Chapter 183: Scarlet Witch
3rd March 2021, Illuminati Headquarters Earth 838
(Jasmine Sayre POV)
“Your boys don’t even exist, they never existed. They were projections of your subconscious, of your desires. They had no genetic makeups, no soul, no real body. How could they, when their father was a synthetic being with no DNA. They were just a projection in that made up world of yours. Even if you, for some reason, find children that looked exactly like your subconscious and had the exact names you gave them in your little dream world, they wouldn’t be the same, they wouldn’t have the same personalities, they wouldn’t obey your every command like they did in your dream world. They would rebel like children did, in ways that you would never expect. Your children were never real, Wanda, but the ones you will take over will be. And how would you take care of them, you’re volatile, extremely quick to anger and tend to escalate things quickly. The truth is, with the way you’re acting, you’d be a terrible mother.”
The deranged woman flew at me with a cry of anger, with red energy coming from her hands, ready to turn me into paste. I shook my head in disappointment; she was too far gone. This should be an interesting fight, at the very least.
I dodged her first few blasts of chaos magic, before manipulating the ground into a pillar that rose from the ground and hit her in the chin, sending her flying back.
The Scarlet Witch wasn’t out for long, manipulating her flight using her magic and flying towards me, sending another wave of blasts of chaos magic. This time, I chose to shield myself, in fear that one of the attacks would accidentally hit my charge.
I create an illusion of myself and America, and turn us invisible, teleporting us to the end of the room. In the meantime, Wanda was flying towards my illusion, red energy in her hand, ready to kill me. Unfortunately for her, she was going through an illusion, and after she went through it, she crashed into the ground.
After I sent America into the mirror dimension for her safety and used some runes to lock access to it without my permission, I concentrated back on the fight, with no one to hold me back and no one to protect.
Wanda slowly got up from her crash and looked at me angrily. I just gave her a smirk, “You have all that power, but you barely know how to use it. Is there anything you know how to do other than just sending blasts of chaos magic around?”
The woman yelled at me, and telekinetically threw a statue at me. I sent a bolt of darkness at the statue and disintegrated the giant projectile. I created a gust of wind which took the dust that made up the statue, and threw it around, obscuring everyone’s vision.
The Scarlet Witch looked confusedly at me, or at least, where I was previously. I turned invisible and sent a bolt of lightning at her, hitting her straight in the chest. Her clothes appear to be enchanted because she still got up although gingerly and sent a blast of chaos magic at where I stood a couple of seconds later.
I sent a few air slashes at her, she was able to shield against most of them, but one of them hit her in the chest, cutting through her costume, and making her bleed.
I start talking to her, through the dust, “You’re actually calling yourself a witch? You don’t even know the basics of magic. Have you even learnt a single spell that wasn’t in the Darkhold?”
This seemed to trigger her, and she screamed in anger as she sent blasts of chaos magic around. They missed me, of course, but some were very close. I continued, “You haven’t, have you? You don’t even understand the fundamentals, the rules, the culture, or even what is forbidden and why these things should not be done. If you did, you’d understand the sacrilege that you’re performing, right now.”
The woman screamed, “Enough!”
She sent a telekinetic blast around her, sending everything flying back, including the dust. I was able to counter it with a minor telekinetic blast of my own, that protected me. The mad woman, was gasping in breath, looking at me with disbelief, “How?”
“Your magic is strong, there’s no doubt about it. But you have no technique, no knowledge. Chaos magic, reality manipulation, comes naturally to you, but you don’t even know what can be done with magic for you to even try replicating it. All you have is a book written by an elder god who used it to corrupt thousands of people before you, in the hope of escaping his prison and manifesting in the mortal plane. You never experienced the beauty of magic, the reality of what it can do, how it can connect people. You only know how to fight, how to hurt, how to kill. And that is why you cannot defeat me, even if you’re using the full power of the Darkhold.”
“I don’t care. I just want my boys back.”
I shook my head and sigh in exasperation, “No, you don’t. You could have asked her to take you to a world where another Wanda died, leaving orphaned children. But you’re greedy, you want backups to even these children. How far you’ve fallen, Wanda, that you don’t even realize what that book has done to you, that you don’t even realize the monster that you’ve become.”
“They are my children!”
“They were the products of your subconscious; they were what you imagined your children would be. They didn’t experience childhoods, I could tell, you grew them in days, from your pregnancy to fully grown in barely a few days. You never even experienced being a mother or caring for them. You killed so many people, just so you could replace something you made up for barely a few days?”
The woman didn’t seem convinced and yelled at me, “MY CHILDREN WERE REAL! They were real to me!”
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I nod, “Perhaps they were, but that reality is over, and even if you go through the entire multiverse, you wouldn’t find them. You can find a few counterparts, but they wouldn’t be the same, they would be human, with faults, unlike your own children. And how long, until you discarded them, one by one, trying to find the exact replicas of your boys. The Darkhold will not let you go, you will continue, conflict after conflict, nothing ever being enough for you, nothing being exactly perfect like you wanted.”
The woman’s eyes glowed red, “I don’t care.”
I sighed in disappointment, “So be it!”
Wanda flew at me one more time, and I summoned Captain Carter’s Vibranium shield and sent it flying at her. Wanda tried to use her telekinesis to catch it, but all this caught was an illusion, the real shield being a few inches lower than the illusion that she tried to catch. Wanda was able to shield herself partially but the impact was enough for her to be sent back a few feet. I used this distraction and created a dragon out of the ground trying to eat her. The dragon was immediately transformed into thousands of shards of red glass which were banished at me.
