Location: Unknown Isnd, Mago's Sanctuary

  The isnd was a fortress of solitude, a utopia of Mago's design. Its location was hidden by a bination of advaeology and Mago's unparalleled trol ic fields, ensuring that no satellite or radar could pinpoint its existe spires of gleamial punctuated the skyliheir seamless stru a testament to Mago's mastery. Amidst this metallic haven, mutants trained iive peace, far from the oppression they faced in the human world.

  In the tral chamber of his citadel, Mago stood before a massive monitor wall. The ss dispyed news footage from across the globe, eae looping the same event—the miraculous resurre of the dead in New York. Reporters spoke in tones of awe and disbelief, repying images of Aron desding from the sky, wreathed in golden fmes.

  Mago's sharp eyes narrowed as he studied the se. His hands, csped behind his back, ched tightly. The metallic floor beh his boots rippled slightly, responding to his simmeriions.

  "Aron," he murmured, the name carrying a mixture of curiosity and disdain. "A mutant wielding such power… or perhaps something more. Our intel on him was wrong. He pyed really well and hid his power."

  Mystique ehe room, her blue fliding with predatrace. She leaned casually against the pilr, her yellow eyes fixed on the s. "So," she said, her voice tinged with amusement, "the humans have a new messiah. And they're already building him a throne. And he pyed us well."

  Magurned his gaze to her, his expression unreadable. "Not a messiah," he corrected. "A on. Ohey don't yet uand. But they will… and when they do, they'll turn on him, just as they've turned on every other being who's dared to rise above them."

  Mystique tilted her head. "Do you really think he's one of us? Or something else entirely?"

  "That remains to be seen," Mago replied. He walked toward the window, looking out over the isnd's expanse. "But his as ot be ignored. He demonstrated the power t the dead back to life—a feat that not even the most gifted mutants have achieved. A he does not seize trol, does not cim his rightful pce as a leader. He denies his strength, squandering it to win the affe of the humans."

  Mystique smirked. "Sounds familiar."

  Mago shot her a warning gnce, but her grin only widened. "Rex, Erik. I'm on your side. I just find it amusing how history repeats itself."

  His voice dropped to a dangerous tohis is no time for amusement, Raven. The bance of power has shifted. Aron's emergence will embolden the humans. They'll see him as a sign that their survival against greater threats—mutants, extraterrestrials, gods—depends on trolling power like his. They'll seek to onize him, or destroy him if they ot."

  "And what's our py?" Mystique asked, folding her arms. "Recruit him? Take him out before they do?"

  Mago's lips curled into a faint, enigmatic smile. "her… for now. First, we observe. Let the humans fawheir new savior. Let Aron bask in their gratitude. When they iably betray him, he will see the truth of their nature. And when that moment es, we will be there."

  A voiterrupted from the shadows. "And if he doesn't fall to their betrayals? If he stays their champion?"

  Maguro find Wanda emerging out of thin air, her eyes glowing with red light. The Scarlet Witch.

  As her crimson eyes dimmed to reveal her natural gaze, Wanda's expression softened. "You've always believed humans would betray their saviors. But not everyone is you, Father."

  The word "Father" hung in the air, heavy with yers of meaning. Mystique arched a brow but said nothing. She walked out, leaving the two alone.

  Years Earlier – Sokovia

  The streets of Sokovia were thick with smoke and chaos. Bombs had reduced houses to rubble, and cries of the wounded filled the air. In the ruins of their family home, two children huddled. Wanda Maximoff was just ten years old and held her twin brother Pietro's hand as they gazed at the unexploded Stark Industries shell lodged in the floor.

  "We wait here," Wanda whispered, trying to mimic the ess their mother had always shown. "Don't move. They'll e for us."

  "They're gone," Pietro said, his voice trembling. "Mama and Papa—"

  "No!" Wanda interrupted sharply. "They'll e back. We just have to wait."

  Hours became days. Hue at their insides, but fear kept them ihen the sound of heavy boots echoed through the ruins, and the children froze. Men in tactical gear, with helmets obsg their faces, ehe wreckage.

  "They're alive," one of them said with his voice cold aached. "Bag them. Hydra wants fresh subjects."

  The children were dragged screaming and kig from their home. In the distance, smoke and fire obscured the skyline and erased what little was left of their world. The stists took them to a secret facility and experimented orying to test their resiliend probe their minds. Wanda screamed in sterile halls as they made her witness her brother undergoing brutal tests.

  For months, the twins eheir will to survive being their only armainst the horrors inflicted on them. It was in this hellish pce that Wanda first felt the stirrings of her powers. Her emotions, raw and untrolble, began to ma in strange ways—objects moving without touch, lights flickering with her ahe Hydra stists took notice, pushing her harder in their experiments.

  And then, one night, the fortress walls trembled.

  The attack came without warning. Hydra agents scrambled to respond as the grouh the facility quaked. Arms bred, and the building's metallic structure groaned as if alive. In the chaos, Wanda and Pietro huddled in their bined cell, witnessing how the steel bars twisted and killed those who tortured them.

  Out of the smoke and fire came a red and purple-cd figure, and a helmet c his head. His open hands ahe metal, bending it to his own will.

  The guards opened fire, but their bullets never reached their target. Mago's hand flicked, and the projectiles shot bad pierced through those agents, killing them instantly. The Hydra agents' ons were ripped from their hands and crushed into useless scraps. With anesture, Mago used those scrap metals to form hundreds of metal sharp shards. He simply shot them at the agents, killing them effortlessly.

  Reag the twins, he ko meet their terrified gazes. "You're safe now," he said, his voice low but firm. "I'm here to take you away from this pce."

  Wanda g to Pietro, her wide eyes filled with both fear and awe. "Who are you?" she whispered.

  "A friend," Mago replied. His eyes softened as he looked at them, seeing echoes of his own past—his family torn apart, his childhood stolen by cruelty. "And someone who knows what it's like to lose everything." He led them out of the facility, his power shielding them from the chaos of his attack. When they got out of that facility, the Hydra base y in ruins, its dark secrets buried beh the rubble.

  He took the twins to a safe haven, a remote where they could recover. Pietro healed quickly, his youthful energy defying the trauma he had endured. Wanda, however, remained withdrawn, her newfound powers maing in bursts of untrolble energy.

  "You have a gift," Magold her one evening as they sat by the fire. "But it's dangerous to let it trol you. You must learn to wield it, to bend it to your will."

  "I didn't ask for this," Wanda said, her voice trembling. "I just want my family back."

  Mago's gaze darkened, shadows pying across his face. "We don't get to choose the hand we're dealt, Wanda. But we choose how we use it. The world won't be kind to you because of what you are. You must be strohan it."

  Over time, a bond formed between them. Mago became a mentor and a father figure to the twins. He taught them to harheir abilities with the help of other mutants. For Wanda, his lessons were harsh but necessary. He saw her potential and pushed her to embrace it, knowing that her power could one day surpass his own.

  Yet, despite his efforts, Wanda sensed a distan him—a barrier he had built around his heart.

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