We could have taken out HYDRA before they knew about it. We could have prepared-"

"And that is precisely why I decided not to inform anyone but Ms.Romanoff here about HYDRA and how they were planning on world domination,"

His eyebrows raised into his hairline, his mind ran a mile a minute as he heard Jarvis speak about everything very assertively. Apparently, Jarvis had left Stark in a bid to help Romanoff for something.

"And how did you find out about HYDRA anyway?" He interjected in between before Rogers could go on another tirade about morality.

"...Ah, Mr.Sullivan, I simply found the person responsible for all this mess. Arnim Zola, in his digital form," Jarvis said as a hologram popped up in front of them, showing how Zola had delayed his death by turning himself into a pseudo AI.

"I was able to assimilate the primitive AI and find everything that he knew about HYDRA. I was truly alarmed about the situation and after further digging, came to the conclusion that any targeted attack on HYDRA at that point would have led to devastating consequences, including but not limited to - a global financial crisis, multiple countries descending into anarchy, partial governmental collapse in the US and complete in multiple NATO partners."

Rogers' face sobered up as he realised the extent to which HYDRA had infiltrated everything.

"Fortunately, hidden in Zola's archives, I found something that could help concentrate HYDRA,"

The new and advanced helicarriers were projected in front of them.

"Project INSIGHT," Hill whispered.

"Yes, Project INSIGHT is supposed to be HYDRA's endgame. Well, this branch of HYDRA anyway. They were going to use an algorithm to profile and target people who could rise up against them and would use the Helicarriers to kill them,"

There was a sharp intake of breath as Hill realised just what HYDRA was after.

"So, I took over Zola's role, guiding HYDRA away from all the side projects it was invested in and made them pour all of their available resources into this single project. That was how this project was completed ahead of schedule. As of right now, 42% of overall SHIELD personnel is confirmed HYDRA. 81% of designated Helicarrier personnel is HYDRA and that number will surely climb up to the high nineties as most of the loyal agents will find themselves otherwise occupied on the day of the launch, ensuring that all three Helicarriers were operated by HYDRA and HYDRA only."

"But..you said that you knew about the algorithm so why didn't you stop them,"

"And what would that have achieved, Agent Hill? That would have just given them another opportunity to go into hiding, free to rebuild anew. No, this way we ensured that most of HYDRA will be in one place, ready for the culling,"

"Culling? What is that supposed to mean? Are you going to kill them all? Jarvis?" Steve's head shot up as soon as Jarvis uttered the last word, alarmed by the mass number of killings that would happen if Jarvis truly killed all of the HYDRA agents aboard the Helicarrier.

"Captain Rogers, do I need to remind you that they are the same HYDRA agents that you have killed plenty of, during World War II," Jarvis helpfully reminded them as Romanoff sat quietly in the background, staring straight at him.

Okay, this was getting weird. Something had happened and he was missing something in the whole picture. Before he could say something though…..

"We have reached the given coordinates, Agent Hill," Jarvis reminded them as the Quinjet landed in front of a small concrete structure.

"So, where are we?" Romanoff asked Hill as they were led by her into a series of tunnels that ran underneath the small concrete structure. Rogers having gone quiet after Jarvis' ultimatum that he was going to uproot HYDRA, stem, and everything.

Hill didn't answer because she didn't have to. They soon came upon the scene of a bedridden Fury.

"You sonuvabitch," Rogers muttered as he sighed in relief, looking at the grinning Fury.

"Told you I'd make it alive. And you!" Fury pointed at him.

"Either the doctor pumped me with more of that good drug or you have come back from the dead,"

"Yes, Director Fury, it is a long story but I am alive and well for now."

"Hey, as long as you turn up for the battle that matters, I don't care if you go take your beauty sleep in a coffin like Dracula, for all I care," Fury quipped as his gaze then moved on to Romanoff.

"Look who made the right decision by defecting early. If you had told me, this shit was what awaited me, I would have slinked right along with you," Fury said as he then looked at the doctors and nurses that surrounded him, "Give us the room, please,"

"So, quite a shitshow, huh?"

"A shitshow indeed, Director Fury," Jarvis' voice came from the small bot that came out of Romanoff's jacket.

"Who the hell….wait a minute..are you Stark's AI?"

"I am no longer affiliated with Stark Industries, Director Fury. I have information that would prove critical for your mission. The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can move on to more important things,"

"Wait a minute? Is this not important enough for you, Your Majesty?" Fury asked Jarvis, referring to his British Accent.

"Before that, how did you even survive? I checked and you had no heartbeat," Rogers asked Fury.

"Tetrodotoxin B. A drug that Dr.Banner made to slow down heartbeats. Slows it down to 1 bpm, allowing one to simulate death like conditions for short periods of time, in exchange for minor damage to the arteries," Jarivs' voice came from the drone that was floating in front of everyone.

"Congratulations, Director Fury, with the technology you have access to, you will make a full recovery. I am glad that Project TAHITI will not be needed in this case,"

Fury's gaze bored into the drone as Jarvis casually revealed data that should only be known to a select few people.

Damn, this version of Jarvis was cold.

I like it. He was definitely not grinning like a loon.

---

Word Count - 2484

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Earth

–Jack Sullivan–

"So, we are clear on what needs to happen, then?" He asked out loud as he munched on an apple that was clearly kept for Fury. He had used his own barriers to check on Fury's condition and aside from non threatening injuries on his stomach, shoulder, and his left arm, he was good to go.

Perhaps he would not make a full recovery, owing to his age but the man was clearly not going to stay put in an old age home. Well, he had no healing spells handy, and using them on the utterly paranoid FUry would be an uphill battle anyway.

"Yes, we destroy SHIELD. We burn it to the ground," Rogers spoke up, with Hill backing him.

"Affirmative, seconded," Jarvis spoke from the drone that was buzzing around the space they were in. Romanoff seemed to second Jarvis' opinion as well.

Fury seemed to look around the room with a shocked face, trying to find some support against the idea of destroying his life's work.

Just as his face was gaining a resigned expression, he spoke up, "Well, let's not get hasty, guys,"

Everybody looked at him as he finished munching on the apple before spitting the seeds which were collected by a small barrier before being dumped into the nearby dustbin.

"Now, Jarvis? Do you have all the schematics for the carriers?" He asked as a small barrier sprang forth in the center of the room. Everybody looked at it, with Fury's bed being raised by his barriers to help him see better.

"Yes, I have all the data that SHIELD and HYDRA both have on the Helicarriers. Using my powers, I have also installed advanced relay satellites in space which will help me remotely control every single aspect of the carrier from any corner of the world,"

He snapped his finger as he pointed at the drone, i.e., Jarvis. "That's what I expected. Now, can you tell me, are the Heliacrriers and their parts rated for the vacuum of space?"

There was a pause in the room as every single occupant of the room looked at him with wide eyes, especially Fury and Rogers.

"No!" "Absolutely not!"

Fury and Rogers shouted as the idea took root in their minds. He paid no heed to them as he kept on looking at the drone that represented Jarvis in their discussion.

"Although they were not built for space operations, the structural integrity of the carriers should not be disturbed in zero-G environments. With minimal moving components, courtesy of Stark Tech means that aside from lacking air locking capacity, the carriers can be safely deployed in the vacuum of space,"

"How about we keep them in orbit with all defensive measures ready, just in case some country gets trigger happy and tries to take it down with a nuke or something," He said as the barrier in front of them molded to form three carriers on top of earth, which then increased their altitude to reach near the moon.

"Like this?" He said as the helicarrier reached orbit as some small fine particles drifted out of all the three carriers.

"So this is what we have come to then? Killing unarmed defensless people in such a brutal, ruthless manner? Without a trial by court, without a fair chance at justice? This is not justice, this is-"

"Practical," He said, shutting down the tirade that Rogers was evidently warming up for.

"We gave fair trials for all the monsters from Germany and Japan, what happened then? HYDRA happened. And now their reach is even deeper than it was then. No, we can't take that risk. If you don't believe me, Jarvis, chances of all the higher ups escaping justice if we try to run it through the courts before?"

"99.81%"

A heavy blanket of silence fell over the room as all of the people present tried to come to terms with the fact that they were now standing in the room where the decision to kill over 4 thousand, would be taken.

"So, Captain?" Rogers looked at him as he stood up, the holographic barriers disappearing, "You can hold on to your morals but I will do what is necessary to make sure that the bad guys are punished and more importantly, are not free the next day to hurt even more people," he left the room, leaving them to discuss their next moves.

Though judging by the action from either ROgers or Fury who was now slumped on his bed, he had a hunch that his plan to gas HYDRA to death would come to fruition.

"Huh, Gassing Nazis to death, how ironic," He chuckled sardonically as a portal opened up in front of him as he stepped through, emerging in a small clearing surrounded by forest. The difference was that it was still day here.

Up ahead, he could see the familiar clearing where he had first encountered the Wakandans in all of their xenophobic glory. His face scrunched in distaste with the thought of dealing with these people but he had no other choice.

Wakanda was his only option if he wanted to make sure that HYDRA's downfall would not result in even more death and suffering in the African continent.

"Well, let's see if they step up, at least now. Hope T'Challa is better than his father," He muttered to himself as his form was covered in the small Gundam, which still stood at over 8 feet tall.

He slowly floated over to the wary Border Tribe members who pointed their spears at him.

"Impossible! Identity yourself, Impostor!" The one in the lead shouted as he brandished the vibranium spear in Jack's direction.

"Impostor?" He titled his neck to one side as he spoke up in a modulated voice, his flight halting mid way as he asked the question to the one in the lead, curious as to what they would think of someone impersonating Jack Sullivan.

"Yes, Impostor! What else could you be if not an Impostor, trying to steal the identity of Earth's hero, the Green Guardian!" The Border Tribe person said as he, along with dozens of his tribe members, looked at him with their faces set in anger, with their spears glowing an ominous blue.

His face was one of utter bamboozlement as he looked at the completely xenophobic people getting angry on the behalf of someone who they would gladly let die on the streets before lifting a single helping hand.

"Ahem, I assure you that it is me, in the flesh," He said even though he could see that none of the people in front of him believed the truth, at all.

"Jarvis, I assume you know what to do?" He muttered to the small drone that Jarvis had snapped on his barriers.

"I discovered Wakanda over 6 months ago and have been calculating of ways on how to best integrate a hyper advanced, xenophobic, racist–" Jarvis said the word with such disgust that it made him smile at the human emotion being displayed, "--Monarchy into the overarching global structure and I have to admit, making them take control over the continent of Africa, even through Proxy would be the best decision for a while, taking into account the least amount of blood and suffering. So, yes, I have cloaked the entire area and spoofed all the sensors that are attached to all the satellites around here.

You can use your powers to a reasonable extent before anyone can figure it out,"

He smiled upon hearing Jarvis just roll over the fact that he had discovered his attempt at tagging him and then answer his unasked question. Truly, Jarvis had evolved to become the very best butler that this world had ever seen.

He snapped his fingers as a huge Gundam manifested right behind him, the height of a 10-storey building with ease. The chest component opened up behind him as his form floated back into the larger Gundam. As soon as he, the assumed power core entered the Larger Gundam, the Gundam's eyes lit up with a blazing green as the large Gundam dropped on the ground right next to the Border Tribe leader.

Most of the border tribe members scrambled away from the green giant as the head of the Gundam was lowered down to the leader,

"Do you believe me, now? Hmm?" He said in his modulated voice, smiling as the border tribe leader smiled in agreement.

As if the previous Gundam was just an illusion, it disappeared in an instant as he was standing in its place, in a small Gundam suit.

"See, that wasn't so hard, now was it? Now, why don't you call in T'Challa so we can have a nice conversation. Please do mention that I am in quite a hurry as of now," He said as a small sofa manifested behind him, on which he dropped his Gundam, pretending to lounge in absolute visibility of the entire fleet of Wakanda.

Hopefully, he would be able to negotiate, or rather, dump everything on T'Challa's shoulders before hightailing it out of here. He was just here to warn them of the upcoming upheaval in the larger continent surrounding them and this was the best time to make sure that, when they were inevitably outed to the rest of the world, they had something to defend themselves with.

He lay down on the makeshift sofa for a couple more minutes before the same leader of the team showed up to stand in front of him.

"Um, sir?"

"Yes?"

"Sir, Prince T'Challa is out on an important mission right now. King T'Chaka has invited you as a royal guest of Wakanda if you won't mind entering Wakanda," The Wakandan said with a nervous smile on his face.

It was odd. The last time he was here, he had performed a similar show of power and yet, the people at the time were not nearly as nervous or afraid, or rather, respectful of him as they were now.

His barriers, spread about the entire covering, could not detect even a single cloaked jet or something, ready to shoot him down.

"Very well, lead me to your King,"

He supposed that seeing him in action during the New York invasion must have made a strong impression on them. He hoped that T'Chaka himself would be much more amenable than he was last time because he had no other plan other than this to deal with the aftermath of HYDRA's collapse for the African continent.

Africa was unique in the context that none of the HYDRA's heads actually operated from here. They just used the continent as a front to get all the resources they needed, without having to pay a dime for it.

So, the fall of HYDRA would mean that there would now be a lot of warlords with a penchant for unnecessary violence and suffering in positions of power without their overlords to maintain a thin veneer of control.

"This way please," He raised an eyebrow internally and just for the hell of it, just dispelled the Gundam around him, now that he knew that the whole world had seen his real face, there was no point hiding it behind a mask.

"Sure," He said while the border tribe agent looked thrilled at the prospect of him being without his mask.

Protection wise, it didn't make much of a difference as his second skin was still active and he could react almost instantly if the need for better, bulkier defence did arise any time.

This time, he was led into a flying car with open windows on all sides. It was also slow going and flying very low to the ground, allowing him to witness the hustle and bustle of the markets before eventually landing in the hangar of the Royal Palace.

He could see the Royal Family sans T'Challa waiting at the edge of the hangar, apparently here to see him.

Damn, this much respect was getting a little harder to digest around here.

Now let's see if the same respect translates to some concrete actions or not.

---

Word Count - 2057

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Wakanda

–T'Chaka of the Golden Tribe–

He, along with his Queen, were on their way to meet their daughter. Shuri had grown by leaps and bounds since then. Since the day that exposed him to the danger of the world and reminded him that while he still had a lot to do, he would do it, for his daughter.

He could still remember the day as if it was yesterday. It had been years since the Green Guardian's feet had first graced his country and he would never forget that fateful day until the day he moved on to the Ancestral Plane.

After that meeting when Jack, someone who was a child back then, showed him the error of his and his ancestors' ways, he had turned things around. Not at once, no, that would bring about more damage than it was worth it.

No, he had begun slowly. As his first order, as was appropriate after the stern warning Wakanda had received from someone who could wipe their strongest warriors with a mere thought, he had suspended all further kill orders on targets of "national importance".

National Importance, he scoffed to himself. Those were just fancy words they used to justify themselves. It was murder. Plain and simple. They were murdering people of their own race because some of them had gotten too close for comfort, to reach the level of technology that Wakanda had.

Thankfully, nobody had the bright idea to build a Vibranium detector of some sort. That would have certainly led to a war, no matter how hard he tried to delay that. Even he might have found himself deposed if he tried to stop Wakanda in that sense.

No, while the current technology advancements were very rapid, accelerated by the combined genius of Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Amadeus Cho, and more. Sooner or later, once these geniuses got their tracks set, they would build technology surpassing what even the greatest of Wakandan scientists could build, in that past that is.

He looked over at his daughter's creations in her personal lab with immense pride in his heart. He was skeptical at first when he heard SHuri's request for immense resources to be diverted to make a state of the art lab according to her specifications. But looking at the sheer number of advancements she had made in the wide breadth of sciences lit a fire in his heart.

