《The Conceptual Deck》


 Chapter 1: Hop skip and slip

    Chapter 1: Hop skip and slip


    It took me almost thirty minutes to realize something really drastic had happened.


    I mean I immediately knew something had gone wrong. You don''t just wake up in a damp, dirty alley with no memory of how or why you were there and assume all is well. But after a check to make sure my pockets were still full of the usuals and that I was unharmed, my panic went from "where are my kidneys?" to "what the hell did I drink?" pretty quickly. With a stretch and a groan I left my unfortunate temporary bed and stepped into the spring air of New York. My panic faded even further when I realized I knew where I was, at least vaguely. I knew the Bronx pretty well, considering I lived in it, though it had been a while since I had taken advantage of it''s fineplementary sleeping quarters.


    Looking up and down the street I decided to go left, half looking for a taxi, half looking for somece to grab a coffee, all while wracking my brain for what had led to waking up in an alley. I certainly didn''t feel hungover enough, hell I didn''t even drink heavily any more. But if I hadn''t been robbed, or drunk then what the hell had happened? Eventually I gave up walking and sat down on a bench, pulling my phone out and swiping it on. A quick check told me it was almost noon, and I had a singr message.


    "Nice to know someone cares"


    I mumbled to myself, trailing off when I realized it was from a number my phone didn''t recognize.


    <em>Congrattions! You have been</em>


    <em>chosen to participate in a new</em>


    <em>reality exchange program!</em>


    I read and re-read the message a few times before I received a new one.


    <em>Check on the bench next to you.</em>


    I quickly looked around, checking to see who had sent that message, looking suspiciously at the building in front of me before looking back at the bench. Sure enough,ying on the metal next to me was a folded up newspaper. Slowly I picked it up, eyes drifting over the articles until I unfolded it, reading the headline. My jaw dropped at the newspaper quality picture, an image of Iron Man as he flew in front of a building. I could just make out several things flying behind him. My eyes flew down the article absorbing it as fast as I could. Any hope that they were discussing anything but an actual event was dashed pretty quickly. The article talked about an attack on during the Stark Expo, an investigation being started, as well as the arrest of Justin Hammer. When I finished the article I quickly brought up my phone, my fingers tapping out a message as fast as I could.


    <em> Who are yiou? What teh fuck</em>


    <em> is going on?</em>


    I typed, my fingers shaking a bit as a new panic rose up in my chest. I knew those names, they wereic book characters! Not people you could quote in a legitimate article, especially in the New York fucking Times!


    <em>You won the lottery my friend! You</em>


    <em>should be excited! Also, you should</em>


    <em>check the date.</em>


    I shot to my feet, eyes flying across the paper beforending on the publication date. May 2010! I furiously typed into my phone, demanding an exnation.


    <em> What the fk is going on!</em>


    <em> Why is this paper dated</em>


    <em> five years ago?!</em>


    I looked wildly around me, looking for someone with a camera, someone pointing andughing, anything. I was desperately holding onto the idea that this was just one giant, terrible prank. I kept walking even as my phone dinged again, reading as I walked.


    <em>You loved the Marvel Comics</em>


    <em>stories so much, it was really a</em>


    <em>no-brainer where we would</em>


    <em>send you! Now you get to</em>


    <em>experience this reality for</em>


    <em>yourself!</em>


    I read the message as I moved, my pace getting faster as I turned the corner, leaving the empty street. I heard more messages dinging in, but I ignored them, instead making a beeline to the nearest person.


    "Excuse me!" I asked, the grey haired man stopping to look at me. "Would you happen to have heard about this?"


    I showed the man, who was now eyeing me nervously, the paper with the headline still up. He looked down, taking the paper and adjusting his sses.


    "Guess you missed that? Explosions woke me upst night, all the way from Queens!" He said, handing the paper back to me as he continued to walk past. "Almost called in sick"


    I turned to the next person, this one walking away from me. When I reached him I tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and pushed my hand away.


    "What the hell do you want?" He asked, taking a step back.


    "Did you hear about the Stark Expo?" I asked in a rush, making the man take another step back.


    "Of course I fucking did. It''s all over the news and radio, now fuck off."


    The man walked away at a bit of a faster pace, checking over his shoulder to make sure I wasn''t following him. I barely noticed, having already stepped back and sat on an apartment doorstep, my legs almost giving out before I could. My phone gave another ding, so I pulled it out and quickly read the five new messages.


    <em>But don''t worry, we recognize</em>


    <em>that the reality you are now in isn''t</em>


    <em>quite like your old one.</em>


    <em>So we transferred your financials</em>


    <em>and belongings to this one! We</em>


    <em>even bought your apartment so</em>


    <em>you could live in the same ce.</em>


    <em>We attempted to ce you there</em>


    <em>but trans reality teleportation has</em>


    <em>a rather wide margin of error.</em>


    <em>Oh! Your job doesn''t exist in this</em>


    <em>reality! Topensate for this you</em>


    <em>no longer need to pay rent!</em>


    <em>We also understand that to truly</em>


    <em>enjoy this reality you need to be</em>


    <em>able to participate in its</em>


    <em>adventures!</em>


    <em>As such we have granted you a</em>


    <em>single boon! An artifact that is both</em>


    <em>flexible and powerful!</em>


    <em>Head to your apartment to find</em>


    <em>your boon!</em>


    I spent the next ten minutes trying to text the number, asking what was going on, trying desperately to get a response. Eventually, when none came, I gave up. After a moment of thought I stood, legs feeling a bit weak but not as shaky as before. They said that my apartment would be here, and that something would be waiting for me. Taking a deep breath, I waved my hand out, calling a passing taxi.


    When I finally got to my apartment I nervously looked around. It was built the same way, had the same front entrance, but was somehow painted a different color. If fifteen minutes of listening to the cabbie talk about how backed up Queens was with police, ambnce and fire trucks didn''t convince me I wasn''t in Kansas any more, then standing in front of a building that was a faded grey yesterday, but a faded blue today sure did. I shook my head and pushed on. I could panic in my apartment. I hurried up the steps, stopping by the door to check the names next to the doorbells. Sure enough, Carson Walsh, my name was next to its usual button. I found my key and let myself in, rushing up the stairs to my floor.


    When I finally mmed the door of my tiny run down apartment, I immediately locked it behind me, clicking and dead bolting the two extra locks as well. I turned around and leaned my back against the door, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. For a moment I focused on my breathing, before leaning forward and pulling off my jacket, hanging it on the back of the door. I walked further into my apartment, my head on a swivel as I looked for any inconsistencies, finding none. It was a perfect copy of my apartment, down to every stain. But it was in a building that was the wrong color, in a reality that I had read about inics and watched on a tv screen.


    Four steps into the apartment and I was standing in my living room. A craigslist couch, a pawn shop TV that was out of date and an Ikea coffee table, on which was a brown paper wrapped box, held together with twine. Slowly I moved to the couch, sitting in the middle directly in front of the said box.


    "If this is a bomb, please let it be a big one. I don''t want to be half exploded"


    I mumbled darkly to myself as I reached out and undid the twine, pulling it off from around the box. Next went the brown paper wrapping, revealing a simple yet well made wooden box, ented with copper capped. In the center was some sort of green crystal, about the size of arge egg cut into an octagon. Pushing away the pile of paper I utched the lid of the box, opening it to find a cloth covered interior, and a perfectly stacked deck of cards nestled in the center. The cards were facing down, showing off the pattern on the back. A single eight pointed star that shined gold adorned the center, with a border line of the same set in about a quarter of an inch from the edge. The card itself was a marbled emerald green. Before I could reach out and touch it my phone dinged again, the first response after a long list of pleading messages.


    <em>Congrattions! You are now the</em>


    <em>proud soul bound owner of The</em>


    <em>Conceptual Deck! With a little</em>


    <em>creativity and these fifty-two cards</em>


    <em>there is nothing you can''t do!</em>


    <em>Please pick up the deck!</em>


    "I can''t believe I''m doing this" I mumble to myself, picking up the deck and holding it in my left hand, putting my phone down next to the box.


    Great! Now put your other hand on


    the box and pull with your mind!


    "Pull with my what?"


    I asked myself, shaking my head. None-the-less I reach out and put my hand on the box, focusing on the feeling of the box against my finger tips. With bracing wince the box was gone.


    "Oh sweet Christ, what the fuck."


    I studied the space where the box had been, pulling back my hand and looking at my fingertips. Out of the corner of my eye I notice the top card of the deck. Once just gold and green, it now had a dash of red. In the center of the eight pointed star was a deep red circle. Slowly I drew that card, and gasped softly. I could sense what the card contained. Turning it around I could now see what I already knew. Bordered in more gold leaf was a perfect image of the box with a white background. In the bottom right corner was the letter A, the grade of the card, slightly embossed and stamped in solid green. I could feel the box was high quality, worth a lot, and steeped in energy. I could feel how big it was, what it was made of, and how much it weighed. I stared at the card for a few minutes, mentally examining the strange but clear feelings I was getting from it.


    "If it went with a pull, then with a push"


    I trailed off as in a moment the box had returned, exactly the same as it had been a moment before. The card had vanished with it, sparking a moment of panic as I looked back to the deck, frantically counting it, reaching fifty two with a frown. Again I reached out to the box, repeating my first action but focusing on the card staying in my hand. Surprisingly, the card appeared in my hand, rather than on the top of the deck. I counted the cards again, leaving out the new card, this time counting fifty one grey faced cards.


    I quickly devolved into experimentation, muttering, and randomly disappearing and reappearing couch disappeared without a struggle, reappearing backwards, then right way around with a thought. My bike vanished with a cackle because that meant no more lugging it up and down the stairs. The coasters stacked into one card, and I could add to that stack by touching the card to thest coaster and pulling. I vanished the remote, making it reappear in the air when I threw a card at the ceiling. I couldn''t disappear anything with a throw, though I could make a card fly back to my hand from the other side of the room with a mentalmand. So far the cards had always remained at fifty two, and the cards I wanted to draw were always on top, even if I shuffled them together.


    Two hourster I sat leaned back on the couch, watching the news on mute, absentmindedly disappearing and reappearing the remote. Images of the Stark Expo, of the man himself and of the attack shed on the screen as I continued to wrestled with everything that had just been dumped into myp. The fact that I was in a different reality wasn''t all that big of a deal. I didn''t leave any family behind, and I had been in between good friends. There was a reason I didn''t drink heavily any more but my first assumption this morning had been that I drank too much. No, the problem wasn''t what I had left behind, it was what, and who, I was sharing this reality with. I was stuck, deposited into this world, a world with heroes, viins, Hydra, aliens, sorcery, magic, gods, celestial beings and who knows what the fuck else.


    Everything I knew about this reality came fromic books, wiki articles and cartoon shows. And what I knew was terrifying. While the deck was certainly impressive, and I could already think of several ideas that I could leverage to my advantage, how the hell could theypete with the power of Mephisto? Mao? Hell, I don''t think I could even go toe to toe with any of the dozens of cheesy viins that existed in the olderics! Before I could sink into the all-new panic that was rising in my chest my phone dinged again.


    <em>Hint: Trybining the gem from</em>


    <em>the top of the box with something.</em>


    <em>Be Creative!.</em>


    "Combine?" I asked the empty room.


    With a furrowed brow I pushed the box back out onto the table before studying the gem, embedded in the top. Assuming they meant the gem separate from the box I fiddled and tugged at the green crystal. It slid free surprisingly easily, revealing a pointed eight sided pyramid cut underneath.


    "Okay"


    I looked over the room, wondering what they had meant bybine, and wondering what I couldbine it with. My hand yed with the cool gem while my eyes settled on the end table next to the it was a statue I had gotten as a gift, a small ghost from Destiny, a game that probably didn''t wouldn''t exist in this reality. It was mostly white, with orange ents and an angr body that looked vaguely like a folded origami fortune teller. I lifted it up from its base and pulled it into a card. It was an B rank.


    "Damn, better quality than I thought." I mumbled to myself as I spun the card in my hands.


    I pulled the gem into a card next, my eyes going wide when I saw a golden S in the corner. Shaking my head, I began to wonder how I would go aboutbining them and if I even should. The statue had been a gift, but judging by the rank I was pretty sure that the gem was an actual massive emerald.


    Steeling myself I eventually I settled on tapping the gem card against the statue card, using the same pushing I would have used to take it out of the card. The gem card vanished as the bag card glowed. It pulsed once in a pale green light, just bright enough to cast a shadow of my hand against the table. My eyes grew wide, suddenly aware how much the statue had changed. Everything I could feel from the card was different. It felt active almost alive. I push it out of the card and onto the table, not exactly sure to expect. The ghost had changed color, mostly shifting to a dark green with the edges lined with gold, very reminiscent of the deck itself. The eye in the middle was marked with a small blue glowing eight pointed star. Much more impressive than the color change was the fact that it was floating in front of me, slowly bobbing around.


    "Uh hello?"


    "Greetings!" The little metal robot replied, its voice faintly feminine, before falling silent.


    "Uhh what are you."


    "My apologies, I was running a scan of the room. My name is Emerald, but you can call me Ema."


    It took me a moment to restart my brain, eventually nodding with wide eyes before responding with a cough. The small ghost flew in a circle before returning to hover in front of me, leaving slight green glow streak behind her


    "Alright Its nice to meet you Ema. Are you an actual ghost or?"


    "Do you mean can I make you a guardian?" The floating construct asked, before shaking side to side. "Unfortunately that isn''t possible. I only look like a ghost. But I''m sure I''ll be able to help you somehow!"


    "Of course, what else can you do? Are you like an AI or something?"


    "Not exactly. I am an artificial construct, but I dont have the pureputational hacking abilities that a real ghost would. I do have detailed scanning equipment, and my ability to interface with technology is superior to a normal human. I am simply bound to what a human could do at that interface."


    "Oh, gotcha. So more Oracle than Cortana?" I asked, watching the little robot slowly move around the room, thinking about what it had said.


    "If I understand the first reference correctly, then my ability to hack and scan through data is more grounded in reality than theic book character Barbara Gordon, but essentially yes."


    "Well the fact that you understand my references is a priceless power worth more than anything in the world." I assured her with a chuckle. "Beyond that, being a realistic Oracle is still incredibly useful. The emerald I used to make you was an S rank, but that still seems pretty overp-"


    Before I could continue my phone dinged, drawing my attention down to it. I put my new bag of holding down, picking my phone up and turning it on with a flick.


    <em>Congrattions! You have figured</em>


    <em>out the primary use of The</em>


    <em>Conceptual Deck. By mixing and</em>


    <em>matching, it''s possible to create all</em>


    <em>sorts of powerful objects!</em>


    <em>But be warned! You new friend was</em>


    <em>an exception! Creating and finding</em>


    <em>unique objects with such potent</em>


    <em>powers is rare! With creativity and</em>


    <em>ingenuity there are no limits, but</em>


    <em>they won''te cheap or easy!</em>


    <em>Good luck, and have fun!</em>


    <em>Oh! One final bit of advice. If you</em>


    <em>ever want to destroy an item you</em>


    <em>make, simply tear the card in half!</em>


    <em>It will destroy the contents, but the</em>


    <em>card will return to your deck!</em>


    "Well alright. I need a drink."

 Chapter 2: Learning curve

    Chapter 2: Learning curve


    Two beers and a long brainstorming session with Emater, I looked down at the several pages of notes I had written down. The first page was filled with crossed out and circled names and topics. As far as the inte was concerned, Mao and mutants didn''t exist. Doctor Strange did, but he currently worked at Metro-General Hospital. Iron Man had been around for a bit, but the only mention of Peter Parker was a science fair award from a year ago. Captain America was only mentioned in past tense, which I sincerely hoped was something that would change. No modern mentions of Thor or a Doctor Donald ke. I was tempted to look up Hydra while pretending to be doing a history project, but Ema convinced me that it wasn''t worth the risk, at least not yet. We also agreed not to look up ck Widow or Hawkeye. Shield existed, and has existed for a while, though I refrained from looking up any names that I could remember. When Ema finally shut down her connection to myptop and I put down my phone, I was thoroughly confused. This reality I had been dropped into was aplete mishmash of stories. Which meant any knowledge I had about Marvel was an unreliable guide at best, misleading and wrong at worst.


    "Perhaps this is simply a reality that is more realistic." Ema suggested after we were done. "Where outliers are based on gics and technology?"


    "It''s possible. But it feels more like we are still in the origin story." I respond, rubbing my face. "I think this entire world is sitting on the precipice of weirdness."


    After we finished going through my short list of research topics, and after promising myself to write down anything else I came up with, I started running through some simple experiments with my cards. I quickly realized thatbining things was hit or miss and extremely difficult to predict. Combining two simr things together would sometimes create an object of better quality, sometimes supernaturally so.


    On the other side, mashing two different things together led to some weird, and mostly useless creations. I had managed to create a roll of paper towels that felt smooth as toilet paper, mostly because that was what Ibined it with. The torn off squares were still absorbent and tough like paper towels though. Even stranger was that storing a container with objects inside was safe even if youbined an item with it as only the container was affected.


    We also found out that I could pull Ema back into a card, but not the cactus I had gotten from an old neighbor.


    "I am an artificial construct after all, it is to be expected." she said dismissively when she popped back out.


    "It just means you''re a different form of life as far as I''m concerned, Ema." I assured her. "Humans are constructed too, we just take longer. Besides, it means that if we really need to, I canbine you with something to improve your chassis."


    Her card was also named, The Emerald Construct was embossed in gold on the bottom of the card where the rank would have been.


    After a while I forced myself to stop experimenting and leaned back on the couch. While I was sorely tempted to continue, I began to realize that I simply didn''t have enough junk to mess around with. While I had enough money to survive, things had always been tight enough that what I did have was stuff I needed. I couldn''t justbine myptop with my notebook for shits and giggles, at least not until I could afford a recement.


    "I need more resources. Mostly money." I said, chewing on the end of a pen cap. "I need to be able to hold my own if I want to control my future."


    I knew I couldn''t just knock on Shield''s door, ask for a cup of sugar, some resources to y around with, and oh hey by the way have you heard anything about Hydra recently? I would be dead, brainwashed, or chained to a workbench by the end of the day.


    "I need to build myself up, then I can help without being disappeared or brushed off."


    "I can understand that logic, but why not seek some sort of sponsor." Ema asked, reading over my shoulder as I took notes. "There should be plenty of wealthy individuals who would be willing to invest in someone like you, especially if you are willing to share some luxuries with them."


    "That just circles around to Hydra again, or any of the other secret societies that could be around." I exined. "Not to mention if I find someone who would be willing to help then I would be putting them in danger."


    All of this left me with three real choices as far as I could see. The safest thing for me to do was to use my cards and loot every Walmart, Target and Best Buy in New York. But I didn''t want to do that. Not because I cared about any of those stores'' bottom line, but if I did that I just knew someone was going to lose a job, or worse, get held responsible for all of the missing junk. Plus that kind of stuff alwayses back to bite people in the ass, especially in aic book universe. Not to mention it would be hard to exin to Captain America if they ever found him.


    "Jesus, my new moral guide is Captain fucking America. I''m so screwed."


    "Judging from the information on him from this reality he wouldn''t have liked you swearing." Ema teased.


    "Yeah well I''ll give up swearing if hees back. God, I hope hees back."


    Alternatively, I could go to Tony Stark. I''m pretty sure he would happily fund my projects, if nothing else than to study the process and maybe make some requests. Better yet he could take care of himself and probably wouldn''t just brush off my worries about Hydra or secret societies. Though there was a chance he belonged to one.


    "It''s unlikely the group called Illuminati exist in this reality." Ema assured me when I voiced that particr concern. "I can''t find any records of over half of the group, and Doctor Strange isn''t a sorcerer."


    "Yet." I corrected. "He isn''t a sorcerer yet."


    Even if that was true, there were quite a few different vors of Tony Stark in Marvel. In someics he was a paranoid alcoholic, in some he was a control freak and in some he was both. I didn''t want to end up depending on a version that turned out to be an asshole. The next option was a lot less safe than the first two. I could use all my meager savings and get some supplies legally, then pour it all into a single project while holding off on any experimenting. I could build myself a suit, something that would protect me and let me sneak around. Then I could use that to steal from gangs, future viins, anyone who could use a little humbling.


    "Are you sure that''s a good idea?" Ema asked, still looking over my shoulder. "A lot could go wrong."


    "A lot could go wrong with most of my choices. At least this way I''ll maintain my independence and be able to build up resources before anything big happens."


    "And you''re sure you can make armor and a stealth suit?"


    "Judging from our experiments, I should be able to. How well it works is another question entirely."


    "If it doesn''t work well enough what will you do?"


    "I have no idea. But Ema, choices are limited. If it blows up in my face I will go to Stark and ask for help. I''m desperate not suicidal."


    Eventually I managed to convince her that it was our only option and began nning out how I was going to make both the armor and a stealth suit. Eventually , when everything was nned out, tossed the notepad into a card and put the deck in my pocket. I headed into the kitchen, having finally admitted I was too hungry to experiment more.


    "Hmm Chinese leftovers or a reheatable pizza?" I asked myself as I opened the refrigerator door.


    "The chinese food would go bad first, so you should probably eat that while it''s still edible"


    "Fair point. Leftovers it is."


    I pulled a box of noodles out and grabbed a pan from a hook above the sink, dumping the box''s contents into it and clicking on my small stove. As the heating coil slowly started to warm, I stepped back to wait and watch. Eventually the oil in the food started to spit as it heated up, a rather interesting thought popped into my head. I reached out and put the whole pot into a card, examining it with my new sixth sense as well as my eyes. It was graded a C, but what I was really interested in was the fact that I could feel that it was a hot pan of reheated Chinese food. A hot pan. With a mental push the pan returned to the stove before I quickly dumped the noodles onto a te. I rushed through eating them, shoveling the noodles into my mouth before putting the empty te into the sink.


    "What''s the rush, your lucky you didn''t choke"


    "When I had the pan in a card I could sense that it was still hot!" I exined, rummaging through the draws. "Cmon, I know I have a lighter here somewhere"


    "You''re going to try and card the me itself?"


    "Exactly!"


    I carried the lighter into the living room, plopping back down onto the couch, pushing my notepad out onto the coffee table before pulling the lighter into a card. It was a F rank, which wasn''t surprising considering it was one of those cheap two dor types. I pushed it back out into my hand before flicking it, holding the lever down. I reached out with a finger and took a breath, guiding it into the me and pulling before it could burn me. The me vanished, a card now held between my fingers. It was F rank, the image of a tiny me, the same size it had been on the tip of the lighter. I could feel that''s exactly what it was as well, the smallest amount of fire, of heat, trapped in the card, that it would flicker out the moment I pushed it out.


    "That was rather interesting. My sensors show that both the fire and the heat werepletely absorbed."


    "I know, I can feel it in the card. It''s tiny but it''s definitely the me."


    Already knowing what would happen, I held the card out and pushed it with my mind. The card vanished, and for a moment a tiny flicker of a me sat in the air before immediately disappearing.


    "I wonder what happens when Ibine them?"


    I flicked the lighter on again, once again stealing the fire. This time however, I repeated the process. I immediatelybined the two little fire cards. The resulting card was basically the same. It was the same grade, not quite twice as big as the first, but it was bigger by a noticeable degree. It was still fleeting and unimpressive however, disappearing immediately when I pushed it out of the card.


    Quickly I started capturing little mes. Over and over I flicked the lighter until I had a full hand of twenty little me cards. I startedbining them together, pushing each me into another to make ten doubles, then five quadruples, then two octuples and a single quadruple. With a frown I started again until I had four octuples. Ibined those together, before finallybining thest two into one card. Instantly I could feel this card was different. It was still just as temporary, a split second ball of heat that would be about the size of my head. But its grade had gone up to a D, and I could feel that it better encapsted the concept of fire. It was more than a flicker of me.


    "I hope you''re not nning on releasing that here."


    I looked at Ema with a raised eyebrow before starting the process over again with renewed vigor until I had two D rank cards. Unsure of what to expect, Ibine them together, only to be disappointed. The card felt more, it was definitely a bigger fireball, but that was essentially it. It didn''t go up in rank or feel like it better represented the concept of fire.


    "What''s wrong?"


    "I expected it to beI don''t know, more I guess?" I exined, struggling to find words. "It''s hard to describe because I''m sensing things from the card that don''t fitmon vernacr. But I''m close, I can feel it. "


    Chewing my lip, my eyes furrowed, I stared at the card before ncing at the lighter. With a pull I held rank F card, noticing that I could sense it was much lower on fuel. With shrug started to put it against the fire card, before stopping and pulling back. In my experiments it was clear thatbining a higher ranked card with a lower ranked card would drop the quality of the item. Combining a F ranked lighter with a D ranked me seemed like a good way to get no-where. I needed a better lighter.


    "Stay here Ema, I need to go to the store." I said, standing and returning my card to the deck. "Feel free to watch tv or use myptop."


    I was up and out the door before I could even think about putting this off until tomorrow, barely hearing Ema''s response of confirmation. I could feel how close I was, and I knew there was no way I could rest without figuring out how far I could take this. I made it to the nearby corner store in record time, walking in and waving to the clerk. The store looked a bit different from what I remember, sparking a moment of pause. I hadn''t even thought about it on the way here, but this was a different reality. I was lucky this store was still here at all. I needed to remember that, or I would be caught t footed not knowing something I definitely should.


    My thoughts were drawn away to the outside world, finally finding what I was looking for. Picking up a butane torch and two extra containers of butane, I headed to the cashier, putting them down on the counter. I looked behind the teenage clerk, spotting a few zippo lighters.


    "Hey, grab me one of those zippos too, maybe the brass one. And a container of fuel."


    The clerk nodded, taking the cash I passed him withoutment. After a quick count, he passed me the change and a bag with my purchases.


    "Have a nice night."


    He called after me, getting a wave in return as I headed out the door. I rushed back to my apartment. By the time I got back the sun was setting and I could see my breath. I rushed back up into my apartment, the three flights of stairs catching up with me once I shut the door behind me.


    "Ema, remind me that I need to work on my cardio. Like really badly." I huffed out, eyes closed.


    "Noted. Was your shopping trip sessful?"


    When I had recovered enough to push off my once again triple locked door, I pulled off my jacket and made my way back to the couch, dropping my bag on the cheap table. Ema flew down closer to the bag, scanning it before turning to face me as I sat.


    "Is it smart to be experimenting with fire inside of the apartment?" She asked, her parts spinning, almost fluttering in a way I was beginning to identify as nervousness.


    "I have a fire extinguisher. Two actually. Brought one with me and the previous tenant left one behind."


    I assured her as I began to open my purchases, immediately putting each one into a card as I did. Everything was D ranked, with the torch already full of fuel. I popped out the butane torch and clicked it on. It lit like a mini rocket, blue me extending an inch and a half from the nozzle. With a grimace I reach with my finger, pushing it in and pulling. I could feel my finger singe a bit, not enough to really hurt but enough to sting.


    "Careful!" Ema said, hovering directly over my shoulder, almost resting on it.


    The card was a F rank, but already I could tell it was much, much more than the tiny me the lighter had given. As quickly as I could I grabbed seven more cards beforebining them all together. The finished product was a D rank, about the same size as the conglomerate I had made from the lighter, but way more intense and directed. I could feel that it was a jet of me almost a foot long, much hotter than the original torch could make. Quickly I made another,bining the results with the original. Then, after confirming it hadn''t jumped in grade, put it back into the deck.


    "Still not a C rank. And thestbination did much less than the first."


    "Diminishing returns?"


    "Seems like it. Wonder if everything works like that, if it''s just fire, or if it''s because the source I''m getting it from is easy to get. Would fire from a house fire work better? From a candle?"


    I frowned, my ramblings trailing off, still not understanding what I was missing. It was also possible that the scale for jumping from D to C was muchrger than F to D. With a shrug I put the free torch into a card, flicking it away and pushing out the zippo. Quickly I filled it with fluid, cleaning it with a handy toilet paper textured paper towel. When I was done I pulled the trash into a card and with a wince, tore it in half. The card disappeared instantly, and in a slight rush I counted my deck.


    " Fifty-Two. Guess tearing them up is fine."


    "The message did say it would work." Ema pointed out, leaving my shoulder to float near myptop.


    Shaking my head and smiling at my new discovery, I once again pulled the brass zippo and the butane torch into cards,bining them confidently and pushing the result into my hand. The results were less than ster. The shape was almost the same as the original torch, but now made of burnished brass. The nozzle had a spring loaded cap just like a zippo, and while the jet of me was exactly like the original, it required you to spin a striker with your thumb while holding the butane on with the trigger.


    "That looks different?" Ema offered, spinning around the lighter, scanning it. "I can''t say how it works, the striker is at the wrong end?


    With a click of my tongue I pulled the torch back into a card, noting that it was still D rank before flicking the card to the table where it popped out the torch and disappeared. Deciding that I may as well go all in Ibined one of the extra butane charge with the bottle of fluid for the zippo. The result was still D rank, had both thepressed quality of the butane but mixed with the oiliness of the fluid. With a shrug I rapidlybined it and thest spare butane with the new mixed torch.


    "What are you doing?" Ema asked, watching me rapidly mix cards together.


    "Randomly stuffing it all together because I''m frustrated." I admitted shamelessly before mming both the lighter and torch amalgamation into the lighter. "Hey! Check it out!"


    I held up the final result, a C rank card. I flicked it and pushed the new brass torch out, holding it in my hand. It looked basically the same, but having felt it in the card I knew it was drastically different. I pointed it out towards the kitchen, down the doorway and clicked it on. A jet of me two feet long fired from its nozzle, roaring like a rocket. The me was entirely blue, and I could already feel the heat from it. I quickly released the trigger, wincing sheepishly at Ema.


    "Really?"


    "What? I knew it was fine."


    "Right. Maybe it''s time to stop experimenting for today."


    "Yeah. there isn''t much else I can do anyway." I admitted, pulling the lighter into a card, flicking it back into the deck. "Let''s just rx. Plenty to do tomorrow."

 Chapter 3: Crafting with concepts

    Chapter 3: Crafting with concepts


    The next morning I woke up much earlier than I usually do. Of course, I hadn''t intended to wake up that early, any more than I intended to shoot up gasping for breath. I almost dove for my phone, nearly falling off my bed as I feverishly typed a message.


    <em>Please please please I will</em>


    <em>never ask for anything ever</em>


    <em>again, on my parents graves,</em>


    <em>on my own soul, if you just tell</em>


    <em>me that I am not in tsome</em>


    <em>version of the Marvel</em>


    <em>Zombies storyline. .</em>


    <em>Please.</em>


    <em>There is no way I can enjoy this</em>


    <em>adventure if that is hanging over</em>


    <em>my head.</em>


    I typed, trying my best to appeal to the mysterious messenger from the day before. I slowly caught my breath, my eyes not leaving the screen for a second. I didn''t know what I would do if they had stuck me in a universe like that.


    "Carson? What''s wrong?!" Ema called, floating in quickly from the living room.


    I ignored her, the rising panic threatening to swallow me like it almost did in the streets yesterday. Before I could sink any deeper though, my phone dinged.


    <em>Do not worry! We have agreed</em>


    <em>to confirm that you are indeed</em>


    <em>not in that universe or any like it!</em>


    <em>Rest assured, this is not a</em>


    <em>cosmic joke or punishment!</em>


    Before I could respond my messenger app closed out, and upon re-opening the app the mysterious messages were gone. With an exhtion of pure relief I flopped back down on my bed, rubbing my eyes with the heel of my palms.


    "Thank you. For answering and for not fucking me over."


    "... Who are you talking to?" Ema asked after pausing for a moment, floating over my bed. "Did you get another message"


    "No I had a nightmare. About some of the alternate realities that exist for the marvel universe." I exined, eyes still closed. "Some are pretty horrifying. I dreamed I was in one of the more fucked up ones."


    I exined, before slowly sitting up on the edge of the bed in my boxers. Yesterday we had spent a long time talking about what Ema knew about our situation. As far as we could tell she knew nothing about the Marvel franchise as a whole but knew plenty of other media from my universe.


    "I messaged the people who put me here, begging for confirmation that this wasn''t that universe."


    "And they confirmed it?"


    "They did, even went as far to confirm it wasn''t anything like it, that it wasn''t a joke or a punishment. Then they cleared my message app. Pretty sure I used up all my life lines with that one."


    Ema hummed and flitted around my room, her "face" staying focused on me. A quick look at my rm clock showed that it was just about eight. Normally I would be asleep for another hour or so before getting up to get ready for work. There was no point in waiting. If I was gonna do this then I needed to put in the time which meant getting up a bit earlier. I stood with a groan, stretching before walking to my closet to get dressed.


    When I finally stepped out of my room I was dressed and ready for my shopping run. Ema was already using theputer, searching through news and taking notes in a word processor.


    "You sure you don''t mind staying here? You could stay in my coat pocket or something?"


    "While getting bounced around like a set of keys sounds amazing" She said sarcastically "I don''t mind holding down the fort. Besides that, I can always call you. Just keep your phone on."


    "Alright, if you''re sure. I''ll call you if somethinges up."


    Not long after that I was zipping up my jacket as I kicked my apartment door shut behind me. The air was cool forte May, but I could already tell it would be warming up a bit as the day went on. I checked up and down the street before pushing my bike out of its card and hopping on.


    My first stop was a nearby army surplus store that I had foundst night during some research. It was only a few minutes away, but I had never seen it before. It was too close to my apartment to not have noticed at some point, so I''m pretty sure it didn''t exist in my reality. Either way I got there pretty quick, cutting through an alley and stopping to pull my bike into a card.


    The second I stepped in the front door I smiled. I could already see that they had most of what I wanted to get from here. I grabbed a basket and headed to the back of the rtivelyrge shop, where there were three long racks of assorted styles of camouge uniforms. I grabbed both pants and shirts of every type they had, save for the pink ones. I was pretty sure that style didn''t see active service. I brought the now full basket to the front of the shop, getting the attention of the clerk. I dropped the basket near the desk and grabbed another.


    "Hey, how''s it going?" I asked, giving the older gentleman a smile. "I''m going to be buying a bunch of stuff, I''m throwing a military themed party this weekend."


    "Uhh alright, I''ll ring you up when you''re done." He responded in a barely interested voice.


    I nodded and waved as I headed back into the shop. I grabbed a set of ckbat boots in my size, as well as a pair of ck fire resistant gloves. I grabbed two different helmets, an older metal style and a more modernposite style. I grabbed a ck beanie before pulling a rolled up sheet of camougeting under my arm. My second basket now full, I made my way back to the front counter, passing him the basket before waiting semi patiently for the clerk to ring everything through.


    "Have fun with your party." He said, passing me three full bags with the receipt tucked inside.


    As I left the store I looked up and down the street, heading down to the same alley as before. Making sure nobody had stopped to see where I was going I pulled the bags into separate cards and kept walking through the alley, pushing my bike out and hopping on half way through.


    My next stop was a sporting goods store, where I bought a padded dark bluepression shirt with matching pants, as well as hockey chest, thigh, knee and elbow pads. I ended up carrying those for a while before I found a ce where I could get them into my cards without being seen. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise however, as I led me past a music store. The front disy was lined with sound baffling foam, which seemed like the perfect addition to a stealth suit. I walked in and walked out fifteen minutester with two bags full.


    After that was my final stop, the hardware store. It didn''t take long, as I quickly searched the aisles for a source of thick metal ting. I ended up settling for a stack of some sort of steel reinforcing te. I breathed a sigh of relief when I exited the store with no onementing because I had no idea what the tes were actually used for. I picked up a pair of sleek safety sses as welI.


    I rushed back to my apartment, only stopping for a quick lunch and a coffee. By the time I got back it was almost noon. I vanished my bike into a card in the doorway of the apartment, before climbing the stairs with a smile. If nothing else, I was pretty sure being able to do that alone was worth getting sent to another reality.


    "I''m back." I called out when I was finally back in my apartment. "I think I got everything I needed."


    "Wee back, I''m d to hear you were sessful" Ema responded, floating in from the living room, greeting me with a bob and a soft re of green light.


    "Took a bit longer than I thought but it all worked out." I said with a smile, walking past her to sit down on my couch.


    I quickly had my notepad and the deck on the table, ready to see what I could do with proper nning. I rubbed my hands together and pped once.


    "Alright, let''s do this!" I said excitedly, pushing all of my bags out of their cards.


    "Perhaps starting small might be the best option?" Ema suggested while scanning the bags.


    "Sure, sounds good." I answered with a shrug, pulling most of the bags back into cards "Let''s start with the headwear then."


    I pushed out the first bag of stuff from the military surplus store, pulling out the two helmets and the beanie. I stood up from the couch and grabbed another beanie from a closet. I carded all four pieces of headwear,bining each of the helmets with a beanie beforebining the results together.I pushed the resultingbination into my hands, examining it. It was still a beanie, knitted fabric and all. But when I rapped on it with my knuckles it felt solid. I quickly put it on my head, again rapping my knuckles against it. I couldn''t feel the impact, though I could feel the force push against me.


    "As usual, my scans can''t make heads or tails of it. It somehow registers as being made of metal, fabric, and aposite." Ema said as she scanned the hat while I was still wearing it.


    "Should at least keep me from cracking my skull open, right?"


    "Without testing it? Maybe?"


    "We can test it a in aa bit, I really want to see if my armor idea works."


    Done with it for now, I pull it back into a card, noting it was a C rank before pushing all of the bags I got from the sporting goods store, followed by the bag from the hardware store. I pulled all the metal tes into individual cards beforebining them together twice into five cards. I took two andbined them together until I had three tes about a quarter of an inch thick, and one te almost half inch thick. The thicker te was about the size of a piece of paper, while the thinner tes were about two-thirds of one. Ema flew around therge one while I held it up for her.


    "It''s denser than normal steel now." She reported, before turning to me. "I believe this one would even stop most pistol caliber weapons. The thinner ones would probably stop an indirect hit."


    "Damn, that''s that''s good to know."


    Pulling the hockey pads into cards Ibined them with the steel tes, saving the bigger te for the chest. The result was a full set of pads that looked more like armor. What was once stic and foam was now articted steel ting, though the metal was now ck and connected by durable looking fabric.


    "Think it will still stop a bullet?" I asked, holding the chest piece out for her to scan.


    "Well the thickness is the same." She stated, scanning the armor. "Plus, your power likes to enforce concepts, and the pads did embody that concept."


    "Right, so probably, but don''t rely on it until we can get it tested"


    Ibined the chest armor with the gauntlet like elbow pads, beforebining that with the paddedpression shirt. The final result was an impressive looking armor ted under shirt. It was thin and clearly lined with ck metal tes that somehow flexed and articted with my movement. The undershirt had somehow influenced the armored tes into fully covering my arms, chest, neck and back. It was lighter than it looked and it fit like a glove.


    "That came out really well." I stated, clearly surprised.


    "It did. It looks like professionally made armor." Ema admitted, circling me as I stood. "We should test its resilience


    "Alright, let me get something to hit myself with." I relented, standing up and heading to the kitchen.


    A few momentster I was back in the living room, a hammer in one hand and holding my arm out. With some hesitation I hit my arm a few times with increasing harshness. Eventually I did manage to dent one of the small metal segments with some wild heavy swings, but the force barely transferred to my arm. What should have been bone rattling hit was instead a heavy thump.


    "Holy hell"


    "Try the hat." Ema suggested, still examining the bent metal section.


    I nod and push the hat out of my head and quickly put it on. I hit myself again, this time with a little more confidence. The hits definitely shoved me around but the beanie protected me significantly.


    "Damn, this is going really well."


    "Don''t jinx it yet" Ema pointed out, bumping against the wooden coffee table twice.


    With a smirk I pulled the undershirt off of me and into a card without taking it off. It was a B ranked card, the highest I had seen save for the gem and it gave off some seriously protective vibes, though I had no way of knowing if it was truly still bullet proof.


    Tossing the card into my deck, Ibined the paddedpression pants and armored pads together. The result was the same rank and looked just like its counterpart. With a satisfied smile I put my new armor into my deck before taking everything I had bought from the army surplus store out and onto the table. I took the boots and double checked that they fit me, beforebining them with the amalgamation of a dozen sound baffling squares. The result was a C ranked pair of ck boots that you had to purposely stomp in to make any noise. They felt a little squisher than they did before, but the steel toe still seemed strong so I decided it was a fair trade.


    "I can hardly detect you walking in those." Ema confirmed as I walked around in the boots.


    "Not bad for picking the sound baffling stuff on a whim." I said, pulling the boots off and into a card. "Though I have to admit walking in them is a bit weird. I''ll get used to it though."


    With that done I moved on to what I hoped would be the real stealth part of my suit. I quickly pulled the camouged uniforms into individual cards, ending up with sixteen pairs of pants and sixteen shirts. I got that down to eight each bybining them together once, then adding a single square of sound baffling foam to each. Afterbining them together again I stood up and went to my closet, grabbing a green rain coat and a hooded sweater. Both were pretty basic but in good shape.


    "What are those for?"


    "I''m hoping they will take the military edge off." I exined as I carded them both and added some baffling foam to each beforebining them into two random camouged jackets.


    Quickly, before I could lose my nerve, Ibined it all down to a single pair of pants and a single shirt, holding each card out in front of me, just absorbing what I had made. Ema flew around my head to read the cards.


    "B ranked isn''t bad, how do they feel?" she asked


    "They feel like they are just what I was trying to do." I answered. "I don''t think I could have hoped for better with my budget to be honest"


    They were indeed both B rank, and I could feel that they were everything I needed them to be. I quickly stripped, put on my armored undeyer, then the new suit on around it. Between my boots and outfit I made almost no noise, even when I jumped, spun and danced about. As I did Ema circled around me.


    "That is incredible, I''m detecting almost know sound. The camouge is also a very interesting effect. It won''t help much in direct light, but you will blend into shadows almost perfectly."


    Wanting to hear the effect myself I pulled out my phone and opened my camera app, recording a video. It was bizarre how quiet the suit made me, to the point that I could softly talk and my phone couldn''t pick me up in the slightest. I grabbed my keychain, threw it and some change into my pocket and jumped about again. I could barely pick up the sound of change bouncing in my pocket.


    I quickly walked to my bedroom, with Ema right behind me. I shut the door once we were inside, so I could use the mirror I had glued to the back. The suit itself was green, a bit lighter than the rain coat had been, with arge hood that easily hung over my forehead. It was tighter than most of the camouge uniforms had been, but far from skin tight. While it did look high quality, it still looked rtively normal, probably due to the influence of the raincoat and hoodie.


    What was really important though, was how difficult it was to see those things. Despite being green the cloth seemed to want to fade into the background, even when I was moving. Once I stopped moving I could feel my eyes wandering away from myself. My eyes would drift to the wall behind me, to my rm clock or to Ema. I had to really focus to keep my eyes on my new outfit. It was a bit sensitive, the effect broke the second I moved significantly, but it was still potent.


    "A perception filter. Fantastic."


    "It will make surveince easier, though it''s unfortunate that the effect breaks when you move and that it doesn''t seem to work on cameras."


    "I''m just d the fading does. Maybe when I have enough resources I can find a way to force it into camera feeds as well."


    After a bit more examining my stealth suit I pulled it and my under armor off into cards. Surprisingly my boots, pants, and shirt all pulled off together.


    "Huh, I guess they got grouped together as a stealth outfit." I surmised. "Which means my hat, top armor and leg armor should"


    I pulled my armor into a card, smiling in satisfaction as all three settled into a single card. I made my way back to the living room, getting dressed in my normal clothes while Ema buzzed around the room, focusing on the TV.


    "Alright, I have one final idea but I''m not sure how it will go. I came up with it while I was at the military surplus shop."


    I took the fire resistant gloves from thest bag, tossing them on the coffee table before heading into the kitchen, grabbing thergest cooking pot I had, bringing it back to the couch and resting it on the table next to the gloves.


    "Any hints?" Ema asked, not entirely sure where I was going with this.


    "Well, I was thinking about what I would do if I was caught." I exined. "And you can''t walk around with a toothpick in New york without getting thrown in jail for carrying a weapon. Not to mention I know fuck all about fighting."


    As I talked I wadded up a ball of paper towels and threw them into the pot before grabbing the crappy lighter I had been using the day before. With a click I lit the paper towels on fire, quickly putting the cover over it before continuing.


    "But I still need something to help get the heck out at least." I exined, watching the fire in the pot. "And that''s when I walked past these gloves."


    The fire spread fast before slowly losing steam and fading, filling the pot with a light smoke. Both me and Ema peered into the ss cover as I let thest embers fade. I lifted the lid just enough for me to fit my finger inside, pulling the smoke into a card.


    "Your gonna make a smoke bomb?" Ema guessed as.


    "I''m going to try and make something even better Hopefully. It would be a shame to break the streak on thest thing."


    After confirming it was a F ranked card, I quickly re-ignited the paper towel and repeated the process. For twenty minutes I made smoke cards, immediatelybining them into one card, not stopping even when the card reached D rank.


    Eventually I returned the smoke card to the deck, grabbed the dry fire extinguisher from the kitchen and headed to the bathroom. With the door closed, I pulled the shower curtain all the way shut and pointed the fire extinguisher inside. I tapped the trigger for a moment, pulling the massive white cloud that came out into a card. It was already a D rank, but grabbed three more clouds andbined them together anyway.


    I headed back to the living room, returning to my "workspace", pulling both of the new cards into my hands as I sat. Ibined them together before pulling out the roll of camougeting andbining it with the resulting card. It was C ranked now, and was clearly an irritating and dense cloud of smoke and powder that would easily hide me if I sprayed it out around me. It would even stifle a fire to a degree. I grabbed the fire extinguisher and after a moment''s pausebined it with the new card. Now I had a container full of the same thick cloud, though it was even better at putting out fires. I carded the gloves from the table andbined them together. The result was a C ranked card, a pair of fire resistant gloves that would spew a dense fire smothering smokescreen out of its palm onmand. It had a limited use, but would recharge slowly over time.


    "I can''t believe that worked." Emamented after I finished describing the gloves to her.


    "Honestly, I''m just as shocked. I''m guessing the fact that they are fire resistant gloves mixed with fire extinguishers helped smooth it out."


    I flicked the card into the deck before lounging back on the couch. I was by no means a heavy hitter, but this this was a good start.

 Chapter 4: A walk in the park

    Chapter 4: A walk in the park


    It wasn''t untilter that night, after what I thought was a well deserved pizza and nap break, that I realized I had another problem. I had envisioned some sort of warehouse guarded by crooks that I could sneak into and loot to my heart''s content. I knew it wasn''t going to be that easy, but it hadn''t crossed my mind that the problem would be finding the warehouse in the first ce. I had no idea where to look, and I couldn''t exactly just look it up online. There were rougher neighborhoods of course but I wasn''t looking for muggings. If I started cracking down on muggings then I would definitely be on Shield''s radar by the end of the week.


    The only solution I could think of, besides kicking down Wilson Fisk''s front door, as his address was public knowledge, was to basically go out and get lucky. But wandering around the city at night was a good way to get arrested for scaring the hell out of people.


    "I know you were set on this path but maybe its a bad thing." Ema pointed out. "We could still find someone to sponsor your work."


    With a groan I rubbed my face as Iid back on the couch, the deck on the table next to me. The excitement from my earlier sesses had fully faded as I wrestled with this new problem. Going to Tony Stark and asking for help was starting to look more and more inviting. Even if he was busy with


    "The Expo!"


    "What about it?"


    "It must be filled with stuff to experiment with! All those leftover exhibits, plus we might even be able to snag some drones. They will be busted but if Ibine enough of them together"


    "It has only been 24 hours" Ema admitted hesitantly. "But I thought you wanted to stay away from stealing from innocent people?"


    "Think about it Ema! It would be the perfect ce to start, and get some practice in." I exined, pacing excitedly at this point. "The cops wouldn''t shoot me unless I did something drastic, and if a few things went missing from around theplex it would be chalked up to the attack"


    "You''d still be stealing"


    "From huge major billion dorpanies. The only real risk is the heat we would get from people being on the lookout for their tech:


    "But since you would bebining them with other things you probably wouldn''t have to worry about that."


    "Exactly! But if I want any chance of grabbing a drone I need to go tonight." I exined before looking over my shoulder at the clock.


    "Alright. But I''ming with you."


    "No, I don''t think showing you off is a good idea Ema" I said, shaking my head.


    "Carson, we are in this together. You made me. I am not letting you do this without me. Besides, I can <em>fly</em>, I''ll be much safer than you."


    I debated it for a few moments before finally nodding, quickly getting dressed, my under armor going on under my normal clothes. I quickly called a cab as well, I would need one if I wanted to get there before midnight.


    When I finally hopped out of the cab it was nearing ten o''clock. I made sure to stop far away from the actual expo, which was in Flushing Meadows. The area was drastically different from what I remembered, with a lot more buildings around. Though some of them did seem to be temporary set ups. I walked along the outskirts for a while, noticing that the police had cordoned most of it off and were patrolling the outskirts, Ema followed along, staying low for now.


    "You need to be careful" I exined when she came out of my pocket, where she had stayed for the cab ride. "They are probably on the lookout for drones and what not."


    She bobbed in the air in agreement, floating around my shoulders as we walked around the perimeter. The entrances were mobbed with camera crews and vans, but besides the patrolling police the outskirts were empty. Doing my best to seem like a passing rubbernecker I head slightly away from the perimeter before finding arge bush to hide in. I quickly stripped down to my armor, storing my clothes in a card before putting on my outfit, finishing the ensemble with a ck scarf wrapped around my face.


    "How do I look?" I asked Ema, actually having to talk normally to get past the sound reduction of the suit.


    "Pretty serious" Ema answered, talking as softly as she could.


    Eventually, after a moment to gather myself, I stepped out of the bush. I felt a bit ridiculous, but I steeled myself and kept walking. If there was anything I needed to get used to in this reality, with these powers, it was wearing a costume in public. Slowly I made my way closer to the perimeter fence, a chain link style barrier. Pausing for a while in the shadow of a tree I watched, noting the passing patrols. There seemed to be the asional pair of cops walking around, but the real concern was the cop cars, shining their headlights into the shadows.


    "It seems to be pretty random." Ema stated after about fifteen minutes of watching. "Probably to keep people from taking advantage of patterns."


    "Okay then this is as good a time as any" I responded, double checking that the coast was clear.


    With a muffled grunt I struggled up the tree next to me, pulling myself up the branches before jumping over the fence to avoid the sharp point on top. I stood up straight on the other side, before putting an arm out and leaning on the fence.


    "My knees are already sore"


    "Learning some movement skills might be a good idea." The ghost pointed out, flying over the fence to her spot over my shoulder. "Maybe some martial arts too."


    I nodded, making a note to work on something to help that as well, I looked around and hurried to the closest building, some sort of refreshment stand. Most of the lights were off in this section, meaning I was extremely difficult to spot. Relying on that I made my way deeper into the dark section of the expo, asionally peering into the buildings. I was beginning to doubt the severity of the attack when I walked around a corner without checking, only to have to leap back behind cover.


    Standing up I peaked around again, watching as a few cops and a half dozen other people mulled about, standing around a building with a hole in the side of it. Lights pointed down at the wall and the small crater next to the building, though there was another hole a bit higher up. I could see shes of light from inside the building as people with shlights looked around. I focused as best I could to hear what they were talking about, but the wind and rustling trees covered it too well.


    "I could investigate?" Ema asked as quietly as she could, her shell pressing against my hood.


    I shake my head, leaning my back against the structure we are hiding behind. Eventually I decided to move on, walking past the group, staying hidden among bushes and trees. We stumbled upon another building that was cordoned off with police tape, but had no one in it. The side of the building was riddled with holes and divots in the concrete, looking like someone had peppered it with a sizable gun. One of the windows was shattered enough that I could sneak in and take a look.


    I climbed in, careful not to snag the edges of ss, Ema floating behind me. I slowly made my way deeper into the dark building, flicking on a shlight. I keep it on its lowest settings, scanning the room slowly, making sure to keep the beam low. The bottom floor was mostly open, and had several areas that were clearly showing off new technology. Apany selling theirtest phone, another showing of next year''s tablet. The nearest was showing variousputer parts, showing off a disy model with all the bells and whistles. I walked closer to that disy, wondering what some high end partsbined with myptop would do.


    "Are you going to take this stuff?" Ema asked, floating around the nearby tables. "This tablet might be an interesting find, you  could What''s wrong?"


    I didn''t respond, instead looking at the ss case in front of me. I could see my reflection, just barely, from the low light Ema''s scans were taking off. I looked terrifying, like I was a burr. Like a looter, taking advantage of a crisis to grab whatever he could. Ema slowly drifted over to me, looking down at our reflection now.


    "What''s wrong?"


    "I can''t take any of this shit can I?" I ask, looking around the room at everything set up.


    "Having second thoughts?"


    "...Yeah." I admitted after a pause. "I didn''t think I''d care. But if I''m going to be a hero"


    "I thought this was more about being prepared for all of the crazy things that can happen in this reality?"


    "Maybe. But I can help. I might not be able to fight on the front lines, I''m not sure I have the temperament for that." I admitted, picking up what appeared to be an advanced harddrive, only to put it down. "But I want to be a good guy. I can''t do that by looting."


    I said to myself as I scanned my shlight along the venues. There was a lot of good stuff here, and this was just a basic building. There were bigger, more impressive ones further in. After a long moment I let out a resigned sigh.


    "Cmon, let''s go. Maybe we can still find one of those drones. I have no issues grabbing one of those."


    After another moment I clicked off the shlight, heading back to the window before I could change my mind. I get back outside and head to the next building, staying out of the obvious lights. I could see that the next few buildings still had power, bright lighting casting shadows and blinking. It seemed like bright neon lights were the theme this year.


    I slide back fully into the shadow, walking back around to the opposite side. I look both ways before rushing across the gap, following a line of bushes before hiding behind a tree. Suddenly I froze, the sound of footsteps and talking teaching my ear. I watch Ema glide up to hide in the branches as the voices slowly get closer until eventually I can understand them.


    "... ain in the ass, picking . pieces most of the  injuries brutal."


    "couldn''t pay me, was like running  minefield.surprised more people"


    "No kidding, and the worst  idiots moving to investigate the beeping... exploding in their face''s"


    "Kinda d they all exploded though, can you imagine people getting their hands on drones like that? Scary shit."


    "Get used to it kid, you''re going to be seeing a lot more of that kind of crap now. Cats out of the bag. Stark may make the best shit but - What the fuck is that?"


    I was beginning to piece together what they were talking about. By the sounds of it, the drones had all exploded after Stark had finished fighting Vanko. Which means I wasn''t going to be finding anything beyond chunks of scrap, if that. I was so wrapped up in the realization that this whole trip was for nothing, I missed how close the voices were getting. I curse in my head, hoping my suit''s power would be enough.


    "What''s what?"


    "Uhh I thought Never mind, I think it''s just a weird shadow. Let''s get back, our shifts almost done"


    "Alright."


    I held my breath, listening to the two people slowly walk away, still talking to themselves. Eventually their voices fade and I slowly let the breath out before turning and stepping out of the shadow.


    "Cmon, lets get the hell out of here." I call up softly to Ema, who floats down without a word.


    With a frustrated curse under my breath, I scanned the area, looking for the best way back, before heading through the fairground until I had made it back to a familiar spot. Still frustrated, I took another corner without checking it first, stepping out and right into a surprised police officer.


    "Wh- where the hell!" He shouted, stumbling back before pointing his shlight at me, eyes going between me and Ema. "Hey, what the- what is-? You''re not supposed to be here!"


    I stumbled back, biting back a shout. The officer took a step toward me, forcing me to step back away. His hand fell down to his gun, the shlight still pointed right at me.


    "I don''t know what the hell is going whatever the hell you''re doing, but you need to stop and put your hands on your he-"


    I slowly raised my hands until they were pointed at the officer, activating my gloves. Out sprayed a billowing smokey cloud, immediately obscuring the area. I held the effect open, the cloud growing and billowing out.


    "What the- Hey, stop it! Get downHey!"


    I turned and ran as fast as I could, darting to the nearest patch of shadow I could find. I could hear the officer behind me calling for backup, shouting into his radio and coughing. I kept running, rushing around the buildings, staying in the shadows but not stopping until I got to the building that had been active before. Everyone who had previously been focused on the building was now on high alert, some even had their guns drawn as they scanned around with their shlights.


    I ducked down as a powerful shlight swung in my direction, slowly crawling along the bushes. I kept crawling until I reached the final stretch, a gap before the chain link fence. I could see where I had originally entered, the tree on the other side.


    "C''mon, you have to go." Ema urged me before gliding out ahead of me. "Move!"


    Frantically I looked along the fence for a way to get out without actually climbing before giving up and preparing myself. I could hear cops shouting and searching for me. With a huff I stood and sprinted to the wall, trying my best to jump as high as I could. Between my desperation and adrenaline I managed to get my hands around the bar that runs along the top, pulling and lifting myself with my feet. My arms burned but with a grunt I all but threw myself over the top, frantically scrabbling with the tree to keep from breaking my neck on the way down.


    I impacted the ground rougher than I would have liked, but my armor kept me from being seriously hurt. The sounds of people looking for me were still echoing in the park as I quickly got up and hobbled away. Blew past the bush iI had changed in before, running until I reached another lower fence. I jumped up, hefted myself over and dropped to the other side. I copsed with my back against it, my heart pounding as I sucked in air. I listened out as best I could, desperately trying to figure out if I was still being followed. I sat there for a for a while, until my heartbeat finally stopped being the loudest thing I could hear.


    "Fuck that went well."


    "Well" Ema began, somehow moving her parts to seem sheepish. "It could have been worse?


    I cursed as I slowly changed out of my suit and into my normal clothes. With a flick I summoned my bike, hopping on and riding away. I had a long bike ride ahead of me

 Chapter 5: Beginning to believe

    Chapter 5: Beginning to believe


    The next morning I woke upte. My legs were still sore from the previous night''s escapades and the bike ride home. I had ridden for almost an hour straight before I feltfortable calling a cab, as I hadn''t wanted records of someone being dropped off before and getting picked up immediately after the trespassing incident. Ema thought I was being paranoid, but thankfully left it alone. When I finally did get up it was well past eleven o''clock.


    "Good morning Carson." Ema said, greeting me as she floated around me. "What are our ns today?"


    "ns? I''m gonna stay around here for most of it." I exined, heading into the kitchen and pouring myself a bowl of cereal. "I think I need a good day off afterst night."


    "I see. I have been monitoring reputable news sites through the night, there hasn''t been any mention of someone trespassing."


    "That''s not particrly surprising. They would probably keep that to themselves until they had to report it." I responded as I left the kitchen and sat at the couch. "Arrests are public record so there''s no way to hide it, but since they don''t need to mention that they chased someone"


    "I see. I suppose that makes sense."


    I munched on my cereal for a while, tapping through news channels. Coverage of the Stark Expo attack was starting to die down. Instead of every story being about the attack, it was every other story. Eventually the bowl was empty and I put it on the coffee table, leaning back on the couch. After a while I clicked off the TV and Ema turned back to me, sliding across the room in a semicircle.


    "So,st night was a cluster fuck." I stated, not in the mood to sugar coat it.


    "Maybe but for what it''s worth, I''m proud of you for not stealing anything. It would have been easy but I think not letting the situation force you to bend your morals is admirable."


    "It counts for plenty. But now we having nothing to show for a night of fuck ups. Not to mention we are back to square one for money and resources."


    "The moral high ground counts for something right?" The green construct said with hopeful energy.


    "I suppose."


    The conversation trailed off as Iy back along the couch and pulled out the deck. I summoned out a grey card and threw it before calling it back, watching it boomerang around the room and into my hand. Ema turned back to theptop, letting me mull over the previous night in silence. It took a while but eventually I let out a groan of annoyance.


    "Alright. How about this." I start, sitting back up. "We go out and stake out some shady neighborhoods. Maybe we''ll catch a dealer, get a few hundred bucks, maybe we could follow him back to somece with more money, who knows."


    "It''s possible, though unlikely."


    "I know, but I have to try. If nothing else than to say that I didn''t give up the second shit went sideways. If we get lucky, great. If notI''ll look into seeing if Stark would like to help another hero do his thing."


    "I know you said you weren''t sure about what Mr. Stark would be like but this seems to go a lot deeper than that."


    For a long minute I say nothing, sorting out my words carefully. Ema watches me, hovering a foot above me and off to the left.


    "In the main marvelics reality there is this arc I guess you could call it? A civil war amongst super heroes. Basically the government thinks that they need to register everyone with an ability or object that gives them power. One group refuses, the other agrees. Or at least thinks that it''s wrong to fight it?"


    I exin, now spinning a grey card absentmindedly in my fingers before flicking it around the room again.


    "So it is this huge ordeal and lots of weird crazy shit happens during that time. And I don''t mean weird crazy like what happened to me. I mean like mutant concentration camps, known megalomaniac viins being put in positions of power, and more than a few heroes doing some not so good things. Basically the whole world goes crazy at once. It''s sparked by a pretty awful incident that killed a lot of innocent kids, but when it came down to it, it was just the spark in the powder keg. The powder had been building up for years, from over fear of people with strange abilities, from a rising us versus them mentality, from internal corruption. In all of that Tony Stark bes the government''s fetching dog when ites to registration. He does a lot of fucked up stuff."


    As I talk Ema gets closer, hovering around close to my shoulder. It is interesting how quickly I''ve gotten used to her being around.


    "Now to be honest I''m not sure who''s side I would settle on in a real life situation." I admitted, shrugging as I shuffled my cards absentmindedly. "And this arc is only a small part of the whole for Stark. But I know I would be in deep shit if I got sponsored by Stark, and he goes off the reservation. I mean think about it Ema, the Deck took a dozen and a half camo uniforms and turned it into a genuine object of power, onepletely independent of me. Sure it''s nothing game changing but it''s still an object of power. With more resources, or a situation where I ignore my squeamishness about stealing because I''m forced to, or because something more importantes up? I fucking print superpowers Ema. With a couple of solid recipes and a bunch of cash"


    I trail off, rubbing my face as I stand, starting to pace around. I had been carrying this with me for thest few days, after realizing the potential for my power. Making my stealth suit had just confirmed it.


    "Basically, if power registration bes a thing I''m pretty sure I know what side Tony will fall on. And if he goes as nuts as he did in theics, or if the government goes as nuts as it did well I''m all sorts of fucked."


    We sat in silence for a while, the only sound was the shuffling deck as I looked down. I pull out the card with my armor, contemting tearing it up for a moment before shuffling it back into the deck and putting that back in my pocket.


    "I" Ema started, immediately trailing off, at a loss for words.


    "Sorry, I''m not ming you, I know you''re just trying to figure out what''s going on. This is why I''m so hell bent on building myself up before going to anyone. Working frence, or contracting out my services to certain groups or people wouldn''t be the worst option, but I need to be negotiating from a position of power. I need to be powerful enough that pushing me around is a bad idea."


    "I understand, I won''t suggest it again."


    "Well if a week or so goes by and we haven''t figured something out yet I''ll start doing some research on Stark, see what this reality''s version is like. I was surprised as hell that it was so early in his career and he was already openly admitting to being Iron Man, so maybe he will continue to surprise me."


    "If you''d like I could put together a file of sorts for you to go through, a collection of interviews, stories, documentaries, that sort of thing?"


    "Yeah, that would be great. Thanks Ema."


    The floating ghost bobbed before turning and flying back to myptop. I let out another sigh before looking around the apartment, trying to think of what I was going to do. After a moment I stood, walking to the tv and the shelf above it. Looking at thebination of DVD''s, books and actual VHS tapes, I quirked my head as a thought drifted through my mind.


    "Ema did we test what happens when I card a book? Or a movie?" I asked, trying to recall all of the experiments we had done.


    "No, we tried a stack of papers, but no books."


    I frowned and grabbed a few things from the shelf, carrying them to the couch andying them on the table. A cookbook, a VHS of Demolition Man, a book about wood carving and a biography of an Olympic athlete, allid out on the table. Seeing me bring things to the "workbench" Ema floated over to observe.


    "So my power works on concepts right? Well what is the concept of Demolition Man?" I asked before pulling it into a card, my eyes going wide.


    "Woah, that''s a lot." I said, spinning the card in my hand, seeing that it''s D ranked.


    "What? How does it feel?"


    "Well for one it feels mostly like a storage device. It also feels like the concept of an action hero? Like experience but not realistic experience."


    I pushed the VHS out of the card before pulling in the cookbook. I blinked, confused as I examined the card.


    "Okay, so from this I''m still getting a sense of information storage but it''s less than the VHS. Lots of knowledge mixed with a bit of understanding of that knowledge."


    I quickly carded the remaining two books, nodding as I studied both of the D rank cards.


    "The wood working book is full of knowledge and understanding. The Biography doesn''t have nearly as much as either, barely any really."


    I exined as I looked around the apartment, before getting up and going to the kitchen,ing back with a steak knife and a pocket knife. I grabbed the cookbook andbined it with the knife, quickly pushing the knife out of the card and into my hand. The new knife had a design along the handle very reminiscent of the designs on the cover of the cook book. I could feel an entire list of recipes ''floating'' in my mind. Almost 40 of them, separate but still in my head, like I had to reach a bit further for them than my normal memories. I put the knife down and instantly the memories are gone.


    "This is big Ema" I exined excitedly. "The knowledge carries over, at least partially. I know a handful of recipes."


    "Could you make all of them?"


    I tilted my head and picked up the knife again, going through the recipes, my brow furrowing as I realized that while I could make most of them I didn''t know several of the techniques they mentioned.


    "No actually. I know the ones I can feel but there are things I don''t understand. It''s all very directional, no background knowledge."


    "Perhaps because that''s what a cookbook is. It''s a list of recipes, but the background information for why you cook one thing under high heat and the other under low is something it wouldn''t cover."


    I shrugged, putting the knife down again, grabbing the pocket knife and putting it in a card,bining it with a beginner''s woodcarving book. Upon pushing the closed knife into my hand I could immediately feel the difference. The knowledge seemed closer, more essible and easier to use.


    "I think you were definitely right. This one feels much moreplete. I know why you use one type of chisel instead of another, as well as how to use that chisel."


    "This is a big deal." Ema agreed, floating around and scanning the two knives. "I''m not detecting any difference in the pocket knife, but the steak knife is slightly maic, even the handle."


    I nodded vaguely, not really thinking about what she said as I tried to figure out the best way to leverage this new aspect of my powers. If I stacked a dozen books about simr information I went through my budget mentally.


    "If I want to be able to afford food I need to save some of my money." I said out loud, starting to pace slowly around the living room. "Worsees to worse when two weeks go by and Stark isn''t interested in helping me, I''ll get a job washing dishes or flipping burgers."


    "If Mr. Stark isn''t interested then there are other options as well" Ema said, watching as I pace, stationary about three feet above the coffee table. "Just putting that out there."


    "Right. But I can afford to buy a few books"


    "What would youbine it with?" She asked, bobbing slightly.


    I paused, frowning before eventually smiling. I walked out of the living room to my bedroom, immediately heading for my closet. I threw out a few things, a messenger bag, some older clothes, before finally pulling out a dusty box that fit in my palm.


    "Aha! I knew it was here!" I called out as I walked back to the living room. "My high school ring. I begged my parents to get it for me, probably the only reason I still have it to be honest"


    I cracked open the box after brushing the dust off, Ema flying to the side to avoid the small cloud. Inside was a basic ss ring, arge red stone in the front, set in a basic silver ring. Popped it into a card, looking at Ema with a smile.


    "Just like I thought, it''s mostly ornamental but it''s got some knowledge concepts in it as well."


    "So where is the nearest book store?"


    A few minutester I was riding my bike down the street, heading to a small used bookstore I knew was close by. A bluetooth earpiece was hooked into my ear as I pedaled, Ema on the other end.


    "I think you should include gymnastics in the ring, maybe a dance style of some sort." She suggested, her voiceing in clear. "Something to help with body movement."


    "If anything I would choose gymnastics. Knowing how to move more efficiently would be useful."


    "So martial arts, gymnastics, free running anything else?" She asked, sounding like she was taking notes, which she probably was.


    I spotted my destination and turned into the nearest alley, hopping off my bike and pulling it into a card. I tapped the bluetooth to make sure it was still firmly in before leaving the alleyway..


    "No, I think that is it. I mean I have a ton of ideas for other rings but for now this is all I can afford. Even this is cutting it close."


    Ema hummed in agreement as I crossed the street and quickly headed inside of the book store. I grabbed a shopping basket as I waved down an employee, who directed me to one of the corners of the store.


    "Muay Thai is probably a good start, right?" I asked Ema, recognizing the name, pulling out several books about it and thumbing through them.


    "Yes, Mauy Thai is a solid first start."


    I quickly put back some of the books keeping three how to guides as well as a book about a supposedly famous practitioner.


    "Ema, look up what kind of stylespliment Mauy Thai. I''m thinking we go with three martial arts styles, some gymnastic stuff and some free running stuff. That way it''s mostly about martial arts but contains other movement skills."


    "I''m seeing a lot that points to grappling martial arts like Judo, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, or even just wrestling."


    "There is a ton on Brazillian Jiu Jitsu, I''ll go with that. Any suggestions for a third?"


    "There are a lot of suggestions, I''m seeing Taekwondo a lot. As well as Wing chun."


    I frowned and looked through the martial arts shelf, finally finding a series of books on Wing Chun, adding them to the basket. It was already half full.


    "Okay, now to find gymnastics and free running"


    Almost an hourter I was finally back at my apartment, my fingers ying with my ss ring as I sat on the couch. I was trying to n out how I wouldbine everything.


    "I''m thinking the ring is thest thing I want tobine." I exined. "I don''t want to end up with a paper ring or a ring shaped book because Ibined it too much."


    "That makes sense. And since you''re basing everything around Mauy Thai?"


    "Then I should mix everything together andbine thatst." I finished, nodding my head in agreement. "By that logic I should mix all of the smaller groups together, then mix the parkour and gymnastics. Then after that the two separate martial arts before finally mixing all that together andbining it with the Mauy Thai."


    "That sounds like a good n." Ema agreed before pausing. "My question is what''s the result ofbining books together?"


    I looked at her in surprise before furrowing my brow and picking up two books on parkour and freerunning. Ibined the two and pushed the new book into my hand, studying it for a moment. As far as I could tell it was apletely new book, a mix andbination of both of itsponents. The weirdest part was that the title was a mix of the original two, with the author listed as "The Conceptual Deck"


    "That I''m going to ignore that and justbine them all."


    I said softly, Ema nodding her shell. I quickly mixed everything together, ending up with five conglomerate books: parkour, gymnastics, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Wing Chun and Mauy Thai. I quicklybined the parkour and gymnastics, then Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Wing Chun as well. Now with three books Ibined everything together just as I said I would. The final result was a C ranked card, a step up from what my ss ring was.


    "Well moment of truth"


    Ibined the book and the ring, nodding happily when I saw the result was still a ring. It was a B ranked card, and felt pretty impressive. I pushed it out of the card and slid it onto my finger.


    "Holy fuck!" I cursed, my immediate instinct was to clutch my head.


    "What is it? Carson are you alright?"


    I held up my hand without a word, trying to process what I was experiencing. It was almost ten minutes before I could finally talk, half copsing back onto the couch.


    "Okay, first problem. We mixed too many things together. I can handle it I think, but oh boy that was a lot."


    Ema floated around me, almost peppering me with scans and questions. Eventually I calmed her down enough to actually answer them.


    "It was just a lot at once. I''m pretty sure there is going to be a limit to how many skills I can be using at once as well. It might change in time but I have no idea how long"


    "Well if you are not in any paindid it work?" Ema asked hesitantly, getting a smirk out of me.


    "It worked exactly like I hoped it would."


    I stood slowly, feeling the feedback from what I now knew about movement, stature and positioning flow through my mind. I could feel myself standing using the knowledge. With a smirk I settle into a traditional Muay Thai stance, foot raised off the ground, my hands up and prepared. It felt very natural as if I was learning it again for the first time. I settled down into a more neutral stance.


    "I know Kung Fu" I said to Ema, a smirk on my face.


    "No you don''t, there weren''t any Kung Fu books in that batch." She replied, making me frown and sulk before she started tough. "Alright Keanu, Show me."

 Chapter 6: Shot in the dark

    Chapter 6: Shot in the dark


    I stood up on the roof of a short abandoned building, located on the opposite side of the Bronx as my apartment. I slowly worked through the different motions of a modified Wing Chun stance, moving and stretching, working my muscles before releasing the final form with a soft groan, walking to and dropping down to a chair I had brought up with me.


    "Impressive" Emamented softly, darting from the far side of the building to my side. "Especially considering you had no martial arts training eleven hours ago."


    "It feels like the information is getting easier to ess as I practice." I said with a shrug. "And I''m pretty sure my body is adjusting itself. It''s hard to say for sure but I feel a tiny bit more flexible than I normally am."


    "We will run a more detailed scan tomorrow andpare the one I did earlier." Ema said, still a bit miffed she hadn''t scanned me sooner. "I will be able topare the two."


    For a while we watched down the street I was facing before Ema floated away to scan the alley and the street behind me. Our first night of our "hope we get lucky n" was turning out to be pretty boring. Although, to be fair, practicing handstands and standing backflips was pretty entertaining.


    Eventually I stood, stretching my arms up high before walking closer to the center of the building. I started to stretch more seriously, working through all of the stretches I now knew were suggested for a gymnast to increase flexibility over time.


    "Carson, do you mind me asking how old are you?" Ema asked after about ten minutes of me stretching.


    I stopped what I was doing and looked over at her, eyebrow raised. She was still floating on the opposite side of the building, but had turned to look at me.


    "You don''t already know?" I asked. "I thought you got a pretty big info dumb when I made you."


    "I did, but it was primarily information about your reality and what your situation was." She exined, the center piece of her body faintly pulsing green. "I learned nothing about you."


    "Oh I didn''t know that." I admitted, before moving back to stretching my legs. "There isn''t much to know honestly."


    "Truly? Or are you just saying that to get out of talking about yourself?"


    "It''s about fifty fifty." I answered with a chuckle. "Well Since you''re curious I''m twenty-six. But you already knew I was around that old."


    "True. I could tell your approximate age from the in depth scan we did after you put on your ring." She admitted, slowly floating bobbing towards me. "In truth that is what got me interested. I was asking your age as an opening to inquire about your history further."


    "Ah, fair enough. Like I said, there isn''t much to know. I''ve lived my whole life in New York City. To be honest I don''t think I could voluntarily live anywhere else."


    "You like living in the city?"


    "On good days, sure." I answered with a chuckle. "But no, it''s more like the city is part of me. The good and the bad."


    "I see." She responded. "I''m sorry I don''t quite understand."


    "I''m not surprised. I''m not sure you have the frame of reference to understand Ema." I admitted before continuing. "Do you hate the color blue?"


    "No, not particrly. Why?"


    "Well, would you mind if I painted you blue then?" I asked, starting a different stretch before continuing. "Not for any reason really, I just feel like making you blue."


    "I would not like that at all." She stated, indignation leaking into her voice. "I am green."


    "So even though you don''t hate blue, you really don''t want to be blue, ''cause it isn''t green?" I asked, gesturing as she bobbed in confirmation. "Being a New Yorker is like that for some people. We don''t hate other ces or types of ces, but being anything but a New Yorker would just feel wrong."


    "I see I think." She responded hesitantly. "Thank you for the analogy."


    "No problem"


    "... anything else you want to share?" She prompted after a minute or two of silence.


    "UhI''m an only child? I don''t really have any family left, even before the reality crossing." I exined, pausing a moment before continuing. "To answer the question everyone wants to ask after hearing that, my parents died in a house fire not long after I moved out."


    "My condolences."


    "Thank you." I said, before coughing and continuing. "I''m d I didn''t leave anyone behind, as horrible as that might sound."


    "No, I think I understand." She assured me, floating closer, watching me stretch. "What about friends?"


    "That''s aplicated question" I admitted with a wince.


    "We aren''t going anywhere for a while." She insisted, pulsing a light green for a moment.


    "I suppose you''re right." I said with a chuckle before sighing. "I was in between friend groups when I ended up here. Thest group were rowdy partiers and to be honest I fit right in at first. But the group started drifting into heavier stuff. Booze and a little weed is fun but when people started bringing harder drugs I tried to convince them it was a bad road but all that did was piss them off. Eventually I was the only one who wasn''t hooked on something bad. Every conversation turned into a talk about how to get the next hit, how to get more money for more drugs When one of them bragged about mugging someone for some cash I realized if I stayed I would eventually get pulled down with them.. so I left."


    "Well I''m d you did."


    I nodded, standing and easily dropping into a Mauy Thai fighting stance. I could feel how much more predominant and easy to slide into it was than the Wing Chun stance. I threw a half dozen kicks and punches, feeling the knowledge flow and ebb, feeling more natural as I used it. I dropped the stance and looked over at Ema.


    "We definitely made the right choice in the order Ibined the books. Mauy Thai is the easiest knowledge to use, it''s almost as natural as anything I already know." I exined, eager for the change in subject. "It''s also the most extensive."


    "Wouldn''t it have been better to have all of them like that?" She asked, facing out towards the street.


    "I''m pretty sure it was a trade off. Either we got oneing through perfectly with everything else being secondary, or we got them alling across poorly. It''s better to have one be perfect than have them all slightly better than decent."


    "I can see that logic I suppose."


    "I am going to have to find somece to practice though. I can feel that these practice stances and shadow boxing just isn''t gonna cut it."


    "Perhaps a nearby dojo will have people willing to spar with you?" The green construct suggested.


    "Not a bad idea, though I''ll likely have to join in order to spar." I pointed out.


    "I suppose that''s true."


    The two of us were quiet for a while, even when I stopped practicing and sat down in my chair, watching the street. I was still nervous about being seen, a symptom of myst escapade in this suit. I slid my seat a bit further back, making sure I wasn''t visible from the street. After a few minutes Ema floated over again.


    "When you''re satisfied with your progress, do you wish for me to remain a secret?" She asked, floating around in the dark. "Or at least how advanced I am?"


    "That depends on what situation we find ourselves in. If we are voluntarily talking to Stark or whoever, then we should probably be honest. Otherwise I have to admit you would make a great backup n."


    "I agree. Perhaps I could pretend to be some sort of mindless drone?"


    "That''s a really good idea." I agreed after a moment of thinking. "Would let you stick around but they wouldn''t expect you to act on your own if I''m in trouble. Solid n Ema."


    I helded out my fist. After a moment she bumps it with her frame, chuckling softly.


    "In a simr vein, I was thinking about how much I should reveal about the Deck." I continued. "I know it could be used to do some pretty broken things with the right resources. What do you think about me pretending that I''m making this stuff another way?"


    "Like through technology? No offense but I think youck the technical know-how to back that im up."


    "Well first, with the right books and another piece of jewelry that wouldn''t be the case." I pointed out before continuing. "We don''t know if it''s true here, but magic is all over the ce in the main Marvel storyline. I could hint at being some kind of enchanter but ultimately stay mysterious about what I''m actually doing. That way I can exin where I get my toys and nobody assumes I can just churn them out constantly from normal everyday stuff."


    "With organizations like Shield around that would require you to keep your real identity a secret. They wouldn''t hesitate to invade your privacy to discover the truth about your abilities."


    "True I hadn''t thought of that." I admitted. "But like all my other problems, maintaining this illusion is temporary. Eventually if I make enough allies and gain enough strength there won''t be a reason to have to hide."


    "Allies?" Ema asked. "Do you n on forming alliances or?"


    "If there is one thing I''m certain of in any Marvel universe, no matter how strange and different it is, is that people with powers, talents and abilities get pulled together, usually to deal with bigger threats. It is as inevitable as death, taxes and sunsets. Eventually someone is going to reach out, or I''m gonna get pulled into some sort of shenanigans. I just hope that I''m strong enough to help, and to keep from getting myself killed."


    Ema looked at me, not saying anything for a while. I shrugged, standing from my chair and pulling it into a card.


    "And on that note I think it''s time to call it a night. We can keep an eye open for anything on the way home."<hr>


    <em><strong>Washington D.C. - Triskelion - Nick Fury''s Office</strong></em>


    In a different state, in arge government building, Nick Fury sat behind his desk. He was leaning back in his chair, waiting for his second inmand to make her way to his desk. Behind him was a rather impressive view of Washington DC at night. Being in charge seemed to have its perks.


    "Alright, what have you got Agent Hill?" He asked, leafing through the file he had just been handed.


    "Two days ago, at approximately ten thirty pm an unknown individual was discovered in the Stark Expo center." She began, standing at parade rest, eyes above her superior officer. "We do not know how long they were on site, or what they were there for, but we do know they essed one of the venues showing off some tech from one of the invitedpanies. They climbed through a broken window."


    "What did they take?"


    "As far as we can tell? Absolutely nothing."


    "So you''re telling me someone wearing unknown stealth technology hopped a fence, evaded patrols and climbed through a broken window for sightseeing?"


    "We aren''t sure sir, but we called in the staff of the event to confirm and as far as they could tell; nothing was missing."


    Fury shook his head, putting the security tape images down, and lent forward to lean on his desk, motioning for the female agent to continue.


    "The individual went deeper into the center before stopping and turning around. Based on how he was described by the officer who discovered him, we think he saw that the rest of the park was lit up and turned around."


    "The assumption being that bright lights interfere with their ability to fade into darkness?"


    "Yes sir. The police officer described him as being blurred around the edges, like his eyes were sliding off unless he focused. Judging by how close another patrol potentially got to the individual, I''d say it works better when he isn''t moving."


    "That kind of stealth technology must be pretty advanced. Anyone lost anything like that recently?"


    "Sir, as far as I''m aware that kind of tech doesn''t exist, at least not for personal or mobile use. I asked around the usual suspects and all I got was requests to study it if we caught them."


    "And this smoke spray?"


    "Theb is analyzing it right now, but so far they know it''s non toxic, a slight irritant and oddly derivative of a powder used in fire extinguishers . Again, no leads on where that came from, though it could be low tech enough to be homemade."


    "Any leads on the drone?"


    "Again the usual sources didn''t recognize it, and we aren''t sure but after studying the footage it doesn''t appear to be using propellers."


    "Well it sure as hell isn''t using jets." Fury said, looking at a close up of the small angr drone. "Repulsor tech?"


    "Possibly sir, especially if it shared the same stealth technology as the suit to muffle sound."


    Fury frowned, closing and then dropping the file onto his desk. He stood and made his way back to the window overlooking the city, sping his hands behind his back.


    "So no leads on what they were after, why they didn''t take anything, and where their tech came from?"


    "Well sir, we interviewed the officers in the area and discovered that a patrol appears to have been in close proximity to the area where the individual stopped and began to retreat. One of them imed to have seen something but written it off as a shadow. Apparently they were discussing how the Hammer drones had self-destructed, something that hasn''t made it to the news circle yet."


    "So someone wanted to get their hands on the drone, and when they heard they all exploded they gave up?" Nick confirmed, before turning back to Agent Hill, eyebrow raised.


    "More specifically sir, we think that they were after the arc reactors. ording to the ns we confiscated from Ivan Vanko''s workshop, the only thing worth the effort was the reactor. Further, the person was by themselves, they had no way to transport an entire drone."


    "But making off with a reactor would be much easier. It sounds like we have a tech scavenger on our hands."


    "Possibly. Though I will say from the footage we have from the security cameras, my guess is that they aren''tbat or stealth trained."


    "So a potential civilian in a high tech suit?"


    "That''s what it looks like so far sir. The irony is that plenty of reporters and civilians have snuck in and been tossed back out without much more than a p on the wrist. The only reason this is of interest is because of the tech disyed."


    "So we have someone who is either new to the game, or someone who stumbled onto some goodies and decided to try their hand at looting more." Fury surmised, pulling out his phone before looking back to the agent. "Either way I''m going to put Coulson on it."


    "Coulson sir?" Agent Hill asked, still at parade rest. "Seems overkill for what could be a lucky civilian."


    "Coulson is good with civilians. Besides, if something more importantes up I''ll just reassign him and pass this off to someone else."


    "Very well sir. I''ll send the file over to Agent Coulson immediately and inform theb to send the final results to his desk."


    The director nodded, his phone now pressed to his ear as Agent Hill turned and left. It only rang twice before Agent Coulson answered, despite it being around two in the morning.


    "Coulson, I need you toe in. I''ve got something I want you to look into."

 Chapter 7: Getting lucky

    Chapter 7: Getting lucky


    The next day was a rather simple one. I woke up early and attempted to go for a run. What actually happened was a series of jogs connected by breaks to lean against buildings, sit on benches, and single break under a tree. It wasn''t pretty, but it honestly went better than I thought it would, all but convincing me that the ring was helping me change my body. When I got back Ema wanted to run her scan, but I convinced her to wait until that night, so we had a full twenty-four hour difference. She relented eventually.


    Once I recovered from my morning exercise I began my stretches and practice, running through various forms and movements to help my body get used to the movements I now knew thanks to my ring. I even put on my armored suit, getting to know how the movements felt while I was wearing it. After that we had a lot of nothing to do and a lot of time to do it in. Ema spent her time using myptop, watching news broadcasts and the like. She seemed to be taking her task ofpiling a file on Stark pretty seriously. I watched tv in between stretching and practicing my various martial art forms.


    Eventually it started to get dark again and we both prepared to head out. I rode my bike around with Ema in my pocket, taking our time to try and find a good spot to hide, somewhere we could keep an eye out. Eventually, around ten o''clock we settled on the rooftop of a sandwich shop, watching down a long street with an alley and another street behind us. It was just enough room to practice while waiting. I didn''t climb up immediately however. Instead I rode my bike a bit farther away, changed into my suit and walked back. I easily got up onto the roof by jumping up and off a dumpster.


    "Those free running books are really paying for themselves." I said to Ema as I popped out my chair and took a seat.


    "I can see that. Now sit still while I scan you."


    I rxed back in the chair while Ema slowly scanned my body. A soft white scanning beam slid over me as she performed the most detailed scan. I sat up when she finally finished my head.


    "Give it to me straight, doc. "


    "Hmm from what I can see you were correct. Your ligaments and muscles show significant change." She answered, before adding. "Well significant for twenty four hours at least. In truth the change is small but noticeable"


    "That''s good. I''d be more worried if it was a massive shift" I admitted, scratching my face after pulling down my scarf. "How does my brain look?"


    "Your brain is active but not overly so. Slight changes in the areas rted to motor control and reflexes but that''s it. Nothing you wouldn''t expect to see if someone took up martial arts as a hobby. For a few weeks or so though."


    "Good. I was kinda nervous with the few biographies we mixed in. Thought maybe they would be changing my brain or something." I admitted. "It''s why I picked a ring and not a pill to take or something. I''m worried about unforeseen conceptual mixes popping up changing me permanently."


    "Oh In truth I hadn''t considered what an effect those would have." Ema responded before continuing. "We will be repeating this scan every 24 hours. At least."


    "Yeah, good idea."


    After a few more minutes we went to either side of the building, watching the streets go from almostpletely empty to empty. I alternated between practicing and stretching, doing basic bodyweight exercises and sitting in my chair. Even when I was busy I was keeping an eye on the streets.


    It was frustrating, watching the clock on my phone go, knowing I was basically wasting time until I gave up and went to Stark for help. The chances of someone randomlymiting a crime on this street were tiny, and the chances that they could lead me to something useful was even smaller. It was annoying knowing that being there was almost certainly pointless. I should probably just-


    "Carson, there is someone cutting through the alley." Ema whispered into my ear.


    I hadn''t noticed hering closer in the slightest, and I almost yelled out in surprise. I managed to bite it back however, if barely. I sat up out of my chair, simultaneously pulling it into a card and pulling my scarf up over my face as I crept over to the edge, Ema following alongside me. I didn''t want anyone to know I was up here, even if I was considering leaving soon.


    A man, hood up and dressed in a dark brown jacket was walking through the Alley, stopped at the entrance. He looked down the street for a while before pulling out his phone.


    "Hey man, the boss was looking for one of those newer Chevy trucks right? Ask him if it matters that there''s one of those things on top. No? Alright I''ll be right back to the shop with one in a bit."


    With a look around the man confidently walked out of the alleyway, pulling a slim jim out from his belt. He made his way to one of the closest vehicles, a ck truck. I looked over my shoulder at Ema, my eyes wide before I reached out. She bobbled and flew into my hand, letting me put her into a card. I jumped off the roof, using the other side of the alley to slow myself down. Inded heavily and rolled, getting up quickly and walking out into the poorly lit street. My heart was beating fast as I waited, listening to the man fiddle with the truck door before it popped open. Taking a risk I peeked around the edge of the truck and could see the man leaning in, fiddling with something. Realizing he was trying to jumpstart the vehicle, I weighed my options. I had no idea where this guy was going to take this truck, though I assumed it would be nearby. My decision was made for me as the truck started up and the man climbed into the driver''s seat. I took advantage of the movement he made to hop up on the trailer hitch of the, my hands grabbing thedder bar above.


    The truck pulled out of its parking spot smoothly, picking up speed quickly. As I hung on I chewed my lip nervously, looking around to see if anyone could see me. Thankfully the streets were still empty, even as we turned the corner into a new street. I hung on as the truck made several turns, eventually pulling down into arge work lot.


    Feeling him slow down and pull in I hopped off and rolled with the impact. We were in a small parking lot with a few dark warehouses around it. Cars were lined up everywhere in different states of repair, or disrepair. There was one building still lit up, which the truck seemed to be heading straight for. I quickly made my way around a rusted car before pushing Ema out of her card. For a moment she just swiveled around in ce, before floating closer.


    "That is very disorienting." She whispered. "Where are we?"


    "I hitched a ride." I exined, my stealth suit muffling it down to a whisper. "Pretty sure we found a chop shop."


    Slowly Ema floated above the car before sinking back down.


    "I agree." She responded simply.


    "Okay Here is the n. I want you to get closer and watch the front. Get a good angle and let me know if they start panicking or anything weird. I''m going to sneak around the back and see if there is another way in."


    As I exined the n I pulled out my Bluetooth earbud, putting it in my ear and adjusting my stealth suit. I pulled out my phone and epted the call when it came through. Now when Ema talked her frame was silent and I could hear her through my ear.


    "I''m going, be safe. I should be able to make enough noise to get them out here if you get stuck."


    I nodded and gave her a thumbs up, and she turned to float away. I could barely see her when she eventually stopped, having found a good position to observe the interior of the shop. With another nod I slowly made my way around, using the various broken down cars, trucks and vans to hide as I went. Eventually I reached the side of the building, my back pressed against the wall.


    "Carson, there are four of them that I can see, inspecting what I assume is the truck you rode here on. I don''t know if anyone is in the back though."


    "Okay, I''m heading around the back." I whispered, crouch-walking under a newspaper covered window.


    Slowly I made my way to the back, avoiding a few obstacles as I went. Eventually I peeked around the corner, only to immediately pull back. Around the corner was another man, slowly smoking a cigarette as he checked his phone. I paused as I tried to think through my options. I could have Ema cause a distraction, then sneak in and out, or I could-


    "Hey boss!" Someone called from inside the shop. "Jack found one of those trucks you were looking for,e check it out!"


    The man cursed quietly, flicking his cigarette before turning and heading back inside. I could hear him yelling back as I peeked around the corner to find the door still open. Slowly I walked around, making my way to the door before pausing to peek in. Through the doorway I could see a short hallway. It branched out to the side but directly in front was some sort of office.


    "Another man is up front now, he is inspecting it with the others." Ema confirmed.


    "Gotcha. I found a door and I''m heading in." I responded before standing and walking around the door, stepping into the building.


    The hallway was poorly lit, but as I got closer to the office it got brighter and brighter. Slowly I made my way into the well lit room, crouching down as I did. The ce was an organized mess, like four offices stuffed into one. Model cars, paper work, bobble heads, coffee mugs, all sorts of stuff filled the desks and shelves. Examining the room I paused before starting to go through and loot it. In quick session I pulled in aputer tower and monitor, aptop, two cell phones and two office chairs. I made my way deeper, quickly snagging the charging cables for three phones as well as a good sized tv that was on but muted. I snagged a printer next, followed by a dozen books about mechanic work and car repair. I grabbed three decently made shlights before I checked in with Ema.


    "How is it going up there?" I asked, scanning the room for anything else.


    "They are looking under the hood and examining what''s in the back." She answered. "But it might be time to y it safe."


    "Yeah, I think you''re right." I agreed, slowly making my way out of the office.


    As I crouch-walked to the hallway I scanned for anything else worth taking. Snagging a few of the cooler looking models I stopped and focused for a moment. Tucked under the desk was a locked box that looked suspiciously like a cash box. With a smirk I pulled it into a card before peaking around the corner and darting back into the darker hallway.


    I snuck back, peeking down the hall that I had skipped before, before creeping further into it. I pushed the partially opened door that blocked the way, opening it slowly and peering inside. It was a long room filled with tools, parts and other repair shop stuff, with aisles running down the room, hiding some of it from view. I quickly pulled in four heavy boxes of tools as I walked deeper, turning the corner and freezing as I spotted the holy grail.


    "That''s a big-fuck off safe." I cursed in amazement.


    "Can you grab it?" Ema asked. "Otherwise you should just leave it."


    I looked down at the legs of the safe, checking to see if they were bolted to the ground. With a smirk I answered.


    "I can grab it. Do me a favor and hang up and call the cops. Tell them you think you found a chop shop on a walk and that you think they are armed. Then tell them you''re not sticking around and hang up. I''m going to jump the fence behind the building and escape that way."


    I put my hand on the safe and pulled, the safe disappearing into a C ranked card. Surprisingly I could feel the effort required to pull it in. It wasn''t much but it was noticeable. My mission aplished, I walked out of the hallway and noticed a well made leather jacket hung on the wall. I reached out and moved the jacket around, trying to see what condition it was in.


    "Hey! What the hell!?"


    I turned to see another man,ing in from the back door. The man looked confused and uncertain, but realized I was checking out the jacket with the intention to take it.


    "Hey, that''s my jacket, get your fucking hands off it!" He shouted, his face clearing into anger.


    He took a step towards me while reaching to his hip to pull out a knife, flicking it open and holding it out threateningly. I slid into abat stance easily, keeping my eyes on the knife while listening to the people in the front of the shop calling out.


    Before I could respond the knife wielding man advanced again, taking my silence as nonpliance, getting ready to sh at me. Instinctively I stepped into his advance beforeshing out with a low kick to his leg, pulling him off center and opening him up for me to block his arm with my left forearm. I fired off two quick punches into his chest before bringing up my knee to pummel his side. He stumbled back against the wall, the knife still held up, though with much less confidence.


    "Jesus, what the fuck?"


    I turned to find three more people, one armed with arge wrench, all of them looking pissed. I looked back over my shoulder, checking the guy I had just hit as he struggled to get back fully upright. Before I could turn to leave past the still staggered man, one of the guys from the front came at me, swinging his fist.


    My hands were already up by the time his telegraphed punch made it to me, his fist mming into my forearm. I could feel the impact with my armor but it wasn''t even enough to bruise. I countered with a fist to his shoulder, followed by a low kick to his knee. It popped out and the man crashed to the floor, screaming even as the next man stepped over him.


    By now the knife wielding man was standing behind me, lunging at me with a straight stab. I stepped back into the blow, letting the knife skitter off of my armored stomach while firing my elbow back at his face. I felt his nose crunch, before grabbing his off center body and pulling it forward, kneeing him in the stomach and shoving him into the hallway I had juste from.


    Turning back to the other criminals I had just enough time to duck under a wide swing of a red monkey wrench. It smashed into the wall, leaving arge hole in the drywall. The man, a muscr guy with a scar on his chin, sneered and yanked the wrench from the wall, swinging it again. This time I stepped forward, pulling both arms up to block the swin and hooking my foot around his and pulling him off center beforeying a devastating series of blows against his chest and side. He grunted and stumbled back with a shove, giving me enough time to lift both of my hands up.


    With a gesture I filled the hallway with thick white powdery smoke, spraying constantly as I walked backwards, only stopping long enough to card the leather jacket as I went. When I was outside I held the spray down for another few seconds before mming the door shut.


    "Carson?! Are you alright?" Ema asked, floating down to me. "The cops are only a minute out or so."


    I nodded, pulling some scrap from a nearby pile and wedging it against the door before climbing up and over the fence,nding easily on the other side.


    "I''m fine, just hit a little snag, nothing I couldn''t handle." I exined, running away from the garage.


    Ema floated down next to me as I ran back into the shadows. I made my way around, staying in the alleyways before finding one that could just barely see the entrance to the small parking lot. Not thirty secondster two police cars pulled into the parking lot and out of my view. After a moment I could hear shouting in the distance.A few minutes after that I turned and walked away, fadingpletely into the darkness of the alley.

 Chapter 8: Just dessert

    Chapter 8: Just dessertChapter 8 - Just Desserts


    By the time I got home it was almost two in the morning, but I was still wired from my sess. Not only had my martial arts ring performed brilliantly, I finally had some resources to y around with! I had to fight the urge to go through the cards before I was even home. Instead I rode back as fast as I could, huffing and puffing when I finally reached my apartment. I couldn''t help but muse that somehow straining myself physically felt better now that I knew it would help me utilize the skills from my ring. I carded my bike before rushing up the stairs, quiet as a mouse from thebat boots I was still wearing. I pushed into my apartment, releasing Ema from her card the second the door was closed.


    "That is still extremely disorienting." Emained as she lifted off my hand and floated in front of me. "Did you make it back without any trouble?"


    "Yeah, it was fine." I answered as I made my way through my tiny kitchen and back to my living room. "Cmon, I want to go through what we found."


    Iid out all of the cards containing everything I had taken, slowly separating them out into two piles. One was what I nned on keeping for my own use, the other were things I nned on selling to pawn shops.


    "Ema, do me a favor and go through theptop, phones and theputer, see if there is anything other than the chop shop stuff on it." I asked, pushing out the two cell phones and theptop. "If there isn''t just reset them all to factory settings or whatever, wipe them all out."


    "What do you n on doing with them?" she asked, hovering over the cellphones first.


    "I''m going to pull theputer andptop apart." I exined as I finished separating the cards. "Thenbine it all into myptop and see if I can make a superptop for you to use."


    While she was working on the phones andptop I pushed out my first big prize, the cashbox. I lifted it off of the table, feeling the heft and listening to the coins. I fiddled with the small lock on the front before tilting my head. I held the lock in my hand, positioning it just right so it wasnt making contact with the loop before pulling. I couldn''t help butugh as I carded the lock, but not the cashbox.


    "That''s handy." I said, showing Ema the card with the lock inside.


    "It is. Those cards get more and more powerful every time you find a new use for them." She said, a bit flummoxed as I flicked the card back into the deck. "The first phone was clear, save a list of cars that the man in charge wanted as well as some details of the operation. Apparently he ran a car repair shop in the day and a chop shop at night."


    "That sounds about right from what I know about how they work." I nodded as I flicked up thetch of the cash box. "Which is admittedly not very much. What about the second one?"


    "That seems to be where we have hit another stroke of luck. It seems the owner of the phone had two shops he would bring cars to, depending on how close he was and what they were looking for. Though the exact location isn''t said, several references put it in Harlem.


    "Well I guess we know where we are taking the night shift next." I said with a smile. "Nice find Ema."


    Ema bobbed and nodded, her parts shifting before she turned her attention to theptop. With a soft hum it turned on, revealing it needed a password to log in.


    "Ah, I was afraid of that." She said. "It appears that they have a password Carson, should I wipe it anyway?"


    Ema''s question trailed off when she turned back to me. My eyes are locked to the now open cash box, my eyes and jaw hanging. Inside the box were several stacks of bills in various denominations. I pulled out a stack of tens and flicked through them.


    "Well, it seems like some of our money problems are solved. " Ema said happily before doing a scan of the box. "Four Hundred and thirty six dors in cash, eighteen dors in coins."


    "Really?" I asked, looking at her and then back down at the box. "It looks like much more than that."


    "The box has twoyers and the bottomyer is empty."


    "Ah, gotcha." I nodded and closed the box, pulling it back into the card. "Hey do you think you could scan a safe and find out what thebination is?"


    I ask before pushing the safe out of its card. It was a prettyrge safe, reaching all the way up past my belly button by a few inches. It wasn''t ancient, but it definitely had the look of something that was made before I was born.


    "I can think of a few ways to get in with the Deck, but I don''t want to ruin the safe, having a secure ce to keep things is pretty handy."


    "I can attempt it, yes. My scans won''t prate the metal, but I could construct an image using sound and vibrations" She admitted, floating over to therge metal box. "You should get some rest, with any luck I''ll have the number when you wake up."


    "Sounds like a good idea" I agree through a yawn. "Thank you for your help Ema."


    "It''s why I''m here, Carson. Pleasant dreams."


    I made my way to my bedroom, stripping down to my boxers and sliding into bed. Excited as I was, my exhaustion soon caught up with me and I was soundly asleep not long after Iid down. I slept like a log, only waking once the sun started shining through my bedroom window. I woke up with a smile, my mind already back to my sesses the previous night as well as the potential goodies that the safe might contain. I quickly got dressed and headed into the living room. The safe was, obviously, where I had left it and Ema was hovering above myptop. She turned to me as I entered and headed to the kitchen.


    "Good morning Carson. How did you sleep?"


    "Like a rock." I answered as I started my coffee machine. "I hardly even remember my head hitting the pillow."


    "That is good. I thought you would sleep longer considering howte you were up"


    "No, I''ve got stuff to do today. I want to bring one of the phones, the tv and the car models to the pawnshop." I exined with a shake of my head. "I also want to see about expanding my repertoire."


    As the coffee machine was going I quickly made myself some eggs and toast for breakfast, bringing it to the living room when everything was done. I almost dropped them both when I bumped into the safe I had left in the small room.


    "Fuck, I forgot that was there!" I cursed, putting my eggs and mug on top of the metal box. "I''m gonna have to figure out where to put this if I''m gonna keep it."


    "Indeed. Good news though, I was able to form an internal framework of the safe." Ema stated as she floated over to me. "Thebination is eighteen, then twenty four, then six."


    I rub my hand together with a big smile, walking around to the front of the safe. I spin the dial, entering the code before giving the lever a spin and. It didn''t open.


    "You went the wrong direction." Ema corrected, her amusement clearly audible.


    With a shake of my head I re-entered thebination and spun the handle, the safe unlocking with a series of clunks. I slide the door open to find it full. Most of it was paperwork, a few stacks of insurance, tax and other records. I resisted the urge to shove all of that into a card and tear it. Instead I put on my gloves, ruffled it all together and put it on a nearby shelf. If there was anything groundbreaking on it I could turn it in to the police as evidence, and if I did that I didn''t want my fingerprints on them.


    Under the paperwork was the real prize, a pile of twenty dor bills, all rolled into different rolls, as well as a stack of other bills. I pulled them out, eyes wide and looked to Ema, who scanned it without me even having to ask.


    "Two thousand four hundred and eighty dors in twenties. That is quite the prize."


    "Yeah that''s a lot of cash"


    "There are a few more things inside, on the bottom shelf."


    I nod, putting the cash on the coffee table and bending down to look at the lower section of the safe. On it were two boxes of shotgun slugs, another sheaf of paper. I carded the slugs and started going through the paper.


    "Ah, its requests and parts lists from certain vehicles. Pretty straight forward" I stated, trailing off as I kept reading. "Interesting. Looks like we might have two leads, Ema."


    "What did you find?" she asked, floating to my shoulder.


    "It''s a list of vehicles someone else was interested in, that they wanted whole. Some more expensive stuff here as well. It''s also got an address to deliver them too. It''s further in state though"


    "What do you think?"


    "I think that it sounds like we have no idea what is going to be there, and that we should consider it but not rush into it."


    "Right, I agree." I said, putting the information into a card and standing straight. "For now thoughI need to go spend some of this money."


    "What do you n on spending it on?" Ema asked.


    "An offensive option." I answered, grabbing and carding almost half the cash. "I was thinking about a bow."


    "Do you know how to use a bow?"


    "Not the foggiest. But I can make a ring that will teach me." I responded with a smirk. "Plus with the cards the possibilities for arrow payloads are pretty much endless. The most difficult part is going to be finding trigger mechanisms. I''ll make a super gun at some point but a bow will give me serious flexibility."


    "Ah, that''s a fair point. Are you going out today?"


    "As soon as I finish breakfast and shower"


    About an hourter I was riding my bike to the closest pawn shop I could find online. When I got close I performed the usual alleyway switch, this time bringing out the tv I was getting rid of. It was a bit difficult but I managed to get it into the shop. It took a bit of haggling but eventually I sold the phone, tv and the models for three hundred dors as well as fifty dors off of twopound bows. I also bought every arrow he had that was sized for my new bows, almost two hundred. Between all of that, four quivers and a simple gold ring I ended up spending just a bit over eight hundred dors.


    The next three hours were spent riding my bike around the city visiting various stores. A well stocked hobby shop, a home goods store, a bookstore, and a few different hardware stores. In one morning I spent almost two thousand dors, a serious hit to my recently acquired funds.


    "Well, that was a lot of money I just spent." I called out to Ema when I got back to the apartment. "But I think I have all I need to make some serious additions to my arsenal."


    "Wee back." She called out, voiceing from the living room. "And I''m d you found what you needed."


    I head into the living room, kicking off my shoes as I go. After a few minutes of set up I had a pile of arrows next to me, my quivers on the table and a dozen bags in arms reach.


    "Okay, first things first. Instant Legs ring." I mumbled to myself as I worked.


    I quicklybined several archery books together, including two about trick shots and another about Robin Hood. Ibined the result with my simple gold ring, making a C rank card.


    "This one is much easier." I assured Ema after I slid the ring on. "It must have been because we jammed too much info into thest one."


    "That''s good to know for the future I suppose." she responded, floating around me as I worked. "Oh! You''ll be happy to know that there were several clean arrestsst night."


    "That''s good! Got what I needed and uncovered a chop shop, not bad!"


    I chuckled as I carded each of the quivers andbined each of them with some left over sound baffling foam. I thenbined them all together before going to my closet and pulling out an old backpack, adding to the new quiver as well. The result was arge quiver that was almost as wide as my back. Putting the C rank card to the side I pulled out four books on organization andbined them into one,bining it with arge ma I bought from a hardware store. With a pause Ibined it with the backpack.


    "Still C rank" I mumbled, flipping the card in my fingers.


    I slid ten arrows into the quiver and they all moved around, organizing by what color the shaft of each arrow was. I pulled them out and this time found ten arrows that were as simr as I could find. Sliding them into the pack I watched as they all grouped together off to the side.


    "Okay, that''s cool"


    "But?" Ema asked, sensing I wasn''t satisfied.


    "I was hoping for a higher rank." I admitted, putting the quiver on my back.


    It slid on easily and felt like a great fit. I reached behind me and had to grab for a full five seconds before I found all the grouped arrows.


    "I''ll have no idea which arrow I''ll be grabbing. I was kind of hoping for it to auto organize like it does but also feed me the arrow I want."


    "Hmmm well you haven''t added a concept that would allow that. Organization worked like it was supposed to but being able to recognize what arrow you ask for requires some intelligence. Or atleast the ability to listen and react."


    "Huh, that makes a lot of sense" I agreed with a nod, before thinking about how I would do that. "Oh! Theptop!"


    "That might work, should I wipe it first?"


    I nodded and pulled the arrows from the pack and pulled it into a card as Ema floated over to the olderptop. It didn''t take long for her to wipe it clean. I quickly carded it when she gave me a nod beforebining them.


    "Aha! B rank!" I quickly pulled the quiver out, giving it a look. "Wow, that''s sleek."


    Therge quiver had new metal ents that lined around the edges, as well as a new square of leather that wastched over, covering most of the quiver''s top. I lifted thetched cover and fed in twenty arrows, watching them organize into colors. Itched the new piece of leather over and slid it over my shoulder. I reach back, thinking about an arrow with a red tip and instead pull out a random arrow.


    "Huh? What-"


    "Try saying it out loud." Ema said, interrupting myint. "You didn''t give it mind reading abilities after all."


    "Oh. Makes sense." I admitted sheepishly. "Red fletching."


    I called out before reaching back. I could hear the shifting and moving arrows as I reached back and pulled the arrow out by the nock. Low and behold an arrow with red fletching was in my hand.


    "Nice call Ema, worked like a charm!" I praised excitedly, pulling the quiver back into a card and sitting back down. "Alright! Let''s make some crazy trick arrows."


    Over the next four hours I puzzled my way through over a hundred and fifty trick arrows, using fourbined sensors I bought in bulk from the hobby store to create a sensor that activates on impact. Explosive arrows from nitro shots, lighters and the biggest fireworks that were legal in New York. Ice arrows that are each abination of Ice, water, dry ice and liquid nitrogen from wart treatment kits. Shock arrows made from dozens of batteries and capacitors charged from the wall socket. I made three different strengths of capture arrows, each filled withs, ropes or chains. I also made two special arrows, each holding a box of shotgun shells. I even managed to make what I think was a blunt impact and armor piercing arrows out of foam and needles respectively, though I had no idea how effective they would be. Eventually I leaned back, feeding my quiver a selection of each type before carding it.


    "Well, how does it look?" I asked Ema,tching the quiver on.


    "It looks good." She answered, circling me slowly. "The question is how is it going to interact with your stealth suit."


    "Shouldn''t be too bad. And if it is, I can keep it in a card until I need it."


    I exined as I started to clean up the mess of stic bags, containers and boxes, ultimately carding it and tearing the card in two.


    "Well that''s done. I think I''m gonna head down early to Harlem."


    "Why so early?" Ema asked, floating around.


    "There is a pizza ce my dad used to take me around there. I want to see if it''s still there in this reality."


    "I see do you want me to stay here?"


    "You can if you want." I answered, standing as I stretched my back. "But I''m probably gonna stay around there on a camp out. I can card you if you want"


    She answered by floating closer and waiting for me to hold out my hand. Shended in my palm with a soft pulse of green.


    "Like I would let you do that on your own." She said with a scoff. "See you in a while"


    I pulled her into a card, smiling as I got ready to go. It had been a while since I had been to Harlem.

 Chapter 9: Harlem Shakes

    Chapter 9: Harlem Shakes


    Quite a whileter I was sitting on a bench in Harlem, a few blocks away from the Apollo theater, chewing on myst slice of pizza. The pizza was exactly how I remembered, though the shop looked a little different. As I ate I watched the people on the sidewalks go about their business, the sun slowly setting. Eventually the crowds started to thin out, the sky getting darker as the day started to wind down.


    I wiped my hands of grease and pulled out my phone, starting to scan through a map of the area. I was going to have to move around quite a bit, not spend the night practicing my martial arts while keeping half an eye on a street or two. I was probably going to skip the stealth suit until I found the shop, no reason to wear it anyway until then and it was likely to get more attention rather than less.


    As I nned I was tempted to find a more private ce so I could bounce ideas off Ema. Unfortunately the streets were still too crowded. After a while of nning my route on my phone, I jerked at a distant sound that reverberated through the street. It was baffled and muffled enough that it was impossible to figure out what it was, save that it was loud. The street grew hushed as everyone listened, looking around confused at the sounds. Eventually the pops and cracks of distant gunfire joined the reverberations, ending with an explosion.,


    "Fuck" I muttered, slowly standing from the bench.


    People around me started to move, slowly at first but quickly gaining a fervor that was borderlining on dangerous. And then the sound of screaming reached us.


    "Fuck fuck fuck fuck"


    I called out, rushing to the nearest alley way, giving a quick look up and down it before carding away my clothes and pushing Ema out.


    "Ema, connect to my phone and fly straight up. Fly around but don''t go too far. Be my eye in the sky." I said quickly, cutting off her greeting. "Remember what I said about getting pulled into stuff? Well it''s here."


    "Oh dear. Okay, I''ll y recon." She replied before quickly flying straight up.


    I noded, pushing my bluetooth earphone into ce, pulling my armored beanie over it. I got dressed quicker than I ever had before, pulling the scarf over my face in record time. I pulled my new quiver over my back as I left the alley. Noting where everyone was running, I ran the other way, towards the explosions in the distance.


    "Tell me what you see Ema"


    "Lots of fire, people running from- oh my! That''s arge man. What is wrong with him?"


    "Describe him Ema. Which way should I go next?"


    "Keep going straight for another block, before turning left." She answered before continuing. "He looks to be about ten feet tall. Covered in muscles and bone protrusions. A dark tan greenish."


    "Fuck! That could be the Abomination!" I cursed, pushing my bike out and riding on it as fast as I could. "Do you see the Hulk? About the same height, very green with no bone mutations. Built like the patron saint of steroids?"


    "I don''t see wait no on the other side of the street!"


    I cursed and pedaled harder, eventually turning the corner. The street was in chaos, people screaming and running while cars and buildings burned. I hopped off my bike and pulled it into a card.


    "They are charging Hulk just got put down hard."


    I cursed again, running down the street, sting several fires with my gloves as I went by. I got closer and closer to a busted fire hydrant, spewing water high into the air and across the street. On a whim I pushed my bow into my hand, reaching back for an arrow.


    "Ice!"


    I called out and nocked an arrow, turning and firing it at the broken hydrant. The deep blue arrow impacted and exploded into a blue mist that instantly froze solid. The hydrant was encased in ice, three feet of the spray frozen as well. I couldn''t help but smirk before continuing to run, just in time to see a green blur get punted off the street through an empty lot and the Abomination leaping after him.


    "Fuck! Follow them Ema. I can''t help if I can''t catch up!"


    I kept running, carding a few cars that were in my way. I almost stumbled the first time, not expecting the effort it took. I grabbed five more before I made it to the lot, just in time to see a helicopter unload on the Abomination, who responded by scaling the building even faster. I watched as the helicopter rose and continued hosing the monstrosity with bullets, flying alongside the building while the Abomination disappeared onto the roof.


    "Abomination is crossing roofs, jumping the gaps He is going for the helicopter!"


    I watch as the mutated looking behemoth of a man lept from the building to get to the helicopter, only to get grabbed by the Hulk. Even still he managed to grab thending struts, both him and the Hulk hanging from the now struggling aircraft.


    "Oh fuck, Ema tell me where it''s going to crash!" I shouted, watching as the helicopter started spinning and falling, making it over the building and beyond.


    "Follow around the alley, it''sing down in another abandoned lot a few blocks away!"


    I pushed my bike out again and followed, huffing by the time I got around the buildings. I could see the smoke, and I pushed harder. I could feel my heartbeat pounding in my chest, my body alight with anxious energy. When I finally found the abandoned lot the helicopter was not moving, broken and smoking near an old ruined building. I kept riding, pulling the bike into a card when I made it to the pirs of whatever this building had been.


    From where I was I could hear the two behemoths fighting but not see them. I could, however, see the copious amounts of gas and sparks the helicopter was spewing. With surprisingly little thought I pulled my bow out and called out, putting two ice arrows into the wreckage. One by what remained of the des, the other near the fuel tanks, both freezing over and stopping their targets from starting an inferno. Which was good because I could see a woman struggling inside, who with Marvel luck was probably Betty Ross


    "C''mon!" I shouted to be heard past my sound muffling suit. "You guys need to get the hell out of here!"


    I ran to the helicopter, my boots sshing in the puddle of gas that had leaked out of the fuel tank. I quickly rushed closer, climbing up the wreckage carefully.


    With a grimace I quickly checked the slumped over gunner. When I realized he had no pulse I winced and tried to pull him to a card, shuddering when it worked. I looked back to find wide eyed stares focused on me. I quickly push the corpse out of its card on the ground nearby.


    "C''mon!" I shouted again. "You guys need to get going! It''s not safe here!"


    I grabbed the armored door blocking the way and yanked it open. I turn around to see the mutated mess that was the Abomination jamming an elbow spike into the Hulk''s chest. He looked different from what he did in theics, but it could really only be him. I stepped down the pile of wreckage, calling for an explosive arrow and firing it at the back of his head. The explosion rocked his bald, off color skull but didn''t do any obvious damage. It did distract him enough for the Hulk to get a devastating barrage of hits in before he grabbed and pulled, mming him halfway through the wall he had been pinned to.


    The Hulk stepped forward toward us, confused now that he didn''t have to rush to save who I was almost positive was Betty, which meant the old guy was probably her father.


    "I''ll get them out of here so you can cut loose big guy!" I called out to the angry green goliath. "I''ll be back to help!"


    I started to turn before noting that the Abomination was starting to stand, hand gripped on some sort of massive chain. I pulled an arrow and fired it, one of the two shotgun slug arrows mming into his hand. The chain shattered, the slug arrow sting his hand, leaving it a bloody battered mess, though mostly intact. The Hulk reacted poorly to me firing the arrow, but turned when it streaked by him and roared at the Abomination as he saw him standing.


    "Fuck him up big guy!" I called out, rushing back to the helicopter.


    "Let''s go, C''mon, there you go" I said, guiding the woman out before practically dragging the older man. "You guys need to leave the area."


    "No! Bruce!" She said, calling out to the Hulk, who flinched just long enough to take a fist to his jaw. "I can''t leave him!"


    "Yes you can!" I call out before turning to the older man.


    "Sir! These two are punching out buildings and throwing cars like skipping stones." I exined, fighting back a grimace. "Danger close is atleast a couple blocks! You need to get to better cover!"


    I exined trying to appeal to his soldier sensibilities, pointing out away from the wreckage. He seemed to struggle for a moment before nodding and tugging at Betty''s arm.


    "We need to go Betty, we can''t help him like this." He said, the familiarity in his voice meaning that this was almost Thadeus Ross.


    She tried to pull away, trying to walk closer to the ongoing fight, but I blocked the way.


    "I''m going to help him the best I can, but if you''re that special to big green and you get hurt"


    I trail off, looking at both Ross and Betty. Betty finally looks me in the eye, and Ross tenses, realizing what would happen if his daughter was killed.


    "He would never stop" Ross says, fear starting to show in his eyes. "Betty we need to go! Now!"


    Slowly, hesitantly, Betty let herself be pulled away. She clearly didn''t want to go, but with that final realization she knew she couldn''t stay. As they both stumbled across the rubble to rtive safety I turned back to the slugging match behind me. Abomination had recovered from the st to his hand, though it still dripped blood and looked like he had tried to shake hands with a belt sander.


    "She is all clear Hulk! Time to cut loose!" I called out, pulling out a shock arrow and shooting it at the back of Abomination''s knee.


    The skeleton-like muscle bound monster roared, his knee giving for a moment, just long enough for the Hulk to drop low and deliver a wall shaking uppercut that lifted him up into the air and threw him back twenty feet against one of the huge pirs that I had just walked past. The Hulk angrily looked at me and I held up my hands.


    "Just helping you kick his ass big guy. Not that you need any help."


    The green mass of muscles and rage looked confused for a moment before refocusing on the Abomination, who was slowly starting to stand. I crossed behind the Hulk, heading up a set of stairs that were somehow still standing.


    "You hit him hard and I''ll keep him honest Hulk!" I called out, pulling out another. "Kick his ass for hurting Betty!"


    The Hulk roared a challenge, charging and mming into the Abomination, pummeling his stomach. The pir cracked under the blows, copsing away from the two massive brutes. The Abomination managed to recover as arge chunk of stone smashed down into the Hulk, staggering him long enough for the Abomination to kick him back. The Hulk smashed across the ground, digging a furrow into the concrete. He struggled to stand, before copsing in exhaustion. The Abomination turned to me with a scowl.


    "Now it''s your turn."


    With a smirk he started walking toward me,pletely confident as I fired another shock arrow, an explosive arrow and an ice arrow. The ice arrow slowed him down the most, only long enough for him to flex and shatter the ice.


    "Arrows won''t work -"


    I cut off his monologue by throwing a card at him, the card disappearing as soon as it left my hand, reced by a damaged car. It flew at the same speed the card was going though, smashing into him and driving him back a few feet. Before he could recover I threw another, and another, and another. He started punching and tearing through them as fast as I could throw. Finally I threw myst one, forcing me to climb higher and pull out another shock arrow.


    "All out of scrap to throw?" Abomination asked, mocking as he kicked his way through the cars.


    "Yeah but those were just a distraction."


    "Wha-"


    A massive b of stone, the pir that had fallen earlier, mmed into the side of the Abominations head. The blow again lifted him off of his feet, sending him mming into the wall. I sagged for a moment before pulling out arrow after arrow,bining them as fast as I could. The Hulk just kept mming into him, the stone pir crumbling under the strain, each blow shaking the foundations of this building and all those around us.


    Meanwhile I just keptbining, pping together fifteen armor piercing arrows with my final shotgun slug arrow, nocking it and pulling it back.


    "Hulk! Hold him steady!" I called out as loud as I could.


    The massive green man dropped the pir after another few smashes against his chest. The Abomination tried to stand but the Hulk smashed him and dragged him into a headlock. He struggled, smashing his elbow back into the Hulk, who roared in pain but managed to keep his hold strong as the Abomination tried to pull free. The Hulk smashed and pummeled him harder, arm wrapped around his neck to hold him steady. For just a moment the Abomination was facing me perfectly, held steady even as he roared in defiance.


    I focused, holding my breath and releasing the arrow. It streaked across the gap and mmed into the Abominations eye socket. The crack of a shotgun going off echoed across the ruins as the arrow buried itself a foot into his skull. The Abomination iled, spasming and obviously weakening before dropping limp.


    There was a long moment of silence, before the Hulk rolled him to the ground, bellowing out a roar into the sky, arms spread open like a challenge to the world. When he finally stopped he looked down at the corpse, breathing heavily. I walked down the stairs and got closer, standing on the other side of the corpse.


    "It had to be done Hulk and Bruce, I know you''re probably listening in there too." I assured him, meeting the green giants'' look. "He was a bad copy of you, he wouldn''t have stopped and there is no real way to contain him."


    The Hulk nodded, seeming to understand what I was saying, but I couldn''t help but wonder what Bruce was thinking under there. Hulk seemed confused about how to react to me and what to do now.


    "You probably want to get the hell out of here, right?" I asked, leaning down to card the Abomination''s corpse, tearing it in half without any hesitation. "Any desire to stick around and help pull people out of the rubble? I''ll help you escape if you change back or if Ross gets any funny ideas."


    The Hulk seemed to get even more confused, seeming internally conflicted. I wonder if they were having an argument in his head. I shook my head and stuck out my hand.


    "Don''t worry about it buddy, I get it. You don''t trust me or anyone else yet. I don''t me you."


    I admitted with a grin, watching the Hulk look down at my hand before tentatively reaching out and engulfing it in his. I smirk as he gives my hand a single shake before releasing me. I had to bite my cheek to keep from yelping, he had squeezed my hand hard enough to feel the bones rub against each other. Before I could say anything motr Betty rushed up beside me. I smirked as the Hulks attention shiftedpletely to her. I stepped back with a small smile, only to turn and stand face to face with General Ross.


    "Son, what-" He started


    "Sir, there are fires to put out and people to pull out of rubble. With all due respect, now isn''t the time for any of the conversations you''re looking to have." I said, cutting him off.


    I had a feeling that this incident was affecting him, especially when a man known for his bullheadedness said nothing to my interruption. He seemed lost, conflicted and unsure.


    "A piece of advice though sir. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. And being the good guy is easier on the soul than being the necessary evil."


    I said before walking past him. I kept walking, making it around the corner before my legs gave out and I stumbled. I barely managed to catch myself and lower myself to the ground.


    A few momentster Ema flew down from the sky, hovering around me. She did a scan as I sat there, saying nothing when it came clean.


    "I just stood up against the Abomination, shook hands with Hulk and verbally backhanded Thaddeus Ross"


    "Big night." She eventually responded. "You did well sir."


    I nodded before standing up, leaning heavily against the wall before pushing off. I took a deep breath and pulled my bow back into a card before pushing out my bike.


    "You know emergency services will-"


    "No, I can help so I will. I''ll have to stop at some point, probably pretty soon, but for now"


    I rode my bike back to the street where the fight started, where most of the damage was. I carded the bike and walked to the nearest fire, carding the mes and spraying the spot down with my gloves to keep it from sparking back up.


    "Ema, scan the rubble for survivors and note any corpses."


    We worked for a few hours more, joined by fire fighters, police officers and soldiers. I was surprised when they agreed to work with me so easily until one of the soldiers exined.


    "General Ross said to leave you alone unless you were doing something illegal."


    I nodded and thanked him for his exnation, shaking his hand. We managed to pull a handful of people from the copsed buildings and put out some fires before they could spread too far. Eventually my exhaustion was too much to fight anymore and I slinked away into the darkness.

 Chapter 10: No time to waste

    Chapter 10: No time to waste


    Hello! Thank you for reading my fan-fiction, I hope you are enjoying it so far! I haven''t mentioned it here on FF but I have started a method of supporting me on amonly used website that this website doesn''t like. For those who would like to contribute just look up my username! Currently we are experimenting with an "Inspiration File" which is a collection of images that I used as inspiration or to help visualize what I''m writing each chapter. While every chapter will be different they will contain things like what an object might look like (before and afterbining them with things,) color samples, location inspiration, OC character design inspiration and anything else I''ve used to help write! If this sound interesting to you then stop by and show your support! Otherwise I hope you enjoy the new chapter!<hr>


    The next day I spent the morning and early afternoon doing nothing but watching the news stories unfold. I was sore from digging through rubble, but mostly I was just shell shocked. My life had changed so much, spun on its head and thrown into the thick of a reality that was already proving to be very dangerous. I was lost in a fog.


    The previous night continuously shed through my head the entire day. I had stood up to the Abomination, someone who could chuck cars and punch through steel ting. My armor had a chance of blocking bullets but there was no way my insides would have survived getting punched by the Abomination. Or the Hulk for that matter. Looking back on it I was satisfied with my actions, but terrified at what I had done. I had put an arrow through someone''s skull, without a second thought. Who knows if what I knew about the Abomination was true, who knows if he was as big of a threat as I thought he would be.


    "You did the right thing." Ema said, going through news reports about a different incident with the Hulk. "Reports are saying he killed twenty-eight peoplest night. He needed to be stopped."


    "I don''t disagree." I assured her, absentmindedly shuffling the Deck. "I''m just not happy about how easy it was for me to kill him. I didn''t even hesitate."


    "This doesn''t strike me as easy Carson." She countered, floating over to me. "You feel remorse, guilt, but you knew it needed to be done."


    I eventually nod, taking a drink before carding the empty beer bottle and tearing it. With a sigh Iid back on the couch, content to spend the day unwinding, slowlying to terms with what I had done. Eventually the conversation turned to what we would do next.


    "We are definitely on General Ross''s radar now." Imented, happy for even a slightly different topic. "Especially since he is going to assume I have the Abominations corpse, even with the cellphone footage of me tearing the card."


    "What does that mean for us?"


    "It means that we need to move quickly. My identity might still be a secret but eventually it''s going toe out. This reality doesn''t seem to care about secret identities very much, it certainly doesn''t follow the normal superhero rules."


    "There aren''t many super heroes topare with." Ema pointed out.


    "It doesn''t matter honestly. Now that I''m on the board, eventually someone is going to put pressure on me. I guarantee if Hydra still exists they are looking into me, as is Shield, General Ross, really anyone who is anyone is wondering what I am and how I''m doing this stuff. Hell I bet you Wakanda is looking into me to figure out if I''m using their technology."


    "While I''m sure some of that is true, you shouldn''t let that make you paranoid."


    "I''m not." I stayed simply. "I know they are and I''m not going to freak out. At least not externally. No, we need to act quickly, go through another few build cycles and find someone who is willing to protect us from all those people."


    "That''s quite the turn around from your original opinions."


    "I think with one or two more build cycles we will be a real force to be reckoned with, especially if we don''t hold back the money we still have. How much do we have left anyway?"


    "One thousand one hundred and fifteen dors. Not counting the change."


    "That''s more than I thought" I admitted, starting to chew my lip as I thought. "Okay, here is the n. I''m going to use some of that money to try an idea I''ve been bouncing around since I made the martial arts ring."


    Ema paused and focused on me, part of her frame spinning as she waited for me to continue. After organizing my thoughts a bit I began exining my theory.


    "So I''m pretty sure the ability to wear these rings and tap into the knowledge they contain is partly because the rings are so strongly about being worn." I exined, spinning my ss ring on my finger. "But my martial arts and movement ring has some traces of other stuff. I think the reason I seem to be adapting and changing with the martial arts ring is because my ss ring had a bit of learning concepts, which interacted positively with the learning in the book."


    "I suppose that makes sense. As much as anything to do with your cards does."


    "Exactly. " I added before continuing. "But besides that, what I think this also means is that if I create an object whose purpose it is to make me stronger, or faster and Ibine it with a ring"


    "Then putting on the ring will affect you like that object would."


    "Exactly!"


    "Well it follows all of the rules we have found so far." She admitted.


    "So far." I repeated with a lopsided grin.


    It was true that there were probably things about the cards we hadn''t discovered yet. I had been doing my best to think creatively, and I could feel myself getting better and better at thinking in terms of what my cards were capable of, but it would still take time. For now, I had an experiment to run.


    "Do me a favor and stay here Ema? Keep an eye on the news, let me know if anything pops up. It''s a poor cover for actual intelligence resources but it''s gonna be all the warning we get if someone manages to do some facial recognition or if Hydra has a pocket psychic or something."


    Ema turned to me but I cut her off before she could say anything.


    "Yeah I know, I need to be careful not to slip into paranoia. I''ll be careful"


    She nodded, turning her frame back to theptop. I quickly threw on my jacket and headed out into the city. Time for another shopping spree.


    - <em>A few hourster </em>-


    By the time I got back to the apartment it was getting dark and I had spent another six hundred dors. With only a few bags to show for it.


    "I''m back." I called out wearily. "I don''t know how rich people do it, spending so much money like this hurts my soul.."


    "But you were able to get everything that you needed, correct?" Ema asked, floating into the kitchen, scanning the bags as I walked.


    "I think so. I kind of struggled on this one to be honest."


    "How so?"


    "Well the hope was to make something that would make me faster, but it turns out there are very few things that would do that and would also fit what I can use for this."


    "But you still think you''ve got what you need?" Ema asked.


    "Yeah. I''ve got abo that should work."


    I dropped the bag onto the table and started opening up the bottles of vitamins and supplements. Many of them had images of people running on the boxes or bottles.


    "I bought as much vitamin stuff made for runners as I could. I thinkbining one of each together should create something useful."


    I started taking vitamins from each bottle andbining them, putting my words to practice. Eventually I held the first version in a D rank card.


    "Alright, this is pretty much what I was looking for. This pill will temporarily increase my running speed and endurance a very small amount for a certain amount of time. Which means if Ibine it with a ring or whatever I should get a tiny boost."


    "I didn''t think you were looking for a tiny boost."


    "Well no, but there are a bunch of vitamins in each bottle so I can make a bunch andbine them to increase it''s potency. And I think I can turbo charge it."


    I pull out a bag of caffeine tablets and put them on the table before leaving the room anding back with a box of leftover capacitors from the other day''s building. When I sat down on the couch I took a tablet and a capacitor andbined them, before mixing it with the super running pill. I smirked slowly before showing the C rank card to Ema.


    "This will make me a bit faster with marginally better endurance for a while, as well as giving me a slightl;y greater boost when I first take it. They all blended together surprisingly well."


    I started the process again, repeating it until I had sixteen separate pills,bining them all down to one single amalgamation.


    "Well I hit the wall of diminishing returns pretty hard there. It''s still a C rank and thestbination was barely any different from the one before. It''s a much bigger boost all around though. Better than I thought, worse than I hoped."


    "But sufficient to test your theory, correct?" Ema asked, still watching me work.


    "Yeah, plenty for that."


    I pull out a Stark branded fitness watch, bought from a pawn shop. It was in pretty good shape save a couple of scratches.


    "That doesn''t look like a simple ring." Ema pointed out.


    "I know, but this will give me something topare it against as well as testing another theory. I think thatyering many rted concepts is more erratic but produces better results, while mixing singr concepts is pretty predictable but less potent."


    I pulled the bracelet into the card andbined it with the pill, nodding and putting the result onto the table before starting the process all over again. I ended up using almost every single pill, tablet and vitamin this time,bining it with a simple bronze colored cuff bracelet. I held up both cards for a moment, getting a feel for them both.


    "Well I was right on both ounts. Both of these give the wearer a noticeable boost in speed and endurance, while also giving me a bigger boost onmand." I exined with a big smirk. "The cuff is much more simple but less effective while the fitness watch is moreplicated but more potent."


    After another moment of examining the two essories Ibine the fitness watch with arger capacitor beforebining the cuff and the watch together. I examined the card before grinning and showing it to Ema.


    "B rank! This is gonna be good!"


    I pulled the new object out of the card, turning it around in my hand. What was once a simple rubber watch was now a metallic brass cuff with a sleek digital screen. I pushed it around my wrist and actually felt it connect to me. I could feel my fatigue slowly vanish, the soreness in my arms and legs fading to almost nothing. I couldn''t help but grin, rushing from the room to grab some jogging pants and a long sleeve t-shirt. I quickly put on my armored underyer and threw on the other clothes before heading back to the living room.


    "I''m gonna go for a run. You want toe?" I asked mypanion, who nodded and floated over to me.


    "Are you sure? It seems a bitte"


    "I''m wearing my armor and I''m carrying the deck. I pity the mugger who thinks I''m an easy target."


    "That''s fair enough." She admitted, sweeping over the room to me. "I will apany you, but from high up enough that I won''t be seen."


    "Good idea, I''ll bring my bluetooth earpiece."


    Five minutester I was standing at the entrance of the apartment building, slowly ying with the cuff. Eventually I slid it onto my wrist again and pulled my armor over it, grateful the cuff was tight enough that it fit.


    "You ready?" I ask Ema through my earpiece. "I''m gonna start at a light jog to test my endurance before testing my top speed with some sprints."


    "Ready when you are."


    With a smirk I started jogging, leaving my apartment behind. By the second block I had to stop myself fromughing. My body felt light and responsive, the pace I set easy to the point of being boring.


    "Going to speed up a bit." I warned her before jogging faster.


    The new pace was much more interesting, and while some would have called it a light run, felt as straining on my body as I would normally have expected the first one to be. I could feel the embers of fatigue starting to rise, but the burn was slow, manageable.


    "That''s about a mile Carson." Ema stated.


    This time I couldn''t help butugh. I kept going and going, each reminder of distance making me smile. Eventually, when Ema called out my tenth mile I stopped and sat on a nearby bench. The fatigue was heavy and un-ignorable now, but not so bad as topletely disable me. In fact as I sat there I could feel the fatigue already fading, both the immediate strain and loss of breath as well as the much more deep seeded exhaustion that stuck around. After around five minutes and a bottle of water from a card I was ready to go again.


    "Alright Ema, time for the sprints."


    Again I started out slow, pushing myself faster and harder. I could feel every impact, feel the strain building as I ran faster and faster. Eventually I hit my limit in both speed and stamina, forcing me to stop and sit on a concrete barrier next to the road.


    "How How fast was I going?" I asked Ema, ncing up.


    "You were hitting twenty-four miles per hour in thest few seconds."


    "Holy shit." I said softly, stunned at her statement. "That''s incredible."


    "It is, especially since it''s likely that number will go up." Ema pointed out, continuing when she saw my confusion. "The object you made isn''t making your muscles better or enhancing your oxygen intake. As far as I could tell there was nothing different. And yet you ran like an Olympic athlete. That cuff is simply a t increase to your speed and endurance. Imagine how fast someone who was actually in shape would be."


    "And since my Kung Fu ring is already helping me be more fit"


    I trailed off as my thoughts wandered, my breathing slowly normalizing as I rested.


    "We need to prioritize another few sets of essories. Something to increase my strength, maybe my intelligence? Not sure I''mfortable with that one Maybe I should do some research online for some ideas. I bet a D&D manual would be full of things for us to try. As soon as we get some more cash. I think we should make ns to visit that address we found, the one further in state. I have a feeling it''s worth checking out and we need to make more of these rings."


    "...and if it''s not worth checking out?" Ema asked through the phone.


    "Then we will spend a week trying to figure out who is our best option to go to for protection while going out at night to hopefully find more resources." I said after a slow pause. "For now let''s just set that aside. I have onest thing to test."


    I stood up and shook off thest bit of fatigue from my limbs. I could still feel it after the distance I had ran and sprinted, but it was already dull, like day-old fatigue instead of a few minutes.


    "Do you know what the effect is?"


    "Kinda?" I answered. "It''s going to be an increase in speed and stamina, but I''m having a hard time figuring out how much."


    I started jogging again, pushing up to steady speed before mentally preparing myself.


    "Boost!"


    It felt like lightning in my veins, like a st of pure energy. Suddenly it felt like I was going slow, like even my fast jog was nothing. I pushed faster, shifting to a dead sprint. Faster and faster, gliding across the sidewalk like a rush of wind and momentum. Every movement felt clean, precise, like I had minutes to decide where my feet needed to be, like-


    The feeling faded in a moment, an intense shot of exhaustion pushing through me. I tried to slow down, but the sudden and unexpected spike deadened my muscles. I tripped over my own feet and slid across the ground, tumbling before mming into a light post. I could feel my armor take the brunt of it, though the impact proved that while my armor was tough it didn''t do shit against inertia. I could feel the impact almost reverberate in my body.


    "CARSON! Are you okay?" Ema called through the earpiece. "Carson!"


    "I''m I''m okay." I managed to groan, sitting up and leaning against themp post. "That that sucked."


    "What happened?"


    "There was bacsh for using the boost it really caught me off guard."


    In truth it had snuck up on me as I had been reveling in the speed I was running and the feeling of energy flowing through me. Now though I could feel the fatigue in all of my limbs, a heavy exhaustion that was only now slowly fading, much slower than the previous fatigue. It felt like I had sprinted further than my original speed test, then kept going.


    "Bacsh? That''s never happened before." Emamented as she scanned my body. "You''re alright by the way, nothing is broken. You''re going to be very sore and very bruised tomorrow though."


    "Yeah, I can feel it. I''m pretty sure I canpensate, it just snuck up on me." I assured her. "How fast was I going?"


    "In thest moment before you stumbled you were going thirty seven miles per hour."


    "Holy hell we really need to prioritize more essories."


    I slowly stood with a groan, leaning on themp post before moving to a nearby staircase. I roll up my sleeve and pull up my armor, looking at the fitness watch. The digital screen had three blinking lighting bolts, one of them just an outline. I pushed down my sleeve and sighed.


    "The cuff has three charges, I think it will recharge after 24 hours."


    "I''m more interested in the bacsh Carson! What if any more of your creations are hiding some sort of repercussion for using them?"


    I shook my head, pulling the cuff into my deck without looking, summoning the card to my hand. I felt the exhaustion, which was fading a few moments ago, stop and wash over me again.


    "Note to self, don''t take the cuff off before exhaustion fades." I said with a groan before focusing on the card.


    I put it back on after a moment, biting back a sigh of relief. The concepts were extremelyplex, I hadpletely missed them behind the more prominent ones. Even now I could barely feel them.


    "I think that there were several concepts that merged together. Side effects from caffeine and the side effects from taking too much vitamins, the electricity from the capacitors and from the watch."


    I stood and tested my legs, running through some simple and easy stretches to see if anything pulled or ached.


    "I think we found the downside toyering moreplicated objects though. The randomness isn''t always just weird quirks, sometimes it''s limitations and costs for use."


    "Be more careful in the future." Ema urged.


    I looked up at the sky, spotting a blink of green. I wave and nod, smiling as I finish my stretches.


    "I will Ema." I agree, smirking before looking up and down the street. "Now... you wouldn''t happen to know how to get home would you?"

 Chapter 11: Following a lead

    Chapter 11: Following a lead


    I spent the next morning exercising and practicing my martial arts, starting with a long morning jog. I reluctantly left the cuff off, worried that the support it gave would hamper any progress in my own fitness. It made the process much more painful, physically and mentally. When I was done with my run I returned to my apartment to stretch and work on my martial arts. I didn''t have a lot of space in my apartment, but the ability to card the majority of my furniture certainly helped. While I went through my routine, Ema and I went through the game n forter that night.


    "The address itself is for a warehouse in a small industrialplex." Ema exined as I did some sit ups. "There are a handful of buildings around it, a few of which offer perfect observation points."


    "Alright, that''s a good ce to start." I agreed. "We need to stop at a few hardware stores before we go. We got lucky the other day but I need some tools, specifically a set of bolt cutters."


    "Alright." Ema agreed, making a note on theptop.


    "The big question is, do we wait for the warehouse to be empty or do we empty it ourselves? Assuming it''s worth it."


    "You seemed to be able to handle yourself." Ema pointed out.


    "True, but all it takes is one lucky shot" I pointed out before shaking my head. "We will observe for a while. If it seems worth it we can head in."


    Ema nodded floating around in the living room as I showered quickly. I sat down on the couch carrying a bundle of the below level capture arrows and the final bag of sound baffling foam.


    "What are you making?" Ema asked, still focused on theptop.


    "Well I realized that while these capture arrows will work they won''t keep anyone quiet. That''s fine if I''m not worried about stealth. But if I want to knock out six guys in a row without getting caught"


    I quicklybined the remaining foam sheets into ten pieces,bining each with a capture arrow. To override any weakness I may have introduced Ibined the finished pair with a normal arrow. The result was ten arrows that wouldpletely ensnare someone and keep them whisper quiet.


    "I think that will do. Now let''s head out to a few hardware stores."


    It took me twenty minutes to get out the door after that, taking it easy as we had plenty of time. After carding something from my closet I carded Ema and left, heading to two different hardware stores, buying a set of bolt cutters and a pair of hand held tree pruners at each store. I also bought a lock at each store to make buying bolt cutters seem less suspicious. Afterbining them quickly in an alley I tried the resulting handheld bolt cutter on a piece of steel pipe,ughing as it cut through easily. From there I didn''t even bother going home, instead I hopped on a bus and headed further in state.


    When we finally arrived at the warehouses, the sun was just beginning to set. As the sky grew slowly darker I made my way across a few mostly empty parking lots and slowly emptying sidewalks. I managed to find a quiet corner to camp out in for a while, doing my best to look like a worker taking a break. Eventually, after scanning the corner for security cameras, I felt confident that I was alone and unwatched. I quickly changed into my stealth suit, including my new runners cuff. I waited another hour, tucked into a shadowed corner, waiting for it to be dark enough. When I was finally sure I flicked a card into the air, releasing Ema.


    "Hey" I said, peaking around the corner. "It''s been most of the day. I''m about to head to the warehouse next door to get a good vantage point."


    I exined, pointing at the building across from the one I am hiding against. A singrdder is visible from where I was standing. Finally pulling away from the shadows and walking out from around the corner I slowly made my way across the empty parking lot, up to the next building and up thedder. It was higher than it had looked across the street.


    "Careful, your armor won''t do much from this height." Ema pointed out as I crested the top edge of the roof.


    "Thanks, that really helps." I responded sarcastically. "Do me a favor and check around for security cameras."


    I asked, walking slowly to the opposite side of the building, watching as she flew around the structure slowly, high enough that she was almost impossible to see. I kept my own eyes peeled, noting a roof ess hatch off to one corner. As I got closer to the edge the warehouse I was going to be watching came into view. With a flick I pulled out my chair, sitting down so my head was barely peeking over the side. Eventually Ema returned.


    "I don''t see any cameras on this building." She confirmed, hovering over my shoulder. "And I didn''t see any obvious ones on the target building."


    I nodded and pulled another card from the deck, pushing a basic pair of binocrs into my hands.


    "I remembered I had these in the back of my closet." I answered the unasked question from Ema. "They barely work so I need to get a new pair at some point."


    Pulling the binocrs up I studied the building, making note of windows, doors and anything else I noticed. A chain link fence surrounded the building, though the front gate was unlocked and open. The corner of the lot farthest from me was against a small wooded area.


    "It seems pretty busy considering every other ce around here is almost empty." I pointed out, looking through the lit up windows. "At least if the amount of cars still parked outside is any indication."


    "You are correct, there does seem to be a lot of interior activity."


    I focused on the roof of the building, scanning for hatches or entrances. Sure enough in the back corner was a small square structure with a door.


    "Ema, think you can do a loop of the warehouse and see if there is a staircase ordder to get to the roof?" I asked, looking up at her.


    "Of course, I will be back in a minute or so."


    I nodded. watching as she flew off and eventually faded into the darkness. I focused back on the building, watching people move around inside. I counted at least five separate people that I had seen cross in front of windows. I assumed that there was probably more since there were seven vehicles parked outside by the building, all in pretty good condition. After a few minutes Ema returned.


    "There is adder, though it looked even less safe than the one to get up here." She said, floating around me. "Though it would probably hold you."


    "Any more cars parked in the back?" I asked, still looking through the binocrs.


    "No, there was nothing but arge trash dumpster."


    "Alright" I said with a nod, starting to formte a n. "Any ideas?"


    "Well assuming this is something illegal the most obvious choice would be to sneak in from the top."


    "Yeah, that''s what I was thinking." I agreed. "Walk around the back, using the woods as cover. Cut a hole in the fence and get to the roof, from there I can make my way inside and really poke around."


    "But we are waiting a bit, yes?" she asked. "To make sure they are doing something illegal?"


    "I mean the fact that they were connected to a chop shop, requesting specific expensive cars is a bit damning." I point out. "I''m pretty sure this is some sort of waypoint for fancy stolen cars."


    "That is what I assumed as well." Ema admitted. "But we should just make sure. It would be-"


    "Hold on I think that truck ising down this way." I say, pointing to a car hauler driving down the road slowly.


    The tbed hauler lookedpletely ordinary, but on its bed sat a car shaped bundle, dozens of straps and bungees keeping a thick tarp secured over it. The truck pulled into the parking lot alongside the building, stopping by a set ofrge garage doors. A person came out almost immediately, shaking hands with the driver as they walked around the truck. I focused the binocrs as the truck driver pulled tarp off, showing a shiny ssic car.


    "You know I''m not a car expert But that looks expensive." I said with a smirk.


    "I recognize it off the list Carson, it''s one they were looking for." Ema confirmed.


    "Interesting"


    We both continued to watch as the vehicle was slowly unloaded and driven into the warehouse through the now open bay doors. When it was finally done the delivery guy was handed a wad of cash as well as a small package before he got back into his truck and drove away. I watched as the bay doors were closed, just barely catching a hint of more cars inside.


    "I think that is more than enough evidence for a little sneaking around. Once we are inside you can float around and listen in, or I''ll listen from somewhere."


    "So I''m going in with you this time?" She asked, turning to face me as I stood and carded my chair, already heading back to thedder.


    "It depends on what we see on the other side of that door." I responded, gesturing behind myself as I stopped by the edge of the building.


    She bobbed and followed me as I climbed down thedder, making sure to swing wide along the woods as I walked away. I kept my eye on the building as we walked, staying in the shadows of the woods as much as possible until we reached the far back of the lot. Once we got to the back of the lot I wordlessly hooked up my earpiece so I could talk to Ema directly. I then pulled out my new handheld bolt cutters, quickly clipping through the fence, leaving a few connections in ce so the freed section wouldn''t fall in. I gave one more look around before cutting the final metal connections and crawling into the lot.


    Quickly I walked to thedder, looking up and checking its stability. It was significantly more rusted than the other building''s, but it still looked strong. I hurriedly climbed up thedder, eager to get out of sight. Once I climbed up I let out a sigh before pushing out my quiver, quickly putting it on before pushing out my bolt cutters.


    "You ready?" I asked Ema, walking to the door.


    "I am all set." She confirmed.


    I took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a moment to calm my now pounding heart. After a moment I opened them again, sliding the thin cutters between the door and squeezing them, cutting through the deadbolt with a bit of struggle. The door pulled open easily, though it squeaked as I did. The door opened to a simple concrete stairwell, barely lit by small lights. After propping the door open I slowly made my way down the stairs, quickly realizing that they led all the way to the bottom floor. The only door at the bottom had a small window, just enough to look through and check out the other side.


    The warehouse was full of cars, at least half a dozen. In the far corner I could see a paint room with its doors open, a modern mustang being guided in. Three cars had their hoods popped open, each with someone leaning over the engine. Car parts were stacked on shelves on the farthest wall, while tools were littered along the whole space. After a few minutes of observing them I crouched back down along the door. On one of the sides was a small raised area with what looked likeputers and an office space. As I watched as a man came to the guardrail and lent on it, watching as everyone worked.


    "Okay, so I''m pretty sure we were right." I said, looking at Ema. "That close guy was absolutely filing off the pin numbers or whatever on that motor.".


    "I noticed that." Ema agreed. "Further, repainting the cars is a good way to hide that they are stolen."


    "So now we have a question." I said, chewing my cheek. "Do I try and wait for the ce to shut down, or do I just jump in and go all out, trying to be stealthy for as long as possible?"


    "Do you think that you could take them all?"


    "I''m certain I could get two pretty easily right off the bat." I guessed. "My worry is if they have guns. I can kick the shit out of all of them, but I can''t martial arts my way out of a bullet"


    "How about you wait until the mustang is getting painted. It looks like two of them are getting dressed to go into the paint room."


    I peeked into the room again and saw that there were in fact two people getting dressed in full white suits, strappingrge filter masks on. I leaned back and nodded.


    "Good call. Alright, let''s wait a few minutes and we will give stealth a try."


    I leaned back against the wall and took a deep breath, trying my best to calm my nerves and put the roiling mess of anxiety to rest. After a few deep breaths I looked up at Ema.


    "Remind me to work on night vision sses or something. This would be a lot easier if I could cut the power and go all solid snake or something."


    "I''ll remind you next time we have the resources C-Sir"


    I nodded and closed my eyes again, only to immediately open them again.


    "Alright, I''m not getting any calmer." I admitted, standing upright and flicking the bow card into my hand. "I''m gonna leave the door open. If you hear shouting,e in and watch my back."


    I push the bow into my hand and whisper for a light capture arrow, nocking it but not drawing it back. Instead I put my back against the door, peering into the room. When no one was looking I opened the door and-


    Froze when a loud beeping noise echoed throughout the warehouse. Everyone looked up and around, a few of them cursing, one even dropped the box they were carrying. Eventually the closest person noticed me, a shadowy, hard to focus on figure in a well lit room.


    "What the FU-"


    I smoothly drew and fired my capture arrow, hitting the man in the chest. His shout was immediately cut off, though his mouth still moved, as the arrow exploded into a mess of ropes, wrapping tightly around the man. He stumbled and fell to the ground,pletely immobilized and silenced.


    "The farthest one to the left has a gun!" Ema all but shouted into my ear, already floating to the ceiling. "Then there is oneing up to your left!"


    I called for another capture arrow, firing it over the cars and into the furthest man, not hesitating for a second. The arrow was already halfway to the man when I saw she was correct, he had been pulling out a pistol. I turned to the second man Ema had warned me about, reaching back to my quiver to pull out my next arrow when I realized he was getting too close. I pulled the bow into a card, flicking it into the air while reaching out and blocking the man''s first punch with my forearm. I spun, putting the extra momentum into my fist, cracking him across his chin. Using my other arm I grabbed his forearm and pulled away from him, destabilizing him and adding extra force to an elbow to his face. I could feel him falter and stumble as I released him, calling the card back to my hand and pushing the bow back out.


    "The man on the tform!" Ema shouted.


    Another arrow flew not a momentter, striking the man who had been observing from the raised tform. As the rope wrapped around him I saw a phone fall to the ground. I cursed and looked up at Ema


    "Go see if someone is on the other end of that phone!"


    I scanned the room and saw two people running for the nearest door, easy targets that got caught up in rope before they could get away. I absently turn and fire an arrow at the man struggling to stand before turning and heading to the paint room. I pause for a moment to collect myself before kicking a side door open and stepping into the room. A capture arrow zips across and over the car and entangles another man, while hispanion takes cover behind the mustang.


    "Ema, tell me we aren''t on a time limit right now." I pleaded into my earpiece as I took cover against the door frame.


    "It appears you got him just in time Sir. He was in his contacts."


    Before I could let out a sigh of relief a chunk of the door frame exploded, a loud bang echoing in the enclosed painting room. I stepped further away from the opening as a few more impacts mmed into the frame and the wall on the other side of the opening.


    "Ema, fly down to the paint room doors. Hit the door open button on three and stay out of the way!"


    I called into the earpiece, waiting for a long moment for Ema to confirm she was in position. I counted down and on three pushed into the doorway silently, just in time to hear the doors thump and begin to open. The man, standing on the other side of the car and holding a pistol, turned to the sudden noise and fired twice, bullets sparking off the metal doors and shattering a ss window. I took aim and fired, the capture arrow striking him in the chest just as he began turning back to focus on me.


    After a long moment I let go of a deep breath, while Ema flew over to me and scanned me, muttering and fretting to herself. I leaned against the door frame again, letting her check me over as I caught my breath.


    "Everything all set?" I asked when she was eventually done.


    "You are unharmed." She confirmed. "That was"


    "Yeah, I know."


    Eventually we had calmed down enough for me to think straight. I walked around and grabbed the man''s gun as he struggled and shouted silently.


    "Ema, fly up the stairs and outside." I instructed. "I need to know if anyone could hear him shooting."


    With a nod Ema flew out the open doors, across the warehouse and into the roof ess stair well. A few momentster she had made it outside.


    "Alright, firing!"


    I aimed the gun at a few boxes stacked in the back of the room and pulled the trigger, the bullet mming into the box with a bang and a spark.


    "I could hear it but it shouldn''t have traveled far." Ema said. "I think we should be good."


    "Alright,e back down."


    As I talked I started heading back out into the main room, scanning around to see if anyone else was in here. When no threats appeared I jogged up the stairs to the raised tform. The man up there looked furious, soundlessly screaming at me as I got closer. Ema floated up to me, bumping into my fist as I held it out to her.


    "Scan the rest of the room, make sure no one is hiding somewhere." I say with a smile before bending over and with a groan, lifting the man over my shoulder. "Cmon, you and your friends are going to hang out in the stairwell. The less you see the better."


    I could feel the stamina aspect of my cuff working overtime as I struggled to carry him down the stairs and into the stairwell,ying him down as gently as I could. By the time Ema confirmed no one was hiding anywhere I was pausing for a moment before repeating the process with every other person. Soon the stairwell was filled with squirming,pletely silent people all wrapped up in rope. I pulled an extra magazine off of the guy who had almost pulled a gun on me, having already carded his gun as well. I quickly did a pat down of everyone, snagging three pocket knives and three phones. Ibined all three knives with the knife I had gotten from the chop shop. With a little finger wave I shut the door to the stairwell, stacking the phones by the door.


    "Was all that necessary?" Ema asked, now floating around me. "Why move them?"


    "So I have plenty of time to go through everything, without having to worry about them listening in or memorizing what I look like or what I can do."


    We both headed back up to the elevated office area, looking at the space before turning and looking out into the warehouse.


    "Damn, that''s a lot of stuff to go through." I said to Ema, looking over the whole warehouse, turning to inspect the office type area. "Better get started."

 Chapter 12: -Built for tough, like a rock

    Chapter 12: -Built for tough, like a rock


    Ema and I stood on the raised tform for a full minute, appreciating our victory and looking down at our reward. Eventually though we needed to get to work.


    "Okay, I''m going to go over the warehouse floor. See what''s worth taking and what''s not." I said, turning back to Ema. "I want you to scan the office. This strikes me as a much bigger operation so I want to leave as much of the paper trail as possible to the cops, so I only want to take the cash. We saw them pay the delivery man with a wad of cash, so there has to be something here."


    "Of course." Ema agreed with a nodding bobble before turning and heading back to the office proper.


    I immediately headed down to the work floor, taking a look around before letting out a deep breath and heading to the aisles of car parts. I slowly walked through the aisle, checking out the selection. At the end of the aisle sat three massive engines on wooden pallets, two of which were all wrapped up in a stic wrap like material. I quickly carded one of them, studying the concepts.


    "HuhI wish I knew anything about cars." I said, mostly to myself but my earpiece carrying my words to Ema.


    "You should have made a car repair ring." Ema pointed out. "You already have the books from the chop shop."


    I stopped, my brain grinding to a halt before I let out a long groan and pped my forehead.


    "Now I feel like an idiot." I grumbled, reaching out to the other two motors and carding them separately. "How did I not think of that?"


    "It didn''t ur to me either." Ema admitted. "Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose."


    "Well If you find a piece of jewelry tell me. I have them all bagged together in a card." I admitted.


    "I''ll keep that in mind."


    I nodded and turned back to the aisles, walking back through, carding and uncarding random things to check out their concepts. I ended up snagging three mufflers, a set of four heavy duty shock absorbers, and an entire two racks of tires,bining them all into four tires stacked into one card. The tires ended up being a B ranked card.


    "Holy hell. I just made a set of B ranked tires." I said to Ema, turning the card in my hand. "I guess that''s what happens when you mix a half dozen different types together. Though who knows what type of car they go on now"


    Eventually I had cleaned out anything useful from the aisles, having grabbed anything that had any useful concepts. I was heading to check out the tools spread across the warehouse when Ema spoke up.


    "Good news is I''ve found plenty of evidence that this whole operation is illegal." She said before continuing. "Not that we weren''t already pretty sure. They take cars from around here, repaint them, sometimes add parts and upgrades and ship them across the country so the car is out of the region where it''s being looked for."


    "They ship them across state lines?" I asked, a little shocked. "Dumbasses! Now the FBI is gonna get involved Ema when you''re done scanning up there do a scan of the building for internal security cameras. I don''t need the FBI having video recordings of me."


    Done with the parts I started going through the tools stationed all through the illegal shop. I grabbed three tool chests, all stuffed with tools, as well as a welding kit, sma torch with apanying tanks, and nearly a dozen different tool sets. I was nning on selling most of them, already going over ns to go to several pawnshops when I carded a vehicle diagnostic tablet. I froze as I held the card in my hand, examining the concepts.


    I quickly pushed out the bag of Car repair books, carding one and holding it in my hand, a smile growing on my face as Ipared the two. I quicklybine all of the books together beforebining it with the diagnosticputer, my smile even bigger now. In rapid fire I beginbining all of the tools I could get and had gotten my hands on, clearing out the entire warehouse of every tool not bolted to the floor. I even grabbed the various types of painting equipment from the isted room, running back and forth. Next I rushed back through the aisles, grabbing every part I could find, carding andbing them as I went along.


    After clearing out a significant amount of what was left on the shelves after my initial pass Ibined the car parts with the car repair tools, beforebining the result with the vehicle diagnostic tool. I couldn''t help butugh as I examined the result.


    "What is it?" Ema asked, floating next to me now.


    "It''s my first A ranked card!" I exined happily. "And to think it only took an entire warehouse full of car parts and tools."


    "I know, I was watching you build it." She pointed out. "What does it do?"


    "It''s a vehicle repair tablet." I exined. "I''m pretty sure that it will repair pretty much anything given enough time. I jammed it full of so many things it shouldn''t even need parts, though making new parts out of nothing will probably slow it down a whole lot."


    "That That is impressive. How long does it take to repair something?


    I looked up from the card and looked around the shop, walking to one of the nearby cars. Its tires were all missing, as was its hood. I pushed the device from its card, grabbing the beefy wires and connecting them to the side of the car. The plugs slid in as if there was a slot for them, despite there being no such holes. The screen of the diagnostic and repair tool blinked quickly, shing through a long list of parts. Several parts blinked red and were tagged with "Missing". I clicked on one of the tires, and a slowly rotating image of a tire appeared on the screen, as well as a buttonbeled "Begin Fabrication" with a timer of thirty minutes next to it.


    "Two hours to break thews of physics and make four tires out of nothing That''s pretty good."


    I said with a smile, before backing out and scrolling through the list of parts needing repair, clicking and checking out a few. "The hood would take an hour to fabricate from nothing, while fixing the crack that''s in one of the engine''s pistons would only take ten minutes"


    "It appears that I can interact with it as well." Ema said, flying down closer to the screen.


    The screen changed, flickering to other parts before essing a color change screen, flickering through different colors, patterns and styles for the car, the timer going up and down the more or lessplicated her selection was. Eventually she exited the painting section.


    "That is truly potent." Ema said when she pulled back. "The depth and breadth of its function is incredible."


    "Well don''t forget, I just put an entire warehouse into making it. I don''t know much about cars but I know tools and equipment add up fast. There has got to be around like twenty five grand in here."


    "That is true" She said, trailing off before continuing. "Either way, I found where they keep the money."


    "Oh! Lead the way!" I said, pulling my newest toy into a card.


    I followed behind her as she led me back up the stairs to the office-like area. She flew over to one of thergest cabs and hovered next to it.


    "There is four thousand seven hundred dors in this cab." She said, floating next to a beefy steel cab.


    I make my way to it and give the handle a tug, frowning when it doesn''t open.


    "You didn''t happen to find a key in your scans did you?" I asked. "I kinda don''t want to bring this one back."


    "No, but then again I wasn''t actively looking for a key." She admitted. "Did you thoroughly search the man who was up here?"


    "Enough to find his knife." I answered.


    "What about your bolt cutter?"


    I stopped trying to pull the door open with my bare hands, letting out a long sigh and thumping my head down against the cab.


    "Dammit, I really need to get my head in the game." I admitted, mostly mumbling to myself.


    I pushed out the modified bolt cutter, pushing and grinding at the seam between the doors, trying to slide the cutting end in. Eventually after some struggling I managed to slide it in and snip through the locking mechanism. The cab doors swung open with a soft squeak of metal. There, nestled on one of the higher shelves, was a huge stack of cash. The rest of the cab was filled with a few dozen boxes of ammo and more than a few guns. The bottom shelf held a series of white, rtively rectangr packages, secured by stic wrap and duct tape.


    "Holy hell! Now I''m really d I didn''t bring this home!" I eximed when I noticed the bottom shelf. "That''s a lot of coke. They must smuggle it around as well."


    I quickly card the boxes of bullets as well as the guns, happy to see that boxes of the same caliber stacked together. With a thought I call the whole deck to my hand, scanning through the cards.


    "Damn, this is the fewest empty cards I''ve ever had." I said, pushing the deck back into a pocket. "I gotta make the habit of emptying the deck of random stuff next time I do something like this."


    Thest thing I do is grab the stacks of cash, taking a look around before looking back up to Ema.


    "You made sure there weren''t any security cameras, right?"


    "Correct, there are no interior or exterior security cameras." She confirmed happily. "Are you prepared to leave?"


    "I am, though there are a fewst things I want to take." I admitted, walking through the now much more clear warehouse. "These guys helped people steal and get rid of cars, so it''s only fair I used theirs to make myself a new ride. I desperately need a better way to get around long distances."


    "Oh, that would be handy." Ema agreed.


    We made our way out the front door, walking into the parking lot. It was still pretty dark out, the streetmps being the only source of nearby light. The parking lot was sparsely popted, one vehicle per worker. I snagged all seven, getting three trucks, two cars and two motorcycles. I had to pause and shake my head after the final one.


    "It definitely takes effort grabbing something thatrge." I admitted, making my way to the front gate. "I should really find out what my absolute limit is."


    "That might be a good idea, it''s definitely information you should know."


    I nodded my head and pushed out my bike, hopping on and leaving the warehouse behind. Ema followed alongside me, keeping up with my steady but rtively slow pace.


    "Ema, do me a favor and call the police." I asked as we turned down another street. "No reason to make anything up this time, just tell them what we found. And when you''re done, find us a ce where I can do some experimenting. There is no way I''m riding my bike all the way back home."


    - <em>The Next Morning </em>-


    I pushed thest motorcycle into a parking spot, the most hidden spot in this tiny tucked away lot next to an abandoned gas station. I stepped closer and hooked the diagnostic and repair tablet to the side of the motorcycle, scrolling through the damage. I tapped the repair all button and nodded at the time in the corner.


    "This one will take forty eight minutes" I said to Ema, looking over my shoulder, beforeying the tablet on the seat. "Shortest one yet."


    I fought off a yawn and walked to the corner of the building, back to my chair, plopping down with a sigh.


    "The other motorcycle was short as well." Ema pointed out from around the corner, tucked up next to an old busted security camera as she kept an eye out. "So far no one has even looked over here. Even so, I still think it''s a bit silly to be doing this while it''s light out.."


    "I know I know." I admitted. "I just got a bit excited about finally having something to drive around. I just didn''t do the math in my head."


    After arriving here from the warehouse I took the chance to examine all of the vehicles I had taken. While they had all looked to be in okay condition, almost all of them had carried a concept of used and worn down. After hooking one up to the diagnostic and repair tablet it was clear why. Dozens of parts were worn, some even near failure, and though the car would run fine I could tell thatbining over a half dozen "just fine" cars wouldn''t have the result I was hoping for.


    So, one by one I hooked each car, truck and motorcycle up to the repair tablet and let it run, slowly repairing them to perfect off the factory line perfection. The first one finished was thergest truck, a dark blue behemoth with a thick bumper guard in front, massive towing winch on the back, big spot lights on top and all the bells and whistles in the interior. When it was done I carded it and my desire to repair it was immediately validated as it had gone from C rank all the way to B. Gone were all of the negative concepts it had carried, reced with being finely tuned and in perfect condition. None of the other cars reached B ranked, though they definitely improved.


    Each vehicle required about two hours topletely repair to perfect condition, with the first motorcycle only taking about an hour. At first I had practiced my martial arts, stretched and worked out. Eventually my mental energy gged enough that I pulled out what was quickly bing my stake out chair and napped, Ema waking me up to switch around the repair tablet. When the sun started toe out I changed back into my normal clothes, keeping the armor on underneath.


    "Have you put any thought into how you''re going tobine them?" Ema asked through my earpiece.


    "A bit. I''m pretty sure I''m aiming for a truck as the end result." I said, my eyes closed as I leaned back in my chair. "Now that my money problem is more or less solved with the repair tablet we are going to start leaning pretty heavily towards preparedness. Having a truck with everything and the kitchen sink in the back will really help with that."


    It had taken a depressingly long time for me to realize that with a tool that always fixed cars and took no investment beyond the initial purchase was only a few steps away from basically printing money. Emaughed at me when she realized I didn''t immediately put that together when I had made the tablet.


    "Not a bad concept I suppose." Ema agreed. "What order are you nning?"


    "I''m thinking that Ibine a motorcycle and a car twice, thenbine each of those with a truck, and thenbine all that with big blue." I exined. "That should make sure the truck aspect is as dominant as possible while stillbining as much maneuverability and speed as possible."


    I open my eyes as I exined, taking out my phone and scrolling through some news sites. Nothing had popped up yet but I hadn''t really expected anything, I was mostly just trying to kill my boredom.


    "I also need to try adding the extra parts I took." I added a momentter, eyes still on my phone. "I''m pretty sure that because being parts is such a major concept with them they should just slot in as a base improvement."


    "Maybe you should test that on one of the other cars." Ema suggested. "Rather than risk messing up the final product."


    "That Is a pretty good idea." I admitted before standing up with a groan.


    I quicklybined one of the three mufflers I had carded with one of the cars, pushing it out into the parking lot. I walked around it, inspecting every nook and cranny before standing back


    "It looks the same as far as I can tell." I said, pulling it back into a card. "Put it definitely has a quiet concept now."


    "Sounds like it worked." Ema suggested.


    I nodded and plopped back down into my chair, closing my eyes. I drifted off for what seemed like a moment, only to get woken up by Ema.


    "I believe thest motorcycle should be done by now."


    I nodded and stood, stretching myself out as I did. I couldn''t help but smirk when my stretching was quite a bit more impressive than it used to be. I easily pulled the tablet off the motorcycle and carded them both, beforebining both of the motorcycles with both of the cars. The result was two three wheeled cars, sleek and in mint condition thanks to the repair tablet. I carded them both again andbined them both with the two trucks, pushing them both out again to see what I had created.


    They were both back to four wheeled vehicles, and they both had truck beds. They looked sleek, lower to the ground than most trucks but still higher than most cars. I carded them both andbined together, resulting in a B ranked card.


    "Perfect!" I said happily beforebining the final two cards together and pushing it into the lot.


    The final product had definitely lost some of the original truck''s massive size, gaining a sleekness that was very unique but that I really liked. It was a lighter blue than before and a bit lower to the ground, but was anything but small. The sleekness of the cars and motorcycles had transferred to the truck, the hood curved and brought to a smaller grill, the wheel wells curved and extended away from the front hood. The front grill was marked by a star, just like the star on the back of the deck, the symbol repeated on the hood ornament. It reminded me heavily of a beefier version of the old fashioned ssic truck.


    "Damn.. that looks good" I said. "Ema,e check it out."


    Ema returned a short momentter, floating around the truck and scanning it before returning to my side.


    "I quite like it as well. It will be interesting to see what kind of things you can add to it in the future."


    I nodded, reaching out and carded it again,bining the engines, mufflers, the high quality tires and the shock absorbers. The rank of the card stayed the same, but I could feel its concepts morphing slightly with each addition, getting quieter, gaining power, speed, handling as well as general durability and stability. With a big smile on my face I pushed the truck back out, walking around it, taking in every angle.


    "Not a bad result" I said, looking up at Ema. "Hop in, let''s go for a ride."


    "That might not be the best idea." Ema said, floating in front of me before I could reach the driver side door. "At least not during the day."


    "Why not? Aren''t you interested in how she handles?"


    "I am. However, this vehicle is very noticeable." She pointed out. "We are going to get noticed driving this around. People will be staring, maybe even taking pictures and then probably posting those pictures on social mediaWhat happens when someone connects you to the car?"


    "Oh god dammit." I cursed. "What if I wore the suit?"


    "That''s a little better, but it''s still a lot of attention we don''t need."


    I sagged and nodded, kicking a rock across the parking lot before putting my hand out and carding my new truck without looking.


    "Alright Find us the nearest bus stop then.

 Chapter 13: Getting metaphysical

    Chapter 13: Getting metaphysical


    We didn''t get back home for another two hours after I finished the truck, as I was forced to wait for the bus before riding my bike the rest of the way. To say I was more than a bit annoyed was an understatement. I barely paused long enough to push Ema out of her card before copsing into bed and sleeping until noon. When I woke up I was bleary eyed and tired, but still in a better mood than I had been earlier, even more so after I sat down on the couch with arge mug of coffee.


    "Are you feeling better Carson?" Ema asked, floating around me.


    "Yeah, thanks. I just needed some sleep." I exined, letting out a sigh. "Any news aboutst night?"


    "None so far. It makes me wonder if they are keeping it under wraps to scoop up as much of the connected people as possible." She said before continuing. "There was a lot of information in that office, locations, times, prices. Not to mention all that cocaine."


    "Yeah, I have a feeling we stumbled into something big." I admitted, leaning back on the couch. "I thinkying low from the crime fighting might be a good idea, at least for a bit. That''s an actual option now that we have the repair tablet."


    "If we areying low, what is our n?"


    "Well first I''m going to be spending about half of our money on essories. I think I''m gonna try making one to increase my strength as well as something to heal me if I get hurt." I exined, taking a sip of coffee before continuing. "I want to spend the rest of the money on a shit box car, something that would be worth a bunch when it''s in perfect condition. We can sell it online to make more cash."


    "That seems like a good idea. Do you have a car in mind?"


    "Nope. I was hoping you could do some research while I go out and do some shopping." I asked, looking over to her. "It also might be a good idea to start looking into somece we can set up, a garage or something. If we are going to be using car repair as our money maker we need a ce that looks capable of that. If nothing else than to convince buyers they aren''t buying stolen cars."


    "Sure, I''ll find us a car as well as a ce. How much are you willing to spend?"


    "Well the car needs to be under two grand." I answered. "But the garage should be able to hold at least two carsfortably, as well as all of the tools. It''s going to be expensive as hell in the city as well. But like we said, with the repair tablet we can make as much as we need."


    "Within reason Carson. If we start flipping cars like crazy someone is going to notice." She pointed out. "But that''s for the future. I will start on the research. Shouldn''t be too hard to find a wreck or something that we can sell for ample funds."


    "Keep it to older cars. If we start repairing modern Ferraris and Lamborghinis people will pick up on it pretty quick I think."


    "Very well." She agreed, turning back to what was quickly bing herptop and getting to work.


    I stood from the couch and stretched, heading to get ready for my shopping trip. It didn''t take me long to get showered, dressed and out the door, though I did dy my shopping to stop by a nearby sub shop for lunch. While I ate I also did my research into what I would use to make my next set of essories. I decided that since money was a significantly smaller problem now it was time to do a little experimenting, namely settle if something needed to actually work to hold a concept.


    The first ce on my list was a store I never thought I would ever step into, a holistic medicine shop. I took one step inside and was nearly sted back out by the herbal scent of hanging, drying herbs and burning incense. I was greeted by a young perky woman with a wide happy smile. After a few minutes of polite conversation I purchased some red jasper, an onyx crystal, some smoothed stones of serpentine and basalt as well as clear quartz crystal and a ga, all rocks or crystals known, in certain circles, for healing and strength. I also purchased a fist sized bottle of supposedly special spring water, one that apparently had healing properties, as well as a whole box of small corked bottles. I also purchased several bundles of dried nts and herbs, all of which were supposed to be either healing or strengthening. By the time I escaped I could hardly remember what the first bundle was called, never mind what it did. Luckily I would be able to tell what concepts it held even if I had no idea what it was called.


    Once I was free of the shop I turned into an empty alley, sticking my hand into the bag and carding a random stone. Looking at the card it appeared I had snagged the onyx chunk, and I smiled as I studied its concepts. It held the normal stone rted concepts of course, but also contained strength, control and stamina. An interesting blend and something that would hopefully work well. I couldn''t help but wonder if buying it at this type of shop had somehow influenced its concepts. Either way it was time to move on.


    After dropping almost three hundred dors on rocks and nts and a bottle of water I headed to another health shop, the same one I had gotten my running supplements and vitamins from. Thankfully the clerk didn''t recognize me and I managed to grab several bottles of vitamins and supplements for strengthening muscles as well as a bottle of vitamin c tablets, a bottle of aspirin and tworge tubes of neosporin. I paid almost six hundred dors for all of the supplements, which took a while as the manager was called to examine the cash.


    When I was finally finished at the health store I headed to a nearby pawn shop, dropping another two hundred dors on a second simple cuff as a spare and a ne with the caduceus staff on a thick metal chain. Unfortunately there was nothing matching a symbol for strength so I headed to a jewelry store that wasn''t too far away. They had a much better selection but everything was much more expensive. I managed to buy a silver lotus flower cuff that was a bit femanine but not enough for me to evene close to caring as well as a decent sized ankh charm for a bracelet, dropping four hundred dors for both of them.


    Still not satisfied, I headed off for another jewelry store and another. Eventually I managed to find a gold phoenix cuff. I spent around three hundred dors on the gold cuff, getting quite a few stares when I paid in cash.


    I found myself pausing outside my final destination, therge doors of a church. I took a deep breath and opened one of the doors, stepping inside the quiet interior. The pews were empty save for a few people who had their heads down in prayer. I made my way down the center aisle, making my way to a priest as he tended to something, his back to me.


    "Uh.. excuse me Father." I asked quietly, getting his attention.


    "Hmm? Oh, what can I do for you son?" He asked, turning to face him with a smile.


    The man was older, with short white hair and face that spoke of experience and wisdom. He was dressed in his ck suit and clerical cor.


    "I.. have a bit of a weird request." I started, taking out the bottle of spring water. "Could you bless this water for me?"


    The priest reached out and took the bottle, looking at it closely before bringing it up to his nose and sniffing the cork. When he noticed my confusion he chuckled.


    "You would be surprised how many people think that drinking blessed vodka would be funny." He exined as he walked away to grab a book from a nearby shelf. "Could I ask what this water is for son? You don''t n on desecrating it?"


    "No Father, I." I started, trailing off as the priest opened his book and ced the ss bottle on a table. "It''s for healing."


    "Ah, very well. Why don''t you have a seat, this will take a minute or so."


    I nodded and took a step back, bowing and walking back to the front seat. I watched the priest as he walked away to do his blessing. I twiddled my thumbs and tried hard not to stare at the other church goers. I was never really one for faith or church, but I was pretty sure this would have concepts that I needed. Eventually the priest returned, handing me the bottle once I stood.


    "Thank you Father."


    "Of course, it''s part of my duties after all." He said with a small smile. "I pray it brings the healing you seek."


    I nodded awkwardly before turning to leave, stopping by the exit to slide a hundred dors into the collection box. As I left and therge doors closed behind me I let out a sigh. Considering the horrors that existed in the Marvel universe, entering a church was an actual risk, especially as someone doubting his faith. I took a deep breath and stepped away from the church, distracting myself by nning the route home.


    - <em>An hourter </em>-


    When I finally locked the door of my apartment I had mostly recovered from my brush with faith. I headed immediately to the living room, pushing bags from my cards and plopping down on the couch.


    "Wee back Carson." Ema said in greeting. "How was shopping?"


    "It was weird. Wait till you see some of the stuff I bought." I said, pulling out my purchases. "Even got some special spring water that I got blessed at a church."


    I watched as Ema froze and slowly turned to me, giving all of the strange things on the table a scan before focusing on me.


    "You got holy water?" She asked. "Do you really think"


    "This <em>is</em> a Marvel universe, so I honestly wouldn''t be surprised if holy water healed slightly on its own." I pointed out before continuing. "But even ignoring that, it doesn''t really seem to matter if it does or doesn''t. I guess because people think it does and treat it like it does then it holds that concept."


    "You tested that?"


    "Yup, I checked after I got it blessed." I confirmed. "It''s healing alright, as well as protection and purification."


    "I am not sure how I feel about that." Ema admitted.


    "Yeah, you and me both. Lets just hope I dont piss our lord and savior Morgan Freeman off." I said with a smirk, organizing the table into my two categories, strength and healing.


    "Indeed." Ema replied simply before turning back to theptop. "What are you going to build first?"


    "I think I''ll start with strength." I said, pulling all of my purchases closer.


    I started dividing everything into two groups, a cuff and a stone for each, evenly dividing the nts I had gotten from the first store and the supplements and vitamins I had gotten from the second between the two as well. I beganbining the herbs, pills and supplements. Doubling, tripling and quadrupling until I had all of it down to one dark green pill and a deep red pill. I carded both and nodded.


    "So good so far." I said happily. "None of the negative concepts are interacting enough to actually affect anything."


    Ibined the chunk of onyx with the green pill, beforebining that with the lotus symbol cuff. I pushed the cuff out of the card and turned it in my hands. What was once just a silver carved cuff was now ented with dark onyx with a green tinting through when the light caught it just the right way. I carded it and put it into the deck beforebining the red pill with the chunk of basalt, resulting in a dark red stone, smooth to the touch. Ibined that with the golden phoenix cuff, pushing it out of the card. Once again the stone ented the thick bracelet, filling in the gaps and recesses of the jewelry piece with deep red stone.


    "Take a look Ema, two cuffs of strength." I said, holding both of the cuffs out to her.


    "Hmm You yed heavily into the symbolism." She observed.


    "Yeah. Got some stares and weird looks for my requests at the jewelry stores." I admitted. "But both the lotus and the phoenix represent strength in some way, in different cultures."


    "How well do they work?" She asked, floating over to my shoulder.


    With apletely necessary flourish I carded both of them, examining the information I felt through my sixth sense.


    "Well they are both B rank, and both increase my strength to slightly different degrees. The phoenix cuff also seems to encourage some sort of survivability, while the lotus cuff increases my resilience. But they both seem safe, no hidden drawbacks or bacsh for use. Which is good because when Ibine them"


    Ibine the cards, examining the resulting B rank card with a small frown.


    "Damn, I was really hoping for an A rank." I admitted. "Still , I can''tin about the results."


    I pushed the cuff into my hand, rubbing my fingers at the intricate carving. In the center of the cuff was the lotus flower, still silver and ented by the ck-green onyx. Now it was surrounded by two golden phoenixes, ented by the deep red stone. It was intricate and colorful, the colors contrasting heavily but still seeming to work together.


    "While that looks incredible." Ema said as she scanned the cuff. "You didn''t spend nearly as much money as what went into the repair tablet."


    "True." I admitted, fingers still tracing the carvings on the heft cuff bracelet. "I''ll just have to keep my eye on anything I can add to it. For now, I want to get the healing ne done."


    I carded the cuff and put it back into the deck, organizing the next set of materials in much the same way as I had the previous build, with only the holy water not in a group. I quicklybined the stones together until I had two, a deep dark swirling stone of red from the ga and red jasper and a lighter, semi-transparent green stone from the clear quartz and serpentine. I poured the holy water into the smaller bottles I bought, corking all three and setting therger bottle to the side. I thenbined everything together until I had two separate bottles of some sort of mixture.


    "Huh I think I just made two different healing potions"


    "Do you n on keeping one?" Ema asked, still watching over my shoulder.


    "No. They weren''t that hard to make and I think I can bump up their effectiveness if I get some ess to some stronger medications."


    Ibined each of the bottles to one of the stones, resulting in tworger stones that were vaguely shaped like the bottles and sloshed when I shook them. I quicklybined them with the two healing symbols, and thenbined them together. The result was a caduceus staff styled ankh half wrapped around, half set into a hunk of stone. The stone was swirled with green and red and about the size of a zippo, but was silent when I shook it.


    "Well It worked" I said hesitantly as I pulled it into a card and examined it.


    "Is it safe to wear?" Ema asked, scanning the ne.


    "Yeah, there aren''t any negative concepts beyond a few very light ones in the background."


    "Then what''s the problem?" She asked.


    "It''s got an alignment requirement." I exined. "You can''t wear it if you''re evil. I think it will literally burn against your skin."


    "That''s that''s new."


    "Yeah I really hadn''t thought about an object I make being fundamentally restrictive about who can wear it. It''s an interesting thought"


    "It could be a handy feature to keep your more powerful objects from being used by bad people." Ema pointed out.


    "Yeah, except evil is subjective. Is killing evil? Cause the bible says it is, but most sane people consider soldier''s to be heroes." I responded, turning the ne in my hands. "If someone kills a child to save a thousand people, are they evil? And good people can still be tricked. This ne seems to go a bit deeper than that, which is good, but it still feels limited."


    "I suppose that is correct"


    "What I need is a way to keep anyone from using my stuff, as well as a way to hand someone an object and know that no one will be able to use it except them."


    I started going through things in my head, wondering how I could use concepts to define something as belonging to one person and no one else. I absentmindedly sent the ne back into the deck as I get a little lost in this new challenge.


    "What about a lock?" Ema suggested. "Combine a lock with something personal."


    "That might work, hold on."


    I stood and went over to the pile of materials I had been umting since all this started, the loose odds and ends left over after I was done creating something. I sifted through and eventually found the lock that I had carded off of the chop shop cash box. I also grabbed one of the small ss bottles before sitting back down at the couch.


    "Alright, here goes nothing."


    I pulled out my modified pocket knife and nicked my finger tip, slowly encouraging the blood to drip into the bottle. When it was eventually half filled and my finger stopped bleeding I carded it, studying the card before frowning and tearing it in two.


    "That won''t work, it''s too contaminated by the ss bottle." I mumbled to myself. "I need to get just the blood."


    I stood and went to the kitchen, grabbing a ceramic te anding back, setting the te on the table. With a grimace I nicked another finger, bleeding onto the te. Once there is a sufficient puddle of blood I tap it with a finger and card it, nodding as I study it. I take the lock andbine it with my blood and focus on the result.


    "Now I have a lock that opens with my blood." I exined to Ema as I leaned back in my chair. "I wonder if I just spam it with other stuff with the concept of being from me"


    I cut a small lock of my hair, carding it and nodding. I spent ten minutes droolin onto the te, carding the result and frowning. After tearing the card of drool I looked around the room and grabbed a roll of clear tape, putting my thumbprint on it and folding it over before carding it.


    "So my hair and my thumbprint match pretty close to what I need"


    Ibine the small lock of hair and the thumbprint beforebining the result with the blood activated lock.


    "I I think that this is it." I said to Ema, holding out a card. "The only thing that might be a problem is if we get a bad match with concepts but it''s pretty clean."


    "What will you test it on?" Ema asked, floating at my shoulder and watching me work.


    "I''m thinking of using my gloves." I answered easily. "I could make another pair of those pretty easily, I remember the recipe and it won''t be that big of a deal if I can''t use them for a few days."


    I pulled out my gloves andbined them with my new creation, smiling as I examined the result. I pushed the card out of the card to examine every nook and cranny before carding them again.


    "I''m pretty sure that actually worked." I said happily. "I think it''s time to head out and do a little testing."

 Chapter 14: Joyride

    Chapter 14: Joyride


    Hey guys! I hope everyone is enjoying my story so far, I''m excited to show you were it goes next! Just a small reminder that you can support me on a website that will remain unnamed. Right now supporters are voting on an important story beat, and also enjoying the first chapter of a new story that will eventually run alongside the Conceptual Deck. It is another OC insert, this time in the DC/Young Justice universe. If you want to show your support than please look up my name on said unnamed site! Hope you enjoy!<hr>


    We didn''t end up leaving for a few hours after I was done, mostly because it was too early to be driving around in my suit. I spent most of that time pacing, fidgeting and desperately trying to distract myself, failing miserably. When we finally left II ended up riding a few miles away from the apartment before pushing the truck out of its card in a surprisingly wide alleyway. I quickly got changed, only hopping into the truck when everything was on. When I climbed in, the first thing I did was push Ema out of her card.


    "Damn this looks sleek." I said, running my hands over the dashboard. "I wish I had checked the other interiors so I could tell which cars influenced this."


    The dash was half polished wood and half ck leather. It was all pristine andfortable, giving the vibe of a custom luxury interior. I looked along the dash, checking out all the features the truck had.


    "d all the bells and whistles carried over. It even kept the heated seats" I said with a smile, leaning back with my hands on the wheel. "So, up for a short cruise around before we find a ce for me to practice?"


    I asked Ema, turning to see the floating construct scanning the seat. She turned and focused in front of us through the windshield.


    "You realize people are probably going to see us?" She pointed out. "Even with howte it is. Even if you have your costume on, it''s a lot of attention. Your description was on the news, people are going to notice."


    "Yeah, I know." I assured her. "But staying unknown forever was never really an option. Besides, my identity is still a secret I think. I''ll only be driving this when I''m wearing my costume."


    Ema looked at me for a long moment, her frame spinning and moving as she did. Eventually, after about thirty seconds she spoke.


    "Just admit you want to drive the truck."


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    "I want to drive the truck." I admitted easily. "I mean I haven''t even driven it yet!"


    "That actually reminds me How are you going to drive it?"


    "I have my license, I know how to drive."


    "I know that." Ema assured me. "I meant how are you going to drive this truck without any keys?"


    My eyes slowly widened and my jaw dropped, before I looked down at the steering wheel. Sure enough there was an obvious slot for a key at the base of the steering wheel. I let out a long, frustrated growl and leaned back in the seat, rubbing my eyes with my hands.


    "Son of a bitch!" I angrily grumbled, resisting the urge to smack the steering wheel. "I just want to drive! I haven''t had a car I could use in years! How the hell am I going to make a key for this thing?"


    "Oh well! You should probably just card the whole thing and tear it up!" Ema suggested with false ignorance.


    I turned to her, my frustration on pause as I processed what she said before rolling my eyes.


    "Okay, clearly you thought of the solution already and now you''re just fucking with me." I said usingly. "C''mon, spill already."


    Emaughed, bobbing softly as she did, her frame spinning in random directions. Eventually she calmed down and stopped spinning.


    "Look up!"


    "What? What do you-" I started, looking up and noticing the sun visor wasn''t flush with the roof of the truck. "Oh you have got to be kidding me"


    I reached up and pulled the sun visor down, a set of keys falling into myp. I grabbed the key, turning it over in my hand. It was a single key, no key ring or anything. Without making a sound I slid it into the keyhole and turned it. The truck roared to life, sounding like a cross between a powerful truck engine and a supercar.


    "Holy hell I can''t believe that worked." I admitted, flopping back against therge seat. "What are the chances?"


    "Extremely small." Ema answered. "I think that thebination process had something to do with it."


    "It could have been the repair tablet." I suggested. "We did hit "repair all" for all of them. Could a missing key be considered a missing part?"


    "Get the tablet out and we can find out."


    I nodded, pushing out the repair tablet and hooking it up to the dashboard, letting Ema ess it as I pulled out of the alleyway. The truck pulled forward much faster than I anticipated, but I managed to control it, getting used to its superior handling rtively quickly as I pulled down the streets of New York. It seemed like the truck anticipated each turn the handling was so tight and steady. The tires didn''t slip or screech, even when I pushed it by taking corners fast or sharp. Eventually I pulled onto the highway, opening up and pushing the gas pedal down.


    "Holy shit!"


    I yelled as the truck leapt forward, the speedometer climbing quickly and showing no signs of stopping. Sixty, seventy, eighty, ny, a hundred, I could feel the truck''s eleration starting to slow as the speedometer needle tapped a hundred and twenty. I knew I could go faster, push it for more, but I slowly let off the eleration, my speed going down until I was at a reasonable seventy miles per hour.


    "That was exciting." I said after a long moment of silence. "I guessbining those extra engines really gave it a boost, that eleration felt more like a zippy car than a big truck."


    "You''re lucky no one saw that." Ema pointed out. "You don''t exactly have the registration papers to show a cop if you get pulled over."


    "Yeah, you''re right." I sighed, nodding my head in agreement. "Lets pull off, I''m gonna get ate night snack and then we can find an abandoned lot or something to see how my rings work."


    Driving for a little while got me off of the highway, and it wasn''t much longer after that until I pulled into a twenty four hour drive through. I had Ema order for me, taking the bag of food and the chocte shake from the wide eyed and stunned worker. Both Ema and Iughed at her expression once we pulled away.


    "That was a bad Idea." Ema pointed out, still chuckling. "But it still might have been worth it."


    A short drive and half a box of fries after that I was sitting on the tailgate, munching on a burger as Ema went through the paint options for the repair tablet. We were parked in an abandoned lot on a mostly empty street. Only a few streetmps worked and most of the buildings seemed abandoned.


    "A dark green color fits the motif so far." I pointed out, nodding at her design so far. "The Deck seems to like the color, and I have to admit, green and gold looks good."


    "Of course it does." Ema agreed with a faux haughty tone. "It is the most elegant colorbination."


    "Of course, of course." I agreed with a chuckle before recalling what I had originally gotten the tablet out for. "So was it the tablet that made the key?"


    "Yes, it was." She responded, not looking away from the tablet.


    "Well just warn me before you ept the new look. I want to see it."


    Eventually I finished myte night snack and stood up from the tailgate. I surveyed the abandoned lot. It had a fair bit of trash and scrap, with grass growing in patches all over. It was dotted with a fewrge rocks and several concrete barriers that had once blocked off the entrance.


    I flicked the strengthening cuff out of its card and after a moment of hesitation clipped it onto my arm. At first I didn''t notice any change. There was no rush of energy like the runners cuff or spark of knowledge like my other essories. I could feel nothing different until I started to move. Every movement felt lighter, easier. I had gotten used to the weight of my armor and my stealth suit over time, my body working hard topensate for the slight loss of maneuverability and speed. Now it felt like I was naked, with nothing obstructing me or holding me back.


    I walked slowly to the nearestrge rock, bending down and hefting it with both hands. It pulled from the ground with a grunt, and I stood frozen in ce as I held a rock that clearly weighed as much as I did with little trouble. I could feel its heft, bearing it easily, especially with my runners cuff soothing any fatigue my muscles felt. With another grunt I braced, hefted the stone up and pushed it away as hard as I could, throwing what was easily a two hundred pound stone across the lot, smashing into a rusted tangle of metal fencing.


    "Ema, did you see that?" I asked, turning to look at her.


    "I did." She responded simply as she floated around me, scanning me in detail. "It seems to have a simr effect as your runner''s cuff. No increase in muscle mass, no difference in oxygenation, just a t boost to strength."


    I nodded and lifted another stone, this one evenrger. It was difficult to wrap my arms around, but I managed. With a grunt I lifted with my legs, pulling the stone out of the ground before changing my stance and throwing the rock further into the lot. Again I could feel the heft, feel the fatigue being washed by my other essory, but the strain was manageable. I could lift more.


    "How do I find the upper limit?" I asked out loud. "I need a set of proper weights."


    "A twenty four hour gym membership might be a good idea." Ema suggested. "You could go in early in the morning."


    "Or I could just buy my own set of weights." I pointed out. "Not now, things are still tight. But pretty soon that won''t be a problem any more"


    I walked over to the pile of metal scrap and pulled out a thick piece of rebar, rusted but notpromised. I braced myself and flexed, almost dropping the metal rod when it bent. It wasn''t easy, but it wasn''t pushing against my limit.


    "I''m pretty sure it''s brought me up past peak human." I said, tossing the bent metal back into the pile. "The question is just how far above."


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    I looked around the lot again, eyes locking onto the concrete jersey barriers, specifically the one that had been pushed out of the way at some point, perpendicr to the rest of them. It had two rods of rebar sticking out of the top, hooked and bent down the side. I walked over to it and with a grunt bent the rebar into perfect handles. I bent at the knee, wrapped my hands around the newly made handles and lifted. I grunted when the barrier didn''t budge, straining and flexing. I stopped after a moment of effort, leaning on the concrete barrier as the strain faded away. I took a few deep breaths, put on a serious face and changed my stance. WIth a grunt I lifted again, straining and pulling. I could feel the sweat forming on my face, the tension in my body starting to hurt. But it moved! I could feel it shift, moving slightly in ce as i pulled and pulled. With one final push, mming against my limits to push past them the concrete block shifted again, this time slowly pulling off the ground. It was only by an inch or so, hanging for a moment before my muscles gave out and I copsed against the concrete block.


    "Holy shit I did it!" I said excitedly, turning and plopping my ass to the ground, my back against the barrier. "I lifted it!"


    Ema flew closer and began scanning me, a familiar white light tracing over me as I recovered. When the scan was done she bumped into my head, letting out a frustrated huff.


    "You did lift it a few inches." She agreed, continuing harshly. "In the process you pulled half of the muscles in your body! You almost dislocated your fingers and you have microfractures all along your legs and arms!"


    As she admonished me I could feel the aches and pains slowly bing more apparent as my excitement wore off. My legs ached and throbbed slightly and my arms felt heavy and useless. My fingers hurt to move, the joints tight and achy as I tried.


    "Yeah I can feel it now." I admitted sheepishly.


    "You need to be careful. While you are obviously stronger, the cuff clearly doesn''t increase your durability enough topensate when you really exert yourself!"


    "I guess that''s next on the list." I mumbled to myself, tilting my head back.


    "I suggest you try on your healing ne Carson." Ema suggested. "Otherwise you''re going to be in a lot of pain."


    "Yeah yeah, time to prove I''m not evil."


    I flicked a card out and caught it as it returned, pushing the ne out into my hands, regretting the re almost instantly as my sore body objected heavily. After a moment of groaning I lifted the ne up and slid it over my head with a bit of difficulty. Once it was around my neck I couldn''t help but let out a soft sigh as the growing dull ache in my bones began to fade.


    "Ooohhhh yeah, that''s the stuff." I mumble, the ache in my muscles slowly fading as well. "I''m pretty sure it works. Unless I''m hallucinating."


    "You can feel it working?'' Ema asks as she scans me again, white beam scanning over my closed eyes.


    "I can feel the injuries fading, slowly but surely." I answered. "No glow or pulse which is good. I think I could also feel it judging me when I first put it on. I passed obviously, everything is feeling better."


    "That''s because they are fading." Ema confirmed when her scan was done. "And in the same way your other cuffs work. No increase of cell division, no immune response, nothing to indicate an increased rate of healing. Your body is just being fixed."


    "That''s good." I responded before biting my lip. "I''m Gonna have to test for more severe injuries, you know."


    "How severe?" Ema asked, her frame flicking back and forth nervously.


    I flick out another card, pushing out the now quadruple stacked pocket knife. I flicked it open with one hand and held it against my palm. I took a deep breath and sliced myself open. I gasped, closing the knife to examine the cut. It went much deeper than I had intended, clearly underestimating the cutting power of the modified knife. Blood pooled and dripped down my hand, making a small puddle between my legs.


    A moment passed, then another and another. Just before I could start to panic about the ne not working on self inflicted wounds, the cut started to itch and ache. Slowly the cut pulled together and scabbed over, all in the span of five minutes. I softly poked at it, hissing softly at the dull ache. Together me and Ema watched as the wound tightened and normalized, the scab slowly peeling off and falling to the ground, revealing smooth skin underneath. The entire ordeal was mesmerizing, the human body on fast forward. It was like watching-


    "Huh. That was new."


    I was standing and in a fighting stance before my brain even finished registering the new voice. The knife was open again, held in a loose stance as I eyed up the new arrival. A dark shape sat on the furthest jersey barrier, just covered by the shadow cast by the nearest building. Slowly he stood and stepped into the low light, revealing a man of average height and build, with dark blonde hair, dressed in some sort of lightly armoredbat harness with subtle purple ents. The most interesting part was the quiver strapped to his back, the fletchings just barely visible.


    "Uh Hey, yeah it''s new to me too" I responded, slowly dropping mybat stance and folding my knife closed. "Can I help you?"


    "Clint. I work for Shield." He admitted easily, pausing as if expecting a response.


    "You uhh can call me Maker." I offered after a long pause. "Not ready to be on a first name basis, sorry."


    "Fair enough." Clint responded, getting a bit closer while clearly doing his best to seem non-threatening. "We have been trying to get in contact with you for a few days now. You''re surprisingly hard to track down."


    I chuckled, moving to sit back on the barrier I had been trying to move a few minutes earlier. I barely resisted the urge to show off by bending the steel rebar back into ce. Clint sat down on a closer barrier, facing me.


    "That doesn''t surprise me." I responded. "After what went down in Harlem I assumed it was only a matter of time before someone came looking."


    "Actually we''ve been looking since your little jog through Stark Expo. When someone shows up in a suit like yours we tend to take notice pretty quick."


    "Damn I hadn''t thought of that." I admitted. "Well I appreciate the soft approach at least."


    "You didn''t take anything. And besides that bastard Blonsky you really haven''t hurt anyone yet." Clint exined, scratching his cheek. "Which, by the way, I have standing orders to ask you to return his corpse."


    "It''s gone." I answered. "I destroyed it."


    "How?" He asked simply.


    I pause for a moment before summoning an empty card to my hand. I twirled it in my fingers, showing off that it was a card before throwing it to him. Unsurprisingly he caught it easily, examining it closely before looking back at me. He started when I tugged the card from his fingers and back into my hand, my other hand holding the deck.


    "This is called The Deck. It''s my pride and joy." I bent over and grabbed a piece of trash, quickly pulling it into the card I held separate in my hand. "It''s bound to my soul, meaning it won''t work for anyone but me, and will cease to exist when I die."


    I flick the now full card back at him and he easily catches it again. He studies it again, looking at me with a skeptical face. I tug the card back and tear it in half. Then to prove my point I stand and pull the concrete barrier into a card. He gaped for a long moment before regaining control of himself.


    "That''s impressive. I''ve never seen anything like that." He admitted, eyes still a bit wide. "So tearing the card destroyed the object?"


    "Yes. Before you panic it can''t pick up living things." I assured him, pushing my stake out chair out of its card before sitting down in it. "It''s got its own limitations. Either way you can tell your boss or whoever that his corpse is well and truly destroyed."


    "Good." He answered with certainty. "I may have to follow orders but letting people experiment on, even replicate that? I can''t see that going well."


    "Yeah, that was my thought process as well." I agreed, before continuing. "Can you tell me, you said his name was Blonsky? Was he did he volunteer or?"


    "As far as we can tell he was a volunteer." He exined, expression softening. "A lot of details are being obscured however. But I can tell you that in the same scenario I would have probably done the same thing."


    "Thanks. I just didn''t know if maybe he was a victim driven insane or something like that."


    I shook my head slightly, breaking myself from my mncholy thoughts. I focused on Clint, watching him for a moment.


    "Could you tell me where the Hulk went?" I asked.


    "While you were helping first responders put out fires and pull people out of the rubble he and Betty Ross disappeared." He answered casually. "My handler says Shield knows where they went but I don''t have the clearance to know where."


    I smiled to myself, nodding happily. The fact that they disappeared meant Hulk probably turned back into Bruce. The fact that they disappeared together meant that they were probably together now. That was good, Bruce and the Hulk both deserve someone to help support them. After a moment I focused back on Clint.


    "So, Shield is looking for me? What do they want me for?"


    "Well about thirty minutes ago it was to confiscate what we thought was a civilian with some sort of high tech suit and a few fancy arrows, maybe offer you a job if you were the one who built it." He exined. "Then I watched you chuck around a giant rock like it was a basketball. Not to mention the healing, and the fancy card trick I''m going to have to talk to the mission lead. This is a bit out of my wheelhouse."


    "I can imagine." I said with a chuckle.


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    "Would you be willing to meet again, maybe with the head of the mission here as well?" He asked. "He will be able to make more unteral decisions than me. I''m just the bow and arrow guy."


    "I I think I would be okay with that." I agreed after a moment of thinking. "Here, at around the same time?"


    "That works for me."


    "Good. If that''s all, I think it''s time for me to get out of here." I said, standing up and carding my chair. "It was good talking to you Clint. I suppose I''ll see you tomorrow."


    Clint stood and after a moment''s pause put his hand out for me to shake. After another moment staring at it I shrugged and put my hand in his, giving him a firm but hopefully not bone crushing handshake. With a nod he stood back and turned, walking back into the darkness, leaving me alone. I put my hand up for Ema, who wordlessly floated to my hand, letting me card her with a flourish. I was gone a few moments after that.

 Chapter 15: Preparation

    Chapter 15: Preparation


    Just a quick note, I am absolutely messing with the timelines and timescale. In cannon Clint and Coulson would have left for New Mexico long ago, but I wanted them to stick around and be Carson''s first point of contact. They aren''t missing that event, it just hasn''t happened yet.<hr>


    <em><strong>New York City - Local Shield Headquarters - Armory</strong></em>


    "I didn''t know what else to tell him." Clint exined as he slowly disassembled his bow. "The intel was way off. I had to improvise."


    "Understandable." Agent Couslon responded, sitting not far away at a bench. "We had no reason to expect such an unique enhancement. I''ve never seen anything like those cards."


    "He moved pretty quick too. When I spooked him he was ready to go in a split second. Not the quickest reflexes I''ve seen, but pretty damn close."


    Coulson nodded, looking down at the tablet he was carrying, watching the camera footage that Clint had recorded. It was angled down at the abandoned lot, set up before he revealed himself. He watched as this "Maker" tested himself on the various heavy rocks and metal, pausing it when he managed to lift the concrete barrier.


    "He is clearly enhanced, those barriers weigh almost two tons." Coulson pointed out. "Not as high as Steve Roger''s max as far as the records say, but certainly superhuman. Not to mention the healing. He said it was new to him?"


    "Yeah. The conversation he was having with the drone also seemed to hint that these are new abilities, and that certain items are where theye from. The easy assumption is that the ne and the cuff he put on are the source."


    "The name he gave us implies he is making these things as well." Phil pointed out. "And that they aren''t technology. Or that he believes it isn''t."


    "I know, that''s what really threw me for a loop."


    "Do you think he realizes how big of a deal something like that is? Even ignoring that it might not be technologically based"


    "I didn''t have enough time with him to be honest. The only reason I made contact at all was to set up a meeting, and if I saw his ability to absorb objects before making contact I would have bugged out and reported to you."


    "We had no reason to suspect he was the creator of his suit." Coulson responded. "Or that he had any training at all. I sent the clip of him jumping up into that stance to May and she says it''s probably Mauy Thai with Wing Chun influences. Something about how he was holding the knife like he didn''t know what to do with it. She did say it was particrly clean, something you only get if it''s consistently practiced. Her advice was to fight unorthodox, it throws strict practitioners off."


    Coulson went to press y on the tablet, before he stopped and looked back up at Clint.


    "Where did you put the tracking devices?"


    "One was under the back bumper and the other was under the driver side door." Clint answered, clicking his tongue in frustration. "He must have found them, they were secure where I put them."


    "Or he turned the truck into a card." Coulson suggested. "He managed to do that with a four thousand pound concrete barrier, we have no idea what his upper limit is."


    "I Have no idea. That''s terrifying though."


    Agent Coulson nodded, looking back down at the tablet and pressing y, watching the distorted man copse down to the ground, sitting back against the barrier he had just lifted before pausing it again.


    "Did the person controlling the drone say anything once they knew you were close by?" He asked.


    "No, not a peep. They might not want us to know there is someone on the other side." Clint pointed out. "Are you going to run their voices through the database?"


    "I already did, got nothing back. Maker''s voice is soft enough that the mike was having a hard time picking it up and the drone pilot sounded like it was going through some sort of voice changer."


