222 Symbiote 0222: Stone Conjunction

"I have to commend her, she gave us a pretty nice ship …" Alex was looking around the deck and seeing all the interesting features, he couldn't help but whistle.

"Do you know how to fly it?" Jane asked him flatly while looking around.

"Yeah," Alex gave her a nod, running his fingers over the control panel in appreciation of the build, "I can remotely pilot it, so there's no need for us to sit in the seats either."

"Great," Jane nodded, "I'll be off in the resting bay then, taking a nap." She turned around and walked through a random doorway, leaving an amused Alex who focused on getting the ship to fly.

As for Jane, she was walking around aimlessly with no idea where the resting bay would even be present.

Just as she turned a corner, a pair of arms wrapped around her — one around her waist and the other a little bit above her chest. Stopping in her tracks, she showed some weak struggle without saying anything.

"Speak your mind, Jane," Alex said to her, "We have a while before we get to Morag."

"What's there to talk about?" She said with a hint of fatigue, "I can never accept being second fiddle to another woman. I think the story is clear."

"What makes you think that you're second fiddle, Jane?" Alex asked her. His hand traced higher from her chest to her face and he grabbed her chin — forcefully — turning her face to look at him despite her resistance.

"Well, technically, I'm seventh fiddle, no?" She said, sarcasm slipping in her tone as her eyes spat fire at his face.

A sigh escaped Alex's mouth, caressing the side of Jane's face with a ticklish touch, "You aren't, Jane," He said, "I think that you are well aware of that fact. I don't pay one of my hosts more attention than the other. You have all of me at all times. Whether that's a good thing or not is still debatable."

"You can say that all you want," Jane said, "But that's just a lie you go around telling your so-called hosts. You can't seem to accept the fact that you are a greedy dick who can't control himself."

Hearing the words that came out through her gritted teeth, Alex felt himself at a loss, "That's not the reason for that," He said with a forcefully calm tone, "My choices for my hosts come from a necessity and you know it. I bonded with you because of how compatible you are with my lightning-based abilities and how you have the ability to work with cosmic energy. And once I decided to bond with you, I was always sincere. Maybe coming off as sleazy, but I did not lie to you about anything."

"How am I supposed to trust your words?" Jane asked, her voice quivering imperceptibly, "That means that I'm nothing more than another power-up for you. Which is even worse."

"I know you can accurately discern the truthfulness of my words and even see if my intent is truthful or not, Jane," Alex said. "You are much more than a random power-up for me. Your headstrong personality, the way you just choose violence over talking, I love all of that. It took me two months to get it into your head that you deserve better than a slow, agonizing, and depressing death. Let me show you the 'better' that you deserve."

Throughout Alex's words, Jane's face maintained a stoic expression, "Who's your favorite?" She asked.

Alex blinked, "What?"

"Which host," She asked, "is your favorite? Don't even think about lying about loving everyone the same. I can tell."

"Why do you want to know?" He asked her, "I'll adore and pamper you as much as you can handle and then some until you're left a dependent and blubbering mess who can never even entertain the thought of separating herself from me."

Alex could notice her cheeks heating up, but she maintained her stoic expression, "Answer the question, Alex."

"Why do you even want to know?" Alex asked, not wanting to give her the answer.

"Answer me," She said, arcs of lightning appearing around her arms and her pupils took on a deeper blue than the usual ocean blue as if lightning was flashing within.

"Wanda," Alex said, deciding to give in, "You happy now?" He asked her.

The lightning disappeared as a sly smile appeared on Jane's face, "Maybe," She said, "Now let me go. I want to rest for a bit."

"Fine," Alex shook his head and freed her, "But don't think you're getting rid of me that easily. I'm coming to bed with you."

"I'm not in the mood for sex, Alex," Jane said flatly.

"We can do other things in bed," He said.

"Yeah?" She said, "Like what?"

"It's better that I show you those things instead," He said, grabbing her hand and pulling her with him.

The blonde woman's helpless sigh was all the agreement that Alex needed. He had more than enough ways to coax her as long as she didn't completely resist him like before.

…

As Alex focused on beguiling Jane with sweet words and actions, he had a body in the cockpit of the ship flying it, deep in thought.

'I'd hoped that the stones would already be on Xandar, considering that according to the MCU timeline, Star-Lord should have already taken the Power Stone and dealt with Ronan.'

Alex thought to himself while piloting the ship. After The Guardians dealt with Ronan and the Kree army, they left the Power Stone on Xandar under the care of Irani Rael, an action that ultimately painted a target on the Nova Federation's back, inviting Thanos to them. But at the current moment, both Irani Rael and the Power Stone were nowhere to be found in Xandar, instead, they ended up finding the Soul Stone on the planet as if it had appeared out of nowhere. Not to mention two pieces of the Soul Stone.

'Now I see two things having happened here, either the High Evolutionary took care of her, or she disappeared with the stone to evade Thanos. I'm leaning toward the second option, because that way, I would at least have a lead.'

Alex hummed thoughtfully as he got an idea. Quickly enabling the autopilot of the ship after having put in the coordinates of the dead planet, Alex looked within himself, particularly at his soul which had three bright dots nested at the center of the perfectly spherical ethereal entity. He brought his focus to the orange gem, the Soul Stone that had a slightly brighter glow than the other two.

'Such small artifacts, yet even divided, they each contain a power that can rival the strongest of beings. Even going as far as to affect the whole universe as long as they are channeled correctly.'

He appreciated the Soul Stone's more rounded shape in comparison to the other two which both had jagged edges and seemed like rocks that had broken off while the Soul Stone seemed to have been carved into its spheroid shape, but that wasn't the only stone that he needed right now. He needed the power of the Mind Stone along with it to execute his idea.

'Now that I have the Soul Stone, the Mind Stone's capabilities should undoubtedly be enhanced by a wide margin.'

Alex's thought was followed by the mobilization of the Mind and Soul Authorities of both stones simultaneously, using the Soul Stone to empower the Mind Stone. He willed the stone to show him the threads that would connect him to all living beings in existence before using the Soul Stone to search for a specific mind among the trillions of threads that were connected to the Mind Stone.

'Fuck, I gotta hurry up, I'm already down a thousand EP …'

Alex's realization came with the understanding that if the powers of the stones were going to enhance each other in a multiplicative manner, then the strain on his existence when using that authority was also going to increase in a multiplicative manner. As more and more of his EP started to be consumed to make sure that the strain on his existence was mitigated sufficiently, Alex saw the threads all growing fainter as thirteen of them became more prominent than the others, each showing a different scene of Irani Rael.

'Motherf—' Alex suppressed a curse as he realized that although there was only one Xandar, there were multiple leaders of the planet in this universe, 'And not a single one of the thirteen is actually on Xandar,' Alex complained inwardly before filtering them further such that he could pinpoint the one whose thoughts were dominated by the Power Stone.

With his filtering, more of the threads grew fainter, leaving three, who all had their thoughts dominated by the Power Stone, 'This is the best I can do …' Alex realized as he saw his EP go down to alarming rates. Quickly marking the three Nova Supremes so that he could get their location when needed, Alex stopped mobilizing the authority of the two stones.

'Almost 1700 EP down …' Alex shook his head, 'These stones are going to be a bottomless pit of EP until I start generating Cosmic Energy in the Gaia Federation.'

"First Morag, then these three women. Best case, I can get three fragments of the Power Stone. Worst case, I still get jackshit," Alex spoke to himself, deciding to focus on piloting the ship to Morag before doing anything further.

***

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