Twins

In the moment the enormous magical barrier appeared, an eerie silence fell over Hydra's control center. Everyone instinctively fell quiet, the room deathly still.

On their electronic screens, they watched the barrier descend from the sky, slamming into the energy shield protecting the building with a pressure like a god's wrath. The white magic circle and blue energy layer ground violently against each other, spilling sparks of magic and arcs of blue electricity that tangled and intertwined, ripples spreading rapidly along the shield's outer surface.

The blue energy shield held out for all of three to five seconds before shattering with a strained roar, like an eggshell crushed by a heavy hammer. Pale blue energy fragments scattered like shards of glass, and the impact pierced through the entire building despite the shield's protection.

In that instant, everyone in the building felt the tremor through their bodies. They heard every brick and beam groan in dull agony, the foundation beneath their feet quaking violently, as if on the verge of collapse with just one more push.

The shield gone, the steel figure in midair reignited its tail thrusters and dove down. It blasted through three layers of reinforced alloy doors with a single cannon shot, storming inside and engaging the guards waiting behind them.

It was only a matter of time before the control center fell. Baron Strucker seemed to have no other choice.

He turned to the old man in the white coat.

"The Twins," he said in a low voice. "You can send them out. Let me see what they can do."

Michael cut through the corridor, blasted through the door, and stepped into a hexagonal hall. Seven or eight Hydra agents had already set up laser rifles on the high ground, their beams surging like a blue ocean the moment he entered.

But those Hydra agents didn't seem to realize that their body heat had already given away their ambush before Michael even entered the hall. Thermal imaging had exposed every sniper's position to him. They only realized, after pouring enough laser fire to melt hundreds of tons of alloy steel at the shadow entering the door, that it wasn't the real enemy—just some kind of intangible projection.

An Illusion Spell. Basic, but practical. Like a hologram, only simpler and more convenient.

While one Hydra agent on the high ground was still blasting away at the illusion at the door, the wall behind him suddenly shattered without warning. A black gauntlet with white stripes burst through, grabbed the agent, and hurled him into the center of the crossfire below. The poor agent lasted less than half a second before a piercing scream ended as he was torn apart by his comrades' fire.

The Hydra agents' fire net collapsed instantly. They quickly shifted targets and scrambled to reposition, but it was too late. Within ten seconds, they were picked off one by one by pulse cannons from the high ground, their bodies strewn across the hall.

Michael stabilized his descent with the help of his thrusters and landed on the gleaming floor. At the same time, Sherry began intelligently switching the helmet's vision modes to help him locate the primary target.

"Thermal readings indicate the core is below us, sir," she said. "Acoustic scanning shows a hollow space twenty meters beneath our feet. Based on calculations, there's an 88.39% probability that Wolfgang Von Strucker is there."

Michael tilted his head. "That's precise."

He activated the laser weapon on his gauntlet, planning to cut an opening in the floor to reach the lower level.

If he'd had another two or three seconds, he might have done just that.

Michael didn't see where the attack came from. If he had to describe it, it felt less like an assault and more like a gust of wind sweeping through the deep corridor into the hall. Something struck his helmeted iron head with a sharp clang, making him stagger involuntarily.

He instinctively looked up in the direction of the attack, but found nothing there.

"We're under attack, sir," Sherry warned.

"Funny. I noticed."

The second wave came after a brief two-second pause, this time from the complete opposite direction. Michael noticed the auto-lock reticle in his helmet's display locking onto a blurry afterimage that flashed past the corner of his eye in a fraction of a second. The impact followed.

Another crisp clang on his helmet. The force wasn't enough to penetrate the composite armor or cause any damage, but the hyper-speed impact still knocked him back a step.

No doubt about it—Quicksilver. In the MCU movie, a superpowered youth who gained super speed from Baron Strucker's experiments.

But Michael wasn't surprised. He'd already anticipated encountering the superpowered Twins when attacking Strucker's base. In fact, part of the reason he'd come to take down Strucker's last stronghold was to meet them in person.

Speaking of the Twins. If Quicksilver was here, it meant his sister—the Scarlet Witch (at least according to the movie, his younger sister)—was nearby.

Sure enough, when Michael turned around, a girl in black had appeared at the hall's entrance without him noticing. She had reddish-brown hair, and a dark crimson wave covered her jet-black eyes, sharp as a blade.

The Scarlet Witch.

If he remembered correctly, Michael was fairly sure the movie depicted the Scarlet Witch's abilities as telekinesis—she could create some form of energy wave for attack or defense, or move objects with her mind. But he definitely didn't recall anyone in the movie mentioning her powers being related to magic.

Why did he say that? Because right now, he could smell magic—deep, unfathomable magic—coming from the girl in black.

In fact, he'd sensed this strange magical energy earlier when Strucker tried using the Scarlet Witch's abilities to locate Michael. He just hadn't been sure then. But now, he was a hundred percent certain the Scarlet Witch was also a sorceress.

The girl extended her hands. Dark red energy wrapped around her pale, slender fingers like flames. She crossed her arms and swept them in opposite arcs, carving powerful energy waves into the air along the path of her movements.

The crimson flames blazed to their peak in her bright black eyes. Visible ripples radiated from her standing form, surging like a rising tide, sweeping across the gleaming floor like an autumn wind, crashing against walls and support pillars like relentless waves. A scarlet glow enveloped the entire hall. The ground trembled faintly, dust showering down, as if the whole building quaked at the power of this petite girl!

"Detecting extremely high energy fluctuations," Sherry said, displaying a nearly vertical spike on the interface to illustrate the witch's power. She continued, "No similar energy reactions in the known database. However, based on predictive calculations, the energy's operating form is highly likely a special type of magical ability."

"I know," Michael said flatly, facing the dark red magical storm.

Wild, chaotic, dark in aura, and intensely aggressive.

Michael began to recognize the magical power the Scarlet Witch wielded. He'd never seen it firsthand, but he'd read descriptions of this school of magic in the ancient texts of Kamar-Taj.

The Scarlet Witch might not realize it herself, but she was channeling the same dark power as the Elder God Chthon, the God of the Underworld—Chaos Magic.

(Thanks to book friends: Wanshui Shuren for the 6,200 starting point coin tip, Wang Hechao for 6,300, Living Immortal in the Mortal World for 5,000, Zi Yumo and April~Fish for 2,000 each, Ahahahahahahahahaha for 600, and Youyue Qifeng for 100.)