⚜️ Saga 0: The Ash Years
🗓️ Location: Abandoned Safehouse | Slovakia
Characters:Wanda Maximoff, Dante, Pietro
Theme: Psychic interference, awakening jealousy, system instability
Wanda's eyes snapped open, pupils wide, heart pounding like a trapped bird desperate to escape a cage. The air around her throbbed with static, an unseen electric weight pressing down on her chest, tugging at the fragile threads of her mind.
The dreamscape — that vivid multiversal vision of peace, family, belonging — fractured like glass shards slicing through her consciousness.
She could still hear it faintly beneath the clamor: laughter, children's voices, Dante's whispered promises. But now it was layered with whispers not her own, cold and invasive like distant flames licking at her soul.
"Why… why is she here?" Wanda gasped, throat tight as her Sin System flared wildly in response, flooding her mind with dissonance and crimson light.
> [System Alert: Psychic Interference Detected]
> Source: Unknown — High-Yandere Signature
> Emotional Overlay: Jealousy | Obsession | Claiming
> Synchronization Stability: Critical
> Recommended: Emotional Dampening & Focus Required
The red glow under her skin swelled, pulses racing in chaotic rhythms, as if the very essence of her bond with Dante was being challenged — unwelcome, invasive.
She bolted upright, her breath ragged. Pietro's startled gasp echoed beside her.
"Wanda? What's wrong?" His voice was distant, as though she barely heard it over the screaming in her head.
Her vision blurred. Shapes twisted and morphed—hallways shifted, faces flickered. A visage emerged — gold eyes burning cold, hair like flames — searing into the edges of her mind.
Jean Grey.
The presence wasn't just psychic noise. It was a corrosive intrusion, a hunger masked by calm words and flame. The subtle shifting of Dante's attention that had once carved their soul-thread now threatened to unravel it.
Wanda's hands clenched, fingers digging into her palms as a chorus of emotions roared within — betrayal, fear, anger, and an unbearable desire to own what she had glimpsed only in dreams.
"No one takes what belongs to me," she whispered, voice raw, eyes flaming with newfound resolve.
The Sin System writhed inside her, manifesting the flood of emotions as twin flames around her wrists — chaotic fire restrained by iron will.
Dante's voice broke through the storm behind her.
"Wanda."
She turned sharply. His expression was calm but heavy—eyes flashing with both warning and understanding.
"You can't fight what's already in your mind. But you can decide what it controls."
Her breath hitched.
"Then help me," she said—her voice an uncertain mixture of plea and command—"Before it breaks me."
Dante nodded, stepping closer. Heat radiated from him, a grounded anchor for her swirling tempest.
"Focus on the bond—on what binds us, not what threatens it. I'm here."
Seconds stretched. The storm inside Wanda faltered as she leaned into the warmth, the shared memory of that dream flickering alive — a fragile flame against the encroaching cold.
Outside the safehouse, snow fell silently. Pietro watched, wary but hopeful. Behind his sister's aching eyes, something fierce was forming — a new phase of power, sharpened by the threat of loss.
> [System Update: Emotional Dampening — Initiated]
> Synchronization Rising: 54.6%
> Bond Stability: Fragile but Recovering
> Jealousy Onset: Contained | Threshold Approaching
Wanda closed her eyes, murmuring to herself:
"I will burn, if I must. But I will never lose him."