Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver #1

Wanda Maximoff is the Scarlet Witch. She hovers in Earth's orbit, miles above Lotkill, New York, where the Skypiercer, a dimensional scanning station, hurtles towards her home. But Wanda stands in its way – and she isn't alone. Down below, in Lotkil, her shop assistant, Darcy Lewis, shouts out to the locals: 'Hustle, people! Spooky satellite's heading straight for us – leave your lattes! Stay loose and don't look up! A sarcastic blur's coming to save you!' The Skypiercer has been shattered by a peek into a concussive-force dimension, while aboard, its crew of clerics are practicing calm. 'What's the witch doing – can you see? We're not slowing down' one of them calls out. 'Can't believe I'm still alive...' someone utters as they are dropped off at the Life Park and with other civilians look up at the approaching Skypiercer. 'That blur did have some up though' someone else remarks. The Scarlet Witch’s magic penetrates the station's shields to insulate its crew from what happens next. 'Almost there, Pietro. I've isolated the Skypiercer...but its clerics are in your hands' Wanda calls out to her brother, Quicksilver, who speeds across Lotkill and skirls as he replies 'And lucky for them, Wanda. Now go on, break their little toy'.

'Consider it broken' the Scarlet Witch declares as she uses her impressive powers to cause the Skypiercer to vanish – although the ship's clerics begin to fall to the ground. 'We're still falling you madwoman you've killled us you've left us to plummet to our -' one of them shouts, as Quicksilver suddenly speeds around in a circle creating a vortex which cushions the clerics' fall. Quicksilver comes to a stop and tells the clerics 'That madwoman just shunted your sky shack into the Quantum Realm atom by atom...all while shielding you from re-entry. She saved you lives. She also dropped you. I'm always cleaning up her messes' Quicksilver smirks. 'We're...a mess?' one of the clerics asks. Wanda drops down near her brother and tells him to go easy. 'It's their first fall from orbit' she tells him. Quicksilver folds his arms and tells the clerics that if you peep into other dimensions, you pay the price. 'Reaching into a snake hole does tend to get one bit' he adds.

'Hey – Wanda and smartass brother?' Darcy calls out as she appears, holding a strange box. 'With all the death from above, it's possible I took my eyes off the shop. You've got a package'. Wanda goes over to Darcy and examines the box, noting the precise craftsmanship, before realizing that it is locked. 'And in every locked box, a disappointment. You've an eye for craft, sister' Quicksilver remarks. 'But no mind for penmanship' he adds as he sees his and Wanda's name etched into the box. 'This cask of boredom is inscribed to us in our adoptive father's handwriting' he notes, adding that Magneto sent this, and even from beyond the grave, he mocks them. 'This morning's omens were poor. I thought it was the Skypiercer crash. But now...' Wanda's voice trails off before suggesting that Darcy take the day off. 'The hell I will. You're shook, boss – not that Speedstick noticed' she mutters. 'Please. If I wanted guilt, I'd dig up my au pair. She was a ruminant, you know'.

'Let's get on with it. There doesn't seem to be an obvious lock to pick' Pietro declares as he snatches the box from Darcy, suggesting that he could try to vibrate through the box, but Wanda casts a hex around the box and tells Pietro that there is no need, as chance is on their side. 'With a nudge from the right hex' she adds. An instant later, the box drops to the ground and the lid opens. 'And no longer my problem' Pietro remarks. There is a letter in the box, and Wanda levitates the letter to her. 'You don't care what it says?' she asks her brother. 'Magneto is dead, Wanda. I've no need for his absentee opinions' Pietro responds.

Wanda reads the letter in silence, until she utters 'Pietro, I... it's...' her voice trails off, before Darcy pipes up and asks 'Any big reveals – is Mags really your bio dad after all?' she asks. Wanda tells Darcy that it has nothing to do with that and hangs her head. 'So grim! Ignore the shop sprite – tell me what's there?' a wide-eyed Quicksilver asks.

'Wait, Pietro -' Wanda begins, but Pietro asks if they should read it together. 'I said wait. It's not for your eyes' Wanda responds as she causes the letter to vanish. 'My eyes?' Pietro asks, annoyed. 'If you cared about them, you wouldn't have lit that paper up like a matchead. Honestly, Wanda...are you so desperate to know something I don't?' Pietro asks. 'No, Pietro...something you shouldn't' Wanda corrects him. Wide-eyed, Pietro asks if that is some kind of a joke. Pietro darts about around Wanda: 'You keep a chaos god locked in your soul – and you think you know what's best?' he asks, angrily. 'That letter was for us both, Wanda. Whether I care to read it is up to me' he adds, reminding her that Magneto took them both in. Wanda turns calmly to her brother and puts a hand on his shoulder, assuring him that she is aware, but that what was written, he never needs to read those words. 'You'd have saved me from the same pain. You've done it before' Wanda adds.

