Chapter 84 - 84 Oops

*Author's Note*

Yep, I once again wrote myself into a corner. Getting out of it without plot holes is the hard part but I think I did pretty well this time.

Chapter 84 Oops

In the middle of the barren wastelands of Kymellia III was a rather large bar serviced by droids of unfamiliar designs. This bar had liquor and booze from every corner of the galaxy sold at a high price, but it quickly became a gathering place for the treasure hunters of the Kree and over a dozen ships could always be seen parked in the dusty plains around the bar.

The Bar's owner and operator was of course Harry. He had finished setting up a fake temple and put the fake Black Vortex inside, and he was looking for someone to nudge towards the hidden temple and the bar was a good cover to find such a patsy.

The fake mirror had a number of charms on it that would prevent people from trying to test it out and instead compel them to take it directly to Hala. Some people may not be affected by the compulsion, but he had numerous backup plans for such situations.

Or so he thought.

While Harry was shifting through the minds of the bar patrons like one would a newspaper, Harry and every other person in the bar got a message saying the Black Vortex had been found and the ship that found it would be taking off in a few minutes. The Supreme Intelligence had already given a blanket order that once the mirror was found, all Kree were to escort the ship safely to Hala and would be paid for doing so. Not as much as the ones who found the Black Vortex, but a decent consolation prize to prevent treachery.

The excitement he felt towards the first step of his 'prank' was short-lived when the monitors he set up around the planet confirmed that one Carol Danvers had just shown up and was heading straight for the ship that was loading up the mirror.

That was a problem. The fake mirror was basically a bomb that could blow up Hala and Harry couldn't frame the SI for attempted genocide if Ms. Danvers stopped the ship. In fact, he couldn't frame the SI properly if Carol was even seen in the area.

Harry immediately made a portal to where Danvers was spotted, jumped through, and flew to intercept while shouting, "Wait! Hold Up!" to the glowing figure in the red and blue gold trimmed spandex suit flying past.

Danvers apparently wasn't the chatty type and flew around him. Harry rolled his eyes and made another portal further ahead and then made a portal he used to call a certain drone.

On his telepathic orders, the drone sped faster than the lightspeed engine supercharged blonde and created a energy shield around her, stopping her in her tracks while he flew up and shouted, "Wait and Hold Up were Not Suggestions!"

Before Harry could get in another word, Carol blasted the shield apart with light energy. From what his senses told him, Carol's body was saturated in light energy. Not energy from the light dimension, but photonic energy. According to relativistic physics, anything that approaches the speed of light slows down in time. The biological effect of light energy saturation was that Carol apparently aged at a much, much slower rate making it look like she was in fact ageless.

Harry didn't bother dodging. A silver ring appeared in both of his hands. The first swallowed the blast which then came out the other hand's silver ring and struck Carol's forehead, sending her flipping backwards from the force of the hit.

Harry was currently in the form he took when appearing as Obscurus, though without the demon mask, so when Carol uprighted herself, she was able to see the impatient, 'waiting for a child to listen' look Harry was giving her.

This is usually the point where someone starts talking, asking questions, and opening up. Carol was apparently an exception. Her fist started radiating light like a star and in the next instant she'd flown forward to strike.

The moment she was close, Harry teleported to the side, easily dodging the strike.

Rather than turn back, Carol continued forward towards the direction of the ship that was almost ready to launch and leave the planet.

Harry and Navi the drone used another portal to get ahead of Carol. This time, the drone did not stop her with a shield. A concussion beam, ice beam, and laser beam were simultaneously fired at Carol. The concussion beam threw off her momentum, the ice beam slowed her down, and the laser beam scattered the light energy she enveloped herself in and used to fly.

Carol was pushed back and raised one hand to shield herself and raised the other to shoot an energy beam at the drone. The drone quickly moved to the side and a moment later, twenty drones filled the air, all firing their beams at Carol. Carol shot at another drone, but the beam passed through showing that the copies were holograms.

