MARVEL: Lord of the Abyss

A/N:

" " : Dialogue,

' ' : Thought,

"Italicized text" : Telepathy,

"Bold text": Shadows,

[ ] : System,

| | : Artificial Intelligence.

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Ashwani POV

After Charles and Erik left with their entourages, I took out all the food from the fridge. I also wiped all devices in the house clean of all files and data, leaving all computers or computer adjacent devices factory fresh, then put said devices into my inventory.

I destroyed our clothes and every sign of me and my family ever having lived here, repaired all faulty electrical stuff and plumbing, making the place seem as if it was prepared by the landlord for new tenants, altered the devices I had replaced to their former models, then I withdrew all my nanomachines.

As I opened the door for the last time, I looked at the place that had so many of this life's memories as a tear fell from my eye as I knew that this would be the last time I would ever be here as someone that lived there.

Using Ruler's Authority, I close all the inside doors and the main door, then locked it. I knew where the building manager kept the keys in the building, but before leaving, I found him, wiped his memories of Charles, Erik and the others, then handed him the keys.

Before leaving the area, I made sure to connect to all CCTV systems in the area and alter their footage, making it so that no one would know that the X-Men and Magneto had visited the building.

I had dressed up in a plain white shirt, a black hoodie, black pants and a pair of black sneakers with purple designs. I went to an empty ATM on the corner of the block and used my technopathy to make it give me $5,000. Not too little, to the point that I couldn't fund whatever I needed to at this time, but not so much that I would get an excessive amount of attention.

As I kept moving, I walked into an alleyway where no cameras were looking, went into stealth and jumped all the way to the rooftop of the building. I traversed the rest of Brooklyn by moving using the rooftops, and due to the fact that much of the movements of those that were skilled enough had become muscle memory for me, I was moving pretty easily.

Choosing to pick up my speed, I activate Quicksilver and shoot towards Hell's Kitchen for the first part of my plan; getting the dragon bones from The Hand, and a few soldiers as a bonus.

It took me some hours, but I eventually reached Hell's Kitchen, and from what I can see, it's in shambles. Just within the range of my Perception, I've seen a considerable number of drug addicts and prostitutes, some drug dealers, gangbangers, and even someone getting robbed.

Looking at all this, it's not much of a surprise that Fisk felt that crime can't be eradicated from here, only controlled. But that might just have been owed to the fact that he wasn't all that powerful himself and is also considerably greedy.

Looking at all the suffering in front of me, I turn away to find an empty rooftop to make a temporary base camp. It wasn't too much, just a cube that's about the size of a large tent. I used retro framing to make it seem invisible to anyone looking in my direction.

I set up a surveillance console as I tap into every single CCTV camera in Hell's Kitchen. I also make a few surveillance drones that also have the retro framing tech in them, and thanks to my memories from Wakandan scientists, I could also make their movement silent. I sent those drones to surveil the places in the streets where the camera wouldn't see.

And so for the next few hours, I basically scoped out the entirety of Hell's Kitchen, finding bases for different gangs, drug dealers and even some for The Hand. I even spotted some of their ninja posted on rooftops around their bases, which if you're thinking about it, kinda makes them easier to spot for most metahumans with enhanced senses.

Activating the EM sights on the drones, I check out the most populous base and mark it for the beginning of my assault. Soon enough, night fell, and I got up, ready to begin my hunt.

...

I still have my drones up, and this time, they were transmitting the locations of all Hand members within a 30-mile radius . And similarly to when I moved to leave Brooklyn, I go into stealth, making myself undetectable to anyone around.

Lifting myself using Ruler's Authority, I move to the highest rooftop around the base, and sneak up on the ninja posted there. Creating a dagger with an energy blade, that looked like Kasaka's Poison Fang, I stab him in his neck, and slash his head off, while keeping Shadow Kill inactive.

I crouch and say the fated word. "Arise." And just like in Solo Leveling, a shadow version of the ninja rises from the corpse. He bows on one knee, although unfortunately, he isn't able to speak. Kinda wish he could.

