The Sage of the Mind

A/N - Hello my dear peeps! I come with good tidings, in the form of this chapter. Anywho, aside from delivering this important chapter to you, I also wanted to deliver an explanation to yall.

You might have noticed my updates being on point from Monday to Thursday before faltering throughout the weekend, despite me being off from work for the weekend.

Well, here's the story for that.[TLDR at end]

You see, Monday to Thursday, I have a regular 10 hour work shift. On Fridays, however, I am on call so that translates to a roughly 15-16 hour shift for the day. Yeah, it is pretty brutal so I am pretty much out of it for the majority of Saturday and sometimes, on Sunday as well.

That is why I am unable to maintain the glorious grind of pushing out chapters day by day because my eyes start to water if I so much as look at a screen after that harrowing shift.

TLDR - Huge ass work shift on Friday so brain go slow on weekends, explaining the lack of content on weekends.

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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 29 [December 2008]

–Axle Riddle–

"Uh-huh. Yes, I know that the stock is falling now. Yes, I know we only cashed out about half of our investment but you know that even that turned out a decent profit for you…..Yes, I know that we are once again funneling money back into SI. Yes, I know the stock is free falling and I am telling you once again, I don't CARE!" 

He slammed his phone shut at the last statement. Those old fogies were getting on his nerves now. Despite making a profit on their investment, they were still trying to advise him about it. Yes, he had no idea about the stock market but he knew one thing. Tony Stark was not a quitter and once the world came to know about Iron Man, the stock would only rise and rise and…rise.

Huh, slamming the telephone shut was an oddly satisfying feeling. He kinda wanted to do it again.

*RING* Ah, speak of the devil.

"Hello, Axle speaking,"

He immediately took the phone away from his ear as another tirade of old fogies was coming from the speaker. Okay, he had it with these rich old fogies. They had all the control of their money. If they truly wanted to end their partnership with him, they could have taken out their money on their own without ever telling him about it.

But noooo, they wanted to talk his ear off doing it as well.

"Hey, look, Master Wu, if you really want to end this, just do it, alright? I have a dozen other billionaires on speed dial, just waiting to take the deal, alright? So if you're out, you're out, don't yap at me about it. If you are in, then just shut up for a while. You'll see the results in a few months," He said after slamming down the phone once again, once again feeling that pleasant feeling.

It had been over a few hours ever since he had that horrible encounter with those SHIELD agents, forcing him to reassess his strategy for establishing a cooperative relationship with them. 

He wanted to see if Bruce could get a pardon from the President if he could prove that Bruce was in control of the Hulk and could be useful, not as a weapon, god no, Bruce would never agree to that. But having him on board as a scientific expert and as a major deterrent alone would be invaluable.

He was sure that Fury would agree to it if only to get another player on board for the Avengers Initiative. It was the others he was worried about. Mostly General Ross and his connections in the White House, which might convince the president that instead of having a single non-combative Hulk, it would be better to have hordes of super soldiers who would do the country's bidding.

That possibility could not be taken out of play here. General Ross was one of those foolhardy people who climbed his way up in the Military, rising up to command a position of extreme influence.

It was not as if others in the Military were unaware of his actions and his tendency to go overboard when dealing with certain threats but what was the US military if not the very definition of Overkill?

The higher-ups were probably also aware of Banner and the illegal experiments that led to that outcome but just let him be, hoping to milk him for any advantages that might come by from the experiment and if not, just throw him under the bus if it ever came to light.

Plausible Deniability and all that.

The US Government might be a little slow but it was not incompetent, especially not on matters relating to super soldiers. Ross should have never even gotten to see the blood sample of Steve Rogers, let alone get the authority to use it for human experimentations.

He sighed once again, in his fully air-conditioned office, as he realised the probable reason as to why the government was tacitly supporting this hair-brained venture of Ross. It was because of his very existence.

He had never really thought of it that way, mostly because he thought that the handicap that never really let him get out of Manhattan would be enough to placate the people in power, at least until he left New York City. He had hoped for them to be rational about it and see that he was not some villain that they had to worry about. 

Apparently, he expected too much from politicians.

Welp, nothing he could do about that. Well, maybe Fury could do something if Fury trusted him but knowing what he knew about Fury and his infamous Paranoia, there was little chance that Fury would ever endorse him. 

Hell, SHIELD was probably already scrambling for countermeasures against him, not that they would succeed. He had already been pushing his powers to their limits, not the TK but his spatial awareness. He didn't know how to train his TK anymore but spatial awareness was really easy to do.

He could now feasibly exert his powers up to a mile outside the Imprisoning curtain, that was what he had taken to calling the orange curtain around Manhattan. He could not exert more power even after gaining more distance in his spatial awareness but that was probably another limitation imposed on him.

He could see that Bruce was now doing Yoga, having found some tutorials on the internet and while the image of Bruce Banner doing clumsy yoga would forever be imprinted in his mind, he was more concerned with the way Bruce was bending in ways that would have been more realistic for an Olympic Gymnast, without any visible effort, like…at all.

It would seem that becoming the Hulk did grant him some benefits in his non-transformed state as well. He had witnessed his gym sessions as well and aside from some light sweating, he had not struggled even after lifting all the weights he had access to, despite never being one for physical stuff in university.

So, slightly enhanced strength and flexibility, even in his base form. Good to know. Maybe he could train to alter between both states as a powered and a less powered state. Something to tell him once the Ancient One finally comes back from wherever the hell she went to.

