Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.
DoorMan #60
Stark Industries Accomodation[February 12, 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
He got out of the cab, very exhausted, mentally as well as physically because standing in the middle of three very powerful and very angry beings was taxing on his soul and body as well.
The moment he called in the Ancient One with his personal SOS, she arrived with her patent pending disappointed glance around. Knowing her, she already knew about the encounter but hadn't expected Jin'Ya and probably also the Red Matron from behaving so childishly.
From there on out, she then had to deal with the temper tantrum of two beings capable of destabilising the very planet they lived on. Scary stuff, it was to see both of them being lectured by the guardian of Reality itself, backed by the full might of the Vishanit.
Oh yeah, that was a hell of a thing to witness. To see the Ancient One bring forth power so vast, capable of punting both of them in the mirror dimension with the slightest effort, was humbling. The Vishanti really were the biggest powerhouses on the planet, smacking down anyone that acted out.
After almost an entire day of fierce negotiation, wherein the Red Matron cited part of the treaty they signed to get away from the worst effects, they came to a simple agreement.
The Ancient One could not really see the Hell powered Vampires, not with the Time Stone even. It was probably because of the power being pumped into them along with some eldritch complex powers that he could not really understand yet.
To the best of his knowledge, Dimensional Lord level entities were somewhat exempt from the snooping around of the Time Stone because of various factors. One of them being that the Infinity Stones of a universe only function in that same universe. Dimensional Lords existing outside the main material universe and in an alternate dimension somewhat negate the Infinity Stone's powers.
Secondly, it also depends on the user of the Time Stone. No matter how powerful the Ancient One might be or Stephen Strange might get in the future, they were ultimately humans and as such, have hard limits with what they can do, because of their very souls.
Now, somehow, those same entities had figured out how to bypass the Time Stone's spying in the material universe by likely imparting a portion of their aura, likely a taxing and difficult thing to do so they were not really expecting an army of undetectable, superpowered hellish vampires but even a single one was capable of much harm.
Which is why the Ancient One made a temporary deal with the Red Matron. Giving her CHI, especially his dimensional untainted pure CHI was out of the question. What was still up for debate were other more lucrative terms for the Red Matron, the details of which he was not privy to.
All he knew was that he was being targeted, tracked and in the very near future, there was going to be a massive attack, not just on him but every single mystical hotspot known to be friendly towards him, which is why he was point blank ordered to leave his internship, take a gap year if I have to, and come back to Kamar Taj.
Now, if it wasn't clear before, Wong was something fierce when it came to his academics and the fact that even Wong didn't argue him taking a gap year for this meant that it was serious.
It was so much information in so little time, not to mention being in constant vicinity with soul breaking creatures, that he didn't even get the chance to tell the Ancient One or even Jin'Ya about the new Door he got and the likely reason for how he got it.
He might just have to try something with the Time Stone one of these days, despite the Ancient ONe expressly forbidding him from doing it.
Who knows, he might just get another Door that could be an S-tier in strength.
"Hi. Where were you? We tried reaching you but your phone was switched off." The receptionist asked him, somewhat hurriedly. He sighed at that, not in the mood for this.
"I just had some urgent personal work. Listen, I will be moving out today, it has been a very tiring 24 hours so just tell the people in charge that they will receive an official mail from me sometime in the next 24 hours about me withdrawing my candidature from the program." He turned around and resumed his walk to the elevator. He had some stuff to get before he was out in the wind.
"That's the thing." He slowed down and looked back to see her running after him with a tablet in her hand, "Everyone left. Look!"
She handed him the tablet, showing a video of all of his members coming down to the reception at once, giving up their keys, having a normal discussion with her, and then just leaving.
"Huh," he remarked to himself as he smirked and left her standing there, all confused.
He did not expect that today.
"Colin boy, there's been a development with Tony Stark," Jin'Ya spoke in his mind as his eyes sharped at the news.
"What is it?"
____xx____
At the same time
– Some cave in Afghanistan–
"What is it, Stark?" Ho Yinsen, the man who's worked tirelessly for the past three weeks keeping Tony Stark alive, asked the man himself who was holding three pieces of paper and clearing out a desk space for himself at 4 in the morning.
They were given a clock by their captors when asked, somewhat of a luxury, Yinsen mused to himself as prisoners were not usually allowed to keep track of time and since they were in a dark cave, a decommissioned mind of some sort, it was impossible to keep track of time using the sun's movements.
"That…Yinsen, is our exit strategy." Tony said as he overlaid the three different blueprints atop one another, revealing a suit, a giant suit with a hole in its chest.
"What goes here?" He asked, instinctively, pointing at the hole in the chest.
Tony Stark gave him his best smile, "I'm glad you asked." Then proceeded to retrieve another set of blueprints, overlaying on top of the existing ones, revealing a small circular object, with an astounding amount of complexity.
"Is that?" He whispered, shocked at seeing Stark's audacity.
"We're breaking out of this place, and you're going home to your family." Stark remarkably quietly, looked at the pieces of paper as if they were his family.
"And what of you? What will you do?" It was nice, to fantasize like this. Yinsen had long since given hope but if he could do something to rekindle the fire in Stark, then it might just be the best thing he could do with his remaining time in this world.
____xx____
Wakanda
–Shuri Udaku–
She was hunched over her special workstation, the one not connected to anything in the country, except a single quantum communicator array connected to a dozen satellites in space communicating with each other over a single lane information highway, monitoring LA and the cities around it for special exotic energy.
Seattle was also part of her surveillance but for now, knowing the current location of Colin meant most of her satellites were concentrated on that area. Obviously, they were all either under stealth or obfuscated as commercial satellites.
Yesterday, they recorded a huge spike in energy never seen before, quickly reaching levels only seen in nuclear weapons before. She was in meetings the whole day yesterday so she had been unable to check in on it, which was a huge design flaw, she could see it now.
In her quest for absolute secrecy and security, she didn't even link that compute unit to her watch, which was already secured for a single link to the communicator computer in her Personal Labs.
She has done that now but the question remains. If that much anomalous energy was congregated in a single space, in a very short area actually, how was LA still standing? No sign of any fight. Nothing.
Very curious, and yet, that was not the main focus of her search.
Colin Baxter quit from the Internship program, arguably the best internship program on the planet. Not just him, but everyone else as well, all on the same day.
She had this overwhelming urge to ask the guy what exactly happens in his day to day life for him to be involved in so much interesting stuff.
She was the Princess and now Premier Superhuman Guardian of a nation that is the most advanced on the planet, hidden under shields capable of tanking the most powerful weapons on the planet, housing a Mine that produces the world's supply of Vibranium every single minute and despite all of that, it felt like she was the one who had the boring life.
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