Chapter 75: Again and again.
*Ring Ring*
*Ring Ring*
*Ring Ring*
The penthouse in Brooklyn is filled with the sound of phones ringing. Many people want to get in contact with Ryan after the incident. Tony Stark and Nick Fucking Fury are actively blowing up his call.
"SIR, MR. HIDDLE IS ENTERING THE HOUSE. HE IS USING THE OVERRIDE CODE." ALBUS notified Ryan.
At that time, he just gets out of the bath with Gwen. Hiddle saw him, who was wearing a robe and his hair still wet.
"You did something unfathomable again, Young Master," Hiddle said while worrying.
"I thought you already promoted me to 'Master' ?" Ryan said while opening a bottle of milk coffee.
"When you do something childish, then you will get demoted," the old butler smirks.
The childish thing is not picking up his call. Hiddle and Tim already know Ryan did something as Tim got a call from Peggy Carter, his old friend.
Tim is on the way home from Somalia, where he goes on vacation as recommended by his son.
The old man is looking at the damage to the town in New Mexico when he gets back.
"Send our construction crew to the town to rebuild it. Also, all the vehicles that are destroyed will be replaced by our company." He ordered.
Nick Fury finds out that Ryan was the one who fought the bots in the first place, not Tony. It was after he sent Coulson to Tony's place. Even that guy is flabbergasted seeing his drone is gone.
"I don't do it on purpose. I was sleeping." Ryan said while yawning. He had drunk coffee, but the caffeine still hadn't kicked in. His body clock becomes messed up after two days of not sleeping.
Hiddle said with worry. " What exactly did you do that my phone is constantly ringing?" The old butler took out his phone. It is still vibrating from a call right now.
Ryan walked to his monitor. He unblocked a certain someone who had been calling him 107 times and pulled up the clip of the Destroyer.
"Who takes a shower for an hour?" Tony said on his holographic call.
"I do. Shut up and watch first."
He shows Tony and Hiddle, the Destroyer devastating the town. He didn't show the Jotuns, only the initial battle until Tony's combat drones were destroyed.
Tony and Hiddle are silently processing this.
"Any casualties?" Tony asks solemnly. That's why Fury calls him to the town. He regretted turning back after flying halfway.
"None. I started evacuating the town before the thing arrived. " Ryan said nonchalantly. He said to Tony, " Don't worry. The battle already ended by the time you get the call. "
"Who ends it? Is it you?"
"(Scoff) Why would I put myself in danger? Ask the pirate who did it."
Hiddle nods negligibly seeing the exchange. 'Good, if he did, then I will lock him in the house.'
He understands now why people are searching for Ryan. He looks at his young kid with a rare look of kindness in his eyes. 'Just like his mother.'
Too bad Ryan is a little afraid to look at him right now as he feels slight feedback from his malice talisman.
"(Sigh) How do you know about the attack? And why are my drones there? How did you get it in the first place?" Tony bombarded him with questions.
"Well, when Shield stole my friend, Jane Foster's research, I had been monitoring them and the town. After a spatial irregularity, I saw the killing bot march towards town. "
Ryan explains how he had placed his mothership drone there the moment Shield is building the encampment.
"It was a hunch, and it worked out for the best."
"My drones? Get there faster will ya." Tony urges him. The kid talked a lot.
"I am planning to place the drone motherships all around the country to help in case a disaster happens. It's a part of my early disaster warning plan."
"Like the apps?" Hiddle cuts in.
He turns to Hiddle and explains. "Yes. I noticed that the world has been more chaotic lately. Who knows what will happen in the future. I want to test it first, and I got the opportunity to do it in the town."
Ryan turns to Tony's projection. "It's very simple to get the drone actually. I just told Happy that you let me take it. Him being the director of the new series I'm planning has nothing to do with this."
He had been exploiting Happy's naiveness to do this. That's why he is making him the new director for The Mandalorian.
His seriousness in saying the sentence makes Tony speechless.
"How did the battle end?" Tony asks again while massaging his temple. The kid gives him a lot of headaches today.
"Don't know. Electromagnetic surge fries the cameras. Ask the pirate. Maybe he will know."
He throws the trouble of explaining the aliens and Asgardians to the pirate. He has other work to do.
"Send me the motherships. I want to add some stuff" Tony said after thinking for a while. The kid's ideas aren't very bad. A net of robots protecting humans. It feels a little bit like something he wants to do.
