MCU Earth.
A mystic arts portal opened on the roof of the Avengers Tower as Alex walked out through it with Natasha and Xialing trailing behind him. Before Alex could even say a word, he heard the sound of Iron Man's repulsors charging. Seconds later, identical Iron Man suits flew up to the sky and surrounded them on all sides.
"I see Tony's been busy," Alex commented.
"He restarted the Iron Legion project…" Natasha frowned, observing the surrounding suits and noticing the distinct lack of human presence within them. They were all unmanned and remotely controlled by Friday.
"It's only natural," Alex said. "The Avengers, the sorcerers, even Atlantis and Wakanda. Everyone's being swamped with the increasing number of probes to this planet in the past few days. An invasion is practically imminent."
"Do you want to get both planets in one fell swoop?"
"That one's got a Thor and a Doctor Strange that I'm not particularly interested in going toe-to-toe with just yet."
"So I need to convince Tony and Steve to surrender to you…" Natasha sighed. "They're going to be mad."
"It's their only option. This planet's Doctor Strange is—was pitifully weak in comparison, and Thor and Hulk are likely stuck in a cosmic ditch at the moment."
"Let me handle the negotiations," Natasha said, bumping the back of her fist with Alex's chest. "I'm afraid you'll further antagonize them and ruin things."
"Is that what you take me for?"
"She's not wrong, Dad," Xialing said from the side. "You're too aggressive."
"Et tu, Brute?" Alex looked at his adoptive daughter with a hurt expression.
Before she could respond, another suit flew up to them; this one was the real deal, sporting the official red and gold theme that Tony was so fond of.
"Natasha," he said as the nanotech visor pulled back to reveal his head. "A heads up would have been nice."
"Mind not pointing repulsors at me? Not the best greeting after so long."
"Who's the kid?" Tony asked.
"Xialing," Natasha said. "I left a message about her, didn't I? I was in the Apex Empire."
"Xu Xialing is twelve years old," Tony said.
"It's a long story, Tony. I'll tell you everything, but not like this," Natasha got stern.
"How do I know if you're the real deal or not?" Tony asked. "For all I know, I killed Natasha Romanoff yesterday."
"Because I've come here as a representative of the Apex Empire, and I'm here to help you against the very people invading this planet," Natasha said. "To you, it's only been a few days, but I've spent over a decade away from home, Tony. I want to have a civil conversation with you. About what comes next."
Tony momentarily glanced at Alex, who had his arms crossed and seemed like he was watching a good show without the slightest intent to intervene, before turning back to Natasha.
"Fine," he said. "I'll take you on your word."
"Can you handle things here, Mom?" Alex asked. "I'm going to take Dad out to play."
"Sure, honey," Natasha smiled gratefully at Xialing.
"So that's all I am to you, huh? A burden? Woe is me." Alex lamented.
"Let's go…" Xialing didn't give Natasha any time to say anything and pulled Alex's hand, forcing him to follow her into a portal that she created with a wave of her other hand.
"She's a magician?" Tony asked Natasha.
"Yeah, she's quite good at it as well," Natasha said. "Maybe she'll also take the mantle from Strange in the future."
"He's still incapacitated," Tony said. "Wong is the one holding the fort on that end."
"Have you been working with them? The sorcerers."
"Had to…"
The two of them continued their conversation as Xialing led Alex through the portal.
…
On the other end of the world, in a forest in the Kunlun Mountains, China. A mystic arts portal opened, leading to the Avengers Compound in New York.
Xialing emerged from the portal, pulling Alex with her as the two of them continued walking to the edge of a cliff. In the distance, they could see the headquarters of the Ten Rings, and the home that Xialing had grown up in.
"Here we are…" she muttered, still holding Alex's hand as he stopped beside her.
"You planning to jump into the middle of the compound?" He asked.
"Daddy…" Xialing mumbled with a weak voice, almost a squeal.
"Hm?"
"If I take over the Ten Rings, I want something from you."
"Anything for you, darling," he said, patting her head. "All that goal-based reward stuff is your mom's domain. What do you want? We'll do the Ten Rings later."
"No…" she shook her head. "I want you to promise a reward if I can take over the Ten Rings without you needing to directly intervene."
"All right, anything you want, you have my word. Do you want me to stay here while you go on ahead?"
She shook her head. "I want to show off a little."
"Go, give 'em hell," Alex said, once again patting Xialing's head encouragingly.
The girl immediately leaped into the air, pulling Alex with her as the cliff under them cracked and collapsed.
Mid-air, Xialing gave Alex a wide smile as the two practically flew through the air, quickly approaching the Ten Rings Headquarters that had been in the distance just now.
"Good aim," Alex praised.
"I've been practicing."
Soon, they landed right in the middle of the main foyer, cracking the concrete flooring as dust flew all around them. Alex subtly conjured a gentle gust of wind that quickly dissipated it all away as Xialing stood silently beside him with a stoic expression on her face.
The sounds of blades being unsheathed filled the surroundings as four men, all clad in full black ninja uniforms, instantly lunged at Xialing and Alex. Before Alex could do anything, Xialing let go of his hand and shot forward, directly punching one of her assailants in the neck to immediately incapacitate him while nudging the other assailant's wrist with her elbow to divert the man's blade off course. A sweep of her leg sent the man tumbling to the ground as she finished him off with a kick to his head.
As for the two approaching Alex, he didn't even bother to move as they raised their blades, seemingly planning to take him hostage. Unfortunately, before they could even get into arm's reach of him, Xialing jumped in between and disarmed them with ease, quickly incapacitating them in a few strikes.
While her inhuman speed and strength left the incoming attackers hesitant, that only lasted a moment before they continued charging both her and Alex.
For the next few minutes, Alex didn't do anything and continued standing at ease with his arms crossed while keeping his eyes on Xialing's movements as if observing for mistakes. No matter how many she fought, she consistently maintained the upper hand, not even needing to pull out her weapons, even for those who appeared with guns. Not only was her physique currently on par with that of Captain America, but she also possessed far superior skills compared to her enemies. And with Alex supporting her passively, the concept of being overwhelmed by numbers didn't exist as long as Alex kept her in her optimal peak state.
It only took a few minutes before she'd dealt with over a hundred people, with their incapacitated bodies lying all around her as their groans filled the air. It was at this point that the members of the Ten Rings stopped attacking her and stepped back, forming a circle around her and Alex.
"To what do I owe such an…explosive meeting?" A man's voice broke through the tense silence as the people in front of Xialing parted, revealing a middle-aged man dressed in a robe, with five thick rings on each of his wrists. "Might you tell me the purpose of your visit?"
Behind the visible politeness was a subtle sense of disdain that only Alex noticed in the man's eyes. Even after Xialing's display, he didn't take her particularly seriously, only maintaining a polite tone to maintain his calm and collected persona.
"You don't even remember your own daughter anymore?" Unlike Xu Wenwu, who had asked his question in English, Xialing responded in fluent Mandarin, smirking at her biological father. Without a word, she held her hands apart as a back rope appeared in them with a spiked point at the end. Not giving her father any time to respond, she swung her rope dart at the man.
Wenwu's eyes widened at the words as he instinctively glanced at Alex, instantly recognizing the man as the one who had kidnapped his daughter mere days ago. "You lie!" He snarled in the same tongue, raising his arm to block the dart as it bounced off of the five rings that formed an iron-clad defense. He swung his other arm, treating the rings as a telekinetic whip that he smacked toward Xialing, putting Alex in its path right behind her.
"That's cheating…" Xialing almost pouted. Unable to dodge the rings due to her self-imposed limitation, she spread the rope apart and tried to hold the rings off with it, but the force behind them was too much for her, immediately overwhelming her as she was forced to dig her feet into the ground. She clicked her tongue in frustration as a faint hum escaped her body. Immediately, the wind around her was stirred as a faint golden glow appeared in her eyes. From her as the center, a powerful shockwave emerged, forcing almost everyone to take a step back except for Wenwu and Alex. That disrupted the cohesion between the rings as they faltered, allowing Xialing to push through them as she grasped one of the rings, yanking it toward herself as the rest of them flew back to Wenwu.