Carol grunted and threw her arms out, causing a shockwave of light to blast through the area with her as the epicenter. It caused the holograms to vanish for a moment, but the vibranium armored craft bȧrėly wiggled from the shockwave and in the next instant, the hologram copies were back and dancing around while the main one continued firing at Carol.

Harry soon noticed that Carol had adjusted the energy shield she was using and was now absorbing the energy of the laser beam. Harry figured Carol could recharge herself by absorbing light and energy, so Harry told the drone to stop the laser and fire the tornado beam. Said beam caused anything in its path to spin around and the sudden change caught Ms. Danvers off guard, causing her to spin around three times before she flew to the side to dodge the beams instead of taking them head on.

The moment she was out of the beam's area of fire, she blasted a constant stream of photons out of both hands and waved them at Harry to create a wider effect.

The wizard teleported directly behind Carol and asked, "Can we talk now?"

Predicting her response, he made a portal between them which led to behind Carol who was in the process of twisting around and blasting through Harry's sternum, only to end up shooting her own back through the portal. She fired a photon blast at the edge of the portal to shatter it but Harry had already teleported a bit away to avoid the damage.

Carol finally responded with the shout, "Get out of my way!" while also firing another blast, this one far larger than the previous one.

Harry sighed and made a large portal in front of him which sent the beam back towards Ms. Danvers once more. This time she moved out of the way before getting struck but she was obviously incensed. Harry didn't blame her. Even more than teleporting, portals were too OP.

She took a few breaths and confirmed that the drone wasn't firing at her when she wasn't trying to get past Harry and eventually relented to ask, "Are you with the Kree?"

Harry visibly let out an exasperated sigh of relief and answered, "No, I'm the guy that planted the fake mirror in the valley for the Kree to take to Hala."

This caused Carol to cross her arms, raise her eyebrow, and calmly state, "They found the Black Vortex on the plateau."

Harry's mental discipline, occlumency, and psionic skills all failed spectacularly to stop the look of utter bafflement that appeared on his face.

Without a word, Harry connected to the communication unit inside Navi and used it to confirm that the alarms setup around the fake temple he made had yet to go off. Harry then made a portal to the side showing the interior of the temple he made and saw the fake mirror still there. Moreover, the ship loading the Black Vortex found on the plateau had just left the atmosphere and was about to reach the space gate alongside the dozens of other ships escorting it.

The series of expletives Harry shouted at the revelation caused Carol's expression to change to one of moderate bemusement.

Harry Paused and considered his options. He had obviously goofed. Yes, there were a few records that stated the Black Vortex might actually be on Kymellia III. It gave some legitimacy to the rumor. He did in fact search around himself and hadn't spotted anything before setting this charade up.

Harry hadn't thought to check the alarms after hearing that the mirror was found. He just ȧssumed that the news meant his charms worked, no one had tested it, they believed it to be real and loaded it up. But if they found the real one, then they definitely tested it. That meant that the crew of the ship that had the mirror had at least one Cosmic Power enhanced individual, but more likely it was the whole crew that was already enhanced.

Harry considered going back in time, but knew he couldn't. Time travel wasn't something you played around with on a whim. Certain measures had to be taken into account for it to even be an option. Harry always kept those measures in mind on Earth, but he hadn't considered his 'prank' to backfire this way, and his planning for this did not include the required measures to safely time travel and fix it without creating a paradox. Celestial artifacts and time shenanigans didn't go well together.

Thankfully, it did not look like he would have to risk it. Harry would have to change the plan a bit but he thought up a way to get the prank to work even with this 'minor setback.'

Harry Unpasued, cast a shrinking charm on the mirror/bomb and summoned it to him through the portal before he put it away into his inventory.

The drone unfolded and opened up and Harry reached into the drone and threw its contents to Carol saying, "Hold my Flerken."

Goose was unceremoniously tossed to Carol who easily caught the orange abomination. Goose meowed, 'I was having fun.' A minor modification allowed Goose to telepathically pilot the drone or just let the drone fly itself and watch the fun from inside.

