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The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 8
Axle's Apartment, [2nd November, 2006]
–Axle Riddle–
"Ha, so exhausting," He muttered to himself as he lay on the couch in a lackadaisical manner. Figuring out a way to communicate over long distances was very hard. The problem was getting messages from the other side. He could very easily send messages from his side by taking in rocks or pieces of something nearby, crushing them, and then rearranging them to form letters that form sentences. He could sense many things down to very minute details with his powers and through that, he could also sense the way people's mouths moved but he could not get any idea of what they were saying. It was not as if he knew lip reading and even if he did, doing that with his eyes and doing so with his powers were two different things. It was not as if he could get a course somewhere where he could find lip reading techniques for the extra sensory perception people.
So, there he was, having spent the weekend roaming around Manhattan and then spending it in his apartment at night. He had not made much progress in the communication area and his regular surveillance over that chimney also revealed that nobody had come looking for that badge so, probably, it was fine and there was no tracking spell on it. Still, he did not want to risk it in any way so he had refrained from going there. His main motive for using that badge was fulfilled anyhow. He had taken the metro one day and roamed the entirety of Manhattan and found that no less than 100 spirits were active the day after Halloween. None of them were doing anything harmful though so he let them be.
From his apartment's sensing range, he had found almost six spirits with the same ghost-like constitution but they also did not do much in the night, other than roaming around and scaring off some people so he did not feel like intervening in that.
Also, by the time 2nd November rolled around, all of those 100 spirits had disappeared, as if their time on earth had come to an end. It was weird and he would have loved to ask the people knowledgeable about the phenomenon but unfortunately, that territory was kinda out of his safe zone for the moment. He would try again once the New York Sanctum was in his awareness range but he had a feeling that they have some sort of protection against that sort of vision as well.
The real highlight of his weekend came in the evening yesterday as he was just drinking some coffee and reading the magazines that had been delivered to his door like a regular person was expected to in this time period. He did have a phone and wifi in his apartment with a crappy second-hand laptop he got for cheap but he could not use it for anything more than entertainment since he was sure that this world had more levels of surveillance than his old world ever did. Just searching for Black Widow or SHIELD would put him on some sort of international spy watch list that would not end well, both for him and them since he would, well, kick their asses and he would have to go into hiding. It also complicated things that his range would be just Manhattan. He could see them, the huge curtain that surrounded the entirety of Manhattan. The good thing was that it was much higher than he had expected so he could probably go hundreds of meters in the sky before he would touch the curtains but he did not want to know what would happen if he touched those. Maybe just a shock? Or just a feeling of hitting a wall? OR he could just die by touching those curtains. He did not know and finding out scared him so much that he never even went near the borders.
Oh yeah, there were those two vampires he had found hurting someone, just two blocks from his place. He had not flagged them before because they were just talking, all three of them when, suddenly, two of them began fighting each other while both of them stopped the third one from leaving. Due to the peculiarity of the situation, he had looked more into them and to his surprise, found out their fangs, their advanced biology, and the slow flow of their blood along with the reduced beating of their heart. Even then, he had not taken any action because all of them were alive and he did want to see if anything could come of the situation but unfortunately, one of those vampires was weaker than the other and was soon subdued by the stronger one by inserting some sort of stake into the weaker vampire.
The effects were near instantaneous as he could sense the heart no longer beating in that vampire but she had a sense that he was not dead because, according to what he knew about Marvel vampires, they were supposed to turn to dust immediately. The stronger vampire then began advancing on the woman who was a human, he had checked beforehand. Her heart rate, trembling body, and the smile on the Vampire's face as his fangs came out told him only one story and he would not let it play out the way the vampire wanted it to.
So, he took hold of the entire alley. Oh yeah, he had figured out how to flood his powers in an area, allowing him to create a small domain where he could focus his powers and do things that would otherwise require more effort. The effect was immediately visible as he could now sense everything in that alley and that also included the way people's mouths moved but he was still unable to read lips so that was a bust.
However, the situation was fairly simple for him to read. Two vampires, arrived with a girl in tow, most probably manipulated her into doing that, vampires do have that ability, then they fought over who gets to drink her blood, The stronger one won and was now about to cash in his meal voucher in the form of a clearly terrified human.
That seemed to be the gist of it and thus, he enveloped the stronger vampire in a fist, well, an imaginary one, and squeezed. The vampire started screaming immediately but that too was cut short because the vampire kind of just….exploded.
Yeah, as it turned out, he miscalculated the strength he would need for that and just made a vampire paste in that alley. Some of it landed on that girl but she was too unconscious to care about that. The weaker vampire was immobile so he carefully removed the stake and had to catch the vampire because he immediately started making a run for it. He was babbling something but to him, it was just white noise so he ignored that and gave him the same past treatment but after a few moments, he was amazed to see that all the remains of the vampire, even the blood on that girl's face, disappeared into thin air. So, that was true then. Vampires, upon death, do disintegrate. Good to know.
He saw that the girl did not have a phone on her to call 911 so he just found the nearest police officer and then immediately lifted him up in the air.
"AAAAA!" Was what he imagined the police officer to be screaming as he was brought back two blocks by floating and then promptly dropped at the entrance of the alley. The screaming had stopped since but he just looked around and did not enter the alley so he had to give him a small nudge in the back. The effect was….not what he was expecting. The officer just turned around and shot two bullets in thin air. He had to take hold of those bullets lest they hurt some bystander.
The officer took one look at the two crushed bullets floating in thin air, his eyes rolling back in his sockets as he promptly keeled over.
He too rolled his eyes back in his apartment and searched for another police officer who could help two victims now. Hopefully, this one turns out to be competent and not trigger-happy like the last one. However, in his defense, he was seemingly targeted by the vengeful spirit that lives in that area.
In the meantime, he floated over a couple of croissants he had from the kitchen to go with the coffee. No way he was going to leave his cozy spot for something that was someone else's job. In the first place, wasn't it Kamar Taj's responsibility to regulate the vampires or something? Maybe he was wrong or maybe they could not find those two. In any case, he was doing their job and they should thank him for that.
Now, if only he could find a competent police officer who would do his job.
____xx___
Meanwhile, at SHIELD NYC HQ
–Random Analyst–
"Are you sure, Random Analyst 1?"
"Yes sir, Random Senior Analyst 1. I have multiple recorded incidents of a strange force acting in that 5-mile radius. We have recorded multiple testimonies and it would seem that so far, the force had acted only to save people. I think this is a level 5 Enhanced at the very least, judging by the weights lifted. Lifting a two-tonne car hundreds of feet in the air means they have some serious firepower behind them, Random Senior Analyst, sir,"
"Hmm, I'll fire this up the chain. Good work, Random Analyst 1,"
"Thank you, sir!"
"Dismissed,"
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