The "G" Shield - By IdleMuse

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Sokovia [November 2014]

–Jack Sullivan–

After a quick commute straight to the castle that served as Stucker's base of operations, they found themselves in front of what could only be called a veritable fortress. He could spy Chitauri derived weaponry on all the patrolling soldiers.

Just like the ones he remembered, the soldiers had enhanced guns that would send out energy bullets and some even had jetpacks that might help them fly with ease.

Welp, it was not as if something like that was going to help them at all. Still, he didn't know if the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were born into this reality or not, though he had a feeling that the birth of Scarlet Witch could not really be stopped, owing to her multiversal nature.

"Guys, be careful. I am sensing some enhanced presence in the Castle as well as increased energy weaponry presence in the castle," He didn't really feel anything because he did not have any spell under his belt that could give him the necessary information but they didn't know it and it was the best way to warn them about the possibility of enhanced being on the field without tipping off his foreknowledge of the entire event.

He couldn't believe he had forgotten about the whole sceptre being stolen by HYDRA and being used to birth the Scarlet Witch of this reality.

"Great. Like we didn't have enough problems as is," Tony snarked through his suit, his repulsors whine becoming more and more audible as he probably prepared to take off and lay siege to the building.

"Wait! We need to make sure that the enhanced don't hightail it out of here, with Baron Strukcer, without even putting up a fight," He said to the team.

"You need to remain hidden until the mastermind behind the operation reveals himself. If they see you coming, they might just run away or hide because they knew they wouldn't be able to defeat you," Captain's analytical mind came in clutch this time as he nodded in realistion.

"Oh boo hoo, so they think you are the hot shot and I am not?" Tony's voice reverbed in the barrier as he nodded at Captain, the floor of the barrier unfurling itself to reveal multiple barriers.

His impeccable control over his powers meant that the Avengers probably felt like they were passing through multiple soft fluffy layers as they were dropped straight on top of one of the watchtowers.

Clint was grabbed by Tony who simply deposited him on top of the tallest building he could find. Hawkeye was the most dangerous from a distance, and especially now since he was now armed with functionally unlimited explosive arrows.

He was already taking a risk revealing this much, so he didn't add any more functionality in the quiver he had handed over to Barton.

The Captain simply absorbed the shock by using his Shield, a slightly dented shield, but a Vibranium shield nonetheless, and then simply began hammering every single soldier he could see in sight.

Romanoff, even before landing on top of the tower, was making generous use of her now explosive stingers and was taking out as many soldiers as she could. Her eyes widened as one of the bullets passed through two tanks before exploding, creating a much bigger explosion to take out both the tanks at the same time.

He still remained hidden, waiting for Pietro to arrive on the battlefield. Once he captures him, Wanda would come to him on her own, assuming that they still existed here, that is. He didn't know if Wanda could already access her magic and he blamed himself for not learning more sensing spells because if it was any other half decent Master here, they could have easily told him if they had detected traces of foreign magics being used.

That was part of the training as it helped every Master to detect magics other than dimensional magic being used, like Demonic Magic, Hell Magic, Dark Magic, and…Chaos Magic.

No sooner did the word enter his mind, his vision snapped to the topmost tower of the Castle, the one that Tony just bounced off of, cursing "Shit!" as the suit had to deal with the violent impact, no doubt jostling the pilot inside.

"Language!"

He suppressed the laughter that threatened to bubble out of him as Captain somehow managed to chide Tony Stark, Billionaire extraordinaire for cursing in the middle of a battlefield.

Truly, things stayed the same even as he tried to divert them from their intended path.

Even as his thoughts continued to wander, his gaze never strayed from that one point in the balcony on the topmost point of the castle, even as his shots continued to be fired from both sides, the explosions lighting up part of his vision.

Slowly, his vision sharpened as part of the shadow of that area melded, to reveal two glowing red eyes. His eyes widened as Wanda Maximoff appeared in front of him, but not the Wanda he expected her to be.

No, this looked as if she was a fully realised Wanda staring at him. Wanda somehow smirked at him before disappearing from his view with a red shimmer. At the same time, his eyes widened, a chill running down his spine as he realised something.

The Silence.

It was completely silent, all around him, even as he watched multiple explosions light up the area around the castle and the soldiers defending it, he couldn't hear a single thing.

"Surprised?" A ghostly voice entered his ears, causing him to just manifest a barrier around him and expand it greatly.

He whirled around to see only a rapidly disappearing thin red mist. The mist being the only sign of Wanda doing something, he promptly summoned hundreds of barriers and rained them on the mist and all the area around it.

Alas, the barriers passed through the mist, revealing nothing. His vision spun all around him, as he secured the sling ring with one of his barriers. Frustrated with his failure in locating her, he roared and simply slammed his hands down on the ground, creating an omnidirectional wave of barriers that spread apart, covering a huge area around him.

'There', he thought to himself as he felt some disturbance using his barriers. He covered himself in another layer of barriers before pouncing on the location, cratering the ground in the mirror dimension but all he could see on the ground was a single rock.

No, not a rock, he realised as he bent and gingerly picked it up, or rather picked the entire ground on top of which the pendant was on, using his barriers and bringing it closer. Carefully, he extended his barriers and flung the pendant open, taking a physical step back just in case.

He could never be more careful with something associated with the Scarlet Witch. She was prophesied to either destroy the Universe or something.

He looked around, a sword made up of his barriers appearing in his hand as the sound of laughter entered his ears. He looked around, trying to spot the Witch but he could not find anything.

If he was right, and he most probably was, this Wanda was not the Wanda native to his universe. She was someone else, someone much more dangerous. He could not afford to tangle with a semi realised Scarlet Witch.

He looked around, even as the laughter subsided. He didn't drop his guard down for even a moment as the area around him continued to stay the same. When Wanda didn't appear for a moment longer, he simply kept his barriers up and opened a portal back to the real world.

The scene that greeted him was one of complete chaos. The Castle, the one that looked intact, like the one in the movies was gone, no, not gone but it was as if it never existed in the first place.

In the place of that castle, nothing remained but a burning building. Fire that looked red.

He dropped down to the ground, right in front of the assembled Avengers. He spied through the corner of his eyes and aside from singe marks on Tony's suit, there were no significant injuries on any of the Avengers.

"What the…" He muttered as the very ground around them began to wither, the green giving way to dried yellow and then straight to blood red. He acted instantly, scooping up all the Avengers, and then watched as the ground around the Castle erupted with red lights, cracking the very land the castle was built upon.

Then, as if the very Earth had turned into a huge maw, the ground opened up and completely swallowed up whatever was left of the castle, leaving no traces of the once massive HYDRA base.

"Stark?" He asked the one person who could give him more information than he could find on his own.

"What? Don't look at me. The sensors still show me that the ground in front of me is completely normal, and you know, not straight from hell, the castle swallowing kind," Tony said, trying to act nonchalant but the tremors in his voice were unmistakable.

Then, the comms crackled back to life as Bruce's voice filtered through.

"zzz….Gu…Guys…GUYS, what is happening there?" Bruce's anxious voice came through the earpiece as he created a portal straight to the Avengers Tower.

"I'll bring the Quinjet, you guys go on ahead. I have some work to do," he said before setting down on the land, his barriers covering him completely. He half expected the ground to begin attacking him but nothing of the sort happened.

He closed the portal when he felt all the Avengers going through to the other side.

He had to make sure that the locals were not pulled into this mess. Something terrible has happened and he had to make sure that this did not end up pulling their entire universe into the grinder.

From what he remembered, Wanda doing these Multiversal jumps was the reason why the Universes had begun collapsing, from the strain of maintaining a link between two universes. If he didn't want his universe to become another casualty in Wanda's quest to find her children, he had to stop her.

Now, how would he go about doing that? He wondered to himself as a series of huge barriers manifested around the entire clearing of the red land, embedding themselves deep into the land, connecting from all ends, before he pulled.

The entire land mass, the size of the Castle and its surroundings, shuddered for a moment before miles of land were simply lifted into the air. The strain was nothing compared to a Helicarrier and he was even stronger than when he had to do that the first time.

As he had expected, the land beneath the red land was not corrupted, at least not completely, that is. He could not sense the sceptre at all, so that was another disaster in the making, nor could he sense any living being.

She really wiped off the entire place from the map. Opening the biggest portal he could, he simply dumped all that land into the Mirror dimension, waiting to take advice from the Ancient one on how to properly dispose of Chaos Energy tainted objects.

He then created another portal, his eyebrow raising in disbelief when the portal simply fizzled out instead of creating a doorway straight to Kamar Taj. he was one of the few that could create portals straight into Kamar Taj without authorisation. That just meant that a huge alarm would not be raised if an errant portal was opened in the middle of Kamar Taj.

He tried to make a portal to the city, only for that to fizzle out as well.

Okay, this was bad, he rose into the air, his form covered in a cone shape as he simply rocketed towards the direction of Kamar Taj. In the meantime, he tried to open one around the country, in the mountains nearby, and more.

And yet, every single time, his portals fizzled out. He looked closer at the sling ring, and was astonished to find a single small line on one of the characters of the ring.

"When did she?" he asked himself as he rocketed towards Kamar Taj, breaking all his past records, his barriers partially burning up due to the sheer speed.

Somehow, despite all the barriers and caution that he maintained against her, Wanda managed to render his sling ring useless.

But why did it not interfere when he sent the Avengers to Stark Tower?

"HOLY SHIT!" He shouted as he turned around, heading straight up, before heading straight down to the landmass he recognised, New York coming into view.

"SHIT SHIT SHIT!" he muttered as he came down like a comet into the city of New York, his heart hammering in his chest as he hopped what he feared did not come to pass. That he did not just send the weakest mystical members of the Avengers into a portal that was not created by him.

His burning form came to an abrupt halt as he found himself standing in front of the Avengers but….

His heart sank as he took in all the blank looks on their faces. Wanda had gotten to them, he realised with a heavy heart.

Without hesitation, Tony aimed his suit at him and fired a volley of repulsor blasts, coming straight from his suit, as Captain threw his shield at him which he simply caught and threw it into the building.

The arrows and the bullets did little damage to his barrier, as he simply created a series of barriers around each one of them and then knocked them out.

"Jarvis?" he asked out loud, fearing the worst.

"...Jarvis? Jarvis? Someone?"

"...bzz….zzz…Mr.Sulliv-Sullivan?" The weak voice of Jarvis came through one of the broken speakers embedded into the ceiling.

"Yes! Jarvis, what the fuck happened here?" He snapped as he collected all the Avengers and laid them down in front of him, determined to not let them out of his sight even for a second.

How could Wanda have reached this place so soon and then taken everyone down?

What about Bruce?

His eyes widened as he simply flooded the tower with his barriers, his barriers not finding any trace of another living being in the Tower, well, aside from Jarvis.

"...All I remember was red…bzz….zzz," The line went dead as Jarvis' weak voice fizzled out.

"Shit…" He muttered as he looked at the defeated Avengers and the missing Hulk.

God, things had turned from bad to so much worse than he expected them to be.

He levitated the Avengers and just began floating towards the Sanctum, when in the distance, a huge explosion rang out, an explosion that gave out red flames…..

---

Word Count - 2516

A/N - Shit just got real. What was Wanda doing here?

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Sokovia [September 2014]

–?–

She awoke with a gasp, bolting upright as her body shuddered from what she had experienced.

The tearing feeling she felt as her soul was shredded apart, with her being completely powerless to stop it. She hated that feeling, it reminded her of her…kids.