Looking at the woman who looked so much like his late wife, and even possessed the same power, Wenwu's eyes trembled, and he hesitated in his next move.
Xialing had no such qualms as she snaked her rope dart through the ring and used it to anchor the rope to her wrist before swinging it at Wenwu, who barely defended himself at the last moment.
***
Meanwhile, Tony observed as Natasha walked into the common area with a somewhat nostalgic expression. He still wore his suit, clearly on guard after experiencing an assassination attempt by the same person not long ago.
"Time inside the Apex Empire's planets is dilated," she explained. "Where a single day passes here, a whole year may pass on those planets. To you, I've been gone a little longer than a week, but to me, it was over a decade."
"That's…" Tony's skepticism was clear from his expression.
"The Time Stone," Natasha said.
"Even Rogers would look a little different after a decade, Nat," he said. "You haven't changed a bit. Friday has run every single remote physical scan on you, and everything tells her that you haven't aged a single day."
"Because I share a symbiotic relationship with Apex, I am biologically immortal," she said. "I don't age."
Tony suddenly sighed, running his hand through his hair. "Every time, Nat. In the past month, every time we've talked, you've given me surprise after surprise. So what? In fifty or a hundred years, when everyone you know is dead, you will simply enjoy your life with that Apex?"
"You haven't heard anything yet," Natasha said. "Lifespan is a buyable commodity in the Apex Empire. For a million Gaia Credits, you can outright pause your aging for one year. He is currently developing a more complex product that can even reverse aging and make you younger."
"…" Tony frowned. "Why are you telling me this?"
"As you said, I don't want to be left alone after you all age over and die, Tony," Natasha said. "Apex is my soulmate, in a more literal sense than you might imagine, but the Avengers, you, Steve… you are all my family. I don't want to see you all die of old age as I live on with nothing but your memories."
"Do you…" Tony hesitated a little. "Do you want us to surrender to Apex?"
"I want you to support Apex," she corrected Tony. "Don't reject the files that I am sending you."
Natasha tapped her wrist as a blue light pulsed along the plain black bracelet that she was wearing. She spoke to it, "Gaia, share the brief I prepared with Tony."
"Hm?" Tony raised a brow, raising his palm and activating a hologram. "Crime rates, QOL stats, a decade of census data… What is all this?"
"Statistics," Natasha said. "I spent a decade on that planet. This is all data. The Apex Empire doesn't have war. Crime rates are as low as possible within the bounds of free will. The planet's overall population has quadrupled to almost thirty billion within a decade. And yet, metrics related to global quality of life have only increased. You can take your time and go through all that data before deciding."
"How…" Tony, for once, had to take a moment to think of a response.
"Gaia," Natasha said. "Gaia is what you wanted Ultron to be. It is completely under Apex's control, and if I understand correctly, Gaia's core programming originates from Apex himself. It is literally a part of him."
"Reassuring," Tony said flatly.
"He won't back down, Tony," Natasha said. "And truth be told, I support him in taking these extreme measures. I'm sure you aren't ignorant of those few war-torn planets. Especially the one with Asgardians on it. Their global population is barely over two billion at this point. Seeing the aggressive momentum of the assassins you've been dealing with, my home is about to be overrun by an inter-planet war. I want to protect it—preserve it. Don't fight me on this."
"Always like you to be playing both sides," he scoffed. "Are you planning to give Rogers the same spiel?"
"If it helps, yes," she said.
"How is this any different from what Hydra wanted to do?" Tony asked. "To monitor every single person in the world…who's to say he won't suddenly decide to start acting preemptively based on someone's intent? Rob people of their free will."
"Because I will be there to keep him in check," she said. "Also… he needs you."
"Of course he does."
"I'm serious," she said. "He needs you to help him make something."
"Little old me? Doesn't he have my alternate selves under his command?"
"In his words, they are self-destructive alcoholics. You are the only version of…you he's interested in working with."
"I'm flattered."
"Try to look the part as well."
"What's he up to with your…adoptive daughter?" Tony gave Natasha a weird look as he mentioned Xialing.
"Taking over the Ten Rings," Natasha said.
"The Mandarin?" Tony frowned. "They were just a front for AIM."
"AIM was merely borrowing the name of the Ten Rings," she said. "They are a real organization from China, led by a supposedly immortal warlord. Allegedly, his real identity might be that of Genghis Khan."
"Is this a joke?"
"Not in the slightest," Natasha shook her head. "His daughter was the one with us. And she's planning to take over the family business."
"First Wakanda becomes the richest country in the world, now this? Is Atlantis real too?"
Natasha showed a wincing expression at his words. "About that…"
"…" Wordlessly, Tony went over to the bar and poured himself a glass of whiskey, downing it in one go. "I'll consider it. But I need a day to talk things out. I'm not the only one here."
"Feel free," she said. "They will need some time to consolidate things over at the Ten Rings anyway."
…
On the other side.
Xialing and Wenwu's battle had reached a climax. After the initial shock, the man had gotten his bearings and was able to give Xialing a solid run for her money. She had already taken up five of his rings, one of which she used to anchor her rope dart to her wrist while using the other four to counter Wenwu's moves.
Despite the man's vastly superior combat experience and skill, he was on a steady back foot for the entire fight, unable to do anything as Xialing slowly inched closer to victory.
"Why are you throwing the match, old man?" Alex suddenly interjected from the side at the same time as Xialing kicked Wenwu, who blocked it with his forearm, forcing him to skid backward for a few feet.
"What do you mean?" Xialing frowned, not following up and instead looking at Alex.
"Exactly that," Alex said. "Feeling nostalgic, are we, Xu Wenwu?"
"Is there a point to all this?" The man asked. "You have already beaten me once before and kidnapped my daughter right in front of my eyes. Why play this cruel game with me?"
"You may find it hard to believe, but she really is Xu Xialing," Alex said. "And the only reason I'm even giving you the time of day is that she is full of resentment toward you because you were a shitty father."
"You may be correct," he said. "But believing you right now is not a risk that I am willing to take."
Xialing immediately felt an ominous premonition and leaped back to stand right in front of Alex, only to hear him sigh beside her ear. Before she could ask him, the ground started shaking.
"Really, my guy?" Alex asked, wrapping his arm around Xialing's waist and pulling her back to stand beside him. "Are you really willing to sacrifice everything you have built over the years to kill me? I brought your daughter back, didn't I?"
"I lost everything the day my wife died," he said. "I was long ready to destroy all of this. All that kept me going were my children and the slight possibility of bringing her back. As my final act of defiance, I will kill you."
"How dramatic…" Alex rolled his eyes. "Want me to save him?"
"…" Xialing held on to Alex's arm for support as the earthquake intensified, frowning for a moment before turning to look at Alex with a cutesy expression. "Neglectful as he was, he gave birth to me. Whatever he does, don't kill him, please, daddy…"
"Anything for my princess," Alex said, not looking particularly affected by the earthquake.
Wenwu growled in rage and punched the ground as the five rings that remained on his wrist all shot into the earth, forming a massive crack that extended toward Alex and Xialing. At the same time, a blue aura emerged from every single person around them, with Wenwu's glowing the brightest. The members of the Ten Rings all started panicking as they felt their very life force being sucked away as the misty blue aura coalesced toward Alex and Xialing, suppressing them.
Alex looked at the approaching crack with apathy as Xialing whimpered beside him, unable to handle the sheer force that seemed to be pressing down on her.
"Still want me to spare him? He wants to kill us both, you know."
"Please, daddy…" Xialing practically wheezed out, tightly clutching Alex's arm as her nails dug into his skin.
"He will be under permanent supervision, and I will get rid of all his powers," Alex said. "I'm not in the habit of letting enemies live. Especially the kind that would go for such a mutual destruction tactic."
Without waiting for Xialing's response, Alex raised his palm and tapped his finger in the air, releasing a raging torrent of crimson energy all around him. Xialing was freed from the suppression as the half-dead members of the Ten Rings collapsed all around them, the misty blue aura of their Qi dissipating into the air.
Wenwu coughed blood, staggering to his knees as he started heaving in between bloody coughs, yet his astonished eyes never left Alex.
