Electrify - Volume 1 Chapter 24

The plane ride over to the city was uneventful as all plane rides should be. Fiore on the other hand looked uncomfortable, she would look out the window from time to time in a worried manner.

“Why are you worried? I doubt a fall from This height will be lethal.” I said and looked back at the timer.

There were 4 more hours to get to our location and I even meditated a few times to pass the time.

“Of course not. All though, I am looking out for another problem. You see I have a bad luck with flying.” She said with a sigh.

“Bad luck? Is this about that curse because if it is, we will have to fly there separately.” I said and looked at her.

“No, this was before the curse. I have been in dozens of crashes.” She said and looked back out side.

“Could you guys just stop? What is this about curses?” Clint said with a sigh. “Right, Gods and aliens, why am I even asking? Never mind.” He said and reclined his seat for a nap.

We both were quiet after that and simply busied ourselves to ignore the possibility of a spontaneous explosion. I did so by opening the research files and scientific papers on DNA and pathology. Thank fully, TACT had modified my phone and now it could display data at a super speed. The four hour read turned out to be quiet helpful, and insightful. Turns out there are not too many papers on gene expression and analysis, only about a few hundred thousand and with all those in my brain now, I imagine that I could solve the DNA problem I was facing and long with the extremist virus.

“Are you watching a blank screen?” Steve asked me.

“No, I am reading thousands of pages per second.” I said and Steve raised his eye brow. “I have super speed.” I said and he left to his seat with a surprised look.

“well, look sharp we are approaching the landing zone.” Natasha said as we Bagan out descent.

The area was a patch of clear land with 2 small structures with a helipad, surrounded by what I could only describe as vast lush forest. We exited the area and entered the building. Everything was covered in dust and there wasn’t any sign of human activity here for days. There were signs of rushed exit, like a meal left half eaten, papers thrown about and irregularities in furniture.

“This place was attacked?” Clint asked and picked up a bullet shell.

“Yes, and there were casualties in the agency. This place is pretty isolated so we couldn’t sent any team for a rescue.” Natasha said.

“The briefing showed a city with disappearing people but the only location nearby with population is a village.” Steve said as he began to dust a chair.

“The problem in the city only occur periodically, once in every two weeks.” Natasha said and pressed a button on her wrist. “This is the activity in this forest from last week. If the city is a hunting ground then this is their nest.” She said and pointed at the activity trails the sat image.

“Electro, you need to fly around and look for hostiles. Do not engage. If we can open a dialogue then we can resolve this without a fight.” Steve then looked at Fiore. “You control plants right. I need you to fortify the perimeter. Leave only a single entrance and make sure nothing gets in or out.” Steve said and looked at Clint and Natasha. “Natasha, look at security footage, find out as much as possible. Clint, we need power, in this place.” Steve said and grabbed a gun. “I will be a look out.” We nodded and left for the jobs assigned.

“Fiore, we are in a huge forest. Do you feel any different?” I asked and she sighed.

“Yes, it feels as though I am everywhere.” She said and the forest swayed at her words. “Why?”

“Try to explore your powers, find out more about its existence and limits. We need to become stronger for what is to come.” I said and she raised an eye brow.

“A few aliens?” She asked and I shook my head.

“A war is coming in a few years, and I don’t believe we are strong enough to survive it.” I said and took her hand. “Fiore, I know this to be true and I hope from the bottom of my heart that I am wrong but if there is a chance that what I have seen is to pass, we will not survive.”

“Can you tell me?” I shook my head and she sighed. “Mother was also like this. She was a practitioner of witch craft and she would have these visions that she couldn’t tell anyone about.” She squeezed my hand gently. “I trust you.” She said and walked into the forest.

I flew in to the air and began to survey the nearby area. There were deer, monkeys, leopards, foxes, Buffalos and many more, however there were a few section of the forest completely devoid of life. I found a few foot prints clearly not of the werewolf variety. They looked like a three pronged pike like extremity and the organism used three of these for locomotion. The strange thing about these prints was that they were not limited to the ground, they were on the trees, on boulders, on leaves. I tools a few samples and photographs of the prints and flew away. I the strange thing about these empty patches was the lack of bodies. Did the alien creature swallow them whole? I found patches like these in the dozens and each patch was about a hundred meter in diameter. With these findings, I returned to the safe zone, which was now surrounded with a huge wooden dome. The structure looked evil because of the red thorns the covered every inch of it. On the top of this dome, I saw a huge flower and Fiore was meditating on it. All the vegetation in the surrounding few kilometers moved with her breath.

I left her alone and with inside the dome which was surprisingly bright considering the thick cover. Barton was tinkering with the Quinn jet while Steve was admiring the wooden structure that surrounded us.