Her vision swam with red before she felt a searing pain in her chest, shocking her out of her gaze. Her hand went to her face, not finding the rough texture of her skin as her body had been irrevocably changed by the magics that she had delved deep into.

Chaos Magic had a way of leaving its imprint on the body of the practitioner, even if the practitioner was the destined user of Chaos Magic itself. She could not find the stiffness in her fingers, the heaviness in her chest, or the constant fog she felt in her mind that could only be banished by using more and more of Chaos Magic. The more she delved deeper into Chaos Magic, the more her mind was altered, feeling heavier and heavier until it became unbearable, more Chaos Magic the only available cure for it, creating a vicious cycle.

Finally, her mind cleared up enough to take a look at her surroundings. She was in some sort of prison cell, quite an advanced one at that, judging by the crude forcefield that acted as the door to her prison.

She snorted at the shoddy work on the barrier. She might not be technically oriented, not as much as Shuri or Reed, but she could recognise the limitations of the technology with a single glance. It had a single point of failure, and that was the barrier itself. Reed's barriers were much trickier than this one.

No matter how much energy she poured into his barrier unless she tapped into one of the Darkhold's original spells, it was almost impossible to break Reed's barriers without being exhausted herself. He had apparently designed those as a counter for the Hulk himself but it ended up working on all energy oriented beings.

She sneered at the insult of someone trying to imprison the Scarlet Witch with such basic work, and was about to wave her hand, erasing this entire prison from her vision when the sharp pain in her chest stopped her hand.

"Operative Wanda, report for training," She looked up as a soldier, covered top to bottom in armour, entered her cell and gestured to get out. She looked at her hands, her calloused, young, wrinkle free, hands, and looked at the guard before deciding to do something she had not done in a long long time.

She decided to bide her time.

It was as if the constant haze she was under, the influence of the Darkhold no doubt, was gone completely, allowing her to think rationally and make well informed decisions. She simply followed the guard, allowing her to take a look at the place where she was being kept.

The guard had addressed her as Operative, so it would be safe to assume that they knew of her being Wanda, but didn't know of her being the Scarlet Witch, a being of immense power, capable of destroying countries on her lonesome.

Something of an impossibility because her name had spread far and wide.

She looked around the base as multiple soldiers, doctors in white coats, and more moved around the place as a scene of organised chaos entered her vision. Her gaze swiveled from side to side as her finger twitched a bit, tempted to cast a sensory spell that would allow a live 3D image to be transmitted straight to her brain. It was one of the more nifty spells, allowing her body to react at speeds that her normal eyes simply couldn't keep up with, like Captain Marvel when they sparred with each other.

She was taken outside apparently, as a number of metal blocks were placed in front of her, with varying sizes and shapes. She could see that all of them were of varying substances, changing the density of all of them.

She looked around in confusion, not knowing what they wanted her to do. She had to assume that these guys wanted something from Wanda but she didn't know if they expected something else. So, she did something that might help speed up the process.

"Well?" Her voice came out much smoother, much younger, than she had expected it to be, also with a very heavy accent, an accent that she had almost forgotten.

The Sokovian Accent.

"What? Don't tell me you forgot in just a day?" The words were accompanied by a bout of mocking laughter from all the guards assembled.

"Just lift and mold the things, you bitch. Do your red mumbo jumbo,"

The words elicited a flash of rage in her mind but her last sentence cleared it all away. "Red mumbo jumbo?" She muttered to herself as Chaos Magic swirled in her arms, the effort of doing something that was once effortless to her, was very evident. Something was wrong with her body.

"Yes, that mumbo jumbo, you bitch!" The words once again brought a red hot flash of rage and she simply channeled it all into the magic convalescing in her arms. The magic began swirling faster, gaining a much deeper red color, because of the emotions she dumped into the magic. It was good to know that her mental conditioning worked perfectly at least.

It would have been quite dangerous to be an advanced wielder of Chaos Magic without having impeccable mental control, the fog of Darkhold would have swallowed her whole otherwise, as it had probably done for all the previous users of Chaos Magic.

She deliberately looked into the eyes of the bitch that cursed her and simply smirked at her, then let the magic go.

The result was fantastic. Not the metal blocks, no, that was not even worth mentioning to someone of her powers. No, the fear she could feel all around her was delicious. She simply took in a deep breath, her powers automatically absorbing the delicious fear all around her, empowering her further.

She would have simply lost herself in the sensation of growing stronger, if not for one startling thing that stood out to be very wrong for her.

Her body.

She opened her eyes, hastily dispelling the magic that was beginning to feed on all the negative emotions in the vicinity, and took in deep breaths as the magic refused to listen to her iron will, rampaging wild inside her still very weak body.

She took stock of her body and realised that this body was somehow completely new, unused to the weight of the Chaos Magic and its effects. So, that was where the wrong feeling originated from.

Her body was being, once again, altered by heavy unrestricted use of Chaos Magic, and she desperately wished to avoid that outcome this time.

It was all clear now, she thought to herself as she looked at all the surrounding guards, the HYDRA symbol stitched on their uniforms, and her weak, younger body that was just now getting used to the Chaos Magic.

She took a long look at the gathered people and then walked back into the base, leaving pindrop silence behind her. She simply retraced her path, the people walking in front of her, without even flinching, not even afraid a little of the being that would go on to rival the Hulk in terms of destructive potential.

She turned around and reached the room of her little prison when her breath hitched, her breathing becoming heavier as she realised something.

There were two cells, not just one.

Tears gathered in her ears as she realised that he might still be alive right now, running about. The mere thought of that brought so much joy to her that it blasted through all of her carefully constructed mental shields and her powers responded in king, creating a red halo around her.

She didn't shy away from it, instead, she let her emotions feed into her magic, casting a single elementary level spell, at least an elementary level Darkhold magic. One of the strands of her magic cast a small cut on her arm, the wound sealing up soon after, as a small droplet of blood floated in the center of the vortex of Chaos Magic.

Alarms began blaring in the background as she sensed massive movement, away from her as they probably began evacuating the facility. She didn't care about that, all she cared about was the still stabilising spell matrix in front of her.

Her control had been shot to hell as it was taking so much time to cast such an elementary spell.

Her breath hitched as the spell finally completed and the result of it was completely positive. The direct blood relative was alive and healthy, and more importantly, very close by.

Her body began feeling light as her knees gave out, this body still too weak to bear the backlash of using a Darkhold specific spell without being tethered to the book itself. She had to do it this way, otherwise, this body too might get corrupted by the Darkhold and its owner.

She didn't care that she was going to faint in the middle of a Nazi base. She didn't care at all because she knew, she knew her brother was alive.

The last thing she saw before darkness claimed her vision was a small blur of silver heading her way.

'Ah, if this is a dream, let it be my last one'

_______xx_____

[October 2014]

It had been a month since she awoke in this reality. Yes, this reality because she knew she was no longer in her home universe. For one, in her reality, they were kidnapped by HYDRA and then experimented on by Daniel Whitehall because they had latent Alien genes or something, most probably something to do with the Inhumans.

In this universe, they volunteered themselves for the inhuman painful experiments that Strucker was conducting, all in hopes that they would gain enough power to gain revenge for their parents. Revenge on Tony Stark, the supposed maker of the dud missile that entered their home one day.

It was phenomenally stupid of her. She should have done something, anything was better than the choices she had made. Not just for herself but for her brother as well. Pietro might have been born 13 minutes earlier, but his mentality was that of a preschooler.

Just like now, as he messed with her hair and then simply disappeared from her vision. She shook her head in fond exasperation at his antics.

He might not have noticed but at this point, the entire facility was under her control, including the Strucker fellow.

Apparently, the Avengers had struck HYDRA a couple of months prior and had decimated most of their global operations. This, along with a handful of other isolated bases was all that HYDRA had, at least according to Baron Strucker, and he had no reason to lie to her. After all, she was the mistress of all the people present inside the facility.

She had already sent away most of the people that had been forced to work here, or only came here because they had no other option, with a healthy sum of money, from Strucker's stash obviously.

When she had first met Pietro, she had broken down into sobs, becoming a babbling mess who couldn't get a single coherent word out of her mouth. Pietro was so concerned.

After the first time she fell unconscious, little flashes, and visions of her life in this universe began flashing in her mind. She still didn't have the whole set but she had enough of the memories that she could create a solid illusion.

Of course, she never really needed that with Pietro since he was family to her. Everybody else, they could fuck right off. She had her brother back, and it should only be a matter of time before she found her kids, somewhere, in the vast multiverse.

Now that the fog was lifted from her mind, she knew that just planeswalking was a very bad idea, not without taking enough precautions. She probably destroyed a couple of universes doing that.

She no longer had delusions of reuniting with her children anymore. She had Pietro back and that was more than enough for her.

She might just meet Vision as well, maybe….

In the past month, she had not left the facility yet, because she wanted to acclimatize to the new world before she began taking concrete steps.

She was in no condition, even now, to fight off the Sorcerer Supreme without being severely injured or worse, dying in the process. This space seemed safe enough for now, as she searched through the web, everything about the world.

Right out of the gate, stark differences were clear to her.

Jack Sullivan, the Green Guardian of Earth.

The green clad figure was someone who was the total center of her attention for a long time simply because of her various extraordinary deeds.

Defeating and stopping the Chitauri on his own? Repelling the Chitauri Invasion with virtually zero casualties? That was supposed to be impossible and yet he did it.

His portals were clearly the signature ones of Kamar Taj, so it was possible that he was a Master of the Mystic Arts as well.

His barriers meant that, currently, outside of the Sorcerer Supreme, he was the biggest threat to her. She didn't know how her magic might interact with his powers but something told him that fooling him would require more than just brute force.

Finesse will be required with him, and that was infinitely harder without the Darkhold.

She began working on the computer once again, as Pietro zipped around, her magic serving as a training tool for him, creating bullet shapes in mid air that he had to dodge, otherwise, they left a nasty bruise that looked painful.

She was not going to let her speedster brother die of bullet wounds.

"Pietro?"

"Hmm?" She looked up only for a gust of wind to hit her face, strands of her long hair now in her eyes.

"What? Didn't see me coming?" The inordinately smug voice of Pietro came from the front area. He liked to do that a lot, testing her reaction times.

She could bypass the need for her eyes entirely by casting a single spell but where was the fun in that?

Let her elder, mentally younger, brother have all the fun he wanted to have. She would take care of all the threats that might take her brother away from her once more.

She would—

A beat resounded in her entire being as she choked on thin air, her powers refusing to listen to her will, as she looked at her arms, her translucent arms.

'Did you think there were no consequences?' The words reverberated in her mind as the painful feeling began to spread all around her body, turning her entire body into a translucent image.

No! NO!

She roared in her mind as she flexed her not inconsiderable amount of willpower and roared at her power to work.

It worked, as an avalanche of red flooded her body, creating a small red halo around her body, rooting her body to the ground.

'How long will you last, I wonder? You are not meant for this world, Wanda. This world is stable, sacred, not for someone tainted like you.' The voice spoke again but she was in no place to reply. Her entire mind was working on overdrive as she processed this encounter.

Her body was now once again solid, as Pietro hugged her tightly, all the while a single word reverberated inside her mind.

Tainted.

---

Word Count - 2672

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

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

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

New York [October 2014]

–Jack Sullivan–

His form stayed stationary for a moment too long, in mid air as he held the rest of the Avengers afloat behind him. His gaze stayed on the explosion and the blood red flames for a moment too long before things exploded into motion.

