Chapter 131: Rescuing a Phoenix
2nd March 2006, New York City
(Wanda Maximoff POV)
Wanda was gaping at her teacher, “How the hell am I supposed to beat someone like that?”
Jasmine chucked, “The solution is quite easy. You kill the main body, the first body. This should destabilize the soul link and keep him trapped in his current body. Should he die, it would be permanent. But be very careful, his main body is a lot stronger than the cloned one you fought. Should he possess the body, you won’t have a chance to actually defeat him. Are you sure you want to continue?”
Wanda steeled herself and nodded, after all, it wasn’t like Jean would rescue herself.
Jasmine spoke in a solemn tone, “Do you have anything you want to ask? Anything at all? The second I open this portal you’ll be on your own. You will not receive my help unless I deem it necessary.”
Wanda paled at this; Jasmine was genuinely going to leave her to the wolves like this. She thought that she was joking or something or that she would only help a little bit, “Do you really need to do that?”
“My dear apprentice, if I do everything for you, then when would you learn?”
Wanda gulped, understanding her teacher’s sentiment but not completely agreeing with it, “Any advice?”
Jasmine smile approvingly, “Use your illusions to sneak around undetected. Do not rely too much on them, but they’re one of your greatest advantages. And don’t forget to use the Ankh; if you keep forgetting about using it, I’ll take it and get you a regular necklace or something, not a centuries old ancient artifact of incredible power.”
Wanda’s face was red from embarrassment, “Just make the damn portal!”
Laughing, the avatar of Death, created a portal in front of the teenager, “Good luck, kiddo. I know you’ll make me proud.”
Wanda smiled at the compliment and then steeled herself and walked through the portal who immediately closed after her. The first thing she did was put an illusion around her so that no one would be able to spot her. The teenager was grateful that her mother figure had brought it up; she definitely, would have forgotten to use it.
Wanda slowly walked in the maze that it Sinister’s laboratories. She tried to sneak into some of the rooms in front of her, and was horrified by the body parts and misshapen people that were locked there. It was like someone had tried combine body parts like a child does a doll. There was a man with a green clawed arms, fins, blue torso and tentacles for legs. The man, if that thing could be called even that, was snarling like an animal at every moving this in the room. How can someone reduce a human being into this? It was the same for every room; there was only suffering and death.
The teenager knew that Sinister was a monster, a scientist with no moral, but this was more than she could have ever imagined. This man caused so much suffering in the name of scientific progress, of understanding the human body, of his paranoia against Apocalypse. This was an example of what fear could do to a person.
Jasmine had once told Wanda that fear was something essential in every living being, but to be rules by your fear would be a recipe for disaster. You start losing the will to live and only care about surviving. Wanda had thought that she understood what Jasmine said but now, she realized that she didn’t.
She thought that giving in to fear would turn one into a coward, sniveling, betraying creature that only cares about its continuing existence. It wasn’t just didn’t occur to her that someone could have become desperate enough to turn into a monster. Doing things that are immoral on a fundamental level, abandoning their humanity, justifying their actions by saying it was for the greater good of the world. This made her sick to her stomach. How fear and desperation can even corrupt the brightest minds.
The teenaged witch slowly walked to the corridor, trying not to get sick to her stomach. She had a mission to fulfill and a friend to rescue.
It was after a few minutes of investigations that Wanda felt something odd. The teenager had learnt how to sense large concentrations of magic and their intent. It had been one of the first lessons Jasmine taught her, to be able to avoid touching cursed artifacts without knowing what they are. Wanda was still a novice in this skill, especially compared to Jasmine, who could actually analyze the spell without even taking a look at the artifact and replicate it or counter curse it. That was breathtaking to watch.
Whatever was around here was powerful, like seriously powerful. And it felt of soul magic, a very obscure branch of magic that Jasmine told her to avoid until she’s deemed ready to learn. Whatever was leaving such a big trace of magic was behind the wall. But there wasn’t any door or entrance to it.
Slowly, Wanda touched the steel wall and started manipulating it. Wanda had just gotten started with transmutation and was barely more than a beginner but transmutating an inanimate object without actually changing its composition was somewhat easy. It still took her a couple of minutes for the wall to slowly part and make a makeshift door.
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Inside, was a cylindrical tank made of glass, with a bunch of machinery hooked into it. Inside the tube was a body floating in some kind of liquid. It was a tall white muscular man, with long black hair, some weird red diamond on his forehead. And when Wanda said white, she meant it. The man’s skin was pure white. The man while humanoid, didn’t feel like a human. Wanda instinctively knew that this was Sinister’s main body and judging about the power the teenager sensed, she realized that Jasmine wasn’t kidding; she wouldn’t last a minute against Sinister in his main body.
Wanda immediately took out the runic bombs that Jasmine made her when she gave her the suit. There were many small magical gadgets for every measure. Wanda had dismissed them before but now, they were proving to be very useful. Wanda couldn’t destroy Sinister’s main body without finding Jean first. She wouldn’t be surprised if the man killed Jean out of frustration. She primed the charges and stuck them around the tank and its machinery. They only needed a mental command from Wanda to go off.
With her first objective done, Wanda got out of the hidden room, restored wall and continued her search of her best friend.
