12 Chapter 12: Chatter in shadows

A rope made of energy latched onto his ankle but he stomped on it with his free leg dissolving the rope. The residue sparks from the rope exploded into swirling blades that tried to skewer him. He jumped away and flew through the intricate folds of space to escape the blades. The blades chased him around as if they had a mind of their own.

Cerion noticed a few of the blades break away and tried to flank him. He increased the speed and managed to easily fly past the blades. But suddenly he paused as space before him distorted and a yellow ring formed before his eyes.

A myriad of blades shot out of the portal and he was quick to evade them all. Only to be hounded by another set of blades that took him by surprise as a portal opened abruptly below his body.

The blades began to chip away at the body armour covering his body. One blade came close to his cheek. He could have easily dodged it but he was curious what would happen if the blade made contact with his skin. So he didn't move his head and let the blade graze his cheek.

Time seemed to slow down as he focused on every microscopic movement of the blade. The sharp edge of the magical construct slowly made contact with his skin. The friction between the blade and his hardened skin yielded sparks. The blade simply veered off as if repelled by a force. It was a good thing that he was keeping his eyes firmly on the blade as that let him see exactly how the blade was repelled.

In truth, the blade never grazed his skin. It would seem to touch his skin from an outside perspective but a force field around his body intercepted the blade just before it made real contact with the skin. It was the force field that repelled the blade, not his skin.

A slew of blades came after him but he increased his speed deftly avoiding their reach. The world around him rippled and he swiftly changed his direction and flew straight up into the sky. Looking down he was shocked to note that a large box-like magical construct spewing lightning at the space he was occupying a second before.

A portal opened by his side and he was immediately on his guard as the Ancient One stepped out of the portal. Even in mid-air, the Ancient One stayed perfectly steady courtesy of her magic boots.

"Nice boots." he observed. While he had a thing or two to say about the stark appearance of the boots the thing was helping the Ancient One float. So, a good find in his opinion.

"Ah, yes. The Vaulting boots of Valtorr let one walk on air and arrest abrupt landings." The Ancient One said as she circled him. Each of her steps was accompanied by golden-yellow sparks from her boots.

"Nice. And I like that thunderbox you created there." he jabbed his finger at the magic box that was still spouting lightning. "Too bad it didn't work."

"Really?" the Ancient One quirked an eyebrow.

"I am too fast. My actions are faster than your thoughts." he shrugged as this was a result he expected. While magic is a weakness for Kryptonians so long as he could outrun the thoughts of the user he should be fine.

"Interesting. Perhaps this will help." said the Ancient One before a green aura enveloped her hands.

Cerion barely blinked before a tremendous force struck him all over his body and the next thing he knew he was falling down. He couldn't muster up his strength to fight off the force being exerted on him. It felt as if he was being crushed down by a humongous meteorite.

Cerion yelled and screamed but he could not escape the grasp of this invisible force. Air rushed around him and he felt as if he was being stretched thin. The feeling of pain was something that he had not felt since landing on Earth. But now he was feeling that pain exponentially and he didn't know how to feel about that.

On one hand, it felt natural but at the same time, he felt as if a great lie was shattered before his eyes. He realized that he is not invincible. That was his last thought before he plunged into the magic box. His mind exploded in pain as untold volts of electricity assaulted his nerves and blackness came for him.

Awareness came back to him but his senses were not functioning. He could not hear any sound which was weird. He knew he did not activate the necklace which blocked out his senses as he was training with the Ancient One. He blinked a few times and opened his eyes but darkness greeted him everywhere. There was very little light and he stared around in utter bewilderment.

He knew for sure he was on Earth a moment ago but at the present, he was in space. He recognized that it was space because he was not breathing. Any other being would have died but his Kryptonian physiology ensured his survival even in the vacuum of space.

He looked around curiously and he could not see Earth anywhere. His mind couldn't fathom why the Ancient One would transport him to vacant space far away from Earth. In fact, his enhanced vision could only see a large asteroid belt and a distant star that was giving him some light. Thankfully the star is a young yellow star which ensured his power remained intact.

