Symbiote 0327: Willful Laura

As the sun rose, illuminating the mountainous terrain of the surroundings, a small village with barely a population of a hundred people was currently host to thousands of people. Almost none of them were locals; they weren't even from the surrounding cities or villages. Instead, the group comprised people from all sorts of different ethnicities and mannerisms. It was clear that the people were foreigners.

Everyone was out on the streets, spread around through the different levels of the village, some on rooftops, some sitting on the edges of small cliffs that dipped to the lower levels of the village, and more. It seemed as if the concert of the century was about to take place in the village, considering how excited the people seemed to be.

Amidst all this, Laura was sitting on the edge of an under-construction building, with the concrete flooring only half laid out while steel rebars poked out of the edge. She was huffing while holding onto the exposed rod for support, leaning against another exposed rod.

"Damn, Alex. I thought I could join in with the crowd, but fuck me, it's hard to breathe in there. Not to mention all the groping. I swear, I felt three people grabbing my ass on separate occasions while I was inside …" She huffed out.

"Oh, that was all me," Alex clarified as his head poked through her shoulder. "I couldn't give up on the chance to tease you while you were in the middle of a huge crowd. Those people are too focused on the singular purpose of joining Kamar Taj."

Laura snorted at Alex's confession. "I kinda agree," she said. "It's uncanny … as if they've been brainwashed."

"They may have been. It seems like they were all brought here from the three Sanctums in London, New York, and Hong Kong. Whoever is behind these machinations probably isn't above a little hypnosis to make their candidates fall in line more smoothly."

"What do we do?" Laura asked. "It should be starting at any moment now. If I'm not in a similarly hypnotized state, they might realize something is off with me."

"I'll make a decoy," Alex said. "It will be much easier to manage things with that instead of having you meld into a hypnotized crowd. It will also keep you safe from any crowd control measures affecting the mind."

"Won't those measures affect you instead?"

"Chaos Magic should come in handy when dealing with witchcraft and mystic arts in general. If not, using the Mind Stone is also a viable option for now. I have a good bit of EP saved up for just such an occasion."

"So I get to enjoy the good view," Laura smiled. "Nice —"

A sudden sound of a suppressed explosion pulled Laura's attention away from Alex and to the area above the huge crowd of people. A small cloud of purple smoke, mixed with red, exploded up above, as a feminine silhouette appeared within.

"Potential candidates," a soft, enticing voice came through the slowly dissipating smoke. "You are all gathered here today to serve a glorious purpose for the betterment of this entire planet."

As she spoke, Laura could see occasional glimpses of her figure that evoked her curiosity: her jet-black hair mixed with streaks of white, parts of her purple gown that had streaks of red in it, the subtle way her shadowed hands moved and released magical energy, and more.

"Something's off with her …" Laura suddenly snapped out of her reverie after a few seconds.

"Good on you for snapping out of it so quickly," Alex praised her. "She has an attraction spell cast on her body that keeps the attention of all those who look at her."

"Why?" Laura asked as the face of the silhouette was finally revealed once more than half of the fog dissipated.

"So that people don't realize that they are breathing the mind-numbing fumes of that cloud she's standing on," Alex said. "She is using simple, low-cost methods to cast crowd control on more than five thousand people. Her techniques are good enough to make her worthy of being the Scarlet Witch's teacher."

"What?" Laura was startled at Alex's words.

"Yeah," he nodded. "She is wearing the official robes of Kamar Taj. Not only that, they belong to the Sorcerer Supreme. And according to the energy flow around her, she is officially accepted by this planet's eldritch energies. That means she is acting as an envoy for Scarlet Witch."

"Why teacher, however? They could just be simple allies."

"I'm going to put my money on her being Scarlet's teacher," Alex said. "Just a hunch."

"Now then," Agatha looked to be floating on top of a cloud as she spoke after a brief pause, looking satisfied with the results of her crowd control techniques. "Let us move to the testing venue."