“With her here, it makes people like me redundant.” Steve said as I landed beside him.

“Not really. You are making useful decisions and leading us.” I said and chuckled. “Also, think about how Natasha and Clint feel.”

“Fine, what did you find?” Steve asked and after a while of explanation and viewing the evidence. “There are definitely 2 different alien species here. Although, we can’t be sure about their hostility, but It will be safe to go further with an assumption that they are both hostile.”

“What if they are not hostile?” Clint said and sighed. “Dumb question. Ignore me.”

“Why are the these patches still empty?” Natasha asked and I shrugged.

“Maybe a pheromone. Can’t be sure. We don’t have the equipment here to test that sort of thing.” I said and looked out side the window.

The sun was getting low and Fiore was still in her trance, so I made a little totemic ward to keep an eye on her. Clint had still not gotten the communications to work and even though I knew that we were still in the TACT satellite’s coverage, there was no reception. There was still TACT’s barebones secondary AI on my phone but that had the functionality of Siri. I went outside and killed a few rabbits and returned with them. Clint cleaned up the meat and we wee sitting around a fire roasting rabbits.

“Is it safe to leave Fiore outside?” Natasha asked.

“She is inside a forest and her powers will keep her safe.” I said and turned the rabbit to the other side.

“Are Asgardian really gods?” Clint asked and looked at me.

“Yes, and no.” I said and looked at Clint. “They are just aliens with longer life and stronger bodies. However, their life is intrinsically intertwined with elements and concepts. Thor is connected to element of lightning and the energy in his body has the electricity as a primary and dominate change.”

“So, they are not gods.” Steve asked and I shook my head.

“They are not, but as they grow in experience and age. Their connection to the element increases. Thor’s adversaries include beings know as rock trolls. They had the strength shift continents and a dozen of them can destroy a planet. Thor had fought armies of them and he is laughably weaker than Odin.” I said and turned my rabbit. “Tell me, is Odin not a God?”

“But Tony fought Thor to a stand still.” Clint said with wide eyes.

“No, they simply tested each other. Steve knows this.” I said and looked at Steve and he nodded.

“How do you know this?” Natasha asked and I shook my head at her.

“Does it matter?” I asked and she nodded. “It shouldn’t.”

With that conversation, an uncomfortable silence fell on the group. I took out the meat from the flames and seasoned it with some salt and pepper. It was a overcooked and had a gamy taste but it was delicious none the less.

“Why does he come to help us out?” Clint asked.

“Because he thinks that he had found friendship here.” Steve replied and I nodded.

“Why? Do you now think that our lives are insignificant?” I asked and Natasha stared at me.

“We live for 70 years if we are lucky. We can barely fight of these aliens. We are always chasing after something.” Natasha said and took a bite. “truthfully, we are insignificant in front of such people.”

I laughed at that sentence and ate some of the meat before saying anything.

“Thousands of years ago, there was a weak child with scars and grey skin born in Egypt. Every one said that the child would not last longer than a week, especially in such poor household. But the mother kept her son close, and warm and fed him, until she died of starvation. They child was then rescued by a thief, and under that thief’s care grew to be a thief. But the child was still weaker than all the children his age, he would fail at pickpocketing and running.” I said and stopped after feeling the forest grow a bit around us.

“One day, the child tried to steal from a noble but got caught. He would have been killed but the thief who raised him gave himself up as a deal to let the boy go free. The deal went through and the thief was executed in front of the child. Whether it was the shock from watching some close die or from his sickly body, no one knows but the child fell on the ground unconscious with a fever. The noble laughed and ordered the body of the child to be thrown in the desert far away from the village.” I said and drank a bit of water.

“I heard this one before. The child comes back and get his revenge right?” Clint said with a chuckle.

