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Westview.
Inside the Chloe house across from 123, Amy Chloe and Iryna Maximoff stood still, holding Billy and Tommy, their mouths hanging open in shock.
Andrew Chloe and Olek Maximoff looked at each other in confusion as they watched the two Anyas argue. Both girls were trying to yell louder than the other.
Pietro leaned on the kitchen counter, resting his chin in his hand, and watched the scene as if he had the best seat at a big fight.
The topic of debate was simple: which sister did their brother like more?
One insisted she was gentle and adorable.
The other argued she was smart and vicious.
One looked like she was on the verge of frantic tears.
The other wore a smug, infuriatingly gleeful grin.
It was obvious who had the upper hand...
The Anya from Universe-616, who had almost trained with HYDRA, smiled like someone who had just won a tough argument.
"Come on. Call me Big Sis."
"Call you a..."
The gentle Anya glared at the smug girl who claimed to be five years older. She was about to start swearing, but then remembered her brother's strict rules.
She swallowed the curse words by force.
Frustrated and out of ideas, she felt tears welling up.
The next second, a sharp smack landed on the back of the smart Anya's head.
"Ow!"
The smart Anya, who had been savoring her victory, yelped and clutched her skull. She whipped around, ready to snap at whoever had hit her.
"Brother!"
"Brother..."
The gentle Anya's eyes lit up the moment Hawk materialized. With a tearful sniffle, she threw herself straight into his arms.
Seeing that, the smart Anya raised an eyebrow and dove into his arms too.
"Back off! I was here first!"
"You back off, crybaby!"
"Foul-mouthed brat!"
"..." With both girls clinging to him, Hawk felt like his ears were ringing from all the noise.
For a moment, he wondered if he had made a big mistake.
But once again, both of them were his little sisters.
Hawk felt better knowing this was a one-time problem. At least there wouldn't be a third sister showing up from somewhere else.
With a single thought, Hawk released a pulse of energy. The two Anyas clinging to him and trying to claw at each other were instantly pushed exactly five steps back in opposite directions.
"New rules."
"..." Both girls froze.
"Rule one: no swearing. Rule two: nobody calls anyone fake. Rule three: no fighting." Hawk remained neutral and applied the same rules to both of them. "Whoever breaks a rule goes straight to the Golden Phoenix Palace in the World Tree Domain."
The World Tree Domain was almost finished. Only the Golden Phoenix Palace still needed work, but that was because the Lady of the House was away, so a few things were left undone.
Logically, Hawk should have moved into the World Tree Domain by now. There was no real reason for him to stay on Earth. But since the Lady of the House was gone, Hawk wouldn't open the palace. Besides, no one else lived in the domain yet.
The King ruled outside.
The Queen ruled the home.
Whether it was the Golden Phoenix Palace or the life that would eventually fill the World Tree Domain, all of it belonged under the authority of the God-Queen.
That was why Hawk had not moved in yet.
Still, the place was perfectly livable.
The gentle Anya immediately clamped her mouth shut.
The smart Anya blinked. "Brother, what's the Golden Phoenix Palace?"
"You don't even know what the palace is? You really are a f..." The gentle Anya stopped talking. She saw the clever look in the smart Anya's eyes and realized she had fallen for a trick.
Seeing the trap fail, the smart Anya dropped the innocent act and looked faintly disappointed.
Their eyes met.
The gentle Anya gasped. "YOU TRIED TO SET ME UP!"
"I did no such thing. Stop making things up. Are you trying to start a fight?"
"...Brother!" The gentle Anya immediately turned to Hawk for justice.
Hawk rubbed his temples. Then, with a thought, he made both of them silent.
The next second, he looked over at Wanda. "She's staying with you from now on. Keep them separated unless it's absolutely necessary."
The smart Anya clearly preferred Wanda anyway.
It worked out perfectly.
Gwen had a little sister-in-law who adored her. Now Wanda had an Anya who adored her too.
Everything seemed balanced.
Wanda was not surprised by the arrangement. "Sure. I'll clear out the room next to Jean's."
She actually liked the smart Anya. After absorbing the memories of her Universe-616 counterpart, Wanda felt a deep connection to this version of the girl.
Wanda nodded, took the magically silenced Anya by the hand, and led her across the street.
The smart Anya looked back at Hawk with tears gathering in her eyes, silently pleading for help.
