Sokovia, a secret Hydra base hundreds of meters underground.
Cold blue light fell on the reinforced-glass cell. Wanda Maximoff huddled in a corner, her arms wrapped around her knees. She had originally been nothing more than a volunteer for experiments with the Mind Stone Scepter, but just moments ago, a torrent of memories vast enough to tear her soul apart had slammed into her mind without warning.
Boom!
It was the roar of autocannons.
She smelled the heavy reek of gunpowder and felt the heat of scalding blood splashing against her cheek. She clearly saw the man in a S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform shielding her from a sky full of bullets with his broad back. The sight of a laser piercing his chest drove into her optic nerves like a red-hot steel needle.
"Goodbye. Or rather, hello, Wanda."
The man's smile froze in her mind.
"No..." Wanda clutched her chest as a tearing, wrenching pain gripped her heart. The pain was too real, more real than all the days and nights she had spent in this icy cell. That thread of connection called fate had been forcibly forged by that man with his bloodied life, only to be cruelly severed an instant later.
"Lynn..." She spoke the name etched into those memories, and tears spilled from her eyes.
"Test subject two is showing abnormal brainwave fluctuations! Energy readings are rising exponentially!" In the monitoring room, a researcher stared at the blazing red curve on the screen, his voice cracking.
Baron Strucker shoved the door open, his single eye fixed on the girl behind the one-way glass. "Activate the sedative gas! Now!"
Too late.
Wanda slowly raised her head. Her once-clear eyes were now utterly consumed by endless scarlet. At that moment, absolute despair underwent a qualitative transformation, becoming a sick, savage possessiveness.
The special-alloy shackles around her wrists twisted and snapped in an instant, as though crushed by some enormous invisible hand. Sharp metal fragments cut her wrists, but she never noticed. Physical pain was not even one ten-thousandth of the agony of her soul being torn apart.
"No one... will take him away from me."
Boom!
Scarlet Chaos Magic erupted from her body like a volcano. The specially reinforced glass did not last even a millisecond before turning to dust. A violent energy storm swept through the entire underground base. The precision instruments and fully armed Hydra agents were erased at the molecular level the instant they touched the scarlet mist, without even time to scream.
Before this power that stood above the rules, their so-called technological defenses might as well have been paper.
Wanda hovered in midair, scarlet tendrils so dense they seemed solid coiling around her. She closed her eyes and, amid the vast, tangled information of the multiverse, precisely caught a faint yet familiar fluctuation-the chaos energy affinity that had just awakened within Lynn.
"Found you."
She extended her pale fingers and viciously tore at the empty space before her.
Space was forcibly ripped open like a curtain, forming an enormous rift whose other end led straight to Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, above S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Triskelion in Washington, D.C.
"Keep the stick steady! Push the engines to maximum!"
Inside the Quinjet, piercing alarms blared as red warning lights flashed wildly. Violent air currents tossed the entire aircraft like a fallen leaf in a gale.
"Sir, external air pressure is abnormal! All radar is down! A high-dimensional energy is sealing off this airspace!" the pilot shouted desperately over the comms.
A violent jolt threw Crossbones, Brock Rumlow, to the floor. He scrambled awkwardly to his feet, drew the pistol at his waist, and looked out the window in terror. "Damn it! What the hell is that thing?!"
Lynn gripped the seat belt tightly, veins bulging on the backs of his hands. On the surface, he pretended to be just as panicked as the other agents, but inside, he was furiously complaining.
System, you call this "awakening memories"? This woman's obsession is even more rabid than those black ops squads hunting rogue ninja! She tore straight through space to come after me!
The chaos energy affinity he had just acquired resonated fiercely with the scarlet storm blotting out the sky outside. His blood boiled, and his muscles ached from tension. Lynn knew perfectly well that the destructive killing intent brewing at the storm's center was all for him.
His original plan had been to lie low in S.H.I.E.L.D., clock in, slack off, and slowly grow stronger by exploiting his information advantage. But now, this Skyfather-level yandere witch had flipped the board outright.
This has gotten way out of hand. I only wanted to con my way into a few rewards, and now I've become a yandere's one and only bond.
"We have to make an emergency landing now! The wings are coming apart!" the pilot roared, hauling on the control stick.
Trailing black smoke and swept along by the scarlet storm, the jet lurched crookedly toward the landing pad atop the Triskelion.
The Director's Office, on the building's top floor.
Nick Fury stood before the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows, his remaining eye narrowed to a dangerous slit. Fierce winds hurled loose stones against the bulletproof glass with sharp cracks. The sky had turned a suffocating blood red, and the oppressive force made even this king of spies, who had weathered countless crises, feel tightness in his chest.
His supremely calculating mind raced. Mutants? An alien invasion? Or a god from some ancient dimension? If this power went out of control, never mind S.H.I.E.L.D.-the entire East Coast would be wiped off the map within three minutes.
"Director, the energy readings have exceeded the detectors' limits!" Agent Hill strode in, her face pale. "This isn't any known weather weapon. It... it's like some kind of living energy entity!"
Fury clenched the hem of his black coat and reached for the pager at his waist, his last trump card. But he held back. Instinct told him this storm had a specific target.
"Sound a level-ten alert immediately! Activate every anti-aircraft weapon! Notify the underground shelters and prepare to transfer the core files!" Fury issued the orders through gritted teeth.
"Yes, sir!"
Piercing air-raid sirens instantly rang throughout S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters. Countless heavy autocannons concealed within the buildings rose into view, their dark muzzles all aiming at the eye of the storm overhead.
Bang!
With a tremendous crash, the Quinjet, billowing thick smoke, slammed onto the landing pad. It skidded dozens of meters before barely coming to a stop, gouging a deep, scorched trail across the ground.
The cabin door was kicked open.
Rifle raised, Crossbones covered the squad as they stumbled out of the cabin. Lynn mingled with the crowd. The moment he stepped onto the landing pad, a searing current of air struck him in the face, its heat making even breathing sting.
He raised his head.
At the storm's center, the spatial rift fully stabilized.
A breathtakingly beautiful figure in a dark red coat slowly floated out of the rift. Her eyes burned with pure scarlet light, like a world-destroying god descending among mortals.
"Fire! Fire!" Crossbones bellowed hoarsely in utter terror.
Hundreds of heavy autocannons around them opened fire alongside the rifles in the agents' hands. Dense streams of bullets formed an impenetrable web of fire, attempting to shred the woman in midair.
Yet Wanda did not even spare them a glance.
She merely tilted her head slightly.
Humm-!
A ring of scarlet energy rippled outward from her. Those armor-piercing bullets froze instantly ten meters away from her. Then, like soil drained of all moisture, they crumbled into iron dust that sifted down through the air.
Before this power of chaos, the defensive system S.H.I.E.L.D. took such pride in failed to make so much as a sound.
A despairing oppression settled over the entire landing pad. Crossbones and the others stopped breathing altogether. Their gun hands shook uncontrollably, their knees buckled, and the almost tangible pressure forced them straight to the ground.
Wanda slowly lowered her head.
Her eyes, filled with destructive urges and sick obsession, passed over the ranks of kneeling people and locked unerringly onto Lynn at the very back, where he was pretending the wind pressure made him unsteady on his feet.
Her lips curved into a hauntingly beautiful, crazed smile. Her voice was quiet, yet carried an all-crushing chill as it reached the ears of everyone present with perfect clarity.
"Whoever touches him dies."
Before you continue