TGS - #64

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Sokovia [October 2014]

–Wanda Maximoff–

She took in deep shuddering breaths as the word tainted continued to repeat in her mind, Pietro's reassuring hug not feeling all that reassuring anymore. He was looking around, trying to spot the threat that might have attacked her, already at super speed as he was on guard against any such threat.

Alas, she knew that the threat had already left, but the effect of that attack had already been completed. She looked at the corona of red that completely surrounded her, keeping her mind, body, and soul rooted to this reality. The corroding effects of being in this reality were already felt by her magic as she could feel the pressure, the load on her magic increasing by the minute as the world itself began rejecting her.

This was not supposed to happen. As long as she could planeswalk without borrowing the power of the Darkhold, and the universe didn't instantly reject her, she was supposed to be able to pass herself off as a native inhabitant.

And she did do just that. She was getting used to this new body, which, while weaker, was very much native to this world. She could feel her soul slowly adapting to this body, no longer whiplashing her whenever she tried to draw on her powers.

But….

She closed her eyes and delved deep into her mind and after coming into her mind's manifestation, she looked at the impeccably built mind maze that only she knew how to escape out of, she looked at the widely fluctuating sun.

The Red Sun, representing her powers. It was flickering and she knew the reason why. Her powers were being burdened with warping reality in a localised area to keep her rooted in this universe.

But even she knew that this could not go on for long. No, sooner rather than later, her powers would run out, or her body would give out, and she would then be violently rejected by this universe. Normally, empowered by the Darkhold's patron, she should be able to shrug off any attacks by the Universe' will, slowly forcing the Universes to collide together, destroying both universes as their combined will wasn't enough to counter the influence of the Darhold's patron's power.

And yet….she could feel it. This universe was different in some way. The will was much stronger and she could say with confidence that even if she did have the Darkhold in her hands, she would not be able to stay in this universe. All she would be able to manage was a pyrrhic victory, at best, with both her and the universe dying. The only one who would win from such a scenario was the Darkhold's creator.

God, she could not even utter his name, otherwise he might get aware of her existence in this reality. Already having been touched by the Darkhold once, she knew that it would be infinitely easier for it to try and reach out to her, and then slowly corrupt her mind from the inside. 

Elder Gods were insidious beings, capable of manipulating lesser species' minds even if the victims themselves knew that they were being manipulated.

'Creatures living out of the realm of reason,' That was how Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme in her timeline describes the Elder Gods. Some of them were killed by their stronger counterparts, some willingly chose to pass on, some lingered on as lesser beings, some took on the form of Planets, and one of them was sealed by the strongest of the Elder Gods.

And yet, the influence of the Elder Gods, their will, could not be defied by a mortal like her, no matter how powerful she may be when compared to others in the universe.

She had to be careful here, her options were basically nonexistent. She breathed out in frustration as she came out of her mind inspection. 

The corona of red surrounding her body was almost gone now, not due to the increased pressure but by design. She had already devised a much more efficient way, or rather, willed a much more efficient method of protecting her into this reality. Her powers were handy like that.

"Wanda! What was that? Why did you fall unconscious? I was so scared, did these bastards do something to you?" She actually was taken aback at the sheer venom in his tone. Pietro was generally a very easygoing guy and while he still had the revenge on Stark in his mind all the time, she knew that if she told him to give it up, he would. He would grumble and complain, but he would do what she said.

After all, she was the mentally elder sister here.

"Pietro, Pietro! I am fine," She said as she stood up from the beds, in the prison cell where she first woke up. She threw a questioning look at Pietro who replied,

"The smallest place with a single entrance. It would be the easiest to kill anyone who tried to come close," He said as his vision continued to swivel to the forcefield that kept this prison isolated from the outside world.

Ever since she took over the HYDRA base, she and Pietro stayed in the best quarters they had available, obviously, so she was just a little surprised to see the prison pod again. It was a good thing that HYDRA as a whole was almost non existent due to that Jack fellow's intervention.

Even back in her reality, HYDRA was not this weakened by a single individual. Even Captain America, with his crusade against HYDRA in the 40s, was unable to do the amount of damage that a single person, a teenager by the looks of it, was able to inflict on them.

"Alright, what happened? What do we need to do? I called the doctors but I could not trust them without you awake to guide them," Pietro said as he bounced on the balls of his feet, a nervous tick.

She smiled in an effort to put him at ease, even though her own emotions were tumultuous on the inside. 

"Nothing major. I will deal with it, as I always do, remember? You just make sure that they are preparing my favourite dinner for tonight. I am hungry after all that, alright?"

He opened his mouth, as if to argue but then deflated a second later and whizzed out of the place.

"Alright. Think, Wanda! Think!" She muttered to herself as she sat cross legged on the absolutely junk class bed and took her Astral Form, simply because time flowed much slower like this. Having magical powers instead of having to learn them from scratch was a boon because she could root the spell to be active even without her soul being in the body to power it. All she needed was a strong tether to the body and she had it.

The normal options were out of the question. Darkhold was not an option, absolutely not. The creator of Chaos Magic might help her, or rather, empower her in the guise of helping her but she knew what that road would lead to.

