บท 52: 'Typical' Day in the Delta Quadrant
I walked the empty streets of New York City as light rain fell and 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' by Green Day. It would be strange and unnerving to me, if this was not a holographic program. Instead, the adrenaline pumping through my veins was due to the opponent that I knew was lurking around here somewhere. This was not our first fight, nor would it be our last, so we both had learned about each other's habits.
My senses were stretched to the max as I searched for Chaos mana. Unlike my Storm, her magic was made solely from chaotic mana, giving her much more leeway to override the 'strength' behind most of my magical attacks. While I did have a much stronger physical body than she did, her ability to manipulate the mind was far greater than my ability to keep her out of my head.
Without realizing it, I had started walking in circles as I tried to navigate back to Central Park. It was not due to my inability to navigate the city streets, but rather, a certain witch who was watching me from a window of one of the tall buildings around me. After I passed the Lincoln Center for who knows how many times, I was finally able to snap out of her illusion, but now, I knew where she was.
"Damnit, Wanda! We already know that I'm weak to mental illusions!" I shouted.
I pulled back my arm, while a small ball made of silver mist, that had crimson lightning rippling through it, formed in my hand, and after it finished, I threw it like a baseball towards the third floor of the building where I had sensed her Chaos mana. The aptly named, Chaos Storm Grenade, flew through the air and hit the side of the building, swallowing a ten-foot radius in a densely packed Chaos Storm. As it expanded, my Chaos mana would consume everything in its wake unless they could protect themselves from its corruption, but that was not the end of the spell. It was significantly harder to control my Chaos Storm when it was away from my body, to the point that I did not think it was possible until Dystina locked me down with hers while she relaxed in the sun, so that was the current limit of what I could control, and convert into an even stronger attack. After it finished expanding, the Chaos Storm transformed into a thick bolt of crimson lightning, which shot out at Wanda.
She threw up a hasty, red shield of mana, which broke, but it gave her enough time to throw up a proper one. Jumping out of the large hole that my spell had created, she floated down to the street as her red Chaos mana swirled under her hands. I had chosen to make her look like Elizabeth Olsen when she fought against Thanos which was my favorite version of the Scarlet Witch.
"Should you not be working on your weakness?" she asked with a teasing smile.
I rolled my eyes since I knew that she was right, yet I was also tired of everyone on the Council, who could, exploiting the same weakness. True mind control was easy for me to break, but minor suggestions were my kryptonite. Still, it was better than facing Loki or Sun Wukong, who delighted in making a fool out of me, having me swing at thin air while they just stood behind me, since Wanda could only make me wander aimlessly.
With a thrust of my hands, my Chaos Storm Domain was released, and it blanketed the area around me and Wanda. She smirked as the space around her shimmered with a red glow as her aura stripped away bits of my influence over the Chaos Storm near her. She twisted her hands around a red orb of energy, so I teleported myself behind her, since teleporting within my Chaos Storm was far easier than through normal space.
Wanda slammed her hands onto the ground, and it was as if the pavement had become water as a wave of concrete rolled away from her in a perfect circle. I jumped into the air, over it, and launched a few thin bolts of crimson electricity at her. She blocked my attack with a shield while her other hand prepared another spell. Just as my feet touched the ground, she flung the spell at me.
For a moment, Time seemed to slow, and my mind seemed to split. Part of me manipulated the Chaos Storm to tear away at her hex-bolt, while another part created a thick block of Ice in front of me. The hex-bolt destroyed the ice wall, but what hit me was easy enough to shrug off, though it made my body tingle for a few moments.
I raced towards her, activating my Lightning-Style Superspeed, once I rid myself of her mana, but she still had the time to cast a spell before I could reach her. The parked car nearest to me came flying at me, so I was forced to defend against it while she retreated. I blasted it away and chased after her while my speed kept building. She tried a few more attacks in hopes of slowing me down, but I had gotten used to her tactics, and could counter, or dodge them. Once I closed the distance between us, the fight was over, since she could not hold me with her Chaos mana, and her body was still that of a human.
The New York cityscape was replaced by the little cantina ship where the rest of the Council of Chaos were. Aside from Wanda, Vision had joined the permanent group, though it was more for Wanda's sake, since I had yet to fight the android. There was an extra person in the group today, but as much as I loved her, I was not too excited to see her here.
"Raven, I get that my blood helps your crafting, but I gave you twelve pints two days ago. If I was still human, I would be very dead by now," I complained.
"Relax, I just finished up early, and I don't have enough time to start on the enchanting before our time is up," Raven replied.
"Oh, well, if that's the case," I said with a smile, and closed the distance between us.
She chuckled as I wrapped my arms around her, and kissed her. I picked her up, and carried her over to the small garden at the back of the ship. Ivy pulled a thick branch down with her power, where I sat Raven down, and joined her up on the tree. I leaned back against the trunk, and she snuggled up against my chest.
"Computer, change the day to night time, and play something from Raven's playlist," I instructed.
The sky overhead turned dark, with stars shining above us, placed as they would be if we were back on Earth during the springtime. This was very similar to how we would spend our evenings back in Eden, so it was nice that we could relax like this, even if it was just the holodeck. There was only half an hour left of our time on the holodeck, even with the Time manipulation, so when it ran out, everything disappeared except for Raven, Katye, Echo, and myself.
"Well, well, what were you two up to?" Katye teased with a smile.
"Relaxing under the stars," I replied.
"Boring," she retorted as we all started walking towards the exit.
