The Sage of the Mind

[Mastersgt]

Personally? Not a fan of how much of a side character the MC is in his own story. Or how non-existent he is when needed most. I get it, building up the tension for the turnaround. Still dislike the narrative/plot method.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 126[May 2012]

Utah Salt Plains

–Randall–

"What?" he heard Tony exclaim all the way from his tent so he rushed over to see what was wrong since he was in the Military tent, trying to get an idea of how much the military could do to sustain this whole firepower thing. As far as the military was concerned, they could do this for weeks, with ease.

Also, the military industrial complex had already been fired up, ready to supply weaponry until the end of all time. So, they clearly had time but the longer this went on, the more damage to their surroundings, and that was something everyone clearly wanted to avoid, especially Stark since this was not an officially sanctioned operation.

The state of Utah is probably going to ask for a bankrupting amount of compensation for destroying one of their natural wonders after the invasion but that was something to deal with later on. The case can be made in the Supreme Court for there was no other alternative that could be arranged on short notice, especially with a terrain that wouldn't be hostile to them, otherwise, they could have just used some small part of the Great Basin Desert.

"What? What happe–" his words were stuck in his mouth as he watched the hologram in front of Tony. It was a warning from Jarvis and he knew very well what those red dots and the blue line represented.

"The Mole people.." he whispered, horrified at the realisation.

Tony looked at him, despondent, with bags under his eyes, "Yeah. The freaking Mole people have decided that this was the perfect time for them to invade Manhattan."

A chill ran down his spine as he saw the ETA for them to breach the surface being mere minutes, with very few resources in Manhattan equipped to deal with them.

"Tony, they have nothing, nothing, that can help them deal with the Mole People. They are relatively small, they can hide in buildings, travel through the roads. They won't be able to–"

"Yeah, the railguns are useless as are the large scale repulsors. I have already rerouted the completed suits to Manhattan, and Frank Castle has already ordered Jarvis to create the Stark Tower as a designated safe zone," Tony said, his shoulders slumping as the light left his eyes.

He was not even trying to work, to find some sort of solution and that was bad, very very bad. As much as he liked to tinker and think of himself as a smart person, he knew that he was hilariously and hopelessly outclassed when it came to Tony Stark. The man was a genius and that was the only superpower he needed. If there was anyone who could bring them out of this crisis, it was Tony Stark.

"Tony, please! Don't lose hope. We will get out of this," He tried to console TOY while trying to find something in his large list of weapons prototypes that could help Jarvis or Frank deal with this.

Hey, look! Captain was being enlisted as well and Jarvis used his prototype Captain America suit to help the Captain since the Mole people were way out of his league. Bulletproof, heat resistant, capable of scaling buildings, and more.

The mole people were, in a way, even better foot soldiers than the low quality ones that the Chitauri seem to have. It was only that the mole people did not have the sheer quantity that the Chitauri had thrown at them.

Speaking of the Chitauri, another keening noise was heard as yet another Space Whale was killed by the combined efforts of all the branches of the military. Well, not the Navy since Utah was landlocked but the Navy was already as close as it could get, with multiple aircraft carriers locked and loaded on the coast.

This was an all out emergency situation and none of the politicians were risking anything so anything that the military asked for, was granted. Billions had already been used up in the continuous bombing spree near the portal, so much so that in every breath, he could smell the gunpowder and even taste it on his lips.

If this went on for any longer, the people here would have to wear masks to even survive properly. Tony was already exhausted and despite being the weakest physical member of their team, he had kept up with all of them.

"Tony, why don't you get some shut eye? I will see what can be done about the situation. Hopefully, most of the people have already left the city and the rest can be corralled into the safe zones."

Tony didn't even respond as he gestured to one of the military guys to take TOY to the resting quarters. They were not comfortable by any stretch of the imagination but they did have beds, and Tony would probably pass out the moment he laid down.

"Alright, how to do this," he opened his personal dashboard and saw all the assets they had, something that he had spent years building, using the unlimited resources from the Russian oligarchs who enjoyed the protection that the Invisible Man provided.

