New Tian
The Mutant Nation
Quicksilver stared at the familiar figure floating before him, despair settling over his features like a shroud. His voice cracked. "Wanda..."
Felicia looked between the silver-haired speedster and the levitating woman, her brain struggling to process what she was seeing. "Okay, I have to ask. Do your sisters always dress like this? Because she looks like someone raided a fetish shop and decided to cosplay as a Christmas ornament."
Her silver hair caught the light as she tilted her head, expression caught between amusement and disbelief. "I honestly can't imagine how excited certain people are going to be when they see this outfit. Actually, wait. Now I know exactly what to get Ben for Christmas!"
Felicia's grin turned absolutely wicked.
"No!" Quicksilver's grief evaporated instantly, replaced by sheer horror. He blurred into motion, moving between Felicia and his possessed sister. "She's not herself! That's Chthon, the God of Chaos, the Elder God who—"
He stopped mid-explanation. "Wait. When you said 'Christmas present,' were you referring to yourself in the outfit, or were you planning to include my actual sister?"
Felicia's eyes widened with revelation. "Oh right! I could bring my Wanda along too! That would be super thoughtful."
Snap.
Quicksilver covered his face with both hands, on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry, alternate-universe sister. I've betrayed you before we even met."
Chthon, speaking through Wanda's body, experienced something approaching genuine shock. Compared to these mortals, even Mephisto looks like a respectable professional.
"I don't care who's possessing whom!" Chthon's voice emerged cold and imperious through Wanda's lips. "I just want to see rivers of blood! I will drown this world in—"
"Yeah, yeah, evil god speech, very scary." Looma cut him off dismissively, rolling her shoulders. She had zero patience for monologuing villains. Last night, Felicia had insisted on explaining some complicated Earth relationship dynamics, something about discounts and percentages. Looma had thought the conversation was fine, but honestly, she'd rather just show off her muscles and have a proper brawl.
"Let's fight!"
She raised her reforged hammer high. Divine power surged through her limbs like liquid fire, and actual flames erupted around her massive frame. The temperature spiked so dramatically that the air itself seemed to scream.
Just as Mjolnir's lightning came from the Mother of Storms, this reforged weapon possessed its own wellspring of power. The body of Sindra, the Ash Queen who'd once served Malekith, had been melted down and fused with Uru metal. Her consciousness had been obliterated, but her fire power originating from Surtur himself now lived as inscriptions along the hammer's surface.
The temperature in New Tian suddenly skyrocketed. Within a radius of thirty kilometers, plants began spontaneously combusting. Trees ignited like matchsticks. Grass turned to ash without passing through the intermediate stage of burning. The entire mutant nation looked poised to become a wildfire hellscape.
Of those nearest to Looma, Quicksilver found the heat almost unbearable. His combat suit soaked through with sweat instantly. Severe dehydration hit him like a freight train.
Maybe I should... take a tactical retreat?
Felicia shot him a look of utter contempt. Useless.
"How are you completely fine?" Quicksilver gasped, so thirsty he could have drained Lake Superior. "I'm dying here!"
"My suit has air conditioning." Felicia's smug expression could have powered a small city.
She was lying, of course. There was no air conditioning. But her suit had been specially modified by Ben, Kryptonian technology layered over the original vibranium base. The environmental systems alone could maintain comfort in temperatures ranging from absolute zero to the surface of the sun.
Casual observers might think Felicia was just an enhanced human with peak physical conditioning.
The reality was far more terrifying. Her current combat capabilities put her solidly in the same weight class as Supergirl. Even Looma, without equipment, would struggle against her in a straight fight.
Kryptonian Black Cat, indeed.
"Ignorant mortals dare challenge the God of Chaos?" Chthon's voice carried millennia of contempt as he regarded Looma and Felicia through Wanda's eyes. "You comprehend nothing of true power."
He was Chthon, dimensional demon god, the Chaos King. His strength ranked among the mightiest of all dimensional entities. Notorious beings like Dormammu and Mephisto had drawn power from him across the eons. In terms of pedigree, his sister was the Elder Goddess Gaia herself. He stood equal to Odin in cosmic hierarchy.
Therefore, he didn't particularly fear some Tetramand princess with a fire hammer and her kitten companion.
"Ha!"
Looma didn't care about cosmic hierarchies or divine pedigrees. She operated on a simpler philosophy: hit first, talk later.
