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The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 130[May 2012]
Utah
–Randall–
He stared blankly at the screen, showing the projections for the area. It was their luck that no new variant of Chitauri had emerged from the portal because he had no idea how they were going to close that portal. Thor was their best bet because he assumed that Loki did some Asgardian magic on the portal to use it.
It was his mistake in assuming that Thor would know everything that Loki did. It could have been something that Loki learned recently, or something else entirely, it mattered not.
At Least there was one piece of good news. The situation in New York had stabilised somewhat, with Stark Tower and the Bunker below acting as safe havens while Hulk, Frank, Captain America, and his brothers worked on clearing the entire city of Mole People. He was sure that it must have been disturbing for anyone watching for hordes of Mole People to just die en masse, due to the Hulk’s penchant for using stray cars as bowling balls to just crush all the Mole People in some streets.
Hulk had also taken care of all the Big Mole People that had emerged out of the ground, with ease.
There had also been a video clip that has gone viral about a particularly small Mole Person who was dodging Hulk’s attempt at smashing it with a car’s bonnet, while it burrowed into the ground and popped out right next to its previous spot, making a hilarious Whack-a-Mole moment in an otherwise tragic event in modern human history.
He shook his head, and focused on the problems he had on hand. The gigantic lightning strike along with the continuous stream of blue energy beams that were striking the ground had created enough noise that Tony woke up, and got right back to worry. The situation in Manhattan was stabilised enough but even then, the casualty count went up by the hundreds before the Mole People could be stopped.
More accurately, Frank Castle, Captain America and a couple of new faces managed to draw the attention of the Mole People on themselves, drawing them away from population centres long enough for the heavy cavalry to arrive and decimate the remaining forces.
It was also confirmed that the Mole People which were waiting just below the surface, numbering in the thousands, had retreated hastily once it was clear that the Hulk was waiting for them on the surface and he had no scruples with smashing them into pulps of acidic blood that only seemed to tickle the Green Giant.
There was still the matter of the Mole People that were scattered throughout the city in buildings, in subway stations, in the sewers, and more but for now, the people were safely evacuated and Jarvis had suits and sensors monitoring every single exit that the Mole People could take out of Manhattan.
Tony, awake with renewed vigor, seemed to ignore the Mole People problem since it was semi stabilised and got to working on the Tesseract, or more importantly, on the new problem that the Tesseract had created.
See, before Thor tested his theory, the Tesseract was only sending energy one way, right up into the air. Now? Now it was sending not the same but some sort of energy right into the Earth.
Creating holes in the sky from which giant space whales came out? Terrifying for the most part but manageable if only all the people in power got their heads out of their asses. The same energy burrowing through the Earth, potentially causing harm to the Earth itself?
Now that was pants shitting terrifying. It was sobering how he could be credited with turning an event that was being managed, right up until the Invisible Man woke up whose Mental activity was actually lowering from his all time high, which should be a good sign, he didn't know yet. Now, he had accidentally created something that could potentially destroy the planet itself, instead of the aliens wiping out the dominant species and taking hold of the planet.
“Fuck! What is it now!? AAAAAh!” He heard Tony scream and promptly went through the tent, and right into the adjacent one where Tony was working on something and found him manically shouting, grabbing anything in sight, and throwing it at the holo display which flickered a bit at the matter disruption, and then returned to its original state.
His eyes narrowed as he saw something that made his blood run cold.
“I-Is that? Are those?” He stammered as he couldn’t believe his shitty luck.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Tony, having regained his calm, now that a suit had torn through the tent’s roof and was in the process of assembling around him, replied, “Yup. That is most probably the alien wave coming from the ground, or something else entirely. Either way, I am done letting it dictate my actions,”
Having said his piece, the faceplate slid over Tony’s face as he rocketed straight up, right into a giant hexagonal construct that floated above them. The machine lit up in the signature Blue colour of the Arc Reactor before flying away, in the direction of the Tesseract.
In the backdrop, he could see multiple volleys of the Jericho missile coming as well. God Help them all.
“Welp, Clark, tell the Military that another wave is coming from the ground. We’ll see what we can do but be ready just in case,” Clark went deathly pale at that and seemed rooted on the spot, his tablet held in a white knuckled grip. He sympathetically tapped his shoulder, and left the tent, to go to the storage section, where he kept his flying suit.