"Rubber Ducky, gone. Captain America suit, gone. Hulk's mace, destroyed," Oh yeah, the Hulk had apparently destroyed his face when he one shot a Space Whale, caving its skull in with a single smash. That was when he had gotten particularly angry and frustrated with the continuous onslaught.

Right now, he was still Hulk because he refused to let Banner out for some reason. Even Betty trying to convince him didn't work because Hulk felt Banner was safer if Hulk was out, which was true but they needed Banner's intelligence as well.

With Tony out of the picture, that just left him as the brains of the operation. The military had some people but he couldn't exactly trust them and they were not really that exceptional anyway.

"Okay. Jarvis?"

"Yes, sir."

"I am granting you full access. Use anything you can. Make sure that the panic rooms are all stuffed full of resources because we do not want Bellina to be in any danger. Also, make sure that the Protector Titan suits are not all being used. Make sure that at least three, one for each person surround the Panic room, alright?"

"Browsing Class 3 resources. Lists updated. Parameters updated." The screen showcased Jarvis going through a number of resources before he saw the ejection sequences at the bottom of the bay being activated and dozens of uber powerful suits being ejected out, to hopefully reduce the casualty figures.

The current counter was at 800,000 which was a very high figure but the rise in numbers had stopped ever since they detained Loki. Now, all they had to do was figure out how to stop that portal and also how to kill all those Mole people because they did not have enough sentience in them for negotiation.

Wait…

He instantly logged into the Stark satellite portfolio, "Jarvis, activate all the long range ones and search for a specific signal that is common between all the Mole People. I think I know how to stop that invasion. There must be someone controlling them if the majority of them are still below the surface and are waiting for something,"

"Affirmative. ETA for Satellite positioning - 12 minutes."

Okay. That was one problem semi resolved, at the moment.

The other one was the problem with the Tesseract. The good news was that they no longer had to rely on Coulson's database access to get information about the Tesseract since the President had ordered for SHIELD to stay away from the site and as much as the WSC liked to think they were above their respective countries, they were not, at least not yet.

They had been continuously scanning the damned thing but all they were getting was a single constant reading, despite the numerous bombardments done on the Cube. The only time it spiked was when the Portal was opened and it had remained there until now.

He opened the footage they had of Loki with the Portal machine captured by numerous cameras situated all around him, giving him a pretty good view of the man and the machine.

He could see that Loki's hands were stained red, either by the blood of someone or maybe due to some injury but that was odd because Loki had never entered the fray in any of the invasions, choosing to stay invisible rather than fight himself.

His primary weapon, the sceptre…..

Oh shit!

"Jarvis! Where's the sceptre? Scan the sceptre. Also, I want it prepped for transport," He ordered Jarvis before he looked at the image once again. It was being continuously refined and while the military had software that could refine it more, he already had what he needed.

"Thor!" he called out as he exited the tent assigned to their team after shutting down everything. He had a hunch that they could try before the sceptre got here. If he was correct, they might just close the portal down all at the tiny cost of some injuries on Thor's hands that would heal soon enough anyway.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[Spearow]

where is the mc?

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 127[May 2012]

Manhattan [Inside Axle's Mind]

–Axle Riddle [Ặ̸̧̨͈̙̳͈̐̅̎̂͝͝w̴̡̬̹̣̭͖̥̞̞͉̮̙̬̎́̏̃̇̓̐͒̓̄̂͑̚͘͝͠ä̵͚̼̟̜͕̯̖̥̲͍͙́͗̿̈́́͗͜k̷̢̞̬̱͎̳͍̞̱̜͕̠̺̱̲͆̑̍͋ë̵̪̱̩̩̣̩̬͚̲̺̥̤͎̻̝̙͚̊̆̎͐̌͑̚͝͝͝͝n̶̢̧̢̜͙̜̖͕̭̟̦̝͎̭̻̔̈͜ę̵̡̨̮̫̬̫͎͔̥̹̅̈́̄̃͂̅͑̓̒̍̐͝ḑ̴̟̟͕̙̼͔͎̠̬̭̃̇͆̏̀̆̈́̍̽͋̕]–

Huh. So this is what it felt like to have the Sage Force, the complete Sage Force, Axle thought to himself as he floated in what felt like space but he couldn't really confirm anything. All he knew was that his entire memory base was being scanned, optimised, and torn down once again, for new defenses to take their place.

