Chapter 74 - The Avengers (Pt. 2)

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The rest of the ride pass in silence other than Tony repeatedly asking me, what my suit was made off and if magic was real, or was it just bullshit.

I cast a silencing rune on him to shut him up.

All of those on the plane, including loki gave me thankful looks, for finally managing to shut him up.

" A clever trick wizard. Loki, you should learn from him, he seems a better wizard, than you." Thor said.

Loki merely rolled his eyes, and stayed silent.

" Stop calling me a wizard. I'm a sorcerer." I snapped.

" What's the difference?" Steve asked.

" A sorcerer is a magic user whose power derives from long study and research. A bit more science than art, and so it is typically reliable. They typically channel power from other dimensions. A wizard on the other hand is born, and typically relies on his own magical reserves to cast spells or perform magic. " I said.

" So does that mean anybody can become a sorcerer if they study hard enough. " Natasha asked.

" It depends really. In theory you can, but it depends on your aptitude for magic and your intelligence. An average sorcerer trains for 10 to 15 years, before he's deemed a Master. " I said.

" How long did it take you? " Steve asked.

I smiled " A year. "

Soon we reach the Helicarrier and a few agents take Loki in chains to his new room. I see Banner working on the Sceptre, so I join him.

He gives me a strange look, surprised by my appearance, but then shakes his head and continues his own tests.

I start examining the scepter using a few spells. For those looking, it looked like I was just waving my hands around.

Like the the time stone, the Sceptre had a similar signature to it.

But I could feel It emited a low Gamma radiation which had an effect on the mind, my symbiote automatically filtered such radiation and pevented it from affecting me.

That won't necessarily hold true, If I were to grab it directly.

Each infinity stone represented an aspect of creation. And the mind stone, could tear through any kind of mental defenses I have.

'So this is why the Sceptre could shut down the Tesseract's portal. But is it true for all the infinity stones, or just these two?' I mused.

I get distracted by Banner's voice, saying, "He really grows on you, doesn't he?"

Steve speaks up next, "Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?"

Thor comes to from his musings and says, "He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard, or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

Steve looks incredulously at Thor and asks, "An army? From outer space?"

" I wouldn't worry about it Cap, the Chitauri are literally the suckiest army in the galaxy." I said.

" What do you mean?" Cap asked.

I used a spell to project a 3D hologram of the Chituari from my memory.

" The Chituari are a sentient species of cybernetically enhanced beings operating under a hive mind intelligence." I said.

" So in other words, destroy the scource, they're done for." Banner said.

" Exactly, it's usually a mothership which relays orders to the whole army. It's a pretty glaring weakness, it's their numbers which are annoying. " I said.

Banner nods and thinks out loud, "So he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

Thor gets startled out of his musings, again, and asks, "Selvig?"

Banner answers, without knowing any connection, "He's an astrophysicist."

Thor corrects him, "He's a friend."

Natasha explains to a confused Thor, "Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours."

Steve asks the most important question, "I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here."

I answer him, " He probably has an alterior motive, that or he's buying time."

" You mentioned someone might be possibly controlling loki, is it true?" Thor said.

" It's a strong possibility, I detected a flactuation in the Astral plane near Germany. He was communicating with someone, whichs leads me to believe, there's an even bigger player behind the scenes. " I said.

Everyone goes silent at the implications. If he's here because he wants to be, then he either has something to do on the Helicarrier, or he wants something from the Helicarrier.

Banner breaks the silence and says, "I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him."

Thor gets angry at Banner and grits out, "Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days." Natasha deadpans.

Thor's shoulders go lose and he whispers, "He's adopted."

Banner, still in thinking mode asks out loud, "Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?"

Suddenly the doors behind me open up and Tony enters with Coulson, he says, "It's a stabilizing agent."

He then turns towards Coulson and says, "I'll fly you there. Keep the love alive." Then turns back to us and explains, "Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD."

Tony walks close to Thor and taps his upper arm, "No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing. Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants."

He approaches Fury's station and starts giving out orders, "Raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails. That man is playing GALAGA! Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did."

He then closes one eye and tries looking at both the screens, "How does Fury do this?"

Agent Hill answers for Fury, dryly, "He turns."

