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Chapter 79

Technomancer in MCU

The Asterisk

–Alfred–

“Stop pacing around, dammit. You are going to make me dizzy. I didn’t even think it was possible with all my enhancements.” Daisy said as she rolled into the captain’s cabin in her new wheelchair, followed by Frank, Eric, and Jake, as if they were little ducklings following their mama.

It would have been hilarious if not for the glaring absence of their one and only leader, Ed. 

After exiting Project Ark, they had been lucky enough to just crash land on Mars, practically spitting distance from the Asterisk for someone of their technological level. 

But the same could not be said for Ed.

The second he was out of Project Ark, he had checked up on Frank and after finding him to be just unconscious, he immediately dove into the astral realm to begin the search for Ed.

He could see the thread linking him and Ed but it went deep into space. 

He had feared the worst when abruptly as if Ed had travelled through a portal, the thread dipped out of his vision completely. 

Chills had run down his spine at the thought of some alien civilisation with access to portal technology, getting a hold of Ed. Because as far as he knew, Sorcerers had a hard limit as to how far they can make portals in a single try and Ed was far out of that range.

He also knew that the Ancient One had suspended all off-planet assignments and called everyone back once the resurgence of the threat Dormammu possessed to Earth had been confirmed.

He had been petrified of what that might have signalled only to see that the thread linking him with Ed had changed directions and was now showing him to be on Earth.

That would have been a thing to celebrate.

But there he was, pacing around, almost creating a smoke trail in his path if he was not being careful. The reason being that Ed was untraceable.

Sure, the Astral realm showed that Ed’s soul, while in a weird double state, was still on Earth, hale and hearty but as soon as he tried to divine his exact location, the spell, be it made of dimensional energy, Chaos energy, Infinity stone empowered energy, fizzled out, never giving him any concrete answer.

He had a feeling that brute forcing with the help of the Infinity Stone would have helped but the protocols regarding bringing the Mind Stone anywhere close to any kind of Artificial Intelligence were hardcoded in him and he was not about to disobey Ed on that.

Especially since he knew what could happen if it went about in the wrong direction and even more so when it concerned him, someone, already capable of destroying the planet without any help.

“Let him be, Daisy. You know he won’t rest until we find Ed and he is just frustrated that for once, all his measures have fallen short.” Frank said as he rolled to his usual station, to do the routine checks he did on the agents and their mission roles.

Just then, the sound of the door opening made everybody look at the entrance and the frantic footsteps made everyone sit a little straighter, leaning forward in anxious anticipation.

“Si-Sir, You need to–ah,” The clearly new agent yelped and staggered back after he noticed the collective attention of the top management was on him.

Daisy immediately went into her boss mode and waved the terrified agent over who was clutching the tablet as if his life depended on it, “What is it?”

As he heard Daisy sucking in a sharp breath, his curiosity began piquing. He immediately accessed the tablet and all the data on it.

His eyes immediately widened as he opened up a whole bunch of holographic screens in front of them.  

Everybody gathered around him as the screens began showing seemingly random events when they were anything but.

One screen showed the scene of Kaecilius’s attack on Kamar Taj and the way he and his followers brutally slaughtered anybody who opposed them, including the old librarian who had decided to stay in the compound of Kamar Taj. He fought valiantly but after killing two rogue sorcerers, he was on his last breath when Kaecilius beheaded him. The footage ended with the exit of the rogue sorcerers from Kamar Taj with Kaecilius holding something in one hand and a key wrapped up in ancient paper in the other hand. 

The next screen showed the spell the Ancient One used to armour up and leave when the reports for multiple demon sightings came through. The satellite footage showed her going through multiple demon waves across the planet, slaughtering nearly a hundred thousand demons, and eventually arriving at Dracula’s castle, where after a lengthy negotiation attempt that Dracula threw aside with an ambush attempt, she killed Dracula and finally destroyed the Age Old Mystic Pact that prevented Ed from deposing the various rulers of Mystical Hotspots around the world. In the footage, as if she could see what was going to happen next, she unraveled the spell which would have saved her and looked up at the satellite as if she knew Alfred was going to watch this later. The exact words she mouthed were, “The rest is up to you.”

He felt something hot flow down his eyes as the very next moment, a familiar energy coursed through the very corpse of Dracula as multiple spikes made of Dark Energy skewered the body of the Ancient One, her face frozen in the same stoic expression he knew as the mask she put on for anyone who entered Kamar Taj for the first time.

Almost painfully, he moved his eyes from that very scene to the next scene showing, from a distance, the destruction of the Sun Prison, freeing Toby from his supposedly eternal imprisonment. The satellite could barely follow the blip that escaped the prison in the visible spectrum. Switching to the energy spectrum showed a whole different story. Something with the energy reserves of Thor (which were humongous themselves) was heading straight towards Earth and he had a pretty good idea as to who it was.

“Why are you looking at these, Alfred?” Daisy asked him softly, as if afraid that the mere mention of the Ancient One’s death would wilt him.

“Because they don’t match,” Frank said after a moment of silence.

At everybody’s collective looks of confusion, he pointed towards the screen showing someone looking exactly like Toby walking in a Sakura Park in Tokyo, looking very much carefree and relaxed. The person had the same energy signature as the one who escaped from the Sun Prison.

