Scarlet Witch: Red Tempest by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Scarlet-Witch-Red-Tempest-1251028013

Scarlet Witch: Red Tempest ANIMATION

The Antlered Maw

Wanda Maximoff felt the forest stir long before she set foot among its blackened pines. The soil itself seemed to recoil from her presence, shuddering as though afraid to be caught between the sorceress and whatever waited deeper in the gloom. The air tasted of rust and old sorrow, a metallic tang that reminded her uncomfortably of broken machinery—and blood.

It’s here, she thought.
The thing she’d come for.
The thing that shouldn’t have existed.

She adjusted her crimson cloak as a cold wind slithered through the trees. Her shadow stretched unnaturally long across the moss, pulsing at the edges with faint red fractals—her chaos magic responding to her rising anxiety.

But as soon as she reached the ridge overlooking the hollow below, that energy sputtered. The glow around her fingers crackled, unraveled, and died.

Wanda winced. “So the rumors were true.”

A low hum vibrated through the ground, making her bones ache. Below lay a clearing shaped like a bruised circle of earth. At its center lumbered a colossal creature—half-machine, half-skeletal beast—the metal plates fused with ribs, vertebrae, and what looked disturbingly like pulsing tissue. Its face was a hollow mask of gears and bone, crowned by massive silver antlers that radiated a rippling field, like heat distortion.

The anti-magic aura spilled across the clearing in waves.

And at every pulse, Wanda felt her power buckle.

“Wanda Maximoff,” came a voice, close—far too close.

She whirled. A woman emerged from behind a charred birch, her form draped in a cloak of tattered white feathers, her skin marked with metallic runes that pulsed faintly. Her smile was soft, sympathetic even, but her eyes shimmered with an unsettling, pale mechanical glow.

Wanda steadied herself. “You’re the one who awakened it.”

“I prefer guided,” the stranger replied. “Machines are obedient, but this one… this one required coaxing. Soulfire engines are temperamental.”

“Soulfire?” Wanda’s stomach tightened. “You tortured people to power that thing?”

“Not tortured. Collected.” The woman lifted her chin. “They were dying anyway. I offered them purpose.”

Wanda’s expression hardened. “Who are you?”

“Call me Miridia. A humble engineer of forgotten things.” Her gaze floated past Wanda, toward the mechanical beast below. “It is beautiful, isn’t it? A creature that devours chaos, drinks magic, and leaves only perfect stillness.”

“That thing isn’t a creature. It’s an abomination.”

Miridia’s smile sharpened. “And yet it already knows your name.”

The beast’s head snapped upward with a violent clack of gears. A keening metallic roar tore through the forest, and its antlers flashed with sickly cerulean light. Chaos magic within Wanda recoiled—and then bent backward, twisting around her like writhing serpents.

She staggered. Her energy felt poisonous in her veins, distorted, ruptured, foreign.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Miridia purred. “The anti-magic field turns your power against you, reshapes every thought, every spark.”

The beast turned toward them, massive limbs punching into the earth as it began to climb the ridge.

Wanda forced a breath. “If you wanted to kill me, you could have let it finish the job.”

Miridia stepped closer—far too close—her presence warm, enticing, quietly invasive. “Oh, Scarlet Witch… I don’t want to kill you. I want you to understand the beauty of precision. The serenity of order. You carry too much chaos. The world trembles beneath the weight of your potential.” Her fingers brushed Wanda’s cheek, feather-light, and Wanda felt her breath hitch—not in fear, not entirely. “Let me help you… contain it.”

Wanda slapped her hand away, though the motion felt clumsy, strained. “I don’t need your help.”

“Hm. A shame. You would have been exquisite.”

The beast bellowed from below. Trees cracked as it ascended. Its antlers buzzed with blue fire.

Wanda clenched her fists. “You think this thing can break me?”

Miridia tilted her head. “It doesn’t need to break you. Only silence you.”

The beast lunged.

Wanda dove aside just as its antlers sliced through the ridge, turning rock to a cloud of dust. Her magic burned in her veins—chaotic, unstable, warping at the edge of its influence.

She couldn’t cast straight spells. Not here.
Not in its field.

She needed distance.

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