Technomancer in MCU #62
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Chapter 62
Technomancer in MCU
Earth's Orbit
–Toby Mathers–
Floating above the blue dirt ball that he lovingly called Earth as he admired its beauty, he was lost in his own thoughts.
Thoughts of the unfolding scenario he could hear happening on the moon base that Ed had built. Thoughts of the sheer chaos that must be happening in Kamar Taj due to the Ancient One being injured to such an extent that she had to give away control of my prison and the pandemonium that would occur after she realised that he had escaped would be a sight to witness.
Alas, he could not be there to witness it all.
After all, the time limit set by the deal had yet to arrive.
And so, he entered the atmosphere, burning up, and then splashed down into the Arctic, where he last remembered his ship being thrown away by him for safekeeping.
He could not be sure if Ed or Alfred had moved it but there was no harm in trying.
As he drilled through millennia-old ice, he came across an artificial structure sealed using crude energy shields. They reminded him of the work Ed used to do back when he first found him after escaping the Hell dimension.
Ah, those were the days.
He could still remember it as if it was yesterday.
–Flashback–
They were hurtling through space and time at speeds unimaginable as they were on their way to their destined universe. He was not proud of it but he was internally glad to have finally left his shitty life behind him.
His family did not love him. He had no love life. His social life was long dead. He had bad grades. He was not very smart. He wasn't good-looking either.
All in all, he had pictured a very shitty life for himself where the only good thing would be his school friend Ed. The only one who stuck with him throughout school, middle school, high school, and then even through college as they both took matching majors.
To be honest, the only reason he managed to hold until then was due to Ed and his insistence on both of them passing at the same time otherwise he would have long since dropped out.
Then, the stuff with the weird godly dude happened and now they were on their way to a literal fictional universe with actual superpowers. Even at that point, Ed was with him and he could not have been more glad.
Suddenly, he felt something latch on to him and he was somehow jerked to the side and pulled into a reddish hole that appeared right in front of him.
Powerless to do anything, he entered the hole while hearing Ed screaming behind him.
Then, came the most hellish years of his life. He had thought that his previous life was hard but after what he had experienced in Hell, he would call that paradise.
Somehow, somebody had intercepted him and pushed him into a hell dimension.
As soon as he crashed onto something hard and hot, he was mauled by hundreds of small insects that began gnawing on his flesh.
Unsure of how his powers worked and startled by the series of events, he just lashed out with his hands and flailed about, hoping desperately that it would help him.
Alas, help did not come but somebody heard his cries and came to check the area. Looking back, he was glad that he had gained his demonic form as soon as he was yeeted into Hell because that allowed him to survive. The guard that patrolled the area he was dumped into saw that he was weak but in a good enough condition so he decided to try his luck selling him into the open slave market.
And so, the guard grabbed him by the neck and began dragging him towards the city, uncaring of his cries and struggles.
After a while, as he gave up struggling and surrendered to the whims of the guard, he noticed something. He could no longer feel the insect bites on his body. Discreetly checking it out, he was astonished to find that his body no longer sported any signs of being bitten by hundreds of insects and he could still see some of the insects trying to bite into his skin to no avail as his skin had somehow become tough enough to the point that they couldn't pierce it, all in a matter of minutes.
Then, as if a light turned on in his head, he remembered the conversation he had with the god and recalled the powers he had been given.
Assimilation and adaptation.
His eyes lit up as he realised that his body had adapted to the stings of the insects in a matter of minutes.
Emboldened by that, he decided to take matters into his own hands and tried to tackle the guard,
In hindsight, not a good idea. He had just managed to puncture one of the guard's eyes due to sheer luck when he decided that he didn't want his goods in perfect condition and nearly skewered him with the spear he carried around.
The good thing was that he managed to put his entire arm up to his wrist in the demon's eyes before that. So, while he was bleeding to death, he had managed to kill the demon.
With a grunt, he removed the spear from his belly resulting in a spray of blood, and waited for his powers to kick in. Watching his body glow as it absorbed all of the blood that had fallen on him during his fight with the guard, he was fascinated as he watched his body heal as it visibly grew flesh and mended his broken bones.
After that, he stumbled through the dry stony lands, hunting for demons, and after having starved for multiple days, gave in and started eating the demons.
While he felt disgusted with himself at first, over time, he got used to it and soon, he had no qualms about hunting down humanoid demons for food.
