Deus Ex Machina

I returned home, and walked into the living room, where my kids were all playing Need For Speed and watching tv, and stood by the door for a minute, watching over them.

It was nice to see them bonding, and it gave me a minute to think over it.

With Dormammu gone for good, I moved on to my next two objectives.

Taking care of Thanos and ensuring my kids' safety.

They were becoming utterly braindead knobs with hero complexes and frankly, a liability as of now. Well except Riley. She's a peach.

Real thoughtful and smart.

Still, the logical part of me just wanted to turn them into cyborgs and remote control them as and when desired.

And honestly, I can't argue with that.

But I love them and I won't do it.

So, compromise comes into the picture.

If they're going to be hyperactive little twats, I might as well put them to good use.

I looked over at Saraswati sitting on the sofa watching power rangers and called her over.

I whistled.

"Saraswati? Come here will you?"

"Papa? What happened?" She asked.

"You remember Thanos?"

"Yes. Want me to hunt him down?"

I patted her head with my vibranium gloves on, and opened a portal to Asgard.

"You read my mind. I want you to go to Asgard and use the Bifrost's energy signature to track him down. Can you do that?"

Saraswati nodded.

"Good girl."

She giggled happily, nuzzling into me.

She was like a friendly little cat.

It was very cute.

"Hunt him down. And absorb as much power on the way as you can. You'll need it to overpower the Power Stone. When you find Thanos, don't confront him head on. If possible, take away his axe first. Chop off his hands, then go straight for the head. No mercy, no hesitation. Got it?"

"Yes Papa!"

"Make Papa proud." I said, kissing her forehead.

"I will." She replied, and disappeared into the portal.

Well, that's taken care of.

Now finally, for the kids.

"What's going on Papa?" Riley asked.

She had been watching me as I sent Saraswati off and was getting curious it seems. Or jealous.

She was after all the most clingy of my kids even if she didn't act like it, always looking for my approval. And hugs.

Any time she wasn't researching something or running an experiment, she stuck to me like glue, shadowing what I did.

It was cute the first month but it gets exhausting the 800th time you get spooked with her hovering around, looking over your shoulder.

Though it wasn't all bad.

Riley had been an immense help with my research, both into the mutagenic effects of the power cosmic and with the psychic code of immortality.

With her help I had discovered that the power cosmic was literally a lifegiving force.

It accelerated the growth of matter and it's capacity to use energy in lower forms.

Bioelectricity, chi, magic and a lot of other ones too.

It didn't just awaken dormant abilities though. If you had no inclinations to superpowers, it would still give you a minor boost in physicality, at the very least.

It was practically a superpower serum of a kind.

Which obviously meant that the first thing I did after finding out about that was try to revive Offee. And I failed again. For some fucking reason.

Scanning her revealed an odd energy signature like a mix between minor reality warping and a change on some fundamental level by some sort of energy.

The force I assume. Maybe drinking from the Font of Power changed her body somehow?

We were still working on that.

Though my main concern as of now was my own immortality and the infinity stones.

"Nothing. Just a chore." I waved her off, when a thought occured.

"Say, are you up for a little chore too? We can make it your first solo trip to another world!" I said, turning to her.

"Really?!" Riley jumped at the offer.

"Of course." I pulled a file from a portal and handed it to her.

"Urahara Kisuke?" She read out.

"Yup. Soul scientist. Knows a lot about the workings of souls and spirits and spiritual particle physics. The A.I. has had his world mapped for a while now but I'm too busy to do it, so I want you to go there and get me all the data he has on the stuff.

Remember, he's a powerful reaper. So no violence or coercion. A simple exchange. Don't push him.

You give him some of our tech, the demon sealing boxes, the spirit residue detector and the pneumatic isolater.

Try your best. Even if he doesn't agree, that's okay. It's not urgent. At least pocket some soul candy on your way out. The rest of the instructions are in the packet. Read them before you go in for the talk. And memorize it and burn the file while you're at it. Understand?"

Riley nodded, going over the file.

Ace on the other perked up when she heard this and jumped up, off the sofa as she ran over, dumping the playstation controller on the floor.

"I wanna go too!" She said.

"Why?" I asked confused.

"It's a boring mission. Just a data exchange. Are you sure?" I confirmed.

"Yes, Papa! I want to be useful too!" She insisted.

Ah, did she think this was going to be like the labs, where she would be discarded?

Or was she genuinely happy?

I'll have to ask Dr. Wong about that

"You'll certainly be a help here." I mulled it over.

Can't hurt to send her over as backup.

"Alright. But first, you'll need some body mods. You too Riley."

I snapped my fingers and a swarm of nanobots exited a portal, buzzing around us.

"This will itch a bit, but don't scratch it." I warned, guiding the nanoswarm over to the two girls as it began to form cognitohazard resistant filters on their eyes, ears, tongue and nose, sewing and sticking them into the inside of their head, connected to their brains, covering all senses.

Minutes passed as the two girls twitched, their toes curling in discomfort as the nanobots worked their magic, finishing the body mods with ease.

Star and Saraswati had already had this done, Star in the Star Wars world while Saraswati had it built into her body from birth.

Only Riley and Ace had been vulnerable. Till now.

Now, they were completely safe from all form of mind control and other psychological dangers.

That solves one problem. Now I don't need to worry about the kids doing dumb shit. They were already practically gods before and now they are nigh invulnerable in mist aspects.

I even added a nanofiber defense mesh under their skins.

I almost kicked myself for not doing this sooner because I wanted them to 'choose it for themselves' or some crap.