"Speaking of the pirate. He desperately wants to meet you. He may break into your house as he did mine, " Tony added.
"If he did, tell him that all the agents that have been spying on me illegally in the next building, and all the spies he puts in my company, will be thrown to prison and be made sure, by me, to stay there forever." He conveys his warning.
Ryan pulls out some information and gives them all to Tony. He had been giving face to Shield, but their performance lately had been extremely disappointing. He won't tolerate their bullcrap anymore.
Tony knows he has hit a dead end. "By the way, still going to the party? You must be tired. Why don't you take a week off in the Bahamas? Or Antarctica?"
He wanted to change his partner. If he brought Ryan to a party, he fears what kind of scandals will that make.' I'm sick of hearing Pepper teasing me about this.'
"Well, a week off will be great." Ryan contemplated, and that brought Tony's mood up.
"But you know, after the party." He added, killing Tony's expectations.
"F*ck" Tony cursed then hung up the call.
"I don't know there are so many rats in the company. " Hiddle said with a ruthless glint in his eye. The demon almost came back to the company.
Ryan quickly dismisses whatever Hiddle is thinking about. " It's good to have the rats. They have been doing extra work for the chance to get promoted. Have an excellent work attitude. And always finishes their job, even the difficult ones as they have a backup from the organization."
If he hired them to do work, it's like all of Shield is working for him. It's very efficient.
Hiddle is very satisfied by Ryan's shrewdness. "When you take over as the head of the family, I won't have to worry anymore. Also,....ahh Miss Stacy"
Hiddle greeted Gwen who just finished wearing her clothes. "Good Evening Sir Hiddle."
"Just call me Hiddle Miss. Like I was going to say to Master Ryan, Master Tim had been getting some urges recently."
"Ohh, did Dad find a woman?" Ryan is excited about the gossip.
"More or less. He had been dreaming of getting a grandbaby recently…"
Gwen blushes and Ryan is speechless.
Hiddle got kicked out of the house. More accurately, Ryan is dragging him out.
"Ahh, young love. I remember the time I had one before. It's really great. Your family rings in with your father. Remember to propose using it…"
*Slam* The door is shut on Hiddle's face.
"Every. Single. Time." Ryan exclaimed.
…
After settling some things, Ryan enters the mirror world.
It wasn't the mirror dimensions that Kamar Taj uses, but a replica of the city in his consciousness created and updated in real-time when he kills something.
The premise is that he had to kill it in the place he wanted it to appear in the mirror world.
He updated the city to today by swinging by Hell's Kitchen. Then, he sat in a meditation pose in his room. Gwen was not allowed in while he was meditating.
She is doing Ryan's work keeping away all the people that come to sniff at him.
Calming himself, he enters the dimensions.
Inside the mirror world.
New York City is silent. The city that never sleeps seems to be abandoned. Except for a shaggy man with his shirt on and his pants off who is trying desperately to kill Ryan there. Too bad he can't fly.
Every time he comes to the mirror world. He needed to summon something that he had killed, or help to kill, as an opponent. He can improve his battle skill here. But Ryan uses the mirror world for something else.
"Everything inside is the same as the real world. I can put on Tony's armor, or my armor, that was in the real world by locating their position here."
Electricity still works here. He could even converse with Albus or Jarvis.
He refocuses his target. He flies over to the Asano Robotics building.
"Asano Party. Very suspicious." Ryan mumbles. He didn't have time to meet the guy, nor did he know where the guy was.
"It may be just an ordinary party though," He shrugged his shoulders.
He searches the entire building from top to bottom. But he couldn't find anything. He flew back outside the building.
"Other than some robot parts, I don't see anything suspicious." He places his finger on his chin and starts to think.
If it's not Asano, then he didn't want to waste any more time. Dawn and Kai both are working hard to find the bombs. Tony and Shield. Most organizations in the world are looking for it. But there aren't any single clues.
He never thought he would find some clues by coincidence.
"Let's just blow it up, and see how the building crumbles."
This is what he always does. Especially to release some stress. Go into the mirror world, and blow things up.
He takes out staff and a magician hat.
"If anyone knows what I am doing. I will die of embarrassment." The dead guy who is trying to kill him here doesn't count.
"Oh, blackness shrouded in light,
Frenzied blaze clad in night,
In the name of the crimson demons,
let the collapse of thine origin manifest.
Summon before me the root of thy power hidden within the lands of the kingdom of demise!