He didn't know when but he got lost in his hunting mindset, hazy in the mind as he forgot his original goals and even about his promise to Ed and only recovered part of his memories when he killed one of the bounty hunters that had been sent after him. Years later he learned that the one he killed was a special breed altogether. That demon was someone who had awakened their latent psionic talent and was talented in ensnaring the minds of unsuspecting people.
After that, armed with his now-enhanced intelligence, he set out on a journey to find a way home and gain some powers along the way.
Over the decades, he climbed the demon hierarchy through the treachery and cunning that he gained after killing and consuming a few more demons of that same breed. He had felt guilty hunting them down for no reason but for his personal benefit but it all went away as his intelligence hit new heights and he realised how foolish he had been to think favorably of literal demons who wouldn't hesitate to kill human babies.
Just like that, he repeated the cycle with demons who were higher on the hierarchy, and soon, nearly a century after he arrived in that hellhole, he ascended to the top of the hell dimension. Only then, he tasked the best researchers under him to build him a portal to the human world, using his soul link which he had discovered a while back during one of his meditation cycles, as a beacon to find the exact address of Ed in the universe.
He was fully aware that his subordinates would betray him and mess up the portal but to his surprise, it worked perfectly well when he told them that all of the research team would go through the portal and come back before he could. That worked like a charm and bidding goodbye to the literal hell that had forged him into the man he had become, he entered the portal.
He had stumbled upon Ed working on something with Alfred who was just an infant back then, in a scrapyard of all places.
It had taken him a while to realise it but as it turned out, time flowed differently in the hell dimension he was in. Apparently, it had been less than a year for Ed since he arrived on Earth while he had spent over a century in his personal hellhole.
Back then, he had wanted to rage at the universe at the unfairness of it all but decades of being in power had taught him to rule over his emotions and so, without showing his emotions, he asked Ed about the situation.
After learning of Ed's plan to bring Humanity to the forefront, he was a little skeptical of the way he had chosen to do it. After ruling for so long, he had grown wise enough to realise that Ed's plan hinged on Humanity accepting his guidance and if he had learned one thing in all his years of ruling, it was that people, no matter the species, would never accept the rule of someone who was on the same level as them.
Respect was necessary but Fear was equally important.
Ed's way would have gotten them to their goal but it would have been far too slow and complicated for his tastes. So, he suggested a better solution. Both Ed and Alfred rejected it on the grounds of the measly human casualties that would happen in the beginning so he did what he thought best. He imprisoned both of them and subdued all the personnel inside the organisation, Frank included.
Alerted of his actions by Alfred, the Ancient One rushed to the moon base to stop him and after failing to convince him using her words, she resorted to force. Their battle was the hardest one he had ever fought and in the end, even he was hard-pressed to defeat her, especially since she knew his fighting style intimately due to the damn Time Stone that she overused.
After capitalising on the soul link that he and Ed shared, she managed to imprison him in the prison he called home for years. Later on, she made the special prison designed to hold him for as long as she needed.
–Flashback Ends–
Seeing that the structure held nothing but the skeleton of his ship that he had brought from Hell, he sighed at the travesty of it all and teleported out of there to a place he had wanted to visit even before he became a teenager.
The Nalati Grassland, also called "The Sky Grassland," located in the east of Nalati Town in Xinyuan County of China, a true green paradise on Earth. He had dreamt of visiting this place many times when he was struggling to reach the top of the Hell dimension.
As he walked barefoot on the grass underneath him on the Nalati Grasslands in China and breathed the fresh air, he was forced to think about his previous choices.
There was a chance, however miniscule, that his actions might have led to widespread catastrophic damage to the planet which would have included numerous beautiful places like this one, and the thought of that happening filled him with discomfort somehow.
It was odd. He had personally burned down hundreds of thousands of years old buildings and palaces as part of his conquest of the hell dimension and hadn't even flinched and now here he was, ready to call off all his plans to preserve a simple grassland and its majestic beauty.
As he laid down on the meadows underneath, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and for the first time in over a century, slept peacefully.
For it had truly been a long time he had ever felt such a feeling. A feeling of being at peace.
He hoped it never ended.
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Word Count - 2019
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A/N - So, a little backstory on Toby. This is relevant because he is going to play a very important role in the future arcs of this story. Don't worry, the scene of Alfred coming back to the organisation is coming. I know you are waiting for that, just a couple more chapters and we'll be there. I wish I could just write it all in one sitting but that is impossible so you guys will have to wait for a while but I promise I'll try and make it worth your time.
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