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When the vision first hit her, Lennie Alice sat down to back-track it.
It took hours upon hours of back-tracking to fully understand the situation. She had to go back to find what caused the impending invasion, and then she had to back-track each member of the Avengers to find out how they got there. What she saw did not please her in the slightest. So, as she fetched herself a late supper, Lennie sifted through the different alternatives. She was coming up with a big, fat roadblock.
The biggest problem, of course, was S.H.I.E.L.D. Their absolute determination that all enhanced that came to their notice were best under their power (and their ignorance to HYDRA’s presence in their chain of command) or locked up or dead, meant that they had to be gotten rid of. Any moves while they were looking would be hindered or tampered with, even stolen. So she obviously had to limit their power.
That was easy.
Lennie made her way to a bar across the country and walked in on the same night she knew Logan to be at the bar. She walked in and sat down at the bar next to the mutant in question. He glanced over at her.
‘Lennie, this ain’t New York,’ he said.
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Problem?’
‘Yup.’ She kept her voice down as she told him what she’d seen. Logan listened and didn’t react much apart from a hardening of the eyes.
When she was done, he took out a cigar and lit it. ‘So, you want me to approach this kid?’
‘More than that, I want you to tell him everything about Steve Rogers that convinced you the guy was a dickhead.’
‘I wouldn’t worry.’ Lennie responded to his next concern. ‘The way Howard’s brought him up, the only time Tony talks about what happens to him is if it serves a practical purpose. So between now and when it’s time to tell why we’re really establishing contact with him, he won’t tell anyone anything.’
‘So we need him?’
‘We’re not walking out of this alive without him,’ Lennie said. ‘He’s just got some self-worth issues we need to iron out. He’s currently attending MIT.’
So Logan finished up his beer and headed up to Boston.
Lennie’s next stop was Louisiana.
Remy LeBeau was someone that Charles Xavier had noticed when he was scanning for mutants. Given that he was an adult who kept to himself and, as a general rule of thumb, didn’t stir up trouble, he just moved on. But he was someone that Lennie was very interested in, given his powers. Of course the man didn’t know her so when she walked up to the table, she said, ‘Remy LeBeau?’
‘Depends on who’s asking,’ the man responded looking up.
Lennie smirked and sat down. ‘Heard you’re a gambling man. I’ll beat you with a full house.’
Remy looked amused. ‘That’s specific.’
‘Isn’t it? Am I on?’
‘You are.’
He dealt out the cards and they began to play. Occasionally, Lennie would state the card he was about to draw before he did so. As the game progressed, she could see him working it out. Finally, he said, ‘Okay. Let’s see if you’re as psychic as you seem to be.’ He set his cards down.
Lennie set down a full house.
Remy nodded. ‘You can see the future.’
‘That’s what I was getting at, yeah,’ she said.
‘So, why come to me?’
‘Your skill set will prove invaluable to what I have in mind,’ Lennie said. ‘And I also believe you will care about the upcoming crisis that I’m asking you for help with.’
‘What kind of crisis?’ Remy asked.
Lennie leaned forward and lowered her voice to avoid eavesdroppers. ‘In a time frame of 20 to 30 years from now, an army will come to this planet and half of all life will be obliterated.’
Remy frowned. ‘Are you certain?’
‘Absolutely. I’ve looked at it from every alternative. He’s coming here no matter what we do. But the earlier we start preparing the more hope we have of stopping him. I decided to start bringing in people now who could throw enough curveballs to stop this.’
Remy was silent for a moment, then he stood. ‘Let’s go for a walk and you can tell me more.’
Of course, when she did he was fully on board. He was still somewhat suspicious of her, of course, but he knew there was a distinct possibility she was telling the truth. In that case, the loss of life was simply unacceptable. That, of course, led them to tracking down the final person they needed. They found her in a posh hotel in San Francisco. Lennie warned Remy as they walked up.
‘Last time I saw this woman, we were on opposite sides.’
‘Think she’ll listen to you?’ he asked.
‘Well, she doesn’t have to listen. She’s telepathic.’ Lennie used the override key she’d swiped. As they rode up to the penthouse in the elevator, Lennie went over her vision again.
Once the door opened, and they stepped out, the woman in question was there, eyes wide and a look of abject terror on her face. But she quickly swallowed it and looked Lennie right in the eye. ‘Lennie Alice.’
‘Emma Frost.’
Emma seemed to hesitate for a moment. ‘How certain is that?’
‘I’ve looked at every alternative, and I’m still looking.’ Lennie shook her head. ‘He’s coming no matter which way we slice it. If we want to survive, we need to start now.’
Emma hesitated a moment more. ‘Are you involving Xavier in this?’
