In MCU with One for All -Chapter 13

Disclaimer - All the usual Yada Yada Yada. I don’t own any rights to any characters in this fic, save for my OCs. Marvel owns them. Don’t sue me.

Earth - 16969 [MCU AU]

Bangkok [2008]

–Jamie Bell–

He stood outside the hotel, waiting for the person who was coming to pick him up, and also show him the property he would be staying at. Apparently, you could go overseas, live in some rented home, and send that data back to the Canadian government, just in case someone needs to contact you.

In his case, he was trying to build a solid paper trail so he was going to do that but he wagered that most people did not bother with that level of compliance, especially since it was completely optional and was mostly useful for the governments and rarely for the citizens.

Obviously, he was using this time to stock up on Dimensional Energy, at a slow pace, yes, but he was doing something while standing idly. He wagered that within a few months, he might just be able to do the whole Dimensional Energy absorption thing in his sleep as well, provided that the rate of improvement did not hit a plateau.

“Mr.Bell?” He turned around and saw someone waving at him. He waved back as he began walking towards them, luggage in tow. “Master Wong sent me. Come on, let’s get you all set up.”

With that brief introduction,  they set off and apparently, it was not very far from the city centre as it barely took an hour’s worth of drive to get to the compound. All the names were in the local language so he couldn’t read anything but just by looking at the whole thing, it gave off a mystical vibe to him.

The entrance was covered by trees of all sorts, from all sides. The entrance was essentially into a jungle of sorts, with high walls to seal off the entire thing. The doors opened on their own, when the car came close, which was absolutely silent, nothing like the Toyota ones he had seen back home. No luggage check as they were ushered in through the gates. He looked back and the gates had closed on their own, with two guards standing near, with guns.

He turned around and had to do a double take to look at the gaggle of what could only be described as tourists being shown stuff by a guide, sitting in an electric golf cart.

Before he could voice out his question, his driver answered, “Don’t worry about them, they are supervised visits and are never allowed beyond a certain point, certainly nowhere close to where you will be living. We do this to remove any suspicion that might occur, essentially turning our community into a tourist spot to avoid scrutiny.”

Seeing that Thailand’s tourism industry accounted for over a tenth of their GDP, he wagered that anything related to tourism enjoyed significant perks, “Is it because the government favours anything related to Tourism?”

“That is correct.” The driver replied and then pulled over, exiting the car. He got out, and his eyes widened as he saw a beautiful house, no, it would be better to call it a villa, with trees all around it, as he opened the gates and went in with his luggage.

He followed behind, still shocked at the property. Living in Vancouver, he had a small single family unit as his home, which was like a fifth of this place, and he was certain that it was his home that was more expensive than this place.

Man, Currency values really fucked with his perception of value of things, didn’t it?

____xx_____

He was sitting in front of the koi pond, because, yes, he had his very own koi pond, with maintenance paid for. It was all very calming, sitting in the outdoor entry of his hall, where indoor and outdoor blended together, with trees surrounding him, and the subtle sound of flowing water putting him in the best mood he had been in all his life.

The entire compound had a river flowing through it, with artificial pathways constructed around every single lane, so every single villa had the constant sound of flowing water. He might just move here, after selling his property back in Vancouver.

Even sitting here, sipping on water felt like a luxurious experience to him. All that was left to complete this vacation vibe was a book, and he might just spend days if not weeks here, uninterrupted, enjoying the–

“I hope I’m not intruding.”

He whirled around immediately, water splashing places as he immediately readied his life force, to be pumped into Chi Reaper, only for his hands to fall down as he saw that it was the Ancient One, in her signature monk garb, looking around the place.

“No, not at all. I just got here. I thought training would begin tomorrow.” He said with a little sadness in his voice because despite the overwhelming urge to rid himself of the feeling of helplessness he felt in that world, he still wanted to enjoy this. He had never done something like this, ever. He did go on some company sponsored trips but they were all work and he had never found the opportunity to relax like this.

“I am sure you are training right now,” She gave him a meaningful look and then wandered off into the house, and yes, someone could reach the other end of the house and call out to him, with only the faintest noise being audible, that was how big this place was.

Also, yup, he was training right now and the one thing he noticed was that the calmer he was, something that happened during meditation, the faster the rate of absorption of Dimensional Energy. Like right now, the rate of absorption was way higher than it was when he was just standing idly, right outside his hotel, waiting for the person who would bring him here.

So, mental state was also a factor for energy absorption, noted.

“I assume this is to your liking?” Sometime later, the Ancient One came back and asked him, even as he was in the same place he was when she first came, enjoying the calming sounds of nature.

“Yes.” What else could he say? That this was some tropical heaven compared to his place back in Vancouver? With all the snow and shit.

“I do have to warn you, though, your training will begin in earnest, from tomorrow and though I do think that you will surprise me in most cases, you will not be in any condition to come back here.”

“That’s fine.” He surprised himself with that statement and how straightforward it came out, without an ounce of hesitation. “I did not come to you for a life of luxury but to become stronger and while all of this is nice,” He looked around the greenery surrounding him, “Really nice. But I haven’t forgotten that day.”

