Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.
DoorMan #65
The Red Hearth, Mars[February 16, 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
Just like that, two days passed in a fugue on the Red Hearth, with no major activity reported across all the spectrums that he monitored. No more shenanigans from the Red Matron as well.
IT was like she was content being near him and was meditating whenever he saw the footage from the CCTVs installed in the common areas of her room. She knew she was being watched, not from the CCTVs but when he was watching the screen. Some advanced observation magic right there.
Still, it was one less headache for the time being so he ignored her, ignored Jin'Ya because the dragon was absolutely grouchy and grumpy that he had to share his space with the Red Matron and explicitly told him, in no uncertain terms, that only to call him when he has actionable intel, because he was itching to go for a fight.
May Stan Lee save the man or demon who would find themselves facing an irate JIn'Ya who hadn't found a suitable activity for release yet.
Bruce and Hansen were both making steadfast progress on the Extremis program. As far as he could understand, Maya's thought process was to make sure that Extremis reached the next step, through any means necessary. That meant that she moved on to the next strain without resolving any issues from the previous rendition, resulting in overall higher performance but with a myriad of unsolved issues, which was obviously not going to work on a large enough scale.
Bruce, rightfully so, suggested, which was like an order to Hansen, that they start from the bottom. The very first strain, used on some plants, that Hansen remembered. Bruce told him later on, in private, that Maya might need an actual therapist, which should have been obvious in hindsight.
He also explained to him that the Extremis that he was currently focusing on would cut back drastically on the enhancement part, entirely cutting out the fiery stuff, and would just focus on getting the body to overall peak condition, something entirely in the human realm of possibility.
So, no superhuman super soldiers there.
While it would have been nice to be one of the only two groups (Aakanda being the first) to have a viable super soldier serum, he knew it must have raised Bruce's alarm bells when he saw the actual end result of a successful Extremis serum campaign, so he let the man actually downgrade the stuff,, promising to use it for medical benefits as soon as it is done.
Privately, however, every single note, every single keystroke that Bruce and Hansen performed, was logged on a secure server. Their labs were on a constant watch and due to the dangers of the Extremis serum's plant testing, paper was not used which is why he had the record of everything he might need to,, one day, actually recreate Aldrich Killian's Fiery breath.
That was far and away into the future though, for now, he had two things that he needed to absolutely focus on.
Finding Sterns, the Leader, who had apparently begun getting his hooks into Ross this early on in the timeline, because there was no reason the man should have been able to walk around, let alone look like he was actively shaving off years of his life. All of this in the span of a month was brutal. It meant the curve of progression for the Leader's intelligence was astronomical, if he was already developing drugs capable of suppressing Cancer and then making someone healthy.
He was sure that the Leader would never give Ross a cure, instead of dangling a cure in front of him and then making sure that Ross agreed to every one of his demands. A subscription based cure, if you will.
The second thing was tomorrow, at 5 AM, Shuri was going to (hopefully) arrive at Mount Everest Base Camp for the Ta-Lo tour.
In the chaos of all that happened in the past few days, he had almost forgotten the fact that he had promised Shuri a tour of Ta-Lo, an even more mystical, hidden, and hard to access place that Wakanda had no idea of. It would be fun to break her scientifically rigorously trained mind, to see an actual Dragon of all things, provided the Water Dragon complied obviously.
He was not going to ask the Guardian of an entire dimension to become a circus animal of all things. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask.
"Argh! Why is this so hard?" He grumbled to himself, rubbing his eyes because he had spent over 12 hours sitting in the same place, hammering away at the keyboard because he needed to find the Leader before he became too smart, too intelligent for his own good.
In the comics, the man was said to have invented parallel timestream travel, which, while not immediately damaging to the original timeline, was just as hazardous to the multiverse as a whole. Not to mention his ability to create powerful Gamma Mutates, not on par with the Hulk or even the Abomination, but in larger numbers.
Abomination was already in a maximum security prison right now, kept sedated under an increasing dosage of sedatives because his biology begins adapting to their methods. So far, they had zero alternative to just pumping drugs into his system and hoping for the best and he was hoping to have Bruce produce a viable alternative, so that he could produce it before FUry the next time they met, as a gift.
To show that he was not some lawless dangerous freak but just someone operating outside the purview of the law.
He pushed his chair away from the desk, and his chair's back hit the vending machine in his office with a THUNK!
He sighed and then turned around, pushing the right buttons to get himself an ice cold soda and a bag of chips. He needed to get rid of the Leader, in ways that did not sound ethical. The Library at Kamar Taj had various spells that could be used against him.
The easiest one and one that had the most potential for misuse was the magical contract way. Just try to create an ironclad magical contract and then have him sign it, only thing is that magical contracts signed under duress don't generally count, not with the Vishanti anyway.
Magical contracts could be self enforced but it was just generally safer and more assured if a Patron is the one who enforces the contracts, i.e., the Vishanti here at Kamar Taj. And they don't uphold forcefully signed magical contracts. The person has to be fully willing to do so, and he was not going to go looking around for some shady Patron God who might be willing to do that.
The second option was what appealed to him the most. Strip away the Gamma. Take the mutation away from him and then destroy any notes he might have had, removing the most dangerous weapon he had in his arsenal.
His intelligence.
Without that, he is just a talented but not overly so, Scientist. Mostly harmless that way.
He still hadn't figured out how to broach the subject with Bruce, who would just take it negatively, wiping off any progress they might have made to one day Bruce reintegrating his Hulk persona and becoming Doctor Hulk, the best version of Hulk, Smart and Powerful.
Bruce might just get tempted to use it on himself and then he would be responsible for Earth losing a major ally.
No, that was out of the question. Maybe sometime in the future when Bruce was mentally stable.
So, for now, the best he could come up with was to locate him, which would be easy with Jin'Ya's help, knock him out, keep him sedated and imprisoned, and then wake him up when the De-Gamma serum was ready and then release him as a non-powered person.
Sure, multiple violations of every humanitarian and ethical law, would be wildly unpopular with Bruce, but then again, to prevent the horrors that the Leader might actually unleash in this timeline, it should be tame in comparison.
Sighing, he gulped down the soda, still hesitant on what to do. He might just have to consult with the Ancient One over this.
Before all of that though, he had to find the Leader and as of now, with only his skills, it seemed impossible. He was up against Tony Stark level intelligence and he was not that smart, yet.
TING!
He straightened in his seat as the signal from Ta-Lo arrived, through the server at Kamar Taj.
They were ready.
Well, he had some choice words with the Village Chief, before his tour with Shuri.
Might as well get that out of the way.
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