Chapter 240: Symbiote 0240: Unimaginable Pain
"God, my head hurts …" Wanda moaned in pain as Alex stood behind her and massaged her head. "Do my forehead too … Ugh~ I just want to go to sleep."
"Then you can sleep for longer, I didn't tell you to get out of bed," Alex said while continuing to massage her head.
"It's impossible to sleep with these stabbing pains in my head," She groaned. "And the fucking flashes of light in front of my eyes. I seriously hate every second of my existence right now. What even are these?"
"It's the knowledge influx tricking your brain into thinking that you're seeing things but it's just the new information that's suddenly appeared without a source. Your brain is working quickly enough that it can identify the source, but that leads to these …" Alex trailed off as Wanda looked at him with a pained yet expressionless look. She was clearly asking a rhetorical question that Alex started answering.
"It's going to be okay soon, promise," He said after an awkward cough. "I've already hastened the acceptance process by many factors. The amount of information that was stuffed in your head was enough to give you headaches for weeks. I've brought it down to a couple of hours. Just bear with me, okay?"
She would've laughed at his awkward changing of the topic, but the pain was far too bad. She merely whimpered and curled up into a ball while falling to the side, getting herself away from Alex's message, "It's not helping …" She said, hugging her legs tightly.
Alex sat beside her and pulled her toward himself, letting her use his shoulder as a pillow, "Try to delve into the knowledge, distract yourself from the information influx symptoms. You're going to have to eventually. This is a process that every Sorcerer Supreme goes through."
"It's impossible to concentrate with this headache," She shook her head, releasing her legs and wrapping her arms around Alex instead. "I hate this …" She mumbled before moving away and essentially shoving her head in Alex's side. She was extremely frustrated with the headache and it was clear from her actions.
"Shh ..." Alex let her do whatever she was doing and rubbed her shoulder with his arm.
Wanda stiffened before whipping her head up and looking at him.
"I know that look …" Alex said dryly.
"Come on," Wanda grabbed his arm, "distract me. It's going to be the best way to get over this headache."
"You won't feel any pleasure, Wanda," Alex told her. "You are going to feel the pain being amplified the more your head shakes."
"Then restrain me," She said. "I don't care, bond with my brain and nervous system or something, I don't fucking care! Just get me away from this pain."
Alex smiled wryly and put his hand behind her head before pulling her close. He made her press her face on his chest, "The Skeletal bond is in itself an overwhelming experience, Wanda. It's barely been a few days since we did that. Your body needs time to acclimatize to the changes that accompany the upgrade."
"But but but …" Her muffled resistance was accompanied by weak punches on Alex's arm and chest.
"It's all going to blow over soon," Alex comforted her.
"We did it in that time dilation thing. The bonding process came early on, it's already been a month!" She tried to bargain.
"I prolonged it, Wanda," Alex said. "Your body only started the acclimation process after we came out, at which point we didn't have much time before we had to leave for Kamar Taj."
"I don't care~ Just distract me. Hit me or something. I read somewhere that immediate pain overwrites prolonged pain in the brain. Just do that."
Alex shushed her and ran his fingers through her hair, "It does, the brain prioritizes acute pain against chronic pain, yes. But the threshold for that pain needs to be far more than a couple of arousing spanks. You don't get off on pain, so we can't do that."
"I don't care," She resisted his hand and sat up, looking at him with wet eyes. "Just make me feel something somewhere other than my head. I hate it, I want to just cut it off and throw it away!"
Alex noticed a red glow surrounding Wanda the moment those words escaped her mouth. Alex's eyes widened as he realized what might end up happening if she had actually lost control of her power. He acted as quickly as he could to absorb all of her released energy before it could take effect. "Control yourself, Wanda." Alex tightly grabbed the back of her head and looked into her eyes, "You'll hurt yourself."
"Hey," She said with a weak yet relieved voice as tears escaped her eyes, "what do you know? Immediate pains do overshadow prolonged ones." Alex noticed multiple small cuts on her neck that were leaking blood before he rapidly healed them. They were caused by the energy that acted before Alex started forcefully absorbing it into himself.
"Wanda …" He looked at her with concern.
"C-could you … could you just hurt me, Alex? I won't try to use my magic anymore … just … could you?" She asked. "My head really hurts. It feels like someone is repeatedly stabbing my skull with red hot rods of metal."
