FWTM: Incursion
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xp_logsWanda and Amanda square off with the leaders of the Imperial Guard.
Wanda had no idea what the men surrounding her were saying but she was willing to be it involved a lot of cursing and surprised exclamations.
After all, one could not have asked for a better distraction than the sight of the all mighty, all powerful Dacoit sent flying into, and then out the other side, of a nearby building. The soldiers had already started to give ground under Wanda’s assault in an attempt to simply get away and kill her from a distance but this gave her the opening she’d been waiting for. Everyone around her hesitated for one vital moment but her.
She’d always been an opportunistic bitch…
Leaving her knife buried in one man’s throat, Wanda used another for a human shield as she broke out of the rough circle of now slightly unnerved soldiers. It was a matter of getting away long enough to start to help even the playing field out even more for her teammates.
Amanda glanced in Wanda's direction, making sure her mentor didn't need any help. New Delhi was a roar in her veins, making it hard to hold onto who she was, but she knew Wanda was important. Satisfied the older woman was taking care of herself, the blonde stepped forward to the gaping hole Dacoit had left behind, the ground rippling beneath her feet like water.
There was a whistling sound, and a streak dropped from the sky. The fist hit Amanda in the face, with the kinetic power to shatter a skyscraper, and the young witch was flung down the street, smashing through several cars and causing massive impact craters in the asphalt as she bounced off it.
"~Kill this one. Oracle, are you in position?~"
"~A lot of trouble for just two women, Dacoit.~"
"~The blonde bitch hurt me. I'm going to use her spine for a riding crop. Get rid of the other one." With that, Dacoit was gone, just a blur where he had been standing as he went after Amanda. Oracle quickly linked with the soldiers, keeping an eye on their positions.
"~Squad One, flank her.~" She ordered telepathically, as she moved in the opposite direction with the support team. One clear shot, and she'd scramble the fat Westerner's brain.
“Oh shit,” Wanda said, watching warily as the new group headed her way. Dacoit was obviously heading towards wherever Amanda had landed and if she wanted to be able to provide support she was going to have to deal with this new threat first. The woman was familiar looking – Oracle, Wanda thought, as she bolted to the side in an attempt to avoid being completely flanked.
A telepath with the full range of powers that went with it.
She couldn’t help but grin as her own powers flared fully on as she flung a hex bolt into the chest of the nearest soldier; it ate through his body armor like acid and gave her an opening to reach an abandoned car. She dove behind it just as the others opened fire.
"~She went behind cover.~" The squad captain said, fanning out his men. Oracle looked at the car and smiled.
"~Captain, your men do have grenades for a reason, don't they?~"
***
Amanda had instinctively curled into a ball as she'd hurtled down the street, covering her face with her arms. She finally came to rest against the wall of an apartment building. Slowly she unfurled, pressing one palm flat on the ground and the other against the building, drawing on the city's energy as she climbed to her feet, blood dribbling from a cut to her lip.
Her fingers twitched and a shield sprang up around her. No sense getting hit in the face again.
Amanda was yanked out off her feet as the blurring streak went past. The immense strength punched right through her shield, wrenching her by the front of her clothes and dragged her along with him. Dacoit pivoted, twisting like a discus thrower, and flung Amanda at well over a hundred miles per hour straight into the side of the nearest concrete overpass.
There wasn't time to swear. There wasn't even time to gasp - Amanda flew through the air, crashing through the concrete and sending chunks of it raining down to the ground below. She was limp as she crashed to the ground herself, New Delhi opening up and sucking her in without trace. It seemed like things were over.
Then there was a rumble under Dacoit's feet as the ground itself heaved him upward, followed by a blonde-haired missile. Amanda grabbed the Guardsman by the front of his uniform and turned in the air to fling him down at the waiting street below.
***
Under the cover of fire from their own men, two soldiers popped the pins on grenades and lobbed them at the car from different angles. The one with a higher arc didn’t hit its intended target as a red blast of energy ripped through an already bullet riddled windshield. The glass exploded into a thousand tiny shards as the hex blast destroyed it before it hit the first grenade. Red light surrounded it, brightened and then disappeared leaving behind a space emptied of everything.
The second explosive, however, made it through, bouncing under the body of the car. Wanda was already up and moving, trying to sprint down a narrow alleyway between two buildings, when it went off. The explosion caught her in the back and sent her flying deeper into the shadows, where she bounced and hit the ground several times before coming to a stop.
