Episode 75: Dimensional Paradox!
"She's coming to," MJ said, eying Monica.
MJ then walked over to the bedside table where the gun had been placed back on, and reached for the gun. But just as she grabbed the gun, Monica's hand gripped hers. A brief distortion flickered between their hands, causing MJ and Monica to let go of each other. While MJ groaned in pain, Monica looked down at herself in horror.
"What's happening to me?" Monica murmured.
"Your molecules have become destabilized after traveling through the Hex Field barrier twice," Darcy said casually. "At least that's what I gathered after Hayward conducted a series of medical tests on you while you were unconscious."
"Hayward did what?" Monica tried to get up, but she lay back down from sudden lightheadedness. "That still doesn't explain the gun, though."
"In short, Hayward was worried about your mental state when you woke up," Darcy explained. "So he gave me the gun to protect myself if you should wake up being mentally unstable, but I didn't think you would wake up so fast."
Forcing herself out of bed, Monica said, "I'm going to have a serious talk with Hayward, because he has no right to treat me like a threat!"
Everyone gave Monica space as she made her way to the tent's entrance, but she almost collapsed near the boxes. So she sat down on the box Felicia knocked over by accident, and took some deep breaths.
"Can you tell us what it's like inside the Hex Field?" Peter asked Monica, kneeling down to her level. "Are the city's citizens and missing people okay?"
"They're physically fine," Monica answered. "But as you saw in the show, they behave like sitcom characters with no free will of their own. Even I wasn't in control of my actions when I was in the Hex Field. It was like I was following a script that someone else wrote for me."
"How did you enter the Hex Field?" Felicia asked.
"It was by accident," Monica replied. "A week ago, Director Hayward sent a reconnaissance team to Eastview after we received reports that Sokovia City had just vanished beneath a strange barrier that appeared out of nowhere. Darcy and I were part of that team, with me doing scientific tests near the barrier while she analyzed the data I gave her on the computers. We sent a drone into the barrier to gather more data, but it never came back."
"But the data we did get from inside the barrier clued me in on the broadcasts, which I was able to receive on this old TV," Darcy said, pointing to the TV screen.
"When Darcy was studying the broadcasts, I attempted to touch the barrier using a metal prod," Monica continued. "But when the prod touched the barrier, it got sucked in taking me with it. My memories became fuzzy on the other side, as I still remembered who I was but now I had these new memories of being one of Wanda's next-door neighbors in Westview."
"So how did you get out of the Hex Field?" Betty said, writing stuff in a notebook she took out.
"More accurately, I was booted out," Monica corrected. "Witchlet's eggs were about to hatch, and all Hell broke loose."
"Yeah, that was an intense episode," Darcy remarked. "Appliances were exploding, the walls were shaking, and Witchlet made agonizing cries like she was in labor."
"There was brief moment when Witchlet's chest opened up and the red Reality Stone became visible," Monica said. "But it was gone when Wikkid and Spedfoal emerged from their eggs. In the heat of experiencing this literal miracle, I muttered Pietro's name and Wanda heard me. She questioned who I was and then sent me flying through the air with a blast of her telekinetic power right through the barrier. When I woke up, Darcy told me I had been gone for a week even though in the barrier it was years."
"One episode gets broadcasted every hour of the day," Darcy said to everyone. "So one day of broadcasts is about a season of the show, which consists of half a year in the show's timeline. But no one actually ages."
"Even so, that means there are seven seasons of Wanda & Vistro in total with 24 episodes each which equals six-and-a-half years," Liz realized. "But why did Monica's molecules get destabilized when she came back here?"
"Since Westview exists in a pocket dimension outside of our continuity, the Hex Field acts as a metaphysical divide between the world we live in and the one Witchlet has created with the Reality Stone," Darcy said. "So when Monica first went through the barrier, her molecules were reconfigured to fit the dimension Westview is in. But after Wanda sent her flying back through the barrier to our dimension, Monica's molecules became scrambled now existing in a state of flux between the Westview dimension and ours."
"She knows what she's talking about," Thor said. "When I met her, she was interning with Jane on a research project with Professor Selvig on the effect of dimensional energies with Marémon and humans."
While Darcy nodded in acknowledgement, MJ flexed her fingers to make the pain in her hand go away. "Do you know what's going to happen to Monica?"
"If she continues to stay in this dimension, her molecules will eventually readjust and she'll be back to her normal self," Darcy said. "But if she tries to go through the Hex Field barrier again, I have no idea what will happen to her body. She could transform into something else, or vanish altogether."
Monica winced upon hearing Darcy's words, struggling to sit on the box.
"This is awful," Peter said, getting up from his knelt position. "Wanda will pay for what she's done! Not just to Monica, but all those people her Marémon has trapped inside the Hex Field."
"Don't blame her!" Monica insisted. "I don't think she's entirely in control herself. Witchlet seems to be the one who's actually controlling everyone's actions, but I didn't get the sense she was doing it out of malicious intent. She's probably grief-stricken over Vistro's death, and wants to bring him back in some way."
"But that doesn't give her the excuse to enslave a whole town!" Peter argued. "Come on, Spidermin, we've got to stop Witchlet!"
To be continued…