TGS - #80

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The Ancient Kree City, Pietro Rico[May 2015]

–Jack Sullivan–

It would be quite an unexpected windfall if he could get the ownership of this city. For one, it would just be plain cool. For another, he could get access to a whole ass advanced alien city.

And did he tell you that it would be so cool?!

He jolted in shock as he felt something hard slam into his mental shields as soon as he crossed the threshold, and into the small chamber where there were still traces of dried blood and blue powder lying around, evidence of the terrigenesis process that Daisy underwent just a while ago,

The cleaning process was not foolproof, it would seem because the amount of blood just a while ago was a lot, and the area was flooded by the blue mist, apparently because an entire Diviner was used to awaken just two Inhumans.

He looked around, trying to find something that could help him identify if the area was some sort of central area, with access to some hidden console or head office that could allow him to take control of the city.

He was still very curious about the very existence of Diviners. They were metallic, smooth objects that killed all humans except Inhumans on touch. Also, they were made by the Kree, and the manufacturing process was, presumably, not known to the Inhumans left on the planet, and yet, here they were, generations later, and still these Diviners continued to pop up.

IT would stand to reason that the Inhumans residing on the moon, the ones with the vastly advanced technology and understanding of the Kree experimentation on humans would hoard this stuff and not let them out of their sight. After all, the Diviners were the very reason their species continued to exist, at all.

The Inhuman gene was completely recessive. Doesn't matter if both the parents were awakened Inhumans or unawakened ones, they would always be born without their powers active. No outside stimuli, save for the terrigenesis crystals, could activate the Inhumans' powers.

In a way, it was good because it meant that the ones with the faulty genes would not be given the short end of the stick at birth, or through no fault of their own. They would have to actively go through that process of cocooning themselves after inhaling those crystals to get whatever powers they might have.

The powers, themselves were another mixed bag. There were INhumnans like Black Bolt, immensely powerful but with severe drawbacks, Inhumans like Crystal, with huge versatility and potential with seemingly none of the drawbacks, and then there were ones like Gordon, extremely powerful niche capability but with the drawback being physical changes.

The changes could be desirable or undesirable. As far as he knew, there was no way of knowing what power one could get without going through the process itself. 

His point stood, the Diviners being found in the wild was an anomalous event in and of itself. He would have to go through any records and scour the planet for any more of those as well. It was a tool that could be disastrous in the wrong hands.

Somebody could just try and release it into a nearby water source or something, leading to easy genocide with a couple of Inhumans, created literally in death. Or the Diviner itself could be used as a tool to kill humans without the necessary genes in them, except the perpetrator would just use it to take lives.

Quite easy as well, just touch normal people with it, assuming that the perpetrator themselves could hold it.

He sighed as another thing was added to his plate.

Well, atleast he wanted to see if he could gain ownership of something awesome like this.

"Hmm?" his neck snapped in the direction of their entrance. He could feel one of the barriers that he summoned over one of the entry points being poked and prodded. He had no way of identifying who it was so he would just let it be, not unless the poking and prodding turned into grenades and missiles.

It might be the HYDRA goons, wanting to get in the city or it could also be Tony, who must have finally gotten the rescue process done and had come out to check what the fuss was all about. In that case, it was nice that he created the barrier because he did not want Tony to become another zombie controlled by the defense mechanism of the city.

Anyway, focusing on the chamber, he summoned his barriers and covered every inch of the place with them, trying to get a feel of the entire thing. His barriers could sense and transmit information at such a level that his other senses simply could not catch up to.

He also had a dozen other smaller barriers, scouring the entire underground complex to see if anything else of note could be found. So far, he found nothing but empty chambers, used for what? He did not know.

He could find a single place with all the tech consolidated in one place like a captain's office or something.

Wait! His eyes widened in realisation. The Kree were not governed by the Kree, well, atleast not the Kree in the meat and bone form.

No, they were ruled over by a super AI called the Supreme Intelligence, pretentious much. It was an unholy amalgamation of artificial intelligence and the brains of the most intelligent Kree to have ever lived, with newer brains added to the mix once the Supreme INtelligence deems their "intelligence" worthy of being subsumed.

It gave him the creeps but maybe that was the reason there were no physical controls in the city. It was all supposed to be controlled by an AI or some sort of pseudo AI that would ultimately answer only to the Supreme Intelligence.

It was heavily implied in the movies that the Supreme INtelligence had a chokehold on all the important decisions made in the Kree Empire with its sole goal the further evolution of the Kree species, something that had stagnated for a while now.

He read in his past life that the Supreme INtelligence even thought of starting a war that would wipe out the Kree empire as it was now and reduce the population by more than 90%, all for the chance of evolution in the current Kree race.

To be fair, they were all very much advanced. A lifespan in the thousands, intelligence, and physical parameters surpassing humans in every metric possible with their very blood being capable of restoring life to carbon based life forms. They also had some of the most robust war engines in the entire galaxy, being capable of contending with multiple contemporary superpowers without being defeated.

They also had racism though. So, it was a coin toss if they were completely evolved and civilised or not.

He sighed as he realised that he would not find any easy way of gaining control of the city, not without exposing it to the geniuses he knew who could find a way of wrestling control of the city into human hands. Like the one who was actually starting to use his repulsors on the barrier outside, probably worried about the communication gap between them.

The only question was : Could he afford risking the brightest minds of Humanity learning everything about the city?

Could he afford letting the world's governments access the city and all the tech it had in it?

