⚜️ Saga 0: The Ash Years
🗓️ Location: Unknown Dream Layer | Shared Soul-Nexus Realm
Cast: Wanda Maximoff, Jean Grey, (Dante, spectrally)
The dream began in silence.
Not peace. Not absence. Just... pressure. The kind that lives in your chest just before something collapses.
Wanda was standing in the kitchen again — barefoot, warm light spilling over her skin, the scent of cinnamon and snow mixing in the air. A hollow version of peace.
A child's laughter—her daughter—echoed faintly from the other room.
But this time, the warmth felt… strained. Like the air was pretending not to notice it was dying.
Her hands twitched. Her heart skipped .
Something was wrong. Then she saw
the photo on the counter...had changed.
Where once had been her and Dante, smiling together, the frame now flickered-Glitched. His image blurred, bleeding into a second woman. Her red hair, Golden eyes and that Fire behind her.
Wanda's smile faded. The room blinked — one light at a time — into darkness.
The laughter turned silent.
"I told you this was mine," a voice whispered — inside her ear, behind her sternum, under her skin.
She turned around and saw a door that wasn't there before -opened and 'Jean Grey' stepped through it.
Not wearing battle armor or flames. Just a white sleepdress, barefoot, her aura still crackling with residual fire. Her smile didn't reach her eyes. And her eyes… weren't truly hers.
"You don't belong here," Wanda said, voice brittle.
"I was here before you," Jean replied calmly yet it sounded more deadly. "I burned with him when your world wasn't even born yet."
> [Sin System Alert]
> ⚠️ Soul Nexus Path Crossed
> Bond Conflict Triggered:
> Jean Grey vs Wanda Maximoff
> ❖ Dream War Status: Soul Warfare (Dream-Locked Engagement)
> ❖ Stabilized by Subject: Dante (Anchor / Heart-Link)
▫▫▫
Suddenly, the world snapped.
They weren't in the house anymore.
They stood in a 'void-space' where skin peeled into stardust, and thoughts became scenery.
The ground formed beneath them from memory shards: charred wood, blood-slick tiles, stuffed animals, broken wedding bands.
Each piece a world never lived, threaded into place by grief and yearning.
Jean took a step forward. Her hair rose, weightless in the empty dark. Behind her, half-formed versions of Dante flickered—alternate fates where he stood beside her at apocalypse, kissed her on asteroid edges, cradled her as the universe wept.
Wanda clenched her fists. Her own dreams rushed to meet her call: golden kitchens, children's laughter, small hands gripping hers, Dante's voice murmuring lullabies at dusk.
Both sets of dreams collided.
Reality rippled beneath their feet.
Jean's voice was deadly soft. "You think a dream makes you his?"
Wanda's eyes glowed. "I think fate doesn't lie. Even when it rips you apart to tell the truth."
> [System Override Engaged — Shared Dream Layer Manifested]
> Emotional Weapons Authorized.
> Combat Level: Tier Psychic-Soul Bond Duel
▫▫▫
Jean attacked first — not with fists, but with memory.
Wanda recoiled as Dante's silhouette flickered between dreams: Jean's arms, Wanda's hands, both reaching — both losing. False scenes assaulted her mind — Dante whispering to Jean in post-battle ruins. Calling her "hearth." Kissing her beneath a dying star.
Wanda screamed, and the void cracked under her boots.
"You're showing me all lies!"
"Fragments," Jean said coldly, "of what you've refused to see."
Wanda lunged.
Every step brought with it another wave of emotion — crushed sacrifice, buried love, a child's face fading from time. She hurled her own dream-truths forward — Dante as father, protector, the warmth of his silence after battle. Their Home and belongings.
They collided in a detonation of 'memory-born lightning', reality shattering into fractals. The system bled scarlet across their judgments.
> [Sin System Update]
> ❖ Wanda Maximoff — Anchor Threatened | Obsession Elevated: 51.2%
> ❖ Jean Grey — Flame Claim Intensifying | Obsession Level: 27.5%
> ❖ Synchronization Paths Overlapping — Rival Bond Clash: Escalating
▫▫▫
In the center of the collapse — on a single stone platform floating in the abyss — sat **Dante**.
Not real, Not whole. A dream-form caught between their claims.
He looked up, red eyes sadder than either of them had remembered.
"You were never supposed to fight like this," the dream-Dante said.
Both women froze.
Wanda whispered: "Then why are we?"
Jean's voice cracked. "Because I keep losing you."
In the pause that followed, his image faded again.
Only the dream-thread remained — stretched between them, fraying. Bleeding red.
▫▫▫