5 Chapter 5: A rented island

6 April 2000

"Concentrate and sharpen your energy a bit more."

Cerion did as he was told; he pushed in more energy to increase the density step by step. Contrary to his wishes, a tidal wave of energy rushed out through his palms, breaking the structural integrity of the energy construct.

"You seem to be a bit distracted today. What happened?" asked the Ancient One, who was overseeing his training to control the energy flow within his body.

It was an uphill battle to take control of his energy, but the Ancient One was a patient teacher even though he was not a patient student.

He let out a sigh and took a seat on the floor of his apartment. "I just had a conversation with Nick Fury a few days back."

"I gather it didn't go well." commented the Ancient One with an understanding nod.

"Oh, you have no idea…" Cerion muttered as he thought of that conversation.

"So, how has Earth been treating you?" asked Fury.

Cerion looked at the leader of one of the largest spy organisations on Earth from the corner of his eyes. Both of them were sitting on a side bench by the street across from the restaurant. He could see Jane was patiently waiting for him in the restaurant.

"The air is fresh, food is good, music is enjoyable, movies are good…"

"And people?" asked Fury, smoothly cutting in.

"There are a lot of people, and I emphasise the lot," he said, as it was quite difficult to control his senses with so many people around.

It was getting difficult to shut out the world and catch a few hours of sleep.

"Is that an issue?" asked Fury with an unreadable stare.

"No… it's just difficult to get used to, but I'll manage." said Cerion before directing a curious stare at the Director of SHIELD.

"What brings you here, Director Fury?"

"A situation has come up recently regarding your ship." said Fury, eyeing Cerion keenly.

"My ship?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes. It has been brought to my attention that there is a strong possibility that other space agencies of our planet may detect the presence of your ship."

"So you want me to move the ship away from the moon?" asked Cerion.

"Yeah. Is that doable?" asked Fury

Frankly, Cerion couldn't even entertain the thought of moving his ship anywhere. As of right now, his 'ship' was just a pile of metal with minimal structural integrity. Moving it across space would undo all of the patchwork he had done till now. Not to mention he would have to move it piece by piece as the ship was in fragments.

'Then there is the matter of transportation. Just how exactly am I supposed to transport…'

A light bulb blinked to life in his head, and he subtly palmed the sling ring in his pant's left pocket. Half the problem could be solved by using the sling ring, but there was still the matter of an exact location to secure his ship. In the end, he had no choice. It was in his interest to keep his ship's existence away from the general public.

"I can try." he found himself saying in the end.

"Good. If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask. You are in contact with Agent Coulson, aren't you?"

"Of course." Cerion said, and he remained seated while Fury stood up.

"In that case, it's time for me to take my leave. Please keep us in the loop when you decide to move your ship from the moon," said Fury as he made his way to take his leave.

"Director Fury, we are not finished," said Cerion, hardly moving from his seated position.

Cerion could hear Fury's increasing heart rate as the Director turned towards him.

"You have something else to discuss?" asked Fury, smoothing out his face and looked curiously at him.

"Please sit, Director." said Cerion, and he patiently kept his silence until Fury sat back on the bench.

"I will not be keeping you appraised of my ship's location or its status anymore."

"But…"

Cerion didn't give the man time to comment as he turned on him with a glare. He noted Fury was palming a gun inside his trench coat.

Yeah, like that's gonna help, he thought with a mental scoff.

"When I first made contact with your organisation, we made a pact. I would share my technology and expertise and help to advance the human race. I asked for very little in return, including the safety of Kryptonian genetics. You promised not to seek Kryptonian DNA, and you have been trying your best to secure it. You have violated an agreement made in good faith. Your actions will have consequences, Director Fury. I won't work with liars and thieves. You can expect unilateral adjustments in our agreement from my side as well. I just wanted to give you a heads-up. Good day to you, Director Fury."

Having said that, he promptly walked across the street, refusing to heed Nick Fury's calls.

"That's what happened."

"Hmm… Was it necessary to antagonise the Director of SHIELD? You have only made them see you more as a threat now." said the Ancient One.

"They were already seeing me as a threat. Besides I needed to establish some ground rules in this alliance. I did give them most of what they asked. The least they could have done was to show a little respect to the agreement we signed in good faith."

"I would say it was an overreaction on your part. You could have handled it better." said the Ancient One

"I probably could have." he admitted reluctantly.

"What has happened has happened. There is no point in overthinking it. Have you moved the ship yet?"

