Chapter 28 : The start of a beautiful friendship & I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS! (Patreon)

Disclaimer - I don’t own Marvel/Disney IP. I am just a humble keyboard warrior. Also, the Chaos Gacha was made by Bronz here. I am just dipping my toe in the water, so to speak.

Antarctica

–Mike–

He was in the middle of making himself some tea, to enjoy the beautiful views all around him, and since he wanted to do nothing for a little bit before he actively threw himself into training or grinding or overthinking or brooding, he decided to make tea, scrambled eggs, and French Toast for himself.

Sure, it did not really go together well, but he was beyond caring for such things. He was hungry, his new body demanding fuel beyond anything a normal human could ever need, which is why it was taking so much time.

When he became a Thunderbird hybrid, there was a noticeable uptick in hunger, but the difference was nowhere near what it is now. Now, he needed over a dozen boiled eggs, smashed into his face, before he could finally feel his stomach stop eating itself.

Even then, his hunger had not abated, merely delayed for a bit. Hence, the scrambled eggs. This being an RV, luxury or not, meant that the stove, the pots, and pans were not really meant to make meals for a dozen people. While SHIELD did provide utensils that were big enough for the job, the stove in the RV was simply unusable for that.

Which is why he was outside the RV, all by himself, with Alcina inside, presumably enjoying the wonders of luxury bedding, cooking himself some food. Now, how did he generate heat, one might ask?

Well, by switching out [Stone Skin] for [Heat Palm], allowing him to heat up the pan initially, and after that, he realised that he was a bloody thunderbird with the ability to generate Arcs of lightning. After that, he used light arcs of lightning to heat up the pan.

The result was….edible. That’s all he could say about that. Ofcourse, his body being what it was, edible was not really a compliment since most things were edible for him now.

The hunger helped him ignore the taste and the texture of the burnt food, and also the smell of the burning utensil. It would seem that he had a long way to go before he could use his abilities to become a master cook.

Shaking his head, he disposed of the waste in the trash bin of the RV before looking at one head of Ghidorah that was visible from behind the RV. The rest of its heads were hidden behind the RV. A roughly circular shaped area around the RV was void of any snow, Ghidorah’s internal body temperature having melted everything away.

Well, according to Fury, anyway, he still had more than two days before the whole negotiation summit. He had a feeling that it was going to be a global affair, and probably very public as well. Not the nitty gritty details or the negotiations, but the exterior was probably going to be watched by hundreds of cameras and dozens of satellites.

He was going to have to be wary of any ambushes since there was no lack of stupid people in any universe, but by and large, he had hopes that it was going to end in his advantage, especially since he didn’t even want all that much.

After walking around the RV, he looked at Ghidorah, and his thoughts went back to the ability he had received as part of the whole putting the world into crisis tickets.

[Telepathy]

Now, without using the ability, he would not be able to understand its specifics, but if he could use it to communicate with Ghidorah remotely, it would be a huge boon for him. 

He could use it to showcase his command over Ghidorah at the summit. After all, half the battle that day was going to be presentation. If he could intimidate them in some way, then the next steps should go much smoother.

Waiting for the cooldown from his curse to be over, he looked at the three heads of Ghidorah and pondered on just what the feedback from telepathy would be. He had no humans around to test it on, so nothing to compare with what he might get from Ghidorah.

What he could tell, certainly, however, is that Ghidorah’s mind will certainly not be thinking in English or any language he knew of. So, his ability will have to both transmit the thoughts and translate them, which was a tall order for an Elite ability.

Plus, there was also the matter of Ghidorah having three heads, three brains, and thus, three distinct minds that were connected to each other. He had to be really careful here.

Going in unprepared, especially with something as delicate as the mind, could end up giving him a shock. Even if Ghidorah did not want to harm him directly, the weight of his mind alone might be capable of hurting him.

Still, he had his [Sisyphean] trait, which should hopefully be enough to stave off any damage until he can pull back. Because the earlier he can figure out a proper communication channel with Ghidorah, the better. 

He had not forgotten the fact that he had drawn the attention of Odin himself. It would not be far-fetched to assume that the Mad Titan would be far behind in getting information about a planet that held an Infinity Stone.  He had to be prepared, he told himself.

After the cooldown was done, he switched out [Heat Palm] for [Telepathy], and as soon as he did that, he realised just how useful the ability could be, even beyond the obvious mind reading abilities. It worked as a radar of sorts for the mind. 

