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The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 92 [December 2011]

Manhattan

–Axle Riddle–

He was so busy with his usual activities over the past six months that he didn’t even notice that it had been over 5 years since he had arrived in this reality. Sure, the time didn’t really create much of a personal life for him, aside from a friend he made, named Joey who really liked to eat good food and play basketball.

But even then, Joey was just a weekend acquaintance. Going to play basketball together against players much younger but taller than them, and then going to all you can eat buffets to recharge was awesome but the feeling of being truly exhausted could not be replicated, not with his body being way too powerful for normal sports.

One of these days, he was going to have to juggle with the Asgardians, normal ones, not the Royal ones, to get his body through a nice workout.

Even the ones he subjected his body through the use of telekinesis did not cut it anymore because it just felt plain artificial. Even still, he made sure that he was ready for any nasty surprises from people like the Guy Below. He really needed to work on his mystical defenses but according to the Ancient One, who reiterated it, he had zilch talent for Sorcery but an overwhelming talent for anything involving psionics.

Which was when she had given him the book about Spiritual contracts for dummies and so far, he had made use of it only once.

He did have the idea of creating bonded familiars of sorts, collecting animals and making them stronger but there was a hard limit on what regular animals with no mystical ancestry running through them could reach.

Now where was he going to find mystical animals?

So, he dropped that idea.

He chose to just focus on the basics, getting his powers refined, getting his allies together and more importantly, more powerful together. It was a masterstroke on fate’s part to let Bruce and Betty come together and have that baby because he had never seen Bruce so at peace but also determined to train with the Hulk.

He had created multiple caves underground that bore marks of the Hulk and Bruce trying to come together to an understanding. It helped that both of them loved Betty, loved Bellina, and were generally averse to killing people, even if the Hulk did get pretty loose with that once he was angry enough.

Still, seeing the progress they were making was enough for him. If not partners, they were turning into unwitting allies by agreeing to protect Betty and Bellina together. Something that would happen once the Chitauri came knocking.

Then there was Betty. That was where Frank Castle had come to play. Sure, he had long since stopped going to the Castle Dojo, mostly because Frank was getting too suspicious about him and also because he didn’t feel like he had much more that he could learn from Frank, not unless it was an actual life and death scenario.

Betty was also getting the training that she needed, with the tonnes of weight that was being pressed down on her from all sides, so that Frank wouldn’t think that she was an enhanced person. She was also learning everything pretty fast, and he was hopeful that by the time the Invasion rolled around, she would atleast be as strong and mobile as Spiderman. Even if she acted strictly as a rescue person, it would be more than enough.

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He had not scanned any Luke Cage in the city yet, which was a bummer but maybe things had butterflied away and they would not be getting the same badass person anymore.

All in all, he had quite a spread of allies. Combined with Thor, they would tear the Chitauri apart.

Speaking of allies, he had one Steve Rogers going through the motions, getting milk, and newspaper of all things while heading back to his apartment, which was safe and secure, thanks to yours truly.

The Captain was a figure in the equation that didn’t make much sense to him. Sure, he was all strong and muscly but there were stronger people on the team and if it came to leading, he was sure that Jarvis could do a much better job, with all his procession power but he supposed that it was just his inexperience talking.

There must be something in the Captain for him to be revered by so many people, even now, something beyond all the propaganda that was pushed with his name on top.

Welp, aside from a very outgoing nature and a sunny disposition, there was not much he was sensing but even so, he was doing it from afar and not in a warzone. Maybe Steve Rogers shined his brightest when he had a team to rally around him.

Well, be that as it may, he watched as Steve went into a bar, talked with the bartender, got himself a drink, paid for it and left right back for his apartment. The luxury apartment building had a world class gym in the building itself but for some reason, Steve liked the old rusty feeling of a gym nearby.

Steve knocked on the door of his next door neighbour, waking up Random Watch Person1, who was supposed to keep an eye on the good Captain. Steve then took both of them to the gym where they began working out.

Well, mainly Steve working out and Random Watch Person1 trying to keep up.

With the snowfall, it fell on him to make sure that snow didn’t pile up on the streets and also to make sure that everyone had heating and didn’t freeze to their deaths. That meant hundreds of blankets being distributed daily, along with the meals they were already handing out. This time of the year, even the gang activity went down in the neighboring boroughs.

So, he didn’t really have much to do. Bruce and Betty were hosting their own Christmas party, now in the much bigger Penthouse apartment that came as a perk of being a Stark Industries Research Scientist, something that happened over the past few months as Tony bought the small company that Bruce and Betty had set up for their research for a little over 20 million dollars.

A huge sum for Bruce and Betty, which almost guaranteed a cozy retirement but chump change for Tony, especially if he got two world class scientists in his company for that amount.

Not to mention, the friendship that came with it. It was nice to see Tony finally make friends with someone who could truly understand what was going through his mind and actually keep up with him intellectually.

Something like that was rare and he wagered that Tony thought 20mil for the chance to be with his friends for longer was a price not even worth mentioning.

The penthouse was nice, really nice, more than enough to host a small party. He had helped with the decoration and babysitting of Bellina whenever required while Betty did all the heavy lifting.

Randall and Co. were coming, Tony along with Pepper were coming, Dr.Cho was coming, and a few of the SHIELD scientists that Bruce got along with were invited as well.

Sadly, while he did have the invitation, he could not really go.

It was not really time for him to reveal his face to someone, especially without the dome enclosing around him gone. No, it would just create a prison around him that people could exploit if they knew his face and knew that he couldn’t leave Manhattan.

So, he watched, Melancholy, as the entire party had drinks, food, watched a movie, laughed and then left, late in the night.

While he? He was left patrolling the city, metaphorically of course, and drinking enough booze to leave a grown man without his liver, feeling particularly numb about the situation.

It was as if he was just going through the motions, not even caring one bit about anything.

It was hard, being alone.

But oh well, life wasn’t meant to be fair, was it?

At Least he was not some chup living alone with a nice cushy job while having no friends, families, or loved ones to talk to, now was he?

No, he was just a chump with none of the above but the only difference was that he had powers.

Powers that seemed so awesome and yet, made him so lonely at such times.

“Stupid ROB…” He muttered as he drank yet another bottle of Whiskey without even feeling anything, a collection of bottles lying at his feet as he sat on the balcony, looking at the pretty Christmas lights all around.

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