I Cast Fist

Chapter 9

Shadow-Clone Misadventures

By: BigToFu

Shadow clone #33

Tyrannosaurus Dundee

Sebastian Wild

Savage Lands baby, here I come, maybe I can find a Rexxy and see if he would be amenable to offering up some dino steak. Hell, if things go well, I just might be able to get some dino-nuggies out of this. Whistling a jaunty tune, I opened a portal to the cold yonder and stepped through.

Far as the eyes could see, there was nothing but a frozen landscape. Taking a moment to breathe in the cool yet sharply crisp air, I finally stepped out onto the Arctic-grounds with all smiles on my face until the cold hit me hard with its blistering winds.

Ohh boy, that was brisk…

Things changed after the snap of my fingers, before bringing my hands together as I primed a multi-dimensional scanning spell. I touched a thumb to my index and then rotated my hands till my other fingers also met.

Original Spell : Sight's of Planer Existence

Across my vision, the world shifted as lines of magic rolled forth from my body only visible to me. Two flares pinged along my vision one twenty-plus mile to the North-West and the other far underneath the water. Taking a moment to think about it, I sent off a location marker for the one underneath the waves before floating towards the other with a flap of my badass flying cape.

Following the signal, I stopped and hovered near a mountainside. With a sharp flick of the wrist, magic power launched from my fingertips to crash into what turned out to be a flexible membrane. Finding the dimensional wall a little thin, I hit it with more magic opening a portal to the other side. Peering through, I found a lush forest stretching high into the sky. A quick scan found a majority of the trees around the portal were well over two hundred feet. Another thing My scan brought back was that the local area was also clear. Looking around, because why not, I walked through and closed the portal behind me. The sounds of the forest hit me as I flew upwards and landed on one of the massive tree limbs.

Allowing the unusual smells to roll over me, I glanced over the edge of the massive tree limb, the bush down below didn't even shake before a raptor darted from its foliage. It slid to a stop and sniffed the air while looking around.

Another three ran into view, but I noticed at least five others spread out in a circle. The thing that worried me was it sniffed the air before looking right up at my location.

Ohh, that's a clever girl…

With a shake of the head, I stepped off the ledge and flew in the opposite direction with a simple locator spell leading the way. While I flew I made some minor changes to my outfit along with swapping out the enchantments for jungle theater. I even had me a classic Dundee hat, I was Tyrannosaurus-Dundee.

As I flew, little crows were conjured and released into the air to help map out the Savage Lands while I followed the increasing range of my sensor magic. The number of things that pinged on my magical sensor was astronomical, but very few even caught my attention. My cape flapped around me from the speed of the winds as I went the distance before arriving at a waterfall and landing lightly along the bank.

With a wave of my hand in front of me, I found what I was looking for deep underwater and along a cavern wall. With a snap of my fingers and twirl of my hands, I was in a set of swim trunks with enchanted beads around my neck for water breathing. I gave my local area a scan, then thought better as I picked up a rock, enchanted it with a predator locator sense, and placed it back down before jumping high and then into the water.

The cool embrace of the river was near the same as what I felt out in the arctic with the chilling winds whipping around. Taking a moment to gather my bearings, I then swam on as I figured out my north from the south while underwater. Then breaching the surface had me reoriented with the waterfall. Another minor spell had me locate what I was looking for as I went back beneath the waves with not even a splash of water.

With the enchanted necklace of beads around my neck, it was easy to not only see where I was going but also not get confused by the swimming animals. Not going to lie, there was a time or two when a few of the beasties did scare the hell out of me; so many teeth.

Anyway, after another twenty minutes of swimming down a stretch of tunnel, I had to stop short as I felt something wrong from the pits of my stomach. A quick wellness check found blood was leaking out of my nose which had me follow up with a medical scanner-type spell.

It wasn't good news and neither was it bad news, but the news was news and it was that the iron in my blood was dissolving. The closer I got to the anti-metal the more the iron in my blood dissolved, the good news was I had a spell for that. The bad news but also good news was that I had found a massive deposit of the ore for it to be able to affect me like that. I wasn't even fifty feet from the metal deposit and already the iron in my blood was dissolving. I would have died real quick if I wasn't so cautious.