He could feel the Sage Force, he could feel its connection to his body, a body that was becoming increasingly feeble compared to the mind it was housing.

Despite the significant boost that the Sage Force gave to its bearers to allow their bodies to continue functioning despite housing a vastly more powerful mind, his body was not up to par, certainly not with the mind he currently had.

He sighed in resignation. Once again, he would be shackled, only this time he would have to do it of his own volition. He couldn't feel anything beyond his body but he knew that he was currently on a cold hard surface, with the smell of the hospital wafting through. Combined with the periodical beeping of the equipment around him, he knew that he was in some sort of hospital.

Which could be both good or bad, depending on where he was. The New York Invasion meant that hospitals would be overburdened with patients and that could affect the ICU ward that he was undoubtedly in, because he was certainly declared comatose on top of that building.

There was also a very real threat to his identity being discovered and him being kidnapped but judging by the lack of sedatives in his bloodstream and chains on his body, he knew that he was not in hostile company.

Regardless, that limited his options vastly. He knew that New York was under attack because why else would the curtain break and embed itself in his body? A fact that he was still getting used to because as it turned out, that curtain, that thing that was keeping him locked down in Manhattan and was stopping his powers from working properly outside a certain range, that curtain was what was left of his connection to the Sage Force.

It was just sitting there, encapsulating him, slowly gathering energy, from the universe, from his broken connection, and from everywhere it could, all so that by the time came, that entire energy could be dumped straight into him, turning him from an incomplete Sage Force avatar into a complete one.

Somewhere along the way, something was lost in translation, he had a feeling because he was not just going from an incomplete avatar to a complete one. He was going from an incomplete Sage Force Avatar into a fully realised Avatar. The difference between both of them was so immense that his body was buckling under the pressure of housing his mind.

Already, he could feel his hard earned muscles atrophying because the body was rerouting precious energy to the brain which was also struggling to hold onto the sheer weight of his power. This could not go on, he could tell. In this struggle, only he would be the loser but despite having all this power, he couldn't exactly control any of it.

It was all a raging ocean with multiple massive earthquakes going off under the ocean at all times, and he was trying to jostle that energy back into something that resembled calm. He was trying since what seemed like forever but the ocean refused to budge and why would it?

He was just a tiny speck in comparison. It was just flowing through him, nourishing his soul, mind and body as well but the body aspect was just not happening as fast as it should because of some reason.

His mind was fine somehow but as far as he knew, it was only because his mind had already been prepared. It was as if someone had left behind a set of instructions and had already stretched his mind, for a lack of a better term, beforehand, so that it would have no problems adjusting to the very real power that coursed through his mind.

He sighed and was about to try again when a light bulb appeared above him. No, an actual light bulb did appear because it was his soul scape and anything he wished could be manifested. He looked at the odd bulb for a moment before it smoked out like a cartoon, dropping a scroll on his head.

He fumbled to grab it lest it fall into the endless void he was falling into and be lost to him. He also looked up to see that the smoke from the bulb had formed the word "EUREKA" right above him, before that too dissipated slowly.

He shook his head and unfurled the scroll.

"Hello Dumbass, although since you are me, I guess we are both dumbasses. Do you have ANY idea how embarrassing it was to see you bumbling around? You are literal cosmic power given form and I had to hear you whining about not having telepathy. GROW UP!

He leaned back as the HELLO DUMBASS resounded in his very being and then his eyes widened as he read more and more of the scroll…..

__xx__

Utah

–Randall–

"Thor, how close can you get to the machine?" He asked Thor, coordinating the missile strikes so that there would be a lull in the invading forces, allowing THor some time to do what he thought could end this battle.

"Very. I can reach the machine with ease, these lizards are no match for the Mighty Mjolnir," Thor did the perfect rendition of an overexcited Viking as he raised his hammer to the sky, with the rest of the military personel ducking around him as lighting thundered in the sky.

