Back in the same freezing cell, Lucas waited until the two guards left before summoning the Divine Armament.
Shhhk—shhhk!
In two effortless slashes, the glowing blade sliced through the reinforced restraints like tofu.
"Phew… they really went overboard with this stuff," he muttered, rubbing the marks on his wrists. "My hands were about to lose circulation. These Hydra clowns sure don't play nice."
He rolled his shoulders, stretched, and sat back down on the squeaky bed, letting out a slow breath.
"So this is Bavaria… which means this castle is the same Hydra base the Avengers stormed in Age of Ultron."
Then it hit him.
"Wait a sec—holy crap!" Lucas shot upright. "This is where Wanda and Pietro first fought the Avengers!"
He rushed to the barred window, heart racing. Wanda Maximoff—the Scarlet Witch—and her brother Pietro, the speedster. In this timeline, they were both orphans taken in by Baron Strucker. Well, "taken in" was a nice way to say "kidnapped and experimented on."
Just as Lucas was thinking this through, the familiar chime echoed in his mind.
[Ding~ New system mission: "Rescue the Scarlet Witch." Please locate and free Wanda Maximoff from captivity. Reward: Unknown.]
"Dammit, System! You can't just pop up like that, I almost died of a heart attack!"
His pulse was racing. So the system had confirmed it—Wanda was here. But…
"Hey, System," Lucas said suspiciously, "why does the mission only mention Wanda? What about Pietro?"
[Ding~ Please explore and discover for yourself.]
"…You're getting sassier by the day."
He ignored the snarky system and began to plan. A mission was a mission—and he wasn't about to turn down a chance to meet the future Scarlet Witch herself.
He waited patiently until midnight, when exhaustion dulled even the most vigilant guards. Then his eyes snapped open.
With a whisper of air, Lucas summoned the power of the Wind Element. The cell door creaked open soundlessly, and he slipped out like a phantom.
He didn't just look for guards—he looked for cameras. People could be knocked out, but cameras were another problem.
To his relief, the prison wing didn't have any.
"No cameras in a high-security dungeon? You deserve to get robbed," he whispered, shaking his head.
A breeze swirled around him, carrying him silently down the corridor.
"I wonder where Wanda and Pietro are being held… am I gonna have to turn this whole castle upside down?"
He murmured as he moved, using subtle air currents to sense movements and vibrations. The faintest shift in airflow told him where guards were stationed, allowing him to slip through the castle like a ghost.
But soon—he hit trouble. Cameras. Dozens of them.
Lucas frowned. "That many cameras means something important's in there…"
Grinning, he decided to take a peek.
He clung to the castle's outer wall like a gecko, climbing swiftly to the roof. Just as he reached the top—
A massive camera swiveled, its lens pointing right at his face.
"Crap!"
He twisted away instantly, flattening himself against the shadows. If that camera had spotted him, alarms would be blaring by now.
Ten tense minutes passed. Nothing. No alarms, no soldiers rushing in. Lucas finally relaxed.
Peering down, he noticed that the courtyard below was crawling with guards—far more than elsewhere. Whatever was inside that section had to be important.
He carefully sliced open a pane of glass with a razor-thin wind blade, slipped a hand through, and quietly eased the window open. One graceful leap later, he was inside.
Darkness. No lights, no sounds. Just pitch-black silence.
Lucas squinted, letting his eyes adjust to the faint reflection of moonlight off the snow outside. He stepped forward slowly, hands feeling for obstacles—
And brushed against something soft.
And warm.
Curiosity took over. He ran his hand along the surface—it was smooth, supple… alive.
"Who's there?!"
A trembling but sharp female voice cut through the darkness.
Before Lucas could respond, a flash of scarlet filled the room. A surge of red energy shot toward him like a cannon blast.
Lucas's reflexes kicked in instantly. He raised a hand, summoning a wind barrier that deflected the crimson wave in a burst of rippling air.
And then he saw them—two glowing red eyes in the dark, fixed squarely on him.
Scarlet energy. Crimson eyes.
Lucas froze. Wanda.
"Whoa, easy! Easy! I'm not the enemy—I was captured too!" he said quickly, raising both hands.
The situation was… awkward. Because the "soft, warm thing" he'd been groping a few seconds earlier? Yeah. That had been Wanda Maximoff herself.
And now she looked very ready to vaporize him.
Lucas wanted to die of embarrassment. Sure, he hadn't meant to, but the memory of that perfect, soft, faintly perfumed handful wasn't helping.
He coughed twice to cover the moment. "Ahem—sorry, sorry, total accident."
The faint floral scent still clung to his hand, and it made his mind blur for a second before he shook it off.
Wanda hesitated. The red glow around her fingers faded, and her eyes softened.
"You… you were captured too?" she asked quietly.
Lucas nodded earnestly. "Yeah. I was living in New York, and they drugged and kidnapped me."
Wanda bit her lip. "But… you used magic just now. How do you know magic?"
"Learned it," Lucas said casually, then frowned. "Wait—you can use magic too?"
That was surprising. In the movies, her powers didn't come from magic at all—they came from the Mind Stone, inside Loki's scepter. But this version of Wanda? Clearly different.
Which raised a serious question—if Loki hadn't gotten the scepter yet in this timeline, how had Wanda's powers awakened?
As if reading his mind, Wanda said softly, "They told me I was born with it. That it was… dormant. They said it's some kind of magic energy."
She sounded uncertain, repeating what she'd overheard from Hydra scientists.
Lucas nodded slowly. That made sense. This wasn't the movie world—things were… different here. Like Gwen being the Ghost-Spider. The lines between timelines had blurred long ago.
"So," he asked gently, "how did they capture you? Are you here alone?"
Wanda's voice trembled. "I'm alone. My foster parents were Gypsies. I've never met my real ones. A few weeks ago, men came after us. They killed my foster parents… that's when my powers awakened. After that, they brought me here."
Tears welled in her eyes, her voice breaking as she spoke.
Lucas felt a pang in his chest. Whatever else Hydra was—they were monsters.
And tonight, he was going to make them pay.
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