Alex could've spent hours marveling at the absolute beauty that the city but he was interrupted by the appearance of a drone in his spider senses.
'Patrol drones… This is already different from the slums.' They weren't robots but were automated monitoring drones that patrolled the entire city as Alex presumed. He didn't doubt that this drone could easily see through his camouflage. And if he was detected, his location would be swarming with a huge number of hostiles that would probably try to kill him or at the very least contain him on sight.
He tried his best to maneuver away from the drone as he made his way toward what seemed like a coffee shop. He didn't waste any time and disappeared into the female barista that was the easiest for him to access as she served a coffee.
He didn't devour her since this place was completely monitored and he wouldn't be able to hide completely unless he was inside someone. He was looking for an optimal target to escape this facility.
Alex also took this time to go through her memories and see how the inner city's system works.
'Credits…' The currency used in the bastion was a simple credit-based system that was automated by the central AI of the city— Jarvis. People are assigned credits at the end of each month according to the contributions that they have made to the city.
Working odd jobs like this barista would provide a menial number of credits while the most effective way to gain credits was to join the fights against the hordes of abominations that attack the settlement regularly.
It worked on a merit basis. The more abominations you kill, the more credits you get. They also depend on the difficulty of the abomination that is killed.
'This city has some effective way to utilize those abominations,' Alex deduced when he saw in her memories that there was a job to bring back the leftover corpses of monsters for people who were too weak or scared to fight. Those corpses clearly had some sort of use to the city otherwise they would just burn them and get rid of them without any issues.
'How the hell do they expect normal people to fight those monstrous abominations…' Alex was inwardly frowning as he thought about the situation. He'd seen those abominations and even the weakest of those things could contend toe to toe with Captain America in terms of physical stats. And that's without mentioning the stronger ones.
'Is there something that I'm missing…' Alex couldn't understand the situation. Especially since most of the people who enroll to fight the monsters seem to return every time.
'Did he use some version of the super soldier serum that was used on Captain America?' Alex could only think that to be the case since normal people were not a match for those abominations.
He also saw that things are pretty advanced in this city. All kinds of extremely obscure things are available to people as long as they have enough credits.
Things like regeneration serums were actually commonplace in this city. Alex also saw something that he knew was made by Tony. Extremis.
It was completely overpowered as it could halt the aging of a person and ensure they were in their prime state forever. It wasn't true immortality, but it was known to increase the lifespan of people to at least 200 years old.
At that point it wasn't just the body that started getting old, it was the consciousness or soul that became too weak to support the existence of the body. Though it was ridiculously a expensive item, costing millions of credits.
Then again it was easy to earn credits as long as one went to kill the abominations.
'I need that…' Alex was bursting with greed as he saw that Extremis was a thing in this version of earth. That fucker Tony had destroyed all traces of Extremis in the MCU earth so Alex wasn't able to get his hands on it there. Now that he had finally found a path to maybe make himself immune to sonic and heat waves, he really wanted it.
'I just hope that this Tony didn't end up making the Endo-Sym Armor. Then again, if he had that kind of power then he would've easily fended off the Kree single-handedly…' Alex was thinking about the Superior Iron Man storyline where Tony made a suit that combined the Venom symbiote and the Extremis formula to create his strongest armor. And it didn't have any of the weaknesses that Venom was supposed to have, namely Sonic attacks.
He spent the next few hours delving through the barista girl's memory as he tried to find some useful information and devise a plan to get access to the formula that would help him create Extremis.
Soon, her shift was over and she was about to go home, but Alex decided to spend some time exploring. He gently influenced her to walk around the city today. It wasn't difficult since she lived alone in a small apartment that she was able to afford with her barista job so it wasn't like there was much for her to do at home.
Alex had also formed a rudimentary plan for what he would be doing in this place.
Subtle mental suggestions here and there helped Alex lead this girl to the destination that he wanted to go to. It was a restricted area of The Bastion where no citizens were allowed without the correct permit and pass.
Just as she was getting close to the fence of the place, 5 guards surrounded the barista with weapons in their hands aiming at her.
"Stand down!" The leader of the group shouted intimidatingly and instantly Alex's weak mental suggestions were broken. But that was enough for Alex.
She panicked and put her hands behind her head while apologizing with tears gathering in her eyes.
The guards weren't going to pity her and they calmly cuffed her hands behind her back and escorted her away from the facility, though Alex took this opportunity to merge into the leader of the guard squad that had arrested the woman.
He was going to use that person to infiltrate the facility.
Why did he want to go into this facility? He wanted to find someone.
There was an incident a few years ago. It was when the Bastion was still defending itself from the assaults of the Kree and the governments. A massive infiltration from outside forces and there was a squad of superpowered individuals that infiltrated the Bastion.
Though he didn't know how accurate this information was since it was something that the barista learned from the news. It might as well have been some sort of propaganda.
Though one thing was for certain. Someone was captured that day. And right after their capture, a new product had been released, the regeneration serum. One vial of the substance could help someone completely heal up to their peak state.
He was able to connect the dots and understood that they had probably captured either Wolverine or Deadpool or maybe even some other hero with a high regeneration factor and used them to create this serum.
He wanted to find and devour that hero so that he could enhance his capabilities. He also knew that they were probably going to give him quite a bit of EP when he devoured them. That heightened healing factor would be an extremely potent source of biological energy and net him quite a bit of EP.
He tried to plant unnoticeable mental suggestions into this guard's head but he actually failed.
'Do these guys have some sort of psychic defense?' Alex thought as he knew that if he pushed too hard, the person would be alerted, and then Alex would have a whole lot of shit to deal with.
Alex decided to breach the psychic defense slowly to read the guy's memories but he knew that, unlike normally, he would need a few hours to even start going through the memories.
After the innocent woman was arrested and taken away by two members of the squad, the leader went back to his post within the facility.
Alex finally witnessed the inside of the facility.
'Yep, this is definitely a holding facility…' He confirmed his guess when he saw the absurd amount of security in the place and the prison-like design. It was like a maximum security prison in here. The entire facility was rectangular in shape. Within the main outer fence, there was a large empty area that covered the entire plot. At the center was the mechanical building that was widely different from the other residential ones that he'd seen before that. Although it still matched the aesthetic of the city, cementing Alex's theory that the entire city was a huge puzzle and could act as a weapon in times of crisis.
He couldn't get any more information by just looking from the outside, so he focused on going through the mental defenses of the guard and trying to read his memories.
…
A few hours later.
*Thump*
'Fuck…' Alex thought as he saw the dead body of the person whose mind he'd just breached. Apparently, there was a fail-safe in his mind that would automatically kill him if some outside influence invaded his mind.
'I should've expected something like this…' Alex thought as he saw three guards rapidly approaching his position.
'Must be a fail-safe against Charles… I guess this settlement must not be very friendly with the X-men. Not that I expected it to be. The Bastion probably kidnapped one of their people and is using them to make healing medicines.' Alex thought about his conjecture as he rapidly tried to formulate a plan to escape without being detected by the cameras that covered every inch of the place.
***
He knew that he didn't have much time to think before he had to act since there were 5 people closing in on his location quickly.
Making a quick decision, Alex took control of the dead body of his temporary vessel and made him stand up. He had to take control of the person's body and couldn't morph into him since the cameras might recognize that he was not the same person as before.
As the guy stood up, Alex tried to act normal and say that he was fine but those guards kept approaching him.
"I'm telling you, I'm fine!" He showed some panic as five guards surrounded him with what seemed like stun batons in their hands.
"Stand down, sir. Do not resist." One of the people approached him with a threatening voice and tried to get him to surrender. They were probably going to take him for a psych evaluation.