As panicking would not do any good he decided to fly towards the asteroid belt. He put as much speed into his being to push past a huge distance in a matter of hours.

Once he touched down on the asteroid belt he tasted disappointment once again. His hope was that he was somehow seeing the Orion belt. But that hope was dashed when his eyes traced just two planets in his sight. Both planets were gas giants and had no similarity to any planets in the Sol System.

Cerion could feel frustration building up inside him. An unholy heat was simmering behind his eyes fueled by anger that was clawing at his mind.

"Rahhhhhhhhh"

He let out a yell followed by laser beams blasting out of his eyes cutting through the asteroid belt. The beam took on a blue hue and vaporized anything it touched no matter the size.

Wake up….

He heard a feminine voice from his back and when he turned around he saw a black figure. He abruptly cut off the laser beam and blinked several times to make sure he was not imagining things. Standing before him was a shadowy apparition-like figure with random purple lights in the likeness of planets, stars and galaxies passing through its body.

"What the fuck is this?" he whispered dumbstruck.

Wake up…..!

He blinked at the sound that seemed to emanate from the apparition and when he opened his eyes he was lying on the ground with the Ancient One starting at him worriedly.

"Wha…. What was that? What happened?"

"You blacked out from my attack and you were unresponsive for a long time. I was starting to get worried Mr Vex." said the Ancient One as she helped him into a sitting position.

"But how… what was that?" he asked confused at the differing sensations going through his body. It felt so real to be in space. His senses could not be lied to and yet he was right here on Earth.

"I increased gravity acting on you exponentially. I assumed you will be able to take the brunt of that attack but perhaps I may have miscalculated. Your body is teeming with dimensional energy."

"Why? What do you mean?"

"I may have accidentally exposed you to more dimensional energies. Perhaps it is better that we continue more training after you have learned to properly regulate your internal energy." The Ancient One suggested.

"Yeah. That's probably a good idea." He nodded distractedly.

His mind was still on the vision he saw. It felt so real that he could not fathom how this turned out to be a vision. He wanted to share the experience with Ancient One but he thought better off it. It could be that he just imagined all of this while he was unconscious. He was not that familiar with the Ancient One to discuss a dream he had while he was unconscious.

"So, what have you learned about my energy?" he asked instead keeping aside the strange vision.

"Obviously, your energy is still destabilized and chaotic. And it seems to negatively react with dimensional energy."

"Why would that be? I thought I am also absorbing dimensional energy?" he asked

"You are." she nodded before she waved her hands in a complex pattern and a bubble of magical energy formed in her hand. She took the bubble with two hands and made it envelop his left hand.

At first, nothing happened but slowly he could see the bubble getting distorted and the energy in his body jumping out of his hand on its own accord.

"They are battling each other!" he observed with some surprise.

"Yes. Despite having the same origin they are now acting like opposites. This means your body is converting the dimensional energy you absorbed into something else." the Ancient One explained.

"Into what?" he looked on curiously as the Ancient One plucked out a dried leaf from a nearby Papaya tree. She placed the leaf on his palm.

"Now, try channelling your energy into the leaf but do exercise control on how much energy you are using."

As per her advice, Cerion squeezed out as little energy as possible into the dry leaf. His eyes widened in surprise as the brown-shrivelled leaf turned into a vibrant green colour teeming with life.

"I turned back time?" he said with surprise.

"No Mr Vex. The dimensional energy you absorbed is being converted into life energy inside your body. Your energy is intrinsically tied to the aspect of Life."

"Aspect of Life? What does that mean?" he asked taking his eyes off the vibrant leaf in his hand after he cut off the energy supply.

"We shall speak more sometime later. Do keep practising in controlling your energy." The Ancient One said before she stepped into a portal leaving Cerion with more and more questions.

