Ultimately, breaking his bond with Jane may have been painful, but it had practically no long-term effects on him. With the shallow level two bond he had with her, there was little backlash that he had to deal with. If anything, it was worse when he broke his bond with MJ, considering that he'd already formed the Level 3 bond with her while Jane was barely at Level 2. As for ‹Lightning Divinity›, the three variants of Thor he devoured did more to enhance the ability than Jane ever could.
As his multiple bodies dealt with their respective situations, Alex was intent on truly gaining something significant after he got rid of Jane. And that something was one of the reasons that he decided to move away from Jane. There was another, much better person he had in mind for a primary bond on one of the Earths that he'd been exploring.
Earth-121698B
This planet was similar to the ones that had first formed into Gaia. Both those Earths had practically no superhero presence beyond the existence of Spider-Man and his related characters. This one was very similar, where the only prominent superhero presence here was that of the Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom. This Earth was the primary reason that made Alex wary about the non-existence of Doom in any reality that he'd gone to. He was forced to come to terms that his multiversal variants were most likely planning something huge. The fact that even some obscure variant of the man, from an Earth that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, was also nowhere to be found cemented that belief. At some point in time, the numerous variants of Doom were going to launch an attack, and they were another thing that he had to be prepared for.
In the meantime, he wanted to form a primary bond with one of the women with the most versatile powers in the universe. Susan Storm. Luckily for him, the version of her on this Earth was in one of the most convenient situations for Alex to not only bond with her but also not antagonize Reed Richards. If anything, he wanted to play things in a way that would make it so that Reed would end up joining his Research team and help Gwen develop a Dragon Ball Radar for Infinity Stones. The two of them, alone, weren't having much luck with it despite having spent over a year working on it, and Alex believed that adding one of the brightest minds in the universe might help with their little problem.
The four had just returned from their expedition to space after being blasted by the cosmic cloud, and were unconscious when they were brought here. With some machinations from Alex, the four of them maintained their unconscious state for over a month while he covertly took over their planet's complete administration structure. The main issue was whether he was going to take over Doom's persona, or if he was going to simply act as if he were the new CEO of the man's company after he was ousted by his shareholders. That state of indecision had lasted for a week as he continued medically delaying the awakening of the to-be Fantastic Four.
Ultimately, after seeing the massive power that Wanda now held, Alex became a bit more confident about surviving in front of cosmic threats. Once he made his decision, he didn't hesitate before breaking his bond with Jane. The woman's own power was all borrowed from external Asgardian weapons, and he couldn't just devour those weapons for their abilities, which meant that even if he deepened the bond with her, there was little chance that he could the cosmic energy manipulation that she possessed. Adding to that, their sheer incompatibility, his decision to break the bond didn't cause him to hesitate for long.
While he could have maintained his bond with Jane and simply made a move on Susan, he wanted to keep the primary bonds limited to six in total. He didn't want to give his full focus to any more aspects of himself than that. Of course, the secondary and tertiary bonds were a different thing. He didn't mind making as many of those as needed. That's because secondary bonds were easy to deal with since he wasn't actively involved in every action that those women took. While he had a direct line with them, it was limited to simple communication. The tertiary bonds were even easier since all he gave them was a rudimentary version of his symbiote form, with certain activations for whenever they needed to do something. They didn't even have a direct line of communication with him.
Now, however, it was time for him to get himself a bond with a woman who possessed one of the most broken powers in the universe. The funniest thing was that she had no idea about how truly broken her powers were, and reduced them to invisibility and forcefield creation.
…
Alex, in the form of Victor Von Doom, walked through his penthouse suite and entered a large bedroom with a full floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the New York City skyline. A few blocks in the distance was the Baxter Building, while some distance away from it was the Headquarters of Von Doom Co. It was an aeronautics company founded by Victor, and was the reason that the Fantastic Four could even make their foray into space and get their powers.
The room, however, was filled with multiple large monitors and medical monitoring equipment. On the bed lay a woman who had all of that equipment attached to her through various means and had an IV drip attached to her arm. Her blonde hair was splayed all over her pillow, and a peaceful expression was on her face. Despite having been bedridden for almost two months now, there were no traces of her being malnourished. She was Susan Storm, staying separately from her other three teammates, who were staying in a private medical facility that belonged to Doom's company.
"Damn, I'd forgotten how beautiful she was…" Alex mumbled as he looked at her. "Do I still want to pretend to be her boyfriend, or just be open with her from the start… I don't want a repeat of what happened with Gwen, that's for sure. But she has a weirdly headstrong personality, and that might make the relationship full of conflict, like with Jane. There's no way in hell I'm going to pretend to be Doom all the time, that's for sure."
He continued looking at her face while deep in thought about what he had to do.
"I would've just killed Reed and been done with it, but these four have that weird cosmic resonance thing going as well… I can't be sure she will keep her powers if one of them dies. While it's possible that might not happen because there are other versions of Reed in this universe, I can't take that risk."
After spending almost thirty minutes deep in thought, he decided on his plan of action and raised his arm. A black mass shot out and struck Susan Storm's stomach before being absorbed into her. Since he had no plans of separating from her, he directly formed a level one bond with her. To go any deeper, she needed to be awake and accepting of his actions at a minimum.
{ «Status- Host #6»
«Name: Susan Storm (Invisible Woman)»
«Bonding Rate: 0%»
«Bonding Level: 1»
«Powers: Hyperspace Physique — Ambient Cosmic Manipulation — Hyperspace Psionics Manifestation»
}
Alex felt a sense of giddiness the moment he saw her powers highlighted on Susan's status panel. Although he himself was the one who aligned her abilities into those three categories, visibly seeing them highlighted on his new host's status panel was a different feeling altogether. He'd chosen ‹Hyperspace Physique› for the ability that made her cells able to interact with ambient light and cosmic energy and turn her invisible, ‹Ambient Cosmic Manipulation› for her ability to control the interaction of ambient cosmic energy with her cells, and ‹Hyperspace Psionics Manipulation› for her ability to create invisible psionic constructs.
"All right…lots of schemes… The first thing that I need to do is to send Reed and Ben away to Research Earth. They can contribute to my Infinity Stone Radar while also staying away from Susan. Keeping Reed away is the only way that I have of forming a relationship with this Susan…without modifying her memories…we all know how that went," Alex spoke to himself before glancing at Susan again. "Once those two are sent away, then it's going to be time to wake her up. In the meantime, I'm going to analyze her physique and see if I can replicate her cells so that I can somehow interact with ambient cosmic energy."
As Alex continued his musings, a nurse knocked on the door, and he beckoned her inside. She demurely entered and mumbled a polite greeting to Alex and started taking notes of Susan's vitals. Alex didn't disturb her and was mostly focused on delving into the makeup of Susan's new and mutated cells to see what her physique was all about. He left the woman to her work and made his way to the medical facility where Susan's brother Johnny, Reed, and Ben were stationed.
***
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