Chapter Twenty One

Love me. Please me. Follow me.

It was the fiftieth iteration of the words and they sounded fiercer. Harry felt them pushing against his barriers, the force they inflicted stronger and taking a concentrated effort to push back. It was disconcerting to listen to that kind of power, that a girl of ten could have this much sway over the minds of others but it was no less true.

She was someone in the building. Eve Bradshaw, and she had with her a woman who could amplify abilities; stretching the girl's range to cover the entire military compound.

Was this part and parcel to her ability to sway the mind? Having a heightened intellect?

At any rate Harry and René were the only people who could bare the mental onslaught without losing their mental capacity.

The man moved with a grace unbefitting his stature; gun poised to be shot, the man moved from wall to wall, making sure his back never to empty air while his eyes darted in every direction. The same couldn't be said for Harry, but then again magic made him feel safe: He had his batons in his belt, his wand held in his hand and goggles over his eyes that showed him red silhouettes of the people on his floor.

They turned a corner and the men hadn't a chance to react before they were struck by two Stunners.

I see you, came the serene whisper, eerie as it slipped through Harry's mind. They all know you're here.

"I thought the files said here abilities were limited to controlling people," Harry said to René.

"Among others," the man said. "Her powers are unclear. But we know that when her victims are spent and they die, their psyche is transferred to her."

"How many people has she killed?" Harry asked.

"Her entire class and two teachers," said René. "It's the reason she still acts like a child. A warring of the mind with the immature side winning."

Harry swallowed, continuing their move. He saw the figures and turned into the hall, regretted his decision before the large projectile slammed into a shield; it hit and exploded, the force carrying forward and sending Harry off his feet and slamming onto the ground.

René quickly entered the hall, gunshots cracking through the air but the man doing the shooting had already disappeared.

"Are you alright?"

Harry groaned, getting to his feet. He hadn't been hurt, but he hadn't thought that would pass through his barriers, and it was a disconcerting thought that an eleven year old girl had figured it out. Harry moved his wand and summoned a fiery dog; he moved it again and again until he had a pack of a dozen dogs.

He sent them flying forward with the command to take down everyone in their sight.

"Let's move faster," said Harry. "I think she might be killing more adults to get smarter. She's showing more aptitude for her ability than the files say and she's strategizing."

René nodded and the two were moving faster; learning from his lesson, Harry tried to avoid the figures. Stunning them would have been optimal, but he didn't know the tricks the girl would have picked up in the three days she'd held this facility.

They skirted the halls, moving steadily lower into the facility and being burdened with more soldier milling about. But the map Harry had helped. They moved through a series of halls before they had to pass through a large room filled with cubicles to get to the staircase on the other side of the facility; Harry was passing through the entrance when he felt resistance.

When the explosion came Harry was ready, his moved his wand in a quick jerk, calling forth a thick barrier to stop the onslaught. He still felt the force behind it though, the energy from the explosion transferring through the shield and running up his arm. The wizard stumbled, trying to hold the fire and heat back. It should have ended, the fire running out but something was sustaining it.

The woman who could conjure fire? But the file said she could only control the fires she had subsumed with her own fire. Was this the work of the enhancer.

Ten seconds passed before the flames disappeared, the room showing no sign at all that it had held an explosion.

"I think I might not be of use here," said René. "I get the feeling I'm holding you back."

"Didn't want to mention it," said Harry. "But I would be moving faster if I were alone."

"Then I will leave. Let you complete this mission." Harry gave the man a nod. "Return," said René before he disappeared.

Okay. There had been ten unaccounted agents and only two escapees that could control people in a capacity. Eric Doyle had gone in hiding, something that was agreed on by the man who'd caught him would not have happened had he had the more powerful agents. Suspicion was that Eve had ten agents with various abilities.

Fire creation and control, to a crazy degree. Enhanced reflexed and co-nation. Superstrength. Concussion blasts. Force field manipulation.

All abilities that had a chance of being enhanced to a greater degree by the woman Eve had turned to be her slave.

But Harry thought he could deal with all of them on his own. There was a greater room for trial and error when his was the only back he was looking after. The wizard quickly ran his wand over himself, layering a variety of spells that made him invisible, inaudible and odourless before he started moving.

He turned and he was on the other side of the room, already moving in a run towards the other staircase. He turned a sharp turn, disappearing and reappearing behind the group of three; he swiped his wand and the men were taken off their feet, held aloft by an invisible rope.

