Ch26. Mind

Tony instantly realized what was happening and pushed against the mental probe sent at him by The Ancient One.

He tried to halt her advances, watching her go from one decoy memory to another in a matter of a split of a second as if they had no effect on her. Before Tony could stop himself from gawking at how efficiently she was dismantling his starting protections and decoy memories riddled with what he thought were nasty traps, The Ancient One was already halfway through them.

Tony... did not try to intervene with the process. It was his strategy. He hoped to make the attacker mentally weary by going through hundreds of decoy memories and forcing him or her to relive them.

He also didn't mind Tao invading his mind like this. Mostly because unless she accessed the core of his mind, she couldn't do much and she had the common courtesy to not do that.

When The Ancient One was finished, she appeared in front of Tony in his mindscape and calmly smiled at him. "You already created three hundred decoys. That's impressive."

Tony took a small victory in the fact she looked a bit tired but... "I know you can just disregard the decoys. Don't tell me you relived all of them." Tony dryly deadpanned, feeling a whole lot embarrassed and trying to hide it.

"I wanted to check if the decoys are sufficiently well done." The Ancient One sagely nodded before her lips twitching upwards, "And I must say... it was a very pleasurable experience. All three hundred of them. You have nothing to be ashamed of."

'Dear God, she really went through the fake experiences of three hundred of my sexual exploits from the perspective of the women I screwed!' Tony had no idea if he was more pale or more green. 'And she seemed to enjoy it... Fuck. I made them in order to discourage mind readers, not to become mental porn for them!'

"And tiring. You did a good job." Completely ignoring Tony's mental struggle, The Ancient One calmly continued.

Tony wondered how old one must be to have such a blasé attitude to... that.

Suddenly, Tony felt a painful mental nudge, causing his attention to snap back to the mental projection of The Ancient One who looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't space out. I am tired. I will not repeat myself." She reprimanded Tony, and for the first time since he met her, she sounded irritated. Tony gave her a proper once-over, only now realizing that her eyes did seem haggard... and slightly hazy. But he was not willing for his thoughts to venture in that direction.

Tony took solace in the fact his protections worked even against somebody of Tao's caliber and experience.

"First," The Ancient One started, "You have to get better at forcing the invader to relive the experiences you want him to. I could have still quite easily powered through your decoys if I wanted. Once you get better at that and create some more of them, I doubt even I will be able to invade your mind without being prepared to mentally suffer." She dryly chuckled. "Not that I wouldn't enjoy it though." And silently added.

It was then that Tony swore to add some decoys where the invader is actually tortured to disabuse any and all mental perverts.

When he was designing this kind of mental defense, he certainly did not consider this possibility.

"And second, you should try to make some active protections that will attack the mental probe of the invader while he or she is stuck reliving your decoys. Remember, this is your mind, your turf. Make it impenetrable in the best way you can. Your mind will obey your rules." The Ancient Ones added.

Tony wordlessly nodded. He didn't think about making something to actively attack while the invader was preoccupied with decoys. That was a good point. Designs and plans started to instantly go through his mind and The Ancient One got just a few glimpses but it was enough for her to know the retreat was imminent.

"Up for trying the secondary defenses now?" Tony eagerly asked, excited like a kid in an amusement park.

"Secondary... defenses?" The Ancient One looked at him as if he grew a second head. She thought she has seen enough. "No, I think I am good for today."

With that, she retreated from his mind, leaving amused Tony looking at the place she occupied just a moment ago. "Eh, looks like it worked better than I thought and she didn't even get to the really explosive stuff! Damn, I am a genius!"

He willed himself out of his mind.

Tony's consciousness returned to reality, only to see The Ancient One already waiting for him, slowly massaging her temples.

"You fine?" Tony asked, a bit worried.

"Yes... I might have underestimated how mentally tired your defenses made me." She hollowly chuckled. "You give the term mindfuck an entirely new meaning, Mr. Stark."

What she was not willing to tell him, was that while she could escape the first hundred decoys easily, she opted to stay to really see if there is not some easily exploitable mistake.

But when she was around the 150th decoy, she suddenly found herself unable to pull out because she was mentally tired. With each decoy more, she became more and more tired and her attempts to pull out were that much harder.

The Ancient One didn't want to think about how much worse her headache would have been if he finished creating all thousand plus of his sexual decoys and she was trapped in them. She could still feel her mind tingling from pleasure but it also felt like keeling over from exhaustion.

And then there were these secondary defenses he mentioned... Yeah, Tony Stark would become incredibly good at protecting his mind and The Ancient One decided she will not enter uninvited ever again even if it was to test him.

She had no idea what his twisted mind would create next and worse yet, she was unsure if she wanted or didn't want to be caught up in it.

In all of her centuries of life... this was a totally new feeling for her.

"Why, thank you! I try." Tony smart-assedly replied with a beaming smile and The Ancient One dryly laughed in response.

"That reminds me. Can I ask for a favor?" Tony suddenly perked up and The Ancient One had to take a deep breath in preparation for what's to come.

"Yes? No? I don't know? It depends?" She replied, not really giving positive nor negative answers, and waited for Tony to speak his piece.

Realizing she would not give him an answer until she was sure what he wanted from her, he started speaking, "You see... I just gained a new personal assistant and I was wondering..."