Chapter 76:

A girl barely older than Jean or Rogue.

Red hair cascading in gentle waves down her shoulders. Eyes glowing faintly with chaotic energy.

She stopped a few feet from Gojo, tilting her head slightly as she gazed down at him with a curious expression before offering a small smile that made Gojo pause in his effort.

"I'm sorry," she whispered softly.

The words barely left her lips before Gojo heard Magneto's breath hitch, a ragged gasp of disbelief

"...Wanda."

Gojo's eyes widened, a sharp 'oh shit.' flashing across his face as realization hit him. He struggled harder, trying to reject the crushing energy enveloping him before something snapped.

The golden glow of his rejection somehow fused with the chaotic red light in an unstable, volatile reaction before it exploded outward in a shockwave, hurling Magneto away like a ragdoll.

Gojo's breath stuttered, his body vibrating with the force of the interaction.

"It didn't work?"

He was about to try again and this time he wasn't going to be casual about it, discovery be damned. But before he had the chance to, the chaos energy fought back, twisting tighter and more invasive.

Wanda stepped forward, her gaze darkening, lips pressed into a thin line.

"You'll pay for that," she murmured, raising her hands.

Gojo screamed and sank.

The earth beneath him gave way as if he were being swallowed whole, the ground shifting and swallowing him like a living thing. He tried to teleport but nothing. He tried telepathy but nothing. He reached to activate his Domain but before he could the chaos energy spiked, searing through him like molten chains.

His body was blasted downward, propelled beneath the earth like a missile, tunneling deep through layers of dirt and stone, past the remnants of Havelstadt's crumbled foundations, faster and faster, gravity and chaos magic entwining to drag him further down.

He barely had time for a single, strained thought, 'Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit...'

And then darkness.

The Blackbird hovered low over what was once Havelstadt a city reduced to nothing but ash, dust, and glass. The air shimmered with heat distortion, and the scent of scorched earth burned in their nostrils. Below them stretched a graveyard of ruin, jagged craters pockmarked the land, some wide as city blocks, others as deep as thirty meters or more, carved by unimaginable force. The very ground in places had been fused into blackened glass, fractured and reflective under the waning sunlight.

Kitty stared down from the cockpit window, hand pressed against the glass. "Oh my God..." she whispered, her voice small against the hum of the engines.

"Look at this place," Kurt muttered, his usual cheer dulled by the devastation.

"Hard to believe the bub's half-responsible for this," Logan grunted, narrowing his eyes at the wasteland below. His claws clicked once, almost instinctively.

Storm crossed her arms, her face unreadable. "Beast, any life signs? Can you find both of them?"

Rogue hovered by a console, her voice tight with worry. "He's down there somewhere... he has to be. We have to find him."

"Calm down, Rogue," Kurt soothed, though he sounded just as concerned. Jean glanced at Rogue, her own mental senses stretching out in vain, but the psychic noise of the destruction was overwhelming.

As the jet descended further, the full extent of the destruction became clear. They hovered above the deepest crater, a monstrous wound over a kilometer wide, with jagged edges radiating outward like cracked porcelain. The blast radius stretched far beyond that, a near-perfect circle of devastation etched into the earth.

"My God..." Beast whispered, staring at his scanners. "For an explosion to create something this deep... the pressure, the heat, the sheer energy output it must have been in the gigaton range. Comparable to a small meteorite impact."

Rogue's voice cracked. "Do you see him yet, Hank? Anything at all?"

Beast shook his head, adjusting readings. "No life signs yet... but the residual energy signatures are strange. There's no radiation, so we can rule out a nuclear event. The last I spoke with Gojo, he was working on perfecting a method of controlled pyrokinesis... but this?"

Everyone in the cabin looked at Beast in shock, and with a sigh, he added, "It's safe. No nuclear signatures, no lingering fallout. Just... raw heat. And chaos."

"Yeah, well... what about Magneto?" Jubilee asked, peering out the window.

Logan gave a short, humorless snort. "The plane hasn't been yanked from the sky yet, so I don't think we need to worry too much about Erik."

"Fair point," Jean muttered.

The Blackbird's engines powered down as they touched down on a patch of warped, still-warm earth. They filed out into the wasteland, boots crunching on brittle glass and cooled slag. The ground itself radiated residual heat, and in places, it shimmered with molten red streaks.

"Careful where you step," Beast warned, scanning the terrain. "The crust's unstable."

Logan's claws slid out with a distinct snikt. "For now, let's just find the kid and get out of here before anyone else shows up and gives us trouble."

Kurt, ever the optimist, chuckled nervously. "Who could possibly come here after all that?"

As if the universe itself took offense, the distant sound of helicopters cut through the haze, the sound growing louder as multiple choppers breached the horizon. They landed just beyond the blast site, kicking up waves of ash and dust.

"Oh, main big mouth," Kurt muttered under his breath.

Logan turned, readying for a fight, his claws gleaming in the fading light. The others tensed, bracing for whatever was coming.

A sharp, high-pitched whistle sliced through the tension. A projectile streaked through the sky, slamming into the ground before them with a metallic thud.

"Brace yourselves!" Logan barked, claws raised.

The dust cleared and there, standing in the heart of the chaos, was none other than Iron Man. His repulsors hummed softly as he hovered in front of them, a trail of smoke curling from his boots.

Tony's visor glinted, reflecting the twisted wreckage behind them.

"Looks like I missed the fireworks," he quipped. "Care to tell me who lit the match?"

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