A/N:
" " : Dialogue,
' ' : Thought,
"Italicized text" : Telepathy,
"Bold text": Shadows,
[ ] : System,
| | : Artificial Intelligence.
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Location: Earth, Asia, Nepal, Kathmandu, Kamar-Taj
July 31, 2006
Ashwani POV
This Earth's timeline is… confusing, for lack of a better term. For one, neither of the Summers brothers had stepped foot in the X-Mansion, at least, as of the time of my visit. Christopher Summers has, however, already been taken away by the Shi'ar, but that was years ago, so I can only assume that he'll somewhat follow his 616 storyline and end up becoming Corsair.
Anna Marie had already been adopted by Raven and Irene, if the memories of dead small animals around where they live are anything to go by. Illyana is still in Siberia with her parents, and Mikhail is also off-world, what with him being in another dimension. However, in the same confusing vein, Anton Vanko is headed down the MCU path of simply dying in Siberia, rather than going down his 616 line, where he was the first Crimson Dynamo.
Yao over here is female, but is clearly as powerful as her 616 counterpart. The Eye of Agamotto has the Time Stone, but also has the capabilities of its 616 counterpart. Mordo has his MCU appearance, however, from what I've noticed with him, he's heading down the same path as his 616 self, which means that I have to prepare for his and Kaecilius' eventual defection to Dormammu and the Dark Dimension.
All of that is without even considering where I'm headed to next – China. In the 616 universe, it was a hotspot for extraterrestrial activity. Hell, it was technically the place where everything leading up to the Star Child's birth was planned out. There's also the Makluans, Fin Fang Foom in particular, Ultimo, Aarkus, and that was all before the modern age.
But that was 616, and this is here. And here, most of that didn't matter. I remember the post-credits scene from the Shang-Chi movie, where they said that the Ten Rings that Xu Wenwu used were not your everyday mystical artifact, nor were they regular alien tech, and that they were from a source they couldn't identify. By the time I had passed, the only theory for their origins was the one that claimed that they were similar to their 616 counterparts, which were originally a single weapon known as the Universe Ring, which was used by Nezha, before they were separated by the Jade Emperor. Yes, that Nezha, and that Jade Emperor.
If that is true here, then Wenwu hadn't yet learned their full capabilities, and that was something I could use to my advantage. Beyond the physical enhancements, energy barriers and blasts, and telekinetically controlling the Rings, I've not seen him use any other abilities tied to the Rings. Yeah, having the Xian involved isn't exactly helpful for my memory absorption, since most it not all of them are immortals with powerful regeneration.
But that's neither here nor there. My main goal in going to China is to create something of a springboard for when I eventually take control of Earth and push humanity to what it was meant to have achieved. Now, that might sound batshit crazy and downright megalomaniacal, but I'm not aiming for something like total world control without merit.
Let's face the facts. With all of the rampant conflict and negative interference that humanity has had over its existence, it's no wonder that we are still for the most part, bound to Earth. The comparatively few humans that are in outer space were either; 1. Abducted by some intergalactic empire, 2. Abducted by space pirates, or 3. The even fewer set that had gotten superpowers and were using them in space – I'm looking at you, Carol.
So I've decided that I'll first get rid of as many of the negative interferers – HYDRA, John Sublime, Nathaniel Essex, and the like – and either in the middle of that or afterwards, I'll take over the planet, dissolving the governments all over the planet and making… well, a monarchy. Some might see it as a god complex, but the reality of things is that most government regimes around the world are responsible for hampering their country's progress.
Be it because of greed, pride, or the fact that many members of government are pathological control freaks, the reality remains that they have continued to either slow down possible development or even worsen the lives of their people with their decisions. This Earth is lucky that the CSA doesn't exist, otherwise I'd have actually joined Erik for real.
"Phew. One thing at a time, Ash." I say to myself after running through that train of thought. But just as I finish thinking that, a pulse ran through my little man-cave – an alert for someone attempting to intrude via teleportation or portal.
