The Sage of the Mind

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP. 

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 123[May 2012]

Manhattan [3 hours after Loki's detention and Portal Invasion in Utah]

–Frank Castle–

"That's the last of 'em," He grunted as he hefted yet another pair of Chitauri soldiers and dumped them on the growing pile of waste that he and the Captain had created after the Invasion was over.

"You sure? I think I can still smell them, everywhere," The Captain, huffing and puffing, asked him. The picture was ridiculous for him. The Captain was dragging, with him, two of those Chariot type things while talking to him. Sure, it made him exert his strength but he couldn't even move one of those damn things if he didn't have this armour on him.

"Yeah, Jarvis says so, so it should be pretty accurate," In the time he had spent as part of the invasion counter force, he had come to respect Jarvis as an information provider.

"You still think we should stay here? With the fight still happening in Utah?" 

And that was probably half the reason why Jarvis was keeping them down here, doing grunt work instead of having his probable army of drones do it for them.

"Yes, Captain. You've seen the aliens, there is not much you could do in a fight of that level. Plus, the fight is happening in a totally controlled area, with no civilians." That had been a major selling point to placate the anxious captain who just had to jump in and help people whenever he could.

Ah, the Perfect Boy Scout.

"Mr.Castle," Jarvis' words were accompanied by the suit's faceplate slamming shut and a small visual appearing on the HUD. "What am I seeing, Jarvis?"

The visual increased in size to fill his vision and all he saw was some sort of line, and hundreds, no thousands of dots heading straight to the line.

"Mr.Castle, I am detecting a full scale invasion of the Mole People. We need to prepare for their arrival. I have already extended the stay in the Tunnel and have informed the Mayor of funnelling all the people either out of state or into the Tunnel," Oh. Oh, Hell Naw, not this shit again! Weren't the Giant Space whales enough?

Just as Jarvis finished speaking, there was a thudding sound right behind him. He turned around, and saw that the Captain's armour had arrived.

"Captain, we need to go," He said to the Captain who didn't question anything and entered the armour. His form rocketed up in the air.

"Jarvis, you said Mole People? What intel do you have on them? Also, can we funnel their entry into a single point?" He asked Jarvis as various entry points on the HUD were being marked as they crossed over the entire borough, with his heart sinking as he realised that they were going to enter Manhattan, through everywhere.

"The Mole people are a subterranean species, capable of burrowing through hard soil and stone with ease. They are bulletproof and their blood is acidic enough to melt concrete. Their main weaknesses are their brains which are protected by bulletproof skulls. They can also not tolerate bright lights as much as we can but that is not something we can rely on to kill them, only temporarily stun them,"

"Great! Bring out the big lights then!" 

"Already on it. ETA - 4 mins,"

"...And ETA on the Mole guys?"

"...2 mins.."

He cursed as he raced through the sky, followed by the Captain along with a dozen other drones being piloted by Jarvis, spreading throughout the burrow. 

"Jarvis, plot the entry points with the most Mole people that have the largest concentration of people around them. Target those first and then spread out from there. Inform all the law enforcement people around us, inform them that they only use high calibre rounds, normal rounds won't help, even if they targeted the eyes." Apparently, that was something that Stark and his team had tested way before, because the Invisible Man was able to easily repel their previous attempt and also secure a fresh corpse for the scientists to study.

The document held dozens of pages with all sorts of information, leading from the composition of their claws, to the size of their brains being small because they didn't have as much sensory information to process, being buried so deep underground, with only heat and pressure to temper and accompany them.

"Captain, are you seeing this?"

"Seeing? Yes. Still working on believing," Came the reply as the Captain continued to usher in the people who were still out into the various entry points of the Tunnel that they had blasted open because the invisible Man was counting on himself being available to do the job anyway.

"Jarvis, where is the Invisible Man?" Something didn't add in this situation and if he was being honest, if the situation was this bad and the Invisible Man still hadn't arrived, it would probably mean the end of the road for the Invisible Man because public opinion would surely turn against him or at least made to turn against him because a lot of powerful people were after him, who wouldn't hesitate to turn the city into a warzone to get to him, if the Invisible Man showed even the slightest hint of a weakness.

"That is classified information. I am not authorized to disseminate that information. I have marked the areas of high volatile activity." Well, that was to be expected.

