Chapter 364: Breathe
25th April 2015, New York City
(Wanda Maximoff POV)
The reality manipulator wanted to throttle her mother's ex-wife the moment she saw her but contained herself, "You're making me lead?"
Jasmine nodded, "You are my daughter. I have taught you everything I could, it's time for you to grow into your role as my heir."
"And now is the time to do it? With the entire multiverse at risk? You decide to give me even more responsibility now? I'm supposed to be in the fight with you and you know it. I'm strong enough to do it."
The woman gave her a sad smile and shook her head, "You're the person I trust the most in the world, Wanda. You're literally my last anchor of whatever remains of the person I used to be. Is it wrong that I want you to remain slightly safer? It's why I'm even doing this in the first place."
"Doing what?" Wanda questioned.
She didn't have time to react when Jasmine palmed her chest with a glowing purple gem. The reality manipulator started feeling hotter and hotter like a fire starting from her chest burning herself out. She could barely even think of anything but the pain that surrounded her. But there was something else, something more, outside of the pain.
Pure Power, that is what Wanda realized it was before the world turned black.
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(Jasmine Sayre POV)
I looked at the unconscious body of my daughter with complicated feelings in my heart. I loved her, I knew that, and it was the single greatest anchor to my humanity that was left, and I wasn't about to lose it. I honestly, didn't know what would happen if I did. Would I just be completely purposeless? Would I be relatively the same as before? My humanity, even if it is a fraction of what made me up, was what drove me to fight in the first place.
If it was up to the rest of me, I would have decided that fighting a being obviously more powerful than me, for an exact conclusion that I didn't even know, had too many variables. The chances of success were low, so it would be better, and logical, to just give up and let cosmic entities just restart again and again, hoping that the next variation would be successful somehow.
Fortunately, or unfortunately – it depends on how you look at it – I still had a smidge of humanity left, even if it rarely felt like I did. I was going to fight just because even if I lose, even if Death and her allies restart the cycle, I wasn't going out without giving that bastard Entropy the fight of his life.
Wanda was literally all I had left in the world. How pitiful. Five thousand years and that's all I'm left with. I wasn't going to lose her. I waved my hand and my staff appeared. I had already incorporated the power stone into her. Her body and instinctive reality manipulation adapted pretty well to the infinity stone, increasing her power manyfold.
Now, what to do with the space stone? I didn't really trust anyone to be able to defend it properly. Stephen Strange was a possibility since Nimue had the Time Stone with her. I shook my head, for all that Stephen Strange was skilled in sorcery, Thanos and his children could still defeat him. Perhaps, I could just give it to my daughter and make her decide if she wants to keep it.
Yeah, that was a good compromise. I waved my hand and a shard of my staff surrounding the infinity stone broke away. The Uru metal started morphing into a simple necklace with the space stone in the middle. I used Runes to regulate the output, making it able to channel the power of the stone. The necklace slowly floated down to Wanda and enveloped her around her neck. Wanda Maximoff now had two infinity stones in her possession.
Jean gave me an odd look, "You still care for her, don't you?"
I nodded and simply answered, "She is my daughter."
That seemed to satisfy her somewhat, "Are you sure about giving her the stones? She'll be a target."
"She could remove the space stone at any time and can choose a wielder she finds suitable if she wishes. No, she is Earth's most capable warrior now, its strongest defender. Thanos will target her, and so will his army, giving her more power ensures that she will have a better chance at surviving. After all, the Mad Titan will also be using infinity stones of his own."
The Avatar of the Phoenix Force nodded, "What now?"
"Now, Wanda should leave all three of us," I pointed at Selene who had stayed silent during the entire conversation, Jean and myself, "we need to meet up with Quill and prepare."
"Are you serious right now? You still want me to fight alongside her?" The avatar of the Phoenix Force answered while pointing at Selene, "After all she's done to you, to Wanda, to Rose?"
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"I don't have a choice in the matter. We need her to fight Entropy. Do you think I'm happy about it? Seeing her after she betrayed me is enraging. I want nothing more than to smite her for the pain and misery she caused me, for the breach of trust, but for the sake of the coming conflict, I don't. Because I know that while my suffering is horrible, the universe, no the multiverse should not pay the price for it. You do not have the right to be angry. You were not the one wronged, you were not the one betrayed, and you were not the one that was banished and forgotten. So, don't forget yourself, Avatar of the Phoenix Force."
The redhead nodded while Selene practically shrunk to herself. A vicious part of me was glad that she was experiencing some discomfort even after leaving. She didn't like the new me, the one that had lost her humanity, the one that she had created. In a way, it was vindicating, to see her visibly regret the actions after seeing the consequences, but that past cannot be rewritten by us mortals, only by overbearing cosmic entities, it appears.