"No." Cerion shook his head. "I've not yet decided on a location. Speaking of which, I will be needing your help to move my ship."

"Oh really?"

"I am no expert in using the sling ring. You saw how my energy constructs are. Any portal I create will lack cohesion. I would only damage my ship further if I tried to use the sling ring to transport it."

"Why exactly do you even need the ship? There is no point in searching for Krypton as I promise you your planet does not exist in this cosmos."

"I believe you, but if I restore the ship, I can access the rest of the universe. There is a chance that I can find a decent planet to restart the Kryptonian race." he said, but the Ancient One merely shook her head.

"Are you sure that is a good idea?" asked the Ancient One.

"What do you mean?" Cerion frowned at the Ancient One.

"You do know you are immortal, and I assume you are going to use Krypton's cloning technology to repopulate the universe with your race."

"What are you saying?"

The Ancient One let out a long suffering sigh as she looked into her lap, gathering her thoughts.

"Just think about what you will unleash upon the universe if you clone yourself. The Universe will be filled with beings that will absorb untold amounts of dimensional energies. The balance of cosmos will fail with the existence of more Kryptonians. By attempting to raise Krypton you will erase the rest of the Universe." said the Ancient One.

"You can't be sure of that." he argued.

"I'm afraid I can. Now that you have taken the dimensional energies into your body I can see your future more clearly."

"My future?" Cerion blinked as he gave the woman a curious look.

"Well, bits and pieces of possible outcomes would be the correct answer. If you make clones based on your DNA, you will doom this reality to death."

"How?" Cerion stared incredulously at the sorceress. "I'm sure there are other immortal beings out there?"

"Indeed. And how will they take it when a race of immortals that suck the very life force of the universe suddenly appears in large numbers."

His eyes widened in realisation.

"War." he said grimly.

Power attracts more power and he could see why the Ancient One was showing him. But at the same time, stopping the progression of his race didn't sit well with him either.

"War." The Ancient One agreed. "But not just any war. It'll be a war that will shred even the tiniest of atoms. This universe will simply cease to exist."

Now, that had to be hyperbole, but he didn't call her on that.

"Is that why you restrict my knowledge about the mystic arts?" he asked instead.

"To an extent, yes." the Ancient One nodded serenely, "I cannot predict how you or any of your future descendants will turn out. If you turn against this reality, then an adequate defence against you must be mounted. The Order of Mystic Arts was formed to defend this reality against beings like yourself. It will be counterproductive to our efforts to teach you our secrets, and at the same time, it would be remiss to leave you uninformed."

"But I don't intend to be a threat to humanity."

"For now. Can you give an absolute guarantee that you won't become an enemy of humanity? Even the minute possibility of you turning against humanity is a chance that we can't ignore. The same can be said about SHIELD's actions."

"So you are defending their actions now?" Cerion couldn't help but feel like he made a blunder in coming to Earth or at least making himself accessible to many of Earth's inhabitants.

"No, Cerion." she said patiently, "I am merely giving you a little bit of insight lest you come to hasty conclusions. Try to see things from other perspectives."

For a moment, the two of them remained silent. He believed that the Ancient One was being somewhat paranoid, but he understood where she was coming from. That didn't mean he had to like it.

This, more than anything, made him realise that he had to find alternate lodgings. No matter what, his efforts to blend in with humanity were not going to work. Sooner or later, he would get exposed, and a lot of people would see a threat in him. It was natural to feel fear, but there was a chance that it could truly make humanity unreasonable. He remembered the whole mutant scare in the MCU, but thankfully, he had heard no tale of mutants so far.

"I suppose I can understand why SHIELD did what it did, and your reasons are somewhat valid, of course." he admitted reluctantly.

If he encountered another species, he certainly would've been looking into ways of studying a new alien form. Therefore, he could understand where SHIELD was coming from. But they were not motivated by simply studying new life. If they got their hands on his DNA, they'd most likely go into Super Soldier research and create some monstrosity. He could not allow humans to weaponise his DNA or even stumble into a silver bullet of some kind that could take him out.

"I shall explain some of my reluctance to teach you at some other time. Now, you were saying something about your ship."

"I have to move the ship to somewhere safe. It has to be away from the moon, but I am at a loss. I thought about transporting it to Mars, but as you can guess, that is a long journey. I will have to drag the ship piece by piece approximately 200 million miles unless, of course, you lend a hand."

Cerion watched the Ancient One mull it over for a short time.

"Why go for Mars when you can just keep your ship on Earth?" she asked with a tilt of her head.

