Ch 63: Someone More Powerful

[Japan - Tohoku ]

As the Stealth Ship entered Tohoku's airspace, Erik expanded his telepathic range to scan any noteworthy anomaly in the region. 

'But boy oh boy... I don't sense anything at all with my telepathy not even a whisper or a blur. It seems like a telepathic dead zone. And I bet that it's not because of some natural phenomenon but a man-made technology.'

Surely, they had set up such a region because they were hiding something from someone. Erik had a pretty good idea of whom they wanted to hide this region from - Charles Xavier.

And it was obvious to figure out why would someone want to hide a place from that self-proclaimed mutant well-wisher. The people who were occupying the region were doing something nasty to mutants.

His smile widened thinking of coveting the technology for himself.

"This must be to hide something significant, likely from Charles Xavier," Erik told his companions, his smile widening, "Let's see what they're hiding."

Now, then the first order of business was to find the enemy's hideout. 

But before that, he needed to take care of something. 

Since he couldn't spot the enemy, he needed to not let the enemy find him too. 

And there was only one person who could jeopardize that — Shilpa. She was a mutant. In most of the cases, the bad guys of X-Men had multiple ways to sense mutants. 

So, Erik asked a Chitauri soldier to fetch her the 'Choker'. This Choker was built by taking the mutant-suppressor collars as inspiration, however, it didn't suppress mutant powers, it just stopped others from locating X-gene.

He had built this device for himself initially since he needed X-genes in his new body and wanted to avoid detection. But honestly, he wanted to avoid wearing a choker and make a bracelet or something but it was not possible.

Fortunately, after some research, he was able to remove the element in the X-gene that allowed detection with no side effects. 

Erik was able to alter the X-gene but couldn't build a tech that could block detection... this was mostly because Erik wasn't a genius himself, he relied on Maw's memories and experiences for such tasks and Maw was a better doctor than an engineer. Torture and Surgery were his favorite part of the day. 

After informing the girls about the anomaly he discovered, he asked Shilpa to wear the Choker after telling her its purpose, the teenage girl had no problem wearing it. 

Cindy eyed the choker and asked, "Do you have something like this but prettier?" 

"Uh, nope..." Erik replied after a short pause.

Cindy wanted one for herself as an accessory but when Erik denied having a better-looking one, she noted in her mind to find a good one in the market.

Finding a flat-topped mountain, he parked his Stealth Ship. Before exiting Erik stored his Ebony Maw suit in [Beelzebuth's stomach]

Erik also noted to upgrade his suit for more functionalities. He had quite a haul in the battle with Infinity Ultron after all. He wanted a nanotech suit that he could wear anytime, however, Iron Man's nanotech suit would take quite a lot of time to analyze...

As they stepped out of the ship, their feet dug into the soft snow of northern Japan. It was just a couple of hours before noon, but the sun was hidden behind the clouds. 

Erik tested a few of his abilities in the devoid snow and discovered that all of them worked fine and his Telepathy was not blocked to be exact. 

It was just that wide-range scanning using Telepathy was not possible in this region due to some interference. And also with the amount of interference in this region, no one from 'outside' would be able to communicate with Telepathy in this region. 

Using Telepathy INSIDE the region to enter people's minds was possible with rather ease.

This made Erik even more sure that this was made especially to avoid Charles Xavier's Cerebro.

But what would they do when someone more powerful than Charles appears? Or someone who had a better Telepathic amplifier than Cerebro?

From [Beelzebuth's Stomach], Erik took out the Sceptre. 

A fucking Infinity Stone.

As he held the Sceptre in his hands, he observed the glowing stick for a few seconds and then closed his eyes to concentrate.

The Sceptre was an ancient artifact that had Mind Stone at its core. 

It was in Thanos's possession for thousands of years. A powerful tool that helped create the hive mind of the Chitauri army. 

The Sceptre was also used by the members of the Black Order. At one point in time, it was the main weapon of Supergiant, Ebony Maw's older adoptive sister. Supergiant used to be Ebony Maw's mentor and treated him as her little brother, she was especially fond of him but not more than Thanos obviously. 

Anyway, she taught Ebony Maw many things, even told him about her powers since Ebony Maw was a strategist and he needed to know everything about her powers to use her better. She even told him how she used the Sceptre to amplify her Telepathic and Mind-Control powers. 

And Erik had all of Ebony Maw's memories... 

Right now, he was using the Sceptre to amplify his Telepathic powers to a degree where the interference wouldn't affect him. 

Golden waves of energy radiated outward from the Sceptre's core, creating ripples that pulsed through the air. 

The Sceptre hummed in his grip, amplifying his telepathic reach and allowing him to probe deeper into the region's concealed corners.

However, two spots located at different locations offered a bit more resistance than the others.

Since he didn't want to alert the enemy in case they had a telepath with them too, he stopped his probing. He didn't want to lose the element of surprise.

Erik slowly opened his eyes as he finished sensing the area. "I've found them."

Through his wrist terminal, Erik tried to collect information about the suspicious spots, 'they must've installed some nice, hackable cameras', he thought, but he failed to get anything at all.

Whatever technology these guys were using seemed way too rare, it could block telepathic as well as electronic probes huh...

He was more determined to take it for himself by any means.

But still, Erik wasn't one of those who would barge into enemy territory gung-ho. Even when he raided Hydra bases or when he raided Stryker's base to steal the DNAs, he collected information first.

And he would do so again.

From the [Beelzebuth's Stomach], he summoned a dark purplish vortex through which [Resurrected] Dr. Strange, Wong, Wasp, and finally Wanda walked out. 

This Docter Strange didn't have the time stone, the stone was on Thanos's gauntlet and Watcher confiscated Thanos's stone when he was returning.

Remembering Watcher's unfairness, a dark, cold look fell on his face. The 5th-dimensional voyeur had used him through and through. 

First, he summoned him to fight a deadly battle with Ultron, then used him as bait for Strange only to use Cindy to eliminate the evil sorcerer, and then after all that, extorted all the stones out of him.

He wasn't that mad about getting the stones snatched, Watcher reasoned some natural order bullshit but he shouldn't have used him as bait. 

'I'll have my revenge in the future...' He shrugged.

Meanwhile, the Wanda of this universe frowned looking at the resurrected Wanda, "I didn't know you had a spare Wanda too, Erik."

Erik came out of his thoughts and chuckled, "I had already shown you my memories of the battle. That Wanda helped me the most, how could you overlook her?"

"There were too much to many of your zombie soldiers to notice." Wanda humphed.

Cindy giggled at their interaction, while Shilpa was just too shocked to witness Erik's ability to summon humans as servants and a freaking duplicate Wanda.

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