Alex understood the situation and felt like this would be the perfect opportunity to infiltrate the facility. He raised his hands behind his head and surrendered while grumbling.
"Fine, fine… I was just tired. I didn't get any dinner yesterday…" He made an excuse that no one would believe. As he grumbled to them, one of the people approached him and cuffed his hands behind his back.
'Now's my chance.' He thought as he took the opportunity that the person was touching him to move his body and go into the other guard's body.
He left a tiny part within the dead person too since he didn't want to make the situation suspicious. Without him, the dead body would instantly fall. He was going to abandon the guy when they bring him to an interrogation room so that it doesn't trace back to the person that Alex was in.
And for the symbiote part within the guy, Alex would terminate that clone while disintegrating the part left within the dead guy. He wasn't going to risk any parts of his body getting into the hands of these people. Especially since they might already have some information about the Venom symbiote and end up tracing him through that information.
They called someone who seemed to be their superior and explained the situation to him. He agreed to take the person that Alex was impersonating for a psych evaluation as per their usual practices. The conversation gave Alex all the confirmation that he needed to confirm that they were against the X-Men and mutants in general.
This was because this psychic defense was a precaution against Charles Xavier aka Professor X.
The squad of guards along with the leader escorted their new prisoner to the entrance of the building while Alex paid full attention to what was going on. He was mapping out whatever parts of the building he was seeing and looking for blind spots where he might be able to hide.
The leader approached the entrance and scanned his eyes in what seemed like a retina scanner before the doors to the building opened.
'The facility isn't completely accessible to these guards, at least not without valid reasoning.' Alex deduced as he saw the situation.
'I really wish I could read these guys' memories and get it done with…' Alex realized that not being able to read people's memories was very inconvenient. He'd tried to prevent the fail-safe from activating but he wasn't able to do anything as the guy's entire brain was fried within mere moments. It was designed to counter Charles Xavier— one of the most renowned telepaths within the superhero community. It wasn't going to be possible for Alex to get rid of that fail-safe any time soon.
His mental manipulation wasn't that good yet, though he was going to practice it with Wanda since Chaos Magic would be a very good medium to work these abilities. Wanda also has quite a few mental manipulation abilities and their training would help her out too.
*Beep*
The huge metallic door slid open to the side and it allowed everyone to enter. It led to a lobby area with what seemed like an in-depth monitoring device that one would have to pass to move into the building. Alex was a little nervous about the situation but he was also confident in his hiding abilities.
He was perfectly emulating the dead guy's brain waves so it should be very difficult for that machine to detect him.
'It's probably made as a defense mechanism against shapeshifters like Mystique… How deep does their conflict with the mutants go?' Alex was a little weirded out about this situation. They had so many precautions specifically against mutants.
'Whatever…' Alex stopped thinking about unnecessary things and focused his efforts on suppressing his presence within the current temporary vessel while emulating the guy he'd killed as well as possible so that they could get entry into the facility.
Soon, it was the turn of Alex's current temporary vessel.
*Beep*
'Hah… Thank fuck…' Alex let out the metaphorical breath that he'd been holding. The dead guy also ended up getting through the detector since Alex's emulation of the guy's actions was perfectly within the acceptable range.
He finally got the time to observe his surroundings at this point in time.
'This isn't a holding facility… Far from it actually… It's a research facility.' Alex realized that appearances could be pretty deceiving. The inside of the place was like a huge lab that had all kinds of equipment.
He assumed that this facility was restricted from the public since this facility was probably where the most sensitive and classified items were developed. One of those items was the Extremis formula, it was something that Alex desperately wanted so that he could mitigate his weakness against sound and heat. At the very least he wanted to understand how Extremis works so that he could apply it and gain some semblance of heat and sound resistance.
He also wanted to know who or what was behind the supply of the regeneration medicines. He wanted to devour the source of those potions since he knew that it would be a potent source of biological energy or EP.
Though, after entering the building, the new leader of the party went to the elevators as the rest of the squad followed behind him while keeping the dead guy that Alex was puppeteering restrained.
Then, inside the elevator, the button that he pressed wasn't for an upper floor as Alex thought, but for a lower floor. They were going underground.
Finally, everyone stopped in front of a glass office, the nameplate on the door said Dr. Hall. The person inside seemed like he was in his 50s with some grayed-out hair and slightly wrinkled skin. It was clear that he didn't use the Extremis de-aging technology. It was also possible that he hadn't used it in a while. He was typing something out on a holographic keyboard in classic Tony Stark style. It showed that the technology in this city was much more advanced and accessible.
"I'll take him from here. You all should stay outside." The leader gripped the arm of their prisoner and pulled him into the office of Dr. Hall.
Alex took the opportunity to transfer some biomass into the body that was controlling the dead person and split most of the newly added biomass from the body to go into the new leader. He repeated the process that he'd done with the other guy, leaving a tiny sliver puppeteering the dead guy. He knew that using the leader as a vessel would be more beneficial for him since the guy seemed to have higher authority.
"Oh? Hello, Douglas. Who is this unfamiliar face?" Dr. Hall looked over and called out the leader who'd brought everyone into the facility. Apparently, the leader's name was Douglas.
"Dr. Hall," He greeted with a nod and continued, "We have a potential mind-invaded person. It's possible that he's been influenced by some sort of psychic interference. As per contingency number 68 against psychic defenses, I have brought him here for a psych evaluation." Douglas reported to Dr. Hall with a tone that conveyed that he wasn't officially below the doctor in rank, but the doctor was more valued by the people. Or maybe he was in the doctor's political faction.
Such a huge organization within the city would definitely have massive political undercurrents going on.
The doctor's phone rang.
"I see. Give me a moment. Take a seat with our friend here. I'll get back to you in a minute." The doctor told Douglas and answered the call, "Yes, Isiah?"
"Is that so?" The doctor's face developed a frown after hearing what Isiah said.
"These incompetent fucks…" He mumbled as he hung up the call.
"Douglas, I'll take care of your friend's psych eval, I need you to do something for me."
"Don't say it." Douglas had an irritating frown on his face. It seemed like this wasn't a novel situation to either of them.
"I'm afraid that I must. Isiah's team needs more samples, I need you to bring the subject to them." The doctor had a tone of finality in his words.
"Damn it, Hall. Every single day for the past two weeks." Douglas had an extremely annoyed look on his face.
"The usual guy was injured, Doug. He'll be back to work next week. I need you to do this for now." It seemed that Dr. Hall was used to this sort of outburst.
"Fine whatever…" He sighed since he knew that he would have to do this.
"I'll take care of the psych eval. And for god's sake, send those guards outside. I don't want someone touching something dangerous and turning into a fire monster this time." He told Douglas.
"That Electric guy's still not normalized?" Doug asked with a gossipy tone.
"He's serving as a nice battery for us, so it's fine." Dr. Hall didn't seem to care much, "Now get to it. You know how cranky Isiah can get." The doctor hurried him away.
"Fine." He got up and left the office.
After telling the guards that were waiting outside the office to leave the building and guiding them away, Douglas went back to the elevator and pressed the button to the lowest floor.
"Why does it have to be me…" He was mumbling all sorts of complaints as the elevator lowered.
*Ding*
The elevator door slid open at the lowest up to a large dimly lit open area with a glass box in the center of the room. There were cameras pointing at every single angle within the room with automatic weapons also pointing at the glass cage in the center. Some of them are visible and some of them are hidden.
In the cage, there was a person who was sitting while curled up into a ball. Realizing that someone had arrived, she looked up.
'Laura Kinney?!' Alex thought as he looked at the disheveled face of the person who was curled on what was supposed to be the bed with her arms wrapped around her legs and her face buried in her knees. The so-called bed was just a rug that was only slightly better than the floor.
