With their last session for the week over, it was time for Cindy to get to work and have her lay down the groundwork for the new Stacy Industries that were going to be set up.
It was going to be based in New York and its initial product was going to target the cybernetic prosthetics market and create cybernetic limbs for the general populous. And that was going to expand into the weapons industry, making cybernetic augmentations and enhancements.
Of course, other than the harmless prosthetics, the other products would be sanctioned by the government with much stricter regulations, since this kind of technology shouldn't be available to just anyone.
It wasn't Alex's job to care about these intricacies of the business stuff. That's what he had Cindy for.
Gwen would be the founding chairman of the company while Cindy would be a shareholder and the CEO of the company.
Alex was going to develop some nice technologies and start selling them here as well as on Farm Earth and on Research Earth. Especially Research Earth, since that place was the hub of his creations and R&D.
He was already working with his Scientist Gwen on a lot of different projects with the planetary shield and the Extremis stuff having the highest priority, but it was going to take some time before they see any results.
"Do you understand why I'm doing this, Cindy?" Alex asked Cindy who was standing in front of a fully clothed Cindy.
"I understand, Alex. As long as I can be with you and Gwen I will do anything…" Cindy's eyes had a momentary faint hollow obsessive look which turned back to normal within a moment.
'I might have gone too far…' Alex shuddered when thinking about the traits of a specific character type that Cindy was showing. Though he didn't show anything outwardly.
He hooked his finger through the pitch-black choker that was on her neck and forced Cindy to look deep into his eyes.
"This will monitor your actions at all times and if I feel that you're doing something that may be detrimental to mine and Gwen's goals…" Alex trailed off as he looked at Gwen's peacefully sleeping face.
They'd just finished Cindy's last training session and Gwen was extremely tired. She'd gone through the rough training and then the rough threesome that they'd had.
Cindy faintly nodded in understanding.
"You'll feel a mild shock that will serve as a warning beacon." Alex released a mild shock through her collar to let her understand what it would be.
"Ahn~" She squirmed in her spot as she looked at Alex's face with a thirsty look.
He ignored her look and kept going, "If you keep going even after that warning shock, it will immobilize and incapacitate you. At that point, I or Gwen will come to collect you. Understood?" He confirmed with her.
"Mm-hm…" She nodded while taking hurried breaths.
Alex hadn't cared for her arousal when training her, he wasn't going to do anything about it now either.
"You understand what has to be done…" Alex questioned Cindy.
"I understand." She said
"Give me a brief." He said.
"I'll be coordinating with my people in SILK to systematically and subtly transfer all our resources to an overseas shell corporation within the week and when everything's done, I'll disappear and disband SILK." She said.
"During this same time, Gwen will be establishing Stacy Industries. When I'm done with SILK, I'll be coming over to the company as the new CEO while Gwen will take the seat of chairman." Cindy finished.
"Well, that's the gist of it. Good work, Cindy…" Alex gently smiled at her and ran his fingers through her hair.
"T-thank… you… master…" Cindy quivered and looked down shyly as her legs lightly rubbed together.
Alex smiled seeing that his conditioning was working. Cindy would always love getting praised by him.
"Good. You can get going now." Alex told her.
"Mm…?" Cindy had a hesitant look on her face.
"What is it?" He asked.
"How will I be contacting you…" She asked.
"What? Did you think I would be abandoning you? Hell no. You can come to this warehouse during the evening. Gwen's training is usually finished by then. You can join in the fun at that time…" Alex smirked as he saw through Cindy's thoughts.
After the week of unending and mind-melting pleasure that she'd experienced, it would be impossible to go back to normal for her. This was also the only reason that Gwen was so willing to let Cindy join in. Cindy's presence made things more fun for Gwen too. Though a greater reason for that is because Alex hadn't ever gone full tentacle monster on Gwen.
Alex hadn't gone all tentacle with any of the girls that he's bonded with, except for Mary Jane, but she's a different case.
He'd always taken a human form and done things within certain bounds. It was sort of because of the same reason that he'd been using his original name with everyone. He didn't want to lose his sense of self.
He'd gone from being a normal human with a normal life to being a sociopathic murderer who wouldn't blink an eye before devouring or killing someone to further his goals.
Hell, he'd even killed and devoured his favorite Spider-Man. Alex used to be a big fan of Andrew Garfield's rendition of Spider-Man. Yet he'd killed the guy just because he wanted some minor power-up.
Initially, when he started doing these things, he was completely impulsive and didn't care for the consequences of his actions. But he'd started paying attention to his actions at this point.
'I guess I'm also being influenced by Laura and Gwen's sense of heroism and good-naturedness.' Both Laura and Gwen-65 are people with very strong positive morals. Gwen was a bit more on the naive side, but Laura understood the world, yet still wanted to help everyone.
Though he was still willing to commit mass genocide, he would give some more thought to whether it was actually necessary.
"Master?" Cindy's words brought him out of his reverie.
"My bad… You should get going. You can come back whenever you want." He told her before she could ask anything more.
"Okay…" Cindy didn't say anything and gave Alex a light hug before leaving.
'Let's see if I can actually trust whether she's actually going to be helpful or if she's just going to waste my time…' Alex thought as he looked at Cindy's departing back. Her ass swayed from left to right as she walked away.
Alex had also taken away her powers completely.
She wasn't completely powerless though. She still had an enhanced physique and a weakened version of Spider-Sense. Though those powers weren't her own, they were the effect of the choker that she was wearing. Her current genome was as normal as it could get.
Alex had formed that choker to monitor her while also making sure that she wasn't completely powerless so that she could deal with what needed to be dealt with on her own. It was a really difficult process to devour her mutation without affecting her, but after a week of very invasive work, he was successful.
And he had quite a few benefits for it.
[ «Skill Acquisition»
«EP: 30»
«EP Generation: 0.9/Day»
«Owned Skills: ‹Superhuman Grade Physique Creation (40->50 Tons)› ‹True 6th Sense› ‹Intermediate Lightning Manipulation› ‹Weak Magic Affinity— Mana Sense› ‹Host of the Scarlet Witch› ‹Lesser Heat and Sound Resistance› ‹Biological Manipulation› ‹Basic Matter Transmission› ‹Advanced Energy Transmission› ‹Camouflage› ‹Host Enhancement› ‹Devour› ‹Copy›»
]
The ‹True 6th Sense› was something that he really liked. Cindy's Silk Sense was an overpowered ability, but it wasn't able to be correctly utilized in her hands since she wasn't able to maintain multiple thought streams at the same time.
Her Silk Sense would mostly get in the way of her daily activities and her normal work.
But Alex could easily deal with a 6th sense that constantly gives him some sort of signal. His consciousness was like a supercomputer. That isn't an exaggeration. He was capable of extremely fast thought processing. That's the reason he could maintain up to 160 bodies simultaneously without feeling strained. It had gone up from 150 to 160 since his consciousness was also naturally getting stronger with time.
After the week, Gwen had also gotten much stronger.
[ «Status- Host #1»
«Name: Gwen Stacy (Ghost Spider) (Earth-65)»
«Bonding Rate: 44%»
«Bonding Level: 2»
«Powers: Superhuman Physique (40 Tons)— Spider Sense— Wall Crawling— Bio-Electricity»
]
All in all, the week was very productive. Alex got a cool new stronger 6th sense ability, his physique got stronger and he also got a very competent subordinate.
Though it was to be determined whether she would be useful or if she would be no more than a liability.
…
At this time, Alex had finally reached another threshold with one of his hosts.
It was the Scientist Gwen Stacy in Research Earth.
"Ahh~" She moaned while pushing her face into the pillow as Alex took her from behind.
«Bonding Rate: 50%» ‹50%— 0.3 EP/Day›
'Finally…' Alex thought as he looked at Gwen's figure under him that was glistening with sweat and a mixture of his and her own fluids.
'I want to form the level 3 bond with her…' Alex decided.
