DoorMan (MCU SI) - #124 : Settling Debts, Earth Hearth & Chi Mechanics....

Disclaimer - I don’t own Marvel or any of its characters. The Mighty Mouse does =and I hope it is not standing behind me with a shotgun cocked and ready to blow my brains out the second I have the audacity to press PUBLI——

DoorMan #124

Red Hearth [June 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

It has been over a month since he visited Wakanda, a month spent doing nothing but establishing a new routine for himself. The old one was f*cked seven ways to Sunday, what with him suddenly losing both his hands and that kind of injury was kind of hard to just push under the rug, especially for him who would have been thrust into the public sphere soon enough.

So, he had moved all the money he could into offshore accounts, creating several dozen identities to use multiple shell companies, to make sure that at least some of his money remained, despite him not needing most of it.

The money he could not move securely, he donated, not to charities but directly to people who needed it the most. Sadly, with the somewhat robust social safety net in most developed countries, he had to forgo anyone who might have needed help there in order to focus on getting the less fortunate help, i.e, people living in third world countries.

It wasn’t much, barely a drop compared to the money that even a single NGO might collect in the name of a good cause but the only difference here was that he helped the people in need directly, sometimes ordering stuff on their behalf, foregoing any currency entirely, instead of having money tied up in administering that money.

He formally dropped out, from college, from any work commitments, any contracts whatsoever, even the lease he had on his Earth Hearth. Paying people compensation even when it was not specified in the contract. Dealing with people was very exhausting, especially since he could not really answer the one question everyone had.

All in all, he had been quite reasonably successful in dropping off the face of the planet, both figuratively and literally, since he was no longer on the planet.

He was sure that he had gotten his name placed on some lists, both government and private, but he didn’t care much for that. For now, fulfilling his previous obligations and moving any money he could was more than enough. In terms of Papertrail, he was currently in Thailand, with plans to move around most of the planet frequently.

Once he was done with that, he moved on to the next item on his agenda. The issue of Wakanda was solved, or stable enough that he had no way to interfere, for now. Shuri had some really radical ideas, ideas that would have wrecked the world, but she was smart enough not to implement them. More importantly, Bast was smart enough not to push Shuri into doing that, so that was good in his books.

Wakanda was moving along nicely with the medicines that she was having her companies and proxies fake into developing, to be presented as original discoveries instead of being given to them by Wakanda.

The next item on his agenda was the…Ten Rings. More accurately, the current wielder of the Ten Rings. He didn’t know much about the Rings’ origins, except the fact that they were constantly transmitting their location to someone in the universe. He knew about their powers, though, and it was a very potent power to have.

Especially in the hands of a thousand-year-old man who had plenty of practice with the Rings themselves. A vengeful thousand-year-old man was even more dangerous with those Rings.

He shut down the tab showing the Death report of Wenwu’s wife, Ying Li, the eldest granddaughter of the Village Chief, who was now all alone. To be alone in a world like theirs? With his entire family dead, and him being the one who managed to live to the end despite being the oldest of them all?

That…sucked. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the pain that the Village Chief must be enduring. Jin’ya told him though that the old man was holding strong for all the other people in the village, and only the fact that the village had no one aside from him capable of holding everything down was keeping him tethered here.

Otherwise, with what the old man could do with Chi, he was sure that he would have long since passed away. The more someone gets attuned with their Chi, the more they unlock it, yes, but the more the Chi connects with your brain, your soul. 

After a while, it gets to the point that the very nature of someone’s Chi can change with the way their soul functions. For example, he, with his high level of attunement with his Chi, could simply manipulate it to the point that his normally healing Chi would give someone cancer if they were exposed to it.

Just like that, the potency and vitality of Chi in someone’s body could also be affected by people’s souls. The Village Chief, already old, was brimming with Chi and could manipulate it, thus making it very likely that if he so wished,  he could simply will for the Chi within himself to kill himself, and no one would be able to stop that.

What did Jin’Ya call it when they first saw it in Kun’Lun?

The Death of the spirit begets the death of the flesh

Taking a deep breath, he tried not to think of that and moved on to the intelligence he had been able to gather about the Ten Rings and their connection to the recently emerging terrorist group Ten Rings, currently based in and around Afghanistan and Balochistan, was not as strong as it should be if Wenwu was actually running it.

He knew for a fact that Tony would not have made it out of that cave had it been Wenwu who authorised that kidnapping and subsequent weapons making. Most likely, Wenwu has been taking the fringe groups that splintered after his retirement and bringing them back under one banner, his banner and the one that Tony killed and later destroyed during the Gulmirah Raid, was not a group that Wenwu had yet reached.

Or the most probable option, which was that these guys just picked up that name since it was synonymous with a powerful group of the past and they wanted the cred that came with that.

Either way, they were dead and Wenwu was back in the business, gathering his forces. He had no idea if Wenwu could still hear the Demon speak to him since the seal was supposedly strengthened now so he did want to try the soft sell with him. Once it was clear that the man was beyond saving, which would only happen if Wenwu refused to show any care for any of his children, he can discuss options with Jin’Ya and the Ancient One.

The Rings themselves were a very fascinating weapon, if not a mid tier one. Nowhere near the strongest weapons on Earth but still a capable tool in the hands of someone who would focus on threats internally instead of threats coming from beyond the cosmos.

Shang-Chi would make a very great user of the Rings, especially since he was born with an advanced bloodline, having inherited excellent compatibility with advanced Chi as well as the Ten Rings from both his parents. Making him the ideal candidate to use the Rings.

Obviously, he was not going to go around raising a Child soldier. No, that would be up to Wenwu and the Ancient One to decide if they wanted to train Shang-chi right now or wait for him to grow up.

Either way, he had children to rescue, from a parent who was quite literally mad right now. IT didn't matter if Wenwu was mad with grief of losing his wife. What mattered was that he had two living children and instead of focusing on them, he was going around raising an army to raid a mystical place to rescue someone who was already sealed pack tight.

Recalling all the powers granted by the Ten Rings, he got ready to search for an otherworldly weapon constantly beaconing its location to places unknown. To search for it in a couple of surrounding countries, how hard could it be?

Time to liberate the Ten Rings from Wenwu

Heh. How very American of him.