Chapter 48: Chapter 44 - The World on Fire Part 8
POV: Baldur.
Belgium, 1944.
A few hours after the battle.
I woke up lying on a hospital bed inside an aircraft. The first thing I felt was a monstrous pain throughout my body. All the wounds I received during the battle should have been healed by now, but strangely, I am still in the same condition as when the fight ended.
When I try to get up, I remember the reason for being unconscious after looking at my arm. My arm is now transformed into a large silver cocoon, which frightens me. Then I remember that before dying, Apocalypse infected me with the techno-virus, which must be the reason why my wounds have not yet healed. In fact, I have much to be thankful for that the virus did not consume me entirely. During the fight, I used all my powers as well as those of the entity, and now I am in a weakened state.
The virus somehow prevented the entity from devouring my body further. It's really strange how it helped me, but it also wants to consume me in the same way. As I contemplate my condition and try to find a way to solve my biggest current problem, the door of the ship opens and Amora enters through it. I sense her fear, but it is soon replaced by anger.
"You fool! How could you let a dying enemy touch you!"
Her fear of losing me has been replaced by anger.
"Do you realize what would happen to Genosha if you had died? You're hundreds of years old, but you made a mistake like a rookie warrior!"
The scolding continues for a few minutes until she vents everything. Now she is lying by my side, hugging me with tears in her eyes.
"I thought you were dead," her voice cuts through my heart.
"It's going to be okay, we'll figure something out."
I try to cheer her up by giving her a kiss, and then we stay together, embracing each other.
"What's my situation?"
After a while, I ask, concerned about my arm.
"I don't know what this thing on your arm is. It seemed to want to consume you entirely. I tried all my healing spells, but they had no effect. In the end, I only managed to stop its progress."
The techno-organic virus is an unpleasant thing. It converts the host's flesh into technology. In the end, the host continues to live, but now with the sole purpose of spreading the virus to others.
"The virus is draining a large part of your strength. In fact, you're lucky. Your immense amount of energy is what's slowing it down. The problem is that it won't allow you to use all your power."
(T/N: was he not weak enough, they want to nerf him now TT)
Amora's assessment seems correct, I feel very weak now. At first, I thought it was the wounds, but now I know the virus is to blame.
I also know that the only ones who managed to survive when they were infected were Apocalypse and Cable.
Cable has the potential to be one of the most powerful, but his potential was wasted because of the virus. Apocalypse, on the other hand, managed to heal himself using Cable's blood and the celestial ship.
"Where is Apocalypse's body?"
If I can get the body, I can try to find the celestial ship for a possible cure, but Amora turns her face away when I ask. She only does that when she has done something wrong.
"What happened?" I ask.
"When you passed out, all the mages and I tried to save you, so we brought you to the ship. When you stabilized, we tried to analyze the body to find a cure, but the body disappeared!"
(Disappeared!)
I'm sure I cut off his head, and I even burned the wounds to prevent possible healing, but the bastard might still be alive.
In the crazy world of Marvel, anything is possible, so I can't dismiss the ridiculous idea of resurrection. The other option is that someone in the dark stole the body. Either way, neither of the two theories is good, the body was a treasure carrying celestial technology, and anyone who can uncover ten percent of its secrets will be a monstrous enemy.
"It wasn't your fault, you were just worried about my safety," I try to cheer Amora up once again.
"But without the body, I don't see any other way to find a cure. It's my fault," she starts to tear up.
"There's still hope, don't worry, Alice."
"Sir?"
"I want you to use all the satellites and scan the entire country. Anything out of the ordinary or too ordinary will be reported to me."
"Yes, sir!"
If Apocalypse died and his body was stolen, there's a chance the celestial ship is still around here. I doubt he would have left such a treasure far from his sight. Or if he resurrected, we can find him and finish him off. After the fight, he must be in a weakened state too.
The research took hours. It was ridiculous the amount of information we got, but the problem was going through each piece of information to see which ones are useful to us. Unfortunately, we couldn't find out where the body is or who stole it, it seems that whoever is responsible for this has left the country.
Already losing hope, at the last moment Alice found something about twenty kilometers from where our battle took place, underground, a large space that we couldn't find any information on. To further uplift our spirits, we discovered that we could "see" around this empty space, and its shape closely resembled that of a gigantic ship.
The problem with the camouflage is that it doesn't hide its surroundings, and also, Apocalypse doesn't have complete control over the sovereign ship. If he did, he could decimate me with just one command.