The Scarlet Witch is not born but forged.

The words were not just legend but truth. If she were to tap deeper into its powers, she might just make the legend a reality and find herself becoming someone who would destroy trillions of lives without even thinking about the consequences.

No, Chaos Magic as the permanent solution was out of question. The voice that warned her about her tainted presence not allowed in this sacred timeline was unrecognisable as well, as if it came from many different voices instead of just one. The words might be a clue but she had no idea how to use those clues without having additional information.

Technology would never work because nothing like that existed in the first palace. Not even Reed would be able to create something that would be able to stabilise two universes from colliding but…

Her eyes widened as hope briefly surged in her heart. Reed might not be able to make something that would carefully and intricately stabilise two universes but he should be able to make something that might root her to this reality. Especially since she looked at the thin red lining on her body, he had something as precedent to refer to.

That's it. These were the only two options she had, and one of them was literally handing over control of her soul to an extradimensional primordial god who liked to play with universes for fun. The other looked possible if she didn't think of Reed's infamous paranoid and arrogance.

Kamar Taj was out of the question since they would much rather root for the death of a potential Scarlet Witch candidate than help her out.

"ARGH, this is frustrating!" She roared in the astral realm, the blue waves rippling with tinges of red as her powers responded to her heightened emotions.

No, this was going nowhere, she had to do something. She could not be paralyzed by indecision. Maybe there was something in Kamar Taj's libraries about such a situation?

Maybe the Ancient One might actually help her? That old man was always so cryptic before he died and made Stephen the Sorcerer Supreme.

Then there was this Jack Sullivan, the Green Guardian. His powers were clearly of mystical origin, at least partially because of the way those barriers worked, the fluidity and malleability of that level meant that Jack had mastered his powers to heights that would be impossible without understanding the underlying mechanics of his powers.

She did not know why but she had a feeling that this Jack person was going to be very significant in her quest to remain here, with her brother. What remained was to see if he was going to be with her or against her.

Oh, who was she kidding, with how the optics looked, he was sure to be another enemy of Wanda Maximoff, the latest addition to a long list of enemies. She also had a habit of not leaving enemies alive for lessons later on. She would hate to deprive this world of a capable hero but if he stepped in between her happiness, he would find himself defeated.

Of that, she was sure.

Just as she was about to step back into her body to look for Pietro and tell him about her plans going forward, her soul stiffened as she felt something, or rather she felt the foul but very familiar presence of it.

Chthon. The Progenitor of Chaos Magic, and the second strongest Elder God of all time. The reason she avoided even mentioning his name, even in the privacy of her thoughts, was because Chthon could sense his name being uttered, or even thought of. It was one of the many powers that the Elder God possessed.

"Hello, my dear Wanda," The guttural voice, a mixture of hundreds of pained shrieks, hit her soul like a mystical attack.

She tried to do something but she found her soul anchored on the spot, her powers not responding to her will. She did notice the burden of maintaining the spell lessened considerably due to the sudden influx of power she received just by being in the vicinity of a soul projection from the Chaos God himself.

She struggled with all her might but she could not find any way of freeing herself. So, she resigned herself to this conversation.

"What do you want, you monster? You had to follow me here as well? You weren't content with ruining my life once?" She said, bitterness and resentment tinging her tone.

"Oh, please, Wanda dear, don't act like you didn't voluntarily give into my powers to gain more strength, to persevere and not pass on," 

She scoffed at that. As if she would ever believe that. The Darkhold was built solely to guile unsuspecting people and make them use the Chaos Magic within, something that has a very low bar of entry but a higher demanding price.

"I see that you are in quite a predicament here, Wanda dear,"

Her eyes narrowed as she realised that Chthon already knew everything about her situation. Of Course, he did, why would anything in her life ever be simple?

"Here, let me help you. Spread Chaos, as you always do, Wanda dear, and your wishes will be granted. I never lie, you know that,"

A ball of red diverged from the huge mass of red that had descended into the Astral Realm and without any way of resisting it, she tried but nothing worked, the small ball of red energy merged with her mind, shocking her soul back into her body.

She awoke with a gasp and looked at her hands, the red energy lining her body becoming very easy to maintain. She took one look at her hands and found a bloody red and inflamed tattoo carved on her wrist, which seemed to pulse with red.

She hesitantly touched the tattoo, and her back arched as an avalanche of information was unloaded into her mind.

When she came to be, she found herself with a newfound understanding of her situation and how to best handle the entire thing, with the maximum chances of allowing her to stay in this reality.

She did not know if this was another one of Chthon's tricks and it had high chances of her ending up as the Scarlet Witch once again but the things she had to do were not the ones that would forge her, as it was said in the legend.

It might be the infusion of Chaos Magic talking but she might actually have a shot of making it this time.

_____xxx____

In a place outside time and space

–Chthon–

Oh my sweet summer child, how naive are you to believe I would ever allow you to escape my wrath?

Eternite might have tried to intervene to get my trojan horse out of the universe but, in the end, I always get what I want.

ALWAYS.

Word Count - 2384

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