Raven and I chuckled while Echo simply smiled. The four of us made our way up to the Mess Hall, which was quickly filling up since it was the start of breakfast. We got trays of food, before sitting down at one of the large tables with Tom and Harry.
"I heard about your new holo-novel, Tom," Raven remarked. "Leprechauns versus Dwarves, huh?"
"Thank you for not using the overplayed troupe of the 'evil' dragon," I added.
Tom chuckled, "Yeah, I figured that you wouldn't appreciate that. I tried to make sure none of them were similar to your group."
"If you'd be willing to give me a few pointers on holographic personality programs, I could help you make your 'magic' a bit more accurate," I offered.
"If you let me borrow one of those exo-suits of yours, I'll teach you everything that I know about holographic programming," he countered.
"Without mana of your own, you would only be able to get a ten-minute flight with Raven's newest model," I warned.
"It will be the best ten minutes of my life," Tom replied.
"Well, can Tom borrow your new suit if he manages to get the Captain to agree to his spacewalk?" I asked, giving her puppy dog eyes.
Rolling her eyes at me, she turned to Tom and said, "Get permission for both of us, and you have a deal."
"Alright," Tom said with a big smile.
Harry could only shake his head with a smile also on his face while I chuckled, and then turned my attention to my food. It had been two months since Sancu's 'game', and all four of us had redoubled and refocused our efforts when it came to training, thoroughly abusing the Time-bending properties of the Mind Linker, and the improved holo-deck every day. Sleep was always a rare thing since the linker could relieve minor mental fatigue, but it was becoming a regular thing even for me, and I once went a year without truly sleeping, using meditation to rest my mind instead. It was only in moments like this that we were truly able to relax, and feel like normal people once again.
Aside from our training, two episodes had popped up over that time, but both had played out similarly to how they originally did, one intentional and one not. The Voyager had made contact with a race known as the Enarans when we had traveled near their colony in the Fima system. I recognized the telepathic race as soon as the three 'guest stars' beamed onboard, since I joined Janeway in welcoming them to the ship. They were asking for a ride back to their home world, since the Voyager was much faster than their ships, in return for teaching our engineers about their energy conservation technology. The drama of the episode centered around B'Elanna who was receiving the memories of Korenna Mirell in her dreams, which revealed that the Enaran government had covered up wiping out a group known as the Regressives who shunned their technologic advancements. Since B'Elanna was not hurt by the memories, and the Enarans' ability to share and look at memories, we all stayed as far away from them as we could, though Katye mentioned that after they left there was a new trainer available to us on the holodeck, which could help teach us their form of telepathy.
The other episode that came along, our hands were tied throughout the events. Visiting another new world, Kes had joined a group that were touring a ritual site where her curiosity had caused her to make a grave mistake. She split off from the main group and wandered into a holy shrine that had a biogenic field at the entrance, which knocked her unconscious. It was Filigree, of all people, who was able to diagnose what had happened to her. She called it a Yang-hex, which was converting Kes's mana into Yang energy and pulling that mana back to the barrier around the shrine. It was a slow process, and taking her away from the planet would not help her.
Our sensors discovered a trio of carbuncloes hiding within the barrier around the shrine, which made it a complicated problem for us to get involved, since they were very timid elemental creatures that likely would not trust us enough to talk to us, no matter what we said or did. They were likely the 'ancestral spirits' of the Nechani people which their religion was based around, so getting into a fight with them, or scaring them off, would cause a diplomatic embarrassment to say the least. So, the only option left was for Janeway to 'seek the ancestral spirits' as she had done in the show, which reserved the effects of the Yang-hex when she brought Kes back into the biogenic field. Unlike the episode though, Janeway was not disappointed with the Doctor's explanation of the science behind how she had restored Kes, as it was a little peek into the world of magic.
After breakfast, we all split up for our duty shifts, so I walked with Tom and Harry since we had our weekly briefing of the Senior Officers. There was nothing exciting to report by anyone, just a normal meeting, so it ended rather quickly. I was working on the Bridge today, so I sat in Chakotay's usual seat and Janeway took hers. Again, things were quiet, so she excused herself to her Ready Room to look through the detailed reports that all of us had written. Several hours later, near the end of my duty shift, the ship's sensors picked up some sort of a spatial rift.
"Red Alert. Captain to the Bridge," I announced.
Janeway and Tuvok walked out of her Ready Room a moment later and she ordered, "Report!"
"Sensors just picked up a spatial rift directly ahead of us, and I can tell you that a lot of mana is being disturbed," I said, since I could sense the waves of some type of elemental mana that I did not know, yet had felt before.
"Analysis," Janeway said.
"It's a distortion in the space-time continuum, but it's got a graviton matrix. It's being artificially generated," Harry explained.
"By whom?" Janeway asked.
"Typical sensors can't get inside it, but the Vazukuru sensors are picking up incredible fluctuations of Time mana," Harry replied.
Instantly, the pieces of the opening scene clicked in my head. There were a number of Time-related episodes throughout the show, and we were due for this mid-season finale. Even if we wanted to run, it was already too late.
"The distortion field's fluctuating. Something's coming out," Harry said.
"It appears to be a small ship, approximately six meters in length," Tuvok analyzed.
"Magnify," Janeway instructed.
The image of the tiny ship grew bigger on the view screen just as it had on the show. The ship had a V-shape design with red glows on the wings which were no doubt the engines.
"Sensors are reading one occupant, human. He is holding position at the perimeter of the rift," Tuvok said.
"There's a subspace signature emanating from the ship. Captain... it's Federation!" Harry added with surprise.
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