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 #112
Gulmira, Afghanistan[May 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
Slowing down took nothing more than a mental flex, seeing Tony already on his way to take out the invading people after he had taken out the tires of the two trucks full of hostages, he too got to work.
Manifesting Kinetic Laser doors the size of his finger, he began blasting all the people with guns into the ground and then gave them another push, just to make sure they were all unconscious. The civilians scattered away from him, afraid all the same.
Not dwelling on that, he moved through the streets, taking out any person holding a weapon and then using a conjured hand to bend the guns for good measure. Could not take any risks regarding that. He had already taken down over a dozen armed men, who were increasingly getting trigger happy when they saw him, when he cleared the small alleys and reached the big clearing of the town, seeing Tony in a stalemate with three terrorists holding guns to children.
One moment, the periphery of his vision was red and the next, there were three small holes in the heads of those three guys. Their bodies toppled over soon after, one of them almost falling on top of the child he was previously holding hostage, only for Tony to swoop in and discard the terrorist like the low life he was.
Blinking at the suddenness of his actions, he looked down as the Red Doors dissipated. Huh, he did not think that it would have bothered him that much, the action of taking innocent children hostage. Intellectually, he knew that similar things were happening across the globe right this moment but seeing something like that happening right in front of him lit up something in him. An unexpected–
"Hey! Ideological crisis later, we have people to help," Tony's voice helped him snap out of it, and was that understanding in the perpetual troll's voice? Did Tony think this was his first time killing? Well, that was adorable.
But yes, Tony was right. They had a town to help and judging by the people he saw, they were not in the best of conditions. Looking all around, he slowly levitated up in the air, speaking into the comms, "Can you get them any aid soon? Food? Water?"
He was sure that Tony's eyes were wide open behind that faceplate, as he looked at his slowly glowing self, a yellow glow, to be precise."
"I can try but if you are going to do what I think you are going to do, I can make that an absolute certainty." Tony said, with an air of anticipation in him, letting the child go, who immediately ran towards someone in the crowd. Almost the entire town had gathered in the town centre, around both of them and he had to remind himself that he was not doing himself any favour, turning himself into a glowing yellow flying figure who was about to perform a mass healing.
He did not need a cult following, not right now at least.
Nodding at Iron Man, he summoned a massive Door, easily the size of the town centre, and then dropped his conjured arms, letting an overwhelmingly warm glow of yellow suffuse the people below. He had to be careful, in guiding the Chi rays, modulating the output for every person. Children needed more, the elderly less so. The injured needed more, the malnourished a little less, but the starved? He gave them all their bodies could handle.
No one deserved to know what it felt like to have their stomach trying to eat itself, especially in modern times with such a glut of calories everywhere. That was an affront to humanity itself.
It did not take long, only a minute at most but even in that short timespan, it felt like his mental faculties were pushed to the limit, as he carefully coordinated the Chi output that everyone received. By the end of that minute, he was certain that everyone in the town was as healthy as they could be, without it being odd.
No restoring limbs or anything like that. If he did that, he might be condemning these people to an even worse fate, to be experimented on by the likes of HYDRA or AIM in their futile search to make super soldiers.
"Huh," he looked to the side, as Iron Man surveyed the scene below, of people crying, of people falling unconscious, of people kneeling, of people praying, "Did you want to become an angel? Because," Tony gestured to the people before them, "Mission accomplished."
"No," He dispelled the Chi door and denied the accusation vehemently, "I want no such thing."
"Could've fooled me. Now, come on, more inbound," Toy said before rocketing towards the mountains. He gave the people below a look before following suit, suddenly not feeling as confident as before about the whole mass healing thing.
"You sure keep pulling miracles out of your ass, Mr.Mysterio," Tony said, and he had a feeling that the man was recording everything he said or did for future research purposes. While that did not fill him with much confidence, he at least knew that with the way Tony's mind worked, he would never, ever accept the existence of magic, forever claiming that it was just an advanced form of science they didn't understand.
Which was true, in some cases but mostly, one needed to believe in something greater than oneself, to surrender logic to an extent if one wanted to learn Sorcery and become adept in it, something that he did not see Tony doing in the foreseeable future.
So, in his opinion, it was fine for Tony to see what he was doing.
Seeing that Colin would not respond to his statement, Tony remained silent as well. They were moving forward at decent speeds, towards the mountainous regions, through which a bunch of trucks were heading towards Gulmira.
