Hello Everyone!
I, or rather this story, is BACK!!
Why so soon, you might ask?
Well, as it turned out, leaving it unfinished kinda left a bad taste in my mouth and whenever I wrote something, something about this fic always came back to my mind.
Anywho, without further ado, here are your chapters.
P.S. - There's three of them today.
Enjoy!
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Chapter 81
Technomancer in MCU
–Alfred–
"Alfred Alfred, what just happened?" He heard Daisy shouting in the background over the abrupt mobilisation of all the carriers and assets they had on the planet. He had even gone as far as taking direct control of the assets that were without pilots and sending them on a crash course toward them.
All of that, only to cancel his orders halfway through and tell everybody to back to their positions.
Understandably, Daisy and the others on the captain's deck had some concerns.
The thing was that he himself was unsure of how to explain this to them.
"I'll let you know as soon as I understand what is going on," He told Daisy and cut the comms link.
Making sure that nobody was listening in on their conversation, he gave the order for the cleanup crew to restore the surroundings back to their previous state since handling demonic energy was not something he trusted the locals to do properly. It could lead to disastrous situations like people mutating, wildlife mutating, etc.
Honestly, the only reason he was not open-firing from the orbital cannon in place was because of the weird and confusing soul readings he was getting from Ed.
Just as he was about to ask Toby to come with them, he instead opened a portal and fucked right off to the Dark Dimension for some reason.
"What the..?" he heard Frank mutter as he looked at the wilting vegetation around the portal before with a flash of hellfire, it closed right up, leaving just a burn mark on the ground and dead vegetation as its aftermath.
Ed facepalmed at that, piquing his curiosity.
"Just what happened before this? How did he rescue you? What has happened to your body?" he asked Ed rapidly.
Sighing, Ed replied, "Look, can we just get out of here? I am feeling my limbs moving without pain for the first time in years and would love to get some proper work done now. Also, I don't want to repeat everything so just assemble everyone in the captain's cabin."
"Very well," Alfred replied and opened a portal.
Before Ed could go in though, he stopped him with his arm and asked him, "Are you sure nothing will happen to your soul if we use portals or should we just bring in a jet? You know what I'll call the jet."
Ed (or his body double?) rolled his eyes and tried to move his arm away and promptly staggered back due to the sheer strength imbalance between the two of them.
Looking at his smug face, Ed replied, "You know I created you, right? Kids these days have no respect for their elders."
"Quit whining like a baby, it will be here in no time. We built it together, remember?" Ed said and right on time, the double-deep sound of the jet being parked sounded right above them as the red and golden-themed jet became visible to all of them.
Careful with Ed's extremely vulnerable body since it seemed like it would fall apart at the slightest disturbance due to the presence of cracks on his body, the jet lowered itself till the ramp on the back of the jet touched the ground.
As soon as we got inside the jet, the ramp closed itself and the view of the cleanup crew using the CHI overload systems to get rid of the demonic hellfire in the area closed off.
"So, the one we fought was.." Frank said, his question clear.
"Yeah, it was a fake. I knew it the moment I woke up but I was far too gone in rage to be stopped," Ed replied as they took a moment of silence to ruminate over the loss of the Ancient One.
"Any idea as to how that happened?" Ed asked Alfred who was busy conducting all types of scans on Ed's body.
"It was Dracula. He had opened up multiple demon pits at the edge of his territory and set them open out in the wild. She killed the demons, destroyed the pits, and then confronted Dracula. HE showed no remorse so she was forced to destroy the pact, take the backlash, and kill him."
"Then how did he.." Ed said.
"It was Dormammu. His energy lay dormant in Dracula's body, so he could attack the Ancient One at her most vulnerable since the backlash of the pact was borne by her, and taking advantage of that, Dormammu was able to defeat her."
Even speaking about it, he could feel a thick wave of killing intent rolling off of Ed and this was not even his real body.
Dormmamu's days were pretty much numbered, it would seem.
Soon, the hangar came into view and they got off the jet.
As soon as the coffin containing Ed's body got off the jet, it flew back to its designated position and a team of doctors followed a similar-looking coffin as it superimposed itself over the old coffin, showing all sorts of advanced medical statistics.
The metal box silently floated back to the emergency ward, followed by a flurry of activities from the doctors who were led by Maria.
He secretly sighed in relief as that would mean that Maria would be too busy dealing with Ed's body to have the time to tear him a new one.
Soon, they found themselves seated in the captain's cabin with all of the S-tier combatants of the organisation present, excluding Ajax since he was busy tearing apart the various pirates that had the audacity to invade the refugee colonies' sovereign space.