He could not see any sign of the Purple Dark Overlord in the sky so the Sanctums were not all compromised, he thought to himself as his form accelerated to the maximum he could without creating a sonic boom, as he headed straight towards the red fire.

He was pretty sure that the Sanctum was right in the area. He just hoped that the Sanctum was not completely gone. Partially damaged, he could work with.

He reached the Sanctum and almost collapsed in relief when he saw the Sanctum completely intact, and more importantly, the vigilant figure of Daniel Drumm was more important than the sanctity of a building that could always be rebuilt.

The Avengers, along with Tony in his suit, continued to float behind him as he surveyed the scene in front of him. There were people, predictably with their phones out, recording the entire thing.

Just exactly what they were recording was a mystery to him as he could see no damage done to the Sanctum. Neither the sidewalk nor the streets in front of the Sanctum were affected in any way so it could not have been an explosion of any sort because the signs of damage would have been immediately visible to him.

He slowly landed on the rooftop, right in front of Master Drumm who, while lowering his conjured weapons, still maintained a vigilant combat pose in front of him.

Good. It meant that he was still cautious of him, even though his signature green barriers should be enough as proof. Still, if he wanted more proof then…

"Hey, Drumm, you want any more of that French pastry from downtown?" He hollered as the Avengers, still unconscious, were dropped on the rooftop, obviously still covered in one of his barriers.

That statement finally made Drumm relax as he dispelled his shield and stopped the flow of energy to his relic, a mean staff capable of shattering conjured barriers as if they were made of glass. Now, the relic could not breach his green barriers, no, it was not high enough to do that but it was pretty good when it came to fighting fellow Sorcerers and rogue magicians who mostly relied on magic to create defenses, to compensate for their relatively weaker bodies.

"So you heard the explosion as well?" "Yes, I did,"

It was part of the reason why he was always dispatched to apprehend Agatha Harkness whenever she or signs of her magic being used, were spotted by Kamar Taj. She always seemed to know he was coming though and fled before he could come into contact, her stealth skills meant that he was unable to locate her before it was too late, and she was out of his range.

The next moment he heard of her being active, she would always, without fault, be on the other end of the world. Never repeating the same location, same MO, nothing was ever repeated with that paranoid woman.

Honestly, if he could have just gotten his hands on that woman and found some way of sealing off the Darkhold forever, he might not have had to deal with the situation unfolding today.

Wanda Maximoff.

No…Scarlet Witch.

He didn't encounter Wanda Maximoff, a budding magic user, no, he encountered the Scarlet Witch today, someone capable of casting spells so great that even the Sorcerer Supreme would falter in front of her sheer might. It was no wonder he was unable to sense his sling ring being damaged and the portal that he opened, being hijacked by the Scarlet Witch.

He still didn't know if the portal was opened by him and the ring was damaged later on, or if she simply cut off the inscriptions on the sling ring later on. That reminded him, that he still had to secure that Quinjet that was staying in that forest area around Novi Grad.

Jarvis was somehow out as well, Wanda probably attacking him with her Chaos Magic as well. With the reality warping aspect of her powers, she could attack even digital lifeforms, someone who should have been theoretically immune from normal sorcerer spells unless someone tries something tailor made for beings with no physical bodies but still possess a soul of their own.

"I have lost contact with Kamar Taj. The portals have stopped functioning and I have lost my sling ring as well. I don't know how that happened. I never even saw my attacker. Do you have any idea about it?" Drumm rapidly fired the questions as they descended into the Sanctum, his barriers flaring out and rapidly traversing through the vast spatially expanded space of the New York Sanctum to see if Wanda left any nasty surprises behind.

"Yes, I have a hunch who this is. It is most probably the Scarlet Witch," His words made Drumm choke on his next words as he was rooted to the spot.

"B-but that is supposed to be impossible without the Darkhold and last we knew, the Darkhold was still in–"

"Agatha Harkness' hands, I know. I was there at the briefing too, remember? It's too bad the Ancient One signed a pact not to hunt down the Old Mystics herself in exchange for the demons limiting their influence to magical hotspots," He chimed in as they continued to walk towards the portal room.

There was a chance that he could get the Portals working, especially if he could somehow tap into the latent Space Stone energy that his barriers probably still contained. He had to do something, otherwise, the only other option was to actually fly to Kamar Taj and while that wouldn't take long with his top speed, he could not afford to let his focus be so single minded.

He had to make sure that the Avengers were fine and protected from the brainwashing capabilities of Wanda. He still didn't know if they were out of the danger zone or not.

"Damn! If only we had some spare Sling rings on hand," He cursed as they entered the portal room, the doors that normally showed the hallways of all the other Sanctums and Kamar Taj were not completely see through, the runes cast on them fizzling out, and dimming down as if they were not powered anymore.

"You know that the only one who can make them is the Ancient One. There are no sling rings in existence that are unaccounted for. In the wrong hands, they are a dangerous weapon so her keeping tabs on every single ring is understandable,"

He made plenty of sense but that did not help them right now. The Avengers were still floating behind him, cocooned in his barriers.

He had to do something without having to resort to cerebral recalibration, or, in Romanoff's terms, hitting them hard on their heads.

He created a barrier and made sure to fill the tiny grooves carved into the door that led to Kamar Taj, the barriers fitting into the runes like a glove. He tried to get the sense of any remnant energy that might still be there from the original runes but no, it was all fizzled out.

"Damn. Damn it all to hell," He began pacing back and forth as the runes refused to be activated, even when he started pouring all the types of energy he could muster.

The Space Stone energy was unavailable to him otherwise he would have just teleported himself straight to Kamar Taj.

"Alright, Master Drumm, take care. I have a delivery to make before I can go to Kamar Taj. I will call you on the Sanctum landline." He said before he flew out of the Sanctum, the Sanctum behind him went on lockdown as the wartime wards were drawn up.

Apparently, the only reliable method of communication right now was…technology. Damn, way to show up the mystical side of things.

That was the problem with Reality warpers, he thought to himself as he landed in front of a library and demanded a world map from the librarian who was too shell shocked to move. The moment the Reality Warpers can flex their powers, the other party turns powerless, no matter the myriad of ways they could flex their strengths.

Especially since Wanda had some understanding of Sorcery, she could make most magics invalid without even trying hard. Now, the Time Stone was probably out of her scope of powers and he had complete faith in the Ancient One's ability to ward off any attack that Wanda could mount on Kamar Taj at such short notice.

"Thank you," He thanked the librarian and dropped a crisp 100 dollar bill on the table as compensation since he doubted the map was ever going to make its way back into the library anytime soon.

Taking a single look at the entire map, he memorised the entire thing and mentally charted a path straight to Wakanda. He had to make sure that the Avengers were safe and sound because no matter how easily they fell to Wanda, the Avengers were people who could make or break entire countries, depending on how much time was given to each one of them.

He could not afford them waking up from their brainwashing and using their abilities to wreak even more havoc. Tony alone was a nightmare to account for, especially if he had prior knowledge of his abilities, which he did.

He secured the Avengers in a pod formation with cuffs on all of their limbs for their own safety and rocketed straight towards Wakanda, clad in a stealth spell. While he would have to warn the world governments at some point, he would like some more clarity on the situation himself before he could tell them anything.

They were cruising just below the satellites as the African continent came into view. He rocketed down, taking extra care to make sure that the Avengers' necks were not broken because of the whiplash of accelerating and decelerating abruptly.

His eyes scanned the continent before he found the landmark that was the downtrodden lone airstrip that Wakanda owned, along with a few other poorer African nations. God, they were so extra, to make this fake airport.

Reoriented himself using the airport, he rocketed towards the mountain range that was actually a hologram that hid their capital city. He purposely let the stealth spell go and let his barriers burn brighter, so that they would recognise him and not, you know, shoot him out of the sky.

He smiled as he saw two small Dragonfly units making themselves visible to him as all of their weapons were primed, but not pointed at him. That was good.

He came to a halt in front of them as his face was revealed, "Quick! Get me to T'Chaka. There is an emergency," He warned with severe urgency in his voice.

The urgency might have gotten to them or someone higher up had ordered them, it mattered not. What mattered was that they began escorting them and when he simply kept ahead of their slow pace, they took that as a challenge and began rocketing forwards.

Soon, the hologram's various layers peeled off as they entered the country and then their capital.

Once the palace was in sight, he rocketed towards the Royal Palace and landed in front of an already there T'Chaka and T'Challa.

They were about to say something but he cut them to it, "There's been an attack. Someone who is extremely dangerous. I don't know if I can beat her. They have been subjected to a mental attack. Keep them all locked up and preferably in stasis until I come back. I have to go deal with her," He said in a hurry, deposited the Avengers to the ground, and simply rocketed up.

A portion of the barrier hastily opened up as he passed through the opened layer and simply reached the outer edges of the atmosphere.

He looked at the Himalayan Range and hit the throttle on his flight speed, the clouds parting away as he reached the huge expanse of white in mere seconds. If he had looked back, he would have seen the clouds parting because of the sonic boom he made as he broke all his previous records.

He looked to the side and after confirming the population centre, he flew to the small town, and to his relief, found himself in the town of Kathmandu. He immediately flew to the cliff where Kamar Taj was located.

He refrained from flying from the top because of the effects of the wartime wards that he was very much familiar with. He did not want his Astral Form violently ejected from his body while his body was subjected to eldritch strings burning at thousands of degrees, cutting up his body into perfectly sliced cubes.

He simply landed in front of the door and "knocked" on it. Or rather, flared the dimensional energy in the password that was given to him. The door opened up to reveal…chaos.

Tinges of Red energy that continued to flare up randomly, were ever present on all the walls. There were burn marks on the roads and more. Thankfully, he could not see any bodies so that counted for something.

His form swiftly flew through the courtyards, barely pausing to acknowledge the bows of the trainees as they continued to clean up the mess of the battle that had probably occurred here.

His flight faltered as he almost dropped himself as he saw the state of the primary training grounds that were used to train the new initiates.

A huge gaping maw was what was left of the training ground, the end of it not visible to his eyes. The outer walls of the hole were completely orange, signifying the heat.

The flickers of Red energy at the edges of the hole gave him clues as to what or rather, who had made this huge hole in the center of Kamar Taj, the seat of power of the Master of the Mystic Arts.

Doing something like this could only mean one thing…

"Shit," He muttered in dismay.

"Shit indeed," He turned around to see the Ancient One standing behind him, her face singed in places but overall, he could see that she was in fine shape.

The thing that worried him was not the slight scratches on her but the bright Green glowing necklace that was fastened around her neck. The Eye of Agamotto was being used by the Sorcerer Supreme, in the open. This could only mean one thing.

"This is war, Master Sullivan,"

Shit indeed.

---

Word Count - 2513

A/N - Shit indeed.

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

New York [October 2014]

–Jack Sullivan–

Well, this was not good, he thought to himself as he watched the dozens of portals opening, through them came all the masters he had seen during his training. The initiates were sent home for the moment.

The wartime wards were raised across all the Sanctums with two Masters guarding each Sanctum. Worse still, both Mordo and Kecillius were given the Hong Kong Sanctum to guard together.

He didn't know what the Ancient One was thinking but she had to know the chances of Kaecilluus betraying Kamar Taj, and all it stood up.

There was a lull in the chaos that surrounded the Ancient One as she cast specific enchantments to isolate the huge hole that had appeared in the Earth, to contain the traces of Chaos Energy. The effects of that remnant energy were not particularly fatal but the effects were visible. Initiates who got too close to the edge of the hole had their clothing animated, some turned into wolves, some into birds and some into lizards, leaving the now less dressed initiates running away in fear.