Thinking better than to approach, I floated there thinking about my options before an idea struck me.

Earth Element Spell : Grasping Hands

Striking out my palm facing the wall, I struck hard with my magic flowing outwards as the surface of the underwater cave rolled from my actions. As the magic took hold, hundreds of hands burst outwards made up entirely of the rock wall as it rolled over and gathered up the anti-metal I came here for. Another quick spell and even faster action had a portal opened as I shoved hundreds of tons of the stuff into a secure location in my tower.

Taking another few minutes to mine the rich vein of ore, I made sure to leave a location tag before gathering my things and swimming back upwards. As I got closer to the surface, the predator ward I had left to alert me about certain things rang in my ears fiercely, scaring me more than a little I'll admit. Staying in deep water, I brought up my monitor spells once more to check, and boy was I bad at math.

I had been tracked across the Savage Lands.

Fanned out in a C formation around the edge of the water were velociraptors, but that wasn't all. Out behind me, floating on the surface was a behemoth of a monster crocodile easily one hundred and fifty feet long with massive jaws. It had stopped swimming lazily along the surface of the river to stop and watch the raptors bark. Noooo, that wasn't barking, the little shits were communicating with each other, pack vocal communication.

Ohh, that can't be good.

Feeling like I might have overstayed my welcome, I spun my arm on the spot making me invisible as I flew up and out of the river hightailing it outta there. With a shake of my head, I flew under my invisibility towards my next goal as one of my spy ravens had located a dino nest. Landing on a branch, I took the time to look around until I found the massive Dino print next to what was clearly a nest hidden amongst the foliage.

Taking my time to make sure that nothing would sneak up on me, I finally gathered my courage after a bit as I jumped off the branch and floated down slowly. I landed lightly on the balls of my feet, then checked my surroundings once more, before pulling a Grinch and tip-toeing over to the massive tyrannosaurus nest. As I slowly approached the nest, I found that it rose up out of the ground in a little squat-type bowl by at least two feet high, the diameter of the nest was closer to five feet across with oval football-sized eggs.

Checking my surroundings once more, I found nothing, so I finally stepped into the nest with one leg. Checking things over and counting them out, I found a total of three massive eggs, but I only had eyes for the largest one.

The moment I got my hands on the egg and picked it up, there was a boom in the distance. Then another and another, I looked over and found the puddle of water inside of a footprint ripple.

Ohh shit…

There was another massive boom a little over ten feet away as I turned towards its direction and came damn near face-to-face with the mother of all Jurrasic predators. My ears flickered at the patter of feet before something came dashing out of the forest foliage, and slid to a stop.

BARK! BARK!

A shiver ran down my spine because I knew that fucking sound. Damn Velociraptors had stayed on my scent and tracked my ass down.

Ohh hell nahh…

No way I was about to stay here with this bullshit, with the snap of my fingers, five illusions of myself ran in five different directions, the dinos following hot on their asses. I, on the other hand, scooped up the egg, and tucked it under my arm like a football while the others slipped into a portal back to Avengers Alley.

What I did notice though was that momma Rexie didn't chase after any of the illusions like the velociraptors did, what she did do though was sniff the air.

Ohh shit!

Turning on a dime, I started to run, a spell of haste active over my invisible form as Momma Rexie roared nice and loud for the entire jungle to hear the fury. Then she was on me, invisible or not, she was hot on my ass.

Ohh shit! Ohh shit! Ohh shit! Ohh shit!

I was off running as if I was the living embodiment of Usain Bolt himself.

Shit! Shit! shit!

Shadow Clone Hive Mind #2

Sebastian Wild

I'm a ghost, I'm a ghost, I'm a ghost, I'm a ghost, I'm a….. Ghost!

With a chuckle, I floated through the side of the house and into Xavier's bedroom, hmm a little stale, but I guess that was his style. Putting those thoughts out of my head, I brought my hands together as I then shifted us both into the mirror dimension, a very good magical replica left behind in the bed. It even emitted the same psionic waves so not even Jean would notice the difference.

