I fell in Marvel with Essence Gacha but I’ve never heard of Marvel

First things first, Lex teleported directly to the location of the rebel group. By now, Raphael had already identified the remaining Supes involved, along with their hideout, so there was little reason for Lex to waste time with any elaborate plan. He simply appeared among them, grabbed the few Supes before they could properly react and teleported them all directly to the prison.

They weren't particularly dangerous, at least not compared to the people Lex had already dealt with, and he didn't have the patience to give them individual attention. They could spend some time thinking about their decisions in a reinforced cell while Lex got on with the more important matter of going home.

The rebels, meanwhile, were having something of an existential crisis.

Stormfront was still trying to understand what had happened when she found herself standing inside what was unmistakably a prison cell. The last thing she remembered was seeing the strange red circle appear beneath her before someone had suddenly grabbed her by the throat. She hadn't even been given enough time to properly process the attack before the world around her changed, and now the man responsible was nowhere to be seen.

For someone who had spent her life believing that she was one of the most powerful beings on the planet, being reduced to a prisoner without even getting the opportunity to fight back was a rather unpleasant experience.

In the cell beside her, Sister Sage was having a considerably more complicated crisis.

It wasn't that she had been completely unaware that something like this could eventually happen. She had understood the risks involved in opposing Lex and the new World Government, and she had accounted for numerous possible scenarios. What she hadn't accounted for was being captured quite this quickly, quite this easily and without any of her plans even having the opportunity to unfold.

All of her intelligence, all of her planning and all of her carefully constructed contingencies meant very little against someone who could simply appear in front of her, grab her and teleport her into a prison before she could react.

Raw power had its own kind of simplicity.

Of course, even if Sister Sage had somehow managed to account for Lex's physical abilities, she still wouldn't have been able to overcome the other problem.

Raphael.

She wasn't omniscient, but Raphael's ability to acquire and process information made it extraordinarily difficult for someone like Sage to operate without being noticed. The reason Sage had managed to remain off the radar for so long wasn't because she had somehow outsmarted Raphael. It was simply because Raphael had never considered her enough of a threat to bother looking for her in the first place.

Even Kom, with Raphael quietly providing her with information and analysis, would have been more than capable of seeing through most of Sage's plans.

Lex, naturally, wasn't thinking about any of that.

He was sitting with Kom, drinking hot chocolate.

Apparently, Kom really liked chocolate.

"So, it's just going to be me here then?" Kom asked, taking another sip.

"No. I'm leaving Bang here too. As for Hela, she'll stay here until I've got everything sorted out on the other side." Lex sighed before adding, "Honestly, I don't even know if I should allow her into my home universe. She does whatever the hell she wants."

Kom gave him a look.

"Doesn't that mean you're going alone?"

"Yes. For now."

"Hmm..." Kom sighed, looking somewhat disappointed. "I was hoping you'd take Hela away."

"I will, I will. Just sometime later," Lex assured her.

Kom seemed satisfied with that answer, although her expression suggested that she would have preferred the "later" to be considerably sooner.

Lex eventually found Hela and Bang and informed both of them that he would be leaving. Hela wasn't particularly pleased about remaining in a universe she had already decided was rather boring, but she accepted that Lex had other things to take care of, especially since he had promised to eventually take her somewhere else.

With everything settled, Lex finally opened the Player's Handbook and selected the Territory section.

He chose Krakoa.

The next moment, the world around him changed.

The Handbook had made his old method of travelling between worlds practically unnecessary. His Conquering powers might have their own ritual for returning to his territory, but the Handbook could already handle interdimensional travel as long as Lex had a suitable anchor. His territories were naturally valid anchors, just as his vehicles were, which made returning to Marvel almost absurdly convenient.

The moment Lex appeared on Krakoa, however, he immediately realized that the island had changed quite a bit during his absence.

There was now a massive tower rising from the island, tall enough that it could be seen from practically anywhere on Krakoa. Several other structures had also appeared around it, giving the once mostly untouched island the appearance of a rapidly developing base.

And then there was the river.

Lex stared at it.

A perfectly ordinary-looking river was flowing down from his castle.

From the castle.

He followed the water with his eyes for a moment, trying to understand how exactly someone had decided that a river should come out of a building.

"...Regina."

There really wasn't anyone else it could be.

