Technomancer in MCU #44

Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.

Chapter 44

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

"I know, right? I asked him the same thing when he first gave me the thing. Anyway, behold my latest creation." Throgg replied and then gestured towards the cube that began to open up, shrouding him and Throgg in an eerie yellow glow.

________________________________________________________________

–Frank Castle–

As soon as he saw a yellow glow coming out of an object that was termed dangerous by Throgg of all people, he nearly leaped to close the box immediately.

Breathing heavily, he nearly shouted at Throgg, "Are you mad? Don't you know the consequences of being in close proximity to that object? You might be thousands of years old and near immune to it but I am not, you genius."

He was truly mad this time.

Being slightly careless with your experiments with materials that were deemed too dangerous for humans but not for dwarfs, was one thing.

Playing with his safety and more importantly, the sanctity of his mind was a whole different beast altogether.

It was more than carelessness, it was a massive breach of his trust.

He thought that he could trust Throgg. He might be rough and coarse on the outside but anyone who has spent literal centuries in continuous war zones would obviously come out a little broken.

He stopped short of shouting further at Throgg when he saw a genuine look of hurt ghost over his face. But it was only for a moment and then his usual scowling face was back in full force.

Throgg then snatched the box from Frank's hands that he was barely lifting even after all his enhancements like it weighed barely anything at all.

"Do you think I'm a fool? Weren't you listening to what I said earlier? I said that I removed the psychic imprint that was present on the sceptre. So there is no bad influencing done by the mind stone on your mind. The sceptre was designed to do so, not the mind stone." Throgg said and jumped from the floating platform. He then began walking towards the exit without taking a look back, clearly upset at his actions.

He (Frank) sighed and floated down right behind him using the nanite package of his body armour.

"I am sorry for my outburst. But in my defense, I have seen the aftermath of people coming out of mind control and it is not pretty. The thing you are holding is pretty much the key to control all the minds of the universe and I guess, I overreacted a bit. I apologize but all I could think of at that moment was my kids reacting to my death because you can be damn sure that I would either kill the motherfucker who did that to me or die trying."

Something in his words must have struck a chord with Throgg for he stopped stomping forward, leaving hairline fractures in the glossy finish of the floor.

Granted it was the first layer and therefore, the weakest but Damn! Those prosthetics had some serious juice behind them.

But in the end, what could he expect from something that Alfred and Ed personally designed, before they got a full science team and therefore, someone to restrain them from their more outlandish programs? He still shuddered when he thought of the plan of killing Thanos using Pym particles and a suicide bomber of sorts (because no one could experience that and still come out with a will to live).

Throgg looked at him from the corner of his eyes and said, "Well, don't let it become a habit. I might like you more than the other mortals but the last person who talked to me like that and remained alive was Surtus. So you better watch your words."

Being threatened by someone who had no limbs and needed old age assistance was not an intimidating sight mainly because he knew of the diaper mode Throgg had Alfred built into his suit for him. But he couldn't deny that even in his old age, Throgg still had some juice left in him. Not to the level of a pure-blooded Royal Asgardian, but Dwarves too had the trait of growing stronger the older they were. It was just that they could exert that overwhelming strength for less and less time until such a time came that the exertion of their innate magical powers left them dead instead of bedridden or magically exhausted for a month.

He made a sealing motion in front of his mouth and said, "I heard you loud and clear. Now, will you tell me more about the artifact you are holding other than it being incredibly dangerous?"

Thorgg rolled his eyes at him as if mocking him for his totally justified paranoia. 

As he had repeated multiple times to multiple people, he said, "It is not paranoia if they really are to get you and you know it."

Throgg didn't dignify that with a response but walked a bit ahead and placed the item on a table that became solid out of thin air due to the wondrous application of Hard Light technology. He then slapped the box that contained one of the six building blocks of the universe as if it were simply the hood of a truck that he was trying to sell to him.

His heart nearly leaped out of his throat at that.

The box opened up at his slapping and then an intricate mechanism sprung up from the box, showcasing two objects.

It was a small egg that glowed yellow, presumably the one that contained the mind stone, and a small smooth ball the size of a golf ball. It had streaks of yellow flowing through it, followed by orange streaks of energy that covered the entire surface of the ball.

He waited a while, running through the mind defense techniques he had learned in passing from the sorcerers of Kamar Taj, waiting for something to happen due to being in close proximity to the time stone.