After reaching 50% in bonding rate and forming a level 3 bond with Nerdy Gwen, Alex was making 0.3 EP per day from her. Their connection was now much deeper and stronger.
[ «Status- Host #2»
«Name: Gwendolyn Stacy (Research Earth)»
«Bonding Rate: 54%»
«Bonding Level: 3»
«Powers: Low Superhuman Physique— Superhuman Intelligence»
]
Gwen had also finally reached the level of having a low superhuman physique. Though she wasn't a fighter, the higher level of the bond would passively increase the grade of her physique.
…
The MCU Earth.
A week had passed since Alex had gotten much closer to both Wanda and Natasha.
[ «Status- Host #3»
«Name: Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) (MCU Earth)»
«Bonding Rate: 28%»
«Bonding Level: 2»
«Powers: Low Superhuman Physique (6 Tons)— Melee Mastery— Espionage Mastery»
]
[ «Status- Host #4»
«Name: Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch) (MCU Earth)»
«Bonding Rate: 30%»
«Bonding Level: 2»
«Powers: Low Superhuman Physique (3 Tons)—Chaos Magic»
]
After the first time when Alex had sex with Wanda, her Bonding Rate progress skyrocketed within the week, surpassing even Natasha's, with whom he'd been physically intimate much sooner.
It was direct proof that the emotional connection was a big factor when it came to Bonding Rate.
The trio's training was going pretty well and they'd all grown quite a bit stronger. Wanda's raw magic output had increased along with her physique and her control had grown more precise. Natasha's physical strength had increased even more and her technique had also gotten much better. She'd also started working very well with Alex's Lightning Manipulation. She'd gotten proficient enough with it to use the ability in regular combat.
Alex's physical combat techniques had also gotten a much-needed boost. At this point, he was able to stand toe to toe with Natasha without being beaten for around 15 minutes.
But now, the MCU might be going through a major shift.
"I might need some help, Nat…" Steve said. Natasha was lazing around in the snowy backyard and had just received an emergency call from Steve.
"What do you need?" Nat's agreement didn't have any hesitation.
"I'm stuck in a warzone and need some help." He said without mincing any words.
"What warzone?" Nat had a bad feeling about the situation.
"Wakanda… T'Challa's gone… dead. And the new leadership isn't exactly welcoming toward foreigners." He told her.
'Well, this is an interesting development…' Alex thought, 'In the original storyline, T'Challa was supposed to just have disappeared but going by Steve's tone, T'Challa's definitely dead.'
"Send me your coordinates. We'll be there soon." With that, Natasha hung up.
[What do you think, Alex?] She asked in her head as she got up and went to meet up with Wanda.
[We should go. I'll see if I can get some Vibranium for us to play around with. I'm especially curious about that shockwave release attack that T'Challa used during the battle at the airport.] He told her his thoughts.
Going to Wakanda would most likely be a very profitable trip for Alex. He could get access to both their technology and their Vibranium.
"Great. I'll get Wanda…" Nat talked about the situation with Wanda.
…
"So we just barge in?" Alex asked Nat. The trio was already on the plane and the three of them were discussing what they would do.
"Of course not. We just have to get close to the border. Steve told me about a secret passageway into the country. We can't just breach Wakandan airspace like that. Especially if what Steve told us is true…" Natasha said. Steve had given them quite a bit of information about Wakanda along with a passage that would lead directly into the country.
He was stuck in a bad location and couldn't get to the exit otherwise he would've already left.
"Well, a mountain of Vibranium seems like sufficient payment for our efforts," Alex said.
"Like you're gonna be able to steal all of it…" Nat didn't believe that he could steal a literal mountain.
"You underestimate my power." He said. He could easily steal all of the Vibranium in Wakanda. He had two entire planets worth of space to transfer the material using his ‹Basic Matter Transmission› ability that he'd recently developed. The only reason that he couldn't store it all in his internal space was that the ability wasn't as developed yet and there were limits on how much he could store within himself.
"Whatever." Natasha proceeded to ignore him and went to the cockpit to set the coordinates for their destination.
"She seems anxious…" Wanda commented. She could faintly feel Nat's emotions.
"Well, her spy friend is stuck in the middle of a civil war in a country that could theoretically blow up the entire world twice over," Alex said.
"It can't be that exaggerated…" Wanda didn't believe Alex's words. Wakanda was a small country with a tiny population. In her eyes, it was impossible for them to truly affect the world in the grand scheme of things.
"All it takes is one well-camouflaged troop to invade a country before killing all of the leadership and taking control. If executed well, it can be done overnight." Alex told her. He knew firsthand how easy this was if one had the right tools. He'd done this exact thing in two different versions of Earth and taken over the majority of the leadership of world-leading countries. Hell, in one of the countries, he was in control of half an entire continent.
Wanda got silent at his words.
Alex understood her worries and went over to her to envelop her in a hug, "Don't worry too much. We'll be fine. Wakanda may be the strongest country in the world, but we aren't here to fight a war. We're here to go in stealthily, bring Steve and his friend away, and then get the hell out of there."
"Mhm…" She buried her face in his chest and agreed with his words.
[These past couple of weeks since you've bonded with me have been the best ones for a very long time… I just don't want to see all this crumble.] Wanda told him. She was insecure. And after how much she's lost in her life, it's understandable that she is insecure about anything good in her life staying like that without crumbling apart.
Alex ran his fingers through her hair and held her tightly without saying anything. He didn't want to raise an unnecessary flag.
Soon, Wanda was softly snoring as she felt really comfortable in Alex's embrace while he played with her hair.
"We'll be there in a… couple… hours…" Nat's words trailed off as she came back and noticed Wanda being snuggled into Alex's embrace.
[She's been worried about you…] He told Natasha.
[I understand…] Nat wasn't new to this scene of seeing Wanda using Alex as her body pillow. She would regularly sleep while hugging him tightly like this.
Wanda was a little starved for warmth and she loved cuddling with Alex since it made her feel extremely warm in her heart. And Alex also encouraged her actions. He didn't want Wanda to repress her feelings. One reason was that her feelings were directly related to her Chaos magic, repressing her feelings would make her magic go berserk.
But the main reason was that if she held back on expressing herself all the time, her mental state wouldn't ever be stable. And her unstable mental state would affect Alex more than anyone due to his empathetic nature.
There was one more tiny reason, but it was also very important to Alex. He loved the feeling of Wanda's butt rubbing on his crotch every once in a while as she rested on his lap every time.
[You sure about this, Nat? We'll be infiltrating the most advanced country in the world. There's bound to be difficulties.] Alex wanted to be sure that Nat was willing to go through with this.
[My friend needs my help, Alex. I can't turn my back on him.] She'd already decided.
[It's good that you're motivated.] Alex told her.
[I thought that you'd need some more convincing…] She didn't expect Alex to agree so easily.
Alex just lightly shrugged his shoulders, indicating that he was already all in.
[Take a seat. I'll manage the plane.] Alex patted the couch on his side. He'd already made quite a few modifications to the jet and it had already become a pretty comfortable luxury jet with quite a few amenities.
"It's gonna be a few hours anyway…" Nat mumbled as she took a seat at his side and rested her eyes. She didn't react when she felt Alex's arm wrap around her shoulder and pull her into his embrace.
…
A couple of hours later, the three of them were at the secret entrance mentioned by Steve.
"This is supposed to be a secret entrance?" Wanda asked as she looked at the flamboyant entrance of what was supposed to be an underground cave.
There was a grey metallic archway with circuit lines at the entrance of the so-called cave. It led to a tunnel with a weak bluish light that was being emitted by the circuit-like line pattern that was going all over the inside of the tunnel as well as the archway.
"Apparently…" Nat said. Anyone who could come down this path would be able to enter Wakanda if this was all there was to the secret entrance.
'This is certainly a surprise…' Alex thought. This kind of entrance was never mentioned in the movies.