Agatha spread apart her hands, immediately creating two red Eldritch magic circles at the ends. Following her actions, another massive magic circle formed in the air above the massive crowd, illuminating everyone with an ominous red glow. With a flash, every candidate disappeared from their spots, including Agatha and her cloud, leaving the streets completely empty as the skies cleared up instantly.

"Can you do that?" Laura asked. "Without making a portal, I mean."

"Kamar Taj has other variants of teleportation-based spells, but nothing as convenient as the Sling Ring and portals. This is probably one of her original spells for instant teleportation. Looking at it from an energy consumption standpoint, the spell is less efficient than using a Sling Ring, but the convenience is greater since it doesn't require any medium." Alex said.

"Should we follow her?" Laura asked casually, still hanging from the side of the building.

"Nah, let her finish the purge," he responded. "I'll switch you in once all that is over."

"She's going to kill everyone so quickly?" She asked with some concern. "I thought that she would power them up first before doing that."

"You can't save everyone, Laura. I know it doesn't feel good to sit on your ass while people die, but we have other priorities."

Laura let out a defeated sigh. "Why couldn't you have been a good guy, huh? We could've gone around the whole cluster, protecting people from bad guys and saving the day …"

"I have saved the day," Alex said. "For two whole planets at that. While I haven't completely eliminated crime, I have brought about the closest thing to world peace on both planets. My methods may have been somewhat extremist, but I believe that the sacrifice of lives was worth it."

"Yeah," Laura blew a raspberry. "I know. I lived on one of them for half a year. It's just that sometimes, I want to get the instant gratification one gets from saving the day and seeing the grateful face of the person who was saved. It would be so much fun to swoop in and punch Agatha Harkness in the face just as she is about to kill all those people. They would then cheer for me as I beat her up."

"You want the reality of that situation?" Alex asked rhetorically before continuing. "Those people will instantly start cursing you out because of her hypnosis. And even if I remove her hypnotic suggestions, most of them will still curse at you because you took away their chance to be something different, something beyond normalcy. Do you want to know the best example of this? Spider-Man. People love turning on that guy the moment he makes a mistake. Being a good guy is fucking sad. And doing it for instant gratification is even worse because all you get is misery. The only reason Spider-Man hasn't gone crazy is that he is a masochist workaholic who feels responsible for everything bad that happens in the world because of a singular trauma in his formative years."

Midway through Alex's rant, Laura turned to look at him with a concerned look in her eyes. "Did you run into another Spider-Man?"

"Yeah …" He sighed. "The one from this planet. Last night, I separated a body to do some more exploration. Guess the first person I ran into? Spider-Man. He's in Tibet for some ungodly reason; probably part of a ploy to attack the new Kamar-Taj and dethrone Agatha from her seat as Sorcerer Supreme."

"Oh?" Laura's eyes brightened with a glint. "Is this a variant who can use magic?" She asked.

"I didn't ask. I was too busy suppressing my urge to kill him on the spot …" Alex said with a pause. "And no."

"I didn't even say anything," she threw her arms up in the air.

"I already know what you're going to say," Alex growled at her.

"Can we?" Laura asked as her eyes instantly turned to a pleading expression. "Can we, please~?" She clasped her hands together and pleaded with Alex, curling up slightly to look smaller than she usually was and looking up at Alex, invoking a pitiful feeling.

"Where was this acting skill when you were bargaining with that food guy?"

"Please~?" She didn't respond to Alex's taunt and continued pleading. "I want to play the hero for once. The heroes on that Hydra Earth all hated me because we killed that fucker, Charles. Why can't I be the good guy? You can continue your infiltration work with Agatha using that separate body. I'll go work with the heroes. We can cover more bases and understand more about this planet that way~."

"I'm not here to understand this planet," Alex said. "I need to understand more about that anomaly of a Scarlet Witch. Helping the resistance won't benefit us."

"It will! It will make me feel good. I'll be more motivated to help you do your thing then."

"Fine …" Alex let out a half-sigh half-groan. "This is the exact reason why I didn't tell you about my encounter yesterday. Damn Spider-Man."

"We will try to unpack your Spider-Man trauma as well," Laura said. "I'll try to become friends with him. Maybe talking to him will help you."

***

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