    Hitting y again, Coulson watched the man put on his ne. The effect of his suit made it hard to see, but there was definitely an extrayer underneath.


    "Did you see what the undersuit was?"


    "Yeah, got a good look when we shook hands." Clint answered, rolling his eyes when Coulson gave him a look. "I know it was risky, but I wanted to build a little trust. Can''t do that without taking a risk."


    "Agreed, what did you see?"


    "Some sort of ck armor. The effect of the suit made it hard to see but it is definitely some sort of metallic armor, made of tes but still skin tight."


    "Interesting. Maybe he would be willing to show it to us tomorrow night."


    "I bet I know what you''d like to get a closer look at." Clint said with a grin, smirking at Coulson.


    "I assume you mean the truck? It is certainly an interesting design. Looks like a modern re-imagining of some of the older style Studebakers. How did it sound?"


    "It sounded like three engines stuffed under one hood, but muffled." Clint said with a snort. "So it''s some sort of custom job?"


    "Oh absolutely. I''ve never seen anything like it." Couslon agreed, pinching the screen of the tablet to zoom in on the vehicle.


    "Well maybe he will let you take a peek under the hood."


    "I doubt it. He wouldn''t even tell you his name." Coulson smiled, putting the tablet to sleep and looking back up to Clint. "Do you believe that Blonsky''s corpse is gone?"


    "II think I do." Clint said after a pause to think. "It''s hard to read him with the suit on, he sounds like a whisper even as close as we were. But I get the feeling he was telling the truth. "


    "Hmm The security council isnt going to like that."


    "What about General Ross?"


    "He is being surprisingly quiet." Coulson responded. "Director Fury isn''t sure what his game is. Either way we need to prove that it''s gone for sure. I''m going to give tech a call to see if they can''te up with something on such short notice."


    "Prove that the guy turning objects into cards is actually destroying things when he tears them?" Clint asked sarcastically.


    "More along the lines of wondering if a phenomenon is disintegration or some type of teleportation."


    "That''s why they pay you the big bucks." Clint shrugged before focusing on re-assembling his bow.


    When it was put back together he pulled the cord back into ce, copsing the whole bow down to itspact configuration, immediately snapping it back out to full size. Satisfied that everything was in working order he slid it into its case, putting it back into his locker before sitting back down at the chair.


    "What do you think?" Coulsan asked when Clint was sitting again. "How do you think we y this one?"


    "Personally? I think we should keep ying softball." Clint said. "He did good work in Harlem, even after Blonksy was taken care of. You know Stark would have taken off the second Blonsky was dead to go drink champagne and flirt with supermodels."


    "He is getting better." Coulson said, defending his previous responsibility. "And he is in a rtionship with Pepper Potts now."


    "Either way, he strikes me as a good kid."


    "Kid?"


    "He is definitely on the younger side." Clint answered confidently. "I''m guessing twenty five maybe?"


    "Alright. Depending on what Director Fury says after he sees this video and hears my report, we can start off with the gentle approach. I''ll want you there again so get some sleep."


    Clint nodded as Coulson stood, tucking the tablet under his arm as he walked away, pulling out his phone. Tapping the screen a few times he put the phone to his ear.


    "Director? Yes we made contact He was nothing like we expected."


    - <em>The Next Morning </em>-<em>-</em>


    The next day was a flurry of activity and anxiety. Ema found two devices attached to the truck only a few minutes after I let her out of the card on the drive home. They were now secured in a pair of cards, ready for the next night. We had a long conversation about how we would handle the meeting, agreeing that there was no way that Clint hadn''t heard her talking. With any luck they would assume she was a remote piloted drone, as we both doubted they would default to the assumption she was some sort of artificial AI construct.


    After a night of fitful rest I woke up early and went shopping, visiting almost a full dozen different stores. Both Ema and I agreed that the car fixing scheme could wait after we made proper contact with Shield, and that the cash I had would be spent on making a few things in preparation.


    The first thing I needed was a better way to hide who I was while also being able tomunicate properly. Ema and I both decided that a new uniform was in order, something else to wear over my armored undey that wasn''t a distracting, muffling smoke monster suit. Luckily I already had the leather jacket from the chop shop. A quick visit to a couple of clothing stores as well as a surprising discovery that there were a few ces in the city where you could buy actual body armor led to creating a dark green leather jacket with a ck five pointed star on the back. The jacket, along with the ck cargo pants and ck under shirt I got to go with it, were now stab proof as well as mildly fireproof, both settling in at C rank. My armoredyer got an upgrade as well, gettingbined with two sets of body armor vests and leg protectors that were mixed with insting sheets of rubber, making it resistant to electricity, and therefore tasers, while upping its protection against bullets.


    Now that my new look was done I needed a way to hide my identity while still being able to talk properly and seem personable. A run to a few costume shops, a prop store, another music shop as well as a few othersted me what I needed to make my new mask. Combining a half dozen wigs, a few high quality masks, a few pounds of make-up, hair dye, a few voice modtors, a few books on being a special effects make-up artist and a half pound of modeling y got me a porcin mask that faded into my skin and let me modify my face, hair and voice when I put it on. It was spooky watching my face move and shift as I cycled through the options for my features, eventually settling on something that looked nothing like me. My hair was now ck, my nose a bit sharper, while my chin was a bit more square. It was bizarre and I was very thankful I could easily pull it off when I was done working on it. All I had to do was tug on my nose and the mask unabsorbed, revealing its porcin features. It was impressive, but that was to be expected with a B rank card. The only downside was that I couldn''t feel anything on my face, it felt like I had a b of thick y against it. It was distracting at first but I slowly got used to it.


    My next build was thebination of a simple belt buckle, a stethoscope, a blood pressure bracelet, two books on telling when someone was lying as well as chunks ofpiszuli, aura lite, sodalite and azurite, all stones associated with honesty, intuition and the truth. Ibined that amalgamation with an on and off button and a motor that generates vibrations. The result was a belt buckle with four blueish t stones with a subtle metal button in the center. I could tell that using it was a double edged sword though, as while it would quietly vibrate when someone was lying to me I was incapable of knowingly speaking a lie when it was on. When I tried to tell Ema that the sky was green my throat instantly closed, not even letting me start the sentence. Even with its drawback the C ranked card was sure to be useful, if limited. I was just d the off button affected the truth divining ability and the forced honesty.


    My final project wasn''t for me, but for whoever Clint brought with him to the meeting, assuming he didn''t set off my new belt. Ibined eight pocket knives together and created an ebony ck folding knife that cut off the corner of my coffee table like it was warm butter. The simple tool was an example of what I could make, while still being rtively tame. I knew the ability to produce objects of power was a game changer, especially since this gift giving would prove that those objects could be used by others. My hope was that by producing some seriously good toys for the good people at Shield would convince them I was an asset, one important enough to protect and keep an eye on without actually bringing me in. Because I knew Hydra was somewhere in the shadows. There was no way any Marvel reality existed without those assholes dicking around somewhere. In all likelihood they were hidden inside Shield or some other organization. But with my lie detecting buckle I wouldn''t identally arm a secret double agent and with some blood, some hair, and a fingerprint everything I made would be useless to anyone I didn''t make them for. With any luck I might even be tipping the scales in Shields favor, but at a minimum I would be making powerful and skilled friends who will help keep me in the loop.


    The massive amounts of money I would be charging didn''t hurt either.


    It took most of the day, running around to various stores, then back to the apartment to spend time nning out the order of eachbination to avoid mixing up the wrong concepts and getting something wrong. Even then I did mess up my first attempt at making the disguise mask, resulting in a soft, one use y mask that I''m pretty sure would have permanently changed my face if I had used it. I kept it despite how freaked out it made me, the idea of the mask permanently changing my face I almost gave up on the concept all together.


    When I was finally done there was little else to do but wait and continue to do my exercises, stretches and forms. I could feel them getting easier and more natural every day. When it was finally time to head out I spent a minute just focusing on my breathing. There was a lot riding on this meeting and I needed to get it right. I left the apartment at around midnight, taking my time to ride my bike far away from the apartment. When I was finally satisfied I got dressed in my new costume, including my ck haired disguise. I stretched for a moment, checking out how it felt as I moved. Satisfied that i had my full range of motion I pushed the truck out of its card and hopped in, letting Ema out of her card as I did.


    "Are we there yet?" She asked, rotating around and looking out the window.


    "Yeah, I''m just pulling over." I said with a chuckle while starting the truck and pulling out of the secluded alley.


    "Are you prepared?"


    "As I''ll ever be." I admitted, my eyes on the road. "Are you ready?"


    "Of course."


    I nodded, focusing on the road. Eventually, when we approached the street I slowed down. The road was blocked off by traffic cones and a detour sign. As I got even closer, someone dressed in in clothes stepped out of a dark doorway and grabbed the detour sign, pulling it to the side for me, giving me just enough space to pull down the street.


    "I guess we never really did do the whole "Come Alone" thing." I admitted as we continued down the road, now going pretty slow.


    "In all likelihood they wouldn''t have agreed to that." Ema pointed out. "They probably have a lot of backup, and the whole neighborhood shut down."


    "Great" I mumbled as we finally pulled into the abandoned lot. "Woah looks like we weren''t the only busy ones."


    What had once been an overgrown, trash and scrap filled lot was now a rtively clear open area. The grass had been trimmed, the trash carted off and the rocks I had been throwing around had all been pushed to one corner. In the middle of the lot was a medium sized pop up canopy with a singr table under it, lit by some sort ofmp. Sitting at the table were two people, both calmly watching as I pulled in. Clint was there, nodding slightly as I made eye contact with him, only for his eyes to go just a bit wider as he realized I wasn''t wearing my normal suit. The other person was dressed in a ck suit, calm as a cucumber as he studied my car. I stepped out, Ema following after me.


    As we walked around the front of the truck I idly reached out and carded it, doing my best to block and ignore the pull and stress I felt when pulling something sorge and heavy. I made my way to the table, sitting calmly while greeting them with a smile.


    "It''s good to see you again Clint." I said with a smile. "I like what you''ve done with the ce."

 Chapter 16: Bearing gifts

    Chapter 16: Bearing gifts


    Clint chuckled and patted the suited man''s shoulder, who''s only reaction was a small smile and a subtle nod.


    "Well you know, it needed a bit of spring cleaning." He replied with a smirk, reaching over the table.


    I reached over as well, shaking his hand. After a moment I offered my hand to the other person. After a moment he shook it as well, his grip firm and steady. He was an unassuming man who had a cool confidence about him while still appearing so normal.


    "I am Agent Phil Coulson. I''m in charge of the operation to locate you." He said simply before continuing. "As you can imagine that mission has changed quite a bit."


    "You can call me Maker, as I''m sure Clint told you." I said with a chuckle, making myselffortable in the chair. "And I don''t doubt that. He mentioned you guys had the wrong idea about me."


    "We did our best with avable data." Agent Coulson exined. "Who is your friend?"


    I saw him looking up at Ema, and I smiled, waving her closer to the table.


    "Come say hello."


    "Hello. My name is Emerald, but you may call me Ema for short." She said, introducing herself. "I am Maker''s eye in the sky, girl in the chair if you will."


    She exined, purposefully keeping her movement as inorganic as possible. We had discussed it earlier in the day as I was furiously preparing. While around people, at least at first, she would try as best as she could to not emote through her movement or through her frame artiction, in an attempt to seem like a mindless drone piloted by someone else, somewhere else.


    "She has been extremely helpful while I was resource gathering." I exined. "Speaking of which, on a scale of one to ten, how wanted am I by the police?"


    "They would like to ask you some questions." Agent Coulson responded. "But you are firmly under our jurisdiction, especially after your activities in Harlem. Good work by the way, you gained quite a few brownie points when you stayed behind to help."


    "Thanks. I''m not happy about how it went down but I think it needed to be done."


    "About how it ended. I know Agent Barton informed you that quite a few people want Blonsky''s corpse, but he informed me that it has been destroyed via an untested ability you have."


    "My cards, yes." I answered, summoning an empty card to my fingers. "When I tear one that''s full it destroys whatever was inside and the card returns to my deck."


    "Would you be interested in proving that it is destroyed?" The agent says, leaning forward. "It would go a long way in keeping interested parties off your back."


    "I''m not sure how you would prove it, but sure, I don''t have a problem with that."


    The suit wearing man gestured without turning around. After a long moment two more agents, dressed in shields standard uniform, came around the corner carrying arge ck box. They carried it to the table by the handles on each side, cing it down on the ground next to them. One of them unclipped the straps and took off the top of the box, showing a series of antennas, a smaller ck box and a battery pack of some kind.


    "This is the strongest transponder we could get here on such short notice. It uses a whole lot ofplicated and expensive science to send a signal that can be traced through several feet of reinforced concrete, through buildings, stone and metal. We want you to use your cards and absorb it, then we will spend a few days scanning for it."


    As he exined the agents continue setting it up, cing each part into the table and hooking up wires. After a few switches were flicked the whole thing hummed with energy.


    "You want me to card it and then destroy it?" I confirmed before shrugging and looking at theplicated contraption. "I don''t have a problem with that, as long as I''m not held responsible for an expensive piece of equipment."


    "It''s already been written off." Clint exined. "It''s just a concrete fact we can point to when exining the situation."


    I shrugged and put my hand on it, pulling it into a card. I flicked it around to show them I have it, using the movement to distract them from my shock. The card was already B ranked, implying it was already impressive and probably extremely expensive. Biting back a sigh I made a show of tearing the card in two before making one of the riskier moves Ema and I had nned. I summoned the deck and put it on the table.


    "Feel free to look through them yourself." I offered, leaning back in the chair. "I''ll give you one guess at how many there are."


    I had specifically gone through the Deck during my free time earlier to remove any random items and anything that could lead them to me. Save for my bow, my personal arrow supplies, my quiver, my stealth suit, my gift, a single roll of clear packing tape and the two tracking devices the entire deck was empty gray cards. Giving each other a look, Clint looked down and picked up the deck, going through them slowly.


    "You''re being awfully trusting." Agent Coulson pointed out. "Clint painted a much more reserved picture in his debrief this morning."


    "Well the cards are bound to me. As-" I started, my throat closing as I attempted to say that most of my stuff is, my belt stopping me from lying. "As most of my stuff will be shortly. "


    "So you really are making these things?" He asked as Clint put the deck back down on the table, nodding at Coulson as he slid it towards me. "Don''t take this the wrong way but that is fairly unbelievable."


    "Oh I''m aware." I admitted, chuckling again. "This is all pretty new to me as well. I''m still getting used to it."


    "And you stand by your implication that this isn''t technology?"


    "I do. I will not be exining how I make these things, but it is not technology." I exined. "It''s possible that it''s rke tech, but it''s not on my side of the equation."


    "rke tech?" Clint asked.


    "It''s a reference to Arthur C. rke, a fairly famous author." Coulson exined. "He created threews of science fiction. Thest one is that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. rke tech is shorthand for that type of technology."


    "And you think that is what your creations are?" Clint asked, focusing back on me.


    "No, I meant that I couldn''t say it isn''t rke tech, but if it was then I''m not the one making the tech, I''m just using the effects of it. I don''t think it''s rke tech either way."


    "So you believe it to be something else. Maybe magic?" Agent Coulson asked


    "Does what I believe really matter?" I asked with a shrug. "I''m not crazy, I''m not insisting that cars are alive and nning on taking over the world or that Mcdonalds is run by lizard people. I make these things and they do things they shouldn''t be able to. No technology involved."


    The lot was quiet for a moment as the two Shield agents thought about my ims. I could only hope they would believe me or at least drop it. Hopefully if they refused to believe magic or whatever powered the Deck they would be able to settle on the rke tech theory I gave them.


    "I hope you realize how dangerous this is." Coulson said eventually. "Whatever you are doing, You''re essentially capable of making super soldiers."


    "I know. Once word gets out everyone is going to want to get their hands on me. It''s why I''ve been working so hard to scale myself up, why I''ve been stealing from criminals and working like a mad man."


    "There are a lot of dangerous people who will do a lot of dangerous things to lock you up and throw away the keys." Clint pointed out.


    "I am aware." I responded before holding up my hand. "But before that I have something to show the both of you."


    I summoned the pocket knife from the deck, not moving it from the table. I slid the card across the table to Agent Coulson. Slowly he reached out and took the card, examining it closely.


    "What is this?" He asked.


    "It''s a gift."


    "The card or?" Clint asked, looking up at me.


    "No no, it''s what''s in the card." I exined with a chuckle. "It is a pocket knife, sharp enough that it should be able to whittle steel like it was wood."


    "That''s an impressive im." Agent Coulson admitted. "But I''m afraid we will have to decline."


    "We will?" Clint asked, clearly disappointed.


    "Are you sure?" I asked. "Even as an example of what I can create, something for you to study?"


    Coulson paused for a moment, before taking out his phone. He quickly sent a message and set the phone back down.


    "Is there a price for this?" He asked as he put the card t down on the table.


    "If you''re asking if I''m going to demand money? Then no." I answered before continuing. "There is however something I will insist on. I cannot give it to you without binding it to someone, preferably you. I understand how dangerous my creations can be and I refuse to just throw them into the wind and rely on good luck and happy thoughts to keep them from being lost or stolen."


    Before either could respond Coulson''s phone vibrated. He picked it up and quickly read the message, tucking the phone back into his suit.


    "I have permission from the director to ept your gift." He exined. "What is the binding process like? Are there any side effects?"


    "There are no side effects, but you''re going to want to take your phone back out. I would require a lock of hair, a fingerprint and a small amount of your blood."


    Both of the Shield agents reacted poorly to my list of ingredients, eyes going wide as they pulled back slightly. Agent Coulson quickly got himself under control, while Clint eyed me like I was going to attempt to take them by force. Before either of them could say anything to deny my request I held up my hands.


    "I know that''s a big ask, especially for people in your line of work." I said. "But give me a chance to exin?"


    The two of them settled, ncing at each other. Agent Coulson nodded and Clint looked back at me.


    "I want to help." I started, continuing after a pause. "The things I can make are impressive and whenbined with solid skills they can be used to do a lot of good. Imagine Shield''s top agents equipped with objects of power, force multipliers that can''t be matched, copied or used against them. Imagine your average agent with custom made essories that look perfectly innocuous but offer them abilities that let thempete with the best of the best. I''m not just offering Shield some cookie cutter super soldier program. I''m offering Shield a source of super soldiers, specifically tuned to each agent''s talents and preferences. I''m offering a level of variety that will make your agents impossible to predict."


    I leaned forward in my chair, the excitement of the potential getting the best of me for a moment before I smiled and took a deep breath.


    "And what do you want in return?" Agent Coulson asked simply.


    "Well I would need to be paid. Diamonds are expensive these days." I exined, feeling the belt''s presence stir at my misdirection. "I would also need to meet each of the people personally to bind their object to them. Like I said, I refuse to just throw this stuff to the wind for someone to snag them up."


    "So you are willing to make these objects of power, but only if you can meet the people they are for." Agent Coulson confirmed before continuing. "You realize that many of our agents work undercover. Just meeting them is a huge security risk."


    "No honestly that hadn''t urred to me" I admitted reluctantly. "I wasn''t joking when I said I was new to this Agent Coulson."


    Agent Coulson looked at me for a long moment, studying my face. I did my best to not falter under his surprisingly heavy stare. Eventually he stood, pulled out his phone again and walked away as he brought it to his face. By the time he started talking in hushed tones he was too far away for me to hear.


    "Your offer is a pretty big deal." Clint said, distracting me from Agent Coulson, which I''m sure was on purpose. "And not just because the stuff you''re making should be impossible."


    "Yeah, I knew this would kick up a lot of dust." I admitted, looking back to Clint with a smile. "So were you assigned to this whole thing ''cause we both used a bow or is that just a coincidence?"


    "It was a coincidence, I work with Coulson a lot." He exined. "He is a good guy, a good agent, and he knows how topromise. You''re lucky he got assigned to you."


    "It seems that way, this is going just about as well as I could hope." I admitted. "In all honesty I knew you guys woulde find me at some point but I was hoping for a bit more time."


    "For what?" Clint asked innocently, almost having me fooled.


    "To prepare more." I exined. "Never enough time for that."


    A few minutester Agent Coulson returned, sitting down in his seat withoutment. Once he was seated he interlocked his hands, his elbows on the table.


    "I discussed it with the Director and he agreed to let you bind the knife to me. We will then take the knife and study it, run a battery of tests on me to monitor for any changes. During that time he suggested youe with us for protection."


    "Sorry, I don''t feelfortable with that." I replied, shaking my head. "How about this? If you can figure out who I am,e to my home, I''ll go with you willingly."


    "You realize we could just scan your face, right?" Clint pointed out.


    I smirk and instead of saying anything, I focused on shifting my hair color through several shades beforeing back to jet ck.


    "Who said this is what I actually look like?"


    Both of them looked at me for a moment before Agent Coulson shook his head and leaned back in his chair.


    "I assume that since you don''t want to share how you do this that you won''t be binding the knife to me while we watch?"


    "No, I''ll do it in the truck." I exined, before leaning in seriously. "But before that you need to answer some questions."


    "Like what?" He asked.


    "Do you work for Shield?"


    Agent Coulson looked at me, then at Clint, then back at me, with a look that showed he was beginning to question my intelligence.


    "Yes."


    "Do you work for anyone else? ept bribes? Look the other way when it''s convenient? Maybe to make some money or when it benefits you?"


    "No." He responded, now looking at me with curious eyes. "To all of that."


    "I need specific answers." I said, my belt vibrating just enough to feel it


    "I have never and will never ept a bribe." Coulson said with an easy finality. "I have never looked the other way for my own personal gain, mary or otherwise."


    As he spoke I paid close attention to my belt, feeling for any vibrations, and this time I felt nothing. For a moment I was concerned until I reviewed my questions and realized someone looking the other way for someone else''s benefit might have triggered it.


    "Do you believe in the tenants of Shield?"


    "Yes. Wholeheartedly. We help and protect people. And with the slow rise in enhanced individuals, a group capable of handling them on arge scale is vital. We deal with threats normal authorities can''t handle. The good we do makes a difference."


    "Alright, that works for me!" I said happily. "Thanks for indulging me."


    "You have a method of determining truth from lies." He stated rather than asked.


    "I do. If it makes you feel any better it also keeps me from lying as a side effect." I exined before smirking. "Consider it pay-back for the trackers you put on my truck."


    I pulled another card from the Deck, flying to my hand from the table before I flicked it out into the lot, the carding to rest two dozen feet away before the truck suddenly appeared..


    "Now if you''d just push a dozen or so drops of blood onto the table, cut off a small lock of hair." I instructed, pushing out the role of packing tape. "And put your thumb print on this."


    "Just Bleed on the table?" He asked incredulously. "How-"


    "I''m going to be pulling it into a card." I exined, cutting off a small square of the packing tape. "If it makes you feel better you can inspect the truck before and after."


    Agent Coulson shook his head, pulling out his own knife and after a moment of pause cut a small lock of hair off, cing it on the table. I carded it before a stray breeze took it away before holding out the small piece of tape, folding it over after he marked it with his thumbprint. After I carded his hair he nicked his thumb after a moment of pause. Blood dripped down onto the table in a steady pattern. When arge enough puddle had formed I reached out and carded it. The agent of Shield pulled out a bandage and wrapped it around his thumb, giving me a measured look.


    "Well I''ll be right back." I said as I stood before turning and looking at Ema. "Emerald, stay here and keep the agentspany."


    "Of course." She responded simply, not moving from position.


    I walked away slowly, heading to my truck while doing my best not to act suspicious. I''m sure there were half a dozen Shield soldiers just waiting to put me down if I made the wrong move.


    I climbed into the passenger side and shut the door, quickly pushing my stealth suit out of its card. In one of its pockets was a normal master lock, which I took and held in my hands while using the suit to hide what I was doing, hanging it and the pants up to block everyone''s view of the already dark interior. Taking my time Ibined the lock with the blood, then the hair and the thumbprint, following the same process I had gone through not long ago. When I pushed out the knife I was surprised to find its color had changed. What was once a solid ck handle was now a dark blue, the lower part marked with a simple white star. The grip, handle and de remained the same shape, and the de remained the same solid ck, or at least as far as I could tell. When I attempted to push open the de with my thumb it didn''t budge. I smiled and carded my stealth suit before climbing out of the truck, carding it as I did.


    "Good news Agent Coulson." I said as I got closer. "The binding went well, you are now the proud owner of the sharpest pocket knife in the world as far as I know."


    I sat down at the seat, Ema slowly rotating in ce as I moved. When I wasfortable I leaned forward and handed Agent Coulson his new knife.


    "It looks different from the image of the card." He pointed out. "Is that Shield Blue? And I like the detail."


    "Binding something can sometimes affect the object, especially if the individual is an outlier." I exined, my belt only letting me speak because I wasn''t technically lying, I was just learning this at the same time as them. "It seems like your belief in your organization sets you apart, Agent Coulson."


    "And don''t think I don''t see that star." Clint said with a chuckle. "Looks just like a certain super soldier''s star."


    He ignored Clint as far as I could tell, studying the knife before pushing it open with his thumb. He studied the ck de before looking up at me and noticing my smile.


    "What?"


    "Just enjoying proof of my craftsmanship." I exined. "I couldn''t push out the knife at all."


    He raised his eyebrow before closing the knife up and passing it to Clint. He immediately attempted to open it as well, struggling for a full minute and a half before he gave up. Agent Coulson took the knife back and easily flicked it open again.


    "Well I''ll be damned." He mumbled.


    Without a word he reached into his suit and pulled out another pocket knife. He flicked that out as well, slowly dragging his now bonded knife along the dull top of the de. A soft scraping noise emanated out as his new knife carved a curling sliver of metal off. Both of the agents looked at me, their eyes wide. All I could do was grin, leaning back in my seat, basking in their disbelief.


    This was going well.<hr>


    <strong>Just to clear something up, Phil Coulson was created in the MCU first, theics second. Which means that in a world were the MCU doesn''t exist, neither would he. Since he and other characters who are like this sometimes y important roles in theics, in Carson''s home reality they are reced by other characters who are simr but have different names and none of the stuff that theic writers threw in to point to and say "hey look! its that guy you loved!" I know some of you were excited for the "OMG Phil Coulson!" moment, both those who know what he does in theics and those who just like the character from the MCU, but it just didn''t make any sense to me to have Carson know who he is.</strong>

 Chapter 17: First step

    Chapter 17: First step


    <strong>Hello readers! I havee to remind you that I have a Pat_reon! It is at _/_MetaBettaOmegaLetta , minus the underscores of course. I want to thank my current patrons for their support and thank anyone considering supporting. Every bit help!</strong><hr>


    It took a few minutes for mypanions to recover enough to talk. By then Agent Coulson had whittled down his old knife to nothing and Clint was looking mildly disappointed that even when the de was out he couldn''t cut anything with it.


    "How difficult are things like this to make?" Agent Coulson asked eventually, folding the knife away and putting it in his suit. "How much would you charge?"


    "Unfortunately it is impossible to predict. For new things I mean. If I know the recipe already then the effects are repeatable." I exined, raising my hand to stop the next question. "I will not be mass producing anything. I would be open to making each agent more than one object, but I will not be handing over a briefcase full of super soldier rings. That is non negotiable. If you try to push that I will vanish and you will never get this offer again."


    "You realize that people aren''t going to like that." Agent Coulson pointed out seriously after a long pause. "Every capable government and business giant on the is involved with some sort of super soldier project. It''s been that way since Captain America. The fact that there is someone out there who can actually make a super soldier, repeatedly and with resources that I assume you gained from your two excursions? If what you''ve said about your abilities is true, everyone is going to be after you. Everyone. Quite a few of those groups won''t care if youe willingly."


    The lot was silent, even the normal background noise of the city seemed hushed and muted. I stared silently at the normal looking man who had basically voiced my deepest fear since I realized what kind of power the Conceptual Deck gave me. I leaned forward, elbows on the table, rubbing my face, taking care not to touch my nose.


    "Then what do you suggest, Agent Coulson?" I asked, letting my emotions leak through. "I am perfectly aware of what my ability means. I know what the less than honorable would do to get ess to my ability. I had hoped that partnering with Shield would offer me a modicum of protection, or at least a warning. But I am beginning to feel a lot less confident in that n. So, what do you think I should do?"


    "I think you should let us take you somewhere safe. We can''t keep an eye out for threats if we don''t know where you are. New York is too big of a ce for us topletely lock it down." He exined. "If we set up some sort of safe-house for you, give you some bodyguards, you would be able to work as a Shield consultant, making tools for Shield agents. You would still be able to interview the agents you''re making tools for, and you''d still be able to bind them to those agents."


    I looked at Clint then back to Agent Coulson, my mind racing. The offer was tempting of course, I was already starting to notice the stress getting to me. Having Shield at my back, keeping me safe would be helpful, and a massive load off my shoulder If I wasn''t pretty sure that Hydra had already infiltrated the organization.


    "Are you attempting to scare me into being morepliant?" I asked bluntly, once again focusing on my belt.


    "No, I truly believe what I said."


    I nodded, rubbing my face and leaning back in my chair. The honest truth was that I would love to have more support. A group like Shield could provide me with a lot of stuff I wouldn''t otherwise have ess to, as well as back up if I ever needed it. But even with my belt weeding out anyone who wasn''tpletely loyal to Shield the threat of Hydra would be ever present. The second I joined Shield, even just as a consultant they would know exactly where I was at all times. Eventually I sighed and sat up straight.


    "As much as I would like to ept your offer, I can''t." I answered, ying with one of my cards. "My greatest protection is that no one has any idea who I really am or has any way of predicting when I will show up. Like I said, if you figure out who I am, knock on my door and Ema and I will dly ept your protection. Until then, I can''t ept it."


    "Very well, I won''t try to force you." Agent Coulson said, clearly disappointed. "How will we get in touch to purchase objects? You said you needed to be able to talk to them and bind them to their objects personally. Assuming our tests on your gift go well."


    "Give me a phone number to call. I''ll check in in a few days. From there we can set up a meeting where we can discuss what I am making for the agent. "


    "I take back what I said earlier." Agent Coulson responds, pulling out a card and handing it to me. "You are even less trusting than Agent Barton said you were. Very well, I''ll pass this information onto the Director. He will have the final say on whether we take you up on your offer."


    "Fair enough, you can fill me in in a few days."


    "Are you sure there isn''t anything we can do to convince you toe with us?"


    "No. I won''t say that won''t change eventually but for now, we prefer to be on our own."


    Agent Coulson stood, and extended his hand, prompting me to do the same. I shook it with a firm grip, making sure not to hurt him or Clint when he stuck his hand out.


    "I hope you reconsider, but I look forward to working with you." Clint said as we shook hands. "I know first hand that even the smallest advantage in the field can be the difference between life and death. And from what I''ve seen your creations are anything but small advantages."


    "Make sure your bosses know that." I said with a smirk, turning around and flicking out a card. The truck appeared a momentter and I climbed in, giving the two Shield agents a small wave as I pulled away.


    [center]- <em>The Next Morning </em>-<em>-</em>[/center]


    I woke up the next morning surprised at how quickly I had fallen asleep. The meeting with Shield had touched on a lot of my fears about how this would all work out, and my mind had been racing the whole trip home, including the hour or so I spent making sure no one was following me. Somehow though the second I crawled into bed my exhaustion reared its head and I was out like a light.


    With a deep breath I started the day, going through my morning routine like usual, plopping down on the couch with a te of eggs and toast, and putting a cup of coffee on the coffee table. Ema floated down around me as I slowly ate.


    "That was an intense meeting." She said after a moment. "They seemed Interested in your offer?"


    I couldn''t help butugh, almost spilling my coffee in the process. When I eventually recovered I smirked at Ema, her frame spinning and shifting in a way that showed she was happy.


    "Thanks, I needed that.." I said with a smile, leaning back into the couch. "Yeah, they seemed a little interested. They were also clearly worried about me getting snatched up. Which makes sense. Me getting captured and used to make stuff could really upset the bnce of power on arge scale."


    "So, what are we going to do?" She asked after a few minutes of quiet. "We spent most of our money on our preparations for yesterday."


    "How much do we have left?" I asked, wincing as I went over how much money I had spent in my head. "We should have some left, right?"


    Ema floated over to the chop shop cash box, where I had stored our funds when I was clearing out the Deck the day before.


    "Two hundred and thirty six dors in bills, another twelve in change." She answered. "That body armor store was extremely expensive."


    "Yeah, but worth it I think." I assured her. "My armor is getting more and more impressive with every addition, and you can''t put a price on good protection."


    "That''s true." She said, bobbing in agreement. "Unfortunately the prospects for cars in that price range is not encouraging."


    "What about motorcycles?" I asked after a long moment of thought. "That might be the way to go, especially since I will be able to set it up to repair in the apartment."


    "That that might work." Ema admitted, floating to theptop, the screen starting to sh through websites.


    While she worked I finally started disassembling theputer we had taken from the chop shop, breaking it down and carding different parts to see what concepts they held. I was happy to find that they felt the same way that the spare engines, mufflers and tires had felt, in that they were parts that would be additive instead of altering the function of the item Ibined them with. I ended up taking the ram, the hard drive, the central processor and the fan out,. keeping them carded while putting the rest of theputer into a pile and tucking it away. After I waited for Ema to finish her research, mostly by watching TV.


    "Okay. I think I found a few good ces to buy a motorcycle for cheap. There is a junkyard about an hour away from here by bike that should have one or two wrecks we could buy for very little money." She said, going through her opened list. "I also found a few Craigslist posts selling old, motorcycles. We would only be able to get one of those."


    "Alright. Let me see them."


    We scrolled through the website, tabbing through examples. The junkyard was mostly advertising spare parts for cheap but buying a busted up old motorcycle wreck was definitely possible. The Craigslist ads were for various types of bikes for a range of prices. Eventually I settled on one that had been harvested for parts but was still intact enough to be recognizable.


    "I think we should go with the Craigslist option, that one in particr." I said, still sitting at the edge of the couch. "While we could double our money going to the junkyard it''s going to be much more difficult to sneak the cycle away from a business than it will be someone''s frontwn."


    "How do you n on doing that by the way?"


    "I''m going to tell them someone is going to be byter, maybe even at night to pick it up, so they should just leave it by the curb. Then I''ll juste by and snag it."


    "That Seems risky."


    "Maybe, but we need to do something. Having some random guy be a bit suspicious of where his junk motorcycle went is the least of our problems. Besides, you are going to be scanning to make sure we aren''t being watched."


    "That would minimize the risks, very well. Are you going to call ahead?"


    "Yeah, what''s the number?"


    I dialed the numbers on my phone as she read them out, standing up from the couch to pace while the phone rang. It took a few rings for someone to pick up, a male voice answering on the other end.


    "Hello, My name is Jack. I''m calling because I''m interested in your Craigslist ad, the old Harley Davidson softail." I asked, reading off of the ad itself. "Is that still avable?"


    "Hello Jack, name''s Andrew." He responded before continuing. "And yes it is still avable. I have to warn you though, it''s missing a lot of parts and the frame is crooked."


    "That''s not a problem." I assured him, trying to sound confident to prevent him asking questions. "I''m looking for a challenge. If it''s beyond me it''s only two hundred bucks."


    "Alright, if you''re sure." He responded. "Do you have a trailer or a truck?"


    "Uhh I have a truck to transport it, yeah." I lied, cringing before I realized I wasn''t wearing my belt.


    "Do you have a ce in mind to hand it off?"


    My mind froze for a moment as I tried to figure out what he was asking. Ema, who had floated next to me and was listening to the conversation, nudged me.


    "He doesn''t want youing to his house. That''s normal for Craigslist stuff." She exined. "Just say a random parking lot, nothing too close."


    I nodded and started listing off a few ces we could meet, eventually settling on the parking lot of an abandoned shop, one that was about an hour away from the apartment by bike. He wanted something closer to himself but I managed to convince him to drive more, but only after I agreed to pay for his lunch as well. When we finally hung up I looked over at Ema.


    "How did we not remember that''s how Craigslist works?" I asked, shaking my head. "I mean I''ve had to do this before when I got this couch!"


    "I suppose we just got caught up." She offered before giving her equivalent of a shrug. "Either way, you need to get ready to go. That lot is about an hour away."


    I stood and stretched, flexing and working out any of the remaining fatigue from the night before carrying my breakfast te to the kitchen sink. Afterwards, I quickly got dressed and prepared to leave, stopping by the living room as I pulled on my sneakers.


    "It''s probably best if you stay here." I exined. "It''s too bright out for you to be flying around and I''m already pretty sure there aren''t any cameras there."


    "Alright, I''ll hold down the fort." She said, clearly not happy about it. "But if you don''t answer your phone when I check up on you, I''m calling Agent Coulson."


    "That Is not a bad idea." I admitted. "Tell him to check his tracking devices if you do."


    Ema nodded and followed me to the door, watching as I shut it behind myself and locked it. Not long after that I was on my way, pedaling my bike through the streets. I couldn''t help but revel in just how easy it was to pick up speed, weaving in between cars. As I stopped messing around and focused on my destination I made a mental note that an essory that enhanced my reflexes might be a good investment.


    "Ema has spoiled me, no way am I going to remember this." I mumble to myself.


    It took me an hour and a half to get to the lot, mostly because I stopped for hot chocte and a bagel. When I finally did get close to my destination I made a short detour into an alleyway to put on my face changing mask, carding my bike as well before walking the rest of the way. The abandoned shop had a few cars parked in its parking lot, probably from a nearby business, but it was mostly empty.


    After a quick look around I settled in, ying solitaire on my phone for a few minutes before I noticed a ck truck pulling into the parking lot. I stood and took a closer look, smiling when I saw the busted motorcycle in the bed. The truck slowly pulled through the lot, turning and stopping before a man climbed out. He was probably a bit older than I was, dressed in painter''s clothes with brown hair and sses. We greeted each other and chatted for a few minutes, mostly bullshit about me wanting to challenge myself in repairing the motorcycle. Eventually he waved me over as he walked around to the back of his truck. I got closer as he pulled down the tailgate. As I did I pulled out the roll of cash, myst bit of funds, and handed them over to him. He took it with a smile.


    "Two hundred and thirty dors." I exined. "For the bike and your lunch."


    "Great!" He responded with a chuckle. "Grab a side and let''s get it off of my truck. You need a hand getting it up into Where''s your truck?"


    "Oh it will be here, my friend is just doing some errands." I exined, once again d I wasn''t wearing my belt.


    The man nodded and together we pulled the motorcycle to the end of his truck bed before pausing. It was heavy, but with no tires and plenty more missing parts I probably could have carried it myself with my cuff of strength. Together we slowly lowered it to the ground, letting it drop thest inch. After a short conversation about what parts he knew were missing we walked back around to the front of the truck, where he grabbed a folder and handed it to me. Inside was the motorcycle''s paperwork.


    Transaction nowpleted, we shook hands and he got into his truck, pulling away with a wave. I watched him go, making sure he waspletely out of sight before I carded the folder. I spent a few minutes checking around again, making sure no one was watching before I carded the motorcycle as well, pushing out my bike in the same movement.


    I rushed a bit on the way home, making great time, pushing my runners band to its limit. My only break was when I pulled into an alley to take off my mask. When I finally got into the apartment building I climbed the stairs two at a time, rushing into my ce, almost forgetting to lock the door behind me.


    "Ema? How goes the fort?" I called out with a smile as I kicked off my shoes.


    "Sufficiently held down I think." She answered, meeting me halfway into the living room. "How did the hand-off go?"


    "Fine, I had to convince him I had a trucking to pick me and the wreck up." I exined as I walked around, carding the coffee table and anything else in the way.


    I pushed the motorcycle out, the dirty wreck almost falling before I could grab and stabilize it by leaning it against the couch. I pushed out the repair tablet next, hooking it up and pressing repair all.


    "Damn, almost eighteen hours." I said as Ema came to look over my shoulder. "Guess it really is fucked up. Well, not much we can do but wait."


    I bnced the tablet on the motorcycle''s frame before climbing around it,ying down on the couch, not able to sit because of how the motorcycle is leaning against it. I grabbed the remote, turned on the TV and settled in. I had a lot to do in theing week, so I may as well enjoy what down time I had.

 Chapter 18: Easy come, easy go

    Chapter 18: Easye, easy go


    The next few days were filled with slow but exciting progress. When I woke up the next morning I was greeted by an absolutely pristine ck motorcycle with a brand new key in the ignition. It took me and Ema a couple of hours to take a few pictures outside, then use those images to set up a Craigslist post for about half what it was actually worth. I was hoping that selling a motorcycle worth twelve grand for six and acting like I had no idea what I was selling would keep questions to a minimum. After that it was mostly a waiting game.


    By the next afternoon we had a half dozen offers for the motorcycle. A quick phone call to one of the higher offers and we had a deal. I rode my bike out to a small parking lot in Brooklyn and walked away seven grand richer. I immediately went to the junkyard and got two more wrecks, spinning a bullshit story and having them delivered to a random parking lot in Queens. By the end of the night another motorcycle was in my living room, slowly being repaired by the tablet, with another one just waiting to start.


    During my down time I eventually started investigating all of the guns I had found during myst excursion. I quickly found that I had no idea what I was going to do with them. They held several concepts that could be useful but I wasn''t sure how tobine them. I had four pistols and two rifles, as well as two different types of shotguns. My first instinct was tobine a rifle and a pistol to make a pistol that hit like a rifle, but they were two different conceptually and functionally. I could feel the concepts would work directly against each other in some cases, while in others they would double up on negative concepts.


    On a whim Ibined two of the pistols, mostly to examine the results. They stacked up on power as well as a few other positive concepts, but when I pulled out the magazine I realized the bullets had be a weird mix of two different calibers. I needed to either get my hands on multiple guns of the same make, model and caliber, or I needed to treat each gun as something to upgrade with different concepts, rather than just stacking them. Eventually I put them aside until I had more money to y around with, and had ess to more guns in general.


    The next morning I set up the next motorcycle in the living room before spending a few hours doing some research with Ema. Eventually we found a cheap truck for sale nearby, one that I could use as my civilian vehicle. It was parked in the apartment parking by the end of the night, the repair tablet hooked up inside of the glove box. Ema and I had gone through the list of possible repairs, selecting everything that needed desperately to be fixed, but made sure it still looked like a six year old used truck on the outside, windshield crack included. The next morning came the real fun, a four hour trip to the DMV. With the truck registered and officially mine I hooked up my new license tes, drove back to the apartment to spend the rest of the night setting up believable Craigslist posts for the motorcycles, once again selling them cheap. This time however I advertised them as being avable much deeper in state to keep from selling too many things around the city. By the end of the next day I had delivered both of them, spending four hours driving around the state. I was sixteen grand richer and exhausted.


    I got a pizza to celebrate.


    When I eventually went to sleep I was out like the light, smiling as I imagined all the things I could buy and build.


    [center]-<em> Next Morning</em> -[/center]


    The next morning Ema and I sat at the living room couch, nning our big build day. I had gotten up early so we would have plenty of time.


    "Now that we have a decent chunk of money, and at least one, hopefully two ways to make more, it''s time to start really brainstorming." I exined, tapping a pen. "We can afford to experiment, try new things and make stuff that might be useful, rather than stuff we desperately need."


    "You should improve your under armoryer." Ema immediately suggested. "Maybe some titanium ting?"


    "Where the hell would I get titanium ting?"


    "You can buy it at metal working shops." She responded, before scoffing at my raised eyebrow. "Do you think I spend all my time on yourptop watching cat videos?"


    "Alright, first up is some titanium ting." I agreed, writing it down on my note pad. "I want to go back to another armor shop, see if I can find a full facial helmet, I think we can make one into something real special with the right items."


    "I think upgrading some of the stuff we already have might be good as well." Ema pointed out.


    "Some of it. I was already hitting serious diminishing returns in my cuffs and my ne." I exined. "For those it''s about finding new sources of those concepts, or finding new ces I could double up on specific enhancements. That said I could make some more arrows, and make my bow better as well."


    "What about a new weapon?" Ema asked. "You need some variety."


    "You''re not wrong." I admitted. "I''ll start dedicating some time toing up with something. For now I''m going to focus on more arrows and an improved bow."


    "Fair enough I suppose." Ema relented. "What else do you n on making?"


    "I have a few ideas for some specific things, but mostly today is about experimenting, finding new things to build with. When we are at the metal working shop I''m going to pick up anything that looks interesting, same goes for anywhere we go. Should also go shopping at some pawn shops and antique stores. It''s a Marvel reality, I''m just as likely to find a mystical artifact as I am to find junk."


    "When you get back, when you''re done experimenting you need to call Shield." She reminded me. "It''s been long enough, they probably have a response."


    "Yeah, I''ll do it after I''m done with everything."


    The day nned I got dressed and ready before heading out, leaving Ema alone in the apartment. I almost pushed out my bike when I remembered my truck, heading behind the apartment building and climbing in. The truck started easily and I couldn''t help but smile.


    My first destination was a metal shop two hours''s drive out of the city. While there were shops where I could buy simple metals from much closer, this ce advertised itself as having much more variety in alloys and metals. The drive was easy once I got through a bit of morning traffic, which I spent chatting with Ema one the phone. When we did eventually get there I hopped out and headed inside, immediately realizing this ce was not for arts and craft dabblers. Rows and rows of raw material lined the interior, all separated by what size, shape and forms of the metal. There were long bars of metal, square billets and t sheets. As I looked around, a worker came up to me with a smile.


    "Hello there, can I help you?" He asked, pulling off a glove to shake my hand.


    "Yeah actually I''m looking for two things, one simple and the other more broad. I need a variety of titanium stock. I''m working on an art piece and a client demanded it be made from titanium. I''ll need some sheets, some rods and a few hundred feet of wire. I''m also looking to experiment with a variety of metals. Tungsten for one, aluminum as well, but I''m interested in what sort of alloys and materials you have in stock."


    "We got plenty of titanium and aluminum, but you''re gonna have to be more specific about thest request. We do have some tungsten alloy but it''s rather expensive."


    "That''s fine. Let''s pick out some titanium, aluminum and tungsten, then after that we can go through everything else." I suggested, getting a nod in return.


    "Alright, we can do that. Our titanium is this way"


    The man led me through the warehouse and I selected five thousand dors in titanium, aluminum and tungsten alloy stock. Most of that was spent on tungsten, still only getting a handful of square tes a foot long and a few millimeters thick. It was worth it though, I managed to card a small piece for a moment and it was much more dense than steel. I also got a few bits of copper stock as well. As all that was loaded into my truck by other workers I tried to exin what else I was looking for.


    "I get a lot of clients who like being told something is particrly strong, fire resistant, stuff like that." I exined, leaning into my artist lie. "I usually just tell them some facts about steel and their ignorance does the rest. However, I would like to be able to brag about a particr metal''s heat resistance or its tensile strength. I know it''s a weird request but I''m basically looking for metals I can brag about using in my sculptures."


    "Hmm That''s a tough one." He admitted, pausing for a minute to think. "I think we have a bunch molybdenum alloy sheets, it is extremely heat resistant. Let me check."


    The man left me alone at the counter, heading back into the rows of stock, tools and materials. When he returned a few minutester he was carrying a spool of wire and a blow torch.


    "We still have some of the molybdenum alloy sheets."


    "I''ll take it, as much as i can get for a thousand dors." I said with a nod, before focusing in on the spool of wire. "What''s that?"


    "This is Nitinol." He exined with a smile. "It''s a memory shaping metal. Watch."


    He pulled out a few inches of the wire, then heated it up with the blow torch. He then bent it before sticking it into a nearby ss of water. After it had cooledpletely he took it and folded it around into a spiral, before clicking the blowtorch on again and heating it slightly. The metal slowly started to shift back to its original form.


    "It''s a Nickel and Titanium alloy, that when you heat it up and quench it, any time you heat it up again it will shift back into its original form."


    "Holy that''s incredible!" I said, honestly shocked. Who knew what kind of concepts that metal would have?


    "We have a stack of sheets and two spools of wire." He said. "In total it''s about another two grand."


    "I''ll take it!" I said excitedly. "That is exactly what I needed!"


    It took another twenty minutes to get everything loaded into the back of my truck. Once again I got a weird look paying in cash, but I was too excited to care, especially because I was wearing my face changing mask. Though it was slightly more understandable now as I passed him over eight thousand dors in cash.


    When I left the store I immediately carded the Nitinol, smiling when it had exactly the concepts I expected it to have. As much as I wanted to rush home and experiment, I needed a lot more stuff. So I focused on my next destination, thergest body armor shop in the area, and coincidentally one I hadn''t been to yet. It was a forty five minute drive away from the metal shop, though I stopped at one point to walk to the back of the truck and card most of the tungsten, titanium and copper, having noticed how hard of a time the truck was having.


    Walking into the shop I immediately headed to a rack of helmets, focusing on the full face coverage style. I could tell they were designed to be tacticool rather than actually tactical, but they were all still rated to be level three armor. I grabbed three different versions and carried them to the desk, quickly putting them down before walking back to the full body armor sections.


    After a moment of debate I grabbed a set of armor, this one that was specifically made to be worn over existing clothing. It was a series of rigidposite tes, held in ce by straps and buckles. The vital areas were rated as level three body armor, the rest being rated two. It actually kind of reminded me of thebat armor from Fallout 4, though not nearly as bulky. It came with leg, knee and thigh tes for my lower body as well as chest, stomach, spine, back and shoulder tes for my upper body, and vambraces and bicep tes for my arms.


    I ended up spending two thousand dors on the armor, including the helmets, five hundred dors on a ballistic shield, and another five hundred on ker inserts. The shield was incredibly basic, a giant rectangle with a slight curve on the short side, about three feet long and a foot and a half wide. It was only rated two but I would be modifying, so I''m sure it would end up improving. I paid and left quickly, carding everything as I sat in the truck.


    "Next stop, a convenience store." I said to myself, heading out of the parking lot.


    It didn''t take me much driving before I found a Walmart, so I pulled into the parking lot. I was in and out fast, only buying two dozen umbres, a few containers of cornstarch and a prepaid cell phone. I got a few looks as the cashier scanned the items, but I was honestly past caring.


    After that I spent a few more hours driving around, visiting a few stores and buying more of everything I had used to make my strength and runners cuffs, minus the jewelry, though i did go to a few jewelry stores looking for a torc of some kind, settling on a thicker brass one that had a small knob of metal at each end of the loop . After that I visited a hardware store, buying two dozen drill bit sets, multiple boxes of nails and screws as well as a dozen locks. I also bought two medical air filter units with extra filters and three half face respirators with a dozen spare cartridges.


    I did my best to drive back to my apartment as calmly as I could. I sang along with the music, watched the cars around me, even started going through what I would say to Agent Coulson when I called. It worked for the most part and I arrived back with only a few close calls caused by rushing. When I finally mmed the door of my apartment shut I turned to find Ema floating only a few feet in front of me. We were silent for a moment before I couldn''t hold it back any more.


    "I spent around fourteen thousand dors." I admitted in a rush.


    "WHAT?!" She shouted back, reaching a volume I didn''t know she could achieve. "How did you spend that much!"


    "Metal is surprisingly expensive! Especially tungsten." I exined. "Plus I bought more armor to make into a super suit."


    "I thought you already had a super suit!?"


    "No, I have my stealth suit and my casual suit. This is going to be an honest to god super suit." I exined, walking into the living room, uncarding the small stuff I had bought. "I''m going to wear it over my under armor suit and I''m hoping to make it boost me like my cuffs do."


    As I exined some of the things that I bought I finished unloading everything small before heading into the kitchen, carrying the bags of cornstarch I had bought. A quick check on the inte told me the perfect ratio of water to cornstarch, and soon I had a huge pot of oobleck. I stuck my hand into it slowly, pulling it outpletely covered in the thick goop. I carded it and repeated the process until I had a dozen cards of the strange, sometimes liquid, sometimes solid goop had several concepts, the concept for changing and transformation the most prevalent. I filled the still messy pot with water, letting it soak while I returned to the living room. I flicked out a card, one containing a single spool of memory metal and smirked.


    The card contained a few concepts, but one that stood out was transformation. I quickly grabbed an umbre and carded it,bining it with a single oobleck card. The two cardsbined and transformation became even more prevalent, and with another umbre added in, so did unfolding and extending.


    Standing I headed into the kitchen and pushed out the sheets of nitinol, leaning them against the fridge. I repeated this for the titanium and aluminum stock, before pulling one of the nitinol sheet back in, adding it to the amalgamation. Once again the transformation concept went up. After adding a third and forth umbre as well as a second card of oobleck the primary concepts were transformation, extending and unfolding, with protection sliding just behind them thanks to the umbres. It was weak however so I added in a few ker inserts to bring it forward.


    With a smile I set the amalgamation card aside before pushing out the tungsten sheets, each one only a single square foot and less than a quarter of an inch thick, onto the coffee table. The table started to groan so I carded them all again. For a moment I pause before carding an aluminum te, carding the table andbining them together. I pushed the table back out into its ce before pushing out the tungsten again, grinning when the table held withoutint.


    I grabbed a tungsten te in a card before carding a sheet of aluminum and titanium,bing the aluminum and titanium beforebining it with the tungsten. I could feel its concepts skyrocket, the aluminum''s light weight concept cutting down the tungsten heavy concept considerably. I added a second and third sheet of aluminum, getting rid of itpletely and making it actually lightweight, though only minorly. However I could feel a soft concept further behind everything, so Ibined a second sheet of titanium. My final addition was a sheet of molybdenum, adding a huge heat resistant concept to the sheet. The card now held arge sheet of metal that was incredibly strong, flexible enough to not shatter, rtively lightweight and incredibly heat resistant.


    With a flick of my hand I summoned the ballistic shield andbined it with the newly made metal sheet, and with a push I was holding it in my hands. It was the same shape as before, but the once matte ckposite material was a dark silver. It felt lighter than it had been originally, but as I carded it once again I could tell the protectiveness had grown massively. There was no doubt in my mind that this shield was way more than bulletproof. Quickly I repeated the process of making the metal sheet, applying it to my new vambraces, greatly improving their protectiveness as well. The resulting armor was sleeker, covered slightly more area while shifting to a metallic look and feel.


    "And now, for the final step!" I said with a chuckle that was definitely not manic.


    I summoned the transforming heavy amalgamation, studying it once more. Though it was filled with concepts I didn''t want, they were far enough back that I was pretty sure they wouldn''t affect anything. Mentally crossing my fingers I pushed my newly improved vambraces from their card, grabbing the armor for my left arm and recarding it beforebining it with my transforming card. I thenbined it with the improved ballistic shield. Holding the result card in my hand I could see that it was B ranked, exuded protection and defense like nothing I had ever made before, and still had heavy concepts of transformation, extending and unfolding. The image on the card still looked like a vambrace but had obviously changed


    "Wish me luck Ema." I said, wincing as I prepared to push out the card.


    "Good Luck!"


    I pushed the vambrace from its card and held it in my hand. I hurriedly pulled up my sleeve and attached the armor piece, strapping it tight. Once on I focused on extending the shield, but nothing happened. I frowned, lifting the armor up, examining it closely before finding a small button on the inner side. I reached out and pressed it with my thumb, my whole arm jerking as I do. In the span of half a second a shield, almost identical to the improved version, extended out in front of me. The process was almost fluid, though still mechanical as it unfolded like origami and extended out. Once fully deployed any seams or creases faded, leaving a perfectly shaped shield. Both Ema and I were silent for a moment, basking in my sess.


    "Does does it go back down?" Ema asked after a moment.


    "Uhhh."


    I quickly pressed the button again and the shield shrank, the process of extending and unfolding going in reverse.


    "Fuck yeah." I said with a smirk. "Now to figure out how to do that with the rest of my armor."

 Chapter 19: Commissioned

    Chapter 19: Commissioned


    The next few hours were spent giving my new armor pieces the same treatment I had given my new shield. First was figuring out how I wanted my armor to morph, settling on my upper torso armor being kept in my chest and stomach armored pieces while the armor for my lower torso would be kept in the hip pieces and armored belt. When I was done nning everything I made two more super metal sheets and applied it to my under armor. It was one of the most important things I had made so far and I didn''t want to run out of resources before I gave it the same level of improvements. The new addition changed the look of the armor considerably. The small ck metal tes that once made up the armor had grownrger, some now bands that encircled my limbs. The color lightened as well, bing a gun metal gray.


    After that I made super metal tes for all three of my helmets. I wanted the eventual helmet I made with them to be the most protective piece I owned. When I was done upgrading the helmets I used all but a few sheets of tungsten and molybdenum to make sure each te grouping was as protective as possible, applying a super metal te to each piece. Thankfully my bicep, shoulder, legs, knees and thigh armor tes were considered pairs and only needed one te for each.


    Once Ipleted improving the base armor tes Ibined all the leg armor together, including the crotch te, all the arm armor together, and finally the chest, spine and back armor together. The arms and legs were paired together into cards, meaning that I was ready for the next step.


    Quickly I pulled all the materials I had bought to remake the strength and runners cuffs effects, spending a minute remembering the order beforebining everything together. This time, instead of applying it to cuffs I applied the runners buff to the leg armor group and the strength buff to my chest te. The effects were not as effective as they were on the cuffs, but they would still give me a significant increase when I was wearing the armor.


    When I was finally done with that process I took a break. I had a beer, made a sandwich and watched TV.


    When I was finished eating I made two transformative amalgamations, using up a few more sheets of the remaining nitinol and a bunch of the umbres. Ibined the amalgamations with the armored hip and beltbination, beforebining that with the armored leg group. I quickly did the same for the upper torso,bining the transformative amalgamation into the upper torso group and then adding the arm group.


    Resisting the urge to check out my new creations I focused on making a helmet. I quicklybined two of the helmets with the medical grade air purifiers and thest one with the dust mask. Ibined all of the recement filters into three lots andbined one with each helmet beforebining the helmets together. The result was an incredibly durable, protective full covering helmet that should clean the air I breathed perfectly. My final addition was tobine the helmet with my bluetooth earpiece, a series of buttons appearing on the side. After Ema and I confirmed the bluetooth worked, I made a final batch of the transformative amalgamation and applied it to the torc,bining it with the helmet. I carded all three of the final pieces of armor, revealing three B ranked cards that were extremely potent concept wise.


    Finally done with crafting my new armor I pulled off my clothes, leaving me in just my armored underyer. I put on my armored belt, then my chest te, loving how it fit perfectly. I put on mybat boots, my vambraces and my torc, before pushing out my green leather jacket and improved pants and shirt, putting those on over everything.


    I walked to the bedroom and stood in front of the mirror, turning this way and that. Save for some minor bulk added to my chest when I moved in certain ways it was hard to guess what I was wearing under my clothes. I quickly carded the jacket, pants and shirt, leaving me with my upper torso armor and my armored belt. I looked down at my armor for a moment before finding two half hidden buttons, one just under the left side chest armor and one on the edge of the right hip te. I took a breath and pressed them both at the same time.


    The extra armor unfolded and extended much like the shield had done, fluidly wrapping around my body and attaching firmly. It was amazing to watch as the armor solidified, the tes forming and the seams that they used to extend fading and filling. It looked like futuristic body armor, a light metallic shine, noticeably lighter than the armored under suit it was attaching around. The under suit was visible in some ces, mostly where I needed to bend and flex, and provided a darker contrast to the metallic tes.


    After a moment of admiring my work, I reached up and pressed a button on the left knob of the torc. The helmet quickly formed around my head, enclosing me in my armor. It was easy to see through surprisingly, and the lightweight quality of the super metal I made meant looking around was easy, made even easier by my doubled up increase in strength. I flexed and moved, exploring my full range of motion. Because of the gymnastic knowledge I had, as well as all the stretching I had been doing, I could feel myself being slightly restricted, but it was negligible.


    Grinning inside my helmet I spread my legs and took a defensive stance, bringing my arm up and pushing the button on my left vambrace. The shield emerged in what was quickly bing a familiar manner,pletely deployed in a moment. I pressed again and watched it disappear before reaching up and tapping the button on the neck of my helmet, watching it slide and fold back into the torc.


    "Damn I look fucking good!" I said with augh. "Tony Stark eat your heart out!"


    [center]- <em>A Few Hours Later </em>-<em>-</em>[/center]


    It took me another few hours to finish doing everything that I wanted for the day. I bonded my deployable armor, my armored under suit and my cuffs to myself. My fingers were sore for quite a while after poking holes in them to get my blood. Surprisingly, nothing changed about them, making me think that the transformation only worked when I bound items away from myself.


    After that I used the rest of my arrows to make what I called tank killers. Abination of drill bits, nails and screws made arrows that I was pretty sure could have done what I did to Abomination by themselves. Despite that I added in all of therger caliber bullets I had as well, making twenty four of the most lethal things I had made to date.


    With the arrows stored in a card, and everything that needed to be bonded to me bound, I got dressed to go out, normal clothes over my armor, my torc around my neck. When I was finally ready I held out my hand for Ema.


    "I don''t know if I''ll be able to let you out at all, but I''ll feel better knowing I can if I need help." I exined as shended in my hand.


    "Like I was going to let you go alone." She responded.


    "When we get back we need to discuss making you some upgrades."


    "Sounds like a good idea." She agreed.


    I carded her and left the apartment, double timing it down the stairs and out to the parking lot. As I drove away in my truck I started carding my normal clothes, leaving me in just my armored under suit and my new stored super suit. After a while of driving I parked in an alleyway and started putting on my casual suit. After I was appropriately dressed I stepped out of my truck and carded it before walking to the end of the alley and leaning on the corner. When I was all set I reached down and activated my lie detector belt before pushing out my prepaid cell phone and dialing the number that Agent Coulson gave me. The phone rang a few times before someone picked up


    "Hello? It''s this Steve''s Pizza? I''d like arge chicken, mushroom, olive and extra cheese." I said with a smirk.


    "Hello?" A familiar voice asked. "Who is this?"


    "Hello Agent Coulson. It''s Maker, just checking in to see if you are finished with your tests."


    "Ah, Hello Maker." He said calmly. "We finished the tests. I should thank you, they kept me in for monitoring while they were running them. I managed to catch up on my reading."


    I paused as I felt the belt vibrate, frowning as I went over what was said so far, realizing he hasn''t responded to his name yet.


    "I''m going to assume that that was a joke? That you didn''t spend the time reading a book?" I asked. "I need you to confirm that this is Agent Coulson."


    "Right. Yes this is Agent Coulson." He said, getting no reaction from my belt. "Your lie detector works over the phone?"


    "Apparently." I responded before changing the subject. "So, is Shield interested in my projects?"


    "We are. Immensely." He said, his voice returning to its usual level of calm. "We would like you to start with Agent Barton. Clint."


    "Oh, sure, that works for me."


    "How much exactly will you be charging us?"


    I thought for a moment, scratching my cheek as I thought about how much I would ask for. I knew I could basically name my price, but I was restricted by my need for cash. Eventually I smirked.


    "Tell you what Agent Coulson. You can pay me whatever you want."


    "...What?"


    "Yeah. I need it in cash, preferably not just one hundred dor bills either. And half up front so I can spend some of it on production. But other than that it''s up to you."


    "I''m not sure what you-"


    "Of course you know underselling me would be a bad idea, as you guys want me nice and happy, making the best stuff I can. Not to mention that if it''s not enough to keep me supplied for my own experiments and work then I might have to seek money elsewhere."


    "You That is devious." He admitted. "Are you certain you need it in cash?"


    "Unfortunately, yes. It would make things much easier to be able to ept a check but I''m unfortunately limited to cash at the moment." I paused as I realized a ratherrge problem. "Can I assume Shield will be tracking the numbers on the cash?"


    "...Yes."


    "Don''t suppose you could order them to delete those records?"


    "I could." He admitted. "But I would likely be overruled before I could finish the order."


    "Fine, thank you for your honesty." I said, cursing under my breath.


    "Not like I have much of a choice. Where should Clint meet you?"


    "There is a restaurant in Brooklyn called Chrissy''s. I''ll be the redhead drinking a strawberry milkshake, under the name Jack." I said with a smile. "And I don''t mind if he brings some back up, but try not to rece everyone in the restaurant with Agents alright? The ambiance is half the draw in here."


    "Alright. He will be there."


    "Great. And make sure he has what I need to bind his new equipment to him. I''m alright with making him two pieces of equipment so bring enough for that."


    I hung up and carded the phone before smiling and walking down the street. I was a few blocks away from the restaurant, which I had actually never been to before. It was about five minutes before I reached the ce and another ten before I was sitting at a table in the back, facing the entrance and drinking a surprisingly good strawberry milkshake.


    About forty minutester I saw Clint walk in, dressed in civilian clothes, and talk to one of the staff before getting pointed in my direction. When he made it to me and sat down he was smiling.


    "You really know how to make a deal." He said. "It took fifteen minutes of arguing to decide what to pay you. The first half is outside in the car."


    "I''m d I could provide you with entertainment." I said with a chuckle. "So, Clint Barton. What would you like me to make you?"


    "Well The obvious thing would be some more impressive arrows." He said, leaning back in the chair. "But that kind of just seems like a waste. Could you just super strength me?"


    "I could, but think about this. You''ve been doing this, working for Shield, for a while I assume?" I asked, continuing after he gave me a nod. "Which means you have had plenty of time to develop what you''re good at. If I gave you super strength you would either only use it asionally when you had to, or you would redesign your entire MO to revolve around the fact that you are just around peak human, maybe a bit over."


    "That''s uhh Surprisingly insightful." He admitted. "So you''re suggesting I get something to enhance my strengths?"


    "That''s exactly what I''m suggesting." I exined. "What about something to improve your vision?"


    "Like what?"


    "Well to be honest it''s not something we have experimented with, so what I can ultimately do may vary. That said, I should be able to make something simple to see much farther at least, something that doesn''t look obvious." I exined. "Plus something like thermal and night vision as well. I think you will be pleasantly surprised."


    "Alright, I''ll take your word for it." He said, before asking. "You said you would make me two objects?"


    "That''s right, do you have something in mind?"


    "I don''t suppose you have an endless quiver?"


    "No, unfortunately I haven''t cracked that nut quite yet." I admitted. "My quiver is self organizing and gives me whatever arrow I ask for, but no bigger on the inside tech just yet."


    "Mine does too." He says with a smirk before shrugging. "I''m not sure what to ask for, I don''t know what''s possible and what isn''t."


    "Okay, how about this." I said, leaning forward. "I will take another genuine crack at making you a bottomless or expanded quiver. If I seed great, if I can''t figure it out I''ll make you something that will let you run faster, longer and recover stamina faster. How does that sound?"


    "I think it sounds like a win win for me." He said, reaching over the table for a handshake, which I dly took. "Sounds like a deal


    "d to hear it." I said with a smile. "Now as much as I''d like to have something to eat, all of your friends watching us is making me jumpy:"


    "I can neither confirm nor deny" He said, standing up from his spot.


    "Yeah, I''m sure." I respond, standing up and throwing a hundred dor bill onto the table. "Well, let''s get me paid so I can get to work."


    "How long do you think it will take?" He asked as we walked out, heading to the parking lot.


    "I don''t know. Probably two days each, unless I run into trouble. If I do I''ll let you know.


    He nodded as we headed to a normal looking car. He pulled out a set of keys and clicked the trunk open with a beep. As we got closer I saw fourrge briefcases and one smaller one stacked in the trunk. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow.


    "Two hundred thousand dors in hundreds, fifties and twenties." He exined. "Half up front."


    I did my best to keep the shock and amazement out of my face, reaching out and opening one of the briefcases, quickly carding all of the money, repeating this for the other three. I cracked open thest case and carded the contents, which were the ingredients for binding. When I was sure they matched Clint I stood back up straight to find that he was holding back augh.


    "What?"


    "You just won me a hundred bucks. I didn''t think you would fall for taking the entire case, someone else thought you would."


    "Paranoia has its uses." I said with a smirk and a shrug. "Pleasure doing business with you Clint. I''ll see you in a few days."


    "We will be waiting for your call."


    I nodded and turned around, calmly walking away with more money than I had ever seen in my entire life. I walked on the sidewalk, calmly getting around the corner a block away before breaking out into a sprint, focusing on keeping it within the realm of human ability. I ran for another block, looking behind me to see if anyone was following. I didn''t see anyone, but that didn''t mean no one was. Another two blocks I saw what I was looking for, a subway station.


    I rush down the stairs, putting on a bit more speed before having to slow down from the crowds. I wove between people and made my way to a bathroom, heading inside and locking myself in the handicap stall. I quickly carded my casual suit and adjusted my face changing mask, going blonde with average features. I quickly threw on my regr clothes and shoes and exited the bathroom, heading out into the crowds and up out of the station.

 Chapter 20: Upgraded

    Chapter 20: Upgraded


    I spent a better part of two hours randomly walking around the city, making sure I wasn''t being followed. I took the opportunity to contemte how I would solve the money tracking problem,ing up with a possible solution, even doing some shopping so I could test it when I got back. When I got back to the apartment I let out a sigh of relief and pushed Ema out of her card before heading to the living room. I stripped and carded my deployable armor before putting my casual clothes back on, flopping back onto the couch.


    "How did it go?" Ema asked. "You seem-"


    I answered by flicking a card onto the coffee table. Suddenly the huge stack of money appeared, some of it falling off the far edge.


    "Oh looks like it went well then."


    "Except we can''t spend any of it." I exined. "At least not until I can figure out how to do it without getting caught. They keep track of serial numbers, Agent Coulson confirmed it."


    "Which means they would know where you have been shopping." she continued. "Is that such a bad thing? You''re already wearing your disguise most of the time you go out shopping anyway."


    "I know, it''s more that they will be able to find out what I''m buying." I exined. "I might be able to slip it in once, maybe twice, but eventually buying three dozen umbres and cornstarch is going to tip them off that I''m not exactly enchanting things at an altar."


    "Is that such a bad thing?" She asked. "It''s not like they don''t know you''re making this stuff."


    "Yes and no. It''s not a bad thing because yes, they already know what I''m doing, the fact that I''m doing it with random stuff you can buy around the city would just be icing on the cake."


    "But?"


    "It''s a weakness and a strength, one I want to keep from them for as long as possible. It''s a strength because if they don''t know I can do it I can use stuff they won''t ever expect me to be able to. If Shield takes me into custody ''for my own protection'' they would be worried about me getting my hands on esoteric stuff, not the butter knives from the kitchen, or the cleaning supplies from a cart. If they do know how this works it bes a solid weakness because all they have to do to make me powerless is strip me and keep me from getting my hands on anything. Before they would be worried about me getting my hands on fire, or raw metal or anything, after they would know exactly how to make me powerless."


    "Maybe you should reconsider permanent enhancements then?" She suggested.


    "I haven''t ruled them out or anything." I admitted. "But I have no idea how concepts will work when I ingest them. I need to test it first and I obviously can''t test it on people. Eventually I''m going to see about getting my hands on someb rats or something. Until then all we can do is mitigate the weakness relying on items has."


    "Fine, then what are we going to do about the money tracking?"


    "I did a little shopping when I was out. We are down another seven hundred by the way."


    I started going through the bag, showing eighteen simple money clips and a huge stack of gift cards I bought. With a sigh of exasperation I carded all the money again, leaving the wads of cash that fell onto the ground. I put all of the stuff onto the table, carding each of the money clips separately and examining them.


    "I think, conceptually, this might work." I said eventually. "But I have no idea if it will interact properly with card scanning machines."


    "What are you trying to make?" Ema asked, floating in her usual spot.


    "Well, these are all reloadable gift cards." I exined, holding eighteen carded money clips. "And these are all money clips, which carry and store money. I hope that bybining them I''ll be able to make a card that holds my cash and will let me spend it like a normal card."


    "But most of that info is kept by thepanies making the card."


    "Exactly. I might be able to make a card that holds all my money but I have no idea if it will work when I want to spend it. I know the Deck has done some crazy stuff but Even if it does work by some miracle, using it might throw up every red g the banks or whatever look for."


    "What are your other options?"


    "I could give up hiding how my powers work and buy whatever I want. I could say screw it, make the money card and use it. Or I could go back to making my own money with the repair tool."


    "Well we should scratch the first one." Ema responded. "If the second one results in them catching on that''s one thing, but there is no reason to do that from the get go."


    "Alright, sure. That just leaves using the card or not using their money."


    "I think you should try the card." Ema said after a long moment of thinking. "Put some money in, if it fails then we can reconsider our options and if it gets some people''s attention then so be it. I know you wanted to stay anonymous for as long as possible but now it''s getting in the way of your building."


    "What about making our own money?"


    "It''s up to you Carson, but I don''t think that your business model was nearly as sustainable as you thought." She pointed out. "It is fine for making some quick cash, especially if we are careful, but setting up a shop and magically fixing cars is a good way to get caught."


    I let out another sigh, before nodding.


    "Yeah that might have been a pipe dream." I admitted, rubbing my face. "Alright, let''s see if this even works."


    Ibine each of the money clips with a single gift card, thenbine that with a second gift card beforebining them all together into a single card. Like usual I was getting serious diminishing returns by the end, but I hoped that it had been enough. I pushed out the stic card and checked out both sides. It was a little heavy, andparing it to my debit card showed that it was just a bit thicker than a normal card as well. Shrugging I stood, walked around the table and picked up a stack of fifties. I folded the stack and pushed it against the stic card  and it vanished.


    "How do you get it back out?" Ema asked.


    "I don''t think I can." I said, flipping the card around. "The clips had the right concepts but I think it got overridden by the gift cards I can tell it has five thousand dors in it though."


    "Well Let''s test it out tomorrow then." Ema suggested. "It''s gettingte and you''ve been running around all day."


    "Yeah Alright." I agreed reluctantly. "I''m ordering Chinese."


    [center]- <em>The Next Morning </em>-<em>-</em>[/center]


    The next morning I got up early again to brainstorm with Ema, my well used notepad in hand. We discussed my tentative ideas for Clint''s new sses as well as how we could make an expanded storage.


    "Why have you never attempted to make one before?" Ema asked as I started talking about potential solutions.


    "Because storage is a very simple concept. Stuff fits in space." I exined, chewing on the end of my pen. "It''s not scble. Things like protection, strength, durability, healing, those all get more potent when youbine things together because adding more of those concepts improves the concept. Storage is just.. Stuff fits in space. You can''t really scale up the concept that a box holds as much stuff as it fits because even if youbine the box with a shipping container it''s the same concept, the new box holds as much stuff as it fits. If I had ess to something with weirder concepts, like magic or some sort of space bending object I could maybe use that but I obviously don''t."


    "So what we need is something that expands that space." Ema said as I nodded my head.


    "Exactly, and I can''t see finding that concept anywhere, not anywhere normal anyway."


    As we sat together silently I started doodling in my notebook, letting my mind wander, asionally trying toe up with a new idea. After I finished my third doodle patch design I looked around the room, my eyes falling on the end table next to the couch. Sitting there, right where I left it, was the base to the statue I had used to make Ema. It was a circle of metal about four inches in diameter that rose up into a bubble, with material missing that fit the bottom of the statue so it could sit in it. An idea came to my head and I reached over and carded it, my eyes going wide.


    "I think I have an idea for your improvements." I said, holding the card out for her to see. "We were worried thatbining you with something would change you, right?"


    "It was a concern, yes." She admitted.


    "Well then let''s not. Instead, let''s make you something to pilot, instead of changing you directly! We will use your old base andbine it with a bunch of stuff to make it the controlling part of a bigger creation."


    "What kind?" She asked. "Maybe your truck?"


    "Do you want to be a truck?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.


    "No, that would be useful but limiting."


    "The base has a concept of being a mount, but it''s more specific than that." I said. "I think that if Ibine it with a few emeralds we can make it work. It should connect it to you considering that''s fifty percent of what you are."


    "Emeralds?" She asked, clearly a bit skeptical. "That''s going to be incredibly expensive."


    "Oh I know, but luckily spending a fuck ton on emeralds with the cash from Shield will enforce the illusion I''m doing something special, especially if I buy some other gems as well. Then I can test the gift card on some other stuff I''ll need."


    "What about Agent Barton''s equipment?"


    "We already have a solid few ideas for his sses." I exined. "We can brainstorm more tonight and go shopping tomorrow morning. Your upgrade is much more important."


    "Well thank you Carson." She said, bobbing slightly. "I''m going to stay here, keep brainstorming and maybe think of what kind of creation I want to pilot."


    "Alright Ema, sounds good."


    It took me another thirty minutes to get out of the apartment, but when finally I did I headed straight for the hobby store. I bought three of the biggest and most thorough radio control units and receivers I could find, five video game controllers as well as a bunch ofputer part upgrades. It took a significant chunk of the five thousand dors I had on the card but it was worth it. I dropped even more money on a top of the line cell phone, something I knew that Ema could easily interact with. I also bought a handy messenger bag from a store I happened to see when I was on my way to the jewelry store. I stuffed it with a few stacks of hundreds, giving me plenty of cash to buy stones.


    I walked into the store and was immediately greeted by a clerk, a salesman''s smile stered on his face.


    "Good morning sir, can I help you?" He asked as I got closer to the counter he was working.


    "As a matter of fact I think you can." I said, smiling back at him. "I wanted to get my fiance something special. I was thinking of buying her a few stones that she could design her own ne around."


    "Hmmm, well we certainly do sell loose stones. What were you thinking of buying for her?"


    "Two emeralds, two rubies and two sapphires." I answered, doing my best to seem casual. "She prefers the more colorful stones."


    "Of course, of course. Just give me a moment and we can start going over what we have."


    The man stepped away from the ss case counter and left through an open doorway, returning a few minutester carrying a foot and a half wide wooden chest. Behind him was another worker, carrying an identical chest. They ced them on the counter and the other worker left while the clerk started opening the boxes. A momentter the other worker came back carrying a third box,ying it on the counter as well.


    "Now, you said you were looking for two of each, correct?" He asked, lifting up the top of one of the cases and showing me its contents.


    The box was velvet lined and divided into shallow boxes, each one containing a small sealed bag, each bag containing an emerald and a small paper card with its details. I looked into the box as the man opened up the other two. The sapphire box was filled with several colors and the ruby had the fewest choices.


    "Do you take cash?" I asked as I looked into the ruby container.


    "We do in fact." The man said with a smile, though it was a little thin now. "You would have to wait while we send it through our counter and counterfeit scanner, but yes."


    I nodded and mentally kept track of which stones I wanted before listing them out for the clerk. His eyes went wide as I listed six of hisrgest and most expensive stones, two identical marquise cut emeralds with four otherrge cut stones.


    "Uhmm yes, alright. That would be... Of course sir. If you would just"


    I reached into my messenger bag and pulled out forty thousand dors in hundreds, cing them on the table. The clerk gasped and reached out, faltering for a minute before gathering up all of the stacks.


    "T-this will take a moment sir." He said, rushing off to the back of the shop. After a few moments I heard loud, agitated whispering.


    I turned around and found a seat, sitting and waiting patiently. Soon I could hear the sounds of a money counting machineing from the back room. Eventually the clerk returned carrying one stack of hundreds in one hand, a small box in the other.


    "Let me get your stones together and I will give you your change sir." He said politely, if not a bit nervously, putting my chosen stones into the box and handing it to me. I put it into my messenger back, carding it when it was fully concealed inside. After that he handed me about a thousand dors back, and was about to open up the cash register to make exact change when Iughed.


    "Don''t worry about it." I assured him, giving him a wave and taking the receipt before heading out the front door. "Consider it a tip."


    When I got into my truck It took me a minute to get over how much money I just spent in a single store. When I had finally recovered enough to drive I made a beeline straight home. When I was finally back in my apartment I was greeted by an excited Ema.


    "How did it go? Did you get what you needed?" She asked. "I had a few ideas when you were gone, and maybe one about Agent Barton''s second piece of equipment"


    "Yeah, I got everything we need." I said with a smile, kicking off my shoes and heading to the living room. "What were your ideas?"


    "Well I was thinking What would happen if you made a bunch of your transformation cards and added in a way to control it?"


    I nodded as she started exining her first idea, freezing when I understood what she was saying. My mind raced and I nodded as I worked through it in my head.


    "That sounds like the perfect solution to the flexibility issue!" I eximed. "That''s a good n! And we can work in the remaining tungsten, titanium and molybdenum! Maybe some Aluminum as well to keep it from being too heavy! Okay, we need to n out thebination order, this one is going to beplicated."


    I sat down andid out all of the things I had just bought, keeping the sapphire and rubies separate. We discussed the order for a few minutes before I started writing it down.


    "Okay, the first step isbining theputer upgrade parts to the cellphone to bump up its power and fidelity."


    I quicklybined the cellphone with all of theputer upgrades, the cell phone getting noticeably thicker and heavier but that was fine. I thenbined all of the radio controllers together, then the video game controllers. Ibined those together, thenbined the result with the improved cell phone. The result was an incredibly powerful touch screen controller that was heavy but its primary concept was controlling to a massive degree. Ema could still connect to it though, which was exactly what we needed.


    "This this is an impressive device." She said, the icons on the touch screen flickering as she explored its functions.


    "Well I can make you something like itter, for now, let''s make you something real special."


    We debated for a while whether tobine the emeralds to the stand and then add the controller or add the controller and then the stones. Eventually we decided we wanted the emerald connection as strong as possible, so we settled on after. Ibined them together and pushed it out onto the table.


    The controller had changed to a circr shape, slightly bigger than the base had been but not by much. In the center of the controller was an indent, a perfect fit for Ema.


    "Try it out." I said, gesturing to the controller.


    Ema flew closer, hesitating for a moment before slotting herself in. The screen went ck immediately.


    "Yes, the connection is better, I feel like I can interact with it faster, more directly. Still not as smooth as my own motion, though it''s hard to tell with nothing connected to it. It''s still a powerful device though."


    "Alright, let''s add some emeralds."


    I quickly added the stones, only after debating for a while if we shouldbine them together first, thenbine that. When I was done I pushed it out onto the table again. The device looked mostly the same, though the indentation, which had been ck was now the same color as Ema''s frame


    "Oh! Yes that that is a much stronger connection. It feels natural, like it''s an extension of myself."


    "Fantastic! Okay, let''s work on the second part!" I said excitedly, eager to create something for mypanion.


    I rushed back to the kitchen, rushing through a batch of oobleck and carding it until the pot was empty. When I was done I pushed out the remaining metal stock, carding the pieces I needed. I headed back to the living room and sat at the couch, immediately making myst two sheets of super metal, adding in more titanium stock to make it more flexible. I thenbined the sixteen cards of oobleck together once, thenbined them with thest of the nitinol. Ibined them together two more times. I added a sheet of super metal to each of the two resulting transformation cards before pushing them out onto the table at the same time. The two amalgamations slowly merged together as they went from solid masses of mostly metal to its more liquid state. I quickly carded it before it could shift too much. I now had a single card, a massive amount of transforming, shifting, state changing metallic liquid that was incredibly strong, heat resistant and flexible.


    I quicklybined the receiver units for the radio controllers together andbined it with the super metal hybrid I had made. I carded the super controller base and gave Ema a look beforebining the two together.


    "Well, that''s a good sign." I said with a grin, showing Ema the result. "Your upgrade is the second A ranked card I''ve ever made."


    I pushed it out of its card onto the table, ready to pull it back in if it started to run, only rxing when it stayed in ce for a few seconds. On the table was a perfect cube of dark gray metal about two and a half feet tall and two and a half feet wide. On the top was a slightly raised circr tform, the same indentation that the controller had in the center..


    "Well? It''s all yours." I said to Ema, gesturing to it. "Take it for a spin."


    She floated over to therge cube and after a moment, slid into the indentation. For a moment she glowed green before it faded and the cube began to shift. It was subtle at first, andcked any of the unfolding and extending that my deployable armor did. Instead it flowed like a liquid, shifting and twisting. Slowly a shape began to form, morphing into something humanoid. Over the next ten minutes the shape gained definition, the form of a vaguely feminine person slowly getting more and more defined and detailed.


    When the form finally stopped shifting and changing it moved slowly, still sitting on the table. The head moved until it was facing me, its facepletely nk and its eyes closed. When the eyes finally opened they revealed tworge emeralds, marquise cut, looking at me. After a long moment she opened her mouth


    And yelped as the table copsed, splitting in half and dumping her to the ground with a loud thud.

 Chapter 21: Eureka

    Chapter 21: Eureka


    The metal woman sat on the floor among the broken pieces of my coffee table, looking around as if wondering how she got here. Neither of us made any more sounds until she looked back up at me. Her hair was pulled back, though itcked individual strands of hair.


    "Ema?" I asked after a moment. "That you?"


    "Who else would it be?" She asked, still no expression on her face. "You saw me connect to this, and then saw me changing its default setting."


    "I I don''t know." I admitted, rubbing the back of my head. "I guess I wasn''t quite ready for this."


    Ema looked down at her body before struggling, trying to stand. She clearly wasn''t sure what she was doing, so I walked to her and helped her up to her feet. Her body was solid with absolutely no give, and heavy as well, though not ridiculously so.


    "What''s going on?" I asked. "Everything alright?"


    "Everything is fine. I''m just having to well program isn''t the right word, teach it maybe? A little bit of both. The creation-"


    "Nope, not calling it that, makes me sound like either a mad scientist or someone with a godplex." I said. "How about calling it your exosuit?"


    "I suppose that works." She answered as I helped her sit on the couch. "My exosuit needs to learn. I can control it pretty well"


    She said, raising her hand and transforming it into a variety of things, from a cube, to a pyramid to a cylinder, a second head then finally a pretty decent replica of Lady Liberty''s torch.


    "But the second I stop controlling it." She continues, the torch losing its definition and shrinking back to a hand. "It goes back to its default. The default was originally the cube that came out when you first made it, but now it''s this."


    She gestures to herself, her face stillpletely expressionless. She looked down at the broken mess of a table and stared at it for a moment before her legs liquefied and spread out, engulfing all of the smaller shards. She worked for a moment before her legs returned to their now default shape, all of the pieces she gathered stacked together in a pile before continuing.


    "Though it still returns to a cube when I''m not inside it. But I''m going to have to teach it how to move, how to stand, and how to emote." She exined, looking up at me and slowly smiling before letting her face settle back to expressionless. "It''s going to be an interesting process."


    "I know you can handle it." I said encouragingly, kneeling next to the couch, carding pieces of the coffee table and tearing it away. "I mean would you rather it somehowe pre programmed with all that stuff?"


    "I I suppose that''s a fair point." She admitted.


    "Where is your real body?" I asked.


    Her body rippled, her chest flowing and shifting to either side to reveal her small drone frame, still connected to the rest of the metal. After a moment her body reformed and smoothed out.


    "Can you shift it around?"


    "Yes, it can be moved around."


    "This this worked out a lot better than I expected." I admitted, shrugging when Ema turned to me. "I assumed it was going to be basic forms, something that would protect you, allow you to move and maybe even fight if need be. I did not expect this fine of control."


    "Well I am a named card." She pointed out. "And this is an A ranked card."


    "Well yeah but I didn''t know I was making an A ranked card yet." I responded, pausing for a moment before hesitantly asking my next question. "Uh soo. Should I get you some clothes or something?"


    "Clothes? It''s a bunch of metal and goop you turned into pseudo programmable smart metal." Ema pointed out. "And I''m still just a drone inside it. Why would I need clothes?"


    "Okay, well first you''re not ''Just'' a drone, I want that to be very clear. '''' I said, not willing to hear her belittle herself. "I will give you the same respect and rights that true artificial life deserves, which is the same that any natural born life does. If you don''t think clothing is important that''s fine, but it''s not because you ''just'' anything."


    "I Thank you Carson." She said after a minute. "For now I don''t believe I need clothes. That might change at some point."


    "In that case when you eventually go out into the world you might want to change up your look." I said, standing from the now cleared floor and sitting at the couch. "Reasonable people probably wouldn''t care after you exin it but if the average person is perfectly reasonable"


    "Than fifty percent of the world is less than reasonable. Alright, I''lle up with an armored or less detailed version."


    "It''s lower on the list, your ability to move and emote are more important I''d think." I said before adding. "But ultimately it''s your choice. It''s your exosuit, your form."


    "I appreciate that Carson and  sorry about the coffee table."


    "Eh, it''s fine. It was a piece of crap from IKEA."


    We both chuckled for a moment before I focused on my notepad, brainstorming ideas for how to crack expanded storage. It was hard to focus on it after what I had just made. After a moment Ema spoke again.


    "Oh, right! I had a thought when you were gone." Ema said, as I looked up from my notepad. "Haven''t you already kind of done a type of expanded storage? Your gloves and your lighter, both of them hold a lot more than they should, and the gloves even recharge over time."


    "I hadn''t looked at it like that, but I guess?" I admitted, frowning as I thought about it.


    I summoned the carded gloves from the Deck, studying its concepts. It didn''t have any concepts rted to expanded storage, or being bottomless. It had a slow regeneration concept, from the smoke I assumed, as well as a feeling of having more smoke powder stored in the small red tanks on the back of the hand than should be possible.


    "There''s no sign of expanded space but there is a lot of material? Could that be the key?" I mumbled, mostly to myself. "I need to test this."


    I stood up from the couch and made my way to the kitchen, absently carding all of the remaining metal stock. I had a few sheets of titanium, aluminum and all of my copper left over, but everything else had been used. After I was done I went through my recycling bin, grabbing a bunch of beer bottles and putting them in the sink, finding seven in total. I quickly rinsed them out beforebining two and filling it with water, then filling two with water thenbining them together. I held the modified bottles, one in each hand, tipping them over into the sink. The water poured out into the sink, but the bottle that was made from two filled bottles drained slower, the water line inside lowering much slower than it should be despite water freely flowing from it.


    I put the normal pouring bottle aside, carding the now empty abnormal bottle. It did not have any concepts rted to expanded storage, and was still empty. It did have a concept for holding liquid though. It was stronger than the other bottle''s as well. I pushed it from its card and held it in the sink, slowly filling it with water. Again the water line was moving slower than it should be, this time slowly rising as it filled with water.


    "That was it Ema!" I said happily, putting the remaining normal beer bottle back in the recybles and destroying the other two.


    "What was it?" She asked.


    When I walked back into the living room Ema had turned her head to look at me, but her face was locked to an expression of absolute horror. I stopped in the entrance way before realizing she was practicing or something when the expression morphed into a surprised face.


    "Your Uh Your hunch about the gloves." I exined, doing my best to ignore her changing expression. "I exined earlier that storage as a concept doesn''t scale? I was only half right. Storage at a base concept doesn''t scale. But the concept of storing something in particr does, but only if it''s currently holding that particr thing."


    "So you have tobine it with things inside?"


    "Yeah, but I think it has to be a specific thing, otherwise everything would be air storage and this wouldn''t be a problem." I exined, starting to pace as I talked. "In the same vein, I might be able to add some flexibility but too much and it must snap from being one specific type of storage to just being general storage."


    I kept pacing, wondering how I would work this new discovery into my arsenal of tricks. I wanted to test this out practically first and Clint''s quiver would be as good a ce as any. Eventually I turned to look at Ema.


    "Okay, I want to see if this works. I''m going to go to a bunch of sports stores and see what I can find. I should have enough time before things start closing." I said, already getting ready to leave. "Are you okay to hang out and work on that?"


    "Yeah, I am fine." She answered, extending an arm an extra few feet out to grab theptop. "Get enough to make two, adding extra space in your quiver would help a lot."


    I nodded, pausing to push my cash onto the table, grabbing ten grand and putting it into my modified card, recarding the rest. I rushed out the door, locking it up and headed out to my truck. Thirty minutester I was at my first store. Armed with my modified card and a lie about recing the archery team''s equipment I bought sixteen small quivers and eightrge quivers, as well as a hundred and twenty five arrows, all that the sports shop had. At the next stop I bought eight more smaller quivers and eightrger ones, making sure to get different styles and capacities and again buying as many arrows as I could. At the final shop, which I just managed to get to before it closed, I bought the same amount of quivers but managed to buy two hundred and fifty arrows of various types.


    The drive home was slow as traffic clogged the roads. Eventually I got so fed up that I pulled into an alleyway and carded my truck, pushed out my bike and rode the rest of the way home. When I finally got back I was surprised to see Ema walking around the apartment, albeit unsteadily.


    "Wee back Carson." She said, not stopping as she walked around. "Did you make it to the shops?"


    "I did, got everything I needed I think." I replied. "How''s the learning/teaching going?"


    "It is progressing, though not as well as it seems. I gave up on facial expressions for the moment, I got bored of watching people on youtube emote."


    "That''s a thing?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, making my way to the living room, unloading all of my purchases onto the couch and floor.


    "It''s mostly acting tutorials and demo reels." She exined, making her way to the living room, stumbling slightly. "I miss flying."


    "I''m sure I''ll crack that eventually." I said with a chuckle, going through my purchases, grouping the different types of quivers together. "Until then you could always leave the exosuit."


    I started opening up arrow packages and feeding them into the quivers. It was a slow process but my modified knife made it a bit easier as it sliced through every packaging strap, wire and zip tie. When I was eventually done I had two big piles of quivers and a few dozen arrows left over.


    "Okay, all set, now I just need to figure out how to do this."


    I picked up two smaller quivers, carded them, andbined them together. The result was a quiver that still looked small but could carry almost as many arrows as one of therger quivers could. I pushed it out into my hand and inspected it. The quiver lookedpletely normal. Five fletchings poked out the top, with no hint of any weirdness. I slowly pulled an arrow out and a new one reced it, seeming toe from deeper in the quiver. I put the arrow back and it seemed to slide deeper than the size of the quiver would allow, seemingly disappearing into its expanded storage.


    "That is bizarre." Ema said, floating above my shoulder.


    I jumped, my extra strength causing me to bounce off the couch by a few feet beforeing back down with a thump.


    "Holy fucking shit Ema, you scare the hell out of me! When did you get out of the exosuit?"


    "A minute or so ago." She answered simply. "I couldn''t watch you work in it."


    "It''s harder to watch me work if I die of a heart attack too." I said before taking a deep breath, noticing the cube of her exosuit in the corner. "And yes, it is bizarre. But it works."


    "How far can you push it before you hit diminishing returns?"


    "I don''t know, but now that I have money to spend I''m much more tempted to not care about diminishing returns until it turns into no returns."


    I picked up two of therger quivers andbined them together, before repeating the process a few times. After four morebinations I studied the card.


    "It''s still growing strong." I said. "I think the variety of the quivers is helping."


    I keptbining, this time starting a newrge quiver, againbining it five times in total and thenbining those together. Encouraged by the result I keptbining, even when diminishing returns started to show up. When I was done I pushed the quiver out into my hands and began the process of pulling out all the arrows so I could count them.


    "Two hundred and four arrows." I finally said. "That''s pretty damn good, even for a B ranked card."


    "It''s certainly an upgrade to your current quiver." Ema responded. "Assuming that''s what this one is for?"


    "Yeah, Clint gets the small one so they can fit it on his back with his current one." I exined while feeding the arrows back into the bag before carding it again. "I''m not making his auto organizing like mine so he will need to keep his current kit."


    I pushed out my old modified quiver and made sure it was full before carding it andbining it with my new expanded quiver. The result was still B ranked but could store two hundred and eleven arrows. I once again emptied the quiver, immediately putting my special arrows back before adding all of the arrows I had made so far. Noticing that it had plenty more room, Ibined nails and screws with the blunted tipped arrows I had just bought to make thirty extra arrows that were potentially lethal but wouldn''t do anything massively dangerous, like explode or pierce several inches of steel.


    After I was done admiring my new piece of equipment I quickly worked my way through the other quivers. I bought thirty six of the smaller tube style quivers between the three stores and when they were allbined down I had a single one that held a hundred and fifty arrows. I emptied the quiver, gathered and carded all of the normal arrows and carded Clint''s quiver as well.


    I spent a few minutes binding the new quiver to Clint, using half of the supplies they gave me to do so. The quiver went from a simple ck leather and stic tube to one ented with a deep purple.


    "Okay, that''s one thing down, tomorrow I''ll go out and buy everything I need to make Clint''s sses."


    "I''m sure Shield would appreciate the quick turnaround."


    "... Maybe I should let them know for a few days then?" I said after a moment


    "Why?"


    "Because, I told Clint that I would have to figure out both of hismissions." I exined. "This could be an opportunity to understate my power."


    "Except you already showed them you could make things quickly when you arrived at the second meeting, less than twenty four hourster, with an entirely different costume and abilities." Ema pointed out from the kitchen. "I suppose you could try and convince them that you had been working on it before but would they really believe you?"


    "No Probably not." I admitted, not pouting at all. "Alright. I''ll make his sses tomorrow and call him when they are done. Before that though, we need to get you some practice running, jumping and moving around more. Having you as back up would make me infinitely less paranoid when I go out."


    "And keep me from wondering if you''ve been caught when you get stuck in traffic." She shot back before continuing. "Do you have a specific ce in mind?"


    "Well unless you need something specific I was nning on switching to the super truck and driving to an abandoned warehouse somewhere. I know there are a bunch around the city. They should probably have enough space for you. We can head there super early in the morning and use the sunrise for light. You can practice your movement and I can see about getting familiar with my new deployable armor."


    "You don''t mind getting up that early?"


    "Please, my sleep schedule was doomed the moment I realized I was going to attempt to be a good guy in a marvel universe." I assured her. "Besides, I''ll get some sleep now and head out just before sunrise."


    "Well thank you." She said..


    "You don''t have to thank me." I said, waving off her thanks. "Even if getting better and more effective with your exosuit didn''t directly benefit me, this would be nothingpared to how you''ve helped me. Don''t worry about it."


    I stood and stretched, yawning as I felt my back crack, showing off my improved flexibility to stretch every muscle and joint. I turned, nodding to Ema as I walked to my bedroom.


    "I''m going to turn in now. Wake me up an hour or so before sunrise."<hr>


    <strong>Hello everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying the story so far. I''m here to remind you that I have a Pat_reon! It is at _/_MetaBettaOmegaLetta - In times like these every dor helps. I would like to thank everyone who is supporting me and everyone who is considering it. Thank you!</strong>

 Chapter 22: Leap of faith

    Chapter 22: Leap of faith


    It took me several minutes to really get my head started when Ema woke me up, but eventually I was awake enough to go through an abridged version of my morning routine. I took a quick shower while the coffee maker was going and dressed in loose baggy clothes. When we finally left, Ema floating beside me in the truck, the sky was still dark. We drove for a while before I found a ce to make the switch to the super truck. From there it was another twenty minutes until we found an abandoned warehouse. I quickly carded the truck and entered through a broken down door.


    By now the sun was starting to rise and the interior of the warehouse was just bright enough to see what you were doing. I pushed out the super truck again and started it up, pointing the headlights down the decent sized empty space, lighting it up a bit more. The interior was rtively spacious, withrge steel pirs every seventy five feet or so, about twenty feet from the outside wall. There were a few piles of rubble and scrap, mostly in the center of thene of the structure.


    "Think this is good enough?" I asked Ema as she floated around.


    "Yes, this is plentyrge enough."


    I pushed out her cubed exosuit and let her get adjusted while I put on my super suit, first the under armor, then the deployable armor over that. My vambraces went on next. As I stood there with basically a thick armored belt and chest and stomach armor I couldn''t help but feel a bit silly. My under armor was essentially skin tight metal clothing, and for my top half it was fine, especially considering my chest and stomach were still covered and my vambraces covered my forearms, even when my armor wasn''t deployed. My legs however felt very exposed as the armored underyer seemed to breathe well enough that it felt like I was severely under dressed.


    "What''s the problem?" Ema asked, now standing up in her Exosuit.


    "I don''t like how it feels when my armor isn''t deployed on my legs." I exined, showing off my left leg. "It kinda feels like I''m not wearing any pants. I''m gonna see if I can''t get my modified casual pants to work with the deployable armor."


    As Ema began walking around the warehouse, getting more and more confident as she climbed a few piles of rubble and scrap, I took off the deployable armor for my legs. It was a band of armored metal segments and small pouches, connected by a strong and flexible metallic band that went around the whole loop. With a frown I pushed out my casual outfit onto the hood of the super truck, taking the pants and examining them. I couldn''tbine them with the armor without risking the transformation effect, but I needed the lie detector and I needed an extrayer around my legs.


    After a few minutes of examining the problem I realized the solution. I wove the lie detector belt through the deployable armor and the pants, hooking into the belt loops before going back through the inneryer of the armor. With a little finagling I made it work, putting the belt buckle off center so that it was essible in the gaps of the armor. I pulled thebination pants, belt and deployable armor into a card, satisfied that it was treated like it did a container of something. After pushing it back out of the card I pulled the pants on, put on mybat boots and pressed the deployable armors activation button.


    The armor unfolded and extended down my legs, the armored ting strapping itself around the pants, seeming to still secure itself against my armored underyer. The armor molded itself down my boot as well, securing my ankle even more. I looked down at my waist and saw I still had ess to the belt buckle.


    "Well that worked." I said, mostly to myself.


    I activated my upper armor and watched it extend and unfold, locking itself around my arms, back and sides. It matched perfectly with my vambraces and stopped, leaving my hands unprotected. I frowned and pushed out my basic smokescreen gloves and started putting those on.


    "Ema! Remind me before I go shopping to make some better gloves? Maybe improve the smoke ones?"


    "Alright!" She called back from the other side of the warehouse.


    After another check to make sure everything was set, I put on the torc and activated it, watching the helmet deploy in front of my eyes. I shook my head to make sure it was secure before I jogged to meet Ema at the other end of the warehouse. I watched as she jumped into the air, making it at least fifteen feet up before she came back down. I stopped when I got closer and watched her do it a few more times, making it a bit higher each time.


    "That''s pretty damn impressive Ema, seems like you''re adapting pretty well."


    "It''s getting easier to use the exosuit as I teach it more and more about movement." She exined, turning and stretching, shifting her body in impossible ways. "Still need to try running though."


    "Do you want to watch me run?" I suggested.


    "That would help, yes."


    I nodded and made my way to the corner of the warehouse, a straight shot clear down the entire building. I took a breath before starting at a jog, slowly increasing my speed as I ran down the warehouse, turning when I reached the other side. I ran faster and faster, my footsteps echoing across the warehouse. Soon I was running around the warehouse faster than I had ever gone before, faster than the boost had gotten me. I could feel myself being limited by the size of the warehouse, I just didn''t have time to build up to my maximum speed. I desperately wanted to find out, to call out boost but I knew it would probably result in me mming into the walls.


    Despite that I kept running, feeling the fatigue barely even start to increase, my armor and my cuff working together to increase my stamina even further. I could feel myself slipping into a trance-like feeling, the sound of my breathing and the rhythm of my pounding feet blocking out everything until I looked to the side and saw Ema running alongside me.


    She was keeping up with me, her exosuit shifting to inhuman proportions as she did. Her legs elongated and shortened to get the most of every push, her joints moving with an inhuman range of motion as she pushed herself faster. Even more impressive was around the corners. When I had to slow down in order to avoid making a Carson sized dent in the metal walls, Ema had no such issues. She would extend her arm, wrap it around a support pir and transition to a sort of boosted series of hops that spun her around the corner <em>faster</em> than she was going at the stretch. After a few dozen moreps I slowed down and stopped.


    "Fucking hell Ema, that was impressive. You picked that up fast."


    "Well I couldn''t keep up at first." She exined, stopping beside me, her body morphing back to its default look. "But I realized I was limiting myself, so I tried getting creative."


    "I''d say that was a sess." I said with a grin, reaching out my fist. "Feel free to do that, just try not to freak anyone out."


    "No promises." She said, before fist bumping me.


    For the next hour or so we practiced moving around, jumping, rolling and recovering, falls and throws. At first I just watched and helped her adjust, until I realized while demonstrating that due to my twice increased strength my proprioception was all off kilter. So I started practicing as well, getting used to my increased strength and my armor. About an hourter we were seeing how many front flips we could do when we heard ppinging from the entrance, where the super truck was. We both whirled to see where the noise wasing from, finding a single man leaning against the truck, slowly pping. Dressed in a long ck leather trench coat, his left eye was covered by a ck patch.


    "That was pretty impressive Mr. Maker." The man said, pushing off of the truck and walking closer. "And I assume this is Ms. Emerald? I was under the impression she provided support from a drone, not whatever this is."


    "Who are you?" I asked, putting my hand down to tap my lie detector on, ignoring his question.


    "Nick Fury, director of Shield." He said, his eyes following the movement. "I assume that was your lie detector?"


    "It was." I answered simply. "Are we about to be ambushed?"


    "No. This is an off the books meeting." He answered easily, stepping closer. When he was about fifteen feet away he stopped. "As of yesterday afternoon, after all tests on Agent Coulson and his knife havee back normal, despite the fact that it cuts through steel like wood and wood like butter, you''ve been designated a high value consulting asset. Your existence is a level seven secret, but any details about your location and your activities are kept on a strict need to know basis."


    "And what does that mean for me?" I asked, doing my best to seem calm and collected.


    "It means, that as long as you don''t do anything stupid, the fact that the money we paid you with got tracked to a New York jewelry store, where a man bought almost fifty thousand dors worth of cut gems then left in a white pick up truck with a recently register license te gets brushed under the rug."


    I narrowed my eyes as he spoke, about to open my mouth and tell Nick Fury of all people how I won''t take to ckmail very well when he raised his hand to stop me.


    "That is not a threat." He assured me, and the belt was surprisingly still. "I happen to agree with you, that at the moment your anonymity is your greatest asset. We will keep our eye on anyone who might be trying to track you down, and in return you sell us your equipment at a reasonable price."


    "And I still get final say on who I make things for?" I asked. "I get to interview people and send the ones I don''t like away?"


    "What kind of questions do you n on asking? The ones you asked Agent Coulson are fine but-"


    "I''m not gonna demand lily white examples of virtue." I assured him, smirking now. "I know that some of the shit you do is necessary. I may not be able to stomach some of it, but I''m not dumb enough to think that makes it evil."


    "Then yes. You also have permission to subdue anyone who fails your test." He answered with a dangerous smile. "I''d be very interested in talking to anyone who fails the questions you gave Coulson."


    "Then I suppose it''s up to you if you warn your agents about it or not. Though I''d like to know either way."


    Nick Fury had a thoughtful expression for a moment, he nodded.


    "What about tracking serial numbers?" I asked before he could say anything.


    "You''ll be paid with cash drawn directly from a bank. No serial number tracking."


    "What about the money I have already?" I asked, flicking out the card that contained the remainder of the money.


    "There is arge container in the bed of your truck, as well as a hundred and fifty thousand dors, all with clean numbers."


    I made to move but Ema beat me to it, taking a wide berth around the director of Shield, grabbing the container. She also made a massive scoop out of her opposite arm, snagging all of the loose stacks of cash and returning to my side. I pushed out the money into therge container and she closed it, extending her arm out to push the case by Nick Fury''s feet, before carding all of the other money. I heard a click in my helmet then Ema''s voice.


    "Are you actually going to use this money." She asked.


    "Hell no. We will use the card until it stops working." I assured her. "Let them think I''m stocking it orundering it somehow."


    "I appreciate this." I said with a cough. The belt really didn''t like me being deceitful at all. "It will be nice not to have to worry about spending cash. We were working on a solution but this is good too."


    "Well whatever it is, don''t fuck this up. It took a lot to convince the powers that be to y softball and let me handle this situation." He admitted, pulling something out of his pocket. "I want you to take this as well."


    Again I made to step forward but Ema beat me to it, extending her arm out and snagging the phone, pulling it and dropping it in my hand. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow for a moment before clicking the phone on. Meanwhile Fury almost pulled his gun, the only thing stopping him was the fact that it was over before he knew what was happening.


    "That is a clean phone, no connections to you, no connections to Shield. I made sure of it personally." He exined when he recovered. "There is no reason for anyone to try and track it and only four people know the number. Me, my second inmand, Agent Coulson and Agent Barton. It''s for emergencies only, so keep it out of your cards so that if we need to contact you quickly we don''t need to send up smoke signals or wait for you toe out. I may know where you live but sure as hell can''te knocking on your door."


    "Alright, this is good, I''m d I have a way to get in contact for emergencies."


    Nick Fury shook his head with a smirk, putting his hands in his pockets.


    "You''re a hell of a lot easier to deal with than Stark, I''ll give you that kid. Even if your ability gives me a headache."


    "Not much I can do about that." I said. "Though I am curious. Why am I meeting with the director of Shield? I know my ability is a big deal but Agent Coulson was doing a good job. I haven''t even made anything yet, save Agent Coulson''s knife. Why all this trust? Why is Shield bending over backwards for me?"


    "The pitch I made to the security council is that with a soft sell we could gain a loyal Shield agent who could make our other agents unstoppable. That we have no idea how your abilities work and until we do we can''t risk pushing you one way or the other." He exined. "The real reason is that I don''t trust any group with your kind of power. Having constant ess to powers of your magnitude would tip the bnce of Shield too far in one direction. We may be a UN backed organization but we still walk a political tightrope and you my friend are one big gust of wind. We can''t fall off until we have a way to catch ourselves."


    "So my freedom has a time limit?" I asked, starting to get frustrated. "Your aware that-"


    "I''m sure that whatever you are about to say would be very threatening. But let''s not go there. I''ve bought you time. Use it wisely."


    I opened my mouth to retort before thinking it through. Time was exactly what I needed, time and money. With enough of those two I could build up my strength until whatever Shield could do wouldn''t matter. And here the director of Shield was, offering me both. He must have realized exactly what he was doing, Nick Fury was a lot of things through his many iterations but he is never stupid.


    "...Alright. I will."


    "That isn''t the only reason I''m here." He admitted, pausing before eventually continuing. "Have you ever been to New Mexico?"


    I blinked at the sudden change of topic before shaking my head "No, I''ve never left the east coast. Why?"


    "Have you ever made a hammer?"


    "A hammer? No, besides, the only item I have ever made that I don''t know the exact location of is Agent Coulson''s knife."


    Fury raised his eyebrow, as if questioning my honesty before nodding. After a moment of thinking he began to talk.


    "Very shortly Agent Coulson and Agent Barton will be leaving New York to lead another operation in New Mexico, to secure an anomalous object that appears to have fallen from the sky. Reports on the object are scarce but we are also getting readings of strange meteorological activities as well." He exined before pulling a picture out of his trench coat and holding it out.


    I walk forward this time, Ema following behind me as I reach out and take the picture. The image was poorly taken, probably cropped from arger photo, but the object is clearly some sort of hammer. A short handled, blocky hammer. It looked like Thor was on his way.


    "You, Maker, are the closest thing to an expert on ''anomalous objects'' Shield has." He continued. "I would like for you to consult for this operation. You would bepensated for your time, either marily or with resources you may request."


    I thought about it for a long moment before looking over my shoulder at Ema. She met my look and nodded. It seemed like the decision was up to me. On one hand, who knew what kind of interesting things I might be able to find during what could be Thor''s origin story for this reality. On the other hand, any exposure was a risk, and this was probably going to get bigger quickly.


    "Is this an attempt to woo me into a loyal Shield agent?"


    "No, but it''s what I told the security council it is."


    "You''re not afraid of exposure?" I asked.


    "As long as you''re not wearing your actual face and don''t give yourself away? No."


    I paused longer before finally nodding.


    "Alright, I''ll be your consultant." I said. "But I want it to be clear Nick Fury. I''ll follow Agent Coulson''s directions but I won''t be drinking the kool aid."


    "Hell of a lot better than what I would have gotten out of Stark. How fast can you be ready to leave?"


    I smirked and reached down, pressing the buttons for my armor, which folded away, leaving me in my pants and my chest armor. Thankfully changing my face with my mask was practically instinctual these days and I was currently blonde with green eyes and freckles. I walked past Nick Fury and grabbed my jacket from the hood of my truck, putting it on before carding the truck itself.


    "That fast enough?"

 Chapter 23: Travel

    Chapter 23: Travel


    It didn''t take long to run into our first problem. In fact, it happened at the entrance to the warehouse.


    "Are you going to change out of that?" Fury asked Ema, gesturing to her exosuit. "It''s not exactly inconspicuous."


    I looked at Fury with a raised eyebrow. There was no way Ema was leaving her exosuit, not while we were going into a Shield headquarters, especially not when we were on our way to say hello to Thor.


    "It''s my armor, and my weapon." Ema responded before I could open my mouth. "Are you going to give me your gun?"


    It took me embarrassingly long to figure out what was going on. Fury had assumed Ema was someone wearing a suit I had made, a mind boggling concept considering what she had been doing earlier, though we didn''t have any idea when Fury had started watching us. Either way this was something I could take advantage of.


    "You can''t walk into Shield headquarters looking like you''re looking for John Connor." He exined. "Even if we are parking in the back."


    Ema was about to retort again when I held my hand up, gently gesturing to hold on.


    "What about my stealth suit? Is that eptable?" I asked, already pulling out the cards.


    "The one you wore to explore Stark Expo?" He confirmed. "That''s better."


    I nodded and pushed out all of the pieces of the suit, including my civilian shoes that I had worn on the way here. As she put them on she nodded at me, which I took as a sign she understood what was happening. Once she waspletely dressed I took a look at her. The suit''s ability had definitely activated when she wore it, which meant that she counted as using an item, something we should have probably tested before. The suit''s ability was disconcerting but in the steadily increasing light of the day it was minor enough that you could ignore it. The only problem was ack of gloves.


    "Got any extra gloves on you?" I asked Fury.


    Fury raised an eyebrow and nodded, before turning around and leaving the warehouse, Ema and I right behind him. Across the street from the entrance was a singr SUV, ck, tinted windows, the whole shebang. And knowing Nick Fury it could probably tank everything up to an actual tank.


    "This the standard Shield vehicle or the Director special?" I asked as we got closer. "Pretty sure that level of tint is illegal in New York."


    "Don''t make me take back what I said about being easier to deal with than Stark." He said while giving me a look.


    Fury quickly handed me a pair of ck leather gloves that he pulled from the center console of his vehicle before climbing in. I shrugged, took them and handed them to Ema before making my way around the vehicle and getting in the passenger side. Ema climbed into the back seat on my side before putting on the gloves by pushing her metal into its semi-liquid state and solidifying it inside the glove.


    "So where is Shield headquarters?" I asked Fury as he put away his phone and pulled out of the small run down parking lot.


    "219 West 47th Street" He responded simply, his one eye not leaving the road.


    The vehicle was quiet as Fury drove us across the city, managing to avoid most traffic and eventually making it to our destination. We kept driving around it however, entering a separate building and an underground parking structure. We pulled into a spot specifically marked for Director Fury. Waiting nearby was a brown haired woman at parade rest, dressed in a dark blue Shield uniform.


    We all exited the car, eliciting a raised eyebrow from the calm faced woman. She fell in step with Fury as he made his way to an elevator.


    "Maker, Emerald, this is Agent Maria Hill. She is my second inmand." He exined as he stepped into the metal box.


    Maria put her hand out and for a moment I hesitated for just a moment before epting the hand shake. Maria Hill was a controversial character to say the least, which meant I needed to keep an eye on her, especially if she became director at any point. She shook my hand with a firm grip before sticking out her hand to Ema, who also shook it.


    The elevator started and rose five floors before it dinged and the doors opened. We stepped out onto a popted floor, people walking about their business. It was a three way split between people in suits and business wear, people in security uniforms and people in the simple Shield dark blue uniforms.


    "Agent Hill will take you to Coulson and Barton. Consider Coulson as your handler for now. You need something, ask him."


    With a small nod and a gesture Fury continued walking, leaving us with Agent Hill, who stopped and turned to us.


    "This way."


    Now being led by Agent Maria we were escorted through the building to a small area that was rtively secluded from the rest. There we found Agent Coulson and Clint, the first of which was going over some documents at a desk, while the other tinkered with a bow. When Clint saw me he smiled and nodded.


    "Good to see you, Maker." He said before focusing on Ema. "And Ema as well. Coulson didn''t think you would show up."


    "I thought they would be difficult to convince, not that they couldn''t be." Coulson rified, standing up from the desk. "I was however surprised to hear that Ema would be joining us. The way you talked made it seem like she wouldn''t be participating in field work."


    I opened my mouth to respond, a lie that we were waiting for me to develop better armor for her to apany me but I choked on the words, coughing roughly. I had left my lie detecting buckle on and forgotten about it. It took me a moment to recover.


    "My exosuit wasn''t ready yet." Ema answered in my stead, giving me time to recover. "Now that it is, I''m prepared to provide Maker with back up in the field and off it."


    "Is that just his stealth suit?" Clint asked.


    "Yes, but I am wearing my exosuit underneath."


    "When are we leaving?" I asked, steering the subject away from Ema and her Exosuit. "By the sounds of it this was an ASAP kind of thing."


    "It is, we are taking a helicopter from here to the airport in forty five minutes." Coulson exined, looking at his watch as he did. "We were just waiting for you."


    "Well that might be enough time for this." I pushed out Clint''s quiver, handing it to him. "Thanks for the push figuring out expanded space."


    "You actually did it?" He asked, clearly surprised, rushing forward to grab the quiver, turning it over and examining it. "How many does it hold?"


    "A hundred and fifty." I answered with a smile, using the shift in attention to click off my lie detector. "I kept it small andpact because it''s just a container, no special organization or anything like that. I figured you could attach it to your normal quiver or put it on your hip. It''s already bound and can only hold arrows."


    Clint nodded as I described it, a grin on his face that was hard to not share. When I was done he looked over at Coulson who nodded.


    "Fill it with what you can find in the armory, we are not going to bete for our ride."


    Clint nodded and with a smirk ran off, new quiver in hand. Watching him go I realized that somewhere along the conversation Agent Hill had also left, leaving me and Ema alone with Coulson.


    "I appreciate you making that for him." He said after a moment. "His ammo was his major weakness."


    "No problem. I was paid and I enjoyed the challenge." I admitted with a smile.


    "Is there anything you need?" He asked. "I understand you could carry most stuff with you but we did get you when you were doing something else."


    "I have everything I need." I assured him honestly.


    I had been making an effort to leave unneeded things at home, but I was still paranoid about being caught with my pants down. With Ema out and wearing the stealth suit and myself already wearing most of my creations my deck had my two trucks, my civilian outfit minus the shoes, my bolt cutters, my lighter, my stake out chair, a single pistol and a box of ammo for it, my wallet, modified debit card, the shirt from my casual suit and a hundred and fifty thousand dors in supposedly safe to use cash.


    "He needs some breakfast." Ema said, walking a few feet away and sitting down in a chair that was against the wall. "I ate before but he was going to get something after we were done."


    "I''ll have something brought up. Any allergies?"


    After I shook my head he nodded and sat back down, sending a text message before picking the documents he had been reading back up. I walked over to a separate table, pushed out all of the cash I had just been given out of its card. I tossed a stack of twenties to Ema, who caught it easily. She faked putting it inside the jacket but I assumed she had absorbed it into her exosuit. The toss served its purpose though as Coulson''s eyes followed the bundle of cash I was able to absorb a half dozen bundles into my modified card. When he looked back to me I was putting some loose bills into my wallet, where I also put my modified card. I debated putting my wallet in the pouches of my deployable armor but decided against it, returning it to a card. I did however hook my knife onto my belt.


    "Alright, I changed my mind. Could I have a bag of some kind? Anything from a garbage bag to a duffel bag." I asked, receiving a nod from average looking agent.


    "We alsock a way to detain people other than shooting them with an arrow or knocking them unconscious. And a holster or belt of pouches for myself." Ema added a momentter. "We could also use a better briefing than what Fury gave us."


    Agent Coulson smirked slightly, sending out another text message before putting his phone back down.


    "Part of the reason for that is we have very little information at the moment." He exined, pushing a few pages from the document he was looking at to the edge of the desk.


    Ema and I stepped closer, looking over the pages two were satellite imagery of a very small town,pletely normal in its appearance as far as I could tell. The other was a snapshot of a Facebook post.


    "A local found it this morning, his son posted the picture to Facebook. We found that in one of our sweeps for abnormal urrences." Coulson exined. "The town is small, less than a thousand citizens, nothing notable in the area. New Mexico is two hours behind us, meaning it''s currently seven in the morning. We should arrive around noon local time, before a two hour drive from the nearest airport."


    "Not a bad response time, all things considered." I said, picking up one of the pictures. "Is it going to be just us responding to this?"


    "We will be arriving first to secure the site before a full retrieval and quarantine team arrives. They are driving to the site as we speak from the closest Shield base."


    "Which one will we be doing?" I asked, passing the picture to Ema. "Quarantining or retrieving?"


    "The initial report ims his father was unable to lift the object. The few posts and messages exchanged since then have corroborated this. It was this phenomenon that inspired us to contact you. That and the abnormal weather patterns."


    I nodded and examined the image of the hammer itself before passing the image to Ema, who shook her head and put the picture down immediately.


    "Have you tried getting a better photo?" She asked, getting an odd look from Coulson.


    "We have no Shield agents in the area."


    "But localw enforcement must exist." Ema pointed out. "Even if they are outside your jurisdiction or just in inept, call one of the locals and tell them you''re a reporter and will pay handsomely for a few high resolution images. If nothing else it will mean your researchers can start doing what they do while we are in the air."


    Agent Coulson looked at Ema for a moment before standing and grabbing his phone from the table. He scrolled and picked a number, taking a few steps away to talk animatedly to someone on the other end.


    "Nice idea." I said, reaching out with my fist.


    She shrugged, but reached out and fist bumped me before picking up the folder the pictures hade from, and that Agent Coulson had been reading from. She waved it at Coulson and pointed to herself when he looked back at her. He nodded and gave her a thumbs up, prompting her to sit down and start going through the information.


    Not long after that someone came into the small area and dropped off an aluminum tray of food. I sat down and quietly ate while Coulson finished his phone call, returning to the desk.


    "Thanks, with that the boys downstairs will hopefully be able to tell us more about the anomaly before we arrive."


    Ema nodded, but stayed quiet and continued reading through the information in the folder. Eventually Clint returned, his new quiver full of arrows and strapped to the side of his old one, carrying a half full duffel bag. He ced it on the same table as the rest of my money. I smiled and walked back to it.


    "Thanks. Just trying to clean out my cards." I exined, unzipping the bag and looking inside.


    With a smile I reached in and began unloading the bag, pulling out two tasers with spare cartridges, two stun guns and four pairs of handcuffs, as well as a holster belt. I motioned for Ema toe over before putting a taser, a stun gun and two pairs of handcuffs into my belt. Ema followed suit, putting the belt around her hips and putting the other things in their ces.


    "Thanks. I had ns to make some more non lethal take-down stuff but hadn''t had the time yet."


    "No problem. Your quiver works by the way, thanks." He said with a smirk, reaching out and shaking my hand enthusiastically . "A hundred and fifty arrows. You just solved a literal nightmare of mine."


    "You''re wee." I said with a smile. "You should thank Ema as well, she is the one who cracked the nut on expanded storage."


    "Really? Thanks." He said, giving Ema a nod. "What was the problem? Or the solution I guess."


    "Well one, I do recognize an attempt to get more information, but I don''t mind answering that, at least not in broad strokes." I said, waving away Ema''s concerned look. "I was approaching the problem from the wrong direction. I envisioned creating something that contained more space than it seemed, a bag of holding type object. What I really needed was an item to hold more of something than it should be able to. A slight difference, but enough of one that I was able to connect the dots between it and a previous discovery."


    I exined, keeping the general idea intact while remaining obscure, as well as staying away from the idea of concepts. As I talked I stuffed my money into the now empty duffel, as well as pushing out my civilian clothes and my casual uniform shirt. Then I zipped up the bag and carded it. I was about to ask Clint what he thought about the color scheme of his quiver when Coulson got our attention


    "Alright everyone, time to head up to the roof." Agent Coulson said, standing from his desk. "The helicopter justnded."


    Clint nodded and grabbed his things, while Ema stood from her seat, put the folder down on the corner of the desk before making her way to me. It was a quick walk to the elevator, before a longer ride to the top floor. I was slightly nervous about being on a helicopter but I steeled myself with a deep breath.


    When we stepped out onto the roof the helicopter was already spun up. We climbed in one after the other, with Agent Coulson helping Ema and myself buckle in and put our headphones on. When the vehicle took off, Ema distracted me by talking about what she had read in the file.


    "Atmospheric disturbances before something falls from the sky?" She asked. "They are clearly connected."


    "Probably!" I shouted, before wincing and speaking into the microphone. "Probably"


    "Do you have any theories?" The suit d agent asked.


    "No, I might once we are there or maybe when we get some better pictures."


    "How are you going to get those?"


    While Agent Coulson was describing Ema''s idea and how they were actually implementing it I put my hand around her back, a casual gesture that could easily be exined. She stiffened for a moment but rxed quickly. I smiled at her and began slowly writing on her back with my finger. It took more than a few minutes but I managed to write the message "I know. Thor''s Hammer. Origin Story?" out. When I was done she gave me a subtle nod. A few minutester wended at JFK airport, jumped out of the helicopter and climbed into a small ck jet.


    The interior was sleek and clearly custom, with aplicated multi screenputer setup to one corner of the interior and severalrge seats including a couch. The whole interior was leather and wood paneling.


    "Damn, you guys travel in style like this a lot?" I asked as I sat down on afortable seat. "Or did you guys roll out the special treatment?"


    Clint and Agent Coulson shared a look before Clint answered with a shrug.


    "It happens, but when you''re in a rush you get whatever is quickest." He exined. "We could have just gotten lucky"


    "Or someone is trying to impress me." I finished with a nod. "Either way, it looks like we will be able to rx for the next five hours. I''m not going toin."


    I smirked and reclined in my seat while Ema chuckled. I put my hands behind my head and rxed as much as I could, the ne already starting to taxi to the runway.

 Chapter 24: Set up

    Chapter 24: Set up


    The flight wasrgely uneventful. At first Clint and I talked about the finer points of archery, which I felt a bit bad about considering the only reason I could keep up was my archery ring. It passed the time however, and I think I actually learned a thing or two. After that, while Clint talked to the pilot and Ema and Coulson talked about the quarantine and retrieval protocol, I focused on what the next few days might include.


    I knew from Ema''s more recent research sessions that Dr. Donald ke was in fact around, contrary to what the research I did when I first arrived said. Unfortunately Ema couldn''t find much on him besides the fact that he was a Doctor in Virginia. While I couldn''t look him up at the moment I was preparing myself to deal with him, which was a conundrum in and of itself. Donald ke got one hell of a bum deal in theics, and I wanted to help prevent that if he was involved. But I had no idea if what had happened in theics would happen here at all. I was going to have to y it by ear, try and help how I could without fucking anything up because of pre conceived notions. Also, without pissing off Odin. That would be bad.


    After three hours had passed Coulson got a message on his phone. He checked it and quickly made his way to theputer, tapping on the keys for a moment before speaking.


    "We got our updated pictures. The local sheriff used an evidence camera to snap some photos. Come take a look." He said, leaning back from theputer screen. "He also said it''s heavier than anything he has ever seen or heard of, no one could budge it."


    "Yeah that''s a hammer." I said, shrugging and shaking my head as I looked over Coulson''s shoulder.


    "Any Ideas?"


    "No, nothing beyond the fact that even if it was made from heaviest metal on Earth the handle would be enough leverage to atleast rock it side to side." I pointed out before continuing. "If it''s not budging then something is keeping it from budging."


    "Yeah But what?"


    "I don''t know for sure, it could be a personal binding like I do, or it could be something else entirely."


    Eventually the group spread back out around thefy interior, doing their own thing for the remainder of the flight. Not too long after the jet came in for anding in a small New Mexico airport and we quickly disembarked, all four of us piling into another ck SUV, despite my offer to drive in my surprisingly spacious super truck. Instead Clint and Coulson sat in the front while Ema and I sat in the back. Despite the spacious interior I was happy my armor waspact andfortable.


    "Originally I was going to head up a bitter, once everything was set up." Clint admitted as we pulled out of the small airport. "But you guys agreed to go early enough to head out with Coulson, and well"


    "They didn''t want us to be alone with him." I finished with a nod. "For future reference we won''t be insulted by reasonable security issues."


    Clint winced and looked apologetic, while Agent Coulson simply shrugged as he drove. The sun was just starting its afternoon descent when we pulled into a gas station, only an hour from the impact site. Clint got out of the car to start pumping gas when Coulson looked over his shoulder at us.


    "Do you guys want anything?" He asked.


    "Something to drink?" I asked with a shrug. "Water would be fine."


    He nodded and stepped out of the car, asking Clint the same question before heading into the shop. I focused back on my phone, reading through local news stories and scanning through the small time paper of the closest town to the hammersnding site, Puente Antiguo. As I was reading an article about a local diner getting new seats, Ema gave me a nudge and pointed.


    "Look, going into the gas station."


    I followed her finger and looked, watching two extremely nervous men looking around as they went inside. As they stepped in they both pulled out shotguns, aiming at the woman behind the counter.


    "Shit, okay lets-"


    I opened my door by a few inches when Clint stopped me, crouching right next to it and holding it in ce.


    "Stay inside." He said, peeking over the back of the car, watching the robbery. "Coulson can handle this and introducing more variables could just set the gunmen off."


    Reluctantly I nodded and stopped trying to open my door, moving back to watch from the back seat. I moved just in time to watch Coulson do some sort of shelf assisted jump before a shotgun went off. Before I could even blink, Coulson had both of the gunmen down and out.


    "Holy shit"


    "Yeah, he is easy to underestimate, but Coulson knows what he is doing." Clint said with a smirk, standing and finishing with the gas pump.


    As Coulson exited the building and made his way back to the car he looked perfectly calm and normal, looking everything like a normal guy. As both he and Clint climbed back into the car Coulson looked over his shoulder and passed me a water bottle.


    "Sorry about that." He apologized. "Took longer than I thought."


    I just stared at him for a moment, before finally taking the water bottle with a nod. I shared a look with Ema before cracking the water bottle open and taking a sip. I needed to remember not to underestimate Coulson.


    [center]- <em>A Short Time Later</em> -[/center]


    The rest of the drive was uneventful, with Clint and I taking naps while Ema kept vigil and Coulson drove. Eventually we reached our destination, or rather a ridge overlooking our destination. Arge crater sat at the bottom of arge hill, its rim was maybe six feet above the dirt around it, while the crater itself was maybe thirty feet deep. Around the outside were dozens of tire tracks, meaning that while only one car was here now, a truck with a set of police lights on the roof, there had once been a lot more.


    "Looks like the sheriff cleared everyone out." Clint said, looking down at the crater through some binocrs. "He is all by himself down there currently trying to lift the hammer."


    "Of course he is." Coulson responded, pulling out his cellphone and stepping away.


    "Are we going to go down there?" I asked after a long moment. "Or are we waiting for the calvary?"


    "She''s busy." Coulson said,ing back from his phone call. "But the Quarantine and Retrieval team will be here within the next half hour. Let''s get down there to start surveying and get a closer look."


    We drove the SUV down to the crater, parking far enough away for a perimeter to be set up when the team got here. We stepped out of the car and back into the heat of the aridndscape, slowly making our way to the edge of the crater, while Coulson peeled off to talk to the sheriff, who was pretending to have been in his truck the whole time.


    "That yeah damn that''s strange." Clint said as we looked down into the crater.


    "You guys have a geiger counter in the car?" I asked, still looking down at the hammer. "Might be a good ce to start."


    "We have a small kit meant to detect when it''s getting dangerous, but nothing precise"


    For the next half hour we paced around the crater, studying the hammer from afar. When the Q&R team finally arrived there was an almighty flurry of activity. Clint pulled me and Ema to the side to keep us out of everyone''s way, and to keep everyone''s curiosity from slowing them down. About thirty minutes after they arrived I spotted Coulson talking with another agent , leading even more agents to the cars. I intercepted them, Ema trailing behind me.


    "Coulson, what''s going on?" I asked as he stopped.


    "There is an astrophysicist in town who was studying astrological anomalies." He exined. "We are going to see what kind of data they have on thest few days, see if it has anything to do with the hammer."


    "Are you going to let me take a closer look?"


    Coulson pursed his lips slightly for a moment before looking at the other agent.


    "This is Agent Sitwell. He is in charge of the science teams." Coulson said, gesturing to the bald man. "Once he deres the hammer safe for closer examination you can take a look at it."


    I reached out and shook Agent Sitwell''s hand, who nodded in return. I vaguely remembered an Agent Sitwell from theics, though I wasn''t sure if I was forgetting something.


    "Hello Maker. I''ve read your file." He said, giving me a solid if light handshake. "I''m interested in what you make of the hammer."


    We walked back to the crater, the framework for a simple temporary stic structure already being set up. Computers, desks, lights, metal doors, a crane, things were being set up at an incredible speed. After about twenty minutes the first scientists were running geiger counters, scanners and imaging wands over every inch of the crater.


    "So I''m sure Coulson asked you this already, but any theories?" Agent Sitwell asked.


    We were both watching the istion suited scientists as they did their work, leaning on the metal railing of the central metal and stic sheet building.


    "Something is obviously off." I pointed out. "It''s being held by something, stuck to the ground or held in ce. And they are already getting some abnormal electrical interference. My guess is that it''s waiting for someone toe get it."


    "...Who?" He asks, an eyebrow raised.


    "Not the slightest clue." I lied. "But since it somehow got here, it''s clearly capable of moving or being moved. Since so far no one has been able to budge it, that tells me none of us meet the requirements. If I can bind things to someone, it would make sense that someone else can too."


    "So you think someone is going toe looking for it?" He confirms before continuing. "What should we do when they get here?"


    "Don''t piss them off." I answered simply. "Anyone who can do this is either connected enough to buy it or special enough to make it."


    Eventually the scientists empty out into the now finished outer areas to analyze their data, letting Clint, Ema and I climb down to the dirt. All three of us stand around the hammer, examining it closely.


    "I''m assuming people have already made note of it being ''vaguely celtic''" I asked, looking up at Agent Sitwell


    "Yes, we have historians andnguage experts already looking over the carvings and style."


    I nodded, before stepping closer to the hammer and gripping the handle, setting up my stance before giving it a pull with a significant portion of my strength. My feet dug into the earth but the hammer stayedpletely still, not shifting in the slightest. I nodded, not having believed I was worthy by any definition anyway.


    "Has anyone tried smashing the rock under it?" I suggested, taking a step back. "I can be a bit stronger but it didn''t even budge."


    "It was suggested but no one has attempted it yet." He responded.


    "Call it n B then." Clint suggested. "Are you going to try and card it?"


    "Do you guys trust me to try it?" I asked. "I felt you all tense up when I touched it before."


    "Higher ups are a bit nervous about you making off with something" Agent Sitwell admitted. "n C then?"


    "More like n Z." I corrected. "I''d rather not test the limits to my greatest creation on an item that shows signs of having infinite mass without infinite weight."


    And that was a genuine concern. My cards had a limit and I felt it when that limit was brushed, felt it in what I was beginning to think was my soul. I had no idea how the deck would handle Mjolnir and I certainly didn''t want to kill myself trying.


    "I''d like to take a look at the readings you''ve gathered." Ema called up to Agent Sitwell, who nodded in response.


    "Come on up, I''ll introduce you to the onsite team."


    Ema gave me a look and I nodded, watching as her stealth suit d form easily climbed thedder up and out of the shallow pit we had been in.


    I continued to examine the hammer for another few minutes, idly chatting with Clint. I was pretty sure he was here to keep an eye on me as much as anything, though I didn''t mind. Eventually the topic shifted from the hammer to his next piece of equipment.


    "I got caught up in figuring out your quiver and finishing Ema''s exosuit." I admitted. "Your sses shouldn''t take long after we get back."


    "I thought you would have to figure that out too." He asked, leaning back at the metal framework of the quarantine structure.


    "Yes, but the effects aren''t nearly as elusive as expanded storage had been." I exined as I stood up straight from examining the strap of the hammer. "When we get home I might take a day to rest but-"


    "Maker, Clint!" Ema called from higher up. "Coulson just returned. He brought back the astrophysicist''s research."


    "Huhshall we?" I asked, gesturing to thedder. "I''m curious why he felt like it needed toe back with him."


    We both climbed up and headed out of the structure, following Ema to where Coulson was. We found him watching Shield agents unloadputers, equipment, sheafs of paper and folders full of pictures. He held a ck notebook in his hand, idly looking through it.


    "Wee back Coulson." I called out as we got closer. "Looks like you found something good?"


    "It appears that way." He said with a nod before handing off the book to someone. "Get someone to read that specifically." He instructed before turning back to Clint.


    "Dr. Foster has been out in the desert chasing some sort of astrological anomaly." He exined. "There is arge chance her equipment picked up data from when the hammernded. Better yet this was the quadrant she was focusing on during the hammer''s arrival window."


    "Wait, Foster as in Jane Foster?" I asked, internally wincing at my inability to keep my mouth shut."


    "Yes, do you know her?" Agent Coulson asked with a look as we climbed into the protection of the temporary structure.


    "No, not personally." I rified. "Her name is just familiar."


    "She came up in our research." Ema said, covering for me. "When you first started using your abilities."


    "Right!" I said with a nod. "We spent some time trying to figure out what was going on. Looked up a lot of weird stuff online."


    "Either way she should have recorded some interesting data." Coulson said, stepping into what was quickly being turned into amand center of sorts. "Feel free to look at it, tell us if you think of anything."


    "Will Dr. Foster be joining us soon or?" I asked, slowly trailing off as Agent Coulson looked over at me.


    "Dr. Foster won''t be joining us." He said. "We confiscated the data and her equipment."


    Me and Ema shared a look before I turned back at Coulson.


    "Wait Let me get this straight. You saw a scientist, working on something that is potentially connected to what we are here for, an expert in her field and instead of working with her you stole her shit?"


    "It''s standard Shield procedure." Sitwell exined, looking up from the paper covered table he was leaning on. "We have no idea how she was involved, what her background is. Outside assets cannot be added into the equation too quickly. I''m sure she was properlypensated."


    "Yeah good job. Definitely not going toe back and bite you in the ass." I said, shaking my head before I turned and made my way to the door.


    "Where are you going?" Agent Coulson asked.


    "I''m going for a walk."

 Chapter 25: You cant handle the truth

    Chapter 25: You can''t handle the truth


    In the end I didn''t go far. While part of me wanted to go into town and see if I could find Jane Foster, mostly because I knew Thor would probably stumble into her at some point, I knew someone would absolutelye for the hammer, probably Thor.


    So instead of seeking Dr. Foster out, I passed the time by helping out around the site, lifting heavy things and using the deck to get everything in ce. When I was finally ready to call it a day, the sun was beginning to set. As I sat down for a minute to recover from the work, Ema came out to me with two trays of food.


    "Hey, we need to find somewhere private to eat if we want to pretend I ate too." She said softly, passing me one of the trays.


    I nodded and we walked off site, finding a rock outcropping a few hundred feet from the camp. I ate slowly, Ema "eating" beside me as she would bite something and force it down through her leg and out onto the ground. Every once in a while I would card the pile and tear it, destroying the evidence. Anyone focusing on us for long enough would have probably noticed a pattern despite my best efforts to seem random but it worked well enough, especially since we could y off odd behavior as being worried about our identities.


    When we finished the light from the sun was almostpletely gone. I was about to ask Ema if we should just jump the fence rather than go all the way around when a distant roll of thunder rumbled through. Ema and I shared a look.


    "Think that means?"


    "Yeah, let''s go hang out by the hammer." I said, taking a look around before leaping over the fence.


    We got a few looks but by now everyone had learned about the special consultant. We got halfway to the hammer when red lights started shing and a xon rm sounded. With a look Ema and I rushed through the stic temporary structure, heading right for the Hammer.


    "Alright, still there." I said with a sigh as we looked down at the hammer. "Now we wait."


    As I spoke the rain began to slowly fall on the stic above us. It made listening for any important details impossible, though distant shouts were audible. I looked over at a ratherrge Shield agenting our way and gestured with my head.


    "I''ve got this side, cover the other entrance." I said, watching him hesitate before nodding, walking around to the other side.


    As we stood there waiting I carded my jacket and with two button presses activated my armor. The now familiar pressure of my armor epassing me made me smile, and I double checked everything. I caught therge Shield agent watching, his mouth open as he watched me get ready. I smirked and shrugged before focusing down the entrance, the nging sound of heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor. When the source of the footsteps came around the corner I couldn''t help but smile wider. That was a pretty obvious Thor.


    "Hello." I said, holding both my hands out, open palmed. "Everyone seems so eager to fight today. Perhaps we could talk first?"


    "I have no interest in talking young warrior." He said, slowing down but still walking with a confident swagger that was immediately obnoxious "You cannot keep me from what is rightfully mine! I am Thor, son of Odin and-"


    I activated my helmet and squared up, lifting both of my arms into a defensive position as my torc extended around my head. Immediately I heard the tone of Ema connecting to my bluetooth connection.


    "Get back and cover me." I exined softly. "I''m pretty sure he is just at human strength without his hammer, but don''t let him kick my ass too much if I''m wrong."


    Before I could continue Thor seemed to finish with his speech, finallying at me. He reached out, as if to try and grapple me, but I pped his hand away, mming my fist into his shoulder . He looked at me with surprise, before smirking, rubbing where I had hit him.


    "You''re a strong one." He admitted, but smirked. "I''ve fought stronger."


    He rushed me, shoulder lowered in an attempt to m into me and drive me off my feet. I stepped back, giving myself better footing to knock his foot out of ce with a kick. I pulled it considerably, worried that without his hammer I would shatter his leg. The kick threw his charge off, stumbling slightly but quickly recovering. He used his momentum to throw a right hook, attempting to catch me in my jaw. Unfortunately for him it did seem as if he was much weaker without his hammer as I had plenty of time to block his punch, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him off center.


    I drove a punch into his side as I used his arm as leverage. Pouring on the extra strength I locked my hand around his wrist and pulled it behind him.


    "You said your name was Thor?" I asked, ignoring the elbows he was throwing back at me with his free arm. "Why don''t we sit down and have a chat? There is no reason to-"


    "Maker! Coulson is saying to throw the fight." Ema suddenly said into my ear. "He wants to see what happens."


    I cursed under my breath and waited for Thor to try and break free again, releasing him and stumbling back. The blonde Asgardian whirled around and kicked me in the chest. I barely felt it through my chest and under armor, but I stumbled back even further, sprawling out. Slowly I began to try and sit up but Thor wound up and booted me across the face. I fell again, this time actually feeling it.


    "Ema make a note impact absorption." I said softly as I yed dead, watching Thor climb down into the pit where his hammer was.


    As he climbed down I lost sight of him, my head pointed in the wrong direction.


    "Describe what he is doing." I asked Ema under my breath.


    "He is trying to lift it." She answered. "It''s not going so well"


    I could hear him groaning and grunting as he tried to lift the hammer, struggling against what I assumed was an enchantment by Odin. Eventually he stopped and shouted in frustration and loss.


    "Okay, Agents are moving in, you can get up."


    I easily stood up, clicking the button on my helmet, letting it copse back down, around my neck. Agents made their way down, pping restraints on Thor''s arms, putting his hands behind his back.


    "He looks broken." Ema said, having made her way to my side.


    "He looks like he is learning a lesson he doesn''t like." I added with a nod.


    I watched as they led him away, the once strong fighter not even resisting in the slightest. Once they had led him up and around I followed behind them, nodding to Coulson as he joined us in the back of the group. Eventually he was sat in a simple empty room, the cuffs were taken off and the room emptied.


    "Hard to fake that kind of emotion." I pointed out, a dozen or so feet from the door. "Not impossible, but hard."


    "I''m aware." Coulson answered before stepping into the room alone and beginning his interrogation.


    Ema and I both watched as Coulson asked him question after question, posing ideas about where he thought he came from, where he got his training. It was good, and I''m pretty sure he was trying to bait him into bragging, which would have probably worked if Thor hadn''t been broken so much by being unable to lift Mjolnir. Eventually Coulson got a message on some kind of beeper, stepping out of the room.


    "My turn." I said, smirking as Ema blocked him just enough for me to slide into the room.


    I stood in front of the probable Asgardian for a moment before flicking a card to my hand and pushing my chair out. Thor''s eyes narrowed as he saw what I did, but did not freak out. Instead he stayed silent. As I sat I surreptitiously pressed my lie detecting belt.


    "So You said your name was Thor." I said simply. "I apologize but I''m unable to give you my real name. You can call me Maker."


    He said nothing, though I did seem to have his attention.


    "If you''re Thor, that must make a hammer out there Mjolnir, correct?" I asked, continuing when he didn''t answer. "Why can''t you lift your hammer Thor? You rushed in here, cocksure and arrogant, broke half a dozen bones of innocent guards whose only crime was protecting the people trying to figure out what the hell is going on. And you couldn''t lift it. So what''s going on?"


    "I I am not worthy." He finally admitted, looking down at his hands.


    "Why are you and the hammer here on Earth? On Midgard?"


    "I was banished." He finally said, after a long few moments of silence. "My father stripped me of my title and banished me to Midgard."


    "Why?" I asked, frowning now. "What happened?"


    "Asgard was attacked. Father he insisted that we not retaliate but"


    "You did?"


    "Aye. My friends and I went to Jotunheim. We attacked the ice giants but were nearly overwhelmed. Father had to save us."


    "And then he banished you. Called you unworthy?"


    "Aye." He responded, his voice hollow.


    "Why did he not want to retaliate?"


    "I do not know I thought he must have grown too attached to peace, too focused on building and improving to not see that violence was necessary but I am no longer sure."


    "Is Midgard in danger? Will the ice giants attempt to seek you out?" I asked.


    "How would they find me?" He countered. "Like this... I am mortal. How would they find me among all of you? Besides, my father would not let them disturb Midgard."


    A knock echoed through the room and we both looked to the windows. Coulson was standing outside, gesturing for me toe out. I stood and carded my chair, pressing my belt as I did, before nodding to Thor and leaving.


    "Are you actually buying that?" Clint asked, hiding around the corner of the room. "Sounds like he has a few screws loose."


    "Maybe. But I''ve seen stranger. Hell I might be stranger. Not to mention we have a hammer behaving strangely not a hundred feet away." I pointed out before turning to Coulson.


    "We are letting him go." He exined. "Erik Slevig is here iming his name is Donald ke, his drunk nephew."


    "Uhh and you believe him?"


    "No, he looks nothing like the actual Donald ke." He exined. "We have agents on route to check but"


    Coulson motioned for a few agents to step past me into the room. They entered and after a moment they exited with therge blonde in tow. He nodded to me before walking out of the area, steered by two agents. We watched as I exited the smallputer filled structure before Coulson turned to another agent.


    "Follow them." He ordered before turning to me. "I didn''t realize you knew so much about mythology."


    "I don''t, just a few bits and pieces." I said with a shrug. "I don''t know what''s really going on. But maybe there is some truth under his crazy? He didn''t set my belt off once."


    "Are you suggesting that he really is Thor?"


    "I''m suggesting that he has something to do with the Hammer. Whether he is crazy, telling the truth or a mixture of both."


    "I agree." Coulson said finally. "That''s why he is being followed."


    [center]- <em>The Next Morning </em>-[/center]


    Ema and I stayed up a few hours longer, listening to the chatter of the agents tailing Thor and his friend. After it became clear that they didn''t n on leaving the bar any time soon wemandeered two bed rolls and two sleeping bags and slept in the super trucks bed, outside of the perimeter. We talked for a while, hopefully out of range of any curious Shield agent ears.


    "Thor deserves his chance at redemption." I exined, looking up at the stars. "Besides, there isn''t much I could do anyway. I can''t force him to be worthy."


    "So what''s the n then?"


    "Early tomorrow we are going into town to get some more answers from Thor." I answered. "Then I''m gonna stick as close to him as possible. I can''t imagine that the action happens anywhere other than around him."


    "Alright. When should I wake you up?"


    "Seven sounds like a good time."


    It was surprisingly easy to fall asleep in the truck bed, and it was a shockingly good night''s rest as well. When Ema woke me up the next morning I felt refreshed.


    "That might be something to put on the list." I said to Ema as I put the bed rolls away in the back of the truck before putting my jacket back on. "Some sort of safe sleep enhancer."


    She nodded and agreed to put it on the list, before walking off to the closest patrolling agent to let Coulson know where we were going. He talked into his radio for a moment before passing it to me.


    "Agent Coulson?" I asked into the handheld radio. "What-"


    "Take the radio with you." He said, cutting me off. "Feel free to go into town and mingle. y good cop to our bad."


    "Yeah, I''ll keep you in the loop if I learn anything big." I agreed. "Any idea where they are?"


    "Some sort of fancy looking garage on the main road." He answered.


    "Alright. We will check in periodically either way." I added before shrugging to the agent and handing the radio to Ema.


    Ten minutester we were rolling into town in the super truck. Thankfully it was early enough that there were very few people to stare at our admittedly unique vehicle. When we pulled into the garage parking lot we saw an older guy stumbling from a trailer to the gas station. He looked unsteady and queasy. Seeing a way to start the conversation I parked the truck and stepped out, motioning for Ema to hold on.


    "Hello Looking a little rough." I said as I walked closer.


    "I feel a little rough." He responded. "Who are you?"


    "Names Jack, I''m a Shield consultant." I admitted.


    He stiffened and looked up at the main entrance to the garage, then back down to me.


    "Erik Selvig." He responded reflexively. "What else does Shield want?"


    "I have no idea." I answered. "World peace maybe? I''m a consultant, not a toadie. They brought me in as an expert of... Well an expert in weird stuff."


    "Which means?"


    "It means that Shield can get bent if they are keeping me from weird stuff." I exined with a confident smile.


    Before the man could say anything he stumbled and I stepped forward to catch him, though he probably wasn''t really going to fall. I smirked and pulled off my ne, pulling it down around his neck.


    "Here, I''ll show you an example of the weirdness. Seems like you could use some healing."


    He fought for a moment, iling like only a severely hungover person can. But after a moment he looked at me, his eyes going wide.


    "Cmon, you can wear it until we get to the door, should clear it all up." I said, walking ahead slowly.


    "What what is this?" He asked, following behind.


    "Something of my own creation." I exined. "Making weird stuff is my thing. Look, I have apanion in the truck. She is my partner but at the moment she is wearing something else I made, a stealth suit of sorts. Do you mind if I invite her as well? We just want to talk about what''s going on."


    "Will you leave if we ask?" He asked after a few moments of thinking.


    "As long as no one is getting or going to get hurt? Yeah, you have my word." I said solemnly, before gesturing for Ema toe out.


    She hopped out of the truck and made her way to me, the effect of the suit thankfully dulled quite a bit by the direct sunlight.


    "That that is very interesting." Erik said as Ema got closer. "And I don''t recognize the truck you are driving either."


    "Custom built." I said simply, smiling at the obviously more alert man. "C''mon, let''s go inside."


    After basically bum rushing the quickly recovering scientist and steam rolling hisints we headed inside, stopping by the door with my hand out. He nodded and pulled off my healing amulet, which I immediately put back on. Before I could thank him the door next to us opened, revealing Thor and a young woman. Thor looked worried and ready to step in front of the woman.


    "Hello Maker Have youe to take me back to your Shield?" He asked.


    "No, I''m just here to talk." I assured him, sticking out my hand. "You have my word, I am not here to harm anyone, or take anyone in."


    Thor looked at me for a moment before nodding and reaching out his own arm, grasping my forearm in a warriors handshake. The woman next to him though, she looked like she was building up steam.


    "Jane Foster?" I asked, holding my hand out to her. "Before you say anything I''m only a consultant for Shield, I had nothing to do with them taking your stuff. The first thing I did was tell them they were being idiots."


    For a moment I was pretty sure she was going to tell me to leave, and probably not very politely. After a moment though she let out a sigh and shook my hand.


    "I''m not happy about it." She finally said. "They took my life''s work."


    "I know. If it helps, I think Agent Coulson never intended to keep your data." I exined, hoping I was correct. "He may be Shield to the core but he is still a good person. At least from my experience. If I''m wrong I''ll do my best to get you your stuff back."


    That I knew wouldn''t be a problem. If Shield had to pick between bending their rules a bit and ess to me, in all modesty it was a no brainer.


    "... Alright,e in. With a promise like that, the least we could do is offer you some coffee."

 Chapter 26: Friends!

    Chapter 26: Friends!


    <strong>Hello! Time for a rather big announcement! I am attempting to shift into bing a full time writer. It wont be easy, but I have already started on my first book. If anyone is familiar with the concept of dungeons diving books, this is my take on the genre. I''ve posted the first five chapters, as well as the prologue, to Pat_reon _/_MetaBettaOmegaLetta) </strong>and will continue to post five chapters on the first of every month. While I would love to just release it into the world like my fanfiction, in order to be a stable full time writer... I need to engage in capitalism. So please, if your interested, consider bing a patron!<hr>


    The coffee was decent, though nothing to write home about. I sat at a small circr table with Erik, who was clearly doing a lot better. Ema stood behind me, a hand on the back of my chair. I had barely had my second sip of coffee when we heard a gasp from behind us. We all turned to find a younger woman standing by the back entrance.


    "What is the Bowman doing here?" She asked, quickly stepping closer.


    "Who?"


    "Bowman, you know the guy who was helping in Harlem? Shot that big mean dude in the face? Made him disappear?"


    We all looked nkly at her, getting a sigh and a soft scowl.


    "I expected that from Jane, but Erik you actually watch the news."


    Me and Ema shared a look before I shrugged.


    "We were there but we hadn''t realized we got a nickname already. " I admitted before holding out my hand. "You can call me Jack, or Maker. Neither of them are my real name, sorry."


    "Yeah yeah that''s nice, I hadn''t realized Bowman was a Bow woman!" She said excitedly.


    "He isn''t." Ema corrected. "Maker was the one in this suit when Abomination rampaged through Harlem."


    "So your Bowman?" She asked, now facing me.


    "No, I''m not." I said with a roll of my eyes. "I''m Maker."


    "Righttt" She said, sitting down in one of the free chairs. "Prove it."


    "Darcy!" Jane said disapprovingly .


    "Okay, but I''m very much not here to talk about this." I said. "I''m here to figure out what''s going on."


    I pull off my jacket with a shrug, holding it out with one hand before making it vanish into a card. I flick the card into the air, boomeranging it around to the other hand and pushing the jacket back out.


    The barrage of questions was intense, everyone save Thor asking me how it worked, was it some sort of power, what it could be used for. Eventually i held up my hands in surrender


    "Woah, Woah!" I said, gesturing for them to calm down. "I get that what I can do is impressive and breaks a lot of rules. We can talk about itter. For now, I need a few more answers from Thor."


    "What do you wish to know?" He asked over his shoulder as he helped Jane prepare breakfast.


    "Well for starters, I''d like more information about what''s going on." I answered. "Background information would be good as well."


    Thor stopped for a while, distracted with the tes in the sink. After a long moment he turned and looked at us, sadness in his eyes.


    "I can never go home." he said. "My father has passed to Valha. And it is my fault."


    Jane gasped, covering her mouth with her hand before stepping closer and hugging Thor from the side. He looked down at her with a small smile.


    "I''m sorry to hear that Thor." I said quietly, mind running wild. Odin dying was a big deal, and would have a lot of repercussions.


    "When did this happen?" Erik asked, empathetic but still clearly not fully believing Thor''s story.


    "After my banishment." He exined. "My brother visited mest night, exining what had happened. My father couldn''t bear a looming war and my banishment."


    "By your brother do you mean Loki?" I asked. "Our mythology suggests you have more."


    "No, Loki is my only sibling." He exined. "Now he is ruling Asgard in my fathers ce, since I must remain banished."


    I couldn''t help but shake my head, I was now pretty sure that Odin was still alive. Just the fact that Thor trusted Loki at all meant something but I wouldn''t trust anything he did, even if I saw it with my own eyes. I held back though, not wanting to call Thor''s grief into question by insulting his family.


    "Why can you not return home? Surely if Loki cares about you he could end your banishment."


    "Loki managed to negotiate a peace with the frost giants, but it onlyst as long as I stay banished."


    "And you just believed him?" Darcy asked, getting a wince from me and Erik. "Isn''t he like the god of lies?"


    "You would use my brother of lying about such a thing?" Thor asked unhappily. "He may enjoy mischief but he would not go to such great and terrible lengths."


    The room was quiet for a long moment or two as Thor put tes of food in front of us, getting a thank you from each of us, though Ema waved him off.


    "What is your interest, Maker?" Thor finally asks. "You im to only beconsulting? Consulting with your Shield."


    "It''s like a mercenary, but not forbat." I exined. "I have skills and knowledge that Shield wants but I refuse to be tied permanently to an organization that likes to Exert so much control over everything."


    "Then why associate with them at all?" Jane asked, pulling up another chair to the table, sitting next to Thor.


    "Because I''m new to the game." I admitted. "I would have never heard about this without them."


    "But why are you so interested?"


    "I''m a builder, a crafter abination between Iron Man and Q from James Bond, but without the technology" I exined. "By following the trail of weirdness I''m hoping to find some inspiration I can use to elevate my crafting."


    "So it is all about personal gain?" Thor asked, clearly not liking the idea.


    "No, I want to help as well. Making stronger and better things means I can be more effective and help more people."


    "That is And you made that ne?"


    "I did." I admitted with a wince.


    "What ne?" Jane asked, curiosity peaked.


    "His ne cured my hangover."


    "I think we are getting a bit distracted." I said, waving off any more questions. "There is plenty of time to talk about what I can doter. I''m more focused on what''s going on here."


    "What do you mean?" Jane asked. "We already figured out what was going on. The astrological anomalies I was detecting were caused by the Bifrost, letting us see other realms."


    Thor nodded before continuing. "The Bifrost was how I was sent here. It is an incredibly powerful method of travel between the nine realms. Jane managed an impressive feet, and was studying the effects it has on the universe as we use it."


    "And you all believe this?" I asked.


    "Not quite"


    "Maybe."


    "Of course "


    Jane gave Erik, who was still unconvinced, a harsh look before giving Thor an apologetic one. He only nodded, as if expecting it.


    "Do you believe it?" Darcy asked me, her eyebrow raised.


    "The ability to question what is possible is a basic requirement of what I can do." I exined, nodding and gesturing back towards the desert. "I examined Mjolnir myself. It exhibits several properties that aren''t possible in the eyes of science. But yet it exists, stuck firmly in ce like a true immovable object."


    I shrugged and leaned in, looking from Thor, to Jane, to Erik and Darcy then back to Thor. I smiled and nodded again.


    "I''d say I believe him." I answered before continuing. "Thor, I don''t know what is going on in Asgard, but I can say that I think I have your measure. If Asgard wont have you then we will."


    Thor smiled and stood, reaching across the table, once again sping my arm in a warriors handshake.


    "I''ll even arm and armor you myself. It won''t be like wielding Mjolnir but I''m sure I can whip something up."


    I was pretty sure this wasn''t actually over, but on the off chance that Thor was stuck here and had to prove himself Well what better way than by being a hero?


    "And Shield would just let that happen?" Erik asked.


    "Oh I''m sure they will have a lot of questions." I assured them. "And if they don''t I certainly will. But there''s no reason to treat you harshly, especially in your current state. Not to mention I have a bit of influence. They are desperate for the things I can make, pushing through a new identity for Thor would be a drop in the bucket."


    "I thank you my friend. Perhaps I will take you up on that offer once I have settled into this world. I feel I have a lot to learn before that though. And a lot to grieve. I left many friends behind at home. The thought of never seeing-"


    "Found You!"


    All of us spun towards the slightly muffled voice to find four people standing outside the ss door. Three men and one woman, they were all dressed and armed with four different styles of armor, and all four looked happy, waving at Thor with big smiles. Meanwhile Erik, Jane and Darcy looked at the neers in abject shock.


    "Oh shit, it''s starting." I said, looking at Ema. "Tell Coulson that more Asgardians are here. Make sure he understands you aren''t joking. Lie if you have to, tell him you saw them use super strength or something."


    She nodded and walked away to get somewhere private as I stood up, watching Thor rush to hispatriots.


    "Friends! It is good to see you!" He said happily before gesturing to us. "These are my new friends, Maker, Erik Selvig, Darcy Lewis and Jane Foster. Friends, Lady Sif and the warriors three, my friends andpatriots in many a battle!"


    "It''s good to meet you." I said, reaching out and shaking hands with Sif first before the other three, who all introduced themselves. "It''s good to meet such famed fighters and warriors."


    "Friends, it is very good to see all of you... But why have youe?" Thor asked once introductions had beenpleted.


    "To bring you home of course." Lady Sif said with a confused smile, dropping the smiling part when she saw how heartbroken Thor was. "What is the matter?"


    "I cannot return home, Loki already exined it. With my father gone I-"


    "Gone? The Allfather remains in Odinsleep but he has not gone anywhere." Volstagg corrected, now as confused as Sif. "Did Loki truly tell you your father had passed?"


    "Called it." Darcy stage whispered, earning a shoulder smack from Jane.


    "He Loki visited mest night. Told me that my banishment and the war was too much for him, that he passed. He exined that I couldn''t return because the peace he was brokering was dependent on me staying exiled."


    "Thor all of that is lies." Sif said, her hand on his shoulder. "Your father fell into Odinsleep quite suddenly, and he sleeps deeper than he has in quite some time but he still lives."


    "Loki What is he nning?" He said under his breath, stepping away and pacing. "Has he done all of this for the throne?"


    "Lady Sif, would Loki know that you havee here?" I asked as Thor paced. "Would he-"


    A distant rumbling sound ran through the building and Ema, who had been around the corner, came rushing back.


    "I just lost contact with Coulson." She said worriedly.


    "Fuck I hope they are okay." I said softly before pushing past everyone and into the street. Another explosion echoed through the town and I looked down the main street and out into the desert. Sure enough off in the distance was a fireball, slowly dissipating.


    The rest of the group, both the Asgardians and the humans joined me, Ema already by my side. Around us the citizens of the town whispered and talked, a tone of worry coloring everything.


    "Ema keep trying to get in contact with Coulson." I said before turning to the group. "Whatever it is, we need to go out and meet it. Letting ite to us puts the town at risk."


    "That is a sound n." Thor agreed with a nod. "Do you have something we can ride into battle?"


    I gestured to my truck, the green and gold hood gleaming in the morning sun.


    "A worthy chariot I am sure." Fandrall said with a grin, before looking at Thor. "It will be good to fight by your side again Thor."


    "No my friends, I will only get in the way." The blonde Asgardian shook his head. "I only go in hopes to dissuade Loki frommitting to this path."


    "If you''re going I''m going." Jane said, stepping closer to us.


    "Nay Jane, you and your friends must stay here, to evacuate the town if something goes wrong." Thor said emphatically, cupping her chin. "It is not safe, not even for me."


    For a moment Jane looked as if she would argue, but Erik put his hand on her shoulder and she looked at him, before looking back to Thor.


    "Come back to me."


    "I will."


    Thor kissed Jane on her forehead before turning to Ema, myself and his friends. He nodded and I led them to the truck. Thor climbed in the passenger side door while Ema, Lady Sif and the warriors three climbed into the back.


    "Hold on tight everyone." I warned the people in the back. "She is faster than she looks."


    I peeled out of the parking lot, speeding down the main road and towards the conflict in the desert.

 Chapter 27: Fighting chance

    Chapter 27: Fighting chance


    It didn''t take long for us to run out of road in the direction we needed to go. The desert was sparse and thankfully empty, with scraggly bush covered hills. The ride was bumpy but due to the truck''s upgrades it was nothing too severe. I could hear Volstagg whoop from the back as we actually caught air of a small bump,nding easily.


    "How much further?" Thor asked loudly, leaning forward in his seat. "We should have-"


    I mmed on the brakes and pulled the truck to the left, barely managing to avoid an orange beam of energy that mmed into the hill we had just rode over, rocking us as it exploded. The truck drifted in the sandy dirt, spraying dust as we drove around arge, metal covered humanoid that I unfortunately recognized from theics. Burnished bands of metal looped around to form a body, back lit by a fire glowing inside the torso. The top of its head was red like the rim of a cap.


    "The Destroyer!" Thor shouted. "Loki must have sent it to kill me and silence my friends!"


    I nodded and kept driving, slowing slightly to turn and drive back around. The Destroyer turned and fired at us again, thankfully missing once more as we crested and drove down another hill, which now stood between us.


    "Everyone out!" I shouted as I climbed out of the truck, everyone doing so quickly.


    "Thor You still want to try and talk your brother down?"


    "I must, I could never forgive myself otherwise."


    I nodded and turned to the four others while carding my jacket. I pressed the buttons to activate my armor and gestured around.


    "You guys circle around while Thor and I hold his attention. If it doesn''t back down then hit it hard."


    Lady Sif looked to Thor who nodded before leading the warriors three away. Quickly I pulled off my archers ring, then pushed out my bow and quiver, handing them to Ema.


    "Here! Take this and hit him hard if I call out. Hold them back a bit, I want to try a few things first."


    "Okay! Good luck." She said in my ear before nodding to Thor and running after the others. I pressed the button on my vambraces and smiled as my shield extended.


    Thor nodded and stepped forward, climbing to the top of the small hill, the destroyer just at the base of it. I held the shield in front of myself, getting ready to jump and protect Thor.


    "Brother! Please!" He called out, his arms outstretched. "There is no reason for this! Please, recall the Destroyer and let mee home so I may talk with you directly! There is no need for-"


    For a short moment it almost seemed like therge metallic humanoid was going to just stand there, listening to Thor''s speech. But the head slowly opened and began to glow, cutting him off. With a dull metallic humming a beam of orange and yellow energy fired out of the Destroyer''s face, aimed squarely at Thor.


    With a shout I shoved Thor out of the way, brought up my shield and angled it away from us. The beam mmed into my shield, heat washing over me as my feet dug furrows in the dirt. But instead of detonating against my shield it was deflected, the beam hurtling off over the hill.


    "Holy shit!" I cursed, my arms shaking under the strain of deflecting the st.


    The Destroyer hardly even paused, the hole it had fired from glowing again, another st crossing the distance between us. This time I was ready and braced myself against my shield for extra support, allowing me to free my other arm. I carded the glove off my hand and as the beam of brutal energy mmed into me I swung my arm around and pushed it in.


    I screamed as my bare hand was burned by the heat, but managed to remember to pull. Instantly the beam vanished, a card now in my hand. I smirked, even as my hand smoked, the skin cracked and bleeding from the powerful energy st. Thankfully I could already feel my hand starting to heal, the damage slowly fading until my hand was usable, though still in considerable pain.


    "Thor! Get to cover!" I shouted, my voice cracking in pain, though still spotting Ema peaking above a hill behind the Destroyer.


    Thor nodded and stumbled upright, running behind the hill. As soon as he started to move the Destroyer''s focus shifted back to him, forcing me to block another st of energy as the metal behemoth stepped towards us. The beam was angled down this time, meaning that even as I carded it, my hand now ckened on my finger tips, the beam mmed into the hill next to me, exploding and sending Thor and I flying across the hill and him over it. I groaned as I mmed into the ground, stunned by the explosion and impact.


    The pain in my fingers was dull but getting worse as my healing amulet fixed the nerves that had been damaged. My shield sizzled next to me, burning the bush I had partiallynded on. I started to get up, only for the shadow of the Destroyer to loom over me. It raised its foot and attempted to stomp on me, barely stopped by my shield as I managed to get it between us. The mass of metal pushed down on me, slowly overwhelming my strength. I struggled for a moment before freeing my arm, putting my damaged hand on its foot and pulling.


    The destroyer didn''t budge.


    I tried again, and again, letting out a crushed shout as it started to grind me into the ground.


    "Fuck! Ema!" I called out. "Could use some-"


    I barely got her name out before she stood up from her small hill behind the Destroyer. She pulled back and fired, the arrow mming into the destroyer''s head, exploding and knocking it around slightly. She immediately fired again, and again, first an ice arrow encasing its head and a second arrow exploding into chains and knocking it even more off center. With a loud grunt I heaved under its foot, slowly pushing it back up, forcing the metal construct to stumble backwards to stay upright. I scrambled back to my feet, my shield smoking as I brought it back up in front of me.


    The Destroyer struggled for a moment before the ice and chains snapped and fell to the ground, turning to Ema and firing off another st. Thankfully she dived back, stretching out inhumanly to throw herself behind the hill. The beam of energy mmed into the ground where she had been, detonating and throwing dust, dirt and rocks everywhere.


    "Loki! This will never work! Only an idiot would follow you!" I said, calling out to the Destroyer to keep its focus on me, guessing at Loki''s intentions. "Even if the n went wlessly, do you really think that the people of Asgard wouldn''t rebel? You''d be a horrible king and they would never follow you for long!"


    The destroyer whirled on me, moving faster than it had before, its face glowing once again. The beam of energy mmed into my shield and I barely managed to deflect it upwards, carding the st again. Once again the tips of my fingers were charred and I couldn''t help but scream out. I stumbled, falling to one knee as the Destroyer''s face cannon glowed and... the beam went wide as Lady Sif mmed into its back, her elongated sword pushing through its neck and pinning it to the ground, the hulking metal giant bent at the waist. The fire that lit its insides faded.


    The warriors three, standing not far behind, cheered in victory as Lady Sif stood on top of the Destroyer, smirking and holding her fist up. I watched with a smile, shaking out my hand as it slowly healed, burning as the cracked and blistered skin slowly healed. I took a single step to them before freezing, watching as the Destroyer slowly relit and started morphing, shifting until it was bent over backwards, and Lady Sif was standing on its chest.


    "Sif!" Thor shouted as the warrior woman half jumped off and was half flung away as the Destroyer stood back up.


    Lady Sif tumbled after mming into the ground, the Destroyer already bringing its face cannon to bear. It glowed brighter before an arrow mmed into its shoulder, this time making it stumble forward. The beam of energy still fired from its face, mming into the ground by its feet. It exploded and sent the behemoth back, stumbling and falling onto its rear. Thor rushed from his hiding spot to Lady Sif''s side.


    "Ema! Buy them some time!"


    Arrow after arrow mmed into the Destroyers side, ice encasing its head, chains wrapping around his arms and legs. The behemoth easily broke through, but each time it took a moment of focus.


    "Use the tank killers!" I called out.


    The barrage of arrows shifted halted for a moment, then rapid fire three of the tank killer arrows mmed into its shoulder. The sound of screeching metal, like an unlubricated drill being forced through metal, echoed across the battlefield. When I looked, three barely noticeable divots had been drilled into its shoulder. The Destroyer whirled and focused on Ema, who immediately dived back. With the Destroyer intent on finding Ema, Thor helped Sif over a hill, the warriors three joining them at a sprint. I followed close behind, diving and rolling over the top of the rocky and now burnt hill.


    "Come sneak around to us Ema." I said into my helmet before rushing to the Asgardians. When I got to the group Thor was already standing tall.


    "I have a n Maker. We can''t hope to stop the Destroyer ourselves, and if we hide, Loki will start rampaging through your home until we step forward. My friends must return home to stop Loki himself. Would you please take them to the Bifrost?"


    "Of course, what is your n?" I asked, already having a sinking feeling in my gut. "Thor-


    "Do not worry, please just focus on getting my friends home." He said emphatically, smiling when I hesitantly nod in agreement.


    "Thank you, please tell Lady Jane that she Tell her she is in my heart."


    Thor stepped away, Lady Sif''s shield in his hand. The four other Aasgardians got closer, waiting for me to lead them to the truck, with Ema bounding around to join us.


    "Loki!"


    Thor called out, standing on the top of the hill, holding Sif''s shield in his hand, letting it fall to the ground. He held his arms out to, clearly not attempting to attack or defend himself. We could hear the metal behemoth climbing the hill, stopping a few feet away from the blonde Asgardian.


    "I do not know why you are doing this, what has happened to make you wish me dead. But if my life is the cost to keep you from hurting my friends, to keep you from rampaging through Midgard Then take it!"


    For a moment the Destroyer stood still, staring down at the mortal Asgardian before punching him in the chest, sending him flying backwards, mming into the ground at least forty feet away.


    "Thor!"


    Jane Foster, newly arrived and stumbling out of her all-terrain vehicle, made a bee line for Thor, as did Lady Sif and the other Asgardians. I ran to stand in front of him, my slowly cooling shield up and ready to defend from the Destroyer''s next attack. Instead the metal behemoth turned around and began walking away. When I was certain it wasn''t going toe back I turned, already pulling off my ne only to find Jane crying over his broken and still body.


    "Jane!" Erik Selvig shouted, pointing up.


    Everyone followed his finger, a ck dot flying upwards at an rming speed, breaking through the sound barrier. After a moment it reached the apex of its flight, curving down and hurtling towards us.


    I turned to watch Selvig pulling Jane away from Thor, the woman struggling slightly but eventually letting him move her. I looked up in time to watch Mjolnir plummet to the ground and m into Thor''s now outstretched hand.


    From the heavens mmed a bolt of lightning, striking Mjolnir and traveling through Thor. In a moment he was upright inside the lighting, electricity sparking out all around him, digging furrows in the ground and even reaching me. I reached out my still red and throbbing hand, letting the bolts of electricity dance and run through my body. I carded it over and over again, adding fourteen sparks to my deck before the outward sparking tapered off. Each one sent jolts of pain up my arm, making me grit my teeth and tremble. I watched as Thor transformed into his full Asgardian form. Armor formed around his body, half hidden by the blinding light of the lightning. When the lightning was finally over Thor stood strong, hammer held high,pletely healed. The sky grew dark and Thor cried out.


    "LOKI!"


    With a single leap Thor was on top of the hill, calling down a massive lightning bolt onto the Destroyer, knocking it back before it could even turn around. In a sh he was on it, smashing it in the gut with his hammer, staggering the banded metal humanoid construct to its knee before hitting it again, causing it to fall back out of view behind the hill. He followed after it with determined purpose, a steady but intimidating walk full of calm and cold confidence.


    I struggled to move, my muscles barely following orders even as my amulet started to heal me. With a grunt I copsed my shield and stumbled, only for Ema to catch me and help me stand. I nodded to her and we walked slowly to the top, looking down as Thor batted aside a st of energy from the Destroyer. He did it again and again before spinning his hammer once and hurling it, catching the metal construct in the chin. He called his hammer back, this time smashing into its shoulder, knocking it off center. Seeing the construct in an awkward angle Thor roared, leaped into the air and brought his lightning charged hammer down, the blow aimed precisely where the tank killer arrows had drilled three tiny divots.


    When it struck a metallic thunder echoed through the desert, the impact sending a shockwave that pushed everyone watching on the hill back a step. The blow drove the construct to its knees, and when the lighting dissipated I could see a deep gash in its banded metal shoulder. Thor smashed it again and again, widening the wound until the arm barely hung on. With another cry he lifted his hammer to the now darkened sky and called down a final lighting bolt, mming it into the gap in the armor. The once orange and yellow internal lighting went electric blue as lightning pummeled the interior. After a moment there was an explosion, kicking up dust and sending rocks and debris scattering along the small valley.


    When the dust and smoke settled Thor was walking back towards the group, the Destroyer armor a wreck behind them, its arm strewed a half dozen feet away from the rest of the body. As Thor walked by with a smile and a nod, I stood a bit steadier, making my way down to the wreck, my healing amulet doing good work. When I stood above it, I kicked the metal behemoth in the side, pausing for a moment as the rest of the group talked behind me. I bent down and tried to pull the arm into a card, smiling as it worked.


    "Are you going to take the main body too?"


    "No. I doubt Shield would let me just walk away with that." I exined after a pause. "They might let the arm slide."


    I stood and returned to the group, flexing my fingers as the dull agonizing ache started to fade. Thor turned to face me, his arm around Jane''s shoulders.


    "Please, Maker, could you bring my friends to the Bifrost site?" He asked. "I must fly there now, every moment could be precious."


    "Of course Thor, we are right behind you."


    He nodded and spun Mjolnir up and lifted from the ground, Jane in his arms as he flew away quickly.


    "Yeah definitely figuring out flight next." I said quietly, though Ema chuckled next to me.


    "I''ll put it on the list." She responded.


    It took ten minutes for us to drive to the Bifrost site, with Lady Sif sitting next to me, providing directions. When we arrived Thor was still there, shouting to the heavens and looking anxious.


    "Hiemdall, he isn''t responding." He exined as we joined him around the intricate design that seemed to mark where the Bifrost made contact with earth.


    "That''s not good?" I said with a frown. "Does that mean?"


    "We are stranded." Hogunn finished simply while Thor continued to shout.


    "Maybe he is just a bit held up?" Darcy suggested. "Visiting the little Asgardians room?"


    Before anyone couldment on that the sky lit up and a beam of translucent rainbow energy shot down and mmed into the ground. Volstagg and Fandral both gave out a cry of happiness, rushing around us mortals to enter the stream. I followed them, not stepping in but walking around the outside. The energying off of the bridge was palpable, a thrumming in my chest and bones. I knelt and reached out, my bare hand passing through curly wisps of that power. Rapid fire I carded a bunch of the wisps of energy, ending up with twenty two cards before I took a step back and walked back to the rest of the group. Thor gave me a nod before stepping into the beam of energy, the whole group disappearing upwards into the beam with a sh of light.


    With a long groan I flicked out my chair and sat back in it, letting out a deep sigh of relief as I did. Jane and her team only looked up into the dark revolving storm clouds, as if expecting him back any moment. I looked up at Ema as she joined me, standing next to me with her hand on the back of my seat.


    "So are we just going to wait until theye back?" She asked in my helmet.


    "For a while at least." I said with a shrug before looking back at the other three. "Give Coulson a buzz on the radio, tell him where we are. These guys are going to need one hell of a debrief."<hr>


    Hey guys, I wanted to leave a smallment down here. No doubt plenty of you guys have noticed thesest few chapter have felt very Canon +1. The problem for me (specifically for this movie/arc) has been that what happens on Earth is very reactionary to what is happening on Asgard, and Carson doesn''t really have any impact on that. For other movies Carson could stumble on or do things that change the narrative or mix up the story, but for this movie he has no real effect over when the warriors three and Sif showed up, or when Loki sends the destroyer. There are crazy, out of character things he could do, but barring that he was kind of putzing around, waiting for shit to happen.

 Chapter 28: Home again

    Chapter 28: Home again


    It didn''t take long for Agent Coulson and his cadre of Shield agents to arrive at the Bifrost site. He tried to cart off Jane and her friends for a debriefing but she refused to leave, forcing him to debrief us there. It took a while for everyone to talk about what had happened, but eventually we finished. By the time we were done Shield agents had already set up a much smaller quarantine area around the Bifrost site, already putting up a temporary fence. Jane still refused to leave, even as the sun started to set and another strange storm filled the sky above us. When itpletely dissipated Ema and I decided it was time to go. We shook hands with the three scientists before climbing into the truck. Before we could pull away Coulson got closer and leaned on the driver side door.


    "I don''t suppose you know what happened to the right arm of the Destroyer construct we found not far from here?" He asked.


    "Hmmm nope?" I said with a smile. "But if I did, I think it would be a great way topensate a consultant for their time. I would then point out that the better resources and more interesting things that consultant had ess to would mean better things for the agents they might be making things for."


    "Rx, Fury already signed off on it." He said with a smirk, getting a chuckle out of Ema. "The other quarantine site is already downsizing, but Jane volunteered the garage she is renting as a ce you could stay for the night."


    "Yeah, that''s fine, we will just sleep in the truck bed again."


    "Alright, We have a flight back to New York for you scheduled tomorrow afternoon. Is there anything you need in the meantime?"


    "Not right now, but when you have some free time I need to talk to you about me getting my hands on certain resources and how Shield can help me, but that can wait until tomorrow."


    "I''ll set aside some time, probably tomorrow morning."


    "We will wait for you at the dinner, assuming it''s open" I said before slowly pulling away, sedately driving back to town.


    "How is your hand?" Ema asked, reaching over and delicately pulling it from the steering wheel, leaving me to drive one handed.


    "It''s pretty much already healed, though it''s sore as hell." I admitted, letting her examine it.


    "I was shocked that you actually did that." She admitted back. "Both with the Destroyer''s cannon and Thors lightning."


    "Let''s keep talking about it to a minimum" I said. "The trucks fine but they already probably have the garage bugged. I''m already worried about them wondering why I bothered to card Thor''s lightning and the beams."


    "At least no one noticed the Bifrost. Can''t exin that one away as trying to mitigate damage." Ema pointed out.


    "Yeah. Either way let''s keep it to a minimum until we are home."


    Ema nodded and we drove the rest of the way inpanionable silence. When we got to the garage I parked inside one of the garage bays, closing it behind us. Quickly I pushed out the duffel bag full of cash and clothes, quickly adding the pistol, box of bullets, my lighter and my bolt cutters to the bag and recarding it. The Deck was the most full it had ever been, with only nine free cards, with one of those reserved for the truck. It made me nervous to have ess to so little of the Deck. I would need to use some of these cards, and quickly. Unfortunately, even if I hadn''t been too tired to really think clearly I wouldn''t be able to do that here, I needed to get home first.


    Ema set up the bed rolls as I was taking stock of the Deck, so after I was done I climbed into the back of the truck and drifted off almost immediately, myst coherent thought about how thankful I was that my healing amulet got rid of soreness.


    [center]- <em>The Next Morning </em>-[/center]


    The next morning started off slowly and didn''t really pick up that much. Ema and I ate an early breakfast at Isab''s Diner, the only ce in town still open. The rest of the town seemed to be a hive of Shield activity as everyone needed to be debriefed about what they had seen and what they were allowed to say. I was pretty sure the topics included me, especially with all the strange looks I had gotten. Ema and I spent our breakfast putting together a list of things we needed from Shield for when I talked to Coulson. Lo and behold the list was hardly done when Agent Coulson entered the dinner.


    "Morning Maker, Ema, I hope you slept well?" He asked, motioning one of the waiters for a cup of coffee.


    "Yeah, surprisingly well all things considered." I was beginning to think that something might be up with that, two of the best night''s sleep I had ever had was in the bed of my truck.


    "That''s good." He answered with a smile as the waiter poured him a cup of coffee, waiting for them to finish and leave before continuing. "Before we start I need to ask you something that didn''t ur to Agent Sitwell when he debriefed you. Do you know why you couldn''t put the Destroyer into one of your cards?"


    "I have a theory." I said, internally debating on what I should reveal, deciding to mostly lie. "It''s possible that the construct was just two magically dense to be contained in a card. It could also be possible that there is some sort of soul based shenanigans going on, and the Deck considered it alive enough to not be cardable."


    In truth, I didn''t think it was that at all. Looking back I hadn''t felt even the slightest twinge when pulling on the Destroyer. When I was approaching my limit on mass I could feel it, like a tug on my soul. The fact that it hadn''t felt like anything, that it just t out failed made me think it was some sort of limitation the people that dumped me here set. It could have been that a failure stops before it even tries to keep me from hurting myself, but my gut was telling me otherwise. Which meant I needed to be on the lookout for other things that my abilities would refuse to hold.


    "Soul based shenanigans?" Agent Coulson asked skeptically. "Really?"


    "Hey, you asked if I had any ideas. Those are my ideas."


    "Alright, fair enough. I suppose I should get used to those kinds of answers." He admitted before taking a sip of coffee and continuing. "Now what did you want to talk about?"


    "I assume your agents are going to be asking for weapons eventually?" I asked, taking a sip of coffee.


    "That depends, are you okay with making them weapons?"


    "Yes, as long as they pass my questionnaire I don''t mind making weapons. Both basic melee weapons and more advanced ranged weapons." I answered. "The problem is that I need to experiment. And to do that I need actual guns, gun parts, spare mags, bullets"


    "Which getting in New York City is like pulling teeth." Coulson finished, nodding slowly. "So you want us to get you guns?"


    "Yes. I have a list of what I would like, you could consider it aspensation for what this fiasco turned into."


    I slid the list Ema and I hadpiled, watching Coulson''s reaction as he went through the list. When he was finally done he put the list back down on the table.


    "That''s quite a list." He said diplomatically. "You realize just handing over so many firearms to someone without a license would be illegal right?"


    "I do. But if you want me to make guns that do impossible things then I''m going to need to experiment with them." I exined. "Even if I went through the process of getting a firearms license for New York, I would still be massively restricted."


    Coulson looked at me for a moment before nodding.


    "I will call Director Fury, have him put it through." He agreed. "Some of this stuff might be hard to find."


    "I can give you a few days to get it all together and pick them up when delivering Clint''s sses." I offered. "Is four days enough?"


    "That should be enough. You''re going to have toe into the headquarters for this, Director Fury won''t want to take something like this off site."


    "If you manage to find most of the stuff on that list I will consider it half payment for the second half of Clint''s equipment."


    After we reached an agreement Coulson, Ema and I chatted for another few minutes, Coulson ordering his own breakfast as we did. As Ema and I prepared to leave we all shook hands.


    "It was good working with you Maker. Though this turned into a bit of a fiasco it could have been a lot worse. Just your instinct to go out and meet the Destroyer rather than let ite to you probably saved a lot of people."


    "I''m always happy to consult for interesting things like this." I said with a smile. "Think I learned enough to make a few advancements I''ve been stuck on for a while. And after I crack new things"


    "Our agents get to reap the benefits as well." Coulson finished with a smirk. "We understand the implication Maker. Safe trip home."


    When we were done we made our way back to the garage, finding that Jane, Darcy and Selvig had returned. Thetter two looked wide-eyed and shell-shocked, their world view soundly shattered. Jane on the other hand looked heartbroken, doing her best to stay strong by burying herself in her work, setting up her instruments andputers again after Shield returned them, with the help of two Shield agents. Eric noticed me first and walked out of the garage, Darcy waving but not moving from her seat.


    "When did you guys get back?" I asked once the doors were shut behind the older man.


    "Not too long ago." He answered. "She didn''t want to leave the circle. We ended up camped around it as Shield set up a quarantine zone."


    "No change?"


    "The second storm above the mark faded not long after you left. After that, nothing."


    I shook my head, watching Jane wipe her eyes as she read through some documents. She turned to scold the nearest agent before returning to her work.


    "Dammit. I can''t see Thor noting back, something must have happened."


    "You don''t think that-"


    "No, I think something must have happened that is keeping him away." I responded. "I have a feeling he will turn up eventually."


    "Let''s hope it''s sooner rather thanter." He said with a shaking head.


    "Listen, Shield knows how to get in touch with me. If you, Jane or Darcy ever need anything, leave a message with them. If it''s an emergency they will contact me directly, if not they will pass it on next time I''m in contact with them."


    Erik nodded and we shook hands before saying our goodbyes, getting another wave from Darcy. Ema and I climbed into the truck and headed out for the airport, getting there after another boring two hour drive. From there we boarded the same private jet we took to get here, a five hour flight ahead of us. I couldn''t help but smile when we finally got back to New York City.


    [center]- <em>The Next Morning Again </em>-[/center]


    I woke up the next morning in my own bed, the familiar sounds of the city greeting me through the thin walls of my apartment. I went through my morning routine at a leisurely pace, enjoying the chance to rx in my own home. When I was finally done with breakfast, a shower and everything else I sat back on my couch and smiled. Ema was floating around again, free from her exosuit the moment we were sure that no one was following us.


    "I enjoy having a body to interact with everyone and everything." She had said the night before. "But I constantly missed the ability to fly."


    "It''s already on the list Ema, I really want to fly as well." I had assured her.


    Now that it was morning again and I was finally awake it was time to do what I had been desperately resisting the urge to do since the Asgardians had left, namely to examine the concepts of the cards I collected. The first one I inspected was the sts of energy from the Destroyer''s head cannon. The beam was powerful and contained a massive amount of energy. Destruction was its primaryponent, but there were others, like heat, explosion, energy. Potentially most exciting was the inclusion of magic as a concept. I already had a n for this, and I could see it working pretty well.


    Next up was the Destroyer''s right arm. It was filled with a massive amount of toughness, strength, magic again, metal and interestingly enough, control. Unfortunately all of that was eclipsed by the concepts of broken and damaged.


    "Anything I add this too will absolutely cease to function with how powerful these two concepts are." I exined before flicking the card back into the deck. "I''m going to have to see if I can''t pull it apart and salvage some of the metal."


    "How are you going to do that?" She asked dubiously. "It took Thor a dozen angry blows to do that amount of damage, then a lightning bolt to separate itpletely."


    "I have no idea, you managed to damage it slightly with the tank killers so it''s possible, but that''s not what we need." I admitted. "Figuring it out is a top priority. I want to add some to my under armor, my shield, and some to your exosuit, if working with it doesn''t make it lose its control concept."


    Next was Thor''s lightning. It was a massive concept of lightning, electricity and magic, with a slight glowing concept that seemed to me to be some sort of divinity, maybe an aspect of immortality. While it was a very exciting concept to find, it was so small and so far back in the background that I would need to heavily enforce it for it to make a noticeable presence. Which would mean I would need another source of divinity or immortality or whatever it was to bring it forward, as stacking the lightning on top of each other would just bring forward the more powerful concepts it held.


    On a whim I grabbed one of our new stun guns andbined a few capacitors with it, an octuplebined rechargeable AA battery and finally a single bolt of Thor''s lightning. The result C ranked device looked simr to the original stun gun but was now a burnished metallic color, felt weightier and more sturdy, and had runes carved along the business end. It felt strong, the non lethal aspect of it faded quite a bit. It would also slowly regenerate its capacity, an interaction with the rechargeable batteries and Thor''s electricity.


    When I pulled the stun gun''s trigger it filled the living room with the angry noise of electricity and the smell of ozone. The electricity had swirled and sparked around the end, but hadn''t hurt me at all, despite the now metal construction of the stun gun.


    "This is no longer for non lethal take-downs." I said with wide eyes, staring at the stun gun.


    Despite my misgivings I activated it again and slowly stuck my finger in, constantly trying to pull into a card until I felt the massive zap, my hand seizing up immediately and dropping the new card to the ground. I shook out my now singed and tingling hand, rtively sure that would have been much worse if I hadn''t been paranoid about tasers and made my under armor electrically resistant.


    When feeling hade back to my now sore hand I reached down and grabbed the card off the floor, examining it closely, nodding happily.


    "It shares a lot of the same concepts as the original spark, just weaker." I exined to Ema as she floated over my shoulder. "It lost the glowing concept, whatever that is. Still has magic though."


    I added in another bolt of Thor''s electricity to the stun gun and attempted the experiment again, this time my fingers getting a painful electrical burn from the single split second it was in contact with the electricity. I struggled to keep from cursing, the pain seemingly worse than it had been gathering the original bolts from Thor.


    "Fuck that hurt! How does it hurt worse than before?" I cursed, my hand slowly beginning to heal. "God we can not use this on anyone we don''t want dead."


    "You''re not high on adrenaline, of course it hurts more!" She exined. "Now will you stop hurting yourself?"


    "Yeah, I was just eager to have a source of Thor''s lightning on tap." I exined, examining the card of new electricity before adding them both back into the stun gun. "That second charge was even more powerful, maybe half the original power?"


    Two sparks for a new B ranked weapon and a source of magical lightning wasn''t a bad trade at all, even if testing it hurt like an fucking bastard. I quicklybined the remaining twelve bolts of electricity down to six cards. The only reason I was keeping them at all was the small glowing concept I couldn''t really urately name.


    Myst new card was the Bifrost energy. It too had a strong magical concept, this time even stronger than the lightning or the Destroyer''s beam. Sadly, its other strongest concept was not teleportation as I had hoped. Instead it was another concept, something rted to travel between two ces, a bridging energy that connected ces together. Remembering what Jane had talked about when discussing her research during the debriefing, I smiled at the potential. Sure I was no closer to making a Deadpool style teleporting device, or the ability to bamf like Nightcrawler, but there was plenty of potential. Happy with what I was already nning Ibined the Bifrost energies down, taking fourteen andbining them into seven doubles. The result was two sets of seven, one set about twice as potent as the other.


    "Alright, I reduced the clutter bybining things, now I''m ready to do some making." I said with a smirk, standing and stretching slowly. "Ema, do me a favor and look up the nearest store that sells reimed stone. I need a dozen or more bs of old hearthstone."


    "On it. Are you making what I think you''re making?"


    "If you''re thinking that I''m going to make a teleporting system to spread out all around the state and country, finally making something that will get me out of danger and make it all the harder to pin me down? Then yes, yes I am."

 Chapter 29: Travel solutions

    Chapter 29: Travel solutions


    It took an hour of nning, research and preparation for me to finally leave the apartment after that revtion. In all honesty I had nned on taking an actual break on my first day back instead of jumping right back into everything, but it was impossible to ignore the potential my new cards held. So off I went, leaving the apartment and heading down to the parking lot only to realize I still had my truck carded. With a curse I headed back inside and back up the stairs, grabbing my bicycle before heading back down and out. I rode quite a bit away from the apartment before walking into an alley and driving back out.


    After that it was off to my first stop, a used furniture shop. I looked around inside for a bit before snagging a beat up but robust coffee table. With some help from the workers it was loaded into the back of my truck. I paid in cash, appearing as someone else of course. I drove away and hardly a minuteter pulled into a parking garage, carded the table and left. My next stop was a series of masonry shops across the city. It took four hours for me to pick up thirteen different bs of reimed hearthstone of various materials, though all of them were real stone. It took at least an extra hour to find ces to card each of the t, pre-cut stones, each one needing their own card.


    From there I headed to a shop Ema had found me before I left, a simple store we knew sold coins for various christian saints. I had to settle on the silver version instead of a cheaper metal, but I walked out with fifteen matching coins of Saint Christopher, the saint of traveling, travelers and motorcycle riders. A quick examinationter showed they had the concepts I needed.


    Next I visited a few of the crystal shops around the city, a new one and two I had been to previously. I was very d I had my face changing mask, because I had been to one of those shops three times in the past two weeks. The first two unfortunately didn''t have what I was looking for but the third new one did. I happily bought a set of twenty moonstone rocks, a mineral known for protecting travelers apparently. It shimmered in a multicolored rainbow when you looked at it under the right light, oddly reminding me of the energy of the Bifrost. The rocks were all smoothed down and polished, simr enough that they stacked together into one card.


    My final stop was a bit of a stretch for what I was looking for. Ema and I had debated for a while trying to figure out as many ces as possible to find travel and point to point rted concepts in as simple a way as possible so it wouldn''t end up a mess. I knew from prior experience that cars carried travel and transportation, but carried way to many other concepts and would massively transform anything I mixed them with. Instead I headed down to another hobby shop and bought two different types of radio antennas as well as two brands of small but rtively powerful radio transmitters, as well as twenty nice, solid, well madepasses.


    When I arrived home twenty minutester the first thing I did was reinforce the table with half my remaining sheets of aluminum and a single sheet of titanium. The result was a table that Ema could do jumping jacks on in her exosuit and it wouldn''t even budge. I pushed it out into the living room, dropping the rest of my purchases onto the table, except for the hearth stones.


    "Did everything work out?" Ema asked as I did so, floating around the table and scanning everything.


    "I got everything I wanted." I answered, sitting down on the couch. "And everything had the right concept, though moonstone and the coins are a bit moreplicated than I had hoped. Should still work though."


    I emptied the bags and my cards, organizing everything into piles before going over the order ofbinations in my head. This whole project hinged on something I hadn''t actually tested yet, mostly because I had been too excited by the possibilities if it worked. I recarded the antenna, the moonstone, thepasses and the coins, all in groups of fifteen, studying the cards for a moment before sighing.


    "Alright Ema, cross your fingers."


    Ibined the group of coins with the group of moonstone, resulting in a card full of fifteen carved St. Christopher moonstone coins that were slightlyrger than a Kennedy half dor. They were marbled with silver and had arge concept of travel as well as some sort of travel luck or blessing. I also was happy to find the idea of it being a group or a stack of something increased. These were items that vaguely belonged together.


    Next I added the first group of radio receivers, adding a level of receivingmunications and data, of connecting. Again the concept of grouping was increased. And finally I added thepasses. The result was a group of items that had strong concepts of travel, travel luck, datamunication. They also held a strong connection to each other. Each of these was linked together, the concept of a collection or group of items having been hammered home through all of thebinations.


    I pushed all of the objects out onto the table, noticing that they all now looked exactly the same. Fifteen moonstone and silver carvings of St Christopher with wired metal rims. I picked one up and realized I knew exactly where the other ones were.


    "Ema,e here." I said, smirking and trying to hold back my excitement.


    When she floated closer I took one of the stones and bnced it on her frame before closing my eyes.


    "Fly around the room." I said, my eyes still closed.


    With the second stone in my hand I could feel where she was flying, and could point my finger towards her. When I opened my eyes I was still pointing directly at her.


    "Well that is a pretty interesting discovery." I said with a wide grin. "Gonna have to figure out if this is because I added thepass group or because the one I''m holding has the concepts of apass."


    I snagged the rock bnced on Ema''s head and carded it and the rest of the stones. Now came the most important part, what would make or break this experiment. I summoned a double card of the Bifrost energy and added it in. Then another and another. I added all seven of the double cards of Bifrost energy, checking the progress of the stones at each step. The group of stones was steeped in magic, energy and the unique Bifrost sense of travel between two points. I could feel the group bing even closer tied, though the level of the group concept stayed the same. I was so close.


    I rushed to my bedroom, grabbing something and returning, dropping my right arm vambrace, the one without the shield, on the couch next to me. My hands shaking slightly, I pushed two of the stones from the group, freezing for a moment as I watched them radiate wisps of energy. I grabbed them both and quicklybined them each with one of the transmitters beforebining them together. This new stone was now slightly bigger, and had the same concepts but stronger, mixed with data sending. This was now, for all intents and purposes, the hub stone. I pushed out the remaining stones, closing my eyes for a moment as I held therger one. The sense for the smaller stones was even stronger now.


    Quickly Ibined the vambrace with the stone, creating a B ranked arm brace that had arge silver moonstone ent along the top of it, a set in oval of stone, ented by metal bands and silver streaks. It was no longer leaking wisps of energy but it still retained its most powerful concepts. Putting it down I grabbed the other stones and pushed out a square of reimed hearthstone,bining it with a singr stone. I couldn''t help butugh at the results. Quickly I repeated the process with the twelve other stones before pushing one of the results onto the floor. I stood and walked into the bedroom, closing the door, Ema following me in at thest second.


    "Warren are you sure this is going to work?" She asked as I frantically pulled on the vambrace. "It''s only B ranked and uses magic and energy you don''t understand."


    "You mean like how I understood all the other stuff I''ve made?" I ask with a smirk, the vambrace now on firmly. "Besides I think it''s probably B ranked because on the magic scale this isn''t that impressive."


    I took slow, deep breaths, working for a moment with my eyes closed, trying to calm my beating heart. After a full minute of slow breathing I open my eyes and look at Ema.


    "I gotta try Ema. I''m wasn''t picking up any negative concepts even close to the top and it''s actually pretty simple concept wise. At least for what I''m trying to do."


    Ema let out a long sigh before floating further away, to the back corner, before turning back to me.


    "Alright, go ahead." She said, now out of any sort of danger zone


    I nodded and for a moment, focused on the vambrace, wondering how I would activate it. After a while of nothing happening I frowned.


    "Thor had to call for a pick up, maybe try saying something?" Ema rmended.


    I nodded and focused on the vambrace again, quickly going through any word I could think of except for Heimdall because I really didn''t want his attention on me, especially not when I was experimenting with Bifrost energy. After a while guessing random words I was strating to get desperate.


    "Fuck, I don''t know Travel?"


    In a st of color and shimmering magic I disappeared. For a split second I felt like I was being sucked through a straw, spun through a rainbow of color and speed before I was dropping feet first onto the modified hearthstonending pad. I threw my arms out to steady myself, almost falling forward on my face anyway. I was breathing hard, the rough transition having knocked the wind out of me. I couldn''t help but shout andugh in excitement when I had recovered.


    "It worked Ema! It fucking worked!"


    [center]- <em>Later That Day </em>-[/center]


    Ema had me sit down for one of her most detailed scans after the sessful test, making sure that I hadn''t suffered any adverse effects. When I failed to show early signs of radiation exposure she begrudgingly let me get back to work, which first entailed me putting down a secondnding pad and testing that I could jump to either of them. It took me a solid thirty minutes to figure out that by saying "Travel, Living Room" and "Travel, Bedroom" I could choose where I ended up. I was getting the strong feeling that the concept of magic was seriously filling in the gaps of what this creation could do.


    When I finally figured out how they worked Ema pulled up a map of the world on myptop. She zoomed in on New York and put a pin around where the apartment was.


    "Alright, so I''ll want a few around New York, just for convenience sake." I said, pointing out a spot in queens and a spot much farther into the state.


    "Are you sure you want to use it for convenience?" She asked. If someone got their hands on one because they noticed you jumping back and forth they would be able to set up a pretty damning trap."


    "Fuck yeah your not wrong." I agreed with a nod. "Okay, we will take it easy on the nearby ones first. The ones in other states are less dangerous because I''ll be able to really look around for a good hiding spot."


    "Alright. The more hidden the better I suppose. When you leave there is barely anything noticeable but arriving had a sh of light." She said as she marked the location with little markers on theputer. "Where else?"


    "Maybe four scattered around the United States? Chicago, California, Texas and maybe one in the middle of nowhere? I could build a small bug out cache in the middle of a desert or something." I suggested, Ema putting marks where I pointed out. "One in Canada as well, though I don''t know where exactly."


    "Maybe one in Japan?" Ema suggested, getting a nod from me. "And one in the UK?"


    "Yeah, those are both good ideas. Maybe one in Germany?" I suggested. "Then one in Egypt, Brazil and Australia? That''s all of them right?"


    "Yes it is." She said, putting dots on my suggestions. "That seems like a good spread."


    "It will be a while before I get around to putting down the ones in other countries, but there is no reason not to take a trip around the US when I''m finished with Clint''s order and experimenting with the guns they should have for me."


    "Are you going to put the nearby ones down today?" Ema asked, floating around my head.


    "I have to. There is no way I''ll be able to sleep or focus on anything else until these are hidden somewhere useful. I''ll be able to teleport back though, so it won''t even be that bad."


    About an hourter I was walking on the sidewalk, under a small bridge around the far border of Queens, looking around and checking for cameras. Finding none, I walked around the concrete structure of the bridge, climbing the dirt and rocky area. There were plenty of trees around to muffle any lighting off of my arrival, as well as a tall concrete barrier on two sides.


    I dug a small pit for thending pad, nestling it into the hold and burying it, covering it with dirt and masking the whole as best I could by scattering leaves and rocks over it. Satisfied that only someone with training would be able to spot it I looked around for a minute before smirking.


    "Travel Home."


    In a rush of colored light I was suddenly back in my apartment, once again having to throw my hands out to counter my momentum on arrival. Ema floated around me immediately, scanning me for a few moments before backing away.


    "Wee home." She said, bobbing around for a moment. "Are you going to head right back out to ce the next one?"


    "Yeah, this is the one that will really keep me safe, I''ll be able to give anyone who catches me around the city theplete slip."


    "Alright. At least you won''t have to drive back."


    And with that I left again, riding off on my bike to find a ce to switch to my truck. I drove for around four hours, not counting when I stopped for dinner and a break. By the time I stopped on a seemingly random road the sun was already set. I carded my truck when the road was empty and walked into the woods, climbing a slight hill for about five minutes. I stopped and turned back, noting with satisfaction that I could just barely make out the road, but there was no way anyone on the road would be able to see up here with any sort of detail. I quickly dug a small pit and ced the secondnding pad in it, carefully burying and hiding it again. With a smirk I looked around, nodding before looking down at my vambrace.


    "Travel Home."


    When I arrived I copsed back down on the couch with a big grin, unable to stop. Ema flew around me and looked down at me as Iid back.


    "Where did you put it?" She asked.


    "On a seemingly random road about four hours away." I exined. "There is a small town about a two minute drive from it and I tucked thending pad itself far enough into the tree line that it should cover any light from me traveling there. "


    "That''s as good a spot as any I suppose." Ema said with a bobbing nod.


    "I''m just happy to finally have a solid, probably unblockable escape path." I said, looking down at the vambrace. "I don''t know if I''ll be able to take this off now. It''s too much of a reassurance for me to not have it with me at all times."


    "Are you going to bond it to you?" Ema asked, floating away to theptop.


    "Not until I can confirm other people can''t travel with me. If it''s capable of it then bonding with it might make that impossible."


    Ema and I discussed the best ces for the remainingnding pads for another hour, debating on which side the Chicagonding pad should go, and whether we should put the Texas pad in Austin or Das. Eventually it was toote for debating and I headed to bed, tired from all the excitement during the day.

 Chapter 30: I can see for miles

    Chapter 30: I can see for miles


    Hello everyone! I just wanted to give everyone a quick reminder that I have a Pat_reon! _/_MetaBettaOmegaLetta) They are currently a chapter ahead on my two fanfiction''s, and will have ess to my original story, Lair Divers Tale. Currently the first five chapters of LDT are avable for everyone to read, while the next five are ready for patrons to read. If you are interested please show your support, otherwise enjoy the chapter!<hr>


    After a quick morning start up, Ema and I sat down and started nning our next project, Clint''s sses.