[I think we'll have a surprise waiting for us if we walk in through that entrance.] Both Wanda and Natasha heard Alex's voice amused voice. He'd already disappeared into the girls when they landed and didn't plan to come out anytime soon. He would only come out in a necessary situation. Or if he wanted to have fun. But he was more interested in focusing on how this Vibranium tunnel works.
At this point, his inner explorer geek had awakened and he was intent on studying the technology of Wakanda. He wanted all of the information and all of the intricacies of how Vibranium is used by Wakandans.
"Whatever. We'll only know whether or not this is a secret entrance once we go through it. Stay on guard, Wanda." Nat told Wanda as she steadily moved closer to the gate.
Wanda silently agreed to Nat's order. This kind of infiltration is Natasha's domain and Wanda trusted Nat to know what she was doing.
Alex was paying attention to the metal arch that was present at the entrance, 'It's all fucking Vibranium…' He noticed as he paid close attention to the structure of the metal.
The archway at the entrance, the inner walls of the so-called cave, everything was made of Vibranium. And the usage was much more refined than the crude usage of it in Captain America's shield.
The way Vibranium worked is that it absorbs all of the kinetic energy or force that it receives and it can either store that energy or distribute it all over its structure to negate most of that energy.
The way Captain America's shield works is that when some large force hits his shield, it absorbs all of that force and distributes it over the surface of the shield. That's how he's able to tank light blows from beings with Cosmic level strength like Thor.
On the other hand, the storage mechanism is something that is used in T'Challa's Black Panther suit. It stores all the kinetic energy that is received and then releases it all in one big burst.
These tunnel walls have the same mechanism, if someone attacks these walls, that kinetic energy would be stored to be utilized later.
'Though it could also be directed somewhere else…' Alex didn't know what the point of doing this with a mere secret entryway was and had many theories. But that's all they were. Theories.
…
"Don't you think that this tunnel is going on for way too long?" Natasha commented. They'd already walked for about a couple of miles through the tunnel but it was all the same.
[You noticed soon enough…] She and Wanda heard Alex's amused voice in their head.
"You noticed something?" Wanda asked.
[This tunnel is only around a hundred meters long. You've been walking in circles for the past half hour.] Alex said. He'd focused very intently on these walls for a while and he'd noticed that the girls were going around in circles after their second lap.
"And you didn't tell us earlier because?" Nat asked with scrutiny in her tone.
[I wanted Wanda to naturally realize something on her own without my input. But she didn't get the idea.] Alex said. He wanted Wanda to instinctively rely on her powers in a sticky situation.
Even now, even though she uses her powers more freely, she doesn't naturally use them unless they're necessary. She could've easily spread out her Chaos magic through the tunnel to map out the terrain.
They'd already trained this before and Alex was waiting for Wanda to utilize her powers for this.
Hearing his words, Nat's gaze went to Wanda with a slight questioning look. And seeing Nat's expression Wanda was embarrassed and looked down guiltily.
"I'm sorry guys. I don't have a habit of using my powers regularly." She said.
[It's fine. But pay attention to these things. You can't accurately sense your surroundings like me, but you can at least do the simple stuff for now. Try to be more open with your magic.] He said in Wanda's head.
The reason that Wanda isn't able to use Mana Sense the way Alex can is due to her mental capacity. After sensing the surroundings the way Alex does, Wanda's brain would literally fry due to information overload.
Alex was practically a supercomputer with the huge size of his consciousness. After devouring the 39 symbiotes that he'd come with and Venom, the size of his consciousness was very large. He could process a large amount of information at extremely high speeds.
That's why he is able to simultaneously control over 160 bodies without there being any load on his consciousness.
Though there was also a large drawback to this. He'd increased the capacity of his consciousness by unconventional means, which caused the integrity of his consciousness to be relatively weak. This meant that any telepath with some relative strength could mess him up.
This is the main reason that he hasn't even dared to contact the X-Men in Earth-65. That version of Earth is very much like the typical Marvel Comics Earth.
For the longest time, he'd wanted to devour Nightcrawler so that he could get his teleporting powers. That would open up so many avenues for him in the current situation. He would be able to switch between two bodies so that he could bring his hosts to the other versions of Earth. It would solve the problem of necessarily having 40 different hosts for him easily.
But he hadn't done that yet because he was terrified of both Jean and Charles.
They would be easily able to effortlessly whoop his ass telepathically and he wouldn't even know what hit him. He would need to make a lot of preparations before he could contact any X-Men. Wanda herself was an exception because she wasn't proficient with her mind manipulation abilities and she was very afraid of using her abilities. He'd taken a gamble when bonding with Wanda in the MCU and he was glad that he did. It opened up quite a few avenues for him.
Meanwhile, Wanda realized what she should do and let out a controlled burst of Chaos energy and released it outward, mapping out the terrain.
"Let's keep going." Wanda's eyes glowed a slight red as she took the lead this time and Natasha followed after her realizing that she must've found the exit.
About halfway through the path, Wanda stopped and looked at a certain wall of the tunnel.
Without saying anything, she walked into the wall.
Nat realized that Wanda must've found the exit and followed after her, walking into the wall.
The next instant, Nat was standing beside a sightly awestruck Wanda as she looked at the technological marvel that was Wakanda.
'How the hell does this work…' Alex thought as he saw the scene instantly change as if they'd walked through a sort of invisible curtain.
It was a cave that opened up to what seemed like the backyard of the royal palace. 'Backyard' is being used liberally here, it was a huge field where they'd appeared. The only indication that it was the royal palace was due to the grandiose structure of the building in front of them.
Wanda turned around to see the path that they'd come from, but all she saw was the wall of the cave.
"Alex, could you camouflage us? We need to understand the situation and look for Steve." Nat said. They had to infiltrate the royal castle and see where Steve and Bucky were. According to Steve's limited SOS information, they would most likely be present in the royal castle.
[Done.] Alex said to them and both the girls turned invisible.
"Let's take a look around this place." With those words, Nat started moving around the cave to see if there are any clues left behind by Steve.
Not really finding anything worthwhile in the cave, they decided to move out and start exploring this huge field after getting out of the cave.
They both already knew about the drawbacks of Alex's camouflage ability since they regularly used it and understood that it wouldn't work against high-tech cameras since they had many different sensors. And they were sure that Wakandan cameras would be much better.
Alex also kept his senses alerted to the maximum to make sure that they don't end up in the vision of a hidden camera. He would warn them whenever they were about to run into a hidden camera.
'There are way too many monitoring mechanisms in this field…' Alex inwardly complained as he sensed the huge number of safety measures while the girls crossed through the fields.
Finally, they reached a sort of back entrance of the Palace.
Nat and Wanda both examined the entrance to see if there were any hidden mechanisms to it. But seeing that there were none, Wanda tried to push open the door but she failed. It seemed to require some sort of mechanism to open.
"Alex, could you open this door? It would take ages for me to understand the mechanism to lockpick it…" Nat said as she tried to open the locked door.
[I've already checked, the mechanism needs a key to open from the other side too. There's no physical mechanism. Wanda's got to blast it open.] He said.
"Oh, I love blasting through doors…" Wanda smiled excitedly as a red glow gathered in her hands.
"Try not to make too much noise." Nat could only warn her.
[There's no one on the other side.] Alex gave Wanda the all-clear that she needed to lose all her reservations.
She released the condensed ball of red from her hands at the door with the intent of destroying the locking mechanism and the door opened up with a bang as the locking mechanism all but evaporated.
Wanda blinked her eyes in confusion at the result. She thought that it would just blast open. She hadn't used enough energy to actually destroy those hinges.
She didn't think much about it anymore and put it to the back of her head since she and Nat didn't have too much time.
"You could've tried to be a little subtle," Nat grumbled.
'Her use of Chaos magic is getting more and more varied… This is good. I want to see if we can get a hold of the Darkhold…' Alex thought as he saw Wanda's application of her Chaos magic.
With that, the castle exploration started.
