Chapter 0195: All-Out Assault (2/5)

Captain America burst into the bunker through the main door, bringing everyone's attention to himself. The members of the Underground ignored Laura and Iron Man flew higher from his original spot, floating in front of Captain America and the other Hydra members who had broken in alongside the man. At a glance, Laura saw some familiar faces like those of the Defenders, Baron von Strucker in some sort of cyborg form, and Arnim Zola in a completely robotic body. She counted more unique people on Hydra's side than the Underground, not to mention the hundreds of basic Hydra grunts that were behind them. She also noticed that Scarlet Witch seemed to be strangely missing at the moment.

"Let's just get this over with, I guess…" Tony said while looking at the cold face of his old comrade. Just as he said it, he pointed both his repulsors Captain America, and blasted them at the man.

And then, pandemonium broke as the battle turned into an all-out brawl everyone started fighting. Though it was mostly the people with the more basic abilities. The true higher-ups of both Hydra and Underground — other than Iron Man and Captain America, were still standing back, probing the strength of the other party.

Captain America blocked Iron Man's blasts with his shield before shooting a lightning blast at the man, blowing him back before he could react. Even before colliding with the wall, Tony's suit stabilized mid-air as it took a much more bulky form. It seemed to have been made of nanites that turned it into a much stronger variant, "This is the Thorbuster as I like to call it." Tony commented before charging at Captain America once again.

At this time, Alex was going through the large number of people that Hydra brought with them and noticed some anomalies. A couple of the heroes that Hydra had brought with them were Inhumans. He was sure that Inhumans were being persecuted by Hydra, which led him to a conclusion that made him wary for a moment. He recalled the possible mind controllers that could be working for Hydra. Searching for some specific people in the crowd who were standing behind the main line of combat, he heaved a sigh of relief when he identified the man behind this anomaly.

[Laura, follow my lead.] Laura heard in her head and instantly, she felt much more connected to Alex. He'd brought her to the state of semi-merging with him such that they had perfect synergy in their actions. He camouflaged Laura while also suppressing her sense of hearing, and they started moving. Laura would've asked why Alex did that, but she understood the reason behind his actions within moments, their current state being enough for her to know exactly what Alex wanted to do and why. They quickly crossed the battlefield without getting embroiled in the conflict and reached the group of people who were just watching the conflict.

Laura specifically stopped in front of a person and stabbed her invisible claw through his heart, making the man groan in pain. The camouflage disappeared, revealing Laura as Alex's black substance extended out of her claws and enveloped the man, devouring him instantly.

"Doctor Faustus!" There was an exclaim from the side, identifying the man whom Laura had just killed. She was instantly attacked by Arnim Zola as the robot punched her. She stomped her foot on the ground and a wall of black appeared in front of Zola's fist that promptly went through the hastily-created shield. However, it slowed down the momentum enough that Laura grabbed the fist with both her hands. Some tentacles extended out of her arms and held the robot in a tight grip. Then she flung him away and into the ground before blocking a blow from Cyborg Strucker, who had merely half of his face, the other half was metallic.

"Stop," Laura said and Strucker instantly halted in his place, unable to disobey her command. Not wasting any time, she punched the cyborg's chest, throwing him away before he could snap out of it. This was the result of the technique that Alex got from devouring Doctor Faustus. Having quickly processed the monstrous genius of a psychologist's memories while focusing on his knowledge of psychiatry, he was able to derive a new ability based on the man's technique.

‹Hypnosis›:: Through the modulation of the voice, it is possible to hypnotize weak-willed beings and even momentarily incapacitate strong-willed ones for a limited time. Limited to Vocal Hypnosis.

Although Alex could manipulate people to an extent through his biological manipulation, it was a very brute-force method that usually resulted in some damage being done to the original recipient. In most cases, he was just taking control over someone's body and trapping their mind. With this, he now had a concrete method to manipulate people's minds correctly.

