Because the adults on Earth and in Asgard were all very busy, Helen had been living blissfully recently, joining the Guardians of the Galaxy and racing across the cosmos with Star Lord and his crew.
Right now, the Guardians of the Galaxy were still engaged in the delivery service business, serving as general-purpose mercenaries and taking various errand-running orders between major civilizations, occasionally duping interstellar pirates, leading a really lush life.
Of course, the main reason was that they had backing from above; aside from Asgard, Thanos was also a significant reason.
For the sake of his own daughter, he'd let some lucrative orders slip through his fingers and picked the Guardians of the Galaxy first. Whenever there were dangerous incidents, they were the first to flee, avoiding countless losses. How could life not be good?
After a series of rapid remedies from Adam, the Guardians of the Galaxy crew were pretty much all there. This time, not only Gamora was there, but Nebula was also pushed in by Thanos as a family connection. The sisters had a very bad relationship, quarreling whenever possible, with Star Lord mediating in between, and Rocket Raccoon saying he enjoyed the drama.
In addition to that, a new member had joined, and that was Pikachu. Peter had grown up and didn't have so much time to play games anymore, he found the laboratory boring, and with Shiller always missing, he got along well with Rocket Raccoon, so he simply joined the Guardians of the Galaxy.
When idle, Rocket Raccoon, Helen, and Pikachu would gather in the ship to play games, with Rocket Raccoon occasionally chasing after his past love interest, while Helen would go out to gnaw at the sun when free, enjoying a happy and beautiful life until Sif got pregnant.
The Queen of Gods being pregnant was a major joyful event, so of course, a banquet was to be held in Asgard, and the Guardians of the Galaxy were invited, all attending the banquet with great delight.
Only Helen had to endure being hugged by Frigga, then Sif, and then have her face pricked by the beards of Thor and Odin. Before the banquet, she even had to learn about Asgard's court etiquette, which almost drove her mad.
Frigga turned to Thor and repeatedly commanded him to keep an eye on Helen, insisting that he must not neglect the first child just because they had a second one. Thor wanted to say that she did exactly that to him when Loki came along, but he only dared say it in his mind, since back then he was as strong as an ox compared to Loki.
Sif also believed that she shouldn't neglect Helen just because she was pregnant. On the contrary, while still early in her pregnancy and not overwhelmed by issues, she wanted to teach Helen some self-defense skills, to prevent her from being bullied in the cosmos.
Frigga grabbed Helen to practice etiquette, while Sif trained Helen in swordsmanship. Helen almost cried when she talked about it, her! Doomsday! Practicing swordsmanship!
Nevertheless, both of them meant well, and Helen couldn't defy them. Thankfully, Asgard still had plenty of Lokis for her to play with, and a bunch of Demon Kings stirred trouble throughout the Nine Major Kingdoms.
Finally, when Odin became fed up and threw her out of the Nine Major Kingdoms, Pepper got pregnant.
She and Sif thought alike, feeling that once there were other children, it was a natural debt to the first child, which must be compensated for urgently. Then Helen was handed over to Pepper, who made her learn dancing and piano every day. Helen got so angry that she copied Aisha and chewed up several pianos before she was finally free from playing for hours on end.
Now Helen realized that Aisha was wiser. As long as I develop slowly, no one can force me to learn anything. Look how big Aisha is now, and she's still happily nibbling on children's slides every day!
Helen started to regret growing up so fast; originally, it was to quickly shed her kid image so she could play with adults. Now, it seemed better to remain a child who could throw tantrums at any time.
Knowing that throwing tantrums would be useless against others, Helen had no choice but to go to Shiller. After her routine of crying, making trouble, and pretending to hang herself, Shiller had to call Stark and let Helen stay with him for a few days, under the pretense of learning psychology.
But in reality, Helen didn't have to study psychology; when she ran into trouble, there was no need to probe other people's minds; all she had to do was invite them into her stomach.
Even so, Shiller still pretended and gave her a few textbooks to study by herself. As Helen studied, she ended up mingling with the students and ran off to play in the town.
Pamela and Loki returned quickly, clearly having handled things smoothly. It was the first time both of them had entered such an eerie, East-styled tomb, and while they were vividly describing the sights inside to Shiller, Helen burst in.
"What? What? What? Something fun without me? You went tomb raiding?!"
Loki quickly covered Helen's mouth and said, "Tomb raiding? That's rigorous scientific research."
Helen kept squawking there, and Shiller had to calm her down first, then he disclosed their plan to Helen. Her eyes widened as she said, "You're planting mushrooms on zombies? Isn't that a bit too advanced?"
"You speak as if you haven't done the same," Shiller retorted. "Can't you implant your Doomsday Spores into zombie bodies too?"
"Oh, right," Helen said. "But Doomsday Spores and fungal spores should be different, right?"
"First, tell us about the properties of Doomsday Spores," Pamela said. She didn't really know Helen, only that the little girl was powerful, and she knew nothing of her true nature, even though they should have been from the same place.
