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Chapter 41
Technomancer in MCU
–Ed–
Watching the list of H.Y.D.R.A. bases being updated in real-time did bring a smile to my face.
Pierce did have a list of probably 80% of all H.Y.D.R.A. infested locations but my goal was not to have 80% of the organisation gone. Anything less than all of it gone would have been a failure. At Least the one which was hell-bent on conquering Earth.
The faction that worshipped that ancient Inhuman fossil, Hive, could be dealt with later.
The bigger priority was them as they were getting ahead of their timeline when it came to Project: Insight.
It was worrying how much money the world governments were willing to put into the new aircraft carriers, despite their analysts warning them that this would not be able to stop me if I had any nefarious intentions towards any of their countries.
But with the politicians’ greed and fear overtaking the rational parts of their brains, they continued to pour endless amounts of money into a project that would ultimately help H.Y.D.R.A. conquer the planet with minimal resistance.
Wakanda had yet to create a policy for their eventual introduction to the world and I had yet to reveal anything about myself to the world at large.
I had warned POTUS about the outside threats and my position in defending Earth but as expected, he had chosen to remain silent and not have any kind of cooperation between their allies in preparation for any kind of future alien invasion.
Sigh, what more could I expect from a cold-blooded politician anyway?
“Alfred, send the list and all the surveillance we have on them to Frank. Tell him we need a blitz retrieval team to recover some dangerous artifacts before they fall into rogue H.Y.D.R.A. agents.” I ordered Alfred.
His hologram popped up on my retina HUD and he said, “Mission priority?”
“Eh, Beta should be enough.”
The artifacts were not as much of a priority as the sceptre was.
It was already reported ‘stolen’ to S.H.I.E.L.D. and was on its way to Sokovia for Strucker to experiment on it.
Agent Johnson was already assigned that mission and the last I read her report, she had chosen to do a dive near the plane carrying the cargo and destroy it using her powers.
I gotta give it to her, it was smart to do so.
Minimal risk.
Near complete chances of success.
The sceptre was near indestructible so such a fall wouldn’t even scratch it and with our tech, tracking even a pin falling from a crashing plane was possible.
“ETA on the sceptre?” I asked Alfred.
“According to Special Agent Johnson, the item is set to be transported tomorrow and she would have to report herself as well as the item to quarantine within the next 48 hours, as per the protocols that dictate procedure after coming into contact with foreign mind control equipment.” Alfred replied back.
I nodded at that, lost in my thoughts.
Despite not changing much of the timeline, I had considerably accelerated H.Y.D.R.A.’s timeline regarding their plans.
According to Alfred, Pierce was taking a much more proactive role in their projects this time than he probably did in the canon timeline.
He must have been rattled by their constant failures.
Most of the projects that the other heads were working on had their resources cut and almost all available personnel were diverted towards completing the carriers.
It would seem that he was hedging all of his bets on the half a dozen murder machines that S.H.I.E.L.D. commissioned after receiving a blank check from the World Security Council.
The carriers themselves were a work of art. Well, as much of a work of art, as they can be while being created by current-gen technology.
But still, they did not cut corners at all while building the damn things.
Powered by Stark’s second-generation giant Arc reactors that used the element invented by Howard Stark.
I was surprised when I heard that Tony was willing to share his precious new element with the government but then I remembered that I was the one who suggested that he share his technology with the government.
Then again, with the gift I left for him in the Stark Tower basement, I should hope so.
I was surprised at first when I heard that they were going to install actual energy-based weaponry on the carriers but then I saw the specs and was no longer as worried.
They were using horribly inefficient designs along with materials that had cool-down periods that ranged in days rather than minutes.
It was rather amusing that they thought that it would help them in any possible way if the aliens they encountered were even mildly advanced in terms of the galactic technological level.
“Alfred, inform me when the carriers are ready to be launched.”
“Affirmative, sir. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s own estimation for the launch date is 2 weeks from today, sir,” he replied back dutifully.
“Very well, we’ll take the carriers and give them back once they establish a proper agency.”
“Should I ask Commander Frank to engage in yet another bout of thievery that he oh so adores doing, you know, with him being a former agent of the government? I am sure when the truth comes out, Dr.Pym will be thrilled to fight alongside us.” Alfred said in the driest possible voice.
I winced a bit at that.
Hank really was hard-headed when it concerned his precious inventions.
He would probably try to kill me first rather than listen to what I would have to say then.
Welp.
That’s a problem for future me.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
I shook my head and replied, “No need. Have one of the mountains nearby DC hollowed out and build a ghost base there to house and maintain the carriers. We’ll return them when it is time.”
“Ah! So we are merely keeping them safe from their own hands. How nice of you, sir. I am not sure that the world governments who poured billions of dollars into that project would share the sentiment, sir.” Alfred replied.
I rolled my eyes at his grouchiness.
He always becomes grumpy at the topic of Pym particles.
It was a bit of a sore spot for him.
What with his inability to crack their formula even after decades of advanced research in his time dilation server labs.
I rolled my eyes and said, ‘They’ll be fine. If not, they should grow up.”
“Besides, with how much we have already stolen from Pym, he probably has the rest of his supply in security tighter than we could imagine. So put all the plans for the new Pym particle acquisition on hold. At least till we sort things out with him or find other avenues for it,” I said to him.
His hologram nodded back.
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Somewhere on the West Coast
–Hank Pym–
He watched the screens with bloodshot eyes, a can of concentrated caffeine shot in his hands.
Somebody had managed to get inside his house and steal his greatest creation not once not twice but four times now.
Each time, he had devised new security measures but the thief somehow always thwarted all of them and stole them.
