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“Erik! You lied to me! How could you just kill them? I gave you my endorsement, and you betray me like this? You can’t even hold up your side of the deal. Hear this Magento , you will pay.” Charles slammed down on the arm of his wheelchair, he knew what would break his rival. It would be evil, slinking down to his level. Charles didn’t care, this man needed to get knocked off his edifice.
Erik didn’t respond to the telepathic screams that vibrated through him. He sighed putting back on the metal helmet, covering his thoughts, his shame, his friend's presence. It wasn’t long before he returned to his bed chambers where his wife awaited him.
“Magna? Dear?” He paused as he heard it. Moans. He bursts through the door, and there he sees himself, they have no recognition that he’s there. “Stop this!” Nothing. He reaches out conforming the headboard iron rods to pull the two apart. Neither of them fights back, the figure that looks like him sighs and shifts back to their original form, Mystique.
“How could you do this ? Both of you, why betray me?” His eyes shift between both of them, tears forming.
“Oh, Erik you misunderstand. This wasn’t them, it was me.” It was his wife’s voice but not her thoughts, he knew who it was.
“Charles, how could you?”
“Because this child, will be powerful enough to kill you. Destiny saw it, you can’t stop it.”
“Don’t doubt me, Charles, I will find a way.”
***
The child was born, and she was beautiful to her mother. Her step-father hated her appearance and not just because he knew it wasn’t his DNA: she was too pale, her eyes and hair black, the same smile as Charles. Even as a baby, he could feel her potential, her gift for destruction, for killing. Her name given by her mother was Asteria, the name given by her father, Morana. There would only ever be one Morana, the world would know this, she was the outcast sent out by the outcasts.
Soon after her birth Erik couldn’t hold her without a thought of killing the child. But for the sake of his wife, he wouldn’t. Instead, he spent his days creating an intricate maze that had one entrance that would be heavily sealed. On the Morana’s fifth birthday, she reached out and touched another child. This child became pale, their skin sinking into their body, the child’s life being sucked away. The Morana was smiling, laughing, and then the child fell, unmoving. She cries out in fear. This was enough to show him that it was time to put her into the eternal prison. He pulls his wife aside after she puts the Morana down to bed.
“She needs to be dealt with, I am putting her in that maze and that’s final!”
“Erik! She needs to be able to grow, she needs food, she’ll die in there!”
“I. Don’t. Care. I will send humans to feed her if I have to, we now know she can survive off that. Two birds one stone.”
“Fine. I don’t know if I can forgive you for this.”
“You will, you always do.”
***
She didn’t.
Neither did their older children, Wanda and Pietro. They grew distant from Erik but saw what he was doing. Every year he’d send non-mutant humans into the maze and they’d never return. It was the third year of this growing tradition.
“Father you can’t!” Wanda’s voice shook with fear and purpose.
“Wanda my dear, he’s not a mutant, you can’t love him. He’s already volunteered to go.”
“Then let me go with him. Let him stand a chance!” Her voice shook the ground.
He sighs, “Fine. Take the map, don’t do anything stupid, we have no idea how strong it has become.”
“Her.”
“What?”
“Not it. Her, dad. My half-sister. I’m probably gonna have to kill her, so at least respect her.”
***
“So what’s the plan?”
“Well, you drop this silly disguise and we go in there find my sister, kill her, then get out.”
“Oh. Right,” the male figure drops the illusion of a regular human boy to reveal a green and red form.
Wanda sighs heavily, “Vision my love, why did you want to do this again?”
“Injustice my dear, Injustice. Sending innocents here to die by the herd is not right, so unfortunately that means we must sacrifice one life for the rest.” They both gather what mental strength they need for their mission and then drop into the maze.
It doesn’t take long to find where the Morana was. At the center of the maze, they came upon a stack of bodies, in different levels of decay. There she sat on top of them, she appeared barely human, black ichor dripping from her eyes, ears, and fingers. Her hair was long dragging beneath herself, she wasn’t wearing any clothes which made her sickly form even more apparent. She twitches when she hears their approach, cocking her head listening, smelling, growling.
Wanda and Vision hesitate as they observe her. This is all she needs, she moves rapidly, not nearly as fast as their brother but the normal eye wouldn’t be able to keep up. Wanda reaches out and starts to bend reality, the walls close off any exit, creating no way out for either party. Vision starts attacking, trying to pin her down with his laser eyes. She launches at him, but he barely has time to become intangible, she still pulls some of his life force and energy from him. Wanda holds her so Vision can finish her off, but she pushes against Wanda’s telekinesis and escapes.
Once again reaching a spindly hand toward Vision, this time she lands a solid hit. Vision gasps as he feels a pulse radiate through him, his eyes burn and he feels tears pore down his face. Wanda could see, those weren’t tears it was black, like the ichor covering the Morana. Wanda felt her anger, the one she inherited from her father, burn inside her as she saw Vision on the ground. She raised a hand throwing the Morana into the wall, pushing and pushing, she could feel the bones break under the pressure. Vision was breathing hard from his place on the ground, he watched as Wanda tore the Morana apart. But it wasn’t enough. It reformed. Ichor coming back to re-congeal into the humanoid form.
Vision pulls Wanda back, “Together we can finish her.”
Wanda nods, “Time to play her game.” Wanda finds her core, her energy. “You like to drain people, you won’t like it when I drain you!” She pulls and pulls at this core, it is ripped from the Morana’s chest. “Vision! Now!”
Without hesitating, Vision aims for the swirling ball of ichor and dark energy. With a focused blast it explodes. They both are splattered with a mix of blood and ichor, breathing heavily they embrace.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“Anything for you Wanda.”