TGS - #42

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Knowhere[2014]

–Jack Sullivan–

He rested his head in his hands as he sat, staring at the floor in his pod. The fight with K'ehmbe had been exhausting…mentally.

The scale at which things in the galaxy worked was really mind boggling. For example, the moment he came back to Knowhere, the COllector accosted him and congratulated him on getting rid of the biggest mercenary group outside of the Ravagers, culminating in over 10000 active members, all of which he killed with his own hands.

He felt sick the more he thought about the lives he had taken and the impact it would have on the universe. Sure, at the moment, he had justified it to himself by thinking that most of these pirates were slavers and criminals of the highest order, letting themselves go and becoming their hedonistic selves, but now that he had ample time to process it all, he thought of the families they must have left behind.

People who knew them, People who must have made some sort of impact on their lives, all gone, just like that. It was the first time he had to deal with the massive loss of life his abilities could bring about.

The worst thing was that this sort of struggle happened every day in the universe. The Universe was a cold unforgiving place. He had to contend with that reality now.

Compared to that, his struggles to escape from this prison were paltry in comparison. It felt childish in comparison, all his whining and discouragement he had felt when he came to know about the time the others had spent in this prison.

No, how could he have been so foolish?

He could not give up, not now, not ever. He had trained so hard, and tried to prepare himself, all so that when the time came, his powers would be the tipping point that would tilt fate itself in the favour of the good side.

The stakes in the fight against Thanos would be even higher than they were now. Literal trillions of lives would be dependent on him winning that fight.

How could he get so caught up in something so personal as morals, so as for his sight to waver from the bigger picture?

He clenched his fist as sparks of green escaped his fist, creating a shockwave in the room that ruffled the sheets.

No, he will get out of here, and if the Collector tried to kill the people who had been all that had been there for him at his lowest, in this prison, all alone without any form of contact with all his previous contacts, not knowing if they were dead or alive, well then, he should be ready to say goodbye to his life as well.

More than the imprisonment, it was the fear that was the worst part of his days here in Knowhere. The fear that he might be too late, the fear that he would be rotting in this place while his childhood heroes would be out there, fighting for their lives.

No matter how immortal he might think himself to be, there was always something that could kill him.

For example, he was sure that a concentrated blast made up of energies from not one but two Infinity Stones would be more than enough to shut him up for good.

Yeah, he had noticed some things in the brief time he had received with free use of his powers. His powers had changed.

He didn't know how but the explosion and encounter with the Infinity Stones had changed his barriers. He could feel the energies from the Space Stone and the Mind Stone.

He didn't know how but he innately sensed that he could call upon a limited store of their energies for a one time usage only. Judging by the intensity of the energy storm that it must have taken to rip a hole in space to transport him this far away, it might just become some sort of trump card in his fight.

He wouldn't use it on Tivan, not unless it called for it but he doubted Tivan would prove to be a particularly tough opponent without his power dampening and shock collars.

He had spent all his time since the fight with K'ehmbe in his pod, not going out to meet the people who had been used to threaten him into compliance. It would be good to maintain distance from them from now on. It would be for the better of everyone.

He was lost in his thoughts, staring at the wall when the entire area around him shook. He looked around wildly, trying to see what had gone wrong when the unthinkable happened.

With a clicking sound, he looked down at the floor around him, finding a pool of blood steadily gathering around him. Despite the immense pain, all he could do was smile as his form was blazed in green, creating a Mid sized Gundam around himself.

"Ah! That's the stuff," He missed this avatar of his. It inspired confidence in him. Across Omniverses, the Gundam continued to light the fires of hope and confidence in him.

He looked around him and with a thought, a block formed around him that continued to expand, even as he looked around, trying to extract the data from the hundreds of small barriers that continued to explore every single viable path from his pod.

He didn't want to accidentally expose the areas to the vacuum of space, gassing everyone to death. He could now process all the data coming from all those nodes simultaneously, another upgrade to his powers.

The expanding cube around him reached the walls of his pod and continued as if they were not there at all. He waited for his body to heal itself as the contraption installed right into his body had fallen off his body, tearing off part of muscle and flesh in the process.

He could feel the flesh mending itself, much much faster than before, another one of the upgrades he received from the near death, or rather the death he experienced in the aftermath of the Invasion.

"Huh, I'm like discount Goku, then," He chuckled to himself as he continued to spy through his barriers. 

His brows furrowed as he saw that most of the pods that had personalised environments custom built for the species had opened up as well, malfunctioning in the process.

Something drastic must have happened for a catastrophic failure like this to happen. He hoped that it was not Thanos who had come to collect the Reality Stone and kill Tivan in the process.

That was the only reason he was not rushing out of his pod as he wanted his body to be at its peak if he wanted to face Thanos and his army. His barriers continued to encounter dead ends, as they dispelled themselves. Most of the barriers were now employed to seal the pods with specialised environments like snow, water, and nitrogen based pods that had to be pulled back into the pod.

The inhabitants of those pods were not looking good but there was nothing he could do for them at the moment. He might have to look for Carina and the prime tablet but his barriers were still travelling in every single path they could find and still not find any exit.

This place was much larger than he had expected. His cautiousness when it came to breaching walls was what slowed him down immensely but he could not risk breaching the atmosphere and while the Collector probably had good defenses, it might just add another variable in his fight with the person who had invaded Knowhere.

If it was Thanos, it might spell his doom if he tried to fight Thanos half heartedly.

His barriers were doing the job for now as he continued to munch on his 10th apple, the only good around him that could help his body heal itself faster. His healing powers were never really taxed in his life and he never tried to actively train them either, he was not a masochist thank you very much. 