***
With Alex's sensing abilities and Natasha's espionage knowledge and experience, the girls were able to explore the palace easily without getting detected by the security measures.
Finally, they found a place where they could get quite a bit of information. The kitchen.
Some random careless gossip could easily reveal some very important information.
An hour later, they didn't get much information other than some information about a change in leadership where the previous king T'Challa was usurped by the outsider king N'Jadaka and murdered by him. They also learned that most of the nation was in mourning over T'Challa's death and the Queen and Princess were occupied with that.
'Fuck, he's really dead. I had some hope that T'Challa could come back and take over Wakanda but this seems pretty unlikely…' Alex thought.
'Wait… Couldn't I…' Alex had an amazing idea. It could change everything about the MCU if he could actually execute it well.
In that instant, he decided to do something that would be game-changing.
'I have to plan things out…' He'd made his decision, but he had to plan the execution and look for the right opportunity.
Soon, Nat and Wanda heard something that had them perking up their ears. They heard where Steve and Bucky were. They were in the dungeon below the castle. It's not surprising that the Wakandan royal castle has a dungeon underneath it. They were a semi-medieval society so it made sense to keep their most wanted people right under their noses.
Both girls started following one of the servants. He was the one taking the food down to the cells of the prisoners below the castle.
…
In the dungeon.
Steve was brooding as he stared at the wall while glancing over to Bucky who was in the adjacent cell every once in a while.
The Vibranium prosthetics that T'Challa had given Bucky were gone and he was armless while his left leg was gone below the kneecap. He was just lying on the ground while staring at the ceiling.
"Any plans?" He asked Steve without turning his head.
"Maybe. I don't know how long it would take for them to arrive." Steve said.
"You sure they're coming?" Bucky was skeptical.
"I trust her. She'll be here." Steve trusted his comrades.
"And if they can't," Bucky said.
"Then we'll think about it when it happens," Steve continued.
"How long before we think about it?" Bucky had asked the same question multiple times and they'd had this exact conversation tens of times.
"Soon. It's not like I can just bend these Vibranium cell bars." Steve said. It's not that he wasn't thinking of solutions, it's just that there were no solutions.
There was a sliding noise as someone called out, "Food," in the native Wakandan Tongue.
Steve looked over and saw a plate of food being slid into his cell.
"At least we're still getting food." He said to Bucky.
"Yeah... Right." Bucky said as he got up and looked to his left and then his right where his arms should've been before looking over at the plate of food.
Steve, acting oblivious to Bucky's dilemma, continued while he ate, "I'm sure that when that Killmonger guy is done with solidifying his regime, he's going to come after us. We have to get out by then…" Steve kept talking.
The situation with Killmonger was slightly complicated. On one hand, he was the king of Wakanda, but he didn't have the full support of all of the tribes and Wakanda wasn't a dictatorship based solely on military power. It was a monarchy. Though the current situation was awfully close to a dictatorship.
Killmonger had the support of a couple of the militaristic tribes while most of the royal family's true supporters weren't very welcoming toward him. And neither were the people of Wakanda. T'Challa, however short-lived, was a very loved ruler. Even as the crown prince, he was loved by the Wakandan masses. He had won the support of both the people and the royal family's vassals. Now, a random dude comes to Wakanda, claims to be of royal blood, and proceeds to kill their king.
So, things were very unstable right now and he had to do quite a bit of work to stabilize his regime in Wakanda.
Killmonger couldn't just go and declare an all-out war on the world the moment he became king. That would've been an extremely stupid decision. And this was something that N'Jadaka aka Killmonger had been preparing for throughout his whole life. He wasn't going to make such a fatal mistake.
N'Jadaka was the son of the late king's brother, T'Chaka's blood brother. T'Challa was N'Jadaka's first cousin. And from the very day that T'Chaka had killed N'Jadaka's father for committing treason, N'Jadaka had been preparing for his comeback. He knew what it took to be a leader.
If he'd just declared war on the world at the moment he became a king, he wouldn't be able to sustain his regime and Wakanda itself would go to shit.
"Mmm!" *Thump* Steve's head perked up as he heard the sound of a muffled scream before hearing a light thump, signifying someone falling on the ground.
"You're looking pretty good." He saw Nat's smiling face looking down at him through the bars of the cell.
"Nat!" Steve was happy to see his friend, "How are you?" He asked.
"You're polite as always," Nat chuckled, "How is he?" She gestured to Bucky by tilting her head in his direction.
"Better… T'Challa helped get rid of whatever Hydra had put into his head." Steve commented.
"I remember him having just one fake limb, what's with the other lost limbs?" Nat asked.
"Can you guys stop acting as if I'm not there?" Bucky finally commented. He was still sore about losing his limbs. Though he wasn't going to go against Tony. Bucky felt like he deserved to die after all he'd done. He knew that he'd brutally killed Tony's parents and didn't deserve to live after having done a similar thing to so many other people.
"Tony…" Steve ignored Bucky's words and said one word with a complicated expression. On one hand, he was angry with Tony, and on the other, he was also grateful to him for sparing Bucky.
Nat understood and didn't comment further on it.
"The guards and the prisoners on this floor are done, along with the cameras." There was another voice beside Nat as Wanda appeared beside her.
"That's new," Steve commented as he saw Wanda's sudden appearance.
"How are you doing, Cap?" Wanda didn't say anything about Alex.
"I'm loving it here. Pretty fun, I missed my shield so much that now I'm living inside Vibranium. I'd still prefer to get out of here though." He said with a joking tone.
"We're working on it. These doors aren't automated so we have to do some work." Nat said. She'd already hacked into the camera mainframe of the prison system and set it to a looping video so that their actions aren't detected. But the cell doors weren't connected to the mainframe and worked on manual locking mechanisms.
"Wanda, if you will…" Nat said as she stepped back from the door, "You should step back," Nat warned Steve.
Wanda smiled excitedly before gathering a red glow in her hands. She was really enjoying blowing open the doors here.
[Try to have the intent to make the door disappear when you cast your attack.] Alex said in her head. Wanda didn't question him and did exactly that. He would regularly give her tips on the usage of her powers.
'Let's see if this works… Disappear.' With that thought and intent, Wanda shot the ball of her gathered Chaos energy at the barred door.
The door opened with a bang as a couple of parts of the bars on the door vaporized.
'It's not perfect, but with some practice, this could be such an overpowered move…' Alex thought. Wanda could literally make Chaos Energy do whatever she wanted as long as she willed hard enough. And she was getting to that point. Alex had decided that after this Wakanda stuff was done, he was going to take a solo trip with Wanda and they would look for the Darkhold.
It was at this point that he remembered the Black Widow movie. The events of that movie also took place during the time after Civil War. So after parting ways, Natasha would also have her hands full with the Black Widow program and her adoptive sister Yelena.
"That's new," Steve commented on the missing areas in the bars of the door.
"It's not really perfected yet," Wanda said with an embarrassed smile. She respected Steve a lot as he was one of the OG Avengers. That was why she'd agreed to stand on his side during the events of the Civil War. The main reason was the Accords, but her respect for him also played a major role.
Steve shrugged his shoulders and moved out of the cell before looking over to Bucky, "Wanda, if you may?" Steve asked.
Wanda nodded and gathered up another ball of energy in her hands before letting it loose with the same 'Disappear' intent.
This time, the door flew open and a bit more of the bars got disintegrated than when she opened Steve's cell.
'I just realized… These are Vibranium bars that she just destroyed…' Alex realized, 'Forget it, I can get the entire mountain to myself later if everything goes to plan.'
"Let's get going, buddy." Steve walked into Bucky's cell before putting him over his shoulder.
"We should first get the Vibranium prosthetics back so that he can be helpful in the case of a battle," Steve said as he naturally took the position of a leader in this group.
It wasn't anything unnatural, but it was just his natural charisma that commanded a certain authority of leadership. People would mostly listen to him unless he says something outrageous. It also had to do with respect. Most people had a certain amount of respect for Captain Rogers as he was the world's first official superhero.
