16437/Red vs Blue

Red vs Blue
Date of Scene:	16 July 2024
Location:	Backyard, Avengers Mansion
Synopsis:	The Maximoff twins square off to spar, seeing how the other has improved.
Cast of Characters:	Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver

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Scarlet Witch has posed:

Wanda stepped gracefully into the Avengers Mansion, her presence commanding and serene. She took a moment to appreciate the familiar surroundings, the rich history embedded within the walls. The mansion, with its grand hallways and elegantly decorated rooms, always felt like a blend of home and headquarters. The intricate moldings and timeless art pieces lining the walls added a touch of sophistication to the otherwise bustling and dynamic space.

As she walked, Wanda gestured for Pietro to follow her. "There have been very few changes since you were last here," she began, her voice soft but clear. "We've had some upgrades to the training room. As people got stronger, the room had to be reinforced to withstand the increased intensity. It's become quite the marvel of engineering and magic working together."

They moved through the mansion, passing various rooms that housed state-of-the-art technology and comfortable lounges for the Avengers to unwind. The training room, as mentioned, had undergone significant enhancements, with reinforced walls and floors, advanced simulation equipment, and various training modules designed to challenge even the most powerful heroes.

Wanda continued to talk as they walked, her tone lightening as she brought up a recent addition to the team. "You know, I met someone interesting the other day -- Peter Parker. He's almost as smart as Tony and Bruce, and the most adorable young science guy I've ever seen. You'd probably call him a nerd," she added with a chuckle, knowing her brother's likely reaction. "But honestly, I just wanted to put him in my pocket and keep him in a cute little habitat."

She paused for a moment, a mischievous glint in her eye. "Which, now that I think about it, is something I could actually do. That's the terrifying thing," she said, her tone both playful and slightly ominous.

As they reached the end of the hallway, Wanda turned to Pietro, her expression softening. "It's good to have you back, Pietro. The mansion feels more complete with you here."

Quicksilver has posed:

Pietro was being good, but it strained every nerve he had in his body. He walked along with his sister, listening to her natter on about building improvements and Avengers decorations, and he was listening to what she said, but it was a trial. The world was so _slow_ and he knew that wasn't his sister's fault or anyone save possibly Magneto's fault, really. But having to slow down like this was somewhat agonizing. "I think that putting Mr Parker in a habitat like some sort of pet would be frowned on." he said, at one of the glacial pauses in his sister's stream-of-consciousness narration. "And the Avengers are full of nerds. It's good for them, gives them an outlet for their creativity."

Pietro desperately needed an outlet. And there was only so many times one could play ping-pong against one's self. "And thank you. So far, I think this was a good decision." he admitted.

Scarlet Witch has posed:

As they walked through the mansion, Wanda gave a sly and knowing smile to herself, shaking her head with a touch of resignation. "Go ahead, Pietro," she said, her tone light and understanding. "I know you're struggling. You don't have to walk at my pace."

She paused for a moment, letting her words sink in. "I've never minded that you rush back and forth while we talk. It's your way of relieving your Pietro Maximoff Syndrome," she teased gently.

Wanda's eyes twinkled with mischief as she added, "I do wonder, though, if you've been out of the game for so long that you've gotten rusty. Can you even hit your top speed anymore?"

Her words were a playful jab at his pride in his speed, a very sisterly tease that might not be entirely fair, but she wouldn't be a sister if she didn't poke at him from time to time. She looked at him with a mix of affection and challenge, waiting for his response.

Quicksilver has posed:

Pietro frowned at his sister. "I would be delighted to show you but I think you might find the sonic boom disagreeable." he said, but given that she'd given permission, he blurred ahead at what to him was a leisurely pace but to her was a blur of speed. Then he came back to her side, and that's how he amused himself - walk with her for a while, then blur ahead, then return. "And speaking of one's capabilities, have you managed to go a week yet without a dark room and a cool cloth across your eyes? Or is your Stephen enchanting you?" he asked with a sly look.

Two could play the sibling game, after all.

Scarlet Witch has posed:

Wanda stops in her tracks and turns to face Pietro, folding her arms and giving him a pointed look. Leaning her head to one side, her hair cascading down her shoulder, she comments with a mischievous smile, "Oh, Stephen Strange is enchanting me alright. He's a very enchanting and romantic man. At the rate we're going, there might just be other ways he'll enchant me."

