Electrify - Volume 1 Chapter 13

I kept silent for a next few day and monitored the AIM situation closely. The company had nearly half of its funding cut off and it was really down. The employees were either being fired or were quitting of their own volition. Killian on the other hand issued a bounty for the thief who took their, a really good amount. 100 million. Although, I was sure that by the end of the week, Killian would most likely be dead on the account of him loosing so much valuable stuff. Clearly, he would be targeted and be made an example out of.

On a different note, I had found a secret cave near up state. Well, it was under a secret cave accessible only via a sling ring or massive excavation equipment. Either way, I had a secure spot for storing the Extremis. The power lines near the spot for the subway provided the energy for storage and the cave itself was only known to me. I set up a few mystical wards to notify me if anyone else was even in a 100 meter radius of the place. A few motion sensors and another few kill wards for anyone else except for me. Then I made sure hat no one could ever find it by hiding the supply cable in an illusion. The ventilation system was no really necessary because I could hold my breath endlessly as long as I had enough electricity.

I would have given a vial of Extremis but then he would have definitely taken it to Baxter building and God knows that their security was shit. If Doom got his hand on the formula then there would be a serious world conquering situation that I would love to avoid. Shield was another big no no, on the account of it being Shield and the spies within it, but mainly because it is Shield. I headed to the cave and sat down to meditate.

“So, what are the new developments?” He asked me.

“I have a lot of Extremis and have no idea what to do with it.” I replied.

“Well, shit. You didn’t put that in your body did you?” He said with concern.

“No, of course not. I saw what it does to people not compatible with it. Also, I don’t need it.” I said.

“No, you don’t but others might. It grants a form of immortality, you know.” He said and looked at me.

“Excuse me. I saw that the compatible test subject was still killed by a gun.” I retorted.

“No, immortality not invincibility. Anyone capable of regeneration of that level would be pretty long lived. If they don’t get them selves killed by others.” He said.

“I will try to lower the risks involved if I have to give it to someone.” I said. “When will we be merged together?”

“Don’t know. I am not even sure that will be possible. Or if I even want to do it.”

“What do you mean? We were one. Weren’t you saying how great it would be to go out there.”

“Yeah, but I get to experience all that when you come here or when you use the realm. I am quite comfy here, but enough of that. Let’s talk about what we have control over.” He said changing the subject.

“Okay. Is there something I need to look out for?” I asked.

“Something? Hah, man you have no idea what shit storm I coming to this world or what shit storm is brewing here. I will give you a short list, priority wise. Physics going haywire. Mutants try their shit and spy shit hits the fan.” He said and sighed. ” yeah, I guess giving you all the information like that defeats the purpose of me being here. See ya.” He waved goodbye and was covered with a blinding light.

I got alarmed and tried to feel him. My sense told me he was right there where he was but I couldn’t see him. There was another feeling inside me, as if my body was telling me that I will see him in this much time. However, that feeling was as vague as the information he gave me. Physics going haywire? Doesn’t that already happen every time a sorcerer does something. Mutants try their shit? Was he referring to the MRA conference. Spy shit hits the fan? How do I even begin to interpret that. I sighed and exited the realm. I checked my phone immediately and found out that 4 days were gone by.

In these days, Doom tried to attack Baxter building again and almost took out Johnny. Peter had to use an iron beam as a baseball bat to send him to Ben who crushed his armor, making it a form of prison for him. At least till he got it fixed. He was then shipped back to Latvaria with a mere fine to compensate for the property damage due to his diplomatic immunity. Peter called for my help but I was not responding. So, he did the next best thing, he tried to hack my phone and find my location, which was set to show me on the moon. He gave up with a string of words that would make a sailor blush. I headed back to the Shield HQ and flagged down all the parts for Tony’s armors.

The fight went down differently than I imagined. Tony used his suits to encase the enhanced attacker and self destructed the suit to kill them. Killian was the only one who survived but was killed by Pott who removed his head using a pole. Then he did the next brilliant move and destroyed all his suits. Right on the sea front. I sighed and called dibs on all the part that were salvaged. It brought up a lot of head from the R&D but it settled down once they saw that it was me.

“Kid, you are asking for a lot here. What the hell do you want to do with these?” Fury asked over the phone.

“Rip off Tony.” I replied.

“The best scientists on my team haven’t been able to crack his tech, why do you think you have a chance.” He asked.

“Cause I am that good?” I said with a sigh. “What you have a complete suit, the iron patriot. Worried I could beat your team using a bunch of scraps?” I said.