…
Omniscient POV
Karl Amadeus Mordo had lived a tragic life before he found his way to Kamar-Taj. He was neglected by his mother, who saw him as a tool of his grandfather, who had given her over to a baron of Transylvania in a bid to steal his magical prowess, and by his father – the said baron, who wanted to bring his homeland to its former glory.
Mordo's grandfather ordered his mother to kill his father, after which she took him back to her home country of Bavaria. What the members of Kamar-Taj, aside from the Ancient One, didn't know was that his current appearance was a result of a transfiguration spell that was being sustained by a sigil etched into his skin.
While in Bavaria, his grandfather taught him black magic, and he took to it like a fish to water, absorbing the lessons at an impressive rate. But as time passed, he learnt of the details behind his father's murder, and the plans his grandfather had for him. His grandfather planned on using a black magic spell that only worked on one's own bloodline to essentially rip out the power he gained from magic and transfer it to himself.
This sparked a hunger for revenge and power on his heart, and even after coming over to Kamar-Taj by order of his grandfather, that hunger hadn't once settled. The Ancient One still took him in despite this, choosing to keep a watchful eye on him. And so, for years now, he had remained one of the Masters of the Mystic Arts.
He had tried many different avenues to gain more magical power, but hadn't touched the black magic he was so proficient in, as he didn't want to alert the Ancient One to his plans. But recently, someone had piqued his interest - the boy named Ashwani.
On their first meeting, Mordo didn't place much importance on him, seeing him as just another person with some talent for the Mystic Arts. But the last time they had contact, that evaluation changed dramatically. He could still remember the incongruity he felt when he compared the more recent Ashwani to the boy he met less than a month ago.
It was a week ago today when he last came into contact with Ashwani, right after Ashwani had returned to Kamar-Taj, following his elimination of Bolivar Trask, the Sentinels and the Master Mold. Ashwani chose to have his portal exit onto one of the hallways in Kamar-Taj, with his helmet retracted.
Mordo didn't know if it was merely coincidence or fate that he saw Ashwani that day, but the sheer aura of power that emanated from him gave him pause. If before, Ashwani felt like just a slightly talented apprentice, he now felt like a Master, a highly accomplished one at that. Such drastic growth in power drew Mordo's interest greatly, and so, he went to ask Ashwani how he had grown so much, only for him to vanish with a burst of speed.
Since Ashwani seemingly hadn't stepped out of his workspace in the past week, Mordo went to the other only person he could about Ashwani's growth, that being Yao. But even trying to get information from that avenue was a dead end, as she told him that the way Ashwani grew in power wasn't something that anyone could replicate. He took that as her being dismissive, or better yet, secretive.
The urge to know the secret to Ashwani's growth gnawed at him, so he tried different ways to peek in on what Ashwani might have been doing to strengthen himself. First, he tried to break in through the door, only to find that it had no locks he could take advantage of. Then, he tried to use his astral body to bypass the door and walls, only to be rebuffed by the multiple enchantments that were built into every part of the structure. He tried scrying spells, but was once again, rebuffed, causing the spells to basically fizzle out.
He had even attempted using magic to infiltrate Ashwani's mind, but like all his other attempts, that also failed. Exasperated with his constant failure, he then made a more direct approach to getting into Ashwani's workspace – opening a portal into it. He put on his Sling Ring and began the motions for opening a portal, and the golden motes of light indicative of Eldritch Magic sparked into being in front of him.
As the sparks revolved in front of him, a smile bloomed on his face, as he felt that he would finally get satisfaction for all his efforts. But before the portal could complete, it suddenly fizzled out. The smile on his face immediately morphed into a grimace, the weight of another failure causing him to grind his teeth in frustration.
Taking some time to refocus, he took in a deep breath then exhaled, calming himself with meditative breathing exercises. "I've remained patient for almost half my life, a few more years shouldn't be too long to wait." He said, then walked away, not knowing that Ashwani had not only tracked down the magic signature of the failed portal to him, but was also watching him with his Stealth skill active.