EXPLOSION!!"
A huge crimson flare shoots out of his staff into Asano's building. *BOOM* A massive explosion occurs and the building crumbles to the ground. He breathes a sigh of relief.
It wasn't Megumin's true magic. Just a Tier 5 Magic: Explosion. But he understands why she did that.
"Let's go blow up Stark's Building next." He turns and flies over, or so he wanted to.
Suddenly, he hears a ticking sound. He turns back to the debris, before he could see it, a huge explosion exploded in the mirror world and decimated New York. More accurately, vaporized New York.
His body was vaporized by the impact before he could even put on some defenses. His skin, muscles, organs, and bone, all of it got vaporized.
He was ejected from the Mirror world as his objective there to kill the enemy is complete.
*Huff Huff* He takes short intakes of breath. Sweat beads on his forehead as he exited his meditation state.
"Damn…that's nuclear…" he said while calming down. The good news is, that he found the bomb.
Bad news, he still doesn't have the exact location of the bomb.
'I could only die 100 times in the mirror world. Including the failed experiments, failed magic modification, and neglected environmental aspects, I have died a total of 20 times there. Plus one for the nuclear explosion.'
It wasn't the first time he died, but it was the most painful one.
He checks the clock. It is now a new day. "I have 36 hours left before Asano's Party. Let's be prepared. "
Entering the mirror world again, he tried to search for the whereabouts of the bomb. He searches in detail this time.
"X-ray eyes didn't work. The Geiger counter didn't work. Many things don't work. Wow, he really kept it hidden." Ryan is helpless in his second time finding the bomb.
Yoshina Asano had planned this for decades. Of course, he will do it well. No one even suspects him. Except for Ryan.
He searched for hours until he found a room that was not in the building blueprints. "Finally, a lead." The room had a passage from the sewer. That's how Asano stays under the radar.
"Let's see. Analog keypad. Even the buttons are new so people won't get any leads. I will first do the common password, 0000" He taps the keypad to enter the password.
Ryan thought he would have some more chances to break into the room. But…
*BOOM!* A nuclear explosion occurs again.
He got out of his meditative state. "F*cking Hell!" He screams. Outside, Gwen is dealing with some people who come to meet Ryan. His screaming really didn't help her at the time.
Ryan re-enters again. This time, he tried to use magic instead of just technical.
"Alohomora," He chanted. The door seems to be opening. Ryan is excited. But *BOOM!*
He died again.
…
While Ryan is meditating in his room, Gwen gets a visit from a balding agent and his robin.
"Agent Coulson, Agent Hill. I don't appreciate you barging into my house," Gwen said sternly.
To be honest, they had been making too much noise downstairs. Even contacted the Homeowner Association to try to reach Ryan. They are too desperate.
"Miss Stacy, I'm really sorry for this. We don't have any other choice. " Agent Hill said.
"We are here to brief Mr. Ryan about what happened in New Mexico. And to get his statements in some matters."
They also wanted to discuss the spies that Ryan ratted out. Not one of them is left in the company. George Stacy had arrested the agents monitoring Ryan from the other building. It all happened so fast that Shield doesn't have time to react.
"You can say it to me. I know everything Ryan knows. Frankly, he is very disappointed in you guys. For big organizations, you only do stupid things." She is very dissatisfied with them.
"Miss Stacy, we did our best," Coulson explained helplessly.
Gwen shows a video of what she meant. It is a video of the helicopter that comes to support the town after they dropped off Hawkeye.
Coulson's eyes widened. They don't even know what happened to the agents and the helicopter.
In the video, an agent is screaming at the metal monster about some cooperation. To stop what they are doing or they will shoot. As they shouted to the metal monster, it turned its attention to them and blasted them to pieces. All of them died in vain.
Coulson is speechless. Hill's face changes color.
"How could they be so…stupid" Hill muttered. She had analyzed the incident. Coulson had reported directly after he was shot that the metal machine was hostile. She was sure that the agents knew about it. So why? Hill turned to Coulson.
"They were all Sitwell's men. I don't know."
While the duo is puzzled, Gwen continues.
"You could contact the sheriff. The monster is miles out. And it walked. It walked agents. It didn't run. It didn't fly. It walked. " Gwen almost loses her temper.
Shield didn't do anything to warn the civilians. No help whatsoever. Ryan is mad at this. He thought that in the first Avenger movie, Shield base had been broken, that's why they didn't help.