But Pietro brushes Wanda's hand aside and claims that he did what he had to save her from herself. 'You don't need to treat me like a child' he adds. 'That's not what I'm doing, I'm -' Wanda begins, to which Pietro angrily asks Wanda if she thinks he can't handle a coarse word from their freshly martyred father. 'Of course you can. But Magneto never treated us the same...why rub salt in that?' Wanda responds. Pietro angrily spins around and shouts at his sister: 'And you, the martyr's daughter – you're qualified to make that choice for me?!' to which Wanda suggests that if she is, it's from a lifetime of her brother doing just that – treating her like she is fragile, lie a pot you can't let boil over. 'Talking to me like I can't handle the realities of my life!' Wanda exclaims. But Pietro turns his back on Wanda and suggests that what he does isn't even remotely the same. 'If you flinch, the world falls down'.

'So you love to say. You can't hide your true reactions, Pietro. Not from me. You think I don't know I still terrify you?' Wanda asks. Pietro pauses, then snarls: 'Of all the – shouldn't you? Shouldn't you?' He speeds back over to Wanda while Darcy looks on in silence. 'You've recovered from so much – but those things still happened! You're my sister. My twin. I can fear you while loving you. Some would call that respect!' Pietro suggests. 'Respect?' Wanda exclaims. 'How many times have you manipulated – have you used me to get what you want? Getting over things is all but our family past time!' Wanda declares, shaking a finger at Pietro. 'Wanda -' Pietro begins, but Wanda continues, suggesting that he should worry about himself. 'When you goaded me into changing the world. Who died? Burning that letter protected you. It's done. You'll never know what I held' she declares. 'And I'll never tell you. Accept it, Pietro. It's all you can do' Wanda concludes.

Pietro looks on, wide eyed: '... you think that's all? Wrong' he responds as he quickly speeds away. Wanda stares ahead, before Darcy approaches her and remarks that she fells like that was about more than a burnt letter. 'Darcy...' Wanda begins to which Darcy asks Wanda if she wants to talk. 'My brother's done way wilder stuff than making me unravel reality' Darcy adds, before asking 'Seriously, boss... are you okay?'

'KAKA ROCKA NIXIS!' Wanda suddenly shouts, telling Darcy that it's always like this, that Pietro has always been like this. 'All that we've been through. All that we've rebuilt – vaporized!' she declares. Wanda storms back into The Emporium, and as she does, she uses a hex sphere to destroy the box that the letter was sealed in. 'By a scrap of paper and a box!' she shouts. Darcy looks on, concerned, while Wanda points out that the rules don't apply to Pietro, even his own. 'Once – once! I try to protect him, like he's done for me countless times... and that's  too much? Doesn't he hear himself?' she asks, wondering how much she has forgiven, how much she has buried and moved on from. Wanda materalizes several magic birds which scatter from the Emporium as she strides back and forth within the Emporium,

'It's like he lacks the very biology for self-awareness!' Wanda decides, when suddenly, Darcy calls out to her: 'You don't mean all of that, right?' she asks. 'At least not the whole destroying your shop part?' Darcy looks upset, and Wanda tells her not to be ridiculous. 'I did no such -' she begins, before calming down and telling Darcy that she doesn't know what happened, as things had been very good with Pietro. 'But one fight and we're right back. He knows...he knows just what to say to set me off'. Darcy tells Wanda that that sounds like family to her. 'One slip. And everything Pietro and I worked back up to is -' Wanda begins. 'Nuked' Darcy tells her. 'Feels like it, right? But people say a lot when they're pissed off' she adds. Wanda decides that Pietro has already replayed the argument in his head a trillion times, and that he is stewing. 'Perhaps I am too' she realizes. 'But you and the Emporium don't need to pay for our -' Wanda starts as she begins to snap her fingers, until Darcy tells her to wait.

Some of the locals outside look in to the Emporium and watch as Darcy admits that she has caused her share of damage, why might be why the two of them get along, and suggests that maybe there is something to not snapping all this away and actually dealing with it. 'My boss told me that once I fell through her door with destruction on my ass' Darcy reminds Wanda. 'Smart lady. Maybe you've heard of her'. Wanda looks upset, and apologizes to Darcy, telling her that she is sorry. 'This is our chop. Not mine. I thought I was done with this' she remarks, adding that she thought she had put her anger behind her. 'You did, kid. Forward's not always a straight line. People fall out, they get back on track' Darcy suggests as she puts a hand on Wanda's shoulder. Darcy suggests that Wanda might remember the Bacchae blood debt that brought her to her door. 'Fair enough, but this... this landmine to my life was no coincidence. Magneto is dead. He wrote the letter, but it was sent by another. And I need to know why' Wanda announces.

