“No. Eon went with the Quantum Bands, now being held in safe storage by the Sentinels after they slaughtered Wendell Vaughn and emptied Project Pegasus for their needs.”
She tapped her own set of Ultra Specs. “I have to be about gathering some stuff, then.” She sighed heavily. Always more work, and rebuilding from scratch. “No Negative Plane invasion here?”
I looked out into the cosmos, and shook my head. “The influence of Thanos seems to have squelched that, possibly? Or maybe they’ve tuned to the fact that the universe here has died like four times already, and been restored haphazardly. A dying universe might seem awfully stable compared to one that’s growing and getting itself murdered repeatedly.”
“Especially since as non-natives they wouldn’t be coming back with it. No wonder they are invading yours,” she agreed. Briggs and Sama were stopping all that nonsense, so it made for an ideal refuge.
“Rogue?” I asked shortly.
“I’ll be taking her power,” my Clone said shortly. I just nodded. She was a cowardly bitch on this world, and her theft of Carol’s power and memories had only made her crazier. She’d fled the Sentinel takeover, and was being manipulated by Mystique and Destiny as their protector and defender, keeping them alive.
“Jean Grey?” I inquired. The people here had no idea she was still alive in that ball of energy under the Hudson, as there’d been no digging projects to unearth her, or FF to set her free. We were lucky the Phoenix hadn’t just absent-mindedly offed her in passing while enjoying mortal life in her form.
“I’ll bring her out after I retrieve Cyclops. Warlock Pacting her Phoenix link should allow her to keep more control of her life... although I doubt she’s going to be happy with how it was stolen.”
“Truth. Anything you need me to do before I go?”
“How many base Shields can you make up?” she asked after a moment of thought.
“How many do you want?” I replied simply. Shieldium wasn’t the easiest material to make directly from the raw materials, but since I knew how it came into being, I could definitely make any number of Captain America’s Shields that were required, and set them up for Naming Karma.
She smiled grimly. “Bunches. I’m probably going to end up taking over the world, you know. Moondragon Mysteries and all.”
She didn’t need all my Warlock support stuff, and the Ultra Core would eventually give her all the raw physical ability she needed, above and beyond her Caster Matrix. So, yeah, psi-magic was definitely the way to go, and there was a whole lot that had to be done with the Badoon waiting for things to shake out and prodding the global instability and reliance on robotic tech along in preparation for their impeding slave harvest.
“With no Sama or Briggs to guide the Destiny Force of humanity.” I just shook my head, picturing the immensity of what had to be done here. “Having the Phoenix potentially on our side is one thing, but I’m not sure how much you want to rely on it. It’s not like it has a sense of guilt.”
Being severed from Fate and Chance, as she’d promptly done, would make taking control harder, but wouldn’t make the fight for evolution any easier.
She eyed the mutants aboard the Sanctuary Ship speculatively, knowing they’d make her job easier if they could be recruited... and I could force the issue, if I cared to.
Neither of us were going to do that, however.
Temporal shenanigans. Power-stealing. Magic, telepathy, Marks, Allegiances, Oaths, Duplicates, Cosmic-class Tools and Awareness. All the broken tools were there and ready to be used to get this world and reality back on track.
“How’d they handle Owen Reece here?” she asked by way of closing. The Molecule Man could have stopped all this with no effort whatsoever.
I focused on that, lifting my eyes to the stars and looking around. “They ambushed him and dispersed his mind and body over half the system with a quantum explosion. It pushed his consciousness into a cosmic state, sort of like Kronos, and he’s all caught up in higher levels of awareness and doesn’t care about this antspeck of a planet anymore.”
He’d never received the enlightenment of his true power from the Secret Wars, and the Beyonder had never truly followed up with the Molecule Man’s dispersal. He wasn’t mentally ready for a higher state of consciousness, and was effectively drowning Up There.
She snorted, then sighed. “The Infinity Gems?”
I glanced about again. “The Living Tribunal here has finally locked down on them, and they are scattered across the cosmos. I can’t see any of them specifically. I think Thanos has the Reality Gem, and Adam Warlock has the Soul Gem again. They’ve been sort of working together to keep the universe-destroying stuff at bay, but it’s a bit harder without quality muscle along to help.”
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Read, Earth’s well-meaning, enthusiastic, and ultimately foolish heroes, stabbed in the back by those they were trying to serve and protect.
“Jessica Drew is in Britain, right?” she asked me, and I glanced that way.
“Yeah, she’s one of their most vicious operators, got out just ahead of the Sentinels coming into California. She’s the new Black Widow after Natasha was murdered with the Avengers.”
“And Strange absconded to Kamar-Taj. The mystical disruptions of the Sentinels rising really fucked the planet up for a lot of mystical beings, so it was a bit quieter on that side for a generation...”
“Still will be, when the Badoon come,” I sighed. “Good thing you’ve the Cosmic Chord. Stephen might be a bit peeved when you overwhelm him on the magic side of things...”
“At least I don’t have to go worry about Doom. Odd how practical the Sentinels were about wiping him...”