Harry got into the chair as the drone expanded and folded around him into a spacecraft and said back to Goose, "I'll let you fly it more later, I'll be back in a few hours. Ms. Danvers, I own the bar on this planet and you can have all the drinks you want as an apology for this on the house."

Carol was still flabbergasted at having just been thrown a very familiar orange space monster and at the mention of her name, she quickly realized Harry was about to leave and shouted, "Wait, what?!"

Harry didn't have time to answer and made a portal to Hala and flew the mini craft through. He technopathically sent a command packet of new instructions to the drones and hacking tools scattered throughout Hala and then used the Hala Space gate to travel three jumps to a remote planet. Once there, Harry hacked the space gates and waited. The ship's exterior adjusted to a present that resembled something the Kree would make without affecting the performance.

A few moments later, the fleet of ships on their way to Hala from Kymellia III appeared and thanks to the hacking from Harry's drone, the Space gate to Hala had been disabled.

Harry changed his appearance to that of a blue skinned Kree and pulled up a radio and shouted to all frequencies using a Kree dialect, "Stay away from Hala! My name is Rank-Pa, a Kree Scientist. The device on that ship is not the Black Vortex but a bomb set to destroy Hala!"

Unsurprisingly, all ships turned their fire on Harry's tiny vessel. Also unsurprisingly, Harry's tiny vessel managed to evade the wall of laser fire shot from every single ship. The overall profile of Harry's vessel was larger than a motorcycle but smaller than a car. It really could only fit a single person, but firing at a vessel of that size in space was about as tricky as shooting a needle in the ocean. Harry was also jamming the communications of the ship that had the mirror but the other ships could still talk to each other.

Next came the fun part. Interstellar communications all pass through space gates. Since Harry had control of the space gate, he could make it send a message which bore the exact code and encryption used by the Supreme Intelligence. All ships received said message which stated, "Destroy that ship, Rank-Pa is a traitor and a spy. Once destroyed, the Space gate will be back online. The Black Vortex must be brought to these Coordinates on Hala within the hour. All captains will be rewarded with 100,000 Units upon delivery. Failure to deliver will have consequences."

Safe to say, the ships stopped holding back after that. Almost a hundred fighter crafts launched from the dozens of ships stranded above the planet and closed in on Harry's vessel.

Harry smiled. One good part of this plan was how much fun it was. He sent another message to all the ships in a panicked voice, "I cannot let that ship get to Hala! I am sorry! For the Good of All Kree!"

Another fake Supreme Intelligence message was received by all the ships, "Don't let that ship near the carrier!"

The fighter crafts and other ships lined up between Harry's tiny craft and the ship holding the mirror. Thousands of laser blasts and hundreds of missiles shot forth in a never ending wave. The AI Navi calculated the trajectory of the laser fire and area of effect of the missile explosions and plotted a course for Harry to navigate through and set it on the display. On occasion Harry would Pause and check the data showing him everything around him and use it to adjust the course to an alternate route. The Goblin Silver that made up Navi's computing systems became more efficient for various tasks the more they were used, thus as the software in the AI evolved, so too did the hardware.

From an outsider's perspective, watching the tiny craft weave circles around the missiles, heavy weapons fire, and small crafts left the observers absolutely dumbfounded. The way in which Harry's ship shifted back and forth violated all known laws of momentum and common sense. If nothing else, it certainly got a lot of attention.

Harry's display screen highlighted three fighter crafts near the end of the battlefield where laser fire came down like rainfall. According to the display, those specific crafts were launched from the ship carrying the Black Vortex. Harry's plan only worked if everyone who got a dose of Cosmic juice was killed, so Harry couldn't ignore those three crafts.

Harry turned on the railguns and opened fire, tracking the incoming craft through the heads up display's predictive algorithm. Up to this point Harry's craft didn't even look like it was armed, so two of the three targets were shot down and exploded thanks to being caught completely off-guard. The heads up display confirmed that one of the pilots was still alive. Cosmic Power charged lifeforms had no issue surviving space. Expecting this, Harry had already started the charge of the disintegration beam and the moment the super charged kree's position was locked onto, the black beam fired.

