Marvel Reborn: Gems Of Infinite Potential

New Years Eve Party, January 1st, 2007

Mars Base

The whole team was partying, even Alkasha had put in an appearance, and I was watching Betty's slightly tipsy antics.

I broke out laughing when she shouted out, "Oh, grow some balls, Bruce! You don't try to talk your wife out of a threesome with someone as fine as Natasha here," before leaning over, grabbing Natasha, and giving her a full on lip-lock. Bruce snarled when most of the crowd started shouting their agreement with his wife of two weeks, picked up each of the women in an arm, swung them over his shoulder, and headed towards his room.

As he passed, I lifted my glass in salute, and Elektra chuckled, "I'm not sure why he always puts up a fight."

"Because those socially-imprinted morals tell him that you aren't supposed to f.u.c.k others when you are in a relationship, so he puts up a token protest but his being a man ensures that it is only a token protest. Why do you think he always gives in when Betty brings Natasha, you, or any of the rest of her harem to his bed?" I answered.

She smiled. "I don't love him, but the man f.u.c.ks like a god, and you know how horny high Chi can make you."

"Well, he is one. It's why I don't feel too put out when I come in second best. I still can't believe that Natasha put "a best" f.u.c.k list up in the cafeteria." I chuckled to myself as I thought back to the day almost two years ago that she slapped it up on the wall bold as brass. Or how she started tearing down in excruciating detail all of the many ways in which individuals were lacking when they argued about their position.

Changing the subject, I said, "So any New Years Resolutions, Elektra?"

She lost her smile and finished her drink in one long gulp. "Yeah, I want to find out where I came from."

I stilled for a moment. "Kidnapping Stick for interrogation?"

"Yes, although we have to track him down first," she answered without inflection.

"You know once we pick him up we are going to have to put him on ice, can't let him know about Kilgrave, and I won't approve him for Covenant clearance." I wanted to be sure she had fully thought this through. The best way to lose loyalty was to push people into doing things they would regret.

"I'm aware that it will be a one way trip for him. At a minimum, he will be in stasis for years. And that's assuming I don't just kill him."

"Fine with me, we can start tomorrow. I think I'm about done with this party though, care to join me?" I offered as I finished my drink and c.o.c.ked an eyebrow.

She set her own glass down, looked me up and down. "I suppose I can settle for second best."

I put a hand over my heart and theatrically stumbled backward. "Oh my ego, it bleeds." I joked even as I opened a portal to my own quarters.

The next night

Natasha, Elektra, and I had spent the last ten hours jumping from Chaste safehouse to Chaste safehouse around the world, as we tried to track down its elusive leader. We had eventually found him though, here in Egypt, as he was planning a hit on an underboss of Sowande's. Now we were waiting for him to complete his mission and bring the captured underboss in for interrogation.

Elektra and Natasha were at the safehouse while I followed Stick from inside the Mirror Dimension, safe from virtually all detection and ready to intervene if it looked like Stick was going to bite the dust. The man was good with his blade, flat out the best swordsmen I had ever seen, but he was even better with the pistols he was carrying. Even his blindness he made an asset, as he threw blinding smoke grenades everywhere, and it looked like the smoke was laced with some variant of hallucinogenic gas he was immune to if the Hand forces attacking one another was anything to go by.

Seven minutes and twenty four seconds after he entered the building, he walked back out, the unconscious Hand under-boss - now lacking both hands - over one shoulder, and thirty corpses in the currently burning building behind him. He got into the SUV that was waiting to take him back to the safe house, and I followed.

Once he had the prisoner secured safely in a cell, I opened a portal directly under Stick's feet and dropped him into a cell on Mars that was already full of a very fast acting paralytic that Betty had developed as an outgrowth on Kilgrave. The Hand prisoner met the same fate moments later, even as I was signaling Natasha and Elektra that it was time to go hot.

Natasha started at one entrance, Elektra at the other, and I started from the middle. I accelerated my time frame ten fold and drew my pistol. When I found a Chaste member, I opened a small portal behind their head and fired before moving onto the next one. It was a slaughter, they would have had no chance against any one of us alone, much less all of us together.

While Natasha and I policed the bodies and looked for anything else of interest to loot, Elektra drained the computers dry, and then we returned to Mars.