Hawk knew exactly what she wanted to say. His face remained completely deadpan.
"I'm going back to Palm Street."
With that, he turned on his heel and vanished from the sight of the Chloes, the Maximoffs, and both of his sisters.
Bottom line: one sister stayed with the Chloes, another with the Maximoffs, and Hawk returned to Palm Street.
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Back at 521A, Hawk tried to forget about the Westview drama. He went into the backyard, sat cross-legged under the big phantom tree, and started to meditate.
The next second, his consciousness materialized above the River of Time.
He looked at the massive gateway representing the Eighth Sense of Life, standing exactly ten steps away, then sat down before it.
After joining with the soul piece he got from Universe-616, Hawk felt calmer inside.
Before, when he tried to see his life as Singularity to unlock the Eighth Sense, it had felt vague and far away.
Now, that Singularity felt real.
At the same time, his Golden World Tree Phoenix Cosmo kept growing in all directions. Now, both the main universe and the parallel Phoenix universe he made were expanding together.
As time passed, the expansion of both universes accelerated.
Hawk stayed home and trained quietly.
In Westview, the bickering continued from sunrise to sunset.
Their brother had only banned fighting, not arguing. Since the houses were right across the street, the two Anyas just opened their doors and yelled insults at each other.
Over at the Osborn Estate's quantum lab, things were no less chaotic.
Peter and Dr. Hank Pym, who had flown back to New York, practically lived inside the laboratory. They worked around the clock, trying to crack the multiversal passcode.
With help from Stark Industries' powerful computers and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secret files, Peter and Pym made progress very quickly.
Time passed quickly.
In the blink of an eye, twenty days passed.
Hawk hadn't moved from under the tree since he got home, but suddenly he felt something change. He opened his eyes just as Wanda came into the backyard.
She had thought he was still deep in meditation, but when she saw his eyes open, she spoke at once.
"Peter tried calling you, but it wouldn't go through, so he called me. They finished the Quantum Key."
Hawk finally understood what he had felt.
He stood, crossed the yard in a single step, took Wanda's hand, and vanished.
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Half an hour later, after Hawk's strict insistence, Peter had finally gone back to the main house to shower, shave, and change into clean clothes.
Now refreshed, he excitedly presented the latest prototype of the Quantum Band to Hawk and Wanda.
If Peter used real science to explain it, it would turn into a long, confusing lecture. So he put it in simple terms for the two law students.
The Quantum Bands before them had been custom-built. Each one stored Hawk and Wanda's DNA sequence and used that data to spoof the multiversal firewall, granting them clearance to enter the specific reality where Jean had disappeared.
Again, the details were so complicated that Hawk and Wanda didn't understand any of it.
But the main point was simple.
"Theoretically, this will work," Peter concluded.
Wanda froze. "Wait. Theoretically?"
Peter nodded. "Yeah. The math checks out, but Dr. Pym and I can't test it inside the Quantum Realm."
"Why not?"
"We're out of materials for Pym Particles," Peter explained. "Normally, you finalize the theory before building the prototype. But you two are on a ticking clock, so we ran the math and fabrication at the same time. Even with S.H.I.E.L.D. supplying us, we burned through the materials."
He hesitated, then added, "The next shipment gets here in two weeks. If you're not in a rush, we can wait and..."
Before Peter could finish, Hawk took the Quantum Band from his hand and strapped it to his wrist.
"No need. I trust your work."
Wanda took hers and snapped it on. "Jean has never been away from me this long. I need to find her."
If the theory worked, it worked.
If it didn't work during the jump, that was it. At worst, they would just come back.
Wanda thought it through, glanced at Hawk, and felt her anxiety settle.
With Hawk there, Wanda felt like nothing could go truly wrong.
Moment later, Hawk stepped confidently onto the Quantum Tunneling Platform, pulling Wanda up with him.
A mechanical hum filled the room.
The miniaturized Arc Reactor supplied by Stark Industries surged to life, flooding the tunneling machine with power.
At the control console, Peter focused on the startup sequence with absolute concentration, his eyes tracking every line of data scrolling across the monitors.
Everything was green.
Peter looked up and met Hawk's eyes across the platform.
"Safe travels, man."
Hawk smiled.
"See you on the other side."
The machine roared to life.
BOOOOOOOOOMM!!
"..."
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