Log: Billy, Wanda & Amanda - AKOM: The Final Storm

[x-asgardian.livejournal.com]

While trying to break down Amanda's wards, Billy accidentally conjures up the storm of the century. Thankfully, Amanda and Wanda show up in time to prevent him from destroying New York.


It had been many years since the docks of New York City were this empty. Then again, it had been a long time since the docks had seen a storm this powerful either. The wind whipped across the river, sending waves crashing over the piers. Dark clouds roiled overhead, occasionally backlit by streaks of lightning within. The shipping yards were closed, the equipment and machinery secured, and workers sent home, and now only one figure remained. Had there been anyone around to see him, it would have been a strange sight. His black curly hair was plastered to his head, the effects of the wind and ran once he finally gave up trying to keep the windbreaker's hood in place. The bright red jacket was larger than necessary and snapped behind him with each gust of wind. In stark contrast to the contemporary jacket and jeans, he held a thick, black wooden staff, nearly as tall as himself, in his hands.

Billy Kaplan stood at the foot of the largest pier, staring at the wooden posts on either side of him. Despite the cold rain, they shimmered with a mirage-like effect whenever he focused on them. He hefted the staff, pointing one end toward the left pillar, half expecting the mental alarm to go off again like it had on Monday, but aside from the shimmer, they stood there, ominous but silent.

"Whatever you are," he said, "this is my spot, and I'm not going to let you have it." He shifted the staff upright, using both hands to slam it against the wooden pier below. A rumbling sounded overhead, and the wind picked up, nearly drowning out the words he began to mumble. "I want lightning...I want lightning...I want to take them out...IWantLightning."

The staff began to glow faintly in his hands, and with the last word, a bolt of electricity leapt from the top of the staff, arcing toward the first post with a loud crack. He winced away a moment until his eyes readjusted, then looked back to the target. The shimmer had definitely increased. He could see it clearly now, and underneath, there was some light charring on the wood, but it still stood intact. "Ok, again," he scowled, before adjusting his footing and starting to chant again.

A small, rather beaten-up white car pulled up at the entrance of the docks, two women alighting with some trouble, given the weather. Amanda's hair whipped wildly in the wind, pulling free of its braid. "We've got to stop this wanker!" she shouted above the gale and thunder to Wanda. "Before he brings the city down on us!"

It was as if the storm had given Wanda's hair a life of its own as the black strands seemed almost to stand straight out from her head as the wind whipped around them. She scowled in the general direction of whomever was stupid enough to bring this down on them ... well, either stupid not to see the damage that was building up around them or malicious enough to care. Neither of those options were good ones. "We're the only ones out here," she shouted back, "so it's the direct approach! I doubt the storm will hide us coming!"

"IWantMoreLightningIWantMoreLightning," Billy's chanting began to slur into a rhythmic trance, his eyes completely fixed on the pillar before him. Repeated lightning strikes were beginning to take their toll on the wood, through numerous scorch marks and smoke and steam rising up, only to be whisked away by the wind. A few small flames smoldered on the wood, despite the increasing rain. The shimmering around the post had changed to a yellowish glow, now matched by a very noticeable blue glow encompassing Billy's staff. Electricity crackled in the air around him, and in the clouds overhead, and another bolt of lightning leapt and zapped between him and the post.

At the strike, Amanda yelped, staggering slightly as she and Wanda made their way towards the docks. "Fucker's messing with my wards!" she exclaimed, wiping a small smear of blood - mixed with rainwater that was now teeming down - from her nose. "This way!"

She let Amanda lead the way. Wanda knew that trying to use her powers to guide them would prove futile at best and she had a discouraging thought that too much chaos in this chaotic storm and she'd attract the wrong kind of attention. She just squared her shoulders and braced herself as best she could as they stumbled along, feeling as if she were soaked to her very soul.