The Ancient One nodded, “Good. I would’ve been disappointed if you had.”

With those parting words, she disappeared, likely through one of the many non sling ring teleportation techniques she had in her arsenal, while he sat there, sipping on just water, listening to the sound of flowing water.

“Maybe I need some tea? I wonder if the Ancient One had some on her person. Should’ve asked before she left.”

He turned around, to get up and see if there was any tea in the fully stocked kitchen, only to pause as there was a kettle with steam coming out of it, just resting on the coffee table, along with a cup.

“Bloody Clairvoyants…..”

_____xx_____

[Training Hell, Kamar Taj]

“Argh,” He barely contained the pained grunt as a stick, made up of freaking Celestial Wood, impacted his leg, forcing him onto his knee, as Karl freaking Mordo, lashed out at him during their sparring sessions.

“Again!” Though calling them anything other than beating-up sessions would be inaccurate. Targeting sensitive body parts, worn down by time, was not cool but it was not like he could blame the guy. After all, he was ordered to literally beat out the weakness within him, and well, he was doing a pretty good job of beating him up. Not so sure about the weakness part though.

“Again!” Somehow, against all odds, he found himself on his back, pain in every part of his body, looking at the night sky that was always slightly illuminated, instead of complete illumination. That was also part of the training and most threats that Kamar Taj dealt with used the cover of the night as an advantage and Masters had to be trained to function the same in darkness as they did in complete light.

To that effect, they were trained in absolute light, absolute darkness, and then this in between, with eerie effects of being night but not total darkness, as creatures of the dark used this exact scenario to ambush people.

Cycling lifeforce in his body, he sighed in relief as the pain receded a bit as he stood up, once again waving his hand as he decided to switch gears, creating a shield in one hand, visualizing the unbreakable Vibranium shield of Captain America and the hateful wooden rod in one hand, creating a vibrant orange glow in the otherwise dim lights all around them.

Due to the image he had in his mind, there was now a star in the center of his shield but visualisation was the key when it came to Dimensional Energy manipulation, as the stronger he imagined things to be, the stronger they became, and what better way than to visualise the strongest metal on the planet, in the hands of the most strong willed person he imagined being in this reality.

“Impressive light show,” Mordo commented, still with that utterly uninterested expression on his face, not taking him seriously. Well, time to prove him wrong then.

With that, he charged forward, lashing out with his weapon, extending the wooden stick, impacting the Celestial wood that was Karl Mordo’s artifact, which broke his stick on impact. The stick then turned into a whip and lashed out at him, forcing him to put his shield in front of his face, and thankfully, the Shield held this time, despite the cracks.

He quickly focused on the cracks as did not want it to break. This was progress, just a few days ago, his shields would break upon–

“Focus!” Was all he heard before a kick impacted the shield, pushing him back, as the whip was retrieved by Mordo. He took several steps back, almost losing balance and falling down, only to be stabilised as several arms, reminiscent of Peter Parker’s future Spider suit shot out of his back, and stabbed themselves into the ground, granting him enhanced manoeuvrability.

“That’s new,” Mordo commented as he smiled at his work, dangling mid air as the arms were strong enough to act as makeshift spider limbs.

“Thanks! I’ve been working on them for a while now.” With that, he pushed and was immediately air borne, shield abandoned in favour of maintaining focus on the legs. The second he reached the peak of his flight, he switched gears and turned the spider limbs into a rotating death spiral, as he plummeted, further accelerated by the small rotor that appeared on top of his head.

It being his own personal store of Dimensional Energy, he could manipulate it at very fine levels, allowing him to see out of the Death Spiral, through which he saw that Mordo jumped back, with his stupid Celestial stick ready as he impacted the ground, hard, throwing rocks and rubble everywhere.

He groaned at the pain from the impact as his focus wavered, the spider legs flickering and then dissipating as he could not keep them active anymore. Even as distracted and in pain as he was, he still managed to raise his right hand, summoning the Captain’s shield, stopping the whip in its place. 

The shield began cracking so he abandoned the outermost parts of it, and fashioned it into a single rectangular-ish block, like the one that Wakanda gave Steve Rogers during the whole Wakanda Invasion by Thanos’ forces.

With a grunt, he pushed with all his might, finally feeling he was doing something, only for the whip to last out again, this time, at his legs and he was too exhausted, and somewhat dizzy to get the shield in place, in time, so he found yet another bruise forming on his legs as he fell flat on his face, all dimensional energy summoning dissipating because he lost his focus.

A week ago, he would have lost his consciousness as well but now, he remained awake to experience the pain and to hear Master Mordo speak about all the deficiencies in his combat style, even though it had only been a little more than a month since his training began.

“Your control when you switch to your personal reserves is impressive to say the least, but like I have said all the other times, save that for when you can’t draw upon Dimensional Energy. You have a gift but it would be the epitome of foolishness to become so dependent on it that you cannot function properly without it.”

His only reply was a pained groan as he remained as is, face down, in the middle of a crater that his landing created.

Everything hurt, his head hurt, his vision was swimming and yet, he forced himself to remain awake, to listen because as miniscule as it was, it was progress.

And that, was the goal.