But they only let the Avengers fight. Shield doesn't do anything other than release the nuclear bomb and manipulating people. It's the same thing here.
"You don't deserve your title. " Gwen said in disdain.
Coulson smiles wryly. "I know that. I understand what you are coming from…Can we please meet him for a while to discuss this? I'm sure we can do better. He can help us to do better."
Hill is a little shocked seeing Coulson break protocol. He had given all initiative to Gwen.
In Coulson's heart, he is very conflicted. He didn't think much about the issue before this. They are spies. They lurk in the shadows.
But after seeing his best friend coming out of the sewer all bloody while still trying to keep a smile, something inside him changes. He was saved a few times by these amazing individuals.
Eclipse, Kai, Hawkeye. But their merit couldn't even reach the public because of him. Because of his organization. 'The world had changed. Why didn't we change?'
His mentality isn't the same as what he used to have. 'Order is a priority. Sacrifice one if we can save many. ' He had been following this for years. Now he is not so sure anymore.
Gwen said to the duo. " He isn't here. He is out." Ryan is meditating. She doesn't want them to disturb him.
"F*cking Hell" Suddenly a shout was heard from the bedroom.
"It seems he is here," Coulson said.
Before Gwen could say anything, Coulson stopped her by raising his palm towards her.
"Let's not disturb him. He doesn't want to meet us. And If he wanted to keep the agents in prison, let him do that. " Coulson said, greatly shocking Hill who is beside her.
He takes a name card and gives it to Gwen. "If he feels we can do better, do contact us. We will wait for you."
Coulson then dragged Hill away and left the building.
"This is not the mission Phil," Hill said solemnly.
"I know," Coulson said nonchalantly.
"Then why did you do it? What led to your decision there?"
" I just feel that… she is right." Phil is having some complicated thoughts. He will go meet a certain violinist tonight. He needs to meet her. Otherwise, he can't go on pretending everything is okay.
*Ring* Hill got a call from the headquarters.
"He had released the prisoned agents, " Hill said while looking at Phil in awe. That's why Fury asks her to follow Coulson's lead. She didn't expect one of their missions would complete this easily.
Another person who didn't expect the outcome is Coulson. He just smiles.
…
"Are you sure babe? You want to release them?" Gwen asks.
"Yeah, let them go home. They are just following orders. Besides, my girl had scolded these agents for me. My anger is appeased." Ryan said while patting Gwen's head. He had called her into the room where he was meditating.
Gwen is really happy she could help. Before she could enjoy the feeling, Ryan said. "Now get out. I am doing important things."
She pouted and slammed the door.
'Sorry, Gwen. Otherwise, the whole city will evaporate,' Ryan thought before he returned to the mirror world. He is now dead for the fourth time.
In the mirror world. He flies to Asano's buildings. "Again!" He had seen the silhouetted of the bomb last time. The old man is really shrewd. He put a scale on the floor that will turn on the nuclear bomb if the weight isn't the same as his weight.
Ryan finally sees the bomb. He uses his space suit that can adjust to gravity to help maintain the necessary weight.
It's a 1 m³ polyhedron(icosahedron) shaped reactor that looks like a virus. It is connected to many wires and a transmitter rod that also functions as a particle accelerator.
"Damn. That's a working nuclear reactor." Ryan admires the design. He appraches the bomb that is at 5 meters away. He is excited.
When he is 1 meter from it, suddenly the bomb exploded. *BOOM* New York is obliterated again.
…
On the island. Hela is walking around using her projection. Ryan had made it so that she can touch the items there in the digital world. Like if she wants to read a book, she can pull out the book projection from its place and hold it in her hand. It will mimic the book texture exactly.
She can sit on a holographic chair and so on. She can even go bowling and see the sky and the sea. She can't, however, touch the inhabitants there.
Right now, she is sightseeing. Behind her, there are some kids following her around like ducklings.
"Shuh. Go away." She said to the kids. But the kids just giggled at her. It irks her, but she couldn't do anything to them.
"Dawn!" She yelled. She is fed up so she is searching for someone who can talk some sense into these girls. She huffed around angrily. She walks around the island, but she can't find him.
"Where is he?" She mutters to herself.
"I know I know!" The kids yelled to get her attention. She finally turns to them and picks one. She pointed at the girl with the hair in twin tails.
"You. Answer."
"He is at the lab. Trying to cut open some blue alien." Sive answers.