Colin hoped that the brutal takedown would have made some of them afraid but alas, there was no cure for stupidity in this–
His hand shot out, creating a Dimensional Energy shield, instinctively as an anti-air tank round slammed into it. He sighed in relief as the shield did not crack because he had cast the shield on instinct when he should have actually cast a Door. All the practice recently made him prefer the Dimensional Energy shield which was strong but just not as versatile as his Door since he could just turn that Door into a Kinetic Laser door and blast them out of the sky.
"Whoa! Thanks," Tony mockingly saluted him before diving straight down and towards the trucks, blasting apart the rough pathway, halting them in their tracks. "I'll leave them to you. I have a tank to blast," Tony said in his comms before flying straight ahead, towards the base of the mountain.
He did not intend on making this about him, but if he really wanted that, he would not have come. He supposed that, on some level, the start of the canon timeline really excited him and he was still a child somewhere, to have this urge to meet his heroes and participate in superhero battles, even when he really should not.
Shaking his head, he ignored the bullets that pinged off his armour and even the odd RPGs that the guys in the trucks launched as he conjured a single Kinetic Laser Door, roughly human sized this time because he needed to send a message, not conduct a mass murder.
The Door glowed for a split second before a blast of Kinetic Laser struck the rough pathways, further cratering the already destroyed ground.
Then, the Kinetic Laster slowly moved forward, inching towards the trucks as the men scrambled out of them in fear, the Lasers slowly but surely destroying the engines, and clearly splitting them apart.
Meanwhile, as the terrorists below scrambled for their lives, he was up in the air, thinking. If it was worth it to look for Xu Wenwu right now or if it was better to look for Shang-chi in the States, because he had confirmation from both the Village Chief, and the Water Dragon that Shang-chi's mother was dead.
Ah, a dilemma for another time. It might be worth it to bring the children back to Ta-Lo before trying to reason with Xu Wenwu, assuming he was not already too far gone. The seal being tightened once more should restrict the Demon's influence but then again, Mad Men did not need a reason to want to see the world burn.
Once the trucks were decimated, he flew forward, catching up with Tony who was in the process of dunking on multiple tanks, with two already destroyed and in the process of removing the person piloting the third tank.
The entire area was in shambles, with multiple holes suggesting a mixed use of repulsors, bullets, and small swarm missiles.
"Got it out of your system?" He asked Tony who was just standing there, looking at the wrecked remains of the tank and the knocked out form of a very young terrorist. A teenager from the looks of it.
"He's just a kid," Tony said, "How could the enemies of my nightmare be kids?"
He sighed as the post vengeance low hit Tony.
"I get it that it does not feel like you expected it to?" He asked the man, floating up and sitting down on the burning remains of the tank, his orange onesie protecting him from the burns and also giving him enough cushion that it felt like he was sitting on a hard mattress instead of burning metal wreckage.
"What?" Tony asked jokingly, though the cheerful tone was hollow, "You are a shrink as well?"
He shrugged at that, not answering the question. Tony fell silent for a moment before he spoke, "I came here, to destroy them. But just blowing them apart is not the answer, is it?"
He shook his head, "Nope. Things are never as simple in real life. A systemic failure cannot be resolved without upending the system and as you can see," He gestured at the teenager, "The system has its teeth sunk in too deep for you to change anything without killing everyone involved."
"So what? We just let it be?"
"No," He hopped down from the tank, "It just means that conventional measures are used for a reason. You start with aid, food, hope, education, enforced by Iron Man, obviously, and then hope, hope that in a couple of generations, you did not leave things as f*cked as they were before."
"That's all?" Tony chuckled good naturedly.
"That's all you can do, that's all anyone can do. Well, short of mass mind control, that is." He added as an afterthought.
"As if," Tony scoffed at that and after seeing him remain silent, continued in a much more wary tone, "Right? There are no people in this world capable of mind control. Right?"
He chuckled at the fear, which was completely warranted. He wondered how the man would react to Jin'Ya. Anyway–
"It would seem our time is up," He told Tony after receiving a mental ping from Jin'Ya about the jets headed their way.
"What? Just answer the–"
Jarvis' voice interrupted Tony, "Sir, I am detecting two bogies headed your way. Immediate evacuation recommended."
"I told you," He quipped while rising up into the air, followed immediately by Tony as the twin F-22 Raptors finally came within sight.
"Time to see if they are actually as manoeuvrable as the government says they are?" He asked Tony before rocketing straight up, creating a sonic boom in the process as he did not bother manipulating the airflow around him with the Air Door, for the extra oomph.
After all, he had a reputation to create.
And what better way than to completely embarrass the veteran pilots flying equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
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