Symbiote 0280: The Illuminati

Earth-65, Stark Tower.

A man slammed his hand on the circular table, glaring at the other four occupants before his eyes stopped at a beautiful blonde woman who was nonchalantly looking at her nails.

"Frost, care to explain why you lost me my entire War Machine battalion?" The man spoke with a growl.

"Blame Strange," The blonde was still nonchalant and shrugged. "His information was inaccurate. He has the Mind Stone as well as the Reality Stone. I can't get into his head for the life of me."

"And my ten thousand War Machines? You couldn't just retreat? That's billions of dollars in just raw materials without counting the production costs."

"I chose to protect myself over some scrap metal, Stark," The woman's nonchalance faded away. "It took him seconds to turn those so-called War Machines into butterflies. Fucking butterflies!"

"Instead of blaming Miss Frost and Dr. Strange. How about we get to the crux of the issue?" A dark-skinned man adorned in a pitch-black suit spoke. "For now, that man's focus has been confined to New York, but it won't take long before his eyes turn toward Wakanda and our Vibranium."

"He has the Reality Stone, T'Challa. He doesn't need your precious Vibranium," A man with gills on his throat spoke slightly derisively. "Stop making yourself seem more important than you are."

"You want to go again, Namor?" The Black Panther cracked his knuckles. "I believe you haven't received a beating in a while now."

"Gentlemen," A man with a goatee stood up from his position at the head of the table. "Let us not deviate from the issue at hand: Shang Chi and the Mandarin. Stark, sit down. We were underinformed and underprepared when going against him. Never could we have expected him to have an Infinity Stone at his disposal, let alone two."

The man's words brought a sense of order to the meeting as everyone sat straight, awaiting his following words.

"Black Bolt will not be joining us, the Inhumans have decided to distance themselves from this conflict, as usual," the man spoke.

"What of Wilson?" Tony asked. "She's also missing."

"She's running a recruitment drive," the man raised his hand to stop Tony from speaking further. "That is the first agenda of today's meeting. Patience, Stark."

"Since we now have a preliminary understanding of our adversary, what do you propose, Strange? I do not wish for us to get bogged down in meaningless pleasantries," Namor was quick to say his piece.

"I swear, no one has any patience these days," Dr. Strange shook his head. "Then let me get to it. This Shang Chi is merely a pawn in a greater game. It is the same with the Infinity Stones he possesses. They are mere fragments of the real deal. In this universe, each of the six Infinity Stones has been split apart into an unknown number of fragments."

"I assume that each stone has forty fragments?" Tony interjected. "Going by the presence of the number of Earths in our atmosphere at least."

"That is my assumption at least. I cannot give a concrete answer without analyzing the stones myself," Dr. Strange took a breath. "My point is that we cannot focus completely on Shang Chi. We must keep the bigger picture in mind. That is why, we cannot directly engage him anymore. At least for now."

"We can't just ignore everything that he's doing," Tony said.

"I'm getting to it. That's the reason Captain Wilson isn't in this meeting. I have decided to gather the street-level vigilante heroes and pair them up with some of the weaker X-Men to form a team. Their jobs will be to investigate Shang Chi and his plans. With the right resources, they will be able to curb his terrorism attempts. Once the situation comes down to a stalemate, he will grow impatient. That is when we will strike and apprehend him in a single move. For that, however, we must prepare to counter his backer."

"Who do you have in mind?" Emma Frost spoke. "Not counting the X-Men."

"We have already communicated with the Defenders, a small team of street heroes that includes Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Jessica Jones; aside from them, we have Black Cat, Prowler, Thunderstrike, and Spider-Woman; I also have my eye on this new hero — calls herself Jackpot; there are a few more I'm planning to recruit. Stark, I need you to come into contact with Steven Grant. He is a troublesome one, but his powers are going to be useful for us."

"That philanthropist?" Tony asked. "He has powers?"

"Moon Knight," Dr. Strange said. "His circumstances are somewhat special. Just get in contact with him. Once he understands the depth of the situation, he will agree, just like the others."