Well, he called it suit but it was just repulsor units with a back unit for stabilised flight. He had three of them and he was going to need all of them for now. Until the army can facilitate even more volleys of missiles, they were going to have to deal with the intruders coming from below as well, while the Military dealt with the ones coming from above. Without Thor or Hulk. Damn, this was not going to be pretty.
His enhanced senses picked up on abrupt hasty movements within the camp, probably evacuation sequences since they were not that far off from the Tesseract now.
As he flew towards the Tesseract, Tony’s completely grey hexagonal platform now visible to him, one thing he was thankful for was the Tesseract’s white beam of energy that was impacting the Earth straight down. It had completely vaporise all the corpses of the space whales that had accumulated right below it. Some blood and bits of flesh probably remained but he was thankful that they wouldn’t have to worry about some broken and dangerous piece of technology winding up in the hands of weapons manufacturers who wouldn’t hesitate to label it safe and sell it to the Military for a handsome upmark in price.
He chuckled bitterly as he realised something. It was a true sign of apocalypse when something that Tony built, which was clearly supposed to be a flagship grade piece of technology, but didn’t have his signature red and gold colour scheme. The Hexagon, while absolutely decked out and shining with repulsor arrays, did not have a single piece coloured, to match the badass style of Tony Stark.
Presentation was important but when they had the time for it. The machine probably slid off the fabrication lines and came straight to them.
He floated right beside the platform, and looked at the white beam of light impacting the ground, with the smell of burned meat in the air.
“It doesn't seem to be doing anything. No displaced Earth whatsoever,” He commented, knowing that Tony was listening.
“You’re right but it could also mean that the energy is just disintegrating everything that comes into contact. The energy density meant that my sensors aren’t picking up on as much data as they should,” His comms crackled to life.
That was true as well.
“Here they come,” he heard Tony say before he saw the ground itself shudder for a bit. The area all around the white beam was bubbling as if something was about to burst out of it. He readied all his weapons, as did his brothers and Tony…
Well, if there was ever a need to say “too many weapons and repulsors” in a single suit, it would be now as he counted no less than six of those giant repulsor arrays installed in the weapons platform, along with multiple smaller missile silos, combined with regular repulsor arrays as well.
That was a floating tank and he was glad that it was. They were going to need it.
With a squelching sound and a shower of dirt and stone, an eight feet tall monstrosity of a creature jumped out of the hole in the Earth. Before it could even fall on the ground from the giant leap it had taken, he heard a slight whining sound before a giant blue beam flashed in his vision, cutting itself off after a second, leaving behind a smoking repulsor array.
He looked at the creature only to see a big hole in the middle, with the creature with yellow eyes somehow managing to convey hatred to them, before it slumped back, clearly dead.
He didn’t expect Tony to immediately switch to lethal mode, especially since they were clearly not Chitauri or at least not the regular Chitauri they dealt with but after the first one came out, it was as if a Chain reaction occurred as hundreds of holes filled the ground, with hundreds of these monsters coming out and immediately leaping high up in the air, reaching for them.
He did not want to take any chances with those sharp claws and those giant long limbs which drew holes in the ground by simply standing on it. They took one look at the dead body of the monster and…..
He barely resisted the urge to hurl as a number of similar looking monsters dimply converged on the dead body and tore it apart, eating it, leaving behind nothing but the little bit of blood that had pooled beneath it.
“Dear Lord,” He heard Samuel whisper, horrified at what they were seeing. He was too but they didn’t have a moment of respite because he felt Tony’s platform float up in the air before the whining noise was repeated, this time much louder than before.
The creatures before did as well, indicating that they had enhanced senses as well, as they began jumping over themselves, to reach the weapons platform.
He flinched minutely, as did his brothers, as his vision was filled with white and blue. The resounding impact reached his ears before he could blink the spots out of his eyes. They recovered quickly and when he looked at the landscape, his jaw hung agape.
There was nothing left. Just a giant crater, with the blood of those monsters at the edge of the crater. He could even see a monster with its lower half and two of its six limbs vaporised, crawling out of the hole.
Good Lord, Tony was scary when he was angry.
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