"Okay, alright. Great, what I want you to do Thor is to try and get past the barriers with your hands," He slowly asked THor of what he was sure was going to sound outrageous but he had a hunch that they were going about this whole thing in the wrong manner.

The Tesseract was an object of unexplainable origins and unexplainable properties. Something that could literally not be explained and anyone who touched it found themselves dying or with their hands melted due to the sheer energy output of the damned thing.

Maybe, just maybe, the Tesseract was not supposed to be just part of a machine that could open portals.

That maybe it was something that could also be used by a person. More specifically, someone who could handle holding onto the Tesseract long enough to actually wield it as a weapon. Someone strong enough to resist the effects and not end up with melted hands or as just ash.

He had a theory that Loki did the same but his hands were reddened and injured because he was probably trying to do the entire thing manually, which made sense because the portal was not stationary, in a single place like it is now. No, it was moving, dumping Chitauri in places before moving on to the next population centre.

That had to require some finessing because the Tessertact, strapped to a machine could not possible do all of that, or maybe it could, and he was wrong and they were all doomed to fight them until the Invisible Man came along, and held the portal open and clear for long enough for them to dump Earth's entire nuclear payload into the damned portal as humanity's last "Fuck you"

He took a deep breath, coming out of his morbid thoughts as he looked at Thor who had gone utterly still at his words. Before he could say something and defend his hypothesis, thunder rumbled as Thor hugged him, lifting him off the ground in doing so.

He could only take it, as Thor said, "Yes! That is perfect. How could I forget? When the Bifrost was not being used, my Father used the Tesseract with his bare hands to devastating effects."

His eyes widened as hope surged within his heart. Thor's next words dimmed it a bit… "Although I am not as proficient as my father in the arts of Seidr, it was always Loki's expertise, I can try to stop the portal. It should be easy enough, Loki could do it,"

What the hell, despite that hope dimming, at least that there was some hope now. They weren't just waiting for their Lord and Savior to come and save them, sitting around like ducks.

Now, all that was left was, "Clark!" He beckoned the junior most analyst that was assigned to them as a clear snub because the military did not like clearly enhanced people running their operation. He'd heard more than one general mutter "freaks" whenever the Generals were in sight.

Clark scrambled over, his tablet held tightly, "Yes, sir?"

"Get me a status update on the Mole invasion of Manhattan. Hulk should be arriving shortly along with two of my brothers, so the urban areas should be secured soon enough. Also, relay these missile patterns to the High Command. I want these precise paths followed by the missiles in an hour or so. Tell them it is non negotiable, or I will have to call the President,"

Clark clearly went pale at that, having to face the daunting task of convincing his clearly biased superiors or risk having the President called on them, who everyone knew was favouring the team of supers who were risking their lives for free.

"Go!"

"Yes sir!" Clark saluted and ran away with shaky legs. God, how did that man ever get into the upper echelons of the analysts in the army was a mystery to him.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.

 

[Hyperionthetitan]

His mind was fine somehow but as far as he knew, it was only because his mind had already been prepared. It was as if someone had left behind a set of instructions and had already stretched his mind, for a lack of a better term, beforehand, so that it would have no problems adjusting to the very real power that coursed through his mind.

Click to shrink...

Those sexual innuendos man

 

[LogicExtreme11]

why the fuck is he reading a BOOK AND EXPERIMENTING with his powers WHEN HIS PEOPLE ARE DYING?! seriously wtf?!

him " oh yeah the world is currently being torn apart and my friends slaughtered, but let me just sit here and play around with my powers and read a little. that fine right?"

do you understand how STUPID that is?!

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 128[May 2012]

Utah

–Randall–

So, they had a tentative plan. The military would come in hot and fast, creating a temporary reprieve for Thor, a small window for him to try and touch the machine, or the sphere of pure energy that surrounded the Tesseract. It was a long shot but he hoped that Thor's "limited skill" in the arts of Seidr, which was just sorcery, would help them because Loki had manually controlled the TEsseract, albeit at a steep cost to himself.