The squad hurried after her, with Oracle hanging back, floating gently in the air. It was a rather stupid attack, all considered. A failed helicopter landing, only two American mutants? Were they like the ones who'd foiled them in Indonesia, or Madripoor? She shook her head, bringing her scrutiny back on the scene. Her men spread out, moving quickly with weapons out and a few flashlights to pierce the limited darkness.
Flash lights flicked over the spot where Wanda had landed but with the exception of some blood left behind and marks in the ground, there was nothing to be seen. They cautiously moved forward, guns at the ready, straining for any noise or sight. More blood was spotted further on in the alley as she’d obviously been forced to retreat over rubble from part of the destroyed building next to them. The one man on point froze and held up a hand as he leveled a flashlight towards the side of a building – he’d spotted what he had thought was a bloody handprint…
But on closer inspection, it was as if corrosion had come in the shape of a hand, burrowing into the wall of the building itself. The building above the group of men started to shudder and groan as a large section broke off – Dacoit’s entry and exit having created several chunks of wall just ready to drop – and tumbled towards the ground.
Men scattered and Oracle shook her head before raising a handset to her mouth. "~Get the grounds locked down. What?~" She paused. Internal security was now showing multiple alarms, and Dacoit was unable to be raised. She was his deputy with the Imperial Guard, but they hadn't prepared for this scenario. "~Activate the rest of the Guard on-site. I want men with the Prime Minister. Call for another division from the base. I want the Secretariat locked down tight. You and you-~" She pointed at two NCO's. "~There's only two ways in or out of that alley. Get a heavy weapons squad to the other side. If we can't flush her out, we'll burn her out.~"
***
The air was shimmering around Amanda now, giving off a low buzz as if of millions of voices speaking all at once. "~You don't understand, Dacoit,~" she said in fluent Hindi, her voice resonating strangely. "~New Delhi is tired of the violence. The people want peace, not terror. You're fighting your own country, don't you see?~" She dodged another punch intended for her head and responded with one of her own, aimed at his midsection.
The air rushed out of him with a grunt, but Dacoit had been honed in the fighting pits of Madripoor long before his elite training with the Indian military. He lashed out twice, both jabs that could bend steel, smashing Amanda's face one way and then back the other. He caught the back of her head by the air, pivoted, and slammed her face first into the ground.
"~This is my country, witch. My people!~" He snarled, a thunderous blow slamming her further into the pavement.
"~Not any more.~" Amanda's nose was bleeding as she rolled away from him and back onto her feet, but her expression was faraway, almost otherworldly. "~New Delhi is speaking through me now and she will have no more of this.~" Her hand shot out to grab a handful of Dacoit's uniform front and she spun around, hurling him away from her and towards a building with strength she'd never shown before.
Dacoit smashed through the corner of the building, raining concrete and rebar down on the street below. He managed to right himself in the air, like a man struggling back to his feet. With the back of his hand, he wiped the blood from his mouth. Blood? The last time he'd seen it was before his fourteenth birthday and the emergence of his mutant powers.
"~I'm going to skullfuck your eyesockets!~" He growled, but under the tone was something new; anger, rage, determination... and just a hint of uncertainty.
***
Deep in the shadows of the alley, hidden next to a piece of freshly fallen building, Wanda paused for one second in an attempt to catch her breath. And form a much needed plan. Because while she was very good indeed, they were an army currently backed with a sharp and shrewd mutant. Without a doubt, there were others on their way by now. Outnumbered and, she winced as her bloodied back brushed rough wall, injured, she had to think of something.
The noise from the other end of the alley told her more soldiers had arrived and quite a number of them. From the way she'd come, she figured that people were approaching as well but probably fewer. Slowly, she started to edge back again as her mind frantically spewed out a plan.
It was chancy and Wanda knew it hinged on her getting through the two men ahead of her even before she made a strike at Oracle but it was probably her one shot. Well, a shot that didn't involve bringing the two buildings down around everyone - herself included...
The crew moving up the other direction changed the tempo, as the lead soldier pointed the nozzle of a weapon up the alley and let loose with a burst of flame from his flamethrower. Tossing aerosolized jellied gasoline and then igniting it wasn't normally something you considered doing as a security measure, but Wanda's refuge in a windowless alley between two wings of the federal buildings had ironically made it possible. Besides, the Imperial Guard's word was law here now, and the flames reached for the mutant.