"At ease, soldier. Now go, kill the ones on that side as stealthily as possible, while I continue to take care of the rest." I say while pointing to the left side that has fewer ninjas, and let Shadow Kill do its work, reducing the corpse and blood to shadows that dissipate away faster than ashes in the wind.

Nodding, he moves away to kill the others. As he does that, I look to the rooftops on the right, and using Blink, I teleport right behind each ninja and execute them before taking their shadows into my army. All that took only a minute, thanks to the fact that time stopped every time I set up Blink.

I also raise the ones that my first soldier had killed, then use my nanomachines to consume their bodies. And as things were, I had 30 Shadow Ninjas. I store them in my shadow, and move to infiltrate the base, which happens to be a large restaurant with a considerably large basement.

As I enter, I clearly see that the service area is empty, so I go into the kitchen, where I sense multiple beings there, with a few small ones there. I use the same EM sights for my eyes and find out that the small ones are children that they are possibly preparing for their Black Sky nonsense.

Using my Darkforce powers, I turn intangible, and walk through the door, then set my shadows on them. It was a massacre. They had nothing to alert them of the attack, nor did they have anything to properly counter my soldiers, so every Hand member in the part of the building aboveground met their deaths. I raise all of them and consume their bodies with my nanomachines, increasing my army count to 117.

I'd also leveled up 5 times, and with my stats now all being over 100, cutting down so many of them was easy. Gotta love the reconstruction.

As for the kids, it seems that these ones were freshly kidnapped, so there isn't any brainwashing on them, meaning that I don't have to bust my balls to remove the brainwashing. So I just put them all in front of the building, unconscious and all that, with an armed drone or two to protect them, then leave a mark of Ashborne's flaming helm on the wall of the building using my mana.

I store all my soldiers again, and use Blink a few times to get to the next base, but this time, I let my soldiers handle the killing, and everything was finished in just about 5 minutes.

Counting all the ninjas that they had killed, the number came to almost 90 of them, which I raised as my soldiers, leaving me with over 200 Shadow Ninjas.

This base was one of their drug storages, specifically for their strain of heroin that Gao called Steel Serpent, so I just commandeer all of the drugs, then carry them away to the docks of Hell's Kitchen. Once I reach there, I pull all the drugs out, then create a Slam Cannon with my right arm, which unlike Rex's is actually an Energy Cannon, then blast them, instantly atomizing everything, and maybe melting the floor, but nothing I couldn't fix using my nanomachines.

Once I am done with that, I return to my hunt, clearing two more Hand bases which were storage points, clearing all their drugs again, and atomizing them once more. And I finally got to the last base, which from what I could tell was their production site, as well as a warehouse, as it was well, a warehouse.

At this point, I'd gotten just over 400 Shadow Ninjas, which would make steamrolling this base a cakewalk. Using Blink, I teleport to the highest rooftop around, where one of the Hand ninjas is, and using Domino, I link him with 5 other ninjas, then kill him, which extends over to the other five.

I repeat this about 10 times, then raise all of them. I finally look inside, and I notice a presence that is considerably stronger than the rest, and knowing what I know about the Hand, I already know who it is. It's none other than the immortal Asian drug boss granny herself, Madame Gao.

I had a feeling that I would encounter one of the Five Fingers, but I didn't expect it to be this soon, but it's not like I'm complaining. With this, I'll be able to not only get a stronger soldier, I'll also be able to get the location of the dragon bones that the Hand still has, and that's without even bothering with the ones underneath NYC.

I alter the layer of nanomachines on the soles of my shoes, and make them work similarly to Spider-Man's wall crawling abilities, which is actually an interaction with Van Der Waals forces, allowing me and him to stick to objects, even if they have a sheer surface.

Walking down the side of the building opposite the warehouse, I eventually reach the point that is in a straight horizontal line to the highest window in the warehouse. The muscles in my legs coil up, then I jump towards said window, and go intangible to avoid alerting anybody.

Immediately I land, I control the darkness to engulf the entire warehouse, blinding everyone else. I then release my soldiers, letting them kill the other members as freely as they want. And as for Gao, she is mine to kill.

...