Sometimes I hate the emotional part of me. Actually, scratch that. I always hate the bastard.

So touchy feely and whiny that one.

I shook my head and checked the girls, scanning their body.

Everything looked to be in order.

Good.

"There we go. All done. You did good, Riley, Ace. It must have been hard to bear through that. Star nearly scratched his eyes out when I did his mods." I chuckled.

They smiled too, and looked to the portal, raring to go.

But I caught them first, pulling them into a hug.

"Don't be reckless, okay. I don't want you guys getting stuck there, or sealed away. Always keep an eye out and keep your forcefields up. No matter what. And come back to Papa, safe, okay?"

"Uhun!" Riley intoned.

"Yep. You worry too much Papa." Ace added.

I pinched their cheeks.

"You brats. I worry because I care. Though, with the mods, I doubt I'll ever have to worry at all. Go now." I said, and they jumped into the portal, disappearing into it.

I closed the portal and sighed.

The only thing I had to worry about now was them getting sealed somewhere.

And by the end of the day even that won't be problem.

I pulled out my old nekomimi headphones and put on Little Talks by Of Monsters And Men as I got to work.

Man it's been long since I last did a building montage!

I snapped my fingers and teleporting to my workshop as a meat puppet dropped out of a portal onto my desk.

A meat puppet with my clone body.

The one that had the world hopping shard made from Clairvoyant and Doormaker.

With a thought the biochip in it's head killed the meat puppet, and I extracted the shard from it.

Pouring the shard into a beaker I mixed it in with a negentropic base shard and another subspace based teleporation shard, adding in a dash of Phir Se's shard to give it the power of reversing causality.

Mixing it up, I integrated the shards into one singular shard, folding the mass of it all into one as the world hopper shard cannibalized the others gaining their properties under my guiding hand.

I dripped the newly formed Planeswalking shard into a new vial, attaching it to an injector.

With a jab and a small operation, it was embedded into a new meat puppet, one that was small, the size of a basketball maybe a little bigger.

It was made of the best quality Endbringer tissue I had, near indestructible with almost limitless processing power.

And it was going to need all of it.

I picked up the jelly-like creature into my hands and connected to the biochip inside it as I felt a new rush of power wash over me and instantly I could see it all.

A kaleidoscope of worlds, dimensions, pocket spaces, divine realms hidden across the multiverse, available at a thought. I could reach out and just pick out something if I so desired. Everything felt like it was just a hop, skip and jump away.

It was .... beautiful.

Yes.

This is perfect.

I opened a portal and walked into a huge room I had specially prepared for it.

The room was the size of a stadium with a pedestal and a series microverses within microverses set up in one corner.

In another was a backup generator that could last for a million years, powered by a miniaturized black hole, forming a gravity well to draw power from.

On another end was a tank of portal fluid, the height of a skyscraper, full to the brim and connected to the microverses, a backup portal gun setup and a life support vat.

On the other end was a massive cube of slick, gleaming metal, shifting and pulsing, almost like a living organism, with veins of blue and purple running across it's surface.

My largest telekinetic module to date, strong enough to pull planets out of orbit.

It was connected to the life support vat in the center of the room as well, just like everything else in the room.

And in the center, was a control station, with a life support vat behind it, and an array of new and improved Project Phoenix backups to the side of it, lining the double reinforced, forcefield lined walls.

There were even reality and dimension anchors in the floor, to prevent any untoward situations or tampering.

I placed the creature into the vat of nutrients and flipped a switch on the control station as the the whole room buzzed to life, activating the greatest redundancy measure I had ever created.

I called it the 'Vaykunth Lok System', named after the heavenly domain of Vishnu, the god of preservation and harmony with the meat puppet being designated as Subject Vishnu.

An apt name for a machine designed with a sole purpose of preserving the lives of my family, no matter what happened, come hell or high water.

Now that it was active, the Vishnu would keep an eye of every member of my family no matter where they were in the multiverse.

If they were in danger it would use the telekinetic module to pull them out via portal, and dump them into one the microverses where a medical droid would take care of them till they were all healed up.

If they were insta-killed, it would reverse causality to undo the damage to them and pull them out all the same.

If it couldn't do that, it would reincarnate them within the Project Phoenix vats, saving as much of their conciousness as it could using the new psychic tech imbued onto Project Phoenix.

It won't matter if they are sealed in a pocket dimension or brainwashed or whatever else.

The new system had a counter measure to all of it.

Well almost all of it.

The only flaw in it was that if they were soul killed, there would be no saving them.

But even that will be solved once I get the soul science data from Urahara Kisuke.

Soon, it will be the perfect getaway, a veritable dues ex machina.

So long as the ship survives, everyone in my family will be functionally unkillable, no matter what, no matter where they were in the multiverse.

I had been working on this for a while now and finally, it was completed.

From now on, no more worrying about the kids or myself.

I am invulnerable now. My family is finally safe.

Now I just need to up the security on the ship and we'll be just fine.

Now, I can finally focus on ridding myself of this pest problem.

Just then, my contacts beeped with a notification.

"C.C. is awake." I smiled.

Good. She's just in time.

______________________

As promised, MC solves the biggest problem with this story in one fell swoop.

No more worrying about kids.

No more filler chapters about the kids.

This doesn't mean stakes are gone. No. The stakes are still high. Just that MC is back from helicopter dad to cold logical scientist.

It's all action from here on out.

Next extra chapter at 600 powerstones!

Thanks for reading, donate your powerstones and see you in the comments!

As for those on Pat-reon, extra chapter coming right up there tonight.