Carmine Jewels ║ Wanda Maximoff

Chapter 87 - Time For A Glorious Rematch

"Hey, Cap, you read me?"

Time itself seemed to stop at that moment. Could it possibly be...?

Keira's mouth fell open in shock and she spun around with wide eyes to search for the owner of that voice. There simply was no logical explanation. But even through the crackling static, she had recognized Sam's voice.

But she saw nothing but the ruins of the compound.

Was she imagining things? Had her mind finally split apart in madness, thereby causing her to hallucinate?

It couldn't be pure imagination though, because judging from the disbelieving faces of Natasha and Steve, they had heard the voice too. Or were they simply so desperate that all three of them had suffered the same hallucination?

"Cap, it's Sam. Can you hear me?"

There it was again. Much clearer this time time.

There was no way in hell she was imagining it. She had to mentally shake herself to stir out of her temporary frozen state, and as she did so, she locked eyes with Natasha. The redhead had a careful, yet hopeful smile playing on her lips, mirroring Keira's own feelings.

"On your left."

A golden circle sparked to life behind them, and it kept growing until three people emerged from it. T'Challa, flanked by Okoye and Shuri stepped onto the broken battlefield, looking as ready as ever for the upcoming fight.

The king of Wakanda sent a faint but encouraging nod at Steve, who exhaled deeply in relief and finally dared to make his smile known. It was fascinating how a simple gesture like that could reignite the flame that was... hope. And not shortly after, Sam came flying out of the portal.

Keira could just imagine it. How Sam practically begged whatever poor wizard who had the unfortunate day of landing in Wakanda, to open the portal on Steve's left side. Why? So he could deliver the punchline of a joke that had haunted him for years.

All because he ran slower than a literal supersoldier.

More and more portals started to appear, not only on the ground but also in the air. People from all over emerged from the sparkling rings, not only from Wakanda but also places like Titan, and outer space, by the looks of it.

Keira honestly didn't know where to look with everything that was happening and simply stood dumbfounded.

A lot of the people were strangers, or unknown to her at least. But that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was that they were all here to fight. And they needed all the help they could get.

Thanos' army was vast, but so was theirs now.

More and more people kept joining their ranks, and Keira was grateful for every one of them. But it also meant that they had to move around to make room for them all. So, somehow, Keira found herself in the middle of the crowd of new arrivals. And with all the bodies pushing around her, the world suddenly seemed to cave in on her.

The air turned to poison in her lungs. Her blood started to boil in her veins and her muscles felt like sandpaper whenever she tried to move.

With all the new arrivals, it wasn't just a lot to take in visually and emotionally. It also meant a lot of new voices in Keira's head.

Her brain felt like it would implode any second, and yet, at the same time, it felt as though it had frozen. She couldn't think straight but at the same time, her thoughts were running wild. Everything that could make sense, didn't, and everything that didn't make sense, did.

Perhaps she really had suffered a mental breakdown, and this was simply the hallucination she suffered as she got dragged away to the insane asylum in a straightjacket.