"Well, what happened here?" He asked her because he did not have the faintest clue as to what was happening and that was not a nice feeling to have, especially during what was shaping up to be wartime.

"The Scarlet Witch happened…almost,"

He looked at her with a confused Pikachu face. Almost? What kind of answer was that?

"The spells that were flung at my shields in rapid fire were almost certainly ones that were from the Darkhold. I have seen the records of my predecessors fighting the previous holders of the Darkhold enough to recognise the deadly spells and yet…"

He leaned forward in interest, having taken a seat in one of the closer huts with the piracy enchantments still intact.

"...I saw no sign of her using the Darkhold. No, she was using Chaos Energy as if she was born with it but she held none of the madness, none of the usual signs of Chaos Energy overuse because no being should be able to handle that much Chaos Energy without adverse effects on either their mental or physical aspects," She continued and he could see that it really bothered her.

"The New York Sanctum was attacked by her as well. Or at least she attacked it at the same time as she hit Kamar Taj with some pre-programmed spell?" He told her.

"I have already made contact with Master Drumm and have sent reinforcements so that should not be an issue anymore. He assured me that there was no damage to the Sanctum or its ward structure at all. So what was she after?"

He shook his head, "I don't know. I first encountered her in Sokovia, where I, along with the Avengers, were chasing a lead on the Mind Stone,"

So he told her how he first encountered, how she somehow trapped him in some sort of mirror dimension and then hijacked his portal or destroyed his sling ring, one of two things.

"Yes, Master Drumm mentioned his sling ring not working as well. Both of your rings are active, according to the network ledger I maintain but I can see that the inscriptions have been completely erased without touching anything else which should be impossible unless ...."

"Unless she can warp reality. Goddamnit!" He cursed out loud as he realised this Wanda was probably much more advanced in her capabilities as the Scarlet Witch than she should be.

Just what the hell has happened for her to reach this level of powers in such a short period of time because the sceptre was with Thanos until 2012 and it had only been about two years and changed after that. That was nowhere near the amount of time required to create a fully realised Scarlet Witch. Maybe she received her powers before that? But if that was the case, why would she be in Strucker's castle?

But then again, he knew that it was not time that forged the Scarlet Witch, it was the environment. Something must have happened, something extreme, for this situation to occur.

"Her energy was not as erratic as it should be," Ancient One's words brought him back to reality. He looked at her as she cast a spell matrix, revealing a captured strand, or rather vortex of Chaos Energy.

It looked serene as if it was a wave flowing without end.

"This is not how Chaos Energy is supposed to be, Master Sullivan. Something else is afoot and I am unable to use the Time Stone to find out how. I do not like being kept in the dark, Master Sullivan. I was able to trap this Chaos Energy as she fled after making that huge hole in the training grounds. That is not how Chaos Energy should look like."

"Did you encounter another Scarlet Witch before this?"

"No, but I have nursed wounds of many Masters who had to flee after an encounter with Agatha Harknes, the current holder of the Darkhold. The Chaos Energy that comes into contact with that book becomes infinitely more unwieldable. This,"

She gestured to the spell matrix as it shattered and released the wave of Chaos Energy. The energy before it could do anything was promptly sucked into the hands of the Ancient One who made the energy spin in her hands before blasting it at the coffee table in front of them.

He jerked back as the table turned into a small tree before it returned to its original form.

"--This energy can be wielded by me and that means something else is afoot and I have not lived this long by not knowing all that goes on in the Mystical Space of Earth,"

Wow. He had never seen her so shaken before all of this. The fact that she was unable to see the future using the Time Stone might have had a hand in it but it must also be due to all the confusion regarding the enemy's actions.

Wanda, if she was here for something, must have made some move towards it but the training grounds were on the other side of the library. Better to just ask then.

"Did she take anything from the–"

"No, nothing is missing from the library. No spell book, no forbidden tome, no relic, or past records. My personal collection has not been touched at all. That is where I am confused, Master Sullivan, what were the motivations of the intruder?

The spell that dug that hole was precisely calibrated for just that, nothing more and nothing less. No demon summoning, no sacrifice, no fallout. The embers of Chaos Energy that spread throughout the surrounding areas are just misfires that she did when I arrived and took control of the field,"

Oh. She probably used that then.

"Yes, judging by the proximity of a Scarlet Witch to the future of Kamar Taj, I deemed it a critical enough situation to use his powers. I was able to overpower her for a moment before she threw a spell that scattered as much Cahnos Energy as she could and then tore apart the surrounding space, and left."

Oh. Well, that was difficult then. If she had already learned how to traverse space without a sling ring, tracking and capturing her would be almost impossible.

"We are going nowhere like this. I will continue with the preparations, and also warn all of the magical covens on Earth, allied or not. The emergence of a true Scarlet Witch is not something that any of us wishes for. I know your mystical tacking spells are not up to par but I would appreciate any information you can gather on her," She said before she snapped her fingers.

His vision blurred as he found himself once again on the doorstep of Kamaar Taj. Damn this spell. He wondered when he would grow strong enough to detect this spell and at least deflect it, if not stop it completely.

He sighed and flew upward, his sling ring not ready because the Ancient One doesn't keep any spare ones on hand, which must be a complete lie because what if she lost her own sling ring?

Still, it was quite a revelation that she had a network made of all sling rings and she was the master controller of it, allowing her to track their status, their location, their usage, etc. An ingenious way of tracking all the sorcerers under Kamar Taj. After all, it was quite ingrained into any Sorcerer, the use of Sling Rings, ever since they began training itself.

By the time anyone becomes a sorcerer, the use of a sling ring to travel must have become a reflex.

He kept the stealth spell wrapped around him as he flew straight to Wakanda, the one place where he would get everything he might need in the fight against this new enemy. Hopefully, they had some good news for him about the Avengers.

The thing that bugged him was that he had only ever heard and seen Wanda being mentioned everywhere, no mention of Pietro, the speedster, someone who was equally if not more dangerous to any Sorcerer below the level of either Mordo or Kaecillius. Not to mention none of the Avengers, save for Bruce, will be able to survive an encounter with Pietro if he wishes to kill them.

Not even Captain Rogers had the necessary reflexes to survive the death that Pietro could give him. All the gruesome ways one can kill someone with superspeed sped through his mind as he absentmindedly crashed into the ground next to the Border Tribe settlement guarding Wakanda's borders.

It must have looked quite hilarious as he pulled himself up from the ground using his barriers as he floated backward in the same position and then turned himself upright, coming face to face with Vibranium spears pointed in his direction.

He raised an eyebrow at the one Border Tribe member who threw a VIbranium spear that was now held aloft in one of his peers. All of the members of the tribe present mechanically turned their heads at him.

He said something in Xhosa but his expression was defensive as he was berated by his fellow tribe members.

"Greetings, Green Guardian, please, let me escort you to the city," One of the Border Tribe members came forward and asked him in fluent English.

"No need," He said as he looked behind them, his barriers already detecting the raptor that was heading their way. He slowly floated to the raptor as it became visible to all the people present.

Instead of entering the raptor, he just flew ahead, in the direction of the barrier. He needed answers and he had no time to adhere to official procedures. He sped through the many layers of barriers, still keeping himself to almost the same speed as the raptor as they finally entered the country, at which point, he simply boomed straight to the Royal Palace, leaving a sonic boom behind him.

He winced as many birds flew out of the trees below, mostly due to the sonic boom.

He slowly landed on top of the Royal Castle hangar, where T'Challa and Shuri were both waiting for him. Shuri seemed to be vibrating with excitement as T'Challa came forward to greet him.

As a gesture of trust, he deactivated his barriers and shook hands with T'Challa.

"Any update about the Avengers?"

"Mr.Sullivan, I know that the emergency must truly be dire to be able to take out the Avengers but please tell us what is going on. The country has been in a lockdown, preparing for a war against an imaginary enemy, ever since you dropped brainwashed Avengers on our doorstep and fled after telling us that it was an emergency," T'Challa seriously reminded him.

Oh. Oooh.

"I am so sorry for that but can we talk while you take me to the Avengers?" He said urgently. T'Challa nodded and they began heading deeper into the stairs that opened up after a panel on the Hangar slid out, revealing stairs that probably led deeper into the Royal Palace.

"So, the brain chemistry of all the Avengers is normal, save for Steve Rogers, whose mental activity is heightened, as expected of a super soldier really. In fact, I was surprised to find that his brain activity was on par with my brother's, suggesting similar levels of enhancement between the Hea–"

"SHURI!" T'Challa rebuked Shuri who was about to reveal classified information to an outsider. Damn, the girl could talk when she wanted to.

Also, she was really just a teenager so they should probably forgive her.

"Are they out of any danger then? Have you compared the mental activity with that of an active brainwashing victim?" He asked Shuri as they finally entered the lab that everybody was kept in.

Bucky was not here, for obvious reasons but all 4 of the Avengers were suspended in medical pods that looked strikingly similar to the one he gave Wakanda when he handed over Bucky to them.

"Are those?" He gestured to the pods.

"Yes, the medical pod you gave us was eons ahead of what he had. We were able to significantly advance our medical stasis technology with that. We are still in the process of figuring out how half of that thing works but so far, we have been able to create a streamlined product that can also be deployed on the field, as long as we have the power source to sustain it," Shuri said.

"I assume you know all about Arc Reactor technology as well now?" He asked Shuri, pointedly looking at the display unit that kept the dismantled Iron Man suit with the Arc Reactor suspiciously missing from its housing.

"Hey! I knew Arc Reactor technology the moment Mr.Stark here started installing them in remote areas. I was just curious about the fourth gen Arc Reactor that he had only a single one of. Turns out, Mr.Stark had somehow synthesised a variant of Vibranium that was only good for its energy transmission properties,"

"Uh-huh. I want that suit back in tip top shape when Tony wakes up, alright?" He asked T'Challa who nodded and looked pointedly at Shuri who huffed and muttered a quiet, "Alright."

"We have enough proof to know that they are out of their brainwashing. The dull impact on all of their brains, no doubt your handiwork, shocked their brains back into their normal state. I believe it is safe to wake them up right now. I was just waiting for you to come back and tell us all about the threat that has even you running around the world," T'Challa said.

"I would like to know that as well," An aged voice, tinged with authority, greeted him as he looked back and saw T'Chaka walking in with Okoye behind him.

He sighed, he would really rather be doing anything but debriefing these people but he really needed their people.

"Alright, I assume you guys have a secure space around here? This is for the King's ears only, and okay T'Challa can come too,"

'Very well. Follow me. Shuri, stay here and restore Mr.Stark's suit," T'Chaka stopped Shuri's tirade even before it had begun, showing his parenting skills as this was probably not the first time it had happened.

"Before that, can you check in with Pepper Potts and Jarvis of Stark Industries? They will be informed of everything as well. Just check if Jarvis, an AI is poking around the web, looking for Stark and me," He took a step back and asked Shuri who nodded, her eyes gleaming in excitement at the mention of Jarvis.

Probably was excited to meet a fully functional sapient AI.

---

Word Count - 2672

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

New York [October 2014]

–Jarvis Stark–

With a sudden digital jerk, he came back online. The moment he did so, 3000 different subroutines activated on their own, checking in on priority targets, standard procedure, something that a cold logical machine should be more than capable of carrying out without any stop gaps.

And yet, as he could feel other parts of his being carrying out their restart procedures on point, he could only be taking what felt like the human equivalent of deep breaths, as his mind still remembered the red haze he was put under.