"Perspective is everything, Wenwu," Alex said. "On a cosmic scale, my power is only barely enough to keep me safe, but your gaze has never gone beyond humanity. Among mortals, you are indeed one of the strongest. But when one can destroy entire planets with a mere flick of their finger, such power becomes entirely meaningless."
"Ugh…" Xialing cringed. "How awkward…"
Alex's expression faltered. "What?"
"It's fine, go on, Dad," she said, smiling sweetly. "Just try to tone down the dramatics. I feel second-hand embarrassment."
"After so long, you should have grown used to my habits."
"I will keep embarrassing you about it until you decide to stop saying such things."
"Ever thought your daughter could be so lively, Wenwu?" Alex asked with a smirk. "Enjoy your time as her prisoner."
Alex waved his finger and a crimson mist flowed into the holes in the ground. Moments later, the five rings that Wenwu had slammed into the earth emerged, surrounded by the red mist as they floated over to Xialing.
"Go on," Alex said. "They are yours from now on."
Glancing at Alex with some hesitation, she glanced at her father, who seemed to be in shock at Alex's display. Sporting a determined expression, she exhaled and raised her arm, immediately snaking it through the rings hovering in front of her.
***
"Are you guys done with your conversation now?" Alex asked.
Tony's head whipped back toward Natasha as he immediately winced, though his suit immediately powered up, ready to attack.
"Easy, Mr. Stark," Alex said. "Don't get whiplash."
"I think I'm good," Tony said, rubbing his neck. "Can you just appear anywhere at will?"
"With the Space Stone in my hands, yes," Alex nodded.
"It's technically ours," Tony said. "Asgard took it from Earth."
Alex chuckled. "The one I have isn't from your universe."
"But you did take the Time and the Mind Stones, didn't you?"
"I did," Alex nodded.
"Hence leaving us helpless in the face of an invasion."
"You say that like you would have had a chance otherwise. At this moment, this Earth is one of the weakest ten among the forty."
"I'll take those odds."
"How?" Alex asked. "Together? Then lose together as well?"
Tony frowned, glancing at Natasha.
"I'm giving your planet a chance at safety, Tony," Alex said. "And I am also giving you the chance to have a voice in how I implement that safety. And if you are doubting my capabilities, then I will prove myself to you."
"If you're so strong, why go so far?"
"I have a theory," Alex said. "One that requires you to make me something."
"She said something about that."
"It is something that most likely requires your presence and input."
"Flattery will get you nowhere with me," Tony said. "I still need to consider and consult with people."
"I'm serious. This involves high-level metaphysical concepts like fate. This is both a way for me to get you to do something for me and a test to see if it works."
"This is the first I'm hearing of this," Natasha said from beside Alex.
"I had that doubt only recently. Wanda's got a lot of free time on her hands after I brought her to Gaia."
"Is that our Wanda?" Tony asked.
"How'd you guess?"
"You're preparing for something, right?" Tony said to Natasha. "A nuke like Wanda is someone he would give everything to recruit. Especially since ours isn't nearly as dangerous as the ones my scanners have picked up. He can control her."
"Not dangerous, he says," Alex scoffed. "My Wanda is the strongest of all her variants in the multiverse. The shit we went through to get her to that point…"
"So you made that mural we saw back in Wundagore real, huh?" Tony asked. "To think you've been acting in the shadows since then."
"I'm curious," Alex said. "You have already caught up to most of my covert actions. Can you tell me when I showed up on this planet?"
"Off the top of my head, before the Avengers broke up. Specifically, when Wanda succeeded in containing the explosion. She was not that strong at that time."
"See, that's why I want to recruit you. Despite your limited information, you formed so many accurate conjectures," Alex said appreciatively. "If you don't have any other commitments, shall we go over to Wakanda?"
"I'm cutting off support for the Widows."
"It was good while it lasted," Alex said casually. "One of my four planets will handle their resource needs."
Tony growled.
"Follow me, I have an arrogant mutant and his kingdom to beat up and subdue."
"Our world doesn't have any mutants," Tony interjected.
"Debatable," Alex said. "Considering the incubating Celestial in your core, this planet possesses the full potential to awaken Mutants and the X-gene. Maybe it's dormant for some reason."
A Mystic Arts portal appeared in front of Alex as he and Natasha stepped toward it.
Tony's hesitation only lasted a moment before he took to the air and flew through the portal right before it closed.
…
In the Royal Palace of Wakanda, Alex had left a clone that was still using Killmonger's identity to rule the country, maintaining the original status quo that Wakanda had with the rest of the world.
A portal appeared in the courtyard where Alex in Killmonger's skin was already waiting. He was draped in royal Wakandan garb, with everything from the fabric to the ornaments made with Vibranium.
"Welcome, Stark, to my humble country," he said, looking at the two figures that walked through the portal.
"Hm?" Tony turned to his side, raising a brow at seeing Alex disappear despite walking right beside him.
"Nat doesn't like me playing around with clones," Alex said.
"Does it invoke certain traumas from your past?" Tony asked instinctively, only for Nat to scoff at him and approach Alex.
"Not cool, man," Alex extended his arm toward Natasha, only for her to duck under it.
"Nope," she said.
Alex sighed as Tony finally registered the situation and stared at his face for a few seconds. "Your Majesty, N'Jadaka?"
"Please, call me Apex. I am merely using N'Jadaka's identity for the sake of convenience."
"We never even had a chance, did we?"
"The moment you estranged Wanda, letting me take her away, all possible chances of your resistance dissipated into nothingness," Alex said. "Strange might have had a chance, were he not a moron."
"I really want to shoot my cannon at that fucking cluster right about now."
"Is that supposed to be a euphemism?" Alex looked weirded out.
"No, I remember him mentioning something about a planetbuster," Natasha said. "I thought it was going to be a suit."
"Did you make a Death Star cannon?" Alex asked Tony with shining eyes, mentally commanding Gaia to covertly break through Friday's firewalls to access all of Tony's data.
"Something like that," Tony nodded. "I completed it only recently. Before I could fire it, she…a variant of hers came in to sabotage it, setting me back by a couple of days."
"That is useful information. That means they have someone with precognition or an adjacent ability on their side. I will have to be cautious in dealing with them."
"How do you know they didn't just infiltrate my systems?"
"I've observed the leaders on that side. The Illuminati, they call themselves, mostly a rebrand of the Avengers. They aren't interested in conquering this planet, and simply found out about the dangerous weapon that you built. To them, these actions were self-defense. They wouldn't target you for no reason."
"Quite an unreasonable group of people."
"Forget about those guys for now. Do you know that the US government has been looking for Vibranium?"
"They have been looking for it since my father built Rogers' shield. What's your point?"
"I pulled a few strings and helped them find a fifteen-year-old who could create a specialized detector for Vibranium. They found it in the Atlantic."
"Friday, why is this the first I'm hearing of this?" Tony frowned.
"I cannot find any information about such a detector, Boss. Shall I make a call to Mr. Rhodes?"
"No, I'll let him finish," Tony said, looking pointedly at Alex.
"Every single person involved in the event was killed in less than an hour after they sent a dive team down to verify their findings," Alex said.
"It wasn't Wakanda?"
"I gave them that machine in the first place. Why would it be Wakanda?" Alex said speechlessly.
"Entrapment."
"I don't care for feigned civility, Mr. Stark. If I want to do something, I will do it. I don't use fabricated reasons to justify my actions. It's not Wakanda. But a country whose scale is just as large, if not larger."
"No…" Tony trailed off, realizing that Alex was serious.
"They don't go by Atlantis, but refer to their nation as Talokan," Alex said. "Their leader has specialized powers that grant him an inordinately long lifespan. Over five centuries, he has led his people to establish themselves in the bottom of the ocean."
"That certainly comes in the top ten weirdest things that I have heard about this week."
"Just like Wakanda, I am going to take over Talokan," Alex said bluntly. "Follow me."
Alex formed another portal, this one made using Chaos Magic that left the other side hidden.
"My suit isn't built for such a high-pressure environment."
