00043. Fallout and a Furious Fury.
The next two days were pretty peaceful for Ezekiel, considering what was happening with the rest of the world. The first thing he did was talk with Sarah and they hammered out the deal of her working with him and his group. It was simple really, she just wanted an actual guarantee that he wouldn’t change the deal at some point. So he introduced her to The Ancient One and asked Tao to make a binding contract of magic about the deal they made. Sarah didn’t really seem to believe it, but she seemed more relaxed after her and Ezekiel signed it. Unfortunately Ezekiel had to sign the contact in person and also had to use his real name. But there was a clause in the contract that his name was hidden and anyone who looked at it would only see Ezekiel as his name.
After Sarah signed the contract she started to bombard Ezekiel with questions and he just pointed her to one of the computer terminals. Before he left her, he did remind her to go visit her sister and to take Laura with her or her niece will have issues when she is older. She agreed, but only after everything died down. As for Laura, well she quickly met the other kids, or it would be better to say they met her. She was quiet and didn’t really know how to interact with them properly. But Ava and Mary were both balls of positive energy and did everything they could to get Laura to interact with them and the other kids. It was a work in progress to say the least.
Another thing Ezekiel did was talk with Kaecilius about bringing back his family. Ezekiel and Tobirama were very clear with him that it would only work once and that he would only have forty-eight hours with them as the spell would collapse after that. Kaecilius agreed and after a few hours Tobirama brought back his wife and son. Kaecilius said he wanted to spend time with them at their favorite place and left the base with them shortly after they were summoned.
Ezekiel then spent the next day or so, playing with everyone trying to either find, block or just take down his website. He already had a program that took care of it automatically, but it was fun to do it himself. He might have gotten a bit carried away and tricked a bunch of different government agencies into hacking their own servers to find the server/shut it down. But at the moment he didn’t have that much on his plate and wanted to unwind a little, before Fury came to chew him out for not disclosing what he had done with Magneto.
At almost forty-eight hours from when Cessily’s parents were summoned, Ezekiel had Tao transport him to the island they were on. The time difference made it so that it was actually coming up on sunset when Ezekiel arrived. He found Cessily being hugged from each side by her parents as they watched the sunset together.
As the sun was fading over the horizon, Cessily's parents started to slowly disintegrate. Each of them said something to her before they both kissed one of her cheeks as they finished disappearing into motes of light and ash that drifted off on the ocean breeze. Cessily didn't move but continued to watch the pink and red colored sky alone.
Ezekiel approached her as the light began to fade and the faintest of stars could be seen in the twilight of sunset he asked her, "Mind if I join you?"
Cessily didn’t respond at first, but then patted the sand next to her. Ezekiel sat down in the sand next to her but said nothing else. After a moment Cessily leaned into Ezekiel and rested her head on his shoulder. They sat there for over an hour in silence, just watching the sky fully transition into night. Some time later Cessily finally spoke and said, "I'll never be able to thank you properly for what you did."
Ezekiel reached over and clasped her hand gently as he said, "You don't need to."
They sat quietly together for a while longer before a portal opened close by and Mordo walked out of it before it closed again. He looked at Ezekiel as he said, "Sorry to interrupt, but Fury is looking for you and he seems more upset than he usually is."
Ezekiel let out a sigh as he said, “Looks like I have to go back to work. Do you want to come with us or stay here longer?”
Cessily lifted her head off his shoulder as she said, “I think I will join you, if that’s okay.
Ezekiel stood up and helped Cessily up afterwards as he said, “You won’t be able to join me when I am with Fury, but you can go meet Ava, Mary and the rest if you like.”
Cessily nodded her head, before she said, “Alright.”
Ezekiel looked at Mordo and let out a chuckle as he asked, “So would you say Fury is currently furious?”
Mordo gave him a flat look, and Cessily nudged Ezekiel with her shoulder as she said, “That was lame.”
“Everyone's a critic these days.”
Mordo said nothing but opened a portal for them, Ezekiel went through first, followed by Cessily and then Mordo who closed the portal after them. When they arrived in the transfer room, Ezekiel glanced at Mordo and asked, “Mordo, would you be able to show Cessily where the kids normally hang out? I don’t want to keep Fury waiting too long.”
Mordo nodded and said, “Yes.”
Ezekiel smiled as he looked at Cessily and said, “Cessily, this is Mordo. He doesn’t talk much but otherwise isn’t bad company.”
Before either of them could say anything, an afterimage of Ezekiel faded away. Cessily’s mouth was hanging open before she looked at Mordo and asked, “He can teleport?”
Mordo shook his head and said, “No idea.” Before he started to walk out of the room and down the hall.
Cessily just shook her head and mumbled, “He really doesn’t talk much.” As she went to follow him.
vvvvvvvvvv
Fury was seated in a chair in the conference room they used for meetings. He wasn’t happy, the last two days had been so much work and he wasn’t even close to sorting through the mess that had been made. Every attempt to take down Ezekiel’s website had ended in failure and after the second time the team assigned to the task was sure they had it, and pulled the plug. They only ended up destroying another of the servers Shield owned, so Fury put a stop to the project even though The World Security Council was breathing down his neck for results. They wanted the site removed and whoever was behind it found and detained for questioning.