Her legs were completely bare, so Alex wasn't sure what she was wearing, but he had an idea that she was probably only wearing small scraps that would barely cover her. Probably so that she doesn't have anywhere to hide some tools to escape.
Her complexion was ruddy and seemed perfectly fine, but that was probably only because of her healing factor and that they were giving her the correct nutrients.
'Well, this changes things…' Alex decided that he'd found his host for Earth-Z.
"X-23, I need you to come with me," Douglas said as he walked to the door.
"Fuck off," She gave him the finger. She'd looked up and that revealed a thick metal collar that was wrapped around her neck
"Don't make it more difficult than it's supposed to be…" Douglas had an exasperated edge to his tone as he picked out a stick-like tool from the side of the entrance to the glass box.
Seeing that he was going to come into the cell, Laura stood up with a vigilant expression as if getting ready for a fight.
That was when Alex noticed something extending out from her back, presumably somewhere in the middle of her spinal column. It was a tube that was collecting some sort of reddish substance that was far more viscous than blood. It was her bone marrow that was constantly being extracted from her back. And that too without any anesthesia.
Alex knew how unbearably painful the procedure actually was, he'd once experienced a bone marrow biopsy and he was in pain for a few weeks after that, and that was after they'd used anesthesia. He couldn't imagine how much pain she must constantly be in as they extract her bone marrow without any sort of pain relief or anesthesia.
As she stood up, Alex also noticed the state of her clothes. She was wearing a tight sports bra that covered her modest cleavage, while her panties were also the bare minimum, covering her only slightly.
'And they send a guy to bring her there?' Alex thought of the insinuations of the situation and didn't like the thought.
"Come on in, bitch…" Laura said with a vindictive look on her face, with no trace of pain from the bone marrow extraction visible on her face. It wasn't that she had painkillers, she had been experiencing that pain for years now and ended up getting used to it.
Douglas on the other hand had a pensive look on his face as he pressed the button to open the glass door.
The moment the door opened, Larua lunged at the guy and drew her claws to attack him.
'No wonder… I doubt anyone would be brave enough to do anything to her if she doesn't have her powers suppressed. It makes sense since they need her regenerating bone marrow at all times. Suppressing her X-gene would be detrimental to their supply process since she wouldn't be able to recover fast enough.'
As she was about to attack Douglas, he stepped back. Laura wasn't able to reach him and ended up pulling on the tube that was extracting her bone marrow.
"Aarghhh!" She felt an extreme amount of pain as she felt her entire spine churring from the shock of the pull against the extractor. It was probably completely stuck inside her skin and spine and taking it out herself would be impossible for her.
"Why do you have to do this…" He rolled his eyes with annoyance as he stabbed the stick in her neck, specifically on her collar. With that, the stick attached to her collar, and Douglas pressed a button on the stick.
"Aaarhg!" She was shocked by an extremely strong electric discharge from her collar and was incapacitated for a few seconds.
Douglas took this chance and pushed her back into the cell while walking in with her.
Then he attached that stick to a specific groove that was made for it to be attached into.
By then, Laura had recovered and tried to attack him again.
"Can you stop that?" He shouted as he hurriedly stepped back, "Damn it." He looked at two rips on his body armor and the slight sting in his chest where she'd cut him. It was a shallow cut and he was bleeding.
"They couldn't have at least got rid of these damn Vibranium-Adamantium claws…" He complained as he used a remote that he'd just picked to shock her again, this time it lasted longer so she stayed incapacitated for a few seconds to give him the chance to detach her from the marrow extractor.
He moved behind her and held the square metallic box that was attached to the center of her back and going onto her spine. Using a key, he unlocked it and removed the tube that was extracting her marrow and connecting her to the cell.
Alex also took this chance to go into Laura and merge with her. He didn't waste any time and formed a preliminary Level 0 bond with her.
Before Alex could check her status, Douglas abruptly jumped back, dodging Laura's attack.
"I knew that you'd attack me again!" He almost had a tone of triumph as he said that and shocked her again. Then he grabbed the stick and detached it before she could attack him again.
He held the stick and pulled her out of the cell, he made sure that she stayed in front of him after she recovered again so that she doesn't have any leeway to attack him again.
"Annoying ass bullshit…" He complained as he went into the elevator while keeping Laura who was trying to attack him away from himself.
Alex stopped caring about Douglas' situation and paid attention to his new host. He directly formed a Level 1 bond as Laura felt a slight prick in her neck. Though she didn't even react to it since the collar was so damn uncomfortable with the stick.
[ «Status- Host #7»
«Name: Laura Kinney (X-23)»
«Bonding Rate: 0%»
«Bonding Level: 1»
«Powers: Low Superhuman Physique (5 Tons)— Low Cosmic Healing Factor— Bone Claws (Vibranium-Adamantium Alloy)— Melee Mastery— Weapons Mastery— Espionage Mastery»
]
'Ayoo… My first cosmic level stat…' Alex cheered inwardly as he looked at her Low Cosmic Healing Factor.
[Laura…] He didn't waste any time before communicating with her.
He didn't want to waste any time. If she ended up being brought wherever they wanted to bring her, they might just use certain probing methods that could discover him, he wasn't going to risk it.
"Hm?" She frowned imperceptibly but didn't react in any other way.
[I'm talking to you telepathically, don't react. You can speak to me in your mind too.] Alex didn't want her to alert the guy behind them.
[Professor?] She hesitantly asked. She thought that Professor X had finally sent some backup for her.
[Sorry to burst your bubble, but no. I'm not related to the X-Men. But I'm not related to this facility, either. I just ended up in a bad situation and went through a series of events that led me to you.] Alex was sure as hell not going to give any fucking credit to the fucking X-Men for busting her out.
[What are you?] Laura realized that he was talking as if he was right here with her. She knew that there was no one around them so he must be some sort of obscure creature. Someone invisible was impossible since they had far too many precautions against that.
[I'm a symbiotic alien species. They've been holding me within this facility for a while. I finally got a chance to escape by attaching to this Douglas fuck, but when I saw you, I decided to help you out.] Alex mixed some truths and lies to make her trust him more and told her about himself.
[Is that so?] She asked skeptically. She wasn't exactly a trusting person after years of being experimented on and treated like some sort of commodity.
[Yeah, now we don't have much time. We need to get out of this facility as soon as possible.] Alex knew that their time was limited and they would have enough time to take care of everything later.
[…Fuck it, I'm in.] Although skeptical about Alex, she'd realized that this was her best chance of getting out of this facility. She'd tried more than enough times but ended up failing every time.
The only reason that she hadn't given up and broken down was because of her healing factor affecting her mental state. It was keeping her sane and preventing her from completely giving up.
Whether it was a fortunate thing or not was for Laura to decide.
[Great, here's the plan, I'll prevent the collar from shocking you and you do your best to kill him as the elevator goes up. Also, change the level to the ground level, that's where the exit is.] He told her a vague plan.
[You can make the shock collar ineffective?] Laura asked in confirmation and some underlying anticipation.
[Yep.] It was easy for him, all he had to do was to absorb the released electric discharge with his ‹Basic Lightning Manipulation›.
[Perfect, leave everything else to me. Anything that I should know?] She wanted to know everything so she isn't caught unprepared.
[I need you to find some sort of computer terminal. I need to do something there. It will only take about 2 minutes for me to finish up. Also, I provide a three times increase to your base stats. Including your reflexes. It's an ability that I have, I can enhance my hosts after bonding with them. There's more but we can talk about that stuff later.] He informed her.
[Really… Perfect. I'll get your computer stuff done. Though, hold back on the enhancements for now. I don't want to lose control over my strength.] She had a vengeful smirk on her face.
'Why do I feel like she's going to try to massacre this facility…' Alex had a premonition.
