章 106: Tribulation
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23rd February 2006, New York City
(Wanda Maximoff POV)
It's been a few months since Wanda had accepted Jasmine's offer of tutelage and she couldn't be happier with the results. For the first time in her life, the former inmate had some form of control over her powers. It was a control that was born of a proper understanding of her abilities. It took some time for her to subconsciously label her powers as magic. But as soon as she properly accepted it, she had a breakthrough in term of control.
It makes sense to her now. How no one was able to label her powers as magic is beyond. But even though she's a mage, Wanda's education is specialized considering the magic that she's attuned to. Chaos magic was as difficult to control as its name implied. She still had problems properly control it. What she could do now can be better called guiding the magic. It's still a shadow of what her teacher could do, but it was still a big leap considering that she destroyed pretty much everything in her path when she first came to the mansion. Thank God for repairing charms, that's for sure.
Speaking of her teacher, Jasmine became her most precious person. Without a shred of doubt, Jasmine's kindness was something she had never experienced for so long. Probably ever since her mother and step father died. Even in the early days, her father was always cold and aloof. Words of kindness were a rarity and they only happened when she or Pietro – mostly Pietro to be honest – did something impressive with her mutant powers.
Having someone to truly care about her wellbeing, not because of her powers – Jasmine was plenty powerful by herself – was something Wanda had given up about after the first few months in the Vault. If she was honest with herself, Wanda knew that she had latched onto her teacher, and will probably never let go of her. Jasmine had an understanding and empathy over her situation. She acknowledged that Wanda had her issues and that she wasn't going to get better anytime soon.
It was a shame that Jasmine had a day job as a high school teacher, for some reason. Wanda didn't understand why considering that Jasmine lived in a mansion that the queen of Britain would be jealous of. One piece of furniture would probably cost more than her yearly salary. That's not even counting the artifacts and jewelry that are everywhere in the mansion. But even with the time spent alone in a large mansion all by herself, Wanda had never been happier. It did help that she didn't have to do any chores; the house was always clean and there was always warm food around. Jasmine said something about elves but Wanda thinks that she was messing with her. There were no invisible elves cleaning in their sleep. This wasn't the north pole after all.
The only issue she had while living in the mansion was Jasmine's girlfriend who acted somewhat coldly towards her. The woman, Selene, didn't do anything bad, really; she just ignored Wanda's presence. The teenager was sure that they haven't even talked to each other yet. Wanda didn't mind Selene ignoring her, but the older woman tended to hog Jasmine's attention whenever she was at the mansion. Which wasn't too often, to be honest. Selene was some type of business woman for some big media corporation. Wanda didn't care much, but she could hear the pride if Jasmine's voice when she talked about it. But she was important to Jasmine, so Wanda guesses that she could tolerate the bitch.
Currently, Wanda was in her training room, using her powers to lift a few metal balls that Jasmine had enchanted to be heavy. Wanda was trying to move them in a certain maneuver. Jasmine had developed certain maneuvers for her to train in. They mostly focused on multitasking where every ball had a different planned trajectory. It looked easy, but it was a lot harder in practice. After a few successful maneuvers, she lost control over one of the balls. Angry, she banished the balls towards the wall, denting them. They were immediately fixed by the repairing enchantments. Wanda was a long way from enchanting.
"Well, isn't someone chipper today," a voice behind her spoke.
Wanda turned around in fright; she hadn't sensed her teacher. She answered yelping, "I'm making no progress with this. My powers just won't work."
Wanda's teacher chuckled, "The problem isn't with your powers. It's you. Do you remember what's the first thing I did when you asked me about controlling your powers?"
"To control your powers, you have to control your self first." Wanda recited.
"Good! You have made some tremendous progress in the last few months and I'm very proud of you," Wanda felt herself puff up in pride, "But until you learn to face your fears, deal with your anger, accept your pain and not run from it all, you will remain stuck in the same bottleneck as before."
Wanda felt herself get angry at her teacher's accusations, "I did your stupid mediation exercises, I even let you inside my head, what more do I need to do?"
"I have been trying to be subtle about it, waiting for you to delve deeper, deal with everything in your own pace. But even now, you keep running away. You have buried your trauma deep in your mind, you're ignoring the source, the origin of your pain and just focused on your hatred on your father. His betrayal, Stark's demonization in your mind, they're all the symptoms of a disease that you don't acknowledge and I'm done letting you keep running away from it."
Jasmine flicked her hand and the world broke. This was the mirror dimension; Wanda recognized it from some books she borrowed from the sorcery section of the library. She was curious when Jasmine told her about using it for training when she's trying to learn something really dangerous.
"Good luck, Wanda, and I am sorry for what is to come."
"Wait!" the pupil exclaimed. But it was in vain; Jasmine had just faded into nothing and Wanda was then stuck in the mirror dimension with no way home.
Suddenly, the world shifted, and Wanda found herself in a very recognizable place. Her first home in Sokovia. This was impossible, this place was destroyed in the explosion that killed her mother and step father. This can't be real.