If the tech for mind cloaking was not spread far and wide, then this might just give him an upper hand with any cloaking technology, on top of the Wind sense had had as a Thunderbird. Grinning at the unexpected bonus, he instinctively understood the ability and its limitations.

It was limited, in the sense that it required a certain amount of energy, and as long as the user could supply it, it could work. 

If you wanted to cast a wider net? More energy.

If you wanted to connect to multiple people? More energy.

If you wanted to fight a mental battle against telepaths? More energy.

If you want to create a mental link between people to allow for instant synergy? More energy.

Each and every facet of the ability required energy, and thankfully, he had that in spades.

As he looked at Ghidorah, his theories of the three minds and their weight rang true in his mind. He could feel three distinct and more importantly, heavy minds in his range. Alcina was basically an afterthought in comparison.

There was no one else within his range, though he had made a conscious effort to keep the circle very small. It wouldn’t work on anyone spying on him through the Mirror Dimension anyway but having an extra layer of detection never hurt.

Walking closer to the now awake Ghidorah, who was looking at him with all six of his eyes, he looked at all the three heads and concentrated. He did not breach into their minds or talk to them mentally, but he had a hunch they knew what was happening and knew that it was him doing that, which was probably why they were calm, instead of calling down a storm to vaporize the idiot who tried to do so.

He got different feelings from each head. The center line was calm and cold, as if completely logical. The one on the left was aggressive, angry, and easy to provoke, and the one on the right felt curious? Definitely curious and more amused.

He didn’t know how they communicated with each other, but he would try communicating with them now. Snapping his eyes open, he looked at Alcina, who was now standing beside him, looking at the proceedings with intensity.

“Make sure to pull me back if you feel something is wrong. Remove my hands if you cannot move me,” She gave him a wide eyed look at that, but nodded, as he compressed the area of his ability to just his body, making it temporarily touch based.

Just in case something happens, a touch based ability should be much easier to disengage than a remote telepathy one.

“I am trying to talk to you. Don’t kill me,” he added the second part with some humor in his voice as he raised his hands and placed them on the head of the center head, the calm and cold one, hoping that it would not give him too much of an emotional backlash.

As soon as he touched the head and used his ability, though, he realised he was wrong. There was no center head or left head when it came to their internal thoughts. All three of them were interconnected, which meant the moment he used his ability on what he thought to be the one head, he was now connected to all three heads.

The experience was….heavy. Yes, that’s the word he would use to describe it. There were no easy to read thoughts for him to parse through. It came all jumbled, with the added weight of trying to communicate with a who knows how long old mind. The emotions were heavy, and just maintaining the flow of those emotions was taxing.

He could tell that Ghidorah was not trying to hurt him, it was just his idea of trying to communicate with it that was causing the issue. Still, he continued the process, and after what felt like forever since he had no concept of time in his concentrated state of telepathy, he felt the first concrete emotion.

Amusement.

Yes, that was the feeling he felt. After that, it was much easier to parse through the other emotions. 

Amusement, at both him trying to talk to them, and at the tiny human standing guard beside him.

Curiosity, at this strange ability that allowed them to connect to him.

Then came the heavy emotions.

He felt his mind falter a bit as Anger and Rage were transmitted to him. He knew it was coming, but he was curious as to the reason why, which is why he tried to delve deeper, to get more information.

It was much harder to get through this emotion, which was understandable, but when he did get through, the information was not as clear as he expected it to be.

Anger, at the lifeforms, could feel deeper into the continent? Why would it get angry at that? Or was it angry at every living thing?

Confused at that, he moved on to the next, even more intense emotion, hoping to get more information out of it.

Rage, at the area that refused to bend to its will. 

He felt his face twitch at the strain, but he continued, trying to get more information about something that could keep even Ghidorah’s weather manipulation at bay. He was sure it was not thinking about him.

As time went on, he figured out that they were just sending him emotions packed with information. They were not getting any feedback from him. He tried to poke the Rage emotion because that information was incomplete, and he was most curious about an area like that.

He had to do it multiple times before he finally got something in return. A veritable deluge of Rage slammed into his mind, buckling his knees as he struggled to keep himself upright.

Hurriedly going through the emotions, he found that this time, the information was much easier to parse.

Ghidorah had a mental map of the weather that he could control, and to his astonishment, he realised that it was much bigger than he expected. In the middle of that map, however, there was a pulsing red area that was smack dab in the center of the continent. 

As if trying to emphasise that area, the next batch of information had everything else blacked out but that relatively small patch of land. The red area then began pulsing as well, to further emphasise it.

