"For the last time, I said leave me alone!" Wanda screamed as her hands began to glow an ominous blue.
"But, sweetums-" Toad didn't have time to finish as he was hexed out of her window. She couldn't handle one more moment of him, or anyone else for that matter. Ever since she had regained her true memory of her father, she had taken up a vengeance against everyone around her. How could they have known the truth, and not told her?! How dare they smile and act like everything was fine, while she was living the lie. It didn't take much for her memory to be jogged, and once the barrier was shattered she was worse than ever.
At first she went after Magneto, swearing revenge and refusing to stop until she had his blood on her hands. She hunted him like the animal he was to her, feeding on his fear. She trained hard with her former mentor, Agatha, to gain more and more control over wielding her witchcraft. Finally she and Magneto had faced off and she had her moment. Against all odds, her chaos magic bested his own manipulation of metal: He had been at her mercy. She had every intention of slaughtering him on the spot, but something had intervened. Professor Xavier entered her mind and forced her to spare him long enough for Magneto to slip away, and Professor X warned her to never attempt such a feat again.
Wanda's lust for revenge hadn't been satiated, but at this point she believed it would never be satisfied. Her passion, her hatred, had grown too strong to ever pitter out and allow her to live a normal life. She would forever be haunted by her past, and the burning fire that consumed her. Knowing that she could never be allowed her vengeance against Magneto only made it worse. Eventually she came back to the Brotherhood, simply because she had nowhere else to go. That, in itself, was pitiful enough to send her to the depths of depression. Toad still made half-assed attempts at her, but now they were more out of habit than anything else. Every being with two brain cells to rub together stayed as far away from her as possible. She had proved what she was capable of, and they feared her. Day by day she realized that there was nothing left for her here, not anywhere. Exasperated with herself, she threw her body across her bed and shut her eyes, trying to shut out the world as well. Her hands pressed against either side of her skull and she cringed her eyes tighter, trying to push reality away from her and have some peace, even for a moment.
Unbeknownst to her, the chaos magic she was gifted with was leaking out with this lapse in control. At first it flowed out, as if a murky blue blood-pool, seeping into everything it touched. Eventually it wore through the floorboards and dripped down from the ceiling to the floor below it where the other Brotherhood boys were lounging.
"Uh-oh," said Lance as he warily watched the hex-magic crawling slowly down the walls.
"What-the-fuck?" spewed Pietro as took several steps away from one wall only to see it now oozed down all around them. Upstairs, Wanda had no notion of what she was causing, only that these thoughts, these gnawing and snarling thoughts of self-hatred as well as the knowledge that she would always be an outcast here, began ripping through her mind. She would never be awarded anything but this pitiful living, never be granted a chance for anything more. Mutants and humans alike feared and hated her. Why shouldn't they? As long as Magneto was out there, and she allowed him to live, she would never be able to cope with reality. She would always be this ghost of a person, fueled only by the ravaging desire to be the one to pull Magneto's life from his throat with her own hands. At first she didn't hear Pietro calling to her, or feel Lance trying to shake her out of the trance she had fallen into. It was only after Toad tackled her off of her bed and onto the ground that she was able to open her eyes. He grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the floor that they were now slowly seeping into, like quicksand.
"Wanda!" he yelled down to her, trying to make her magic stop its attack on everything around her. She still seemed dazed, so one of his hands let go of her wrists to allow him to slap her across the face. "Wanda!" he yelled again. For a moment everything froze. An icy blue mist built up around them and it felt as if the air itself would shatter. Slowly Wanda thawed, recognizing that she had been slapped. All the rage burning under the surface suddenly erupted, imploding the world around them back in on itself. What used to be frozen or icy now boiled then exploded inward towards them, sending what felt like the whole world into chaos. Wanda's eyes burned a scarlet red, which misted out from the outer corners of her gaze, making her seem as if she were demonically possessed.
"How dare you touch me!" she yelled at Toad, but her voice seemed deeper. Her power filled the matter around her, weighing down the air and choking the light from the day. It felt like gravity had increased, and she was the center of the black hole. The Brotherhood was terrified to the point of muteness, helpless as they watched everything around them burst, then fall towards Wanda. She was no longer standing, but instead hovering between two swirling clouds of mixed blue and red hex magic, rotating in opposite directions.
She didn't want to be here anymore. She didn't want to be her anymore. No more lies or deceit. No more betrayals or backstabbing. No more hatred, no more pain or fear. No more blood-lust. No more life. She wanted it all to end, and with chaos welling up around her she knew it was possible. She raised both of her hands up, then out, focusing all of her energy on this one thought.
"No more mutants!"
Ripples of power ruptured out from her core to swallow everything they touched. Wanda was allowed one instant to recognize this before everything went black.
Zuko was watching the sunset off of his balcony overlooking the ocean of Ember Island, lost in his own thoughts of what would happen to his father now that he had lost his bending. The Avatar had granted him the sanction of life, but at what cost? He knew he shouldn't care, but he still worried if Ozai would attempt some sort of retribution. As his eyes watched the sun cast red and orange lights across the water, some sort of explosion took place above the ocean not too far from the edge of the beach. Red and blue wisps formed a hurricane of sorts, then pulled together to form a tight cocoon before blasting outward in every direction. Zuko pulled an arm up to shield his face from the heat wave released by it was it swept through the island and out towards the horizon as far as he could see.
"What the fuck was that?" he asked himself in awe. Squinting through the brightness and high temperature of the discharge, he was able to just barely make out a shape hovering a good distance above the churning waters. The form stayed there for a mere breath, then plummeted into the depths of the water. Zuko couldn't see much, but he knew that it had definitely been a person. Without thinking twice about it he summoned his fire bending to form sharp and intense fires beneath both of his feet which launched him up off the balcony and out towards the water. He knew that he was at the right spot when the currents below him where swirling in a whirlpool with a strange scarlet color at the heart of it. He took in one last inhale of air, then plunged straight into the sea. His eyes couldn't tell him much about anything that was around him. His body was being pulled in the direction of the current, but he fought it wildly in order to reach the center and continue downwards. His lungs were burning with the need to oxygen, almost forcing him to forfeit his blind search and surface for air when his fingertips brushed something. Without question he grabbed the form of what felt like a wrist, then propelled the two of them upwards as fast as he could. They shot out of the water, Zuko throwing his head back and gasping for life while still grasping the limp body he had pulled from the depths. He looked down at her to notice that she was out cold, and wasn't breathing. Once again he summoned his fire bending to propel them upwards and towards the sands of the beach as fast as he could. He crashed them both into the ground, not bothering to slow down enough to stop, then went straight to work trying to resuscitate it…no…her. It was definitely a female, but that was all he took time to pay attention to before launching into the practice everyone who went near the ocean's waters was taught.
He placed his hands over the middle of her chest and pushed, hard, once for every second. One. Two. Three. Four. Five… she still wasn't breathing… Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve… His right hand went up to cover her nose while his left hand propped open her mouth. One giant inhale, then he pushed his mouth to hers, attempting to breathe the life back into her. "Come on!" he called to her as we went back to pressing on her chest. He didn't know why, he just knew that he had to save this girl.
He also knew that he was failing.