She lets her words hang in the air for a moment before continuing, "I've come a long way from needing to tend to a migraine, you know. I've been working on my meditation and relaxation techniques. Plus, there hasn't been any need for a strenuous use of my powers lately, so I have plenty of brain energy left to beat you if I need to."

With a confident smirk, Wanda challenges Pietro, "How about a contest? Let's pit our strengths and weaknesses against each other and see who comes out on top. Your speed and reflexes against my wits and hex powers. First to three contacts wins. What do you say, brother?"

Quicksilver has posed:

Pietro made a face. A disapproving one. Dressing to entice, to inflame the passions? Expected and good. Actually coupling with him? Big no-no. And a no-no that worked both ways, although to be fair he did presume for men it was honored more in the breach than the observance. Still, he preferred not to think about his twin, his sister, and some strange man.

But then he offered him a _challenge_, and she knew him too well. And he her - she wouldn't have offered it if she wasn't in it to win it. That was the thing about Wanda - she was all smiles and coy looks while her hand under the table curled around the hilt of a knife. Tricksome, his witchy sister was.

"A challenge, you say?" he told her, his Romany pride on full display. "What sort of contact?" he asked her. "Touch, or do you favor a rougher game these days? Or has your Stephen and the soft city living dulled your edge?" he asked teasingly.

Scarlet Witch has posed:

Wanda pointed at Pietro, her expression firm. "Touch. Just touch. A tap at most, nothing rough. I'll be using the same strength myself, so keep it light."

She accepted his challenge with a mischievous smile, "Let's make it interesting. When I win, you have to go on a date with someone of my choosing, at a time I choose, and you have to get through the entire date."

Turning on her heel, Wanda began to head towards the Avengers training area, her steps confident and purposeful. She glanced over her shoulder, giving Pietro a playful look. "Are you ready, brother? Let's see if you can keep up."

Quicksilver has posed:

"You're forgetting a vital component." he reminded her after he scouted ahead and then came back to her side. "What are you wagering here, specifically? If I win, what do I gain?" he asked. "I have a thought." he said, as if it'd just occurred to him. "Since you seem committed to this course of fixing me up with someone, if I win ... and I will ... you will re-assume your role as a good Romany woman. You will prepare for your Stephen and I an excellent meal, then we shall play music and dance and tell the tales of our kith and kin." he taunted. "Assuming you even still remember." he added, to twist the knife just a little. "And you will accomplish it all with no aid of any kind, mundane or supernatural. Only your own skill as a cook, a musician, a dancer." he added.

Scarlet Witch has posed:

Wanda considers Pietro's counter-wager for a couple of moments, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. Then she nods, a determined smile playing on her lips. "Deal," she agrees.

Her hands begin to glow with the familiar crimson hue of her hex power. She raises them slowly, the energy crackling and swirling around her fingers. With a dramatic flourish, she holds her hands up, then drops them suddenly, shouting, "Go!"

As she shouts, Wanda sweeps her arms toward the ground, turning in a graceful circle. From the center where she stands, a large circle of oil rushes out, spreading across the floor. Behind the oil, a dome of ice forms, glistening and opaque. Hidden behind the ice dome, Wanda conjures a dome of stone, solid and unyielding, and just behind that, a wall of steel rises up, encasing her in a formidable shell with a moat of oil around it.

The sequence of barriers creates a layered obstacle course for Pietro, starting with the slippery oil, followed by the thick barriers of ice, stone, and steel. Wanda's aim is to challenge Pietro's speed and reflexes, testing him with the different moats and obstacles.

She stands at the center, her eyes focused and ready, her stance poised for whatever comes next. "Let's see if you can keep up, brother." she murmurs, a playful yet determined glint in her eyes.

Crafty witch she is.

Quicksilver has posed:

Pietro just smiles at his sister. He has tricks now that she's never seen and it's time to use them. She starts with oil, because of course she does. Slippery and treacherous, but he is prepared for it. He withdraws a lighter from his pocket, flicks it to life, then carefully applies it to the oil.

Now they are separated by a ring of flame, which does not do good things to her dome of ice. Her stone and steel domes are, of course, undisturbed by this development. So once the fire is out and the ice-dome mostly melted, it's a small matter to smash the remnants of the ice into shards which will melt away harmlessly. "Four layers? Not bad, sister." he said with an arrogant smirk that made most people, Wanda most likely included, want to smack it off his face. But now for the stone and the steel. He could go the barbaric route and smash it, but that'd be rough on his hands. He had a new trick for that, and it took a few moments still for him to set up.

