The heat of the Earth's core was scorching, Pietro's entire body feeling as dry as a bone that has been left in the desert sun. Every breath felt painful and yet his arms remained around Kang's neck like a vice.
His mind was vaguely aware of his forearms crushing the man's throat, but he was more occupied trying not to pass out, desperate to ensure that his foe didn't suddenly regain consciousness.
Kang himself was still, his eyes long rolled into the back of his head as his head hung slack in the speedster's grip. For a moment, Pietro swore he could feel Kang's fingers clawing at his side, but fortunately, that was just a trick of his mind as he heard a faint pop and felt the man's neck snap out of place.
The moment it did, though, he felt Kang's body heating up to temperatures beyond that of the molten heat around them, struggling to maintain his grip as he heard a faint whisper over the roaring sound of the magma.
"Extraction initiated," a voice hissed not from Kang's visor, but from the suit itself. The orange hue of the magma around them turned a deep blue as space distorted, the sensation of crushing pressure pulling at his stomach.
It nauseated him as vertigo took hold, Pietro's vision filled with faint ribbons of neon-violet and electric-blue while his every cell felt as if they were being threaded through the eye of a needle smaller than an atom.
With a distorted pop that took the wind from his lungs, Pietro felt himself being pulled away, reality distorting and smearing with a kaleidoscope of colours that just made him even more nauseous.
When the colours finally began to mesh back together, Pietro felt his body being bounced across the shifting, iridescent sands of an ever-changing landscape.
He skipped like a stone across the surface that felt both solid, liquid and gaseous at the same time, his momentum bleeding with every bounce until he rolled to a stop next to a jagged spire of iridescent crystal.
Laying there gasping for air that had a faint static taste, Pietro released his grip on Kang's body, pushing it off and next to his body with a grunt.
His ears rung with the roar of what had just happened, slowly sitting up while fighting the exhaustion that pulled at his very soul.
Unlike the ear-rupturing sounds of the magma and the teleportation, Pietro himself was sitting in nothing but a heavy silence, one that was only broken every now again by the strange, melodic hum of the environment.
"Fuck," was all he could get out, rubbing slowly at his dry throat while picking up the glowing dust or sand below him. His gaze moved to the sky above, staring at a nebula of spiralling clouds and rumbling flashes of light.
'Lightning? No, I don't feel any rapid static changes,' he thought as he rose to his feet, nearly falling over had he not stomped on the ground and caught himself.
Doing so however sent out a wave of vibration out for miles that he did not meant and that was when he noticed that he was still covered in sparking gold-blue chaos energy and chi.
Taking a deep breath and pulling his chi back, he did the same with his chaos energy afterwards, but he immediately let both surge from his body yet again as he felt a stabbing pain through his every cell.
"Okay. So, not doing that," he murmured, rubbing the back of his neck with a grimace. Still, he felt more comfortable with chaos energy dancing through his veins as he stood in the silent world.
His eyes moved to Kang's still body, frowning when he saw the gauntlet that held the interface sparking as it tried and failed to activate.
"Well, I can't leave you here in...wherever the hell your thing took us," Grunting as he reached under and picked up Kang's body, Pietro went to run, but was surprised when he barely crossed a mile in a second.
Not only could he feel his body straining to keep the pace, but he could also feel the excited jitters of the air around him as the world itself siphoned nearly nullified every bit of speed he was forcing out.
'Wait, why do I recognize this place?' Sliding to a stop, Pietro paused as he looked around, analysing the unknown flora and environment as well as the weird fauna drifting through the sky.
Each one kind of look like different kinds of amoeba and when he reached for a plant, he was surprised to feel it rumbling and sending a signal back to his mind.
'Not food,' Pulling his hand back, Pietro let out a soft sigh as he left the sentient palm-tree alien thing alone and looked back at Kang's gauntlet.
It continued to beep and spark before it seized all activity, but his eyes widened as the ground rumbled and slowly rose up like it was about to pop.
With little hesitation, the speedster took off and the ground behind him exploded, Pietro gaping at the gigantic hybrid between a Dune worm and a jellyfish that let out a loud shriek.
"Okay! Go!" Spinning around, he raced across the now barren landscape, watching as the jelly palm trees all grew jet engines and shot up into the air?