“Fine.” He said and hung up.

I knew that Fury was not the type of person that could be baited, so he had already authorized the transfer and only called me to see my intention. I could only shake my head and move along with my day. I already had the designs for the arcs reactor or at least the Shield did, but it was the regular one the size of a large lobby or a huge room. Then on I had use a lot of math and quantum physics to slowly start to shrink the size while maintain the same amount of power output. That was possible to the point where the reactor was the size of a pick up truck, but reducing the size further overcharged the fuel and reduced the capacity. Though I had a good idea how Tony created the small sized one, he had to keep the collision points to a very narrow tube of electromagnetic field which kept the heat and the energy confined to that region. This helped in reducing the volume of the reactor and increased the chances of the particle collisions. In the large reactor the electromagnetic field generators were housed in the outer wall of the reactor, they were literally too big to fit in a palm sized device.

I had the propositions and alternatives lined up but this was getting to me in more ways than one. I knew Tony was a genius but surely I was not that far off. With that in mind, I decided to use the power I had to push the limit. Basically, downloaded all the information regarding the quantum physics, applied mathematics, material theories, engineering and biology. The result was what a file the size of 76 petabytes, and that was with TACT converting every thing to a barebone format. Then, I sifted through the information but still ended up with about half a billion pages worth of information. Over the next few weeks I had to use the modified phone to read everything relevant. The data was getting larger and larger by the seconds because of the amount of research being churned out by the scientific community. The next thing to do was to properly assess the information and derive the solutions to the problem at hand. To do this, I used the magical spell called Thoths eye. It was another spell that was barely used because of it mundane effect. It basically, helped in boosting a person’s creativity, for example if someone was facing a block, the spell would provide clarity on the matter. However, It would only work with the resources available. So, for an example, imagine if a 2nd grade Child used the spell, he would not be transformed into a genius, but he would have a bit of clarity on why his parent didn’t give him ice cream before bed that one time. Or if a Painter was having a bout of indecisiveness, then the spell would provide clarity on where to proceed, but if the Painter was shit, then the results would be shit. Sorcerers usually don’t need this spell and only about 21 people have ever used it. 20 out of those people learned it for recreational purposes, like painting and story writing. While one learned it for shits and giggles, because he wanted to learn every spell.

Thoths Eye seemed like the spell that would be helpful to me by a lot so I spent another few weeks practicing that and learning all I can about biology as well as everything else that was even remotely related to either the virur or the arc reactor. The progress was there but it was limited, on both fronts. I really needed to get that spell pat down because I have finally hit a wall regarding the arc reactor. It simply cannot be reduced to a size below a mini truck.

With that settled for now, I concentrated fully on the magic and the science. The Shield work on the other hand, was becoming more or less interesting. There were rumors of a dead guy who came back to life and how the yakuza were loosing their shit over it. The Chinese triads and the local gangs were collecting more and more money for the drug they were distributing. It was a form of synthetic heroin which didn’t metabolize in the liver like its predecessors and had the same high every time. The tiny packets had a dragon shaped mark on them. What ever the product was, the Daredevil of Hell’s Kitchen had a vendetta against it.

It was time to meet this person. I flew over the Hell’s Kitchen’s hot spot for drug activity and there he was, beating the shit out of 17 thugs with guns and bats. He was bare handed but he managed to react before the thugs could hit him every damn time. Looks like the estimation of his powers was correct, he used hearing to locate the thugs. He also had a weird half mask thing going on, but half a face was more than enough for me to finally confirm his identity. Matt Murdock, blinded as a child, orphaned, then had a new teacher while living in a church. He works in a firm called Nelson and Murdock along side Foggy Nelson and an intern.

I watched him beat all of the thugs in 15 minutes and he shockingly discovered me from nearly 150 meters away. He looked in my direction and waited. I flew down and landed in front of him.

“Nice, work.” I complimented him.

“Electro, I presume.” He said and folded his hand in a menacing way.

“Correct. Now, Mr. Devil. What I need you to do is tell me everything about this little crusade against the Russian Mafia.” I said and waited for him to respond.

“And why do I need to do any of this?” He asked.

“Because, I will know about what this whole thing is about. The difference is where will you be when I find it. Your home or the jail.” I said.

“On what grounds? You have no proof.” He said and was half way turned around with the intention to leave.

I sped up and took of his mask and held the phone to his face. He was already reacting when he heard the chick of the camera.

“Oh, and now I do. Thanks for that by the way. You have a very photogenic face.” I said and he stood still.