"Don't be a baby, Tony," Natasha spoke from the side. "If he wanted to kill you, he wouldn't be trying so hard to recruit you."
"It's like I don't even know you anymore, Nat," Tony sighed.
"I have spent ten years away," she said. "This was bound to happen."
The three of them soon passed through the portal, emerging on the other side to a breathtaking sight. Ironically, they were underwater right now.
Enclosed within a translucent bubble, the three of them bore witness to a massive underwater city in front of them, with hundreds of mermen swimming around, going about their day. Unlike Wakandans, who were isolated but were still surface dwellers, these mermen possessed an entirely different culture. From the way their bodies functioned to their modes of entertainment, everything was different.
The most glaring thing that stood out was a bright light high up above the city that served as an artificial sun, illuminating everything far and wide, allowing the mermen thousands of meters underwater to bask in its brightness. The light source sat at the top of a spire emerging from the palace at the center of the city. It was glaringly gaudy and grandiose, standing out even among the unique architecture of buildings in Talokan.
Tony was still stunned at the sight when a faint whirring caught his attention, and he turned back, only to see a Wakandan aircraft emerge from a portal behind him. His eyes widened as he realized that it was only one among hundreds that were all flying within the enormous bubble that Apex seemed to be sustaining. As the portal closed, he counted at least five hundred such crafts floating menacingly in the bubble, awaiting Apex's command.
"K'uk'ulkan," Alex spoke, magically amplifying his voice to let it spread through the water without any distortion.
Instantly, every single Talokanil paused in their actions. Drawn by the call, they turned to look at the bubble holding the Wakandan procession with their King floating at the forefront.
Instantly, panic gripped the Talokanil people as half of them immediately started swimming away toward their homes while a few guards tried their best to maintain order, only to fail miserably as the situation quickly became precarious, bordering on a riot.
"This is what happens when someone expects their home base to be impenetrable," Alex said apathetically, watching coldly as the colliding mermen got injured despite being underwater. "No shield is absolute, whether it be Wakanda's, or Talokan's natural defense reliant on water pressure, or even my planetary shields."
"Are you preluding to something?" Tony asked. "I have a feeling that Empire of yours might not be as stable as you want me to believe."
Alex smiled. "The enemies that I am preparing to face can casually destroy entire galaxies, or even the entire universe if they desired. An absolute shield does not exist against such entities. I will not rule over a complacent empire with no backbone."
"Way to give an answer and raise ten more questions."
Suddenly, a hum spread through the ocean, rousing the Talokanil from their panic as they all calmed down.
"K'uk'ulkan!" "K'uk'ulkan!" "K'uk'ulkan!" The people started chanting as their expressions turned fanatical.
A man, bare-chested and draped in Vibranium jewelry. His feet featured two sets of prominent wings that seemed to propel him forward without the need to perform any other movements underwater. Unlike the Talokanil, who had blue skin and gills, his skin was tan with no gills, leaving him indistinguishable from a human save for the wings at his feet.
"King of Wakanda. Why are you here?" Namor's murderous intentions were clearly visible on his face as he swam toward Alex's bubble and stepped into it, confident in his capabilities as he stopped a few feet away from Alex, sporting a menacing expression on his face.
"Wipe that look off your face, Namor," Alex said. "Nobody died, right?"
"Why are you here?" The man asked again, flexing his muscles, ready to attack.
"You sent your people to scout Wakanda," Alex said. "Did you think I wouldn't find out? Wakanda has long been aware of your little underwater kingdom."
"Do you think this meager show of force is enough to deter us?" Namor suddenly let out a high-pitched call, saying something in an old Mayan dialect. The waters all around them immediately started stirring as hundreds of Talokanil, clad in primitive yet effective Vibranium armors and holding spears, emerged, swimming up to Namor and stopping behind them.
Alex silently observed as within the span of a minute, thousands of Talokanil warriors emerged from the city to stand behind their king.
"Wakanda's foolishness in revealing the might of Vibranium to the outside world has troubled us all. Talokan will not stand for your provocation today. My people, attack!"
"Foolishly arrogant and trigger-happy," Alex commented. "He needs to be taught diplomacy between nations."
"In their defense, quite a few of their citizens seemed to have died in the previous panic. And five hundred tie-fighter-equivalent ships are hardly menacing in front of the literal army of mermen in front of us," Tony responded.
"I guess that makes sense," Alex nodded. "Then again, they are here as nothing more than showpieces today."
STOP.
That single word from Alex made every single person behind Namor stop in their tracks as expressions of struggle appeared on their faces, but they were unable to even writhe, let alone call out to their god and leader who was charging forward all by himself.
Namor effortlessly entered the bubble Alex had created, pulling back his spear, intent on stabbing him.
"Unrefined technique," Alex commented, grabbing the spear and pulling Namor toward himself, clamping his hand over the man's throat as the vibranium spear was wrenched away from his grip and tossed aside. Namor immediately swung his leg at Alex, taking advantage of his wings to propel his kick forward with greater force. Unfortunately, it was useless as two tentacles emerged from Alex's back, restraining Namor's arms and legs in a spread-eagled position. A look of struggle flashed on the subsurface king's face as he glanced at the black tentacles restraining him with apprehension.
"You are the same as me… A mutant," Namor said.
"I'm something far greater, Namor," Alex said. "And you aren't a mutant. At least not the kind that this universe should eventually encounter."
"What do you want?"
"I want Talokan," Alex said.
"If you kill me, every single one of my people—man, woman, child—will choose to fight you to the very end. And I will never surrender to a surface nation that wants to exploit us."
"I know," Alex said. "Fortunately, I have other plans."
The four tentacles crushed Namor's limbs as their black material started covering his skin. He let out a pained scream, but the black material covered his entire body within a second as he completely disappeared into the tentacles, which quickly retracted back into Alex.
"What the fuck was that?" Tony looked rightfully distraught.
"It's what I do," Alex said as a black mass rose up in front of him, taking the form of Namor. Wordlessly, the new and improved Namor turned around and flew out of the barrier to pacify his agitated citizens as Alex released them from their bindings. He had conveniently blocked the bubble's transparency while he devoured Namor, making it easy for him to feign forming a truce.
"Nat… if he's threatening you and Wanda, I just need a signal. I will do everything in my power to free you both."
"Tony…" Natasha sighed. "We are with him by choice. Especially Wanda. Her current strength is unfathomable. He couldn't imprison her even if he wanted."
"I'm standing right here," Alex said. "And I could totally trap her. If she can't form any coherent thoughts, her powers naturally become inert and useless."
"Is this what you call diplomacy?"
"This is my special brand of diplomacy," Alex said casually. "It leaves no hidden dangers, and I can raise a successor who is absolutely loyal to me and me alone before moving things to a hands-off system."
"And this is what is in store for our planet in case I choose to oppose you."
"Yes," Alex nodded. "I will kill you and take over your identity before using you as a springboard and taking over the world."
"Before I agree," Tony said. "I want to see Wanda."
"I will bring this planet into the cluster and sync the time dilation factor with Gaia's before bringing Wanda over to meet you," Alex said. "Though I'm not sure how happy she'll be to see you after the stunt you pulled with Vision back then."
…
As Alex departed with Natasha and Tony, taking the Wakandan fleet with him, he maintained Namor's skin to call over his trusted confidants to bring over some reform in Talokan. After devouring Namor, he had a thorough understanding of the inner workings of this country. As for getting any other benefits from devouring him, they were negligible. Alex already had superior versions of all of Namor's abilities. Not to mention that the man didn't actually have the X-gene and instead had been mutated by the herb that his mother had consumed. Essentially, he was a variant species of the rest of the Talokanil with a longer lifespan, greater strength, and wings on his ankles. That came at the cost of losing his reproductive ability, rendering him infertile. At best, Namor and the Talokanil could serve as a reference point for Alex in case he ever wanted to take a go at creating his own version of a super soldier. With his intimate knowledge of Asgardian genes, he could use different species' genetic data as a reference to further enhance them if he ever wanted.
"Namora, Attuma," Alex called as two gaudily dressed Talokanil swam to his side, expressing their worries about the situation in their native Mayan dialect.
