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Triskelion, Washington DC [April 18, 2011]
–Nick Fury–
“So you mean to tell me that the kid that escaped the encirclement last year can now do that?” He pointed at the video feed showing the latest escapades of the now renegade vigilante who had escaped the clutches of the Military almost a year back.
“The report states the same, sir,” Coulson replied to him. The response further aggravated him, a vein appearing on his forehead due to that.
“How do you explain the portals?” He asked the question that had set the pants of the World Security Council on fire. They had gotten so paranoid that all of them had gone into their bunkers, afraid that the now very powerful Enhanced would open a portal to their location and crush them in the hands of his suit that he could make now. Apparently, the kid had gotten very creative with his barriers and instead of just sticking to traditional shields, he had now opted to make giant humanoids by stacking those barriers and then patrolling the skies above New York and stopping crime wherever he saw it happening. On the plus side, violent crime across the board had dropped to pretty much zero but that has gotten the Mayor, The Senators, The WSC, and even the President on his ass, ordering him to figure out what to do with him.
“Those….are new developments that we are still looking into, sir,”
Coulson’s reply made him rub his forehead in stress. That was just official talk for that they had nothing on that. He didn’t actually expect them to crack portal tech but at least, some sort of energy signature they can trace would have been helpful. Apparently, he expected too much.
“Any countermeasures?” He mused as he looked at the activities the kid had done ever since he came back into the city. He had still not found where he lived but that was to be expected with his ability to open portals to orbit with ease. He could be living in the Himalayas for all he knew and could be commuting to the city daily for his “Day” job. So far, in the seven days he had been active in the city, he had stopped over a hundred robberies, stopped a dozen shootouts, and who knows how many car chases and accidents had been stopped by him. It was as if the kid was just hell-bent on stopping crime in that city for some reason.
“Unfortunately, whatever the boys in the labs have been able to cook up is untested and is unlikely to work on him, other than angering him, maybe,” Coulson replied and he just sighed for the umpteenth time. This was not good for his stress and it didn’t help that Stark was not very forthcoming with information. The entire world had seen their meeting and then them going through a portal that somehow went straight to orbit, according to their satellites. What happened in that meeting, he did not know but after that, Stark never came into the city with his suit and he could see why. At the rate things were going, the majority of the people at NYPD were pretty soon going to find themselves out of a job. That would not bode well and he was not opposed to the kid doing some good but there was some procedure that had to be followed.
“Any updates from Stark?”
Another sigh as Coulson shook his head in negative.
“Alright, I want you to go see if we can secure a meeting with him.”
“Affirmative,”
_____xx___
Pops’ Barber Shop [April 25, 2011]
–Jack Sullivan–
“Oh, who is this fellow?” He looked up from his sweeping and was surprised to find himself in front of someone who would not look out of place in a place full of the world’s biggest bodybuilders accompanied by a much older person. Just that the old man was so much smaller than the bodybuilder next to him that he hadn’t even noticed him.
“That is just one of the kids of the neighbourhood who help make my life easy. Come in, Jordan,” Pops emerged from the back and gestured for both of them to enter.
“...I hope you pay him for that otherwise…”
“Oh, calm down, will you? Yes, I pay him more than minimum wage for that, and Jack?”
“Yes?” He responded as he twirled the broom in his hand like a pro.
“You’re done for the day. Go do whatever it is that you do,”
“Okay!” He said and just dumped the broom at the entrance of the shop and ran out. He heard Pops sighing explosively behind him accompanied by the laughter of that old man, Jordan.
He was pretty sure that the giant of a man was Luke Cage. What he did not know was if this was before he gained his powers or after. He had never seen the before V/S after photo of Luke Cage after his experiment. The experiment that made him bulletproof.