Oh, he was getting tired of the Ancient One ditching him and leaving him on a cliff so to speak whenever some progress was made. Not that he was not aware of how tight her schedule was. Apparently, Earth faced a plethora of threats from outer dimensional beings for some reason. He was given access to some texts about these beings and he knew the Order of Mystic Arts had their hands full.

Hell, some of the beings described in the texts gave him chills. It was pretty humbling to know that there are beings that could commit genocide on Celestials in multiple universes without breaking a sweat. The texts were also humbling in nature as he had assumed he would be the most powerful being in the universe.

Well, he was one of the most powerful beings in the universe. But as demonstrated by the Ancient One he was not the top dog.

*******

Seeing the old HYDRA fortress brought back some memories for Alexander Pierce. It was in August 1991 he last visited the facility. While he had made it a priority to not involve himself with secret HYDRA facilities directly, that day, a visit was warranted. The day was an important milestone for HYDRA.

It was a day one of HYDRA's foremost scientist managed to regain his youth from experimentation. Werner Reinhardt who now went by the name of Daniel Whitehall had managed to reverse his age and thus HYDRA was fortunate to maintain one of their oldest members.

Reinhardt has been one of the disciples of the Red Skull and a major contributor to HYDRA's scientific division. The man had made one of the greatest discoveries after the Tesseract. For this, the Red Skull valued Reinhardt and so did Alexander.

It was unfortunate the man had been languishing in a cell till 1989 courtesy of Peggy Carter. But now the man was out thanks to Alexander and since then Reinhardt has only proved his worth.

The discovery of extra-terrestrial life was no sensational news for HYDRA or SHIELD for that matter. But the fact that one living alien was living among them is a cause to be concerned about.

The moment Alexander had learned about Cerion Vex from Fury he had begun making plans with his HYDRA associates. But those plans required SHIELD to be focused elsewhere and that was why he took his time to arrange this meeting far away in Austria.

As the helicopter touched down he noticed Agent Hauer and Gideon Malick. He exited the helicopter and approached his associates.

"Welcome back Mr Secretary." Agent Hauer greeted crisply.

"Staying sharp Agent Hauer." He nodded to the man as he was a valuable asset inside SHIELD not to mention his point of contact with Whitehall.

"Secretary Pierce, a pleasure as always." Greeted Gideon Malick one of the senior members of HYDRA.

Alexander shook hands with Gideon who had recruited him into SHIELD after Bogota.

"Hail HYDRA."

They acknowledged each other and affirmed their loyalty to the common goal, the advancement, unification and preservation of humanity. It was a noble goal and Alexander had never felt so sure of a better goal. The threats from space were picking up and humanity was content to bicker amongst themselves. Even without HYDRA working behind the scenes, the world governments were not going to unite. HYDRA is the only chance that humanity could come together under one law, one purpose and one leader.

It was for this goal he lived and worked day after day. It will be for this goal he will die. He was sure he will see humanity unite under the aegis of HYDRA before he closed his eyes. It was also possible he won't need to close his eyes as well if Daniel Whitehall's research panned out.

"You received the information package I sent?" he asked Malick as they entered the fortress together.

"Yes. It is somewhat concerning we made direct alien contact this early. We have been hoping we will get more time." said Malick with a troubled look.

"Could this be a precursor to an invasion?" asked Agent Hauer.

"As far as SHIELD knows the alien Cerion Vex is not hostile. But we all know that shadows are more dangerous than light or darkness. We must be prepared for any situation." said Alexander. He trusted Nick to be dispassionate and ruthless in dealing with enemies. But he would never trust Nick with character assessment. Why would he when Nick could hardly notice HYDRA thriving inside SHIELD?

"But surely an unknown alien with the kind of wide variety of powers it displayed is a threat to humanity?" asked Malick

"Of course Malick. Humanity has little to no advantage over Vex. We are for the moment in a disadvantage." said Alexander.

"And that is where we differ Mr Secretary."

Another voice joined the fray making Alexander notice a middle-aged man in a white lab coat approaching them with a composed smile.