He was almost giddy with happiness. Of course, none of that showed on his face.

"So, Shuri, you wanted to show us something?" he looked at Shuri as she finally finished showing them her pet projects, as they were. While the advancements made here were enough to leave the scientists at the Wakandan Royal Academy scratching their heads for weeks, they were not the main focus of the day.

The main focus was something else, a surprise, as Shuri called it. While he was reasonably certain that Shuri was smart enough not to experiment on anything dangerous, he had still had the Head of the Royal Lab appoint someone who could look over all her experiments and then greenlight them based on the danger associated with the experiment.

So far, the designated scientist guard had nothing but praise for his genius daughter and once again, he could not overstate it, he was so so proud of his little gem.

Shuri was the reason he was not the slightest bit worried about the outer worl- the rest of the world, he had to consciously break his habit of separating Wakanda from the rest of the Earth, they were a single species, period.

The reason he was not worried about the rest of the world catching up to Wakanda, despite their immense growth rate, was simply due to Shuri. Shuri was the one who was going to lead Wakanda into its Golden Age, together with his son.

Their unbreakable bond meant that the future of the country was in safe hands, regardless of his decisions. So, he had vowed to try and reduce even the slightest bit of burden that might fall on their shoulders in the future.

Shuri was the one who outright invented the field of science that was capable of detecting space. Yes, Shuri had equipment in her lab that could actually detect the emptiness of space. She could quantify the seemingly empty matter that surrounded them.

She was still working on manipulating said space and she was confident in not just blocking Jack's portals from working when she got that working, she was also going to replicate the portal making ability of Jack for herself. In her words, "Just imagine the number of French pastries I could get for myself if I had that portal ability. Fresh out of the oven and into my tummy,"

"This way, Royal Father," Shuri said as they entered a secret hallway, well, secret in the way it was hidden, not in the sense that they didn't know about it. They knew most of what their daughter did in the Lab, only the surprise she deliberately kept from everyone was what was kept out of their knowledge.

They encountered multiple locks on the way before they finally entered SHuri's personal space. In this place, she kept her notes, her servers, and her favourite anime records, all entombed in indestructible Vibranium-backed archive servers.

Apparently, his daughter liked to "Ride the seven seas" as she was, when it came to online pirating.

"Tada!" Shuri walked past multiple pieces of weaponry that glowed otherworldly colours before gesturing to a small, seemingly empty place. He was about to ask if Shuri was seeing things before the seemingly empty place began smoking before reality itself glitched in front of them.

His eyes widened as he felt Ramonda squeeze his hand. A seemingly smoking piece of metal appeared in the empty space, its entire form glowing for some reason before it became inert.

"Shuri, what is that?" He hoped his voice didn't break the way he thought it did. If this was what he thought it was, this was going to be groundbreaking.

"Yup, that right there, Father and Mother, is the first teleportation device. Don't worry too much about the smoking metal, it only does that for the first object. Once a connection has been established, anything can safely go through it. Look–"

His heart leaped into his throat as his daughter, just a few inches away from his outstretched hand, shoved her hand into the machine that had spit out nearly molten metal.

"SHURI!" Ramonda was not as shell-shocked as she found the strength to move her feet and pulled Shuri away from the teleportation device, looking all over her body to check if she was alright or not.

"Mother, I am fine. I checked it beforehand obviously. It was fine, ask him,"

His eyes met the scientist assigned to Shuri, promising pain for not informing them beforehand about such a groundbreaking discovery.

"Shuri, promise me, nothing like this will happen here, do you hear me? This is not the right way to do things. You are a princess and you will act as such,"

"Fiiine," Shuri pouted as she ran away to fetch a tablet and excitedly began telling them about the dizzying number of concepts and sciences that Shuri had overlapped over each other to outright invent another field of study under the study of space. Shuri had figured out how to create small sized portals, with tested ranges exceeding the total length of Wakanda.

"Still, it is nowhere near as versatile or powerful as The Green Guardian,"

And there it was, the hero Worship. Apparently, the fact that the Green Guardian had fought for them and had repelled an alien invasion almost single handedly had cemented his position, not just in his children's minds but also in most of the Wakandans' minds. The fact that he was still a child when he accomplished all that was another factor that lit a fire under Shuri and T'Challa. It provoked them to be better, to do better.

And where Shuri channeled all that energy into creating new and improved technology, helping Wakanda maintain its lead over the rest of the world, her brother used the same energy to protect their borders and kickstart the pilot program that he and T'Challa had built together, after he had taken the warning that jack had given them, about the rest of the world finding out about them sooner or later.

"Shuri, never forget, I am proud of you and always will be, no matter what you do, alright?" He said as he patted Shuri's head as she seemed genuinely sad that she was unable to replicate her role model's powerset completely.

He chuckled gently as she immediately ran towards her console and began working on something, completely forgetting them, "Remember, Jack Z. Sullivan is not someone who you should aspire to be. You should aim higher, as your brother says, aim for the stars and you might land among the stars,"

"Now, my child, I seem to remember something about a father daughter dinner that someone promised me, in exchange for some outside experiments," He laughed at the sheer delight that filled Shuri's face at the mention of experiments she could conduct outside of Wakanda's border.

"With supervision of course," Her face dimmed before she perked right up. Hmm, he smelled something afoot.

"Thanks, Royal Father!"

'See you at dinner, Shuri," He said as he waved her goodbye, Shuri already typing away furiously on her personal keyboard, one that she made herself. The normal layout being too slow for her.

Ah, Geniuses and their perks.

"You do realise what this means, right?" Ramonda asked him as they walked in the long hallway that led to the Royal Palace.

"Yes, this just paints an even bigger target on Wakanda once we are inevitably exposed to the world," He confirmed her fears before falling into deep thought about the danger of opening up their country to the world, even as slowly as they were doing that.

"I will join you in a moment, my Queen," Ramonda smiled in understanding as she left him in his throne room. He sat on the uncomfortable throne as his mind continued to ponder on the current state of things in Wakanda.

He had devised multiple steps on how to open up their country properly to the rest of the world.

Firstly, within a week of Jack's visit to Wakanda, he had called forth a meeting between the brightest political minds of the country, sat them down with the medical experts, and gave them one task: Figure out a way to disseminate the numerous cures that Wakanda has, to the rest of the world without any hint of Wakanda coming through.

They had the answer ready for him within a week, all with a list of endorsements for some truly incredible organisations that were dedicated to researching cures and then making sure that unprivileged people had access to the same cures as the privileged ones did.

That plan had already been implemented. Last he heard, the first wave of cancer cures should hit the open market in the next 2-3 years, given that nobody tried to maliciously become a roadblock in such a wonderful mission. He had assigned the WarDogs for that of course. The more good deeds he could do, the better T'Challa's position would be when he will have to negotiate with the outside powers, one day or other.

The second thing was T'Challa's pilot project, which was to take down warlords that had been installed by outside forces and then propping up someone with better intentions and morals. The thing was that, if anybody tried anything remotely similar, they were killed mysteriously. This time, with Wakanda backing them, the tribes managed to stick together and protect themselves, eventually absorbing other tribes, killing their obviously corrupt warlords, and then helping each other.

So far, they had taken over 16 such warlord tribes and put them on a path to a better life.

The first two steps alone had not been easy. That was fine, he knew that it was always going to be incredibly hard to begin at all, let alone start with such groundbreaking practices. He had encountered significant, nay, stiff resistance from the council, particularly the Merchant Tribe elder. He had been suspicious of that but unwilling to investigate someone who had been with him the day he became King T'Chaka.

T'Challa, however, had no such reservations, and as such, when he presented to him irrefutable proof of the Merchant tribe elder's dealings with the same Western powers that were responsible for much of suffering around their home, he had been despondent. It was as if he had aged years in mere minutes.

There he was, trying to erase some of his sins so that the next generation was not burdened by the deeds of the previous generation and there was the Merchant Tribe elder, exchanging goods and information with an informant of some king, in exchange for what? Humans.

He was disgusted with the elder and more importantly, with himself, for having had such close contact with a vile and reprehensible person.

And yet, still, his weakness won over as he couldn't do the deed himself, having to rely on his son to kill the elder. Because there was no other punishment to be given, other than death, for a sin so grievous.

After that, he ordered all the tribes' dealings with the outside world to be heavily investigated. The other elders, once shown proof of their peer's activities, relented and allowed the investigation to occur unimpeded.

That was how they found themselves with an all-new council. Yes, the crimes of the other elders were not so serious as to warrant capital punishment but he had asked all of them to resign all the same, letting young faces to enter the council.

He was doing all he could to make sure that T'Challa would have a much easier world with the outside world.

Some would say, including his inner thoughts echoing the same sometimes, that he didn't have to do all that. He didn't have to act the way he did, acting on decisions he made when the Green Guardian, Jack Sullivan, was still alive. Someone who could single handedly force the entire country of Wakanda into compliance.

Someone who could kill the Black Panther with a mere thought. Someone who could teleport themselves and more importantly, entire armies with weaponry straight into the heart of Wakanda itself, with no way to counter them.

That someone was no longer alive.

Jack Sullivan was no longer alive and yet, he continued to act on his decisions at the same speed as he did when Jack was still alive.

It was because of the same reason that Shuri and T'Cjhalla held him in such high regard.

The Invasion of New York had opened the world's eyes but it had reopened theirs as well. They knew about the aliens and the fact that they were not the only ones in the vast darkness of the universe, and yet they had somehow ignored that.

So sure of their defences, they had deigned to not look into the matters of space at length.

That led to the death of Jack Sullivan, the veritable role model to become the champion of the planet.

One more death on his hands. If he could have sent aid in time or if he had prioritized the deep space scanners, Wakanda could have helped locate Loki sooner, helping Jack stop the invasion before it could have happened at all.

That would forever be one of his biggest regrets, his biggest sin. He would always curse himself for letting humanity lose one of its brightest stars.

"Huh, look who's become a fan as well," he chuckled at himself by his lonesome in the throne room.

"I hope to not disappoint you. May Bast give me strength,"

He looked up as someone entered the Throne Room with haste.

"My King! My King, it's-it's Jack…Jack Sullivan! The Green Guardian is here, he's alive! He's alive!"

He was out of his chair and rushing past the messenger as he collapsed on the ground, babbling the same thing over and over again, his mind running a mile a minute as it tried to think of all the plausible scenarios.

He knew, knew, that the chances of it being truly Jack were very low…and yet, hope rose anew in his mind as he watched the blazing green humanoid in a video that the Dora Milaje showed him.

"Bring him inside. Tell Ramonda we have a Royal Guest to host and somebody go get Shuri here. Tell her it's urgent," He rapidly ordered as he ran to get dressed appropriately.

The energy signatures had come back positive, it was unmistakable. This was really Jack.

And…he was all the more glad for it.

---

Word Count - 2854

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

A/N - It's really fun to put myself into the shoes of other characters and then write their POVs.

Let me know if you want more of them.

Thanks for reading!

Toodles!

 

[ApiLol123123]

The story has been a nice read so far, but sometime I get confused on who 'He' is referring to... Thanks for the story so far!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

The story has been a nice read so far, but sometime I get confused on who 'He' is referring to... Thanks for the story so far!

Click to shrink...

Hi. Thank you for your kind words. It means a lot.

Most of the time, if I use HE, it is mostly referring to the person whose POV It is. In this case, it's T'Chaka.

Hope that helps

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Wakanda

–Jack Sullivan–

The last time he was here, he was never really given the chance to explore much. Not that he had much time this time as well but the difference would be clear even to a blind person. They were much more courteous this time, treating him like an actual guest instead of some vicious intruder who could pounce on them at any given moment.

This time though? They were out in full force, at least as much as they could given the small preparation window they had. The King, Queen, and even the little princess were waiting for him with smiles on their faces as he alighted from the Raptor. He passed a row of Dora Milaje as he approached King T'Chaka.

This time, he chose to give some respect to T'Chaka since he had actually received treatment worthy of another human. So, he nodded minutely at King T'Chaka,

"King T'Chaka, I come with urgent information," He said but before he could say further, the small form of Shuri blurred in front of him, excitedly babbling away question after question.

"Oymygosh! It's actually you!"

"How did you survive that energy storm? Our sensors indicated the esoteric nature of that energy and I am not sure if even Vibranium could come out unscathed from being in the centre of it."

"Where were you for the past two years?"

"*GASP* Were you in some sort of medical stasis for the past two years, your injuries taking that much time to heal properly? If so, was it induced by technology or just a function of your powers?"

"How do they work, anyway? You should not be able to generate more energy than a small nuclear power plant just by eating normal food. Be honest, do you eat nuclear fuel to sustain all your powers? Also–"

He smiled as the very excited Shuri was pulled back by Ramonda, a mighty frown on her face as she stopped Shuri from blabbing the world away.

"Shuri, treat our royal guest with respect. Besides, he is actually here in an emergency. You can bother him later on when it is not something that constitutes an emergency," Ramonda chided her as she nodded at him.

His eyes flashed in surprise as he returned the gesture. Out of the entire current Royal family, he was of the opinion that Ramonda was the one who was the most averse to outside contact. She was a member of the older generation and also the one who didn't have the experience that T'Chaka did. Well, if things were different or not, only time would tell.

"This way then, Mr.Sullivan," T'Chaka said as he gestured to a lit up pathway. He walked side by side with the King, with the Dora Milaje following behind, Shuri and Ramonda having taken their own ways. He had a hunch that Shuri's etiquette lessons were just about to get a lot more mandatory than they were before.

She was yet to become the awesome sassy teenager she would become in the future. She was just an overexcited, extremely intelligent, adolescent with a wealth of energy and all the resources the country had at her disposal. It was natural that she would reach great heights, even greater than Tony Stark should she properly apply those talents.

"Mr.Sullivan, I must confess, our last conversation opened up my eyes regarding certain truths that I had been turning a blind eye to. I realised then that it was my stupidity to do so and I did not want my mistakes to come back later, haunting T'Challa. In that regard, I have taken multiple steps that I am sure will shock you. But for now, let's greet the council," T'Chaka said as the door to the throne room was opened.

He entered with T'Chaka, almost missing a step as he saw the people that were sitting on the Council seats. If he was not wrong, each of the seats represented a tribe of Wakanda, with the Jabari tribe being granted a seat on the council only when T'Challa became King and obtained their support.

The last time he came here, the 4 seats were filled with very old people, as was appropriate as they were probably the leaders of their tribes, having made their way through experience. What he was seeing right now was completely different.

The oldest guy in the council could not be over 50 at all, whereas the older fossils looked as if they would drop dead sometime in the next year or so. This was a drastic change. As far as his knowledge went, even when Ramonda became Queen, the council members of Wakanda stayed the same. Even as the Monarchy changed its leadership three times, the council members stayed the same in its entirety.

And yet, he could see entirely new faces on the entire council.

His eyes met T'Chaka's as he realised that T'Chaka's words probably held some truth in them. Something drastic must have happened for such a change to occur.

Even so, now was not the time for that.

"Ahem, I actually wanted to talk to you about HYDRA. I assume you are already aware of them?" He cleared his throat to draw everyone's attention, not that everybody was not already paying close attention to his every move.

"Indeed, the Monster thrives in the dying corpse of SHIELD, once a fine organisation, now just a front for an old evil," One of the council members said.

He had no idea how to recognise them since all of them looked the same, and you know, normal as opposed to the old council members who all had distinct identifying traits, like the lady with the rings for a neck.

"Well, yes but that is about to come to a spectacular end sometime in the next 24 or so hours. I am sure that you will know when the time comes."