"What the hell is up with this world?!" Pietro exclaimed as more worms erupted around him, deciding to instead focus on getting out of here instead of worrying about the absurd realm he was in.
With a lunge and a hop, he leapt onto the nearest tree and held onto its branches, staring in awe as it took off while the Dune-jellyfish worms laid rampage in search of something.
'No, not something. Me,' he thought in realization as he watched the worms sink back into the ground, shaking his head as he pulled himself up onto the tree that now flew like a lazy missile next to the others.
'Okay, jellyfish Dune worms, sentient trees that can fly, a world that sucks up my speed, and the fact that I think this is either the Quantum Realm or Heave all tell me one thing. My luck is absolute sh-Oh shit!'
Pietro's eyes widened as he fell backwards and off the tree, doing so right as a stingray with a leech-like maw tore the tree he was on in half.
However, it wasn't going for the tree as its six eyes focused on him, Pietro looking past it to stare at the dozen more swerving down towards him.
Flipping around and diving towards the ground, Pietro did the one thing he was good at.
He closed his eyes and let the vibrations of the world sing to him.
Instead of the familiar buzzing of numerous different vibrations constantly ringing in his ears, he felt enchanted by the cacophony of beautiful melodies being sung by everything living and non-living of what he was now sure is the Quantum Realm.
After all, heaven wouldn't have giant stingray amoeba that looked like Satan's spawn.
What made him snap out of it was the harsh rattling of his own chaos energy, which made him take a deep breath before he began to vibrate his body.
Doing so to the tune of the world, he grinned as the stingray amoeba and its friends divebombed past him, but Pietro was surprised when his body stilled midair.
'...Oh, so I can fly now?' Well, he always could 'fly', but that was more of him running and kicking off of frozen air. This was actual flight without the need for any speed.
'We'll think more on that later,' he thought as he stood in midair, staring down at the stingrays flying about before he nodded.
Seizing his vibrations, the world pulled him back as the stingrays immediately locked onto him, each letting out a loud shriek.
"Well, Kang, looks like I'm continuing your research whether I like it or not," Pietro murmured as he adjusted the body on his shoulder, diving towards the stingrays before he moved.
Reality vibrated along with him as Pietro vibrated only his feet and legs, skating around and over the snarling beaks of the stingrays.
One got too close to his legs as Pietro hopped into the air, surprised to see that the new vibrations made from its shriek destabilized the world's around him and made him fall to the ground.
"I see. So, new vibrations made by unnatural sounds causes changes in the surrounding vibrations which causes changes in my own attempts to ride on the vibrations. Fascinating," Pietro murmured as he readjusted his own vibrations, which helped him latch onto the vibrations of the 'world' once more.
All in all, only one thought flashed through his mind as he skated through the air away from the stingrays chasing him.
'The Quantum Realm is OP. So, how can I manipulate it to help me?' Leaping out of the way of a stingray's leech beak, Pietro pulled his fist back as it passed under him and swung at its back. At the same time, he vibrated his fist at the fastest speed he could.
The result: space itself distorting as his fist pierced into its body and made its entire body explode like a gelatonous curtain.
'...Forget the Quantum Realm. I'm more OP than I was before,' Pietro thought with wide eyes as he stared at the jello falling to the ground right before he noticed a figure on the ground.
Vibrating his entire body to make the others stop chasing him, Pietro rocketed downwards at the figure running from a Dune world, slamming fist first into what he believed to be the head of said worm.
Instead of exploding like the stingray, though, the blow made its head bounce off of the ground and smack back into Pietro, who grunted as he curled in on himself to block the attack.
It cracked against his body like a whip and sent him skipping across the surface of the ever-changing ground. The speedster was quick to reorient himself before he took off once more, racing past the gaping maw of the worm and picking up whom he now saw was actually another human.
"Hey, sorry, but I'm going to go fast and I have no idea how this is gonna work so curl into a ball and hold the back of your neck with both hands," To their credit, the figure immediately did as he asked instead of asking questions to delay them.
With a step, Pietro accelerated both the vibrations and his own speed, and the Quantum Realm around them lurched as the speedster bolted.