“B-But that doesn’t make any sense. This shows that he was in Tokyo when the fight happened and-” Daisy was interrupted by Alfred as he said, “It makes complete sense now.”

“The person we fought was a fake.” Frank finished Alfred’s train of thought.

Alfred nodded, “Yes, and look at the timestamp when he jerked as if he had noticed something and immediately went invisible.”

Frank looked towards the timestamps and his eyes widened immediately. He mumbled in realisation, “He realised something had happened.”

Alfred nodded, “Yes, he and Ed always shared a special bond. Now, all that remains is tracking where he went from Tokyo and if he has Ed or not.”

“Can you do that? Track his last location?” Daisy asked him hurriedly.

Alfred was already parsing the entire database for any and all demonic activities. The search was made infinitely more difficult by the swarm of demonic invasions that had been happening recently so tracking a specific activation of Demonic Energy was proving to be a bit difficult.

Although, by filtering out various parameters, he was able to get six different hits but his eyes lit up as he saw one that was barely a hundred meters from the place Toby was last seen at.

“I’ll be back soon,” He said and opened a portal with a flex of his will.

“I wish I could come but-” Daisy showed her heavily bandaged arms and said,”-I doubt I’ll be any help in this condition.”

“I’ll come,” Frank said as he stood up from the wheelchair despite the vehement protesting beeps the chair made. “I’ll be hearing from Maria soon,” he mumbled as he flexed his arms and removed the cast from his hands.

Then he looked up at him and said, “What are we waiting for? Let’s go before Maria finds us.” 

Then the comical scene of Frank leaping through the portal as he escaped from the future nagging of his wife, was witnessed by everybody present.

Stifling a chuckle, he flew through the portal, closing it behind him. He made sure that the dressing down that Daisy was undoubtedly going to receive was recorded and shared in 4K.

On the other side of the portal, they came into a forest clearing but something was wrong as the usual sounds of nature were all absent. Even Frank must have felt something was wrong as he had his ability turned ON for display, his rifle in hand ready to blast the first thing that came into view.

He would have disregarded that rifle if he didn’t know what it was. It would seem that the previous events had left Frank pretty shaken if he had chosen to take out an Alpha-tier weapon for this excursion. Something that was banned but when had Frank Castle ever let something as pesky as rules stop him?

“What?” Frank said defensively as he saw Alfred eyeing his gun.

“Nothing,” Alfred shook his head and opened a portal in front of him through which a long silver shaft gleaming in blue crystals dropped down, sinking down into the land in front of them due to its sheer weight.

“What is it?” Frank said as Alfred crouched near the pillar, configuring it by sending in his CHI in precoded patterns.

“That is the best mystical energy sensor on the planet and probably in many other realms.” Alfred said as the pillar began sending out dimensional energy pulses for mapping.

“But not better than Odin, Frigga, or You?” Frank said as he began scoping out the perimeter.

“Sadly, yeah,” Alfred confirmed for him. That was an ongoing topic for discussion within the organisation.

That no matter how far they go in terms of technology, they never come close to matching the top natural practitioners of the mystic arts throughout the nine realms.

Specifically, Odin and Frigga always remain at the top of whatever field of mystics they choose to document. It had been a source of frustration for him but now that he had his very own soul, he could finally see the final element as to why his best sensors, which by all means should have been more sensitive than anything alive, were always bested by them.

Being included in the same list as magical juggernauts such as Odin and Frigga did help soothe his ego over as well.

“We got a match,” he said as the pillar began beeping and began slowly levitating itself out of the hole in the ground.

They kept following it until it came upon a clearing and bumped into seemingly nothing and began beeping loudly. He narrowed his eyes and after recording the readings, sent the pillar back to the Asterisk.

“What now?” Frank asked as he kept looking around for any possible threat. His paranoia having gone through the roof since the fight with Dormammu.

His reply was a blast of energy that sent the wind blowing with the barrier finally coming into view as it buckled under the pressure of the attack.

He exhaled in relief as he saw traces of a ritual clearly demonic in nature. Soon, the barrier shattered and he immediately floated above the ritual circle, recording it in memory, and began analysing it to replicate it with normal dimensional energy instead of the demonic energy Toby must have used. 

He also didn’t have willingly given blood to help track down Ed. Something that he will have to rectify at the earliest.

He was about to try and inject his energy into it to help understand it better when it began glowing red on its own.

!!

His eyes widened as he immediately cast his strongest barrier around the circle and stood outside the barrier, casting another spell to shield Frank and himself.

“Get ready. Because someone is coming from the other side. Somebody more powerful than the one we fought earlier.” His words only made Frank hold on to his gun tighter.

He had already given the signal for the carriers to converge at this location without delay.

“Backup should be here soon.” He said as he cast the same variant of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak that the Ancient One used on Frank.

“Will it matter?” he heard Frank mumble but he chose to let that question go unanswered since even he was not sure.

At this time, the drop of blood that had been sitting in the center of the ritual had begun floating again and the circle had begun shining brighter and brighter in red colour, giving off the metallic scent of blood.

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Word Count - 2226

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