Meanwhile, Quicksilver speeds across the Bering Sea. 'Insufferable!' he calls out. 'Judgmental' he snarls as he reaches the North Pacific Ocean. He reaches a subway tunnel in New York, the United States, and speeds past Monet St. Croix. 'Sanctimonious!' he shouts. 'Condescending' he calls out when he reaches the Tyrrhenian Sea. 'Hypocritical!' he yells when he races through the bedroom where his daughter, Luna, is sleeping. Budapest, Hungary. 'Unbelievable!' he exclaims as he reaches the Gulf of Mexico. When he gets to Arizona, in the United States, he races past his nephew, Tommy Kaplan a.k.a. Speed. 'Childish' Quicksilver can be heard mumbling, he doesn't stop as Tommy looks over to the blur that speeds past him. 'Uncle Pietro?' he calls out. Racing across the Gulf of California, Pietro's phone begins ringing. 'Who the hell does she think she -?' Pietro begins, before looking at his phone, then deciding not to answer it, he tosses it into the water and continues on speeding away. 'You would want to talk' he adds, as the phone sinks under the water.

Back in Lotkill, New York, Darcy watches as the shattered pieces of the broken box float around her, and she asks Wanda if she can tell something's secrets by waving her hand over it. 'You've waved at me, like, so many times' Darcy adds. Wanda tells her that isn't quite how it works, and explains that token-object reading lets them pierce the veil. 'Gives us a fleeing look at a thing's past. The invisible information clinging to it' she adds. 'Sweet. Like on a phone? Like augmented reality?' Darcy asks. 'Like psychometry' Wanda explains, deciding that if there are hidden clues to the box's sender, they will be revealed. The pieces of the box drop to the floor, and Wanda crouches beside them. She tells Darcy that before Magneto died, he accepted her as his daughter, blood be damned. 'But he and Pietro never found such peace. Pietro was always colder to our father...and that was before Magneto murdered him. But his words, Darcy... I believe they would've hurt my brother even more' Wanda remarks.

'There's a strange energy about the box' Wanda announces as she waves a hand across the pieces of the box. 'Let's see what's behind it -' she begins, as something takes form and appears before her in a glowing energy form. 'It... it's so big. It's endless, it's... it's endless. It's endless' Wanda utters as she looks up at the glowing energy with wide eyes and smiles.

Quicksilver has reached the Northwest Territories in Canada, 'She calls – as if she's unaware each vibration feels like an interminable fly under my skin!' he exclaims as he races across a body of water. Some distance away though, several people wearing dark blue and pink with a strange white mask are stationed in a desert. 'Range?' one of them asks, holding up a gun. 'A thousand miles and closing. And he's complaining' one of the others responds as they look through a device. 'Like she doesn't know a two-minute call would feel like decades in the stockade! SHE KNOWS!' Pietro shouts. 'Target one has cleared the upper midwest. Approaching the kill zone' one of the armored agents states. 'Copy. Automatic reflexes hot. Direct sight-to-shot link engaged' the one carrying the gun states. 'AND SHE DOES IT ANYWAY!' Quicksilver shouts.

'It's still a three-mile shot. We sure we got him?' one of the agents asks, before Quicksilver is seen leaping off the edge of a ravine, he floats through the sky towards the other side of the gully below. 'She thinks she doesn't need me! Her so-called friends will abandon her! They'll run at the first crack in her resolve – then she'll see!' Quicksilver booms. '...we've got him' one of the agents states. 'I'm the only one who'll always be -' Quicksilver continues, when suddenly, the weapon is fired at him and strikes him in his side. 'That's no bullet. What nonsense! I'm not falling at all, I – I'm floating!' the wide-eyed Quicksilver exclaims, surprised, he finds that he can't stop, and is pulled upwards through the air. 'I can't STOOOOOOOPPPPPP!' he cries out.

The strange armored people with guns look up and one of them declares that it was a direct hit, and the anti-gravity pellet has attached. 'Orders achieved, general. Target one is down. Or rather, up. Quicksilver is a dot in the sky. On course for orbit...and a freezing, suffocating death' they report. Elsewhere, a man with a thin moustache smiles and replies 'Understood, soldier. Return to the isle. I've mustered a squad myself, leading from the front... and closing in on target two' he reports.