Huh, transmutation, nice move. I, in turn, created a giant shield that transformed the glass into sand. I transformed the sand into giant chains that tried to bind the Scarlet Witch, but she destroyed them with a telekinetic blast. I ran towards her, trying to gauge her close combat ability. I materialized a steel staff, one that is not capable of casting magic like my old one, the one I gave up when I resigned from Death’s service.
Wanda, holding orbs of chaos magic tried to pulverize me, but I redirected her blows with my staff before sending her flying through the air with a telekinetic push. I then extended my staff like a whip and grabbed her and threw her to the ground, where the sand slowly started to cover her.
Wanda responded with a telekinetic blast that actually sent me back a few feet, but I landed easily on my feet. The Scarlet Witch looked furiously at me, “Who the fuck are you?”
I snorted, “I told you before, in my universe, you’re my daughter. I guess I’m here to teach you a little lesson.”
She sent a few chaos blasts at me, I dodged them, and sent her flying back again with a telekinetic push, “You’ve never fought against a witch before, have you? Like in an actual magical duel? You really are hopeless while fighting against magic.”
Wanda sneered at me, and sent another rock at me, one that I pulverized once more and I shielded against the hidden chaos blast that came at me, “All you have is raw power, and while that might be enough to fight a few nobodies, magical duels are all about skill and deceptions.”
The mad woman scoffed at me, “I fought against another witch before. She taught a few things.”
Right then, she activated the runes, that she thought I didn't know about as she carved them with the missing chaos blasts, I raised my eyebrows, “Runes! You’re cute kiddo.”
“Only the witch who cast the runes can use their magic” She crowed at me smugly.
I chuckled, “Kiddo, Runes are a lot more complicated than that. You just copied an array that you don’t understand in a language you didn’t even understand. I’m an expert in Runes. No, I’m the expert in Runes. I can just remove it, by doing this.”
I snap my fingers and the glowing symbols disappeared, as if they were burned. My opponent looked at me in shock, “How? This isn’t supposed to be possible.”
“Why? You barely know anything about magic. For all your power, you’re barely more than a mediocre witch.”
In her shock, she didn’t even notice the chains filled with runic inscriptions that bound her form. They grasped her arms and then her legs, binding her magic and her soul to this body.
She obviously tried to get out or use her magic, “What have you done?”
I shrugged, “I told you that you knew nothing about magic. This is relatively advanced stuff, a chain binding your magic and your soul. You can’t go back to your universe and end your dream walking and you can’t use your magic.”
She tried to get out and physically tried to overpower her restraints somehow, to no avail, “It’s useless you’re stuck here. I’m sorry Wanda, that I’ll have to do this. But you’re so far gone, that it’s the only way.”
“What are you going to do?”
I gave her a grim look, “First, I’m going to do this.”
I hit her chest with my palm and a runic tattoo started to appear on her chest, “Now, I have bound your soul to your body, you can never leave this body again, not with dream walking, not even in death.”
She looked devastated at this, “And now finally, I can do this.”
I materialized a white light and sent it at her, hitting her in the chest.
Wanda started to scream, “What are you doing?”
“You have spent years around the Darkhold, studying its spells, you could probably continue your mad quest in the multiverse. I can’t allow that to happen. I am removing what I can from the taint of the Darkhold and erasing your memory, sealing you away. Your counterpart in this universe will become the dominant soul and take back her body, after all, you’ll barely be a bound soul with no memories, and no identity. This is a cruel fate, Wanda Maximoff, but this is the only way I could think of to take you out without killing this universe’s Wanda.”
Wanda looked at me, with tears in her eyes, “Please no!”
I shook my head, and she sobbed at me, “I just wanted my children.”
I nodded at her, “Yes, but you went too far. I tried to get you to stop and see reason, I’m sorry. At least you’ll be able to see your children grow up every day, from inside. They may be raised by another, but you’ll live a good life through your counterpart. You’ll see them graduate from school, go to college, get married, have children of their own. It’s a terrible fate yet one kinder than the one you deserve.”
She looked at me, heartbroken before asking, “I’m sorry too!”
Slowly, the light in her eyes disappeared, for a minute, before being lit up again. But this time, she was different, she had less pain in her eyes, less madness. She looked at me, pleading, “Is she gone?”
I nodded, “I locked her tightly inside of you. She’s just a shade locked away forever. I removed her memories and tried to remove the corruption on her magic, but she was too far gone, she was barely human anymore, slowly turning into a demonic entity. I have never seen someone this corrupted by the Darkhold before. You’re her warden, now, and she will die with you. This is a grave responsibility, but it was the only way to keep you alive.”
The woman nodded, turned and left, probably to check on her children.
I opened the gate to the mirror dimension and released America. She looked at me in awe, “You really beat her!”
I shrugged, “I have fought a lot worse. She was really inexperienced in magical combat and don’t even get me started about the magics that have nothing to do with combat.”
Before she could say anything, Strange was running towards us, “We need to get away quickly before she finds us. Who are you?”
“Jasmine Sayre, at your service. Now, Strange, what are you running from?”
“Wanda she’ll be here any minute now, and the rest of the people who captured us.”
I gave America an amused look, while she’s trying to stifle her laughter.
He looked at her, “What is it?”
“She’s gone for good; I took care of it.”
He looked at me in surprise, “She’s not in this universe, she can come back.”
I shook my head, “Like I said, I took care of it.”
He gave me a disbelieving look. When he tried to protest further, I interrupted him, “But you’re right. We need to get back before the asshole Illuminati people wake up.
Stephen looked back and saw the knocked out figures of Charles Xavier, Reed Richards, Black Bolt, Captain Marvel and Captain Carter.
He turned towards me, “What the fuck happened? I was barely gone for ten minutes”