Operation: Dasavatharam: Time to Plan

[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

After shaking their respective tails, everyone meets back up at a local safe house. There, they get the rest of the answers - mostly - and find out that there's more at stake than they thought.




"The others are on their way," Wanda announced as she came out of the only other room in the place with her cell phone in hand. They had spent the last hour making sure they weren't being tailed before ditching Agatha's town car - much to the old woman's protest but there was simply no way they could hide it easily at any of their safe houses - and making their way to one of the bolt holes in NYC. Wanda felt that weird juxtaposition of exhaustion and adrenaline that always came when things were getting crazy. Which always seemed to be quite often, actually.

She glanced over at Tran and both Professors before turning back to her own group. There had been no way to describe that moment of shock when she, Ororo, Amanda and Tran had tumbled out of the back of the store only to find Agatha Harkness riding shotgun in her town car with an Exemplar behind the wheel. Still, she couldn't help but feel that nothing good could come out of anything over the next few hours and she needed to concentrate. "According to Sarah, who's staying behind to keep a close eye, the others walked into a trap set by followers of Chthon. I do not know what exactly happened but they escaped and checked in with her when it was safe; they'll be here shortly."

"Well, I for one would like to know what the bloody hell is going on," Amanda said, sounding as pissed off as she looked. She glared at Agatha and the Exemplars, arms crossed over her chest. "And I think you lot are the ones to tell us."

'Shortly' was a matter of less than a minute, and Doug was the first one through the door, his expression flinty. He raised an eyebrow at Harkness and Tran, but left the obvious questions for his superiors.

"Everyone here? Good." Remy said, walking in behind Doug, with the others at his heels. "Dat was not what we were told to expect. So exactly how do you want to play de game of 'Who's Been Lying To Us'? Dere's de fast version, where you tell us everything dat concerns what we've been dropped into, wit'out omitting a single detail, just as fast as you possibly can. Dere's also de slow version, where you deny everything, and badly misread just what I'm willing to do to you and for how long because you've put my people in danger." His red on black stare was basilisk-like as it swept between Harkness and Tran. "So, what is it going to be?"

While Agatha simply sat there, Tran rushed to explain - he was beyond rattled by the entire experience, having lost another of his friends right before his eyes only to find out that Covington had somehow been behind part of the tragedy ... Without hesitating he quickly went over everything he'd spoken about to Wanda, Amanda and Ororo earlier. How the Chthon cult had been hunting them, how it had been Covington's idea - he grimaced at that - to seek out Wanda for assistance in exchange for information regarding the cult and to how Wanda was the key to Chton's cage.

At the end, Professor Emiliano cleared his throat and brought forward a large satchel, the kind that most university professor's were fond of. It was overflowing with paperwork and things hastily shoved in it. "Covington's betrayal wasn't as simple as all of that. Apparently, while he had been taking a sabbatical he had been captured by the cult and -" He cleared his throat and poured out the contents of the bag onto the tabletop. "Well. Not only was his life threatened but the lives of what relatives he did have were threatened as well. They used him to manipulate us into this meeting; they seem to take great joy out of diminishing our numbers while they moved in on Ms. Maximoff. A game, it would appear."

The others moved to gather around while he spread everything further out onto the table. "I think he knew he might not make it out alive and he managed to leave me some papers explaining everything - he also arranged for Agatha to come over, she arrived right as I was discovering all of this here."

Wanda's gaze shot over to Agatha who simply looked back at her. "And why would he do that?" she asked quietly, leaning a hip against the table and crossing her arms over her chest. "Agatha, you have been hiding information from me since the last I saw you. What is going on?"

"There are certain things that concern you, dear girl, and certain things that don't." Agatha's voice was sympathetic but firm. "Whatever I decide not to tell you is -"

The sound of Wanda's hand slamming down onto the table caused the old woman to flinch just slightly. "Unless you have failed to see it, this became my concern when I and my people started being attacked!" she snapped, as close to yelling as ever had been. "The Chthon cult has killed numerous times, almost managed to kill me off in the last few years -" At that, Tran paled. "- set loose a madman in your museum that injured my cousin and almost managed to kill me. And that is not even counting what happened today! So stuff your bloody excuses, Professor, before I do it for you!"

There was a weird mixture of pride and hurt on Agatha's face as the woman gathered herself together after Wanda's explosion. "What I keep to myself has nothing to do with you or your people," she said, quietly, but she paused to pull out a small notebook. "This, however, does. Stephen has been unsuccessful in finding what has been stolen from my museum because I hid the knowledge from him. I would prefer that still to be hidden but it is unavoidable today."

She nodded at the book as Wanda took it. "In that notebook is the description of some of the darker artifacts that came into my possession over the years. Page 61 is where you want to look. It is a small thing but a nasty piece of magic, a ring that allows the bearer to absorb energies, mostly magic, from another person." Agatha hesitated. "Mostly by killing the poor bastards. It then allows him or her to weird the energy as if it had been their own from the start. It can make mediocre magicians powerful ones and those with no magic abilities suddenly have the ability to throw around spells."

"And you hid something like that?" Amanda burst out before anyone else could react. "That sort of artifact's a fucking magical nuke and you decided you would just put it in your museum for anyone to break in and take?"

Remy took a long look at the women before turning away. Magic, now used like this? It was a nightmare scenario, especially when they didn't know all the angles. He stepped over to where Ororo was standing. "Wouldn't take a professional to steal dis thing and get away clean. Wat do you think?"

"With an artifact of that power and allure all it would take is a bit of planning and luck - secrecy is not always the best protection," the weatherworker said reprovingly. "And now there is no telling where it might be, at least not in a timescale that is useful to us."

"That, apparently, is where we come in." Emiliano held a stack of papers from the pile and gestured with them. "Covington not only gave me a heads up, he detailed as much as he could about the operations the cult is running in the city. The place, roughly how many men and women -" He paused as Wanda took the papers from him and started to flip through.

She glanced up at the others. "The ring is in the city," Wanda added. "According to Covington's notes, that is. They are not complete but it gives us a good deal of information to start on."

"Something with a magical signature like that should be easy to get a bead on," Amanda suggested, arms still folded across her chest as she glowered at Agatha. "The tricky part is not getting sucked into it - 's powerful enough that that's a risk. I can work through the city, tho'. That ought to keep me clear."

Wanda snapped the book shut and tossed it onto the table. “Sarah needs to remain where she is,” she said to the room at large, “and Marie-Ange needs to watch the office. The rough numbers in that report already put us at an extreme disadvantage and there seems to be a madman running around in our city murdering people to take their power. Odds seem to be stacked against us, don’t they?”

She snorted. “But when has that ever stopped us?”