Chapter 50: War Avoided?
Benjamin coughed once and returned to the topic.
“Anyway, further introductions can be done later. We need to deal with this situation first.”
Carol nodded and turned to Sif.
“You mentioned Odin was growing weak? I know this is rude to ask but how long do you think he can hold on?”
Sif sighed and shook her head.
“Not very long. I say this even in mortal terms.”
“Actually, is it alright for you to say these things?”
Benjamin asked as he wondered whether this should be under wraps or something.
Sif let out a mocking smile and shook her head.
“It’s pretty much an open secret at this point. Those who shouldn’t know already knows, and those who should know still don’t know. Earth is part of the Nine Realms and outside forces will think of us as on the same side when attacking. It is better that you are prepared for it.”
Benjamin thought for a moment and wondered if he could somehow help Odin.
After all, the system is so powerful. There are bound to be some items that can heal him right?
Actually, won’t the High Recovery Pill help?
[Host, Odin’s weakness is because his time is already ending. The pill isn’t capable of lengthening someone’s lifespan.]
Then are there any other items that could help him?
[There is but the cheapest one would need a hundred million points.]
…Well, nothing I can do then.
Benjamin sighed as he looked at his measly 2 million MP.
“Well, let’s deal with that later. For now, we need to stop this war from starting in the first place.”
“Agreed. Any idea where this Kree is right now?”
Carol asked Sif who shook her head.
“You said something about Kava before. Key, right? Key to what?”
Benjamin asked.
“It is not a key to anything. It is a place.”
“Place? Is it an island shaped like a key or something? It’s not much to go on.”
Coulson frowned.
“No, but we know he landed in Portugal.”
Benjamin tapped on the tablet on Coulson’s table and showed it to them.
“Chaves, Portugal. I don’t get it.”
“Chaves means key in English.”
Coulson didn’t get it but Carol understood.
Fury frowned at the name as it felt familiar.
“Chaves….where have I…”
Suddenly, Coulson snapped his fingers.
“Chaves! It was in Whitehall’s SSR file. The site of his dig back in 1945 where he first found the Obelisk!”
Benjamin raised his brow at him, surprised that he remembered such little detail.
“What? We were up against Whitehall just recently. I do my homework.”
Coulson explained.
“Obelisk?”
Sif and the others asked.
“It’s Kree tech. Capable of transforming someone with Inhuman genes into an Inhuman. Or so Ben says. Skye-”
“Daisy.”
Benjamin corrected.
“Right, I keep forgetting. Anyway, Daisy, an agent of ours and someone with a latent Inhuman gene was transformed by this Obelisk and now has the power to shake things.”
“These…Inhumans. What exactly are they?”
Fury asked while frowning.
Benjamin continued the explanation.
“They are part of an experiment of the Kree hundreds of years ago but were abandoned for some reason. Generations passed and the gene passed on from one to another. On the outside, there’s not much difference to a normal human but once they undergo the process called Terrigenisis, they will start to show their true potential.”
“...”
Fury groaned and rubbed his forehead in exasperation.
“Forget it, we’ll deal with that later as well. Just thinking about another superpowered community hidden for so long now gives me a headache.”
Benjamin chuckled.
“They’re basically the same as mutants. Just with some alien DNA.”
“Anyway, we can assume that this Kree intruder came here this time to search for this Obelisk, right?”
Carol asked Sif.
“Most likely. Do you have this Obelisk in your possession, Phil, Son of Coul?”
Carol let out a chuckle at the name and Coulson sighed, knowing that this thing’s gonna spread even more now.
Still, he nodded.
“We have two in our custody at the moment. We don’t know how many there are out there.”
“Assuming there’s still more out there, we need to get to them first.”
Fury added and Carol looked at him in doubt.
“You think this Kree intruder is…going to activate all Inhumans? Make an army?”
“That’s impossible. Even if he can activate all of them, he has no control over them.”
Benjamin shook his head.
This idea is too impossible to achieve.
At this moment, Benjamin received a call from the EPD Portugal branch.
As expected, they did find someone who had lost their memories in a nearby hospital.
“I’ll go grab him then. Give me a sec.”
Benjamin didn’t wait for them anymore and directly opened a portal, stretched out his hand, and pulled the blue-skinned guy looking for nitrogen.
Apparently, he was looking for some nitrogen in the hospital in order to turn his blue skin into flesh-colored skin like that of a human.
Benjamin didn’t bother to waste more time and directly dragged the guy through the portal and held him in place by locking his limbs with the earth that rose from the ground.