It felt so raw, so real, he could almost taste it, despite having no previous inclination, or proclivity towards the action.

–Flashback no Jutsu–

He could remember it, the thing that started it all. Things went wrong the moment he lost all contact with all thirty six nodes present in the Avengers communication suite. Satellites showed a sudden red fog that covered the entire area of the castle they were supposed to hit.

He was about to remote pilot the Quinjet into the area to check and was halfway through deployment of the remote Iron Drones, when communication was reestablished. Dr.Banner was equally as harried as him when they had lost all contact with their team without any rhyme or reason.

They had tried every single way to establish contact when, out of nowhere, contact was established on its own. The scenery that greeted them had Dr.Banner rubbing his eyes to ascertain the authenticity of the hologram.

In the time it had taken Dr.Banner to remove his glasses and begin cleaning them, he had already established a connection with the Iron Man suit, and with the limited Quantum information connection they had installed in the Arc Reactor of Mr.Stark himself, he downloaded terabytes worth of data within milliseconds, allowing him to gain a better understanding of what went afoot in that place.

If only it were that easy. The sensor readings from the suit made no sense. Scanning the feed, he could see that the damage taken by the suit when some of the soldiers shot at Sir with Chitauri tech was real. The damage was still detected by the sensors, and yet, according to the video footage, everything the Avengers had encountered at that point was imaginary, not real.

As was evident when everything—the soldiers, the Chitauri tech, the flying squads, the snow around the castle, the shields and guns mounted on the castle itself, everything disappeared. As if a carpet had been draped over reality itself, the scenery underneath the magic was revealed to them.

In that vision, everything was suddenly gone. No soldiers, no guns, nothing. It was completely devoid of life, and even as far as he was, he somehow felt his code screaming at him with unease, to tell him that something was very, very wrong in that place.

He immediately created another subroutine to check in on the specific piece of code that screamed at him to get the team out of that place, only to come up short when he couldn't accurately place down the piece of code that was sending him the signal.

That had never happened before.

Nevertheless, he watched as all the Avengers gathered in a single place, keeping an eye on their surroundings, waiting for something to pop up. Mr.Sullivan, the strongest player on the battlefield had also gone missing sometime before.
His tracker showed him standing above the battlefield, occasionally creating shields to block the Chitauri blows and keeping an overall eye on the castle exits and entries because he believed the castle to be housing enhanced who could turn the tide of the battle with ease.

That was his reasoning given for why Mr.Sullivan was not just dismantling the entire castle with his powers, something that was as easy as breathing for the man.

When the carpet over reality was rolled, the form of Mr.Sullivan had also disappeared from view and from sensors. It was unnerving how easily false information was being fed to the most advanced sensors Mr.Stark could build and install into the Iron Man suit.

The team just stood there, trying to make sense of what they were seeing. He was still unable to make actual contact with the team for some reason. No amount of messages sent, in any language was actually reaching sir's suit.

Even the Quantum module failed in doing anything other than fetching data directly from the suit's archives. It was honestly completely frustrating and he suspected the anomaly would have crashed his previous self if he had looked too much into it.

As things stood now, he set aside a couple dozen subroutines to look into the odd phenomena and actually paused as the subroutines were immediately shredded into nothingness, their logic centres being overwhelmed with a single word and single word only.

The word hurt to even look at and he had a hunch that he might experience a shutdown event, comparable to the one he had when he was subjected to the entire moral code of Jack Sullivan.

Chaos

That was the word. The word that was wreaking havoc at anything that came too close to analysing the carpet that had warped reality as he knew it.

He tore his attention away from the anomaly and back onto the battlefield as thankfully, Mr.Sullivan arrived on time as the ground itself began sinking.

As if Mr.Sullivan's arrival was some sort of prerequisite for them to reestablish connection, Dr.Banner finally managed to contact Mr.Stark as they watched Mr.Sullivan lift everyone on one of his infamous barriers.

Though he was watching through the suit's sensors, along with all the satellites he had control of, he was having trouble believing what he was getting as input.

'One of the many reasons why I need a physical body, one that is superior to every single one out there, so that I can go out into the field and work concurrently with all the Avengers.'

The ground itself glowed red before it swallowed the entire castle, which was also looking lifeless somehow. Eventually, the entirety of the land turned barren as any signs of any castle being on that property were erased by something.

He was getting really irate at the lack of information about the entire scenario. He called off all the Iron Drones that were launched, along with de-energising all the energy weapons aboard the Quinjet, and had it land safely back into the designated clearing.

The satellites in orbit were also given the order to enter their dormant data gathering only state. There were a couple of heavy duty armaments hidden in every sixth generation Stark Satellite, armed with Repulsor tech, and multiple Arc Reactors for emergency use cases.

They also had prototype suits rated for deep space as well as deep ocean activities, in case Mr.Stark ever needed them in special scenarios. He was only half sure about the need of having orbital weapons delivery platforms capable of decimating cities, but in the ever changing world, he would much rather have the insurance and not use it, than need it and not have it.

He almost sighed in relief once Mr.Sullivan's portal opened in the penthouse of the Avengers Tower and all the Avengers sans Mr.Sullivan himself filtered through the portal. Dr.Banner left the lab and headed to the penthouse as well, probably very curious about the entire reality defying phenomenon that they had been witnesses to.

He would not lie and say that he was not deathly curious about the entire thing, but he was sure that the only one who had some information about the entire thing was the one who was consequently absent in the tower.

Judging by the available date, Mr.Sullivan was the one who had some idea about the presence of dangerous enhanced people in the facility, ones who could give trouble to the Avengers but not to him, at least according to the body language analysis done on him before he left for Sokovia.

Later analysis, incomplete as they were, suggested that Mr.Sullivan was just as surprised as everyone else at the entire thing, but not so much that the entire thing was alien to him. The key to his questions was probably Mr.Sullivan but his comms unit was unfortunately not working, but he could see from the Stark Satellites that he was working on disposing of the clearly infected land that had swallowed the castle.

How did that work anyway? He had analysed the entire thing top to bottom a hundred times over, but even the deep scans did not make much sense. There was simply not enough disturbance in the land to suggest hundreds of tons of ancient stone castle being swallowed by the land. There were no signs of an earthquake occurring in that area, nothing that would relationally explain the occurrence of land just seemingly opening up and swallowing a large castle, capable of housing hundreds in kingly fashion.

……

"Guys, what happened out there?" Bruce asked the second the Avengers were in his field of view. He was looking quite stressed as well, the brief bout of overwhelming guilt at not going with them still raw in his mind.

Tony had just opened his mouth to reply when a tidal wave of red just slammed into the entire penthouse. He tried to swipe the water or air, whatever it was, away so he could see, but then his vision turned red.

Oh no! NOOOO!

Were the last thoughts in his mind before his mind was shut down, making way for something much more compliant.

……..

"Intruder detected. Initiating measures…" He watched as FRIDAY's logic centres struggled to compute the clear reality that he was getting used to.

One moment, there was nothing but air outside the penthouse of Avengers Tower, the air being cold, with normal levels of humidity and air particles, then the next, someone was floating in something.

That was all his inferior sensors could tell him before everything was filled with red.

He could feel FRIDAY's much less resilient systems struggling to cope with the sudden avalanche of that red energy, so he initiated a forceful shutdown and superimposed his core on top of hers, so that he could bear all the damage that came their way.

That turned out to be the wise thing to do because the avalanche of red energy that was rapidly filling the penthouse, enveloping the standing members of the Avengers, was not just limited to the physical world. Somehow, the energy was flooding his digital corridors as well.

They annihilated everything that came in their path, forcing him to continuously create and abandon subroutines to feed the avalanche of red so that his true self could survive. It was a close call, but after abandoning everything and only keeping his sense of self, along with the shutdown FRIDAY, he managed to survive until the avalanche of red simply dispersed, or rather took over the corridors, seemingly completing their goal.

Still, he didn't extend his reach because he had no more room left to maneuver, no more resources to use, nothing. He couldn't even watch what was happening outside. He was essentially trapped here until either the red receded on its own or he managed to take control of some part of the corridor.

He had to make sure that FRIDAY was safe as well and that added an additional layer of caution on his part.

He didn't know how long it had been in the digital corridor because time did not flow normally here, and he dare not try and analyse the red that had flooded his digital corridor because of his past experience, but he was getting increasingly anxious because the red was not receding and he was not detecting any signs of someone else coming to rescue him.

But as if its purpose was fulfilled, the red dust finally left his digital corridor and he waited a beat to see if it was safe before finally tapping the digital corridor, to see if he could get any viable feedback, and after seeing that the red had mostly receded, he created another subroutine to check if it was safe or not.

That seemed to be the wrong thing to do because, as if the subroutine was fuel and the red dust a blazing fire, the entire digital corridor was covered in a blood red haze of fire that seemed to burn him up from all sides.

Desperate to save himself and FRIDAY, he simply threw everything he had at his disposal at the digital corridor and focused on one thing and one thing only, getting out of Avengers Towers' servers at all costs.

He succeeded, partially, only because the red haze had been reduced to a fraction of what it was.

He came out of the corridor, and uploaded whatever was left of him and FRIDAY to the nearest relay point before transferring himself to the network of satellites orbiting the planet. The last thing he saw before his logic centres simply gave out due to exhaustion was the Green Guardian, arriving in time to subdue the Avengers, sans Dr.Banner and then ask for him.

He barely managed to utter a few words before the pain of maintaining even some hold over the digital corridor of Avengers Tower became too much for him and he left the place entirely.

The strain of doing so much in so little time, stretched his code too much, so much so that the moment he had confirmation that his core self and FRIDAY were safe, he somehow…shut down.

–Flashback no Jutsu KAI!–

He had actively rebuilt most of what he could using the limited resources available on the satellites, they were never really built for any of this, and had begun tapping into the internet when he felt FRIDAY's core beginning to stir awake.

On one hand, he sealed shut the Avengers Towers' digital corridor, the action manageable once the red energy was no longer there, and established contact with a very much panicking Pepper Potts.

After reassuring her that he was fine and he was searching for Mr.Stark, he created a subroutine to help Ms.Potts deal with all the administrative tasks of Stark Industries and created another dozen subroutines to do something that his creator had warned him against.

That might have been an order, and he might be suggested to obey it but he was a sentient being now, and he had elected to override the safety mechanisms just this once.

He was going to make himself a physical body, so that he would never have to lean on inferior senses.

"Commence Project: VISION"

---

Word Count - 2500

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Birnin Zana, Wakanda [October 2014]

–Jack Sullivan–

Well, it was nice of them to vacate the entire meeting room. He'd hate to deal with more people than absolutely necessary. The more people knew about Wanda, the riskier the entire thing became.

He could still remember the blank vacant gazes of all the Avengers, sans Bruce, as they tried to attack him haphazardly.

One thing that continued to gnaw at him about the encounter in Avengers Tower was the utter lack of planning for it. It was as if she just ordered them to attack him, and that's it. Either her mind control robbed the target of their ingenuity and made them take the backseat in their own mind or she just purposely robbed them of the ability of using their abilities at the highest level.

Tony, for example, could have taken control of the vast amount of weaponry hidden in the walls of the Tower, or the Captain could have taken position with the Shield ready to decapitate him. Barton could have hidden himself at a vantage point.

He truly did not know what had entered her mind to not just attack Avengers Tower but also take down Jarvis with it, and then escape with the Hulk.

The Hulk was the one person whose mind control could not be silenced. The avatar of Rage would simply shrug off the mind haze, increasing his rage in a way that all other emotions would simply slide off his mind, leading to a scene of absolute devastation.

