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

–Steve Rogers–

"Son of a bitch," He couldn't believe it. Monsters, aliens, real aliens pouring out of a hole in the sky, flying whales the size of the largest buildings he had seen in this city.

"Language!" He did a double take as an old man hobbling along the road, with a package in his hand, as if the chaos all around them was not happening and he had nothing to do with it, shouted at him without even turning around to face him.

Shaking his head, he did what he did best, even before he became a Super Soldier, try to help people, in any way he could. 

"This way, please!" "Don't push!" "Hey! Leave! Now."

It was hard, being unable to do anything but being essentially a slightly stronger cop, who were actually thankful for his intervention because more than once, he had to disarm the more easily excited person who was understandably panicked and afraid of the situation.

He himself was not any better but somewhere, in a deep dark ugly part of himself, he thought that maybe this wouldn't be the worst place to die, in his hometown, even though it looked worlds apart from when he last saw it.

To die in the place where it all began, where he became the Super Soldier, where he met Peggy, and where he hoped to retire, with Peggy and have a family with her, should he get the chance.

While his mind accepted his death, with his life feeling more and more meaningless as the days went by, his body moved on autopilot, helping bystanders, moving more than one car as it was blocking the road. 

The way he moved and/or lifted some of the lighter cars had the police nearby gawking at him but they had seen weirder stuff in their life so they didn't comment much on it, especially not in the current turbulent times.

His mind ran as he ran and helped the older, more vulnerable people get out, in the opposite direction. Once he got a hold of a big truck, he used it as a battering ram and made sure that all the roads were cleared up, so that people can use the buses, trucks and the odd minivans to get away. Away from the madness that was occurring behind them.

Thankfully, they were far away from the blue hole in the air but he could see that all of the monsters were capable of movement and it would only be a matter of time before they spread all across the city, and his enhanced brain told him that not even a quarter of the city's population could be evacuated, sometimes he hated how his brain told him with the cold logic of inevitability.

"I'll see if they need more help," Hefting a motorcycle up from where it was abandoned on the side of the road, for what reason he did not know since it was actually easily manoeuvrable on the roads, not without bumping into people though.

"Be Careful," He waved off the worries of one of the police officers. He smiled at the thought of people genuinely helping each other, even in times of adversity, it reminded him of the war torn villages they had liberated sometimes but then again, this situation was quite different from what he and the Howling Commandos were used to.

The thought of his old team wiped the smile off his face as he thought of their deaths, all of them dead before their age. All that was left was Peggy.

It was kind of concerning how none of his team mates had ever made it to old age, except Peggy, including Howard and his wife, who had died in a freak accident, and he had hoped to investigate it but his handlers at SHIELD had made it very clear that he could not leave Manhattan, for his own safety.

It was an odd feeling, to live under the umbrella of an all seeing eye. That was the closest thing he could attribute to the Invisible Man who, effectively, ran the entire city, and yet, during the city's most trying time, he was nowhere to be seen.

That was part of the reason why none of the people were prepared for something like this. 

"Move! Move! MOVE!" He shouted at the people who seemed to be waiting for their lord and Saviour invisible Man to come and save them, which was not happening because he had seen the feats of power of the all seeing eye and it should have been able to easily move the aliens, or atleast dismantle the small flyers who were attacking the nearby buildings.

The screams, wails, and sobs were especially trying on him due to his enhanced senses, making him feel as if he was back on the battlefield, fighting Nazis and HYDRA. It also made him churn in shame and guilt as he thought about his feeling of leaving this world, a world that did not need him anymore because there were no more wars to fight.

THe world was a different place, a vastly different place and the only thing that he had done that made him feel even remotely useful was today, when he had helped some people move along, moved some cars and disarmed a dozen robbers and some people with guns who were just panicked and afraid of the entire situation, thinking that the entire world was about to end.

"No, no, no, NO! This is not the time and place to pray. M'am, please Move," He had to physically pry the woman from the church walls as she was frozen in fear, unable to move or comprehend the sight in front of her, constantly chanting the Lord's name in hopes that the Lord or someone in his name would come to save her.

"Please! Take her," He pleaded to the stranger with a minivan, already full of elderly people, who nodded and took her gently. He hoped that he had not aided in a kidnapping but anything was better than being stuck in what he was sure was going to be the blast zone soon enough.

He was about to head on deeper, into the deeper areas, which was mostly evacuated by the people who could get out but he was sure that there were plenty of people still stuck in the buildings, subway stations and more, that might need help, when a buzzing noise took his attention.

The noise then turned into a high pitched whining, making him flinch a bit as he heard something of an explosion, which then reverbed near him as well.

He looked up and his eyes widened as he saw a clean cut, glowing red and molten on the space whale. Something had cut straight through that thing, at extremely high speeds. The projectile could be small enough if the speed was high enough.

But then… "Shit!"

"Language!" He did a double take, once again, as out of nowhere, that same old man, wearing a uniform, holding on to some parcel, walked past him, admonishing for his language while not even looking back. His face, one of utter confusion, he turned to look at the slowly dropping pieces of the whale and then turned around to run back, hoping to help anyone in the way that he had not seen, including that old man, only to see no sign of anyone around him.

"What the.." he muttered as he heard yet another buzzing sound before another shot fired through the air, making him look back, almost making him stumble on a pothole.

Another whale down. That seemed to set them off something fierce in the swarm of aliens because all of them began flying in a certain direction, away from him. He slowed down to a halt, as he noticed that sometime during his confusion, the blue portal had closed on its own.

He counted three whales when they first entered his vision and he was sure that they had not deviated from their original place so much that there could be another whale, not that it would be possible to hide something of that size.

So, that meant that only a single whale remained with their entry point gone.

His shoulders slumped as he sighed in relief, running back towards the mass of people he could see. It was fine now, even if the Invisible Man didn't turn up.

The damage would be much higher but the military was more than capable of taking down one of those things. 

Maybe those previous attacks were from the military as well? It didn't seem like it because the response was very fast and as far as he knew, the current militaries still used fighter jets, just ones that could fly very fast and very far but still jets were the primary method of attack in all military operations.

Drones were coming up but he read that they were still too expensive and unreliable to be deployed en masse for all operations around the world, even in challenging terrains.

His mind ran down another path as he began helping the police officers in any way he can, hefting a trash can as a crude rendition of his shield. He thought of the Invisible Man and how dependent the city had become on one man.

That was not how it should be.

It felt like the city was one step away from being crippled, and he did not like it, not about his home. 

He felt that change was needed but he couldn't do anything about it, not by himself because the SHIELD handlers, his official caretakers would just tell him to work out more, read more, and stay in civilian life.

No, this cannot be done by Steve Rogers. Politics was not his forte but in the current climate, he would be able to make far more change with his words and face, than his fists.

It would seem that Captain America would soon have to come out of hiding then.

If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.