CHAPTER 100 - A STEP CLOSER

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[Wanda Maximoff POV]

She heaved a deep breath and dropped her hands finally managed to deploy her first advanced spell. 

Just because it was easier for her to learn magic than it was for other people didn't mean that everything for her was smooth sailing. 

Some spells really were complicated and if not for the fact that her powers were imagination/reality bending based, she would have had a harder time grasping it than the average genius. 

"Your progress is astonishing to say the least. Any particular motivation?" The voice of the Ancient One called out to her as soon as she got her breathing in order. 

"Well my brother, my boyfriend and the rest of my family are out there doing whatever and I'm kind of isolated from them, so yeah." She said after giving a formal bow to the Sorcerer Supreme. 

Due to the uniqueness and secret, even taboo, nature of her magic, the Ancient One was the one who mostly taught her most of the things she knew apart from the basics. 

He nodded as he walked towards her with his hands behind his back. "Matters of the heart can be a very good motivator. So, how goes your training?" He asked. 

"The spells are, how should I put this, not based enough?" She asked unsurely. 

He just laughed and looked at her. "Hmm, interesting choice of words. I know, how about you attack me? So I can get a feel of just why you think it's unbased."

The moment those words left his mouth, Wanda saw how her surroundings shimmered as if it were the illusion of a novice spellcaster until nothing remained except the calm surface of the ocean they stood upon and endless clear blue sky. 

"Go on then." He gestured at her. 

The thought of ever using her powers against a frail old man never once crossed her mind as she called upon her chaos magic. 

The water below her and the sky above turned red as her body was covered in a red haze while the Ancient One only pulled out one of his hand from behind him. 

A red lightning cloud covered her while a pentagram appeared behind it. 

"Ho? That's quite the application you have there."

Not stopping there, the lightning cloud and the pentagram multiplied into five and took their positions around the Sorcerer Supreme. 

The first stage of Wanda's attack made the body of water below them cackle with lightning before shooting upward and engulfing the Ancient One, only for it to clear up and Wanda to see that he was standing upon a yellow construct that fully protected him from the blast. 

The pentagrams around them started spinning at the same time that two magic circles appeared around the Ancient One's hand. 

"Improvising magic circles into your limited reality warping magic. Are you sure one won't hamper the other?"

His words stopped as he saw one of the magic circles birth out a red eight-headed hydra while the others displayed to her forms of magic. 

"You really are a terrifying student, Wanda Maximoff." He said with acknowledgement and a third magic circle appeared around his hand before muttering to himself, "This should be enough. Now let's see if we can pick up the incongruity in your magic."

°°°°°°°

[Vision POV] 

'I can use Tony to revolutionize the energy sector but its not that important at this point. What I need, or rather what is actually vital at the moment, is the health sector.' 

[Generating list of known associates that can be used…] 

[Emma Frost 

Susan Storm

Ororo Munroe 

Sarah Kinney 

Bruce Banner 

Helen Cho

Hank McCoy] 

Well no doubt its going to be Sarah. 

The reason why I am targeting the health sector is to obviously improve it. Cheaper drugs, both for humans and mutants, and an agenda that will forcefully stop those in power from benefiting from selling partially effective drugs just for a few billions of dollars. 

This will also put a huge target on Sarah's back but that will be an inside joke at best. 

I have a few facilities to use along with billions of dollars at my disposal that I stole from the numerous research facilities I've raided, it will be child's play for me to put Sarah in a global limelight in just months. 

This will also serve as a hub for all the like-minded geniuses to pool together and further their research, all under my sneaky little eyes. 

'Imagine having everyone on that list working for me.' Now that's a billion dollar idea. 

"Mail the proposal to Sarah. She should be over at Stark Industries."

I typed out a few names and ran a tracer and a few satellites responded and focused in on the group of mutants that had defected to Essex's side. 

"At least someone's taking the bait, but unfortunately it's a clone." I let them do their thing while also keeping an eye on Essex's clone. At this point, it's only a matter of time before Sublime rears his ugly head. 

At least that's two checks on my <Must Kill> bucket list. 

I also taken care of four more members of the Hellfire Club; two knights, one rook and a bishop, brining me ever so meticulously close to checkmate. 

All I need to look out for is the opponent's Black Queen and the game is mine. 

Thankfully my magic is coming along swimmingly. Since I'm a self-sufficient well of unlimited energy, I don't need to draw power from cosmic entities or the universe, but that also conversely severely limits the number of spells I can use since most strong spells are cast with permission of the patron entity. 

It doesn't matter to me that much because I'm not planning on going the magician route. All I need to do is learn how to manipulate energy the way I see fit and it's not as if magic is the end all be all of this verse. 

°°°°°°

[Wanda Maximoff POV] 

She teleported backwards to narrowly avoid the cracking of space centered around where she had just been. 

'This old man sure is something else.' It's like no matter how hard she tried, he always had something completely counter her. 

His magic on its own was on a whole different level. 

The pentagrams around her had been reduced to two but she still pushed forward regardless. 

"You are still holding back, Wanda. You are not like the others. You do not follow logic like your brother, your friends, or even Mr. Simons himself." He said as he waved him hand in an arc and destroyed the hex blast she shot at him. 

"Login are mere building blocks in front of your. Like bricks to an architect – use it as you see fit."

His words reverberated in her ears and resonated with all what Vision had been telling her a from a long time ago. 

'You can do anything you put your mind to. Your magic is such bullshit that it's terrifying, even for me.'

But who stands above the laws of the universe? 

A god. 

The moment she arrived at that epiphany, the entire space they were in turned red and started dripping blood as winds that never existed started wailing like the cries of a weeping banshee. 

The Ancient One looked at her and nodded with a smile as he saw what she was doing. "Good job. Now this can really make me move a step from where I've been standing."

All the red hues of the space they were in started melting off the very fabrics of this reality and started swimming towards the tip of Wanda's fingers, leaving the both of them standing in emptiness of a black world with cracks all over it. 

Wanda's eyes and hair turned blood red as she drew in so much power that the space started crumbling since the powers of its very foundation were sucked off. 

She pointed her fingers at her master and without so much as an ounce of hesitation, shot the blood red blob that had gathered on her fingertips at him. 

The fist sized orb appeared in front of him the next moment since there was no conventional space for it to move through but the smile on the Ancient One's face never once faltered, instead it grew. 

He made a quick hand gesture and the red shining orb slowed down to a stop just a few centimeters away from his body and before Wanda could understand what was happening, the Ancient One slowly opened his hands and grabbed the red orb. 

The safe they were in completely exploded as his hands covered it, bringing them back to the training year of Kamar-Taj. 

"Congratulations, Wanda. You are now a step closer."

"Closer to what?" She found herself asking. 

"To what you can be."