For the time being, Alex's primary goal in taking over Talokan was to have them mine all of their Vibranium as soon as possible so that he would have a sufficient amount of it available in case he ever wanted to start another project like Wanda's Chaos Tower. Not to mention, he would need plenty of Vibranium to support Tony's project.
Aside from their intensified Vibranium mining, Alex decided to prioritize exploring the ocean as well to determine if there were any other special materials like Vibranium that he could mine and extract. Aside from that, he didn't bother to introduce any immediate changes in the lifestyle of the Talokanil, similar to how he hadn't bothered to make any changes to Wakanda. Once the MCU Earth was integrated into the Gaia cluster, Alex would have plenty of time and means to modify the planet's culture.
***
As Alex dealt with Tony's situation and prepared to take over Earth-199999, one of his bodies was currently in its astral form, traveling to the core of the planet.
Soon, however, he encountered a formless barrier that blocked his astral form from descending further. Looking at the endless molten metals all around him, he frowned thoughtfully. Right now, he was well over five thousand kilometers deep into the surface of the Earth, and with the reference of Wanda's Earth, he knew that the incubating Celestial was going to be at the core. But the blockade hampered him from moving further.
"It seems that this Celestial has some sort of innate defensive mechanism," he spoke to himself, pausing in thought. It wasn't that he was unable to breach the barrier, but he was worried about what would come after.
He was currently operating under the assumption that all of the higher-end universal entities were in a deep slumber, but he had no real way to prove if the Celestials were also part of that assumption. Wanda might have desecrated the corpse of a Celestial, but Alex's current plan was countless times worse since he was dealing with a live incubating Celestial.
Between hesitation, Alex glanced at his skill acquisition panel.
«Skill Acquisition»
«EP/Bioenergy»:: 867,574 Units
«Cosmic Energy»:: 0 Units
«Soul Energy»:: 84,563 -> 234,563 Units
«Manipulations»:: ‹Lightning Divinity› ‹Basic Blood Manipulation›
«Innate Abilities»:: ‹Biological Manipulation› ‹Host Enhancement› ‹Devour› ‹Copy›
«Derived Abilities»:: ‹Cosmic Physique Creation› ‹True Sixth Sense› ‹Inventory› ‹Intangibility› ‹Elemental Immunity› ‹Hypnosis› ‹Secondary Consciousness (Gaia)› ‹Psionics Manifestation›
«Magical Abilities»:: ‹High Magic Affinity› ‹Hyperspace Affinity› ‹Wielder of Chaos› ‹Soul Devour›
«Authorities»:: ‹Time (7.5%)› ‹Mind (10%)› ‹Soul (7.5%)› ‹Reality (7.5%)› ‹Power (5%)› ‹Space (5%)›
«Cosmic Abilities»:: ‹Low Cosmic Manipulation (Incomplete)› ‹Ambient Cosmic Manipulation›
Since his ambush by Kobik, the sentient Cosmic Cube, Alex had been in a frenzy in terms of collecting Bioenergy, forcefully ramping up its extraction at the farm at the cost of an increased number of resources that needed to be used for the residents' recovery. His production had straight up doubled, but the cost of maintaining the Gaia Penitentiary had increased ten times and was showing a further upward trend. And this increase was calculated per person. If Alex considered how he'd almost doubled the capacity over the past day, the farm's maintenance cost had increased by over twenty times.
Prisoner Farm — 29154 -> 40653
Mary Jane Watson - 0.5 EP/day Silvija Sablinova | Silver Sable - 0.5 EP/day Average Prisoners (27949 -> 37,819) - 0.0001 -> 0.0002 EP/day Qi Awakened (1203 -> 2834) - 0.05 EP/day to 0.5 EP/day -> 0.1 EP/day to 1 EP/day
Over the two years that had passed in the span of a single day outside, Alex had generated almost four hundred thousand units of Bioenergy. Factoring in his increased expansion costs, he had made a net gain of over three hundred thousand units.
The rest of his Bioenergy came from his assault on Earth-Z. While his road trip to South America with Laura was proving to be both enjoyable and somewhat eventful, he was preparing to take absolute control of the planet's Abomination production for his future with the Apex Empire. To that end, he had gone on a massive killing spree, essentially obliterating every single Abomination in Africa and discovering two Bastions that still remained, resisting the endless assaults. One was Wakanda, which was barely holding on as their supplies and greenhouse production dwindled, and the other was a crumbling facility with barely any living people who had already lost all traces of humanity, having turned to cannibalism to survive. Taking over Wakanda allowed him to get his hands on another large deposit of Vibranium as a small bonus while he harvested tens of millions of weak Abominations all over the continent and sucked them dry. Not only did that provide him with a large amount of Bioenergy to use, but it also allowed him to collect a large amount of Soul Power by using the ability of the Dweller-in-Darkness from Ta Lo.
As for Soul Energy, Alex didn't have any immediate use for it since his soul was already so immensely powerful that any worthwhile enhancements would require a massive amount ot it. So, he chose to keep the energy in case he ever wanted to do something intensely complicated which would quickly exhaust him. Soul Energy didn't have much of an enhancement effect on him, but it served as a very viable means of recovery.
"This is positively the craziest thing that I've ever done..."
With a simple application of Chaos Energy to warp space, Alex's real body manifested over his astral form as his perception of time resynced with reality. The heat, despite being over four thousand degrees Celsius, did little to affect him with his elemental immunity.
Before long, six Infinity Stones manifested all around Alex as they embedded themselves in various parts of his body—the Mind Stone taking up space on his glabella while the Soul Stone stuck to the back of his neck, the Power Stone went over his chest while the Time and Space Stones went on the back of either hand, leaving the Reality Stone to suddenly liquify as it poured into his eyes, dyeing them a glowing crimson.
The moment the stones took their respective places, an invisible wave of energy erupted from Alex that instantly enveloped the entire planet. The six stones all worked in conjunction to form a barrier around the planet. Alex went a step further to directly eliminate every single possible individual that might hamper his immediate plan. Fortunately, he didn't detect anyone and didn't assume foul play, considering he was using the authority of all six Infinity Stones combined.
With the confidence that there weren't any traps waiting for him in the immediate future, he amplified the Space Stone to its full potential and wrapped its authority around the Earth and its Moon. Instantly, it disappeared from its original spot, appearing on the other side of the cluster of Earths, right inside the massive shielding formation that encapsulated Gaia's four planets. The collective outer shield was large enough that it could easily accommodate the presence of a new planet without causing any disturbance to the other planets, but Alex's premature transportation caused a massive problem for the new Earth.
Unlike the others, the MCU Earth wasn't enveloped in a planetary shield. And now, outside the influence of the cluster, it was immediately in a precarious situation as countless natural disasters were on the verge of eruption. Alex used the authority of the stones to emulate a barrier for the time being while he prepared to take the next step. With his measures, the only indication of their planet's sudden displacement was the changed positioning of the planets and stars in the sky.
Now that the planet itself was stable and placed within the Gaia Cluster, Alex focused on spreading the influence of the stones to the outer barrier, cutting off the entirety of the Gaia Cluster from any methods of detection. Of course, knowing that the might of the Celestials was comparable, or arguably greater than the Infinity Stones, he treated the blockade around the Gaia Cluster as a sort of smokescreen to handle the aftermath of his gamble.
It was likely that his massive efforts in concealment might not even be necessary, but Alex had to take the necessary precautions. He had too much to lose in case his gamble failed or worse, attracted dangerous entities.
"If the worst-case scenario really happens, I will need to evacuate all of my people to the Sovereign..."
As Alex's best-effort blockade formed all around the MCU Earth and further around the Gaia Cluster, he finally brought his focus over to the mysterious barrier that was keeping him away. Even after he took his physical form, the barrier was the same in blocking him from going any further.
With a deep breath, Alex once again mobilized the authority of the stones, feeling the pinch of spending such massive amounts of his Bioenergy to mitigate the backlash of using the stones. Then again, he had already exhausted over two hundred thousand units of Bioenergy and planned to keep going until he either succeeded or was left exhausted.
