Chapter 138: Tensions
5th June 2006, New York City
(Jasmine Sayre POV)
I nod at her, “do you remember any of the predictions?”
“Yes. Every single prediction was the same, they all changed to the exact same thing. I saw the stars going out, I saw nothing but darkness and death. The balance has been shifted; you’re our only hope Morrigan.”
I nod and press my hands towards her temples, leaving small runes that looked like beauty marks. Irene nodded solemnly accepting the loss of her powers, and me, having lost one of my strongest allies.
Irene’s last prediction came to mind. This was bad, really bad. The stars going out was bad. Was this the goal of whatever I was fighting? Destroying light in the entire multiverse? I still have no idea and that was the scariest thing.
For the first time in a very long time, I started to feel powerless.
(Wanda Maximoff POV)
Wanda knew that there has been something wrong with Jasmine. Something had happened that changed her. The elder witch was often locked in her room, meditating or trying to figure something out. She spent less time in Wanda’s presence, planning and visiting colleagues for some reason. From what Wanda could infer, someone messed up big time and caused the death of someone Jasmine genuinely cared about. But the worst part that whoever was responsible for this brought some sort of danger with them. Wanda didn’t know the specifics but Jasmine was starting to get stretched thin.
Don’t get her wrong, the avatar of death never neglected her ward, that’s for sure. In fact, their relationship was better than ever. There was this closeness to them that made Wanda genuinely start thinking of the woman as her mother. But whatever happened caused their time together to slowly get smaller, because of how busy Jasmine is starting to get.
Selene even returned from Genosha to help. The woman was still the shadow ruler of the entire country but apparently, after dealing with the aftermath of Sinister’s death, there weren’t many responsibilities to being a shadow ruler of a country. So, the woman just packed her stuff and returned home. She still checked in on the country every week or so, but was mostly busy with whatever Jasmine was planning. Although for some reason, Selene did start being a little more hateful in their interactions. Not that Wanda didn’t answer back with a similar aggression. The two of them will probably never get along with each other.
Still, with her guardians having secret meetings all the time, Wanda had found herself bored. With all that time in her hands, she chose to focus on the reality manipulation aspect of her powers, making sure that she stayed within Jasmine’s regulations. Although, she was tempted into trying more advanced stuff, Jasmine’s constant warnings had made her stay her hand.
And the teenaged witch’s efforts seem to be rewarded, she was now able to manipulate reality for inanimate things in one room. Jasmine’s genuine impressed and proud smile had been one the highlights of Wanda’s year.
However, Wanda didn’t spend the whole time practicing with her magic, although she was tempted to do so. She spent most afternoons hanging out with Jean and Kitty whenever they didn’t have training sessions at the institute. They kinda synched up their training sessions, so that they could have free days at the same time. Anyway, Wanda’s relationship with the two mutants had evolved past the tentative friendship that they had. They were virtually inseparable, now. Whenever someone tried to bully Kitty, they would be there to put a stop to it, whenever someone was being a creep with Jean, they would scare the shit out of them, whenever someone tries to harass Wanda, well her friends did nothing because whoever was stupid enough to do it, usually ended up with a broken nose. Jasmine’s hand to hand training was very helpful with that.
They spent so much time together that they could have an entire conversation with a look. And that’s without telepathy, thank you very much. But while her relationship with the two girls was blossoming, it was different for the two girls. There was something to her relationship with Jean, something beyond just a normal friendship. There was some sort of intimate understanding, of closeness, that she didn’t have with Kitty. The young witch had no idea why that was. Is it their similar history, their shared suffering? Is it their experience of a betrayal from someone they trusted with their whole heart? It didn’t matter, really. What matters was the fact that the two were closer than ever and Wanda couldn’t be happier about it.
Now, her relationship with the rest of the mutants in school was pretty much non existent. On the contrary, they seemed to worsen, somehow. She understood why the Brotherhood wouldn’t like her, especially with her animosity towards her father and her issues with Pietro, but the X-Men seemed to start disliking her on principle. While Kurt and Evan didn’t seem to mind her, they didn’t go out of their way to speak with her either, not that she minded considering how immature the two boys were, Rogue and Scott seem to have some sort of vendetta against her.
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She could somewhat understand Scott’s problem with her. She was hanging out with someone he had a crush on and pretty much proved that he was brainwashed and technically a spy. The boy had started getting treatments with Xavier to undo the damage Sinister did. The progress was slow, but visible; the boy acted less rashly, started to think before speaking out loud or resorting to violence, and while he obviously still had feelings for Jean, it was more like a very strong high school crush, not the mad obsession he had with her before. According to Kitty, he even started to act as a better leader to the X-Men. Everyone seemed to start liking the new Scott, inside and outside the mansion. The boy still has some serious issues, but they’re within the realms of traumatized teenagers and even then, they were being slowly curbed.