"Any idea where?" Nat asked Steve as the four of them started walking out of the dungeon.
"Sort of… I know the place, but we'll have to look for it. The stuff that they confiscate from prisoners is kept in a storage area nearby. We'll find the prosthetics there." Steve said. Both his and Bucky's confiscated stuff was kept in the general area because Killmonger hadn't given many instructions to his subordinates and they were treated as normal prisoners awaiting their trial.
That's why they had it so easy. Because considering Killmonger's anti-foreign policies, he probably would've been torturing both Steve and Bucky by now for information.
After a while of looking, they finally found the storage area that they'd been looking for.
There were two guards standing outside the storage that had to be dealt with first.
"Can you take care of them without being detected?" Steve asked Natasha.
Instead of answering, Natasha looked over to Wanda, "What do you think?"
"I can do it," Wanda said with confidence as she started moving toward the guards with a red glow extending from her hands.
Both of the guards' eyes took a weak crimson hue and they were influenced by a mental suggestion that made them ignore Wanda's presence until she got close to them.
When she was finally close enough, the red glow intensified and both of them instantly collapsed.
Steve and Natasha walked to Wanda who was pushing open the door of the storage facility.
"It's locked," Wanda said as she stepped back. Nat and Steve also understood what she was about to do and stepped back from the door.
This time, Wanda tried something different, 'Silence'. She imbued her attack with the intent to silence the impact.
As the attack hit the door, Wanda's silent intent worked wonders as there was no sound of any impact and the door just flew open.
[How'd I do, Alex?] Wanda asked. She wanted validation.
[Amazingly. I couldn't be more proud of you…] He said.
Wanda didn't notice but there was a momentary complicated look directed toward her that originated from Steve. And his thoughts weren't clear from his expression.
Though Wanda missed it, Alex saw Steve's expression. And he assumed that Steve may have been apprehensive of Wanda's power for some reason. He could be wrong, but this was the most plausible thought process.
"Let's go…" Natasha said as she gestured to Steve before walking in.
They didn't find much useful stuff here other than Bucky's prosthetics and Steve's new Vibranium Bracers. After his shield was broken, T'Challa was generous enough to get him a replacement. And these bracers were very useful. They'd been made by Shuri and had the same property of storing kinetic energy before releasing it all in a burst that T'Challa's black panther suit had.
...
"So, what now?" Nat asked as she was walking out of the palace with Wanda, Steve, and Bucky.
"We should talk with Queen Ramonda, T'Challa's mother," Steve said.
"I don't think she's the queen anymore…" Nat commented.
"You get what I mean. I've never been a fan of this system anyway." Steve said.
Nat didn't plan to get into a political discussion with Steve so she decided to agree, "Any idea where?"
"There is a place that I have in mind…" He said.
There was a big reason that the castle was practically empty right now. T'Challa was being sent off and the ceremony was currently going on.
That's why there were such a small number of people here. And Steve was probably going to be leading them to either that ceremony or to a spot that had been previously agreed upon between him and the old Queen.
Steve started leading them through the castle to another exit area that further led to an underground cave-like structure.
He pushed open a mechanism to open a door and reveal a natural cave formation that had the slight smell of burnt leftovers.
"I don't think, T'Challa would be generous enough to give you so much information about his country… Especially the secret passages within his own home." Natasha saw how Steve was so familiar with his surroundings and commented.
"I've spent quite a while here. I explored the place." Steve said nonchalantly.
"It's called information gathering and infiltration, but whatever…" Bucky commented as he heard Steve's words.
"No no. We don't say that here." Steve said with a slightly joking tone.
The four of them bantered for a while until they reached another door.
This time, Steve had to lockpick the door since there wasn't any mechanism to open it and there was just a lock to open.
They expected to see the royal family's burial ground behind those walls, but they were surprised to see it opening up to what seemed like an underground plantation.
'The heart-shaped herbs…' Alex saw that it was the burned field of the heart-shaped herbs.
'They're already burned…' Alex thought regretfully. He wanted to get one of them to examine the properties and what it does to the human body. Those herbs could give the Black Panther superhuman attributes and senses.
"What is this place?" Wanda asked no one in particular as she saw the burnt field.
"No clue. But it was burned pretty recently. When I last came here, this plantation was filled with purple herbs that were shaped a bit like an actual heart. They seemed pretty interesting, but I didn't do anything since I didn't know whether they were monitored or not." Steve said.
They moved ahead and finally reached another area in the plantation. It was a resting area where they could wait.
"Now we wait…" Steve said as he took a seat.
"You've already talked with the Queen and agreed with her on meeting her here, haven't you?" Natasha guessed.
"Yep." He agreed.
"You didn't randomly explore the castle, it was the Queen who informed you of this location." Nat looked at him with accusing eyes that had a hint of playfulness to them.
"Busted… But I could've broken in if I really wanted to." Steve wanted to protect his dignity as a spy.
"Sure you could," Nat agreed sardonically.
…
"Miss Romanoff, Miss Maximoff. I'm relieved to see you two here…" Ramonda was sitting with Shuri in front of Steve, Natasha, Wanda, and Bucky.
They'd come with 4 guards of the Dora Milage and there was a face that Alex recognized among them, it was Oyoke, T'Challa's personal guard. The Dora Milage was the royal family's most loyal supporters and they were the only ones that Ramonda and Shuri could trust in the current situation.
With Killmonger busy with stabilizing his regime, they had some room to maneuver in the dark and they were going to make full use of the opportunity.
The spot that they were currently in was one of the secret bunkers that could hide the royal family for a long period of time in case of an invasion. Everyone was currently outside the entrance and on the inside was a bunker with all the amenities for 5 people to live comfortably for decades without any issues.
"Greetings." Nat greeted her respectfully followed by Wanda. After that, Nat, Wanda, Ramonda, and Shuri went to a separate area so that they could talk about the political situation. Steve wasn't interested so he decided to stay back and brood while thinking about something.
The Dora Milage guards were a little creeped out by the two brooding guys that sat side by side.
In the other room.
"I'm going to get to the point. I know that you're here to help Steve. And now that your objective is completed, you would probably be going back. But I have a presumptuous request of you. And Mr. Rogers here has made quite an impression on the people here, so I feel that his acquaintances would also be trustworthy." She told Natasha while faintly gesturing to Steve who was in the other room.
"Could you first clarify the situation in Wakanda first? We don't have much information about the situation…" Nat wanted to fish for information from Ramonda. Steve had left all the discussion to her since she was a better diplomat. He didn't have the kind of patience that was needed to deal with politics.
"Of course, there shouldn't be any problem…" Ramonda continued with some perfunctory words that made the conversation delve into meaningless small talk.
'Fucking political bullshit. Just get to the point.' Alex was already bored by Ramonda's attitude. He just wanted her to give them the information and get things over with. The three other people in the room which included Shuri, Wanda, and Nat also felt the same way. Even after saying that she's going to get to the point, she's still playing politics.
After a few more minutes of perfunctory small talk, Ramonda finally got to the point.
"I'll start from the beginning of the chaotic situation…" Ramonda started retelling them the events that occurred after T'Challa brought Steve and Bucky to Wakanda.
Initially, they weren't very warmly welcomed, being seen as outsiders. But eventually, everyone warmed up to both of them. Though the situation got messy when it was time for T'Challa to officially take the mantle of king of Wakanda. All this time, he'd just been serving as the proxy for his father after T'Chaka's abrupt death.
T'Challa hadn't officially been crowned as the king of Wakanda. Once everything was stabilized, it was time for T'Challa's coronation. The coronation was basically a ritual that allows all 18 of the Wakandan tribes to challenge the to-be king of Wakanda so that there weren't any issues with his rule later and all of the tribes were convinced of the Black Panther.
At that time, the Jabari tribe came to challenge T'Challa, and their leader, M'Baku fought against him.
