Chapter 13 : Bulletproof! (Well Kinda) (Patreon)

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The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 13

New York Sanctum Sanctorum [3rd February, 2007] 

–Ancient One–

Hmm, this is a very peculiar situation, she thought to herself as she examined young Axle as he lay on his table, snoring peacefully until suddenly, his entire body started giving off blue fumes that seemed harmless as they dissipated into the atmosphere.

As for how harmful they truly were. One would know by her reaction as she had leaned far away from the toxic blue fumes that Axle’s body was intermittently emitting, at random intervals. Somehow, Axle had overused his powers, and that had caused some sort of reaction in his body that resulted in him falling unconscious and then his body emitting such toxic blue fumes.

The blue fumes were not exactly fumes, more like energy in a mist form that naturally dissipated into the Astral Realm. The fumes were consolidated psionic energy that became so dense that it manifested into the real world before returning back to its natural form as part of the Astral Realm. The energy of the Astral Realm was inherently poisoning to the physical energy and as such, it was incredibly concerning that such energy was coming from Axle’s body.

From what she had been able to gather, Axle had intervened in an armed robbery that looked more like a military assault, and after presumably overusing his powers, found himself falling unconscious inside the New York Sanctum.

Wong was the one who found him and was currently healing as well as he was the first to suffer from exposure to the strange blue energy that Axle just burped out once more.

Her diagnostic spells were throwing out error after error, telling her contradicting information every single time she dispelled one and cast another one. She had no idea what was happening but the good news was that the amount of pure liquified Astral energy being emitted by Axle was reducing in quantity.

First, his entire body gave off that energy and now, he was only burping out small quantities. Soon, she hoped, that he would have stopped burping the energy and returned to consciousness.

She had some idea as to what was happening to him but no concrete conclusion could be given unless he woke up and she could scan him properly without all the psionic energy disrupting all her spells.

The thing was that she could have very easily disrupted the flow of psionic energy inside his body but considering what Axle’s powers were, she exercised caution and did not disturb that flow of energy. His powers were so intrinsically tied to his mind and soul that disturbing it at this crucial stage would be akin to killing or severely hurting him.

Finding the person for whom such tremendous arrangements had been made was a stroke of luck, or rather, a stroke of luck that one of her future selves had in her timeline and that event was so significant that her future self chose to, despite all the risks associated with it, send that message back in time to her, jolting her out of her meditation. 

Never in a hundred years, she had thought that someone had expended that much energy to constrain someone who was not even strong enough to defeat her. Then, it came to her. She realised the wellspring of power and potential he held within.

Somehow, this boy, in front of her, was holding together the psionic consciousness of something that was akin to an entire multiverse for her. She did not know how but she knew that the person in front of her would be the eventual lynchpin that would either make or break the universe as they knew it.

Still, it was good that they found each other when he was still in the budding stages of his power. This way, she could make sure that he did not develop untoward tendencies and abuse his powers. It also helped him because he did not have to bumble his way around his powers anymore. 

Kamar Taj may have been primarily a sorcery-oriented organisation but that did not mean they did not have data on people wielding psionic energy like it was just another limb for them. Her predecessors had gotten into a lot of trouble with species from alternate dimensions and had religiously written everything down, for the perusal of any future Sorcerer Supremes.

She had gone through them and she could count no less than 6 species who wielded psionic energy to devastating effect, just like Axle did. The only difference was that their energy was finite, limited. She had encountered one of their emissaries when he had come to Kamar Taj to renew the agreement with the current Sorcerer Supreme about the non-interference pact and she found them…lacking. Compared to Axle, whose mind felt like the sun, especially if she was observing him from the Astral Realm, the Onephemian emissary felt akin to a light bulb, even though both of them were roughly on the same level, as of now.

She was sure that once Axle woke up from whatever was happening to him, he would be vastly stronger than he was before. His body did not show any negative signs and his mind, when observed from the Astral Realm, was a whirlwind of activity so dense it made her dizzy to even look at him.

