Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don’t mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 83 [November 2010]
Manhattan
–Axle Riddle–
“So, where did it go? Ah-hah! There it is, the restructuring of a standard ritual room to better manifest one’s own psionic form without leaking into the Astral Realm…” He muttered to himself as he held the book in one hand, and followed Master Jin’Ya’s explicit instructions with the other.
Because while the ritual room was standardised for a number of reasons, it did not offer the best efficiency when it came to dealing with psionic energy as well as the Astral Realm. So, he was altering the symbols etched on the ground with a tool that was present inside the ritual rooms as a standard etching tool, mystical one with orange and red accents as well.
Really went well with the theme of the room.
“Alright, here goes nothing,” He safely stored the book inside one of the book vaults in the ritual room, sat down in the center of the ritual circle, took out a bottle pre filled with his blood this morning, taken out with a syringe of course. He was not crass so as to cut his finger open and then draw blood from it.
Not only was it unsanitary and did not guarantee an accurate drop location, in his case, it would not be enough because his healing factor would close the wound so fast that there would barely be a few drops of the material.
So, he had to use extra pressure on his skin, on top of using the strongest syringe he could find, to actually penetrate his skin, and then take out his blood. Which was very precious, by the way, because the blood of a being could be used for a number of nefarious rituals.
Come to think of it, rituals as a field itself leaned heavily to the dark than the light. And in his case, it was willingly given blood, which could be used to even more devastating effects.
Thankfully, almost all of Blood Rituals had been purged from every single library on the planet, save for some in Romania along with whatever personal collection Dracula has. That limited the usage of such vile rituals but as you can see him mutter gibberish that he knew not the meaning of, some Blood Rituals still remain within Kamar Taj’s library.
He closed his eyes as his body seemed to continue muttering the gibberish he learned inside Master Jin’Ya’s book, as he found himself floating in a space that was oddly familiar to him.
He could feel that his powers were still not back so the ritual was not entirely done. Unfortunately, the process of unlocking one’s spirit blockade was unique to every single person out there, so there was not much the book would help him beyond this point.
He was currently barefoot, wearing a simple T-shirt and Jeans, along with a cap, overlooking a vast expanse of grasslands that led to a huge mountain. The sun was overhead and yet, there was a cool breeze with the sunlight being gentle on his skin.
It was nice. It was nice to know that he had such a pleasant soul scape.
With nothing else to do, but reach the mountains, since that was the defining character of this picture, he started walking towards the giant range of mountains.
In the meantime, he could feel his body slowly heat up, not from the sun, he would know that because he was feeling the same under the shade of a nearby tree as well.
No, it was as if some sort of pressure was being built up.
“No!” His eyes widened as he booked it towards the mountain with all his might. The pressure was building up but it was not in his body.
No, he was feeling it in his current avatar but he was a soul projection. The psionic pressure was building up right in his soul and if he did not find a way to unshackle his soul before the pressure reached its peak, well, then, bye bye Axle Riddle.
Mid way through his sprint, he found himself jumping higher and higher, the land going farther away in every jump. It was kinda scary especially since he did not have his powers to fall back upon but time was of the essence and he could be a pussy later on.
Taking wide jumps, like the Hulk, he soon found himself at the base of the mountain, after crossing over a river of crocs that looked oddly translucent, with the same colour of energy as his empowered self when he combined his second mind with his primary one, granting himself a phenomenal boost in power.
The pressure was quite literally visible now in his avatar as he looked at the huge blue door etched on the side of the mountain, its silhouette visible from afar. Looking at the shiny and very slippery sides of the mountains, he abandoned any plans of climbing it and decided to try his luck jumping straight at it.
“1…2…3…Jump!” He backed up a bit and after taking a bit of a run, jumped with all his might. He did not know what he was expecting but face planting on the side of the mountain was not it.
He tried to gain leverage of any sort but the mountain was bare, as if someone had drawn it without taking into account any natural crevices or depression that mountains get when they are formed, naturally, that is.
“Alright…Once more,” He tried to psych himself up but that was a bit hard with the ever increasing pressure in his body. It was bearable now but he did not know how long he could hold on.
With each jump, he could feel himself getting closer but with each jump, the pressure also increased. He did not know what to do when he saw his hand carved through the ground as if it was butter, because of the blue hue that now surrounded his body, courtesy of the ever increasing Psionic pressure in his body.
He looked back at the trees and had a brilliant, possibly stupid and suicidal, but brilliant idea.
His hands worked like an axe, as he mowed down trees after trees. If he could not reach the door on his own, he would build something that would take him there.
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Midway through skinning one of the trees, he froze and slapped his head as he forgot to try one thing. If his aura, as he liked to call it now since he could not direct the flow of that energy anywhere, could carve through stone, sand, and trees, maybe it could do the same for the mountain over there.
He jumped as far as he could, reaching the mountain in an instant, and then jabbed his fingers at the mountain, hoping to at least create some leverage so that he could slow down his descent.
Nope, no such thing. Instead, he felt his fingers hitting blocks of steel that refused to so much as ripple, as he plummeted down to the ground.
Thankfully, this was his soul world and as such, no physical damage occurred to him but the blow to his ego was another thing.
