Chapter 190 Chapter 0190: Domain
When everyone woke up from the effects of Doctor Strange's spell, they were all disoriented for a while before they all reacted and looked at Strange's fainted form on the ground.
Nat perfectly blended in with everyone and acted just as clueless as she looked at Wong approaching Strange. He put two of his fingers at the side of the man's neck, "He's still alive."
"What exactly happened?" Tony asked, "What was that green glow?" He pointed his repulsors at Wong.
"You don't need to think of me as an enemy, Mr. Stark. Strange did what he did under the corruption of the lingering influence of this tomb — palace." He corrected himself, "As for that green glow," Wong hooked his hand around Strange's necklace and cast a spell to detach it before pulling it away from his neck.
"It was this, the Eye of Aggomoto." He was about to continue speaking but frowned for a moment before casting a spell that made the eye float. He tried to open it and saw that the green gem inside it had disappeared, "Damnit!" He slammed the Eye on the ground.
"I'm guessing that the green glowing rock was important?" Steve asked after seeing Wong's reaction.
"That green rock was the Time Stone." Wong said, "The thing that powered the Eye itself and the core of the relic. Without it, the eye is nothing more than an old focus relic."
"Any clue what might have happened?" Tony asked as he examined the eye that was still on the ground.
"It's impossible to recreate the scene since it involves the use of the Time Stone." Wong shook his head.
"Anyone gonna brief us on what this Time Stone exactly is?" Steve asked.
After a few seconds of silence, Wong sighed before casting an illusion spell that showed what could only be described as cosmic dust being compressed together into a singular unit, "At the dawn of the Universe, there was nothing. And then…" The compressed singularity exploded outward as Wong continued, "The Big Bang resulted in the creation of six singularities that formed the Infinity Stones and sent them hurtling across the universe," He created six differently colored stones within the illusion of cosmic dust, "These stones each control an essential aspect of existence."
He arranged the stones and grabbed the green one, "Time," He then grabbed the blue one, "Space," Next was the yellow one, "Mind," After that was the purple one, "Power," Then the gold one, "Soul," And finally, the red one, "And Reality."
"And we just lost the Time Stone…" Tony said with a tone of realization.
"The loss of life could be unimaginable," Steve said with a solemn tone, "Where's Vision?" He asked Tony.
"Compound," He said, "The Mind Stone will be safe with him. What about the others?" He asked Wong.
"The Ancient One was keeping track of the Space Stone for a while until it left the planet," He said.
"The Tesseract. It could open a portal through space to transport the Chitauri," Steve said, "It should be on Asgard…"
"If only we had a way to contact Thor," Tony said, "That's it?" He asked Wong.
"As far as I know, yes." He nodded, "The others I have no clue about. But I'm sure that they aren't on Earth."
"These Stones may just be the key for us to keep everything safe," Tony said, "We have to start looking."
…
Wakanda.
"What happened?" Wanda asked Alex with a frown, "I felt something weird coursing through my body just now…"
"Ah, yes," Alex said, "That's the Time Authority that I just received by taking the Time Stone of this Earth for myself." He explained.
"Time Authority?" Wanda questioned with a raised brow and a glint of curiosity in her eyes, "Care to explain?"
"It's not a big deal," Alex said, "I can control time to a limited extent. 2.5% of what's possible to be exact."
Wanda narrowed her eyes in a way that told Alex that she had some nefarious thoughts, "Show me…" She crossed her arms under her chest, showcasing her ample chest that was underneath the sweater that she was wearing.
Alex's gaze moved lower for a millisecond before he looked into her eyes and smiled. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers as a green glow spread out from him, instantly covering the entire room.
"We're in a time-isolated zone now." He said with a momentary expression of pride that turned into agony moments later, "Fuck…" Alex coughed as he grabbed onto the closest thing to him for support. It was Wanda's shoulder. She'd instantly appeared right beside him when she felt his situation.
"Alex…" She frowned and looked at him worriedly.