Between his attention on the post, which was now sending off a steady stream of smoke into the whirling winds, and the sound of the rain and thunder, Billy didn't notice the approaching pair. More startling, though, he wasn't really paying attention to his quickly changing surroundings either. His glow continued to expand, and stray arcs of lightning began to escape, no longer confined to jumping between his hands and their target. He tried to adjust the chanting, "IWantToHitThePost." The larger bolts began to fragment into smaller ones, flailing about wildly, but quickly fizzling once they got past the glowing radius, creating an odd tesla ball effect around him, as he unsuccessfully tried to reign in the energy.

The rain and wind lessened as they worked their way between the various warehouses, but that only served to bring the smell of smoke and ozone to their senses as Amanda led them to her wards. She'd set them up a while ago as a kind of mystical 'welcome to New York', a sign for other magic users that the city was to be considered neutral ground if they didn't want to wind up facing Amanda and the rest of X-Force. The fact someone was pouring so much power into eradicating them meant they were looking at an arrogant bastard... or someone with no idea what they were looking at.

As they rounded the last building and saw the young man - boy, really - surrounded by rogue lightning, Amanda had a feeling she knew which one it was.

Pushing sopping wet hair out of her face, Wanda didn't freeze but her breath caught in her throat. "Amanda," she said, voice sounding far too loud now that they were almost in the eye, as it were, of the storm. "Amanda, I know that man." Young man, really, she thought as her mind took her for a moment back to June and a chance meeting that she'd almost forgotten about...

Standing, Wanda stared down at Billy for a moment. "Keep this in mind for the future. There are always those that are weaker than others and there are always those looking to prove their superiority over them. There are fewer protectors than there should be. Whatever further trouble or pain comes of this, know you did the right thing."

Out of a pocket she pulled a scrap of paper and a pen which she used to write down the number of a phone that couldn't be easily connected back to her. "Call this if you need someone to patch you up who would not be tempted to relieve you of your wallet."

She met Amanda's eyes and knew the other woman had probably started to realize this was no man threatening for power but someone trying to do something he wasn't supposed to do. Wanda lengthened her stride, long legs eating up wet and scorched pavement, as she headed towards Billy.

With the obliviousness that only a lightning-wielding teenager can muster, Billy didn't even look up from his efforts. Then again, with the amount of electricity sparking all around him, it was starting to look more like the lightning was wielding the boy than the other way around. Large billowing black clouds continued to grow overhead, and the occasional flash had evolved to a nearly consistent backlight, which occasionally released a large fork of energy striking the river behind him and casting long shadows across the shipyard. "IWantIWantIWantIWant..." His chanting was quickly losing any sense of coherence, despite Billy's efforts to block out the spectacle around him and regain control.

"This kid's going to blow him and us up at this rate," Amanda muttered as Wanda took off towards him. She couldn't tell what kind of magic he was using - it was magic, that much she could tell, but wild and undisciplined - nor did she know how hers would interact with it, but she had to do something. With an inhaled breath, she sank into the ground, reappearing abruptly in front of Billy.

"Oi!" she exclaimed as she popped up in front of him. She raised a hand, bringing it around in a stinging slap. "STOP!"

Billy wasn't sure what startled him more, the stranger rising out of the ground in front of him, our the loud crack as her hand hit is face. The stinging from the latter was enough to focus his thoughts though, and without even thinking about what kind of power rising through solid wood might take, he shouted back at her, "NO! You can't have it. You can't take it away." The lightning had begun to lessen now that the chanting, and he narrowed his eyes. "IWantYouToGoAway..." he started to chant, staring intently at her. "IWantYouToGoAway...IWantYouToBLOWAway," he adjusted, an idea forming in his mind. "BlowAwayBlowAway..." A heavy gust of wind hit his back, and he felt his footing start to slip. He braced the staff on the dock as another anchor and continued to chant. "YOUtoBlowAwayIWantYOUtoBLOWaway..."

The pier beneath their feet started to creak as Wanda added her weight to the straining boards as the wind around them picked up. She opened her senses and though she regretted it, because there was chaos everywhere she looked, she gritted her teeth and pushed through the sharp pain to the back of her skull. Maybe it had been her exposure to magic over the years or maybe her powers had always had the ability to mess with magic like it did with mutant powers but Wanda knew she had a chance of disrupting what Billy was doing.