"Jarvis, we can't use any of our weaponry that you built for the Invasion, can we?" He asked the question that popped into his mind when he thought of ways to mitigate the damage from this invasion as well. 

Wasn't one enough, these people had to pop up today only?

"Unfortunately, aside from the Class 2 drones alongside the Shields mounted in the Tunnel as well as the Stark Tower, precise weaponry capable of sniping down single mole units is not something we have."

"Okay, can you create a perimeter around the Stark Tower and give people access to the safer floors? I assume that power will not be an issue with the Arc Reactor you have in the building?"

"Affirmative. Designated safe zone created: Stark Tower. I've informed the relevant authorities about it and have changed the repulsor outputs. No mole people should be able to breach the perimeter there,"

He sighed in relief. At Least they had something other than shoving people in a tunnel. 

"Okay. Make sure that the TUnnel entry points are not clogged, either by people or by these Mole People."

"ETA - 30 seconds,"

He and Captain, both were floating right in between a series of high rises, which unfortunately still held a bunch of people who had not evacuated at the right time. The ground seemed to shake with each passing second, with people nervous peeping through their windows, doors and what not. He kept an eye on the countdown while also looking at the movement of the Mole People.

There!

"Captain, head to the Empire State Building, a bunch of them just split apart," He told the Captain as Jarvis had asked him to assume command of the entire operation, Jarvis' protocols not allowing him to dictate everything, something that the military followed as well. Computers could not replace the commanding capabilities of an experienced soldier.

Captain's suit, blue with stripes, rocketed towards the building, the wreckage of the Chitauri lying a few hundred metres away from the Empire State Building.

Just then, as if the ground itself was boiling and frothing, the pavement, the roads, and even some of the nearby stores which had thankfully all been evacuated, burst apart as giant humanoid figures with brown skin and hunched backs emerged from the ground and immediately began attacking and destroying everything in sight.

His suit, now the battle version, not the rescue model, held enough firepower to flatten the entire area and even that was not enough so he had to ration the missiles and draw their attention away from civilians, and more importantly, from high density zones to open areas where their main weapons could take care of the Mole People, once and for all.

With a single missile that blew apart a single Mole Person, he drew the attention of every single invader in sight, of him. A chill ran down his spine as they roared and as if the earth itself was responding, more and more of the Mole People erupted out of the ground, including something that was creating an even bigger ruckus than normal Mole People.

He had already flown quite a big high up but was still using his weapons to kill one Mole person at a time, which was proving to be quite tedious because as of this second, Jarvis counted 3,491 Mole people above surface and just above double of that, below the surface, waiting for something.

The continued assault had the Mole People climbing buildings, scaling concrete walls by digging giant holes in concrete with their claws as if the walls were made of paper. He hastily rose even further up, dodging a few that came alarmingly close, and pushed back most of them with the repulsor lasers but even then, the Mole People simply shook their heads and got up, ready to begin the assault anew.

"Jarvis, a little help here?" He asked Jarvis, his inexperience with the suit showing. Jarvis had informed him earlier that the suits were using an outdated version of the Arc Reactor and thus the suit could not sustain the repulsor firepower required to punch a hole in the Mole People, without burning out the suit's electricals.

And then help came.

A giant blue beam just about grazed him and slammed right into the center of the street, aiming for the giant hole that was only enlarging as something was about to come out and he did not want to be the one to confront it.

A large roar resounded throughout the block as the beam crashed into the ground and despite the beam, out came a hand. Heavily burned and bleeding but a hand came out that was taking the beam and surviving. The hand then slammed on the road, grabbed the road itself and then chucked a huge piece of concrete at the drones which were using the repulsor beams at speeds that generated gusts of wind in the block.

As expected, the repulsor array made by 4 different drones was disrupted and the hand pulled its body out of the ground.

He immediately scanned it and pulled even further up, not so much that their attention would be distracted but just enough that he had time to react if a repeat of the concrete bullet happened.

This was a Big Boy.

It was over 20 feet tall, along with a tail that created craters as it slammed seemingly lightly on the ground.

This was….not good. As if this wasn't wasn't enough.

"Steve here, requesting backup. I have three unusually large mole people with none of my weapons capable of killing them. I have drawn their attention to me but I don't know how long until they get annoyed and move on."

Great.

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