Hearing Nat's words, some of the women were hesitant and quieted down to think. Some had resolute looks on their faces as they decided to stay.
At the same time, some of them didn't even think before moving to the left side.
By the end, the numbers practically halved as half of them wanted to never fight again.
Nat looked at the ones who wanted to leave, "Yelena will guide you all to the hangar, there is an aircraft that will take you away from here. Yelena," Nat looked at Yelena.
She guided the Widows out to the hangar. Nat had already shown her a rudimentary map of the fortress so she knew where to go.
"Now, to you guys. Are you sure?" Nat asked just this.
"We're sure." There was a collective answer. One of them came forward and said, "I think I speak for everyone here when I say, it will be extremely difficult for us to get used to a normal life after so many years doing nothing but killing and destroying. We can't have a normal life. Even with free will, we would've become mercenaries and bounty hunters." She said.
"I appreciate your honesty. And this is one of the main reasons that I decided to take over the Red Room and make it a subdivision of the Avengers. We will act as a peacekeeping force for the world. Uprooting the Cartels and the Families which have too much of an unfair advantage and are unrestrained in their actions. We will be targeting them."
Seeing that none of them budged, Nat didn't ask again. She got up from her chair and walked up to them.
"Fine then, you guys can move to your common room and do whatever you want. I'll be deploying you all on missions in groups of two's to gauge your capabilities and understand how everyone works and does things together. Then I'll decide on everything and make a streamlined communication process. By then, the widows that are deployed around the world will also most likely come back." Nat told them.
"Also, I'll be setting up benefits and a job structure for you all. You aren't eternal slaves and will be paid for your services just like employees and will be contacted by me. I'll let you all know about it after I set everything up." She dispersed the widows.
"This might be a bigger pain than I expected…" She commented.
[It'll be fine. I'll tell you about something that I ended up doing recently. I took over Wakanda.] Alex dropped the bomb on her.
"What?!" She jumped up from her seat. Black tendrils started extending from her body and Alex's figure formed in front of her.
"Yes. I've taken care of Killmonger and taken his place. I'm in control of that entire nation now. And I have a huge number of things planned." He told Natasha.
"You've taken over Wakanda." She looked at him with disbelief marring her face.
"Yep." He told her.
"The same one that we went to?" Natasha just couldn't believe it.
"Yes." He walked over to the seat that Nat was sitting on and sat on it.
"Holy fuck…" She was going to need some time to come to terms with everything.
…
In Research Earth.
"Finally!" Alex looked at the vial of substance that would allow him to make himself immune to the whole sound and heat bullshit.
Ever since he'd gotten the data to create Extremis from Laura's Earth, he'd been working to incorporate its properties into himself.
This was the method that Tony Stark had used during the run of Superior Iron Man to create his strongest suit— The Endo-Sym Armor. It was basically a suit that he'd created using Venom and incorporating it with Extremis to combat Venom's weakness to heat and sound.
Alex looked at the vial that would fix almost all his problems with an almost longing look before shaking his head.
'Not yet.' He wasn't going to directly inject it into himself. He would be running some tests on this first.
Alex looked at a glass box beside him and separated a part of his body before sealing it inside the box. Though this was different from his usual body creation.
This time, he didn't forcefully control this body with his own will. He gave this part of the body free reign so that it could develop its own consciousness. He was basically using the usual reproduction method of the Klyntar race.
A part of the symbiote body that wasn't controlled by a consciousness would automatically develop its own consciousness.
'Now we wait.' He thought. This process could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days.
"What are you doing, Alex?" Gwen asked from the side. She'd been a part of the whole process of the development of the cure. She was a vital part since she was at her core a biochemical engineer and she was perfect for this job. He hadn't told her about his testing process.
"You know how we made this to combat an issue with the suit, right?" He asked.
"Yeah." She said.