Magic for the win baby.

Cracking my neck one way then the other, I then brought my hands together and did the same for my fingers, with a sigh and feeling myself a lot looser and more prepared. I felt that it was time. There was no reason to deal with this bald bastard while he pulls his bullshit, there is a reason why I consider him the Original Dumbledore after all, as the saying goes. The road to hell is paved with alot of good intentions. And neither I nor the original wanted to be a body on the path he paves for the so-called greater good.

Original Spell: Soul Extraction!

With purple fire roiling up my arms, I plunged them into the chest of Xavier, his eyes flying wide open as pain racked his body. His telepathic attack slid right off my mind as I tore him from his flesh suit. He fought hard, but this was my domain while his was of the mind, Xavier had no power here as I ripped his soul straight from his body. Holding his soul above my head with my right, I cast a protection charm over his body to keep its heart pumping.

This was not going to be any ordinary possession, no, that was when a soul was already in a body and you put another soul inside of that on top of the other. With his soul removed from the body, this fixed the false possession flag that might get tripped by other magic users. Plus, the brain kept all the knowledge that I would need along with his X-gene being tied to his genetics.

"Why would you… what have you done?" Xavier asked as he hovered over me still within my grasp struggling.

Looking at him, I shrugged, "I was going to wait for your answer, but I figured why the fuck should I let you dictate terms, that's just dumb. If you actually had these kids and the rest of the meta-race's genuine interests at heart, you would have done something instead of sitting on your ass for so long."

"It's not that simple," Xavier answered exasperatedly, with a betrayed look on his face.

My answer was to snort in his face, "Yeah, tell that to Jean after you violated her mind the way you have." Then I shook my head, "Look, I'm not here to give you a long list of your failures and preach about it. You suck and fucking lost, now into the jar with you."

He never got the chance to say anything as I brought into reality an indestructible soul gem. I'm rather certain that Lady Death would love a soul as tainted as his. My hands felt so slimy just touching his soul because it was easy to tell that his road to hell was paved with so many good intentions. The moment his soul went into the jar, a portal opened as the Mad Dr. Version of us reached out and snatched him from my grasp.

"He's for Lady Death you mad moron!" I called with a little panic in my voice.

The Shadow Clone stopped and gave me a pout, "But Science?"

I shook my head, "You can have Shaw or one of the villains, that one's for Lady Death, plus, I'm gonna need a full body upgrade when I call for the meeting and healing. So you have work to do putting together a medical plan for my new body."

"Fine, but I want Shaw and his little band of evil mutants." The Mad Doctor replied back before closing the portal.

With a shake of the head, I let the Mad Doctor do his thing while I floated over the meat sack of Xavier. Placing a hand on the chest, it was really hard to keep myself from just doing my upgrades and damn the consequences, but I couldn't. I would have to bring it up with the original tomorrow. Might as well do a full equipment upgrade, plus Xavier already had telekinesis as one of his minor abilities.

Actually, I might as well give that a twenty percent boost and use the excuse of getting my legs back as a reason for practicing such an ability, or some such nonsense. I didn't mind the bald head, but I decided that maybe a beard would be good so I made sure that it could grow in nice and dark. After double-checking the bowels to make sure I didn't have to deal with that mess, I also made sure the dick was working along with the rest of the plumbing.

The Original chuckled in the back of my mind, but we were both of the same thinking. If this was going to be one of the new bodies, might as well make sure it all worked. Plus, Xavier wasn't a slouch in the pulling pretty birds game. Happy with not finding anything horribly wrong, I pulled on my magic and pushed it forward.

Original Spell: Soul Transfusion!

With a snap, I sat up in the bed breathing hard as sweat trickled down my brow a little. Closing my eyes, I focused and looked inwards at the mental shields Xavier and previously set up to protect his mind, then walked right past them. The body was just an organic machine with a quantum computer for a brain, what really made us special was the spark of the soul that made us more than just monkeys.

Reviewing the memories, I nearly gagged at the things that I found, the things that he had done to his own son were so appalling. Then there were also the things that Xavier had done to Moira, Hank and so many others all in the name of the greater good. Stopping myself from delving deeper into the memories of the body, I cleaned myself up with a little bit of magic and got ready for the day.

