Chapter 140: Asteroid M

Chapter 140: Asteroid M

If you want to support me check out my patron at /athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 10 chapters ahead as a bonus.

I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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5th June 2006, New York City

(Wanda Maximoff POV)

Wanda had to admit that she was curious about the machine Pietro was talking about. Don't get her wrong, she doesn't want to use it herself, but she was curious how someone could actually improve mutant powers, which are basically limited magical powers. Plus, if things start getting too dangerous, it would be easy for her to tell Jasmine. Her mother figure had given her a small magical rune that would be able to signal her, no matter where she is.

Resigned, Wanda nodded, "Fine. Let's just get this over with."

Suddenly a giant sphere of metal appeared above them and enveloped the two siblings. They stayed together for a few minutes until the sphere opened once more. They were somewhere different, something felt off about this place. The teenaged witch looked at Pietro questioningly and the man just smirked at her, "Welcome, Wanda, to Asteroid M."

Wanda looked around and she was sure that there was something off. The so called Asteroid M was some sort of high tech cavern, at least by the looks of it. Wanda searched for the nearest exit, to find nothing. How had they gotten in, then? She immediately recognized the metal spheres as Magneto's work, so the walls could be made of metal and he manipulated it to allow entry and then closed it, trapping anyone inside this place. No one would be going out without the master of magnetism's permission.

After a second look, Wanda noticed a small window. Why did a cave have a window? It didn't make any sense. Slowly, the young witch walked towards it and what she saw made her gasp in shock. It was the Earth, from space. Wanda had seen something similar online, photos taken by the international space station. But being in space was different.

No wonder everything felt different. With that little tidbit revealed, Wanda started to notice how artificial the gravity was, how she didn't feel the world's warmth from up here. No, she could still feel it, but it was faint, like an echo.

Oh, shit, Wanda just realized that she was in space. How the hell would Jasmine come if she called for her. Nah, Jasmine was powerful enough to be able to come. Wanda had faith in her mother. For now, she'll just try to figure out Magneto's angle and she would either call Jasmine when she found out enough or she would take care of it herself if she could.

Jasmine has been a bit distant for the last few months. Ever since SHIELD came to confront her. She was distracted, trying to make plans upon plans. Wanda had no idea what she's been planning for, but considering her mother figure's dedication, it had to be very serious. Wanda had avoided distracting her with her problems; Jasmine had already helped her so much, and the young witch didn't want to trouble her with her petty high school issues.

Still, Wanda missed her mother. They still spent time together, but it was mostly for her lessons. They still hung out, but the time for that was starting to get smaller and smaller and the young witch was scared that Jasmine would end up forgetting about her altogether.

There were still the small glances she gave her when she thought Wanda wasn't looking. A mixture of worry and disappointment shined in her eyes. It was heartbreaking to see that this was what Jasmine thought of her. Wanda had tried to dedicate more time to her studies, but that didn't seem to change anything and the teenage witch was starting to get desperate. Maybe her involvement in this situation would end up being enough for her to impress her mother, and get back the affection that was starting to fade away.

Pietro's voice broke her from her musing, "Cool, isn't it? It's funny how small everything looks from up here."

"What is this place?"

"It's an asteroid, it's in the name, after all. Magneto hollowed out the insides to make a base of operations. He equipped it with enough cloaking technology that no one would figure out that someone was up here. Apparently, this is supposed to be his new base of operations for his revolution or something."

Scott frowned at him. "But aren't we supposed to listen to other's opinions before forming our own sir? Surely listening won't hurt anything?"

Oh, damn, he had Xavier there. The boy didn't know how easily he was being manipulated by the two men. But he has shown that Magneto had won that round.

At Scott's response, Xavier asked once more, pointing at the stasis tubes, "What about them, Scott. Does this show the actions of someone that just wants people to listen to him? I wonder how they're supposed to listen to anything given the state they are in thanks to our host."

Magneto chuckled, "This is just a defensive measure. They did not come willingly. I had to take that into consideration." He waved at the tubes and they started to open, "They should wake up now."

And he spoke the truth, and Wanda walked towards Jean who looked confused, "Wanda? What happened?"

"Nice to see you too, Jean. Apparently, Magneto did some weird gladiator match thing where he kidnaps the winners for some reason. He said something about upgrading our powers or something."

Jean nodded, "Did he kidnap you too?"

Wanda snorted, "Of course not. I was curious."

The witch then sent a telepathic message to her friend, 'I'm waiting to find out what they're planning then I'm contacting Jasmine if I don't like it or if it gets too hard. Don't worry about Kitty. From what I understand, she's fine. She just lost the fight."

The redhead nodded at her, and Magneto started to continue his speech, "We, mutants, are different. We have power beyond the comprehension of humans. They have always hated what they don't understand, and once our existence is revealed, we will be hunted one by one, until the only remnants of mutants will be in a small chapter in the history books."

He had everyone's attention with this, "Which is why, we need to unite, under one banner. We need to fight back against our oppressors. We need to protect ourselves as a race, as a people, with a similar burden, a similar suffering. Every single one of us has been discriminated against, called a freak, abnormal. Governments all over the world have started to abduct mutants, either to hunt them down or to experiment on them. Together, we have a chance. With all of our powers, all of our skills, we can survive. And to do so, we must be at our peak. Most of you have barely scratched the surface of your potential and what I'm offering is to unleash it, to skip a lifetime's worth of training, to truly master your powers to their full potential in minutes."

He had everyone enraptured now, and he knew it. Magneto moved over to a device that was connected to another doorway leading into a small circular area, the walls sloping inward to a point. There was a somewhat familiar gem that was stuck at that point. It was glowing ominously. Wanda didn't like it.

The master of Magnetism looked proudly at it, "this is the Genetic Enhancer. Through shooting gamma rays through the gem, I can enhance the powers of a mutant in the room to their full potential."

Wanda looked more closely at the gem. It felt familiar. A memory jolted in her mind, of her fight with Juggernaut. This felt like the gem that gave Juggernaut his powers. This was a gem of Cyttorak. Jasmine had explained it to her before. This was very bad and way out of her league. She needed Jasmine.

Wanda touched her Ankh and sent the distress message to Jasmine with her location. She only hoped that she would come before it's too late.

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If you want to support me check out my patron at /athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 10 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.