But the worst part is he had Alexander Pierce with him most of the time the last day and a half. He couldn’t get away to come find out what the fuck Ezekiel was thinking, pulling a stunt like this. This is why he hated working with third parties and people not under his direct command, he couldn’t control them easily. If he had some dirt on Ezekiel or maybe knew who he really was he could use that as some type of leverage to keep him in line. But currently the only thing he knew for sure was that he was somehow reincarnated and was currently a three year old kid.
Fury let out a sigh, as the door to the conference room opened up and Ezekiel walked in with a big smile on his face. When Ezekiel saw Fury he said in a cheerful voice, “Mordo said you looked upset, but you look pretty normal to me.”
Fury gave Ezekiel a flat look and pointed at the chair across from him as he said, “Sit. Then I want you to tell me what the fuck you were thinking pulling a stunt like that?
As Ezekiel sat down, he asked, “I am not really sure what you are talking about. Could you be more clear on the stunt you are talking about?”
Fury slammed his right fist down on the table as he yelled, “I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR GAMES EZEKIEL, YOU KNOW DAMN WELL WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!”
Ezekiel shook his head as he said, “I have an idea, but I am not really sure if it was the broadcast with Magneto, the website, me tricking your team into destroying your own servers, bringing back Cessily’s parents or bringing back Kaecilius’s family. So which one did you want to talk about?”
Fury’s right eye twitched a little as he asked in a calmer voice, “You mind repeating that last bit, I think I just misheard you.”
Ezekiel smiled and said, “What, the part about bringing back Cessily’s parents or Kaecilius’s family?”
Fury’s voice was ice cold as he asked, “I thought you said you had to use that spell sparingly or something bad might happen.”
Ezekiel nodded his head as he said, “That is correct. I had always planned to help out Kaecilius, so that was planned on my part. The man can be a powerful asset, but he needed closure with his family, so I gave that to him.”
Fury nodded his head slightly as he listened, it made sense and was honestly a smart move for Ezekiel. But then Ezekiel said, “As for Cessily, she has no immediate family and just awakened her powers recently. She was blaming herself for her parents murder and while she could have worked through it with time and therapy. I figured the best cure was hearing from her parents that they didn’t blame her and that they still loved her very much. Seemed to work, she already seems better.”
“So you wanted her as another asset? What are her powers?”
Ezekiel shook his head as he said, “No, I am not even sure if she will join us yet. I was just trying to help a young girl who was lost. I did give her a choice of joining us, or going to Xavier. But whether or not she becomes an asset is up to her. I won’t force her to do anything.”
Fury's eyes narrowed the tiniest bit and he asked, “So what are we going to do if she wants to leave? She would be a security risk if she got out.”
Ezekiel nodded slightly as he said, “Normally you would be right, but if she decided to leave, I would just have to lock away and hide certain memories. Nothing that will affect her well being and will keep us safe.”
Fury gave a quick laugh before he said, “You think that stunt with Magneto and that website is safe for us? What if someone is able to trace it back to us?”
“No one in the world is good enough to do that. Also that website might seem big and need a server to store and run the whole thing. But I have it running off of a satellite I commandeered from some people who didn’t need it. So if someone was able to find where the website is really hosted, it would be on a satellite that doesn’t actually exist.”
Fury sat back a little in his chair as he asked, “What about that stupid stunt with Magneto?”
Ezekiel grinned as he said, “What better way to hide than to have someone else being big and flashy. We can slowly take down some targets and we do it under the guise of Magneto and his group. It does paint a big target on his back, but when I explained what I wanted to do, he agreed to take up the position. But he did make a demand in return.”
Fury felt a headache coming on as he asked, “Do I even want to know?”
Ezekiel laughed as he said, “It’s fine he just wanted a country for mutants.”
Fury gave Ezekiel a flat look as he repeated, “He just wants a country?”
Ezekiel nodded as he said, “Yup, just a single country. I thought it was reasonable so I said yes.”
Fury stood up and planted his hands on the table in front of him as he yelled, “AND HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO GIVE HIM A COUNTRY?!?!”
“I am not sure, but I will figure it out. I just need to find one that will work. Probably an island nation or something would work best. A good old fashioned coup should work I think.”
Fury pointed a figure at Ezekiel as he yelled, “YOU CAN’T JUST TAKE OVER A COUNTRY! THE U.N. WOULDN’T ALLOW IT, S.H.I.E.L.D. WOULDN’T ALLOW IT! YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST TAKE OVER A WHOLE COUNTRY IN A DAY OR SOMETHING?”
Ezekiel nodded his head as he said, “If it was small enough, yes. We would need enough manpower though.”
Fury started to pace as he was yelling, “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MIND? DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT IF YOU COULD MAKE A COUP HAPPEN IN A SINGLE DAY AND SOMEHOW TAKE OVER A COUNTRY THE REST OF THE WORLD WOULD LET YOU KEEP IT?!?”
“You know, you don’t need to yell so much. I can hear you just fine.”
Fury turned around to glare at Ezekiel as he said, “I don’t think you have been listening to anything I am saying, you can’t take over a country.”
Ezekiel asked, “I know, you have said that a bunch. So what, you want me to give him Mars instead and show him how to terraform the planet instead? Because I can and then we shouldn’t have any issue.”
Fury studied Ezekiel for a few moments before he let out a sigh and asked in a defeated voice, “So I assume you have a country in mind already?”
Ezekiel smiled as he nodded, “Yes, the island nation of Genosha.”