    "You keep saying you have a n for these, but you haven''t exined anything." Ema pointed out once I sat down on the couch with my notepad.


    "Well it all starts with a base of those color changing sses. I''m pretty sure you can get normal sunsses that transition between clear and shaded." I exined. "


    "You''re pretty sure?" She asked, her tone skeptical and the tiniest bit frustrated. "How about I double check?"


    She floated over to theptop and started doing her research, quickly finding that they did exist. She quickly made note of a few shops that sold them nearby and sent them to my phone in a text. We went over my ideas and I took some more notes. After sending me another few stores that would hopefully have what I needed I left for another morning of shopping, making sure I had plenty of cash in my modified card before heading out.


    After stopping at a cafe for a quick breakfast I started the trip at the first of three ces that imed they carried the photochromic sunsses. My request for a dozen pairs of the exact same type raised a few eyebrows but I walked out with what I was looking for, though they only had one set like that. The second store didn''t have such arge amount of one style, but luckily the third store did, and I now had two dozen pairs of two different sunsses, one to make a set for Clint, and one for me.


    My next stop was an electronic hobby store, one I had been to before. I specifically bought a bunch of rotary selector switches, which looked like a scroll wheel from a mouse that clicked from position to position. I also bought a ridiculous amount of other electronic bits and bobs. Switches, chips, resistors, capacitors, digital screens, all sorts of things that were small and easy to store, but had straightforward concepts that coulde in handy inter projects. I must have looked like an eager hobbyist getting in way over his head when the store clerk asked what I was going to do with everything and I told him I didn''t know yet.


    When I got back to the truck I grabbed one pair of sunsses andbined it with the wheel switch, putting them on and clicking it through its positions. Sure enough, instead of the tint slowly transitioning from being exposed to light it flipped through various levels of darkness before swinging all the way around to beingpletely dark.


    With a satisfied smirk I pulled out of my parking space and headed for the next stop of a few, the hardware store. I walked in and perused the aisle before buying four of the mostpact thermal imaging cameras they had, two voltage meters, which I could have bought at the hobby store but forgot, two metal detecting wands as well as two of the best stud finders they had. I wasn''t sure if thest one would work but there was really only one way to find out. I headed to another hardware store and bought four morepact thermal imaging cameras before driving to a store specifically for hunters.


    I walked into the shop and quickly perused the binocrs, finding apact pair that also had a rangefinder. I also found a set of the mostpact night vision viewers they carried as well. This was all incredibly expensive but it was worth it Well it was if it worked.


    When I was done with my shopping at around noon I debated teleporting home for a while, before finallying to the conclusion that having to find a secluded ce to push my truck back out of its card when I wanted to drive somewhereter would me more trouble than it''s worth, especially when I was only a short drive from home.


    When I finally parked and made my way back to the apartment I sat back down on the couch with a sigh, taking a long breath and a moment to center myself before unloading everything.


    "I think I got everything that I need." I said as Ema got closer. "I''m not sure about some of it but I''m pretty sure most of my ideas are going to work."


    With Ema floating in her usual ce next to my head I started unloading and organizing everything. My first test wasbining the selector sunsses I had made earlier as a test with the binocrs. The result worked, but wasn''t exactly what I was looking for. I uncarded them and put them on my face.


    The sunsses were slightly bulkier but thanks to thepact concept they still looked like rtively normal sunsses. I scrolled on the selector switch and it zoomed in and out, settling on one of four different intensities, the distance measurement in a little, semi transparent rectangle in the corner.


    "What''s wrong?" Ema asked when I frowned.


    "I think I need tobine the sses first and then add the selector switch. The selector switch is controlling the zoom, but I wanted it to select what kind of vision it had."


    "Won''t it just default to that?" She asked.


    "Crap I don''t know I think the only way to know is to try it." I said. "There is no way to know which it will settle with."


    I grabbed the other style of sunsses andbined them directly to the remaining pairs of binocrs. This time the binocrs themselves added a little scroll wheel, though instead of snapping to certain levels of zoom it was a gradual change. After I tried them and recarded them I added the scroll wheel switch. This added a second wheel to the other side, letting me turn the zoom on and off.


    "Okay, step one is a sess." I said. "I''m really d that worked. Let''s try it with the night vision."


    I repeated the process with thepact night vision viewers and the same style of sunsses, resulting in a pair of eyewear simrly bulky to the modified binocrs. These had two rubber click buttons on the side that changed the intensity of the night vision as well as a small wheel that adjusted the small zoom capabilities the original device had. I added the scroll wheel style selector to the night vision sses, the selector appearing again on the opposite side and allowed me to shut the night vision on or off.


    "Okay, here is the moment of truth."


    I quicklybined the two modified pairs of sunsses together and pushed them out. I turned them over in my hands. They remained a reasonable thickness for a normal set of sses and had controls on both sides. One was the selector scroll wheel and the other was abination of the zoom control from the binocrs and the intensity control for the night vision. I put them on and smiled as I clicked through night vision, binocr and normal modes.


    "Well, at least we have something to hand in, even if the rest of this fails." I said with a smirk, putting the modified sunsses down and picking up one of the handheld thermal imaging devices.


    I turned on the device and scanned the room, nodding as I could detect heat sources, exactly like one would expect. I picked up another pair of sunsses, the same style as before andbined the two. The result was a bulky pair of thermal vision sses, though they were a bit toorge to really be called sunsses. They had the same basic controls simr to myst creation. In an attempt to make them morepact I added a second pair of sunsses, resulting in something much simr to the night vision or binocr sunsses I had just made.


    I put them on to inspect them, nodding as the image seemed very simr to what it had been but with more depth perception. It was a weird sensation, seeing thermal vision in three dimensions. The temperature key in the corner was interesting but useful. I shook it off and carded the sses again, carding the other pair as well andbining them together. The result worked perfectly, a set of sunsses that cycled through binocr vision, thermal vision and night vision.


    "Fantastic, that worked perfectly!" I said with a smile, putting down the pair with a nod. "Now for the part that''s a bit of a stretch."


    I picked up one of the thermal imaging cameras andbined it with the voltmeter, frowning at the result. It was even now, a thermal imager and a voltmeter in one. But that''s not what I needed. I picked up the second voltmeter, the one that was supposed to be used to make a second pair of sses andbined it to thebination.


    "Aha!" I said happily. "That did it!"


    I pointed the now electricity imager around the apartment andughed as I could see various blue lines, wires crossing the ceiling and floor. I pointed it at the TV, my eyes widening as I could see all the wires and circuits.


    "This is incredible." I said, still scanning around the room. "I''m building one of these asap."


    I quicklybined it together with two pairs of sunsses and a selector wheel, beforebining it with thebination sses. Once again I tested them, the selector wheel flipping through everything while the controls on the other side adjusted the image in different ways. I carded the sses and started on the next mode,bining two of the metal detecting wands with one thermal imager, resulting in a metal imager. I scanned the room and could see every screw, wire and nail. The TV was riveting, I could see through all of the stic to the circuit boards underneath. It reminded me of an airport x-ray machine, though my hand was slightly more visible and I couldn''t see any bones.


    Quickly going through the same steps as before Ibined the stud finders to a thermal imager, sweeping the result around the room. I gaped as I looked into the apartment next to mine. The view was partially blocked by the TV and a picture frame on the other side , but I was still looking through the wall! It looked as if the wall and everything in it had turned invisible, though I could see the walls of their apartment. It was strange how it determined what I was trying to look through, seeming to only affect one wall at a time, as when I scanned to look at the outer wall of the building it was opaque until the camera switched and the other wall turned opaque and the outer wall faded.


    Ibined the final addition to the sses and smirked, holding the final result in my hands before putting them on and slowly clicking through the different options.


    "These came out even better than I could have hoped for." I said to Ema, noting that she didn''t run on electricity as she hovered around. "Go get in your exosuit so you can wear them."


    A minute or so Ema was walking around the apartment, scanning and looking around. Eventually she handed them back to me, gently sitting on the couch beside me.


    "Those are incredible." She said. "You are absolutely making me a pair of those. What are they ranked?"


    "They are a solid B." I answered, carding them again before retrieving the bonding materials from the fridge. "I''m making both of us a pair of these. They are way too useful not to."


    I went through the binding process, using another lock from my materials andpleting it quickly. The sses smoothed out, the frame getting dark purple highlights, while the lenses gained a purple shimmer when you turned them. I smiled and recard the sunsses, nowpletely useless to me.


    "Before you do that I need you to make a ring or something for driving."


    "A ring of driving? Well it would be useful for you to be able to drive." I admitted, nodding for a moment. "Yeah that''s a good idea."


    "You should go get the materials now." She said before continuing. "When you''re done I''m going to drive to Illinois and then to Texas."


    "What? Why?" I asked, confused. "I thought we were going to do thatter?"


    "We can go on a trip to Californiater." She exined. "You need an option that will really get you out of New York, something that can buy you as much time as you need. I can drive non stop to Illinois and then non stop to Texas and be back before you need to go to Shield to deliver Clint''s sses."


    "Why don''t we go together?" I suggested. "That way we can trade ces behind the wheel asionally to sleep or rx."


    "No. There is only one thing you are doing tomorrow, and that is taking a break."


    "I don''t Okay I do need a break but what about you?"


    "Carson, I appreciate the concern but I don''t need breaks. For one thing stress is a symptom of biology, which I don''t have. I also don''t get bored, which means driving for thirty five hours or more would be a break. Plus, being able to shop in Chicago and in Austin will make it a lot less likely that someone will figure out what you''re doing. We need to get this sorted as soon as possible."


    I thought about it for a moment before letting out a long sigh, nodding and standing from the couch.


    "Alright, fine." I agreed reluctantly. "I''ll go out, get what I need for a book of driving, card the truck and travel upstate. You can leave from there, it should save you a few hours at least."


    I carded Ema and her exosuit, snagged a baseball cap, a scarf, a shirt and a pair of jeans. I grabbed Fury''s gloves on the way out as well, taking twonding pads with me in the Deck. From the apartment I drove directly to a bookstore, buying a few books on driving, and a simple gold ring from a nearby pawnshop. I also bought two high quality, high draw weight bows from a sporting goods store I happened to drive past, as well as a huge bag of parts for them. I parked in a parking lot, made sure there weren''t any cameras around before getting out of the truck and carding it.


    "Travel Upstate."


    I almost slipped and rolled down the hill when I arrived at the upstatending pad. I took a deep breath before sitting down on a rock and pushing out Ema and her exosuit. The sun was slowly starting to set as her metallic body formed around her.


    "Hmm having a body does have its charm I suppose." Ema admitted as she sat next to me. "Everything ready?"


    "No, give me a second to put your ring together." I answered, quicklybining the books and her new ring. "Remind me to make that into an advanced driving skill ringter, alright? I didn''t want to waste too much time looking for the proper books so that''s just the basics."


    She nodded and took the ring, sliding it on as Iid out her outfit. She slid everything on easily, making her body shift into things to fit everything easier. The gloves werest. As she dressed I told her about my other purchases.


    "How did you like using the bow?" I asked as she put her scarf up and around her face.


    "It was nice, the ring made it easy." She said with a shrug that lookedpletely natural. "Why?"


    "Because I will hopefully be making some better weapons for myself in a few days and I figured I could upgrade it a bunch with some stuff I just bought and that could be your weapon."


    "Yeah that would be good." She agreed with a nod. "As long as I''m not stuck with that forever"


    "Do you really think I would force you to only use that?" I assured her, shaking my head. "Eventually I''ll be making a whole lot of extra stuff for both of us. For now I just want to make sure you have a powerful ranged option when you need it."


    "Okay. I look forward to seeing what you make then." She said before standing. "C''mon, the quicker I get going the better."


    I nodded and walked down the hill behind her, stopping beside the long road. It took a few minutes of us hiding behind trees before we found a good moment to push out the truck, the twonding pads going in the passenger seat. Ema climbed into the driver''s seat and started the truck. She pulled down her scarf and gave me a metallic smile.


    "Go home, order pizza and rx." She said reassuringly. "I''ll keep you updated."


    "Alright, drive safe."


    She nodded and pulled away before pulling a U-turn and heading the opposite way. I watched her drive for a moment before checking the other way to make sure no one wasing.


    "Travel Home."

 Chapter 31: Shocking

    Chapter 31: Shocking


    When I got back home I immediately started working on Ema''s bow to distract myself from the now too quiet apartment. I got the old bow from my room andid it out alongside the two new ones. Ipared the two new ones and the old one before deciding I wouldn''t add the old one into the new version as it contained a few negative concepts like old, used and worn. I put it away and started going through the extra parts that I bought. As I suspected when I bought them, they all had concepts of being bow parts, so I wouldn''t wind up with any weird extras if Ibined them.


    The bows alone were C ranked, and I could feel them getting more conceptually powerful as Iyered on the extra parts. When I was finally done and Ibined the two bows together the result was a basic B rank. I stood and pulled back the bowstring, noting that it was a bit more difficult than before, but not massively. Even so, conceptually it was a much more powerful and urate bow. I grabbed a few normal sporting arrows from a pile and stood.


    "Travel Upstate."


    This time I was ready for the momentum and managed to stay steady as I was now standing on the familiar forested hill. I nocked an arrow and pulled it back, aiming straight at a nearby tree, still lit up by the slowly setting sun. I released after a moment of focus, already missing how easy to use the archery ring had made using a bow. The arrow mmed into the tree with a thunk that reverberated through the forest. I stared at it with wide eyes before making my way over to it. Sure enough the arrow, which had a blunted tip for target shooting, was buried at least eight inches into the wood,pletely stuck in the tree.


    Quickly I popped back to the apartment, put the new bow on the coffee table and snagged the old one, before traveling back to the forest. I stood at the same spot and fired another arrow, managing to hit the tree a second time. This time however the barely went in more than a few inches. Satisfied with what I had created I traveled home, tucking the old bow into my closet as a backup before sitting back down in the living room. I carded the new bow and examined it, going over the concepts while scratching my cheek.


    The bow was powerful and would definitely be an upgrade to the original''s range and effectiveness, which would in turn make Ema even more effective. Even so, itcked impact, especially considering the ns floating around my head for my recement weapons. I could add the rest of Thor''s sparks, that would probably make a drastic change to the weapon, if what happened to the stun gun was any indication. The problem was that Ema was made of metal. Having her around during Thor''s fight with the destroyer had been dangerous enough, but making her main weapon shoot electricity or lightning was a recipe for disaster. assuming electricity actually hurt her.


    I pulled out my cell phone and sent her a text message, asking if she knew how vulnerable she was to electricity. Her reply came back instantly.


    "It would hurt." She wrote. "I''m not really electronic so I''m probably more resistant than technology but too much would still toast me."


    I sent an "alright" back to here, pondering my next step. Now I had a problem that needed solving, even if I didn''tbine the sparks with the bow, her being sensitive to electricity was uneptable. I needed to fix that as soon as possible. I leaned over and grabbed myptop and for the next twenty minutespiled a list of things I would need to make Ema her upgrade. I would construct another portion of transformation material using the two spooks of nitinol I had left and oobleck,bining it with everypatible electrically insting material I could get my hands on. Then I would top it off with a remote control device so the control concept staid as powerful as it was.


    My n figured out I messaged Ema that she should stop somewhere along the way between Chicago and Texas, somewhere far away from people so we could apply her upgrade and so I could make her bow and she could try it out. When she replied with an affirmative I smiled. I was done for the day, which meant pizza or maybe Chinese?


    [center]- <em>The Next Morning </em>-[/center]


    I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. I had gone to sleep extra early and head fallen asleep almost immediately. I sent a message to Ema thanking her, exining that I genuinely hadn''t realized how tired I had been.


    "I know, I could tell. But you''re wee." She replied immediately, before continuing. "I''m about two hours out of Chicago. Should thending pad be in the city?"


    "As close as you can get, maybe in arge park?" I sent back. This time it took her about a minute to respond.


    "Okay, I think I found a good one." She eventually responded. "What are you doing today?"


    "Just some light shopping." I exined. "I''m rxing plenty, don''t worry."


    "Okay, take it easy."


    After my affirmation I went through my morning routine and left the apartment not long after. I rode my bike through the city before stopping at a random cafe, enjoying a bagel and lox and a cup of coffee while I nned where I would be going shopping. Ema messaged me before I could reach my first store, exining she had ced the firstnding pad and was already on her way to Texas.


    I spent the majority of the day riding around the city shopping and rxing. I bought a half dozen books on expert level driving as well as another eight books on marksmanship and one and a few on general firearms knowledge. I also bought the original Star Wars trilogy to watch, which I just happened to see when I was checking out. I was curious to see if there was any differences between the version I remembered and the one from this reality.


    After I was done at the bookstore I visited a few hardware stores and a specialty store that had one of the instors I needed. I already missed having my truck as I struggled to carry the heavy bags into an alleyway to card. After I was done I perused a few pawnshops, buying four ss rings from random schools across the city as well as a few other random pieces of jewelry to have around. I was at the point that I could barely tell when I pulled my movement and martial arts ring off anymore, which meant it was time for a new learning ring to take its ce. I also bought a ring holding jewelry box from thest pawnshop I visited.


    Myst stop was the hobby shop where I picked up a half pound of y, a few panes of colored ss and two radio controllers. After that I headed home, stopping by a Mexican shop for a burrito lunch.


    When I finally got back I put the first Star Wars on the TV before heading to the kitchen, listening to the opening orchestral while making another batch of oobleck. When it was done I carded all of it into a single card, before making a second one andbining them together. Ibined the two spools of nitinol with thest three sheets of titanium and thest two sheets of aluminum, thenbined it all together. I flicked that card into the deck before grabbing a few tes and bringing them to the living room.


    When I wasfortable I poured all two dozen colors of resin insting powder onto a te and carded the entire pile. The powder was meant to be cooked into an electrically instingyer on metal, and while it had a small transformative concept, it also had strong melting and reacting with heat concepts as well. If Ibined all the colors together as cards the insting and transformative concepts would rise but so would the ones I didn''t want. Thankfully the insting concept wasrge enough on its own to still be useful.


    When everything was set I mashed all of the insting materials together. With everybination the base card''s instion concept gotrger andrger, and while it was full of smaller concepts the fact that I was using such a variety meant that they quickly fell far enough behind that they weren''t active. The biggest concern was the fragile concept carried by the colored panes of ss, but that would overridden massively by one of the sheets of titanium. Finally, when the insting amalgamation was done Ibined it with the controller andbined that to the transformative metallic blob. The result was something that shouldn''t mix up the exosuits used concepts while still adding a huge resistance to electrical current. It should also add a not insignificant amount of material to the suit, giving Ema more material to work with.


    After that I took all of the extra leftover solid or powder ingredients andbined them together into a simple gold ring. The result was a ring that should protect me from electricity, though the remaining ss I put into it meant it was a bit on the fragile side. Ibined it with a second ring to mitigate that slightly, but it was still a bigger concept than I would have liked.


    When I was done with Ema''s upgrade and my personal protection Ibined all books on marksmanship and gun knowledge before adding it to a ss ring. I switched it with my martial arts and movement ring, sliding it into the ring case I had just bought. The case had a few normal rings that I had bought earlier, but I kept them separate. When I slid in on the ring I couldn''t help but gasp with the new rush of knowledge. It took me a minute to parse everything out but I couldn''t help but smirk when I was done. It had been miles better than the overload that had happened with my movement ring.


    I stood and went to the safe, the door already opened. I grabbed one of the pump action shotguns and studied it. I knew it was a Mossberg 500, and was worth about two hundred dors in its current state. I knew it shot 12 gauge rounds and held six shots, five in the magazine and one in the chamber. If I had the proper tools I could have disassembled it, cleaned it and reassembled it without breaking a sweat. I smirked as I almost instinctively checked if it was loaded only to find that it was. I cursed and spent the next ten minutes unloading every gun in the safe and storing the rounds in a box, which I slid under the safe. The gun I had brought with me to New Mexico, which I now knew was a 1911A chambered in .45 ACP, stayed loaded and on my nightstand.


    A few minutes after I finished unloading the guns I got a message from Ema, telling me toe to her, that thending pad was on the back of the truck. I gathered up a few things and quickly put on all my deployable armor before traveling to her. I emerged, standing in the bed of the truck, looking out into a huge forest, no road in sight. I looked around and found Ema sitting on a fallen tree about thirty feet away, so I hopped out of the truck and made my way to her.


    "How''s it going?" I asked as I sat down on the log next to her.


    "Good, the drive has been peaceful." She said, pulling off her hat and scarf. "So what is this upgrade you made me?"


    "It''s something to add to your exosuit, it should make it pretty hard to hurt you with electricity." I exined. "You gotta get out of the suit for me to apply it though."


    She nodded and continued pulling off her disguise before starting to shift, the suit slowly reforming into its cube form. When she was free she flew over my shoulder.


    "Do ap above the trees, stretch your fly around and make sure no one else is nearby." I said as I leaned down to card the exosuit, quicklybining it with the upgrade.


    When Ema returned a few minutester I pushed the suit back out.


    "Everything clear?" I asked as she hovered around the cube, scanning it.


    "Yes, there is no one around for at least several miles." She responded. "The nearest home is six miles away, on the other side of arge hill."


    I nodded as she slid into ce and started reforming the now slightly darker suit.


    "Oh! Um." She said, trailing off as she finished forming. "That''s new"


    I was about to ask what was wrong when her skin started to shift colors. It was a rainbow of different shades and mixes, before eventually settling on her original burnished metal.


    "What was. The insting powder!" I said, shaking my head. "Of all the concepts to interact it was the control and the color?"


    "It seems so it is very interesting I will experiment as I continue on my trip." Ema responded before looking up at me. "For now, you said we had a weapon to test?"


    "Yeah, here." I pushed out the new bow and handed it to her, before handing her the archery ring as well.


    "It doesn''t look too impressive."


    "It''s not done yet." I exined. "That''s just a maximized bow. Here."


    I handed her a few arrows, which she stuck in her thigh, a tentacle of metal holding them for her. She nocked, drew and fired an arrow in one smooth motion, the arrow mming into a tree about fifty feet away.


    "Oh, yeah I can feel the difference. Much more power." She said with a nod. "This is a solid upgrade."


    Ema took a half dozen other shots, aiming at trees that were further and further away. After each shot she nodded, before finally mming thest arrow I had given her into thest arrow she shot, both of them stuck in a tree at least two hundred feet away. I couldn''t help but smirk as she turned back to me.


    "You said it wasn''t done? ." Ema asked when she was done, passing the bow back to me. "What''s next?"


    "What''s next is the absolutely horrible part." I said, starting to walk back to the truck. "We are going to disassemble it, infuse each piece with a single card of magic electricity from the stun gun and then reassemble it. Then we are going to add a couple of Thor''s sparks to it."


    "What? No!" Ema said harshly, stretching her arm out to grab my shoulder. "You''ll be hurting yourself every time, that''s uneptable"


    "Mhmm, it''s going to suck real bad." I said with a nod. "But my undersuit gives me protection, plus I made this ring with the leftover stuff from your upgrade. Should make this a lot easier than it would have been."


    "...I still don''t like it." Ema said after a pause, shaking her head. "Letting you hurt yourself to make me a weapon. It feels wrong."


    "Ema, it won''t be permanent and it''s going to be a lot less damage than it was when I first made it." I assured her. "Besides, the more powerful you are the better you can protect meter."


    She shook her head again but kept walking,ying the bow on the tailgate of the truck and shifting her hand into a screwdriver, starting to take it apart. As she worked I climbed up and sat on the tailgate next to her, pushing out the stun gun and getting to work. And boy had I been right, it did suck. It wasn''t nearly as bad as it could have been, it hurt slightly less than the single spark version of the stun gun had and left no real damage, but it still hurt. And I very much underestimated how many parts the bow had. Nevertheless we got through it in half an hour, the bow getting put back together in a few minutes.


    "Alright, time to see if it was worth it." I said, picking it up and carding it, a chuckle escaping as I examined it. "Well it''s still a B ranked card, but boy did that change it. It''s suffused with magic and electricity. They aren''t massive concepts but they are definitely there."


    I pushed out the bow and handed it to Ema, passing her a few more arrows. She silently nocked an arrow and fired it in the same smooth motion. The arrow streaked across the gap with a blue afterglow, mming into a tree and crackling with electricity for a split second before going silent, smoke slowly curling up from the arrow.


    "Damn Not bad." I said, holding my hand out. "Now let''s do better."


    She handed me the bow back and I carded it,bining it with two of the sparks. Ema tried to stop me from adding the second one but I couldn''t help myself, I wanted her weapon to be the best I could make. I smirked as I could feel a massive change in the bow, so I pushed it out into my hands.


    "Holy"


    The bow, which had previously looked just like a normalpound bow, was nowpletely different. All of the weight saving cutouts in the frame were gone, reced by a solid metallic frame that weighed exactly the same. The pulley system was still there of course, but it had shifted, somehow looking handcrafted, refined and more artistic, while still looking robust and powerful. Nordic runes were carved along the limbs and handle, set with a darker cobalt blue metal that glowed slightly. As I held it I could feel a slight tingling in my hand, not strong enough to hurt but definitely noticeable.


    Silently I handed it to Ema, who looked at it for a full thirty seconds before nocking and pulling it back. As she did, electricity danced along the bowstring, getting more intense as she pulled back more. For a moment she stood there, sparks lighting up her metallic body before she released. In a split second the electricity flew from the bowstring and into the arrow, which hurtled across the forest and mmed into the tree, burying itself up almost halfway into the wood. A muchrger explosion of electricity sizzled across the tree, leaving a few ckened gouges.


    "Holy fuck." Ema and I said at the same time, sharing a look.


    "Try shooting it without an arrow." I said, waving away Ema''s confusion. "It does something, I could feel it."


    Ema shook her head and pulled the bow back up, pulling the bowstring back to the normal position. As she did the same thing happened, a slowly increasing charge of electricity danced around the string. What was very different though was the spectral looking lightning arrow that formed as she pulled back. She held it for a moment before finally releasing it.


    A crack of thunder echoed through the woods, rocking me back and making my ears ring. The arrow lept from the bow and struck out at the tree like a real bolt of lightning. The tree exploded in a sh, chunks of wood being tossed away all around. The top part of the tree copsed slowly, the wood smoldering and smoking. For a full minute, neither of us said a word. When I finally did speak, I had to stop and center myself.


    "That that was intense."


    "Yeah Intense." She repeated.


    "I think you can do that once.. maybe twice a day." I exined. "It has a long recharge time."


    "Good okay yeah But what if it''s too much, even without the lightning bolt?" Ema responded eventually, her emerald eyes wide as she looked at me. "What if I want to hit something but not absolutely fuck it up?"


    "That is a fair point. I might have a solution to that. Last time I stuck a rotating selector switch on something it immediatelytched onto something. If Ibine one with the bow"


    "It might control the lightning."


    "Yeah, emphasis on might." I agreed, taking a deep breath and shaking my head clear again. "I think it''s likely to, but even if it doesn''t it will just be a scroll wheel for something else and I''ll make you a less bombastic weapon."


    I quickly traveled back to the apartment, grabbed a selector switch and after a long pause, anothernding pad. I traveled back to the truck and put thending pad down before hopping off the back of the tailgate and walking back to Ema. She passed me the bow and Ibined it with the scroll wheel selector switch before pushing it back out. The only thing it changed was adding a little cobalt blue clicking scroll wheel in the grip, close enough to use without putting it down, but not in the way of normal use. A few minutes of experimenting showed it was adjusting the extra power, even going as far as lowering the actual strength of the bow.


    "I swear, magic is bridging the gaps and making it so things just work." I said as Ema fired another arrow, this one seeming no different than what the old bow did. "I need to find a source of the magic concept with nothing else attached to it."


    "Speaking of which, why aren''t you more concerned about using Thor''s sparks?" Ema asked. "That concept, the one you think is Asgardian immortality or divinity, isn''t that worth saving?"


    "It''s worth using if it makes stuff like this." I said, motioning to her bow. "But there is no way in hell I''m starting any life extension or life upgrade with Thor''s divine essence. I do not want the one eyed god on my case about stealing his son''s mojo. He is a dick in every form he has ever taken in the marvel reality and in the normal myth. There is no way I''m tempting fate by fucking with that."


    "...He does seem like the kind of person to hold that against you."


    "Yeah. I''ll try and crack extending my life, maybe ascending a bit at some point I''m sure." I assured her. "But I''d rather not use someone else''s essence to do it. Not to mention I still need to do a lot of testing before I''m ready to start modifying my body."


    "Fine, I suppose that makes sense." She admitted.


    "Besides, Thoring back at some point is a pretty safe bet. It''s just a matter of time."


    "Well speaking of time, it''s time for me to get back on the road." Ema said, smiling as she handed me the bow. "Take this home please?"


    "Sure. I got you anothernding pad by the way." I exined, taking the bow from her. "Bury it here, but if you find a better ce for us to experiment let me know and we''ll move it there. Having a ce where we can try the more dangerous stuff I make was something we desperately needed."


    "Got it. Now go home." Ema said with a smile. "You''ve spent a lot of your rx day not rxing."


    "Yes Ma''am" I said with a smirk and a salute. "Keep in touch. Travel Home."

 Chapter 32: Delivery

    Chapter 32: Delivery


    I spent the rest of the day rxing, watching Star Wars and asionally writing ideas down in my notebook. Eventually I wanted to try and make a lightsaber, though in reality I would probably end up using it more as a tool for cutting than as a weapon. I also needed to try my hand at shields or some sort of conceptual ative ting. When the second movie was over I spent a little while going over the guns I had gotten from thest raid I did. While I couldn''t give them a proper cleaning without the right tools I could still give them an inspection. I''m d I did as well, one of the shotguns had a broken receiver and would jam almost every time you tried to feed a shell into it. I set it aside as spare parts.


    When it finally got dark I went to bed early, passing time for a while and scrolling through my phone, enjoying a calm night off. I still felt a bit guilty for doing nothing while Ema drove for a day and a half straight, but she had been determined, and she had a point when she said boredom and stress didn''t affect her.


    When I woke up the next morning I had a text from Ema telling me to check out the nextnding pad. It was apparently near an abandoned quarry and mine somewhere near the Texas border. I sent her a confirmation, promising to check it out after I had my coffee. I quickly made myself some breakfast, noted that I needed to go grocery shopping and took a shower before traveling to the quarry.


    Inded in a small copse of trees and looked around, immediately noticing a small pattern of stones on the ground, making up an arrow. With a smirk I followed the arrow and soon emerged on the edge of a quarry. When Ema had said "abandoned quarry" my mind went to a small water filled area but with sheer sides with some room to test our stuff in. What it actually was was a massive gravel, rock and boulder strewn area, a massive pit that was half filled with water and a huge ttened area outside that petered out into more naturalndscape. The quarry itself was surrounded by hills and lightly wooded areas, mostly with trees I didn''t recognize. It was the perfect hidden ce for me to experiment. With a smile I pulled out my phone and called Ema, mypanion immediately picking up.


    "Do you like it?" She asked, beating me out by a second.


    "Yeah, this should be perfect, but what happened to leaving thending pad at the old ce and doing a transfer if you found a better ce?"


    "Well for one, I did the math and it would have been one in the morning. Second, there was an unlisted hiking trail nearby the other location, I spotted it while I was leaving." She exined. "And I had already found this spot on the map so I just went back and grabbed thending pad."


    "And if the quarry hadn''t looked like it did online?"


    "Then having our own testing site would be dyed a few days." She exined. "Hardly that big of a deal."


    "Yeah okay, fair enough, that was probably the right choice." I said, nodding along. "How far away from civilization is this spot?"


    "The nearest building is a farm almost six miles away." She said after a pause. "The nearest town is almost ten miles away."


    "This is fantastic. The hills will help muffle the sound and hide any light shows we decide to put on. Good find Ema."


    "Thanks. I''m about three hours outside of Austin now, so I''ll start looking for a ce to put down thending pad in two."


    "Okay, Let me know when you''re set and I''lle pick you up."


    Another minute or so of chattingter and I hung up, traveling back to the apartment, before getting ready to leave. Once I was ready I rode my bike to a random store and bought another prepaid cell phone, the old one having been destroyed a while back by tearing a card. With my new purchase, I rode away in search of an early lunch, ending up eating a small chicken parm sub on a park bench before dialing Coulson''s number.


    "Hello? Who is this?"


    "It''s me Coulson, Maker." I answered, leaning back on the bench. "I just wanted to make sure everything was all set forter today."


    "We managed to secure everything on your list." Coulson said. "And Clint will be here in a few hours."


    "That''s good. We will show up some time after four I think." I exined, smirking at how to a passerby it would sound like we were setting up a get together. "Tell Clint he should be excited. They came out better than I could have hoped."


    "That is good to hear." Coulson said, his subtle smile audible. "I have a request as well. The next agent we want you to equip is on location. Would you be willing to meet with them while you''re making the pick up?"


    "Yeah sure, that would be fine."


    For a moment Coulson was silent as he digested the easy going attitude I had, which was admittedly much different than the thinly veiled paranoia that they had seen so far. In all honesty not having to worry about the potential for ambush at every single scenario was incredibly freeing. As long as I could talk it would be impossible for them to stop me from escaping with the traveling system I had made.


    "I''ll be honest, I wasn''t expecting you to agree so easily. But alright." He admitted, making me frown. I silently cursed the fact that I wasn''t wearing my lie detecting belt on.


    "I think I can trust you guys." I responded. "Well, trust you enough not to kill the golden goose. Who is my next customer?"


    "You can meet them when you get here." He answered simply before continuing. "An escort will be waiting for you at the secondary parking entrance."


    "Alright Coulson, I''ll be there."


    After confirming our arrival time I carded the phone and left the area, making my way to a nearby clothing shop I knew did alterations. I walked in and talked to thedy, offering way too much money for her to put everything down and cut the left sleeve off of my leather jacket at the elbow. It took a little cajoling but eventually I convinced thedy to do it, taking forty five minutes to sow a professional looking hem around the cut.


    After that, I rode around for a while before sneaking into a parking structure and traveling home. To kill some more time I watched the final episode of the original Star Wars trilogy. It was interesting for sure, seeing a film I thought I knew pretty well and not being able to figure out if something was actually different or if my memory was just a lot worse than I thought. I knew some things were different, for example Chewba actually got a medal at the end of New Hope, something I knew didn''t happen in my reality.


    Putting questions about inter-reality differences and simrities that I would most likely never have the answer to behind me, I spent the rest of my time getting ready for my pick up and delivery. I slowly emptied the deck of anything non essential, adding to the pile of junk stacked over my small apartment. I kept my pistol carded, and added the once again loaded Mossberg 500. I kept Clint''s sses of course as well as the ring case, which now held the fragile insting ring as well. After that I filled about half the deck with most of the useful stuff I had made. When I was just about done Ema texted me, telling me she was ready for pick up at a small park about thirty minutes out of Austin.


    When I traveled to her she was waiting for me, sitting on a rock by the truck. There was no road around and we were surrounded by some scraggly tree''s. She was still wearing her maximum coverage disguise.


    "Ready to go home?" I asked, reaching and carding the truck as she leaned forward.


    "Yes, I want to fly around the apartment for a bit before we have to go visit Clint." She said, pulling off her disguise and copsing the exosuit.


    When she was ready I carded her and the exosuit, traveling home in a sh. I immediately pushed Ema out but kept the exosuit in the Deck.


    "That''s better." Ema said, doing a little twirl in the air before bobbing at head height. "From Texas to New York in a split second."


    "Gonna be hard to travel any other way once we get these spread out all over." I pointed out with a smirk. "We are going to be incredibly spoiled"


    "How much do you think Shield would pay for the ability to teleport between just two ces?" Ema asked as I put on my deployable armor.


    "... A lot." I said, freezing for a moment as I considered the massive advantage that would give them. "I don''t know how much my remaining Bifrost cards would do but if they realized my traveling was done withnding pads and my vambrace? They might think twice about how our rtionship worked. Especially if they knew I probably couldn''t make another one."


    "Why can''t you make another one?" Ema asked, confused.


    "Thending pads took seven double cards of Bifrost energy. I only have seven normal sized cards left." I exined as I made sure everything was on right.


    "But the energy is surrounding you when you travel." Ema pointed out. "Especially when yound."


    I quirked my eyebrow for a moment, my brain working through what she was telling me. I had never noticed any energy around me, but the arrival was always pretty intense. It wasn''t far-fetched at all that I could miss something like that. With a shrug I raised my hand, holding it out before traveling to the quarry, trying to pull in a card the entire time. For the journey nothing happens, I don''t feel anything. But when Inded I could feel it sessfully pulling energy in. twirling the card in my fingers I couldn''t help but smirk. I traveled back to the apartment, doing the same thing, getting another card as Inded.


    "What did you do?" Ema asked. "There was hardly any light or noise."


    "I absorbed it." I answered, showing off the two cards. "They are very different from the Bifrost cards but should functionally be the same."


    "...That doesn''t mean you''re going to make Shield a teleport system, does it?" Ema asked worriedly.


    "No, absolutely not. It would make keeping track of them impossible. The only way I would do that was if I could confirm for myself that they aren''t infiltrated by Hydra. All this means is that We will be using all thending pads we have in the US, I can make more for other countries."


    Ema nodded as I pulled on my modified leather jacket, which Ema was seeing for the first time. As she watched I activated my shield, which was now uncovered due to the alterations. The Shield itself was scorched and discolored but for the most part seemed to be in fine shape. I carded it with the shield deployed, and while I could feel some concepts of damaged and improper temper, which weren''t there before, they were rtively small and it was still an incredibly strong shield.


    "So I figured something out while I was driving." Ema said after a moment, somewhat hesitantly, her tone catching my attention. "While I was practicing colors."


    She flew over to the exosuit, sliding into her exosuit. As her form took shape the colors started to shift. Slowly the metal started to look more and more like skin color. The second she stopped shifting though, and you could focus on one area the illusion faded. While her metal surface was technically a shade of "skin tone" It looked all wrong, like she had tripped and hit every sharp rock on her way to the bottom of the uncanny valley. She looked like a cross between a creepy ceramic doll and a barbie. Her eyes stayed the same, still solid emeralds.


    "I started trying to figure this out." She exined. "But it doesn''t work, in the slightest. I look creepy at best, nightmarish if you''re being honest."


    "Yeah it could be worse but" I said, trying to be nice. "It''s not a good look."


    "So I started mixing it up, trying to find something that looked interesting but inhuman enough to stay away from the uncanny valley."


    Her color started to shift again, the skin tones of her metal surface shifting to blues and whites. When she was done she looked like a slightly stiff version of the Awoken from Destiny, with her hair pulled back like an Asari from Mass effect. Still her eyes remained the same sparkling emeralds, giving a hollow but dramatic look to her gaze.


    "That that looks good Ema. I would have expected you to go green but this looks good."


    "Green is two bright, and it was harder to merge and blend with the white to add contrast." She exined. "It''s far enough away from human that it doesn''t trigger the uncanny valley, but human enough that it''s easy to emphasize and no one is going to use me of being a terminator. And this is just the first step."


    Slowly her body started shifting again, though this time it wasn''t just colors. Armor, straps, essories and bags started to form from her body. Eventually the armor blended through colors as well, shifting until she was dressed in a full suit of armor that looked straight out of a video game. The main tes were a dark forest green and covered the most vulnerable part of her body, or would be if she had any other than her actual frame inside her chest. She had a ck undey that was ented by various straps andyers they even moved when she walked closer. The final transformation was around her head, a simple helmet of burnish metal which covered her facepletely.


    "Ema, that looks incredible." I said, standing up to walk around her, reaching out and touching the tes. They all felt like metal still, but I could feel the ridges in the armor and undeyer. "This will go a long way to keep people from freaking out about your exosuit. How long did this take?"


    "Basically the whole trip after you upgraded the suit."


    "Well it''s impressive as hell."


    "I think I''m going to set it as my default, and have abat form with the armor designs."


    "I agree." I said with a smiled before chuckling. "its going to confuse the fuck out of Shield. Depending on what kind of stuff they have gotten into they may assume you''re an alien."


    "Hmm would that be a good thing?"


    "I don''t know. It would depend on their experience with aliens, or if they exist at all. For all we know this reality doesn''t actually have any outer space stuff going on."


    Ema nodded and looked at the clock before looking back at me, her exosuit already shifting down to its cube form. "I think it''s time for us to get going. Even if you want to be fashionablyte."


    I checked the clock as well, nodding in agreement, reaching out and carding the exosuit before holding my hand out for Ema, carding her immediately. I quickly threw on some sweatpants and a shirt over everything before carding my leather jacket and heading out. I rode my bike for a while, much farther than I normally would, before I found a hidden corner and pushed out the super truck. I climbed in and pushed Ema out in the front seat, along with her exosuit.


    "Really? The super truck?" She asked as she slid into ce and her suit started shifting into its armored form. "You''re going to draw a whole lot of attention."


    "Yeah, I know." I agreed, carding my sweats and t-shirt, putting on my leather jacket over everything else. "But with an assured escape route it''s time to start showing off. The only thing that could protect me more is some sort of danger sense, which I''m currently trying to figure out and is my next big project other than building myself another weapon and improving the truck and setting up a bug out base and figuring out flight and making a bunch of knowledge rings just in case."


    I started the truck and couldn''t help but smirk as I pulled out into the street. While this wasn''t the first time I had driven it around the city, it was the first time I had done it in the middle of the day. As we drove, plenty of people stopped and stared, a few even took pictures with their phones. It took longer than it should have to get to the Shield headquarters as we got stuck behind several curious drivers and staring pedestrians. We did eventually arrive though, pulling down into the same parking structure as before. A Shield agent, dressed in a security uniform immediately spotted me and waved me over to a parking spot. As Ema and I climbed out of the truck the security agent directed us to the same entrance we had used before, where our escort was waiting for us. I tapped my lie detecting belt on, knowing she could see me already.


    "Hello Maker." The redhead said before continuing, managing to only pause for a barely noticeable moment on Ema''s face. "I''ll be your escort. Please, follow me."


    "Of course, is Fury in the building by any chance?" I asked as we stepped into the elevator. "I need to return his gloves. He was nice enough to let Ema borrow them."


    As I asked I pulled a card from the deck and flourished it, suddenly holding a pair of leather gloves.


    "No, Director Fury is currently busy at an offsite location." The woman exined. "But I could hold onto them for you?"


    "No, I''ll take of it myself." I said, carding them and pushing the card into the deck with another flourish. "But thank you Agent?"


    "Romanoff." She said, shing me a flirtatious smile that I''m sure would have made my heart flutter if it wasn''t already pounding. I was meeting ck Widow!


    "Thank you Agent Romanoff."


    She nodded and continued leading us as the elevator door opened, guiding us through the rtively empty floor and to what looked like some sort of meeting room. To one side were fiverge, green weapon crates, each one up to my thigh and around five feet wide. At the table itself sat Coulson, Clint a few sses and a pitcher of water between them. As we stepped further into the room, Natasha walked around and sat down next to Clint.


    "Hey! Good to see you Maker." Clint said with a smile, his hesitation at seeing Ema only slightly more noticeable than Agent Romanov''s had been. "Come sit and show me what you made for me. You bragging to Coulson has got us all interested."


    "They came out pretty good, Clint." I said with a smile as I sat, Ema sitting right beside me. "But first, I''m afraid I have a few questions for you. This is a bit different from having a few extra arrows."


    "Right, your test." Clint said with a nod. "Alright,y it on me. I''ve got nothing to hide Unless it''s ssified."


    "I can''t force you to speak, I just know when you''re lying." I assured him, getting another nod. "Alright, let''s get started"

 Chapter 33: New order

    Chapter 33: New order


    Gradually we went through my questions, starting with how often Clint resorts to violence, then moving on to his belief in Shield''s values, then if he had ever epted a bribe. Apparently, it was prettymon for field active agents to be offered bribes even when not undercover and depending on the situation, they would sometimes ept to get proof someone was legitimately offering a bribe. Hard to say you were only joking when you''re standing with a briefcase with twenty thousand dors, surrounded by Shield agents. I reworded the question to take sting and undercover operations into ount and he passed easily. Eventually, when I was finally satisfied that this realities Hawkeye wasn''t some sort of Hydra agent or an evil clone, I pushed the sses from their card and handed them to him.


    "You use the buttons on the left side to change the settings, and the left scroll wheel to change the zoom." I exined as he pulled them on. "They are auto focusing so you don''t have to worry about that. The selector on the right side changes the mode. Go ahead and give it a try."


    Clint looked around the room, scrolling the zoom wheel up and down as he experimented with the binocr vision. Eventually he nodded and clicked the scroll wheel once, still looking around the room.


    "It''s a bit hard to tell because it''s too bright in here but if it is night vision, not being blinded by a bright light is a bonus."


    "Oh those sunsses will never hurt your eyes." I assured him. "I''m pretty sure you could hold a shbang in your hand and it wouldn''t even strain them.


    Clint nodded as he brought up his hand and scrolled to the next mode, sitting up straight when it shifted to thermal. He waved his hand in front of his face.


    "Perfect thermal vision with no dy. I didn''t even think about it but the night vision had no dy either." He said, stunned as he looked around, his eyes trailing over Ema for a second. "Any reason you chose color instead of monochrome?"


    "Because that''s the style of thermal vision I had to work with." I admitted with a shrug.


    "Well with the temperature key in the corner, this is better anyway." Clint responded. "I''ll be able to better judge temperatures while still being able to use it to see through stuff. What''s next?"


    "Select it and try to figure it out." I suggested, getting a grin from Clint as he clicked to the next mode.


    Clint tilted his head as he looked around, trying to figure out what he was seeing. He looked down at himself, at Coulson and Natasha and finally at me.


    "Some sort of electricity vision?" He asked, looking around at everyone. "...I can see your nervous systems."


    I froze for a second before nodding, not really hiding my surprise, since I was pretty sure Agent Romanoff could see right through any front I put up. I had no way of knowing of that capability, as I had made them when I was alone.


    "If I''m honest I hadn''t thought of that possibility, but you are seeing electricity."


    "This this is incredible. And slightly graphic. I can see your entire nervous system Natasha, it''s like a weird three dimensional ovey. Half see through half invisible. It''s a trip and half but this is going to be so useful."


    "I think the next two will be useful too." I assured him.


    "Wait, two more modes?" Clint asked, reaching up and selecting the next, looking around the room. "Wait is this metal vision?"


    "Yeah, simr to the electricity mode, but with metal objects. Should let you scan a whole crowd for hidden knives or guns at a nce."


    "I Fuck you weren''t kidding about theseing out good." Clint admitted, still looking around. "What''s thest mode?"


    "Give it a try."


    Clint nodded and switched to the next mode, his jaw dropping as he looked at the wall behind Ema and I. He looked to the wall to the left, to the right, and then the wall behind both him and Coulson.


    "Seriously?!" He said, turning back to me. "How the hell are you making these things? I can see through the wall! Like they aren''t even there!"


    I couldn''t help butugh as he looked at me, giving a little shrug. "Sorry, not quite ready to reveal that."


    "But you will eventually?" Agent Coulson asked, leaning forward as Clint yed with his sunsses.


    "Eventually, sure." I agree. "I have a couple things I need to build before that, but yeah."


    Coulson and Natasha shared a look, one that I was pretty sure I understood. They were under the assumption that by me revealing how I did this they would be able to as well, them being Shield. The belt wanted me to be honest and exin that that wasn''t possible but I kept my mouth shut. Eventually Coulson nodded and reached down to the floor picking up a briefcase and pushing it to me. I popped it open and carded the cash inside with a smile.


    "A hundred thousand, half what we owed you because we managed to find everything you wanted." He assured me.


    "Perfect!" I said happily, sliding the briefcase back to Coulson before looking at Natasha. "I assume you are my next client?"


    "So I''ve been told." She said, casting another look at Coulson. "Clint and I work together a lot. Director Fury thought it would be a good idea to get me some special equipment."


    "Alright, that makes sense to me." I agreed with a nod. "Why don''t you tell me what your specialization is?"


    "Infiltration and undercover work." She said simply. "Covert actions and assassinations."


    "I assume that means you''re in civilian clothes a lot?" I asked "Not a lot of room for extra firepower, or any weapons at all, other than a small knife I''m guessing?"


    "Yes, I can sometimes fit a small pistol in a purse or a knife somewhere." She said. "But yes, I am usually unarmed or under armed when I am undercover."


    "...I think I can fix that." I said with a smile. "I can probably fix thatpletely."


    "How?" She asked simply.


    "The same way I do this." I said before tapping the deploy button for my helmet before pressing it again do put it away. "Do you have a firearm preference?"


    "II usually carry two Glock 26''s." She answered with a slight hesitation. "But that is mostly because of how easy they are to conceal."


    "And if that wasn''t a problem?"


    "I would say a Glock 34 with some modifications." She answered.


    "What about bigger packages? Short to mid range?"


    "The P90." She answered easily.


    "And long range?"


    "An AWM."


    "What''s your ring size?"


    "Five."


    "And that''s all I need to know. Good choices by the way, though I''ll admit I expected something morepact like the Styr Scout for long range." I said, still nodding appreciatively.


    "No, long range is more about being urate and pration than it is being small andpact, at least for my targets." She exined casually. "You wait for your target toe to you rather than move to your target."


    "Fair enough, I won''t pretend to know anything about espionage." I admit before smiling. "Agent Romanoff-"


    "Natasha." She said, cutting me off with a smile I''m pretty sure was designed to put me at ease


    "Natasha, if you would like, I could keep you heavily armed no matter where you are or what you''re doing."


    "What is it going to cost?" She asked with a smirk.


    "Another hundred grand. On top of the usual." I said simply, leaning back in my chair. "Along with a bunch of those guns with whatever attachments you usually use on them, ammo and maybe a dozen or so spare mags for each."


    "That''s a lot of firepower." Phil Coulson responded, leaning forward. "But doable. As long as you''ll ept the extra cash on delivery?"


    "Yeah, works for me."


    "What if I don''t want that?" Natasha said, getting a look from Coulson. "What if I want something else?"


    "What do you want?"


    "I want one of your masks." She said, leaning forward. "The ability to change my face, voice and hair? That would be a game changer."


    I pause and examine her, looking back to Coulson and Clint. Clint had stopped looking around the room at some point and now had his sses hooked onto a pocket.


    "That will cost another hundred grand." I said simply. "And the agreement that it won''t work on me."


    "What do you mean?"


    "I mean I will always know it''s you, it wouldn''t fool me." I exined. "As much as I might trust you guys there is no way I''m handing that out without a way to monitor and stop you if you go rogue."


    "But it would work for everyone else?" She asked, nodding when I confirmed it. "Then I want that."


    "You don''t have to pick between the two." I said. "If you meet both the criteria I''ll make it all for you."


    "Really?" Clint asked, surprised. "You were pretty set on two per person."


    "Two improvements. I wouldn''t offer to make someone really good armor and show up with just a helmet." I exined. "I will make you the mask and keep you armed, that''s it."


    "In exchange for six hundred grand, and even more guns." Coulson said.


    "The guns are so I can experiment more and have a base to work from." I exined, my belt not appreciating what I wasn''t saying. "I promise I''m not selling them or anything."


    Coulson nodded and pulled out his phone, calling someone and giving some orders to gather what I needed. He hung up a momentter.


    "It will take ten minutes to get everything together." He exined. "In the meantime, here is the first portion of your payment."


    He lifted a series of briefcases onto the table and opened them for me, showing off all of the cash inside. With a smile I carded it all, adding it to the same card I had the fifty grand in. I leaned back in my chair and looked over my shoulder at a clock on the wall.


    "Okay, I''m gonna ask What''s up with the color scheme Ema?" Clint asked.


    Ema looked at me and raised her eyebrow, non-verbally asking permission. I gestured vaguely, letting her know she had the floor.


    "It''s part of my armor. It was silver and metallic but recent upgrades allowed me to y with some coloring. I attempted to mimic human skin but it looked creepy."


    "So you went with blue?"


    "It doesn''t trigger the uncanny valley, but I still look alive, rather than like I''m looking for John Connor." She exined before holding her hand up, the bluish coloration slowly shifting until it''s the old normal burnished metal, shifting back just as quickly.


    "Why bother with an upgrade like that?" Agent Coulson asked. "Especially if it can''t mimic human skin."


    "The blue skin will confuse people, which is much better than them immediately screaming in terror." She exined with a smirk. "In case we even need to show up somewhere to help again. Me wearing the stealth suit was a stopgap measure."


    "And the armor on top?" Clint asked.


    "It''s better toyer protections, and it gives me more opportunities to add things." I exined, thinking of my own armor. "My underyer is just as strong as my deployable armor."


    "Could I try your armor?" Natasha asked, an eyebrow raised and a smirk that I''m sure was intentionally teasing.


    "No, it''s already bound to me." I exined, tapping on the torc around my neck. "Which reminds me, I''m going to need at least five samples of your hair, blood and fingerprint."


    "We have two already set for you." Coulson said, revealing yet another case, this one much smaller. "Natasha, go get some more containers."


    She nodded and left, walking out of the room with smooth confidence while I reached over and opened the case, carding the two blood samples into one card, the two hair samples into another, and the two thumbprints into a third. After a minute or so Natasha returned and sat back down, now holding some tape, three bags and three small vials. Without saying a word she cut some of her hair, gave her three thumb prints and nicked her finger with a knife, filling the vials up halfway before sealing them.


    "Here you go." She said, sliding it all to me.


    "Thanks." I said, adding the new samples to the others. "I know it''s a pain but if it means no one can use your stuff against you?"


    "It''s worth it." Natasha agreed, nodding her head. "Not like I haven''t had worse."


    She bandaged her finger while I stood and made my way to the green crates, carding them all separately. A few minutester there was a knock at the door. It opened and two Shield agents dropped off another massive crate and then another. I smiled and walked closer as the two agents left, adding those to the deck alongside the others.


    "Well That seems to be about it." I said with a smile. "Natasha, I will have your equipment ready in about four days, I''ll call if it''s any longer."


    "Thank you for seeing her so quickly." Agent Coulson said, standing to shake my hand. "We appreciate your flexibility. I''ll escort you out."


    [center]- <em>Later That Day </em>-[/center]


    Ema and I ended up driving around for a bit before heading into a parking garage, carding the truck and traveling back. This time I remembered that I could just probably card herpletely, without having her leave her exosuit. I didn''t go home though, we had a few hours to try out our new guns, so we traveled directly to the quarry. Once there I used my strength to set up a workbench using a b of rtively t rock sitting on two other chunks of rock. I pushed out my green crates and started popping them open with Ema''s help.


    The first two we cracked open were the guns for Natasha''s equipment. I pulled out a P90, flipped it around to take a look at both sides before expertly sliding the magazine into ce on the top of the gun. I took a short walk to the edge of the pit and unloaded all fifty rounds into the water and shear walls. I couldn''t help but smirk at how easy it was to control the recoil with my extra strength, and how I knew exactly how to shoot it with my marksman''s ring. Smirking I popped the now empty magazine and walked back to the improvised workbench and put the gun on it.


    "So, what do you n on making her?" Ema asked as she went through the boxes, checking what was in it.


    "I''m thinking we push the limits of what the transformation concept can do." I answered. "I was thinking of two rings that turn into pistols, a bracelet that turns into a P90 and a ne that turns into an AWM."


    "That''s a lot of firepower." Ema pointed out. "Are we going to make them more powerful?"


    "I''m going to try to make them silent and give them expanded magazines, cause otherwise she would have to carry extra and that defeats the purpose, but I''m not turning them into super ultra magic railguns, no." I assured her. "I''m not handing the super assassin a gun that can get through my armor."


    "Just equipment that could catch you unawares."


    "My next project is danger sense. I honestly should have thought of it earlier but I can''t change that. After that is an energy shield, armor or protection I can wear all the time without covering my face."


    "Any idea how you''re going to do that?"


    "Without someoneing up with one first?" I asked. "No, not really. Doesn''t mean I won''t figure it out anyway."


    "Well the danger sense is first." Ema said, getting a nod and a smile from Carson.


    "I''ll make it tomorrow. Or try to make it tomorrow rather. I''ll get the supplies I''ll need when I''m getting the stuff to make Natasha''s mask and her weapons. Speaking of which Do you want a mask? For the exosuit?"


    "Would it even work for me?"


    "Well the archery ring does right? And the bow, and the stealth suit. Unless the mask has some sort of special qualifier to it I don''t see any reason it shouldn''t."


    "...maybe. This suit still just feels like a suit, not my body, but it might be nice to be able to blend in more." She responded before continuing. "Though I kind of like being blue to be honest."


    "It kind of suits you." I said with a shrug when she looked at me. "I figured you''d want to be green but blue works for you."


    "Thanks."


    "Either way it''s up to you, I''ll make you one but you don''t have to use it unless it''s to actually hide or something. I''d never tell you to wear it."


    "Thank you Carson."


    "So tomorrow''s schedule is shopping Making a danger sense object, then whipping up Natasha''s guns and mask, neither of which will take very long considering I''ve made one once before, though I might have to mix up some things to get a pair to work."


    "Is that how you''re going to keep track of it?" She asked, finally done inspecting the two green crates I had out by the table. "By making two masks at once?"


    "Andbine one of the results with a couple ofpasses." I added. "And include an on and off switch, constantly knowing where the mask is would get annoying quickly. "


    Ema chuckled as she started closing up the boxes, but not before I slid the P90 back into ce. When they were all sealed up I recarded them and pushed out two more.


    "Let''s go through the rest of these and then we can head home." I said, cracking open the one in front of me.


    We spent the rest of the night going through the crates, trying a few of the guns out and talking about what we could do to make them better. Eventually, when the sun hadpletely set we started packing everything back up before traveling home

 Chapter 34: Magic

    Chapter 34: Magic


    Hello everyone! I just wanted to give everyone a quick reminder that I have a Pat_reon! <strong>(pat_reon_._/ _MetaBetta OmegaLetta) </strong>They are currently a chapter ahead on my two fanfiction''s, and have ess to my original story, Lair Divers Tale. Currently the first five chapters of LDT are avable for everyone to read, while the next five are ready for patrons to read. If you are interested please show your support, otherwise enjoy the chapter!<hr>


    The next morning was spent on one long shopping trip across multiple cities. I jumped from store to store buying makeup, y, masks and everything else I needed to make three face changing masks, two for Natasha''s and one for Ema. After that I had to travel to Texas to another metal stock shop, one who happened to have a supply of nitinol. I ended up buying all of the nitinol they had, which turned out to be a bunch of spools of wire and arge stack of sheets, as it was too useful to pass up. While I was there I also bought a bunch more titanium, molybdenum aluminum and tungsten. I ended up storing it all, along with all of the metal I had left over, at the quarry, covered with arge tarp, which I also had to buy.


    After that I visited a Walmart in Illinois to buy everything I needed to make more transformation cards as well as a bunch of new stuff for the quarry in an attempt to make working there morefortable. I bought some sturdy tables, arge party tent, a bunch ofrge storage bins, somefortable furniture and a ready to build storage shed. I left Ema at the quarry after she volunteered to set it all up while I continued shopping.


    I went to a jewelry store in New York next, buying four pieces of jewelry, two size five rings, a locket ne with a maictch and a bracelet, all simple designs as I''m pretty sure ck Widow was a fan of understated elegance more than extravagance. I ended up getting two simple rings for myself as well, having decided to make two hold out guns for myself in case I was ever disarmed. Finally on a whim I bought a variety of rtively cheap jewelry, all of it simple and as unisex as possible since jewelery that heavily leaned towards women tended to have a for women concept. I ended up spending forty thousand dors on random jewelry of various types.


    After I was done finding what I needed for ck Widows projects I started shopping for my next big one, the danger sense. After some thinking I separated it into a two part project. Step one was figuring out a way to separate the magic from the electricity I got from absorbing my lightning gun. Magic was proving to be a massive game changer, functioning as some sort of bridge between concepts, smoothing out issues in general. I tried toe up with a few ideas to separate them but only came up with one. The upside was that I didn''t need to buy anything to test that theory, I already had what I needed.


    The second part of my project was where I would actually be making something. I needed to cobble together the concepts to form the framework for danger sense, which the simplified magic could then form into actual danger sense.


    Hopefully.


    I bounced around New York City and Austin, buying things like motion sensors, ss breaking sensors, heart rate monitors and security cameras. I bought smoke and carbon dioxide sensors, civilian geiger counters and recement impact sensors for cars. I also spent a few hours trolling through book stores, managing to find three kids books about avoiding dangerous things, a book on cold reading, two books about subconscious instincts and gut feelings and one book about how to identify risks. My final stop was a crystal shop in Illinois, where I bought chunks ofbradorite, azurite, fluorite, sodalite andpiszuli, all stones supposedly rted to intuition and insight. I also grabbed a bag full of leather bands, meant to be worn around your arm or bicep, though that wouldn''t stop me from wearing it on my legs.


    When I was finally done shopping for the day it was a few hours past noon. I traveled back to the apartment, grabbed all leftovers from previous builds and traveled back to the quarry. Ema had already finished setting up the shed and the tent, so I helped her set up everything else, putting most of the leftovers in storage boxes, putting those, as well as all of the green gun crates into the shed.


    As a test I carded the shed, which made me a bit unsteady and bleary eyed for a moment before I recovered. I pushed the shed right back out before going inside and grabbing some of what I needed for Natasha''s project, with Ema following to grab the rest.


    To make sure I remembered the recipe correctly I quickly whipped up another face changing mask. After checking to make sure it worked as well as it felt it would I handed it to Ema, who instead of using it stored it inside herself, already setting up her default states to store and keep the mask and her ring of archery ready.


    With the recipe now fresh in my mind I started over, this time doing my best to make two at once. It was rtively easy and by the end of it I had two masks that were tied even closer together than thending pads and Bifrost vambrace were. I would have been worried if I ever nned on using the extra for anything other than keeping track of Natasha. Thest step was taking one of the extrapasses andbining it with an on off switch beforebining it to the spare mask. It did little to change the mask save make it a little bronze in color and add four arrows around the edges. I added a second before it finally shifted shape, bing apass like device.


    I examined the still normal looking mask and couldn''t tell any difference from my usual one, it worked the exact same way as far as I could tell. The only difference was that conceptually it was connected to another object, and even that had weakened slightly. Still, the second you picked up thepass-like object, now only a faint brass color, you could immediately tell where the mask was.


    "Alright, only onest hurdle." I said, reaching over and grabbing one set of Natasha samples.


    "Are you worried the bonding will sever the grouping?" Ema asked as looked up from the glock magazines she was loading.


    I nodded and quickly bonded the mask to her, pushing it back out into my hands. The mask was a perfect replication of Natasha''s face in white porcin, but nothing else about it changed. I had half expected there to be a ck Widow symbol somewhere but other than the shape of the mask there was nothing different. Mentally crossing my fingers I picked up thepass, pumping a fist when I could clearly feel the mask.


    "Alright Ema, I''m putting you in charge of this. You don''t need to always have it on but I need you to check it frequently. I don''t think they would call our bluff, not after what I''ve been making, but you never know."


    Ema nodded and stretched out her arm to ept thepass, pulling it back and storing it inside her chest, finishing thest few mags before standing and carrying them over to me. Ibined seven glock magazines together, resulting in a single mag that carried a hundred and neen rounds, seemingly managing to avoid the wall of diminishing returns. Still, having a pistol weigh exactly the same but carrying a hundred rounds was impressive. I repeated the process to get a second mag of the same size.


    After I was done making the magazines I examined the guns themselves. They had given me six of them, all modified slightly. The sight was raised so that a silencer wouldn''t block them, the mag well had a fluted attachment for easier reloading and the trigger was modified in a way I didn''t recognize, which probably meant it wasn''tmercially avable.


    Finally, when I was done examining the pistols I pulled out three of the glock silencers,bining them together and screwing it on the end of the gun. I repeated this process to produce an identical pistol with identical specs. I took one and walked to the edge of theke pit, quickly firing off a half dozen shots. They were incredibly quiet. Not quite silent, but they were much quieter than any one silencer could normally get. I shook my head though and headed back to the work bench,bining a fourth and final silencer to each one. This time the pistol barely made a sound. Of course the bullet still went supersonic, but that wasn''t my problem. If Natasha wanted to use subsonic ammo that was on her to take care of.


    Once the pistols were all set, and Ema had started loading up the spare P90 mags, I started making the transformation cards. First I went home and made a double batch of oobleck, bringing it back to the quarry when I was done. Instead of using the whole thing I only carded two handfuls, immediatelybining them together. From there I added three sheets of nitinol and two umbres. The result was a more metallic version of the transformation card. I grabbed one of the pistols, reattached the silencer and carded it as well before carding andbining one of the simple gold rings with the transformative card. Finally, thest step wasbining the gun with the ring.


    I pushed the resulting ring out of its card and turned it in my hands. It looked like a simple golden ring, almost exactly the same as the original, the only difference being a small, flush and very hard to spot button. I smirked and held out my hand, pressing it with my thumb. The ring began to shift and unfold, ck metal and ooze pushing from it and forming the gun in my hand. In all it took about a second or so for the gun to form, silencer and all. With a smirk I walked back to the edge of the pit and fired down into the water below.


    Satisfied that the gun still functioned I inspected it and found a button on top of the slide. I pressed it and the gun folded and slid back into the ring, still on my finger. This process took a full five seconds, an interesting difference that I couldn''t really figure out. After pressing the button on the ring again I took off the silencer and fired it off into the water again. Then I pulled out the magazine and attempted to store the pistol without reattaching the silencer or putting the mag back in its ce, only to find the button wouldn''t shift in the slightest. I put everything back together and the button activated fine, the gun storing away easily.


    After confirming that the process worked I repeated it for the P90, with a few differences. The P90 magazine expanded until I had used all of the spare mags they sent, ending up with a whopping five hundred and thirty five rounds, diminishing returns making thest fewbinations a bit weak. I also stacked a muzzle brake for the P90 instead of a suppressor. A quintuple stacked muzzle brake brought the muzzle flip down to almost nothing. I even took my deployable armor and strength cuff off to test it and had no problem controlling it at all. The final touch was a red dot sight mounted on top. A quickbination chain got me another metal transformation card. The final result was a bracelet with a small button on a little oval te.


    The AWM did get a modified suppressor, making it whisper quiet, though I ended up having to use five for therger rifle. Unfortunately the AWM''s magazine only got up to thirty one rounds as it held a concept of being small that seemed to trigger the diminishing returns almost immediately. After that there wasn''t much else I could do to the rifle without starting to improve it in more esoteric ways. I was tempted to make her a super scope or make it super armor piercing but Ema held me back. So I finished off Natasha''s order with a transformative card turning the powerful sniper rifle into a simple locket ne that she could pull off with a tug. I left the locket empty, despite the temptation to include a picture of Tony Stark as a joke.


    Thest part of the project was to bond each of the items to Natasha. For a moment I paused, wondering if the binding would carry over to the guns if I applied it to the rings. Deciding that it was more important to bind the guns than it was to bind the rings, as it would be possible for someone to take the guns once she had deployed them. I quickly deployed and bound all of the guns before running into a bit of a roadblock block. Since the guns, now a darker ck with the ck widow symbol on the grip, were bound to Natasha, I couldn''t activate the transformation back into rings. Frowning, I eventually just cardeded them as they were.


    After I finished with Natasha''s project I quickly rushed through two rings of my own. I resisted the urge to make two massively overpowered weapons knowing I had ns to make what would hopefully be my primary weapons soon. Instead I erged the magazine, added a shlight and a quad stacked suppressor and a raised red dot sight to a quad stacked 1911A. I added a wheel selector switch which let me adjust just how much harder the bullets hit. I purposely left it at its lowest setting, which was on the same level of a normal pistol. After I was satisfied with my first back up gun I turned it into a ring for my right hand.


    Happy with how my back up pistol turned out I pulled out four Benelli M4s from my shed and carried them to my work bench. After setting them down I sat back in my chair, my lips pursed.


    "What''s the problem?" Ema asked when she realized I had stopped working.


    "I''m trying to figure out how to extend the magazine in a gun that has an integral magazine. These are the military versions so it has a seven round magazine but I want to improve that."


    "Load it before youbine them."


    I sagged a bit and groaned, pping my forehead as I grabbed a few boxes of slugs and started loading the first shotgun. It took me a few minutes to get them all stacked up but once I was done I quicklybined them together.


    "Thanks Ema." I said as Ibined the wheel selector switch to the shotgun before quickly turning it into a ring for my left hand.


    When I was done I spent a few minutes getting used to my two new guns, especially how they acted when I deployed them. When I was satisfied I walked back to the work bench and bonded the guns to myself. After I was done I leaned back in my chair, more than a little tired. The sun was slowly descending as I sat and dpressed. Ema, who had been switching between flying around the quarry and hanging out with me after she was done filling magazines, flew over to me and bobbed around my head and shoulders.


    "So, you mentioned you have an idea on how to pull the magic from the magical electricity?" She asked eventually, letting me unwind for a few minutes.


    "Yeah, I have one theory to test." I answered, going over to one of the crates containing extra materials. "Basically what if webined the magic electricity with something that discharges electricity?"


    "I I don''t follow."


    "Alright, just hold on a second."


    I pushed out my lightning gun, and grabbed some of thergest capacitors I have from a box of leftovers and extras. I put on my electrical resistance ring and snagged a card of the magic electricity andbined it with a capacitor. The result was a capacitor that contained magic and electricity, which I had already expected. I grabbed a scrap of metal from a box and tapped it against the capacitor''s prongs. A bright spark arkied for a split second, disappearing just as quickly. I carded the capacitor and frowned, pushing it from the card immediately.


    "No change." I exined before Ema could ask. "Still a capacitor for magic and electricity, just empty."


    I leaned back in my chair, going over my admittedly limited knowledge of electricity and what I knew about how concepts worked. My theory seemed like a bust, but honestly I knew so little about electricity past the "Zap, ouch!" part I couldn''t be sure.


    "I need to know more about how batteries and capacitors work." I said before looking at Ema. "Do you want toe back with me or stay here? I won''t be long."


    "I''ll stay and keep an eye on everything, maybe start packing up all the guns." She volunteered. "You are done with the guns for today right?"


    I nodded and traveled home, sitting down on the couch and pulling theptop closer. It took me a few minutes to find a good video, but eventually I sat back and started to watch. I quickly realized that while a lot of this made sense, it was clearly not going to help me. I clicked on another video, not really listening as I thought, until I saw someone driving a spike into the ground. I re-winded the video and watched it from the beginning. He was driving in something called a grounding rod. Something specifically designed to ground out electricity, dissipating it into the ground.


    I rushed out the door and into the night, spending an hour rushing through a few hardware stores buying copper grounding rods before finding a quiet corner to travel back to the quarry. I removed the wire mp from a rod, grabbed eight capacitors andbined them together quickly. With a wide grin I shocked myself a dozen times, immediatelybining the resulting card into the octuple capacitor before grabbing a grounding rod, carding it andbining it with the super charged capacitors only to frown when it still held strong electrical and magic concepts.


    Frustrated, I uncarded the grounding rod, only to shout out in pain as the now ck and copper rod zapped all of the electricity it had been storing into my hand. I screamed, my palm a ckened mess as I seized from the current, only to sag to the ground when it ran out. My breathing was ragged and seemed to stutter for a moment as Ema rushed to me.


    "Carson! What happened!?" She shouted, lifting up my hand.


    "I didn''t think about something before I pushed it out of a card." I replied after a few moments, groaning in pain. "Fuck that hurt."


    I could feel my healing amulet struggling to fix my arm and hand as I sat on the ground, slowly recovering. Ema fretted over me for a while as I did, eventually helping me stand and sit back down on a chair. After about thirty minutes my hand stopped hurting,pletely healed. I shook out the phantom tingles from it while I stood and walked over to the modified grounding rod. I picked it up, turning it over in my hands before carding it. I couldn''t help butugh.


    The card still contained concepts of electrical and magical storage. However, everything electrical was now dwarfed by the concept of magic, which was only slightly weaker than it had been before I had zapped the fuck out of myself. As I kept examining it, I slowly realized what had happened. I had been modifying the capacitors to hold magic as well as an electrical charge, which they would discharge equally when not carded. But, when I added in the grounding rod the electrical dissipation from the rod had shifted the discharge from the modified capacitors from both magic and electricity, to mostly just electricity.


    On a whim I pushed the card back into my hand and drove it into the ground before grabbing my lightning. I stood over the rod and leaned down, holding out the lightning gun and pulling the trigger, zapping the hell out of the rod for a full five seconds. I waited a bit before tapping it with my finger gingerly, though I was already pretty sure it wouldn''t do anything. Sure enough nothing happened, so I immediately pulled it from the ground and carded it.


    The magic concept was even bigger. Not by a massive degree, but certainly noticeable.


    The rod still contained extra concepts, but they were dwarfed by the magic. I looked around for a second before walking over to the tarp covered stack of metal. I carded a sheet of aluminum andbined it with the magic rod. The magic concept of course carried over, while everything else faded even further into the background. I added two more sheets of aluminum to solidify it even further. I now had a sheet of metal that was lightweight, strong and had a prettyrge magical concept. All of the other concepts faded into the background, far enough that they wouldn''t interact with anything as long as I paid attention and did not stack on anything overwhelmingly electrical.


    "Hell of a way to get here, but it worked!"


    "It defused the electricity?"


    "Yeah. It still has some leftover concepts but the magical concept is so strong it doesn''t really matter."


    "Carson, what would happen if youbined a rod with one of Thor''s sparks?"


    "I I don''t know." I said truthfully. "So far that glowing divine concept has disappeared after working its way into whatever object I put it in. It seems to heavily affect the objects though. Just look at how your bow changed, as well as the lighting gun. It''s something to keep in mind for the future."

 Chapter 35: Tingling

    Chapter 35: Tingling


    With the first hurdlepleted I quickly made nine more copper rods of magic, carding them once they were drained of electricity. Once I was done with that, I quickly gathered everything I had bought for making a danger sense, put it in a storage box and carded it before starting to pack the quarry workshop up. The sun was getting low and I could easily finish this at the apartment. We left the tent up, the work stations set up and the stacks of metal stock alone but put everything else back into the storage shed before I carded it, leaning on Ema for support.


    "Should you really be pushing yourself like that?" She asked when I recovered and stood on my own. "What if you''re hurting yourself?"


    "It doesn''t feel painful, just tiring. Like I''m pulling on too much of my energy at once." I exined. "The second I start showing symptoms of it hurting me I''ll stop."


    Reluctantly Ema nodded, taking a step back. After onest check around to make sure we hadn''t left anything behind I carded her, exosuit and all before traveling back to the apartment. Once we had settled in and I had a quick snack, making another note to go shopping soon, I sat down with my box of stuff, pulling it all out andying it out on the table.


    "Okay. I think the best bet is to keep the electronic stuff away from each other as long as possible to keep that concept from stacking and interacting with the magic rods." I said, mostly mumbling to myself as I started grouping stuff together, though Ema was floating around.


    I started bybining all of the sensors and electronics I had bought with the books I had gotten, leaving out the security cameras because they didn''t really have the right concepts in sufficient quantities. After those werebined I added a stone to each of the cards, doubling up on azurite andpiszuli. From there Ibined everything together, all the way down to three cards, two doubles and one triple. I took three leather bands that I had bought previously andbined each of them with a copper magic rod. Satisfied with the magic concept in each of them Ibined them with the three sensor and bookbinations. Finally I fused them all together, resulting in aplicated, magically powerful B ranked card.


    "Did it work?" Ema asked, hovering over my shoulder.


    "...I think so? It feels like it did." I answered, scratching my head as I looked at the card. "It''s a veryplicated card. But it''s magically strong, the electronic and electricity concepts are pretty well buried and it''s potent"


    "So what is the problem?" She asked, floating around to look at me.


    "It felt too easy." I admitted with a shrug before pushing the new creation into my hands.


    I pulled up my under armor and quickly attached the band as a sort of ankle bracelet, lowering my armor back down and wiggling my foot around, testing my range of movement. It was barely noticeable and almostpletely hidden by theyer of flexible protective metal.


    Once I was satisfied it was secure and unobtrusive I stood and went to the kitchen, grabbed a fork and returned. With a little bit of work I bent a single prong until it was standing up straight, bending the rest of the handle to keep that point upwards. As I worked I looked up at my partner.


    "Ema, I need to know definitively that it works." I exined. "I''m going to close my eyes and I want you to move it on this side of the table. When you''re done I''m going to m my hand down. I want you to randomly push it under my hand."


    "What?!" Ema asked loudly. "Why are you always so determined to hurt yourself?"


    "I''m not! Getting hurt sucks. But when my amulet heals me in minutes it''s hard to think of it as temporary pain, especially when working on something important. " I exined with a shrug. "Nowe on, we need to test this and the only way to do it is by putting me in danger."


    After a few minutes I finally convinced Ema it was necessary. I closed my eyes and waited, the sound of the bent fork moving around in front of me. A few secondster Ema solemnly said she was ready and after a pause and a wince I mmed my hand down on the table. I couldn''t help but let out a sigh of relief when my palm pped the table. We repeated the experiment a few times before it finally happened.


    I was about to jerk my hand down to p the table when suddenly I could feel something was wrong. It was like tingling up my spine, a bad feeling and a gut instinct all at the same time. I stopped my hand immediately, having barely moved it at all.


    "Holy hell!" I said, opening my eyes to find the twisted fork, ready to stab my hand. "That was not subtle at all. The second I was going to hurt myself I knew something bad was going to happen."


    "How did it feel?"


    "Like my body already knew it was about to hurt itself, despite me having no idea if I was." I exined. "Yeah, I''m never taking this off."


    "Good." Ema said simply. "Can you please stop hurting yourself now? Or trying to hurt yourself?"


    "I''ll do my best, Ema." I answered with a chuckle. "But no promises."


    Happy with my progress for the day I cleaned up any of the messes I had made and turned in for the night. I could feel more stress falling away as I rxed in my bed. I had a way to escape if someone tried to catch me, and a way to keep people from one shotting me out of nowhere. I could feel a good night''s sleeping on.


    [center]- <em>Five hourster </em>-[/center]


    I woke up already swinging.


    Ished out and my fist struck metal, but I kept punching, my vision still blurry from sleep. I could see just enough to lock on to the dark shape standing by my bed, a knife looking object in their hand. My adrenaline was pumping full tilt as I activated my ring pistol, aimed and dumped half a dozen silent shots into their torso before they finally shouted.


    "STOP! STOP IT''S ME!"


    The figure stepped back and I stood, gun as steady as a rock despite the fact that I could count my heartbeats with the blood pounding in my ears. It took a full ten seconds for me to calm down enough to realize who''s voice it was. I lowered my pistol but kept it in my hand.


    "EMA?! What the fuck was that!" I shouted, blinking the sleep from my eyes. "What the hell are you doing!"


    "I was testing your danger sense." She exined, clearly upset. "We needed to know if it worked when you were asleep."


    "So you were going to stab me in my sleep?!" I asked incredulously.


    "Just in the leg" She exined, her exosuit copsing to its default form as she floated to me. "I''m sorry, but we needed to know."


    After a five second pause I tapped the return button on my pistol before copsing back onto my bed, sitting on the edge. I rubbed my face as my heart slowly returned to normal. Ema stopped in front of me, running a light scan.


    "Are you okay?" I finally asked.


    "Yes. The bullets barely scratched me." She said, continuing her scan.


    "Thank god my pistol is silent, or we would have some serious exining to do right now." I said.


    "I''m sorry." She said again, now floating right in front of me.


    "No.. no it''s okay." I said, finally pulling my hands away from my face. "You''re right, it needed to be tested, and I was just talking about how necessary hurting myself was. It was the being woken up part that threw me for a loop. How well did it work?"


    "You woke up the second I realized I was going to have to actually stab you and started nning on how." Ema answered. "The original n was to just stand over you menacingly and poke you with a dull knife. But that didn''t get a reaction."


    "Hmm that means I''m at risk for truly random acts of violence. You could have definitely gotten me if you stabbed me immediately." I said, groaning as the adrenaline slowly wore off. "On the other hand, you were hurting me to help me. That means it''s not tricked by people who have convinced themselves that they are helping me. For my own good type stuff."


    I looked back at my bed and shook my head, standing and stretching, before heading to my dresser.


    "You''re not going back to sleep?" She asked, guilt in her voice.


    "No, I am one hundred percent awake now." I said, shaking my head. "I don''t know if I''m going to be able to fall asleep tonight, never mind right now."


    "Sorry I should have waited a bit longer so you could get some more sleep."


    "No, then I might have woken up." I said with a shrug. "Don''t worry about it Ema, I''m d you did this, it needed to be tested. Imagine if I hadn''t woken up until you stabbed me? It would have saved my lifeter."


    Ema bobbled a bit before following me out of my room. I went about my morning routine, taking it easy and basically killing time. When I was showered and fed I sat down and pulled out the deck, examining the cards. I stopped at the leftover magic rods, a thought urring to me.


    "You know Magic might improve other stuff as well" I mumbled to myself.


    "What was that?" Ema asked, turning from theptop.


    "I was just thinking that the magic rods might be able to improve other things." I exined, thinking for a moment before continuing. "It might be a good idea to spend some time upgrading stuff today as well, spending a bit more cash on things, bumping everything up to the next level."


    "Are you sure you want to add magic to everything? If everything relies on magic what if you run into someone who knows how to use it against you?"


    "That''s A fair point" I said, rubbing my chin and taking a sip of coffee before continuing. "Okay, here is the n. I keep the basics and the backups magic free, like a foundation. That way it''s all conceptually backed, which seems to just give the middle finger to the fabric of reality itself."


    After a half hour going through what I had made that had no magic in it, we decided that my under armor, my two back up guns, as well as my cuffs of strength and stamina would remain non-magical.


    "I think I''m going to spend the first half of the day consolidating, upgrading and finishing everything up." I said after a few minutes. "Then I can spend the second half of the day building my primary weapons."


    "You still haven''t told me what you have nned for that."


    "You''ll see soon enough." I teased with a smirk. "Even sooner because you''ll be watching me make them."


    For the next few hours we killed time testing out more aspects of the danger sense before eventually we started brainstorming about upgrades for everything I had made so far. When the time that shops usually open rolled around I was out the door and eager to get started. I was running around New York and eventually Austin as well as the outskirts of Chicago for the entire morning, making frequent stops to the quarry to drop stuff off. After spending a ridiculous amount of money, including another trip to a jewelry store for gems, including several diamonds. I traveled to the quarry for thest time. I pushed out the storage shed and sat down to have some Mcdonald''s for lunch, recovering from the shopping blitz the morning had been. When I was sufficiently recovered I turned to Ema.


    "Alright, while I work on upgrading and everything I want you to take apart the super truck." I exined. "Remove exterior panels so I can make them lighter andpletely bulletproof. Don''t worry about damaging the truck itself, as long as the panels can be reattached somehow we can use the repair tablet to fix it."


    "What about the windows?"


    "What do you think the diamonds were for?"


    First up, while Ema got to work on her own assignment, was finally making a proper pair of gloves and boots. I mixed a few pairs of gloves with some ker, my custom super metal ting, nitinol and a set of brass knuckles. I managed to convince a pawn shop in Austin to sell me the brass knuckles under the table, despite them being illegal in Texas. I thenbined all of that into the smokescreen gloves. The result was a pair of B ranked armored gloves with metal ting that seemed to almost solidify when I made a fist.


    Unlike my gloves I started from the ground up for my boots, working a ton of materials into them. Running shoes, shock absorbing inserts, shoes that im to help with running, allbined with sixteen pairs of ckbat boots. Iyered in ker, my super metal ting as well before mixing up a transformation card andbining them with afortable but stylish pair of leather sneakers. No more spending time changing between shoes, just a single button press under the tongue of the sneakers and suddenly I was wearing B ranked ck armoredbat boots. I left the gloves normal as I was already wearing enough stuff on my hands, I didn''t need rings that turn into gloves or anything like that


    After I was done fixing a ring hole in my armor I started upgrading everything else. I made a second pair of my armored undeyer, this time adding a bit more breathability and flexibility through added types of cloth. I also doubled down on electrical resistance, heat resistance and impact absorption beforebining it all with the original. I was very happy with the result, as it was tougher in all ways and didn''t impede my movement in the slightest. Despite the changes it looked almost exactly the same, though it had gotten a little bit of its shine back.


    Once that was done I upgraded my healing amulet with a slew of things, basically anything with a healing concept I could get my hands on. I created a whole second amulet, this time focusing on more realistic medicines. When I was done Ibined it back with the original, creating a new, slightly smaller amulet that was significantly more effective. Ema yelled at me when I tested it, but was happy that the cut healed almost twice as quickly as the original. I also upgraded her driving ring with the books I had bought a while ago.


    With some gaps in my armor patched and some things upgraded, I moved on to adding magic to what was left. I upgraded the strength enhancement on my deployable chest armor before adding one sheet of super metal enhanced by two magic rods to the deployed chest, legs and helmet. And, since I was already in the grove making the magical super metal, I quickly made my way through all of the panels that Ema had stripped from the super truck, though I went heavy on the aluminum to make all of it lighter as well. I left Ema to work on getting the windows free while I went back to other upgrades.


    My next andst upgrade to my deployable armor took a while to get right. I made multiple sets of sses, each individual one some sort of vision enhancement like I had done for Clint. I thenbined the sses with a few ballistic helmets to keep the general helmet concept strong. When I was done I added the finalbined helmet to my original deployed helmet, the result was slightly sleeker looking and had the ability to shift vision modes just like Clint''s sses did. I also made a pair of multi mode sunsses for Ema, which she happily epted.


    Satisfied with the additions to my helmet I finished a project I had been meaning to for a while. I made two quadruple stacked knives. The first was a pocket knife that was big enough to be useful but small enough to fit into my pocket, the second was a much more dangerous looking KA-Bar straight edge. They both had selector wheels to adjust the level of bullshit, which was a solid n as the KA-Bar cut through solid rock like it was y on its highest. I hooked the sheath for the KA-Bar to the belt of my deployable armor and immediately bound both of the knives to myself.


    When I was done with my knives I put everything on, deploying all of my armor before putting on my gloves. pushing a massive floor mirror out of the Deck, carrying it to a clear corner of the tent before stepping back and getting a good look at myself. The under armor looked mostly the same, but the deployable armor now had copper and ck highlights worked throughout the ting and connections. The copper highlights had a luster that seemed to almost glow. I smirked and turned to Ema, retracting my armor with a smirk.


    "That was a good start." I said with a smirk. "Now let''s make those windows bullet proof so I can get to work making some more guns."

 Chapter 36: Guns, lots of guns

    Chapter 36: Guns, lots of guns


    The Conceptual Deck is, at its start middle and end, an examination of a power-set, and as a result, is firmly a crafting story. That said, it was always the n to transition to less in depth descriptions of said crafting, focusing more on character interactions and the story beats. The good news is that I wasn''t far off in my judgment of when that needed to happen. The bad news is that since I write rtively far ahead, course correcting on a dime is impossible. For those who have felt the weight of to much crafting, you don''t have much longer to wait for a break, and for those who are here primarily because this is a crafting story, rest assured that crafting is a fundamental part of the story and is not going anywhere, even if it bes much more streamlined. I hope you continue to enjoy the story!<hr>


    It took a few minutes or so of nning, mostly because I was nervous about wasting diamonds, but I ended up making see-through magic super metal by adding two diamonds to each te, thenbining that with the window. When I was done reinforcing the windows, Ema and I spent fifteen minutes unloading all of the green crates from the shed, before she started to put the truck back together and I cracked each crate open, going through everything. There was a lot of firepower in these boxes, not to mention ammo, attachments and aftermarket parts. We cataloged everything and I spent another thirty minutes going through the concepts of each type of gun, making note of any outliers.


    "So revolvers, especially the beefier ones all have a few extra concepts rted to power and lethality, probably because of how people view revolvers in general." I exined. "Same with the lever actions, though it''s weaker."


    When I was done going through everything I went over the outlier pile again. I put aside four Beretta 1301 shotguns, four out of five Colt Pythons I had, two out of three Chiappa Rhinos, four out of six Taurus 608s and four FN SCAR''s.


    "... I think we might have gone overboard with our list of guns." Ema said, still putting the truck back together just outside the tent.


    "No, I had no way of knowing what would work and what wouldn''t." I said with a shrug. "Besides, I hadn''t made my marksman ring yet, we were going off of top ten lists online, remember?"


    I grabbed two extra revolvers from one of the crates, deliberately picking two models I didn''t like the concepts of. They were both the same caliber but different guns, and after loading them quickly Ibined them together, I made my way over to the pit. I fired into the water below, emptying the gun as fast as I could, firing twelve rounds before walking back. I slid out the cylinder and tapped the empty brass out, shaking my head as twelve empty shells came out of six holes.


    "God that is bizarre.'''' I said, still shaking my head before focusing. "But I''m d it works."


    I tested to make sure the cylinder still fit normal ammo before putting the pistol down and sitting in a chair, thinking to myself. I had a vision in my head about what I wanted to create, especially now that I knew as long as the pistols were generally close and fired the same caliber then I couldbine them without worrying. The problem was there was a lot of nk space between my final vision and the guns I had around me.


    I took my experimental revolver and started disassembling it, using one of the tool kits that Shield was nice enough to include. I separated everything into piles, picking up the cylinder when I was done. I rolled it around in my hand before carding it, getting a feel for its concepts.


    "I have a feeling if Ibine one of the magic rods with this it will deform it somehow." I mumbled, before standing from my chair to head to my metal stock area.


    I work together a simple sheet of super metal before adding two magic rods, heading back to the table andbining it with the revolver frame. The frame was now a slight copper tint, but only just enough to barely notice. I repeated this with the cylinder as well.


    "Why isn''t it changing now then?" Ema asked as I walked by from the metal pile back to the tent.


    "The sheets of metal aren''t finished products, they are materials. Meaning you make things with them. Combining them with things just doesn''t shift the original very much." I exined with a shrug. "We have been taking advantage of that for a while and I hadn''t even realized it until I was upgrading stuff earlier."


    I examined the cylinder again, pushing it out of its card and loading it with all twelve rounds. I carded it again and


    "Huh"


    "What?" Ema asked as sheid the windshield back into ce.


    "It has the concept of being full, but it feels different than the magazine full." I tried to exin.


    "Why is it different?"


    "I don''t know" I said, thinking for a moment. "Maybe because it''s a part, meant to hold the bullets, but it''s not a magazine, but an actual part of the gun. And it''s outside of the gun so the part concept is even stronger The magic is interacting with it as well"


    Absentmindedly I walked over to the sheets of titanium, carded one andbined it with a magic rod before adding it to the already magically augmented part.


    "I think this is exactly what I was looking for." I said to Ema excitedly. "I need another concept, some sort of regeneration."


    "Rechargeable batteries?" Ema suggested. "We have some left over I think."


    I nodded and went hunting in the storage shed,ing back with a half empty box of AA rechargeable batteries. I carded one and was about to add it to the cylinder when I stopped. Instead I pushed the cylinder out of the card and tipped it over, emptying itpletely. I picked up one of the bullets andbined it with a battery. The result was a deformed bullet that was too big for the cylinder. I quicklybined it with two normal bullets, from a different box than the ones that had been inside the cylinder. The new bullet fit in the cylinder easily.


    Quickly I did the same process for the eleven other bullets, loading them in and carding the result. I shouted in happiness and quickly put the entire revolver back together as quickly as I could, finishing it after a few minutes. I walked back over to the edge of the pit and aimed down into the water.


    "Deploy your helmet at least!" Ema shouted at me, watching from the truck, catching me off guard.


    "Fine, yeah alright." I said, deploying all of my armor, even my boots before aiming back down into the water.


    After a pause I pulled the trigger once, the gun kicking, though I easily controlled it with my strength. There was a streak of light that fired out from the barrel of the pistol, only visible from the after image. It hit the water and sshed, quickly joined by eleven other bullets, all fired as fast as possible. Then I pulled the trigger again and another bullet joined the now agitated water. I pulled the trigger of the revolver as fast as possible, firing three more bullets before the revolver clicked. With a frown I carded the pistol, smiling again before pushing it back out into my hand. I waited a few seconds before firing it again, getting four shots off before the pistol clicked.


    "And just like that, regenerating ammo!"


    "That''s impressive." Ema said, having walked over to watch. "But it seemed kind of limited?"


    "For now. But that was just a single battery per bullet, and we will bebining all the revolvers together"


    "That Alright, that might be impressive."


    "Yeah, it just might." I said with an eye roll, returning to the working area under the party tent. "Okay, I need more rechargeable batteries before I can start."


    I quickly traveled back to New York and did a short shopping run, picking up a few bags of rechargeable batteries before traveling back to the quarry. I got back to work, starting with taking apart the first revolver I had set aside, augmenting the frame and cylinder with magic super metal, augmenting the rest with normal super metal. I repeated this over the next hour with every single revolver we had set aside. Before I put them back together I went through the process of adding a second sheet of magical super metal to the cylinder while it was loaded, emptying the cylinder, augmenting the bullets and putting them back. Thankfully Ema had finished putting the truck and could help with taking everything apart and putting it back together when we were done. Turns out being able to shift your body into any tool you want has some advantages.


    When all of the revolvers were reinforced, loaded and reassembled I beganbining them together. Two Pythons werebined with two Taurus'' and added to a single Rhino, resulting in two beefy, slightly futuristic looking revolvers. I carried them both to the edge of the pit and opened fire on the other side. Just as before, streaks of lightunched across the gap, this time mming into the stone face. The rock wall shattered and splintered, sending rock shards flying as I fired what was essentially two quintuple stacked revolvers at full power. By the time that I confirmed I had functionally infinite ammo I had drilled a deep hole into the rock wall.


    I returned to the workbench area and added a scroll wheel selector switch to each of the revolvers, which added a nonsensical scroll wheel right above where my thumb naturally rested. It adjusted the power smoothly, letting me scale down to around normal revolvers chambered in .357 magnum.


    "These are mostly done." I said after a few moments of examining them. I carded them before looking back at the rest of the guns. "Just everything else left."


    Ema and I quickly got into a rhythm after that, disassembling, carding,bining, augmenting and reassembling. We worked our way through all of the remaining guns, using a huge amount of metal and magic rods. Enough that about half way through we took a break for me to go out and buy three more bags of copper grounding rods from all round Austin.


    When we were finally done the sky was going dark, enough that I had needed to use the super truck''s flood lights. The final result was two more guns, each of them the result of multiple guns stacked together. One of them, the SCAR, had expanded magazines since the regeneration trick I had found wouldn''t work one something without a built-in magazine. Even so, I wasn''t particrly worried since it came with six fifty round drum mags and eight thirty normal mags. Ibined them all down to a single drum mag with two hundred and seventy nine rounds and another normal looking magazine with a hundred and eighty seven rounds. The smaller spare mag fit perfectly in one of the pouches around my waist.


    The Beretta 1301 on the other hand did have a built in magazine, and took to the regenerating ammo easily. It wasn''t quite fast enough for me to pull the trigger as fast as I could, but it was close enough not to matter.


    The final additions to the guns were a set of simple scopes, red dot sights and shlights. Instead of just having them always attached however, I mixed up a bunch of transformation cards and made them deployable so that I could switch from scoped to red dot easily. The chances that I would use a scope on the shotgun was small, but because of my ring I knew that the video game logic that said shotguns were only effective short range was bullshit, especially when loaded with a slug. Thest thing I did wasbine in a selector wheel for both of the firearms.


    "Are you done?" Ema asked as Iid out all of the guns on the table. "That seems like more firepower than you could ever need."


    "Just one more step for today." I assured her, doing my best not to think of all the fucked up things these guns wouldn''t even scratch in the normal Marvel reality. "Well maybe two."


    "What else could you possibly be doing to these guns?" She asked skeptically. "The revolvers hit like a fifty cal and I''m pretty sure the shotgun hits like a tank shell."


    I chuckle but said nothing as I flick up a card, a transformation card and attach it to my revolver beforebining it with the shotgun. After a moment''s inspection I found the activation button on the butt of the revolver. I pressed it and in a matter of seconds I was holding my newly made shotgun, only to press a button on the side of the stock and have it retract back down to my revolver.


    "That is what else I could do with these guns." I exined cheekily, before making my way through andbining the second revolver with the SCAR. "What do you think?"


    "Those Carson, that''s a lot of fire power." Ema said.


    "They still aren''t done to be honest." I said. "Well the SCAR is done, I''m going to leave that one like it is."


    I pulled one of the cards I had been carrying with me for a few days now, one of the Destroyer sts. I deployed the shotgun and carded it, pausing for a moment beforebining them. I pushed the card back out and into my hands. The gun, which had just previously looked like a normal Beretta 1301 with a slight copper tone, now looked slightly different. The gun seemed to glow with an internal fire, the light seeping through every gap. Every bit of polymer was gone, reced with burnished dark metal and iid with copper highlights. The forward grip, which normally contoured around the magazine tube and tapered down, now continued all the way to the front, giving the shotgun a beefier look. The red dot and scope both still deployed, though they werepletely unchanged. It weighed the same but was warm to the touch, almost hot even.


    I made my way to the edge of the pit and looked down at the water before pulling the shotgun up and firing it once. On the lowest setting the streak of glowing energy was not too dissimr from what it had been before, if a bit brighter. Slowly cranking it up the energy got more and more substantial until I wasunching coconut sized sts of energy into the water, shooting steam and water up into the air. The final setting was very different. Instead of a streaking single st it was a continuous beam of energy. Nothing approaching what the destroyer armor had been capable of, but still a devastating barrage. It fired for a full four seconds, plowing into the water and rock cliff as I struggled for a moment topensate for the recoil. When it was done the gun was empty and I had to wait for it to recharge.


    "Holy fucking shit that was AWESOME!" I shouted, pumping my fist. "Talk about a ning together!"


    I quickly retracted the shotgun back to the revolver form while all but running back to the workbench. I carded the second revolver andbined the remaining two destroyer sts, one for each. I pushed them back into my hands. Both of the revolvers had already looked unique since they were an amalgamation of multiple different types of revolvers. They were transformed even more now, though in a simr style as the shotgun had been. The grip was bent a bit farther back, but only by a few degrees, while the color was now much darker with the same orange glow leaking through the gun''s gaps. All three of the weapons looked like the perfectbination of Sci-Fi weapons and an artificer''s dream.


    A quick test showed the same increase in power all through the settings, culminating in another long st of destructive energy. Smoke rose from the barrels as I looked down at the opposite cliff face. I had chiseled massive amounts of stone from it over thest few test fires.


    "Well now you know why I was done with the bow." I said to Ema with a smirk. "C''mon, let''s bind these and then get back to the apartment."


    I quickly bound both of the revolvers to myself before changing them to their alternate forms and binding those as well. After making sure the binding didn''t mess anything up we spent another half hour cleaning up, putting everything away into the shed. We double checked the truck was done repairing before carding it and the shed and traveling home.

 Chapter 37: Youth is wasted

    Chapter 37: Youth is wasted


    I took the next morning easy, waiting until noon to go grocery shopping. I pushed building and concepts as far out of my mind as I could, managing to mostly seed. After I got home and unpacked everything I sat down on the couch, kicked up my feet and turned on the TV. I felt calm, the stress from the past few weeks bleeding away as I watched a few mindless TV shows. I was heavily armed and knew how to use those armaments due to my marksman''s ring. I had my danger sense and I had a quick way to escape should anything bad happen. It was a lot easier to rx than it was a few days ago.


    Eventually the TV show ended and I clicked it off, standing to go and make myself some lunch. As I made a sandwich in the kitchen Ema floated by the entrance.


    "We should probably start figuring out what is next." She pointed out. "Just so we know what the n is and what our goals are."


    "Right." I said with a nod as I finished making lunch, carrying the smi and cheese sandwich back into the living room. "It''s weird not to be scrambling to the next desperately needed thing. I mean I know I still have a lot to build but Fuck now I''m thinking about everything that could go wrong. God I really hope this reality doesn''t get as insane as the normal one does."


    "There''s not much you can do about it now." Ema said. "Just keep building and making things. Making a few more friends wouldn''t hurt either. You did say that you would talk to Tony Stark once you were set up."


    "Really? That doesn''t sound like me." I teased before taking and chewing a bite of my sandwich.


    "Of course, it must have been the other Carson Walsh I work with."


    I couldn''t help but smile, shrugging as I chewed.


    "Alright" I said eventually. "First off, I need to crack flying and shields. I need to make the underside of the super truck bulletproof as well. And better armed. The repair tablet needs to be diversified, it shouldn''t be too hard to get it to repair more than just cars. Oh and I want to make a stealth cloak. Something better than the original stealth suit. We have learned a lot about how the deck works since the first one and I could probably make something pretty impressive now."


    "Right." Ema said, floating to turn back to me. "When I suggesteding up with a n or some goals I meant for more than just crafting."


    "Yeah Yeah I know." I said with a smirk. "Alright. First we should keep making things for Shield. Arming the good guys is always a good thing, even if I wasn''t getting paid. As long as nothing goes wrong at least/"


    "Alright, what else?" She asked.


    "I I don''t know." I admitted after a full minute of thinking. "I''ve been so focused on my build up I haven''t really put much thought in what came after"


    "Well, what about going on patrols again, stopping crime?" Ema asked.


    "I feel Like that''s a waste." I admitted. "I mean busting muggers and bank robberies might be a staple for cartoon andic heroes but in reality? I can''t think of a better way to get a bank robbery to turn deadly than me kicking down the front door and trying to stop the robbers."


    "So what, you''ll just keep building?" Ema asked incredulously.


    "No But I need toe up with a way I can help. Do some real good. Not bust some shop lifters for a quick thrill." I said with a shrug.


    "Could you make something to direct you to serious things?" Ema asked. "Maybe use apass?"


    "There isn''t much I can''t do Ema. But that shouldn''t be too hard, and thepass would be a good ce to start. But before I do that I need to crack flight. I''m not making something that will show me were the nearest kidnapping or rape is happening only to have to drive there."


    "So that means the next challenge is flight." Ema said with a nod. "Then the crime detector."


    "We can work on those after we drop off Natasha''s order." I said, taking thest bite of my sandwich. "For the rest of today I''m finishing my suit off, adding some holsters to my leg armor."


    "That''s it?" Ema asked, surprised.


    "It''s already one o''clock and yesterday was a bit jam packed." I exined with a shrug. "I''m gonna take it easy."


    I cleaned up from lunch, spent some time doing some research online before heading out. Again I visited both the Chicago and Austin area to find everything that I was looking for. The Austin leather shop had a few dozen holsters to choose from and I settled on two that would attach nicely to my deployable armor belt. I got the biggest ones they had and I was still worried they wouldn''t be big enough.


    When I was finally done shopping I headed to the quarry, unloaded my stuff and pulled out everything I would need. I quicklybined the rest of the ker I had, along with half of what I had bought that day with four of five massive green full body hooded cloaks. I used some of my already proven stealth concepts, including enough sound absorbing padding to make mepletely silent, as well as two dozen full camo uniforms. I also added in the old stealth suit, a few magic rods, more camouge materials, as well as heat resistant, electrical safety and stab proof cloth, as well as a few types of heat reactive color changing cloth. I spread thebinations through all four modified cloaks. I thenbined four rings, eachbined with books about blending in, hiding and stealth into the simple pieces of clothing, one for each. Ibined everything down into one, attached an on and off switch beforebining it to the final, unchanged deep green sleeved cloak.


    "What do you think?" I asked Ema, pulling the cloak around my shoulders.


    "It looks big on you." She said simply.


    "It''s meant to cover me when I wear my armor too."


    I quickly deployed all my armor and pulled the cloak around myself again. This time the cloak fit pretty well, though it still touched the ground. I secured it easily with the small chain and sp system that hung around the neck, before pushing the added switch. The cloth shimmered for a moment before slowly fading from the switch outward until I had disappeared.


    "Tada! Invisibility cloak!" I said happily, walking around the tent.


    The cloak shimmered as I walked, bing much easier to spot. It was hard to tell from my angle, but it seemed to hide me pretty well when I stopped moving. Better than the original stealth suit at least.


    "... maybe a six or seven out of ten?" Ema said, givng me a shrug. "It may be because I know you''re there but you''re not that hard to pick out."


    "Well Maybe Shield has something to make it better." I said with a shrug, turning off the cloak. "It will certainly keep me stealthy in the dark, or even low light."


    Iid the piece of clothing aside for a moment before picking up my leather jacket. I flicked out a card, one of the leftover transformation cards from the day before and added the jacket, beforebining it with the cloak. I deployed and retracted it a few times, including once when it was on, testing itpletely. Satisfied that it worked I carded the jacket, retracted my deployable armor and carded it, immediately pushing the undeployed leg armor back out.


    It didn''t take too long for me to work the two dark leather holsters into ce, actually attaching it to the lie detecting belt, which was woven through the existing belt but had no attachments. I pulled the undeployed armor back on and activated them before spending a few minutes making sure everything worked well. The armor grew out fine, pushing the leather holsters away from my leg when it was deployed, while the holsters themselves sat on top of said armor when it was done. Thest thing I did before carding the armor was slide my revolvers inside the holsters, happy with the fit.


    "And that''s my day." I said with a smile, plopping down on one of the chairs. "And it''s only four o''clock. Not bad, why don''t we go get a movie and-"


    I was cut off by the faint sound of a phone ringing, muffled almostpletely. It was a default ringtone that I didn''t recognize. I looked over at Ema, who was still in her exosuit, and was the source of the sound. Ema tilted her head before shifting slightly, a cellphone pushing out from her hand.


    "It''s Nick Fury." She said after looking at the screen, holding the phone out to me.


    I looked at the cellphone for a moment before realizing it was the emergency contact phone he had given me before our foray in New Mexico. Now looking nervous I took the phone and confirmed the call.


    "Hello?"


    "Maker, what are you doing right now?" The stern no nonsense voice of Nick Fury asked.


    I reached down and tapped the lie detecting belt on before responding.


    "Nothing important. What''s wrong?"


    "I need you toe into the New York headquarters." He said simply. "I have an urgent request, something that could help someone a great deal."


    "And this is Nick Fury? Who is asking me toe in of his own free will, with no ill intent to me?"


    "Yes. This isn''t anything other than me with a few questions and a potential request."


    "...I''ll be there in an hour, maybe two."


    "Make it quick. We don''t have a lot of time."


    The phone went dead and I looked at Ema.


    "We gotta go, something is going down and Fury wants to talk to us."


    It took twenty minutes for us to pack up and get ready. I put on everything and threw my newly modified jacket on, while Ema shifted to her armored form, her fake helmet covering her face. I carded her and traveled to the bridgending pad, carding the energy as wended to keep the sh of light from attracting attention. Five minutester we were in the super truck making our way to the headquarters.


    "What do you think this is about?" Ema asked as I drove.


    "I don''t know. It felt less like a dire emergency and more like they needed something made, a rush job of some sort. Oh by the way if this turns out to be an borate trap we are going to try and escape before we resort to teleporting. That''s our trump card, assuming they haven''t figured it out yet."


    "Are you worried it''s a trap?" She asked, turning to look at me, her face still in helmet form.


    "No, but you never know. If it is, Fury didn''t know about it."


    About forty minutester we pulled into the underground parking, parking the truck in an empty space. I carded it as soon as we were both out. Agent Coulson greeted us by the entrance, his eyes trailing over my obviously modified armaments.


    "Maker, thank you for joining us on such short notice."


    "Yeah, no problem." I answered, following the agent into the elevator. "Where is Fury?"


    "The Director is in his office, waiting for your arrival."


    We rode the elevator up, much higher up in the building than I had gone before. When we eventually got off Agent Coulson led us directly to arge corner office. He opened the door for both of us, but closed it behind us and did not enter. Instead he stood outside, keeping watch, his back to the door. Ema and I shared a look before looking back at Fury, who was sitting behind his desk, leaning back in his chair.


    "Sit down." He said, gesturing to the chairs in front of his desk.


    "What can I do for you, Director?" I asked, looking around his office as I sat down in thefortable chair.


    "You have a piece of equipment that heals you, is that correct?" He asked.


    "Yeah, I''ve had it for a bit." I answered with a nod. "Clint made contact the night I was testing it."


    "Yes, I know. Can you confirm it is its own separate object, not part of your strength enhancement equipment?"


    "Correct." I said, thumbing the chain of my healing amulet, which was under my armor. "Is someone injured?"


    "No, though you should know that Shield is very interested in that ability."


    "I can imagine." I answered simply.


    Nick Fury nodded, as if acknowledging my hesitancy to borate on his statement. He leaned forward in his chair and rolled closer to the desk, leaning his elbows on it. After a moment of thinking he looked at me.


    "Does it affect aging?"


    I looked at him for a moment, surprise in my eyes as I tried to puzzle out why he would be interested in that. After a moment I shrugged.


    "I I don''t know. It hasn''t de-aged me, or I would be an infant. That said it would at least help with a lot of issues rted to aging. It would probably fix things like alzhiemers, cancer, organ failures. Curing old age though? I don''t know."


    "Would you be willing to find out?"


    "I might. For the right reason. Being known to have an on tap fountain of youth is a particr vor of Pandora''s box I wouldn''t crack open lightly."


    Again Nick Fury stared at me, still leaning on his desk, his hands on his chin. Eventually he nodded, as ifing to a conclusion.


    "Two days ago a Shield team discovered the remains of the <em>Valkyrie, </em>the bomber Steve Rogers crashed into the arctic circle, off the coast of Greend. We quickly investigated and managed to pull his body from the wreck only to find he was still alive, despite being frozen in ice. We have since transported him here, where he is slowly being unfrozen and treated. Our doctor''s best guess is that he will be awake in less than a week, most likely in the next few days."


    "That That is incredible!" I said in excitement, my mind running fast. "Does he need healing? Has he aged while in the ice or something?"


    "No, the super soldier serum seems to have preserved and kept him alive." Nick exined.


    "Then why were you curious about de-aging?"


    "Because, when Steve Rogers wakes up he will be in a world that is vastly different,pletely alien to him." He exined. "During the war Steve Rogers worked closely with several people, a few of which are still alive. One of those people is Margaret Elizabeth "Peggy" Carter. Currently she is almost ny and beginning to struggle with alzhiemers. We have her downstairs with a family member who is taking care of her."


    "Why her specifically?" I asked. "I can''t believe this is all from the goodness of your heart."


    I was desperately going over what I could remember about her from theics. She was an important person, having worked alongside Steve both before and after his deep freeze. They had been in a rtionship, but they had issues after Steve came back I think she died and came back at some point?


    "Though Rogers was lost in the crash before anything could develop it was widely known Rogers and her were very close."


    "And because she was a member of Shield and would tie him to the organization."


    "That''s what the security council thinks." Nick Fury said with a chuckle, shaking his head. "I, on the other hand, actually know her. If Peggy Carter thought Shield was taking advantage of Rogers she would burn it to the ground without a second thought. She helped build this organization and she would be the first to light the match if she thought it had been perverted. No, I want her up and functional because she would be a massive stabilizing element on Rogers, and a huge asset to Shield."


    "And how would you deal with her suddenly being young again?" I said before adding. "If this even works."


    "Peggy Carter will pass away quietly in her sleep and Shield will hire someone who looks an awful lot like her not long after. She has already agreed."


    "...I''m willing to give it a shot." I said eventually. "I''ll even make her a mask to help her blend in, if she wants one."


    "Alright." He said with a nod. "Follow me."

 Chapter 38: On the young

    Chapter 38: On the young


    Fury led us to the elevator, stepping in and to the side, letting Ema and I step in behind him. The emergency phone, which I was carrying in my pocket, vibrated once. Confused, I pulled it out, only to find that Ema had essed it and was showing me search results for Carter. I quickly read through them, nodding my head. As I suspected, her history was vastly different from heric counterpart. She helped found Shield rather than join it after it was created, and had done so at a time when women were believed to be weaker. Her list of achievements was long, as was the rumor mill about what kind of rtionship she had had with Captain America.


    "We are going to have to get you a new emergency phone." Fury said, pulling me from my reading. "That one has beenpromised."


    "From you calling me?" I asked.


    "Yes." He replied simply.


    The elevator doors opened and Fury stepped out into a hallway. The design of this floor was much different than the other floors I had been to so far. Its interior was much more akin to a dorm or a hotel than an office building. Fury led us through the hall and stopped in front of a door, armed Shield agents on either side. He knocked gently and waited.


    "Come in." An older woman''s voice called out.


    Fury pushed open the door and we all entered. Inside was a rtively well furnished and decorated room,rger than an average hotel, though still built like one as itcked the amenities of an apartment. Laid on the single twin sized bed, tucked into the corner of the room was an old woman. She looked alert if not tired. Another woman, blonde and dressed in a simple shield uniform and not much older than me, sat on a simple chair beside the bed and held the older woman''s hand.


    "Ah, wee back Nick." The older woman said in a British ent. "I see you managed to get a hold of your mystery asset."


    I stepped forward, the sitting blond woman sizing me up. I ignored her for now and focused on the elderly woman.


    "Hello Ms. Carter. I apologize for not being able to give you my real name."


    "It''s quite alright, It''s understandable that someone with your purported abilities would want to remain anonymous for as long as possible." She said with a smile. "Now Nick here suggested an idea that seems a bit far fetched, even with what I read from your file. Are you certain you can do this?"


    "There is a high probability Ma''am, though I''m not sure I''ll be able to do it with what I have on me. I might need to leave and make something specific. Before I do could I ask why you''re so willing to do this?"


    The woman looked away for a moment, gripping the blonde girl''s hand as she looked out the window. After a moment she looked back at me, a determined look that byed a core of solid steel.


    "I''ve lived a full life since I met Steve during the war. A life with a husband and two children, God rest their souls. I am not the same woman I was back then. I don''t know what will happen, if" She trailed off for a moment before continuing. "Regardless of what may or may not happen though, I owe Steve. Meeting him was one of a few turning points in my life, one that set the rhythm for everything until now. When he returns he will be lost, confused, and hurt. I owe it to him to help where I can."


    I nodded and looked around the room, meeting the eyes of everyone else.


    "If anyone attempts to touch what I am about to give her besides Ema, Ms. Carter or myself I will shoot them dead. No warning, no second chances. A bullet through their skull." I said simply "I want everyone who enters this room to know that. And yes Fury, my lie detection belt is on."


    I get a serious nod from Fury and a worried look from the blonde agent, who I am beginning to suspect is the family member Fury was talking about. I stepped closer and carded my amulet off of my neck and pushed it out into my hand. Ms Carter leaned forward and I slipped the amulet around her neck. It glowed for a moment, and the older woman let out a groan.


    "What''s wrong?" The younger woman asked, giving me a sharp look.


    "It''s nothing Sharon, the pain in my hip is fading. It has been a long while since I haven''t felt that ache."


    "That''s going to happen Ma''am. Most of if not all of your medical problems are going to fade." I exined, turning to find a chair, sitting down to face the bed. "That includes your alzhiemers Probably. It wasn''t designed to cure age, just heal in general."


    "Please, call me Peggy, just getting rid of my hip is more than enough for that." The older woman said with a smile. "If this works on my alzhiemers you could call me whatever you please and I wouldn''tin."


    The older woman chuckled, a smile on her face. We stood and listened for a few minutes while Peggy described how all of her aches and pains were fading.


    "How long will this take?" Sharon asked."And how will we know it''s working?"


    "I have no idea." I admitted with a shrug. "As for knowing if it''s working Ema, think you could do some scans?"


    Ema nodded from beside me and stepped closer to the bed. Her eyes glowed and a familiar scanning beam came out of her emerald eyes, trailing over the older woman''s body. When she was done she stepped back.


    "She is slowly healing from various things. In a few minutes she will be the healthiest eighty nine year old on the." She said, but continued with a shake of her head. "But she will still be eighty nine."


    "Crap. Alright, give me a few hours to try and put something together"


    I trailed off, already trying to figure out what I would have tobine to get a de-aging object. I couldbine a few clocks with anti aging cream, maybe try to find something that makes things go backward


    "Maker Maybe you could use a spark?" Ema suggested.


    For a moment I tried to figure out what she was talking about before my eyes went wide.


    "That Alright, we can try that." I said with a nod, turning back to Fury. "I''d like the room please. For at least ten minutes, obviously Peggy can stay."


    "I don''t think-" Sharon started before Fury cut her off.


    "You get five." He said, giving Sharon a look, which she matched for a moment before nodding.


    After they left and shut the door I walked closer to Peggy, who leaned forward for me to take the amulet off.


    "Let me know if any of those achese back." I said as I leaned and lofted the amulet away, getting a nod in return.


    "I was under the impression you didn''t want anyone to know how your ability worked."


    "I don''t." I answered with a smirk. "It''s a good thing you''re not just anyone then I guess."


    Peggy chuckled as I sat down next to her bed, taking the seat agent Sharon had been sitting in.


    "Truth is I refused to share how my powers worked because in the beginning I needed every advantage I could get. Now that I have had more time to build I''m much less vulnerable. There are still a few more things I want to do before I''m ready to shout how this all works from the rooftops, but I was already nning on telling Steve Rogers about how my ability worked anyway. As long as you don''t tell anyone outside of emergencies I don''t mind you knowing either."


    "I''ll keep your secret."


    "Good. Ema, do a scan of the room."


    Ema spent a full minute scanning the entire room, eventually returning to my side.


    "There are a few listening devices, but no cameras." She said, getting an annoyed scoff from Peggy.


    "That will have to do." I said, turning back to Peggy. "I can give you and Steve a better exnationter, but for now"


    I took the carded amulet and showed it to Peggy, who looked at it with a raised eyebrow. I then took one of Thor''s sparks and did the same, beforebining them together, showing her the result while I examined its concepts. The magic inside of the amulet had spiked, as did the healing. I added a second spark before pushing the amulet into my hands, wincing as it shocked me with a loud zap. I put it on a nearby table for a moment, letting it sit.


    "That was not what I expected." Peggy said, having watched my whole process. "I''m not sure what I did expect but that wasn''t it. I''m not sure what I just watched."


    "I''ll exin it in more detailter. For now" I picked up the amulet and carded it, making sure it wasn''t building up a charge on its own, pushing it out when I was sure.


    The amulet was still made from the same red stone, now shaped in a circle. The outside ring was metal, lined with slightly glowing Norse runes. The interior was the same modified caduceus staff as before, though now it also glowed faintly. After I was done examining it I leaned and secured it around Peggy''s neck.


    "Alright guys, all set!" I called out while standing from the closer chair and sitting down in my original spot. "Ema, keep scanning her."


    Sharon and Fury returned, the former rushing in, only to see I was already sitting down away from Peggy. She rushed to sit back down in her seat, taking Peggy''s hand.


    "How do you feel Aunt Peggy?" She asked, taking her hand again.


    "Good, better than I have felt in a long time actually." She said with a smile.


    The white beam of Ema''s deepest scan ran slowly down the older woman. After a full minute or so the beam ended by her feet.


    "I think it''s working." Ema said with a smile. "She isn''t being de-aged as much as her old age is being fixed. It''s going to take a while but it''s working."


    I nodded and leaned back, smiling happily. Peggy smiled as well, while receiving a hug from her niece I think? That is if it was the same as in theics. Nick Fury simply nodded, turning to me.


    "Just to point this out, this is not a service I will be handing out to everyone." I said to the eye patch wearing man, before he couldment.


    "Understood. For now, I need to keep my eye on our other guest. Behave yourself Maker." He said, leaving the room with a dramatic sweep of his duster like jacket.


    "Behave myself? You don''t even know me!" I called after him, before leaning back in my chair. "Honestly, I''ve been nothing but amodating."


    "I''m sure." Peggy said with a smirk before getting serious."Thank you Maker, for giving me this opportunity. The idea that Steve would be lost in this world, by himself?"


    The elderly woman shook her head, looking sad for a moment before focusing again, looking at her niece.


    "Sharon dear, I''ll need a better outfit. Something from the house. And a purse." She exined. "I''ll want a pistol as well. I refuse to go unarmed, not when I''ll soon be able to shoot without shattering my arm."


    "What did you shoot?" I asked. "Any particr preference?"


    "Oh anything I was issued really." She said with a shrug. She already looked like she had more energy. "I did always enjoy the Walther though. Subtle and easy to conceal."


    "Well if you''d like I could make you something special." I offered. "I just finished making some weapons for Natasha, as well as building my own arsenal."


    We chatted for a while, talking about her days during the beginning of Shield and some of its earlier hurdles, all the while watching her slowly regain her strength. Ema scanned her frequently as she changed, keeping an eye out for anyplications. It was bizzare to watch someone slowly get younger looking. By the time it was ten PM she looked like she could pass for sixty.


    "This is honestly incredible Maker." She said with a smile, sitting up in her bed all on her own. "I feel light. Like I haven''t in decades."


    "You should feel even better in a few more hours." Ema said, running another quick scan. "The amulet seems to be picking up steam."


    As she sat down Sharon opened her mouth to say something when there was a knock at the door. Sharon and I shared a look before Peggy beat us to it.


    "Come in!"


    The door opened and in stepped Natasha, smile one her lips as she gave me a look before focusing back on Peggy and Sharon.


    "Sorry to drop in sote." Natasha said as she closed the door behind herself. "Fury said our miracle maker was here and I wanted to see if he had finished my order."


    "Agent Romanoff, hello. Yes he didn''t want to let his little amulet out of his sight, rightfully so I would imagine." Peggy said.


    "You look incredible Mrs Carter." She said, standing by the foot of her bed. "Fury said Maker had done it but"


    "Yes I know, it is truly incredible. Every time I move I wince, expecting an old pain to re up." She said with a smile. "You said you had business with Maker? You made an order with him?"


    "Yes, I wanted to see if he had enough time to finish mymission." Natasha asked with a smirk.


    "Yeah, I finished everything." I said with a nod. "We need to go over some questions and they are all yours. I was kind of hoping to do this at a gun range of some sort but"


    "He made you weapons?" Peggy asked. "How interesting. He offered to make me something special earlier I don''t suppose we could all go down to the shooting range?"


    "Aunt Peggy I don''t know"


    Peggy had a small smile on her face as she pushed herself out of bed and stood easily, surprising Sharon. She hugged the blond agent, rubbing her back before pushing her away gently to look into her eyes.


    "Sweetie, I will always appreciate the care and time you have offered me thesest few years. You made getting old just a bit more bearable and I will always love you for that." Peggy said, cupping the blonde''s cheek. "But I feel better than I have in decades and I need to move around, stretch my legs."


    "Are you sure?" Natasha asked. "Fury was hoping to keep your new found youth a secret, or at least keep it quiet."


    "Just sit me in my wheelchair." She said with a shrug. "My hair is still gray, no one will look twice."


    "Alright, but we should call Director Fury and let him know." Sharon said, getting a look from Peggy. "I can''t just ignore my boss Aunt Peggy."


    With a sigh she nodded, and Sharon pulled out her phone to call Fury. While she talked to him in the corner, I went through Natasha''s questions. I was a bit more invasive than I had been for Clint, which she clearly picked up on. That being said she didn''tin once as I probed into her life and thoughts. Eventually, when I was satisfied she wasn''t a secret Hydra agent or anything else, I stood and smiled.


    "You''re pretty good at working through double speak and asking questions I couldn''t worm my way out of." Natasha admitted as we both stood. "Assuming you can actually tell when someone is lying."


    "It was coborative between me and Ema." I exined with a shrug. "We bounced questions back and forth and tried to worm our way out of telling the truth."


    Once we were done ying twenty questions it didn''t take the group very long to make their way down to a shooting range, riding the elevator down to one of the basement levels. Luckily due to thete hour the building was mostly empty, save some roaming security and a few workers. When I asked Natasha about it she only shrugged.


    "Some floors are busier than others at night. And a few never stop being busy." She exined as we stepped into a well maintained gun range. "This is nothing on the Triskelion. That building is never calm."


    As we walked to one of therger bays I noticed a few familiar looking briefcases stacked in the corner, looking suspiciously like the briefcases of money I''ve been handed before. Natasha noticed this and nodded.


    "That''s your payment Maker. You can have it when we are done."


    As me and Natasha got to the bay, Peggy quickly stood up from her wheelchair, both her and Sharon following us but staying back to watch. With a flourish I summoned the four cards that held her new weapons, before pushing them out onto the waist high counter that you shoot over,ying the rifle across itst. When I turned Natasha was holding out ear protection for me.


    "Introducing the Romanoff specials." I said with a smirk, taking the earmuffs. "First twopletely silent Glock 34''s. Each magazine carries one hundred and neen rounds without any weight increase."


    Natasha stepped forward and picked up one of the pistols, checked it expertly before clicking the safety off and firing down range, peppering a paper target. Eventually she switched to the other pistol and tested it out. Eventually she pulled the mag, inspected it and slid it back into ce.


    "A hundred and neen each?" She asked. "That is Impressive."


    "If you think that''s impressive, then check this out." I said with my best salesman voice before gesturing to the P90. "Your P90 does not have a suppressor, as I''m sure you can tell. Instead I focused onbating muzzle flip. Give it a try!"


    Natasha rolled her eyes at my act, before picking up thepact sub-machine gun and inspecting it quickly. When she was done she racked and fired, first a dozen single shots, then in quick bursts before firing in full auto for a few seconds.


    "That barely drifted at all." She said, nodding in appreciation. "How big is this capacity?"


    "Five hundred and thirty five." I said with a smile. "All of these take normal magazines as well."


    Natasha put the P90 down and went through the same process with the AWM. When she was done putting it through its paces, or as well as she could do indoors, she looked back at me.


    "I seem to remember you promising that you would prevent me from ever being unarmed again." She said with a smirk. "These guns are impressive but I can''t exactly carry the AWM around when I''m undercover."


    I picked up one of the glocks and handed it to her after clicking on the safety.


    "See that button there? Go ahead and press it."


    Natasha took the gun from with a raised eyebrow, pressing the button. The gun slowly shifted into its ring form, getting a gasp from Sharon. We both looked back at the audience, me with a smirk and Natasha with a nod of agreement. She fiddled with the ring for a moment before finding the button and pressing it again, soon holding the full pistol.


    For the next ten minutes she deployed and retracted all of the firearms, putting on all of the jewelry when she was done. At my request she handed me one of her new rings. I pressed the button on the ring and the gun deployed, which got me a frown.


    "I thought no one else could use bound equipment." she asked with a raised eyebrow.


    "I had to pick between the ring and the pistol being bonded to you." I pointed the pistol down range and attempted to fire it off a few times to demonstrate my point. "I figured someone not being able to use your weapon against you when it was deployed took precedence. If you give me some more binding materials I can bind the rings to you as well."


    "I would prefer that, I-"


    Natasha''s response was cut off by a muffled thump, followed by a vibration settling through the walls and ceiling. Ema and I shared a look, while the rest of the woman reacted.

 Chapter 39: No Russian

    Chapter 39: No Russian


    <strong><em>Apologies, it seems like something went wrong and the previous chapter posting either didn''t go through or I messed up. I posted them both now however, so this site is now caught up.</em></strong><hr>


    All three of the trained women immediately stood up straight, their hands going to their hips in search of weapons. Natasha smirked and deployed one of her new pistols while Ema and I looked around as if expecting something toe from the vibrating walls.


    "That was an explosion" Natasha said, seeing my confusion. "Around a dozen or so floors up."


    Hearing her exnation my eyes went wide and I quickly activated my armor.


    "Where is Steve being kept?" I asked, getting a gasp from Peggy and a cold nod from Natasha.


    "About a dozen floors up."


    I cursed and unbuckled my guns, absentmindedly carding the boxes of money Ema pushed at me before anyone could say anything. Thank god she kept a calm head. And Thank god I was with Natasha. When I was done carding the lot I turned to Natasha and pushed out her mask.


    "This is your mask, you control it with your mind, take it off by pulling your nose." I said in a rush, pushing out Ema''s quiver and bow and handing it to her. "Now what the hell do we do?"


    "We go protect Steve." Peggy said as if it was obvious, which I suppose it was. The experienced agent looked even younger now, easily passing for under fifty. "Assuming he needs any protection."


    Natasha stopped for a moment before another explosion rocked the building and a ring rm started going off. Quickly Natasha walked to the door and peeked out before motioning for us to follow. I turn to find that Sharon already had her gun out, while Peggy is looked envious. I put my hands on my revolvers, unclipping the buckle that holds them in their holster.


    "What floor is it on?" I ask Natasha as I push past her into the hall, one revolver up and pointed down the hallway. "Ema and I will be able to get there faster."


    Natasha bit off a curse before nodding. "Eleven floors up. I''ll let Fury know you are on your own."


    I nodded and ran to the nearest stairwell with Ema right behind me. I kicked the door in easily, ignoring the security lock and card scanner. Immediately more rms started going off. I stood in the middle of the stairwell, looking up the spiral staircase that seemed to go on for miles.


    "Ema, Get us up there!"


    Without hesitation Ema put an arm around me, shifting it to get a better, more secure grip, before flinging an elongated hand up four floors. Suddenly we were going up, my partner kicking off the railings as we rose higher. Within seconds we were six floors up, then eight, then twelve. Both of us rolled over the railing, making a beeline for the nearest door. I kicked this one open too, stepping into chaos.


    This floor had a clearb or sterile medical room vibe to it, though it looked anything but sterile at this point. Burning papers fluttered around, fires burned in a few corners and several walls were blown out. I could see a few unmoving bodies on the ground, cooling pools of blood under them.


    Further into the floor, several soldiers, dressed in a uniform that I didn''t recognize , all in fullbat gear, turned to look at me. One of them pointed and shouted something that sounded like Russian.


    " !"


    My danger sense red softly for a moment before the small hallway the door opened into was suddenly full of bullets, dozens of them pinging off my armor in seconds. Instinctually I pulled my arm up to cover my face, but after a moment I realized that even as I could feel the impact of bullets against my armor, they felt like sturdy, rough pokes. Even when they hit the gaps of my deployable ting to tten against my under armor, they were noticeable and forceful, but ultimately useless. I could feel myself getting pushed back slightly by the kic energy but they weren''t even leaving a scratch. I couldn''t help but smirk as my danger sense slowly faded, even as more bullets impacted against me.


    "Less gloating, more shooting!" Ema said, calling me out despite being unable to see my face. She was already letting an arrow fly down the hall.


    I jolted into action, pulling out my revolvers and firing down the hallway as I stepped forward, two soldiers dropping immediately. The line of soldiers faltered for a moment before the same soldier shouted something in again.


    " !    ,    !"


    The shouting soldier turned to run in the other direction while the other soldiers spread out, looking for cover.


    "Fuck that!" I said, holstering one of my revolvers and switching the other to my shotgun, cranking it up to the second level before walking forward to catch up to the leaving soldier.


    As I moved I kept my shotgun at my hip and fired as I went, the powerful weapon punching through the improvised cover and mming into the soldiers behind, blowing through their armor as well. Ema seemed content to conserve her ammo and cover me, only shooting an arrow once to freeze a grenade in a soldier''s hand, the hunk of ice she made exploding and scattering shrapnel through the office, though hardly any of it reached us. I had whirled around as my danger sense spiked for a moment, only for it to drop off as Ema covered me easily.


    As we turned a corner we saw even more soldiers, though these ones were facing away from us and trading fire with Shield agents. I shifted my shotgun back to my revolver, sliding it in my holster before charging the unsuspecting soldiers. I grabbed the first one from behind,tching onto his uniform and hurling him sideways into one of hispatriots, before stepping into a kick that sent a third soldier flying, cracking a wall and mming back to the ground. By now they knew I was there, quickly turning their guns on Ema and I, opening fire immediately. Bullets pinged and ricocheted off of us as we tore through the five remaining soldiers, finally reaching the one in charge. He worked his shotgun as fast as he could, the fired slugs deforming against my helmet and chest, rocking me back slightly before I recovered, grabbed his gun and bent it in half. I grabbed him and threw him up and over some desks,nding and rolling among the Shield agents, who immediately restrained him.


    Agent Coulson stood out of cover, walking closer, his head on a swivel and his pistol pointed at the ground.


    "We were making a final push to Captain Rogers, but the soldiers were holding us off." He exined unprompted. "They knocked out the elevators after they came down from the top floor."


    "Which room is he in?" I asked, turning back the way I came


    "Twelve zero nine!" Coulson called out as I ran back, skidding to a stop by the right door, shoulder checking it into splintered pieces.


    The room, which seemed to have been some sort of monitored hospital suite, was inplete disarray, the furthest wall blown open to the elements. I could see the opposite building through the massive hole and darkness, wind buffeting Ema and I as we stepped closer. I could see two long ck wires, both anchored to the floor and hung down and out. With a click on my helmet I looked over the edge, down in the street below, my vision shifting green as I zoomed in. I could make out the unconscious form of Steve Rogers being put into an armored vehicle of some sort. Resetting my vision I looked back just in time to see Peggy, Sharon, Coulson and Natasha pile into the room.


    "They have Steve, I''m going after them." I said, looking back at the group. "Anyoneing with us?"


    "I-" Peggy started, only to get shut down by Natasha.


    "Mrs. Carter it''s been too long since you''ve been an active agent." Natasha said bluntly, stepping closer to me. "Let us get him back, you need to stay safe for him."


    Peggy reluctantly nodded, before pulling off my amulet and tossing it to me. I caught it easily and put it on quickly before reaching out to Natasha. She wrapped her arms around me, and I put my arm around her before Ema wrapped us both in a hug, her arms extending and merging around us. When we were secure Ema''s body shifted and wrapped around the wires as well. She nodded to me, and without another word we jumped.


    We were free falling for the first eight floors, slowing harshly after that. By the time our feet hit the ground the armored truck had already pulled away and was barrelling down the road. I flicked out a card and the super truck was suddenly there.


    "Ema! Take the wheel!" I said as I easily jumped in the bed of the truck, one hand gripping the corner of the roof tight enough to dent it into a decent handhold.


    Ema and Natasha climbed in and the truck leapt forward. With my free hand I reached down and pushed the back window open, letting me hear a string of harsh Russianing from the red headed super spy as the truck elerated at a ridiculous pace to catch up to the armored vehicle. While therge tank-like vehicle smashed and shoved cars out of the way, Ema nimbly dodged and weaved between them, gaining on them slowly. Luckily thete night roads were mostly empty. As we got closer a hatch opened on top of the fleeing vehicle, a light machine gun pushing out and swinging around.


    I ducked down behind the cab of the truck as my danger sense warned me, leaning in so I could hear inside the truck, just in time to hear and see ck Widow curse and duck under the front dash as therge gun opened fire. Bullets sparked and thumped against the hood, windshield and front tire wells, but nothing prated. Realizing that no bullets were punching through the car Natasha slowly sat back up straight, watching with wide eyes as bullets pancaked against what looked like simple ss.


    "Just be d it''s not a fifty cal, that might have made it through." I shouted with a smirk. "If they had a few days."


    Eventually the soldier manning the turret stopped firing, either to check the damage or to fix a jam, I couldn''t see. In a smooth motion I stood, pulled out my right side revolver and shot once, the bullet mming into the mounted gun''s housing. The second shot caught the soldier in the chest, the now dead man sliding back down into the vehicle. I hit the gun with a few more rounds just to make sure it was totally out ofmission before crouching back down.


    "Any suggestions Natasha?" I asked, shouting to be heard over the wind.


    We had traveled a surprising distance by now, and I could hear the sound of distant sirens. We needed to finish this quickly before more people got hurt, including the police who had no idea what they were getting into.


    "You got anything bigger in that deck of surprises?" She called back.


    "Yeah, but I''m worried that I might hit Steve!" I responded.


    Before we could continue the back door of the armored vehicle popped open and a man leaned out. He cut an imposing silhouette with the internal light behind him, and the grenadeuncher he was carrying. My danger sense spiked harder than it ever had before as there was a muffled thump. Thanks to my danger sense warning I had just enough time to duck down and hold on before an explosion engulfed the truck, rattling and shaking it roughly. We sted through though, the dark smoke engulfing us before we pushed out the other side.


    After we cleared the smoke I stood and aimed my revolver, about to fire when I saw who it was. A ck face mask, balck tactical gear and a metallic arm, marked by a red star.


    The Winter Soldier.


    I cursed and holstered my pistol, holding on tight again as he raised and fired his grenadeuncher again. The truck shook and gged for a moment before it revved and caught back up.


    "Ema! Floor it!"


    "What! No, just shoot him!" Natasha shouted back but Ema nodded, flooring it.


    The truck surged again, though the dented hood poured out smoke as she did. The truck made it though, quickly closing the gap. I climbed to the roof, jumped over the floodlights and ran down the hood, jumping just as the super truck engine died. I was flying through the air, my strength enhanced jump leaving boot imprints on the strengthened hood of the truck. The Winter Soldier, who had a solid chance of being Bucky Barns, watched as I managed to m down on the roof of the armored vehicle. I slid and tumbled forward but managed to catch the side of the hatch, pulling myself back up and standing. With a little jump I hopped into the hatch,nding inside therge interior. Before my feet even touched the floor my danger sense mmed into me. I tried to move, only to turn just in time to catch a metallic fist to my jaw, knocking me back into the barrier between the drivers and the back area.


    The metallic fist shed forward again, though this time I managed to move my head just enough for it to m into the barrier, putting a fist shaped dent into the metal an inch deep. I quickly shoved him back, kicking his chest, sending him stumbling backwards before he straightened andunched himself back at me. As we fought I caught a glimpse of Steve, securely strapped down to a row of modified seats.


    The Winter Soldier came at me with a flurry of blows, overwhelming me and hammering against my armor, even with my danger sense giving me small clues to what he was going to do. His normal fist knocked into me through my weak spots while his metal fist mmed and rattled my bones more than a few times. After a few moments of being forced onto my back foot the vehicle swerved and turned, causing the potentially brainwashed soldier to stumble for just a moment.


    Taking advantage I flicked out the lightning gun, pushed it into my hand and I stepped forward,shing out with a kick that shoved him back before lunging forward, mming the lightning gun against his stomach and pulling the trigger, sending who knows how much electricity into his body. The soldier convulsed and shuddered, tried to fight it for a moment before going limp, copsing to the ground. With a groan, I pulled out my revolver, scaled it up to twice the firepower and pointed it down, dumping five rounds into and through the soldier''s arm.


    When I was done depriving him of his strongest weapon I hefted his still slightly twitching body into one of the seats, strapping him in quickly before sitting beside him, making sure I was on his left side, the side of his now useless arm. I strapped in quickly as well before turning my revolver to the front and opening fire, hammering the metal barrier with bullets. The streaks of orange energy mmed into the barrier and stopped, and I couldn''t help but frown. I clicked the power setting up again and repeated the barrage, this time smirking as it prated the thick metal armor. I peppered the barrier, sweeping wide to guarantee that I would hit everyone in the front seat.


    There were two muffled shouts and then silence as the vehicle swerved one way before cutting sharply in the other. The sudden shift caused the armored vehicle to swerve even harder before flipping. My danger sense screamed and I found myself very grateful to have strapped in as up became down, then back up, then back down, back up and down before the vehicle settled on its top. I could feel myself swinging around, even my enhanced strength unable to fight the whipping and inertia of the flips. I could feel my head smash into the side of the vehicle at least twice, my thoughts rattled and disconnected for a moment.


    I coughed as the vehicle finally settled and groaned under its now poorly distributed weight. With a grunt I pulled out my knife, scrolled to the second level and cut my straps, copsing to the once ceiling of the armored vehicle. I cursed under my breath as I made my way to Steve, doing my best to gently help him to the ground. I checked him over for any injuries, but found nothing. Iid him outside, making sure to put him down somewhere free of ss.


    I dropped down beside him, leaning against a telephone pole, letting out a deep sigh as I could feel my head slowly clearing, my amulet working its way through my bruised body and concussed brain. I only had to wait a minute or so before the first of many ck Shield SUV''s to pull up, carrying Ema, Natasha Peggy and Coulson. Ema rushed to my side to scan me, while Peggy kneeled beside Steve. I let out a long sigh, closed my eyes andy my head back against the telephone pole.<hr>


    Hello! Just a reminder that on the first of every month my donation page gets to read five new chapters of my book, Lair Divers Tale. If your interested feel free to stop by and check out the prologue and the first five chapter free. Thanks for your support and I hope you enjoy!

 Chapter 40: Heads

    Chapter 40: Heads


    <strong>Unknown Location - Alexander Pierce''s Home - Subterranean Communications Room</strong>


    "Fury called him in as a favor?" Alexander Pierce asked in disbelief. "What happened to him not showing up until the next day?"


    The Hydra leader was currently sitting behind his desk, going through reports and information. It had been a few hours since he had watched the disaster of a mission unfold.


    "Apparently Fury came to the conclusion that if Maker''s healing amulet could fix wounds, Maker could have something or be capable of making something that could de-age Mrs. Carter. It turns out he was correct."


    "Unbelievable. Whitehall is going to be insufferable until he gets his hand on him." The white haired man mumbled to himself, reading the Hydra agents report before turning to themunication terminals, ck silhouettes representing his fellow Hydra leaders. "Gentleman,dies, we got sloppy. When I approved this little venture it was because I was assured there would be no reason for Maker to be around the building. Now I''m reading that even if Fury hadn''t called him, he had an order to deliver the next day?"


    "The agent responsible for those assurances is suffering the consequences." A garbled voice said from the first terminal. "That said, the n was sound. With the help of the Winter Soldier there shouldn''t have been an issue."


    "You are treating a scalpel like a butcher''s cleaver!" The fourth terminal said. "The Winter Soldier is a powerful asset when used correctly, for assassination, interrogation and terrorism. He is a precise instrument, NOT A SLEDGE HAMMER!"


    The room was silent for a moment while Pierce shook his head.


    "The mission was necessary." A garbled female voice said from the third terminal. "We needed an edge, regardless of the risk. Maker represented a clear esction that we must be able to answer. A brainwashed Captain America, as well as ess to his blood for further study represented an ability for us tobat any advancements or equipment Maker could provide."


    "I still don''t understand why we don''t just kill him." The voice from the first terminal said. "Or at least capture him and lock him in a cell."


    "He is a potential asset." Pierce responded. "I will not kill or hamstring the golden goose when we could just as easily steal itter."


    "His ability to detect lies-"


    "Can only go so far." Pierce said, cutting off his fellow leader. "I''ve been assured that more refined methods of mind control are being developed as we speak. When those methods areplete we will revisit our ns to capture him. Now, enough trying to shift the me. We need to deal with the repercussions before they spiral out of control."


    "The Security Council has been convinced by our infiltrators that the Soldier should be transferred." The second terminal, which had so far been silent, said. "Our weapon will be returned to our control by tomorrow."


    "Make sure the agents guarding him are predominantly Hydra, and prepared to sacrifice themselves if necessary." Pierce said with a nod before continuing. "If Maker can cure old age we have to assume he can crack the brainwashing. I want the council scared that anything Maker made could be dangerous in the hands of the weapon."


    "Shouldn''t be too hard." The first silhouette said with a chuckle. "He is a living nightmare for most of them."


    "Right. What''s next?"


    "Agents have confirmed that none of the assault team survived save the weapon." The second terminal said. "Any that survived made use of their capsules. Their covers, though an obvious misdirect, are solid enough to diffuse the situation and keep Shield from looking internally."


    "And what about Mrs Carter?" The fourth terminal asked. "Surely she should be dealt with?"


    "What, and kick the beehive?" The first terminal asked. "She is a halfway decent Shield agent at best. If anything we should leave her be in case we need to push Steve Rogers to the breaking pointter."


    "I agree. Any information Mrs Carter might have is decades out of date, she is not a threat and not worth the uproar if we killed her. Especially because after being healed by Maker she should be in perfect health. A sudden heart attack or anything of the sort would be as telling as a bullet from a rooftop. " Pierce said with a nod. "Besides, we have several videos of her family''s final moments that would render her a non issue if need be."


    "Ah yes, that was a beautiful experiment." The voice from the fifth terminal said, clearly reminiscing.


    Pierce shook his head, ignoring thement from Whitehall, looking back down at his report. After a moment he nodded and looked back up.


    "I propose that we influence the Security Council to begin putting more pressure on Maker. This incident brought him closer to various members of Shield, several agents reported he was friendly with Agent Barton already, and is making fast friends with Agent Romanoff and Mrs. Carter. With a few more pushes we will be able to influence him directly."


    "Perhaps we should send one of our female agents in?" The second terminal suggested. "Seduction could be the way through his reluctance."


    "Not with his ability to see through lies." Pierce said, shaking his head. "All it would take is a single question at the wrong time. Our best bet is to wait until better mind control methods are developed, or if it''s an emergency, we will wipe his mind like the weapons. I also want the team in charge of finding his identity to be doubled. We need to know who he is if we want leverage. Family, friends, hell I would take a beloved pet at this point."


    A murmur of agreement came from the terminals, and Pierce nodded when everyone had confirmed.


    "Good. Now we need to discuss how we handle those that Maker is augmenting."


    "Agent Barton''s equipment, primarily the sses, are impressive but not groundbreaking." The second terminal stated dismissively. "As long as he continues to favor his bow over more lethal ordnance his threat level remains manageable."


    "Agent Romanoff on the other hand is a problem." The fifth terminal, Whitehall said. "With her conceble armaments and ability to change her appearance she is now an unrivaled infiltration threat."


    "Remind all undercover operatives to maintain strict code phrasepliance." Pierce said with finality. "Where and when she goes on missions needs to be closely watched and relevant parties notified should she be entering someone''s territory."


    "There seems to be a level of skill in recreating faces." The voice from the second terminal added. "Stricter facial scan protocol should help keep track of her."


    "Should we consider capturing her?" Whitehall asked. "I would love the chance to personally study a member of the Red Room."


    "For now, leave her be." Pierce said. "She is useful as long as we can keep track of her and she remains loyal to Shield. I do want detailed scans of her mask however. Maker imed he would be able to tell who she was when she wore it. If it is broadcasting some sort of signal or radiating some sort of energy I want to know."


    "That''s all well and good." The female voice behind terminal three said. "But what will the protocol be for future augments?"


    "Unfortunately the bugger is a bit unpredictable." The first voice from the first terminal responded. "How we react is going to be case by case."


    "Agreed, there is no way to predict what he will offer next, not after he turned back the clock on Mrs Carter. We are on thin ice after our failed operation, we cannot afford to overstep again. It is pure luck that we were not exposed."


    A tense silence filled the room after that statement, though Pierce nodded in agreement. After a few moments he coughed and started again.


    "Well, now that we have discussed the situation at Shield, we need to discuss how we will bepensating. For now Maker augmenting Shield agents makes our lives easier, but if this continues, when we finally reveal ourselves during Project Insight the bnce of power will have greatly shifted out of our favor. "


    The conversation continued for a while longer, the group discussion shifting to other topics. Eventually the Hyrda leaders signed off, a n of action having been decided. The meeting room was quiet for a while as Pierce looked at the now nk screens, the lights slowly growing brighter to their normal levels. He shook his head before taking a sip of coffee. He focused back down at his reports, ns turning over in his head.


    [center]-[/center]


    A few hours the car chase, Peggy and I were watching over Steve as he was settled back into a hospital bed, no worse for wear, despite having been tossed around like a sack of potatoes for a bit. Ema was watching over Bucky, both to keep him from breaking out and keep anyone from silencing him before we could get a chance to talk.


    Everyone had been shocked to find that it was Bucky Barnes under the gas mask and grease, though I had to feign ignorance to hide myck of it. Nick Fury was currently arguing with the security council for permission to use my healing amulet to try and fix his obvious brainwashing. Fury was furious that somehow the news of both Peggy and Bucky had already gotten to them.


    While we waited Peggy wore my amulet for another hour. The once elderly woman now looked like she wasn''t a day over thirty. She kissed my cheek and thanked me sincerely after taking a look in a mirror for the first time.


    Natasha promised to not tell Steve about that.


    As we sat and waited for Steve to wake up I did my best to stay calm and work through the intense emotions roiling through me now that the adrenaline and shock had passed. I was still fully armored, minus my helmet, notfortable enough to be unarmored yet. Peggy noticed that and smiled reassuringly.


    "It''s hard, calming down after a fight." She said, sitting down next to me, her hand on my arm. Her eyes darted over to Steve for a moment, then to the medical instruments attached to him, as if needing to reassure herself he was still there.


    "Yeah I don''t have any military training or realbat experience. Except fighting the Abomination and the Destroyer Armor."


    "That''s how everyone starts I''m afraid." She said with a small shrug. "Steve, Bucky, Myself. I''m willing to bet that''s how Natasha joined shield. You see a fight and you realize that you can''t just sit on the sidelines. It will get easier in some ways, more difficult in others."


    I let out a chuckle and nodded, leaning back in my seat. The longer I sat, the more I could feel my creeping exhaustion. I shook my head to clear the cobwebs, failing for the most part. Peggy noticed and smiled/


    "You can get some sleep." She said, looking back to Steve. "I''ll wake you if anything changes."


    I nodded after a few moments and closed my eyes, leaning back again, letting sleep take me.


    [center] - <em>Several hourster </em>-[/center]


    By the time I woke up the sun was climbing high in the sky. Not that I could tell, Steve''s new room was smack dab in the middle of the building, an almost vault like security room that had been jury rigged for medical care. Peggy sat next to Steve, dressed in a maroon outfit that made her look like she stepped out of a history documentary. She was looking at me expectantly, gesturing with her head. It took me a moment to realize that Fury had been the one to wake me, and was standing silently next to me, just out of arm''s reach. Next to him was Ema, looking frustrated.


    "The security council has denied your request to heal Bucky with your amulet." He said, addressing both of us. His expression was the kind of calm that sat on the other side of intense anger.


    "Are you fucking kidding me?"


    "You can''t be serious!"


    "They were unsure if the benefits outweighed the risks." He exined, staring us both down. "He is to be transported to an offsite location in the next few hours."


    "They do realize that Steve will never work with them if they are keeping Bucky locked up, correct?" Peggy stated with frustrated certainty.


    "I informed them of that likelihood. They seemed to think that the promise of eventually reevaluating the topic will be enough to cate him." Fury admitted.


    I shook my head. This reeked of outside influence, of someone looking for an opportunity to silence him or retake control. Unfortunately I had no idea how to breach the topic to Fury. After a few moments I looked at Ema and twirled my finger around, shiftily looking at the walls and ceiling. She nodded and started scanning the room, her emerald eyes glowing as she did. The three of us watched as she worked her way through the room, eventually stopping and standing next to me.


    "All clear. No listening devices or cameras that I could identify." She said with a nod.


    "So no one actually believes that this was orchestrated by the Russians, right?" I asked, looking between Peggy and Fury.


    "No, this was too tant, too easy to connect." Fury answered with a shake of his head. "That was a misdirect. Unfortunately we haven''t been able to learn anything from the corpses."


    "Any survivors?" I asked, getting a head shake in return.


    "Anyone we managed to capture quicklymitted suicide by cyanide capsule." Fury exined.


    "Fuck okay" I said, trying to think as I rubbed my forehead. Eventually I let out a long sigh. "We can''t let Bucky get sent away. The chances of him being disappeared or taken back, or even escaping are too high."


    "That''s possible, but a little unlikely." Fury said, crossing his arms. "He is being sent to a secure Shield facility, not a gg."


    "He will never make it there." I said, shaking my head. "Look, get me a blood sample and maybe a lock of his hair. I''ll make something that will let us find him no matter where he goes. If he goes to prison, fine. It''s unfortunate but maybe I can make a few things to convince the council to let me help him. But if he doesn''t?"


    "Then you will be able to track him down." Fury finished. "Fine. But tell no one about this. This stays between us, and Rogers when he wakes up. The council was adamant that you not get ess to Barnes in any way in case you tried to fix him despite what we said."


    "What do you think I was going to do if you said no?" I said flippantly, dropping down to the seat.


    Fury paused for a moment, as if he was contemting a response before he simply left. About fifteen minutester I had my samples stored safely in the Deck. Ema sat down in the corner of the room as we sat and waited for Steve to wake up.

 Chapter 41: Waiting game

    Chapter 41: Waiting game


    Bucky escaped within an hour and a half of leaving the facility.


    It wasn''t long after Fury managed to get me the samples of his blood and hair that they carted him off, chained and locked in an borate restraint system, even if his metal arm was useless. Ema and Natasha both kept watch over the preparations. Apparently the Natasha of this reality also had some dealings with the Winter Soldier, though the timelines were obviously very different. They had both seen him off, with Ema promising that they would fix him, even if he didn''t understand or want our help at the time. Fury had showed up not long after that to break the news. Peggy tore into him, only keeping quiet to not disturb Steve, though I wasn''t sure yelling could wake him up at this point.


    "Can you track him?" He asked me when Peggy eventually stopped to breathe.


    "Definitely. You got me enough blood and hair that I could probably try a few times if I had to." I said confidently. "But just so you know, there is no way in hell Shield is going to have anything to do with it."


    "What do you mean?" Fury asked, voice dropping as he looked at me in frustration.


    "Steve and I are going to take a short vacation after he wakes up, probably somewhere off the grid so we can have some peace and quiet." Peggy responded with a sharp smile. "What we do, and who we run into is none of your concern."


    For a minute Fury stared at Peggy for a long moment before looking back at me. I shrugged and nodded in agreement.


    "Fine. Though the security council won''t like Steve disappearing so soon after being brought back."


    "Tough luck." Peggy responded without looking back up. "I''m retired and nothing will stop Steve from going on vacation."


    "Could I convince you to take Natasha?" Fury asked.


    "Not a chance"


    For a long moment Fury watched the retired Shield agent, before finally turning and leaving without another word."


    "Lucky we already cleared this room for cameras and bugs." I said, shaking my head.


    "No, he already knew they were gone." She said with a smirk, her frustration bleeding off. "Who do you think ordered them put here?"


    Ema, who had been sitting in the corner pretending to catch up on sleep while Fury was there, slowly stood and walked to Steve''s bed. The beam of her deepest scan ran along Steve''s body, taking a few minutes to finish.


    "His body is slowly normalizing." Ema exined. "I''d expect him to wake up soon, maybe by tonight."


    "Thank you." Peggy said to Ema with a smile.


    "Of course." She said with a nod before looking at me then sitting back down.


    "Thank you Ema." I said, continuing with a teasing smile. "What would I do without you?"


    "Slowly work yourself to death while falling into a paranoid spiral that would leave you a gibbering mess." She answered smoothly as she leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes as if she was going back to sleep.


    The room was quiet again,sting a few minutes before Peggy turned to me.


    "Maker would your amulet work on Steve? Help bring him back quicker?" Peggy asked a few minutester, speaking softly as to not wake Ema, who had adjusted her fake breathing to simte a deep sleep.


    "I have no idea how it would react to the super soldier serum." I said, shaking my head. "Honestly I should have asked you a whole list of questions before I let you wear it.


    "Like what?"


    "Like whether or not you still have your appendix." I said sheepishly, rubbing the back of my head. "Also if you had any foreign imnts, like joint recements."


    "Appendix? Why would oh. Would it really regenerate something like that?"


    "Honestly? I have no idea." I admitted with a shrug. "I would have said maybe if you asked me before I modified it, but now I have no idea. Do you have any obvious scars?"


    "Yes, I believe I have a few." She said with a smirk, her hand reaching down to touch her left side. "Excuse me if I''m not prepared to jump and show you."


    "No, I wouldn''t ask that." I said, raising my hand defensively, Ema chuckling beside me. "Just let me know if they have faded next time you get the chance. I don''t really have any scars big enough to say they have been fading or not."


    "Would your amulet really react poorly to the serum?" She asked, pulling us back on subject.


    "I honestly don''t know. I can get into how my ability workster, but one thing you should know is that making an object isn''t simple. It''s not material A plus material B equals result C." I exined, studying one of the pieces of medical equipment hooked up to Steve. "It''s much more like the approximate material A plus the approximate material B probably has quantities of C, along with D, E and F."


    "And you''re worried that D, E and F might affect Steve poorly,'''' Peggy nodded, easily following what I was saying.


    "Not specifically Steve, that''s more of my general worry for items that affect people permanently." I exined. "When ites to Steve I''m more worried that my amulet might interpret the serum as a foreign body and remove it. I can say with almost one hundred percent certainty that the amulet wouldn''t kill him, but I''m not risking it without a life threatening injury or consent, preferably both."


    "Understandable, I wouldn''t want to risk it either." She agreed, giving Steve''s hand a squeeze. "He was incredible before Doctor Erskine''s serum, but his transformation let him show the world."


    The room grew quiet after that. I dozed mostly, time passing as I rested. Peggy never moved, sitting next to Steve, holding his hand. She was clearly determined to be with him when he finally woke up. After an hour or so there was a knock on the door, pushing open to reveal Agent Coulson. Behind him was a nameless agent, pushing a tray of food.


    "Thought you guys might be hungry." He said, his eyes locking on Steve for a moment before he stepped out of the cart''s way.


    The Shield agent set out a tray of food that screamed cafeteria catering, before leaving the room, shutting the door behind him. Once the Agent left Ema stood again, scanning the entire table and nodding to us.


    "It''s clean." She said simply, once again retaking her seat.


    "I watched them make it." Coulson assured us. "How is he doing?"


    "Ema says he will probably wake by tonight." Peggy answered.


    "Really?" He asked, looking at the armored construct. "Our doctors could only guess. We were going to move him to a morefortable room once he hadpletely stabilized."


    "Here is fine dear." Peggy said, smiling as she looked down at the still unconscious soldier. "I think he has been moved around quite enough."


    Coulson opened his mouth to say something but closed it before he could, deciding to simply nod before turning to me.


    "Do you need anything Maker?"


    "No, I''m good for now."


    The personable agent nodded politely and promptly left, leaving us alone again. I had a quick lunch, there was no reason to let it go to waste after all, before I stood and patted Ema on the shoulder, as if I was waking her up. I''m not sure if we were fooling Peggy at this point, but it was mostly for the shield agents and doctors who wereing and going.


    "Ema, I need you awake." I said, prompting the construct to perk up and look around.


    "What is it?"


    "I need to go to the workshop for a while." I exined. "I want a full outfit waiting for Steve when he wakes up. Nothing I haven''t made before so it shouldn''t take too long."


    "And you want me on guard when you''re gone." She finished, sitting up straight. "Alright, I''ll keep an eye open."


    "Good. If you need to, you have permission to go all out."


    "Full scary mode?"


    "Full scary mode." I confirmed with a nod before standing and looking at Peggy. "I''m going to make a bunch of things for Steve when he wakes up, maybe prepare a bit for our vacation. Is there anything you want me to make?"


    "Truly? Anything I want?" She asked, looking at me curiously. "You hardly know me, and I''m hardly a cultural icon like Steve is."


    "You would have to go through the same vetting process that everyone has to. Namely a whole list of questions with my lie detector on."


    "... Something to heal me, and maybe others as well?" She asked, looking down at Steve. "I''m not quite ready to leap into super soldier territory. Though that may change."


    "Alright." I said with a nod, suddenly much more confident in my decision. "I''ll make you some armor to wear under your clothes as well."


    "Yes, that would be fine. Thank you." She said, focusing on me with a smile.


    "I''ll be back, probably within three hours." I said with a nod. "Depending on how badly the truck is messed up."


    I hated leaving now, arge part of me wanting to stick around in case I missed Steve waking up. But I pushed it down, knowing that Peggy was the only one who needed to be there when he woke up, and that Ema and I were just backup security. And Ema could handle anything anyone threw at them, especially if she went all out.


    I headed to the stairs, the elevators still down after the attack, descending to the underground parking lot, barely a thought spared for the fully armed agent who joined me walking down the stairs. At least until I got a message from Ema warning me that Natasha wasing down the building two. I rolled my eyes and kept walking.


    "Already getting plenty of use out of it then?" I asked, not stopping to turn around.


    "It has been fun trying it out." She admitted, pulling her mask off, revealing her true face. "Where are you going? I didn''t think you would be leaving Captain Rodgers'' side until he was awake."


    "I''m going on a booze run, we ran out of Fireball." I said with a smirk, pushing at a door. It didn''t budge.


    I let out a sigh before turning to Natasha, who was a few steps up from me. I gestured to the door and she smirked, making her way down and swiping her ID card. The door beeped and I pushed it open, stepping out onto the floor connected to the parking structure. Another door swipeter and I was pushing the super truck into a parking space.


    The front end was covered in soot, the hood dented from when I ran and jumped off of it. The front lights were visibly busted, some clearly damaged from being peppered by the machine gun and the explosion. I shook my head when I saw most of the spotlights were busted as well. I hadpletely missed that damage, even when it was happening. After giving it a cursory inspection I hopped into the passenger seat, Natasha still following me.


    "How bad is it?"


    "I''ll tell you in a second." I answered as I pulled the car repair tablet from the glove box, its wires already connected.


    I scrolled through the list of damage, quickly setting the list to filter out cosmetic and non essential damage. In the end it would take an hour to fix the busted transmission and oil leaks, a surprisingly low amount of time. Even so, it wasn''t going to be ready quickly enough, so I was better off on foot. I set it to fix the important things first before carding the truck again, leaving me alone in the parking lot with Natasha.


    "I''ll be back in a couple of hours,'''' I exined with a shrug. "Ema can get in contact with me if there is an emergency."


    I carded, copsed my armor and guns before putting on my jacket, leaving me in what was almost a normal looking outfit.


    "Alright. Don''t bete." She said with a smirk. "Wouldn''t want you to miss Captain Rodgers waking up."


    Within a matter of twenty minutes I had teleported from a random shop bathroom to the quarry workshop, ready to start making Steve''s gear. I didn''t want to go crazy just yet as I was sure Steve would need a while to adjust. So I kept it simple. Kind of.


    The first thing I did was push out the truck so it could start the repairing process. The timer read two and a half hours, so I decided that would be my time limit.


    After that was set up I made a short shopping trip to Texas and a visit to the apartment. I quickly whipped up two undersuits, tops and bottoms. They were made from my super metal and had two forms, one only covered the vitals but could be worn with shorts and short sleeves, the second one that extended down to a full covering version. I liked this development so much I applied it to my own undersuit. All forms and pieces increased resistance to heat and electricity, while remaining flexible and breathable.


    When I was done with their armor I got to work on a gun for Steve. Well, first I checked that he used guns, and confirmed that Steve was a badass during the war. I whipped up a revolver not dissimr to one of my own, save the addition of the Destroyers st. It was quad stacked with a selector for power levels, regenerated ammo almost as fast as you could shoot, and morphed into a trench shotgun, which triple stacked and regenerated ammo. I whipped up a revolver for Peggy as well, just in case. It wasn''t anything special, just a simple triple stack with regenerating ammo.


    Done with guns I moved onto utility. I whipped up two knives for Steve, basically just repeating the process I had used to make my own, resulting in a KA-bar and a pocket knife that could cut through steel. On a whim I made a pocket knife for Peggy as well. She hadn''t asked for anything special but I was on a roll and it was better to have and not need then to need and not have. After the knives were done I put together two healing amulets, one for Peggy and one for Steve. They followed the same basicbination that mine did, but I left out Thor''s spark, and while I was still worried about potential interactions between the super serum and any healing amulet, I assumed that binding it to Steve would make an already small chance of backfiring even smaller. I would leave it up to him. With the healing jewelry done I started working on a device for healing others. I tried several things, tearing a few of my non functional attempts into nothingness. After my third attempt I sat down for a while to think, finallying up with a solution.


    I left the quarry and went on another shopping trip, buying any healing concept I could find. Ibined dozens and dozens of herbs, crystals, equipment and over the counter medicine and ointments. Each step of the way I added in dozens of high quality shlights and magic rods. The result was a B rank shlight light was intensely driven by a healing concept. I tested it by pulling off my amulet and cutting my hand. It healed with an impressive speed, making the decent sized cut disappear in about ten seconds. I Immediately used the leftovers to make a second one.


    Thest thing I did wasbine a portion of Bucky''s hair and blood into twopasses,bine them together,bined three top of the line cell phones with Where''s Waldo books, thenbined all three of those with GPS navigators for hiking and driving. I mixed them all together and added a second sample of hair and blood. I turned on the handheld device and the screen lit up. It had very few controls or buttons, instead it was a simple screen that I could zoom, move around and focus in different ces. When zoomed out all the way there was a single dot over the east coast.


    Satisfied with my creations and eager to show Peggy the device, I quickly packed everything into two separate boxes and carded them. I carded the truck after putting the repair tablet away and making sure it was done, before carding the storage shed as well, only stumbling a bit before standing back up straight. Satisfied everything was cleaned up I teleported away to the bridgending pad, carding the energy to keep it from being obvious. I pushed my super truck out onto the road when no one was looking and headed out, going straight back to Shield.

 Chapter 42: Awake

    Chapter 42: AwakeChapter 42 - Awake


    When I finally stepped back into Steve''s room it looked quite a bit different. Ema was standing in the corner, visibly rxing when she saw it was me. The room itself had been cleared of most medical equipment, leaving it a simple, undecorated space. If the door wasn''t an extra inch and half thick and visibly armored from the outside I would have assumed it was just a boring white room. Before I could say anything Ema took my arm and led me back outside into the hall. Once the door closed she turned and let go of my arm.


    "He started transitioning to a normal sleep cycle an hour or so after you left." She exined. "They cleared the room so it didn''t look so off putting."


    "Oh, why didn''t you call me?"


    "I did, but it didn''t connect." She exined, rolling her emerald eyes. "You carded the secure cell phone Fury gave you and I wasn''t going to use your normal phone."


    "Crap. Okay, I need to make a secure phone. I''ll ask Speak of the devil."


    I looked over Ema''s shoulder and watched as Agent Coulson and Nick Fury made their way down the hall, stopping at the dorm, right next to us.


    "Hey Fury, Coulson." I said with a nod, pausing for a moment before smirking. "Fury, how would you like a revolver that continuously regenerates ammo and is twice as powerful as a normal revolver?"


    Fury looked taken back for a moment before quickly recovering.


    "...Yes, I would like that." He said, looking at Coulson, who shrugged. "What''s the catch?"


    "No catch." I said, smirking before continuing. "Just the usual stiptions, three fourths of the usual payment and a bunch of cell phones andmunication equipment that is designed to be safe and secure from outside listening in and tracking."


    "Half of the usual payment." Fury countered. "The Security council is starting toin about the cost."


    "Really? They areining about the cost of impossible, reality breaking equipment?" I asked, my eyes wide in shock before I shook my head. "Fine. But you let them know if they drop too low that I know a few billionaires who would not bat an eye at triple my price for half of what I''m making."


    The one eyed soldier narrowed his eyes before nodding. He looked to Coulson, about to open his mouth before Coulson shook his head, looking over at the door that led to Steve''s room. Fury let out a very uncharacteristic sigh and pulled out his phone. After a quick text he nodded, gesturing to a room on the other side of the hallway. Both of us stepped into it, while Ema and Coulson stayed outside.


    Forty five minutes, a bunch of questions and a quick bindingter Nick Fury was the proud owner of the pistol I had used to test out my regenerating ammo and ammo capacity ideas, and I was two hundred thousand dors richer and had a box ofmunications equipment that shouldbine together well to make untraceable phones.


    I had just carded the box, and Fury was examining the revolver, when Ema pushed open the door.


    "He is waking up." She said simply.


    After a minute or so of quiet chaos, Director Fury wrangled everything into order. Instead of ambushing Captain Rogers the moment he stepped out of the room, Ema and Coulson joined us in the meeting room. The floor was mostly cleared, the excessive security banished to be at least out of sight for now. Director Fury had spent thest fifteen minutes as we waited asking for more guns like the one bound to him for his agents.


    "What would it cost to get a pistol like this into the hands of more Shield agents?" Fury asked, his revolver already strapped to his hip, his old pistol moved to the other side.


    "Really? Not going to spend time with it first?" I asked, smirking a bit. "Test it out, put it through its paces?"


    "Is there something wrong with it?" He asked.


    "No, it does what I said it does. As long as you don''t spam it, ammo regenerates as fast as you shoot." I assured him, before moving on to his request. "I''m sorry Fury, this was an exception. I''m not deviating from what we have going on already. I''ll ept the slightly decreased pay if you guys keep paying and supplying me, but that''s about all the flexibility you''re going to get out of me, save for special circumstances."


    "And if all of the people I send you ask for a weapon like this?" He asked, leaning back in his chair.


    "Then I stop being flexible." I said with a shrug. "I appreciate the leeway and allowances Shield has made for me, but being squeezed for weapons and ordered around is exactly why I refused to join up in the first ce. I will vanish if you try to turn me into your personal toy maker."


    My tone was final and unmoving, despite the fact that I was very anxious. I would absolutely follow through on my threat if need be, but having ess to Shield resources solved a lot of problems that I would have to dedicate time to solve myself. Eventually I wouldn''t need them but for now, they were very helpful.


    I was saved from more exnation by a knock at the door. We all looked over to see Peggy at the door, looking happy and smiling. Beside her stood Steve Rodgers. He looked bewildered, but calm, much calmer than one would expect given his circumstances. Peggy pushed the door open and I stood, as did Coulson and Fury.


    "Steve, this is Director Fury, Agent Coulson, Maker and Ema."


    "Hello." He said, reaching out to shake Fury''s hand, then Coulson''s, Ema''s and finally mine. "I would introduce myself, but from what Peggy has said that would be mostly pointless."


    "It would be Mr Rogers." Director Fury said. "I''m d you could join us."


    "I''m just d to have the chance." He said with a nod. "This is Well it''s a lot to handle all at once. But"


    He looked over at me, giving me a nod and a smile.


    "Peggy said that you''re the one who let me keep a promise. Even if I was seventy yearste."


    "Just doing what I can Mr Rogers." I said.


    "Still, thank you. For helping Peggy and stopping whoever it was that tried to take me. And call me Steve, please."


    "No problem, just return the favor next time a nebulous outside force attempts to kidnap me for probably nefarious purposes."


    Steve chuckled but stopped when I wasn''t. I shrugged and finally smiled before sitting down. Steve turned to pull out a seat for Peggy who quietly thanked him and sat down. When everyone was seated Fury opened his mouth to say something but Steve cut him off.


    "I need to go after Bucky." He said emphatically. "I know I''m missing a lot of time but whoever has him is obviously brainwashing him and who knows what else."


    "While I understand the need for expediency, there needs to be a process here." Fury tried to say. "We should-"


    "Cap, I have finding him taken care of." I responded confidently. "There isn''t a ce on the where they could hide him that I won''t be able to find him."


    Fury looked at me, narrowing his eye, while Coulson remained stoic. He clearly didn''t like me butting in. I could almost see his internal debate on if it was worth it to kick me out at this point.


    "Then what are we waiting for?" He asked. "We need to find him, before they have a chance to do anything worse to him."


    "Steve, Bucky would understand the need to regroup." Peggy exined, her hand reaching over to touch his arm. She hesitated for a moment before following through. "You need to learn some things, take a few days at least."


    "... two days. Fine." He said after a long pause. "But not any longer. Bucky wouldn''t leave me to suffer, and I wont leave him to either."


    "Alternatively, Ema and I could do it by ourselves." I offered, sitting back when everyone looked at me. "It was just a suggestion."


    "No, I need to be there." Steve said, shaking his head. "If something goes wrong and I can''t then yes, but Give me two days. Peggy is right, I''m not at full strength yet."


    "No problem Steve." I said with a nod, standing up, Ema joining me. "I''ll be back in two days, probably a few hours before now. Until then, I have some things to take care of, some things to get ready."


    Steve stood as I walked to the door, reaching out to shake my hand again. It was a tight grip that was joined by a respectful nod.


    "Thank you for helping Peggy." He said. "I don''t know how you make the things you make, but thank you."


    I could only nod in return before making my way from the office. I was joined by a guard, guiding me out of the building.


    - <em>The Next Morning </em>-


    With my new deadline in ce Ema and I started nning. The dot that marked Bucky''s location had stopped somewhere in Washington DC, a concerning location considering who had probably sent him in the first ce. Ema quickly came to the conclusion that being able to travel there with my vambrace would be incredibly valuable, so she convinced me that while I was making somest minute things for myself and for anyoneing with Me and Steve, she would spend the morning driving to DC to put anding pad somewhere. I reluctantly agreed.


    After getting her set and sending her off, I quickly used the box of securemunication equipment to make a few of the most secure cell phones I could. I worked the entire box into them, with the result being ten B ranked cell phones that had such arge concept of security, protection andmunication I was pretty confident that just thinking about calling me would connect my phone with whoever was trying to call me. I was so confident that after spending some time messing with it I called Fury from the one I bound to myself sitting on my couch.


    "Who is this?" His voice all but barked.


    "It''s Maker." I said simply, not wishing to piss off the Director of Shield too much. "I finally got around to making a secure phone, so no more worrying about burner phones, secure lines or anything like that."


    "You''re saying the phone you''re calling from is secure. How secure?" He asked, tone a little less annoyed.


    "Feel free to run it through the gamut, you''ll recognize the address if it fails at least." I said. "I''ll even leave the phone on to give you some extra time. That''s not what I was calling about though. I need to talk to Peggy, if she can step away from Steve for a moment."


    "I''ll have her call you back on Why doesn''t this phone have a number?" He asked. "How does your phone not have a number?"


    "Don''t think about it too hard Fury, you''ll just give yourself a headache." I exined with a smirk. "Tell her to just dial my name."


    "Fine, but it''s your problem if you''re messing with her." He said with a scoff. "I don''t think that would go over well."


    I left the phone on for a few minutes, before Fury came back and confirmed that the Agent attempting to track my phone was baffled. They were getting almost nothing, and what they were getting was nonsense. He said Peggy would be calling me soon and hung up. Satisfied that my phone was now secure I added a cell phone to Steve and Peggy''s boxes. I frowned and started to consider what kind of helmets I would make for the two before Peggy called.


    "Hello? Maker?" She asked. "If this is a prank I won''t be-"


    "Peggy you dialed five numbers into your phone and it connected, who else would it be?"


    "... Fair enough I suppose." She admitted. "What do you need?"


    "Well first, does Steve have his shield?"


    "Yes, he had it when they recovered him."


    "Alright, good. I''ll have a uniform for him so tell him not to bother with that."


    "Maker how much are you making for us?" She asked, sounding a bit worried.


    "Oh just a few things." I assured her. "I''m already done with most of it, don''t worry. Do you want a uniform or"


    "By uniform do you mean a costume?" She asked. I could practically hear her roll her eyes.


    "I could mean both?"


    "Make me something simple." She said clearly. "And take it easy on Steve as well."


    "Yeah sure, of course. I mean you''ve seen what I made right?"


    "I have, and you look like something from a video game." She responded.


    "Thanks! Oh wait no I see what you''re saying. Alright, I''ll keep it simple and old school." I agreed. "Anything else?"


    "Will you make me a gun?" She asked.


    "I already did. It''s a revolver, a smaller caliber than mine but that hardly means anything after I did my thing." I exined. "Don''t worry I''ll exin how it all works, bind everything and show you how it all works tomorrow. It''s why I rmended we meet up at noon, so we will have enough time to show off the stuff and still do this at night."


    "Alright Maker, and thank you again."


    "No problem Peggy. Happy to help."


    A quick goodbye and I got to work. I went shopping for more than a few hours, unfortunately stuck riding my bike around at first since Ema was driving my civilian truck. Luckily by the time I was almost done she had ced thending pad in a heavily wooded park. I took a break to eat and pick her up before driving around and making myst purchases. When we got back to the quarry Ibined one of the secure cellphones with her exosuit to add in its security.


    I started with Steve''s uniform next, adding ker and other protective materials together with a loose fit leather jacket and a pair of tan army pants. Ibined them with a transformation card and a much more basic and subtle full body armor system. I reinforced the body armor with a few tes of super metal before adding thinner clothing to make it smooth and flexible, resulting in a ting system which was visible but wasn''t nearly as chunky and sci-fi as mine. The armor smoothly transformed back and forth between the more normal clothes, the army pants and leather jacket, and the smooth armor tes. I made a quick helmet as well, using the same technique I had used with the tes to get it closer to what he used to wear in theics, though it was still obviously armored. I wasn''t going to rely on plot armor like theics did.


    Banking on the binding taking care of the coloring I repeated the process for Peggy, this time working the transformation into a simple looking utility belt and a torc simr to what contained my helmet. Once again I made sure to smooth and reinforce the armor so it was more subtle. When I was done with her armor, including her own helmet, Ibined her gun with a ring, letting her carry it like Natasha did her pistols.


    I quickly threw together a pair of super sses, adding in a zoom, night vision, thermal vision and metal detection, leaving out the others to keep it simple and save on time. Myst addition to the two boxes of stuff was a pair of armored gloves andbat boots, thetter with sound suppression.


    Finished with Peggy and Steve''s equipment Ibined a half dozen sheets of cloth with various forms of invisible and disappearing ink,bining them all together andbining it to my cloak. The result was a definite improvement.


    "How did you not think of this before?" Ema asked as I activated the invisibility, my form fading. "That''s a seven point five at least. There is a shimmer but its like a heat shimmer, not a ''what the fuck is that'' shimmer."


    "I honestly don''t know." I said, looking down at myself and nodding. "I''m just d I caught it before I needed it."


    I spent another hour or so making a bunch of repetitive items,ing up with a knock out ring bybining a half dozen types of sleep aides, an electric shock version of a joy buzzer and a simple ring as well. Once I was done with that, Ema and I spent the rest of the day, and the first half of the next day reinforcing the super truck even more. We pulled off parts from the bottom and reinforced them with super metal. I was tempted to card andbine the whole truck at once, but I was afraid it would affect how it looked.


    "At some point we are going to strip it down to the frame so I can reinforce that." I said as we finished shoving thest piece back into ce and setting up the repair tablet to fix any damage we had done.


    "Just one more thing on the list." Ema teased, passing me a rag to clean the grease off my hands, simply flicking her hands to get it off of hers.


    "I''ll crack flying once this is all done." I assured her. "What are the odds that Shield has a jetpack program already?"


    "Pretty high."


    "What are the chances they would lend me one or twelve?"


    "Probably zero."


    "Yeah I was afraid of that." I said with a frown before throwing the rag at Ema. "Alright. Home, shower, early lunch and then off to Shield. Steve''s waited long enough."

 Chapter 43: Light on the shadows

    Chapter 43: Light on the shadows


    I found Steve and Peggy waiting for me in the underground parking center at Shield headquarters, Natasha standing not far away. Steve was carrying what looked like an artist''s portfolio bag, stretched a bit to carry his shield. Peggy noticed me first and pointed me out to Steve, who''s eyes went wide at the super truck as he spotted us. Peggy, who had already seen the super truck in passing, just smirked when Steve walked around my green and gold behemoth.


    "Is this a normal truck these days or?" He asked, looking at the front end.


    "No, not at all." I assured him. "This is very much unique Well I''ll show how it works when we get to our first stop."


    "First stop?" He asked, walking around to open the door for Peggy and helping her step in.


    "Gotta make sure you''re properly equipped." I said with a shrug. "I tend to follow my naming convention."


    "Right, Maker." He said with a nod. He climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door.


    Before I climbed back in I stepped closer to Natasha, with a flick I pushed out a medium sized package.


    "This is a gift for Fury. I''ve been stepping on his toes so I figured I would make it up to him."


    "Oh?" She asked, eyebrow cocked. "Is it a special gift?"


    "It is, so get it to him directly, assuming he is still here."


    "He is." She said simply. "Waiting to react to whatever hos nest you guys kick up."


    "Yeah Listen, I''m going to do my best to convince Steve to wait another day." I exined. "I want to scout out the location and maybe watch it over night."


    "... Why the sudden bout of caution?" Natasha asked, now looking very curious.


    "Don''t worry about it. Just tell Fury that you should be with him when he opens his gift."


    Natasha''s eyes narrowed, examining my face before eventually nodding.


    "Alright, I''ll take your word for it." She said, stepping back with the box in her hands. "Good luck rescuing Bucky."


    I nodded and walked away, climbing into the truck, giving a nod to Steve before starting the truck back up and pulling away. We were driving for a minute or so before Peggy spoke up to break the silence.


    "I''m a bit surprised you managed to get this running again so quickly." Peggymented. "Natasha insisted you were hit twice by a grenade."


    "We were." I said with a smirk. "And it''s not just fixed, Ema and I spent some time making it even tougher. Next time I won''t have to jump between cars. Hopefully."


    "That''s always fun." Steve said sarcastically, shaking his head. "It''s a pain to match speed and judge the distance."


    I looked at him as we stopped at a red light, chuckling and nodding when he looked back.


    "Yeah, yeah it is. I suppose if anyone else would know it would be you."


    "So where is this first stop?" Steve asked after a few moments. "And where is your friend, Ema?"


    "Our first stop is my workshop." I exined. "Ema is waiting for us there."


    We drove for a bit longer before I pulled into a random run down parking garage. I made sure to scan for security cameras as I stepped out. Steve all but jumped out to help Peggy, who graciously epted his hand as she climbed down. I couldn''t tell if Peggy was loving the attention or not.


    "So where is your workshop?" Steve asked. "Is it-"


    Steve looked around and just happened to turn back and look at me as I put my hand on the hood of the super truck, pulling it into a card. When I looked back at him he had instinctively gone into a ready stance, his eyes locked on the card. I flicked it out to him, and he caught it easily from the air. He looked at the card and then back to me.


    "Peggy exined what your deck could do but I wasn''t ready for that."


    "Yeah, that''s been an ongoing theme so far." I said with a smirk, yanking the card back to my hand and flourishing it away. "Now, I need you to both take my hand. This is going to be a bit jarring but I promise you''ll be fine."


    I asked, reaching out with both of my hands, obviously waiting for them to grab on. Steve looked at me for a moment before checking with Peggy, who smiled and nodded, reaching out and taking my hand. Steve shrugged and grabbed the other and I smiled. Before it could get awkward I spoke.


    "Travel Quarry."


    The shift from the parking garage to the small copse of trees next to the quarry only took a few seconds, but it was plenty to scare the hell out of Steve and Peggy. My danger sense red as Steve tried to put me in a headlock, giving me just enough warning to use my own enhanced strength to tear my hand free and step back. Peggy simply let go and half stumbled away.


    "What was that!" She shouted, frantically looking around. "Where are we?"


    "My workshop." I exined, sheepishly holding my hands up in surrender. "Sorry I probably could have exined a bit better, I was just kind of looking forward to how people reacted to their first time traveling."


    "Where are we?" Peggy asked again.


    "Somewhere in Texas." I answered vaguely, walking away through the trees, leading them to the quarry.


    "Texas?! Are you being serious?" She asked, Steve following behind. "You made a teleportation device?"


    "Technically it''s not teleportation as far as I understand." I exined, making my way down. "I made it using samples of Bifrost energy I managed to snag when Thor was here."


    "How" Peggy trailed off as I sat down in one of the chairs under the tent. She sat down across from me, Steve putting his hand on the chair back.


    Ema, who had been waiting for us to get here, brought a box of stuff from the storage shed. I picked something at random, a security camera I had gotten for my danger sense, and apass.


    "Basically, my abilitiese from the Deck itself. I didn''t use my abilities to make it, rather I used the Deck to make things. Anything that I can pull into a card, I canbine."


    As I exined I demonstrated by carding the two objects andbining them, pushing the new object out onto the table. The result was a small, squat cylinder that had an internally spinning object, a camera that settled pointing to what I assumed to be north.


    "Combining items blends them together, which can result in some weird results. But, as I stack more and more things on top of each other, concepts that the objects hold begin to stack. It''s these stacking concepts that allow me to make objects that do incredible things."


    Steve leaned forward and picked up the camera andpass hybrid, watching the internally suspended camera refocus northward.


    "That is about the most bizarre thing I have ever seen." He admitted, handing the camera to Peggy. "It seems"


    "It''s a lot, I get it." I said, nodding and holding a hand up in cation. "Just think of me as a conceptual and metaphysical inventor. The rules I follow are a bit different and much more flexible, but they are rules and I am still learning. That said"


    I flick out to cards, both of themnding on the table, sliding closer before the boxes pop out into existence.


    "What I''ve been able to do so far has been pretty impressive."


    Over the next thirty minutes or so I showed them what I had made for them, starting with the under armor and working my way up. Steve liked the idea of being bulletproof, but he liked the idea of Peggy being bulletproof even more. After a few minutes of exining all of their armor I quickly bound them to both forms of their deployable armor, as well as both forms of their undersuit. The results were interesting to say the least.


    Steve''s under armor changed from the normal ark metallic bands and tes to smooth matte metal, hugging and enting his muscles. The leather jacket shifted to a slightly darker color within just a hint of blue, a white five pointed star attached to the back. When his armor was deployed it covered almost all of the undersuit, a much more subtle ting than mine, barely shifted from what it had been before. The coloration wasn''t far off from the ssic Captain America uniform I remembered from some of theterics, though they were muted enough that it wasn''t eye watering.


    Peggy''s armor reacted simrly, the undersuit shifting into a matte dark green, only slightly darker than her deployable armor, which flowed from her belt and torc to cover her entire body. The biggest difference between Steve and Peggy was that Steve''s helmet looked like hisic ssic, Peggy''s shifted into a deep hood. After slipping on their gloves and boots they cut an impressive and intimidating image.


    "This You put this together in just a day?" Steve asked, examining his suit as Peggy looked at hers in the mirror. "That''s incredible."


    "How quickly and how flexible the Deck works is one of its major advantages." I exined with a shrug. "It has limitations as well."


    "Yeah?" He asked, smirking as he flexed and stretched, checking his range of motion. "Make sure you point them out at some point."


    "Will do." I answered with a chuckle. "So, the armor works for you guys?"


    "Yes, I suppose it will do." Peggy said sarcastically, rejoining us out from under the tent.


    "If it''s as tough as you say it is, you won''t hear anyints from me."


    "Good. Then let''s move onto the other goodies." I said with an excited smile. "First up, guns for each of you."


    We continued going over everything else I had made for the pair. Steve''s revolver was strapped to his hip, while Peggy wore it in its ring form, each taking some time to fire practice shots into the quarry. When they had learned the ins and outs of the quad stacked, magic enhanced, ammo regenerating revolvers, and Steve''s simrly enhanced shotgun, I exined the healing amulets.


    "Okay, so here is the deal." I said, holding one of the unbound amulets. "These little miracles work by stacking the concept of healing over and over and over again. Ointments, pills, herbs known for having healing effects, even mumbo jumbo stuff like healing crystals. I stack them with symbols having to do with healing, before mixing in a bit of magic I got from our encounter with Asgardians and vi."


    I carded the amulet before cutting my palm, letting them watch as it healed rapidly with just a hint of a golden glow.


    "Now mine is a bit more enhanced, since I had to de-age Peggy, but these are nothing to sneeze at."


    I held out both amulets, hanging down by the ne. Peggy frowned when she saw both of them.


    "You made two?" She asked. "I thought you were worried about Steve using it?"


    "I think that there is a very very very small chance that my unbound healing amulet would interact with the serum." I exined clearly. "But you''ve seen it yourself, binding an object to someone makes it theirs in a conceptual sense. It resizes it to fit them and shifts to be more aesthetically pleasing. I thinkbining the amulet with Steve''s blood will tune the risk. As much as I wanted to help, I wasn''t ready to bind my amulet to you just to test it out, not when you were recovering on your own."


    "I can understand that." Steve said with a nod. "And I appreciate you waiting to try anything. I don''t know if I''m willing to risk it."


    "Understandable. I''d like to bind it to you anyway, let you carry it in one of your pouches in your armor just in case."


    "I Alright."


    We spent a while getting everything bound properly, everything shifting slightly to fit their own theme. Cap''s revolver and shotgun both went red white and blue, though it was muted and matte enough that it actually looked good, while Peggy''s revolver went the same color as her undersuit, a dark matte green. They both got their secure cell phones, though Steve looked visibly ufortable holding his.


    "Just put it in a pouch Steve, I''ll help you with itter." Peggy said, getting a relieved nod in return.


    Once everything was ready and I had run out ways to stall, Peggy immediately noticed my rising anxiety.


    "What is it?" She asked, her eyes narrowing. "Why are you nervous?"


    "I''m not nervous." I said truthfully, shaking my head. "I''m apprehensive."


    "About what."


    "C''mon, we need to sit down. This is going to be intense."


    I made my way back under the tent, barely noticing the cooler interior. I sat down, facing the other two. Ema, who had been waiting out of hearing range had returned shortly after I had messaged her, once again in her exosuit.


    Steve and Peggy shared a look but sat down, both of them extremely serious. After a long moment I let out a sigh, leaning heavily on the table.


    "We can''t go after Bucky yet." I said, unable to look Steve in the eye. "Because, I''m pretty sure I know who sent him."


    Both of them asked a half dozen rapid fire questions, Steve even standing up from his chair, sending it falling backwards. Ema finally spoke up loudly.


    "Hey! Let him answer you at least!"


    The two went quiet for a moment, Peggy looking frustrated and Steve stone faced and walled off.


    "The problem is that If I''m right they have infiltrated Shield and probably a whole lot of other groups. The government, big businesses. You name it, they probably have a finger in it. Bucky, once we bring him back They will be forced to move. They know I can almost definitely fix his brainwashing, which means we will have ess to all of the intel he knows."


    "Why haven''t they made a move yet then?" Peggy asked, now sitting forward.


    "Because they don''t know I know." I exined. "Taking and fixing Bucky would all but guarantee we would find out, but I already know. And now Fury does as well."


    "... the package you handed Natasha?" Peggy guessed.


    "Yeah. It had thirty five lie detecting leather bands, six secure cell phones, four tracking tablets that show any person that is a member of this orginization they are hunting and forty rings that zap people into a very deep sleep on contact. Ema has been on the phone with Fury, exining what we know."


    "Who are they hunting Maker?" Peggy asked, surprisingly quiet.


    Without answering, I held out my hand to Ema, who pushed out my new secure phone. I scrolled through it for a moment before pulling up a video feed, hitting y and handing it to Peggy, who held it so Steve could watch as well. While I hadn''t seen it yet, Ema had described it to me and I could hear the voices. A rather unfriendly conversation between Fury, Natasha and Agent Sitwell, who was apparently the closest Hydra agent the tracking tablet revealed.


    The unlucky man was bruised, bleeding and groaning in pain, locked in a dark room and tied to a chair while Natasha sat, casually lounged really, in front of him. Fury stood in the corner while a third person held the cell phone and recorded.


    "We know your lying Sitwell. We know what is going on." Natasha said, ying the all knowing spy perfectly. "Here is your chance toe clean. Who do you work for?"


    "Shield! I''m a Shield agent! Fuck! Coulson, you know me!"


    "Oh, thank you for reminding me." Natasha said with a smile that was anything but kind. "We have been meaning to test Coulson''s knife on humans. It cuts through steel but will it cut through Muscles? Bones? Teeth?"


    With every word Sitewell groaned, pulling at his restraints, looking around wildly. The sound of a knife being flicked opened echoed in the room and the traitor whimpered. It took Coulson stepping forward for the man to finally crack.


    "Fine! Fine, okay!" He said desperately. "Hydra! I work for Hydra!"<hr>


    Hello everyone! Just here to remind you that my pa_tr_eon exists under MetaBettaOmegaLetta and as I am attempting to be a full time writer, every little bit helps! Currently my board members are voting on what style of flight Carson will eventually develop. Before that they voted on who''s perspective the first interlude would be from for my other story, <em>Mettle, Metal, Meddled</em>. Lower tiers get ess to chapters early as well as five chapters a month of my book, Lair Divers Tale. Stop by if your interested, otherwise I hope you enjoyed!

 Chapter 44: Shield Interlude

    Chapter 44: Shield Interlude


    Natasha listened as Sitwell described a long record of corruption, infiltration and maniption. Hydra had been growing inside Shield since day one, living off of it like a parasite, twisting its purpose and using it for its own gain. By the end of his tirade he was smiling, proud of what his organization had achieved.


    "It doesn''t matter that you know." He said, sneering through his pain. "You can''t find us all. No matter how many times you cut us down we will just grow in the shadows! Cut off one head and two more shall take its ce!"


    Slowly Natasha stood from her chair and walked closer. Sitwell flinched when she pulled something from her jacket, expecting a knife or a weapon. Instead it was a tablet, the screen tilted toward him so he could easily read it."


    "This is something that Maker made for us. Do you know what it does?" Natasha asked, her voice cold and teasing. "This is a map. A map with the location of every Hydra member on the. It updates in real time, has a global range and is urate to the nearest foot. It even shows their names."


    "That''s that''s not possible." Sitwell said, stuttering as he looked at the tablet, his eyes widening as he read the names. "How-"


    "I have no idea." Natasha said honestly, shrugging casually. "But with this it''s only a matter of time before we wipe Hydra off the face of the. The only thing up for debate is the death toll in the process. But that''s not something you need to worry about. You have a different problem."


    "Wha- what?"


    "You need to decide if you''re going to help us or not." She exined like she was talking to a child. "If you tell us everything, every project, every bunker, every n you know of, I won''t kill you horrifically. You know my history Sitwell, you''ve read the reports. Do you really want to witness me getting creative first hand?"


    Sitwell''s eyes went wild in fear, looking between Fury and Coulson, desperate for some sort of pity, anything.


    He found none.


    After onest struggle against his bindings he slumped, his head hung down.


    "What do you want to know?"


    An hourter Sitwell was unconscious in his chair while Natasha, Fury and Coulson were all standing in a small separate and secure room. The room was silent, heavy with what they had learned.


    "I want you to take one of the tablets and clear this location. Go floor by floor, clear the entire building and then lock it down as quietly as you can." Fury finally ordered, gesturing to the tablet Natasha was still holding. "Once it''s clear each of you''ll take a handful of agents you can trust, test them and move to the next location. Coulson will be leaving to clear the Fridge, while I want you to wait for Barton before moving to clear the Iliad."


    "I would like to take a tablet as well sir, the Iliad seems to have a massive concentration of Hydra." Natasha pointed out, looking at her tablet. "It''s almost fifty percent."


    "Fine, I will be taking the other two with me to give to Agent Hill. She can coordinate and provide intelligence from themunications center at the Triskelion."


    "How many locations do you think we can clear before they catch on?" Coulson asked.


    "I don''t know." Fury admitted, biting back a curse. "I want as many major locations cleared as possible using stealth. Once Agent Hill is set up at the Triskelion, I''ll be moving on to the Helicarrier as losing that would be devastating. Once the Triskelion is secure and I''m done on the Helicarrier I''ll return to the Triskelion to help coordinate."


    "How many armbands, rings, phones and trackers do we have?"


    "Thirty five bands, forty rings, six phones and four tablets." Fury answered, his eyes shifting to double check the box Maker had made for them was still on the table. "I want them divided evenly. I know we can''t get them far for now but I''ll be leaving some here for you to distribute."


    "You know we won''t be able to get everywhere Sir." Natasha pointed out quietly. "At some point it''s going to get out."


    "When it does, I''ll be able to get ahead of it." Fury assured her. "As long as I have ess to the Triskelion''swork I can override anyone, even Pierce. With any luck I will be able to get enough information to the ces we can''t get to to keep it from being a bloodbath. After we are forced to go loud we can send clean strike teams out to clear other ces. The Triskelion is key to that."


    "What about the other agents?" Coulson asked, double checking his gun. "There are groups that aren''t Shield locations. Even the World Security Council is infiltrated."


    "It''s going to be an uphill battle." Fury admitted. "But once we have control over a proper foundation we can send squads to arrest individuals and secure high value assets."


    "What about Captain Rogers, Peggy and Maker?"


    "Peggy and Captain Rogers are understandably upset. ording to Ema, Maker was able to convince them that they wouldn''t be able to do much at this stage, but once our cover is blown their first strike will be rescuing Bucky. After that they will be connecting back with us to take out the targets we were unable to clear and are now alerted. Maker has his own tracking tablet so we can even send them straight out to a target."


    "I still can''t believe he handed over so many unbound objects." Coulson said, touching the ring on his finger.


    "I''m not." Natasha said, shrugging when the other two looked at her. "His note said he made the tracking tablet first"


    "So he would have seen the absolute cluster fuck of a problem we are facing." Fury finished, looking back down as he examined his revolver, the now ck and blue colored pistol glowing slighting from the cylinder.


    "Ah, that makes sense."


    "In any case we are being loaned these items." Fury reminded them. "If we manage to return them all, Maker ims he will bind a third of them to our agents as well as arm an entire squad to the teeth. Full package and free of charge."


    "That seems like a good deal." Coulson admitted, Natasha nodding as well. "I guess he is paranoid about losing track of these things."


    The group spent the next fifteen minutes nning out and troubleshooting a strategy to clear out the New York headquarters while Fury contacted Maria Hill and a few others. With a hasty goodbye Fury left on a helicopter, heading to the airport. With orders to wait for him to ess the Triskelion before starting their mission, the two had nothing else but to wait. Natasha managed to discreetly get Sharon Carter''s attention, exining the situation with Coulson''s help before exining the n.


    One hour and forty five minutester Coulson and Natasha both the gomand on their Maker made secure phones.


    They started slowly, singling out Hydra agents as they stepped out into break rooms, bathrooms and single offices. Any time they could iste them they struck. A quick question, usually casual to keep from spiking suspicion before a single touch knocked them out into a deep sleep. ording to Maker, anyone they put to sleep with the knockout shockers would stay out for at least eight hours, unable to be woken up until then. They still zip tied their hands and feet together, just in case.


    Somehow, by some miracle, they managed to work their way through the entirety of the New York office before locking it down. The exnation took a while, but signedmands from Nick Fury, as well as proof that the rings and lie detecting bands worked was enough to convince the people in charge of the seriousness of the situation. They were to keep the facility locked down while preparing squads of Agents to perform a quick and brutal arrest of any Hydra agents they could find in the city. While waiting for Clint to arrive Natasha made a list using the tracking tablet of people they needed to arrest.


    Natasha, Sharon and Clint left the moment the archer arrived, Natasha filling him in as they traveled. The Iliad was just off the coast of Maine, but their window of opportunity was closing with every minute that passed.


    Collectively Shield was in a mad scramble, starting slowly but picking up speed as locations were cleared, anomalous items were handed out and Triskelion Command coordinated dozens of strike teams at once. Clearing safe houses, arresting politicians and locking up hundreds and hundreds of traitorous ex Shield agents. They were cleaning house, and managing to do so using the Hydra tracking tablets and lie detecting bands.


    It wasn''t long after they managed to cleanly take the Triskelion that hydra agents began to realize something was up. Hydra''s loyal scientists left research facility looted to the ground before loyal agents could clear it, with nothing left but a few dozen cooling corpses. Shield assets weremandeered, safe houses destroyed and thousands of deep cover Hydra went to ground all over the. Plenty were left behind of course, but plenty more attempted to vanish.


    Shield facilities in the U.S. were almost all cleared by the end of the next day, but dozens of overseas and more remote locations were lost or destroyed as Hydra abandoned a venture that took almost seventy years to set up in an attempt to hide and rebuild.


    Of course they couldn''t, as every single one of them was being tracked, but they didn''t know that. Instead of pushing for locations outside their control Nick Fury ordered Shield leaders to consolidate, to continue clearing out their own locations and nearby cells that still riddled the world. Shield had managed to wrestle control over itself back from Hydra by midnight the next night. It was only then that Fury left the control room he was manning to address the Security Council, which was missing a handful of members. Some of them had been Hydra agents, others had just been injured in the process of arresting them. All of them looked haggard and anxious.


    "We became aware of the threat at around noon yesterday." He exined, calmly addressing theputer disys. "Maker, in the process of creating a method to track Bucky Barnes, identally discovered a way to track those who sent him after Captain Rogers in the first ce."


    Fury, telling the truth as he knew it, held up one of the tracking tablets before sliding it under a camera so the members of the council could see the screen clearly.


    "It tracks, in real time, the location of every Hydra member on the. It''s urate within a foot and even supplies the names of each member it is tracking. As you can see, some members seem to be congregating, while others are dispersing, no doubt attempting to disappear."


    "How did this happen?" One of the female members asked after a long pause. "Such a systemic infiltration it boggles the mind."


    "We believe that Shield is the original vector. They infiltrated our ranks, in part due to Operation: Paperclip, though also through simple osmosis. From there they were able to manipte Shield assets and agents to help other agents infiltrate and hide."


    "Why aren''t you tracking these traitors down!" Another member all but shouted. "You have their locations, so get the bastards!"


    "We are currently running at our operational max." Fury exined. "Further, we just arrested almost aplete fourth of our membership. I have made the decision to scale back operations before my agents start making mistakes that cost lives."


    "What about theserge concentrations?" Another council member asked. "They are clearly congregating in specific ces."


    "We aremunicating with the countries those bases reside in. Operations are already being nned as joint actions."


    "This this is a disaster."


    "It is." Fury agreed. "But because of good luck and Maker''s creations it is a manageable one. I won''t lie to you, we got damn lucky. We have managed to minimize casualties by coordinating with foreign governments and alerting them to traitors. We managed to keep the fighting off of the streets for the most part and any openbat was mostly on a small scale. The public is wondering what is going on, but is not in any sort of real panic. This could have been a lot worse."


    "What do we do next?" The first member to speak up asked. It was rare the Security Council asked him for advice, and he wasn''t about to pass the opportunity up.


    "We need you to work with the UN to set up extradition and get permission for Shield agents to enter countries not part of our founding treaties. You need to set up a precedent to allow for Maker''s items to be acknowledged as legitimate in certain circumstances, enough that the UN and individual governments can charge individuals we find using these objects. Without that arge amount of Hydra Agents will go free. We are starting to put together thework of corruption they used to hide each other''s crimes, but quite a fewe up clean to anything but Makers lie detection bands and his trackers."


    "AreAre we sure they are one hundred percent urate?" One member asked, her voice surprisingly fragile. "Is it possible that Thomas?"


    "Both the rings have been proven correct nearly three hundred times, and that is only the members who are willing to turn over on their organization for leniency." Fury exined, before wincing, even managing to look sympathetic. "Ex Security Council member Galter is one of those captured who agreed to give information."


    The woman, pale and anxious, simply nodded in response, looking particrly broken. It was not a secret that her and Galter had been getting closer. There had even been talk about her standing down so that they could ethically pursue a rtionship. Her recement had also been arrested for being a Hydra agent.


    "We are still sending fresh teams out to capture singr Hydra members, the ones who attempted to fade intorge poptions with new identities." Fury exined after a long pause. "Once we have cleaned them up we will beginrger scale operations, once our Agents have a chance to recuperate and we can coordinate with the U.S and other governments."


    Fury spent the next thirty minutes assuring the council, answering their questions and exining what Shield was doing. When he was finally done he headed straight back to themunication room. They had managed to pull something vaguely resembling a victory out of what should have been an unmitigated disaster. It could have been a lot worse.

 Chapter 45: Waiting for word

    Chapter 45: Waiting for word


    After watching the video Peggy immediately rewound it to listen to Sitwell''s confession again, going over everything he said. Steve, already mentally messed up by Bucky and his lost time, all but copsed into a chair. He looked lost as he rubbed his face with his hands.


    "You said you gave Fury a way to track them?" Peggy asked, looking up at me. "Do you?"


    I wordlessly flicked a card across the table, a tablet popping out of the card as it stopped in front of her. It was about the size of a sheet of paper, with no discernible markings. The screen was simple and currently focused on the New York Shield headquarters. There was a heavy scattering of dots, unnamed because of how pulled out the zoom was.


    "How did you even make that?" Steve asked, looking over Peggy''s shoulder now. "That would have been invaluable during the war."


    "I scraped off some of the different blood stains on my armor after saving you." I exined. "That, a few Hydra artifacts I managed to get my hands on and a few history books on them. I mixed it all up into a liquid that I could separate into different amounts, which was something I didn''t know worked. Usually breaking things into chunks adds a broken or portioned concept, but because liquids don''t really have those concepts it worked. It actually opens up"


    I trailed off as Ema poked me, shaking her head when I looked at her. I looked back at the other two and winced.


    "Right. Sorry." I apologized, before getting back on topic. "Fury has everything he needs to end Hydra once and for all. They just need as much time as possible to use them."


    "He is going to attempt to take down internal threats first, focusing on American and Canadian facilities." Ema exined. "If he is unable to gain a strong enough foothold he will scale back and attempt to secure the U.S. government as best they can."


    "If that fails then we go on the attack." I added with a shrug. "With a few dozen sample sources I could pump out tracking tablets by the box. We would disseminate them throughout the world, making it impossible for Hydra to hide from anyone. I would also have to cross a line I set for myself when I first started dealing with Shield."


    "Which is?" Steve asked.