Speaking of bulletproof, he had not yet tested if he was bulletproof or not. He had noticed his strength increasing so to speak but he had not tested his resilience and if he had his way, there would be no need to. The Ancient One’s hammer blow was enough pain for him for the rest of the year. He was not a masochist to try and purposefully hurt himself to find out his pain tolerance. Though, knowing his limits should help him immensely if he ever was pushed to such a level that he had to go all out and meet someone who was capable of bypassing his barriers and hurting him directly. Aside from Thanos, he did not know anybody who would soon come into his life who could hurt him. Loki, with his sceptre, probably could but that thing was so nerfed that he could not foresee Loki actually breaching even his gamma barriers, let alone his core barriers, and then hurting him. Though, he would not grow overconfident in that regard and would probably disarm him from the distance the first chance he got.
It was a shame that he would have to let the Invasion actually happen but he could not risk himself being sealed away by the Ancient One because he was sure that she would do it. The look in her eyes as she had told him had cemented that fact in his mind. She would seal him away until the invasion happened without even hesitating because according to her, the invasion must happen and it will be, in the long run, a good thing so me ruining that good thing was a big no-no for her.
“So many lives lost,” He muttered to himself as he stopped another car chase. This time, they were fleeing after some cop discovered them with a car full of drugs.
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“Here you go, officers,” He said with his “outside” voice and deposited the subdued criminals and the crumpled-up car with a crack right in front of their largest precinct, which also had a large impound for cars. He was helpful like that and it helped that he could just create a barrier and then navigate it through his extra senses. Once again, he thanked the person who dropped him here for giving him his powers.
He waved at the many people who continued to wave at him. He had a fan following at this point. It had been almost 2 weeks since he started doing this, going out in the day and stopping all crimes. Then he found out that the criminals adapted and began doing their deliveries in secret, aided by the darkness of the night. He didn’t find out about that because the smarter criminals figured out that as long as they didn’t raise too much noise, he would not know. Then, one day, just for shits and giggles, he just didn’t go home. Informing Pops that he was going to stay out all night, he just willed his barriers to become much brighter, making him pretty much a giant green bulb in the sky and then patrolling the skies. It was hilarious to watch all the surprised looks on the criminals’ faces as his barriers dropped from the skies and stopped them in their tracks.
That was also the day he had been approached by multiple SHIELD agents. He had not recognised any of them aside from Coulson and even with him he was not sure if he had some HYDRA agents mixed in his team, so he had just ignored them.
Tony has been suspiciously silent all this time. The Stark Tower was coming along nicely and he had been treated to the spectacle that was the Iron Men suit being used to perform construction duties as Tony seemed to be in somewhat of a hurry to finish his Tower. Well, from what he could remember from his memories, Tony had just finished disconnecting the Tower from the city grid when he had been approached by Coulson in regards to Loki. So, he had that in mind as a frame of reference for when the INvasion might happen.
He was still undecided on whether to join Tony and the others on the Helicarrier when they tried to pitch it to him because he was unsure of how things would turn out.
He had even dropped by the New York Sanctum for some delicious cakes that Master Drumm liked to bake in his off time. They were to die for and he had even brought in some for Pops who, in spite of eating the best pastries that Paris had to offer, fell in love with Drumm’s cakes. Master Drumm had confided in him during one of their tea and cake meetings that he had hoped to open a cake shop when he was still young and unmarred by the vicissitudes of life. That had put a damper on things until he had told Master Drumm that the day he would become Sorcerer Supreme, he would give Master Drumm his own cake shop and he would be semi-retired to function only as a reserve. Master Drumm had laughed it off as just optimistic rambling but he was sure that was going to be the case.
He was going to become the strongest Sorcerer on the planet and then save Drumm. He was sure that preventing the rise of Stephen Strange was going to be impossible and the Ancient One would forbid him from interfering in that but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t stop some of the casualties that happened in the period where Strange came to Kamar Taj and he became the Sorcerer Supreme.
