“And they get some really good looks at some key technologies...” Scott Summers caught on instantly.
“As do I.” I tapped my temple, and the Mark there linked with Kismet glowed for a moment. “She’s feeding me the specs on everything she makes, naturally enough. The Xandarans love her, of course. She’s saving them a lot of time on fabricating certain things, and getting the key stuff up and running faster.
“They really are impressed with the Fixer. He’s able to understand what their stuff does really fast, while Beetle’s actually pretty good with determining what needs to be fixed first and fastest for everyone’s convenience, and allocating work loads outside the Worldmind’s specific directions. Not bad for a couple of primitive Terran bumpkins.”
“My dad promised them as many looks at the Starjammer’s systems as they wanted, but he gets a cut of the pie. He’s got no reservations about reverse-engineering Shi’ar tech.”
“He’s got a copy of Doc Bronze’s wishlist, too,” I nodded at that. “The production tech is more important than the tech, as it were.”
“Xandaran trade is very profitable, he told me. They make good stuff. And a formal alliance between them could only benefit things, although the Shi’ar are naturally pushy about such stuff...”
“They are a ruthless galactic empire, who got that way on conquest and sublimation of other worlds. If you look at their religious materials, they consider the forced marriage of other worlds into the Empire as their primary method of improvement and evolution, and they likely aren’t wrong. They aren’t as bad as the Skrulls, but their society has definitely calcified, and won’t be allowed to move from any situation where they are not at the top.”
“So, an ally of convenience for us,” he sighed.
“Probably held at bay mostly by the fact that the Phoenix has definitely taken an interest in our world... along with Celestials being active there, and not wanting to get caught up in the whole Skrull/Kree mess going on, let alone the other worlds that thought we’d be a convenient target.
“My father said just having gods who are walking around with mortals is a huge danger sign to any experienced spacers. Mucking around with gods is a good way to lose a ship.”
“I guess the Aakon and the Kronans aren’t experienced spacers, then,” I rolled my eyes. “Well, they have to get the experiences in bumps and bruises, right?”
“Most of them didn’t come back after the first time they invaded us, right?” he asked, recalling all the incidents with minor alien races, really not much more powerful than Terra, coming here with the intent to conquer it. They were often much more powerful than normal humans, but still ended up losing by one means or another.
Running into Powered was often one of those means.
“They sort of wander in, get their asses kicked one way or another, and leave. Now they’re not even able to wander in, and are getting their fleets destroyed before leaving. The random events have really trailed off over the last decade, unless they come from extra-dimensionals who are basically clueless.”
“So, why did you shoo everyone else away?” he asked, looking around tellingly. “Like you said, Jean’s pretty cool about certain things...”
“How’d Viz do on analyzing the psionic signature among you boys?” I asked calmly, neatly clipping that line of thought.
“Oh. Oh!” He leaned forward as he communicated with his Visor. The massive amounts of energy downloading into all of them had given Viz plenty of time and exposure to analyze how their mutual energy absorption worked. “There is a common element among us, somewhere in the theta-cro bands.”
“Can it replicate that as an Aura around you that it can attach to incoming energy signatures?”
“Attach to?... Whoa.” He blinked at me, processing that.
“All of you Summers boys have tremendous abilities to absorb and output energies, but you and Remy only do it passively, while Gabriel’s power is about manipulation and Alex has problems with broader types of energy.
“Whatever the common element is among you, it even allows you to absorb pure kinetic energy, not just electromagnetics. I don’t think I have to tell you how useful that would be if you can extend it to all incoming energies, not just those from one another.”
Scott looked away thoughtfully. “Alex can supercharge off a ship’s core right now, while Gabriel can use any energy source available, sure. If Remy and I could do the same... that’s a pretty powerful tool in the arsenal, and a good defense.”
“A ‘good defense’. Being able to absorb basically unlimited amounts of capital-class energy attacks, and give them right back.” I just rolled my eyes. “Have Viz send Specs the data.”
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“Done!” Specs beeped at me, and I looked at the massive amounts of data there.
I could have run it through some computers and really fine-tuned it, and I would do so later, but for now I just mentally sifted through the information, started eliminating the frequencies unique to each of the Summers boys, then dropped discordant wavelengths, and arrived at a several sets of psionic strands in the theta-cro bands, just as Viz had said.
“Mild shock.” I held up a sparking finger, aimed it at his unarmored forehead. He closed his eyes, and I discharged a mild jolt with a popping sound.
There was no reaction. The voltage went into him as smoothly as water down a drain.
His brown eyes popped back open. “Whoa!” he murmured. “That... felt really weird!”
“I modulated my lightning along the common factor of your Auras. It still has my psignature on it, so you can tell it wasn’t one of you. There’s factors to my lightning that you would find hard to convert against my will, and I could make it totally Dissonant and impossible to absorb... or even Spike it really badly if you did absorb it.”