‘Not yet, and hopefully I won’t have to.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, firstly, Xavier has that school and, right now, over fifty students to worry about. The X-Men themselves now consist of Xavier, who is in a wheelchair I point out, Hank McCoy and Alex Summers. When they have a more cohesive unit, I’ll bring it up. But, as I said, we need to start now.’ She smirked. ‘Besides, do you really think he doesn’t know?’
‘Fair point.’ Emma walked over and grabbed her jacket. ‘Where do we start?’
Lennie opened her satchel. ‘How are you at blocking peoples’ perception of you?’
‘Elementary trick.’
‘Good. So, I need you two to get into S.H.I.E.L.D. and relieve them of a device called the Tesseract.’ She laid out a set of blueprints on the room’s coffee table.
***
Tony was seventeen when his parents died.
Logan was the one who found him drinking himself into a stupor. He sat down next to him. Tony figured he’d tell him to get his head out of the bottle, but he said nothing. He just sat there with his beer and said absolutely nothing. Eventually, Tony looked over at him and asked.
‘You’re not gonna tell me to get my head out of my ass?’
‘Kid, yer parents just suddenly died,’ Logan said. ‘Scream, rage, lash out. You’re allowed.’
Tony hugged his knees to his chest. ‘No, I’m not. I’m Tony Stark. I’ve never been allowed to do anything normally.’ He scrubbed his arm across his eyes. ‘Why did dad have to get behind the wheel drunk?’
‘From what I hear, he didn’t.’
‘Huh?’ Tony looked at him.
Logan took a mouthful of beer. ‘Friend of mine. Found out your folks were actually assassinated and it was covered as an accident.’
The implications and Tony just about sprang to his feet. Logan caught his wrist and stopped him though.
‘It’s being dealt with. Lennie’s timed it so the news gets broadcast across the country before the dicks that tried to cover it up can suppress it.’
Slowly, Tony sat down. ‘Suppress it? What happened to “freedom of the press”?’
‘They don’t believe in it.’ Logan shrugged. ‘Either way, Lennie’s making it impossible to stop this particular shit-storm from kicking them up the ass.’
Tony scowled and sat down. ‘How’d they get away with it? I thought that’s what the system was there for!’
‘These guys have been saying “fuck the system” for years,’ Logan said. ‘I’ll tell yer more after you’ve got yer company.’
‘Why so long?’
‘Because it’ll be easier for yer to understand then, and I hate explaining myself.’
And, Tony had learned in the time he’d known him, that was very Logan.
Taking a deep breath, he said, ‘Tell me again why Cap used to call you “Lucky James”.’
Because that story was hilarious.
Seriously, how did a super-soldier not see a guy getting huge chunks of flesh blown away and then it regenerating instantly?
***
Lennie sat back and watched the glory of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s lie get blown up in their faces.
This wasn’t even the first time she’d got one up on them without them even knowing, with help of course. Remy and Emma had gone in, gotten the Tesseract, and gotten out without anyone noticing them. Especially with Remy destroying the cameras as they entered each room. Emma’s mental perception filter was beyond useful for that.
And now S.H.I.E.L.D.’s secrecy would be gone.
And it would stay gone.
***
When Tony was 18, he met Lennie and he was told the truth.
First, she’d demonstrated her power by predicting exactly when Tony would ring and what the conversation would be about. There was no way she could have known that unless she really could see the future. Tony may have been an engineer, but he was, above all, a scientist. He wanted to know how it worked.
‘It uses two principles,’ Lennie said. ‘Cause and effect, and the balance of probability.’
Then she told him about the invasion.
Tony could understand why she was getting people independent of the military. Aliens, as of now, were a theory. No one could be sure, and there were thousands of alien conspiracy theories all over the place. It was something that happened it movies. Added on to her ability to look into the future (which Logan had assured him was very real), and she knew what needed to be done in order for them not to die – or to mitigate the death count at least.
The childish, selfish part of Tony wanted to know why she hadn’t done anything to save his parents.
The intellectual, rational part of him, however, (the part that had been forced to grow up when he found out Obie had happily taken money to bear false witness to the deaths of his parents) knew that wasn’t fair. Lennie didn’t know his parents. She sent Logan to help him (because she knew he needed it), but she was focused on the impending attack which would kill more than just one boy’s parents. She likely hadn’t even seen it. How many murders happened in a single day, after all? She wouldn’t see every single one of them.
‘So what do you need me for?’ Tony asked.
‘This planet is grossly underprepared,’ Lennie said. ‘It will come to war, because there’s something on this planet they want. We have no defences and no weapons that will even make a dent in them. You are the best engineer this world has to offer.’
‘You want me to rectify the situation?’ Tony asked. ‘Build defences and weapons that would stop them, or at least give us a fighting chance.’
‘You can see why I waited until you were legally an adult, but yes.’
Tony nodded. He could start now, of course. Keep it out of the company until he had a sufficient reason to release such machines. And these invaders would doubtlessly give them a reason. ‘The only problem with that is that I’d need to understand their weapons and their defences.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ Lennie said.
