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The Ancient Kree City, Pietro Rico[May 2015]
–Jack Sullivan–
He carefully covered the severely injured Daisy Johnson with his barriers, making sure that her injuries were not exacerbated because of any undue movement. He took one look at the vine, and leaned back as the vines had now assumed a vaguely human shape with two eyes and a mouth with far too many sharp teeth for it to be purely human.
Yet, he understood what had happened. Both of these people had somehow undergone the Terrigenesis process and had come out Inhuman. Now, whereas Daisy got some powers related to VIbrations, as she did in canon, this person, unfortunately, got the short end of the stick.
Physical disfigurement was a common side effect of undergoing the whole terrigenesis process, as far as his knowledge went. While Daisy did get her powers, she too suffered from micro injuries if she went too far with her powers, but this person…
He was not sure if this whole sentient mass of vines could ever turn back into anything resembling a normal human, a sad fate in the current society, where even a darker shade of skin could have them discriminated against, let alone a total makeover of their overall body structure.
He kept a CHI stone, something that stored CHI over long periods of time, on top of the barrier that surrounded Daisy. That CHI was evenly distributed across her body, stabilising her and making sure that she did not die by the time she received medical attention.
He could feel the entire city come alive once again, as it seemed to get some sort of signal about the whole turning normal humans into Inhumans process. He could also feel a weak pounding on his mental shields but they were just as strong as his barriers, meaning, near impenetrable, unless the attacker was using one of the Infinity Stones, Cosmic Energy, Chaos Energy, or something at the same level of energy quality.
Now, one would think that it was a pretty short list and the universe was such a large place that encountering even one of those energies would have been all but impossible but in the short span he had been in this world, he had already encountered Chaos Energy, Mind Stone, and Cosmic Energy if the primed C fluid that was pumped into him by the Collector could be counted.
He turned around from the now knocked out vine person, at the rapidly approaching team of Agents of SHIELD. "Just on time, Coulson," He quipped as Coulson took one look at the bloody form of Daisy and then all but teleported to her side.
Must care for her a lot then. Coulson took a look at the glowing yellow crystal on top of the barrier that surrounded Daisy, periodic yellow waves appearing on the barriers, suffusing Daisy's body with life giving CHI.
"Help her!"
"Jesus, she's lost too much blood."
"Portals! You can create portals. Make one to the nearest SHIELD base, right now!"
He raised his eyebrow at the now flushing Fitz who had just now shouted right in his face, ordering him to make a portal to their SHIELD base.
"What Fitz meant to say is that Daisy could die if she is not given immediate medical attention." Coulson calmly explained to him, as if he was some sort of time bomb who would explode and take Fitz with him, just because he lost his control in the heat of things.
He quirked an eyebrow in amusement as the tension ramped up in the atmosphere.
"Oh, you should see the look on your face. Don't worry, I will make the portal, I just don't know where to make the portal to. I need to see a picture of the place. Also, she is not in any danger of dying. That stone will make sure that she is alive until she gains medical attention." He pointed at the CHI stone that had lost the sharpness it held at the tip of the stone, the CHI stored inside being used up, bit by bit, to fuel Daisy's battered body.
"Ah, h-here!" Fitz tried to show him something on his tablet, only for him to be reminded that no technology of any sort worked inside the city, even nothing made by Tony as well. It goes to show just how advanced the Kree were.
Hopefully, Toiny knew his last recorded location and arrived at the location with all the technological cavalry they might need, given the scientific significance of such an exotic find.
"..Please, this way." He gestured to the portal that opened up behind them, and floated the knocked out vine lady and Daisy and floated them out of the portal, his keen senses allowing him to pick up on the subtle sounds the city was making, along with what sounded like human grunts as footsteps rapidly began making their way straight towards them.
Interesting.
He mentally noted to clear out the entire city before it could be exposed to any humans before closing down the portal, looking at the sun above them, as they had landed on one of the many uninhabited Caribbean islands.
"Here!" It took a moment for the tablet to boot up and get a connection.
"Alright, one express ambulance, coming right up," He swirled his hands in an exaggerated motion as a portal opened up in front of them, leading to an empty lab that immediately began beeping red, presumably because of the portal.
"Oh? Good, the system works." He heard Fitz mutter to himself as both of the patients were floated inside and summarily deposited on top of the stretchers that were taken out of a storage closet nearby.
"This will help." He gestured to the CHI stone, even as he dispelled his barriers, allowing the CHI stone to fall directly on top of her chest.
"Don't remove that stone unless she is completely stable. Also, don't try and experiment on the stone. It is a renewable resource but also withers down after one use. Make of that what you will," After sufficiently warning the mad scientist duo, he turned around to the still armed and waiting members remaining in front of the portal.
"You do realise that I can just leave by myself, right? Which I should do, considering the city can actually mind control people. The only reason your asses still have their minds is because I have been shielding your minds from the city." He warned them but aside from some minute shrugging from Melinda May, nobody budged from their position.
He shrugged. Alright, that was fine.
