The Sage of the Mind

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP. 

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 115[May 2012]

Manhattan

–Chris Lang [From Chapter 66]–

This morning could not have gone more to shitters, he thought to himself as he tried to wrestle the kids into getting ready for school, a school that he paid a small fortune for but noooo, his father told them about their trip and now the kids wanted to tag along as well.

He had specifically warned his mother not to tell anyone about their trip to the farm because if the kids found out about it, he would have to deal with it but his father was a whole other beast that was even more difficult to wrangle than the feral kids currently playing a game of tag with him in the kitchen.

"Aha! Got you!" He cried out triumphantly and then tickled the unfortunate soul who was now in his grasp.

"N-No, St–Stop!" She tried to squirm out of his grip but he was relentless. Ah, he was actually having fun in this. Eh, maybe they can miss a week of school. Sure, the school teacher had cried out at the mere thought of missing a week of school as if they were going to miss out on sacred knowledge coming straight from the wise mind of the Invisible Man but what do they know? He was their father and if he said so, he was going to take his kids to see their grandparents, ridiculously priced private school be damned.

"They're not going to listen, are they?" He looked up, to see his wife, his beautiful beautiful wife entering the kitchen with a fond and exasperated look on her face.

"What do you think?" He asked her and lifted the little gremlin who had the audacity to smile at her mom, who all but melted at the site. For all her acting to be the tough mom, Anna was always the one who folded first, no matter the issue.

"Great, I've already packed their bags. I've told Robert to get the car out, we should be ready in about 10 mins, right Pumpkin?" Anna smiled and it was as if the entire world was lit up in front of him.

"Yay!" In his momentary bedazzlement, the gremlin squirmed out of his grip and ran up the stairs as if the devil itself was on her tail.

He was about to get up when a horrible keening noise slammed right into his senses, making his vision blackout for a moment. What felt like an eternity passed when his vision returned, all blurry and splotchy as he tried to get up, only to fall back down on his ass.

"Anna?" His own voice sounded blurry to him as he tried to get up using the kitchen island as support but his body felt like it was filled with lead, no strength to do anything. Finally, after what felt like monumental struggle, he finally lifted himself into an upright position and his vision finally cleared enough that he saw Anna already on her way up the stairs, to look at the kids.

He sighed in relief at that. Thank god she was able to get up. His body felt like it would break apart the moment he took another step. Even so, he had to find out what happened. They had a balcony for the kitchen as well, as he trudged painfully toward the balcony, getting support from any odd item that was within reach, until finally, the doors opened on their own, thank god for smart home stuff, and he saw what was outside.

His breath hitched as he saw a scene straight from the science fiction stuff his kids loved to watch. A blue hole in the sky, from which monsters were pouring out in droves. 

"Anna! Anna! Get down here!" He shouted as he scrambled his mind to map the optimum route to get out of this situation. They had a state of the art panic room installed but it was built with robbers and humans in mind, not monsters who were raining down lasers.

Unfortunately, the shortest way to get out of Manhattan was directly underneath that blue hole. He was about to head up, however slow it might be, when—

A high pitch noise entered his senses as he looked to the right, his eyes widening as he saw a white glow appear on top of a small building. He recognised that building, it was the Castle martial Arts Dojo, something the girls wanted to join but were too young to do so right now.

He squinted his eyes, trying to figure out what that was when, with a thunderous boom, the white energy coalesced into a ball and escaped his field of vision. All of a sudden, there was complete silence in the city.

Even past the sirens, car horns and people shouting, there was the sound of the monsters, roaring or blasting lasers but all that noise was suddenly silenced.

He looked towards the monsters and his jaw hung agape as one of the huge whale-like things was torn into two pieces and was currently dropping down on the ground. 

He winced as it landed on top of two buildings but thankfully, they stayed upright despite the humongous load on top of them.

"A Railgun, huh?" he murmured to himself as he looked at the rooftop of the building, which was now sure to be the target of the monsters.

Right then, with a WHOOP! Sound, the blue hole disappeared from the sky, but it left the monsters in the city.

He recognised the weapon used but that did not make him useful. Damn, if only Scott was here, they could have done something to make sure that at the very least, his family was safe and sound. Scott was always his favourite cousin.