Apparently, it was one of her few obligations that she had to fulfill and even Demon Lords abide by it as the attacks cease this time of the year. He was curious about it but he knew that not having any aptitude for Sorcery would mean that he would be pretty unaware of most things in that space.

Hmm. His attention was perked as he once again sensed a convoy of blacked-out SUVs heading his way. He peered deeper into the car and…

"Well well well, look who's coming to meet little ol' me," He whistled out loud as the stoic face of one Nick one-eyed Fury came to him through his powers.

Damn, he was hoping to meet Coulson at best, not the head honcho himself. Well, no time like the present then.

He was curious as to how they would talk. He sure as hell was not going to go there personally. He was not stupid.

Probably to the SHIELD safehouse then?

Apparently not, he thought to himself as he watched Fury enter the biggest precinct nearby. Apparently, they were all informed about it because the precinct was nearly empty, save for some detective who, after handing over the keys to Coulson, fled from the scene as well.

Now that he focused, he found that the entire building had been evacuated completely.

Well, there was no need to do that. They could have communicated over long distances, even in his car if need be. 

But now that he had done all this, it would be remiss on his part if he didn't give Fury something of a show as well.

He watched, after ordering lunch ofcourse (Chinese today), as Fury entered the precinct and after standing in the middle of a bunch of tables that had all signs of being hastily arranged, he put his hand on his waist as he turned around and kept looking at Coulson with an eyebrow raised.

In return, Coulson just kept looking at him with the same placid smile plastered on his face. Fury sighed and took a seat, Coulson choosing to stand.

Fury's team, meanwhile, spread far through the building and even perched on top of the nearby buildings, armed with snipers. 

"Oooh, scary," he scoffed to himself as he chose to finally make an appearance, metaphorically speaking.

Right outside the building, a huge stack of paper rims was dropped, right in front of an agent standing guarding on the curb, completely startling him. He yelped as he pulled his gun and after finding that it was just paper, he looked up and around, speaking furiously in his comms.

In his office, he giggled after seeing the scare they experienced from just…paper. It was hilarious.

Even more was the reaction the agent made when the stack of paper seemingly exploded, flinging shredded pieces of paper in every direction. He yelped as he drew his firearm and actually shot paper!

He could see every member of Fury's team furiously looking for something, someone. Well, he gave them one.

The shredded paper that had been strewn all around seemingly came back to life as it all began accumulating right in front of the precinct door. Slowly, bit by bit, all the shredded paper was gathered until a distinctly human-shaped man, made of paper, was standing right at the door.

In the middle of the chaos that was snipers taking aim at, once again, paper, they had not noticed a small phone he had slipped into the headpiece of his paper avatar. That was programmed with text-to-speech software. 

All he had to do was type in the required text using his powers, from a distance, so that the blunder from his previous encounter with SHIELD agents doesn't happen again. 

The noise he made using his powers was horrendous to even listen to and that made him feel a little guilty when he thought that agent to be a coward for being so afraid of mere paper. 

The scene of a paper head giving out that voice, especially since the words would have been somewhat legible, would have sent anyone packing.

Although…

He made the show of looking around and waving at all the snipers and agents stationed around since they were not taking any overt actions against him. Of Course, the snipers were still completely aimed at him but the triggers were not yet pressed, so he counted that as a win.

It would seem that someone from the inside had ordered everyone else to stand down for the moment, probably Coulson.

After waving at the sixth sniper located two buildings away, he turned around and walked straight through the door, as if it didn't exist at all. He did so by having the pieces of paper slide through the gaps underneath and on the sides of the door before reforming on the other side.

Almost immediately, he came face to face with Coulson who was obviously wearing his signature smile.

"Welcome. Would it be safe to assume that it is not the real you and just a puppet?" 

He inclined the puppet's head and said, through the phone of course, which too had slid through the slit below the door. Somehow, the door had that big of a gap between them for some reason.

"Yes, Agent Coulson. It would hardly be wise to come here personally. After all, I am quite aware of SHIELD's reputation,"

"Oh, really?" Came an amused voice from behind Coulson.

Coulson neatly slid out of his way and after nodding politely at Coulson, "he" made his way over to Fury who was sitting on a chair with a small plastic table in front of him.

"Of Course. I might not know much but I do know that SHIELD is definitely not to be trifled with," he said as his paper avatar slowly sat on the chair. He made the avatar cross his legs as he looked at Fury who maintained a stoic glare at the paper avatar.

Meanwhile, back in his office, he was laughing, clutching his stomach as he saw that all these people were on edge, simply because of…paper.

Man, he was hilarious. It was too bad that they simply weren't able to appreciate or understand his supreme sense of humour.

"And the US Army? Are they not on your list of not being trifled with? After all, you are harboring a fugitive of theirs. Quite an important fugitive too,"

"Allegedly, Director Fury. All allegedly. You have no proof and more importantly, no real person to convict," He said airily as he made the paper man lean back into the chair.

Let's see what Fury has to say for him.

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

A/N - I saw the Deadpool movie and hot damn, what a movie!

I hope that the execs at Disney see the success this movie brought them and finally give the team the creative freedom to do as they see fit.

I mean, half a billion in the opening weekend!

This feels like much more of a comeback for the MCU than RDJ's supposed comeback.

Thanks for reading!

Peace out!