"What a surprise," she spoke to herself while looking down with slight surprise. "This presence feels familiar, hmm... Was it from when I collected the fragment of the Mind Stone? Yes, there were two symbiotes on that battlefield."
She continued floating above the ground and simply waved her arm. The entire New York Sanctum was dismantled into its constituent bricks and stones that separated, opening the inside of the building up to her. In the center of the newly dismantled building stood a tall, monstrous entity with slightly feminine features that radiated a purple aura of devouring. Beside the monster was her herald, Agatha. All that was left of the woman were her bones and saggy skin that looked like it was barely attached to her bones.
"Oh dear," Wanda frowned at the sight. "She's practically dead… I'll have to look for someone else to take care of this planet now. No worries, it is barely a minor inconvenience." Wanda pointed her finger at the monster responsible for everything.
She didn't release any energy or show any signs of casting a spell, but still frowned moments later as a powerful shockwave of crimson Chaos energy was released from the monster.
Agatha's body was immediately obliterated, getting caught in the blast that destroyed a large chunk of the visible parts of the Sanctum.
"Hey! You're trespassing," Wanda announced. "This is my planet, and you can't eat it or whatever you're doing right now."
Apex looked up at Wanda as Alex and Laura separated mentally due to the massive amount of energy that was released due to repelling Wanda's attack.
Alex's first thought was about his gains from the large-scale utilization of ‹Soul Devour›.
Since it wasn't a pure devouring of living beings but of the more ethereal energy that was within the planet's ley lines, it couldn't simply be stored or added to Soul Energy. Instead, Alex directly utilized it to enhance his soul. To make it more robust and solid. With the colossal scale of energy that had been taken, he had brought the abilities of his soul to a whole different level. His focus, instead of expanding his capabilities, had been to consolidate what he already had. With his new enhancements, he could completely keep his hosts isolated even if they were in the ‹True Merge› state with him. That state wouldn't spill over to his other bodies and hosts, making it possible for him to achieve that state with multiple hosts simultaneously if necessary. The main benefit was that he was no longer worried about the Level 7 bond, which involved the nervous system and the brain.
After Laura's recent experiences with him, he had been concerned about overwhelming her sense of self if their bond went too far. But with his new enhancements, he had enough control and stability to perfectly maintain control over such a situation. Not to mention, doing the process with multiple hosts would've made things more complex and risky for both him and his hosts.
"Hmm… I'm going to start investing more in my soul's enhancement from now on," Alex said as he separated from Laura. "Especially if I'm going to form more of these secondary and tertiary bonds."
"How peculiar," Wanda spoke with a curious tone as she descended before Agatha's corpse. With the interruption of the devouring spell, Agatha's connection was also broken. Without serving as the medium that allowed Apex to devour the energy from the planet's ley lines, she immediately died. "You have autonomy and sentience."
"That and more," Alex said. "How are you doing, Wanda?"
"Please, I prefer Scarlet Angel," she said. "Do tell, why are you here, and why are you ruining everything? Did you somehow not notice the planet-wide barrier surrounding this large rock? There are thirty-five unclaimed planets that you could have gone for."
"I saw you take the Mind Stone from William," Alex said.
"Oh, were you planning to take it?" She asked. "Well, finders-keepers. If that's all, allow me to send you on your way."
"Hold up," Alex said. "I have a question. What are you doing with those crystals? This whole system with chaos chips that you are spreading through all five of your planets. What are you doing with it?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" She said. "Too bad. You will have to figure it out by yourself."
"You are trying to find some way to use the Infinity Stone fragments without any backlash, aren't you?"
"Tread carefully, symbiote," Wanda said. "You may not be able to live much longer if you go too far."
"The name's Apex," he said, undaunted. "We could work together, you know."
"You are desperate to mitigate the backlash of using the Stones, aren't you?" She said. "Do you know why it is so bad?"
"Probably because the stones are fragmented. If they were whole, channeling their power through a medium or an artifact would have been much more straightforward."
"Anywho, time to leave, tata~," she said. Immediately, a portal was formed behind Alex and Laura that sucked them inside it.
