Symbiote 0283: Jackpot

"What is it?" Emma spoke defensively as Alex led her to a separate conference room. She was tense, ready to instantly unleash all her abilities if the need arose. After the backlash from the Mind Stone when she tried to read Apex's memories, she was wholely underconfident in her abilities.

"Wear this," Alex handed her what seemed like a small belt. At second glance, she realized it was a choker, similar to the one she was wearing at the moment.

"That's an interesting proposition," She couldn't help but quip while examining the choker. "I usually wait until the third date before getting intimate with my partner."

Alex gave her a look, "Maybe I'll let you join my inner circle once this planet submits to me. For now, that choker will serve as the point of contact between us. Wear it."

"I'm telling you beforehand, I'm more into being submitted to than submitting," The woman was still joking but still took off her pure white choker that matched her dress for the black one that Alex gave her. "With the way you talk, unless you are a closet submissive, I don't think it's going to work between us."

"I'm not hitting on you with this. It's just the aesthetic I follow," Alex shook his head. "I have to maintain uniformity when it comes to my representation, don't you think?" With his words, the choker tightened around the woman's neck and affixed itself semi-permanently.

[Can you hear me in your head?] Alex asked as Emma recoiled.

[Holy fuck. I've never had someone bypass all my defenses to interact directly with my consciousness like that.] Her suggestive tone conveyed that she was speaking in innuendos.

[Well get used to it. And don't try to read my mind with our mental connection. I established our connection using my Mind Stone.]

[So you really don't have any psychic defense other than the Mind Stone? Interesting.]

[I'm still working on using Chaos Magic to set up an innate mental defense, but it's still a few ways off.] He shook his head. [Now move on, I am a busy man.] Alex spanked the woman's butt as a sort of revenge for her previous teasing.

The blonde looked at him in outrage, but he had already disappeared.

…

As the days passed, Gwen quickly got integrated into The Defenders, acting as a sort of fourth member. As for Alex, he had already started infiltrating the upper echelons of Gwen's planet. With his hypnosis abilities, it was a piece of cake for him to set up an identity that would subtly gather power unnoticed by the Illuminati until it was too late. At the same time, he made sure to constantly monitor Emma Frost. He had chosen her as his 'ambassador' for a reason. He made sure that she wouldn't abruptly mess up his plans and remove the hypnotic suggestions that he used.

Luckily, she was self-aware enough to recognize the predicament that she was currently in a compromised state. She had stopped attending the Illuminati meetings and had even pulled back from many of her administrative duties related to the X-Men. Still, the woman wasn't one to go down without a fight. She was actively doing her best to infiltrate Alex's consciousness through their connection, forcing him to keep up his use of the Mind Stone.

He was forced to constantly expend Bioenergy to offset the backlash of using the Mind Stone, making it an expensive endeavor. Still, he didn't have much of a choice and was forced to use thousands of units of Bioenergy every day. His only saving grace was his two major and consistent sources of Bioenergy: The Widows on Earth-Z, who were working very efficiently to bring in at least a thousand points every day by killing abominations, and his Prisoner Farm on Farm Earth, which was barely generating ten to twenty daily points of Bioenergy, but factoring in the time dilation of one space day to one year in Gaia, that was equivalent to at least four thousand points per day.

Of course, his costs not only included maintaining the use of the Mind Stone but also regularly using the Time Stone to maintain the time dilation for Gaia. His initial system would have barely lasted for five years and it had been well past a decade in Gaia since he took over. This was all because he was constantly using the Time Stone to maintain the time dilation for his cluster.

However, his days of being low on Bioenergy shouldn't last too long. Alex was very hopeful about the prospects of the Prisoner Farm ever since he got access to Qi. In merely six years under time dilation since Natasha and Xialing had moved to Research Earth, he'd already awakened almost fifty prisoners, which allowed him to extract Bioenergy from them directly in the form of Qi. He'd gone from a mere two points a day to twenty with just fifty awakened prisoners. Unfortunately, he was limited by the amount of Qi that the Great Protector could provide him daily. For now, that severely limited his prospects of Bioenergy collection. But he was working on ways to not only expedite the awakening process but also establish a growth system that would enhance the amount of Bioenergy he could get from a single person. Eventually, he would be able to collect hundreds of points of EP a day, or even a thousand.

[We've made a decision. Please come to Stark Tower for a meeting.] Alex heard Emma Frost's voice in his head.