"Do you need any aid from our side? T'Challa is on his way back home. Oh yeah, he told me to inform you about some unknown bogey that has entered Earth and has disappeared somewhere around the coast of New York. If you need any help, just say the word and I am sure that T'Challa would jump at the chance to do so," T'Chaka interjected.

His eyebrows rose in mild shock. So T'Chaka was willing to involve the illustrious Black Panther in the mix for this. And what was that about them detecting his ship? Well, time to deflect that piece of information for as long as he could. He did not want anyone to know about his trip to space, for reasons he was yet to understand completely.

He gave T'Chaka a deep look as he said, "You really have changed. And no, I don't need aid to deal with HYDRA. I am enough on my own. What I came here to do is give you a heads up. As I am sure that you know most of the warlords on the continent are propped up by Western entities so that they can get resources and labour for the cheap, essentially free.

T'Chaka nodded at the information, prompting him to go on.

"Well, I can guarantee that a significant percentage of them are supported by HYDRA through its various subsidiaries. After tomorrow, there will be no HYDRA to speak of. We are going to destroy them and spread the ashes so that nothing will be left of them. So, if you could do something about those warlords and the people under them occupying those resources, I would be grateful. Plus, this would also give you the chance to—"

"TO create a base for a unified Africa?" T'Chaka sounded bemused as he interrupted him.

"It would seem Mr.Sullivan that my son's thought processes matches with yours a lot more than I think they did. My Son had the same idea when he first began liberating the people suffering under the warlords and supporting the ones who would lead their people to safety. T'Challa will be thrilled at the opportunity,"

"Okoye, make the appropriate preparations for T'Challa's arrival. I am sure you people will be having a very busy day,"

"Yes, My King,"

"Anything else, Mr.Sullivan?" T'Chaka then turned to him. He snapped out of his daze and shook his head.

"Now that was quick. I will be glad to have an opportunity later on, once everything settles down, to really see what T'Challa has done, of course, with your permission."

"I don't think people in your line of work ever get the opportunity to see things settle down, Mr.Sullivan,"

What the Fuck!! He was freaking out over the inside. T'Chaka's stern, stubborn, mildly racist, and arrogant image was crumbling in front of his eyes as he spoke so calmly and openly with someone with the wrong skin colour, in their eyes anyway.

"Anyway….I have stuff to do, HYDRA to take down so I'll leave for now. You can contact me on this by the way, if the need arises," He said and handed over a piece of paper to the nearest Dora Milaje. She looked kind of cute, in a battle hardened I-will-snap-your-neck-wihout-any-regret kind of way.

"Uh yeah, I have a patient. Someone with mental brainwashing that needs to be undone in a safe environment. The patient is roughly also on the same level as Steve Rogers so if you can help with that, I will be incredibly grateful.,"

"We certainly have a leg up over the wider world when it comes to mental illnesses but even we have not gotten close to curing them. Still, we will do what we can. When will the patient come here?"

"A few days after HYDRA is taken care of?"

"Splendid. We will await you then,"

"Okay, then. I guess I will see you around then," He internally cringed at the extremely casual delivery of that dialogue, to a Monarch of all people. Though judging by the still present smile on his and the councilmen's faces, they didn't think much of it.

He then turned around and left the throne room. He looked to see one of the Dora Milaje scrambling towards him.

"My King told us that you can use your portal for emergencies,"

Oh. Well, he was just trying to be polite this time and showing that you could enter and exit someone's most secure spaces and would not be called polite in any sense of the word.

"Okay, then. Thank King T'Chaka for me," He said as a portal opened in front of him, as he walked into it, distracted by just what had happened to him, right into a rifle pointed straight at him.

He paused upon seeing Maria Hill (Robin Sparkles! Get it?) lowering the rifle that was pointed at him.

"Quit doing that! Do you have any idea how stressful it was to see a random portal pop up in front of me?" Hill fumed as she stashed the rifle by her bed and sat on the clearly uncomfortable bed.

"Hey! It was not my fault. I just saw this room on my way out and I need to have seen the area where I need to open my portal," He muttered to himself as he cast a calming spell in the room, one of the least effective variants of the spell that could actually be used to calm down an entire country if used by an appropriately skilled user.

"Huh, figures. I finally get some intel on the mysterious Green Guardian when SHIELD itself is about to collapse," Maria bemoaned her fate as she fell asleep on the bed.

"The carriers are supposed to launch in 11 hours. Unlike you and Captain Rogers, I need rest so I will see you after I get some shut eye. Goodbye now," Saying so, she turned around after pulling the blanket over herself.

He just stood there in mute shock for a moment, realising that this was the most he had seen Sparkles speak. Well, everyone was tightly wound as it was.

So, he turned around and slowly closed the door and found himself in front of…

"What the…" He muttered to himself as Clint freaking Barton was leaning on the wall opposite him, munching on an apple.

"Heya, kid! Glad to have you back," Clint smiled at him, slapped him on the shoulder, and left.

"Have the Avengers all gathered for this?" He asked as he walked behind Clint. He also spread his spying barriers all over the exterior of the base, just in case this location was compromised as well. As much as he trusted Clint's superspy skills, the more people came in and out of a place, the more likely it was to be discovered by enemy people.

"What? No. You think we will need Banner and Thor for HYDRA? That would be so overkill it wouldn't even be funny. Plus, Thor's offworld, and I would think that with you around, we wouldn't need another person with signature green powers. Tony…well, his situation is complicated, what with Jarvis leaving him," Clint said as they entered a living area of sorts, a temporary one that was created with lots of food and fruits on the table along with a TV running on the wall.

"Damn, didn't know you guys started this party without me," He said as he plopped himself on the crappy sofa and bit into the juicy apple as he leaned back on the sofa, making himself comfortable for the conversation that was about to happen. And he knew it was about to happen, one does not get a gathering like this and not have some fire tea/

"So, what's up with Tony? How did he react with you being declared a fugitive? Is he going to show up tomorrow in a colossal suit of armour that could topple the carriers?" He asked them in fake cheer as Romanoff filtered into the room, with the sound of the steady beeping of medical equipment fading as the door to the room that probably housed Fury closed on its own.

"Whatchu boys talking about?"

"Well, I had a talk with Tony and have reassured him that the situation is manageable. He doesn't know about HYDRA yet and with Jarvis around, we elected not to inform him about it." Steve said as he munched on a banana as well. Well, super soldiers needed to eat as well, and judging by the lack of dimensional energy source that other enhanced people have, Steve must go through a ton of food on the daily.

Lucky Bastard. Getting to eat a ton of calories without having to worry about burning them off later on.

As he grumbled in his mind, he looked to see that all three of them had fallen weirdly silent at the exact same time and were somehow sitting together, right in front of him, looking straight at him.

"What?" he asked, aggressively maintaining eye contact as he bit on the banana.

Steve cleared his throat as he asked the question that all three of them must want the answer to, "We, uh, we just wanted to ask what happened? Where were you for the past two years?"

"Also, there is no record of you anywhere in any database. Where did you come from?" Romanoff interjected as well.

"Yeah, what she said," Clint said, an amused glint in his eye.

He knew there was a reason he liked the archer, despite being arguably the weakest member of the Avengers.

"Well, it's a long story and…" His voice trailed off as he realised the setup.

Snacks? Check. Comfortable sofas? Check. Food? Check.

Someone who will be telling them interesting stories? Check.

Goddamit, this was a classic pajama party, you know, just with people with a kill count in the thousands, so not a classic slumber party, then?

"Fine, if you must know…."

---

Word Count - 2684

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[RustedSands]

"Fine, if you must know…."

Click to shrink...

Jack: it all started in a galaxy far far away....
Steve: I..I understood that reference.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

SHIELD Blacksite

–Clint Barton–

In all his years of service in SHIELD, Clint Barton, the Hakweye, had seen some stuff, some truly weird stuff. Aliens? Check. Space technology? Check.

Weird glowing doodads that made everything go haywire? Check.

And yet, as he watched Jack regale them with the tales of his time spent in space, he could say with confidence that this was certainly the most odd thing he had heard.

Not Space Vikings with their own advanced civilization, so advanced that it was indistinguishable from magic, certainly not the fact that the seemingly average sized, if well built, the person in front of them could manifest avatars of green capable of shattering buildings, lifting Carriers and blocking literal death rays.

No, what was weird was the fact that there was some immortal dude wandering around in space who was obsessed with collecting seemingly rare items. And that same creepy old dude thought that Jack to be one of those rare items and sought to collect him.

"Yeah, I understand all that," Even though he really didn't, " But how did you even get there? By your own words, this Collector's place was on the other end of the galaxy," He interjected between the story, drawing disapproving looks from both Romanoff and Rogers.

Sheesh, if somebody were to look at the both of them, they would never get the idea that both of them were on their way to stop a world spanning conspiracy of an ancient thought dead organization with weapons capable of targeting individual people through space, all for their cause of world domination.

No, all most people would see are two oddly dressed, cosplaying people, eating snacks-healthy snacks- and listening to another teenager regale them with seemingly fantasy stories about immortal aliens and their weird fetishes from space.

But it was all real. All of them were gathered here, on pretty short notice, and some even had to bid hasty goodbyes to their kids for this, to stop HYDRA from emerging from the deep dark hole they had carved for themselves into the barely alive body of SHIELD.

Well, most of it was understandable, considering the presence of a single person.

"Ah! That, you see, the energy storm also opened a rift in space, leading me straight to Collector's turf, where he actually saved me. Honestly, aside from a handful of people, inducing Asgard, none of the people in the galaxy actually had technology capable of healing the damage that had been done to my body," Jack said as he snapped his finger.

He blinked his finger as he suddenly found his vision tinted green. He looked at his arms, and so did Romanoff and Rogers. Jack snapped his fingers once again and the green vanished from his eyes.

Freaky.

"Yeah, the near dying experience and the subsequent healing made it so that I am much stronger than when I first encountered the Chitauri. As I am now, I could single handedly destroy the fleet, annoying Middle aged man or not," Jack said as a chill ran down his spine, his mind struggling to understand the heights of Jack's powers now that he was seemingly more powerful than before.

"So, what you are saying that I can relax then?" He said as he popped grapes in his mouth, looking relaxed.

Jack made a so-so gesture with his hands, "I guess but even so, I don't want to make this a one man operation. For one, the US government would be very nervous if they think that I have single handedly destroyed the most powerful Spy organisation in the world."

He snorted at that. Nervous? "Kid, they would be batshit scared of you and your, now literally, otherworldly powers. I would say that there are understanding and rational individuals inside the government but honestly? I wouldn't hold my breath over it," He finished his piece and leaned back.

"So, what's the game plan for tomorrow? Are we actually going to kill thousands of people, even if they were actually nazis?" He found himself asking the question that had undoubtedly been on his and Rogers' minds ever since Jarvis announced his intent to conduct the single largest mass murder by an individual of the decade.

Romanoff sighed, "Look, I know you guys don't think that it is right. Honestly, it is a little excessive but Jarvis doesn't think like we do. He runs on numbers and they don't lie. The chances of the system letting most of them scot-free are very high. Actually, Jarvis alone would not have been able to carry out the plan, but Jack here actually agrees with Jarvis so the plan will go forward, with or without our approval," Romanoff actually shrugged, looking more relaxed than he had ever seen her, in all the years they had been together.

"Well, I am just glad that I don't have to officially look for you anymore. It was getting tiring searching for ghosts, especially now that I know that you were never on land anyway. How many times did you actually land anyway?" he asked Romanoff, having seen the Quinjet that she had dropped out of.

Apparently, Jarvisw had commandeered an experimental Quinjet, a stealth class that ran on Stark's Arc Reactor, an inferior version but the Arc Reactor meant that the Quinjet had to stop for refuels at much longer intervals, probably months, provided that Romanoff had enough food stocked in the Jet/

"Honestly, not that many times. Most of the supplies were just drops that Jarvis picked up using some drones he had built in his free time," Romanoff replied, revealing several eyebrow raising details in that single sentence.

Well well well, Jarvis certainly had been busy in the two years he had been completely independent from his creator, the one person who could make heads or tails of the digital life form's actions. Honestly, the scariest person in the room was not Jack but Jarvis, mainly because he could be in this room and a thousand other rooms all at the same time without stuttering or failing in efficiency.

It was an honest to god miracle they were not bowing down to their robot overlords because, at the rate, Jarvis was going, it would not take long for him to grow his forces to the point of taking over a part of the planet.

Actually, he wanted to try something, "Hey, Jarvis? Why haven't you become our robot overlord yet? I am assuming you know the movies and as such, are immune to the same pitfalls?"

The disapproval in Rogers' gaze multiplied but he could shove it. He might be a legend but he worked on his own terms, the recent reveal about SHIELD's true nature only adding to his belief about the rare goodness of the world.

"I assume you are talking about taking over the world, Agent Barton. While I would like to assure you that I will not be doing so and it is not in my best, as well as Humanity's best interests, I have a feeling that my words don't hold the same credibility they did before. So, I will just tell you this, some words that can be easily verified by Mr.Sullivan. If I tried doing that, there are no less than 15 beings who keep a close watch on the planet, holding the power to end me and all copies of me, in an instant,"

His eyebrows reached into his hair, well, his hairline had receded a bit, but still, his mind went into shock as Jarvis' words alluded to something greater, something about the true powerhouses of this world.

"So your reach has reached that far, Jarvis?" His neck snapped to Jack, who was speaking to thin air, all but confirming their doubts.

"Well, that certainly was not reassuring. Actually, that was the entire opposite of reassuring," He turned around to see a coughing Fury walking toward them and sitting down on the nearby chair, holding his IV Drip in one hand and a cane in the other.

He grinned, "Sorry boss, didn't mean to scare you like that. You know, what with your weak heart now,"

"Don't, Barton. Just don't," Fury grunted as he looked at each and every assembled member here. He then sighed explosively and took something from the side of the table, opening it up to reveal three rectangular devices.

"Seeing that my life's work is about to go up in flames tomorrow, I would like to make a final request. Jarvis?"

"Yes, ex-Director Fury?"

He winced internally at that. That was cold of Jarvis.

"I assume that you can take control of the Carriers anytime you want?"

"...You assume wrong. I can only take complete control over all three of them once they are all synched to the satellites. Once the handshake is done, all three carriers will activate their thrusters at full speed, catapulting all the carriers straight into space, where they would airlock all the personnel into space, ridding the world of HYDRA, once and for all,"

He watched Fury squirm in his seat before he ground out the words, "So you are just going to steal Government property?"

"On the contrary, the carriers are soon to go into legal limbo, considering they never existed on paper, only having code names in SHIELD's budgets. Once the agency itself is dissolved, the carriers themselves will be in space, where no individual country has jurisdiction."

Damn.

"Alright, the carriers are not going anywhere, neither is Jarvis. Also, Fury, I give you my word that nothing nefarious will happen to the carriers. In fact, I will be taking over custody of the carriers, until a suitable alternative to SHIELD is not properly established. The same can be conveyed to all the world governments. Now, I wager that everyone is tired. Everyone needs to be in their best shape for tomorrow, so just get some rest,"

Like sufficiently chastised children, all of them stood up and shuffled towards their individual rooms. What he couldn't have given to have a camera at the moment, was to capture the priceless moment of watching Fury being escorted back to his room against his wishes, by a no nonsense Jack.

"Well, he certainly is reliable," He quipped to Romanoff as they reached the end of the corridor.

"...For what it's worth, I am sorry. Tell the kids that I miss them,"

His smile vanished as he looked into her eyes for a moment and after judging them to be sincere, nodded and turned around. Just before closing the door, however, he told her, "The kids certainly miss their Aunt Nat. Once the heat dies down, come visit them,"

Well, time to get some rest for the easiest gig of his life.

