章 114: Trouble Stirring
We materialized on the transporter pad in Voyager. Janeway, B'Elanna, and Harry were in the room and all three were smiling. Janeway was the first to break away from the terminal and greet us.
"It's good to have you five back. I'm sorry about your ship," Janeway said.
"Don't worry. We brought the Fae Dragon with us," I replied then chuckled at the confusion on the three of their faces. "We have a special tool, much like our storage rings, that we used to store the Fae Dragon. Unfortunately, it can only be used once, so once we take out the ship, it will be damaged beyond repair."
Katye had done some testing over the past two days and quickly found out that nothing could be sent into the storage space. That meant we were stuck sleeping in our little cave, but we were already used to it after two and a half months, and the enchantments on the satchel were much more advanced than our rings, so Katye planned to study it over the rest of our journey.
"Your people have an answer for everything," B'Elanna remarked.
"Magic helps a lot with troubleshooting possibilities," I retorted as I led my group off the platform.
"I'm not sure if you need to rest, but Neelix was thinking about throwing a welcome back party for you in the next day or two. Once we realized that you all were in trouble, the tension on the ship went up significantly," Janeway mentioned.
I chuckled, "Never lets a chance for a party pass. Sure, that's fine with us."
"Do you need time off to recover or anything?" Janeway asked with a smile.
"A day to get back into the swing of things would be nice, but nothing too special. It was nice to 'rough' it for a couple of months as a change of pace," I replied.
"Speak for yourself. I want a sonic shower," L'Naan grumbled.
"Seconded," Katye agreed.
"Of course, I won't hold you all," Janeway said.
With a smirk, I led my group out of the transporter room and to the turbo lift. Heading down to Deck Ten, we returned to the Shuttle Bay where Katye summoned out the Fae Dragon into her proper spot. We all entered the ship where Katye and L'Naan headed straight for the bathroom. Filigree and Nyka headed straight for the couches while Echo and I walked into the kitchen where I pulled out a bottle of Spirit Wine while she grabbed the glasses.
"You could have gotten us more time off," Echo complained over drinks.
"Please, you had two and a half months of solid training in a stronger environment. It's not like any of us would really rest anyways, so might as well get back to work," I replied with a shrug.
After Katye and L'Naan finished, we took our turn in the shower and got dressed in clean clothes. We rejoined the rest of our group in the living room where Katye was cooking a large meal, though not with the special ingredients that Sancu gave us. While it was a bit sad because of how good it was, we all agreed that we should save the meat and fruits for special occasions, since we would run out quickly if we ate them with every meal.
The night was quiet, and we all enjoyed sleeping in a proper bed once again. The next day we had off, but Neelix threw us a Welcome Back party and, as the guests of honor, we were roped into six hours of socializing with the Voyager crew... not horrible, but Echo and I were both introverts with L'Naan being close behind on the scale. The day after, we returned to our normal duty shifts and integrated back into Voyager with ease.
The next few weeks, my group kept an eye out for signs of a specific episode because, if it appeared, the creature involved would undoubtedly be an Elemental Creature. While Fae's sensors picked up a large mass of mana in the distances of our route, it quickly retreated before Voyager's sensors could detect it, so I had a feeling that the 'beast' fled as soon as it sensed us.
If the episode played out, this 'creature' would have been a giant beast that was over two thousand kilometers big and had psychic abilities which fooled the majority of the Voyager crew. Only Seven and Naomi were immune to the illusion that the creature's mouth was a wormhole back to the Alpha Quadrant as they did not want to return to Earth as much as the others. The duo, along with the Doctor, and a grumpy alien who was hunting the beast, managed to save Voyager.
Without facing the big beast, things were quiet and rather peaceful, giving me plenty of time to spend on the holo-deck and facing my Council. As my power grew, I made a few improvements to the weaker members of my Council by giving them armor on par with the exo-suits while customized to the person. The shields could withstand a couple of attacks, and the thrusters allowed them to get close to my speed. Harley and Deadpool also had headsets that could assist them with aiming their guns, and their guns themselves were upgraded to be on par with Echo's arrow-force wrapped arrows.
On an average day, after a sparring match against Hisoka, Tsunade was healing my wounds while I sipped on a cup of Spirit Wine. A headache was forming because for my second match, I had pulled a full, eight-man team battle with Deadpool as the captain. Although no one was using betting tokens to mess with the difficulty, the way that Wade was cackling let me know that he would not make it easy for me.
"You ready yet?" Wade yelled.
I sighed then downed the last of my cup with a gulp and said, "Thanks, Tsunade. Alright, Wade, you can hit the start button."
With an almost girl-like squeal, he pressed the button, and the world around me changed with a flash of white light. Suddenly, I found myself standing in a jungle, or more specifically, a rainforest. While the gentle storm would give me a bit of aid with my Thunderstorm spell, it also meant that all of the thick foliage was soaked, making it hard to burn, and I was facing Poison Ivy and Fred and George, who had a number of annoying spells that worked with plants. With all the trees and brush, my vision was greatly reduced, and my speed would also be affected unless I cut through the trees, so this was one of the worst environments for me.