So much for going slow, Wanda thought as she was once again sent flying from the explosion. Something in the back of her mind was taking stock even as gravel found purchase in her forearms. Assassinating various members of the Imperial Guard previously had been one thing - going toe to with one of them in the seat of power for their government? Once the danger had faded into the background, Wanda was going to have a nice, quiet chat with herself about it.
But the flames licking at her back drove her forward, forced her hands to dig for purchase and her feet to scramble in the dirt beneath her. Desperation gave her speed as she tackled one of the two men approaching from the opposite end of the alley. Wanda's power was the only reason she didn't get a bullet through the brain as they hit the ground in a mass of limbs. A stray hex blast caught the second man full in the face and he fell without a sound even as her hands found purchase on the first one's neck and head. Eyes wide, hands red with chaos energy, she found the found the breaking point and wrenched her hands to the left, the cracking noise hidden underneath the roar of the flames behind her.
The psi-blast caught her firmly in the face, her mind going kaleidoscopic as she tried to find some kind of stable point in what could only be described as a state of 'blooey'. A fist crashed into her cheek, and a kick exploded in her midsection. Oracle had descended to the ground, enjoying getting her hands on one of the anonymous mutants that had shamed them as Guardsman with the Prime Minister. When she spoke, her voice echoed in Wanda's mind.
"So what are you mutants? They say you're the ones involved with SHIELD; the American government's clumsy way of getting around your 'high minded' policy. Others say you're some kind of rogue group, working for any number of people. Some think you're just a phantom to string together incidents into a single enemy." Her jab split Wanda's lip open. "I'm going to flay the inside of your mind open, and find out just who you are and where we can find the rest of you. Then teach you all a lesson about getting in the way of India's manifest destiny."
Another kick drove the air from her lungs, and left Wanda gasping.
***
Amanda dodged the chunk of masonry hurled at her, the street opening up to suck the block back in and then spit it back out at the Guardsman hovering in the air. "~You really don't get it, do you?~" she said, the echo in her voice getting stronger, the buzz of ten million voices edging her words. "~You aren't serving your people, Dacoit. You're serving a madman who will see this country destroyed, just a long as he has the power.~"
- Hide quoted text -
"~You. Will. Shut. Up!" He dodged the masonry and then swooped down and grabbed her by the front of her shirt, hammering two mighty blows into her face. Unlike the thundercrack impacts of before, these were powerful but not overwhelming. He was struggling to stay in the air; struggling to keep the words out of his head, where they seemed to reverberate around his skull. With a heave, he twisted in the air and slingshotted her out from the collection of skyscrapers, sending her skipping off the concrete roads in front of the Secretariat Building. Gasping for air, he fought to stay aflight, following her path.
The blonde plowed through several cars that had remained on the road, their drivers fled, until she fetched up against a truck. Unlike Dacoit, she seemed to be getting stronger, a smile appearing on her bruised face as she climbed to her feet. "~Can't handle the truth, can you?~" she taunted him. "~Who do you think is giving me the power to stand up to you? Your city, that's who. New Delhi's chosen a champion for herself, a fucking Brit into the bargain. One of the invaders. You really think you're doing the right thing when your city is letting me beat the utter tripe out of you?~"
The road heaved upward under her feet, flinging her up into the air to fly past him. He didn't have time to swerve before she came back down again, both feet landing solidly into the middle of his back and sending him plunging down to the road below with her standing on top of him.
The shockwave from the impact flipped the cars in a hundred foot radius, and they hit with the thundercrack of an angry god. Dacoit groaned, forcing Amanda from his back, but blood ran freely from cuts on his head and face. He wiped it away, eyes reddened and manically enraged. He grabbed for a car body, to fling it through her, but instead of the projectile, he could only scrape the car around in front of him. Not even able to lift it clear from the ground. His snarl was angrily frustrated, but cut off as on his uniform, a red light began to flicker.
He looked at her, and at the building, and with his last reserves shot back into the air. The PMO had hit the crash button. Whoever this English bitch was, she wasn't the real threat. And instead of being at the side of the Prime Minister, protecting him, he'd been lured out here.
The road rose up under Amanda's feet, forming a pillar that carried her upwards after the fleeing Guardsman. She grabbed his foot, yanking him back down. He easily was twice her weight, but he seemed to weigh no more than a doll in her hands as she spun him around in a circle before letting go and sending him flying at breakneck speed towards the PMO.