“But now you can charge me up ahead of time!” He liked that idea.
“Just like, oh, Comet,” I nodded.
He glanced to one side, and frowned. “That also means... that we could modulate that frequency OUT of our energies, right?”
“If you flat pour your energy through Viz for it to unleash as a force beam, it would do that by default... but, yes, although it would take some impressive control of your energy to mentally touch something and not leave a psignature on it without using an intermediary device.”
He winced despite himself. “So that’s why you sent them away. You didn’t want my brothers to know I could get around our immunity to one another.”
“In all honesty, I hope you never have to use it against them, or defend against it. However, none of you are dumb. If you develop the Aural Attachment Absorption technique, the idea will occur to all of you.”
“Wait.” He blinked, and stared at me. “Anyone who could replicate that frequency could make themselves invulnerable to our energy attacks, right?”
“They would have to be energy absorbers. If they can’t absorb the energy, it still has to go somewhere, and would basically affect them normally.” He looked somewhat relieved. “However, if they are invulnerable, they could disperse an attack entirely across their invulnerability, making them extremely resistant to your attacks. It would be sort of like you attacking every atom in their body, instead of just the surface of their body, meaning they’d be bringing ALL of their invulnerability to bear, instead of just the area hit by your attack.
“Likewise, a force field would be optimized against your attacks, no different than doing so against a specific type of energy assault. It’s just most forcefields can’t be modulated in the psignature bands, as they tend to respond to the energy types directly, not the attached mental touches.”
He sat back, rubbing his head. “And once it gets out, it can’t be brought back.”
“It can be done on an individual basis against each of you, save Gabriel, who wields external energies. The best way to defend against you specifically is simply to neutralize the photonic carrier waves, which by default have to match the quartz wavelengths which stop or focus them. Alex and Remy both use singular energy forms, and can be optimized against if someone knows what to defend against.
“The psignature move would just protect against ALL of you, while really having no drawbacks.”
“But by having Viz, I have an alternate attack form handy,” Scott said slowly.
“Yes. Really, not much different from carrying a gun, just more dangerous.”
He sighed deeply. “You really do think about this stuff way too much, Dyna.”
“Fifteen times speed. Multiple thoughtstreams. You could say I don’t think about this stuff enough, because of the ramifications, but they still squeak through.”
Because naturally I had those defensive wavelengths. I might even be able to dump an attack from the Summers into the Pocketspace, who knew?
“Do you think I should tell my brothers?” he asked slowly.
“No. Vulcan will spill it to a pair of pretty lips, and to the Shi’ar Imperial family. Alex blurts out stuff without thinking. Remy lies as smoothly as silk, but he just keeps talking if allowed to. When they clean up their tongue discipline, sure. It doesn’t hurt them to not know they can’t blow one another away right now, after all.
“They’ll also need a pair of Ultra Specs to pull off the Aural Attachment Absorption trick. I think we can pretty much attribute that to superior discipline and practice on the elder brother’s part right now.”
He smirked despite himself. “Okay, I can get a bit obsessive about that stuff, I know...”
“Hey pot, kettle here,” I waved it off, and he actually managed to laugh. “Now, how about I shrink down so nobody recognizes me and-“ my coms beeped urgently, “-naturally get interrupted before we can join the others...”
“Lady Dynamo, the Queen requests your presence at the Palace immediately,” the cool voice of a Centurion Prime of the Queen’s Guard came over coms.
I pinched my nose and sighed.
“No going dancing, I take it?” he asked knowingly.
“You have to dance with all of the girls at least once!” I warned him.
“Hey, Remy can cut a rug, but Alex has two left feet, and Gabe can’t dance without flying. Trust big brother to show all their dates how it’s done!” he grinned. “I just hope MJ doesn’t try to lead...”
===============
One minute later, I was in front of the Xandaran Royal Palace.
The Worldmind relayed that the Royal Palace was literally the personal quarters of the Queen, and basically served as a diplomatic and entertainment facility for guests otherwise. Governmental duties were accomplished elsewhere.
Queen Adora was a Centurion, naturally enough, but only a Five Core. The position was an elected one, not by birth, as the person with the greatest traits of leadership and vision was assigned to the position. Her Nova Core was from her time spent as a public service to her people, gaining understanding of the Corps and its powers and benefits, while removing herself from the command hierarchy to serve the people who empowered the Corps, and not the Corps itself.
All indications were that she was a fair, just, and forward-thinking ruler, and she had been serving for over three Earth decades, although she didn’t look that old. Their ruler served up to a century, and that included first priority cloning rebirths. Their relationship with the past rulers in the Worldmind was far closer than most Xandarans had with elders there, too...
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The Marvel Wiki has TONS of aliens. Many are from very old stories from the 50’s or 60’s. Aliens come to conquer Earth, and get beaten by us barbarians. Very funny.