Scarlet Witch has posed:

In the training dome, Wanda presses her ear against the icy surface of her protective barrier, tuning into the sounds of her brother's maneuvers. As the ice cracks and shatters under Pietro's relentless attack, she seizes her moment. With a deft flick of her wrist, Wanda's form blurs, and she teleports out from her layered defenses, popping into existence directly behind Pietro.

Attempting a swift tap on his shoulder, whether successful or not, she doesn't linger. In an instant, she's airborne, retreating to a safe distance. As she lands, the lights in the training room flicker strangely.. With a mischievous glint in her eye, she begins to phase, her form splitting into dozens of duplicates that spread throughout the room.

"Which witch is which, dear brother?" her voice echoes from every corner, each duplicate perfectly mimicking her tone and having different postures and gestures, challenging Pietro to discern the real Wanda from her illusions.

Quicksilver has posed:

Pietro is too canny to let her sneak up on him like that, and he was surprised that she left her layered defenses. His entire body was beginning to blur, although he stayed in one place. With his speed it wouldn't be difficult to tag all the Wandas he could reach, which likely meant that she was one of the ones that was airborne. While he couldn't split into duplicates like she apparently could, he could rush around the room at speeds greater than her mortal eyes could track and tag her images. If he found the real one, he would win. If not, he would likely disrupt her casting and make the images go away. But then he got a better idea - why play her game, when he could make her play his? So he ignored the Wanda-images around the room and then sank _into_ the stone and then the steel domes, using his speed to slip his molecules between those of the stone and then of the steel. "Why, sister dearest, we have changed places!" he taunted from inside of her layered defenses. He also made sure to sweep every inch of the innermost dome to make sure she was not lurking inside invisibly. That'd be just like her.

Scarlet Witch has posed:

Pietro, confident in his tactical pivot, might not have immediately realized the trick Wanda played with the flickering lights. The clues were all there---the sudden multiplication, the strange way the lights had dimmed and flickered---as if begging to be understood as holograms, but in the heat of the moment, the implications eluded him. It's a realization that would dawn on him later, perhaps when recounting the encounter.

As Pietro phases into the stone and steel domes, believing he's seized the advantage, he's taken aback by a soft gasp. It's Wanda, unexpectedly still within the dome. In his moment of surprise, she materializes from invisibility, positioned perfectly behind him. Whispering his name softly, "Pietro," she reaches to touch his shoulders--- possibly her first point of contact.

With the swift precision of a practiced sorceress, she teleports away before Pietro can react, securing a strategic hiding spot within the confines of the training room. While intending to leave Pietro momentarily disoriented, a split second that Wanda exploits to calculate her next move, hidden from sight and waiting for Pietro to piece together her clever use of light and illusion, her tricky move that he almost ruined, and what her next move might be..

Quicksilver has posed:

Pietro cursed sulphurously. In Transian. She'd tagged him, dammit, which put her up on the game. And she was teleporting all over the place, which was really, really starting to irritate him. So it was time to even the game. At his speed, with phasing, he could not only pass through objects, he could also blow them up by literally shaking their molecular structure out of alignment. So that's what he did, making sure to stay so phased that he was near-intangible. If he could get better sightlines, take away her ability to hide, he could probably tag her. Also, more room to move meant he could just literally dance circles around her, out of her touch range. And once the domes were down he started doing laps, changing his course often, moving so fast that he was fairly sure she'd have a hard time drawing a bead on him. And his reaction time was good enough to change course when she did appear within her reach. And if she could reach him, he could reach her.

Scarlet Witch has posed:

Wanda knows she needs to stay at least four steps ahead of Pietro to have any chance of winning. Right now, she's only two steps ahead, a precarious position against her brother's rapid mind. Hiding behind one of Tony's sophisticated training machines, she racks her brain for the next move to out maneuver him. Sound distractions are too obvious; Pietro would see through them instantly.

Then inspiration strikes. Wanda creates a hole in the ground beneath her, transforming the floor's consistency to sand. She sinks down into it, concealing herself and making the trap look like the solid floor. To perfect her ruse, she conjures a hologram of herself standing above the hidden pit, with just a shoelace sticking out as a subtle lure.

Her plan set, she waits in her sandy concealment, ready to snag Pietro like an ant lion if he falls for her clever trap, hoping this will put her the necessary steps ahead in their game.