Harry didn't know if it was arrogance or ignorance, but the glowing Kree which had just survived the destruction of its ship didn't move to dodge the black beam. A moment later, the kree was no more.

The twenty or so small ships currently tailing and firing at Harry were already feeling queasy just watching him spin and zig zag and barrel rol and perform maneuvers they had no words for, but after seeing Harry's weapons they all broke off the pursuit for a moment when they realized the tiny ship's flight capabilities were not the only thing which defied all logic. Especially because it was standard for Kree craft to be able to fire backwards.

Harry used the lull to target and destroy the last ship launched from the carrier. Thankfully, Harry's sensors confirmed that the pilots of the other two ships were dead, meaning they either died when the railgun pierced their ship, and possibly themselves, or they did not get a cosmic power upgrade. The reason that was good was that the disintegration beam had a long cooldown and killing another Cosmic Powered dude would have been difficult without it.

After passing by all the other ships, fight crafts, turrets, and generally making the entire fleet look like rank amateurs, Harry's ship reached the carrier ship and plowed directly through the hull.

The moment his ship entered the first layer, Harry Paused and checked his map. It now displayed the layout of the ship and showed several dots. Harry unpaused and halted the mini-ship's momentum before setting off an explosion centered around the ship. To any onlooker, it would look like the ship exploded after passing through the carrier ship's hull.

Harry got the ship to unfold and return to backpack size before he placed it back into his inventory and took out a laser rifle and started teleporting around the ship. His first encounter was three Kree wearing dusty uniforms which still looked shell shocked from having their ship rammed into. Though the airlock doors were deployed, the jarring of the ship would still be very disorientating for those onboard. Harry shot the Kree before they could get up and as a final measure of deception, transfigured one of each of their internal organs into something resembling a battery. The transfiguration would not last more than two days, but that was the point.

Harry's next teleport target took the laser shot to the ċhėst but looked unharmed. He sneered at Harry and started glowing purple. Harry kept up the pretense and continued firing while the Kree charged forward at ramming speed. He roared when he saw harry drop his gun, likely thinking Harry was scared, and certainly didn't expect his head to fly off from the instantly conjured eldritch longsword that appeared in Harry's hands.

[You have leveled up.]

The amount of EXP gained from the energy obtained from the kill certainly made Harry rethink his plan, but in the end he decided not to use the Cosmic Energy empowered Kree to farm for EXP, even if it did give better results than three days of meditation. Still, he certainly wasn't going to waste what was available to him.

Harry continued teleporting, killing, and transfiguring organs. He could have teleported directly to the room his map showed the Mirror was in, but making the crewmates panic would drive them to the mirror anyways. And if they just so happened to get a Cosmic Power up before he killed them, who was he to argue, it would be unsportsmanlike otherwise, he should give them fighting chance right?

Harry's level was at 279. A few more Cosmic kills would save him a few months of Battle Meditation. Harry wasn't sure how it worked, but the Cosmic Powered Kree were about level 320 according to his energy sense. It was the equivalent of giving someone a few hundred levels in Stats but not increasing their Skill proficiency. They were stronger than before, but weaker than those who got to that level while improving their skill.

Of course, the Cosmic Power would likely have an auto-correcting function much like his own Path System so a few days or a week or so of practice would probably cause their skill levels to jump to match their Stat levels, but much less a week, it hadn't even been half an hour since they got their enhancements.

The Cosmic Powered Kree remaining were in groups and not all of their granted abilities were the same. Most had physical enhancements such as hyper enhanced strength, invulnerability, and regeneration, so anything less than beheading with a magic dimension thin blade had almost no effect. Some had awakened Psionic abilities such as psychokinesis. Harry figured one or two might have even awakened precognitive abilities. Too bad such abilities had no effect against Harry.

The rather strong Psychokinetic Harry found he had to kill with Phoenix fire. It devoured anything, even Cosmic Power and the newly minted psionicist was clueless on how to fight against it right up until she had turned to ash.