…
Location: Earth, Asia, China, Hebei, Anzhou
The impact of Gao's and Alexandra's deaths were still being felt, especially in the places where their 'investments' were based. The members of the Hand that were in Anzhou continued Gao's drug enterprise, even with her absence, but their movements were now more overt and aggressive.
For one, rather than simply producing the heroin here then shipping it out, they had even gone ahead to distribute it here in Anzhou. Of course, their actions met resistance in the form of the city's officers, but unfortunately for them, the Hand was still far beyond their pay grade, even with two of its leaders dead.
So, despite the resistance they faced, the Hand's activities in the city didn't see a stop. Today, that was going to change. The harbinger of said change stepped out of a portal, decked out in a black t-shirt with the design of a skull wreathed in purple flames, black fitted jeans, black sneakers with purple highlights, and a black hooded windbreaker over his shoulders, into an empty alleyway.
Ashwani walked out of the alley and looked around, noticing people who were starting to exhibit telltale symptoms of heroin addiction, and his eyes glowed with simmering anger. Letting out a sigh, he decided to wait for the night before he would make his assault on the Hand.
This didn't mean that he stood still, however, as he moved to help cure the addiction before it got out of hand. He moved speedily through the city using his Blink and Quicksilver skills, while in Stealth. He even employed the enchantments from the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr, which he had applied onto the nanomachines that made up his sneakers.
He got to the city's water treatment plant and created an orb, which held an arc reactor within it, then dropped the orb into the water. The arc reactor activated, then the nanomachines that made up the orb began executing the program that Ashwani had implanted into them – to clean out any traces of opioids that they come across, and if those were in a human body, they were to also clear the effects of these opioids, essentially performing a full detox without the users having any withdrawals.
Once they were activated, they immediately went into Stealth, being hidden from any possible inspection. Ashwani would have given the nanomachines the function to also prevent disease, but he decided against it for the time being, rationalizing that an entire city suddenly having its population be unable to fall ill would draw unwanted attention, which he didn't want or need now. That and the people would very likely be subjected to experimentation.
After he was done with that, he reused the same preparation strategy he used against the Hand in Hell's Kitchen, setting up a small, invisible base of operations, releasing drones to keep surveillance, and marking each point where the Hand operates. Choosing to occupy himself with other things while waiting for night to fall.
One of those activities was working to generate new skills. As far as combat went he had compiled all of the knowledge he got from the dead into two maxed out skills – Advanced Martial Arts and Advanced Weapon Techniques, which increased all of his melee damage by 33%, which considering the level his stats could reach with his Abyss Cloak, Black Rift and Nano Suit equipped, was very high, even by Marvel Earth's standards.
But he wanted to create active skills, specifically a few of the active skills that Sung Jin-Woo's son, Sung Suho possessed, as well as one particular passive skill. The active skills were Elf's Steps, Storm Slash, Slaughter, and Iron Body Reinforcement, while the passive skill that he wanted was Resilience, which would increase his physical defense immensely.
Elf's Steps worked by manipulating mana to cling to the soles of its user's feet, ensuring that they wouldn't leave any tracks whatsoever, regardless of whatever surface they stepped on. Storm Slash worked by generating fierce winds around any sword-type weapon its user wields, enabling them to cut down multiple enemies over a wide area. And although Sung Suho learnt it using a runestone, Ashwani felt that he could replicate the skill after enough trial and error.
Slaughter worked by having its user releasing a high-speed barrage of slashes so fast, they seemed invisible. And lastly, Iron Body Reinforcement was a physical reinforcement skill that involved training the body past its limits, which for Ashwani, would be difficult to do. Despite the name, its effects didn't stop at just the body, as it even reinforced the soul of its user, and even granted them the ability to directly strike the souls of those its user attacked. With enough mastery, the user could even extend its effects to weapons.