We moved along with the squadron of mages now protecting me, passing through the site of the battle, which I can only describe as apocalyptic. My flames consumed everything and then extinguished, but the ground is still red from the heat, as if the entire place had suffered the eruption of a volcano.
It wasn't very difficult to open an entrance to the underground where we came face to face with a ship that can only be described as gigantic, it made those cruisers from Star Wars movies ashamed of their size. Celestials are gigantic beings, and their ships are even larger.
We set up a perimeter around the ship, increasing our defenses. I don't want any more surprises for today.
"How do we enter? By force?" Amora asks excitedly. As a mage, she has a great hunger for knowledge, and in front of us is the knowledge that comes even before the creation of this universe—how could she not be excited?
"I don't know if we could, even attacking together," I reply.
As if the ship could hear us, a gigantic door opens, inviting us to enter.
"Just Amora and I will enter. If we don't return in two hours, use the teleportation to pull us back," I instruct.
"YES, SIR!"
The mage squadron, along with Amora, created a spell similar to teleportation. They will pull us from wherever we are using this spell, thus saving us. For this, Amora and I are wearing necklaces with runes that enable this magic.
Of course, we made other preparations in case this doesn't work, Celestials are not an enemy we can confront. Even my father with all his power can only survive a fight against them, the chances of surviving against one of them injured and with reduced power like I am now are zero, even with Amora's magic.
"We're going," I say, taking my lance, and Amora her staff, and we enter the ship. Inside, we see a long corridor entirely white. We walk calmly until we reach a circular space, which I think is the center of the ship, with only a gigantic column in the middle of the white room, over ten meters high.
"BEEP... Life forms detected... BEEP... Scanning," echoes the ship's AI voice through the white room.
"Alice, can you try to control this AI?" I ask.
"Starting invasion protocol..." Alice speaks.
"BEEP... Unknown AI detected... Initiating countermeasures... AI deactivated."
"Alice?"
I thought I should at least try, but the ship's AI took out mine in less than a second.
"What do you think?" Amora asks me.
"She opened the door for us and didn't try any defensive measures, so I think after Apocalypse died, she lost her master, so we have a chance."
"BEEP... Life forms scanned... Two Asgardians... One bearer of the techno-virus, the other an energy manipulator..."
Energy manipulator must be how they refer to mages.
"BEEP... Number one has the qualifications to receive primary access to the facilities..."
The column in the center began to decrease until it was our size, and then the ship stood still as if waiting for something.
"What happened?" Amora asks.
"The virus gave me some ability to control some aspects of the ship, hopefully, this will be necessary for my healing."
Apocalypse also gained access to these functions when he was infected. He didn't gain complete control over it, but he managed to heal himself.
I stand facing the column and place my hand on it, Celestials are practically mechanical beings, and the only way to interact with their machines is by being part machine or having some virus or power that controls machines.
"And then?" Amora asks expectantly.
"It's going to work. With the little authority I have, I can only make the ship move and heal me, but that's enough."
Luckily, the ship has a sample of Cable's blood left by Apocalypse. With that, I have all the ingredients for the cure.
"Thank goodness! I was planning to steal your father's eternal flame to heal you."
"You always exaggerate in your plans, you'd probably set half of Asgard on fire."
"I don't care, I would destroy it all for you."
"You know I wouldn't like that."
"Yes, you wouldn't, but I don't mind if you hate me as long as you're alive."
Her smile always makes me lose these arguments.
"Are you going to start now?"
"The longer I delay my healing, the longer it will take to recover. I'll start now, the process will take some time."
"I'll inform the people outside and then come back to protect you."
"No, you need to return to Genosha and take care of the war. Ask Nordur to protect me."
We argued for some time until she agreed. Nordur will stay to protect me along with more than fifty thousand soldiers, I thought it was excessive. Inside the ship is the safest place in the world, but I can't argue against it.
After the preparations and farewells were made, I ordered the ship to heal me. With primary access to the ship, I can choose to change my biology like Apocalypse, but I don't want to become a monster, I just want the cure and some subtle improvements.
"Executing biological modification protocol...."
An energy tube appears and envelops me, I begin to levitate from the ground and see a white mist cover the entire tube. The sensation is really good, I feel my battle wounds finally healing, and then I start to feel sleepy. Before falling asleep, I imagine what changes this "cure" will bring me.
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