Chapter 14

Killing the Banished was no problem, he didn't want to damage his new ship damaged any further, so using Angel he quickly dispatched each left over soldier that was left. He even found some UNSC Soldiers who he quickly silenced along with the Banished. He couldn't let his involvement in this world get out since they would have the tech to try to locate him, slip-space was borderline boom-tube technology which was why he wanted Infinity. With the upgrades that Angel would be able to do will practically make the ship at least triple its offensive and defensive capabilities along with its slipspace capabilities.

As Billy cleared out the ship, Angel was learning the new tech along with Oracle. They were already extremely advanced AI so learning new technology and improving it was simple.

First thing they did was to modify and upgrade the power source and engines, it is the basic foundation of any ship. They made the XR2 Boglin Fields: S81/X-DFR fusion powered repulsor engines more efficient as well as increasing their capabilities.

Same with the Mark X Macedon/Z-PROTOTYPE #78720HDS Rev 2.1 slipspace drive and the shield generators were next.

After the engines along with the rest of the communications and sensors, Oracle had sent over a few tons of uru, vibranium along with a few other metals including a bit of Tenth metal to add to the Titanium-A3 battle plate that already covered the surface.

Surprisingly there wasn't any major damage to the ship besides some minor hull damage, using their matter manipulation ability both were able to blend the materials evenly across the outer hull strengthening the hull and adding magical properties thanks to the uru and tenth metal.

Energy weapon systems were added to reduce the use of missiles during small skirmishes, even though Infinity had manufacturing facilities to replace spent ammo it was always nice to have more options.

Getting the signal that the ship was clear of any life signs and that the ship would be ready within 72 hours Billy was surprised. They hadn't even left the Halo Universe and the ship would be fully upgraded and good to go.

'Damn this ship is such a BEAST, it must've crashed into the ring during the battle since its engines were off-line only and because they didn't have time to try to bring the engines back on, it would've crashed into the ring causing its destruction. The ring was the only thing in the area that could damage the Infinity.' Cyrus thought as he roamed the ship checking out all the facilities.

The ship was massive and could hold upwards to about 20k crewmen, it had parks and holodecks for recreation as well as theaters and gardens with food and animal life. It had multiple biospheres and even a zoo with many different wildlife from around the Halo Universe.

Billy was extremely surprised that all the Strident-class heavy frigates and Anlace-class light frigates as well as other aerial fighters and ground vehicles were still onboard, since all systems were shut down none of its complimentary fighter ships could deploy. The only things missing were most of the emergency escape pods and some drop pods that were used rather than the escape pods.

So he got to know his ship better and even made some changes here and there, mainly to the Commander quarters and bridge.

By the time he customized his room and bridge the ship was done with the upgrades and Billy wanted to cruise space, just not in Halo. He didn't want armies of Spartans coming after him.

'Master Chief has too much plot armor, he'd probably be able to kick my ass even with my high luck.' Cyrus thought, he wanted to test his new ship. After seeing they weren't even near any UNSC planet systems he powered up the updated engines.

Once they came online the whole ship brightened, and the holographic displays flickered from switching to primary systems.

During upgrades the ships main systems were all taken offline, the ship had been working solely on emergency systems. Now that the main systems were fully upgraded they began upgrading the emergency sysytems.

Immediately the amount of information available had multiplied by many times. Scanners were getting readings from vaster distances with much more accuracy.

"Alright, all systems are good and running appropriately. Infinity's new AI is running smoothly. Looks like it's time to take her for a spin. Start up primary engines and let's move up to half power." Cyrus ordered as he watched the ship following his commands.

Seeing everything running he increased them to full power and ran it for a while, after seeing everything working he brought the ship to a halt.

"Now time to power the Slipspace engines to see if everything works to expectation."

Once the engine came online an alarm sounded.

"Angel, talk to me." Billy quickly asked, he didn't see any problems internally with the system.

"No energy signatures around... but it looks like an energy fluctuation. Like there's something connecting to the Slipspace signature." As Billy was talking aloud to himself as he scanned thru the systems.

Then he noticed it, the subtle yellow/orange energy.

"What the hell is she doing?" Stress evident in his voice. He wasn't sure what the Ancient One did but it was messing with the Slipspace engines.

"Angel, can you tell me where we are about to jump?" Billy asked.

Infinity's AI answered "Current Slipspace coordinates show Earth."

"Oh, that's not that bad. Maybe bald heads aren't as bad as they seem." Billy said as he looked thru the display of data.