Sadly, Alex couldn't get the full range of Doctor Faustus's abilities. There was no real superpower to devour here. It was just an extensive amount of knowledge and experience that the man possessed and utilized for his hypnosis. Since Alex was only copying the knowledge without the application aspects, it was undoubtedly going to be somewhat weaker, but it should still work.

After punching away Struker, Larua didn't waste any time in moving back to the Underground's side. Just as two of Hydra's higher-ups pounced on her, she disappeared from her position. Moving unimpeded, with her speed, she was back behind the line of defense of the Underground within a second.

She startled some of the people as she appeared, but she just turned to the smartest man in the destroyed room, "Doctor Faustus is dead. I'm going to free the Inhumans from his influence."

Mister Fantastic didn't even have the time to react before Laura disappeared once again.

"She may have killed Charles, but she still ended up taking his role," said Susan Storm who was standing beside him, biding her time.

"That might not have been a coincidence," Reed said as he saw an Inhuman who was breathing fire at Ironheart turn around and attack the Hydra soldiers who were supporting the main attackers. He narrowed his eyes and said, "She's turning them against the very people who enslaved them."

Saying that Laura was freeing the Inhumans was not completely accurate. She was using Alex's new hypnosis technique to break Faustus's command and instill her own command to attack the Hydra forces. However, since Alex wasn't spending time biologically manipulating the Inhumans' brains and they were only working with the hypnosis, the easy acceptance was only because they were already inclined to attack the Hydra forces. Alex would need time and practice with hypnosis to pull it off as smoothly as the late Doctor.

Laura's actions just made the Inhumans somewhat more focused on what they already wanted to do. It also made sure that the more meek ones weren't startled in the middle of the battle, getting meaninglessly killed in the process.

By the time Captain America noticed Laura's actions, she had already freed half of the Inhumans under Hydra's control. His face twisted into an annoyed expression and he roared in Iron Man's face. In that instant, a green sheen appeared all over his body as he exposed one of his trump cards. His symbiote. It formed over his body like a bio-suit and he was quickly able to get the upper hand against Tony's improvised Thorbuster. This one didn't have a star's worth of energy powering it, so its capabilities were severely limited, barely being able to keep up with Captain America before. With the Hydra Supreme exposing his symbiote, Tony wasn't a match.

His roar seemed to be a war cry that made all forces of Hydra converge toward the battlefield. Even the ones who were staying behind and observing started running toward the battlefield. At the same time, Laura and Alex felt a foreign influence acting on their body and the bodies of all the Underground, suppressing everyone. It felt both familiar to her and yet unfamiliar. She instinctively tried to use Alex's Chaos energy to resist the influence, but Alex stopped her and they continued freeing the Inhumans with a much lower efficiency.

By the time she was done with two more Inhumans, she found herself unable to move, "Hello dearie…" She was face-to-face with a woman dressed in red as she radiated an immense crimson aura around her. She was the source of the suppression around them.

"Scarlet Witch…" Laura's eyes narrowed as she extended her claws, but she was still unable to move, needing Alex to utilize either his Chaos Energy or the Time Stone to get freed. But he wasn't using either of those powers since they would give Laura away as a much stronger opponent.

"Let's see what makes you tick, shall we?" Just as the possessed Scarlet Witch said those words, a blue beam of light blasted toward her that she was forced to defend against. The red glow around her got focused on the blue beam as she turned the energy into her own, sending it back at the assailant.

Wiccan swatted the energy blast away and floated in between Laura and Scarlet Witch, "I'm your opponent, bastard," He growled before attacking Scarlet Witch.

As for Laura, she was freed the instant Scarlet Witch released her influence and stepped away from what was going to be a destructive battlefield, the same as everyone else. Just as she was about to continue freeing the Inhumans, a lightning bolt appeared in front of her as Captain America appeared from the dust. Along with him were two unknown people whom she didn't recognize.

***

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