Discimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don’t worry, I am pletely sober).

  Wakanda

  –Jack Sullivan–

  His senses came back r, and so did the pain as he came back to life. His eyes snapped open as he looked through the green liquid he was suspended in, and straight into the b that arently monit.

  Said Lab was currently filled with panig people because they must have sensed his awakening. With a flex of his will, barriers began emerging on his skin, but something was wrong as the shiny new blue and yellow barriers that he had unleashed on the Hulk earlier came only halfway through his body before they flicked and dissipated.

  What?

  His fusion was overshadowed by the irritation at having tubes ied into odd pces. He flexed his powers, carefully strug his ordinary barriers, and sighed in relief because it worked properly this time. He didn’t waste another moment as he was immediately his green barrier and tapped on the gss of the pod as he looked at the now full b, who just kept looking at him for some reason.

  Thankfully, Shuri came to clutd opened up the pod. The liquid draihrough the end of the pod as he floated mid air and cast a ing spell to his body and give it a fruity odor, one of the more etic but still useful spells he knew.

  “Wele back to the nd of the living, Mr.Green Guardian. We feared you gone when your brain didn’t register any signals even though your body was being actively healed by your healing factor,” Shuri rapidly said as she went through multiple files on her holo tablet, the bags under her eyes g in him as to how much time had passed.

  He could only stiffly nod because even that short moment made his mind light up in pain. His body was fine, as far as he could tell but his soul? That was a whole other story.

  “I assume everyone is fine? What is the casualty t of the city?” He asked Shuri as she began herding him back presumably to her father or brother, even speaking sending little spikes of pain up his spine.

  He moved purely by virtue of his barriers as he kept up with her.

  “Hmm? Yes, everyone is fiark suffered a few burns but we will have new skin grafted in no time. And surprisingly, only a dozen out of the hundreds of thousands that left the city died, that too due to mundane reasons.”

  Shuri’s words did n him anything close to relief as he mourned for the 12 lost souls. What the hell was going on with Wanda?

  “And you did great, by the way,” He looked at Shuri who tio work oablet as she all but skipped at his side.

  “Excuse me, what?” He finally asked her since she seemed to have her gaze glued to the s in front of her, w on some sort of giant Helicarrier prototype.

  Hmm, Vibranium Helicarriers, Iing.

  “Oh, I fot you didn’t see the aftermath. Here, look,” She presented her holo tablet to him, the s h right in front of his stiff neck. The se was familiar, not from this point of view but having experiehe crushing blows of the Hulk, he was acutely aware of what was going on in the video in front of him.

  “This was recorded by one of the Deep Space sers we had installed in space after the New York Invasion,” Shuri piped up as he tio look at the footage.

  The video showed two massive colors, being iwined as they escaped Earth’s atmosphere at blistering speeds. He grinned weakly when he saw the pathetic way he defeated the Hulk. The st blow almost killed him but the force behind that blow, coupled with them being at the edge of Earth’s gravity, created enough thrust that the Hulk ushed into the darkness of space.

  That was when his vision became blurry and his memory ended but the footage still went on. He saw the way the Hulk tie on in the emptiness of spabsp;

  Goosebumps arose on his skin as he realised what had happehe Hulk had been gathering more and more energy all the time they had been fighting. By the point, he ushed out of Earth’s atmosphere, he had built so muergy that it was like looking at a green star.

  A chill went down his spine as after a point, the Hulk was no longer visible. What remained was only a glowing green blow that blew up.

  He winced as the broken and burned body of the Hulk was thrown out of the explosion, propelling him deeper into space as the explosion rocked everything nearby. The satellites showed status for a while before the entire footage ehe wave of energy probably knog the satellite out of the sky.

  “The Iional Space Station had to be reinforced by a dozen Iron Men suits rated for Space exploration after an all-hands-on-deck emergency meeting at the UN was called. Aire cluster of satellites in that zone had been knocked out. Most of them had beeroyed duriry but some had to be destroyed using missiles. Multiple tries began their nuclear readiest because they believed it to be an alien attad the Hulk was just the victim of it,”

  Shuri tio expin to him the plex domino effect of him pushing the Hulk out of the p. He could see now that it was the best possible decision. An explosion like that, oh?