Though it was a difficult fight, M'Baku won.
Though that was when things turned around. Just after T'Challa won against M'Baku, there was another challenger. Though he wasn't from any of the other tribes. He was someone from the royal family itself.
A long-exiled cousin of T'Challa, N'Jadaka had come to challenge him for the throne. He called himself Eric Killmonger.
And T'Challa, already tired from his previous fight, was easily overwhelmed by Killmonger's superior skills and cut down where the coronation ceremony took place.
At this point, Killmonger took over the country and immediately enforced a no-foreigners policy that directly affected Steve and Bucky.
Though they'd been able to run away from the assaulting forces, their current location was unknown and Ramonda didn't have any influence left to contend against Killmonger after T'Challa's death. She had no idea about Steve's current location.
'What happened to Klaue?' Alex thought. And as if knowing what Alex was thinking, Nat asked about him next.
"As far as I know, Eric Killmonger is an ex-US special forces soldier with ties to people like Ulysses Klaue. Why would Wakanda accept someone like him as their leader? I'm sure that you have enough intelligence forces to know about this information." Nat asked. During the events of Ultron's creation, the Avengers looked into Klaue. So she already had quite a bit of intelligence about Klaue and his associates.
"As far as I know, the Wakandan leadership hates Klaue with a passion due to his action of stealing Vibranium from Wakanda. What's the deal?" Natasha wanted clarification.
"That's because he came with Klaue. Or more like Klaue's dead body. Klaue wasn't in possession of the Vibranium anymore but N'Jadaka's actions moved some of the people. That's how he was able to gather the support to reach the ceremonial area to challenge T'Challa in the first place." Ramonda explained.
"I see…" At this point, Natasha understood the majority of the situation.
"Killmonger is going to use Wakanda's resources to take over the world." Natasha deduced easily.
"Seems like it. He hasn't explicitly stated it but that's the direction that he seems to be going. He has already started preparations for war. Wakanda's military forces are going to be mobilized sooner or later." Ramonda said with a solemn tone.
"What do you think is the success rate?" Nat knew the answer but she wanted to hear it from the mouth of the Queen who was familiar with the true power held in Wakanda's hand.
"100% success. No matter what route is taken, Wakanda can take over the world. I'm not boasting. We have weapons stronger than nukes that can easily wipe out entire cities instantly as well as a defense mechanism that can hold off multiple nuclear blasts. Wakanda is tactically superior in every way." Ramonda said as a matter of fact.
Natasha wasn't planning to dispute her claim. There was no point. And since Wakanda could hide its infrastructure from satellites in space, it might as well have a curtain-like forcefield that could hold off nuclear bombs. Especially if that force field had any properties of Vibranium.
This is because a nuclear blast is not a concentrated blast. It's a large-scale explosion. And a Vibranium-based energy barrier like that would be optimal for blocking large-scale explosions since it could easily dissipate all the force of the explosion. Ramonda also didn't mention the espionage route. Trained soldiers with Wakandan stealth tech could easily bypass government security and assassinate world leaders.
'We might be a bit too much out of our depth with this…' Nat thought as she thought of the many scenarios in her head.
"I see. Let me discuss things with Steve, then we'll see how we deal with Killmonger…" Nat said. She'd realized that Ramonda's motive in telling her so much was to drag the Avengers into the conflict. And she was inclined to join in after realizing the scale that this would affect but she was going to discuss this first.
It would be a lie to say that Ramonda wasn't a little disappointed that Nat hadn't immediately agreed, but she understood. And she didn't have any power to force the two Avengers to listen to her.
"No need. Your information is invaluable. I'm sure that Steve would be inclined to put a stop to Killmonger's actions after realizing how much he could affect the world. So you don't have to worry." Nat knew that she had to give her some sort of promise to prevent being backstabbed at some point.
She didn't know this Queen and had to take all the precautions that she could.
…
Soon, after getting all the information that the Queen could give them, Wanda and Natasha left the room to meet up with Steve and Bucky.
They were given some space to talk among themselves as the Dora Milage guards left to go to Shuri and Ramonda.
"What do you think?" Nat had already explained the situation to Steve and Bucky.
"I'm not sure what we can even do in such a situation," Wanda commented.
"I don't think we can do anything… At least not alone. This kind of problem needs the Avengers. All of them… We can't affect the situation much." Steve said.
"Can't we just assassinate Killmonger?" Wanda asked.
"That would be a bad move as it would paint a target on the Avengers' back and we would be making an enemy of Wakanda itself. Who knows if Killmonger's successor would be any better? Wakanda's society wouldn't accept being ruled by T'Challa's sister, at least not after Killmonger's presence. If T'Challa died and she was left, there would be a chance, but this makes things much more complicated. Especially since she's too young for now." Steve was practically monologuing.
"Should we just leave? That seems like the best move here…" Nat said, "We can try to regroup with the others and see how to handle this…"
"That sounds like the best plan for now…' Steve agreed with Nat's words. They were way out of their depth right now and it wasn't their place to meddle in internal conflict. This wasn't a terrorist attack or a forceful takeover. It was a simple change of leadership in a country that follows a monarchy system.
For now, Killmonger hadn't even acted on any anti-foreigner policies. The only reason that Steve and Bucky were captured was that they were illegally trespassing on Wakandan land. Wakanda did not allow tourists into its borders. That's how they stayed so secretive for so long.
Finally, they decided that they weren't going to involve themselves in this internal conflict and were going to get the fuck out of Wakanda as soon as possible.
…
As they crossed the border and left through the same passage, a camouflaged mass was left behind within the country as he would be enacting his plans for this country now.
'Should I bond with Shuri…' This was Alex's current dilemma. He wanted to take over Wakanda.
Now that everyone had left, he wanted all of Wakanda's knowledge, resources, and foundation for himself. He could take many routes to go through this process.
The most simple one would be to turn into T'Challa and challenge Killmonger again, taking over Wakanda as the rightful king.
He could also kill Kilmonger and take over his place to rule the country. Another option was to bond with Shuri and help her take over the country, dethroning Killmonger.
'Bonding with her is the best option, but I already have three bonds in the MCU world… Wait… Three?' Alex was confused.
'Fuck! I forgot about Jessica Jones!' He mentally chided himself. It wasn't really his fault for forgetting about Jessica. He'd only made a rudimentary level 0 bond with her and after a while of inaction, that part of his body and connection had gone dormant. This happened because a level 0 bond was just way too weak to sustain that body.
This meant that he'd stopped receiving any feedback from that body. He knew that it was there, but he would have to jolt it awake. This was the situation with all of the other bodies that were still in space, not having reached their destination yet. He knew that they were there, but they were in a dormant state.
'Should I just get rid of the bond with her…' Alex was conflicted. If it was before, he would've taken full advantage of the bond with Jessica and worked ahead. But he already had two hosts in the MCU and he had a theoretical limit on how many hosts he could sustain at the same time. He didn't know the exact number, but he instinctively knew that there was a limit. And the limit wasn't as simple as his mental energy. It was a more fundamental thing that he didn't quite understand.
He'd already decided that if he bonds with anyone else, they had to be someone with a diverse set of powers. Someone like Captain Marvel, Susan Storm, and even Jane Foster's The Mighty Thor were viable options.
Someone with basic superhuman abilities wasn't really appealing to Alex at this point in time.
This was also why he didn't outright form a bond with Cindy in Earth-65.
'Let's get rid of it. All I would lose is a minor enhancement to my physique creation ability.' With that thought, Alex didn't waste any time and removed the bond with Jessica.
It was a slightly uncomfortable experience but didn't affect Alex much.
‹Superhuman Grade Physique Creation (60->55 Tons)›
The physique that he could create now got just a little weaker, but that's all. At this point, on his host status panel, Laura was now Host #6. And Jessica's name had disappeared from the panel list.
'I'm not going to bond with Shuri either… Let's go for the least suspicious route and take over Killmonger to establish control over all of Wakanda…' Alex decided.
