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[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

The cavalry, in the shape of Betsy and Emma, show up at Rom's to try and get to the bottom of what's going on with Wanda. The telepaths and Romany find their way a difficult one.



Wanda woke from the first good sleep she'd had in days to a dark, comfortable room. She stirred and the damp cloth that had been placed over her eyes fell off, forcing her to squint into the dim light. Romany had given her a cup of tea with strict instructions to drink all of it and that was one of the very last things she could remember clearly. She wasn't feeling any better but she wasn't worse, either, something to be grateful for.

She hesitated and forced herself into a half sitting position when she realized she wasn't alone in the room.

"Easy there," Betsy warned, placing her hand on Wanda's shoulder and steadying her. "It's only me." Betsy took the seat next to the bed, making sure to keep her hand on Wanda. "How do you feel?"

The familiarity of Betsy was calming and Wanda settled back so she was no longer trying to prop herself up. "Worse than when I arrived," she said, grimly. "Through no fault of anyone here. A combination of things are making it almost impossible to see what's wrong." Her shoulders slumped. "I am very glad you are here."

"No other place I'd rather be, luv." Betsy tightened her grip on Wanda's shoulder and squeezed before releasing her. "I'm here and I'd like to try a very cursory scan, nothing too deep and see if there are any blaring signs of what's causing our problem." Betsy waited a moment, letting the idea sit.

"All right," Wanda said after a moment. "But I worry - not for me but Rom and Farouk had a hell of a time seeing anything. If it grows worse, I don't want anyone else caught up in whatever these attacks, these visions are."

"That's why I'm here." Emma's voice drifted from the dim corner of the room where she was sitting. "Aside from a student I knew once who had one of the more unfortunate mutation manifestation incidents, two heads are generally better than one."

Instantly, a tired smile flashed across Wanda's face. "Emma," she murmured, relaxing against the headboard of the bed. The fact that they were going to support each other in this made things easier for her to bear. They could watch each others backs if someone were to go wrong. "All right, my brain is yours for the picking."

"Your court awaits." Amahl inclined his head gravely at Wanda and gestured toward the table, "And there's even some coffee availible. Or at least a ghastly facsimile thereof. Refreshingly free of sedatives, however, so you might enjoy a change of pace." He finished toweling off the last of the shaving cream off his face and scrubbed his hand over his cheeks in an almost visceral pleasure at the feel.

In the back of the dim room, Romany flashed her a muted but genuine smile and Wanda nodded to let them know she was ready.

They got her as comfortable as they could on the bed and Wanda closed her eyes, following those breathing patterns Romany had her doing the other day. Pain fell to the wayside for a moment as she concentrated solely on the gentle rise and fall of her chest. She felt more than saw a gentle hand rest of her forehead before it withdrew but paid it no mind. She concentrated not only to push the pain away but also to keep her powers in check. If they were to flare, the telepaths would find no purchase.

It was only with the first touch on her mind that the pain came back in bursts, causing her to stiffen in the bed, as if the source of the pain felt it was under attack. It was being defensive.

"That," said Emma, "is not particularly helpful." She reached out with her powers and tweaked lightly at Wanda's pain perceptions, dulling them to the point that the pain shouldn't trigger Wanda's powers in unconscious defence. There would be no hope of getting in if chaos was to erupt and shuffle Wanda's mind off to an illusory safety.

With a deft mental touch Emma took a first look beneath Wanda's rudimentary shields, which had risen slightly at the first hint of pain. "Is this what you remember?" She murmured the question to Betsy, who was more familiar with Wanda's usual mental landscape.

The mental landscape of Wanda's mind was normally the deep forests of the European country side - spring eternal with her families caravan somewhere in the background. Only the occasional rotted tree spoke of the damage that Chthon had left on her psyche. What Emma and Betsy saw before them now was not some tranquil forest scene but a ravaged desert land where thick black vines and roots erupted from the ground.

They drank not on water but on blood that flood through the sands and the sound on the wind was of a high keening cry.

"No," Betsy murmured. She shook her head forcibly, finding resolve as she moved about the devastated landscape of Wanda's mind. "Not at all. It's changed. Christ, it's a wonder she's still conscious."

"I suspected it wasn't normal," said Emma, dryly. "But one should never assume. Considering Wanda's willpower, however, I would suspect unconsciousness is not an option." She let her mind roam out through Wanda's mental landscape, ignoring the filthy taint of Chthon with ease, seeking instead the source of the pain. Chthon's damage was old; whatever was hurting Wanda now was tugging at those scars and using them as barrier to the telepaths and magic-users. Barrier or camouflage?

"Be vewy, vewy quiet," whispered Emma. "I'm hunting rabbits." For a second she withdrew her mind into the smallest space she could make and then sent it out in a what could best be described as a rolling shout of light. "There," she said in triumph as something broke cover, startled out of hiding by the sudden burst of power. She couldn't follow the fleeing, near-invisible shape as it moved, caught up in bringing her power back to hand, but she knew Betsy was quick enough.

