TGS - #40

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Collector Mining Territory

–Jack Sullivan–

Well, this was certainly not what he had expected. When the Collector had told him that the convoy surrounding the mercenary group was one of the largest in the galaxy.

He had pictured it to be big, but not this big. According to the last minute research he had done on the mining planet, it was 3 times as large as Earth, making it a prime target for mining. So, it would be safe to say that the planet looked absolutely massive when he floated a little distance away from it.

Even so, he could see the fleet of mercenaries arriving closer to the mining planet, dismantling the mechanical defences that had been installed to protect the mining operations of Tivan from would-be thieves and such.

As far as he could see from such a distance, he could see that the defenses were being destroyed, with astonishing ease, as none of the many parts he could see floating around in space had any signs of life in them.

He cracked his neck as he glanced at the small metal indent on his shoulder, the one that the Collector had put on him in exchange for removing the huge metal plating installed on his back, the strands of which were connected directly to his spine and back muscles.

He was right in predicting that the apparatus was some sort of advanced bomb that would blow him right up if it managed to hit him. It was made with some exotic mineral, which when coming into contact with even the slightest amount of trace elements of iron, would generate enough energy to melt through thick sheets of steel, let alone his body.

The reaction was also nearly instant, so much so that he would have no hope of countering that. Most of this information was provided to him by the Collector himself, who was all too happy to gloat about the way he had shackled one of the most powerful beings of the galaxy.

The metal indent had no such nefarious function. All it did was track his energy levels and the Collector had shown him that he had somehow tracked down the perfect frequency and made sure that the moment he tried to use his dimensional energy to try and do something, the device would detect it and blow up every single one of his acquaintances back on Knowhere.

He was a decent distance away from that place and he did not know if the Collector was bluffing or not, considering the invaluable nature of each and every one of his so-called Collections.

He would have tried to flee the moment he could, consequences be damned if only he knew where to go and if it would lead to a positive good or not. He still did not have any idea of the time period he was in, so it could either turn out to be a dick move or a great move, depending on the year it was on Earth.

According to his memories, the Collector's collection would be either destroyed or set free by Ronan and the Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014. If he was close to that date, there would be no need to be responsible for the death of some of the most pitiful people he had ever met in his life.

That was the only reason he was not immediately using his powers and taking control of some of the ships, to get them to the nearest hotspot of activity, from where he could quietly disappear to Earth.

Of course, Tivan would know then but what could he do? Aside from sending a tidal wave of mercenaries at him, all the same strength as humans would be if they were the same size of an ant.

He only had a single goal for the day and that was to figure out the timeline. It would not be easy, especially since he didn't have some handy dandy manual that could help translate the galactic calendar back to the ones that most humans on Earth used.

He looked up to see a bright flash of light, as the final automaton responsible for holding back the ships fell apart, creating a white explosion that took down some of the ships closest to its broken form, fortunately for him.

He could tell that some of the ships had one or the other form of advanced weaponry. The kind that would make him feel the strain of holding it all together. 

The weapons were some sort of high yield one time used only ones, loaned to them by some unknown party, probably some long lost enemy of Tivan.

He could have just covered himself into a very shard, mono molecular barrier, and then rammed right into all of their ships, turning them into a very expensive, and more importantly, very bloody firework program.

But no, he didn't just come here to slaughter a couple of thousand people, at best, and then go back around to being the Collector's pet dog. Because that was what this was all about. Becoming a loyal attack dog for the Collector

Or at least, making sure that the rest of the galaxy saw it that way.

He could only imagine the sheer chaos that it would cause if it came to be known that the Green Guardian himself was under his complete and utter control. Oh god, the man's narcissism and smugness knew very few bounds these days. If it came to be known that he could essentially turtle himself in Knowhere and be protected from all but the strongest of civilisations.

Well, let's just say that his current collection spree would be like a cakewalk in comparison.

Well, time to get to work then, he thought to himself as, unknown to him, his eyes flashed blue this time, instead of green, as, for the first time since the invasion, he let his power go.

He opened the tight lid he kept on his powers, both in fear of retaliation from the Collector's shock bug and from having to be forced to reveal his powers to the Collector.

A veritable storm of green energy began brewing, at the center of which he stood, with his eyes closed and his arms spread apart, head tilted back as he let loose the storm of energy within. Unbeknownst to Jack, the storm of energy this time had trace amounts of Infinity Stone energies, which served to warn ALL of the ancient civilisations that were always on the lookout for them.

"Ah…that's the stuff," He sighed in contentment before looking straight at the incoming horde of mercenaries. He could see that most of them were still holding together, despite him standing right in front of them, in between the mining planet and the ships, his giant form having travelled the vast distance within the blink of an eye.

It helped that there was no resistance in the vacuum of space.

As soon as he raised his arm, creating a sword, which then grew spikes before starting to rotate at a dizzying pace, the world in front of him lit up, in shades of blue, grey, red, and all the other colours.

The reason was the multiple cannons situated on top of various ships, which continued to fire indiscriminately at him. He couldn't help but think that these attacks were of the same caliber as the Chitauri Leviathan blasts.

And wasn't that a shocker? The Leviathans could also attack someone with their energy attacks, instead of just being a giant target in the sky. He had the unfortunate pleasure of being caught flat footed as a giant beam of light just slammed into his shields at the time. Obviously, the damage was not as severe but he was surprised.

He was of the thought that the mercenaries in front of him, once the barrage of lighting was done, would have the same surprised Pikachu face once they saw him being completely unscathed from the attack.