With their talk done, Laura turned her head slightly to look at the guy who was holding her like some animal and gave him a feral grin. One that sent shivers down the guard's spine.
The next second, without thinking, he pressed the electrocution button. He didn't want to risk anything and decided to immobilize her.
Though unlike all the other times, she kept standing this time and didn't react to the shock she was supposed to be receiving.
'Well, that's nice…' She thought and didn't waste any more time and turned back to push the guy to the corner, he was holding her away so she had to grab the stick by herself and hit the guy with it.
Douglas was desperately trying to electrocute her so that she doesn't kill him but it was to no avail. She beat him up with the stick that he was holding to keep her away and approached him.
"Stay away!" He tried to keep her away from him.
"I don't think I will. You think I didn't notice your shit face ogling my body every time you came?" She stated. Her foot had a single metal claw extending from it. She kicked up and in the next moment, the guy's crotch had his entrails falling out of it.
'Remind me not to get on her bad side…' Alex may be desensitized to killing. But he was still a man at heart. And seeing Douglas' state, he winced just a bit.
Laura looked like she was enjoying his face full of agony and pain and after a few seconds she kicked again and this time, his head was rolling to the side, separated from his body.
Laura spent a few moments looking for keys that Douglas had and found them, finally getting rid of the stick that kept hindering her mobility. This guy didn't have the keys for the collar or else she would've gotten rid of that too.
She started taking off his armor as she was planning to wear it to cover herself. Going into a fight wearing nothing but scraps wasn't the best thing.
'It seems that she doesn't have that berserk rage thing…' Alex thought as he saw Laura's thought-out actions. She was angry, but she was in full control of her actions.
[Allow me.] Alex interfered and suddenly her body was covered by a sleek leather combat suit that was reminiscent of Natasha.
[Well, isn't that convenient…] Laura was a little surprised but didn't have any issues with her new clothes, [You been working with Black Widow?] She asked without giving away her thoughts as she waited for the elevator to open on the ground floor. She'd already changed the destination.
[Not really, I'm just a fan of girls wearing leather. I'm also bulletproof] Alex told her.
[Well aren't you a deviant? And bulletproof… seems nice.] Laura laughed and didn't say anything more about it, [What's your name? You know mine, but I don't know yours.]
[Alex. My name is Alex] He told her.
[Alex, huh? You sound pretty human for an alien species. And a pretty mellow one at that.] She said.
[After living on earth for so long, I've long mended with you guys and given myself a name. We don't have the concept of names in our culture so it wasn't a big deal to give myself a name.] He told her the same thing he told his other hosts.
As they conversed, the elevator finally reached its destination.
This elevator chimed and the doors started opening.
Just as the doors slid open, a squadron of people opened fire on Laura without any question. They knew that she would survive. They had her full data.
In her usual desperado fighting style, Laura let those bullets hit her as she extended her claws from her hands and feet.
She jumped forward to slice two of the people in front of her into halves while jumping on the body of a third person whom she skewered with her feet claws.
'She'd brutal… I like it.' Alex liked Laura's brutal fighting style. She left everything to her healing factor and tanked all the attacks while slicing people with reckless abandon. But her moves were calculated and planned. Her fighting style was the most optimized for her.
For now, none of the bullets were able to pierce through her armor but that wouldn't be for long. Once they bring out the big guns, Alex would have to let Laura deal with them.
Laura knew that she didn't have too much time since although she could take care of these grunts with ease, the true firepower that was in the central fortress was probably on its way to her.
Those robots were how she got caught in the first place.
Laura quickly sliced her way through most of the people while also cutting through a few bullets using her claws as she stopped them from hitting her head. She always instinctively protected her head since she knew that her healing factor wouldn't help her regenerate her memories if she got shot in the head and damaged her brain. That had happened once with Logan and she wasn't planning on letting that happen to her.
Though she didn't need to worry since Alex had already formed a helmet over her head that was pretty resistant to bullet damage.
[RPG incoming] Alex warned her as Laura reacted after a few moments. She didn't have much coordination with Alex yet and it took a moment for her to react to his warning.
Even though Laura's reaction was slightly slow, Alex's timely warning allowed her to dodge the attack completely while shooting the RPG shooter in his face with a gun that she'd picked up.
As Laura went through the ground floor, she finally reached a computer terminal and stopped there.
[Here you go.] She looked at the terminal.
[Put your hand over it.] Alex told her as more people started showing up. Laura quickly put her hand on the terminal.
[Defend this location for 2 minutes, I'll be done by then. Then we can leave.] He told her as he transferred a part of himself into the terminal and invaded the cyberspace of the Bastion's database.
Ever since the last time when he'd stolen all of Oscorp's data from the research world, Alex had developed an ability to directly hack into a server and transfer all the knowledge to himself. He'd gotten this idea from Venom since he was also able to hack into cyberspaces. It took him a while to develop this, but he was successful after some trial and error.
[Don't take too long.] Laura said as she jumped away from the terminal and took up a defensive position. However, she wouldn't wait for a second after the agreed-upon two minutes. She was grateful to Alex for helping her, but that didn't mean that she trusted him.
Abruptly, Laura felt some danger near herself. She felt as if she was about to be attacked. Trusting her instincts, she crouched down in an instant, only to see a bullet whoosh by the spot where her head was.
'That was dangerous.' She thought as she lunged at the two guards that were approaching her, stabbing one of their abdomens and cutting the head off the other.
She kept killing people as if they were animals to be butchered with a vengeful glint in her eyes as she cut them all apart dying the pristine white floors into the crimson red of blood. She'd been treated as some sort of inexhaustible resource by these fucking people for years and she was going to do everything in her power to destroy this facility once she got out of there.
Alex also understood her mentality as he paid attention to her situation while trying to take all of the data that was stored within their databases. It was all connected to a central network and he could access all of the data that the Bastion has collected in their servers. He had already set up a large number of servers and databases in the Research World and was directly transferring all of the data from this facility to that facility.
He was able to do this since he was using the medium of his consciousness to transfer large amounts of information into that server. He didn't have any eidetic or photographic memory so he needed some external location to store these exabytes of data that had been researched and stored by the Bastion over the years.
[How much longer?] Laura might be vengeful and want to kill every single person in this facility, but she wasn't blinded by her vengeance. She knew that to do what she wants, she must make preparations. And for that, she had to get out as quickly as possible.
[60 seconds] Alex told her as he went at the fastest speed he could. He'd already found the formula to create Extremis and now he just wanted everything. But his greed for the information wasn't exactly a good thing for either him or Laura.
'Fuck!' Just as Alex was about to delve into the actual inner workings of the Bastion's functions— Things related to the fortress and the abominations including the methods that the bastion uses to deal with the abominations, a fail-safe firewall activated and started purging him from the system.
At the same time, automated robots arrived at the facility, it had only been a few minutes since Laura had escaped and they were already here.
[We have to go.][We have to go.] Both of them said at the same time as Laura grabbed the head of a person that was approaching her and used it as leverage to jump up while also twisting their neck.
She jumped to the terminal and collected Alex's body from it before making a run for it.
[I have a plan, follow my directions.] Alex told Laura as she nimbly dodged the repulsor blasts along with the gunfire that was being shot at her. She wasn't able to completely avoid getting hit, and even Alex's bulletproof clothes had limits, but her acrobatics and dodging did prevent anything from hitting her vitals. It wasn't because it would be a major problem, but because her vitals would take a longer time to recover and the situation right now was very sensitive.
Alex guided Laura to the exit of the building and she had to use her claws to cut open a hole in the entrance door that was sealed shut.
'Finally… Freedom.' Laura couldn't help but pause for a moment as she reached the outside of the building and saw the illumination of the rock cluster that was left over after the Earth's moon was destroyed.
