Days of Past's Visions
Part III: Disassembled
1
Though she had yet to outright admit it to herself, Wanda Maximoff was going crazy.
After the nightmare brought about by Dani Moonstar ended, Wanda thought everything was okay and anything she had felt or saw was a creation of the other girl's powers. The nervousness she felt when she looked at her father was just leftover jitters from the experience that would pass in a few days. Or so she told herself. In reality, the uneasy feeling she had any time her father was near only seemed to get worse. She found herself ducking out meetings with him quickly, giving pitiful excuses as to why she could not sit down for meals with him any longer, all in hopes of avoiding whatever it was she was feeling when he was near. It wasn't outright fear, more along the lines of distrust and anger.
Thinking taking time away from him might help her get over her issues since spending time with him was clearly not, she found that the same feelings were soon spreading to her thoughts about others, namely the fellow Bayville Brotherhood members. Whatever was happening involved the others she knew from before Avalon. She continually forced herself to think all of this was just irrational paranoia; she was just being silly and needed to get over it. Everyone did not suddenly turn against her and any anger she did feel towards her friends should be because they did something to deserve it. That of course was something they did constantly, so she found some comfort in that.
Until the nightmares started.
They were always the same, vague memories of running down never ending corridors. No matter what twist or turn she took, she could never escape. The few windows she found were barred shut, though through them she could see horrifically burned landscapes. Each time she had the dream she would run until she could see an open door in the distance, and each time metal bars would slam down over the portal blocking her path. It was then that she would wake up covered in cold sweat, panting heavily, the dream quickly fading from her memory. Even though she could not then fall back asleep, for the first week she found them to just be a strange annoyance. As terrible as they were, she never thought of them as more than bad dreams, maybe the result of something she ate or more likely just a reaction to the stress of her newfound paranoia. She almost found it funny, having anxiety over having anxiety. But in the end, a series of unremembered nightmares was nothing new to Wanda; she recalled having suffered from some when she was a small child after Pietro had tricked her into watching a scary movie. She hoped they would end after some time and was not overly concerned.
She determined to get over her random emotional issues by forcing herself to be around her friends and working through whatever was affecting her. Wanda was a member of the Bayville Brotherhood, a title of self importance they had begun using to distinguishing themselves from the others on the island. While she didn't necessarily like everyone in the group, it was better than mingling with the strangers. The group, which consisted of those originally recruited by Mystique and Magneto, had stuck together during the influx of new mutants onto the island. Still misfits and outsiders, they were enjoying an odd reversal of popularity due to not only their place on the Acolytes, Avalon's defenders, but also for their place as the first teens Magneto reached out to in Bayville. When not busy with the new training regiments organized by Bishop, the group liked to come and hang out at the same small café they had found when first arrived on the island. Many passersby would give them looks of awe and even wave at them in hopes of getting some sort of acknowledgement in response. Despite all of this attention, they did not mix often with the other mutants. Some, like Blob and Toad, maintained they did this to keep the air of mystery and coolness they now had. Others, like Pietro, pointed out that it would all be lost once someone got a good whiff of Toad. The only new people in they allowed into their group were Calvin "Mimic" Rankin and Cassandra Nova, although the latter was usually too busy finding new mutants using Cerebra to spend much time with the Bayville teens.
She stayed with her friends as much as possible in hopes that a bit of normality would chase away the fleeting memories picked up the night before. For a short time it seemed to work. The dreams faded quicker when she woke up in the morning and she even found herself looking forward to the day's activities. In another area of her life she wasn't being entirely honest with herself about, most of that had to do with Mimic. When her father had first rescued the boy from the Vault, she had been leery of him, but she had quickly warmed up to him after learning a bit about his past. Now she thought the power copying mutant was decent enough, and had quite a few qualities that made him stand out from the rest of her friends. He was intelligent, but not overwhelmingly so, good looking but not perfect, and most of all he wasn't a jerk. He usually went out his way to prove that to her, but it was welcome change from the year and a half that she lived in the Bayville boarding house. Mimic also had a certain way with Toad that kept the pest out of her hair. Even though she was fully capable of dealing with Toad, and usually did so with a pleasurable satisfaction, Mimic did his best to keep him in line for Wanda. She knew he was doing his best to both get on Wanda's good side and to show her he had a more chivalrous personality compared to the other Brotherhood boys. She hadn't made up her mind if it was endearing and appreciated it or if it was annoying but useful, since it did keep her from having to talk to Toad, but either way she still found herself attracted to the newest member in her circle of friends. His presence was a refreshing change and did help with her deteriorating mental problems.
