Laura's feral charge was impossible for Wolverine to handle, and she punctured his heart and pulled her claws from the side, ripping through half of his chest in the process. Even his metal skeleton meant nothing in front of Laura's claws as she directly sliced through his ribs. She stabbed her other claw into Wolverine's face and twisted, making it impossible for him to say anything.
Instinctively, he was already trying to resist, but Laura was almost impossibly strong, making it impossible for him to even sit up under her weight. The moment he tried to move an arm or leg, she would simply cut off the limb and continue to cut and slash at his rapidly healing body. While his healing factor was quite pronounced, it meant nothing if he couldn't mount the slightest bit of resistance against Laura.
"Laura, stop…" Charles couldn't watch any longer as Wolverine kept getting cut up and healing repeatedly. Seeing her ignore his words, he mobilized his psychic powers and tried to lift her off of Wolverine.
"How about you not interfere in family matters, Professor?" Alex asked, blocking the man's psychokinesis with a force field and preventing him from affecting Laura. "Instead, I have some things to talk to you about."
Alex's effortless blocking of his psychokinesis and his generally calm, collected demeanor unnerved Charles. For someone who was used to always being in control of the situation and the people around him, dealing with someone like Alex was quite troubling. With an audible breath, he gave one last look of concern to Laura, as she hacked away at Wolverine, who didn't get a single chance to retaliate.
"Fine," Charles said. "She likely needs to let out the resentment in her heart. Please follow me."
"Charles…" Ororo looked at Wolverine with a worried expression.
"He'll be fine," Alex said before Charles could get a word in. "Laura knows where to hit to make sure there's no…irreparable damage."
As Charles rolled his wheelchair to the side, away from the gathered mutants, Alex followed.
"Now what would you like to talk about, Mr…Apex?"
"A lot of things, really," Alex said. "Whether or not you made a deal with Stark for this barrier. The specifically shielded Cerebro to prevent any leakage. The aura of two Infinity Stones coming from in there. Quite a few things, actually."
With each word Alex spoke, the old man's complexion grew paler as he gripped the armrest of his wheelchair.
"I don't know what you are talking about," he said.
"Don't play dumb with me," Alex said. "Let me give you my introduction first. I am Apex. The controller of the Gaia Federation, which is a collective of six planets. I have a seventh coming in, and this is going to be the eighth."
"You do not know the horrors this planet has birthed…"
"I do," Alex said. "I've already killed one of them and used its corpse to establish a new city—a massive eye, tentacles, quite an eldritch horror indeed. The one on this continent should be somewhere deeper into the Amazon, I believe. A treant-like creature, I believe."
Hearing the man in front of him casually describe two creatures that he'd only ever caught a glimpse of through Cerebro and faced a severe backlash in the process, Charles felt a creeping fear run down his spine.
"What are you here for?" He decided to be direct, having gauged that the man in front of him wasn't one for wasting time in a meaningless back-and-forth.
"At first, I was just here to help my feral wife vent her grievances," Alex said. "We'd probably have left once she beat up Wolverine and maybe a few others. But then I saw the barrier and compared it to the one in the Bastion… I have to say, they are both remarkably similar."
"I did what I had to do." His voice came out as a defeated whisper as he slumped into his chair.
"You sold out a little girl, not even an adult, to have her marrow extracted day by day? To let them treat her like a fucking animal?" Alex asked flatly. "What? Are you going to tell me that Logan's healing factor wasn't enough for Stark?"
"…" The old man remained silent for a few seconds, contemplating. "The others don't know… I hope you can let it stay that way."
"Charles Xavier, the patron saint of the greater good," Alex cursed. "Fine, they feel guilty already. I can leave them be. But you can't lead the mutants anymore."
"I can accept that…" He nodded. "I'm getting old anyhow."
"What about Eric?" Alex said. "Is he dead?"
"After losing Wanda and Pietro…" Charles shook his head.
Alex knew there was far more to it than what Charles said. For someone like Magneto to kick the bucket out of grief over losing his kids was impossible. But he didn't delve into it. All he wanted to know was if there was anyone else with seniority among the X-Men.