He didn't want to bond with Shuri. Although she was smart, she was no Reed Richards and he already had a smart scientist for a host. He would rather save his host slots for other girls that would bring something more significant to the table. It wasn't like he had to bond with a girl to have some fun with her. Eventually, 'Killmonger' would need a wife to continue the royal lineage.
For now, he was going to focus on taking over Wakanda in the MCU as Wanda and Natasha spent some time training. It would soon be time for them to part ways as Wanda would leave on her search for the Darkhold. And Nat would run into Yelena who was after her.
-x-X-x-
Earth-Z.
After returning to the bunker from that nest, Alex and Laura spent their days busy with training, Alex's continued seduction of Laura, and farming EP.
He was truly taking things slowly with her as they hadn't even gone beyond second base till now— weeks since they'd met. And although this might not sound like a lot of time, one must keep in mind that since they met, they had been inseparable. Stuck together forever. Alex himself was surprised at how patient he was being with Laura.
They were practically living through a teen romance in a zombie apocalypse on steroids.
Another thing that had started happening was that every night, before Laura slept, Alex would give her an amazing sensual massage that would infuse some EP into her skin to increase the strength of her physique.
Even though she was living on a dark and depressing earth that had been practically destroyed, these days were the happiest that Laura's ever been.
She would get to fight as much as her inner battle maniac masochist wanted, she had an amazing guy who was willing to go above and beyond to fulfill any wish that she could have, and each night she would get unprecedented pleasure before she climaxed to the land of unconsciousness.
If she had some complaints though, it would be the training. As much as Alex pampered her all the time, he was utterly brutal when it came to training. He'd made her endure getting stabbed, cutting off her skin to her bones, and a whole different level of torture to increase the level of her healing factor.
As much as she understood that it was necessary, it didn't exactly make her feel good, especially since his actions practically made her remember what those people at the Bastion used to do to her.
"Fuck off, Alex. I hate you!" Laura screamed as she stormed out of the bloody training area that Alex had designated for their training.
Alex couldn't help but sigh as he looked at the receding back.
'Every fucking day…' He grumbled. But he wasn't really complaining. He had a lot of fun pampering Laura and giving her all the love that she deserved. But she had to get her healing factor to a higher level quickly too.
It had been about two weeks since they'd started doing this every day and there was quite a bit of progress.
[ «Status- Host #6»
«Name: Laura Kinney (X-23) (Earth-Z)»
«Bonding Rate: 10->17%»
«Bonding Level: 3»
«Powers: Superhuman Physique (14->40 Tons)— Low Cosmic Healing Factor— Bone Claws (Vibranium-Adamantium Alloy)— Melee Mastery— Weapons Mastery— Espionage Mastery»
]
Laura's physique had gotten much stronger in the last two weeks. This was because along with the training, he'd been infusing quite a bit of EP into her body daily. It enhanced her training results and passively made her physique stronger.
He could increase her physical strength by 1 ton with a single unit of EP, which was acceptable to him.
He'd infused 1 unit of EP into her every day and they'd farmed 2 units every day. All in all, he was making a profit. And soon that profit was going to increase as she started killing stronger abominations. For now, all the EP was farmed through killing the weakest ‹Grunt Class› abominations.
«EP: 40»
His current EP sat at 40 units and he was planning to invest a good amount of it into Laura's physique today to bring her to the point where she could easily contend against the stronger abominations.
Though since he and Laura didn't have too much intimate contact, the Bonding Rate wasn't increasing much. And as much as it was increasing was due to the strong emotional connection that Laura had with him.
If Alex had to quantify, the girls that had the highest emotional connection with him were Laura and Wanda, and after her were scientist Gwen and Spider-Gwen who were at a similar level. Then finally, the ones with the least emotional connection were MJ and Natasha.
Laura's strong emotional connection was obvious. Alex was treating her as if she was his most beloved person in the world and she loved every moment of it. She was also happy to reciprocate his feelings and actions.
Wanda was also in a similar situation as Laura. It was due to being apprehensive of her abilities that Alex had gone extremely gentle with her and pampered her a lot.
Both the different versions of Gwen had a similar emotional connection with him. They were the first girls that he'd bonded with and he'd gone a bit too rough on them initially. Though they both loved the physical aspect of the relationship, the emotional connection was a bit little weaker than the others.
Finally Natasha and MJ. They were both in vastly different situations.
Natasha was someone who had lived through a wide array of experiences. She'd known what it was to be betrayed, and she didn't trust anyone easily. It would take a lot of time for Alex to truly reach her heart. That's why he did things normally with her and kept his manipulations to a minimum. On one hand, she was a better manipulator than him and would instantly detect his attempts, on the other, it would hurt the already flimsy trust she has in him. His attitude toward Natasha was to be straightforward. He just hoped that at some point, he would get truly close to her.
MJ's situation was a little complicated. Alex didn't care for her. She was practically someone for him to fulfill his dark desires. A sex slave and nothing more. That's what he treated her as. Though at some point, Stalkhome Syndrome was going to kick in and she would realize that she was extremely happy with him.
And she had quite a number of reasons to be happy with him. He didn't fuck anyone else (at least as far as she knew), he regularly fucked her to the point that his brain would melt, and most importantly, he was the leader of the strongest nation in the world— and he apparently loved fucking her in the oval office. The internal power-hungry slut inside her was sooner or later going to take over and truly devote herself to him completely.
Everything was going pretty well.
Alex chased after a fuming Laura as she stormed off and locked the door of the bedroom. She sat on the mattress while wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees.
Alex knocked on the door, "Laura? Could you open up?"
"No." She said.
"You know that this is important, don't you baby?" Alex said through the door.
"I still hate you." She pouted.
"You can hate me all you want, baby, but we need to get stronger. You know that right?" He placated her.
After a few minutes of Alex's placation, Laura's face had a slight smile but she was still being stubborn and not opening the door. She was enjoying feeling important like that and was having fun.
A less patient man would've stormed off by now, but Alex was perfectly aware of Laura's feelings at all times. He knew that she wanted to feel that she was important to him. He continued the act for a few more minutes until Laura finally agreed to open the door.
There was the clicking sound of a lock as the door opened to reveal Laura's sad pouty face, "Alex~" She opened her arms and hugged him tightly.
'So that's what's going on…' Alex's bird-brained ass just now realized what was going on. Laura was ovulating. That's why she was being extra moody today. He'd assumed that her regeneration would keep her permanently fertile, making that the eggs always stay ripe for insemination. Or would affect it in some way. But apparently not. The healing factor had no effect on her periods. She still ovulated like a normal woman and felt the mood swings that a normal woman felt.
"Such a spoiled girl…" Alex said as he hugged his clingy host back. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he picked her up a little and had her stand on his feet. This way, she could keep hugging him as he walked.
He went to the bed and brought her to lied down on the bed with him.
She didn't let go of him for a second and clung to him tightly throughout the process.
"Let's take a rest for the next few days. We'll spend the next couple of days lazing around the place and enjoying each other's company. What do you say?" Alex suggested. He understood that she would rather just stay in bed all day in this situation.
"Mhm…" She hummed in agreement as she breathed in his comforting scent while cuddling with him. Her face was glued to his chest and her body was stuck to him while their legs were tangled together. Laura was so comfortable that she could go to sleep right now.
'Damn, girl…' Alex felt Laura's breasts pressing against his chest and wanted to fuck her right here. But he knew why Laura was taking things slow, and he wanted to respect her wishes. He wasn't in desperate need of sex like some starved beast anyway. She wanted to enjoy all of the steps of a happy romantic relationship before going further and Alex was going to fulfill her wish.
For once, Alex just hugged her as his fingers ran through her hair without doing anything else. Soon they were both asleep in each other's arms. Alex wasn't actually asleep, but he's put this body in a dormant state to regenerate some of his mental energy and stamina. He did this every once in a while for all of his active bodies.