Back at the Emporium, Darcy tells Wanda to take it easy, as that vision really rocked her. Wanda stands up and explains that it was like her senses stretched to see beyond what they could take in. 'A scale beyond even imaginations field of vision, and there... there it was endless' Wanda utters. She adds that it was endless, or perhaps a forever end. 'All my life, I thought the abyss gazed back...it doesn't'. Wanda remarks that it engulfs you, or tries, and ensures Darcy that she is fine, and that she doesn't have to hover. 'I'll hover as I damn well please. You're shaking' Darcy responds. Wanda turns and grabs Darcy by her shoulders, telling her that she was shaken, but now she's fine, physically at least. 'I can hardly describe what I saw. As if the lives I've saved, the world's I've rescued... the work, a lifetime of trying to help people keep going on just a little longer... suddenly, it all felt... pointless' she realizes, looking off into the distance.

Wanda turns back to Darcy and tells her that this box was a bomb, one meant to destroy her family, destroy her. 'Magneto was a complicated man. Often unsubtle, and not without regret' Wanda states, informing Darcy that Magneto kill Pietro, in a rage, but that his words were no apology. 'He crafted the box – I see him in its angles. He wrote the letter – I hear him in its words... words meant to protect us in his absence'. Wanda hangs her head as she realizes that the last power to touch the box was greater than Magneto's – greater than she can explain – and it wants she and Pietro apart.

Suddenly, a dart strikes Wanda in her neck. Wanda moans, then pulls the dart, noting that it felt like a bee sting, an annoyance, nothing more. 'By why? To what end?' she wonders. She spins around when a voice cries out: 'To the end, Witch. The end is the truth... and the Wizard is its deliverer!' The man with the thin moustache, the Wizard, stands in his black, blue and pink costume, flanked by one of the soldiers with the strange helmet and what appear to be several floating robots with a similar appearance as the soldiers. 'Bentley Whitman. You picked the wrong day' the Scarlet Witch exclaims, before casting a hex which suddenly appears to destroy several of the Wizard's companions. 'No! My Frightful Four Hundred! What will a scientist like me do against a true sorceress without my army?' he exclaims, looking concerned, before turning back to the Scarlet Witch and getting serious: 'Oh, wait. I've got 396 more. And it's not Wittman, Witch. It's the Wizard – legally, logistically and literally'.

The Wizard states that he hears the Scarlet Witch has had a vision, and claims that he has, too. 'But unlike you... I didn't avert my eyes. I gazed in! I found the truth there – the truth of the end!' he grins, before firing a blast from his armor at the Scarlet Witch, telling her that she is in the way. 'A force beam? Don't insult me' Wanda responds as she waves her hand and the force beam is diverted with ease. The Wizard unleashes a circle of fire around himself and tells the Scarlet Witch that robbing her father's home on Mars would be a trick, even for him. 'Wanda? We've got a fireball. Fire stuff forming. And I'm very mortal' Darcy calls out as she looks on anxiously. 'Very mortal, and very unburnt' Wanda responds as she raises her hand – but then suddenly realizes she doesn't know the spell. 'Custom memory dart. You won't be snuffing out these flames!' the Wizard boasts as he fires another fire beam towards Darcy, who is rescued when Wanda leaps at her, pushing her to safety.

Wanda turns back to the Wizard and tells him that a real wizard would know magic is more than words spoken or thought. 'A scientist would overlook spells woven by gesture and emotion' Wanda adds, before beginning to swallow the Wizard's fire. 'Time to run!' she calls out to Darcy. 'Won't argue!' Darcy calls back as she rushes off. Wanda turns back to the Wizard and tells him that he chose this – ranting like a preacher with synthetic soldiers at his feet. 'You set foot in my life, where you weren't invited' Wanda adds, before she suddenly disappears in a pool of crimson energy. 'And like so many before you, you fail to see...such choices have dire consequences!' Wanda exclaims as she re-appears, bursting up through the floor and grabbing the Wizard by his throat.

The Scarlet Witch slams the Wizard down on the ground: 'If you didn't send the letter – who did? Who sent you?' she asks. Wanda prepares to punch the Wizard, but he grabs her by her fist and remarks 'That's the question, isn't it'. He claims that he has seen an angel, seen what will be. 'And it's truth – empirical truth'. Energy crackles around his fist as he tells the Scarlet Witch that there is a grand design to things, bigger than they can comprehend. 'And the chaos you spread simply can't be allowed' he adds. Wanda tells the Wizard that chaos is life, freedom. 'Yes, well...not for much longer!' the Wizard responds as the Emporium appears to be transformed into a giant pool of water.