The answer was quite simple: No.

A Big Fat no, in fact. Simply because of the mind control and remote temporary enhancement tech built into the city.

It would take years for even TOny and Shuri combined to crack that stuff but once they do that? The US and Wakandan governments will simply build their own versions, with Wakanda being ahead by virtue of their head start.

But both the countries would build huge platforms that had an area of effect buff to them, turning all their soldiers in an area into super soldiers that worked more like zombies and didn't feel pain, only a single minded focus on their goal.

He could already see some generals creaming their pants at the mention of all the advantages the tech could give them. Not to mention the mental attack part of the equation, along with the secrets of the Inhumans that would simply be disseminated to every person of note in the world.

No, the world was safer without this city and without knowing the existence of super powered individuals living amongst the normal people.

The bad thing about this was that many people would try and get the superheroes for themselves, to gain power, fame, money, women, you name it. Then they would wake up to reality.

The worst would be the discrimination. Oh god, the discrimination.

Humans still were racist simply because of skin colour and a few physical characteristics being dominant or recessive somewhere. He could imagine the reaction when everyone suddenly had a reason to suspect the person next to them, of them being an alien.

Politicians everywhere would use it as a talking point to further spread that divide, all the while reaping the benefits.

He shook his head as a chill went down his spine, his barriers enveloping him on instinct which made the chamber doors start closing on their own. His barriers stopped the doors as he came out of the chamber and looked around, finding nothing.

He chuckled wryly to himself, as he realised why his barriers had activated seemingly on instinct. He had chills simply because he realised the extent of greed and hatred that Humanity as a whole could summon on their own species, let alone their enemies.

It was, in a word, terrifying. He never really thought of the terrifying consequences of arming the Human race to the teeth, either by technology or by creating a centralised command structure that could take advantage of the latent potential in the Human DNA. Their greatest asset, human resources, could be used as a terrifying weapon against the enemies from outside their planet.

He never really had any thoughts about what would happen if Humanity was actually armed to such an extent. Good Lord, how pathetic was the situation. Humanity as it was, was exceedingly weak, but even then we were more focused on killing each other, even now that the entire world was aware of the confirmed existence of aliens.

Imagine what Humans would do once they realised that they had a decent amount of power and could carve out an entire sphere of influence for themselves. What then?

Once the enemy is defeated, when there are no more aliens for humans to hunt down? When there are ample resources but the strength of the species would be concentrated in the hands of the few?

What then?

His mind was in complete disarray as he had a jolt to his thoughts about helping Humanity as a whole as he began walking towards the nearest barrier covered agent of SHIELD he could sense. This whole thing was really messing with his head.

He chuckled bitterly as he realised that he feared the possibility of Humanity, along with the rest of the universe, losing against Thanos and he also feared the possibility of Humans winning with overwhelming odds and deciding that it was not enough.

He shook his head violently once again, trying in vain to get rid of these thoughts. There was no point in thinking too much anyway. Humanity was much bigger than him, even right now and it would grow even bigger in the future.

All he could do was, do his part and help leave a positive imprint on the world because while his powers made sure that any waves he made would reverberate throughout the lake he was in, Humanity in all of its entirety (vanilla humans, mutants, Inhumans, Sorcerers, CHI users, mutates, and more) was an ocean that could not be predicted.

"Sullivan, what took you so long?" He encountered Melinda May who had already taken down two HYDRA goons, who were also unconscious somehow.

He leveled a confused look at her because he was of the opinion that the ones that had already been turned by the city gained physical characteristics that could not be overcome by normal humans, even if they were supremely trained.

"They were not nearly as strong as Mac was. I was able to choke out both of them, apparently, they still need oxygen. Your shields are nice by the way. They blocked everything, including some blue energy beam that came out of nowhere, from the roofs, left the ground around me smoking but didn't even put a dent in the barrier." 

Hmm. "Those must be the city's defenses. I can sense Coulson coming close. Let's get out of here, this place is too dangerous to leave unattended."

May nodded, even though he could sense suspicious gazes being sent his way as they met Coulson along the way. They reached their point of entry, and after making sure that all the goons were restrained, got out of the barrier that he had made at the hole he dug to enter the city.

"What the.." He heard Tony speak as they flew out of the hole in the ground. He didn't give Tony a chance to talk with the SHIELD agents and just created a portal that led to the same lab as before.

Coulson nodded at him, "I trust the city will be taken care of? I will have my agents come here to check soon, just to confirm."

"Yes, it will be gone in less than 24 hours." He confirmed it.

Mars seemed like a nice place to store this place, just in case they needed something from the city.

Better to have it and not need it, and all that shit.

He turned around and snapped his fingers, creating a small barrier around Tony's suit.

"Whoa. What's happening? I picked up on some chatter but it was about an underground city of some sort. Mind explaining?" Tony asked him, curiosity evident in his voice.

"I'll do you one better. Let's go," He pushed Tony's suit and watched as it flew right into the hole, the motion completely exaggerated.

He too dove straight down, his barriers exploring the city to find points of ingress so that he could seal them up.

"Whoa! What is this? Is this an alien outpost, buried long ago? Oh! What is this energy? How was this built? All of these are lava rocks."

Tony's rapid babbling was partially heard by him as he allowed the Mad Scientist to explore the city.

Meanwhile, he had already pinged some of his friends in the Sorcerer Community.

He had a city to move to Mars and a portal of that size could not be sustained by just one or two Masters of the Mystic Arts.

Word Count - 2531

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