Tony looks around the monitors and places a button size hacking implant under Fury's desk, without anyone but me noticing, and I only notice it because I was specifically looking for it.

That reminds me, I discreetly throw my own hacking implement at the console.

Sophie knows what she has to do. While this is going on, everyone in the room looks at Tony like he's a clown.

Tony rolls his eyes and moves away from the console, he says, "Well, that sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."

Agent Hill asks him, "When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"

Tony says, "Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

He asks, "Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?"

Banner thinks and answers, "He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."

"But what about the quantum tunnelling effect? He'll have to find a way to stabilise it first." I said.

Tony continues, "Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunnelling effect."

Banner gets a horrified look on his face and says, "Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."

Tony smirks at him and raises his hands in the air, "Finally, someone who speaks English."

Steve turns to the rest of us, "Is that what just happened?"

"We're saying that Selvig could theoretically open a stable portal anywhere on the planet where there's a reactor." I said.

Tony and Banner shake hands. A glimmer in their eyes shines as the mutual respect for each other shows.

Tony says, "It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm also a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Banner looks down in embarrassment, "Thanks."

Nick Fury walks in at that moment and speaks up, louder than anyone else there, "Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him."

"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon." Steve said.

"Yeah, they emit the same energy signature in pulses." I interject.

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys." Fury said.

Thor gets confused at that, "Monkeys? I do not understand." He asks.

Steve gets excited and raises his hand, "I do! I

understood that reference."

Tony rolls his eyes, while Cap looks proud of himself.

Tony turns to Bruce and asks, "Shall we play, doctor?"

Bruce smiles at him and leads him to the lab, "Let's play some." I follow them, simply because I have nothing else to do, and I want to keep an eye on Banner incase he hulks out.

We reach the lab in a few minutes at most. I take a look at the tracking algorithm they wrote and improve a few things on it to run separately from theirs. Tony raises his eyebrows at me, asking

'What are you doing?'

" Programming is my specialty. I found a few changes I could make in your algorithm, to improve it and ran it separately." I shrug, Tony looks at me like a puzzle, and Banner starts working on the Sceptre again.

" So what's your deal? " Tony suddenly asks.

" My deal? " I asked.

" I don't know. You showed up a few years ago, in one of the the most advanced suits, I've ever seen. You seem to know everything about everything, and not only that you're a magic user to boot. Who are you behind that mask, and why does Fury seem to trust you? " He said.

Banner by that point had already left his work and was eyeing me curiously as well.

Tony gets closer to me, until he was a few inches away from my face.

" Are you even human, under there? " He says.

I stay silent for a while, both of us staring each other down.

I was wining of course, since it was impossible for them to see my face.

I suddenly hear Sophie in my ear, " Master Doug, I'm afraid I have some bad news. Shield has your identity on file, which means Hydra knows too."

I communicate with her silently, by using a nifty little device I built that relays my brain signals, it's still a prototype, but it solves the problem of communication, when I'm in battle or simply need to relay orders quickly and efficiently.

" How much do they know?" I asked.

" More than we should be comfortable with, but not enough for us to be concerned. " She said.

" Do they know about Jean and the team?" I asked.

" They know, that they're mutants, but there isn't any mention of their identities." She said.

I sighed in relief and said." Keep me posted, I want any information related to mutants, inhumans or any powered individuals for that matter. I don't care who or when, I want to know."

Our exchange took only a few moments, with my enhanced brain and Sophie's advanced processing abilities. It was practically instantaneous.

Tony sees me sighing, misinterpreting as him winning, a smirk appears on his face.

" What, cat got your tongue?" He said.

" No I just found out Shield has my identity on file, so you' re going to find out anyway. I'm guessing that's your A.I snooping around in Shield's database." I said.

" How did yo..." He said.

" You're not the only one with an A.I Tony," I said.

" Ooh boy," Banner said.

"Caught that, have you? I guess I'm not the only smart cookie around here. " Tony asks me.

" Well, Stark products have always played second fiddle to ours, even your A.I Jarvis can' t hold a candle to mine. Sophie was done, by the time we left the bridge." I said.

A flash of realization appears on his face,

" You!!! "

I will the Venom suit back into my body and smile at their shocked faces.

" Douglas Ramsey Ceo of Cypher Solutions, the youngest billionaire on the planet!" Banner said.