    "Forcing the truth out of people. Lie detection is fine, but forcing someone to answer a question truthfully isn''t something I''m veryfortable with." I said with a shrug. "I''m not saying I would never do it obviously, but it''s a gray area and I prefer not crossing those if I can help it."


    "So why bring us here?" Steve asked, his face still carved in stone and impossible to read.


    "Because-"


    "We wouldn''t be of any use at this stage Steve." Peggy admitted, cutting me off, her hand on Steve''s bicep as she looked at him. "You''re a soldier, you don''t really do espionage, and I have been out of touch for nearly three decades. I would be no more help than any Shield grunt or agent."


    Steve looked into Peggy''s eyes for a long moment before looking away and letting out a big sigh. He took almost a minute to collect himself before finally looking back up.


    "What do we do about Bucky?"


    I pulled out the Bucky tracker, putting it on the table before holding my hand out to Peggy, who passed me the Hydra tracker. I put them on the table side by side, focusing them both on Bucky''s location.


    "Currently Bucky is here. He hasn''t moved from this building. Once Shields'' cover is blown, or Bucky leaves the premises we go in and rescue him." I exined. "While I want to wait and let Shield make as much progress as possible, letting Bucky go out and do any more of their dirty work is not eptable."


    Again Steve was silent for a moment, eventually nodding. He stood and walked away, making his way around the tent and out of sight. Peggy, still in shock, stayed seated.


    "I spent my whole life after the war building Shield. I dedicated my life to it. To build something to continue Steve''s legacy. Was it all useless?"


    "No, it wasn''t, Shield has done a lot of good work since its creation." I assured her. "Honestly, if Shield wasn''t here Hydra would have just chosen a different organization to take over, probably the U.S. government. Besides, Shield isn''t gone yet. With some luck, Fury could pull this out. It''s not going to be pretty, and it isn''t going to be clean, but there is a good chance."


    "I suppose you''re right." Peggy admitted, nodding along. "How many what was the percentage of Shield to Hydra?"


    "I don''t know exactly, but it looks to be a bit over a fourth."


    Peggy nodded and stood silently, leaving the tent in the opposite direction as Steve. I looked at Ema and nodded towards the leaving woman, before standing and heading to the storage shed. Ema followed her with a nod, keeping an eye on the distressed ex Director of Shield. While she did I went through my gun crates, grabbed one, grabbed some ammo and went to find Steve. He was sitting by the edge of the quarry, feet dangling off the side, looking out into the water filled pit.


    I made my way to him and sat down next to him, giving him plenty of space. I pushed out the crate, pulled out a M1 Garand and looked at him.


    "Throw a rock for me, will ya?"


    He looked confused for a minute before looking around him. He picked up a palm sized stone and hurled it into the air. The rock hummed out, clearing the gap easily. For anyone else this would have been an incredibly difficult shot. Luckily my enhanced shooting ability was up for the challenge. The rock exploded around a hundred and fifty feet out. Steve looked surprised.


    "That was impressive." He said.


    "Technically I''m cheating." I said with a shrug. "But thanks."


    I passed him the rifle, which he quickly checked over.


    "Not something more modern?" He asked, expertly checking the sights.


    "I''ve found older guns tend to hold better concepts." I exined, picking up a simrly sized rock. "We seem to associate older things with being well built, sturdy and more powerful. Plus the M1 is a great gun, even with the low capacity."


    He nodded as I cocked my arm back and chucked the rock with all of my strength. The rock fired out across the quarry gap and further still, not quite at the same trajectory that Steve had managed but still much more than a normal man could. The experienced soldier brought the rifle to his shoulder, lined up the shot and destroyed the still flying rock.


    "Besides," I said, continuing now that he had made his shot. "I got a whole shed of guns, modern and ssic. I traded them from Shield so I could experiment and make my own weapons. Technically it wasn''t a hundred percent legal but I really didn''t have a choice. The gunws in New York are extremely restrictive these days for someone trying to build up an armory to experiment on."


    "Gunws? You mean like the Sullivan Act?" He asked as he passed the rifle back to me, this time grabbing two rocks. "They made more?"


    "I. honestly have no idea." I said, shrugging. Steve threw both of the rocks as fast as he could. I managed to hit the first one but missed the second. "There are a lot of restrictions on guns in some states, barely any in others. There is a lot of politics and statistics involved and I know just enough to know that I don''t know enough to side one way or the other."


    "I guess. I''ll ask Peggy to exin it." He said with a shrug, epting the rifle back, looking it over before passing it back. "Do you mind if I try out my revolver?"


    "Yeah, sure." I said, putting the rifle back in the crate and carding it. "In fact, c''mon, let''s set up some targets for you to practice on."


    Steve and I grabbed two sheets of aluminum each from my supplies and walked around the quarry. We set them up two, one on the other side of the quarry and the other about fifty feet behind that. We left the remaining twoid out on the ground forter use.


    When we got back to the other side Steve spent a little while using his revolver, getting used to its dimensions. He easily dealt with its recoil, hitting tight grouping even when shooting rapidly to the far target. He had just switched to his shotgun when Peggy and Ema returned.


    "So he got two options and I''ve only got one?" She asked, deploying her own revolver from her ring and aiming across the quarry. She hit the targets easily as well, though only when she was timing out her shots andpensating for the recoil.


    "Hey, you asked for the basics." I said with a shrug. "I could make you something to add to it if you''d like."


    "What are my choices?"


    "Well that depends. The regenerating ammo is only possible for integrated magazines." I exined. "If you''d be happy with something like what I made Natasha I can make you something more modern."


    Peggy was silent for a few minutes before smirking. "When I was in the storage room earlier I noticed you had a few lever action rifles. Maybe put a scope on one of those?"


    "That''s a good idea. You two hang out here if you want, Ema and I will whip something up."


    It took me twenty minutes for me and Ema to quickly put together a quad stacked lever action with regenerating ammo, adding a selector wheel when I was done. The final step was a transformation card that shifted it into a simple gold bracelet. When I was done I made my way back to the impromptu firing range.


    "Here you go Peggy. The most powerful lever action rifle ever made." I said with a smile, handing her the rifle. "So far at least."


    Peggy took the gun from me and turned it over in her hands before aiming it over the quarry and fired, working the lever and firing again. She put a few dozen shots into the target at various strengths before lowering the gun.


    "I like it." She said with a nod. "Thank you Maker. And thank you for helping with all this."


    "It''s not a problem." I said with a shrug. "Alright. Let''s get it bound to you, then I''m going to do some shopping and I''ll bring back some lunch. When I get back we can start nning our stakeout."


    "Stake out?"


    "We might be waiting for movement or the word from Fury to rescue your friend, but that doesn''t mean there isn''t anything to do." I exined. "Once I make a few things for us we are heading to DC to stake out where they are keeping Bucky. That way we can react instantly when we need to."


    "That That sounds like a solid n." Peggy agreed, shaking her head afterward. "Maybe Natasha was right, I am a little rusty."


    "Plenty of time to work that rust off." Steve said, smiling at her. The two looked at each other for a moment before looking away, still smiling.


    "Right any requests for lunch?"


    "Whatever is good." Steve said, Peggy nodding in agreement.


    "Alright, I''ll be back in a few hours. Ema will stay here in case you need anything." I said before traveling away to Austin.


    I came back with a bag of burritos and three cards of supplies. Peggy, Steve and Ema were all waiting for me under the tent, greeting me when I walked in. I put the bag of burritos down and sat down in an empty chair. Ema stepped closer and distributed the food to everyone, using her scanning to figure out what was in each burrito. Peggy exined what burrito was to Steve as well.


    "Mexican food was just starting to get popr in America when I signed up for Dr. Erskine''s project." Steve exined as he looked at his burrito. "I tried some salsa a few times, but money was a little tight to be trying new things like that."


    He took a big bite out of his burrito, chewing it slowly, nodding his head. Peggy and I watched him as he swallowed.


    "It''s a lot of vor." He said. "Very spicy. But really good."


    "I''m d Ema gave you the mild one then, the spicy one would have probably been a bit too much for you." I said, taking a bite out of mine.


    The three of us enjoyed ate-ish lunch, quickly cleaning up and getting to nning. Bucky was being kept in an abandoned bank in Washington DC called the Ideal Federal Savings Bank. A quick google search brought up a few external pictures from a few angles.


    "So If I had a super secret Super Soldier in a bank" I said, trailing off before continuing. "And I was a super evil member of a super evil organization bent on world domination or whatever, where would I keep him?"


    "... Would they really keep him in the vault?" Steve asked after a long moment, looking skeptical.


    "I I don''t know." Peggy said. "In some way it makes sense, where else would you keep him?"


    "Which means I need to make something to cut open a vault, just in case." I said, nodding before looking at Ema, who was keeping an eye on the Hydra tracker. "How many Hydra minions are in the building?"


    "Twenty five." She answered before letting out a sigh. "I wish we had a floor n."


    "Yeah Is there a way to get those?" I asked.


    "Yes, but not without potentially alerting someone, or in such a short time." Peggy answered, still looking at the pictures we found online. Steve was about toment when my secure phone went off. I pulled it out and read it, frowning at the message.


    "They are officially starting their attack." I told everyone. "Fury is clearing the Triskelion while Natasha and Coulson work through New York. After that they are going to break up into even smaller groups and clear secondary locations. If they still manage to keep it under wraps they are going to send teams out with my lie detecting bands to arrest anyone they can before the word gets out."


    "We should get into position as soon as possible." Peggy pointed out. "In case it goes wrong quickly. There is a certain element of luck involved with these operations. Though you have given Shield a solid advantage."


    "Right, okay." I said, nodding in agreement. "Let''s get you into position, somewhere where you can use your super sses to keep watch. I''ll leave a travelingnding pad there and then go and get a few things ready."


    We quickly packed up, shifted clothing to its less showy forms and grabbed everything we needed. With one final check we all traveled to DC. It was a half hour drive from thending pad, which Ema had put in an abandoned building, to the area of the bank. We parked somewhere out of the way before making our way into another abandoned building, climbing a half dozen floors up before pushing into a room. There was a single window facing towards the bank. We quickly set up shop, which basically just meant pushing out thending pad and a few chairs, before I jumped to the quarry and back, this time with Ema in tow.


    "Okay, so Steve is in charge once this goes loud, right?" I said, looking between Peggy and Steve. "I have no experience save thest few weeks and Peggy, you''re more about espionage than open assault, right?"


    "Right, yes that makes the most sense I suppose." Peggy agreed, turning to look at Steve.


    "Alright, I''ll do my best." Steve said, epting with a nod. "Then let''s settle in. We can take turns keeping an eye on the bank. I''ll go first as soon as someone re-exins how these sses work."


    "Alright guys, I''ll be back within a few hours, maybe less." I exined as Peggy stepped closer to Steve to show him. "Call me if anything changes."


    Leaving Ema and the other two along I traveled back to the quarry. I had quite a few things I needed to make, with no idea how much time I had to make them.


    "Alright. No wasting any time." I said to myself. "Let''s get this thing going."

 Chapter 46: Go time

    Chapter 46: Go time


    I ended up only being gone for two hours, returning silently on thending pad. Peggy was watching the bank, sitting far enough from the window that the shadows covered her while Steve satpletely out of sight around a corner, watching a video on his phone. He looked up when I stepped off thending pad.


    "Wee back," He said with a nod. "Everything all set?"


    "Yeah, I figured out our breaching problem." I answered. "If you want to enter through an outside wall we can do that as well now. What are you watching?"


    "Peggy set me up on Youtube." Steve said with a shrug. "It''s a lot to digest but I''ve been watching gun and military videos. I''m more than a bit out of touch with everything so I''m just updating myself."


    I nodded and sat down next to Peggy, pulling up a chair and activating my helmet so I could look through my own vision enhancement. I activated my wall peeking ability and peered through the outside wall facing us, the entire thing disappearing. I could see soldiers, heavily armed, standing just out of sight of any windows and doors.


    "How many people are in there?"


    "Twenty seven, other than Bucky." Peggy answered, lifting her sses to look down at the Hydra tracking tablet. "He has been alone in what we think is a small room for most of the time you were gone."


    "I can see some of them through the outside wall." I said, finding somece to sit down, dropping down into the chair. "They seem pretty rxed, which is good news for Fury."


    "How heavily are they armed?" Steve asked from behind us.


    "Pretty heavily, but they seem focused on stealth, everything is silenced." I said, zooming in a bit further. "Some rifles, some submachine guns, nothing that evenes close to being dangerous for us."


    "Unless we got hit in the chin." Steve pointed out.


    "No, I thought of that." I said with a smile. "Let me see your helmet."


    I spent a few minutes fixing the ring issue with Steve and Peggy''s helmets,bining in a retractable face covering. The addition functioned as an air purifying gas mask as well, as well as eye protection. I passed them back after showing them both how they retracted.


    "Thanks." Steve said after trying it out. "I hadn''t actually meant that as aint, you know."


    "I know, but this isn''t a story, and you don''t have plot armor." I said seriously. "You''re not really protected until all of you is protected."


    "Fair enough." He answered.


    The four of us settled into a pattern, taking turns keeping watch over the tablet and the bank. Ema volunteered to take over and keep watch herself but Steve assured her it was better to take turns as it kept people from getting distracted and missing something by ident. As we were still not ready to reveal Ema''s non-human status she epted his reasoning. About an hour after I had returned I got a message.


    "Natasha and Coulson just finished clearing the New York headquarters." I said happily, adding on a half hourter. "Fury just cleared the Triskelion."


    "That changes the game quite a bit." Peggy said, her own stress lessening just a notch. "They will be able to coordinate teams all over the globe from there."


    "That''s the n." I answered. "Fury is moving on to clear the Helicarrier while his second inmand stays back and coordinates."


    "What''s a Helicarrier?" Steve asked, looking away from the window. "And why is it so important?"


    "Oh it''s a flying Aircraft carrier." I exined before looking at Peggy. "Should I know that?"


    "While it wasn''t publicly announced it wasn''t a secret either." Peggy exined. "It was too big of a project to hidepletely."


    "Wait Like a full sized aircraft carrier?" Steve asked, eyes wide. "How does Have you seen it?"


    "I''ve seen video''s of it." Peggy said. "I couldn''t really move around much by the time it was done."


    "I''m looking forward to seeing it." I said with a smirk. "If they ever let me on board."


    The room was quiet for a while longer, save for a few times when more messages of sess came through. Eventually the sky got dark and night came. I pushed out two mattresses so that we could switch back and forth and hopefully get some rest. That proved to be pointless though, as before I could even fall asleep Ema got my attention.


    "Fury says Hydra is starting to stir." She said with a frown.


    I slowly climbed off of the impromptu bed, while Steve shot off of his mattress like a rocket.


    "Any change in the bank?"


    "We had a few people arrive fifteen minutes ago, but we wrote it off as people changing guards."


    "Compare the two tablets again." I suggested. "Is Bucky still by himself?"


    Ema silently held both tablets together, looking between the two.


    "No There are a lot of people congregating, all in one room. Bucky has two people with him... Guards maybe?"


    "No, something is happening." Steve said, shaking his head and looking at Peggy. "I think we should go in."


    Peggy nodded, before looking back at me. I held up my hands and shrugged.


    "Hey, you guys are the ones with the know-how. I''m following your lead."


    "Then we are going in." Steve said with a confident nod "We are leaving in ten, so get ready."


    Everyone in the room looked at each other before pressing various buttons, undersuits expanding and armor deploying. Within seconds we were all fully dressed and ready forbat. I was thest one ready, as I had to push out my guns and slide them into their holsters after everything was deployed. Steve, who had been watching, shook his head and deployed his own armor.


    "Right, used to that taking longer." He said, a small smirk on his face. "I guess we can go now then."


    "Before we do, I have these for you guys." I said, pulling out three cloaks, one dark green, one dark blue and a final one of emerald green.


    Peggy and Steve held the cloaks out and looked at me, skeptically at best, while Ema looked excited. In response I simply changed my leather jacket into its cloak form and activated its invisibility. When the cloth was barely a shimmer I pulled it around myself and smirked. Peggy''s eyes went wide and Steve could only nod in approval.


    It only took us a few minutes to get down and out of the building we were surveilling from, stopping in an alley across from the "abandoned" bank. We stopped there to check and see if the hos nest was still rtively calm.


    "They are agitated." I said quietly, helmet up and still covered by my cloak. "But not waving guns around agitated."


    "So they probably know they are being hunted." Peggy said, who was peaking around the corner, looking up and down the street.


    "But they don''t know we know where they are here." Steve finished, nodding along. "Maker, you said you had a way to get through walls? Is it quiet?"


    "It''s not an explosive, so it should be, unless we mess up." I exined. "You have to move some stuff around but we should be able to keep it quiet enough."


    "Alright, here is the n. We are going to go back and circle around." He exined, gesturing to the right with his shield in his opposite hand. "We will cross the street further down that way, then make our way to the back. We ess through the wall into an empty room. I want to get as close to Bucky as we can before we get found out so they have less time to do anything stupid."


    The rest of us nodded along, before agreeing to the n. With our cloaks wrapped around us, nothing but barely visible shimmers in the dark, we made our way around to the back of the building. It took us a few minutes to get there, only stopping once we were safe behind the bank, hidden in the dark alley. Steve gave me a look and I nodded, stepping back and activating my ability to see through walls. I scanned and found an empty office, dark and far away from any of the patrols or stationed guards. I switched my vision modes to electrical and then to metal, finding the perfect spot to breach through.


    Once I had a spot chosen I gave Steve a look and he nodded in confirmation. Grinning to myself I pushed my newest creation into my hands. A two and a half foot long sword appeared in my hands, de tip pointed up. I expertly spun it in my hands, flourishing it and holding it ready. I could see Ema giving me a look and shaking her head.


    It was of course no ordinary sword. I had traveled around Austin and Chicago buying every decently made long sword I could find,bining them together with a dozen sheets of magical super metal. I was tempted to add in thest charges of Thor''s spark to it as well, but I held off. There was no reason as I was already rtively sure it would cut through damn near anything at this point and was as tough as I could get it. Besides, those sparks had proven to be extremely valuable.


    I had finished off the building process bybining the knowledge of how to fight with half a dozen different melee weapons with a ss ring, then adding a transformation card and making my marksman''s ring with the result. Now I could change my ring from melee to ranged whenever I needed to. I didn''t bother with that now since I was only using the sword as a tool.


    I scrolled the selector wheel on the pommel of the sword up to its max and slowly slid it into the wall, unable to keep from smiling when it slid in with barely any resistance. I slowly cut arge oval in the wall, all the way to the ground before pulling my sword out, clicking it down to normal levels of sharpness and carding it. I gestured to Steve and after a few seconds we managed to slowly slide the hunk of rock, wood and metal out of the wall, leaning it against the other side of the alley. Steve peaked his head in and after a moment stepped through. Once he was inside Peggy and I followed, Ema pulling up the rear, bow in one hand, tablet in the other.


    After Ema was inside she checked the tablet again, pointing out that two guards would be passing by soon. Steve nodded and we all pulled our cloaks around ourselves. We waited for a moment, listening to the footsteps get closer before passing us by. Together me and Steve slowly opened the door out of the room and stepped out, Ema and Peggy following behind. We slowly made our way down the hall, pausing asionally for me to check for anyone.


    Peggy, who was keeping an eye on the Bucky tracker stopped us, pointing out that Bucky was being escorted to a room that was full of Hydra.


    "I don''t like that." Steve said softly, looking up and down one of the halls.


    "I agree." I said with a nod. "I think it might be time to go loud and put some pep in our step. I''ll go first since I have a silent pistol but I think stealth just became secondary."


    Everyone agreed and we started traveling much faster, Steve following close behind me, my back up pistol out and on its highest setting. Our increased pace quickly got us caught, even with our cloaks on. I quickly killed the patrol that spotted us, only to get shot at by another patrolling pair of guards. Their silenced weapons were anything but, and like that the jig was up. I carded my cloak, reset the pistol back into my ring and pulled out my revolvers.


    Before I could aim at the stationed guards Peggy and Steve fired once each, nailing both of the guards and killing them instantly. We could hear muffled shouts from around the building as we all looked at each other.


    "Peggy, lead us to Bucky!" Steve ordered, throwing me his cloak.


    I quickly carded everyone''s cloaks as Peggy guided us through the bank. Soon we stepped into the main room, arge open space filled with guards. We were immediately peppered by bullets from several guards who had been standing at the ready. Steve brought up his shield and crouched slowly while I simplyughed and returned fire, bullets pinging off of me as I slowly worked my way through the room, incapacitating where I could but killing where I had to. From beside us tworge soldiers charged us, attempting to take us by surprise. Steve reacted almost as fast as I did with my danger sense, throwing his shield, knocking one of them back and over a desk while I simply stepped forward and kicked the other in the chest, sending them flying until they smashed into a wall and crumpled.


    "Where to?" Steve asked Peggy, getting pointed in a back direction.


    "Ema, stay behind and keep an eye out for reinforcements." I said, pushing out a huge pack of zip ties and the healing shlight. "Use your sleep ring, heal any of them that are still alive and zip them up. Oh and call Fury. Make sure Hydra doesn''t get real Shield agents as back up."


    She nodded and got to work, heading to the closest Hydra soldier. Steve gave me a look and I shrugged, wincing slightly.


    "Sorry? I''m not the best at the whole chain ofmand thing." I apologized as the three of us headed to the back.


    "It''s fine, it was a good idea." He said, looking over his shoulder. "Are you sure about leaving her alone?"


    "Steve, in a fight between her and all three of us, even with everything I gave you I wouldn''t put money on us." I exined confidently, smirking slightly. "At least as long as she was being serious."


    "Alright, I trust your judgment, you know her better." He said with a nod, walking forward, casually kicking through a moderately reinforced door. "It''s strange fighting alongside other enhanced people."


    We made our way deeper into the bank, quickly meeting more soldiers and dispatching them easily. After a quick message to Ema warning her of more wounded we headed deeper, finally getting to the massive door of a bank vault on the other side of a metal gate. I quickly pushed out my sword and set it to its max. With a few swift swings I quickly cut through the bars, letting them tumble to the floor before kicking them away. I stepped forward to the main vault door, Peggy and Steve taking up positions on either side of me.


    "I''m going to cut it, and then card it." I said, getting a nod from both of them. "When it''s gone I''ll step back."


    With that I slid the sword into the seam of the vault door, cutting around it, making sure that I was cutting at an angle that would keep the door stable until I was ready to card it. I slowly cut through everything locking the door in ce, including the hinges on the right side, but left the bottom seam alone. I checked with Steve and Peggy again, and after getting a thumbs and a nod from them I sliced through the bottom of the door. I quickly stood up straight, put my hand on the door and carded it, the steel door vanishing.


    Standing on the other side of the door were about ten people. Some of them were armed soldiers, some of them appeared to be unarmed scientists. I could see Bucky sitting on the seat of a contraption that was just oozing danger and hical brutality, while an older gentleman stood in front of him. The closest to the door was a single soldier who I didn''t recognize, armed with a bow, an arrow already nocked and pulled back.


    My danger sense screamed at me hard enough that it caught me off guard. I watched as the man released the arrow, which mmed into me. The sound of screaming and rending metal filled the room for a split second as the arrow pierced through a gap in my armor, through my undersuit and through me, not stopping until it hit the other side. The soldier quickly pulled another arrow, and I finally recognized them.


    A tank killer arrow. My tank killer arrow.


    Images of the three Ema had shot while fighting the Destroyer armor yed in my head while the soldier fired his second arrow. This one flew past me, missing by inches as Steve reached around the doorway and grabbed me, pulling me into cover and out of the way.

 Chapter 47: Healing the mind

    Chapter 47: Healing the mind


    "Fuck!" I shouted, holding the base of the arrow, blood leaking around my hand. "How the hell did I forget about those fucking arrows?"


    Bullets sparked through the doorway, peppering the far wall. Eventually they stopped and a voice came out from the vault.


    "Steve Rogers. I didn''t expect to see you so soon." It said almost casually. "I don''t suppose I could convince you this is a Shield operation could I?"


    As the man continued to talk I stood up straight, my hand resting on Steve''s shoulder.


    "Yank it out."


    "What?" He said, eyes wide, darting down to the arrow. "But-"


    "I''m wearing my healing amulet." I said, a hissing whisper as my muscles convulsed around the arrow. "I need you to-"


    He suddenly gripped the arrow and yanked, pulling it from my body with a spray of blood. I nearly passed out from the pain, my vision wavering and constricting to a dot before my amulet pulsed and my body started healing. Nauseayered over the pain as my internals shifted into their proper positions. I slowly stood up, giving Steve a nod and a shrug to Peggy, who was looking at me with wide eyes.


    "I think it''s time for us to negotiate. Your friend Bucky here-"


    In one fluid motion I leaned into the door frame of the bank fault and flicked a card. It flew a few feet into the room, angling to the side before suddenly being reced by the massive steel vault door. It tumbled through the room, all but smearing the archer who had shot me, continuing into the room and mming into a wall with a screech. Even as the dust settled Steve and I both stepped into the room, guns drawn, his shield raised almost instinctively, bullets pinging off of it, though several also bounced off his lower armor. Peggy stayed by the door, firing her lever action cannon.


    It was a bloodbath.


    Bucky, who was still sitting on the foreboding looking contraption, sat there for a few seconds as Steve, Peggy and I destroyed the Hydra agents, our bullets punching through their body armor easily.


    "Attack them!" The same voice cried out, clearly strained and in a considerable amount of pain, clearly talking to the brainwashed amputee.


    Bucky immediately stepped up and settled into a fighting stance, his battered and broken metallic arm hanging limp by his side. His eyes locked on to both of us, before looking down to a shotgun,ying on the floor where its previous owner had dropped it. He took a single step forward before I burst into movement.


    "BOOST!" I shouted, feeling the energy pour through my body.


    I dashed across the twelve steps between us at blinding speed with explosive eleration. Knowing I wouldn''t be able to stop in time I held out my hand and pped the unfortunate soldier across the face, his long ck hair sying out as his head turned. Before he could even react he copsed backwards, my own sleep inducing ring leaving a noticeable indent on his cheek.


    Unable to stop in such a short distance with so much speed I mmed into the back wall of the vault, denting the safety deposit boxes with my armor. I ignored the stter of blood left from my stomach wound, or the searing pain sprinting like that had caused. Instead I pushed myself upright against the wall, turning just in time to watch Steve dispatch thest Hydra soldier.


    The room was quiet for a second, both of us catching our breath before Steve rushed to Bucky''s side, checking his vitals.


    "His pulse seems okay." He said, looking up at me and nodding. "We-"


    "You bastards." The same strained voice said between coughs, causing Steve and I both to spin around, our guns raised.


    There, pinned against the wall, was the gray haired man. He was in obvious pain, which made sense because a significant portion of his legs and lower torso were hidden, and probably ttened by the corner of the massive steel vault door. He was pale, though that was probably from blood loss, and struggled to hold himself up.


    "How How did you find us?" He asked. "Who broke? How?"


    "I made something. Or rather several somethings." I exined with a shrug. "There is no ce on Earth that Hydra can hide any more."


    "Damn you." He said, his voice getting softer. "The world needs us."


    "No. No it doesn''t" Steve said, standing up straight, looking the gray haired man in the eye. "The world never needed Hydra. It didn''t during the war and it doesn''t now. The world doesn''t need to be led with an iron fist, it needs to be guided with patience."


    "You''re a fool." The man said. Before he could say anything else I cut him off.


    "Your time is over." I said, looking into his eyes. "Hydra is going to be a shameful footnote in human history as we reach to the stars and do impossible things. We will dance on the burned corpse of your organization and wonder how people could be stupid enough to think that stifling humanity through control is how you improve it."


    The man, eyes locked on mine, let out onest rattling breath, before his eyes rolled back. He slumped over the massive hunk of steel pinning him to the wall, dead. The room was quiet for a few moments, filled with slowly cooling bodies, leaking blood and other unmentionable things.


    "C''mon. Let''s get out of here. We can tell Fury about it when we are at my workshop."


    It took us around twenty minutes to heal everyone that wasn''t already dead and relocate back to my workshop, everything gathered from our temporary lookout. I made special care to look through the vault to find all of the tank killer arrows Hydra had managed to get their hands on. In total I found three, which matched what Ema and I could remember, though we had know way of knowing if any of my other arrows remained effective after I shot them


    When we got back to the quarry, Peggy immediately called Fury, describing how our mission went, while Steve and Iid Bucky on a mattress, raised off the ground by several crates. By the time the impromptu bed was set Peggy had returned from her phone call.


    "Fury says a team is already on site to lock it down, go through everything and take anyone who survived into custody." She said, walking back under the tent.


    "Alright. We reapplied his forced sleep, so we should have a bit of time." I said standing up straight. "I think we should start with my healing amulet. There is a chance it will affect his enhancements, and I''m not sure how it will react to the arm, but if his brainwashing was physically changing him the amulet should put him right."


    "And if it doesn''t?" Steve asked, his eyes on his friend before looking up at me.


    "Then we restrain him better and I get to work making something specifically to break mind control." I said confidently. "It might be difficult since I don''t have a lot to go off of, but Shield will probably find Hydra''s research on it somewhere, which will give me more to go off of. Absolute worst case scenario I will call in the favor Shield now owes me and have them design something to help fix it, then I stack it a dozen times until it works perfectly."


    Steve looked back down at his friend, Peggying up and standing beside him, reaching out and taking his hand. He gives her a small smile before looking back at me.


    "Do it."


    I nod before stepping closer, pulling my amulet over my head. I leaned over for a moment before pausing, deploying my armor, even my helmet.


    "This has a chance of waking him up, I don''t know if the healing amulet will recognize the forced sleep as a negative effect."


    Steve nodded and stepped closer, pulling away from Peggy, getting ready to hold Bucky down if necessary. With a nod I carefully put the chain around his neck, making sure the amulet was touching his body. I stepped back, watching him closely. A subtle tension in his face slowly faded, visibly changing to a much more peaceful sleep.


    "Alright, that''s encouraging." I said with a nod. "We''ll give it until the forced sleep runs out. If he isn''t better by then we will knock him out again and I''ll get to work."


    With the amulet hopefully doing its job the rest of us set up a rotation to keep an eye on Bucky while the rest of us got some sleep. It waste at night by the time everything was set up and Peggy and I were seriously starting to feel the effects of ourck of sleep. Steve of course was fine, and Ema didn''t sleep, but Peggy insisted that they both get some.


    I woke up the next morning to find everyone else standing over Bucky, who was still asleep. I sat up and stretched before making my way over.


    "What''s going on guys?" I asked. "Everything alright?"


    I looked down at Bucky only to find his prosthetic arm had fallen off in the middle of the night. In its ce was a fully flesh and blood limb,pletely healed. Even the scars where his prosthetic had been attached had faded.


    "Damn that''s great." I said with a smile. "I had hoped the amulet was capable of fixing limbs but I wasn''t sure."


    I bent down and picked up the arm, examining it for a minute beforeying it on another nearby table. I took a look at my phone to check the time.


    "Alright, we have an hour or so before he starts to wake up." I said, taking a look around. "I''m going to grab some breakfast, I know I''m hungry and he would probably like a decent meal."


    Steve nodded absentmindedly, watching his brother in all but blood, while Peggy gave me a look and a smile. I walked out of the tent, Ema following me out.


    "I assume you want me to stay here?" She asked as I shifted my clothes to their morepact and civilian looking states.


    "Yeah, if he wakes up as the Winter Soldier you''ll be able to pin him down pretty easily." I exined, pulling off my knockout buzzer and handing it to my partner. "Use that to put him out for another eight hours. And keep an eye on my Amulet."


    Ema nodded and I traveled away, appearing back in my apartment. I let out a long sigh before rushing through a quick shower and heading out into New York City. I bought a dozen fresh bagels and some cream cheese from a nearby shop before finding an alleyway to travel back to the quarry. All of this took just over an hour, between riding my bike through the city and waiting in line for the bagels. When I got back everyone was under therge tent, with Steve and Peggy standing beside the now awake Bucky Barnes.


    The haggard looking man was sitting on the edge of the makeshift bed, hands on his knees as he looked at the ground. Steve had his hand on his shoulder while Peggy rubbed his back. Ema, who had been watching off to the side, was the only one who noticed me, quickly heading out of the tent to give the three some privacy.


    "He woke up a few minutes ago." She exined. "Screaming at the top of his lungs. As far as Steve can tell the brainwashing is gone, but he remembers everything."


    "Damn" I said simply, shaking my head. "I honestly don''t know what would have been worse, this or not remembering at all."


    For about forty five minutes Ema and I sat outside, with me sitting on a rock and Ema making azy perimeter of the quarry, keeping an eye out, more out of habit than anything. I passed the time by making a few lists on my phone, preparing for a few crucial builds. Just as I was finishing one list someone cleared their throat in front of me. Bucky had walked out of the tent and was staring at me.


    "Hey." He said, his voice a little rough, probably from disuse. "Steve said I''ve got you to thank for the quick rescue."


    "I just make the stuff Mr. Barnes, getting you out was a three way effort." I said with a shrug, stepping forward to offer my hand. "It''s good to meet you."


    Bucky reached out and shook my hand, gripping it a bit tightly, loosening quickly however. He looked a bit lost when I released his hand, standing in the rising sun, looking around.


    "How much did they fill you in?"


    "The basics mostly." He said simply. "I remember almost all of it, not much to fill in."


    I nodded, trying my best to seem sympathetic. After a moment I flicked out a card, pushing the tablet that tracked Bucky''s location. I held it out to him.


    "This is how we found you." I said simply. "It shows your location at all times. It''s a bit invasive for me now that we have you back so"


    Bucky reached out and took the tablet, studying it for a moment before handing it back.


    "I want you to keep it." He said. "I feel better, more clear. My memories of before are back but I would feel better if someone could track me down."


    "Sure thing Mr. Barnes." I said with a nod, re-carding the tablet.


    "Bucky, please." He said with a small smile on his face. "You gave me back my life with a ne. You can call me Bucky."


    As if remembering something, Bucky dug into his pocket and pulled out my amulet, passing it back to me. I of course immediately put it back on, tucking it under my shirt.


    "Thanks."


    "How''s your stomach?" He asked, looking down slightly.


    "Completely healed." I said with a shrug. "The healing amuletse in handy. I''m honestly not sure even a head shot would have put me down at this point, at least as long as it didn''t kill me instantly. Not that I''m jumping to test it out."


    "Good." He said, his voice sounding like a cross between a warning and a confession. "If you hadn''t disabled my arm I would have been holding that bow, And I wouldn''t have been aiming for your stomach."


    "Well then, I''m d disabling your arm had the intended effect." I said with a small smile, standing up off of the rock and dusting myself off. With a flick of my wrist I summoned two cards, pushing the contents of both, one in each hand.


    "Alright. You hungry Bucky?" I asked, holding out the two bags.


    "... Are those bagels?"

 Chapter 48: Back to making

    Chapter 48: Back to making


    Hello everyone! So I revealed this on Wednesday on a Mettle, Metal, Meddled chapter, but it''s a rather important announcement so here it is again. Starting on June 6th I will be increasing patron benefits across the board. They will be:


    Patrons: ($3) will have ess to a single early chapter of my primary story (The Conceptual Deck)


    Investors: ($5) will have ess to three early chapters from my primary story and one from my secondary (Mettle, Metal, Meddled)


    Board Members: ($7) will have ess to four early chapters from my primary story and two from my secondary, as well as polls that decide story content


    Investors and Board Members both receive five chapters of my original book, Lair Divers Tale, at the beginning of every month


    Again, if this sounds interesting to you please consider showing your support. Either way I hope you enjoy!<hr>


    The five of us sat around one of the workshop tables and ate breakfast, in rtivepanionable silence. Ema of course didn''t eat anything, which caught Peggy''s attention.


    "What''s wrong dear?" She asked after she had finished putting cream cheese on her own bagel. "You know I don''t think I''ve ever seen you eat?"


    Ema opened her mouth to respond but slowly closed it, giving me a look. I shrugged and gestured that it was up to her, all with a mouth full of sesame bagel.


    "Umm There is a reason but it''s not exactly casual conversation." She said eventually. "Perhaps I could exinter, when everything has settled down?"


    "Well alright." Peggy said after a moment, Steve only shrugging. "I don''t mean to pry, if it''s not something you wish to share"


    "It''s fine Peggy." Mypanion responded, giving the once elderly woman a reassuring smile. "I don''t mind telling you it''s just a lot."


    Steve and Peggy assured her she could take her time while Bucky still just seemed to be taking in the fact that she was blue. Eventually, when Steve and Bucky were on their third bagel and I had finished my second andst, Peggy brought up what the next step was going to be.


    "I''ll be honest guys." I said a bit sheepishly. "Last night was intense. I"


    Peggy''s expression softened and she nodded.


    "You don''t need to participate in these raids, Maker." She assured me. "You have already done so much. This well you didn''t sign up for this."


    "I want to help." I assured her, toying with an empty card. "But I also need a break. My armor is damaged and I need to repair it, along with a few other projects."


    "The three of us are going to return and assist Fury in any way we can." Steve said. "I would have preferred if Bucky spent a day or two recovering but"


    "I''m not hanging back while you go out and stop those bastards." Bucky said simply. "Give me a minute with some scissors and I''ll be good to go."


    I barely managed to hold back my own scoff at the idea that Bucky would be "all good" after the years he spent doing Hydra''s dirty work. I kept my mouth shut though, simply standing and heading out to the shed, grabbing a pair of scissors and returning. They were finally dropping the discussion when I returned and put the scissors in front of the long ragged haired man.


    "None of you are leaving until I make a suit for Bucky." I said simply, getting a grateful nod from all three of them. "Which reminds me, you still have your enhanced strength?"


    "Yeah, if anything it feels more natural now. Like it fits better in my body." He said, shrugging after a moment.


    "Good, that means Steve can wear his healing amulet." Peggy said with a smile. Steve, who was reaching over to grab the scissors, simply nodded while Bucky stood and grabbed his chair.


    "Are you going to cut his hair?" Peggy asked as the three of them stepped outside into thete morning sun.


    "Yeah. I learned from my mom. Money was tight growing up and every bit adds up." He exined with a shrug. "I used to cut his hair all the time."


    "Well while you guys are doing that I''m going to go do some shopping. I need a few things to make some armor and everything for Bucky." I said, getting a nod from Bucky and Steve. "It won''t be anything life changing, just the basics. I won''t even be able to make you a regenerating gun, we are all out of revolvers, shotguns and lever actions."


    "I''ll make due." He said simply.


    As Steve started cutting his best friend''s hair I traveled back to Texas, leaving Ema behind to watch over them. My shopping trip took about three hours and took me to a metal shop to replenish some of my metal ting, the sporting goods store as well as thest body armor shop I hadn''t been to yet within an hour of the Texasnding pad. I made a few other stops as well, mostly to pick up what I needed for another healing amulet. I bought a ck leather jacket and some other casual clothes as well before traveling back to the quarry.


    Steve had finished Bucky''s haircut, the majority of his once long hair cut short into what could only be described as the standard short mens haircut. I nodded in approval as I walked back into my tent, pushing out my various bags before walking to my metal area and pushing out a few stacks of metal. When I returned Bucky was going through the bags.


    "You''re really going to turn this stuff into bulletproof armor?" He asked skeptically, though he was still talking softly.


    "Yup." I responded simply. "Grab a seat and watch if you''d like."


    He did just that, pulling a chair back and watching me as I worked through a simple armored undersuit in the usual method, finishing the armor with a few sheets of super metal. I also added some Ker and electric and heat resistant cloth to his jacket and pants. My final gift was triple stacking myst three 1911''s and making it adjustable.


    "You''re going to have to ask someone to give you some clips." I exined,ying out everything for him to check out. "But first we need to get these all bonded to you."


    He was a little hesitant to offer up his blood, but eventually he agreed. We used the hair he had gotten cut off to bind all of his new equipment. His Jacket shifted to a dark blue leather, almost ck, while his undersuit shifted to a solid matte ck, losing the bands of metal just like Steve''s and Peggy''s had. I didn''t bother binding the shirt and pants to him as they were just enhanced with a few sheets of Ker and other cloth. I did bind his helmet however, turning it into something simr to what Steve''s was. It shifted color to a solid ck, without the retractable facemask.


    "This is just the basic stuff, don''t go testing it against a fifty cal or anything." I said as he tried out his helmet. "Later when we have more time we can work on adding in all the special things that really cranks my stuff to eleven."


    "Why?" He asked.


    "Because it''s what I do. What I''m trying to do." I said with a shrug. "I make sure the good guys have the equipment to kick ass and take names."


    "I''m not-"


    "I''m sure Steve has said this already, but the Winter Soldier wasn''t you." I said confidently. "You got your mind fucked royally by the most twisted fuckers Hydra could get their hands on. As far as anyone who matters will be concerned, Bucky Barnes went to sleep when you fell off that train and woke up this morning."


    Bucky looked down at the helmet I had just fucked with thews of physics to make for him, turning it over in his hands.


    "You made something to fix me." He said, looking up at me and continuing. "Could you make something to wipe my memory? The memories of being him."


    I looked at him for a long moment, leaning back in my chair. After a pause I nodded.


    "I could, eventually. I would have to spend some time figuring out how, but with enough time and creativity there isn''t much I can''t do with the Deck. But it would take a lot of time and To be honest I''m not sure that I should. Fucking with memory is a slope I''m not sure I want to risk climbing."


    Bucky slowly nodded, standing up from his seat before putting on his helmet.


    "It fits perfectly." He said, his voice slightly muffled. "Thank you for making it."


    "It''s not a problem. Here." I said, handing him one of my secure phones. "I''m sure you can figure out how to use it."


    "I already know." He said, looking at the phone. "They would update me on important tech so I could use it or anticipate it."


    "Well this is something special. It''s perfectly secure and untraceable." I exined. "It just works, no phone n, Wifi or cell towers needed."


    "Thank you." He said with a nod, sliding the phone into one of the pockets in his new jacket. "Are you going to bring us back to DC?"


    "That''s what Peggy wants." I said with a shrug.


    The two of us made our way out of the tent to where Steve, Peggy and Ema were waiting.


    "Fury has a car waiting for us a few blocks away from yournding pad?" Peggy exined, hesitating over the name. "He is under the impression we spent the night somewhere in DC."


    "Alright, it looks like you guys are ready to go?" I asked, getting a nod in return. "Good0. Look, it sounded like you guys are going to be doing small scale missions for a while, while Fury prepares some of the bigger operations. I''m here if you need me for therger operations, but I have some work to do before I''m ready. Not the least of which is repairing my armor. Which reminds me, tell Fury we are going to be having words about how Hydra got their hands on those arrows without me knowing about it."


    "Will do Maker." Steve agreed with a nod.


    I traveled all three of them to DC, making two trips. When I returned Ema was waiting for me.


    "Carson I -" She started, already sounding guilty.


    "I don''t want to hear it, Ema." I said, cutting her off. "It was not your fault. Neither of us considered they would be re-usable."


    "I should have recovered the arrows." She said, looking down.


    "Bullshit. We should have both been recovering arrows, but neither of us thought about it. I was using them for longer than you have been and I didn''t have a single thought about recovering arrows. If you want to me something, me my danger sense. Turns out a sixth sense suddenly screaming into your brain can be distracting enough to fuck with your head. Remind me to fix that."


    I walked past her into the tent, plopping down in my chair. I let out a long sigh as Ema joined me, already having shed her exosuit.


    "What are your ns?"


    "Repairing my suit, then cracking flight."


    "How are you going to repair your armor?" She asked, watching as I carded my undersuit off of my body beforeying it out on the table. It still had some blood on it, and a surprisinglyrge hole where the arrow had punched through.


    "I need to upgrade the repair tablet until it repairs everything." I said. "It already has some powerful repair concepts that I should be able to do that with a bunch of tools and some general repair books. Once that''s done we are working on flight until we crack it."


    "And then?"


    "Then we help Shield where we can. Once they''ve been stabilized I have a few ideas about making a difference in everyday peoples lives that they should be able to help me with."


    I pulled out my phone and finished my first list, which ended up being more than a hundred separate items. My repair tablet had taken a ridiculous amount of materials to make and I was attempting to turn it into a device that would repair everything. When I was done looking over my list I traveled to Chicago to start my shopping spree


    I started with multiple home improvement stores, buying a ridiculous amount of tools. I spent almost three thousand dors on power tools alone, piling them into the back of my truck to cardter. I bought dozens of gun repair kits, tools meant for fine detailed repair and tools meant forrge scale building and metal work, as well as spare parts for everything I could get my hands on. I ended up spending most of the day traveling from shop to shop. In the end I ended up spending almost twenty thousand dors, filling my deck in the process.


    My final trips across Chicago were spent bouncing between book stores, buying close to a hundred books on repairs. Books on aircraft repair, home repair,puter, guns, anything I could find, ranging from simple fixes toplicated information on fixingplicated things. The sun was setting by the time I carded my truck and Traveled home.


    "Did you get everything?" Ema asked, floating around me as I sat down.


    "Hopefully. I spent a lot of money."


    After a break for dinner, a cheese steak sub from a restaurant in Chicago, I started putting things together, mixing and matching to keep everything even, adding in plenty of magic rods to help smooth it all together. The tools were mixed with repair books andbined down before mixing in all of the spare parts I bought. At this point I didn''t like where the concepts where leading so I traveled to Texas, visiting a few stores and buying anything I could find that called itself a "Repair kit", dropping almost another thousand dors on repair kits for pools, tires, leather, windows, leaking tubs, several types of broken electronics and a dozen others. Ibined those all into one card and added it into the growing amalgamation, once again adding magic rods to smooth everything together.


    Now satisfied that it was back on track I mixed in a few rolls of duct tape, glue, rolls of soldering wire and a bunch of other raw materials. When that was all done Ibined everything down to a single card, beforebining that with a quad stacked Stark Industries brand tablet.


    Holding the carded repair tablet and the repair, spare parts, tools and tablet amalgamation I took a deep breath.


    "You could always make another repair tablet if this fails." Ema pointed out.


    I nodded and pushed the cards together. The result was still an A rank card, even if I could feel it pushing the boundaries. I pushed it out onto the table, lifting it up and turning it over in my hand. The tablet part itself was more streamlined, the outer band a familiar copper color, while the UI seemed to be much more detailed and intuitive than the previous version. Further, what had once been two beefy, jumper cable like wires that you connected to the car you wanted to repair, was now a single cord, ending in what looked suspiciously like a USB.


    I pushed the plug into my undersuit, which was stillying out on the table. The tablet lit up and showed a rotating model of the undersuit, highlighting the damaged part as well as a few dozen less noticeable areas of damage, mostly just deep scratches. Interestingly there was now a percentage involved with the repair, letting me know just how much was broken, and to what degree. With a smile I selected repair all and let it go, watching a time of ten minutes pop up.


    Before I could celebrate I disconnected the table and left the tent, flicking out my civilian truck and quickly hooking up the tablet to the hood. With a smile I flicked through the options for repair, mostly cosmetic issues that I purposely leftst time I repaired it.


    "And that is my repair problems sorted." I said with a smile, walking back to the tent, reconnecting the tablet to my undersuit and setting it to repair all.


    "Carson Don''t you have something else that is broken?"


    "What do you mean?"


    "The Destroyer''s arm."


    My eyes went wide and looked over at her, floating to my left. I pushed the arm out of the card it had been residing in since I had found it, examining it in its real form for the first time. It was huge, which made sense considering what it had been pulled from, but I had forgotten just howrge the Destroyer had been. Unable to help myself I disconnected my undersuit again and plugged the repair tablet into the arm.


    A slowly spinning model of the Destroyer showed up on the screen, the vast majority of it colored bright red. I checked the total repair time.


    "Seven days to repair one of Asgard''s most dangerous weapons." I said dully, clicking through to another tab, going through the list of things the tablet wanted to repair.


    It was a long list.


    "I don''t even know what a lot of this stuff is." I said to Ema, putting the tablet down and leaning back in my chair.


    Ema floated down, essing the tablet easily and scrolling through the same list. After a minute or so she perked up and turned to look at me.


    "''Sympathetic Soul Control Mechanism'' sounds an awful lot like how the armor was being controlled." Ema pointed out. "And ''Artificial Magicborn Sub-Intelligence'' sounds a bit like its control software."


    "I I guess?" I agreed, sitting up and looking at the tablet. "What are you thinking?"


    "I''m thinking that if you set this to repair but leave out the parts that made it an unstoppable killing machine under someone else''s control you couldbine it with your armor and bind it to yourself."


    "Holy fuck Ema, that''s brilliant!"


    Over the next hour Ema and I poured over the list of "broken" parts,ing up with several other things to leave out of the repair list. The most shocking was some sort of connection to the Odin Force.


    "That I''m pretty sure Odin would crack the before letting someone else tap into the Odin Force." I said, fighting off my rising fear. "Especially a mortal."


    "We don''t know if it will function without it." Ema pointed out.


    "We don''t need it to function." I countered, continuing to exin when her frame twisted to look at me. "If we repair it to a certain level of functionality it will still hold all the important concepts. It will still hold the broken concept as well, but with the tablet"


    "You think it could repair it? Even something broken nebulously by a concept?"


    "There is only one way to find out!"

 Chapter 49: Leaving the ground

    Chapter 49: Leaving the ground


    Ema and I poured over the repair list for the arm, settling on a final list of what we were going to leave out once we were ready. When we were done the list was eight parts long, having to do with its connection to the Odin Force, the ability to control it remotely and several other parts of what drove it. It also apparently had its own repair function that could fix minor issues, which we regretfully added to the list. Having armor that could slowly repair itself over time was nice, even if it was minor things, but the chance that one of the things we didn''t want would be re-created was too high.


    When we were satisfied with the list I disconnected the repair tablet and got it working on my undersuit, before lugging the arm outside and setting it on a nearby rock.


    "What are you doing?" Ema asked as I adjusted the position of the arm, pushing it around until a small portion of the broken end was hanging off the edge.


    "A few of the thing''s we don''t want to repair are still partially intact." I said, getting a slight bobble in agreement. She had after all seen the same list I had. "But if we repair it from an even smaller chunk?"


    "Then those things might be fully offline." Ema finished. "That''s a solid idea but how are you going to get that chunk?"


    I pushed out my sword from its card, flourishing a bit before checking the de.


    "I stacked twenty different swords and a dozen tes of magic super metal into this one sword." I exined. "The cutting concept blows past anything I have ever made before."


    I touched my marksman''s ring, turning it into my melee ring before cranking the de''s power all the way to its maximum. I lowered myself into a falsely familiar stance, held the sword at ready and swung it downwards. The de impacted exactly where I wanted, letting out a reverberating thunk as it lost a significant amount of its momentum. It still carved into the metal, cutting off a few twisted ends of the arm, scattering four pieces of metal onto the ground.


    I reached out and carded the arm before picking up the chunks of Asgardian mystery metal. I was headed back to the tent when I carded my sword and froze. It now had a noticeable damaged concept to it. With a flick I pushed it back out and examined the normally sharp de, noting a serious chip and noticeable hairline crack.


    "What the hell?" I said. "Look at this!"


    Ema scanned the de and let out a humming noise as she focused on the damage.


    "You really messed that up." She said, floating away, backwards. "What did you do?"


    "I I don''t know." I admitted. "I mean if there was anything that could damage it I''m not surprised it''s the destroyer armor but still."


    I carded it, examining the concepts in detail. When I had put the sword together it was a bit of a rush job. I had attempted to make it stronger by adding in sheets of super metal, but I had a sneaking suspicion it hadn''t been enough.


    "Its cutting concept is extremely high, way higher than its strength concept, even with its super metal aspectsyered in." I eventually said, shaking my head as I realized the problem. "It has an edge that can cut through almost anything, but it isn''t strong enough to do it without damaging itself."


    I quickly headed back into the tent and hooked up the universal repair tablet to the de, setting it to repair everything when I read it would only take fifteen minutes. With the tablet upied with my sword I took three of the four armor shards and put them into a small bag from the shed before carding the bag.


    With nothing to do for the next fourteen minutes Ema and I made a final brainstorming list about how we would achieve flight. In some ways we were spoiled for choice in how to get the concept of flight, but in practice I was worried whatever we made wouldn''t be realistic. Drones, paper airnes, helium balloons, model rocket engines, RC nes and helicopters. Hell you can buy miniature jet engines at the right hobby shop!


    To help narrow it down, Ema and I broke up what we needed to four points. It needed to be fast, it needed to be safe, and it needed to be precise. I couldn''t just strap rockets to my back and st off, I needed a way to control myself, the more precise the better. However, if it wasn''t safe and fast then being pinpoint urate meant nothing. The final point, and probably the most important is that it needed to be practical. I couldn''t fly around the city with spinning propellers strapped to myself, or risk starting fires every time I took off ornded because I had rockets strapped to my feet.


    After a bit more nning I decided it was time to head home for dinner and sleep. I disconnected my sword from the repair tablet and plugged in the fourth chunk of destroyer armor. My theory had been correct, starting with a much smaller piece meant that almost everything was at zero percent. This meant that while the total repair time was now eight days, anything we didn''t want repaired wouldn''t exist when we were done. Ema and I carefully went over the list of things we wanted to fix again, double and triple checking before clicking the repair button and resting it on a table. After a pause I pulled it off the table, carded it and reinforced the work surface with a few sheets of titanium and tungsten before setting everything back up.


    When that was all set Ema and I spent a half hour cleaning up, though I left the storage shed in ce.


    "Alright, I''ll be back around noon tomorrow, maybe a littleter." I said when we were done. "I want to have bought everything to try my first and second ideas."


    Ema nodded and with a wave I traveled home, leaving her to keep watch over the quarry and more importantly the repair tablet and shard of Destroyer armor.


    - <em>The Next Morning </em>-


    I woke up the next morning and quickly went through my routine. It was a shopping day, which meant a lot of traveling and spending money. This particr shopping day was going to be a bit different though. I was going to do some of it as Maker.


    I wasn''t going to show up anywhere in full armor, because that would be a good way to get in some stupid trouble. But I would be openly driving around the super truck and carding what I bought. While I wasn''t ecstatic about it, some of the things I wanted to buy would be too big and difficult to transport without the Deck. Instead of wasting days anding up with whatever crazy bullshit that would get things delivered to empty parking lots or to fake addresses, I would just card them. It was a bit of a big step, but Ema and I felt like we were ready for it.


    I changed my face with my mask and traveled out to my upstate New Yorknding pad, pushing out the super truck and driving an hour to a smallish runway. The runway wasn''t why I was there however. The owner had a warehouse full of old airne parts, including a few spare wings from a basic Cessna propeller ne. He also had a mostly functional set of hang gliding equipment. I bought it all, and managed to keep the owner from freaking out when I carded them.


    When I was done I traveled back to the city and switched to my civilian truck before driving to an apartment building to buy two wingsuits from a man whose wife just found out she was pregnant. I threw those in the back of the truck, carding them before traveling to Texas to buy another fully working hang glider as well as two more wingsuits, all from separate people. All of it was in decent shape, but I dropped them off at the quarry so that Ema could fix up any ring issues, putting the armor on hold.


    After dropping off therger stuff I went out and searched for everything having to do with flight I could get my hands on. The list was long, but I honestly didn''t know what would actually be useful. I was trolling hobby shops for everything I could find, including parts for RC nes and helicopters. By the time I was done I was down ten grand, just in flying stuff. I also bought a few skateboards and snowboards.


    I was about to go home when Ema sent me a location, a shop in Chicago that imed to be a costume, cosy, theater shop. The pictures looked like the description wasn''t far off, but I wasn''t sure why she thought I needed to go there. I sent her a message as I was eating lunch and all she would say was to trust her.


    When I entered the shop I immediately knew why she had sent me. Standing on disy, strapped to a mannequin was an incredibly intricate set of costume wings. They were obviously mechanical in nature, and a que described them as cosy wings. Despite the fact that there wasn''t a price tag on them I offered the store owner three thousand dors for them. When she got over her shock she said these had a special ce in her shop as they were the first pair she made, but she had another she could sell me. So I offered her four grand for each of them.


    When she had confirmed my purchase had gone through I put a down payment on another set, and as many as she could make past that, with the added guideline of making them as robustly as possible. When she agreed I gave her the number for my secure line, before carding them right in front of her, leaving with a smile. I immediately headed back to the quarry, eager to finally take a solid crack at personal flight. I pushed the mechanical wings out onto a table to the side, before checking out the armor. So far only the shoulder and some of the arm had been reformed, but it was noticeable progress.


    Happy with the progress of my future projects I focused on my current one, gathering and examining everything I had bought. I grabbed a few examples of rc nes, spare model jet engines, and rocket engines and mixed them together, blending the concepts until it basically just directional thrust. I took one of the snowboards and added a few of my blended thrusters, adding in a Cessna wing as well as plenty of magic rods, which I had restocked the materials for while I was shopping.


    When I was done with my first experiment I examined the card. It was B rank, which did not fill me with the most confidence. I flicked the card a few feet away, the new creation popping out on the ground, only to fall over on its side.. The result reminded me a lot of the surfboard looking thing from Treasure, minus the sr wind sail. It had a couple of thrusters at the back, a sort of rudder that ran along under it. I frowned and carded it again, examining the concepts as I headed back into the shop. I quicklybined a half dozen gyroscope sensors and stabilizing fins, before finishing it off with a te of super metal, though I left out the tungsten and added in extra aluminum.


    This time when I pushed the flying board out it stood straight up and down all by itself, the rubber like formation on the bottom the only thing touching the ground. I was about to step into the foot straps when Ema caught me,ing back from a patrol I assumed.


    "Please tell me you weren''t about to try that out without activating your armor?" She said, sounding defeated and frustrated.


    "Ummm no?" I responded sheepishly before activating my armor.


    I put my boots into the straps, locking them in tight. I envisioned setting this up as a transformation of some sort, probably worked into my boots, because strapping in like this each time I wanted to fly would be ridiculous. Once I was strapped in I could feel the connection to board the. I pushed down with my front foot and the thrusters spun up in response, pushing me forward. Once I was going I lifted my front foot up, the board pulling up into the air.


    Soon I was riding around the quarry, making slow loops and turns. It was a little nerve racking flying around like this, and I soon found a ratherrge problem. While the board was intuitive to use, its turning speed was way too slow. It wasn''t a problem when I was doingzy turns to get used to it, but I could feel myself losing even more maneuverability as I sped up. Thirty miles an hour I was struggling to turn around inside the quarry clearing. Inded, which was an interesting experience in and of itself, and tinkered around with it some more. I was able to work in a little more maneuverability with some additional parts from the RC nes but the drop off was still too high when I reached any reasonable speed.


    With my first experiment technical sess but a practical failure, I passed the board to Ema to experiment with while I returned to the tent, eager to start on my second attempt.


    It started withbining a wing suit with a pair of Cessna wings, then another wingsuit with one of the now fully repaired hang gliders. I took both of those andbined them with a few sheets of extra light magic super metal and a half dozen gyroscopes. When I was done with that I grabbed one of the most important parts of this attempt, an unreasonable amount of real wing feathers from various hawks and owls.


    The feathers were surprisingly expensive, but I still emptied almost a dozen stores of their entire stock. I took the feathers andbined them together in groups,bining two sheets of the extra light magic super metal so that they belonged in a group together. The result was twenty eight feather groups, each of them filled with two dozen enhanced, metallic feathers. I set aside half of the groups to potentially make a second version since I was now out of usable feathers.


    I broke down two of the feather groups and added them individually to the wingsuitbos I made earlier, beforebining them both together. I quickly put together six thrust packages, then blended them with magic and another two groups of feathers,bining them until they were just feathers with the concepts of thrust.


    I added three of the thrust feathers to the wingsuit conglomerate, before carding one of the fake wings. I studied the concepts, realizing that the biggest hurdle here would be minimizing the concepts of fake that it held. Before I could talk myself out of it Ibined it with a few sheets of my new flight metalbination, before mixing in five whole stacks of my enhanced feathers, followed by my remaining thrust feathers.


    "God I hope this works." I mumbled to myself as Ibined the new enhanced wings with the wingsuitbination, finishing it off with a single spark from Thor, one of three remaining.


    The final result was an A ranked card that was aplicated mess of flying, magic and other enhancements. I had no idea if they would work. I pushed my newest creation out into my hands, and was surprised to catch a back pack of sorts. It was metal, aplicated harness system that probably came from the original cosy wings. The metal pack itself was a foot and a half long and a foot wide, a streamlined shape that looked like an upside down teardrop, the thinner end pointed down.


    After a minute or so of trying to figure out how to slide into the harness I gave up and carded my deployed chest armor off of myself, recarded the back pack andbined them together. I was already working on better armor, so I wasn''t too concerned about what would happen to this set. The wings on the other hand had to work.


    Silently praying that I didn''t just royally screw it up I quickly put my armor back on, shrank it then redeployed it. Both forms had the same long teardrop shaped pack, the extra mass barely even noticeable. Anxious and eager I stepped out of the tent and closed my eyes, focusing on my desire to fly.


    Slowly I could feel something shift behind me, almost as if an extension of myself was emerging. I opened my eyes and flexed, and sure enough, wide metallic wings pushed into view. I reached out and touched one, running my fingers through the feathers. They were cold, but still soft to the touch, but tough enough that I couldn''t break or damage any of them by hand. I focused on stretching them, feeling them move and how doing so changed my center of bnce. I had a wingspan of twelve, maybe fourteen feet.


    Now for the important part.


    I took a slow breath, releasing it out after a moment, before pping my wings experimentally. It was bizarre that I could feel them, and yet I knew they were a separate part of me. I beat and pped, feeling how the different movements worked. After a few minutes of experimentation I pushed off with my feet and flew into the air.


    Working the metal wings was intuitive and easy, almost like second nature. For a moment I wondered if it was a side effect of the magic, of Thor''s spark or abination of the two. I didn''t dwell on it long however, as I quickly realized that my feet hadn''t touched the ground yet!


    I looked down and saw the ground bing farther and farther away. I couldn''t help butugh as I pushed harder, my wings whipping in the wind as I darted forward. In the distance I saw Ema, pushing the limits of the hover board. With a grin I darted forward, thend whooshing by underneath me as I flew towards her. As I moved I rolled back and forth, feeling the air pushing against my metal feathers, tugging at my wing tips.


    She noticed me before long, slowing and turning, lowering to the ground. I followed her in, ring my wings out to slow myself down,nding in a half stumble before catching myself. Her pure emerald eyes trailed back and forth over my wings before focusing on me.


    "So Are you making mine next?"<hr>


    Just a reminder about my pa_tre_on and its newly updated and increased tier rewards! Check it out if your interested, otherwise I hope you enjoyed!

 Chapter 50: Squad

    Chapter 50: Squad


    Hello! I''m going to be away tomorrow, with spotty ess to the inte, so I decided to release this chapter early!


    Enjoy!<hr>


    It took a fraction of the time to make the second pair of wings for Ema than it did to make my pair, mostly because I didn''t need to pause every step of the way to double check the concepts and n out the next steps. Unlike mine, which were bound to me because Ibined it with my deployable armor, Ema''s was not bound to her, which led to some problems once she put them on.


    "How do you control them so well?" She asked, her wings extended but sort of just hanging there. "I can sort of feel them but they barely respond."


    I had her take them off, frowning as I examined them, carding them to double check the concepts. As far as I could tell they were almost identical to what mine had been. Eventually I realized it was theck of binding that was causing the issue. The solution was to work in a secure cell phone, some left over controllers and radio controls that I got with the RC ne parts. A quick test showed a strong improvement, but not nearly as good as I expected. In atch ditch effort I traveled to Chicago and managed to buy a few Emeralds. Ibined them together and added them to the wings. This time when she put them on they instantly pushed open, moving with much more precision. She lifted off of the ground with augh, flying into the air and darting off.


    I couldn''t resist following after her, pushing my wings out of the teardrop shaped pack. With a few steady ps I rose into the air and rushed after her, quickly catching up. We stopped mid air, probably a hundred feet from the ground and hovered, wingszily pping. Ema smirked and darted away, and the chase was on.


    For what was probably around an hour we flew across the sky, spinning, diving and darting around, doing our best to set a pace the other couldn''t keep up. After a particrly daring dive that I barely managed to pull out from, we both stopped about twenty feet off the ground.


    "They don''t work quite like real wings." Ema pointed out. "We shouldn''t be able to hover like this without flying like hummingbirds."


    "I noticed that. I''m too nimble as well I think." I added, looking around the quarry. "Any idea how fast we were going?"


    "You were hitting about a hundred and thirty." She said, her emerald eyes looking over the trees. "Your dives were much faster."


    "Hmm not nearly as fast as I was hoping." I said, frowning. "How fast was the board?"


    "Only a bit faster."


    "Alright. Let''snd. I''m going to see if I can''t scrounge up some more feathers."


    Afternding I quickly changed into a more reasonable civilian look before going back out, looking for more real feathers. It took a little while but I managed to buy some more from some shops I missed in Texas. When I got back I quickly went through the process of making more thrust feathers, adding them to both of our wings. Ema timed me again, and this time I was able to hit almost a hundred and seventy miles an hour.


    "Better, but not enough." I said, shaking my head. "I''m not going to get much more out of small scale RC parts though."


    "Diminishing returns?" Ema asked.


    "Kinda?" I asked, before exining. "More like the magnitude of thrust required to move me a hundred seventy miles per hour is great enough that these small additions aren''t doing much anymore. I need better sources of thrust, but it still needs to be small enough that I canyer out its structure with feathers."


    "...You could talk to Tony Stark?" Ema suggested. "You did say you needed to make contact with him."


    "And I do." I agreed. "But is now really the time for that?"


    "I mean who has a better source of thrust than Iron Man?" She pointed out.


    "You''re not wrong" I said, hemming and hawing before making my decision. "I''m going to call Fury, ask for an update. We can decide after we know what''s going on."


    We flew down to the quarry,nding in front of the tent and plopping down into a seat after folding and tucking my wings back into theirpact state. Fury picked up his phone almost immediately.


    "Hey Fury, its Maker."


    "Maker, it''s good to hear from you." He said, throwing me off guard a bit. "Peggy was a bit vague about what you were up to."


    "I needed time, that''s all." I exined. "I had some repairs to do, and I had a project I needed to finish. That''s all done though."


    "Good. How soon can you prepare the equipment for my squad?"


    "I could have it done by tomorrow, if it was my top priority. " I admitted. "Should that be my top priority? Also, just how many people are on this squad?"


    "Yes, it should be." He answered simply. "And there are eight agents in the squad."


    "And what about thoserger strikes you have nned?"


    "If you arm a squad of Shields finest like you armed Steve, Peggy and Bucky then that will be more than enough." He exined. "Your equipment has literally saved Shield from whatever fucked up ns that Hydra had. But no offense Maker, you are an unwieldy sledgehammer when I need scalpels. Steve, Peggy and Bucky know how to scale back, how to be precise and most importantly how to follow orders. I saw what you did to Pierce Maker. I need less of that."


    "To be fair I had just been impaled by my own arrows." I said, reaching down to activate my lie detection belt. "Which reminds me, how many more of my arrows do you have?"


    "We have recovered quite a few." He exined without a hint of shame. "All of which can be returned to you."


    "What do you have?"


    "A handful of Ice, shock, your rope arrows that keep people quiet and a few chain arrows." He said honestly. "We also have the pieces of several explosive ones, those are inert."


    "Fine. I''ll be in to pick them up at the Triskelion. Don''t forget the deal."


    "We will have your loaned equipment ready." He assured me. "But why the Triskelion?"


    "I assumed it would be easier for you." I said with a shrug, despite the fact that Fury couldn''t see me. "And I want to see it."


    "We don''t give out tours." He said, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice. "But it would be easier."


    "Great. See you tomorrow." I said, before quickly adding. "Oh! And make sure all of your people have the samples I need ready, with a secure room for me to work in."


    "Fine." He responded, before hanging up. I looked down at my phone for a moment before shrugging.


    "Alright. Apparently Shield doesn''t want my help." I exined, getting a surprised look from Ema. "Fury said I am a sledgehammer when he needs scalpels."


    "...Well I mean"


    "Oh fuck you."


    With that conversation over, I spent the rest of the day and part of the night shopping and putting together the equipment for Fury''s enhanced squad. I wasn''t cranking anything to eleven for them, but I definitely didn''t phone it in.


    Each agent would get a bulletproof undersuit and helmet, silent armored boots, a strength enhancing cuff and a stamina/speed enhancing cuff. I made a few extra speed cuffs as well, figuring they were rtively harmless equipment that I could give as incentives or gifts. I also made the quadruple stacked pocket knives that I made sure couldn''t cut through my undersuit on its highest setting. My final additions were a minor healing amulet for each agent and two healing shlights. Fury or whoever was in charge of the squad would have to pick who they went to.


    I was beginning to regret promising such arge order when Ema spoke up, sounding rather disappointed.


    "Carson, please tell me you''re not worried about keeping track of anything when you spent so much time working on those tracking tablets."


    I let out a long sigh and shook my head, before spending myst half hour at the quarry putting together a tracker for everything that I have made using the Deck. I basicallybined a bunch of random stuff together, making sure to really mash up the concepts before working them into the same GPS, tablet andpassbo that I used. It took a lot ofyering and I''m pretty sure the only reason it worked was because I wasyering magic as well as bound charms of Saint Anthony, patron saint of lost things.


    In the end I held a tablet that was abination of seven thousand dors worth of stuff, but urately tracked everything I had ever made. I could even tap on the map points and the tablet would bring up a little picture of the object, the same image that the Deck would show on its card face. I watched some of the rings move around, following what I assumed was a squad of soldiers apprehending Hydra agents, then a few arrows as they started their journey to DC, from a few different ces around New Ennd. I could also see Natasha''s guns at the Triskelion, while Clint''s advanced sses were somewhere in Iowa?


    "Ema, does Shield have a base in Iowa?"


    "Uh. no, not publicly at least." She answered.


    "Ah okay yeah I''m definitely keeping this creation to myself." I said, carding it and flourishing it into the Deck. "It''s a bit too Big Brother for me to show off."


    - <em>The Next Day </em>-


    I spent the first half of the day putting together the guns for Fury''s squad. It took most of the morning, as well as a significant chunk of my remaining guns, but I managed to put together eight different pairs of firearms, a primary and a side arm. Each one was double stacked, was adjustable and had extended magazines. The final count was three M4A1''s, one HK416, one M500 shotgun, two M38 DMR''s and a single M249 machine gun. The belt fed machine gun was a little difficult until I realized I could just expand the box that was attached to the bottom of the gun. For pistols it was a split between five Beretta M9''s and three SIG M11''s. None of them could prate my undersuit.


    When I was done building reality busting weapons I emptied out two crates, which was easy to do considering how low on guns I was now, and stored the weapons away, carding the crates when I was done. After that was ate breakfast before heading to DC.


    I arrived at the Triskelion early in the afternoon, crossing the lone bridge in the super truck. The guards manning the security gate were tense, but quickly waved me through. I continued across the bridge, pulling into the rather interestingly built structure. I pulled up to the main entrance before Ema and I stepped out of the truck, carding it as I did. A bit shy, sure, but Ema had refused to let me fly in so I had to make do.


    I smiled as I saw Natasha by the doorway. She looked tired but as far as I could tell she was uninjured.


    "Hey, how are you?" I asked.


    "About as well as you can imagine." She said with a shrug. "I should thank you though. And not just for the tablets. I owe you, Barton and I both do."


    "What happened?"


    "We almost ran headfirst into a trapst night." She exined. "A few Hydra hiding out in a random safe house had the whole ce rigged to blow. We got close but Clint noticed something suspicious with those sses of his. The bastards still set it off though. Barton caught some shrapnel in his arm."


    "Damn." I said, shaking my head. "He doing okay?"


    "Yeah, Peggy healed him the first time she saw him." The red head super spy said with a small smile. "But he is still taking a day or so to rest."


    "That''s good." I said with a nod. "So Where too?"


    Natasha nodded and turned, heading into the building. It was a steady rush of activity, with everyone looking ragged but determined. People were quickly heading about their business, some people even jogging. We got a lot of looks, probably because Ema and I were all armored up and she was still blue.


    "Getting a lot of attention." Natasha said, smiling over her shoulder as she led me to an elevator.


    "Yeah And none of them are pulling their weapons." I joked, stepping into the enclosed space, Ema following behind. "That''s a good start."


    "Considering how thest few days have gone, I would say that''s a good sign. It''s hard not to see threats everywhere after learning that there were, in fact, threats everywhere."


    "How goes the Hydra hunt anyway?" I asked as she tapped a button and the elevator started going down.


    "We''ve almost cleared out the US of all the smaller pockets." She said, leaning against the wall of the elevator, arms crossed. "We are worried about what some of therger pockets are doing but we are hoping the suddenness of the attack is leaving them scrambled. We seem to have snagged quite a few higher ups in the first twenty four hours, which will hopefully help with that."


    "When are the big strikes nned?" I asked, following her out as the elevator doors opened.


    "As soon as this new squad adapts to the gear you''re bringing."


    We arrived at arge underground training facility, equipped with exercise gear and a small military style obstacle course. I spotted Fury immediately, standing in front of eight Shield agents, all of them standing at attention as he loudly exined the situation to them. To the side was Steve and Bucky, the former waving as he spotted me. I pointed them out to Natasha, who nodded, leading me over.


    "Steve, Bucky, good to see both of you in one piece." I said, shaking both of their hands. "Where is Peggy?"


    "She is spending some time in the infirmary fixing people up." Steve answered. "We are meeting up for lunch."


    Before we could continue making small talk Fury got my attention, gesturing to two crates that were being brought in. They were filled with all of the loaned gear, save the tablets.


    "Seems like everything is here." I said, nodding to Fury. "Before we start this I want to make something absolutely clear. If you make this squad of soldiers into your personal enhanced death squad, or let them get used as the Security Council''s attack dogs, I will hunt them down and take the gear back."


    "They are soldiers Maker." He said, his face in a minor scowl. "What they do isn''t pretty."


    "And I''m not a fucking idiot." I fired right back. "I know the difference between unfortunate necessities and unnecessary brutality. If you misuse them I will get my gear back. Don''t push me to prove you won''t be able to stop me."


    We stared at each other for a full five seconds before Fury nodded. I doubted he liked having to buckle under my demands, even if he most likely shared my worries and convictions.


    "You have my word." He said, without triggering my belt.


    I simply nodded in response, letting Natasha guide me to a separate room. One by one I asked each agent, none of whom I recognized, questions about their allegiances, their belief in Shield''s ideals, everything I could think of. After each interview, and after Emapleted a deep scan of the room for cameras, I bonded their gear to them. The guns and healing shlights were distributed without any fuss either, the Staff Sergeant in charge of the squad quickly telling each soldier what they were getting.


    In all the process took an hour, with most of that time spent on the interviews. I did notice that very little of the equipment changed as I bound them to their new owners. A few color changes happened to the smaller bits, and everything resized to the perfect fit, but in general they stayed the same. I couldn''t help but wonder if that was some sort of meta reaction to them not being main characters in the stories I knew from beforeing here, or if it was just because they saw all of it as equipment for a job and that changed something. Either way Fury was happy that nobody''s guns turned bright red because it was their favorite color.


    When I was done I stepped back into therge training room, watching as eight agents got used to their new limits, with both Steve and Bucky giving them pointers on how to handle their enhanced strength. Before I could head over to offer my own advice, Fury cleared his throat. With him was Natasha, Agent Hill, Agent Coulson, along with another group of agents, around fifteen of them.


    "I assume they are here for the lie detection bands and the knockout buzzers?" I asked.


    "Yes, some of them will be getting the band, some of them the buzzers, a few of them will be getting both."


    "Alright, let''s get this over with."


    In total I bound fifteen knockout rings and fifteen lie detection bands, five of each going to Fury, Natasha, Coulson, Agent Hill and an agent I hadn''t recognized by sight but whose name I did, Bobbi Morse. I racked my brain for anything I could remember about her, but beyond that she was married to Clint for a while and got kidnapped by the Skrull at some point I couldn''t really remember. I did fake a joking question at the start about her being an alien, which got augh, and more importantly an honest negative response.


    About forty five minutester I was finally done and feeling antsy. Natasha seemed to pick up on that, offering to escort me out of the building since I was done.


    "You don''t do sitting still very well, do you?" She asked as we stepped into the elevator.


    "Lately? No, not at all."


    "What changed?" She asked curiously.


    "This, my ability." I said, gesturing to myself, specifically my armor. "It''s hard to just sit and do nothing when I could be doing so much with my ability. Part of it is wanting to help. I could help the world in some crazy ways, but I''m not really a ''starving myself to feed the others'' kind of person and dedicating my life to popping out equipment non stop would be very much starving myself. It''s much more that sitting still seems like such a waste of time."


    "I suppose that''s understandable." She said, but stayed quiet after that.


    We made our way back out into the parking lot, seemingly alone. She turned before I could flick out the super truck.


    "Maker Does your amulet fix things that have been removed?"


    "I think so." I said honestly. "It fixed Bucky''s arm, which seems to point to yes, but there is no way to know without testing it on the specific thing."


    "How does that work exactly?" She asked, looking at me, watching my face. She looked vulnerable for a moment, quickly hiding behind a nk face.


    "It''s a pure concept of healing." I exined. "What is injured, broken or unwell is fixed, returning to a whole state."


    "But is Bucky''s arm still his arm?"


    For a moment I stared at her, my mind flicking through what she could be talking about, trying to figure out if someone she knew was missing something. Then my brain screeched to a halt. Natasha in theics was in some way infertile because of the augments given to her in the red room. She aged extremely slowly and had an improved immune system, but could never get pregnant. She wasn''t one hundred going on thirty in this reality, I knew this because I had handled her blood before, it waspletely un-augmented. Was she still infertile?


    "I would say that it is still his arm. But Honestly there are some implications for other parts that get a little less clear. It''s not something I had considered yet."


    She looked at me for a long moment, her eyes locked on mine before she seemed to settle on something. Before she could say anything I raised her hand.


    "I don''t think a parking garage is the best ce to discuss something like that though." I said, gesturing to the busy and packed lot. "Why don''t you call me, sometime when all this calms down."


    "And you''ll help?" She asked. "I can pay if that''s a problem, it might not-"


    "I don''t want your money Natasha." I said waving her off. "I charged Shield because it''s an organization that can foot the bill and I need money and resources to work on my own projects. This sounds like something much more personal, and I would love to do a favor for a friend."


    She again studied my face before smiling. It was arge smile, not perfect, not crafted to be just the right amount of seductive and reassuring. It was a real smile, the first one I had seen her share.


    It was honestly beautiful.


    "Alright Maker. I''ll give you a call." She said, still smiling.

 Chapter 51: Expanding horizons

    Chapter 51: Expanding horizons


    We were barely over the bridge connecting the Triskelion to the rest of Washington DC when Ema brought up going to see Tony Stark again.


    "He is the best option for getting our hands on thrust as a concept in a small form." She insisted. "Plus who knows what else he could help us with. You did say in someics hees up with an energy shield."


    I let out a sigh and nodded, reluctantly agreeing before looking over at her.


    "Why are you so determined to see him though?" I asked. "I don''t think you have ever harped on something like this before."


    "... I want to meet Jarvis." Ema admitted in a small voice, catching me off guard. She looked away from me and out the window before continuing. "You said he was an AI, an artificial construct like me. I want to meet him."


    "Ema! If you were interested in meeting him you should have told me." I said, shaking my head. "Alright, we will go see Stark."


    We quickly found a ce to covertly travel back to the quarry. I checked on the Destroyer armor, which was making steady progress. It was interesting to see the metal structure slowly growing over time, from the exact point where the original piece had been. While I was doing that Ema was retrieving anding pad from the storage shed and flying around, testing her speed and maneuverability while she was carrying it. Shended next to me when I stepped out from under the tent.


    "It''s noticeable, but mostly in the eleration." She said before pulling the stone b into her chest, her exosuit morphing around it. "I don''t think this small of a load will affect my top speed."


    "Great, that;s perfect. Now being at the quarry will shave off a bunch of time, but I want you to go to Denver first, then to Las Vegas, before heading to Los Angeles." I exined. "Each time you''re going to put down a pad, call me and I''ll bring you another one. Not including the time it will take you to find good spots for thending pads this is about an eleven hour trip. Around ten if you go full tilt"


    "What are you going to be doing in the meantime?"


    "I''m going to do something that I''ve put off for a while, which is take the first steps into modifying myself directly." I responded. "No actual experiments yet, but if I''m going to be experimenting on mice I need to be able to scan them for issues. I can''t exactly ask them questions about their strength levels."


    "So the ultimate scanner?"


    "I''m going to start with a medical scanner, and then move on to something like a scouter from Dragon Ball, but more detailed. That one is going to be interesting.


    "Alright, good luck Carson."


    After watching Ema fly away, I traveled back to New York. I only had a few hours before stores started to close so I wanted to get shopping in my hometown done first so I could switch and gain an extra hour at Austin. My shopping trip started at Staples, before moving over to CVS, then bouncing all over the ce. My first stop in Austin was the third home improvement shop I had been to during this shopping spree, once again stocking up on grounding rods. I got ament from a clerk, absently wondering why they couldn''t keep them in stock anymore.


    After running down the clock in a bookstore in Austin I traveled back to the quarry, pushing out all of my purchases and setting them up into piles. When I was all organized I started on my medical scanner, using a base of thermal scanners that worked so well for my enhanced sses. Unfortunately it didn''t work out so well, resulting in a scanner that seemed to be attempting to visualize something on its screen, but was ultimately unrecognizable.


    Taking what I had learned from my first attempt I started over again, this time using a base of barcode scanners I bought from Staples. Ibined them with a Stark tech tablet, resulting in a hand held scanner with an impressive screen, shaped with smooth stic and ck metal. From there it was all about stacking medical equipment and diagnostic books. I mixed in magic rods of course, as well as the diagnostic books, some of which were books specifically forymen, all about self diagnosing. It was a long list of items, including a glucose monitoring kit, a stethoscope, blood pressure kits, both manual and mechanical, digital thermometers, a scale, and the little oxygen monitors that go on your finger tip. I even managed to find a portable ultrasound, which cost almost five thousand dors. I threw in a few home drug testers, a pregnancy test, a uric acid monitor and a blood type testing kit. Some of these I knew were gimmicks, making money off hypochondriacs and worry wart mothers, but the Deck showed that they all functioned, at least conceptually.


    Throughout this whole process I continued to work in the barcode and cellphonebo to keep that as strong as possible. The final result was a B ranked handheld scanner that <em>felt </em>like it could work. To test it I had to strip off my healing amulet and shrink my undersuit. I sliced my arm before I could convince myself not to, groaning as blood dripped down my arm. I quickly scanned the wound before putting my healing amulet back on.


    The amount of information on the device was staggering. Not only did it tell me my blood type was O positive, but it also read out my weight, height, blood pressure, the nature of my injury, the status of my various organs and dozens of other medical facts. Luckily Stark tech pulled through again and everything was neatly organized, with tabs and secondary pages essible when necessary.


    Unsurprisingly, other than the clearly identified my injury, which had already healed, my health was perfect. Oddly enough it was informing me I was twenty five, not twenty six. MY heart rate spiked for a moment, thinking that my amulet was de-aging me, before I realized the amulet must have put me at my own pinnacle of health, which the scanner was reading at twenty five. Unable to test the scanner any more without purposely contracting a disease, I was about to pull the scanner into a card when I frowned.


    I was beginning to rue a lot of free floating equipment that I wanted to carry with me, but did not want to clog up the space. I stood and traveled back to the apartment, heading right for my room. In one of the corners, next to my closet was another Ikea buy, arge double door armoire. I quickly pulled out my clothes, folding and stacking them into anywhere else I could fit them, before carding the cab. I walked back into the living room and carded the safe, before traveling back to the quarry. I spent ten minutes emptying out the guns and other stuff that was in the safe beforebining it with the cab, as well as the two empty crates Shield had used to transport the guns for Natasha''smision.


    I was very happy with the final product, a double door cab that was a few inches taller than I was, built like a safe and had quite a few lightly padded shelves and cubbies to store plenty of stuff. I spent the next twenty minutes storing everything I had made so far that I wanted to carry with me but couldn''t. The three tracking tablets, Hydra, my items and Bucky, all stacked in a corner, while my methrower lighter slid into a small draw. The ring tray, my extra stamina cuffs and my improved bolt cutters all found ces easily. I spent a few minutes looking for my super taser before remembering it was in one of my belt pouches, which was a much better ce for it than the cab. Thest thing I put in was the medical scanner. I closed the doors to the storage chest and carded it with a satisfied nod.


    It was at this point that Ema called me. She had been gone for just over four hours and she had apparently found a ce on the outskirts of Denver. I quickly grabbed a secondnding pad and traveled to her,nding in an overgrown abandoned lot, withrge buildings on all but one side. I looked around, nodding in approval.


    "Not bad. It will be nice to be able to appear inside the city already." I said, handing her the nextnding pad.


    "I only feltfortable flying over the city because it is getting dark." She said, taking thending pad and pulling it into her chest. Her armor was no longer green, but dark blue to hide in the dark sky.


    "Fair enough. Stick to the outskirts if it gets brighter out. We can always move them closerter."


    "Alright." She agreed with a nod. "Are you done working?"


    "No, I got the medical scanner working but I haven''t started on the power scanner."


    A few more bits of small talk and she took off again, almost immediately disappearing into the darkness, even with the bright streetlights. I watched the skies for a moment before traveling back to the quarry. Traveling from the lit up city to the darkness of the quarry left me disoriented for a moment. I quickly pushed out the super truck and turned the spotlights on, aiming them at the roof of the tent to keep them from blinding me.


    I sat down at the workshop and started trying to puzzle out how I was going to make my power scanner work. The scanner part was already figured out as the tablet barcode scanner worked extremely well so there was no reason to change it. The problem was that this project was the most nebulous and outside the box idea I had tried to make so far. There was no such thing as a power level scanner, and while I was sure I could do it, finding the right bnce between everything would mean some of trial and error.


    My first attempt used half a dozen different people as a way to measure their general prowess. Force meters, hand strength gauges, a handful of eye charts and used optometrist equipment, a fitness watch, all melded down into two modified scanners and a half dozen magic rods. However, the concepts really didn''t work out, resulting in a sort of multi tool for testing a few of the things I added testers for.


    Putting my first attempt aside I tried again, this time I went a bit more out of the box. Going paper heavy, Ibined a few books on yer statistics for several sports, several posters I found in the medical supply stores that were basically just cheat sheets for doctors about specific indexes. Ibined that with a few scanner tabletbos, beforebining in my wild card, a whole box of Dungeons and Dragons material. nk character sheets, monster manuals, rules books and dungeon master cheat sheets filled with stats. While the game itself was about using your imagination and roleying, it functioned on boiling down characters, monsters, events, everything to descriptions and numbers. A magical item that makes someone stronger wouldn''t just make you a bit stronger, they add plus two to strength, or added plus three to hit, or an extra four sided dice to your attack damage. While I could do without attack damage being measured in different dice sizes and amounts, numericizing abilities was exactly what I was looking for.


    Unfortunately it didn''t work quite so well. When I was done working in the scanners and the magic rods the concept of book information mixed with the tablet''s ability to store information, which led to the tablet being filled with the actual books. Still, the concepts were all still there, the final result had just been led in the wrong direction.


    Luckily, while I was brainstorming a new n I realized I still had a bunch of leftover stuff from my medical scanner, not to mention my first attempt. I also realized I was missing something obvious. I wasn''t scanning for power levels or whatever, I was <em>testing </em>power levels! The scanner was the easy part, but so was testing! A quick look online revealed dozens of questionnaires about determining esoteric things, like how courageous you were, and how much willpower you had. There was a fair amount of ''What kind of cake are you'' and ''What Friends character are you'' type questionnaires as well, but I ignored them.


    I traveled home with an excited grin, quickly setting up the printer I had stolen from the chop shop oh so long ago. I hooked it up to myputer and twiddled my thumbs while the drivers were installed. Luckily, the printer still had some paper in it, which I quickly used to print out a dozen different questionnaires. I was a little worried that they wouldn''t have strong concepts, but they ended up being fine. I traveled back to the quarry and worked the questionnaires into the scanners, then used the leftover medical materials to make a lesser version of the medical scanner,bining them together before finally adding my first and second attempts.


    The scanner, which was an A rank interestingly enough, probably because it was almost double the amount of expensive materials as the medical scanner, had the same general shape and construction as its medical counterpart. ck metal and stic, a hand grip with a trigger guard and with an eight by six inch screen. The difference between the two was the detailed scrolling along the screen and grip, iid with a copper esque metal. It looked good, and I was pretty sure it came from all of the art in the D&D books.


    With a shrug I pointed it at myself and pulled the trigger, a red beaming out and scanning over me. The scanner beeped and the screen shed, the beam disappearing right after. Assuming it was done I turned it back around to read it.


    On the screen was a clear image of myself, wearing exactly what I was wearing. Next to it was a small description of myself, with startlingly urate information on it, though it did not include my origins. As I scrolled down the information continued, all details of how strong I was, what my intelligence, dexterity was and plenty of other data. With a touch I could change the list to base counts, what I was capable of without my gear. Further down was a list of everything I was wearing, including how effective they were. Almost all of the information could be toggled between percentages and some sort of point based system, very simr to how D&D worked.


    I couldn''t help but celebrate, cheering out loud in the tent and fist pumping. I was extremely happy with what I had achieved, it hadpletely washed away my slowly rising tiredness. Deciding that such a development deserved a reward, I ordered a pizza for ate dinner, traveling home to enjoy a cold beer as I scanned most of what I owned in the apartment and enjoyed my dinner.


    It was a few hourster when Ema messaged me. She had arrived at the outskirts of Las Vegas. I traveled to her and found myself under arge bridge, the sound of cars driving overhead making me jump slightly.


    "That was fast, were you still up?" She asked usingly.


    "Just celebrating. I managed to get my power scanner up and running and it is a doozy." I assured her, pulling it out and scanning myself, spending about twenty minutes going over everything that it was capable of.


    "That that''s impressive." She admitted, handing the scanner back, which immediately disappeared into the deck. She was quiet for a moment, looking expectantly at me before finally saying anything. "Do you have thending pad?"


    I looked at her with a nk stare for a moment before cursing, traveling back to the quarry. I stomped into the storage shed, grabbed anding pad and traveled back to her.


    "Here." I said, rolling my eyes when sheughed. "Yeah yeah yeah,ugh it up. Sorry for being focused on me creating a universal power level scanner with a tabletop game and some buzzfeed quizzes."


    "Go home Carson. I''ll text you tomorrow morning." She said with a smile. "And sorry about the crappy location, the city is way too lit up for me to get any closer. We will have to move it in manually."


    I nodded and waved as she flew out from under the overpass. With a sigh I traveled home, asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.

 Chapter 52: Attention grabbing

    Chapter 52: Attention grabbing


    I woke up slowly the next morning, my room already brightly lit from my window. I had clearly slept muchter than I usually did. That was to be expected though, seeing as I was up sote waiting for


    I bolted upright in bed and looked around, realizing that I was supposed to pick Ema up when she arrived at Los Angeles, which would have happened hours ago. I picked up the phone and called her anxiously.


    "Ema! Are you alright? Why didn''t you call me to pick you up?"


    "Carson, rx. Nothing is wrong." She assured me. "You needed your sleep, you were uptest night. I just spent a few hours hiding."


    "You really didn''t have to do that." I asked, rolling my eyes."How long have you been waiting?"


    "Not long enough for it to be a real problem." She assured me. "You know I don''t get bored. Waiting like this is different for me than it is for real Alive people."


    "You are alive Ema, it''s just a different type of alive." I said, before letting out a long breath. "But fine, I see your point. Is thending pad ready for me?"


    "Yes, it''s all clear."


    I hung up and traveled to mypanion, suddenly standing in a small, heavily bushed area tucked up against a hill. I looked around for a moment before looking back at Ema, who was smiling at me.


    "Where are we?" I asked.


    "There is a trail that goes to a parking lot just through that thicket." She answered, pointing off to the side. "It''s like a two minute walk. From the parking lot it''s a fifteen minute drive to the city outskirts."


    "Right, that''s plenty good enough for now." I said with a smile. "Want to drive around for a bit while we talk about our next step or?"


    "Well, we could, but you should probably get dressed first." She pointed out, prompting me to look down and see I was still in my pajamas.


    "Ah, right. Welle on." I said, holding out my hand and traveling us back to the apartment. I copsed back into the couch while Ema left her exosuit.


    "So We have a pad in Los Angeles Where does Stark live in California again?"


    "Tony Stark lives in Malibu, California." She answered, floating over to theptop and bringing up a picture of a rather impressive mansion. "We have no way of knowing if he will be home but"


    "Alright honestly I can''t think of a better idea than knocking on the front gate." I said, shaking my head. "It''s going to be hinky as hell but it beats trying to get an appointment through Stark Industries."


    "Why?"


    "Do you really think he will just let us in?" Ema asked skeptically.


    "Nope Not without someone vouching for us." I said, tapping my chin. "What are the chances that Shield has had some sort of contact with him before?"


    "Probably pretty high. Are you going to call Fury?"


    "No, Fury has way too much on his te, Clint is still ''recovering'' from his injury and Natasha Well I don''t want her thinking she has to help me if she wants me to help her. Which just really leaves Coulson."


    I pulled out my phone and dialed Coulson''s number, waiting for it to ring. After a few moments it clicked.


    "Maker? What is it?" He asked. "Is something wrong?"


    "No, no everythings fine. I just had a question. I know you guys are incredibly busy but has Shield interacted with Tony Stark at all? And if so, would you assuring him that I''m the real deal mean anything to him?"


    "...Why do you want to talk to Tony?" He asked, suddenly very focused.


    "Hehas resources that I would find extremely useful." I said vaguely.


    Coulson was quiet for a long time,ing up on a full minute when I realized he must be talking to someone else. Eventually he returned.


    "Fury says that while he hates the idea of you even being in the same state as Tony Stark, he realizes that not helping you would probably just mean you would have to be creative, which would be much worse. Coulson exined, before sighing and adding. "I will give Stark a call, and then give Pepper a call and tell her to expect you. The second one is the one that actually matters."


    "Alright, well tell her I am free every day this week, including today."


    "How are you able You know what, never mind. Would your healing amulet help with his medical issues?"


    "I mean it wouldn''t hurt him." I said confidently. "The worst it might do is nothing, though with how it reacted to Bucky''s arm I''m guessing it would."


    "Alright. I''m going to make that offer and let them both know you are legitimate, but I''m going to leave the exnations to you. I''m short on time as it is."


    "Thanks Coulson, I appreciate this." I said honestly. "I owe you one."


    "For what you''ve done for Shield? I don''t mind being your reference."


    After a quick goodbye I went about my morning routine. I was half way through breakfast when I got a message from Coulson, informing me that Tony would be home in his workshop all day tomorrow, and that if this is a hoax then Pepper would do everything in her power to ruin me.


    Not doubting the woman with the potential to be Rescue for a second I simply agreed and continued with my day. With time to kill before the meeting I filled the time making a few extras for my new cab. The first step was binding the cab to myself so that it locked and unlocked with just a touch, but was sealed shut for anyone but me.


    Beyond that I worked through a bunch of simple builds that I had already done. I built a dozen simple undersuits and helmets, a half dozen healing amulets and a half dozen healing shlights. I already had extra stamina/speed cuffs made, but I made a few low level strength enhancing cuffs to round them out. I made a few stun batons using capacitors, a baton and a single shock card from my lightning gun. I used the rest of my pistols to make eight double stacked enhanced versions, making sure that Ema knew to remind me to ask for more from Shield when everything died down. I finished off my pre-dinner crafting with six deployable shields, all enhanced to be as strong as mine, which I thankfully remembered could use a bit of repair work after it took a few sts during the fight with the destroyer armor.


    My final project of the day was a bit of a doozy, but doable considering I had already done it once before. When the Destroyer armor duplicate was done being repaired I would need armor to apply to it to make it into actually wearable armor, as opposed to whatever it was normally.


    Now, I had my own armor of course, which I nned on adding in at the end because I wanted the wings, strength enhancement and stamina/speed enhancement toe through as well. But in order for that toe through clearly I was pretty sure I would need to prime the Destroyer armor first with at least one other set of armor, which I would need to make from scratch. Which wasn''t the worst thing in the world. However, since I was already making a full set of enhanced armor, I figured I might as well make more. In the end I made a full suit of armor that wasparable to my own, and two that were slightly lesser.


    With my crafting done for the day, and a whole day spent, I packed up everything into my cab, carding it with a satisfied breath. After that Ema and I spent about an hour cleaning up the quarry and devising something to keep an eye on the Destroyer armor when we were busy in California. In the end it wasn''t anythingplex, just a secure phone that Ema would connect to before traveling over to Los Angeles. The fact that the phone was enhanced ment the battery life was about a full twenty four hours when in constant use. With onest check around the quarry we traveled home.


    "I just had a thought." I said after plopping down on the couch. "The fact that you are looking forward to talking to Jarvis means that you n on revealing yourself, right?"


    "... Unless you don''t want me to."


    "It''s your choice Ema, not mine. You are my partner in all this and I''m not going to restrict you like that.


    "Then yes. I would like to reveal myself."


    "Do you want me to card you and let you out when we are inside or do you want to go in on your own two feet?" I asked. "Hell you could float in if you want. It''s up to you."


    "... I think I would like to walk in and then reveal myself at some point."


    "Then that''s what you''ll do."


    - <em>The Next Morning </em>-


    "No, we are not flying in." Ema said, already in her exosuit. "The super truck is already ostentatious enough."


    "The super truck isn''t ostentatious." I insisted, ying like I was offended. "It''s unique!"


    "It is deep green and gold Carson." She responded, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.


    "... okay that''s fair, but it looks good like that."


    "Of course it does." She said as if she was stating the obvious. "Now are you ready?"


    "Just About There!" I said, climbing down off of one of the chairs and looking up. "How is the feed?"


    I had put one of the secure phones, now a temporary security camera, up on the roof of the tent, tucked against one of the support bars. It was partially hidden while still having a full view of the interior.


    "It''s good, I can see most of the and some of the area outside." She answered as I came out to join her.


    "Great, let''s go."


    We traveled to Los Angeles and made our way through the city, driving most of the way in my civilian truck before changing to the super truck to avoid gathering too much attention. It took us just under a half hour to finally arrive at the mansion.


    "You know This is just about the leastic book thing we have done since I got here." I pointed out as we drove. "I mean we made an appointment to visit Tony Stark. We didn''t show up on his front porch out of the blue or start off fighting each other only to work together to fight off the real bad guy. We just made an appointment."


    "Well we haven''t met them yet." Ema pointed out, smirking as I cursed.


    "Fuck you''re right! Alright keep your eyes open."


    Despite tempting Murphy, we made it to Stark''s mansion just fine, stopping at the front gate, a terminal along the wall lighting up as we pulled in. I rolled down the window and leaned out a bit.


    "Good day sir, How may I help you?" Said a voice from the terminal. It had a slight mechanical twinge but otherwise sounded like a British butler.


    "Hello, my name is Maker, Ms Potts may have mentioned we wereing?"


    "Ah yes, you are expected. Let me open the gate. Please pull up, you may park alongside Ms. Potts vehicle. Oh and the first left is the helicopter pad, please drive past it."


    "Will do, thank you!"


    The gate unlocked and swung open and I pulled up the long driveway. Thendscaping was immacte and the house itself, which was already partially visible but waspletely revealed as we drove closer, was futuristic and stylish, all clean curved lines, concrete and ss. We parked and hopped out of the truck, leaving it uncarded for the first time in a while.


    As Ema walked around I pulled my leather jacket straight and let out a long breath. I had decided to go as non threatening as possible, which meant leaving my guns out of my outfit. My undeployed armor was still on under my jacket though, and I still had my utility belt and holsters, they were just empty. Ema forwent her normal armored look and instead went for a more smooth and sleek style. It was still green though, and her "skin" was still very much blue.


    We walked around to the front door, again all ss. While we were looking for a doorbell the door opened for us. Ema and I shared a look and I gestured forward.


    "Ladies first."


    We walked into the mansion, stopping just a dozen or so feet in, stepping down a single marble step. We barely had time to notice that some recent repair work was just being finished when a tall red headed woman turned a corner and greeted us.


    "Hello? You must be-oh my gosh." She started, only to stumble over her words when she noticed Ema''s very much not human coloration. "Umm You must be M-maker and Emerald?"


    "That''s right, it''s nice to meet you Ms Potts." I said, stepping forward with my hand out. My movement seemed to shock her out of confusion and she took thest few steps to me, shaking my hand. "I apologize for the alias, I''m not quiet at the point where I''m ready to throw my name out."


    "It''s alright, I wish Tony had put a bit more thought into admitting he was Iron Man." She said, now shaking Ema''s hand. "He is downstairs in his workshop. I should warn you, he Well he is being extra Tony today."


    Pepper led us around to another set of stairs, leading us down into a little ss walled off area. We came out in arge workshop, with a row of cars on the far side and a lot of tech in between. This area also looked like it had undergone recent construction. There was a lot of stuff in wooden boxes, looking ready to be carted off. Pepper put her hand on a panel and pressed in a code before pushing the door open.


    "Tony? Maker and Emerald are here."


    "One second!" Said a voice, causing all three of us to turn and look. A pair of legs stuck out from under a car, before the person they were attached to rolled out on a creeper. "Alright, who is this and what do I have to say to get them to leave? I''m in-"


    The sentence died in his mouth as he looked at us. He was of average height and build, had short dark brown hair and a mustache and goatee. He looked at us for a moment, his mouth open just long enough to know he was stunned before he closed it.


    "Alright, I''ll admit it." He said, wiping his hands with a greasy towel. "I wasn''t expecting that. Did we forget to pay the heating bill? Pepper, maybe find a nket for her?"


    "I''m sorry." Ema said, looking between Tony and Pepper. "I know my looks are a bit shocking. I''ll switch to something a bit less abnormal."


    I couldn''t help but chuckle as Ema''s exosuit melted, forming down to its default state, arge metal cube. Pepper yelped and took an involuntary step back as I noted that her teardrop shaped flight pack was still attached to one side of the cube. She pulled off of her mount with a flourishing swoop, flying in the air around the workshop before settling into her usual ce, right above my shoulder, floating and bobbing slightly.


    "Right that''s a lot less abnormal." Tony said, having watched her flight with wide eyes before focusing on both of us. "Alright kid. You got my attention."

 Chapter 53: Introductions

    Chapter 53: Introductions


    I couldn''t help but smirk as Ema flying around the workshop caught Tony off guard. When he focused back on me, Ema floating above my shoulder, I reached out my hand. Tony looked down at my hand and shook his head.


    "Yeah, no, not shaking that. Are you the same guy who was driving around New York the other day?" He asked. "Jarvis trolls the inte for copycats and tagged yourte night jaunt through Manhattan in some sort of power armor."


    "Yeah, that was us." I said with a nod. "There was an emergency."


    "I''ll say." He agrees, turning to aputer to watch a clip of me leaping between the super truck and the armored carrier captured in shaky cellphone footage. He gestured to Ema''s exosuit without looking away "So how does that work? Nanotech? Smart Metals? Some sort of programmable matter?"


    "Oobleck and Nitinol." I said simply.


    "Oob- What?" He asked, looking confused before his face cleared up. "Oh I get it, you''re just the toy soldier. Someone else made the suit. Well I''d be interested in talking to them but-"


    As he talked I could feel him trying to pull control of the conversation. Instead of letting him I flicked a card into an empty space, pushing out my cab. Tony stopped mid sentence as the thick armored cab appeared and I walked up to it, opening it up, my back to the inverntor. I could almost feel Tony looking over my shoulder at my cab of goodies before I pulled out my medical scanner. I closed and carded the cab again before turning around and showing off my creation.


    "This is a medical scanner I made." I exined. "It shows a detailed medical analysis of any person I scan."


    To prove my point I pointed the device at myself and pulled the trigger, letting the red beams scan along my arm before turning it to show Ms Potts and Stark. It clearly showed my scan, a rotating image of myself with several charts next to me. I cleared my data and attempted to hand it to Tony, who refused to take it.


    "Here, he doesn''t like being handed things." Ms Potts said, reaching over and taking the scanner. "This doesn''t use radiation or anything like that?"


    "... It might project ultrasound waves but that''s it." I admitted, Ms Potts and Stark immediately catching onto my hesitation, causing me to shrug. "My creation process isn''t exactly what you call normal. It is perfectly safe, that I can confirm wholeheartedly.''


    "Jarvis?" Tony asked, still watching my Ms Potts handle the scanner.


    "There is no noticeable increase in radiation." The cultured voice announced, Ema bobbing slightly. "I did detect low level ultrasounds."


    "Huh, alright. Good to know I suppose." I admitted. "See, harmless."


    "Great, well I don''t consent to being scanned." Tony said with a shrug. "So-"


    "Tony, Agent Coulson said Maker was legitimate. That he has recently helped Shield in a way that has saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives and avoided a possibly global catastrophe." Ms Potts said, getting shocked looks from me and Stark. "We should take him seriously."


    "How did you do all that without ending up on the news." He asked, looking back at me. "You know, other than your drive through New York."


    "Wait, I was on the news?"


    "... you had a gunfight through New York, of course you were on the news." Tony said, looking at me like he was wondering how I was functioning.


    "I''ve been a bit busy." I exined with a shrug. "nning, building, I''m sure you know how that goes."


    Tony frowned and was about to say something, probably something sarcastic and potentially scathing, before he was interrupted by a red beam scanning across his chest.


    "Pepper!" He said, though it was rtively heatless.


    The red head woman ignored him, instead focusing on the screen of the scanner. After a few seconds of reading she looked up with a surprised face.


    "Tony, you said your padium poisoning was no big deal!" She shouted. "It says you almost died! You''re still recovering and you damaged your kidneys badly!"


    "...Wait, it actually knew that?" Tony said, clearly surprised. He stepped closer and looked over Peppers shoulder, reading through the information. "Wow, note to self, less salt."


    "I told you you needed to cut down on that Tony." Peppe said, pping his shoulder before looking up at Ema and I, still upset. "Coulson said you could fix his chest. Could you?"


    "Yes, absolutely. The only question is if I have something that will fix it on hand or if I need to make something specific for this situation."


    "How?" The billionaire genius asked simply, looking skeptical.


    "How would I make something or how would I fix it?"


    "Both."


    "Well exining that would involve exining my powers."


    "Powers? Like what?" Tony asked. "Does it have anything to do with that disappearing act you just performed?"


    "It does in fact." I responded, pulling out the Deck andying it on the corner of the desk. "This is the Conceptual Deck. I received it not too long ago"


    It took almost an hour for me to exin my powers, including a long demonstration that had me pulling and pushing several items in and out of the Deck while Jarvis recorded with a variety of scanners, beforebining a random set of tools together. Tony was riveted by the Deck, flipping back and forth between thinking it was the best and worst thing ever. I showed him a half dozen different things, including how my armor worked and how much my speed and strength had been increased. I called an end to the experiments, scans and randombinations after I made an all in one screwdriver bybining three sets together as well as a scroll wheel and a dozen small transformation cards. Tony was holding it, switching from philips to t head, hex and any variation on size and length.


    "Okay." He finally said, putting the screwdriver down. "Your power obviously works. It breaks physics in a hundred ways and I but it works."


    "Great. Now will you let him fix you?" Pepper asked, having sat down in a small break area while Tony put me through my paces.


    "No." He said, before putting his hands up when Pepper started to get upset. "Not right now. I need at least a week to adjust the armor so it holds its own power source, rather than drawing its power from this."


    He tapped the arc reactor in his chest, before turning back to me.


    "After I''m done with that we can start with how your Healing amulet works. If it can dissolve metal fragments then then there is no reason for you not to fix me up."


    "Thank you." Pepper said with a smile, walking to Tony and kissing him on the cheek.


    "Great, I''m d to hear that." I said with a nod.


    "Now, let''s talk about price." Tony said. "I want two healing amulets-"


    "You can''t wear a healing amulet." I said, cutting him off. "It would try and fix your chest and the shrapnel."


    "Fine, I''ll buy er. I want one for Pepper then, as well as two armored undersuits, and a helmet. I''d like a stamina and strength cuff as well."


    "Tony-" Pepper said, starting to speak up.


    "Pepper, you saw how innocuous he could make them. There is no reason you shouldn''t have all of those."


    "...Fine." she said before focusing on me. "If I give you some jewelry could you make them transition from them?"


    "Yes, that''s not much trouble." I said before continuing. "At least for the armor and helmet. The healing amulet would need a few of the same things to change its shape."


    Pepper nodded and left, leaving Tony and I alone. Ema was bobbing next to my head, nudging me slightly before I remembered.


    "Oh, Sorry Ema." I apologized. "Tony, is there any way for Ema and Jarvis to talk?"


    "Uh, yeah. She can talk to him anywhere in the house."


    "Sir perhaps I could give her a tour of the house?" Jarvis suggested.


    "Yeah buddy, go for it." He said with a shrug, Ema looking at me before zooming off when I nodded.


    "They grow up so fast." I said as Jarvis''s voice got farther away, Ema floating up the stairs, talking with the bodiless artificial intelligence.


    "Tell me about it. Is she fully sentient?" Tony asked, watching her go before focusing back on me. "She seems too fluid to just be a simple VI."


    "She is as far as I can tell." I said with a shrug. "She expressed a desire to talk with Jarvis without my prompting. She dislikes being in her exosuit for too long. Her purpose is being mypanion and assistant as far as I can tell but I didn''t program her, and neither of those things help her ''purpose''. In fact her dislike of being in her exosuit is kind of the opposite."


    "Huh Think you could help me with Jarvis?" He asked. "He is as close as I could get to a fully sentient AI but thatst gap is stumping me."


    I frowned for a second and went through the possibilities in my head. Eventually I shrugged and kept it vague.


    "It''s possible, but I would probably have to lock him into one central location to do that." I exined. "He would be able to ess things and even maybe tap into everything but he would be tied to a chassis, like Ema is."


    "Good to know. I might take you up on that anyway, I would have to think about it." The inventor said before shaking his head. "We need to talk about price."


    "Right. Well I have two requests. Money is obviously useful as my ability eats through it slowly but steadily. But I need something specific right now."


    Over the next fifteen minutes we discussed the repulsor beam technology, about how I had already cracked flight but I wanted to push it even faster. I showed him my wings, standing where he kept his cars for the extra room. Pepper shouted when she came to drop off her jewelry, leading to me scratching a bit of paint off of one of Tony''s hot rods as I turned to look at her. After a short exnation she left in search of a ss of wine, letting Tony get back to his questions.


    "And they move instinctually?" He asked, touching the tip of one of my metallic wings. "You don''t feel this, do you?"


    "I know its being touched, but it''s not like if you were to touch my arm." I answered, before pulling the wings back. "And they do move instinctually. I think it''s abination of the magic and well other things."


    I had mentioned magic already when I was exining how I made the wings, and I regretted it immediately. It had taken a while for Tony to ept the partial lie that magic was just what I was calling the nebulous energy that helped smooth things together. I didn''t mention where I got it.


    "Well, I don''t mind trading a few repulsors, if only because they won''t be repulsors by the time you are done with them." He admitted. "What''s your top speed now?"


    "Around a hundred and seventy miles per hour." I answered. "It''s good but I want it to be better."


    "Right. Well as soon as you make everything for Pepper I''ll give you four, two for you and two for Emerald."


    "Six and five hundred thousand dors." I countered, getting an indignant look from Tony.


    "Do you have any idea how much one of my repulsors cost?" He asked, rolling his eyes. "I''ll give you six and two hundred thousand."


    "And forty thruster energy beams from an actual suit." I said. "It costs you nothing and I can use it to improve each unit."


    "What? How? Does it draw more energy?" Tony asked, rapid fire as he stared at me.


    "Uhh"


    "Okay, new offer. Eight repulsors, forty repulsor beam sts and five hundred thousand dors in cash, in exchange for everything basic, two cuffs for me and a few thingsbined together for me to gather data on."


    "Done. Nice doing business with you."


    "Yeah I know, now makey with the reality breaking while I go call my bank."


    I easily made my way through the protective gear for both of them and the cuffs for Tony, mostly because all of it was already waiting in my cab. I bound everything to their new owners after I had everything set and waiting for them, with minimal questions about whether I was going to summon cthulhu with my blood magic or steal Tony''s soul.


    Tony''s cuffs ttened quite a bit when I bound them, which made sense considering how tight his armor was to his body, while Pepper''s simply shifted for looks, her undersuit changing to a certain familiar blue, while her jewelry stayed mostly the same. Ibined her healing amulet with a blue sapphire ne, which changed slightly but resized and shifted when I bound it to her. Unsurprisingly Tony''s undersuit, which shifted from a basic bracelet, turned out to be gold and hot rod red.


    "Good to know even my soul is consistent." He said, examining himself in a mirror. "If I drill holes in this will it still shift back and forth?"


    "Maybe? If you can manage drill holes in it let me know, I''ll need to update mine. Either way I''ll fix it."


    When I was done with that Ibined a few things together for Tony, starting with a few pieces of metal. I double stacked a facete from one of his suits,bined copper and titanium as well as aluminum and titanium, double stacked a repulsor,bined a repulsor with a st of repulsor energy before finishing it off by double stacking an older version of his arc reactor. I also promised toe back and double stack his newer version when he got around to making a few more. Apparently thistest version was less than a few weeks old and her was in the process of setting up the infrastructure to make more. The padium poisoning that Pepper had mentioned was because the previous version used padium as an fuel.


    At some point Ema hade back down stairs to check up on us.


    "Are you sure letting him have all this stuff is okay?" She asked, looking over the samples I was making.


    "I''m already selling and trading him a bunch of stuff anyway." I said with a shrug. "Besides, you scan almost everything I make, have your scans evere even close to figuring out how any of it works?"


    "No. Alright, I suppose that is fair." She said, floating around. "Just covering the bases."


    By the time that I was done putting everything together Tony had boxed up eight repulsors and his bank had delivered the cash. The fact that he could get that much money delivered to his house was mind boggling, but I wasn''t going toin. Even more impressive was that he was able to get a ridiculous amount of real hawk feathers delivered to his house within a few hours.


    When I exined what process I would be using to apply the repulsors thrust to my wings heughed for a minute before he realized I was serious. He immediately insisted that he had to see that and made a half dozen calls. The feathers arrived by the box load while I was carding repulsor streams and letting my fingers heal from the damage


    "So you''re not worried that the flight concepts will affect the integrity of your armor?" He asked, watching as I added five repulsor streams to four of the repulsors. Tony was unsurprisingly quick to understand the nuances of the Conceptual Deck.


    "No. If I''m honest I''m working on a major upgrade for my armor, so if this one gets a bit weakened in the process it''s no big deal." I exined, double checking all of the repulsors. "At this point it''s more of a harness for the wings than anything."


    I looked around, making a quick judgment of the size of his workshop. Rtively sure that it could fit the storage shed I flicked out a card, the shed suddenly upying the garage area.


    "Holy shit." Tony cursed, leaning back on the counter. "You are a drug runner''s dream."


    "Yeah, I''m aware." I said, stepping into the shed anding out with my magic rod supplies. "I''m going to need to make a run to my workshop. I need some super metal."


    "Super metal?"


    "A conceptual blend of molybdenum, aluminum, titanium and tungsten." I exined.


    "And that just works? Jesus that''s Well I''ve got some stock in the basement." Tony offered. "How much do you need?"


    "Uhhhh eight or nine sheets of each?"


    Tony led me down to a massive hidden basement full of parts, stored tools and metal stock. I carded a bunch of metal and brought it back up with us, pushing it out and starting the process of enhancing the feathers. Once I had made a few dozen stacks of enhanced metal feathers I startedying them into the enhanced repulsors. Slowly they restructured, shifting gradually until they were just metallic feathers with an incredible concept of thrust. I carded my chest armor off of myself andbined all four of them into it before pushing it back out.


    The chest armor itself was slightly smoother around the edges but beyond that it looked the same. The wings on the back however looked slightly lighter, though still obviously metallic. I extended them out after carding the storage shed, working them out and retracting them a few times. After I was sure they were still responding properly I pulled them back in.


    "How do they feel?" Tony asked.


    "They feel like they need a test drive."


    "Sweet, let me put on the suit and-"


    "Wait a minute!" Ema yelled, floating between both of us at head level before turning to me. "It almost sounds like you were going to go flying without doing my wings as well."


    "Alright alright." I said, holding up my hands. "Go put on your suit and give me your wings. I''ll upgrade them. Then we will go for a test flight."

 Chapter 54: Ink

    Chapter 54: Ink


    It didn''t take long for me to put together the upgrades to Ema''s wings since I had already done it on my own. Tony suited up while I worked, stepping into a rather impressive looking contraption built into the workshop floor and ceiling, going from normal man to Iron Man in just over forty five seconds.


    "Damn. Impressive," I said, watching as his face te pped down.


    "You like? I''m working on something better but"


    I smirked and tapped the activation buttons on my armor, the tes deploying from their smaller forms into the fuller coverage in their usual almost organic unfolding. My helmet grew over my facest, giving myself a shake to get everything settled.


    "Alright cheater, no one likes a show off," Tony said before rocketing out the garage, swooping out the curving entrance.


    Iughed and pushed out my wings, pping them and lifting off the ground, following Tony out. It felt easier now, precise and controlled but still instinctual. Ema followed behind me as we chased the streaking light of Tony''s repulsors. The mechanical suit pulled ahead for a moment before I put on some speed, my wings pping harder. I couldn''t help butugh as we caught up to him easily.


    When he noticed we were flying alongside him he immediately dove, heading straight down to the ocean. I tucked my wings and dropped with him, pping asionally to keep up as he streaked down, only pulling up about fifty feet from the water. Both of us were hot on his tail, matching his sudden turn in a way that should not have been possible with wings.


    Still, we kept up with him as he slowly got closer to the water. As we got lower and lower I realized I could judge just how fast we were going by the waves that were blurring under us. I could smell the salt air and feel the spray hitting me when he finally pulled away, heading straight up a two hundred feet before stopping mid air, hovering on his repulsors. His helmet face flipped up and I tapped my helmet, causing it to shrink back into the torc.


    "How fast was that?" I asked, having to talk over the rumble of his repulsors.


    "Around four hundred miles per hour," He said. "Not bad for wings. Was that your max?"


    "No, but it was getting there," I answered, trying to puzzle it out in my head. "Maybe another hundred, hundred and fifty?"


    "Let''s find out."


    Tony cut his repulsor for just a moment, dropping down and gunning it, rocketing away from us even faster. We both pushed ourselves, eventually catching up with him as he headed back ind. We whipped past a beach, heading over Malibu, passing it in a moment. For the next twenty minutes we followed Tony around, trying to match his speed. It was clear he was much faster than Ema and I but we seemed to have him beat on maneuverability. Eventually, as the sky grew darker and darker, he led us back to his home, flying slowly down into the garage. His helmet flipped up once hended.


    "Not bad, especially if yourst max was actually a hundred and seventy," He said, his machine starting to strip him of his armor. "You were hitting around five hundred when you were going in a straight line."


    I pumped my fist before reaching it out and bumping knuckles with Ema.


    "That is a much better speed," I said, tapping my armor and copsing it back down. When it was all folded up I pushed my jacket back out into my hands, putting it back on as well. "Alright Tony. It was nice meeting you, and nice doing business with you, but I need to check up on a project and get home."


    "Good, your constant breaking of physics is giving me a headache," He said, stepping off of his armor equipping tform.


    After a quick goodbye from Pepper. Ema and I headed back to the truck. Instead of climbing in I simply carded it, both Ema and I taking off into the night. We flew back out over Malibu, a leisurely flight until we were over emptynd, where wended and traveled back to the quarry. A quick check on the Destroyer armor duplicate and we traveled back to the apartment. I ordered some take out and we called it a day.


    -<em>The Next Day</em>-


    With apetitive version of flight under my belt, I started the day by heading out to the quarry to check on the Destroyer armor again. At this point it was just about halfway done, and I was beginning to realize that having ess to the Conceptual Deck had a major side effect. I had be incredibly impatient.


    Here I was, performing physics bending, reality fucking magic and all I could think about was that it was going to take another four days. So I sat down in my chair and attempted to distract myself with another puzzle, namely upgrading myself. I had put it off for long enough, and now I was in a position to spend some time cracking the puzzle without having to worry about a dozen different threats. I was even rtively sure that my divinity enhanced healing amulet would keep me healthy if I messed up and hurt myself by mistake. The universal scanner was the final nail in the coffin of my procrastination.


    Determined to push past my hesitation I started with something simple. I bought a couple of vitamins that imed to help clear up your mind and enhance your reflexes before stopping at a medical supply store and buying a dozen reflex hammers. I started with my reflexes for two reasons. One I could use the supplies to fix the problem with my danger sense. With a few vitamins, some hammers and a small book about enhancing reaction times helped make the sixth sense more instinctual and easier to react to.


    The second reason was that mypletely average reaction time was something I had noticed holding me back several times. I could run almost twice as fast as a normal person, between my armor and my cuff, I could drive at around two hundred miles per hour in my super truck and now I could fly at around five hundred, but doing that anywhere other than apletely open and empty area was extremely dangerous. If I was going to be moving around at those speeds I needed to be able to react at those speeds.


    I started by adding a few hammers and another book to two dozen pills, working thebination back down to a normal looking vitamin. I scanned it with my universal scanner and cringed at what it read. The vitamin, which was only going tost a day, would also make my reflexes more obvious, meaning I would be overreacting to everything. It would also download the book in its entirety to my brain without a filter.


    Unhappy with the results I carded the pill and tore it immediately before trying again. This time instead of adding anything weird I simplybined and quad stacked the pills themselves, resulting in a singr pill. A quick scan showed that while it would in fact improve my reflexes, the temporary concept, which was just as strong as the concepts I actually wanted, had stacked together and as a result it would onlyst a few hours. It would also put a slight strain on my kidneys and liver. Still, the effect was what I was looking for, so I made three more and stored them in a small container, which Ibeled carefully.


    Ema, who had been flying around the quarry, patrolling and enjoying her wings, returned and stepped under the tent.


    "Any luck?" She asked as her exosuit returned to its dormant form and she hovered closer.


    "Kind of?" I responded, leaning back in my chair. "I have a vitamin that improves my reflexes and doesn''t have any major side effects, but it onlysts an hour. I need something permanent, or something that changes the body permanently that I can attach it to without stacking a dozen side effects."


    "Like a tattoo?" She said casually, floating above the table I was working at. "The ink is permanent and you could apply effects to that."


    I nearly fell out of my seat, instead putting my head in my hands, letting out a long sigh.


    "Yeah, that would work," I said eventually, looking up at her and shaking my head. "I was stuck on swallowing a pill and suddenly being a super soldier like Steve. That''s a really good idea."


    It really was. The ink for tattooing was permanent and didn''t need to be edible, so no need to worry about overdosing or putting strain on my body. Plus, in the event that I needed to return to base human they could be removed, either by normal tattoo removal methods, something I made or, in a worse case scenario, physically cutting it off. The only things I needed to worry about was imbuing simple functions into the ink itself without contaminating it with other concepts and the possibility that my healing amulet would reject the ink as foreign and remove it.


    With a new lead I did a bit of research before rushing off to do some shopping. My first stop was a book store where I bought a half dozen books on tattooing. I bought two tattoo guns next, along with a bunch of supplies and a ton of ink in a variety of colors before traveling back to the quarry. I quicklybined all of the books into one ring, not bothering with a ss ring as there was no reason for anyone to permanently learn this. I also added in the instruction manuals for everything I bought. As I was going through one of the kits I realized something.


    This was going to need electricity.


    With a sigh I put everything down and left to go shopping again, returning this time with five generators, a bunch of sr panels and car batteries. I quickly worked everything together into one unit, working a dozen magic rods as well, this time leaving electricity in them instead of letting it drain out. The result was a generator pulling electricity from essentially nowhere. I didn''t even have to put any gas in it to start it up. I quickly set up an extension cord and a surge protector before finally sitting back down at my workbench.


    It took me a bit to set everything up, but eventually I was ready to test the first thing, whether or not my healing amulet would react poorly to tattooing and tattoo ink. I clicked on the gun and put in some ck ink, giving myself the tiniest dot of a tattoo between my fingers, down by the knuckle before turning everything off, emptying the machine and putting it to the side.


    "Alright, I need to let that sit for a while to see what happens," I exined to Ema, who had been watching over my shoulder. "I''ll be back in a bit, hold down the fort."


    When I was done with lunch I traveled back to the quarry and examined the tattoo, happy to see that it was still there. I pulled out a couple of ink bottles, before pulling out the four pills I had made earlier. Ibined all four of them into a bottle of ink, thenbined that with two more ink bottles. I scanned the result, carefully reading the information it revealed.


    The ink, which the scanner now called reflex enhancing ink, had several additions to it. It would in fact enhance my reflexes and cut down my reaction time. It had plenty of other information from the scan, including a detailed analysis of what it was made out of and a ratio and severity level of concepts it was being modified by. After skimming through everything I carded the bottle of ink again, before spending fifteen minutes going through the process of making a magic liquid bybining a magic rod with a couple gallons of water,bining it down into a few cups. I took some of that and added it to the ink, which enhanced its enhancing abilities. I then went through the whole process over again, creating a second bottle of ink, which I immediatelybined with the original.


    I scanned it one final time, making sure to read every single bit of information the scanner provided. After I was sure that it wouldn''t negatively affect me I called Ema over.


    "I''m gonna need you in your exosuit Ema," I said as she floated closer. "The ink is ready and I don''t want to tattoo myself."


    "Alright, but we need to design it first," She said,nding on her exosuit, her metallic body forming around her. "I''m not going to be responsible for a tribal armband on you of all people."


    I chuckled and nodded in agreement, both of us sitting down and looking on the inte for tattoo ideas. After a while I sat back and showed Ema something I had found,


    "What do you think about something like this?"


    "...It looks good," She said, taking my phone and zooming in. "Are you sure you want something that big?"


    "It needs to use a certain amount of ink to take effect," I exined, passing her the tattoo ring, which she slipped on. "Plus it''s on my back. And besides it would take me like an hour max to make something that instantly removes tattoos."


    "Fair enough," She said with a shrug. "And you want this on your back?"


    "Just on my right shoulder. Should leave plenty of room for moreter."


    It took about forty minutes for her to get everything ready, including getting the tracing lines on my back. Soon she was slowly but surely making progress, the tattoo gun buzzing as she ''permanently'' marked my back. It hurt slightly, but in all honesty I had had much worse.


    About three hourster the tattoo wasplete. Ema wiped and washed my back, my healing amulet instantly healing any damage, sealing the ink in my skin. I stood when she was done and went to the mirror, turning so I could see.


    There on my shoulder was an eight pointedpass, done in solid ck lines. Behind thepass was a detailed set of clockwork, gears and pulleys, shaded and blended perfectly. the whole thing gently faded into my skin, meaning we could add to itter. In all it was six inches across. It looked great, the tattoo itself almost perfectly done with no mistakes that I could see.


    "I like it," I said, moving my arm around to see how it shifted and moved. "Not bad for your first time, right?"


    "It was interesting, that''s for sure. I don''t have muscles so I am unusually steady, so that probably made it easier." She responded. "Are you going to try and make a second one right now?"


    "No, I want to let this set in for a day or two," I exined, pulling my clothes and undersuit back on. "I think a strength and stamina tattoo will be pretty easy toe up with, but I don''t want to overload myself right off of the bat. Let''s put this stuff away and we can test if it even actually worked."


    We quickly sterilized the equipment and cleaned up, storing everything in the storage shed. When everything was put away I scanned myself with the universal scanner, reading the information until I found a new tab called "Enhancement Tattoos". I clicked and it opened to a new page, reading through its only entry.


    "Alright, so ording to the universal scanner the medium sized reflex enhancing tattoo decreases my reaction time by thirty percent and strengthens my reflexes by twenty," I said, reading off of its description. "Not bad, the size descriptor makes me think that a bigger one would have pumped those numbers up a bit."


    "We could always add on moreter," Ema pointed out, and I nodded in agreement.


    "Alright. Let''s test this out," I said, carding the scanner. I sat down and rolled up my pants, pulling off my danger sense band, putting it on the table. "Go outside and collect a bunch of small rocks. We are going to y some dodge ball."


    Five minutester I was standing a few dozen feet away from my partner, who was holding a small pile of rocks at the ready. My armor was fully deployed as Ema refused to throw anything at me without it on and activated.


    "Alright, I''m ready when-"


    A rock hurtled at me, barely missing me as I dodged to the right. Ema chuckled, throwing rock after rock at me, hurling them faster and faster, eventually turning her arm into a more liquid slinging device, absorbing all of the rocks she had collected to fire them out even faster. Eventually she caught me a few times in a row, but I had done incredibly well, dodging chunks of rock that would have absolutely hit me without the tattoo.


    "What does it feel like?" Ema asked mid throw, almost catching me off guard.


    "Not much. I can tell the difference but it''s not like a new feeling, everything is just easier to follow and react to," I answered, breathing a bit harder but unduly so. "Almost like I have more time to move out of the way."


    The experiment continued on for a while longer before I finally called it. I made my way back to the tent and copsed back into my chair, a big smile on my face.


    "That worked incredibly well! Thank you so much for suggesting tattooing Ema, it was a brilliant idea."


    "You would have gotten it eventually."


    "Maybe, maybe not," I said with a shrug, bending over to put my leather band back on. "Either way, mission aplished. Now I just need to design some more enhancing ink when I''m ready to add more."<hr>


    Hello! I just wanted to give the usual reminder that I have Pa_tr_eon! There are three tiers and the highest is four chapters ahead on The Conceptual Deck and two for Mettle, Metal, Meddled. Just keep in mind it is almost the end of the month. Thank you and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

 Chapter 55: Final countdown

    Chapter 55: Final countdown


    With a method of enhancing my body sorted I started working on my next project, impact absorption. I had made a note to take a crack at it ages ago, but hadn''t tackled it yet because I had more important things to work on.


    My armor protected me from bullets, piercing and some of the damage from impacts but they still rattled me around. I needed a way to absorb more kic energy to keep myself from being knocked around. After all, my amulet might heal bruises but if someone stters my brain against the inside of my skull there isn''t much it will be able to do.


    "The problem is that cushioning is different from absorption," I exined as I brainstormed with Ema. "Cushioning is foam or foam like, and it would seriously throw off anything that I wove it into in any useful amount."


    Deciding that the only way I was going to make any progress was by experimenting, I went out and did some more shopping. I visited a few cities, picking up a half dozen different materials, including two types of rubber and a few types of urethane polymers. I cut a few squares andbined them all together


    "Huh that''s actually not bad," I said, examining the card, flicking it out onto the table. "If I thin it down with some cloth? Maybe a sports undershirt?"


    "Not going toyer in magic?" Ema asked, floating around the table.


    "No, I want to add it to my undersuit first, which I''m trying to keep magic free." I exined, already making ns in my head. "Alright, I need to-"


    I was cut off by my cell phone ringing, the ringtoneing from a nearby bench. I quickly walked over and picked, checking the screen. It was Natasha.


    "Hello?" I answered. "Is that you Natasha?"


    "How quickly can you get to Dover?" She asked in a rush. Her tone was dire and rushed, sending a chill down my spine.


    "Ema, how fast could I get to Dover?" I asked, looking over at her.


    "Flying? If you start from Washington then maybe ten minutes?" She answered, turning to look at me. "Why?"


    "Ten minutes," I repeated into the phone, slowly standing. "Why?"


    "We found a bomb. It''s timer is down to twelve minutes and twenty three seconds." She exined. "It''s giving off some insane readings and we can''t defuse it. It''s locked up tight, sealed inside some sort of pressurized case. We we don''t know how big it''s going to be but there is a lot of energy here. We are evacuating nearby buildings but our expert says there''s not enough time for how big this is going to be."


    "Natasha do you have your mask?" I asked, my heart rate starting to pick up.


    "Yes," She answered. "I''m standing next to the bomb."


    "Put the mask next to it and evacuate," I said before turning to Ema. "Give me herpass."


    "Maker"


    "Now!"


    Silently she pushed out thepass connected to Natasha''s mask, putting it in my hand. The second it was in my palm I traveled to Washington, already running. I deployed my armor as I ran through the halls of the abandoned building, smashing through a window and extending my wings. I flew straight up before focusing on thepass, turning myself so I was pointing to where the connection was before pping my wings and rocketing across the sky.


    "Natasha? Are you evacuating?" I asked through the Bluetooth in my helmet.


    "Maker, the specialist doesn''t think its the kind of bomb you evacuate from." She exined, her voice soft.


    "Fuck!" I cursed, straining to push my wings faster. "I''ll be there soon, just hang on!"


    Faster and faster I pushed, hitting the top speed of my wings almost immediately, focusing to keep it there. My heart thundered in my chest, knowing I was flying towards some sort of exotic bomb, rather than away. After two minutes I sted past a waterfront, crossing the bay in less than another minute. Time and distance seemed to melt away as I focused on keeping precisely on target, thepass leading me directly to Natasha and the bomb.


    When it pulled me down to a building I slowed down just enough to not be a smear on the ground, aiming for a second story window. I barely noticed the Shield vehicles and agents around the nearby buildings, hastily evacuating everyone. As I got closer to the building I aimed for the window and tucked my wings in.


    I smashed through the window and the opposite wall like a living cannonball, battering myself in the process. I tumbled and quickly stood, already running down the hall full tilt. I smashed through a door, splintering the wood into chunks, hardly slowing down. I was now in some sort ofb, though it was tossed and mostly empty, with only basicb equipment remaining on the countertops and shelves. Finally I made it to an opening in the wall, an entry torn through drywall.


    I skidded to a stop inside the smaller room, finding three people. Two were holding hands, standing next to each other, obviously sharing a moment, and Natasha, who was standing alone, phone in her hand, which she dropped when I stepped in.


    "Only a minute twenty left!" She said, stepping closer.


    I nodded, stepping closer and examining therge box. My eyes locked on the stereotypical timer, counting down the remaining minute and fifteen seconds, before moving on to the rest. I could see the whole bomb in detail through the clear box, arge cylinder with a row ofrge clips attached to the side, each filled with a glowing blue energy. Despite that, I had no way of getting at anything due to the massive see through box surrounding it. I reached out and just barely touched the box with my finger, trying to pull it into a card only for it to fail. Cursing loudly I looked around the box, my heart plummeting when I saw why I couldn''t card it.


    Fourrge bolts locked the see-through box to the floor, one on each corner.


    "What happens if I cut the bolts?" I asked, looking back at Natasha, who immediately looked back at the other two people. The man stepped forward, bending down to look at the base.


    "Uh uh well there isn''t anything connected to the bolt." He said in a Scottish ent. "But we would need something that can cut them that''s thin enough to fit between the floor and the box, without breaking the pressure seal. Even then we don''t have enough time to move it anywhere useful."


    I stopped listening and flicked out my sword cranking it to its full strength. I was about to drop to my stomach when I looked at Natasha, passing her the sword.


    "This blows Coulson''s knife out of the water. Cut the bolts and I''ll keep pulling it."


    "Coulson''s knife?" The man asked again. "Is that one of Maker''s objects?"


    "Fitz, that <em>is </em>Maker." The woman said in a British ent, grabbing his arm and pulling him back. "It''s also not the time!"


    Natasha dropped down,ying on her stomach, gently sliding the sword in the thin gap, being extra careful not to cut the box. I watched as the sword cut through the thick bolt with a metallic slicing sound. She quickly moved and cut the second bolt before moving to cut the two on the other side.


    "thirty five seconds!" The woman called out.


    I watched as Natasha cut the fourth and final bolt, my hand pulling it into the deck before the sword was even free.


    It <em>still </em>didn''t budge.


    "It''s not working!" I called out, my voice cracking as the stress took its toll. "What else is-"


    "It''s got four more bolts!" The Scottish man called.


    He rushed to Natasha and dropped to his knees, taking the sword from her and jabbing it under the box, around the middle. The timer counted down from nine as he forced the sword right then left before shouting out.


    "Now!"


    I pulled again, this time the box disappeared into a card. I staggered and dropped to my hands and knees, the card fluttering to the ground beside me. The woman cheered and rushed to the man''s side, hugging him as he sat back on the ground, his arms wrapping around the woman. I rolled over onto my back, feeling sick and wired, my adrenaline wreaking havoc on my body. Natasha sat down beside me, listening as the woman''s cheering turned to soft tears, her own adrenaline fading. I closed my eyes and waited for my heart to stop trying to bust its way through my chest.


    Twenty minutester I was on the front steps of the building. I was rtively calm, having managed to hold back the nausea from my fading adrenaline. I had called Ema to tell her I was okay. Her response had been curt and short, which only made me nervous about what she would be like when I got back. She did say she was going to take one of thending pads and get to St. Louis since she would likely have a few hours on her hand.


    Natasha had exined the situation fully after that. Apparently the building had been a Hydrab before Shield had driven them to their current hiding spots. She was there to assist in clearing it out, looking for any useful information when Leo Fitz, the Scottish man, had picked up some anomalous readings through the wall. Some quick demoter and they found the hidden room. They were incredibly lucky that Fitz stumbled into it, because if they hadn''t the bomb would have gone off before anyone even knew it was there. Currently he and his partner, who I now knew was Jemma Simmons, were sitting quietly not far away, holding hands.


    Natasha, who was leaning against the handrail a few feet away, looked cool and collected. I did catch her hand shaking for a moment, which she hid by gripping the rail behind her tightly.


    "Maker, Widow."


    I started as Nick Fury spoke, not a few feet away. I hadn''t noticed himing, and my hand had instinctively reached down to my hip.


    "Impressive flight time Maker. Not quite as fast as Stark but still impressive."


    "Give me some time, I''ll make it happen eventually." I responded with a shrug. "You''re lucky I went to Stark when I did, or I would have been stuck at one seventy."


    "..." He looked at me, taking a long pause as everyone came to terms with how close we had been to death, before looking at Natasha. "You alright?"


    "I''m fine sir." She said reflexivity. "Just d Maker made it in time."


    "Right. Well I need to confirm that you''ve destroyed the card Maker, then you''re all free to go." He said. "I think some time off is in order after that."


    "I can''t." I said simply, summoning the card to my hand. "I need the bomb to make a tracking tablet. Who knows how many they might have scattered around the country. Unfortunately I''m not sure how I can do that with this card. It''s"


    I focused on the card, picking through its concepts with my mind. Oddly enough the fact that it was seconds away from detonating was detectable through its concepts, as was several bomb rted things. It also felt horrifically powerful.


    "...Contaminated. Strange energying from it though."


    Fury considered me for a moment before nodding.


    "If I can get you a pure sample of the energy, could you make something to find it?" He asked.


    "Most likely." I responded. "Do you have more samples?"


    "That''s ssified." He answered, before looking at the other two. "Dr. Fitz, Dr. Simmons, you both take as much time as you need."


    His piece said, the Director of Shield turned in ce and began walking away, stopping to look behind at Natasha and me.


    "You twoing?"


    We shared a look before standing and following the stern man, through the crowds of people to some sort of air vehicle that wasnded in the middle of the street. It was stocky, with a cargo bay in the back and twin turbines built into the wing. We climbed up a small ramp into the cargo bay, which closed behind us.


    "Rendezvous back with the Helicarrier." Fury said to the pilot, who nodded and started working the control panels in front of him.


    The jet vehicle took off as Fury sat down on one of the rows of seats that sat on each side of the cargo bay. He leaned back in the seat as Natasha sat down opposite of him. I stayed standing, holding on to one of the hand holds on the ceiling.


    "I need you to tear the card Maker." Fury said eventually. "The security council will have my head if I don''t confirm it."


    I summoned the card again and showed it to him, using it as an excuse to study its concepts again. It was obviously a bomb, it had such a powerful destruction concept in it that it dwarfed anything I had carded so far, to an incredible degree. It also had an energy concept that was hard to pin down. It was exotic, not something I really knew how to describe. It was potent though, and would have magnified the bombs power a dozen times over.


    With a simple movement I tore the card in half, the remnants dissolving into dust. I couldn''t help but chuckle darkly at a thought, shaking my head to myself.


    "What is it?" Natasha asked, looking a bit worried.


    "Well if you guys wanted real proof doing that destroys the object, you have it now. I answered with a shrug. "You wouldn''t be able to miss that type of explosion, at least not if it was on Earth or even nearby."


    The interior of the aircraft went silent after that, save for the sound of the engines. Eventually Natasha looked over at me.


    "Why wings?" She asked, the corners of her lips turning up in just the barest of smiles.


    "Quirk of how my power works Which I''m now realizing I''m going to have to reveal in order to make the tracking device."


    "I won''t force you to." Fury said, his arms crossed. "The Security Council probably wouldn''t even be annoyed if I didn''t. You built up a lot of credit with giving us an edge over Hydra."


    "Does that include taking whatever energy samples you have to my own workshop?" I asked, chuckling when Fury shook his head. "Then I''ll need you to gather a bunch of things for me. My process is material intensive."


    I listed off a few dozen things, which Furypiled into a message and sent off. He kept his face nk but I could tell he was confused about what I needed.


    "How is the Hydra hunt going anyway?" I asked, looking between the two members of Shield.


    "We have cut down two of the three gathering points in America." Fury answered. "Steve, his team and the enhanced squad are preparing to take down thest one as we speak."


    "What about overseas?" I asked.


    "Other countries are working their way through therger gathering points with our assistance." Natasha answered. "But it''s slower going. Shield has always had a stronger presence in the US, in most other countries is a muchrger give and take. It''s going to take years to clean up the countries that actively dislike our involvement."


    "Well just let me know if you want more tablets." I said. "They aren''t difficult to make, especially because I''m sure you have ess to plenty of samples."


    "What kind of resources do you need?" Fury asked, already pulling out his phone. I listed out a dozen or so things that I needed for each one, getting an odd look.


    "What?" I asked after a moment, suddenly annoyed by his look.


    "We suspected that any mystic aspect you hinted at was simply a smoke screen." Fury said diplomatically. "But this list"


    "You''re just going to have to be patient." I said with a shrug, getting a chuckle out of Natasha. "I''ll show you when we get to the Helicarrier."


    "You seem awfully fine with revealing a secret you''ve kept for a while now."


    "Well you guys have been scouring your agents for what, three, four days now?" I pointed out. "I bet Shield is the most secure it''s been in decades, not even including Hydra."


    "You wouldn''t tell us because of moles?" Fury asked skeptically.


    "I wouldn''t tell you because I wasn''t ready for whatever heat woulde from everyone knowing." I responded, correcting him after a moment. Why did my brain feel slow? "I''m still hoping to keep it a secret, but I know I can survive if it stops being a secret."


    "...We will set up a secure room." Fury said after a moment.


    "Good. Every advantage I get to keep means a potential trick I get to call on when I need it. asionally that will happen when you need it too." I pointed out. "Speaking of my tricks benefiting you, anyints from the squad I equipped?"


    "None, though they got a bit over confident in their first mission, resulting in one of them breaking their foot."


    "Let me guess, they kicked something too hard?" I guessed, getting a nod from Fury.


    "One of them attempted to kick a reinforced door down and shattered a few bones in their foot."


    "Yeah, that''s one of the reasons I''ve held off on more strength upgrades for myself." I exined. "I''m stronger, not tougher. It''s something I''m working on."


    "Could have done with a warning." Fury said, looking at me with annoyance.


    "I No that''s fair, it didn''t ur to me." I admitted, rubbing the back of my head. "I learned the lesson the hard way the first time I managed to enhance my strength. If I hadn''t also just finished making my healing amulet I would have likely been in some trouble."


    "Well they learned that lesson as well."


    "Right Well as an apology how would you like to have depth perception again?"

 Chapter 56: Showing off

    Chapter 56: Showing off


    Not long after I made my offer wended on the deck of the Helicarrier, therge flight capable ship moored at a naval base near Washington DC. The ramp of the quinjet, which I was surprised to learn was the name of this particr aircraft design, opened up onto the flight deck. Both Fury and Natasha exited promptly, with me following behind them, my head on a swivel.


    This was definitely a Helicarrier version that took after aircraft carriers, as proven by the fact that we were floating on the water. The flight deck was lined with a handful of F-22 fighter jets as well as more quinjets, most of them being worked on in some capacity. I followed Fury as he entered through a hatch into the ship, taking onest look around before stepping in behind him.


    "Natasha, lead Maker tob twenty seven. His materials are being delivered there. I need to update the Security Council on the bombs disposal." Fury said. "Please start with the Hydra tablets. After I''m done with the WSC I will escort the energy samples down to you."


    Natasha nodded and led me down a different corridor, Fury peeling off to go on his own. The redhead superspy guided me through several halls, down a flight of stairs and into a secure room, a rather thick door opening for us both, closing behind us as we stepped through. Inside were a fewb tables and everything I had requested, all stacked in different piles. I quickly started looking through everything, separating and organizing it.


    "Are you going to stick around and watch?" I asked, looking at Natasha over my shoulder.


    "Do you mind if I do?"


    "Not at all. I would like the camera and microphones in here turned off though." I answered before focusing back on my preparation.


    Natasha nodded and made a short phone call, before telling me everything was off. I didn''t have my belt turned on, but oddly enough I trusted her. Even if I didn''t I felt sure knowing my power level had risen enough that I was rtively safe. Even if Hydra could make a bomb that would have probably cooked me inside of my armor no matter how good it was. It would have turned me to a cooked paste if it had gone off when I was standing next to it. Or maybe it would have just disintegrated me into a fine powdered ash. Would my armor have kept me alive long enough for me to realize what was happening? I needed to get my next armor upgrade ready. I need to find a way to speed that up, I almost died. What if I hadn''t been fast enough? What if whatever Hydra fucker who set that up had just lied about the timer? Had it been a trap for me specifically? Did they know I woulde rushing if the Shield called me? Should I skip town? If they know that much who knows what else they know. What if there one of those bombs near my house? I needed to move, needed to run needed to-


    "Maker!" Natasha called out. I started, my strengthened grip bending the already finger dented metal table I had been leaning against.


    "Fuck, sorry." I said, pulling my hands off of the bent table. I shook my head and focused on the stacks of materials, starting to go through them.


    Eventually, after getting everything organized I started putting together the Hydras tracking tablets. Natasha watched wordlessly over my shoulder as I put a dozen of them together over a span of half an hour with the resources Shield had gathered for me. When I was done I cracked I just looked down at the stack of tablets


    "That''s it?" She asked. "They are done?"


    "Yeah." I answered simply, having forgotten she was there.


    "How does it work?" She asked, picking up one of the tablets and testing it out.


    "Do you mean how does my ability function or what are its rules?" I asked. "Cause I have no idea how it actually functions, I just know it does."


    "Then that''s what I meant." She answered with a small smile, putting the tablet down. "It looked like you were justbining things together."


    "Well on the surface, yeah, that''s what I was doing." I exined, leaning back in my seat. "I pull objects into my cards andbine them together. That alone could be interesting bybining weird things to get strange effects orbine simr things to stack its effects. What really drives my ability is that once I start stacking things, concepts begin ovepping. The more I stack concepts the more powerful they get. The tablets for example."


    I took a tablet and scrolled through, focusing on one group of Hydra members.


    "Ibined a dozen different things all about location, finding things, maps, direction and a few others, working it all in to get something like these."


    "Is that how you track my mask?" She asked.


    "No actually, that functions a very different principle, one that I came up with before I cracked the tracking tablet form." I exined, pulling out herpass and showing it to her. "This just points in your direction."


    "You have apass that always points to me." She asked, raising an eyebrow and giving me a strong look.


    "No no, your mask." I exined, correcting myself with a shrug. "It''s not like it lets me see you. Besides, I did warn you when you asked me to make one for you."


    Before she couldment on that, the door to theb opened and Nick Fury stepped in, two agents behind him pushing in tworge metal boxes, mped shut and sitting on top of each other. He looked at Natasha and me before looking at the stack of tablets, nodding and motioning the two agents to bring the two boxes in closer. They silently lifted the boxes up onto the counters before leaving without a word. When the door sealed shut Fury turned back to me.


    "What I''m about to tell you is ssified information. It cannot leave this room." He said, looking first at me, and then surprisingly at Natasha, who nodded.


    "Fine. But what I told you before still stands Fury. I''m not drinking the kool aid."


    For a long moment he stared at me, before finally nodding.


    "Understood. During World War II Hydra discovered an object of unknown origin known as the Tesseract. A glowing blue cube less than five inches across."


    My heart skipped a beat as Fury described what was sounding very much like the Cosmic Cube. If that catastrophe was floating around on this things just got a whole lot moreplicated.


    "The Red Skull and his Hydra scientists devised a way to siphon energy from it, storing it and using it to power weapons of war." He gestured to the metal boxes and I started opening one. "These weapons were incredibly powerful and the energy source incredibly potent. Shield has done its best to confiscate every surviving piece of Hydra technology we could find."


    I undid thetches and lifted the box''s lid, revealing four brick sized metal cells, each one with a clear window showing a glowing blue energy. They were resting inside a nest of padding, some sort of organic feeling fiber. Leaving that box open I started on the second box, revealing eight simr energy cells, these ones smaller but nestled in the same material.


    Hesitantly I reached down and carded one of the small cells, pulling back when it easily slid into the Deck. I summoned the card and examined it, eyes going wide back in surprise.


    There were undertones of energy storage, ammunition and a few other things. They even had a small Hydra concept. But dwarfing that by allparisons was a single concept, one so pure that it was honestly shocking. It was some sort of energy. Cosmic energy maybe, or some sort of creation energy, vored by something that I couldn''t quite put my finger on. It still stunned me for a full thirty seconds. This was absolutely what had mad that bomb so powerful. Anything denoting with this kind of energy would have vaporized anything in its path, the bomb would have leveled half of the city. I would have-


    "Maker?" Fury said, pulling me back. "Everything alright?"


    "Yeah yeah just surprised by what the concepts are."


    "Concepts?"


    "I''ll exin after, continue."


    "... Shield has been attempting to recreate the energy weapons, though it has recently been pushed into overdrive after the events in New Mexico."


    "The sudden realization that we aren''t alone makes everyone wish they had a bigger gun." Imented, shaking my head.


    "Exactly. This research has been going on for years however, and included the explosives produced by Hydra, including the ones that Steve Rogers sacrificed himself to stop from reaching the US." He exined, the next parting out painfully. "After the rediscovery of Hydra, we performed a thorough investigation into what projects certain members were pushing for. It seems that the core proponents of the research into replicating and refining these weapons were Hydra. The bombs were one of them. They utilized repurposed energy cells to create an explosion. Not quite as powerful as a nuke of the same size but rmingly close."


    "So Hydra used its influence in Shield to convince it to develop weapons of mass destruction." I asked, getting a confirming nod from Fury. "How did they manage to make one while you still don''t know how to?"


    "We believe that they were purposely sabotaging our research to make it appear like no progress was being made in the final steps, while their scientist had sessfullypleted a prototype." Fury exined. "This is just spection at this point though, we had no idea it even existed."


    "Right I''m going to make that tracking tablet now." I said.


    I turned and got to work, exining how and what I was doing, mostly for Fury''s sake. I ended up having to do this a bit differently, working out that the cosmic energy concept was too powerful to just meld easily into the tracking tablet. Luckily I had a few magic rods in the Deck to help smooth everything out. I ended up only needing one small power cell, with most of my work attempting topete with its massive conceptual weight.


    When I was finally done I had used twice as many resources as I had originally predicted, but had a tablet that was tracking this particr vor of cosmic energy. I pulled it out of the deck when I was done and looked at it. At a nce there were two gathering points for the energy sources, one here on the Helicarrier and another off of the screen. I attempted to pan around to see but Fury grabbed the tablet and attempted to pull it from my hands. Despite the fact that he had no chance in a tug of war with me I carded it away.


    "If that works correctly then there are secure locations other than this ship where we store these energy sources." Fury exined, looking agitated. "That is a secret that cannot get out, even to an ally like you."


    "Fine, I understand." I said. "I don''t need to know every Shield secret. But I do want something for this, and for those."


    I said, gesturing to the stack of twelve Hydra tracking tablets, before pointing to the box of four energy cells.


    "I want those."


    "What? Absolutely not!" Fury said harshly. "Ignoring the fact that I just witnessed you make something to track that energy source from one of them, I can''t let you leave with those samples, especially not now that I know how your ability works."


    "All you have to do is say they were used in the creation of the tracking tablet." I said with a shrug. "Look, you have your lie detection band on, correct? I promise not to use them to track down your secret facility. I have no interest in anything nefarious. The only reason I am so determined to build my arsenal up is so that I can defend myself and asionally protect people."


    "Sir he did fly towards a bomb. To save people." Natasha pointed out, getting a look from an annoyed Fury, who then continued to stare at me. "And he isn''t lying."


    "...Lie to me." Fury said after a full half minute of staring at me. "Prove the band''s work on you."


    "The sky is purple, I hate pizza, Natasha would look better as a blonde."


    Natasha rolled her eyes behind Fury, but I could see a small smile on her lips, a real one. After a minute of internal debating Fury finally answered.


    "You can have two." He said, crossing his arms.


    "Four and when I crack the personal durability problem I will upgrade your squad for free."


    "... fine." He said, watching as I went to the box and carded the fourrge energy cells. "The tablet?"


    I pushed out the tablet and handed it to him, watching as he quickly scanned through it.


    "There are a few small sources around Europe. Those just might be leftovers from the war. There is anotherrger source, at one of the gathering ces The Sokovian base." Fury said before turning and leaving the room. "Natasha, please escort Maker to the flight deck. Then meet me at the helm."


    We both watched him leave, before Natasha gave me a look, turning to leave as well. I reached out and gave her arm a poke causing her to pause and turn, look confused and questioning.


    "What was that?"


    "I wanted to get you to stop without grabbing you. Seemed like a bad idea to grab the super spy."


    "It can be, when I''m distracted or under a lot of stress. I tend to keep it under control though." She exined, leaning back up against the counter.


    "Stress like surviving a bomb that would have probably wiped out an entire city?" I said, getting a reluctant nod in agreement.


    "Fair. What is it?"


    "I just wanted to make sure you''re okay."


    "If I''m okay?" She asked, looking at me skeptically. "Maker, I''m used to that kind of situation. This isn''t even the first time I''ve stood next to a counting down WMD. The real question is are <em>you</em> okay?"


    "Of course." I responded, probably a bit too fast.


    "Well, I''ll survive. Might be a while before I can sleep again but I''ll be okay." She said after a moment, wearing her patented, and most assuredly fake, teasing smile. "But thank you for your concern."


    I nodded and Natasha led me out of theb and back out through the Helicarrier. Within a few minutes I was taking off from the flight deck, flying towards the city. I quickly found a quiet corner to pull in my wings and travel back to the quarry. When I got their Ema was still gone, which reminded me to text her so she would know I could pick her up. After that, rather than return to my other project I sat down in my chair and pulled out one of the four cosmic energy cells, turning it over in my hand. It was warm to the touch and felt heavier than I would have expected.


    After a few minutes of just looking at it I put it down on the table and got my universal scanner, giving the energy cell a scan. I carded the cell again before dropping back into my seat to read the results.


    The first thing I focused on was where the energy hade from. I paged through its stats before finding a small snippet that confirmed that the energy contained inside the cell was energy coinciding with the creation of the universe, drained from the Tesseract by Hydra. It also said that the Tesseract was a vessel, a storage container for a powerful object. I let out a breath of relief. While it wasn''tplete confirmation, the fact that my scanner didn''t say it was a Cosmic Cube was reassuring. I just hope that it stayed gone, wherever it ended up. I spent a bit longer going over the scan results in detail, all the while holding the card between my fingers.


    It was incredibly powerful and the feel of the energy was nebulous and strange. In a few ways it was like the golden concept that was in Thor''s sparks, as if it was difficult to describe in words what it really was. It did however bear a strong resemnce to creation, or maybe some sort of fundamental building block?


    As I was sitting in my chair toying with the card I happened to look across the workshop space and see the Destroyer armor duplicate. At almost half way through its repair time, the repair tablet had made serious progress. The head, arms and chest were done, all the way down to the start of the stomach. It still had a few days to go though.


    I slowly stood from my chair and walked over to the table it was resting on, before disconnecting the repair tablet. The tablet that was creating something out of seemingly nothing. Ibined one of the energy cells with the tablet and pushed it back out, reconnecting it to the armor. After double checking that everything that I wanted deselected was, I started it back up.


    Where the previous timer had quoted four more days beforepletion, it now said thirty two hours. Thirty percent of what it had been previously.


    "Well I''ll be damned."


    Before I could do anything else I got a message from Ema that she needed a pick up. Without another thought I traveled to her.


    "Hey. Any trouble?" I asked, appearing in front of her.


    Mypanion said nothing, instead only stepping closer. She looked into my eyes for a moment, and I could see the hurt and worry she felt, despite her eyes being pure emeralds. For a moment I thought she was going to p me. Instead, before I could react, she reached out and wrapped her arms around me and held me, pulling me against her until my head rested on her shoulder.


    And just like that my control slipped.


    My knees went weak, almost falling out from under me. Ema held me up as I grabbed at her, my own shaking. Tears fell and I sobbed hard, almost convulsing as thest few hours rolled over me like a heavy wave.


    "You''re okay." She said softly. "You''re okay."


    "There were seconds Ema." I said, still gripping her tightly. "S-seconds!"


    "But you''re alive." She said, rubbing the back of my head. "You''re alive, and you saved everyone. You''re okay."


    I couldn''t respond, my throat tightening and my heart racing. My thoughts ran and bounced, erratic and panicked as I shivered and sobbed. I had almost died.


    It was a while before I could speak the words to travel home clearly enough for them to work.<hr>


    Hello! This is just a reminder that I have a Pa_tre_on! Supporters get early chapters and on the first of every month, like today, five chapter of my first book. If your interested, please stop by and show your support. If not, then I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

 Chapter 57: Starting slow

    Chapter 57: Starting slow


    Ema and I spent the rest of the day in the apartment, talking about what had happened since I had rushed off. Eventually my hands stopped shaking and I calmed down enough to actually discuss it.


    "Showing them how you craft might not have been the best idea." Ema pointed out gently when I was done.


    "Yeah in hindsight it wasn''t my brightest moment." I admitted, shaking my head and letting out a sigh. "I was focused on making sure it didn''t happen again at least until I saw the energy they had. That kinda pulled my focus."


    "It''s understandable. You weren''t exactly thinking clearly." Ema said with a shrug. "I think Fury and Natasha will keep your secret for a while, but preparing for when people know how the Deck works might be a good idea, especially with how you told Tony."


    "That was a price I was willing to pay for much faster transport." I said with a shrug. "Not happy about it but"


    "Well, at least you sped up the repair tablet." She said. "That''s a pretty good step forward I think."


    "Yeah It''s got me thinking as well." I said, leaning back on the couch and closing my eyes. "I think it''s time we take that idea and boost it to the next level."


    "What do you mean?"


    "Well if repairing something from nothing is possible then what about building?" I hypothetically asked, twirling out the card that contained a Hydra energy cell. "This creation energy would help a lot in making something that makes other things."


    "Like what?" She asked.


    "Like whatever I need." I said with a shrug. "It would save a lot of time and money shopping. Plus, I''m pretty sure I can find enough things that are about copying stuff that I should be able to make the stuff I make with the Deck."


    "Well the armor won''t be done for another day or so." Ema pointed out. "Is a day enough time to put together everything you need?"


    "If we do some research now and do our shopping as Maker, yes." I exined. "I need a lot of heavy machinery and being able to card what I buy and move on will make it a lot easier."


    "Well You''ve already done some shopping as Maker, what''s a bit more?"


    Together Ema and I started doing our research, first finding ces that soldrge machinery. Things likethes, bandsaws, anvils, drill presses and anything else, doing my best to focus on devices that did most of the work for you. It took the rest of the day but we had a solid n for what we needed. Eventually though I headed to bed early, mentally exhausted. Sleep eventually came, though it was restless and full of nightmares.


    -<em>The Next Morning</em>-


    I ended up getting up much earlier than I would have liked. I felt haggard and tired, as what little sleep I had managed to get had been fitful and poor. After my coffee and breakfast I started the day by heading out into the city, going from shop to shop. I bought an obscene amount of machinery, spending almost a hundred eighty thousand dors before noon. The most expensive things were the two massive CNC machines, each costing forty five grand each.


    With the heavy machinery out of the way I started buying up everything else I would need, quickly bouncing between cities to buy arge supply, dropping it off at the quarry when the Deck got a little too full. I did a bunch of shopping in Los Angeles for the first time, buying a few stores out of various supplies. When I was finally down shopping I headed back to the quarry to find that Ema had started organizing everything, getting it all ready tobine.


    I started out by making a huge surplus of magic rods, filling a storage bin with them and keeping it near my workstation for easier ess. After that I startedying everything together, working in all of therge metal working equipment, the 3D printers, molding equipment, everything I could get my hands on that had concepts of making things, all the while working in magic rods.


    When I was done with that amalgamation I started on the second one,bining dozens of different brands of copy machines, scanners, stencils, printers, anything used to copy something, again with copious amounts of magic rods. I even added a dozen books of carbon paper. Lastly Ibined it with a bunch ofputer parts and upgrades, looking to improve the overall quality and fidelity.


    For my final amalgamation Ibined fifteen grand worth of materials. Printer ink, metal stock, resin for 3D printers, ss, wood, all sorts of different materials that were conceptually in a raw state. I mixed in plenty of magic rods again, finishing off the entire crate.


    With my three amalgamationsplete I carded it all together, holding the result in my hands.


    "Conceptually it''s all there." I said, holding the A ranked card. "Which just leaves the final touch."


    I pulled out a card containing an energy cell, about to add it in before stopping. Instead I summoned the final Thor spark andbined that into the card. Then Ibined an energy cell and immediatelybined in a second one.


    "Woah, why the second one?" Ema asked. "And the spark too?"


    "Worst case scenario I trade for more from Fury." I said with a shrug, my smile slowly growing. "Besides"


    I turned the card to show Ema, the card disying some sort of machine. It was hard to make out the details exactly from the small image, but the gold embossed S in the corner was impossible to miss.


    I flicked the card out, its contents appearing along the far wall of the tent. It was a huge machine, a foot taller than I was and at least seven feet wide and three feet deep. The front right side had aputer screen interface with arge tray next to it which, after a minute of examination, I realized could be extended out of the side of the machine. On the opposite side was a product tray, which seemed to be able to copse against the machine so that its output could just fall to the floor or out onto another surface. The entire machine was embossed with runes and detailed filigree, arge amount of which softly pulsed with pale blue energy


    "I''m pretty sure it waspletely worth it."


    I pushed out the final energy cell and ced it onto the scanning pad before tapping on the c. A model of the cell rotated in the top left of the screen, along with a few simple options. I could print it with the energy inside, without the energy inside, one copy at a time or in any amount of grouping that I wanted. It also disyed a timer, showing ten hours for a single copy of the energy cell.


    "That''s a bit long." I mumbled, scratching my cheek "I wonder"


    In a rush I pulled the cell back into a card, before walking to the Destroyer armor. It was almost done, with everything physically repaired above the knees. I quickly disconnected it and rushed back to the S ranked machine, sliding the tablet into the scanning section and activating the screen. I tapped a few buttons and smiled before clicking enter.


    "Four hours and we will have ten tablets." I exined.


    "How does that work?" Ema asked, looking incredulously at the screen. "The tablet contains an energy cell, how does it take so much less time?"


    "I''m not sure, but the energy cell is pretty incredible and potentially filled from, ording to the universal scanner, a one of a kind energy source." I guessed, shrugging while still focusing on the machine. "The tablet holds the concepts of the cell for sure, but it''s not the cell anymore."


    "That''s so broken."


    "Well yeah, but no more than the repair tablet."


    "Carson, everything you make takes a ton of materials but if that machine only counts the final product when copying it"


    "Then everything is going to be incredibly cheappared to what I put into it." I said, eyes going wide as I looked at her. "Holy fuck, that is broken."


    It didn''t take long for the first tablet to slide out of the machine and into the tray. I immediately picked it up, grabbed the original andbined them together. By using the Destroyer armor as a measurement I realized that the double stacking had increased its repair speed again, but did not double it. In fact it was only a ten percent increase. Still, extremely noticeable, especially on longer projects.


    Over the next four hours I put together one sixtuple stacked repair tablet and one quadruple stacked. I did notice a steep drop off in terms of diminishing returns, but with the ability to literally print more there was no reason to stop when returns diminished, only when they stoppedpletely. With two extra powerful tablets to work with Ema and I put together a schedule.


    "Okay, here''s the deal." I said, pulling out my sword. "If the Deck is going to offer such an easy way to power scale, I''m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth."


    I used the sword to carve off three chunks of the repair machine, hooking the sixtuple repair tablet to the original and hitting repair all.


    "When this is done Ema, which will be intwo hours." I said, double checking the tablet. "I want you to immediately hook it up to one of the fragments. That will likely take all day to fix, but that''s fine. When the universal copy machine-"


    "UCM." Ema said, cutting me off.


    "When the UCM is working again I want you to print out as many repair tablets as possible." I exined, moving back to the Destroyer armor and hooking up the quadruple stacked tablet. "This is going to be done around three in the morning. When it''s done, hook it up to the next carved chunk and get the next set going."


    "You''re going tobine two destroyer armors?" She asked, looking skeptical.


    "Depending on the final repair time for a ten stacked tablet I might even triple or quadruple the stack it." I said with a shrug. "I expect it will have a serious drop in effectiveness per stack, as the more powerful stuff usually does, but it''s still worth it since it''s basically free."


    Ema and I talked a bit more before I left for the night, taking off early since at this point it was a waiting game. When I came back the next morning I was greeted by a stack of fifteen more repair tablets and a pleted'' Destroyer armor.


    I quickly stacked the tablets together, settling on two tens and a five as ten seemed to be where the diminishing returns finally stopped being worth it. I hooked up the next set of armor to one of the maxed repair tablets, the timer now reading twenty eight hours. With that going I set up the second maxed tablet to one of the UCM parts, which would take about eight hours to finish. Eventually I finished a third maxed repair tablet, which I immediately used to repair my wings after I cut a chunk off of them, before switching to using that chunk to make aplete second set.


    With everything else set up and being used I set theplete UCM to make another ten repair tablets before pushing out my cab of tricks and pulling out a set of spare armor. I went for a quick shopping trip to get some materials before using the same method I had for Steve and Peggy''s armor to make a set for Bucky. When I was done I picked up the phone and called him.


    "Hello?"


    "Hey Bucky, it''s Maker." I said. "Was calling to let you know I finished your full armor. Where are you guys?"


    "We are in Washington." He said simply. "On the Helicarrier."


    "Great! I''ll head over and we can get it bound to you."


    I grabbed a single repair tablet and left the workshop to Ema before traveling to DC. I quickly flew to the Helicarrier andnded on the deck, startling a few agents in the process. Both Steve and Bucky were waiting for me, smoothing things over with the on edge agents.


    "Maker, good to see you." Steve said as we shook hands. "Heard you saved the day again."


    "Yeah it was intense." I said with a shrug. I must have been pretty transparent because Steve quickly changed the topic.


    "So you have Bucky''s armor?"


    "Yeah I do. Let''s find somewhere private and we can get it bound to him."


    It took a minute to find an empty space but eventually we did, quickly binding the armor. It shifted quickly to a dark navy blue ented with dark reds. For all intents and purposes it was very simr to Steve''s armor, but darker and much more simple. When it was done I leaned against a table and looked at Steve. I was feeling a bit off about asking for this, but it represented a step that could change a lot, giving me ess to a material I had been dying to work with.


    "Steve, could I ask you a favor?" I asked as Bucky experimented with his armor, checking its flexibility.


    "Of course Maker." He answered immediately. "What do you need?"


    "This is a repair tablet. It cost a lot to make but essentially it fixes anything with enough time." I exined, instead of answering him directly. "With your permission I''d like to take a sample of your shield. Just a sliver from the inside rim would be enough, and we could immediately repair it with the tablet, good as new."


    "My shield?" He asked, looking down at the disk of metal he was carrying. "Are you sure the tablet can fix it?"


    "Let''s find out."


    I motion for him to get closer before hooking up the shield to the tablet. It had several smaller issues, thergest being a slightly worn grip. I showed him the tablet, scrolling through. I offered to fix the grip to prove it but he stopped me.


    "No the grip is perfect, it took a bit to get it worn in properly" he assured me, getting a chuckle from Bucky.


    "Heined for days when Howard reced it one time without asking." He joked before suddenly getting somber. Steve reached over and patted his shoulder before turning back to me.


    "I don''t mind you taking a sample, as long as you promise to not let it fall into the wrong hands." He said after a moment, handing me his shield. "The metal is pretty unique, and Peggy pointed out that if people knew what it was made out of, they would try and take it."


    I took the shield from him and held it in my hands, looking down at it for a few seconds. I was holding Captain America''s shield. It took a minute for me to recover from the st of wonder and bafflement at the idea. When I did I looked up at Steve and nodded.


    "Thanks, I''ll be careful with it." I assured him beforeying the shield down upside down on the table. "The sample and the shield."


    I pulled my pocket knife out and adjusted its intensity before slowly slicing off a sliver of the shield. It was hardly noticeable but I could practically feel Steve worrying from behind me, so I quickly set up the repair tablet. It was only going to take about a minute to repair the tiny sliver I took, which I immediately carded, doing my best to stay calm.


    After a few minutes the shield was fixed and Steve eagerly took it back.


    "Thank you Steve, I really appreciate this." I said, shaking his and Bucky''s hand again. "I will put this to good use."


    "What do you need it for?" He asked as we stepped out of the smaller room, heading back to the flight deck.


    "To enhance my armor." I exined with a shiver. "Getting stuck with my own arrow has really inspired me to up my armor game."


    "Well I hope it works." Steve said as we made our way through the interior of the shield ship, eventually stepping back out into the sun.


    "There you three are."


    Peggy, dressed in a basic Shield agent uniform, made her way to us from a little ways away, having been looking around the flight deck.


    "I got word you were here Maker, I wanted to make sure you were all right." She said as she got to us, before reaching out and giving my arm a squeeze. "Situations like that are never easy, even for those of us who are trained for it."


    As she mentioned training Steve rocked back slightly, as if realizing that no, I had no idea how to handle that sort of situation and that I was in fact a civilian. One with powerful abilities, but a civilian nheless. I held back from flicking my childhood hero in the nose for not realizing sooner.


    "I I managed to hold myself together until I was with Ema." I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck. "But I''m doing okay. Tired, but okay. I''m alive and Dover is still intact, I just need to focus on that."


    I had to clench my hand a bit to keep it from shaking, but I managed to smile at the concerned woman.


    "I can imagine sleep was hard toe by." She said with a sympathetic nod. "Well I won''t ask you to bear your soul here, but if you need someone to talk to we are here."


    Steve nodded his head emphatically, giving me a sympathetic look. Even Bucky managed to give me a subtle nod.


    "Thank you. I would stay longer but I''m guessing you''re leaving for Sokovia soon?"


    "We are scheduled to lift offter tonight." Steve confirmed. "Thank you for that data by the way. Peggy exined why Shield was keeping and studying the weapons, but knowing that Hydra could still be experimenting with the energy? Even if they can''t make more, it''s still worrying."


    "Well, good luck on your mission." I said, giving the three a nod before extending my wings. "When you get back let me know. Might be nice to just spend some time hanging out while not getting shot at."


    "That sounds wonderful, Maker." Peggy agreed with a smile. "Good luck with your projects!"


    I lifted off the deck and flew into the air, heading towards the city to find a ce to hide. I needed to get back to the quarry.


    I had a shield to rebuild.

 Chapter 58: Gaining momentum

    Chapter 58: Gaining momentum


    The next week went by in a blur.


    By the end of the first day, after returning home with a shaving from Steve''s shield I had four more UCM''s slowly being repaired into existence, scheduled to be done the next afternoon. My own vibranium shield was set to be done in the middle of the night and the first set of Destroyer armor was already sitting in the Deck, with another three on the way.


    Thepleted UCM was set to print out a dozen sets of full armor, the ones I had made that wereparable to my own, minus the wings of course. When they were done Caps shield would be finished, and Ema stayed behind to set the UCM to print a few extras when the previous print was finished. By the time I returned the next morning I had two new vibranium shields. I didn''t spend long at the quarry that morning though, because a source of vibranium was only partially useful if it was stuck with full of the dozen strong concepts that the copies held. The protection and shield concepts would be useful for making armor, and my own shield, but not for making much else.


    I spent the morning gathering materials to make a metal maniptor, mixing a few dozen different pieces specifically made to work with metal, including things like furnaces and metal presses, ingot molds and metal rollers. I kept away from equipment that cut or removed material, mostly to keep the building/crafting concepts out of the machine. The end result was as big as an oven and had an in port on top big enough to take one of the vibranium shields. I dropped one of the shields into it, and ten minutester it spit out three vibranium ingots. I immediately removed a piece of the machine, and set a second one to be repaired into existence.


    By the time I was done with that another shield was done from the UCM. I set one of them aside in the storage shed, before removing the paint of the other two andbining them to my own deployable shield. The result was a shield as close to indestructible as I think I could get, with rounded edges that gave it an ovoid look instead of just a rectangle. Satisfied with the result I set two of the now finished UCM''s to print out a dozen more shields, set another one to print out more energy cells and then thest and original UCM to print out magic rods before leaving.


    The next day, with everything being produced and repaired in the background, Ema and I sat down to apply my next tattoo. It took a while to n but eventually we settled on improving my toughness, before creating a few colored inks to improve the quality of the tattoo itself. Ema took her time to create the illusion that my skin had been torn away to reveal armor ting underneath. It started where the Hydra had managed to impale me on my own arrow, tearing back around my side and ending where the arrow hade out the other side. It looked amazing when it was done and more than doubled my overall toughness. My skin was nowpletely stab proof, at least to normal knives. I was making ns for an improved form before Ema even finished the tattoo.


    After that it was basically a waiting game. Days were spent getting and printing everything I needed to make my penultimate armor. A dozen full sets of normal armor, four suits of Destroyer armor, a huge stack of Vibranium sheets and ingots, a dozen Vibranium shields, twelve sets of my chest armor/flight pack, a box of magic rods and arge stack of magic super metal and normal super metal, both of which now included two sheets of vibranium in the mix. At the end of the fourth day I had everything I needed.


    I got to work with very little ceremony, too eager to start to really care. I started by enhancing my undersuit with vibranium super metal and vibranium shields with the paint removed. At this point I was pretty sure that the only thing holding it back from being an S tiered card was the fact that it had no magic in it. Regardless, the vibranium and shield mix was incredibly potent.


    Satisfied I began working everything else together,bining the four destroyer copies with a dozen suits of armor, extra vibranium shields, super metal, magic and everything else. The final addition was four triple stacked sets of my flying armor. The result was my second S tier card. A single suit of armor that when undeployed started out as basic chest armor, not much more than my original undeployed armor was, including the flight pack of sorts. With a press of a button it unfolded and turned into a full coverage suit of armor, simr to how my old armor shifted when I deployed it, except now it had no gaps.


    The full armor was a light burnished metallic color, made of mostly banded metal, very simr to how the original Destroyer armor looked, though thankfully without the spikes. On top of that banding was extra armored ting, covering the most important areas, shaped vaguely like my original armor. It was clearly abination between my original deployable armor and the Destroyer armor, and it looked and felt phenomenal.


    "This This is incredible," I said, looking down at my arms and chest. "I feel"


    At a loss for words I looked around before walking to the nearest boulder, a chunk of rock the size of arge van. I lifted it up, shards of stone falling free as I lifted it over my head with only a bit of strain, with what little there was due to the awkward heft of the massive stone. With a grunt I hurled it into the air, the boulder clearing the water pit and smashing into the ground, the entire area shaking from the impact.


    "Holy fuck!" I said, before running and leaping over the same gap,nding with a thud on the other side.


    I walked to the same boulder, mming my fist into it, the entire rock splitting in half. The amount of strength this new suit had was incredible, and I could feel it with every move I made. I jumped back across the quarry with a whoop of excitement to find Ema waiting for me, already in her exosuit. I walked under the tent, noticing that the top of the entrance brushed my helmet as I did. I made my way to the mirror and examined myself a bit closer.


    "Holy hell Ema This is fantastic."


    I made my way back out of the tent and extended my wings, taking to the air. It felt easier than ever, despite being enveloped in armor that was certainly heavier than the previous version, by a significant degree. I pped and pushed, streaking across the sky as I pushed the limits of the armor''s speed. I immediately stopped after the air cracked around me.


    I had broken the sound barrier without even really trying.


    I turned and flew back, finding that I had left Ema in my dust.


    "You are upgrading my wings." She stated when we were close enough, leaving no room for an alternative


    "Of course. I need to update your exosuit as well," I added, slowlynding back at the quarry. "It at least needs some vibranium mixed into it. Just let me bind this and we will get to work."


    I ended up half repairing a chunk of Destroyer armor before running it through one of the metal maniptors, leaving me with two ingots and three sheets of enchanted Asgardian alloy, ording to the universal scanner. Apparently the metal was specifically created from nothing by Odin for the armor, and as suchcked a true name, but was steeped in enchantment and power. Ibined all of that with several transformation cards, mixed in equal parts of vibranium and a few controllers before adding it into the exosuit. I also quad stacked her wings, leaving a fifth basic version in my cab. This process took another day days, but was well worth the results.


    "How does it feel?" I asked as the suit formed around Ema.


    "It feels incredibly dense and powerful," She said as she shifted through a few dozen shapes. "I think I have even better control over it now."


    We spent the rest of that day sparring, exercising and getting a better feel for our new and improved suits. Ema''s seemed to have gained the ability to partiallypress her suit down, allowing her to appear as a normal sized person while having much more actual material to use. She was also much stronger and could absorb a pretty decent amount of impact due to the vibranium.


    My new armor could only be described as a monstrous improvement. It absorbed Ema''s hardest blunt hits with rtive ease, and was only scratched by her trying to pierce it. I could lift an ungodly amount of weight and my stamina was clearly being enhanced as well. We both spent a few hours running around the quarry and the surrounding areas without pausing, though with my enhanced strength I settled into a sort of modified lope that let me run a hundred and twenty miles per hour in a straight line.


    With my improved armor done, and my production level well and truly cracked wide open, Ema and I spent another two days copying and repairing into existence a variety of things we wanted to have on hand. Two dozen healing shlights, five healing amulets like mine, eight wings copied from Ema''s spare, a dozen suits of the basic version of deployable armor, under armor as well as healing amulets, a few spare medical scanners and universal scanners, strength and stamina cuffs, apact tattoo gun that I whipped up as well as a ce for any enhancing inks I made or will make.


    In the end I had so much extra stuff I ended up having to enhance my storage cab, turning it into a vibranium and Asgardian alloy reinforced behemoth with deeply enhanced storage capacity from a few dozen storage cabsbined, using my own created objects to fill them out. Now when I ced something in it, the first of an item was put on disy but every copy I put in after it was stored in some sort of expanded space. I was making ns to miniaturize a UCM to fit inside it when I got a surprising call from Tony.


    "Maker, how the hell do you have a five digit phone number?" He asked the second I picked up. "And how is itpletely untraceable?"


    "I''ll give you one guess Tony." I said with a smirk.


    "Right, reality breaking bullshit. I want one," He said, sounding annoyed that he didn''t already own one. "Listen, I finished modifying the suit to hold its own arc reactor."


    "And you want the shrapnel out?"


    "Yeah. Knowing that there was a risk free way the idea has been growing on me,"


    "Alright. Let me run some tests, work on some stuff and see if I can''te up with something. If my amulet works, I''ll probably be ready in an hour or so."


    "Right well I''ll be here all day, not like my time is valuable or anything," He said, before hanging up.


    Shaking my head I pulled out a medical scanner from my cab of tricks and closed it up, carding it before heading back to the tent. Emanded behind me and followed me inside, her wings folding into her pack.


    "Was that Tony?" She asked as I sat down, carding off my armor and healing amulet.


    "Yeah, apparently the idea of a risk free option for fixing up his chest has been growing on him."


    "I''m sure Pepper pestering the crap out of him has nothing to do with it."


    "Of course not," I said with a chuckle. "This was all his idea, remember?"


    "You''re awfully eager to help considering you didn''t want to get involved with him originally." She pointed out.


    I stopped what I was doing and considered what she had said, eventually shrugging and continuing.


    "He isn''t at all what I expected," I exined. "He seems to genuinely want to do good, even if he hides behind his sarcasm. If that starts to change well I''ll have toe up with something to stop him. I was worried when I first got here that I would get wrapped up in something I couldn''t escape from, but I''m slowly starting to realize that the Deck is too powerful. If something happens like Tony going crazy or Shield putting me on a wanted list, I can handle it, especially now that I have my new armor."


    It took an hour of experimentation, quite a bit of it bloody, to figure out that the amulet fully dissolved metal that waspletely stuck inside a person, but would push out anything that was still breaking through the skin. When I was done I packed everything up, washed up any blood, thanked Ema for the idea of a painkiller ring, and messaged Tony. It took a few minutes for him to respond but he confirmed he was free, and that I could fly to his house.


    Ten minutester Ema and I werending on the frontwn of Tony''s mansion, a nervous looking Pepper waiting by the door.


    "Hello, thank you foring," She said, giving us a smile as we walked closer. "Tony didn''t tell me you wereing until a few minutes ago. I''ve been trying to convince him to do this at a hospital or something but"


    "That isn''t really necessary," I assured her. "He will be perfectly safe and won''t feel any pain."


    "But wouldn''t it be better to do it in like some sort of sterile environment or something?" She asked as she led us into the house, heading straight for the workshop downstairs.


    "Pepper, I promise that my healing amulet can handle anything you could throw at it. You could do open heart surgery in a New York dumpster ande out healthier than when you went in wearing it. I''m not sure it''s actually possible to die with it on. Not that I n on testing that."


    The strawberry blonde woman still looked nervous, but nodded in understanding as she unlocked the workshop door for us, leading us inside. There was Tony,ying back on a makeshift operating chair, some space having been cleared. He had his shirt off and was fiddling with his arc reactor, the main fully out of his chest. Pepper gasped when she saw this, rushing closer in her heels. It took a few minutes for Tony to calm her down, during which I scanned him with my medical scanner.


    "It''s funny, a few weeks ago I was scrambling to make this before the old one killed me," He said when Pepper finally took a step back. "Couldn''t have stopped by a few weeks earlier?"


    "I wasn''t exactly in the neighborhood," I said vaguely. "But I''m here now. I''ve got two things for you to put on."


    It took a minute to exin everything, but soon Tony wasying down on the table, wearing the painkiller ring and a double stacked healing amulet. Pepper was standing close by with a medical scanner of her own, constantly watching Tony''s vitals as the amulet did its job.


    I watched on my scanner as the metal shrapnel inside Tony''s chest got smaller and smaller before fading into nothing. When they had fully disappeared the healing amulet seemed to switch gears, slowly pushing the imnted retaining metal cylinder out of his chest. Ignoring how gruesome having an almost four inch wide hole in his chest was, the process went smoothly, his body healing at a steady rate.


    "This is the strangest thing I have ever felt in my entire life," Tony said as he watched the metal cylinder slowly slide out of his chest, at this point almost an inch out. "It doesn''t hurt but damn that feels weird."


    "Can''t be worse than regrowing an arm or a hole in your stomach all the way through," I said, shrugging when both Pepper and Tony looked at me. "There was a reason I was sure this would work."


    "You lost an arm?" Tony asked skeptically.


    "No, that was someone else," I answered, before tapping my chin.


    "So you got impaled through your stomach?"


    "Yeah," I said, shivering slightly. "It sucked, I wouldn''t rmend it."


    It took another fifteen minutes for the hole to fully heal and close up, leaving Tony''s chestpletely unmarked. We let him sit for another ten minutes to heal the general damage the padium poisoning had done to his body before he took off the amulet and handed it to me, followed by the painkiller ring. I put everything back into my cab while Pepper rushed her partner and held him tight before running her hand over his chest.


    "I''ll be honest I didn''t think I would ever get that removed," Tony admitted, touching the spot where his imnt had been. "I owe you one Maker."


    "I''m sure we will break even eventually," I said with a shrug. "Now why don''t we get you bonded to a lesser healing item to keep your health up?"


    We hung around for a bit longer, answering a few questions before Pepper invited us to stay over for dinner, which she sheepishly admitted was going to be takeout from somewhere. I epted the offer, mostly because I knew Ema wanted to spend more time talking to Jarvis, which she immediatly flew off and did.


    "I noticed your armor is different," Tony pointed out as Pepper went upstairs to order dinner. "Finished your upgrade?"


    "I did. Turned out even better than I had been hoping," I said with a smile. "I recently made a couple of big strides forward. It made getting everything together a lot easier."


    "Oh yeah? Like what?" He asked, leaning back against a workbench.


    I looked at him for a few seconds, considering how much I wanted to reveal at this point and how much I wanted to offer him. I flicked out a card to him, which he managed to catch before it shifted into an ingot of metal.


    "What is this?" He asked, turning it over in his hand. "I don''t recognize it."


    "It''s vibranium."


    Tony Stark fumbled with the eight pound metal ingot, just managing to catch it before it hit the ground.


    Not that it would have been damaged if he hadn''t.

 Chapter 59: Speeding up

    Chapter 59: Speeding up


    It took the usually unppable inventor a full thirty seconds to finally respond to my statement.


    "Are you fucking serious?" He asked, his eyes wide. "Where the hell did you find an ingot of vibranium? Do you have any idea how much money this is worth? No, of course you do, or you wouldn''t have done your whole dramatic reveal thing."


    "Of course I do." I confirmed with a smile and a shrug.


    Of course my issue wasn''t not knowing what it was worth. My issue was knowing if anyone would recognize the name or not. Thankfully it seemed they did.


    "I''m not really looking to sell it per say. Money really isn''t an issue at this point."


    "Sounds to me like you''re looking to trade." He pointed out.


    "It''s possible." I said with a smile before shifting to a more serious look "I want you to help me build something."


    "Really? Going to be all dramatic about that too?" He asked, rolling his eyes before looking back down at the vibranium. "You know one of the dumbest things my dad ever did was gather all the vibranium he could find and build it into a shield? The things we have been able to learn from the tiny amount we have found since then"


    "It''s a versatile metal. Unfortunately all I''ve been using it for is to reinforce my armor."


    "Wait, you did yourbining thing with vibranium? How much did you use? Where the hell did you get it?"


    "A few dozen ingots." I exined, smirking now. "And I have as much as I need."


    "As much as" Tony made a critical face for a moment, looking at me suspiciously. "You fucked with reality again, didn''t you."


    "I absolutely did."


    "Alright, I''ll bite." He said, throwing the ingot back to me, which I caught and put down on the counter. "What do you need help building?"


    "Well, honestly, at this point I have most of my problems solved." I admitted. "My armor is well I won''t say unstoppable but I consider it sufficient for now. Money problems are solved, and I have ess to intel and other resources through Shield. I''m pretty stable in most areas. Which leaves nothing else to do but expand and experiment."


    "You''re bored." Tony said, smirking now. "You''re looking for the next project because you''re bored."


    "Not really, not yet at least. I''m just looking for the next project. I have a few nned out ideas, some of which are kind of depending on Shield to well they need some-"


    "You realize I know about Hydra already right?" Tony said with a smirk. "Jarvis hacks the pentagon daily and makes a list of everything I need to know. Shield is a bit more challenging but once Hydra came in his report I got curious. Why do you think I was so adamant about getting my armor running before I let you work your voodoo?"


    "Huh Alright, that''s fair. Then you know about?"


    "That you de-aged Peggy Carter and she is running around with the all American popsicle? Yes, I know." Stark said, turning to tap on theputer behind him.


    He worked for a moment before pulling up cell phone camera footage of Steve, Bucky and Peggy, along with a few Shield agents storming a building. The footage zoomed in on Steve and Peggy''s faces.


    "I recognized them pretty quickly. Dad idolized Steve Rogers and Peggy worked with him on a daily basis. I got an invitation to her retirement party." He said, turning back to look at me. "Not a very big leap from someone finding the fountain of youth and someone offering to heal my chest within the next few weeks. How did you do it by the way?"


    "You mean how did I de-age her? The same amulet that fixed your chest." I said, rubbing my face. "I can''t believe I forgot to make her a face changing mask. Please don''t spread that around."


    "Does that mean I''m younger than Pepper now?" Tony asked, continuing when I gave him a harsh look. "I won''t as long as Pepper and I get some of the good stuff when I start seeing grays."


    "Thank you." I said, purposely not answering his unspoken question. I honestly hadn''t figured out if I was going to offer that to people beyond Peggy, even people I was close to. I didn''t know if the world was ready for immortality.


    "So what kind of projects are you looking for now?" Tony asked, sitting down in hisputer chair, spinning it around to face me.


    "Well I could use your help with one idea"


    By the time Ema and I left Tony and Pepper''s home it was almost one in the morning. We had eaten with the couple before Stark and I returned down into his workshop to talk about more of my ideas and eventually hammer out a deal. The inventor promised to help me with one of the most promising ns, agreeing to call in a few days when he was done. In exchange for producing the foundation for my idea, Stark would get two ingots of vibranium, one of which already I left with him.


    I knew I was way over paying for his help, considering that I could sell that single ingot for around thirty six million dors, ording to Stark himself. That said, I didn''t mind much considering that for now Stark seemed to be rtively sane and determined to be a good guy, with no hint of the near insane control freak he was in most of hisics. He did drink a bit too much before, during and after dinner, but his medical scan hadn''t said anything about alcoholism, at least not yet.


    The following morning Ema and I started a round trip around the country, flying to and distributing my teleport pads to several new cities. By the end of the next day I had threending pads in New York, and one in Washington DC, Chicago, Austin, Los Angeles, St Louis, Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, Honolulu, Seattle and Salt Lake City. We used the travel time to find our new top speeds, which ended up being just around Mach three. Content that I could now reach anywhere in the United States in a few minutes, I made another batch ofnding pads, this one attached to a stretchy leather band I could wear around my bicep.


    During the day I worked on smaller projects, mostly getting my production capabilities even further into the ridiculous by starting to duplicate and stack the UCM''s, as well producing some basic materials and doing some shopping for my uing project. While I was doing that Ema was fly around the world, dropping offnding pads. Pretty soon I could get to any ce on the in thirty minutes max. I ended up having to make a map of all the ces I could travel to to keep track. Being able to fly at mach three was very useful.


    By the time Ema was done distributingnding pads all over the world, Tony was done with his project.


    "It looks good." I said, walking around the humanoid robot shell he designed and fabricated for me. "How much did it cost to make?"


    "A few million." Tony responded with a shrug. "Most of it is made from parts I already had around for the suit, save a few actuators that I had to customize to work properly. It''s just a shell remember, nothing up top, not yet at least."


    The robot was about five feet tall and stood ramrod straight. Its frame was simple and looked vaguely skeleton-like, with bulkier joints and a vaguely V shaped head. It was actually shockingly simr to a T-800 from Terminator in some ways, though not quite as intimidating.


    "And its closed state?" I asked, prompting Tony to give it a verbalmand.


    The robot shivered slightly in ce as its pistons and actuators unlocked. It shifted in ce before slowly folding itself up. It wasn''t nearly as impressive as what I could do with some transformation cards, but plenty impressive for normal restrictions. In the end it was small enough to fit into my UCM, which is what really mattered. When it finally stopped moving its body tucked and folded into an approximate two foot cube.


    "It''s exactly what I needed." I said, watching as it began standing back up after anothermand from Tony. "And it doesn''t have any way whatsoever to connect wirelessly?"


    "Nope, it''spletely isted. It doesn''t even have a radio. The only way to update its programming is to pull this, download whatever you want to it and put it back in ce." He said, handing me a small square cartridge. "It has the absolute bare bones [programming right now. It''s basically only a few steps ahead of Dum-E."


    Tony spent the next hour showing me how to insert and remove the cartridge, how to remove the robot''s limbs and how to ess, charge, remove and rece its power source, which was a pretty unimpressive lithium ion battery. After he was done exining everything I carded it, examining its concepts in detail. A humanoid robot, with no hint of intelligence or method of control, it was a remarkably simple item. I couldn''t help but smile as I pulled out a second ingot of vibranium and passed it to Tony.


    "You earned this, just try not to advertise that you have it. Might want to cover it in ayer of a different metal or something if you use it in your armor."


    "Pfft there is no way I''m wasting this in armor ting." He said, cing it down on the counter.


    A short conversation and an even shorter flightter and Ema and I were back at the quarry, the UCM already scanning the robot shell in its folded form.


    "Why did he just let you leave like that?" Ema asked, floating around as she scrolled through the quad stacked UCM''s control screen. "I mean as basic as it is, it''s still a robot tform."


    "If I had to guess? Because he assumed he would be my only source if I wanted new ones, and that it''s not that advanced. I could have gotten something from half a dozen different ces. I bet Hammer industries would have given me a dozen drones for half an ingot of vibranium. " I exined with a shrug. "Tony wasn''t kidding when he said that the important part was missing. Making a bipedal robot isn''t the hard part, programming one to interact with the world with any sort of proficiency is."


    We waited an hour for the UCM''s to spit out their first copies before starting to experiment. Ibined the cartridge with books on speech,nguage and conversations, as well as basic psychology, bodynguage, and even a few books on bedside manners for nurses and doctors. I then added a dozen books on first aid, paramedic training, triage and all sorts of other medical knowledge, all focused on in-the-field treatment. When I was done I inserted it back into one of the copies. The robot jerked as its limbs unlocked before it turned to look at me.


    "Greetings." It said in a robotic voice. "Are you injured?"


    "My hand is a little sore." I said, holding my glove covered hand out to it.


    The robot stepped closer before gently taking my hand and removing my glove. It examined me, turning my hand over and checking for anything wrong. Finding nothing it stepped back and looked up at me.


    "You are uninjured. If you continue to feel symptoms please notify your doctor as unexined pain can be a symptom of several deeper issues."


    The robot said clearly, before looking around and noticing Ema, who was floating just next to it.


    "Greetings. Are you injured?"


    "...No." She answered, looking the robot up and down before looking back at me. "Not the brightest bulb in the batch, huh? I''m made of metal, floating and less than six inches across for crying out loud."


    "It''s just a proof of concept Ema, Just wanted to make sure it would work at all." I assured her, stepping around the robot and pulling it into a card. "Not bad all things considered, it even adopted a slightly more natural pose."


    I examined the card for any hints of sentience, nodding in satisfaction when I found none, though its knowledge had grown quite a bit. Satisfied my concept was achievable I knuckled down and got to work.


    I started by removing each of the robots arms,bining one with a powerful healing shlight, augmenting with a copy of my own healing amulet. Ibined the other with one of my medical scanners. I pulled the robot apart piece by piece, enhancing, reinforcing and empowering everything I could. I evenbined an energy cell with its battery, as well as some powerful multi stacked sr panels to its ting. My final act was to bind it to myself, but instead of using a lock, I used abination of instruction manuals, a children''s book on the importance of obeying those in charge, and a few other bits of electronics and switches. At first I deliberately left out any trace of magic save the healing shlight now embedded in its left palm, but I soon gave up on that concept when it started getting in the way of how far I could push its design.


    When I was finally done two dayster I reactivated the robot, standing outside the tent of the quarry. It stood up from its folded form, now fully fleshed out instead of just a robotic skeleton. It still retained its fully robotic look, but between the vibranium, Asgardian alloy, super metal ting and several other additions, it now looked more streamlined and finished. It had a wing pack permanently attached to its back, though it was a basic version that was stuck going under five hundred miles per hour. Its metallic ting, which was smooth and sleek, was paintedpletely white, with various red ents painted on, arge caduceus staff softly glowing red and blue on its chest and shoulders, signifying its singr purpose.


    "Hello" It said, finally standing upright, its face turned to me. Its stance waspletely natural, the robot doing its best to seem open and peaceful. "I''m here to help. Are you injured?"


    "No." I said simply. "There aren''t any injured people here."


    "Really?" The robot said before looking around, scanning across the open space before nodding in agreement. "Very well. Please notify me if you be injured."


    "Could you do me a favor?" I asked the robot. "Jump in ce ten times."


    It got into position and started jumping, smoothly following my orders immediately. I spent the rest of the day checking its abilities and obedience, making sure that it would only follow my directions, even if I asked it to damage itself. I would have liked to have made it follow Ema''s orders as well, but I couldn''t risk adding any sort of electronic control mechanism into it. When I was done putting it through its paces I instructed it to fold up and hibernate, which it promptly did.


    "That was not bad for a few days of work!" I said excitedly, fist bumping Ema before she exited her exosuit. "It seemed to follow my directions pretty well, and not hurting people seems pretty well locked in. I need to test it on other people, but I think we sessfully made an autonomous healing robot doctor. The Caduceus Droid."


    "...why though?" Ema asked, flying around my head, before floating down and scanning the hibernating robot. "I asked before but you just waved me away."


    "This is a Marvel world Ema. We have already had a few small scale fights, but a huge massive conflict will happen eventually. Skrulls, Kree, mutants, inhumans, demons, vampires, the list is fucking endless. Having a bunch of quick healing droids could save hundreds, if not thousands of people who get stuck in the crossfire. " I exined, reaching down and carding the robot once Ema was done scanning it. "PlusThis is still just a proof of concept. I already have ideas for the next few sets."

 Chapter 60: Flying by

    Chapter 60: Flying by


    I stepped into the Triskelion for the first time in four months, getting plenty of looks as my armor slowly receded to its undeployed form, the bands of metal and armor ting receding into the remaining chest te. Ema followed behind me, her own "armor" shifting into a morepact state. My leather jacket extended onto my body when my armor was done shrinking, all of it done automatically, the initial transformation triggered by a thought.


    A lot had changed in thest few months, and I had had plenty of time to work on refining my gear.


    "And what if they aren''t interested?" Ema asked, holding the door open.


    "Then we give them to Stark to sell. And if that doesn''t work then I''ll just do it myself," I answered with a shrug.


    Working on and finishing the Caduceus Droid had made me realize the potency of designing and making my own objects to then use in my conceptual crafting. Since then I had been in a flurry of building, expanding and crafting that resulted in quite a few powerful developments. Two of which were following behind Ema and I, hovering a foot and a half off the ground.


    A simple trunk, about two feet wide, two feet tall and three feet long sat attached to a hovering dolly, trailing behind us by about six feet as we made our way into the building. Made from a custom hovercraft design, a few drones and a couple of dolly''s, the floating cart could carry up to four tons, automatically followed whoever was carrying its key, and could navigate simple obstacles on its own. It also self adjusted its size depending on what you stacked on it.


    It was hard to figure out what was getting more stares. Yes I could have carried the trunk in the Deck, but Ema pointed out it was important to show off that I hadn''t been sitting back and resting on myurels.


    I stopped a few dozen feet into the entrance, looking around for a moment before spotting Clint, who was already making his way to me. Ema and I met him half way, greeting him with a smile.


    "Hey Clint. It''s been a while," I said, reaching out and shaking his hand, the agent shaking Ema''s hand after mine


    "It has, but by the looks of it you''ve been busy," Clint said with a smirk. before pointing to the trunk. "What is this? Fury said you wereing to make good on an agreement? Something to do with the squad you enhanced?"


    "Yeah, I promised to resolve a problem with the enhanced squad. It took a bit for me to get the design just right," I exined, looking around as he led us back to the elevator. I already recognized the path to the underground training facility.


    I had promised to enhance the durability of the squad I equipped way back when Shield was still dealing with Hydra. I had figured out the basic form almost immediately, but felt like there was major room for improvement. When I had eventually gotten around to figuring it out I had redone my own tattoo with the new inks. I was now bulletproof to all pistol caliber bullets and a significant portion of rifle calibers. However, my first attempts of the improved form were clumsy and resulted in loss of skin sensitivity.


    "That''s good. They were pretty key in taking down a few of therger Hydra bases. What was the issue?"


    "Their increased strength didn''t protect them from hurting themselves," I exined with a shrug, watching the elevator door open. "They could break their own bones if they hit things too hard or leveraged their strength the wrong way."


    "And you can just fix that? Make them tougher?"


    "Yup," I responded, popping the P.


    We stepped into the semi familiar training facility, spotting the same eight soldiers as before, all of them at attention. Once again Fury was there, exining what was going on. Ignoring the sense of dj vu I stepped into therge open area.


    "Fury!" I called out, waving to the serious man as he turned. "I need a table, two chairs and a privacy screen!"


    Fifteen minutester Ema was tattooing the first soldier behind a privacy screen while I stood by my floating trunk on the other side of the training area. I cracked open the trunk and pulled out a piece of jewelry, one of a few hundred identical pieces inside the trunk.


    It was a palm cuff, a rather simple looking and adjustable piece that wrapped around the palm, and had a ring and chain system to hold it in ce. On the palm was a red crystal, a mix of jasper, ga and quartz. I demonstrated putting it on before removing it and tossing it to Clint.


    "That is a healer''s cuff." I exined. "Instead of healing yourself like my amulets do, this allows you to heal others."


    "You mean like your healing shlights?" Clint asked, looking over the jewelry before passing it to Fury. "What''s the deal with using shlights by the way?"


    "Convenience," I answered simply, noting that Clint hadn''t been told how my power works. "And yes, the only difference is that I will give these to anyone, without binding them."


    Both Clint and Fury looked shocked for a moment before sharing a look.


    "What''s the catch?" Fury asked suspiciously.


    "There are several." I said with a smile. "The first is that if they are stolen in any way shape or form the crystal shatters, the metal tarnishes and the whole thing bespletely inert."


    I pushed a cuff from a card and tossed it to Clint, who caught it deftly. Sure enough the golden metal was tarnished, and a chunk of the crystal fell from its setting.


    "I left this on a park bench in New York. It took a surprisingly long amount of time for someone to take it."


    "Alright, what else?"


    "It will not work if the wearer is being threatened or being bribed. It can''t be used to heal yourself and it won''t work on or for evil people."


    Both Fury and Clint looked at me funny, before Fury shook his head.


    "And how does it decide who is Evil?" He asked. "What are the qualifiers?"


    "A lot of ethics, psychology and plenty of other research." I answered. "It will stabilize the highest level of evil it recognizes. Rapists, murderers, child molesters. People like that will be healed just to the point that they won''t immediately die. After that it depends on the severity and reasoning behind your crime. Steal an olddys retirement fund? It will close your wounds but you will still have a long healing process after that. Steal to feed your children? It might leave you with some soreness after it heals a broken bone. Kill in true unavoidable self defense? Not even a scar. It takes into ount ignorance, brainwashing through deliberate means or by parental pressures. It even takes into ount real guilt and true attempts to be better, as well as culpability due to neurodivergence and the general stupidity of youth."


    "How How did you do that?" Fury asked, before waving any response away. "You know what, I don''t want to know. Why are you showing this to me?"


    "Because I want Shield, with its global connections, to distribute them all over the world." I exined. "Take your time, do what tests you have to do, give out free samples if you want, but help me distribute them to every corner of the world. Hell you could even take the credit for making them."


    "And what does Shield get in return for doing this?" He asked with a tired sounding voice.


    "Besides the credit?" I asked. "I''ll give you as many as you want for Shield''s personal use. But keep in mind that breaking a contract is a form of stealing."


    "So the second we take them and decide to not distribute them they be useless." Fury said, shaking his head. "I will talk to the Security Council, this this is beyond my pay grade."


    "Well make sure they know this isn''t the only thing I n on doing this with," I exined. "I have quite a few projects that I n on making avable to the general public."


    It wasn''t much long after Fury''s promise to kick my idea up the chain that Ema finished tattooing the eight Shield soldiers. They kept the tattoos simple, mostly singr shapes filled in with the ck ink. When everything was packed up Ema and I headed back up to the entrance, leaving the trunk of healers palm cuffs with Fury. Clint was leading us, despite the fact that we could see the exit from the elevator. When I stepped out I noticed Natasha was standing by the doors.


    "Maker, Ema, nice to see you both again." She said with a smile, nodding to Clint.


    Once Shield had finally cleaned up thest vestiges of Hydra, Natasha had given me a call, just as she said she would. We had a short meeting and, surprisingly, she had exined her issue openly. Apparently when she was younger, going through the hell that was the Red Room, they removed her ability to have children, something that haunted her. I had made her two offers. One, she could put on my most powerful healing amulet, my own personal amulet that was a ten times stacked version of what had de-aged Peggy, or she could wait a few weeks for me to do some research, fiddle with a few ideas to try and see if I coulde up with something with less questions about what it would do.


