The moment those words left Peter's lips, Wanda's Chaos Magic dissolved into thin air.
A sudden, jarring realization struck her—a massive, gaping void existed within her memory.
She couldn't recall how she had arrived at this place, nor could she remember anything that had transpired over the past weeks.
All she retained was the distant memory of following a bespectacled man named Gravik out of a Hydra facility, bound by a mutual vow to crush Peter and overthrow America's global hegemony. Beyond that single anchor point, her mind was an absolute blank.
"What... what did you do to me?" Wanda's voice trembled, a faint tremor running through her frame.
"I didn't do anything to you," Peter replied smoothly. "If anyone owes you an explanation, it's that green-skinned freak over there."
Peter shot a quick, knowing glance at Mantis. Catching his signal instantly, Mantis glided to his side, allowing him to rest a hand lightly on her shoulder.
Offering a gentle smile to the siblings, she extended both hands, taking Wanda and Pietro's hands into her own:
"Don't be afraid. Just feel it carefully."
This was the qualitative evolution Mantis's empathic ability had undergone under the qualitative amplification of Celestial energy.
Peter's Memories ----> Mantis (Medium) ---> Wanda & Pietro Maximoff
Her gift was no longer limited to inducing sleep or reading baseline emotional currents; she could now project complex, high-definition memory constructs straight from one mind into another.
Using Mantis as a conduit, Peter transmitted his exact, unedited memory logs directly into Wanda and Pietro's consciousness.
The siblings watched the holographic projection of Gravik's earlier broadcast unfold before their eyes—listening in horror as he boasted with unhinged arrogance about his plans to conquer Earth and reduce humanity to permanent servitude.
Having delivered Peter's memory feed, Mantis paused for a moment before deciding to take things a step further.
Leveraging her amplified empathic precision, she reached deep into the forgotten recesses of the siblings' own minds, dredging up every fragment of sensory data recorded while they were under the influence of the mind-control toxin.
In a split second, the veil was lifted.
They recalled every humiliating detail: how Gravik had manipulated them like trained dogs, how he had callously dragged helpless Skrull civilians into the gene fusion pods, and how he had tossed deformed, mutated failures into the waste piles like discarded trash!
The color completely drained from Wanda's face, leaving her pale as marble.
Beside her, Pietro's knuckles popped loudly as his fists clenched in pure, white-hot fury.
That green-skinned monster... had used them as disposable meat-shields from the very start!
Turning on their heels, the siblings faced Gravik once more.
Scarlet Chaos Magic churned violently within Wanda's emerald eyes, while Pietro dropped into a low, coiled sprint stance, preparing to blitz across the field and tear Gravik apart.
Watching his ultimate secret weapons turn their weapons against him, the last trace of color drained from Gravik's face.
"No... no, no, no..."
Gravik stumbled back three steps, his face twisting through triumph, shock, and denial in the span of two seconds before locking into absolute terror.
Wanda and Pietro had flipped.
The secret weapons he had painstakingly nurtured, the trump cards meant to turn the tide of battle, had been turned against him by Peter in less than sixty seconds.
"Stop them! Stop them right now!"
Gravik shrieked, desperately calling on his loyal soldiers to neutralize the threat.
Yet before any soldier could step forward, a torrent of crimson Chaos Magic erupted from Wanda's fingertips...
This time, her target was the remaining Skrull battalion currently being battered by the empowered superheroes.
A sweeping arc of scarlet energy blasted across the frontlines, sending a dozen Super Skrulls flying through the air.
Simultaneously, Pietro's form dissolved into a blinding blur, zipping through the Skrull ranks at speeds completely imperceptible to the naked eye.
Though he lacked raw physical durability, speed was ultimate kinetic force! Moving at high velocity, he casually systematically dismantled the Skrulls before their nervous systems could even register a threat.
Watching the sudden shift, the global live chat blew up into complete chaos:
"HOLY SHIT! Those two traitors just turned on their boss!"
"What do you mean traitors?! Couldn't you see they were under mind control a second ago?!"
"By the way, that girl in red is gorgeous—she's giving the warrior goddess a run for her money! And her magic looks insanely cool!"
"That speedster guy is pretty hype too! Moving so fast you can't even see his face!"
Amidst the online frenzy, the battlefield turned into an absolute, irreversible rout.
Out of twenty-seven hundred Super Skrull warriors, less than eight hundred remained standing ten minutes into the engagement.
The superhero vanguard, meanwhile, maintained a pristine zero-casualty record.
The Skrull lines were completely broken.
Peter watched the scene with cool indifference.
Seeing the remaining Super Skrulls transition from fearless zealotry to hesitation, eventually huddling together behind Gravik in a desperate defensive circle, he knew the battle had drawn to its natural conclusion.
Step forward, Peter issued a flat, emotionless ultimatum:
"Surrender, green-skin."
His voice carried across the scorched wasteland—not loud, yet every syllable sounded crystal clear in Gravik's ears.
"You lost. The moment you chose to treat your own people like cattle, your defeat was already sealed."
Gravik glared at Peter, his entire body trembling with unadulterated rage.
Surrender?!
He had gambled his species' entire future!
He had sacrificed thousands of his own people's lives!
He had permanently destroyed their biological ability to reproduce!
And this... this was the result?!
How could he ever accept this?!
"Hahaha... HAHAHAHA!"
A low, unhinged laugh squeezed out from Gravik's throat.
It started as a raspy chuckle, growing louder, sharper, and more hysterical until it echoed across the scorched earth as a shrill, manic roar.
"You think you've won?!"
His laughter cut off instantly, replaced by a look of pure, murderous vengeance as he pulled a small device from his coat.
It was a compact remote detonator—devoid of extra dials, possessing only a single, oversized red button in the center.
"Guess what this is?"
Gravik held the device high for Peter to see, his face twisted in madness.
Seeing the remote, the effortless smirk on Peter's face subtly stiffened.
His Observation Haki picked up a sudden, alarming blip in the ambient threat matrix...
"Did you honestly think I, Commander Gravik, would stake all my chips on a single frontal assault? Did you think I was stupid enough to prepare only one contingency plan?!"
Gravik's tone recovered its former sinister composure. Resting his thumb lightly on the red trigger, he smirked:
"Before I came to Chernobyl, I personally buried high-yield nuclear warheads deep beneath the soil of thirteen major global capitals:"
Washington, D.C.
London
Paris
Berlin
Moscow
Seoul
Tokyo
New Delhi
Sydney
Cairo
Beijing.... and two more.
"The second my thumb presses this button, all thirteen cities will be reduced to radioactive ash simultaneously!"
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