“Who are you!? What is the meaning of this!?”
Carol’s eyes started to glow and her fist also glowed as she brought it near the Kree’s face.
“You don’t get to ask the questions here. Speak! What is your purpose for coming to Earth!?”
“I am here to help!”
“You wiped my memory, how is this helping?”
Sif glared at the man.
Being memory wiped was not a pleasant thing after all.
“You attacked me! I had to wipe your memory to prevent you from tracking me! Speaking of, how did you restore your memories?”
Sif took out her sword and aimed it at the man’s neck.
“You are the one being asked. Not the other way around. Answer the question.”
“L-look, I can prove that I’m not a threat. And that I’m here to help. Just let me explain.”
“Talk.”
The Kree sighed and started to explain.
“There is an ancient tale of our kind. The Tale of Terrigenisis.”
Everyone looked at each other with a frown and looked at Benjamin who looked like he already expected it.
“A long long time ago, our ancestors would descend onto planets and alter the inhabitants to fight for them. Earth was one of them.”
He sighed.
“One vicious faction among the Kree genetically modified other creatures’ DNA. These modifications can be activated with Terrigen crystals. But all these experiments failed…all but on one planet. Earth.”
“The Inhumans.”
Coulson could already tell where this was going and spoke.
The Kree widened his eyes and looked at him in shock.
“So you’ve seen them!? The…subjects of Earth had built a city. They brought with them the Diviners, which hold the crystals. Their plans were discovered and thwarted by the better of my kind, putting an end to that dark chapter of our past…”
“Until now.”
The Kree nodded.
“When I saw that an ancient signal had been triggered, I knew it had to be a Diviner. If the Kree Empire learned that these experiments were a success, they would be likely to renew them. And if you say that you have seen these people…then you know the horrors they could unleash.”
Everyone looked at Benjamin again.
Benjamin just shrugged.
“Everyone fears what they can’t control. He’s afraid that the Inhumans would turn on them after being granted power so they tried to shut them down. Now knowing that there are some that survived, you still want to exterminate them.”
“You don’t get it. These…beings are abominations! I came here to find the remainder of the Diviners before another monstrosity occurred!”
“How many Diviners are there?”
Carol asked.
“Enough to create an army.”
“Give a number.”
“...Six. There were six Diviners.”
Everyone looked at each other again.
They already have two, which leaves four more out there.
“We must find the Diviners before more are created! These creatures are weapons. Abominations! They must be put down!”
“We already have an Abomination. Hulk put him down so he’s in prison. As for the Inhumans, they have a mind of their own. If they chose to use this power to commit crimes, we will stop them. Otherwise, they deserve to be free as much as anyone on this planet does.”
Benjamin asserted and made his stance clear.
Fury frowned and was about to interject when Benjamin glanced at him.
“I accepted you in the EPD and told you clearly how the EPD works. If you still behave like when you were the Director of SHIELD and try to monitor or contain these people, trust me, it will only backfire on you.”
Fury opened his mouth but closed it soon as he couldn’t say anything against that.
Before, he had people try and study the Tesseract, hoping to turn it into a weapon. However, it only brought upon them an alien invasion instead.
He knew that what Benjamin said was right, but it still made him feel uneasy.
“Don’t worry too much. The EPD is more global now and if there are any new-powered people, the first thought they will have is to sign up. Apparently, being a member of the EPD now is equivalent to being a celebrity.”
Benjamin knew the mentality of the general populace well.
Now powered people are looked upon and no longer discriminated against.
Of course, there is still some portion who doesn’t like this change but they are small in numbers and can’t do anything.
With so many powered people stepping up to the light, the new ones will be less afraid and would also join the bandwagon.
What are humans but beings of herd mentality after all?
Everyone sided with him. Even Sif knew that having these Inhumans as allies would prove more useful than making an enemy out of them.
With how unstable the condition of Asgard is now, they needed all the help they could get.
When the Kree saw that he couldn’t convince any of them, he sighed.
“Then you better pray that no one from the Kree Empire finds out. Or they will come for them.”
“There’s no need to be concerned about us.”
Benjamin grabbed onto the truncheon that he was holding, turned the dial on the bottom, then smacked it on his chest while Kree was still holding it.
An electrical surge flowed through the Kree as he was hit.
After a second, he looked around in confusion.
“Where am I…why are your skins not blue?”
Coulson turned to Benjamin.
“What did you do?”
“Used his own weapon against him and erased his memories. That way we don’t need to worry about him anymore. Find his ship, erase his flight logs, and send him away.”