    It had taken me a few days to wrap my head around the problem itself. I had a general understanding of how women were born with every egg they would have in their life, and that removing them would mean that they wouldn''t ever have their own children. But if I could regenerate an entire arm, what would that do to a woman''s missing ovaries? Would they be her own eggs? Or some sort of weird magic created eggs?"


    With no answers in science I decided to go meta with my solution. I gathered everything I could find for fertility, from statues of various goddesses, to wan charms and everything in between. However, I quickly ran into an issue. Almost everything I found had double meanings. Very few goddesses were of just fertility, which meant hundreds of different concepts, some of them stacking and some of them conflicting.


    In the end I applied my newest lesson, that making my own foundations could really improve the effectiveness and conceptual simplicity of an object. Over the span of three days I carved and dedicated a dozen statues of the kindest, fairest and generous fertility goddesses I could find in my research, making offerings to each one, all with the prayer to miraculously help me heal Natasha Romanoff''s infertility. Ibined them all together and added them to a quintuple stacked healing amulet. The result was a healing amulet that had a particr angle towards female healing, and had a certain positive concept that really seemed to indicate that using it wouldn''t result in anything unfortunate or strange. Finishing it was the final thing I finished before I was ready to return to the Triskelion.


    "It''s good to see you, Natasha," I responded. "Are you ready?"


    "I''m all set," She answered, looking nervously at Clint, who''s eyes went wide.


    "Wait He is?" He started to ask, and upon seeing the confirmation in Natasha''s eyes, turned to me. "You think you can? Jesus Christ Maker, I hope you can."


    "I think I have a solution," I said with a shrug. "It''s up to Natasha if she takes it."


    Clint nodded, seemingly doing his best to not seem too excited at the chance. He gave Natasha a hug and asked her something under his breath, something about telling someone. Natasha responded that she would tell them herself if it worked. When they separated Clint gave me a nod before heading back into the crowd, heading to another elevator before disappearing inside.


    "Alright. Take this," I said, pushing out a basic speed wing pack, one that had been improved to be easier to wear. "We are going to be flying some of the way."


    Natasha''s eyes went wide as she took the pack, looking between me and it for a moment before putting on the simple straps. I motioned to a button on one of the straps.


    "Push that when it feels snug."


    Natasha looked down, noticed the button and pressed it. The straps shifted, merged and changed, locking the wing pack on herpletely.


    "C''mon, let''s get outside and I''ll give you the short version of how they work."


    Ema and I led her outside, walking out of the parking lot until we could see the sky, all the while assuring her that they were instinctual and easy to use. After a few more minutes Ema and I pushed out our wings and took to the air, the redhead super spy following just behind us. We flew slowly across the city beforending on the outskirts. I think we would have spent more time flying but I could feel Natasha''s anxiety and eagerness to get this done with.


    "So where to next?"


    "Now we head to the workshop," I said, holding out my hand, one to Natasha and the other to Ema, thetter immediately taking it.


    "Where is it?" She asked, looking around before noticing my hand and looking at it for a moment before looking back at me with a raised eyebrow.


    "Oh rx, I promise I won''t give you cooties," I said, rolling my eyes. "You need to hold my hand, and I''ll take you."


    Natasha''s skeptical look relented after a long moment, finally taking my hand in a firm grip.


    "Alright. I want to warn you. It''s kind of intense for a moment but you''re safe and it''s just part of the process," I warned her. "Try not to instinctually attack me like Steve did."


    "Wait, Steve attacked you, why-"


    "Travel Alpha Base."


    With a rush of bifrost energy and the intense feeling of traveling, all three of us were standing in a massive warehouse. Easily thirty thousand square feet, it was dotted withrge metal pirs anchored to a ttened but natural light gray stone floor. The ceiling was a light blue while the walls depicted a pretty impressive mural of the four seasons, though fall and spring walls weren''t done yet. Fall in particr was only half done, while spring was still just an outline. A floating bench,den with painting supplies, hovered in front of the fall wall.


    A lot of the warehouse was still empty, about a quarter of it taken up by various machines and workstations. In one area were a dozen ten stacked UCM''s along with five metal working machines, nked by two cargo container sized UCM''s that were much slower, but could process and copy muchrger things. My storage shed, once a simple purchase from Walmart was now a metallic color, enhanced by vibranium and Asgardian alloy, sat in one corner by my workshop area.


    "Maker, I''m going to work on fall a bit more while you talk to Natasha," Ema said, giving the red head a smile. "This is private and I don''t need to hear it."


    "Sure Ema, I''ll shout if I need anything."


    Mypanion nodded and headed to the furthest wall from thending pad, easily sitting on her floating workstation. She manipted a set of controls and the bench floated another fifteen feet off of the ground before she picked up a brush and started painting.


    "Ema painted all of this?" Natasha asked, turning to look at the summer wall, which was the closest to us.


    "Yeah, she picked up painting as a hobby just before this ce was finished," I exined with a smile. "It gives her something to do when I''m crafting. Plus she doesn''t sleep so she has a lot of free time."


    "She doesn''t sleep?" Natasha asked, following me as I made my way to a sitting area, twofortable couches and a few chairs around a singr table.


    "Yeah, but that''s kind of her thing to exin, if she feels like it," I said with a shrug, sitting down in one of the chairs.


    I waited for Natasha to sit down on the couch, leaning forward to the edge of my seat. I started to exin the process I went through to make the amulet, pushing it out onto the table. It took a bit to exin to her about the more meta things I could get concepts from. When I was done I leaned back, letting Natasha think for a moment.


    "And you''re sure it won''t hurt me?" She asked, looking down at the amulet.


    "Absolutely sure," I said with a nod. "You can keep an eye on your progress using one of my medical scanners. If something goes wrong we can either remove the amulet immediately, or we can continue the process and fix any problem after, that is up to you. If the eggs that it produces inside your ovaries are somehow different then what your natural eggs should have been then the scanner will let us know. I''ve already tested its ability to detect both organs and body parts that have been regrown, as well as the female reproductive organs. You can thank Pepper Potts for volunteering to be scanned for thetter and Bucky Barnes for the former."


    As Natasha was thinking I stood, pushed out my cab of tricks and pulled out a medical scanner, handing it to Natasha.


    "Just point it anywhere on your body. The selector wheel changes between singr scans and a constantly updated feed."


    Natasha nodded and pointed the scanner at her hand, scanning herself and going through the results before finally nodding.


    "Alright. Let''s give it a shot."


    I nodded and stood, taking the amulet and putting it around her neck as she held the scanner against her hand. I fought my own curiosity and sat back down, not wanting to invade her privacy. As the minutes ticked by she got more and more emotional, finally letting a few tears trailed down her face. After ten minutes the powerful healing amulet was done, and she pulled it off,ying it on the table.


    "Thank you Maker," She said, wiping her tears. "Thank you from the bottom of my heart. This this is something I never thought would happen. It''s all me, they I can have kids and they will be mine."

 Chapter 61: Cheers

    Chapter 61: Cheers


    Natasha quickly regained her self control, wiping away her tears and coughing, before looking around as if for a distraction.


    "This all looks pretty professional," She said, her intelligent eyes jumping from object to object. "I don''t suppose you would give me a tour?"


    "That depends, would you immediately pass it all on to Fury?" I asked, leaving back in my chair.


    "...That depends on what you show me," She said with a shrug. "I would report anything dangerous."


    "Yeah, alright," I said with a chuckle, standing up. "I''ll give you the short tour."


    I led her around the warehouse, showing off a few of its features. I made sure to call the UCM''s simple production machines, giving the illusion that they made simple items without actually lying. I showed her the workshop area, a small space set aside for simple metal fabrication, as well as an area with a few conceptually crafted 3D printers for various sizes and materials.


    Myst stop was a wooden door that opened into my living area. A muchrger space than my old apartment, it was a warm but modern design. The space was very open, with arge kitchen on one side and a fully equipped living room on the other. Itcked a real kitchen table, instead opting for a long ind withfortable bar stools along it. The living room had a crackling firece, making the room feel even cozier.


    "Your house is connected to your workshop?" She asked as she looked around. "Does Fury know you moved?"


    "I hope not considering him knowing where I live is why I moved in the first ce," I exined. "You guys might be clean now, but we both know how little that matters for an intelligence agency. With the right leverage in the right ce you can learn anything you want."


    The Shield agent reluctantly nodded, turning around before her eyes focused on the window on the opposite side of the living room. It disyed a snowy tundra with an incredible view, as if the whole warehouse was perched on a massive mountain overlooking a pristine and unbroken snowy pine forest. It looked as if she was memorizing the image before I pped twice and the shades descended, blocking the view.


    "You don''t think you''ll be able to figure out where we are just by that view do you?" I asked, smirking as she looked at me annoyed, relenting after a moment.


    "Sorry, can''t help it," She said with a shrug. "Old habits die hard."


    "I suppose that''s true."


    The tour ended not long after that, the two of us back at thending pad, which was set


    flush into the ground.


    "So, not going to show me what''s through the other doors?" Natasha asked, gesturing to a heavy armored door about ten feet wide and eight tall, a second much more normal looking door beside it.


    "That leads to an area still under construction," I said, pointing to the heavy armored door. "The other just leads outside. You don''t want to go out there, it''s awfully cold and you''re not dressed for those conditions."


    For a moment Natasha looked like she was going to ask anyway, but she didn''t, instead sticking out her hand.


    "Well then I guess it''s time I headed back," She said with a genuine smile. "Thank you Maker. I I still can''t believe you fixed me but thank you."


    "Happy to help Natasha," I said, returning her smile and taking her hand.


    With a few words I traveled her back to DC, flying with her back to Shield. I took the wing pack back from her and returned to the warehouse. When I got back Ema was still working on the fall mural, specifically a tree with hundreds of different color leaves, most of them shades of orange and red.


    "It''sing along nicely."


    "Thank you, this tree is going to take at least the next few days to finish," She responded, using the controls on her hovering bench to slowly sink back to the floor. "Everything work out alright?"


    "Yeah, she is all set," I said. "She seemed happy with the results, so I won''t argue with her."


    Ema nodded, cleaning up her paints and brushes before hopping off of her bench.


    "So Jarvis called earlier, when you were giving your tour," She said. "Tony and Pepper areing home from their vacation in a few days"


    "It''s fine Ema, I already did most of what I wanted to today, and I''m leaving to see Steve and Bucky soon anyway," I reminded her. "Are you going to the mansion or New York?"


    "The mansion," She said, her blue cheeks darkening in a simted blush. "He has a new recipe he is trying out"


    "Go, have fun!"


    "Thanks! I''ll have my phone on me if you need anything!" She said with a smile. "I''m stopping by the apartment before I travel to the mansion. Bye!"


    With a sh of color she traveled to the old apartment, which she had turned into her own space. She turned the kitchen and living room into an area to store her paintings, and my old bedroom into a closet for her own things, mostly clothes and other knick knacks. The idea of her wearing actual clothes was a newer development, more recent than her painting.


    About two weeks after Tony had started me on myrge-scale building tear with his robotic shell, Ema came to me and asked if I could help Jarvis realize a desire of his, to have a way to personally interact with the world. I saw no reason not to help, so we all got together, Jarvis, Tony, Pepper, Ema and I, to figure something out. Eventually Tony and I coborated to create a humanoid body for Jarvis, which we then tied his primary instance to, condensing his entire mainframe into an artificial brain. He was still capable of creating separate instances, as well as multitasking and otherputational feats, but now he ran it all from his singr body.


    Tony had been against this limitation, but Jarvis insisted, iming he wanted a body, not a puppet. Using a variety of makeup, a polymerposite that Tony specifically made to be as skin-like as possible and several other things Jarvis now had a robotic body that was visually indistinguishable from a human but was as tough and as strong as I could make it. I also designed a secondary core that Jarvis could use to helpe off as more human-like, which he described as having an on and off switch for his humanity.


    Ema, seeing her new friend prosper and develop so well, started to wonder what that would be like. After a week of spending time with his new form she asked me to make a secondary core for her as well. Not wishing to alter my friend directly, but also not wanting to deny her wishes, I agreed, but only if it was attached to her exosuit. Within a few weeks she had started to develop more independence, which I was ecstatic about. Her life was no longer about just serving me, though she was still my partner. She also stoppedining about being in her exosuit for too long, and started developing hobbies. She still left her exosuit asionally, but she was flourishing and I couldn''t be happier about it.


    I let out a long breath of contentment before heading back to my new home, entering and kicking off my shoes.


    "Alright Alfred, you cane out now," I called, heading over to the couch and plopping down.


    Not a few secondster a humanoid robot, with a painted on suit and bowtie stepped out of its storage closet, gently shutting the door behind it.


    "Wee home sir. Is there anything you need?" The robot butler asked, stepping into the living room.


    "Yeah, change the window image to something else, maybe something tropical?"


    The robotic butler, a repurposed and selfish offshoot of the robotic shell Tony created for me four months ago, nodded before walking to the thermostat. The small screen lit up when he got closer, and dimmed after he tapped a few buttons and stepped away to the kitchen. The window, which was a perfect live feed from an improved camera attached to a tree somewhere in Canada, switched to a simr feed, this one disying an empty beach, waves crashing on the sand.


    "If that is all sir I need to continue cleaning your room," It said with a bow before turning and heading back.


    I waved it away and leaned back on the couch, watching the news for a little while, checking the time asionally. At around two thirty I got up and headed back into my bedroom to change into something a bit less casual, pulling off all of my armor and my shirt, leaving me bare skinned. I turned for a moment, checking out the tattoos on my back. I knew that despite most of my body seemingly clear, save my back, seventy five percent of my body was covered in tattoos. Most of them were just invisible.


    I still had apass done on the back of my right shoulder, as well as the torn skin on the right side of my stomach, though all of them had been redone at least twice at this point using a painless tattoo removal tool I had made. The shoulder opposite to thepass was a sextant, done over the same clockwork gears and detailing as thepass. This contained the essence of my US travel band, made after I copied it a few times, so that my ability to travel couldn''t be taken away.


    The clockwork steampunk design continued down my back, acting as the background for several circles, all set on a disk. Each smaller circles contained symbols for different "ssical" elements. Most of them enhance my resistances to something, like fire and electricity, as well as light making me impossible to blind. Others were less specific orplete misdirections. Water extended how long I could hold my breath to three hours, while air increased my resistance to loud noises and sonic attacks. Earth was perhaps thergest misdirection as it made me impervious to poisons and venoms, while darkness symbol simply increased my natural night vision.


    My entire back design was cut in with a single ck line that acted as a hard edge, which was ented with marks made to look like ces for screws, as if a panel had been pulled away. When my back was done I had decided to transition into more subtle tattoos by making invisible ink. Now most of my non-armor enhancements were tattooed into my body. My danger sense, my strength and stamina/speed cuffs were all tattooed in, though only after some massive improvements by copying and stacking them a dozen times each. Now, even without my armor, I was as strong as Steve, slightly faster than him and while reflexes were hard to judge I seemed to beparable to him as well. I even had a minor healing ability tattooed in, though it was a basic version, not the divinity enhanced ten stacked version I wore.


    I was more than a little paranoid about getting stuck in an endless torture loop.


    I even had an emergency travel tattoo, which would travel me directly to Ema''s side if I was unconscious for more than forty eight hours in a row, including aa. If I didn''t wake within twenty four hours after that I would be traveled here, to a bed with almost a hundred healing amulets stacked into the mattress, sheets and pillows.


    After I got dressed again, my armor and undersuit all in its least conspicuous form, I traveled back to New York. I pushed out my basic truck, which was now ck, though it looked just as beat up as it always had. I drove through the city, eventually getting to a now familiar bar. Steve and Bucky were waiting for me outside and I waved as I drove past, pulling into an alley to card my truck. I walked back around to the front entrance, shaking both of my friends'' hands.


    "Hey guys, good to see you." I said as we greeted each other, stepping into what was now our usual hangout. Apparently the owners father fought alongside Steve and Bucky in the war, and he was nice enough to keep everything low-key


    "How have you been Maker?" Steve said as we climbed onto our usual bar stools.


    "It''s been busy. Making lots of progess on some of my projects," I answered. "Sorry about skipping outst time, I got a bit distracted with something."


    "It''s fine," Bucky said with a shrug. "Just means you''re paying."


    I chuckled and motioned for the bartender for three beers, the familiar man knowing what we drank. We all enjoyed our first sip before leaning back in our seats.


    "How''s everything going with you two?" I asked, turning slightly to them. "You find a apartment you like yet Bucky?"


    "Yeah, it''s not too far from here actually," He answered with a shrug. "It''s a bit expensive for my tastes but it''s nice."


    "Let me know if you need help moving things or want anything done," I offered with a smile. "I''m the ultimate moving service, and after I custom made almost everything in my new ce I have some cool things that really spice a ce up. I managed to make my firece burn the same logs forever, with no smoke or oxygen loss. It''s even adjustable like a gas stove, but with the real deal aesthetic."


    "Thanks. I don''t know about the custom stuff but I might take you up on the moving service." He said with a small smile before taking another sip of beer.


    "What about you Steve? How are things with Peggy?"


    "We are taking it slow," He answered with a shrug. "While the wholething was happening, we both kind of just slipped into old habits, older for her. When it all settled we both agreed to take a step back. She moved into her own apartment and I got one nearby. We have been on a couple of dates, and we spend a lot of time at work together. It''s going well though."


    "What he did not mention is the love sick puppy eyes they shoot each other whenever the other one isn''t paying attention," Bucky said, his smile now big. "I give them three weeks before going slow isn''t going fast enough."


    I chuckled as Steve groaned, rubbing his face.


    "How''s work going? Are you three settling into your official positions?" I asked. "Ema and I stopped in today to fix up your fragility problem."


    Steve and Bucky had both been officially put in charge of the enhanced squad, with Steve leading and Bucky as his secondmand. Peggy was given an intelligence position, far away from active field duty.


    "You did? How did you manage that?" Steve asked before waving me off. "No never mind, I know you won''t actually tell me here. How effective is it?"


    "It''s significant," I said with a shrug. "Fury has all the data I have on it. If you''re interested in it for yourselves just let me know."


    They both gave me nonmittal shrugs, as they always did when I mentioned my method of permanent personal enhancement.


    "I''m d though, ever since Johnson broke his foot they have all been worried about it," Bucky said. "Bunch of pansies. It''s not like it won''t get better in less than ten minutes with your other gear."


    "Sounds like you two are having fun."


    "He is just being overly harsh," Steve said, nudging his best friend. "It''s refreshing to work with a team who is both skilled and enhanced. Leading the Howling Commandos was great, but knowing that my team can follow me when I jump fifteen feet from a second story balcony is priceless."


    "You''re wee," I said with a smirk. "And Peggy?"


    "Sheins about the work but she secretly loves it," Bucky said. "Well not so secretly really. You can tell this is what she lives for."


    "She thought she put it behind her Buck," Steve said with a somber shake of his head. "After what she went through can you really me her?"


    "If it''s too private, it''s fine, but what happened?" I asked.


    "Peggy was married," Steve exined, sounding a bit lost. Not angry or jealous, just lost. "Long enough to have a son, named Steve. They both died when their home burnt to the ground while Peggy was away on business."


    "Fuck." I cursed under my breath, shaking my head as my mind flew back to arriving at the home I grew up in, the whole house a charred shell, knowing my parents had been inside. "That That''s horrible."


    "She threw herself into her work after that," Steve continued. "Really burnt herself out."


    The three of us were quiet for a few minutes, before I finally spoke, gesturing to the bartender.


    "C''mon, let''s get some food, then we can head out to the range. I''ve got some new toys for us to try out."<hr>


    Hello! This is just a reminder that I have a Pa_tre_on! Currently, Board Members are voting on what additions to his base Carson is adding next! If your interested in showing your support head on over. If not, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

 Chapter 62: Out on the range

    Chapter 62: Out on the range


    An hour or soter the three of us had finished our drinks and food and were ready to leave. The first time we had done this Steve had pointed out that drinking probably wasn''t the best thing to be doing before trying out potentially dangerous gear, but I quickly pointed out that none of us were capable of getting drunk any more. Bucky hadughed when Steve blushed, caught being a goody two shoes.


    We left the bar and headed to an alley, taking a look around before they both held out their hands and I traveled us to the range, a dozen acres ofnd I bought with Tony''s help, located in the middle of nowhere. Wended in the corner of the same tent that had been set up at the Quarry, now set up as a sort of break area, with self contained fan units, lights and even a fridge that kept itself stocked with beer, soda and a few snacks. Not far outside was a well made range hut,plete with chairs, gun rests, spotter monocrs, anything you could need at a range. A short walk the other direction was arge three car garage, a simple metal structure strengthened by vibranium and Asgardian alloy.


    I set this ce up shortly after I moved my workshop from the quarry to its current location. Steve, Bucky and I had beening here on and off for a few months as a way to unwind and a way for me to get some feedback on some of my newest creations.


    "So I''ve got a few updated versions of the guns we triedst time, a new shotgun and a heavy cannon I want your opinion on." I said before gesturing to the garage. "There''s also two new vehicles I want you to look at."


    As we walked to the gun range I pushed out a trunk of weapons, flicking out a card so it appeared on the concrete floor of the range hut. I cracked the trunk open and pulled out two guns, handing one to each of them before grabbing the third for myself. It was a conceptual blend of several rifles, including the SCAR, the HKMR762 and two M14''s, all to try and create the perfect high powered DMR.


    This particr attempt had a soft blue glow emanating from the seams, softly pulsing from one end to the other. Each rifle was modified to run off energy cells, and therefore never ran out of ammo, before it wasbined into this form. I also fiddled with the individual parts, trying to tweak it into its perfect form before I stacked it for its ultimate version.


    The final result was a sleeker, longer rifle that leaned heavily towards the M14 but still pulled from the SCAR. It fired blue pulses of energy which immediately they both recognized when I first showed them off. It had taken a while to assure them that this weapon would not disintegrate its targets unless you specifically set it to that setting.


    "You fixed the recoil?" Bucky asked as he checked over the rifle.


    "It''s scble now." I exined. "It''s on the stock controls."


    Myst version had removed the recoil in its entirety, and they both immediatelyined that without the recoil it was hard to anticipate and get into a rhythm of shooting. Bucky nodded and examined the left side of his stock, pushing open a small panel of buttons. There was a switch to deploy aplete silencer, one to dampen the light, one to deploy a bipod, a small knob to choose between six different scopes and a new one to adjust how much the weapon kicked.


    The three of us sat down in the three different bays and aimed down the range. Scattered down the range were barrels, small wooden structures and a few sandbag barricades. After settling in I pushed a button on the wall next to me and a few dozen targets popped up, slowly moving around, back and forth, up and down. After a moment''s pause we all opened fire, testing out the different options.


    "I like the scble recoil," Bucky said, nailing a distant target in the head. "Having the best of both worldses in handy."


    "Still a bit of a space gun for my tastes, but I can feel the M14 influence on it," Steve added, hitting a closer target with a three round burst. "What are you designing this for anyway, you already have your guns?"


    My guns, which were each charged with a Destroyer armor beam, had changed little since I originally made them. Each of their forms, two revolvers, a rifle and a shotgun were triple stacked, having all but mmed into diminishing returns at that point. The rifle, which had been the only form that did not have infinite ammo, had been enhanced simr to how these guns were, but with a focus on more mid range.


    "Because I can." I said with a shrug, picking off one of the furthest targets as it peaked over a barrel. "Plus having a little extra fire power packed away just in case coulde in handy."


    "A little extra firepower?" Bucky said skeptically, his eye roll almost tangible. "You could already take over a small country with a dozen of these things and I''m sure you n on stacking them until they can take out a tank."


    I stayed silent, unwilling to lie more, which only made Steve and Bucky chuckle. We spent a few more minutes trying out this iteration of my DMR before we stopped.


    "I like it," Steve said as he handed the rifle back. "I''m not sure what else you could add to it at this point. Have you figured out how to make it non lethal?"


    "No, and I officially gave up on it," I said with a shrug. "The lethal and nonlethal concepts sh too much, even through a transformation. Plus Tony pointed out that having a gun that is lethal and non lethal is just asking for someone to mess up and shoot one when they meant to do the other. I''m going to make a dedicated non lethal option. "


    "That''s probably for the best."


    Next we tested a shotgun that I had just finished developing that visually looked like a sleek and streamlined Saiga-12, even if it was abination of several shotguns. The main advancement I had made was the ability to switch between a few different types of rounds to fire. With a simple selector wheel you could switch between slugs that explode, pierce, deliver a small EMP like shock, or deliver a purely kic blow. It also had a few "spread" modes that fire smaller, less prative but still extremely lethal bolts of energy, for use in situations where going through a wall could mean a civilian casualty. It also had a few different options on the gun frame itself, such as a silencer, a few different types of sights and the same scble recoil.


    "The scble recoil is perfect on these," Steve said after I had exined the gun''s abilities and we all started trying them out. "No one likes to admit it but firing high powered slugs from a shotgun is not fun."


    "It''s nice to be able to feel my arm still," Bucky added.


    "Yeah, it''s getting added to all of my guns from now on," I said. "I''m trying to figure out a way to add it to my revolvers."


    We shot a bit more before putting them away as well, Bucky taking onest look at the weapon before handing it to me.


    "It does too much," Bucky said, sitting back down on his chair. "You don''t need the spreading options."


    "It would only get in the way I think," Steve agreed "Having options is good, but making somethingplicated could mean death on a real battlefield."


    "Right, so I''ll get rid of the spread rounds and add a cleared selector for the four remaining firing options," I said, making a note on my phone. "What else?"


    "Full auto like that is probably overkill," Steve pointed out, Bucky nodding his head in agreement. "Is there a reason you have a shotgun at all? Why not attach those options to something else?"


    I looked up with a nk face, my mind spinning around for a moment. My DMR was for mid to long range, and my already tested and finished assault rifle was focused more on mid to short. There was no real reason, beyond the concept of delivering various payloads, for having a shotgun, not with the Deck blurring the lines of what was possible in a rifle frame.


    "I suppose you''re not wrong. I''ll see what I can do," I said, ideas already popping into my head. I put them aside for now, closing up the trunk and carding it.


    "Alright, here is thest weapon, then I can show you the vehicles," I said, pushing thest weapon out of a card.


    It was four and a half feet of over the shoulder fire power. A central tube ran through the entire length, starting with a thick rim at the business end, pulling from the FGM-148 Javelin. Most of its heft was in the front end, but instead of equipment for firing a rocket, it was a sleek housing that pulled back into a shoulder rest. It glowed with blue power just like the rifles and shotguns had, with the apaniment of a soft hum you could only hear and feel when it rested on your shoulder.


    "I call this the Combo Cannon," I exined. "Or CC for short. It fires a whole slew of different packages, in either an arcing or straight trajectory. The power and st radius of each shot can be adjusted and it has no backdraft. It even has a no st wave setting, which decreases the effectiveness of certain options but drastically reduces the concussive wave put off by the explosions. Its energy projectile can lock on to heat signatures, it can be steered or set to detonate after a certain time or proximity. While the shotgun might have fallen a bit t, this needs to be in a separate package."


    I stepped up to the firing window, adjusting several settings before aiming through the view screen. I designated a target up on the steep rise behind the range, before pulling the trigger.


    The Cannon hummed loudly for just a second, charging up before sending a st of energy down range. It impacted the side of the hill, almost three hundred meters away and detonated, creating a massive st of blue energy that took down three trees. The sound of the explosion rolled over us, surprisingly quiet for the size of the explosion. Unsatisfied with the test I changed one of the settings before arcing a half dozen shots over everything in the range to blow deep craters in the far sand wall. These were much smaller, but still impressive explosions.


    I turned and looked at the two soldiers, who were looking at me with jaws dropped.


    "So you guys want to give it a shot?"


    The two soldiers spent the next hour or so absolutely demolishing my range, putting the CC through its paces. In the end they stopped when there wasn''t much else to destroy.


    "Uh sorry about your range" Steve said after realizing just how destructive they had been. "Do you need some help repairing it or?"


    "Don''t worry about it," I assured him, the CC disappearing into my deck. "I''ll get someone else to do it. So what do you guys think?"


    "It''s a littleplicated," Steve answered. "That''s not as big of a deal for something like that since any soldier will know better to just wildly press the trigger for a gun that big. But it could still lead to some issues."


    "What if I boiled it down a bit? Two, maybe three dials and a few toggles? One for payload, one for power level and a third for concussive force? It would need a few extras but"


    We talked about the cannon for a bit more before eventually I carded it and started leading the pair over to the reinforced garage, opening the door easily.


    "I''ve been messing around with vehicles for a bit now, just picking random roles and trying to build the best vehicle I could for that role."


    Sitting in the garage were a bunch of different vehicles, all clearly modified orpletely custom. The smallest was a pair of ATV''s with a sleek science fiction vibe to them. The front wheels were attached to different supports, providing the absolute best of shock absorption. It sort of looked like two motorcycles attached together. Next to those was arger buggy, with massive tires that had the best grip I could conceptually craft into it. Thest vehicle was an absolute monster of a truck. Eight wheels, heavily armored and powered by six max stacked arc reactors, it was a behemoth. In fact, that was what I called it, the Behemoth.


    It was also too big for me to card, making it almostpletely useless. Though it did teach me a valuable lesson.


    Apparently, I could make something inside a card that once I pushed it out I could not pull back in. I was just thankful I had kept it in the deck until I was down here at the range. It would have been a pain to deal with at the warehouse.


    "Damn Maker, that is massive," Bucky said, walking to the massive truck. "Is it as tough as it looks?"


    "Tougher." I assured him. ''"It''s called the Behemoth."


    Eventually the two focused on what I actually wanted them to focus on, the buggy and the two ATV''s. After a few minutes of exining their capabilities, as well as me handing both of them a conceptually crafted helmet, we drove out of the garage. Steve pulled out first in the buggy, with Bucky and myself chasing after him on the ATV''s.


    For the next few hours we wove between trees, around rocks and along a dozen paths that I had carved out while testing other vehicles. We were traveling at some ridiculous speeds, our enhancements the only reason we weren''t smashing into trees, boulders or each other. Eventually we switched up vehicles, with Steve taking an ATV Bucky in the buggy. After another hour we made our way back to range, covered in mud and dirty.


    "The buggy was clearly faster," Steve said as Bucky hopped out of the buggy. "But the ATV''s had it beat in maneuverability."


    "That was the idea," I said with a nod, leading the two out of the garage, shutting the door behind us.


    "The buggy was much morefortable as well," Bucky pointed out. "My butt was getting sore after the first hour on the ATV."


    "Hmm I''ll have to take a look at that," I said, making a mental note.


    "So why bother making these at all?" Steve asked as we stepped into the tent, dropping down on one of the chairs. "Last I heard you could fly at what, mach three?"


    "Honestly? These are for fun," I said with a shrug. "Some of this stuff is a hobby, some of it is because I want to be prepared."


    "Prepared for what?"


    "Anything. The world is changing Steve, it''s heading to something, I can feel it. I want to be ready for whatever it is," I exined, passing him and Bucky some water bottles from the fridge. "I know it sounds paranoid, but weird stuff is happening more and more often. I mean look at you Steve, and you Bucky. Two best friends, super soldiers, separated during world war two and then reconnected in the modern era. How crazy is that? And then there is Iron Man, the Hulk, Asgardians, and that''s just what we know of."


    "I guess it''s hard for me to spot because this is all so new to me," Steve admitted, giving Bucky a look, who only shrugged. "But life did stop being normal for me when I was chosen for the super soldier program."


    "Just keep it in mind. Weird is the new normal. And don''t be afraid to call me in if there is something weird going on."


    "You don''t have to worry about that," Bucky responded. "You''re already on the short list of people to call if shit stops making sense."


    I chuckled and nodded, checking the time on my phone.


    "Alright guys, it''s about time I get back to the warehouse," I said standing and stretching. "I assume you want to go back to DC?"


    A short while, and a few goodbyester I traveled back to the warehouse. Ema was still gone, but I still had plenty to keep me upied until she got back. With Tony due back I wanted to get some of my own projects done before we started coborating again.

 Chapter 63: Metal detected

    Chapter 63: Metal detected


    "C''mon, just let me borrow one for a month," Tony said, following behind me as I walked through the warehouse. "We both know you can make as many of them as you want."


    "Tony, for thest time of course I could, but you know as well as I do that even a hint of a device like the BB''s could drive the economy into a tumble." I answered, putting down the stack of finalized DMR''s I was carrying. "Once the building is finished, I''ll whip something up that will let you enhance the framework into something strong, maybe an Asgardian alloy and vibranium blend. Until then, your monument to your ego will have to be made the old fashion way."


    Tony, who had returned from his tropical vacation a few days ago, grumped a bit before sitting down on one of my workshop chairs. He watched as I counted and fiddled with the faintly glowing DMR''s, which I was finally satisfied with.


    He had been bugging me for a while now about my creatively named building builder. They took and stored raw basic materials like stone, metal and several other things before using them to construct muchrger structures. Their ratio of input material and output structures was massively skewed, as the giant garage on the range only required a dozen sheets of metal as well as a few bags of concrete. This warehouse took only a few times that.


    The problem was that if Tony started using it to throw up his massive tower, which was already almost halfway done, everyone would see it. I can''t imagine the bacsh from the construction unions if they realized that the B.B could throw up an entire warehouse in twenty four hours. If it was for disaster relief or a homeless shelter I wouldn''t hesitate, but for something like Stark Tower? No thanks.


    "Fine, I think the market is more stable than you think but whatever. Pepper wanted me to thank you by the way," Tony said, standing from his seat and walking over, picking up a universal scanner and ying with it. "She rolled her ankle pretty badly while we were on our way to the beach. Your healing amulet cleared it up in a minute."


    "No problem, d I could help," I said with a chuckle. "Did youe all the way up here to thank me and beg for something you know I wasn''t going to give in about?"


    "No. I wanted to know if you''ve put any thought into my other idea," Tony said, now leaning on the edge of my workstation as I stepped away, going into the storage shed to grab some other things. "I think that we could do a lot of good together. Not to mention make a shit ton of money."


    "I did spend some time thinking, but I am still sticking with my original n. Shield already has their first batch of palm cuff healers," I admitted, getting a scoff and an eye roll from the genius inventor. "But That doesn''t mean I think your idea for Stark Industries to sell my stuff is bad."


    With a flourish I pushed out something before tossing it to Tony, who caught it easily. It looked, for all intents and purposes, like a six inch wide,pletely featureless hockey puck.


    "What is it?" Tony asked, turning the inch thick ck disk over in his hands.


    "That is a one time use car repair puck," I exined as I stopped and turned to Tony. "They can repair minor problems with allmon vehicles. Patch up some cosmetics, fix a carburetor, repair the clutch, stuff like that. If you use it on a car that won''t start it will fix the most pertinent problem first, before tuning up everything before it ''runs out.'' of energy. It''s basically just a general repair tool. It also wont work forever, they get less and less efficient the more you use them. Oh and it ignores minor cosmetic damage like scuffs, scratches and dents."


    "Why the restrictions?" Tony asked, looking back up at me from the puck. "I''ve seen you repair a 1969 Mustang from a crushed cube."


    "Because I''m not looking to rece the car repair industry for a few bucks," I said with a shrug. "Tony I could, with a month and some ingenuity, drag the entire into post scarcity by myself. With your helping it would take a week, max. But the world couldn''t handle that, not as it is now. What I <em>can</em> do is slowly over time improve the quality of life for the average person."


    "Huh. Smart I guess. It definitely fits the bill for Deck powered bullshit. How many can you make?"


    "I figured out how to make a UCM into a SCM, a specific creation machine. It''s faster than the original but obviously it can''t make anything you want. The SCM''s can make about a thousand of those every twenty four hours. Give me some time to set everything up and I can ship you as many as you need."


    "I assume you want to keep this affordable, right?"


    "Yeah, I was thinking like a hundred for each one, maybe less."


    "Right. Well I''ll need to pitch it to Pepper, she runs thepany these days, but it''s hard to argue with selling something that costs you nothing," Stark admitted with a shrug before giving me a look. "You realize that people will know something is suspicious, right? I mean an idiot could tell something about this thing is weird, but people will know after this. No more pretending your small time after this hits the table."


    "Yeah, I know. But I can''t hide up here forever."


    "Yeah fair enough," Tony said, looking back down at the puck. "Well I''ll be handing this off to Pepper when I get home, you have any more?"


    I flicked out an entire box containing around a hundred of the repair pucks. He lifted it up with rtive ease, in no small part thanks to the strength enhancing cuff I sold him a while back.


    "Great Now mind giving me a ride home?"


    It only took a few minutes for me to travel Tony back to California, the Los Angelesnding pad now neatly integrated to his helicopternding pad. I returned to find Ema was waiting for me in my workshop. She had spent the previous night painting at the old apartment.


    "Carson!" She said with a smile, leaning back against my work station and waving. "How was Tony?"


    "Good, eager to try out some of my things," I said with a smile. "Still wants to try the BB''s but I told him no. New York isn''t ready for skyscrapers to pop up overnight."


    "Well what''s the agenda for today?"


    "Tony just started working on the walker design again, so we can''t really work on that." I exined before gesturing to the pile of DMR''s on the workshop table. "I was about to quintuple stack these and get them into the UCM, then try to finish up the ATV. Bucky and Steve had a fewints about the ATV not beingfortable."


    I quickly got to work,bining the DMR''s together and adding a selector wheel for their power control and getting it set up on one of the UCMs. Once that was going I pushed out the ATV after clearing some space in the workshop area. The smaller vehicle was abination of several different types of quads and motorcycles, leaning much heavier to the four wheeled variety.


    "Alright. Let''s start off simple."


    I quickly gathered some materials together and got the UCM''s working, using the results to create a chair that was veryfortable, abination of aputer chair with some down pillows and an expensive recliner. While Ema started to put the extra materials away, Ibined the chair with the ATV and pushed thebination out onto the floor. The result was a quad bike, very simr to the original, but was visually weighted a bit too much to the back. It would work, it just looked strange and a bit back heavy. I straddled the seat after a moment, testing and moving it to make sure it was actuallyfortable.


    "Damn so I''m on the right track." I mumbled, quickly carding the new version andbining it with one of the originals before pushing it back out.


    The result looked mostly the same as the original quad bike, but with a deeper and more ergonomic looking seat. After trying it out I was satisfied that it had worked out well together.


    "Ema, would you mind taking that down to the range? Make sure I didn''t screw it up?" I asked, mypanion nodding in return.


    "Yeah sure, I''ll be back in five," She said. "Travel range."


    Ema grabbed and lifted the quad bike, before disappearing in a sh of Bifrost energy. I nodded and started cleaning up, finishing Ema''s task and going over the ATV''s final design in my head.


    While my original thought process, way back when I first started flexing my conceptual crafting, had been trying to m everything into a single item and therefore create the perfect conglomerate version, IE the perfect car or the perfect gun, I had rather quickly realized that specializing an object would allow me to make it much more powerful.


    I could stillpact an entire arsenal into a handful of weapons, but making a shotgun that shot rockets, could hit a target a mile away and spray down rapid fire would quickly make it inferior to other more specialized versions I could make.


    Take for example the original super truck, which was still my primary method of travel when I wasn''t flying. By attempting to make a truck that could go as fast as a race car I was stunting its ability to haul cargo, or tow heavy things. It got fiddly real quick of course, and sometimes it was better to ignore it, but the general rule of keeping things to their roles rather than trying to make one key fit all locks had served me well in the past couple of months.


    Around the time that I was done cleaning up Ema returned with the quad, which now had an extrayer of mud on the tires.


    "It still worked great," She said, driving it over to the far corner, where there was running water and a hose. "I couldn''t tell the difference between it and the original."


    After Ema was done cleaning up the quad I got it set up on therger UCM, wanting a few dozen in total. Due to therger UCM''s slower speed it was going to take the rest of the week to finish, but that was fine.


    "Is the Buggy next?" Ema asked, both of us having made our way back to the workshop area. "What did Steve and Bucky have to say about it anyway?"


    "Neither of them had anything negative to say about it so it''s probably fine how it is," I said with a shrug. "I''m calling it done."


    Before she could respond Ema straightened, her emerald eyes wide. She slowly started to look panicked before settling into a look of anger.


    "Tony and Pepper and Jarvis are in trouble," She said, her body already shifting into its armored form. "Someone has broken into the mansion and is holding everyone at spear point?"


    "What? How?" I asked, mentally activating my own armor. It grew from my chest, encasing me in its familiar protective shell.


    "I don''t know. Jarvis says that they somehow spoofed the sensors until thest second. Tony didn''t have a chance to get into a suit," She exined before continuing. "He says there are thirteen people, seven inside inside and six standing guard around the building. They have a device that is attempting to gain ess to the house''s mainframe but he is holding it off easily due to his upgrades."


    "Where is he?" I asked, my holsters deploying around my hips, my revolversing with them.


    "He is with Pepper and Tony in the workshops. They assumed he was some sort of butler," She exined. "They are interrogating Tony about the vibranium."


    "Fuck! Alright, looks like Wakanda hase out to y." I said with a groan. "We need to do this carefully. Wakanda could be a powerful ally if-"


    "They are threatening my boyfriend!" She said angrily, as if daring me to continue.


    "... Fuck it. Just don''t kill anyone please." I responded, getting a single nod in return.


    I reach out and put my hand on her shoulder, traveling us both to the Malibu mansion. I carefully carded the Bifrost energy as wended, in an attempt to hide our arrival. Unfortunately we were almost immediately spotted, two women armed with metallic spears whirling around, bringing their weapons up and pointed at us.


    Ema, still understandably angry, wasted no time. Her arm extended out, wrapping around the nearest women''s spear and tearing it out of her grasp, whipping it around to hurl it back at her. The clearly well trained warrior, despite being shocked that she was so easily disarmed, still managed to dodge the weapon. It hurtled past her and buried itself in the concrete that made up the helicopter pad. Before the first woman could recover Emashed out, her fist growing to three times its normal size before it swung out, crossing the gap and mming the woman into the ground.


    The second warrior woman immediately charged me, calling out to her distantpatriots in anguage I didn''t understand as she thrust out her own weapon. The spear tip, aimed straight for my stomach, glinted in the setting sun, even as I shifted to the right. The weapon sparked off my armor, leaving the barest of scratches as it skittered off. I reached out and grabbed the spear between the warrior''s hands, holding it tightly as my other hand grabbed her arm, pulling both of them in separate directions. Once her hands were yanked from the weapon I threw her across the wellndscaped yard, the armored woman tumbling across the grass a dozen feet away.


    The armor on my hand rescinded, allowing me to card the spear, mostly to remove it from y. I oriented myself to the mansion, both Ema and I making a beeline for the front door, where four more women stood, weapons at the ready. Not wishing to reduce them to a stter on the wall I slow down to a walk.


    Two of them came after me, jabbing at me with spears as I continued to walk forward, forcing them to step back. None of their attacks did anything save send sparks dancing away from their strikes, even as they whirled their spears around and jabbed at me with the butt end, sparks of electricity dancing as they attempted to taze me. I grabbed both of the spears, one in each hand, and yanked them away. One of them was thrown to the side, rolling to her feet immediately while the other released her spear before I could use it to throw her. Instead she pulled out two curved daggers, lunging at me as soon as her feet touched the ground. Again, while the weapons scratched the surface of my armor they could not prate, skittering off in a spray of sparks.


    "Stand down!" I shouted, reaching out to grab the woman, who rolled back out of the way.


    Distracted by the dagger wielding woman I was caught off guard by the warrior I had thrown earlier, who bashed into my side with some sort of glowing blue shield, projected from a device along her wrist. I stepped back, focusing on my opponents even as I could hear Ema fighting hers. Once again my armor rescinded, this time to reach out and touch the projected shield, feeling the concussive barrier knock my hand to the side. Despite that I still pulled, unable to hold back a chuckle as the barrier disappeared into the Deck.


    The woman cursed, even as the shield popped up again, quickly trying to shove me back once more. I was ready this time however and simply carded the barrier again, taking a step towards the woman. I forced her back, stepping into the mansion as herpatriots, the second one I had been fighting and thest standing fighter from Ema''s pair tried to stop us, holding up flickering shields. When I had carded eighteen projected shields Ema stepped forward and mmed her massive engorged fists into the shields, two of them sputtering out and failing, the third disappearing as the woman holding it was sent flying back. With the opening Ished out and smacked both of the warriors, knocking them off their feet and into the walls of the mansion, where they slumped, unmoving.


    "They are down stairs!" Ema shouted, already making her way to the staircase.


    I followed mypanion closely, reaching the workshop quickly, the ss barrier between the stairs and the workshop broken and open, the door showing signs of being cut. Ema and I both stepped into the familiar room, greeted by five more armed women, all of them dressed in the same african style armor that the other women had been wearing. They held their spears out at the ready, pointed at Ema and I. Behind them was another person, a man slightly older than myself, standing in abat pose, low and ready to attack.


    Behind them were Tony Pepper and Jarvis, all sitting in chairs. None of them looked happy but they didn''t appear to be injured.


    "What the hell is going on here?" I asked, taking a step forward, ignoring the spears now tapping my chest. "What right do you have toe barging into this man''s home? This is not Wakanda, you have no authority here."


    "You will not sp-" One of the warriors started to say before I cut them off.


    "I''ll speak however the fuck I want!" I shouted. "Youe barging into my friend''s home, poking at me with toothpicks and then have the balls to demand I stop talking? Get off your high horse and STAND DOWN BEFORE I STOP HOLDING BACK!"


    My yell echoed through the workshop, somehow amplified by my armor. After a long moment the man spoke in anguage I didn''t understand, repeating himself after a moment, this time speaking into a series of small spheres around his wrist. One of the bald women spoke back, sounding frustrated but was silent after he repeated himself. The women slowly stepped back, their eyes locked onto me even as they pulled back their spears. They fell back into a defensive position around the two men, standing at the ready. After another moment the man stepped forward.


    "My name is T''Cha, Prince of Wakanda." He exined. "I think there has been a slight misunderstanding."

 Chapter 64: Delivering a message

    Chapter 64: Delivering a message


    Tony, Ema, and I all sat on one side of Tony''s dining room table, while T''Cha sat alone on the other end. Ever the studious butler, Jarvis served tea to the man who had broken into his home not ten minutes ago. Tony sat next to me, annoyed and unnerved, now fully decked out in his most recent armor, having refused to do anything without putting it on first. He had also refused to talk while Pepper was even vaguely in danger, so she was currently in the safest ce Tony and I could imagine, my home, being pampered by Alfred. My own armor was retracted, while Ema sat next to me, tense and ready to strike. Behind T''Cha were five members of the Dora Mje, a few of them sporting scrapes and cuts from when Ema and I blew past them like wet tissue paper. They looked almost as pissed as Tony and Ema.


    "I have to wonder," T''Cha asked, after taking a sip from his tea while Jarvis sat down next to Ema. "How did you immediately know we were from Wakanda?"


    "You mean despite the fact that I could have googled you?" I asked, getting a harsh look from one of the warrior women. "Who else would be swinging around spears made of vibranium?''''


    "And how do you know they are made from vibranium?" He asked, looking even more curious. "How do you know Wakanda has ess to vibranium?"


    "I work with it a lot," I exined with a deadpan expression. "As to how I knowhow did you know Tony was working with it?"


    I lied, knowing that they wouldn''t have any way to tell. I assumed they had some way to scan for it, I remembered that Shield built a satellite capable of that in theics. If Shield could do it, then borderline rke tech Wakanda enjoyed could certainly do it. I remained calm as the group studied me silently, either certain I was lying or trying to figure out how I could possibly be telling the truth. After a long moment T''Cha continued to speak.


    "We came here under the assumption that Tony Stark had made a deal with Ulysses ue in order to gain ess to this," He said, gesturing down to the two ingots of vibranium I had given to Tony. "It is why we were so aggressive in meeting you. However, I should point out that at no point was a weapon pointed at anyone until you arrived."


    "One, I wouldn''t deal with ue for all the vibranium in the world." Tony said, doing a middling job of hiding his hostility. "Even before I stopped making weapons. The man is insane. Two, you still broke into my home and dragged my girlfriend and butler around like you owned the ce."


    "Surely if you know what kind of man ue is you understand why we were so aggressive?" T''Cha pointed out.


    "Why did you immediately assume that''s how he got ess to vibranium?" I asked, diverting the conversation. "And if you could find this vibranium, why can''t you find ue like."


    "ue managed to attack and rob Wakanda, killing many of my people in the process. He is the only source of vibranium outside of Wakanda." T''Cha exined, pausing before he continued. "He has also discovered some way to block the method we use to track Vibranium."


    I watched the man for a moment, surprised with how easily he admitted all of this information. After a moment I responded.


    "Lucky him. But you are wrong," I said. "ue isn''t the only source of Vibranium outside of Wakanda. I gave Tony his vibranium."


    "And where did you get it?" The prince asked, leaning forward. "Vibranium belongs to Wakanda, it is our birthright. If you stole it from ue then-"


    "I didn''t steal my vibranium from anyone," I said emphatically, wanting to make that fact very clear. "And again you are wrong. The vibranium mined in Wakanda is your birthright. You have no im over vibranium that is found anywhere else. This. is. not. yours."


    "And where exactly did you find it?" T''Cha asked. "Handing out vibranium is a dangerous thing. The world-"


    "I highly doubt you have any idea what the world can and can''t handle considering you look down on most of it from your high and mighty tower." I said, ignoring the Dora Mje''s reaction to me cutting off their prince again. "But for the sake of civility I''ll admit that I agree. handing overrge quantities of vibranium to any government could be dangerous at this point. That doesn''t mean either Tony or I will stop using it small scale though, or researching its potential uses."


    T''Cha nodded, taking another sip of his tea before putting the cup back down on his saucer.


    "Wait, time out," Tony said, looking at me and making a T with his hands. "Learning that Wakanda has vibranium is mind blowing enough, what else do they have? Why are you treating them like they hold more cards? I hadn''t even heard about them an hour ago."


    "They are a technologically advanced society," I exined, not breaking eye contact with Prince T''Cha. "A couple hundred years past us at least, mostly thanks to some of the incredible things that vibranium can do. They have been hiding behind the ''small african tribe'' thing while enjoying what is as close to a paradise as you can imagine."


    "And how exactly do you know this?" T''Cha asked, his hands starting to clench.


    "Because the stuff I make is bullshit," I exined with a shrug. "And there isn''t much you could do about it."


    "What if we offered to buy your vibranium?" T''Cha asked.


    "It''s not for sale." I responded. "I use it to make things. Hopefully things that can help people."


    "...I don''t think they are afraid of it getting into the wrong hands." Tony said, his expressionless helmet only increasing the hostility starting to radiating off of him. "I think they are worried their monopoly is in danger."


    "How dare you-"


    "Enough Okoye." T''Cha said, the angry warrior hesitantly standing back with a nod. "We came into his home, man handled those he cared about and in the end we were wrong. He has every right to be angry."


    "But how do we know they are telling the truth?" Okoye asked, her voice at a forced calm. "They could easily be lying."


    "How much did ue get away with?" I asked, catching T''Cha''s eye.


    "The thief made off with almost a quarter ton of vibranium after spilling my peoples blood," He answered after a short pause.


    I summoned the deck, yanking a card from it to my right hand. With a flourish I flicked the card to the left, arcing it around to the empty space adjacent to Tony''s dining room. In an instant a massive pallet of vibranium bricks, stacked tenyers tall, with eachyer containing thirty bricks.


    "There, that is four times the amount that ue stole from you," I said, keeping my face as casual as possible. "It would be impossible for me to have gotten that from him, correct?"


    The Wakandan''s stared, their eyes wide and locked on the massive pallet of metal that had just appeared before them. After a long moment I coughed, getting their attention again.


    "This is Yes, this does prove you didn''t take it from Klue." T''Cha said, eventually tearing his eyes away from therge stack of metal. "Where did you get so much? We have scanned the entire, gathered every scrap our sensors could find outside of Wakanda. Where did you find so much?"


    "I don''t think it matters." I responded with a shrug. "All that matters is that it isn''t yours. You have no im over it."


    For a moment T''Cha looked conflicted, as if he was contemting pushing the question. Before he could say anything I decided to continue.


    "How about this, Prince T''Cha. If Wakanda turns over the cure for cancer, HIV, diabetes, the flu as well as your treatments for stroke, Alzhiemers and heart disease I will fully exin how I got my hands on this vibranium."


    As I talked T''Cha''s face became more and more resigned, before shiftingpletely to a calm nkness, one that was clearly practiced. When I was done he slowly stood, giving me a small nod.


    "I apologize for this misunderstanding." He said, his face calm despite his clenched fists. "Mr Stark, you will receive payment for the damage to your home due to our mistake. We ask that you keep the secrets of Wakanda to yourself. While you may be frustrated and angry by our actions please understand that I acted with the hope of capturing a dangerous criminal and that revealing our true nature would put thousands of innocent peoples lives at risk and put our way of life in danger. Have a good day."


    Tony started to stand, but I put my hand on his shoulder, shaking my head. Prince T''Cha ignored this and continued to leave, the Dora Mje falling in behind him. About a minute and a halfter the sound of arge air vehicle reached the interior.


    "Sir, they seemed to have entered some sort of cloaked ship. Energy readings show they are leaving the premises." Jarvis said.


    "Dammit. I didn''t even think to scan around," I said, cursing under my breath.


    For the moment the room was silent before Tony spoke up.


    "Alright, what the fuck was that!" He said, his helmet flipping up to expose his face. "When you said someone might recognize the vibranium I didn''t realize you meant a secret African nation full of science fiction technology!"


    "I had no idea that they would be able to find you like that." I said defensively, scratching the back of my head.


    "But you knew they existed!"


    "I knew that they were around, yeah, but I didn''t think they would kick down your front door and take you hostage!"


    Tony was about to continue before he stood up suddenly, stalking over to the kitchen. He began pouring himself a ss of amber liquid. While he was distracted I turned to Ema and Jarvis.


    "Could you guys scan the building?" I suggested. "They might have left something behind."


    Ema nodded and took Jarvis''s hand, leading him up and out of the room, Ema''s eyes already lit up and scanning. I couldn''t help but chuckle at Jarvis''s confused but happy face as he was led away. Eventually Tony sat back down, his armored joints locking so he didn''t destroy his furniture. We sat in silence for a full minute before I started talking again.


    "They are istionists, keeping their borders locked down and hiding from the rest of the world. I knew they existed but I expected them to just keep to themselves, there was no reason to believe that they would just kick down your front door like that." I exined, looking at Tony as he took a sip of his drink. "I thought they were all about subtlety and subterfuge when ites to their business with outsiders. At worst I thought they would sneak in and steal the vibranium, but even that felt unlikely since I had no idea that they would have a way to scan and track it like that. I also had no idea that they would immediately connect you with a murdering thief because of it. Despite all that though, I still should have made it more clear as to why I advised you to be careful with it. I''m sorry."


    Tony nodded, mming back thest dredges of his drink and looking at me. For a moment I thought he was going to snap and tell me to leave or something, but he simply nodded again.


    "Alright. Fine. No use crying over spilt milk. But you are going to help me improve my security setup."


    "Absolutely. Let''s make that our next project. The walker can wait a while longer and we can even integrate it into the tower when it''s finished. I do have one thing to do before we start working on that however."


    "It better not take long, I want this ce to be a fortress before Pepperes back."


    "You''re both wee to live in the guest room at the warehouse," I said with a shrug. "And it shouldn''t take too long, maybe the rest of today and tomorrow."


    "What''s the project? Building something important?"


    "No. I''m going to finish knocking Wakanda off its high horse. They need to understand they aren''t the big bad unstoppable man on campus anymore."


    "Uh are you sure about that?" Tony asked, looking skeptical. "The way you were talking about them seemed like maybe it wasn''t a good idea to cross them."


    "No crossing, I''m not going to hurt anyone. But they broke into your home on little more than whim because they assumed they could get away with it. I need to prove they didn''t evene close."


    About four hourster I was flying across the Antic Ocean, less than a hundred feet over the water. Pepper and Tony had decided to stay in the mansion, with Ema and a few of my own creations standing guard. Once they were situated I whipped up a few things before heading off, hurtling through the air at mach three.


    I was following the directions of a new tracking tablet, this one tuned to vibranium. It was leading me to East Africa, though there were spots of vibranium all over the. I had also made a knowledge ring containing thenguage T''Cha had spoken, which ended up being Xosa. I went through a half dozen differentnguage rings until his words made sense in my head, a bizarre feeling to say the least. I had already put a universal trantor on the list of things to make.


    It waspletely dark asnd appeared in the distance. I quickly activated my stealth band, the recement for my first attempts at invisibility. My body faded from sightpletely, no glimmer of distorted light or shimmer of movements. It alsopletely removed my ability to make sound outside of my suit, eliminated any smell I might be carrying as well as preventing me from making footprints, as well as a half dozen other features to keep me hidden. Even Ema, with her amazing scanning abilities, struggled to find me. It was the perfect stealth tool and this was the first time I was using it outside of my warehouse.


    With the need to slow down to prevent my sonic boom from alerting people to my presence no longer required, I made a beeline for Wakanda. Eventually, as I got close to the border I slowed and activated my enhanced sight, switching to electricity vision. For a long while I flew around slowly, keeping my eyes peeled.


    Eventually almost three hourster I spotted what I was waiting for. The outline of an aircraft of some kind, barely a glimmer to the naked eye, was lit up by the incrediblyplex electronics inside. I flew around and matched its speed, flying just a few feet above it.


    While talking about my n to Tony, we had hypothesized that the country must have a way of hiding itself, since any satellite image would show any clearly advanced cities. I could probablye up with a way to breach those protections, but if I wanted to remain stealthy then just sting my way through wouldn''t work. So instead of doing that, and instead of flying around aimlessly trying to find the actual city hub, I took advantage of normal traffic.


    I flew in formation with therge ship for about twenty minutes before it started to descend, angling downwards gradually. It was flying straight towards a tree covered mountain, one that showed no signs of development. Nevertheless it continued on its path with no hesitation, flying straight. Moments before it would have crashed into the mountain side a portion of it flickered and faded, the illusion broken just enough to let the ship, and me in.


    We flew through what seemed like a dozen differentyers, passing through a massive array of projected domes. The temptation to reach out and touch one of theyers as I passed was strong, but I resisted it for now. Instead I stuck close to the aircraft, only peeling off on my own when I was sure we were through.


    The city looked impressive, lit up like any other city in the night. It was a fusion of advanced technology and traditional construction, at least that was what I assumed it was, considering I was as far from an expert on traditional African anything as someone could get. I could see some sort of maglev train crossing the river that cut the city into two parts.


    As I watched the city for a moment, the outline of the ship became more real, telling me that its pilot had turned off its cloak. I looked around, internally debating for a moment before slowly descending, heading to where the river beneath me was its widest. I slowed at the surface of the water, letting myself slowly sink in before copsing my wings. I sank down into the water silently, my heavy armor weighing me down. My armor could survive the vacuum of space and contained an air supply long enough for hours at a time, but sinking to the bottom of the river still made me incredibly nervous.


    Working as quickly as I could, I pushed anding pad out of the Deck and held it in my hands. After a few minutes of walking along the river bed I found arge b of stone and rested thending pad on it. Confident that it wouldn''t slip off and sink into the mud of the bed river, I picked a direction and started walking, searching for the shore. Now that I had a back door into this veritable paradise it was time to get to work.

 Chapter 65: Message delivered

    Chapter 65: Message delivered


    It took me twenty minutes to walk back to a less popted area so I could climb out of the water, because while I waspletely invisible I still took up space, meaning that a person or security camera that just happened to be looking in the wrong ce at the wrong time would see the water spread out around something that they couldn''t see.


    I walked along the river, letting the water drip off of me for a few minutes before I spread my invisible wings and took to the air again. I flew about twenty feet above the trees before turning, scanning the nearest parts of the city. It was almost three in the morning here, and the city, while still active and vibrant, was rtively quiet. I flew about the streets for a while, listening to the snippets of conversations I was close enough to hear. Most of it was just small talk, hushed because of howte it was.


    As I flew I scanned the city for anything interesting, and everywhere I looked I saw incredible technology. Some of it was worked into structures and other things to look normal, while other things shone with the ssical science fiction crispness and sleekness. Eventually I picked a random rooftop and gentlynded on a corner, summoning a card to my hand and pushing out its contents. Inside was my universal map, abination of hundreds of maps, GPS units and car navigation devices, worked together with a few Stark Industry tablets and a handful of scanners Tony put together for me. The result was a device that showed a map of anything on Earth, a short description of the location and, if necessary, directions on how to get there. It showed everything from a random janitor''s closet at Cairo International Airport to a junkyard in Santa Fe.


    I scanned through the tablet, sliding it around to get a general feel for my location. I immediately discovered I was in Birnin Zana, the Golden City and the capital of Wakanda. More specifically it seemed like I was in some sort of shopping district and the building under me was a clothing shop. I moved the screen around more, making slow circles around the city before expanding outward. Suddenly the name of a location passed by the screen and I quickly moved it back.


    It was the City of the Dead


    A temple of sorts, separate from any of the small cities that were protected by the massive cloaking bubble. A location where the Wakandans worshiped their ancestors. It was also the location of the garden where the Heart Shaped Herb grew.


    I was barely a minute long flight from a nt that could enhance a person and make themparable to Captain America, maybe even better in some regards. I was already enhanced to that level through my tattoos, but they were all enhancements on my actual abilities. If I enhanced my actual body, with the Heart Shaped Herb as the base


    But in order to do that I would need to steal one first, which was a can of worms I wasn''t sure I was willing to open. For one, stealing a flower would inevitably be noticed, and would ruin any chance of my message being received with anything other than anger and violence. The Herb had massive connections to Wakanda''s spiritual beliefs, they would not forgive anyone the sleight of stealing one.


    On top of that, this was a Marvel world, the chances of Bast actually being responsible for the power of the Herb was not zero, and I didn''t like the idea of pissing off a god in a universe where they might actually exist.


    With a soft groan of annoyance I scrolled the screen away from the temple, continuing to look around. I quickly found the location of the Citadel, the pce of the Golden Tribe, of which T''Chaka and T''Cha were members. Satisfied that I had found the location for my message I pushed out my wings again and took to the sky, making my way to one of therger buildings in the city. It followed the more advanced style of architecture that a lot of the buildings had, but was decorated by several panther statues, as well as plenty of other iconography.


    As I got closer a quick check of my tablet map showed me that I needed to be thirty floors up, as well as on the opposite side of the structure. A quick flight brought me to the correct spot and I carded my tablet before pushing out another device.


    A small circr device of brass, rubber and metal, it attached to the massive window and stuck on. Abination of dozens of doors, windows, transformation cards and quite a few other things, the device slowly expanded until it was around eight feet tall and wide. Behind it was open air, the ss having been stretched open. My own version of a portable hole. I waited for a long moment, my enhanced hearing straining to detect any sign that my newly made entrance had been noticed. When nothing happened I backed up and flew through the hole, tucking my wings in to pass through before ring them open on the other side to catch myself.


    I slowly sank to the floor, eyes peeled as I looked around therge room. A set of steps led down from therge window to a raised circr floor, made of ss and metal to show off some sort of red rock. The rock rose to the center of the circle, exposed in a square that had been carved t save for small mounds in each corner. It was chiseled to resemble the cracked patchwork of dried over mud, on which were eight chairs of different styles, the one closest to the window the more ornate.


    I stepped down the stairs and made my way to the square of stone, stepping up onto it, relying on my stealth system to keep me silent. After another short check to make sure I wasn''t about to be attacked by a hundred Wakandan warriors I began preparing my message. When everything was done. I took onest look around before heading back out the way I came, deactivating and carding my portable hole as I left.


    With my message delivered I scanned the city, my eyes trailing over the hundreds of wondrous bits of technology I could see. While I had already decided not to steal anything, carding nonphysical things could also be very useful. I already had eighteen cards filled with the concept of a projected shield, which I was extremely excited to work with.


    My eyes locked onto the flying train''s crossing the city, following one in particr as it passed through rings that pulsed with some sort of energy. With a slight adjustment of my wings I made my way to the "track", stopping to hover by one of the rings. I took a careful look around, before rescinding the armor around a single finger. I waited for a while, floating in the air,pletely invisible save the tip of my pointer finger. Finally a train went by, hurtling past almostpletely silently.


    Certain that they now had the maximum amount of time to notice if for some reason this messed something up, I reached my finger into the field and pulled. The field flickered for a split second before immediately reestablishing. I could feel the energy singe and bruise my finger, but my increased durability held strong. I flicked the card into my hand and examined it.


    It was an interestingbination of concepts, with strong charges of stabilization, power and thrust, with thetter seeming to lean heavily torge-scale thrust rather than small scale, personal thrust like Tony''s repulsor tech. Seems like the field simultaneously charged, pushed and stabilized the trains as they passed through the circr gates. I carded the field twice more, though in all honesty I wasn''t sure what I would use it for. I would probably end up making something that projected the field so I could get the cards out of the Deck.


    With one thing sampled, I spent the next hour flying around and seeing what else I could find. I snagged a few cards of thrust from an automated vehicle, the whole thing wobbling before itpensated. This also held arge-scale thrust concept, though this was much more pure. I ended up carding ten of them, almost filling the Deck.


    Despite there being more that I wanted to snag and much more that I wanted to explore, I was beginning to get nervous that I would overstay my wee, so armed with the knowledge that I could return whenever I wanted, I took onest look around before traveling home.


    [H1]Birnin Zana - The Citadel - Council Chamber[/H1]


    Ten Dora Mje followed behind King T''Chaka as he climbed the steps to the Citadel''s Council chamber. Normally his protection detail would be no more than five, but the city was on alert and his security team were on edge. He stepped through therge doorway into the Council chamber room proper. The room was filled with security, some armed and surveying the room while others moved around waiving scanners. Any one not busy bowed their heads when he entered.


    "What have you people found N''Botoh?" T''Chaka asked, his own eye trailing over the room beforeing to rest on the center tform.


    "A standard patrol noticed it this morning my King," His chief security officer said, raising his head from his bow. "That was about five thirty this morning, three hours ago."


    "And no rms were triggered?" King T''Chaka asked, standing a dozen feet away from the council chamber tform.


    "Nothing," N''Botoh answered, his head bowed low. "As far as we have been able to tell the Citadel has not been breached."


    "And yet it has," T''chaka responded, eye still on the tform. "What else have you found?"


    "As far as we can tell the spears belong to M''Kindi, C''onze and Ch''Tinza, all three reported lost"


    Each spear, having been lost the previous day when the Dora Mje shed with Maker, stood impaled into the red stone tform, the vibranium spear heads drivenpletely into the rock. Beyond the three lined up spears T''Chaka could see that two items were ced on his chair, one on each arm. One was a folded piece of white paper, and the other a small tablet.


    "Have you investigated the items yet?"


    "The scans say they are inert King T''Chaka," N''Botoh responded.


    "But from what we understand about Maker''s ability that means nothing," Omande, the leader of King T''Chaka''s Dora Mje protection detail said, stepping forward. "He seems to be capable of making objects change in ways that do not follow conventional thinking."


    After a moment of silence T''Chaka walked forward, ignoring the shouts of his guards and security, only stopping when he stood in front of his chair. He picked up the folded note and turned, giving his people a stern re.


    "If the man wanted me dead, these spears would not be buried in stone." He said, before opening the letter and reading it to himself.


    <em>Hello King T''Chaka</em>


    <em> I''m sure by now you have noticed the return of your property. On further reflection of the methods and lengths Wakanda seems to be willing to go to protect and regain its lost or stolen property, I thought it best to return these before I was forced to defeat your warriors again for little reason. </em>


    <em> I''m sure that this method of returning your property might seem more than a little confrontational, and maybe even downright hostile. </em>


    <em> I certainly hope that hase across properly.</em>


    <em> Yesterday afternoon your son and his soldiers broke into my friend''s home and threatened his well being. I understand that this was done out of fear and a desire to find a wanted criminal responsible for the death of your people and the theft of your property, but the brazen disregard forw, due process, even the basic observation of human rights is too much to ignore. What would you have done if he had bought the vibranium from Klue? Would you have simply killed him? Or whisked him away to a secret Wakandan prison?</em>


    <em> You and your people need to understand that your technological edge no longer means you are the big dogs on the block. I broke into a secure building in a city hidden by a massive cloaking bubble, in the most technologically advanced country on the that I shouldn''t even know exists, all as easily as you might go for a walk.</em>


    <em>Basically, my bullshit beats your bullshit. </em>


    <em>Now this note is not just for me to threaten and brag, it also is meant as an olive branch. The Wakandan people have created something amazing, and despite my own opinions that your hoarding of medical technology alone is abominable, I cannot deny that your city is beautiful. I will not drag you and your people into the spotlight, and neither will Tony, despite the fact that he has every right to. We </em>-


    "Father, what are you doing?" T''Cha asked, walking into the room with his own cadre of Dora Mje. Suddenly the room was more than a little crowded.


    "Reading the results of your fool headed adventure." King T''Chaka responded, giving his son a look. "We will be discussing your choices when I am finished here. Go, wait outside."


    T''Cha looked shocked for a moment before standing straight. He nodded and left, his protection detail following him out. T''Chaka frowned and watched his beloved son leave before looking back down and continuing to read.


    <em> We will keep your secret. </em>


    <em> As a sign of good faith I am giving you a gift. No doubt you have noticed the tablet that sits on the opposite side of your chair. This tablet does one thing and one thing only. It tracks the exact location and status of Ulysses ue, in real time. It is unblockable and untraceable. He will not escape you again, as long as you have this tablet.</em>


    <em> There is a catch to this gift however. While using my gift to catch ue I want you to consider how far the world hase. I want you to consider that for every one of your own people you save with your miracle technology, hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent people die because the rest of the world was unlucky enough not to be born on a massive hunk of space rock. I want you to consider how you want to enter the world stage. Either as a technologically advanced nation gifting the world cures to diseases and solutions to problems, or as technological equals who hoarded their knowledge and refused to share until they were forced to. Because while you hold a firm lead on the world now, eventually that will change. Maybe not in your lifetime, and maybe not even in your sons. But eventually the world will catch up. </em>


    <em> I hope that my words have gotten through to you, though the gift is yours to keep even if they haven''t. Tony has assured me that ue is a maniac, a man who deserves whatever tender mercies you have nned for him. </em>


    <em> In any event, I hope this closes the previous chapter and allows us to move on to one in which we can exist peacefully. If you wish to contact me, simply dial "Maker" on any telephone ormunication device. I am sure we have much to teach each other.</em>


    <em> Respectfully, </em>


    <em>Maker </em>


    T''Chaka closed the letter and returned it to its ce on his chair before picking up the tablet. At his touch the tablet turned on, disying a perfect map of Birnin Zana. A point rested on the border of the screen, pointing to something outside of the city. A quick search showed it was pointing to a ship salvage yard along the coast of South Africa, not far from Johannesburg. The dot was stationed inside a ship the mapbeled as the <em>Churchill, </em>specifically the mess hall.


    Apparently ue was eating breakfast.


    "Gather a team." T''Chaka said, looking to his people, specifically to his Dora Mje. "A grouprge enough to fight at least thirty armed criminals. I want the War Dogs to be notified that we will be conducting a raid on a salvage yard outside of Johannesburg and that they need to keep any curious eyes off of it."


    "My King, who will we be striking against?" Omande asked, gripping her spear.


    "We have been given a gift. The location of Ulysses ue." King T''Chaka exined. "Bast demands he stands for his crimes, and today that duty will be fulfilled."


    "My King will the ck Panther be included in this raid?" N''Botoh asked.


    "We shall see shortly," T''Chaka responded. "I have yet to discuss yesterday''s events with my son. His exnation will dictate my decision."


    The King stepped off the tform and made his way out of the Council Chambers, the tablet gripped in his hands. While Maker might have started his message with hostility and threats, to say nothing of his preaching, the fact that he had given them a way to track ue was a gift he could not ignore.<hr>


    Hello everyone! The Conceptual Deck passed the 200k mark! I am having a lot of fun writing this story and I''m excited to hear what everyone things of the next leg of Carson Walsh''s story. If you have enjoyed the story so please visit my Pa_tre_on and consider supporting me! Either way I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!

 Chapter 66: Security

    Chapter 66: Security


    Tony and I spent the next few days nning and building a massive overhaul to his home. It started with me taking one of my BB''s and modifying it,yering on concepts of building <em>improvements </em>rather than just building. It was a struggle to keep from adding the concept of cheapness as the construction industry is riddled with things that are strapped over older buildings to cover up problems, and a lot of them are cheap crap. Eventually though I was able to shift it into a building improvement system, something that could modify and enhance a structure. It was limited to what already existed, I couldn''t build an addition at the click of a button, or turn one room into two different rooms, but it still served its purpose.


    We set the building improver up topletely revamp the materials the mansion was built from. Concrete was strengthened into a quintuple stacked enhanced concrete, the rebar woven into the concrete was reced with my ultra metal, the Asgardian alloy and vibranium enhanced version of my super metal. The ss was thickened and reced by my ultra metalced diamond ss. While the building improver enhanced the structure itself, Tony and I enhanced the mansion''s security.


    Every door, window and point of egress was strengthened and enhanced to ridiculous levels. They were tuned to Tony, Pepper and Jarvis, with the system capable of adding new people. Tony whipped up a mounted non lethal air gun that Jarvis could control and deploy, or that Tony and Pepper could use with voicemands. I took that creation, copied it with the UCM''s and then enhanced them by stacking them. We installed them all over the house and stuffed them with a payload that simultaneously put the target to sleep and bound them with an ultra metal enhanced cable.


    The final touch, which took an entire day by itself and several failed attempts, was an honest to god wardstone. It took a massive amount of materials, including a hundred and twelve magic rods, a safe and low powered energy field projector that Tony made, almost thirty books, all the protection meta materials I could get my hands on and an intent detector I used to make my armor follow mentalmands as well as a pile of other things, all worked down into a two foot circle of stone about eight inches thick, mounted on a pir of stone, all made from granite. The circle of stone itself was carved with symbols and runes, carried over from the various meta materials we had used.


    The wardstone projected a field that epassed Tony''s entire property, a bubble about two thousand feet in all directions. On its default low setting it prevented anyone with murderous or violent intent from enterinng the bubble, knocking them out without harming them. If anyone entered who had malicious but non violent intent it would simply notified Tony, Pepper and Jarvis. If activated to its second level it would knock out anyone who wasn''t neutral or there to help, and its third would knock out everyone who isn''t on its protection list. Its final ability, which took the longest to develop, was attached to a separate creation, but one that was controlled by the wardstone and by Jarvis.


    With the samples of energy shields that I had gotten from the Dora Mje, a couple different movie projectors and the energy field projector that Tony put together, I conceptually crafted a basic shield generator, one that could be tuned to various sizes. I copied it with a UCM and stacked it a dozen times, powering it up with a few energy cells in the process while enhancing it with meta materials that revolved around protection and defense. I then took that creation and increased the size of the project shield to epass the mansion itself. Tony and I both tested the resulting shield, firing a barrage of weapons at it. When it absorbed both the fully empowered beams of energy that my revolvers produced on their highest setting, as well as a full barrage of sts from mybo cannon we installed it in Tony''s basement, connecting it to Jarvis and the wardstone.


    Then, when that was done and Tony decided to tempt fate bymenting that it was basically imprable we installed a second ward stone and shield generator that would kick on if the first one failed.


    "Not bad for a few days of work." Tony said with a grin, dusting off his hands despite the fact that neither of us had really lifted a finger in the past hour, using abination of the building improver and the Deck to get most things done easily. "You want a drink? I think it''s time for a drink."


    "Alright," I said with a chuckle, following the inventor up the workshop stairs into his house proper. "But I can''t stay too long. I want to get a set of these shields set up around my warehouse. Plus there''s a dozen other applications for them that I want to try. I''ve been trying toe up with a way to make some sort of projected shield system for months."


    "d me getting attacked in my own home solved one of your problems."


    I rolled my eyes as we made it to the kitchen, Tony pouring himself some whiskey and me some brandy. We both walked back to his living room area and sat down, enjoying our drinks.


    "So have you finished your ns to expand your base?" Tony asked, rolling the ice cubes around in his ss.


    "The general ns, yeah." I exined. "The warehouse is all of the space I need for my own smaller projects. My first step is to build somewhere I can work on bigger things."


    "Like the walkers?" Tony asked, raising an eyebrow.


    "No, the walkers are just for fun," I answered with a shrug. "I have ns, but it''s too early to really start talking about them."


    "And you still want to link up with the tower once it''s done?"


    "Yeah, as long as you put a wardstone in there too," I answered.


    "God do we really have to call it that?" Tony asked with an exaggerated pout. "No one is going to take you seriously if you keep giving things magic names."


    "I just called it what fit Tony. Hard to argue when you still have no idea how anything that I make works."


    "Stupid reality breaking bullshit," He responded without any heat in his voice. Before he could continue Jarvis walked into the room.


    "Sir, Pepper is on her way home, she will be arriving shortly."


    "Thanks Jarvis," He responded before looking at me. "Time for you to go."


    "What? I mean sure, alright."


    "Pepper was very emphatic about rewarding me if I worked hard to make this house safe again," Tony said, standing up and shoo-ing me away.


    "Alright alright, I''m going." I said with augh. "I''ll talk to youter, probably once I''m ready to start building step two."


    "Fine, yes, I''ll make sure you don''t mess everything up. Goodbye!"


    With a word I traveled back to my warehouse, chuckling to myself as I started the process of setting up my own wardstone and shield system. It took a while, mostly because I used a building builder to make a secret area under the warehouse itself, and I wanted my shields to be invisible until they were hit. I tuned the intent based field a bit much closer to the warehouse than Tony''s was to his house, not wanting it to interfere with anything else I ended up building.


    I also set the shield to always on and kept it tight to the warehouse''s exterior, almost a second skin. The three other shield generators, two back ups and one as a second always onyer, were programmed to do the same. I sealed the secret space up using the BB again before activating my armor and heading towards the exit to the warehouse.


    I stepped out into the cold and turned to look at the building, pushing out my wings to lift off of the rocky ground, barely having to move them to lift off the ground. The wardstone of course let me pass through the shield, allowing me to fly out and look down at the warehouse. The sleek metal design of the warehouse was easily visible, despite the fact that I had tried to keep the roof as close to the gray color scale that the rest of thendscape shared.


    I pulled out my revolver and fired at what I knew was an empty corner of the building, nodding as the shield lit up, dissipating the energy before once again fading. I fired again and again, testing to make sure the shield held. When it passed the test of both revolvers on full st I put my weapons away, satisfied for now.


    A shield system to protect my buildings had been the final challenge I needed to solve before I was prepared to start expanding. I turned, eyes following along the rocky grayndscape, trying to visualize what I would be making for the next few days. When I was done I stopped and looked up into the ck, star filled sky, unable to stop the massive smile on my face.


    There, hanging in the dark sky was Earth, a blue, green and white marble. It was a breathtaking view, one that few people had ever experienced, even fewer from this angle. I was a bit worried when I started nning this move out, worried that I would run into the Inhumans or that this was just a crazy pipe dream. But this view made it all worth it.


    The process of getting to the Moon had actually been pretty easy all things considered. I took a droid frame, which would actually go on to be Alfred, and fitted it with an enhanced wing pack. They lifted off on a Monday carrying anding pad and about four dayster I traveled to the Moon with my building builder and a powerful air generator. It took about two days to make the ultra strong and air tight building from the ground up.


    The two hardest parts had been the "Gravity" generator and the life support generator. The first of which was just abination of gyroscopes and a dozen copies of a small sized G-force simting rig that Tony helped me get my hands on, with a huge amount of magic rods mixed in. It all worked surprisingly well. The resulting device was mixed with an energy cell and buried under the workshop, though it wasn''t sealed under it like the shield generators now were.


    The life support generator created a sealed environment inside of whatever it considered to be an room or enclosed space, even going as far as to create some sort of non physical barrier at entrances so that airlocks weren''t needed. It was abination of air purifiers, tanks containing normal air, a bucket of magic rods, a few books about building sealed rooms and oddly enough a dozen bubbles and six massive filled balloons. In all it took me just about a week to establish a fully independent and stable Moon base.


    Tony bitched at me for three days, until he realized that I could get him up there too.


    Now that my warehouse base wasplete and fully fleshed out, and I had a shield generator to protect less substantial buildings from things like meteorites and debris I could start branching out. My first step was something I had been wanting to build for a while, a method of making things much bigger than the deck could hold. The first step to that would be building a shipyard of some description, a ce that would use enhanced materials to build ships, tanks, and massive trucks like the Behemoth without the use of the Deck. That idea itself came in two parts. The first was a spacerge enough and with ess methods forrge construction projects. The second was a piece of equipment, or maybe multiple pieces of equipment that would work together, simr to how the building builders functioned.


    For now, I would start with building the structure because I needed a ce to work that wasn''t practically weightless and where I wouldn''t have to worry about my air slowly running out. I floated in the air for a few minutes before picking a space that was mostly t about eight hundred feet away from the warehouse, flying over to it andnding softly on the ground. I summoned a card to my hand, pushing the building builder out onto the ground and stepping closer. The powerful piece of equipment was CAT yellow and had a dozen pieces of equipment branching out from it. An excavator shovel, a crane boom, forklift lifters and a bulldozer front decorated the odd looking machine. Despite having all of these tools attached, the machine didn''t move at all, nor did any of the equipment do anything, they were all vestigial attachments from some of the trucks and equipment Ibined to make the device in the first ce. What did work was the intake port for materials and the building design interface.


    I tapped on the interface screen and spent two hours designing the new Moon base addition. I had to go inside and refresh my suits oxygen about half way through, before returning to the builder. The center of the new addition would be a circr "dry dock" with a seven hundred foot diameter and a depth of a hundred and fifty feet. The bottom of the dry dock would have four tunnels that angled upwards, spinning around like a parking structure entrance as an exit for anynd vehicles that I built. The entire dry dock rim would be lined with an observation walkway and railing, with smooth concrete sides to the bottom. An octagonal building would sit around the opervation railing, the dry dock built like a courtyard in the middle. The interior walls facing inside would all be enhanced ss, while the rest of the building would be ultra metal and enhanced concrete with ents of pure vibranium. For now the building would not be connected to the warehouse as I wanted to make a central hub that it would connect to first.


    Happy with a general design and resulting estimate of supplies required to build the structure I returned to the warehouse to gather and prepare everything. It took the rest of the day and into the next morning for the UCM''s to make the necessary ultra metal, enhanced ss and enhanced concrete. During that time I would spend an hour or so at a time out by the building builder, refining the design and adding details. I added a coat of gray white and ck paint for the outside, abination of hardwood floors and carpet for the interior. I created a lounge and observation areas around the inner ss walls as well as bathrooms and break areas to the first third of the octagonal building, while the back two thirds would house materials and a cadre of UCM''s that would supply the building device I had yet to create. Finally I added small hatches that led to spaces under the building where I could put life support systems, wardstones and shield generators.


    When my design was done, and the supplies were finished I spent half an hour hauling materials over using the Deck and feeding them to the builder. With one final look around I pressed the start button and flew up into the air. It took a minute for the process to start, but I could see the machine start to further tten the area, beginning the process of digging the hole for the buildings foundations as well as the dry dock itself.


    I watched the process continue for a little while longer, watching the building device carve into the Moon''s surface, despite the fact that it hadn''t moved in the slightest, before my suit warned me it was running low on air. I gave onest look around before swooping down, stepping into the warehouse.


    "Is it going?" Ema asked, sitting on her hovering tform, painting the branches of her second fall tree.


    "Yup. It''s gonna take a few days to finish because of how much earth Moon? Dirt and stone it needs to move."


    "Oh no, a few days to build a massive building on the Moon, how could you possibly wait that long?" She responded nkly, rolling her eyes beforeughing at my sheepish expression.


    "I know, I''m spoiled," I said with a shrug. "I shouldn''tin, especially not for this. I''m going to need some time to design and work out how this construction system is going to work in the first ce."


    "Are you going to start working on it now?"


    "No, I need a break. I''ve been building and working non stop since before we crashed T''Cha''s party at Tony''s house."


    Ema snorted andughed, nodding her head in agreement.


    "You have something in mind?" She asked, still facing the wall.


    "Yeah. I''m going to give Natasha a call."


    Ema turned to look at me, her eyebrow raised.


    "Why?"


    "Well I want to see how she is doing," I asked. "I feel like just healing her and not checking up on her is negligent."


    "Yeah, sure, alright. Well, good luck," Ema said before turning back to her painting. "Say hello for me."


    "Alright."


    I watched her paint for a minute before pulling out my phone and making my way to my living space. I dropped down to the couch and stared at my phone for a moment before dialing in her name and pressing send. Her name shifted to a number, my bullshit super phone connecting despite the fact that I was at least two hundred thousand miles away.


    "Hello? Maker, is that you?" Natashas voice came through as she answered. "How did you get this number, and how did my phone know it was you?"


    "My super secure phones are weird," I answered. "Their concept ofmunication is so strong all I really need is a name and it goes through."


    "Oh Well what is it?"


    "I wanted to check in on you, see how you were doing." I admitted, beginning to think that this might be a bad idea. "Also, I-


    "Who is that?" A distant voice said from somewhere on Natasha''s end, sounding vaguely like Clint. "Is that Maker?"


    "Hold on Maker," Natasha said with a sigh, clearly covering the phone. Unfortunately for her between my enhanced hearing and the enhanced quality of my phone, I could still hear them pretty clearly.


    "Yeah, it''s Maker."


    "Tell him toe over for dinner. We have plenty of food for one more."


    "...are you serious? But what about"


    "Nat, after what he did for you, twice now, the least we could do is treat him to a home cooked meal," Another voice said, this time a woman who I didn''t recognize. "Unless you don''t want to see him or you don''t trust him?"


    "No, that''s not it," Natasha responded. "I would like to see him. If you''re okay with himing here."


    "Yeah, just tell him to use the stealth cloaks that Steve said he has," Clint added in.


    There was a slight scratching as Natasha pulled her hand off of the phone and continued talking.


    "Maker how long would it take you to fly to Iowa?"<hr>


    Just to make it clear, Inhuman''s are not on the moon in this world. It seemed silly to include lore from a show that existed for a single season that nobody really watched.

 Chapter 67: Trust

    Chapter 67: Trust


    About an hourter Inded on the outskirts of a farmhouse, deactivating my stealth band as I did. My armor slid back into its undeployed state as well, shifting into its basic chest armor form. I looked around, taking the frankly picturesque image in front of me. I was standing on a dirt driveway, about a hundred feet from an old but still in decent shape house, an older and in less decent shaped barn further behind that. It was surrounded by arge green field that spread out, especially in the direction of the barn. A decent sized yard was marked off by a split rail fence that encircled the entire house, save for a few gates and arge opening along the driveway.


    With a long breath I shook myself and started walking to the house, still uncertain what I was walking into. Natasha had obviously hadpany, but beyond the mystery woman and Clint I had no idea who else would be there.


    Still wondering if this was some sort of Shield vacation home or something I made my way up the front steps. I was reaching for the doorbell when the front door opened, revealing Clint standing there with a smile.


    "That wasn''t a cloak," He said with a smirk, standing to the side to let me walk in.


    "No, they weren''t as good as I was hoping for," I admitted with a shrug and a smile as I turned to look at the interior. "More of a temporary thing"


    The inside of the house looked just as normal as the outside had. Pictures were hung on the wall, many of them with Clint in them, one or two of them even had Natasha. There were shoes stacked by the door, jackets hung up on a coat rack. Further in I could see a living room, a set of stairs leading to the second floor and toys strewn across the floor.


    "What"


    Before I could answer, the sound of bare feet on the hardwood floor reached me as two kids ran through the hallway, a young girl no older than five chasing a young boy, probably around seven or eight.


    "Hey you two, slow down!" Clint called out as they ran past, shaking his head when they didn''t listen.


    "Those are?"


    "My kids, L and Cooper." He said, his smile turning into a smirk. "Looks like you can be surprised after all."


    "Uh Yeah. Seems like it." I said, still a bit stunned.


    "Fury helped me set this up, off the books. " He exined, leading me through the living room. "Sorry Nat didn''t warn you"


    "What and ruin the surprise?" Natasha finished with a smile, a genuine one that made me smile in return.


    The red headed super spy was dressed in casual clothes, a normal dark blue blouse and jeans. She was standing next to the kitchen table, a handful of tes in her hands. She quickly finished setting the table. Before she could say anything else another woman stepped into the kitchen, the two kids following behind her.


    "Wash up and sit down at the table. And Cooper, thank Auntie Nat for doing your job for you."


    The kids moved past their mom and into the kitchen, the young boy saying a quick thank you to Natasha before joining his sister at the sink, washing their hands. The woman stepped closer and stopped in front of me, a big smile on her face.


    "You must be Maker. Clint and Natasha have quite a bit to say about you." The woman said. "I''m Laura, Clint''s wife. I''m d you could make it."


    "It''s nice to meet you." I said with a smile, peeking at the two Shield agents. "I hope they have been good things."


    "Well considering what you did for Shield and for Nat, yeah pretty much all good things," she said, giving me a smile that fully reached her eyes. "I hope you like messy food, Clint has been slow cooking ribs all day."


    "Yeah, yeah, that actually sounds good," I said before apologizing. "Sorry, I''m still a bit shocked. Honestly I thought I was on my way to a Shield safe house or a sponsored vacation home, not Clint''s actual family home."


    As I talked I reached up and carded off my jacket and my armor, leaving me in basic clothes.


    "Woah, I think that''s the first time I''ve seen you without some sort of armor Maker," Clint said.


    "Well you guys are clearly trusting me with something big. It''s only fair that I give some trust in return," I said before reaching up and putting my fingers on my nose, giving my mask of many faces a tug, pulling it off for the first time in weeks. "And please, call me Carson."


    The group seemed shocked for a moment with the reveal of my light brown hair, hazel-green eyes and fairplexion. Clint and Laura seemed stuck on their surprise, while Natasha studied my face. After a moment she smiled, a real genuine smile that made me feel warm and wee.


    "Alright everyone, sit down and get settled," Laura said when she finally recovered, herding her kids.


    We settled down around the table, Clint getting the ribs out and putting them on the counter nearby to cool while Laura put arge bowl of sd, which we passed around as everyone took a bit for themselves. The conversation was light, with the kids asking questions about who I was, though they epted that I worked with their father and Auntie Nat pretty easily. I was extremely tempted to tease Natasha about that title but the way her face lit up every time they said it kept me from trying. Instead I listened and talked, asking questions about their schools and their hobbies.


    Eventually the first course was done and Clint carried the ribs to the table and Laura brought over a pot full of corn, cing them both on folded towels. Everyone passed their tes around, each person getting a chunk of BBQ sauce thered ribs and a corn on the cob. I buttered and took a bite of the corn first, getting a few wide eyed looks.


    "... What?" I asked, worried that I had missed something.


    "Those are way too hot. How are you not burning yourself?" Laura asked.


    "Oh I''m heat resistant now I guess," I said with a shrug, looking sheepish. "I didn''t even realize it was that hot."


    "That is the most useful thing l think you have ever done," Clint said, getting an eye roll from Natasha. "You''ll never have to worry about burning the roof of your mouth again!"


    "I didn''t really have to worry about that before either," I pointed out, thumbing the chain of my healing ne.


    "Dang that''s really useful."


    As we ate, we continued to talk. Apparently, once upon a time Laura had worked for Shield as well, though she didn''t seem to be keen to talk about it. After getting a subtle head shake from Natasha I quickly changed the subject.


    "This ce is beautiful." I said, looking around the kitchen. "It feels like a real home. Stark''s ce feels so sterile and orderly, save his workshop, it''s like they live in ab."


    "Thank you Carson. It''s hard to keep up with it with Clint gone so much but we manage," Laura replied with a smile. "It always just looks a bit messy to me honestly."


    "Like I said, it feels like a proper home."


    "You''re still hanging out with Tony Stark?" Clint asked after a short pause.


    "Yeah. Once you get past all of his issues he isn''t that bad."


    "I worked under cover for him for a week," Natasha said, "He is very clearly a narcissist."


    "Ehh, maybe. Probably," I said, gesturing in a kind of sort of way. "I think his issues are a coping mechanism. Gaining control by putting everyone else on edge, that sort of thing. If anything he is a control freak. Least that''s my guess, you would have more experience with that sort of thing than me."


    "Well either way, don''t pick up any bad habits from him please," She said. "He is tolerable because he seems to genuinely want to help, but I''d rather you not be just tolerable."


    I couldn''t help but chuckle and nod, agreeing to not pick up any bad habits from him. Clint brought up his ns for renovating the house and I nodded along, agreeing that the sunroom could use a reflooring, despite the fact that I didn''t even know where the sunroom was.


    Eventually we finished eating and started cleaning up from dinner. When we were done with that, the kids eagerly led us out the back door to a fire pit. We sat around the fire for another hour before the kids started drifting to sleep. They didn''t want to go, but soon Clint and Laura had them making their way back inside, heading to bed. This left Natasha and I alone, on opposite sides of the fire.


    "Hey. I didn''t want to ask while everyone was around, but how are you feeling?" I asked, Natasha giving me a small smile


    "I feel amazing. Whole." She said, the second part quietly, her eyes focused on the fire.


    "I''m very happy for you Natasha, seriously."


    "Nat," She said, looking up. "Call me Nat."


    "Alright, Nat," I responded with a smile, receiving one in return.


    A few minutester Clint and Laura came back from their parental duties, thetter carrying a few nkets with them. She handed one to Natasha, who happily took it. She offered one to me but I waved it away, the mother setting it down on the chair next to me before settling into a longer couch-like seat beside Clint, snuggling against him and covering herself in the nket.


    "Thank you for inviting me to dinner, and into your home." I said to the two parents. "I was a bit shocked at the beginning but dinner was great. I actually brought dessert but it''s a Tiramisu with alcohol in it. I have no idea what your policy on that would be and I thought bringing up a desert they might not be able to have would be a bad idea."


    As I mentioned the dessert I pulled out a card and pushed out the contents onto a table. A medium sized pastry box appeared, wrapped up in twine.


    "Oh you didn''t have to do that, but thank you." Laura said,starting to stand before Clint stopped her and headed inside. "And good choice. I believe it''s one of Natasha''s favorites."


    "Wait, really?" I asked, looking at the nket wrapped spy, who was now sitting up and looking intrigued, nodding in confirmation.


    Clint came back out with some tes and forks, as well as a serving utensil. I cut the twine holding the box shut and the archer started cutting and serving generous slices of the decadent dessert. Natasha, upon taking the first bite let out a sound of pure enjoyment, actually blushing when I looked up at her.


    "Carson, this is amazing." Laura said after trying it. "Where did you get this?"


    "A small shop in Italy." I said with a shrug. "They make amazing cannolis but I felt like mixing it up."


    Laura looked surprised, stopping with a fork full of dessert halfway to her mouth, while Clint shook his head and Natasha rolled her eyes. I simply took another bite, leaning back in the chair.


    "I shouldn''t ask, but did you fly all the way to Italy?" Laura asked. "Clint mentioned you can fly pretty fast but that seems ridiculous."


    "Not exactly" I said, taking a peek at Natasha who shrugged. "I can teleport between a bunch of ces. Technically it''s not teleporting but-


    "Bullshit, there is no way you can Seriously?" Clint asked, sitting up with wide eyes.


    "Yeah, Natasha experienced it the other day," I admitted. "I kind of expected her to reveal that one already."


    "It didn''t seem important." Natasha said casually, taking another bite of her dessert, getting a snort out of Laura.


    We continued to talk about my teleportation, vaguely describing how it worked before Laura asked about my flying. Eventually, as we were talking about some of the other things I had created, a thought urred to me.


    "Listen, very recently I developed something for locational protection. I call it a wardstone and it... Well it''s intent based protection in arge bubble centered around the stone. It pairs really well with another creation, a shield generator and-"


    "You made shields?" Clint asked, now very interested. "Like in Star Wars?"


    "Vaguely, yeah. I can tie it to a wardstone and provide a lot of smart protections for a building, location or a home."


    "And you are offering to put one of these here?" Clint asked, his eyes wide. "How obvious would it be?"


    "Completely hidden until it was needed," I exined. "The wardstone essentially is inactive until it senses someone entering its field who has nasty intentions and knocks them out. Anyone who has poor intentions but doesn''t n on actual violence simply notifies you. That way you don''t have to exin anything weird if it''s just a simple trespasser or something. If the wardstone senses an attack, like someone shooting at the house, it will deploy the shield. It works quick enough to stop a bullet as long as your wardstone goes out far enough."


    "That That sounds incredible. Have you tested it?" Laura asked both of the home owners sitting up straight.


    "Kinda?" I responded sheepishly. "The shield works for sure, it stands up to everything I can throw at it. The intent stuff is much harder to test because it can recognize that you don''t actually mean it. In order for it to trigger you have to seriously want to or n to harm someone who is on the wardstones list of people it''s meant to protect. Neither of us really wanted to test that aspect out, though I would probably volunteer if that was what ended up holding you back."


    Clint and Laura shared a long look before Clint nodded and looked back at me.


    "We would have to talk about it," He said before continuing. "I would like to see it in action as well."


    "Alright, I''ll have to figure out a way to demonstrate it." I said with a smile and a shrug. "Beyond that I would also like to offer some more enhancements to you and Natasha and maybe some healing rings for your family."


    "We can''t really afford anything like that Carson," Laura admitted. "Clint mentioned how much you charged and-"


    "Not a single cent." I said, waving her off. "I don''t charge friends and after tonight you absolutely belong in that category."


    "Carson That''s a lot. You''re willing to just"


    "Of course!" I said confidently, looking around at the two parents, at Natasha and the house behind them. "Look, I can''t go around the world, making sure everyone on the is safe. But I can absolutely do that with the people I know. If I can offer any help, like keeping your kids healthy and making sure youe home to them, how could I not? And besides, the steep price Shield pays for equipment is mostly due to what it can do, not how much it actually costs to make."


    "Carson Thank you for your offer." Clint said sincerely after a moment. I could see Laura''s eyes watering slightly. "We will talk about it and get back to you very soon."


    "Take your time. When you''re done figuring it out, give me a call. Just dial ''maker'' on any phone and it will put you through to me," I exined, before chuckling. "If you really want to repay me you can just invite me to more dinners like this, this has been a lot of fun. Oh and maybe invite Ema as well next time."


    They both promised that I was always wee in their home, before promising again to let me know their decision soon. After that the conversation drifted a bit, the weighty seriousness slowly dissipating. Eventually, when the fire burned mostly out and it was a little past one AM the Bartons both dered it was time for them to sleep, Natasha agreeing since the little ones were just as likely to wake her up as they were their parents.


    We said our goodbyes, Natasha walking me through the house and back to the front porch. I started to step down the stairs before Natasha caught my elbow. I turned only to find myself enveloped in a hug.


    "Thank you." She said, "They are my only family, and youe in and offer to keep them safe, really safe. Thank you."


    I was shocked for just a moment before I slowly wrapped Nat in my own hug.


    "I''m happy to keep the people you care about safe, Nat," I said, pulling back and smiling, meeting the redhead''s eyes. "Do me a favor and think about what I can do to make you safer too. There isn''t much I can''t do these days, especially on a small scale, so the sky''s the limit."


    "I will. I''ll make sure they think about your offer as well," She said with a small nod, stepping back and letting me step down the stairs.


    "Thanks. I''ll see you around?"


    She nodded and turned back to the door, giving me a look as she shut the door and left me in the dark. I stared at the door for a moment before traveling home.

 Chapter 68: Stepping it up a notch

    Chapter 68: Stepping it up a notch


    I woke up the next morning feeling fresh and ready to tackle the day. After my morning routine and a breakfast of eggs benedict, precisely crafted by Alfred, I headed out into the warehouse, where Ema was waiting. She was just pulling off a paint stained smock when she noticed me.


    "Morning Carson. How was your night?"


    "It was fun. They invited me to. uh never mind, I just realized I should check with Clint before I tell you about it," I said, stopping myself before I said anything. "I obviously trust you not to say anything but it''s more about not breaking Clint''s trust."


    "Oh, fair enough I suppose," Ema responded with a shrug. "Natasha was there though, right? How is she doing?"


    "Yeah, talking to her was what got me the invite," I exined before nodding. "And she is doing well."


    "Great. So what''s on the agenda for today?"


    "My next big challenge is tackling how I''m going to make myrge object builder," I responded, sitting down in a chair and pulling out my notepad.


    "Any ideas?" Ema asked, pulling herself up to sit on one of the workbenches.


    "A few. I''m pretty sure I can use a building builder as a base, maybe work in stuff used to make objects on arger scale, like factory robotic arms and rivet guns maybe? I don''t know exactly, basically stuff to pull it away from actual, attached to the ground buildings."


    I closed my eyes and went over a few ideas in my head, writing things down and scratching them out, letting out a frustrated sigh about fifteen minutester.


    "The problem is I really need the best of both worlds, which usually requires using the Deck to force things to work," I exined, tapping my notebook with my pen. "The building builder is great because, by design, it takes conceptually enhanced materials and builds with it, meaning that my structures are ridiculously tough. But its also stupid, the system can''t build things that arent normal. An ultra metal refrigerator is fine, a couch is fine, but it can''t make an interior expand, automatically refilling smart fridge, or afort adaptive couch."


    I exined, mostly talking out loud to bounce ideas off Ema. She nodded along, used to this stage of buildingrge projects by now.


    "Even worse, the things I''m trying to make don''t exist. If I use a bunch of stuff off of a car assembly line or something then I''ll probably get ess to tires and engines, but there''s nothing I could use to get me ess to my life support system or the shield system."


    "You''re getting bogged down with things you think you can''t do again, Carson," Ema pointed out, pulling me from my slowly building rant. "The only reason this hypothetical device can''t do what you want is because you already think it can''t."


    "I Dammit your right. You would think by now I would have stopped doing that," I said, rubbing my face for a moment before flipping to a new page of my notebook. "Okay, so I need a device that can build conceptually enhanced stuff, how do I make that?"


    "Your building builders already can if you really think about it." Ema pointed out after a pause. "Sure they use conceptually enhanced materials that you provide, but you''re only feeding them a fraction of what they would actually need. Its still building enhanced stuff, and from nothing too."


    "...That''s a really good point," I said, slowly standing from my seat, starting to pace back and forth. "They are already making conceptually enhanced materialsI just need a way to feed them new parameters, new options to build with!"


    With new inspirations I began furiously writing down my ideas, in case I forgot anything during my material gathering and prep phase. A few more bits of inspiration hit while I was writing and I couldn''t help butugh.


    "Careful, that was dangerously close to a maniacalugh," Ema pointed out, smiling as she watched me excitedly write.


    Ignoring my snarky partner I took onest look at my n and nodded, putting the notepad on the counter and getting to work. I headed over to one of my UCM''s and started cutting off chunks, setting up a dozen and fully enhanced repair tablets, fixing new ones into existence as well as repairing the original. I did the same for a spare building builder, therger constructs scheduled to be finished the next morning. Once I was satisfied that they had enough space in an empty portion of the warehouse I pulled out my phone and called Tony.


    "Hey Tony, how''s it going?"


    "Not bad," He said, the sounds of metal tools on metal in the background. "Pepper wanted me to thank you for the new security features."


    "It was the least I could do, and the results were just what I needed for my own buildings. I already have a wardstone set up at the warehouse," I responded, pausing for a bit before continuing. "So how would you like another half dozen ingots of vibranium to y with?"


    "I would be very interested in that, now that the security system is up." Tony replied quickly, clearly eager. "What''s the price?"


    "I need your help with a shopping list. Some of it is factory equipment I don''t really know how to get my hands on. All of it is expensive."


    "That should not be a problem." He said after a short pause. "Why don''t youe down and share the list and I''ll get my people working on it."


    "Alright Tony, I''ll see you in a minute."


    I hung up before looking around for Ema, spotting her back up at the fall mural before making my way to her.


    "Ema, I''m going down to talk to Tony about some things I need, want toe?" I asked my partner.


    "No, Jarvis is busy with stuff and I don''t want to distract him."


    "How is that going by the way?" I asked, looking up at her.


    "It''s slow. He is slowly bing more independent from Tony and Pepper as he grows." She responded, her tform shifting so she could face me. "I mean we only started dating a month ago, but it''s slow even taking that into ount. He is still much too focused on his role of serving his creator."


    "Well don''t forget Ema, you had a prettyrge metaphysical leg up in terms of true independent sentience," I reminded her. "Let him change at his own pace."


    "I know It''s just that his first changes happened so fast, it''s frustrating to see him slow down so much."


    "Just try and be patient. I know that''s easier said than done but it''s the best advice I can give."


    "I know, and thank you Carson. I''ll be here painting if you need anything."


    I nodded and without any more fanfare, traveled to Malibu. I was greeted at the door by Jarvis, who escorted me down into the workshop, where Tony was elbow deep in one of his hot rods.


    "Hey Maker, give me a second."


    Tony spent another minute finishing what he was doing before he stood up straight and grabbed a rag, cleaning the grease off of his hands. He spent a minute or so going over my list, whistling at some of the more expensive things.


    "Damn Maker, some of these things will be hard to get, not to mention incredibly expensive"


    He trailed off as I pushed a stack of six vibranium ingots onto his workshop table. He stared at them for a moment before nodding.


    "Yeah that''s fair enough. Okay, I can get most of this stuff by tomorrow night. Where do you want it?"


    "Anywhere, I just need you to get your hands on it. I don''t have a problem running around for a bit to card everything and bring it to my workshop myself."


    "I guess shipping isn''t really a problem for you huh? Well in that case I can get everything on this list, my people will get to work on it." Tony said, shifting his estimate with the new information. "What are you making anyway?"


    "I''m trying to make something that will let me make bigger things." I exined with a shrug. "I''m getting tired of being restricted in some ways by how much the Deck can hold."


    "Oh, that''s it? Just getting rid of one of the only drawbacks your cheating has?" Tony asked, rolling his eyes. "Well when it''s done I want to see it."


    "Don''t worry, I''m going to be pretty eager to brag when I figure this out."


    "Goodie. Now get out, I have some calls to make and your smugness is distracting." Tony said before looking at his new stack of vibranium. "Thanks for the metal."


    "No problem." I said with a smile. "Say hello to Pepper for me."


    I traveled back up to the warehouse, not even bothering to go outside first. With the more difficult things on my list taken care of I spent some time making a more basic list before spending the rest of the day shopping all across America. I picked up dozens of tools designed forrge projects, industrial versions of anything I could get my hands on. A lot of them ended up being used or damaged, which wasn''t a problem for me. By the end of the day I had another once empty chunk of the warehouse filled with machinery being repaired to functionality and into existence. My UCM''s were pumping out magic rods and other necessities, some of them creating pallets of ultra metal, saving them up to build with when this project waspleted.


    Eventually I had nothing else to do but wait for the following day and cross my fingers that Tony''s people managed to get everything that I wanted.<hr>


    The next morning was much slower than the previous day. I went through my morning routine like usual, had breakfast with Ema and checked to make sure nothing had gone wrong in the warehouse overnight. When nothing seemed to have gone wrong I went outside into the vacuum to see how the dry dock was shaping up.


    The structure going down into the ground was finished and lined with enhanced concrete, enforced by Ultra metal supports. The tunnels leading out were also finished, though they werepletely dark as the builder hadn''t gotten to the lights yet. The dry dock was absolutely massive, looking way bigger than I had anticipated. Still, with some of the things I had nned it was necessary. I couldn''t wait to start using it to build things.


    I was justing back inside when Tony called to tell me everything I wanted was ready, giving me a list of addresses where I would have to pick everything up. Thanking the inventor I once again promised to invite him to check the building out when it was done and ready to use.


    The rest of the morning and into the afternoon was spent traveling to a few different cities, carding therge pieces of equipment and returning to the warehouse. I picked up various pieces ofrge factory equipment, including a few different types of robotic arms, massive welders and presses as well as a massive CNC machine that pushed the limits of what I could card. I brought some of the equipment back to the warehouse immediately to get therger UCM''s going on making copies. By the time I was done it was getting dark in Chicago, thest ce I was picking stuff up from. After making sure everything was set up, and leaving Ema with instructions to move things around once their copies were done, I headed to bed.


    The next day I eagerly left the apartment, ready to start the final parts of this project. After a quick read through of my original n I got to work, carding eight UCM''s and eight builders into two stacks beforebining them together. The hope was that by making eight copies in one card, the concept of being a group that I had used in making my travel pads, as well as a few other things, would allow the machines to work together on one project, which would hopefully increase the construction speed.


    I startedyering in manufacturing equipment and magic rods, asionally adding in energy cells as well. When I was done working a huge fraction of that equipment into the eight devices I worked on a half dozen max stacked repair tablets. After examining the result I wasn''t happy with howrge the repair concept was, so I added in another two builders, as well as a second massive CNC machine and a dozen more pieces of equipment..


    Once I added all of the manufacturing equipment I flourished the card back into my deck, ready to start the second part of this build. I was hoping this would push the final product fully into arge scale production machine instead of just another builder.


    I pulled a droid chassis from my storage shed and started augmenting it. I took the arms from a second droid and welded them onto the frame before modifying and conceptually enhancing it. Each of its four arms werebined with a tool, a grinder, a welding torch, an all in one power pneumatic hammer, and a multi tool that could switch between a hundred different styles and sizes of screwdriver and wrench. I enhanced the frame itself, making it stronger than the caduceus droid but not as armored. The final addition to the newly created builder bot was the knowledge of a few dozen different production types. Books on how to build space stations and shuttles, naval ships, tanks, ground vehicles, supertankers, a dozen different types of aircraft, trains and even submarines. The books varied in detail but putting them all together was a potentbination. All of this was shoved into its memory card andbined into the builder bot.


    After setting it up on a UCM with instructions for Ema to move the copies to other UCM''s to make as many as possible in a short time, I began on the final portion of the project. First I worked up a pair of connection crystals, which was really just two azurite chunks in the same card, mixed with cellphones and various types ofputer cables and wires. I set that back into the deck and started working on a scanner. At first I was nning on starting with a universal scanner and going from there, but after a bit of experimentation I realized that doing so would force me to fight against some already pretty strong concepts. So instead I started from scratch, adding a few different types of scanners to everything I could find about making and reading blueprints, including a few books on using CAD and technical drawing. It took me a few tries to get it right, but the end result was a device that could scan something and store a perfect blueprint of it. Unfortunately it didn''t take into ount any conceptual crafting or enhancing that the object it was scanning had undergone. In the end I ended up making ten of the blueprint scanners andbining them all to a single universal scanner, which finally seemed to let the scanner take enhancements into ount.


    By now I had blown past midnight without a thought, determined to work through the night to get this done. I did take a break to eat, mostly because Ema got Alfred to make chicken fettine alfredo and I couldn''t not stop for that. When I was done eating I gathered the four parts of my project, the group reinforced production machines, sixteen builder bots, a universal blueprint scanner and a pair of wireless connection crystals.


    The builder bots gotyered into therge production devices, working them in with energy cells and magic. When that was done Ibined the eight machines with a connection crystal, adding the second to the scanner. It was then that I realized that production machines were all S ranked, the third one I had managed to build. I finally pushed the devices out of the card for the first time since I started building.


    Each of the eight machines looked simr to the original building builders, though they had fewer random appendages. They were still CAT yellow but also had some detailed filigree that seemed to havee from the UCM''s. They were slightlyrger than the original building builders as well, though it was hard to tell without therge attachments the originals had. Each of the production machines had two builder bots, each with a small housing for them on opposite shorter sides. On one of the longer sides was an intake hopper where materials could be fed in. All said and done the machines were around eight feet tall and wide and a dozen or so feet long.


    I carded one of the devices andbined it with amunication crystal,bining the crystals pair with a blueprint scanner before finallybining them both together. The result was was almostpletely identical to its seven connected machines, save a small housing for the scanner, which I could easily pull free to use.


    With the making process done, I began testing mytest creation. The first thing I tried it on was therger scaled UCM''s, which had been a pain to make since I couldn''t push them out of their card until I was sure they were done. I scanned one with the scanning device before returning to the builders. A quick check of theputer terminal attached to all four of the machines showed that they could make arge scale UCM in half an hour. I celebrated for a full minute before testing the other feature.


    I shifted a carpet in the lounge area, letting me ess the life support system I used for the warehouse. A quick scan from the blueprint scanner allowed me to build arge cube with a door and a life support system tucked into a corner. I quickly confirmed and fed the machines all of the materials it would need. I watched as the production machines built a eight foot by eight foot cube with a simple door in just under ten minutes, all eight machines working together. When it was done I opened the door and used a universal scanner to confirm that the life support system was fully functional and had the same capabilities as the original.


    Again Ema and I celebrated, though this time didn''tst nearly as long as my exhaustion finally caught up with me. I had been running around for almost two days in a row, and now it was four AM. Despite my excitement and the temptation to immediately start designing a proper challenge for the machines I knew I needed my sleep. After leaving instructions for Ema to wake me up the second the dry dock facility waspleted I crawled into bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

 Chapter 69: Building it bigger

    Chapter 69: Building it bigger


    When I woke up I spent a few minutes going over the past few days and realized I had two problems. The first one was that Ema had definitely not woken me up when I had asked, which wasn''t all too surprising. Ema had shown she was perfectly content to ignore me when it came to my health, in particr getting enough sleep. The second thing I realized was that while I had managed to finish my third S ranked build, I had nothing to really build with it.


    I had ns of course, a design in my head that I really wanted to be the first real thing the machines made, but there were close to a dozen things that I needed to make for therge production machines, LPM''s to scan before I could get it started. And to do that I would need a few things.


    Grumbling my way through my morning routine I left my warehouse apartment, ring at Ema as my armor activated, my partner only chuckling as shended her painting tform to follow me out of the warehouse.


    "How did you sleep?" She asked through my suit''smunication system.


    "Well enough," I answered, flying slowly over to the massive LPMplex,nding on the observation tform around the drydock.


    "I kept an eye on it," Ema volunteered. "It finished a few hours ago, nothing went wrong as far as I could tell."


    "Good, that''s good," I said absently, still taking in the massive structure before turning to step inside.


    The doors opened automatically as we got close, closing behind us as we walked into the front third of the octagon shaped building surrounding the dry dock, the part built to be a public observation area. The building builder was still sitting there, not far from the main front entrance. I quickly essed the BBputer interface, making eight equidistant tforms for the LPM''s around the dry dock pit. The machine got to work, only asking for a few more bags of cement and eight ingots of ultra metal. Once I fed it the resources it needed I started it up, before leaving the building through the front door and returning to the warehouse.


    Once inside I turned to Ema, not stopping as I grabbed the blueprint scanner from the LPM and headed to one of the UCM''s, starting the copy process, which thankfully wouldn''t take long.


    "Okay, I have a task for you. I need scans of a few things, and I need you to get them for me so I can use the LPM to print out copies so I can then enhance them," I exined, picking up the original scanner and handing it to her. "I''m going to hang around until this is done copying, then take it and scan a bunch of stuff in Wakanda. I need some of the stuff they have there as well. In the meantime I''m going to move the LPM''s into position."


    "What do you need scanned?"


    I gave Ema the list of things I needed her to scan, each addition making her eyes a bit wider. Eventually she nodded and traveled back down to Earth, leaving me alone to start moving things around. Thankfully it only took a few minutes to card all the machines together and head back to therge scale production facility, the updates to the observation tform almost done. I waited about fifteen minutes before the tforms wereplete and I could deploy the LPM''s into ce all around the dry dock, the final one being the one with the scanner housing, which I put at the front of the pit.


    Satisfied that everything was in position I returned to the warehouse, grabbed thepleted scanner and traveled back to Wakanda. The river water pulled against me for a moment before I started fighting it, walking towards the shore, my stealth band already activated. I stepped onto the shore and immediately deployed my wings, flying low back over the river. I resisted the urge to start scanning everything, as there was plenty of time for thatter, when this project was done. Instead I kept my eyes on the sky, patiently waiting for a flying ship to fly by. After about an hour I had managed to scan three different types of their flying vessels.


    With my missionplete I traveled back to the warehouse, heading back out to the drydocks. With a few minutes of fiddling I managed to get the machines to just print the thrusters of each of the three Wakandan ships. It took about twenty minutes for me to gather everything they needed, but pretty soon the parts were taking shape. It was about that time that Ema returned from her task, and with a smile I added her scans to the production as well. With everything working Ema and I took a break, returning a few hourster to find three thrusters from the Wakandan ships, a few types of rocket engines that Ema scanned from the disys at Kennedy Space Center as well as thergest and most powerful jet engines she could find. There were also a few cockpits from a variety of aircraft, as well as the space shuttles.


    I set the facility, which Ema was already calling the Octopit, to make three more of each as spares, nning on starting the next project before Ema stopped me.


    "You need to finish this project first." She said, gesturing to the building around us. "It needs shields, maybe a wardstone, and life support."


    I opened my mouth to argue, but managed to stop myself. I took a deep breath and let it out inside my helmet before nodding.


    "Yeah, you''re right," I admitted. "I''m starting to rush around anyway, I''m going to make a mistake eventually if I don''t slow down."


    Together we sat down and had a break, ate some food and talked about thest few days before we got back to work finishing the Octopit. It took us a few hours to fit the life supports and shield generators, as well as the wardstones, which had all been printed over thest few days any time that the UCM''s weren''t busy doing other things. The wardstones specifically took a little longer than usual because I wanted to adjust them not to prevent people froming in, but to prevent people from touching the LPM''s without being vetted first. By the time we were done the entire facility was protected by threeyers of shielding, and covered by dozens of redundant life support systems. The shield also allowed me to put life support around the observation tforms, meaning that you could breathe within the confines of the shield system. It was safe, and I knew it was safe, but I still felt nervous walking around without my suit activated.


    With the Octopit facility now protected and habitable, I got to work on making the biggest fuck off thruster I could make. Iyered andbined energy cell''s, magic, and all of the thrusters and jet engines Ema and I had gotten our hands on. We triple stacked each of the Wakandan thrusters into the amalgamation. I worked in all of the thrust concepts I had from my first venture into Wakanda as well. The final result was a twelve foot wide and fifteen foot tall thruster that, thanks to the Wakandan influence, looked truly science fiction, like something straight out of Star Wars. Thankfully, the concave shape of the business end of the thruster, as well as the fact that it wasn''t a solid structure meant it was just barely within my capabilities to card, though I had to sit down to recover every time I did.


    In order to maximize the thrusters power I scanned it and used the scan to make a simple device at the bottom of the Octopit, basically the engine, connected to a block of ultra metal and a lever on the side, the thruster pointing up. It took a half hour to print and made the entire floor of the pit vibrate as I slowly turned the power up to full. With a pain killing ring on the opposite hand I sacrificed the tip of my finger a dozen times, carding the thrust on full power.


    I worked those thrust concepts into a single thruster, before scanning it into the LPM, which I set up to print out a bunch of copies overnight. When that was going I cleaned up the bottom of the pit, storing spare parts and the cockpits I printed in the storage section of the observation building.


    The next morning I finally finished the thruster, working all fifteen of the copies into a singr, penultimate form. Of course all of that was just the start.


    The next few days were spent perfecting dozens of systems, working in enhancements, developing sub systems and everything in between. It took half a day to figure out the best way to work in the cockpit system, settling on connecting everything withmunication and control crystals that I made into a group and could copy to include new things into thework.


    On the fourth day I realized I didn''t have a way to shift my weapons from small scale firearms torge scale, ship based weapons. I knew I had options, especially with the LPM scanners, but after thinking it through for a moment having an unarmed ship appealed to me. I could always add weaponster,or include them inter designs. I did, however, modify, improve and scan in the non lethal system I had developed with Tony. It wasn''t until the eighth day that I finally started designing the actual project, at first roughly shaping it before starting to work all of the conceptually crafted scans I had stored up into a final design.


    It was a ship, one hopefully capable of inteary travel,ing in at five hundred and fifty feet long and taking heavy visual inspiration from Stargate''s Daedalus-ss battlecruiser, though my design ended up being a little smaller than the original. It also had rows of thrusters along its back end instead of just tworger ones. I also included thrusters under the ship pointing down, and a few along the top facing up and some facing forward along its wings because I wanted it to actually be able to move around, not just point in one direction and go.


    I added threeyers of armor under the exterior hull, each five inches thick and pure ultrametal, with five inches of hexagonal honebing and bracing in between each of them. I ced the main cockpit smack dab in the deepest part of the ship, using conceptually crafted screens that let the pilots see the exterior without needing actual exterior cameras. The center of the ship also contained the main living quarters and barracks, with space for thirty people in small but serviceable rooms and another hundred in more cramped two person rooms.


    The three mess halls, eachplete with refilling fridges, full kitchens and room for forty people to sitfortably at once were stacked on top of the living spaces. A series ofrger rooms were filled with entertainment options, mostly televisions, arcade machines and bar games sat on top of those. I left a few dozen rooms along the back empty, just in case I needed to add something inter. I then immediately took six of them, joined them together and turned it into an infirmary. This entire group of rooms, as the ce where people would be spending most of their time, was wrapped in another twoyers of Ultra metal armor and honebing.


    This space also contained fifteen of the thirty shield generators, which were responsible for the twoyers of shields closest to the ship. In the original, fictional design both of the "wings" had been hangers for smaller ships, but considering I couldpact any personal size ship into a much smaller space I kept one as a hangar but turned the second one into a garage. The hanger just led out, while the garage had a ramp system that could deploy from the bottom of the wing. I also included a brig, wrapped in its own extrayer of armor.


    I added an engineering room, which was really just a room with a few UCM''s including a singlerger one, storage for repair tablets, a singr LPM that was connected to the ship and expanded storage for enough materials for that dedicated LPM to build an entire second ship.


    Every hallway was dotted with security doors and weapon emcements simr to the ones I had installed in Tony''s house, though these could cycle through several different modes, several of which were extremely lethal. My final task was to riddle the structure with life support systems, tripling what it needed to keep the entire ship filled with air.


    When I was finally done designing it Ema and I spent a full day shuttling over materials for the LPM''s to use. When it was finally ready, Ema and I stood in front of the machine, ready to start it up and watch the fruit of ourbors. I was about to press the startmand before stopping and shaking my head.


    "I have to invite Tony," I said, turning to Ema. "He would hold it over my head for the rest of my life."


    "He is going to hate you for doing this too," Ema pointed out. "This blows everything you''ve ever done out of the water. by a lot."


    "Yeah I can''t wait to rub it in his face!"


    Ema and I went back to the warehouse, cleaned ourselves up a bit before I called Tony and asked if he was ready to see what I had been working on. About thirty minutester I picked him up from the mansion and brought him to the warehouse, handing him a sleek andfortable space suit, which I had designed as an EVA suit for the ship. There were hundreds of expanded boxes filled with them all throughout the vessel. It was lightly armored, by my standards at least, had its own separate life support system, which I had already added to my own suit and had small non burning thrusters that could act as a jetpack in low gravity and as a simple jump pack system in normal gravity.


    I showed him how to put it on, which was extremely basic as it all deployed from a chest te, before guiding him out of the warehouse. Between the low gravity and the jump pack we made it to the Octopit in short time, though Stark stopped to stare at it for a long moment as we crested a hill. As we entered the facility I shrunk my armor, Tony doing the same to his EVA suit.


    "This is the Octopit, which Ema named after its shape and the giant pit in the center," I exined, guiding Tony to the ss wall on the inside of the building. "Any guesses at what it''s for?"


    "Fitting your ego?" Tony asked. "You''re going to start rivaling mine soon."


    I chuckled and shook my head, before stepping through a doorway and out onto the observation tform. Tony shouted and recoiled, only for me to stop and turn as nothing happened.


    "... Well that''s embarrassing," Stark said. "Please tell me you didn''t give the entire Moon an atmosphere."


    "No, the shield counts as a room, letting the life support system I designed fill it with air." I exined, Tony hesitantly following me out to the primary LPM. "Go ahead, take a look."


    Tony frowned and stepped closer to the machine, activating the interface. His eyes went wide when he realized what he was looking at and the scale of it, quickly scrolling through.


    "Bullshit. There is no way you can just make this thing," He said, still spinning and manipting the image.


    "It''s the culmination of a lot of work, experimentation and a lot of powerful concepts," I exined with a shrug. "And this one is just a proof of concept really."


    "What''s its range?" He asked, finally looking up from the terminal.


    "Infinite. I mean people will start to go insane eventually but they won''t run out of fuel, air or food."


    "How fast is it?"


    "I don''t quite know to be honest," I sheepishly admitted, Tony hitting on something Ema and I had realized early on but really had no way of figuring out, at least none that we could think of. "I know the thrusters are powerful, really powerful. But for all we know it could finish and not be able to lift off of the scaffolding. You know how my crafting works, it''s hard to tell these things before the project is done."


    "And what would you do if it is a bust?" He asked, chewing the inside of his cheek as he looked back at the terminal.


    "Scan it into the system and try to improve it. Probably work on the engines, maybee up with a lighter conceptual metal blend. My ultra metal is already lighter than steel but I could make it light with the right materials. I-"


    "I want to build the next one," Stark said, cutting me off. "We can work together,e up with more powerful stuff using my tech. Cutting edge stuff."


    Iughed and nodded, patting his arm.


    "Sure Tony, though it might be a while," I admitted. "Depending on how this goes well it''s either going to be something I keep a secret for e very long time or I honestly don''t know what else."


    For once Tony didn''t have a scathing or sarcastic remark, simply nodding in agreement with me.


    "It will certainly change things," He said, before shaking his head before looking at me. "So, are you going to start it?


    I nodded and stepped forward, Tony taking a step back to let me get closer. I scrolled through the blueprints before getting back to the screen with the startmand. I took a deep breath, shared a look with Ema who simply smiled and nodded, before pressing the button.


    For a long moment nothing happened. That moment extended to thirty seconds, then a minute and then two. By the five minute mark I was getting nervous, about to card the LPM to see if it was still functional when Ema bumped my shoulder.


    "Look at the bottom, it''s starting with the scaffolding," She said, her arm pointing down.


    Sure enough, a quick look down over the railing showed a huge amount of scaffolding was almost growing from the floor, growing by inches. I knew it would slow down a lot when it reached the hull, but it was still exciting.


    "How long is it going to take?" Tony asked, looking down next to me.


    "About a month." I exined, still looking down into the pit. "Lots of conceptually crafted stuff for the builder to make which slows it down a lot."


    "Not bad. C''mon, let''s go back to the house. I think we both need a drink."<hr>


    Hey guys, just a reminder that if you would like to show your support and help me spend more time writing, you can head over to my Pa_tre_on(my usernames for both tforms are the same) Either way, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

 Chapter 70: Even Bigger

    Chapter 70: Even Bigger


    With thergest project I had ever worked on firmly in a hands off stage, I decided to take some time off from working. For a few days I simply rxed, spending time with Ema and Tony, whose brush with Wakandan technology had left him determined to use his vibranium to its fullest, with an eventual goal to push it even further than the isted country had.


    "The problem with istion is stagnation." He had exined as I watched him work on something, looking through a magnifying ss to solder some electronics. "Sure the asional genius will ride on the vibranium train and drag them a few hundred years into the future, but that can only take you so far."


    "True, but you''re only one person too," I pointed out. "If you really want to challenge Wakanda you''re going to need a much bigger group."


    "That''s what the tower is going to be for." He exined, looking up from his project. "Pretty sure we went over this."


    "We did," I said with a nod, happy to steer the conversation a bit to what I wanted to talk about.


    Tony looked back down at his project, continuing to work. The workshop was quiet for a few minutes as he worked and I thought to myself. Eventually I spoke up.


    "I was thinking. Instead of your tower being this hub of research and development, why don''t we make it how you get to the hub of research and development?"


    It took a moment for Tony to catch on to what I was saying, and when he did he put down the tools and looked back up, his full attention now on me as he leaned back in his chair.


    "You want to put it on the Moon, and make Stark Tower how you get to it." He said, crossing his arm. "Why? The building is already more than halfway done."


    "We both know that''s not a problem, even if I wasn''t here to help," I pointed out. "As for why, I had an idea, but in order for it to work theb would need to be as neutral as possible."


    "Why? What''s the point of that?"


    "Because, I want to be able to help. Imagine what the best minds in the world could aplish if they were working together with equipment I made. You want the biggest particle elerator ever? Sure, give me a week and I''ll have one that fits in yourb but is still, somehow, the size of Texas. A microscope that lets you look at atoms? Alright, no problem. A fake human body to study cancer treatments? Give me a week and you''ll be able to print them out on demand."


    "And you couldn''t do that at the tower?"


    "And have the US government breathing down our necks?" I asked, shaking my head. "Having the portal there would be bad enough. No, if we build this on the Moon then there is nothing anyone can do about it."


    "Well, not nothing," Tony said. "They could fit a pretty big bomb in the storage area of a space shuttle if they wanted."


    "Maybe, but it would take us a day, maybe, to make something that could shoot anything like that down. Besides, in order for tensions to get that high we would have to fuck up pretty badly."


    Tony nodded and looked off to the side. He was clearly thinking, his impressive brain running through who knows how many scenarios.


    "Why the sudden change of pace? I know we discussed having the tower connected to your Moon base but I was thinking more along the lines of researching the Moon itself, and so we could help each other asionally. This is way more involved than I thought you wanted to get."


    "I don''t want to get involved, but I still want to help. This is the middle ground," I exined, standing up from my seat and pacing. "I know Shield has already decided they aren''t going to distribute my palm healers, they are all broken and inert already meaning that someone either stole them or the World Security Council voted against it. And to be honest I''m kind of d they did. The healers were too heavy handed, too much too soon. I wanted to help and I didn''t really think of the best way to do that."


    "I don''t know, I thought your only big mistake was bringing them to Shield and not me." Stark said, watching me pace back and forth.


    "Oh they worked just fine. They did exactly what I wanted. But how would the world have really reacted to them? It would have been chaos. Can you imagine what would happen if someone important needed to be healed and the device refused?"


    "Yeah Yeah that would have been bad," Tony agreed, wincing slightly. "Half the government wouldn''t have been able to use them. But what''s this have to do with a Moonb?"


    "Because of the same principle as the repair puck. I could solve world hunger in a week, cure who knows how many diseases in hours. I could make a cure for themon cold in an hour with a trip to CVS and fifty bucks."


    I kept pacing, slowly stopping by DUM-E, one of Tony''s robotic arms, watching it slowly shift and move to scan my face. At least that''s what I thought it was doing. I turned back to look at Tony a moment after.


    "But the world would spiral out of control if I did any of that. Providing free food for the world would tank the farming industry. Entire countries would fall into bankruptcy. Curing cancer would be great, if cancer treatment wasn''t a twenty billion dor industry, and that''s not even taking into ount how many people make the stuff needed for that treatment. I mean I still want to cure cancer but The whole world is on a bncing act and the Conceptual Deck is a pretty big fucking weight."


    "Stagnation would be a problem too," Tony pointed out, and I nodded in agreement.


    "I still have some ideas to help the world in more subtle ways," I said after a long moment. "A few of them actually. But building a Moon base is one way I can be much more overt without flipping the world''s economy upside down. If I made a pill to cure the flu, I would have to manufacture it myself because it would be impossible to make in ab. That would ruin a huge industry and the people who work in it. But if a scientist develops a harmless and effective treatment for sore throats or blocked sinuses then that could be made in a normal factory, and offset the jobs it ruins. It''s slower, yeah, but has much less of a risk to spiral the world into chaos or make it a hundred percent dependent on me to survive."


    "...I think you are underestimating the stability of the world slightly, but you''re notpletely wrong," Tony agreed after a long pause. "Helping the world solve its problems rather than solving them for it sounds much more sustainable But a lot of people are going to be angry with you. A lot of people are going to ask why you didn''t cure their cancer or keep them from starving."


    "Yeah I know." I said, looking down and summoning the deck to my hands, idly twirling a card in my fingers. "But I''m hoping that we can save enough people that they understand what we are trying to do."


    Tony sat there for a long couple of minutes, still thinking to himself. I waited semi patiently for him to finish.


    "Alright, you sold me. Stark Tower will be the connection point between a Moon base and Earth," He said, finally nodding. "When should we make the announcement?"


    "I need to make the base first, then we need to start inviting people." I said, plopping down back into my seat. "I would like it to be up and running before we make the announcement."


    "Just how big are you thinking of making this ce?" He asked. "How many people do you want to invite?"


    "Just a couple hundred. No more than a thousand." I said with a shrug, Tony rolling his eyes. "No, there will probably only be two hundred people living up there, max. The rest of the staff"


    "Could live in the Tower, yeah, fine, but we are designing it together. No way in hell I''m letting you build it on your own. Seriously, it''s an octagon with a hole in it."


    "Hey, the Octopit looks cool." I insisted, getting a look in return.


    "Yeah, I''m naming it too."


    "That one''s on Ema."<hr>


    Tony and I spent the next week brainstorming ideas for the design for the research and development base. We went through several designs overall before settling for a singr concept, fine tuning that one until we were sure it was perfect.


    The circr structure would start deep underground, with four floors of massive rooms forrge scale experiments, equipment andbs. Three of these floors were two dozen feet tall, with the bottom floor fifty feet tall. Above those, and still underground, were five more floors forbs and workshops. We divided each of those floors into four slices, all around a central cylindrical core that ran up and down the entire structure. This core contained a few things, including several massive freight elevators. Two slices per floor would be for a particr department, things like biology, physics, engineering. The other two slices were for the expansion of either the other two quarters or for new divisions.


    Above thebs, and the first part of the structure above the ground, would be four more floors, the first two of which would be for the apartments. Each apartment was a thousand square feet, and would hopefully be rtively modr so its tenants could decide how it would look internally. The third floor would be left empty for now, sealed off and ready to be used in case we needed more room for people or for anything else.


    The fourth and final floor of this massive structure was the "Public" area. Basically it was a lot of space for us to configure for meetings, showrooms, social things like that. It also was where we were going to eventually put the portal, in arge open room that was a cross between a great hall and an airport terminal.


    The final addition to the structure was a massive see-through squashed dome resting on top of the public floor. Under that shallow, but still substantially tall dome would be a massive green filled park with paths to walk, a small pond to swim in and even a beach to lounge around at, all with the spectacr view of space above. The footprint for each floor was just under five acres, with every inch of floor, wall and ceiling heavily reinforced.


    The exterior walls were particrly thick, a foot and a halfyered ultra metal and honebing, with an ultra metal ss at the same thickness for every window as well as for the dome. Even better, for every ten feet of the exposed structure, including see-through ones on the ss dome, there was a half a foot thick disk. In an emergency each disk would transform into another three foot thick barrier around the entire massive building, all of them interlocking with each other. Thisyer wasn''t just solid ultra metal though. Instead it was an eight inchyer of interlocking ultra metal tes, kind of like a ted chainmail. The remaining thickness was super energy absorbent metallic foam. The idea was that metal tes would provide a certain amount of give with the foam behind it, allowing massive amounts of energy to be absorbed, while the energy absorbent foam itself would absorb and block things like radiological attacks,sers or any other energy based weapons.


    Of course, all of this was just back up protection anyway. The real defense would be the thirtyyers of invisible energy shielding that would be surrounding the entire building, projected by over two thousand shield projectors.


    When we were done with the general design, Tony started nning out the specifics, like theb facilities, building infrastructure and basically everything else, while I started designing some of the things that would go into the facility. See-through ultra metal ss that filtered out radiation was the first thing I worked on, which I then immediately used to rece all of the ss in the Octopit using a building improver. I also made interior walls that could be deployed and hidden away from a central unit that could be mounted to a wall. Dozens of little things that were needed for a lunar base to function. Thankfully a lot of those things crossed heavily with what I had designed for my spaceship, which was currently making steady progress in Octopit.


    The final thing I had to build was abination between a dozenrge object builders mixed in with quite a few building builders and building improvers. The final result was a group of connectedrge production machines that Tony and I positioned around in arge circle on the surface of the Moon, twenty of them in total, all of them double stacked. The building would be constructed around the devices, allowing us to edit the building at any time to improve or expand it as needed.


    When we were finally done, with the blueprints scanned and a truly massive amount of conceptually enhanced materials fed into the machines, I gave Tony the honor of pressing the start button.


    "Well here we go. One step for man, one giant leap for mankind." He said, before tapping the screen.


    The machines hummed for a moment, something that was new to this version of the building builder. After a few minutes they began slowly carving away at the stone and dirt, ttening and digging into the surface of the Moon. It was a truly massive construction.


    "You realize people will be able to see this with a hobby telescope, right?" Tony asked, watching as the improved building builders worked their magic.


    "I''m aware." I said, looking at the screen as the machine worked. "Not much we can do about it without messing with the perception of the entire. Good news is that we can use it as proof of what we are doing to anyone we invite."


    "Bad news is that it''s going to cause a lot of spection and plenty of panic," Stark pointed out before I could continue. "Probably not the good news."


    "Yeah any ideas?"


    "You mean besides not waiting to worry about it until thest moment?" He asked, and I shoved him in response. The low gravity made him tumble up for a bit before he could stop himself with his EVA suits thrusters.


    "Yes, other than that."


    "I don''t know you said that Wakanda had some pretty impressive projection tech right?"


    About an hourter Tony returned home to spend some time with Pepper after almost none stop working for just short of two weeks. I, on the other hand, spent another day building a massive camouging system out of several scans of Wakandan tech, as well as a dozen other camouging elements. Once Ema and I put it down next to therge building space, as well as one around the Octopit and my warehouse, it projected a massive illusion over the entire area, which was incredibly confusing when you were on the wrong side of the projection, butpletely convincing from high up over the Moon. Any experts, or anyone who decided topare old images of this section with new ones would probably notice the difference, but it should pass muster with any hobbyist.


    I studied my work for a bit longer before flying back to the warehouse, where Ema was already starting the clean up. We had been running the UCM''s near constantly for thest week, both to keep me supplied with everything I needed, but to prepare all of the materials the massive structure would need. In the end I had expanded the UCM section of the warehouse to almost twice the size and almost triple the number of machines to help keep up. Cleaning up was rtively easy and basically consisted of me carding and tearing anything that was still lying around, since at this point my resources were basically unlimited as long as I had one copy of what I needed.


    When I was done I half copsed and half sat down on one of thefortable couches in the lounge area and let out a long sigh.


    "How did my break turn into two more weeks of constant working?" I asked Ema, who had plopped down across from me.


    "You get sucked into what you''re building," She answered, giving me a shrug. "Besides, while it is stressful and tiring, you''re still having fun."


    "Yeah, you''re not wrong," I admitted. "Alright. I''m going to bed early. I''m taking an actual vacation tomorrow."

 Chapter 71: Ancient problems

    Chapter 71: Ancient problems


    I ate ate breakfast the next morning on the observation tform, with the perfect view of the slowly forming yet to be named spaceship. It was clearly recognizable at this point, with the main infrastructure in ce, held up by thick scaffolding. I was joined by Tony, and surprisingly Pepper, who needed proof of what Tony and I were doing after Tony let slip the changes we wanted to make to Stark Towers design. She had spent almost a half an hour staring, wordlessly, at the stars, Earth and the half way constructed ship. Eventually she calmed down however and was able to talk rtively clearly.


    "I-I knew you said that you were living on the Moon But I hadn''t really believed it until now," She admitted, taking a sip of her mimosa. "And you''re sure it''s safe?"


    "As sure as we can be," Tony said, responding before I could. "It''s way over engineered, and we are using materials that Maker designs himself, so it''s basically cheating."


    "My personal buildings, which are this one and my warehouse, their exterior shells are a few inches thick, and I''m pretty sure that they are strong enough to withstand a lot," I continued. "The We still haven''te up with a name."


    "Just call Moon base."


    "The Moon base''s outer shell is over foot thick, and can deploy another two feet of armor," I exined. "We wanted it to be damn near indestructible before we even took the shields into ount."


    Pepper nodded and took another bite of her fancy French style omelet, precisely crafted by Alfred. Her eyes wandered up again, catching a glimpse of Earth. After a moment she looked back down at Tony and I before sighing.


    "Well. being the bridge between earth and a Moon research facility would do amazing things to Stark Tech stock." She admitted, putting down her fork. "You realize adjusting the ns for the tower is going to be expensive and add on another few months to the project, right?"


    "That''s fine, we need all the time we can get to recruit people," I said.


    "And how is that going to work?" She asked. "How are you going to pay these people?"


    "Why would I pay them?" I said with a shrug. "The kind of environment Tony and I are looking to create will be paradise for these researchers. The chance to be a part of cutting edge research in a facility that provides everything for them, no matter what they might need? I think a lot of people will be scrambling to join once we go public. If it really matters to them I''ll hand them a brick of gold every few months. Or whatever other metal they want."


    "So how long until the building is done?" Pepper asked after a moment''s pauseing to terms with what I had just said.


    "A little over a month," I exined. "The builders I''m using are some of the most powerful things I''ve made so far, which is why it''s taking so little time. I''m already nning on enhancing theserge project builders when the ship is done."


    We continued our rtively rxing breakfast for another hour, talking about some of the ns and who Tony and I were nning on inviting up to live on the base. Eventually we finished our food and drinks and I traveled the both of them back down to Earth, rather than force Pepper to cross the Moon''s surface in her EVA suit again. The first time had been bad enough.


    After that I took some time to study the just about half finished ship up close, flying slowly around it, checking out the progress. I could visibly see the ship''s inner frame being made by therge production machines, which was kind of interesting to watch. Eventually I got bored however and flew over to check up on the massive research center. The enhanced building builders had finished ttening out the area, the machines in a perfect circle around the perimeter. They had started slowly carving downward, though they had only made an inch or so of progress so far.


    With my inspection done I headed back to the warehouse, where ema was waiting for me, outside the building.


    "So vacation?" She asked, following beside me as I walked.


    We passed by a building builder, a spare one that I had made to y around with, the warehouse loungeing into view. There, sitting on one of the couches was a woman sipping a cup of tea. She waspletely bald, and dressed in very borate yellow and orange robes. Ema took one step past me, not realizing that we were not alone before she finally stopped and followed my look, spotting the intruder.


    Instantly she was on guard, her body shifting to her "armored" state, shredding the tshirt and jeans she had been wearing. Her arms elongated, sharpening into some wicked looking points. She also stepped in front of me, covering me as my own armor deployed, covering my bodypletely. My revolvers, and their holsters, appeared around my armored waistst, finishing off my transformation.


    "Who are you?" Ema called out. "What are you doing here?"


    The woman, instead of reacting to Ema''s loud call, simply put down her cup of tea. After a moment she stood and turned to look at us, a small smile on her face. She moved with a deliberateness that spoke of training and power.


    "Greetings. I apologize for invading your home like this, but I assure you I mean you no harm."


    "Then who are you? And what are you doing here?" I responded.


    "I am here to meet you and your partner of course." She said, "As for who I am? My title is the Sorcerer Supreme, but my name has been lost to time, something which I havee to appreciate. Most call me the Ancient One."


    "I''ll call you-"


    I put my hand on Ema''s shoulder, stopping whatever goading name she was about to say. She looked at me and I shook my head. The Ancient One in theics was immensely powerful and firmly on the side of good. Gender bending aside, it was probably a bad idea to start a fight with her, at least not without a serious reason.


    "What do you want?" I asked, stepping around Ema, my armor still very much deployed.


    I was optimistic, not stupid.


    "For now? To talk." She said with the same small smile. "Perhaps I could entice you with a cup of tea?"


    "Maybe another time," I said simply as I looked at her for a moment before walking closer, stepping into the lounge area and sitting down on the couch opposite of her.


    "That is fair enough. I knewing into your home like this would put you on edge but you are a hard man to get in touch with. I couldn''t exactly knock on your front door."


    The Ancient One returned to her seat, taking another sip of tea as I watched. Ema, who was still in her dangerous looking fullbat form stood behind me, ready to defend me if necessary.


    "You could have called me." I pointed out with a raised eyebrow.


    "That is true." She said with a shrug. "I suppose next time I will."


    I watched her for a moment, as she put down her tea. She looked back up at me and held my gaze, seemingly fine with the harsh look I knew Ema was giving her from behind me.


    "What exactly did you want to talk about?"


    "Perhaps I could start with what it is that the Sorcerer Supreme does?" She suggested and I nodded in agreement, despite knowing already.


    It was probably a bad idea to make assumptions.


    The Ancient one spent the next while describing her job, going over her order of the Masters of the Mystic Arts order. It was a very simr job to theter Sorcerer Supremes in theics, which was to protect the Earth from supernatural and mystic forces. She even described some of the threats they had faced, some of which were horrifying. It was surprising to learn that this job was done by an entire order, not just by one extremely powerful sorcerer, but the general gist was the same. She was being incredibly open about their purpose, even answering several questions I had about how many practitioners of the mystic arts there were. As far as I could tell with my equipment she was being honest as well. Eventually, when she was done she took thest sip of her tea, put the mug down, which vanished and a spray of orange sparks a moment after she did.


    "That I''m d we have a capable group of people defending the world from unseen threats," I finally said when she was done, getting a barely noticeable smile and a nod from her. "But why all of this? Whye here andy it all on the table like this?"


    "Perhaps it is difficult for you to see, and perhaps many might not realize it yet, but you are very rapidly bing one of thergest powerhouses on our." The woman exined. "Your ability is staggeringly powerful and flexible. You have just finished a massive project, something that would be ambitious were it done on Earth, never mind the Moon. Ie to you to like this out of respect for the power you could bring to bear."


    "It''s not exactly done yet, it has a long way to go. But alright, I understand your point," I admitted, understanding that she was correct but not quitefortable with that level of deference. "So you just came to meet the new big kid on the block?"


    "Partially. But I also came to ask you a favor."


    The ancient one moved her hand, lines of orange and gold sparking out growing and stretching into a globe, which grew and changed into an easily recognizable representation of earth.


    "Some of therger threats to Earth are kept at bay by the Sanctums, threerge buildings with the most powerful enchantments on Earth wrought into their frames. They project a mystic shield around the Earth, preventing outside mystical forces from interfering with humanity. Our first and highest duty is to protect and maintain these locations."


    Another glowing orange array of lines came into existence, encircling the globe, originating from three spots on the. I could see that they came from the general area of New York, London and Hong Kong.


    "The Sanctums were built millenia ago at the hands of the first Sorcerer Supreme, founder of our order, Agamotto," She exined, the impressive visual aid slowly fading. "It took a near unimaginable amount of magical materials to construct the Sanctums, and when the magical enchantment waspleted by Aggamoto himself, as well as several of his most powerful students, they were never the same, their powers greatly diminished. Aggamoto himself died soon after the enchantment wasplete, his students following not long after."


    "So what, you want me to reinforce them?" I asked, looking skeptical. "I have something that can do that but-"


    "Yes, though that is not all. Not only would I ask you to improve the Sanctums, I would like you to build four more."


    "Four more?" I asked. "Okay, I see the logic there. With my building methods I should be able to make them without any negative side effects or consequences. But why only four?"


    "Seven is a very magically stable number in general, including in our own sorcerous version," She exined. "Aggamoto had always intended there to be seven sanctums in total, but forbade anyone from continuing the project until a method that did not exact such a high price was found. The only reason he made the existing Sanctums was because they were necessary."


    "Are you sure that''s the reason?" I asked. "It''s not because building any more would do something bad right? Or maybe his "Price" was something else, some sort of cosmic entity punishing him for performing such grand magic?"


    The Ancient One chuckled and nodded, clearly finding my question amusing.


    "I apud your caution," She said, still smiling. "I wish my more ambitious students shared it. It is always wise to question such things when ites to both cosmic entities and powerful sorcerers. But I have studied the ns myself, and read Agamotto''s journals. He was aware of the consequences casting the enchantment would have. His only error was over estimating his own resilience."


    "Alright. Well if it''s in the name of protecting Earth I''m happy to help. I would need a scan of the Sanctums to know more, but it''s probably possible. I may need to make some adjustments to my builders to be able to handle the enchantment process in general however."


    "I''m sure it is well within your capabilities," She said confidently with a knowing smile that made me squint my eyes.


    "You''ve been waiting for me to be capable of this, haven''t you?" I asked, leaning back in my chair.


    "Yes, of course. I''ve been keeping an eye on you since you first started working your form of magic into your creations," She admitted easily. "Frankly it''s hard not too. Your conceptual form of magic is strange, pure and clean but without a source. You stand out quite clearly."


    "Of course. Well as long as you don''t vite my privacy?"


    "Once we determined you were not an agent of some sort of entity or a sorcerer who discovered a new source of power, no. In the spirit of fair and honest coboration I will admit to knowing your real name."


    "Of course. Well at this point I''m not exactly worried about people knowing it anyway, I''ve pretty much moved past that," I said, gesturing vaguely around myself. "Doesn''t mean I''m happy about it however."


    "I am aware, but I will not apologize for performing my duties," She exined, pausing for a moment. "I can, however, attempt to make up for it. That and my necessary, but still rude entrance into your home."


    The sorceress began making another series of hand movements, more lines of orange energy glowing and circling to form an impressive array. It almost seemed to thrum and clunk into ce once it was done.


    "This is a spell that is mandatory for anyone who deals with mystic arts at a higher level," She exined, holding the just short of two foot wide and slowly spinning spell array in front of herself. "It''s primary use is to purge the casters'' minds of outside influences and block any further attempts for a short while. It-"


    "Clears out mind control!" I said excitedly, standing quickly, my armor rescinding around myself so I step closer and study the array. "I''ve been looking for something like that since I realized tin foil hats didn''t have the right concept. Does it have any limitations?"


    "It is limited to the amount of power the sorcerer has avable to him, and it is focused on oneself rather than at a target," She exined. "It is capable of clearing out hypnotic suggestions, alterations, internal illusions and a dozen other methods of influence and control. And you may have it and several copies of it."


    I looked at her before reaching out to the array. As my hand got closer to it I could feel its warmth as well as a slight vibration in the air around it. I gave the Ancient One onest look, finally pulling the array into a card when she nodded again. The array vanished into a card easily, and I flicked it between my fingers, studying its concepts.


    It was a rtivelyplex card, but its primary concept was one of ending and blocking outside influence on the mind. It did however require an energy source, which I should have expected considering the exnation the Ancient One had just given about sorcerous magic. I should be able to satisfy its need for an outside source of energy pretty easily though and if not I could just find a way to separate it out.


    The Ancient One fed me several more of the same spell array until I was satisfied I had enough.


    "I''ll need some time to gather some equipment and sort through my deck," I exined, standing up and holding out my hand. "But that shouldn''t take long."


    "The New York Sanctum is located at 177A Bleecker Street." The Sorceress exined, reaching out to shake my hand with a surprisingly strong grip. "We will be expecting you to arrive shortly, but there is no real rush."


    Without much more exnation she stepped back and turned, holding her hand out in front of her and making a swirling motion. Suddenly the sparks started spinning around in a circle in front of her before a portal opened, a scene of some sort of pavilion on the other side. She stepped through the portal with very little ceremony, the glowing and sparking portal copsing immediately after.


    Ema and I were quiet for a long moment when it disappeared,my partner putting her hand on my shoulder and patting it gently.


    "Maybe you can take a vacation after you''re done with this?" She said beforeughing.


    "Yeah yeah. C''mon, I need to work this anti mind control into something before we go anywhere," I said, turning towards my workshop. "And don''t forget you are missing out on a vacation too."


    I couldn''t help but smirk when she cursed behind me.

 Chapter 72: Its a magical place

    Chapter 72: It''s a magical ce


    Ema and I spent the next hour gathering everything I thought I could need for mytest task. I carded two UCMs, a building improver and four connected copies of myrge production machine. The four LPM''s were mytest version of the device, which I had just finished perfecting for the lunar research base. Before I carded them I made sure I had the scanner for the LPM''s in a separate card.


    While I was working on that, Ema started to gather and stock the heavily armored,pletely reorganized storage shed. What was once a ce to keep dozens of the same thing, or left over materials from old projects was now a ce to keep thousands of single items, from a dozen different kinds of feathers to gems and stones of various types and value. All of this so that I could easily duplicate anything that I needed. It also had an extensive system of expanded storage, meaning things that took a while to copy, or things I used a lot like magic rods or ultra metal, vibranium or just normal capacitors were ready when I needed them. Between this storage shed and my cab of tricks I had ess to almost anything I could need.


    While Ema finished checking the storage shed, I flicked out the anti mind control spell that I had absorbed from the Ancient One. I spent a few minutes studying it in detail, parsing out the concepts as deep as I could go.


    As far as I could tell there was no leaking of influence or negative side effects, which was good considering how often it sounded like the members of the Ancient One''s group used it. It was stable, efficient and as long as it was powered would prevent and clear up any source of outside mental influence on the caster.


    Eventually I nned on refining, distilling and sinking the concept of general anti mind control into something I could add without having to worry about contaminating anything, but for now I needed something quick.


    I grabbed a metal cuff andbined it with some multi stacked rechargeable batteries, a few capacitors along with some small but efficient sr panel cells. When that was all done I added in one of the spells, then a second one before scanning it with the universal scanner to check for any hidden problems. After it came up clean I secured the strange looking but functional device around my wrist.


    "Notice anything different?" Ema asked, having finished the packing.


    "...No, not that I can tell," I responded, focusing for a moment before shrugging. "Alright, let''s grab everything and head down to New York."


    I quickly carded the storage shed, checked through the deck a final time before traveling with Ema down to an abandoned parking lot in New York. Thending pad was tucked into a small hidden space created by two different buildings being built too close together. Before long we were driving through the city in my incognito truck, making our way to Bleecker Street.


    "So, any idea why the Ancient One didn''t bring up where you are from?" Ema asked as we were stopped at a red light. "From the way she described her job it sounded like she would be able to tell."


    "Well She could have just decided not to mention it," I responded, checking my rear view mirror. "Though I have to admit I don''t think that''s likely. I get the feeling they draw a much harder line than that when ites to foreigners."


    "So what, you just managed to sneak through?"


    "That I don''t think that''s it either," I said with a shrug, hitting the gas as the light turned green. "Not entirely at least. I think that whatever entity put me here is either just an out of context problem so they have no idea it happened, or they are so far above this universe''s league in terms of power that they have no idea I''m not supposed to be here."


    "So they just assume you''re a normal person, who happened to inherit the Deck?"


    "She did say, truthfully I should point out, that they didn''t start watching me until I started using magic in my builds. That means I wasn''t on their radar at all before that point."


    "Okay, well lets hope this isn''t some sort of borate trap."


    I shook my head and continued driving, eventually pulling up to the address and finding a parking spot. The Sanctum itself looked rtively normal, with green copper roofing and brick walls with concrete ents. Really, the only thing off about the building itself was a slightly strange looking window on the very top floor. That said, I assumed there was some sort of perception filter on it, because while the building might look mostly normal, I recognized the symbol in the circr window from theics and I knew for a fact that I had driven past this at least once since I arrived here.


    Ema and I walked up the front steps and knocked on the blue double doors. They opened immediately, a man in a set of sleeveless monk robes of some sort standing on the other side.


    "Maker?" He asked simply, before looking behind me at Ema. "And Emerald?"


    "That''s us," I answered simply.


    "Follow me," He said, before turning around and leading us into the building, the doors shutting behind us.


    The rather buff looking fellow led me deeper into the building, down a hallway to the left of the entrance, ignoring the grand staircase directly in front of it. Eventually we arrived at some impressive looking doors, which were already opened. There, waiting for us by an ornamental plinth on a small tform, was the Ancient One. Above her was arge globe of blue and gold, carved into an exact model of earth and further behind and to the side of her were two morerge doors, each carrying a sigil simr too but different from the one embedded in the New York Sanctum''s window.


    "Greetings Maker, Emerald, I''m d you could join us," She said with a small knowing smile, before looking up at the globe. "This globe is directly tied to the barrier projected by the Sanctums. It''s how we monitor and, very rarely, adjust them. As you build the remaining four sanctums I will be here, along with several other masters, weaving the new structures into the existing spell."


    As she talked she put her hands on the plinth, spinning some sort of disk on the top, the globe reacting as she did. Slowly bits and spots began to glow, marking out what I was pretty sure were poption clusters.


    "The three Sanctums that already stand are centered in areas with high ambient sorcerous power," She exined, three small glowing circles popping up. "These nowy in New York, Hong Kong and London. While Agamotto chose these spots as the most powerful locations, they are not the only options."


    The three original floating orange circles are joined by four more, one over the south coast of Africa, another over California, one over the east coast of Australia, and a final one over the southeast coast of Brazil.


    "We have already purchased suitable locations in Brisbane, Los Angeles, Lagos and So Paulo. All you have to do is use your creations to build Sanctums in each of these spots. As you build each one we will tie it into the protective barrier.


    "Alright, that seems like a solid n," I agreed, studying the map for a moment before continuing. "Is there any way I can build one and have you guys not connect it immediately?"


    "I suppose we could put off connecting it and redirect the energies back into the Earth. Why?"


    "Because you want me to improve the structure of the Sanctums too, right?" I asked, getting a nod in return. "Well in order to do that I will be messing with the materials used to make it, and who knows what that will do to it. It''s better to y it safe and keep one separate so we can experiment. I would like to make the first one as an exact copy which I would then improve, with you monitoring it to make sure everything is safe. Once we have an upgrade pattern that works, we apply it to the originals and use it as the pattern for the other three new ones right off of the bat."


    "I understand, and your caution is appreciated," The Ancient One said with a nod. "When will you be able to begin the process?"


    "Well first we need to scan one of the Sanctums into myrge production machine," I answered, looking back at the still open door to the New York Sanctum. "Which one do you want to copy?"


    "Oh, they are all the same," She assured me. "They are capable of shifting their exterior look to fit into the time period, if the Sanctum Master tied to it at the timemands it."


    "Oh, good, that makes everything easier," I said, looking around the room. "Is there somewhere you would consider the heart or center of the Sanctums? It probably won''t make a difference but I should start the scan there just to make sure."


    The Ancient One nodded and led us back through into the New York Sanctum, guiding us through a twist of hallways I''m pretty sure were impossibly angled, before stopping at a normal sized but heavily armored door. Every inch of the wall it was set in, as well as the metal door itself, were carved with some sort of runic script, every letter of which was faintly glowing orange, pulsing out and in from the door itself.


    The Ancient One put her hand on the door of ck metal and the rune script glowed brightly for a moment before going mostly dark, a loud sound of unlocking metal bolts echoing down the hall.


    We stepped inside the room, Ema following right behind me. The room itself was mostly empty, the walls etched in the same runes as the exterior wall was. In the center of the room were four pirs that connected the floor and ceiling, each one glowing in a slow pulsing orange. In the center of the four pirs was a singr deep red cluster of crystals that was probably around four feet tall. It had three main growths with several smaller chunks branching from them, and every inch of the crystal was covered in carved runes, with each letter filled with some sort of golden metallic iy. The entire room had an inverse rke tech vibe that felt potent and heavy.


    "This is the Sanctum Spinel, the heart of the Sanctum. Each location has an almost identical crystal in its heart."


    "...Holy hell A spinel of that size Where on Earth did you find it?" Ema asked, stepping closer around me, walking around the four pirs. "It there is no way to attach a value to this. It''s literally priceless beyond imagination."


    "Agamotto and his students pulled them from the ground in southern Asia. It took an entire month of constant casting, alternating between each of them," The Ancient One exined, watching my partner. "Do not cross between the pirs."


    "Will it react poorly to being scanned?" I asked, flicking the scanner out of its card.


    "No, I have already turned that off."


    I nodded and began scanning the massive crystal with my scanner, the red beam of my handheld device trailing across the red surface of the spinel. It only took a few seconds of scanning before the device threw back an error.


    "Yeah, the scanner is having a hard time parsing your magic. It''s different and strange enough that it doesn''t have any context," I exined, recarding the scanner. "And if the scanner cant recognize it than the LPM probably won''t be able to make heads or tales of it anyway."


    "But you can fix that." The old sorceress stated confidently.


    "I can, but I''m going to need some things. A ce to work, ess to books, sorcerers, enchanted objects"


    "Very well, you may set up a temporary workshop in Kamar-Taj and I will assign you a guide. As fascinating as your ability is, I am afraid I must attend to the preparations."


    "Of course, no rest for the wicked I guess."


    The Ancient One led us back through the Sanctum, through the hub room and out into arger area. The rooms were old but well maintained, and followed a style I couldn''t quite put my finger on, but seemed heavily inspired by asian influences. Our powerful guide stepped up to and pushed open arge set of doors, revealing arge courtyard popted with dozens of people going about their day, all dressed in stylized robes of different kinds.


    "Wee Maker, to Kamar-Taj, home of the Masters of the Mystic Arts," She said with a bit of ceremony.


    As we looked over the open area and the people in it, one man stood out as he crossed the courtyard and made his way up the steps towards us. He silently bowed to the Ancient One before turning and nodding to Ema and I.


    "Master Wong will be able to assist you in anything you need, he is a powerful sorcerer and has been a member of the Masters of the Mystic Arts for many years."


    "It is good to meet you, Maker," He said with a rather nk face. "If you are ready I will take you to an empty courtyard where you can begin your work."


    "SureHow did you know we wereing, or what I would need?" I asked, watching as the stoic man simply turned and left.


    I turned to look back at the Ancient One, only to find she was already gone.


    "Oh she better not make a habit of that," I said, shaking my head as I walked down the steps two at a time to catch up with Wong, Ema right behind me.


    "I didn''t see her leave either," Emamented.


    Eventually the sorcerer brought us to a decent sized area, with space enough for what I needed. After pushing out my storage shed and the two UCM''s I turned to him, catching his attention.


    "That was impressive," He said. "Watching your artifact in action is fascinating."


    "Yeah, it takes a while to get used to," I admitted. "Alright, we are going to start by testing the UCM''s, then-"


    "The what?"


    "Those machines. They scan and duplicate things," I exined, gesturing to the S ranked devices that had pushed my simple crafting to insane levels all those months ago. "We need to find out if they can copy your brand of enchantment and magic. If they can''t then I''ll need to fix that first."


    "What do you need?" He asked, stepping closer to the two machines, examining the rune inscribed, filigreed machine.


    "A few enchanted things, ranging from simple up, specifically things that you guys can make in case something goes wrong," I exined, continuing after he gave me a look. "I don''t think anything will, I imagine the worst thing that will happen is an error message. But I''m dealing with new things so it''s best to be sure."


    After a moment Master Wong nodded and promptly left, leaving Ema and I alone. We shared a look and I shrugged, going back to my stuff. I pushed out a solid metal table, a few chairs and a medium sized party tent up over everything, all of which I had enhanced and prepared for an asion just like this.


    After a few minutes Wong returned carrying a small stack of books, with one other person following behind him, both of them carrying wooden boxes. Both of the sorcerers froze when they saw the party tent. For a moment they didn''t move, until Wong spotted me inside. He shook his head when he saw my smirk, stepping closer and under the tent. He ced his cargo on the metal table, the other sorcerer following suit. The unnamed, silent sorcerer gave Master Wong a small bow before quickly leaving.


    "Is all of this necessary?" He asked, looking up and around at the interior of the tent, where several lights hung, illuminating the space perfectly.


    "I don''t know, so it''s best to be prepared," I answered with a shrug. "So what did you bring me?"


    Wong nodded and turned to the wooden boxes, unpacking four different items. He closed and stacked the two boxes before picking up the first item, a small brass cylindrical cap on the end of a short wooden rod. The majority of the brass cylinder was filled with hundreds of hexagonal holes, each no bigger than a dime. It would look like a brass mace if not for the fact that the metal on the end was clearly just a brass sheet.


    "This is an illumitant. It provides light," He exined simply, gripping the stick and pushing a small handle around the base of the metal cylinder. A constant warm light began emanating from the center of the brass cylinder, getting brighter and brighter as he turned the handle.


    "It can also sh brilliantly as a blinding attack, but the light will not return for a little over a minute."


    "Why not just use a shlight?" I asked, trying to show my genuine curiosity.


    "There are several mystical ways to interfere with electricity. Many powerful creatures do it on their own without even trying."


    I nodded and held out my hand, Master Wong cing the mystical torch in it without a word. I pulled it into the deck immediately, flicking out the card and examining it. It felt slightly simr to the anti mind control spell the Ancient one had given me, though only superficially. I could tell its simple intent, feel the eldritch magic inside and could even tell that this already had a power source, though it would eventually run out if it wasn''t charged.


    I pushed the illumitant back out into my hand and set it down in the scanning section of one of the UCM''s before examining the interface screen. The machine didn''t seem to have any issue with recreating the mystic shlight, so I tapped on the screen, set it to create a single copy. Before taking a step back.


    "What''s next?" Wong asked, his voice still stoic.


    "Next we wait," I answered with a shrug. "It''s gonna take ten minutes to print out the copy, then you can take it away to be examined. After that we run a few more tests with whatever else you brought."


    "And then what?"


    "And then the fun begins," I responded, plopping down in one of the chairs I had brought with me. "We start teaching therge production machines how to read and build eldritch magic stuff, so we can scan the Sanctum. Now sit down, you''re making me nervous."

 Chapter 73: Void Skipper

    Chapter 73: Void Skipper


    It was a bit of an awkward wait, silently sitting in the tent, just waiting for the illumitant to finish being copied. Master Wong had sat down in a spare chair, across from Ema and I, but he sat silently, alternating between watching me, Ema and the machine. When it finally did spit out the copy Master Wong lifted it from the output tray, turning it over and examining it. After inspecting it for a minute or so he turned it on, slowly increasing the light until it was shining brightly, enough that if I didn''t have a tattoo to specifically prevent me from being blinded by bright lights, I would have been struggling to watch. Eventually Master Wong stopped and turned the device off, putting it down on the metal table.


    "It seems to be identical in all ways I can discern," He said, just the barest hint of surprise on his face. "Extremely impressive."


    "That''s great. I want to test it on moreplicated enchantments before we start trying to improve the LPM though."


    Over the next half hour we threw a few more enchanted items through the UCMs, thest being something I was very interested in. A sling ring was a three inch long double finger ring that was made from electrum and could open portals to other locations. The portals were seamless, with no travel time and with <em>no restrictions on distance. </em>As long as you could form a mental image of the location clearly enough, and you knew how to use the ring, you could travel anywhere.


    "I want one of these," I told Master Wong when I had finished examining it. "I will make you fifty copies if you let me have one."


    "Done," He said simply, surprising me with how quickly he agreed. "The Ancient One said you were wee to have a sling ring, as well as a few other things when your task waspleted. But since you offered"


    I shook my head and set up one of the UCM''s to print fifty copies of the sling ring, carding the original once the device was finished scanning it. Itpleted its task in the background as I worked, finishing about two dayster.


    "Okay, so we know the UCM''s work on enchanted things, which means we should be able to fix therge production machines as well," I exined, mostly to myself before looking to Wong. "I''m going to need books on how enchanting works, especially ones about enchanting buildings or stationary objects. I''m also going to need the ns, methods, spells used for enchanting the sanctums and building in general. Lastly I''m going to need a sample of the materials used in general enchantment, both buildings and objects. Oh and try to keep all of the books as focused on building andrge enchantments as possible."


    "Most of those should be easy, though the Librarian will need to give permission for the Sanctum ns and notes," Wong responded. "What will you be doing in the meantime?"


    "I''m going to go and grab some more UCM''s," I responded. "I underestimated how many I would need."


    Twenty minutester I had ten UCM''s filling the courtyard, duplicating books, notes and materials. The materials were added to the group of four LPMs while anything remotely connected to building ns, instructions or methods gotbined down to three separate books before getting added to the scanner, which was rbined with the LPM''s. The final addition, which we couldn''t get around to until the next morning, was carding a dozen copies of the spells used toy in enchantments,bining them down and adding them to the tools used to carve the runes and lines into objects that were being enchanted. Once those were done I added them to the LPM''s.


    When I was pretty sure we had solved the problem, the Ancient One returned and guided us back to the same room as before, though Ema was pretty sure we had gone apletely different route this time.


    "Alright It looks like it''s working," I said happily, watching the scanner y over the massive red spinel, lighting up the thousands of electrum filled runes. "It shouldn''t take long after this."


    The scanner took five minutes to work through the ns, but when it was done we had aplete blueprint for the massively enchanted structure, as well as a material list for what therge production machines would need to construct it.


    "Do you have the materials for one structure?" I asked the Ancient One, who had been watching the scanplete over my shoulder.


    "It would nearly bankrupt us of materials, but yes."


    "Good, alright. We will use your materials for the first one, but as its building I''ll have the UCM''s printing out more by the ton. By the time the first building is done we will have plenty to build the second. I''ll make sure you get more materials back than you used when everything is done."


    After a short discussion on what we would need, how much we would need to start and how long it would take to build, the Ancient One left me in the capable hands of Master Wong again. Together with Ema and I, we started the UCM''s creating hundreds of ingots of electrum, gold, silver and tinum, as well as chunks of precious stones and an incredible amount of yew, hazel and alder wood.


    Once that was set up Master Wong used a sling ring portal to take us to Brisbane Australia, where arge chunk ofnd was cordoned off and ready for me to build on. The plot ofnd was right next to the Brisbane River, cut out of a small grassy park. Wong insisted it was under a powerful spell that would keep people from realizing we were about to build arge building in just over two days.


    I quickly set up therge production machines and fed in the required materials, almost all of which wasing from the stores of enchanting and magical building materials that the Masters of the Mystic Arts had hoarded since the original three Sanctums were built. Just an hour and a half after the adjustments to therge production machine were finished they were building away at the Brisbane Sanctum. I stuck around for a few hours to make sure that everything was going ording to n before eventually heading back to Kamar-Taj to experiment more with the the anti mind control spell, which over the next day I was able to distill andpact into a much better design, recing my cuff with a much sleeker version that I wouldn''t have to charge in the sun. I made a few dozen of them and stored them in my cab of tricks.


    When the first Sanctum was done we immediately headed to Los Angeles, where the Masters of the Mystic Arts managed to find an empty plot smack dab in the middle of the city, between an office building and a parking structure. I quickly set up the LPMs before returning to the brand new Brisbane Sanctum, where I met up with the Ancient One, who was putting the finishing touches on the connection between the Brisbane and the hub of doors to the other Sanctums. I pushed the building improver out onto the floor in the front hall, opening the control screen and connecting the device to the building.


    "Alright, first things first, let''s rece the frame of the building with ultra metal" I mumbled to myself as I worked through as many enhancements as I could while not messing with the enchantments woven into the entire structure.


    It took a while, but eventually I settled on the final upgrades, settling on a fully solid ultra metal framework, while using conceptually enhanced versions of all the original materials, including the wood, the iron and the ss. The final design wouldn''t be nearly as strong as a structure that I built from the ground up with conceptually enhanced materials, but it would be much harder to destroy. The important part, the dimensional energy sync, which drew in the nearby ambient dimensional energy, otherwise known as the massive red spinel that served as the Sanctum''s "heart" would survive anything strong enough to level the entire block.


    I spent a while gathering and feeding materials to the building improver, which wou;d finish its upgrade by the next night. Once it was done the Ancient one invited me to watch them weave the new Sanctum into the massive shield spell that protected the entire. It was interesting to watch, with plenty of shy spells and even some chanting. I could feel the pulse of energy re out as the Brisbane Sanctum sank into ce, therge blue and gold globe showing its symbol as it was worked into the massiveary dimensional shield.


    "Well done, well done," The Ancient One said to her fellow order members. "Take time to rest and recuperate, we will be doing this again tomorrow."


    The Ancient One talked and chatted to her students, most heading back to Kamar-Taj, though some of them left through the doors to the Sanctums. A few other Masters, who hadn''t been involved in the spellworking, walked past into the Brisbane Sanctum, bowing at the Ancient One as they passed.


    "This sanctum is almost eight percent more powerful than the New York Sanctum," The Ancient One said when we were alone, looking up at the magic infused globe above us.


    "I''m not surprised with the amount of upgrades Iyered into it," I said with a shrug. "Ultra metal is made from an Asgardian Alloy, one originally summoned by Odin himself. The inclusion of that alone would be enough to get that kind of results."


    "True, but you forget that the New York Sanctum is one of the original three, and therefore ced in a powerful convergence of dimensional energy."


    "...So when we upgrade those we will see an even bigger increase."


    "Indeed we will." The unreadable woman said, giving me a massive smile. "Thanks to you the Earth will be safer from dimensional threats than it ever has been before. Such a service demands a hefty reward."


    "All I need are samples of exotic materials and ess to spells that I can use in my making," I responded, shrugging slightly.


    "You know, most would ask to learn the mystic arts."


    "Oh I''m sure eventually I''ll want to learn a few tricks. Having ess to a back up n like that is invaluable," I admitted, looking up at the orange glowing globe above us both. "Unfortunately my te is pretty full at the moment, I can''t drop everything to study and you already exined why my usual cheat for learning things wouldn''t work. But I''ll be around to learn eventually."


    During some down time, between setting up the LPMs and the building improver, I had offered to make beginner sorcery rings, in exchange for making a more advanced version for myself. The beginner rings would teach the basics spells and information of sorcery to anyone who wore it permanently, and my ring would teach me slightly more advanced spells. Unfortunately the process of learning sorcery is one part knowledge and five parts harmonizing your body with dimensional energies. The more you interact with dimensional energies the better your body gets at those interactions.


    Apparently it''s not something you can rush, and the effects were too ethereal for me to locate and card in order to create a solution. In other words I could give myself the knowledge but my body would still need to be trained over a long period of time, time I really didn''t have.


    "We will be happy to teach you," The Ancient One said with a smile. "When that timees."


    With the new Sanctum tied into the global shield, the Ancient One began preparing for the next addition, while I passed the time by experimenting and idly crafting. I worked with several interesting metals, including the dimensionally charged electrum that we had used by the brick in the Sanctums, as well as several other mystically charged materials.


    I also made sure to utilize my ess to the sorcerers around me to the fullest, experimenting and ying with several different interesting spells. One of the more promising spells was a simple shield, one that got tougher and tougher the more energy you put into it. While the sorcerers considered it an extremely basic spell, I quickly realized that I couldbine it to any material, then add in a few energy cells, making something as basic as a normal t-shirt indestructible until its inherent energy was used up. It functioned almost like a sort of energy shield, absorbing all the types of energy I could think of, including kic energy, before it eventually being overloaded. At that point the normally cast spell would disappear, leaving the user defenseless. My version however simply ran out of energy, meaning whatever it was conceptually bound with would then take the damage.


    I immediately applied it to my armor, adding thirty energy cells and dozens of recharging concepts, basically all I could get my hands on. The result was another monstrousyer of protection on my armor, which was already unbelievably tough. When I was done with my armor I worked the same concept into a simple te of ultra metal and a bracelet, so I could use it whenever I wanted.


    By the time the third Sanctum was finished I was barely spending time in Kamar-Taj anymore, having cleared out my temporary workshop and finished up improving the other Sanctums. Because, as cool as working with an ancient and powerful sorceress was, my new space ship was even more cool.


    It had actually finished without me even realizing it, the massive vessel sitting empty and unappreciated while I worked on my armor and toyed around with magic. Ema was the one who finally reminded me, and was also the one to stop me from abandoning my job to go fool around in space. The Ancient One only chuckled as I rushed out after the fourth and final Sanctum waspleted, promising to return to experiment with other spells.<hr>


    Only a few hours after my hasty goodbye, Tony, Ema and I stood on the observation tform around the still unnamed ship. It was still held up by scaffolding, though it was only resting on it, rather than attached to it as it had been previously.


    "So are you going in?" Tony asked, leaning on the railing.


    "Yeah, youing?"


    "Not until you test fly it," He responded with a scoff. "Do you have any idea how difficult space flight is? I mean you just sprinkled on the thrusters without doing any of the math. My money is on it either not lifting off at all or spiraling away and crashing."


    "Thanks for the vote of confidence," I said with an eye roll, extending my wings and preparing to take off to enter in my ship.


    "Wait, you need to name it!" Ema said, putting her hand on my shoulder. "The LPM''s can paint the name on the outside but you should name it before you take off. It might be bad luck or something."


    "Really? Bad luck?" I asked, giving her a look.


    "What? It''s the first flight of our first spaceship!" She responded. "We should do it right."


    "I Suppose you''re right."


    I flew back to the warehouse and grabbed a bottle of champagne from the fridge, flying back to the ship andnding in front of the prime LPM. After a few minutes of thinking, and listening to Tony suggesting sarcastic names like <em>Lunar Crater</em> and <em>Future Space Debris </em>I finally came up with something.


    "Huh" Tony said, watching the name get quickly etched and painted onto the side of the hull. "Not bad actually. Bit pretentious but ship names usually are I guess."


    I flew to the side of the ship and smashed the champagne against the side, the liquid floating away in the low gravity.


    "I christen you, <em>Void Skipper</em>!" I shouted out, Ema cheering from the observation tform, Tony pping sarcastically a few times. "Yeah yeah, you guys get inside the building."


    With the christening done, I flew along the ship andnded in the hanger bay, doing my best to make my way directly to the bridge, rather than stop and ogle every inch of the ship. I ended up making pretty good time, only taking about ten minutes to make what should have been a sixty second walk.


    I dropped down into the pilot''s seat, afortably ergonomic chair that was at the head of the ship. Technically this station could control almost the entire ship, but I figured that would be a lot for one person to do on their own, so I ended up making a few seats around the pilot''s chair in a vague imitation of Star Trek''s style of dividing the responsibilities.


    After a few minutes of reviewing and familiarizing myself with the controls I started flicking switches, a steady hum of power pulsing through the ship as it finally fully activated. I could see out in front of the ship from a personal screen on my dash, but a muchrger series of screens around the bridge disyed a much wider view of the front, top, bottom, back and sides of the ship, though the back and bottom had to be toggled on to keep it from being confusing.


    "Alright baby, let''s see what you can do!"


    I slowly increased the power pushing out of the thrusters, the hum of power permeating the ship turning into a rumble then a roar at the same speed. I reached over and tapped on a screen, dragging my finger up to increase the sound dampening around the engines, the rumble fading back down to a hum. I couldn''t feel any difference as the ship slowly lifted off of its scaffolding, but I could see it from the screen. I let out a whoop of excitement as I rose higher and higher off of the moon''s surface until I pushed the thrust forward and rocketed away from the Octopit. I pulled up and the ship left what little gravity the moon had, tearing into the void like a shooting star.<hr>


    Hello! Just a reminder that I have a Pa_tre_on! If you are interested in showing your support for my writing, head on over! depending on what tier you join benefits include four early chapters of The Conceptual Deck, and two of Mettle, Metal, Meddled. Thank you for your support!

 Chapter 74: Unwind

    Chapter 74: Unwind


    I spent a good chunk of time on my own, flying around the moon and in space while getting the feel for the <em>Void Skipper. </em>It had a surprising amount of get up and go when I gunned it, though it still took a few minutes to really move. The instruments said I was at one point going close to fifty thousand miles per hour pretty quickly, without even pushing the engines to their limits.


    I had gotten a crash course on space flight from Tony, namely that besides maybe the speed of light, there was no top speed in the void of space. What really mattered was slowing down your ship when you arrived at your destination and fuel consumption. And since the <em>Void Skipper</em> didn''t use fuel and it seemed like my ability to stop was pretty damn good, this practice ship was turning out to be a sess.


    Eventually I flew back down to my base, locking onto Ema''s location. I immediately realized I needed a space port of some kind, because I was kicking up an incredible amount of dust as I got closer. Cursing I pulled back up and put the ship in low geosynchronous orbit before putting it on autopilot.


    I climbed out of the pilot''s seat after triple checking the orbit was stable, walking out of the bridge. I pushed out anding pad and tucked it up against the wall of the hallway before traveling back down to my warehouse and flying back to the Octopit to meet Tony and Ema. Both of them were looking up at the Void Skipper.


    "So what do you think?" I asked as I joined them.


    "Not bad for a first try I guess," Tony said, looking back down at me. "I''m still shocked it flew. How fast was that? How quick did you stop?"


    "I hit around fifty thousand at one point." I said looking back up at the ship. "And the gravity maniptor worked great, I could decelerate down pretty quickly. Of course this was all after I left the moon''s gravity."


    "With so little distance?" Tony asked, shaking his head. "That''s honestly impressive. Now I''m really looking forward to making my own."


    "Yeah well do you want to check out mine in the meantime?"


    The three of us traveled up to the ship and spent the rest of the day exploring it. It was amazing to stand inside the ship I had designed about a month ago, walking its halls and exploring its rooms. Eventually Tony convinced me to let him take it for a spin.


    "Wow, this is actually pretty intuitive." He said as he sat in the pilot''s chair. "Wait, how do I already know how to drive it?"


    "There is an information feeder in the seat, but it''s just the basics," I exined. "You can toggle it but I want you to leave it on for now."


    Tony nodded and clicked a few buttons before guiding the ship out of its orbit, pointing it out into the void. Once it was out of the moon''s orbit he started plotting a course, the destination popping up on one of the many screens surrounding the bridge.


    "A full day to reach Mars?" He asked. "Not exactly an interster vessel huh?"


    "One step at a time," I responded with a smirk. "I don''t see you making something that could get us to Mars that quickly."


    "Yeah, well I''m not cheating." He said, canceling the nned course. "It''s not exactly nimble, is it?"


    "No, I think my next attempt will be smaller and lighter, built for a smaller crew I got a bit excited and went big immediately."


    "Yeah, no kidding."


    Tony flew around in space for a little while longer, before Ema took a turn. She was an amazing pilot, using her shifting form to click buttons and switches while still holding the controls. Eventually Tony and I realized she was interfacing directly with the ship as well, using her ability to tap into technology to get even better control of the ship.


    Eventually though Tony needed to return to Earth and I needed to set up some things, like anding pad, before I could finally take a break. I had been working almost non stop for over two weeks at this point, and while I loved conceptually crafting I was starting to feel the fatigue.


    Ema traveled Tony back home, wanting to visit Jarvis while I maneuvered <em>Skipper </em>back into its geosynchronous orbit and traveled back down to the warehouse. I attempted to n out and start a space port of some description, but I was seriously struggling to n anything out. Instead I decided to leave the ship where it was, about twenty three miles above the workshop.


    Ema returned an hour after I gave up and found me passed out on the apartment couch, snoring away.<hr>


    I spent the next few days not doing much past flying around on the <em>Void Skipper </em>and unwinding after almost a month of constantrge projects and daily conceptual crafting. I did still do some crafting, starting to build the more subtle response to Shield''s dismissal of my palm healers. It wasn''tpletely done, mostly because Ema kept pulling me from my work to explore around mynding pads, but by the time my break was done it wouldn''t take long toplete.


    I did eventually make my way back to Kamar-Taj to apologize to the Ancient One for leaving so abruptly. The powerful sorceress simply shrugged in response. She assured me that had I rushed through the work on the actual Sanctums she would have been upset, but she understood the need to run from project to project when you had so many irons in the fire. Still, I felt bad, so I gave her a powerful healing amulet, a copy of the one I myself wore, which itself was a max stacked version of the amulet morphed by a divine spark. She was immensely grateful for the gift, which I found surprising. I had believed I was just offering something she already had, but wouldn''t require her concentration or energy. She clearly had her own method of immortality, or extending her life at least, and I knew they had sorcerous methods of healing as well.


    Either way she was happy with my gift and promised me I would always have a safe ce among the Masters of the Mystic Arts, and that I would be weed eagerly when I finally had time to learn their ways.


    With that out of the way I spent a few days rxing at home and asionally hanging out with Tony, who had finished the tower redesigns and had started working on his vibranium experiments again. He seemed happy with his progress, though he was remaining very mysterious on what he was doing, iming he wanted to be able to show them off all at once when he finished histest suit. Still, it was nice to chat, and the genius inventor could multitask talking and building as easily as I could craft and breath, so it all worked out.


    About an hour into us hanging out, I heard some footsteps, too heavy to be Pepper''s. I turned at the same time Tony looked up.


    "Hey Rhodey, what''s up?"


    The casually dressed man lifted his hand to scan it into the security panel that used to control the lock of the transparent door that led into Tony''s workshop. The only problem was we had done away with that lock when we overhauled his security.


    "Jarvis, let Rhodey in please. And add him to the security list, the same level as me and Pepper." Tony asked, the door opening smoothly for one of Tony''s oldest friends.


    "Certainly sir. Mr. Rhodes, will you be joining us for lunch?" Jarvis asked, his voiceing out from the speakers around the workshop.


    "Uh, maybe?" He answered, giving me the eye.


    "Rx Rhodey, this is Maker. Maker this is Rhodey."


    "Nice to meet you," I said, stepping forward and holding out my hand. "You did good work at the expo."


    "Nice to meet you too, and thanks. Would have done more good if my version of the suit hadn''t been an open book for Vanko to hack." He responded, giving Tony an using look.


    "Hey, you stole that suit," Tony said with a shrug, not looking up from his work. "Not my fault you picked the old model. What''s going on anyway?"


    "The big wigs upstairs wanted me to check in with you," He said, leaning back on a table and crossing his arms. "Last time you went silent for this long you came back and made thest fifty years of weapons tech hriously obsolete."


    "Well you can tell them everything is fine," He responde, leaning over to focus on something. "It''s going to take at least another couple of days to finish the next fifty years."


    Rhodey snorted before focusing on me, looking me up and down. His eyes locked onto the armor chest te that was under my jacket, as well as the singr empty card I was ying with.


    "So what''s your story?" Rhodey asked me for a moment. "If Tony is agreeing to call you something like Maker you''ve got to have impressed him somehow."


    I smirked and leaned over, touching a rolling chest of tools and pulling it into a card. I flicked it out across the workshop, the chest reappearing a split secondter, rolling on its wheels across the shop.


    "What the Wait, are you the guy who has been making shit disappear all over the country?" He asked, suddenly very interested. "Shield''s been running interference for you you know, but-"


    "Rhodey, Maker is a friend, try not to go all nationalism on him," Tony said, sounding like he was almost bored.


    "I wasn''t, just surprised to see him here," He exined, rolling his eyes before looking back at me. "Tony got you running errands for him or something?"


    "Or something," I responded,ughing a momentter and shaking my head. "Sorry, I couldn''t resist. Tony and I are coborating on a few different things. Some big projects."


    "Big projects huh? Anything your military liaison should know about Tony?" Rhodey asked as he gave his friend a half hearted re.


    "Uh. not that I can think of," Tony responded. "I''ve just been working on some exotic materials research really, not much interesting to the military."


    I had to turn around and bite my lip, quickly pretending to pick something up off of the floor to keep myself fromughing. More than eighty pounds of vibranium definitely counted as exotic materials.


    "Alright, well I was going to invite you to grab a beer or something but if you''re busy-"


    Before he could finish Jarvis, in his human-like construct, pushed open the workshop door, a tray of sandwiches in one hand and a half rack of beer bottles in the other.


    "Please Mr. Rhodes, I made sandwiches for all three of you." He said,ying the tray on a table in the lounge area. "These two needed to eat anyway."


    "... What Jarvis?" Rhodey asked, his eyes wide.


    "In the flesh sir," Jarvis responded with a short bow. "Would you three be needing anything else? No? Then I shall return momentarily with a bag of chips."


    Jarvis bowed again and headed out of the workshop, climbing up the stairs and out of sight. Rhodey watched him the entire time, his eyes locked onto the AI. When he did eventually lose sight of him he turned to Tony, gesturing with both hands at the stairs.


    "You wanna exin what the hell that was?"


    Tony exined in a roundabout way that he had built a body for Jarvis, using just enough big words andplicated science mumbo jumbo to throw Rhodey off. Eventually Rhodey bought it, and reluctantly agreed to hold off spreading that development around. He stuck around to enjoy the lunch Jarvis had made, as well as the beer. I was actually the first one to leave a few hourster, wanting to head back up to the warehouse to check in with Ema and call it an early day.


    Eventually hanging out with Tony and lounging around the warehouse got a bit boring, which is when I called Steve and Bucky, inviting them to the usual bar at lunch time to catch up. When I arrived about an hour or soter Steve and Bucky were already inside, greeting me with the usual firm handshakes. They even had a cold drink already waiting for me.


    "You''ve been gone for a while." Steve pointed out after I had sat down and taken a sip of my drink. "If it weren''t for your off the books socializing with Clint and Natasha we would have been worried about you."


    "Yeah, sorry about that." I said, wincing as I apologized. "Got myself wrapped up in a few big projects, thest of which was kind of important."


    "Anything we should know about?" Steve asked with a raised eyebrow.


    "No, it''s fine. Just finishing an old building project for some new friends." I answered vaguely with a smile.


    "Well you missed my apartment warming party." Bucky said with a smirk.


    "Dammit, I said I would help you move in, didn''t I?"


    "Yeah, but don''t worry about it, we don''t exactly struggle with heavy things." He pointed out. "Plus some of the squad helped. They aren''t as strong as us but when all you''re carrying is boxes and furniture you don''t have to be."


    "Wait Fury lets them wear everything outside of work?" I asked, genuinely shocked that a control freak like Fury would allow that.


    "Yeah, but only after we realized that constantly taking everything off and then putting it back on again after a weekend made it harder to adjust." Steve answered, gesturing for a refill of his drink. "We have seen a noticeable improvement since they have started wearing everything full time."


    "Huh Makes sense I suppose. I must not have ever noticed it because I never really took mine off." I admitted with a shrug. "I would have warned you guys otherwise."


    "We figured, though we had to convince Fury not to use it to wrangle another few super soldiers out of you."


    "Yeah, about that. Howe Shield hasn''te around looking for more gear?"


    "The WSC got a bit wary of you after the dust from Hydra settled." Steve admitted, taking another sip of his beer. "Not to mention they have been pretty locked up in indecision now as well. We are lucky that we don''t need their permission to be sent out into the field or we would never do anything."


    I nodded, finishing my drink and waving down for another one.


    "So how is Peggy?" I asked innocently, getting augh out of Bucky. Steve just gave him a nudge.


    "Peggy is good. We are talking about moving in together."


    "Oh, that''s good to hear!" I said happily with a smile. "I''m d things are working out between you two."


    "We just needed time to adjust," Steve said while Bucky shook his head, still chuckling. "Everyone expected us to pick up where we left off at a dead sprint, but both of us had a lot of baggage."


    "It was still dumb to deny yourself for so long," Bucky said. "You were both being stupidly noble, trying to help and give each other space when you both wanted anything but that."


    "Alright alright, maybe we shouldn''t have pulled back so far," Steve admitted, taking the good natured admonishment in stride. "But I think overall it was for the best. Now we can both start a solid rtionship not based on the energy and desperation of the war and without the baggage we picked up after it."


    "Well I''m d it''s working out," I repeated, patting Steve''s shoulder. "You guys clearly had something special and you both deserve that kind of happiness."


    The three of us continued talking for a while longer, eventually ordering food. As we ate we continued to chat, though at a slower pace.


    "So, nothing for us to test today?" Bucky asked after he swallowed a bite of his cheeseburger.


    "No, like I said I''ve been focusing on bigger projects," I exined, chomping on a thick steak cut fry before continuing. "If you guys want to head over to the range I''m all for it, but I''ve got nothing new. Unless you want to test the final versions of the guns we worked on."


    "The range might be fun, but I was thinking about something else. How about-"


    Before Steve could finish his sentence his phone started to ring. Before he could even pull it out, Bucky''s did as well. They both shared a look and quickly pulled their phones out and answered them, suddenly all business. The conversations were short and professional, every bit two soldiers answering an important call. They both hung up at about the same time and shared a nod before Steve turned to me.


    "Maker, sorry, we are getting called in, it sounds like it''s all hands on deck," He said, frowning a bit before continuing. "You might want to-"


    Again Steve was interrupted by a phone call, this time to my cell. My eyes went a little wide as I dug my phone from my pocket and checked who was calling.


    Natasha.


    "Hello? Natasha?" I asked, the phone at my ear in a moment. "What''s going on, are you alright?"


    "Carson, yeah, I''m fine wait how do you- Never mind!" She said quickly, sounding anxious and off center. "I need you toe in, please. He has Clint."


    "Wait, what? Natasha, who has Clint?" I asked, rising to my feet without even realizing it.


    I could sense Bucky and Steve both shifting next to me, Bucky cursing softly.


    "It''s Loki." She answered, starting to regain full control of herself. "Loki has Clint."<hr>


    Hello! Just a reminder that I have a Pa_tre_on! Supporters enjoy early chapters of The Conceptual Deck and of Mettle, Metal, Meddled. They also have ess to my first book Lair Divers Tale, though its sequels are on hiatus. I have also posted the introduction/Prologue for my next book, Last Resort - Interdimensional Bloodsport, which is open to the public! If you are interested in showing your support, stop on by! If not, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

 Chapter 75: Brief briefing

    Chapter 75: Brief briefing


    "Shit, okay. Where are you?" I asked, already making my way out of the bar, Steve and Bucky hot on my heels.


    "I''m I''m on my way to pick up our back up n." Natasha exined vaguely. "Loki took something else and Fury is hoping they will be able to track it."


    "Well I can track Clint right now." I exined, walking down the sidewalk, carding my truck casually as I walked by, ignoring the gasps and shouts. "Just say the word and I can get him back, anywhere in the world in under thirty minutes. Unless Loki brought half of Asgard with him there won''t be a damn thing he could do about it."


    "We assumed you could track him but We don''t know the situation on Clint''s end." Natasha said, her indecision clear. "We can''t just rush in, not without putting Clint and a few others at risk. Please, head to the Helicarrier, it''s where Fury is going to be running this op from. We can brief you there ande up with some sort of n."


    "Okay, I understand. How long is your back up n going to take?" I asked, still walking along the sidewalk, mostly because I hadn''t told my feet to stop yet. "Do you want any help?"


    "No, you''ve already helped with this one I think." She said vaguely before continuing. "Head to the Helicarrier, get briefed. I''ll be back soon."


    "Alright Natasha. Is Fury expecting me?"


    "...No, but he better not turn you away." Natasha said, all but admitting she shouldn''t be talking to me.


    "Don''t worry, I''ve got the perfect excuse. Just act surprised to see me." I said, stopping and turning to look at Steve and Bucky. "Call if things go south. Good luck."


    "Thanks."


    We hung up and I looked at the two friends again, both of them looking concerned and tense.


    "I can get us most of the way to the Helicarrier, assuming that''s where they called you too?"


    "Yeah, we have a flight in twenty minutes."


    "Tell them you don''t need it, I can get you to DC." I assured them. "I just need to make a few stops to grab some stuff and get Ema."


    After they both nodded in agreement I traveled all three of us to the warehouse, stepping off thending pad.


    "EMA!" I called out, heading directly to my storage shed and carding it.


    "What!?" My partner called back, running around one of therge UCM''s, dressed in one of her painter''s smocks. "What''s wrong?"


    "Loki is here, he kidnapped Clint." I exined. "We are going to the Helicarrier to meet up with Fury for a briefing on what''s going on."


    "Shit, alright, what do you need?"


    I shook my head as I walked across the warehouse, carding stuff that I felt could be useful, though I was careful not to overfill the Deck. I ended up with it half full with UCMs, LPMs and a few other things. Thest thing I grabbed were fiverge rectangr ck trunks, each of them stacking into one card.


    "All four of them, really?" She asked quietly, looking over her shoulder to check on Bucky and Steve, who were both idly looking around the warehouse.


    "I''m not messing around Ema." I said, looking at her. "I''m half tempted to ride the <em>Void Skipper </em>down to DC."


    "Yeah, please don''t." she responded. "That won''t help the situation."


    "Which is why I''m not doing it," I said simply, looking around onest time before nodding. "Okay you two, I''m all set. Let''s get going."


    Steve and Bucky turned and nodded, meeting me halfway across the warehouse. I had my hands on both of their shoulders when a thought urred to me.


    "Where is Peggy? Does she need a ride?" I asked, looking at Steve, who simply shook his head.


    "She is already in DC, she was scheduled toe home tomorrow morning."


    With that cleared up we vanished from the warehouse, popping out at the samending pad we had used to rescue Bucky, Ema following behind us a momentter. Not long after that we were driving across DC in the super truck. It was the first time I had driven it in a long while, having transitioned almost entirely to traveling and flying to my destinations.


    An hour after we left the bar we were standing on the flight deck of the Helicarrier, being escorted by a random Shield agent into the ship. Eventually we met up with Fury and Peggy, who apparently had gotten here just before us.


    "What are you doing here Maker?" He asked.


    "I was hanging out with Steve and Bucky when they got the call." I exined. "Clint is my friend, no way I''m sitting this one out. You''ve got your sledgehammer whether you want it or not."


    Steve, Peggy and Bucky looked confused, but Fury only scoffed.


    "Fine. Follow me."


    Fury led us through the ship, eventually stepping into a secured room, which honestly just looked like a glorified conference room. Agent Hill stepped in moments after we all sat down, handing a stack of documents to Fury before walking straight out. Silently Fury handed out the folders before sitting down and starting to talk, looking at Steve.


    "After you crashed into the arctic ocean, off the coast of Greend, Howard Stark was determined to find you. He managed to devise a way to crudely scan for the energy signature of the the Tesseract, which he knew was on the bomber with you. Not long after your crash he managed to find it, sunk at the bottom of the ocean, with no sign of the bomber in sight."


    "It broke loose of its containment while Red Skull and I fought," Steve exined. "He picked it up and it well it sted him into space. When it fell to the floor it melted through and out of the ne, at least a few minutes before I crashed And you''re saying we found it? That we have it?"


    "Stark was disgusted that he had managed to find it but not you, so he locked it up in storage, where ity forgotten for a long time." Fury continued, only half answering Steve''s question. "There were several attempts to research and utilize its energy, most recently, unknowingly guided by the influence of Hydra. They used the fact that we were not only not alone in the universe, but hopelessly outssed by our distant neighbors to sway the WSC into focusing on weapons."


    By now I was flipping through the folder of information, reading through the data they had on the light blue cube. It still worried me how much it looked like a cosmic cube, but none of the data they had collected seemed to point to any sort of reality changing shenanigans. Steve''s ount of it sting Red Skull into space was also confusing.


    "Once Hydra was cleared out of Shield we went through all of our projects with a fine toothb, closing dozens of projects that were either too risky, hical or not in line with Shields beliefs. The Phase 2 weapons program was one of the first on the chopping block," Fury exined, the screen behind him lighting up with basic schematics of some kind of missile, its specifications cked out. "However, we continued to study the Tesseract because of its potential as an unlimited power source. The answer to one of Earth''s biggest needs, a clean and sustainable source of energy."


    "I''m assuming something went wrong?"


    Fury looked over at me, hitting me with a re. I simply shrugged, the one eyed man focusing back on the whole group after a long moment.


    "We were studying the Tesseract at a joint NASA and Shield facility in Nevada. At approximately twenty three hundred hours the Tesseract began acting up, throwing off energy and generally scaring the shit out of everyone around it. Then a portal opened, and Loki stepped through. He ran roughshod over my men, before"


    Fury trailed off, leaning forward in his seat and folding his hands together. He leaned on the table, holding them to his face for a long moment before continuing.


    "He had a weapon with him, some sort of short ive or spear. One moment he was using it to st energy beams at us, the next he touched it to Agent Barton''s chest. His eyes turned ck, then crystal blue. He immediately stopped fighting Loki and began following his orders. Agent Barton, as well as several other agents are nowpromised, presumably under the control of Loki."


    The room was quiet for a long moment, everyone stunned by what Fury had just said. After a long moment I finally recovered, pping my forehead with my palm.


    "Holy fucking shit its mind control." I cursed, continuing at a mumble. "Not sure if I should thank her or be angry for not warning me."


    "What was that Maker?" Steve asked, everyone now focused on me as I stood and flicked out a card, my cab of tricks popping out.


    I ignored Steve''s question as I looked through my expanded and enhanced storage. There was no way this was a coincidence, the Ancient One must have known something wasing. I only had ess to this spell for about a week and a half and now I was in a situation where I desperately needed it? There was just no way it was a coincidence.


    The Ancient One and I would have to have a conversation when all of this was over.


    Eventually I found the anti-mind control cuffs, pulling out five of them and handing them out to everyone. Steve, Peggy, Bucky and Ema immediately put theirs on, which was a touching sign of trust that would have meant a lot if my mind wasn''t racing.


    "These are Anti-Mind control cuffs. They should protect you from any sort of outside mental influences," I exined. "I have a few dozen more, but give me a room and I''ll set up a machine to make as many as you need."


    "You just happen to have something capable of stopping mind control sitting in a cab?" Fury asked, sounding suspicious and skeptical.


    "Yes," I answered simply with a shrug.


    Fury looked at me for a long moment before shaking his head and clipping the cuff around his wrist. For a moment the room was quiet until Peggy spoke up.


    "What happened after Loki took control of Agent Barton?"


    "I attempted to get the Tesseract away while Loki was distracted, but he caught on too quickly," Fury continued, hiding his cuff under his jacket sleeve. "Clint willingly and without prompting pointed out I was lying before shooting me in the chest. Zero hesitation."


    "Dammit, that''s not good," I said, shaking my head. "If he was a unwilling puppet then we could rely on anyone he mind fucks-"


    "Can we not call it that?" Steve asked, wincing as everyone turned to him.


    "...We could rely on any one he whammied just being a meat puppet," I continued after a short pause. "Sounds like we are going to be dealing with them at the top of their game though."


    "You know an awful lot about mind control," Fury said, once again looking suspicious.


    "For fucks sake Fury, stop being such a paranoid ass for half a second. I know you have your lie detector on and you know it works on me," I said, rolling my eyes. "I''m extrapting from examples from popr media, happy?"


    "No. But I''ll drop it." He said, the "For now" heavily implied. "After Agent Barton shot me they took the Tesseract and left. I yed dead in the hopes Loki would pass over me, which he did. Not long after that Loki''s portal triggered some sort of energy meltdown and destroyed the entire facility, killing thirty Shield scientists, agents and NASA specialists. That number is going to go up as we recover more bodies."


    "What''s the n then Director?" Steve asked, leaning in.


    "I can track Clint anywhere on earth," I said confidently. "If you have a blood sample, some personal effects, maybe a hair sample I could pick him out down to a foot or two. If not I should be able to track his general location, assuming he doesn''t ditch his expanded quiver."


    "You have a way to track our equipment?" Fury asked, with a tone that suggested he expected I could but was still annoyed by it.


    "Yup, everything I make. It''s a tablet just like all of my tracking stuff. But I don''t watch it and take notes on you Fury. It''s an insurance policy, not a way to gather ckmail."


    Fury didn''t respond, instead he pulled out his phone and sent a single text message, before putting it down on the table.


    "A hair and blood sample will be here soon," Fury said. "Can you track the Tesseract as well? In case they aren''t together?"


    "Does your energy tracker follow it?"


    "No, we already checked."


    "Damn. Do you still have the machine that Tony''s father used to track its energy signature?"


    "No. When we had the Tesseract secured and he had given up finding Steve he scrapped the scanner and started being much more secretive with his designs. Tony might have something stored away but it is unlikely we will find them in any reasonable amount of time."


    "In that case, probably not, but we can give it a shot," I said, shrugging. "How much data do you have on it? Physical data, on paper. It tends to work better."


    "Not much, most of our physical data was on site in Nevada," Fury admitted. "Does it matter if it''s newly printed?"


    "No. Get me as much as you can and I''ll see what I can do, but I''m not hopeful." I exined. "Have some people start working on something to track it specifically. When it''s done I can use that to track it but until then"


    "Fine, then I''m green lighting a mission to track Agent Barton down. With any luck Loki and the Tesseract will be with him, if not then the primary objective will be to extract our Agents," Fury said, getting nods from Peggy, Bucky and Steve. "Maker, I would like you to go with them. I want you all gone the minute the tracker is done."


    The next twenty minutes were a blur. I set up a UCM, tied to myself, to print out anti mind control cuffs. The machine could make one every twenty minutes, which was not optimal but would have to do. I kept a dozen of the cuffs from my cab and gave Fury the rest, after getting him to swear he would give one to Natasha. After that I whipped up a tablet to track Clint.


    His pointer was slowly moving around near a small town in Connecticut, where a Shield analyst quickly figured out there was an abandoned cold war era bunker.


    "That''s where they''ve got to be, Clint, Loki and the Tesseract." I said. "If the Tesseract is throwing off any sort of radiation they would need somewhere that could block it."


    "And a bunker designed to keep radiation out would do just as good a job keeping it in," Peggy finished, looking at the tracker over my shoulder. "Good catch."


    "Then the n is a go. Suit up and get out there." Fury said, nodding to Steve. "Your squad is already prepped and ready, they are just waiting for you three."