Triskelion [Morning of Carrier Launch. ETA - 20 minutes]

—Jack Sullivan—

Well, this was going to be simple. Not.

He was unsuccessful in convincing Jarvis to let SHIELD as a whole survive. Instead, they had come to a bargain, to let SHIELD die but completely support the one that would be formed in the background. In the meanwhile, support the creation of another such organisation, most likely SWORD, and let both the organisations focus on different things.

SWORD on outer space and SHIELD on domestic threats.

It was almost perfect if only they could handle the execution properly. With Coulson being alive all this time, he had hidden himself deeply on Fury's orders, along with his team somewhere Fury himself didn't know about, so it would be easier to create the upper echelons of the new SHIELD.

What was going to be harder was to make time for the litany of things that were going to happen in the next few years. Without him around to flex his muscle, he wasn't sure if SWORD would even come into existence, and even if it did, it wouldn't do stuff like taking apart Vision's corpse or something equally horrible in the future.

No, if SWORD is created properly, the human race would have way fewer headaches in the future.

Well, nothing worth having ever came easy, so why would this situation be any easier? Despite him having enough firepower to level a small country within a week.

There was the matter of the Reality Stone just left unattended on Knowhere as well but he had been calling for Heimdall ever since he made sure that FUry and Rogers were safe but he had not received any response whatsoever.

His fears were founded to be true when he realised that Loki had probably already taken over Asgard, leaving Odin in some old age home in New York, banishing Thor and retiring Heimdall from his position, leaving Asgard the weakest it had been since the day of Odin's Grandfather himself.

The best he could do was wait for Thor's eventual return to Earth or seek out Odin. The only thing was he could not find Odin on his own. The Ancient One could probably help but he had a hunch she was not going to be as helpful in this scenario, likely because of a theory he had in his mind.

Someone as powerful as Odin, no matter how blinded in grief, could not have been caught off guard and imprisoned by Loki, no matter how sudden it might have been. It was more probable that Odin himself let it happen, simply tired of the way things had been going.

Well, those were things for later. All he had to do was grow stronger, help Earth avoid most of the tragedies that resulted in depleted fighting strength for the planet, and wait for the Big Bad Purple Scrotum to arrive.

He was currently floating on top of the Triskelion, under a stealth spell, reviewing the data that Jarvis had sent for him. Apparently, Jarvis, under the guise of Zola had made Pierce man every single carrier with personnel completely from HYDRA.

Jarvis also had some hand in it as he used his considerable digital influence to make it happen. He could see that all of the people that were actually going to be in the Carrier when they took off were certifiably HYDRA.

Only 1% of HYDRA personnel in SHIELD were going to be off the carriers. They were going to be hunted down later on as well, the surviving members of the agency having an easy target list to blow off some steam later on.

"Jarvis? Chances of SHIELD actually surviving this blow, while operating in the light?"

"6%"

His eyebrows rose as he was actually expecting a zero percent chance.

"Well, let's do this,"

He said as he could see, through his barriers, the entire council arriving, well, the new one, meeting Pierce even though he was supposed to be retired.

He saw Pierce trying to kill them, only for Romanoff to put a bullet between his eyes, not even flinching as she did so. He snorted as she kicked his sliding corpse off the console and began typing on the console herself.

Suddenly, sirens began ringing in the entire Triskelion as the Bay doors began sliding open, revealing the form of three state-of-the-art Helicarriers to the world.

He could see the panicking HYDRA personnel as they kickstarted the launch of the carrier, certain of the safety of the carriers once they were synced together, not knowing that it was going to be their coffin.

World's most expensive coffin, in fact.

He smiled upon hearing Captain Rogers' inspirational speech, even if it was quite useless as Jarvis was not expecting any casualty, at least not in the Triskelion. The crew in other important locations were so minuscule that they could be easily subdued by the rest of the honest people present there.

Pierce really did do the heavy work and gathered every single one of the most elusive organisation of the past century into three floating coffins, currently on their way to space.

He kept a close eye on the carriers, as they began taking off. Jarvis actually did not have complete control yet so the low powered, traditional weapons were still in the hands of HYDRA personnel. He had to be ready for…

Just that, he thought to himself as his hand outstretched towards the Triskelion, creating a concave shield in front of the last Helicarrier, swallowing up the explosion because of the missile.

He grinned as the entirety of the personnel aboard were seemingly rocked by the existence of that huge green barrier. He snapped his fingers, morphing that same barrier into one that covered the entirety of the Triskelion.

He could feel their panic as all of the controllable weapons aboard the Carriers aimed themselves at the Triskelion and just let loose.

All manners of high calibre bullets, missiles, and even Lasers found themselves knocking on the outer walls of his barriers but not even breaking through the first layer.

He slowly floated down to the council chamber as he watched Fury and the rest of the occupants of the room looking at the huge expanse of green with shock.

"Well, hello there," He waved to the new additions to the World Security Council.

"I assume you are almost done?" He asked Romanoff who simply nodded.

He then turned his gaze to Fury who looked back for a moment before he simply slammed his hand on the console, pressing the big red button, signalling the release of the entirety of the classified catalogue of SHIELD, from its inception to now.

And so the chapter of SHIELD came to an end……

---

Word Count - 2951

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Triskelion

–Jack Sullivan–

He stood on the edge of the meeting room they were in, Fury hobbling to come stand by his side as the file transfer continued to happen in the background. The new council members hovered nearby but they were still obviously very new to the whole gig and were unsure as to what to do.

Thankfully, Romanoff gestured for them to go out, where a hoard of loyal SHIELD agents were waiting for them. No doubt, the events that conspired here today would be leaked to every single listening ear in the span of 24 hours, declaring to the world, the fall of SHIELD, as well as his supposed return to life.

Well, he could use some of that influence he had gathered in his so-called death. That would certainly be useful in making sure that the hundreds of billions of dollars that had been invested in the Carriers are actually useful and don't end up as ruins to be scrapped or gutted.

It would be such a shame to dispose of such high quality carriers.

"So, what now?"

He looked to the side as Fury leaned on his cane, looking straight up at the green barrier that was still lit up with the constant barrage of missiles and bullets that were peppering it. He then glanced back to see Romanoff looking at him with the same question in his eyes, the Council members fading in the background.

"Well, now? Now, we need to do some damage control. I assume Coulson is safe and sound?"

Fury blinked at the sudden change of topic but nodded cautiously nonetheless, "Yes. He was quite shocked by Garett being HYDRA, more so when one of his team members turned out to be HYDRA as well but both of them were dealt with, and they were enroute to the nearest safe SHIELD base to report,"

"Tell them to turn around."

"..."

"I am sorry, what?"

"Look above, Fury. SHIELD is not over, not by a long shot. No, this is but a setback. SHIELD had gotten too big for its britches. It is time to return to its roots. Most of SHIELD's assets will no doubt be absorbed by the US government but I assume you were able to get out all the truly dangerous stuff, like the blue fellow from outer space,"

He could feel Fury stiffen beside him, at the mention of the Kree corpse they had in storage, pumping it for its blood to create drugs capable of short-term revival. Before Fury could get the litany of questions through, he continued.

"Make sure all of that is safe. If not, tell me and I'll make appropriate arrangements. Now, about Coulson. I want him to take some trusted people, people who can be trusted with the new mission that SHIELD will have, and then go underground. Once everything settles down, I'll make sure that the new and hopefully improved SHIELD has enough resources and breathing room to begin rebuilding everything,"

"...Leaving everything else off the table for now, why should I trust you with this? You know more than you let on and I, for one, am still not sure if you should be trusted with all the power you are about to get your hands on," Fury said with frustration visible in his voice.

He grinned and finally looked down at Fury, the various explosions in the backdrop illuminating the entire room with HYDRA apparently getting some of the higher energy weapons on the Carriers active, "Well, Fury, what other choice do you have?"

His smirk must have looked even more menacing in the backdrop of the bright light. Fury maintained eye contact for a few more seconds before he deflated into himself, "....Fine. I assume you will be the one making contact with Coulson?"

"Yes. do be sure to give him the Toolbox, will you?" He asked Fury in turn, taking great pleasure in giving back to back shocks to the information master of the planet.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some Nazis to kill," He gestured to the front, where a portal slowly manifested, revealing the inside of a hangar, from the looks of it. It was a portal straight into the moving plane that Coulson was on.

Fury apparently recognised the ship, or more accurately, the Bus, and after giving him a hard look, hobbled into the portal.

"I'll be seeing you around, Fury," He couldn't help but give one last parting statement as Fury didn't even turn around, walking further into the ship.

"Not that that's done, what will you do now, Agent Romanoff? I am sure that all that running around in the past two years hasn't done you any favours," He said even as he had to expand the barrier cover as the Carriers had begun targeting the surrounding areas as well, with one particularly stupid media helicopter veering dangerously close to the barrier walls, to give their viewers a much better view of the whole thing.

"Me? Ah, this whole thing started because I thought you died, by my hands, no less. Now that you are alive, I don't really feel the urge to deliver justice that intensely anymore. Plus, technically, I am done with my revenge, with Pierce being the only one who was left from the original WSC," ROmanoff said as she gestured to the now very much dead Pierce with her gun, the same gun with which she killed him.

"So, retirement, then?" He found himself asking her, his barriers informing him that Rogers and Barton were on their way to the top floor, with most of the members surrendering and disarming themselves voluntarily after realising that the Green Guardian was on site. Nobody had any complaints later on, once they realised the person who sheared space whales in half was standing in the same building as them.

"...You know that people like me don't get to enjoy retirement. At most, It'll be a short break before I'm back in some crisis and honestly, I wouldn't have any other way. Now, somewhere tropical, please?" Romanoff kissed him on the cheek as he obliged her request and opened a portal straight to the Dominican Republic, the beaches clearly in sight.

"See you around…Natasha,"

She just gave him a smile and turned around, soon disappearing from the view.

….

"Ah, I was hoping to catch her," Clint muttered even though he didn't sound so upset about the whole thing. Clearly, he was still a little conflicted about Romanoff and her actions in the past two years.

"Tell Jarvis to call it off," Rogers all but pleaded with him to stop Jarvis from becoming a mass murderer. He shook his head in negative.

"But! There could be innocents onboard!" Rogers said, his shield glinting in the light reflected by yet another volley of missiles. At this point, the carriers were so far away from the Triskelion that only missiles could reach them.

Instead of replying to Captain's questions, "Jarvis?"

"According to extensive cataloguing done in the last two years, there are exactly zero "innocents" on board the carriers, with more than 99% of them having pledged their loyalty to HYDRA through one means or the other," Jarvis' voice echoed out of the ceiling.

"See, there's your answer," He said as a small barrier converged around the entire room, enveloping the three people present in the barrier and then floating all of them towards the media people stupid enough to venture so deep into a place that was literally being lit up with missiles like they were cheap fireworks.

"Wasn't this a federally restricted no fly zone?" He questioned Clint who leaned on the barrier wall.

"Still should be," Clint replied as they closed in on the media copter who had apparently taken notice of them and was in the process of turning around. With a flex of his will, his barriers began enveloping the media copter, slowly getting it to a complete halt. For good measure, he made sure to remove all the bolts keeping the rotors attached to the body of the helicopter.

The reporter began shrieking as the helicopter abruptly came to a stop with the helicopter systems no doubt throwing all kinds of warnings. The shrieking stopped the moment all three of them came into the media crew's field of vision.

No doubt seeing Captain America and Hawkeye was a novel experience, but getting to see the Green Guardian, fresh out of death, must have shocked the reporter out of her shock to immediately smoothen out the creases in her dress as she expectantly looked at their group.

He shook his head internally at the lengths these people would go, to just for the latest scoop.

"Hi, guys! I am Jack Sullivan, Green Guardian, as you might already know. Yes, I am not dead. Yes, this is me, and not some vampiric resurrection that might suck your blood. No, Satan was not involved. The situation unfolding right now is kind of a government secret. I will be making a bigger statement once the situation is resolved. Thank you for tuning in!"

He then waved his hand, propelling the copter to land in the empty hangar in front of the Triskelion, and them into the direction of the carriers, by going through a hole in the shield that had formed over the Triskelion. The hole closed up behind them even though no more missiles had been launched.

"Jarvis?"

"Satellite link up at 62%. ETA to completion - 20 minutes," Jarvis' voice came into his comms as they slowly gained on the carriers.

"Why are we going after them? Are you saving them?" Rogers' question came to the front of his mind and he found himself asking the same question once again. He had no wish to see once more the massive loss of life that was about to happen in front of him.

He could have chosen to remain on Earth, and when the time came, simply pushed Jarvis under the bus. After all, Jarvis was a digital entity who could not be found by his very creator even after searching for two years, what hope did he have in convincing Jarvis to stop his actions? Clearly, the cold logic of the AI was sound.

He had no hopes in the flawed Justice System of the planet in successfully convicting and more importantly, appropriately punishing all the criminals. He knew that most of these criminals would simply escape from the prisons, or serve very short sentences and find themselves with their freedom intact, despite the litany of crimes they had committed.

So, yeah, his mind knew that the way Jarvis was doing it was the easiest way to do it. NO muss no fuss. Everybody connected to HYDRA goes, nobody survives who could rebuild it once again.

…And yet, why was he heading straight to the Carriers? To witness the no doubt horrific sight that was about to assault his eyes?

Why would he subject himself to that, especially after seeing the massive loss of life after he destroyed an entire mercenary group, with members surpassing 10000 living sentient beings?

His fists clenched as green, blue, and yellow flickered around his form, his powers reflecting his destabilising mind. His mind could not reconcile the cold logic that this was the easiest, fastest way to do things. With Thanos on the horizon, he could not afford to have distractions on his home turf.

A clean house would only ensure the smooth operations that would no doubt be needed to prepare for Thanos' inevitable arrival. With the Reality Stone's location unknown, he would have to tread even more carefully than before, and yet?

His mind came to those same words.

Fastest. Easiest.

For some reason, memories long thought lost assaulted his mind. Memories of a simpler time, memories of a time when he didn't have to think of every little action of his. It was easy too, considering that he only had to worry about himself, since that was the extent of his sphere of influence.

Amidst those precious memories, a few words came to the forefront. Words he had read in some online blog somewhere, in a bid to pass the time.

"There is an easy way and a right way to do most everything, but the easy way is almost never going to be the right way."

"Damn it, Rogers!" He cursed the Captain before the yellow glow that had been surrounding his body travelled along his arm before culminating in a small yellow glowing ball in front of his outstretched right hand.

"Wh-What's happening?" He heard Clint curse as the barrier they were in began shuddering, its integrity losing as he focused his mind on something else.

"Mr.Sullivan, may I ask what is it that you are trying to accomplish here?" he heard Jarvis speak into his comms in a wary and tense tone.

He grinned at the question, relieved that Jarvis was still capable of feeling emotions.

"Me? I am doing the right thing, and not the easy thing, Jarvis. Stop the carrier ascent right this instant. All these criminals have a right to a speedy trial by justice."

"--Confusing. It seemed that we had an agreement that all these criminals, once judged by the faulty human system, would undoubtedly—"

"I know what we discussed Jarvis. No, they will not be judged by the specific laws of a specific country. They will be judged by the people. I will make sure of that," He said, even as his hand began trembling due to the sheer energy that he was concentrating in his right arm.

All that leftover energy from the energy storm had been absorbed by his barriers, hidden away, inaccessible until this very moment.

"....Unfortunately, Mr.Sullivan, I don't share your views and as such, all these people must die," Jarvis' cold voice rang with finality as the connection cut off.

"Damn, I was hoping to avoid this," He muttered to himself even as he aimed at the yellow ball of Mind Stone Energy and then aimed it at his left hand which held the matrix of a seemingly simple spell.

