Earth-Z.
Alex and Laura's road trip had gone on for almost two weeks as they drove through the country with plenty of breaks in between. With the continental abomination already dead, the two of them had no trouble dealing with the occasional rabble that tried to attack them. Whether it was the weakest ‹Grunt Class› or the stronger ‹Leader Class› abominations, it didn't matter. Laura easily dispatched every single one of them without any trouble. She didn't even need Alex's support to do so.
Soon, they crossed over from Panama to South America. Immediately, their encounters shifted from the usually humanoid abominations to animalistic ones. Unlike North America, the South had far more wildlife, and it showed the moment Alex and Laura stepped on the continent. It went far enough that the Continental ‹Eldritch Class› abomination also possessed animalistic features. Though it was still quite close to one of the Chaos Dimension's horrors.
For now, Alex had no plans to deal with the continental abomination as he and Laura spent a week driving through the continent and into the Colombian Rainforests. Specifically, they went into the Amazon.
This was the first time in a very long time that Laura had seen a lush jungle on her own planet. Somehow, the massive trees and flora of the Amazon had survived the nuclear blasts that destroyed most of the world. Unfortunately, the bioweapons and planetary radiation had still mutated the entire rainforest. Because of that, traversing the area meant Alex and Laura needed to deal with the endless number of flora-type abominations, thoughtfully dubbed by Alex as ‹Plant Class› to parallel ‹Animal Class› abominations, earning him an eye-roll from Laura.
To move to the spot where Alex had found the X-Men, they had to go through the dense tree abominations, which, unlike every other type, were far too strong in terms of defense. Even Laura's claws, made of an adamantium alloy, had quite a bit of trouble cutting through them. If not for the fact that she possessed a Low Cosmic Physique, it would be extremely difficult for her to handle the branches that kept shooting toward her.
The larger issue was that they were in a rainforest, with a nearly endless number of trees all around them that kept attacking them.
At this moment, Alex was faced with two options. One was to wipe the entire forest off the map. The planet was already unlivable for normal people. Keeping the forest alive only meant keeping a problematic hazard. The other one was to simply bypass the trees and directly teleport to their destination.
To save time and not accidentally kill Laura's old friends, he decided to go with the second option for now. But the removal of these rainforests was something he'd added to his agenda.
With that, he used his ‹Inventory› to teleport Laura to the spot just outside the X-Men's compound. As for portals, or the Space Stone. Those were options he was somewhat reluctant to use ever since he'd seen Doom systematically utilize the Infinity Stones and overpower his Space Authority.
The moment Laura stepped through the portal, a large number of thorny vines shot toward her as the swampy mud underneath her tried to rise and envelop her boots. Before any vines could touch her, a powerful discharge of lightning exploded around her, directly vaporizing the mud underneath that was trying to consume her. As for the vines, while many were burnt off and smoking, the trees were far more resilient to lightning.
The portal Laura had stepped out of had morphed into Alex's figure, and he frowned annoyedly.
"These things are more troublesome than they are worth. Once we're done with these guys here, I'll carpet bomb every single forest that remains on this planet… A wasteland world should be an actual wasteland."
"Have you already started destroying the forests on your planets?" Laura extended her claws and swiped through the approaching vines that were trying to attack her again.
"Don't be ridiculous, I'm all for sustainable development and preserving history," Alex said, directly devouring the approaching branches that Laura's claws couldn't cut through like butter.
The two of them casually walked forward for a few more seconds while dealing with the attacking plants, neither looking too troubled.
Suddenly, the air in front of Alex and Laura shifted and rippled. They didn't stop and continued forward as an invisible membrane tried to halt their advance. The air seemed to turn viscous, as if they were trying to walk into honey. Moments later, however, the membrane allowed them through, rippling once more as the view in front of them shifted entirely, the trees vanishing as if they stepped into a different area entirely.
In front of them, instead of the trees, was now a large, expansive mansion. More prominent than the mansion, however, were the people. Normal people, mutants, were freely walking around the area without any radiation-blocking equipment. They weren't wearing oxygen masks either and were breathing the air around them comfortably. Alex and Laura had just walked through the jungle, and Alex could confidently claim that the air here was only more toxic than the irradiated desert, not less.
Not only that, but the trees that had been targeting Alex and Laura were stuck outside the barrier. For all intents and purposes, this place was completely isolated from the outside world.
"I feel like I'm back in the Sanctuary…" Laura mumbled, but Alex had a thoughtful expression on his face. The barrier, its method of identifying a person's X-Gene to manage entry and exit, and the camouflage effect.
Everything reminded him of the Bastion's technology. Since he'd inherited the Bastion's Ultron, he knew the ins and outs of everything that happened to Laura. There were no records of any interactions with the X-Men once the Bastion captured Laura and started using her as their healing potion bank. Though it wasn't impossible that the deal had already been struck between Tony and the X-Men before Laura was even captured, or Ultron took over Tony's body.
He wished that wasn't the case, considering this place was equivalent to Laura's maiden home. But he wasn't going to completely rule out the possibility that Laura had actually been sold out by Charles. Certain variants of the man were quite intense about the whole Greater Good spiel and had no bottom line.
As Laura and Alex were observing the mansion and the surroundings, an aging man with no hair on his head seemed to rush out of the main entrance in a wheelchair. It was Charles, pushing his wheelchair out using his psychic powers. Behind him, two familiar faces, Scott Summers and Ororo Munroe, followed.
Alex and Laura didn't do anything and silently observed the three people approach them.
The moment Charles identified Laura, his rushed expression shifted a little, a hint of complexity flashing in it before shifting to full concern as he continued moving forward. Ororo and Scott's reactions were much more pronounced as they directly exclaimed Laura's name and rushed forward to greet her.
"Laura!" Ororo directly pulled Laura into her arms as Scott stopped a step away, looking at her with concern.
Laura stiffened at the sudden hug, unsure how to respond, or whether she should step aside or not. After spending so many years with Alex, living a life of freedom and enjoyment, much of her resentment toward her so-called family had dissipated.
"You…look at you…" Ororo pulled back, looking Laura up and down. "You're all grown up."
"Yeah…" Laura answered succinctly, looking a little lost.
"All right, give her some space," Scott said from the side. "Don't smother her."
"I think she's the one with the assets to smother at this point," Ororo glanced at Laura's breasts and teased. "Who's your friend? Someone special?"
"Ahem," Laura coughed at Ororo's words and glanced at Alex. "This is Apex. You could say he's—"
"Charles, if you dare to send another probe into my head. I will raze this little place you have to the ground," Alex's frustrated growl made Laura widen her eyes. "Don't fucking test me."
Ororo and Scott immediately looked at Charles and saw that the old man had a pained expression, with blood flowing from his nose.
"What have you done!" Scott yelled, his visor glowing red as his emotions grew agitated. Ororo was the same, her eyes gaining a silver glow as she prepared to activate her powers.
Laura looked at the duo's reaction and sighed, silently stepping back and extending her claws, ready to fight on Alex's side.
"Everyone, stop," Charles' voice rang through the mutants' heads. "I was in the wrong for probing this newcomer. Stand down."
The commotion had attracted quite a few of the mutants, one of whom was quite important to Laura: Wolverine.
Laura was already defensive and had her claws extended, her body tense and ready to spring into action. The moment she noticed Wolverine, all she saw was red.
Electric arcs appeared on her figure-hugging black combat suit as she leaped forward and immediately blasted Wolverine's chest with a bolt of lightning, sending the man flying. Before he could even land, her claw stabbed through his heart as she ripped the man in half.
***
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