Chapter 155: The Superhuman Serum

Quicksilver returned to his sister’s side and whispered his plan into her ear.

He felt that Michael’s armor provided too much defense and he stood no chance of harming him physically. His plan was to knock Michael down, after which the Witch would seize the opportunity to cast a spell and mind-control him.

With the plan agreed upon, the battle resumed.

Quicksilver took a wide detour, positioning himself, Michael, and the Scarlet Witch in a straight line. He intended to shove Michael directly toward the Scarlet Witch to make her subsequent move much easier.

With his keen senses, Michael immediately noticed Quicksilver’s movement and turned his head slightly to track him.

As Quicksilver rushed forward, aiming to use his kinetic momentum to topple Michael, Michael instantly channeled his inner strength and braced his entire body.

Quicksilver felt as though he were shoving against a colossal mountain; an immense surge of force instantly rebounded, and the bones in his arms snapped on contact.

He let out a miserable shriek and collapsed to the ground.

Seeing her brother in such a state for the first time, the Scarlet Witch panicked and unleashed a burst of chaos magic at Michael.

However, Michael merely patted his chest, completely unharmed. The enraged Scarlet Witch’s chaos magic amounted to nothing more than this.

Without the stimulation of the Mind Stone and with their debut occurring a year ahead of schedule, the abilities of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were simply too weak.

"Shit."

Though terrified, the Scarlet Witch still stepped in front of her brother, brandishing her red chaos magic in an attempt to intimidate Michael.

"Let us go. We are not with Hydra."

To the two of them, Hydra meant absolutely nothing.

"Is that so? Then why are you here?"

"Our parents were blown to pieces by bombs manufactured by Stark Industries, so Baron Strucker lured us here under false pretenses to undergo experiments on enhanced humans."

Michael nodded and said, "Wait here for me."

If it wasn't the Mind Stone, then how did the two siblings become like this? Michael felt a surge of curiosity.

The Hydra personnel in the monitoring room had long since been terrified out of their wits. Before they even had time to cheer, the enhanced humans upon whom they had pinned their highest hopes had fallen.

"Damn it! If we had known, we should have manufactured more enhanced humans."

They began packing their belongings, preparing to escape through the secret passage.

Michael walked all the way to the laboratory, where he discovered a large number of carcasses belonging to Leviathans and Chitauri soldiers.

Could it be related to the Chitauri soldiers?

He immediately consulted Hydra's experimental logs. It turned out that the blue blood of the Chitauri soldiers, when exposed to gamma radiation, produced a special substance capable of granting humans temporary superpowers.

Thus, the artificial enhanced human project was born.

So that was it. The radiation from the Mind Stone was essentially gamma radiation.

Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were the subjects they found most compatible. While other test subjects slowly perished during the experiments due to radiation or rejection reactions, these two siblings were different.

Although their abilities would also gradually fade, the rate of regression was much slower compared to anyone else. Moreover, the Scarlet Witch was the most special of all, showing no signs of her powers diminishing.

This led them to believe that the siblings might be the experimental keys to creating the perfect enhanced human serum.

Consequently, they subjected the Scarlet Witch to all sorts of experiments; according to their records, her mental state was already compromised.

Michael pondered this and concluded that the Scarlet Witch indeed had mental issues, as no sane person would fall in love with a robot.

He vaguely recalled a comic book version where the Scarlet Witch even fell in love with her constant companion and brother, Quicksilver, engaging in a taboo romance.

The reason the Scarlet Witch fell in vision with Vision was primarily because, at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, when the floating city was about to be shattered and no one cared whether the newly joined Scarlet Witch lived or died, only Vision remembered her and rescued her.

Ever since then, the Scarlet Witch had fallen deeply and passionately in love with Vision, leading to a series of unreasonable plots later on.

Simply put, the Scarlet Witch suffered from a severe lack of affection. With both her parents and her brother dead, her heart was like a parched desert, desperately craving even a tiny drop of rain.

When Vision treated her with a modicum of kindness, she loved him madly. After Vision died, her psychological breakdown completely erupted, triggering the subsequent events across the multiverse.

Still, she and Vision were indeed destined, as both were born through the power of the Mind Stone.

However, since the Mind Stone was now in Michael's hands, the birth of Vision was very likely off the table.

The existence of the enhanced human serum also explained why Quicksilver was ultimately killed by bullets; once the supply of the serum was cut off, his powers had gradually vanished.

He hadn't chosen not to help Hawkeye and the little girl escape; rather, he had been utterly powerless at the time.

Storing away Hydra's research documents, Michael gathered a fierce windstorm in the palm of his hand. As the inner tempest grew increasingly violent, the vortex in his hand transformed into a dazzling, oversized white sphere.

Michael hurled the white ball forward, and the next moment, a ferocious hurricane swept across the entire area, shredding everything in its vicinity into dust.

The domain of the white sphere slowly expanded. Michael teleported in front of the Scarlet Witch, grabbed them both, and vanished from the spot.

With a wave of Michael's hand, the surrounding tempest gradually dissipated.

The Scarlet Witch stared in utter shock toward the base, watching as a white sphere continuously expanded, disintegrating everything caught within its radius into nothingness.

Soon, nothing remained of the Hydra base except for a massive crater. The original castle had completely vanished, as if it had been entirely erased from the world.

Michael smiled with quiet confidence and said, "How is that? I call this technique the Dustless Realm."

Having witnessed Michael's terrifying strength, akin to a demon god, the siblings had abandoned any thought of resistance.

Quicksilver struggled to his knees and begged, "You can do whatever you want to me, but please spare my sister's life."

At a life-or-death moment, pride and hatred both ceased to matter.

Wearied by the endless experiments, any lingering thirst for vengeance had long since been worn away, leaving both of them with only the desire for the other to survive.

The Scarlet Witch hugged Quicksilver and wept, saying, "Brother, no, I don't want to be separated from you. If we die, we die together."

"It's going to be fine, Wanda. You must live on well."

Looking at the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver could no longer contain the sorrow in his heart, and tears of grief fell from his eyes.

Michael spoke up, "Alright, stop crying. If I wanted to kill you after pulling you out, I wouldn't have bothered saving you in the first place."

The two of them froze instantly. Indeed, if he wanted them dead, he could have simply left them inside; there was no reason to rescue them.

Quicksilver asked, "Then what do you want from us?"

"Serve me. As for your grievances, they have nothing to do with me."

Quicksilver and Wanda exchanged glances, and then said, "Alright."

Wanda wiped away her tears, helped Quicksilver up, and said, "My brother is badly injured and needs medical attention."

"Initiate medical monitoring."

The armor's medical scans revealed that Quicksilver’s body tissues had suffered varying degrees of tearing injuries, and his internal organs had sustained different levels of shock. Worst of all, the bones in both his arms were broken, the bleeding had never been stopped, and he was now suffering from mild anemia.

Michael produced a nutrient injection and a regenerative serum, administering them to him.

To prevent his arm bones from healing with deformities, Michael deliberately performed a manual orthopedic reset right then and there, causing Quicksilver to shiver in agony.

However, under Michael's ruthless treatment, Quicksilver recovered in no time.