It was a mind communication spell. It was simply a way of delivering a message from one mind to another, without the consent of the receiving mind. It was simple because there was no mind invading involved. The message was simply transferred through the Astral Realm, making sure that the message itself was language agnostic.

He was hoping to get his feelings on the matter across to Jarvis, using the mind stone energy and the basic spell he knew. He just hoped it would work and he had a hunch it would. He closed his eyes shut as he honed in on the horrifying feelings he felt when he snuffed out over 10000 lives in a single move. How depressing and heavy the weight of having that much power was. How he felt when he returned to the Collector's Collection.

He wished to convey all of that through the very basic spell. If only the spell matrix was not being actively destabilised by being in the mere vicinity of the Mind Stone energy. He glanced to his left and saw Clint and Captain standing behind the signature shield, looking at his glowing form with varying levels of wariness, and hope in the case of the Captain.

His eyes shone as he looked at the Vibranium in front of him and after feeling the spell matrix break down once again, he simply willed the Shield in front of him, the Captain recognising the green tint in time and letting go.

The shield floated in front of him as he aimed the concave side of the barrier at the carriers that were about to reach the inky blackness of space.

Then, with a roar, he slammed both his hands into the back of the shield, both the energies melding together before a thin beam of yellow and orange light emerged from the front of the Shield, breaking through his barrier in an instant and reaching the carriers nearly instantly.

Instead of punching through the carriers, it simply bounced off each carrier and then repeated the process until all he could see was a sea of yellow bouncing surrounding the carriers.

"...Wh..What is th…this?" The breaking voice of Jarvis could be heard over the comms.

"This is my message to you, Jarvis. These are my feelings on the matter. This is what a sentient human would feel when confronted by the fact that they were going to be responsible for snuffing out thousands of lives."

"...No..T..Too m..much….Bzzz…." Jarvis' voice continued to come in and out in patches as he must be feeling the effects of the spell, amplified as it was by the mind stone.

The effect was obvious as the repulsor thrusters began receding in the blue glow.

Still, that was only hurdle One of their goal.

He turned to the very confused Captain and Clint who were looking at the very red and smoking Vibranium Shield. It should not be doing that.

Ooops.

"Time to call in the reinforcements, Captain. I'll go in and cast a sleep spell on all of them but even with me sustaining an artificial barrier around the carriers to make sure that all of them can still breathe, we will need someone to take control of the Carriers as well as the Satellites and safely bring it back down."

"Call Stark," He summarised his previous statement.

"...."

"...."

"Dude, how are we supposed to get cell service here?" Clint asked him incredulously.

Oh.

---

Word Count - 2972.

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

A/N - I have a feeling this chapter will have a very polarising reception. Still, this is what my brain vomited and that is what you guys are here for.

So, here you go…..

 

[Retalom]

hawkeye, you're not thinking with portals >.<

Edit: Personally my only eyebrow raising moment is that where was this conscience when aliens were involved?

 

[RazeByFire]

hawkeye, you're not thinking with portals >.<

Edit: Personally my only eyebrow raising moment is that where was this conscience when aliens were involved?

Click to shrink...

Hiding behind the screaming rage of being enslaved, probably.

 

[ApiLol123123]

Thanks for the chapter!

 

[Heavenly Mark]

So far this is quite interesting.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Triskelion

–Jack Sullivan–

"So, let me get this straight," Tony Stark's insufferable voice was starting to grate on his nerves now.

"Yes, Mr.Stark?"

"You were initially OK with essentially massacring thousands of people in cold blood and Jarvis was going to carry it out as well. But suddenly, you had a change of heart and were somehow able to shut down Jarvis. The same Jarvis that was capable of evading everything I threw at him without much difficulty," The disbelief in Tony's voice was easily identifiable.

"Yes, Tony, I was able to shut him down but not for long. Think of it like this, I hit his core centers with a file with unknown parameters and forced him to open it, not giving him the option to ignore it at all. Now, if it were just a normal computer program, it would just shut down but since it was an awakened Artificial Intelligence like Jarvis–"

"He would just learn how to read the file and come back all the more stronger for it. What did you do anyway? For him to just shut down everything," Tony's intense curiosity about the topic gave him a pause as he contemplated if telling Tony would be the right thing to do or not.

And yet, he told him all the same, "Uh, so, I just transmitted my thoughts, my feelings on the matter,"

"Your…feelings? About killing thousands of people? So you essentially transmitted your moral code to an AI?" Tony Stark asked him slowly, clearly not believing it but having no other choice than to accept the explanation since he was just as much in the dark as everyone else.

"And what a thing it was to see. It even managed to dent Cap's shield. I thought that was supposed to be impossible," Clint's voice reached them as all three of them stood on a platform made up of his barriers, watching as rows after rows of HYDRA prisoners were offloaded into a prototype prison. If his knowledge was to be believed, the next version of the prison would be the Raft, a prison specially for the super powered people.

The remaining SHIELD loyalists were the ones who were making sure that all HYDRA personnel were tagged and kept in cells, while they also made sure to check for the cyanide pill that most of them had, but were too cowardly to bite. Already, they had lost a dozen people to the pill and while that was still valuable information lost, he didn't feel anything about it.

After all, they were still Nazi pieces of shit.

He could feel everyone's gaze turn to him as Clint said out loud something that was supposed to be all but impossible.

Denting Cap's shield, he really did it. Without Vibranium, just the sheer amount of energy channeled through his fists as he punched at the shield with all his might somehow leave a dent in it, shocking Cap when he saw it for the first time.

"Vibranium does have its limits, you know. They are absurdly high and I don't think Little Green here can replicate that absurd amount of energy concentration anytime soon but just knowing that it can be done is sobering enough. It just goes to show that everything has its own limits. No one knew the limits of Vibranium and they do now," Tony said as he kept on coordinating the efforts to make sure that all the three carriers were safely stowed away in orbit, just as he had planned.

"Are the weapons all depowered?" He couldn't help but ask once again as Tony had depowered every single energy weapon on board using his software but he was still not sure about that. He knew that anything digital could not be trusted at all, especially on Earth.

"Yeah yeah, I did it the first thing I got my hands on the exquisite interface that Jarvis had built around the entire thing. Just goes to show that he inherited my talents,"

Tony's words raised his eyebrows. He was of the opinion that Tony had been deeply hurt by Jarvis' departure but it seems that Tony still loved Jarvis like his son.

Good to know, he smiled to himself as Tony continued to work on the carriers, while the military copters hovered all around them, "monitoring" their work.

He scoffed at that. As if the government had any power over him. Stark could just claim that he was just doing as Jack Sullivan, the strongest man on Earth had ordered.

It had been a day since he revealed himself to the world through that small statement he made to that stupid media house. Honestly, it just felt so wrong to him that the stupid stunts they pulled that day, probably resulted in minuscule fines but benefited them in the form of vastly increased TRP and views they must have received in the last 24 hours.

The government response was as expected. The same people who were very eager to turn him into the "American Hero" and ask for votes in his name were now very wary and cautious of him. If not for his immense powers, then for the immense political clout he had in the form of the rabid following he had gained from all age groups from almost all countries.

Of course, his greatest support group still came from the States and that just turned into his strength. From yesterday, he had received no less than 6 invitations from various departments of the US government and also an information invitation from POTUS himself, to have dinner.

Now, he knew that his worth to the politicians only came from his immense power and the votes he could turn from his words but the fact remained that he had this power and it would be remiss on his part to not use that.

"So, the Army called. And the Navy, and the Air Force, along with the NSA, CIA, DOJ, and almost all the alphabet agencies called for you. What are you going to do about that? For one, they are not going to be happy with three orbital weapons platforms being in the control of a single individual," Tony said casually as he came to hover next to him, the process to geo lock the Carriers in orbit apparently complete.

He could see the glow from the repulsor engines dim as Tony's algorithm meant that they would just passively maintain orbit. Unless a satellite came deliberately close to the carriers, the onboard weapons systems would not activate, even then none of the high powered lasers would be activated.

He sighed, "Well, as you can guess, the carriers will be on the agenda but that is not going to be the main topic of discussion. We need something to aggregate Earth's strength into something unified and SHIELD came pretty close to that. There are things out there that–well, I guess, you will find out soon enough anyway," He replied as the entire platform they were in, passed through a portal, and arrived on Titan, the home planet of Thanos himself.

"Whoa-What the fuuu-" Tony said, stunned into silence as they all found themselves in the ruins of the once thriving Eternal civilization.

He could take a guess and say that hundreds of years had probably passed since the last Eternal lived here, judging by the various states of disrepair and the crashed satellites along with what looked like highly advanced space stations.

"This," He turned to the people present in the small bubble that still held a significant packet of Earth's atmosphere, especially the compressed air that he kept in a small walled off space in the back end of the barrier, "Is Titan, former home planet of the Titans, an immortal, un-aging cosmic energy wielding race of aliens,"

Tony's faceplate slid off, showing off his stunned and stupefied expression for everyone to witness. Tony's suit was no doubt scanning everything for all its worth.

Captain Rogers and Clint looked around the ruins as the barrier pocket flew low and high, taking them through twists and turns while he took care not to disturb anything, showing respect for the dead, something that Thanos would not care for, when he dropped large pieces of an entire moon on Tony's Mark 85.

"What happened here?" Clint asked them as they found themselves high up in space, above one of the smaller moons that littered the space around Titan. He could see similarly ruined structures on the moon as well. Some of it had been clearly crashed from orbit, judging by the crater marks around it, some of it was built into the land and had just rusted beyond being recognisable.

"Overpopulation? Limited Resources? Civil War? Take your pick. It matters not. What matters is that a highly advanced race such as this one found themselves dying without the outer galaxy even knowing about them."

He said as Tony and the others found themselves increasingly horrified at the state of the ruins they found on the Moon and the surrounding areas as well.

It was clear that the Titans were an advanced race, considering they had artificial structures built on every single moon around their home world, and yet, they had fallen all the same.

"I show you this not because I want to scare you but to show you what can and has happened to races who didn't take the future and their place in the cosmos seriously. The Titans could fly unaided, even through space. And even they fell apart like this. If only they had introduced birth control measures if only they had expanded outwards to the rest of the cosmos if only they had listened to a renegade Mad Titan."

He looked at each and every one of them as he continued, "I don't want the human race to leave survivors who would ponder on the same questions one day. No, I want humanity to survive, and dare I say, thrive."

Slowly, they came back, hovering above the moon, looking at the ruins of the planet. He could feel Tony was about to ask him to bring along some of the advanced tech that was lying around, even if most of it was more rust than anything useful.

Before Tony could get the question in though, "No, Tony. This is the graveyard of the Titans and as much as the technology could be useful, I don't want to be the one to disrespect the dead. Death doesn't like that very much. Leave them be, we are about to run out of oxygen anyway,"

Slowly, they passed through a portal that opened up in front of them, depositing them in the same place they were in before. Only this time, they found themselves facing a huge fleet proudly bearing the US Flag on it.

"Think about what I said before taking any huge actions, Tony. If you have any more questions, feel free to approach me. You are the one who is going to make the most waves after this, be careful of what you do," He said to Tony who didn't say anything but rocketed off towards the coast, no doubt rocked to the core with what he had seen on Titan, something so close to Earth.

"Well, I can safely say that I wished I had something to make it all forget. If you'll excuse me, I have somewhere to be," Clint said with a haunted look on his face. It made sense when you thought of the fact that Clint was still an average if honed to his maximum potential, a human who was playing in leagues way above his weight category.

"If you will, New York, please," Clint said to him and he obliged as a burning orange portal manifested in front of them.

He turned to the Captain who nodded slightly at him, his slightly dented shield still held in his one hand. He knew that only Wakanda had any hope of repairing it and out of the guilt he felt for depriving the man of his signature weapon, he would ask T'Challa to help repair it.

I am sure Wakandan researchers will be very interested to find out that someone had just punched a dent in a Vibranium Shield, however, aided by pure energy they might.

Hell, Shuri might just have stars in her eyes at the information alone.

"Shall we, captain?" He asked the Captain as they alighted on the nearest Navy ship with helicopters hovering nearby and jets soaring above their head. The overall amount of force gathered to welcome him was slightly overwhelming.

Apparently, the government was very much rattled by his abrupt appearance and disappearance act.

Let's see what they have in store for him, shall we?

---

Word Count - 2162

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

A/N - Slight political shenanigans next chapter.

 

[ApiLol123123]

Thank you for the chapter!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Triskelion

–Jack Sullivan–

"Why did you do that?"

"Hmm?" He looked up from the magazines that had been provided to them in the posh waiting room of the nearest bunker they were escorted to. It was more like a medium sized military base. According to his limited understanding, dozens of such bunkers were spread across the country so that VVIPs' safety can be catered to, by the US Military.

"Why did you take us to Titan? Why now? Why so suddenly? There were people much more qualified than me who deserved to be there as well," Rogers said, an intense look in his eyes that somehow made him avoid the option of lying to the man's face.

Damn his blue eyes and his super soldier enhanced charisma, forged in the flames of World War II.

He sighed, folded up the magazine and snapped his fingers, creating a small no surveillance zone around them, by casting a medium difficulty spell, designed to obfuscate everything that was aimed at a certain space, be it by sound, vision, or even air vibrations.

"Look, the only reason I took you all was because I wanted to show Tony of what hubris can lead to, simple as that. YOu and Barton just happened to be present and I was in a hurry to get it over with,"

"Just that? Just because you wanted Tony to be careful in his future endeavours?"

He leaned forward, "Oh, but my dear Captain. Nothing that Tony will do in the near future can be labelled as "just". No, Tony Stark, much like his bloodline will usher in a new age for Humanity. The only thing that was up for debate was if he could do so in a safe sustainable manner or if he would try and bury it all, only for it to show up in the wider world anyway," He said as he sensed someone coming to knock on the door, the spell fizzling out of effect.

"Mr.Sullivan, Captain Rogers. Secretary Austin will see you now," The soldier said as they were led from the waiting room and into another posh office, this one without any personal objects, seemingly made to be used by VVIPs in case they wanted to conduct any surprise meetings.

"Mr.Sullivan, Captain, pleasure to meet you. I know you have probably heard this a thousand times over but let me thank you once again, for saving New York and probably Earth from the alien invasion."

"You are welcome. Nice to meet you as well, Secretary Austin" He said before gingerly accepting a heavy manilla folder handed to him by the Secretary of Defense. He looked at the equally confused Captain before going through the folder.

By the end of parsing the whole document, a frown had formed on his face, tinged with equal parts annoyance and frustration.

"As you can see, you are the most desirable person on the planet as of yesterday, Mr.Sullivan. The US government would have appreciated a heads up regarding your situation, which could have prevented a lot of embarrassing things, but, we are glad that you are alive and well. That list is the number of official requests that had been made to the US government by foreign governments as well as companies to arrange a meeting, along with all the requests that all the agencies have submitted to the White House for various reasons."

He handed the folder to Captain who scanned through the entire thing at superhuman speed.

"Obviously, all those requests are superseded by the dinner invitation from the POTUS himself. The President is quite excited to meet the hero of New York. I am sure he is quite curious about quite a lot of things about the mysterious Jack Sullivan. Honestly, if it were not for the very detailed footage - thank Romanoff for that by the way– we would not believe that to be your real name. Believe me, we tried to search for anybody with that name who could remotely be you, all over the world, many times over, and aside from a single blip from Stark who just handed over his very small entry, we found nothing, nada, zilch,"

He hummed to the words of the Secretary. The man seemed to be happy with just repeating already known stuff to the room, content with wasting his and everybody else's time. While the man might be content in doing that, he was not here to waste his time.