"It's like Nana always said, we Scotts may not be the most athletic but we age gracefully and are wicked smart." He muttered to himself, mostly because he was out of it and also because he wished he was athletic enough to recover quicker.

Unfortunately, he did age very gracefully and he was smart, smart enough to retire as one of the head honchos in an industry that spit out freshers as if it were a churning mill.

"Anna! Get down to the basement!" He shouted, hoping she would hear him. 

____xx____

—Frank Castle–

His eyes narrowed as he saw the blue portal disappear. As soon as the hole had appeared on top of Manhattan, a data file had become accessible to him on the computer that was given to him b y the Invisible Man.

He speed read through the whole thing and then one thing became increasingly clear to him. THe Invisible Man knew about the whole thing, about the Invasion and who would invade and what their weaknesses were.

A beep brought his attention back to the screen as the railgun was charged completely once more. He grinned and let the railgun loose once again.

The space whale tried to manoeuvre out of the way of the death ball but its sheer size made it impossible to do so. Another space whale out of the game but it was not lost on him that doing so, in the middle of the city meant that it was crashing on top of buildings which meant casualties.

He steeled his heart and hoped that they were fine because no building had collapsed yet. He could not let them free reign in the city, it would be disastrous.

He braced for impact because the aliens were now on a warpath straight towards him.

"Just like old times," He said to himself as he activated every single strangle contraption that the Invisible Man had installed in his house, something that he was against, at first but now he was the most grateful.

Another railgun appeared on the rooftop, partially charged, and by the time the third whale, the only one they had on hand, came into the view of the railgun, it was completely charged.

With another launch, their third space whale was gone as well, their mobile Base of operations gone. It also took out almost half of the infantry as well because they foolishly tried to shield the whale and ended up vaporising as a result.

The others, he did not have anything precision based for that but he apparently didn't need to do anything, because, something shot at the forces with utter precision and power, leaving behind a charred mess.

The computer automatically calculated everything and showed him the Stark Tower. It also had hundreds of black installations on the side of the building which was now targeting every single alien that had appeared in the sky, very successfully.

He could see it did not have the sheer energy to go through the space whales but the smaller units were easily handled by it.

He sighed in relief and slumped in his seat, knowing that the building, their home was fine when another screen appeared on the computer, making him jerk back into alertness.

What now?

His eyes narrowed as a series of video reports appeared on the screen.

His mouth twisted as a bitter feeling settled in his stomach, watching the blue portal appear in the skies, spit out nearly invincible Space whales and then disappear, only to reappear in the skies above another major city.

So far, it has appeared in California, Manhattan, Paris, Auckland, and Sydney.

"He is going to destroy the planet," He could not believe it but the short lived feeling of victory was feeling very bitter right now.

These cities had no protector, who could prepare for something like this. Nobody to help defend them.

No one to–

"Greetings, I am Jarvis. Am I speaking to Lieutenant Frank Castle?" A voice spoke from the computer.

"Not anymore, I am not. Yes, I am Frank Castle," He confirmed, mostly because he was very desperate to help in any way he could.

There was also the looming threat of the portal circling back and attacking them once again. The Railguns could only fire a dozen shots each before they melted down from the strain.

With the portal jumping around the world like that, nowhere was safe. He was sure that the White House must be shitting their pants at this predicament and calling for the Invisible Man to do something.

"Thank you for the assist, Mr.Castle. You have been listed as a Class 2 resource in the database of the Invisible Man's team. Can I count on you to further participate in the defense of the city?"

Class 2 Resource?

"Damn right you can. My family lives here."

"Thank you, Mr.Castle. Please await further instructions. Further control of all weaponry in your house will be taken over so please get ready for field combat. We also have another Class 2 resource that will need debriefing that you are better suited for."

"Debriefing? What the hell do I know to debrief someone?" He asked this Jarvis person and suddenly, everything appeared on the screen.

"A carrier will be at your location soon. In the meantime, please read through this as it will be crucial to obtain the cooperation of this asset,"

Saying so, the voice left. It was all very confusing but he did what he was taught to do in the military.

Follow the orders.

He ignored the part that whispered 'As long as your gut tells you to'

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