But unfortunately the small peace she found didn't last. At the end of the second week after her nightmares first began, she started having waking visions.
They started as glimpses of something out of the corner of her eye, but upon spinning quickly to check, there would be nothing. From there it progressed to seeing creatures in crowds, men formed out what looked like liquid metal who would disappear into the ground before Wanda could truly react. Then bits of the world would look as if they had turned to rust and burnt wood, metal gratings and iron bars appearing where there had been none before, always reverting to normal as if nothing had occurred. Any time she mentioned what she had just seen, or asked if anyone else had seen it, they passed it off as if it was nothing, or perhaps just a trick of the light. Or worse, that she was crazy. Crazy was a word quickly becoming taboo for Wanda. Eventually she stopped speaking to anyone about what she was seeing and tried her best to ignore it.
The day she finally found something that would help her was also the day whatever was going on in her head decided it would not be ignored.
It had been a normal afternoon for Wanda and her friends when she had a hallucination so horrible that she had fled in terror. Toad was being particularly foul that day, even for him, by practically sitting on Wanda's shoulder as he stood on the table speaking nonsense to her about their supposed relationship. She had glanced over to Mimic to see if he would once again step in for her. But on this particular day Mimic was focusing on a lesson from Lance on controlling earthquakes, leaving Wanda to fend off Toad alone. With a deep, frustrated sigh, Wanda had begun to tap her power, toying with the idea of causing Toad's own tongue to strangle him when something snapped.
The trapped feelings she was already having with Toad so close intensified beyond anything she had experienced before, the entire world felt as if it was collapsing in on her. A deafening roar filled her ears as the world around her began to melt, the horrors she had only experienced in full when her powers accidentally intensified the X-brat Mirage's powers filled the void left by the disappearance of normality. Her friends were replaced by the metal creatures she had seen darting in and out of crowds, the silver sheen reflecting the rust color the sky and landscape seemed to take on.
"Not real, not real," she said to herself, holding her fingertips to her temples. The creatures began to move towards her as the noise continued to ring in her ears, the air grew hot and choking, the rusted, charred metal buildings leaned in towards her to swallow her whole, the ground burned her feet. Panicked began to overtake her as the sky above her cracked with lightening and thunder, and a burning wind rushed around her as the creatures shuffled within arm's length. Throwing her arms over her head, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out what was happening around her, willing it to be some sort of dream.
Gurgling noises started coming from around her, strained voices that whispered phrases she could barely make out. "Lock her up...never wanted...better off without her... trouble...kill her...hate her... one of us!" She tried to scream but her throat closed up, the searing air cutting off any hope of making a sound. She tried to use her powers, but nothing but laughter echoed in her ears.
She jumped back as something touched her shoulder. Looking up, the world was normal again and Pietro's hand rested gently on her shoulder. "You okay Sis? No need to freak out or anything. It's just Toad being Toad."
She looked around. The others, while not moved from their spots like Pietro, were looking intently at her. The sun shone brightly on all of them as a gentle breeze cooled the air down to pleasant temperatures, and the buildings offered just enough shade to make it a delightful spot. Somewhere nearby she could hear a couple of kids playing. "Yeah I'm fine, just a really bad headache. I'm going to go lay down." She stood and headed down the street before they could ask any more questions. She could hear Toad calling out to her and Mimic grabbing him and forcing him back down, but she ignored it and turned the corner. Clear of their sight, she took off in a run.