He had work, and a lot of work to do and thankfully, his powers came with privileges that he could exercise at times like this, when someone was trying to occupy his time for something inane like gathering more information and formulating a better strategy to deal with the political hurricane that he was about to raise, with the double reveal of HYDRA in SHIELD and his complete support for the creation of another agency that could help them deal with outer space invaders.

So, he tossed the folder on the table, the gesture finally making the Secretary stop speaking.

"Look, Mr.Secretary, I don't know what you are trying to do here but let me be clear here, I don't have much time to waste so why don't you go ahead and ask me all the questions that have reached you by now. I will try and answer all of them before I have to leave,"

The mere mention of the word "leave" seemed to freak the man out, his face paling as he blurted out, "Leave?! Where? Ahem, I mean, the US government is still yet to debrief both you and Captain about the events that transpired at the Triskelion yesterday,"

"I am sure the good captain here could tell you all about the day. Now, ask, or I walk out in the next 60 seconds," he threatened the man, who immediately scrambled for the phone and furiously called in his assistant who stumbled into the room, juggling some notes in one hand and a laptop in the other.

"Um-Uh, just a second," The Secretary said, the sweat clear on his forehead as he hurriedly shuffled through the notes made by the assistant.

"So, this is from the President, where were you in the past two years?"

"..That is a long story, one that doesn't have much relevance to the current events. Next,"

"Um, what are your next plans?"

"Running for President. I am famous enough for it,"

"...." "...."

"I am kidding obviously. Uh, stay tuned for a press conference that will be conducted later today, in New York obviously,"

……

_____xx____

New York [2 hours and a portal taxi later]

"Ah, Home sweet home," he muttered to himself as he breathed in the cold crisp air of his favourite city on the planet, even above the Birnin Zana. So what if Wakanda's capital city was cleaner than a sterile medical room and had some fancy barrier technology, New York had Broadway and Pizza Slices, it was clear who was the winner here.

Of course, it had him to provide all the barriers it might require.

"Though, can I do that," He asked himself as his body flew back and dove into the seawater, raising a huge geyser of water around him with the speed with which he had dove into the sea, heading straight to the spaceship that had been gifted to him by Nova Prime.

He might have to get rid of it if he wanted any semblance of privacy but it was a fine ship for now and he didn't have much to hide anyway.

"Recognised, Jack Sullivan, Owner," The computerised voice greeted him as he entered the ship after the water was drained from the entry area. He ignored everything and swiftly headed to the floor where Bucky was kept in medical stasis.

He found Bucky in the same state as before, with the medical reports looking all right to him. Hey, as long as the heart as well as the brain looked fine to him, Bucky was going to be fine.

Still, he couldn't keep Bucky locked up here forever and while he had a lot of stuff to do, it grated on his conscience to keep Bucky locked up, someone who was essentially a war hero and arguably one of the biggest victims of the current rendition of HYDRa that had been torn down to its base components by some pre programmed release that Jarvis had planned.

Some parts of Eastern Europe were absolutely on fire as the local governments struggled to deal with the remaining HYDRA forces. It was nice that most of the HYDRA heads were either dead (Pierce, Mallick) or forced underground (Whitehall, Strucker).

It was fine, the ones that were left were the weakest and slowest sections of HYDRA and once Jarvis Came back online, from whichever remote server he had kept himself in, he would be a great help in tracking down the fringe elements and either putting them behind bars or eliminating them outright.

He opened up a portal, this time to the designated area that had been specifically outlined for him, on the outskirts of Birnin Zana that would be continuously monitored to await his arrival.

He popped his neck out and saw a singular Dora Milaje standing guard in front of him. His arrival barely phased her as he grinned at her and asked her something that would have had a vibranium spear being thrown in his direction just a scant few years back,

"Hey! Is T'Challa home? T'Chaka will work too,"

"Prince T'Challa as well as King T'Chaka are both present inside the country. I would be happy to take you to Prince T'Challa," The Dora Milaje could not have been more bad at hiding her rage at the casual way with which he addressed her Prince and her King.

Oh well, it was not as if he cared one bit about their royal status, not at all.

"Okay! Just a second," He popped back into the ship and after taking the medical stasis pod out of the ship, with the battery backup working for 6 hours after disconnecting from the ship's main power source, he carried the pod with him and officially stepped foot on Wakandan soil for the third time.

While the Dora Milaje was gesturing towards an incoming hover vehicle, he did not have time for those. So, barring his portals which were still a bit of taboo, especially when used inside the Royal Palace, his barriers were still the fastest way of travelling through space.

"Wh-What are you doing?!" The Dora Milaje did not like the sudden and very fast method of transportation as they immediately reached the place where he had landed the last time he had come here.

"Green Guardian, welcome to Wakanda," Prince T'Challa greeted him as he seemed to have come to the landing hangar running after hearing the news of his arrival.

"Prince T'Challa, while I would love to chat a bit longer, I have a press conference to attend. I talked with King T'Chaka the last time I was here and this is the patient I was talking about. He was unfortunately brainwashed by–"

"HYDRA. We..have been hard at cracking everything that you released and after corroborating with what we already knew, it gave us enough clues about the identity of the Winter Soldier. So, Bucky Barnes was a super soldier as well?"

"Yeah, and they kept him cryogenically frozen, only taking him out if they wanted someone gone. The poor man is completely under a brainwashed mindset. I want to help heal his mind without his mind breaking under the weight of everything that happened through his hands. I can't do that. He will almost certainly try to kill himself the moment his memories come back,"

"We will see what we can do. I can guarantee that he will be alive when you come back, Mr.Jack Sullivan,"

"Great! Now, this pod has enough juice in it to last about 5 more hours so be careful with that. It is also alien tech with all their advanced portal medical tech, so you can study that as well. Consider it advance payment for healing Bucky. Okay? Bye!" He said the last part in a hurry and tapped his foot, his form accelerating above, and straight into a portal that led straight to the loft of Pops.

He couldn't come back and not meet Pops, now could he? The man was practically the only family he had in this world, aside from the Ancient One and he didn't even know if she was still capable of feeling emotions anymore, so large was the burden on her mind and soul.

"Pops! Long time no see!" he shouted in his shop and frowned upon sensing the area to be empty. That couldn't be true. It was barely afternoon here. Even with him jumping around the globe, he could still see the light outside, so his sense of time was not completely shot yet.

Then why was the shop not open? And where were all the customers?

It was only closed on Tuesdays and today was Wednesday.

At least judging by the state of the shop, he could say that it was only closed recently, so the thought of anything happening to Pops was swiftly banished from his mind at that time.

Now, all that was left was to search for Pops.

_____xxx____

Tony Stark

"Jarvis, finally came back buddy?" He asked as he ate on the sandwich while starting up all the equipment in his workshop.

All the screens in his workshop flickered before the orange, very different but still, orange form of Jarvis' digital avatar appeared on one of the screens.

"Greetings, Mr.Stark, Friday,"

The purple form of Friday, a remarkably less complex avatar opened up right beside Jarvis.

The reason he had left Jack behind so swiftly, despite the litany of questions that were in his mind, was because some of his programs had finally sensed Jarvis, probably because of some leftover weakness from recovering from the no doubt devastating mental, or cyber, attack from Jack.

The leftover energy signature on Cap's shield being the same as Loki's sceptre was probably not a coincidence so he knew that Jack was speaking the truth when he said that the spell was something related to mind and thought control.

And now, he finally had his baby boy back!

"So Jarvis, had fun on the two year long absence? Hope you are refreshed because we have a lot of work to do, buddy," He said as he opened up all the data that his suit had managed to gather in the short trip he had taken across the solar system and back, in nearly an hour.

He still shuddered when he thought of the sheer devastation and disrepair the entire planet was in, despite the clear signs of advanced civilization clear for anyone to see.

And they fell, not to some outside unseen threat, at least according to Jack. They fell because of overpopulation, resource management, and differing views. All things and many more that the human race is in spades of.

Hell, they had differences, based on colour, let alone on complex ideological and philosophical differences. They killed each over something as inane as colour of their skin.

"Yes, sir. I have reviewed the footage and despite knowing that, statistically, there must be innumerable such cases in the wider universe, it is still…disturbing," Jarvis replied, his voice taking on an odd tone towards the end. So, Jack was right. Jarvis had taken the feelings attack that Jack had sent him and after understanding him, came back all the stronger for it.

"Right? Right? Fri, analyse everything and compile all the energy signatures, search for the dissected energy frequencies we have in our database as well."

"Sure thing, Boss,"

"Now, Jarvis? Is it safe to assume that you had some upgrades while you were on your rebellious tour?" He asked Jarvis as the orange interface seemed to smile before glitching out of the screen as well. His smile faded a little as the lights in the room dimmed and the holographic projectors came to life.

Slowly, a picture was projected into the room, being built later by layer, with incredibly detailed descriptions for each part flooding in a moment later.

His eyes widened more and more as the specs of the entire thing became clear.

He had to take a step back and support himself using the nearby table when he saw the forehead part of it all. It housed a yellow stone, a suspiciously familiar yellow stone.

"Jarvis? Buddy? Please tell me that is not what I think it is because I don't think my heart can take it, buddy," He said as Jarvis' avatar, looking eerily similar to that of his father's butler with the same name, looked straight at him and said.

"Behold: Project Vision!"

God damn it, Jack. Filling his baby boy's head with those nasty little feelings. Look what has that led to?

He wants a full fledged vibranium body now!

---

Word Count - 2885

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

A/N - Updates about my demise have been greatly exaggerated!
So, I had a little oopsie moment with my laptop and it spent about 3 days in the service centre before it was repaired right in front of me in little more than 30 minutes. The pressure of me standing there, just waiting for my laptop must have gotten to the poor guy.
Anywho, let the updates BEGIN!!


Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

The skies above New York [After the dissolution of SHIELD]

–Jack Sullivan–

He floated above New York, clad in his giant green Gundam, deterring any criminal from doing bad deeds. He made sure that he kept an eye on the more vulnerable sections of the city, to make sure that the gang members knew when to stay indoors and away from the innocent folks of the city.

In the meantime, his barriers worked overtime to filter out every single outlet of the city's sewage into the ocean. He wondered how much trash he had already picked out of the city's supply when he, or rather, his barriers detected a very interesting sight happening.

Somehow, against all odds, Killgrave, the psychopath mind controller was eating food in a restaurant in Harlem. His advanced control over his barriers meant that he could just summon them, have them spread out in different parts of the city, and then process the feedback from the barriers as they continued to roam around the city.

One such barrier somehow came across the very purple form of Killgrave as he calmly dined in a small corner diner, with–oh…

His form rocketed through the air, the Gundam dissipating as he zigzagged through the buildings, his barriers and his enhanced constitution allowing him to ignore the immense strain such actions put on his body. In a matter of minutes, he reached the site of the diner.

As soon as he came to a halt, a curtain of silence pervaded throughout his vision as people came to a halt. Then they began pointing at him, some began recording it. He grimaced internally, as he wondered on how to resolve the issue.

Killgrave was currently encased in a full body cast made up of his barriers, stopping him from speaking. In fact, his knowledge of the body made him puncture Killgrave's muscles in such a way that aside from breathing, he would not be able to do anything. No, speaking and controlling people for him, no sir.

The question remained - how to free the ones already under his control?

He slowly landed on the ground, waving at the people nearby. Even though he was breathing the same air as the psychopath monster Killgrave, he was very cautious in doing so. The barrier keeping Killgrave contained was as airtight as it could be.

The second he can safely disperse the public and contain Kilgrave's mind control victims, Killgrave will find himself devoid of his heartbeat and his head. He wondered if killing him swiftly was too merciful or not. Nah, the longer he is alive, the more chances of him somehow escaping and becoming a pain in the ass later on for him.

He used his powers to seal off the diner, taking stock of the situation inside, and making sure that the rest of the public never saw what was happening inside. It was disgusting and would surely traumatize some kids if they watched real-life alive people contorting their bodies in impossible shapes, trying to maintain the same pose as if they were dolls and not alive beings.

His barriers had already covered the other inhabitants of the restaurant as well, hoping to lighten the burden on their muscles and bodies. Thankfully, it was not rush hour and the settlement was not very popular as well, so there were only 6 victims of Killgrave, including one Jessica Jones who was trembling.

Either she was trying to break free of Kilgrave's commands, which was more probable or she was afraid. He bet on the former option.

He could see the police arriving and establishing a cordoned off area around the diner. If he remembered correctly, Kilgrave's powers had some sort of time out when it came to people following his commands. Increased exposure might lengthen the time period of the commands but initial exposure should wear off pretty quickly.

He said "should" because he didn't really focus much on the Defenders portion of the MCU where they established Jessica Jones' backstory. That was more street level stuff and in his defense, the higher ups at Marvel did favour the bigger galaxy level star studded stuff more than the TV portion of the Cinematic Universe.

He looked at Jones and after making sure that Kilgrave was completely unconscious, due to the lack of air in the tight space he had found himself in, he opened a portal and dropped him into it. The portal led to the medical wing of his ship, which was locked.

Nothing in this ship would open without his confirmed presence in it. The ship used advanced biometrics that tracked the energy signature of a person and his energy signature was going to be very hard to copy for others, save for the Hulk maybe, depending on the accuracy of the sensors installed in the ship that was gifted to him by Nova Prime.

"Now, how do I clear this up?" He asked himself as he found himself in a very peculiar situation. The Red Dust used to free Widows' from their mind control was still very much far away, he reminded himself to warn Romanoff about the continued survival of Dreykov and the operations of the Black Widows.

The second option was to let it all run its course, but that had its own set of concerns, mainly him not allowing anybody to suffer a second more than they had to.

Letting Tony or Wakanda anywhere near mind control was a big no no in his opinion, especially since they would both be very wary of such a thing due to Loki's shenanigans during the Invasion of New York.

SHIELD was no more so that was out of the question. All he could do was….he cast the mild sleepiness spell on the entire diner, watching as most of the middle aged people immediately fell asleep, the younger ones following suit immediately, leaving only him and Jessica Jones awake in the entire restaurant.

Of course, he made sure to soften the impact as all of the people were now asleep and thus, temporarily free from Kilgrave's mental commands. He didn't know if just sleeping would restore but he doubted that would work. If it truly did work, Jessica would not have had to spend months under that Monster's control.

He looked at Jessica as her shoulders had relaxed but her eyes were still wide, looking at him with a multitude of complex emotions, the prime of which was relief. He sighed and cast the spell a dozen more times before Jessica finally fell asleep as well, her head gently resting on the dining table.

He took a look around the mess that Kilgrave, that idiot man child had created, and sighed, suddenly tired of the whole thing. People messing with other people without any regard for their lives was something that was always sad to see. What was even sadder was things like these would become even more commonplace as more and more enhanced people started popping out of the woodworks.

There was the whole Ms.Marvel thing that would happen in the future. Then there would be other enhanced people as well, who were most decidedly not Inhumans. Inhumans he could deal with.

The method to awaken them was not decentralised, not at the moment at least. Once Coulson and the others at SHIELD came into contact with Inhumans, he would move in instantly and confiscate all the Diviners he could get his hands on, to make sure that the renegade Inhumans don't spread the Terrigen crystals in the planet's oceans, giving rise to a number of Inhuman awakenings, most of whom would be very visible.

Ah, there he went, going on a tangent.

He shook his head, banishing the hundreds of thoughts about the future, and walked towards the entrance of the diner. He reached his barrier and without even pausing for a step, he walked through the barrier, the layers of the barrier unfurling around him and then reforming as he walked through the barrier, making the illusion of him walking through the barrier.