The only other problematic power he found was someone who could become intangible and was fleeing through the walls. They might have escaped with their lives if it wasn't for Harry's map. Harry had a number of spells he could use to fight insubstantial and intangible targets so once he teleported into the path of his target, he locked the surrounding dimensions causing the unfortunate dude to run head first into a wall.

Harry took a bit of pity on him and made it quick. He transfigured an organ and made himself invisible before teleporting into the main deck where the Black Vortex and the remaining crew were hiding. The poor Kree at the coms was still shouting into them for ȧssistance and thanks to Harry's jamming, none of the other ships heard them.

One of the crew shouted, "The pilots of the other craft have already boarded, we should head for the hanger and get the hell out of the ship!"

A Kree who had already juiced up said, "So, we shall stay and fight. Worst case scenario, we'll open up all the air locks."

"That's easy for you to say!"

"You're the only one who hasn't submitted to the Black Vortex. Are you asking us to sacrifice ourselves for you?"

"But what about the others boarding the ship?!"

"They will be honored."

Harry had heard enough so he conjured his sword and used Immortal Dragon Chi and Dimensional Energy to speed up his body. Doing so dispelled his invisibility, but everyone was still looking at the door and Harry's energy couldn't be sensed.

Two bodies dropped before everyone started turning around. The Cosmic Powered individuals charged at Harry and struck out with blows containing several dozen tons of force. To Harry's energy sense, every muscle movement was visible meaning he could fight these guys with his eyes closed. Their linear movements did slightly exceed Harry's in speed, but his ability to predict their strikes and his own experience at moving using such high speeds allowed him to outmaneuver them and decapitate each, one by one.

A couple thought it wise to raise their arms to their necks, using their armored forearms to block the oncoming strikes. Harry shifted his attack for them and pierced directly through their hearts and then sliced up. His movement allowed him to swing his blade from under the arms of those trying to block and cut the head in half vertically.

When Harry finished with the last one, his EXP bar was about a fifth full, so not too bad.

After transfiguring the last organ, Harry stopped the ship and once it came to a complete stop, he opened a portal. He could teleport on a moving vessel, but making portals on a moving vessel was much more complicated. The Black Vortex resisted his attempt to lift it psionically, so Harry just walked over to pick the thing up. Out of curiosity, he looked into the mirror and could only give a wiry smile. His reflection wasn't there. Harry guessed the mirror's ability to show what a person looked like if they submitted to the Black Vortex was a form of precognition.

Harry lifted the mirror and set it through the portal before closing it and taking out the fake. He unshrunk it and for good measure, he altered it to look exactly like the real thing instead of just what Harry guessed it looked like.

Harry then took out a lump of flesh from his inventory and transformed it into the Kree he had made himself look like. Harry used a couple of spells to make it identical to a Kree and allow him to remotely control it. Last, Harry gave a mortal wound to his stand-in and gave it a Kree laser rifle and a Kree sword.

Harry teleported to a locked room in an inaccessible part of the ship and waited. It was show time.

It took about ten minutes for the Kree who got onboard to make it to the main deck. The door opened slowly and five blaster rifles were pointing in every direction the moment the group entered the room. They looked around but all they saw was blue blood and corpses.

One such corpse was near the control panel for the ship's engine. The panel had a bloody sword stabbed directly into the circuitry. One Kree approached and shouted, "He's alive!" when he noticed that the bloodied Kree next to the sword was still, just bȧrėly breathing.

The Kree looked up and smiled. "My work is done. For the good of all Kree."

Every weapon pointed at him the moment they recognized his voice as the one that came through the speaker earlier, the one identified as a traitor and a spy."

The Kree who called himself Rank-Pa gave a painful looking chuckle and said, "Before you kill me, why don't you try out that mirror."

The look of obvious greed flashed through almost every eye. No one did anything when a woman approached and said, "I submit to the Black Vortex."

Rank-Pa chuckled again, this time coughing out a bit of blue blood afterwards.

The woman frowned and turned to face Rank-Pa, "What is wrong? What did you do?!"

