Bab 213: CHAPTER 208
In the Royal Palace of Wakanda, the atmosphere between the people gathered there was very tense.
"Vis!!" Wanda screamed and rushed at the fallen form of the organic android. Vision stood up on shaky legs while massaging his head as the migraine that came from the erratic beating stone in the middle of it wasn't doing any good for him added to the fact that he was still trying to heal himself from the fight they had the previous night.
In the same room were people that Draul was all too familiar with; Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff, James Rhodes, T'Challa T'Chaka, Shuri T'Chaka, and a host of other guards of the notable Dora Milaje.
"I'm assuming that that was not s'posed to happen, was it?" Rhodes said as he saw Vision grunting while the Mind Stone in his forehead glowed brighter, not a comforting bright, but a 'bad-shit-is-about-to-happen' bright.
"It's the stone, it's reacting to something… and I think whatever it's reacting to is on its way." Bruce's words dampened the already dreary mood of the room as they were all reminded of what they had lost a few hours ago.
"Thanos?"
"…Than-" Bruce was about to affirm Natasha's words but Vision cut them off.
"Not Thanos. It's something else. Something the Mind Stone is more fearful of… and I've never felt fear from this… thing in my head." He said between breaths as he managed to stabilize himself and gave Wanda a soft reassuring smile.
"Then we better get started. We already have our hands full with Thanos. If a new variable appears, and if Vision's words are given its due credit, then this one is likely to be more stronger than Thanos…"
Steve didn't finish his words but everybody got the gist of what he was saying. "The faster we get started, the better." Was all he could say.
Vision was then laid on a table for Shuri to run her diagnosis on the living biological android.
She scanned the Mind Stone as it was the central unit of Vision's entire structure and also as it was the very reason why he was brought here in the first place.
She looked at the holographic visual of the Mind Stone and the way it was connected and let out a confused comment. "The structure is polymorphic."
Bruce, who was beside her, tried to clear out her confusion. "Right, w-we had to attach each neuron n-non-sequentially."
With the same knowing grin a child would have after pulling one over an adult, she asked in reply. "Why didn't you just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?" Bruce stomped at her question and could also give an embarrassed reason. "Because we didn't think of it?"
"I'm sure you did your best."
"Can you do it?" Wanda asked, breaking the two geeks from their sciency atmosphere.
"Yes," Shuri nodded and continued in a low and stressed voice to get her point across as much as she could, "but there are more than 2 trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures." She then turned to her brother, King T'Challa of Wakanda. "It'll take time brother."
"How long?" Steve asked and she replied. "As long as you can give me."
Just at that moment, beeping sounds echoed all over the room they were in, cutting off all conversations and drew their attention to the holographic projection of unidentified flying objects entering Earth's atmosphere.
…
"T-That's us?" Steve asked as they were disguised as citizens inside Wakanda with Draul's illusion while watching what was happening in the tallest building of the nation's capital.
"Blonde doesn't look that good on you, Nat. Maybe you should try mixing it if you're thinking of a hairdo." Bucky commented while struggling to keep his eyes off the older version of the redhead while the younger version was beside him and looking at him with one raised brow.
"I'm not going to lie, but that beard sure does look good on me." Steve said while rubbing his chin as if thinking on whether to grow one or wait for a few years. "The space ship above just started depositing pods down here."
And just like Steve said, they could all see the bright reddish yellow light of something piercing the atmosphere and falling towards Earth with great speeds.
Some crashed against the force field dome while the others corrected their courses and crashed just outside of it.
"I guess Thanos' invasion started without them having any way to stop it before he came to Earth. We already know where the Mind Stone is, where are the others?" Bucky asked while looking at the alternate version of himself with the Vibranium arm and a gun. He could actually picture such a scene happening in the near future where he was free of HYDRA's manipulations and was reunited with Steve. It was a good picture but it was missing a few people from making it the perfect picture.
"It seems like Wakanda will be ground zero for an alien intergalactic invasion. The losses to them will be immense." Ororo stated with a frown as she saw the warriors of Wakanda being transported to an open field in order to face the invading army.
Her worries were founded as it was just one people, only one nation, and a few outcasts that was left to battle something that should have been a united stand against Thanos.
"Well for starters, the rest four stones are with Thanos while he is also fighting to get his fifth as we currently speak and he should soon be on his way here. As for why the fight is taking place here, all I can say is circumstances." Draul said as they made their way towards where the fight was going to be happening, all while protected for the eyes of everything and everyone around them.
By the time they had made their leisure walk towards the battlefield, it had already started with animalistic aliens overpowering the Wakandans in sheer numbers.