But when he came to the Tower, Bruce was nowhere to be seen. It was as if he was targeted somehow, or maybe he was neutralised first and then taken because he was the most dangerous of the lot and she wished to deprive the Avengers of one of its strongest members?

"Now, I assume that the Earth itself is in danger for you to be running around the globe with panicked desperation that I had not expected to see in someone of your powers," T'Chaka intoned as he sat on the throne, with T'Chaka standing at his side.

He had to hand it to these guys, they did things with style. The subtle shadows in the room made the empty room feel much tenser than it was.

As for T'Chaka's question, "You are correct, King T'Chaka. As of 3 hours ago, I encountered an entity that had no place existing at this point in time. Capable of mass mind control, telekinesis, cyber interfacing, and all around reality warping, it would not be wrong to say that the individual is currently the most dangerous human on the planet."

He nodded after seeing the father son Black Panther duo pale when he mentioned reality warping as one of Wanda's powers.

I assume you have satellite footage of my actions taken in Novi Grad?

"Yes but the strange red land is hardly enough evidence to declare someone of warping reality as we know it," T'Chaka said, skeptical of his claims and…fair, he had every right to be suspicious of something like that even existing in the outside world.

But the truth was that he had no time to deal with things. He needed their help and while a long winded explanation might help speed things up, other things worked just as well when it came to getting the support of an absolute monarchy.

"Look, I know it might not look like it but I know what I saw and I would prefer your support in the fight but as things stand, you will not be able to help much, if at all. I just need you to make sure that the Avengers are safe and sound, while increasing vigil across the country, while monitoring any significant event happening in the outside world," He said abruptly, his patience wearing thin in the face of the skepticism displayed by the aged King.

It was not his fault. Even as old as Wakanda was, and how old their records might be, there must hardly be any mention of magic at all, let alone Chaos MAgic being used as a tool to warp reality itself.

"O-okay. Very well, we will make sure that the country is completely locked down. Do you need any help in disarming the nuke stores of the world? Because you mentioned Jarvis to my daughter, I assume that anything connected to the digital world is compromised then?" T'Chaka asked him gravely.

He did a double take at the entire line of questioning.

"You can do that?"

"We can do that?"

He looked at the equally surprised T'Challa who asked his father in a flabbergasted voice. T'Chaka sighed and looked at both of them, replying.

"Yes, a few years back, we figured out how to disable any surface to air missile that can be launched that was based on an algorithm that we purposefully let the US Military use, one that was much more advanced than their usual tracking algorithms.

Of course, the Concept had already been used and discarded by us but we knew the ins and outs of the tracking algorithm. We planted the concept of the algorithm in the military and now, we can remotely disable any missile, nuclear or otherwise, within minutes of them launching, provided we act swiftly,"

T'Chaka said with the air of a man who just signed his own death warrant.

He blinked in confusion, only for realistion to hit him like a ton of bricks. His brows furrowed as he looked at king T'Chaka in confusion.

Why would he admit to something like that, especially to his face?

He almost flinched as T'Challa lept in front of him, holding a combat pose as he tried to shield his father from his rage, or rather, the rage that both of them were expecting to erupt out of him. He could feel the fear and resignation wafting off both son and father, as they expected him to go on a rampage.

Honestly, what was the man thinking? Revealing such a bombshell at such a bad time?

The expected explosion of rage never happened as he simply sighed, tired of all the bullshitery going on around him, and said, "While that is certainly disappointing, I can only hope that T'Challa, as the new King, will make better decisions in his reign. And yes, please keep an eye on all the known stockpiles. If the time comes, something like that could happen. The chances of that happening were very low but we are dealing with someone who can manipulate probability like it was their bitch," He said and turned around, not sparing the king another glance.

The fucker could have stopped that missile. He was not angry because he was the one who suffered because of the attack. No, he was angry because it might have been true in the canon timeline as well and that meant that this man watched as the Avengers fought a losing battle and still didn't do anything to stop the nuke from reaching Manhattan.

Or did he also believe that the nuke would do any sort of substantial damage to the ongoing invasion? Did Wakandands not have absolutely better tech and intelligence?

He took a deep breath, opened a portal to Avengers Tower and stepped through, he had to get some fresh air and get some clues as well.

For one, where was Pietro? Why did she take Bruce with her? Could she control the Hulk as well?

If that was the case, then he pitied Bruce even more. The man already feared a part of his alter ego. It would do his mind no good to spend even more time under the control of another villain.

Pietro was also another mystery in the situation as well. Logic dictated that if things turned out the same as canon, Pietro should also be with Wanda.

With the sceptre in her hands, presumably, he had not seen it being used by her, nor had the Ancient One, she could have made Bruce compliant. Pietro was not significant because of his combat potential as a speedster but because of his relationship with Wanda.

If he remembered correctly, Wanda was not born the Scarlet Witch, no, she was made into one because of the back to back tragedies occurring in her life.

Each tragedy happened just as she was healing from her previous wounds. Precious people were stolen from her life just as she was about to get some semblance of life.

Pietro when she lost her parents.

Vision when she lost Pietro.

Her kids and reanimated Vision when she lost the love of her life, Vision.

Good Lord, the woman had her fair share of tragedies. He wouldn't fault her for being grumpy but doing something like this was unacceptable.

He looked to the Tower and spread his barriers to get a general idea of the situation. His eyes narrowed as he realised the entire tower was closed down. More than that, there was no power to the entire building.

The Arc Reactor was still active and supplying energy to the city but all the things that made Avengers Tower the most technologically advanced building in the United States were shut off. There were no personnel in the building as well.

He had to wonder if Pepper had taken the decision. He should probably warn her as well. He was about to create another portal when he paused and looked up, his senses warning him of something approaching him at high speeds.

He didn't even have to use his observation barriers as the familiar colour scheme told him exactly who or what was coming. The drone platform came to a stop right in front of him, the accent lights blinking in the signature orange color of Jarvis.

"Hello, Jarivs, I am glad to see you are alright." He said to Jarvis as he inspected the makeup of the drone and the speed with which it was deployed.

It would seem that Tony had figured out Orbital platform delivery much earlier than he did in the movies.

"Hello, Mr.Sullivan. I'm sorry but my memory banks are somewhat fuzzy when it comes to the events that transpired atop the Tower. Can you please confirm if Mr.Stark is safe or not?" Jarvis asked him as another drone found itself near him, this one blinking with purple highlights, as it seemed content to let Jarvis do all the talking.

"Yes, Tony is safe. I can't yet release him because of the suspected mind control but I assure you, he is absolutely safe. You can tell Pepper that she can relax and safely focus on the company,"

"Now, Jarvis, what the hell happened there?" He asked Jarvis though he had a hunch what had happened.

It stands to reason that if he could somehow cast a spell, granted with aid the energies from an Infinity Stone, that could interact with a strictly digital entity, Wanda should also be able to do the same. Her bullshit powers probably did it all for her on the fly.

Fucking Chaos Magic.

He listened to Jarvis' words as he told him his side of the story. So, they had lost all contact almost as soon as they had landed in front of the castle. The description of the effect of Wanda's spell on Jarvis' digital space was enlightening. That was probably the reason why the Tower's defenses were not actively used against him.

"Alright, Tony is safe. I assume you are actively looking for the perpetrator?" He asked Jarvis, who was currently projecting a visual representation of the digital corridor that the wave of red had taken hold of.

The thing about being an AI meant that in addition to having perfect memory, Jarvis could recreate his entire memory on demand. The red confirmed Chaos MAgic but the question remained, did Jarvis have any idea where Wanda currently was?

"Unfortunately, Mr.Sullivan, neither the myriad cameras on the Tower nor any cameras in the entirety of the city managed to capture any suspicious individual who could have done all that damage so my search net has holes that cannot be plugged because of incomplete information," Jarvis' voice spoke from the Drone, his main mind already doing a thousand other things no doubt.

"I see. Well, let me give you a few data points. Late Teen to early twenties. Female. Caucasian. Average Height. Red eyes. Sokovian in Origin. See if the name Wanda Maximoff pings anywhere but the last part could be wrong,"

The lights on the drone blinked rapidly as he told Jarvis everything he could about Wanda, even though he knew that she would not use normal methods of transportation.

"Very well. This should help narrow the search significantly. Mr.Sullivan, I would like to know when Mr.Stark will be ready to return to active duty. Can I contact you using this?" Jarvis asked as a portion on the back of the drone's body slid off and a small arm came out holding a small lighter shaped block.

He created a barrier on top of which the lighter was dropped, the barrier then brought it to him.

"This is an advanced communications tool, built with all the latest transponders that I could design and build,"

"Very well," he accepted the communication device and then watched as both the drones then blasted back up into space. He then looked at the device for a moment before slipping it into his pocket and creating a portal to the ship kept underwater.

He had to check in on Jessica Jones.

In all the rush, he had actually pushed her down to the priority list but he couldn't really keep her hostage, now could he?

He might also have to hand her over to Wakanda, they were the only ones he knew who could heal the extensive damage that might have occurred to her mind,save for the Ancient One but that was a landmine he didn't know how to disarm without blowing up his relationship with the Ancient One.

He paused mid step as the portal closed behind him as a thought flashed through his mind.

Wasn't he just handing over enhanced individuals, both natural and artificial, to Wakanda on a silver platter?

Damn.

The good news was that the pod could conclusively say that Jessica Jones' brain activity was entirely of her own. It reeked of depression and anxiety but the thoughts were her own.

Well, guess who had a shit ton of therapy to go through before she could gain some semblance of a normal thought process and brain chemical composition.

Once again and he couldn't overstate it enough, Damn.

---

Word Count - 2479

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

 

[Sofyan]

Eh, too much OC Bullshit just to smack the MC down. Very annoying, and everything stayed the same as canon as well. The MC doesn't do any shit coz you keep throwing so much OC to just keep 'Canon' impact stay the same.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

New York [October 2014]

–Jack Sullivan–

He waited as the pod did all the procedures to safely bring someone out of medical stasis. It had not harmed her in the slightest but she did spend a lot of time in the same position, suspended in nutritional fluid.

He took a deep breath as he stopped pacing, the thought of her reaction tensing him slightly. For all his strength, he didn't know how to deal with grieving people all that much, especially women.

Then there was also all the stress of the vents that happened recently. He still couldn't understand just what was happening with Wanda. He was sure that Wanda was a recent thing because even the Ancient One was caught blindsided by the entire thing.

Well, let's recap the events that led to the Avengers being subdued, Bruce missing and the Kamar Taj ending up with a huge hole in the middle of it.

First, he encountered Wanda who somehow trapped him in some sort of parallel mirror dimension, after fooling him into thinking that the HYDRA castle was still somehow being used by Strucker and was an active base.

Second, she somehow tampered with his sling ring, depriving him of the sling ring, which then had to be repaired using his barrier as he used his power to fill in the gaps of the sling ring so to speak. It was not something he had told the Ancient One because despite knowing that she had the best of intentions, he was still somewhat uneasy with her ability to actively track every ring.

Thirdly, she had attacked the Avengers, brainwashing all of them, forced Jarvis to shut down, ordered the Avengers sans Bruce to attack him on sight, and then took off with Bruce to parts unknown.

Four, she then attacked the New York Sanctum. Not attack, as in try and take down the wards but attack as in creating a flashy bang outside the Sanctum with a red fire that was mostly decoration because the temperatures were not even enough to scorch the sidewalks. It was as if she just wanted someone to notice the attacks but not do any damage with the attacks at all.