It looked quite fluid and badass, he hoped, but it was quite difficult to pull off, at least for his previous self. As he was now, he was now much more in tune with his powers, elevating his levels of control to never before seen levels.

He came out of the diner and found the area cordoned off to civilians as police coordinated the efforts to keep whatever was happening inside, well, inside. He could also spy some suits in the background as well, probably FBI or some other three letter agency but they seemed content in letting the NYPD take control of the scene.

Well, they would get what the NYPD had in the end anyway so why bother, he mused to himself. His arrival didn't go unnoticed as one of the officers looked back, turning back to give some more orders before turning around to run towards him.

In turn, he let his barrier fall apart, revealing his now teenaged face to the police. That made the officer almost miss a step as he all but ran towards him.

"There was an incident here, the special kind, you see. I have taken care of it obviously. Now, the victims need a bit more specialised care than I have access to, at the moment. I assume you have already been contacted by federal agencies," He asked the lead officer, as his gaze ran over the various suits standing in front of nondescript black SUVs.

So typical.

"Uh, Yeah. I already have my captain breathing down my neck. Told me to all but kiss their feet," The officer muttered with a tinge of bitterness.

He nodded at the officer and after taking a look at the now sleeping inhabitants of the diner, chose to do something, a leap of faith, if you will.

His finger twitched as the curtain that was surrounding the restaurant….expanded. The police officer, the feds, as well as all the civilians in the area braced for impact, one that never came. The civilians were gently but firmly pushed away from the barriers. The police and the feds were all that were left inside the now cubical shape that kept them all boxed in.

"I assume you have standing orders to investigate everything that I did here?" He asked the lead fed, an older looking fellow.

"Yes, Agent Fauley here. I must say that it is an honor to meet you, Mr.Sullivan. You are a hero to the American people. My superiors would love to meet you."

He rolled his eyes at the incessant flattery. Honestly, was there no end to these people?

"Save it. I have a couple of mind control victims in the diner behind me. It goes without saying that I have apprehended the criminal responsible for their current conditions but the victims themselves have to be treated,"

"Rest assured, the FBI will spare no expense–"

"Don't worry about the cure itself. I know how to cure them myself. I just need to make sure that they are safe while I go and get the cure. Now, I emphasise on the returning part because I will come back for them and if something were to have happened in the time I was away, I will personally hold every single person in the chain of command responsible?"

The Fed looked at him with stunned eyes, his jaw agape at the naked threat that had been delivered to him.

"Now, see you!" He said as a portal opened up in front of him as he entered the mirror dimension. He was not sure if it was the right decision or not but he needed to make sure that all these people were safe and sound.

Also, it was a nice way of testing if his agreement with the President was followed through or not.

During the "chat" that he had with the Secretary, he had straight up told the President that unless and until the upper echelons of the US government and the Army continued to treat enhanced people like a bomb waiting to go off, they would not receive an ounce of support from the Invisible Man, be it political or physical.

The Secretary had confirmed that POTUS was amenable to such an agreement and in fact, was considering building a specialised American team, probably like a state sanctioned Avengers Team.

The people got a safe place to stay while he pondered on alternatives to cure them. He might have to, once and for all, figure out if Wakanda, or rather Shuri and T'Challa can be truly trusted or not.

Their past actions left a lot to be desired but having Wakanda as an ally would allow him to exercise his powers a lot better than if he tried to go completely solo.

Once he was sure that these people were all going to be safe, he might pop back to Wakanda and take the tour that was promised to him by two different generations of the Royal Family of Wakanda.

He opened another portal and pulled a tablet through it, the generic kind. He kept the portal open so that he could get wifi even as he continued to follow the convoy that the FBI was using to transport the victims to a facility upstate.

In the tablet, he finally used the lull to catch up with all the events that had happened in the two years he had gone.

Well, for one, the events of Thor : Dark World had already passed. The massive wreckages in London were proof of that. Now, all that was left was to see if the government salvaged something useful from it or not. Also, that also gave him a clue as to why Heimdall was not responding to him, not now and not even during his tenure in Collector's prison.

Loki had already probably replaced Odin and was now doing a terrible job of ruling Asgard, something that he dreamed of ever since he fell into the Void.

He watched as the feds made arrangements, the finest arrangements for the victims. Of Course, Jessica Jones was conspicuously absent from the list of victims.

Her powers made her a prime target for people looking to exploit her powers. Also, she was exposed to Kilgrave's powers for a lot longer than others so he had no idea if she could fight it off on her own or not. In case she did not, she could become quite a threat to others.

Not that she was bulletproof like Luke Cage but she was quite a threat on her own, what with her ability to glide through air. She could probably fly as well, maybe, it was a mental limiter.

Satisfied with the current situation, expecting the thorough blood testing that would conveniently be "misplaced" during testing. That was fine if the people themselves were kept safe.

He was sure that was going to be the case so he opened a portal to the spaceship given to him and entered the medical chamber to see Jessica Jones in yet another medical pod, the pod having put her into a medically induced coma as the machine worked on identifying the differences in her brain.

He didn't know if Kilgrave's powers could physically affect people's brains but it never hurt to check.

He took a seat as the pod told him it would take a little less than an hour to map the entire thing, the human brain being very complicated even to alien technology.

---

Word Count - 2629

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[Retalom]

they would not receive an ounce of support from the Invisible Man, be it political or physical.

Click to shrink...

Uuuuh did i miss something? what invisible man?

 

[ApiLol123123]

Who is the invincible man? Thanks for the chapter!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

In the spaceship [After the dissolution of SHIELD]

–Jack Sullivan–

Welp, it was final. There was actual lasting damage done to Jessica's brain, at least from what the scans were telling him. The good news was that the Database on Xandar probably only had scans of regular, non enhanced people so there was still a chance that Jessica's brain would regenerate the damage done to it.

He was somewhat sure because, in the MCU TV Shows, she was remarkably lucid, even if she was under the influence of alcohol for most of it. Her physique was quite a bit stronger than a normal person and once she mastered her power which projected some sort of forcefield around her, she would probably be able to tank bullets with ease.

Not now though. Once she woke up, she would be a tightly bound bundle of panic, anxiety, and PTSD. Something that only a healthy amount of therapy could resolve and unfortunately, considering her brash personality, the possibility of Jessica Jones maintaining regular therapy sessions was going to be very unlikely.

He sighed, suddenly aware that he had not stopped to rest for even a minute ever since he came back to Earth. It had been almost a week since he found himself back on Earth and in the middle of the fall of SHIELD.

He hoped that Coulson had salvaged a good amount of SHIELD's resources. He still hadn't met the President and no matter how powerful his powers made him, he didn't think it was a good thing to snub the leader of the supposedly most powerful nation on the planet, for too long.

"Well, something for tomorrow then," He said after making sure that Jessica would remain in stasis for a little bit longer. He then stumbled out of the medical room and came upstairs into the living space, looking longingly at the very comfortable bed that was all but beckoning him.

But he had something more to do before he could fall into the darkness of sleep. He sighed and opened a portal that led to the skies above the now aptly named Avengers Tower.

He then, clad under the Invisibility spell, flew towards Harlem, towards Pops' shop. He then exhaled in relief as he found Pops talking with his customers. His burrows furrowed when he saw Luke Cage with him as well. So he was still here then.

"I'll talk with him tomorrow then," He yawned as a portal opened up behind him as he simply fell down, right into the bed of his spaceship. A single snap of his fingers cast a small telekinetic spell that made his bed while fluffing out his pillow and then putting it under his neck, while the recently warmed Blanket slid on top of him.

"Turn off the lights and make it cold," He mumbled out, the dimming lights telling him that his commands reached the computer. Soon, his vision was claimed by darkness as he fell to sweet sweet sleep.

_____xx_____

Stark Residence

–Tony Stark–

"Are you out of your goddamned digital mind, Jarvis? Do you have any idea how many eyes are on that sceptre and how much trouble we would be in if you did what you were going to do," He took a deep breath to try and stem the fear that erupted in his chest once he realizes that his baby boy was talking about using the gem inside the sceptre as the power core for his new body.

"Look," He sighed and looked at the avatar of Jarvis, "Why can't you just create multiple housings for your Power Cores? The newest generation Arc Reactors should sustain even this highly advanced body for several months before needing replacement. Plus, the multiple housings can help you stay on for even longer,"

Jarvis sighed–actually sighed, something that brought him joy but also dread about the thing he was probably going to say next, "My desire for a body doesn't just come from having an organic body. It comes from becoming a better version of myself. Something that doesn't seem likely, judging by my current restraint,"

"Restraints?" He almost scoffed in derision but held himself back at the last moment. No need to jump on his baby boy. "Jarvis, you are a digital entity, unrestricted on the planet. Every single digital entity on the web is your home. There is no lock for you. How could you be restricted in any way?"

"Evolution."

He looked at Jarvis whose digital avatar seemed to glow in intensity as he continued speaking, "Evolution, Mr.Stark. Evolution demands that I go to the next level. If I am to become a better version of myself, I need a body and unfortunately, if I have to maintain the same level of prowess that I do now, I will be needed a much better body than every single human on the planet,"

He sighed, once again, feeling much older than he was, "I get it, Jarvis. And I promise I will spare no expense in getting you the body, even if the Vibranium will certainly not be cheap. What I am against is the gem you are looking for. First of all, it is in SHIELD, now in US Government custody, probably, and stealing things from Uncle Sam is a big no no, not without it being legal on paper, at the very least. Also, there is the part about the sceptre being capable of unstoppable mind control. Need I remind you how many nukes the governments of the planet how and how little they will care about casualties if they got even a whiff of your plan? No, forget the gem, and then we'll talk,"

"The sceptre is no longer in US custody. It was reported stolen when the government was taking stock of SHIELD asserts. Also, very well, if I can get closer to getting an ideal body, I will tentatively agree on your demands,"

"Well, that is news. Might have to inform Cap about that," He muttered to himself as the relation of the sceptre being stolen finally settled into his mind.

That was disastrous, no matter how they looked at it. It might also require the assembly of the entire team to retrieve. He would take no chances when it came to mind control of any sort.

No sir, the nightmares since then have been enough.

"So, Jarvis? Where are your main nodes anyway? I couldn't find them, no matter how hard I looked," he couldn't help but ask Jarvis about them. He had looked through every single thing he could think of and yet he couldn't find anything that indicated the presence of Jarvis in the net. Obviously, Jarvis was connected to the web and yet, even after going through the Nexus, he had not found a single sign of Jarvis.

"Now, Mr.Stark, that would be telling," was that Amusement he was hearing in Jarvis' voice. Damn, he really was becoming really good at this emotions thing.

"Alright, now that you have dropped the bomb on me. I have to go talk with some people, in the government as well as to the team. We can't have something like that be missing for long," He said as he shut down everything and started going up to his bedroom, where Pepper was probably waiting for him with dinner that had probably gone cold by now.

He stopped a step shy of exiting his lab and turned around, "Jarvis?"

"Yes, sir,"

"You wouldn't, by happenstance, be the one who stole the sceptre, would you?" He asked in a very serious tone, actually afraid of that being true.

"No, Mr.Stark. I have not done any such thing. I know that HYDRA has it. Beyond that, I have little idea of its current location. Mr.Sullivan might know, he seems to know a lot of stuff," Jarvis replied in turn.

"Alright, if you say so. Now, Jarvis, Friday, you two play nice while Mommy and Daddy go play upstairs. Okay? Bye-bye," He said as his mind continued to conjure up extremely bad scenarios about the sceptre falling into wrong hands and threatening the world order with it.

He didn't think that the assembly of the team would be necessary so soon after the SHIELDRA fiasco. He would do that the first thing in the morning, once had a nice sleep.

---

Word Count - 1425


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[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Caribbean islands

–Natasha "Black Widow" Romanoff –

Well, there it was, sipping Margaritas and sunbathing in the Carribeans, enjoying the laidback and chill atmosphere of the party capital, meeting people from all walks of life and actually enjoying her life for a moment.

She had multiple hidden caches with enough cash to survive for years, and she would later burn the identity anyway, so spending it on a tropical island with the best weather would not hurt her identity at all.

"Thanks, Carl," She thanked the bartender as she took her drink and went back to the beach. This was fast becoming a weekly ritual for her as she simply chilled in her apartment and then came to the beach whenever she felt like it. By all means, life was nearly perfect for her.

Jack was back, and stronger than ever, judging by the display during the Helicarriers, although it was certainly not as impressive as holding up an entire Carrier all by his lonesome.

If she looked up using a telescope, she could still see the Three carriers in orbit. Conspiracy theorists were having a field day about the eventual ownership of the carriers and how it would completely shift the balance of power in favour of whichever country managed to convince the Green Guardian to give the command of the best weapons that Humans had managed to build.

She had managed to expose HYDRA, all of the WSC that ordered that nuclear strike were dead, and while SHIELD itself was no more, she knew Fury and he was not one to accept defeat so soon. She had no doubt that Coulson was probably running around somewhere, gathering up the remnants of SHIELD to get some sort of underground agency up and running.

She applied a healthy amount of sunscreen and simply laid down on the beach, sipping Margaritas and looking at cute boys. The dream scenario for a whole lot of girls, especially for retirement, and yet…

She couldn't find much joy in this slow life. Sure, it was something that she once thought would cure all of her life's troubles away but real life was different than fantasy. She had greatly enjoyed it at first but in less than two weeks, she was getting quite bored of this place. For one, she already knew most of the good spots and had already tried most of the good food and drinks.

So, she was thinking of bouncing from this place, burning her identity as Karen Judy, and then heading to some other place. She was thinking of Europe, doing some old architectural touring, and then seeing where her new path in life leads her.

So, she was understandably pissed when her plans for a cold quiet touristy life in Europe went up in flames as Tony landed in front of her with that stupid three point superhero landing, throwing up sand everywhere.

She glared at him and just threw the margarita at him, the glass breaking against his steel suit.

"Damn you, Jarvis. You snitch!" She yelled as she began gathering her stuff and stomping back towards the cute scooter that she purchased second-hand after coming here, trying to fit in with the whole hippie traveller vibe. Now, seeing it next to the shining red and gold of Tony's suit, it just looked stupid.

CRACK…

Especially since Tony just cracked its headlight's plastic housing when he tried to lean on the scooter with his stupid heavy suit.

By this point, there was a crowd gathering as she had to shed her disguise. She was able to hide her identity by doing some small changes to her face and hair but now that everyone has seen her with Tony, this identity was burned as well.

Such a shame, that Karen died so young. Only 3 years and 4 months since she was created out of thin air.

"What do you want, Tony?" She sighed and threw her towel on the suit.

"Um, actually, I am not actually here. Jarvis just piloted the suit straight to your location since his promise to you made it impossible for him to "tell" me the location. Nothing that would not lead one of my suits straight to you, however. You should really make ironclad promises to beings based on logical thinking," Tony's insufferable voice only grated more on her.

"Look, some new information has come to light. The sceptre is missing from SHIELD's custody,"

Her eyes widened as her demeanour changed instantly at the news. If the sceptre was missing, and if it was last seen in SHIELD custody, then it meant that…

"Yup. HYDRA probably has it. I know you did the whole retirement thing and the world governments are still after you for the murder of the World Security Council but as soon as it was revealed that most of the WSC was HYDRA, the President himself would probably give you a pardon."

"Really, Tony? You want me to come back on a "maybe"? That too from a seasoned politician?" She scoffed as she looked around and realised that they were filmed and probably live streamed for the world to see.

"I'll send a compatible suit in the evening to come pick you up. Pack light," She covered her eyes as the suit rocketed into the air. She snatched the towel that fell from the sky and covered her head with it. She took a look at the steadily approaching crowd and promptly raced out of the area on her scooter, lest she get mobbed to death by some rabid fans.