Hopefully, the Hand would assume that the Chaste hit them, and the Chaste would assume that the Hand struck back in retaliation for the attack and that neither would realize that a third player was in the game. Regardless, we had what we came for.

And now here we were, Stick quite thoroughly stuck in a Vibranium interrogation chair that could hold even the Hulk and dosed up with Kilgrave, even as the fMRI pointed at his brain stood ready to ensure he wasn't beating the virus somehow.

"You will make no attempt to kill yourself or render yourself deaf or mute. You will not attempt to end the mind control you are under. You will answer any question you are asked truthfully and completely without any attempt to mislead, obfuscate, or conceal. You will answer all questions in a normal human speaking tone. You will make no attempt to deliberately enrage anyone present. Do you understand these orders?"

"Yes."

"Who are Elektra's birth parents?"

"Her father is Murakami, her mother is Alexandra Reid," he answered.

Elektra hissed over our comm-link, but I ignored it and continued.

"Two of the Five Fingers of the hand?" I asked, wanting to be positive.

"Yes."

"How did she come into your care?"

"I raided the Hand medical facility where she was being cared for."

"How old was she at that time?"

"Two weeks old."

"Did you attack the medical facility specifically to kidnap her?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because she was a potential Black Sky."

"What is "a potential Black Sky"?"

"Anyone born to two parents who have imbibed the Hand's Resurrection Substance."

"What makes a "potential" Black Sky into a realized Black Sky?"

"If a potential dies and is then returned to life by the Substance."

"What makes a Black Sky special?"

"A potential Black Sky has Chi potential comparable to that of the Iron Fist and, subconsciously, all of the knowledge of both parents as of the time of conception in the case of the father and birth in the case of the mother. When the potential dies and is brought back through the use of a special variant of the Substance, their memories are also pushed into their subconscious, and no conscious mind exists. The Black Sky is then trained to call upon the collected skills in their subconscious and indoctrinated to be fanatically loyal to the Hand."

"When does the Hand choose to create a Black Sky?"

"Whenever the Fingers decide that they face a threat to the survival of the Hand as a whole. Usually, this is when an Iron Fist is being particularly effective, or the Hand is about to undertake some particularly risky venture."

"Are there any limitations on the Hand's ability to create a Black Sky?"

"An individual can only parent one Black Sky per life, and once they contribute to the Black Sky, both parents lose the benefits of the Substance."

"Do you know why Elektra was conceived?"

"No."

"What were your plans for Elektra?"

"To turn her into a weapon against the Hand."

"Do you love her?"

"No, she is simply a tool in the war against the Hand."

Elektra clenched her hands and started to move towards the chair, but Natasha put a hand on her arm, shook her head, and led her out of the room, even as I continued the interrogation.

"Do you know how to consciously use Chi?"

"Yes."

"What are your plans for Matt Murdock?"

"To turn him into the next Stick."

"What is the Stick?"

"The Stick is the individual who is playing host to the spirit of Hiruzen Sarutobi, the founder of the Chaste. He is the leader of the Chaste."

"What are the benefits of the Stick transferring hosts?"

"The defeat of old age, the permanent increase in Chi from the new host being combined with the Chi of all previous hosts, the knowledge of the host is added to the Stick."

"How is the spirit transferred?"

"The potential host drinks a substance made from the blood of the current host infused with Chi in certain patterns. From then on, the Stick can always locate the potential host, and upon the death of the current host, the Stick is transferred to the potential host."

"How many potential Stick hosts can exist at one time?"

"One."

"Who is the current potential Stick host?"

"Matthew Murdock."

I sighed, needing time to think.

After almost five minutes spent processing everything I had just learned and the potential ramifications, I opened a portal to Bruce's lab, stuck my head through, and said, "Hey, Bruce, I need you to prep a stasis chamber and then prepare Stick for cryo freeze. Be extremely careful though, he absolutely can not be allowed to die."

"What's this about, Octavian?" he asked as he turned to face me.

"Not now, Bruce, I'll be calling a full meeting about this later today. But for now, we just need this guy on ice. He is way too risky to keep conscious, and killing him will cause a lot of problems." I did not want to get into everything I just learned about Stick now.

"Fine, I'll get things prepared."