Quicksilver has posed:

Unfortunately for Wanda, this was not the first time he'd seen that ruse. So he rushed to the very edge of the concealed sand trap and dipped a toe into it. "Come, sister. Such a dusty tomb ill-suits you." he taunted and then rushed away to the other side of the chamber. "If you're going to stay in there forever this will be a poor game indeed." he reminded her.

Scarlet Witch has posed:

Taking a moment to recalibrate, Wanda floated gracefully out of the sandy trap, her eyes narrowing in determination. Hovering mid-air, she surveyed the training room, her mind racing to devise a new plan to outmaneuver her brother.

She began weaving a complex spell, combining elements of illusion and chaos magic. First, she created multiple again, life-like holograms of herself, each one positioned strategically around the room. These illusions mimicked her exact movements and gestures, designed to be indistinguishable from the real Wanda. Next, she manipulated the ambient energy in the room, causing subtle, random flickers of light and shadow to disorient Pietro's enhanced perception.

Finally, she layered her enchantments with a sensory twist. She infused the air with a faint, sweet scent that Pietro would recognize from their childhood---a distraction tied to memory, meant to momentarily divert his attention.

Satisfied with her intricate setup, Wanda prepared herself, knowing that outdoing Pietro required not just power but cunning. "Alright, brother," she whispered to herself, "let's see how you handle this." She positioned herself within the array of illusions, her hands starting to glow on all of her copies, readying to strike. Was she gonna blast him? One of them was definitely Wanda. Hiding will do her no good at this point.

Quicksilver has posed:

Wanda did sure love her emotions. And her distractions. But he could, if he put his mind to it, stay focused. So he made his way around the training room at superspeed, making sure to smack each illusory Wanda on the ass on the way by. Getting _her_ distrscted, getting _her_ angry, would make the magic more difficult. But he didn't go in a nice predictable hex-boltable straight line, oh no. He got _geometric_ with it. Rush in, smack a Wanda on the ass, rush away at a different angle, come back in, over and over.\<br\>\<br\>Finally, on one approach, his hand met not chaos-infused magic, but an actual flesh-and-blood buttock. He smiled as he tagged his sister - lightly, as per the rules of the game, and then darted away before she could work out something nasty to do to him.

Scarlet Witch has posed:

At the unexpected and annoying slap on her posterior, Wanda's irritation flared. Her mouth tightened into a growl of frustration as she prepared to counter and make her strike against Pietro. However, in a moment of clarity, she realized something crucial. Despite her fierce determination, she had to know when to concede, and this was one of those times. She had neglected to state an important rule.

With a resigned sigh, she waved her hands, dismissing all the effects she had created. "Wait, wait... I concede. I've already lost," she admitted, the tightness in her voice giving way to a reluctant acknowledgment of her oversight. She had realized that without a rule to enforce a five-second interval between taps, Pietro could easily tag her three times in quick succession, securing his victory.

Begrudgingly, Wanda frowned and pouted, feeling the sting of defeat from such a simple mistake. "Fine, you win this time," she said, conceding to Pietro's terms and admitting her defeat, a rare occurrence that highlighted her growing understanding of her boundaries.

Quicksilver has posed:

Pietro laughed as he stopped phasing and came to a halt next to her. "An excellent try, sister." he said, patting her on the shoulder. "I'm looking forward to your Romany dinner and entertainment already." he said with a hearty laugh. "And I'm sure your Stephen won't know what hit him." he said with a wink and a nudge.

Scarlet Witch has posed:

Wanda thought for a moment, her initial irritation fading. She wasn't too upset about having to hold up her end of the deal. In fact, Pietro's victory was that much more assured because of what he had bet. Making dinner for Stephen and charming him with her skills? It wasn't such a bad forfeit.

She laughed softly and gave Pietro a sisterly hug. "You haven't changed one bit," she said, shaking her head with a fond smile. "But don't think for a moment that I'm giving up on finding you a good and proper wife. This isn't over yet."

With a playful glint in her eye, she pulled back and added, "And as for Stephen, I'm sure he'll be delighted. Just remember, this doesn't mean I'll go easy on you next time."

Quicksilver has posed:

"I'd be deeply disappointed if you did." he pointed out sensibly. "But really, we know who's got the superior skills in the field. Your magic is flexible but you have picked up some terrible habits. We'll need to work on those." he pointed out.