***
For a long moment, Wanda forgot who she was and what she was supposed to be doing as pain - physical and mental - rolled through her like an unstoppable wave. Oracle knew her business well. A foot in her ribs followed up by a piece of her mind being flayed back. Methodical and precise the other woman stacked it up on the pain from the explosion in a way that would get her exactly what she wanted.
It was too much - and then it crystallized, snapping Wanda back to herself as Oracle drew her leg back for another kick to Wanda's face. Pain, desperation, lent her the strength to catch the ankle and foot just before they connected with her face.
'You wish to see me?' she thought, hand clenching as her powers exploded to life. Synapses exploded as Wanda's ability rode the connection from her mind to Oracle - a chaos energy feedback. It brought with it pain of its own and a deeper look into Wanda's mind. That black, decayed part of where Chthon had once resided blossomed to life, a reflection of the Elder God shown a thousand times over. The damage and chaos he had wrought rode that wave from one woman to the next in one vicious strike.
Inside Oracle's neatly ordered and highly disciplined mind, everything started to go askew. The psion had rigorously trained for years to control her range of powers, carefully locking them behind well reasoned processes to the point that she could dip into them like a toolkit, separating out exactly what she needed when she needed it. Wanda's powers ricocheted throughout the structure, as her abilities began to flare wildly and out of control.
With a scream, Oracle grabbed her head, momentarily connected with the soldiers under her command, and the next, dropping all of them with the psychic equivalent of a hammer blow to the brain. Her scope ranged outwards, tasting the thoughts of the city around her; fear, apprehension, and a bitter resentment buried under an oppressive shell. If these were the days of India's manifest destiny, it was hated by the people it claimed to be in the service of, as a long cycle of hopeless war hung over them. Oracle collapsed to her knees, her head clutched in her hands, trying to will the thoughts to stop crashing over her mind.
The pain was secondary now as Wanda managed to gain her feet. The world wasn’t steady but it didn’t matter much as she got a good hold of Oracle’s hair and proceeded to slam the other woman’s head against the bloodied ground at her feet. Once, twice … and the screaming finally cut off with a soft gurgle. For a moment, Wanda crouched down, fingers still tangled in white strands, as she fought to catch her breath and scan for anything else that might come her way.
Wanda had no idea what the men surrounding her were saying but she was willing to be it involved a lot of cursing and surprised exclamations.
After all, one could not have asked for a better distraction than the sight of the all mighty, all powerful Dacoit sent flying into, and then out the other side, of a nearby building. The soldiers had already started to give ground under Wanda’s assault in an attempt to simply get away and kill her from a distance but this gave her the opening she’d been waiting for. Everyone around her hesitated for one vital moment but her.
She’d always been an opportunistic bitch…
Leaving her knife buried in one man’s throat, Wanda used another for a human shield as she broke out of the rough circle of now slightly unnerved soldiers. It was a matter of getting away long enough to start to help even the playing field out even more for her teammates.
Amanda glanced in Wanda's direction, making sure her mentor didn't need any help. New Delhi was a roar in her veins, making it hard to hold onto who she was, but she knew Wanda was important. Satisfied the older woman was taking care of herself, the blonde stepped forward to the gaping hole Dacoit had left behind, the ground rippling beneath her feet like water.
There was a whistling sound, and a streak dropped from the sky. The fist hit Amanda in the face, with the kinetic power to shatter a skyscraper, and the young witch was flung down the street, smashing through several cars and causing massive impact craters in the asphalt as she bounced off it.
"~Kill this one. Oracle, are you in position?~"
"~A lot of trouble for just two women, Dacoit.~"
"~The blonde bitch hurt me. I'm going to use her spine for a riding crop. Get rid of the other one." With that, Dacoit was gone, just a blur where he had been standing as he went after Amanda. Oracle quickly linked with the soldiers, keeping an eye on their positions.
"~Squad One, flank her.~" She ordered telepathically, as she moved in the opposite direction with the support team. One clear shot, and she'd scramble the fat Westerner's brain.
“Oh shit,” Wanda said, watching warily as the new group headed her way. Dacoit was obviously heading towards wherever Amanda had landed and if she wanted to be able to provide support she was going to have to deal with this new threat first. The woman was familiar looking – Oracle, Wanda thought, as she bolted to the side in an attempt to avoid being completely flanked.
A telepath with the full range of powers that went with it.