Or blow it up in their faces, she thought grimly, 'reaching' for the skipping lines of chaos that churned around them.

Billy sensed something interfering even before he realized someone else had arrived, but as he squinted through the wind and debris blowing around them, he noticed a second figure. "You can't take it away" he screamed into the wind, as he began taking careful steps further backward down the pier, trying to put distance between them while keeping his footing secure. He sensed something starting to slip away, but at the same time grow wilder and stronger, and he raised his voice, chanting louder being the only thing he could think to do. "IWantMoreWind.IWantToBlowThemAway.IWantMoreWind.StopThem.BlowThemAway." The wind did begin to pick up, lifting droplets of water from the river and whipping it in a wide circle about them. "Go away!" The warning was almost pleading but quickly carried off in the wind before he resumed the chant.

It was all Amanda had been able to do to avoid being blasted away by the kid's initial reaction; she'd let her feet sink into the pier as an anchor and had her arms up, protecting her face. "We should've brought 'Ro for this one," she muttered to herself, even though she knew no-one would be able to hear her. They had to shut this kid down fast, before he tore the dock area apart.

The clap was the barest placing of her palms together, but it was enough to trigger her shielding spell. Here in New York, it was as strong as it ever could be, more than enough to withstand the wind storm. If Amanda had placed it around herself. Instead, however, she had encased the boy in it, an airtight bubble that was rapidly shrinking.

As the air in the bubble began to thin, Billy's voice began to break, and he struggled to continue chanting. His voice began to crackle, and the last lightning sparks started to fade. One hand clutched at his chest, as he gasped, letting the staff clatter to the ground, the glow around him vanishing, leaving the threesome in a much dimmer light. The winds whirling about them seemed to lessen, though not stop entirely.

The second he dropped the staff, Amanda let up the shield - but only long enough to step forward and re-cast the spell with the bubble around the both of them. With air, this time. "Boss Lady!" she yelled through the storm. "Can you calm this down? I've got our sorcerer's apprentice safe and sound!"

Wanda paid no attention to either Billy or Amanda as the storm, slightly lessened or no, held her attention thoroughly. There was something in the midst that drew her in though not so completely she lost her head. A kinship, almost, which puzzled and worried her in one. But that was something to puzzle out later when there was no danger of being swept into the water or having her head bashed upon the pier.

The familiar red light exploded out from her hands as she threw her head back, seeking the heart of the storm as it swirled above them. Magic fueled it but chaos, oddly, would be able to stop it in its tracks. It took her a moment to find the right lines to draw to her - it was like trying to catch a butterfly in the middle of a hurricane. Twice the lines either slipped from her grasp or changed to something unusable before she finally had it. With a satisfied sighed, Wanda sent a blast of chaos energy and ...

The winds dropped so suddenly that her ears popped.

Billy gasped as oxygen flooded his lungs again, taking in long desperate breaths. The energy, both literal and metaphoric, quickly drained from him, and he just dropped to his knees, barely sparing a glance at either of the woman who had bested him, for the moment, just grateful to be breathing. The clouds overhead rumbled, but no visible further lightning appeared, and the heavy rain began to lift, quickly fading to a light drizzle.

Amanda gestured and the bubble became a roof, rain pattering off the mystic energies. Folding her arms across her chest, she glanced at Wanda as the older woman approached. "Nice work. You'll have Storm jealous an' all," she said with a slight grin. It faded as she looked down at the boy. "Still leaves us with this little problem, tho'. What do you think we should do with him? Toss him in the river?"

"Only if you wish to fish him out," Wanda warned, carefully picking her way across the soaked boards lest Amanda be forced to fish her out of the river. "Besides, knowing my luck, I would be needed to wash some of his wounds out. Again." She gazed down at the young man and she sighed, sounding quite put upon. "Hello, Billy. You've come a long way from that day in the park, haven't you?"