'What's that?' She was confused as she saw a large number of moons in the night sky other than their broken-down moon.
[Get going. I'll fill you in about the situation of the world later on.] Alex hurried her away as he saw even more armored robots approaching.
Laura came out of her reverie within an instant and instinctively dodged a flurry of tiny missile darts that had been shot at her.
She kept running while either dodging the attacking robots or slicing through the ones that confronted her. Alex guided her to the exit area.
He'd utilized a few hours back when he was breaking through the mental defenses of the guard to map the outer perimeter of the facility and decide on a good escape route. He guided Laura through that escape route that he'd planned.
Following Alex's directions flawlessly, Laura made her way to the one place where Alex thought that there was a chance to escape easily. It wasn't surprising that she could handle herself very well in a fight. She'd practically mowed through the facility, and that too without Alex's enhancements. It just goes to show that raw strength is only a basic threshold for fighting.
He didn't doubt that Laura could easily beat down his Gwen-65 in a one-to-one fight without even using her claws. Even if he enhanced Gwen, the result wouldn't change. Unless the difference in physical strength is astronomical, the person with the better technique will generally be the victor factor in such situations where the physical ability of both parties is similar.
Laura had even trained her sixth sense to a certain extent which allowed her to perceive fatal danger slightly in advance. Though it didn't compare to the Spider-Sense of any version of Spider-Man, it was a significant thing regardless. Laura's sixth sense was completely self-developed. Spider-Sense is a power that the spider people are given.
Laura ran through the facility while dodging what she could and tanking what she couldn't.
[How much longer?] She asked mentally.
[Just a bit more, turn right there.] He kept guiding her through the facility. They couldn't just have jumped over the walls since there were automatic sentries mounted on those walls and Laura would get shredded by them if she exposes herself to those sentries. There were limits to her healing factor.
They kept running as a gate finally became visible to them both.
[There it is. Cut through the wires with your claws.] Alex told Laura to cut through the wire gate that seemed to be a transit spot for regular supplies.
[Those barbed wires are electric, Alex. I need another way.] Laura said.
[I'll take care of the shock, just cut through the gate, then we can blend in with the crowd.] Alex hurried her since he knew that they would soon be overwhelmed by the incoming robots.
Laura hesitated for just a moment before following Alex's words and dodging the attacks that were sent toward her and trying to take advantage of her momentary lapse.
Deciding to trust this unknown being, Laura cut a perfectly rectangular hole in the gate within seconds. Alex made sure to absorb the electricity that would've stunned Laura. Not wasting any more time in hesitation, Laura runs out of the facility while trying her best to dodge the sentries that were shooting energy beams at her.
Alex already had the major parts of the city mapped out after reading the Barista girl's memories. He guided Laura to a central 24-hour marketplace that had a large crowd. The Bastion had more than a hundred million people living in it and was always bustling. So it wasn't difficult to find a place with a large crowd at all times.
[Where are we going?] Laura asked Alex. They were still being pursued but they had shaken off the pursuing robots for a moment.
[Marketplace.] Alex told her.
[Nice.] Laura understood Alex's plan.
As they made their way, the robots kept pursuing them but the stray shots had stopped, they didn't want to alarm or harm the populous so they were only shooting when the shots were perfectly aligned. Though this actually made things more difficult for Laura as she couldn't dodge the attacks that were sent her way and had to tank them.
[Hey, how bulletproof are you?] Laura asked something that was on her mind for a while.
[What's that supposed to mean? Very much so. I can easily tank high-caliber bullets. Armor piercing rounds are also doable but they're not perfectly blocked.] He agreed.
[I see… So that's why I wasn't feeling the attacks as much as I would've…] Laura's words almost conveyed some sort of disappointment.
[What? Are you sad that you can't feel the bullets penetrating you all over?] Alex's amusement was easily understood by Laura.
[What?! No!] She denied.
[Masochist.] Alex only said one word with a flat tone and that made Laura blush imperceptibly. Alex was connected to her so he was able to notice every little reaction that she had, like the tiny spike in her heart rate. Laura didn't say anything after that.
Alex didn't continue messing with her and guided her to the location where they could blend in with the crowd and Alex could camouflage Laura without being detected by the sensors.
Soon, they reached the entrance of the square of the market. It reminded Alex of Times Square in New York, just that it was ten times more expansive and had far more people right now. Although it was almost midnight, the place didn't seem any less crowded. If anything, he felt like there were lesser people here when he saw this place in the barista girl's memory.
[Go into the crowd, reduce your presence.] Alex informed her as he changed her clothes from Natasha's combat suit to a subtle black dress.
[This is so cool…] Laura wanted to admire her new dress for a few seconds but didn't have the time as she had to keep moving. Alex's ability to change clothes instantly into any outfit was a godsend for any girl. No matter how tomboyish a girl may be, she would want to look pretty, even if it's in her own aesthetic. And Alex could let her do it without spending a dime on expensive clothes.
As they went into the crowd, Alex started working his magic. He camouflaged Laura completely and extended a few mental probes to the people in the surroundings, using subtle mental suggestions to use them as the perfect cover for her.
[Let's stay in this crowd for 5 minutes, then we'll try to move to some safe place where we wouldn't be detected. Then we can think of what to do next.] Alex told her.
[Don't order me around.] She almost growled. It seemed that she had some bad experiences with authority figures. Alex wasn't surprised by her reaction.
[You got a better plan?] Alex asked.
[…No.] She almost seemed like she was sulking.
[Then my plan it is.] He told her and she clicked her tongue.
Laura begrudgingly agreed and followed his directions. They kept moving around the crowd as Alex made sure to keep changing through the people that he was influencing. He made the perfect path through the crowd for them while also making sure that Laura was hidden at all times.
Soon, Alex felt like they had lost the robots and covered Laura's face.
[Hey!] She complained.
[I'm covering your face to change it. Stop complaining.] Alex completely covered her face like a mask and formed a different random face. Within an instant, Laura stopped feeling that there was anything on her face and felt like nothing had changed. But Alex had already completely changed her face.
[Your abilities are weird…] Laura commented.
[I'm a slime-like being. I'm doing everything that a sentient slime can do.] He informed her.
[How long have you been on this planet?] Laura was curious about him. She realized that he knew a lot about human culture to be someone unfamiliar with the planet.
[I've been here from before the Kree invasion. It was a fun time before that. All of you superheroes got fucked over. And then you all fucked the world over.] Alex was amused about the situation of this world.
[You're damn right we did...] Laura said with self-deprecating amusement and a hint of pride.
[How old are you?] She wanted to know about him.
[What's with all the questions?] He asked.
[I'm curious about you.] She said nonchalantly.
[Or, you're trying to get information from me to see if what I'm telling you is a lie.] Alex called her out.
[Busted.] Laura didn't mind. She wasn't exactly being subtle about her information probes.
[Well, I know quite a bit about you already, it's only fair that I share about myself too. Ask away.] He wanted to get her to trust him. The best way was to talk to her and tell her about himself. It would make her less resistant to deepening the bond with him.
[How about we start with those seventeen moons that I see in the sky? I want to know more about you but I can't just ignore the elephant in the room.] Laura had been dying to know what happened in the world after she'd been kidnapped to be used as a medicine generator.
[Understandable. What was the situation when you got caught? I'll start from there.]
[It was a little while after the Kree invasion.]
[I see… Well…] Alex started telling her about the events that happened after she was captured. Granted they were from the memories of a civilian. It was enough to give Laura a rough picture.
-x-X-x-
By the time Alex told Laura the rough events that happened after she was caught, they had reached the slums. It would be the safest hiding spot since there weren't any monitoring drones there and they would be able to plan out their next course of action in peace.
