The golden portal swallowed them whole.
Mira's scream echoed in the void as the rooftop, the city, the blood-soaked night—all vanished. She felt her body unravel, her cats clawing desperately at the edges of reality. Then, with a violent snap, they slammed into sterile, white corridors.
The TVA.
Deadpool groaned as he hit the ground face-first. "Ugh. Teleportation sickness. And not the fun kind. I think my spleen is in another timeline."
Wanda staggered upright, her eyes burning red as chaos magic tried to unfurl—only to fizzle instantly. Around her wrists glowed dampeners, golden shackles humming with anti-magic tech. Mira's own hands were bound the same way, her nightmare power strangled into silence. The cats hissed weakly, each collared with a glowing ring that dimmed their eyes.
Around them, TVA soldiers marched in precision, faceless and unyielding.
A man in a brown jacket approached, sipping coffee like it was just another Monday morning. His badge read: Agent D. Slater.
"Well," he said casually, "that was messy. You three certainly made a splash on the Sacred Timeline." He gestured lazily to the soldiers. "Bring them to a Time Theater. Interrogation."
---
The Time Theater
The room was a cavern of glass and steel. A giant screen stretched across the wall, replaying fragments of Mira's life: her childhood in Ketterdam, the cursed cats, the Hunters she slaughtered in the subway, the rooftop fight against Strange. Each scene flickered like a wound in time.
Mira strained against her shackles, her teeth bared. Wanda stood tall beside her, eyes cold. Deadpool was slumped in a chair, whistling the theme to Gilligan's Island.
Agent Slater set his coffee down and adjusted his jacket. "Here's the thing, Miss Mira. You weren't supposed to exist. Oh sure, your little timeline might have tolerated you for a while. But then you touched Mephisto's power. Boom. Nexus Event. Branch reality goes critical. And here we are."
He sipped his coffee. "So here's the deal. We prune you, reset your branch, keep the multiverse tidy. Quick, painless. Everyone wins."
"Everyone but us," Wanda said sharply.
Slater shrugged. "Details."
Mira's voice was low, venomous. "You can't cage me."
Slater leaned closer, smirking. "We already did."
---
Breaking Point
For a time, the TVA believed they had control. Mira's cats lay docile under their collars. Wanda's chaos sparks fizzled in her palms. Deadpool cracked jokes, but even he seemed subdued.
But Mira wasn't still because she was beaten.
She was listening.
The whispers of fear were everywhere—even here, in this sterile machine of bureaucracy. The soldiers feared failing their orders. The analysts feared pruning themselves by mistake. Even Agent Slater, smug and calm, carried the dread of being erased if he stepped too far out of line.
Fear was Mira's domain.
Her eyes glowed faintly, slipping through the cracks in her collar's suppression field. The cats stirred, their nightmare forms flickering like shadows at the edge of the soldiers' vision.
"Do you feel it?" Mira whispered.
Slater frowned. "Feel what?"
"Your heart. Beating faster. The air. Getting heavier. The shadows. Moving closer."
The soldiers stiffened. The lights flickered. One guard swore he saw his dead son's face in the glass wall. Another dropped his baton, hands shaking.
And then the collars shattered.
The cats erupted into nightmare beasts, claws slashing, jaws snapping. One lunged at a soldier, tearing through his armor, spraying blood across the pristine floor. Another spread wings of smoke, filling the room with shrieks.
Mira broke her shackles in a surge of power, shadows crawling across her skin. Wanda's magic flared to life instantly, scarlet chaos tearing into guards and ripping their weapons apart.
Deadpool leapt up, katanas in hand. "FINALLY. I thought we were gonna sit through another TVA training video!" He decapitated one soldier, kicking the head into another's chest. "Strike three, you're out!"
Alarms blared. Red lights strobed. "Containment breach!" echoed through the halls.
Slater scrambled backward, yelling into a communicator. "Seal the wing! Lock down—"
Mira's hand shot out, grabbing him by the throat. His coffee cup shattered on the floor as her claws dug into his skin.
"You thought you could erase me," Mira hissed. "You don't erase nightmares."
She hurled him into the glass screen, shattering it in a rain of sparks.
---
The Escape
The TVA hallways became a slaughterhouse.
Soldiers tried to reform, but Wanda's chaos storms bent their weapons into twisted knots. Mira's Fear spilled through the corridors, making agents see collapsing timelines, their own bodies unraveling into dust. Some fled screaming. Others collapsed, clawing at their eyes.
Deadpool laughed through it all, dual-wielding pistols now. "Hey, Mira! I just shot a guy, and he turned into spaghetti! Is that supposed to happen, or did I just glitch the Matrix?"
The cats rampaged freely. One leapt onto the ceiling, dragging soldiers upward into the dark. Another ripped through time panels, sparks showering as the TVA's perfect machinery cracked.
At the end of the hall, they saw it: a glowing golden portal generator.
Mira, blood dripping from her claws, pointed. "That's our way out."
They charged.
More soldiers swarmed to block the path, but they never stood a chance. Deadpool cut them apart with gleeful abandon. Wanda's magic tore them into fragments. Mira's nightmare aura drove the rest to their knees before her cats finished them.
Wanda seized the controls, scarlet tendrils forcing the machine open. A golden door flared wide, unstable, sparks leaping wildly.
Deadpool gave a theatrical bow. "Ladies first."
Mira glanced back at the chaos they had unleashed—blood, corpses, broken tech, alarms screaming across the TVA. A smile curved her lips.
"Let them remember this."
The team stepped into the portal.
The TVA collapsed behind them in fire and screaming.