Billy's head jerked up at the sound of his name, and his eyes widened as he recognized Wanda and the memory of a couple months ago came flooding back. "What--Who--How?" he stammered, his eyes darting between the two women. "What are YOU doing here?"

"Preventing you from wrecking this perfectly nice wharf. You've been wrecking havoc all over with this storm. Care to explain?"

"I'm not wreck--" Billy started to say, but stopped as he caught sight of the still smoldering post. "Well, not the whole wharf. Just...those," he nodded toward the posts. His gaze traveled past them to the rest of the yard, strewn about with crates and barrels, some smashed, some charred, and all of them shifted about, taking in the extent of the damage for the first time. He glanced back at them, then at the river, as if considering tossing himself in. "Not really. I mean," he quickly clarified, "I would, but I CAN'T really explain it. It's kinda...impossible."

"Try us," Amanda said, raising her eyebrows to indicate the shielding spell arcing over their heads, keeping them dry in the diminishing rain. "You'd be surprised by what some people consider 'impossible'."

Billy looked up at the shield, then back at Amanda. Well, there was that. And the fact they didn't seem phased by ANY of what they'd just seen, so even if Billy still didn't quite believe it himself. He stood up slowly, head hanging. "Ok, here goes," he said, dragging out the words. "When I...uh, when I want something, it kinda happens. I mean, not all the time. But a lot of the time. Especially lately. Stuff just...happens. Just like I say it. Well, no," he stopped, correcting himself. "Not just like it. Sometimes it goes all wonky. Like the other day, I was down here, and was..." he stopped, flushing red. "Well, I wanted a weapon. Like Mjolnir, y'know, the hammer from the stories? But...well, I don't know what's making these things happen. Maybe it's some god or gods or something, but they have a stupid sense of humor. I wanted a cool weapon like a hammer or a sword, and instead, the gods send me this stick." He kicked at the black staff by his feet. "I know, it's gotta sound crazy."

Something in Wanda wanted to laugh. Crazy? Crazy was the knowledge that a good number of the people she saw on a regular basis had actually been to Asgard and that the gods in question were nothing like what Billy would have imagined. But instead of laughing, she watched as the staff rolled a little towards her and she crouched above it, unwilling to touch it just yet. As far as she could see, though, it seemed to be a simple if well-made staff. There were no runes she could see and no other marks that would reveal that it was anything special.

"Crazy?" she finally responded, looking up. "No, not particularly. We have seen stranger, trust me. But tonight? The storm? Where does that fit in?"

"Those," Billy scowled, nodding toward the posts. "So stuff doesn't always work or doesn't work the way I really wanted it to," he started to explain, slowly figuring out the words to describe the strange happenings. "I don't really know why, but there are some...places where it does. Or works better at least. Like here. I can't describe it, really. I just feel something and know that it's going to work. But those things, whatever they are, are stopping me. Right after the staff showed up, they went off like a fire alarm, but one just inside my head. And there was this weird feeling like someone was watching me. So I figured maybe if I got rid of them, stuff would work again. I was just trying to get lightning from the staff--y'know, hopefully split those apart like when it hits a tree?" He looked up at the clouds above, still hanging low and dark, but not nearly as black as they had been. "All that...just sorta happened."

"Those happen to be wards. Magical alarms," Amanda elaborated. She muttered a few words and gestured at the two poles and they returned to as they had been. "My magical alarms, actually. I put them there to warn off people who want to fuck with the city. Of course, I didn't expect some wet behind the ears kid to take it into his head to try and blow 'em up."

"Yours?" Billy looked at her strangely, his head darting between the posts and Amanda several times. He started to chew on his bottom lip, actually thinking through pieces he hadn't even considered before. "Uh...sorry?" he offered, sheepishly. "I didn't think they were important. Wait, Magic?"

"What did you think you were throwing around?" Wanda asked, though her voice was surprisingly gentle considering that she was drenched within an inch of her life and had only just been fighting that very same power. "Though, honestly, assuming it was a mutant power only really is more of a logical assumption in this day and age."