Betsy took off, shifting so fast from overturn tree stump to large boulders. Her body a blur as she went on the hunt. A shadow traversed Wanda's psyche, something that did not belong, something that was poisoning her friend. Betsy's movements sped up. Hands reaching out, she snapped forward and her fingers wrapped around a solid mass that on contact started to darken, It appeared tail-like but as Betsy quirked her head to study her prize, a shockwave of energy traveled back up through her body. "Not so fast," Betsy grimaced, teeth clenched. The energy slowly bloomed into pain, expanding with increasing waves accompanied by flashes of images zipping past her mind. Betsy called out to her companion as she held on. "A little help would be nice, Em."

"A little help provided," said Emma and reached past Betsy, her psychic fingers lengthening as they caught at the tail and dug in deeply. Pain beat at her, but Emma batted that aside as she pulled herself along the tail-shape. As her fingers gripped, the shape solidified in front of her. "Betsy," she said. "Let go - get up ahead. I'll hold it if you find out where it's going." She felt the sting of another psychic lash and caught the taint of magic even as she gasped in pain. "Take Romany." She dug her fingernails in deeper, holding whatever was attacking Wanda within the field of psychic vision,ignoring everything but that imperative.

Back where they had entered Wanda's psyche knelt the mental version of Wanda herself. She wasn't completely conscious of what was going on with her friends, though she was no longer in writhing pain thanks to Emma's intervention. Still, she knelt in sand with her fingers digging in to the soft earth beneath her hands. Her left arm had a different look than her right - it sported what appeared to be string that wound from just above her heart and down to her wrist where it then shot off into the distance.

On closer look, it wasn't string but rusted metal barbs that dug into her skin. It had obviously been there for some time.

Betsy concentrated on the link between the five, pulling Romany to the forefront. "Stay with me, yea?" She told the other woman. "This might be a bit like uncomfortable, at first. Just try to stay centered." Betsy noticed the path the tail from Emma's grasp disappeared and reappeared throughout the plane. Following it further down, she saw the tail thinned into a single string. Betsy looked up to see the string connected to Wanda's hand. The path of the string was connected to something in the horizon, disappearing into the sweltering sun. The telepath knelt down beside Wanda and let her hand enclosed her friend's fingers, trapping the string between them. The blur of images were faster than before and were more of a conglomeration of emotions, one feeling never stronger than the next.

Things blurred and then sharpened for Wanda - Betsy's hand in hers was an anchor even as Emma continued to hunt down the thing leeching her power. "It's getting worse," she gasped, still under a great amount of strain despite the pain being withheld. A yank on the chain from the direction of where she could see blond chasing shadows had her sliding a few feet forward.

"You see," said Emma in a conversational tone to the tail that she still held between her hands, "you don't get to do things like that and not expect to get hurt. Not when you're doing them to my people."

With a quick psychic shift she readjusted her fingers and dug them into the semi-visible thing that led away from where its hooks laced Wanda's flesh, ripping the links apart. Pain battered at her again, but she adjusted her mind quickly, twisting the pain back in on itself, a Mobius strip of self-reflected emotional trauma. "You're playing in my world, little thing, with my people, and I am not going to lose another one." The smile on Emma's face was terrible as she twisted its own tactics against the thing in Wanda's mind, driving it from hiding. The shape skittered before her and Emma flung herself after it, chasing it through Wanda's tortured mental scape. "Run, rabbit, run," she whispered as she followed it, her own psychic shape blurring. "Because I'm the big, bad wolf and I'm going to eat you right up."

White wolf chased black rabbit through the bleak landscape, but the chase did not end as Emma expected. "Oh my," said the white wolf as the rabbit dashed towards its lair. Emma's shape blurred back even as she called back to Betsy, "Betsy, I think you need to see this. In fact, everyone should probably see this."

"Of course," Betsy tightened her grip on Wanda's hand solidifying their connection as she reached out psychically to Farouk and Romany. "This may be disconcerting for a moment," she sent to them. "It'll be over before you notice but afterwards, if anyone has any abnormal behavioral issues, such as the need to wear leather or white after Labor Day, please blame Emma."

For a moment, the difference between Wanda and where Emma had hounded the creature seemed insurmountable even with Betsy's strength buoying her up. The pain was muted but it was still there and for a moment Wanda laid her forehead on the ground, between hands that clenched with the effort. But for all that she was tired of the pain and the constant tugging against her psyche, she was even more tired of things being just outside her sphere of control.

Dark veins pulsed between her fingers and she forced herself up, away from the lingering Chthon damage.

The world twisted for a moment in kaleidoscope colors as she worked with Betsy to reach for Emma with one hand, with Betsy's hand laying heavy and warms in hers. A moment later and they were next to the White Queen and Wanda groaned from the effort, though it pleased her to show that much defiance at least.

From the shadows, the thing twisted and then it laughed softly, a dark rolling chuckle that sent ripples through Wanda's mental landscape.

"Here I be and here I'm bound," it crooned, standing up so that a little light fell on it. "But here is where you're needed, daughter of chaos, or you'll wither and do more than bend. Break. You'll break and the world will break with you."

Wanda's eyes watered as she stared before everything blurred together - shadows upon shadows and even as a sudden push shoved her back into the real world, the figure of a spider was burned into her memory.

Her eyes opened as she groaned, looking around the room before deciding that, for once, it was better to be asleep than awake. After all, she was to be sent to Africa soon...