17 - Shield

Dante had woken up after sleeping for hours.. he could still feel the energy in his body as he moved..

The source of the energy was the eternal core so that would mean that he had the possibility of having the same abilities as the eternal.. pointing to a thick wall he tried concentrating, trying to move the energy into his arm and form a blast of magic that would hit the wall..

He pushed for the magic to come out but had no success.. Thinking of other ways Dante remembered the books that he had read about the mistic arts, so he tried to follow their guid..

First he needed to believe in himself, without confidence doubt would trouble him and cause the connection to weaken..

He hyped himself up with some words of encouragement and tried to cast the portal magic that he had been shown while learning magic.. it was one of the most important spells for traveling and would be immensely useful for someone who needed to move many pieces of dangerous equipment throughout the world.

Just his body alone was already a machine not to mention his repertoire of tools he found to be useful in traveling..

Concentrating on the movements Dante managed to gets sparks to appear, the energy that was in his chest moved out and formed sparks, if he could just get them to open a portal…

He needed to visualise, get a place that he knew in his mind before trying something more, something close would work best, or at least Dante thought so..

Imagining the room below him some small wisps grew into a semi formed circle, just small enough to let his hand through, not that he would do something so fooling as passing his hand trough a portal that could sever his nerves and leave his hand on the other side.

Increasing the portals size seemed out of the picture for now, but at least he had something that was remotely stable, Dante could still feel the tuck of energy that came from inside of him flowing to the magic portal and decided to try and cut it off..

With the cut of power the portal stayed open for a couple of seconds before dissipating, Dante tried touching the energy and found that it seeped into his skin without problem

"Perhaps?" He moved to the Eternal core grabbing it with both hand while concentrating..

The energy kept flowing in, eventually he felt full, but decided to continue, a while later it hurt, but Dante continued only closing his eyes to concentrate further… he could feel something more being formed within him, something more than just a storage devise, a connection of sorts.

Dante passed out before he could fully explore the new possibilities…

..

When he woke up, he felt like he could conquer the world, the energy flowed into his body while being absorbed back into, creating a warm and fussy feeling inside of him…

Dante got up, thinking of his future plans… he hadn't done much in the last months except conciliate power, but with the power he had now, traveling around the world was easy, literally a flick away, or at least it would once he mastered the technique.

Some time had passed since he started absorbing the core, but looking at the empty husk of a shell that remained, Dante concurred that he had gotten everything out of it.

Preparing himself once more, Dante began trying to open portals…

-

SHIELD had received reports of a suspicious clinic near Chinatown, police reports indicated that while strange machinery was there, no further investigation was gone into it.

The case had been at the back of a stack of paperwork for a while, but today Jermyn Brock would be on it… he was one of the senior members, but hadn't climbed the rankings due to his lack of motivation and strive, the less he knew the saver he was, or that was his thinking process at least.

He was tasked with dealing minor investigations with new members of SHIELD, to show them the ropes. All operatives could shoot, but investigation work took time and patients, something the younger guys in the team sometimes seemed to lack.

"You understand why we are here right?"

"Yes of course I have read the file, but what if he isn't home?" The clinic was suspicious but the owner was even more so, he had opened the clinic, getting good reviews from the surrounding elderly population and even getting some younger clients as well, but suddenly left tacking a plane to India, where he stayed without contacting anyone on the outside world until he returned with a privet jet company, even switching out the jet midway trough the flight, somehow gaining a company while in the air. Then returning to his clinic before going of radar again.

They had gotten a legal warrant, but breaking in would arouse suspicion around it, but they could redirect any complaints to other bureau's, whose badges they had with them.

"We can simply see for ourselves, if he isn't there then we simply enter to confirm that he is still alive."

While the two of them approached his door, Dante viewed their SHIELD profiles, getting to know who they were, and why they were at his door.

While digging trough their file, Dante found a strange string of messages that connected him to a second entity, a more hidden one, Hydra.

He had read that name before, but hadn't dug much into them as a organisation, only going as far as to read the more well know things about them… like the supposed fact of their destruction.

Reading more into it, he found out that hydra had tasked itself to create a world order with them at the head of it.

By the time he had received the information his front door had stopped being pounded on, with the two agents now resulting to brute forcing their way in with the help of a crowbar.