I waved my hand and created a portal, letting Jean and Selene through. I followed after them, and they gasped when they entered, "What is this place? It feels like the mirror dimension, but at the same time, not."
I shrugged, "It's something similar. I call it the other side, or the underworld but that confusing a lot after I figured out that Hell dimensions also existed. I settled on calling it Remnant. It's a dimension that's very similar to Earth, but empty of any life. It doesn't have any stars, just a sun, and the moon, that is."
When they looked, they gasped in shock. Instead of the usual circular object that made up the natural satellite, half of it was missing, turned into pieces that were floating near it, "What happened to the moon?" Selene asked while gaping.
"As far as I could tell, it was hit by some kind of comet, which ended up blowing up half. It probably killed whatever life existed here before. I could see remnants of civilizations sometimes when I explored this place, hence the name. It's a remnant of what it once was."
Selene then gasped in realization, "There's magic here…"
"It's pretty weak, but there are also a few ley lines available. I chose this place while considering your limitations. This way your magic could regenerate without too many issues during the fight. With no other magic user, it should theoretically match your magical regeneration rate on Earth," I explain.
"I never knew about this," my ex-wife remarked.
"I honestly forgot about it. I haven't really explored this place a lot, only during my youth. It's a barren planet with dying magic, and practically no stars. It wasn't that interesting apart from discovering the ruins when I was bored back in Atlantis. It was my little resting place."
Jean nodded to herself, "You're right about it being a dead planet. I can't sense any living thing. I have to admit that this is an appropriate place for a destructive battle. We won't have to worry about collateral damage."
Selene nodded, "Yes, good thinking, Morrigan. But isn't there supposed to be another fourth and fifth team members for this conflict?"
I nodded, "Yeah, they should see this too."
I waved my hand and two portals appeared, a second later, two figures fell through, "What the hell?" a voice complained. It was Quill, of course. He was still wary of me after a year of teaching, but I had to admit that he was fun to be around.
Loki though, held his tongue. He was a smart one with pretty good survival instincts. It was a shame that he still had a temper that often got the better of him, especially over imagined slights. Still, he was my student, and he was the Avatar of Dream, which made him an important ally.
Instead, the Godling looked around and gasped, "What is this place?"
"This is where the battle against Entropy is going to take place." I reply, "It's an empty planet in a deserted dimension. We can be as destructive as we want, not that we weren't going to be in the first place because the entire multiverse is at stake. But now, there should be no moral conundrum, no worrying about civilians or external damage, only us and him."
Loki nodded, understanding, "Do you think we stand a chance."
Before I could answer, Quill interjected, "Of course, we stand a chance. I am the son of a freaking celestial, you're a God of Dreams or something, the redhead is a freaking Phoenix, and I don't know who that lady in black is, but she seems terrifying. And our glorious leader was able to defeat Ronan and his armies as if they were nothing. We have this in the bag…"
I suppressed the urge to groan. Half of that was entirely wrong, and the rest was only slightly incorrect. After all that training, Quill was still a child in the body of a man. He used his powers to play around with children, make real life video games, or just have fun. In taking care of Ego, I had done something critically wrong. I had stopped Quill from getting the experience enough to mature into the hero he is supposed to become. The title, Guardians of the Galaxy, was kinda useless when I was the one who saved Xandar, and I was the one who took care of Ego.
Still, he was powerful and it wasn't like I had a lot of options, so I sigh and answer, "Again, Quill, I am the Avatar of Death and a Pseudo-Celestial, Jean is the Avatar of the Phoenix Force, which grants her amazing psionic abilities and control over the cosmic flames, Loki is the Avatar of Dream, which makes him able to bring dreams to reality in a certain range, and finally, Selene is an old but very powerful witch. You haven't met her because I imprisoned her for a few years before."
"A fellow convict then," the man-child remarked and then turned towards my ex-wife, "So what did you do?"
"I betrayed my wife and tricked her into banishing her sister, and then violated the sanctity of her soul," Selene answered with a dry tone.
The man blanched and just turned away, "So, now that the gang is all here, what's the plan? Like we have our enemy, big bad Entropy, who wants to destroy the universe or the multiverse, whatever, but we need to make a plan before we start. Of course, since I am known for having great plans, here's what I'm proposing."
I raised an eyebrow towards the man, and he shut up, much to the amusement of Loki. I suppressed my amusement and spoke up, "Well, I happen to have a plan in mind. So, listen very carefully and ask any questions you might have…"
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