That must be part of the reason why Loki was so easily captured. He could not fathom why Loki had been so easily defeated. It could also be that Thor had really amped up his attacks and Loki had been surprised to find his brother coming at him with lethal intent.

Either way, Loki was in custody but was still unconscious and he knew that Loki would not talk either way. The sceptre was on its way as well. SOmething about the energy signatures of both the things bugged him the wrong way and if he was correct, there was a shroud of pure energy around the crown of the sceptre as well.

IF they could somehow bring both the spheres of pure energy together and see if they could cancel each other out, they could finally stop this Invasion. Already, the Jericho missiles had been deployed, damaging their surroundings even more. The smell of gunpowder in the air had still not faded and now they were using high energy weapons.

"Okay, Clark? Are they ready?"

Clark stumbled to reply, even though the man was standing in a single place. He was now the primary mode of communication between them and the generals stationed both here and around the bases which were being used as a hopping point for all the Jets nearby.

The Military was being cooperative but not nearly as much as they should have had it been the Invisible Man here. Axle Riddle, huh?

He shook his head at that. He couldn't believe they were being ordered around and not just ordered around, afraid of someone who was a decade younger than him. Sure, age didn't matter when the man could lift a building and throw it at them but still, it felt kind of bizarre.

He wondered how constipated these generals would feel if they knew that their brass was deathly afraid of someone who they wouldn't even deign to look at in their normal lives.

It was…amusing.

"Uh, yeah. Sir, they have approved the flight paths and are ready to go at your word. Uh, sir." Clark, once again, stumbled over his words.

He looked at Thor who held Mjolnir tightly in his hand, nodding at his unasked question. He turned to Clark, "Do it."

Clark nodded as well and then pressed a button on his tablet. "Uh-the first missile volley should be here in about 2 minutes so if you could–uh-please get in position?" Clark asked Thor and wow, was that actual courage he was gathering before he spoke to Thor?

Thor, thankfully, didn't make fun of him for any of it and simply readied himself.

….

..

Right on time, a high pitched whine filled the air, forcing him to look in the sky. His eyes widened as he saw Missiles coming in from two different directions, converging straight on the portal which was still clogged by the Leviathans, with not a single moment of inactivity. He had hoped that the Chitauri would learn something and stop sending their troops to die in a meat grinder but he supposed that they had more than enough troops to sacrifice and not have to worry.

His mind supplied him with what would allow something like this to happen. He knew that most of the Chitauri soldiers had very little in terms of brain activity and capacity. So, they probably had some sort of cybernetic implants that allowed them to coordinate everything. IN that aspect, they were little more than animals.

Also, the Chitauri were not in the most optimal states, despite their large stature. A thought flashed through his mind and his face turned ugly at that. Judging by the size and power of the Chitauri, it would not be wrong to assume they probably had some planets specifically reserved to breed these Chitauri and if they didn't need to actually train them, they could just forcefully grow them into vats, hand them their weapons and send them on their merry way, to die in some battlefield.

"Uh," lark's words brought him back to the present, "We didn't have enough Jericho missiles in a single base for the first volley so we had to send them from two different laughing pads but that is fine, I have triple checked everything," Clark hastily handed him the tablet and yup, the math checked out.

As the missiles passed overhead, Thor tensed and threw Mjolnir forward, matching the missiles for speed, as his target was the portal machine right beneath the Leviathan. He just hoped that it worked because he had seen a Leviathan corpse landing on the portal machine and the machine just made a hole in the thing, which then promptly slid off the sphere of pure energy.

He shuddered and hoped that nothing of the sort happened to Thor. Thankfully, he had Mjolnir which was also supposedly unbreakable, so that probably helped in the clash.

The winds buffeted the grounds, rocking a few tables back as Thor became a figure wreathed in lightning. Thor was not really supposed to hit the portal so much as touch it and try to see if there was any feedback in it. There was a chance that THor was either too bad at the magic thing or that Loki had built in some safety mechanism that made sure that the machine did not accept commands without authentication but they couldn't know anything without trying.