"Damn you, Wade," I grumbled while conjuring my Chaos Storm Clouds and pulling out a pair of hand axes.
No one was near as I made a foggy Domain around me, twenty-five feet in every direction, except for penetrating the ground or plants. I also activated my Earth Domain as I walked to the nearest tree then chopped it with a bit of Weapon-Force, cutting through it completely with ease. The tree fell with a loud crash, alerting them to my position, which had been my goal along with clearing out the area.
I managed to cut down a few more before the first wave of attacks came. A yellow beam of pure energy along with two red bolts of magic, which I knew were stunner spells from the Wesley twins. If that was not enough, the vines and roots around me came alive under Ivy's manipulation and sought to entangle me while a wave of red Chaos energy rushed towards me.
I could sense the subtle Space manipulation within Wanda's attack, so I knew that she was trying to lock down the region around me to prevent me from teleporting around. Immediately, I retracted my Storm Clouds into a tiny ball after teleporting twenty feet away, opposite of Wanda's attack, then launched it at her attack and retreated again, because I knew what was about to happen.
The moment that the gray, cloudy ball contacted the red wave of energy, a violent eruption of Chaos-Space mana exploded and shredded everything on a subatomic level. I only managed to escape the blast radius by repeatedly teleporting away multiple times. Everything within a hundred-foot radius of the impact point of the two attacks was erased, leaving a perfect semicircular depression in the dirt.
No sooner than I had sighed in relief of avoiding the aftereffects of the counter, my instincts screamed! I twisted my body, flashing my superspeed spell at the absolute fastest cast possible, draining my Soul Power even, to spin... yet, a sniper bullet cut through my left shoulder and a shotgun blast punctured my right thigh. I roared in pain as I threw an axe, with my good arm, at the closest target, Deadpool, then switched out my other axe for a shield.
I barely had time to switch the shield to my good arm before Wolverine launched himself at me from the top of a tree. Infusing my Weapon-Force into the shield, not only did I strengthen it to mostly defend against his claws, only leaving deep grooves, but I was also able to convert some of his energy from the attack into a perfect parry which launched him hundreds of feet away at the price of causing minimal damage to him. I shifted into my Dusa form with annoyance and released my Chaos Storm at full strength, seventy-five feet away from me and dissolving everything within to feed me mana.
Deadpool and Harley Quinn were immediately revealed to my senses, and I turned my Storm on them. Even with the exo-suits, they could only defend for a few seconds as I burned extra mana to destroy their shields with repeated attacks. Harley was gone with a signature white flash, but a few cells of Deadpool must have survived as I did not see a second flash.
That did not matter as another volley of attacks came at my backside. Again, I focused Weapon-Force and a bit of Chaos mana into my shield as I flipped around and thrusted forward. Right before a trio of two red stunner spells, and Vision's yellow laser beam could hit me, a gray pulse of mist launched off my shield and consumed the aftermath.
I flapped my wings and sent myself into the pit that the explosive attack had dug, still confident in my chances in dealing with the remaining people. I did not waste any time to flex my Earth Domain to its fullest, and threw out every plant in my Domain, but Ivy had obviously survived the explosion of Chaos-Space mana as I could feel some of the plants wiggling their way back towards me. Up in the sky, Vision and the Weasley twins were hovering in the air, preparing their next attack.
Vision launched himself at me with a raised fist, breaking the sound barrier, while the twins were casting a large-scale spell. I had just enough time to infuse my shield with Weapon-Force to defend against Vision's attack, as without Weapon-Force, he would phase through the shield and land the supersonic punch to my jaw; I had learned from several mistakes in the past. Although I deflected Vision, and most of the strength behind his punch, I was still shoved down several feet into the ground, as I had not reactivated my Earth Domain.
I conjured it then and used it to turn the dirt into stone blades in a five-foot radius. The stone blades hovered around me menacingly before I launched myself into the air at full speed, superspeed and a gust of air to carry me, towards the twins. Being the middle of a Grand spell, they could not direct their brooms to move them away, so I aimed the blades at them and controlled them to repeatedly bash against their shields with two of my minds. I conjured my Chaos Storm once again and devoted three minds to managing it, two to ensure the consumption of mana did not get out of control while the third used the harnessed mana to attack the twins with Lightning.
They could only hold out for so long with a concentrated attack, though those remaining tried to intervene. Wanda launched several bolts of Chaos mana at me while Vision fired another yellow beam of energy... once he dug himself out of the ground that I had deflected him into. My Storm was able to strip away the force of their attacks and return a bit of mana while I finished off the twins with a barrage of attacks.
Unfortunately, I had been a moment too late with destroying their shields and killing them, as their Grand spell finished. There was a ripple of mana, both in the sky and in the earth, which was released right before the white flashes that signaled the 'death' of the Weasley twins. From the clouds, a giant Dragon head formed and moved to swallow me whole; from the land, a giant stone tiger head erupted from the ground and sought to eat me as well.