Ashwani judged that he didn't have the time to replicate Iron Body Manifestation, but the other skills, they were fair game. So, using a spatial expansion spell, he increased the space within the cube-shaped base of operations to the same size as a standard soccer pitch. After that, he summoned Garou, thirty Shadow Lycans and Shadow Brigas, and fifty of his Shadow Ninjas, with the intention to use them for training.
He instructed ELITE to create environments using hard light projectors, which he created using inspiration from the constructs of Eldritch magic. To add a bit of challenge to his training, he took off all of his equipment that boosted his stats in one way or the other, even removing the thin layer of nanomachines he normally kept over his body, choosing to fight his soldiers at his base strength, with his only weapon being a sword that had a paltry +5 attack, even weaker than the sword that Sung Jinwoo used in his first Instant Dungeon.
After a few test swings, Ashwani spoke. "Come at me with everything you've got. Hold nothing back." He said, and following his orders without deviation, Garou lunged forward with great ferocity, his claws glowing purple. The Shadow Ninjas followed suit and moved to attack Ashwani, their weapons drawn.
And so time ticked by, with six hours passing by as Ashwani pushed himself, taking hits that would debilitate, if not outright kill most other people, in order to acquire the Resilience skill. When he wasn't allowing himself to get hit, he was parrying and deflecting blows with great skill, and returning even more intense attacks, his sword moving with great speed.
To train for Elf's Steps, he had his shadows chase him, and every time he failed to properly execute the actions that would lead to the skill being registered, they got the right for one free attack. That segment of his training didn't last long, so to supplement that, he attempted something else. He had noticed that the Stealth skill, for all it's worth, had never once evolved, and he also considered the fact that he had now had two other stealth-adjacent skills in Void Walk and Elf's Steps.
So he activated all three skills simultaneously, guiding them to fully intersect with each other. With ELITE helping him cut down any margin for error, he perfectly executed the three skills as one, giving birth to a new, far better stealth skill.
[Skill: Phantom Veil LV. MAX (Active)]
[300 Mana Required.
Your existence becomes like that of a phantom, imperceptible and traceless.
15 Mana will be consumed every second after activation.]
After gaining the Phantom Veil skill, he moved his attention over to Storm Slash, the only skill that had continued to elude his grasp, until he tried something else. He remembered a particular attack that Sung Jin-Woo had used with Kamish's Wrath, where he wrapped the mana-reactive blades with his Ruler's Authority and sent out flying slashes that tore dragons apart.
Seeing as the Storm Slash skill functioned similarly in that it released multiple slashes to cut down multiple enemies in a wide area, he began fighting his shadows while wrapping his blade in his Ruler's Authority. When he first awakened his powers, he thought of Ruler's Authority simply as mana-powered telekinesis. But after becoming more familiar with it, he realized that this was an underestimation of the true capabilities of Ruler's Authority.
Ruler's Authority was exactly that – an authority, imposing one's will upon things around you through mana. Thomas Andre wanted to use it to make sure that his prey never got away from him, so it manifested as his Capture skill. Jin-Woo merely used it as an extension of his hands and blades, never thinking too much of it. Suho, however, was probably the best example of someone using it as it should have been, creating the skill Form Change, which according to Beru, Jin-Woo hadn't ever actually used. It was with that knowledge that Ashwani made his Abyss Cloak.
As he battled his shadow soldiers with his sword wreathed in Ruler's Authority, he extended its reach to the winds around him, cycling them around the blade of his sword. Then when they reached a satisfactory degree of concentration, he released them as slashes, and they tore through every single shadow soldier with unmatched ferocity. Just then, a notification from the system popped up in his vision.
[Skill: "Storm Slash – Level 1" has been acquired.]
[Skill: Storm Slash LV. 1 (Active)]
[50 Mana required.
The power of raging wind imbues your sword. It can attack multiple enemies at once.]
Just as he finished forming the skill, an alert rang through the base, letting him know that it was now nighttime. As his shadow soldiers reformed, he looked at them. "It's go time." He said, then pulled back the nanomachines that made up the base into his body and brought out all of his Shadow Ninjas, sending them to surround each of the Hand's bases.