"I don't think anyone would be happy with that," Cerion said, taken aback by the advice he received from the immortal sorceress.

"Who's going to know?" the Ancient One shrugged with an innocent smile.

It only made him more confused. The Ancient One had only finished explaining how he was a threat, and now she wanted him to keep his ship on Earth, knowing full well that he'd be working to restore it.

'Bloody cryptic witches and sorcerers. I should've flown far away from Earth and never looked back.'

*******

"I have to say it is quite a beautiful sight." said the Ancient One as she looked at the Earth from the moon's surface.

Cerion floated to her side, wearing an identical space suit. He had loaned one to the Ancient One. He didn't know whether there was any magical spell to survive space. If there was one, she didn't mention it to him.

"Don't be dramatic. I bet you've visited the moon before." he commented.

"You can't deny that it is a beauty, though. Just look…" she pointed at the blue ball of a planet that was some 200,000 miles away.

Taking a good look at the Earth himself, he had to admit it was a beauty like none other. No images could do justice to what he saw with his own eyes. He couldn't help but compare Earth and Krypton.

Compared to Earth, Krypton was a waste dump. There was no beauty to Krypton as green cover and oceans were very scarce there. The majority of the planet was covered with desert with little to no clouds or green cover. This left the skies bare for the sun to blare its full might on Krypton. The planet was resource-rich with exotic metals, but Earth was heavenly compared to Krypton.

"And to think trillions of lifeforms call that blue dot their home. It makes you very small, doesn't it?" asked the Ancient One with a nostalgic smile.

He gave her a deadpan stare.

"I think we have some better things to do rather than oozing philosophy on the Moon."

"You are right. Let's finish this quick enough." said the Ancient One before she waved her hands in a complex pattern.

Sparks of dimensional energy escaped the Ancient One's palms, expanding across the surface of the moon in a bubble. Cerion could feel a slight tingle when the bubble enclosed a large section of space they occupied.

"Just something that will keep any activities here from prying eyes." the Ancient One explained.

Cerion led the Ancient One down to the crater, where he stationed his ship. The further they moved into the hole, the visibility began to decline.

"Optima, give us lights." he ordered, and the drones working on the ship began to light up around the ship.

"That is a gigantic ship." Ancient One commented as they floated above the ship.

She took out the sling ring and began to create a portal.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Cerion asked.

"I am sure. Now, go to the other end and create a portal of your own. Maintain it for as long as possible, and I will do the rest."

Heeding her advice, he flew to the opposite end and began to create a portal. Just as he suspected, it was a small portal prone to destabilization occasionally. The Ancient One, on the other hand, created a gigantic portal that dwarfed his own exponentially.

The portal created by the Ancient One began to swallow the ship quite effortlessly. Branches of magical energy plunged into the portal he developed and began to forcibly expand. He just maintained the energy output the best as he could, and then, in an instant, the entire ship vanished before his eyes.

"Well, there you go. Now, come here. Let's go and see where your ship ended up," said the Ancient One as she dismissed the bubble of magical ward that had so far kept their activities from prying eyes and created a small portal.

He stepped in first, followed by the Ancient One.

On the other side of the portal, a vast area of forest greeted him. His eyes traced his ship by a beachhead, and as he used his enhanced vision around, he found that he was on an island surrounded by sea for miles. He could not see any land nearby; in fact, he could not see anything after a specific distance. It was as if his vision was being blocked somehow.

"We are near Huawei. This island once housed one of the oldest sanctums of our Order. Now, it lies in ruins, but the island remains intact. Shielded from the outside world by some of the oldest protective spells, it can remain hidden from any prying eyes."

"This place is amazing." said Cerion as he took in the thriving wildlife on the island.

"Will this suffice?" the Ancient One asked.

"This is perfect!" Cerion looked around at the island with amazement before he turned his eyes on the Ancient One. How could I ever repay you?

"I will think of something when the time is right." she said before she ignited her thumb with a spark of energy and pressed it into his forehead.

He felt a wave of energy pass through his body and settle in. He looked at her curiously, wanting to know what that was about.

"Now you can access the island whenever you please." the Ancient One said as a way of explanation.

"Oh yes. I can see it now," said Cerion as his vision penetrated the magical protections surrounding the island.

"So, now that you have a place to work on your ship, let's discuss the rent." said the Ancient One.

"There is a rent?" he asked incredulously.

"I may belong to a mystical order that emphasises spiritualism, but we have our expenses. So, let's talk about that rent."