"Well, what I just did was instruct that bio-suit to split a part of itself and store it in that container. Now the catch is that it's not controlling that split body, unlike the other times that it has formed clones, this time, it's not in control of that part of its body. What this does is that it allows this piece right here to form its own consciousness to become a living being. It's like how cells divide, or how microorganisms asexually reproduce." He gave an example.
"I see… And how long will this process that?" She asked as she looked at it with fascination in her eyes.
"Probably an hour or so. Normally this process isn't that long and can be completed within a few minutes, but the situation is a bit complicated. Less time is taken when the reproduction process is natural, but what I did is to force the reproduction, hence it takes more time to develop its consciousness." He explained to Gwen.
"So interesting…" She and Alex spent the next hour or so studying the unmoving blob of black slime while Gwen asked more about the symbiote's physiology.
Finally, there was a twitch in the blob that was present in the glass case.
"It's developed its consciousness." Gwen looked at it and Alex thought, 'Could I devour more of these to increase my mental capacity?'
Not wasting any more time, Alex injected the fluid of substance into the blob that had just developed its consciousness.
'Now we wait before the testing period…' He thought. A few seconds later, "This might take a bit longer…" He said as he turned to look at Gwen with a look that told her about his intentions.
"No horny!" She bonked him on the head.
"But, Gwen…" He looked at her incredulously.
"Come on, big boy. Not here. We have so much more to do. The shield still hasn't been completed." She appeased him.
"Fine." She could've sworn that he was pouty as she looked at him.
…
Soon, Alex left Gwen to her tasks and came to test out the effects of the Extremis formula on his new symbiote 'child'. One that he will be devouring soon.
He pressed a button and an imperceptible high-pitched sound was released within the chamber of the symbiote. It was isolated within the chamber so that it wouldn't affect Alex.
The symbiote acted as if it couldn't hear or feel anything. And that was all the reaction that Alex needed to know that everything was perfectly fine.
'4 different tries…' He thought as he looked at the symbiote that was finally unaffected by sound. He'd already tried this 3 times on his own before bringing Gwen into this since that involved telling her about his weaknesses which he didn't want to do. But in the end, he had to ask for her help. And it worked perfectly with her assistance. She was a genius biochemist for a reason.
Looking at the immune symbiote, Alex decided to devour it to see if his plan about devouring his own offspring is viable.
Another press of the button caused the released sound to cease and Alex put his hand within the jar before devouring his immune offspring.
"Dammit…" He cursed as he couldn't feel himself getting stronger. Neither did he feel like the immunity affected him. It was like the devouring process was no more than him merging back with a clone of his. All of its properties disappeared and all that was left was Alex.
'Worth a try, I guess." He thought before injecting the second injection that he'd prepared into his own body. It didn't matter if he injected any of his bodies since they were all connected to the same consciousness. So he didn't waste any time.
"Fuck, that hurts!" He held his head as he felt like his mind was about to burst apart. He kneeled on the ground in a fetal position while pressing on the sides of his head to feel some sort of relief but it was useless.
And within seconds, he lost consciousness. It wasn't just him, but all of his bodies. Be it clones or hosts or the body in the spaceship. All of them lost consciousness.
His main consciousness within the Klyntar Soul Dimension had gone dormant while its natural glow was fluctuating in intensity.
…
"Alex! Alex!" Laura screamed as she tried to wake Alex up but to no avail.
…
[What's going on, Alex?] Wanda asked as she felt Alex's presence disappearing, [Alex?!]
…
"Hey, wake up." Natasha shook him as she tried to wake him up while he was sitting in Dreykov's seat, [Alex!] "Alex?!" She called out.
…
"Alex!" Gwen screamed as her training session was interrupted. Alex's body just slumped to the ground as she was fighting him, "ALEX!"
…
The scientist Gwen came to the lab to check up on Alex and saw him slumped on the counter, seemingly asleep, "Alex? Come on, come to bed." She shook him. "Alex? Wake up." She tried but to no avail.
***
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