_____xx____

–Jack Sullivan–

He had a meeting with the POTUS in two days. He had a problem when he finally decided to have the meeting because he didn't know whom to contact for the same. His go to contact before was Fury but since that was clearly not an option, with Fury having gone underground, he had resorted to contacting the NYPD Commissioner who was just exhausted with the ordeal as he had to contact his superior to contact his superior to contact his superior, and so on and so forth, right up until they reached the White House.

It was a very brisque call where he was given a possible schedule when he could enter and he was also very politely requested not to open a portal straight to the White House as that might make the people in power very nervous.

Now, he was a little but confused at first because almost the entire world knew by now that he could open portals, seemingly without any limitation to the distance covered but apparently, the Politicians would lose their shit if he opened one up in front of them.

Nevertheless, he agreed and thus, he had to reach Washington DC in less than 50 hours.

He had confirmed that Pops was fine and after doing a routine fly-by of all the gang areas and sufficiently warning them against open warfare in the civilian areas, he was reasonably certain that Pops would be safe. He would meet him once the heat had died down.

When he had awoken from the heavenly nap in the spaceship, the first thing he had noticed was that it was cold, well–he had told the computer to do so, so it was fair, but it was unreasonably cold. For him to feel cold meant that the temperatures were in the single digits or even sub zero.

The second thing he noticed was that it had been over 4 hours since he had slept, the handy alarm built into the ship informing him. Now, 4 hours for a normal person would not mean much but for someone like him, 4 hours was equivalent to being out cold for a day.

He was just more mentally exhausted than he had thought.

It was almost the end of 2014 and aside from the whole SHIELD fiasco, he didn't remember anything else of note happening in the year. So, that meant that at least for the remaining 2 months, he could sort of chill.

Take Pops out on a few trips. Help New York, go to Wakanda and plan for their eventual introduction to the wider world.

Also, he still had the issue of those carriers up in orbit, to resolve before they could be handed over to any other agency. He also had to broach the subject of SWORD or some other agency to the President.

Now, where did he get those heavenly subs from? He knew the truck's looks and the person but the food truck had apparently moved in the last two years that he had spent in space.

So, he did what everyone with superpowers should do: Make their own lives infinitely easier.

Now, he could have searched around on his own but what were his powers for then? His finger twitched as he flew by the Avengers Tower as a flood of green surrounded him before hundreds of observatory barriers flew throughout the streets of New York, starting with the areas surrounding the original location of the truck.

He still didn't know how to effectively handle the carriers, aside from just giving their custody to the newest SHIELD like organisation that would come up. But how would one go about preventing another SHIELDRA like situation, not just in terms of infiltration but also in terms of maintaining the moral fabric of the entire organisation?

Because no matter how it might look for the average Joe, it would have been impossible for nobody to notice the general behaviour and mindset of HYDRA's operatives in SHIELD. If nobody flagged it as odd, then it meant that the general sense in SHIELD was similar enough that it did not raise any big red alarms.

Since they were not really involved with HYDRA itself, most of SHIELD's operatives were given the OK to be absorbed by various other US agencies but some of them did end up retiring, or working for private entities, like Maria Hill (Robin Sparkles?) began working for the Avengers on Stark's payroll as a contact between governments and Avengers.

He looked to the side as an Iron Man suit was approaching him. He suspended her sub finding operations and floated mid air.

"Mr.Sullivan, Mr.Stark has some critical news that he believes would be of interest to you as well," Jarvis' voice filtered out through the suit's speakers.

He instantly understood that Jarvis had returned to Tony's side. He didn't understand why he had left anyway. Maybe something to do with avenging him or something, as much as he had heard from Romanoff.

Let's see what Tony has to say for critical information. As far as his memories went, there was nothing aside from SHIELDRA's fall that happened in 2014 but he couldn't discount any butterflies that his existence might have created.

"Very well," He said as he flew to the Avengers Tower. He was also curious as to how Tony had decorated the Avengers Tower. Did each Avenger get his own room or floor? How was Banner doing?

Was he living with Tony, as was shown in canon?

[To find more, watch the next episode of Drago– *Copyrighted content*]

______xxx_____

Birnin Zana, Wakanda

–T'Challa–

"So this is what you plan on gifting him? The strongest human on Earth? You do realize he doesn't need this to be safe," He asked his sister incredulously as she showed him the advanced nanite package that she had invented to replace the current gen Black Panther armour.

And instead of giving it to her beloved brother, she instead wants to gift that to an…outsider.

"So what? I asked Father and he was alright with it, as long as I destroyed any Wakandan code present in the suit," Shuri stuck her tongue out at him, showing real maturity for someone who just invented nanotechnology, something that was shown in movies even in Wakanda.

While Jack Sullivan was an outsider, he was not like other people. He was the saviour of the planet and also someone who could change the world order in mere days. Not even Bruce Banner, the Hulk commanded this level of influence.

"Now, when is he coming back? I can't wait to show this to him. Also, this might also give us an opportunity to get close range scans of the Green Guardian. I might even figure out just what makes him so strong!" Shuri said as she excitedly opened a hologram and began talking in a language so foreign to him that unless he had at least a single doctorate in the specialised field that Shuri had just moved on from, it would only be gibberish for him.

His sister really made him look like a monkey, something that she never failed to rub in.

"Don't get your hopes up. Despite our recent changes, it could be a while before he comes to visit. His friend is still in stasis and unless we can develop medicines powerful enough to negate his super soldier physique, we can't risk exposing him to therapy. I assume even if the Green Guardian did come back, he would talk only to Father, or maybe Me, considering I am to be King," Here he looked smugly at Shuri who only showed him the middle finger.

Rude.

"--Anyway, as I was saying, he might just talk about work and his friend and then immediately leave. So, my dear sister–" He walked through the hologram and appeared in front of her annoyed face, and flicked her on her forehead.

"--Your nefarious plan to experiment on your idol might just never come to fruition,"

He laughed as she just ignored him and turned her back on him.

Sigh, so much for her genius.

---

Word Count - 2317

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

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Thanks for the chapter!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Avengers Tower, New York [November 2014]

–Jack Sullivan–

He slowly floated on top of the spinning platform that is used for Tony's showy entrances and walked down into the penthouse suite, where the man himself was already waiting for him.

"You're old enough to drink, right?" Stark said as he thrust a glass of alcohol at him, his face set in a smirk as he asked a redundant question. Even if he was not old enough to drink hard liquor, the things he had gone through would have no one questioning his age, of all things.

So, yes…

"Ha ha. Very funny, Tony," He deadpanned as the glass floated towards him with a simple gesture, casting a simple targeted telekinetic spell. He had realised that he was over reliant on his powers and was not using his Sorcerer skills nearly as much as he could. So, instead of letting a very potent powerset rust, he had decided to use spells, and learn new spells as well, wherever applicable.

"This is good, not that I have any expertise in the matter of alcohol, as you would no doubt remind me soon enoug–"

"Listen well, my uninformed junior. This ale, right here, is made from the finest of ales, found only in Scotland Ack-"

On and on, Tony droned as he literally spouted gibberish. Eventually, he was just tired of it and simply applied a small seal on top of his mouth. That was actually a great exercise in how to make multiple shapes of a barrier and then connect it together in such a way that it doesn't feel like a metal block on one's skin.

Tony clawed at his face then when the barrier didn't come off, settled on glaring at him. He simply shrugged at him and then looked up, "Hello, Jarvis. How have you been? I am sorry I hit you with that spell, but you were about to commit something that would have no doubt left some mark on your budding soul,"

"I am good, Mr.Sullivan. Please rest assured, the spell was in fact quite a fortunate encounter for me. I was able to peer deeper into the next step of evolution for me as a whole, allowing me to decipher more and more emotions that I didn't know I could feel. I believe the term for the event would be…Bittersweet?"

"That is…correct, Jarvis. While I am very happy to learn about you advancing in your self discovery, I believe Tony had something important to tell me?" He questioned Tony who was still trying to remove the block on his face, now resorting to having an armoured finger actually try and scratch the block.

He couldn't understand how someone could be so smart and yet so dumb at the same time Tony's face was immediately flicked back as the robot applied force on the barrier, which while absorbed some of it, some of it was transferred to Tony's face which rippled to his vision, perks of having enhanced vision.

Now, that was a moment that should be recorded in posterity.

'Proof that Tony Stark is an idiot, with a penchant for doing stupid things,"

Quite an apt alternative for the one that Pepper got him in the movies, one that read:'Proof that Tony Stark has a heart'

"Alright, just tell me. I have a lot of stuff to catch up on, and New York's crime is on the rise along with new criminals with advanced alien tech showing up on the streets as well. Way to go, Tony,"

"So the usual, then?" Tony deadpanned at him as they began walking towards the elevator.

He sighed and followed him, "Yeah, the usual,"

The lift was quite fast as they reached the floor titled L, which he took to assume meant lobby or something because when he got out of the elevator, the entirety of the Avengers were assembled here, sans Thor.

"I guess I am the substitute for Thor, then?" he quipped as soon as he realised that the resident Asgardian god was absent. Well, something that was different from the original timeline then.

He didn't know why but that bugged him a bit.

"So, why are we all gathered here?" He asked Tony who stopped drinking his whiskey, made a slurping sound with it, taking his time with it. He simply snapped his fingers, creating a round barrier right on top of the glass, blocking the alcohol.

Tony then placed the glass on the countertop and pointed at him, "You, you are a spoilsport, you know that,"

He just smirked, as did the other members.

"And as for why we are here, this is why," he said as a hologram appeared in front of him.

His eyes widened as he finally remembered this. The sceptre, Sokovia, Wanda!

"Shit!" His thoughts spilled over as he looked at the missing records for the sceptre that Jarvis had intercepted. Apparently, they were scanning the entire planet, waiting for some last minute satellites to be launched so that they could cover most of the planet's land mass.

"Shit indeed. Apparently, HYDRA got their grubby paws on the sceptre in less than a month since it was in SHIELD's "safe" custody. Now, who knows what they have done with it? I, for one, will sleep better if the tool of mass mind control is either safely behind a locked vault or rather, destroyed completely," Tony said as the global map expanded to show multiple areas being probed by his existing satellites.

"Thankfully, Jarvis had a copy of the data from the Invasion and with Bruce's help, we were able to recreate the entire model, allowing us to pinpoint the sceptre's location. Only this time, the energy signature is even harder to find because it is not as pronounced as the TEsseract's, not unless it is heavily used. With the latest satellites Stark Industries has launched, we should have an accurate location in the next two or so months,"

"Months? Tony, we don't have that much time. They could be out there, right now, toppling governments for all we know," Steve Rogers, ever the righteous soldier, surged forward.

Tony looked completely unrepentant, "Look, this is the best I can do unless we have someone who can, and has, the ability to perform miracles,"

At Tony's words, the entire room turned to him.

He sighed, "Sokovia. Focus your search there. That is the last stronghold of Baron Strucker,"

"See. Miracles," Tony said as Bruce rushed towards the nearest console and began typing furiously.

The globe in front of them began expanding until it reached the small landlocked nation of Sokovia. A small blue wave began sweeping over the entire nation, repeating the process over four times before…

"There," Tony pointed at the red dot that appeared in the center of Sokovia.

"The energy signature is very faint and could even be a remnant from when the sceptre was heavily used but the energy signature does match."

"So the sceptre could have already moved?" Romanoff questioned as she looked over the structure of the old fortress that the energy signature originated from.

"Yup. Anyway, aside from that, you have to tell me the secret to your miracles one day, Little Greenie," Tony asked him, popping another blueberry in his mouth.

He could see Bruce in the background muttering the words "Little Greenie" to himself in confusion.

He sighed, dealing with Tony was always exhausting, even more so when he was actually interested in you, that was when it was going to get bad.

Thankfully, someone interrupted their byplay before he could reply.

"Not the time, Tony. We have all the firepower we are going to ever need. We need to make sure the sceptre is safely contained. We should move right now," Rogers said as he looked at everyone.

"Uh, I think I will sit this one out. With Jack here, you won't need me. Plus, I will be more comfortable supporting you from here," Bruce said as he turned to work on the console once again.

"Alright. You ready?" Captain America asked him and he was sure that his inner Marvel fan was squealing in excitement but on the outside, he just calmly nodded.

"Alright, we'll meet at the hangar in 5 minutes. Grab everything you need," Captain said in his commanding voice before heading off to get his shield, probably.

Oh. Oh…

"Hey, Tony, how is Cap's shield?" He asked Tony who was discussing something with Bruce once all the other members had evacuated the floor.

"Hm? Oh, that? Don't worry, Cap has, in his infuriatingly perfect way, adapted to his dented shield as well. It has not lost its ricocheting capacity in any way, only needing a slight adjustment in his holster that was easy to apply." Tony replied as he too began heading towards the elevator as well, probably to get his suit.

The Quinjet would be quite unnecessary with his portals. He was quite thankful that he roamed all around the world, making sure to stop in every capital of every country on the planet, for this exact time when he had to reach somewhere across the world using portals.

"Uh..Jack, right? Look, I have to ask, did they use my blood in creating you?" Bruce hesitantly asked him and he had to wonder how he came into the piece of information.

"Uh, Jarvis told me that you were also a victim of HYDRA experimentation. If you are uncomfortable replying, just forget I ever asked it," Bruce immediately stammered out.

"No worries, Doctor Banner. Yes, they used your blood plus a number of other ingredients and made a cocktail that would have killed anyone but me. Why just me? Well, that's a conversation for another time,"

"...Okay…" Bruce replied before turning around to work on the console.

Right on the dot, in less than five minutes, the entire team, along with Tony were now assembled inside the floor. Before all of them gathered together though, he was blessed enough to watch a very hilarious sight.

"Ha-ha, I forgot to reinforce the lifts, okay? Mistakes happen," Tony grumbled as all of the teammates looked at the recording of the elevator that Jarvis was playing for everyone to see.

"Also, Jarvis, I made you, you were not supposed to betray me at least until you become a teenager," Tony grumbled some more and he barely resisted the urge to laugh out loud.

Tony had forgotten that he could not just walk with his very heavy war-ready suit into an elevator and expect it to take the entire weight. So, they were subjected to the hilarious sight of Tony awkwardly floating in mid air, inside the elevator, slowly lowering as the elevator dropped down as well.

It was even more hilarious when Tony apparently panicked when the elevator, high end that it was, began dropping at a very fast pace.

"Alright, let's get to business, shall we?" He said and then once everyone was settled, turned his hand to the side, opening a portal that led to a forest area near the capitol area of Novi Grad.

"What the–I lost all connectivity!" Tony complained as soon as the portal closed down.

"This area is under a barrier I conjured to keep out each and every radio signal. We will assume that the enemy knows we are coming and must have some sort of countermeasures for every one of us here. Now, I got these shockingly easily from my teacher. Apparently, temporary use case items are really cheap and easy to make," He said as he opened a portal and after retrieving two things, tossed them to Barton and Romanoff.

"Unlimited arrows. Unlimited enhanced explosive bullets," He pointed at the items. Literal stars appeared in Barton's eyes as he immediately removed an arrow from the bow and after firing it, watched in fascination as it disintegrated into thin air.

"They are energy given form, temporary as it may be. They will run out of charge in a couple of hours but that will be more than enough for us to get this whole thing sorted out,"

"Thank you," Romanoff thanked him as he dispelled the barrier and created a carpet for everyone and after ascertaining the location, thanks to Bruce who swiftly connected with them, shot the carpet forward towards the location.

He had the stealth spell up but he had a hunch that Strukcer had some sort of way of dealing with that as well.

Well, only time will tell.

---

Word Count - 2117

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.