  Anywhere oh? No, nowhere oh would have been safe. It would have created mega tsunamis, and mega earthquakes, irradiated the area, polluted the air, and water and more. No, that would have been a disaster of epic proportion.

  “So, are you still trag him?” He asked her as they tiheir walk/flight to their destination.

  “Ofcourse, we assumed that you could just bring him back using your portals, the sce behind which I still haven't figured out by the way. Your powers are gamma based, with a trace of background ic radiation thrown in the mix. It doesn’t make any sense for you to be able to create portals capable of traversing our sor system. How do they work, anyway? How did you stabilise the event hori-”

  “Shuri, where are your manners? The man is injured. Plus, we have more important stuff to deal with,” T’Chal’s deep voice made Shuri stop speaking, pout and then scoff as she left the area, her holotab still showing multiple windows that ran code at dizzying paces.

  Teenagers and their attention deficits.

  “Pri’Chal,” He greeted T’Chal who him and then ushered him inside.

  “Captain Rogers is currently out, sparring with some of the Dora Mije. Agents Romanoff and Barton have apanied him. Tony Stark is undergoiensive skin grafting because of the as of his AI,” T’Chal informed him as he sat down on the sofa, aured for him to do the same.

  “Pri’Chal, my body is still in pain. I believe my st minute desperate as for more power did not do my soul any favours. I am afraid that I will have to leave for a while, to sult my teacher,”

  T’Chal opened his mouth but then seemed to thier of it, and then simply nodded.

  “Please take care of the Avengers. I will be back soon. Also, you please summarise what did you mean by the as of AI? Did Jarvis do something?” He asked, despite the pain wrag his body. It had beanageable since he woke up but the impairment that came with having pain shoot up your spi the smallest of body movements made him bat non worthy.

  “Yes, I believe so. This Jarvis, at the st moment–Uh, It will be better if I just show you,” T’Chal activated his Kimoyo beads, creating a small hologram in front of his eyes.

  He watched as Jarvis came down with blue beams of energy firing down on the fog, almost gssing the nd. Well, that was new. Some neons ptform for extreme energy output, judging by the plethora of Arc Reactors visible.

  Barton and Romanoff being armed with Wakanda exoskeletons had him shooting a look at T’Chal who summarily ig. He could see that Wanda ent, exhausted after casting such a huge Hex.

  He did not know the rules that she had probably imposed ihe Hex but judging by the startling ck of people when he arrived, and the low casualty t, it probably had something to do with mass mind trol to evacuate the popution in an orderly manner.

  Then, something to stop sling ring teleportation, and also to massively empower the Hulk against him as well.

  Doing something like that to ordinary people might have been manageable but she did that to S-css threats like himself and Hulk, that was certainly not going to be cheap in terms of energy expenditure.

  That was why Jarvis’ beams had pierced through the fob and gave the Iron Man’s repulsors a ce of actually hitting her. Otherwise, those beams would have just disied because of the rules she could impose on the reality around her, in a limited range anyway.

  Then came the shocker.

  He watched, shocked as the fog that had just about receded and even he had given up on any hopes of capturing her, with all the Avengers flying away from her because of the hex colpsing after he burst through it with the Hulk, revealing Wanda.

  In the moment, the view was blocked because the entire s was filled with blue. Two other ptforms became visible as they were b recise location with those massive blue beams, destroying the fog as it found itself under siege.

  The real shog thing was what Jarvis did to Tony. At the st moment, Tony’s suit jerked bad smmed right into the fog, before it came out of the fog, and just spit out Tony into another suit that was waiting with its back open, ready to catch Tony.

  Jarvis, ruthlessly, didn’t wait for his creator to be safe before he bsted the entire area to kingdom e, burning Tony’s back extensively as he was taken away to safety by the Iron Man suit.

  Damn. “That was cold,” Was all he had to say about that.

  “Is it safe to assume that this Jarvis is nue and just particur…enthused about killing the perpetrator here?” T’Chal asked him in a wary tone and he found himself nodding on reflex but he paused.

  Jarvis had ged…. a lot. He could not say for certain.

  “I am not sure. Only Tony tell you that. How is he, by the way? It looked like he was badly burned. Hell, the entire area around it looked as if it had been torched,”

  “Mr.Stark will make a full recovery but due to his age and ck of healing factor, it will take much lohan expected,”

  He nodded and thehe pace, heading straight to Kamar Taj. He did not know if he could still trust Wakanda about Kamar Taj but he still hailed a ride to the airspace above the Himayas.

