Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.
DoorMan #76
Ta-Lo [February 17, 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
"Since when can you do that?"! Shuri asked him as they slowly inched forward bit by bit.
He shrugged, "For a while now." With that, he fired yet another volley of lasers as the fog was starting to creep up on them once again. It was really odd and dare he say, magical, how the fog could mask all his senses just by being in his proximity.
The faint magical signatures he sensed began to dim as the fog began recovering the lost territory. It was all kind of all horror coded?
Shuri shook her head and took a step forward, giving him a look as dozens of small blasters emerged out of her hands, and two giant ones, glowing a concerning purple, protruded out of her back. All of them aimed at the fog.
With a raised eyebrow, he dropped his hand, dispelling the Red Door as Shuri took center stage, a whine of energy ringing in his ears as all the blasters on her suit began glowing. Blue, purple, white, all of them.
His brow twitched as her feet suddenly bulked up and dug themselves into his Door as he had to reorient the Air Blowers on the fly due to the sudden weight being applied in a single direction. A warning would have been nice but…sigh.
With a thought, a small groove appeared near her legs as Shuri's suit found its footing.
Then, came the attack. It was not an explosion, far from it but the way it cut through the fog, magical or otherwise, creating a straight path for them, illuminating their surroundings and also hitting something on the other end, judging by the roars that came back, was illuminating.
Nice to know that Shuri did pack some very high end firepower in that small of a suit. The lasers from her big back blasters fizzled out first, as four small rings of Miniature Arc Reactors burst out of the arms, sizzling due to the heat, as the rest of the blasters soon gave out as well, resulting in a very long hole in the fog, with the end being a deep red, which was either the colour of the landscape or the more likely answer being that Shuri's blast burned anything that was present upon impact.
He noted two more Arc Rings discarded from her suit, as the blasters retracted back into the suit, with Shuri stepping back to survey the damage she did with her suit.
"I assume you can't do that that many times, can you?" He idly commented as a series of smaller Red Doors appeared around their Alladin's carpet in a series of three so they could still see in between the barrage of Kinetic Lasers, making quite literally a mystic sight in front of them.
"No," Shuri said as she looked at the scene in front of her with awe, at least that's what it looked like to him, as three smaller rays of red punched through the ever so slowly creeping fog, creating a pathway for them.
"That is so cool," Shuri whispered, confirming his guess as they continued to move deeper.
As they moved forward into the fog, he was also aware that the path behind them was closing up as well, but he was not in the mood to clean that up right now. If things escalated to the point that he would be unable to secure a retreat, he would just call on Jin'Ya, which, yeah, was kind of irresponsible of him, to rely on him so much but hey, the bond between them was actual life and death so who knows.
"Brace yourself," he warned Shuri as she covered her face and planted her feet into the groves on the Door, as the Door was propelled forward with a gigantic shockwave of air, making him lean back a bit as a transparent Door was covering his face just in case something went splat.
Soon enough, they reached the end of the fog and the second that happened, it felt like he had crossed dimensions. The red hot hole in the small mountain was present, a result of Shuri's beam.
His eyes narrowed as he swiped through the air, reorienting the Red Doors and sending forth a giant barrage of beams that seemed to have struck something mid air. Shuri's suit rearmed itself, without the giant f*ck you arms as a flying Dragon? Demon? of sorts became visible and was then summarily blasted into the land and then buried a couple of feet as he continued the attack.
"What the…" he whispered to himself as he felt the energy of this place. It was like they had left Ta-Lo and ventured into the Dark Dimension itself. It was all very alarming, to be honest.
Slowly floating down, his form sizzled with a dim yellow glow as he called upon his CHI, preparing to strike down any Dark Energy infested Demon, as he ventured to check on the Demon he had just blasted into the ground. He still heard pained grunts and a little movement from within the hole so that level of output was clearly not enough to kill the Demon, which was fine because he needed some answers.
"Stay Back," he told Shuri as a box of Red Doors appeared all around her, enclosing her in something that would release an omnidirectional wave of Kinetic Energy on command.
He slowly floated down, mindful of any subtle changes in the air, which was how he first found out about this Demon. The energy masking capabilities of this one was off the charts, escaping his senses entirely and only becoming visible to his Air Senses due to his overall sensitivity to changes in the air flow in a small radius around him.
The Demon was in a bad shape as well. Seven glowing yellow eyes, veins of Dark Purple criss crossing across its entire body, leaking yellow pus from its injuries, with one of its wings having a hole punched through with the other one twitching weakly.
He counted a concerning amount of teeth arranged in multiple rows. Combined with the sharp four claws, it was a killing machine and yet, as he gazed into the eyes of this creature, he realised that there was no sentience here.
No mind to read, to interrogate so, with a wave of his hand, a Giant Red Door appeared above him, out of the hole, and blasted the land with a large Kinetic Laser. The laser hit him but as he had practiced beforehand, the laser stuck the Red Door above his head and continued its way through the small Red Door below his feet, effectively creating a safe enclosure for him.
He watched as the Demon was reduced to chunks before they too were burned off, leaving a smoking red hole all around him, with chunks of land either red from the heat or Dark because of the sheer amount of Dark Energy present in the land itself.
Slowly floating back up, he met Shuri, "So? Any idea where we are? Or is this some really elaborate plan to kill me?" She asked him nonchalantly and he resisted the urge to deadpan at her.
As if this was necessary to kill her.
"No, all of this is new to me as well. In the beginning, this was just going to be a short tour of the core area, where we came from but then, it snowballed into this but now, I am not so sure about this anymore." He said, hesitantly as his senses picked up on some faint magical signatures, in the distance, beyond the mountain.
"So, what will it be? Are we going forward or are we retreating?" Shuri asked him, trying to goad him for some reason.
"Do you want to go ahead for some reason?" He asked her as they were now floating high above the hole, surveying the areas around them to see if any new Demon pops out or not.
"Well, I wouldn't mind a sample or two of the exotic energies you keep throwing out plus a DNA sample from any more flying exotic fauna wouldn't be so bad, now, would it?"
"..."
"..."
"I see." he nodded and then flew down to the hole. Gesturing at the hole, "Please, see if you can get any DNA but let me warn you, it might just get all confiscated if the people above me do not like you tinkering with stuff beyond regular science, okay?"
Shuri gave him a confused look but he did not elaborate any further on that. If the Ancient One wanted to remove the possibility of flying Demons being inducted into the Wakandan Army, she would have to talk to Shuri herself.
Maybe taking a SCIENCE! nerd to an obviously magical place was not his best decision.
Well, hindsight's 20/20 and all that.
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