Even under the assault of all six Infinity Stones working in conjunction, the barrier blocking Alex only slightly tore apart in front of him, allowing him to pass through before it reformed. It didn't matter, though. Alex still had access to the Klyntar Soul Dimension, which meant that he could now access this place whenever he wanted as long as he left a small piece of himself in here.
Finally, after crossing the barrier, Alex passed through more molten metal, finally coming upon a glowing metallic sphere, only the material wasn't metal. Frankly, the material was something he had never even seen before. Whether it was better than Uru was undetermined, but Alex could instantly tell that, whether it was the energy conductivity of the material or its hardness, it was incomparable to materials like Vibranium or Adamanium.
Back in Earth-21798B, when Wanda brought Alex to the core to see the dead Celestial, they had encountered this exact material when Wanda teleported him to the core with the Celestial, but it had already lost most of its properties and was equivalent to an inert rock. The special properties of the material that Alex sensed were all because of the fact that the incubating Celestial was actually alive.
"All right, Tiamat. Are you conscious, pal?" Alex asked, almost rhetorically, but also expecting to hear the response of the incubating Celestial in his head.
***
Alex waited for a few seconds, not receiving any response from the incubating Celestial in front of him. He didn't give up, however, using various means to contact the entity to convey his intent to communicate. Unfortunately, even as he used the Mind and Soul Stones to directly convey his thoughts to the infant Celestial, it remained dormant. Though, despite the minor setback, the lack of response from the Celestial emboldened Alex somewhat as he felt it provided credence to the theory that the Celestials were also in a slumber like the Dimensional Lords and equivalent entities.
"Are you truly not conscious, Tiamat?" Alex's question was half directed at himself. While he would have loved to wait for a few minutes, or even longer, to see if the Celestial responded, Alex was on a time crunch. Every second that he maintained the barriers around the planets consumed thousands of units of Bioenergy, forcing him to speed things up.
Receiving no indication of the entity's consciousness, Alex no longer hesitated and shot forward, passing through the eggshell and coming face to face with the slumbering infant Celestial. With his current sensitivity to Cosmic energy, Alex could very well sense the swathes of it swirling all around the inside of the egg. While outside, all that was present was an inordinate amount of liquid magma. Inside, a large amount of Cosmic Energy was simply floating all around, slowly being absorbed by the incubating Celestial.
"…" Without a moment's hesitation, Alex tried to draw the energy into himself, only to encounter a significant amount of resistance. Frowning, he continued attempting to draw it in, going so far as to use Chaos energy to trap a single strand of the energy and forcibly pull it into himself.
Finally, with his fragmented Cosmic Manipulation mixed with Susan's Ambient Cosmic Manipulation that specifically focused on the skin, Alex finally drew that tiny strand of Cosmic Energy into himself.
[Cosmic Energy +0.02]
The moment the notification flashed in front of his eyes, Alex's eyes saw a whole different vision.
It was a scene from a few minutes ago, specifically when Alex had triggered an almost-riot in Talokan, causing the death of multiple people. Following that scene, he saw the entire lifetimes of every single one of the twenty or so Talokanil that had died. Simultaneously observing the life of those people from the point of their birth to their death. If it were anyone other than him, they would have instantly been overwhelmed by such a massive amount of information.
For Alex, however, who was used to constantly maintaining over fifty bodies at any given time, not to mention Gaia herself, who drew a part of her processing from him while relying mostly on the physical servers on Research Earth. To him, this influx of information was merely another Tuesday. Even then, however, he felt a faint sense of exhaustion creeping in due to the sheer amount of information that he had just processed in an instant. To maintain his peak state, he was forced to prematurely tap into his reserves of Soul Energy.
While this confirms that I am on the correct track regarding the generation of Cosmic Energy, the sheer amount of data and experience contained within is mind-melting… It's no wonder that the Inhuman from Hydra Earth that could use a tiny sliver of Cosmic Energy essentially possessed no personality.
Sighing, Alex brought his attention back to the situation at hand. While he wanted to absorb the large amount of Cosmic Energy right now, he had no such means to do so right now. Considering the effort he needed to expend to extract a tiny sliver of it, he needed to come up with a better way to deal with this raw Celestial Energy.
It's interesting that I would specifically see the memories of those that died in Talokan… Could be a coincidence. But it could also be something else.
He brought his attention back to the Celestial at hand.
"I was pretty confident in devouring you after seeing the state of your slumber, Tiamat, but this whole thing with Cosmic Energy has once again made me hesitate," Alex said to Tiamat. "I guess I really need a Celestial if I am going to get my hands on freely usable Cosmic Energy…"
After a moment of thought, Alex ignored the swathes of raw Cosmic Energy all around him and floated forward to stop right in front of the massive head of Tiamat. Even in an infantile state, it was almost as large as the moon, making Alex look like nothing more than a speck of dirt in front of it.
Undeterred, Alex raised his palm and placed it in the center of the Celestial's head, right between his six eyes. Instantly, an endless quantity of black material erupted from the point of contact as Alex controlled it to cover the Celestial's head. Just as the coverage area grew close to one of the eyes, having already covered miles, Alex encountered resistance. As his material tried to spread further, the Celestial's innate defenses seemed to get triggered as the same energy field that had blocked him from entering the core started pushing against him, trying to force him back. Not only that, but he was also dealing with the equivalent of an impenetrable wall as he tried to phase into the Celestial to further his goal, but it was proving to be impossible with his current means. After a few attempts, he realized that going inside the Celestial was a pointless effort right now, so he brought his full focus to the force field that was resisting his expansion.
At first, he was successful in using the physical strength provided by his Cosmic Physique to push back and continue expanding against the efforts of the force field, but let alone break, the force field seemed to be like some kind of stretchy membrane that was slowly getting stronger the more Alex pushed against it.
By the time he'd covered the distance between two adjacent eyes, the membrane had grown too strong for Alex's physical strength. Even after using enough strength that would otherwise casually shatter entire planets, he was helpless against the pushback of the membrane. Worse yet, he had to maintain his full resistive force throughout the process to prevent the membrane from further pushing against him and reversing his progress.
Watching his dwindling amounts of Bioenergy and the fact that he was already using Soul Energy to maintain his current state, Alex realized that he probably wouldn't be able to achieve his goal immediately. To that end, he made a final decisive move by once again activating the stones to their fullest power and even infusing the traces of Cosmic Energy that he had just gained into them. His Bioenergy consumption shot up exponentially as he used the authority of the six stones to wrap around the egg of the Celestial.
Forming a clear image of how he wanted to warp reality, he shared his intent with the stones, and they immediately released a blindingly bright light that momentarily surpassed the sun itself, releasing a scorching heat all around the surrounding area as Alex felt a huge drain on both his mind and body, feeling as if he'd just been rammed by a truck. Considering that was exactly how he found himself here in this universe, he felt an ironic sense of amusement at the situation.
When the blinding light faded, Alex saw in front of him the normal core of the planet formed from red-hot crystalline structures of iron compressed to a ridiculous degree. Not only that, but he also observed the edge of a lab at the core of the planet, already chock-full of all of the machinery needed to activate the planetary shield, powered by the geothermal energy of the planet's core.
He had essentially copied the planetary core of Research Earth and warped reality to paste it here.
As for Tiamat, who used to serve as the core of the MCU Earth in the past, its egg now had a new location.
Alex's body went into the lab to quickly activate the planetary shield before his scraps of remaining bioenergy were also exhausted, as another of his bodies moved to focus on the Celestial with the help of one of his hosts.
…
Susan was currently on a private tennis court that was part of the building, practicing against a machine that shot tennis balls at Mach 1 minimum. Dressed in a white sleeveless top, a matching miniskirt, and tennis shoes, she looked positively stunning.
"Sue, I need your help. Come on," Alex suddenly appeared beside her and grabbed her arm. Before she could react, Alex teleported her away, leaving the ball that had already been shot to strike the wall behind her, leaving a cracked indent as it bounced around.
The two of them appeared in the space above their planet. Sue looked at Alex with a frown.
"What's wrong?"