  He figured that much distance was enough for him to shake off any tail they put on him. He khere were no bugs on him so he just sped into the Himayas and tried to navigate to Kamar Taj.

  It was nominally in Kathmandu but due to dimensional tomfoolery, it was also situated on a cliff off some Himayan mountain. He just had to locate that other entry point.

  Last he was here, the A One had decred a war emergency due to the Scarlet Witch but she should have appeared he Hex if that was the case. If not the entire Kamar Taj, at least the A One should have arrived on site.

  With her powers, defeating a weakened Wanda would have been a piece of cake.

  Why was she doing all this anyway? She was actively going out of her way to save people before causis that were remarkably close to the timeline.

  The Johannesburg attack happened during as well. The Avengers were almost mind trolled as well. Something was happening and he did not like not knowing.

  He could not even cast a basic stealth spell on himself because his soul was fug damaged due to the stunt he pulled that day. What was he thinking? Trying to mix in the leftover energies he had from the Space Stone and the Mind Stone, and mixing his innate barriers with that.

  The burden of handling all of that, whilst actively battling over trol of his Gamma Energy because of the freaking Hex had hurt his soul and now he aying the priot even being able to cast a small spell, or even jure a manda was humiliating.

  So much for being a Master of the Mystic Arts.

  “Huh?” He finally found the pound or the beginnings of the pound as pieces of it tio disappear into thin air, due to the spatial magics cast upon the pound.

  “Oh thank god,” He muttered to himself as he crashed through the pound barrier and almost fated but stopped himself using his barriers.

  Good god, he had bee so weak, he thought to himself as the mere act of jerking upright caused him pain.

  “Good Afternoon, Master Sullivan. e, we have a lot to work on,” The A One said and then snapped her fingers, casting a greehat washed over his barriers. Reising the spell, he let the barriers fade as the spell that cast a soothing green light that entered his body, numbing him to the pain as he floated behind her, entering the…ritual room?

  He levelled a questioning look at her, who snapped her fingers once again, telep him right into the ter of the ritual.

  “Your foolhardy as have led to your soul being damaged. Fortunately, the damage be reversed but in your case, the healing process will tear apart your soul as it is still tinged with the energies of the Infinity Stones.”

  “So?”

  She smirked at him, “So, we will tear them away from your soul. Brace yourselves, Master Sullivan, this might hurt a bit,”

  “W-Wait, I just woke up,” Was all he could get out before the ritual circle lit up and he…passed out.

  ______xx____

  “May the Vishanti give me strength,” The A One, Sorcerer Supreme muttered as she stood guard outside the ritual room, the bright e glow cast by the ritual room ignored by her as her mind tio ponder over the events of the past few days.

  The emergence of a Scarlet Witch was w but she had not heard of Agatha being attacked and even had sent an emissary to firm that the Darkhold was still in her possession. And it will remain so for another couple of years at the very least.

  She had all but decred War against the Scarlet Witch, determio nip this threat in the bud as the someoh the potential to bee even a semi realised Scarlet Witch was a threat not even all Sorcerer Supremes could handle.

  But then, she got a direct call from the Vishanti of all people. They wao let this py out for some reason.

  They assured her that this Scarlet Witch was not malicious. She also had her owiny to py out in this universe and she could not interfere in that.

  But she could do something that would empower the one person who could defeat the Scarlet Witch.

  Jack’s potential was horrifying and bined with the power of drawing energy from the Infinity Stohere should be no obstacle that would be able to stop him.

  Now, to make sure that the world doesn’t desd into Nuclear Armageddon, or at least try to do so anyway since she had multiple ways of stopping that, she had to give a visit to Jack’s allies.

  They deserved an expnation and so did she.

  The Vishanti had informed her that this was going to be the st they were going to see of the Scarlet Witch for a couple of years now. Something about her being injured and her Patron having been suffitly restrained.

  Ohe ritual was done and Jack’s soul was stabilised, he would need some time to stabilise as well. She could meet the Defenders of Earth in the meantime.

  After all, they were colleagues, if from differements, but with the same purpose.

  Word t - 2824

  If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

  I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.