" The one and only," I said.

They calm down after a bit, when Tony says" I guess, I'm not the only rich Superhero in New York. "

I smirk at him and say, "Normally, I'd like to keep this a secret for as long as possible, but since the proverbial cat is out the bag might as well come out and say it."

Tony nods dumbly, and suddenly asks, " Wait, how did you make your suit disappear?"

" Nano-tech, like I said, second fiddle. " I said.

Tony looks stupefied. Banner snorts in amusement and says, "If you're done with the pissing contest?"

Tony shakes his head and turns to the monitors in front of him, Banner continues with examining the Sceptre.

I will on my suit back, and continue writing my algorithms.

Banner takes a look at the readings and speaks up, "The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to process."

Tony returns, "If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops."

Banner smiles at him, "All I packed was a tooth brush."

Tony smiles at Banner, "You know, you should come by Stark Towers sometime. Top ten floors, all R . You'd love it, it's candy land."

Banner smiles at him, but shakes his head and says, "Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke...Harlem."

"Yeah that was a shit show, but you did save Harlem though. If it wasn't for you, Blonsky and the Army would have gone on to destroy the whole of New York." I said.

Tony smirks, "Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tension. No surprises."

Suddenly, Tony pokes Banner with a miniature electrical prod device. Banner gets shocked, but controls himself.

"OW!" Banner yelps out. Tony looks at Banner closely, and so do I.

Steve walks in on us, pissed at Tony.

Steve shouts out, "Hey!"

Tony ignores Steve and turns to Banner,

"Nothing"

Steve asks, "Are you nuts?"

Tony continues ignoring Steve and asks, "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"

Steve asks him, "Is everything a joke to you?"

Tony blurts out, "Funny things are."

Steve doesn't take shit and says, "Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doctor."

Banner waves it off, "No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." He says.

Tony looks at Steve and says, "You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut."

Steve glares at Tony, "And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark."

Tony raises an eyebrow at him, "You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

Steve asks, "You think Fury's hiding something?"

Tony looks at him in disbelief, "He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets."

He points to Banner and me, "It's bugging them too, isn't it?" I just nod.

Banner stumbles with his words, "Uh...I just wanna finish my work here and..."

Steve interrupts him, "Doctor?"

" 'A warm light for all mankind', Loki's jab at Fury about the cube." Banner speaks up, remembering Loki's speach.

Steve nods, and says, "I heard it."

Banner points at Tony, "Well, I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't post that all over the news."

Steve asks, thinking a bit, "The Stark Tower? That big ugly.." Tony gives him a look and I snort

"...building in New York?"

Banner continues, "It's powered by Stark Reactors, self- sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?"

Tony replies smugly, "That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."

" My suit's still better." I pointed out.

Tony pouts at that and starts grumbling, he knew I was right, which hurt his pride even more.

Banner continues explaining, "So, why didn't SHIELD bring them in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

"Yeah, I don't think they're in this for the energy." I say and shake my head when Steve looks at me questioningly.

Tony mumbles, "I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files."

Steve gets taken aback, "I'm sorry, did you say...?"

Tony explains, "Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?" he asks the last part holding out a bag in front of Steve.

Steve glares at him, "Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around?"

Tony raises an eyebrow and asks, "An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not possible."

I calmly speak up, "Steve, we know hacking is wrong. But what they're doing is suspicious, I don't want something like Hydra to happen to the world again."

Steve thinks on it, but being the stubborn man he is, says, "I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them."

Tony waves his hand and says, "Following is not really my style."

Steve smiles at Tony and asks, "And you're all about style, aren't you?"

Tony looks like that hit a nerve, and says, "Of the people in this room, which one is; A. wearing a spangly outfit, and B. not of use?"

I interrupt before this can escalate some more and say, "We're not soldiers, Steve. The world hasn't been at war for 70 years. They brought all of us three in as consultants."

Banner continues, "Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" Steve takes in the possibility, but shakes it off.

He says, "Just find the cube." Steve walks out of the lab. Still torn apart by the possibility, he walks away.

( Chapter End)

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For 10+ advanced chapters of ( Ultimate Cypher)"

" And my new MHA Fanfic (Altered Mind)"

Check out my pat-reon/????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????.