…
Ashwani POV
There are four Hand bases here in Anzhou. Their main Steel Serpent factory, a training facility, a private dock, and a private airstrip. A pretty standard way for them to keep their grip on the people here, while still being able to continue their 'enterprise'.
Garou has taken the Lycans to tear apart the training facility. As a small joke, I sent Gao to take out the Steel Serpent factory, with 30 Shadow Ninjas. As for the docks, I sent Alexandra along with another 30 Shadow Ninjas. With those three locations taken care of, I head over to their airstrip, moving to take out the Hand members over there.
To make things quicker, I sent each set of shadows through portals, then went over to the airstrip through a portal as well. However, I happened to run into someone that I wouldn't have expected.
"Don't tell me that bullshit! It's been over a month and there's been no word from Gao." A blonde man in a suit shouted to one of the Hand ninjas who was dressed in a suit as well. "Madame Gao has neither been seen nor heard from for a month. We have continued her plans in her absence." The Hand ninja responded.
Under the effects of Phantom Veil, I looked at them and it clicked as to who the blonde man was. It was Harold Meachum, the current head of Rand Enterprises, and the man responsible for the deaths of Wendell and Heather Rand. He'd been having dealings with Gao for a long time, but suddenly received a terminal cancer diagnosis about 5 to 6 years ago.
Gao offered him the Substance to help him come back after his cancer killed him, and he agreed to her suggestion, then asked her to help him eliminate the Rands, which she tried to talk him out of, with the argument that such a high-profile family suddenly dying would draw unwanted attention. He insisted and she gave him poison, which he used on the pilots of the plane that the Rands were using to head to Anzhou in 2001, leading to the crash that killed Wendell and Heather.
He died in 2004 to his cancer, and came back to life, thanks to the Substance. Since then he's been living covertly, with everyone being convinced that he was dead, while only Gao and his son, Ward Meachum, knew he was alive. I guess after the news of Gao and Alexandra's enterprises in America came crashing down, he finally saw it fit to check up on his old associate.
With a sigh, I activate Stop Time, then cut down the members of the Hand that were around the entire airstrip. Right as the active time for the skill elapsed, I stopped right in front of Harold. Time resumes, and every Hand member around falls to the ground as corpses, and Harold notices me.
"Hello, Harry." I say, then force him to his knees and put my hand on his head. Activating Mesmerize, I watch as his eyes turn glassy, then using my telepathy, delve into his mind. I don't give a damn about his memories. They don't serve as anything but distractions to me. No, I immediately begin planting commands into his mind.
The first of my commands is to manipulate Ward Rand Enterprises honestly and benevolently. Basic, I know, but it's a small step to help Danny when he eventually comes back to society. The other commands I have are going to remain at the back of his mind until Danny returns. First, he'll vouch for Danny when he does return, so that he avoids the awkwardness of everyone not believing that the son of the Rands that had been assumed dead was actually alive.
And after helping Danny essentially claim his inheritance, he'll fully expose everything that he's done either directly or through Ward, and of course everything that Ward has done. Let him burn down the tower of achievements and luxury he made with his own hands. With that bit of programming ingrained into his mind, I pull myself out of his mind, and watch as he returns to his private jet in a catatonic state.
With that done, I raise the dead Hand Ninjas as my shadows, then watch as Shadow Kill takes effect, reducing the bodies to shadowy ash. I take my new soldiers into my shadow, then portaled over to the other Hand Bases and did the same, but not without destroying all of the Hand's product.
"Okay, everyone. You can get familiar with the new recruits later. It's time to pay a visit to the Ten Rings." I say, then pull my soldiers back into my shadow. I open a portal to an area in Guizhou, close to the mountains where the Ten Rings Headquarters is located, then begin moving towards the compound. Seeing as this is still before Ying Li is killed by the Iron Gang, I'm hoping that Wenwu doesn't hate visitors.
Chapter End.
Word Count: 4,129
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