"Seriously? Do you think sending me to the sun is going to be enough to kill me?" Alex said with a scoff as he and Laura disappeared into the portal. "Your troubles are just starting, Wanda."
The voice echoed through the room as Wanda frowned. With a thought from her, everything in her surroundings ceased to exist and vanished.
"I feel like this symbiote is going to be more trouble than I thought…"
"You have no idea, Wanda." A mystic arts portal formed in front of her as Alex walked through it, alone. "Hi, how are you doing?"
…
"What's wrong?" Laura asked as she appeared in a familiar bedroom. She was back on Farm Earth, in the White House. "I thought we were going to fight her."
"Fight her?" Alex asked with a laugh. "I'm going to such that woman dry of everything she has. First off, the person we encountered was just an incarnation of her real self. Second, did you see how perfect and seamless her spells were? Not a hint of Chaos energy was leaked, no matter what spell she cast. Not to mention, I sensed hints of multiple authorities on her. She has quite a few Infinity Stones, and if I want them, I have to play my cards correctly. Third, with the way she responded, I am confident that she has a way to use the Infinity Stones freely, and it must have something to do with that whole faith system that she keeps advocating everywhere."
"What about the others?" She asked. "Kitty and Yana."
"They're all fine," Alex said. "I have a different task for them."
"What?"
"I'm still figuring that out."
"I thought that you would send them to join the Widows on my Earth."
"I was going to do that initially. The two of them and Ororo would've done well there," Alex said.
"Ororo?" Laura asked, frowning.
"Don't you remember? I met her during the recruitment process for Kamar Taj. She's the only one, aside from me, who survived. I've already formed a Tertiary Bond with her. I was going to send her to the Widows alongside Illyana and Katherine. But after what just happened, I will use them to infiltrate Scarlet Angel's other planets and eventually take control of her entire regime. You wanted them to have a more active role in terms of my subordinates. That gives them some very important things to do."
"I guess that works as well. But we didn't get any real battles. You just sucked the life out of Agatha and I didn't even get to fight her."
"You will have ample time to fight once we move to Earth-Z. It's time for my Widows to take over Stark's Bastion. I want to expand the Sanctuary's operations and bring your planet into Gaia now."
"Should we go right now? I don't really feel like involving myself with the kinky plays you do with MJ and Felicia right now."
"Well, you'll be glad to hear that I no longer have a primary bond with MJ," Alex said. "She's been demoted to tertiary."
"You can do that?" Laura asked.
"Not really," Alex said. "It was a pretty tiresome process and only worked because of how little emotional attachment I had toward her and never bothered deepening the bond significantly."
"Well, good for her," Laura said. "What's she doing now that she isn't permanently tied up in either that cage or in the dungeon?" Laura pointed at the cage beside the bed.
"She's now permanently tied up on the farm," He said.
"You finished that place?" Laura asked.
"Only a little while ago," he said. "The system isn't yet fully automated because Gaia is still being trained and developed. That's going to take a year or so more."
"You've finally fulfilled your greatest perverted dream," Laura said with a defeated sigh. "Treating women as cattle."
"Do we need to have that conversation again?" Alex asked. "The only ones there are women on death row. Instead of dying, they are now benefiting society as a whole. Plus, MJ isn't the only pervert who decided that such a life sounds enjoyable."
"Seriously?" Laura looked disturbed. "There were women who voluntarily entered that prison?"
"Enthusiastically, might I add," he said. "A number of hardcore sex clubs have clientele that is into such extreme things."
"I fear for the future of humanity, Alex. I genuinely fear for what might happen to humans after they are under your rule for a hundred years."
"Immense prosperity," Alex said. "I'm a dictator who has ambition beyond imposing power over my people. Right now, I am doing everything from the shadows, but once your planet gets integrated into Gaia… That will be the true advent of my empire."
"You'll finally be an actual dictator instead of one who operates from the shadows."
"At one point, every dictatorship has the potential to become a monarchy. And for that to be accomplished, we need time."
"And time is something you have an abundance of, considering how heavy the time dilation here is."
"Naturally."
"Come on, take me home," Laura said as she grabbed his hand and tugged lightly. "I wanna beat up some abominations."
***
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