[Perspective: Quentin Beck]
Quentin Beck pressed a finger to the hidden earpiece in his ear.
"I copy, Fury," Beck said, projecting the gravelly tone of the battle hardened interdimensional warrior. "I am approaching the perimeter. I will go and investigate the EMP anomaly. It could be a precursor to the manifestation."
"Do not engage without backup, Beck," Fury ordered.
"Understood," Beck replied.
He disconnected the comms channel with Fury and immediately switched his earpiece over to the encrypted frequency connecting him to his tactical team.
"William!" Beck hissed.
"What the hell was that EMP report? What is going on with the drone grid?"
Static crackled in his ear for a second.
"Quentin, we have a catastrophic failure," William Ginter Riva's voice came back, sounding utterly terrified. "I... I don't know what happened. All the drones in the staging network just went offline. Simultaneously."
"Reboot them!" Beck snarled, pacing furiously in the dark alley, his hands balling into fists. "Run the diagnostic and reboot the damn system!"
"I can't reboot them, Quentin!" William cried out. "Every single drone in the water and in the air is completely unresponsive!"
"Then deploy the backup fleet!" Beck shouted. "Load them from the transport vans and get them in the air! Now!"
"We can't go outside!" the tactical operator, Victoria, broke into the channel, her voice shrill with panic.
"What do you mean you can't go outside?" Beck demanded, slamming his fist against the brick wall of the alley.
"Because there are people from Nick Fury's team standing right outside the loading bay!" Victoria yelled. "They are smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee leaning against our vans! If we open the bay doors to launch the backups, they will see everything!"
Beck's heart pounded a frantic rhythm against his ribs. No drones meant no monster. No monster meant no heroic battle.
He was standing in the middle of Prague wearing a skin tight suit covered in ping pong balls, and the most powerful spy agency on the planet, an Avenger, and a super powered teenager were waiting for him to produce a fire demon.
"Fuck," Beck breathed, running a trembling hand over his face. "You are useless. All of you are completely fucking useless!"
"Quentin, what do we do?" William asked, his voice trembling.
"Do nothing," Beck snapped. "Keep your mouths shut and do not open those doors."
He aggressively cut the call, ripping the earpiece out and shoving it into his pocket.
He took a deep breath, forcing his heart rate to slow down. He was a master of illusion, and sometimes the greatest illusions didn't require holograms. They required acting.
He adjusted his cape, squared his shoulders, and switched his comms back to Fury's channel.
"Fury," Beck said. "I am scanning the plaza. The thermal spikes are fading. The anomaly is stabilizing."
"Are we looking at a manifestation or not?" Fury demanded.
"Let's meet at Spider Man's location," Beck suggested smoothly. "There are no signs of any kind of incursion for now. The entity may have aborted the materialization."
"Copy that," Fury agreed. "Hill and I are approaching the square. Everyone converge on the cathedral steps."
[Perspective: Wanda Maximoff]
Wanda stood on the wide stone steps of the cathedral, her arms crossed loosely over her chest.
Peter was standing beside her, having pulled his black mask back over his face as they descended into the public area.
A sleek black SUV pulled up to the edge of the plaza.
Nick Fury and Maria Hill stepped out, their dark trench coats blending seamlessly into the shadows.
"Well," Fury grumbled as he approached, his single eye fixed on Peter. "This is anticlimactic."
"There is no sign of any kind of monster, Mr. Fury," Peter reported, his masked head tilting in confusion.
Footsteps echoed on the cobblestones.
Quentin Beck walked into the light of the streetlamps. He was wearing his full armor, the green cape billowing slightly behind him.
His face was set in a mask of grim determination, his brow furrowed as if he were carrying the weight of a thousand doomed worlds.
"Fury," Beck said, nodding solemnly. He turned his gaze to Wanda. "And you must be Wanda Maximoff. I am Quentin Beck. It is an absolute honor."
"Hi," Wanda said softly.
"I have run localized scans," Beck announced to the group, placing his hands on his armored hips. "The thermal pockets have completely dissipated."
He sighed heavily, looking up at the night sky with a look of profound sorrow.
"I believe the connection between the Elemental and the Earth is breaking," Beck hypothesized. "As I warned you, destroying the Air and Earth entities destabilized their quantum tethers. The EMP we detected... it must have been the Fire Elemental attempting to breach our dimension, and failing. It collapsed under its own mass."
Fury crossed his arms, looking at Beck. "So, you're saying the threat is
neutralized? Just like that?"
"For now," Beck nodded gravely. "We must remain vigilant, but it appears the immediate danger has passed."
Wanda tilted her head.
Her chaos magic was inherently empathetic. It constantly fed her the emotional resonance of the people around her.
From Peter, she felt a buzzing excitement. From Fury, a cold suspicion. From Quentin Beck?
She felt a frantic wall of pure panic, desperately trying to mask a rotting core of deception.
"You are lying," Wanda said.
Beck blinked, a flicker of genuine surprise breaking through his heroic facade.
"Excuse me?" Beck asked, offering a confused chuckle. "Miss Maximoff, I assure you, the quantum readings… "
"You just lied," Wanda repeated, taking a slow step down the stairs toward him. She uncrossed her arms, her posture shifting from relaxed to dangerous.
Beck looked at Fury, holding his hands up in a gesture of helplessness. "Director, I am not sure what she is implying. I am simply reporting the dimensional anomalies."
"No, you did not," Wanda stated, her green eyes locking onto Beck's face with unblinking intensity.
"Wanda, hold on a second," Fury interjected, holding up a hand. "Beck has been leading this operation. He's the only one who understands the Elementals."
"Is everything about the Elementals related to you?" Wanda asked Beck.
Beck put on his most earnest expression.
"Miss Maximoff, let me introduce myself properly," Beck said. "I am from another Earth. Earth 833. My world was destroyed by these creatures, and my family was… "
"You lied again," Wanda interrupted, her tone devoid of any sympathy.
Beck's mouth snapped shut. "What?"
"Since you have arrived here," Wanda said, taking another step closer, the red energy beginning to swirl faintly around her fingertips. "You have been lying over lying. You have not spoken a single sentence which is true. Every word out of your mouth is a fabrication."
"Why do you think so?" Beck said, his voice rising in defensive anger. He took a step back, his eyes darting to the red energy pooling in her hands. "I have fought these monsters! I have bled for this planet!"
"I do not think so. I know so," Wanda said, her head tilting slightly to the side. "I can feel other people's emotions. And when you speak of your dead family, of your destroyed world... there is no grief. There is no pain."
She raised her hand, the scarlet mist illuminating the stone of the plaza.
"You are currently lying about everything," Wanda concluded.
"No!" Beck stammered, a bead of sweat tracing down his temple. He looked at Fury and Peter in a panic. "She is mistaken! Fury, you saw the water monster in Venice!"
With a swift flick of her wrist, Wanda sent a surge of pure chaos magic directly at Beck's chest.
The red energy slammed into him, gripping the intricate armor of his suit.
Crack.
Hiss.
The holographic projectors embedded in the armor short circuited violently. The glowing green lights died.
The metallic shoulder pauldrons unlatched with a metallic clatter, dropping heavily onto the cobblestones.
The majestic cape detached, fluttering to the ground like a discarded rag.
With a final twist of her fingers, Wanda dismantled the physical exoskeleton. The armored chest plate split open and fell away.
Quentin Beck was left standing in the middle of the plaza.
He was wearing a skin grey motion capture suit covered in dozens of white tracking spheres.
He looked entirely ridiculous.