She couldn’t help but grin as her own powers flared fully on as she flung a hex bolt into the chest of the nearest soldier; it ate through his body armor like acid and gave her an opening to reach an abandoned car. She dove behind it just as the others opened fire.
"~She went behind cover.~" The squad captain said, fanning out his men. Oracle looked at the car and smiled.
"~Captain, your men do have grenades for a reason, don't they?~"
***
Amanda had instinctively curled into a ball as she'd hurtled down the street, covering her face with her arms. She finally came to rest against the wall of an apartment building. Slowly she unfurled, pressing one palm flat on the ground and the other against the building, drawing on the city's energy as she climbed to her feet, blood dribbling from a cut to her lip.
Her fingers twitched and a shield sprang up around her. No sense getting hit in the face again.
Amanda was yanked out off her feet as the blurring streak went past. The immense strength punched right through her shield, wrenching her by the front of her clothes and dragged her along with him. Dacoit pivoted, twisting like a discus thrower, and flung Amanda at well over a hundred miles per hour straight into the side of the nearest concrete overpass.
There wasn't time to swear. There wasn't even time to gasp - Amanda flew through the air, crashing through the concrete and sending chunks of it raining down to the ground below. She was limp as she crashed to the ground herself, New Delhi opening up and sucking her in without trace. It seemed like things were over.
Then there was a rumble under Dacoit's feet as the ground itself heaved him upward, followed by a blonde-haired missile. Amanda grabbed the Guardsman by the front of his uniform and turned in the air to fling him down at the waiting street below.
***
Under the cover of fire from their own men, two soldiers popped the pins on grenades and lobbed them at the car from different angles. The one with a higher arc didn’t hit its intended target as a red blast of energy ripped through an already bullet riddled windshield. The glass exploded into a thousand tiny shards as the hex blast destroyed it before it hit the first grenade. Red light surrounded it, brightened and then disappeared leaving behind a space emptied of everything.
The second explosive, however, made it through, bouncing under the body of the car. Wanda was already up and moving, trying to sprint down a narrow alleyway between two buildings, when it went off. The explosion caught her in the back and sent her flying deeper into the shadows, where she bounced and hit the ground several times before coming to a stop.
The squad hurried after her, with Oracle hanging back, floating gently in the air. It was a rather stupid attack, all considered. A failed helicopter landing, only two American mutants? Were they like the ones who'd foiled them in Indonesia, or Madripoor? She shook her head, bringing her scrutiny back on the scene. Her men spread out, moving quickly with weapons out and a few flashlights to pierce the limited darkness.
Flash lights flicked over the spot where Wanda had landed but with the exception of some blood left behind and marks in the ground, there was nothing to be seen. They cautiously moved forward, guns at the ready, straining for any noise or sight. More blood was spotted further on in the alley as she’d obviously been forced to retreat over rubble from part of the destroyed building next to them. The one man on point froze and held up a hand as he leveled a flashlight towards the side of a building – he’d spotted what he had thought was a bloody handprint…
But on closer inspection, it was as if corrosion had come in the shape of a hand, burrowing into the wall of the building itself. The building above the group of men started to shudder and groan as a large section broke off – Dacoit’s entry and exit having created several chunks of wall just ready to drop – and tumbled towards the ground.
Men scattered and Oracle shook her head before raising a handset to her mouth. "~Get the grounds locked down. What?~" She paused. Internal security was now showing multiple alarms, and Dacoit was unable to be raised. She was his deputy with the Imperial Guard, but they hadn't prepared for this scenario. "~Activate the rest of the Guard on-site. I want men with the Prime Minister. Call for another division from the base. I want the Secretariat locked down tight. You and you-~" She pointed at two NCO's. "~There's only two ways in or out of that alley. Get a heavy weapons squad to the other side. If we can't flush her out, we'll burn her out.~"
***
The air was shimmering around Amanda now, giving off a low buzz as if of millions of voices speaking all at once. "~You don't understand, Dacoit,~" she said in fluent Hindi, her voice resonating strangely. "~New Delhi is tired of the violence. The people want peace, not terror. You're fighting your own country, don't you see?~" She dodged another punch intended for her head and responded with one of her own, aimed at his midsection.
The air rushed out of him with a grunt, but Dacoit had been honed in the fighting pits of Madripoor long before his elite training with the Indian military. He lashed out twice, both jabs that could bend steel, smashing Amanda's face one way and then back the other. He caught the back of her head by the air, pivoted, and slammed her face first into the ground.