[Even a city like this has such backward slums…] Laura was a little unnerved at the state of the people that were living here. Although she had gone through a hell that was filled with pain for years now, she was still a kind girl at heart. What she went through wasn't able to break her.
'I'm sure that her regenerative prowess played a big role in helping her maintain her sanity.' Alex knew that no person could come out and stay normal after going through such a harrowing experience. He knew exactly what she'd gone through at that facility after getting that data.
[These people are the first line of defense if the monsters break through the outer perimeter. They're basically meat shields.] He told Laura.
[Yeah.] She was disgusted but she knew that she couldn't do anything about this. At least not right now.
[What do you plan now, Laura?] Alex asked a question that sent Laura deep in thought. For one thing, she wanted revenge. She wanted to make everyone in the Bastion pay for what they'd done to her. On the other, she knew that most of the people were innocent and the people to blame were the people who ran the facility and this city. She had been bubbling with utter and complete fury for a long time and she wouldn't be able to rest without getting at least some sort of closure.
[That's a good ques—] Laura wasn't able to complete that thought. Suddenly, she was ambushed by 4 identical bulky suits. They seemed like nerfed versions of the Hulkbuster armor. They had appeared out of nowhere and surrounded her completely.
"X-23. Surrender." There was a mechanical voice from one of the suits.
Laura reacted instantly and extended her claws from her hands and feet, attacking one of the suits with the intention to cut through it.
Sadly though, her claws ended up ineffective against that armor. Only making a scratching sound as a shallow scratch formed on the suit.
On the other hand, taking advantage of her moment of surprise at her attack's failure, the other three suits moved. Two of them grabbed her arms. They grabbed her wrists and slipped a mechanical gauntlet over her hands as Laura tried to resist unsuccessfully. The armors were more than strong enough to overpower her with brute force.
Especially since those gauntlets forcefully pushed her claws back into her knuckles and prevented her from extending them out.
The third suit grabbed her from behind and seemingly started covering her. It was going to form a prison to trap her before they would bring her back to the facility.
'Fuck! Talk about overkill… These are fucking Vibranium suits. How did Tony even get this much of that shit? Did he raid Wakanda or something…' Alex was completely startled at the amount of firepower that had been sent to subdue Laura.
Whoever was currently managing the Bastion had pulled every single stop into capturing Laura. Alex had assumed that it was Iron Man, but it was possible that it may be someone else. As evident by the Vibranium suits. Things might not be as simple as he thought. Tony might just have been one of the people involved in the founding of the Bastion.
There was even a drone in the air that had been suppressing Alex's ‹Enhanced 6th Sense›. It was deployed since Laura had shown her trained 6th sense to dodge a bullet during her escape.
Whatever slightest power had been shown by Laura during her escape had been countered by this legion of suits that were sent to subdue her.
This just goes to show how much work Iron Man had put into this place. There were countermeasures for so many things. Alex didn't doubt that even powers like teleportation would have a hard time working in this city.
'This city is literally like the boss map of this world. I have to get out of this damn place.' Alex decided with newfound conviction.
[Alex! Tell me you have some way to get me out of here. Please…] Laura seemed desperate. She had finally found some hope and if she was thrown back into that facility, she might just break.
[There is one way.] Alex had been preparing something while Laura was being subdued completely by the 4 Vibranium suits.
[Then help me! Please! I'll do anything!] She didn't understand what he'd been waiting for but she was really desperate. She didn't want to go back to that place.
[As much as I'd like to do many things to you, I need just a second.] He placated her. He had to prepare for what he was about to do. Laura could only try her best to resist unsuccessfully as the suit started covering every part of her body, about to completely subdue her.
And then there was a wave of crimson.
Alex had been preparing a Chaos Shockwave that would utilize all of the Chaos energy that he'd collected from Wanda till now. In the week that he'd spent with Wanda in the MCU Earth, he'd collected quite a bit of Chaos energy from Wanda and even got some rudimentary control over it. Though it wasn't anything more than roughly expelling that Chaos energy outward— far worse than Wanda. But the sheer quantity that he expelled was more than sufficient.
That's what he'd been preparing.
As that crimson wave extended outward, all of the suits that had been subduing Laura were pushed away, and even the restraints that they'd put on her hands and feet were gone, though that wasn't without any price.
Such a huge explosion of uncontrolled Chaos energy caused quite a bit of damage to the surroundings. There would've been a lot of casualties if the area wasn't already evacuated within seconds after the arrival of the suits. Though there were still quite a few casualties further away, it wasn't anything too serious.
What was even more serious though was Laura's current state, her body had been almost decimated. Her limbs were devoid of all skin, leaving only her enhanced Vibranium-Adamantium alloy bones in the aftermath of the explosion. Alex had tried his best to protect her vitals and head so the damage wasn't too difficult to fix, but it sure hurt her like a bitch. It also put Laura out of commission for at least the next few hours.
Knowing that there was probably some sort of tracker that he didn't have any way to get rid of in the short term, Alex had to get Laura out of this place as quickly as possible. It was most likely the collar that she was still wearing, but Alex would have to do some work to get rid of it, and that would need some time, time that he didn't have.
Knowing that she wouldn't be able to function in her current state and would only be in unnecessary pain, Alex put Laura in a deep sleep, taking control of her body. He'd realized that her healing factor wasn't enough to completely regrow a lost limb. At least not yet.
It was the same with Wolverine. With time, his healing factor got stronger and faster, allowing him to recover from more serious injuries faster. Initially, he wasn't even able to regrow his lost limbs, but after a decade or so, he could regenerate his whole body from no more than a drop of blood.
But Laura's case was a little weird. She'd been confined in that glass cage for years, and judging by her current age, she was probably captured when she was only starting out with the superhero stuff. She was just in her early twenties right now.
Her skills were polished, but that didn't mean that she had decades of actual experience fighting. She'd probably only received a couple of years of training before being sent into the field. And being captured wasn't exactly something that allowed her to get a variety of injuries to enhance her healing factor.
'If her healing factor is like any other power that needs to be trained, then the more varieties of injuries she receives, the better her healing would be. Just focusing on her bone marrow as a 'healing' target probably prevented the ability from truly progressing.' Alex accurately judged the state of Laura's healing factor and realized that regenerating her limbs was going to take quite some time, 'I'll think about her healing factor later…' Alex thought.
In the meantime, he formed a replica of her limbs to give the monitoring drones the illusion that she'd regenerated quickly and started escaping from the immobilized robots. Chaos magic was apparently very effective against those robots.
Though Alex didn't doubt that there was a countermeasure for that too, so he prioritized escaping the Bastion.
He knew that leaving would be dangerous as he and Laura would have to fend off attacks from the pursuing robots as well as the abominations, it was better since Alex would have more places to hide and he wouldn't have to deal with all of The Bastion's firepower. They wouldn't leave themselves completely defenseless against a sudden abomination attack— which wasn't uncommon— just to capture Laura. Alex could only bet on this plan. He couldn't think of anything better in that situation.
Alex was stuck between a rock and a hard place, either staying and constantly fighting a countless army of robots that keep getting more and more resilient to his efforts, or running and fighting a lesser amount of the suits while also having to deal with the abominations.
It wasn't that the thought of ditching Laura didn't come to his mind, but that would prove detrimental for him.
He'd spent quite a while in this world without a host and it was starting to get uncomfortable for him. As a symbiote, he needed a host. All the different bodies may have been connected directly to his consciousness, but they needed a host to sustain themselves.
If a host is not found, that body will go into a semi-conscious state that would only be able to do the basest things. This was the situation of all his other bodies in their space containers as they made their way to their destinations.
