Chapter 115: Trouble in Paradise

23rd February 2006, New York City

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

I walk down the stairs as leave Wanda’s room, a warm smile on my face. I was proud of her, I really was. It’s been a trialing couple of days for her. From discovering memories repressed by reality magic, in denial because of what happened to her parents. Poor girl, her magic awakened at the worst possible moment and a gigantic burst of accidental magic that caused her parents’ death. A blast of this power should have been noticeable by the Sokovian magical authorities. Too bad, the magical community was in as much chaos as the mundane one. Apparently, another dark lord tried to take over the country. Yeah, I know. How original! All it takes is an idiot with delusions of grandeur, who learnt a couple of old spells and call themselves a dark lord.

Anyway, with two civil wars going on, Wanda’s burst of accidental magic ended up being hidden by the thousands of spells that were being fired that night by both sides of the war. They would never expect a child to cause such a discharge. Honestly, I wouldn’t either; it was very improbable.

Wanda being unnoticed was both a good thing and a bad thing. Wizards could have helped her trauma and not cause her mental health to deteriorate this much. However, with the war going on, she would have been groomed to be a weapon for the side that found her. This sent a shiver through my spine. And the worst thing is the fact that it wasn’t even the worst case scenario. Had she not created a secondary persona to control her magic, had she repressed it instead, she would have turned into an Obscurial and that would have been without a doubt a disaster on an epic proportion. I’m not understating things here. An Obscurial with the girl’s power and her type of magic would end up utterly destroying a few countries, killing millions, before being stopped by the ICW. This would make the Credence Barebone incident in New York look like a small case of accidental magic.

But there was no point in dwelling in scenarios that could have happened. I was rightly shocked when I first saw the memories, not understanding if this happened in the comics or the movies. Sometimes, I forget that this world is very different from the one I knew before my half soul came to this world. The active presence of Magic changes everything.

Anyway, Wanda had made strides and had broken of her childhood trauma, which is very impressive and it shows her strength of character, to be able to move on like that, after discovering that a large part of her childhood, of her story, was a lie she created to fool herself. Not to mention how much Magneto was actually scared of her, going so far as to brainwash her of any memories of the powerful aspects of her power.

I was also kinda surprised on how Magneto treated his children. I know for a fact that a small part of him actually loves them, but the man is prioritizing his ridiculous dream of mutant superiority over them. Which, by the way, is a very bad idea. Choosing your enemy to be more than 99% of the global population is such a stupid idea, it’s not even funny. Sure, maybe one extremely powerful mutant, like Jean for example, could actually end up taking over the world. But what would happen a hundred years later, when she dies. The humans will rebel. Mutants are not going to be much more powerful than they are now. Which means they will progressively get weaker. It’s the way of life; when someone rises in power, the world itself makes sure that the next generation is weaker. Balance has to be maintained, after all.

And since, you can’t just kill the human population without causing a massive economical crisis, not to mention the population crisis, and you can’t turn humans into mutants, the non powered population will remain. Meaning that they will rise up to oppose his regime as soon as they could. Magneto’s revolution will, at most, last a few decades before collapsing and mutants are hunted down to extinction.

Like I said, it’s a very idiotic plan. And he’s abandoning his children to it. I understand that he doesn’t want his race to be hunted down like what happened to him in Auschwitz, but he turned from the revolutionist who wants to save his race, into a war mongering super powered terrifying man, who wished to conquer the world and would not hesitate to cross any lines to do so.

Now, I got off topic. I was thinking about Wanda’s education. With her new focus, my Ankh, she should be able to have a certain amount of control over her magic. I will have to start her up on mental manipulation and reality illusions before going to the heavy stuff, which is actual reality manipulation and transmutation.

I can’t teach her traditional wanded magic without her having a much better control over her magic; its chaotic nature would destabilize any form of arithmancy based spell who mostly rely on structuring one’s magic to cast a spell.

But I don’t want to pressure the kid too much. While I’m on a deadline because of the oncoming crisis, I still want my apprentice to, at least, have a semi normal life after how much time she lost being in the Vault, locked in her father’s house, or on the streets. A life of comfort should be enough to help her already fragile mind, heal. Which is why I sent her to school. She has to interact with others her age, to study with her peers, graduate with her friends. She needs to be a regular teenager.

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With that out of the way, I walk down to the living room to find Selene sitting on the sofa and watching TV. She noticed my arrival, “So, how did it go with the girl?”

Damn, she really hasn’t gotten over her dislike of Wanda; always calling her ‘the girl’ or ‘the brat’. I somewhat understand where she’s coming from but it was starting to annoy me.

“She has a name you know,” I replied.

Selene shrugged at me, “Perhaps. I just don’t think I’ll need to remember it for too long.”

I sigh internally; Selene’s immortality caused her to be very detached from the so called ‘mortals’

I answer her, “This is different, Selene. She is my genuine apprentice, not just a student. I am planning on giving her a form of functional immortality when she’s ready.”

