I have altered the deal.....

I whistled happily as I stepped out of the shower, and wiped my head clean.

Ah!

Instant Sterilization is neat and all but sometimes all you need is a warm bath to get you up and running for the day!

With a thought a new pair of clothes deposited themselves onto my bed. A wine red turtleneck, chinos and a clean, new labcoat.

Getting dressed I applied a little cologne and styled my hair a bit.

Today I was going to recruit some very important people, a mage and a pawn, and it pays to make an impression.

After all, there are no second chances to make first impressions!

Checking my self in the mirror, I put on my comms earring, and a fresh new set of contacts before I walked through a portal to the armory and began prepping my usual carry ons.

A nanobot choker, my trusty nine gauge laser pistol, my particle beam watch, a hanful of stasis beacons, a pair of CodeRed epipens, not that I'd need those.

Then, the secondary bits. My forcefield generator was charging so I picked out another one. A prototype I had fashioned for my drones but ended up inproving on.

It was a tad weaker but it would do for now.

My anti mind control earpiece and rocket boots.

And of course, the iconic portal gun. Never leave the house without it.

Finally, I opened a drawer and pulled out a document from within.

A dossier with the SCP Foundation logo on it. I had sent them a letter asking for two things under the pretense if saving my world from eldritch incursions, which, in part was true.

The two things I wanted?

The first were the blueprints to the Scranton Reality Anchor, a device that shuts down the power of reality warpers, one of my only weaknesses and the weapon I intended to use against Lady Death.

The second was the thaumaturgical knowledge relating to SCP-179, Sauelsuesor, The Watcher In The Dark, the creature I had based my own entity on.

Sauelsuesor was a female SCP, who when paired with a thaumaturgical array hidden in the sun's core, created a barrier that kept the extradimensional monstrosities that consumed the rest of the SCP universe at bay and even occassionally, should the need arise, killed them.

She was the trump card that would help me keep my promise to the Ancient One.

And the O5 council had delivered, albeit, reluctantly and half heartedly it would seem.

They had sent it to me via the special procedures I had demanded, via the use of Trickster's shard in a meat puppet, in an isolated dimension with no human life and contained in a barrier, just to make sure no SCPs follow me home.

And even though what they sent was only partial information, honestly, I could understand.

If someone from another reality asked me to hand over the blueprints to my only defense against reality destroying monsters for reasons as flimsy as mine, I wouldn't have even done them the courtesy of responding, much less sending a research paper on the principle behind the tech and half baked concept art.

But it also gave me a hint at the chink in their armor.

Looks like the SCP Foundation O5 council is softer than I thought.

Hmmmm....that might fare me well when I go over then.

But that was for later.

For now though, I was grateful. Immensely so. They had shown me a kindness I never would have returned and given me the tools to save my children.

I will not forget that.

And in return for their kindness, I sent them a thank you letter, and a small gift. The blueprints to my disintegration tech and some prototypes. To help them deal with SCP-682.

Because I believe in repaying kindness with kindness and aggression with decimation.

It's the golden rule - Treat others like they treat you.

Of course, my A.I. was able to reconstruct the rest of the text and blueprints well enough in a couple of days.

And now I had what I needed.

I smiled.

This was going to be a productive day.

I snapped my fingers and a spare microverse, the very same one I had shown to Kang fell into my hand from a portal and I began to fiddle with it, adjusting it's time dilation to the usual for microverses. Round about that of 1 minute outside being roughly a year and half or so inside the microverse.

That's good enough.

I jumped into a portal and landed in the Ancient One's room, and found her reading a book.

She looked up at me and silently closed the book, placing it beside her on the table.

"So it has arrived?"

"Yes." I handed her the dossier and took a seat.

"Now I have a busy day ahead so let me be quick to explan how this works."

"No need. I read through it. I understand. It's innovative, I will give you that. Whichever civilization made this must have had powerful sorcerers. But I don't think this is possible with our current abilities and resources."

"Yeah, I figured as much." I cut her off, "So I made this."

I clicked a button on the microverse and a holoscreen projected a dyson sphere covering a sun, with a swarm of drones ready to carve out runes onto them.

The Ancient One looked at the apparatus and then back at me, her eyes flickering as she gained an understanding of its use with her classic future sight.

"And....when you said you figured as much you mean...?" She asked.

"I figured out how magic works." I replied nonchalantly as she gawked.

"You figured out how magic works. In two days?" She exclaimed in disbelief.

"The basic principles behind it, yes. And not two days, no. One night actually. Last night.