A feed appeared in front of him that showed Thor flying straight to the portal. His eyesight could only show him so much, especially since he was the least physically combat inclined out of all of his siblings, even more so than Leny who abhorred direct physical combat and was the weakest out of all of them, despite being the most deadly due to his stealth capabilities.

The missiles did their work as the Chitauri were outright vapourized in the ensuing explosion, giving Thor free reign to do his thing. Thor jerked Mjolnir back, halting his flight, and then rotated it above his head, allowing him to float in one place. If he was not wrong, even a single hand should be enough since magic was just about having energy, being capable of using said energy, and then having the intent imbued in the energy.

Thro had the first two parts nailed down. He was just worried about the third one. Thor was not really…well, let's just say that Thor was not the thinking Prince of Asgard. He was more along the brawns, at least at this point in time. He was sure that life would certainly teach him how to be more alert and mindful.

That was coming from someone who was approaching middle aged despite not looking a day over 25, courtesy of Hulk powers.

In the feed, Thor carefully extended his left hand towards the sphere of pure energy, Mjolnir still crackling with blue lightning. All of them leaned forward, curious and hopeful in equal measure.

Multiple drones captured the footage of Thor from multiple angles, the background flashing white sometimes due to the Jericho missiles. Tony was still completely out at the moment and he had made the decision not to wake him up, since he was the most exhausted out of all of them.

Arcs of lightning came out of Thor's outstretched hand, the energy readings jumping across the board. A smile graced his face as he saw a spike in the Tesseract's energy, something that hadn't happened until now, no matter what they did.

So, they could do something. That joy was short lived as arcs of blue energy, much darker than Thor's own, began appearing all over the sphere of energy. His eyes widened as his screen began flashing red, the energy readings soon surpassing anything that their sensors could measure.

Thor's face was captured as his eyes widened in alarm. "Get aw–" He barely managed to get one word out before the feed turned white, and a huge shockwave blew away all the smoke and smog that had accumulated all around the portal.

The screens all glitched in front of him as he looked towards the Tesseract machine, only to get another shock as lightning seemed to come out of nowhere and struck the machine once again. He almost fell down and had to steady Clark as well, as he looked at the screen which was showing once again the energy readings of Thor's lightning to be unreadable.

A roar resounded in the air, one that he recognised to be Thor, as a thick bolt of lightning emerged from the Portal machine and struck the ground. "Go!"

He ordered as Bolton, clad in his suit, rocketed towards the portal machine, which was now regularly sending the bolts of lightning right below, which held the Chitauri corpses, filling the air with scent of burnt meat.

He could barely see Bolton as his vision struggled to adjust to the white flash that appeared every 10 seconds.

"I have him!" Bolton's comms crackled to life as a feed appeared from his suit. His heart sank as he saw Thor's condition. Mjolnir was fine, as was his right hand but his left hand, it was burned beyond recognition.

"Everyone! Get the medics. Somebody get me the President on the line." He screamed as his mind went into disarray. Even Thor couldn't do it, which meant Hulk would be out as well even though Hulk's ability to take damage was much higher than Thor's.

___xx___

Deep below the Crust

–?--

For millennia, he had slumbered, taking advantage of the inherent fighting instinct of his species, only coming up to ambush the weakened members, who had some iota of power that could be plundered by him.

After millenia of the same, he had rid his race of all the powerful members, leaving only him. Any opposition was swiftly dealt with, in the easiest possible way, by taking their energy.

The last time he awoke was when he had to move the base of his entire species after the pesky dolls had come far too close to his colony. He had been so frustrated he had killed off an entire line of his species.

But now?

His mind snapped awake, his body stretching upright as he sensed something. Something that should be impossible.

Cosmic energy. And how plentiful... he could almost taste it.

His eyes narrowed as he sensed more and more of the cosmic energy, hitting the ground, as if trying to burrow through the Earth to reach him.

He grinned at that. Howling, he summoned what was left of his species. Yellow eyes snapped open in the thousands in the massive cavern he had dug with his own claws. Howls filled the cavern as they began digging through the Earth.

Maybe, after all this time, he could finally accumulate enough energy to kill and take the energy of one of those dolls.

The mere thought of it filled him with ecstasy.


If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.