"Alright! I'll be back soon. Don't wander too far!"
Pietro gave a quick nod. His power was super speed, but carrying someone would slow him down. If he wanted to rescue Lorna safely, he had to move at full speed.
Without waiting for Wanda to respond, he vanished in the blink of an eye, turning into a streak of light as he rushed into Gotham.
His body zipped through the city streets with incredible speed.
Unlike the Flash from DC, Quicksilver couldn't ignore terrain when running at high speed. He couldn't dash across rooftops or leap between buildings, because that usually ended with him launching into the air and injuring himself when he fell.
So instead, he stuck to the roads, racing across Gotham's highways.
Luckily, with speed beyond the sound barrier, even without leaping from wall to wall, reaching Wayne Manor from the outskirts of Gotham wasn't too hard. In no time, he crossed the Kane Bridge and spotted Colossus in the distance, wrapped in countless vines.
"Peter!"
Among all the current academy students, Colossus was the only one who had interacted with Pietro and Wanda. Most of the younger kids had joined after the siblings had already left the place.
Seeing him in danger stirred something inside Pietro.
Moving at high speed, his fingers were like blades. In just a few swift motions, he sliced through the plant matter coiling around Colossus, shredding it with ease.
As the vines fell away, the mutant was finally freed. But by then, his body had already been crushed and twisted by the intense pressure.
His frame was severely deformed.
"Peter, you..."
Quicksilver was startled by how bad he looked. He instinctively avoided the nearby leaves, still wary.
He remembered Peter from when he was just a kid, but even back then, his steel body had been incredibly tough. Pietro knew very well that if these vines could crush someone like him, they wouldn't be harmless to him either.
"You came... Pietro."
Colossus tried to stand, but his legs, flattened and warped like sheets of metal, had no strength left. The effort only caused him to fall back with a thud.
"I've got you. Let me help you up." Pietro rushed forward to help, but the mutant shoved him away.
"No... just go... save Lorna..."
"But..."
Pietro hesitated, of course he wanted to save his sister, but he also cared about Colossus. Now that he was right at the manor gates, he knew he had a chance to save her in time.
"Trust my speed. I can get you to a safe place first." As he spoke, Pietro moved closer. With his speed, getting the mutant far from Wayne Manor would only take a few seconds.
"I don't need treatment anymore."
But what he got in return was Colossus's sorrowful reply. "I'm only still alive because I'm maintaining my steel form. Once I run out of energy and return to flesh, these warped parts you see... they'll turn into wounds deep enough to tear me apart. There's no saving me now. But Lorna... she still has a chance. Bruce Wayne didn't kill her right away. That means they're planning something."
Colossus couldn't break out of the forest Poison Ivy controlled, but he could still faintly hear what was happening inside the manor.
He knew Lorna was still alive.
"Pietro... take Lorna and leave. Don't try to avenge us. Just live as normal people. This world..."
Colossus shut his eyes in pain. For someone like him, who had remained at the academy through everything, it was clear he once believed in Charles's ideals and the dream of mutant dominance.
"This world ultimately belongs to humans. Maybe... we should never have called ourselves mutants in the first place."
He had given up. Given up on the dream he had held onto for so long. Now, all he wanted was for the last of his people to survive and live peacefully among humans.
"I understand."
Pietro didn't want to give up on his friend, but that didn't mean he was stupid. He could clearly see how badly Peter's body had been twisted. And he knew, just as the man said, there was no saving him.
"I promise you, we'll keep living. We'll live well."
With that, Pietro didn't hesitate anymore. He dashed toward the manor. His hand, boosted by speed, sliced through the front gate like it was made of paper. Through the opening, he saw Poison Ivy standing over Lorna, lowering a wreath of flowers onto her head.
Back in the forest, Colossus lay on the ground. After hearing Pietro's promise, he finally reached his limit.
His steel body began to fade, returning to flesh. The moment his ability deactivated, all the damage he had taken in steel form struck him at once. In an instant, every bone in his body shattered. Life left him immediately, and he collapsed to the ground like a pile of broken clay.
...
Meanwhile, inside Wayne Manor.
Pietro's sudden arrival caught everyone completely off guard.
At the same time, Reid's voice echoed through the minds of the others.
'Something unexpected has happened. The intruder is Quicksilver, Pietro Maximoff. You all know his profile. His sister, Wanda, is currently keeping watch outside Gotham. I had tried to locate the two of them before, but now it seems they had been using some special method to block mental detection long before I obtained my telepathy.'
Wanda's powers stemmed from chaos magic—strong enough to bend reality itself. Blocking a mere psychic scan was nothing for her.
By now, Pietro had already launched into battle with the people inside the manor.
Joker and Harley Quinn understood their own limitations well. Against someone like Quicksilver, without preparation, they stood no chance in a direct fight. They immediately fell back.
Deathstroke made a similar decision. But even though he stepped back, his arsenal of weapons stayed ready as he looked for an opening.
Speedsters weren't invincible. Given the right moment, a single bullet could take one down.
The only ones who actually engaged Pietro in combat were Killer Croc and Solomon Grundy.
Even Poison Ivy couldn't help much in this fight. Without any plants to control inside the manor, she could only stay near the edge, watching.
It was a fight destined to go nowhere.
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