Curiously, he never got anything from the center head, like feelings of calm or logic. It was as if the center head was still deliberating. He would have liked to push more, but as it was, he felt like he was at his limit. Anymore, and he might just collapse, and he certainly did not want to risk his arms, as Alcina would not hesitate one bit to follow his orders to a T.

Stepping back a bit, he flinched at the connection being cut off between them and looked up to see the left head looking at him quite intently, and then swinging his neck in the direction of the ice, clearly telling him where he wanted to go.

“Not right now,” He muttered in reply, and in return, he got a hot gust of air that smelled actually not as bad as he expected it to. He supposed that not eating any animal and just living off of energy meant that their breath and dental hygiene was top notch.

Snorting at the funny thought, he got up with the help of Alcina, the slight headache already disappearing as his new and improved body continued to do its magic.

“What was that?” Alcina asked him as they entered the RV once more.

“That,” He answered with a grin on his face, knowing full well that SHIELD was watching, “Was the start of a beautiful friendship.”

Alcina’s confused look must have been mirrored by the analysts back at SHIELD, he mused to himself as he lay down in the RV.

He had a hunch what that small area could be. After all, there were not many places in Antarctica that were capable of maintaining their weather against the likes of Ghidorah and were hidden from the rest of the world. Only one place fits the bill.

Savage Lands.

A prehistoric enclosure, that had animals from before the whole meteor strike thing, preserved in a safe space that was made by Beyonders or something like that, if he was not wrong. It made sense that beings more powerful than even the Celestials could make something that could resist the power of Ghidorah.

Ghidorah was obviously chomping at the bit to go there, and he would be lying if he said he was not at least a little bit curious about all the dinosaurs in that place, but he had to ask himself one really important question.

Was this really the time to do that?

He had already plunged the world into chaos once. What if he went there and discovered that the whole place was a pocket dimension he couldn't get out of?

Nah, no need to risk stuff. The notification of over ten thousand people dead because of his actions sobered him up very quickly. No, that was something he could do later on.

Maybe he could offer that as an olive branch to the world’s governments or SHIELD? But that would just result in humans doing what people do best.

Destruction of serene, natural spaces.

With that, a particular plan postponed and a steady link with Ghidorah established, he had very little to do, especially if he wanted to keep SHIELD in the dark. Just then, as if a light bulb lit on top of his head, he told Alcina to stay put before heading out of the RV.

Kneeling right next to the drone that was off, he knocked on its shell, a nice metallic ringing sound coming out of it, as the drone made a show of turning on. Rolling his eyes at the fake sequence, he began saying his piece.

“Look, I am going somewhere for a while. I will be back right here. Don’t be alarmed, Alcina and Ghidorah are right here.” With his piece, he turned around and walked to the door of the RV, the key to his Pocket Beach dimension in his hand.

He ignored the deluge of voices coming from behind him as the familiar white door appeared in front of him. Jumping through, he closed it on the drone’s face, not really interested in their words.

Sure, his leaving with Ghidorah, even to another location on the same continent, might spark global panic, but if he was seen entering the RV without the world ending monster going anywhere? The chances of that panic were very slim, and even if someone did panic, it was going to be the fine folks at SHIELD.

Frankly, those people signed up for this.

__xx__

–Random Junior Analyst–

I did not sign up for this, he thought to himself, pressing the button for his senior to come and rescue him for the nth time since he was assigned to this hellish duty.

He was never religious in all his life, nor was his family. The community we lived in was very Christian, though, and as such, he made regular visits to the Church and followed all traditions as well. His parents did that naturally to fit in, even if they privately told him that there was no pressure for him to do anything.

Which is why when he was on desk duty watching what was seemingly the end of the world approaching, he had questioned if God had forsaken them, forsaken him.

Then, that end never came, the monster flew away, and ever since then, he had been assigned to keeping watch over people who were more than capable of wrecking countries and destroying the global economy as well as societies if they so wish.

Every single action from that man had to be treated with the same seriousness as a natural calamity. He never knew if the man would sleep on the wrong side and wake up with the intention to murder somebody.

Never knew if the monster would wake up, fly into rage because he was not given his daily dosage of food. Thankfully, the monster did not eat food in the traditional sense. That was the extent of information he was told. He did not question that at all.

He might have felt like God had forsaken him when the world was ending, but as he felt the biggest headache of his life, somehow jumping into a white portal, and snapping it shut a moment later, he realised that this was the moment God had forsaken him.

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