Coulson blinked in surprise for a bit then turned to Fury.
Fury shrugged.
“Don’t look at me, I’m not your boss anymore.”
“What else do you want to do with him? Dissect him?”
“Uhh no. I’ll get right on it then.”
Coulson hurriedly shook his head and called a few people to issue some orders.
After some time, the Kree was sent on his way and everyone sighed in relief.
“Well, that’s one crisis averted.”
Carol was relieved that she didn’t have to worry about a Kree invasion now.
Of course, they still need to keep a lookout for a while but at the moment, they are out of danger.
Sif then turned to them and spoke.
“It has been an eventful day. But I must return.”
“You sure? Don’t you have any days off or something? Have you already toured our planet?”
Benjamin asked.
“I…have not.”
“Then are you in a hurry or something?”
“Well…”
Sif hesitated.
On one hand, she wishes to return to Asgard and continue her duties. However, she remembered that Thor was still there galavanting around with his mortal girlfriend and felt annoyed.
Just as he was hesitating, she suddenly heard Heimdall’s voice in her mind.
“You can take a few days to relax. Just take it as you’re still investigating the Kree.”
“...Understood. Thank you, Heimdall.”
“Haha, go have fun. Don’t worry, I’ll stop looking.”
Having been reassured that Heimdall won’t be surveilling her anymore and had his permission, Sif smiled.
“Then, if you’ll have me. I wish to tour this realm. Can you show me around, Sir Benjamin?”
“Ah? Oh, well, I’ll show you around then…”
Benjamin was surprised.
He only said those things out of politeness and didn’t actually think she would agree…
Just as well, he was even made to be a tour guide…well, it’s fine anyway. Consider it an escort mission assigned to the EPD…
Carol glanced at the two of them curiously and thought for a moment.
“I’ll tag along. I’ve been away for a long time, I heard you made a lot of changes. I’m quite curious about them.”
“Uh, sure…”
[Captain Marvel joins the party!]
System, you sure are having fun…
At the side, Fury turned to Coulson and whispered.
“We may have prevented a war but this guy is about to have another war of his own. If you know what I mean.”
Coulson sighed and shook his head.
“Well, this is one war we have nothing to do with. Wanna see the new Hellicarrier?”
“Sure.”
…The two decisively abandoned Benjamin!
Chapter 50: War Avoided?
Benjamin coughed once and returned to the topic.
“Anyway, further introductions can be done later. We need to deal with this situation first.”
Carol nodded and turned to Sif.
“You mentioned Odin was growing weak? I know this is rude to ask but how long do you think he can hold on?”
Sif sighed and shook her head.
“Not very long. I say this even in mortal terms.”
“Actually, is it alright for you to say these things?”
Benjamin asked as he wondered whether this should be under wraps or something.
Sif let out a mocking smile and shook her head.
“It’s pretty much an open secret at this point. Those who shouldn’t know already knows, and those who should know still don’t know. Earth is part of the Nine Realms and outside forces will think of us as on the same side when attacking. It is better that you are prepared for it.”
Benjamin thought for a moment and wondered if he could somehow help Odin.
After all, the system is so powerful. There are bound to be some items that can heal him right?
Actually, won’t the High Recovery Pill help?
[Host, Odin’s weakness is because his time is already ending. The pill isn’t capable of lengthening someone’s lifespan.]
Then are there any other items that could help him?
[There is but the cheapest one would need a hundred million points.]
…Well, nothing I can do then.
Benjamin sighed as he looked at his measly 2 million MP.
“Well, let’s deal with that later. For now, we need to stop this war from starting in the first place.”
“Agreed. Any idea where this Kree is right now?”
Carol asked Sif who shook her head.
“You said something about Kava before. Key, right? Key to what?”
Benjamin asked.
“It is not a key to anything. It is a place.”
“Place? Is it an island shaped like a key or something? It’s not much to go on.”
Coulson frowned.
“No, but we know he landed in Portugal.”
Benjamin tapped on the tablet on Coulson’s table and showed it to them.
“Chaves, Portugal. I don’t get it.”
“Chaves means key in English.”
Coulson didn’t get it but Carol understood.
Fury frowned at the name as it felt familiar.
“Chaves….where have I…”
Suddenly, Coulson snapped his fingers.
“Chaves! It was in Whitehall’s SSR file. The site of his dig back in 1945 where he first found the Obelisk!”
Benjamin raised his brow at him, surprised that he remembered such little detail.
“What? We were up against Whitehall just recently. I do my homework.”
Coulson explained.
“Obelisk?”