He then smirked, looked at the main ship, and snapped his fingers, causing the giant rotating to come falling down on their whole formation. Due to the size of the sword, it looked as if it was falling down really slowly, if one looked from a distance but in reality, the sword arrived very fast, not even giving most of them time to react.

The aftermath was clear. The shields of those ships didn't even register as resistance to him as he slashed through their forces with a clean diagonal slash. He could see that the main ship had survived the blow, albeit barely, only because the attack had only grazed the bottom part which was also modular, because the part was promptly shoved off the ship by a small explosion before the ship itself began floating on top of the formation.

The surviving ships, although in disorder, probably recognised that something was happening and began rising in a similar manner, only that they were piling on top of one another.

It was not that different from their previous formation, only this time the HQ of their little group was taking center shot. So this way, in an excruciatingly slow manner, to him, the group finally organised their attack.

His enhanced eyesight, now much more enhanced for that matter, allowing him to look for stuff from thousands of miles away, at least in space where there was no atmosphere to bend light, told him that the leader had come out and he was wearing the armour.

"Bingo," He smirked to himself as he glanced over to his shoulder, where the metal indentation was now a red hot, its constitution allowing it to survive coming into contact with the amount of energy his body was dosed with right now, but surely not without some internal damage at the very least.

He slowly dispelled the giant avatar and then slowly floated to the HQ building. He could literally feel the unease wafting throughout the fleet as he floated to reach within arm's length of the very shiny looking cannon that was now located on top of the HQ, with the hands of their leader, shoved into the cannon from behind.

He raised an eyebrow as he saw faint shimmerings of what looked to be Asgardian Runes on the canon before they disappeared, replaced by the subtle blue glow, intermixed with a toxic red, that began filling the "veins" that had been drawn on top of the cannons.

So, this was his trump card. His Magnum Opus, if you will. Not that it was his, not even remotely possible that the Dwarves of Nidavellir or the ancient weaponsmiths of Asgard would ever give away a weapon like this to some outsider, no matter the price involved.

Even so, he watched as the armour also began glowing blue before the blue glow, along with a toxic red coming from another line feeding straight into the side of the cannon, was fed into the cannon. A faint whining sound was heard before a small dot was formed in front of the cannon, mere inches away from his face.

The small dot became a tennis ball before expanding to reach football-size before starting to compress once again. Only this time, the brightness of the aforementioned ball only began to increase as the very space around it seemed to bend due to the amount of energy being gathered.

'Of course, it will bend. The energy governs the damn space of the universe,' he thought to himself as he prepared himself as well. An extra layer of barriers wound tightly around his body.

Oh yeah, he could somehow breathe in space now. Well, not exactly breathing but the only way he could make sense of it was that the energy that made his barriers was now flowing through his body as well, sustaining him in its entirety.

So, as long as he had energy and stamina on his side, he could now survive most crushing environments without any problem.

The barriers were also using something that he had unlocked after almost dying. He could now preprogram some of his barriers. There were seven layers around his body. The first three were completely defense focused.

The fourth one was a warning layer. As soon as the fourth layer of defense was breached, the barriers that were latched onto his back would yank him back and toss him away from the situation with his utmost strength.

As his strength was right now, he could toss himself hundreds of miles away in the blink of an eye, all done without any conscious input from him of course.

This gave him hope that he would be able to deflect whatever it was that this K'ehmbe was going to use. It also gave him slight hope in dealing with the Collector should he get the chance.

As things stood right now, he looked K'ehmbe in the eye, his madness shining through his eyes as the corrupted energy began overtaking his body as well. He did not seem to notice that at all, lost in his own manic world as he laughed out loud, like a maniac, not that anyone could hear it, what with the oxygen mask on K'emhbe's face.

Soon, he could not see K'ehmbe anymore because the light from the spinning ball of death in front of him was encompassing all of his vision. It kinda looked like a Rasengan from a close distance, only with reddish highlights instead of the entire thing being surrounded by gales and winds capable of puncturing through steel as if it was paper.

K'ehmbe must have said something before he shoved the ball of death at him, as do most proper self respecting villains but even if K'ehmbe did, he could not hear that.

All he saw was a flash of light which somehow, going against all odds, broke down two of his barrier layers before it finally fizzled out of energy.

The end result was somewhat anticlimactic. Due to the sheer amount of energy that hit him, and was stopped abruptly as a result of hitting him, trace amounts of energy had dispersed in all directions.

Now, it was trace amounts for him but for normal aliens without the protection of a celestial built artifact, it was death. In the aftermath, he could see most of the fleet having melted down, most probably flash burning all of its inhabitants as well. K'ehmbe, as well as his armour, were no more as the entire HQ ship was flashed out of existence.

There were some scraps of metal left but after tearing through most of them with his powers, he could see that none of them had any living beings in them. He closed his eyes as he lamented the massive loss of life here but as things stood, he had seen the deeds of these people and he was thoroughly convinced that some people were better off dead.

So, he did not linger on much before he left for the ship that was waiting for him, the mining planet below launching multiple satellites that formed a ring around the planet, reactivating most of the defenses that had been destroyed by K'ehmbe and his people.

Before he entered the ship though, he made a show of looking at two spots. The places where he knew enhanced hidden surveillance drones were watching his every movement,

God, massive loss of life on such a scale must be a huge burden to bear, he knew that intellectually but to actually experience that?

It was diabolical.

As his mental state was right now, even that sterilised white pod's bed was feeling tempting.

God, he needed help.

Hope it arrives soon.

Word Count - 2702

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