The wizard didn't allow himself to stop, already moving through a series of turns that took him to a staircase.

Fire roared towards him but he was already turning on the spot, appearing behind the red headed woman and—he stopped, stumbling back as straight red line passed at the place he'd been only a moment before. He prepared to fire on the man but a salvo of thin red beams were already hurtling towards him; his shields activated, stopping a majority of the force behind the blows but Harry still felt the blunt of it smack into his face.

He turned on the spot only to stumble, catching the red headed woman as he fell towards the stairs. This was a mistake, though the woman couldn't see him, she moved with practiced ease, leveraging Harry's weight and throwing him over the railing.

"Aresto Momentum!" the wizard mouthed though no words came out, nonetheless the spell worked. He turned mid –air and was sucked into the tube, deposited on the landing he'd been keeping an eye on.

The wizard found his feet and turned again as he heard the roaring of the fire. He appeared on the landing with the read headed woman, took stock before seeing the man who shot red beams a few steps ahead already firing another volley; he turned again and struck the man with a curse the pushed him through the air and slamming into a wall.

"Flippendo," Harry said, wand pointed at the red headed woman; she was taken off her feet, spun twice through the air before she landed on one of the stairs, she couldn't stop herself from falling and when she stopped, her arm was at an odd angle.

Harry kept moving up, scouting landings before turning on the spot and appearing above. A small circular device landed in front of him; he started banishing the grenade but it was too late. His shields didn't activated as it exploded. Harry was taken off his feet, his eyes burning at the sudden bright light and his ears ringing.

"Incendios Grata," he said without direction, his wand waved violently around as he found his feet. The ringing hadn't stopped and his eyes were still burning, but he didn't like the position he was in; he turned on the spot and appeared on the bottom most floor of the facility, gaining his breath and recovering from the grenade.

How were the able to see him? How were they able to outmatch his creativity?

Harry muttered an oath under his breath. Everything he was doing right now was something they had already seen. He was using the same tricks he'd been using when he'd attacked the Company some time ago. Perhaps it was time to change things up.

The wizard turned on the spot and appeared in the room filled with cubicles; he began moving his wand in a complicated pattern, eyes darting back and forth while his concentration remained on the spell. He was almost done when he saw a grenade flying through the air.

He abandoned the spell, banishing the thing before it could explode. It flew back, slamming into one of the cubicles before it could disappear. Gun fire filled the room and Harry jumped aside even as his shields activated; they were faltering, cracks forming when they appeared and some of the bullets able to get through.

He was going to lose this. But he couldn't.

Eve, if she won, would kill everyone here, gain a military mind and then most likely escalate. They file had noted that she enjoyed the controlled and had gone into a fit when it had been taken away from her by René. It wasn't likely that there would be a good end here.

He had to win this.

Harry pointed his wand and fired and orange spell at the sky. It hit the ceiling, a bright burst of fire let out before the room was flooded in darkness. Harry lamented his idiocy, they weren't using light to see him, it was something else, technology perhaps.

He tried to remember all he could about muggle technology but he was forced to move as another grenade passed through the air, blasting apart a cubicle; the air filled with a crackling sound before sparks flew; a fire started and in quick order it was large encompassing the room and forcing Harry to conjure a shield.

Ten seconds and it passed, leaving Harry winded.

The spray of bullets began again, fiercer and focused on three points in the room, all of which had fire and none of which were close to Harry. He got an idea. He pointed his wand and muttered a spell, blasting a surge of heat from his wand; two seconds and it had filled the room.

The spray of bullets stopped.

Harry grinned and turned; he appeared, wand already slashing. The men, a dozen, were sent flying back by the force, the weapons on their persons all wrenched from their grasps and flying towards the wizard.

Harry moved his wand, ensuring that the weapons didn't hit him in the face.

You're annoying.

Fire filled the room again. But Harry had been at least expecting the reoccurrence. He was turning the moment the fire surged towards him, appearing in the landing from before.

He wasn't being allowed an opportunity to broach the full scale of his abilities.

He scaled the stairs. The red headed woman was gone and so was the man. In the instance he had been working on the enchantment on the cubicle floor they had left, scaling to the upper floor.

Why?

Did they have someone with healing abilities there?

Harry moved faster. Flicking his wand at the last door to bar his way. The sight which greeted him when it opened him: Eve set on a large chair which, against her size, looked much like a throne; the furniture had been cleared, the people in the room standing at various points around her; a dark skinned woman looking in her late fifties was holding Eve's head.