    We made our way quickly to the flight deck of the Helicarrier, Steve and Bucky deploying their armor as they climbed into a quinjet, which was already half full with the eight equipment enhanced soldiers. Bucky started exining the mission n and what to look out for while Steve walked further into the jet, stopping by the pilot.


    "Take us out," He said simply, the pilot nodding and tapping buttons, the quinjet slowly ramping up. "Push it to the redline, I want us there yesterday."


    A few minutester we were flying through the sky, on our way to crash whatever kind of party Loki was trying to start.

 Chapter 76: Bait

    Chapter 76: Bait


    Wended far outside the area we believed the entrance into the bunker was, the quinjet setting down in a wooded area more than a mile out. We had been flying low for almost four miles before that in an attempt to keep out of sight. I was the first one down the ramp, my armor deploying around me as I stepped down onto the dirt. I had my hand on my right revolver, which was sitting in its holster on my hip as I scanned through the area with a dozen forms of enhanced sight.


    "All clear," I said, the enhanced, intent basedms units I passed out during the flight picking up my softly spoken words and sending them to everyone behind me.


    Steve and Bucky were next off the jet, their squad right behind them with Ema being thest one off. I pulled out the tracking tablet and watched it for a moment as everyone kept a close eye on the area around us.


    "Alright, he is still in the bunker," I said, pointing in Clint''s general direction. "Everyone, take one of these, they will keep Loki from affecting your mind."


    I passed out anti mind control cuffs to the squad of Shield soldiers, before all twelve of us started making our way through the forest. After a few minutes of walking through the trees we reached the end,ing to arge field. I knelt next to a tree, hidden in the shade, before using my suit''s enhanced vision again to scan the clearing.


    As my vision magnified I followed the other side of the field, easily spotting the dozen vehicles of various different sizes and models, all parked around the entrance to the old abandoned bunker. The entire lot was a buzz of activity, with people pulling crates and boxes from trucks, carrying them all down the singr entrance into the bunker. Of course there were also a half dozen armed guards scanning the area, their hands on their weapons as they held the perimeter. I canceled my magnified vision and retracted the armor around my face, looking back to Steve.


    "This is definitely it, but they have the ce locked down. They''ll spot us the second we leave the treeline," I exined.


    "Well then we can''t blitz them, we might be bulletproof but if Loki hears using he might make people hold themselves hostage," Steve said, shaking his head. "Everything keeps getting more and more strange."


    "Told you," I said, shrugging when he and Bucky looked at me. "I said that the world was going to start getting real weird."


    He nodded reluctantly, looking over the field to the gravel lot, squinting to try and see better. "I can just make out the cars but not much else, is there only one entrance?"


    "Only one I can pick up."


    "Alright well I''m open to ideas," He admitted looking back at his squad.


    "I have one. I''ll go in as bait"


    "What, no-" Ema started to say but I held up my hand, cutting her off.


    "With Ema as back up of course. Basically, both of us are ridiculously tough at this point. Like insanely strong, to the point I''m pretty sure Shield''s estimations are hriously low. Which means Clint is going to expect a certain level of strength"


    "Meaning that Loki won''t expect you to be that strong." Bucky said, Steve looking back at him before focusing back on me.


    "Are you sure you can take anything Loki throws at you?"


    "Well magic gets a little esoteric so it''s hard to say, but I''m pretty confident I can weather his first attempts at least. Beyond that I can card anything really dangerous that he throws at me. If all of that fails I can travel out and fly back. In any of those situations the distraction would still have done its job. "


    "... Dammit, I don''t like it but I don''t see any other option," Steve said, cursing as he looked back over the field.


    For a moment Steve just kept staring over the field. I could practically see the thousands of thoughts his enhanced brain was going over, trying toe up with an alternative. Eventually he cursed again, this time shaking his head.


    "Alright, let''s say we go with your idea. What''s the n?"


    Thirty minutester Ema and I were both silently flying through the air,pletely invisible. Ema had her hand on my shoulder so we could stay in contact, her arm extended out by a few feet so it wouldn''t get in the way of my wings. Wended on the gravel lot, just a few feet from the bunker entrance, pausing for a long moment to see if anyone noticed our arrival. When no one reacted we both made our way slowly to therge metal door frame that marked the entrance. There we waited, only moving when a woman and a man, dressed in tactical gear and carrying arge crate made their way to the entrance. As they both slowly made their way through the doorway Ema and I followed them in, my partner''s hand still on my shoulder as I led the way.


    We followed the pair of workers deeper into the bunker, down more stairs until they reached the end. Without a word they shifted, moving in unison to carry the crate further in, now walking down a long tunnel. The walls were tiled, making the tunnel feel more like a subway station than a bunker. Eventually the hallway opened up into a muchrger area.


    The underground space was busy, a chaotic mix of crates, soldiers, scientists and builders. On one end some sort of temporary clean room was just being finished, scientists already working inside. I was shocked to see Erik Selvig inside, pouring over aputer smiling and talking to the other scientists. His eyes were unnaturally blue, and his smile looked wrong, filled with joy and excitement with just a hint of mania leaking through. I reached and tapped Ema''s hand on my shoulder, directing her to look at the clean room setup. She gave me a squeeze to confirm she knew what I was pointing at.


    Closer to where we were standing were stacks of weapons, materials and equipment, with a few dozen soldiers going through it. They were mostly quiet, a few of them sharing the same joyful smile with a drop of mania as Erik did.


    After a few more minutes of scoping the area out I spotted Clint, standing right next to who I could only assume, between the rather nice looking green and gold armor, the staff in his hand and the holier-than-thou smirk on his face was Loki. He was talking to another soldier, who was nodding along eagerly. Clint was standing beside him, scanning the room as he answered Loki''s questions.


    With them spotted I reached up and gave Ema''s hand the double squeeze, the signal that I was ready to go. I could almost feel her reluctance to let me go, but after a moment she did. After a few deep breaths to psych myself up I stepped further into therge room, making my way closer to the clean room, walking between aisles of crates and equipment. When I was just about there, only a dozen or so feet from Loki, I took another deep breath and reached out, putting my hand on a stack of equipment.


    I gave another quick look around before I deactivated my stealth field and shoved the stack of gear to the side, cursing and pretending to stumble. Suddenly, every single eye in the room was on me.


    "Intruder!" A voice called out clearly from behind me, and I felt a slight brush from my danger sense before a bullet hit my shoulder and sparked off my armor.


    Using the hints I was getting from my danger sense I stumbled from the hit, immediately getting hit again, this time on my arm. I drew my revolver and fired at where the first bullet came from, my shot purposely going wide and shattering a crater into a far wall.


    More bullets mmed into me and I continued to ham up their effect, stumbling as I tried to find cover. Before I could slide behind another box my danger sense activated again, this time more intensely than the bullets. I could see the outside res of pale blue energy as I wasunched over the box I had been moving towards, rolling andying t on the ground for a moment.


    Almost immediately I could feel something wrap around my arms and myself, like an invisible rope tying me up. The force yanked me a bit until it lifted me off of the ground, mming me into the ceiling hard enough to crack the tiles, ceramic shards falling to the ground before I was mmed down as well. The force wrapped around me more, lifting me into the air a final time, holding me up with my feet dangling. The call to cease fire came from Clint, echoing through therge underground room. A few more bullets pinged off my armor before stoppingpletely.


    Loki and Clint stepped out of their own cover, the the archers head on a swivel as he checked every angle for danger. As they moved I could feel myself moving as well, a gesture from Loki bringing me to the aisle I had previously walked down.


    "My my, it looks like you were right," Loki said, giving the mind controlled shield agent beside him a look. "It seems like he <em>can</em> track you. And I see you''ve been trying to replicate the Destroyer armor. An interesting attempt."


    Loki smirked as he stepped even closer, hand reaching out to touch my armor, examining it with the look of a adult humoring a ipetent child.


    "Your friend Barton here warned me that you had ways of tracking people down, and some impressive stealth capabilities," Loki said, walking back around into my visual range. "Well done by the way, it''s not often I see stealth that can fool me."


    "...of course not, if it fooled you then you wouldn''t ever see it," I said, almost reflexively. I could see a spark of annoyance in Loki''s eyes before it quickly faded.


    "So, Maker was it? What exactly was your n? Sneak in, save Barton, defeat me?" He asked, shaking his head. "This is why humans belong under the thumb of their betters. When you''re left alone you convince yourself of the most idiotic things."


    "Oh yeah, because your people are known for their even tempers and well thought out ns." I shot back, making sure to keep him focused on me. "It''s a miracle you dress yourself."


    "What did you say to me, worm?" Loki said, his anger quickly rising.


    "I said, between your fake parents and your real ones it''s amazing you can dress yourself. The intelligence of frost giants and the cunning of an Asgardian? Truly you must be a beacon of-"


    Blue energy fired from his staff and mmed into me, tearing me free of whatever spell he was using to hold me up. I skipped on the floor once before hitting again, tumbling for a moment before mming into a crate. I was, of course, fine inside my armor as it easily absorbed the impacts and energy. I pretended to be stunned and hurt though, weakly trying my best to move and stand before another st of energy drove me through whatever crates I had mmed into. This time I mmed into the wall, which cracked under the impact, tiles falling to the ground. He hit me twice more with the energy sts from his scepter, mming me into the wall with each st before he gripped me in his magic, yanking me violently back to the center of the room.


    Every ounce of self control and smooth confidence was gone, his face a rictus of anger. I could see the tremble in his hands as he held back his rage.


    "Care to repeat that you worthless broken man?" He shouted, spittle flying from his lips. "So high and mighty in the face-"


    "Thor is better than you in every way." I said, hitting well below the belt. "You''re nothingpared to him, but then again you''re not muchpared to anyone. Lady Sif-"


    The scream of anger that boiled out of him was apocalyptic. He mmed me into the ground with his magic again before firing his scepter at me. He alternated between mming me into the ground and sting me for a full minute, digging a furrow of crushed and ckened concrete. By the time he was done, standing over me as Iid in the crater, he had managed to get through the newly installed, sorcery based energy barrier and hit my actual armor a few times.


    Not that it made a difference, the only marking on me was dust and soot.


    The petnt viin stood above me, breathing heavy, his face still full of rage. After a moment it shifted into cold and eager smugness.


    "I think I''m going to do something special for you, Maker. Barton assured me that you will heal from even this, so you have the honor of still being useful. I''m going to make you mine, you insect! I will send you back to torture and murder everyone you have ever cared about! You are going to help me break humanity into its rightful ce, beneath me! And when it''s all done, when I reign over Earth as its ruler I will have you slit your own throat at my feet. I will release you from your service just long enough to see the horrors youmitted before your life leaves you!"


    As he spoke he gestured, and a momentter Clint stood beside him. Loki reached down and pulled Clint''s gun from his holster, cing its barrel at his temple.


    "Pull back your armor," Hemanded. "Or I will kill your friend as you watch."


    After a moment''s pause I gave the mentalmand to my armor to shrink, the hardened bands of metal and armored ting returning to its smallest form. I did my best to defeated. Loki smirked and reached out with his spear, cing the tip right over the top of my armor, pulling it down to get closer to the center of my chest. My under armor was still there, but because of its cloth-like behavior, it was pulled down as well.


    "Anyst words before you be a puppet?" Loki asked with an ugly grin on his face.


    "Green really isn''t your color."


    With a scowl he pushed the spear against my chest, hard enough that without my tattoo enhancements he would have definitely pierced my skin. Instead, his staff glowed and began to hum, the sound turning into a soft high pitched whine. Suddenly energy pushed into me, dispersing through my body, only to dissipate as my cuff warmed up slightly and vibrated for a moment. Loki frowned, and tried again, the same sound happening before the energy entered me and faded.


    "We''re here Maker! The outside is clear and we are in the tunnel! Ready when you are!" Steve said through mymunicator, and I couldn''t help but grin.


    "Wh-"


    "Now!"


    With a flick I spun a card up onto Loki''s chest while he looked down at me, confused as to why I wasn''t under his control. The card hit his chest and disappeared, sixbined sts from my lightning gun taking its ce. With a crackling explosion Loki was hurled backwards, mming into the metal frame of the clean room, falling to the ground with a thump. His spear ttered to the ground on the other side of a stack of equipment.


    I immediately deployed my armor as I quickly climbed out of my shallow crater, heading directly to Clint, who had been caught in the outer st radius of the massive shock. I quickly slipped a healing amulet over his neck, before fastening an anti mind control cuff onto his wrist. I watched as his eyes cleared and he started to move, looking up at me.


    "Holy hell, how can you still move?" He asked, slowly standing with my help.


    "Please, he didn''t even scuff my armor," I assured him, turning quickly and scanning the room.


    I could see Steve, Bucky and their squad tearing through the armed soldiers with ease, despite the fact that they were staying non lethal in case Loki had whammied them into helping. They had attacked as the show Loki had been unknowingly providing drew everyone''s attention from the outside in. Scientists were shouting and getting out of the way, though a few of them tried to fight, immediately getting their asses handed to them.


    I watched as Ema followed behind them, her stealth field now off, quickly putting on and removing a singr anti mind control cuff to each soldier and scientist that the squad took down, using a knockout ring to keep them down. Seeing that they had the random goons handled I turned back to Loki, who was starting to stand.


    "You little insignificant bug, how dare you attack me! I am a god, the rightful ruler of Asgard. You should be begging for mercy you miserable creature! I will enjoy ending your short disgusting lives when-"


    I leapt across the gap between us, aiming an armored fist right to his forehead. However, instead of making contact with the pompous ass''s forehead and driving him into the ground, my fist passed right through the illusion of the trickster god, which faded with a shimmer of green and gold magic.


    I whirled around, looking for where he really was when I spotted him on the far end of the clean room. He was standing there, ring at me as he held the Tesseract in his hand. I took a single step towards him and a roiling cloud of dark blue energy,ced with small sparks light blue, swallowed him. When the cloud vanished, Loki was gone as well.


    "Fucking goddamn Saturday morning cartoon viin bullshit, escaping at thest goddamn minute." I cursed under my breath as I stood back up straight.


    I was cycling through all of my modes of enhanced vision, scanning the room and trying to see if this was maybe an illusion as well. Unfortunately, as far as I could tell, Loki was well and truly gone. When I was done scanning I walked back to Clint, who was leaning against a crate, quickly recovering.


    "You alright?" I asked, giving him a quick look over.


    "I''m fine," He responded, pushing off the crate to stand up fully. "He get away?"


    "Yeah, he used the Tesseract to teleport out."


    "Son of a bitch," Clint cursed, turning around and kicking a box of tools before eventually taking a deep breath and turning back to me. "Thanks Maker, you-"


    "Guys!" Ema called, getting everyone''s attention as she bent over to pick something up.


    As mypanion straightened she showed off what she had found. In her hands, no worse for wear for being thrown to the side, was Loki''s scepter.


    "Looks like he forgot something."<hr>


    Hello! Just a reminder that I have a Pa_tre_on! Supporters enjoy early chapters of The Conceptual Deck and of Mettle, Metal, Meddled. They also have ess to my first book Lair Divers Tale, though its sequels are on hiatus. I have also posted the introduction/Prologue for my next book, Last Resort - Interdimensional Bloodsport, which is open to the public! If you are interested in showing your support, stop on by! If not, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

 Chapter 77: Meeting old friends

    Chapter 77: Meeting old friends


    When my adrenaline finally settled, I double checked the bunker for Loki, confirming that he wasn''t hiding in some random corner, snickering to himself while we looked like idiots. By the time I was done, far as I could tell, he had flown the coop. Doing my best to fight off the horrifying realization that Loki could be fucking ANYWHERE, I headed back to the main room, arriving just in time to watch Ema approach thest mind control victim with an anti mind control band.


    "Hold on!" I called out, fast walking back to her, my helmet folding away as I walked. "Don''t break him free yet."


    "Why not?" Steve asked, Ema already wordlessly following my instructions and stepping back.


    "Because I want to run some scans first," I said, gesturing to Clint. "We need some sort of proof that the anti mind control the anti-cuffs work, and with no side effects."


    I flicked out my cab of tricks and pulled out both a medical scanner and a universal scanner, closing the cab doors but leaving it deployed for now. I stepped closer to the sleeping soldier, scanning him with the medical scanner.


    "Interesting" I said, reading the scanners screen. "The scanner registers that the person is being influenced, but not by what, or how it''s influencing them"


    Steve stepped in behind me, reading the disy over my shoulder as I paged through. I double checked that their mind wasn''t being altered, and that they were not aware or being mentally tortured. Their mental state was happy and asleep.


    With my medical scanplete I passed that scanner to Steve so he could continue reading, while I directed the universal scanner to the victim, running another scan and reading through the results.


    "Okay, there doesn''t appear to be any side effects from the scepter''s influence, at least none that either of my scanners can find," I said, still paging through the results. "This guy is a cop, how did he end up here?"


    "He pulled over one of the trucks," Clint exined, sitting on a crate nearby. "Loki zapped him so he would give the all clear and keep anyone from getting suspicious in the area."


    I nodded and kept scrolling through the cops information. Eventually I reached a page for status effects, clicking on it to expand. He was being affected by something the scanner called Mind Maniption, which was twisting what his mind saw and how it interacted with the world, convincing the user into aiding and helping Loki. It was a pretty powerful effect.


    "Damn, okay. So my universal scanner reads the mind control as some sort of mental shifting. It''s not actually modifying your mind at all, just sort of twisting how it sees the world."


    "Well that sounds horrifying" Clint asked. "But it doesn''t leave any permanent damage, right?"


    "It doesn''t seem to" I said, shaking my head and epting my medical scanner back from Steve. "But let''s make sure."


    I scanned and double checked Clint''s status, confirming that there were no long term effects from the mind control and that he was currently being protected from mind control by the anti-cuff and that he waspletely fine from the electrical explosion I had caught him in earlier. He passed me back my healing amulet when I mentioned thest bit, even when I tried to get him to keep it.


    "That''s one of your powerful ones right? The ones that mess with aging?" He said, shaking his head when I confirmed it. "Yeah I can''t get any younger. But we need to talk soon."


    I raised an eyebrow before realizing he was talking about my offer to help him and his family.


    "Alright, just let me know when you want me to stop by." I said with a nod.


    After confirming that all of our captured soldiers and scientists were fine, I made my way to Bucky, who was standing guard over the scepter. The mostly golden weapon, with its glowing heart and sharp de, wasid out on a hip high crate, with the super soldier studiously watching over it. He eyed me as I got close, so I raised my hands.


    "Just want to run a few scans," I exined, Bucky nodding and turning to watch me, though he seemed to just be interested in what I was doing.


    I pulled out the universal scanner, running its beam over the scepter and tabbing through the results. The information I saw was more or less what I expected. It was a scepter, which drew power from the blue chunk of crystal held in its end. It was capable of firing sts of energy, mind maniptions and exuded a constant aura to increase anger, the desire for power and ruthlessness.


    "You feeling any different Bucky?" I asked, ncing at him.


    "No, not particrly, why?"


    "Good. The scepter is trying to mentally affect anyone in its radius by making them angrier, power hungry and more ruthless. No one without an anti-cuff should get within twenty feet."


    Bucky''s eyes went wide, turning down as I showed him the information on the scanners screen.


    "Yeah, alright. I''ll make sure everyone knows that."


    "Good. Now do me a favor, pick it up and shoot me with it a few times, I want to card a few sts from it." I asked, my helmet re-deploying but the armor around my hand pulling back. "Aim for my hand."


    "What?" He asked, looking shaken, shaking his head. "No way, it''s gonna take your hand off."


    "Then I''ll just re-grow it," I exined with a shrug. "C''mon Bucky, consider this my payment for helping out. You know how much I love exotic energy samples"


    "It''s alright Bucky," Steve said. "I''d say he earned it. Unless you would rather I do it?"


    "No, I can do it," He assured his best friend, his hand reaching out to pick up the scepter. "I just don''t want to hurt him."


    "I''m almost positive I''ll be fine," I assured him, walking to the left a bit to make sure there was nothing important behind me. "And if I''m not then I''ll heal."


    "Alright, alright. How do I fire this thing?"


    I exined that the scepter was intent based for the most part, just point one end at your intended target and focus on firing sts of energy. It took a few minutes of concentration, but eventually he managed to shoot a st of blue energy out. I reached out and snagged it into a card, my enhanced durability and even more enhanced healing meant that all I got was a deep bruise and some basic burns, both of which almost immediately healed.


    "See,pletely fine," I said, waving my hand out. "Now hit me a few more times."


    Bucky shook his head but obliged, shooting five more sts of energy, four of which I caught, thest one mming into the wall behind me. Bucky put the scepter down and shook his head, Steve joining him. I waved off the mistake before summoning one of the cards, examining its concepts. It had concepts of being a st, of being weaponized energy, but overwhelmingly it was cosmic energy, vored by something distinct. It was broad, and feltlogical, directed, almostthinking?


    "This is incredibly simr to Tesseract energy," I exined to Ema, scratching my head. "I need to go topside, there isn''t enough room for the storage shed down here. Keep an eye on things down here, will you?"


    Ema nodded and I rushed through the bunker, climbing the stairs out two at a time. With a flick of my wrist I pushed out my storage shed, stepping in and grabbing a Tesseract energy storage cell, carding it andparing the results to the st of scepter energy. Ignoring the variation in what the energy was doing, the concepts were almost identical, they had the same exact feel of creation energy, of old cosmic energy. What set them apart was the vor they carried. One felt open and vast, while the other felt almost like it was just short of thinking.


    Remembering something that the scan of the Energy Cell had said, I rushed back down to the bunker, ignoring Steve and Bucking and scanning the scepter again, quickly paging through to its power source. It described the smooth blue gem as some kind of storage vessel for something incredibly powerful, just like how it had described the Tesseract.


    Two sources of power, both of them giving off the same incredibly old, cosmic energy, but each of them having a slightly different vor. I racked my brain, trying toe up with something from theics that would


    "Oh fuck," I muttered, staring down at the card in my hand, my curse getting Ema''s attention. "Oh fuck."


    "What is it?" My partner asked, taking a peak at the card around my shoulder.


    "I I think I figured out what the Tesseract is," I said, turning to make a beeline for Steve and Bucky, Ema following right behind me.


    "Hey Maker, you figure out what was so familiar about the weapon''s energy?" Steve asked, and I nodded.


    "Yeah, I did," I admitted, stopping both of the soldiers. "So how long until Shield gets here?"


    "Fury sent out a few quinjets full of agents to lock this ce down and scientists to analyze all the tech they dragged in," Steve exined. "They should be here in an hour or so."


    "Right, okay, good, good." I said, looking over my shoulder at the enhanced squad of soldiers keeping an eye on the sleeping, once thralls of Loki, as well as checking out the rest of the bunker. "Listen, you two trust me right?"


    "Of course."


    "Within reason." Bucky responded, getting an exasperated look from Steve, which he ignored. "Why?"


    "Because I''m going to share some information that is a bit sensitive," I exined before jumping right in. "That blue chunk of stone in the end? That is a containment vessel of some kind for an extremely dangerous stone. The kind of power that never ends well. The kind of thing that that worlds burn for. I think the Tesseract is a containment vessel as well."


    "And now Loki has it," Steve responded, looking very disturbed. "What could he do with it?"


    "Basic level? Literal limitless teleportation. At more advanced levels we are talking real reality shaking stuff," I exined, before pointing to the scepter. "But he lost this one in the process."


    "I''m afraid to ask, but what is this one capable of?" Steve asked.


    "Mind control, various mind based powers like telekinesis and telepathy," I exined. "It doesn''t sound bad until you understand that the scale is horrifying, as are the implications when ites to mental changes. We are very lucky that it didn''t just wipe Clint''s mind and install a loyal obedient ve mind in its ce."


    "So what do we do with it?" Steve asked, after a long moment of disgusted silence .


    "I''m tempted to find a way to throw it into space," I admitted. "But it wouldn''t do much good. There is no way Loki, or whoever he stole it from or borrowed it from, is not going toe back and get it. And with the Space Stone, that''s what''s in the Tesseract, then there is nowhere we could put it that they won''t be able to get to."


    "So what do we do?" Steve asked, looking down at the scepter.


    "We prepare. I don''t know if we have a few hours or a few days," I exined with a shrug. "But we have an Infinity Stone, and someone is going toe looking for it, probably very soon."<hr>


    Fury and a cadre of Shield agents and Scientists arrived around forty five minutester, securing the location and beginning their investigation. I exined to Fury that the scepter should not under any circumstances be kept near any sort of poption centers and that anyone studying it, guarding it or even just working in the vicinity of it should be wearing an Anti-cuff.


    He demanded to know why, and I did my best to exin that it was made of a very rare material, and the chances of someoneing back to retrieve it were very high. He seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation, but I had no way of really knowing what he was nning on doing. Which is why, before he had arrived, Steve and Bucky had allowed me to take several samples of the metal used to make the scepter, before using the repair tablet to fix the damage. I kept a small sliver of the metal for future experimenting, while the rest went into a tracking tablet. I could now locate the scepter anywhere on the.


    This was also the moment that I realized that "Anywhere on the." really wasn''t all that good anymore, not with Loki teleporting to who knows where.


    With Loki in the wind and Clint saved, we headed back to the Helicarrier, which was still moored in DC. Peggy greeted us as we stepped into the interior of the ship, leading us through the halls to a decent sizedb. Inside Tony tapped away at an advanced lookingputer screen alongside another man. Sitting close by was Natasha, having a quiet conversation with Betty Ross of all people.


    "Maker, Steve, Bucky, wee back." Natasha said, giving the three of us a smile. "Thank you for bringing him back."


    "No problem." I answered seriously with a nod, before pointing to Tony. "What the hell is he doing here?"


    "I''m here to keep you out of trouble," Stark answered. "Which is a new, strange concept for me. I don''t like it."


    "His father created the original tech to track the Tesseracts energy signature," Natasha exined, ignoring Tony''s response. "We are hoping he could recreate it."


    "Right, makes sense," I nodded, turning to Betty Ross. "I recognize you, Betty Ross I believe?"


    "Betty Banner now, actually," She answered with a smile, before looking a bit curious.


    I did my best to hide my surprise, though I could tell Natasha noticed. I covered my surprise with a smile of my own.


    "Congrattions," I said, before turning to the unfamiliar man who could really only be one person. "Then that must make you Bruce Banner? It''s nice to see you again."


    Bruce stepped forward, looking a bit confused before reaching out and shaking my hand.


    I''m sorry, do we know you from somewhere?" He asked, looking to his wife, who only shrugged


    "We have, though I''m not surprised you don''t remember me." I said with a smirk. "It was a bit hectic and we both look quite a bit different. I was wearing a hood, wielding a bow?"


    Both Betty and Bruce realized who I was at the same time, Bruce stepping forward to shake my hand again, this time with more energy.


    "It is good to meet you again." He said, our handshake getting interrupted by a hug from Betty.


    "Thank you." She said, "I don''t know what you said to my father but He has been different since Harlem. He stopped chasing Bruce."


    "Seriously?" I responded, giving Natasha a shocked look, who only shrugged in response. "I That is rather surprising. He has a reputation for being Hard to dissuade."


    "You mean being a stubborn bastard?" Betty corrected. "Harlem was a low point for him. He barely made it out without being court martialed. I think you caught him at just the right time to get something to stick. He refused to tell me what it was but Thank you."


    "If I''m honest I figured I was shouting into the void with that one but I''m d I could help." I admitted, genuinely happy that I could have helped give them both some peace.


    "After I came back down from the fight Betty convinced me to take her with me." Banner exined. "We were running at first but Betty got a letter one day that exined he wasn''t chasing us. I would have just assumed it was a trap but"


    "He swore on my mothers grave," Betty exined, her face solemn. "So our running turned into just traveling and eventually into a honeymoon."


    "Well congrattions, both of you," I said, smiling at them both. "And not to diminish the reunion, but what are you doing here in DC?"


    "They are the second half of the back up n," Natasha exined. "Dr. Banner the world''s top expert on gamma radiation, which the Tesseract gives off in low amounts."


    "Right, Makes sense. But have they gotten the news yet?" I asked, looking back to the redhead superspy.


    "That you let Loki toss you around like a ragdoll, then let him get away with what I can only guess is the oldest magic trick in the book?" Tony asked. "Yeah, my ex assistant was keeping us up to date."


    "Good. Well I have a bad feeling that Loki might not be on Earth anymore," I admitted, getting a few startled looks. "With the Tesseract he can pop in literally anywhere, and for him there are a lot better ces to prepare for whatever is next than a gutter somewhere in New York or an empty abandoned building in Russia."


    "You are correct, my friend!" A loud, boisterous voice said from behind me. "Loki has many hidden hideaways and boltholes in which he may lick his wounds and recover."


    I turned to find the fully armored Thor standing in the doorway, Mjolnir strapped to his hip. He stepped into the room with a wide grin, looking confident as he looked at me.


    "Thor, it''s good to see you again," I said, reaching out a hand, which Thor epted in a warriors handshake. "I assume you are here for Loki?"


    "Indeed, as well as the Tesseract. Father wishes to use it to repair the Bifrost." Thor admitted, before fixing me with a stare. "I am also here to discuss a few things with you as well. It seems you have been creating things with materials not your own, and dabbling in magic borrowed from Asgard."


    "Uh Is this the kind of discussion that includes fists and a hammer?" I asked nervously.


    "No, not unless you refuse to listen to my fathers words,'''' Thor said seriously, though itcked heat. "Come, we shall find somece private to discuss this."


    Thor turned and walked out of the room, clearly expecting me to follow him. I looked around the room, getting a few curious looks from most of the upants. I let out a sigh and followed the Asgardian prince, with Ema right behind me.

 Chapter 78: Blood from the stone

    Chapter 78: Blood from the stone


    Thor led me to a seemingly random room, startling a Shield agent, who quickly grabbed their things and rushed out, sending wide eyed looks at the three of us before closing the door behind them. When we were finally alone Thor leaned back on a counter, crossing his arms as he examined me.


    "You were the topic of many a discussion in the halls of Asgard, Maker," Thor exined. "Father even informed Heimdall to pay particr attention to your activities. The schrs scoured the records for any magic, force or being capable of what you do with ease."


    "II''m not sure how to respond to that." I admitted, my nervousness only increasing. I could feel Ema''s tension rising as well.


    "My father was concerned that you may be some sort of higher being, masquerading as human for their own amusement," Thor exined, his arms still crossed. "He would not admit it, but he feared that you would prove dangerous and he would be forced to intervene. He almost did, when you began replicating the Destroyer armor. The only reason he did not was because of your healthy respect for the Odin Force and the repercussions of breaking our ancient treaty."


    "Treaty?"


    "We are bound by an ancient treaty to not interfere with the world of Midgard, save certain circumstances," He exined.


    "Oh Well either way I wouldn''t mess with his Juju," I assured him. "Not interested in stepping into that world of trouble."


    "And yet you had no issues using my own essence in your own creations." He pointed out, raising an eyebrow.


    "Woah, hey, that''s not how the Deck works," I assured him, raising my hands up. "The golden concept I got from your sparks was not directly attached to you. I would have been able to tell."


    "What do you mean?"


    "I assume you know the basics of how my power works?" I asked, getting a nod in return. "Well I get a breakdown of the concepts in each card, I can feel them when I focus on them. I''ll admit sometimes things can sneak through for moreplicated cards, but the lightning I got from you wasn''t veryplicated. It had magic, electricity and lighting, which were all sort of connected, but the glowing concept, what I assume you interpreted as me using your essence? That wasn''t connected to you. I wasn''t stealing or using your essence, or divinity or whatever, but essence in general. Here, let me show you."


    I pushed out my cab of tricks, digging through it for a moment before pulling out a maxed out healing amulet, a copy of my own version. I passed the Norse god the amulet, which he studied silently for a moment.


    "Hiemdall was watching when you made this," He said, running his fingers over the golden ents of the amulet. "You are correct that I feel no connection to this. I do not understand how that could be possible given the source of the essence you used."


    "A singr person''s identity is aplicated thing," I exined. "If I had to hazard a guess, I could have locked them together if I had ess to more samples, something like blood or a shard of Mjolnir. It also might have emerged if I had stacked all of the cards into one, something I specifically avoided to make sure I didn''t mess with you."


    Thor was silent, studying me in a way that I honestly hadn''t expected from him. Eventually he nodded, his arms uncrossing to support himself against the counter.


    "Father said as much, that I would have been able to tell immediately if you were toying with my actual essence," Thor admitted with a shrug. "But he was curious if you understood your precautions were sound or if you had only been blessed by luck. I am happy to hear that you were being careful for my sake."


    "Yeah, I wouldn''t have used it if it was tied to you."


    "Good, because if you had Odin would have smote you without warning," Thor exined. "He might be sworn that Asgardians will not engage with Midgard''s affairs, but there is room for discussion when it involves Asgardians."


    "Right okay. And what about"


    "Your use of the Destroyer armor?" Thor finished, while I nodded in confirmation. "It falls into the same category as you using the Bifrost energy. We left it here, lost track of our own weapon and we can hardly me you for your own resourcefulness. However, my father would take it as a personal favor if you kept a firm grip on both of them. He built the Destroyer with his own two hands, and while disconnecting it from the Odin Force has diminished it, your craftsmanship has created a truly powerful weapon. It is not a trinket to be passed out."


    "Yeah, I don''t have any ns to spread it around," I assured him. "Not to mention you can''t really study anything I make with the deck. It''s all kind of nonsense that just works."


    "Father would like me to bring a few samples of your creations home, so they could be studied," Thor asked. "He is interested in learning just where your powerse from, and how they work."


    "I could definitely agree to that, if we could set up some kind of trade," I offered, holding up my hands when he raised his eyebrows. "Nothing major, I''m just always on the lookout for exotic things."


    "We shall see," He responded, pushing off of the counter he was leaning on. "With the Tesseract gone I will have to wait for my father to recuperate from sending me here in the first ce. It may be several weeks before I am able to return."


    "What? Why?" I asked. "What about the Bifrost?"


    "The Bifrost was destroyed in my battle with Loki several months ago," Thor exined. "He attempted to use it to destroy Jotunheim and I was forced to stop him."


    "Holy hell And you can''t repair it?"


    "We can, but we require the Tesseract to do so, as it was what originally empowered it," Thor exined. "Without it my father was forced to gatherrge amounts of dark energy to send me here. It strained him greatly, forcing him into an early Odinsleep."


    "Damn Well I''m pretty sure Loki is going to being back, probably sooner rather thanter."


    "What makes you say that?"


    "Well for one, he obviously had a n, and I''m willing to bet he''s not the kind of person to just let a good n go to waste?" I asked, Thor nodding in agreement. "He also left behind his scepter. I exined this to Fury already but The blue gem that powers it is a big deal Do you know what an Infinity Stone is?"


    "I Yes, the name sounds familiar," He said, frowning as he tried to remember. "There are a number of them, they are older than the universe, unimaginable power? They are myths, legends. None of them have ever been found."


    "Well I think the blue gem contains one, probably the Mind Stone considering what he was doing with it" I said, trailing off before continuing. "And I think the Tesseract contains the other, the Space Stone."


    "That That is not good." Thor said simply, looking troubled. "If that is true then Loki will not rest before retrieving it. Assuming he knew what it was."


    "These things don''t just fall from the sky," I pointed out. "He would have had to have found it somewhere."


    "Truly we did not think Loki still lived." Thor admitted after a pause. "He fell off the shattered end of the Bifrost, into the void. His return shocked us all."


    "That sounds an awful lot like someone saved him," I suggested, Thor nodding in agreement. "Any ideas on who could do that?"


    "No, at least none beyond simple guesses," He admitted, looking very concerned. "In the end we must hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Come, the Director of Fury must be informed of this."<hr>


    An hourter we were all in a much more secure looking briefing room, simr to the one where Fury had informed us about Loki''s arrival. Tony, Banner, Betty, Clint, Steve, Bucky, Peggy and Natasha were all with us, listening to our exnation of my theory, and what exactly it meant to have an Infinity Stone on earth. By the end of it Fury was holding his head in his hands and rubbing his face.


    "What do you need to test this theory?" He asked when he finally recovered, now focused entirely on me.


    "I need the Scepter, so I can pull the gem from it and scan it directly. I''m hoping that that will give me a straight answer rather than a broad outline I got from scanning it tangentially."


    "Done, the WSC is meeting in about thirty minutes to discuss what we should do with a mind control stick but I''m making a judgment call."


    The one-eyed spy made a quick call on his phone, ordering someone to bring up the scepter, which was arge process in and of itself since they were taking pains to keep anyone out of its area of effect. While we were waiting Tony leaned forward.


    "So what are we doing about this impending return?" He asked, looking around at the table. "Lots of big names here but what''s the actual n?"


    "My teleport pads are the quickest way to respond to a threat. I can be anywhere on the in about twenty minutes, and most poption centers in a quarter of that," I exined. "The problem is we have no idea where Loki is going toe through, he could pop up literally anywhere."


    "The algorithm Banner and I came up with is running, but with no leads yet." Tony responded, Bruce nodding across from him.


    "That sounds like the Tesseract isn''t here any more." Clint pointed out.


    "Tony, if you whip something up"


    "You can do your bullshit, yeah I''ve already got a general n," He responded, already nodding. "I''m gonna have to tear up a spectrometer but it won''t take long."


    "Good, depending on how that works out, I can make that into something which would let us monitor the whole at once."


    As Tony and I talked I watched Clint, Bruce and Betty look slightly confused. I also noticed that Fury had leaned back in his chair and seemed content to let us spitball ideas, which I found odd considering his usual control freak nature. Ignoring it for now I focused on the three who seemed lost.


    "My powers, they work bybining my cards together. Short answer is that I can blend things together and essentially craft things by anticipating what the blending will do. It functions on concepts, which I can sense when I hold one of my cards."


    I exined, summoning a random card from the Deck, making it disappear back into my cards with a flourish. I waved off their questions, shaking my head.


    "It''s not that simple and we really don''t have time for the details," I said before turning to Steve. "What do you think?"


    "I think there isn''t much most of us can do but wait," Steve answered, shaking his head with a deep frown. "Do we have any leads on what he was trying to do?"


    "He was attempting to open a stabilized portal," Peggy exined, an open folder in front of her. "ording to what his victims have told us. To what, or for what purpose, we don''t know."


    "There''s only so much you could be doing with that," Bucky pointed out, the military trained members of the group grimacing. "Either someone wants toe through, or someone wants to leave."


    "For now we should assume someone wants toe here," Fury pointed out. "If someone wanted to leave well I don''t think it would go down quite like this."


    The group agreed with the director, who was about to continue when someone knocked on the door, which opened a momentter, revealing Coulson. He was pushing a cart of some sort with a beefy looking box on top.


    "Maker, you''re up." Fury said, nodding to the box as Coulson finished pushing it into the room and along one of the walls.


    I stood from my chair, making my way to the box, Coulson stepping back. I nodded to the suit wearing agent, who simply nodded in return. I put my hand on thergetches that held the box closed before looking around.


    "Everyone has an Anti-cuff on, right?" I asked, getting various nods in return. "Alright, let''s give this a shot."


    I pulled the scepter out of its containment and turned, cing it down on the table. I reached down into my belt and flicked out my enhanced knife, leaning down over the weapon. I carefully sliced the blue gem free, pulling it out with two fingers. Before I could even react I stumbled, barely managing to stay upright as everything shed through my mind at once.


    Images of me, of Clint''s farm, of a cul de sac and a young blonde girl with a scraped knee. I could see Bruce, stepping in front of some sort of machine, horror running through me as the man I loved sacrificed himself. I could see a woman, dressed in some sort of red blue and gold uniform that I recognized immediately in the back of my brain as Captain Marvel. I could see a woman with long brown hair ying a cello, one of many people ying but all I could focus on. I could feel the self loathing as I realized what horrible things the weapons I had made were being used for and the despair as the destruction my body had caused when I lost my temper. I could feel my mind expanding, feel it-


    A slicing pain was suddenly all I could feel as my mind stuttered, froze and refocused. I was once again standing in the Helicarrier meeting room. I idly realized that a significant number of the Avengers were standing around me, various looks of worry and horror on their faces. Natasha was standing beside me, and helped me sit down in a chair. It took me a moment longer to realize Ema was standing beside me as well, her arm in the form of a sharp de. I looked down and realized she had cut off the two fingers I had been using to hold the blue gem.


    "What the hell was that?" Fury asked, standing with one hand on his gun.


    "I I didn''t think that through." I admitted, taking a deep breath to steady myself. "It was starting to overwhelm me, the Mind Stone''s energy."


    My fingers, which were already almost done re-growing, had been charred and fried to the bone, the energy of the Mind Stone burning through my tattoo improvements in seconds.


    "How long was I?"


    "We were trying to get you to drop the stone for about thirty seconds," Ema answered. "When your fingers started to char I went with n B."


    "Thanks, I think you might have saved my life," I said, shivering slightly. "That that is power normal humans can''t handle. If I wasn''t enhanced as hell that might have destroyed my mind. I had assumed the blue shell was some sort of protective barrier because the Mind Stone is supposed to be yellow but It clearly isn''t enough."


    I took another deep breath, examining my hand for a moment before I stood, deployed my cab of tricks and grabbed a universal scanner before closing the cab and carding it again. I ran my scanner over the stone, managing to avoid scanning the charred remains of my fingers. As I sat back down I reached forward and carded my fingers, idly tearing the cards before finally examining the readings.


    "It''s the Mind Stone," I confirmed, ignoring Fury''s curse. "The blue shell around it is an ancient attempt to seal its signature away while still allowing you to draw its energy."


    "Well they did a great job." Clint said sarcastically. "What the hell should we do with it?"


    "Maker''s original idea of keeping it somewhere far away from poption centers is a good start." Natasha pointed out, now sitting beside me, Ema on my other side. "Beyond that we do what we can to prepare and hope that it''s enough."

 Chapter 79: The calm

    Chapter 79: The calm


    Now properly identified, the stone was quickly put in its box, nestled back with the scepter despite the fact that it was no longer functional. It was pushed away by Coulson, a pair of Shield soldiers escorting him back out of the room. Once the Stone was gone Fury focused back on the group, opening his mouth to speak before Tony cut him off.


    "Why are we okay with Fury just having that?" Tony asked, looking confused. "Who knows where it''s going to end up?"


    "The stone isn''t leaving the Helicarrier," Fury exined. "The Helicarrier is one of Shields strongest military assets, it makes no sense to ship the stone away when we can just move the ship. We will be maneuvering the ship out into the open ocean, where our other naval assets, as well as the US Navy can provide extra support. Any iing threats will likely be focused on the stone."


    "Are we sure about that?" Betty asked, getting a surprised look from Tony. "Are we sure that Loki will target it specifically?"


    "We don''t even know if Loki is going to be the one showing up," Bucky pointed out. "For all we know someone is pulling his strings."


    "So we don''t put all our eggs in one basket," Steve suggested with a shrug, as if it was simple. "Maker can get us anywhere we need to go. So Shield focuses on the stone, and the rest of us stay ready to go where we are needed."


    "Who is ''we''?" Natasha asked.


    "Us." Steve answered simply, looking each of us. "All of us, the enhanced squad and whoever else is willing to volunteer. We can hold off whatever they send until the National Guard and Shield can respond. It won''t be pretty but we don''t have much of a choice."


    Natasha simply nodded in response. I had a feeling she hadn''t been asking to cast doubt, but rather to let everyone confirm that was what was happening.


    We talked more about what we could do, what our ns were. Unfortunately there wasn''t much we could do, beyond make ns and prepare. I snagged the UCM that had been printing out Anti-cuffs, though I let Shield keep the cuffs it had already made. I also headed to the warehouse to grab a few more, before traveling to the <em>Void Skipper.</em> I set its cloak to full, making it vanishpletely before setting it to follow above me in geosynchronous orbit. I had decided to stay on the Helicarrier, but having the spacecraft as close as possible without spooking everyone seemed like a good idea.


    When I was done with that I put together a travel system, one with only a single destination. That if whatever Loki did happened somewhere else, I could travel to the closest location to wherever we were needed, fly the remaining distance and ce down anding pad, where everyone could travel to. I passed out the travel bracers to everyone, binding them as I was going to be doing with everything I would be handing out.


    While I was working on that Tony, the genius that he is, took the Tesseract detector a step further and created, with the help of Bruce, a Infinity Stone detector, tuned to the radiation that had beening off of the Tesseract and what wasing from sealed Mind Stone. At the cost of a mass spectrometer, he handed me a device made to find the most powerful artifacts in the Marvel universe. His device was limited to a few hundred feet, but with a few dozen things from my storage shed I had it working on a global scale. It perfectly tracked us as the Helicarrier left the DC naval base, escorted by a Shield destroyer as well as two US destroyers.


    It also tracked a blip in Nepal.


    I almost dropped the tablet, standing up from the temporary workshop I had set up in a space inside the Helicarrier, not far from where Tony had apparently been keeping his armor, though he had left by this point. Before I could do anything else a small circle of familiar shimmering orange sparks appeared, opening into a portal. A folded note dropped through, which I caught as it fell beside me.


    "You''ve got to be fucking kidding me." I mumbled to myself, reading through the note.


    It was a simple message from the Ancient One, assuring me they would keep the Time Stone safe, and that they would keep it somewhere my tracker couldn''t see untilter. The note fluttered away into orange sparks once I was done reading it. Sure enough, when I checked the tracking tablet again the second signature was gone.


    "She is going to have a lot of exining to do." I mumbled to myself. "Where the hell did she even get the Time Stone?"


    With the scanner now clear save the Mind Stone, I made a scan of the tablet, setting a UCM to copy it twice before handing off the original to Fury. As scary as another stone here on Earth was, I had plenty of time to worry about that after Loki was taken care of.


    After the tablet was done I began working on other things, trying my best to prepare for whatever Loki would bring back with him. As I worked I did my best to keep myself from going crazy from anxiety, all the while racking my brain, trying to recall if there was some story line like this in theics. One particr name kepting to mind when Infinity Stones were involved, the crazy bastard in love with Death herself.


    Thanos.


    The idea of him being behind all of this was horrifying to say the least, though just the idea of the stones themselves was pretty terrifying.


    I shook my head to keep from sinking any deeper into my anxiety, instead focusing on what I could do to prepare. I put together a moreprehensive load out for Clint and Natasha, loading them up with new mystically enhanced armor, a powerful healing amulet that wasn''t just a copy of my own, silent running footwear, shield deploying vambraces, helmets simr to Steve''s and some stamina boosting jewelry. Ema gave them both durability enhancing tattoos on par with my own as well. When I was done with them I created another squad of enhanced soldiers for Shield at Fury''s request, passing outmunication buds to everyone who was going to be a part of the quick reaction force.


    I was rushing to get as many things done as possible, including the finishing touches on my first attempt to help people on arger scale. While it had started as a more subtle idea, the finished product was remotely adjustable, which would allow me to crank up its effects in times of emergency. I was calling them nurse stones for now.


    Essentially the device started as a quintuple stacked wardstone, basically stacking them together until diminishing returns turned into no returns. From there it got more and moreplicated, but the result was a ward stone that would help people recover, heal and stay healed in a certain radius, a single mile by default. Instead of spontaneously healing people however, it would help people get better on their own. Treatments would be slightly more effective, pain slightly less debilitating. Germs were slightly less likely to spread, while infections were slightly less likely to develop, and if they did the body was just a bit better at fighting it off. Even things like defibritors would be slightly more effective. It would not heal a person directly, meaning that a surgeon could cut someone open, remove their appendix and not only would they not grow it back, but the incision wouldn''t heal up mid surgery.


    At first the effects were minor, a barely noticeable statistical bump. But over the span of months the effect would increase, improving almost every aspect of the healing and recovery process. The radius of the nurse stone would also increase, spreading further and further around the hospital. Eventually the idea was to spread the nurse stones over the entire, a monumental task, but one that I could definitely eventually achieve with enough time. The nurse stones aid field would eventually merge together, leaving the entire in better health.


    Thankfully they were almost finished, having gotten most of the work done while I was "taking it easy" after finishing the four new Sanctums. Myst addition was working to increase its effectiveness with children. Now, if the overall effect was a nebulous one percent, the effect on kids would be around two. The nurse stones could also be cranked up on a case by case basis, meaning I could turn it up to a nebulous fifty percent when a disaster happened, cutting the death tolls for those disasters by a significant margin.


    Unfortunately, I hadn''t even started working on the secondary idea, a global shield system that would protect the Earth from physical attacks. Not that it would do anything since Loki had the Space Stone, which was essentially a ticket to anywhere at any time.


    Over the next twenty seven hours Ema distributed the incrediblyplicated device to a massive number of hospitals, focusing on cities with the highest poptions first, eventually including smaller hospitals and doctors offices. She worked out of the warehouse, almost all of my UCM''s churning out the nurse stones.


    While Ema was doing her best to get as many cities as possible ready for a potential disaster, I continued working. I enhanced Natasha''s guns further, making sure she would have some extra stopping power. I also bound Ema''s old bow to Clint as he needed it much more than she did, and somewhere along the way she had shifted to a much more visceral and melee focused fighting style. I warned him not to activate its special lightning bolt before he needed it as it would take time to recharge.


    With her long range weapon now passed on to Clint, I quickly put together a back up ranged option for my partner, stacking a half dozen 1911A''s into one pistol, mixing in the usual enhancements andpacting it into a ring. I added in a st from my own revolvers to up the damage as well. It was a bit nerve racking handing out a fully upgraded pistol that wasn''t bonded to someone, but I figured if there was anyone I could trust it with it would be Ema.


    Eventually, when the Helicarrier was somewhere in the Antic Ocean, surrounded by a bunch of other warships, Natasha came down to my temporary workshop carrying two tes of food.


    "Maker, it''s one in the morning." She said as she put down the tes of food, some sort of cafeteria approximation of chicken parmesan. "You need to eat, and get some sleep."


    I let out a sigh, rubbing my forehead and nodding.


    "Yeah yeah you''re right," I admitted. "I was spinning my wheels anyway, trying to think of useful things that I could make quickly. Ema would have stopped me at this point but she is off taking care of some things."


    I grabbed some chairs from the storage shed and pushed them out by the workstation, the redhead super spy sitting down with a smile.


    "You''re not used to this, are you?" She asked, though it felt more like a statement.


    "Not used to what?"


    "Knowing something big ising but not having a way to stop it."


    "...No, very much not," I admitted after a pause. "Before the Deck I didn''t have to think about stuff like this. I was just like everyone else, those kinds of big threats didn''t happen to me, they were someone else''s problem. Since then, I''ve been able to muscle through or just build a solution to everything."


    Natasha nodded, finishing a bite of her food before responding.


    "It doesn''t get any easier, at least not while staying sane." She admitted. "But you can learn to deal with it with time, learn healthy ways to cope."


    "Really? Any suggestions."


    "Focus on the fact that you''re doing everything you reasonably can, that someone else is responsible for the bad things, not you, and that you can''t solve every problem. Even with a magic deck of cards."


    I smirked and nodded, chewing a mouthful of pasta. It wasn''t actually that bad, but I think I was getting a bit spoiled by Alfred.


    "I''m d you and Clint agreed to carry more gear, and the durability tattoo''s," Imented.


    "I''m d Clint agreed as well, he was the one I was waiting for," Natasha exined with a shrug. "We have been working together for so long, I couldn''t leave him behind like that."


    "I guess that means you wouldn''t ept it if I offered you a powered suit?" I guessed.


    "No, and not just for that reason," She said, shaking her head. "Part of my skill set is blending in. I need to be able to blend into a crowd in seconds. Which is why your mask is so useful."


    As she exined herself her face was subtly shifting in shape, slow enough that I wasn''t sure it was happening at first. Her voice slowly changed as well, shifting to a slightly deeper one that sounded like she smoked heavily. When she was done she lookedpletely different, especially when her hair shifted in a sh to ck with purple highlights. She also suddenly had piercings on her nose and lip.


    "Woah, wait, how are you doing the piercings?" I asked, moving my head around to get a closer look.


    "Wait you didn''t mean for it to do that?" She said, wide eyed and shocked. "It doesn''t feel like real metal but it looks like it."


    "No, I had no idea it could do that," I admitted, focusing on my own mask, a piercing slowly forming on my lip. "Holy crap, yeah I had no idea."


    "I''m not sure if I should be proud I figured that out when its own maker didn''t know, or worried that you''re surprised by it."


    "Here, let me see it." I said, holding out my hand. "I know I triple checked it to make sure it wasn''t different from mine, but I can check again if it makes you feel better."


    Her face turned into her mask as she pulled it off, handing it to me. I carded it, examining its concepts before shaking my head and passing it back.


    "Yeah, it''s the same as mine as far as I can remember. Nothing stands out as new or anything. It''s probably the strong transformation concept connecting with the other materials and the makeup for coloring. Still, nice find."


    "Thanks," she said simply, putting the mask back on, her face already back to its normal look as the mask shifts away.


    "You know, if you get me a bunch of clothes that are specifically designed to shift and change, like quick change magician clothes, I could probably make you an outfit that changes onmand, just like the mask." I offered, taping my face. "I''ll probably need a couple dozen bolts of cloth as well maybe some clothes modifying kits?"


    Natasha''s eyes went wide, opening her mouth to say something before the world caught up with her and she nodded.


    "On the other side of this I''ll see what we can put together," She said with a shrug. "Those types of clothes are usually easy to identify when you know what you''re looking for."


    "So are full facial masks, but no one could point out ours." I responded with a smile. "Either way, I''ll make one for you. Just don''t forget because there is no way in hell I''ll remember, not with out Ema here to take down a note."


    "You depend on her a lot." Natasha pointed out. "Who is she exactly? I mean not literally but"


    I opened my mouth to answer before I realized that Natasha had no idea who Ema was under her exosuit. The only people who did were Tony and Pepper, and I couldn''t just blurt that out without asking her first.


    "She is my partner, but I can''t really go into detail without her permission," I answered.


    "Your partner, but you''re not" she said, trailing off before lifting her eyebrow.


    "Oh, no, she has a boyfriend," I exined, shaking my head. "No, we are just close, nothing like that."


    "Oh." She responded, before giving me a sultry smirk and standing. "Good."


    My brain froze as she grabbed our now clean empty tes, stacking them and walking back the way she came from. My brain was stuck at the very clear implications of what she just said.


    "Get some sleep!" She called back, looking over her shoulder with the smirk still on her lips.


    I watched as she stepped out of view, leaving me alone in my temporary workshop. It was at least a minute before my brain was working well enough for me to pack everything up and card my storage shed. Eventually I managed to get someone to direct me to a bed, the random Shield agent leading me to some sort of bedroom, probably one designed for important passengers given how important space was on an aircraft carrier.


    I made a short call to Ema, exining that I was heading to bed, and what I had managed to aplish. After that was done Iid back in the decentlyfortable bed, staring at the metal ceiling. It took a little while, but eventually I drifted off to sleep.

 Chapter 80: The storm

    Chapter 80: The storm


    I woke up the next morning feeling marginally rested, but still tense. After a quick breakfast from the cafeteria I found an empty room on the floor below the flight deck and set up the travelnding pad. I could recover it in a few seconds should I need to move it somewhere else after all. With that set up I headed out into the hallways, making my way out to the top deck and into the sunshine.


    The flight deck looked nothing like it had the day before.


    What was once an open area with quinjets and normal jets lined up, ready for take off, was now a fully fortified position. Shield soldiers stood ready, fully armed and armored, prepared to fight. There were gun emcements, anti-air turrets, all connected with tes of deployable cover, some of it even bolted to the floor.


    All of the jets were cleared as well, either sent out during the night or stored below in the interior of the ship while I was asleep. I could see Bucky and Steve not far away, talking to their two squads of enhanced soldiers, the newest additions going through what looked like practice drills, probably to get used to their new abilities.


    I kept scanning the area, finally seeing who I was looking for.


    "Fury!" I called out, jogging over to the Director.


    "What is it?" He responded after taking a sip from his coffee. "This is the first break I''ve had since Loki kicked down our door, what do you want?"


    "Permission to deploy some of my own equipment?" I said, unable to hide my smirk.


    "...Fine," He said, almost reluctantly."But I reserve the right to push them off my ship."


    "Fair enough."


    I turned and headed to the closest clear space, which happened to be about twenty feet away. I pushed out the five ck metallic trunks, lining them up in a row, utching each one after I pushed it from their card. Instead of the top opening, the front wall did, pping to the ground. Steve, Bucky, and Fury all stepped up behind me as my army slid out onto the deck.


    Droids pushed out of the crate two at a time, side by side. They started aspacted cubes, unfolding once they were clear and looking around before walking forward. This repeated until ten robots had stepped out of each trunk, all in almost perfect sync.


    The first of the robots from each trunk were two caduceus droids, still painted white, marked as medics andpletely unarmed. After them came six battle bots, each oneing armed with the final versions of my infantry weapons, including one with abo cannon, strapped to their backs. The battle bots were a dark blue with gold highlights, though that coloring could shift to various forms of camouge as well. They were slightly taller than the caduceus droids, each one seven feet tall and heavily armored with my ultra metal. They honestly looked like science fiction knights, all they needed were swords and cloaks.


    Thest two droids out of storage were evenrger than the other two types. Where the first two had been more or less cubes in theirpact state and slid out side by side, these slid out on their own. As they unfolded to their full height of eight feet, it was immediately apparent what made these ones special. The newest members of the squads looked like abination of the battle bots and the Destroyer armor, with connected bands of metal running under te armor, all of it colored a dark purple with gold highlights. They were alsopletely unarmed. Instead, these droids were mobile cover, capable of projecting the most powerful energy shield I could make. Each one had several Destroyer armors woven in, with a heart containing apletely maxed out, singr shield generator.


    I was calling them behemoths


    With my own mini army deployed I turned to look at my audience, finding wide eyes, dropped jaws and concerned looks. With a smirk I turned back, focusing on my droids.


    "Alright! Spread out along the deck, keep scanning for anything unusual. Caduceus droids I want you to spread out around the squishy Shield agents. Behemoths, I want you guys working together to get as much of the defenses covered as possible, try and double up if it''s possible. Follow basic orders from Shield agents for the next twenty four hours. "


    The fifty droids moved as one, separating quickly to spread out to the fortifications, heads on a swivel as they scanned around, keeping an eye on the water and the sky.


    "What the fuck Maker?" Fury asked as I walked back, smirking slightly. "How long have you had them?"


    "About two months now?" I answered. "I wanted a force multiplier that I could deploy whenever, wherever I needed them. With some help from Tony and some Deck creativity"


    "How effective are they?" Steve asked, Bucky already jogging back to their squads to help coordinate with my additions.


    "I mean you''ve seen the guns," I reminded him with a shrug, Fury giving the super soldier a harsh look. "The battle bots are a bit literal when instructed to do non military things, and caduceus droids take the hippocratic oath seriously for humans, unless I order them not to directly. The behemoths well there wasn''t much to build with when it came to them, not a lot of human shield training to use. They understand the basics of shields and cover from some books on shield walls and stuff like that, but their programming is pretty basic."


    "That doesn''t answer the question," Fury pointed out. "Are they effective?"


    "Of course they are effective Fury, not to toot my own horn but have I ever fielded something that wasn''t? They have the ybooks of a dozen different types of special forces, including Navy Seals, Spetsnaz and Delta Force. They can be instructed to follow other orders, but I would only give out basic order rights like I just did."


    "And what are those?" Steve asked, seemingly beating Fury by a second.


    "Positioning, camp instructions like ''help me lift this'' or ''help me set up a barricade''," I exined. "They can be ordered to hold their fire, and automatically return fire if they or someone designated as an ally are attacked. The battle bots are soldiers, they will act like soldiers, just under someone else''smand. The caduceus droids will act like a cross between doctors and army medics."


    "Are they sentient?"


    "Not in the slightest. I''m not going to create life for the express purpose of being soldiers, or ves." I assured them, shaking my head. "They are extremely well built VI''s, not capable of independent thought, self determination orplicated learning."


    "Are they like you?" Fury asked.


    "No. Well they are like me without my armor, but tougher," I exined. "They are about as strong as me without armor though, so about Steve''s level."


    "Dammit Maker, this is going to change a lot," Fury said, shaking his head. "We thought it was just you and Emerald, but with these guys"


    All I could do was shrug.


    We watched Shield and my soldiers mingle, my bots getting into position and not moving, Shield agents and soldiers watching them closely, inspecting the machines. A few people even touched them, rapping on their metal chests or feeling their equipment. Steve opened his mouth to call out to them, but I stopped him.


    "They are machines, Steve, just another piece of equipment. You wouldn''t stop them from kicking the tires of a new humvee would you?"


    "No, but they should have more respect."


    "I don''t want them to." I exined, shaking my head. "Their effectiveness will get them some, but I want as little personification going on as possible. They are tools to use and throw away if necessary, no risking themselves to drag them out of harm, no getting worried when one takes a hit meant for them, just disposable tools. The only reason they are even bipedal is because I want them to be able to use normal equipment if they have to."


    "I alright."


    "So Any news?"


    "None. I have agents in every city in the world, watching the skies, listening to police scanners," Fury responded, his hands in his pockets as he watched my robots. "Nothing so far. Is there anything you could do to help?"


    "Not unless Thor has a few things that belong to Loki, or a sample of Loki''s blood," I responded. "I could use books on mythology but I would need some sort of anchor to actual Loki."


    "Forget Loki, I''m worried about what might being with him," He countered, shaking his head. "Who knows what he will bring with him, I''m-"


    Before Fury could finish his thought, we both noticed a low rumbling. A Shield soldier about thirty feet away started shouting, pointing up into the sky, my soldier robots immediately aiming up. Both Fury and I looked up to see a churning dark cloud and sparks of energy, the power of the Tesseract, spreading high in the air. For a moment it looked like the sky was being poured into space through a small hole before it opened into a wide dark disk.


    "Looks like we are about to find out," I said, my armor deploying around my body, my revolvers on my hips.


    As the portal grew Fury reached for his radio, bringing it to his lips. I took out my phone, preparing to call Tony when instead I got a text message from him, simply saying that he was on his way. Steve ran back to his squad, preparing for theing fight.


    "All hands, this is Director Fury! Battlestations! Repeat, all hands to battlestations!" Fury shouted into his radio, his words getting sent out across the ship. "Hold your fire until fired upon! Repeat, hold your fire!"


    The portal kept growing, and though it was hard to tell with how far in the air it was, it had to be at least fifty feet wide. It pulsed with energy before seaming to stabilize. Momentster they began pouring through.


    Small flying craft, no bigger than a sedan, flew through the portal, directly down. Dozens of them made a beeline to the ships below. For a long moment everyone watched, the aliens plummet towards us. A single streak of pale blue energy fired from one of the small vehicles, mming into a nearby destroyer. And with that, the moment was over.


    All at once, dozens of anti air weapons opened fire, tracer rounds streaking up to eviscerate the flying vehicles. They exploded in balls of fire, scrap and shrapnel exploding out, some even setting off secondary explosions. More and more of them poured in from the portal, all of them getting immediately destroyed. My attention was pulled away from the massacre by the approaching subtle clunks of metal.


    Tony, suited up in his full armor, had joined us on the flight deck, his helmet pulled back and his face exposed. His new armor looked impressive, and nothing like his original. His chest now contained three glowing triangles arranged in a vertical line, thergest on the top and the smallest on the bottom, just above where his belly button would be. His color scheme was still red and gold, but now included a silver highlighting from behind the metal ting. As I looked closer I could see the silver highlight was a taught mass of metallic fibers wrapped into cables, like some sort of artificial muscle. It shared a few simrities to his TinMan Armor from theics. This was mostly covered with his more traditional ted armor design, which appeared to be


    "What happened to not using that as armor ting?" I asked, stopping just short of admitting to giving him vibranium in front of Nick Fury.


    "You gave me so much I ran out of ces to use it." Tony fired back before looking up at the portal. " That''s terrifying."


    "I rmend staying low if you''re going to fly around." Fury said, not looking away from the portal.


    "Yeah, good idea."


    For at least three minutes the fleet''s anti air weapons held off the iing vehicles with ease,pletely halting any advance. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the portal shrank, small enough that I had to engage my enhanced vision to see it. A few cheers echoed out across the water, a few even originating from the Helicarriers flight deck as it disappeared from most people''s sight. Before I could open my mouth to correct anyone, someone spoke from beside me.


    "This isn''t over." Natasha said, having arrived without anyone noticing, with Clint right beside her.


    I looked back up at where the portal had been a moment before, but now I couldn''t find it. Before I could say anything a voice called out from the radio.


    "North East! Portal opening just above sea level to the North East!"


    Sure enough, only a few hundred feet away, the portal was opening again, this time only a few dozen feet above the water. Immediately the same flying vehicles poured out the disk of ck space. I could just barely see something, something big, further into the portal.


    "Here theye!"


    The vehicles reached the ships arrayed around the Helicarrier in seconds, zipping by and hammering them with sts of energy. Plenty of the vehicles were destroyed, but the anti-air facing inward stayed silent as they couldn''t risk hitting friendlies.


    "Alright, time to go to work." Tony said, his repulsors firing as heunched into the sky.


    "I''m going to join him, make sure they know not to shoot anything with wings." I said to Fury, my wings spreading out as I tapped amunicator that was attached to my wrist. "Squad five and four, split in half and start heading to the other ships! Help where you can!"


    I rocketed into the air after Tony, vaguely acknowledging that twenty of my droids took to the air as well, splitting up and heading to the four other destroyers. I was much more focused on pulling out my revolvers, cranking up their power setting a few levels and focusing on iing vehicles.


    As I got closer, I could see the vehicles more clearly. They each had two bipedal aliens on them, one in the back firing some sort of energy weapon, while another alien drove. The whole thing looked a bit like a chariot.


    "Are you going to help or just stare?" Tony asked, his voiceing from my internalmunicator.


    "Right, yeah!" I said, continuing to st away at the alien chariots.


    Slowly but surely we started to push the invaders back. There were hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, but once Tony and I got into the groove, and the soldiers and droids on the ships got into better positions, very few of the chariots made it to the fleet. After a few minutes it got even easier when Ema joined us, as did Thor. Together, backed up by the firepower of the fleet, we held off the iing swarm.


    Until the portal grew and the massive space whales came through.


    They were huge, spined, horrible looking creatures, making wailing noises as they pushed through the erged portal, three at a time until there were twelve of them. One managed to smash into Tony, knocking him off course and into Ema, who only barely managed to keep herself fromshing out at the sudden impact.


    I holstered one of my revolvers and shifted the other into its shotgun form, racing after the massive spined and armored abominations,nding on its back. I pumped a half dozen shots into the top of its head, softening up its armor before cranking my weapon up to full power. The gun kicked and sted a beam of pure fiery energy into the top of its head, where I held it for the full four second st. The flying creature let out a roar as the horrific smell of cooked and burnt meat spread, before it cut off with gurgle. The space monstrosity started to list and fall from the sky, smashing into the water as I flew up higher.


    A quick look around saw that everyone else had managed to take down one by themselves as well. I looked just in time to see Tony''s erupt in fire and gore, Ema''s fall into two pieces as she decapitated it with a massive slice and Thor''s get sted by all of the lightning.


    Unfortunately, even as we each took down our own monster space whale, eight more made it past us, as well as dozens if not hundreds of chariots, which harried the ships and kept them from taking down the massive flying monsters. Oddly enough no more reinforcements came through, through the portal remained open.


    As the massive space whales got closer to the ships, one of them mmed into a destroyer''s bridge, tearing and crushing it, continuing on to their main target. They circled the Helicarrier,unching scores of aliens down and onto the flight deck, revealing themselves as carriers for ground troops. Only about half of the alien soldiers even made it to the deck, but those that died were quickly reced by the next waves. The AA made quick work of the space whales as they turned back around, but there were just too many.


    Before I could elerate towards the Helicarrier my danger sense screamed at me, in a way it never had before. On pure adrenaline fueled instinct I dove down, mming into Tony, pulling him down about twenty feet. Where we had both just been, a thick beam of blue energy fired through the portal, streaked across the ocean and mmed into one of the destroyers. The resulting orange and red explosion engulfed almost half the ship, splitting it in two with enough force that the front end rose out of the water before mming back down. Fire and ck smoke billowed from the broken ship as the reverberations of the blue beam shook the air around us.

 Chapter 81: Break on through

    Chapter 81: Break on through


    "Holy shit!" Tony cursed, both of us recovering from my sudden dive. "Thanks for the save!"


    I scanned the area, taking in the situation. The destroyer was sinking, sailors jumping off into the water. My vision clicked in and I could see my droids helping pull people out of the sinking boat. I quickly lifted my hand and shouted into mymunicator.


    "Squads five and four! Battle bots, focus on the sinking ship! Evacuate and transport all survivors to nearby vessels!"


    Even as I gave my orders I could see the destroyers and Helicarrier shifting away from the portal, trying to get out of the firing line of whatever was responsible for that beam of energy. As Tony, Thor, Ema and Inded on the Helicarrier the ships opened fire on the portal, having head time to realign and shift to keep clear of firing lines.


    "Haha! Finally, a proper fight! HAVE AT THEE!" Thor shouted, jumping clear over some deployed cover, smashing an alien with his hammer.


    Natasha, d in her enhanced armor, stood from her own cover, firing the pistols I had made for her while Clint picked off any aliens who targeted them. An arrow even whizzed by me, punching through the skull of an alien aiming at Tony.


    Meanwhile, the aliens pumped sts of energy at us, all of them sttering harmlessly against the energy shields my behemoths were creating. They were cycling through different behemoths to keep the shields from falling for even a second. More and more aliensnded on the deck of the Helicarrier, but none of themsted very long.


    Even the massive space whales were being taken out, the slower moving monstrosities getting eviscerated by conventional missiles and my own droids firing theirbo cannons. What had at first seemed like an extremely dangerous and tense fight was actuallypletely one sided.


    I made my way to Fury, who was standing back behind the full sized cover nearest to the bridge. He was yellingmands into his radio, keeping in contact with the captains of the other destroyers. He saw me enter the cover and nodded.


    "We can handle the troops, we can even handle those big flying fucks but we can''tpete with whatever is on the other side!" he shouted. "We need to-"


    Another beam of blue energy tore through the air, this one aiming at the Helicarrier, though it was aimed at the bridge, not the hull. It mmed into the energy shield, a glowing dome of energy absorbing it. Even as the beam ended the behemoth responsible for the shield started to glow bright orange, melting slightly and copsing from the incredible strain. Fury''s eyes widened and he looked to me, opening his mouth to talk, but I was already shouting into mymunicator.


    "Squads four and five, focus your behemoths on the portal side of your ships! Squads one two and three, send two behemoths out to the other ships!"


    Two behemoths immediately took off from the deck, flying slowly across the gap, while a slight shimmer appeared on the remaining destroyers, only on the side facing the portal. Confident my orders were being followed, I turned back to Fury.


    "That should give us some time, but not a lot of it," I said, Fury nodding in agreement.


    "Better than nothing."


    "Has there been any reports of any other activity?" I asked, standing out of cover to fire my revolvers, taking out a few aliens before turning back.


    "No, there hasn''t been anything," Fury said, shaking his head. "They are focusing on us entirely."


    "Well that''s good, at least they aren''t I''m not going to tempt Murphy." I said, shaking my head. "We-"


    "The portal is moving!"


    Fury and I shared a look, both of us rushing outside. I vaguely noted that most of the fighting had already petered out with no more reinforcements from the portal. Looking around I could see that the portal had shifted higher into the air, this time not bothering to shrink first. It rose about three hundred feet into the air before massively growing, the massive hole in space dwarfing the Helicarrier.


    "That''s. That''s not good," I said, mouth hanging open.


    Another beam of energy fired through the portal, mming into the shield of the nearest destroyer, the dome glowing brightly, flickering out after the st of energy was over. I could just make out a red hot bundle of g falling over the side of the ship into the water.


    That was just on my periphery though, because the vast majority of my attention was focused on the massive fuck off ship slowly pushing through the portal.


    The ship was shaped vaguely like an "X" with four massive arms jutting forward from the end of each line. Each of those arms was slightlyrger than a destroyer, while the central hub connecting them was a solid match for the mass of the Helicarrier.


    "Hit it!" Fury shouted into his radio. "Hit it with everything you got!"


    The ships began to shift as more of the four arms pushed through the portal, the ship slowly but surely making its way to our side. Missiles streaked from the decks of the destroyers, while their biggest turrets mmed round after round of heavy ordnance into the alien vessel. Explosions ripped along its arms hull, ranging in size. Small chunks of its hull were wrenched free, debris falling into the water below, but the explosions were hardly making dents in its armor.


    The central hub of the ship, which was still behind the portal pulsed with blue light, energy feeding and gathering around a central point before it fired another beam of energy, mming into another destroyer''s shields, taking down another behemoth.


    "We need to keep that thing from establishing a beachhead," Fury said.


    "Can you scramble the fighter jets?" I suggested, only for Fury to shake his head, his eyes still locked onto the alien ship.


    "No, it would take them too long to get to the deck," He exined. "The quinjet could make it out fine but they don''t carry anything as heavy as what we are already hitting them with."


    "Well I can make something powerful, if it''s portable I canbine it together and make something. But I need resources!"


    "What do you need?"


    "Anything you can get me ess to! The most powerful explosives you can get me, some sort of firing system, maybe-"


    "We can''t just blow up the ship," Tony said through thes. "Have you taken a look at what''s behind it?"


    Fury and I shared a look, the Director of Shield pulling a monocr out of his jacket while I looked with my enhanced vision. Sure enough, behind the "X" shaped ship there was another vessel, hiding in the darkness of space. I could see a beam of energying from it, heading right to the portal.


    "I"m pretty sure that that second ship is the one opening the portal," Tony exined. "If we destroy this ship, then all they will have to do is close the portal, wait a few days and try again. And again, and again."


    "...They fucked up," Imented, getting a slow nod from Fury. "They must not have expected this kind of resistance, they clearly didn''t ount for such an effective bottleneck. But if we shut them down here without the Tesseract"


    "Then they could open a new portal anywhere they want, whenever they wanted," Tony finished, to my mounting horror. "Establishing a beachhead will be as easy as picking an empty spot and sending in the fleet."


    As we talked the massive ship crept in further, its thrusters firing hard, seemingly struggling to get a sense for flying in gravity. But it was stilling.


    "So we need to get to the Tesseract," Fury summarized. "Are you volunteering to go on a space walk, Stark? Is that suit rated for vacuum?"


    "I''ll go." I said, pausing for a moment before nodding and continuing. "I''ll push the ship back through the portal and get to the Tesseract."


    "Maker That sounds like a one way trip," Fury said. "There is no way to get that far through the portal and get back before it closes. And how exactly are you going to push the ship back through?"


    I ignored his questions and turned, lifting mymunicator up to my mouth.


    "I need eight functioning battle bots, one caduceus droid and one behemoth to return to storage in trunk one!" I called out, nodding as various robots stood and jogged back to where I had left the trunks.


    "Maker, what''s going on?" Natasha asked, her pistols returning to their ring shape. "You said you have a n?"


    "Yeah, I''ve got something that might let me push this ship back through the portal, and will give me a chance to stop the portal ship on the other side. I''ll probably have to go on a space walk for that"


    As we talked I watched as ten robots jumped up and into their trunks, disappearing into a space that should not have been able to store them all. Plenty of Shield soldiers watched the portal in shock, unsure as to what to do as even more explosions impacted the invading alien vessel.


    "I''ming with you," She said simply, making me whip my head back to look at her, even as she continued. "You need back up, real back up if you''re going to be going inside that other ship."


    "Ialright, sure." I said with a shrug, before looking over her shoulder at Ema, who was approaching quickly. "Ema, I need you to stay here."


    "No, I''m not letting you-"


    "Ema, I''m one travel away froming home, even if we don''t make it back through the portal. I''m sorry, but I need you here. Please."


    Ema, looking frustrated and upset, took a moment to nod before turning and walking away to help prepare Shield for the next wave, if it came. Natasha looked at me and held out her hand, which I took, leaned down to card the now shut trunk of robots and traveled to the <em>Void Skipper. </em>Once we were inside I turned to Natasha.


    "Natasha I need to be honest," I said, opening the door into the bridge, the red head super spy following behind me. "I''m not actually sure I''ll be able to travel back if the portal closes. I''m confident I''ll be able to figure <em>something</em> out but who knows how long that will take. You should travel back to the Helicarrier. Ema is stating behind because she has ess to everything ive made so far, if I get stuck out there for a while she will be able to help here."


    "No," She responded simply, focused on me. "You might be able to boss Ema around but that won''t work on me. I''m here, get used to it."


    I let out a long sigh, before eventually nodding with a small smile.


    "Fine. Find a seat then, and strap in, this is going to get bumpy." I said, hopping into the primary pilot seat, strapping in myself. "And thank you.


    She nodded in response, before finally taking a look around, to where I had traveled us to. When I suggested that she buckle up, being the intelligent person that she was, she quickly strapped in securely to the copilot''s chair before starting to ask questions.


    "Where the hell are we?" She asked, looking around and spotting the disy screens, her draw dropping in response. "Are we in space? Maker, what is going on?"


    "Wee to the <em>Void Skipper</em> Nat<em>,</em>" I said, tapping the control panel in front of me, a shiver running through the ship as I took back control from the autopilot.


    I double checked the shields were on max before diving, pushing my controls down and nose diving the ship into earth atmosphere. We dropped like a rock, the shields almost immediatelypressing the air in front of the shields as I pushed us down. I could hear Natasha cursing in Russian, the whole ship vibrating, the roar of the air getting louder and louder. I tapped the control panel, the roar going silent as I turned on the sound blockers before I locked on to Ema, who was on Earth below us.


    "Carson, Carson are you about to do what I think you''re about to do?" Natasha asked, voice a little tense.


    "Probably!" I said, pushing the thrusters harder as we got closer and closer, the oceaning up to greet us.


    The controls beeped a warning and I decelerated, evening out anding around in arge curving sweep, wanting to do this at the perfect angle. We were a couple thousand feet away, the bottom screen showing off the ocean below us, which was white and roiling from the downward facing thrusters. The alien ship was almostpletely through the portal, its "X" shaped hub just starting to push through.


    With a grim smile I tapped a few times on my controls, adjusting the first fewyers of shielding into a forward facing cone, one with a nice pointed tip.


    "Alright, HOLD ON TIGHT!" I shouted, pushing the controls forward, the ship leaping away.


    I wasn''t quite redlining it, but we were still able to pick up an impressive amount of speed as we beelined towards the alien ship. It fired its blue beam of energy at us, the first cone shaped shield glowed blue for a moment before it faded back, my much more expansive onboard shielding system able to tank the shot with no internal damage.


    I did my best to not tense up as we smashed into the massive spaceship, which was considerablyrger than the <em>Void Skipper</em>. The shield spear plowedpletely through the ship, with a wide enough hole that Natasha and I could see through to the other side.


    Or rather we could once we both recovered from the impact.


    Both of us shook our heads and focused on the view screens around us, our enhanced chairs and safety harnesses handling the collision incredibly well all things considered. The alien ship had seen better days, with dozens of fires burning, shooting out from seemingly random hatches and viewports.


    After a moment of making sure the <em>Void Skipper </em>was fine save that ten out of our forty five shield generators were now g, I pushed the ship forward. I could hear the crunch and screech of tortured metal as I pushed the thrusters as hard as they could go. The ship shook and vibrated despite the vibration dampeners already turned on.


    But we still moved.


    The <em>Void Skipper </em>slowly but surely pushed the heavily damaged massive alien ship back through the portal, quickly picking up momentum as more and more explosions happened inside its ck hull. The more we pushed, the more damage we did and the easier it was to move. My eyes constantly checked the back end of my ship, waiting until it was finally all the way through the portal.


    When we were finally through I all but pped my console, the cone shaped shields expanding, opening the hole we had made even more, until the ship fell apart and exploded, a massive shake hammering the ship as our thrust drove us through the explosion and out the other side.


    Free of the now shattered alien ship we sped up, hurtling towards the portal projecting ship. This ship was arge ring, with a single corner on one end. The beam of energy, which was now much easier to see on this side of the portal, wasing from the front end of the corner.


    Suddenly the beam cut out, and the ship started to turn, slowly angling away, trying to run from us. I grit my teeth and pushed the engines back to full, the <em>Void Skipper</em> jumping forward again, heading directly for the ship. The ship got bigger and bigger as we got closer and closer. As it turned away it started to speed up, only for the ring to crack as <em>Void Skipper</em> smashed into the back end of the massive ring.


    Its spinning parts tore into itself, breaking the ship into threerge chunks as it tried to shift under what little power it had left. Eventually it went dead, the lights and moving parts flickering and twitching before it finally stopped, the second ship unmoving and dark in the vacuum of space.

 Chapter 82: EVA exploration

    Chapter 82: EVA exploration


    Natasha seemed to rx for a moment after the second ship broke apart, but I was already moving on to the next issue. A quick check of the view screens showed that, yes, the portal was definitely closed. And while that was a step in the right direction, what really mattered was us recovering the Tesseract. I quickly manipted one of the shield projectors to wrap around both chunks of the ship, holding them in ce.


    Then I tapped through the screen on my console, double-checking to make sure the <em>Void Skipper </em>was in alright shape. After confirming that all that was damaged were several shield generators and three forward-facing thrusters, I tapped the ship on autopilot before unbuckling my enhanced safety harness.


    "So We are in space?" Natasha asked, undoing her harness at a much slower pace, her eyes mostly locked onto the view screen.


    "Yup. We are who knows how many light years away from Earth," I said, standing and noticing her slow pace. "I don''t know how long we have, but we are definitely on some sort of time limit. These guys probably have allies-"


    "And someone is going to be checking up on them," Natasha said, nodding her head, suddenly all business. "We need to recover the Tesseract."


    "Exactly. C''mon, Let''s get you ready for an EVA flight."


    By the entrance to the bridge was a small enhancedpartment, filled withpact EVA suits. I grabbed one and passed it to Natasha, who gave it a quick look before pulling on the chest te. I adjusted it slightly before showing her how to activate it, the suit enveloping her bodypletely and sealing her in. I spent a moment showing her how to activate her thrusters and lock on boots, before leading her down to the empty hangar bay. From therge open door you could see the bottom corner of therger chunk of the circr ship. It was considerablyrger than the <em>Void Skipper, </em>something that was much more obvious from this angle.


    "Alright, you ready?" I asked, looking over at Natasha. "Do you want to guide yourself or do you want me to lead you?"


    "I You clearly have more experience with this," She said, holding out her hand, which I took with a nod.


    Silently I stepped forward, the vacuum of the hangar bay meaning that we simply had to step off the lip of the bay to pull free of the ship''s gravity maniption. From there I guided us both along the underside of the <em>Void, </em>eventually reaching the gap. Taking a deep breath and taking a quick look around I flew us both across the gap, eventually reaching the ship. She locked her boots onto the ship''s hull, wobbling slightly before giving me a thumbs up.


    "We are connected by amunicator, no reason for hand signals," I said, unable to stop a chuckle when she dropped her hand.


    "Oh. Right."


    We made our way down and around to the extra corner of the circr ship, both Natasha and I agreeing that it was probably the bridge. As Natasha walked I flew nearby, examining the ship. I, of course, had no idea what I was looking at, but it was an interesting design. In thest moments, the interior of the ship''s ring had been starting to glow and spin, as if building up a charge. I pushed out my LPM scanner, running the beam over the ring. Instead of just scanning the part, however, it scanned the entire chunk of the ship. The scanner could tell that I only had about forty percent of the ship scanned.


    "Natasha, I''ll be right back."


    I turned and darted off to scan the other chunks of the spaceship. Before long the scan wasplete, and I had a full blueprint of the ship. I pulled the card back into the deck, my hand finger stinging from the exposure to vacuum, even if it was only for a few seconds. A quick thought had me taking a few samples of metal from the debris before flying back to Natasha, who had reached the bridge.


    "Sorry, I needed a scan of this ship," I exined. "We are probably going to need the parts if traveling doesn''t work."


    I pulled out a universal scanner, pointing it at the ship and ying the red scanning beam over it. I shook my head and pushed out my door maker, the small brass and rubber tool that opened up gaps in solid walls.


    "So there isn''t any air inside, but there is one surviving upant," I exined, putting the brass device on the surface of the ship. "So there shouldn''t be any explosive dpression from this, but we need to keep our eyes open."


    "Is that a breaching charge?" Natasha asked, taking several generous steps back.


    "No, much better," I said, my smirk audible through themunicator.


    I activated the door maker and flew to the side. The device opened a hole in the ship slowly. There was no woosh of air, confirming that at least this part of the ship wasn''t sealed. I entered the ship first, Natasha following behind. The entire room was dark, its power seeminglypletely failed. I quickly activated the lights on my helmet, before exining to Natasha how to activate hers.


    The room we entered was rtively big, with a small walkway leading towards some sort of device. It took a few minutes to decipher, mostly because we had entered sideways, before we realized the walkway led to some sort of control system, probably the cockpit. We also found our first corpse.


    It was definitely alien, with its gray, wrinkled skin, a pronounced brow, and no nose. Its eyes were frozen and its lips were drooling blood, which was ck and frothy. It looked very different from the invaders we had seen so far. I shook my head, turning away from the corpse to keep looking around, feeling no remorse for anyone who had helped to invade Earth.


    After making sure that no one was about to ambush us, I pushed my copy of the infinity stone scanner out, hoping that it would surprise me and function off of Earth, only to find the screen nk.


    "What''s wrong?" Natasha asked as I carded it again.


    "All of my tracking stuff is based on Earth GPS devices and maps. They are all useless off of Earth." I exined, already looking for the door. "We are going to have to do this the old-fashioned way, a door-by-door sweep."


    Natasha nodded and we both prepared to clear the ship, stepping out of the bridge and into a hallway. Both of us had our guns out and ready as we scanned for any threats. When none immediately presented themselves, we moved on.


    As we explored the ship more we found a few more corpses, all of which looked like the invaders, save for ack of armor. It was my first close look at them, and they looked brutal. Their skin was covered in metal tes and ports, with even their faces covered in what appeared to be augmentations. Thankfully none of them had the face masks that their soldier brethren had, because they might have survived the depressurization.


    We searched the ship as fast as we could, eventually finding our way to a cargo bay of some sort. The room had an obvious hatch on the opposite side from the entrance, which as far as I could tell led to space. There were two aliens inside the cargo bay, and though they had the same face masks on that the invading soldiers did, both of them were very much dead when we found them, having died when <em>Void Skipper</em> mmed into their ship.


    In the center of the cargo bay was a device that did not match the aesthetic of the rest of the ship. It was as tall as me and was spherical in its general shape, with two arms that epassed a central chamber. On one end, pointed out towards the exterior hatch was some sort of emitter, while the other end seemed to be some sort of field projector, though honestly, I was guessing based on what it looked like.


    What I did know was that the Tesseract was floating in the center, energy pulsing softly. The arms on either side seemed to be keeping it suspended as the device around it siphoned off energy. The entire machine hummed, filling the cargo bay with a pale blue glow.


    "This is what they used to open the portal?" Natasha asked, standing on the opposite side of the device. "And Loki was trying to build one of these on earth?"


    "Seems like it," I agreed with a nod before quickly getting to work."Stand back, we are going to need this whole thing."


    I pushed out the trunk of robots, calling for a single battle bot. I instructed him to pull the Tesseract from the projector. It nodded, stepping closer to the device and pushing its hand into the field. Its fingers, hand, and then its arm sizzled and sparked as it reached into the energy field, but its hand survived, grabbing the cube and yanking it free, the entire contraption going dark and silent. The battle bot stood, glowing cube in its hand, waiting for more orders.


    I nodded and pulled out my LPM scanner, running the beam over therge contraption. It was an impressive machine, designed to draw the power of the space stone out smoothly and use that power to open a portal. Luckily the scanner did not consider it part of the ship, probably because it was so new and not actually attached, simply held in ce by a few mps. I used my knife to cut through the mps, as well as several thick wires attaching the device to the ship before exposing my finger to the vacuum and carding the portal projector, the entire thing disappearing.


    "Okay, that''s our backup n, now we need to get out of here," I said, Natasha following me as I peek back into the corridor.


    "Your backup n is to use the portal device to open a portal back home?" She asked, the battle bot following behind her.


    "Kinda, but with a bit more style," I assured her. "I want to grab a few more samples of metal just in case before we go."


    As we stepped into the hall, Natasha reached out and grabbed me by my armor''s utility belt, catching my attention.


    "Maker, look," She said, pointing down the hall. "You see that light?"


    I followed her armored finger and sure enough, there was a faint glowing from one of the doors further down the hall. It was hidden around the corner from the entrance, but it was bright enough to be noticeable.


    "Yeah, I do. How much do you want to bet that''s our single survivor?" I said, Natasha, nodding in agreement.


    "We should check," She responded. "This entire ordeal has been one unknown after another, a proper interrogation could yield a lot of information."


    "Fuck. Yeah, okay, you''re right," I agreed, nodding reluctantly. "Alright, let''s go grab them. I hope my universal trantor works on aliennguages."


    "You have a- You know what, never mind, of course you have a universal trantor," Natasha responded, leading the way to the lit-up room.


    As we got closer to the door Natasha deployed her vambrace shield, which I had included in her battle loadout, holding it out in front of her as we stepped in. The room was long, with cells lining the wall opposite the corridor. The first three were empty, while thest one was upied, though the upant wasn''t moving.


    There, chained to the wall, sttered in blood, and beaten to an almost pulp was the broken form of Loki. His mouth was blocked by some sort of brutal-looking restraints, his armor was tattered, his nose was clearly broken and his left arm was bent at an odd angle.


    Worse than all of that though was his right arm, which had been removed from halfway down his bicep.


    "Holy shit," I said, stepping closer to the cell, stopped by a glowing barrier, the source of light Natasha had noticed. "Looks like they didn''t appreciate himing back without the scepter."


    "Maker We need the intel."


    "Yeah, and Thor would never forgive me for just leaving him here," I added, my eyes trailing over the walls, specifically at where the energy barrier wasing from. "Okay, we have already wasted enough time. Natasha, droid, grab my belt. I''m going to destroy this barrier, grab Loki, cut him free and travel us all back to the ship."


    Natasha nodded, both her and the battle bot grabbing onto my equipment belt. I pushed out my sword and after giving Natasha a nod, sliced into the wall, right next to the barrier. Only for the barrier to stay up.


    "Huh Kinda expected that to work"


    I kept cutting and slicing and eventually, after four deep shes, the energy barrier fell. A rush of air battered us for a moment, but it was over quickly. I stepped closer, sliced the chains connecting the adopted Asgardian, and traveled us all back to the <em>Void Skipper. </em>


    Loki sort of flopped down to the floor without the prison wall to support him. I stood and rescinded my helmet, pushing out my trunk of soldiers again, this time ordering out three more battle bots and a caduceus bot.


    "Caduceus, heal him enough that the rest of you can carry him down to the brig. You can finish fixing him once he is secure seal off his missing arm." I exined, adding thest thing as an afterthought. "Keep him unconscious and do not take your eyes off of him. If he starts to wake up I want to know."


    Only the caduceus bot moved, starting to heal the bastard who was almost responsible for an alien invasion. With a nod Natasha and I stepped back into the bridge, the battle bot carrying the Tesseract still following behind us. I immediately sat down in the pilot''s seat, engaged our stealth field, picked a random direction, and pushed the ship to full throttle. A humming permeated the ship before eventually dying down as we sted away from the two wrecked alien vessels.


    It was a solid ten minutes before I could calm my heart down. It had felt for a while there that we were moments from being ambushed, but now, traveling at ridiculous speeds into the empty expanse of space, I felt a bit safer.


    "So Where are we going?" Natasha asked eventually, her eyes not pulling away from the forward viewing screen.


    "Nowhere, as fast as possible," I said with a smile. "We just needed to put some distance between the wreckage and us before I felt safe. In a minute we will try to travel back to Earth but"


    "You don''t think it will work?"


    "No, I don''t. I don''t think it''s powerful enough to reach all the way home," I admitted with a shrug. "But with the Tesseract and what we grabbed from that second wreck, I think I have a solution."


    About thirty minutester, I set the ship to autopilot and looked over at Natasha, who had been napping rather cutely in the copilot''s chair. She woke up as I started to stand, looking around for a moment before standing with me.


    "What''s going on?" She asked, stretching in a way that was extremely distracting. "Are we there yet?"


    "Yup, middle of nowhere," I said, gesturing to the view screens. "I want to try to travel home."


    She nodded and reached out, taking my hand. I reached out and grabbed the battle bots shoulder, focusing for a moment.


    "Travel Helicarrier." I said, waiting a moment before shaking my head. "Travel Home, Travel Texas, Travel Shooting Range. Travel Malibu."


    I tried a dozen more locations before finally giving up.


    "Okay, n B then. I need to go down to engineering and start working on a portal projector. Could you stay up here and keep an eye on the sensors for me?" I asked, gesturing to her console. "It''s pretty easy and even if it wasn''t the chair teaches you the basics when you sit in it."


    Natasha frowned, trying to figure out what I meant as she sat down in the pilot''s seat. She reached out and tapped a few buttons before her eyes started to widen. She yed around with the controls for a moment, nodding her head.


    "That is maybe one of the most bizarre things I have ever experienced," She admitted, sounding fascinated. "I assume you don''t want me to take it off autopilot?"


    "It''s just easier with it on, it''s not like we are doing much else but going in a straight line," I said with a shrug.


    "Alright, I can hang out here for a while," She said with a nod, rxing back in the chair. "I''ll call you if I need help."


    "Thanks. There''s a bathroom right outside the bridge and a map at every intersection if you want some food from the cafeteria. Just make sure you check the long-range before you leave."


    "Aye aye Captain," She said with a teasing smirk. "Go, figure out how to get us home, I''ve got this."


    "I don''t doubt that in the slightest," I said with a smile, before making my way out of the bridge.

 Chapter 83: Ema - Recovery

    Chapter 83: Ema - Recovery


    The second the portal closed any remaining aliens immediately died, dropping dead on the spot. Almost all of them were already dead by that time anyway, but apparently, Fury had tried to catch a few. He had hoped that his people could study or interrogate them. He even sent out six quinjets once it was all over, looking for any strays or deserters that might have survived.


    After the first hour passed, and I realized that Carson was going to take his sweet time, I Iet out a long sigh and got started on the cleanup. After making sure that all caduceus droids were finished healing the injured, and that the destroyed vessel was free of survivors, I ordered all droids back into their storage trunks, thankful that Carson had the foresight to give a nketmand to the brainless robots to follow my orders. I also ordered the remnants of the destroyed behemoths and other robots brought back as well, even going so far as to direct a battle bot down to the bottom of the ocean to get the gged remnants of the one that had fallen in. In total eight robots had been destroyed, most of them during the opening salvo of the alien vessel, caught in the destruction of the destroyer ss vessel. Again I questioned Carson''s logic in not adding copies of the Destroyer armor to all of the robots, instead of reserving it for the behemoth.


    He had insisted that the creation of nearly indestructible automaton soldiers was a very different vibe from<em> actually </em>indestructible automatons.


    Not that the behemoths had turned out to actually be indestructible. Carson would have said it was the thought that counted.


    When the third hour passed and there was still no sign of my partner, the <em>Void Skipper, </em>or a portal, I began traveling the droid storage trunks to the warehouse. Fury was waiting for me when I returned to acquire the final trunk.


    "I have a lot of questions." He said, his arms crossed.


    I was almost certain that the four armed soldiers behind him were meant to be a show of force, some sort of intimidation tactic. Carson would haveughed.


    I didn''t see the point.


    "I don''t particrly care," I responded, easily lifting thest trunk, turning, and ignoring the Director of Shield. "I owe you no answers."


    Fury seemed shocked at my blunt refusal to speak. Upon internal review of my response, I understood the reaction.


    "I cannot speak for Maker," I said honestly after my moment of internal review. "But the <em>Void Skipper </em>was kept a secret for precisely this reason. As were the robots."


    "Why did the Maker make them?" He asked, pulling back from his attempt at intimidation by uncrossing his arms and waving his soldiers away.


    "Because he had a feeling something like this would happen eventually," I answered with a shrug. "He has said multiple times that this is just the beginning, that the world is only starting to get weird. It''s only going to get worse and he wanted to create assets that could solve some of those weird problems. A deployable army and an inteary ship were as good a start as any."


    For a while, Fury stood silently, watching me. Eventually, somehow sensing that the conversation was over Fury simply nodded and walked away, stopping eventually to survey and direct the damage control. I traveled thest trunk away, reappearing in the same room I had at the beginning of the battle and every time I returned from the warehouse. Tony was waiting for me this time.


    "I see you survived Fury''s interrogation," He stated. "you know that''s not thest you are going to hear about this, right?"


    "I''m aware. But I will not agree to further meetings until Maker returns," I stated simply, Tony giving me a shrug.


    "Just making sure you knew," He said, before stepping out of the room. "Take care of yourself, Ema."


    With one final sweep of the Helicarrier, as well as the rest of the fleet, I traveled to the warehouse.


    Alone.<hr>


    I waited forty-eight hours before finally allowing myself toe to the conclusion that Carson would in fact not be right back. After attempting to reach him on his cell phone and failing, I also came to the conclusion that when he did finally return he wasn''t leaving my sight until he understood that I could not help him if he didn''t allow me to apany him.


    Carson worked hard to allow me to be more of my own individual, mostly through the development of my secondary core, located in my exosuit. It functioned perfectly, allowing me to explore things like my hobby of painting and have a life that ran alongside my partners, rather than just being a part of his. But even through all that Carson failed to understand that while all that was nice, I still had a job. Instead, he left me behind, most likely out of some desire to spare me the trauma of being pulled away from Earth.


    At least he had Natasha with him, so he wasn''tpletely alone.


    When I was finally done venting my frustrations on arge moon rock, mainly because that rock was now gravel, I began outlining a n. For now, it would remain short-term, as I refused to make long-term ns only for Carson to show up tomorrow. My first task was to take stock and assess my assets so to speak.


    Two hourster and I was satisfied with what I had learned. While half of the warehouse stock of UCMs were gone, the backup cache of materials and items that Carson had created was rtively updated and contained one of everything he had made up into the final few weeks, when he became exceedingly busy. I borrowed a max stacked repair tablet, copied it a bunch of times, and returned the original, before using the new copies to repair the damaged robots from the ocean battle.


    While those were being repaired, I consolidated aplete and undamaged squad in one of the trunks, then used a UCM to make six more trunks,plete with a squad of ten robots in each. This meant that I had ess to ten squads of robots, the logic being that without Carson around to create perfect solutions and solveplicated problems with frustrating ease, I would have to make do with quantity, rather than quality if something went wrong. Eventually, when all ten of the trunks were ready I relocated them next to thending pad for the sake of rapid deployment.


    With the issue ofbat effectiveness solved I once again beganpleting thest task that Carson had given me. The nurse stones were only covering major cities and only their hospitals. This was uneptable, as Carson had explicitly stated they were eventually meant to epass the entire. He had then given me instructions to spread them out to as many poption centers as possible.


    Unfortunately, I realized that fullary saturation was something I could not achieve alone. However, some nning and the proper application of avable resources quickly provided a possible solution. I set the remaining UCMs up to print out twenty-five caduceus droids, as well as twenty-five stealth bands. Finally, I copied twenty-fivending pads and then unceremoniously duct-taped thending pads to the backs of the droids. With the stealth bands, thending pads, and twenty-five boxes of nurse stones I could now set up a muchrger area at once.


    A singr nurse stone could cover a rtivelyrge area, but small bubbles were hardly the most efficient way to cover a globe. I would also need to contend with cing the nurse stones under water, though that was really something I could worry about after achievingplete coverage of allnd. I would also concentrate on livablend, for now, leaving some deserts, ciers, and mountains untouched.


    This project was massive enough without worrying about those ces. Though I eventually would include them as well.


    I was in the process of devising the optimal cement pattern for the nurse stones for South America when Jarvis called. I ignored the beeping phone in my chest, instead focusing on finishing the task at hand.


    When I had finished nning out the optimal cement pattern for the consistently poptednd masses of the world I went outside and began preparing for my next task. By now it was almost midnight, which was the perfect opportunity for a test run for rapid nurse stone deployment. The target city? Das, Texas.


    I quickly traveled down all twenty-five caduceus droids and gave them a list of doctors'' offices, clinics, and any other sort of medical facilities in the area. Or rather, the medical facilities I hadn''t already covered during my initial deployment efforts. When I was done giving them their directions I had them activate their stealth fields. While they were flying to their destinations at a much slower pace, I quickly ced and activated nurse stones on my own list of targets. When I was done I traveled from one to twenty-five as quickly as possible, activating the stones before instructing the droid on its next target.


    By the end of the second hour the entire city of Das, as well as an area of fifteen thousand square mile area around it, was covered under the bubble of connected nurse stones. It was a significant increase in effectiveness, as by the time I reached the final droid the first droid had reached its next target.


    By the time I was activating, adjusting, and turning the final Das nurse stone into its usual invisible state, it was almost two in the morning. Considering the sess of my first test, I decided toplete two more cities, that being New York and London, though both of those would be aimed at saturation since I had alreadypleted most of the medical facility deployment.


    Quickly getting to work, my deployment team and I managed to do around the same amount of space as we had achieved in Das for New York and London. With the secondary and tertiary tests going just as well as the first, therefore confirming the effectiveness of my n I returned to the warehouse.


    I would have continued but I was already out of my stock of nurse stones.


    The UCMs couldn''t keep up with my deployment rate, despite the fact that they had been working constantly for thest twenty-four hours. For a long moment, Imented that Carson wasn''t there. He could have easilye up with a solution by creating an enhanced storage device specifically for nurse stones, which would have exponentially increased our production rate.


    As it was I was forced to sacrifice one of the UCMs, cutting it up into five dozen chunks before hooking all those chunks up to repair tablets. While it would take up a not insignificant portion of the warehouse, increasing my production rate in this method would allow me to shrink the timetable of global saturation considerably. I would be increasing the size of my deployment team considerably as well.


    When I was setting up thest few extra UCMs I received another call from Jarvis. Again I ignored it, this time with a sigh.


    Jarvis had been, in a lot of ways, shifting into a status that was the very opposite of mine. While I understood that my primary job was assisting Carson, and Imented that he seemed to forget that, I also understood, with the help of my secondary core, that my job wasn''t my life. That I had a life that was separate from Carsons. Jarvis was given a secondary core almost identical to mine but seemed to be struggling to acknowledge that his life was separate from Tony''s. He seems to be happy taking all his individualism and refocusing it back on Tony and Pepper.


    Still, Carson had had a good point. I was given a ratherrge metaphysical leg up when I was created, my primary ingredient being a gift directly from the entities responsible for the Conceptual Deck. Jarvis was sophisticated, yes, and had the benefit of the secondary core just like myself, but his origins were much more humble. He would need time to really flourish.


    Letting out a sigh I shook myself mentally, before putting down my current task and leaving the main part of the warehouse, heading back out to the lounge area and calling Jarvis back. I sat on the couch for a long moment before finally dialing his name into the enhanced phone.


    "Ema, I''m d you called," Jarvis said, picking up the call immediately. "I apologize for calling you again, but I was growing concerned."


    "Yeah, I was Busy, sorry," I exined in partial truth. "What do you need?"


    "To talk to my girlfriend," Jarvis responded quickly. "I haven''t heard from you in quite a few days, and given the circumstances, I was worried."


    "No, I was just waiting Then I had a few things to do, some ns to make." I exined, checking the phone for a moment to confirm it had been more than a few days. "I''m sorry I disappeared like that."


    "I don''t me you. Perhaps we could spend some time together, and you could take a break?" Jarvis suggested. "It''s very nearly Monday morning, I could make a breakfast pic, and then we could travel somewhere new."


    "...Isn''t Monday delivery day?" I asked, referring to the day that the Stark household had their groceries and more delivered.


    Jarvis had actually been rather excited to be able to physically take care of the groceries the first time it happened after Carson crafted him a physical form. It had been cute at the time.


    "I Yes, I had forgotten." Jarvis admitted, my eyes widening in shock before he continued after a long pause. "...I believe Pepper and Tony are capable of handling it for one day. I will be taking an emergency mental health day."


    I was shocked for a long moment, considering what Jarvis had just said before smiling and nodding in agreement despite the fact that Jarvis couldn''t see me.


    "Yes, that that would be great. I''lle down and pick you up in a few hours?"


    "Certainly, that will give me enough time to prepare and to write an appropriate note."


    Three hourster I had managed to get through setting up a more efficient, production line style setup for nurse stone production. Three UCMs, all set to print out the stones, fed directly into an unmodified container. This container could then be moved and reced when it was full, then taken directly out to be used. I left a few droids on standby to trade out full boxes with empty ones, all in order to build up a surplus, When I was finally done I changed and left to meet Jarvis at the Malibunding pad.


    When Inded Jarvis was already waiting, carrying a pic basket and a small bag. Neither of us needed to eat, but with our secondary cores we could still enjoy food. Jarvis''s body automatically destroyed the food, while I had to guide the waste into my secondary core to be destroyed. More importantly was that Jarvis liked to cook, specifically for the people he cared about. He smiled his subtle, barely detectable smile as I appeared, bowing his head slightly.


    "It''s good to see you, Ema," He said with a nod. "I missed you."


    "I missed you too, Jarvis," I said with a smile. "Shall we go? I was thinking we could visit the Grand Canyon. The sun will rise shortly in that area"


    "That sounds wonderful." He responded, nodding with a marginally bigger smile.


    I reached out and took his second bag, before taking his now free hand in mine. After a moment''s pause, we both vanished, traveling away to find the perfect spot to watch the sunrise.<hr>


    Hello everyone! Just another reminder, I have a Pa_tre_on! Supporters get ess to early chapters of all my content, as well as my finished book, Lair Divers Tale. You also get five chapters of my new book, Last Resort: Dimensional Bloodsport on the first of every month! (The prologue is avable to the public) Come show your support if you are interested, otherwise, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

 Chapter 84: Powering up

    Chapter 84: Powering up


    I exited the bridge, mentally going over how to get to the engineering room. As I walked I idly noted that there was a small pool of Loki''s blood on the ground where he hadnded. I clicked my tongue, shaking my head and wondering how difficult it would be to make a cleaning bot out here in space before I froze.


    I whirled around and knelt down, studying the two small pools of red liquid. It wasn''t a lot, probably because Loki had already lost so much, but it was enough for two sizable samples. Samples I could replicate as much as I wanted. Now Loki wasn''t Asgardian, but he was an ice giant, magically powerful and ancient by human standards. Odds are it would contain some pretty potent concepts.


    I stared at the blood for a moment before sitting back up on my knees and looking at the ceiling.


    "Heimdall. I know you''re watching, especially since I just said your name. Please understand that I am taking this so I can study it to see if there are any useful concepts inside, which I would then refine and separate," I exined, talking to the all-seeing Heimdall. "Since this is a bit more than just looting a defeated enemy, I promise not to use it in any way that affects Loki, including as side effects. I will do my best to refine anything useful so it is not connected to Loki at all."


    For a moment I felt a weight settle on me as if I was under the focus of a microscope. I shifted nervously when the feeling persisted. Oddly enough I could somehow tell this wasn''t just the gaze of Heimdall, nor was it Odin either. It was impossible to describe it almost felt feminine?


    "Freyja?" I said, getting a sense of faint surprise, followed by confirmation. My mind raged as I tried to figure out what I should say. "This universe is a dangerous ce, and a world like Earth, which is so early in its development, needs all the champions it can get. Every asset, every advantage I can manage and use to create defenders of Earth is important. I I swear that if I do not follow my promise of separating Loki from any concepts I might get from his blood, then you may revoke my protections under any treaty Asgard has agreed to. I don''t want to earn the anger of Asgard."


    The feeling of being watched, of being judged stayed on me for a much longer moment before finally fading, the sense of agreement, and a promise of continued observation thest thing I could feel. I waited for a long pause before letting out a breath, feeling a bit sick as I bent down and carded each puddle of blood.


    The sample was incredibly potent, much more than any blood sample I had carded so far, including when I had carded Steve''s blood. I could feel his Asgardian domain, feel the concepts of cold and ice, feel his strength and durability, his frost giant vigor. I could also feel the slight presence of the same golden concept that Thor''s lightning had contained. It was even more powerful, by just the absolute tiniest amount, which I took as a sign that the sample was better, not that Loki was more powerful. Unfortunately, the card was stuffed with concepts I would need to find a way to remove.


    I nodded, having expected this to be the case. It was one thing to have the small sample of divine essence from an element summoned during something like Thor''s return, it was an entirely different thing to have it from their blood.


    This also raised an interesting question about how Asgard''s divinity worked, as I could clearly feel Loki''s aspects of mischief, despite the fact that he wasn''t really Asgardian. Either way, I had a new project, finding out how to conceptually craft this blood sample without actually using it until it was already separated.


    With another long sigh, I stood back up and headed down the hall, my mind already racing with possible ideas for how I could conceptually craft Loki''s blood outside of the deck. I needed to get my hands on the golden or divine concept again, just a few of them had massively elevated what I was capable of creating. As I got closer to my destination I took a deep breath. I had none of the tools and items that I would need toplete this project, so I needed to focus on the present.


    I arrived in the engineering bay and looked around, checking out the room and refreshing my memory about what it looked like. It was a simple room, only slightly bigger than most of the other rooms with a row of UCMs on one side, along with a singlerge UCM. On the other side was an LPM, along with a set of storage containers. I cracked one open and pulled out twelve repair tablets. I plugged them into the wall of the ship, setting each one to repair one of the shield projectors that had been damaged during our initial battle with the invading ship and the portal projecting ship. Each of the projectors was going to take about two hours to fix, so I set the tablets aside and let them run.


    With that set up I got to work setting up a better workshop, starting by pushing out the storage shed in a far corner, followed by a few tables, some chairs, and finally my cab of tricks. With everything set up I sat down at one of the tables with a pad of paper, I pulled from the cab.


    I had three main goals for this crafting session. The first one, developing a way to get home, was the most important, and really the only one that mattered for now. I also wanted to integrate the sorcery-based energy reinforcement I hade up with on the hull of the ship. The <em>Void Skipper </em>was never designed to be a warship, but I needed to y the hand I was dealt so reinforcing the hull to the same ridiculous degree as my own personal armor was a must.


    To further turn this ship into something that could stand up to any bullshit we may encounter, I also wanted to finally see about finally arming my ship. I had several scans ofrge-scale weapons, including naval cannons and energy weapons from Wakanda. Combining them together should be rtively easy all things considered.


    With my goals set I started working on the most important one, a portal deployment system that the Void Skipper could use, simr to the one the invaders had set up. This simrity was good, as it meant I could utilize the system they were using on the strange circr ship as a base.


    Essentially this project had two parts. As the Tesseract was an incredible way to generate essentially free energy as well as a way to generate portals, just keeping it floating in the portal generator was really a waste. So part one was a Tesseract containment system, one that would mask its location while also letting me draw power from it. Part two, which woulde after, was the actual portal creation system, which would probably be attached to the nose of the <em>Void Skipper. </em>


    I called the battle bot that was carrying around the Tesseract down to engineering, the mechanical soldier taking a few minutes to arrive. While I waited I gathered a bunch of tools from my storage shed, including some steel stock. Once the Battle bot arrived I instructed him to ce the Tesseract on the table, only to shout at him to pick it up again immediately. Apparently, the ultra metal-enhanced hands of the battle bot had been resisting the energy of the Tesseract the entire time, because it almost immediately started melting through the workshop table.


    A quickbination of a few ultra metal sheets to the table and we repeated the process, this time the surface of the table held under the energy. I took some measurements and designed a simple steel box, drawing meticulously detailed blueprints, which includedbeling everything.


    Once that was done I started putting it together, focusingpletely on it being a box to hold the Tesseract. It was basic, and had simple but beefy hinges, with handles on both sides and atch to lock it closed. It even had a brass te riveted to the top, hand engraved with thebel "Tesseract Container." It came out decent, though my welding skills were middling at best and my engraving skills were worse. When it was done I immediately set up a few UCMs to print out a whole pile of them. They only took about ten minutes each to print, so I used the opportunity to grab some food from the cafeteria before heading back down.


    Once I had a few boxes to work with I startedyering in ultra metal, some diamonds, some well-made jewelry, and some extra lead. In the end, I had a high-quality, gem-encrusted box that was as strong as I could make it and was conceptually clearly designed for the sole purpose of carrying around the Tesseract. I cleared the UCM and set them up to start copying the new version of the box. These took significantly longer to copy, so I started preparing for the second half of the project, the energy draw.


    I pulled up the ns for the portal projector on the LPM, looking through and trying to make heads or tales of it. Of course, I had absolutely no sess as it was clearly so hriously out of my league that I couldn''t even see the parking lot, never mind the starting line. I could, however, set up an effective cheat with what I had on hand. Starting with parts closest to the containment field I printed chunks of the device, marking off each group that ended up being rted to the power draw system. It took hours and by the end of it, I realized I really could have saved all that time by just making vaguely educated guesses. The device was broken up into three parts, the bottom was drawing in energy, the arms, the spine, and part of the base were energy containment, and most of the top directed the energy up, directing it to open the portal.


    Frustrated to have basically wasted so much time I got the UCMs going printing out a few copies of all the parts, dragging the small pile of ornate boxes into a separate pile. With the UCM''s printing out more copies, I started experimenting, throwing together mixes of the containers, the energy drawing parts, and the containment parts, mixing in things like vibranium ingots, electric generators and current converters.


    I failed a few times as the design got away from me, usually from the parts and pieces bing too much of an amalgamation to function or, in one case, a promising attempt just melting into g when I pushed it out of the card. Eventually, I had the idea of converting and mixing in ultra metal and extra vibranium to strengthen the construct, as well as energy cells to integrate the parts to Tesseract energy. The result was a raised plinth-like cylinder about two feet wide and three feet tall. It was segmented around the outside circumference, almost like the cylinder for a revolver but more frequently. It had a seble slot on the top, where the Tesseract would sit and allow the ship to draw power from it. It was also useless without attaching it to something, like the <em>Void Skipper</em>.


    I scanned it into the LPM, before programming it to add it to one of the empty rooms, connecting it directly to the floor. I also quadruple-reinforced the room, added four security turrets inside, and linked it to the rest of the ship. I queued that up before starting the second half of the project, the actual portal projection part.


    This part turned out to be incredibly simple. With a few scans of different parts, a couple of copies from the UCMs, and some extra reinforcement and attunement through ultra metal and energy cells, I had a portal projector. I queued that up in the LPM next, adding a small protrusion from the nose of the ship, tucked under its chin. It was barely noticeable in the grand scheme of things, but to make sure it was protected I added several shield projectors around it to add a fewyers of extra protection.


    With my most important project progressing on its own, the LPM making its way through its construction, I pulled out the armor te that had the sorcery-based reinforcement infused into it. I made twelve copies of it, put the original away, andbined the remaining ones into a single version,yering in tes of electrum, tinum, ultra metal, energy cells, and just a few pieces of ancient oak I had gotten from Kamar-Taj as I did. I then made five copies of the resulting metal te andbined them together, even if the change in the finalbination was barely noticeable. The final product was an inch-thick square te of metal as tall as I was. It was primarily the color of ultra metal, but with lines of golden metal running through it like wood grains, like a giant te of pale gold and ultra metal Damascus.


    Satisfied that this reinforcement was the best I could get, I pushed out the two LPMs I had grabbed shortly after learning that Clint had been taken. I was d I had to, because not only would the ship''s permanent LPM be busy for the next several hours, but it was also one of the few LPMs I had that wasn''t upgraded with the ability to work with sorcery. I quickly scanned the sorcerous damascus and pulled up the blueprint of the ship on the two separate LPMs, quickly instructing it to add a two-inchyer of it over the entire ship. I connected the new ative-esque ting to the Tesseract room, hooking up its controls and readings to the same console as the shield and thruster enhancements.


    Before confirming the eight-hour project I spent some time working on the ship''s look as well. I changed the color of the sorcerous damascus to the same green as the super truck, highlighting the ship''s lines and edges in the same manner. The result was a gold-highlighted ship with dark green armor. It was tremendously ostentatious and impressive looking. I would have liked to keep the look of the sorcerous damascus, but it really didn''t look good on such a massive scale. When I was done I hit start, and the project''s timer immediately started to count down.


    With that finished, and with several hours before the three new retrofits to the ship would beplete, I started on my final goal. Turning the <em>Void Skipper</em> into an armed vessel.


    While I was rtively limited, I was lucky in that Ema was incredibly forward-thinking. When I had sent her out to scan boosters and rockets from the space shuttles, to use when I was building the <em>Void Skippers </em>thrusters, she had made a short detour. Specifically, to a naval yard.


    She imed that she had told me that when she had returned, but that I had been too distracted by the building and crafting process to hear her.


    Either way, I had ess to a fewrger guns, though none of the massive cannons were the mainstay of the "bigger is better" generation of naval weapons that existed during World War II. Unfortunately, what I did not have ess to was any more LPMs, meaning that any production would have to wait untilter, as I couldn''t start experimenting with anything physical to card andbine if I didn''t have a way to print those things out.


    Realizing that I would just have to be patient, I packed up my stuff, leaving the workspace mostly set up before carding the storage shed and my cab of tricks. When I was done cleaning up I ordered the battle bot to pick up the Tesseract and store it in one of the leftover ornate boxes. I grabbed it by one of the box''s handles, carrying it easily as I gestured for the battle bot to fall in behind me.


    I wish I could have kept it safe in the deck, but not only was I almost a hundred percent certain I wouldn''t be able to, but I was also pretty sure that doing so would really fuck everything up. In theics messing with the infinity stones had some really negative side effects and I wasn''t about to risk any of them.


    I made my way through the ship and back to the bridge, stepping in to find Natasha in the same spot as before, looking out into space through the view screens. She looked over her shoulder at me as the door closed behind me.


    "Done already?" She asked.


    "Sorry How long was I gone?" I asked, wincing as I realized I hadn''t really been keeping track.


    "Five hours." She said, standing up from the seat and stretching.


    "Sorry I guess I''ve got a bit of a dependency on Ema stopping me for breaks and reminding me I''ve been at it for too long," I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck. "The good news is that I''ve got the portal system finished. The retrofit should be done in a several hours."


    "And then we go home?" She asked.


    "Umm then it is possible to get home," I responded, her face shifting to an expression that said get to the point. "These kinds of systems are touchy. I might end up having to make adjustments or rebuild the whole system because it did not integrate correctly. It''s definitely progress though. Solid progress."


    "Progress is good," The redhead said, nodding her head. "I think it''s time to switch ces though. I''ve been up for two days now and sleep deprivation training can only do so much."


    "Sorry, I should have realized you would have been running on empty by now," I apologized, shaking my head. "The sleeping quarters are just down the hall, they should be easy to find."


    "When was thest time you got some sleep?" She asked as I climbed into the pilot''s seat.


    "When you told me to," I responded with a smile. "Sounds like you didn''t take your own advice."


    She only shrugged before making her way out of the bridge, stopping in the doorway.


    "You should try and get some sleep too, unless you think taking shifts is necessary?"


    "... No, probably not," I admitted, checking the sensors before turning back to look at her. "I''ll get a few hours in a bit."


    The super spy nodded before stepping fully into the hall, the door soon closing behind her, leaving me alone on the bridge.

 Chapter 85: Black Widow Interlude

    Chapter 85: ck Widow Interlude


    Natasha Romanoff was used to having time alone with her thoughts. Stakeouts, waiting for a target to arrive in her sights, information gathering, protection missions, and surveince details, all of them usually included a whole lot of quiet sitting and waiting.


    Though she had to admit it wasn''t usually such a unique view.


    The forward view screen of the <em>Void Skipper </em>was a wash with thousands of stars. She had even dimmed the interior lights to get a better view. It was incredible.


    Here she was, a spy, raised from childhood to kill, lie, murder, and cheat, to do horrible things at themand of her superiors, sitting on the bridge of a spaceship, flying through space. A ship built a man who, without a second thought, trusted her alone on the bridge of his ship, with full control over it.


    The fact that he trusted her wasn''t the insane part either. Plenty of people had trusted her throughout her life, usually right before she stole something from them, killed them, or extracted information from them. They had no idea what she was capable of when they gave her their trust. Not Carson though.


    Carson knew exactly what she was capable of, knew she was a spy, knew the kind of shit she had to do, even if he didn''t know everything. She could tell by the way he looked at her, that he knew what she was capable of. And he still just handed her the proverbial keys to his ship. Like it was no big deal. Like he trusted her.


    Natasha shook her head and looked down at the control panel in front of her, still enthralled by the fact that she knew what almost every single button did. She turned her chair slightly and reached along the side of the control panel, finding a button she somehow knew would be there. After a single press, the floor next to her chair shifted, flowing like sand into a small table. She knew that if she pressed the button again it would disappear. She focused on the screen set into the console, tapping a few prompts before dragging a gauge up, the lights slowly returning to full brightness.


    Still shaking her head she clicked her fingers against the almost invisible buttons on her rings, both of them shifting into her personalized pistols. She took one and pressed it into the top corner of the table, holding it for a second to engage the safer grip function of the table''s surface. She would have to physically pull it away from the table to release it.


    She repeated the process with the second pistol, before pulling an emergency gun cleaning kit from her belt and locking that to the table as well. She took a long deep breath, holding it for a moment before releasing it.


    Slowly, meticulously she disassembled the first pistol, making sure to secure each piece to the table in an organized fashion before starting to inspect and clean each piece.


    It was a ritual that had started as a way topile her thoughts and go over mission results but had shifted into a meditative process when she stopped having to worry that poor mission results would end with her being killed to tie up loose ends.


    As she slowly cleaned the carbon buildup on one of the internal pieces of her first pistol, her mind wandered a bit. It had only been four or five months since Carson had appeared on Shields radar, and since then her entire world had been shifted. At first, he had been nothing but a footnote, something she should keep her eye on, that she should be read up on in case her mission changed, but not her own personal problem.


    Now, as she was essentially lost in space with him, he was most definitely her problem.


    One worth the trouble he caused though. The idea that Hydra had existed inside Shield for so long, that they had sent her on missions that benefited their twisted views was more than they had benefited Shield or anyone She had <em>killed </em>for them. And even for the missions that hadn''t been Hydra plots in disguise, how different would her orders have been if they weren''t being influenced by a parasitic Nazi organization? How many assassinations would have been ckmail, how many eptable casualties would have been-


    Natasha took another long breath, picked up the barrel of her first pistol, and slowly cleaned any build-up, focusing on the cleaning for a while. Eventually, she rebuilt her pistol and checked the slide and trigger before setting it on the table, letting the surface hold it as she grabbed the magazine, turning it over in her hand. Eventually, she decided that it wasn''t worth pulling out every bullet just to know how many were left, it would be much easier to get a few boxes of ammo from Carson and find out how many were missing assuming he had any.


    With the first pistol done, she leaned over and checked the scanners on one of the control console''s screens. When nothing showed up on the sensors she picked up her second pistol and fell into the same pattern as before, slowly letting her anger go.


    Rooting out what Hydra had been doing with Shield resources, abel which she belonged under, had been a series of horrifying revtions, one after the other. She had almost quit, afraid she had just traded one power-hungry, warmongering organization for another.


    Eventually, though, she had been able to move past it, instead focusing on helping Shield be what it always should have been. An organization that was about the betterment and protection of all mankind.


    She shook her head as she finished disassembling her other pistol, driving out her over-idealistic thoughts. Clearing out Hydra from Shield had obviously been a massive step in the right direction, but there was still plenty wrong with it, still plenty of room for improvement for the global policing organization. The WSC was one of those ces that needed improvements at the moment. After Hydra was exposed and excised, they seemed to frequently get stuck in indecisive loops. It looked as though most of their decisiveness had been born from a carefully tuned bnce, controlled by Hydra. Hopefully, if anything good came from this whole fiasco, it would be them getting it together and actually getting stuff done.


    Natasha finished cleaning the slide,ying it back on the table and moving on to the barrel, working her wire brush through to scrape up any carbon deposits. In truth, there wasn''t much there. She took care of her tools after all, with frequent cleaning and oiling.


    On top of the fact that the WSC was getting more and more mired down in indecision, they had been growing warier and warier of what Carson was capable of. It really started once the Hydra clean-up was done, when they had some time to consider the implications of a device that could track people down by an ideal anywhere on the, down to a few feet. Such a loose, abstract, and powerful concept, and Carson had just dropped a tablet in theirp as if it was something simple. The fact that she was sitting in a massive spaceship, keeping watch over advanced sensors and traveling at ridiculous speeds through the void showed that, in the grand scheme of things, a tracking tablet was no big deal.


    Their wariness had only gotten worse after what had happened in Dover. Personally, she had been shocked that he had put his life on the line like that, flying towards an exotic bomb with so little room for error. She had been so desperate, arge part of her hadn''t expected him to fly directly to her like that. But he had, saved who knows how many lives. And yet all the WSC could focus on was just how dangerous his carding ability could be. As if they needed the fact that each card could be stuffed full of explosives pointed out to them. Carson had barely left the Helicarrier before they had dragged into a several-hour-long debrief, asking over and over again just what Carson was capable of carrying in his cards.


    She needed to ask how he had recovered from that experience. She herself had more than a few nightmare-filled nights where he had just been a few seconds toote. Without her training, and her desensitization towards high-stress situations there was no telling how poorly he might have handled it.


    Despite the fact that it was obvious he didn''t have any military orbat training, Carson clearly represented a growing power block, even if he was only a team of two. His growing friendship with Tony showed he was capable of working with other people, while this ship proved his power was scaling up. He was clearly making more and more powerful things.


    The WSC dedicated whole groups of Shield analysts to study and predict what he would do, and what he wanted. They kept a close eye on every tool that he bought or at least every tool he bought while in his Maker persona. Even an organization like Shield struggled to keep track of a man who could change his face in a few seconds and frequently did so.


    Then, out of nowhere, Carson went almostpletely off the grid. asionally he would be spotted buying this or that, or flying around Malibu, but for a long while he was out of contact. Fury was sure he would pop up again eventually, but even he wasn''t sure when. The WSC had all but thrown multiple fits, desperate for any sort of news that might hint at what he was doing. It had only been a few steps away from a paranoid obsession. They had been worryingly close to demanding that Fury turn over his location so that they could "check-up" on him.


    Surprisingly his return hadn''t really helped their growing paranoia. He waltzed into the Triskelion, wearing new and impressive armor that had a suspiciously high resemnce to the Destroyer armor, with Emerald and a floating box in tow. She was pretty sure that that had been an intentional spectacle.


    He walked right up to Fury and made him a mind-boggling offer. Natasha would have been concerned that her earlier analysis of him had been wrong if the palm healers he had offered didn''te with a massive stiption. Perfect healing, as long as you were good? A decent solution that had potential if Shield hadn''t been nervous about the societal repercussions.


    Of course, at that point, she was way too busy having her literal prayers answered to care.


    Carson had offered her healing. He took his time exining how it would work, and what his creation was made out of. He had let her scan herself, stayed out of her way, and not demanded anything, just promised to help. It was funny, he had offered her something she had wanted for her entire adult life, a piece of herself back that she thought she had lost forever. For most people that would have been the primary reason why they liked a person. Why they enjoyed the idea of being around them? Instead, his help fixing the damage that the Red Room had done to her was the primary reason why she was determined to take things slow, to think everything through.


    He hade from nowhere, swooped in, and offered her something she had only dreamed about. Where most women might see a savior, a knight in shining armor, all she could see was someone with leverage over her. She had shown a considerable amount of weakness in front of him, and every ingrained instinct she had built up over her lifetime, both by choice and by force, screamed at her that she was making a mistake for letting someone see that.


    She pulled back the pistol''s slide and pulled the trigger for the second pistol, checking the smoothness of the trigger pull and slide. Satisfied that everything was in order she slid the magazine back into ce before turning both pistols back into their ring form, studying the simple gold bands. After a moment she turned back to her console, and checked the scanners again before activating her bracelet and looking over her P90. This had seen the most action during the battle on the Helicarriers flight deck, enough that she had been forced to switch to her pistols at the end when it ran out of ammo.


    That was something she would need to work at. Somehow having such deep reserves for ammo made it easier to waste.


    Natasha started disassembling her submachine gun, therger weapon surprisingly much easier to clean. It broke up into chunks, but the trigger pack wasn''t something you took apart in the field, and everything was big parts that were easy to clean. Unlike her Glock 34s, which had quite a few smaller parts that she needed to take out and inspect. She finished disassembling the submachine gun,ying out the parts, and starting to clean them, wiping down the trigger pack first.


    For all her instincts telling her to be wary, to watch out for him taking advantage, she wanted to fight it. Carson hadn''t tried to hold anything over her head and did not deserve her suspicion or distrust. The fact that he had revealed his real name, as well as what he looked like was proof enough that he really did trust her. Not to mention the controls of the ship she was sitting next to. He clearly trusted her, and she wanted to return that trust.


    Not that she thought he was above suspicion of course. She may want to change but she refused to be willfully blind. While Carson''s inexperience often shone through, usually when he failed to understand an aspect of her work, or why something was such a big deal, he clearly knew things, things he really probably shouldn''t.


    She had noticed almost immediately after meeting him. He had reacted to her as if he knew she was dangerous as if he knew what she was capable of, despite the fact that recognizing her on sight like that was something very few people could do. She had intended to gauge what he was like, taking advantage of her being an anonymous agent. Instead, he was wary, doubling down when she had said her name.


    Moments like that popped up a few more times when she was around. One of the more recent ones had been when he was re-introduced to Betsy and Bruce Banner. She wasn''t sure what his reaction meant, but something was there.


    And that was ignoring the obvious one. Carson was clearly terrified of the Infinity Stones. He also knew a lot about them, going as far as knowing that the Mind Stone was supposed to be yellow. Sure he had scanners and things to help him eke out some extra information but his fear showed he had knowledge that was much deeper than a short description.


    Natasha wasn''t sure what these little reactions were, but she was going to find out. And for once, she wasn''t going to trick, torture, ckmail, bribe, or falsely seduce the secrets from him. She was going to do it the old-fashioned way, by earning his trust properly.


    She clicked thest part of her P90 into ce, double-checking that everything worked before storing it back into her bracelet. She considered cleaning her AWM as well, but since she hadn''t used it in thest fight there wasn''t really a point beyond unnecessary thoroughness.


    Carson was an interesting person, one she could rely on and trust. He was attractive, kind, and clearly even more powerful than Shield had originally thought, which in and of itself was shocking. He didn''t fuck around, wasn''t disgusted by what was necessary, and didn''t look at her like a cut of beef or a potential asset.


    Perhaps the most shocking part was how easily he could make her smile. Not her usual teasing smile either, which was carefully learned and improved to show she was just a pretty face, or her saucy smirk, which she knew could make someone''s knees weak, but her actual, genuine smile. It was refreshing, being around him, in a way she had never really felt before. The man was full of surprises.


    And apparently, she was as well, even to herself. When she had asked what his rtionship with Ema was like, she had not anticipated her own reaction. She was already pretty sure what his answer was before she asked, but getting confirmation She hadn''t expected to be <em>that </em>happy that they weren''t together. It caught her off guard.


    The spy leaned over and pressed the same button she had earlier, the small table flowing down back into the floor. She turned her chair back until she was facing forward again, doing a quick check of the sensors before leaning back in her chair. Carson would probably be a while, but she was confident he would figure it out and get them home.


    She couldn''t help but wonder what would happen next.<hr>


    Hello everyone! Just a reminder that I have a Pa_tre_on! In fact, this interludes focus was chosen by my Board Members, one of the three tiers of support. They also enjoy four early chapters of The Conceptual Deck, two early chapters of Mettle, Metal, Meddled, and five chapters of my original book on the first of every month! If you are interested in showing your support, stop by! Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

 Chapter 86: Waking up

    Chapter 86: Waking up


    I had absolutely no idea how Natasha managed to sit on the bridge for six fucking hours. For anyone else, I would have assumed they had a secret book or something tucked away in a pocket or something like that, but her uniform was way too form-fitting for that. She must have found <em>something</em> to entertain herself though because I was about twenty minutes in and I was already going stir-crazy.


    I don''t remember ever being like this before I got sent here. The Conceptual Deck was clearly turning me into an impatient workaholic.


    Eventually, I gave up doing nothing and pushed out my cab of tricks and pulled out a notepad and pen that was stuck to the inside of the door, flipping through to find my list of unimportant things to do. It was a secondary list that Ema kept updated for me of things that would be nice, but wasn''t really important enough to set aside time to do. Basically, it was a list of busy work.


    I went through the list and spotted something that I had just had a problem with. It was a smaller project, or at least it should be, and I would be able to mostly stay on the bridge and keep an eye on the sensors and the view screens while I was working on it. Before I could get past that thought I frowned, reaching into my cab of tricks to pull out another notebook. On the cover I wrote "ship improvements" then opened to the front page and wrote "interior, unsecure travel points" and "viewscreen/bridge ess in the workshop." I paused for a moment, crossed out thest word, and wrote "High poption areas" before adding "separate workshop" on a separate line. I closed the notepad and dropped it onto one of the crew stations before turning back to my cab.


    I looked through it for a moment before pulling out two sets of each of my scanner types, the universal scanners, the medical scanner, and the LPM scanner. Knowing I had plenty of spares in the cab, and ess to a UCM, I started out bybining one of each together. The result was a much moreprehensive universal scanner, one that seemed to be capable of much more detail, including medical information and technical data, all while maintaining the more game-like descriptions and information the universal scanner had. It was helpful for sure, but the process had pulled the LPM scanner too far from what was quickly bing my productionwork. I tried adding in another LPM scanner, but not only was that not enough to pull it back into thework of scans my LPMs had ess to, but it was also starting to affect what the new scanner was capable of.


    It seemed like they were just going to have to stay separate.


    Shrugging off the set back I sat down in the pilot''s chair, and quickly checked the sensor before pulling out my pocket knife. I turned it up to its highest setting, which subsequently was also when the de was at its weakest. I deployed my armor around myself before slowly, and carefully, cutting the armor around my right forearm off. Luckily at this point, I was pretty much ambidextrous, so such a precise-


    "AH! Fuck, that hurt," I cursed as I moved a bit too fast, finishing the cut and slicing a half-inch deep gap in my arm in the process.


    My hand was dead for a good fifteen seconds as my healing amulet fixed my cut, which had clearly sliced through some important nerves or muscles, probably both. The now-removed piece of armor slid off my hand, thumping to the ground.


    When my hand was working again I picked up the armor and examined it. The cut was smooth, but in a way that would make lining it back up easy. Satisfied with the result I stood up and headed back to the cab, only to shake my head as what I needed was in my storage shed.


    I looked around the room for a moment, studying the dimensions of the bridge beforeing to the conclusion that it might just barely fit in here, but I wasn''t sure enough to bet whatever the fuck would happen if I was wrong.


    I sighed and checked the sensors again, before heading out of the bridge, rushing around to the engineering room. I pushed out the storage shed while also deploying anding pad. I quickly headed inside the shed, carded a half dozen boxes, grabbed a bunch more things, and shoved them into a box before carding a table and traveling to thending pad just outside the bridge.


    It only took about three minutes, but I really didn''t like the idea of the bridge being unupied. It felt too much like those nightmares where you were suddenly in the backseat of a moving, unupied car. I checked the sensors again, noting there was nothing nearby before getting back to my busy work.


    I experimented with myprehensive scanner for a while longer, trying my best to work in a concept ofpact and un-intrusiveness without the use of transformation amalgamations, as they would throw off the deployment of the armor itself. After an hour of fiddling and enough failures that I ended up having to set up some UCMs on the bridge to print out moreprehensive scanners, I finally found the solution, one I probably should have thought of earlier. I used pop-up desk plugs and adaptors, as well as a transformation card, banking on the fact thatbining it to the scanner first would separate it enough to still have the concept but not affect the armor.


    After a quick study of the concepts, Ibined the newprehensive scanner with the arm,yering on two more arms and a bunch of magic rods on top of that to keep the overall shape the same. I pushed the arm out and tried it on, noting that the bands of metal under the armor ting had a few copper-colored lines mixed in, but it seemed to be simply cosmetic.


    All that was left was to reattach the arm with a repair tablet, and with that, two hours after I started I was done. I flexed and stretched my arm, checking to make sure I had a full range of motion before focusing and deploying the scanner. The armor shifted, my hand opening wide as a scanning beam glowed from my palm across one of my failed attempts.


    When the scan wasplete a screen popped out from the side of my arm, extending out until it was slightlyrger than a big cell phone, about four inches tall and seven wide. All of the information was disyed on the screen, and while I could use my finger to scroll and select what I wanted to see, I could also control it with the intent controls that worked for most of my suit.


    I spent twenty minutes running it through its paces before I was finally satisfied. It was unfortunate that I couldn''t get the LPM scanner to work with it as well, but I was happy to have one less thing to worry about. I was tempted to try and work the LPM scanner into my other hand but ultimately decided to leave that open for future additions.


    I spent a few minutes cleaning up the mess, mostly just carding and tearing the scanner and arm rejects, before sitting back down in the pilot''s chair.


    Not long after I sat down I jumped up again with a curse. There was something I actually needed to build, that was actually pretty important. I headed down to engineering to grab even more supplies, including a few different styles of handcuffs. I traveled back up to the bridge and started working on something to restrain Loki with when he woke up. Chances were he wouldn''t be in the best state to cast magic when he did, but I wasn''t really up for taking that risk.


    Eventually, after some trial and error, I worked out a series of armbands that I connected together by an ultra metal cable that would greatly reduce his movement and take his strength down a few levels. It would taser him with a st of electricity on par with my lightning gun, silence him, knock him unconscious and teleport him to my side, all onmand or at the press of a button. My final addition was a ring of truthfulness, a side creation when I was working out the kinks of my original lie detector band.


    The end result could have passed for a rather ornate statement piece of jewelry, with gold bands doing various things, connected together by three strands of ultra metal cable. The bands themselves were also reinforced with ultra metal, with the entirebination enhanced by sorcerous damascus and energy cells. I tossed it into a UCM, printing out a dozen or so to keep in my cab of tricks. Satisfied for now, I cleaned up again before settling back down into the pilot''s chair.


    Eventually, after another while or so of sitting and staring out into space I started to feel myself get more and more tired. Realizing that at this point if anyone could find the ship then a few more hours of flying directionless into the void wasn''t going to help. I slowly brought the <em>Void Skipper </em>to a stop. We had been coasting at a ridiculous speed for a while now anyway, meaning that if someone could somehow track the <em>Skipper''s </em>exhaust then the trail would have gone cold a couple of million miles behind us. Still, I double-checked the shields, noting that they were all repaired, and double-checked the stealth system. Satisfied that we were officially an invisible needle in a massive haystack I stood up from the pilot''s chair, stretching with a grunt.


    When I was done I pushed out thebat robot trunk, calling out a battle bot. When it had climbed from the crate I pointed to the console.


    "If this console screen changes color at all, I want you toe to me. I''ll be in room number five. If I''m not there, engage red alert," I exined, the bot nodding in confirmation. "Also if Natashaes back to the bridge let men know."


    Satisfied that I would probably get woken up before anything could go really wrong, I left the bridge and made my way to the fifth room, the door opening and letting me in. I barely had enough time to get undressed and into bed before I was asleep.<hr>


    I woke up to the sound of a metal fist thumping on my door. I quickly rolled out of bed and headed to it, opening it to find the bot I had left in charge of the bridge with Natasha behind it. She raised an eyebrow and looked me up and down, probably due to the fact that I was dressed in my boxers.


    "Natasha Romanoff returned to the bridge," The bot said in its Microsoft sam like voice.


    "Thank you battle bot, return to the bridge and return to your task, but cancel your orders about Natasha," I said, rubbing my face.


    The bot simply nodded and turned, heading right back to the bridge, leaving Natasha and myself alone. Natasha was wearing the basic green, one-size-fit all adjustable coveralls that every room stocked itself with.


    "Good morning," Natasha said, watching as I stepped back into my room, following me enough to lean on the doorway. "I- Woah that''s a lot of ink."


    I looked over my shoulder at her, smirking at her surprise.


    "I told you I had some when Ema gave you your durability-increasing one," I reminded her, quickly pulling on my pants.


    "Yeah but I didn''t think it would be anything like this, I assumed they would be invisible like mine," She admitted before stepping closer


    Suddenly I could feel her hand on my back, tracing out the circle of elements tattooed there.


    "Is there any significance?"


    "Uhh yeah, I mean no, no there isn''t. At least beyond what they do." I exined, swallowing a bit. "The elements do different things that sort of correspond to the elements, but that''s it. This one though"


    I turned to face her, gesturing to the tattoo of my torn skin that revealed armor ting underneath.


    "This is-"


    "Where Hydra shot you with your own arrow," Natasha finished, her hand reaching out to touch the tattoo, trailing over the details. "Ema does good work."


    I felt a shiver run through my spine as she traced her finger along the lines of my tattoo. It took me a moment but eventually, I managed to respond.


    "T-thankfully, I can''t imagine tattooing myself would turn out very well," I said, blushing a bit. She was very close and I honestly wasn''t used to it. "That''s my version of the one you got."


    Natasha nodded, leaving her hand on the tattoo, eventually looking up at me.


    "You know, I used to have a scar there," She said.


    "Had?"


    "I''ll give you one guess as to why my various scars would have disappeared," She said, looking up at me with a smirk and a teasing smile.


    "Right, sorry."


    "Don''t apologize, I finally look good in a bikini."


    "...I refuse to believe you have ever looked bad in a bikini," I said without thinking. "I don''t think you could look bad in one even if you tried."


    "Good answer," Natasha responded, stepping back and making her way out of the room, stopping by the doorway to look back at me.


    "Hurry up and join me for breakfast."


    I watched as she kept walking, disappearing out of sight as she walked down the hall. It took me a minute to collect myself, but I was soon running after her to catch up.


    As we stepped into the cafeteria Natasha looked around, spotting the connected kitchen on the other side of the empty room, behind a row of food serving and disy counters.


    "I guess we are making breakfast ourselves?" Natasha asked, giving me a questioning look.


    "Uh no, no I''ve got something for that. Just give me a second." I assured her, traveling back to the engineering room and rushing into my storage shed.


    I quickly dug through some boxes, pulling out the original copy of Alfred, by butler droid. I carded it and rushed back through the ship, skidding to a stop at the entrance to the cafeteria. Natasha was sitting on the corner of a table, waiting for me with a smile. I got the feeling she was enjoying how nervous she was making me.


    I flicked Alfred out onto the floor and turned it on with a button press. The robot deployed and stood up straight.


    "Greeting sir, Madam. How may I be of service?" It asked, looking between the both of us.


    Instead of responding I looked at Natasha and gestured to the robot, indicating that she was up.


    "Could you make us breakfast?" She asked after a moment of hesitation.


    "Of course Madam. Is there anything you are in the mood for?" It asked. "I assure you there is nothing I can''t cook."


    ` "... How about Crepe Suzette?" Natasha asked. "With bacon on the side? And a mochino?"


    "Certainly!" The robot responded before turning to me. "And you sir?"


    "I''ll take the same."


    The simple robot nodded before heading off into the kitchen, immediately starting to pull out all of the ingredients and tools they would need. After a few minutes of watching Natasha and I picked out a table and sat down to wait.


    "So how long until we can open a portal home?" She asked, sittingfortably on the other side of the table from me.


    "The portal projector and the Tesseract containment device should be done already," I said confidently. "We could hypothetically open a portal right now. However, I don''t think it''s going to be that easy."


    "Why not?"


    "We haven''t put in any kind of coordinates or anything," I exined. "It''s possible that it will respond to my intent, but I''m not going to bet on it."


    "Then what are we going to do?" She asked, her eyebrow raised. Wow, she was good at that.


    "I should be able to crack it, and I have plenty of Earth-centric stuff in my storage shed that I''ll be able to force it with some work. I might have to rebuild the projector into something that only builds portals to Earth, but that wouldn''t be too difficult."


    "Why not just do that first?" She asked, leaning back as Alfred dropped off our drinks.


    "I needed to make sure that the concept worked first. Plus it''s always a good idea to start with a base version before making the specific special version," I exined. "It gives you the option of scrapping your second attempt and starting over from the base version instead of scrapping everything and starting from scratch."


    Natasha took a sip of her drink, her eyes going wide.


    "This is amazing," She said, looking from herrge mug and then back to me. "How does that work?"


    "Alfred has a lot of cookbooks and guides in his head," I exined, looking over at the robot as it started cooking us breakfast. "It''s amazing and the copy I have at home has spoiled mepletely."


    We talked a bit more, seemingly both deciding to stay away from business as much as possible. Eventually, Alfred dropped off our food, along with a te of bacon.


    "This is amazing," Natasha said in between bites. "Do you think you could donate some Alfreds to work in the shield cafeterias?"


    "Would Fury even let them close?" I asked after a chuckle, getting an eye roll in response.


    "Are they armed?"


    "No, but it can throw a knife with pinpoint uracy," I responded, Natasha''s eyes going a little wide. "I didn''t teach it to them on purpose, I swear. They have three entire books on proper knife handling and it kind of evolved from that."


    "How do you know then?"


    "If they get pressed for time trying to make a big meal they get creative with time-saving," I exined. "I''ve seen my home copy throw a knife across the kitchen tond perfectly in the knife block."


    "You''re full of shit."


    I shrug and take another bite of my food, Natasha clearly trying to figure out if she believed me or not. Eventually, I cracked and started tough, and Natasha flicked a bit of bacon at me.


    "Ass," She said, though she was smiling. "How would I know? You do impossible things every other minute. I mean we are eating Crepe Suzette in space!"


    Before I could say anything a battle bot came clunking into the room, making a beeline straight for us.


    "Sir. Loki is waking up."

 Chapter 87: Polite conversation

    Chapter 87: Polite conversation


    Natasha and I made record time down to the detention cells, though I was holding back considerably. We arrived at our destination just in time to see Loki sit up and swing his legs over the side of the cell''s basic bed through thick ultra metal bars. My armor was deployed and surrounding me by the time he noticed us.


    "You are not who I was expecting to wake up to." He said, looking between myself and Natasha. "How did a useless mortal find his way to me?"


    "I''m surprised you were expecting to wake up at all," Natasha said, ignoring his question. "You looked pretty close to death when we got to you."


    "Gods are harder to kill than weak little mortals," He exined as if Natasha was a particrly slow child, turning slightly to focus on her. "I-"


    Quick as a whip, Natasha pulled a small disk she had hidden somewhere in her coveralls and whipped it at Loki, only for it to pass through him and stick to the foam mattress. It crackled with electricity, singeing the linens. Meanwhile, the illusion of Loki sitting on his bed burst into familiar green and gold magic, the real Loki appearing in the opposite corner of the cell. Immediately all four of the stationed battle bots had their guns trained on him.


    "In my defense you''d be surprised how often that works," He said with a cocksure grin. "How did you figure it out?"


    "Your bed didn''t shift when you moved," Natasha responded.


    Annoyance shed over his face for just a moment, but he remained silent. I extended my hand and activated my scanner, the screen popping out the side of my arm. Natasha watched with a curious look, peeking over my arms to read the screen.


    "That''s new."


    "Yeah, I built itst night, after you went to bed," I exined. "I got sick of pulling out my scanners."


    I worked my way through the information, noting that he was in perfect physical health save his still missing arm. Beyond the physical though well I had nothing to heal metaphysical damage. He was almostpletely drained of magic, barely enough to stay conscious for a normally magic fill being like a frost giant. His divinity was all messed up, twisted, and cracked. What that really meant I had no idea, but theprehensive scanner seemed to think it was from him pulling and leaning on it, using it to keep himself alive while being brutally tortured.


    I also pointed out to Natasha that he was recovering from minor mental influence from the scepter. Seems like he wasn''t protected from the whammy field it put out.


    "Wow that''s all sorts of fucked up," I said, despite the fact that I had very little idea of how bad it really was. "You really messed yourself up, didn''t you?"


    "Someone didn''t like that you left an Infinity Stone behind, did they?" Natasha asked. "You-"


    "I''m sorry, did you just say Infinity Stone?" Loki asked, pushing off of the wall and stepping forward. "Those are myths, legends. Tales told by old men with nothing better to do but fantasize about what they would do with unlimited power."


    "You didn''t know?" I asked, getting a scowl in return. "The scepter you were waving around, that hunk of blue crystal it drew power from? It contained an Infinity Gem. So does the Tesseract."


    Loki began to pace inside his cell, crossing back a few times before he realized he barely had three steps to pace before he was being forced to turn around. With another scowl he stopped and sat on the edge of the bed, visibly trying to not seem like he was having a meltdown.


    "Why would they hand me an Infinity Stone?" He asked, seemingly to himself.


    "Probably equal parts overestimating you and underestimating us," I answered, ignoring that his question was probably rhetorical. "I mean they made their own kill zone with the portal. If it wasn''t for the massive shiping through the standard military could have handled it. Still might have if we had a little more time."


    "Fools! There was a reason I was targeting New York City!" Loki ranted, mumbling to himself but still plenty loud enough for us to hear. "It would have been impossible to gather a military force there in time to stop from forming a beachhead!"


    Natasha and I were silent for a long moment before I pushed out the restraints I made the night before. I tossed them into the cell, passing them between the bars and onto his bed.


    "Put those on,"


    "I don''t think so," Loki said, tossing the restraints back out.


    "Listen here you son of a bitch." I said, leaning against the bars, having lost any and all sympathy for his condition when he admitted New York would have been ground zero for an invasion. "You either put those on or I make you not a threat some other way. And considering how dangerous I know frost giants can be, it will probably involve evening out your left side."


    The god just shook his head, chuckling to himself.


    "Really? You, an empathetic sap expect me to tremble in fear from an empty threat?" He said, scoffing and looking down at his fingernails nonchntly. "Beings infinitely more powerful than you have offered even more severe threats and-"


    I pulled out my revolver and shot into the cell in one smooth movement. The st of energy mmed into the bulkhead between Loki''s legs. The god of mischief shouted and cursed before looking back up, ring daggers at me, clenching his teeth. I openly met his stare, not backing down an inch.


    "You, Loki Laufeyson, caused an invasion of my. <em>nned </em>on having that invasion take ce in one of the most popted cities on the Earth, where innocent people would have died by the thousands, thousands of people who just happened to be my neighbors. My empathy for you has long run out," I exined, pulling back the hammer of my revolver and shifting my aim slightly. "Put on the bands or I will shoot you until you''re unconscious, and put it on myself."


    Loki kept staring at me for a long moment before finally reaching down and grabbing the connected bands, examining them closely. He eyed me for another moment, almost as if he was pushing me, testing my limits. After a moment he started clipping the bands on, racking them up his arm until the final one was secure. He now had six bands of metal around his arm, the first around his wrist and thest one wrapped around his bicep.


    I pulled out the controller, a small cellphone-like device that showed all of the options for the restraints. I selected Loki and turned on the weakening and slowing effect while watching him closely. The change was immediate, the trickster god letting out a groan as he sunk into himself. While his physical body remained the same you could see his strength leave him. He tried to stand, but it was slow, almost like he was worried he might fall over.


    "What what have you done to me?!" He said, his voice rising in anger. "What have you done?"


    "Nothing permanent," I said, toggling the effect off, watching as Loki stood straighter. "Just need to keep you from doing anything stupid until we get home."


    I could feel Natasha shift next to me, just barely enough for me to notice. Loki on the other hand tilted his head slightly in confusion.


    "Are we not already on Earth Interesting," He said, looking around his cell. "I wonder"


    He stepped away from the bed and put his hand t against one of the walls. For a moment nothing happened until suddenly streaks of glowing green magic started to gather around his hands. The second they started to gather I pressed the controls and a zap of electricity caused him to seize and stumble away from the wall.


    "S-S-Son of a bitch!" He shouted, the shock fading after a moment as he struggled to get back to his feet.


    "Oh, sorry, did I mention the taser function?" I asked, reactivating the slowing and weakening effects as well. "Just in case you try to do anything other than sitting there and sulk."


    "How dare you treat a Prince of As-"


    "Do you really think they will let you be the prince after what you did?" Natasha asked


    Before he could say anything I switched on the anti-lying effect of the restraints, causing him to stumble through his words, cough, and struggle to speak.


    "Oh right, I can also prevent you from lying," I exined, talking over his spluttering and cursing. "I can also force you to tell the truth, though that has the unfortunate side effect of brain damage."


    His sputtering stopped as I exined the nonexistent function. He eyed me warily, ncing at Natasha as well before sitting back down on the bed. I could see him move his right arm as if he was going to rub his left, only for him to realize he no longer had a right arm.


    "You wouldn''t dare," He said, his voice filled with contempt. "Even if I can no longer im my rightful ce as prince of Asgard, Odin would never let me be tortured, especially not in a way that may be permanent."


    "Really? Are you sure? Cause it kind of looks like he already did," Natasha pointed out, stepping closer to the bars. "I would think anyone who cared to save you would have when they started cutting off your arm."


    Once again he was silent, his re now focused on Natasha, who seemed to drink it in with a confident smile.


    "Here is how this is going to go. You are going to answer our questions, and we will know you''re telling the truth," She exined in a sweet, butter wouldn''t melt in her mouth voice. "If you don''t Well, by the time we hand you off to your brother we will know exactly the same things, but you''ll be a drooling idiot, with barely enough intelligence left to remember your name and which hole you put food in."


    The way Natasha delivered her demands, her tone, her bodynguage, everything screamed that she was serious. For all I knew she was.


    Loki on the other hand was silent, watching her closely as she exined his options. Eventually, he nodded, doing his best to seem as if he had a semnce of control, of either his fear or the situation.


    "Good. First things first. Who were you working with?"


    "I was-" He started, coughing oddly, almost deeming to choke before he recovered, cursing as he did. "I was working with a nameless entity. I was never told their name."


    "What was the deal?" Natasha asked. "They clearly weren''t satisfied given how we found you, but what was supposed to happen?"


    "The Tesseract in exchange for the Earth," He responded simply. "I would conquer the, use the Tesseract to bring the Chitauri through. When I sat on Earth''s throne, the Other would-"


    "The Other? Who is that?" Natasha asked, easily leading the god through her questions. "And who are the Chitauri?"


    "... He was the middle man. I never met the real benefactor, the Other was their mouthpiece," He exined reluctantly. "When the earth was conquered, the Other woulde and take the Tesseract away. The Chitauri was their army. Disgusting creatures, a warrior hive mind species that lives for war."


    "Why did they want it? Did they know what it was?"


    "I do not know," Loki admitted, the admission of ignorance seeming to be more painful than anything else. "He never spoke of it being anything other than a method for traveling, a way to reach distant worlds for conquering."


    "Oh good, not only were you willing to kill innocent people on earth, you were fine with giving evil conquering bastards a way to expand their repertoire?" I asked, shaking my head. "You''re a real piece of work Loki."


    "I my reasoning, the anger It seems foggy now. I wanted a throne of my own but conquering Earth, just to spite Thor" He said, shaking his head. "There are easier ces to conquer, and easier ways to control."


    "Who exactly was the Other?" Natasha asked.


    "I I don''t know," Loki admitted."They never revealed themselves to be anything other than the Other, leader of the Chitauri. They pulled me from the void and offered me a chance at redemption. Said if I could prove myself"


    The Asgardian ice giant was still clearly annoyed that we were forcing him to answer with the threat of what was essentially mental muttion, but he also seemed to be having an epiphany of sorts as he stared down at his remaining hand.


    "The bastard manipted me!" He said, his anger rising again. "They yed me with their words! ME, LOKI! I will make him rue the day that he-"


    I tapped on the controls for his restraints and suddenly Loki was silent, even as he kept talking, raging, and shouting. He gestured and cursed, even shaking his fist in the air. He continued on for a full minute before his rage petered out, his artificial weakness seemingly swamping him all at once. I clicked the silencing effect off.


    "You done? Good." I said, ignoring the heavy breathing re he sent me.


    "No, I won''t be done until their blood drips from my own dagger." He said though he failed to lead into another rant.


    "Do you know anything about who held the Others'' leash?" Natasha asked.


    "...No. I never met them," Loki admitted, shaking his head ruefully. "They were tools, stepping stones on my path to greatness and power."


    Natasha watched him for a moment, silence filling the detention center before she eventually turned and left, nodding subtly to get me to follow her. I paused for a moment before passing a second control unit to one of the stationed battle bots.


    "Test to make sure he hasn''t reced himself with another illusion at random intervals between zero and ten minutes," I ordered. "Have him stick his hand through the bars and touch it. Use the taser function if it''s an illusion. If he escapes, call me on themunicators immediately."


    The bot nodded and I followed after Natasha, who was waiting for me outside in the hall.


    "So, how badly did I mess up?" I asked as we walked down the hall, the security door shutting behind us.


    "Not bad, you actually did pretty well. Letting him know we aren''t on Earth was just giving him the information he didn''t need to know. I could have used my mask to pretend to be a naive agent to eke out more information," She exined before shrugging. "I still might, but the option is more limited. Though your lie blocker on that brace made a lot of the advantages of that kind of act kind of pointless. Would you have actually shot him?"


    "No. There are voicemands that knock anyone in the cells out like my sleep rings," I exined. "And the band doesn''t actually have a way to force the truth out of anyone, especially not at the cost of brain damage."


    "I figured," She said with a shrug. "No offense but I don''t think you''re capable of that in these circumstances."


    I honestly didn''t know if she was correct or not. I wouldn''t want to cause brain damage, but if my materials were a bit more restricted, and I couldn''t figure a way to get the truth out of him


    "Either way, you did good, especially for your first interrogation," She said, giving me a smile as we walk. "So what''s next?"


    "Next is we head to the Tesseract containment room and get it in its ce. After that, we can see if my portal projector can get us home." I exined, leading us to the bridge, where I had left the Tesseract.


    Natasha nodded and it didn''t take us long to get to the bridge and grab the Tesseract, which was still stored inside one of the ornate containers. We headed back through the ship, stopping in front of a set of heavy-duty security doors. The doors opened as we stepped in, the roompletely empty save the raised tform and plinth in the center of the room.


    I quickly made my way to the center plinth, unceremoniously opening the Tesseract''s containment vessel, pulling it out with my still armored hand, and quickly sliding it into the perfectly Tesseract-shaped receptacle on the plinth. Immediately the ship began to hum and vibrate with energy, the room glowing with blue energy as the energy of the space stone was drawn out of the Tesseract and distributed throughout the ship. Lines of glowing blue energy ran from the Tesseract, down its containment, and into the floor, as if it was wired directly into the <em>Void Skipper. </em>After a long moment, the ship settled, the vibration and humming fading as it did. The room felt like it was brimming with power.


    "C''mon. Back to the bridge," I said, stepping down from the raised tform and out the door. "We need to see how the ship is handling all that energy."


    I took Natasha''s hand and traveled back to the bridge.<hr>


    My pa_tre-ons (Board Member Tier) had a hand in deciding how Loki would behave in this story, specifically how willing he was to participate in the attack on Earth, and what level of influence the scepter and others had on him. That poll is closed, but the current poll has to do with Superboy from Mettle, Metal, Meddled. If you are interested, stop by and show your support, every bit helps! And if not then I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

 Chapter 88: Homeward bound

    Chapter 88: Homeward bound


    Natasha and I stepped onto the bridge and headed straight for the new console, located behind and to the left of the main pilot''s station. The battle bot who was stationed as a makeshift early warning system looked up as we entered but immediately looked back down at the sensor console.


    "Alright, so let''s see how you turned out" I mumbled, sitting down and activating the screen.


    Unfortunately, this chair, whilefortable did not contain the basics of how to use the console, as the pilot''s chair did. Instead, I had to puzzle it out myself. Thankfully there weren''t any random buttons or poorlybeled nobs, it was all a pretty easy-to-understand touch screen with a few different tabs and a central home screen. The shields, sorcerous damascus, and the engines all had simr screens, where I could boost the power avable to them by a ridiculous factor. I tabbed through to the shield screen and adjusted their input, tripling their strength. Immediately a red bar started slowly filling, a timer at the top counting down from ten minutes. I lowered the Tesseract energy input, and the bar slowed down even more, while the timer increased.


    "Okay, so it seems like there is only so far I can increase the shields," I exined. "I guess I shouldn''t be surprised that an Infinity Stone would burn out my systems."


    I tabbed through to the engines and increased their energy input, noting that the red bar rose much slower whenpared to the shields. Theyer of sorcerous damascus on the hull was in the middle, rising faster than the engines but slower than the shields.


    "Could you improve that at all?" Natasha asked, standing behind me and looking over my shoulder.


    "Probably, using the scans of the ship we got, assuming it wasn''t a hunk of junk," I said with a shrug. "Some directed tech development might work as well. If Tony designed something that absorbs and directs high amounts of energy or power I could conceptually craft that to impossible levels and thenyer that into the development of all of the systems I want to use the Tesseract to boost. But even then it will probably have limitations. It''s an infinity stone, those don''t tend to get controlled very easily."


    I tabbed away from the energy distribution tabs and focused on portal creation, going through the screen with a fine toothb. I quickly realized the first problem.


    "It''s asking for some sort of coordinates," I exined with a frown. "But I don''t know them. Fuck, alright, I''m going to have to hard-code a trip to Earth then. Do you want toe to watch or hang out around the ship? I don''t know how long this is going to take and I''m probably going to start by working on something else so it can start in the background."


    "I''lle with you, but who is going to watch over the bridge?"


    I gesture to the battle bot, who was still looking down at the sensor console, watching it closely.


    "It''s been long enough, anyone who could track us would have already gotten here. I think we should be good."


    "Well what about the portal projector?" She asked, looking down at the console. "How dangerous would a random jump be?"


    "Consider the ridiculously small percentage of space that actually contains anything probably fine. Not like we would have to worry about hyperspacenes or gravity wells" I admitted, looking down at the console curiously. "As intuitive as it might be, though, I don''t know if it has a random function"


    I spent another ten minutes going through the console before deciding that it did not have a random function, but it did have a method of selecting the nearest star system. I tapped on the system. After a minute of thought, I engaged the portal projector.


    The ship shuddered for just a moment before a beam of energy fired out from the ship, the cement of the viewscreens making it look like it came out from under us. A pale blue beam of energy raced out before stopping and exploding into a massive portal, easily big enough for the <em>Void Skipper </em>to get through.


    "Wet least that works," I mumbled, standing up and heading to the pilot''s chair, sitting down and taking control.


    After double-checking to make sure the stealth field was up I guided the <em>Void Skipper</em> in, entering the portal in one easy swoop.


    "Sir! The sensor screen has changed sir!" The battle bot said after standing straight and turning to me.


    "Thanks, power down for now," I said, rolling my eyes as I brought up the sensor readings on my screen.


    The system was small, with only a singr, cold orbiting around a sun that threw off simr readings to sol. I did a wide sweep of the entire system before leaning back and studying the view screen.


    "Alright, we are now six light years away from where we first came through the portal," I said with a smile before turning to Natasha, who had followed me to the pilot''s seat.


    "Congrattion Natasha. You are part of the first crew of Earthlings to travel to a different sr system."


    Natasha didn''t respond, instead, we both just watched as a lone, frozen orbiting a distant star.<hr>


    An hour or soter I was back in engineering, trying to crack open a way to make a dedicated portal projector. I had already set up the two extra LPMs to print out a few dozen different copies of various naval cannons, as well some of the Wakandan weapons I had scans of, along with two Wakanadan and the US control systems for those weapons. Of course, since the engineering room was already getting a bit crowded I set them up to print in the hangar bay. I left them to print as I work, I would experiment and work them into something serviceable when I was done figuring out how to get us home.


    When that was all set up though, I started working through the parts of the original portal projector again. When I had gone through it before, I had been doing it in chunks in order to save time, printing outrge pieces of the machine so I could find what I needed. Now though, I was after a much more specific part, the part that set or directed the energy to a specific destination. They clearly had some way of controlling, and I needed that piece to use as the base.


    So I picked a starting point on the machine and worked my way through, the ship-based LPM printing out each part, which I would then card and decide if it was what I needed. I started with the control panel but quickly discarded it as it had the concept of control and precision, as well as high tech and several others, but not what I was looking for.


    The process was slow, each piece taking anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour, When each part was done the machine would move on to the next part while I would card and examine the piece before discarding it by tearing its card orbeling it and add it to the storage shed for future use. I considered canceling the weapon printouts on the other two LPMs and using them to speed up the process, but I ended up leaving them to their work. The <em>Void Skipper </em>needed to be armed ASAP.


    Natasha and I chatted in between pieces, at least at first. Eventually, after two hours of going through parts, we left engineering to get some lunch and visit the entertainment rooms, letting the LPM print out a whole pile of parts. About four hours after that I returned to the engineering room and went through everything.


    Turns out that there were four distinct parts that helped guide the portal to open up at the proper destination on the other side. Just as before I had no idea how any of this worked, but I could still feel my way around the concepts. So, I gathered up everything rted to destination guidance and set them up on the UCMs, printing out dozens of copies of each piece. I was going to need a lot of them if I wanted tobine them with other stuff and still have them function as the same part.


    At that point, the weapon systems I had printed were done. My selection wasn''t exactly the best, especially whenpared to the massive fuck off cannon that the Chitauri had used during the invasion. Still, I should be able to put together some powerful close-quarters weaponry, capable of driving off-boarding ships and enemy fighters.


    I had a few dozen copies of several different weapon systems tobine together, most from Wakanda and two from US naval vessels, which, ording to the blueprints from the LPM, shot hundred-and-twenty-seven millimeter rounds. I had a massive pile of those rounds printed out as well, which is where I started. Ibined the rounds together, adding in magic and energy cells as well, ending up with around thirty conceptually enhanced rounds. Ibined those with the naval artillery, which massively upped their damage output.


    I then started triple stacking the weapon systems together, adding in magic and ultra metal, before splitting the two physical US weapons andbining them en mass with the Wakandan energy cannons, of which there were a few different styles.


    The idea was to boil it all down to a singr weapon system to scan, one that fired energy but would still have a physical impact. I mixed in extra energy cells and magic as often as possible, as well as ultra metal to make them tougher.


    The final result was interesting and looked like a truebination of American and Wakandan design, though it did lean a little heavier on the Wakandan influences. It was tter than the naval artillery had been, with fins attached to the back, angled downward and perpendicr to the ground. It was sleek, but still angr, looking a little like the turret of an M1 Abrams tank, with the back section reced by fins and a few more smoothing angles. It was also slightlyrger than the tank turret would have been. I carded it to get a feel for its concepts, though it left me feeling a bit wobbly from the effort.


    Conceptually it was a powerful weapon, a solid counterpart to the main cannons I was picturing putting together. I scanned it with the LPM scanner and headed back up to engineering, cueing up forty finished cannons, which Ibeled a medium cannon in the LPM for simplicity''s sake. I then programmed the two extra LPMs to attach a total of fifty of these cannons, stationed all over the ship, making sure that every angle had multiple turrets covering it. Then I broke them up into six groupings, organized by their firing arcs, and created six turret control stations inside the brig.


    The turret control stations wereplicated pieces of work themselves, abination of Wakandan and US control methods, with plenty of conceptual craft6ing to get everything working together. The gunners could switch from simple target painting to full manual control, as well as disabling certain turrets, and scaling energy loads for high and low-powered shots. Learning how to effectively station them would be one hell of a learning curve, but they would do it for now.


    Thest thing I did was attach the turrets to the already existing Tesseract powering system, letting whoever was in charge of that station divert extra energy into them, for however long they could handle it.


    By the time I finished that, the UCMs were done printing out the extra parts for the Earth-focused portal projector. With those sets I started going through my storage shed, pulling out anything that might let me tie those parts directly to Earth. I piled together star charts from Earth''s perspective, maps and satellite imagery of Earth, two different types of globes, and a few bags of dirt. I even cut out the sections of three different encyclopedias that talked about it, as well as images that showed the Earth''s position in our sr system.


    Once it was all gathered I started working them into the parts, making sure toyer it all to keep them from influencing the size and strength of the parts. It took a while, and quite a few extra UCM copies, but eventually I scanned the final version in and started the ship-attached LPM working on a second, Earth-only portal projector, tucking it up inside the <em>Void Skipper''s </em>left "wing". It connected easily to the Tesseract energyworking console.


    With the project done and under construction, I headed off to find Natasha, who had abandoned me sometime around when I started mumbling to myself, my brain focused on the concepts. I apologized for losing track again, but she onlyughed and said it was fine. We enjoyed dinner and rxed for the rest of the night, which was only for another hour before we went our separate ways to sleep.


    The second projector finished sometime when we were both asleep, and we both met up at the bridge after breakfast the next "morning". She was awake before me, sitting down in one of the now-finished gunners'' chairs, clearly trying to figure it out.


    "The fact that you whipped this all togetherst night is incredible," she said, shaking her head.


    "Well, I have a bit of an advantage," I admitted. "Plus it''s based on existing stuff."


    I walked further into the bridge and plopped down at the Tesseract control console, waking it up and scrolling through the tabs, ignoring the new weapons tab and selecting the new portal projector tab.


    This new tab was simply an image of the Earth, with the moon floating around it. I could spin it around and select anywhere around it, from feet over the surface all the way past the moon''s orbit, as long as it was an Earth-centric portal.


    "Alright, let''s get home," I said, selecting a space by the moon.


    "Is it wrong that I kind of want a few more days off?" Natasha asked.


    "Not really. Your wee to stay with me for a bit if you would like, I''m likely not making contact with anyone for a day at least."


    "Why not?"


    "Thor is going to want to take the Tesseract back to Asgard and I want to keep it," I admitted with a shrug. "They want to use it to fix something, and I''m going to offer an alternative way. Plus I need to convince Fury to let Asgard have the Mind Stone, so I''ll need to make something to barter with in exchange."


    "Any ideas?" She asked, quickly getting over her surprise about what I wanted to do.


    "A few, but it depends on the feasibility. I want to bounce ideas around with Ema, and your wee to stick around and watch," I said with a smile. "Now do me a favor and hop in the pilot''s seat, and fly us through."


    "Sure," She said eagerly, quickly heading to the pilot''s chair.


    As we talked the portal had opened, the beam of energy the same color as the first time, only this timeing from slightly above and to the left of the forward viewscreen.


    "Should I leave the stealth field on?" She asked, looking over her shoulder at me once she was sitting.


    "Yup, I would prefer not to be seen until I''m ready."


    Natasha took control of the ship near perfectly, guiding us closer and closer to the portal, our projector maintaining it until thest second when it cut off. The portal stayed open though, decaying slowly as we passed through. Looking back at the aft view screens I could see the roiling smoke-like energy of the portal closing behind us. The moon floated beside us now, the Earth filling the forward viewscreenpletely. Both of us stared for a while.


    "I hadn''t realized until just now how nervous I was about getting back here," I admitted, Natasha, nodding along. "I knew eventually I would figure out a way, but"


    "I knew you could do it, but I know what you mean," Natasha agreed. "So?"


    "Oh, yeah, put it in orbit around the moon," I said, watching as the beautiful redhead maneuvered the <em>Void Skipper </em>into position.


    When the ship was in a stable orbit and set to autopilot, I traveled the both of us down to the warehouse.


    "Ema! I''m home!" I called out, taking a step off thending pad only to stop and look around.


    There were ten trunks, which I immediately recognized as my robot trunks, stacked by thending pad. There were also a whole group of caduceus droids standing by a whole extra section of UCMs. The UCMs were printing out nurse stones by the dozens, while the caduceus droids, who all hadnding pads duct taped to their backs, organized them into crates.


    "Wee back!" I hear Ema shout, turning to watch as she came around the lounge corner.


    She did not look happy.

 Chapter 89: Negotiation preparation

    Chapter 89: Negotiation preparation


    Ema dressed me down for a full five minutes before she eventually was calm enough to notice Natasha hiding off to the side. When she spotted her she stopped, looking more than a bit embarrassed.


    While I didn''t hadn''t regretted leaving her on Earth when I left, her argument of "if you ever do that again I will tie you to a chair and never let you leave the warehouse again" was prettypelling. Eventually, I promised not to leave her behind like that ever again. When she was eventually satisfied that I was telling the truth, we discussed what Natasha and I had been up to thest two days.


    When that was done Natasha asked us to drop her off in DC. Apparently, she had a few days worth of debriefing to get done, and now was as good an opportunity as any. I agreed and traveled her down to one of my DCnding pads, the one Shield already knew about.


    "Thank you, foring with me," I said as I let go of her hand.


    "I had fun, surprisingly," She said with a small smile. "Don''t push Ema away, even if you think it''s for her own good. You need grounding when you get into crafting."


    "Yeah I think you might be right," I agreed with an embarrassed look. "Hey Listen would you like to hang out more often? Maybe Go on a date?"


    Natasha''s face shifted through several expressions quickly, almost too fast to notice. I did recognize surprise and happiness though.


    "A date huh? And where would you take me?" She asked, leaning forward slightly. "It''s going to be hard to beat a different star system."


    "That''s a fair point," I said with a chuckle. "But thepany is the important part, right?"


    "That''s true. Alright Carson," she said, adding my name quietly. "A date sounds nice, as long as it''s not too boring."


    I could tell that she was teasing, but I nodded anyway.


    "Do you really think either of us is capable of boring at this point?" I asked, getting a shrug in response. "I''m going to be busy for a bit with Thor and Asgard, but when I get back?"


    "Sounds perfect, assuming I''m done with the debrief by then," She said, shaking her head. "Alright Maker, I have a call to make, Shield will send an escort I''m sure. You should leave before they ask you toe in."


    "Alright, wouldn''t want to be rude and say no," I smirked, going to step back so I could travel back to the warehouse when she stopped me.


    Silently she put her hand on my chest, stood up straight, and stretched just enough so she could kiss my cheek.


    "Don''t be a stranger." She said with a teasing smile. "I expect to hear from you asionally, even with the date."


    "Yeah, okay," I responded, cheeks a little red. "I will."


    "Good. Now get out of here," She said, a trace of a blush on her own cheeks as she patted my chest before pushing me back.


    I let her gentle push feed into a step back, traveling away as I did. I stood on thending pad for a moment, a full-body shiver running through me. That woman was something else. When I had finally recovered from the force of nature that was Natasha Romanoff I went looking for Ema. When I found her I pulled her into a hug.


    "Ema, I''m sorry I left you behind like that, I should have considered how it would have made you feel a bit more," I said, pulling back to look Ema in the eye. "There were a few reasons I needed you to stay here but honestly I should have checked and talked to you about it. If we hadn''t been so short on timewell I still could have done better."


    "I appreciate the apology, Carson," Ema said with a smile. "I was okay once Jarvis got through to me, but I spend a while pretty upset."


    "I''m sorry. In the future, I will try and do better."


    "So what were the reasons?" She asked, stepping back to adjust the duct tape strapping on anding tform to a caduceus droid.


    "The main one was that if I was stranded for more than a few days you would be able to continue this," I said, gesturing around us. Between the lunar science center and the Octopit, there is a lot of work that can be done up here without me."


    "I suppose that''s true," Ema nodded. "It would be unfortunate to lose ess to all of this."


    "I''ve mentioned to Tony that if we both vanish, or worse, he cane up here and use the Octopit, and he already has ess to the science center. He would be able to make use of some of it but I would much rather leave you in control of it."


    "Well, I would like to think that <em>any</em> situation that takes you out leaves me already dead as well," Ema said, actually reaching out to cover my mouth when I opened it to rebut. "Carson Walsh I am your partner, I will not run when the chips are down, and I will give my life for yours and there is nothing that you can do about it. A more morally challenged man could change me directly, card me and force me to do as he said, for my own good. But you won''t do that. So there is literally nothing you can do unless you n on sending me away?"


    I stopped trying to deny her and instead looked into her emerald eyes. Eventually, she released me, her morphed hand pulling off my face.


    "I won''t send you away again Ema," I agreed. "I I just"


    "I know. But you''re forgetting Carson, I''m not human. I never was. The freedom and individuality you have given me through my secondary core have been wonderful but I am still what you made all those months ago. This is what I want, please respect it."


    Eventually, I nodded solemnly, my eyes not leaving hers for a long moment before sniffing and turning back to therge group of caduceus droids.


    "Right So I picked up on you not wanting to talk about what you have been up to in front of Natasha, so I didn''t push," I said, before gesturing to the new additions to the warehouse. "So what''s up?"


    Ema spent the next fifteen minutes exining to me what she had been up to, and what all of the new additions to the warehouse were about. I was very surprised to hear about the progress she had made on the nurse stone project.


    "With a little refinement we could make that take even less time," I said, rubbing my chin before sping and rubbing my hands together. "Alright. Let''s make a list of things we want to get done before going down and finding Thor."


    Ema and I got to work, making a short list of things before starting to check things off. First up was updating the LPM in <em>Void Skipper''s </em>engineering room, as well as permanently integrating three more LPMs into its structure. I had done a lot of work on the <em>Skipper</em> when I was gone, and the constant struggle with how much I could build at once had quickly gotten frustrating. I also transferred five of the ten trunks of robots into one of the ship''s empty rooms, just in case.


    With that oversight patched I moved down the list, and started working on my counter-offers to both Asgard and Shield. I wasn''t really worried about Shield wanting the Tesseract, I was perfectly content to simply tell them no and then let them build their own bridge to get over it, but I <em>would</em> have to convince them to give up the Mind Stone. I could easily find out where it was and take it back, but I would rather not be actively hostile to them. Asgard on the other hand would undoubtedly think the Tesseract was better off in their hands, especially now that Thor knew it was an Infinity Stone.


    My offer to Shield was going to be pretty simple, a couple of anti-cuff production units for them to disseminate as they saw fit, though I would shift the designs a bit to make them more useful. Having people impervious to mind control could only be a good thing, especially if they were in charge of anything. It didn''t take long for me to throw together a UCM-based production machine that could make a variety of jewelry, all of which would block and fix any mind influencing or control. I made ten of the machines, and each one could make a piece in about ten minutes.


    I was also willing to offer them a few shield generators, at a simr level as the kind I put in the behemoth robot. Unfortunately, all of that would be custom work, so I couldn''t get that finished ahead of time.


    The Asgard counteroffer was a bit moreplex, given that between their ess to magic and rke tech, I would have to pull off something genuinely impressive. The first thing I did wasbine seven LPMs with three literal crates full of repair tablets and energy cells. Between the power of the energy cells and the incredibly potentbination of concepts, the new machine, which I was just calling therge repair machine, would be enough to restore the Rainbow Bridge without me having to leave the Tesseract behind.


    On top of just fixing the bridge, I was also going to offer them a few squads of fully repaired, stacked, and even improved Destroyer armor. Beyond that, I would just have to y it by ear. Maybe offer them infinite Uru or a source of Tesseract power that wasn''t from the Tesseract. Between that and offering them the Mind Stone I was pretty sure I could reach an agreement.


    As much as I wanted to prepare as much as possible, I couldn''t stack the Destroyer armors without fully repairing them first, and I wasn''t about to do that without Odin''s permission, as doing so would put them in contact with the Odin Force. So all I could do was head to the <em>Void Skipper </em>and fill up most of the empty rooms with slowly repairing pieces of the armor that I could finish all at once, or destroy if Odin wasn''t interested.


    With that finished and my list as done as I could get it, I sent Fury a message, that I wanted to get in touch with Thor. After a lengthy conversation, he finally agreed to set up a meeting, as long as I had a long conversation with him as well. I could have told him to get bent and found him myself, but I figured a conversation was the least I could do considering how I had left things during the invasion.


    I agreed to meet him on the deck of the Helicarrier, which was apparently exactly where it had been before Natasha and I had disappeared through the portal. I requested that he move thending pad on the deck unless he wanted me to bring the <em>Void Skipper</em> down.


    He agreed rather quickly.


    Thest thing I did for the day before turning in, was to send some food up to Loki and send a message to Tony that I was back in the neighborhood. It didn''t take long after that for me to head back into my room and fall asleep.


    The following day I got ready rather slowly, enjoying the process of waking up in my own bed again. I had breakfast with Ema, going over our n for the meeting with Fury.


    "He is going to make demands," Ema pointed out. "He has to. An uncontrolled power with ess to a spaceship? Even if they managed to keep it under wraps, there is no way the WSC will just let that go."


    "I know. But I''m not backing down. I refuse to give up the <em>Void Skipper</em>," I said with certainty. "And the robot support either. They are too useful."


    "What if you offered them their own space-capable ships?" Ema asked. "Surely that will count for something?"


    "The way Natasha talked about them, it sounds like they will never be able to ept anything I make. They would assume I''ve booby-trapped it or put in some sort of back door," I said, running my fingers through my hair. "Granted I would put in a back door, but I wouldn''t hide it, there wouldn''t be a reason to."


    "Yeah I can''t say I''m surprised."


    ''Neither am I. Nobody understands just how bullshit the Deck is better than you or I," I responded, summoning the deck to my hands.


    "So what are you going to do?" Ema asked, taking my now clear te and putting it back on the shelf, the self-cleaning cabs making any food residue disappear as they cross the cabs threshold.


    "I''m going to do my best," I said with a shrug. "I really hope it doesn''te down to it, but we could always just bounce. Not much they could do to stop that."


    "Fury knows who you really are," Ema pointed out.


    "I''m past the point where my secret identity matters Though if things get tense you might want to clear out the apartment."


    "I will if things go poorly."


    "I''m not going to let this goic book sideways," I said, partially to convince myself. "I will do my best to assuage their fears, and I''m willing to be flexible. For some stuff at least God I really hope this doesn''t go badic book style."


    "I assume you mean spiral out of control, due to misunderstanding and confusion?" She asked with her eyebrow raised.


    "Yeah, pretty much," I said, rubbing my face before continuing. "You know I had a thought while I was out in space after Loki mentioned his target was going to be New York City. I''m not sure if I''m on the money or not."


    Ema turned from the cab to face me, leaning back and gesturing for me to continue. I paused for a moment to put it into words.


    "Well if we take into ount theck of several people, like the Fantastic Four, the X-men, Spiderman We know a lot of people who would make up a solid roster of Avengers." I pointed out, Ema nodding along. "Tony, Steve, Natasha, Clint, Bruce What if Loki''s intended attack on New York was supposed to be the gathering point? The call to action?"


    "It''s possible? I hope you''re not saying that you wished you hadn''t stopped it?"


    "Of course not, an attack on the city would have been devastating, and not just because of how many people would have gotten hurt. Loki pointed out that it would have been much harder to gather troops in a city. If New York had actually been the target they might have actually seeded."


    ''Then what''s the problem?"


    "The problem is that the Avengers, for all their faults in theics, is often the only thing stopping quite a bit of bad things from happening."


    "I think you''re missing the big picture because you''retched onto the concept of the Avengers, Carson," Ema responded. "You have Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Clint Barton, Natasha Romonaff, Bruce Banner, Thor, and the Ancient One all not only owing you favors, but actually liking and trusting you. Do they call themselves the Avengers? Of course not, but they would alle running if you needed their help. Not to mention the fact that all of them save maybe Thor have benefited a lot from knowing you. I mean in what Comic Book does Natasha have ess to even a portion of the stuff you have her outfitted with?"


    "I Alright, that''s a good point," I said, sitting up and nodding. "I guess I was just looking forward to an Avengers team at some point. Out of all the teams, groups, and people missing from this world, assuming it would pop up eventually seemed like a safe bet, considering how many members of the team are active right now."


    I took a long breath and shook myself off, standing up and stretching.


    "Okay, let''s go say hello to Fury."

 Chapter 90: Brass tacks

    Chapter 90: Brass tacks


    After a quick check to make sure I had everything I could possibly need, something I was going to make a standard checklist after having been stranded in space with "Limited" resources, I traveled down to the Helicarrier, Ema holding my shoulder.


    The first thing I noticed was that the deck of the ship had been cleared and repaired, though there were still plenty of defenses set up. Soldiers patrolled the deck, with anti-air turrets, mounted weapon emcements, and even a series ofrge artillery weapons, Howitzers maybe. I made a note to go on a scanning spree soon, I needed some morerge-scale weapon blueprints.


    The second thing I noticed was that not far from mynding pad was arge party tent, set up on the deck, with arge table underneath it. Fury was sitting at the table, as was Agent Hill, Agent Coulson, Steve, Bucky, Peggy, Clint, Thor, and three people I didn''t recognize. They all immediately noticed my arrival since they were all generally facing my direction around the long rectangr table.


    "Here we go" I mumbled before making my way over.


    "Maker. Good of you to join us. My name is Chao Yen, these are mypatriots Jakuna Singh and Amanda Strawton," He said, the other two people standing as he said their names. "We are members of the World Security Council, here to represent the council''s interests and concerns."


    "It''s nice to put some faces to the position," I said with a smile, shaking all three of their hands. "But please, call me Carson. Carson Walsh."


    I reached up and pulled off my mask, carding it with a simple flourish before sitting down. Everyone at the table looked shocked, save for myself and Ema. I had mentioned the idea to her before traveling here, and she agreed that freely identifying myself would make me seem more approachable. At this point keeping up the separation was pointless, I hardly had a civilian life at all, so what was the point? Besides, it wasn''t like I couldn''t just put the mask on and change my look if I wanted to mingle with the normies.


    "Well It''s nice to meet you, Mr. Walsh." Mr. Chen said as he recovered from the surprise.


    "So, you recovered the Tesseract." Fury stated. "Where is it?"


    "On the <em>Void Skipper," </em> I said simply. "Where it will remain."


    "Shield-" Started Mr. Singh started, only for Thor to speak over him.


    "Asgard has need of the Tesseract, Maker," He said simply. "We will take it and keep it safe once we are done repairing the Rainbow Bridge."


    "I have a way to fix the Rainbow Bridge that doesn''t require the Tesseract," I assured Thor, who looked surprised. "And I can take you home as long as you have the coordinates for Asgard. As for protecting it I believe my ship is plenty strong enough to protect it already. I think Asgard would serve better as a ce for the Mind Stone."


    The WSC members started to argue, but Fury cut them off.


    "You want to keep the Tesseract for yourself, but give Asgard the Mind Stone for safekeeping?" He asked. "Wouldn''t keeping the Tesseract so close to Earth just make us a target anyway?"


    "My concern isn''t being a target. I believe that between the <em>Void Skipper </em>and any future ships and defenses I make will be able to hold offrge-scale attacks." I exined. "My concern is keeping the stones separate. If all of the stones are brought together they enable the user to affect the universe in ways no one, god or mortal, should be able to."


    "You n on making more ships?" Ms. Strawton asked, focusing on only one part of my statement. "That is a topic in dire need of discussion Mr. Walsh."


    "I know, but we should focus on one thing at a time," I said, the council member reluctantly nodding in agreement. "I will keep hold of the Tesseract and Asgard will take the Mind Stone. This way they are kept separate, they are both heavily defended and humanity has the chance to study the Tesseract further. Asgard has had ess to it for what, thousands of years?"


    Thor looked conflicted, his mind working through the offer, the table quiet as he thought.


    "Your idea is sound to my own ears, but I do not have the final say. My father would need to approve of this. Assuming you can repair the rainbow bridge without it, a process that would take months with the Tesseract, as I understand it"


    "I think I have something that can, but I might need to cudgel something together if it doesn''t work. There isn''t much I can''t do these days Thor," I assured him. "I also have a few offers for your father to sweeten the deal."


    "Very well. I approve this direction, at least until my father can approve it fully."


    I nod, before returning my look to Fury and the WSC members, thetter three of which were talking in hushed tones.


    "I''m willing to offer some benefits for Shield as well. Since you would be giving up the Mind Stone, I have ten machines that will essentially print out jewelry, all of which will block and remove any mind control or influence," I offered, watching the reaction of Fury and the council members closely.


    "And they Print as many as we want?" Mr. Singh asked. "In any style?"


    "That''s right, and they would be yours to do with as you want," I exined. "Hand them out to whatever governments you want, saturate the jewelry market to prevent mass influence, it would be up to you."


    "And you think mind control protection is something we should want?" Ms. Strawton.


    "I''ve said it before, and I don''t mind it going on record. This is just the beginning. The world is going to start getting weirder and weirder. Pretty soon, the ability to know that your agents aren''t being influenced will be huge. Plus I''m sure that our Asgardian neighbors would be interested in something like that."


    "We would! Some of our oldest enemies are capable of influencing the mind. To know your mind is safe is an incredible boon," Thor added. "Very few could state that with certainty, and none that I know could im that for their entire organization."


    The three council members shared a look before focusing back on me.


    "Assuming that Asgard is willing to protect the Mind Stone, we could see making an exchange. And having ess to that sort of advantage seems important after witnessing the effects the scepter had on our agents," Mr, Yen admitted. "However, we believe that the Mind Stone is worth more than just those machines."


    "It is, but you''re also getting the bonus of not having to worry about what it might do to you and the world," I pointed out.


    "What do you mean?" Mr. Yen asked.


    "Infinity Stones are aspects of the universe. They embody the concepts they are named for, tied directly to them. They affect <em>everything</em> they are near. The effects they might have on humans are unknown, but I would not be surprised that after a few years of being on Earth we start seeing people develop psychic abilities. Are you prepared to handle that?"


    Almost Everybody''s eyes went wide at that statement, including everyone who I was pretty sure had been ordered to stay silent. Eventually, Fury turned to Thor.


    "Is that true?" He asked.


    "It is certainly possible. The lore surrounding Infinity stones varies from source to sourceAnd in all honesty, I am not an expert."


    "Would your brother know?" I asked, Thor''s look snapping to me.


    "You have him?" He asked, sounding surprised. "I had assumed he got away!"


    "I found him when we were locating the Tesseract," I exined. "Would he know?"


    "He would likely know more than me, but I could not say. The real challenge is knowing if he is lying or not."


    "That won''t be a problem," I said with a smirk, pulling out my control unit for Loki''s restraints.


    I slide through a few of the tabs before tapping the teleportmand, and suddenly Loki is on the deck of the Helicarrier, sprawled out after falling from a sitting position.


    "What the in the eternal damnations-!" Loki started, slowly getting to his feet, cutting himself off when he realized what had happened. "Maker you infernal bastard, where have you-!"


    Before he could even finish he was gone again, disappearing in the same sh of colors he had appeared in. For a moment everyone was silent, stunned by the sudden appearance and disappearance of Loki until I smacked my forehead and groaned. My helmet armor appeared around my chest and down my arm, letting me ess my droidmunicator.


    "All droids on the <em>Void Skipper, </em>return to your storage trunk, it should be in the bridge or engineering," I said, before repeating myself. "All droids on the <em>Void Skipper, </em>cancel all orders and return to your storage trunk."


    Everyone watched as I waited a full twenty seconds before pressing the teleport function again, and Loki appeared on the deck of the ship once more. I double-checked the slow and weakening effect of his restraints were on, as well as his lie blocker.


    "Loki, have a seat," I said, pointing at one on the other side of Ema. "We have some questions we are hoping you could answer."


    "Brother! What has happened to your arm!?" Thor asked as Loki begrudgingly moved to sit next to Ema.


    "The cost for dealing with the ruthless and bloody, I-" He responded, coughing and half choking as he attempted to lie.


    Thor was clearly struggling. On one hand, Loki was a wanted criminal and had tried to orchestrate an invasion of Earth. On the other hand, he was still his brother.


    "Mr. Odinson, I appreciate the position you are in is difficult, but you will have time to talk with your siblingter." Mr. Yen. "For now, we have several questions for him."


    I exined what the restraint I had made for Loki was capable of, the fact that he couldn''t lie when they were on getting a morose chuckle from Thor. Over the next hour or so, the WSC and Fury asked Loki a variety of questions, only a few of them having to do with the infinity stones, though they did confirm that Infinity Stones affected everything around them eventually, it would only be a matter of time.


    They seemed primarily interested in the threats the Chitauri posed to Earth, who their mysterious backer was, and if they would return. Loki, who barely answered the other questions to their minimum, did take a particr delight in assuring them that if they knew that Infinity Stoned existed, and if they knew it was here on Earth, then it was not a matter of if, but when. He even did a little bit of an evil chuckle, which I responded with by giving him a bit of a shock.


    Thor didn''t appreciate that.


    Eventually, though the WSC was satisfied, though not happy with the knowledge Loki had provided. I tapped the silencing button on his restraint controls when they started fishing for information on what the interior of the <em>Void Skipper </em>was like.


    "Well, I think that answers your question?"


    "It does. We will give you the Mind Stone to safeguard at Asgard," Mr. Yen said, looking to Thor, who simply nodded. "We would also ask that the <em>Void Skipper</em> be stationed as far from the Earth as possible."


    "That''s manageable," I agreed, knowing I would need to find out my travel points maximum range.


    "With that part of the conversation over with, I believe it''s time to discuss the existence of your ship, as well as your mention of further defenses?"


    "I sense a shift in topics, to one that does not concern myself or my brother," Thor said before I could respond. "Perhaps we could step away? I have much to discuss with my sibling."


    "Sure, do you want him to only speak the truth or should I turn that off?" I asked as


    Thor stood and walked around the table, "helping" Loki to his feet.


    "I would prefer it on for now,"


    I just nodded, using the controller to turn off the silence effect on him as the two walked out of earshot, eventually getting to the edge of the Helicarrier. Fury was giving me a hard look, clearly not liking the fact that I had allowed them any leeway.


    "Rx, you literally just saw me teleport him down from space, he isn''t going anywhere," I assured him, the stare finally relenting. "Right, so what are your questions?"


    "First, we need to address your ship," Ms. Strawton responded. "It represents a severe imbnce of normal power structures. We recognize that we have no jurisdiction in space, but we do not want your ship in orbit around Earth."


    "Further, You will not deploy your robot soldiers without the express permission of Director Fury or the World Security Counsel," Mr. Yen exined. "The weapons they wield and the abilities they have make them too much-"


    "Let me stop you right there," I said, cutting them off. "While I want nothing more than to get along with the WSC and Shield, I did note down here to get talked at. You cannot tell me what to do, do not act like you can. You cannot control me, do not act like you can."


    "Do you have any idea what the ramifications of your presence in space will do?" Mr. Singh asked, leaning forward with a frown. "Panic in the streets, conflict, chaos!"


    "Why do you think I went to such lengths to keep it all under wraps?" I asked. "If the Chitauri hadn''te knocking, you would have no idea the <em>Void Skipper </em>even existed, which is exactly what I wanted."


    "Why the secrecy?" Ms. Strawton asked. "An asset like your ship would be-"


    "First off the <em>Skipper </em>was meant to be a prototype, a proof of concept, that''s it. I probably would have mothballed or scrapped it pretty quickly. It was never meant to be an asset." I exined. "And second, my ships will <em>never </em>be an asset that can be pointed at Earth. The <em>Void Skipper </em>will retain the ability for emergencies, but any new ships I make will not be able to enter Earth''s atmosphere or aim their weapons in its direction."


    "Then what''s the point?"


    "The point is that there is shit out in the universe that will <em>literally </em>eat Earth for breakfast. We are a speck of undefended, unprotected nothing, destined to make a smear on some bid bag warrior races windscreen." I exined. "We are not alone, and our neighbors carry pretty big sticks. I n to level the ying field in a way that won''t disrupt the natural progression of Earth too much."


    "And if Earth doesn''t want your help?" Fury asked, staring me down.


    "Then that''s to fucking back because there isn''t much you can do to stop me," I said before letting a big long groan out. "For fucks sake, did I really just say that? I sound like him!"


    I pointed in the vague direction of Loki, rubbing my face with my other hand.


    "Look. I''m not here to be a cartoon viin," I said, looking into the eyes of the WSC members. "I''ve held back a lot, trying to keep from messing with Earth''s natural progression, mostly because I''m worried about people bing dependent on me. The stuff I make is powerful, but it can only spread so far. Making humanity dependent on the stuff I can make It would be a double-edged sword. But what I can do is help stop things that the rest of humanity isn''t ready to deal with."


    The group was silent for a long few seconds. I looked down at Peggy, Bucky, Steve, and Clint. The two guys looked more than a little out of their depth, but Peggy shot me a reassuring smile.


    "What are your ns then?" Mr. Yen asked. "Or are you going to keep it all a secret?"


    "First thing is defense," I responded, leaning back in my chair. "I want to set up some sort ofary shield. It will either be reactive, meaning it will be off most of the time, or it will stay intangible until it''s necessary. I have a few ideas."


    "And for offense?" Fury asked, Ms. Strawton giving him a look now.


    "I n on making an Earth defense fleet, maybe thirty to forty ships of various sizes, with plenty of smaller starfighters for dogfights. They will be strictly inteary, but I have a few ideas on how to help them get around the sr system faster," I exined, doing my best to paint a full picture of what had just been a basic idea so far. "Look, I''ll be the first to admit that warfare isn''t something I was familiar with before all of this. If you guys want to put a concept together, or even just some general ideas, something we can both agree on, I would be more than willing to listen. I want to work with you guys, I want this to be something that works and can keep Earth safe."


    "We It would have to be brought up to a vote," Mr. Yen responded, the other two members nodding in agreement.


    "Good. But remember that I''m not waiting for you guys. I n on starting the project when I get back from Asgard Which admittedly might take a while," I said, looking over the two Asgardian brothers talking. "Speaking of which, are you guys listening in on that?"


    "They are standing over a security camera, of course we are," Fury responded.


    "Anything good?"


    "Loki is attempting to manipte him into watching over him instead of you, without lying," Fury answered. "Thor is naive but knows what Loki is like. Why haven''t you fixed his arm?"


    "Because fuck him, that''s why. I''m sure Natasha told you already but the asshole wanted the invasion to happen over New York City," I exined, turning back to the table. "It could have been a real shit show."


    "One we appreciate you helping to prevent." Mr. Yen said. "The damage that would have done, the panic"


    "Yeah it would have been bad," I said, pausing for a second before shifting the conversation a bit. "Anyway, I will be leaving sometime tomorrow most likely. Is there anyone you would like to send with me?"


    "You would ept passengers?" Mr. Singh asked, seeming surprised.


    "Yeah, a few people is fine, the ship has plenty of room," I said, holding back a chuckle. "I would suggest an ambassador or two, maybe from the UN, preferably someone who won''t embarrass the human race. I''ll be inviting Tony, mostly cause he would never talk to me again if I didn''t at least offer."


    "If Tony Stark is going we have to send someone to make sure he doesn''t represent humanity as a whole," Ms. Strawton said firmly, her peers nodding in agreement. "We will form a team. Does five sound like a good number?"


    "I''m happy with that number, but anything under ten is good," I said with a shrug, Ms. Strawton nodding in agreement. "Alright. In that case, I need to get back to work to prepare for the trip."


    I stood from the table and walked over to Thor and Loki, thetter noticing meing. He cursed under his breath, which caught Thor''s attention.


    "I assume the meeting has adjourned then?" The blond god asked.


    "Yeah. We are leaving tomorrow."


    "Very well. And you will keep an eye on Loki until then?"


    Loki''s eyes went wide as he turned to look at his brother, shocked at his words. Clearly, Loki had believed he was negotiating better than he was. I nodded and he smiled.


    "Very well then, I will see you tomorrow. For now, I wish to talk more with Fury about the anti-mind control jewelry you mentioned."


    Loki watched as his brother walked away from him without another word, leaving him alone with Ema and me.


    "Alright stumpy, let''s get you back to your room," I said, traveling the three of us away.

 Chapter 91: Road trip!

    Chapter 91: Road trip!


    When I was done getting Loki back in the <em>Void Skipper''s </em>cell, and sending up some basic food for him, I headed back down to the warehouse. I shot Tony a text asking if he was around and got an invite down to Malibu. Not long after that, I was stepping into his basement workshop garagebo.


    "Hey Maker, I''m naming my firstborn after you." He said, looking up from whatever he was working on. "The face Fury made when the <em>Void Skipper</em> came flying down from orbit! It was a masterpiece. I''m not sure I''ll ever be able to catch up."


    "Won''t keep you from trying though," I said with a chuckle.


    "Not for a second."


    I nodded and plopped down into one of the few chairs he kept around the workshop. He kept tinkering for a minute before putting down his tools and swiveling in his chair.


    "So, how was space?" He asked like he was a mom asking how school was. "Did you make any friends?"


    "No, pretty sure I made at least one enemy though."


    I spent a while telling Tony what had happened once we were through the portal. He was surprised to hear Loki''s condition, though what little sympathy he had for him disappeared when I exined what his n would have been.


    "Son of a bitch," He cursed, shaking his head. "Where is he now?"


    "On the <em>Skipper," </em>I answered. "I''m holding on to him for Thor."


    I continued with the story, going through the upgrades that I made to the Skipper, including the two different versions of the portal project. I obviously skipped over the moments I had with Natasha.


    "Anyway, I can''t really be angry with them. Yes, they kind of ambushed me, but it''s understandable that they are freaking out."


    "Yeah I won''t lie Maker-"


    "Carson," I said, cutting him off. "It''s Carson. This is my actual face."


    "OhI''m trying to not be insulted that I''m thest one you''re doing the face reveal to, but okay."


    I flipped him off as he stood and headed over to a counter with decanters filled with alcohol. He poured one for himself and turned to look at me, grabbing his ss and walking back when I shook my head.


    "As I was saying, I can''t say that I don''t understand where youring from," Tony said, taking a sip from his ss. "There was definitely a ''what''s the point?'' moment after I realized just how to bullshit your schtick is."


    "How did you get over it?" I asked curiously.


    "I got drunk, Pepper dope pped me and I realized that my drive to build and create didn''t stem from being the best but from pushing myself." He said with a shrug, underying the significance of what he just admitted. "Besides, you might make reality-breaking bullshit, but you''re only one person, and you''re making that reality-breaking bullshit with my stuff."


    "Fair enough," I said, letting Tony gloss over his admittance before continuing. "Anyway, I''m going over to Asgard tomorrow to drop off Loki, the Mind Stone, and barter for the Tesseract. Wannae to check it out?"


    "Come with you? To Asgard?" Tony asked, his eyes going wide before he recovered. "That sounds entertaining. But the questionable time period makes me think Piper will kill me if I say yes"


    "Well I could always open a portal and you could fly through it if you want toe home before I''m done," I assured him. "I could open it up on your frontwn if I wanted, though we might panic some people. We would do it over the ocean or something?"


    "...I''ll ask," He said after a long pause. "I''m still kind of in the dog house for not mentioning the original invasion."


    "How did she even find out?" I asked, before quickly adding. "Not that keeping it from her was a good idea in the first ce."


    "Jarvis tattled on me! I programmed him with my own two hands and he sold me out."


    Tony and I talked some more, and I mentioned that shield and the WSC would be sending some people as well, which got him a little more interested to go. When we were done chatted I said goodbye and traveled up to the warehouse, taking a short break before getting to work. I was already mostly prepared, as much as I could be for any sort of exchange anyway, with the destroyer armors already being formed and therge repair unit being finished, so I moved on to working on the <em>Void Skipper. </em>


    The <em>Skipper</em> had been just a proof of concept but had rapidly transitioned into something that I was relying on to a growing degree. I would still like to re-make it eventually, but for now, I would stick with it and improve it so it would be serviceable.


    After a quick brainstorming session with Ema and I got to work. Ema immediately went down to Earth, heading to California, to get a very important scan. While she was gone, I was working on getting the ship stocked. I copied a dozen Alfreds to staff the kitchen, as well as make a quick and dirty cleaning model that would keep the ship clean.


    When I was done with that I started working on the garage Bay, which up until now had been empty. With a few scans and a half dozen UCMs, I set up thirty robot storage trunks, all attached to one of the walls so that I could deploy three-hundred robots out of the garage bay and down its ramp. I also set up a series of bays for the few different ground vehicles, which I then filled by getting one of the LPMs to print out the ATVs, and buggies. I also printed out a row of behemoths, the first one, btedly renaming the massive vehicles a crawler since I had already introduced the shield bot behemoths to more people.


    I texted Ema and told her to remind me to make a list of everything I had made and their names. It was getting hard for me to keep track.


    Not long after I finished filling out the garage bay Ema returned. I excitedly used the new scans to print out a bunch morerge-scale guns, just like I had for the medium-sized cannons. The only difference was that instead of the scans being of a few types of hundred-and-twenty-seven millimeter guns naval cannons, they were of the massive sixteen-inch cannons that were usually mounted onto the Iowa- ss battleships. Turns out that the USS Iowa was moored in Suisun Bay as a part of the National Reserve Defense Fleet. Basically, it was mothballed but in general working order.


    Because the massive cannons were way too big for me to card, I used the Octopit to print them out in chunks,ing up with around a half dozen pieces that held incredibly powerful concepts. I took those pieces and carded them, working them into some medium-sized cannons as well as extra Wakandan weapons, magic Ultra Metal, and ridiculous amounts of energy cells.