Billy thought for minute then finally shrugged. "I don't even know. Really, I kinda just kept expecting to wake up and find it was all a dream." He was quiet a moment, and then, despite the dim light, seemed to turn even paler. "Wait, does...does this mean I'm...a...m-mutant?"

"Most likely, yeah." Amanda took her cue from Wanda and had backed off on the bad cop a bit. "There's tests that can be done to prove it, but considering the magic you're throwing around with no idea what you're doing and with no training, I'd say you're one of us."

"One of us..." Billy mumbled the words. "What are they going to say...wait," he looked up, uncertainty plain on his face. "So...are you going to take it away?"

"No," Wanda responded instantly, unsure if she was reassuring him or telling him something he didn't want to hear. "Even if we had the ability to permanently remove someone's powers, which we do not, we would not. They are as much a part of you as your hands are - we have no desire to go down that road." She stood up and started to attempt to wring the water out of her hair. "We do, however, know of a place that can help you understand and control your powers, if you wish."

Billy wasn't quite sure either, one part of him terrified and the other wanting to whoop loudly that this wasn't a dream. He didn't look at either of them for a while, instead looking around them at the docks, at the river, then craning his neck to study the clouds above them and the rain still strangely stopping above them. "I guess," he finally said, "Control would be good."

"Considering the mess you've been making in the city over the past few days? Yeah, control would definitely be good," was Amanda's dry comment. She bent and picked up the staff, senses alert for the kind of magical presence she got from Nico's Staff of One. Nothing. It was just an ordinary piece of wood. That was a relief at least. "You wouldn't be the first magic-using mutant the school's had to deal with." She held the staff out to him. "How are you situated for family? You on good terms or what?"

Billy reached for the staff, plunking one end down on the pier. "School? Like, school school? That would...not really sure how I'd explain that to my parents. I...I guess we're on ok terms. But they can't know about this. Really! They wouldn't understand at all," his eyes took on a panicked, distant look. "I just can't tell them. I don't want to tell them. I don't want them to know... IDon'tWantThemToKnowIDon'tWantThemToKnow."

A firm hand gripped the staff and yanked it right out of Billy's grasp. Wanda stood with her body angled so that she was now holding the staff out to the side and behind her as she kept herself between Billy and the staff. She didn't know if it was his focal point but she was hoping that if it wasn't that her sudden action would have stopped whatever he'd been about to do. The air had grown heavy and oppressive in just the few seconds that Billy had been panicking and the last thing she'd wanted was to see what would happen if he'd gone on.

"Keeping calm might be a good idea, Billy," she said simply, keeping a tight grip on the staff. "The power you wield is dangerous - at least come with us to talk about what we might be able to do to help you."

Billy snapped back to reality as the staff was taken from him, and he just stood there trying to steady his breath. He looked back and forth between the two of them, not sure whether to trust them or...well, he couldn't think of any other options. Wanda's words from months earlier came to memory. "Call this if you need someone to patch you up who would not be tempted to relieve you of your wallet., and he finally nodded, voice still shaky as he said, "Ok, yeah, where do you want to talk?"

Amanda exchanged a look with Wanda , a wordless conversation taking place. "My place will do," she said out loud. "If anything, we can dry off a bit." She looked pointedly at the puddle of water forming around her feet from her clothes and hair. "I can call the school and see what we can get sorted, too."

"And I," Wanda replied, hefting the staff so that it rested on her shoulder, "shall call Marie-Ange and ask her very nicely if she would make sure the kettle and some towels are waiting for us. There is no way I am going to survive the next hour without a hot cup of tea."

And Billy just followed along silently, wondering whether he would survive the next hour at all. His thoughts were a chaotic mess, still trying to process the impossibility of everything. Wanda's words from months before kept echoing through his mind, though, a small reassurance. There are fewer protectors than there should be...Call this if you need someone to patch you up... So despite the misgivings, he put one foot in front of the other, following after them.