[I'll be there soon.] His tone was grumbling since he wasn't used to people other than his lovely hosts speaking in his head. He decided to make sure to keep telepaths at arm's length; not only because of the costs involved in blocking their mental influences, but also because he wasn't comfortable with these people speaking in his head. Unlike mental communication with his hosts, which was a pleasant and intimate experience, mentally communicating with a telepath was downright aggravating because of the intrusive feeling that accompanied it.

'Telepaths are truly the bane of my existence…' He lamented.

It didn't take long for Alex to directly teleport to the Illuminati's meeting room. His appearance made everyone in the room flinch, T'Challa and Tony directly jumped up, ready to fight as their respective armors made their presence known on their bodies. At the same time, a gold Eldrich magic circle appeared underneath Alex, intent on suppressing him, but it directly shattered once he appeared.

"Nanotechnology, nice," Alex smiled, happy that his intended purpose had been served with his appearance.

"I thought you said you could block teleportation within this room …" Tony's voice came through his visor.

"I also said that it was possible to brute force it if one possessed or was willing to expend the necessary energy," Dr. Strange retorted. "Apologies, Mister Apex. We just didn't expect you to drop in like this."

"You completely expected me to drop in announced like this," Alex said. "And this is the last time that I am willing to entertain one of your tests. The next time will result in a dear loss. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," He nodded. "Shall we get to the main agenda?" Strange wanted to move on from the hostilities as soon as possible, not wanting to antagonize the man further.

"What is it that you want me to do in exchange for your surrender?" Hearing Alex's words, Strange and Tony both stared a look.

"We will surrender. But you have to show us that it's worth it for us to invest in you. Take care of Shang Chi without any further civilian casualties and we will consent to our planet's integration into Gaia. One condition, however. If you attempt to bring about any radical policies that harm the livelihood of the citizens, we will fight tooth and nail despite the odds." Dr. Strange's words brought a smile to Alex's face.

"You don't have to worry. If anything, my world domination comes with the bonus of the abolition of any major wars that are going on in the world along with a somewhat symbolic world peace."

"We'll believe it when we see it," Tony wasn't completely convinced by this man who conveniently appeared when their entire planet was on the line.

'I feel like we've become one planet of many who are going to be a part of a tug-of-war between this Apex and that Scarlet Angel or whatever …' Tony's thoughts were both somewhat correct and completely incorrect at the same time.

"Miss Wilson, I would like to borrow your new team for some of the grunt work. Follow me, I will brief you on the plan to take care of Shang Chi. As for the rest of you … just mentally prepare yourselves to come under new management."

…

As Alex fully leveraged his strength to intimidate and coerce the Illuminati, Gwen was busy working with her new team to clear out another bomb site in Brooklyn.

"Need some help, Spider," Jessica spoke as she tackled three people at the same time.

"In a minute," Gwen was dealing with five. Though her problem was less about dealing with them and more about making sure she didn't accidentally kill one of them. Two whips appeared in her hands, wrapped around her forearms as she directly swiped one of her opponents and shot the other at one of Jessica's opponents. It destroyed the momentum of Gwen's opponents. She jumped and used one of them as a springboard to jump toward Jessica, taking down one of the two left on her side. Within a few moves the two women had taken care of all their opponents and continued making their way down the stairs.

"You're strong, Spider," Jessica spoke, her admiration directly visible. "I think you can even give Cage a run for his money in strength.

"Thanks. Did you receive any communication from those two? They were supposed to meet us at the top of the stairs.

"They'll be fine. We should move as quickly as possible to take care of the bomb first," Jessica spoke as the duo quickly made their way down to the bottom.

"Yo, what's up?" Iron Fist greeted the two at the bottom with three other people.

"Do you think they're doppelgangers?" Gwen asked Jessica, ready to fight.

"Wouldn't hurt to beat them up just to find out," Jessica said as the two women made their way forward.

"Woah Woah Woah~" Iron Fist raised his palms up in defeat. "In our defense, we were waiting for you two up there. Then these two ran into us. Next think Luke and I know, we're down here." He quickly explained the situation.

That was when Gwen finally focused on the other two people in the room. One was a white-haired cat-like person, adorned in full black leather while the other was a redhead dressed in a funny-looking yellow and red costume. The redhead was urging the white-haired woman to work faster as she worked on disarming the bomb.

'She's pretty close to Alex's type,' That was Gwen's first thought when she looked at Black Cat.

"You two must be Black Cat and Jackpot," Jessica spoke, identifying the two.

'She looks familiar … I'm just unsure,' Gwen felt that something was amiss with Jackpot.

***

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