Omniscient POV

Madame Gao had roamed this world for centuries, far longer than any human would hope to live today, as a force to be reckoned with. In all that time, she could proudly say that she had never felt fear, not even when faced with death. But this night was going to bring a new experience to her.

She had chosen to inspect the goings on in her heroin production warehouse, when suddenly, a great darkness blanketed the entire building. Not even the lights in the building worked.

She had no fear of the dark, as she had always used it to her advantage, especially when she had to kill someone. But this time, the tenebrous abyss she encountered felt hostile, like an encroaching evil coming to kill her, for good.

She suddenly heard a sharp groan, one that she has gotten familiar with over the years, the groan of someone trying to get another's attention, but dying from a blade before being able to.

The sound continued in different tones and pitches, and it was then that she realized, her ninjas were being killed, and she couldn't find the culprit.

She went into a fighting stance, ready to counterattack whoever was assaulting them. And understanding that she couldn't see the enemy, she closed her eyes and focused her other senses on her environment.

To her confusion, she didn't even detect the corpses of her men, let alone the enemy. She shifted herself around multiple times, hoping to get some sign of the enemy that attacked them, but to no avail.

When suddenly, she heard footsteps, calm, slow and purposeful footsteps. "I never thought I'd see on of the Fingers of the Hand be so skittish." The voice was male, and it seemed to be a bit young as well, like a young man in his teens. It also seemed to be coming from every corner of the room that she was in.

"Who are you? Show yourself!" Despite the fact that she could hear his voice and his footsteps, the strangest part of this was that she couldn't feel any vibrations, not from his footsteps, not from his heart, and surprisingly, not even from his voice, as one would expect it to reverberate across the room.

Through her closed eyes, she noticed that a subtle brightness, as if the lights in the room had been turned back on. She opened her eyes, and what she sees surprised her.

The person that seemed to be attacking them looked like a young boy still in puberty, and judging from the ensemble he had on, he was probably well off. His eyes didn't have the machine-like expression that one would expect from a child weapon, rather, they seemed to be quite lively.

However, Gao didn't let her guard down, and she lunged towards him with lethal intent, or at least, she tried. The instant she began moving, she felt a foreign force grab hold of her and keep her static, leaving her in her fighting stance.

The young boy was of course, Ashwani, and he was currently using Ruler's Authority to hold Gao in place. He looked at her and remembered the multiple lives ended by her hand and her schemes, the innocent people ruined by her enterprise, and most of all, the way that she and her colleagues had cheated Death over and over with their usage of The Substance.

Her being in such a helpless state was a comeuppance long deserved, and was slightly cathartic for Ashwani. "Hello, Gao. You and your colleagues have cheated Death for long enough. And now, I've come to collect." He said and activated Intimidation, which easily hit Gao with all its effects, weakening her and making her feel ever so tiny in front of him.

He didn't notice this at first, but after looking into his reflection from Gao's eyes, he saw his own eyes. The sclerae had been turned to a dark black, while his irises glowed a strong purple. He felt that even without Intimidation active, his appearance would spark fear in many people's hearts.

He noticed Gao's mouth shaking, as if she wanted to speak, so he shut her down before she had a chance to even make a sound. "Do not even bother trying to bargain, and throw away your foolish faith in The Substance. You and any other of the Fingers that I find this night will not live to see the break of dawn."

Gao's eyes widened in fear, as she knew that anyone that had any knowledge of the Substance among the Hand except for the Fingers themselves and their closest subordinates, had been killed. So hearing someone say that even with something that was meant to grant immortality, they would kill her, was more demoralizing than she would ever care to admit.

She struggled to speak, to move, to do anything to resist, but she was entirely unsuccessful. He brought out his dagger once more, and slashed her head in half vertically, before cutting it off her neck.

As her body started to dissolve into shadows, he called out to her soul. "Arise." As the body finished dissolving, her shadow rose from the ground, then bowed to him in allegiance. And just like the others, she also couldn't speak.

He nodded at her, almost dismissive of her. Then suddenly, one of his many drones around Hell's Kitchen alerted him to the presence of another Finger. As he checked for them, he eventually found out who it was, this time it was the only other woman of the Five Fingers of the Hand, Alexandra Reid, at least that was her current alias.

