The Sage of the Mind

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP. 

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 127[May 2012]

Manhattan [Inside Axle's Mind]

–Axle Riddle [Ặ̸̧̨͈̙̳͈̐̅̎̂͝͝w̴̡̬̹̣̭͖̥̞̞͉̮̙̬̎́̏̃̇̓̐͒̓̄̂͑̚͘͝͠ä̵͚̼̟̜͕̯̖̥̲͍͙́͗̿̈́́͗͜k̷̢̞̬̱͎̳͍̞̱̜͕̠̺̱̲͆̑̍͋ë̵̪̱̩̩̣̩̬͚̲̺̥̤͎̻̝̙͚̊̆̎͐̌͑̚͝͝͝͝n̶̢̧̢̜͙̜̖͕̭̟̦̝͎̭̻̔̈͜ę̵̡̨̮̫̬̫͎͔̥̹̅̈́̄̃͂̅͑̓̒̍̐͝ḑ̴̟̟͕̙̼͔͎̠̬̭̃̇͆̏̀̆̈́̍̽͋̕]–

Huh. So this is what it felt like to have the Sage Force, the complete Sage Force, Axle thought to himself as he floated in what felt like space but he couldn't really confirm anything. All he knew was that his entire memory base was being scanned, optimised, and torn down once again, for new defenses to take their place.

He could feel the Sage Force, he could feel its connection to his body, a body that was becoming increasingly feeble compared to the mind it was housing.

Despite the significant boost that the Sage Force gave to its bearers to allow their bodies to continue functioning despite housing a vastly more powerful mind, his body was not up to par, certainly not with the mind he currently had.

He sighed in resignation. Once again, he would be shackled, only this time he would have to do it of his own volition. He couldn't feel anything beyond his body but he knew that he was currently on a cold hard surface, with the smell of the hospital wafting through. Combined with the periodical beeping of the equipment around him, he knew that he was in some sort of hospital.

Which could be both good or bad, depending on where he was. The New York Invasion meant that hospitals would be overburdened with patients and that could affect the ICU ward that he was undoubtedly in, because he was certainly declared comatose on top of that building.

There was also a very real threat to his identity being discovered and him being kidnapped but judging by the lack of sedatives in his bloodstream and chains on his body, he knew that he was not in hostile company.

Regardless, that limited his options vastly. He knew that New York was under attack because why else would the curtain break and embed itself in his body? A fact that he was still getting used to because as it turned out, that curtain, that thing that was keeping him locked down in Manhattan and was stopping his powers from working properly outside a certain range, that curtain was what was left of his connection to the Sage Force.

It was just sitting there, encapsulating him, slowly gathering energy, from the universe, from his broken connection, and from everywhere it could, all so that by the time came, that entire energy could be dumped straight into him, turning him from an incomplete Sage Force avatar into a complete one.

Somewhere along the way, something was lost in translation, he had a feeling because he was not just going from an incomplete avatar to a complete one. He was going from an incomplete Sage Force Avatar into a fully realised Avatar. The difference between both of them was so immense that his body was buckling under the pressure of housing his mind.

Already, he could feel his hard earned muscles atrophying because the body was rerouting precious energy to the brain which was also struggling to hold onto the sheer weight of his power. This could not go on, he could tell. In this struggle, only he would be the loser but despite having all this power, he couldn't exactly control any of it.

It was all a raging ocean with multiple massive earthquakes going off under the ocean at all times, and he was trying to jostle that energy back into something that resembled calm. He was trying since what seemed like forever but the ocean refused to budge and why would it?

He was just a tiny speck in comparison. It was just flowing through him, nourishing his soul, mind and body as well but the body aspect was just not happening as fast as it should because of some reason.

His mind was fine somehow but as far as he knew, it was only because his mind had already been prepared. It was as if someone had left behind a set of instructions and had already stretched his mind, for a lack of a better term, beforehand, so that it would have no problems adjusting to the very real power that coursed through his mind.