Before dismissing her surroundings as some sort of clever illusion, a voice spoke, "Wanda. Are you ready?"
The poor teenager hadn't heard this voice in years. This was a voice that haunted her nightmares. This was her mother's voice. Wanda froze up at her mother's voice and almost passed out when she saw her mother safe and sound, walking towards the living room. "Wanda! Here you are. It's TV night. It's your favorite!"
The reality manipulator was still frozen at the sight of her mother, "Wanda? Are you alright?"
Her mother's words unfroze her, "Yes, I am, mummy. I was just lost in thoughts."
Her mother smiled and kissed Wanda on the forehead. "Come on, your father and Pietro are almost there! Let's prepare the television before they come here. It's your turn to pick what we'll watch."
Wanda smiled at that. In a country that was in war, Wanda's mother was still as optimistic as ever. Perhaps it was a front, a way to hide her anxiety from her children. A way to preserve their innocence for just a little while. When they were in their home, the war didn't exist. It was easy to fantasize about being in their TV shows, in America.
Wanda made her way to the couch with her chosen show. It was a sit com like always. They were her favorite. Her mother smiled at her choice; she always picked the same episode in the same series. It used to drive Pietro nuts.
On her way back, Wanda looked at the mirror at the end of the room. She didn't see her teenage self but herself as a child. What was happening? Was all of this a bad dream?
Before she could ponder further, a small silver haired boy ran towards her. He launched himself on the couch. He looked at the issue in her hand and exclaimed, "Not this again! Can't I pick something else?"
Her father entered the room, "You know the deal, Pietro. You picked last time; it's Wanda's turn now." the young girl smirked smugly at her twin. She always loved when her parents took her side. She was always the good girl and her twin was the troublemaker.
Her father sat down next to his wife and clicked on the remote to start the episode. They looked like a happy family. It was easy to get lost in the fake reality, in the world inside this wonderous small box. They weren't in Sokovia anymore, but in a world in black and white, where everyone had a big house and a garden, where people were always smiling. There were no sounds of any bombs of gunfire. It was always so easy to ignore the bleak war torn reality for this.
Wanda watched the episode with her family. She was laughing but there were tear tracks on her cheeks. Why was she crying? She had missed them but she had them back. Why was she feeling so guilty, so sorrowful?
Then Wanda remembered, the explosion. It happened when they were watching this specific episode. This was the day Stark killed her family. This was the day where her misery truly began. There was nothing Wanda could do; this was a memory, she recognized this now. But this doesn't explain why she's feeling guilty. She should feel miserable, grievous, sorrowful, but not guilty.
Suddenly, their home's doors opened in a bang and armed men entered. This never happened. This was wrong? There were no armed men that day…
They were all wearing military uniforms, with large assault rifles that looked deadly. The raised their weapons at her family who immediately raised their hands and went under the ground. Wanda was scared, no she was terrified out of her mind. She was shaking in fear; she didn't want to die. This isn't real, this isn't real. Everything will be alright.
Wait what? These weren't her feelings. These were the emotions in the memory. But that never happened. How is this possible?
Wanda's father tried to negotiate with them, saying that they're just a humble family, trying to survive. The man, their leader, she presumed, just sneered at him and hit him with the butt of his rifle, knocking him out.
The men ransacked the entire house, and found nothing of note. Wanda couldn't think straight. She started hyperventilating, terrified of dying. Then Wanda heard something that froze her blood. One of the intruders reported to the leader, "We found nothing, sir."
The leader responded, "Alright, let's move out."
"What about the witnesses, sir? They could go blabbing about our location."
The leader hummed, "There are no witnesses."
The men raised their weapons at her family. This wasn't real, this wasn't real. Wanda refused this. She was scared out of her mind; she couldn't do anything. This isn't real, THIS ISN'T REAL!
Wanda watched as the men almost fired and she yelled out, "NO!"
Red energy emerged from her body, sending everyone back, destroying their home and vaporizing everyone. Wanda's world then turned into darkness.
When she woke up, Wanda was face first on the ground. There was debris everywhere. Everywhere around her were corpses of her attackers. She walked around, trying to find her family. She found Pietro first. He was passed out in what used to be their former bedroom. Wanda sighed in relief when she saw his chest go up and down. She then looked around, to find her parents. They laid together, almost like they were hugging. She would have thought that they were asleep were it not for the fact that her father had a hole in the middle of his chest and her mother was bleeding from the back of the head. They were dead.
Wanda refused this. This can't be real. She refused to accept that this was real. She did not kill her parents. Suddenly, her eyes turned read and a wave of red energy originated from her and suddenly the room changed. Everything was still destroyed but the bodies of their attackers were gone. Instead, in the middle of it was a missile with the name Stark that seemed to have malfunctioned. All her guilt, all her misery, she sealed it at the missile. It had killed her parents after all. One day, she'll have her revenge.
"Well, isn't that interesting?"
Wanda turned around at the voice. She immediately recognized it. It was her birth father's.
"Why don't you give your old man a hug?"
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