But after a while, after not detecting anything, he stopped concentrating and looked back to Throgg who just gave him a disappointing look but went on to explain the artifact.

"So! This is something Ed commissioned from me personally. It was his first personal request so I couldn't exactly deny it but I am still a bit confused about its purpose. I was hoping you could enlighten me about it."

He nodded with a bit of uncertainty, "I can definitely try."

Throgg nodded and then said, "It has two specific functions. It is supposed to shut down the mind's functions and revert its memory age back some 70 years in your time period. The second function is to restore the memories that might have otherwise been repressed but to only do so in a detached manner as if the person was not experiencing it personally but only looking at it from a third perspective. Also, a slight enchantment to stop suicidal thoughts. Anything you can tell me about that because I didn't get a chance to ask Ed about it."

More like wouldn't ask Ed about it.

But the situation he was explaining about seemed pretty clear to him.

This was a perfect solution for Bucky Barnes, whenever he was cleared from his brainwashing.

He thought that while it didn't make much sense to make something this overkill for a mere super soldier but he wouldn't pretend to understand Ed's thoughts.

He only had a job to execute the ideas that Ed's mad brain cooked up.

"Well?" He looked up at Throgg's questioning.

"Uh, yeah, we have a high profile person to rescue who has been brainwashed for exactly 70 years to systematically murder good people, many of them were his friends. So, yeah, the ball is probably for that but I am still confused as to how a Ball of all things could be used on someone," he replied.

"Oh, that? Don't worry about that. Just pick up the ball and you'll know immediately." Throgg encouraged him to do so.

He hesitantly picked it up only to nearly drop it as it transformed from a ball to a band and then a knife, then a blunt knife. 

It would seem that the magical properties of Uru could only truly shine in the hands of a Dwarf.

"See? Nice, right?" Throgg said enthusiastically.

He nodded.

"Great! Now, get out of here. I have work to do. Apparently, the people of Kamar Taj have a lot of old relics that they want to be upgraded or repaired. I don't have much time for this." Throgg grumbled and shuffled him out of his office space.

He dumbly nodded and went out to the hangar, holding the infinity stone egg in one hand and the band in another.

Today had indeed been a very bizarre day for him.

Sometimes, he missed the days when all he had to do was point at someone and blow their brains out.

He couldn't wait to go home and climb into his warm comfortable bed with his wife.

The one place where he could relax pretty much instantly and sleep comfortably.

________________________________________________________________

–Throgg–

Watching the most tolerable human he had met on this infernal planet leave, he thought of the day that led to his situation now.

But before he could delve deeper into his thoughts, he had one very important job to do.

He then joined his prosthetic hands together. The next moment, his hands began shining with a bright golden light as he began to float cross-legged in his office.

Soon, a golden magical circle manifested in front of him and it only continued to grow brighter. The symbols inside the circle began to rotate at a dizzying pace.

In fact, if anybody who was not mystically attuned to the likes of Odin, Ancient One or Frigga would find themselves drawn into the circle with their senses lost.

A thin sheen of sweat could be seen on Throgg's face as he concentrated on the spell in front of him with his eyes scrunched up.

It finally seemed to reach a crescendo as it had now shrunk down to the size of a fist. The circle then exploded, turning into a wave that flowed omnidirectionally.

He waited for any feedback from the spell but upon not finding any, he heaved a sigh of relief.

He had read so many horror stories of the damn AI that Frank had brought with him, he thought prudent of pruning all traces of any other AI other than Victor's from his workshop. They apparently had an entire channel dedicated to the crimes that Alfred commits on the daily.

After making sure that Alfred was well and truly gone, he pressed a button under his desk.

He waited a moment and heaved a huge sigh of relief when he heard, "Hello, sir. How may I be of service?"

Victor had been untouched by Alfred.

The circle was one part of a 2 part spell. It was a spell he created with the help of one of the more talented sorcerers of Kamar Taj, Kaecillius. He was a very helpful fellow, helping him without even asking.

The first part of the spell essentially recorded everything digitally in a location. Then the second part scanned the data from the same location and pruned all traces of anything that was not recorded in the first spell.

It was very helpful in this situation.

While not a very efficient spell by any means, it took nearly all of his mental concentration to do so but the complexity of the spell meant that even that AI, advanced as it was, couldn't bypass it.

