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 98 [April 2012]

Manhattan [Time till Chitauri Invasion - 1 month]

–Axle Riddle–

He was getting jittery, he realised that. After the meeting with Wakanda, wherein he so gleefully reminded them that Vibranium was the strongest metal on Earth, not in existence. There were also plenty of beings in the universe capable of breaking apart Vibranium and some of them even resided on Earth.

They were definitely skeptical but after seeing definite proof of this statement, they had little reason to doubt him. T'Chaka in particular was quite shaken, as were the delegates he had assigned to talk to him.

Aside from that, Fury had come knocking on the doors of the safehouse where RBA resided, to inquire about the supposed alien corpse they had on hand and what can be done to transfer the custody of that corpse to the government.

Tony and Bruce had openly scoffed at that demand when he had just washed his hands off the matter and told Fury that if Tony and Bruce agreed with him, he could take the Moloid away for further experimentation. It was safe to say that the Moiloid would not be leaving Manhattan until Tony's and Bruce's curiosities were fulfilled.

The US Government was going to get the data regardless of who did the experimentation anyway so they were not a significant hurdle in the matter. Fury had come to a compromise by stationing Jemma Simmons at the base to help with the study.

Dr.Cho had come in the initial phases but after taking her skin tissue samples, along with all the subdermal layers, she had retreated to her designated floor in Stark Tower and had been working on that specific part of her project.

She had already been working on skin grafts, enhanced skin grafts based on her observations of Betty's skin evolving and strengthening in real time and she, along with Bruce's help, were going to use the Moloid skin as its base and then create advanced skin grafts capable of tanking all but the largest of bullets without outright puncturing.

Something that had Fury's attention as well as the military's but Tony had promised them if they did not wish to sell it to the Military, they could sell it to emergency services across the country, like the Police and the firefighters. The Moloid skin was plenty fire resistant.

In the end, Bruce had agreed to sell it to the military but only if all the operations were done on Stark owned sites and the recipients could not be private contractors or anything, they had to be official military personnel.

Which meant no bulletproof soldiers for SHIELD. Well, according to the latest results of her testing, not all the body could be made bulletproof but over 70% along with the head and the heart covered was a pretty solid covering in his book.

Aside from that, he had begun subtly working on the underground tunnel that ran across the city. Creating more and more entry points with just the last entry point above the surface left unfinished, which would be opened the second the blue portal opens.

Creating conduits for clean water storage, packaged food, and even sterilised rooms for emergency medical services to work on. 

He had also added Randall to the plan, not about the invasion but about the tunnel and the plan to use it as a Refuge area for any emergency, natural or alien that may occur above New York. Randall had gotten right to work, installing independent power lines across the entirety of the tunnel, powered by multiple redundant Arc Reactors, to make sure every sq. ft. of it was properly lit.

He then went a step above his water tank idea and installed water lines extending into the water, from both sides of the tunnel, align with redundant Arc reactor powered water filtration systems, capable of churning out enough water to keep thousands of people fed, for a long time.

Then there came the medic areas, huge rectangular blocks, lined with solid metal plating, along with enough sterilisation material and hospital supplies to, well, run a huge hospital for months.

Randall also told him that they had to account for the possibility of him not being available for anything if an actual attack happened on the city and the Invisible Man had to focus completely on the invasion and nothing else.

It was a fair point so they had also created multiple entry and exit hatches, going deep into the ground and coming out into the other boroughs, with customised vehicles capable of using the Repulsor tech to haul hundreds of people within minutes. Randall had already begun work on the production type cars with two prototypes being built according to his specs.

He hadn't even thought of the fact that if it was some other extremely strong entity, he would have to focus all his attention on the fight and would not be able to help the people with mass entry or exit, a rookie mistake in hindsight.

Also, Randall proposed creating areas with heavy reinforcement, mostly metal based right now but he was working on high application force fields that could work using the same muon base that Repulsors used. If that was ready in time, they could use the force fields to line the entirety of the tunnel, creating a very large safe haven.

He knew that it was all overkill for the Chitauri because in the movies, it was a tragedy sure but the overwhelming damage was done to the property and all in the first few minutes where the Avegners hadn't yet drawn the entirety of the Chitauri's fleet's attention on themselves, so he was not really worried all that much.

But still, it was his first Invasion and he both couldn't wait for it to be done and dreaded it coming all the same.

He had taken an extended sabbatical from the office, for over 2 months, all paid vacation because he just could not be still in the office for long periods of time. It was quite a perk, especially because it had been approved without someone batting an eye, leading him to believe that the old monster Master Wu had created some sort of reputation for himself in the company, allowing Axle Riddle to do as he pleased, as long as the profits came rolling in.

He used the time to work on his body, and work on his telepathy, which was working well but not as well as he had hoped to be. He still had to work on the telepathic feedback and reducing the emotional bleed out that happened every time he tried to connect to multiple minds all at once.

For now, he was just working on reading minds, not manipulating them but even the supposedly simple part was tough going, especially since he realised that not all minds are the same, even if they are the minds of not enhanced people.

He didn't touch Bruce's mind and he would not do so with a hundred foot vibranium pole, because, hello, Avatar of Rage, and all that stuff but he had tried to tap into the mind of Frank, and that had been all but impossible in the beginning.

Even now, he could barely hear snippets of thoughts from Frank. The minds of teenagers were the easiest, even more so than children, but that was somewhat disgusting to him because of the majority of the thoughts that dominated their hormonal bodies, mainly due to puberty.

Cops and Firefighters were a little tougher than the normal majority crowd but still doable for his fledgling abilities. Children were very thought because the emotional bleed out from kids was the worst. It would hit him with the force of a sledgehammer, completely disorienting him for seconds before he could focus his telepathy on something else.

But all of the above was fine. Because he was finally learning something new, something that might turn out to be useful even during the fight. To be honest, he has quite a fear of being mind controlled by Loki even for the fight, something that gave him nightmares, because what if Loki was given some sort of skill that allowed him to find the strongest mind in his vicinity, leading him straight to the Invisible Man whose mind, formidable as it might be, was no match for the fucking Infinity Stone in his grasp.

Allowing himself to fall under the control of Loki would quite literally spell the end of the planet, because the moment the Blue Portal opened up, he would be free. Free to wreak havoc on any part of the planet.

And sure, the Ancient One could probably stop him but that battle would not be quiet and outing Kamar Taj to the rest of the world would do the world no good, especially right on the heels of an alien Invasion.

No, the second Loki arrived on Earth, he was going to bunker up. Flood his presence in the surroundings and make sure that every current of air was monitored, so that Loki does not approach him while invisible.

Part of him felt silly for being afraid of Loki while the image of him being thrashed by the Hulk repeated in his mind but another part of him remembered, the sheer ugliness Loki held within his soul and what could happen when that same part was amplified by Thanos and the Mind Stone.

No, he was right in being cautious.

The second the portal opens up, he will evacuate everyone, let the Chitauri through, thrash Loki to an inch of his life, bury that sceptre so deep in the ground that no one would be able to find it, and once the appropriate response comes from the WSC, which it will come, he was sure of that, let the Nuke through and then use the sceptre to plug the hole.

All the while making sure that the world knows that while there are scary things in the deep darkness of space, they were not helpless, that they were not alone.

Because the point of letting the Invasion happen was not to let the world know about the aliens and their might, not to scare them but to make them aware of the dangers and also to let them know that they had defenders that would protect them from the dangers.

Something that was supposed to be done by SHIELD but whatever.

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