Extending his vibrating aura to both his alive and his dead passengers, Pietro felt his mind strained to its limit as he raced through a forest, now weaving and moving in between the sentient flora as they rose into the air.
Sliding to a stop as they cleared the forest and approached a chasm, Pietro gasped for air and fell to his knees, struggling to catch his breath.
His chaos energy and chi coursed through his veins like an adrenaline rush as he gripped at his chest, but the figure next to him removed themselves from his grasp and placed some kind of mask over his nose and mouth.
"Stupid idiot! You brought us near a nebula gas storm," the figure grunted as they helped Pietro to his feet, to which the speedster just gave a shaky smile while still holding Kang's body over one shoulder.
"Sorry, I...I just had a big fight with this dead guy and woke up here so I have absolutely no clue on the world we're in."
"Then you have the shittiest luck imaginable," the figure murmured as they tapped away at an interface on their left wrist and Pietro blinked as a 3D map of the area appeared hovering in front of them.
"Take us to that spot," the figure spoke as they held the back of their neck again and Pietro nodded, picking them up by the waist before shooting forward.
Vibrating their bodies to match that of the air as he leapt into the chasm, Pietro dove down towards a cave entrance before coming to a stop, the mask helping him stay upright this time.
"Is this like an oxygen mask?"
"More like a stabilization mask that makes sure you don't detangle and become one with the Quantum Realm," the person explained, Pietro scanning their form now that they were most likely safe.
Their figure was that of a woman, clothed in a white tattered cloak with a hood that hid their head. Speaking of their head, it was also covered in some kind of helmet and the speedster caught glimpses of a worn red-and-black bodysuit under it that was somewhat form-fitting.
"So, why do you have that?" Pietro moved his admiring gaze before the woman could turn around, noticing her eyes focused on Speedster Kang's corpse.
"Oh, I killed him about a couple of minutes ago because he wanted to destroy my planet, but then his suit activated and here we are."
"What, um, what happened that caused you to teleport here? Like, how did it feel?" she asked and Pietro blinked before giving a shrug.
"Nothing much. Just kind of a tugging sensation like I was being pulled through a straw along with every cell of mine feeling like it was burning alive and then the best acid trip I've been on for years."
"Space imploded and pulled you two here, then," she murmured and Pietro gave a shrug. "Where did the implosion? As long as it's nowhere too bad, then everything is fine."
"Uh, the core of the planet?" he said/ asked, which made the woman slowly turn her head towards him.
"The...the core of the planet? The implosion happened at the core of the planet?"
"Yes, but it only pulled us two here so everything is fine, I'm sure."
"It's a spatial implosion. Space itself imploded upon itself at the core of the planet. What...what does that tell you?" she asked and Pietro paused before shaking his head.
"No, 'cause I've had something like that happen before and everything was good. I mean, 50 other universes were erased from existence, but everything was fine."
"No, it's not. I'm sorry."
"So...so the Earth's just...gone?" he asked softly, dropping Kang's body as she let out a sigh before taking off her helmet. Greyish-blonde hair spilled out from the helmet and the face of a rather young woman, probably in her late 30s or early 40's, gave him a sympathetic stare as she nodded.
"That kind of power at the core of the Earth itself...I don't think anything survived."
"So...So, I fought for nothing. Well, that's just...great," he muttered, gripping the sides of his head while sliding against a cave wall.
"Hey, hey. Look at me," the woman spoke as she knelt in front of him, Pietro looking up to see her concerned gaze meeting his as she took his hands. "I can understand losing everything and everyone you love, but you can't mourn now. Whatever you did to run that fast lets off monstrous amounts of quantum energy and that means that every person or thing that can sense it is coming to find you."
"I...can vibrate my body to seal it off," he murmured, doing so and smirking at the surprise on her face when her hands passed through his.
"...Okay, we'll talk more on this when we're safe, but that's good. Now, we should probably leave here."
"Right. Oh, and my name's Pietro by the way. Pietro Maximoff," he introduced himself, picking up Kang's body as she nodded in greeting.
"Janet van Dyne. Pleased to meet yo-" Pietro reached forward and caught Janet's body as her eyes rolled back, feeling concerned before she gasped and her eyes snapped back into focus.
"Okay, what was that?"