The crowbar likely couldn't do anything to his door as he had made in almost impervious to that kind of breach, his motivation on making his home a certified bunker were no joke after all.

Dante suspected that they might use other means to force their way in, but to simplify the process he simply unlocked the door, letting them struggle to open it further as it was as secure as it was heavy.

The turrets stationed inside the waiting room didn't activate only monitoring them as they moved their way further into his clinic…

As they investigated further, Dante thought of a plan to deal with them… killing them would cause the conflict to escalate, so instead of doing that he would simply talk… if things got out of hand a simple neuro toxin could fix the situation.

Walking down the stairs, Dante made it obvious as he let his boots stomp with each step, clearly announcing himself to be in his home.. while picking up a katana from the wall as he did so…

He hadn't specialised in bladed combat but had learned how to effectively use one in tune with his cybernetic implants, sadly he never got to use it, not even now…

Moving more quietly after arriving to the ground floor, caused the agents inside his operating room to tense even more, they had heard his approach and were conflicted on how to deal with it…

"Were are with the FBI, please state your name!" the younger of the two began to speak in a demanding tone, clearly freaking out due to the atmosphere that Dante had created.

"FBI you say… interesting, what would they be doing inside my home?" he modified his voice to sound course and rough, trying to make it clear he doubted them.

The less they thought he knew, the more of an advantage he would have, that paired with the creepy equipment that they put themselves next to caused a great deal of stress to build up.

"Sir, please come out into the open so we can talk normally." They had been talking while separated by a single door that separated the operating room from the storage, but Dante wasn't willing to put up with much, as they had interrupted him and brought him into their internal conflict by bringing two agents with differing loyalty.

"Why don't you come to me and I promise that I wont slice you to bits… why are you here anyway, I haven't done anything to warrant a duo of investigators to come to my doorstep."

"We are only here to check up on the owner of the property and to inspect if everything is medically save to be used inside of a clinic."

"Ugh.. fine…" Dante was done playing a game of who relented first, they had stated their intentions and hadn't lied while doing so, so informing them of his equipment wouldn't be the worst idea, he simply had to undersell it, because if he were to sell his top class equipment or even his normal once then they would be classified as military grade equipment, it was almost like if a firework shop started selling grenades and other explosives..

Dante turned on the lights in the operating room, sheathing his sword before opening the door and entering in front of the two SHIELD agents with their guns razed in case they needed to defend themselves.

Dante clicked his tong at their sorry excuse of a weapon, he had at least expected SHIELD agents to get some powerful equipment, but the pistols at their side were barely better then that of everyday cops.

"So…mind telling me what it is that has the great FBI so concerned?" It had either been an error or a oversight on the new guys part, as neither of them could really answer, but the older of the two seemed quick with the bounce back.

"The bureau decided that this was something to investigate so here we are, detail can be given at a later date if you are that interested."

"Nah… but please help yourself to investigate, although I do warn you that some of the equipment is highly sensitive, so you shouldn't be touching it willy nilly, got it?"

"We'll try to be carful." They nodded at each other before starting to examine the room, taking pictures of some machines while asking what their purpose was.. Dante only responded the first time, saying that it was natural for them not to understand highly advanced equipment and to send experts if they wanted to be provisional, before leaving them be every other time they asked a question.

After they were done finishing up the room, luckily without breaking anything, the new recruit decided to continue his investigation into the storage room, where Dante had emerged from.

He tried pulling and pushing the door even trying to move it to the left or right, but all leading to the same result of the door not budging.

Dante almost found it laughable on how hard he was trying to open the door.

"Sir could you please open the door for us to continue our investigation." Jermyn spoke up, not wanting the earlier hassle they had at the door happened to them a second time.

"No."

"What do you mean, no?" The new guy turned to look at him. Stopping his attempts at gaining access to the door through force

"I mean that considering what you have came for, I am not obligated to provide you with more access to my home… your job as I understand it was to check on the equipment I use on patients, not the once that have yet to be completed and are still not cleared for usage, or to search through my personal belongings that are stored behind the door."

"Unlock the door now, before we.." before he could finish his sentence a blade had made its way to his neck.

"Before you what?" Dante had watched as they infected almost every piece of his equipment by touching them rashly, resulting in him having to get them cleaned up for the next time he used them.