He gestured to their front with his chin, prompting Susan to look forward, only for her to squint her eyes at the burning yellow mass the size of the moon floating in the center of the Gaia Cluster. If it were anyone else, that was all they would see, but Susan was also very sensitive toward Cosmic Energy due to her powers, allowing her to also sense the colossal amount of that energy that was present within the sphere.
"What is that?" She asked, unable to look away for a single moment. "Did you create your own sun?"
"This isn't the time to explain. I need your help to contain it," Alex said. "Don't resist, I will take control of your body."
Before Susan could respond, Alex wrapped around her body, forming a black bodysuit as she felt her control slip away from her own limbs, leaving her to feel as if she were merely a passenger in her own body.
As Alex activated her powers and amplified them to the scale of the moon, Susan caught a glimpse of a crimson light on the other side of the glowing sphere. As Alex made her float closer to it, she noticed a head of glowing red hair on the horizon. She immediately identified the woman as Wanda after sensing the energy around the redhead.
[She seems mad…] Susan said to Alex telepathically.
[I've been making her do too many things recently. She just needs a little coaxing.]
Symbiote 0447: A Crazy Plan (2/2)
Alex waited for a few seconds, not receiving any response from the incubating Celestial in front of him. He didn't give up, however, using various means to contact the entity to convey his intent to communicate. Unfortunately, even as he used the Mind and Soul Stones to directly convey his thoughts to the infant Celestial, it remained dormant. Though, despite the minor setback, the lack of response from the Celestial emboldened Alex somewhat as he felt it provided credence to the theory that the Celestials were also in a slumber like the Dimensional Lords and equivalent entities.
"Are you truly not conscious, Tiamat?" Alex's question was half directed at himself. While he would have loved to wait for a few minutes, or even longer, to see if the Celestial responded, Alex was on a time crunch. Every second that he maintained the barriers around the planets consumed thousands of units of Bioenergy, forcing him to speed things up.
Receiving no indication of the entity's consciousness, Alex no longer hesitated and shot forward, passing through the eggshell and coming face to face with the slumbering infant Celestial. With his current sensitivity to Cosmic energy, Alex could very well sense the swathes of it swirling all around the inside of the egg. While outside, all that was present was an inordinate amount of liquid magma. Inside, a large amount of Cosmic Energy was simply floating all around, slowly being absorbed by the incubating Celestial.
"…" Without a moment's hesitation, Alex tried to draw the energy into himself, only to encounter a significant amount of resistance. Frowning, he continued attempting to draw it in, going so far as to use Chaos energy to trap a single strand of the energy and forcibly pull it into himself.
Finally, with his fragmented Cosmic Manipulation mixed with Susan's Ambient Cosmic Manipulation that specifically focused on the skin, Alex finally drew that tiny strand of Cosmic Energy into himself.
[Cosmic Energy +0.02]
The moment the notification flashed in front of his eyes, Alex's eyes saw a whole different vision.
It was a scene from a few minutes ago, specifically when Alex had triggered an almost-riot in Talokan, causing the death of multiple people. Following that scene, he saw the entire lifetimes of every single one of the twenty or so Talokanil that had died. Simultaneously observing the life of those people from the point of their birth to their death. If it were anyone other than him, they would have instantly been overwhelmed by such a massive amount of information.
For Alex, however, who was used to constantly maintaining over fifty bodies at any given time, not to mention Gaia herself, who drew a part of her processing from him while relying mostly on the physical servers on Research Earth. To him, this influx of information was merely another Tuesday. Even then, however, he felt a faint sense of exhaustion creeping in due to the sheer amount of information that he had just processed in an instant. To maintain his peak state, he was forced to prematurely tap into his reserves of Soul Energy.
While this confirms that I am on the correct track regarding the generation of Cosmic Energy, the sheer amount of data and experience contained within is mind-melting… It's no wonder that the Inhuman from Hydra Earth that could use a tiny sliver of Cosmic Energy essentially possessed no personality.
Sighing, Alex brought his attention back to the situation at hand. While he wanted to absorb the large amount of Cosmic Energy right now, he had no such means to do so right now. Considering the effort he needed to expend to extract a tiny sliver of it, he needed to come up with a better way to deal with this raw Celestial Energy.
It's interesting that I would specifically see the memories of those that died in Talokan… Could be a coincidence. But it could also be something else.
He brought his attention back to the Celestial at hand.
"I was pretty confident in devouring you after seeing the state of your slumber, Tiamat, but this whole thing with Cosmic Energy has once again made me hesitate," Alex said to Tiamat. "I guess I really need a Celestial if I am going to get my hands on freely usable Cosmic Energy…"
After a moment of thought, Alex ignored the swathes of raw Cosmic Energy all around him and floated forward to stop right in front of the massive head of Tiamat. Even in an infantile state, it was almost as large as the moon, making Alex look like nothing more than a speck of dirt in front of it.
Undeterred, Alex raised his palm and placed it in the center of the Celestial's head, right between his six eyes. Instantly, an endless quantity of black material erupted from the point of contact as Alex controlled it to cover the Celestial's head. Just as the coverage area grew close to one of the eyes, having already covered miles, Alex encountered resistance. As his material tried to spread further, the Celestial's innate defenses seemed to get triggered as the same energy field that had blocked him from entering the core started pushing against him, trying to force him back. Not only that, but he was also dealing with the equivalent of an impenetrable wall as he tried to phase into the Celestial to further his goal, but it was proving to be impossible with his current means. After a few attempts, he realized that going inside the Celestial was a pointless effort right now, so he brought his full focus to the force field that was resisting his expansion.
At first, he was successful in using the physical strength provided by his Cosmic Physique to push back and continue expanding against the efforts of the force field, but let alone break, the force field seemed to be like some kind of stretchy membrane that was slowly getting stronger the more Alex pushed against it.
By the time he'd covered the distance between two adjacent eyes, the membrane had grown too strong for Alex's physical strength. Even after using enough strength that would otherwise casually shatter entire planets, he was helpless against the pushback of the membrane. Worse yet, he had to maintain his full resistive force throughout the process to prevent the membrane from further pushing against him and reversing his progress.
Watching his dwindling amounts of Bioenergy and the fact that he was already using Soul Energy to maintain his current state, Alex realized that he probably wouldn't be able to achieve his goal immediately. To that end, he made a final decisive move by once again activating the stones to their fullest power and even infusing the traces of Cosmic Energy that he had just gained into them. His Bioenergy consumption shot up exponentially as he used the authority of the six stones to wrap around the egg of the Celestial.
Forming a clear image of how he wanted to warp reality, he shared his intent with the stones, and they immediately released a blindingly bright light that momentarily surpassed the sun itself, releasing a scorching heat all around the surrounding area as Alex felt a huge drain on both his mind and body, feeling as if he'd just been rammed by a truck. Considering that was exactly how he found himself here in this universe, he felt an ironic sense of amusement at the situation.
When the blinding light faded, Alex saw in front of him the normal core of the planet formed from red-hot crystalline structures of iron compressed to a ridiculous degree. Not only that, but he also observed the edge of a lab at the core of the planet, already chock-full of all of the machinery needed to activate the planetary shield, powered by the geothermal energy of the planet's core.
He had essentially copied the planetary core of Research Earth and warped reality to paste it here.
As for Tiamat, who used to serve as the core of the MCU Earth in the past, its egg now had a new location.
Alex's body went into the lab to quickly activate the planetary shield before his scraps of remaining bioenergy were also exhausted, as another of his bodies moved to focus on the Celestial with the help of one of his hosts.
…
Susan was currently on a private tennis court that was part of the building, practicing against a machine that shot tennis balls at Mach 1 minimum. Dressed in a white sleeveless top, a matching miniskirt, and tennis shoes, she looked positively stunning.
"Sue, I need your help. Come on," Alex suddenly appeared beside her and grabbed her arm. Before she could react, Alex teleported her away, leaving the ball that had already been shot to strike the wall behind her, leaving a cracked indent as it bounced around.
The two of them appeared in the space above their planet. Sue looked at Alex with a frown.
"What's wrong?"