That is why his healing was so slow going. 

His eyes widened as one of his barriers finally encountered an opening of some sort. It was a grate of some kind so he simply blasted open it, only for his barrier to somehow disintegrate as soon as it came out of the grate.

His wariness increased tenfold as he found the connection to his barrier not blocked by something but outright gone. He could feel the barrier coming into contact with a wave of energy before it was erased out of existence. It never even got the chance to interact with the energy before the sheer heaviness of the energy drowned out the barrier.

He waited a few more moments for the wound to stop bleeding and then covered his entire back with a series of barriers that limited his mobility but with his barriers, he could be a paralysed person and still have excellent mobility. As long as his mind continued to function, he could create thousands of limbs for himself. His outer form was still that of a Gundam as he was finally able to see the aftermath of the cube that had now stopped expanding, exposing him to the areas outside his pod.

It was a series of long tubes that connected the area around his pod to other pods, some larger than others, some smaller before the pods themselves were interconnected to everything else with a series of tubes. God, this place was huge.

He could not see any auxiliary systems kicking in after the failure of the primary systems. 

Surely, not even Tivan would be arrogant enough to think that a mechanical system would not fail, ever? No Secondary backups for a place this huge, when there was a risk of actual death?

His eyes narrowed in fury as he saw some of the ones with the most sensitive environments die as the lava fish that could not swim anymore and was now buried alive in the cooling lava due to the lava being exposed to the air around it, his barriers unable to keep all that energy trapped inside for long enough.

He also could not generate that level of heat, marking the first of many deaths that had happened due to this event.

"Enough of this," he muttered to himself before rocketing straight to the grate, crushing multiple walls that came between him, after checking if they were occupied or not of course.

He found his form suspended right below the grate, looking in shock at the purple fires that burned all over the area. He gingerly sent another wave of barriers only for them to extinguish one of the smaller fires, but disintegrate with the fire as well.

Knowing that it was working, he sent multiple barrier constructs at the purple fires, the bigger ones took more than one, as he extinguished the fires around the grate. After he could see none of the purple fires anymore, he slowly floated out of the grate and found an entire hallway burning with purple fires, such that it would be all but impossible for him to cross through without taking care of them first.

The other side was a dead end so that was literally his only way out. He set out to complete the task, as fast as he could as a literal flood of green converged on the hallway ceilings and floors, only for them to disappear, for another wave of green to replace them, repairing the process again and again.

In the end, he left the hallway, only to come across another an entire room filled with the same purple fires.

He hissed at the widespread destruction of the fires. His breath hitched as another life was lost to the failing environmental chambers. It was literally him against time now.

He could not afford to take it safe now. He had a good idea of what those purple fires were now.

Only the energy of an Infinity Stone could overpower his barriers to such a degree. It was a huge relief that it was not Thanos because this meant that he was in the Guardian of the Galaxy arc, and it was at least a couple of years away from when Thanos would first make his move.

He looked at the only exit and found it covered in the same fires. God, what had happened this time for such an application of the Power Stone? He mentally calculated the most direct path to the exit and set forth a tsunami of green that continued to build a tunnel straight to the exit.

He could see his barriers disappearing on contact, making him shudder as he realised the power of those harmless looking fires. Those fires were not even making contact with the floor or anything, they were just floating in the air, burning anything that came into contact.

The fires seemed to hate his barriers with a particular passion that he was unable to decode.

Unable to wait any longer as the death toll had now risen to double digits, he rocketed towards the exit, having to change course multiple times, escaping death many times as some of the fires flared upon contact with his barriers, coming very close to burning him.

The people imprisoned here did not deserve to die a slow agonizing death in a hostile environment after being imprisoned here, having been deprived of their basic rights for who knows how long.

He reached the exit and sighed in resignation as another hallway of fires greeted him. God, at this rate, he would never reach the upper areas.

He knew that the pods were in the basement areas, deep into Knowhere but he didn't know just how deep.

"Hell with it," He muttered to himself before summoning another Gundam in front of him, much bigger than his form, latched himself to it, and let it go straight through the roof.

He maintained a healthy distance and continued to replace the barriers by the thousands as he crossed through sea after a sea of purple fires, breaching through floors filled with wires as easy as clay.

His face sank as he realised that his barriers had made an entire round off the lower floors and had not found anything about Kumpo and the others. Most of the other inmates had gotten out of their pods but with no way to get out, they were currently safe on the lower floors, away from the Infinity Stone fires.

Just what the hell were they? He questioned himself as he breached the 30th floor in a bid to reach the surface where, presumably, the Guardians of the Galaxy were with Tivan.

He grunted in pain as one of the fires came too close and burnt off a portion of his left forearm, leaving his bone bare to the world, at least for a moment before blood spurted from the rest of his arm, his powers working overtime to try and heal the damage taken.

He ignored the pain as he went forward through another floor filled with purple fires.

He lamented the fate of the people who might have been on those floors when the purple fires flooded the entire area. At Least their deaths would have been quick.

The progress was very slow for him because the rate of replenishment of the barriers was still not as fast as the purple fires. It didn't help that the fires, even the smaller ones flared as soon as they came into contact with his barriers, slowing him down to protect himself.

It was evident from the burning sensation on his left forearm that his barriers would not protect him from these purple fires. They were obviously tinged with the power of the Power Stone, but just who could use the Stone to such an extent without succumbing?

More importantly, just who had pyrokinetic powers that could be amplified to such an extent using the Power Stone, without the user dying immediately after touching the Power Stone?

Word Count - 2736

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A/N - What's this? Another OC.

To find out more, be sure to watch the next episode of Drag- Ahem, The "G" Shield.

See you then.

Toodles!