"~This is my country, witch. My people!~" He snarled, a thunderous blow slamming her further into the pavement.
"~Not any more.~" Amanda's nose was bleeding as she rolled away from him and back onto her feet, but her expression was faraway, almost otherworldly. "~New Delhi is speaking through me now and she will have no more of this.~" Her hand shot out to grab a handful of Dacoit's uniform front and she spun around, hurling him away from her and towards a building with strength she'd never shown before.
Dacoit smashed through the corner of the building, raining concrete and rebar down on the street below. He managed to right himself in the air, like a man struggling back to his feet. With the back of his hand, he wiped the blood from his mouth. Blood? The last time he'd seen it was before his fourteenth birthday and the emergence of his mutant powers.
"~I'm going to skullfuck your eyesockets!~" He growled, but under the tone was something new; anger, rage, determination... and just a hint of uncertainty.
***
Deep in the shadows of the alley, hidden next to a piece of freshly fallen building, Wanda paused for one second in an attempt to catch her breath. And form a much needed plan. Because while she was very good indeed, they were an army currently backed with a sharp and shrewd mutant. Without a doubt, there were others on their way by now. Outnumbered and, she winced as her bloodied back brushed rough wall, injured, she had to think of something.
The noise from the other end of the alley told her more soldiers had arrived and quite a number of them. From the way she'd come, she figured that people were approaching as well but probably fewer. Slowly, she started to edge back again as her mind frantically spewed out a plan.
It was chancy and Wanda knew it hinged on her getting through the two men ahead of her even before she made a strike at Oracle but it was probably her one shot. Well, a shot that didn't involve bringing the two buildings down around everyone - herself included...
The crew moving up the other direction changed the tempo, as the lead soldier pointed the nozzle of a weapon up the alley and let loose with a burst of flame from his flamethrower. Tossing aerosolized jellied gasoline and then igniting it wasn't normally something you considered doing as a security measure, but Wanda's refuge in a windowless alley between two wings of the federal buildings had ironically made it possible. Besides, the Imperial Guard's word was law here now, and the flames reached for the mutant.
So much for going slow, Wanda thought as she was once again sent flying from the explosion. Something in the back of her mind was taking stock even as gravel found purchase in her forearms. Assassinating various members of the Imperial Guard previously had been one thing - going toe to with one of them in the seat of power for their government? Once the danger had faded into the background, Wanda was going to have a nice, quiet chat with herself about it.
But the flames licking at her back drove her forward, forced her hands to dig for purchase and her feet to scramble in the dirt beneath her. Desperation gave her speed as she tackled one of the two men approaching from the opposite end of the alley. Wanda's power was the only reason she didn't get a bullet through the brain as they hit the ground in a mass of limbs. A stray hex blast caught the second man full in the face and he fell without a sound even as her hands found purchase on the first one's neck and head. Eyes wide, hands red with chaos energy, she found the found the breaking point and wrenched her hands to the left, the cracking noise hidden underneath the roar of the flames behind her.
The psi-blast caught her firmly in the face, her mind going kaleidoscopic as she tried to find some kind of stable point in what could only be described as a state of 'blooey'. A fist crashed into her cheek, and a kick exploded in her midsection. Oracle had descended to the ground, enjoying getting her hands on one of the anonymous mutants that had shamed them as Guardsman with the Prime Minister. When she spoke, her voice echoed in Wanda's mind.
"So what are you mutants? They say you're the ones involved with SHIELD; the American government's clumsy way of getting around your 'high minded' policy. Others say you're some kind of rogue group, working for any number of people. Some think you're just a phantom to string together incidents into a single enemy." Her jab split Wanda's lip open. "I'm going to flay the inside of your mind open, and find out just who you are and where we can find the rest of you. Then teach you all a lesson about getting in the way of India's manifest destiny."
Another kick drove the air from her lungs, and left Wanda gasping.