Selene sneered at me, “Jasmine, that’s enough of this. You always do this! Every time you leave on those ridiculous missions of yours, you get too attached to people. And every time, you lose them. It’s inevitable; no matter the circumstances of their death, they will be gone with a blink of an eye. Every time, I say to myself, ‘this is the last time. She’ll learn this time’ while I’m picking up the pieces afterwards. But you never learn. A few decades later, you go on another mission and do everything all over again. And this is not the first time that you said that you’ll turn them immortal. Remember Mordred? You forged her a sword that would turn her practically immortal. And then what happened? She died like everyone else. Your history is littered with brothers and sisters, daughters and sons, and every time, you end up with a broken heart. I can’t bear to see it again. I just can’t. It’s too much!”

That was a low blow, bringing up Mordred like this. I should be angry, I really should. But looking at her sobbing face, whatever retort, whatever justification I had, disappeared from my mind. This was really hurting her. Maybe she’s right, maybe I do care too much, maybe I should distance myself, like she has.

I sigh, “I didn’t know this affected you so much. I’m really sorry. I guess that caring like this was the way for me to retain my humanity.”

She snapped back at me, “You’re not human, Jasmine! You’re so far from human, it’s not even funny. Neither am I, for the matter. You remember how those Asgardians call themselves gods and we both know that you could squash them like bugs if you wanted to. You need to understand that you’re not human anymore. A regular human lives for at most a couple of centuries, and that’s if they’re a very powerful mage, you start losing your humanity after that. Even the Flamels are not exempt from this and all they do is drink an elixir to keep them young. You’re a true immortal, Jasmine. No, Morrigan! You need to act like one.”

I stayed silent at this accusation. It hit too close to home. Did I really try so much to retain whatever remains of my humanity that I kept hurting myself just to have the illusion of being human? I need some time alone to think about this.

Seeing no response on my part, she continued, “For so long, you have treated your life as one tragedy after another. You force yourself into situations where you keep getting hurt. Not to mention your fatalistic vision of the crisis,” I try to interject but she keeps talking, “Don’t try to deny it. You’ve already resigned yourself that you will die. You’re not even considering the possibility of you surviving. We know that the crisis causes a destabilization is space time, which made the events time locked. No one, not even cosmic entities can peer into its events. You dying is a possibility but it’s one of the billions where you do not. Get over yourself and start planning properly. I have followed your lead on this because you’re the one that noticed it and can actually see the fluctuations in the cosmic web of events. It doesn’t change the fact that you’re playing chess with an invisible opponent, with half the pieces being hidden as well. You still have no idea who’s pulling the strings, do you? Get over yourself and stop being this little shadow of the Morrigan I know and love. Fight back!”

At the end of the sentence, she was practically panting. She had been practically screaming at me and every word hit my heart like a knife. She really wasn’t pulling any punches.

How long had she been bottling this up? This wasn’t some little outburst. Selene doesn’t raise her voice unless she’s really out of sorts. “Alright!” I snap back at her, “Alright. You’re right. And I promise, no more attachments. Just Wanda. I like her a lot, I know I got too attached. But this is the last. And she could be my successor, after all. Maybe, I’ll succeed, maybe I won’t. But either way, this will be the last time.”

“You promise?” She looked so vulnerable, looking at me with pleading eyes. It was unusual seeing her like this.

I nod, “Yes, I promise.”

I knew that the argument was far from over, but at least she vented and there’s a lot I need to think about. I kiss her on her forehead and we end up snuggling on the couch.

Selene ended up picking up her phone and texting. Probably CEO stuff. Thank God that I foisted everything to her on that front. I can’t stand in meetings for hours on end. For some weird reason, Selene seems to enjoy it. Something about her liking fighting using politics, which is something I just don’t get. I absolutely hate politics. I can involve myself in politics, of course; at my age, it would be shameful for me not to. But it was just so tedious, dealing with power hungry morons all day.

Suddenly, my wife shifted up and looked at me, raising her eyebrows, “What’s this I hear that Morgan Evanshade is coming to the Stark Galla tomorrow night?”

“Damn it, I forgot it was tomorrow. Thanks for reminding me, luv.”

“You’re going for Start, aren’t you?” she took my silence as a confirmation, “I still don’t understand your fascination for him.”

I chuckle at her, “Anthony Stark, is the representation of Humanity’s potential. He’s a man who accepts his flaws and openly flaunts them, even. But deep down, he’s just as scared as everyone, he’s just wearing his little play boy mask to hide it. One day, he will be stripped bare of his illusion and he will either rise as humanity’s champion with nothing but his intelligence and his wits or he will perish. And on that day, the world will never be the same.”

“Huh, you really have that much faith in him?”

“You’ll understand one day, Selene. It wouldn’t do to spoil the surprise, after all.”