My first instinct was to teleport away, but another spell of Wanda reached us at the same moment, so I was forced to retreat physically. I avoided the multiple jaws with an abuse of my superspeed and slipped through the cracks of the teeth, though the heads were still coming. While I continued to retreat, I fired multiple bolts of Chaos-infused Lightning, dyeing it crimson, at the stone tiger which blew off chucks of rock before it finally collapsed after the seventh hit.
Unfortunately, with my attention on the wizards' animated spells, I did not realize that Vision was flying at me until it was too late for me to dodge. He managed to grab my ankle and whipped me around, sending me hurtling towards the ground. I conjured my Chaos Storm immediately and focused it ahead of me. When it touched the dirt, the Earth transformed into Water instantly with a drain on my mana reserves, so I did not hit hard, but still cut out a large groove into the ground.
At the speed I was going, the water felt like concrete, but ultimately, it was more forgiving than the stone would have been. I sunk nearly a hundred feet before I was able to halt my momentum, but the dragon head was still intact and coming for me. With an open maw, the dragon head slammed into the ground around my watery pit, breaking chucks of rocks as it came crashing down.
I snorted with disdain at the artificial dragon and stirred my mana. Right before it could reach me, I roared while releasing multiple bolts of Chaos-Lightning which, combined with the Water around me, exploded the dragon head with shimmering red sparks. Vision had apparently been following right behind the attack in hopes of capitalizing on the spell, but instead, he got caught up in my large spell and disappeared with a flash of white light as he was particularly weak to Chaos-Lightning.
Standing in the crater, as my last attack had evaporated the water, I huffed with a bit of exhaustion. I had burned nearly a quarter of my mana reserves with that attack alone and, while I could recover that much rather quickly, it still gave me a weak feeling when using so much at once. Again, I conjured my Chaos Storm, but this time it was to restore my mana quicker.
Just before I launched myself into air with a flap of my wings, my comm badge chimed, "Red alert. All hands to battle stations."
"Damn, just when this was getting good," I grumbled. "Computer, end battle simulation and maximize time dilation."
With a flash of white light, I was back on the little ship with my Council of Chaos. I shifted back into my normal form and walked over to Tsunade. Most of my injuries were healed, but she could also help me restore my mana at a significantly faster rate than I could even with meditation.
"You might want to change your shirt before you go," Ivy remarked with a smirk.
While the injury was gone, there was a hole in my jacket and black blood stained my entire left shoulder. I retrieved another uniform jacket and retorted, "Thank your girlfriend for me."
Ivy chuckled and walked over to her garden where Harley was sitting. Tsunade finished restoring my mana, so I thanked her and switched my jacket before ending the program. Instead of bothering with the turbo lift, I shifted into the Yin Realm and directly rushed up to the Bridge in case I was needed for the fight.
I stepped out in the hallway away from people, to not spook anyone, then walked the last few steps to the Bridge. Janeway was in her chair with Chakotay next to her while Tom, Harry, Tuvok, and Seven were at their own stations. On the viewscreen, I saw a small Borg vessel and my eyes narrowed as I realized that an episode was about to start.
"...Captain, if we can do enough damage to their shields with our initial counterattack and force them to remodulate their shields, I can beam over a torpedo and disable their ship," Harry suggested as I made my way over to my normal seat on Janeway's right side.
"That sounds like a good plan," Janeway agreed.
"We are being hailed," Harry reported.
"Put it through," Janeway ordered, standing up.
The screen changed to an unnamed Borg drone and, in their unified voice, stated, "We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."
"Break off your pursuit or we'll open fire," Janeway warned.
"Irrelevant."
"Is it? You've scanned our vessel. You know we can match your firepower," she countered.
"You will be assimilated," the drone replied emotionlessly then cut off communications.
The ship rocked with a blast from their phasers, but the shields remained intact. Janeway ordered Tuvok to return fire and, with a few hits, the Borg shields were knocked out long enough for Harry to beam over an active torpedo. When it detonated, the Borg cube was not disabled, but rather destroyed as multiple eruptions tore apart the ship.
"I thought we were trying to disable it," Chakotay questioned.
"The torpedo detonated too close to the power matrix. It caused a chain reaction," Seven explained.
"Survivors?" Janeway asked.
"None," Tuvok reported.
"Debris status?"
"There's a few components intact, but they're badly damaged," Harry replied.
"Begin a salvage operation," Janeway instructed, turning to Chakotay.
"Captain?" he asked, slightly confused.
"There might be something we can use... weapons, a transwarp coil... I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel lucky today," she said with a confident smirk. "Rebecca, join me in my Ready Room."
I suppressed the urge to sigh as I knew that she was going to question me about what I knew. Unfortunately, even if I told her the truth, I knew that she would still want to go after a transwarp coil as she had ignored my warnings in the past. Voyager would also need the boost if it was to stay on schedule with the timeline that I knew about, but I could only wonder how things will play out with Raven still apart of the Collective...
A/N: The next release will be on the Oct. 1st daily reset, and I will start a monthly release until I have a big stockpile. For those that know the show, they know that a special two-parter episode is about to begin. I'm hoping to finish the mini arc over the month, so I can release it altogether.
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