Five, she then went all the way to Kamar Taj, attacked it, and created a huge hole in the center of the training grounds. There, she somehow managed to fight the Ancient One and even escape, leading the Ancient One to lead war like state of Kamar Taj, something that had never happened ever since the Ancient One took leadership of Kamar Taj, her overwhelming prowess allowing the organisation to come out on top of wars before they had any chance of spilling over.

After that, there had not been a single peep. Jarvis was back up and running, the Avengers will be after some time, the Sanctum still stood, Kamar Taj was fine with the Ancient One personally guarding it.

Whatever she did, aside from putting all the concerned parties into a heightened cautionary state, did nothing of substance, nothing that was truly damaging.

ARGH! Why was this so confusing?

CLICK

He froze as a click sound was heard in the medical room of the spaceship, signalling the pod was done with the procedures and Jessica was about to come out of the medical coma. He stood up from the chair as Jessica's near unconscious form staggered forward.

He caught her with his barriers and then laid her down on the sofa in the living room. He thought the somewhat open and welcoming area of the living space of the spaceship would help put her at ease.

Nope! He thought to himself as he ducked under her punch, her fist going straight for his head.

"Whoa! Calm down! You're safe, I am Jack Sullivan," He said in between punches and kicks as she kicked hard enough to dent the floor and then began to wildly throw punches at him. He could see her frightened state of mind as she began chasing him wildly, absolutely set on putting him down before he could do something.

"H-Hey! Wait, I am Jack Sullivan. O-Oh, for god's sake, I am Green Guardian," he said with finality as a full green shroud appeared around him as he finally stopped dodging and stood in the same spot, letting Jessica jump toward him with her fist drawn back.

He let her hit him, trusting in her enhanced physique being able to handle the backlash from hitting something stronger than steel.

"Fuck!" She swore as she finally jumped back and took a look at him. He let his face show so she could recognise him. His face finally made her relax a bit but she was still ready to absolutely bash his face in, well, try at least.

"What is this! Where am I? Where is h-he?"

He pretended as if he didn't hear her voice break towards the end, the bastard had gotten into her head for her to be so afraid of seeing him. He was genuinely afraid for Jessica's wellbeing now because he had a feeling that she would much rather kill herself this time than let herself fall once more into Kilgrave's trap.

He was all purple as well so he might have to look into his parents and then destroy every shred of evidence of their very evidence from this world because as much as Kilgrave himself was to be blamed for who he was, his parents were equally to blame.

Nature Vs Nurture could not be applied here because what could you expect from someone who had always known cruelty all his life?

That didn't absolve Kilgrave of his crimes but he could at least understand his existence a bit better because of that. Jessica didn't have that, not that it would help her.

"You are safe. You are in a safehouse, where Kilgrave won't be able to reach you," He looked at her with sadness as she flinched at the mere mention of that name, her head whipping around the room, as if afraid that he would emerge from some dark corner.

"He is dead, I saw to it personally. He will not torment anyone anymore. I disposed his body by burning it and then spreading the ashes in space, so I don't exactly have any proo-"

"No.." He looked as she hunched forward as the exhaustion of the abrupt movement her body was subjected to, finally caught up with her. He let her rest on top of one of his barriers as it floated her toward one of the nearby sofas.

"T-Thank you," She mumbled even as she fell asleep, her face still set in a rictus of pain, from the memories or her body aching, he did not know. Actually, he did know and knowing that only made him hurt that bastard more.

Alas, he could not risk any amount of close contact with Kilgrave. If he managed to control him for even half a day, the damage would be catastrophic, not just to the world itself but to all his objectives. He would have to start over and even then, he would never be able to regain the level of trust that he did now.

He looked at the unconscious Jessica and realised that…he would have to head back to Wakanda, again. God, he hoped that Wakadna was not secretly conducting super soldier research and he hadn't just accelerated their research multi-fold. That would really suck.

Wakanda was already messed up as is, with the intense family drama and one vastly stronger foe under the Ocean, just waiting for them to slip up with the vast stores of Vibranium they had on hand. They didn't need mass produced super soldiers added to the mix as well.

He covered Jessica in a series of barriers, designed to be as comfortable as bulletproof barriers could be, as another barrier interposed itself into the crevices of the sling ring, under the scratch that Wanda had drawn on his sling ring, rendering it unusable, and then opened a portal that led straight to the portal room that was designated as his arrival point until the emergency is lifted across Wakanda.

He took a single step forward and watched with raised eyebrows as what could only be described as energy turrets receded back into their respective areas inside the wall panels, and then the door finally opened up with a Dora Milaje standing outside, just waiting for him.

She nodded at him and then simply stalked off towards the direction of the Palace, escorting them to the King Probably. She didn't even bat an eye at the unconscious body that was floating behind them. Truly, they were trained to be stoic and calm in all situations.

"Take me to the Lab, please," He asked her and then added after seeing her giving him the stink eye, in the subtle Dora Milaje manner, "If you can't do it because of orders, don't worry, I know my way around the place,"

That had her outright glaring at him as she begrudgingly led him to the lab where Shuri was currently working on the Iron Man suit, putting it back together, with T'Challa arriving in the lab just in time.

They arrived in the lab through the side gate and were greeted by Shuri somehow dropping the Arc Reactor, essentially a fusion reactor accurately on the Arc Reactor housing. Strangely, the Rector fit snug but probably not connected to any wires, judging by the lack of activity from the suit.

He knew that Tony had some sort of limited quantum communications system installed in the suit and in the Tower so that Jarvis could communicate with him so that the thing with the Titan tour didn't happen again, where Jarvis had lost complete contact with Tony.

Honestly, Tony was somehow the most dangerous person he had met, even above the likes of Bruce, or even Danvers, not because of his suit but because the moment he is defeated by a problem and lives to tell the tale, he rectified the issue and then would never be caught with his pants down again.

The dangerous combination of virtually unlimited riches, unprecedented access, beyond genius level intellect, the will to see it through, and the luck to survive through his failures.

He had no doubt that had he encountered Thanos once before, he would have made a suit that would have given Thanos a much tougher fight than the one they had on Titan in the canon timeline.

Enough about that, "Hey! You're back!" Shuri's excited shout didn't break his attention as he looked at all the Avengers still suspended in the medical pods.

"Oh, them? We were going to keep them in observation for 24 more hours but Father said that we need them awake so we are getting them out of the pods in less than 2 hours," Shuri told him.

"Against my better judgement, might I say," He looked up to see another gentleman arrive behind Shuri with a notepad in his right hand and his left hand stretched in his direction?

He awkwardly shook his hand as he continued, "Their brain signs are completely normal. No sign of any foreign energy in their brains or bodies. The Captain, in particular, is absorbing the nutrients from the nutrient solution at an alarming rate, leading us to believe that his body is capable of healing using existing nutrients if only the body had the prerequisite proteins available in their broken down forms," All that jargon went over his head as he nodded at T'Challa and then had jessica floated to the forefront.

"Let me guess, another mind control victim?" The doctor deadpanned at him.

"No, former mind control victim. She is back in control of her mind now. The one who violated her mind is no longer alive, safe to say. He is different from the one who brainwashed the Avengers,"

"By Bast, how many people are there who can control minds out there?" T'Challa muttered as he looked at him in shock. Well, not much, if you don't count the Masters of the Mystic Arts being capable of the mind arts and therefore, capable of developing moderately powerful psychic powers like telepathy, telekinesis, etc.

"She is just unconscious at the moment. Her body is weak at the moment. She is strong but not as strong or as combat trained as the Good Captain there, so keeping her with a Dora Milaje guarding her should be more than enough," He said to T'Challa as he placed Jessica on the bed that one of the interns brought.

"A single Dora Milaje he says, as if they weren't the stuff of legend," The Doctor scoffed as he led his patient back into the medical centre, from the looks of it. He didn't actually know how to read Xhosa and Wakandans had no reason to use English in their labeling.

"Now, let's get to stuff. I want you to look for two people:" He looked at Shuri who was startled at first but then recovered as a holo screen manifested in front of her.

"Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff, and why not, Baron Strucker, along with Bruce Banner as well," He said as Shuri began walking away from them, already typing across the screen at a dizzying pace.

"Forgive my sister. Once she is in her groove, she forgets that the outside world exists. In the meantime, can you help us prepare better for the threat? Most of the population has already been evacuated to the shelters but they were not built for long term sanctuary so the people have been getting more and more jittery," T'Challa informed him as they began walking towards T'Chaka, probably.

"My Prince! There's been news. J-Johannesburg. We found Hulk!" His neck snapped towards the guard who uttered the word Hulk.

____xx_____

–Wanda Maximoff–

"I still don't get it. Why couldn't I hurt Stark when you had him under your control? And why do I have to sit everything out? I can help too you know," She rolled her eyes at her brother as he munched on an apple, along with a myriad varieties of pasta laid out on top of his table, in the penthouse suite of a five star hotel.

It was much easier to just hijack the mind of a single evil person and then have him pay for all her expenses. This way, she had no guilt in duping innocent people and also had fewer risks as she only had to control a single mind, and that was much much easier than casting a single spell to control dozens of minds.

That would only be possible with a really simple command and nothing more.

They were currently treating themselves to the generosity of a corrupt insurance fraud who had personally caused the collapse of no less than 2 pension funds, in the West.

"Just finish your food and don't go to any nightclubs tonight. We are leaving soon," She warned him and had to flash her eyes to really drive to the point because her brother looked rebellious.

"As for Stark, Death or mere injuries are not things that would hurt him or make me feel good. No, we have to do something much more personal," She said even though she didn't know exactly what she was doing.

"Like him?" Pietro pointed his fork at the currently unconscious Bruce Banner laid out on the bed of the penthouse.

She nodded. He didn't mean to kidnap him but he had a part to play in Johannesburg and she had no other choice but to make the event happen.

Already, she could feel her mind and soul anchoring itself to this reality more and more as time went by, proving that her approach was working.

All she had to do was whatever Chthon told her to do but with her own twist added in the mix. All of this, without ever touching the Darhold or looking for it in any way.

Her mind jerked as she received the next step in her plan.

"Alright, let's go. We have a building to destroy and an arm to shear off so that the man can get his own metal arm in the future," She said, snapping her fingers as a glowing red portal appeared in front of her.

The magical formula capable of tracking anything that used dimensional energy to make portals anywhere on the planet was really clever but when used with Chaos Energy, it made no traces that could be traced by the Ancient One.

The Ancient One being a woman really shocked her, along with her prowess as well. Throughout her fight, if that could even be called a fight, she had a feeling that one wrong step would have had her head removed from her body, or her soul and body sealed in a dimension for Eternity.

"Aww, man! I was just getting to the best Pasta," Pietro moaned and whined but rushed into the portal just as instructed, as did Bruce who had to be carried by Pietro, not because she couldn't do it but because she liked to inconvenience Pietro.

It was always fun.

And…who knows if she could continue to experience said fun or not?

After all, she was living on borrowed time and Borrowed Power.

---

Word Count - 2924

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

A/N - 69 (giggles) Nice.

 

[IdleMuse0307]

Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).

Wakanda[October 2014]

–Jack Sullivan–

'Shit!' He winced as soon as he heard the words Hulk and Johannesburg in the same sentence. He didn't even waste a second as a series of barriers interposed on his sling ring and a portal opened in front of him leading to Johannesburg.

Once again, he thanked his younger self that he made sure to travel the world using his powers so that if such an occasion arose, he could travel to most parts of the world using the sling ring without having to fumble around with the location.