Surging flames and crackling lightning merged as she raised her hammer high. When it descended toward Wanda's possessed form, it carried the devastating force of an extinction-level asteroid.
The earth seemed to stretch and warp under the sheer pressure of her power. Space itself buckled and collapsed beneath the twisted physics of her strike.
She moved so fast her body seemed to deform, breaking through sound barriers like tissue paper. Even Quicksilver, with his superhuman speed, struggled to track her movement.
What the hell? Quicksilver felt profoundly offended. The speed he'd been so proud of, his defining characteristic, was just a side benefit to someone like Looma. An afterthought.
Of course, there was a critical difference between top speed and top speed combined with maximum force.
By pushing her velocity to absolute limits, Looma ensured that her strikes carried apocalyptic destructive potential. Every movement became a cataclysm waiting to happen.
Pathetic.
Chthon raised one hand dismissively, ancient power already forming defensive barriers. "Such feeble strength. All I require is—AGHHH!"
The hammer shattered his hastily constructed shield like glass and struck him directly in the face.
Chthon spun. Not metaphorically. His borrowed body rotated three hundred and sixty degrees around Wanda's neck as an axis, the physics of the impact completely overwhelming his control.
He'd underestimated Looma's raw power catastrophically.
Looma, wielding the Old Power, was a monster-tier combatant who'd helped Ben devastate Jotunheim. Sindra, whom Chthon had dismissed as beneath notice, had been nothing but a punching bag to her.
"What a weak god," Looma observed flatly.
Who am I? Where am I?
Chthon's consciousness reeled, momentarily stunned. His chaotic awareness flickered toward something approaching clarity.
Something's wrong. This woman is wrong.
Only now did he recognize what he'd overlooked: the other energies swirling within Looma's frame, plus her own native strength comparable to the Hulk's.
When a mage encounters a berserker at close range, the smart play is maintaining distance.
Chthon retreated at light speed, simultaneously spotting Felicia twenty meters away.
I know this one. Just an ordinary Earth hero. I definitely can't defeat that four-armed monster quickly, so I'll eliminate the weaker target first!
He pivoted mid-flight, rushing toward Felicia with malicious intent.
"Felicia!" Looma called out a warning.
"On it!" Felicia's response came immediate, her expression shifting to focused hostility as Chthon closed the distance.
"You think I'm an easy target?" Her voice dropped to something dangerous. "If I don't beat your host so badly her own brother won't recognize her, I'll let Mary Jane have Ben all to herself for three entire days when we get back!"
She clenched her fist, maximizing her suit's mobility enhancement. To ensure her physical attacks could harm a magical entity, she activated the Celestial key. Mana patterns illuminated across her combat suit in luminous script.
"What is that?" Alarm crept into Chthon's ancient voice.
But by then, he couldn't stop his momentum. He slammed on metaphysical brakes, managing only to halt directly in front of Felicia.
Which made it look like he'd voluntarily offered his face to be punched.
Felicia: Hey, everyone saw that, right? She ran into my fist!
Wham! Wham!
Two rapid cat punches landed with devastating precision. Chthon ended up with matching black eyes, Wanda's face taking damage the god himself barely felt.
Quicksilver, having retreated to a safe distance from the battlefield's center, mourned his sister's dignity while simultaneously pulling out his phone to document the beat-down.
Because honestly? Who doesn't enjoy watching a good fight?
"This is definitely going on Twitter," he muttered, snapping photos as the combo continued.
After the sustained assault, even Quicksilver wouldn't have recognized Scarlet Witch's face. If he hadn't witnessed the beating firsthand, he might have assumed someone had dressed up a pig in fetish gear and called it modern art.
Of course, Chthon himself remained mostly unharmed. After all, it was Wanda's body absorbing the punishment, not his true form.
His Chaos Magic had been brutally suppressed by the sustained melee assault, giving him no opportunity to unleash devastating spells.
But the opportunity came soon enough.
Because reinforcements arrived.
Mutant forces poured onto the battlefield, dozens of altered humans with varying power levels forming a perimeter. At their center walked Madame Hydra, her green hair unmistakable even at distance.
The White Queen, her diamond form glittering in the firelight, stood beside the mutant nation's puppet king. She handed a small, glowing object to Madame Hydra with mechanical precision.
A Cosmic Cube fragment.
Then she turned to address the assembled mutant army, her voice carrying perfect authority: "Eliminate them."
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