Can't cast for shit but give me a week and I'll be choking out baby's first fireballs or whatever you teach your students."

"What do you mean teach my-" Her eyes flickered again, and she changed her question as a serious look overtook her face.

"How exactly did you come to understand these principles of magic?"

Uh-oh!

"It's not important, let's just focus on the issue a-"

"HOW. DID. YOU. LEARN?" She commanded me to speak, her eyes glowing orange black woth eldritch energy.

"..... micro-cameras." I squeaked.

"Micro...cameras?" She looked confused as a realisation dawned on her.

"There are cameras around here? Tiny cameras?!" She asked, concerned.

Too concerned.

"Ancient One, is that a problem?"

"Is that a problem? Would it have killed you to ask me for lessons?!" She growled.

"With shame, yeah. Why?" I shrugged, replying sarcastically.

Still her tone worried me now.

"Do you even understand what you have done?" She erupted in a halo of burning eldritch power as a wave of energy swept through the room and I suspect the entire compound, burning away my cameras.

"Mordo!" She said almost a whisper and yet it's sound seemed to thunder across the building as hurried footsteps approached.

The door slid open to reveal a flustered Mordo.

"Ancient One, you called?" He asked.

"Gather everyone in the courtyard." She said, twisting her hand, making magical gestures as a mandala formation grew at the tip of fingers, forming a spell. She snapped her fingers and it spread out over the sanctum, and she continued.

"The sanctum is now on lockdown. Let no one leave. Go!"

Mordo noted the gravity in her words and fled the scene full force.

She turned back to me, rage bubbling beneath her calm demeanor.

"There is a reason we only allow people access to the internet over our enchanted, protected, internal wifi network. There are demons, born of a new age, that hold sway over technology as their dark magics, able to enthrall anyone with a look! And you just put thousands of external, unprotected networks in my sanctum! What if someone is already under their dark thrall?"

"Pshh!" I waved her off, "No one would be that weak. Just shut your eyes and this cyber demon can't do anything to you. I can fight it off easy!"

"That's the thing, you childish imp! You and I can fight them off, but the average sorcerer can not!" She fumed, "For the smartest man in the universe you are awfully dumb when it comes to...."

"Blippity bloopity." I said.

"What?" She glared, "Is this a joke to-"

"Blabbity blobbity." I added.

"If you cut me off one mor-"

"Blabbiby bloebiby."

"Alright that's about enough out of you!" She said making a pinching gesture as my lips sewed themselves shut.

Immediately, a drone dropped out of a portal.

"Blahababbabababa!" The speaker sounded out.

The Ancient One sighed in defeat.

"This is childish."

"And I don't have all day. Sheesh! I'm sorry, okay. Give me a second."

I connected to the ship and scoured the armory, picking out the device that I needed and snapped my finger.

"Catch!" I said.

A portal opened up above her and the Ancient One caught a device in her hands.

The Ancient One raised an eyebrow.

"An EMF reader?" She asked, confused.

"A demonic energy tracker. Made it to to go with those demon sealing boxes I sold you last time. Take it as an apology."

The Ancient One's rage seemed to calm down and her posture relaxed a bit as she looked over the tracker

"I would say thank you but..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. It's my mess. I get it. Just pay attention for a second here." I requested as I began to give a summary of my instructions.

I pointed to a glowing red crystal on a metallic handle jutting out from the side of the microverse tank and explained.

"That crystal handle on the side of the microverse, is the entry point. Press the red button on the side while touching the rod to get in. Do the same inside to get out."

I switched to the dyson sphere and pointed out the two types of drones, one for carving and one that used magnets to move the array around.

"The dyson array has those drones that can be help detach and replace the plating once you're done individually carving runes on them.

They can be maneuvered using a joystick control system. The instructions are inside the microverse.

Also, the time dilation is roughly 1 to 750k, so you'll have enough time to finish up the whole thing before anything else goes wrong." I said, getting back up, and gestures to my mouth.

The Ancient One undid the spell sewing my mouth shut and I continued.

"And finally, I'll bring the girl around to get tutored soon. Remember our deal.

No indoctrination."

I wagged and accusatory finger at her and she just rolled her eyes.

I smiled.

"Now I really have to go and you seem busy too. So...toodles!" I said, rolling into a portal and exiting the room.

_______________________

MC's pride makes him do an oopsie.

The Ancient One get's mad.

And MC learns a valuable lesson. Maybe.

And finally, we get to the recruitment of second waifu!

Wanda Maximoff.

Next chapter!

Till then, thanks for reading, and see ya!

This has been the extra chapter for 600 powerstones!

Bye~

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