    The process took a few hours but by the end of it, I had a scan of a heavy cannon, something that was just short of three times the size of the medium cannons and just over four times the power. The only real difference besides the size was the fact that the heavy cannon sported three massive barrels instead of just one. I traveled back to the <em>Void Skipper </em>and added ten of the heavy cannons to the hull, two on the top te along the centerline, one on top of the forward structure, also along the centerline, and finally two on the top and one on the bottom of the hangar and garage bays. The three along the centerline and two on the bottom of the hangars had full three hundred and sixty degrees of range, while the four on top of the hangars had a slightly more restricted firing arc.


    I quickly tied them to four more gunnery stations on the bridge, which was at that point was just starting to get a bit full. It wasn''t quite crowded yet, but I would quickly start running out if I kept adding consoles and workstations.


    With my heavy cannons now being built and worked into thework, I checked in with Ema about what we still needed to get done.


    "You need to design some sort ofnding craft, as well as a fighter craft." She said, pausing for a long moment before continuing. "I also had a thought didn''t the Ancient One give you a sling ring?"


    "Yeah, it''s somewhere in my cab of tricks," I said, looking at her curiously. "I kinda just threw it in there, I was rushing around to get back to the <em>Skipper. </em>Why?"


    "Because its a device used for travel with an infinite range that''s intent-based, not coordinate-based."


    I looked at my partner for a long moment before letting out a long sigh, my head hung in defeat.


    "Fuck how the fuck did I forget that?" I asked myself. "That would have solved so many problems."


    "Well at least I know I''m still needed," She said, before breaking down andughing herself silly.


    When she was finished making fun of me for my poor memory, I spent five minutes going through my cab to find it, tucked up alongside a row of repair tablets. I set it through a UCM to make a few dozen copies while I went through and gathered all of the spare vambraces and the enhanced tattoo ink I used to give myself the ability to travel without one. I quickly worked together abination of the sling ring and the vambrace, which I then copied and used to make a new ink. Ema removed the old invisible tattoo using a conceptual crafted tattoo removal tool and reced it with an improved version. And just like that, I was pretty sure that my traveling had no limits, at least not as far as I could conceptually tell.


    Then again I hadn''t been able to feel the previous versions'' limitations either.


    I had removed the intent-based concept as best as I could, as I was worried it was too attached to the talent and ability to tap into eldritch energies, which I knew I couldn''t do yet. I would still depend on mynding pads. I would try and work out a solution when I had more time to think and recover from the embarrassment of forgetting the ring.


    Between the heavy cannons and the work in the garage and kitchen, it was getting a bitte. Originally I had ns to test out the range of the travel system by making incremental portal jumps further and further from Earth, but with Ema''s timely reminder that was null and void. Instead, I headed to bed early.<hr>


    The next morning was azy start that quickly got much more active. I spent the morning checking up on the <em>Void Skipper''s </em>weapon systems. I hadn''t gotten to spend any time with the medium turrets after I installed them, so Ema and I took a quick portal jump to the asteroid belt, which the portal projector let us do since it was in sensor range, to get a feel for them.


    "The fire rate is decent for the medium cannons," I said, sitting at one of the medium turret controls, with Ema sitting in the one beside me. "And by the way these asteroids areing apart, I''d say it''s got decent power as well."


    "I think the linked fire idea is handy, especially when you are working with a small crew, but you need toe up with a way to fire them individually," Emamented, raking her energy sts across a muchrger asteroid. "And if you''re going to do that, you need to reduce the total number of medium cannons."


    When I was putting together the firing controls for the medium cannons, I had locked them in groups, each station controlling one of those groups. At the time it had just seemed like the best option, but as Ema and I yed real-life Asteroids, I was realizing she was right. There were too many small targets to hit when all of the guns in one arc were shooting at a single target.


    "I agree that I need to set up individual control, but why would I need to remove some of the cannons?" I asked, looking over at her.


    "Because there are a dozen ces where their barrels can hit each other, and twenty where they can hit the heavy cannons."


    I frowned and activated my armor, scanning the floor and looking at the blueprint of the <em>Void Skipper </em>the scanner pulled up for me. After a few moments Iet out a sigh, nodding in agreement.


    "Yeah, your right. How did I not notice that earlier?" I wondered, Ema chuckling.


    "Because I wasn''t there to point it out." She answered with a smirk.


    "Alright I''ll fix that when we are done testing the heavy cannons," I agreed, nodding my head. "But I think the firing control for the <em>Void Skipper </em>is going to stay like it is. It''s my personal ship at this point and I''ll be likely flying it with a smaller crew, but when I finally get around to building a recement that isn''t just a shot in the dark I''ll include a way to switch between. The defense fleet will definitely have that option as well as individual controls."


    We spent a bit longer getting to know the medium cannons before eventually switching to the heavy ones. These were also linked together but since they wouldn''t be shooting down quick-moving targets I didn''t think it would be nearly as important. When I mentioned that to Ema she shook her head.


    "Your thinking too big. You never know what kind of situation you might be in that might require more finesse or lower-powered shots," She pointed out. "Right now if you just wanted to take down something''s shield, or hit a target that had friendlies behind it you would have to shoot from the bottom grouping since it only has two cannons, and even then your options would be limited."


    "I see what your saying and I agree that more options is better, as long as it doesn''t bog the system down," I started to say before shifting directions. "But I don''t think the heavy cannons will be used for finesse very often. Still, it would be good to have the option, we will work it out for the fleet designs. Hopefully, the WSCes up with some good ideas."


    I locked onto a distant asteroid, the console disying a bit of information about the target. After a pause I pulled the trigger, the ship reverberating slightly. I couldn''t hear anything, but I could feel the slight tremor as two of the ship''s heavy cannons, the ones attached to the hull above the garage, fired their six-st barrage. The energy sts crossed the near two thousand feet distance in a split second, leaving a glowing trail. The impact sprayed chunks of rock and dirt into space, the asteroid splitting into dozens of car-sized pieces and a cloud of debris.


    Ema and I spent a while getting the hang of the heavy cannons, which were definitely not as quick to rotate around, but still had some impressive uracy. After a while of messing around, I headed down to engineering and programmed the LPM''s to remove all but fifteen of the medium cannon as well as four of the heavy cannons, leaving five active. The final design looked a bit better as well, and as far as Ema and I could see there would be no conflicts with the turrets.


    When we were done and the LPMs were set up, we jumped back to Earth and set an orbit around the. As far as I knew Shield and the WSC still didn''t know about me living on the moon, so I was going to keep that charade going for as long as possible. I deployed eight battle bots, two to guard the Tesseract, two to guard the bridge, and four to guard Loki. The two guarding the bridge mainly were for emergencies, in case I needed an extra set of hands. The Deck was already emptied and organized for the trip, so all that was left were our guests.


    A quick call to Furyter and I was instructed to travel down to the Helicarrier. A quick final check and I did just that,nding on the flight deck with a shine of travel energy.


    The tent had been taken down and the table moved away, reced by a group of people, all standing at the ready. Steve, Peggy, Bucky, Thor, Fury, Agent Hill, and two other individuals I didn''t recognize turned to look as Inded.


    "How''s everyone doing?" I asked, stepping off thending pad.


    "It''s good to see you, Carson, we were worried when you went through the portal," Steve said, reaching out and shaking my hand. "I wanted to say that yesterday but"


    "Yeah, I get it," I responded with a nod. "It''s a lot to take in. Will you be joining us for the trip?"


    "I will, as will Peggy and Bucky. Peggy wanted to go and there was no way I was letting her go without an escort, and Bucky wasn''t about to let me have all the fun."


    Thor was next to shake my hand, grasping my forearm in a warrior''s handshake.


    "Good to see you again Maker, without the constraints of official duty," He said with augh. "I am excited to get home and eager to see the interior of your ship. To survive such an impact with another vessel, it must be a sturdy and well-made vessel!"


    "I don''t think it will quite stand up to Asgardian standards, but I hope it doesn''t disappoint," I said with a chuckle, looking past the muscled Asgardian to see Fury stepping forward with Agent Hill trailing behind him.


    "Carson this is US Ambassador Gregory Steiner and WSC member Marian Hartford. They both ept that unknown risks might arise, but I ask that you take their protection seriously."


    "I will Director Fury," I said with a serious nod, reaching out and shaking both of their hands. "It''s nice to meet you both."


    "It''s nice to meet you as well." Ambassador Stiener said. "Before we leave, I would like to discuss a few things, just some basic rules of diplomacy and first contact."


    "Well for one, this isn''t first contact," I said. "Though I guess that''s a bit pedantic. Fine, once we get situated we can talk, but first, let''s get everyone and everything on board."


    I said, looking at the pile of luggage that I needed to bring on the ship.


    "And I just realized I don''t have any way for people to wash their clothes on the <em>Skipper," </em>I admitted. "So that''s something I need to get done."


    Suddenly the two officials looked a lot less confident, both of them looking at Fury with questioning nces.


    "Hey, don''t look at me." He said, shaking his head. "You were warned what he was like."


    "Rx, everything will be fine," I said. "We won''t be in space very long, and if something goes wrong while we are in Asgard, they will most likely help with any problems. Not that I''m foreseeing any."


    The two officials looked at me nkly for a long moment before I pped my hands.


    "Right! Well, let''s get everyone loaded up and your stuff squared away!"

 Chapter 92: Realm eternal

    Chapter 92: Realm eternal


    It took an hour to get everyone and everything up into the<em> Void Skipper. </em>I dropped off everyone''s stuff, stacking it in the entrance to the sleeping quarters in case we ended up staying on board. I directed the people to the cafeteria, where the Alfred bots had put out some snacks to keep everyone upied. When I was done with everyone''s stuff I quickly dropped back down to Earth and bought a couple of washer and dryer machines. I honestly had no idea how this was going to work, but I wanted to be prepared in case the Asgardians expected us to sleep on the <em>Void Skipper. </em>


    When I was done with that I popped back to the ship and made my way down to the cafeteria to find everyone but Thor and Steve sitting down at a table, quietly talking amongst themselves.


    "Alright, where did Thor and Steve wander off to?" I asked, Mr. Steiner and Ms. Hartford wincing.


    "Thor wanted to see his brother, and Steve decided to go with him," Peggy exined.


    "Well, at least he isn''t alone," I mumbled.


    Five minutester the pair returned after I messaged the battle bots stationed outside Loki''s cell. Thor thumped my shoulder as he entered the cafeteria, while Steve just gave me a shrug.


    "Alright, thanks for hanging out while I did somest-minute shopping," I said, standing at the end of the table. "Few things before we head off. First, Thor, I assume Heimdall knows we areing?"


    "Indeed, they are no doubt preparing for our arrival," He responded with a smile. "I''m sure there will be a great feast to honor you."


    "Sounds great. Do you think your father is awake?"


    "In all likely hood he is already awake," He answered. "He strained himself to send me here but it has been ample time for him to recover."


    "Great. Alright, so it''s not like this is going to be a long trip, at least aboard the ship." I exined. "But there are some ground rules. This is an armed vessel, do not touch anything that I do not give you permission to touch. There are no safeties, and there are no ''are you sure'' confirmations. You maye to the bridge to watch the portal, but do not touch anything. Further, there are boxes all over the shipbeled EVA. They contain sealed, vacuum-rated suits. You pull them over your head and press the button, they seal you inside a suite capable of surviving nearly indefinitely in a vacuum, as well as getting around in zero gravity. It''s airne rules, put your suit on first, then help someone if they are struggling."


    I waited for everyone to nod their heads in agreement before continuing.


    "Good! Now those of you who want to watch on the bridge, follow me, the rest of you can stay here. Your stuff is sitting in front of the sleeping quarters because I didn''t know if Asgard would be providing amodations-"


    "Of course, we will! There is plenty of room in the pce guest quarters!" Thor assured us.


    "Great, in that case, you can grab your stuff whenever you want," I said with a nod. "Thest thing we need is the coordinates?"


    "Of course!"


    We made our way to the bridge, everyone following behind us. We stepped into the bridge, where Ema was waiting for us. She was sitting down in the pilot''s chair and turned her head to look at as.


    "Wee back. It''s good to see you Steve, Peggy, and Bucky," She said with a smile. "Ambassador Steiner, Councilwoman Hartford"


    "Alright, I want everyone seated, please. And not in any of the seats marked as gunnery consoles."


    The group quickly found their seats, most of them in the empty chairs around the back of the bridge, though Peggy sat at the sensors console and Steve sat in the Copilot''s chair. I sat down at the Tesseract control console, sliding back slightly to make room for Thor.


    I tapped to the right screen and the muscr Asgardian quickly entered some coordinates, the screen showing a massive floatingnd mass. It was just a basic model, but even like that it looked impressive.


    "Alright, thank you, Thor, have a seat again, please. Ema, pull us away from Earth if you would."


    Ema nodded and manipted the <em>Void Skipper''s </em>controls, pulling us away from our orbit around Earth. She engaged the thrusters and a low, vibrating rumble echoed through the ship as it fought the Earth''s gravity, the silencers quicklypensating. We flew away into space, passing the moon in quickly. Eventually, we slowed down to a stop.


    "Alright, opening the portal."


    I selected a location a decent distance from thend mass, wanting to avoid just randomly appearing too close. With another button press and the portal was opening in front of the ship.


    "Alright, everyone! Buckle up and hold on tight, it''s about to get rough!" I say, bracing myself on my console.


    Ema, like the perfect partner she was, didn''tment, and instead guided the ship to the portal, while everyone else suddenly looked very worried. The two civilians gave each other a look and held on to their seats tightly, looking around for their buckles, which the seats didn''t have and didn''t need. Ambassador Steiner let out a worried gasp as we entered the portal, the ship passing through as smoothly as could be.


    On the other side was a wide open expanse of space, the only identifying feature beyond distant stars and neb was the massive hunk ofnd that floated in the center of the forward viewscreen. It was hard to tell just how big it was from this distance, but it wasn''t small. On the bottom was a singr mountain, partially obscured by a skirt of water falling from around the rim of the massive space ind. On the other was a mountainousndscape surrounding the Asgardian city.


    "And that''s it, wee to Asgard," I said with a smirk.


    I got more than a few dirty looks, Steve and Bucky chuckling to themselves while Thor only looked confused.


    "That was incredibly smooth. Even the Bifrost is normally more jarring than that," Hemented, Bucky chuckling even more.


    "Sorry Thor, I was just joking," I exined, taking pity on him as I stood from my seat. "Now, how would you suggest we get down to ground level?"


    Ema guided our ship through space, focusing on therge floating space ind in the distance. As we got the <em>Void Skipper </em>flew closer and closer, the view of the impressivendscape bing more and more clear. Front and center was a massive golden building, a slowly curving structure formed of vertical columns, meeting up and growing higher and higher until it reached the central, highest point. It took a moment for me to realize the huge scale of the massive building.


    Around the central structure was a sprawling metropolis, thinning out into sparser popted areas as it got closer to the mountain that framed the entire city, though even they bore various buildings. From the central structure, a bridge reached out, crossing therge body of water which formed arge bay. The bay fell over the edge of the massive ind, dissipating into space like a massive waterfall.


    It was honestly breathtaking, and it only got more impressive as we got closer.


    "Thor, where should we park?" I asked, Peggy giving me a look from behind therge Asgardian.


    "I believe an escort already approaches," He responded with a smile, the sight of his home obviously happy at the sight of his home.


    Sure enough, the sensors beeped as three boats came into view, each with three people on board. They took up positions on either side and in front of us as Ema slowed down, the lead boat shifting and guiding us in. The boats lead us around the city and down amongst the mountains, where arge tform, one actually big enough for us tond on, was tucked away among the hills, valleys, and peaks. Ema expertlynded us on the tform, tapping a few buttons and shutting down the thrusters.


    "Well considering the <em>Void Skipper </em>hasn''tnded since it wasunched and it''s nevernded in gravity That went pretty well," I said, a strangled whimpering from behind me in the general direction of the Ambassador and Councilwoman.


    I turned to find the Ambassador with his head in his hands, the Councilwoman looking at him worriedly.


    "Uhhh sorry?" I said with a wince. "If it helps any, the seats and beds in this ship protect people from crashes. I''m pretty sure we could crash through the moon and we would be okay."


    The ambassador just held up his hand, holding off on anything else I could say. I looked back at Steve, Peggy, and Bucky, thetter of which was chuckling to himself.


    "Right Well, there are a bunch of ways to get off the ship, but the primary way would be from the garage bay. Ema, would you guide them all there while Thor and I get Loki?"


    Ema nodded and the group departed, Steve, helping Ambassador Steiner up from his chair. I apologized as he left, slowly getting his feet under him. When they were all gone I gestured for Thor to follow me.


    "Maker My brother revealed some disturbing facts about the restraint you have on his arm," He said after a moment of silence. "While I understand your anger for his actions, threatening him with brain damage-"


    "That was a bluff," I assured him, stopping by the sealed doors of the detention center. "I really don''t like the idea of creating something to force people to do anything against their will, even simply telling the truth. And even if I didn''t I wouldn''t make something with a side effect like that, it takes away from the flexibility. The restraint won''t do permanent harm, the most dangerous aspect is the taser function, which is admittedly a little intense for a normal person but not for an Asgardian, or frost giant for that matter."


    "...Do you swear it was a bluff?" He asked, looking at me intensely.


    "Yes, I swear his restraints do not force him to speak, nor does it cause brain damage," I assured him, getting a nod in return.


    "Very well, shall we then?"


    Thor and I gathered Loki, who said nothing as we escorted him around the ship to the garage bay, where Ema and everyone else was waiting. Steve, Peggy, and Bucky were all dressed in the armored uniforms I had made them, though they were unarmed as far as I could tell.


    Steve still had his shield on his back of course.


    I left Loki to Thor and, after giving him a controller for his restraints, walked to the front of the garage bay, tapping on a control panel. Therge, armored shutter doors that sealed the bay shut shuddered and slowly opened, letting the fresh, clean Asgardian air flow into the bay. I took a deep breath and let it out after a moment.


    "Ema Remind me to get samples of <em>everything," </em>I said. "I need tobine some of this air with the life support systems."


    Ema nodded and we all watched the bay doors finish opening. I tapped on the panel again and a ramp began to descend from the lip of the bay, transforming and unfolding as my armor did. Eventually, it touched down with a soft thunk, a gentle curve forming to smooth out the transition.


    "Alright Thor, lead the way."


    The Asgardian prince led the way down the ramp, a firm grip on his brother''s arm as he led him along. Loki didn''t struggle, though he did mutter under his breath. Thor stopped and looked over at me.


    "Could you release him from his forced slowness?"


    I nodded and pulled out my controller, tapping the shut off for the slowing effect, allowing him to walk at a normal speed. Thor nodded and continued, no longer having to force Loki to follow along. Eventually, we reached the bottom of the ramp and stepped onto the stone-workednding pad.


    Looking around therge tform, I could see that even though it was a simple space, it was still masterfully crafted. Ornate symbols were carved into the stone floor, some bigger than me, looping around and connecting together. There was a natural flow to the pattern, leading to an opening in the side of a mountain around two to three hundred feet away, as well as the general direction of another opening even further away. I could see several figures walking from that opening, making their way to us.


    Eventually, as they got closer I could make out who they were. Sif and the warriors three made their way to us, as well as a woman I didn''t recognize, a quartet of guards following behind her.


    "Ah, mother hase out to greet us," Thor said, his smile only growingrger before he looked to his brother, his smile falling to a frown.


    "My sons It is good to see you on Asgardian once again," The woman, Frigga said, stepping past Thor''s friends.


    She reached out and touched Thor''s cheek, smiling as she did, before focusing on Loki.


    "Loki We thought you dead," She admitted, reaching out to touch him as well, flinching when he pulled back.


    For a moment I thought Thor would smack him with Mjolnir.


    Frigga stepped back, before looking past her children and noticing the rest of us. After a moment her diplomatic smile broke through.


    "Greeting, and wee to Asgard, I am Frigga, Queen of Asgard. I believe Thor and I will be escorting Loki to his new amodations," She said, casting a look at her adopted son before focusing back on us. "Sif and the warriors three shall guide you to the throne room, where my husband awaits."


    "Thank you, Your Majesty." Ambassador Steiner said, stepping forward and bowing. "We apologize for intruding uninvited-"


    "Oh Ambassador Steiner, if we did not wish you here you would not have been allowed tond," Frigga responded, though her smile seemed to be more teasing than aggressive. "We wee the representatives and warriors of Midgard, as well as Maker of Luna, to Asgard. Now, if you will excuse me, I must have private words with my sons."


    I winced as she called me Maker of Luna, my secret home on the moon now no longer quite a secret. Unconcerned about the reveal, Frigga stepped away, Thor and Loki following behind her, the guards following behind them. As they walked away, heading for the more distant archway carved into a stone face, I smirked at Ema.


    "Do you think I should call some battle bots to act as an honor guard?" I asked, only getting an eye roll in response.


    Sif stepped forward, smiling at me and holding out her hand, which I gripped in a warrior''s handshake.


    "It is good to see you again Maker," She said, releasing my hand. "You have built a mighty ship, far beyond what the rest of Midgard is capable of."


    "Yeah, I''ve been working on my crafting, and made a few discoveries that pushed it forward by leaps and bounds," I said, opening my mouth to continue when someone behind me coughed.


    "Oh, right, you wouldn''t have met my friends yet, let me introduce you," I said, turning and stepping aside, gesturing to Steve, Peggy, and Bucky. "Three of our world''s finest warriors, Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers, and James Barnes."


    Sif looked over all three of them with a discerning eye, reaching out and gripping each of their arms in a tight shake.


    "This is Ambassador Steiner and Councilwoman Hartford, the diplomatic portion of our temporary group," I exined. "I would attempt to describe their jobs but I''m afraid they would not enjoy me getting it wrong and having to correct me. Suffice it to say they and my friends represent Earth."


    "And you do not?" Sif asked, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.


    "No, Ie here representing myself," I exined with a shrug. "Which I need to emphasize to His Majesty."


    Sif looked curious, as did the three warriors behind her. Eventually, she nodded her head.


    "Well, it''s the business of King Odin to question your intentions, it is ours to guide you to him. Come, we shall take be taking a skiff."


    Sif and the Warriors Three led the way across the t and expansive, making their way along the same pathway they arrived through. All of us followed behind her, with Ema and I following behind the group. They led us through the opening in the side of the mountain, a massive archway decorated with murals, statues, and carvings set into the walls and floors. All of it was ented with gold, highlighting the wealth of Asgard.


    On the other side of the pathway through the rock was a small tform that looked quite a bit like a stone dock. Moored to that dock were several skiffs, the same boat-like craft that had guided us in. Steve, Buckley, and Peggy piled into a singr craft, Steve and Bucky helping the ambassador and councilwoman into the boat behind them. When Ema and I didn''t climb in, Sif looked at me strangely.


    "Would it be rude if Ema and I flew in ourselves?" I asked, ignoring Ema''s sigh from behind me.


    "You have mastered flight as well?" Sif asked, surprise in her voice. "Perhaps I should have attended the discussions King Odin and Heimdall had about you Maker. Very well, I only hope you can keep up."


    "I think we will be fine," I said with a smirk, getting only a shrug in response.


    "Suit yourself," Sif responded, grabbing hold of the skiff''s tiller, the bottom of the boat glowing for a moment before it pulled away, leaving it mooring behind.


    I smiled and activated my armor, leaping into the air and activating my wings, darting after the skiff with a whoop, Ema following right behind me. I swooped down and flew beside the boat, pping asionally to easily keep up with its leisurely pace. I couldn''t help but chuckle at the Asgardian''s reaction to our wings.


    "Impressive!" Sif shouted over the wind.


    "Leaps and bounds!" I shouted back,ughing as I dipped, rolled under the skiff, and pulled up under the other side.


    The skiff continued to arc through the sky, Ema and I following behind it as we made our way to the pce. I could see Asgardians below us, pointing up as we flew around the skiff, Ema staying alongside it as I looped, dipped, and dove around, eventually pulling back up. I couldn''t help butugh, enjoying the experience of flying through the clear skies of Asgard.<hr>


    Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing well. I just want to remind you that I have a Pat_re_on! Simply look up my username, MetaBettaOmegaLetta on Pa_tre_on to find it. I just released the next five chapters of my original book <strong>Last Resort: Dimensional Bloodsport</strong> for supporters, which I am honestly very happy with. Supporters also get ess to early chapters of all my fanfictions, and Board Members get to vote on important story beats like who gets interludes and what characters will be doing next. If you are interested in showing your support, please stop by. Every bit helps!

 Chapter 93: Dig in!

    Chapter 93: Dig in!


    Wended shortly after we took off, the distance between the pce and thending pad melting away as we flew. We slowly made our descent, heading to the central road that seemed to connect to the Rainbow Bridge on one end and the pce on the other. As we got closer to the road and the pce itself, we diverted to the right side of the road, heading toward another stone mooring, this one built from stone bricks and ented with metal and gold.


    As the skiff touched down in its mooring, Ema and I red our wings out andnded beside it, getting quite a few wide-eyed looks. I was pretty sure it was my wings, rather than my ability to fly that was drawing the attention, as a race like the Asgardians surely had ess to magic or tech, or both, that would allow them to fly.


    My armor shrunk around me, changing back into my chest te and leather jacketbo. When it was fullypacted I walked closer to the skiff and offered my hand to Councilwoman Hartford, helping her out of the vessel and onto the stone dock.


    "Why on Earth did you do that?" She asked, more curious than annoyed. "You made a spectacle of yourself."


    "I know, and that''s exactly why I did it. I''m here to make an impression and hopefully convince Odin to let me keep the Tesseract. Every bit of awe and wonder I generate is a point in my favor."


    "Unless he sees through your showing off," Ambassador Steiner pointed out, looking much more annoyed than Councilwoman Hartford did.


    "Then all I''m doing is showing off the types of things I can make," I responded with a shrug. "Either way, flying is fun, so why not."


    Before Ambassador Steiner, who I was beginning to think I had alienated in some way, could offer up his rebuttal, Lady Sif caught our attention.


    "The pce is just this way." She said simply, leading us through the small stone dock way and up onto the central path.


    As we followed behind I looked back along the road, activating my enhanced vision as I looked away from the pce. I could see where the rainbow road, a glittering, translucent path of colors that reached out over the waters, met the normal stone road. I enhanced my vision further, peering down the road and spotting a tall man standing at the jagged broken end. Dressed in golden armor and wielding a massive sword that he held with the tip to the ground, looking out over the edge of the bridge into space.


    I was about to look away when he turned, looking right back at me despite the fact that I was at least a few thousand feet away, if not more. He nodded in acknowledgment before turning back and looking back out into the expanse. It took me a moment to realize who he was. When I did I turned back to the group and half-jogged to catch up, my wordless encounter with Heimdall having caused Ema and me to get left behind.


    We were led into the pce, leaving the central road behind as we entered the interior. It was a surprisingly open building, with wide, open entrances and archways, with windows that were open, without any barriers to the elements. Pirs stood on either side of us,rge stone constructs that repeated every twenty or so feet. Every inch of every surface was beautifully colored, shaped, and carved with intricate details, highlights, and precision.


    At the end of the pir-warded hall was Odin, sitting on a huge golden throne. The throne was big, with two curved ents attached to arge seat carved from a block of gold. It was honestly a bit much, clearly showing off Asgard''s wealth, only in a way that was over the top.


    It didn''t even lookfortable.


    I kept my mouth shut, of course, silently following behind Lady Sif. Eventually,l when we are standing before him, Sif stopped and bowed her head before speaking


    "Allfather! I present to you the warriors and representatives of Midgard, as well as the Maker, of Luna." She said, stepping to the side after she introduced us, until she was standing by the edge of the ornately carved area in front of the throne.


    The white-haired, older man, dressed in golden armor and wielding arge spear even as he sat, the tip pointed into the air, watched us for a long moment, his one good eye studying us.


    "It has been many centuries since humans have walked these halls," He said, his voice reaching every inch of the space despite the fact that he wasn''t yelling. "I wee you to Asgard!"


    A cheer echoes through the hall, and I noticed for the first time we were very much not alone. Scores of people watched us as we presented ourselves, stepping out closer to the path we walked, pping and shouting. I turned to focus back on Odin, suddenly feeling tense.


    "I am sure we have much to discuss, words to trade, and questions to ask. While I am sure you are eager to discuss politics, hospitality must be observed! Tonight we will feast, to celebrate my son''s return, even if one is in chains, as well as humanity''s victory over the Chitauri!"


    Another cheer echoed over the pce, echoing and thundering through the open hall. It took a moment to settle down.


    "We shall eat, bond over stories of battle, and drink!" He called out, raising his spear into the air. "Let us worry about politics and questions tomorrow!"


    Again the room filled with cheer and shouting. Odin nodded and thumped the floor with the butt of his spear, before catching my eyes with his. The gold eyepatch that he wore, connected to his face with no straps, matched his armor perfectly, as well as the aesthetics of the throne room itself. His look was serious, harsh, and openly analyzing, running counter to the words he had just said. I realized after a moment that this was likely a show for his people, a speech prepared to excite and stick in his people''s heads.


    The excitement churned over and we were escorted to our rooms, plenty of warriors pping our backs and shaking our arms, congratting us on our sess. Lady Sif ended up escorting us through the crowd, though a pce guard escorted us after that. We were led tovish-looking bedrooms with incredible views of the city. Everything from the rugs to the drapes was well-made and appeared to be handcrafted, and massively detailed. Our guides promised us that someone would be along with clothes for the feast, and before we could respond, we were alone.


    "I get the feeling we were rushed through that," I said, standing in the middle of my room, looking around and feeling a bit lost.


    "Odin must have wanted to see his sons as well." Ema guessed.


    I nodded and turned around, looking at the furniture and decorations that lined my room. I made my way up a short set of stairs, leading to the open balcony.


    "This ce is incredible," I said, watching people walk around several floors below the balcony, leaning on the balcony railing. "I love the open-aired aesthetic."


    "Maybe when we make the moon inhabitable we could design something like this?" Ema suggested, getting a look from me. "Oh please, you''ve been trying to figure out how to do that since Tony assumed you gave the moon atmosphere."


    "... Yeah It would be an interesting challenge." I said, turning away and watching a skiff fly in the distance. "But not something I would try any time soon."


    I pushed off of the railing and stepped back into the room, my feet on thest steps when there was a knock on the door. I called for them toe in, and two Asgardians entered, a seamstress and her apprentice, bowing low and exining that they were here with my clothes. I spent the next hour getting several Asgardian outfits fitted, including one outfit that was intended for tonight''s feast. Most of them were simple, light robes, with multiple lightyers. Thankfully they understood that I needed to keep my chest piece on and worked around it. The outfit intended for tonight was a dark red, with gold cloth highlights that worked pretty well with my chest piece.


    Ema insisted that they fit her in the same room as me, ignoring my own insistence that I was fine. They agreed to fit her behind a pull-out divider, even after Ema proved her body wasn''t really humanoid by default.


    They dressed her in a red and gold gown that matched my own outfit, though hers was unarmored. It was much more flowing than mine, but still had at least twoyers that I could see, a dress and a shawl-like addition on top. The dress has a v-cut in the front, small enough that it would have been considered conservative on Earth.


    When the seamstress was done fitting it to her, Ema shifted her skin color to better match the gown, ending up a darker blue, almost purple. The seamstress''s eyes went wide when she did but she clearly appreciated the shift. She also added a couple of inches to her height, making her slightly taller than me.


    No more than an hourter, Fandral arrived at my room to escort us to the feasting hall.


    "You look simply amazing Emerald," He said as we stepped out of my room. "This shade fits you well, and you look enchanting in that gown."


    "Thank you," She responded simply, smiling politely. "The seamstress is an incredible craftswoman."


    "She is, I have bought a few things from her myself," He said with a charming smile. "She makes wonderful work and they make great gifts."


    We continue on, heading deeper into the pce before eventually reaching a massive hall. It was as open as the rest of Asgard, though it did have a lower ceiling than most of the sweeping arch and vaulted ceilings we had seen so far.


    There were dozens of long tables set up in the hall, each at least thirty feet long,den with food, though it seemed to be finger foods for now. On the far side of the hall was a thinner table, set up on a raised stone tform. It was empty so far, and I had to assume that this was where Odin, Frigga, and Thor would sit.


    Down on the normal level, hundreds of people walked around, from table to table, some sitting down, some standing. There were also dozens of staff walking around as well, refilling cups, taking away empty tters, and bringing in full ones. The smells were amazing already, and it seemed like the main course wasn''t even out yet.


    After a quick scan of the room, I immediately spotted Peggy, Steve, and Bucky sitting at a table that was very close to the raised table at the end of the hall, the diplomats at the table next to it. Sif, Volstagg, and Hogun sat with them as well, making idle conversation.


    "I assume you would wish to sit with your friends?" Fandral asked, smiling when I nodded. "Fantastic!"


    As we got closer I could see Peggy, Steve, and Bucky''s outfits. Steve and Bucky were dressed in clothes simr to mine, though they weren''t wearing their armor. Steves was a navy blue with ents of dark maroon red, while Buckys was a dark ck, ented with highlights of grey. Peggy, on the other hand, was wearing a gown tangentially simr to Ema, though hers was even more conservative. Both of the soldiers waited for Ema to sit before they sat down again.


    "You three look good, the seamstress does good work huh?" I said, taking my own seat, Fandral sitting on the other side of Ema.


    "Seamster actually in our case," Steve responded. "But yes, they did."


    "They are married," Sif exined with a smile. "Their daughter was probably with one of them, she is their apprentice. They are the royal tailors in fact."


    Volstagg, who was eating steadily from a te piled high with snacks and finger food, swallowed the mouthful he was chewing, washing it down with a gulp from his cup.


    "They are rather impressive and caught Frigga''s eyes a century or so ago," He added with a smile.


    We continued with our small talk, Peggy eventually steering to a topic I was hoping they would forget about.


    "Carson Queen Frigga and Lady Sif called you ''Maker of Luna''," She asked. "What exactly does that mean?"


    I let out a long sigh, slumping partially in my chair.


    "I wish she hadn''t called me that," I admitted. "My home, it''s on the moon. I moved there when I was taking a break to focus on my crafting, while you guys were fighting Hydra."


    "You You live on the fucking MOON!" Bucky said, catching the eyes of many people as he stood up, sitting down sheepishly after a moment.


    "Guys you saw me smash into a spaceship with my own spaceship, get stranded somewhere in the universe-"


    Ema let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like "sling ring", especially considering shecked the parts necessary to cough.


    "-and got myself back home in three days. I mean I flew us here on the <em>Void Skipper," </em>I pointed out. "How is me living on the moon that strange?"


    "I I mean it''s the moon and your living there!" He said shaking his head. "How did you even get up there?"


    "I strapped anding pad to one of my robots and had him fly to it," I exined. "It took a few days but he got there eventually."


    "Wait Your home it''s connected to your warehouse, I''ve been there!" Bucky said excitedly, jostling his friend''s shoulder. "Steve, we were on the moon!"


    "Just say the word and I''ll lend you some EVA suits," I said with a smile. "You can hop around for a while."


    "So Maker lives on Midgard''s moon?" Sif asked, looking confused. "Why is that so shocking?"


    "It doesn''t have an atmosphere," Peggy answered. "It''s too small. Living on the moon is a big deal for us, something our governments are decades, if not closer to a century away from doing. And it would be incredibly dangerous."


    "Not for me, I can survive a few hours in a vacuum at this point," I exined. "Actually with their durability-enhancing tattoos, your squads canst for as long as they can go without passing out fromck of oxygen. The tattoos resist the worst effects of vacuum for a while. It feels weird but perfectly survivable."


    We chatted a bit more about the tattoos before Steve looked over at the raised table. Following his look, I noticed that Thor, Odin, and Frigga were taking their ce.


    "The Allfather will announce the beginning of the feast shortly," Sif exined, prompting me to turn back to her. "Thor is obligated to stay at his family''s table for the first portion of the meal. After that, he and Queen Frigga will likely step down and seek out conversation."


    "King Odin stays up there?" I asked.


    "He stays at his seat, keeping an eye on us all, staying vignt," She exined. "During times of war, it is meant to be reassuring, that our strongest is watching over us while we are distracted with merriment."


    "What an interesting tradition," Peggymented, taking a small sip from her ss.


    "Indeed. There are holidays and events where his ce is taken by others, mostly Thor or Heimdall. He might call someone up to talk to them, but not about business or politics. Feasts like these are meant to be a celebration."


    We continued talking about traditions, even exining some of ours from home, including a few of our holidays. Eventually, after a while the staff started taking away the tes of finger food, leaving the tables looking empty. Volstagg was stuck between sadness that the food was gone and the exception that more food would soon be brought out.


    When the tes were cleared a thump reverberated through the hall, pulling everyone''s attention. Odin stood, Gungnir in his hand, looking out over the hall, silence covering the filled room. By now the only people who had been standing were the staff, and they had left the hall moments before Odin stood. Odin thumped Gungnir against the floor again.


    "My subjects! My people! Let us celebrate the arrival of our allies from Midgard and the return of my sons!" He shouted. "Let the feast begin!"

 Chapter 94: Full scary mode

    Chapter 94: Full scary mode


    The feast was enormous. It started with servings of a thick chunky stew, simr to beef stew but with meat and vegetables that I didn''t recognize. It was served with a ss of some sort of creamy yet sweet drink that cut through its heavy vors surprisingly well, without detracting from them. After that several massive roasted chunks of meat were brought out on huge tes of cooked tubers and vegetables.


    The staff sliced off cuts and brought them around to everyone, serving plenty with meat to spare. Alongside the meat, a light mead was served, one that tasted of honey and berries, though I had no idea which ones.


    While the roast was being cut, Thor left the raised tform and started walking amongst his people, shaking hands and talking, a wide smile on his face.


    "That is mostly new," Lady Sif admitted, watching her prince with a smile and getting a confused look from us Earthlings. "He never used to walk amongst everyone, shaking hands and learning about random people. Sure he would happily seek out friends and even make new ones but Going to Midgard, and losing his powers, even for the short time that he did had an effect on him. A good one."


    "Being powerless changes you," Peggy said, nodding in understanding. "Even if it''s not from a loss of personal power."


    I saw Steve wince, before schooling his features. Eventually, Thor finished his rounds and joined us, dropping into the seat that was saved for him.


    "Friends! How are you enjoying the feast? I believe the chefs have outdone themselves once again, this boar smells wonderful!" He said loudly, grabbing a tankard and taking a sip.


    "It tastes even better than it smells," Volstagg responded, before eating anotherrge bite, Thor chuckling in response.


    The conversation shifted slowly to small talk, mostly focused on retelling the battle with the Chitauri.


    "I will be honest, it was not the most thrilling of battles," Thor admitted. "Which for the circumstances is a good thing. The Chitauri are a vicious, greedy, warmongering species who fight with no honor. Fighting them off so proficiently is something to be proud of, especially for a species as young as humanity."


    "Part of it came down to luck," I responded with a shrug. "Had Loki''s original n been used the portal would have opened up above New York City..."


    "That would have been a nightmare," Steve added, shaking his head. "Their fliers would have given them a sizable advantage. Thanks to Maker we would have been able to get there pretty fast and hold them off, maybe, but the civilian casualties"


    "From what I understand, it was the choice to move the Scepter to somece with fewer civilians was what lead to such an advantageous oue," Thor pointed out, taking special care not to mention the Infinity Stone. "Truly that is not luck but strategy!"


    We shared augh, continuing to talk about the battle. Eventually, the subject of the destroyer that had been destroyed by the Chitauri came up.


    "How many were lost?" Sif asked solemnly.


    "Forty-three," Peggy answered. "It would have been many more if Maker''s robots hadn''t been simultaneously diving into the water to pull sailors out as the ship was sinking and healing the injured. They even rescued the bodies of those they were tote to save."


    The small group was quiet for a while, most of us solemnly remembering the explosion that destroyed the ship, while the others waited patiently.


    "What was the name of the vessel?" Thor asked after a long pause, a serious tone in his voice.


    "The USS Morita," Bucky and Steve answered at the same time.


    Thor slowly stood, holding his mug in his hand and slowly raising it up into the air. After a few moments, people began to notice, the entire hall slowly quieting until it was almostpletely silent. Even the staff stopped moving, standing patiently.


    "To the lost sailors of the USS Morita, and all that died in defense of Midgard! Soldiers that died defending their home from Chitauri! " Thor called. "May they feast in Valha, or whatever hall they so choose!"


    A cheer raised through the massive room, mugs raised in support of humans they had never met. The cheer was loud, but it still somehow felt solemn, an acknowledgment of the loss with a celebration of doing one''s duty. Thor sat down after a moment, draining thest of his drink, his hand patting Steve''s shoulder.


    It was a while before the conversation picked up again, but it did eventually, with topics changing to lighter things. The feast continued, with more coursesing out before finishing with an extravagant dessert spread, small treats like cookies, and pieces of candy. When we had all eaten and drank our fill, and the hall''s poption started to thin, Ema and I excused ourselves back to our rooms. Hogun agreed to escort us, leading us back to our rooms where I immediately headed to bed, feeling stuffed and satisfied beyond belief.


    I was asleep in a moment, after asking Ema to remind me to get as many cookbooks as I could barter for.<hr>


    I woke up the next morning to Ema calling my name and putting a te of food down on the table in the far corner of the room.


    "Someone just dropped this off, apparently breakfast here is more of a small group thing," Ema exined with a shrug. "You were invited to the training area whenever you feel like going, something about sparring or training? I talked to Peggy and her boys, they are already heading over now."


    "Thanks, Ema. Do you want to go?" I asked as I stretched, sitting down at the table with her. "I''m up for checking it out at least."


    "I would like to go, it could be fun testing ourselves against Asgardian strength."


    Ema and I ate our breakfast, which was fresh bread, with some sort of egg and smoked fish, simr to salmon. When we were finished I cleaned up quickly, taking advantage of one of my many invisible tattoos to clean my body instantly, leaving me smelling faintly like cinnamon and sandalwood, or at least that''s what Ema imed. I threw on one of the more casual outfits that the seamstress had left for me the previous day before stepping out into the hall. A guard was waiting for me.


    "I am here to guide you to the battlegrounds, should you wish to join Thor and your friends."


    I nodded and followed behind the armored guard as he led us through the halls. We left the main pce and continued walking for several minutes before eventually stopping at an overlook. Below us was arge field, spread out over maybe two or three football fields of space. Dozens, if not hundreds of warriors were sparring, running through drills, and practicing with dummies. There was even an area where warriors practiced with bows, crossbows, and other ranged options.


    "Thank you, I think we can handle it from here," I said to the guard, who hesitated for a moment before nodding and walking away.


    I gave one look to Ema, who immediately groaned and rolled her eyes. I smirked and stepped up onto the stone railing, leaping up into the air and ring my wings open, the metallic feathers catching the wind, letting mezily fly down. It took a single circle of the field before I spotted Thor waving to me, the glint of his armor catching my attention. I swooped down andnded smoothly.


    "Ah, Maker! d you decided you join us," Thor said with a chuckle. "We were beginning to wonder if you would sleep through the day."


    "I live on a tidally locked moon, day and night get kinda lost on me sometimes," I exined with a shrug. "So what''s going on?"


    "Thor thought it might be fun to do some light sparring," Sif exined as she stretched her arm above her head.


    "What better way to get to know new friends?" He responded, smiling brightly.


    I peeked over his shoulder at Bucky and Steve, who both looked intrigued and were already wearing their armor, while Peggy was further back, sitting on a bench. I waved, getting a smile, a nod, and a wave back.


    "Sure, sounds like fun. Are we going all out? Using training swords? I''d rather not get struck by lightning."


    "That is a fair point. I will restrain myself from using my lightning, and those of us who use des can use dulled weapons instead," Thor suggested, Lady Sif nodding in agreement.


    "Great, Ema?"


    "Sounds like fun."


    Sif started clearing people out, soldiers and warriors moving aside as they saw who was asking, and who they were asking for. Some of them packed up and left, but most simply moved to the side and waited, clearly interested in seeing theing matches. Hogun, who was the only member of the Warriors three present, arrived with some blunted swords, attempting to hand one to Bucky and Steve, both of which shook their heads.


    When the small ring was done, Sif immediately made her way to Ema.


    "Emerald, shall we start off?" She asked. ''"I find myself wondering about the power of Maker''s right-hand woman."


    Ema gave me a look, and I only shrugged.


    She nodded and stepped onto the field, passing by the pile of blunted weapons. Instead, her right hand shifted into a sword, its edges dulled. It was vaguely triangr, with the spine of the de a straight point from about four inches under where her hand would be, all the way up to the tip. The de itself was a diagonal line stopping about three inches from where her fist would be, and the final line connected to the starting point of the spine, though there was a lot of extra material there, probably to make a solid part for blunt impacts. Her left arm morphed into a heater shield, solidifying with the green and gold symbol of the Conceptual Deck.


    Sif watched the forming of her sword and shield with a raised eyebrow but ultimately said nothing. She grabbed a blunted sword and readied her shield, walking a dozen or so feet away from Ema before taking a ready stance. The rest of us stood off to the side.


    "Care to make any bets?" Thor quietly asked with a smile.


    "What happened to a friendly spar?" I asked. "Besides, it''s not a fairparison."


    "Well I know it''s a steep challenge, but Ema could still-"


    "I meant for Lady Sif," I said with a chuckle, Thor looking at me with doubt in his eyes. "The only chance Lady Sif has is if Ema decided to y fair or not. Even that would only make it take a bit longer."


    Before Thor could say anything in his friend''s defense, Sif charged in, swirling her sword to attack from the side, which Ema blocked with her own sword, countering it up and shoving her back with her own shield.


    Soon they were in a blur of fighting. Sif''s strikes were perfect and confident, the result of hundreds, maybe thousands of years of practice. Each attack went exactly where she wanted, each strike was tuned to her movement. Ema on the other hand wasn''t nearly as refined, but she made up for it with her range, flexibility, and impossible reflexes. She was clearly restricting herself to "human" motion and possibility, but herck of muscles and nerves meant that she didn''t just move, she flowed.


    "That is impressive" Fandral added, having finally shown up with Vallstag about three minutes into the spar. "I don''t know if anyone has held off Sif this long."


    "Not even Thor?"


    "She is the better fighter, without a single doubt. I simply power through her technique," Thor admitted sheepishly. "She hates sparring with me."


    Eventually, there was a shift in their fight, as if at the same moment they both decided to stop holding back. Ema got faster, her movements even smoother as she stopped pretending she required muscles to move, though she still kept the range of motion the same. Sif became faster as well, but her strength seemed to almost triple. Ema was forced to dodge or angle her strikes away, as directly blocking her blows drove her back, her feet digging into the ground as she slid. Considering the fact that Ema weighed multiple times more than a normal person, it was an impressive show of strength.


    "Unbelievable" Hogun said to himself.


    "How is she keeping up with her?" Fandral asked.


    "I did say it wasn''t exactly a fairparison."


    Eventually, Ema was forced to move in a way humans couldn''t, bending her elbow backward and blocking a blow that she hadn''t predicted in time to dodge. Her morphed weapon blocked the strike perfectly though, the blunted practice de shattering from the force. Simultaneously they both jumped back, Sif breathing heavily.


    "Are you injured?" Sif asked, referring to Ema''s arm bending backward.


    "No, but I believe this might be a good ce to call a draw." She suggested, Sif nodding in agreement.


    "I believe you are correct. You are a mighty warrior Lady Emerald." Sif responded, giving Ema a small bow


    "You are as well Lady Sif. If I wasn''t so unique, you would have certainly won."


    "Are you saying that you were holding back? Even at the end?" Fandral asked, still in disbelief. "No offense Lady Emerald but I do not quite believe you."


    "Feel free to step up and test it," I responded with a smirk, Ema rolling her eyes at my brag. "She could take on all three of you ande out on top."


    "... That sounds like a challenge," Fandrall said. "Lady Sif may be the superior warrior but we are fierce in our own right, and I doubt she could handle all three of us."


    "Ema?" I asked, giving her a look. "You up for it?"


    "If I must." She responded with a put-upon sigh, before smirking. "It would be nice to cut loose. No offense Lady Sif."


    The warrior woman said nothing and simply watched with critical eyes. She seemed concerned that someone who had so handily held her off was bragging that she could go even further beyond what she had seen.


    "I suppose it would be rude toin, only to back out of the challenge when thedy epts," Fandral said with a cocky grin, looking back at his friends. "Shall we?"


    Volstagg and Hogun shared a look before nodding in agreement. Hogun did not look particrly thrilled to be dragged into this, but he stepped onto the field anyways. Ema stepped back onto the space as well, this time positioning herself in the center. She was about to push out her swords when I spoke up.


    "Ema, Full scary mode?" I suggested


    "Are you sure?" She asked, looking at her opponents.


    "Up to you."


    For a moment she considered before smiling, her partially formed weapons absorbing back into her hands. Her armor also faded, as did the fake coloring of her skin, leaving her the same dark burnished metal that she was in her default state. Her body slowly shifted to her mannequin, doll-like shape, all of her strong features fading save her bright emerald eyes.


    All three warriors stopped and watched for a moment, their eyes going wide before getting ready. They shared barely noticeable looks, showing just how well they knew each other and that they couldmunicate so fluidly without a single word. Suddenly they charged, exploding into action. Hogun, who was directly behind Ema, swung his spikeless morning star, while Volstagg and Fandral attacked from the front, probably attempting to keep her focus on them.


    Instead, Ema morphed, shifting her shape and spreading it around in a tight circle, blocking all three of their strikes with ease. Her general form was still visible in ces as if she was freeze-framing her movement. She morphed again, mming each of them with a heavy, erged fist, before her body regrouped into a single form, standing with her hands behind her back. The warriors three recovered and shared another look before charging again. This time, instead of moving her main body stood still, arms and limbs pushing out of her body to block each attack, her eyes spinning around her head to watch all three of them at once.


    Just as Sif had done, they suddenly stopped holding back, striking and moving faster, hitting harder, moving quicker. Still, Ema stood, this time not flinching and still blocking every single blow, not wavering a single inch. This went on for a few minutes, the Warriors three trying several ways to distract, catch her off center, mislead, anything to try andnd a hit, ultimately failing, though there were a few close calls.


    Eventually, Ema decided enough was enough. Two thick strands of her exosuit grew out of the ground behind each of the warriors, rising into the air silently. At the same time, one of each reached out and snagged their target''s weapon arm, while the other held a blunted chunk of metal against their throats.


    After a few moments, Ema released the warriors and pulled her strands back, slowly morphing back to her armored and fully fleshed-out form.


    Thor and Sif were speechless, while Steve and Bucky, who both had hints of what Ema was capable of from when we were fighting the Chitauri, were only mildly shocked.


    "So Who wants to fight Maker?" Ema said as she walked off the field, the warriorsmiserating behind her.

 Chapter 95: Meeting the king

    Chapter 95: Meeting the king


    It turns out no one was eager to fight me after watching what Ema could do. . Of course, while I was as tough and strong as her, at least in my armor, I was considerably less flexible. But they didn''t need to know that. Thor looked like he was going to challenge me, but seemed happy to hold off for now


    Instead, Ema and I sat on the sidelines, watching Bucky face off against Hogun and Steve against Volstagg, both of which went exactly the way I would have predicted. Both Bucky and Steve could keep up with, and even sometimes hit back, when the Asgardians kept to basic levels. But as soon as they started to push through their restraint, they would trounce the two super soldiers.


    "I would say you both stand a fair chance at beating an Asgardian foot soldier, one not blessed with divine nature," Thor exined, not understanding that what he was saying could be misconstrued as condescending.


    "The fact that humanity was capable of creating an elixir that brought humans to that level" Sif said, trailing off for a moment before continuing. "Many gctic species'' have been trying for thousands of years to achieve that concept. The fact that Midgard achieved it at such a young age, even if its secrets were lost"


    "That''s nothing," Bucky responded, nodding toward me. "Maker could print out his armor by the truckload, and he outmatches us easily."


    I looked at Bucky, eyebrow raised, wondering why he decided to throw me under the bus. Then again, I was going out of my way to show off, he might have been attempting to help.


    "Yeah, my armor is abination of a few things," I exined. "It''s just about my most powerful work so far. At least on the small scale."


    "Come then, we need to test your strength!" Thor said, stepping away from our sparring area.


    I shrugged and followed behind the god, my armor forming up around me as I walked. Thor sat down at a small stone and metal table, holding his hand up with his elbow on the smooth surface. I stopped when I realized what he was suggesting.


    "Seriously? Arm wrestling?" I asked. "I thought you''d have some sort of special magic strength measuring thing."


    "I''m sure we do, somewhere. But what use is strength if you don''t have something topare it to!" Thor said with a smile. "Now sit, test your might!"


    I grumbled, leaving the fact that I was hoping to grab a scan of a strength measuring machine unsaid. I sat down and got into the proper position, my armored hand just as big as Thor''s was.


    "Are you ready my friend?" Thor asked, his muscr arms bulging already.


    Sif stood beside us, holding us steady, putting her hands on both of ours. We both held onto the table with our off hands, anchoring ourselves to keep steady.


    "Go!" Sif shouted, stepping back to give us space.


    Both of us strained against each other, Thor''s muscles bulging as he attempted to force my arm down. While I couldn''t feel all of the strain since my armor was absorbing most of it, I could feel some of it, enough to feel the burn. We fought against each other, our hands tilting back and forth as we both gained and lost ground. Thor, sensing that I was starting to gain more ground than I was losing, let out a shout and pushed himself even further, passing by his previous limits and slowly levering my arm down. I shouted back in response, using every ounce of strength I could, just managing to hold him back, my hand only a handful of inches from the table.


    For a moment, for seconds strung along together, I held the god of thunder back, my arm now shaking under the massive strain. I could feel the damage it was doing to my arm, my amulet healing the microfractures in my bones and the tears in my muscles. I could feel the edge of the stone table crumble in my off hand as I pushed, my armor beginning to creak as I raised my hand another few inches away from the table. A part of my mind noted that the sorcerous protection I had worked into my armor was losing its integrity rapidly.


    Before I could even consider how to handle that though, blue sparks of lightning began to dance around Thor''s body. I could hear thunder echo in the distance as electricity jumped and crackled around his arm, his eyes full of blue energy. With another roar he pushed my hand back, finally mming it down into the table with ast surge of energy. The table cracked into chunks, falling to the ground as we both recoiled, releasing each other''s hands.


    It took a minute for us both to recover, my arm healing from the final bit of damage and Thor wiping the sweat from his face with a towel. My armor was still perfectly intact and was already slowly rebuilding its protection charge. With a thought I shrank it back down to its chest te form, shaking myself to work out thest bit of tense muscles.


    "Maker, that was truly incredible! To create an armor capable of that much power What an achievement!" Thor said, reaching out and sping my arm. "Midgard is in good hands with you as one of its protectors."


    "Thanks, Thor," I epted with a smile. "Now I just need to convince the WSC to let me."


    "Why? Surely you would not cease protecting your home simply because an organization such as theirs demanded it?" Thor asked as we walked back to where our group had been sparring. "Do they hold sway over you?"


    "No, of course not. I wouldn''t stop protecting Earth just because the WSC told me to," I assured him, sitting down beside him and looking up at Asgard''s sky. "But I''m hoping to get their support. Not because I need it but because I want Earth to develop, I want it to thrive and grow, take its own steps into space, and make its own advancements. I want to help, and I will protect Earth from threats but I''m not looking to make a Maker empire that is dependent on the stuff I make."


    Thor and I watched the field for a little while longer before the group eventually split up and headed out. Sif and the Warriors three had their own business to attend to, while team Earthling had a meeting with Odin. I made a quick detour to the <em>Void Skipper</em> before meeting back up with Thor.<hr>


    Thor brought us all to a small dining hall after we all cleaned up a bit, Peggy, Steve, and Bucky changing out of their armor and into their casual clothes while I got dressed into my usual self-cleaning outfit, including my leather jacket. After we shared a small lunch we made our way through the pce, eventually stopping outside of a rather thick door, one carved with intricate patterns and detailed with gold and other precious metals.


    Thor gave us all a look, before knocking on the door, opening it, and stepping inside immediately. The interior was lined with bookshelves, disy cases, and art, lit by torches and an ambient light I couldn''t identify. On the far end of the study was a small table, where Frigga and Odin sat.


    "Mother, Father," Thor said with a formal nod. "Your guests are here."


    Neither Frigga nor Odin stood, though he did gesture to the chairs along the opposite side of the beautifully carved table that they were sitting at. I lead the other three to the chairs, iming one opposite Odin, doing my best not to freak out. When I sat, Ema stood behind me, her hand on my shoulder. Peggy, Steve, and Bucky sat down beside me, while Thor walked around the table to sit beside his mother.


    For a long moment the room was silent, save the crackling fire that burned a dozen or so feet behind the three gods on the other side of the table. Eventually, Odin spoke.


    " Asgard has protected Midgard for millennia," He said, sitting back in his chair, one hand on the table. "I swore to shield your ancestors from the dangers of the gxy when I saw their potential. They battled the forces of Jotunheim with everything they had, an act that impressed me greatly. Twice now, my son Loki led attacks to your doorstep, and twice the forces of Midgard have defended your realm against threats they should not have been forced to encounter."


    "With all due respect Your Majesty, your son Thor has been a great help in both of those battles," Peggy said, after a polite pause to make sure she wouldn''t interrupt the god-king of Asgard.


    "I might have been instrumental in stopping Loki''s rampage with the Destroyer armor, but Midgard defended itself from the Chitauri. I was one hero among many that day," Thor corrected, Steve, nodding in reluctant agreement.


    "What would you have from us?" Odin asked, looking at the other three. "What boon would you ask of me and of Asgard in rpense for our failure?"


    Steve moved to respond, probably to deny that he wanted anything or to exin they were just doing their duty, but Peggy stopped him. She leaned forward and smiled.


    "We ask you to deal favorably with our representatives. We would like the rtionship between our peoples to be more open and active, instead of the silent protector and ward," She exined with a smile. "Despite our differences in development, I believe we have much to offer each other."


    Odin nodded, Frigga smiling beside him.


    "Very well. Your political representatives are meeting with our diplomats as we speak. I shall inform them to rx some of their stronger requirements. But, do not misunderstand." Odin said, staring the three veterans down. "We will not uplift Humanity. We swore to protect Midgard because we wanted you to develop on your own, because of the great potential we saw in you. Uplifting your goes against everything agreed to."


    They discussed some of the things Asgard was willing to offer, mostly information on threats that might be out in the gxy, as well as a brief discussion of trading, and a potential media exchange. It was mostly general things though, Peggy insisting that the diplomats, both the ones we brought with us as well as any that might travel here in the future would be better suited to discuss the specifics. Odin seemed to agree, eventually shifting his focus to me.


    "Maker. You have taken a significant portion of Hiemdalls time thest few months," He said, his good eye staring into me. "It has been a long time since I have had to rely so heavily on his sight."


    "I hope it''s been entertaining at least," I said.


    "If by entertaining you mean worryingly prolific, suspiciously powerful, and knowledgeable about things there is no way for you to know, then yes," Odin responded with a straight face.


    The room was silent again, the once calm atmosphere reced by a tension that surprised the out-of-time trio beside me. I did my best not to show any outward panic as I waited for Odin to continue.


    "Your experimentation with the Destroyer armor alone was almost enough to prompt my intervention. Even now your armor is derived from something I sacrificed my own sweat, blood, and power to create. Its purpose was to defend Asgard, not arm you with power beyond your kin," He said after a pause. "The only reason I did not descend upon your little quarry workshop was the respect you showed the armors connection to myself. If you had meddled with the Odinforce I would have turned you and yourpanion to ash."


    I felt Ema''s hand on my shoulder tighten almost imperceptibly at the threat, but I trusted her to control herself. Instead, I stared at one of the most powerful beings in the gxy down.


    "The Destroyer armor was abandoned on Earth," I responded simply, continuing after a pause. "Whatever problem resulted in that is not my fault. Do not act like I kicked down Asgard''s door and stole your only method of defense."


    The tension ratcheted up another notch, with Steve gripping the arm of his chair tightly.


    "That being said, I do understand this is a grey area," I admitted. "Which is why I am willing to pay you back for what I used."


    I flicked out a card behind me, the cardnding about ten feet away before being reced by the hulking form of three sets of Destroyer armor. Thor was standing, Mjolnir in his hand before I could even bring my hand back from my flick, with Steve and Bucky just behind him.


    Odin of course didn''t move.


    "Three fully repaired Destroyer armors, save the part responsible for hooking it up to your control," I exined. "I figured it would be best to wait for that part."


    Odin stared at the massive form of metal, examining it with a critical eye. He eventually looked back down at me.


    "How long would it take to finish their connections?"


    "An hour or so," I answered with a shrug. "It''s not a difficult process."


    "...I will ept the recements and drop my grievance for using it in the method you have," Odin said. "I will go as far as to allow you to keep using it, as long as you do so with caution."


    "I will," I said simply, biting back a retort. I didn''t need his permission, and any grievance he had was tenuous at best.


    "Now, however, we get to the true issue at hand. The Tesseract and the scepter," Odin said, still sitting back in his chair. "Or, as you correctly determined, the Space and Mind Stone."


    "Father, did you know what the Tesseract was?" Thor asked, his eyes wide as he looked at Odin.


    "I did," Odin exined, not hesitating for a moment. "I have known what it was from the moment it entered my vault. But its true nature was better off forgotten."


    "Not forgotten enough," I responded, shaking my head. "I''m pretty sure whoever sent your son to Earth knew exactly what it was."


    "That is not good news," Odin said, shaking his head and stroking his beard, continuing after a moment in thought. "All the more reason for it to return to our vault. We will use it to repair the Bifrost, and then seal it away, guarded by the Destroyer armors."


    "Keeping two stones together is too much of a risk," I said, shaking my head. "Let me keep the Tesseract. I''ll keep it on the <em>Void Skipper </em>until I finish my next ship, which-"


    "And how can we trust that you will be able to keep it safe?" Odin asked. "I would sooner let the Collector hold onto-"


    "Are you out of your fucking mind?" I asked, leaning forward, my eyes wide. "Taneleer is insane! He is too obsessed with his collection to be trusted with anything this important. He would use the Tesseract to gather anything he wanted from anywhere he pleased, and the Mind Stone to bend the will of anyone he wants to make them willing exhibits. I-"


    Ema squeezed my shoulder, hard enough to hurt and stop me mid-sentence. Odin''s baffling suggestion had caught me by surprise, enough to get me talking before I could think about what I was saying. I managed to hold back the curse on my lips, but only just barely.


    "How do you know of the Collector, Carson Walsh?" Odin asked, now looking very interested. "You have a worrying amount of knowledge that no mortal Midgardian should, how is that possible?"


    "That''s a whole lot of not your business," I said, still cursing internally. "Especially since you would willingly surrender an Infinity Stone to someone keeping ves and kidnapping sentients for his own collection!"


    "His collection is one of the safest-"


    "Husband, please tell me you don''t actually consider that a good idea." Frigga cut in, looking at Odin in utter surprise. "He is a menace! You know this, you almost destroyed Knowhere yourself when you learned he was looking for an Asgardian to add to his collection!"


    "ces capable of reliably containing an Infinity Stone are notmonce!" Odin said, shaking his head. "We-"


    "If your solution is to give it to the Collector then the only way your taking it from me is by looting my dead, probably carbonized corpse," I said, my heart starting to pound in my chest. "Fuck, I would rather give it back to Loki."


    "I agree with Maker, husband," Frigga said, shaking her head. "Please do not lose yourself in what you think is necessary. The greater good is useless if it leaves no good behind."


    Once again I could feel the tension in the room ratcheting up a few notches. Odin was quiet for a long while, staring at me directly without blinking. After what felt like minutes of him staring he finally let out a long breath.


    "The Tesseract was vital to the creation of the Bifrost, Maker, as I am sure Thor informed you. I assume you have some sort of alternative?"


    I let out a long breath and nodded.


    "I believe I have made a device that should be able to repair the Bifrost without the Tesseract. Even if it is not capable of it, making it so it is would be an easy task," I exined. "It should also be capable of repairing any building, of any size and any power. It is yours, as is the Mind Stone, in exchange for allowing me to keep the Tesseract."


    Again Odin was silent for a long while, like he was staring down into my soul.


    "Agreed," He said with a finality that seemed to noticeably shift the room.


    "Good, good," I said, leaning back in my chair, unable to keep the relief from showing on my face. "Now, I was under the understanding that Asgard was interested in some samples of my creations?"

 Chapter 96: Negotiations

    Chapter 96: Negotiations


    Through the next few hours, Odin and I negotiated over a variety of things, trading everything from basics like a dozen sets of my low-level wings, to moreplicated and powerful items, like an entire crate of the same palm healers that I had offered Shield. It seemed that the idea of them being unable to heal bad people was something Asgardians could appreciate.


    In the end, I traded the aforementioned equipment, plus six more Destroyer armors, three healing amulets, six ingots of ultra metal for Asgardian smiths to experiment with, and two dozen ingots of vibranium, which was apparently pretty rare in space as well as on Earth.


    In return, I was given a bunch of enchanted and mundane household Asgardian stuff to mess around with, as well as several boxes of Asgardian materials, again mundane and magical, from special silk to metals, alloys, and even samples of stone they used in buildings. I would also receive crates of weapons and armor made by Asgardian smiths. I even asked for a sample of Asgardian soil, air, and water, different vegetables and meats, and several cookbooks.


    That wasn''t all Odin offered, thankfully. While the materials would be useful to build and experiment with, they didn''t contain anything really groundbreaking. Thankfully, Heimdall had ryed my quest for new exotic things to craft with because Odin was prepared with a small selection of more exotic offers. He offered a crystal that softly glowed orange and yellow, another chunk of crystal that slowly shifted through the rainbow, a branch of gnarled wood, and a small vial of clear water.


    The orange crystal was called a sunstone and was capable of growing and regenerating under sunlight. It wasn''t native to Asgard and was apparently quite rare, but had no useful application because it was too brittle. The second chunk of crystal was a sample of the Rainbow Bridge, and the gnarled branch had fallen from the oldest, most magically charged tree in Asgard. The small vial of water was run off from the core of Asgard, which while not having a direct use that they knew of would no doubt have impressive concepts and was difficult to get.


    I was quite happy that I had managed to trade a bunch of stuff that was worth basically nothing to me for a whole slew of new materials and goodies to work with. Even so, I saved the biggest request forst.


    "I would like some Uru-"


    "Absolutely not! It is a finite resource and every piece is precious. The Dwarves of Nidavellir horde most of it and have only agreed to forge a handful of artifacts with it since the dawn of Asgard itself!"


    "Not even for two dozen ingots of it in return?" I asked with a smile. "I know you are aware of what my UCMs can do. With a small chunk of Uru, I could make more."


    Odin looked at me again, his stare weighing heavily on me. I was beginning to think he could actually read my soul with how deeply he stared at me.


    "I would have your oath. That you will not use the metal as a bartering chip. That you will not sell it to others in its pure form, and that you use it responsibly. Uru holds power beyond anything you have seen and spreading it to those who would misuse it would cause chaos. Not to mention the Dwarves would likely dere war on you if you broke their monopoly."


    "I agree," I said solemnly.


    "Then yes, I will give you a single ingot of Uru," Odin said after another pause. "And pray that my son''s judgment of you is urate."


    "I will have your oath as well Maker," Frigga asked, smiling as she looked at me. "I offer something just as dangerous. As both a reward for saving my wayward son, even when he was your enemy, as well as in exchange for the destruction of something you already have."


    Before I could ask for rification she began casting a spell, one that shimmered and encircled her body, spiraling around her torso. It shone with a pale white, glittering light, with a golden streak at its core, following behind the central streak of magic. It continued to spin around her, sliding up he body and down her bicep, following her as she raised it slightly. It followed her arm, up to her hand until it reached the palm of her hand, where the magic sank into her skin. After a moment''s pause a perfectly shaped octagonal bipyramid crystal, three inches tall and two inches wide, with several facets on both ends, grew from her palm. As it finished growing the center glowed with a faint sparkle of golden energy.


    "It took a few days of research to find this spell, but I believe it will save you some trouble," Frigga exined, the crystal floating from her palm over to me, resting in my waiting hand.


    I looked at it for a long moment, before pulling it into a card.


    It was the golden essence, the same that I had detected from Loki''s blood and the sparks from Thor. But this was pure, with no connection to any person or element. The only additional concept it had was a vessel of storage from the crystal that it was contained in. I pushed it back into my hand, examining the crystal before looking back to the goddess queen who had given it to me.


    "What kind of oath do you want?" I asked, doing my best to look Frigga in the eye instead of focusing back down on the crystal.


    "That you use it wisely, never give it away in that form, and never try to apply it to a living creature, including with your tattoos. That is not the path to true godhood and would most likely drive the poor creature to mania and insanity." She exined. "I would also ask you to destroy the samples of Loki''s blood. You no longer need them after all."


    I card the crystal again and pull out all of the samples of Loki''s blood, tearing them easily, the cards turning to dust.


    "Done."


    As the dust from the destroyed cards drifts away I settled back into my seat, resisting the urge to flourish the card back into my hand.


    "You stole the blood of my son?" Odin asked, his eyes boring into mine.


    "I wasn''t going to use it until I could separate his essence from what I wanted," I exined, shaking my head. "I have no interest in messing with your son. Besides, it''s hardly stealing if his own actions led to him bleeding all over my floor."


    For a moment I thought he would continue to push, the anger in his eyes clearly visible. Before he could say anything though, Frigga reached out and put her hand on his arm, giving it a squeeze. He looked at her for a moment before nodding and looking back at me.


    "I believe that is the end of our business," He said tersely. "Your goods will be delivered to your ship."


    I stood with a nod, Peggy, Steve, and Bucky standing as well. Without another word I turned and left the room, the other three following behind me. I made it to the end of the hall, turning down the next before my legs started to give out. Ema grabbed me, seemingly expecting it enough to be ready.


    "Maker are you alright?" Steve asked, all three of them looking a little pale. "You"


    "Now you know why I made sure everyone knew I wasn''t representing Earth," I said with a weak chuckle. "Now if you''ll excuse-"


    I could feel my body heave, and I traveled away to the <em>Void Skipper </em>before losing my lunch on the metal floor.


    "You did great Carson," Ema assured me as I sat back against the hallway wall. "I almost cracked too."


    "Holy fuck Ema I just Fucking hell" I said, shaking my head and slowly catching my breath. "One of the most powerful mother fuckers around and I asked him if he was out of his mind."


    "Thank god Frigga was there," She said. "I''d hate to see what he would be like without her."


    It took a long minute for me to recover, a cleaner boting by to clean up my mess before I was ready. It was early, but I was too exhausted to do anything other than head to sleep early. I stayed in my room, with four battle bots and a behemoth outside my room, the <em>Void Skipper''s </em>shields on full.<hr>


    I woke up the next morning and immediately got to work preparing everything for the trade-off. I set up UCMs to print off the standard things, pulled the vibranium out of storage, and moved the mostly repaired Destroyer armor down to the garage bay. It didn''t take long for everything to finish, especially with the spare UCMs I had brought with me.


    Once everything was done I set up the UCMs in the garage bay as well, deploying the ramp and moving everything down to thending pad so that they could gather it at their leisure. It was then that Thor and a few of his people stopped by. A dozen or so crates of materials, a few crates filled with weapons and armor, were set down on the stone tform, my own stuff taken away.


    "Maker, how do you fair?" Thor asked. "Our meeting with my father It was not something would wish on a friend."


    "It was a little tense," I admitted. "But it was a business meeting of sorts, they aren''t supposed to be fun."


    "I suppose not," He reluctantly agreed, watching as two Asgardians lifted the crate filled with palm healers. "You should be proud, not many people can say they stood the brunt of my fathers negotiating."


    I bit back several retorts. From what I sawst night, Odin was as big of a dick in this reality as he could be in the normal Marvel continuity. Well maybe not quite that bad, but he didn''t exactly leave me with a good impression. Despite that, I didn''t want to take it out on Thor.


    "Thank you," I said simply, before turning to watch as Ema led a few battle bots, loading up and carrying our new stuff into the ship. "Is someone going to be along to drop off everything else? And does your father want me to fix the Destroyer armors now?"


    "I believe my father will be handling the armor himself," Thor exined. "The repairing part that is. Apparently, he will have to rework the enchantment slightly now that he could have twelve running in a single battle."


    I simply shrugged, not really caring about it beyond him keeping his side of the bargain.


    "And the other stuff?"


    Instead of answering Thor simply gestured to a final crate being carried in, this one apanied by four armored guards. They ced it by the end of the ramp and hurried away, leaving me along with Thor again. I bent down to one knee and pried the box open. Inside was arge chunk of the Rainbow Bridge, just under a foot wide. It glowed softly, running through the rainbow of colors. Next to that was a b of foam that had the softly glowing orange and yellow sunstone, the vial of pure water from the core of Asgard, and the two-foot-long branch of Asgardian wood.


    I resisted the urge to card everything and start forming ns, knowing that if I did I would be exceedingly distracted. Instead, I flicked out a card, my storage shed popping out. I resecured the crates cover and brought it into the shed, quickly recarding the shed when I was done.


    "Great, now the Uru?" I asked, Thor nodding in response.


    "I''m under orders from my father not to let it leave my sight," He said, reaching behind himself and under his cape, pulling out a small wooden box. "So I would appreciate it if you carried it normally."


    "Sure buddy. C''mon, I''ve got my stuff set up in the garage bay,"


    I lead him back into the <em>Skipper, </em>showing him where to put the ingot. He reverently pulled it from its box and ced it on the first UCM, and I started it up, cursing under my breath when I saw the time.


    "Alright, so this is going to take a while," I said shaking my head. "It''s gonna take the rest of today and into tomorrow morning to get them all printed out."


    "That is incredible! A single day and a morning to turn one ingot of Uru into twelve!" Thor said with a smile. "Truly, you an incredible artificer Maker!"


    "Thanks, Thor, but I''ve got a pretty potent shortcut," I said with a chuckle, double-checking the timer before turning back to Thor. "You can go ahead and take that ingot back if you want, so you don''t have to hang around."


    "I would not mind spending more time discussing our adventures, but I would feel better having the original ingot back in my father''s vault," Thor admitted, taking the bar and stashing it back inside its box, which he tucked back under his cape. "Perhapster tonight you could join My friends and I at one of our favorite taverns? I believe I will invite the Midgardian Trio as well."


    It took me a disappointingly long moment for me to figure out who he was talking about.


    "Steve, Peggy, and Bucky?" I asked, eyebrow raised. "How did they get that name?"


    "Companionship is as solid as theirs is hard to miss," Thor exined. "And they are the first Midgardians to set foot on Asgard in literal ages. It took only a day for their moniker to arise."


    "What am I, chopped liver?" I asked, nodding to Ema as she re-entered the garage bay.


    I had asked her to travel the crates of Asgardian materials home with the battle bots. I didn''t want to fill up my storage chest with Asgardian materials until I had a chance to go through all of it. When I turned back to find Thor looking confused I exined.


    "It''s a colloquialism, it is like asking if I matter or not."


    "Ah, of course!" He responded with a nod. "You went through the effort of separating yourself from Midgard''s delegation. My father understood your intention fully."


    "Good. I needed to drive a hard bargain, every advantage I get is more power I can bring to bear in protecting Earth," I answered. "Doesn''t mean I liked the process."


    "Fair enough Maker. I would also like to say that my father is a stern man. He wears a heavy crown, and is responsible for much more than thends of Asgard," Thor said, looking off of the edge of the garage bay, and out into thending pad. "While your negotiations were tense, to say the least, you should know he respects your tenacity, as well as your courage."


    I was silent for a moment, chewing the inside of my lip. I gave Ema a look and she simply shrugged. The truth was, pissing off Odin, or even just annoying him, was obviously a bad idea. Asgard could be a powerful ally for Earth, and being on their shit list could cause a lot of problems. It was better the devil you knew than the one you never sawing. I let out a sigh and nodded, mostly to myself.


    "Thor, does your father have any spare armor?"


    "I I believe so, why?"


    "If you get it, I would use it to make something for him," I exined. "A peace offering of sorts."


    "Truly? That is a generous offer Maker," Thor said with a smile. "I will fetch it for you, then I would like to watch you make it if you would have me."


    "Sure, I''ll set up my workshop down on thending pad," I said with a smile. "It''s been a while since I have worked outside."


    Thor left with an eagerness in his step. Once he was clear of the <em>Void Skipper </em>he spun his hammer and flew away, disappearing into the sky. As he left I quickly set up a workspace, setting down tables, and pushing out the storage shed and my cab of tricks. I grabbed the six remaining sets of the Destroyer armor I had prepared, as well as pulling vibranium, ultra metal, and sorcerous damascus stock out, as well as energy cells and magic rods, so that I wouldn''t have to take up UCMs printing out more. When that was all set up I made my back into the garage bay, took most of the UCMs out, and set them up in the temporary workspace.


    I grabbed the sunstone crystal, the vial of water, and the branch of magic steeped wood and set them up on their own UCMs, keeping the others clear for armor parts. Thankfully they weren''t going to take nearly as long as the Uru was, though the crystal of divine essence was close.


    By the time Thor returned, carrying arge fancy-looking chest, I was ready to go. Ready to make a set of armor that would hopefully impress a literal god.


    No pressure.

 Chapter 97: Peace offering

    Chapter 97: Peace offering


    [H1]Chapter 97 - Peace offering[/H1]


    I immediately cracked open the chest and pulled out the armor within. As far as I could tell it was identical to the armor Odin had been wearing at the feast, where I had first seen him. I pulled out all of the pieces and separated them into their sections, setting the helmet, chest piece, arms, and legs into different UCMs. The timer for them was surprisingly short, so I put the original back into the chest so I wouldn''t have to worry about ruining the original. I also stored the original examples of sunstone, magical wood, Asgard water, and divine essence in my storage shed, just in case.


    As I got everything set up and printing, I started nning out what I wanted to do. The bare minimum here was taking a bunch of copies of his armor, working them into the Destroyer armors, andyering in some bits and bobs to make it shy.


    That felt wrong though, and while I had a feeling going all out here would result in a set of armor that was actually superior to mine, it wouldn''t be that way for very long as I would obviously take everything I learned here and use it to improve my own armor.


    So I started spitballing ideas with Ema, going over the basic things I had to work with and what kind of crazybinations I coulde up with. By the time the copy of his armor was done, I was more or less ready to begin. Step number one was the basics, improving his base armor as much as I could.


    I took tes of sorcerous damascus and mixed in branches of Asgardian wood and extra energy cells, then added a few stacked sunstones to a few tes of ultra metal beforebining that with the sorcerous damascus. I worked all of that, as well as several tes of normal ultra metal and vibranium into each of the armor pieces. The result was a more efficient, more powerful, and quicker recharging eldritch reinforcement, certainly better than what my armor had.


    After confirming Odin was right-handed, I added a deployable shield to the left arm, one enhanced in every method I had. I alsobined it with a copied chunk of the Rainbow Bridge, working in dozens of energy cells. The two seemed to work together fantastically, as the shield came out with a massive carved rainbow gem in its center, with runic rainbow ents set into the entire shield. I worked down a shield projector as small as I could and added it to the shield, which allowed the user to project a glittering rainbow shield that resisted a dozen solid whacks from Thor''s hammer.


    When the UCM had printed out enough vials of water I started experimenting with it, discovering that it had the normal concepts usually attached to water, was powerfully connected to Asgard itself, and contained concepts of purity, growth, and perseverance. I worked it into several things to make it solid, before working that into an ultra metal te, adding more of the Asgardian wood, beforebining all of that into the armor. I also mixed more of the water with a maxed-out amulet of healing,bining it with the chest te.


    With the base armor finished, I set it up on the UCMs again, setting them up to print out twelve copies while I set on my next task, the Destroyer armors.


    Unfortunately, since they took way too long to copy, I would have to replicate everything I did to all six of them so they would be ready to use. I attached a set of maxed-out wings to each, before adding two EVA suits to each as well. I upgraded them as best I could, including working in the improved sorcerous damascus reinforcement, as well as the tes of water and wood-enhanced ultra metal. I added vibranium for impact absorption and added another set of wings to each to make sure they came out in the final product.


    After a quick search in the storage shed, I found something I hadn''t used in a while, twelve max stacked arc reactors. Ibined each of them with a chunk of rainbow bridge crystal, a dozen energy cells, magic rods, and a stacked sunstone enhanced with a handful of diamonds. Ibined them down once, then attached one of each to the Destroyer armors. All of them now had an Iron Man style gem in their chest. It glittered in a rainbow shine at its core, with a glow of orange and yellow around it.


    I grabbed a few helmets from my cab of tricks, the deployable ones that had the enhanced vision modes already installed, before using an enhanced knife to cut the helmets of all the armors andbined them together, using a repair tablet to fix them back together. I also worked a few cuffs of strength and stamina into each one.


    After that Ema pulled me aside, forcing me to eat ate lunch, which was being served by a few Alfred bots to everyone who had stopped by to watch. Steve, Peggy and Bucky, The Warriors Three, and Lady Sif, as well as a few other Asgardians I didn''t recognize, had all shown up at some point.


    "How the hell did I not notice them?" I asked Ema, scarfing down a te of chicken tikka mas.


    "They''ve been very quiet," Ema said with a shrug. "And you do really zone out everything around you when your crafting."


    I could only shrug, finishing my meal as quickly as I could before starting on the final phase. The enhanced base armors were done printing, and the Destroyer armors were done being enhanced as well. All that was left was tobine them all together.


    I carded the Destroyer armor separately,bing each of them with two copies of the incredibly enhanced base armor, beforebining down the final six into a final suit of armor. I looked at Ema, nodded towards the garage bay showed her two fingers. She nodded and hurried up the ramp.


    "Maker, is itplete?" Thor asked, now standing by one of my work benches.


    "Almost, only three more things to add," I responded, waiting for Ema to return.


    When she got back I held out my hand and she ced a single ingot of Uru, which I carded and added to the armor, studying its concept. The Uru magnified its potency by at least fifty percent, making what was already an incredibly powerful set of armor even more powerful. I held out my hand and carded the second ingot, working that in as well. This one didn''t do nearly as much, but it was absolutely a very noticeable increase.


    When that was done, I walked to the UCM that was printing out divine essence, picking up one of the three finished crystals, which I quickly carded andbined into the armor. Its concepts red, the divine essence unlocking its potential even more. I couldn''t help butugh, shaking my head. This outpaced any armor I had made by leaps and bounds, and I couldn''t wait to get back home to make my own.


    "An impressive disy."


    I looked up from the card to find Odin and Frigga standing by my workshop, Thor right next to them. Odin was wearing more casual clothes than the regal ones he had been wearing at our meeting, with no armor visible. I got the feeling he had been watching for a while, but the surprise that the others who had been watching told a different story. Frigga notice my look and winked.


    "Thank you, King Odin. I wished to make a gift for you, something to show my gratitude for your hospitality, as well as a symbol of continued friendship."


    "Is itplete?" He asked.


    "All that remains is to bind it to you. I would need a few drops of blood, a lock of your hair, and a print from your finger,"


    Odin was silent for a moment, before finally responding.


    "Very well."


    He reached out his hand, and into my palm dripped a puddle of his blood. I carded my hand clean, watching as Frigga used magic to cut off a small bundle of his hair. I provided the thumbprint device, something I crafted a while ago to make the process more simple. With the addition of a simple lock, Ibined them together and added it to the armor, before turning to the god.


    "Congrattions King Odin," I said with a smile. "You are the proud owner of the most powerful things I have made so far, and the second named item I''ve ever made."


    I flicked out the card onto the closest workbench, the armor appearing a momentter. Odin reach out andid his hands on the folded armor, which glowed brightly for a moment before shattering, the golden and orange glowing dust settling around the Asgardian king.


    "You managed to replicate our equipping enchantment?" Odin asked, with a tone that was more curious than usatory.


    "No, I just made sure the armor carried the enchantment through," I exined as if it had been on purpose. I knew that the armor had some sort of enchantment on it but I hadn''t been sure what it was.


    Odin closed his eyes and his armor started to form around him, the motes of glowing dust reforming. The tes, links, and straps all connected and locked back into ce. As different portions were finished it red with golden energy, settling down after a moment.


    Eventually, after a few seconds had passed, the transformation wasplete. Odin stood d in gold and burnished metal armor, with an orange and yellow flickering highlighting from underneath. The chest held a carved gem, simr to how the destroyer armors looked, though slightly smaller. The gem glowed yellow but shifted through undertones of the rainbow. The closer the glowing highlights got to the gem, the more of the undertone bled through to them.


    The armor design itself was very simr to the original set, though the cloth undeyer was reced with bands of metal like the Destroyer armor. There were subtle, but just barely visible highlights of damascus in the burnished undeyer as well. Before I could prompt him his helmet deployed, locking up and over his head, stopping for a moment before shifting again to fully cover his face.


    "I I can feel it," He said, more than a little awe in his voice as his helmet retracting fully. "I can feel its connection to Asgard."


    "After what went into it, I''m not surprised."


    He looked down at his armored hands, studying the armor for a moment, before looking to the sky. Suddenly the metal wings, glowing with glittering energy, all but exploded from his back. They pped once and he was airborne, rocketing up into the sky. Not long after he took off something fell back down, ttering to the ground by my feet. I bent down to pick it up, turning it over in my hand. It was Odin''s eyepatch.


    I looked up at the sky to see him flying around in the air.


    "Was it?" Ema asked, trailing off when I nodded.


    "It was named," I confirmed with a nod. "The Heart of Asgard. Binding it to him was what did it."


    Eventually, Odinnded again, his wings retracting back into the armor. Frigga, who I had passed the eye patch to, rushed into her husband''s arms, who held her closer. I could tell they were talking, whispering to each other for a minute before Frigga pulled back, cupping her husband''s cheek. After another moment he turned to look at me.


    Sure enough, his eye was fully healed, with no hint of it ever being damaged in the first ce. For a moment I worried that I might have gotten in the way of some sort of ritualistic payment or trade, like how theic book Odin traded his for wisdom, but he only smiled at me.


    "Your creation is very impressive," He said, reaching out his hand. "I never imagined having my eye returned to me."


    I refrained from mentioning the palm healers, as I wasn''t actually sure if they would work on him, considering I didn''t know the level "for the greater good" this Odin got up to.


    "I''m happy to have made it," I said, grabbing his arm in a warrior''s shake. "It represents a significant increase in my capabilities."


    "..someday, Thor shall inherit my rule," He said after a short pause. "Would it be possible for you to bind it to him, once the dayes?"


    "I think so? I haven''t actually done something like that yet," I admitted. "Worst case it would be bound to both of you. Well, the actual worst case is that I make another one for him. We will figure out when the dayes."


    "Very well Now, what other functions does this armor have, I can feel them but I fear activating something dangerous."


    I spent the next thirty minutes going over just what the armor could do, what its few limitations were, and how it worked. On top of all the things I already knew it could do, it seemed that it would also be able to call down the Bifrost, at least once it was repaired. I hadn''t sensed that when I was holding the card, but Odin insisted he could feel it while wearing it. By the time we were done going over everything, it was beginning to get dark.


    "Come, you and your friends will dine with us," Odin said. "It is the least we could do for the creator of such a gift."<hr>


    Odin was much more open and friendly for the rest of the day and into the night, his stoic and harsh demeanor broken open just enough to catch a peek at who he was under the weight of his crown. We ate in a much smaller, more homely but still impressive hall, the singrrge table filled by Ema, Peggy, Steve, Bucky, the Warriors Three and Lady Sif, Thor, Odin, Frigga and myself. I sat beside Thor on Odin''s right side, while Ema sat across from me next to Frigga, with the others taking up the other half of the table. We were still waited on by the pce staff, but the atmosphere was as informal as you could hope for such a setting.


    Thor told stories of his childhood, describing the adventures he had had around Asgard, and even some he had had on other worlds. He described growing up on battlefields as if he was raised in constant war and fighting. The way that Frigga was rolling her eyes as he talked made me think that he wasn''t being the most reliable of narrators. She was a lot less enthusiastic when he would mention Loki, something he only did a few times.


    Odin seemed content to listen to his son''s stories, as well as ours as we talked about our fight against the Chitauri, expressing simr opinions to his son''s.


    "They have no honor, they ravage and pige like beasts, tearing apart the defenseless and innocent alike. I would like nothing more than to wipe them from the gxy but they spawn like weeds in fertile ground." Odin exined, shaking his head and leaning back in his chair. "They dig into worlds and create armies that darken entire systems. Letting a single ship escape would mean their return in only a few years."


    "That Sounds like a serious problem." I said, all of the earthlings at the table suddenly very interested. "Does Earth have to worry about being sieged by massive armies?"


    "No, they are limited by their motherships and by whoever controls them," Odin assured me. "Whoever is in control of them somehow hides from Heimdal''s sight, but they keep a firm grip around the armies, keeping them from spawning out of control."


    "Why would they do that?" Steve asked. "Seems like anyone willing to hitch their wagon to a group like the Chitauri would be quick to let them loose."


    "Unfortunately we do not know," Odin admitted with a frown. "My own thoughts are that they understand leaving the Chituari to spread unrestrained would call the attention of empires with less restraint than Asgard."


    The conversation slowly turned back to lighter topics, though Odin did promise that our diplomats would be receiving briefings on many of the threats that could affect Earth. When I said I would be interested in getting that information as well he agreed to make keeping me informed as well a stiption of sharing the intelligence.


    Eventually, dinner was over and we were escorted back to our rooms. Thor escorted Ema and me personally, leading us back and stopping by the door.


    "Maker, I wanted to thank you for healing my father''s eye. That alone is a debt I do not think I could ever repay. Seeing him with so much energy Thank you." The Asgardian god said sincerely, grabbing my forearm tightly and giving it a firm shake. "While preparing for dinner I asked Mother if she could think of a way to try and thank you, and she suggested that a good way to start would be this."


    Thor pulled a scroll of paper from behind his back, handing it to me with a smile. I pulled the scroll open and examined the writing inside. It was a series of numbers, followed by a couple of paragraphs of text, the pattern repeating around seven or eight times.


    "I had a scribe put together a list of coordinates you might be interested in, as well as a short description of each location," He exined. "Xandar, Contraxia, Knowhere, and a few others. Be warned about traveling to some of these, however. Contraxia and Knowhere specifically, as they are notwless, but certainly lesswed than ces like Xandar. Xandar is the capital of the Nova Empire, they will deal with you fairly as long as you obey theirws."


    I skimmed the first description before tearing my eyes back up to Thor with a smile.


    "Thank you Thor. I''m not quite ready to go on gxy-spanning adventures yet, but these will be very helpful when I am."


    I shook his hand again and said goodnight before I headed into my room and crawled into bed.<hr>


    Hello! I can hardly believe it, but we just passed 300k words for The Conceptual deck. This had been a lot of fun writing this story, and the fact that people enjoy it has been amazing. I want to thank everyone who hasmented and supported me!


    I would also like to remind you that I have a Pa_Tre_on under my username MetaBettaOmegaLetta. Supporters get early ess to my original book <strong>Last Resort: Dimensional Bloodsport</strong>, as well as ess to early chapters of my fanfictions. Board Members also get to vote on important story beats! Right now they are voting on the final name for the research station. If you are interested in showing your support, please stop by. Every bit helps!

 Chapter 98: Final gifts

    Chapter 98: Final gifts


    The next morning I flew out to the end of the Rainbow Bridge,nding a few dozen feet from Heimdall, near the shattered edge of the glittering road. He did not turn to see who it was, but he greeted me nheless.


    "Greetings Maker," He said in a deep voice. "Asgard is in your debt for healing the Allfather''s eye."


    "I wanted to smooth things over after a tense first meeting," I exined with a shrug. "I''m just d it worked."


    At that point he turned to look at me, watching as I deployed therge repair unit I had gotten ready before setting out on this trip. I pulled out two massive cords from one side, pushing them into the glittering rainbow crystal underneath us.


    "You believe this will be sufficient?" He asked, watching me work, never once pulling his hands off of his sword.


    "My creations, so far at least, seem to take concepts pretty literally," I exined, stepping up to the control screen. "It says it''s capable of repairing magic stuff, there is no reason to assume it wouldn''t be able to just because it''s especially powerful or exotic magic stuff."


    I quickly got the machine going, tabbing through the options. The list of repairs was extensive, apparently, there had been a massive building on the end of the bridge that was nowpletely gone. When I set it to repair everything it told me it would take just over two months, which all in all was a bit longer than I was happy with.


    "Is there something wrong?" He asked, already turned back to his vigil.


    "I''m not happy with how long it would take" I exined, already trying toe up with a way to speed it up. "Oh! Of course."


    I carded the machine again, before pushing out the storage shed and grabbing a few crystals of divine essence, which I had left running for a few hours the previous night. I worked three of them into the machine, the effect of the third almost non-existent. Happy with the improvement I pushed the machine back out and set it back up, tapping on the screen again once I was done.


    "Much better!" I said, setting it to repair the Bifrostpletely. "Heimdall, I assume you will keep an eye on this? It belongs to your King now."


    "I will watch over it," The serious man agreed. "Out of curiosity, how long will it take for the Rainbow Bridge and the Himinbjorg to be repaired?"


    "Just over a month," I responded, about to ask him what the Himinbjorg was before he whirled around and focused his wide-eyed stare on me, surprise written all over his face.


    "A month? One of the greatest works of magic and technology, wrought from the finest materials, originally built over the span of four years, and only after dozens of years studying the Tesseract and your machine will rebuild it in a month?"


    "Just a bit more," I responded with a smirk and a shrug. "It''s going need materials too, but nothing too crazy."


    Heimdall took a moment to recover, standing back up straight and staring into my eyes.


    "Thank you for your aid Maker. It would have taken many months to repair this, and the Tesseract would have been required to finish it."


    "No problem. Besides, it''s not like I did it for free. I wanted to keep the Tesseract without pissing off you guys, so I needed to trade."


    "I can assure you, Maker, seeking out a trade instead of simply taking what you want is better than a great many would do with your power," He said, still focused on me.


    "I Thank you," I said. "I need to go tell King Odin what materials he will need to send down here, but thank you."


    The tall, gravel-voiced man said nothing, simply nodding as spread my wings out and flew away.


    Odin was back to his usual stoic self when I found him, though he seemed almost lighter with his new eye, not to mention how many old, poorly healed injuries the armor must have fixed. I passed him the list of materials he would need and he seemed surprised it was so short. He fixed me with a stare and asked how it was possible.


    "Long story short, the repair machine is based on creations that I made to build with conceptually crafted materials," I exined. "In order for that to work, they need to be actually working with conceptually crafted materials, not just spawning stuff ex nihilo. But obviously, I didn''t want to have to provide every at a one-to-one ratio. It took a lot of finicky crafting and a whole mountain of failure but I managed to make it as simplified as possible."


    "Well it''s a fraction of what would have gone into rebuilding the Himinbjorg and the Rainbow Bridge," He exined, before catching my confused look at the second mention of the name I didn''t recognize. "At the end of the Rainbow Bridge was the Himinbjorg, where the Bifrost was projected from."


    "Right, well anyway the sooner you get those materials fed into the machine the sooner it can start. Once it does it will take about a month to finish."


    Odin was as surprised as Heimdall had been at the time the repair machine would take, but he covered it up much quicker. It seemed like he wanted to ask more, but was holding himself back.


    After a short conversation about any other requirements for the repair machine, as well as asking permission to set up anding pad so diplomats could travel between Asgard and earth without the Bifrost, I headed back to the <em>Skipper, </em>joining Ema on her watch over the UCM''s printing out the Uru ingots. Only a few more hours before they were done, but every minute started to drag on quickly. Ema immediately picked up on my impatient fidgeting.


    "Eager to get home?" She asked.


    "Yeah I''m taking Natasha out on a date," I admitted, giving Ema a look, who turned to me with wide eyes.


    "A date? That is delightfully mundane," She said with augh. "What are your ns?"


    "I was thinking of setting up a shield bubble somewhere on the moon and watching an earthrise," I answered, hopping up to sit on the hood of a buggy. "Maybe set up a pic."


    "That I take back the mundanement," Ema responded, shaking her head. "It''s certainly very you. Jarvis and I just go to the closest sunset."


    "Wel I haven''t decided yet," I admitted. "Part of me wants to go crazy while another just wants to do something basic. I''m keeping an open mind."


    We talked a bit more before I hopped off the buggy''s hood, and dusted off my hands. The truth was that while I was nervous about the date, I wasn''t nervous about what we would be doing. If anything came out of the two of us dating it shouldn''t have anything to do with the dates being crazy and intense. I was half tempted to just go to dinner and see a show or movie or something.


    "You''ll be fine," Ema assured me. "Just don''t do anything stupid and I''m sure you will both enjoy it."


    When Ema and I were done chatting I quickly used the garage bay space to whip up a pair of linkednding pads and travel bracers. I made eight bracers in total but weaved in a modified morality sensor that I had used in the palm healers. It took a bit of work but after an hour I managed to set all eight vambraces to only work if you meant no serious harm to Asgard or Earth. It would have been no harm at all but Ema pointed out that that might get in the way of bartering, because what was trade if not trying to get someone to pay more for something than it was actually worth? At least with this, no one would be able to knowingly bring over a briefcase bomb or something.


    I also included a control system linked to something simr to what the detaining bands used. I would know when anyone traveled back and forth, I could toggle thending pads and bracers on and off, and activate the bands remotely. I nned to keep that little tidbit to myself and put the controller in my cab of tricks.


    I dropped off one of thending pads and four of the bracers with Odin, who was in the process of getting the workers organized to feed the repair machine the materials it would need. He was surprised that I was already done making the teleporter. He seemed to appreciate the sentiment of the "do no harm" ability of the bracers but exined they would set up a secure room to put thending pad permanently. I assured him that Shield would likely stick it at the bottom of a bunker to keep it as easy to contain as possible.


    When I was done exining everything I was about to leave him to his duties when he asked me to returnter when the sun was setting. I agreed before leaving, flying through Asgard to reach the <em>Void Skipper, </em>and enjoying the short break. I managed to resist the urge to start working on my own projects, but it was a close thing. I had a lot of interesting stuff to work with, and the fact that I had just handed a named artifact to Odin, even if it was his own blood, hair, and fingerprint that had pushed it over the edge, made me desperate to improve my own gear. I was pretty sure I could make a named artifact for myself.


    To keep from losing myself in other projects I quickly whipped up a care package for Mr. Steiner and Ms. Hartford, including a set of deployable underarmor and helmet, as well as a minor healing ring to keep them in good health. I carded their stuff, which they hadn''t touched at all during the trip, and delivered it to them, binding their new gear to them. They were thankful for the equipment but Mr. Steiner was annoyed that I had dropped off their bags in the middle of some sort of meeting. He didn''t expect the fact that I was eager to get home as a good reason.


    By then Ema contacted me and exined the Uru was finished, as well as three extra bars. I traveled to the <em>Void Skipper</em> and carded the twelve ingots that I owed Odin, before putting one of the spare ingots in my cab of tricks, and two in the storage shed. I left the UCM''s going though, sealing up the ship when I was done. I needed as many ingots of Uru as possible to start mass-producing it when I got home.


    Ema went off to find Steve, Peggy, and Bucky, to inform them that we would be leaving by the end of the day, while I flew across Asgard again, heading down to Odin''s office to meet him, finding him and Thor waiting for me.


    "Greetings Maker," Odin said, still in his stoic persona.


    "King Odin, Thor. I assume there is something you wanted to talk about, but before that" I pushed out the stack of Uru ingots onto the table, smirking as both of the Asgardians openly stared. "The Uru is finished."


    "I Yes, Good," Odin said, his facade cracking for just a moment before he regained controlled himself. Thor just openly gaped. "This must be stored in the vault at once. Could you?"


    I chuckled and carded the stack of miracle magic metal. Odin and Thor led me through the pce, eventually reaching a massive underground chamber. It threw off my sense of scale entirely, making me think there was some sort of magic going on, but I simply focused on following Odin.


    The vault itself was in the center of the chamber, sitting on a pir of metal, connected to each side of the chamber with supports. Odin stopped at the stairway before the entrance into the vault.


    "I''m sorry Maker, but I cannot allow you to enter into the vault itself. That I let you this far speaks greatly to the respect I have for you," He said solemnly.


    "Sure, no problem," I responded with a shrug. "I''ll be here."


    I transferred the ingot into Thor''s arms, who carried them easily as he followed behind his father into the vault. I did not have to wait long before they returned. As all three of us left the massive chamber I turned to Thor.


    "So any hints on what''s going on?" I asked quietly.


    "I believe he was looking to surprise you," Thor responded, smiling smugly as Odin continued to lead us through the pce.


    Eventually, we exited the pce, crossing a few courtyards and walking along a carved stone path. We entered arge stone and metal structure not too far down the stone path. The building itself was made up of several smaller cylinders ced next to each other, each of them ratherrge.


    We stepped into the building, Thor nodding to the two guards on either side of the entrance. After a minute of walking, we came to another door, which Odin pushed open and crossed through. In the center of this new room was arge golden machine of some sort, with a curved head sliding up and over, and several concentric rings floating between it and its base. There was some sort of core in the middle as well. The entire machine was just under three times my height and about the same width and long.


    "Impressive" I said. "What is it?"


    "That, Maker, is an Asgardian shield generator," Odin exined. "Thor mentioned that you wish to create an energy shield that covers your entire. This is the closest we have gotten to aary shield."


    "Holy hell Wait, that sounds like energy shields are on the rare side?" I asked, looking at Odin.


    "Between magic and science, creating small energy shields ismon throughout the cosmos," He exined. "Creatingrger barriers is by far much lessmon. Beyond Asgard, only the Nova Empire is making any headway in that field of research."


    "Oh Well, that makes me feel a bit better," I admitted. "I was worried that anything I could create for defending Earth would turn out to be small timepared to the tech out in space. How big does yours go?"


    "This is one of our spare generators, to rece the active one beneath the Pce," Odin exined. "It is capable of covering the entire Pce, but could be pushed to cover almost two-thirds of the city once it is activated."


    I looked closer at it and sure enough, I could see that it wasn''t attached to the floor, instead it was resting on some sort of supporting frame.


    "Damn I have to really stack up and push the generators to get anything near that," I admitted.


    "Well with this you should be able to push them even further," Odin pointed out. "If my understanding of how your crafting works."


    "I are you giving it to me?" I asked, looking at him with an eye raised before looking back at the device. "Well, it looks like it might just be small enough for me to card maybe?"


    "Good, then it is yours to use as you wish," Odin said. "Consider it a gift."


    "Damn, well I won''t say no, especially since it''s going to help me protect Earth."


    Before attempting to card it I pushed out a blueprint scanner, scanning therge device. I read through the blueprint on the screen for a moment before looking at Odin.


    "This has a lot of materials I''m not familiar with."


    "Everything you need to build most of the machine was included in your previous bartering," He assured me. "Save for the core, which as far as I understand is small enough to fit inside one of your replication devices."


    "Right, alright, that''s good," I said, mostly to myself as I put away my scanner and stepped closer to the machine. "If I pass out just get Ema, she will handle it."


    I put my hand on the golden metal and took a deep breath, before pulling. The machine vanished into a card immediately, the room looking suddenly empty. The room also spun quickly and I stumbled, managing to keep myself upright somehow. I could feel the fatigue, not physically or mentally but I could feel it anyway.


    Thor stepped closer and helped me stand straight, the room still swaying a bit before it finally settled.


    "Does that happen often, Maker?" Thor asked, looking concerned.


    "Only when I try and card things that are really big," I exined.


    "Were you not afraid you would do harm to yourself?" He asked, suddenly worried.


    "No, I get nothing if something is too much for me to card," I assured him, shaking my head. "Not even a twinge, it just doesn''t let me."


    "Very well why don''t we go somewhere for you to recover," He suggested. "Lunch wouldn''t be remiss, especially since you are leaving before long. Onest chance to sit down with friends!"


    I found myself agreeing, my energy quickly returning to me. That had been just as bad, maybe a bit worse than carding the full storage shed had been when I first started using it. Which was odd considering that the shield projector was muchrger than the shed had ever been.


    Either way, I let Thor lead me outside, eventually standing on my own. I considered deploying my armor to help but by the time we were outside the fatigue had all but faded. Odin let us go on ahead, wishing us the best as we left.

 Chapter 99: Build it better

    Chapter 99: Build it better


    Ema, Steve, Peggy, Bucky, and I spent quite a while saying goodbye. The people of Asgard were apparently fascinated by us, or more specifically finally meeting people from the they had sworn to protect. I had been skipping over this by flying to most ces, but apparently, the other three had been getting swamped by people wanting to discuss this or talk about that, or even just shake their hands. When the fact that we were leaving got around, Thor insisted on onest walk through the city, where I finally got the treatment they had been getting the whole time.


    It wasn''t bad by any means, the Asgardians were all polite and understanding, but as someone who had spent a significant amount of time alone on the moon, therge crowds were surprisingly disconcerting.


    "Ema, remind me to spend more time in the city," I said at one point, my partner looking over at me curiously. "These crowds are making me nervous, I need to spend more time around people or I''m going to develop a condition."


    "I know that feeling," Bucky, who had overheard me said with a bitterugh. "I never had any kind of social anxiety before I was the Soldier. I spent so long not talking that I get anxious around people now like my words won''t work or something."


    It didn''t take long for us to get inside the <em>Void Skipper</em> after saying goodbye. Thor, Odin, and Frigga were all there to wave us off, as well as Mr. Steiner and Ms. Hartford, who were both staying behind to continue their work. Mr. Steiner was a bit warmer to me after the gifts I had given both of them, but he clearly wasn''t my biggest fan.


    "He takes his job seriously," Peggy exined as we all climbed into the garage bay. "He wasn''t a fan of your joking in the first ce, but the fact that we got so much facetime with King Odin while he and Ms. Hartford were relegated to their nobles is what really agitated him."


    We headed through the ship, back to the bridge, where Ema sat down in the pilot''s chair and quickly started getting the ship ready. I could see the group of Asgardian nobles and royalty, as well as two Earthlings making their way to the protection of the tunnel through the viewscreen. Ema was nice enough to wait for them to get inside before starting the thrusters. A familiar vibration spread through the ship before slowly fading.


    "Everyone strapped in?" Ema asked, turning to look and nodding. "Alright then, here we go."


    The <em>Void Skipper </em>lifted off the ground and rotated, pulling up and away from the ground. We followed three skiffs away, just as we hading in. Eventually, when we were far enough away, the skiffs peeled off, leaving us alone in the void. Once we were a good distance from Asgard, I opened a portal and we headed through,ing out into space around the moon. Before I could say anything Bucky spoke up.


    "Maker Carson, could we"


    I turned to look at him and he was focused downward, at the surface of the moon. I couldn''t help but chuckle and nod.


    "Yeah, go look in that boxbeled EVA, those are the space suits I made," I exined.


    Bucky nodded and started putting his on, Steve and Peggy right behind him. About ten minutester the super soldiers were running around on the moon, shouting and whooping as they jumped incredible distances and used the thrusters on the EVA suits to fly around. I sat with Peggy and Ema not too far away, watching them enjoy themselves.


    "So is this a new thing or?" I asked, looking at Peggy.


    "Oh very much so," She answered with a chuckle as Steve stumbled and rolled, bouncing in the moon dust for a few dozen feet. "It''s mostly Bucky as well. Apparently, there were times when his conditioning was weak. One of those times was around the moonnding. He reallytched onto it."


    "Damn well I''m d I was set up here," I responded.


    "You would have made this happen even if you weren''t already living up here." Ema pointed out. "The second you realized he wanted to walk on the moon."


    "Maybeprobably," I admitted. "I would want to as well."


    We were quiet for a few minutes, save the asionalugh at the two super soldiers'' shenanigans. Eventually, Peggy did bring up the elephant in the room.


    "So about the buildings?"


    "That''s the Octopit," I said, gesturing to the production facility. "It''s where I made the <em>Void Skipper. </em>Ema is responsible for the name by the way."


    Ema pped my shoulder, which lifted me off of the ground, forcing me to deploy my wings to get back.


    "And the other one?" She asked, referring to the absolutely massive lunar research base. It was looking mostly done at this point, I needed to check to see how long was left soon.


    "A future project I''m coborating on with Tony Stark," I exined with a shrug.


    "Does it have anything to do with the recent hiring spree Stark Industries has been on?" She asked. "The one where people are informed that they will be starting ''soon''"


    "What?" I asked, looking at her with genuine confusion. "I''m not sure what you''re talking about."


    "Hm alright," She said, looking back to Bucky and Steve. "I think we can keep this to ourselves for a while, at least until the diplomats return and spill the beans."


    "Thanks, I think we should be announcing it sooner rather thanter."


    About an hourter I traveled all three of my friends down to DC, taking their new equipment to travel back and forth between Asgard with them. Bucky had wanted to stay longer, but their duty to report to Shield and the WSC called them away. I, on the other hand, was finally free to get to work. Hanging out on Asgard had been a fun and incredibly lucrative trip, but now I needed to put that to work. The fact that I had given away my firstpletely handmade named item was still grinding on me, though I think I did a pretty good job hiding that fact from our hosts.


    I needed to make myself armor that was stronger than Odin''s. I was no longer satisfied with being almost as strong as Thor.


    Step one in achieving this was, in itself, a two-step process. I needed to start the frankly ridiculous amount of UCM''s I had in my warehouse on printing out an equally ridiculous amount of materials and parts, as I was going to be building this new armor from the ground up. In order to do that, I carded andbined divine essence into every UCM and repair tablet that I could, including those in storage. Technically the UCMs already had one dose of divine essence, but having two only made them better, though to a reduced degree.


    Once that was done I started them up, as well as setting up arge corner of the warehouse to make a huge number of Destroyer armors and more. While they were going I sat down in the break area and sent Natasha a text, telling her that I had just gotten back. It took a few minutes for her to respond but we started chatting while Ema and I nned out everything I was going to try and fit into my new armor.


    Eventually, Natasha needed to get back to work but promised to call sometime that night or the next morning.


    "Did you mention the date?" Ema asked.


    "No, she is gonna callter or tomorrow, I''ll bring it up then."


    By then I was satisfied with the materials I had produced to start the first parts of the project. From my cab of tricks, I pulled one of the first real armor sets I had made, before I had ess to the Destroyer armor or vibranium. I then proceed to jam every single enhancement I could into it. Sorcerous damascus, enhanced by magic wood and sunstone,yered with ultra metal. I worked in Asgardian materials as well, anything that was strong, tough, lightweight, and protected against elements or magic, all went into the once basic set of armor. I worked more strength and stamina enhancements as well, as well as protection. My final addition was a single crystal of divine essence and one ingot of Uru. When I was done I set the armor up in a UCM, to copy out a dozen times, before leaving to have dinner.


    Alfred made Ema and I each a huge te of steak, mashed potatoes, and asparagus, which we ate eagerly. Ema then left to spend some time with Jarvis, who had promised her some sort of desert.


    I spent some time setting up the next step before taking all twelve copies of the new basic enhanced armor andbining them together. Thest threebinations were more or less useless but I added them anyway. I then got the max stacked basic armor on a UCM again, set to print out twelve more copies. While those were going I started working on the second part.


    Taking the stack of Asgardian armor that had been printed out, Ibined what appeared to be a light, heavy, and medium set together, before starting the same process all over again. Ibined everything I had gotten up to this point, following a simr enhancement path as I had for the first batch. I held back from adding in Asgardian materials because I was worried about connecting the concepts together too much. I also added in a bar of Uru and two divine essences, before putting the armor back into a UCM and printing out twelve more copies.


    By then it was starting to feelte, and the hearty meal Alfred had made was starting to catch up to me. I decided to call it a night, heading to bed a bit earlier than usual.


    When I woke up the next morning I immediately got to work,bining the newly printed enhanced Asgardian armors together, ignoring that they didn''t make much change after the seventhbination. I then set them up to print another twelve before having breakfast. I was enjoying a slice of bacon, wondering when Ema would be back when my phone rang.


    "Good morning Nat," I said, unable to keep from smiling. "How are you?"


    "Morning Carson, I''m doing alright. Sorry for calling so early," She apologized. "I have a busy day today and won''t have much time until muchter tonight. How are you?"


    "It''s fine, I''ve been up for a while. And I''m doing great, working on some new armor," I responded. "So would you prefer something simple for a date, or something moreplicated? I''m all for dinner and a movie, if that sounds like something you would be interested in. Or I coulde up with some out there and exciting."


    I could almost hear her thinking, and could easily picture what she looked like, chewing her lip slightly.


    "Would simple be okay?" She asked, sounding almost apologetic.


    "Yeah, absolutely," I agreed with a smile. "How about this, we both take a look at what''s out right now, and then we can talk about what we would like to see. Maybe tomorrow afternoon? I have no clue what''s out right now so"


    "That sounds good Carson," She said, her smile audible. "I''ll talk to you tomorrow then? I would hang around and talk more but I''ve got a ne to catch."


    "Alright, that''s fine, good luck with your super spy stuff. And if you need support don''t hesitate to call."


    "Thanks, Carson, Talk to you soon."


    I sat in my kitchen for a while, smiling and finishing my breakfast.


    When I was finally done enjoying the good vibes I went back out into the workshop. The Destroyer armors I needed were already done, having finished their repairs overnight. This would be the most material-intensive part of this build, as the armors were toorge to fit into a UCM. That meant that in order to stack it properly, I would need to make the duplicates by hand. Or by card rather. I would be making thirty-six copies of this stage, which was only made more difficult by the fact that this was also where I would be attaching all of the gadgets I wanted my armor to have.


    It would be a long process, but I was determined to make my armor a named item.


    The first step was simple reinforcement, strengthening, and enhancement. Hundreds of tes of ultra metal, sorcerous damascus, some other Asgardian materials, extra tes of vibranium, sunstone enhanced ultra metal, a dozen max stacked energy cells, four max stacked arc reactors, extra strength enhancers, elemental resistors to mitigate damage from as many sources as possible, three healing amulets, two bars of Uru and three divine essence crystals all gotbined into <em>each </em>set of Destroyer armor.


    By the time I was done with that the twelve copies of the max stacked, enhanced Asgardian armor were done. I took all twelve andbined each one to a max stacked basic armor I had finished the day before, before setting them aside. I wouldn''t be using them until thest step.


    By now it was early afternoon. Ema had returned while I was working onbining the two max stacked batches, but had set out pretty quickly to work on the nurse stone project. She was hoping to get most poption centers done by the end of the day, which would let her start on global saturation.


    I on the other hand focused on adding to the armors, starting with flight. I was pretty sure at this point I could manage a flight system that didn''t rely on wings if I worked at it but I kind of liked them. They gave my flying weight and in the end, didn''t really detract from anything. If I managed to find a way to get Superman-style flight I would probably take it, but as long as my flying concept was even vaguely attached to thrust and lift, I would keep the wings. Besides, this version of my wings was leagues above the ones I was currently using, having added a bar of Uru and two crystals of divine essence to them before feeding them to the UCM the day before.


    I waffled a bit on how to attach the wings to the armor but settled on cutting a chunk off of the armors back,bining it to the new enhanced wings, and then using a repair tablet, now with extra divine essence, to quickly reattach it. Any issues would get smoothed over in theyering process anyway. I quickly attached the wings to the entire lot, before repeating a simr process with the right-handed scanner and the shield on my left arm.


    While the scanner was basically exactly the same as the one I had added to the armor I was currently using, the shield had gone through the same process as I had the wings, namely enhancing them, adding Uru, divine essence, and a shield projector, as well as sorcerous damascus, energy cells, and sunstone enhanced ultra metal.


    With what I considered the basics set in, I worked in full EVA suits to the armor on top of the visual enhancements for the helmet. I put a healing shlight in the left palm of all the destroyer armors, then cut off the thumb and the pointer finger of both hands, working in a variable version of my lighting gun before reattaching them. I worked anti-mind control cuffs into several points, mostly as backups. I added a stealth module that I could toggle with the intent controls, which I then also added.


    At this point, I was beginning to worry about being spoiled for choice. Having ess to everything and the kitchen sink meant nothing if I couldn''t use it because my hands were full. Which led me to myst addition.


    Alongside the thirty-six fully repaired destroyer armors, I had another thirty-six tablets partially repairing the right and left arms, connected by a single band of metal. I sliced one set of arms free, andbined each with a copy of my revolvers, before reinforcing them with ultra metal, high-level sorcerous damascus and finishing them off with a transformation card. I then added in a few limbs from the battle bots and intent controls before using the same attachment technique as I did for most of the other equipment, namely cutting out a portion of the fully enhanced armor under each arm,bining them with the new arms and then repairing them in ce with a repair tablet. It looked a little strange, but with any luck, I would be able to shift them away until I absolutely needed more hands for a task.


    By now it was almost four in the morning and my enhanced stamina wasing in clutch. I was determined to finish this project. With the thirty-six near identical sets of massively enhanced destroyer armorspleted, for now, I stacked them three times each, leaving me with twelve total. When that was done I took the twelve other sets ofbined, max stacked, ultra enhanced armor andbined them individually into the enhanced destroyer armor. I could feel the diminishing returns getting more and more punishing as the potency increased at every stage.


    Finally, I finished the project by adding two bars of Uru and four divine essences to each set, beforebining it down to a singr suit of armor. For a while I stood in the middle of my workshop, just admiring my creation.


    There, in golden embossed script was the name "Panoply of the Maker".


    For a long moment, I debated immediately binding it to myself. Instead, I pushed it out into a UCM and told it to print out a single copy. I might use it to build something in the future, so I needed an unbound copy, but I would not leave dozens of this armor sitting around. A singr unbound copy would stay permanently in my deck. Even better, because it was named it wouldn''t take up any space.


    When the UCM was set I immediately bound the original to myself, before pushing the armor out onto a workbench. Quickly pulling off all of my clothes, including my now old armor, stripping down to my under armor. When I was ready I reached out and touched the Panoply, the armor immediately shattering into green light, motes of energy whipping and spinning around me, seeming to settle into my body. I could only imagine that it was what Odin''s armor had felt like.


    Somehow I could feel it, just waiting to be called forth, bound to me in a way that was difficult to describe. Almost like it was standing just behind me, waiting to support me. With a mental flex my armor was surrounding me in seconds, green specks of light flittering around me. I could feel the power, the incredibly dense power that seemed connected to me and meld perfectly with my body. I had thought my old armor was seamless, that it had been the pinnacle of what I could achieve for fluidity and control. But this was on a whole different level. Like night and day.


    I carefully made my way to a corner of the shop, standing in front of arge mirror that existed for exactly this purpose.


    The armor was drastically different from my previous set, with the Destroyer armor influence barely present. I could still see ayer of armored bands in certain ces small ces, but I was mostly covered by interlocking andyered armored tes. I looked like a less cumbersome science fiction knight, with subtle Asgardian influences. There was a steady, slowly pulsing low white lighting from under the tes as well. It was also smaller than my old armor had been, much morepact and tighter to my body.


    I focused for a moment and my spare set of arms shifted out of my sides. They forced me to move my real arms a bit, and it did look a little strange as they were more heavily influenced by the Destroyer armor, but they were incredibly easy to control. I could fully articte them like my own arms, except with no bones they could bend backwardpletely. With a thought, I shifted them again, this time their hands morphing into revolvers, though without the handles. They fused the arms in a way that was fluid, with a familiar orange glow emanating from their seams.


    With another mentalmand, their hands were back, before the arms shifted awaypletely. I took a long moment to examine myself in the mirror, before smirking under my helmet.


    Time for a little test run.

 Chapter 100: Regret - Odin Interlude

    Chapter 100: Regret - Odin Interlude


    Hello! Trying something different and doing this at the beginning of the chapter, but did you know that I have a Pa_tr_eon (under my username, MetaBettaOmegaLetta)? In fact, the perspective of this chapter, King Odin, was chosen by my Board Members, my $7 tier. They also get ess to thetest five new chapters of my original book, Last Resort: Dimensional Bloodsport, every month. Last Resort is the story of Leon struggling to support his brother and sister in the far future when the rich openly control our world. A Noble, one of those very rich people, makes him a strange and dangerous offer, one he would only choose... as his Last Resort!


    If you are interested in showing your support, or just want ess to the story beat voting, extra early chapters, and early ess to my original content, please stop by and sign up! Every bit is appreciated, and helps me make my dream of being a full-time writer a bit more usible!<hr>


    The cool winds of Asgard pulled and tugged at his wings, in a way that made it almost impossible to tell that they weren''t his own. Their movement was so instinctual, so natural, that he swore he could feel the individual feathers shift as he pped. It was a heady sensation, swooping through the sky like this, in a way that felt as natural as breathing. The concept of personal flight was obviously not difficult for a god of his power, but flying with the Heart of Asgard was different in a way he couldn''t fully describe.


    Spotting his destination, he tucked his wings and dove, the wind ripping at him now as he controlled his descent. With a re, his wings reopened to slow him down, catching him as hended gently on the patch of grass that was his personal training yard. It was empty of course, no one woulde here unless invited, and unlike the day following Maker''s departure, in which he demonstrated and tested his armor''s power, he had invited no one.


    That had been an interesting way to spend an afternoon, however, fighting the best warriors that Asgard had to offer on even footing, without the help of his usual overpowered tools. To leave Gungnir by the wayside, using nothing but a mundane sword and the armor''s shield to fight his son, his friends, and another dozen of Asgard''s finest. It had been an exhrating reminder of what he had been capable of in his youth, maybe even more than that. Of course, with the many abilities of the suit, his youth might yet return to him. Already the hundreds of little pains and wounds that he had rued over his entire life were fading. His left knee no longer grated as he stood, and his right shoulder no longer twinged when he threw a spear. Every minute he wore his armor, was another day, month, maybe more that he grew closer to his prime.


    He was d that he had bought healing amulets as well as the palm healers, as growing younger while his wife grew older would have been a torture he was not sure he could endure. Instead, he got to watch as an old fire returned to his wife''s eye, one that he felt within himself. It no longer felt as if time was slipping by, and that his life''s only meaning was simply to pass on his legacy to his son. It was invigorating and made him feel like challenging fate itself.


    Of course, such a powerful effect was a double-edged sword. The problems that he had ignored for so long, problems he had considered to be no longer his as his natural death drew closer, suddenly felt so much more real, present daunting. He had put so much aside. The connection he felt to Asgard the souls of his peopleGuilt, an old friend, rose stronger than ever before.


    He had lived for a very, very long time. When he was young, new to the throne, and thrust into leadership by the death of his father, he had followed in his father''s footsteps. War was the way of Asgard, standing up to the horrors of the universe and cutting them down. There was no mercy for those who would spread corruption, no mercy for those who would pige and burn.


    Even when there should have been.


    It was a moment of rity while riding to battle with H that showed him what Asgard had be. Watching on as she ughtered hundreds, thousands of beings who stood no chance against them, whose crimes did not truly fit the butcher bill, all with glee in her eyes and madughter on her lips. He could see it then. It had corrupted them, turned a righteous mission into a campaign of terror and subjugation. The realms were prospering, but it was being built on a foundation of bones, their fields fertilized with blood.


    It took centuries for him to shift the mission, to change the methods of Asgard. There was still no mercy for those who would burn or pige, but now the punishment fit the crime. No longer did they condemn groups for the actions of their leaders. Diplomacy became their new sword.


    While the people had slowly shifted, following their King, H had already been too corrupted. She was enamored with death, power, and bending others to her will. His love for her had blinded him for so long, and by the time he saw it, it was toote. She had be a monster, killing innocents on whims that shifted like the winds. Her natural divine aspect had shifted, from the gentle embrace of death to one of twisted, corrupt darkness. It had nearly killed him and Frigga to banish her away, sealing her imprisonment to Helheim with their own lives as the key. Cowardly perhaps, but he could not bring himself to kill her.


    The king sighed, crossing the training yard with confident strides. He picked up a sword and activated the shield in his armor, before starting to go through the motions, stances, and strikes he had learned when he was young. He had missed this, the meditative feeling of exertion as he ran through a series of maneuvers, eventually moving to face a training mannequin, cutting away at the wood and metal facsimile.


    For a while he worked through the movements, focusing on controlling his strength and speed. The armor Maker had built for him had increased both by a wide margin, enough that he needed to relearn his control. Already the pce trash was filled with damaged handles, goblets, and utensils. He felt like a child again,ing into his divinity for the first time, tapping into his inner strength without meaning to.


    As he practiced his precision and control, his thought drifted back to his daughter, to how his failure as a father had left her corrupted, and how he could never forgive himself for that. He had thought that his mind would never let him forget it either, but now Loki, his son in all but blood, sat in a cell, missing a limb, angry at the world, determined to get what was rightfully his.


    He had let it happen again. Or was it his faultpletely? Was he the reason his childreny corrupt?


    He swung his sword a final time, this time including a shout. It cutpletely through the enchanted mannequin, breaking its magic and bisecting it through its shoulder and out its hip. His sword, which held no enchantment, also broke, cracking into several pieces that dug into the ground.


    Loki had always been mischievous. Pranks, little lies, stirring up trouble, and on more than one asion getting himself in way over his head. When he was young, it had all been good fun, little things to tease and poke. When he hade into his divinity, everyone had simply smiled and agreed that being the god of mischief was a perfect fit.


    Somewhere along the way, he began to struggle, and neither he nor Frigga could figure out what was happening. His pranks became less and less teasing and more and more bullying, even downright cruel on rare asions. His reputation of being fun and quick-witted shifted at some point to being cold with a barbed tongue that would cut all but the most confident to the quick. And yet he seemed to revel in it, enjoying each burned bridge and harsh look.


    Where had it all gone wrong? He could remember every time he tried to reach out to his son, try to assure him, tried to teach him, Each time he pushed away, drifting further and further. And then the truth came out.


    The damn had broken, cracks that had been deep and hidden releasing a deluge of emotion that washed any sense of reason from Loki''s head. He had <em>always</em> intended to tell Loki that he was his adopted son, but it never felt like the right moment to broach the subject. So instead he had waited.


    Watching Loki fall, willingly choosing the abyss over being saved by his own father He couldn''t imagine what was going through his son''s mind, what brought him to that choice.


    Odin continued working in the training yard for a while longer, switching between all sorts of weapons and styles, working on his control, and testing the range of his armor. He worked on fighting while he was flying and utilizing other abilities his new armor held. When he was finally finished he spent a few minutes cooling down, picking up the remains of his mundane weapon and the broken training dummy pieces.


    When he was done he pushed out his wings, once again taking to the skies. He flew across Asgard, enjoying the breeze and fresh air, letting it cool him downpletely before heading to his destination, his personal study. Hended on the balcony, quickly pulling his wings in as he walked forward without missing a stride. As he did his armor broke apart into golden motes of light, fluttering around him before fading away. He knew it was more than a bit excessive, but spectacle had its own uses in the right scenario. He would start donning his armor with the normal, more subtle activation eventually.


    The god made his way further into his study, looking at hisrge desk, a massive stone piece carved with wood and gold inserts. Stacked on top were the preliminary reports on Maker''s "conceptually crafted" artifacts. He had made it through most of them, stopping when it became increasingly obvious that they all reduced down to "we have no idea" or "it should not work but it does".


    He stepped around his desk to a smaller cab across the hall, pulling out a small jug of mead and pouring some into a ss. A small enchantment chilled it before he was done pouring, something that many of his people would call sphemous.


    "So you do have mead here," Frigga said, standing behind him, the door closing behind her. "I don''t remember you offering that to our guests."


    "Another mistake. I should have been a more gracious host," He admitted, shaking his head before turning to face his wife. "I could have cost us a valuable ally."


    "Perhaps dear, but steadier thoughts prevailed," She said, stepping around the table, reaching out, and taking his hand.


    "Have the enchanters had any luck?" She asked, resting her head on her husband''s shoulder.


    "None, they are as baffled by his work as either of us," He admitted. "The Destroyer Legion are ninepletely identical duplicates. The magic I use to control them is the only separating feature among them."


    "Shall you be trading for more?"


    "Yes, I am already looking for things he might be interested in," He admitted. "The opportunity to defend Asgard with such a legion of support is too valuable an opportunity to pass up."


    "You beat one pretty handily by yourself," Frigga reminded him. "And fixed it almost immediately"


    "Aye There is not much I couldn''t defeat in this armor, especially with the aid of Gungnir" Odin assured her. "Each of them is a worthy challenge to Thor, there is much I would trade for more of them."


    "Then why not make the offer before he left?"


    "I wished to give our schrs a chance to study his creations," He exined, leaning down and kissing his wife''s cheek. "And I was caught quite off guard by his gift."


    Frigga cupped her husband''s cheek, looking up at him with a smile. Her thumb gently rubbed under his now-healed eye, unable to keep herself from smiling.


    "I am d we were able to offer a useful gift in return," She said, before pulling back.


    The two were quiet for a long moment, enjoying each other''spany in a moment of calm that the two rarely got. After a while Odin pulled away, moving to his desk.


    "Have Have you visited Loki?" Odin asked, focusing down at the papers and scrolls that took up the surface of his desk.


    "I have," Frigga responded. "He is frustrated at his bondage. He asked quite a few times to have his extra restraints removed."


    "No. I will not remove them," Odin responded, shaking his head and meeting his wife''s eyes.


    "I didn''t think so," She responded with a shrug, the sadness obvious on her face.


    "I Do you think I should visit him?" Odin asked.


    "Do I" Frigga trailed off, looking at her husband in confusion,


    `She had been with her husband for thousands of years, seen every side of him in countless situations. Despite that, she could not remember thest time he asked for her opinion so openly. That wasn''t to say that he didn''t wee her input, or listen to her advice. But openly ask for it?


    "Yes. I think you should," She said with honest emotions clear on her face. "I think you should visit him as often as you can. He is broken, something is wrong with him and he has twisted his mind into something our boy He is not well. Supporting him, showing that we care and are here for him it is the only hope he has."


    "...very well," He finally said, nodding in agreement. "I I will go."


    The room was quiet for a while, as Frigga examined her husband with a critical eye. Eventually, she sat down on the chair next to his desk, still studying him.


    "What is wrong my husband?"


    "...It is Maker''s armor its connection to Asgard, it''s steady healing. It is returning me to my prime, I can feel it."


    "I can feel the amulet doing much the same," Frigga agreed. "It is the most potent healing artifact I have ever encountered. More powerful than any spell our mages could singrly summon forth."


    "I can feel it healing the age from my very bones," He added in agreement. "All of it, working together I feel more connected to life than ever before as if it has re-tethered my soul to this ne. It is making me relive my mistakes, and question my choices. I worry I worry I have already repeated my mistakes with Loki."


    Frigga listened to her husband''s worries, doing her best to hold the shock from hearing even the slightest hint of her daughter''s existencee from him.


    "Loki he is struggling, of that, there is no doubt. He is twisted and jealous, his mind worked into knots. But he is not steeped in blood in the way" She trailed off, unwilling to say her daughter''s name out loud. "He is not lost yet."


    "No, he is not," He responded, nodding in agreement. "I will visit him now."


    "Do not preach to him," Frigga said, reaching out and touching her husband''s arm. "It will only serve to drive him further away."


    Odin nodded, taking a deep breath. It was strange for Frigga, to see his emotions hanging around him as he struggled to martial his exterior. A few words of assurance and a kiss on the cheekter and he left, his strides filled with purpose.


    He would not fail again. He would not lose another child to his own mistakes.

 Chapter 101: Business time?

    Chapter 101: Business time?


    I spent a few hours trying out my new armor. I carried two trunks of my robots around to the dark side of the moon, letting them out and giving them an hour to prepare.


    I utterly destroyed them.


    I was strong enough to tear them limb from limb, even therge behemoths. I couldn''t quite punch through their shields, but I could fly fast enough that they couldn''t keep up with me. The energy sts from the battle bot''s guns did little to no damage, draining negligible amounts of energy from my energy protections. Even after I gave them permission to crank up the power on their weapons, they were still only draining it at a manageable level.


    With the medical bots gathering the scrap and broken robots, throwing them into their respective trunks for me to destroy, I moved on to the next tests. I spent five minutes taking down the armor''s sorcerous protection, shooting myself in the foot over and over again. When it was gone I started going through all of my enhanced des, trying to see if any could make it through. Only my sword, the most powerful de I had made so far, could cut it at all, only managing a semi-deep groove around along my arm before the de shattered into a half dozen pieces.


    Making a mental note to make a proper melee weapon with the Asgardian weapons I had brought back, I kept testing. I sted my hands and chest a few more times with my revolvers, moving up to my rifle, before clicking my shotgun up to its highest setting and shooting my foot with the high-energy st. This was one of my more powerful attack options and all it did was a slight bit of damage, mostly scuffing heat damage. Inside the armor, my foot waspletely fine, the intense st of energy doing nothing at all, even as the extra energy carved a deep hole around my foot. I hooked up a divine repair tablet to my suit while I was still wearing it, noting that there were a few spots of damage from my tests, most notably my arm and foot, but everything was still perfectly functional, the tablet denoting the damage as simple "wear and tear" as opposed to real damage that would threaten functionality.


    I pushed out my wings, and soared across the moon''s surface, pushing myself as fast as I could go, elerating at a ridiculous rate. Faster and faster I angled upwards, the slight pull of the moon''s gravity barely even registering as I hurtle into space. I was going considerably faster than what used to be my max speed. Realizing that theck of air resistance probably had a lot to do with that I returned to my test site, cleaned up my mess, and traveled back to the warehouse.


    When I arrived I let my armor dissipate, fluttering away and dissolving into green light. I was pretty sure there was a way to do that that wasn''t so shy, but I wasn''t in any rush to find it. I spent a while cleaning up the mess I had made while crafting, storing the excess resources away, and junking the scraps. I turned off the majority of UCMs, tucking and stacking the extras into a corner, setting up some for nursing stones, and leaving the ones printing out divine essence and Uru alone, as well as the one printing out the unbound copy of the Panoply. Thetter wouldn''t be done until the next day. By the time I was all cleaned up it was early morning on the east coast of the US, which is generally what I tried to keep my sleep schedule set to.


    With everything set, cleaned up, and organized, I messaged Ema to take a break and had Alfred whip up some breakfast, custard french toast with Nute and banana. While I was waiting for Ema to get back and Alfred to cook us breakfast, I started going through movie listings and show schedules. I had barely gotten to movie theater listings to start when Ema stepped into the apartment, sitting down next to me.


    "So, did you manage to do it?" Ema asked. "How did it turn out?"


    I smirked, and instead of answering just stood and activated my armor, letting the protectiveyers swirl out and cover me. When it was done I opened my arms and gestured to myself.


    "Woah That is really over the top," She said, looking me up and down. "But it looks good. Very Scifi-Medieval."


    "Yeah, I think that''s because of the Asgard armor lining up with the modern armor,bining with tech and magic," I said with a shrug. "I need to make something to change its color."


    "Green and gold?" She asked with a smirk.


    "Maybe? Green and Gold looks good and it matches my brand but I would like to mix it up a bit," I admitted with a shrug. "Kinda annoyed I can''t go Red and gold without looking like I''m copying Tony. Speaking of which I need to talk to him, is he home?"


    "Jarvis hasn''t said anything, so maybe?"


    "Right well sometime after breakfast then."


    I sat back down, my armor fluttering away as I did. I pulled up the inte on my phone and started looking through showtimes again before letting out a groan and dropping it to the countertop.


    "What?"


    "How the hell did I forget that I went back in time?" I asked, rubbing my forehead.


    "Oh to be honest, that slipped my mind as well," Ema admitted. "What reminded you?"


    "The movie listings," I exined, pointing down to the list of movies, a lot of which I had either already seen or knew wasn''t any good. "My options for what I''m taking Natasha to see just got a whole lot more limited."


    "Are you sure there aren''t any differences?"


    "Not sure I would be able to tell. I recognize a lot of the movies, even the ones I''ve never seen," I answered. "And most of those I remember people saying were crap."


    "... You should take her to see one you know is good," Ema said. "It would hardly be that bad to watch a good movie for a second time."


    "YeahThats fair...Inception was pretty good," I responded after a long moment of looking through my options. "But I''ll see what she wants to see and rmend it if she isn''t sure."


    Ema and I spent a little while longer chatting before she wanted to get back to the nurse stone project, and I needed to go see Tony. I shot him a quick text to check if he was home before getting dressed in some casual clothes, putting my leather jacket on over that. It was strange to be walking around without the chest te form of my old armor, but in a way that was very freeing. Tony sent a message back to meet him in New York, which I assume meant Stark Tower.


    I deployed my armor and activated my stealth field before traveling to one of mynding pads in New York City, taking to the air and flying across the city. It was hard not to get lost in the sensation of flying. I could feel just how fast I could go, and the temptation to push it was massive. I somehow resisted the urge though and instead made my way to Stark Tower. I did two loops around the building, which was surprisingly far ahead of schedule. There were still some iplete spots around the exterior, and there were clearly construction workers walking around, but it was a lot moreplete than I expected it to be.


    I spotted Tony, who was wearing a hard hat on the top floor, watching the construction and talking to someone who I didn''t recognize. I banked and swooped in, dropping my stealth field as Inded.


    "Tony!" I called out, catching his attention as my armor faded and disappeared into glowing sparks.


    The yboy billionaire waved me over, finishing whatever conversation he was having before turning to me.


    "Fancy new armor?" He asked, watching as it disappeared. "Let me guess, capable of incredible feats that I won''t be able to replicate for a few dozen years?"


    "I don''t know, I''m sure you''ll catch up quicker than that," I said with a chuckle, looking around. "You really doling out the overtime huh?"


    "Yeah, wanted it done with people moved in when the research facility is opened." He said. "Costing me an arm and a leg but it''s getting done. How''s thending sight looking?"


    "The dome is done, which means it''s most likely eitherplete or really close to it," I exined. "We can go check up on it if you''d like. But before that Peggy mentioned you were going on a hiring spree?"


    "Heard about that huh?" He said with a smirk, beforeughing. "C''mon Maker, you really didn''t think Pepper and I would just let a project like this stay as open-ended and casual as you described it? I mean you didn''t even have a way to pay people beyond chucking the asional gold bar at them!"


    I winced and remember how I had described the n to Pepper, before the invasion and before I had gotten several lessons on the importance of nning in detail. I nodded in defeat, getting anotherugh from Tony in response.


    "Alright, I didn''t really have everything thought out," I admitted. "To be fair though, I had originally envisioned a small group of really smart people who wanted to make the world a better ce. I hadn''t really thought it through from a business perspective or realized just how big the project would get"


    "We know, Pepper had you pegged before you had finished your opening pitch," He responded, patting my shoulder. "We knew what we were getting into. Luckily she knows a thing or two about working with entric but profitable personalities."


    We spent a while talking about the details of the project, going over all of the work Pepper, himself, and a few other people they had hired had been up to behind the scenes. There was a lot he insisted I didn''t need to worry about, like business contracts and the like, and I trusted him enough to let him skip over it, though I would have Ema talk to Pepper about it to confirm everything. Apparently, we had a whole lot of staff between janitorial services, IT people, and hundreds of other jobs. That wasn''t even including the actual researchers, of which Tony and Pepper had a list they wanted to recruit normally, as well as some of the more famous scientists and engineers that Pepper wanted Tony and me to recruit personally.


    "Do we really need all those people?" I asked when he had finished describing the general idea of what would be happening. "I already have robot janitors keeping the <em>Void Skipper</em> clean. And IT? I thought most of the equipment would be conceptually crafted"


    "Maybe as a backup, but if you want this to be a real humanitarian venture you should be hiring as many humans as possible. It''s not like we have to worry about people lying to us or anything. As for IT, it would be better to keep you as free as possible to work on bigger things," He responded. "Basically a lot of this is going toe from my pocket as well as the profit from your car repair pucks, which Pepper wants to talk to you about by the way. We imagine that either it turns a profit through inventions, or you and I put our heads together and invent something of our own to donate the funds from."


    While Tony exined the n he showed off the Tower, the majority of which had been shifted into apartments along with a lot of other living facilities. When we were done with the tour on Earth, I brought him up to the research center, by way of the warehouse. We made our way across the moonscape to the massive structure.


    In order to ess the LPMs that were building the structure we needed to enter inside, which meant using one of the airlocks. Technically an airlock wasn''t necessary, as the structure created a bubble of air inside its shields, but it was better to have and not need than need and not have.


    The airlock opened for us easily, the exterior door opening and letting us in, sealing behind us with a hiss. I dismissed my armor and Tony deactivated his EVA suit. Both of us looked at each other at the same time.


    "Our security needs an upgrade."


    "How did we forget security?"


    We spoke at the same time, and I chuckled.


    "Alright, we should start a list of things we need to work on," I pointed out, Tony nodding in agreement. "Upgrading the facilities shouldn''t be too hard once I upgrade the LMPs."


    "Could you put anding pad in here?" Tony asked. "One that I can use? I like to be able to change the designs and tweak things."


    "Yeah, I''ll set one up before you leave."


    We made our way through the facility, which appeared to be remarkablyplete, if not a bit on the empty side. We checked out the apartments, which were also empty. Tony spent a while in the programable rooms, experimenting with wall and appliance cement before resetting the room to empty. After an hour or so of exploring our massive facility and we finally had an answer, it wasplete, ording to the LMPs.


    "That''s good, we can start working onb spaces and everything else," He said, tapping through screens on the LPM. "They should be modr like the apartments, but they should still start with something in ce."


    "You need to make me a list of things I should make," I said. "Or that I should set up to have on tap."


    "Oh don''t you worry, Pepper and I have a list of things," He said with a chuckle. "I''m gonna stick around here for a while, make some adjustments, get everything ready to start moving infrastructure in."


    "Yeah, I''ll get you anding pad and travel brace set up, where do you want it?"


    "Here would be fine, it''s where I''ll be most of the time,"


    I nodded and stepped away, pushing out my storage shed. Luckily, I already had the framework for a closed-circuit travel system. It only took a few minutes to get it worked down to twonding pads and one bracer.


    I put the pad down next to the LMP and traveled down to Malibu, putting the other pad down by Tony''s front door, before traveling to the warehouse and making my way back to the facility.


    "Well, you can travel between here and Malibu," I said, handing the inventor the brace.


    "I''m going to be staying in New York for a while" He said with a wince. "Would you mind?


    "Yeah yeah, I''ll move it. You can move it around too, just in case your curious."


    After a few more minutes of conversation, I left him to his adjustments, traveling back down to Malibu, grabbing thending pad, and traveling to New York. I set thending pad in a broom closet, sending him an image of it so he knew where it was. He replied with a thumbs up, before adding that he would get me a list of stuff I would need to make at some point.


    Instead of heading straight back to the warehouse, I found a small cafe to have lunch at, enjoying an Italian sub and some french fries before traveling back home. I spent the rest of the day working on getting my systems and equipment updated. Between the Uru and divine essence, everything I could think of was getting a substantial upgrade. I started with the LPMs around the Octopit, before using them to print out twenty-four updated LPMs. If I was going to build an earth defense fleet I would need to ramp up production.


    I set up LPMs around the Octopit to dig up and build three more berths for shipbuilding, including the camouge needed to hide them. They were substantiallyrger than the Octopit, but without the fancy building around them. Three of them were about twice as big as the original, while the third was just short of triple the size, and was a circle shape instead of an oval.


    I made sure there were walkways and shield projectors, as well as life support systems up and down the shipyards, just in case. The final materials list was simple but massive, the size of this project was pretty big, even with the divine LPMs. It took me the rest of the afternoon to get everything set properly.


    Not long after I finished, Natasha called. She was clearly tired, but we talked for an hour or so, chatting andughing before finally bringing up what we would go see. Apparently, she had taken the mention of "show" literally and had been looking at ys and musicals all around the world, since she knew I had a universal trantor. I had nothing against the idea, in fact, it sounded better than rewatching something I had already seen, so I agreed to see a live show. I didn''t know the first thing about live performances like that, so I let her have the final decision about what we would be seeing.


    We talked a while longer, discussing what we would be having for dinner, which since she was picking the show, I would pick out. Eventually, the conversation drifted to more casual topics, before eventually, we said goodbye, both of us tired and ready for bed.

 Chapter 102: Wibbly Wobbly

    Chapter 102: Wibbly Wobbly


    I woke up the next morning and spent some time rxing and some more time training with my new armor. Ema suggested I tried juggling eggs to make sure I could control my incredibly increased strength, but that proved to be rtively easy with my increased speed and reflexes. Eventually, we simply spent some time sparring, and I bulldozed through another three trunks of robots. We now had a whole trunk full of caduceus droids, which Ema painted with a red cross and stored near her other rapid deployment trunks from when I was away from Earth. She grumbled and got recement trunks printing out as well.


    After a morning of training and fighting, I took a quick shower and got ready for another day of crafting, while Ema once again started working on the nurse stones. She was making steady progress that she was happy about, though there was still plenty of spreading to be done.


    I wanted to work on the second half of the nurse stone project, the global shield system. While the stones would help the Earth''s poption treat, heal and even avoid major medical issues, I wanted something that could function as thest line of defense against exterior threats.


    As I sat down and began nning out how I would design such a shielding system, I quickly remember that I had already created a shield of one type around the world, and the Sourceress Supreme might know a thing or two about covering the world in protection. Besides, I wanted to talk to her about her having the Time Stone.


    I shot a message to Ema telling her where I was going before traveling down to New York while stealthed, taking to the air, and making my way to the New York Sanctum. Inded in an alleyway not too far from the building about five minutester, only taking that long because I was still enjoying my new level of flight. After deactivating my stealth I made my way to the front door, knocking solidly.


    It only took a few seconds for the familiar muscr form of the New York Sanctum Master to open the door.


    "Greeting Maker, pleasee in," He said with a nod. "The Sorceress Supreme is expecting you."


    I nodded and followed behind the man as he led me through the halls and into the connection point between sanctums, now with seven doorways all around the glowing globe of Earth. Standing under it, looking up at the globe was the Sorceress Supreme, turning to me with a smile as I entered. She looked a bit younger than she had thest time I saw her, but not by much. I could just make out the chain of my healing amulet around her neck.


    "Maker, it is good to see you," She said, looking at my guide and nodding. "Thank you, Master Drumm, I will take it from here."


    I watched the sorcerer leave before turning back to the Sorceress Supreme. Before I could say anything she raised her hand.


    "Perhaps, before we start, we could find somewhere more private?" She suggested. "It''s empty now but this is the connection between sanctums, many cross through here."


    I nodded and let the mysterious woman lead me through to Kamar-Taj, past practicing apprentices and the masters teaching them, eventually stopping in a secluded tea room. She gestured to a seat before spending a few minutes making us both tea. She ced my cup and saucer in front of me, and I sipped it tentatively.


    "Not bad," I admitted. "Not usually a fan of tea but this is nice."


    "Fresh honey does do wonders for the taste," She responded, sitting down across the table from me. "Now, I believe you have some questions?"


    "Yeah, and a request for help," I responded, the bald woman nodding in eptance. "Where exactly did you get the Time Stone, and how long have you had it? I assume. since you know what it is, you know how dangerous it is, and how weird reality gets around them?"


    "It has been in the hands of the Masters of the Mystic Arts since the days of Agamotto," She exined, parting a fewyers of her monk robes to reveal arge amulet hanging from her neck. "He created the Eye of Agamotto around it as a way to seal its presence and still allow its energies to be utilized. We are very aware of how powerful and dangerous it can be."


    "Good. I would prefer it to be anywhere but here, but with the Space Stone on the Void Skipper, I really can''t throw stones. But that does bring up a point," I started, taking a sip from the teacup before continuing. "I understand and agree that your order should stay out of the day-to-day of the world, but the stones paint a pretty big target on our back. Someone will eventuallye looking for them. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but it will happen eventually. The question is when theye looking will the Masters of the Mystic Arts step up to protect their home?"


    The Ancient One listened to what I had to say, taking a sip of tea quietly before cing the cup back on her saucer. She studied my face for a long moment before nodding with a smile.


    "The Masters of the Mystic Arts take the responsibility of the Time Stone seriously. If someonees to Earth looking for it we will defend ourselves and Earth in general ordingly," She exined confidently. "We will also stand with the other defenders of Earth should a sufficiently dangerous foee from outside our borders. We live here Carson, we won''t let our home be destroyed."


    "No, I suppose you wouldn''t," I said, sighing and leaning back. "Alright, I just needed to make sure you understood. I know it must feel like a puppy barking at Cerberus but"


    The ancient oneughed, shaking her head for a moment.


    "An apt analogy, but not an urate one. The difference in age does not mean my order nor myself is incapable of making mistakes, nor will your growing power remain lesser than mine for long." She said admitted. "I understand the need to check."


    "It''s a little crazy. Less than six months ago I was just some guy," I said, shaking my head, leaning on the table to rub my face. "Now I''ve got Infinity Stones to worry about."


    "Have you ever considered gathering them together?" She asked, taking a sip of her tea.


    "Gathering the Stones?" I asked, an eyebrow raised as I studied the sorceress. "Of course I have. What kind of person doesn''t wonder what they would do with endless power? Luckily I have a gift, much more powerful than the cards."


    "Oh? And what would that be?"


    "Perspective," I said with a smile, thinking of the hundreds of stories from the Marvelics that showed just how stupid that kind of power made you, and how much trouble it attracted "The concept of controlling the universe on that level is tempting, but in reality, it would never go well. I''m happy with my version of reality warping. It makes me nervous enough as is."


    "I suppose that is true. Power at that scale is never free, and the cost is often not what you expect, and considerably worse than you would hope."


    "I have a question for you Is the time stone how you''re doing your all-knowing shtick?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "The card through the portal when I made my Stone detector, the anti-mind control spell?"


    She chuckled and nodded, her hand touching the amulet to tuck it back under her robes, hiding it from sight.


    "It is, though it has its limitations," She answered. "And its own costs. But, other times it is extremely useful. Such as right now."


    She stood from our table and walked to the counter where she had previously made our tea, opening the cab under it. From inside she pulled arge wooden crate, with rope handles and intricate carvings around the top and sides. She carried it over to me and ced it on the table, before stepping aside and gesturing to it. I stood and opened it slowly.


    There,id in some sort of fibrous packing material was a massive red cubic spinel, about seven or eight inches across. It was carved with various runes and symbols, each of them filled with gold metal, probably electrum. I reached in and lifted it out, turning it over in my hands.


    "Is this a piece from a Sanctum Spinel?"


    "No, it is made from the same material in a simr style, with a simr enchantment," She exined. "While its projection is not physical, it is still a projection of protection, capable of fending off invasions from extradimensional and mystical entities and energies. The best part is that it is capable of projecting its protection out around four hundred miles."


    "Which willpensate for my shield''s size problems!" I finished excitedly, gently putting the red crystal back. "This is exactly what I needed."


    "I know, that''s why I made it. A shield around the would give Earth an incredible amount of protection, and using this will enhance our extra-dimensional protection" She said with a smug smile, one that was well deserved as far as I was concerned.


    We talked more about her gift, its limitation, and what to look out for when I was crafting with it, but I was eager to start with this new asset. So, after finishing the tea I traveled from Kamar-Taj to the warehouse to start experimenting. The first thing I did was get the crystal scanned and copied a few times, before carding the original so I could get a better grip on its concepts.


    The Ancient One had been absolutely correct, I could easily use this as a way to extend the protection of a shield array massively, especially once I started stacking it andbining in divine essence, Uru, and whatever else would help.


    Now all that was left, besides actually building the projectors, was to decide how to deploy it. I brainstormed for a while,ing up with a few possibilities when Ema came home for a break. She was steadily working the nurse stones across central Europe, having decided early on to roll them out by poption density.


    "So, any progress?" She asked, sitting down on a chair by my workstation.


    "Yeah, the Ancient One was a big help," I said, gesturing to the massive spinel sitting on the table.


    "Holy hell, that is amazing," Ema said, standing up to get a closer look. "She just gave it to you?"


    "Yup, had it ready to go and everything. Now I just need to worry about deployment," I exined, shaking my head. "The obvious choices are having it project up from Earth, or having it project from satellites. The problem is that they both have well, problems."


    "Like what?" Ema asked, turning away from the spinel.


    "WellIf I have the projectors on Earth, I''m not sure how high up I will be able to project. I would rather the shield be as far away from the Earth as possible, which would be easy with satellites," I started to exin, pacing around slowly as I thought out loud. "The problem with the satellites is that they would have to cover more surface area, though admittedly it wouldn''t be that much extraparatively. Also,side, I could bury them underground, in space, they will be a hazard to anyone flying by, including normal satellites."


    "... I feel like satellites are the superior option," Ema said after a long moment. "How would you exin random projectors buried underground? You could just stealth the satellites and no one will know they are there."


    "Until a billion-dor satellite crumples around one of them" I pointed out. "There is just too much shit out there. Not to mention the fact that that amount is increasingto be really safe we would have to go incredibly far away from the earth or"


    "Onto something?" Ema asked, noticing my pause.


    "Yeah, that we are being stupid," I said. "I''m trying to puzzle this out when Tony already has satellites in space. He will know how this shit works. Better than me guessing."


    I sent a message to Tony, who messaged back that he was about to travel to the research facility and that I could meet him there. Ema decided to get back to work on the nurse stones, leaving me to fly across the moon by myself. It didn''t take long to find him, tapping away at the LPM.


    "What are you changing?" I asked, resisting the urge to peek over his shoulder.


    "Adding space to run wiring through thebs and other floors. Not much, just a half a foot off most of the ceilings," He exined, taping the screen a final time before turning to look focus on me, though he was clearly distracted. "What''s up?"


    "Well I have everything I need to finally set up aary shield," I exined, Tony''s interest suddenly skyrocketing. "I''m pretty sure a satellite system is a way to go, but I know very little about how that works."


    "Holy shit, really? I thought you were stuck with shields being too small?"


    "I recently got a few more things that pretty much cracked it wide open," I exined.


    "Let me guess, some Asgardian mambo jumbo?" He asked, rolling his eyes when I shrugged. "Well if it lets us put a shield around Earth I won''tin. You''re going to need to talk to Shield or the WSC though."


    "Damn was kind of hoping to do this without them."


    "It will be way easier now and for future satelliteunches if you coordinate with them," He exined, shaking his head. "I could put maybe another half dozen on top of the ones I already have up there, but it is kind of a clusterf#ck if you don''t know what you''re doing."


    "Dammit alright, I will design a satellite projector first, maybe test it on the moon first?"


    "You''re probably going to need to start with a satellite base first," He exined. "Lots of tracking information is required to keep an orbit stable. I well I could do it but the research station"


    "Dammit yeah, one thing at a time," I agreed, looking around. "Alright, I''ll bring it up to Shield when I have my defense fleet meeting."


    "Defense fleet? What the hell is that?"


    I spent a few minutes talking to Tony about my idea, discussing the concept of a defense fleet stationed around the sr system. We even chatted about my potential solution for getting around the fact that my ships took forever to travel with a portal generator.


    "You realize that is going to be a pretty big project," Tony said with a surprisingly concerned face. "You''re going to be pretty f#cking swamped for the next few months between the research base, this fleet idea, and yourary shield"


    "Yeah, I know. But it''s worth it to finally get some proper defenses around Earth," I said, shaking my head. "Alright, I need to make a phone call and poke the WSC into a meeting. That''s going to be fun."


    "Yeah, good luck with that!" He said, lifting his arm up, which was where his travel bracer was. "Travel New York!"


    The billionaire was whisked away a momentter leaving me alone in the LPM room. I double-checked the screen and saw his adjustment, which was mostly wiring space but also included a nightclub and casinobination on the entertainment floor. I shook my head but left it alone. It would be his to worry about.


    I traveled back to the warehouse and pulled out my phone, dropping onto the couch in the lounge area and dialing in Nick Fury. It rang for a moment before he picked up.


    "What do you want Carson?"


    "Just needed to talk to you about the meeting with the WSC about the earth defense fleet," I said, rolling my eyes at his bruskness.


    "...I''ll let them know you called." He said. "Anything else."


    "Yeah, tell them the opportunity to have any input is closing rapidly. I want to start getting to work on this. As well as aary shield," I added. "I''m at the point where I should be able to make aary-level shield but I''m going to need some support with the logistics."


    As I talked, Ema came in through thending pad, making her way to me, and sitting down on the couch across from me.


    "...I''ll let them know," He said, sounding stressed and tired. "Anything else?"


    "Nope, that''s it. Thanks for being the messenger Director Fury. Feel free to pass me off directly to them, I''m sure you''ve got more important things to do."


    "I thought your phone worked by just entering in names?" He asked.


    I opened my mouth to retort that I didn''t know any WSC members only to remember that I did, four in fact, though one might still be on Asgard.


    "Damn. Sorry Fury, I''ll call them directly next time."


    "Whatever. Goodbye."


    When the director hung up I let out a sigh.


    "I think you are officially lower on his list than Tony by now," Ema pointed out, with augh. "It''s no wonder he is bald, the stress that man must endure dealing with all of you."


    "Yeah Maybe I should do something nice for him, make him a gift of some sort" I said, scratching my chin. "You done for the day?"


    "Just for now, what about you?"


    "I want to start going over the pieces of the Asgardian shield system," I said. "Which is going to involve printing out a lot of materials. I probably won''t get much further than that though."


    "Alright, I''ll have Alfred start on some dinner."


    I nodded as she left, leaving me alone on the couch. I waited for a few minutes, taking a deep breath and letting it back out before I stood up. These projects weren''t going to finish themselves.

 Chapter 103: Date night

    Chapter 103: Date night


    I spent the rest of that afternooning to terms with what kind of preparation I would need for the next few massive projects. Between the defense fleet and the shield array, I would be using a lot of materials, and I needed to get them ready to keep from running into dys. I was about to start printing things out, only to realize some of my UCMs weren''t updated with the divine essence and Uru, which was something that would really hold me back in the long run.


    So, I spent a significant amount of time updating everything that I could, or rather everything that needed it. I wasn''t ridiculous enough to think that <em>everything </em>I had ever made needed to be perfect, but a lot of things seriously benefited from a single crystal of divine essence and an ingot of Uru.


    When I was done updating everything that needed it, I moved a bunch of my now divinely enhanced surplus UCM to the Octopit to print out a ridiculous amount of materials, for both the satellites and the fleet. I also set up a few divine UCMs in the warehouse to print out Uru and divine essence, before whipping up expanded storage spaces for them, as well as the majority of Asgardian materials and resources they traded to me.


    That took me the entire first half of a day, taking a break just around lunchtime to talk on the phone with Nat. She had picked out a y and a time, somehow managing to talk her way into a pair of tickets. I was surprised she was able to get them on such short notice, but I didn''t question it. We chatted for a while before saying goodbye, both of us having work to do.


    I spent the rest of the day monitoring the UCMs and bing more familiar with the Asgardian shield projector, getting an LPM to print out individual parts to examine their concepts. It turns out that most of the powerful part of the entire projector was the core, which was a deep blue spherical gem. It was covered in carved runes, a singr swirling band of them running around the outside of the gem, set with gold so pure it almost glowed. I could see <em>something</em> inside, but it was too obscured to make out what it actually was.


    Its concepts were powerful though, filled with magic, protection, shielding, and a dozen others that perfectly fit what I needed.


    "I might end up just using this" I mumbled to myself, setting the core to duplicate a few dozen times in the warehouse before returning to my examination.


    My mind, focused as it was on creating a shield, kept returning to Wakanda. They had a shield around their cities, and while I wasn''t entirely sure if it was just camouge or an actual barrier. I needed to find out because any addition to a shield system, unless it was total crap, would allow me to improve the final result drastically. Even if it was just camouge, being able to cloak the entire would probably be a powerful tool.


    I could sneak in and scan it without them even knowing I was there or I could make a phone call and ask to discuss it with them. If the circumstances were different, if I didn''t already have two solutions for the shield coverage problem, I probably wouldn''t bother asking. I wasn''t about to let anything like istionism or even small moral grey areas like design theft get in the way of global protection from outside threats. But, with Odin''s and the Ancient One''s gifts, it wasn''t as necessary. While any additional shielding methods would greatly increase the potency of the final result, I knew that between the three powerful shielding methods I had already, the final result was going to be ridiculously powerful.


    I would reach out to them soon, sometime after I met with the WSC, which would hopefully be soon. For now I had a date to prepare for.<hr>


    Natasha and I made our way down the Broadway theater''s steps, our elbows interlocked as we did. The crowd moved and shifted around us, most people going the same way we were, out of the theater as the show had ended.


    It had been an interesting production, with rather incredible set pieces and singing. I had heard of Wicked before, both as a y and a book, but I had never seen or read it, not that I had tried particrly hard. Natasha on the other hand had been wanting to see it for a while, so had been very happy to get her hands on a pair of tickets.


    "I liked the idea," She had said as we made our way into the theater almost two hours ago. "Learning the story behind a viin, where they came from, learning what happened to turn her into the Wicked Witch, what they actually went through"


    She had been a little embarrassed to be looking forward to it, but I thought it was endearing. Besides, on the scale of weird shit, Natasha Romanov being into musicals was hardly even registered.


    And honestly, it was a really entertaining production, enough that I readily agreed that we should see more eventually. As we made our way down the New York street, making our way to our restaurant reservations, we chatted about the y. Eventually, we arrived at the small but highly-rated Italian restaurant, and thanks to our reservation were seated almost immediately. It wasn''t the fanciest of ces, but ording to reviews they served good food.


    Natasha chuckled when I pulled out her seat for her, sitting down gracefully. She looked gorgeous in a simple ck and red dress, the red a sort of undertone to the ck fabric. I resisted the urge toment on it again as I already had several times. Instead, I simply walked around and sat in my seat, smiling across at my date.


    "You know, don''t take this the wrong way but I didn''t really take you for a musical type of person," I admitted.


    "I haven''t had a lot of time for normal things like that," She admitted with a shrug. "But I''ve been trying to make time for them, to expand my horizons beyond Shield and my past."


    "That''s good. You deserve to have a life beyond your job, as important as it is."


    She nodded and smiled, but our waiter stopped by before she could respond, taking our drink order and promising toe back shortly. When she was gone Natasha continued.


    "Small steps I guess. I got an apartment, one separated from work. It''s under a fake name and I don''t wear my normal face when I go there but it''s still mine."


    "What did you do before this?" I asked, a bit confused.


    "Shield safehouses mostly, or the temporary lodgings at whatever Shield base was closest to my objective, and lots of hotel rooms," She exined as she opened up her menu. "I travel a lot, I''ll probably end up spending less time at home than I will be traveling. But still, I should have a home."


    "You should, a space to call your own is important," I agreed. "Moving into my old apartment was a big step away from my old life."


    "Old life?" Natasha asked, looking curious. "That sounds like a story."


    "Yeah just about," I said with a chuckle. "My parents died when I was neen. Left me with a little bit of money, and a fuck the world attitude. The friends I had at the time were not good influences on me. We partied, hard, for a very long time, and burnt through the money my parents left me pretty quickly."


    "Wake up call huh?" She asked, and I nodded in confirmation.


    "Yeah, a pretty strong one," I admitted. "Anyway, long story short, my friends got into some bad stuff, and when they wouldn''t listen to me I had to leave before I got caught up in it with them."


    "How long ago was that?"


    "Oh, a few years now. I''m pretty sure a few of them are in prison, but I heard that tangentially through the rumor mill so who knows how true it is."


    "Well, I''m d you broke off from them, as hard as it probably was," She said, smiling.


    The waitress dropped off our drinks, a ss of red wine for Natasha and a craft beer for me, which was actually pretty good. We gave the waitress our food order, and the young woman left after that.


    "So, I want to ask you how your work is going, but I''m not sure how much you could actually tell me," I admitted, getting a chuckle out of her.


    "I could probably tell you more than you think, your security clearance is a bit of a weird case."


    "Really?" I asked, leaning back in surprise. "I would have figured they would only tell me the minimum they had to."


    "Kind of, yeah. You are still listed as a contractor specialist, which means you have ess to what you need, as defined by an agent with a sufficiently high-security ratingsuch as myself."


    "Oh, well I''m curious, but don''t put yourself at risk of being called out for it. Especially if it gets out that we that this"


    "That we are dating? That we are interested in each other?" She asked,ughing at my poleaxed expression. "Your adorable Carson. Yes, they would be more than a little upset if I was feeding you ssified documents or information while being involved with you. But sharing some general details of a standard mission isn''t bad, especially considering the level of some of the secrets you already know."


    "Oh well that''s good," I responded. "So how''s work?"


    "It was standard, nothing too exciting. I needed to make contact with an asset who was undercover," She exined, before taking a sip of her wine. "They would have sent someone else but the asset is skittish around unfamiliar faces."


    "Can''t say that I me them for preferring your face," Imented, before immediately blushing at what I had just said.


    "Wow Carson, that was incredibly cheesy," She said with a smile, before continuing to tease. "Thank you, I like your face too."


    We both had augh, before drifting into more casual conversation. We talked about our favorite ces around the city, as well as Natasha''s favorite ces around the world, as even though I could travel around the world in seconds, I hadn''t actually done much explorational traveling. The topics stayed light for the most part, neither of us really feeling up for any more heavy talk. Eventually, the waiter dropped off our food, arge te of fettine alfredo for myself, while Nat got a te of shrimp scampi.


    The food was pretty good, though most food was just "pretty good" these days, between Alfred''s cooking and my recent trip to Asgard. Still, we continued talking andughing as we ate, enjoying each other''spany and the casual atmosphere the restaurant had. Eventually, though, dinner was finished and we left the restaurant, our arms once again linked together. We walked around the block a bit, not really concerned that it was starting to gette.


    "So I could drop you off somewhere," I offered as we stepped through a park. "Or, we could travel somewhere where it''s still bright out and fly around a bit. I noticed you enjoyed itst time. Unless you still want to keep it normal"


    Natasha''s eyes went wide and she looked at me, her lips curling into a smile.


    "Well I suppose it''s been normal enough," She said, still smiling before looking down. "I''ll need some new clothes, this isn''t exactly flight-safe."


    "Don''t worry, I''ve got it taken care of," I assured her a confident grin. "Ready?"


    She raised her eyebrow but nodded, and I traveled us away to my firing range, where the sun was still up, if not slowly getting closer to sunset.


    "A gun range?" She asked, looking at me curiously. "Really?"


    "It''s in the middle of nowhere with a ce for you to change," I said with a shrug, gesturing to one of the structures nearby. "First, we need to get it bound to you."


    I pushed a singr ck uniform, lightly armored with a zipper that went along the front. It was based on the uniform I had seen her in before, but that was just the beginning.


    "Armor? But I''m already bulletproof for the most part unless" She looked at me with wide eyes. "You didn''t?"


    "If you mean did I make a suit for you that will shift into pretty much any outfit, of any material that you want?" I asked with a smirk. "Then yes, I absolutely did."


    "What if I had said I didn''t feel up for flying?" She asked, taking the outfit from me and running her hands along the material.


    "I would have found an excuse to give it to you eventually," I answered with a shrug. "Now c''mon, let''s get it bound to you so you can experiment with it a bit before we go flying."


    She nodded and we quickly bound the new outfit to her, and she disappeared into one of the structures,ing out a few momentster. As she walked out her outfit shifted, going from the ck, lightly armored suit to a pair of whitewash jeans, a casual red T-shirt, and a leather bomber jacket on top of that.


    "Impressive, how do you like it?" I asked, doing my best to appreciate the outfit and not look like I was leering.


    "You just made me the most dangerous spy in the world," She said with a smile,ing over and kissing me on the cheek, stepping back just as quickly. "This is amazing."


    "I''m d you like it," I said, my face more than a bit warm. "It''s self-cleaning and self-repairing if you leave it out in the sun. It''s also bulletproof and will absorb a lot of normal kic energy as well."


    "Thank you, Carson. This is it''s a lot."


    "I know, and I don''t want you to think that I''m trying to overwhelm you with gifts or anything like that," I tried to assure her. "You mentioned wanting something like this and to be honest having an outfit like that is really cool."


    I admitted before shifting my own clothes into something simr to what she was wearing, though my shirt was green.


    "Oh great, the WSC is going to freak when they hear you have one too," She said with an eye roll. "So where are the wings?"


    I pushed out her wings for the night, helping her put them on. She activated the strap system and it wrapped itself tighter around her, molding to her body and forming a close attachment. I gave it a tug to make sure it was secure before stepping back. As I did I could see her outfit shifting under the straps, probably changing to be morefortable.


    "All set?" I asked, and she nodded.


    "Everything feels good," She said with an eager smile.


    "Good" I said with nod, before summoning my own wings, the green dust of my armor fluttering around for a moment. "Now try and keep up!"


    I pped my wings and hurtled into the sky, stopping forty or fifty feet in the air for her to catch up. We flew for a while, exploring the area around my shooting range, swooping, and diving around. I kept myself to a reasonable speed, not wanting topletely outpace her. I had been tempted to lend Natasha the new and improved, divine and Uru augmented wings, but the ridiculous speeds they could reach were pretty dangerous without a set of armor like Panoply.


    Eventually, after an hour or so of flying around, the sun started to set properly. Both of us met high in the air, floating with gentle wing ps. We watched the sun slowly set over the horizon, holding hands as the sky turned purple and orange. When the sun was finally gone wended back at the shooting range, and I traveled us back to New York.


    We said goodnight on the roof of her new apartment, where she thanked me again for her new uniform before kissing my cheek and saying goodnight. I watched her as she opened the roof ess of the building and stepped inside, before traveling away.<hr>


    Hello! Did you know that I have a Pa-Tre-On? (MetaBettaOmegaLetta) Supporters enjoy benefits like thetest five new chapters of my original book, Last Resort: Dimensional Bloodsport, as well as early chapters for The Conceptual Deck and Mettle, Metal, Meddled. Board Members get to vote on story beats and plot points. Currently, they are voting on what the second half of the second date will be!


    If you are interested in showing your support, please stop by and sign up! Every bit is appreciated, and helps me make my dream of being a full-time writer a bit more usible!

 Chapter 104: Bureaucracy

    Chapter 104: Bureaucracy


    Hello! I wanted to let everyone know I will be taking the final week of December off from posting and updating, to spend time with family and unwind a bit. The normal schedule will resume on the first of January.


    Happy Holidays!<hr>


    I was walking around the warehouse with a big dumb grin on my face for the majority of the following day. The date had gone well as far as I could tell, and I was already looking forward to the next one, though it had onlye up as a hypothetical during the actual date. For the most part, I was working on smaller projects, things like a wire runner for Tony, a device we could use to run wires neatly through the interior of the research facility. He still hadn''t gotten back to me with therger list he mentioned, but I assumed that was because they weren''t done putting it together yet, which only served to make me nervous about how long it would be.


    It was about three in the afternoon when the WSC finally got in touch with me for our meeting. They requested that it take ce in the actual council chambers, which were located on the highest floor of the Triskelion. I got the feeling that they very rarely actually met there in person. I had no reason to say no, after all, while I''m sure that it was an attempt to put me off center and in an intimidating environment, there wasn''t much they could do to actually intimidate me. I was no longer dependent on them in any way, and there wasn''t much they could possibly do to hurt me at this point, not without really shooting themselves in the foot at least.


    Still, it was a pretty tant attempt for them to throw me off, so I got back at them by demanding the meeting take ce the following day, which caught Mr. Singh, the council member who contacted me, obviously off guard. He attempted to push it back a few days but I insisted, saying that I was sticking to a schedule and if they weren''t going to hurry up then they wouldn''t get a say. I was exaggerating, but it got the point across enough that he reluctantly agreed.


    I spent the rest of the day going over what I would be saying with Ema, practicing lines, and getting ready to talk to the assembled members of the WSC. I was hoping they wouldn''t try and take control of me again, but I was prepared to leave if they did. None of my ns dependedpletely on them, though most of them would be much easier with their help, or at least without them trying to stir shit up.


    It was a pain to have so much to do but be stuck waiting for "permission" so I upied myself by experimenting with some of my new materials and stock from Asgard, as well as putting a few more things together for the research center. I traveled down to DC with Ema at around ten in the morning, flying across the city tond in front of the Triskelion. We were met at the door by Peggy Carter.


    "Hello Carson, Ema," She said with a smile. "It''s good to see you again."


    "Good to see you too," I responded, my armor fluttering away before my clothes shifted into a pair of ck dress pants and a ck zer, a white shirt underneath. "You''re my escort?"


    "I am indeed, if youe this way, the council is already in session waiting for you."


    With a nod and a smile, the woman led us to an elevator, Ema following behind me. I knew she had shifted her outfit into something simr to mine, though hers was much more formal, her zer buttoned up with a dark red tie.


    The elevator closed behind us with a ding, heading up to the top floor. After a second or two I turned my head to Peggy.


    "So, are they looking to cause a mess or work together?"


    "You make them nervous Carson," She admitted with a frown. "You make a lot of people nervous."


    "Can''t really help it," I responded with a shrug.


    "I know. The reasonable people realize that," She exined. "They are nervous but understand. The idea of global protection is something they desperately want, but the idea of handing the keys to someone else scares them. A lot."


    "Thanks," I nodded. "That''s basically what Ema and I had assumed, but it''s nice to confirm it."


    "You''re wee," She said with a soft smile, her face still serious despite it.


    The door opened with another ding, and Peggy lead us down a hall to a set of double doors. Arrayed around arge circr table, with a small gap on the closest side, were fifteen individuals. I recognized some of them from the meeting before I went to Asgard, as well as Councilwoman Hartford, who it seems had returned from her own stay at Asgard at some point. Several conversations ended immediately when I stepped into the room. I could see four armed Shield agents stationed around the room, including two by the door. I immediately recognized them from the newest enhanced squad, the one I put together just before the Chitauri invasion.


    "Good morning everyone," I said with a nod, getting several in return, trying my best to project confidence without arrogance.


    "Greetings Carson." Councilwoman Hartford said, standing from her seat and gesturing to the chairs around the table. "Please, have a seat."


    I nodded and sat in one of thefortable office chairs, noting that there were plenty of spaces around the table, but this side of the table was particrly clear. Ema sat down beside me, unbuttoning her jacket as she did.


    "I want to start off this meeting by saying that the World Security Council acknowledges andmends you for the contributions you have made to protect the people of this. Between the Hydra fiasco and the Chitauri invasion, you have helped keep innocent people safe. Thank you."


    Councilwoman Hartford continued, surprising me for a moment. I considered my response before finally nodding and epting.


    "Thank you. I appreciate the acknowledgment," I said with a nod. "I would like to add that I will alwayse to the defense of Earth from global threats."


    Several members nodded at my statement as if they expected me to respond in that way.


    "That is good to hear," She continued, retaking her seat. "Then let''s get to the meat of this meeting. Carson, if you''d like to exin your proposal?"


    I smiled and nodded, leaning forward in my seat. Ema had actually called this during our discussion, that the council would try to keep the discussion as simple as possible to keep from getting caught up in the size and scope of what I was proposing.


    "As the council is no doubt aware, humanity is not alone in this universe. The Chitauri, while dangerous, are not considered to be especially powerful in the grand scheme of things," I exined. "Their dangeres from their numbers, and that they are near impossible to eradicatepletely. They are considered small-time problems. There are threats out there that would wipe out humanity as easily as you exterminate a pest problem, and all just to warm their hands on our burning."


    "How could you know that?" Mr. Yen, who was one of the council members I recognized from the meeting before I left for Asgard. "I''m not denying that there are threats out there, but you make it sound like you know what is out there."


    "I am unwilling to share my sources," I responded. "But, as I''m sure you are being told by whatever agent is listening in, I am telling the truth."


    The room was silent for a long moment, but I could see the confirmation in a few of their eyes. Ema and I had expected them to get as much use of their lie-detecting rings as possible, so this was not a surprise. After a long pause, I continued.


    "My proposal is broken into two parts. Part one is a fleet of ships patrolling our sr system. Each would have a crew, provided by you, who would control and fly the ships. They would be incapable of being both too close and too far from Earth, as well as being incapable of aiming their weapons at Earth. The crew would be under heavy security, designed by me and approved by you."


    "What would the capabilities of these ships be?" A council member that I didn''t recognize asked.


    "Absolutely broken in every way I could manage," I exined. "They would be the absolute best I am capable of making. They would also be upgraded consistently when I improve my resources and capabilities. Make no mistake Council, I expect these ships to be utterly overpowered in every aspect. And any aspect that they fall short in will quickly be rectified. Which is exactly why they will not be permitted to leave the system, and I will maintain control over an ability to disable them."


    "Why would you restrict them like that?" Mr. Signh asked, weaving his fingers into a tent as he leaned forward. "I understand the desire to provide defenses, but why restrict them from fighting in other ces? They could stop threats before they happened, supply support to our allies, go on humanitarian missions."


    "Because, the first step down the slope is always on purpose," I answered cleanly. "The slide happens three or four steps after that. This fleet will be nothing but a way to protect Earth from outside threats, I will not let good intentions slowly shift it into an unstoppable weapon. When humanity builds its own fleet with its own know-how, you can send them to do whatever dirty work you might need."


    Several members of the council looked ready to push the subject further, but Ms. Hartford cut them off by speaking up.


    "And what about the second part?" She asked, getting a few looks in the process. "What would that involve?"


    "I want to cover the entire in a massive energy shield," I answered, noting Ms. Hartford''s cooperation. It seemed like I had an ally. "This would utilize a massivework of satellites projecting an extremely powerfulary shield. From what I understand, this has never actually been done before. ording to King Odin, even the Asgardians haven''t figured out how to put together a fullary shield."


    "And what role would the WSC y in this project?" Mr. Yen asked. "And how many satellites would this take?"


    "I know I can make a satellite that perfectly orbits the Earth, and I know I can make a shield generator powerful enough to hold off incredible amounts of energy. The problem is getting that system to y nicely with current and future satellites," I exined, leaning back in my chair. "I know the basics, but I don''t have ess to the raw data or the experience, nor do I have the influence to warn NASA about the invisible satellite. As to how many, I would like to have about twice as necessary in case some of them somehow get taken out. Unfortunately, I won''t know how far I can push my shield systems until I make the first satellite, so it could be anywhere from a hundred to three hundred. Maybe more."


    "And how would weunch all of these? Do you have any idea how expensive it is tounch a single satellite, never mind three hundred of them?"


    Most of the council immediately focused on the member who brought up this point, most of them giving them a disappointed questioning look, as if wondering how exactly they had messed up so badly.


    "You mean besides the <em>Void Skipper? </em>The spaceship that I have?<em>"</em> I asked, looking skeptically at the man "At this point, I could probably just card them and fly up there, dropping them off myself."


    "So you would help deploy them, but who would control them?" Mr. Yen asked.


    "We would have joint control. I can tie all of them to a singr console and duplicate that console, one for me and one for you. I''m sure we could work in a way that it takes both consoles permission to destroy the array, or shift it in anyrge way, kinda like a two-key system for nuclear weapons."


    "And what reassurances do we have that you won''t turn these satellites into your own personal weapon tforms?" Asked the same councilman who has asked how I would deploy theary shield system.


    "Beyond a promise that I won''t?" I asked. " The thruster system I n on fitting them with will keep them stable, and I nned on working in concepts that will help it break up in the atmosphere were to fall from orbit, but still remain strong enough to absorb impacts."


    "That does nothing to assure us you won''t weaponize them," He repeated, tapping his finger on the table. "For that matter, what is to keep you from taking control of the fleet and using it to threaten the world?"


    As he talked, the older gentleman stood and put both hands on the table, most likely trying to cut a more imposing figure. Considering his age and the fact that he wasn''t a conceptually enhanced super soldier wearing rapid-deployment armor that made him stronger than Thor, it failed quite severely.


    "I put a counter-proposal to the council, that we demand Carson Walsh surrender his deck of cards so that the World Security Council can watch over them and make sure they are being put to good use, and not in the hands of some loose cannon <em>boy </em>with delusions of grandeur. If he refuses, well then we wil just have to confiscate them."


    The room was silent, for a long moment. Most of the council members kept their expressions clear, though a slight wave of nervousness leaked through a quite few poker faces. I stared at the standing man, not wavering for a moment.


    "I will say this clearly so that there is no confusion in the future," I said, still staring down the aggressive councilman. "I will <em>never </em>surrender the Conceptual Deck. Besides, it doesn''t work like that in the first ce. The Deck is attached to <em>my soul</em>, it will not work for anyone else and if I die, the Deck would disappear forever."


    The man rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to retort. It was obvious from his bodynguage that he thought I was full of shit, and that he wasn''t about to give up. Instead of letting him rant any further, I held up my hand. The man''s face went red, about to open his mouth to yell when I cut him off.


    "Does the council atrge agree with this man?" I asked, looking around the room. "Because let me tell you right now. I am making an offer, a way for the WSC to stay in the loop and work with me in defense of the. I''m willing to work with you and your people to make these projects as effective as possible, because when ites down to it your organization has the experience I want. But I am not willing topromise myself or the project to assuage your egos or your hurt feelings that the big bad WSC doesn''t control me. If you agree with this man, then tell me now, because I will save all of us time and possibly violence by just leaving."


    The man was all but shaking in rage, either because I had shot down his demands with no hesitation, or because I called him out in such a way, I couldn''t tell. After a moment or two, he managed to work his way through the anger and respond.


    "Listen here you-"


    "Councilman Rockwell that is enough!" Councilwoman Hartford said, cutting him off, emphasizing her words by pping her hand on the table. "The council will not let you cost us any chance to influence this project!"


    Most of the other members nodded in agreement, though not everyone seemed to agreepletely. At least a few of the members seemed to be agreeing simply to distance themselves from Mr. Rockwell.


    "And you, Carson, The council has already preliminarily agreed to your first proposal of creating an Earth Defense Fleet," Councilwoman Hartford continued, now looking at me. "The global shield has yet to be discussed or voted on simply because we did not have enough information on how you would implement it."


    "I understand," I said with a nod, leaning back in my chair. "And let me be clear, I do appreciate how hard to swallow some of this stuff is. To suddenly have to deal with some of the stuff I''m making I''m not exactly jealous. I am more than willing to discuss and talk about what exactly these projects entail, and how much oversight we would <em>share</em>."


    "That is what we are looking for," Ms. Hartford said. "We recognize that the equipment you make would be seriously problematic in the wrong hands, and we respect the desire to keep ess to them as restricted as possible to keep that from happening."


    "Good, I''m d we have established that," I said with a nod. "How about we move on then? We can discuss the particrs of a shield system, and what your worries are. I am more than willing to shift and add features to the design if it makes you, and the eventual public feel safer, as long as it doesn''t decrease effectiveness."


    Ema and I shared a look after a moment, councilwomen Hartford starting to ask a few more questions, reading from a list I had seen her writing. This was going to take a while, I could already tell.

 Chapter 105: Final designs

    Chapter 105: Final designs


    The meeting continued on for another three hours, as we discussed, in detail, how a global shield system would work. I did my best to exin everything I could but also emphasized the fact that I hadn''t started making the satellites yet, so I had limited knowledge about what the final product would look like.


    By the time we broke for the day, we had put together a general agreement. They would provide a satellite specifically designed tomunicate with other satellites of the same type, coordinate with a ground control system and stay in a specific formation while also retaining the ability to have its orbit adjusted.


    Further, their contribution would be specifically designed to break up on re-enrty into Earth''s atmosphere. I would thenbine it with my own creation, the shield part of the project. Together we would test the result, including a weapons barrage with WSC oversight. After the tests wereplete we would drop it into the ocean from orbit to make sure it retained its ability to disintegrate harmlessly on re-entry. Once that wasplete we would set up the necessary control facilities, one for me on the moon and one for their use in the Triskelion.


    There were other stiptions of course. No dangerous energy sources, no weapons of any sort, and no internal shield units to protect the projector itself. I argued hard against that stiption but they argued itpletely invalidated the ability to rely on the satellite breaking up if it fell out of orbit. I reluctantly agreed, eventually, but only if I could use double the number of satellites that were necessary. Redundancy would need to make up for anyck of resilience.


    I was still hoping I could work the nned destructibility into the creation in such a way that it would work even when the satellite was augmented with ultra metal or sorcerous damascus.


    The next day we met again, this time to discuss the Earth Defense Fleet. This meeting started off a lot more smoothly than the previous day, with Councilman Rockwell being mysteriously absent. They exined he hade down with the flu and would be taking some time off to recover. I didn''t question it.


    We debated what a defense fleet would look like,ing up with a general concept. They had a few specialists sit in on the meeting, most of them high-ranking officers from the US Navy, who were stunned by what they had been asked to sit in on, but were immediately excited by the concept after they were convinced it wasn''t a joke.


    The first question raised, which I actually hadn''t even thought of, was how much space we would actually be patrolling and if there was a point to patrolling at all. I pointed out that we weren''t really restricted by materials, and having a buffer around the earth could only be a good thing. One of the experts shook his head and chuckled.


    "Materials and tech might not be a problem, but I don''t think you quite appreciate just how much space there is in the sr system," He said. "The number of ships you would have to build to patrol it reliably would be astronomical."


    "That may be true, but patrols are still an important part of a ready-to-act military," One of the Navy specialists exined. "Being set up and on duty means that they can react quickly. On top of that, you cut down travel time if you have a group already stationed in the area. It may not be much, but seconds count."


    "Not to mention, my sensors are good, but they aren''t infallible or spread out enough to scan the whole sr system," I exined. "I''m not saying you''ll need to get out and take a look, but having eyes spread out around Earth would only help."


    After some more discussion, we reached a solid n. The defense force would consist of eight battle groups and one reactionary force, with each battle group patrolling a section of space in arge sphere around Earth. The battle groups would be one carrier with four escorts, while the reactionary force would be stationed on the dark side of the moon with three carriers and ten escorts. The navy experts wanted more escorts per battle group but I assured them that the carriers would not be helpless like an aircraft carrier.


    The reactionary force would be sent out as needed to any battle groups that needed support or to cover patrols, basically filling in any gaps. I assure them with a little crafting and some scaling up they will be able to send the reactionary fleet anywhere it was needed.


    As for exactly how much space, the fleet would be patrolling, that would depend on how fast the ships were able to move, something I wouldn''t know until I made them. They asked how fast the <em>Void Skipper </em>was, and while they were surprised at the number, I assured them that anything I made now would go much faster.


    As we talked more about the restrictions, the council once again assured me that the limitations I put on where the ships could go were eptable. What they were less okay with was the demand that I would have the ability to shut down their engines and weapons from a singr control unit, bound to myself. It took a lot of talking to eventually have them agree, but only if they could have one for themselves. I agreed as long as I could interview whoever it was bound to and enhance them to keep them safe. When they said it would most likely be bound to Nick Fury, barring any unforeseen developments, I felt much better about it. Fury was many things, plenty of them questionable, but he wasn''t likely to leave Earth defenseless.


    Still, I had to see about working in an emergency counter, something I would only use if the fate of the world was at stake. Maybe I could focus their control mechanism specifically into a singr location, something I set up to break if necessary.


    One of the council members brought up how many crew members would be on each ship, and how we would control security. While I couldn''t give them specifics because we hadn''t designed the ships yet, I did point out that the number would most likely be extremely low, as tasks like clean up, maintenance, cooking, and basically anything not directly connected to the intended function of the ship would either be done automatically or would be performed by dumb robots.


    This of course led to a conversation about having a contingent of marines on board in case of boarding actions, in both directions. I argued that a couple trunks of battle bots were all they really needed, but the Navy specialists disagreed. After a minute of discussion, I realized why they were worried.


    "Sorry, I think there is a bit of confusion, you don''t need a contingent of marines on each ship, you could deploy them from here, on Earth," I said, gesturing for them to slow down with their argument. "These ships aren''t long-term deployments for their crew, though the ships themselves would absolutely be capable of supporting one. Every one of these ships will be part of an interconnected travelwork, which would include Earth. You could have rotating crews, weekend and night shifts, holidays off, or anything like that. The ships will be capable of long-term deployment if nothing else than in case one of them gets disabled and need to spend a few days waiting for a pick-up, but that doesn''t have to be the default staffing procedure."


    This of course brought up another huge discussion, namely security, which continued into the third day of meetings. By now I was beginning to get a bit tired of how much time was being spent discussing everything. But I stuck with it, after all, it wasn''t as if we weren''t making actual progress. They were willing to work with me, which meant a lot and was worth sacrificing some time and a bit of sanity for.


    When it came to security, the WSC was hoping to keep the fleet a secret for as long as possible, at least until after the idea of not being alone in the universe had settled. Apparently, they were already working on getting that information disseminated in a way that didn''t cause panic. How the hell they were going to do that was beyond me, but that was their problem, not mine.


    What was my problem however was the security of the fleet. The WSC was happy to interview people, and put together a small conglomerate military force from members of the UN, but they were concerned about what kind of information would get out, especially if the crew was rotating out on a daily basis. They broached the subject of a contract, one crafted by me to be impossible to break.


    I admitted that it was possible, probably even easy. I could take a half dozen different types of contracts and work them together to make a contract that literally couldn''t be broken, but it existed in the same category of a device that forces people to answer questions truthfully. There were lines I wasn''t willing to cross. They epted this pretty easily, clearly not really liking the idea themselves. They followed it up by asking if there was anything I could do.


    I spent some of the downtime for lunch thinking of a solution, beforeing up with something. Hypothetically I could probably create some kind of scanning device that would tell us if the members hadmitted specific crimes, like epting bribes or espionage. That would at least give them a better chance to get ahead of a situation. But without breaking my restriction toe up with a way to detect pre-crime, there were only so many options beyond lie-detecting gear and really good sensors.


    The meeting closed a few hours after our lunch break, with WSC satisfied with thepromises. I spent the rest of the day unwinding anding up with some basic ideas and plugging away at the list of things Tony and Pepper had finally sent me. The list was surprisingly short, and mostly dealt with things I had already figured out for my own convenience when building my apartment, likemunicating between Earth and the moon without a dy. Still, there were enough things on it to keep me busy for a while, though nothing seemed to be too challenging.


    The next day was the start of the fun stuff, actually designing the ships. I got together with the specialists the WSC had brought in, and talked shop for almost a whole day, working together to get a proper design worked out. It took a while for them to understand how unrestricted my building options were with the materials and "tech" I had ess to, but once they understood and internalized it we got to work.


    We designed the general shape of the hull, the general structure of its internal living and work space, as well as the weapon emcements. We started with the escort ships, which we ended up calling the Defender ss. They were one and a half times bigger than the <em>Void Skipper, </em>though that wasn''t the most relevant description because where <em>Skipper''s</em> design was filled with added re, the Defender ss was simple. Not to mention all of the new materials I had ess to.


    Ultimately it reminded me of a cross between a Star Destroyer and Dreadnaught, both from Star Wars. The spine of the ship started big but had a slow gradual slope on top that led to a horizontal edge at the tip, with the bottom being more angr and sudden. The Star Destroyer esque "wings", which were attached to either side of the spine, started out just under half as wide as the ship was long, tapering down to about a fourth of the length as it ran along the entire length of the vessel on both sides, before ending with a hard angle into the spine.


    It would be heavily armed, with a heavy cannon on the top and bottom of each "wing" and another on the bottom of the spine. The four heavy cannons on the "wings" would be raised up so that they could fire over the medium cannons, which would be sunk slightly into the hull and modified to shorten their barrels. We only included eight medium cannons, two for each wing surface, because I was promised resources to conceptually craft light cannons as something specifically designed to shoot down starfighters and missiles. These light cannons would be ced all around the ships and would likely be mostlyputer controlled or automated somehow, as people couldn''t reliably shoot down missiles.


    The final armament was another thing I would have to build from resources given to me by the WSC, namely missiles and missile bays. This would be arge project in and of itself, as a missile for space would be vastly different from one designed for use in atmosphere. The top of the spine would hold three different rocket bays, with a heavy, medium, and light load.


    With the escort design finished we got to work on the carrier, which we named the Command ss. This would be two times the size of <em>Void Skipper, </em>but again, that was a poorparison. One of the Navy specialists aptly described it as a ttened and widened cigar shape, with an angr tip facing forward and the back bulked up for more thruster space. With the t surfaces designated up and down, each side, pulled to the back, had six long rectangr additions, stacked two by three, that would contain deployable, remotely flown starfighters.


    Each rectangle would hopefully contain two dozen starfighters, though realistically they wouldn''t all be deployed at once, but instead serve as backups when a starfighter was destroyed. I already had ns to make the starfighters self-making so that any destroyed would replenish without any input.


    The hangers spanned about two-thirds of the ship, and where they stopped the rocket bays began, the three levels of ordinance running all the way to where the bow started to taper off to its point.


    On the top and bottom of the ship, running for most of the t area was a raised tform, where three heavy cannons, six in total, were stationed. Six medium cannons were stationed under them, arranged around the raised tform. The light cannons would be more sparse on the Command ss than they would be on the Defender, but they were still dotted all over the ship.


    "You can hardly call it a carrier." One of the older specialists said. "It''s more of a weapons tform than anything."


    "It''s going to be effective, which is the most important part," I pointed out. "It''s hard to argue for keeping solid roles when you''re working with my stuff, though it does help make things more potent when I''m building smaller stuff."


    Thest thing we did was design the starfighter, which didn''t take nearly as long as the other two had, mostly because its weapons were stationary, which meant we didn''t need to worry about keeping space open or lines of fire. And because aerodynamics wasn''t an issue, there was no reason for wings or anything like that. All we needed to worry about was that they tesseted well for storage.


    In the end, we settled on a t triangr-like design, mostly because I wanted them to function as impromptu kic missiles if needed. They would nestle into their hangars vertically, meaning that two dozen fit easily into each hangar bay. As for weapons, they would have small light missile bays, two light cannon equivalents on the bottom, and a singr medium cannon equivalent on the top, all of them stationary and locked directly forward.


    A few of the Navy specialists argued for a bomber-ss starfighter, but I insisted it wouldn''t be necessary. They packed an insane amount of firepower by themselves, and with the rest of the battle group backing them up, and the reactionary fleet not far behind, they would be fine when it came to firepower.


    All in all the design process took a day and a half, and I enjoyed most of it. Having experts on hand made the design process less stressful to a ridiculous degree. It made me extremely excited to have ess to the geniuses that would be working at the research base. When the designs were finalized, the experts took time toe up with some detailed blueprints so that when I was done building theponents I would know exactly what I was building.

 Chapter 106: Amends

    Chapter 106: Amends


    Hello! I wanted to let everyone know I will be taking the final week of December off from posting and updating, to spend time with family and unwind a bit. The normal schedule will resume on the first of January.


    Happy Holidays!<hr>


    The process of building eachponent of the defense fleet took almost two weeks. Almost everyponent I used in the <em>Void Skipper </em>got pulled apart and upgraded, either by adding divine essence, Uru, or both. I had hundreds of small parts to design, everything from awork formunication between all of the battle groups, to equipment to keep clothes clean and an inte system formunication throughout each individual ship.


    The Navy experts I had designed the actual ships with had been a godsend inpiling a massive list of things that the ships would need, even if most of it was rendered overkill because no one would need to actually <em>live </em>on the ships.


    When I was about a third of the way through the list, about five days of constant crafting, I took a break. Well, it was a break from crafting at least. I sat in the lounge looking at my phone for a long moment before typing "T''Chaka" into it and hitting send. I had put this conversation off long enough, it was time to buck up and get it done.


    The phone rang for a few seconds before connecting. What I wasn''t expecting, however, was for the phone to project a small image of the King of Wakanda. I had to quickly pull the phone down from my head so I could see the projection clearly.


    "Who is this? How were you able to connect to thiswork?" He asked, more confused than angry, looking away from me to someone else in the room with him as he continued. "Someone track this connection!"


    The angle of the projection was different, and it took me a minute to realize my phone had automatically essed the Kimoyo beads that Wakanda had in theics, and that I thought I had spotted before on T''cha and his warrior''s wrists.


    "Greetings King T''Chaka. My name is Carson Walsh, but you know me as Maker," I said simply, watching the Kings expression drastically shift, as well as the sound of people moving around him.


    Despite his shock, the king quickly recovered, silencing those around him before looking back at me through the projection. During the silence I spotted Ema, making her way silently to the lounge area and sitting down across from me. She nodded to me and I looked back down at the projection.


    "Greetings Mr. Walsh. I must admit, I did not expect to receive a call from you," He admitted. "And certainly not in this manner."


    "I understand, we aren''t exactly frequent pen pals," I agreed with a smirk. "But perhaps that could change. I would like to meet with you, as well as any advisors who you would like to bring with you. The location is up to you, either somece neutral or somewhere in Wakanda, it doesn''t matter to me."


    For a long moment, the King of Wakanda is silent, staring at me through my phone, the hologram projecting him studying me.


    "What is it you are looking to discuss?"


    "Honestly I would prefer to wait until we are face to face," I exined with a shrug.


    Again the Wakandan leader was silent, studying me for a long pause, before giving me a singr nod.


    "Very well. With your word that you mean my people and me no harm, I will meet with you," He finally responded.


    "You have it."


    "Then I would invite you toe to Wakanda," He said. "We will be waiting for you.."


    "Thank you King T''Chaka, I will be there shortly."


    With a nod the foreign ruler hung up, the call disconnecting and the hologram fading into nothing before I stashed my phone back into my pocket.


    "I didn''t know your phone could do that," Ema admitted. "Did you add that in at some point?"


    "No, I had no idea it would do that either. Thatmunication concept is way more potent than I had thought," I said, shaking my head. "Are youing with me?"


    "A little warning would have been nice, but there is no way I would let you go to Wakanda alone," She said emphatically.


    "Sorry, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing," I admitted. "I was starting to put it off so I just did it before I came up with another reason to push it till tomorrow or further."


    "It''s fine, though I would have been annoyed if I had ns with Jarvis or something," She pointed out, standing up from the couch.


    We spent a while preparing some things, carding my emergency equipment and everything I thought I could possibly need. When I was finally done, I activated my instant shower and shifted my clothes to something business casual, a pair of dark grey dress pants, a slightly lighter zer, and a forest green undershirt. Ema shifted her outfit into the same outfit she wore for our meeting with the WSC. She loved the ability to shift and change her clothes into anything she wanted, and enjoyed pushing the outfits to their limits, but was staying basic as she was ying bodyguard.


    After a quick check to see if we had everything I activated my armor, the tes and bits of metal forming around me almost instantly, the usually shy process cut down to an almost instant shift around me. I reached out and took Ema''s hand, before traveling us to Wakanda.


    I froze when we arrived, having expected to appear underwater in the river that ran through the Golden City, the capital of Wakanda. Instead, we appeared in arge, heavily reinforced room. Immediately six weapon emcements swiveled and locked onto me, blue energy pulsing from several parts. I stayed perfectly still, while Ema moved to step in front of me, expanding a shield of her now Uru-enhanced exosuit body between us and the turrets.


    "Huh guess that''s why they didn''t give me directions on where to meet," Imented casually. "I really hope this doesn''t turn into a fight."


    Before anything else could happen the turrets swiveled back, the hum of energy they were giving off fading as their business ends spun away into their previous position. A thick metal door, just behind the turrets, opened with a hiss, and a single person stepped into the room. It was T''Cha, with two warriors armed with vibranium spears staying just outside the room.


    I reached out and tapped Ema''s shoulder, catching her attention. She looked back at me and after a moment nodded, her metal sliding back into her body. I hadn''t felt a single hint of danger from my danger sense which meant they never really intended to shoot at us, and that this was just a show of force, a power y.


    "You found mynding pad," I said, T''Cha nodding in response.


    "A camera managed to spot you emerging out of the water during yourst visit. Or at least the void in which you were inside, as you were clearly invisible." He exined, referring to when I hade to scan their vehicles, though he didn''t know that. "We had to search the entire river to find it."


    I shrugged and stepped forward, my armor fluttering off me in green kes of glowing magic. When I was close, I reached out my hand. After a moment T''Cha reached out and shook it. His grip was tight, but not tight enough to hurt a normal person.


    "I would have thought you would be annoyed we moved yournding pad," He admitted.


    "Why would I be?" I asked with a shrug. "I never intended to use it nefariously. And if I did need a way to arrive without you knowing it would exactly be difficult to set up another one."


    T''cha nodded, epting my reasoning but clearly not happy their ploy to set me off center had failed. Internally I was cursing myself. I needed to find a way to keep anyone from ever moving one of mynding pads again. Or at least finding a way to keep from traveling to one that had been moved.


    Before I could spiral into any deeper ideas of how to solve the new problem T''Cha gestured for me to follow him.


    "Come, my father is waiting," He said simply, leading us out of the marginally secure room.


    As Ema and I followed the warriors who had been escorting the prince fell in line around us, two more revealing themselves from around the corner of the doorway. I didn''tment on them as we made our way through the building, exiting after a few moments into the warm air of Wakanda. The city was bustling, but I could easily spot a dozen or so people who were watching us closely, ready to intervene if Ema or I tried anything.


    We didn''t walk far, T''Cha led us onto a floating transport of some kind, vaguely like a science fiction trolley. It was empty of course, and brought us directly to the Citadel, stopping by the front entrance. From there we were led through the impressive building, before stopping and entering an unfamiliar room. It seemed like we would not be having this meeting in the central meeting chamber, but in a room that, save for a few pieces of advanced technology, could have been mistaken for a boardroom in anyrgepany on the.


    King T''Chaka was already seated along one long side of the table, a few other people sitting on either side of him. He gestured to the empty seats.


    "Mr. Walsh, please take a seat so we may begin."


    Ema and I sat down on the opposite side, directly across from T''Chaka, who nodded once we were settled. A ss of water was poured for each of us by a man I hadn''t even noticed, stepping away when he was done.


    "Before you exin why you so suddenly contacted me, and in the process scared the daylights out of my security team, once again, I would like to apologize on behalf of my son," T''Chaka said, sitting rigidly in his seat. "He is young, and it burned him greatly that a man responsible for the death of our citizens walked free. His eagerness to bring him to justice, while righteous was misjudged."


    T''Cha, who looked suitably chastised, gave me a short, shallow bow.


    "I appreciate that, but Tony, Pepper, and Jarvis are the ones you should really apologize to," I pointed out.


    "Yes, that has also been discussed," T''Chaka admitted, looking at his son. "But that is a discussion for another time. For now, let me introduce those who have joined us. My wife, Queen Ramonda, Zuri, Elder Statesman for the tribal council, Umah, Merchant Tribe Elder, Izhnom, the River Tribe Elder, and finally M''Kada, my Chief Science advisor."


    The king gestured to each person as he said their names, and I nodded with each introduction. When he was done I bowed slightly, showing respect but not deference.


    "Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice, I understand you all must be very busy."


    "I do not like it, rushing around on the word of someone who broke into the Golden City andid threats on our council chamber," The Merchant Tribe Elder said in Xosa, looking to King T''Chaka "Why should wee at the call of an outsider, and a white man at that?"


    "I would point out that I didn''t set the time for this meeting," I answered in perfect Xosa. "I only asked for a meeting, your King is the one who set the time."


    Everyone on the other side of the table eyed me, and I couldn''t help but smirk. For this moment alone, the universal trantion tattoo was well worth the effort it took to make.


    "I understand that I am not exactly the most popr person in this room," I continued in Xosa, meeting the eyes of each person on the other side of the table. "But I havee in peace to do two things. The first is to make amends."


    "Amends for what?" T''Cha asked, the suspicion in his eyes growing.


    "I think I should start with an exnation," I said, looking to the King, who nodded after a moment. "Currently, I have two goals, both of them serving the same purpose, to protect the Earth and humanity as a whole. As you no doubt already know, the Earth came under attack not too long ago, by an alien force known as the Chitauri. Between Shield, the US military, and several other participating people, we were able to repel the attack. Unfortunately, the door has officially been opened, we are not alone and the universe knows we are here."


    The group nodded, clearly, the intelligence forces of Wakanda had their fingers in a lot of different pies. The number of people who knew about the Chitauri invasion was supposed to be as small as possible.


    "This revtion is a double-edged sword. There are endless opportunities in space, for growth, expansion, and trade, as well as forging diplomatic connections," I exined, noting that the Merchant Tribe Elder''s eyes sparkled at the mention of trade. "Unfortunately, for every opportunity, there are a dozen risks. Threats that could obliterate the Earth. Threats that no one, not even you, as technologically advanced as you are, could survive."


    "Wakanda will persevere," The River Tribe Elder responded. "Our spirit will not be broken."


    "Could you survive the world burning?" I asked. "Not figuratively, and not metaphorically. But literally. Would your cities survive if the Earth was reduced to a ball of g and fire? Would they survive if the air was poisoned? If the Earth was bombarded with weapons from orbit, would Wakanda survive?"


    The Elder moved to respond, but a gesture from King T''Chaka stopped him before looking back to me.


    "I assume that you are leading this somewhere?" King T''Chaka asked with a stern look.