He gestured to their front with his chin, prompting Susan to look forward, only for her to squint her eyes at the burning yellow mass the size of the moon floating in the center of the Gaia Cluster. If it were anyone else, that was all they would see, but Susan was also very sensitive toward Cosmic Energy due to her powers, allowing her to also sense the colossal amount of that energy that was present within the sphere.
"What is that?" She asked, unable to look away for a single moment. "Did you create your own sun?"
"This isn't the time to explain. I need your help to contain it," Alex said. "Don't resist, I will take control of your body."
Before Susan could respond, Alex wrapped around her body, forming a black bodysuit as she felt her control slip away from her own limbs, leaving her to feel as if she were merely a passenger in her own body.
As Alex activated her powers and amplified them to the scale of the moon, Susan caught a glimpse of a crimson light on the other side of the glowing sphere. As Alex made her float closer to it, she noticed a head of glowing red hair on the horizon. She immediately identified the woman as Wanda after sensing the energy around the redhead.
[She seems mad…] Susan said to Alex telepathically.
[I've been making her do too many things recently. She just needs a little coaxing.]
***
A little while before Alex initiated his absurd plan to turn the MCU Earth's incubating Celestial into the core of the Gaia Cluster's formation, Wanda arrived in the Gaia Cluster, specifically, what used to be Hydra Earth.
Their arrival marked the start of an entire month of ceaseless debauchery as Alex thoroughly satisfied all of Wanda's carnal needs without pushing any of her limits by trying new things. He didn't deepen the bond either because he was looking for a good chance to do so with her. This month was thoroughly about indulging his feisty red-haired Chaos Witch.
At this point, her desire to thoroughly drain Alex dry had been buried by the sheer overwhelming experience of every single day.
With a satisfied and thoroughly drained libido, Alex decided to push Wanda to get a hobby. This was something he'd been doing for all his hosts after realizing how tasteless every single one of their lives were. Their time spent aside from doing things for him and having sex with him was painfully low. That was why he'd been either subtly or overtly guiding each of his hosts to do more things.
For example, Susan was quite fond of playing tennis as a way to wind down after Alex introduced her to a good trainer. Scientist Gwen, on the other hand, had picked up gaming a few years ago. If he didn't specifically hold it back, she would have already pushed a revolutionary change to the Gaia bracelets to bring forth the next generation of virtual reality games. Alex had stopped her from doing so because of the sheer implications of such a technology. He naturally didn't just want it to be used to make hyper-realistic games.
Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to get Natasha to pick up anything of the sort despite trying for a decade. The thing that lasted longest was streaming games, but that also got boring for her after a year. Her training in the Red Room included all sorts of things, and she could never truly use an average hobby to wind down.
As for Spider-Gwen, her only hobby could be considered swinging around to play Spider-Man. Finally, Laura just had too much baggage to give Alex a chance to give her an actual life. He hoped that after the meeting with the remnants of the X-Men and her father, she might be able to grow out of her bubble.
Regarding Wanda, Alex realized that she'd apparently always wanted to try to paint, so he immediately got things rolling and got her a tutor. Despite spending a very small fraction of her time practicing every day, she had grown quite proficient and even found her own preferred style of drawing in two months.
Though soon after, she fired her tutor without any prior indication, and Alex thought that she'd decided to give up on it, only for her to block him for a whole twenty-four hours. Of course, considering Alex's current powers and the depth of his bond with Wanda, it was impossible for her to actually block him without severing her body from her soul completely and forming a new body for herself.
Ultimately, she negotiated that she wanted to give him a gift and that he couldn't see it.
Alex indulged her as usual and agreed, not going for any foul play either, truly interested in playing along with the gift that Wanda wanted to give him.
As it would turn out, it was a painting of Wanda herself. One with quite a sexual connotation. She wasn't naked; if anything, her state of dress could be considered complete with the black cocktail dress and the pair of matching heels she wore. It was the add-on that made the image sexual.
She was wrapped in a leather harness over her dress, with her breasts being significantly emphasized as her nipples poked through the fabric of her dress, showcasing her lack of underwear as she stood with a slightly shy expression, her hands behind her back as she looked down while biting her lower lip.
"No wonder you fired the guy," Alex couldn't help but say as he stared wide-eyed at the picture. "You saved his life."
"You could have just wiped his memories, you know?" The Wanda that stood beside her portrait was the stark opposite of the painting. With slightly disheveled hair and paint all over her clothes, including a few splotches of red on her face, she looked quite sloppy. A rare look considering how clean and perfectly dressed Alex usually kept his hosts. Yet the wide, pleased smile on her face that radiated happiness completely overshadowed everything else, even the painting.
"Like you wouldn't be the one to kill him first if he saw you in this?" Alex said, tracing his fingers over the painting's face. "Shall we recreate it in real time?" Alex gently took the painting from Wanda's hands and sent it into the Chaos Tower. He specifically placed it in a large empty room where all of the sexual paintings Wanda made in the future would be stored. There was already another room that held her more normal paintings, like simple portraits of Alex and herself, or landscapes.
"No, I stink…" She pushed him away just as he took the painting from her hands. "Let me shower first."
"Yeah, fuck that," Alex said, snapping his fingers as Wanda's hair was automatically straightened out, the paint stains on her face disappeared, and any hints of sweat and grime on her body vanished entirely. The only unclean things that remained on her body were the white t-shirt that was no longer white and a pair of loose, light blue jean pants, also covered in splotches of paint.
Alex closed the distance and immediately pulled up her top, getting an annoyed look from Wanda.
"If you were going to do this anyway, then why forbid me from using my magic to keep myself clean?" She asked, putting her arms on his shoulder after he pulled her top off. "Magical cleaning doesn't count as breaking the normalcy rule."
"That was when I expected it to be a portrait of me," Alex said. "That image was too hot."
"You've put me in sexier restraints before…" She rose on her toes and leaned forward, capturing Alex's lips in a kiss as he worked on her lower.
[Something about the fact that you drew yourself like that is quite a turn-on…]
Alex quickly freed Wanda from her painting outfit, as she called it—one that wasn't made by Alex, hence his patience in taking it off normally.
Within seconds, Wanda was naturally raised a little as the same black heels formed around her feet, along with the cocktail dress that barely went to the middle of her thighs.
It was followed by the leather harness that she had drawn, wrapping around her body, constricting her chest and most of her torso as it hugged her figure, emphasizing all the right curves.
"Hehe," Wanda suddenly separated from Alex, smiling cheekily at him. "You broke the no Symbiote clothes rule."
"I'll take the penalty," his voice came out throatily. "I'll eat you out until you are nothing more than a blabbering mess."
"I feel like I got the short end of the stick in that penalty," Wanda said. "How about you also let me use magic for a day?"
"Not a chance. And if you do, expect to enjoy a full day with my cock down your throat."
She pouted, only for Alex to kiss her again as he grabbed her thighs to pull her up, prompting her to wrap her legs around him.
…
Almost a year had passed since Alex and Wanda moved to Hydra Earth to enjoy two years of relaxation. Wanda had already drawn enough bondage portraits of herself to fill half a wall in the room in the Chaos tower, repeatedly leading to multiple days of sex as Alex specifically took inspiration from the image to choose Wanda's bondage predicament. Instead, the room that had been designated the painting room was now severely lacking since Wanda had completely shifted her focus to the sexual portraits of herself after the first one.
Today as well, Wanda was locked in, fully focusing on painting a new pose and outfit before Alex pulled her out of her flow.
"I need you to do something," he said, immediately getting a wrathful look from Wanda. It was clear she was thoroughly irked about being pulled out of her flow state.
"We are on vacation," she said flatly.
"I know, it's not too complex, just a few minutes, tops."
"Can't we delay it until my painting is done? I'm feeling so inspired right now," she said, glancing at her incomplete sketch with a regretful look, knowing that her moment of inspiration was now gone.
"I know, I'll make it up to you, I promise," he said. "It's an urgent thing that needs to be done for Gaia right now."
"I thought you would plan things out…" she said with a sigh as her frustration drained away.
"Things don't always go according to plan. I thought I could handle it myself, but I couldn't, and I can't reverse things anymore. It's already done."
"What do you need me to do?" Wanda asked.
***