She ran as far as she could away from everyone, out of the city and into the small woods that lay on one side of the island. She eventually came out of the trees to a small park nestled on the edge of the island that she had never been to before. Collapsing on the ground, she held her hands in her head as she stared at the waves crashing into the cliff bases below. She was on the verge of tears, a feeling she hadn't experienced since it had looked like Apocalypse had killed her father. A jolt of pain shot through her head at the mere thought of her father. She had the distinct impression that he would be very upset to know anything was wrong with her, which was precisely why she had not mentioned anything to him. He didn't like weakness, no matter how much it seemed he doted on her well being.
She raised her head in defiance. "I am not weak," she said aloud to the sky, tears beginning to stream down her face. She stood, ready to face whatever craziness appeared in her life with the inner fire the daughter of Magneto should have when instead she came face to face with Kwannon, her father's silent bodyguard. The ninja also known as Revanche was not in her customary black jumpsuit with a sword strapped across her back, but instead wore a cream colored gi of comfortable looking cotton, held in place with her normal pouched utility belt. Her deep purple hair was tied back into a loose ponytail with a black ribbon. She was also standing very close, staring directly at Wanda which caused the younger girl to stumble back away from her to avoid running into the woman who had suddenly appeared.
Wanda was afraid of two things in life, the ever worsening visions she was seeing and the pale purple eyes of the young ninja, which everyone agreed were cold and lifeless, full of a deadly indifference to most of the world, the deadly aspect enhanced by the blade shaped tattoo that ran down the left side of her face. Wanda was therefore very surprised to see a look of near concern emanating from Revanche.
Finding that look almost as unnerving as the cold indifference, Wanda attempted to move around the shadow walker. Kwannon again stepped in front of her. "What do you want? Get out of the way!'
The purple haired mutant stepped forward and grabbed Wanda by the shoulders, turning her back to the cliff. With a wave of her hand, she indicated Wanda should return to the ground near the edge. "Fine, whatever, I'll sit down. We going to have a conversation?"
Wanda went and sat back down on the grass, while Kwannon knelt beside her. She made a movement with her hand indicating Wanda should do the same. "What? Meditating? I don't think so, my mind is perfectly focused or Zen or whatever," she said as she made to stand. With Pietro like speed the ninja reached out and grabbed the other girl's wrist and pulled her back into place. "I told you, I'm-" she looked over to see Kwannon simply looking at her with a raised eyebrow. "Okay, so my heads a mess. But I don't see how sitting here dwelling on it is going to help me at all."
The mute girl shook her head. She attempted to sign something but Wanda stopped her. "I don't know sign language." Kwannon paused for a moment, then pointed at her forehead and made a wave of her hand. "Chop off your head? I don't get it." With an exasperated sigh, Kwannon dug into one of the pouches on her belt and pulled out a small pad of paper and the stub of a pencil. With quick, precise movements she jotted down three words, tore off the top sheet and handed it to Wanda as she tucked the rest of her writing material back into the pouch.
"You mean you've had paper the whole time? Why are you wasting my time with your mime act when you could have just written something out? The whole mysterious ninja crap is really clichéd anyways."
Kwannon just glared at her, then jabbed a finger at the unread paper in Wanda's hand.
Rolling her eyes, Wanda looked down. "Fine. 'Clear your mind.' Wow, that's such great advice, thank you oh wise one. All my problems are—" Kwannon reached out and grabbed Wanda's lips, forcing them shut. With her other hand she tapped Wanda's forehead, and again made the wiping motion. She moved back to again kneel next to her.
"Okay, clear my mind, I get it. Why not, can't be as bad as trying to talk to a mute girl who refuses to--" she cut short as she caught site of the again glaring bodyguard. With a sigh, Wanda closed her eyes and tried to focus on nothing, if for no other reason than to escape the awkward situation. Part of her also liked this new challenge, as it at least took her mind off of everything that had happened to her that afternoon. It took some work, and more mimed instructions from Kwannon such as how to breathe or sit properly, but as the sun began to set of the waters in the horizon Wanda felt calmer than she had in months.
Kwannon stood and helped Wanda back to her feet. With a nod and almost a smile, the woman made to leave. Wanda reached out and grabbed her shoulder. "Wait, why did you do this? You always seemed so, I don't know, heartless?"