That was why Alex needed at least one host in each version of Earth. And for Earth-Z, Larua was the best candidate for now. Also, he sympathized with her. Alex was a sort of sociopathic killer most of the time, not caring about whom he killed to further his goals.
But he was also a hypocrite when it came to someone he liked. That was why he was willing to go through so much effort to free Laura. No doubt it had to do with how he thought she was a bombshell with a feisty touch to her that made him want to dominate her, but it was also that he somewhat sympathized with her situation and felt like helping her.
-x-X-x-
Seeing that the suits were immobilized, even if temporarily, Alex, who had created temporary limbs for Laura while controlling her body ran as fast as he could.
Even though he'd enhanced Laura's regeneration, she'd just lost far too much of her body to regenerate it without at least a few days of recovery. Her limbs were gone, her torso was missing a huge amount of flesh and her organs were barely functioning. The only consolation was that her brain was perfectly protected. Both by Alex and by her Vibranium-Adamantium skull.
Alex knew that this kind of injury wasn't enough to kill her, but she wouldn't be active for a while. At least not in a fight.
He had to get out of this city, quickly. He'd already depleted his reserves of Chaos energy and couldn't pull the same trick again. And he was sure that the next set of suits that arrive would be equipped to deal with his rudimentary magical methods. He was hopeful that Tony hadn't encountered the true Scarlet Witch in this timeline so he wouldn't have made any countermeasures against Wanda's full power. But Wanda wasn't here. It was Alex, and he barely had any control over the Chaos energy. Not to mention his reserves were already empty.
But there must've been a version of Wanda on this earth too, so Tony would've had access to some samples of Chaos Energy.
Alex was in a race against time, every single second mattered since he didn't know how long it would be before the next legion would assault him and Laura. So, he made his way to the boundary wall as quickly as possible with the intention of escaping the city, hoping that the suits wouldn't chase him for too long.
As he approached the wall, Alex decided to reveal that Laura had some external help in her escape. He'd wanted to find a way that wouldn't reveal him, but it seemed like there wasn't any other way.
Alex created a camouflaged springboard just a few feet away from the wall and jumped at it with all his strength. Doing his best to propel himself over the top of the wall, Alex had the springboard push him up. And that propelling force created weak web-like cracks in the ground below. It wasn't that the ground was weak, on the contrary, it was extremely durable. It was the jump that created a lot of downward reaction force.
Sadly, it wasn't enough to cover a hundred meters in height. He could only reach around 75 meters and would have to climb the rest himself. Thankfully, although Laura's limbs were decimated, her skeleton was completely fine. Since he was in control of her body, Alex was able to detract her claws from her hands and feet.
He stabbed the claws into the wall and scaled the rest of the distance within seconds.
By now, some of the weak grunt suits had caught up with them and were trying to delay their escape. Though Alex was able to tank some of their attacks with his symbiote body while countering the rest with Laura's claws.
He wasn't as proficient as Laura when it came to using the claws, but it was sufficient for the current situation.
'Seeing how desperate they are in trying to delay us, I feel like I made the right choice.' Alex observed. They were trying to delay Laura's escape while the production lines probably made the modifications to the suits to perfectly counter her newly shown abilities.
'I hope I'll lose the pursuit of these suits after leaving this city.' Alex hoped as he reached the top of the wall within seconds.
It wasn't too difficult to scale a distance of 25 meters with his own super strength. Since Laura's limbs were basically vaporized, Alex was able to utilize his ‹Superhuman Grade Physique Creation (35 Tons)› to make completely new limbs over her Vibranium-Adamantium bones.
It allowed him to bypass the limit of 3 times enhancement to Laura's body and utilize more strength.
The moment he stepped on the top of the wall, Alex was bombarded by sentries located at specific points.
'This is why I didn't tell her to jump over the wall back in the facility…' Alex knew that it was going to be very difficult to completely dodge those sentries.
Especially since these sentries were far better than the ones at the facility. These were city-defending sentries and had far more firepower.
The only consolation in this situation was that they weren't as fast as the ones at the facility, made for far stronger attacks and longer ranges, they had a slower reload rate, becoming just a bit easier to dodge.
Alex used his ‹Enhanced 6th Sense› to its limits as he did his best to dodge what could be dodged while protecting Laura's head. That was the only part that truly mattered. With time, she could regenerate everything, but if her head or more specifically, her brain was lost or damaged, she would lose all her memories and he didn't want that to happen to her.
Doing his best to mitigate the damage that was being dealt to Laura's body, Alex shielded her and ran like hell over the ten-meter distance at the top of the wall while trying to dodge the energy weapons that were being shot at him. By the time he reached the end of the path, all that was left of Laura's body was her heart and her head. Alex decided to prioritize protecting her head over other parts and that caused quite a bit more damage to her body.
Though he was finally out of the main danger as he jumped over the wall and scaled down to the ground.
'Weird…' Alex noticed that the grunt robots that had been shooting him were also gone.
'Let's get out of here first…' Alex didn't think about it and decided to run to one of the empty bunkers that he'd run into on his way here. He made sure to try his best to reduce his presence and use camouflage to its fullest on the way there. He hoped that he wouldn't run into any abomination, at least not yet. He may be an untiring symbiote, but this extreme situation in the Bastion had tired him out mentally and Alex just wanted to rest for a while. Which was what both he and Laura needed the most right now.
After escaping, there wasn't any party that was sent after them, so Alex heaved a sigh of relief.
A few minutes later, Alex reached his destination. Though, he wouldn't be staying here for more than a few hours since it was too close to the Bastion for his comfort.
'Now what do I do with her?…' Alex looked over Laura's horrendous state and thought of how he would go about healing her.
'I have a theory about the Level 3 bond… I could test it out. I'm sure that it would allow me to have more influence over her biology and might also allow me to speed up her healing by a good enough factor…' Alex thought. He sealed the bunker to be safe and covered an entire room with his symbiote body hoping that at least some of the Bastion's probing methods might fail that way.
He created a bed and put Laura's body on it.
'Let's wake her up first.'
Having bonded with a few hosts already, Alex was very familiar with the human body. The extension that he'd formed around Laura's head and heart was the exact replica of her body without any difference. So even if he woke her up, she wouldn't be in any phantom pain over losing her entire body. Though she would be a little uncomfortable, since it wasn't actually her body, there would be some differences. And she would realize those differences.
Alex jolted her awake since he knew that she might not wake up for a while otherwise.
"Ugh..." Laura groaned as she woke up. She had a horrible headache and was feeling uncomfortable all over.
'What the hell?' Laura was feeling really weird. Slowly, everything started coming back to her.
"Am I dead?"
[Yeah, you died. And you brought me with you…] Alex told her.
"Alex?" She was still feeling muddleheaded.
[Laura.] Alex was patient with her. As dangerous as their current situation was, he knew that lashing out with sarcasm wouldn't help either of them.
"Did-did we get out?" She asked with an almost vulnerable touch in her voice.
[Yes we did. We have a few hours to rest before we have to move.] He told her.
"We-we're really out? I'm-I'm free?" She was wide-eyed with disbelief as she asked him again.
[We're free Laura. You don't have to worry… I told you I could get you out of that place. And I kept my promise.] As an empathetic being, Alex was deeply feeling all of Laura's emotions and was being infected by her feelings of relief, joy, and utter happiness that she was feeling at being freed from her hellish prison.
"Thank you, Alex. Thank you so much…" She couldn't help but tear up as she felt overwhelming emotions take over.
[Shh… Shh…] Alex conveyed the feeling of rubbing her back and running his fingers through her hair as he tried to soothe her. He was also affected by her emotions and felt all of her emotions deeply.
Laura tried to wipe her tears with her hands as she brought up her arm to her face, but that's when she noticed something weird.