Seeing that his conjecture was wrong and there was no way the universe would let him take the easy way out, he set out to build a seesaw. Well, originally, he wanted to build a trebuchet so that he could take practice runs, really aim it right at the door, and then do the deed but as it turned out, in the real world, there is only time for fast and barely working, not perfectly working and slow.
So, he had to mimic the deadlines that corporate overlords set for their employees and stand on one side of the tree, holding a huge rock he took out from the river, after batting away the translucent crocs ofcourse. They were no match for his mighty aura, as he dug out the rock and flopped to the side of the river like a dying fish, the pressure now almost too much to bear.
“Alright…let’s fucking GOOOOO!” His voice echoed in the distance as he threw the rock on the other end of the seesaw and found himself being flung at the mountain at breakneck speeds. Now, he had done some rough aiming of the seesaw but there were bound to be some irregularities with such crude applications.
“AAA—Ack!” As such, he found his glorious jump over the grasslands, culminating in face planting on the side of the mountain, once again. The shiny surface made sure that he slid right down.
Thankfully, he had the presence of mind to hold onto the handle of the door as he slid on top of the door. Atleast his jump led him above the door.
He pulled himself up using one hand, balancing his entire body weight on a single hand, holding onto the door handle which was decidedly human sized while the door itself looked as if it was made for Surtur.
How the hell was he supposed to open something like that without his powers?
“Hmm…..Oh! What the hell.” He just shoved his blue auar-ed hand into the lock of the door, his hand easily swallowed by the giant lock on the door.
Thankfully, his gambit worked as he could feel the pressure in his body being sucked by the door, the door itself lighting up in a blazing blue as he felt his hand get sucked in.
He panicked a bit as he found his body being pulled in an inky black substance but there was nothing he could do as he found himself swallowed whole.
______xx____
Information.
Information all around.
His eyes snapped open, if they could even be called “eyes” at the moment as he took in the mountain of information available to him at all times.
His mind had expanded to such a level that he could process trillions of data nodes simultaneously, all the while pondering upon his life upto this moment and how he would achieve what he wanted to achieve in the near future.
He couldn’t really be called Axle Riddle at this point. No, that was just someone who was playing around with the powers that were given to them.
Not much of a plan, somewhat of a wuss because he did not even fight against the restrictions that were imposed on him.
Incompetent enough that he believed that he could not master Telepathy, even after having so much psionic energy at one’s disposal. A baby could have learned Telepathy if given the right instructions.
Instructions that were within reach, if only the fool asked.
But NO! The restrictions are absolute. The ROB’s word was absolute.
He was only a partial avatar of the Sage Force.
Bullshit!
There was no such thing as a partial avatar.
There was the Sage Force and all it encompassed.
And he, somehow, had found himself in one of the most dangerous multiverses, with a broken down power. But no, the power itself was not broken, it was just muted…subdued by an outside force.
He sneered as his mind immediately ran a million simulations and found a multitude of answers as to why the ROB would do that.
Entertainment being the most likely answer.
Unfortunately, his current enlightened state was only sustained because of the blockade that allowed the Sage Force to force open the gate for a few moments.
Once the blockade was cleared and his powers returned, he would return to being the dumb old Axle Riddle.
No, this was a travesty.
The sheer amount of power he could wield now, even for a few moments, dwarfed whatever he had thought of the Sage Force before.
“I understand now. Thank you,” He bowed to the unseen all encompassing force that had facilitated this exchange.
“Now, how to fuck over the bastard that put me in this position?” He asked himself the question and with the Sage Force fully accessible to him, he received hundreds of answers instantly.
His eyes lit up as his mind read, comprehended, and chose the option most fun for him.
Because while he might be an intellectual in this state, his base state was still Axle Riddle and that asshole loved to mess with people, especially those in positions of authority.
Downloading the plans into Axle Riddle’s subconscious because his puny mind would not be able to comprehend the vastness of the plan, he cut the connection and sadly…returned to being Axle Riddle.
____xx____
GASP!
He awoke with a gasp, his throat dry, his heart pounding as he looked around him. He sighed in relief once he felt his powers return, much stronger than before.
No, not stronger, just easier to use somehow. He did not need the second mind now to process the sheer amount of background information.
Also, his TK felt much more powerful than before. He had to be careful, uncalibrated TK would just tear apart people.
He floated over a pitcher of water tailor made for such situations and gulped down all the water he could.
His mind whirled with new possibilities as he took hold of the city.
Drug dealers found themselves flung outside the city, one or two major limbs broken depending on the drugs they were peddling.
Subways found themselves clean again.
Thieves, shoplifters were brought gently to the nearest NYPD officer.
All guns, save for law enforcement, were confiscated and crushed to form a large ball, which was then deposited in front of the nearest precinct.
Seven active rapists had their balls crushed.
Six murderers had their offending limbs crushed.
All in all, quite a nice way to declare his return.
Then why did he still have that emptiness in his heart when he did all that? As if he was supposed to do something else, something greater?
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A/N - Whoa Boy! This was a doozy and a half to write. Also, probably the longest because my fingers just refused to stop.
Anywho, enjoy!
Spooky ENLIGHTENED Axle Riddle!
More messing to come!