"You guys wanna help? We're going to take away their Infinity Stones so we might as well reduce the death toll as cost." He had said while pointing at Bucky fighting an alien invasion with just a midpar special arm and a gun. "Oh and try to downplay it a bit, will ya? We don't want to be raising questions we shouldn't have to answer." And with that his presence was gone away from them.
The others looked at each other and shrugged, a little bit excited at fighting alongside versions of themselves, at least those who were present.
The first to spring into action was the quick-footed Yelena who ran forward and bisected an Outrider that was trying to spring up on the older version of Natasha.
…
Natasha froze in shock as she looked at Yelena, a very young version of Yelena, but it was Yelena nonetheless. Her eyes couldn't fool her at this point unless the enemy had some sort of illusion caster.
"Sup Nat! Surprised?" Oh she sure was but she just didn't know how to truly express it given her current situation but her guard was never down. She held her two batons tightly close to her and kept an eye out in case another person entered the battlefield. A few Dora Milaje were already aware of the situation and were already circling around the girl that looked awfully just like her sister.
"Seriously Nat? Is this how to welcome your only little sister from another universe?" Faster than any of them could react, Yelena ran around Natasha and the few Dora Milaje near her and repeated what she had done to the first Outrider.
'Super speed. Probably way faster than Pietro.'
"Y-yelena? How is this possible?" She asked but kept her distance, not one she was comfortable with but one nonetheless, away from the Yelena lookalike.
"God. Hey Bucky, I'm not really this uptight, am I?" Not just her, Captain America, the Black Panther, Bruce, Rhodes and Sam, exclaimed in surprise as they saw another Natasha seemingly step out of thin air along with two other people they knew and one they didn't.
"Y-you… how?" She exclaimed.
"Dimensional hopping, universe traveling; anything you wanna call it. We're here because someone we knew decided on an impromptu vacation." Steve said as he walked towards the region his doppelganger was fighting at with Bucky at his side. "You heard what he said – try not to overdo it."
Black Widow watched in amazement as all the Outriders that tried attacking the leisurely walking duo contorted and burst into a gore of blood and flesh.
"You guys came to help us?" She asked as she relaxed her guard a little. They were in a progressively deteriorating battlefield; they couldn't afford to cherry pick their possible allies.
"Well we came for some little pebbles of mass destruction but we figured we might just as well help out." Natasha said while giving her doppelganger a lookover and then nodding in contentment.
The only person from the group that was quiet from the beginning looked around, her blue eyes focusing on the horde of aliens that were making their way in through the little opening in the magnetic field. "I'll take care of those." She said and flew away with lightning covering her form.
"A black female white haired blue eyed Thor, huh? Now I've seen everything." Sam 'The Falcon' Wilson said as he took a breather and watched the woman pulverize everything at the bottleneck to cinders.
On the other part of the battlefield, Steve and Bucky came face to face with their doppelgangers with Steve facing Bucky's double while Bucky faced Steve's.
"Bucky."
"Steve."
"I see you didn't lose your arm, nice one." Steve's alternate said to Bucky.
"I see you grew a beard, finally." Bucky nodded at Steve and as if in sync, the four of them faced four different directions and picked their spot.
"Try to keep up, Steve."
"I'll say the same to you too, Bucky."
And with that they all ran forwards with Steve being the first to reach his targets. Coating his limbs with spatial cosmic energy, everything his fist touched was destroyed from the inside out.
Bucky on the other hand didn't have any noticeable change except for the two short Adamantium swords he held that he used to cleave clean through any Outriders that were foolish enough to come near the swinging distance of his blades.
While the others were fighting, three girls were actually having a lighthearted conversation amidst the chaos that was ensuing.
"So tell me, ~Nat, what inspired the change?" Nat asked her older doppelganger while flexing her fingers and killing Outriders by the droves.
Her double looked at her for a while, likely contemplating whether to tell her or not but seeing as how her alternate younger sister was fine and more lively, she figured there should be no problem. "A lot." She started, "Joined the Avengers a couple years back after working as an assassin for S.H.I.E.L.D because it was the only way to save my life after I deserted the… organization."
She could see the frown on the two younger girl's faces but she continued on. "Fought a mad God," they all chuckled at that, "fought a killer robot that took over the internet and wanted to destroy the world, fought against HYDRA… and finally fought against the people I had called family. I only recently knew my sister had been alive all this while so there's that.. And now I'm here fighting against an alien invasion that seeks to wipe out half the population of the universe. Who ever knew my life would turn… out… like….this?!" She huffed as she stabbed an Outrider through the throat.
Unlike how she expected, or maybe she didn't know to expect, Yelena hung her hand around her neck and drew her close. "You're now my second favorite Nat in the multiverse… and while we're at it, which of these guys do you have the hots for?"
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