“They got most of the Intelligentsia. Heck, it was the main reason they targeted Peter, realizing how smart he actually was, and Bruce Banner, too, Hulkiness aside. Octavius, the Thinker, the Leader, Modok, Zemo, Zola, Sinister, the Gremlin, the Mole Man, even Forge... they offed pretty much all the smart people, not just the Big Three. A dumb humanity is a lot easier to lead, after all.”
Ultron had managed to elude them, which meant long-term complications. He’d actually fled to the Blue Area of the Moon, but was keeping a very careful distance from the Watcher, who could simply turn him off with a thought.
“T’Challa’s still there...” she remembered from my earlier survey, her eyes glittering a bit.
“You going Munroe?” I asked, eyebrow arched. It went without saying that the Black Panther wasn’t going to be much interested in a Caucasian woman. “Also, he’s married to one of his Dora.”
Her nose wrinkled in dismay. “Well, that’s what we get for jumping three decades into the future...”
“Wakanda is the single biggest reason the Badoon would come here. That vibranium of theirs is literally a multi-galactic treasure trove.”
“I’m sure they’ll be pleased to realize that a galactic empire has set its sights on their primary national resource.” We both sighed again at her quip.
“They MIGHT be able to come up with something, given sufficient advance warning, but it wouldn’t stop the rest of the planet from being glassed. That much vibranium is literally worth more than the rest of the planet,” I pointed out.
“Ah, bringing them even more peace of mind. I’m sure that letting the rest of the galaxy know would contribute to the serenity and harmony of their kingdom.”
The value of that vibranium on the galactic exchange was worth more than every valuable element that made up the planet, including all the iron at its core, plus a thousand years of maxed-out agricultural output, plus all the natural water and atmosphere and everything.
It was totally worth it to blow apart Africa and send Wakanda tumbling into space to isolate the vibranium and retrieve it. If the rest of the planet was rendered unlivable, it wasn’t their problem.
I shook my head. “Perhaps we should go visit him before I leave...”
---------
Ah, he looked even more regal with salt in his hair and beard. And Ororo wasn’t sitting next to him, admonishing us to keep our hands off...
Nakia was a worthy queen of Wakanda, and eying us with the suspicion of a woman’s intuition after realizing that we were acting far too familiarly to be strangers to Wakanda, despite never having heard of us before.
Also, we had the confidence and bearing that comes with power, and the charisma to support it. It was plain we were extremely powerful individuals, albeit in different ways.
My Clone opted to go with Storm and the Munroe look, and if she didn’t look quite like Ororo, the Balobedu resemblance was still totally there, and the electric way the environment responded to her was as well.
Me, I just had to be in Wrecker mode, and the whole casual being a Goddess thing was totally apparent on a physical level. I could have gone golden, but no reason to look totally alien, instead of merely Asgardian.
“This room is as secure as we can make it,” the King of Wakanda assured us, eying us both speculatively. “Dynamo and Storm, a formidable pairing of names. Are you of any relation to Ororo Munroe of the X-Men?” he asked Storm directly.
“We share a lineage,” Storm confirmed without blinking an eye, smiling slightly. “But that is not what we are here for today.” She looked at me.
“Personal recording devices, Your Majesties,” I said simply, blinking slowly. They looked at one another, and after a moment of hesitation, turned them off. “Personal recording devices of the Dora Milaje listening in on the other side of the walls. I have no problems with them listening. They need to have their electronics off.”
Now they pursed their lips. Naturally their security team would not trust a pair of outsiders, especially ones of our power level... although the Balobedu lineage earned some leeway, as did a seeming Asgardian. “All recorders off!” T’Challa ordered, without raising his voice, watching my eyes.
After a moment, I nodded, and glanced at Storm.
“The Badoon are coming,” she began unequivocally into the unrecorded silence. “Three years and seven months, approximately.” Both Wakandans’ eyes widened in alarm. “This is a temporal absolute to approximately 99.3%. The only ways they do not come involve planetary destruction before the fact.” She looked back and forth between them. “They know about Wakanda’s vibranium.”
I waved a hand.
Value of the planet Earth’s resources, adding in a thousand years of agriculture, sans Wakanda’s Vibranium.
Value of the Wakandan Vibranium alone on the Galactic Exchange.
Both of them leaned forward, blinking at the fact the second number was larger than the first.
“The Chinese have a saying for this, akin to the fact that it is a crime for a poor man to own jade.” Storm paused to let this fact sink in. “The Badoon are ostensibly coming for a slave harvest, their primary tactic when encountering a less sophisticated sapient species. They will gut the population of the planet, destroy most of its intellectual heritage, and then leave, to return in another few centuries after the population reasserts itself.
“The main threats of the Eternals, the Celestials, and the mutant population are already gone, as are the most active of the planet’s extraordinary geniuses and superhuman defenders. The technological advancements of the planet have devolved to robotics and androids for territorial defense, which are laughable in the eyes of a galactic empire. They will be overwhelmed in short order, if not taken over and turned against those employing them.”