Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.
DoorMan #110
Red Hearth, Mars[April 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
"Stop!" Jin'Ya said, and he almost sighed out loud in relief as he immediately shut off the flow of energy to the Door, and looked down, eyes widening as he saw that the ritual circle, which was predominantly green and red before, now was mostly blue, with specks of green in between.
Even being suspended a dozen feet above the ritual circle, he still felt goosebumps from the amount of energy packed into that ritual circle. He slowly, carefully, floated out of the ritual circle, neck on a swivel to make sure that the ritual circle did not become unstable and explode on his face, until finally, he was out of the circle and out of the room as well.
Jin'Ya followed him as well and as the doors to the room were securely shut, he informed Colin, "That was a success."
"How?" He finally asked the question since the ritual circle clearly had another purpose to it, if the changing glow according to changing energy concentrations was any indication to go by.
Jin'Ya shrugged, "Well, we needed something to make the enchantments around the Red Hearth a little more permanent, and coincidentally, we had a very nice power source nearby. So, me and the Ancient One worked together on this and as a result, the wards around here can now sustain themselves for about a couple of centuries more, give or take based on how much expansion you would want to do here."
"Wow," He deadpanned at the Dragon, "And here I thought this was only about me getting over my fears. I feel so used, and then discarded."
"Cry me a river, then," Jin'Ya said as they walked towards one of the adjacent rooms, which had a holographic view of the room.
"The ritual was made to trap energy from an Infinity Stone, which is what you are doing by the way. I suppose the energy in that particular Door is not yet finished?" Jin'Ya asked him. He closed his eyes and did a quick mental dive, to see that the Door, while not as depleted as it was previously, was certainly not as bright as before. Also, there were no more arcs of blue around the lightning symbol, so there was that.
Opening his eyes, he replied, while looking distractedly at the giant glowing circle which pulsed with a steady rhythm, with streaks of green mixed into the ocean of blue, "No but it is particularly drained right now. I don't know the rate of recharge of that thing so it could take months to recover that energy."
Jin'Ya shrugged, or the draconic equivalent of it at least, "That's fine. I don't think we will need that energy anytime soon after all. As you know by now, your Doors have a learning curve. The more you use them, the better you get at both, not injuring yourself while doing so and also figuring out better ways to use that."
"I see. So, you want me to do this regularly, so that I can get used to that Door."
"And also get over your fear of that particular Door. I understand that the human mind is just as fragile as your squishy bodies but I can't have you being like the average human. So, we will have you use that Door repeatedly, until you can get your fears back in control.
"What? I don't have that big of a problem. What are you talking about?" He stammered nervously.
The dragon merely deadpanned at him and his trembling thighs, along with the sweaty face. "Okay, fine! I am scared to use that but only because I still remember that day. So much pain, I thought I was going to die."
"Which is fine. Fear of death is what keeps most beings alive. I just want to make sure that you don't end up letting the fear rule all over you."
He breathed out, "Yeah, alright. We can do that. So, what? I come here every weekend or so and blast the ritual with that Door?"
Jin'Ya waved him off, doing something with the ritual circle, as he saw the purple psionic energy prodding at the edges of the ritual circle, "No. No ritual circle will be able to hold onto that much energy without needing some serious attention from the Vishanti. No, we will figure out how to channel all that energy into something productive."
"Okay. Hey! What if we find a way to just help someone with that energy? Like supply energy to something that is completely energy constrained?"
"You have something in mind?"
"No, but I can probably create a proposal for Tony soon enough."
"Are you sure it's wise to do that though? Handing over that sort of energy to someone who is, as you said so earlier, not all that stable in the mind, is it a good idea?"
"Probably not? Hey, if that does not work out, we can just go out in space and blast stuff around? I mean, dismantling some asteroids and then handing over the remains to Tony or NASA will probably be fun, right?"
Jin'Ya took one look at him, sighed and waved in a do what you want to gesture, that he took as consent to do so. Well, it's not like he would be able to do that all on his own, at least not without his junk of a spaceship still in its pre-facelift phase, and his portal capabilities being nonexistent due to his, heh, nonexistent hands.
With that out of the way, he left Jin'Ya to his tinkering, happy that the exercise helped him and the Red Hearth in an immense way since centuries worth of wards was a lot of time, even if it could be reduced if he extended the radius of the shield surrounding the Red Hearth.
He might just do that, if the Hangar he will build in the near future turns out to be too small for some of the bigger ships he wanted to bring here. Like, the Dark Aster, for example.
He would have rubbed his grubby paws if he had hands at the thought of stealing Ronan the Accuser's ship from right under his nose, along with the Power Stone, while defending Xandar.
He did not have the faintest clue as to what he would actually do with a ship of that size but he wanted it. It just looked so cool and just having it around to take on a drive around the solar system might come in handy if he ever needed to impress women or something.
He could feel Jin'Ya glare holes into the back of his head as he walked into the elevator and did not turn around until after the doors were closed.
Now, for a little more spying work or rather searching work for some of his next targets before he can hit the gym and then go to sleep, if sleep comes to him that is. Otherwise, just move on to the next item on the list, rinse and repeat.
____xx____
His eyes snapped open, blinking out the spots from his vision as he rose from the desk he had slept on, drooling all over it in the process as an alarm rang in the background. Hands conjured themselves as a paper towel was snatched from the bathroom, and another one took the keyboard in his hand, to see what the alert was–
He snapped upright, the chair jostling a bit as the alert was about Tony Stark and his house. The man was on the move, but not by air?
"Ah," he said softly as he realised Tony's aim. If he was correct, Tony was now on his way to lay waste to the remainder of the Ten Rings' forces, Gulmira, if he recalled correctly. But Afghanistan was a long way from home, even if one could fly in an almost straight line at speeds surpassing most passenger aircraft.
So, Tony was probably having the suit transported somewhere nearby, likely in one of the Middle Eastern countries so that he can travel to the restricted airzone of Afghanistan and then unleash all his pent up anger into one spectacular one man army attack on the Ten Rings.
Well, the Ten Rings without Wenwu anyway since the actual Ten Rings user would just kill Tony and be done with it. Speaking of Wenwu, he added the task of entering that tangled web of family drama onto his list before yawning a bit, his eyes drooping actually.
Slumping back into his chair, he dismissed the alert before going back to sleep. He had a bunch of dreams to catch up on since Lucid dreaming was something that did not come to him all the time.
If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.