“Shut up.” I said and continued. “After a few hours the child was picked up by a passing caravan. There he was adopted by a merchant’s wife and thought him ways of the trade. After a few years, the boy had grown into a frail but talented merchant. He had a certain knack for this occupation and was very successful. As it is with every success story, there were people who were jealous and sent an assassin to kill him. The assassin was unfortunately very successful and stabbed the boy in the heart. While the boy bled out he held assassin’s hand and a very strange phenomenon occurred for the first time in human history. The boys soul was transferred into assassin’s body but the should also took a portions of boys strength into the new body. The assassin’s body was transformed into the boys shape and it remained just as strong. From then on wards the boy would simply change his body to a new one when another assassin attacked. Years went by and rumors were spread about an immortal merchant until finally, another assassin came from far away lands to end him. This time the assassin was somehow able to control earth and came very close to killing the immortal. After an intense battle the immortal stood victorious and with a new body that was capable of controlling earth.” I said and looked around to see that they were enjoying my story. “Thousands of years went by and the boy had seen far too many wrongs and his will had weather. He decided that he would use his powers to form an empire, a one that would last as long as him and would be fair and prosperous. A thousand years later, the Egyptian civilization was united and the people were happy with their God like leader and despite his words that he was not a God, people worshiped him nonetheless. A day came when his body grew old and he decided to change his body once again, he went to the dungeons where the vile prisoners were kept and chose the most evil one to his new vessel. This prisoner was like the immortal and his power stemmed for an Evil that was not of this world. While the immortal assumed his new form, he also took in that evil and from then onwards he became a power-hungry dictator. People who were happily worshipping him stopped and tried to talk with their leader but the immortal killed any who showed resistance and made temples in his name. From his fanatics, he choose four and imbued them with power. These four forced the people to worship the immortal.” I stopped and finished my meal.

“Where is this story going?” Clint asked and Natasha shushed him.

“years passed under this harsh dictatorship and the immortal built 5 monument in his name and his four followers name that stood tall as the mountains. He made a chamber deep inside the earth where he would secretly assume new forms. In his kingdom there grew another child with a gift greater than the immortals. The child grew and on the night when the immortal entered his chamber to assume a new body, the child collapsed the entire earth around the immortal. His four followers died while he remained unconscious in a coma. His body was too powerful to wither away but his consciousness was trapped but to the ritual being interrupted.” I said and got up.

“Neat story, but you can’t just mix the four hors.e.m.e.n, the pharaohs and mutants in a story and expect us to be impressed.” Clint said and I smirked.

“That was not a story.” I said and watched their eyes widened. “What I was trying to convey was simple, no life is insignificant and the impact our very beings have on our cosmos is great and don’t worry about Asgardians or other Over powered aliens. We have enough power to defend ourselves.”

“That was a good story.” Steve said with a smile and got up.

The three of them entered the building and rested while I stood guard for the night, but my mind was else where. Apocalypse will rise and my search for underground cults in Egypt was not running great. I levitate above the dome and closed my eyes and simply sensed the life around me. The forest pulsed with power with Fiore breath while Fiore felt like the forest itself. I could feel that her influence was expanding and it had grown from about 5 kilometer to 10 and it was still increasing. I decided to meditate as well, I flew up above the clouds and let my power flow through me. I looked at the tiny portal in my mind and felt it expand slowly as I pulled out more and more power. While, I was lost within myself, I had changed the charges in the atmosphere so much that it changed the weather and clouds began to gather around me. Within an hour, I was surrounded by many huge c.u.mulus clouds that were raining. As more time passed, the rain had moved from being nice to a full blown storm like situation. As the sun rose, I stopped meditating and opened my eyes. I was still above cloud cover but there were still clouds that surrounded me. I felt the charges in the air and pulled them from air. Instantly, the clouds began to stop gathering and were slowing receding. However, I still expected half a day before clear sky. Since, I was so high in the air, I pulled out my phone and looked at the notifications. I sent over a few reports and dropped through the clouds and used gravity to lower my altitude. I got closer to the ground and flew back to the dome. I looked at Fiore and saw that she was wet from rain but was still in a trance. I looked around the forest and saw that it was grown over night. From big to huge, trees stood over 80 feet tall on average but some were as high as 120 feet.

Flying closer to the building I saw Steve and Natasha setting up a few drones and Clint was loading up guns and munitions in a few bags. They saw me coming and threw a few sandwiches at me. We wordless prepped for the excursion and in a few minutes we’re ready for recon or combat on foot.

“Tell your girlfriend to stop making this harder. Look at the trees, they have grown like twice as big.” Clint complained and I chuckled.

“Yeah, she is out of reach currently.” I said and we began to walk towards the exit of the dome.

We travelled just about 10 km before we hit the first dead zone. All the tree of them were instantly on edge due to the silence. Clint had an arrow half drawn while Natasha had a gun in her hand.

“Man, you really understated how creepy these areas were.” Clint said and we heard a snap directly above us. “F.u.c.k.”

We looked above us and saw what could only be described as a nightmare. It was creature with a bulbous heart like pulsating head that glistened with wet slime. It had not three but around 18 tentacles that ended in three pronged claws while there where two tentacles that were in the front of the creature that were shorter and without claws. It had a many eyes and I mean in hundreds all over its body. It was hanging above us by embedding its claws in nearby branches and trees.

“I have seen enough hentai to know where this is going.” I said as the creature launched itself at us.