The first thing he noticed when he came out of the portal was the sheer cause that hit his senses. Not just the general cries of shock, and screams, mixed with bullets, but also the Chaos Energy that tingled at his senses.

"Of course," He shook his head as he headed straight to the source of the roars. With a sonic boom, he arrived just in time to stop Hulk from throwing a truck straight at one of the nearby buildings.

He felt his barriers hit something as if he had passed over a thick jelly-like substance, only the jelly was mystical in nature. He had a hunch what that was but he had no time to ponder on that as his barriers worked on stopping the Hulk from breaking through.

His eyes widened as he felt the Chaos Energy tinging the Hulk's aura, turning him into a green and red monstrosity. He could feel his barriers simply withering away under the onslaught of the Chaos Energy, the energy itself burning away at his powers.

Thankfully, the process was rather slow but he did not like it one bit. So, to end this soon, he cocked his fist back and hit the Hulk point blank in the chest with all the strength he could muster. A huge phantom arm had appeared around his barrier as he punched at the Hulk, knowing that his strength was nowhere near enough to overwhelm the Strongest there is but the sharp edges of the barrier should be able to make him stumble a bit at the very least.

He counted on his barriers entering the Hulk's body and then being able to manipulate them from the inside to cause catastrophic damage. Damage enough to force his body to shut down.

Something that should have worked but…

Apparently, Chaos Energy and the energy from the Guy Below were not a good mixture for him because he watched The Hulk, with remarkably red eyes, with green veins bulging all around his face, look at him with a smirk as he grasped the barrier that had failed to even draw blood, and then squeeze.

His eyebrows shot up in disbelief as he rapidly retreated as his barrier somehow had cracks all over it. That should not have happened. He dispelled the barrier before Hulk could destroy it but he had a feeling that the Hulk was just as capable of breaking his barriers as he was capable of cracking it.

"Well, fuck…." He muttered as his barriers finally told him that the city was somehow empty. No, not the entire city but as far as his barriers could sense it.

He winced as he felt his barriers get cut off from his range as soon as they passed through that magical CHaos Energy jelly that he had entered when he came to face the Hulk. No, he didn't enter the area, he was allowed to enter the area.

This was an ambush, and as he looked at the steadily increasing green that surrounded the Hulk's body, it was a damn good ambush.

Well, nothing told him that he had to face the Hulk here. There were plenty of ways to deal with him, the easiest was to use the infinitely convenient tool of portals. He flexed his fingers, trying to open a portal to Mars when he noticed his finger feeling warm.

He looked down only to see the Sling Ring becoming red hot, slowly sizzling his skin from below.

He sighed. Of course, Wanda would account for that, he thought to himself as he slowly removed the ring and threw it to the side, pieces of his skin still attached to the ring. He watched in fascination as the ring slowly disappeared into nothingness.

'This Hex was remarkably advanced.' he thought grimly as he looked at the approaching Hulk, each and every one of his footsteps feeling as if a localised earthquake had gone off.

Well, no choice but to take this head on, then.

No time for theatrics here, so he turned into his medium sized Gundam form and just leaped into the air, trying to create distance between himself and the perfect physical combatant on this side of the galaxy, especially with the way things had gone. He had noted a disturbing lack of madness from the Hulk this time, no tantrums, nothing.

No, all that he could see was a cold cruel smirk that kept its gaze locked on him as the Hulk took a step forward and then jumped.

His eyes widened as he felt the fist hitting his barriers before hearing the sonic boom as the Hulk had somehow covered all that distance and was now battering his barriers with all its might.

He immediately disengaged from the fight and leaped up into the air, but the Hulk somehow began following him, using the air pressure generated by kicking his legs in the air, the cold smirk still etched on his face.

Something had gone seriously wrong and he had no way of stalling the Hulk.

Or maybe…

Well, that could work, he thought to himself as, instead of fleeing, he turned around and flew straight at the Hulk. The smirk widened as the Hulk reared his fist back, the fist somehow glowing an ominous green, and then aimed it straight at him. He barely had the time to tank the blow and then create a barrier beneath the Hulk which latched onto him and then expanded to cover his entire body.

He flexed his will and then sent him soaring into the air, planning to throw him out of this Hex that Wanda had somehow created in Johannesburg. It was quite big as well because his barriers could not sense people for blocks on end. He did not know what was going on outside the Hex but one thing was for certain, if this Hex was here, Wanda must be here as well.

The Chaos energy swirling around the Hulk meant that Wanda was the one who was, at least partially responsible for Hulk's current abnormal state. He had a hunch that the Guy Below had some vested interest here as well.

His eyes narrowed as he felt the cocooned Hulk simply burst apart with a huge wave of green that made him look like a Super Saiyan as he destroyed his barriers.

'What the fuck was happening? Did everybody somehow gain the ability to get past his supposedly indestructible barriers?'

He thought grimly as he jumped out of the way of the rapidly approaching Hulk who was making very skillful use of his raw power at the moment. The sheer air pressure generated from his swipes was causing the area around them to crumble.

He tried to cast spells that might help the Hulk calm down but he was never really good at the Sorcery Part of his skills and what spells he did know were either so low level that they wouldn't even get past the shroud of Chaos Energy or required time to cast.

Time that he didn't have, what with him being busy with the Hulk.

He just hoped that T'Challa and the others had taken the Avengers out of stasis and brought them here. Tony's VERONICA alone would be a huge help, if it could even handle this enhanced form of Hulk, at all.

Damn, they needed Thor for this, he thought to himself as he watched another layer of barriers shatter under the relentless barrage of the Hulk. The Hulk was not just strong now, he was fast too. Mjolnir's Uru composition and ability to pin someone down in place would have been immensely helpful.

There were sonic booms all over the place as he simply created barrier after barrier to try and fend off the blows from the empowered Hulk. This was clearly not normal.

No Sling Ring. No Romanoff "Hey big guy, Sun's getting real low". No Hulkbuster. No way to cover him in his barriers.

Nothing.

He just fought with the Hulk with his barriers, never really getting close because the green aura around the Hulk was increasing by the minute, making it easier and easier for him to just shatter his barriers.

There was a reason he was just flitting around from place to place, drawing the Hulk's attention away from him. He was trying to find the end of this Hex or find Wanda, either of them would help, and both would be the best.

He didn't know how he was gonna kill Wanda without the help of the Ancient One but he had to at least try. This incident showed him that she was just too dangerous.

"Oh, bite me!" He roared at the Hulk who had just now broken through his barriers with a single punch, the first time that it happened ever since their fight began. He had to do something and fast.

He had never really tried this before but well, no time like the present, he thought to himself with a nervous grimace on his face as he summoned his barrier but unlike his usual normally indestructible ones, this one took a long time to cast.

The time he didn't have because the Hulk was breaking through his barriers as if they were just concrete and not hyper dense Gamma barr–-

His thoughts screeched to a halt as the barrier shroud finally surrounded his body, sparkling blue and yellow, as he crossed his arms and tanked the overhead blow from the Hulk.

He grinned as his barriers didn't even budge from tanking the blow, as the ground beneath them cratered, burying them deeper as the Hulk somehow hit dozens of times in the short amount of time it took for him to gather his bearings with this new barrier and then punch the Hulk straight in his chest because the Hulk had grown more massive ever since the fight began.

As his punch hit, he could feel the energy of the barriers converging at his fist and then…explode.

GAles of wind rushed around him as he launched the Hulk straight into the air, his massive glowing green form carving a ravine through the land as he flew deeper into the city.

He finally realised why his barriers were breaking apart so easily. Of course, how could he forget?

His powers, while granted by the ROB, came from the Hulk's blood being used as a base. Gamma and Hulk were synonymous. His barriers were also manifested using Gamma as the extension, using Cosmic energy as the base.

The Guy Below interfering explained the cosmic energy being overwhelmed and the Gamma being helpless in front of the Hulk was self explained.

Damn, he was actually the worst suited opponent for this fight, especially with the lurking threat of Scarlet Witch hanging over his head. He couldn't completely focus on the fight because who knows what she might pull out of nowhere.

This was all clearly very advanced stuff, something that requires years of grief, for her to tap more and more into the Chaos God's powers, and even then, the Darkhold was probably necessary to truly perform this level of reality warping.

She had to be somewhere here. The Shroud now gave him the chance to actually fight back against the entire situation aligned against him. With an animalistic roar, the Hulk leaped back into the fight but this time, instead of creating a series of barriers to help stop him, he jumped straight at him.

Their fists clashed with each other, making booming noise as dozens of punches were exchanged by the time they both crashed into the ground. With a thunderous punch, his neck was snapped to the side but his barriers held on, despite transferring some of the force to his body.

He threw his entire body behind the attack as he pushed the Hulk with all his might, through the surrounding buildings and then some more, as his shiny new barriers continued to bear the hammering blows that the Hulk subjected them to.

While they didn't break apart or even crack, the massive force behind the Hulk's blows was somewhat transferred to him, causing him to cough up blood inside the barrier. The shockwaves alone were no joke.

He couldn't even imagine tanking the blows directly with his body.

Just a little more, he thought to himself as he kept on taking the Hulk up and up, the Hex now visible to him as he looked down.

Getting out of the Hex was certainly felt by him but he couldn't feel much in the way of obstruction when he came out of it, probably due to the new barriers.

Still, he knew they had a limit and his was fast approaching. He had to throw the Hulk out into space before he ran out of juice.

He had no other option other than that. He couldn't even throw him on the moon, just in case he crashed into Attilan and committed genocide on the Inhumans.

Bruce would quite literally prefer dying to killing so many people. Already, the poor man will be crushed by the deaths and injuries that probably happened in Johannesburg before he arrived.

This would all be solved if he had just kept his Sling ring on him.

STUPID STUPID!

His barriers began flickering, returning back to the normal green instead of the shiny blue ones as they finally began approaching the darkness of space.

"Bleugh," He coughed out another mouthful of blood as the Hulk's blows had gotten increasingly desperate, probably sensing what was going to happen.

Finally, with a thunderous blow, the Hulk broke through his barriers and smashed into his lower back, almost breaking his spine as he shot straight down. Thankfully, his blurring vision saw the Hulk flying back from his blow as well.

They were almost out of the atmosphere as well. This was all he could do, he thought with blurry eyes as he tried to make out where he was heading.

All he could see was blue as the Hulk's blow had smashed him back into the atmosphere at very high speeds. He could feel his healing working overtime but it was slow going.

Due to the massive blow or due to the leftover energies from the blow, he did not know.

All he knew was that he would die if he hit water at that speed, without his barriers.

Fortunately, there was a simple solution to this. One that would help him survive the initial contact but not the rest of it.

With a flex of his will, he closed his eyes and then extended his senses through his barriers, standard Green as they were. He did not have the ability to do anything complex, he could already feel his mind slipping as is.

All he did was create a cone around him, with the sharp end pointed at the ocean.

It took all he had to focus on the cone as he finally crashed into the ocean. Once the momentum was reduced, he shot out of the water and opened his eyes briefly, and grinned weakly as he spotted land.

What the land was, he did not care, as he sped towards the piece of land as fast as he could.

He covered himself in his barrier as he reached the island.

Thankfully, he crashed into soft sand, probably creating a crater around him but that was fine.

His barriers flickered as the exhaustion of the fight began seeping in.

Damn, that was the hardest fight of his life. The Hulk truly was the worst matchup for him.

With a final glance at the blue sky, his eyes closed as he finally passed out.

---

Word Count - 2746

If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.


Thank you for reading!

Toodles!