198 Chapter 0198: All-Out Assault (5/5)

When Wiccan emerged from the Mirror Dimension while holding his mother in his arms along with the scepter, he witnessed the scene of Apex blasting Captain America with a blast of concentrated lighting that blew the man away into a cliff, causing the huge structure to crack due to the effects of the attack.

"No rest for the wicked," He mumbled as his head turned in the direction where the beam of lightning originated. Seeing the unfamiliar form of Apex yet feeling a familiar energy from it, he identified Laura. Narrowing his eyes as he felt her erratic aura, Wiccan was about to approach her but then heard her roar loudly directly in his direction. "Okay," He backed down and flew higher, not involving himself in the battle. He'd already taken out the heaviest hitter from Hydra's side.

Just as he thought that he was out of the vicinity of the battle, he felt the space above him fluctuating. He groaned weakly, "Return to where you came from, I need to tend to my mother." He felt an untold amount of his magic being sapped away from him when he cast that spell. Sadly, even that wasn't enough. The portal nonetheless formed above him as he almost lost consciousness from the loss of energy.

"Hi, honey," He heard a voice that made him open his eyes in panic, "You're so strong, Billy."

"M-mom…" Wiccan felt a shock journey through his body as he saw his mother descend in front of him. Unlike her usual red outfit, she had distinct streaks of gold and blue in it. There was no tiara on her head, but there was a natural golden glow to her crimson hair. She had an undoubtedly holy aura around her that almost made him want to worship and kneel before her.

"Let mommy have that, okay?" The Angelic Wanda spoke as she bent slightly forward and grabbed the staff that contained the Mind Stone from Wiccan's hand. His eyes widened as he tried to stop her, "Thank you for the gift, honey." She smiled and gave his forehead a loving kiss before slowly dissipating away, leaving hints of gold dust that soon got blown in the wind.

Wiccan was left frozen in his place for a while. Only when he felt that his actual mother was slipping from his arms did he come back to his wits, "She took the Infinity Stone," Wiccan felt like he'd just been cucked. And by his mother no less, or at least a version of her. "Fuck." He quickly used the last remnants of his energy to teleport himself and his mother away to a safe place before he fainted.

…

Alex had noticed the presence of the Mind Stone on Wiccan but decided to take it for himself later. He was currently embroiled in conflict with multiple Inhumans who all seemed to be out to get him. Captain America had already planned an ambush for Laura and these Inhumans were presumably brought here by the man who was previously trying to hypnotize him.

'Well, that doesn't help…' Alex saw an unfamiliar version of Wanda appear in front of Wiccan and take the Mind Stone from him. He was still embroiled in conflict with the weak foes as he played around, but that soured his mood completely.

'I have fucking competition now. Great.' Alex couldn't help but curse inwardly, 'It's fine, I just lost one Infinity Stone. There are like forty copies of just the Mind Stone,' He consoled himself while burning with fury on the inside. He'd just decided to delay taking the stone and in ten seconds someone came up to him and snatched it away from him.

Laura was leisurely playing around with the hydra people and the hypnotized Inhuman, but she then felt Alex's disarray, [You okay, buddy? You seem like you just lost your dick or something.]

[Close enough,] Alex was too tired to even quit, [A random Wanda Maximoff just came along and snatched away the Mind Stone.]

[Oh…] Laura didn't react much, [Did the stone contain an important person's mind?]

[Huh?] Alex took a second to realize that Laura had no idea about the Infinity Stones, [It's an Infinity Stone, Laura. The one that has control over the aspect of the Mind throughout the universe. At least a fragment of the Mind Stone.]

[I'll show you later.] Alex said. He didn't want to use the Time Stone right now in the middle of this battle unless completely necessary. Quite a few of the people here had powers that would require the Time Stone to utilize a huge amount of authority. Alex could still manage the EP consumption for that, but he had better uses for that EP. Like sensual massages that led to wild sex. And also strengthening his girls. Those things were a much bigger priority for him.

This was also the reason he didn't attempt to freeze the Angelic Wanda in time. He was partially sure that she also had a Time Stone or two lying around while also being strong enough to at least resist the effects of the stone by herself. If he'd tried hard enough, he could've gotten the stone, but the cost just wasn't worth the reward. Not to mention that he was already eying several Infinity Stones with his slimy tentacles at the same time. That would come later, however.

Eventually, Captain America emerged from the rubble, apparently still alive, albeit barely. Half of his body had been blown off as his symbiote slowly attached itself to the lost parts of his body, recreating them to look the same as the original. At this point, the man didn't care for his public image and swung Mjolnir at Laura, holding on to it to quickly approach her.

Laura, still in her Apex form, just without the symbiosis state, got ready to take the blow head-on. However, something appeared in the man's trajectory that caused his hammer to collide with a force field in mid-air, halting his attack.

Laura looked to the side and saw a familiar face. She had an expression of struggle on her face as blood ran down her nose, "Hi," Laura waved at the woman casually, "I don't really need you to put yourself out there, there are better battlefields you can be on." Laura punched down two Inhumans as she said those words, they were both spewing fire at her, but it didn't seem to affect her in the least.

"I'm taking him," The woman said as she looked at the man with an expression of hatred. She didn't listen to Laura's words for much longer and groaned painfully before compressing her forcefield around Captain America.

"You obviously have something personal against the man," Laura nodded, "I can respect that. Let me help you out though." With her words, Laura released a distinct energy signature that made all energy-sensitive people on the battlefield look at her in shock.

They had all just recently experienced a storm of that energy, albeit brief, that had killed a large number of people from both sides.

Laura used Chaos Energy to manipulate reality in a way that Alex was able to get access to Captain America's symbiote without being affected by the force field that Invisible Woman was still compressing.

Moments later, the man in question slammed Mjolnir on the ground while screaming in pain as parts of his body started disappearing. Alex was devouring his symbiote.

His attempt at escape proved futile as he repeatedly tried to use Mjolnir to break through the forcefield, but it didn't budge. It didn't take long for Alex to completely devour Captain America's symbiote, leaving the man weak and crippled. Just as Alex left the range of the force field, it compressed almost instantly and crushed Captain America in a ball of flesh and blood.

The force field disintegrated as the woman slumped down on the ground, tears in her eyes as she wailed weakly to herself while curling up in a ball in the middle of the battlefield.

[Important lesson here, kids. Don't kill Susan Storm's brother.] Alex joked in Laura's head.

[This is serious, Alex.] Laura said while feeling bad for the woman. She had witnessed the raw emotions that the woman put in that attack and how she crumbled down once the target of her hatred was gone.

As Laura was feeling pity for the poor woman, Alex had other thoughts. With his newly acquired sensitivity toward Cosmic Energy, he could see how it was directly fueling her power. Invisible Woman didn't directly use Cosmic Energy, but a derivative of it in the form of vibrational waves that allowed her to do all that she was doing.

Alex was sure that if he bonded with her, she could be a heavy hitter on par with Jane and Wanda.

'Not this version though,' Alex thought to himself, 'She's going to lose her powers sooner or later since one of their Fantastic Four is dead…'

Alex decided to add bonding with a version of Susan Storm to his to-do list.

"Let's wrap this battle up, everybody." Reed came down to Susan and hugged her while taking control of the battlefield.

***

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