The Jean situation will need to be handled as soon as possible, there was no way in hell I wanted that bomb anywhere near me. So I would need to schedule a talk with the girl in the coming week to deal with the mental blocks. I would also need to figure out a way to break it to her nicely, something about worrying her powers might cause accidents because she was too young for them or something along those lines. Yeah, that just might work since I was going to undo the seals Xaver had put in place.

They all saw Xavier, well me now as a father figure and the previous tenent of the body had no problems in abusing that emotional connection, sigh.

*Original, I'm gonna need you to magic up some stuff for me."

*It's that bad huh?*

*Worse, barely used telekinesis, there is so much I'm going to need, and don't get me started on the Jean situation.*

*So, you're gonna need a standard Power-pack then.*

*Yes, also the Mustang glove or the pair of powerfist diplomacy is good, but I at least want to back it with power, not child soldiers.*

*Hm, leading from the front instead of the back… Not a bad way of doing things. Alright, i'll have the Power-pack ready for when you arrive.*

With that conversation over with, I rolled out of bed and into the hoverchair. Feeling a little giddy, I floated in front of the mirror and checked myself over.

Damn, I made the bald extraordinary gentleman style look damn good.

Shadow clone #63

The Friend

Sebastian Wild

Floating above the warehouse with a case of beer in hand, I gave my hoodie a pat down to feel for my Avengers card. Pulling it out, I snorted at the updates scrolling by from all of the Shadow Clones doing their own thing. With a sigh, I shook my head dismissing the rest of the clones to do their thing.

Floating down, I phased through the ceiling of the warehouse. Looking around from the rafters, I found Frank sitting at one of the tables eating right out of a canned food tin.

Landing lightly on the balls of my feet, I canceled my invisibility as I placed the can of beer down on the table. The reflex was sharp as ever, blade in off-hand, gun in the other.

"You're not gonna need that," I said with a sigh while pulling up a chair.

Frank looked at me, looked around, then looked at me once again, "I don't think I believe that, Merlin."

With a snort, I pulled a beer from the six-pack and slid the rest across the table. The missing beer from the holder magically generated a beer. Ignoring Frank, I popped the top and chugged half my bottle before putting it down with a sigh. Frank did a half-stance shift from sitting to standing back to sitting before placing the knife down, the gun still in hand aimed at my head.

"You're not gonna need that," I replied with a wave of my beer. "I'm not here to bring you in."

"Huh," Frank replied with a soft mutter, "Then what are you here for?"

I made a motion towards the beer, "A drink, and maybe help with some closure."

That glare, such intensity, as if something like that could intimidate me. Well, if I was on the other side of the law, then maybe it would. That man had a way of killing things and I wanted that on the team. Black Widow and Clint were good, but the Punisher was far better.

Yeah, well I don't need no closure," Frank grunted at me before sitting back down with a none-too-pleased look on his face.

Ignoring him, I downed some more of my beer before setting the glass down with a sigh. "I looked you up, you know that?" I asked with a hand motion.

Grunt, "Yeah, and what'd you find?" Frank replied before taking a beer from the confines of the container. A replacement magically appeared in the vacant spot of course.

I shrugged my shoulders, "Lots of stuff, some good some bad, the usual."

Frank didn't reply as he placed the top of the beer on the edge of the table before bringing down a fist to pop the top.

"It read pretty typically until I got to the Agent Orange section, or maybe you know him by the name William Rawllin the 3rd," I replied with a shake of the head while twirling a finger to create a mini illusion of the man on the table. Now Frank was paying attention, his actions paused for a second before smoothing out.

Frank snorted, putting on a show of not caring even though I noticed the sharpness in his eyes. "Yeah, what about him?"

Now it was my turn to give him a flat look, "Well, I need a trigger man for my Avengers; and I doubt you would do it for money."

Frank snorted now while I put my now empty beer on the table and pulled another, "yeah, well he ain't that special."

"Funny you say that because he felt you were special enough to put a hit out on you that failed even if it caught some others in the crosshairs," I replied briskly.

