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 119[May 2012]

Manhattan

–Frank Castle–

This was somehow his life now. A scant few hours ago, he was just a regular old Martial Arts Dojo instructor with a dubious background that would not hold up to any background checks made by any half decent company.

Now? Now, here he was, in an advanced suit capable of taking down small militant units on its own, flying to meet Captain America. 

"Damn, this is weird," He muttered as he landed, gently, in front of the Captain America. Some part of him wanted to fanboy at meeting the OG Soldier, the role model that the military thrust upon every single recruit, the one every single red blooded American soldier wanted to be like.

Steve Rogers, Captain America, technically, the highest rated soldier in the army since he was given that title posthumously, with supreme authority but they never expected him to be alive, now, did they?

He wondered if the Captain could use his title now. 

He got out of the suit, with dignity this time, and said, "Hello, Captain. It's good to see that you are well, I am Frank Castle. I am part of the group that shot down the small batch of aliens that came here." 

"Greetings, Soldier. Are you from SHIELD?" Captain asked him and he had to shake his head in negative at that. Before he could waste any more time, the single beep sound from the suit behind him and the -phone in his pocket reminded him of the time crunch.

"Uh, look, Captain. I would love to sit down, chat, and explain everything to you but time is of the essence here. We need to be ready, just in case they come back to New York because—"

"And what of the others?" Captain interrupted him.

"Excuse me?"

"What of the other cities? Who is protecting them?"

He caught something from the corner of his eyes and then thrust his chin forward, "See for yourself,"

Captain looked confused for a second before he turned around and looked at the series of TVs displayed on the side of a store, showcasing newscasters that were very much flustered and were barely reported coherently about the alien Invasion and how different protectors had risen up to help defend their cities.

He had been surprised as well but seeing the various avatars rising up to protect various cities has been very reassuring for him, because it meant that it was not just Invisible Man in the world, who could make a difference using his powers.

Others could do it as well.

But even then, there were many cities or even countries without any protectors of their own, and there were already talks of where Iron Man was, and he knew the answer as to why Tony and the others were not rushing to help the other countries, even if they could make it in time to save Vancouver, or the other neighboring cities.

The President.

It was an official order that came from high above that mandated the entire team that had fought in California to get rid of the aliens and also stop the reactor from melting down, had been ordered to stay put.

They were essentially ordered to not leave US airspace until this entire fiasco was behind them, which meant that Tony and the others, all the other heavy hitters, were now stuck on US soil, and while the Invisible Man could reasonably ignore orders from the President, the people on that Jet could not, especially Stark since he was the most invested in the country and also the most vulnerable to a strike from the government, be it on his business, on his technology, or even on his loved one.

But he could not tell the Captain that because, according to Jarvis, that would invite a drastic response and they couldn;t afford that at the moment. Jarvis had informed him that Tony had a plan right now, even if the others were not convinced about it but atleast they had something, so he didn't have to lie directly to the Captain's face.

"That is why I am here, Captain Rogers. People are already working on a plan to isolate and then put a stop to the Invasion but in the meantime, we need to make sure that we are prepared, just in case."

Catapin nodded at that and then took a step back as he looked behind him, in the air. He turned around and squinted as another shadow was cast over them, revealing a giant black box that floated in the air before it abruptly slammed down on the ground, destroying the road but eh, it was more potholes at this point anyway.

"What is that?" He turned around to see the Captain holding on to a gun and in a defensive posture, ready to jump behind the bench if need be. He snorted internally at that, as if something mundane could provide protection against the suits.

"I don't know. Jarvis?"

"Captain Steve Rogers, this is your equipment. Please use it wisely," Jarvis replied, and then the black box opened up, revealing…

"Wow. Which fanboy designed this?" He deadpanned at the open suit that held Jarvis. The black box held a monstrosity of a suit, colored in the colors of their flag, and held a shield and a gun in the other hand, and more importantly, was a hulking unit, atleast 3 times as big as his smaller suit.

"The design is irrelevant. The suit is designed to be used by the captain himself and so has many intuitive design choices. Captain, if you will?" 

The Captain looked at him and he nodded, and saw the Captain being swallowed up by the suit before it lit up. Seeing that the Captain was getting used to having an entire armour around himself, he turned to the suit which was still open, "Why do I get a small one?"

There was only the sound of crickets in the background, so he sighed and entered the suit. There must be something else that Jarvis wanted him to do before the portal opened up once again.

And, speaking of the devil…..

Alarms began blaring through the suit as well as through Captain's suit as he instinctively looked up and found…nothing?

He was about to ask Jarvis what was happening before, with another jerk, he felt the suit rocket up in the air, Captain's suit following suit momentarily.

Up in the air, he could see on the HUD, the aliens, and their attacks. His eyes narrowed as the suit dived down rapidly, into the streets. He was horrified to find that this time, the portal was not opened vertically, but horizontally, and heaps of the land units were pouring out, firing at anything that moved in their vision.

With a crunching sound, his suit landed right on top of a foot soldier, killing him before the arms were raised and his suit began blasting apart the foot soldiers, while he cursed internally at their situation.

Their strongest weapons, the railguns, were now unusable because the invaders had gotten smart, choosing to fight in the streets. He could see that JArvis was scrambling resources and they should be here in a minute at best but his suit was already being peppered with lasers and he didn't know how long it could sustain that because he was already feeling pretty bruised on the inside.

"Jarvis? I am not feeling safe here,"

His pleas were answered in the form of a missile landing on the street, in between a squad of foot soldiers and then he grinned as he watched them all burst apart.

"Yeah, baby! Second Amendment for the win!" He just regretted the Invasion not being in a redneck state. They would only need to deal with the whales while these foot soldiers would be taken care of by the civilians.

He could just imagine the rednecks, arming themselves even more, bunkering down in their mini fortresses and just itching to fight an alien with the weapons that were their birthright. With how things were going, the rednecks might just get a chance.

The Captain's suit then unleashed a barrage of lasers that were noticeably thicker than his own and eviscerated the small squad before moving on to the next one.

"Well, I am definitely Jealous," He muttered as he followed the captain, providing support though it was definitely unneeded.

__xx___

Stark Jet

–Tony Stark–

"Sir, Partial Digital Takeover complete," he looked up from the small shut eye he was taking in between tasks because his eyes had pretty much begun watering the moment he looked at the holo screen now. Despite his many many advances in display tech, the eyes still remained a limiting factor.

"What do you mean, Partial? Omega Protocol as well as the President's access codes should have given you complete control over anything that had an internet connection." Bruce interjected as he came forward, from his own workstation where he was working on a way to fire a Gamma Wave straight at Loki, which should provide enough of a disruption to his systems as well as any machine holding on to him so that they could get Loki off the portal machine and onto his ass.

"It would seem that there is a block in East Africa that has firewalls stronger than anything recorded. ETA to break their firewalls using Omega Protocol - 7 years,"

He and Bruce traded looks at that. That was….not good.

He sighed, "Alright. Jarvis, in terms of percentages?"

"98.1% devices connected to the web hijacked,"

He took a deep breath at that. "Okay, open up a direct link, bypass everything, make sure that anyone within reach can hear me,"

He shook his head. Alright, no biggie. All he had to was goad an alien warlord into bringing his nigh infinite, absurdly resilient army to him, to a pre chosen location for a final showdown, where there was a non zero chance of death, of not just his death but the death of everyone on this Jet and then everyone he ever knew.

Because the goddamned freaking Axle Riddle had to go into a coma at this moment.

He took in deep breaths once again, just thinking of that bastard put him in a bad mood.

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