"Whitehall, looking young and happy as always." Alexander greeted the old Nazi scientist cordially.

"Thanks to you of course. Hail HYDRA."

Alexander nodded before he followed Whitehall into an observatory overlooking a giant lab in the fortress. HYDRA's finest people were working on the remnants of Kree technology. It was a sight that gave hope for Alexander. The future of humanity was being built in these walls and he was a part of this historic moment.

"We have been studying the scientific paper graciously gifted by Mr Vex and I have to say it is extraordinary. Science as we know it will be revolutionised. We have been conducting experiments for a long time to control gravity and study deep space gravitational anomalies not to mention alien technologies. It is my understanding Mr Vex is far more useful as a friend for our continued progress." said Whitehall facing all three of them.

"Dr Whitehall I am sure you know we are severely outmatched. Humanity is in a similar position when the Kree experimented on our species." Alexander calmly reminded the man.

"Yes. Have you forgotten the future of humanity lies with the Inhumans? The Hive will rise again and humanity will be ready to cast away the invaders that seek to conquer us." said Gideon Malick.

"Your obsession with the Hive blinds you to the opportunity before you Malick." Whitehall shook his head before turning to face Alexander. "I have read the information packet you graciously sent and have you noticed something peculiar Mr Secretary?"

"I am sure you will be happy to regale us with your findings doctor." Malik said snidely but Whitehall overlooked the tone of his colleague.

"Cerion or Vex as I have taken to call our alien friend is undoubtedly the most powerful being we have ever encountered. He has super strength that rivals a thousand super soldiers. He can move at speeds we can't fathom. His senses are far enhanced and the limit is the only question before us. Above all he is a true immortal, untouched by time."

"We know all of these things, doctor. What is your point?" asked Alexander

"Why would such a being hang around with humans and play by our rules? Why would he stay civic and agree to make deals with us and exchange technology?" asked Whitehall.

"He may be playing the long game. He may want us to let our guard down and strike at an opportune moment." answered Agent Hauer

"Truly? Why would a powerful being like Vex opt for subterfuge when he could conquer the world within days? Have you seen the footage of his fight with the drug gang? The cameras could hardly follow his movements. One moment the gang was shooting up the street and the next they were all down on the floor." argued Whitehall but Alexander could see the man was thoroughly excited.

"So you are saying Vex is not after conquest because he could already do so and yet he is not." said Alexander with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes! Most likely Vex is here to study humanity. He is a seeker, an alien scientist if you will. He speaks fluent English and if we are to believe SHIELD's report his people had contacted humanity a long time ago." Whitehall said excitedly. "The Inhumans were created by the Kree as slaves or soldiers. If that is true the Kree had enemies and it is possible this Krypton could have been an enemy."

"I am sceptical about your theory Dr Whitehall." said Malick with an unimpressed stare.

"Of course you are. Your solution to all the problems is the Hive, Gideon. Religion has rarely helped humanity, Malick. Oftentimes people forget this simple fact." said Whitehall

"Let's not argue further about this matter." Alexander intervened before tempers could fly. He knew Malick and Whitehall had a history and both were highly critical of each other. "Dr Whitehall, you are the most experienced with alien technologies and you have been working on Inhumans the longest. What do you suggest we do?"

"I need to meet Mr Vex."

"Impossible. It is too dangerous for your to expose yourself directly." Alexander immediately denied. HYDRA's MO is anonymity and nothing could compromise that until they were in a position of strength.

"Oh, I don't expect you to arrange a meeting tomorrow Mr Secretary. But, in time, I expect a meeting with our alien friend. Till then I am more than happy to study his generous contributions to SHIELD. He has already helped steer us in the right path in understanding the workings of Monolith and my new project the Particle Infusion Chamber."

Alexander looked at the grand view presented before him in the lab and he felt hope. Humanity could rise far higher and HYDRA will arm humanity with wings and weapons to face the threats from above.