Her brow furled in concentration for a moment, and then she reached back into one of her belt pouches and pulled out the bit of pencil. She reached her other hand out to Wanda, who handed back the piece of paper. Turning it over, Kwannon wrote something quickly in her short, angled letters. She handed the slip back to Wanda. She turned and walked away before the other mutant could even turn it over to read it. As Kwannon reached the tree line, shadows leapt out from the ground and behind the trees, enveloping the girl completely. In a matter of moments it was as if she had never been there.
Looking down, Wanda read the note. "I know how hard it is to be haunted by the past."
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That had been two months ago. Wanda didn't know what the cryptic note had meant then and still didn't, as she couldn't remember anything so horrible in her past as to cause the nightmare she was now living in. Yet whenever things became too bad she would return to the park and meditate. The strange waking dreams still happened, and their frequency was picking up, but she had not experienced anything nearly as bad as that particular afternoon. She still carried the slip of paper, a reminder both to relax her mind and that she was not alone, that someone out there at least understood some of what she was going through. She never had, well she couldn't call it a conversation, but time alone with Kwannon again, though the few times they passed each other on the streets or in a hallway the warrior had turned her head to Wanda and raised an eyebrow, to which Wanda would usually respond with a nod or, if no one was around who would mock her for doing something odd, respond with the same motion Kwannon had used to tell her to clear her mind. Either would earn her the nod and near smile Wanda had determined was as close to a sign of happiness as the purple haired girl knew how to give.
Kwannon was not the only person who was helping Wanda cope with whatever was happening to her. As she stood up this day after her daily meditation, a voice called out to her. Wanda turned to see Cassandra Nova coming down the path through the trees. The teenage daughter of Juggernaut had refused to pick what Magneto called a true name, and allowed only her father to call her anything other than Cassandra. She was the same age as Wanda, and the two had built an unusual friendship over the few months since Cassandra was freed from the Vault. She was far more girly in most things than the tomboy Wanda was, and in Wanda's eye, the type of girl who seemed to talk incessantly about anything and everything if given the opportunity. Ordinarily Wanda would have strangled a girl like that, but Cassandra had a way of shutting up right before Wanda could reach out. She suspected it was Cassandra's telepathic powers reading Wanda's mind to find the exact moment to quit, but Cassandra vehemently denied ever reading her mind. Wanda did find small comfort at least that Cassandra didn't throw in filler words of "like" or "you know" every two seconds the way that insufferable Pryde girl once did. Cassandra was just excitable. She had lived for so long without a friend due to her father and her own mutation that she was desperate to do all the things she missed as a child and believed she had found a kindred spirit in that way in Wanda. Wanda herself couldn't explain it, but she too seemed to have a similar empty spot in her life that Cassandra filled. She attributed it to growing up with an annoying twin brother and then being in the Bayville Brotherhood house.
Wanda was also fascinated with the sinister streak in Cassandra. The dichotomy between seemingly friendly, happy girl and the girl who liked to plant suggestions in Toad's mind that a mob of hungry Frenchmen were after him was very amusing to Wanda. Cassandra also had many of the same interests as Wanda, taste in music and books, and attitude towards the Brotherhood and humanity to help further support the bond between them.
Despite this somewhat odd friendship, when it came to her problems Wanda had decided not to talk to anyone about them, even Cassandra. But somehow Cassandra always seemed to be there at the right moment to distract Wanda, and she was grateful for that. Today's meditation had helped with the stress she was feeling during the morning, but she had the nagging feeling things would get worse if she didn't keep things in check. Cassandra's appearance in the park offered a nice distraction from thinking about it too much.
"Hey Wanda, there you are, Cal is looking for you. Oh my God this place is beautiful! When did you find it?"
"Few months ago, maybe. What did Mimic want?"
Cassandra frowned. "Mimic is a stupid name. You people with your stupid code names, like you're secret agents or fighter pilots or a bunch of ten year old boys. What kind of name is the Scarlet Witch anyways? Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it? And come on, it's not like you don't answer to Wanda. Not many people call you Scarlet Witch, why's it okay for you to not have a silly name?"
