Scarlet Witch: Fate Shaper by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Scarlet-Witch-Fate-Shaper-1251027765#image-1

Scarlet Witch: Fate Shaper ANIMATION

The Vivisection of a Witch

Wanda Maximoff’s world contracted to the architecture of her own capillaries. It began not with pain, but with a pervasive, floral wrongness. A scent of loam and night-blooming jasmine clung to her skin, no matter how she scoured it. Then came the whispers, not in her mind, but in the quiet moments, a susurrus like leaves brushing against a windowpane from inside her bones.

She stood in the mirrored chamber of Avengers Tower, the sterile light unforgiving. “Run the scan again, Tony,” she said, her voice a strained melody.

Tony Stark’s holographic displays painted the air blue. “Wanda, for the fifth time, it’s all green. Better than green. Your cellular regeneration is off the charts. You’re basically photosynthesisizing.”

“I am not a plant.” Her knuckles were white. “Look deeper.”

“I’m looking at the quantum level. There’s nothing there that shouldn’t be.”

“But there is.” With a trembling hand, she pushed back the sleeve of her tunic. Along the pale marble of her forearm, beneath the skin, a tracery of faint, verdant lines had appeared. They pulsed, softly, in time with her heartbeat. They were beautiful, in a horrifying way. “This is not my magic.”

Just then, a wave of euphoria washed over her, so intense her knees buckled. It was a sedative warmth, a promise of limitless growth, of roots sinking deep into the heart of the world. She gasped, catching herself on the console.

“Whoa!” Tony steadied her. “Okay, that’s new. Friday, full spectrum biotic analysis. Look for… I don’t know, chlorophyll analogs, fractal DNA.”

As the scan deepened, Wanda felt it stir. A presence, ancient and patient, uncoiling within her marrow. A voice, not heard but felt, bloomed in her consciousness. It was the sound of deep earth shifting, of sap rising.

Little Red Bloom, it sighed. You are such fertile ground.

“Get out,” she whispered.

“What?” Tony asked.

“Not you.” She clutched her head. The voice was seductive, a lover’s murmur in the dark.

Why would I leave? You are tired. So tired of fighting, of loss, of burning. I do not burn. I grow. I endure. Let me grow for you. Together, we will be eternal. A perennial goddess.

“No.”

Your scientist looks with blind eyes. He sees machinery. He does not see the soil of your soul. I see it. I am already part of it.

The scan alarms finally blared. Tony stared, horrified. “It’s… it’s integrated. At the mitochondrial level. It’s not in your bloodstream, Wanda. It is your bloodstream. It’s rewriting you from the inside out.”

“Extract it.”

“It’s like asking to extract the water from a sponge. The matrix is… symbiotic. Trying to remove it could shred your nervous system.”

Another wave, this one of piercing, exquisite terror. Visions assaulted her: not of destruction, but of grotesque creation. She saw herself standing in a field of brilliant, scarlet flowers, each bloom a screaming face. She saw her own body becoming a trunk of lovely, polished wood, her hair a cascade of flowering vines, her heart a pulsing, seed-filled fruit.

“It’s showing me… what it wants to make of me,” Wanda choked out.

“A Chelsea Flower Show nightmare,” Tony muttered, fingers flying. “I’m synthesizing a counter-agent. A targeted defoliant on a nano-scale.”

He would poison us, the Gardener cooed. A crude solution. Violence is his only language. It is not ours. We are creators.

Her own chaos magic, the scarlet energy that was her birthright, flickered at her fingertips. It felt different. Warmer, greener at the edges. When she let a tendril of it curl towards a potted orchid in the corner, the plant didn’t wither; it exploded into frantic, hyper-growth, bursting its ceramic prison.

“It’s corrupting my power,” she realized, the terror cold and sharp.

She fled to the sanctum of her rooms. The mirror showed the truth advancing. The green tracery now climbed her neck, delicate as lace, a living necklace. Tiny, bud-like nodes had formed at her temples. They didn’t hurt. They yearned for the sun.

Doctor Strange found her there, drawn by the dissonant magical signature. His Cloak of Levitation bristled as he entered.

“Wanda. You are hosting a foreign entity.”

“It’s not foreign, Stephen,” she said, her back to him. “It’s domestic. It’s made itself at home.” She turned, and he recoiled at the beauty of the corruption. “It speaks to me. I
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