He sighed and was about to try again when a light bulb appeared above him. No, an actual light bulb did appear because it was his soul scape and anything he wished could be manifested. He looked at the odd bulb for a moment before it smoked out like a cartoon, dropping a scroll on his head.

He fumbled to grab it lest it fall into the endless void he was falling into and be lost to him. He also looked up to see that the smoke from the bulb had formed the word "EUREKA" right above him, before that too dissipated slowly.

He shook his head and unfurled the scroll. 

"Hello Dumbass, although since you are me, I guess we are both dumbasses. Do you have ANY idea how embarrassing it was to see you bumbling around? You are literal cosmic power given form and I had to hear you whining about not having telepathy. GROW UP!

He leaned back as the HELLO DUMBASS resounded in his very being and then his eyes widened as he read more and more of the scroll…..

__xx__

Utah

–Randall–

"Thor, how close can you get to the machine?" He asked Thor, coordinating the missile strikes so that there would be a lull in the invading forces, allowing THor some time to do what he thought could end this battle.

"Very. I can reach the machine with ease, these lizards are no match for the Mighty Mjolnir," Thor did the perfect rendition of an overexcited Viking as he raised his hammer to the sky, with the rest of the military personel ducking around him as lighting thundered in the sky.

"Okay, alright. Great, what I want you to do Thor is to try and get past the barriers with your hands," He slowly asked THor of what he was sure was going to sound outrageous but he had a hunch that they were going about this whole thing in the wrong manner.

The Tesseract was an object of unexplainable origins and unexplainable properties. Something that could literally not be explained and anyone who touched it found themselves dying or with their hands melted due to the sheer energy output of the damned thing.

Maybe, just maybe, the Tesseract was not supposed to be just part of a machine that could open portals.

That maybe it was something that could also be used by a person. More specifically, someone who could handle holding onto the Tesseract long enough to actually wield it as a weapon. Someone strong enough to resist the effects and not end up with melted hands or as just ash.

He had a theory that Loki did the same but his hands were reddened and injured because he was probably trying to do the entire thing manually, which made sense because the portal was not stationary, in a single place like it is now. No, it was moving, dumping Chitauri in places before moving on to the next population centre.

That had to require some finessing because the Tessertact, strapped to a machine could not possible do all of that, or maybe it could, and he was wrong and they were all doomed to fight them until the Invisible Man came along, and held the portal open and clear for long enough for them to dump Earth's entire nuclear payload into the damned portal as humanity's last "Fuck you"

He took a deep breath, coming out of his morbid thoughts as he looked at Thor who had gone utterly still at his words. Before he could say something and defend his hypothesis, thunder rumbled as Thor hugged him, lifting him off the ground in doing so.

He could only take it, as Thor said, "Yes! That is perfect. How could I forget? When the Bifrost was not being used, my Father used the Tesseract with his bare hands to devastating effects."

His eyes widened as hope surged within his heart. Thor's next words dimmed it a bit… "Although I am not as proficient as my father in the arts of Seidr, it was always Loki's expertise, I can try to stop the portal. It should be easy enough, Loki could do it,"

What the hell, despite that hope dimming, at least that there was some hope now. They weren't just waiting for their Lord and Savior to come and save them, sitting around like ducks.

Now, all that was left was, "Clark!" He beckoned the junior most analyst that was assigned to them as a clear snub because the military did not like clearly enhanced people running their operation. He'd heard more than one general mutter "freaks" whenever the Generals were in sight.

Clark scrambled over, his tablet held tightly, "Yes, sir?"

"Get me a status update on the Mole invasion of Manhattan. Hulk should be arriving shortly along with two of my brothers, so the urban areas should be secured soon enough. Also, relay these missile patterns to the High Command. I want these precise paths followed by the missiles in an hour or so. Tell them it is non negotiable, or I will have to call the President,"

Clark clearly went pale at that, having to face the daunting task of convincing his clearly biased superiors or risk having the President called on them, who everyone knew was favouring the team of supers who were risking their lives for free.

"Go!"

"Yes sir!" Clark saluted and ran away with shaky legs. God, how did that man ever get into the upper echelons of the analysts in the army was a mystery to him.

If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.