A few years later, he found out what she meant.
Captain Carol Danvers, of the Air Force and a fellow airman of Rhodey’s, turned out to be part Kree (some alien race). She was, however, loyal to the planet she’d been born and raised on. Lennie had previously gone and said something within her earshot. Tony didn’t know what. Just that it was initially strange but made sense in hindsight.
Danvers came to Lennie for answers.
Lennie gave them.
Carol joined into their little team and took off for space to try and find something useful. She returned with a delegation from the Galactic Council. It didn’t really surprise Tony that there was a government out there. They were there to assess the threat that Lennie had reported, by assessing her powers. The idea made the mutants nervous but Lennie shook her head and told them that it was fine.
She submitted herself for what appeared to be a hi-tech CT head scan, where she was asked to produce visions. At the end, the doctor accompanying the delegation announced her to be one of the most advanced seers he’d ever seen. Apparently her back-tracking (which was basically the process of retracing someone’s steps to find the source of a sequence of events displayed in a vision) was a rare skill for a seer. As was the ability to see different alternatives.
It wasn’t that seers were unheard of, or dismissed as charlatans. Far from it. It was more that it was rare to find a reliable one like Lennie. After they confirmed she was genuine, they listened to what she had to say. They asked questions. Did she see the leader of the invading force? Yes. What did he look like?
‘Pretty big guy,’ Lennie said. ‘I’m only 5”7, so I can’t really say but I think he was 8 to 10 feet tall. Maybe more. Pretty brawny. Had purple skin.’
‘Purple skin?’ one of the delegates asked. ‘Pale? Rich? Mauve?’
‘Sort of mauve.’
When she said that, the blood left all of their faces. Tony knew he wouldn’t like what he was about to hear. He heard Lennie’s “uh oh Annie Oakley” muttered, but no one else seemed to acknowledge it. It turned out only one race in the galaxy had quite that colour skin, and there was only one left of the race.
Thanos, also known as The Mad Titan.
He was known for going to planets, killing off half the population, proclaiming he’d saved them, and then taking off with the children he’d just orphaned. These children were then indoctrinated in a manner not unlike the Janissary Infantry of the old Ottoman Empire. The delegates explained that no one yet had been able to stop him.
They agreed with Lennie’s summary that an invasion and attack on such a scale had to be for the acquisition of something. Though what, they couldn’t imagine. There was nothing on Earth, not even vibranium, that wasn’t abundant on other planets. And this place was so far out of the way that it’d be easier and less time-consuming to just go to one of those other planets.
That was until they saw the Tesseract.
A scan of the device revealed why Thanos would come to Earth.
It was powered by an Infinity Stone.
Of course, then the delegates had to explain what the Infinity Stones were. Once that was cleared up, they turned to Lennie and asked if removing the Tesseract would avert the Invasion. Lennie’s eyes went blank as she went into a vision. When she blinked out of it, she answered with absolute surety.
‘No. It’s not the only one here.’
***
While Tony tinkered with the Arc Reactor (which the Galactic Delegates had spent a few amusing minutes gawking at) and the alien tech, Lennie went around looking for help and the other Infinity Stone. Over the years that passed, she found enhanced people becoming more and more common. Part of her wondered if it was in response to the Thanos problem. Was the universe preparing the human race for the coming battle?
It was even better when they came together in groups (like the Defenders and the Fantastic Four) so she could just organise a meeting. Better still when there were people in those groups who’d seen her power first-hand; had benefited from it. To take an example, the Defenders. When she went to speak to them of it, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage were already familiar with her.
‘She really can,’ Jones said. ‘If she says this guy is coming, that’s good enough for me.’
‘I ain’t seen her be wrong once,’ Luke added.
It happened, but her methods minimised when it did. One group who’d actually seen her be wrong from time to time were the X-Men.
Xavier started preparing his team for the battle with really no prompting from Lennie. All he asked of her was a way to co-ordinate with the others.
Then, Lennie found the other Infinity Stone.
In Nepal of all places. She wasn’t sure where she was expecting it to be, but certainly not Nepal. The Ancient One had allowed her into the Kamar-Taj due to the nature of her mission. She was a woman whose bald head and small features, at first, had tricked Lennie into thinking her Asian. Then she looked at her face and Lennie nearly slapped herself in the face. The features were small, but clearly European. Maybe Eurasian?
Anyway Lennie ought to know better than to judge someone based on their looks.
The Ancient One explained that the Time Stone had been guarded by the Order for centuries. ‘The Masters of the Mystic Arts were founded around protecting the Stone. We will not be handing it over under any circumstances, but we do offer our efforts in fighting off the planet-destroyer.’ She offered out her hand.
A quick scan and Lennie shook her hand, sealing the agreement.
When Thanos did finally show up, he found defences, both technological and human, and weapons enough to send him to his grave and his armies limping away.