"Angel, that AI sounded a lot like Cortana. Please tell me she didn't copy herself onto my ship." Billy asked Angel hesitantly

"Negative: AI is not Cortana but was built by Oracle using Cortana as a base program due to it being an advanced AI already with a few programming errors which allowed it to be corrupted. All programming errors have been corrected and optimized." Angel replied back.

"Well that's a plus, last thing I need is my own ship going all Brainiac on me." Billy said as he released a sigh of relief.

Seeing that the ship was about to enter slipspace, Billy thought aloud.

"You know what, I've always lived by the motto 'Never trust a bald head' and it's served me well so far, so raise the shields just in case. She could be playing me for burning off her eyebrows, I mean I couldn't help it. They contrasted that shiny head so much, they practically called me saying 'get rid of me'." Billy retorted to no one in particular as he activated the shields as the familiar blue and white portal opened engulfing the ship.

Back on Earth within Kamar Taj, the Ancient One was sitting at her table drinking a cup of tea. She had been paying attention to what was happening on Earth while Billy went to another universe. What he didn't know was that each universe moved at different times. Some moved slower while others faster. The four days for him in Halo was equal to 12 years in Marvel.

In this time the Ancient One enjoyed peace and quiet, she had paid attention to the changes to the timeline caused by Billy.

First was both Howard and Maria Stark surviving the assassination attempt, he still lost the formula but was able to recreate it. However Hydra made another attempt on Howard's life which succeeded, they had sent in Brock Rumlow AKA Crossbones who was undercover in SHIELD so he was able to kill Howard while he was alone in his lab.

Tony still followed in his fathers footsteps but put more effort into running the company than before. He had a widowed mother to take care of after all. What changed in this timeline was Tony had not been as arrogant, his mother being around had grounded him much more. He had found out about Obadiah Stane as his selling under the table, which rather than getting kidnapped by the 10 Rings Obadiah had a local gang attack him which had put him in the hospital which still led to him getting an arch reactor to power the magnet keeping shrapnel from entering his heart. Him seeing his own weapons used locally made him shut down the weapons completely.

Other changes, there were more super soldiers out there, thanks to Howard surviving and remaking his formula, there were more super soldiers around. Although the formula made by Dr Abraham Erskine was better and gave more of a boost, Howard was able to get a stable formula and use his Vita-Ray technology to make a few agents close to Captain America.

By the time they had thawed out Steve Rogers there was a team of super soldiers.

The change to Bruce Banner was his Hulk was more like his comic book self rather than the Cinematic version. The madder he got the bigger and stronger he got. Like his Incredible Hulk version Eric Bana played. Hulk was big when he first transformed but as he got madder his size would grow along with his strength, even his skin would harden.

It was said many times by Wolverine in the comics, as his fight with Hulk went on it was harder and harder for his claws to cut Hulk.

The last biggest change was in the X-men, rather than work separately with SHIELD they worked with them. Charles Xavier had seen how Fury handled Billy, thus he felt it was important to work alongside SHIELD to not let that happen to young mutants. This partnership had also cut most of the Hydra secret mutant experimenting facilities to not be as prevalent as it would've been.

Thor was sent to Earth and met Jane Foster, Erik Selvig and Darcy in New Mexico. However rather than being able to get to his hammer, Phil Coulson and Clint Barton were able to defeat him since they both were super soldiers while he was a normal mortal. After Loki sent the Destroyer, Thor regained his hammer and returned home to stop the war.

The most recent change was why the Ancient One had used her dimensional magic to pull Billy back into the present. She saw him in the other universe but couldn't extend her magic to open a portal to force him to help in Thanos first invasion attempt. Rather than only send Loki he had also sent Ebony Maw, one of his Black Order as well. This was what the Avengers weren't prepared for. Just when she thought it was hopeless she felt the Slipspace engine power up, using her eldritch magic she was able to input the coordinates into the system to get him here.

Seeing Billy complaining and trying to figure out what happened bringing a smile on her face, until she heard him talk about her baldness.

Now that she knew the Avengers would be getting the needed help shortly she relaxed and went back to enjoying her tea.

She was curious about the ship she saw Billy on, it looked similar to the Ravagers main ship a bit but much larger.

On top of Stark Tower, Ebony Maw and Erik Selvig were setting up the Tesseract to open the portal for the Chitauri army to invade.

Loki holding his scepter watched as Tony Stark flew towards him with a smile. He had already taken out Earth's Mightiest Heroes once, he played them like a fiddle and got them to dance to his tune, he felt he could easily do it again.