Chapter 117: The Power Stone
A/N: Damage control time!
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Silence falls for a moment between Tony and the group of Xandarians. Belatedly, Tony coalesces the helmet of his Nanite Vibranium Armor over his head, covering his features as the Aether continues to work its way into the safe ensconced in the wall across from him.
“Nope. No Tony Stark here. King of Terra? Who’s that?”
The security officers exchange looks at that, the one in charge looking so incredulous now that it’s one of the ones in the back who actually breaks the silence.
“Uh… but you just said-!”
Click! Thunk! Ca-Chunk!
The cycling of the safe’s lock as the Aether finishes doing its work cuts the security officer off from calling Tony out on his blatant lies. Eyes widen on the Xandarian side of the equation, even as the safe opens up, revealing a small alien-looking orb nestled inside of the space beyond.
Immediately, every gun, which had already been pointed in Tony’s direction to begin with, whines as they’re primed and ready to fire.
“Sir, cease and desist or we will be forced to open fire! Whether you’re the King of Terra or not, we will not allow you to take the Orb! You aren’t going to escape anyways; the Nova Corps has already locked down the planet and are sending their best right this moment!”
Heh, the Nova Corps. Tony ignores the warnings and uses the Aether to draw the orb over to him. In retaliation, the Xandarians begin to fire their lovely space guns at him. The blasts do nothing to his armor, though they do rock him a little bit. But with his back against the wall, it doesn’t matter, even as the orb drops into one of his plated hands.
“I know it might not seem like it, but I’m doing you all a favor. You should never have taken custody of this thing. If I don’t take it off your hands now, someone else will come along and do it instead and he… he won’t be nearly as nice about it as me.”
They keep firing, and he’s not even sure they’re listening. But in all fairness, he’s pretty much ignoring their actions too, so it’s pretty much tit-for-tat in that regard. Reaching over with his other hand, his breathing becoming a little labored at this points and his movements stiffer and stiffer as Reality combined with Space continue to tax the ten Vibranium Arc Reactors within his body, Tony gives the orb a twist that opens it right up.
A purple glow fills the vault and for a moment the Xandarian Security Forces stop firing as they stare in awe at the revealed Power Stone, its glowing light almost blinding in its intensity. Not wasting any time, Tony slams the lower half of the orb, Power Stone and all, right into the center of his chest where the nanites move away and allow the Power Stone to sink into his flesh the same way the Space Stone did.
Immediately, Tony’s entire body, armor and all, seizes up and he lets out a howl of pain and agony as glowing lines of purple energy alight across both his suit and the flesh hidden underneath. The Power Stone isn’t like Reality or Space. When it came to Reality, well, the Aether was an energy glutton. Space was much the same way, requiring copious amounts of power to hold inside of oneself, despite being usable as an energy source itself when in its Tesseract form.
Power though… was exactly what it said on the tin. Raw Power, endless energy, an Infinity Stone that lived up to the Infinity part by just plain never stopping. The problem with the Power Stone wasn’t that you had to be able to power it… but rather you had to have a body that could survive IT powering YOU.
Tony knows immediately if not for the changes he wrought upon himself to house the Aether, he would burn up instantly. Even then, it’s a fucking lot and he has to quickly improvise, adapt, and overcome in over to get the three Infinity Stones inside of himself into a place of harmony and equilibrium.
First and foremost, he shunts as much of the Power Stone’s power as he can into Reality, reinforcing his own body even more than it was already reinforced. His insides, which were already coated in Vibranium, become something more, something he can’t even begin to categorize or explain in this moment. Enhanced Vibranium, maybe? Super Vibranium? He’d have to workshop the idea.
But even then, it’s not enough, at least not in the immediate. So Tony goes even farther, shunting every ounce of Power Stone energy that he can into the ten Vibranium Arc Reactors within his body. Soon, they’re all filled to the brim with energy… but he can’t keep them inside of him, they’ll just burn him up.
Instead, Tony is forced to push them out of his armored form one by one, each dropping to the floor of the vault one after another, glowing and shaking with violet and blue energy crackling across their surfaces. After all ten leave his form, after he’s done something to himself that Tony can’t even explain… only then do things begin to calm down.
Three Infinity Stones lurk within his body. Power, Reality, Space. This is why Tony hadn’t demanded the Tesseract from Odin before now. Because he’d known in his heart of hearts that taking on the Space Stone along with Reality would force him to come here to Xandar and claim Power as well. He could have done so, but accumulating three Infinity Stones so openly, while also having two more on Earth had seemed like a… bad idea.
