The next day, before the sun was about to rise, the widows were all in their quarters, almost all of them having indulged themselves in the addictive, guilty pleasure of submitting to an inanimate object. Most of them equated it to a kinky self-bondage session gone awry as their permanent clothing took advantage of them to drown them in pleasure. The ones who weren't currently indulging in that pleasure were in a deep sleep, either not corrupted enough to try those things by themselves, or merely tuckered out after the suit was finished with them. Ultimately, what mattered was that none of them realized when the windows of their respective rooms were covered by shutters and their doors barred.
In the fortress's control room, Natasha and Yelena were standing side by side looking at the huge screen in front of them that showed the fortress from multiple angles.
"Are you sure you can do it?" Natasha asked Alex who was standing on her other side.
"Yeah, don't worry," Alex said. "I even have some help from a special sorcerer who has a very deep connection with the source of their abilities." A small portal appeared in one of the cameras, showing the scene of a dusky sky on the other side. That portal started getting larger by the second, increasing by multiple magnitudes. Soon enough, it was large enough that it had covered the view of multiple cameras completely, covering their vision with what was on the other side.
"We should move quickly because if the irradiated air passes through that planet into ours, we will be in trouble," Yelena said.
"Look at Yelena the environmentalist," Alex teased. "Don't worry about it. Mystic Arts portals are made with much more thought put into them. Since they are made to traverse between dimensions and other planets, it is integral for them to block the passage of anything other than the intended recipient. Nat, turn on the thrusters at full capacity. We have a very small window to pass through the portal."
Natasha, ready for his signal, blasted the ship's thrusters at full throttle to pass through the portal that was easily multiple miles in diameter.
From the outside, it looked like the huge floating fortress gained a breath of life as it moved fast enough that the mere inertia would've destroyed half the fortress. That is what would've happened if the fortress wasn't a marvel of engineering that had been enhanced extensively by Alex to be able to withstand the motion. He had even established an artificial gravitational system with the nuclear reactor as the core to make sure that no one inside the fortress would be affected by their abrupt change in speed.
Soon enough, the fortress passed through the portal completely as it instantly disappeared, stranding the fortress on another planet. Some distance away from the previous location of the fortress in MCU Earth, Doctor Strange's body calmed down and stopped seizing as his face seemed to have gained some wrinkles. He was the one Alex was using to channel the necessary Eldrich Energy since Wanda was somewhat blocked from accessing it at the moment.
"We're here," Yelena said tiredly with a sigh as a blue glow appeared all over the surface of the fortress, graphene-like hexagonal structures forming a translucent shield. Alex had gotten some help from his time accelerated Scientist Gwen to help him put together a modified, smaller version of their planetary shielding system for the fortress. She was also responsible for helping him develop the system to keep the fortress intact during their travel process.
"What now?" Yelena asked as a frown made its way to her face, "What are those bird-like monsters? They seem to be flocking around us …"
Alex was the one who answered, "They are Abominations, Yelena. The very reason we needed such a shield generator in the first place." He said. "These are the beings that rule the skies, the seas, and most of the land on this planet. As for the humans, they have a scarce few bastions left that still have the capabilities to hold themselves against these monsters. The smaller communities? They are barely able to survive against the weaker ones, but they are few and far between. We will be taking over one such community and establishing our own bastion — The Sanctuary. We will use the fortress as our means of travel and migrate the smaller communities to our budding bastion. The widows, including yourself, will be the guardians of The Sanctuary and train an armed force that will aim to rid this planet of these Abominations."
"Those communities are the ones you want us to take little girls from to train them to become widows?" Yelena asked, her tone slightly sour. She wasn't very fond of expanding the Black Widow program.
"It's just a name, Yelena," Natasha said. "I support Apex in this endeavor. We can call them the Young Avengers if need be. As I told the Widows outside. We will train and groom the trainees into combatants, yes, but they will be protectors first and foremost. While the training will be brutal and difficult, with Apex's help, their recovery and enhancement will be good enough that they will never need any of those painful procedures that we needed to endure."
"Fine, fine, I get it," Yelena said. "I understand where you are coming from. Hell, I'm sure that most of, if not all, the girls will jump at the opportunity to gain strength and to be able to defend themselves while living in this luxurious fortress."
"Do we need to do anything about these flying Abominations?" Natasha asked Alex as she saw more and more of them attacking the fortress.
"No need," He said. "This particular shield generator comes from a planetary-scale shield. Unless the ‹Eldrich Leader Class› abominations that truly rule the skies attack us, we're fine. And I know where to move to avoid them. Once we start descending, they will all naturally leave since we are going out of their territory."
The fortress moved through the sky for a few more hours, by which point the widows were starting to get ready for their usual 8 AM workday. Suffice it to say, they were very startled by the view of the abominations that they saw from their windows. They didn't panic, aware that if it was an emergency, they would be hearing all sorts of alarms. They were then called to the assembly hall once again where Natasha briefed them about their current plans.
…
Close to the fortress's destination, Laura and Kamala were working like the diligent farmer bees that they were while wearing their red-streaked black outfits and helping Alex harvest his EP from the abominations.
"Laura look," Kamala said as she noticed something in the air, "Is that something we should be concerned about? I can't identify its shape, but it looks really big …"
"Apex says safe," Laura said. "He is guiding us …" With the cryptic words, looked in a specific direction and started moving. Kamala wordlessly followed Laura, knowing what awaited her if she refused.
"We can't even see anything …" Kamala said. "The sandstorm has limited our visibility by so much."
"Don't whine," Laura said. "Trust Apex."
"I do, I do, really. He's been an amazing help for us, truly," Kamala said. "I owe my life to both you and Apex because I don't think I could've ever survived here on my own. And I don't know about you, but I feel that we're getting stronger the longer we stay here, not only in skill, but in our abilities as well, or is that just me?"
"We are," Laura said. "Apex nourishes us and enhances us."
As the two continued walking forward, they noticed some kind of tall dark silhouette that extended in both directions, "Is that a wall or something?" Kamala asked.
"Settlement," Laura said as Kamala stopped in her tracks.
"Are you sure we want to go in there? What if they suppress us and do experiments on us? Since these people can resist abominations, they might be able to capture us," Kamala panicked. "I don't want to become a test subject. Isn't Apex the one who always discouraged us from coming into contact with the settlements?"
"Trust, Apex," Laura said. "He says that it's safe. It's also the destination of the structure we saw."
"Then shouldn't we be running away —"
"Quiet," Laura said, giving Kamala a pointed look. "Follow me." At Laura's order, the Inhuman obediently followed her, walking behind her with a pout.
"Is that some kind of a floating fortress?" Kamala wasn't quiet for long and pointed at the sky as the thing they had seen before became clearer. They could now see the structure with some clarity. Through the light blue sheen that covered its surface, it seemed like a huge metal fortress with large thrusters under it as it flew to the same destination as the two of them.
"Seems like it," Laura said as the two continued moving. "Be quiet now, if we are to sneak into the base, we need to suppress our presence as much as possible." Both Laura and Kamala disappeared under the camouflaging ability of Apex.
'Why are we sneaking in?' Kamala wanted to ask but didn't want to get scolded. Ultimately, she stayed quiet and followed Laura's lead, knowing that Apex and Laura weren't big fans of sharing their plans with her. Even if she argued, it was useless as Laura dragged her to execute the plan anyway. By now, she had lost most of her actual resistance to following Laura's lead without asking questions. What she did now was just playing around.
***
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