Frank's knuckles went white from the grip he had on the beer bottle, "What?

Releasing a sigh, I popped the top of another beer and gave Frank a leveled look, "It's sort of why I came here for you. The Avengers is pretty much being given a blank check to build a team and your name crosses my lap. Long story short, I looked into your situation and felt you might want the true target instead of chasing dead ends." I took a long swig of deer, "Plus, I'm magic: so I thought you might want to share at least some parting words with your family, good deeds and all that jazz."

It was clear that he only heard one thing as he pulled closer to the table, his look manic. "You can bring them back?"

I couldn't shake my head hard enough at that question, "No, absolutely not, I can allow you to speak to them one last time." The look on his face was like looking at a kicked puppy. "There are many things that I can do, but I will not tread upon Lady Death's duties."

"Well said," A silky female voice spoke from the side causing both Frank and I to turn quickly in the direction of the voice. There she was, long flowing silky hair, a black one-piece dress, black lace gloves with a black rose between her fingers. She was beauty incarnate and I could see why Thanos was such a simp. She turned and smiled at me, with a chuckle, I smiled back and offered her a beer.

I did a formal nod of the head as I offered her a beer, "My Lady."

"Thank you," Lady Death replied smoothly as she took a beer. I watched and didn't even see the frost on the bottle move.

"And who are you?" Frank asked Lady Death and there was no stopping the glare I sent him.

With a flourishing hand motion towards the third companion, I spoke, "Frank, this is-"

"I'm Death, and I don't mean it metaphorically, or rhetorically, or poetically, or theoretically, or in any other fancy way. I'm death straight up." Then she flicked her hand open, black flames roiling around as three spirits floated out of the fire. "And I come to bargain."

At the sight of the souls, Frank's eyes widened as his posture stiffened.

"Frank, don't," I said at the sight of the three souls.

The man ignored me as he shifted to staring Lady Death down, "What's the bargain?"

Lady Death finished the beer with her off-hand, then brought the bottle down onto the table. It misted into an illusion of a skull with flames, "My job is a busy one, but there are times certain souls need expeditions, so I need a rider."

I couldn't help it as I interjected myself into the conversation, "Frank, I know all this mystical stuff is new to you, but you can't be the Ghost Rider, the cost-"

His need snapped in my direction, "Is what she offering legit?" Frank asked with intensity.

I sighed, "Yes, all you would need is someone to build a body for them."

"Can you do it?" Frank asked with rapid-fire intensity.

My shoulders went up and down, "Yeah, it's not that hard, plus if I take a little bit of hair from your house or the stuff you have in storage, I could match the bodies perfectly to the soul so there wouldn't be any soul rejection." My voice trailed off at the end as I realized the implications.

Frank looked at Lady Death, glanced at me with my wide horror shocked eyes, then with a grunt he turned back around towards Lady Death. "And if I become this rider, I can get my family back?"

"YES," Lady Death replied as her voice echoed around with power.

I couldn't help myself as I placed a hand on his shoulder, "Frank, listen to me, the price of being a rider-" I never got to finish as Frank brushed my arm off his shoulder.

"I'll do it." At those words, Frank reared back and roared to the sky as the transformation started. Flame's poured out of Frank from all over as it ate away at his flesh, and the jacket he wore transformed into a spiky thing. Reds, oranges, blues, and flickering shadows shifted around the room as Frank stood tall, not even a scream leaving his lips.

Even the gun in his grasp transformed into a massive hand cannon-looking thing that I absolutely wanted to see fire. Then again, I was also worried about the type of damage that thing could do to a body. There was a quick motion, then the double-barrel shotgun strapped underneath the table was in his hands and also going through its own transformation.

"Ohh by the Grace of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, what have I done…."

Note's :::

Yeah, no one saw Xavier getting blasted out of the plot like that. So it's clear that the shadow clone forgot to cover his scent, lol. Also yes, I wrote it that he didn't fight the prehistoric animals because it's more fun to write him running through the Jungle.

Frank Castle the Punisher, as Ghost Rider ! No one saw that coming at all !

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