It was ten minutes later that Wanda found her first clue to where Jean was. It was the sound of banging. Wanda slowly followed it. Inside, Sinister was seen punching a steel wall in anger, visibly denting it with each punch. “WHY IS THIS NOT WORKING?”
What the hell was going on? Why was the man in such a rage? Jasmine said that he was interested in Jean and he had her. So why was he still angry?
Wanda watched as the scientist took a few deep breaths to calm down and then started to speak neutrally, “Subject Grey doesn’t seem to be accepting the clinical insertion of the fetus. The subject ovaries already show signs of rejection to subject Summers’ sperm, stopping the fertilization even outside the body. Even when trying to simulate a pregnancy, Subject Grey’s seems to have some sort of passive immune system that purges anything foreign from her system. I already had to change sedatives because the subject adapted to it. Hypothesis, Subject Grey impregnation must be willing. Unfortunately, there seems to be a similar protection in her mind. Any attempts at even small telepathic manipulation were immediately rejected. However, this protection seems foreign. I’ll have to break through it and after some mental conditioning, release her to be impregnated naturally by subject Summers. Hopefully they won’t take too long to conceive my weapon.”
When the man was done, Wanda was shaking in rage at what she had just heard. Was this what this was about, getting Jean to sleep with Scott for him to get his baby superweapon. This was beyond disgusting and obscene. She had to get Jean out of there, fast.
As the man started to murmur, Wanda snuck in and removed Jean’s sedatives. She had succeeded when she felt herself get thrown away. Wanda telekinetically righted herself in the air and landed on her feet, facing her attacker.
“Wanda Maximoff, I though that after our encounter, you wouldn’t be so foolish as to challenge me. Although, I do wonder how you were able to find me. I assumed you were able to sneak here with your remarkable illusions. If I hadn’t studied Lady Mastermind’s powers in extreme details, they would have probably fooled me. Unfortunately for you girl, your little trick wasn’t able to fool me for long. Although, I believe that you’ll prove to be an ideal test subject.”
Wanda shuddered at the hungry look at the man’s face. Damn, that guy was creepy as fuck, “You’re a monster, Sinister. What you have done, what you have been doing, is nothing more than you indulging in your desires. There’s no greater good involved, only your greed.”
Sinister snarled at her, “You’re an ignorant child, girl, barely out of her diapers. What I do here, I do out of necessity. Do not speak of matters you do not have the ability to comprehend.”
“Maybe I am an ignorant child, but unlike you, I do know that Apocalypse is dead.”
Sinister sent a telekinetic attack at her, that she batted away with one of her own, “APOCALYPSE IN NOT DEAD. I WOULD KNOW IF HE WAS, I WOULD FEEL IT!!!”
“No, you wouldn’t. Apocalypse hasn’t been inside your head for a long time. The only reason you still have the illusion of his voice in your head is because you want it there. There’s nothing for you to fight anymore. Someone already took your revenge from you.”
“NO! KILLING APOCALYPSE IS MY PURPOSE, MY GOAL! Stop lying girl. You want to unsettle me. Don’t worry, when I’m done breaking you, you’ll tell me everything you know.”
Sinister sent another telekinetic attack that Wanda dodged and returned one of her own. As the man shielded, she cast another illusion and hid next to it. The illusion was able to fool him for a fraction of a second. But it was enough for Wanda’s attack to land and send the man flying away.
Wanda still needed a big distraction to actually trap the man like she wanted. But before killing him, she needed to destroy his main body. Sending the mental command, she activated the runic explosions, destroying Sinister’s main body.
The man must have felt something was wrong because he froze for a second. Wanda used this distraction to send in a beam of telekinetic energy. It was too late for him to dodge and he ended up replying with a beam of his own to respond. They were back in a battle of wills.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?” the man yelled at her.
Wanda didn’t respond, Jasmine had long ago told her not to reveal her plans to her opponent as if this was a cartoon or something.
“You still try to do this again, after the last time? Have you learnt anything at all?”
Wanda grinned at his smug tone. She could tell that the man was panicking over the destruction of his body. He probably doesn’t actually understand what happened but he must have sensed that something was wrong. But now, is the time to end this. Wanda started to channel her magic through the Ankh and the artifact started glowing red. Like an arrow, the red beam ran through Sinister’s black beam. Wanda’s opponent had barely enough time to widen his eyes before he was disintegrated by the Wanda’s attack. Damn, the teenager had forgotten how powerful this thing actually is.
Wanda sighed in relief; she had won. With that in mind, she started to remove Jean’s bindings and get ready to get her out of here before blowing up this entire laboratory.
Suddenly, one of the room’s walls exploded, revealing another humanoid person. It was Sinister, but in his main body. How? She had destroyed the body herself.
“Oh, young Wanda. What a clever girl you are. Your plan was a good one. It would have worked, even. Unfortunately for you, I have added several healing factors to this body. If even a single cell survives, the body will regenerate. It would take some time, of course. But an explosion, would only hold me back for a few seconds. Don’t worry, young Wanda. I’m not going to kill you. I’m just going to hurt you really, really, bad!”
Wanda shuddered as she felt the bloodlust in the man’s voice. She was in deep trouble.