He had nearly taken out all of his remaining hair out of frustration.
No matter what he did, the thief just waltzed into his house and stole one of the most dangerous substances known to mankind.
It didn’t help that his trusty ants managed to fail him for the first time in his long life.
Nothing he did managed to capture the thief so this time he had devised a foolproof plan to stop the stealing.
He had created a batch of faulty Pym particles.
It went against his every principle, creating a faulty version of the dangerous substance, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
So here he was, in an underground bunker hollowed out by his trusty ants.
Nobody, not even Hope was aware of his location and he had destroyed all of his previous batches of Pym Particles.
The only remaining vial of it was sitting on a custom land mine that will register weight changes as less as 1mg in less than 0.1 seconds.
This way, there is no way that the thief will be able to escape his sight.
Now, the only thing that was left was waiting for him to show up.
It’s been over 100 coffee shots and he still hasn’t shown up.
Where was he?
That was the last thought that went through his mind before he started feeling dizzy and darkness overtook his vision.
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Danger Room
–Frank Castle–
Danger Room.
What an apt name.
He watched on as his team sparred against themselves in the danger room using some fancy tech that he didn’t bother remembering in the briefing session regarding this room.
The danger room was located in the centre of the combat centre.
A huge hologram above the danger room displayed the internal fight for anyone to see.
According to Alfred, it was built in conjunction with the wizards.
They somehow increased the space of a regular container-sized room to something that could fit multiple football stadiums inside.
It was way more useful than he thought it would be at first.
Live combat simulation drills aside, the best feature of the danger room in his opinion was the feature to fight against yourselves.
Essentially, Alfred, through his computer mumbo jumbo created digital avatars of the team members using the data that he had available on the existing team members
The best part about these avatars was the fact that Alfred had filled in various minuscule gaps or mistakes that the team members had.
Alfred had essentially created perfected soldiers with virtually zero mistakes and even if they made one, he corrected it on the fly, resulting in an extremely humbling scenario.
Some members had gotten inflated egos due to their positions in the most elite team of the organisation.
This was a pretty good way to show them the reality and how far they were from fully realising their potential.
So far, not even a single member of the team has managed to defeat their foes, as a team or individually.
It was a huge blow to their ego.
He had felt pretty nice seeing the entire team knocked down on their asses within the first 2 minutes by someone who wasn’t so much higher up on the food chain than them that they just stopped trying.
They pretty much go into the ring expecting defeat once the opponent they are facing is someone from the S-tier list.
At the moment, it had him, Ed, Alfred, Daisy (she didn’t know that yet) and Emil Blonsky.
Some of the new generation inhumans had potential but none that could defeat any of the S-rankers.
HISS!
The door of the Danger room opened up and all the team members walked out limping, being supported by their teammates, Daisy being the only exception.
All of them sported sour looks on their faces as usual.
They had finally managed to defeat their doppelgangers as a team in the last mandatory combat session and were oh-so confident they could replicate the victory this time as well.
But apparently, they weren’t aware of Alfred’s sadistic nature or just not expecting it.
He was speaking to Alfred before the session, hoping to get his opinions on the next stage of training for the team when Alfred revealed his signature mischievous smirk and told him to just wait and watch.
And watch he did.
The new “Hell” mode, as Alfred dubbed it, was a thing of beauty.
Not only did it up the synergy between the team members, so much so that it looked like all the members had telepathic connections but it also opened up an entirely new avenue of combat available to the team members.
It was something Alfred cooked up for the team to use in the most vital situations. He called it “Team-mode”.
He had deadpanned at Alfred when he first saw it in action. It didn’t help that the team doppelgangers shouted out corny action names like “Power UP!”, “Feel the power of our friendship!” and whatnot.
It essentially allowed any and all enhanced members to essentially pool their energy and transfer it to a single member of the team, dramatically increasing their prowess for a brief period of time.
Alfred had gone on a lengthy lecture about all enhanced abilities essentially boiling down to cosmic energy and exploiting that, he was able to come up with something like “Team-mode”.
He, just for shits and giggles, made it so that the doppelganger team could use the Team-mode option without any drawbacks.
And the team could barely use it without falling into a coma, not to mention that this was the first time they ever used it.
The end result was expected.
Total and utter defeat at their own hands.
Looking at the utterly despairing faces of the team and the red face of Daisy with literal steam coming out of her head due to the intense vibrations that surrounded her, causing the surrounding water vapor to turn into steam, he was glad that Ed had designated him as a commander at the get-go.
He couldn’t imagine going through all that without wanting to murder some people.
He went forward before Alfred could piss off Daisy enough for her to create a smoking crater right where she stood.
He then clapped his hands to gain their attention and said, “Alright, that’s enough with the mopey faces. I know you expected a hard-earned victory but tough luck. Life’s not fair and the situation in the field can change in a second. This should remind you of the dangerous situations you can expect outside.”
None of the team members responded to his speech, too drained mentally and physically to reply.
He nodded and said, “Go home now. We’ll be having the same drill a month from today. I expect a much better performance then. Practice with the new tool you have at your disposal now.”
Daisy looked at her forearm where a blue pulsing tattoo now rested.
It was the runic application that allowed her team members to propel her from barely S-rank to being able to throw hands with the Hulk for a short period of time.
They trudged along towards the exit.
Right before they went out the door, Frank said, “Special Agent Johnson, meet me tomorrow at 0800.”
Daisy just nodded and left with her team.
“Think I went a little bit overboard there?” Alfred asked in a slightly pitying tone of voice.
He just sighed at that.
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Word Count - 2502
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