"...I just got something that showed me that the Earth is still intact."
"Wait, really?" Pietro felt excited as she nodded, his grin widening as the woman put her helmet back on and looked to him.
"Yes! We need to move to this spot right about here," Holding up another 3D map, Pietro memorized the path before he gave a nod.
"I can do that."
"Good. Then, let's go."
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'It should be right about...here!' Coming to a stop in the middle of a beautiful rocky plains that was covered in iridescent flora and moss, Pietro put Janet down and followed after her.
"So, what's going to happen here?"
"Help is going to come and we're going to get out of here."
'Wait, out of he-Oh, right,' Pietro thought in realization, remembering how she took over Scott's conscious mind in the second Ant-Man movie to help them find them.
'And with the time distortion Scott spoke about in Endgame, the few seconds for us was most likely a few minutes for them, which would explain how she explained it to them.'
"It would have taken me almost an hour and a half to get here without you."
"Hey, you made sure I didn't start panicking like a wuss so no need to worry," Pietro replied with a smirk, to which the woman let out a soft giggle right before they both looked up.
The Quantum Realm's sky twisted and turned before it spat out some kind of vehicle, one that Pietro remembered to be the same Quantum car that allowed Hank to travel to the Quantum Realm.
As he thought, it touched down just a few yards away and Pietro followed after Janet as she rushed over in excitement. The doors opened and a man in his fifties stepped out, but he barely got a moment to speak before she hugged him.
"Hey," Pietro greeted with a smile, one that the man slowly returned before Janet took off his helmet. Deciding to give the couple space to talk, Pietro instead made his way over the vehicle and looked it over.
"Pietro?" The speedster turned his head as he heard Janet's voice, the woman staring at him with a smile while noticing how Hank's eyes scanned him.
"Yeah? What's up?"
"Come meet my husband," she spoke and Pietro walked over, still holding Kang's body while staring at the stoic visage of Michael Douglas.
"Hank Pym."
"Pietro Maximoff," the speedster introduced himself, shaking the man's hand while catching a flash of something flicker across his face.
"I see. Well, am I thank you for keeping my wife safe?"
"Nope. If anything, I have her to thank for not helping me spiral into depression."
"We met only a few minutes ago, Hank, but if it were not Pietro, you would have been waiting for a while for me to get here."
"I see. Well, then I guess I can thank you for that."
"And it would be my pleasure. Now, how's about we leave this confusing place behind and head back to Earth which we all understand."
"The sentiment is mutual, kid. I've spent enough time staring at subatomic landscapes to last me a lifetime," Hank spoke and Janet smirked before the former gestured to the back of the quantum vehicle. "Deposit your...cargo in the rear containment unit."
"Thanks," Pietro smiled as he did as the man said, climbing into the vehicle along with the other two.
"My pleasure. Now, we just need to le-"
"Ascension is currently unavailable," the system of the vehicle spoke, making Hank pause as Janet frowned.
"Hank, what does that mean?"
"It means that the lab is currently shrunk down so we need to wait until it is enlarged back to its normal size," he explained and Pietro and Janet let out sighs in unison.
"Great. Then, we'll wait."
"While we wait, Pietro, mind explaining whose body you're carrying around."
"A guy I fought before I dropped into the Quantum Realm. I'm hoping that the damage of our fight isn't too severe."
"Eh, there has been no news about big fights lately so I don't think it was. Unless, of course, you fought in the Civil War with Captain America and Iron Man?"
"Civil what?"
'When did that happen?' Pietro thought with a frown, feeling a heavy sensation in his stomach as Hank hummed.
"Yeah, it was all over the news. Hey, now that I think about it, your last name kind of sounds similar to the, uh, what do they call her? Wynda Maximoff?"
"Wanda Maximoff?"
"Yeah, that's the one!" Hank spoke with a snap of his fingers, though Janet narrowed her eyes at the frown on Pietro's face.
"Do you know her?"
"Yeah, my younger twin sister," he replied, making her hum before the interface lit up with a loud hum.
"And there we go! Let's get the hell out of here!" Pushing up several levers and twisting a knob, Hank took the steering wheel and Pietro prepared himself as the vehicle shot upwards.