Ashwani was surprised at how lucky he was to get the chance to kill two of the Five Fingers, but he decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. He activated Stealth once again, and decided to stalk her and her guards (read Hand ninjas) from a safe distance.

...

Ashwani POV

Alexandra Reid. If Gao was ruthless and uncaring, then she was cunning and manipulative. Similarly to the other leaders of the Hand, she too had used the Substance to rejuvenate and regenerate her body, giving her a form of biological immortality, allowing her and her colleagues to live for literal centuries.

However, she had a stronger fear of death than the rest of them, one that also made her fear darkness, as when her body would enter a temporary death state, her consciousness would be trapped in darkness, and now she hates that darkness, so I'll give her the gift of dying in the dark, without being able to do shit.

Tapping into my Darkforce powers, I start to manipulate the darkness all around, making the streets become darker and darker. Alexandra seems to notice this, and begins walking faster. Unfortunately, I had already made my decision, and they were too weak to cause me to change my mind.

I accelerate the darkening of the area, and soon, the entire street that she's on has become pitch black. In that darkness, I send my soldiers to kill Alexandra's ninjas, and before they could notice, multiple swords stab into their chests.

"Arise." I say and raise the 8 ninjas that she had with her, but she didn't hear me due to my stealth, as well as the mask over my mouth that is made of vibranium and engineered to keep sounds from travelling beyond it.

Alexandra heard her ninjas die, but still didn't see anyone around, which increased her paranoia to unhealthy levels. She's still looking around, trying to find her assailant, but unfortunately for her, she'll only see me when she is raised.

I send about 10 of my Basic grade Shadow Ninjas to intimidate her, with their glowing eyes and whatnot. She sees them and I can feel it, panic has slowly begun to set in.

They all rush at her with their weapons, and she tries to move between them, probably trying to make them hit each other and kill themselves. It's too bad that they can't die again.

In the middle of her attempts to make them kill each other, I send an additional 20 ninjas, and they take that opportunity to strike. I already know of the fact that she, as one of the Fingers, could easily take on dozens of Hand ninjas, so I choose to send in my only Normal grade ninja, the shadow I had gotten from Gao.

Despite being a literal shadow of her formerly living self, her capabilities weren't diminished. In fact, they seemed to have been enhanced, seeing as her chi control was amplified by magic energy, which has the quality of enhancing anything that can fully adapt to its presence.

Alexandra didn't know that this was Gao just yet, but she definitely knew that this one was stronger than the others that attacked her. They continue to exchange blows for a while, until I get bored of their clash and decide to end it.

Using my nanomachines, I form some razor wire that is only about 5 nanometers in diameter. I then manipulate them to entrap Alexandra in the same manner that most other string users would.

Alexandra, who hadn't noticed this, tries landing a punch heavily enhanced by chi on Gao's shadow, but at the last moment, her body stops, as she is now held tightly by my razor wire. She tries to shift out of it, but they slowly tear into her skin, and noticing this, she stops moving.

Gao's shadow takes this as a chance to attack and takes full advantage of it, going at Alexandra's neck with a sword from one of the shadow ninjas.

She coats the sword in mana, then slashes, beheading Alexandra and properly killing her. Before Alexandra's consciousness can be consumed by darkness, I deactivate Stealth and retract my mask, then walk up to her and pick up her head.

"How poetic, you wanted to escape the darkness that is death for so long, but now you'll become a part of it for all eternity. Arise." I say, raising Alexandra Reid as my second Normal grade shadow.

Like I had done for all the other bases that I'd hit, I use my nanomachines to consume the bodies of those that my soldiers killed, leaving no traces of tonight's hunt.

I cycle through the cameras of my drones and see no living Hand members within the radius that they're surveilling. Taking that as my cue, I end the hunt there, and begin heading to the headquarters of Midland Circle Financial in New York City, where Alexandra was the founder and leader, to get all the dirt possible to run it to the ground.

All in all, tonight was a productive night.

Chapter End.

Word Count: 3,560.

 Thanks for reading!