***
Amanda dodged the chunk of masonry hurled at her, the street opening up to suck the block back in and then spit it back out at the Guardsman hovering in the air. "~You really don't get it, do you?~" she said, the echo in her voice getting stronger, the buzz of ten million voices edging her words. "~You aren't serving your people, Dacoit. You're serving a madman who will see this country destroyed, just a long as he has the power.~"
- Hide quoted text -
"~You. Will. Shut. Up!" He dodged the masonry and then swooped down and grabbed her by the front of her shirt, hammering two mighty blows into her face. Unlike the thundercrack impacts of before, these were powerful but not overwhelming. He was struggling to stay in the air; struggling to keep the words out of his head, where they seemed to reverberate around his skull. With a heave, he twisted in the air and slingshotted her out from the collection of skyscrapers, sending her skipping off the concrete roads in front of the Secretariat Building. Gasping for air, he fought to stay aflight, following her path.
The blonde plowed through several cars that had remained on the road, their drivers fled, until she fetched up against a truck. Unlike Dacoit, she seemed to be getting stronger, a smile appearing on her bruised face as she climbed to her feet. "~Can't handle the truth, can you?~" she taunted him. "~Who do you think is giving me the power to stand up to you? Your city, that's who. New Delhi's chosen a champion for herself, a fucking Brit into the bargain. One of the invaders. You really think you're doing the right thing when your city is letting me beat the utter tripe out of you?~"
The road heaved upward under her feet, flinging her up into the air to fly past him. He didn't have time to swerve before she came back down again, both feet landing solidly into the middle of his back and sending him plunging down to the road below with her standing on top of him.
The shockwave from the impact flipped the cars in a hundred foot radius, and they hit with the thundercrack of an angry god. Dacoit groaned, forcing Amanda from his back, but blood ran freely from cuts on his head and face. He wiped it away, eyes reddened and manically enraged. He grabbed for a car body, to fling it through her, but instead of the projectile, he could only scrape the car around in front of him. Not even able to lift it clear from the ground. His snarl was angrily frustrated, but cut off as on his uniform, a red light began to flicker.
He looked at her, and at the building, and with his last reserves shot back into the air. The PMO had hit the crash button. Whoever this English bitch was, she wasn't the real threat. And instead of being at the side of the Prime Minister, protecting him, he'd been lured out here.
The road rose up under Amanda's feet, forming a pillar that carried her upwards after the fleeing Guardsman. She grabbed his foot, yanking him back down. He easily was twice her weight, but he seemed to weigh no more than a doll in her hands as she spun him around in a circle before letting go and sending him flying at breakneck speed towards the PMO.
***
For a long moment, Wanda forgot who she was and what she was supposed to be doing as pain - physical and mental - rolled through her like an unstoppable wave. Oracle knew her business well. A foot in her ribs followed up by a piece of her mind being flayed back. Methodical and precise the other woman stacked it up on the pain from the explosion in a way that would get her exactly what she wanted.
It was too much - and then it crystallized, snapping Wanda back to herself as Oracle drew her leg back for another kick to Wanda's face. Pain, desperation, lent her the strength to catch the ankle and foot just before they connected with her face.
'You wish to see me?' she thought, hand clenching as her powers exploded to life. Synapses exploded as Wanda's ability rode the connection from her mind to Oracle - a chaos energy feedback. It brought with it pain of its own and a deeper look into Wanda's mind. That black, decayed part of where Chthon had once resided blossomed to life, a reflection of the Elder God shown a thousand times over. The damage and chaos he had wrought rode that wave from one woman to the next in one vicious strike.
Inside Oracle's neatly ordered and highly disciplined mind, everything started to go askew. The psion had rigorously trained for years to control her range of powers, carefully locking them behind well reasoned processes to the point that she could dip into them like a toolkit, separating out exactly what she needed when she needed it. Wanda's powers ricocheted throughout the structure, as her abilities began to flare wildly and out of control.
With a scream, Oracle grabbed her head, momentarily connected with the soldiers under her command, and the next, dropping all of them with the psychic equivalent of a hammer blow to the brain. Her scope ranged outwards, tasting the thoughts of the city around her; fear, apprehension, and a bitter resentment buried under an oppressive shell. If these were the days of India's manifest destiny, it was hated by the people it claimed to be in the service of, as a long cycle of hopeless war hung over them. Oracle collapsed to her knees, her head clutched in her hands, trying to will the thoughts to stop crashing over her mind.
The pain was secondary now as Wanda managed to gain her feet. The world wasn’t steady but it didn’t matter much as she got a good hold of Oracle’s hair and proceeded to slam the other woman’s head against the bloodied ground at her feet. Once, twice … and the screaming finally cut off with a soft gurgle. For a moment, Wanda crouched down, fingers still tangled in white strands, as she fought to catch her breath and scan for anything else that might come her way.
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