Unlike before, the process of tearing through the barrier around the Quantum Realm was a lot easier on the stomach than before, which was why Pietro was able to admire the sights of its various levels.
However, it was as they pierced into the atomic realm that Janet let out a soft gasp, both Hank and Pietro's eyes widening as the Quantum Tunnel formed around them and they watched her body distorting.
Grabbing onto her, Pietro vibrated his body and hers to the wavelength of the Quantum Tunnel and she snapped back with a relieved groan as whatever was trying to kill seized.
"T-Thank you."
"My pleasure. Hank, how long until we're full size?"
"In two, one...nowwwwwwww!" Hank's voice slowed as they grew to full-size, Pietro's eyes lighting up as the siphoning of the Quantum Realm faded away.
Shooting forward while vibrating his entire body, he passed through the window of the Quantum Vehicle and out into the laboratory.
His eyes scanned the surroundings as memories flashed forward, immediately focusing on the ever-vibrating form of Ghost frozen in time with a kick that's about to hit Ant-Man himself.
Grabbing onto her shoulders while also pushing Scott safely out of the way, Pietro ran off to the side as time resumed, the woman in his grip letting out a surprised gasp as his arms wrapped around her.
"Don't think of breaking loose. The only reason you're not destabilizing is because I'm vibrating myself to keep you stable," Pietro's distorted voice spoke and he could feel her stiffen in his arms.
"You...you can keep me stable?"
"Somewhat, ye-!" Pietro grunted as she slammed an elbow into his side, but smirked when she tried and failed to vibrate through his body. "Firstly, yeah, I can keep you stable. Secondly, I've fought a man that can run several times faster than the speed of light and time travel. You're nothing compared to him."
"Let me go! I need to...I need to get her."
"Let me guess. There was an experiment involving the Quantum Realm. You were an unfortunate victim of most likely the backlash and it resulted in your atoms constantly splicing and regenerating over and over again?"
"...Are you with S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
"Nah, I'm just really good," Pietro spoke with a regular tone now, keeping one hand on Ghost's shoulder to keep her stable as the woman turned to stare at him with a mask-covered face. "By the way, you can lose the mask. You don't need the suit as long as I'm holding onto you."
She looked hesitant before she reached up, her locks of curly brown hair falling free around a rather beautiful face. Cautious green eyes met his own as he smiled, her gaze moving towards his arm that was vibrating and keeping her stable.
"What is this?"
"Oh, nothing much. Just me vibrating my arm to your body's and then vibrating your body's wavelength to match that of the world around us. It's...a lot more complicated than that, but that's the simple way to put it."
"Huh, okay!" She swung a high kick at him, but her eyes narrowed when Pietro let go and just raised a vibrating arm to block her kick.
She then hooked her leg around it and pulled him closer, but he stood steady, keeping his arm in place with a raised eyebrow.
"You being for real right now?"
"Oh, so for real!" Using her hooked leg as leverage, Ghost leapt up and swung an overhead kick at his head, but Pietro just sighed as time slowed.
Stepping out of the way, he let time resume while wrapping his arms around her waist, smiling at Ghost's surprised face. That was when he lurched back, slamming her into the ground with a German Suplex.
She gasped as her head bounced off the ground, but a soothing warmth made the pain fade even as the dizziness remained.
"I did give you time to listen," Pietro spoke with a smirk as he picked her up, holding her hands in one while also vibrating it to ensure she didn't slip away.
It was then that he noticed their audience, looking at Scott, Hope, Janet and Hank staring at him with a surprised stare.
"Hey, got your target."
"...You're supposed to be dead," was Scott's first words and Pietro raised an eyebrow as Hope continued to stare at him like he was a corpse.
"Well, I'm fairly sure I'm alive."
"You died in Sokovia...unless you're like a time traveller or something?" he asked, but Pietro paused as he focused on Scott's first sentence.
"Okay. Um, this is going to determine that. What year is it?"
"Oh, 2018," Hope replied, and Pietro just gave a slow nod and took a deep breath.
"What in the fuck?"
A/N: And we end it here!! Pietro has won, but at what cost? Who knows?
Next chapter: What is Going On?!
As always, read, enjoy, review and until the next one...
Ba-Bye~!!