CH13- Euphoria

Azrael Maximoff View

I assembled everyone on the second floor of the warehouse. I had already informed them of my plan, and what they needed to do. I pulled the mind stone out of the scepter and got an immediate response from the gem.

The direct contact made the gem glow brightly and slowly start flaring its energy. I looked at everybody and nodded at them. They nodded back and got ready in case I'm out for a bit.

We all acknowledged that the longer I kept this stone, the longer and easier they track us. It was better to absorb it now rather than later. I looked back towards the stone and took a deep breath, giving myself soft words of encouragement.

I focused on the energy and began to attempt to synergise with it. The attempt had a staggering success as the yellow energy enveloped my whole body.

"Haah." I groaned. The sudden outburst of energy had caught me off guard entirely. If they couldn't ping our location before, they definitely could now. A thought crossed my mind as I allowed the vast amount of energy to flow through me like a river.

'Vision not Ultron will exist in this universe now, how will that effect the future? Well for starters, Sokovia won't be damn near blown to kingdom come and Wanda will have to find a new partner..'

In this moment, it doesn't feel like I'm changing a lot, but there's a few key points I could be missing.

After a few minutes, another outburst of energy came from the stone, but after that, I had completely drained the stone, leaving it colorless and useless.

The feeling I felt right now was nothing short of euphoric. Instead of going unconscious like I thought, it was the complete opposite. I'm on a high of power, I feel on top of the world!

I looked down at my hand and admired the glowing energy. My mind and body has changed in ways I can barely comprehend. I feel my mind accelerating and my muscles expanding.

"How do you feel?" Wanda said, worried about my silence. I finally acknowledged everyone else in the room and nodded.

'I need to calm down before I get ahead of myself. Even if I've absorbed an infinity stone, Thanos could still easily dog walk me without his sword and gauntlet.' After calming down, the rest of the energy had finished absorbing and settling into my mind and body.

I looked over the railing and locked my eyes onto Strucker's sitting figure. I outstretched my hand and closed my eyes. I feel something, I feel the psionic abilities strengthening themselves already.

A yellow hue enveloped my hand, similarly to how Wanda's chaos magic surrounds her hands. I lifted the chair Strucker was seated in, and brought it up here. Using my newly discovered telekinesis, I ripped the chains off and threw the chair back down.

My attention was then diverted to Laura. We all gained everything we wanted to know from this man, and his services were no longer needed, but non of us had the right to murder this man, except Laura.

"None of us deserve to kill him except Laura, so let's leave it to her." The five of us went down stairs to leave Laura with her business. I was behind everyone, when Laura grabbed by arm, making me turn my head towards her in confusion.

"What is it-?" Laura had unexpectedly pulled me in for a kiss. For a moment I was stunned and couldn't compose myself, but I pulled it together and briefly kissed back.

It was short, but it displayed and represented everything we needed to say to each other, but could never find time for it. This was her saying thank you, for everything, and potentially the possibility of a future together.

She then did something else unexpected, she gave me a smile! Not like those small smiles or forced smiles. It was a genuine, regular smile.

I smiled back and continued on my way down stairs.

'I'm glad she appreciates me for how I look. I'd probably attribute that to her years of being tortured and hunted, well really her entire life. She's seen and been through much worse than my face. Besides, I'm still hot as shit. Thanks Dabi.' I gave a mental thanks to the burned boy that would never hear that thanks.

When I made it to the bottom floor, everyone except Pietro were indulging in some form of conversation. It looked like he was waiting for me.

"What?" I asked what, but seeing the smirk on his face just about told me everything. He saw me and Laura kiss.

"So, when were you gonna tell me you planned on kissing Laura? I knew from the beginning that you two had something going on." I subdued the butterflies in my stomach when I thought about Laura.

"It wasn't exactly planned brother, in fact it was unexpected. But it was a pleasant unexpected experience." I said, failing to stop a grin from sprouting on my face.

Even though I was gaining exponential strength in such a short amount of time and becoming such a strong entity, just from a kiss from a woman had me feeling like some kind of high-school boy. It made no sense.

'Do I love her?'

That word. Love. It made me feel butterflies again. In my past life I never truly loved a partner before, but this was different. We aren't even dating and I feel this way!

"Sigh." Love is so complicated.

I pushed down my internal dilemma down and focused on my new attained powers. I sat down in a chair in the corner and started to think.

'Ah, yes, my X-Gene.' I stretched out my hand and focused on trying to manifest ice. It was harder than I thought it would be. If I didn't absorb the mind stone, who knows how long it would've taken me.

After a few minutes, I managed to get a mist that hovered over my palm. I focused on trying to form actual ice, when Pietro called my name, pulling me out of focus.

"Azrael, I think it's best we start planning for another relocation. Now that Strucker is gone and you've absorbed the stone which makes it untraceable, we can get onto the plane plan."

When he said Strucker was dead, I turned towards the railing on the second floor and noticed the blood dripping down onto the ground floor.

'She took a little while.' I thought for a second. In the end, it wasn't my concern and I doubt she'd be doing anything to compromise the mission.

I diverted my attention back to Pietro and nodded towards him.

"I'll be there in a second." He turned back with the others, now with Laura, and started to discuss further.

I looked down in my palm and was surprise. Instead of the previous mist that was hovering over my palm, there was a puddle of water that was in my palm.

The water felt much easier to manipulate rather than trying to instantly make ice. I then tried to turn the water into ice, which worked splendidly.

'It seems I merely started off on the wrong foot.' I continued experimenting for a few minutes before returning to my team for slightly more important matters.

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