He'd wanted to keep Thanos at least somewhat complacent for a while longer, had wanted to have the purple thumb dancing to his tune until he was ready to strike. Of course, now Thanos had forced his hand. While it was possible that Eitri didn’t have the tools to create the gauntlet or wouldn’t allow Thanos to break him down like he had in the previous timeline… Tony wasn’t going to take that chance.
Clenching a gauntleted hand into a fist, feeling the power surging through him, Tony takes a deep breath and stands tall, head held high.
Of course, by this point Xandar’s true protectors, the leaders of the Nova Corps, have finally arrived. The original security detail that was first to show up on the scene is still pointing their guns at him, even as a stately older woman with a distinctly alien hairstyle steps up between two of them.
“Greetings. I am Irani Rael, Nova Prime and Commander of the Nova Corps. I’m told that you identified yourself as Tony Stark, King of Terra. Why have you invaded Xander, your Highness?”
For a long moment, Tony considers the newly introduced Nova Prime. Then, he shakes his head.
“Nope, sorry. Not doing this.”
A frown graces the stately woman’s face, but Tony overrides her before she can respond, gesturing down to the ten glowing Arc Reactors at his feet.
“Consider these payment for the Power Stone. Unlimited energy. One caveat though. Use them for weaponry and they’ll explode, no exceptions.”
He could reinforce that promise because JARVIS was technically in each and every Vibranium Arc Reactor. His digital darling boy was also embedded in the wall behind Tony as well, from where a few Vibranium Nanites had peeled off while Tony had been leaning against it. In fact, J had been with him all along… hm, curious that he hadn’t spoken yet, but no matter.
“I’d really love to hash things out with you guys, but I’m kind of on the clock now. Here’s the deal, in case I somehow fail and you need to know who to blame. There’s a big purple thumb named Thanos out there who wants to wipe out half of all life in the universe.”
A flicker of something akin to familiarity appears in Nova Prime Rael’s eyes, though everyone else looks like he’s crazy. Tony just bulldozes on ahead though.
“I can tell you recognize the name. Good. If I hadn’t come here, he would have sooner or later, wiping out half of your planet’s population and seizing the Power Stone by force. You’re welcome. Now I’m going to go and stop him, one way or the other.”
General bristling and gnashing of teeth from the Xandarians at that, save for Nova Prime. For her, she just narrows her eyes and purses her lips.
“How exactly do you intend to leave without bloodshed, your majesty?”
Tony scoffs. And to think, he’d almost been impressed with her so far.
“How do you think I got here in the first place, Nova Prime?”
With a rather unnecessary snap of his fingers, Tony creates a portal behind him and once again steps backwards through it without anyone else in the room being able to react. This time, the action is almost effortless, with the Power Stone providing more than enough energy to prevent overuse of Reality and Space from killing him.
Arriving back on the top of his tower on Earth, Tony lets his armor shift away and looks down at himself for a moment before sighing and reaching out mentally.
“J? What’s the situation? The radio silence is getting a little concerning, baby boy.”
“Apologies Sir, but with your very life force being sapped by trying to house two Infinity Stones at once, I concluded that communicating with you while you were dealing with your energy supply issues would only exacerbate the problem.”
… Yeah, that was rather fair. He’d barely been holding on as it was. Though…
“There’s something else, isn’t there J?”
Loki arrives at that point, huffing as she crosses her arms over her chest while JARVIS, strangely enough, is busy hesitating.
“There’s a problem, Stark. Your little sorcerer isn’t.”
Tony takes a half a beat to parse that statement before turning to face Loki. He ignores the way she seems to eye him up and down approvingly. Outwardly, his appearance hasn’t changed one bit, but she can likely sense his new level of power and is turned on by it, the little minx.
“Dr. Strange? What do you mean he isn’t a sorcerer?”
Even as he’s asking that question, Tony curses.
“Shit, we butterflied something, didn’t we?”
Finally interjecting, JARVIS lets out a warbling sigh.
“It would appear so, Sir. I believe I have found the impetus behind Stephen Strange’s decision to pursue the Mystic Arts... and it would seem the actions of Stark Industries have thoroughly disrupted his intended path.”
As JARVIS transmits over the data to go along with those ominous words, Tony finds himself once again reflecting on the Strange from his previous timeline. He’d never gotten to know the Sorcerer Supreme very well. They certainly hadn’t had time to trade backstories, and even if they had, Tony didn’t imagine Strange would have been very forthcoming. The man had been insanely prickly.
