The Sage of the Mind

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 93 [December 2011]

Manhattan

–Axle Riddle–

"Hmm?" his late night pity drinking fest was cancelled because he felt something in his range, or rather multiple someones. His eyes cleared immediately as he felt hundreds, no, thousands, of creatures suddenly come into his range, from below.

Yeah, he had checked and his circle of influence was more like an eclipse that also had a limitation when it came to the downward direction. 

So, his mind was jerked back into awareness as he watched the creatures, with pointy claws, small brains, and absurdly dense muscles just dig their way to the top. They were advancing very fast, as if there was no dense rock and mud between them and the surface. They were digging through everything as if it was just another Tuesday for them.

The biggest of them were like the vanguards, digging through everything with their claws, leaving behind paths that their, still much bigger than a human, but relatively smaller creature brethren used to advance to the top.

His brows furrowed as they shredded through the bedrock as if it wasn't there at all. They were still not in his Manhattan sphere of influence, just at the periphery of it. He could act on it but he wanted to see just what was happening here.

He scanned them as much as he could but aside from weird biology along with denser, well, everything, including their tiny brains, he could not find anything that he had seen before. 

Could they be the deviants? His mind wandered off as he thought of the alien villains that fought the Eternals but they were not as many and why would they be targeting New York of all places? He was sure that no Eternal actually lived here since he made sure to regularly scan the biologies of all the people that lived in his range.

A gross violation of privacy? Sure but nothing that the government doesn't do on a daily basis.

The monsters, he was going to call them monsters because they were only snarling and roaring as they advanced with no care for any injury that might have happened to any one of them, because he had tried doing so and the only response was that the particular creature was crushed completely by the onslaught of his fellow creatures, rushing to the surface.

Thankfully, the biggest of them all, the size of three storey buildings, who were about to claw their way through another layer of rocks, hit something that could not be destroyed by them.

His TK.

He watched as they tried, again and again, without even flinching as their claws broke upon contact, even as hundreds of the below creatures began pressing on the giant ones who were now smushed against his TK barrier. 

That was not…ideal.

He could foresee their deaths without him even doing anything. The rabid rush from below would ensure their deaths.

Still, he would like to not cause senseless death, so he created a small hole in his barrier for them to enter, making sure that only a single row went in but then he confusion only increased as the entire horde that he could sense, turned their heads straight to the hole in his barrier, as if they could sense it all, even through thick stone and dirt.

Interesting.

He was about to get one of them in and try to communicate with them, or atleast analyse them further to see if he could recognise them from any of the meta knowledge he had but before that could happen, the entire horde stilled abruptly, including the one he held in his TK grip.

And it was not just their bodies externally that froze, no, it was as if someone who had supreme control over their entire being made sure that even their heartbeat, their blood flow, and even their expressions were tampered with, so as to present an identical showing.

He held onto the one specimen, largest of them all that it was, and then plugged the gap in the TK barrier.

He was extremely curious as to what this was, especially since he didn't exactly have much else to do.

He was wondering what to do when, abruptly, every single one of those creatures began rushing back, right back through the holes that they made to get up. He tried to stop them but they were soon out of his range and the ones he did manage to tag, they struggled so violently to get into the ground that they left behind entire limbs or even tore themselves apart as they resisted his TK.

Even the one he had in his grasp, he had to sever every tendon, to make sure that it remained in its place. Eventually, he had to methodically sever the spine as well which finally stopped all its thrashing around, and even made it sleep, if the heart rate and the lack of activity was any indication.

He made sure to do one more thorough scan of the entire area around him, to check if he had missed anything but nothing pinged to his senses, aside from the leftover blood from the creatures that was sizzling.

Hmm. Interesting.

"I suppose that this will be a Christman party to remember," He muttered to himself as he felt Bruce and Betty sleeping but Randall and Co. were still awake and playing beer ping pong.

Tony was fast asleep as well, in his Tower.

No worries, they will know it in the morning then. There was a reason that the warehouse research place was still kept as is. Mostly because it had been bought by Bruce in the name of his company, which was then bought by Tony who was gracious enough to lease it to Randall for a period of 99 years, effectively, giving them a legitimate base of operations.

Not that they were ever going to use it for anything serious, knowing Tony's penchant for dangerous curiosity. Hell, the man tried to bargain for the CHI liquid from the Ancient One in exchange for complete secrecy as well as the warehouse, which was mostly a joke but Tony's quest to buy that life blood was very much real.

Creating a small barrier around the creature, he brought it back to the surface, to be dumped right into their base below the Earth, to make sure it was safe before it could be brought to Tony's attention.

That man might just get more ideas to make greater armours from this creature, and..actually, that wasn't that bad of a thing, considering the invasion they had on their horizon.

_____xx____

"Hicc..Hey, guys, I told you we should not have asked Dr.Banner to make us industrial alcohol for consumption. Now, look at you guys," he couldn't help but point out to the room as he watched all six of his brothers laughing and giggling while doing drunken stuff, which the house was not built for.

As a result of that, they now had six more man shaped holes in the wall. Actually, they one had two, because Leny somehow stumbled and threw himself into a wall but then, once the others saw the shape of the wall, they all thought it was funny.

And then, they decided to create comical poses while jumping through the walls, creating human shapes with their limbs contorted, creating an even bigger ruckus.

As a result, he had five more holes in the wall before he could bring it to a stop.

"Sigh, I should get it rebuilt to a much tougher standard," He muttered to himself, mostly sober but the kick of the alcohol given to them still fresh in his mind.

Dr.Banner had really outdone himself, mostly because his wife had given him an ultimatum as well because Dr.Betty Ross also could not get drunk on the pedestrian alcohol they could buy off the market.

Still, he was about to herd everyone back into their bedrooms and make sure everyone was asleep before heading to bed himself when he was pinged.

Yup, not his phone, not his computer but he was pinged and there was only one person on the planet, as far as he knew, that could ping people remotely.

The Invisible Man.

Almost immediately abandoning his brothers, he jumped into the basement and into the tunnel that slid right into his personal laboratory. It was a fun and quick way of getting to his workspace.

His brothers tried once and wrecked things in his lab so he had to create an energy identifier that reversed the flow of air in the tunnel, throwing people out if they were not him.

No sooner had he booted up his computer, one of the tunnels that led even further down from his lab opened up on its own, and what could only be described as an alien floated out of the tunnel.

"Randall, I want you to take a look at it. It is still alive but I have severed its spine. Also, its blood is acidic. That is all I know. Look for any brain anomalies because I am pretty sure these guys have a Hive Mind." 

That was all the Invisible Man, their official employer told him before the voice receded.

Well, this was nice.

Couldn't it have waited for him to get a nice sleep before, though?

He shrugged and got back to work.

It wouldn't do to skimp on work given directly by the Invisible Man. Might just become a matter of alien invasion or not someday.

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.