Wanda ignored the jabs at her. "He likes Mimic and he mimics other people's powers."
"Sure, it makes sense but it still sounds lame to be walking around calling yourself Mimic. Anyways, I came out here for something. What was it?"
"Mimic is looking for me?" Wanda said, an eyebrow raised at her friend. Those that met Cassandra learned early on that she often became side tracked in conversation, most likely a side effect from having access to so many random thoughts floating around.
"Oh, right, Cal. I don't know why he wants to see you, probably to make out or something, he's crushing pretty bad. If I were you I'd go for it, he's a pretty good looking guy and he's already keep the toad away from you. And he's not thinking about sex, Cal I mean. Well, not all the time at least, which believe me is really good for a guy his age. Kinda disgusting when you think about it all though. Anyways, where was I?" She took a second to breathe and think. "Cal," she said, pointing a finger to emphasis her return to the main conversation point. "He was just asking about you and I told him I'd see if I could find you, which, since I can hook myself to a machine and find any mutant in the world I want to find, would seem easier then it really was. So, what's up? Why you all the way out here?" She sat down on the table of a picnic bench that was close to the trees.
"Nothing, just out here clearing my mind."
"Cool. I tried to do that once, but since half the time I can hear what's in everyone else's head too, it didn't help much. Though maybe I could just mind wipe everyone around me…" she trailed off, her head tilting up and to the right to in thought.
"Doesn't it defeat the purpose of being a mind reader if there are no minds to read?"
Cassandra brightened at this idea. "Good point Wan!"
Wanda sat down on the bench and leaned back against the table. "Don't you ever get overwhelmed?"
"All the time. Especially if I'm sitting in Cerebra because it's a power supercharger for someone like me."
"How do you deal with it?"
"I dunno, I just do. But I also found out that you have to figure out what's causing your problem, what's the real reason you feel overwhelmed and then just face it. Everything else is just a symptom. Take me for example. When I first got my powers I would freak out all the time because I'd be hearing voices and having thoughts that weren't mine, and not matter what I did I couldn't stop them. But really it wasn't that I heard them, 'cause I knew there was no way to stop hearing them all together, my mind was always going to be picking up these stray thoughts. Plus I really like looking in people's heads. The problem was that I was scared about not having full control and so I was trying to stop something I couldn't. Eventually I decided to stop fighting it. Instead of trying to push the voices out and close myself off from hearing them all together, I just started filtered them out, stopped paying attention to them. I mean, if you're in a crowded room and everyone's talking, you can't shut them all up or turn off your ears, so you just tune them out and get back to flirting with the cute guy who will probably buy you a drink if you play your cards right. Or rather, get back to giving him the mental suggestion that he's going to buy you a drink. You get the picture."
Wanda leaned over, resting her elbows on her knees and staring down at the grass. "I have no idea what my problem really is, and I don't think not fighting it is the answer."
"Sometime you just have to go with the flow Wan, you can't stop the inevitable."
"What if the flow and inevitable is you going crazy?"
"You're not going crazy Wanda. You're just a teenager. It's normal. I learned that one early too."
Wanda frowned. She could tell Cassandra about what was going on, but she didn't think her friend was right. Whatever was happening to her wasn't normal, something had caused it and if she could figure out what, she knew it would all go away.
"Still, Cassandra continued, "I'd dig through your mind if it would make you feel better, but it's a really messed up place. Not crazy messed up, 'cause that would be bad and all. No, definitely not crazy. It's just… wired differently. It's like a castle or something, lots of walls and stuff blocking your thoughts. Very cool natural defenses. But not that I know for sure, no, not me. I've never tried to go through your mind, honestly. I just don't get stray thoughts off of you. Um, yeah. You know I'll help you any other way I can though, right?"
"Thanks Cassandra, I know," Wanda nodded. There was a lull in the conversation, and the brunette began picking at Wanda's short hair. Wanda swatted her hand away. "What are you doing!"
"You need to grow out your hair so I can braid it.
Wanda rolled her eyes. "I loathe you."