Helen counted on her fingers and said a few, but in essence, this substance is a kind of neurotoxin; besides being able to alter another person's appearance and control their mind, its most important function is to allow Helen to be resurrected from someone else's body when cornered.
As long as there is one Doomsday spore left, Doomsday will never truly die, which is the most powerful aspect of this ability.
After listening, Pamela said, "Fungi do not belong to the plant kingdom, something I think everyone knows as common knowledge, so it's a bit much for you to expect me to research mushrooms the same way I research cabbages."
"While I did study fungi during my course on botany, All Things Green doesn't have jurisdiction over these, so if you want to plant mushrooms on the bodies of these demons, it's best to get a fungi expert."
Speaking of a fungi expert, Shiller's first thought was of Fungi Man, the good friend and teammate of Speedball Robert.
Actually, Fungi Man himself was an obscure young hero who wouldn't have made it into official publications if not for Speedball's slight fame, and what people often raved about was that he had the typical mutant characteristic of carrying a Dragon-slaying Saber but only used it to cut vegetables.
Fungi Man's power was controlling all fungi, including bacteria and mushrooms; anyone with a bit of biology knowledge could imagine how powerful this ability was, but his performance in publications was like someone who had never attended school.
Since Shiller had been looking after Robert, he had interacted with Fungi Man a few times. He was a friendly chubby guy named Little Zachary Smith, who usually handled logistics for the New Warriors team.
As he claimed, his dad was a biologist who died in an explosion accident, and later on, he was taken in by Nightingale, the leader of the New Warriors Team, and was currently attending the young hero training class led by Matt.
However, Matt had recently gone home to accompany Erica, so the training class was on a break. After Shiller called Robert, he learned that Smith happened to be free.
To prevent the tragedy of altitude sickness from happening over and over again, Shiller asked Robert to bring Smith to the Stark Building to get a life-sustaining collar before they took the portal here.
Even with the collar for protection, Smith still lay down for a while to recover. When he found out that he was needed to grow mushrooms, Smith was very excited.
Pamela thought there would be some psychological barriers since they were growing mushrooms on humanoid bodies, but to their surprise, Smith stretched out his foot, revealing that his shoes were covered with red mushrooms with white spots.
Smith shrugged and said, "I do this often, it always gives the newcomers a good scare, but actually it's not difficult at all. I can transform fungi species; with just a bit of fungal solution, I can make mushrooms grow anywhere."
After speaking, he even demonstrated for everyone, pouring some solution onto his hand, and quickly a mat of mycelium formed and evolved into a mushroom colony, wrapping around to grow mushrooms.
"Actually, fungi are not so frightening. They can have a symbiotic relationship with humans. I even found a way to make mushrooms grow from people's lungs without significantly affecting their breathing, and even help them live well," Smith said. "Lately, I have been studying the relationship between symbionts and colonies, they are somewhat similar, aren't they?"
When Smith mentioned symbionts, Shiller raised an eyebrow, and Pamela immediately realized that Shiller had probably had his eyes on symbionts all along.
Chi You's body couldn't move on its own, using humans and machinery to move it would make too much noise, and with many people around, accidents are more likely to occur.
The best way was to make him walk out himself, but SWORD obviously wouldn't accept magic as a means of control, they had suffered too much previously and were still wary of well ropes a decade later.
The physical solution seemed safer, but if they had to use physical means and still keep it low-key, they basically had to resort to symbionts.
Shiller hadn't yet proposed this plan to Zhengxian, because such miraculous symbiotic organisms don't exist within China's borders. Although scientists have been studying them since their emergence, there has been practically no direct contact, so Shiller wasn't sure if SWORD would accept it.
The alternative was to use Doomsday spores, the bodies corrupted by the spores could be controlled by Helen, but SWORD and Helen didn't have much interaction, let alone research.
However, the good thing was that if they used symbionts, they would have S.H.I.E.L.D. backing them, and if they used Helen, then Asgard and Stark Group would vouch for her, either way was reliable.
Shiller believed that SWORD would lean towards Helen, because regardless of what her true form looked like, at least now she presented as a cute little girl. SWORD has always adhered to the principle that no matter what kind of demons and ghosts you are, as long as you are willing to live in human society with a human form and identity without causing trouble, then you are considered part of the human race.
This resolved the issue that had been plaguing the Great Emperor of China's demon race till this day. Honestly, some of the demon race didn't look any better than Doomsday.
Moreover, the combined strength of Asgard and Stark Group was indeed much stronger than S.H.I.E.L.D., and Helen was easier to communicate with than symbionts like Venom. At least her temperament was definitely better than theirs, making her seem more reliable.
Helen confidently thumped her chest, promising to handle the situation and assuring that she wouldn't let Chi You cause any trouble, with the main thing being Ying Long had agreed to keep watch on the side. In case Chi You really tried to do sit-ups, Ying Long would be there to press him back down.