Not that Tony was one to talk, but that was the problem. Both he and Stephen Strange were Grade A Dickheads of the highest caliber. They bounce off of one another like the same ends of magnets deflecting. He didn’t think they could have ever been friends, though they’d at least been able to put aside their differences and work together for the greater good… even if they’d ultimately failed.
And why had they failed? Well, setting aside Peter fucking Quill’s monumental fuckup, one of the main reasons that Thanos had even gotten the Time Stone from Strange in the first place was to save Tony’s life. The fucking purple thumb had had Tony dead to rights, only for Strange to hand over the Infinity Stone he’d sworn an oath to protect.
Of course, Tony was aware that that decision had been made AFTER the Sorcerer Supreme had used the Time Stone to view fourteen million, six hundred, and five possible futures to see if they won in any of them. And according to Strange they had. But only in one. Then, right before the smug magical bastard had turned to dust after the lost battle against Thanos, he’d had the audacity to tell Tony ‘there was no other way’. As if to say that this was the one timeline in which they won. Of course, right after that, Tony had been forced to hold Peter in his arms as he died.
For a long time, Tony had believed his time travel had been something Strange foresaw. That he was on a path paved not just by him but overseen by the Sorcerer Supreme who had given up the one thing stopping Thanos from his genocide in order to save Tony’s life.
… He wasn’t so sure about that anymore, because in this timeline, apparently he’d butterflied Stephen Strange’s entire magical journey and not even known it.
In hindsight, it was rather obvious where the point of divergence was. Stephen Strange had been in a terrible car accident on the second of February, a few months back. He’d survived, but the accident had done irreparable damage to his hands. Or rather, what SHOULD have been irreparable damage to his hands.
Tony hadn’t given the public ES3 or even baseline Extremis yet. He’d been holding that in reserve because giving everyone superpowers seemed like a recipe for disaster. However, part of him had felt some guilt over giving the members of the WSC and some of their family members baseline Extremis in order to fully bring them over to his side. Working with slimy politicians made him in turn feel slimy, even if it was ultimately necessary to legitimize his hold over Earth.
In return, he’d gone ahead and released the cure-all one-off shot he’d given to Coulson back on the Helicarrier in 2012 to select hospitals and medical institutions. Not too much of it, and it was all tightly controlled, but basically there were hospitals out there now that could boast the capability of healing almost any injury so long as the patient was still alive.
And wouldn’t you know it, Metro-General Hospital was one such place, in part BECAUSE Stephen Strange was working there and had elevated the hospital’s reputation with his immensely skilled work as a neurosurgeon. To the extent that when he’d been brought into Metro-General Hospital after his car crash, they’d basically tripped over themselves to jab him with one of Tony’s shots, which had proceeded to heal Strange completely, as if the damage to his hands had never even happened.
Maybe if the good doctor had seen fit to send Tony a message thanking him for his miraculous recovery, they would have realized something was up sooner, but no… Stephen Strange’s ego was so immense, the man so big headed, that after being healed from the brink of permanent disability, he’d been right back to performing surgeries a day later like nothing had happened.
It was obvious now that Strange should have remained crippled, with the limits of surgery in the original timeline leaving his hands a wreck. And without him being able to continue plying his craft as a neurosurgeon, he might have gotten desperate… desperate enough to seek out alternatives like the Masters of the Mystic Arts. Sorcery.
But Tony hadn’t known that, and neither had JARVIS. And now they were up shit’s creek without a paddle, at least as far as Sorcerer Supreme Strange and the Time Stone were concerned.
Tony curses under his breath as he rapidly begins altering his plans to account for this change in variables. Strange was out, so that meant-
“Sir. Apologies for interrupting once more, but something is happening that pertains to our current situation.”
Tony raises an eyebrow at that.
“Oh? What is it, J?”
“There is a breakaway faction of zealots attacking the Sanctums of the Mystic Arts and causing quite the ruckus in their wake. Right now, the Ancient One, their current Sorcerer Supreme, is facing off against the zealots. I have been monitoring this situation for quite some time and can say that the zealots’ intentions of opening a pathway to the Dark Dimension to allow a creature known as Dormammu access to our reality will cause as much damage if not MORE damage to the universe than even Thanos is capable of.”
Shit. And it would be just Tony’s luck that Dormammu and these zealots were something Strange had quietly taken care of before even meeting Tony back in the original timeline.
“Based on my simulations, the Ancient One is going to lose this battle, sir. Without intervention, she is likely to die in mere minutes.”
… Double shit.
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A/N: Next time... Ancient One POV at long last? :O