He dispelled the portal behind them and created one that led back to the area right above the base. Creating a small floating platform, he had the team members stand on them, after securing Mac on a small table with restraints obviously.
"So? What's the game plan, Coulson? You are the Director, obviously." He asked Coulson as they looked at the smoke in the distance with the unmistakable legion of Iron Bots, designed specifically for disaster rescue operations.
"The original plan was to put charges on every entrance, along with every load bearing wall we could find, and bury the damn thing but now…" Coulson trailed off as he looked at Jack meaningfully.
The meaning was clear. It was now upto him what to do with the city, and he was still not sure about that.
On one hand, tremendous scientific potential. But on the other hand, it was mostly biology related stuff, some mind control and remote human enhancement stuff. All of the three would not be in good hands if they managed to land in the hands of the leaders of the current world.
They were mildly racist at the best of times.
"Hmm. I think that I'll allow Tony to take something that can be useful and then throw the city into the sun. That much should be enough to get rid of the problem, even if the city could somehow sustain the heat of the sun." He nodded at his own, almost foolproof plan.
Everybody present looked at him as if he had grown another head.
"Thank god Fitz was not here. He might just have asked you to take him along to the Sun." May commented as she relaxed and sat down on the chairs that had appeared behind them.
"Hmm, not as comfortable as I had hoped." She commented to herself but he picked that up.
As if creating soft tissue from hard barriers was easy.
"Very well. Also, we have credible intel about HYDRA gunning for the city as well. We believe some of their operatives have already slipped inside before we reached." Coulson reminded him as they floated down to the land after he confirmed the situation in the nearby cities.
"Oh, so that's what he was hearing."
"What?" Coulson asked him, that small calm smile still plastered on his face.
"Yeah, I heard a couple of noises when we were leaving. There was also a small, subtle mind influence that was happening inside the temple."
"That would explain Mac," May muttered, and he just nodded along as they reached the ground and just.., didn't stop.
The barriers kept digging as they once again, crashed into the Kree temple city of sorts. It had a temple but it was also very huge, so it could be a city as well, especially since he knew that Kree were not that much bigger than the biggest humans around.
They were somewhere around 7-8 feet, at their longest and humans had some people who reached 7 feet, who were still alive somewhere.
"Alright, stay inside the barriers, don't touch anything. Just follow my lead," He said and then paused as he realised the folly of his words. Shaking his head, he waved his hand in a wide arc around them, dispelling the barrier and turning the barriers into skin tight suits that everyone wore.
"See if you can find the HYDRA agents. If you do, just come back, the barriers will stop everything they can throw at you." He reassured everyone and then floated straight into the temple.
He was curious about something here.
As far as his knowledge went, he had latent Inhuman genes as well. Well, latent might be wrong since, for all he knew, his barrier powers might just be his Inhuman powers, considering that liquified Terrigenesis crystals were also part of the cocktail that was pumped inside of him by that madman.
Ofcourse, he had eradicated that entire branch of HYDRA in return but that didn't mean that he would stop at them. The HIVE part of HYDRA had to go as well, considering that the alien didn't belong on Earth anyway.
Something that could control Inhumans simply by virtue of being the first Inhuman and then also inhabit them meant that there was a slight possibility that he himself could also be controlled by the parasite, a truly nightmare level scenario that the Earth probably wouldn't survive, if the parasitic villain did things the smart way and not the same idiotic way that ever villain did.
So, when he reached the part of the temple where he had reduced both the Inhumans, he found the door entirely closed up, with a very smooth wall. Some sort of identification mechanism, then?
His barriers could not find any entry or exit point in the room he was looking at, with no way to unlock it either.
As far as he could remember from the TV Shows, which was admittedly not much, the temple opened its doors for any INhuman on its own, without any external authentication method like blood or tissue or anything like that.
He looked at himself and slowly, hesitantly, retracted the layer of subdermal barrier he always had activated and grinned in triumph as he saw the door move slightly. He could also feel the constant pounding on his head lessen.
But that was all, it did not stop. The door did not completely open.
Maybe he had to bear himself to the temple for the temple to completely acknowledge him?
He took the risk and just let the entire barrier go, save for his heart and brain, everything else could be healed, given enough time, CHI, and willpower.
He smiled as the door opened up without a sound and the mental attacks ceased completely.
So, it had some way of scanning the DNA of a human without ever coming into contact. Also, it needed the entire body to be scanned before it granted complete access.
Currently, he had barriers blocking all three of the entrances he could find to the temple, just in case Tony had the bright idea of charging right in with his suit. The man would not be able to resist the mental effects and succumb to become a guardian of the city.
That….would be a nightmare to explain.
Also, at the same time, he could hear the grunts as well as the sounds of people running all around the temple city. They probably found the city's sentries then.
Well, not much of his concern at the moment, considering that all of them were covered in his barriers and he would know if any one of his barriers was damaged in any way, so all of the members of Coulson's team should be more than fine at the moment.
He was more interested in the small chamber that was now accessible to him.
Time to see if his Inhuman heritage could help him in some way here.
If he could somehow get ownership of the city or of the software that was running things here….
Word Count - 2314
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