-x-X-x-
Since they'd decided to laze around for today, they were going to do exactly that.
A few hours later, Laura woke up in the exact same posture that she'd fallen asleep in, wrapped in Alex's arms with her face buried in his chest. She pulled her head back a little and looked up at Alex's face.
'He looks so cute asleep…' She thought and she couldn't help but give his chin a kiss. She shyly looked at his face after it to see if he'd woken up, but his eyes were still closed.
Getting a little bolder, she kissed him again, this time on his nose. After a few minutes of peppering his face with kisses, Laura heard a voice, "You planning on kissing my lips anytime soon?" Alex asked.
Laura froze in the middle of her actions like a deer in front of approaching headlights. Alex thought that she looked just so cute like that and held the side of her face, bringing her in for a loving kiss.
After about half an hour of fluffy making out, Laura said, "Can we watch a movie?"
"Zombieland 2?" Alex asked. He had kept to his promise of showing her all kinds of zombie movies. He wasn't just going to stop at the movies. They were going to watch the shows too.
"Oh, come on! I'm sick of zombies. Can't we watch something else?" She lashed out and bit his shoulder.
'Well, this is new…' Alex thought as he felt like she was just being cute. Her bite wasn't even a real bite, she was just lightly nibbling on his shoulder.
"Fine, let me think of something else… Let's do a sitcom. One of my favorites. We can spend quite a while watching this too." Alex told her.
Soon a screen formed in front of the bed and the lights in the room dimmed while both of them snuggled together.
"Alex—" "Shush. It's starting." This was a very important show for Alex.
-Kids, I'm going to tell you a story. The story of how I met your mother.-
That's how they spent the rest of the day. Laura was practically glued to the show as they binged the entire first season and started with the second season.
"Babe?" Alex called out. "Hm?" She looked at him, "I think I might have a way to increase the efficiency of your healing factor even more…" Alex told her.
"If you even mention another painful method, I will cut you!" She threatened. She didn't have it in her to do any more of that shit.
"It's not that…" Alex chuckled, "I was thinking about increasing the depth of our symbiotic bond." He said.
"How so?" Laura asked. She was clearly more open to Alex's presence and was happy to deepen the bond.
"So you know how I merged with your skin, right?" Alex asked for confirmation.
"Yeah." Laura's cheeks got a little red as she remembered her utter and complete look of debauchery by the end of that process.
"I can deepen the bond by merging with your blood. It would allow me to directly infuse nutrients and other supplements into your bloodstream and rapidly increase your strength. Not to mention our daily EP massage would become much more effective. But the best thing would be my role in enhancing your healing factor. Blood plays a vital role when it comes to healing and I can influence your healing much better after that." Alex explained his plans about merging with her blood.
"Would there be any drawbacks?" Laura asked.
"Not to my knowledge, no. Our lives are already intertwined so it's too late to regret anything about that." Alex said.
"Eh, I don't mind." Laura shrugged, "Let's do it. Maybe I'll be able to confidently contend with the ‹Buff Class› abominations after that." She said.
Laura still hadn't been able to beat one of the stronger abominations and she always had to run away from those guys. She was still only able to kill the ‹Grunt Class› ones due to her physical limitations. Even when she incorporated Alex's Lightning into the mix, she was only able to contend with multiple ‹Grunt Class› abominations at the same time, she still couldn't do anything against the ‹Buff Grunt Class› ones.
"Should we wait for a few days before bonding?" Laura asked.
"No, the process should instead help you relax and make all of your frustration disappear." Alex felt an internal sense of urgency and felt that he should hurry up in his actions, otherwise something bad might happen soon.
He wasn't going to ignore his intuition, especially since his ‹True 6th Sense› was an extremely overpowered ability and this sense of urgency originated from that ability.
He didn't want to worry Laura, so he didn't say anything about it.
"Well, if you insist." Laura acted as if she wasn't excited about feeling that sort of pleasure again.
"Let's eat dinner before we get to our massage session. I'll prime you up before merging with your blood." He told her with a suggestive undertone.
…
Laura was lying face down on a massage table that had three holes in it, one for her face and two for her breasts. It wasn't exactly comfortable to lie down and have her beautiful bosom squished due to improper design so Alex had made the table very functional and comfortable for her.
She was fully naked except for a towel that covered her butt, though that wasn't going to stop Alex from groping her ass when he wanted.
"Get started already, Alex…" She was impatient.
"Geez, so impatient." Alex was standing beside her, admiring her sexy figure and suppressing the nefarious thoughts that made him want to fuck her right now.
He grabbed her hair and flipped it upwards, letting it hang from the table and revealing her back completely.
Laura had her eyes closed as she was anticipating the massage when she felt two hands resting on her back, they seemed to be oily as they rubbed that oil on her back.
This 'oil' was something that Alex had created by condensing pure EP into a liquid form. A single point is usually enough to cover Laura's whole body with oil. By the time morning comes, it's all absorbed by her skin and her physique gets a little stronger. This was a regular thing for them.
Laura groaned as the substance started working its magic and making her aroused, each spot that Alex touched felt like a sensitive erogenous zone. His hands went to her nape as he rubbed the oil all over her neck and her shoulders. Laura shivered a little as she felt a slight burning feeling over her neck and shoulders as his hands went over those spots. That burning was followed by an arousing sensation that made her entire body tingly. Every single one of his touches aroused her more and more.
Alex felt his girl squirming under his touch and end enjoyed her cute reactions. His hands went back to her upper back and massaged her there while covering her entire back with the oil before moving to the sides and also caressing the sides of her breasts.
Laura's moans and groans kept getting louder and louder due to two reasons, the first being the EP-infused oil and the other being the technique that Alex was following to massage her. He knew exactly what spots to press to get the best reactions and to have the best effect on her.
He pressed his thumbs along her spine while pressing his fingers over her back while going down her spine while hearing her groans get louder while her squirming got even more intense. Just as his hands reached her tailbone, Laura screamed loudly and her back arched a bit while she climaxed, wetting the massage table with her juices.
This was usually how these sessions went, Laura would cum multiple times throughout the time that Alex massaged her.
"You enjoying this?" He asked as he grabbed her arm and started working on it.
"So much…" She said in a dreamy tone. She wasn't in a state to make too much conversation as she was just so relaxed and aroused right now.
He grabbed her hand and massaged her palms while pressing on the back of her hand, he slowly up to her wrists and then to her elbows, and finally to her upper arms where he met her shoulders. Then he repeated this process with her other arm.
Next, he moved to her legs, grabbed her foot, massaged her sole and toes, then moved to her ankle before moving to her calf and her knee. When he finally reached her thigh, there was another intense reaction as she came again after he massaged her inner thigh. Moving to the other leg, he repeated the same process and when his hands reached dangerously close to her core, she shuddered again.
By now, Laura was unprecedentedly relaxed and comfortable. This was the best massage that anyone could ever experience, and Laura had been enjoying this regularly for weeks at this point.
Now, Alex decided to get rid of the towel covering her butt since there was no point. It was initially there just because Laura had lied down with it there. Alex wasn't going to leave her ass untainted from his fluids.
He then threw the towel to the side and grabbed both her ass cheeks, squeezing them while creating more of the EP oil to rub all over her butt.
Laura moaned as she felt the pleasure extending to her butt. As Alex squeezed her cheeks, he could see the little puckered hole that was tightly closed and felt tempted.
'A little tease is fine…' He thought as his fingers that were squeezing and massaging her butt started getting closer and closer to her crack. Soon, she felt Alex's finger caressing her anal rim and squealed cutely, "Alex~" She wiggled her butt to get away but Alex just put a hand on her lower back to prevent her from getting up while he teased her.
a few moments later, he brought his fingers to her slit and caressed her labia while his thumb teased her ass.
With every caress, Alex's fingers would brush against her clit and she would moan and grunt. Finally, she climaxed with a loud moan.
"Time to turn around," Alex said to her.