"Hello," Eve said sweetly. "You've been annoying me," she said with a pout.

"You've been doing bad things," said Harry. "Hurting people. Controlling them."

"I like controlling people," she said. "It makes me happy."

"What about the people you're making unhappy?"

Eve shrugged. "I don't care about them. I don't care much for you for taking my toys away. Kill him," she said with an errant gesture.

Harry jumped to the side at the salvo; he landed on a roll and was quick to his feet conjuring a shield before he turned on the spot. He didn't disappear, instead meeting a block of solid air to his destination. One of the red lights blasted apart his barrier, making a way for another; the light hit and Harry was pushed off his feet, the air leaving his lungs.

He landed with a roll back and it brought him to his feet; fire shot out of his wand but before it could hit them it changed direction, moving back towards Harry. He jumped to the side, bringing up the furniture which had been pushed aside as a shield. It exploded on impact, rubble filling the air.

Harry had no time to react as a man, moving faster than humanly possible was lunging at him, already in the air. They landed in a tumble, Harry leveraging his wand until the man was shot by a spell that sent him to the ceiling.

Harry slashed but his spell didn't hit its target, instead it revealed the existence of a shield protecting Eve's army.

A salvo but Harry turned on the spot. He was pulled into the tube and deposited on the other side of the room, far away from the shield. He pointed his wand towards the shield and a spell left his wand; it hit and shattered the shield, still moving forward towards the girl on her throne. One of the soldiers jumped in front of her before it could hit, a chilling scream leaving the man's lips before the spell could hit.

"Imperio," said Harry, his spells must have slipped at some point because he could hear himself. Another soldier jumped in front of the girl before the spell could hit. "Attack." The man pulled a gun and pointed it at the girl; in the same motion his arm shot up towards his head and the gun went off.

Eve was smiling. "You're like me," she said. "You can control people. I thought Metal Man was the only one who could do that besides me. But you're not as strong as I am."

"No, it's not that," said Harry. "I just don't like taking away a person's will."

"You took his away," she said.

"A necessary evil."

She pouted. "I don't understand."

"People sometimes do things they don't like to protect others," Harry explained. "Like trying to kill you. I don't like it. But I see that I have to."

Her expression flickered, looking aghast. "You would kill a child?" she asked, her voice loud and holding a rebuke in the tone.

"No. But I'd kill you."

"Avada Kedavra," he said, already turning on the spot. A man jumped in front of the hit and crumbled on the ground, unmoving. Harry followed the spell with another; a salvo of red beams were sent his way but he was moving ever faster, turning and disappearing and then reappearing already shooting a flurry of green spells.

Some missed, hitting the walls and denting them while others rebounded, flying around the room and catching some of the soldiers. The red head woman pointed, fire coming into existence a moment before a spell caught in her side.

She slumped.

"Stop destroying my toys!" Eve's voice rang out.

Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!

Harry fought the insistence of the words. He continued his dance. One of the spells caught the man with superhuman speed but it didn't kill him, instead it blasted him off his feet, leaving a massive gouge on his skin. He died as a result.

One of the spells managed to catch the woman with the enhancing ability, causing her to slump forward; at this there was no immediate effect and Harry frowned at that because it meant the effect was long lasting.

He fired a burst of fire that was stopped by the shield. Harry fired several Imperius Curses and had all Eve. She fought them off, having them kill each other but one managed to land a hit, catching Eve's shoulder.

"Avada Kedavra," Harry said and the spell shot true.

It landed and the girl immediately paled.

KILL HIM!

"Fuck," Harry muttered. "Incendios Grata!" he shouted before the onslaught could begin. The fire spilled, thicker than anything he'd ever done before, with an almost liquid like quality to it; it spread through the room in the space of a millisecond, killing everyone in the room before they could act.

I want you to die for taking them away. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to take you. I'm going to be in your head forever trying to turn you into me.

'You're inside my head.'

And there's nothing you can do about it. This is how it started. Slow at first until I figured it out and I had my toys.

'That makes things easier then,' Harry thought.

He built a prison in his mind. It took a little working but his mind worked easier since Barbara had worked on it. He scoured until he found the presence. It fought against him but he managed to push it, fighting against it until it was in his prison, all the doors and windows gone.

Harry let out a breath. It was done.

"Help," he heard and he immediately looked up. The woman with the shields was still alive, her skin pink and her breathing laboured. Nonetheless she was one of the few people Harry had managed to safe.

It was a small solace.