"What about the wanted status of some of these so-called vigilantes?" Emma asked. "I'm familiar with some of them like Black Cat and Spider-Woman. These people try to help the world, but their past deeds have made them wanted in the eyes of the law."

"Under the current situation, the commissioner will be happy to issue a pardon to the involved parties," Dr. Strange said. "If not, well, we do have Miss Frost to help us out with the more dubious issues."

"What of Wakanda?" T'Challa spoke up. "You specifically requested that I be present in this meeting. Why?"

"Same with me," Namor spoke. "For now, this person's actions have nothing to do with Atlantis."

"You will have much to do with him soon. This … yet-to-be-named team will merely bring the situation to a stalemate. That is when Wakanda and Atlantis will come in and capture Shang Chi. During that time, my sorcerers will analyze his karmic connections and attempt to locate his backer."

"Does it need to be so convoluted? We can just go all out and capture him in one go."

"I don't want his backer to get spooked and hide prematurely, Stark. If it's someone who can so easily give their people Infinity Stones, we can't underestimate them. For now, we need to play their game while minimizing our losses."

"Great, so we get to sit on our asses until the situation completely gets out of hand," Emma Frost said. "I'll be off. I have headmistress duties to take care of."

"Don't forget to send a batch of your mutants to join the new team. We need manpower."

…

"So I will be getting pardoned?" Gwen asked with a complicated expression on her face.

"Yes," Samantha spoke. "I am already aware of the situation regarding the death of Peter Parker and you have my deepest condolences. But the dead cannot be brought back and you can only live on in an attempt to honor their memory, am I correct?"

Gwen took a deep breath, looking at Alex before turning back to Samantha.

"Fine. I agree. I will join your new ragtag team to disrupt Shang Chi's plans. Will the curfew still go on?" She asked.

"Not only that, it will be getting even tighter so that civilian presence does not disrupt the new team's investigations. Even though the authorities are doing their best to uncover the bombs, the momentum isn't slowing. We find and diffuse one bomb and before we know it, we have leads for four more. It's as if that man has the manpower of an entire nation behind him."

Hearing the woman's words, Gwen got thoughtful. She had previously infiltrated Shang Chi's base and the things she saw told her that the situation was much more complicated than a simple revenge plot.

"It's very likely that he's not your main target," she spoke. "Someone like Dr. Strange or logically any Omega Level Mutant should be able to deal with him with relative ease, but instead, you are looking for weaker heroes like myself … You just want us to mitigate the damage as much as possible, don't you?"

"Positive," Samantha smiled. "We believe that Shang Chi is just a pawn in a larger game. Now we have to play that game if we want to get the player. So, are you in?"

"I'm in," Gwen nodded. "Any insight into who else is going to be on the team?"

"I've already met with the Defenders. They are more than happy to help us. You were my second meeting of the day. I'm going to look for Black Cat next."

"And my father? How does he factor into all this?" Gwen asked, looking with concern at George, who just smiled disarmingly and shook his head.

"Considering his relationship with you and his past service to the force, we have decided that having him serve as a contact point between the new team and the police department would be suitable. George Stacy will be serving as the new First Deputy Commissioner of New York City. Officially, he is under the command of the commissioner, but unofficially, he is the point of contact between the newly formed team and the police."

"You've moved up in the world, huh Dad?" Gwen whistled. "Here I thought it would be difficult for you to retain your captainship, but quitting and rejoining seems to have brought you many benefits."

"Okay, since you've agreed, you will be contacted once I have brought together the rest of the members," Samantha got up from the couch. "I'll see you later."

George also stood up to see Samantha out and Gwen turned to Alex with a scathing glare.

"You dickhead, you never tell me anything …" She punched his arm without much intent behind it. "There's all this stuff going on in the background and you just acted like everything was fine. I spent the last two weeks cooped up in here watching movies, damn it."

"In my defense, I would much rather hang out with you and chill instead of infiltrating into the upper echelons of management."

***

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