Not to mention, he had heard that Alfred couldn't do much about the mystic arts for some reason. All the people he talked to were quite confused about that as he was very much adept in the topic of runes before. In fact, most of the spatial stab

Upon asking, the Ancient One was quite cryptic about her response, as she usually is.

"Nothing, Victor. Just go back to your duties. Operating the exoskeleton was very taking on these old bones. Just take over, will you?" he asked Victor, feeling rather exhausted by the happenings of the day.

"Surely, sir," Victor replied and immediately the legs and arms that were slouching, reflecting his mental state, straightened up.

"Ahhh, Much better," he said and groaned as he sat in his relaxing chair.

Mortals sure knew how to make the most comfortable cushions.

During his time as on Nidavellir, he hadn't even imagined that such comfortable cushions could exist outside of the Royal halls of Asgard. Vanaheim and Alfheim. Here, apparently, anybody with a little bit of coin could buy these.

He still didn't know if it was the right thing to do, allowing his services to be given out to Ed. 

As a rule, if you wanted to leave Nidavellir for something, you could do so but with the knowledge that Asgard was watching and would strike you down if they found out that you were making high-tier weaponry for someone other than Asgard.

Making something with the energy of an infinity stone definitely fell into that category.

But then, he remembered how he had basically abandoned Nidavellir due to what it had become.

They were a proud species once, residing on their planetoid, not too dissimilar to Midgard.

They were independent contractors who made weapons for anybody who paid them money. Of course, weapons like Mjolnir were off the table for anyone outside of Dwarves. 

Not that there were many dwarves capable of making weapons like Mjolnir even in that era.

Then came Bor Burison. 

Oh, how he hated that wretched man.

The strongest Asgardian of his time, even surpassing the might of his brothers and father combined.

He came to Nidavellir, the true home of Dwarves, one day and demanded that they surrender and move to a place of Bor's choice and imposed a condition on them that the only people we would sell our high-tier weaponry to was Asgard and even then, all other weapon sales would be scrutinized by Asgard. Asgard would have the final say on all sales of weapons.

Predictably, everybody went into a huge uproar, him included but their king, King Durin III, bent the knee.

At the time, he was furious at the decision, and so were most of his brothers.

But when confronted, the sight of their King breaking down into tears was one of the things that had been seared into his memory. He explained to us the true intention of Bor asking for surrender with those unconditional terms. He expected the Dwarves to not bend their knee, to fight against Asgard, to start a war.

But what King Durin III did surprised Bor. He was expecting a battle, not a surrender at the moment, hence the reason he came personally to Nidavellir.

In the end, he had to admit that what King Durin III did was right.

How could he argue when he saw entire legions of the elite of the elite of numerous races being cut down like they were common grass?

Bor Borison was a warmonger, plain and simple. He saw that Nidavellir was the major supplier of weapons to most factions of the galaxy and sought to control that resource. King Durin III, saved the race by allowing Nidavellir to be relocated and allowing Asgard first access.

Of course, the surrender allowed King Durin III room for negotiation. That's how they got the Golden Forge of Nidavellir. That's how no Dwarf was sent to the frontlines to die, even if their main skill was not weapons manufacturing.

But he had grown disillusioned with the command back then and left Nidavellir. He didn't even tell anyone about his leaving and so, was basically stranded in the nine realms.

He then travelled throughout the nine realms, helping the natives with tools. Never did he even try to make real weapons, in fear of retaliation from Asgard. He could feel their watcher's gaze on him from time to time. He suspected the only reason Asgard didn't come crashing down on him with all their might was due to King Durin III's grace and the judicial use of his talents during his travels.

During his travels outside the nine realms, he heard of Bor's abdication to his son, Odin Borson. He had thought that with that warmonger off the throne and with the instability of a new king, Asgard would reduce their warmongering tendencies but that didn't happen. 

Odin, somehow, was even stronger than Bor and managed to stabilise his rule very quickly.

Then, began the conquering. Odin and his daughter, Hela decided that the nine realms paying fealty to Asgard was not enough. They wanted every realm to formally surrender to Asgard and become its vassal states, just like Nidavellir was.

And so, war began. Odin and his daughter were nearly invincible on the battlefield. Together, with Asgard's army, along with some new additions like the Berserkers, Asgard had managed to conquer nearly all of the nine realms, save the Ginnungagap, due to its desolate nature, and Alfheim. He had thought that Alfheim was spared from the war engines due to the inherent peaceful nature of Light Elves and the advantage they had in their home realm. 