"It's fine…" Alex choked out before his form destabilized and he turned into black tendrils that traveled up from his hand to Wanda's shoulder before merging into her.
"You're clearly not fine…" Wanda felt her heart rate spiking as she saw Alex's state. Her eyes glowed with a red glow as a torrent of Chaos Energy emerged from her momentarily before being absorbed back into herself. She was doing the only thing she knew she could do to help Alex. She was channeling as much Chaos Energy as she could and giving it to Alex with the intent to help him recover.
[Hey, hey…] Alex said in her head with a soothing tone, [I'm just tired. Stop overexerting yourself.] His words made Wanda's erratic state calm down as she huffed and stopped channeling energy through herself.
"Then don't make me worry so much…" She said as her strength left her body and she slumped down on the couch, "What even happened?"
[Ahem… I…uhh… fucked up. I thought I could take the stress of directly using an Infinity Stone with brute force, but apparently, it overtaxed my soul…] Alex said with a hint of embarrassment in his tone.
"Pff…" Wanda couldn't help but snort with amusement when she heard his explanation, "What did you even do that caused you to get so tired?"
"I froze time," Alex said while appearing beside her. He'd already recovered sufficiently and got everything back together.
"I see," Wanda nodded nonchalantly when she heard his casual tone, but then took a double take, "What?" She asked with a cute expression on her face.
Alex chuckled and kissed her on the nose, "I didn't freeze time exactly so to speak. That would require me to have the complete Time Authority. I just created a domain surrounding this room and accelerated our time by a very large margin. Specifically, one second outside is equivalent to a month in here."
"And you can just keep it up indefinitely?" Wanda asked with a raised brow as she thought of many things that she could do with Alex in this domain, all of them revolving around a singular topic.
"Not really…" Alex said as he glanced at his EP, which was steadily going down.
«EP -126»
«EP -1»
…
«EP: 55765 -> 55638»
"I had to use almost 150 EP to initiate the domain and for every hour we spend at this speed, I'll consume a point of EP," Alex told her. He'd already given Wanda an idea about his special unit of energy since he regularly used it in their 'strengthening' sessions. His following words dashed all of Wanda's hopes. "It's not really a big cost, but it isn't sustainable either. Especially for the reasons that you're thinking of."
"What a shitty Infinity Stone…" She pouted, "There's clearly a limit to its use."
"Oh no, you're getting it wrong…" Alex said, "It's more complicated than that. I'm not using EP to maintain the domain. I'm using it so that I can keep up with my usage of the Stone."
"What do you mean?" She asked, "If the Stone has infinite energy, there should be no problem in using it."
"Yeah, I'm not completely sure about it either for now," He said, "But from what I can observe, the Stone is the source that's allowing me to use the Time Authority that's maintaining this domain. As for my energy consumption, it's because I have to supplement myself to be able to sustain the use of this Authority."
"Argh, you're using confusing sentences…" Wanda shook her head, making her hair slap Alex in the face repeatedly.
"All right, all right, I'll explain it in simpler words…" Alex grabbed Wanda's face between both his hands, squeezing her cheeks."
"Go ow…" She said with her lips squished together.
"The whole time shenanigans are dealt with by the stone itself. But there needs to be some sort of conduit for the stone to express the authority. I'm acting as that conduit and it's creating some stress on my entire being. Now to mitigate that stress, I'm using my EP. Do you get it now?"
"Uh hu..." She nodded with difficulty since her head was still grasped in between Alex's hands.
"Good," Alex nodded with satisfaction, before letting go of her head and giving her lips a kiss, "You look cute."
Wanda pouted, "I wanted to spend a month alone with you with the entire world frozen…" She looked to the side.
"I mean, 720 points of energy might sound like a lot, but it's really not when I consider my actual reserves…" Alex said with a smile as Wanda's eyes brightened up.
"I love you!" She jumped at Alex, almost toppling the couch in the process.
***
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