    "I want to make sure you understand the seriousness of the situation. There are threats out there that will crack our in two, simply to mine out its core. In fact, Wakanda might end up being one of the reasons why we would be attacked," I exined, getting a harsh look from multiple people before I exined. "Vibranium is almost as rare out there as it is here. Rest assured that there are plenty of factions, some of them which have been roaming the gxy for hundreds of years, who sacrifice humanity as a whole just to get ess to the metal that rests under yournd."


    I let what I had just revealed set in. Suddenly, Wakanda wasn''t the technological giant keeping less developed countries from its riches. It was a target, one that could be raided by groups who technologically dwarfed them. When the full gravity of the situation made it through to them, I continued.


    "My current projects would serve as a global defense. First would be an Earth Defense Force, one that would patrol the space around Earth and defend it from any force wishing to harm us. They would be restricted, unable to aim their guns at Earth or get within a certain distance of it, but I n on making them as strong as I can. I''ve been working on space flight for a while now, starting with the <em>Void Skipper." </em>


    I brought up a projection of the ship, rotating slowly to show it off from all angles.


    "This was essentially a proof of concept. At this point most of the parts and equipment I used to stock and make this are far short of what I''m capable of."


    "I am familiar with your vessel," T''Chaka said, eyeing the projection. "We don''t know how or where you made it, but we have seen several recordings of the battle."


    "Which I''m sure was given to you freely, not snagged while hacking the US or Shield. Well, I''m not exactly looking to share the details with anyone who asks, but <em>Void Skipper </em>was only a stepping stone. The first Earth Defense Force ships will hopefully begin construction within the next week or two."


    "And what does this have to do with making amends?" T''Chaka asked.


    "In order to build the thrusters, weapons, and a few other subsystems, I scanned Wakandan tech. There is no one-to-one copy that I used, but several Wakandan systems were used tobine with other tech to-"


    The shouting was immediate, the Wakandan leaders cursing and shouting at me. Only King T''Chaka and Queen Ramonda remained silent.


    I let them voice their understandable anger, listening silently as they condemned and demanded. After a long pause, the king thumped the table with a fist, demanding silence. He continued to stare at me before finally responding.


    "Why?"


    "My ability has quite a few quirks. One of the more helpful ones is that the more examples of something I have that are different, the more I can improve the final product," I exined. "Not to mention that Wakandan thruster systems are superior to every other method on Earth, besides perhaps Tony Starks repulsor tech. I wanted to get the testing phase of my shipbuilding up and running as quickly as possible, but I didn''t have enough examples of thrusters to work into something cohesive and simple."


    "So you stole from us?" The Merchant Tribe Elder said, sneering at me now. "You are no better than ue, thief!"


    "I don''t think that is a fairparison," I responded coldly. "I am not saying I did nothing wrong, far from it. But I am <em>not </em>like ue"


    "You wish to make amends," T''Chaka asked. "How?"


    "I don''t know," I admitted. "There isn''t much I can''t do these days, but in truth, I don''t know what your people well enough to know what you need. Basically, name what you want and I will get it done. Within reason of course."

 Chapter 107: Lightly toasted bridges

    Chapter 107: Lightly toasted bridges


    The group was quiet for a long moment, though I could tell most of them were silent from disbelief rather than shock at what I was offering them. It was Queen Ramonda who finally responded.


    "We cannot be bribed by shiny trinkets," She said confidently. "We are not so easily distracted from the crimesmitted against us."


    "I am curious as to why you care. Why have you admitted this transgression?" The science advisor asked, getting a nod of agreement from the River Tribe Elder.


    "Because, I would like to scan more of your technology, specifically your shield projectors," I answered, hurrying to get it out before everything erupted. "As well as any deep space scanning systems you m-"


    The shouting started before I could finish my sentence, though I managed to get the important bits out. In truth, this was what I expected. As much as I hated to admit it, I had stolen from them in a way, at least from their perspective, and for a culture as istionist and protective of its tech as Wakanda There wasn''t much worse I could have done to make them dislike me. But that didn''t mean I had to like it. It''s not like I stole food from their children''s mouths or even anything beyond simple scans. I was trying to be polite, to keep rtions at least neutral, but


    It was a particrly scathing insult that insinuated several vulgar things about my parents that finally pushed me over the edge. I mmed my hand on the table, cracking the wood with my palm.


    "That is enough!" I shouted, silencing the shouts, all but T''Chaka flinching from my outburst.


    T''Cha stood with reflexes and speed that clearly confirmed he was the current ck Panther, and I could feel the dozens of weapons around me being readied. T''Chaka rested his hand on his son''s arm, pulling him back down into his seat.


    "I understand that what I did was questionable, but I will not sit here and let insults be thrown around. Do not mistake my politeness for passiveness! I''m here to apologize, not beg for forgiveness," I said, undaunted by the weapons pointed in my direction. "I did what I did in preparation to defend the from threats that would wipe Wakanda from the face of the Earth as easily as you swat a mosquito. I will admit, at the time those threats were nebulous, but I will also point out that the <em>Void Skipper was finished for less than a week before I used it as a battering ram to push a Chitauri hive ship back through a portal to deep space. A WEEK." </em>


    I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and let my frustration bleed away, leaning back in my chair as I let a long breath go. If I rose to them, I would lose whatever high ground I had left.


    "If I hadn''t used the scans of your tech, the Chitauri, a race even the Asgardians have struggled to eradicate, would havended on our. I believe you are all smart enough to know what that would mean."


    I let them digest that for a long moment before continuing.


    "The reason I''m here now, apologizing to you and asking permission is that I no longer <em>need </em>your tech. Between Asgard and several other contributions, I have everything I need to work on my next project, arge step toward defending Earth. My sess in this project does not hinge on ess to your tech" I exined, barely holding off more angryments. "I n on constructing aary shield that envelopes the entire in a protective bubble. One strong enough to shrug off anything that those who would harm us, the Ulysses ue''s of the universe, could throw at it."


    "And you want to use Wakandan technology to do it?" The king asked.


    "I want Wakandan tech to help me make it better. As I exined, having more versions of an item makes it easier for me to push it further and further. So far I have three types of shield projection methods that I will be working together, more than enough to get the job done."


    "But using our shield systems as well would make it even stronger," King T''Chaka finished, nodding in understanding. "Youe to us now in honesty because you can afford to."


    "Exactly. At the time you were the only source of thrusters that worked with energy, rather than solid fuel. Unfortunately, I couldn''t take no for an answer if I wanted to start production in any reasonable time frame. Of course, by now I have scans of several thruster systems that I could have used instead, but at the time I only had ess to repulsor tech and normal rocket thrusters, neither of which was what I really needed."


    King T''Chaka shifted slightly in his chair, his eyes staying focused on me. He didn''t look away, and neither did I, even after his advisors recovered from my outburst and began berating me again. He raised his hand, silencing everyone with a gesture before motioning to the guards around us. They silently withdrew their weapons as he leaned forward, eyes still locked on mine. Even though I was pretty sure T''Cha had already inherited the mantle of ck Panther, he still managed to look imposing, despite his age.


    "You would only use our shielding technology to protect the Earth, for nothing else?" He asked solemnly.


    The two Elders immediately began to voice concerns, but again he silenced them with a gesture.


    "You have my word that I will only use it to protect the world," I confirmed with a nod. "I can also swear that your actual technology won''t show up in the final product. The way my power works, your tech will be safe from prying eyes. Shield and the WSC won''t even be able to tell that I use vibranium."


    The King was silent for a while as he considered my words, studying my face for a full minute before he nodded.


    "As long as our involvement is hidden I will allow you to scan our shield technology and deep space sensors. If there was anything worth setting aside our istionism, then the opportunity to protect the world from threats from beyond the stars would be it. This is an order from your King. Carson Walsh is to be allowed to scan the city shield projectors, the deep space sensors, and any rted technology."


    His advisors had a thing or two to say about his deration, but King T''Chaka put them to rest quickly, brokering no arguments about his decision. Within ten minutes the meeting had ended and I was once again being guided through the city, riding another trolly-like hovering vehicle as T''Cha and his bodyguards escorted us to our destination. M''Kada, the science advisor also joined us.


    Now that the meeting was over I had an opportunity to focus on my two guides. T''Cha looked pretty much the same as he didst time I met him at Tony''s The advisor was a tall woman with a sharp face and a serious expression. She had hardly even looked my way since we left the meeting. Which served me fine, I wasn''t interested in making friends at this point.


    We stepped off the transport and M''Kada lead us to another building. This one looked almost entirely modern, with no major traditional ents. It was still stylized though, with a pleasant, semi-cylindrical shape that cut off suddenly at a thirty-degree angle. Before we stepped inside I looked up, spotting the faint blue glow that was the shield, far above the top of the tallest building in the city.


    "Is the shield always on?" I asked looking at T''Cha. "The energy needed for that must be intensive."


    T''Cha looked at me for a moment, clearly still trying to figure out what to think about me. Eventually, he seemed toe to some sort of conclusion, though his obvious political training made it hard to tell exactly what it was.


    "It is, but on its lowest setting," He exined. "We rely on our active holo-projected camouge for our true protection."


    "Incredible, even that low setting" I trailed off as we stepped out of the heat and into the cooler interior.


    "Will theary shield remain on?" The science advisor asked, looking over his shoulder as we stepped into an elevator.


    "I don''t know," I admitted easily. "My creations conceptual crafting isn''t a hard science. I think I will try to keep it always on, but I might find I have better results attaching the system to a powerful threat sensor."


    "Threat sensor?" T''Cha asked. "How exactly does something like that work?"


    "It''s a derivative of an earlier creation, a danger sense ability that alerts the user when they are being maliciously targeted, or are in danger of being attacked or hurt," I exined, chuckling at both the advisors and the Prince''s reaction. "As I said, my creation method is not a hard science."


    Before either of them could respond, the elevator door opened, revealing a teenage girl around thirteen or fourteen years old waiting. She smiled at my escorts, frowning when she looked at me.


    "Teacher M''Kada, Brother, what are you doing here?" She asked, eyeing me. "Why is there a white man and a bluedy with you?"


    "What are <em>you</em> doing here, Shuri?" T''Cha asked. "Father asked the building be cleared of all non-essential personal."


    "I <em>am</em> essential personal, Brother, I was adjusting the modtion for the northeast section twelve," She exined as if it was obvious. "I think I finally found the reason for its energy spiking. Now, who are they?"


    "I am Carson Walsh, and this is Emerald," I exined. "You must be Princess Shuri?"


    "Great. What is he doing here?"


    "Shuri, Mr. Walsh is Maker, he-"


    "You!" She said, suddenly stepping a lot closer, looking up at me with a harsh look. "How does it work, how did you make it? It shouldn''t function but even now it points to his unmarked grave!"


    It took me a second to realize she was talking about the ue locator I had given them not too long ago. I did my best not to chuckle at her enthusiasm, it was cute for her age, but she still noticed it immediately, and I could see her working herself up to another barrage of questions when T''Cha put his hand on her shoulder.


    "Shuri, Mr. Walsh is here on business, the sooner it is done the sooner he will be out of our hair,"


    "But-"


    "Unfortunately Princess Shuri, the way my equipment works isn''t really tied to reality," I exined. "They work, simply because it does."


    This seemed to annoy her even more, but both M''Kada and T''Cha gave her harsh looks. She pouted before stepping into the elevator around us.


    "Fine. But I will figure out how it works eventually Maker, it''s only a matter of time!"


    As we stepped off the elevator, the doors closed after us, and Shuri pointed to her eyes and then at me, just before they shutpletely. I let out another chuckle. She was interesting, and I couldn''t help but wonder if she would turn out like heric book equivalent.


    After another minute we stepped through a doorway, which opened up into a decent-sized room. Inside was a central raised circr tform, which waspletely encased by a singr transparent window, cutting off ess to the machine that sat in the center of the tform. The machine was made up of three prongs that slowly spun around a central glowing spike, which was spinning in the opposite direction as the prongs. I could feel the energy in the room, even through the protective barrier.


    All around the central structure were dozens ofputer pannes, screens, and projections. A quick peek showed all of them were connected to this shield projector, monitoring every single aspect of it.


    "This is the projector for the Southeast section number thirteen," M''Kada exined as she stopped by the central window, gesturing to the spinning machine inside. "The system can be monitored from this location, but mostly the shield is controlled by the central hub three floors up."


    "How many shield projectors are there in total?" I asked, slowly walking around the tform.


    "There are one hundred and twenty shield projectors running currently, working together to project the shield around the Golden City," She exined, watching me as I looked inside the blocked-off tform. "Each one is responsible for a different section."


    "So it''s not oneplete shield, but multiple shields working together. Not exactly what I was hoping for," I said with a nod. "Still, between this and the stealth field, you are more or less on par with Asgard. That is impressive. How do I get inside to scan the projector itself?"


    M''Kada looked at me for a moment before walking around and tapping a few buttons, stepping back from the unit after a few moments. A red pale light started to sh, and the projector began to slow down, eventuallying to a stop, its glow fading as well. When it waspletely immobile there was a hissing sound, before the thick protective barrier started to rise into the ceiling. The hiss made me think that it had been a vacuum on the other side, which was interesting, but not really important.


    I flicked out my scanner and scanned the machine, examining the blueprint through the scanner for a minute, making sure it contained everything that I needed. When I was satisfied I turned and started scanning the control pannes and status disys that were set up around the projector. When I was done with that I turned to M''Kada again, who was conversing with T''Cha quietly. Of course, Ema and I could hear them perfectly, but they were simply discussing how I could possibly scan their systems so fast, with M''Kada assuring the prince it wasn''t possible.


    "You might want to check that console over there," I said with a smile, pointing to the second tost screen I scanned. "Something called a ''crystalline energy transfer unit three-B-four-six-one'' is about to fail. You''ve got maybe a month or so before it gives out."


    M''Kada and T''Cha gave me nk looks, thetter looking to M''Kada, clearly looking for reassurance.


    "How Your device truly scans to such detail?" She asked, shocked. "How could it even know the part number?"


    "Is he correct?" T''Cha asked.


    "I I would have to disassemble the console to find out and it would have a crystalline energy transfer unit of what model I do not know," She reluctantly admitted, before focusing on me again. "I will let a maintenance team know. Thank you."


    "No problem. Could I get some scans of the main control room, they should have the concepts I need to tie the control system together nicely," I asked. "Then we can go to the sensors."


    T''Cha nodded, though clearly, he wasn''t happy with being bossed around by me, an outsider. It was unfortunate, but given the fact that I was getting what I needed, the prince of Wakanda not liking me was a small price to pay. With any luck, he would cool off over time.


    The Prince and M''Kada, along with his bodyguards, led Ema and me up to the top floor via another elevator, where I got scans of the equipment used to monitor and control all of the projectors at once. I got quite a few looks from the people manning these stations, ranging from simple curiosity to open distaste. I ignored them for the most part, focusing on the task at hand.


    When I was done in the shield control room, my escort hurried me through the city to the far outskirts, to a building built into the top of a mountain. It was surprisingly cold there, a relief from the previous heat. They rushed me through the building, which turned out to be a satellite monitoring station that beamed back data from two dozen stealth satellites around the world. When Iined that this was hardly what I needed, they reluctantly let me scan the sensor systems that would be mounted on the satellite and aimed into space or the atmosphere to monitor for disturbances. I got the feeling that this building had recently gone through a massive overhaul and improvement.


    Not long after I got the scans I needed from there, I was brought to the edge of their territory and promptly handed mynding pad by a tattooed and marked warrior.


    "We have given you what you wanted," T''Chaka, who had been waiting for us to arrive, said. "Now, you must leave. I understand your intentions were good, but for now, we ask you to respect our wishes for you not to return."


    "I suppose I can''t me you," I admitted, carding mynding pad. "Before I go, have you thought about what I said in my letter?"


    "I have," The King answered, pausing for a long moment before continuing, looking me in the eye. "Wakanda will remain hidden for now. Our people are not ready to rejoin any more than the outside world is ready for us."


    "That may be true, but if the effort isn''t made no one will ever be ready," I said, shaking my head.


    "Perhaps, but that is our decision to make," He responded, looking behind me for a moment before reaching out to shake my hand, leaning in, and talking at a much quieter volume. "Though you may be happy to hear that a young American biochemist will have a breakthrough concerning the treatment of Tuberculosis within the next few weeks. And a few months after that, a research group in Germany will develop a revolutionary new treatment method for cancer, one that will drastically increase the survival rate of many of the most lethal variants."


    It took me a moment to realize what he was implying, and why he was being quiet.


    "That''s good news," I responded with a smile. "That is very good news."


    "I would have to agree." He responded. "Wakanda may stay hidden, but that does not mean we wish harm to the innocents of the world."


    "I''m d to hear things King T''Chaka," I responded, releasing his hand with a nod.


    I took a step back and Ema put her hand on my shoulder, and I traveled us away without another word.<hr>


    Hello everyone! Wee back, I hope everyone is enjoying the first few days of 2023! I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who hasmented and supported my work, this past year has been a lot of fun and I look forward to what 2023 brings!


    Also, I would like to remind you that I have a Pa_tre_on! (under my username, MetaBettaOmegaLetta) Supporters get early ess to my original book <strong>Last Resort: Dimensional Bloodsport</strong>, as well as ess to early chapters for both of my fanfictions. Board Members also get to vote on important story beats! Right now they are voting on a story beat for Mettle, Metal, Meddled. If you are interested in showing your support, please stop by. Every bit helps!

 Chapter 108: Shield maker

    Chapter 108: Shield maker


    "That was like watching a trainwreck in slow motion Carson," Ema said the second wended in the warehouse. "You are a terrible negotiator, and they Well, the less I say about them the better."


    "I mean, T''Chaka seemed like he wasing around?"


    My partner gave me a look and I let out a long breath.


    "Yeah. They leave a lot to be desired," I admitted. "But I would rather them be tentative allies thanplete enemies, even if I have to make nice with them. It costs me very little and I could gain a lot from it. But you''re right, I think this is as far as I''m willing to go with them. Hopefully, T''Chaka continues toe to his senses, and we can make peaceter. But I''m done trying to appease them."


    Ema nodded in agreement and left to take care of her own business, leaving me alone. I stood in the warehouse for a moment before traveling to the controls I had for the nurse stonework. Ema had been working on getting everything spread out almost none stop, save a few dates with Jarvis and a couple of hours painting. She had spread the stones to cover every major poption center in the world, including Wakandan cities, and had been working her way down to lower and lower concentrations. At this point, she was filling in mostly empty space around the.


    The controls were stashed in a secret location, which I traveled to after dropping off Ema. I nned on using this space as my control point forrge-scale projects. Originally I had just nned on sacrificing a few spaces of my deck to hold certain important things, or maybe working everything together into onerge control panel. But after some thought, I decided that it was better to keep it somewhere Ema could travel to if necessary, in case I died and the Deck vanished with everything inside.


    The room was simple, a five-hundred square foot room encased in fifty feet of ultra metal, conceptually enhanced faraday cages, and a half dozen other materials specifically mixed to block everything, to keep something hidden and unobservable. It was perfectly sealed and blocked everything from sound to magic ording to my universal scanner. After the first five minutes of working inside it, I had to add a white noise maker after I realized the absolute utter silence was getting on my nerves.


    It was also fifteen miles deep into a random spot on the moon.


    There were already a few things set up inside this space. Against the far wall were two ssic big red buttons, with the standard translucent stic coverings down over them. Under each of them were two radial selectors, one with the options for "Destroy," "Disable," and "Shut down," and the other with the options "all," "on Earth," and "deployed." This was my emergency control system for all of my battle bots and caduceus droids. With these buttons, I could destroy all of the battle bots easily and safely, without having to take away the healing of the caduceus droids as well. I didn''t think they would ever go bad on their own or anything like that, but it was better to be safe than sorry.


    In a different corner was the already-made control panel for the nurse stones. It showed a slowly spinning wireframe of the Earth with dots and circles all around it. Ema was apparently almostpletely done covering popted areas and was already thirty-seven percent done with the entire. Considering the scope of the project, that was incredibly impressive. I tapped the control system awake before finding the controls for the potency level. It was technically on its lowest setting, but that wasn''t really a metric that would trante well into just how effective it was. I chewed my lip for a moment before increasing it slightly, the gauge going up five marks out of fifty. This was an increase of ten percent above the baseline.


    This was significantly ahead of schedule, as I had originally intended to increase it by only a few marks a year, in an attempt to hide the almost universal health improvement the nurse stones provided behind "improved living conditions" or something like that. But it felt wrong to hold back so much. I knew that I was dabbling in what a lot of people would call ying god, and quite a few people would vilify me for holding back like this, and probably rightly so. But I still believed that uplifting the world with my creations would only result in problemster on. Marvelics was full of examples of what happened when you fucked with society on a massive scale like that, and it was hardly ever good. Not to mention what could happen if humanity gave up and began to rely exclusively on my creations


    That didn''t make the nightmares or guilt any easier to deal with.


    I took a deep breath and resisted the urge to turn the nurse stones any higher before traveling away, back to the warehouse. I hated the fact that I couldn''t do more, especially because the scenarios I was worried about ranged from unlikely to improbable, but the consequences were so severe that I couldn''t risk it.


    What if one day I woke up in a different world, and everything I made here came with me or fell apart? The entity that brought me here could just as easily decide my next adventure started now, and I was going to some new reality. What if I died and my powers stopped working? I was effectively ageless with my amulet, but I could definitely see situations, maybe in a couple of dozen centuries, that I voluntarily took it off to age normally. That didn''t even take into ount if I was killed, which is getting less likely every day, but would never be impossible in a Marvel reality, even one as basic as this one.


    What if I discovered my objects were negatively affecting people or were bad for the fabric of reality? What if the entity was something nefarious, and was hoping I would turn myself into a cornerstone of humanity so that they could yank me away and destabilize the entire foundation?


    All of them were unlikely. But all of them would devastate humanity if they became dependent on me. I was depriving Earth of a utopia without sickness, starvation, or even old age because I was worried it would stunt humanity''s growth, destabilize an already unsteady bnce, and on the chance that this was all temporary.


    I let out another long breath, shaking my head and looking around the warehouse, my eyes trailing over Ema''s beautiful murals that covered all four walls. After a long moment of silence, I made my way over to my workshop area.


    I had a lot of work to do.<hr>


    The rest of the week, along with the following one was spent finishing everything I needed for the Earth Defense Force. I had put together a truly ludicrous amount of equipment, systems, and everything in between. Divine essence and Uru were spent freely, and by the time I was done feeding the blueprints to the new shipyard berths, I knew that each of the ships would be incredibly overpowered, dwarfing the capabilities of the <em>Void Skipper</em> by leaps and bounds


    Despite that, with the improvements I had made to the LPMs around the shipyards, a Defender ss would only take a week and a half to build, while the Command ss would take just under two and a half. It would still be months before the fleet was finished, but it was happening quicker than I imagined.


    I made a call to Councilwoman Hartford, letting her know that the ships were being built, and that they would be finished in a few weeks. She was clearly caught off guard, first by the fact that I had called her, although judging from the background noise I had managed to reach her home phone, and next by the production timeline. She promised to notify the other members of the council. Before saying goodbye I asked about something that had been bothering me.


    "SoCouncilmen Rockwell what was that about?"


    The older woman let out a sigh before going silent, probably gathering her thoughts before she finally responded.


    "Rockwell is a steadfast and honorable member of the WSC," She exined, trying to stay diplomatic. "But he did not react well to the purging of Hydra. Several members of the organization gleefully, and worse, truthfully admitted that they used his predictable responses to certain buzzwords, forck of a better term, as a fulcrum to push several of their projects through."


    "Damn"


    "Indeed. One of the more terrifying concepts was something called ''Project: Insight, which has since been scrapped.''" She continued. "On the surface, it was a proposal to construct three additional helicarriers. They would be top of the line, equipped with the most sophisticated weapon systems we could design, that would allow them to precisely strike targets from the air. They would have given Shieldplete military superiority on any battleground, be it sea, air, ornd."


    "And Hydra wanted them."


    "Of course, but it gets worse," She assured me. "Project: Insight was barely getting the majority vote it needed to get approval, mostly on the back of Rockwell''s insistence. Hydra infiltrators barely had to raise a finger. As we were interrogating Hydra assets we discovered Project: Insight''s true purpose, a weapons tform that they would use to eliminate dissidence, even before it arose, using an advanced psychological profiling algorithm. They were going to reveal themselves to the sound of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian deaths all over the."


    "Fucking hell," I mumbled while rubbing my face.


    "Precisely."


    "And he saw me creating the shield and the defense force as some crazy person putting weapons in spaces to rain down on the helpless civilians."


    "I do not know for sure, but that would be my guess," She answered, pausing again before continuing. " After his outburst, we investigated his behavior further. We suspect he is suffering from a mental breakdown, which he is now receiving treatment for."


    "Dammit" I responded, letting out a short groan. "Well, there isn''t anything I can do about it. I''ll try not to antagonize him but this project is more important than one man''s regret or guilt."


    "That won''t be a problem, he will be announcing his retirement shortly," She revealed easily before a slight noise from her end caught her attention. "Now if you''ll excuse me, I would like to get back to my day off. I only get to see my granddaughter once or twice a month."


    "Of course, sorry to bother you while you''re with family."


    "It''s alright, I wouldn''t have picked up if I didn''t want to."


    A short goodbyeter and I hung up, letting out a long groan. There was really no way for me to have known that Rockwell was going to be an issue, but I still felt like it could have been avoided. In all honesty, I wasn''t entirely sure it wasn''t all just a y to see how I could react or to see how far they could push me. After a moment of grumbling though I shook my head. I could mope andinter. I had way too much to get done.


    With the fleet under production, it was finally time to start working on the shield system, another massive project. Shield was still working on the satellite that would serve as the main foundation of theary shieldwork, but I could still get the shield projector itself, as well as the propulsion system ready for the final step.


    In reality, this was probably going to be the easiest part of the entire process. I had already spent plenty of time examining the Asgardian shield system, the shield system I used was already maxed stacked and ready to go, and sorcerous spinel was just a singr part so there wasn''t much to worry about there. All that was left to do besides the actualbining and conceptual crafting was to go through and familiarize myself with the Wakandan tech.


    Technically the shield projector I had been using up until this point was derived from a Wakandan-made shield already, but I had conceptually crafted it so much at this point that I was hoping it would be considered something new, at least conceptually.


    In total, I spent another four days working through the design andbination process for the shield system. Most of that was spent waiting for things to finish printing out, so I managed to work my way through the list of odds and ends that Tony and Pepper needed me to finish. I delivered the good news to Tony, who was excited to get everything in ce and ready. By the end of the week, the research base would be ready for its opening day, whenever we decided that would be.


    When everything was done printing, I spent the rest of the time experimenting with activation methods, trading specifically designed programs and parts with Tony, copying spells from the sorcerers at Kamar-Taj, and working through the parts of Wakanda''s shield projector tech. When I was finally satisfied I had everything I needed I got to work I startedbining all of my resources together into the final product.


    Dozens of parts, pulled from the Asgardian and Wakandan systems were mixed together, stacked with all sorts of energy producers and efficiency upgrades. I included several sorcery spell matrixes that absorbed different types of energy, like kic and thermal, and diverted or converted it. A simple alteration with a few concepts meant that the shield would actually absorb and strengthen to a degree when it was hit with various energy types. It had its limitations of course but even minor absorption abilities would massively increase the shield''s effectiveness.


    I alsobined the core from the Asgardian system, the cube spinel from the Ancient One contribution, and the center spike of the Wakandan projector, which ended up being some sort of strange vibranium-infused artificial crystal. I couldn''t make heads or tales of its description from my universal scanner, but it worked perfectly with the other parts.


    With the core done, I put together an energy source and stabilizing unit, the makeup of which would be built around a handmade case built specifically built for the now-finalized core. I used various parts from both the Asgardian and Wakandan shield projectors, adding in a dozen maxed stacked and divine-enhanced arc reactors, hundreds of energy cells, as well as a regenerating concept that I worked out with sr panel cells a the sunstone from Asgard.


    The result was a three-foot thick and eight-foot-wide octagonal device that I could physically insert the core into, and that would pour energy into it to protect the shield. Combining them together with the Deck, since the energy source and stabilizer were already built to hold it, was a singr construct with the core in ce permanently, simr to howbining a car with a car part wouldbine together seamlessly.


    The final product was a shield projector that dwarfed anything I had made before, including the newly made divine-enhanced system I had used for the fleet. Its protective strength was incredible, and it walked the line of S ss into a named creation. I was pretty sure when the entire project was done that would change.


    On top of nearly perfecting the shield system, I also put together the "propulsion" system for the satellite. This was where Tony''s contribution was the strongest, his programs and a specifically made repulsor system,bined together with my artificial gravity system, a few choice spells, and a dozen other contributions resulted in the closest thing to an immovable object I had made so far.


    The system, when inactive would float itself around the Earth, staying at a specific altitude and direction that it would be getting from the control portion of Shield''s satellite, whenever they got around to finishing it. When activated, however, it would lock itself into position above the Earth, unable to move in any direction. This could, hypothetically, be overpowered with enough kic energy, but with how much I was leaning the concept into each projector working together with other the other satellites, they would be able to spread the load through the whole system.


    In truth, everything I had built so far was over-engineered and overpowered to a frankly ludicrous degree, which is just what I was aiming for. At this point, I had finished everything I could, which meant I was just waiting for the WSC contribution, which they imed would be ready by the end of the following week. On one hand, I was not used to having to wait so long for something I would be able to card, but on the other, I was incredibly thankful to finally have some time to unwind.


    On my first day off from the mad rush of crafting that I had been putting myself through I called Natasha. She was happy to hear from me, though we had chatted plenty during the near month I had been working. She had just gotten back to the Triskelion from some sort of mission. About ten minutes into our conversation I brought up our second date.


    "Any opinions about bowling?" I asked curiously as I walked around one of the shipyard berths, watching one of the three Defender ss shipse together.


    "I''m okay at it, and I''m sure it would be fun," She said, her smile audible through the phone. "Will you be adding on something less normal at the end, likest time?"


    "Sure, I coulde up with something," I assured her with a chuckle. "Anythinge to mind?"


    "Not, in particr, surprise me."


    We chatted for a while longer, much longer than I had intended to stay on the phone with her. Eventually, it was getting a bitte, and I knew she would have to work the next day. We said a quick goodbye, and I promised to call her again soon.


    I made my way back into the warehouse to find Ema putting some of the crates she used to carry the nurse stones back under the UCMs. The caduceus bots she was using as drones were already in rest mode, standing straight in the far corner. When she noticed me she stood and waved.


    "Done for the day?" She asked, noticing I wasn''t rushing around.


    "Done for a while," I answered back. "Ships are under construction and I''m waiting for the satelliteponent for the shieldwork. Tony mentioned needing to talk to me when I had some free time so I''ll probably go see him tomorrow, but for now, I''m all set withrge projects."


    "That''s good, some time away from crafting will do you good."


    I nodded in agreement, dropping down onto the lounge couch with a groan. I was napping before Ema could join me.

 Chapter 109: Pitch

    Chapter 109: Pitch


    I took the next morning easy, enjoying a nice breakfast with Ema before I got my day started. I had messaged the night before Tony, asking when was the best time to stop by, as well as what side of the US he was on. He told me to stop by New York around noon, and that we would be visiting some of the big names we wanted to join us on the moon in our research center.


    Apparently, he had been waiting for me to start meeting with a few individuals because they would need the most convincing and he thought I could do that. After sending me a rather long list of names I recognized, both from theics and from my experiences in this universe, I quickly put together a list of things I would need to make solid convincing arguments.


    The first people on our list would be Bruce Banner and Betty Ross, who were currently taking a break from their traveling and pro-bono doctoring, staying in a small cabin in the woods somewhere in Maine. Tony had already called them to let them know we wereing, a courtesy I honestly hadn''t expected. He had reluctantly admitted that Betty reminded him of Pepper and that he didn''t feel like starting off on the wrong foot by showing up unannounced.


    I spent an hour or so doing some shopping on Earth, doing some shopping before returning to the warehouse to whip up something simple to help get my ideas across, before traveling down to New York. Tony was waiting for me, sipping a drink and looking out over the city through a window with no ss. Next to him was histest armor, freestanding but open so he could just step right into it. Workers were moving around him, seemingly putting the final touches on the massive room.


    "So, do you like it?" He asked, finishing his drink and gesturing around the room. "The portals will go right over there."


    He gestured to a set of desks and a series of small raised areas. He was referring to thest project I had put together for the research base, a series of paired doorwaysbined with sling rings and some Tesseract energy, forming a closable portal that would link the station and the tower together.


    "Yeah it looks good it has got a bit of an airne security vibe to it though," I pointed out, looking around.


    It really did, the space was open but seemed to naturally funnel into what I was realizing were security stations next to where the portal pairs would go. The view was amazing on the other side, but the vibe held.


    "I know, that was on purpose," He exined. "I wanted people to get used to it so they will spend less time wandering around. There are going to be about three to four hundred people going through here a day, I don''t want traffic on the walk to work."


    "As if you''re going to use the portals anyway."


    "Got me there. Alright, you ready to go?" He asked, stepping into his armor, which whirred softly as it encased himpletely. "They should be expecting us any minute."


    "Yeah, I''m good to go."


    I grabbed his shoulder as my own armor formed around me, ignoring hisment about me showing off. I traveled us both to Maine, Tony taking off into the air immediately. I followed him easily, keeping up with him even when he started pushing close to the sound barrier. Thankfully he resisted the urge to push past that despite the fact that both of our suits could.


    We arrived at the small cabin after twenty minutes of flying, both of usnding about forty feet from the front door. Before we could do anything Bruce came around the side of the cabin, waving us closer. As we made our way to him Tony stepped out of his armor, which closed back up when he was free, following behind him near silently.


    "We were waiting for you around back." He said as we got closer. "Good to see you two."


    "Good to see you as well." I said, reaching out and shaking his hand, Tony doing the same right after.


    He led us around the side of the house to a small backyard, which was mostly empty save for a stack of wood on one side and a small patio table. Betty was already sitting down, a carafe of coffee on the table with several mugs around it, and a te of muffins alongside them.


    After a brief greeting, all of us sat down and Betty poured us some coffee. I could see Tony visibly flinching when he was handed his cup, but he managed to weather through. When we were all settled, Bruce leaned forward.


    "So, I know there is a reason you two are here But could I ask something first?" Bruce started, looking curious as he leaned forward in his seat. "What happened after we left?"


    "When did you leave?" I asked, taking a sip from my mug.


    "Before the helicarrier left DC," Betty answered. "Fury didn''t want Bruce on board when you could have been heading into a warzone, especially not in the middle of the ocean."


    I gestured to Tony, who gave the abridged version of what the fight was like. Both Betty and Bruce seemed shocked, both by some of the things that happened and by what I was capable of creating. When the story was over, including the fact that I had left the sr system, something that both Betty and Bruce were fascinated by, the purpose of our visit was finally revealed.


    "I can''t uplift the world." I said inly, leaning back in thefortable chair. "I want to, desperately, but I can''t. Besides the fact that I am only one man, one who isn''t okay with dedicating every second of every minute to solving everyone''s problems, spreading the things I can make around too much would start to mess with the world. It''s too unnatural, too easy and I''m worried about several aspects of it. Long story short, I want to help, but lifting the world up with my ability is not the right way to do it."


    "Which is where Ie in," Tony cut in. "I have been toying with the idea of putting together a research group for a while. Originally it would work through Stark Industries, but the focus would be humanitarian. The tower, the one I''m building in New York, was going to be Candnd for the most advanced tech researchers on the. Then Texas Hold''em over here took that idea and ran with it."


    "I want to form a research center unlike anything ever built before. Purely humanitarian, separated from politics, and driven by the desire to help the world and unravel the secrets of the universe. Imagine, the smartest minds in the world, with ess to things like this."


    I pushed out one of the items I had made this morning. It was a tablet, about the same size as a piece of printer paper, connected by a cord to a small scanner. It was abination of magic, divine essence, twelve of the most powerful microscopes I could buy, and four monocr digital microscopes. The result was something that could zoom in to the point where you could easily see the cells in your hand.


    "I built this in an hour and a half, and most of that time was buying the actual equipment I needed," I exined. "Imagine having ess to this and more, anything you could possibly need to further your research."


    Betty picked up the device, clearly familiar with the handheld scanning digital microscope that it heavily pulled from. She ran it along her hand and gasped as she zoomed in, the cells of her skin clearly on disy.


    "I can build incredibly, impossible tools, and I want you and your contemporaries to use them to make the world a better ce," I exined.


    Betty was focused on the microscope, looking at her arm and watching the blood cells in her skin move and flow in her veins. While his wife look fascinated, Bruce looked heart broken. After a moment Betty seemed toe back to herself and she focused on her husband. When she saw her face she shook her head.


    "You have been working on this," She said, putting her hand on his. "You can do this."


    "It''s too dangerous. But you-"


    "I will not leave you alone anywhere," She said definitively, cutting Bruce off. "I think you can do this I mean isn''t this our dreamse true? What we were trying to do before all of this?"


    "If I could what have you been working on?" I asked, leaning forward.


    "How much do you know about my condition?"


    "I''m a big fan." Stark said, and I shot him a look.


    "We know the general idea," I added, looking back to the other two.


    "Right Well, I''ve always considered the Hulk as a separate entity, doing my best to push him down, keep him suppressed," He exined. "But with Betty''s help, I''vee to realize it might not be that simple. I''m beginning to make progress inmunicating with him, mostly through meditation. And I let him out to rx, burn off some steam and even spend time with Betty. But I''m nowhere near ready to be around people yet, I mean you saw what hewe I did to Harlem. The wrong thing setting me off and I could do that to your think tank."


    "Sorry Bruce, I saw what<em> Abomination </em>did to Harlem. As far as I could tell you were the reason he didn''t do the same thing to the rest of New York," I corrected, shaking my head. "I could havee up with something eventually, but I was early enough in my build-up phase that it would have taken a while for me to pin him down enough to take him on my own. And as impressive as Tony is, his armor isn''t rated for Hulk levels of strength, not yet anyway."


    "Your arrow"


    "There was a reason I was aiming for his eye," I exined. "He also clearly had the ability to regenerate. If you hadn''t been around to hold him down, I would have never been able to make that shot, and aiming center of mass would have done nothing. At this point, I could take him down, especially if I knew he wasing, but at that point, I would have been scrambling and a lot of people would have died in the process. You did good work."


    For a long moment, Bruce was quiet, Betty still holding his hand. After a moment, Tony leaned forward.


    "It sounds to me like this is a good opportunity for Carson to prove himself. He likes to brag that there isn''t much he can''t do at this point, so why not let him make something to help?"


    Bruce and Betty looked at me, suddenly looking very hopeful. Internally I was panicking, cursing myself for not seeing thising. There were dozens of different versions of the Hulk that existed throughout the many Marvel universe, and fucking with their connection with Bruce was how many of the worst versions came into being. The big green behemoth was known for eventually being able to shrug off <em>anything</em> that fucked with him.


    "I coulde up with several things that would force you to stay small and human Bruce. There is even a chance my healing amulet might even heal the ability for you to change right out of you," I admitted, unwilling to lie to him. "But by the sound of it that would involve messing around with your head. I''m notfortable with that, at least not long term. I could make a device that calms you down, even from range, but I''m not going to make something that you wear and constantly fucks with your emotions.A long-range calming device is the best I feelfortable with. That way if you transform unwillingly we can bring you back, and we don''t have to worry about the effects of long-term exposure of suppressing him. "


    "I I do want to see where this goes. I feel more at peace with him, that part of me than I ever have before," Bruce exined, giving Betty''s hand a squeeze. "It wouldn''t feel right to fully suppress him at this point anyway like cutting away an aspect of myself, even if it was a part of me I would like to work on. But the ability to calm me down at range, just in case? If it works on me then I would consider joining up."


    "Alright, give me five minutes." I said, standing up from my chair and walking away from the table. "Feel free to watch, a sneak peek of what my process is like."


    I flicked out a card, and suddenly my storage shed was sitting in the yard, quickly followed by a workstation and my cab of tricks. I spent a minute or so grabbing stuff andying it on the workstation. In the end, I grabbed a few low-poweredser pointers and a dozen different things that were all about calmness and rxation.


    "Alright, so, all this stuff carries concepts of calming, soothing, and rxation," I exined, gesturing to an array of crystals, teas, a stress ball, and a vail of Jasmine essential oils. "Theser pointers will hopefully allow me to apply this calming effect at range. If that doesn''t work I can try working something into a liquid, putting that into a spray bottle, and then mixing that with something."


    I looked up at my audience, who had made their way from their chairs to watch me work. Bruce and Betty looked skeptical, while Tony just looked bored.


    I started the process bybining the calming materials into two groups, then adding both of them into separateser pointers, beforebining those together as well. I resisted the urge to try it out on Tony, instead cing it on the workbench. My armor appeared on my arm, growing from my fingertips all the way to my shoulder before I activated the universal scanner built in.


    When the scan was done I frowned. It was basically what I wanted, but I didn''t think it was quite powerful enough. I grabbed a magic rod and a divine essence andbined them in, theser pointer changing into a thick, baton-like device that was covered with decorative copper lines. When I was done I put it back on the table and scanned it again.


    "Alright, seems like this is a functional calmingser," I said after reading the description. "No negative effects, though you''ll probably feel sleepy as well. Unfortunately, there is only one way to really check if it works on you"


    Bruce let out a sigh and looked at Betty, who nodded and stepped away from him. Bruce began taking off his clothes, stripping off his jacket, shirt, and sses before handing them to Betty.


    "Not your pants?" Tony asked. "Not that I''m looking for a show."


    "They are stretchy." He assured him, before closing his eyes and focusing


    After only a short pause his eyes flew open, his iris glowing green as his body grew, his muscle bulging out. I could hear the sound of his bones creaking, shifting as the green spread through his body, first through his veins, growing out through the rest of his body. It looked like he was in massive amounts of pain as he clenched his teeth and his bones settled back into ce. When his transformation was finally done, he stood in front of me, breathing heavily. Watching me closely.


    "Hey big guy, thanks for stopping by." I said, reaching out my hand.


    Hulk looked at me, eyes trailing down to my hand before reaching out to shake it. This time it didn''t quite feel like he was grinding my bones together, though I could still feel his inhuman strength. He was clearly confused by my nonchnt nature.


    "So here is the deal Hulk. Bruce wants to join me and a lot of other people to help the world." I exined, nodding as he scoffed. "I know, what has the world done for you? But it''s important to Bruce, and keeping him from being a grumpy bastard means you''ll get toe out and y more often. The problem is you make him nervous when he is around people."


    "Banner hate hulk, Hulk hate Banner!" He said, scowling and shifting his massive body.


    "You both have a lot of bad experiences with each other, a lot of them bad. But Betty just wants you both to be happy, which means working together to put aside your differences," I exined, gesturing to Betty.


    Hulk turned to see Betty, waving shyly to her as if he hadn''t realized she was there. I let him focus on her for a few seconds before I continued.


    "You make Banner nervous," I repeated, getting his attention. "When you get angry you tend to break stuff, sometimes even hurt people. It''s not usually your fault, people just won''t leave you alone, I get that. But Banner needs to know that if something happens to set you off, someone will be able to help you calm down."


    "Don''t want to hurt anyone." Hulk admitted, his graveling voice actually sounding apologetic. "Too angry, lose Hulk."


    I could see Betty, her eyes wide as she listened to Hulk talk. She hadn''t been surprised earlier when he spoke, but they must have not gotten this far before.


    "I know, and this will hopefully help with that."


    "Banner just use to stop me!" He shouted, starting to look agitated. "Never let me OUT!


    "At one point, that might have been true, but he has been meditating, trying to connect to you, right?" I asked, the massive green humanoid nodding reluctantly. "He knows something else is going on. He knows it''s not right to keep you locked up like that. He has been letting you out to stretch your legs, right?"


    Again he nodded reluctantly, before looking over at Betty again. This time she stepped forward, smiling up at him and holding his arm. It took a minute for him to turn back and focus on me.


    "I think Betty understands that too." I pointed out, Betty nodding in confirmation.


    "I do Hulk. Bruce wants to understand what you are, and what your connection is. You just need to give him a chance."


    After a long time of looking down at his kind-of-sort-of wife, Hulk looks back at me again.


    "What Hulk do?"


    "Just let me try this out on you. It will make you calm and change you back into Banner. I promise it will only be used to keep you from hurting anyone if your anger gets the best of you," I exined, the muscle-bound behemoth looking suspiciously at theser pointer on the table. "If Banner starts using it to keep you locked away I''ll take it away from him and kick his ass until you pop back out."


    Betty gave me a strong look, but Hulk just chuckled. After a long moment he reluctantly nodded, stepping back a bit from the workbench, Betty stepping back from Hulk as well. I took theser pointer and waited for a moment, Hulk finally nodding again.


    I aimed theser pointer at Hulk''s foot, activating it with a single press. The effect was instantaneous, as the Hulk started to shrink. Slowly getting smaller and smaller, the green changing into his normally pale skin. There were more than a few pops and groans before Bruce Banner was standing in front of us.


    "... Alright, when do we start?"<hr>


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 Chapter 110: Recruitment

    Chapter 110: Recruitment


    Bruce and Betty had both been extremely interested in how I managed to get the Hulk to listen and chat like that. Bruce assumed I had created some sort of charisma charm, Betty asked if I had experience with unwell children. When I pointed out that having a conversation with someone was always difficult when that person knew you thought they were an idiot or an unthinking brute both of them cringed and nodded.


    The truth was that in almost all of the examples of Hulk being semi-reasonable in theics and various animated shows, one of the most prevalent connections between all of them was people talking to him like an actual person, if maybe a person on the lower side of the IQ range. It had worked the first time I met him, so I figured why not try it again? The results spoke for themselves.


    When everyone had calmed back down, and Bruce was dressed again, and we had all returned to the patio, Tony started going over the business side of the idea. He exined their pay, the benefits, the standard contracts for patients and profits as well as the general structure of the organization. Neither Betty nor Bruce had a real problem with the general structure, though something was clearly in Bruce''s mind.


    "You still haven''t told us where exactly this research center will be based out of," he pointed out. "You mentioned your original idea was going to be based in Stark Tower, but not where this new one would be located. Is that on purpose or"


    Tony sank a bit as Bruce saw right through his nned surprise, but I just chuckled.


    "Tony wanted it to be aplete surprise," I exined, before adding with a shrug. "I could ruin the surprise if it makes you ufortable or I can show you?"


    I held out my hands, one for each of them. The married couple shared a look, a silent conversation passing between them before they both reached out and took my hand. Tony stepped back into his armor before putting his hand on my shoulder.


    "Okay, hold tight," I said, the only warning I gave them before I traveled all of us to the research base.


    Wended on the top floor of the research center, in therge park. Looking along the ground you would be hard-pressed to distinguish the area from a random park anywhere in the US. Anding pad was stuck firmly into the super concrete pathway that circled around arge water fountain and curled away in a few different directions. Looking up, however, revealed the crystal clear dome that separated us from the vacuum of space.


    "Wha"


    Bruce and Betty made broken, confused sounds as they looked up into the void of space, eyes darting around from the stars and back to therge blue and green sphere that was Earth. Their mouths opened and closed for a while, no real wordsing out for a full two minutes before Betty finally managed to get a strangled "How!" out.


    "A few creations of mine made it possible, a life support system, artificial gravity projector, building builder, which I eventually improved massively into my Large Production Machine," I exined, chuckling as it was clear very little of this was actually making it through to the two stunned scientists. "Everything else sort of just happened. I needed a ce that was far away from everyone, somece I could work in peace and that would be out of everyone else''s jurisdiction. Now it''s not much of a problem because no one can really force me to do anything I don''t want to, but early in my build up I was much more vulnerable, I was terrified that someone would kidnap me and chain me to a workshop somewhere, forcing me to pump out supersoldiers."


    "This is incredible the first colony on the moon," Bruce said, looking out of the dome along the horizon, at a mountain range not too far from the base. "What a location for a research center."


    "Want to go for a moonwalk?" I asked, both of them whipping their heads around to look at me. "Steve and Bucky seemed to enjoy it, I have EVA suits already built-"


    "Maybe another time," Tony cuts in, shaking his head. "We have one more stop to make today before we can just hang out and chill."


    "Who else are we seeing today?"


    "Jane Foster, who I think you''ve met before?" Tony asked.


    "Yeah, she was there when Thor first came to Earth," I answered, wincing slightly. "That actually might not be a good thing, especially considering Thor is back at Asgard again."


    "Maybe, but it''s certainly not going to endear her to Shield when she learns they didn''t tell her he was here at all," Tony said with a smirk. "She''s working for them at the moment and they didn''t even drop a word. Nice job with that wormhole research, oh by the way your godly boy toy was here but took off without saying hello"


    "Tony, fucking with people like that is how you make superviins," I said, shaking my head.


    "Is that something we should be worrying about?" Bruce asked, looking around nervously. "Watching out for our peers in case they go superviin?"


    "I mean we''ve already dealt with one," I pointed out, rubbing my chin contemtively. "I don''t know the details but Thor grew up with Loki, I assume that his most recent actions were at least surprising for them Not to mention before he came to his senses, General Ross was only a few steps from being a superviin himself."


    "What?!" Betty asked with a shout, startling me from my thinking.


    I bit back a curse. I had been thinking of all the things he had done in theics, and how before the debacle in Harlem he had been slowly making his way closer to that.


    "Well he did a lot of messed up and quasi-illegal stuff in his obsession of catching you Bruce," I pointed, Tony snorting when I said "quasi-illegal."


    "There was nothing ''quasi'' about some of the stuff he pulled." He said, shaking his head.


    "Right, well let''s just say getting his act together probably saved him as much as it helped you two." I added vaguely, Betty and Bruce both looking contemtive. "Anyway, it sounds like we need to head off to meet Jane Foster. Are you guys staying or?


    "We will stay," Betty said, and Bruce nodded in agreement. "Are we allowed to walk around?"


    "Yeah, just stay up here if you could," I responded. "I can give you guys a tour when we get back."


    We talked a bit more, and I exined what else was in the park, before I traveled Tony and me to California. Jane Foster had been living here for a few months at this point, trying to advance her research while frequently consulting with Shield. Apparently, they had even shipped her off to an isted observatory to keep her out of trouble when Erik Selvig had been kidnapped.


    "You n on recruiting Erik Selvig right?" I asked as we made our way to the house she was renting, all the while keeping my eyes peeled.


    We were trying our best to keep a low profile, as Jane worked for Shield frequently and had connections to Thor, meaning there was a pretty high chance she was being watched. While we weren''t doing anything illegal, Tony was pretty determined to make the general revtion of the moon base as impactful as possible, and Shield would never let a secret like that stand without investigating. I was wearing a random face to hide my identity, and Tony had sunsses on that actually did a decent job of distracting the eyes enough to hide who he was, though the effect faded quickly when you focused fully on him.


    "Yes, he is on the list, I''m hoping Dr. Foster can tell us where he is because he dropped off the edge of the Earth after Shield released him," He exined. "They debriefed him, did a quick evaluation, and then poof, nothing."


    "... That''s worrying," I said, chewing on my cheek, ignoring that Tony all but admitted to hacking Shield again. "If Jane doesn''t know where he is I''m going to make a tracker for him and see if I can''t find him. Printing out his Wikipedia article should be enough maybe."


    "You should make a person tracker that you can just feed names to," Tony suggested, climbing up the front steps of a small duplex, and knocking on the door. "It would save you a lot of time."


    "Yeah, but it would be too easy," I said. "Breaching someone''s privacy like that really shouldn''t be my default and if-"


    The door opened and Thor of all people stepped out. He looked down at both of us, taller than both of us by half a foot.


    "Greetings, who may you be?" He asked. "What do you-"


    "Thor, I told you I was expecting guests today," Jane said, sliding out around the god of thunder and smiling. "Mr. Stark, pleasee in."


    "Stark? Where is your glorious armor?" Thor asked as we made our way inside. "Surely you have not lost it?"


    "We were attempting toy low," Tony exined. "And please, call me Tony."


    Jane guided us into the house, and I couldn''t help but chuckle when I saw that Mjolnir was hanging up on a coat rack. As we sat down in a small living room, Jane remained standing.


    "Is there anything I can get you? Coffee, Tea?" She asked, sitting when Tony and I both said no. "So, Mr Tony, what can I do for you."


    "First, do you mind if I scan the premise for listening devices?" I asked.


    "Oh, of course I don''t think you''ll find any but"


    A quick check of the premise showed that there wasn''t anything inside the house, but there was a long-distanceser-based listening device focused on the window. I silently took care of that by pulling out my cell phone, pulling up a video podcast and leaning it against the window, pulling the blinds shut over it.


    "Alright, you had one focused on your window but that should take care of it," I exined, Tony wincing. Any hope for staying off shields radarpletely was now out the window.


    "They eavesdrop on her?!" Thor thundered, standing from his seat, clearly angry.


    Jane was equally upset, but she remained sitting.


    "Those assholes!" She cursed. "First they ship me off to Tromso and now they are listening in on me!"


    "Shield doesn''t do personal boundaries very well, trust me," I said, shaking my head. "They broke into my house to take a DNA sample when Fury was asking me to consult on the New Mexico thing."


    "New Mexico thing" Jane started, squinting at me, trying to figure out who I was.


    "Ah, Maker, you are wearing a different face again," Thor, who had been present when I revealed my face to Shield for the first time, and had spent much more time with me than Jane, caught on much more quickly. "It is good to see you again."


    He stood, as did I to trade a warrior''s handshake. As I sat back down I pulled off my mask, carding it away.


    "Wait, your Maker? Jane asked, smiling a bit, the anger slowly fading. "It''s good to see you again."


    "It''s good to see you as well, and I''m d Thor was able toe back and visit," I said with a smile.


    "With the Bifrost down for another month, there is not much for me to do, so father allowed me to travel here to see her," Thor responded to my unasked question. "I fear I will be busy for quite some time after the Bifrost returns, there are many factions who will have used our istion as a chance to wreak havoc."


    "How is King Odin enjoying his armor?" I asked, Thor, perking up with a smile at the question.


    "Father is greatly enjoying his renewed youth and vigor, he has been more active than ever. And mother has benefited as well, as she has taken to wearing one of your healing amulets."


    We chatted a bit more about our trip to Asgard, Tony listening with surprisingly open interest, though Jane was nearly drooling when I described my portal projector. I had to exin that she would likely not learn anything from studying the actual projector as it was heavily conceptually crafted. When she asked to study the original Tony cut in.


    "That actually brings up why we are here," He exined.


    We jumped into an exnation of our offer, exining exactly what we hoped to achieve and the resources we were hoping to gather and use. The conversation was very different from our pitch to Bruce and Betty, as Jane wasn''t worried about actively hurting people, just her research. When Jane started to voice concerns about us embellishing what I was capable of, Thor was actually the one who came to my defense.


    "Jane, I know it''s hard to fathom magic and the unknown when you have spent your entire life working in the rigors of pure science, but believe me when I say that Maker, Carson, Is capable of works of wonder that even Asgard cannot understand. The best enchanters and researchers Asgard has ever produced were unable to decipher how his ability works, and my father''s new eye is proof enough that even his greatest of ims ring true."


    Jane looked at Thor, a little shocked at his mini-speech. Before she could start with what I''m sure was a barrage of new questions I cut her off.


    "I appreciate the vote of confidence Thor, but I didn''t expect Jane to just jump up and believe every word I said with nothing to prove myself. Especially not since thest time we met I was very early in my development," I responded, pushing out a singr object from a card and onto the table.


    It was a sphere mounted on a pedestal, just slightlyrger than an average globe, with topographically carved representations of the Earth''s continents and inds. With a tap I turned it on, and a projected hologram appeared around it suddenly, disying flowing green and yellow lights, ck lines highlighting some areas, some glowing and fading, and others pulsing constantly. To me, it looked random, but Jane immediately figured out what it was.


    "It''s disying electromaic disturbances around the" She said, eyes wide, focused on the globe. "Is is this real-time?"


    "Yup. I made this in fifteen minutes with a few dozen globes, some sensors Tony lent me a while back, a book on the electromaic fields around Earth, and a couple of other odds and ends," I exined with a confident smirk. "You give me an hour and I''ll give you a handheld version that will answer any metric you care to know about from air temperature and humidity all the way to groundposition."


    For a while Jane stared at the globe, biting her lip for a long moment before looking up, first at Tony, then at me.


    "I''ll have full control over what I research?"


    "Of course," I answered. "We wouldn''t be trying to recruit you if we thought we would have to shepherd you into doing something useful. Whether your research starts theoretical and eventually transitions into you trying to build mass-producible wormhole travel, or you learn what you want and pass it off to someone else to use while you move onto your next theoretical project, that''s up to you."


    She nodded in understanding before looking at Thor, who smiled back.


    "I would be lying if I knew or understood the details of what you wish to learn. But I do know that independence in how you work is something that is priceless. I do not believe Maker will lead you wrong," He responded to her silent question. "And perhaps a bit selfishly, I would feel better knowing you were under his protection once I must leave to fulfill my duty to those I am sworn to aid."


    "In that case, would you like to see the research center? Unless Tony wants to drag me off to do more recruiting"


    "No, we are done for today, but tomorrow we have a few more appointments,"


    "Great So, wanna check it out?" I asked, standing up. "Bruce and Betty Banner are already there, checking out the park on top of the facility."


    Ten minutester I was traveling everyone back up to the research station.

 Chapter 111: Complications

    Chapter 111: Complications


    Once we had traveled back up to the moon Jane''s reaction was even more extreme than Bruce and Betty''s had been. The moment she realized where she was, she fell back on her butt, staring up into space before focusing on the Earth, her eyes so wide I was worried they would roll out of her skull. Thor hardly reacted at all, save to confirm the dome was safe.


    After a while, when Jane recovered enough to stand and the two pairs were introduced, I started on the basic tour. Tony begged off, iming there was still plenty left to organize, and since I had no idea how much organizing he actually was doing, I couldn''t exactly contest his statement. Still, it wasn''t like I couldn''t give the tour myself. We started with the public areas, the movie theater, and the bowling alley, as well as the restaurants and other amenities, before traveling down to show off theb spaces.


    It was there that I discovered that Tony had put a lot more work into the building than he had let on. The massive room, which had once been empty space, were instead now full of cabs and workbenches,b workspaces, and dozens of other basic things that thebs themselves would be built around, all fit into divided rooms and individualbs,beled by number and everything. It looked like a properb setting, rather than a massively cavernous space.


    Trying my best to cover up my surprise, I demonstrated the customizable controls for the makeup of thebs, making new walls appear and disappear, as well as moving around the cabs and shifting doors around. When that was done we moved on to the living spaces, which had also gone through arge change. Once it had been a massive cavernous area, marked off with control panels that were designated to certain spaces. Now it looked like the interior of a luxury apartment building, including areas for congregating outside people''s apartments.


    Both Bruce and Thor were fascinated by the controls that allowed people to modify their apartments whenever they wanted, changing out walls and basic furniture with a few taps of s a screen built into the wall, just inside the apartment door. Betty and Jane were more enamored by the view, which for the outside apartments was real, while the interior facing apartments had view screens, simr to what I used on the <em>Void Skipper</em> and the new Defender and Commander ss ships.


    By the end of the tour I had managed to impress Thor and thoroughly shock all of the scientists with the level of development we had here on the moon. When we made our way back up to the park they, unsurprisingly, had quite a few questions. I answered what I could before giving them Peppers'' number, exining that I was really just the maker. I would make it up to Pepperter.


    They spent a little longer in the park, exploring it on their own before I traveled them back down to Earth, paying for a cab for both pairs to get back to their homes. By then it was almost dinner time and Ema had returned from spreading the nurse stones. By then she had managed to spread them to almost forty-seven percent of the world, with all heavily popted and traveled areas, save the oceans,pletely covered.


    As we ate dinner we idly talked about how we would cover the oceans. Eventually, we settled on just dropping them into the water, as their effects would still reach the surface in the most frequently sailed locations. It would leave some gaps, and some of them might even fail eventually, but it was the easiest and leastplicated idea we had.


    Initially had brushed the problem away as being unimportant, before Ema looked it up. Apparently, there were more than a million people sailing around the ocean at any given time. Ema was still saving the ocean forst, but neither of us dismissed it as unimportant anymore.


    Over the next handful of days, between talking with the WSC about the ships, their progress with getting the crew for the first battle group put together and how close they were to finishing their part of the satellite, Tony and I were bouncing over the, recruiting people for our research center. Jane gave us the address of an isted cabin in Norway, where Erik Selvig was trying his best to recover from his time under Loki''s control. He was looking a little rough but seemed to understand that it wasn''t his fault. I could only imagine how much worse he would have been if Loki had managed to call the invasion down on New York. Erik eagerly epted the invitation when he learned Jane had already agreed.


    After the jaunt in Norway, we recruited a dozen or so scientists, snatching up more than a few people from contracts and other research groups. It was hard to argue with the ability to bend reality to what you needed and a research base on the moon. Tony exined that we were personally recruiting the high-priority, high-profile scientists and that theb assistants and understudies were already taken care of.


    One of ourst recruitment trips brought us to the University of Berkeley in California, where we were after another name I recognized, William Foster.


    "He was on a project called Goliath with Hank Pym," Tony exined as we arrived at the campus. "If he joins the team the likely hood that Hank Pym will even talk to us plummets, but honestly with me attached to this that ship already sailed."


    "Why?" I asked, trying desperately to act cool at the casual drop of one of the most controversial characters inic book history.


    "Hank hates me, or rather my name," He exined, not borating on his statement as he continued. "He had a problem simr to yours, but he got paranoid, ornery, and angry about it."


    "Simr to mine?"


    "He was worried his Pym Particle would break the world," He exined, tapping on his watch as we made our way across campus. "It would have revolutionized the entire world, almost every field would have benefited from it, but he was always worried about the consequences."


    "Do you agree with him?" I asked, studying Tony as we stopped outside Professor Foster''s lecture room.


    "...It would have definitely been a double-edged sword," He admitted with a frown. "I honestly don''t know."


    "Yeah I can understand his worry, especially since he wouldn''t have a way to keep bad people from using his tech for whatever they wanted to."


    We were silent for a moment before I continued.


    "I have some small ns. Idea''s on how I can help without doing too much," I admitted. "It''s a short list, but when the research center is up and running, theary shield is finished and the Earth Defence Fleet is patrolling, I''ll start working on some of them."


    Before Tony could reply, the door into the lecture hall opened, and out poured a few dozen college students. Tony looked down, covering his face as best he could while they rushed past. When the flow of people stopped I peeked in to see Professor Foster cleaning up his stuff. I nodded toward the door, before standing and walking in. The older ck gentleman spotted me almost immediately, giving me a curious look.


    "Can I help you?"


    "Yes actually. We are here to offer you a job. Got anyce we could talk in private?"


    He looked at me with a smile, looking like he was about to deny me when Tony stepped into the room, pulling his sunsses off. He clearly recognized him because he stopped in his mental tracks, his mouth hanging open slightly.


    "Isuppose I have some time before my next ss to hear your proposal," He said after his brain rebooted, gathering up thest of his things. "If you''ll just follow me to my office."


    A short walkter and we had relocated to afortable office, sitting in front of arge cluttered desk. I reached forward and shook his hand, Tony following suit after me.


    "It''s nice to meet you, I''m Carson Walsh, I''m sure you know who this is," I said, gesturing to Tony.


    "It''s nice to meet you both. Mr. Stark, I actually worked briefly with your father before his passing."


    "Sorry to hear that, so why are you working as a professor?" Tony asked, bluntly skipping over the part about his father. "You''re the kind of smart that fills in the next textbook, not teaches the current one."


    "I got sick of thepetition and working with Pym made me miserable," He exined with a shrug. "The best thing I ever did was leave that job behind. I found this to fill the gap between projects and ended up staying."


    "Right, well I think we have something that will make you reconsider," Tony responded, and weunched into our pitch.


    We had this down to a science at this point, and as usual, I passed Bill the enhanced digital microscope I had made, telling him the same details I had told everyone else. He nodded as he scanned his fingers, eyes filled with wonder as he watched his own white blood cell destroy a foreign cell.


    "This is incredible how?"


    "That''s the problem. I don''t know. None of my stuff should work, they break physics as easily as you and I breathe," I answered. "That''s why we are starting this research center, so I can help the people who can make understandable and replicable miracles, instead of my own weird nonsense ones."


    For a long moment, I thought he was in until he suddenly frowned and shook his head, looking up at us and putting down the scanner. He looked torn, like he wanted to say yes but couldn''t.


    "As much as I would love to be back at the forefront of science, I have responsibilities now. I can''t just get up and go leave them behind."


    "What kind of responsibilities?" I asked, pushing a bit harder. "Look, while I don''t want to spread my creations too far, there isn''t much I can''t do at this point. Chances are if you have a problem I can solve it."


    "While I appreciate that your ability might be flexible, I highly doubt it''s without limit," He responded. "Esoteric energies are difficult to deal with-"


    "Esoteric I thought you had an aunt you couldn''t be moved or a loanshark you owed money to," I said, cutting him off and shaking my head. "Now I''m thinking that this is definitely something we should be involved in."


    Bill now looked ufortable, he clearly hadn''t intended to reveal what he had. He eyed the phone on his table and the door behind us.


    "Bill. I want to help, and so does Tony. We can''t do that if you flip out and start making mistakes out of panic," I pointed out. I could feel Tony tensing up, probably wishing he was wearing his armor, but it was currently safely stored inside the Deck. "Is there anything we can do to prove ourselves? Because it sounds like you are dealing with something that you could absolutely use some help with."


    "...Let me make a call." He said, after a long pause. "To warn the person who I''ve been helping. If you truly just want to help then you won''t have a problem with me giving them a heads up."


    I gave Tony a look and he shrugged. I could tell Bill was telling the truth, but there was no way of knowing how the person on the other side of the line would react.


    "Only if you can swear that if the person panics and runs that they won''t be a danger to themselves or others."


    Bill hesitated for a moment, and Tony shook his head.


    "Yeah, that''s reassuring. Listen, Bill, we are asking to be courteous, I could have every location you''ve been to in the past five years in about two minutes," Tony pointed out, making me roll my eyes at his aggressiveness. "So spill. What''s going on, what did you get yourself into."


    For a long moment, I thought he was going to do something stupid, but after a long pause he slumped, leaning heavily on the desk.


    "An old coworker after being fired by Hank, tried to continue his research on his own," He exined, shaking his head. "Something went wrong, catastrophically wrong. I was still working with Shield at the time, and got sent down to investigate a quantum anomaly. His daughter, Ava, was the only survivor of the event."


    "I''m assuming she was who you wanted to call?" I asked, Bill nodding in confirmation.


    "She was affected heavily by the energy released by the ident. She is out of sync with this reality on a quantum level, constantly sliding back and forth between, sliding in and out of phase. She is in near-constant pain and struggles to touch anything without a special suit. I''m in the process of rebuilding a chamber that Shield designed to help her stabilize but it''s slow going and in the end, it will only help for so long."


    "Why isn''t Shield helping now?" I asked.


    "Because she she is on the run," He said, dropping to a whisper for thest part. "She ran when Shield was cleaning house from"


    "Hydra, yeah, we know," I finished for him. "Why did she run?"


    "Because Shield turned her into a child soldier," He answered, heat rising in his voice. "I tried to protect her but they just saw an asset that could pass through solid objects. They promised her a cure and then trained her to be their assassin. She was only a kid!"


    I stayed silent, but I''m sure Tony was thinking the same thing I was. While Shield had plenty of questionable practices, this sounded more like a Hydra n masquerading as a Shield project.


    "Then let''s see if we can help her," I said. "I have something that might work, but even if it doesn''t, I can most likely put something together from whatever you have on hand from building the containment vessel."


    "I You really think you can fix her, just like that?" He asked incredulously. "After years of me doing research and finding nothing but a temporary solution, just like that?"


    "My ability ispotent. It has its limitations but they don''te up very often, at least not anymore," I said, standing up from my chair. "Nowe on. I think it''s time you called in sick and we visit this poor girl."


    Not long after that Tony and I were packed into Bill''s small car, with Tony getting the front seat and myself sitting in the back with a ratherrge pile of paperwork and ungraded tests. Bill was full of nervous energy, but I could tell he was trying hard to keep from being too hopeful.


    "So why did you think she could be dangerous to herself and others?" I asked as we turned off the paved road.


    "Ava She was clearly affected by the ident," He exined. "And by the forced training Shield put her through. It''s not immediately obvious, but she can behave childlike sometimes. She she hasn''t fully regressed by any measure but she does backslide sometimes. And because of the Shield training, when she gets scared"


    "She gets dangerous, right," I said, rubbing my face. "Does she have any other abilities?"


    "Just the ability to phase in and out of our quantum state," Bill answered before quickly adding. "But please, don''t hurt her, she is just a victim in all this."


    "We won''t, don''t worry," I assured him. "Tony I know you want your suit but"


    "She will just bolt if Ie in armored up," he finished for me, nodding in agreement. "Give me an amulet and I''ll be good."


    "Good idea," I agreed with a nod.


    As we talked Bill started to slow down, before pulling into the parking lot of a rather nice, if a little abandoned-looking, house. We exited the car and I pushed out my cab of tricks, handing Tony a healing amulet. It wouldn''t de-age him too much as long as he only wore it for a few minutes, and if he wore it for longer I would just offer it to Pepper as well.


    Bill lead us led us to the front door of the house, Tony putting on the amulet as we walked. Silently, Bill unlocked therge doors with a key, gesturing us toe inside as they opened and he stepped in.


    "Ava? Are you here? I have a few friends here, I think they-"


    Before he could finish we all froze, as suddenly, seemingly from nowhere, abat knife was pressed cleanly against my neck, just barely indenting my skin from the pressure.

 Chapter 112: Quantum quantum quantum

    Chapter 112: Quantum quantum quantum


    Bill''s eyes went wide when he spotted who I could only assume was Ava with a knife held to my neck. Tony''s eyes widened as well, but he immediately calmed down, probably because the likely hood that cutting my throat would actually kill me, if she could even manage to with my enhancements, was as close to zero as it could possibly get.


    "Ava, I assume?" I asked nonchntly. "Do you greet all your guests like this or just the ones who want to help you?"


    "Ava, they think they can help," Bill said, stepping closer, though very obviously staying out of grabbing range of both Tony and me. "They-"


    "Really, Bill? What did they say to convince you? I thought you were smarter than that," She said from behind me, getting closer to my ear. "I don''t know how you tracked me down but-"


    "Look, I have no fucking idea who you are, and I don''t particrly care," I said, cutting her off. "I came looking for Bill because Tony and I wanted to offer him a job."


    She scoffed and pressed the knife a little tighter to my neck. If my skin was normal it would have probably started to cut me, though not very deeply. She seemed too busy being paranoid to notice I wasn''t bleeding.


    "You expect me to believe that you just stumbled onto me? Please, don''t be ridiculous. Now, tell me how you tracked me down!"


    "Alright, I think that''s enough," I said, reaching up to touch her hand, my arm encased in my armor.


    When I grabbed her arm she attempted to cut my throat as she pulled away, the knife dragging against my enhanced skin. I could see Bill''s eyes going even wider somehow as I reached out to snag her wrist before she could get too far. Unfortunately, her arm passed right through mine, splitting into half a dozen faded versions of herself as she stepped back, the different versions of her coalescing back into one form. As I turned to face her I got my first look at her, her posture making her look confused, clearly having expected me to be bleeding profusely at this point.


    She was dressed in a white, full-body tactical suit, with armored tes and a multi-eyed mask, the sensors glowing red as she tilted her head in confusion before splintering into a dozen forms, all of them shouting at me as she charged. As all of her forms ran at me from slightly different angles, my armor formed up around me, finishing around my dominant hand just in time to catch the knife and yank it away from her. I carded the knife even as my other hand reached out and tried to grab her again, my fingers already sparking with electricity to stun her.


    Instead, she spun away, only one of her immaterial forms actually where I was grabbing. I kept my eyes locked on her main grouping, however, and easily pivoted, adding a quick hop to stay in front of her. I wanted her attention on me, because as long as she was attacking me she wasn''t attacking Tony or running away. Even as I moved much faster than a normal human could, she managed tosh out with a kick that caught me square in the stomach.


    Somehow, for some reason, her quantum-based issues had given her some sort of enhanced strength, because as all of her forms came together for her attack and I was lifted off of my feet and sent back into the main room. She vanished from view for a full five seconds, even as I managed tond on my feet, now in some sort of sitting area. To one side was the beginnings of some sort of containment cell, with all sorts of equipment ced around the room.


    I needed to wait for the perfect opening, as I knew that she was bing solid each time she wanted to hit me. She would be physical enough to hit, so I could take her down as long as I was ready. I still needed to be careful though, because from what Bill had told us, some of her erratic behavior wasn''t entirely her fault. I-


    She appeared again directly in front of me, popping into existence suddenly as if she had always been there. She attempt to punch me across the jaw, but this time I knew better than to just take it. She wasn''t nearly as strong as Thor, but she had already shown creative use of her ability, I wasn''t going to take any chances.


    I caught her punch easily and immediately activated my taze fingers, sending a st of electricity down her arm. She shouted and phased out and away, appearing again in a moment about six feet away, her arm hanging uselessly, obviously in distress.


    Not wanting to give her a chance to recover I spread my wings and leaped forward, using a single p to enhance my jump speed and also stop, not wanting to leave her a smear on the ground. I crossed the distance almost instantly, grabbing her face and tearing off her mask, which I crumpled and dropped to the ground.


    She split apart and disappear again, reappearing behind me, scowling heavily as she flexed her arm.


    "Do you have any idea what you just doomed me to?! This suit is the only thing keeping me alive! I-"


    I turned and pushed one of the Hulk-rated calmingsers into my hand, pointing it at her face. Instantly she was asleep, hitting the ground in a crumpled pile.


    "Huhnote to self, equipe research security with knock-outsers," I said to myself. "Should have seen thating."


    Bill rushed over to check up on her, checking her pulse and moving her into a morefortable position. When he was certain that she was alright he stood, shaking his head.


    "I I didn''t think she would react that poorly, but you have to understand, she is in near constant pain," He exined. "Please, try and understand"


    "It''s fine, I mean I''m not just gonna let her go after we are done, we need to verify that she isn''t a threat to anyone, but I get it."


    Together we moved her from the floor to a nearby couch,ying her down gently before I summoned the all-purpose scanner built into my armor. A quick scan showed that much of her mental instabilities were caused by the quantum energies she had been exposed to creating instabilities in her neural chemistry, but there was also quite a bit of trauma from her Shield or Hydra training.


    Once I scanned her Tony handed me his amulet, which I fixed around her neck. I scanned her again after waiting a few minutes. The good news was that the damage the quantum energy had caused was healed, the bad news was that she was still quantum instability was still there, meaning the damage would reur eventually. She would still be in near constant pain, slowly dying as the instability slowly tore her from our phase of reality permanently, scattering her across multiple quantum phases. The amulet was fixing the damage, but couldn''t touch the source.


    "So what now?" Tony asked, reading the scanner over my shoulder.


    "Now we try mixing in some of the stuff he was using to help her to build her a containment room," I said, gesturing to the framework that was half built a few dozen feet away. "If that doesn''t work I have another option, I''m pretty sure they will be able to help."


    If there was anyone who could solve this, I was pretty sure the Ancient One could. They specialized in dimensional energies after all, and I could only assume that this quantum dimension would fall under that purview. It was just a guess though, which is why I wasn''t bringing her to them now.


    Tony and I spent a half hour going over the parts that Ava and Bill had gathered, or rather stolen, to put together her containment chamber. We picked a handful of them, copied them a few times with a UCM, andbined them together with a few magic rods, a few divine essences, and a dozen healing amulets. The result was a ne that, once put around Ava''s neck,pletely fixed her problem, permanently stabilizing her quantum state. She was now a baseline human, but she also wasn''t slowly being torn apart by exotic energies either. I doubt I would ever have a use for it again, but I stored the new amulet in my cab of tricks anyway, after running Ava through a few scans to make sure the problem didn''t return.


    When the fourth scan over an hour showed no change, Bill wanted to wake her up, but I stopped him.


    "I understand that there are some pretty intense extenuating circumstances," I said, digging through my cab. "But I''m not willing to just let her go free. I''m not going to lock her up or anything like that, but I need assurances that she isn''t going backslide and go on a rampage, or spontaneously regain her connection to the quantum energy source."


    I pulled out a copy of the restraints that I had made for Loki, which I had since improved and made better suited for human use. I tossed them to Tony, before using my pocket knife to cut the suit off of Ava''s left arm. Once I had cut through I pulled off the sleeve, armor tes and all, before locking the restraints onto her. The bands and wires shrunk perfectly to her skin, locking themselves around her.


    "Alright, now you can wake her up."


    "What is that?" He asked, looking at me with a furrowed brow before getting closer to Ava.


    "They are restraints that can teleport her to me, put her to sleep, shock her like a taser, make her easier to handle, prevent her from lying, the whole shebang," I exined, looking at the control unit for the restraint, making sure everything was off save its automatic functions. "The first two of those will activate if she tries to seriously harm anyone in anything other than self-defense. It''s also impossible to remove."


    The next hour was filled with a lot of emotions, starting with anger and eventually shifting toward happiness. Ava was grateful that we had healed her but annoyed that I had locked the restraints on her. Eventually, after a long discussion, Iid out the bottom line.


    "Look, I know it sucks, but your history, recent and past, is just too much for me to just wave as you leave. Since you haven''t killed anyone since escaping Shield, you have two options. One, you can just disappear. I won''t stop you, and I won''te after you. Move somewhere quiet or find someone willing to pay for your expertise, I don''t really care. But the restraining bands are going to stay on you forever, in case you backslide," I exined, Ava scowling slightly in response. "Or you can stick around. You obviously have some sort of bond with Bill, soe with him, assuming he is still interested in the job"


    I turned to Bill who seemed more than a bit dazed by thest few hours. When he figured out what I was asking he nodded slowly.


    "Yes, I would like that. Helping Ava was my primary drive for the past few years, but I would enjoy trying to Well honestly, I would like to attempt and crack the Pym Particle."


    Internally I sighed, but outwardly I nodded.


    "That''s a conversation for another day, but I''m d to hear you are interested in joining us," I said with a smile, before looking back at Ava. "If you stay with Bill, and more specifically around us, we could find you something to do, maybe a role in security or maybe you could find a way to follow in your father''s footsteps in quantum research. Either way, if you around me and others, I would eventually feel better about removing the bands."


    She seemed to internally debate it for a while, staring down Tony and me for a full thirty seconds before speaking.


    "And you won''t sell me out to Shield?"


    "No. Shield and I have our projects, and I am working hard to maintain a working rtionship with them, but they have no jurisdiction over the research base."


    Both Bill and Ava gave me odd looks at the mention of jurisdiction, and I simply smiled.


    "On that note, how would you like to see where our research base is located?"


    [center]-[/center]


    Over the next few days, Tony and I made trips to a few more high-profile researchers, engineers, and inventors, recruiting quite a few of them. During that time Tony released the date for a press conference, in which both of us would announce the project. It would essentially be an open house for the media to interview and experience part of the research base. After that, we would begin the process of moving those who would be living on the moon, as well as getting the scientists started with their own projects.


    Pepper assured me there would be a lot of meetings, a lot of handshakings, and a whole lot of picture-taking. She also admitted she wasn''t exactly sure how the government would immediately react, and that we should be ready for some interested parties looking to ask some serious questions.


    Of course, this nearly sent me into a spiraling panic. It was hard to really count the number of times "the government" was pinned as the bad guy in the Marvel universes. Ignoring the catastrophe of the Civil War registration, the treatment of Marvel mutants in general was enough to make me paranoid. To keep myself from spinning into full-blown paranoid panic I used my tried and true coping mechanism, making sure I was prepared for everything.


    After getting Tony''s permission I spent a day with the building modifier, which I pumped up with Uru, divine essence, and whatever tools Odin had sent me home with, improving Stark Tower to a frankly insane degree. When I was finally done, I was satisfied that it would be the safest ce on the. I was pretty sure that if the Earth was destroyed, the tower and the people in it would be perfectly safe. Though at this point most of the buildings I built would be capable of that. The important part was that by the end of the week the tower would be safe, especially with all the specially designed security measures that were already being installed.


    With our ess point hardened to the point that I was no longer worried about it, I decided it was time to protect the moon. My shield dome for Earth was on hold until the WSC was done producing their contribution, but I had no such constraints on the moon. A dayter and I had three dozen UCMs printing out finished, unrestricted versions of my shield satellites that would epass the moon, all of them modified versions of what would protect Earth. Not only were these versions near indestructible, but they also contained stealth emitters to keep them invisible. The Earth satellites would have these emitters as well, but I was worried about adding that function before it they wereplete.


    This project was now both a proof of concept and an actual worthwhile endeavor to test its functionality. It would take just over three days for the system to fully saturate the space around the moon, but each satellite was automatically added to a control system in my special bunker, before it flew up off the surface of the moon and into space, locking itself in a precise position.


    With those projects locked down and progressing well, I was finally able to have a few days off to myself. I spent it rxing and preparing for the next day, my second date with Natasha. I had already picked a bowling alley, settling on a location that was on the west coast. It was a bowling alley that was big enough to have all the amenities without having to worry about any of the crowds and wasn''t too far from anding pad.


    I also spent a few hours setting up the after-date special, letting that project finish itself as well. The next day I made my way down to her apartment, meeting her on the roof. I dropped my stealth field just as I wasnding and Natasha was stepping out from the roof ess and into the afternoon light.


    With a smile, she walked across the roof and gave me a hug, which I returned happily. When she stepped back her outfit shifted into something casual but nice, a dark green jacket with a ck blouse underneath, her pants shifting into jeans and running shoes.


    "SoBowling?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. "Am I going to be dealing with a ringer or?"


    "Well Ordinarily, I would say no, I don''t y it enough to be any good. But with all my enhancements that might not matter," I admitted with a frown. "I honestly hadn''t thought that through"


    "It''s fine, I think I can hold back mypetitiveness for some friendly bowling," She said with a smirk, before reaching out and taking my hand. "So, ready to go?"


    I quickly flicked out anding pad onto the roof, before nodding with a smile. With that I traveled us away, leaving the rooftop empty again.

 Chapter 113: Lets go bowling!

    Chapter 113: Let''s go bowling!


    Wended about a twenty-minute drive from the bowling alley. We could have flown there, but I figured it was a bit less conspicuous to show up in a truck than to appear from nowhere. Besides, there was nothing wrong with a nice slow drive through a small town. I pushed out my normal truck, which was not only fully repaired outside and inside but also now contained some inconspicuous enhancements, just in case. We both climbed in and I pulled us out of the parking lot that thending pad was close to.


    "What happened to Big Green?" Natasha asked, buckling up as I pulled out into the road. "Do you still have it?"


    "You mean the super truck?" I asked, looking over the redhead, Natasha nodding in confirmation. "That''s as good a name as anything I guess. Yeah, I still have it, but I don''t keep it in the Deck anymore. I''ve learned a lot about how the Deck works since the early days, which kind of made it obsolete. Plus I''ve gotten my hands on much better ingredients since then."


    I pulled out onto a main road, which was pretty empty all things considered. It might have been early evening on the east coast, but people were still working on the west coast.


    "Like what?" Natasha asked, her eyes following buildings as we drove past.


    "Well For one, trying to make something that can do everything can make some interesting things, but specializing is how you make truly powerful creations. The super truck-"


    "Big Green."


    "Big Green is better than basically anything on the market in every way, to a significant degree, but I easily built a faster car bybining just a few fast cars and fast car parts," I exined. "Plus I learned a lot about enhancing parts themselves, rather thanbining whole things together."


    We continued to chat as I drove, the topics changing naturally, both of us makingfortable small talk until I parked the car in front of the bowling alley. The parking lot was mostly empty save for a few cars along the far end, which was a good sign. I stepped out and waited for Natasha, who hooked her arm in mine.


    We headed inside, looking around the building as we entered the darker interior. It was clean and well maintained, and while it was mostly empty, there were still a few people on thenes, as well as staff at the front desk. I could hear the sounds of an arcade, which came into view from around the corner as we got to the front desk.


    We talked to the front clerk, paying for the day. When they asked what size shoe we were, both Natasha and I assured him we were already wearing bowling shoes, both of us shifting our normal shoes into bowling shoes as they came around to check. After confirming that we did bring our own they let us through, thanking us and wishing us a fun time.


    "It''s been a while since I''ve been to one of these," I admitted as I started the score-countingputer up, marking our names on it. "Before my parents passed, at least."


    "It''s been longer for me. I remember" She trailed off, her eyes moving as if experiencing a memory. "Well, not for a while."


    Not for the first time I wondered what Natasha''s history was truly like. I assumed that there would be some simrities to theic book version, but most of it had to be different, considering how young she was here.


    I put my hand on hers and gave it a gentle squeeze before I stood and looked down the alley.


    "So do you want to go first?"


    We spent the next hour or so bowling, quickly finding that I had been correct. With all my enhancements it was difficult for me to bowl anything short of a strike when I was focused. Unfortunately for me, Natasha quickly realized that and went out of her way to distract me, especially toward the end of the second game and into the third.


    I ended up winning our first game handily, winning the second game by a much shorter margin, and shockingly losing the third. I could also feel myself blushing, as Natasha''s outfit had shifted subtly several times during thest round, and she had developed a verbal tic that had almost resulted in me putting a bowling ball through the ceiling. She couldn''t help butugh when we finally finished but apologized for her underhanded tactics by kissing my cheek.


    After the third round of bowling, we headed into the arcade. I had noticed on a bathroom break that there was an entire section of about ten pinball machines, which I had always loved. At first, I was pretty sure Natasha was just humoring me, but after I challenged her to beat my high score she seemed to be enjoying herself. We took turns back and forth, though, to Natasha''s frustration, she never came close to beating me. I made a mental note to add an arcade to the research center. After spending about a hundred quarters we left, hopping back into the truck and leaving for dinner.


    A short driveter and we both had subs from a well-rated sub shop and arge bucket of fries to share, which we happily ate on a bench overlooking arge park.


    "People watching must be a totally different thing for someone with your training," Imented after a woman walked past, walking her dog.


    "Your not wrong," She said with a smile. "But it''s not exactly difficult, you could learn most of the tactics we use. It''s just about using your head and spotting patterns."


    "What do you mean?"


    "Well like that guy, over there," She said, nodding to a guy sitting on a distant bench, reading a book. "He is killing time, waiting for something or someone, and they are probablyte"


    "How could you possibly know that?"


    "He keeps checking his phone and looking around," She pointed out, and sure enough he pulled out his phone and looked at the screen, putting it away right after. "And it''s been getting more and more frequent for thest fifteen minutes."


    "Huh alright, not thatplicated I guess."


    We spent the next forty minutes finishing our food and people-watching. I would make a strange and frequently outrageous guess, and Natasha would follow it up with a much more realistic assertion. I definitely didn''t use some of Marvelics'' stranger backstories for a fewic book characters as creative inspiration. When we were done eating Natasha slid closer and leaned against me, her head on my shoulder. Eventually, she changed the subject from people watching.


    "Alright, so what is the surprise?" She asked, pressing closer as I put my arm around her. "Not that I haven''t been having fun, because this had been great."


    "Well I don''t want to spoil the surprise, do I?" I asked. "We just need to go somece I can travel us."


    "... Maybe in a few minutes." She said after a long pause. "I find myself unwilling to get up."


    I couldn''t help but chuckle as we rxed, sitting together on the bench. We enjoyed each otherpany for a while longer before we finally got up and left, heading to a secluded corner where I traveled us away.


    Our final destination was the same location that we had used for the flying trip, therge shooting and testing range that Tony had helped me purchase. It was in the middle of nowhere, which was handy when I used a dozen LPM''s to turn it into a massive racetrack. The outside ring, which wasn''t really a ring but a massive loop of asphalt that was filled with turns and angles, surrounded an internal offroad race track, with bumps, hills, and outside track was just under a mile and a half long, while the inside track was just under a mile. From where wended you could only see a short bit of the track, however.


    "Wait Really?" Natasha asked, peering down the track. "A racetrack? That was definitely not herest time."


    "You sure? It would be easy to miss that much asphalt, wouldn''t it?" I responded teasingly, before chuckling and shaking my head. "No, I built it yesterday."


    "Ridiculous, that you can just do things like that," Natasha said, shaking her head in disbelief. "So what will we be driving?"


    "Well, during my time away I experimented a bit with cars, beyond Big Green, to see how far I could push certain aspects." I exined, turning back and making my way to the garages.


    Natasha followed behind me as I made my way to the first garage, tapping on a security panel, therge doors opening in sync. Inside were two pairs of two different cars, as well as two pairs of two different motorcycles. All of them were conceptually crafted, meaning they didn''t match any normal car precisely.


    "These are the results of those experiments. I''ve kept adding to them as I went along, so they are the best I could get without starting to push the boundaries for what could be considered a ground vehicle."


    The first pair were reminiscent of a ssic Mustang, with a dash of Bugatti Veyron, because those cars were the primary bases, and where they received most of their general parts. When I was crafting the original I was focused on pure eleration and speed, working in as many enhancements to that effect as I could find. Its paint job was white, with a thick red stripe that ran from front to back along the entire car. Dark red lighting leaked out of the seams in its body, and glowed against the ground, which I knew grew brighter, but was still somehow dark as the car moved faster. I was pretty sure the glow came from some of the more esoteric additions I added to the engine system,bined with the arc reactors I used. It had plenty of extra upgrades, including handling and durability, but overall it was a speed demon.


    The second pair of cars were all about handling, and looked very simr to a modern Porsche 911, though they were a bit less back-heavy. They were painted navy blue, which faded to a lighter shade by the back base, the color shifting subtly as you walked around them. These cars were only slightly faster than Big Green, but they could weave and maneuver in ways that had required some intense problem-solving. Its tires gripped so well that I needed to add a system simr to what I used to make artificial gravity in my ships, to prevent people from getting light-headed when they turned. It could, after all, make a hairpin turn at full speed. It required precise reflexes to drive properly and was a lot to get used to.


    The motorcycles were pretty self-exnatory. One was clearly a derivative of a dirt bike, with just a bit of extra bulk around the seat. It was designed to be an off-road vehicle, something that would make driving on bumpy, uneven terrain easy.


    The other bike was a road bike, built to go as fast and be as maneuverable as possible. Because of its duel specialization, it was slightly slower than my enhanced muscle car and slightly less maneuverable than my sports car, but still blew any other motorcycles of simr, normal design out of the water.


    As I exined all this to Natasha, doing my best not to brag, she walked around both cars, before looking inside the muscle car. When she looked up at me I flicked out a card, a set of keys appearing halfway across the gap. She caught them easily.


    "How dangerous is driving these?" She asked, looking up and down the muscle car. "I''m tougher, thanks to your tattoo, but that only goes so far"


    "They all have enhanced safety features that will keep you safe," I assured her, walking to the other muscle car. "I tested them myself, mmed into a massive block of steel at max speed. I barely even felt it."


    That protection had only gotten better since Ist tried it as well after I worked in a few dozen divine essence crystals into each vehicle. I''m pretty sure these cars would save their passengers from a meteoric reentry from space. And look good while doing it.


    "...Alright." She said, now grinning eagerly.


    She quickly got into the car, and I followed suit into mine, rolling down the window, Natasha doing the same.


    "Just remember, the muscle car maneuvers better than any supercar you''ve ever driven, but its speed still needs to be taken into ount," I exined. "Probably best to start slow and-"


    Natasha started her car up, the engine roaring, despite the fact that it didn''t run on gas or anything for that matter. She looked over at me and winked, before hitting the elerator and taking off, peeling out of the garage and turning onto the racetrack proper, leaving me behind in the dust.


    "God damn that woman is intense," I said, a huge smile on my face.


    I started my car as well, elerating quickly to catch up. The speed this vehicle was capable of was astounding, and both of us were driving on the race track in a blur. Having tested the track previously I could anticipate what wasing up, which let me catch up to Natasha easily by the fifth or sixth turn.


    I followed behind her then, watching her expertly control a car that held more power than anythingmercially avable. There were three straightaways on the track, and both of us were hitting three hundred miles per hour minimum for each one. By the fourthp, I was leaning pretty heavily on my own enhancements to keep up with her. I clicked on themunicators built into the car, so we could chat back and forth. We devolved into light-hearted taunts and teasing shortly after.


    After driving around the track for a while we switched vehicles. She was grinning like mad when she climbed out of the muscle car, quickly climbing into the sports car and peeling away. She taunted me to keep up with themunicator, and I quickly followed behind. I was grinning as I pulled out to follow.


    I had a feeling as we drove that this car wasn''t going tost long, mostly because I was pretty sure Natasha was very much underestimating just how sharp these cars could turn. Sure enough, on the third turn she executed a perfect, textbook drifting turn failing to ount for the enhanced grip. Instead, she overturned and lost control. She plowed right into the treeline that ran along the interior of the track, smashing through the trees, the car tumbling a few times before it mmed into arge dirt berm that was part of the interior off-road track.


    I chuckled and shook my head, mming on the brakes, my car going from almost a hundred and fifty miles an hour to zero in only a dozen or so feet. I climbed out of the car and started making my way to her wreck, noticing that she was already moving around inside. As I got closer I pulled my armor around myself, using my strength to pull the twisted car apart.


    "See, told you you would be fine," I said, helping her out, my armor fading out from around me.


    "Uh yeah. That was the easiest crash I''ve ever been in," She admitted, turning back to look at the wreck. "Damn.,."


    I handed her my keys, smirking as she looked up at me.


    "Get back on the horse, right?"


    She smacked my chest but took the keys. I did catch a hint of a smile as we both climbed back into my car.


    We spent the rest of the sunlight driving around, eventually switching to the motorcycles, which Natasha loved. I wasn''t the biggest fan of them, I could never get over how close you were to the ground, despite the fact that at this point I would probably do more damage to the ground than it would do to me.


    When we eventually finished, and the sun was starting to set, I took Natasha back to her apartment roof. There I invited her to Tony''s unveiling. I could tell she desperately wanted to ask more questions about the event, but she held back and agreed to be my plus one.


    When it was finally time to go, I leaned in and gave her a quick kiss, which she happily returned. Before long I was flying away, circling the city with a smile on my face.

 Chapter 114: Among the stars

    Chapter 114: Among the stars


    Just as before, it was hard to fight back my smiles the next day. I was having a lot of fun spending time with Natasha, and from what I could tell the feeling was mutual. I did my best to temper my expectations, but I was feeling hopeful. I just hoped she didn''t get to annoyed about me keeping the research base from her.


    I was happy that our dates seemed to be going well, or at least that the ns had been fun and interesting. Nothing sucked quite like a dud date after all. Her crashing on the racetrack had been startling for her, but she had quickly gotten over it. She refused to let it keep her down for longer than it took for her to catch her breath. It had been shocking to see just how fast she wasfortable pushing the motorcycle once we had moved on to them.


    We had already agreed to a third date, but Natasha had insisted that it was her turn to n it out, assuring me that even if she couldn''t do everything I could that she was perfectly capable of keeping up our streak of starting without with a normal date and ending with something strange and out there. I happily agreed and was already wondering what she had in mind.


    The next few days were spent waiting for the research group conference and keeping myself busy around the warehouse. I worked on a few side projects, including a few of my smaller ideas to help people that was as disconnected as possible from the Conceptual Deck, a difficult task when I was using the Deck to make everything. I also kept the gradual deployment of the lunar shield system under observation, checking up on the control panel frequently to make sure the cement of the shield system was on track.


    When the satellite system was finally finished, Ema and I spent some time testing it. The first activation was a little tense but wentpletely as nned, with the satellites projecting an energy barrierpletely around the moon. Luckily, Ema had pointed out that a glowing dome of energy suddenly encircling the moon probably wouldn''t go unnoticed for very long, so I added in a control function for what the shield looked like, the Wakandan cloaking tech sliding in perfectly into ce. The result was a shield that could look however I wanted, whether it was see-through or polka dotted.


    After the initial testing went well, Ema and I barraged the far side if the moon with the <em>Void Skipper</em>, hammering it with its load out, all while keeping a close eye on the shields metrics. At a full, constant barrage, intermittently boosted by the Tesseract, the shield dropped at a hriously slow rate. Even that became pointless, as with a few taps on the satellite controls the system began to spin, shifting around the moon to allow the load to be even further spread around the system. Between that ability, and the fact that the Earth''s system would be massively over-saturated by satellites meant that I was pretty confident in the new systems.


    Whoever came knocking on our door was going to get a pretty big surprise when their weapons did nothing against the shield.


    To bring the lunar system to the same general levels of strength as the eventual Earth system, I programmed a few UCMs to double the number of satellites around the moon. Eventually, I woulde up with a system to auto-deploy recements if a satellite was damaged or overloaded, but for now, I was focused on just getting it up and running.


    The Earth system was getting closer and closer to being a reality, as the WSC insisted that their contribution to the satellite was almostplete. It was obvious they were worried I was getting impatient because they invited me toe to check out their progress for myself. The satellite was a simple cylinder with a red bottom that, measured about five feet tall and four feet wide around the at its widest. It didn''t look like anything special, but I took a few samples of the materials and parts they were using and they did hold a sort of nned failure concept, simr to what I could feel from specific parts that existed around crumple zones in cars.


    I didn''t stay long after that, but I was assured they would be done in the next week. They also let me keep some of the materials, which I would probably end up using to make sure the satellites kept the "ability" to break upon impact, even as I added and mixed things in with them.


    When the press conference and reveal event finally came around, I was excited and eager to get started. The Earth defense fleet and the shield system were both firmly in the WSC court, which meant I was free enough to take care of everything the research teams would need.


    On the day of the event, Inded on Tony''s personalnding balcony outside his suite in Stark Tower. I had wanted Ema to join me but she had insisted on monitoring security from the research base. Tony greeted us by doors into his personal apartment, already dressed in a suit that simultaneously looked like it was worth about the same as a decent car, but also on the causal end of what was eptable for this kind of event. Pepper, who was waiting with him, was dressed much more professionally.


    "Please tell me you have a change of clothes?" She asked as she looked at my very casual outfit.


    "Nope!" I said with a grin, before shifting my outfit into a burgundy suit, tie, and cks, with a ck undershirt and ck dress shoes. "How''s this?"


    For a long moment, Pepper was silent, looking me up and down before shaking her head.


    "Make it a little brighter," She said, nodding when I changed the color. "Perfect. And in case you''re curious, my birthday is February tenth."


    "I wouldn''t make you wait if you wanted one, Pepper, but Ema curses me for giving her one" I responded with a chagrined shrug. "She ims that it ruins shopping for her, which was something she enjoyed doing before I gave it to her."


    We continued to make small talk for a while, with Pepper exining what the schedule for the event was. When she mentioned that I should leave any issues to security, unless it was a serious, dangerous threat, I brought up Natasha.


    "About that. I invited Natasha as my plus one, and she-"


    "Natasha? Superspy, ck Widow, Shield cronie Natasha?" Tony asked, his eyes wide. "Why the hell would you do that?"


    "We''ve gone on a few dates and-"


    "Really? Are you sure-"


    "Yes Tony, don''t forget I can tell when people are lying." I pointed out, the older man nodding reluctantly.


    "I''ll let security know, not that we were going to keep her out. Someone will guide her in when she shows up." Pepper said with a smile, giving tony a look. "It''s not like we didn''t know Shield would be here. We invited people from the WSC after all."


    We headed down to the primary terminal, which was done up with decorations and tables, with catering and serving staff running around making the final preparations. At the moment the majority of the room was clear, but at some point, most of the space would be taken up with chairs, which for now were folded and stored somewhere else. There was a raised temporary tform, which was backed by arge arch, which for the most part looked decorative, though it was anything but. It was arger version of the portal doorways, and once activated would connect to a duplicate located in the research base park.


    Since this was a press event, Pepper had suggested that stepping out into a dome, with space and the surface of the moon easily visible, would make a much bigger statement the appearing inside the normal security checkpoints. Since I had long since stopped worrying about wasting resources, I made a portal that was big enough for an entire crowd to fit through. What''s more, about halfway through building it I realized how useful it might be to have ess to arge portal connecting the Earth to the moon, so I made it copsable and stuck several versions of the in secure storage, easily essible on the moon, but only essible to several trustworthy people on Earth.


    Not long after Pepper finished exining the general schedule for the event, people started to trickle in. I recognized more people than I thought I would, with several of the scientists I helped recruit mingling around.


    There were also more than a few dozen people representing magazines, newspapers, and news sites, all of them wearing press badges. There were also a few people I recognized from the WSC, as well as all branches of the US military. Councilwoman Hartford gave me a nod in acknowledgment when our eyes met, and Director Fury gave me a re as if he already knew the bomb we were about to drop.


    I mingled as best I could, sharing the excitement with those who knew what was going on and doing my best to avoid those who clearly wanted to know more. Luckily the press had no idea who I was, which meant they more or less left me alone. I did spend a while talking to Bill Foster, Jane Foster, and Thor, who was currently dressed in normal earth clothes. The two scientists talked rather animatedly about their areas of expertise while Thor and I tried to keep up. Thor, at least, could asionally identify some of the phenomena that they were discussing, though his responses usually had something to do with magic of some kind. Luckily Bill had taken the existence of magic in stride, exining that after experiencing Pym Particles and what they did to the generally eptedws of physics, the existence of magic wasn''t thatrge of a leap.


    "It''s just another avenue of investigation," He said excitedly. "Who knows what magic will say about the forces and phenomena we have been observing but couldn''t exin? I''m very interested in finding out if Pym Particles have a magic equivalent. Perhaps they are a form of magic themselves, and Hank Pym stumbled on them by ident."


    "Pym Particle, what is this?" Thor asked, taking a sip from the mug of beer a server had handed him.


    "It''s a subatomic particle, that interacts with mass and density," Jane exined. "But their creator is infamous in the sciencemunity for refusing to share his findings."


    "I believe I remember my mother casting a spell that turned arge boulder into a small stone." The Asgardian Prince said, thinking deeply. "It had been mysteriously ced in her garden by an unknown, and probably handsome troublemaker, showing off feats of strength to the pretty gardener."


    Jane rolled her eyes and pped Thor''s stomach, the divine alienughing loudly. Bill looked a little confused before finally realizing what Thor had been implying. The older scientist looked noticeably healthier and less stressed, probably because of his ward''s new lease on life. Ava, who had refused to even consider joining us for the event, not that I med her, had decided to stay back for now, and nned to join Bill on the moon in a few weeks. She was alreadying to terms with the likely hood that Hydra had been the one to kidnap and train her. She had eagerly agreed to stick around when I promised to poke and prod Shield until they admitted the truth.


    As I walked around, shook hands, and listened to people try and guess what all of this was about, I kept my eyes peeled for Natasha. She had assured me she wasn''t scheduled to go on any missions and had even guessed that the reason for that was that Fury wanted her to go to the event anyway. I was tempted to ask Fury if he knew where she was but was hesitant to reveal our growing closeness without first asking how much she had already revealed.


    Eventually, the food and tables were cleared and the chairs were brought out. I was tempted to just hang out with the rest of the people in the audience, but I didn''t want to face the wrath of Pepper. Instead, I joined her on the stage, standing beside Tony. It didn''t take long for everyone to take their seats and quiet down after that. As Pepper stood up to the podium, I spotted several cameras already set up, no doubt broadcasting us out. I couldn''t help but internallyment theplete and utter loss of any sort of anonymity. I was on stage with Tony Stark, I wouldn''t be surprised if the people behind the cameras had already figured out who I was.


    Pepper spoke after a moment, going through a short introduction speech. She spoke about the dedication that Stark Industries had to humanitarian efforts, in making the world a better ce. She talked about their efforts in green energy, as well as supporting several nonprofit organizations, before passing the podium off to Tony after mentioning that Stark Industries was happy to support the most ambitious and advanced humanitarian project yet. Tony waved as a camera snapped his picture, trading spot with Pepper confidently.


    "Hello! How are you, good to see you. J, nice to see you''re still working for CNN, Bob, I like the new suit," He said, pointing out to people in the crowd. "The Stark name has been connected to a lot of stuff over thest three decades. Not all of it has been nice, but it has always been on the cutting edge. My father, in his early years, saw technology as a way to fix the world''s problems. Later, as he grew cynical with age, he saw it as a means to solidify, and sometimes force peace. He was determined to supply the right people with the biggest and shiniest sticks he could."


    Everyone was listening closely as Tony spoke, the usually cocky and flippant billionaire catching everyone''s attention. I was pretty sure this was the nicest thing Tony had said about his father in a long time.


    "More recently, I have tried to steer Stark Industries to his original vision. Technology for the future. With the help of Stark Industries'' wonderful CEO, that goal has been rtively sessful," The billionaire hero said, gesturing back to Pepper before continuing. "But there has always been a gap. There is only so much a singlepany, even one as impressive as Stark Industries, can achieve."


    Tony paused for a moment, letting his words sink in before continuing.


    "That is why I am happy to announce a new ce where humanity can develop, research, and create the technology and science of the future. With support from myself, Stark Industries, and my good friend Maker, a creator on par with myself, we have created a ce where the best minds that we have, from every walk of life and nationality, cane together and stretch the limits of human development. Once upon a time, the sky was the limit! But now, together, we will reach for the stars!"


    I subtly flicked out a card, pushing out a small controller and activating it with a single button press. The portal behind Pepper and I hummed before the lines inset around the frame glowed. With a sh of orange energy the portal opened.


    "I happily introduce the Space Technology And Research Station, a lunar base focused on research in all fields, done by the greatest minds of humanity. Here we will forge a better tomorrow, among the S.T.A.R.S.!"


    The audience immediately roiled with questions, cameras shing near constantly, as Tony held his arms out. I could see the shocked expressions of the people in the audience, though I did see Nick Fury, looking at me with his patented re. I couldn''t help but give him a wave and a smile.

 Chapter 115: Peter Parker Interlude

    Chapter 115: Peter Parker Interlude


    Peter Parker stood and made his way to the front door of the apartment, the buzzer for the main entrance ringing periodically. He pressed the inte button to connect it to the buzzer.


    "Hey Peter, it''s Ned! Come down and help me!" The familiar voice of his best friend came through immediately, cutting off any question he might have.


    "Alright, be right down!" He said, a smile on his face as he opened the front door and rushed down the hall and down the two flights of stairs, letting Ned into the apartmentplex.


    Ned was carrying three bags, one filled with snacks, another with drinks, while thest one was carrying a singr box, though its contents were hidden. Peter took the drinks and snacks, which ned handed over gratefully.


    "Thanks, the drinks were cutting off the cirction in my fingers," Ned said, shaking his hand out while Peter started to lead him up the stairs.


    "So what''s in that bag?" Peter asked as he led the way.


    "It''s a surprise," Ned responded, smirking eagerly. "Your gonna love it! It''s something to do while we wait for the press conference to start."


    For weeks now, Ned had been talking about how a newpany that was closely tied to Stark Industries had been hiring more and more people. His friends on the conspiracy theory forums he frequented had been going crazy trying to figure out what it was about. When the news that Tony Stark was organizing a press conference to announce what he had been working on, Ned insisted on a watch party.


    Not that Peter would have argued against it. Junk food, hanging out, and then a video game tournament afterward? What was there not to want? Besides, when Iron Man had something to announce, nerds everywhere tuned in.


    "Did you settle on your prediction?" Ned asked. "I''m still going with Tony announcing a superhero team. We know he was working with another guy in armor at the fair, at least."


    And hadn''t that been a nightmare? Months were spent begging to go and see some of the most advancedpanies in the world and what they were working on, and the whole ce almost blew up! Aunt May hadn''t let him out of her sight for <em>weeks</em>.


    "I''m going with Tony Stark turned them all into vampires, and he is announcing his run for presidency," Peter teased, referring to one of the crazier theories that one of Ned''s online friends had been convinced of. "That or he is a werewolf and he is trying to be the pope."


    Ned groaned as they stepped into the Parker apartment. They both headed for the living room, the TV already on their preferred news agency. Already they had cameras pointed up at the recentlypleted Stark Tower. The anchor was discussing how much extra money Tony Stark paid out of his own funds to get the buildingpleted almost four months early.


    "We have about thirty minutes before the press conference starts," Ned said, checking his watch. "Do you want the pizza rolls now, or while the conference is going on?"


    "Now, it''s easier to watch and eat chips," Peter reasoned seriously, Ned nodding back just as seriously.


    "Good point."


    Ned went into the kitchen to heat up their snack while Peter started clearing off the coffee table. He pulled out the still-cold Code Red Mountain Dew, pulling out one for himself and one for Ned before putting the rest in the fridge.


    When Ned was done, returning with a te of hot, perfectly microwaved pizza rolls, putting the tray down on the coffee table.


    "Ready for the surprise?" He asked, pulling the box out of the bag.


    Ned was clearly excited because he couldn''t wait for a response, instead just pulling off the final covering to reveal a Lego set, arge model of the Millenium Falcon. Peter jumped up and epted the box from Ned, his mouth hanging open.


    "No way! How did you convince mom to buy it?" Peter asked, staring down at the box, and turning it over to look at the back.


    "I convinced her it was a good reward for doing well in school," He exined, taking it back from Peter, sitting down by the coffee table, and starting to unpackage it. "That and I agreed to help her around the house more."


    The two eagerly unpacked and started organizing the Lego set, pre-reading the instruction manual before finishing the pizza rolls, washing their hands, and getting to work. They were half listening to the news anchor as they continued to talk until a quick tone change of the presenter caught their attention fully.


    "We are getting reports that someone has been spotted flying around the top floors of the Tower, we are going live on location, just a short while before the presentation begins."


    The feed changed to a live view of the tower, angled steeply upwards to catch a distant figure flying around the tower beforending on a long stretched balcony. The figure clearly had wings, which pped as they adjusted their angle.


    "We can confirm that the balcony this flying personnded on is attached to the personal suite of Tony Stark," The reporter said, the cameraing down to focus on them. "The winged figure closely matches the description and recordings of the individual seen flying around the tower previously, as well as seen flying around the world at various locations, asionally with another winged individual. Most recently, they were seen with Tony Stark in his Iron Man personal in several locations around the world. Who this winged man is still a mystery, but perhaps we may find out soon."


    The reporter continued to talk before directing the video feedback to the news anchor, who started discussing possibilities. Behind them, older images of the figure began to appear, including one with the second winged, vaguely feminine figure. Meanwhile, Ned smirked smugly.


    "Look who''s prediction is looking more and more likely. We have Iron Man, the simr suit that was fighting alongside him a the fair, and now a winged guy," He said, counting off on his hand. "And don''t forget that armored guy that was jumping between cars in the Big Apple Battle."


    The Big Apple Battle, the title given to the gunfight that started at Shield''s New York headquarters and ended almost a mile away, had been recorded by several people, with dozens of photographs. One particr image of a man leaping between the armored APC and arge green truck of mysterious origin had been on every newswork and site for days.


    "Nobody has seen him or the truck for a while," Peter responded. "He''s been gone for months at this point."


    "Doesn''t mean he isn''t still around," Ned countered. "Maybe it''s just a slow couple of months."


    They chatted and continued potting together the Lego model, Peter reluctantly agreed that while Ned''s theory was still totally wrong, it was looking slightly more likely than it had before. After a few minutes of listening, Ned looked over at Peter.


    "So how is Aunt May?"


    Peter was quiet for a moment before he shrugged.


    "She is busy. Like really busy," He said, letting out a long breath. "Between themunity center, trying to raise money for her project, and Uncle Ben in the hospital, she is running around a lot."


    "How is he?"


    "Good, still recovering. He got really lucky, but he still got shot. Just because by some miracle he survived doesn''t mean the road to recovery isn''t going to be hard. But he is awake, and apparently, the new job he got didn''t let him go, even though he won''t be able to work for a while, which means his new insurance is covering everything and then some."


    "They still haven''t said what his new job is?"


    "No, Uncle Ben was going to but after the shooting Aunt May assumed they would just let him go."


    The two sat quietly for a while, focusing on the project in front of them. About twenty minutester, when the press conference finally started both of the boys took a break from the building and sat on the couch, watching the conference start.


    The news camera panned around the slowly settling crowd, which was made up of quite a few people. There were people in military uniforms and, people in suits and ties, as well as a whole lot of reporters.


    "Hey, I recognize him, that''s Erik Selvig, I have he signed my copy of his book on rtivistic energies." Peter said. "Who is the beefcake he is sitting next to?"


    "And the woman next to him?" Ned added, focused on the beautiful woman next to the broad-shouldered, muscr blonde.


    "That might be Jane Foster. I''ve never seen her picture before, but I know she works with Erik Selvig a lot, he is her mentor."


    When the crowd eventually settled, Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries stepped forward and began her speech. Peter had seen her speak before, a few times during events and announcements for Stark Industries. She had a way of being personable but still professional and formal, despite the fact that many would consider that paradoxical.


    This time she was talking about Stark Industries and their many charities, even mentioning one that Peter had heard of before as Aunt May had been petitioning them for support for hertest project. When she was done, she stepped aside and let Tony step up to the podium.


    "Who is that guy?" Ned asked, referring to the man standing on the raised tform. "Do you think that it''s the flying guy?"


    Peter shrugged at his question, still focused on the screen, waiting for Tony Stark to start. The billionaire''s speech was a lot more casual to start off than Pepper Pott''s had been, teasing the reporters and acknowledging that he spent a lot of time with the press while making a joke. Peter couldn''t help but wonder whether his confidence in front of all these people was a learned skill or if he was just born that confident.


    As Tony Stark talked, his casual tone faded to a more serious one as he talked about hispany, his father, and his father''s legacy. It brought back thoughts of his own parents and what their legacy could have been. Not for the first time, Peter wondered what kind of people they were and what they would think of him.


    Ned started to say something about the person that Stark introduced as Maker, but he quickly fell silent as Tony kept talking.


    <em>"Once upon a time, the sky was the limit! But now, together, we will reach for the stars!</em>


    Behind the genius inventor, therge archway that Peter had mistaken for a fancy decoration started to glow, carved lines and shapes, almost like runes, lighting up along the matte bronze arch. When the light of each side met at the highest point of the arch, the space inside it all but exploded with orange energy, before it shimmered, the entire space was reced with a new view. It was a park of some kind, with a ck sky that was hard to make out.


    <em>"I happily introduce the Space Technology and Research Station, a lunar base focused on research in all fields, done by the greatest minds of humanity. Here we will forge a better tomorrow among the S.T.A.R.S.!"</em>


    Stark paused, the loud shouting and shing of cameras making it temporarily impossible for him to be heard. When the questions kepting, the volume didn''t decrease. It took minutes for the crowd to finally die down, though there was still plenty of talking.


    <em>"STARS will strive to improve human existence in every aspect, with advancement in medicine, engineering, chemistry, biology, and everything in between. Built with state-of-the-art facilities, our scientists will have ess to everything they could possibly need to strive in their field, to solve the greatest problems of our generation, of the next generation, and even those of the generation before us." </em>


    Tony continued to talk, his voice somehow cutting through the mor. He looked at the people sitting in front of him before focusing on the camera for a moment, winking once and continuing.


    <em>"STARS will work closely with Stark Industries and other manufacturers, making sure that our solutions are distributed to humanity in ways that are affordable and fair. We are here to help, to further humanity, and stand proud while doing it. Already our scientists have ns to tackle global warming, the energy crisis, the avability of food to those who struggle financially and some of the dangerous diseases and illnesses that curse us."</em>


    The billionaire inventor kept talking before concluding the first part of the introduction, promising to answer questions during the second half. The camera cut back to the news anchor, who, at first, said nothing. After a moment, they seemed to recover enough to simply regurgitate what had just been exined, discussing what Tony Stark could have possibly meant by a lunar base. They promised that the conference would return shortly.


    "That" Ned said, still staring at the TV.


    "Yeah"


    "He said."


    "Mhmm"


    "Damn."


    Peter and Ned sat in the living room in rtive silence, their food, drinks, and Lego modelpletely forgotten. When Aunt May eventually returned home an hour or soter, they were still there, watching the news roll in.<hr>


    Just a quick reminder that I have a Pa_tre_on. (under MetaBettaOmegaLetta) My board members, the seven-dor tier, actually picked Peter Parker as the subject of this interlude. They also get six fanfiction chapters early, and five chapters a month of my original book. If you''re interested in showing your support, stop by! Every bit helps!

 Chapter 116: Call for help

    Chapter 116: Call for help


    The next hour or so was a blur. Tony kept talking, exining just what STARS was and where it was located. There was a lot of scoffing and shaking of heads in the crowds, but when Tony and I eventually started leading people through the portal, their disbelief slowly shifted to awe and disbelief. After we guided the first group we had to lead them further away from the portal, as most of them immediately stopped and stared up at the ceiling with wide, disbelieving eyes.


    Slowly but surely the guest transferred from Earth to the Moon, settling in a new set of chairs, this one facing a new temporary podium with Earth floating behind as the backdrop.


    Once everyone had crossed from the terminal into the STARS park, Tony and I began answering questions. To keep things simple and to keep from overwhelming the public, I kept the exnations of my own creations as scientific as possible. The existence of magic, as well as my own brand of bullshit, would trickle down eventually, but now was not the time to try and get everyone on the same page.


    The questions were mostly directed at Tony, at first at least, and those were slow as the crowd took a while to really build up and break through the utter shock and awe that everyone not in the know was feeling. The most seasoned of the reporters started first, asking simple, almost automatic questions before they could get their brains into full gear. Once the tempo was set, however, a deluge of questions came forth. Many of the questions boiled down to "how?" and while Tony fielded some of those questions, he also passed most of them to me.


    "The primary driving force behind making all of this possible was the creation of a certain few advancements," I exined, answering a male reporter''s question. "The most important of which you all utilized moments ago. The ability to travel between the Earth and the Moon reliably, with little dy and extreme reliability was key to this whole process. A few other advancements, such as machines that could reliably build structures without human input, artificial gravity generators, and efficient life support systems were also important, but more from a cost-effectiveness standpoint than anything else."


    "And who exactly is responsible for these advancements?" Another reporter asked, notably out of turn, as Tony had been pointing to people with their hands raised.


    "Anderson,e on, you know better than that," Tony said, shaking his head. "I will answer your question, but you''re lost your next turn as well. Carson has a unique ability tobine and connect technology in ways many people miss. Sometimes it''s almost like magic. He is responsible for many of the major advancements that made STARS possible. My job has been to fill in the gaps and help with funding."


    The questions continued, reporters wanting to know what kinds of specific research we would be conducting, how our findings would be presented to the world, and how we would be financing the research. Pepper piped in for a lot of those questions, while Tony covered the rest.


    Quite a few questions were asked about the base itself, and what a fully functioning lunarmunity would mean for the rest of the Earth. Tony assured the audience that we were more than willing to discuss lunar research with any group that spoke to us, as long as the research was kept neutral and did not involve weapons. He joked that he had specifically left his phone in his room because he was sure NASA would be trying to reach him already.


    Eventually, the question and answer section of the event came to a close, and people dispersed to walk around the park. Most news agencies quickly moved their cameras along the edge of the dome to get footage of the Moon''sndscape. I was thankful that my warehouse, the expanded Octopit, and the ships under construction inside of it were still hidden under a projected cloak. I can''t imagine four mostlypleted warships on the surface of the moon would go over well at this point.


    With the cameras distracted and reporters satisfied, for now, Tony, Pepper, and I did some mingling again, shaking hands and chatting with people. Unsurprisingly I was treated much differently than I had been before the announcement and shook hands with quite a few people, learning names I had no chance to remember even with some of my enhancements. At some point Councilwoman Hartford and Nick Fury managed to pull me aside, her security detail keeping the curious people at bay.


    "This is not what we expected." The older woman admitted, unable to stop herself from looking down at Earth through the dome. "We were functioning on the theory you and Stark were assembling a research team of some kind, after reviewing just who had been hired on But a base on the Moon Why? And none of that watered-down crap you fed the press."


    "Because it''s the ultimate neutral location, and there isn''t much anyone can do to us. No government can pressure us, and anyone we hire and keep here ispletely safe. Sure the portals will be located in Stark Tower, but I can set up new ones wherever I want," I exined with a shrug. "Not to mention it''s a hell of a way to get people''s attention."


    "I hope your security is up to snuff," Director Fury said.


    "Please, your psych profile on me is way too detailed for you to think I would do something like this without being sure," I said, shaking my head. "Tony hired the best, and I''ll be equipping them with several pieces of custom equipment."


    "Like what?" he asked gruffly, enough for me to raise an eyebrow.


    "I''m sorry, but that kind of stuff stays in house," I exined, raising my hand when he opened his mouth. "Look, I get it. This is a lot and you''ve got a lot of dangerous scenarios running through your head. Give it a few days, put together a list of your greatest concerns and Tony and I will sit down with you, peacefully, and discuss their relevance and what we can do to stop them from happening."


    Both Nick and Councilwoman Hartford looked surprised at my statement, though they both quickly covered it up.


    "I know, not what you expected, but STARS is going to be different from the EDF and shield system. This is not ''It''s happening so get on board or get out of the way.'' type of situation. STARS is an attempt to change the world for the better, and we can''t do that by kicking down doors and running roughshod over everyone. At least not without taking over the first. We want to work together for a better future," I exined. "Don''t, however, think that this means you can run roughshod over us. I won''t make any threats about the consequences of that, because I''m sure you are both imagining significantly worse scenarios than I am."


    "...We will be in touch." Fury said after a long pause, stepping away and heading through the crowd.


    I gave Councilwoman Hartford a look, and she rolled her eyes at his dramatic exit, before walking away as well. As they left I tapped my ear, activating mymunicator.


    "How many bugs has he nted?"


    "Just two, one by the portal and another attached to the fountain," Ema answered. "Looks like he is giving up for now."


    Ema had agreed to man the security station, which was two floors below the park, and could monitor the entire facility at once. Ordinarily, it would be staffed by a dozen people, but since it was just one floor for now, Ema was by herself.


    "Alright, keep an eye on him, have someone pick them up and mail them back. Any other Shield agents here?" I asked, chewing my lip.


    "Probably, but they haven''t been anyone I recognize, and they have behaved themselves so far," She responded, pausing for a moment before answering the real question I had been asking. "Natasha isn''t here."


    "It''s fine, I''m sure she just got called on a rushed mission or something," I said, mostly to myself. "I''ll be going back to the warehouse soon, I can''t stay here much longer. For all his bluntness, I don''t know how Tony takes all the fake smiles and empty words."


    I spent a while longer walking around, answering questions and shaking hands. Eventually, Pepper pulled me aside and told me to go home, as she could tell I was starting to get antsy. I eagerly agreed, walking back through the portal and finding an empty room before traveling back to the warehouse.<hr>


    The next few days were abination of moving and orientation, where some of the staff was moving into STARS. I offered to help, but Pepper and Tony assured me that while, yes, I could move the contents of an entire apartment in less than an hour, doing so would be counterproductive. This was a day for people to meet neighbors, and future coworkers as well as meet administrators and managers. Trying to rush through it with the Deck would just leave people disoriented.


    I did end up lending a hand to Jane Foster, however, though only with herb equipment. A lot of her equipment was custom made and she didn''t trust a movingpany, even one that Tony trusted. I helped her move into herb, while she and Thor moved into her apartment, which they would be sharing until he was eventually required to return home. I was happy to keep busy, as I had a dark seed of worry embedded in my stomach. Natasha still hadn''t responded to my texts.


    Ordinarily, that wouldn''t be such a big deal, especially since she was such a busy woman with an extremely erratic schedule. But I couldn''t banish an uneasy feeling, a feeling in my gut that something wasn''t quite right.


    It didn''t take too long for the first requests for specialized, conceptually crafted stuff for STAR toe in. They were smaller stuff for now, the various scientists and researchers clearly wondering what I was capable of producing. They may be standing on a moon base made possible by the Conceptual Deck, but a lot of them were still skeptical.


    The first request was from the engineering branch, and they were looking for a device that could read electrical currents inside of something without taking it apart. It took me five minutes tobine a few different electrical readers with a TV, adding in an enhanced scanner and a few Stark Techptops to mix in precision and intuitive organization.


    The result was a hand scanner that would attach an object to the readouts of the TV, allowing people to scan an object and then work on with life readouts. I included a bucket of grounding rings, the highest level of electrical resistance I had managed to create so far, for them to use. I warned them they were for safety, and not to let them ignore standard precautions, since all it would take is one time to forget you weren''t wearing one. They understoodpletely, but still wanted to test them.


    Instead of letting them set something up I just summoned my armor around my hand and tazed the crap out of them, the ring protecting thempletely.


    Smaller requests kepting in after that. The biology branch wanted as many of the digital microscopes as I could make, which I provided in arge crate, as well as a fewrger models that were connected to a TV. It wasn''t until the chemistry branch got in touch that I had my first challenging request. It seemed that amon problem in chemistry was isting chemicalpounds. If you needed a certain chemical grouping most often you had to break it off of a moremonpound, or by syphoning it off a reaction of two other chemicals. The problem was that this process was time-consuming. If you relied on outsourcing it became expensive, and you always had to wonder if thebeled concentrations were urate. Or, at least, that is what I was told.


    It took a bit of trial and error, but after a day of work, I created a vending machine-like device that you use to scan an element or a chemicalpound. The device would remember thatpound, orpounds if the sample carried multiple, and would create more on demand, ex nihilo. The primary ingredient was two UCMs that I used as a base for a dozen different books on chemical filtration, distition, and other processes, as well as the equipment those processes required. My first attempt simply poured thepounds out onto the floor, which could have been a lot worse if I hadn''t been using water as a testpound. After some modification, I was able to create a dispensing system of near-indestructible non-reactive vessels, which changed depending on the phase of matter the material was in.


    I had just finished going over the limitations and safety requirements for the device when I finally got a message back from Natasha. I quickly finished with the chemists, promising to create a few more of the machines for ease of ess and to prevent having to transport dangerous chemicals any further than necessary, and traveled to the warehouse, quickly calling her back.


    "Natasha, everything alright?" I asked, chewing the inside of my lip. "You kinda just vanished for a while, did somethinge up?"


    "Yeah, I''m sorry Carson but I someone came by looking for some help," She vaguely exined. "Listen I don''t want to pull you into my problems, but I could use a hand."


    "Yeah Nat, of course. What do you need?"


    "Honestly I''m not calling you because it''s anything up in your level of y," She admitted. "But I could use someone who is neutral, and that I can trust. I would ask Clint, but he is handling his own stuff at the moment."


    "Don''t worry about it Nat, just tell me where you''re at and I''ll meet you there," I assured her. "I take it this is off the books?"


    "Yes, very much so" She confirmed. "Fury would be pretty pissed if he found out I was doing this."


    "Okay, we can talk when I see you. Give me a few to grab my stuff and get Ema, send me your location and I''ll meet you there."


    "Alright. If Ema is busy she doesn''t need toe, you are already overkill for this by a lot."


    "Yeah, but she will kill me if she found out I went somewhere even remotely dangerous without her," I responded, already pushing out my storage shed to make sure everything was in ce.


    We said a quick goodbye and hung up, an image of a maping through a momentter. It seemed like Natasha was up to some sneaky shit in Budapest, which meant didn''t ring any rm bells for my Marvel Comics knowledge. I did one final check of the Deck to make sure I had everything that I needed before heading off to get Ema.


    Natasha needed my help, and I wasn''t about to let her down.

 Chapter 117: Break out

    Chapter 117: Break out


    <strong>Hello everyone. </strong>


    <strong>Sotely, I have been struggling to write the Conceptual Deck. It has gotten to the point where there has been a noticeable drop in quality as I struggle to work together ideas. Rather than pound my skull against the wall and potentiallypletely ruin the story, the Conceptual Deck is going on hiatus when this arc isplete. It is sad, especially when realistically this could be the end of the story, but I would rather end it early than ruin itpletely, or ruin the story for myself and drop it randomly from frustration.</strong>


    <strong>Rest assured, the content will continue uninterrupted, as a recement story is already in the works. Either way, I hope you enjoy the conclusion of this arc, as well as the beginning of a new story!</strong><hr>


    It took ten minutes for me to make sure I had everything I could possibly need, while also making sure that I still had at least half of the Deck empty, while still having the "essentials". Ema was annoyed that I interrupted her painting, but quickly got over it when I exined what was going on. She quickly shifted to her usualbat look.


    "Should we get some more backup?" Ema suggested as she got ready, her body and clothes shifting. "Maybe Steve and Bucky? Tony is busy but I''m sure Thor would like the chance to fight for a good cause."


    "Not until we know what is going on," I said, chewing my lip. "I don''t want to get anyone else involved yet. If she thought the calvary would help, she would have asked me to get them."


    Emaughed, shaking her head as she checked herself in the mirror before nodding and turning back to me.


    "Carson we are the cavalry, the artillery, and the engineers," She pointed out, shaking her head. "I only suggested more people because we can''t be in more than two ces at once. Yet."


    Weughed, both of us quickly traveling to the outskirts of Budapest, the capital of Hungary. It was an odd ce to meet, but a safe house was supposed to be somewhere you wouldn''t expect I suppose. Ema had actually been there before with Jarvis.


    Both Ema and I activated our stealth field before we traveled, so we took to the air right after we arrived, following the image and coordinates that Natasha had sent. It took us a few minutes but eventually, wended on a slightly run-down apartment building. Natasha was waiting for us on the roof, sitting on a bench, looking over the city in the opposite direction. Somehow sensing that someone had arrived, she turned to look, her finger already teasing her pistol storage ring.


    "It''s just us Natasha," I warned her, her worried expression dissolving into a smile. "Lead us to your apartment and we can de-cloak in there."


    She nodded subtly before taking a moment to stand and stretch, actingpletely natural before heading back to the rooftop door. She opened it, before acting like she had thought of something, looking over her shoulder and patting her jacket. For anyone watching it would have looked like she was worried she had forgotten something, all the while leaving the door open for Ema and myself to step inside.


    She led us through the apartmentplex, eventually letting us into one of the many rooms. As the door shut behind her another woman stepped around the corner, her gun raised. I stepped in front of Natasha, though I was still cloaked, my eyes locked on the woman. Her hair was up in a ponytail, and while she was wearing casual clothes I could see at least one partially hidden weapon on her. She was probably around twenty years old, as far as I could tell.


    "I thought you were waiting for your boyfriend?" She asked in a noticeable Russian ent, lowering her gun as she talked. "He a no show? Do we-"


    "He''s here," Natasha said, cutting the blond woman off. "Carson?"


    I faded into view, deactivating my stealth field and pushing my armor away, the metal fading into dust. The woman almost raised her gun again but managed to control herself.


    "Holy hell, how did You were not joking Nat," She said, sliding her pistol back into its holster. "Nice to meet you fancy man. And blue woman."


    I raised an eyebrow, looking at the blond woman, Natasha stepping around me and standing beside me. She gestured to the woman with a smile.


    "Carson, this is Yelena. She is my sister," She exined. "She is a bit of a twerp but-"


    "Hey, who is the one who figured all this out?" Yelena asked, Natasha rolling her eyes in response. "No reason to call names."


    "Sister?" I asked, my eyes wide, looking between the two women.


    I racked my brain for any female siblings from theics, struggling to figure out what was going on. I remembered she had a brother who was dead, but I couldn''t remember a sister.


    "Kind of," Natasha exined, letting out a huff, and running her fingers through her hair. "When I was young, one of my first missions was a long-term undercover operation in the States. Yelena and I acted as children for two agents, one of whom was infiltrating a Shield Facility."


    "How old were you?" I asked, watching her face. This was the first time she was opening up to me about what her childhood was like.


    "Ten, when the mission ended," She answered. "I spent three years undercover and somewhere along the way, it stopped being a cover. Yelena was my sister and the agents were my parents."


    I just shook my head. There was nothing I had ever experienced that couldpare to something like that too. I stepped closer and put my hand on her arm. She looked up at me, her eyes welling as she leaned in and buried her face against me.


    "I had put all of this behind me. Or at least I thought I did," She eventually said, continuing after a long pause, her head nowying on me, leaning on me for support. "But Yelena got in touch with me, had learned something that she wanted me to hear, and that she needed my help. I I couldn''t say no. I might have before before you helped me but I couldn''t now."


    "I understand Natasha. Let''s sit down and you can tell me what''s up. I promise I''ll help any way I can."


    She nodded against my chest, before pulling away, her hand reaching out to take mine. She led me further into the apartment, Ema following behind us. I shot her a look and gestured around the apartment and she nodded, stepping away to scan the room for anyone listening.


    Natasha led me to a living room area, where there was a couch, a few chairs, and a wall covered in pinned papers, pictures, and receipts. There were even a few red lines of string connecting some of the pins together. Nat and I sat on the couch, Yelena entering a momentter, rolling her eyes at both of us.


    "Yeugh, touchy-feely time then?" She asked, dropping down into one of the free chairs.


    "He deserves to know what he is getting into," Natasha exined with a shrug.


    "Yeah yeah, just lucky he could get here so fast, we don''t have much time," Yelena said, Natash nodding in agreement.


    "Yelena managed to get in contact with me-"


    "Wasn''t easy either!"


    "She found out that My father is scheduled to be executed," She exined, giving Yelena a look.


    "He got captured?"


    "No, the old man has been in prison for a long time, since our old boss threw him in for pissing him off too much," Yelena exined.


    "They kept Alexei alive because he might have been useful," Natasha exined. "He was the only sess from an old Soviet super soldier program. The people in charge were hoping one day they would be able to replicate and improve the process."


    "How effective was it?" I asked, suddenly a lot more interested.


    "Physically it was mostly on par or just shy of Erskine''s form, though they obviously couldn''t directlypare them," Natasha answered, her hand still holding mine. "But there were several aspects it didn''t affect, like his intelligence, most of his sense, or his reflexes."


    "So why now? If he has been in prison for a while, why are they executing him now?"


    "Changes in leadership," Natasha answered with a shrug. "Someone convinced enough important people that keeping him around was a risk, not a potential future asset. Carson he was never my real father but He was the closest thing I can remember. I could never live with myself knowing that I did nothing to save him."


    "Alright, I''ll help you get out," I said with a nod, smiling at her. "I''m going to need some concessions from him, that he isn''t going to run off and start some sort of newmunist uprising, but I''ll help."


    Natasha slid closer and hugged me, holding me tightly.


    "Thank you, Carson." She whispered, and I rubbed her back.


    "Don''t forget about what we learned this morning," Yelena said, Natasha nodding as she pulled back.


    "My mother She went into hiding after helping after helping Yelena and I escape the program," Natasha exined, rubbing her head, like she was getting a headache.


    For a moment I expected her to continue, but Yelena took up the ck.


    "We assumed she had slipped away somewhere. While she wanted to help us she was also very dedicated to her own goals."


    "We assumed that Alexei would know where she was," Natasha said, having now looked back at me, seemingly recovered. "The original mission was to rescue Alexei and then leave him with Melina. She would have contacts and resources by now, she would have kept him hidden and helped him. Plus They developed a connection during our mission together. It felt right."


    "Then we learned where she actually was," Yelena said, standing in a huff. "The woman got herself locked up as well! Sure it''s under a different name, but of all the glupyye postupki novichka"


    Yelena started speaking Russian, shaking her head and pacing a bit before letting out a growl, and sitting back down in her chair.


    "They do not know who she is in this prison, but if Alexei escapes she will be the prime suspect, her picture would be everywhere!" She continued, shaking her head like she was tired. "They would recognize her face immediately."


    "Then we need to get her out as well," Ema said, standing in the doorway. "Can''t hurt her if she isn''t in custody."


    "What the blue woman said," Yelena agreed, leaning back in her chair. "We would need to break them out at the same time, or close to it at least. Otherwise, there is a chance she will be discovered. Small, but still a chance."


    "Well alright, it sounds like we split into teams then," I said, Natasha nodding next to me. "Ema and I-"


    "Natasha said you both are heavy hitters. Better then Alexei is, better than Iron Man," Yelena pointed out. "Should we not spread that out?"


    "That''s not a bad point," I said, giving Ema a look. "It would mean both teams have a nuclear option in case it goes real bad. But I can''t pull out anything too identifiable. I mean you guys must have seen the news, I have a big responsibility now."


    "What happened?" Natasha asked, looking at me curiously. "We haven''t really been keeping up."


    "Seriously? You haven''t seen the news?" I asked, looking at them both, before shaking my head. "Doesn''t matter, it can wait until after we finish this. Just know Ema and I will have to stay cloaked for most if not all of this."


    "eptable, even preferable," Yelena said with a nod. "That would make you both a nasty surprise, just in case."


    We agreed and the sisters started going over the general n, focusing on each prison. Natasha and I would be going after her surrogate father, Alexei, who was in a prison colloquially known as the Seventh Circle Prison.


    It was a huge facility, housing arge number of dangerous prisoners, the kind that Russia wanted to stay hidden from prying eyes. Most of the prison was underground, arge cylinder that was sunk deep into the frozen, mountainousnd of northern Russia. The onlyrge structures on the surface were arge surface bunker, where the warden''s office and guards lived, several guard towers, and the yard, where prisoners who behaved themselves were allowed to "stretch their legs". There was also a duel crane system running along the surface above the prison yard, leftover from when the prison was built. Various smaller garages, silos, and radio towers dotted the snowy surface.


    Yelena exined that Alexei was being kept in the lowest level of the prison, where he almost never left. Apparently, they were worried his enhanced strength would allow him to scale the fifty-foot wall of the yard. Unfortunately, that meant we would have to stealthily make our way down the entire prison before we would get to him.


    I studied the floor n for a while, before suddenly having an idea.


    "You know with all of this junk around here" I started, pointing out an area filled with storage containers, not far from where the prison yard opening was. "We could probably hide something decentlyrge"


    "What do you have in mind?" Natasha asked, leaning on me as we studied the same blueprint.


    "I could put down an LPM and modify the structure," I exined. "Add doors, seal guards in rooms, delete locks"


    "Delete, add, what do you mean?" Yelena asked.


    "I mean literally add and delete whatever we need," I exined. "I could make a clear path from the top of the structure, all the way down."


    "As easy as that would make our job isn''t that something they could tie back to you?" Natasha pointed out.


    "I that''s a good point," I said with a groan, before nodding my head. "Okay, looks like I need to make a good old-fashioned skeleton key. How old is the prison anyway, are we going to run into high-tech stuff or is it older security?"


    "Older," Yelena answered. "Good old-fashioned Soviet engineering. Why make something easy when you can make it difficult!"


    "Alright, I''ll make two Skeleton keys, one for each team," I said, looking down at the Seventh Circle prison while Ema and Yelena studied the prison Melina was being kept in.


    Together we came up with a n, a backup n, and a nuclear option for each team. The first n was basically just a path through the prison that was least likely to meet any guards or staff. The backup n was in ce in case an rm was sound, and the nuclear option was if everything went to shit.


    The first two ns were pretty simple. Ema and I would stay cloaked, following behind our partners and providing support as necessary. If something went wrong we would give up on stealth and start seeking alternate routes. If everything went to shit, Ema and I would start ignoring walls and doors, cutting and smashing as necessary to get to our targets. If we managed to stay hidden the entire time we would simply travel away. If things started to get rough, however, I was worried teleporting away would point heavily to my involvement. I would do it if our lives were on the line, but beyond that, we would get them out the old-fashioned way, floor by floor.


    I dropped anding pad in the living room and traveled to the warehouse to whip up a couple of things, including rapid deploy armor for Yelena and our targets to give them some added protection, as well as minor healing rings and enhanced vision sses. Most of the time away was split between whipping up a way to disable the gifts after a few days and the skeleton key. I might trust Natasha with my life but I had no idea who these other people were, despite the feeling that I should know Yelena from somewhere.


    I ended up using some of the materials Shield was using to ensure the shield satellites would fall apart in reentry as it contained a strong nned destruction concept. That plus a few other things, including a twenty-four-hour timer, finished it off. The skeleton key was even easier, as I just clumped together a bunch of lock-picking tools, bolt cutters, and slim-jims into a whole bucket of keys and electronic keycards. I mixed in plenty of magic and some divine essence and you had the world''s first and second universal lock opener. I let a UCM scan one so I would have a copy to bind to myself when I got home, before applying the timed destruction I had just finished to both of them.


    I had the feeling I would be using that a lot from now on.


    I returned to the Budapest apartment and handed Yelena her new temporary armor and ring, which she happily put on. She shivered after putting on her ring and smiled at me.


    "Thank you, I''m sure this will be useful."


    Natasha pouted when I didn''t have anything for her, but I could only shrug.


    "I''ve asked if you wanted more upgrades before, but you weren''t interested in being any more enhanced than you already are."


    "I know Carson, I''m only teasing," she said with a wink, and I smiled back.


    "I know, but I want you to know the offer is still open."


    "No, you''re right," She admitted. "I''m good how I am, at least for now."


    "Good. So what''s next?"

 Chapter 118: Prison break

    Chapter 118: Prison break


    [H1]Chapter 118 - Prison break[/H1]


    Even though we were all ready to go, the n was to wait for night to fall to try our luck, hoping that the darkness would give us a better chance at getting in without anyone noticing. It also meant that, in a pinch, we could disable the power to getplete coverage inside and outside the facilities, as the darkness wouldn''t mean anything with the sses I handed out.


    Since we finished around noon, that meant we would have a couple of hours to kill. Yelena immediately went outside for a smoke while Ema, Natasha, and I kept going over the n, idly memorizing the essential bits while we waited. Eventually, Yelena returned, smelling faintly of cigarettes.


    Eventually, after time had passed, half spent going over the ns and half spent killing time watching the Hungarian news, it was time to begin. It wasn''t quite dark enough where we currently were or by the two prisons, but we could use the extra time scouting and observing patrols.


    "You ready?" Natasha asked Yelena, who simply looked back at her, her new armor deploying around her. After a long moment, Natasha shook her head and looked at Ema and me. "Are you two ready?"


    "Yeah, I''m all set," I responded, looking over at Ema as well.


    "Of course," She said with a shrug. "We have the easy target. You and Natasha are the ones going to the literal hell hole."


    Apparently, the prison Melina was staying at was not maximum security but a prison for much lighter sentences. Breaking her out would be rtively easypared to our target.


    "Alright. Good luck. See you back here in the morning."


    Ema nodded and reached out, putting her hand on Yelena''s shoulder and traveling away, leaving Natasha and me alone.


    "You want wings, or do you want me to carry you?" I asked, deploying my armor around myself. "And are you sure you don''t want a stealth unit? It would make all of this much easier."


    "Wings please," She said with a smile, though I could see it wasn''t one of her real ones. "And no, Alexei won''t trust it, and I don''t trust him to be able to follow me while I''m invisible.


    I frowned at her fake smile, reaching out and putting my hand on her arm, my helmet fading so she could see my face.


    "Hey, we are going to get him out, just focus on that for now. When he is safe, you''ll have plenty of time to figure out all this family stuff."


    "...Spotted that, did you?" She asked, looking at me with a rueful grimace.


    "Hard not to."


    "When we returned from our mission in the states, they both, Alexei and Melina, gave us up to the Red Room. Melina was injured, but Alexei helped calm us so we could be tranquilized and dragged away." She exined, turning to look out the window at the slowly darkening city. "Melina might have helped us escapeter, but it took almost eight years. When she finally did, she imed that Alexei regretted it immensely, that when he learned what he had condemned us to, something inside him broke so much they had to put him in prison. But"


    "He still did it." I finished.


    The red-headed super spy nodded, though she was still facing the window. It was clear she was more than a little conflicted.


    "Nobody can tell you how you treat him after you free him," I pointed out after a long pause. "You are doing this for yourself because your heart tells you to save him before he is executed. But after that? The world doesn''t have to suddenly spin on its head."


    Natasha turned away from the window and looked back at me, head tilted slightly.


    "Maybe you rescue him and decide to forgive him. Or maybe we get him to safety, and you decide you can''t stand the sight of him. Either way, it doesn''t really matter," I continued, reaching out and taking her hand, squeezing it gently. "You said you wouldn''t be able to live with yourself if you did nothing. But no one is forcing you to hold hands around a fire and sing kumbaya with him for the rest of your life. You feel like you owe him, well saving his life is a pretty big down payment."


    After a long moment, Natasha smiled, nodding and leaning against me. We stood there for a long few minutes before she finally pulled back.


    "Alright. I''m ready." She said, her clothes shifting to some heavy winter wear. "Let''s do this."


    I smile and nod before pushing out a set of wings and helping her into them, her outfit shifting seamlessly to better suit the straps. When the conceptually enhanced strap was secure, I took her hand, and we traveled to one of the manynding pads I had around Russia. It was a bit disorienting, but after we recovered, we took off and headed further north.


    We flew for thirty minutes, keeping our eyes peeled and speed low so we attracted as little attention as possible. I was stealthed to help even more, both of us flying very low to the ground, in the dark. Eventually, we arrived at our destination, flying around tond on a rocky outcropping on the tall mountain that curved around one side of the supermax prison.


    Wended andy down on the rock, studying the surfaceyout of the prison far below us.


    "Looks like whatever your source was, it was recent," I said quietly, the view matching almost exactly what the images had shown.


    "Only the best."


    I activated my enhanced vision, zooming in and scanning the facility. I could see several patrols, both on the ground, around the yard, and around the other building as well. I followed one of the outer patrols as they made a loop around the facility on the interior of a tall, barbed wire-topped fence.


    "How is this outfit so warm?" Natasha asked, even as she looked down off of our perch.


    "It conceptually ignores outside temperature," I exined, switching my vision to infrared. "You''d feelfortable in a zing inferno or dunked in deep arctic waters."


    I pulled my zoom out slowly so I could see the entire facility, watching the almost fifty soldiers and guards patrolling the surface clearly, each of them glowing with heat. Together Natasha and I put together the best possible route, shifting it over time as the guards changed. When the night really settled in, beams of bright light shot out from the guard towers, the spotlight lighting up the snowy ground.


    Finally, when our clock hit midnight, the agreed-upon time for both teams, we moved. Our wings carried us down, barely avoiding the spotlights as wended inside the outer fence, the snow silencing ournding.


    Natasha didn''t even hesitate, leading the way to the closest ess point, a doorway along the side of the massive exhaust tower. She stopped beside it, lights from the towers ying over the ground, shining around and along the perpendicr wall, casting a harsh, bright shadow on the snow. For a moment, I was worried they had spotted something, but after a pause, the light moved to a new area, scanning the distant mountain.


    I waved the skeleton key, which actually looked like an oversized stic key, over the door''s lock, which clicked open audibly. Natasha must have heard it as well because a secondter, she moved, opening the door and slipping inside, with me following right after.


    The interior was weathered and dirty, the walls unadorned concrete with a dark green paint, which itself was chipping and falling from the wall in some spots. I bit back ament, though, instead following Natasha, tapping her hip to confirm I was still there. She nodded and continued down the hall, heading for our first objective, the stairs.


    About ten meters away from our entrance was a security checkpoint, a concrete and steel box built into the wall, with thick polycarbonate viewing windows. It was aimed down the corridor, not at us, but we would still need to get by it to get to the stairs. Natasha slowly got closer, using the shadows cast by the old, yellowing lights that were affixed to the ceiling. Eventually, she couldn''t get any closer to the checkpoint without bing easily visible.


    I tapped her shoulder twice and stepped into the light,pletely invisible, as I made my way to the window. There were two guards, one leaning back in his chair and napping, the other lookingzily down the hallway. A quick look around and I noticed there was a cup of coffee that was just barely hanging over the edge of the table the guard was leaning over. Silently I pulled my knife from its sheath on my belt, using it to reach inside the small paperwork gap that the polycarbonate window had. I pushed a stack of papers, nudging the cup and pushing it into the guard''sp.


    He jumped up, brushing off his leg as the steaming cup spilled all over his leg. Hispanion woke up, startled by the cursing and movement. Understanding that this was her moment, Natasha quickly made her way across the gap, barely staying hidden against the checkpoint before making it past.


    Once she was clear, she stood and rushed to the stairwell doors, specifically the stairwell that the prisoners used to get up to the cold surface for yard time. It led down and connected to every cell floor, save for thest one, the solitary confinement, and special lockdown floor. It would get us close to it, though.


    I waved the skeleton key by the door, and it clunked unlock, the lock itself being much bigger and more secure since it had direct ess to the prisoners. The door squeaked as it opened, but we both slid inside and closed it, the door relocking behind us. Once again, I tapped Natasha''s shoulder to let her know I was still with her.


    Slowly but surely, we made our way down the stairs, passing floor after floor of cells. On the fifteenth floor, the stairs ended, the only way out being another set of doors like what we went through to enter the stairwell. Natasha leaned against the door, and I waved the skeleton key on therge lock. It clicked open, but I stopped, holding the handle and using my enhanced vision to check that the coast was clear. After a minute of waiting, I pulled the door open, and both of us slid out of the stairwell into the lowest normal cell block.


    Inside was what I imagined to be a rtively normal-looking prison interior. There were two floors of cells, with rails along the upper walkway and stairs connecting the two floors halfway to the other side.


    This had been the hardest part of this break-in to figure out, though I had felt silly when I finally figured it out. There were guards patrolling, rotating between each floor as they walked on their rounds. We also had to worry about a random prisoner spotting us. There was no way someone stuck here would ever keep quiet if they spotted Natasha. Luckily, the ceiling was rtively high for an underground structure.


    Immediately after the door closed behind us, I pushed out my wings, silently grabbing Natasha and swooping up to the ceiling, the rtive darkness of the room covering us. We flew silently across the entire room,nding in the furthest right corner, where there was a single door. I quickly unlocked it and opened it, Nat sliding inside the second it was open, with me right behind her.


    We were standing in another stairwell leading down, this one smaller than the previous one since it wasn''t designed for nearly as many people at once. We slowly descended the roughly lit stairs, down three flights of stairs, before finally reaching the floor we were looking for. I waved the Skeleton key on the door, and it clicked. Before I could open it, Natasha reached out and found my arm sliding down to grip my wrist.


    "Stay close," She said, the first words she had spoken since we had entered the facility.


    I nodded, even if she couldn''t see me, before opening the door. Natasha stepped in first, leading me in for a while, still holding my wrist.


    I was immediately struck by how different this room was from all of the other cell blocks. Instead of a normal-looking, two-floor style facility, we stepped into arge circr room with solid steel doors all along the walls. Natasha all but dragged me in, making a beeline for the center of the room, despite the fact that the n was to start on one end and scan each room until we found Alexei.


    Before I could think about saying anything, the room was suddenly fully lit up, lights clicking on around the wall and flooding the room with harsh white light. I looked around, trying to see what had gone wrong, eyes locking on an observation room that overlooked the circr room. Standing there, wearing a smug smile, was a slightly balding man with slicked-back grey hair, a light five o''clock shadow, and thick ck-rimmed sses. He looked like he had just stepped off the used car sales lot.


    He said something and waved, thick metal doors mming down to cover him, and whoever else was inside. I didn''t hear what he said, but I didn''t have to wonder for long, as suddenly ten of the fifteen doors all around Natasha and I opened up. My danger sense spiked as instead of the doorways leading to cells, each door revealed a massive, high-caliber minigun of a make I didn''t recognize. I turned around wildly, looking to grab Natasha and cover her with my body


    Only to see her standing in the doorway furthest from the observation room, looking back at me as the thick armored door shut in front of her, leaving me alone in the kill box.


    All ten guns opened up at once, pouring bullets into the empty room. For a split second, it seemed to be random until the first bullet pinged off my leg. It sparked and ricocheted away, and suddenly it was as if they knew exactly where I was.


    It felt like thousands of bullets hitting in the span of a few seconds. My magical reinforcement failed after the first two, leaving me to weather the rest of the onught without it. I could feel the cement cracking and chipping under me as the sound and feeling of being hit from all sides blocked everything else. I could feel every impact, but they weren''t getting through. My armor was too strong.


    I was, however, blinded, disoriented, and stuck, unable to focus beyond the cacophony and constant barrage. When it finally stopped, the silence felt like a physical thing being pulled off of me. I whirled around, looking finally up at the observation tform. The same man as before was standing there, the armor tes pulled up, smiling down at me as he held Natasha by the neck. He spoke, and this time I could hear him.


    "Before you try and do anything." He said with a Russian ent, trailing off and squeezing Natasha''s neck.


    She moved, staring down at me with empty eyes, reaching up to tug on her face, pulling off her mask to reveal her normal face, as well as some sort of purple glowing construct attached to her. The bulk of it sat against her left eye, but it was strapped to her skull. Her head was shaved, and I could see where it was set into her skull with surgical screws.


    "This is a bomb made from Chituiri technology. I''m willing to bet your friends at Shield didn''t tell you a ratherrge shipment of it went missing?" He said, looking happy to drop that information. "Does not matter. All that does matter is that if you do not do as I tell you, I press this button, and Agent Romanoff''s entire head disintegrates into dust."


    He waved around a small ck device with a single red button.


    "You may work miracles, Carson Walsh, but could you bring her back from that? Would it even be her anymore? Now de-cloak. You may be invisible, but you''ve still activated pressure sensors. I know you are still there."


    I clenched my hands, my arms shaking as I looked up at him silently. Reluctantly, after a full fifteen seconds, I dropped my cloak.


    "Ah, there you are, still silent. It''s fine. I don''t need your words, just your cooperation," He said. "But I can see, even without your face, that you understand. I have you, Maker, in the palm of my hand."

 Chapter 119: Removal

    Chapter 119: Removal


    "How?" I asked, looking between him and Natasha, who stared back with a look that was somehow intense and empty at the same time.


    "Please, you think it was hard to remove her protection from mind control?" He asked, walking around Natasha, getting ufortably close to her. "A few threats to the right people, one you''ve actually already met and was already under my control, and well for someone often said to be the best spy of our age, she is easy to manipte. Always has been really. And if I can y her, what chance do you have?"


    "How did you hide it? I should have noticed"


    "Ah, your lie detection? That is actually your fault," He said with a smirk, shaking his head. "You see, when you created the means to eliminate Hydra, removed their ability to hide and start again, you made them desperate."


    A screen of some sort sparked to life a few feet from the protective barrier, showing someone, an older man with grey-white hair and small circr sses. He was talking, but there wasn''t any sound ying.


    "When they finally realized that there was nothing that they could do, that they were doomed, they reached out to whoever would listen, handing out research, secrets, and data to anyone who could use them against Shield, or against you," He exined, his hand now grabbing Natasha''s arm, even as she stayed silent. "Doctor Whitehall was eager to share quite a few things with me, including their research on mind maniption, and an almostplete mind control technique they called the Faustus Method. They then hid this final attempt at vengeance by well, you can see."


    He gestured to the screen, where the man, who was now looking angry and upset, said a few final words before putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. It was a gruesome disy, with very little doubt that he was dead.


    "Very smart I must say, they can''t reveal where they sent that data if they are dead. I''m guessing Shield didn''t tell you their suspicions" He trailed off, his confidence grating on my nerves as he stepped forward, releasing Natasha for the first time. "They gave me all the information I could ask for, everything I needed to take the Red Room to its final form. The perfect form of mind control, so tight, so utterly secure that even your little lie detection trinkets couldn''t pick it up. They truly believe what you tell them to believe, without hesitation."


    The screen flickered again, this time showing the security footage from a random bar. A woman I vaguely recognized as one of the people I bonded a piece of lie detection equipment to. A man approached her, and they struck up a conversation.


    "We tested it thoroughly to make sure, so thank you for providing so many opportunities to do so," He said with a chuckle. "And what a crutch it has proven to be for those agents! Suddenly they are ignoring their instincts because their ring says they aren''t lying! What an opportunity!"


    "You''re with the Red Room?"


    "I <em>am</em> the Red Room. I control itpletely, it belongs to ME!" He said, proudly proiming his domain. "And soon, so will you. So will everything else. I have to thank you, Carson, without you allowing Shield to crush Hydra under its boot, I would never have reached this far. I was satisfied with the idea of ruling from behind the curtain, influencing the world rather than molding it with my hands. But with how easily Hydra was eliminated, I knew I needed to dominate the world utterly in order to truly control it. And you, my anomalous maker, are the key to that."


    "Even if I submit, I have friends. They wille looking for me," I pointed out. "Do you think your red room will be able to put up a fight against Thor of Asgard? Or the entirety of Shield? My partner is-"


    I was desperately trying to buy time, trying toe up with something. I couldn''t get up to him quick enough that he wouldn''t have time to kill Natasha. There had to be something!


    "Oh, that''s right, your partner. Shall we check in on her? Agent Belova, status report!"


    The screen flickered again and Yelena''s face, now wearing the same intensely nk expression as Natasha, filled the screen. She was looking into a phone, the image moving slightly.


    "Target Emerald down, General Dreykov," She reported clearly. "The weapon worked perfectly."


    She shifted the camera, showing off some sort of glowing weapon for a split second. It was human-made, but it had the same familiar light purple glow that the Chitauri tech and the explosive device on Natasha''s face had. It was very dim, however.


    The camera view continued to move, finally pointing at Ema. There was a hole in her forehead, one that drilledpletely through to the other side, the back of her head blown out messily. Her eyes were still green, but theycked their normal glow.


    "The first shot to the head rendered it immobile, repeated shots showed no response," Yelena said. "I expended the charge of the weapon into its corpse. It''s dead as far as I can tell."


    "Another failure toy at your feet. If you had just listened to Natasha and left it behind, Yelena wouldn''t have had to eliminate it," The man, General Dreykov, gloated with a disgusting smile. "Perhaps when I have you under my control, I will have you make more of them, loyal to me."


    I knew that there was no way anything powered by the Chitauri would have enough power to really prate Ema''s exosuit, even if whatever weapon Yelena had used had enhanced the st, but seeing Ema like that sparked a fear in me that sent fear slithering into my mind. The shot to the head wouldn''t have done anything, but the follow-up shots, if they had hit her actual body inside the suit


    "You bastard," I growled angrily, taking a step forward, Dreykov holding up the detonator to stop me. "I''m going to destroy you! You can''t kill Natasha, she is the only thing stopping me from tearing you apart!"


    "Oh, I am aware of the razor''s edge I am walking," He responded, his hand on the small of Natasha''s back. "I am risking it all, risking it all that you will do nothing as long as she is still alive at my discretion. If you move, she is dead. It will mean my death as well most likely, but she will Still. Be. DEAD!"


    "I am going to make you regret this you son of a bitch!"


    "You won''t get the chance. Now, take off that armor," He ordered, waiting for a full fifteen seconds before shaking his head. "You are pushing your luck Maker! Follow my orders or I will kill her! If you do not this n cannot work, which means there is no reason to keep Natasha alive!"


    I stared up at him for a long moment, before hanging my head, mentally pushing my armor away, the protective suiting off in pieces and tes, falling to the floor and scattering. Dreykovughed before shouting in Russian. One of the still-closed cell doors opened, revealing seven women dressed in simr armor to what Natasha used to wear. They moved silently, gathering up the bits and pieces and carrying them away, out the door that Natasha had left through. Two of them wheeled out a contraption that glowed simrly to the weapon Yelena had used on Ema. It wasrger, though, and glowed brightly.


    "You should be ttered, Carson, I have been pushing the resources of the Red Room to its maximum, working out this n, including this machine. My little Natasha insisted that you have a painless way to remove your empowering tattoos locked in your Deck, but I can''t have you fishing through your things, pulling who knows what out. So we will have to remove them some other way."


    Some of the expressionless women brought out a chair and pushed me to sit down in it. General Dreykov ordered me to undress, exining that he was well aware of my outfit''s and my undersuits capabilities. When I was sitting in the chairpletely naked they strapped me down with massive manacles, locking me in ce.


    "Natasha wasn''t actually sure if these could hold you, but they are mostly a formality," He said, a smile on his face that made my stomach turn. "If you stand from that chair without permission I will destroy Natasha."


    The women moved around, setting up the machine, it swung around, controlled by a panel on the opposite side, aiming at my durability-enhancing tattoo.


    "Once that is burned off of you, we can strip you down to a normal human once again," Dreykov bragged, once again standing unnecessarily close to Natasha, standing behind her. "And when we have removed your protection against mind control, you will join Natasha in making the Red Room the greatest power on this. A united under my rule!"


    I stared at the man, coldly holding his gaze before he nodded to the woman working the machine next to me. It hummed and whined, the pitch increasing before purple-blue energy sted my side. It was surprisingly forceful, the chair sliding a few inches before they adjusted the machine, the beam of energy the machine was projecting tightening and focusing on the Tattoo of the arrow piercing my side.


    It was ten or fifteen seconds before the warmth became heat and another ten before became pain as my skin burned. I could smell it, damn near taste it, as choking smoke poured from the point theser was searing my skin. I could feel it moving, slowly burning away my tattoo, millimeter by millimeter. I could also feel my amulet healing me immediately after, but I knew the tattoo wasn''t reforming on the repaired skin.


    The torture continued. Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen. At the twenty-minute mark, they had to change out the glowing purple battery core in the gun, and I got a temporary reprieve.


    Just about twenty-five percent of the tattoo was burned away, reced by wlessly healed skin. It wouldn''t take much more until the tattoo failed, and they could start removing my enhancements in minutes. It was only a matter of time after that.


    As they worked on theser device I slowly recovered, or tried to at least. I was sweating, the near-constant pain leaving me shaken and feeling weak. I was breathing heavily, having been unable to stop from clenching and holding my breath, the pain making it impossible to breath properly. At first, I had resisted screaming by focusing on other things, desperately trying to focus on how I would prevent this in the future. My resistance didn''tst long though, and my throat would have been screamed hoarse if it wasn''t for my healing amulet.


    As if sensing that I was quickly running out of options, General Dreykov returned, Natasha,ing with him. She still stared down at me while Dreykov whispered into her ear. I struggled at my bonds, the metal bending and starting to break when he pulled away.


    "What do you think you''re doing?" He shouted, waving the trigger through the air. "I already warned you once! I will turn your lover into dust. Stop struggling and surrender. We both know you don''t have it in you to doom her."


    I shouted, screaming in frustration and rage, but copsed back into my chair. Dreykovughed, hand around Natasha''s waist now as he continued whispering into her ear. I wasn''t insane, I knew my powers were too powerful, I couldn''t let him control. At some point I would have to travel out. At some point I would have to leave Natasha here at the mercy of this bastard.


    I barely noticed when theser started back up, at least until the pain ratcheted up. Soon it was once again burning off my skin again. By now, I was used to the smell, but I still couldn''t fight the pain. I screamed and shook, fighting against myself to keep from ripping apart the chains to escape the pain.


    The change was sudden and shocking. Theser, which had been struggling just to burn the topyer of skin away, suddenly pierced one side of my body and exited the other, burning a hole through my body the size of a half dor. I cracked a tooth as I clenched and fought against the pain, my body suddenly unable to fight my own strength, my resilience finally failing. The women quickly shut down theser, my amulet repairing the tooth, my stomach, and the dozens of pulled muscles I had already given myself in the few seconds I had been tensing.


    The time I had left had just shrunk considerably. My travel tattoo was located on my right shoulder. I would need to travel away, chains, chair and all, before that was destroyed. Time was running out. I could hear Dreykov''s muffledughter through the protective barrier before his voice came through, the inte he was using crackling softly.


    "Good, now set the device to a wider surface area. Start from his toes and work your way up, I want every inch of skin burned away. We will have to cut out his tongue as well, and burn the inside of his mouth in case he put any there. His amu-"


    As he talked, I noticed a shadow behind him, rising up from the ground. It was Ema! As she stood fully, I could see she was considerably smaller than usual, and her face had been reced by her actual ghost-like construct, having left the exosuit''s eyes behind to make a convincing fake corpse.


    Silently she approached her target, stepping behind Natasha and grabbed her. Then, before Dreykov even realized she was there, she sliced the device off of Natasha''s face and yanked it free of her eyesocket. It was brutal and bloody, taking a concerning amount of Natasha''s face with it. Without my creations to heal her, she would have most likely been mutted for life.


    "Go! Get her healed!" I called out, Ema looking up at me reluctantly as she threw the bomb across the room. "Take her to the warehouse and put her in the emergency bed!"


    For a moment, it seemed like she would argue, but as my armor started to reform around me, having turned to dust in whatever room Dreykov had taken it to, she nodded and vanished, taking Natasha with her. I let out a sigh of relief. Natasha was safe and Ema wouldn''t be at risk in her weakened state.


    For a moment, the room was silent. Dreykov looked down at me, still sitting where he had fallen after Ema shoved him, weakly holding the detonator in his hand.


    With a twist and tug, I snapped away from the restraints they had used to strap me to the chair, shards of metal scattering across the ground. I leaped through the protective barrier around the observation room, pumping my wings once and bodily punching through the reinforced, bullet-resistant polycarbonate window, the entire overhanging observation area crumpling in the process.


    Inded in front of Dreykov, who was already screaming in Russian. I grabbed him by his jacket and threw him back through the hole I had just made, the overweight, balding man pping and tumbling across the broken and bullet-ridden ground before finally stopping.


    I could already see the women who had been conducting my brutal tattoo removal starting to help him up, but a quick sh of the calmingser knocked them outpletely. I stepped through the hole,nding and walking to the General. I grabbed him by his shirt and dropped him into the same chair I had just been in. His arm was clearly broken, as was his nose.


    As I wrapped him up in the remaining chains he continued screaming in Russian. I assumed he was begging for mercy or cursing my name, but when I heard something dropping onto the ground behind me, I realized he had been giving out orders.


    I turned to see that four individuals had dropped from the area I had just dragged and thrown Dreykov from. All of them were modified with Chitauri augments and energy cores, as well as another vor of tech I didn''t quite recognize.


    The first down was arge man with a scraggly beard and slicked-back hair, mostly brown with gray strandsing through. He had mechanical and cybeic enhancements all over his body, with many of the contact and attachment points leaking blood. His face was a rictus of anger, like a bear ready to tear me apart. He had a circr shield on one arm, holding it ready simr to how Steve held his.


    The second person down was fully encapsted in blue and gray armor with orange highlights that had clear articted enhancements attached to it. I couldn''t tell their gender, but their helmet was vaguely skull-shaped. They were armed with two purple glowing pistols, which were both pointed at me in a way that was reminiscent of Natasha.


    The third down was a younger man, with ck and white hair. He looked at me with wide, bloodshot eyes, his body twitching as he moved. His upper torso wasn''t augmented at all on the surface, though his skin bulged in some ces. His legs and lower torso though appeared to be mostly cased in metal armor. Or maybe they had been reced.


    After hended, he turned, reaching up and catching the fourth addition to the group. She was a woman, wearing a red jacket over a ck shirt and skirt, and most of her body waspletely normal. That didn''t mean her augments were any less drastic, though, as the entire top and back of her head was encased in Chitauri metal and glowing bits, the seam around her face and cheeks weeping blood.


    Before any of them could move, I waved the calmingser over them. The fully encased soldier was unaffected, as they had no exposed skin. The other three sagged for a split second before jolting violently, fully awake.


    "We knew you could put people to sleep, Maker! That won''t work on them!" Dreykov shouted, rage and fearpeting in his eyes. "Now! He is weakened under his armor! Taskmaster! Free me now, the rest of you, incapacitate him!"

 Chapter 120: Fighting instincts

    Chapter 120: Fighting instincts


    The neers did not hesitate for a moment once Dreykov finished shouting his orders. The one with the skull motif on their helmet, Taskmaster, started running around the room, attempting to circumnavigate me and leave the fighting to theirpatriots. Therge man and the younger man with visibly augmented legs both charged me at once. Even before they reached me though, the woman reached her hands out, shooting out red energy with purple highlights, that wrapped around my arms, holding me steady.


    The proto-n forming in my head was to wait for them toe to me before mming them into the ground, taking them roughly out of the fight. I needed to knock them unconscious hard enough that whatever was jolting them awake was ineffective. Once they were out for long enough I could push out my cab of tricks, get some kind of anti-mind control jewelry, and put it on them.


    Instead, my danger sense screamed at me in a way I hadn''t experienced since the Chitauri mothership had almost evaporated me with its energy cannon. I tore myself free of the strange energy controller and jumped back, flipping over Taskmaster and Dreykov, deploying my shield and holding it up defensively. My heart rate was skyrocketing, my danger sense still pulsing out steadily.


    But nothing happened.


    Before I could look around for the source of the warning, the young man with enhancement-encased legs ran at me, moving at a speed that honestly shocked me. I was certain I could move faster, at least in short spurts, but the fact that he could run this fast without my assistance was startling.


    He mmed his hand into my shield, the dull metallic reverberation telling me that he had, in fact, been enhanced more than I could see, as that strike should have absolutely shattered his hand at the speed he was moving. I pulled my shield to the side, swinging out a kick to hopefully shatter his knee-


    And my danger sense screamed again. This time the source was the muchrger man charging me. His enhancement looked painful but clearly worked as he moved faster than Steve could have to smash me in the face with his shield.


    I ducked out of the way, using the momentum to spin and put some distance between us. I used the time to deploy my secondary arms, quickly turning them into their weapon form and sting at Taskmaster, who was attempting to remove the chains from Dreykov''s arms. The first st caught them in the side, their armor charing and smoking, but failed to make itpletely through. Even as the second and third sts whizzed past them, the red and purple energy the enhanced woman was controlling wrapped around me, throwing my aim off.


    I yanked myself free and sted at Taskmaster again, who dodged and spun, managing to avoid all of my shots. They pulled out their glowing pistols and opened fire, whining sts of purple-blue energy fired out at an impressive speed.


    My danger sense, which had yet to stop sending out low-level signs of danger since the beginning of this fight, shrieked at me to move, to run out of the way. Instead, I raised my shield to block them, only for the sense to double down as thergest of the enhanced agents caught up with me.


    He bashed his shield off the side of my head, hard enough to deform whatever metal it was made out of. A follow-up strike from the other enhanced man smashed into my side, a full high kick that sparked off my armor. My instincts screamed to try and protect myself, so I pulled my shield to the side, only for Taskmaster to pepper my chest and head with sts from her energy pistols.


    By now, my sorcerous protection was barely a third of the way depleted. But despite how little damage they were doing, my danger sense would not stop pounding into my head. It was so distracting that I didn''t see the sparking and a slightly balled-up minigun until it smashed into my side. It was glowing red and purple as the psychic-enhanced soldier pummeled me with it. It shoved me back until my feet hit the wall.


    With a shout, I retracted my shield, reached out, and grabbed it, managing to push through the instincts and constant barrage of warning that my danger sense was pumping through me. I tore the destroyed weapon from her psychic grip and threw it at Taskmaster, desperately trying to keep them and Dreykov from escaping. The crumbling weapon smashed into the armored fighter and knocked them off their feet, sending them tumbling across the floor. Dreykov immediately shouted at them, even as they struggled to get up.


    I was buffeted by strikes from all three of the still-standing enhanced fighters, struggling to push through my danger senses constant barrage of overstimtion and paranoid reactions. Whenever I moved to attack or tried to push through and counterattack, my connection to the extra sense would light up like a Christmas tree. It was like fighting the instinct that prevented you from hurting yourself, but multiple times more intense.


    As Taskmaster stood and made their way back to Dreykov, most of their external enhancements broken and sparking, I realized I needed to take drastic action. They couldn''t hurt me, but eventually, Dreykov would get away if I couldn''t do anything without fighting against myself and my danger sense. I pushed out my wings and flew into the air, flying around in a circle to keep the psychic bitch from grabbing me. I dismissed my armor from around my left arm, halfway up my bicep, before pulling out my knife and cutting it off in one easy slice.


    I screamed, gritted my teeth, and cursed, even as my healing amulet started to regrow my arm. The danger sense disappearedpletely, having amputated the limb it had been tattooed on. As my limb fell away, I could feel the gap in my mind the sense had left, but it quickly faded as Inded. I summoned my armor back as my arm finished re-growing, standingpletely still as therge enhanced man charged and punched me across the jaw. There was no overwhelming urge to dodge, block, or anything beyond the dull thud as he hit me. His fist deformed around my jaw, broken severely even with his enhancements.


    I would haveughed at his expression, looking down at his broken hand in confusion, if this situation hadn''t drained me of any humor I had. I struck out with my fist, shattering his shoulder, grabbing his other arm and spinning in a quarter turn, throwing him at the quick-footed enhanced, hard enough to dislocate his unbroken shoulder.


    By now, Taskmaster was slowly helping Dreykov limp out of the room. I turned, pushed one of my revolvers into my hand, and fired six shots, ignoring that I was leaving myself open to attack while I did. The first two blew Dreykov''s legs off at the knee, therge man pulling the already injured Taskmaster to the ground. The following four shots took off one of Taskmaster''s hands and pummeled their legs. I turned to the side and aimed my gun at the two male enhanced, but the female psychic screamed and wrapped her energy around my whole body, the red and purple energy much denser than I had seen her use so far. I pushed out my other revolver, tearing through her grip, and sted her instead, blowing off her arm.


    She dropped, screaming and clutching her stump, her energy flickering before disappearingpletely, allowing me to easily turn to the remaining threats. The fast one was already screaming and charging me, his legs moving in a blur, his fist raised to deliver an enhanced punch. I dropped my pistol, caught his arm, and twisted through his momentum, the sound of splintering bone and rending metaling from his arm before he tumbled past me. I shot his right leg off as he started to recover, sting it three times to do so.


    Thest threat, therge enhanced man, bashed his shield against me from behind, actually forcing me to stumble forward to stay standing. I turned to find him looking at his shield in confusion, which was dented even more now. I leaped forward, unwilling to wait for him toe to me, and slugged him in the jaw, which crunched as I hit him. I followed it up with a disabling kick to his knee, bending it backward before shoving him hard enough to m him into one of the cell doors, which bent back under the impact.


    I stopped, looking at the carnage around me, taking a deep breath, and letting it out. I quickly pushed out a trunk, followed by four more, finishing it with the specially painted caduceus droid trunk. As battle bots and healers started pouring out, I pointed towards the door Natasha and I had entered from.


    "I want this entire prison locked down. Nonlethal takedowns only, I don''t know who is here willingly," I ordered, the robotic troops jogging away immediately, a few of them turning to go head through the doorway Natasha had left through earlier. "Caduceas squad, filter through the building and heal any injuries. I want four of you to stabilize these people. Remove what''s keeping them awake and then knock them out. Keep them unconscious, remove all foreign enhancements, and <em>do not give that fucker his legs back.</em>"


    The doctor bots rushed to follow my orders, and I could already hear the fighting from above, filtering down the stairs. I resisted the urge to leave immediately, knowing that this needed attention now before it spiraled even further out of control.


    I pulled out my phone and called Nick Fury. It only rang once before he picked up.


    "Maker, what do you want?" He asked bluntly. "We haven''t-"


    "Sorry, Fury, but whatever it is, it''s not important right now," I said, looking around the destroyed, bloody room. "We have a situation, one that Shield needs to take the reigns on. How quickly can you get the helicarrier to the Seventh Circle Prison in Russia?"


    After a long silence, followed by a chain of cursing that would make a sailor blush, Fury had Shield assets on site within the hour, though it was just the "local" branch. They were not happy that I had essentially invaded Russian territory, but clearly, Fury had some choice words for them about me because they basically left me alone. The man himself wouldn''t be arriving until early the next morning, so I was not going to be hanging around to wait for him.


    Once the team had made their way through the prison and confirmed everyone had been locked down, I ordered half of the battle bots back into storage. I left all of the caduceus droids deployed to monitor everyone and keep them unconscious until Shield could properly take control of the facility. I left the rest of the battle bots under orders to listen to Fury unless it was to kill anyone or if it would take them away from the prison.


    Ignoring the Shield agents, I started with what I needed to get done. First, I scanned all of the once-enhanced soldiers that Dreykov threw at me and the enhancements that the caduceus droids had removed. I was shocked at just how much metal and Chitauri tech had been in each of them. Even the weird psychic woman had had a shocking amount of metal in her head, which was now in a small pile next to her.


    The scan I did on thergest pawn had revealed him to be Alexei Shostakov, the man Natasha had imed was a father figure to her. While I wasn''t sure how much of her story had been true, I still made sure he was okay. I took blood and hair samples from each of the once-enhanced soldiers, as well as any other people who scanned as being under the control of the Red Room or as willing members. About half of the prison staff worked for them in some capacity, while all of the women that had been helping before Ema had left with Natasha had been under Dreykov''s control.


    Ibined all of the samples and whipped up a Red Room tracker, which thankfully showed very few people spread across the globe. The Russian government was the most heavily affected, with some agents dotted across the. The scanner even had two different colored dots for people being mind-controlled and who were willing participants.


    I also learned that Taskmaster was Antonia Dreykov, General Dreykov''s daughter. She had been seriously injured by some sort of attack, and apparently had the ability to mimic the fighting styles and movements of people on sight. Or at least she did have that ability, as the caduceus droids had taken my words seriously, healing herpletely and removing the imnts that let her mimic people.


    Thest thing I did was try and cure everyone of their mind control. Learning from my recent creation of the calmingser, Ibined a few bits of anti-mind control jewelry with aser pointer. I then added extra magic, worked in two divine essence crystals, and used them on Antonia first, as her scan exined that she had been under her father''s full control for <em>years</em>.


    It worked, thankfully, though it took a few seconds of constant application to work through the entire brain. Dreykov''s mind control method was an almostplete takeover of the pre-frontal cortex, but it left the rest of the brain almostpletely unaffected. It was so precise and potent that it made me think that whatever the fuck he was using to set the control in the first ce was not simple hypnosis or brainwashing through torture, like what Bucky went through.


    I removed the brainwashing on the remaining people, before having a caduceus droid guide me around the facility to everyone else who was under the Red Rooms'' control, freeing them as well. I then texted Fury and told him that I would get him a batch of the trackers and the anti-mind controlsers. He called and demanded that I stay put so I could be debriefed.


    I told him to fuck off and traveled home, carding my phone so I wouldn''t have to listen to it ring.


    I made my way to the emergency healing bed, which was in a small room in my apartment, my armor king away as I walked. Ema was floating around, her exosuit in its cube form nearby, a sizable chunk missing from it. A caduceus droid was also there, both of them keeping an eye on Natasha.


    "How is she?" I asked, kneeling beside the bed, and taking her hand.


    "Natasha Romanoff is in good health, though still under the influence of mind control," The droid answered before Ema could.


    I nodded and used theser pointer on her, scanning her the entire time. When Dreykov''s influence was finally gone, I let out a long breath, giving Natasha''s hand a squeeze. After a long few moments, I looked over to Ema.


    "Thank you for listening and taking her away instead of staying to help," I said, my partner bobbing out the equivalent of a nod.


    "Once you had your armor, I knew you would be okay," She exined. "Though it took longer than I expected."


    "How bad was the damage?"


    "Bad. Nothing happened to her brain, but he had to remove her eye and modify her skull to fit the bomb under her mask," Ema exined, her angering through. "I hope you kicked that fuckers ass."


    "Blew off both his legs," I responded with a shrug, looking back to Natasha. "Should have just gone for the head."


    "Don''t think too much about it, Carson," Ema said, floating down over Natasha. "You stopped him, Natasha is safe, and now that we know it''s a problem we can help Shield get rid of the Red Roompletely."


    I nodded and slowly stood.


    "Where are you going?" Ema asked, floating over to follow me.


    "I''ve got work to do," I said, leaving the room, Ema hot on my heels.


    "Carson Walsh, so help me god, I will make you regret it if your next step isn''t toward your bedroom!" She said once we were out of the room.


    I stopped, my shoulders sinking before I kept walking towards the warehouse.


    "Not yet Ema, maybe in a few hours."

 Chapter 121: Recovery

    Chapter 121: Recovery


    Ema watched me leave, the apartment door closing behind me, cutting me off from her harsh look. I didn''t want to upset her, but I knew I wouldn''t have been able to rest anyway. I made my way to the workshop area, pushing out my storage shed and my cab of tricks. I needed to get to work, there was so much to do before I needed to be better. To be stronger and ready for anything. I took a deep breath and shook myself free of my spiraling thoughts.


    I had a lot of work to do before I was ready to stop.


    Head cleared, I quickly got two UCMs started printing out Red Room trackers and the improved anti-mind controlsers. I then spent the next fifteen hours in a frenzy of crafting, improving, and finally applying self-improvements. It was clear that I had gottencent with my old enhancement level, especially with how powerful my armor had be, even before I finished Panoply of the Maker.


    It was also clear that while it was functional, the danger sense I had been blindingly putting my faith in had a subtly but incredibly dangerous w. It was taking cues from my subconscious. I had no idea how long that had been happening, but I did have distinct memories of it starting by warning me about everything, but getting less and less intense as time went on. I even remembered it fading out its reaction to bullets when I was wearing my much older armor during Hydra''s attempt to abduct Steve.


    As far as I could tell, when my subconscious stopped seeing something as a threat, the danger sense would slowly stop warning me about it. That had originally been an unknown blessing, as my fight with the four enhanced Red Room agents had shown. But, after being tortured, my most basic defense removed, my undersuit gone, my armor missing, and the woman I wasing to care deeply for paraded around it made me feel vulnerable in a way that I hadn''t felt in a long time. My danger sense took that and ran with it.


    I could never let anything like this happen ever again.


    I started by fixing my danger sense, mixing it with disy tech, then adding that to a helmet, which I then worked into a copy of the Panoply, which I then added to my bound version. Now, when I was about to be attacked, I got visual cues around the edges of my vision instead of the intense sense of danger and an even stronger desire to dodge. Technically it was a downgrade from the more instinctual version, but I was willing to ept that if it meant never getting locked up like that again.


    Once I was finished with that, I started nning a full overhaul of all my enhancements from the ground up. I was no longer satisfied with just the tattoos, though they would still be a significant portion of the final design.


    The first step was to maximize and enhance every aspect of the tattoos that I could. Some of the tattoos, like the resistance to elemental concepts like heat, cold, and electricity, could only be improved so much. Others, like my toughness, got a significant boost from the addition of Uru.


    With the already existing enhancements improved across the board, I started making two new additions. The first one was the addition of sorcerous protection to my skin, which was separate from my durability as I wanted any attacks to have to work through that before even reaching me. I had to start from scratch instead of using already existing armor samples because the ones I had contained divine essence, and I was forbidden from using that in my tattoos.


    When I was done with that, I made an energy storage tattoo that would allow me to absorb different types of energy and feed it to either my sorcerous protection or fire it out of a corrting tattoo, which I nned on putting on one of my palms. It would be potent but primarily designed less as weapons and more as vents to help release absorbed energy. They were certainly powerful in the right circumstances though.


    With my baseline enhancement done, I started with the second level. The first step was aplete redesign of my healing amulet. Bybining it and a few copies, the most powerful versions of the repair tablet I had, as well as some smaller electronic devices, I created a healing amulet that would also repair things it considered to be a part of me, including tattoos. That meant that if a tattoo was removed by damage, it would repair itself. Even better, it now had an interface I could use to adjust its settings, though it was a bit hard to use on such a small device. Thankfully the addition of a projected screen fixed that and allowed me to program several verbalmands.


    After that, I went on a tear, enhancing all sorts of things for self improvements. I had been holding back so long for some of the more active enhancements I had thought up, instead binding them to my armor. Now I just wanted to make sure I was never without options again.


    I worked a shield projector down to as small as possible, working it down to a small metal cuff, mixing in a mental control module to it so I could control it with my mind, as long as it was in contact with me. I did the same for a healing shlight, after enhancing it to a ridiculous degree with Uru, a copy of my old amulet, and half a dozen divine crystals.


    The process continued for hours, enhancing my sleep and anti-mind controlser, my lightning gun, the most powerful repair tablet I had made yet, modified to project a repair field instead of having to hook it up to something. I turned a copy of one of my revolvers down into a small metal chunk with copper highlights by mixing in Uru, which increased its power and simplified its shape. Ibined several of my already existing tattoo enhancements, and the new sorcerous protection, to small blocks of Uru as well, turning them into secondary systems in case the first ones broke.


    Once I hadpleted making the new enhanced versions, most of them now looked strange as I hadbined them with new materials regardless of what the end result was. This was fine, because all of them had onestbination process before they were read.


    I gathered the appropriate metals and equipment. Some of it was left over from making the first caduceus droid, but most of it was bought in preparation for what I would be working on for S.T.A.R.S. Various titanium screws, tes, and imnts were set up on UCMs to copy out, which I then took and mixed with my recent creations. Some of them lost functionality temporarily, specifically the items that required specific output points, but I was confident that they would work once I was finished.


    Once I was done making and scanning the conceptually crafted imnts, I finished thest step before I was ready to go under the knife. By mixing one pair of linked crystals with a bit of tattoo ink and a few other electronic and basic parts, I was able to create a method of linking the imnts that needed a ce to output whatever it was that they did with the tattoo ink. Of course, the bottle of ink would be useless once the imnt was finished and the output tattoo wasplete, but waste reduction wasn''t really a problem for me.


    The final two steps before I could begin were to double-check all of my scans for any negative side effects, something I had been doing throughout the whole process, and removing all of the remaining tattoos on my body, reducing me back down to basic human.


    Three caduceus droids performed the surgery minutes after I was done removing my tattoos, as I wanted to spend as little time as possible without my enhancements. Under my own watchful eye, wearing a medical knowledge ring and a pain-killing ring, the robots cut me open and began attaching the enhancements to my bones. It was bloody, disconcerting, and nerve-wracking, especially as I was used to any of my injuries healing immediately, while these stuck around to let the droids work.


    The final step in the surgery was the healing and repairing imnt, which I couldn''t watch as the droids were setting it into my skull. I could feel the moment it activated though, as my body began to heal, the strange feeling of my skull being exposed almost immediately disappearing.


    Once that was done, Ema, whose exosuit had long since finished its repairs, started the process of applying my tattoos. Able to use two tattoo guns at once and work at an impressive pace, she finished my tattoos, most of which were just invisible patches, in only an hour or so. Thest step was linking the imnts and tattoos that needed to function to my palms. My right hand had my nonlethal and healing options, while my right had the potential and very lethal options.


    Ema immediately tried to get me to stop and head to bed, but I told her to leave me alone, I had a few more things to do before I was satisfied. Before I could stop.


    The first step was upgrading Ema''s exosuit. Somewhere along the line I had stopped upgrading it, which was honestly uneptable. First, I applied Uru, divine essence and sorcerous protection to the dormant suit, increasing its potency up to S tier. I then carved out her emerald eyes, again while the exosuit was shut down, and copied them a dozen times with a UCM, beforebining them with universal scanners and four pairs of enhanced vision goggles. When I was done I put the one set back into ce and repaired them, before letting her absorb the extras, giving her six more spare eyes.


    After that, I had Ema reform her exosuit and portion off half-foot cubes of material. Four of them werebined with conceptually crafted rifles that I got from a battle bot and improved with Uru and divine essence. The other two portions were put inside small containers, which I then copied and stacked together in order to expand their storage and cement them as exosuit metal storage. By the time I stopped stacking them, they held enough material for her to make a second body. I copied her exosuit entirely and added the additions to the new dormant block beforebining it with her original dormant one.


    Before Ema can even say anything, I move on to my next project, ignoring herpletely. I needed to be stronger, I needed my friends to be better protected. What would happen when the Skrulls came? When Gctus showed up? I couldn''t depend onst-second saves from Ema, I needed to be ready. I needed to be stronger! I needed-


    I was halfway through an update to my revolvers when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Natasha, her eyes locked on mine. Her hair was back, and she looked rested, but I could tell she was nervous. Her posture showed more vulnerability and openness than I had ever seen in her before. I opened my mouth to say something, but no sound came out. Instead, she took my hand, pulled the card I was examining from it, and put it down on the table.


    "It''s okay, Carson. You saved me, and stopped him before he got too far," She said, her other handing up to hold my cheek. "We are okay, we are safe,"


    "I need There''s more out there"


    "I know. There is always more Carson. Always more that could be done, always more you wish you did. Always regrets. But right now, your okay, and I''m okay."


    "I should have seen iting Natasha, I -"


    "Carson, I know you know things that you shouldn''t," She said, looking me in the eye. "I''ve known for a while, since I first met you. At first, I thought you just had an intelligence source we didn''t know about. But it''s more than that, isn''t it?"


    I wince, unable to really lie to her, not when she asked me so directly.


    "It is," I respond simply. "I-"


    She put her finger to my mouth, stopping me in my tracks, before leaning in and kissing me. When she pulled away she held my face in her hands.


    "It doesn''t matter. Well it probably does, but right now it''s not important," She assured me, showing me her real smile again. "Let me show you what is."


    She took my hand again and gave it a squeeze, before pulling me slightly, leading me away from my workshop. We passed through my apartment without a word as she led me to my bedroom, the door shutting behind us.<hr>


    We stayed in bed untilte the next day.


    Alfred brought us food, and we spent a lot of time in bed, pressed together, enjoying the stability and support that having someone that close to you brought. We did <em>other</em> things as well, but not until I had slept for ten hours.


    When we did finally leave the bedroom, I led Natasha back to the warehouse, sitting her down on a bench. We both agreed that if this rtionship, which was now very much an official, exclusive and solid thing, was going to work, Natasha needed to be enhanced as I was, or at least close to it. She would still be working for Shield, but now she expected me to warn her when I was going on adventures or got sucked into a problem.


    And because she refused to know I was involved in something and not be able to help, she agreed to go through with her enhancements. She wasn''t interested in the active tools I now had imnted in my body, but the passive buffs, protections, and enhancements were all necessary.


    Since all of her tattoos would be still invisible, I didn''t need to get Ema, and once her new healing and repairing imnt was set, as well as her backup durability enhancements, I got to work on her tattoos, covering a significant portion of her body in undetectable powerups.


    When her personal enhancements were done, I began upgrading her equipment. She stopped me then, worried about making her too powerful, but I waved her concerns away. I was constantly improving over time, anything I made now would inevitably be obsolete at some point.


    If something ever happened, I would just have to push myself a bit to make something capable of stopping her, but it wouldn''t be difficult. I demonstrated that by showing her how my most powerful des were already capable of damaging the armor, and that these des were just stacked knives and swords. If I wanted to get serious about taking down someone who had somehow gained ess to this armor, I could have Tony whip up an energy sword, or maybe a vibrode.


    Suitably assured, Natasha relented, and I got to work. I took an unbound copy of the Panoply and mixed it with her shape-changing uniform, which she had taken to calling her omni-suit. This name was carried over after thebination, as the resulting armor was called "Omni-Armor of the Widow".


    I bound it to her and walked her through the basics, going over the suit''s abilities. She was a little put off by the extra arms but understood how useful they could be in a pinch. Ema, who had vanished sometime after Natasha had woken up and pulled me from my manic crafting episode, returned as I was exining just how fast the wings that Natasha now had ess to could go.


    "Ema," I started, before taking a breath, shaking my head, and starting again. "I''m sorry for being an ass. I well you know what I was doing, but you didn''t deserve the shitty attitude for helping me."


    "It''s alright. You were hurting and struggling with everything that happened," She assured me with a somber smile. "I didn''t me you anyway."


    We talked for a while, about what was going on down on Earth, where Ema had apparently been, helping Nick Fury, answering his questions, and delivering the equipment I had copied for them. Shield apparently had the situation well in hand, in no small part due to protocols that had been developed after they dealt with Hydra. She also exined to Natasha that Yelena had been captured and de-programmed and that she was now asking for her.


    Natasha let out a long sigh, rubbing her eyes before agreeing to go see her. She exined that while she did care about her pseudo-family on some level, she had been fully prepared to never see them again. Yelena hade to visit her without warning, and Dreykov had ambushed her, knocking her out, and removed her anti-mind control jewelry.


    We spent the rest of the day getting used to our new enhancements. Mine weren''t that difficult as I was not only used to it, but the improvements were noticeable, but not overwhelming. Natasha on the other hand spent several hours doing a few different control exercises. We ended the day with all three of us sparring for a few hours, both with and without armor and with and without Ema going all out.


    We slept well after a hearty meal.


    The next day we traveled back down to Earth, or more specifically the helicarrier that was floating above the Seventh Hell Prison, though it wouldn''t be there much longer. Both Natasha and I needed to have a long conversation with Fury, exining both what had happened as well as the situation with our rtionship. Unsurprisingly he was already aware that we were seeing each other, which rendered my previous anxiety about revealing it before Natasha was ready pointless. We were interviewed and debriefed, before both of us left the helicarrier, flying some distance before traveling away.


    Not long after that, Natasha and I Ianded at the Barton Farm. I had a promise to keep,te as it was, and this farm was Natasha''s happy ce. I quickly put down an incredibly powerful shield generator, attached it to a ward stone, and keyed its control to Clint and Luara. I also built an impressive, fully stocked bomb shelter under their barn that would let them survive indefinitely, and was strong enough to survive the cracking in two. It also had anding pad so that if something happened Natasha or I coulde to get them


    They were Natasha''s second family, I wanted them as protected as possible.


    We ended up staying for dinner, spending the time that the kids were at school talking about what had happened. I could see Clint was furious but expressed his gratitude foring to Natasha''s rescue, and Luara clearly felt for both of us. I once again wondered what Laura''s connection was to Clint and Natasha''s line of work, but kept my questions to myself. When the kids returned, and after we had dinner, Natasha and I slept in what she called the guest room but what the Bartons called Natasha''s room.


    The next morning, after a breakfast of pancakes and bacon, I left to head back to the warehouse, while Natasha stayed on Earth with the Bartons. I promised toe pick her up in a day or two and bring her home, which she appreciated. We said goodbye with a kiss, and a series of gasps that reminded both of us that it was the weekend, which meant a barrage of questions from the littlest Bartons.


    I guiltlessly left Natasha to answer those questions while I traveled away, back up to the warehouse. I spent a few minutes cleaning and prepping my workstation before traveling to mynding pad at S.T.A.R.S. and hunting down Tony. He covered it with sarcasm and sas, but I could tell he was annoyed about the disappearing act. Pepper had no reason to hide her annoyance though, giving me quite a talking-to until I got a chance to exin why I was shirking my responsibilities to the nonprofit think tank. She apologized profusely when I was done.


    Tony just poured me a ss of expensive brandy.


    The rest of the week was spent spending time with Natasha, helping Shield through the aftershocks of the Red Room, and working through the backlog of requests from S.T.A.R.S. Natasha was a frequent guest in the warehouse, and she kept me from overworking myself to make up for the few days that I was busy. When the week ended, I was all caught up with everything, and ready to move on to the next project.

 Chapter 122: And time passes

    Chapter 122: And time passes


    The WSC put together crews for the Earth Defence Fleet surprisingly quickly. It was a rather daunting task that I had assumed would take several months toplete, but about a week after the construction of the first battle group was finished, they had crews for each of the ships ready. The crew was much smaller than any water-bound ship would be because much of the ship''s functions would be automated, but there were still quite a few roles to fill.


    The process of activating the battle group started with me putting a series of portal doorways, identical to the system used at S.T.A.R.S, down in a secure section of the Triskelion. They had renovated a set of offices, moving whatever had been located there to a satellite facility. They then turned the cleared space into the central hub for the Earth Defense Fleet deployment and monitoring.


    Each of the portal doors led to a different yet-to-be-named ship. When the next battle group was done, I would link a set of doors for them as well. I also put down the monitoring equipment for each ship in the same general area before handing over the kill switch to Director Fury. It was bound to him and also included a safety feature that prevented him from activating it if he was being mentally influenced or forced to through coercion. I had my own switch that was simrly bound and locked.


    After doing my part to set up the Earth Defense Fleet Command, including setting up a holoprojector map of the sr system that would track the fleets real-time, and would eventually allow me to hook up an early warning sensor field so that they could monitor a considerable amount of space around the, I was introduced to the first crew.


    It was a team of various ethnicities and origins, mainly from Shield, but also several other militaries, including the US Navy and Airforce. I could only imagine the backroom dealings that worked that out, and I was delighted I hadn''t been involved.


    I spent three days training the crew, running them through drills, and helping them get to know the ship before leaving them to train on their own. When the next battle group was finished, the original crews split in two, so they wouldn''t have to rely on me for training.


    I was happy to see that they included people who previously couldn''t serve or fly due to things like injuries, age, and vision issues, especially for the starfighter pilots. Not only was it less critical for them to be near perfect because the starfighters were all remote piloted and, once destroyed, would be automatically reced for no cost, but the ships all had ess to a caduceus droid-staffed medical room. Quite a few of the crews went in with medical issues and left perfectly healthy.


    While the crews of the battle groups were getting used to their new roles, I started work on the Reactionary Fleet Base on the dark side of the Moon. While the final structures wererge, they weren''t anythingplicated. I created a series of massive berths for each ship, each with a portal frame along the bottom. A control system located in a central building could select a destination, and the vessel would fall or fly downwards and appear in the designated area. They could appear anywhere in the general sr system, save the off-limits sphere around Earth, giving the Reactionary Fleet incredible flexibility.


    Around the time that the Reactionary Fleet started construction, meaning that all four of the patrol fleets wereplete and out patrolling, Ipleted construction of the final version Earth shield system satellite. They hadpleted their contribution to the system a week and a half prior, and I had worked out several versions that the WSC then had to test extensively.


    I was able to iste the concept of nned failure from the satellite they created, meaning that I could make it as strong as I wanted. At this point, the satellites were as near to indestructible as I could get in a Marvel universe where adamantium didn''t seem to exist. However, they would still fall apart and disintegrate from the heat of reentry if knocked out of orbit. Shield, of course, tested this a few dozen times by dropping them from low earth orbit before they were finally satisfied. They also had a self-destruct trigger that would reduce them to harmless chunks if that somehow didn''t work.


    By the time I was done, I had worked an incredible amount of resources and iterations to the final product, and it showed. It was now a named card. Each individual satellite was an "As Shield System Satellite."


    A portion of the Triskelion was quickly set aside as a monitoring station for the shield system, which was where I set up their monitoring and control system. It wasyered with safeties and locks that would prevent it from being essed and used nefariously. It could also be entirely overridden by my terminal and would notify me secretly if anything was changed, which I did not tell them.


    After the monitoring station was set up, I set up their deployment. I had offered to do it from the roof of the Triskelion, as the drones would be produced and immediately turn invisible, but they had adamantly refused. Instead, I was sent to a high-security Shield facility in the midwest of America, where I set up thirty LPMs to pump out the satellites, which would fly up into the sky, fully cloaked, where they would link up to the controls systems and slide into their designated locations. It took a while, as these satellites were much moreplicated and conceptually dense than the ones protecting the Moon, but the system was automated, so I could just leave it running while working on other things.


    Three weeks after it started, deployment was finished with a whopping six hundred satellites, just around double what was required. They worked together to cover the entire in an invisible protective shield. I then converted half of the LPMs used to deploy the As Shield System to automatically replenish that number should any be destroyed.


    I wasn''t just working on therge defense projects during that time either. I was also dedicating a significant portion of my time to the requestsing from the scientists at S.T.A.R.S.


    Betty was trying to produce a series of gically engineered crops that could provide a significant amount of food, as well as survive and even thrive in specific extreme environments. The usual problem with this process was time. Each attempt had to be grown, and while you could do it in iterations and stages, you still had to wait to see the results of your experiment.


    I developed a series of nter spaces that would speed up the growth of a nt by an adjustable rate, all the way up to around ny-five percent. Now she could grow a nt that usually took three months to develop in a few days. It did require frequent changes in soil, but next to elerating the growth of a living thing, that was easy. Betty was already making good progress on the first version of her nt, a fast-growing tree that would produce small, dense fruit, not unlike a fig. The fruit wasn''t vorful, but it would count for a significant amount of someone''s daily nutrition.


    I was just d she understood the dangers involved with the concept, taking every step slowly and testing every aspect she could. It didn''t hurt that I could also double-check her work with my universal scanner, which I was debating spreading around the facility to let other people check their work for potentially dangerous and unforeseen issues.


    Bruce, Tony, and Bill Foster were working together on a group project, which in and of itself was part of arger engineering project. Together they were trying to make a cheaper, more user-friendly, and safer version of the arc reactor while the engineering team as a whole was attempting to create the perfect vehicle. It would have to be affordable, energy efficient, rugged, longsting,fortable, and environmentally friendly. Thest addition would be thepleted civilian arc reactor.


    The three super scientists were making serious headway, already having figured out how to make the arc reactor ident safe, meaning that it wouldn''t spiral out of control or overcharge anything if it was damaged in an ident. Their next project was shifting it to function on a less expensive core. The engineering team was also making significant progress and were now messing with a low-cost, biodegradable rubber from the biology department to make the tires and tubing. They had ns to use bamboo fabric for the interior and had already developed an efficient and safe engine system for the arc reactor to sit in.


    The current mode was a bit too expensive to be called affordable, but Tony assured me that the first step was to build the concept, then they could work down from there.


    It wasn''t all smooth sailing all around, though. Natasha and I had decided that while her enhancements could now keep up with my own, she wasn''t going to advertise that she had them. Unfortunately, fate conspired against her, and during a mission, she was forced to reveal them to save a civilian. The WSC was very upset that they hadn''t been told but had dropped it once I pointed out that who I enhanced was none of their business and that if they wanted my continued support, they would learn to mind it.


    Of course, now that they did know Natasha was enhanced, they began taking advantage of it, sending her on progressively more and more dangerous missions. That in and of itself wasn''t necessarily bad, but when they insisted that she start going on more missions with less downtime, she finally had enough. She left a note for Fury that she would be back when she felt like it and moved into Clint''s guest room, though she spent at least half her time on the Moon with me.


    I was tempted to stop working with the WSC and Shieldpletely, save for the EDF, but Natasha convinced me that the work I was doing and the work I could be doing soon was too important. I agreed, assuming that they didn''t start pushing for more. Neither of us had to worry for very long, as three of the council members decided to retire, and both of us received an apology from Councilwomen Hartford when she and Director Fury met with Tony, Pepper, and me to discuss some of their worries about S.T.A.R.S.


    Tony wasn''t interested in hearing anything they had to say, so he mostly spent the meeting firing sarcasticebacks and retorts, but Pepper and I both did our best to be amicable. Once we moved past the "how are we supposed to spy on you when you live on the moon?" issue, which was veiled behind several worries they had, they brought up several valid problems, including the fact that Shield was <em>supposed </em>to have unteral ess to research facilities studying potentially dangerous subjects to make sure everything was being properly handled, kind of like a super science OSHA.


    Technically, we could have told them to fuck off, as we were under no obligation to oblige them. However, Pepper and I both believed that as long as there was no recording equipment, or any attempt to steal our projects, we would allow Shield to go over our safety protocols and do the asional audit on whether our facilities were following them. Tony thought we were being pushovers, but neither saw the point in causing drama or conflict when there was minimal risk involved, especially since we could monitor their intent.


    Time went on, and soon almost three months had passed since the Red Room fiasco. Things had calmed down significantly, and my two major projects, the EDF and the As Shield System wereplete, both doing even better than I had expected. S.T.A.R.S. was already paying off, with progress being made in several promising avenues. It wouldn''t be long before our first revolutionary development would be rolled out, hopefully helping the.


    Natasha and I spent plenty of time going on dates and trying to one-up each other on crazy for the second half of each of them. She nned our third date, which ended with several halo-style drops from a quinjet, with the added challenge of ying tag. We both ended up gettingpetitive about how low to the ground we could wait to deploy our wings, and I ended up putting a hole through a barn roof. Technically it wasn''t that crazy, considering I could fly that high with my wings, but it was an exhrating experience.


    For our fourth date, after taking Natasha to the Eiffel tower, we flew around the Moon with some of the starfighters I designed for the Command ss ships for the EDF. We ended up dogfighting for a few hours, which miraculously ended with a tie, five to five.


    Eventually, we called a truce because we were both running low on new ideas and because Ema pointed out we were getting kind of reckless. Our fifth date was a double date, with Clint and Laura joining us on the Moon for a pic dinner cooked by Alfred. It was nice to just unwind, and I could tell Clint and Laura appreciated the chance to get away from the kids for the night. When they eventually went home, Natasha and I stayed a while longer on the nket, spread out on the gray surface of the Moon. There was a bubble of breathable atmosphere around us, held in by a shield system I had put down just for this night.


    We watched the clouds on Earth swirl around, the sun peaking out from behind the. It was incredibly peaceful, and while I knew there were plenty of challenges on the Earth before us and the space that surrounded us, I was confident that we could handle them.<hr>


    And with that, The Conceptual Deck is on hiatus. I hope you have enjoyed the story so far! For the most part, I have enjoyed writing it, and I have learned so much during the process. I do not know how long this hiatus willst, or if the story wille back at all, but I would like to thank everyone who left kindments and constructive criticism, as well as my very generous Patrons. You have all made this an even more enjoyable process!


    Stay tuned for Monday, when my next story will start!


    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and


    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!