Sif and the others asked.
“It’s Kree tech. Capable of transforming someone with Inhuman genes into an Inhuman. Or so Ben says. Skye-”
“Daisy.”
Benjamin corrected.
“Right, I keep forgetting. Anyway, Daisy, an agent of ours and someone with a latent Inhuman gene was transformed by this Obelisk and now has the power to shake things.”
“These…Inhumans. What exactly are they?”
Fury asked while frowning.
Benjamin continued the explanation.
“They are part of an experiment of the Kree hundreds of years ago but were abandoned for some reason. Generations passed and the gene passed on from one to another. On the outside, there’s not much difference to a normal human but once they undergo the process called Terrigenisis, they will start to show their true potential.”
“...”
Fury groaned and rubbed his forehead in exasperation.
“Forget it, we’ll deal with that later as well. Just thinking about another superpowered community hidden for so long now gives me a headache.”
Benjamin chuckled.
“They’re basically the same as mutants. Just with some alien DNA.”
“Anyway, we can assume that this Kree intruder came here this time to search for this Obelisk, right?”
Carol asked Sif.
“Most likely. Do you have this Obelisk in your possession, Phil, Son of Coul?”
Carol let out a chuckle at the name and Coulson sighed, knowing that this thing’s gonna spread even more now.
Still, he nodded.
“We have two in our custody at the moment. We don’t know how many there are out there.”
“Assuming there’s still more out there, we need to get to them first.”
Fury added and Carol looked at him in doubt.
“You think this Kree intruder is…going to activate all Inhumans? Make an army?”
“That’s impossible. Even if he can activate all of them, he has no control over them.”
Benjamin shook his head.
This idea is too impossible to achieve.
At this moment, Benjamin received a call from the EPD Portugal branch.
As expected, they did find someone who had lost their memories in a nearby hospital.
“I’ll go grab him then. Give me a sec.”
Benjamin didn’t wait for them anymore and directly opened a portal, stretched out his hand, and pulled the blue-skinned guy looking for nitrogen.
Apparently, he was looking for some nitrogen in the hospital in order to turn his blue skin into flesh-colored skin like that of a human.
Benjamin didn’t bother to waste more time and directly dragged the guy through the portal and held him in place by locking his limbs with the earth that rose from the ground.
“Who are you!? What is the meaning of this!?”
Carol’s eyes started to glow and her fist also glowed as she brought it near the Kree’s face.
“You don’t get to ask the questions here. Speak! What is your purpose for coming to Earth!?”
“I am here to help!”
“You wiped my memory, how is this helping?”
Sif glared at the man.
Being memory wiped was not a pleasant thing after all.
“You attacked me! I had to wipe your memory to prevent you from tracking me! Speaking of, how did you restore your memories?”
Sif took out her sword and aimed it at the man’s neck.
“You are the one being asked. Not the other way around. Answer the question.”
“L-look, I can prove that I’m not a threat. And that I’m here to help. Just let me explain.”
“Talk.”
The Kree sighed and started to explain.
“There is an ancient tale of our kind. The Tale of Terrigenisis.”
Everyone looked at each other with a frown and looked at Benjamin who looked like he already expected it.
“A long long time ago, our ancestors would descend onto planets and alter the inhabitants to fight for them. Earth was one of them.”
He sighed.
“One vicious faction among the Kree genetically modified other creatures’ DNA. These modifications can be activated with Terrigen crystals. But all these experiments failed…all but on one planet. Earth.”
“The Inhumans.”
Coulson could already tell where this was going and spoke.
The Kree widened his eyes and looked at him in shock.
“So you’ve seen them!? The…subjects of Earth had built a city. They brought with them the Diviners, which hold the crystals. Their plans were discovered and thwarted by the better of my kind, putting an end to that dark chapter of our past…”
“Until now.”
The Kree nodded.
“When I saw that an ancient signal had been triggered, I knew it had to be a Diviner. If the Kree Empire learned that these experiments were a success, they would be likely to renew them. And if you say that you have seen these people…then you know the horrors they could unleash.”
Everyone looked at Benjamin again.
Benjamin just shrugged.
“Everyone fears what they can’t control. He’s afraid that the Inhumans would turn on them after being granted power so they tried to shut them down. Now knowing that there are some that survived, you still want to exterminate them.”
“You don’t get it. These…beings are abominations! I came here to find the remainder of the Diviners before another monstrosity occurred!”
“How many Diviners are there?”
Carol asked.
“Enough to create an army.”
“Give a number.”
“...Six. There were six Diviners.”