"Ororo it is then, I guess," he said. "Now… What's the deal with Cerebro? Why do I sense two Infinity Stones in there?"
"I'm afraid I cannot disclose anything about that, Mr. Apex," Charles said, shaking his head. "The reason I was willing to open dialogue with you in the first place is because of her. If you wish to stay here, you are welcome, but if you wish to pry into our private matters, I cannot acquiesce."
"Oh, you think you have a choice," Alex smiled. "How cute."
"I do not wish for us to come to blows, as fellow mutants, Apex," Charles dropped the mister. "But if you insist, I can assure you that you will regret it."
"Will I, now?" Alex asked, a provocative smile on his face. "Shall we put it to the test? How many of your precious X-Men will I take down before regretting it, I wonder?"
"You shall not have the chance to do so," Charles said, shaking his head. "Rogue."
Alex raised a brow at the man's words before someone tackled him at the waist, startling him for a moment. The force didn't affect him in the slightest, not even making him flinch, but what followed made him frown.
Alex immediately felt his Bioenergy being drained out of his soul, instantly losing more than twenty units as more followed. Looking down, it was a redhead with streaks of white in her hair who was tightly hugging his waist from the side, trying to push him, but to no avail. Instinctively, Alex backhanded her before a full second even passed, throwing the woman into the distance as her grip over him weakened.
Over a hundred units…gone in less than a tenth of a second. Fucking Rogue. I haven't fought any of her variants yet…
While a hundred units were no more than a pittance for the current Alex, who generated massive amounts of Bioenergy in the Gaia Penitentiary, it was still startling. After all, a hundred units equated to more than a million normal people, considering they provided roughly 0.0001 unit of Bioenergy when Alex directly devoured them. Even looking at ‹Grunt Class› abominations, who provided a hundredth of a unit of Bioenergy, it was equivalent to devouring ten thousand of those.
Looking at Rogue, Alex noticed that the Bioenergy she'd absorbed from him was the only reason she was still alive. After all, his backhand was instinctive and would, for all intents and purposes, blow her head to smithereens under normal circumstances.
He didn't have any time to consider as Iceman shot a literal cold beam at him, trying to freeze him. At the same time, Colossus tackled him in an attempt to throw him off his feet, only to fail miserably as Cyclops opened his visor and let his energy beams loose at him.
"Is this the best you've got, Professor?" Alex asked, casually smacking away Colossus after a few seconds and throwing the hunk of metal in the general direction of Rogue. "Tell me, how did you hide Rogue from my senses?"
"The same way I keep the thing deeper in the jungle from detecting us," Charles said. "If Ororo acts, I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep this place hidden from that thing."
"Are you threatening me?" Alex asked, an amused smile on his face.
Charles didn't answer as Alex felt two knives appear inside his thighs. Feeling the sense of stabbing pain course through his simulated human body, he smiled darkly and glanced back at the intangible Shadowcat who had just stabbed him with intangible knives to break through his nigh-impenetrable skin.
"Kitten," Alex said. "I'm going to make you pay for that one later."
The knives disappeared from his thighs as the pierced skin healed, including Alex's clothing, making it seem as if he was never stabbed in the first place. Before she could make any other moves, Alex grabbed her by the throat, bypassing her intangibility by using a force field to coat his hand. She choked, her face turning blue as Alex raised her off her feet. The attacks of the other X-Men were useless against Alex, whether it was Iceman, Cyclops, Beast, or Colossus. Their attacks couldn't even scratch his clothes.
Helpless, Shadowcat was forced to cancel her intangibility as Alex's smile widened and he blocked her X-Gene.
"Good," he said as the others stopped their attacks to not accidentally hurt her. "I don't want to deal with you turning me intangible and sending me to the center of the Earth…" He said before tossing her in the same general direction as Rogue, who still hadn't recovered from his attack. After all, the only reason she was still alive was the massive amount of Bioenergy she'd absorbed from him.
Seeing him toss his hostage away, the others were about to continue acting against him. But Alex was faster, as he appeared behind Cyclops.
"Let's calm things down a bit, shall we?"
***
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