Well, all of that was in the future. Right now, he, or rather, his Gundam, was standing on water near the docks where he could see a burning ship. Apparently, there was a batch of electric cars on that ship and the shipping company had cheaped out in the protections, resulting in a huge chemical fire that refused to go out. He had been roaming in the skies above, listening in on one of the police radios he had gotten from a police officer who had been all too glad to give it to him when he saw a fire in the ocean. When he went to the port, he saw them panicking and running around like headless chickens because that ship was running on autopilot as the crew had all jumped out midway. Their only option was to either remotely pilot it to stop it in its course but the software was not working for some reason or blow it to kingdom come. That, was undoubtedly the last resort due to the sheer environmental damage that would occur when tons of heavy processed metals from the lithium batteries would burn and mix in with the ocean water.
The ship was being hailed by multiple Coast Guard ships but the fire had spread to the entirety of the ship so nobody could actually get aboard it and stop it manually. That left only him who could do it. He was actually using the radio to talk with the police on how to best handle that scenario. According to them, the fire will keep on burning and give out toxic fumes for days to come so the best case scenario was to keep it in a vacuum and they had suggested the vacuum to be a cube created by his barriers.
“Oh, I don’t have the time for that. I have something else in mind, don’t worry,” He said and then cut off the radio, muting the police officer who was probably getting more panicked as he willed the Gundam to become larger.
He could hear the Gasps from behind as he was now a giant taller than most buildings in Manhattan. The next second, he gracefully floated in the sky and set off towards the ship. Reaching the ship, he could see the panicking coastguards as they tried to extinguish the fire using water but that was not going to happen and they knew it.
He had always wanted to do something so he did. He mentally willed for multiple arms to appear behind him, bringing his total tally to six arms. He then extended one of his arms and then simply grabbed the container ship as if it were a toy and then lifted it straight out of the sea. Of course, the ship would have simply crumbled had he done that but he had subtly created barriers that covered the entire ship as soon as his hands had made contact with it. Soon, the air in the barrier ran out and the flames were snuffed out.
That didn’t mean that the thermal reaction within the batteries had stopped but just that the fire had gone out for now since there was no oxygen to feed it. Amidst the gawking gazes of the coast guards, he lifted the ship and then floated back to the docks. The only reason he was able to do that was because he had learned how to harness potential energy with his barriers so in a way, he was using the ship’s weight against it otherwise lifting that ship would have been out of his current capabilities. Mid-flight, he dispelled the Gundam and just kept the small armoured plating he kept around himself and landed straight in the port, in front of the authorities.
The scene must have been incredulous from their point of view, a massive 10,000 container ship being held in a hand that was coming from a six-foot guy. Their reactions were appropriate for the occasion as all of them collectively took a step back as he slowly landed in the port, the container ship held by the arm above him.
Hah, he still could not do it on the same level as Hashirama-sama, The First Hokage. He still had a lot to learn before he could create a golem with a thousand hands like Hashirama-sama did before he grabbed Kurama like a common house cat, he mused to himself before focusing back on what the people in front of him were saying.
“Where are you going to keep the ship now?” The portmaster asked him nervously. Actually, he could see that everyone there was nervous.
“Um, where would this be safe? Anywhere I put it, it will just release toxic fumes in the air. I don’t want to do that,” He said out loud then disregarding whatever they were saying, he snapped his fingers and acted as if he had a very brilliant idea.
“That’s right! Space. I will throw this away in space. No environmental damage there, right?” he asked them rhetorically before the authorities looked behind them as they heard the sound of people gasping, pointing at his hand. They looked at his hand, only to goggle in surprise. His hand had crushed the container ship to a pulp. It was now a ball in his hand that he tossed up and down using a gesture of his hand.
His form then rocketed straight up into the air and right at the edge of orbit, he cocked his hand back and then threw it straight into the darkness of space. Even if it did collide with any other planet, it was very small in comparison to a planet and would do no damage anyway. Besides, it was not as if there was any intelligent life on any other planet other than Earth.
He then made a portal and stepped into his room in the loft, suddenly feeling very hungry. “I feel like eating Butter Chicken for dinner today,” He declared to himself and then removed the ninja clothes, hoping to freshen up. Then, he would go to India and have a feast for himself.
He was sure that he would need that good feeling because he had a feeling that Stark was going to approach him tomorrow and dealing with him was always a headache.
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Word Count - 2878
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