“Ugh…” Her gaze snapped to Axle as he burped out some more of that toxic energy and groaned, signalling his return to consciousness.

She hurriedly cast another plethora of diagnostic spells and sighed in relief once she found that his body was not damaged in any way. She also paused as she found his body to be particularly hardy, almost as tough as a normal Asgardian foot soldier, which was a lot when compared to regular humans.

She knew his powers had a physical enhancement component to them but she had expected it to be a minor one, not this. Now, with his body alone, he was capable of taking down a small squad of soldiers, he would just need the training for it.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr.Riddle. For a moment there, I thought that you would return to the Astral Realm,” She said as she sat on her favourite chair and sipped on a cup of freshly brewed tea that she kept in stasis.

“...Ugh, what hit me? No loud sounds please,” Axle said as he sat upright and began rubbing his forehead, probably trying to stave off a headache.

“Here, water,” She offered.

“Ugh, once again, too loud,” Axle said but he took the glass of water and guzzled it down. In doing so, she saw the underside of his wrist, where some sort of mark was branded. It was only visible for a moment before it flashed blue and orange, then it disappeared. 

Hmm, something to check out later on. The curtain outside Manhattan also consisted of the exact same shade of orange so maybe it had something to do with that?

__________xx_____

“What is going on? What happened to me?” Axle said after he had finally gathered his bearings.

One thing after another had left him very disoriented. He had first fought off HYDRA’s goons and then found himself bleeding from his nose, which was only supposed to happen when he had overextended his powers and he had not done anything of the sort when he had used them but somehow, he found his body weakening by the second.

It was a good thing the Sanctum was right around the corner from the cafe so he luckily managed to hobble his way in but then, he found himself unconscious and facing Wong who woke him up.

But then, he fell unconscious once again and woke up in front of Ancient One with a killer headache and an aching body.

“I am not sure exactly but it seems to be a byproduct of a natural evolution process of your powers. Congratulations, you now have the same physical abilities of a normal Asgardian.”

What? His gaze snapped to her and seeing that she was not kidding, back to his hands as he clenched them. He did not feel any different, aside from his vision being sharper and his senses being way too enhanced for his current state but nothing that would indicate him becoming bulletproof.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

But before that, he turned his senses outwards and gasped in astonishment as he found his effective range being more than double of what it was.

At this rate, he would soon be able to cover the entirety of Manhattan, much sooner than expected. He tried to gauge his powers using a method that the Ancient One had devised for him. There was a relic in the Sanctum that had the only function of measuring the lifting strength of someone. In this case, him. It could only measure it in relativistic terms and as such, when he lifted it with all his strength, first off, a spike of pain ran through his head and secondly, the relic lit up with the number 2.

Which meant that he had effectively doubled his capacity with his powers. That would mean that he was finally ready now.

“I assume you would want more free time in your schedule now?” The Ancient One asked him and he gave her the most hopeful look at that. His hopes were shattered when she leveled a flat look at him and said,

“Denied. If anything, your training will now include hand-to-hand combat as well…with me,”

Oh god, anything but that. She was a slave driver on a whole other level. But it made sense because she was probably the only one in the Order who would have fought an Asgardian and lived to tell the tale.

“Fiiineee,” He groaned as he laid down on his bed again.

“Rest for the day. We’ll begin your training tomorrow,” She said and left the room, the smell of tea still prevalent in the room.

That was relaxing at first but now that he had been smelling the same thing for over a month, he was over it.

He carefully spread out his awareness and tried to find out if Sitwell was still in the city but nope, he could not find any trace of him or his goons. Apparently, they were not in any of the police stations nearby so maybe they had been transferred or something.

Either way, he had to take this more seriously now. HYDRA was looking for him and well, he was glad to find an opponent on whom he could go all out.

After all, Nazis were not deserving of mercy, not in this world and not in his previous world.