Everyone looked at each other again.
They already have two, which leaves four more out there.
“We must find the Diviners before more are created! These creatures are weapons. Abominations! They must be put down!”
“We already have an Abomination. Hulk put him down so he’s in prison. As for the Inhumans, they have a mind of their own. If they chose to use this power to commit crimes, we will stop them. Otherwise, they deserve to be free as much as anyone on this planet does.”
Benjamin asserted and made his stance clear.
Fury frowned and was about to interject when Benjamin glanced at him.
“I accepted you in the EPD and told you clearly how the EPD works. If you still behave like when you were the Director of SHIELD and try to monitor or contain these people, trust me, it will only backfire on you.”
Fury opened his mouth but closed it soon as he couldn’t say anything against that.
Before, he had people try and study the Tesseract, hoping to turn it into a weapon. However, it only brought upon them an alien invasion instead.
He knew that what Benjamin said was right, but it still made him feel uneasy.
“Don’t worry too much. The EPD is more global now and if there are any new-powered people, the first thought they will have is to sign up. Apparently, being a member of the EPD now is equivalent to being a celebrity.”
Benjamin knew the mentality of the general populace well.
Now powered people are looked upon and no longer discriminated against.
Of course, there is still some portion who doesn’t like this change but they are small in numbers and can’t do anything.
With so many powered people stepping up to the light, the new ones will be less afraid and would also join the bandwagon.
What are humans but beings of herd mentality after all?
Everyone sided with him. Even Sif knew that having these Inhumans as allies would prove more useful than making an enemy out of them.
With how unstable the condition of Asgard is now, they needed all the help they could get.
When the Kree saw that he couldn’t convince any of them, he sighed.
“Then you better pray that no one from the Kree Empire finds out. Or they will come for them.”
“There’s no need to be concerned about us.”
Benjamin grabbed onto the truncheon that he was holding, turned the dial on the bottom, then smacked it on his chest while Kree was still holding it.
An electrical surge flowed through the Kree as he was hit.
After a second, he looked around in confusion.
“Where am I…why are your skins not blue?”
Coulson turned to Benjamin.
“What did you do?”
“Used his own weapon against him and erased his memories. That way we don’t need to worry about him anymore. Find his ship, erase his flight logs, and send him away.”
Coulson blinked in surprise for a bit then turned to Fury.
Fury shrugged.
“Don’t look at me, I’m not your boss anymore.”
“What else do you want to do with him? Dissect him?”
“Uhh no. I’ll get right on it then.”
Coulson hurriedly shook his head and called a few people to issue some orders.
After some time, the Kree was sent on his way and everyone sighed in relief.
“Well, that’s one crisis averted.”
Carol was relieved that she didn’t have to worry about a Kree invasion now.
Of course, they still need to keep a lookout for a while but at the moment, they are out of danger.
Sif then turned to them and spoke.
“It has been an eventful day. But I must return.”
“You sure? Don’t you have any days off or something? Have you already toured our planet?”
Benjamin asked.
“I…have not.”
“Then are you in a hurry or something?”
“Well…”
Sif hesitated.
On one hand, she wishes to return to Asgard and continue her duties. However, she remembered that Thor was still there galavanting around with his mortal girlfriend and felt annoyed.
Just as he was hesitating, she suddenly heard Heimdall’s voice in her mind.
“You can take a few days to relax. Just take it as you’re still investigating the Kree.”
“...Understood. Thank you, Heimdall.”
“Haha, go have fun. Don’t worry, I’ll stop looking.”
Having been reassured that Heimdall won’t be surveilling her anymore and had his permission, Sif smiled.
“Then, if you’ll have me. I wish to tour this realm. Can you show me around, Sir Benjamin?”
“Ah? Oh, well, I’ll show you around then…”
Benjamin was surprised.
He only said those things out of politeness and didn’t actually think she would agree…
Just as well, he was even made to be a tour guide…well, it’s fine anyway. Consider it an escort mission assigned to the EPD…
Carol glanced at the two of them curiously and thought for a moment.
“I’ll tag along. I’ve been away for a long time, I heard you made a lot of changes. I’m quite curious about them.”
“Uh, sure…”
[Captain Marvel joins the party!]
System, you sure are having fun…
At the side, Fury turned to Coulson and whispered.
“We may have prevented a war but this guy is about to have another war of his own. If you know what I mean.”
Coulson sighed and shook his head.
“Well, this is one war we have nothing to do with. Wanna see the new Hellicarrier?”
“Sure.”
…The two decisively abandoned Benjamin!