"This is a magical headache. Knowledge influx can't cause this bad of a headache no matter what …" Alex growled, suddenly feeling that something was very wrong with the current situation. He then spoke to Wanda with a softer tone, "Just hold on for a little bit, okay? I'll go to Kamar Taj to see if they have any solutions. I'm sure that Wong is dealing with the same pain. And if he's not …"
"Hurry … Please," Wanda said. "It's too much."
…
Alex opened a portal to Kamar Taj and went through it, taking Wanda's form in the process. He appeared in the very spot that Wanda had disappeared from.
Same time as he left, a green glow escaped Wanda's body, enacting Time Authority. Alex created a time domain around her, making sure that she would be virtually paused in time while he sorted everything out. She wasn't literally frozen in time but was moving slowly enough that a year would pass outside before she experienced a complete minute. He wasn't risking anything considering Wanda's previous actions.
"Ms. Maximoff," Wong greeted as Wanda walked into Kamar Taj through a portal, right in front of Wong, "You're back."
"My head is exploding, Wong," Wanda acted like she was extremely uncomfortable at the moment, making Wong display a thoughtful frown. "What exactly was that ritual?" She asked him with a threatening tone, giving him the belief that he was to blame for her current situation. "An hour since it was finished and I feel like someone is repeatedly stabbing red-hot metal into my skull."
Her glowing red eyes looked extremely intimidating to Wong at the moment as he spoke, "We talked about this, Ms. Maximoff. I myself am very much unaware of many intricacies of the position of the Sorcerer Supreme. As for the headache, I also have one, though I don't think it's as bad as yours." He spoke quickly, not wanting to be misunderstood by a pissed-off Scarlet Witch. "Please, give me a few minutes to meditate on the information that I have received from the ritual process."
Wanda nodded and conjured up a chair before sitting on it. It seemed as if she was suffering from the worst headache of his life yet still acting stoic.
The monk's eyes opened almost half an hour later with a grave expression on his face. If they were under normal circumstances, Wanda would've gone haywire by now, either hurting herself or destroying Wakanda completely. Alex was glad to have used the Time Stone to create a time domain around Wanda.
"So?" Wanda asked Wong while acting like she was suppressing a lot of pain.
"I couldn't find a clear answer to it, but I think that your connection to the Chaos Dimension and the demon Chthon in general is the reason behind that headache," Wong said. "It seems that the authority of the Sorcerer Supreme is actively rejecting you due to the foreign influence on you. To be honest, I'm surprised that you're still standing at all."
"You don't say …" Wanda said. "So I've triggered a failsafe that's targetting me. How do I fix it? And you didn't think to look into this information before trying to make me the Sorcerer Supreme?"
"The most straightforward method would be to get rid of your connection to this foreign dimension, hence allowing you to be completely accepted," Wong answered hastily, knowing that if he said anything other than the solution, the volatile woman might just blow up Kamar Taj.
"So essentially crippling myself?" Alex scoffed. He knew that there had to be another way. The Ancient One was drawing power from the Dark Dimension for the majority of her tenure as the Sorcerer Supreme. "I'd first get rid of this Sorcerer Supreme authority that doesn't bring me anything than to give up my power. Give me a viable solution."
Wong grunted in response, "There should be another way. Please, follow me." He said turning around and walking to the library.
"Where are we going?" Wanda asked.
"The Library," Wong said. "To look through the tomes of The Ancient One, the Sorcerer Supreme who came before Strange."
"Are they supposed to have something useful?" Wanda asked, "I remember browsing through them before without truly finding anything that would help me with my current predicament."
Wong paused, gesturing to Wanda that he would answer in a bit. As they reached the library, he cast a spell to isolate the entire room before turning to her. "The Ancient One, the Sorcerer Supreme who oversaw Earth for hundreds of years prior has a sort of controversial ending to her story." He turned to the section of books that belonged to the Ancient One's collection. "She was revealed to have been pulling energy from the Dark Dimension for centuries. Strange decided to keep this knowledge secret until before the incident at the ruins of Wundagore."
"So she was in a position even worse than mine and still seemed fine, I understand," Wanda said as Wong continued going through the titles, "Do you think we are going to find anything useful here?"
"Most definitely," He answered, "These tomes may be free for any sorcerer of Kamar Taj to browse. But there are many secrets within them. Secrets that are only visible to one with the authority of the Sorcerer Supreme."
***
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