'Inner dialogue/thoughts'
"Normal dialogue"
[System]
[Diary entries]
(word count: 1,164)
~ With Luke, in a rented apartment in Los Angeles ~
The day had been rather taxing on Luke. He had left New York just past midnight to head to Los Angeles, spending close to 7hours in transport in the plane. Upon landing, he had gone straight to his rented apartment to unpack, before spending a few hours to meditate further on his time in the simulation.
~ Flashback ~
As Luke settled onto the cushioned mat that he had laid on the floor, he let out a slow, calming breath. The room around him was dimly lit, casting soft shadows on the walls. With his breath steady and rhythmic, Luke closed his eyes, allowing the outside world to fade away.
In the quiet of the room, Luke's mind drifted back to the events in the simulation. With the focus of achieving balance and clarity, he felt himself sinking deeper into a state of peaceful serenity.
Images flashed through his mind like fragments of a dream – conversations, moments of joy, and challenges faced. Yet, with each passing thought, Luke acknowledged them without judgement, allowing them to drift away like leaves on a gentle stream.
A few hours later, Luke opened his eyes once more, feeling a renewed sense of calm. Releasing a sigh, Luke could only reflect on what he had learned about the simulation feature.
'While I retain the experiences and knowledge from the simulation, the effects do take a profound toll in the way it assimilates and merges into me. If I just leave it be, the line between fiction and reality will blur even further.
Meditating like this daily has helped to ease the assimilation. While still not perfect, I can at least suppress most of simulated experience, but still be able to call upon them when necessary.
However, there are some that are beneficial for me to not suppress, like the combat experience and training of being a SHIELD Agent and Avenger for over 10 years. Coming to this world, I had no skill to my name.
Gaining my water manipulation was good, but someone with superior skills and vast combat experience could still catch me off-guard. But now, I believe I should be skilled enough to take on both Clint and Natasha, and maybe even Captain America if he doesn't use his super strength and only his skills.
Speaking of Steve, it seems that I had stepped up to take the leadership role after he had retired. Couple this with my natural personality, it should make me an enticing prospect to recruit in the eyes of Fury when he sends someone to make contact with me.
But I can feel it. Deep within me, there is a hidden part of my simulation self, waiting to explode. It feels related to someone close to me. Is it Natasha? No. In the simulation, she was more of an older sister to me.
Though there is a possibility of it being her, I don't believe she'll be able to cause such a feeling within me.' Pondering on who the person could be, a name appeared in his thoughts.
'Wanda. It has to be her. The me from this simulated world had spent years living together and loving Wanda, going as far as getting married and having a child with her. But, losing her at the end must've caused extreme grief, sense of loss and rage to build up subconsciously.
If left alone, it could have affected my conscience without me knowing! Shit. I'll have to be careful in the future when I use this feature it seems. Don't want to have a sudden mental collapse where I'd have no idea what is real and what isn't.
For now, I need to spend more time to get this hidden feeling under control. Unless Wanda suddenly appears in front of me within the next few weeks, everything should be manageable.' Luke concluded, unknowingly raising red flags.
~ Flashback End ~
Finally able to get his much-needed rest, Luke recalled the events that took place earlier. First, it seemed that Fury had finally made his move, sending Natasha to make first contact with him.
Second, Luke was right. It wasn't Natasha who caused the hidden emotions as he was not too affected by seeing her. So, it was more likely to be Wanda.
Third, Natasha has officially been hired as a part-time barista. So, for however long she is here, she is either here to monitor and evaluate me to determine if they should establish some form of connection with me as their counterpart did in the simulated world, or she is here to assist in monitoring Tony Stark as well.
Scratch that, it is definitely not the latter, and from what Pepper said earlier, Tony should be in the desert now showing 'The Jericho' before getting kidnapped.
And lastly, the simulation feature, while it has its limitation, was truly a god send for Luke. Luke had observed that Natasha had been discreetly analysing him and evaluating him throughout their interactions. However, he felt confident that she would not be able to find anything out of place.
In fact, checking both Natasha and Fury's trust rating, sitting at 62% and 59% respectively, it seemed that both of them had only increased their perception of trust and belief in the diary.
'Natasha must've already reported their encounter with Fury. There's no other way I could tell that would increase Fury's rating too.' Luke rationalized.
Thinking about how he could further make use of the encounter to increase their trust rating even more, Luke spent a moment to come up with ideas before starting on his third entry.
~ With Fury ~
After listening to the report from Natasha, Fury took out the file he had made which included all the names from the diary. He had conclusively scratched Laura's name from the special list, while underlining Natasha's name.
'It would appear that I would have to take extra precautions in the mission that she would undertake. Losing someone of her calibre would only be detrimental in my plans to figure out what's wrong with SHIELD.'
Reading the list, there were still some names that he could not put a face to, such as Thor, Mad Titan or Steve, but in time, he would get his answers.
Feeling frustrated at having knowledge of many things, yet not knowing the answers to the questions that arose from these knowledge, Fury had been tempted more than once to just kidnap Luke and get the answers personally.
However, it was only a humorous thought. Fury would not risk the potential in Luke, and currently Luke was too big of a question mark to make any big moves against. Sending Natasha was already pushing it in Fury's mind, and he would not risk anything further for the time being.
Unaware that Luke had begun writing his third entry, Fury resumed reading the report on Tony Stark.
- End of Chapter 14 -