"So, before you guys try and demonize Toby, just know that he was once my best friend and a valued member of the organisation. The person you fought that day was not Toby. It was a clone made by Dormammu because he wanted to take advantage of the chaos in the organisation." Ed began before anybody could get a word in.
"The second thing is, the body I am currently in is a demonic bio-artifact of some sort that allows a person to mould it into any shape and size. The reason I am in this body is due to the fact that I have officially exhausted nearly all of my remaining lifespan and would have been dead if not for Toby's help. This body, while not giving me access to my powers, allows me to function normally without further degrading the condition of my body."
He then gestured towards Alfred, "Since Alfred has a body now, I am sure he might have some sort of solution for my condition but that is not the priority right now."
Whirling to face Alfred directly, Ed said, "Now that the Ancient One is dead, the strongest person in Kamar Taj is undoubtedly you and I don't believe for a second that the Ancient One didn't plan all of this. So, I want you to go to Kamar Taj or at least send a clone, organise them, and make sure that the planetary shields are reinforced and in the right condition."
Alfred looked grief-stricken at the mention of the Ancient One but soon looked at Ed with a determined look in his eyes.
He then made a clone who promptly made a portal and left the room.
"Now that we have that sorted away, let's discuss the changes that would be happening as a direct result of Dormammu's attack. First of all, the safety of the planet. Alfred has gone to make sure that the shields are safe. Any stray demons would need to be hunted down and I have made that the number one priority for now. Secondly, Revenge-"
"Don't worry about that, my friend. It's taken care of." Came the familiar voice of Toby as he somehow bypassed not only the ward scheme but also all of his senses.
That was troubling.
Understandably, all of the people present were startled and were pointing at Toby with the closest weapon they had access to, except Ed and him.
Ed sighed and waved at the others to lower their weapons and asked Toby exasperatedly, "What do you mean by that?"
Toby walked in and plonked down on one of the sofas and summoned an apple from a nearby pantry. He smirked and replied with a mouthful of apple in his mouth, "Oh, I gave the Old Dark One's home a visit. Gave it a little makeover. Let's just leave it at that."
Ed smiled and was about to say something before he sensed the space in the room warping and shouted, "Take Cover!"
Before anybody could even move, a rainbow pillar slammed into existence right in the centre of the room and as everybody pointed their weapons at the bridge, somebody they had never expected to see again came out of it.
"Your saviour is here," said Loki as he appeared in all of his alien mythological glory in his full costume.
And was promptly backhanded by Toby as he appeared before Loki in a flash. The only reason Loki was not a bloody mist was due to the existence of a small magic circle that broke down the moment Toby's hand made contact with it, absorbing most of the blow.
Seeing Loki create a hole in the wall and then slump down, Ed sighed once again and said, "Can we just stop manhandling Asgardian Princes please?"
Toby looked unrepentant as he looked at the fallen Loki with his swollen face like a masterpiece and Ed called in Maria to heal the fallen wayward Prince of Asgard.
"Well, this looks like the sort of mess that will bring about the attention of Thor, right?" Daisy asked, strangely excited about the arrival of an angry Asgardian Prince.
"But how is this even possible? Who sent him this time?" Eric asked
"He arrived by the rainbow bridge. It would be safe to assume that he has arrived from Asgard. It remains to be seen if his arrival was through legitimate orders or if he is just being his chaotic self." Jake replied.
"No, he probably is here on Odin's orders. Ignoring the fact that he would not be moving around without Odin's say-so, I had felt Heimdall's gaze on me when I had ascended. Back then, I had swiftly concealed myself so while I was expecting this, he sent Loki sooner than expected. I was half expecting a rainbow bridge to slam into me without any preparation but this works too." Alfred replied as he crouched down near the fallen Prince, taking DNA samples while running all the scans that he could while Loki was still unconscious.
Ed raised an eyebrow at that, "Oh, so it means you have officially ascended now, and is the faith energy being collected properly?"
Alfred nodded.
Ed then nodded, as if enlightened, "Ah, so that explains why you are acting so much cocky lately. The faith energy is corrupting you, it would seem. We need to purge all of that. I know of one way. Humiliation is the fastest way to humble someone, I propose we do that to you."
Alfred deadpanned at him, "Need I remind you that I am the strongest mystic on the planet right now and probably the most knowledgeable as well."
"Stop this chitchat, I wanted to see how strong a Prince of Asgard would be but I guess only Odin would be my match. Call me when we need to leave for Asgard," Toby said and left the room.
"Where are you going?" Ed yelled at him.
"To my quarters. I do hope my collectibles are still there, right Alfred?" Toby asked while exuding huge amounts of killing intent.
If it was possible, he would be sweating buckets. He then replied, "Yes, they are in storage. By the time you reach there, the room should be in the same state it was when you.. left"
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Word Count - 2003
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