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 #30
Ta-Lo [January 19, 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
He stood on top of a mountain, overlooking the giant seal on the mountain on the other side of the Giant Lake that housed the Water Dragon. Even from this far away, he could feel the sheer energy from within the seal and with it, the Darkness sealed within.
"Jeez," He had to shake his head at the absurdness of it all. Whatever it was, that thing had the potential to end the world, not just because it was very powerful, powerful beyond measure, but also because it had the ability to tap into the inherent darkness that every person has and then amplify it tenfold as well.
With the political situation on Earth being as what it was, a single person with a trigger happy finger could launch swathes of Nukes that would all but guarantee Armageddon for the planet. He was not sure if even this pocket dimension could survive for long without Earth's magical anchor acting as a, well, anchor to keep this pocket dimension from drifting away and turning into an alternate dimension.
"That is enough, life-giver," He heard a voice speak directly into his mind as he stopped the flow of CHI into the ground. Apparently, this mountain was one of the "bones" of the pocket dimension, so to speak. So, pumping CHI into this rock dispersed it throughout the entire pocket dimension, thereby benefiting every single thing here.
He was excited to finally eat the meat that had been gorging on his CHI for months now. According to the VIllage CHief, that batch of meat should be ready within a couple of months and he was going to make damn sure that Jin'Ya wouldn't even get a whiff of that particular barbecue.
Sitting down on the edge of the mountain, looking straight down at the Lake below, he said, "So, how long until you deem me ready? YOu know as well as I do that if we can do something about that, we should. Just sealing it does not seem safe, especially in light of what threats seem to be headed Earth's way."
"You speak the truth, lifegiver, and yet, we are not ready, not yet and not in the foreseeable future. The seal, it is not something that can be tampered with, lest we let the greatest Darkness of this world lose out into the world,"
He sighed, "Fine. I get that but there must be something to keep it from hammering away at the seal. Maybe some sort of light based weaponry? Since it is exclusively made up of darkness?"
"That might have worked on its soldiers but on the Darkness itself, unless it is very high level holy magic, light of any sort will not have any effect on it."
"Great. I'll start looking into something then."
"I bid you farewell, lifegiver," He saluted to the thin air, and then turned around, a portal opening up on command as the Water Dragon did his magic and used the residual portal energy from before to open a portal to the same location from where he came.
Hefting the small bag on his shoulder that contained 20 pounds of meat with the rest of the 10 pounds coming from the CHI enhanced meat, he whistled and began walking out of the alley.
It was still night time here, and he was not yet hungry, the milk products from Ta-Lo more than enough to sate his hunger for a while. Those things were awesome and yet, their meat was even better.
Normally, once he received delivery of Ta-Lo meat, he would straightway rush to Earth and then directly to the Red Hearth, because of the way the meat from Ta-Lo could get injected from Earth's air.
But this time, due to the Water Dragon's continued well being, he was gifted a bag with so many enchantments that it shone like a beacon to his senses.
Food stasis, Weight reduction, Spatial expansion, Anti-theft, Return to owner feature, Invisibility, Ignore Me spell, and more, were carved into the bag such that he had no worry about the quality of meat or even the fact that he was walking through the night with a bag on his shoulder that should have raised some alarm bells.
Yawning, he hailed a cab and went about to his apartment. So far, he had dealt with Ta-Lo's problem, and he still had three more days till his flight. That time could be well utilised in figuring out why Shuri up and disappeared like that.
Her name was deleted even from the tenants' list, even the tenants' history list that his apartment building maintains. It was gone from the University database as well. Honestly, both of those things were not really hard to do, especially for her but he questioned the necessity of it.
Why wouldn't she just drop out and disappear into the background? Why such a hurry?
His instincts told him that without something significant happening, Shuri would not have abandoned a mission like the one she was on.
"Jin'Ya, any updates?" He mentally shouted through his link and smiled at the link "solidified" for lack of a better term.
"Yeah, I'll give you updates. Banner is growing restless because of a lack of human contact. His mental state being what it is, I haven't approached him and I don't think it will be nice if he starts to believe that there are voices in his head."
He frowned at that. That totally slipped his mind, "Alright, tell him to create a list of Lab apparatus that he will need and tell him to be sure that the machines can be found on the open market otherwise, we risk being tracked."
"Sure but I must warn you that even something like that would not be enough to calm him down. The man is a walking mental health issue."
Entering his apartment, he set down the bag of meat near the fridge, and freshened up. Once he was done with that, he scanned his apartment with his senses as well as another enchanted item he got from the Water Dragon that helped him count how many gazes were on him at any given point in time. It worked even if the gaze was distant and they were watching him through cameras.
He raised an eyebrow as he realised that there were no gazes on him, which was odd since he expected at least Wakanda to keep a closer eye on him. Maybe the bracelet does not work as intended? No, the Water Dragon had no reason to lie and the Dragon was a master of its craft, that much he was certain.
Maybe something to test later on. In the meanwhile, he had some messages to look through and some money to make. He barely slept these days anyway so work for a couple of hours before he slept sounded nice to him.
_____xx____
SHIELD Helicarrier
–Nick "Furry" Fury–
He glared at the holo screens in front of him as these people had the audacity to demand something from him, something that was partly caused because of them. His forehead vein threatened to burst as he asked them, "Can you repeat your question?"
There was a wave of unease throughout the room at this tone but the Council, Singh if he remembered correctly, asked the question once more.
"What is being done to contain the growing threat from the Orange Menace? Last I heard, he was the one responsible for the Hulk's—"
He grit his teeth to stop himself from exploding, 'Might I remind you, Councilman, that this very body stopped me from doing anything regarding Dr. Banner? As per my recommendations, we could have hidden him from the rest of the world and then studied his abilities later on, once the situation had calmed down. That idea was shot down by everyone present here.
"Director Fury, we just wanted to make sure–"
He sarcastically said, "Oh yeah, I get that. I completely understand. I also want you people to completely understand that it is not my job to clean up your messes. As for the Orange Menace, my people are still looking for him but for someone with his abilities, it will be laughably easy to evade detection or even worse, subdue all my men if they even manage to find the man."
"Director! The accusations that you are making–"
"I have no patience for this. Go back to what you were doing while I was working and let me do my job. One thing is clear though, if we had Banner on our side, and helped him gain any modicum of control over the Hulk, we could have very well had, not just an Avenger candidate, but also someone with a deterrence against the Orange Menace. Your actions have just made my job harder.
The least I expect you to do is use your authority for something and muzzle that damned Ross."
With that, he left the room, uncaring of the Council's response. His patience was already wearing thin as they could not find neither hair nor hide of both Banner and the Orange Menace.
Banner should have been relatively easy to find, with the giant bursts of Gamma that were always part and parcel with his Hulk transformation.
Sitting in his office, he sighed, pressed a button on the telephone, "Get me Agent Hill."
Maybe it was time they got the advanced Gamma Arrays installed on the Helicarrier, and even the Quinjets. If nothing else worked, they might just have to scour countries with the Scanner since Banner, in his base form, still emitted Gamma but was too small to be detected by satellites in orbit.
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