Lex expanded his senses across the island, expecting to find everyone who had been staying there, but instead found nothing.

Not a single person.

That was strange.

<Everyone is currently fighting a rogue AI in Sokovia,> Raphael informed him.

Lex raised an eyebrow.

"Can you give me a brief on what happened?"

<Apparently dissatisfied with Tony and the others, Reed Richards directly used Loki's Scepter to create an AI. That AI has now gone rogue and is attempting to eliminate all metahumans from the world.>

Lex stared blankly for a moment.

"Reed?"

He knew Tony, Bruce, Gwen and Regina had been working on an Android, and he trusted them enough not to assume they had somehow decided to build a genocidal artificial intelligence. Regina had already created multiple artificial intelligences that, according to her own explanations, could function almost like humans.

Apparently, someone else had decided to take their research and do something considerably less sensible with it.

"Well, that's unfortunate."

Lex teleported to Sokovia.

The sight that greeted him was considerably more dramatic than he had expected.

Novi Grad, the capital city of Sokovia, was no longer sitting safely on the ground.

The entire city had been lifted into the sky.

Or, more accurately, it was being violently propelled upward, with enormous amounts of debris and earth being torn away beneath it as the city continued its ascent.

Everywhere Lex looked, heroes were fighting hordes of Ultron's robots.

There were a lot of them.

Fortunately, quantity wasn't proving particularly useful.

The individual drones were relatively weak, and practically everyone involved was capable of dealing with them. Even ordinary members of the Avengers such as Black Widow and Hawkeye could handle them, while the stronger members were tearing through them by the dozens.

"Oh, hi."

Before Lex could even properly react, something struck him on the head.

Boink.

Lex looked up.

Kara was glaring down at him.

"Heyy, why are you suddenly doing domestic violence?"

Kara's expression twitched.

"Oh, let me think..." Her voice rose as she continued, "MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE YOU DISAPPEARED FOR THREE MONTHS WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING TO ME! I COME BACK AFTER A WEEK'S TRIP TO SPACE AND YOU'RE JUST GONE!"

Lex blinked.

"Ohhh, yeah..."

He scratched the back of his head.

"Well, it was supposed to be a one-week trip too. Then things happened, and I had to stay."

A group of Ultron drones suddenly flew toward them.

Kara didn't even bother turning around.

Her eyes flashed red.

The heat vision swept across the incoming machines, ripping through the robots and reducing them to molten pieces before they could get anywhere near either of them.

"Hmph."

Kara folded her arms and looked away with an exaggerated pout.

Lex couldn't help smiling.

"Okay, okay. How about this? You tell me a way to make it up to you, and if I can do it, I'll do it. Whichever path of redemption you choose for me."

Kara's pout immediately became a mischievous smile.

"You take me to whatever world you go to on your next trip."

Lex paused.

That wasn't exactly the punishment he had expected.

"Oh..." He considered it for a moment before shrugging. "I suppose I can do that."

A sudden impact drew his attention.

Donna landed a short distance away after making a tremendous leap, crushing another Ultron drone beneath her feet. She looked toward Lex, immediately noticed Kara standing beside him and then hurried over.

"Hey, no favorites. If you're taking her, I'm coming too."

Before Lex could answer, Donna rushed forward and wrapped her arms around him.

Lex laughed as he returned the hug, gently stroking her hair.

"Aww, I missed you too."

Donna pulled back enough to look at him.

"So, what exactly is going on here?"

Lex glanced around at the floating city and the dozens of battles happening throughout it.

"Yeah, that's what I was about to ask."

He turned toward one of the approaching drones and casually raised his hand. Telekinesis seized two of the machines in midair and smashed them directly into one another, destroying both before they could reach him.

Kara answered first.

"Just like I've always said. Artificial intelligence goes wrong, and suddenly everyone has to clean up the mess."

Lex vaguely remembered her talking about something called Brother Eye and OMACs before. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, but apparently Kara's concerns about artificial intelligence weren't entirely theoretical.

Donna gave him a more useful explanation.

"The original Ultron has already escaped into the Negative Zone. He took his Vibranium body and the Scepter with him, but he left all these robots behind."

She gestured toward the enormous number of drones still attacking the heroes.

"Kara says she can slow Novi Grad down when it eventually starts falling, so for now we're just waiting for that while destroying as many of these things as possible. That way they don't cause even more damage once the city comes back down."

