CHAPTER 111 - WANDA’S PROWESS

A/N: School is making it a little harder to type out chapters. Sorry for how late posts have been for the past week or two. 

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After the battle, the teachers at the school went inside to try calming down the children who must have been terrified with such a fight happening just outside their home.

Steve regarded Wanda and thanked her for her help. "Finally decided to come back to us, huh?"

"Yeah. I wanted to come back sooner but my teachers set the exam bar a little too high so I had to put in the extra work and ended up coming back later than intended." She said as they made their way to the medbay as some of the mutants got injured during the fight.

She also noted how different Steve and the others were from what she remembered. "Looks like I'm not the only one who got the needed power boost."

Steve laughed awkwardly and slid his hand through his hair as he came up with a reply. "Vision did a good job in making it clear how important it was. I ended up agreeing and took what was made available for me."

Their short conversation ended there as they entered the medbay and saw four of the students being tended to.

"I thank you for the backup, Mr. Rogers. We managed to prevent any casualty because of your timely appearance."

Charles wheeled towards them to give his gratitude but Steve shook his head. "It's our job. You don't have to thank us for it. But I have to ask, what are you going to do now?"

Steve's question made everywhere go silent, showing that they were all listening and now were looking at Charles for his direction.

Charles fell silent and contemplated his options. He had a few safe houses he had prepared years ago in case something like this happened but he wasn't sure if they weren't all under watch.

Remaining here was out of the question as he knew another unit was already on their way.

The government were already grasping at straws at the moment and were looking for anything to take the blame as a sacrificial lamb just to shift some of the focus away from them.

Seeing Charles still in his thoughts, Steve gave an offer. They had more than enough space in the expanded rooms to comfortably accommodate everyone in this building.

"How about taking temporary refuge aboard the Overwatch." Steve suggested. "You can't get everyone out at once before the next wave comes. You can make whatever plans you want after the children's safety have been assured."

Charles thought it over and while he had a few hesitations, he trusted the Captain's as a man of his words. "Then I will be troubling you with helping us get the children to safety."

"Don't worry. Vision is already working on increasing the beam up capacity so we can get them up there faster." Wanda added after getting a notification from Vision.

Steve nodded upon getting the same notification. "In the meantime, we'll hold back the approaching group until the last child makes it up there safely."

Charles nodded in agreement but one thing made him hesitant and that was the Cerebro system located under the building.

The last thing he wanted to do was giving the government a way to find mutants. He had no doubt that they could modify it with an artificial power source to power it up.

He debated on whether to destroy it or not.

He had the blueprints but rebuilding it from the ground up would take time and it would then be a race on who could get it running and he knew the government would beat him to it any day.

He was brought out of his thoughts by words that not only surprised him, but everyone else in the room.

"Vision said to tell you that you don't need to worry about losing the Cerebro." Steve noticed their surprised faces and realized that whatever the Cerebro was was probably an inside secret.

Charles' suspicion grew but before he could question it, Wanda made everything clear. "Vision is also a technopath and given that he's been here a few times, he's probably connected to it after sensing him. You can grill him later for answers but we have to start moving."

Charles was reminded of what was more important and kept back the question he wanted to ask in favor of another. "How is he going to safeguard the Cerebro?"

At this point, the boomtube was already calibrated to move up to fifty people at once and the children were being grouped in groups of fifty behind the mansion.

Charles led them to where Cerebro was built into, still wondering how they were going to keep it safe.

Wanda floated forward to take a look at it by creating a spell that enlarged to encase the whole place.

She turned around to the confused group below and informed Charles. "Some parts, roughly 30%, might need repair when you reinstall it next time. Are you good with that?"

Charles nodded. "That won't be a problem. Just do whatever you need to do."

Getting his confirmation, Wanda activated her magic and under their astonished eyes, the panels and wires all over the entire room dislodged themselves from the surroundings.

It took a few minutes for every single thing to be gathered by Wanda and encased in a red ball that slowly turned crystalline.

Wanda then took out a disc and slapped it against the gigantic crystal globe and shrunk it to the size of a basketball and threw it at Hank who was standing dumbly beside Charles and Steve.

"There. We're done so let's get moving." She said and flew away, leaving Charles and Hank staring at the white opaque ball in the latter's hand.

"Let's go, Hank. You can wonder about that later." Charles laughed and wheeled himself out of the now empty room, feeling a breezy lightness in his steps as he did.

"What the hell are they doing?!" Steve said with a dark face as his suit's HUD identified an incoming missile.

Things were quickly going out of control and panic was about setting in because they couldn't stop the fastly approaching heat seeker with suffering casualties.

"Don't worry, I got this." Wanda said as a thick red fog covered her form as she flew higher.

Everyone watched with bated breaths as red circles formed in front of Wanda and started intersecting through each other to form a ring-like circle as the missile drew dangerously closer.

Some closed their eyes and ears but the explosion they were expecting never sounded as the moment the missile touched the red circle, the air cracked like glass and the missile slowly disappeared into it.

The pilots of the two incoming jets panicked as they saw what just happened and hastily fired four other missiles, hoping that something within expectations would happen.

Wanda regarded the four missiles coming at her with indifference. The red glow in her eyes flashed brighter and the glass-like phenomenon before her enlarged while spinning in a circular motion and shot towards the two jets as it got progressively larger to the point that it swallowed the missiles and moved towards the escaping jets and swallowed them too.

The glass turned yellow for a brief moment before it mended itself back into the fabrics of reality and disappeared.

Wanda gave herself a nod for a job well done and descended after making sure that no other fighter jets were in bound for them.

"Nice trick." Steve commented before making his way to the back of the mansion along with a group of speechless younger X-Men.

The numbers were quickly decreasing and before the incoming reinforcement arrived, the last batch went through leaving only Steve and Wanda behind.

"Wanda? Let's go. We don't need to fight them." Steve looked at her, wondering why she kept staring at the mansion.

Wanda didn't reply and took another disc and threw it at the house to shrink it. The mini-sized mansion flew towards her before disappearing in a red fog.

"Now we can go." She said as she turned to Steve and activated the boomtube to whisk them away to the Overwatch.

All in all, it was a job well done on her part.

°°°°°°°

The Widows and the other younger members of the Avengers worked fluidly to get everyone settled in.

The room the mutants of Xavier were put in was quickly demarcated into four parts according to age group and genders.

It felt like they were in a large camping ground because inside the room were shrunken hostel buildings fitted with every needed basic amenities for a comfortable living.

Steve had been surprised when the first groups of mutants were rescued and showed to a room just like this.

It just went to show how prepared Vision was for any situation that came with his actions.

°°°°°°

Meanwhile, back at the site of where Xavier's mansion used to be, a contingent of specialized military soldiers arrived at the location but what they saw, or rather the lack of it, rendered them speechless.

"What do you mean nothing is there?!" A paranoid voice blared through an intercom after the leading agent reported back.

"I mean there's nothing here, sir. Apart from the bodies and scraps from the first strike unit, there's nothing else here. No single mutant of any state. Even the building is somehow missing." His lips twitched as even saying those words sounded stupid to his ears despite what his eyes could see.

"Ahhhh! Fuck!" He nodded in understanding as he heard the frustrated shout from the other party. "Since there's nothing there, salvage what you can and report back to base."

He clicked his tongue after the call went dead, pissed off at being relegated to clean-up duty after they came out fully decked for a fight.

"Marco! Tell the boys to do a survey. We are doing a 180 back to base in ten."