He turned around and he was livid. I could feel his brain going into over drive.

“Now, about what I asked.” I said and stood still.

“I don’t know who is leading this operation but whoever he is, he has all the low level thugs in the dark about his identity. The higher you go in the hierarchy, there is more and more fear. No one is willing to even utter his name.” He said.

“And about this collaboration of gangs?” I prompted.

“The triads, the Russians, the Mexicans, the yakuza, some guy called Nobu. They all put their money in the hands of one person in the wall street to run their business. There is also an organization called the hand, ninjas and assassins. I am trying to find out who the person on the top is.” He said and took his mask from my hand.

“Hmm, and you have faced these ninjas?” I asked.

“Look you may not believe it but they are real. And they have been here since a very long time.” He said and turned around to leave.

“Who said that I don’t believe you? I have face the hand before, only I didn’t know that they were ninjas.” I said as I flew up and threw him as piece of paper.

He caught it without turning back and smelled it.

“That is my number. Call me if things go out of control.” I said and flew back to the Shield HQ.

I had enough of vigilante business today and I headed back to Kamartaj. I headed to the library and took out a few books regarding the Thoth’s eye spell. I was fully immersed in the book but my concentration broke when I felt the world shift. It was as if there was a wave in the reality and that caused the space to tear in many places. I sped up and arrived at the main hall alongside many of the recruits and sorcerers.

“The alignment has come earlier this time.” She said as she weaved in spell after spell till the local area of all the sanctums and the Kamartaj itself was stabilized. “There will be many rifts opening all over the world, our job is to either close them or stop any one from using them.” She said and conjured us a map with the main rifts marked on it.

There were many in New York and they seemed to be getting larger. I hurried over through the portal and immediately engaged the necessary protocols for all the involved parties.

“Peter, there is a world wide disaster happening and there are portal opening all over NY. Get your ass here.” I yelled on the phone.

“Worldwide? I detected the breaches only in NY.” Reed replied instead of Peter.

“Reed, it is happening all over the place. Someone has located and deployed a force to stop some of them but they are spread thin and outnumbered. Can you try and stabilize the affected areas?” I asked.

“Yes, but it will take me about a week to whip up some sort of temporary solution. In the mean while, we need to monitor the breaches.” He said.

“Already, on it. Where is Peter?” I asked.

“He is sort of on a mission to get me a shard of a meteorite in Amazon. He will be back as soon as he finds it.” Reed said with a nervous laughter and immediately hung up.

“Hmm. Either way, Peter is mature enough to respond if he is somewhere quiet.” I sand and pulled up the phone.

“TACT, we need eyes on all these location and real time monitoring of all the area in a kilometer radius. Look out for any anomalies or stray energy spikes.” I said and he deployed all the drones and measures required to complete the task.

I liked up the location for Miles, Jessica, Flynn and Warren. Miles was swinging in the Harlem fighting all the petty crime to organized crime. Jessica was somewhere researching corrosives and anti corrosives. Warren was still on team Xavier and they all where somewhere in Australia. It was something regarding a half-man half-kangaroo situation which was spiraling out of control. Warren was in middle east, infiltrating the remnants of Killian’s terrorist cells. All of that meant one thing and I didn’t like it.

“Kid, talk.” He said over the phone. I could feel his anger though the device.

“So, there is a sort of world ending scenario, but only if there is someone with enough power comes through these portals. Reed and I have the one in NY handled but the rest of the world is still at risk. Another team of experts in dimensional energies is looking into the other portals. So, it is a grade A cl.u.s.ter f.u.c.k.” I said.

“Can the Shield even handle something like this?” He asked.

“I don’t have enough clearance to answer that. I need access to all the resources to even begin to form a plan.” I said.

“Fine. You have access, but if I see even a single action that might point towards misuse of power, I will have to on the hit list.” He said and hung up.

Yeah, that happened. So, basically I had the authority of the acting Director of Shield. I immediately asked TACT to sift through all the tech and data to see if a counter measure was even possible. The answer was a resounding no, if there was an extinction level threat today, the only way for humanity to survives was going through the portals randomly and hoping for the best. Either, way I had TACT prepare for such an event by locating the healthy individuals for restarting the humanity. It was a fair list and it will be enforced by shield. Sadly, my moms name or Peter’s aunts name was not on it. I stationed the required personnel in the correct positions for an immediate deployment. Finally, I sent the report to Fury.

His reply was very accurate. “F.u.c.k.”