Lex nodded.

Then he had an idea.

"Raphael, can you hack into them and shut them down?"

There was a brief pause.

<They are protected by a powerful universal energy source. I cannot penetrate their systems through conventional means while that energy remains active. I believe it is originating from the Loki's Scepter, although I cannot determine its exact nature yet.>

Lex glanced toward the sky where the floating city continued to rise.

"I suppose we've gotta do it the old-fashioned way."

He lifted himself into the air.

Then Lex joined the others in the battle, diving directly into the swarm of Ultron drones and beginning to tear through them one after another.

Just as Lex started tearing through the swarm of Ultron drones, he spotted Gwen a short distance away. She was standing beside a young woman wearing a red coat, apparently in the middle of teaching her something. The girl was watching Gwen's hands closely, occasionally attempting to imitate the movements, while strange red energy gathered around her fingers before flickering away again.

Lex slowed down as he approached, studying the energy for a moment. He knew enough about this universe by now to understand that something looking like magic didn't necessarily mean it actually was magic; there were mutants whose abilities could easily be mistaken for sorcery, and there were different forms of supernatural energy that behaved in completely different ways. Whatever the girl was using, Lex couldn't immediately determine which category it belonged to.

"Hi, Gwen," Lex called as he landed beside them.

Gwen looked over, and her eyes immediately widened with recognition.

"Oh... you're back! How was the other world?"

Then, without giving Lex any opportunity to answer, she gestured toward the girl beside her.

"Wait, Wanda, this is Lex. He's... a womanizer. Lex, this is Wanda. She's... a terrorist."

Both Lex and Wanda immediately turned toward her with almost identical looks of disbelief.

Wanda's expression was only mildly offended. Considering that she'd been working alongside Ultron until literally yesterday, she could hardly argue that Gwen's description was completely inaccurate, especially when it was obvious from Gwen's tone that she wasn't seriously condemning her.

Lex, meanwhile, simply stared at Gwen.

"Really?"

Gwen shrugged innocently.

"What? It's accurate."

Wanda looked between the two of them before her attention returned to Lex.

"You can travel to other worlds?"

The question was genuine, and Lex immediately realized that she had apparently known absolutely nothing about him before Gwen introduced them. She had only met Gwen herself a few hours ago, and now she was suddenly standing in front of someone who casually admitted that he could travel between universes.

"Well, since someone can't keep a secret..." Lex replied, giving Gwen another pointed look. "Yes, I can."

"Oh, come on. It's not like you keep it a secret yourself," Gwen shot back. "You even told that... girl, Jubilee, who you've only met a couple of times."

Lex gave her a look.

"Ahh, no. Jubilee is kinda my girl now. Of course I told her about it before leaving."

Gwen's eyebrows rose.

"Another one? Damn... what's that now, four women?"

Wanda shifted awkwardly in place, clearly realizing that she had somehow wandered into a conversation that had nothing to do with her.

"Do you guys need a minute?"

"Actually, it's six."

Lex looked toward Wanda and gave her a deliberate wink.

The poor girl immediately felt heat creep into her cheeks.

It wasn't that she had suddenly developed some deep attraction toward a man she'd met thirty seconds ago. She simply hadn't been prepared for Lex. He was exceptionally handsome even by ordinary standards, and whatever supernatural qualities were enhancing that appeal only made it harder to ignore. Wanda was barely twenty, and she hadn't exactly developed the immunity that might come from years of dealing with someone like Lex.

Gwen, meanwhile, had already caught the implication.

"Let me guess, you got those two in the other world?"

"Oh no, just one in the other world. You just don't know about Grayfia yet, I think..."

Lex's grin widened.

Gwen stared at him.

"..."

She slowly inhaled, clearly reconsidering several things about her friend.

"So, from the six of us sum—"

She stopped herself before saying the wrong word in front of Wanda and quickly corrected herself.

"Six of us girls from the team, you're hooking up with four and... I'm pretty sure if you tried even a little bit, Regina would be included in that list too."

Her expression became increasingly contemplative as she mentally went through the implications.

"That'll only leave me..."

Lex's eyebrows rose.

"I don't mind if you join in too."

He gave her an exaggeratedly dramatic wink.

Gwen simply stared at him for a moment, then rolled her eyes.