Chapter 255: Symbiote 0255: The Sanctuary

Symbiote 0255: The Sanctuary

“She’s doing well,” Natasha commented from the control room of the fortress. She was sitting on her chair while the huge screen in front of her showed the bodycam footage of Yelena and the thirty or so widows that had been deployed into the settlement.

“I guess it runs in the blood,” Alex spoke, he was also sitting on Natasha’s chair while she used him as her chair. He leaned forward and gave a brief lick to his host’s neck as she smiled a little.

“She’s not my actual sister, you know that right? We just had a mission where we were supposed to play sisters for a few years,” Natasha said.

“I know,” Alex nodded. “You still share many things. Your upbringing, your abilities, and even your sexual preferences are the same. I would know because I am the man whom you two are sharing.”

“I know you’re trying to tease me, but the taboo nature of your relationship with both me and her doesn’t invoke anything in me beyond a little embarrassment,” Natasha said, turning her head to look at him.

“Whatever you say,” He said. “The shield has already been established surrounding the circumference of the wall that they have. The generator has been buried almost a hundred feet in the ground and we will need some people to cover it up. Secondly, you need to deploy the rest of the widows to fight off the abominations that are going to attack the settlement after the commotion that the shield generator has created.”

“And why could you not have them dig a hole before throwing the generator down?” Natasha asked.

“I want them surrounded by Abominations,” Alex’s words left Natasha speechless. “That way they will focus on defending themselves from the external threat and be grateful and fearful when they see the widows taking care of these monsters without even using any heavy weapons.”

“How about I join in on the fight?” Natasha asked. “It’s been a while since I’ve done anything of the sort.”

“Don’t,” Alex refused. “Your strength is overwhelming and will not work in the Widows’ favor; invoking more fear in the populous than confidence while also making the widows complacent. Instead, Yelena is just strong enough that she can both control the battlefield and motivate the widows to give it their all. Also, I have a much more difficult fight coming up for you.”

“Yeah? Who?” Natasha asked.

“You see, there’s this Immortal Chinese warlord guy who has the keys to a very special location. A location that has a unique power system that I wish to explore. It’s going to be a very fun adventure for just the two of us.” Alex told her.

“I’ll do whatever you want me to do as long as you don’t let have me sitting on my ass anymore. I’ve done this administrative work for the widows for more than a month and am sorely bored by now.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Don’t worry. Once we settle things here, we will go on a fun adventure, promise,” Alex said as he turned Natasha’s head and pulled her into a kiss.

…

Despite being a small settlement, over the couple of months that the group had existed, they had gathered a hefty number of people. While most of them were adults, the number of pregnant women and infants was much higher than one would imagine. The infants who were less than six months old were staggeringly in the late double digits out of the three thousand people in the community. As for the pregnant women, that was even more absurd, crossing the triple digits where within the next seven to eight months, there would be at least two hundred more infants in the community.

“Were you planning to smuggle these newborns away or something? Is this some kind of breeding camp?” Yelena’s thoughts went in the most probable direction after hearing the statistics of the people living in the community. With the limited resources that they could find in the wasteland and despite the community having a sustainable biome where they were able to raise animals and plants for eating, it was impossible to accommodate such a large population.

“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you. Just stop hitting me!” The previous mayor said. “We have a partnership with a nearby community. They provide us with food and we give them protection. While we do ration it, the food supply is very steady and all we need to do is to use our weapons to protect their community. The squadron should return tomorrow with this month’s rations. That’s why we can sustain such aggressive birthing. If anything, I encourage it because the more kids we have, in a couple of years, that will translate into more soldiers.”

“How much food do you have in your storage?” Yelena asked, not completely convinced, but she didn’t push it for now.

“Enough to sustain the current community for six months, easy. And that’s if we lost our partner who graciously provides us with food every month in exchange for protection.”

Yelena asked a few more questions, spending a good two hours understanding the system of the community. While the guy was a little high on power, the decisions that he had made for the community had always been solid. If they weren’t so limited in resources, this place itself could’ve become a bastion eventually. She learned that they even had weapons that could kill the buff class abominations that Alex had told her about. They had never encountered any leader-class ones, which might truly have been up to luck.

By the time Yelena was done questioning him, the shield was done with its purpose of cleaning the air inside the entire dome. While the ground and everything else was still dangerous, simply staying in the dome was perfectly safe as long as one didn’t eat the dirt or something. This was why Yelena had the mayor call an assembly of all of the citizens. She would be directly addressing them about the Widows and their purpose.

In a sort of dilapidated stadium, Yelena stood in the center with the mayor standing beside her with his head hung low as the people all crowded in. The infants and their mothers alongside the women in the third trimester of pregnancy were excused since traveling here would be very inconvenient for them. Still, the stadium was filled up by almost three thousand people who were all wearing Hazmat suits. Yelena was impressed at the sheer logistical challenge that this many resources possessed.

“Did you guys rob multiple military warehouses or something?” She couldn’t help but ask him. “The weaponry that you have along with these hazmat suits and more. Where did all this come from?”

“I don’t think you want to know,” The man said. “It’s better for you to stay in the dark about this. For your own peace of mind.”

“Just fucking tell me,” Yelena didn’t have much patience with the man and kicked him in the gut.

“God, argh … Fuck …” He kneeled over, “Fine, Jesus.” He said breathing deeply to recover before looking up at her and speaking. “I am not from the wasteland. Instead, I am a corporal from the military. I was one of the first people who worked in Tony Stark’s Bastion. After the Kree invasion, and the damage to the planet, I was sent on a mission to this location to set up a shelter. For the first six months, I had their full support, which is why I was able to rapidly expand and promote the birth of the next generation. That was how we formed the partnership with another community in the first place. They had discovered an underground biome where they could grow certain plants and raise cattle en masse. Just as the partnership was formed, the Bastion went dark. I sent some scouts to check up on the place, but none of them returned. Either the place has been destroyed, or they have abandoned me. Happy now?”

“Kinda, yes,” Yelena nodded. “That tells me that you are just temporarily power high. After a little humbling, I can put you back to work instead of killing you. Plus, now you have a different Bastion’s resources backing you up.”

The man shook his head as Yelena waited for the people to all come into the stadium.

Her speech consisted of informing them that the flying fortress in the air was from The Sanctuary. One of the final Bastions of Humanity. She told them that some things might be changing from now on, but their lifestyle would only get better after today. She clued the people in on some of their plans while calling to action the people who were willing to fight for the fortress. They were to assemble on the ground of the stadium after everyone else would leave. Then, she addressed the people with crafting jobs, specifically the construction workers and architects that they would now have work to do in expanding the settlement to accommodate more people. It was the same with the other common professions, all of whom got a gist of their situation going into the future. Yelena left some of the details to the future and adjourned her speech after telling them that their mayor would still stay the same.

Finally, it was time for the fighters to gather in front of her. She saw that a good five hundred men were gathered in front of her, all of them with battle-hardened looks telling her that they weren’t unfamiliar with the abominations.

“My widows,” Yelena said loudly and almost a hundred women, all clad in the same outfits as her appeared out of nowhere behind her. She could see the shock and awe in each of the soldiers’ eyes and smiled. “These women are the Sanctuary’s protectors. My soldiers. They will be joining in on the fight that is about to come. Due to the generation of this shield, you will be assaulted by a hoard of abominations that will rip into your walls and destroy everything you hold dear once they enter. Will you fight for your lives, and your family’s lives? Will you fight for the Sanctuary?” Alex enhanced Yelena’s voice with Chaos magic to make it seem like her words and speech were extremely charismatic, making the soldiers howl excitedly as their blood boiled to fight their enemies.