"Alex, my body feels different…" She furrowed her brows as she felt uncomfortable in her own body. Although Alex was able to trick her nerves so that she doesn't feel any phantom pains, her conscious mind was still able to recognize that her hand wasn't the same as it should be.
[Don't panic…] He wanted her to know that something big was coming.
"Alex… What's going on?" She had a skeptical undertone in her voice.
[Your entire body was destroyed as we escaped. I've currently formed the equivalent of a prosthetic for you while tricking your nerves so that you don't feel any phantom pain.] He told her quickly, expecting her to react negatively.
"Oh…" Her reaction was very lackluster. She just blinked a few times in surprise.
[That's it?] Alex was expecting much more.
"I'm not going to cry about it. My old man was able to recover his entire body after it was destroyed once, I'm sure that I can do it too. It's probably just going to take a lot of time…" She said.
[Well, that's good. I'm glad that you aren't freaking out. And yes, you will regenerate with time. But there's a problem. We don't have a lot of time, especially not a week to wait until you heal up. I need to speed up your healing process. Though the good thing is that you've most probably lost whatever tracker they'd implanted in you.] Alex told her.
"Surely it won't take a week…" Laura knew her healing factor and it should've been better than that.
[Sadly it will. Whatever they did in that facility by regularly extracting your bone marrow, impaired your healing factor. The ability is basically stunted and needs to be fixed. I can see some external influence in this. They probably injected you with something to suppress your healing factor.] He informed her of his diagnosis.
"Fuckers…" Laura's face got that vengeful look again.
[Calm down. You can do your revenge shtick later, I have to expedite your healing. I can also fix the problems with your healing factor.]
"Okay… And how are you going to do that?" Laura understood that this was the real reason that he was talking to her. If it could've been done without asking her, then he would've already done it.
[I need to merge with your skin.] He told her. This is what he'd come up with for the Level 3 bond. Forming an intricate connection with her body by individually merging with every single cell of her skin. The current bond only allowed him to perform a superficial level of modifications to her biology. A least when compared to what he would be able to do when merged with her skin.
"I don't think that's safe…" She didn't seem to like the idea of having Alex merge into her skin.
[You won't become some kind of alien. When I say that I'll merge with your skin, I mean that the symbiotic connection that I have with you will be deepened as I focus on your skin. It won't change a thing about your biology or your looks.]
"You sure?" She asked again.
[Positive. Nothing will go wrong. I'll be able to increase the speed of your healing and I'll also be able to enhance your abilities in a better manner.] He told her with confidence.
"Fine, I agree…" Laura was still a little apprehensive but she agreed since she knew that they were on the clock and her current situation wasn't exactly very good.
[Good. Now relax, and close your eyes.] He told her in a soothing tone as black tendrils started covering her head. It wasn't exactly comforting, but Laura didn't say anything, she knew that it was necessary. She'd developed at least enough trust in Alex to know that he didn't want to harm her. Otherwise, he could've escaped easily after abandoning her, he could've joined up with another citizen and easily disappeared. He wasn't the one that the robots were after.
She felt a black, latex-like texture covering her skin, at least the skin that she knew was her own. It went over her cheeks, nose, eyes, and ears and soon covered every inch of skin that was left over.
Soon, she felt something invading her ears, [Alex!] She was startled as she felt something invading her ear canals.
[Shhh… Stay calm. I'm with you…] He soothed her and felt her calm down a little as he continued gently invading her ear canals, he did the same with her nose and tiny tendrils soon entered her nose too. He was directly giving her the required air that she needed for her brain to survive right now.
He decided to keep talking to her for a while since this process was going to take time. Talking would, without a doubt, calm her down.
[Are you suffocated?]
[No…] Her tone was almost dreamy. It was due to the high-quality oxygen that Alex was supplying to her. He'd filtered the air to have the necessary elements but removed every polluted particle. Laura was feeling a little oxygen-high right now.
[I'll first merge with the skin cells of your head so that I can start guiding your healing factor.]
[What do you mean?] She asked, still in that dreamy tone.
[Think of your healing factor as an instinctual ability of your body. Its task is to regenerate anything and everything to its correct state. The main force that guides its actions is your genome. It acts like a blueprint for your body and makes sure that your body is healed in the correct spots and doesn't develop any mutation like a third arm or something.] He told her as he massaged her cheeks, his tendrils also started invading her mouth, forcing it open.
At this point, Laura was feeling completely exposed to Alex. Even though all she had was her head, there wasn't a single orifice that wasn't being invaded by Alex right now.
[How are you going to interfere?] Laura was curious about how Alex was going to speed up her healing. As weird as she was feeling tight now, she was using talking to him to distract herself from all those weird sensations.
Alex's symbiote body finally started merging with her skin, making Laura feel a sense of euphoria at whatever spot he merged with her. As he merged with the skin on Laura's cheeks, she felt a fiery sensation for a few moments before feeling like some lost part of herself had merged. back into her. There was no foreign feeling during the merger as Alex massaged her skin and kept merging with her each skin cell.
[After I'm done merging with the skin on your head, I'll be able to communicate with your ability to push it forward. As I said, it's an instinctual process and with time, as it gets familiar with healing certain parts, those parts will be healed faster. My external influence is also going to do that. I'm going to force it to move quicker.] He gave her a simplified gist of her ability.
[I see…] Laura wasn't in much of a state to talk after that since she was feeling every single sensation very vividly. Each part that Alex merged with gave her a sense of euphoria that was hard to describe for her.
Soon, he was done with all of her external skin and the tendrils that had made themselves comfortable in her ear canals started to merge into her skin.
[Ahn~] Even though she was completely unable to speak, it didn't stop her from moaning mentally. The merger with her ears was very different since her ears were a sensitive spot for her and the feeling of euphoria that she felt after that merger was a little overwhelming.
Not to mention that she hadn't felt any pleasure in years. She was too prideful to pleasure herself in front of those scientists that didn't even have the decency to let her wear a full set of clothes.
Alex was sure that if her body was actually functioning, she would be convulsing with an overwhelming orgasm, right now.
But that didn't stop him, he kept going as the tendrils merged with her nose and the inside of her mouth. After this, Alex could passively provide Laura with the air that she needed and she could even breathe normally underwater.
Alex was developing a new ability that would allow him to share matter among two of his bodies. With that, he could passively assist Laura's breathing even if she was in a completely oxygen-deprived environment, like space.
«Owned Skills: ‹Superhuman Grade Physique Creation (35 Tons)› ‹Enhanced 6th Sense› ‹Biological Manipulation› ‹Basic Lightning Manipulation› ‹Weak Magic Affinity› ‹Lesser Heat and Sound Resistance› ‹Basic Matter Transmission(Incomplete)› ‹Advanced Energy Transmission› ‹Camouflage› ‹Host Enhancement› ‹Devour› ‹Copy›»
‹Basic Matter Transmission (Incomplete):: Allows the Symbiote to share a singular element at a time between all of its bodies. Creates a shared central storage area to contain those transferable elements.
Alex had the ability to make changes to his system as he wished. It was less of a cheat and more of a status manager for him at this point as he'd determined. The whole using EP to buy new powers wasn't exactly useful to him. He would rather use the EP to strengthen his own abilities. Getting new powers was as easy as devouring someone with that power.
As he discovered more things about himself, he added more and more abilities to the system panel. It allowed him to manage and quantify everything very well.
He'd come up with the idea to make ‹Basic Matter Transmission› after quantifying an innate ability that he had as a symbiote.
‹Advanced Energy Transmission›:: Allows the Symbiote to share any kind of energy between all of its bodies. Creates a central shared storage to contain all those energies separately. Currently available energies in the central storage: Chaos Energy— Mana— Biological Energy(EP)— Biological Energy (Stamina)— Electric Energy.