So, to get some respite and maybe, help some of the refugees, he set up a camp in Alfheim.

Then, to add injury to salt, during one of his stays in Allheim, he got the news that they had declared war on Odin Borson due to his conquering ways.

He knew what fate was awaiting them then and there because he had seen with his own eyes the death and destruction his daughter had brought upon armies of invaders with the help of Mjolnir, a Dwarven-made weapon and she was supposed to be weaker than Odin.

Soon enough, he heard of Alfheim's defeat. Hela Odinsdottir had slaughtered half the population of Alfheim before she was stopped by Odin who was informed of the genocide by his council. 

By the time Odin stopped Hela, sent her back and reached the capital, it was gone. Every single light elf had abandoned their realm. He had heard rumours about their King using his very lift force as fuel to open a gateway to a pocket dimension but he was never able to confirm that. 

After that incident, Odin stopped his crazy daughter and did something that made everyone forget about her. Even he didn't remember her. The only reason the spell broke was because of his proximity to the mind stone and the band that he had used as a test on himself. He had never expected for there to be a mind spell on him.

After that, he got depressed and began to drink his sorrows away, more so than usual.

One fine evening, he found himself being approached by a group of ravagers who wanted to retrieve some alive demons from Muspelheim. The pay was good. It would have covered the tab at his usual bar.

He didn't want to go but he also didn't want his good friend's bar to go bankrupt.

So, he went along with the most notorious pack of pirates in the galaxy.

In hindsight, not a good idea.

He swiftly found himself being ambushed by them when he was tired from fighting all the demons.

Apparently, they were there to collect him instead of the fire demons.

Furious at their actions, he had swiftly slaughtered them but that had left him defenseless to the onslaught of the oncoming fire demon waves.

Even then, with a death wish, he had charged right into the incoming horde and after what felt like an eternity, managed to kill all of them at the price of an arm and leg.

Hobbling on one leg, he was about to lay down and wait to die, he heard a menacing laugh and turned to see one of the biggest fire demons, that wasn't Surtur, he had ever seen.

Back then, he had accepted his fate and just laughed in the fire demon's face, daring him to end his life so he could finally rest.

But Lady Destiny had other plans for him.

Somehow, Ed and Alfred had stumbled on their location as well. They were present on Muspelheim, cloaked in stealth to find some unique materials that could only be found in fire-rich areas.

Due to the disturbance he had created from his fight, they managed to find him and with a single shot from their ship's cannon, they killed the fire demon.

He still remembered the frantic mess that Ed was when he tried to help him and how in awe of Ed's powers he was back then.

They then brought him to Midgard of all places. And they didn't bring him to just Midgard, they brought him to Midgard's Sorcerers.

He must have looked so dumb when he met the Ancient One. He was still delirious from the pain but the thought of Midgardians having access to Magic was mindboggling for him.

They patched him up but couldn't save his limbs. He lost 2 limbs in the fight and 2 more to the demon infection. 

They still could have saved the infected limbs but the Ancient One told him that the only ones alive who could do so were in Asgard.

He refused. He refused to go to the place that nearly destroyed the identity of Dwarves and destroyed the entire species, leaving multiple realms desolate.

He was still angry about the Light Elves incident.

His vehemence surprised many there except the Ancient One.

Alfred back then was pretty much a cold-blooded logical being and urged Ed to make sure that he survived so they could gain access to all the knowledge he had with him.

It was humiliating for a while but Ed managed to come up with a full prosthetic system for his lost limbs. 

With the help of the masters of Kamar Taj, they managed to make the prosthetics just as good at using Magic as his old arms. He was honestly happy about the choice but he would never admit it to their face.

In return, he helped with Kamar Taj's artifacts and took occasional commission work from Ed.

He considered that as payment for his rescue.

"Sir? Sir? Sir?" 

Victor's voice brought him out of his reverie. Victor was the VI that was installed at his behest into the base. He wasn't true artificial intelligence but he preferred it that way. Victor got the job done and didn't do any additional thinking. From the incidents he had heard, it was a good choice.

"Yes, Victor?" he asked.

"Sir, Master Wong from Kamar Taj is here to take you to Kamar Taj for the regular artifact work," Victor replied.

Ah, yes.

"Tell him I'll be there in a minute," he ordered.

"Very well, sir."

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 3851

If you guys would like to support me, or just read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my Patreon.

I already have up to 9 extra chapters uploaded there.