Rogue’s animosity, on the other hand, had puzzled her greatly. Wanda had never done anything to the girl, she barely even talked to her. So whatever issues Wanda had with her was from the girl’s side. According to Jean, it had something to do with Scott, but when Wanda asked her to elaborate, the redhead just laughed and told her it was part of the girl code, whatever that was.
Wanda quickly shook her head and started to concentrate on the book in front of her. She was in the middle of her finals, and this was a lot more important than the feelings of an ungrateful brat. Anyway, these exams will affect which university she will be going to. Jasmine had told her that she could pull some strings, but Wanda didn’t want to rely on Jasmine all her life for everything, although, she was tempted to ask her whether or not she could end up in the same university as Jean; leaving Kitty behind, since she’s two years younger, was already bad enough.
As Wanda was studying, she interrupted by a voice, “Wanda?”
The young witch looked up from her book to find her brother. Huh, that was a surprise; the boy had avoided her like the plague ever since he had confronted her, during her first day of school.
“Ah, hello, Pietro. How’s it going?” Wanda replied.
Her nonchalant greeting seemed to upset the boy, “I’m good. You know, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Alright Pietro, but make it quick, I have a lot of studying to do.”
The boy looked disgusted at the notion, “You know that all that stuff is useless, right? In the real world, a piece of paper won’t mean much. Your power is what matters the most and you need to know what you’re going to do with that power.”
So that was what he was going for, “Seriously Pietro, what I do with my powers is my business and mine alone. I decided that I’m going to college, I’m going to have a genuine life. I’m not going to involve myself with the petty squabbles between your little group and the X-Men. I’m going to have a normal life for once in my life and there’s no one who could stop me from having this.”
Pietro looked outraged, “So, you’re going to just stand back as our kind is being prosecuted and hunted down like animals. You’re going to play college girl, pretending to be human when you know you’re not, while we are being treated little better than animals. This isn’t one of your TV shows where everything will be alright in the end; this is real life and our people are suffering. You’re seriously not going to fight back for your own kind?”
Wanda was starting to get angry but controlled herself, “Yes, I will not fight. Because there’s nothing to fight in the first place. This battle is a political thing, not a physical one. All you’re doing, all Magneto is doing is proving to the world why they should fear us. And maybe fear is good, but they’re prosecuting mutants because they’re afraid of what they could do. This isn’t about being different, because racism is very frowned upon these days, it’s about power and control. If you continue to answer everything with violence, then you’re just proving them right.”
Pietro sneered at her, “You’re one of Xavier’s cronies now, aren’t you?”
Wanda snorted, “Hell no. I hate that guy. I’m not stupid enough to think that the power of love and understanding will save the day. I have seen suffering, more than you have, Pietro. I just think that what you’re doing is counterproductive as hell and anyone with a brain can tell you that. What you need is the public’s support, get that and the government will bend to accommodate you. To do that, you’ll need representatives to show that mutants are more than just human weapons, teenagers with the powers of gods. Make yourself indispensable to the economy, maybe get people with healing mutations to work at hospitals, get Storm to irrigate deserts, make yourself useful to the average Joe, and no one will dare touch you. What Magneto is doing isn’t for mutant kind’s benefit, but for his own dreams of power.”
“Are you really naïve that you think that a peaceful solution is actually possible?”
Wanda snorted, “what I just said isn’t peaceful at all, it’s just a battle fought through politics and economics, not a physical fight. People will oppose you, people who want to weaponize mutants, people who are afraid of their presence. It’s human nature to be greedy, power hungry. Magneto is the same, it’s why he fights in the first place. He knows that if a war happens between mutants and humans, one side will end up wiping out the other. Either way, you’ll end up with either a world with less than a million people with him as the ruler, and that’s only possible if a few omega level mutants join his cause, or a world where mutants are wiped out, which is the most likely scenario. Neither of these cases are something that any mutant would want. If the mutants lose, then they’ll be either dead or enslaved, if they win, industry would be destroyed, you would have to hunt for food, or farm them yourself, there would probably be no engineers, no internet, no TV. We wouldn’t be able to live in comfort.”
Pietro looked pensive. Perhaps he was finally starting to think for himself instead of reciting Magneto’s words, “Look, maybe you have a point, but that’s not important right now. I’m not here to talk about philosophy. Magneto already has a plan, something big, and he wanted you, as his daughter, to be a part of it. Normally, there would be a test or something to prove your worth, but he thinks that as his family, we need to be a part of this. It’s either the both of us or neither of us.”
Wanda paled; that didn’t bode well. Magneto was very ruthless when he thinks he needs to be, so whatever he’s planning will probably be very bad for everyone, “What the hell is he planning to do?”
Pietro smirked at her, “The next step in mutant evolution. Magneto found a way to upgrade our powers.”
Wanda’s instinct was right; if there’s something Jasmine taught her, it was that there is no such thing as a power up without a price. If an offer was too good to be true, it probably was.