Rank=Pa chuckled again, but he was looking weaker and weaker by the second. "I... built it. For the Supreme. Intelligence. To be used. On Nova Prime. Wipe out. 99%. Of life."

One of the slightly smarter, more serious looking Kree said, "No. This is the real Black Vortex. The captain of this ship used it himself!"

Rank-Pa used what little energy he had to shake his head. "A show. Nothing more. Experiments. False positives. Batteries. Under skin. Look." He slowly turned and motioned to one of the people who had been gutted and within was an easily visible strange and blooding looking metallic device.

After confirming they had a look, Rank-Pa continued, "Others. On project. Killed. To keep. Secret. Don't. Send to Hala. Wait. Two hours."

The woman from before asked, "Why two hours?"

Rank-Pa answered, "Bomb. Needs charge. Would be. Charged on Hala. By SI. Unstable. Breaks down. Was planted. On planet. This crew. Paid to pretend. Pretend to find it. Pretend it real. Bomb will. Be unusable. In two hours."

Another of the Kree shouted, "Liar! Kill this traitor!"

A different Kree said, "He's right. Why would the Supreme Intelligence do such a thing?"

With a few expectant looks being given, Rank-Pa answered, "Supreme. Intelligence. Directive. To expand Kree. Empire. Supreme Intelligence. Calculated. Kree must be stronger. To get stronger faster. Must be wounded. Must be crippled. Must evolve. To win. Current Kree. Evolving. Too slowly."

Rank-Pa looked up wearily once more and said, "For. The good. Of all," and was shot in the forehead by one of the Kree who had been yelling at him before.

The same Kree turned to the others who seemed to be from the same crew and said, "Bring the Black Vortex, now! We only have twenty minutes!"

"Wait." One of the other Kree said, "I can't think of a single good reason to deliver this thing in an hour."

The Kree who dealt the final blow on Rank-Pa pulled his gun and said, "You don't believe this traitor do you?"

The man calmly answered back. "I don't believe this is the Black Vortex. Perhaps it is somewhere else on the ship. This thing doesn't work right? The Supreme Intelligence certainly would not reward you for bringing it a fake."

Harry continued monitoring the conversation for a while before making a portal out. The space gate did in fact start working once Harry's ship 'exploded,' but the space gate after that one to Hala was also hacked by Harry so they still wouldn't be able to use it if they had a change of heart.

The bomb really would be strong enough to blow a planet and Harry certainly didn't want it to get into anyone's hands before it expired. The location the fake SI message said to deliver the mirror happened to be the power plant that ran one of the Supreme Intelligence's primary servers, making it a place only the SI could give access to. There was even a charging station there which he mirror had a hidden plug that fit snugly into. Though not that hidden. They'd definitely find it once they took the bomb apart.

Harry waited until he'd confirmed the bomb's ignition materials had fully expired and become completely inert. Once done, he returned via portal to Hala and found the entire planet was going crazy.

Harry was unable to use the SI to broadcast false information directly on Hala, but that certainly did not mean he couldn't jam the systems which sent out the information. As long as he wasn't trying to hide it, he could hack whatever he wanted. The drones he left all over Hala had cut all communication from the planet for the last two hours and prevented any ship from getting clearance to leave the planet and send reinforcements to secure the Black Vortex.

The cyber attack started at the moment the space gate was disabled and ended the moment Harry confirmed the bomb was inert.

Harry shifted through a few hundred million documents and confirmed the effect was about as good as it was going to get. Once everything was settled, he activated the portkeys on the drones all over Hala and took a portal to the backroom of the bar on Kymellia III.

Harry opened the door and saw that with the exception of the robots, every other patron had left. This wasn't surprising as the SI had offered an escort fee to those who ensured the Black Vortex would arrive safely. Some of the ships were here just waiting for that and thought of it as nothing more than easy money.

The lone occupant of the bar was the blonde at the bar table going through the best liquor in the store while petting a flerken.

She looked over at Harry and held up the liquor, probably trying to point out the fact that the label was clearly in english and it was in fact from earth.. She said, "We need to talk."