A more lengthy chapter than usual to kick off 2020. Happy New year, everyone!
Josephine had a tazer in her gloved hand, the wires piercing into Wanda's neck. She leaned over Wanda who lay convulsing on the floor, the creepy mask looming over her face like some kind of demon. "Give up, witch. It may be the same body, but Vision is dead. You know what, that isn't even an accurate term. He's been deactivated. Shut down for good -"
"He's not a computer!" She forced the words out despite the electricity coursing through her. "He was more human than most people. More than you ever could be -"
Josephine proceeded to up the voltage, causing Wanda to scream in pain. "He will never remember you. He's not human, as much as he tried to be, as convincing as his disguise is. That's not how his memory works. His memory is just a glorified filing cabinet."
Vision seized Sam by the arm, the stone glowing in his head. Carol shot a weak photon blast at his leg, making him stagger, and causing the beam to slice through the air.
"No! Don't let him -" Bucky began, before it struck the wall, sending concrete flying. They covered their heads, and when they looked up, the blackened gouge in the wall began gushing water.
"For fu-" Carol began, before Vision turned on her. "Uh oh. I didn't mean to shoot you in the leg -"
Sam ran forwards as Vision moved swiftly toward Carol. "Bucky, start trying the keypad! Hydra dates, anything!"
Josephine's eyes moved to Wanda's hands, which were glowing faintly as the electrocution hindered her powers. "What I could do with the power that flows through your veins..."
For whatever reason, Josephine resented her - Wanda could feel the hatred rolling off her. But underneath that, there was clinical fascination and - something else. The mask was still blocking her real access to Josephine's mind, so Wanda couldn't place what that was.
But something inside her was terrified. She almost felt her magic recoiling into her, as if it were hiding from the cold, yearning gaze of Josephine. Despite the electricity burning through her, Wanda focused on an object in the background, and summoned all of her strength to make it move.
The chair crashed into the back of Josephine's head. She crumpled to the floor, face first amongst the smashed pieces of wood. Wanda reached up, and yanked the wires out of her neck. She struggled to sit up, gasping, her hair full of static from the electricity. A few drops of her blood fell to the ground as she tossed the wires away, crushing the tazer with her powers. She feeling a tickling sensation as the shallow wound in her neck began to bleed.
Bucky punched the keypad with his metal fist, reducing it to a crushed piece of metal, but the door didn't open. He whirled round, helpless, watching as Sam and Carol attempted to pry at the collar, as Vision effortlessly phased through their attempts.
Wanda staggered to her feet, attempting to open the door, but like the other side, there was a keypad. She looked at the floor, and saw water pooling out from under the door. Not thinking clearly, Wanda didn't hear Josephine stagger to her feet, hastily swiping the broken taser and the bloodied wires from the ground. She released a shriek when Josephine seized her by the hair.
The water continued to rush in, and the gouge in the wall seemed to be getting bigger. Stones were crumbling from around the gap, causing more water to rush in. It was now knee height. Vision threw Carol head first into the wall, and she struggled to rise.
Then he leapt at Sam, and the both of them crashed into the water. Sam went under the surface, as Vision held him down, trying to drown him. He fought against him, but the more he struggled, the more Vision increased his density. Sam's lungs began screaming for air, and he began to panic, his arms and legs flailing.
Suddenly, the weight above Sam lifted. Sam burst from the water, gasping to refill his lungs. Bucky was tearing at the collar on Vision's neck with his vibranium fingers. Sparks flew and there was the sound of crushing metal. Communication between him and Josephine was lost, and then Vision fell back onto his hands, up to his chest in the water. He sat there, twitching, eyes not quite blank, but still frozen, in stasis.
Bucky crouched beside him, continuing to pull at the collar. Vision's only reaction was to flinch with pain. "I can't get the rest off!"
"Keep trying! I'll help Wanda!" Carol picked herself up from where she had been thrown, and she charged toward the doorway. Sam and Bucky covered their heads as concrete and metal went flying. The water finally had somewhere to go, and it cascaded into the corridor, sweeping around the knees of Josephine and Wanda.
Carol charged forwards, ablaze, but as she prepared to shoot the glowing mask, she froze. Wanda was staring at her with wide eyes, the mask peering out from her shoulder. A thin stream of blood was visible in the right side of her neck, where the wires had pierced her. Josephine held her by the hair. And there was a gun, pressed to Wanda's ribcage.
"Right. Let's not make a mess here, shall we?" Josephine hissed, aware now that she had lost control over Vision. She tried to conceal her panic. "Let's deal with this like grown ups. You all leave right now, and we won't have to see what specific shade of red her organs are."
Carol immediately stopped glowing, raising her hands in surrender. "We can talk about this. No one has to get hurt." She tried to sound calm, but inside she was terrified that she was about to watch her new friend die.
Wanda felt the cold metal of the gun press against her jacket. She could deflect bullets, but she was doubtful she could do it with the gun so close.
She looked through the doorway, across the room at Vision. Sam and Bucky, who had dragged him to stand, were frozen by his side. He looked back with a strange, not quite empty stare. His fingers twitched and his eyes were locked on her. The collar around his throat was making a strange sparking noise like a live wire, as it still remained active.
"Well? I don't have all day!" Josephine snapped, aggressively.
Wanda looked at the gun in Josephine's hand. She could try it. It would be risky, but she could try it... her hand edged closer to it, tiny tendrils of energy forming around her fingers. Carol's hazel eyes flickered to the gun and Wanda's faintly glowing hand. She tried not to jump as she heard Wanda's voice in her mind.
"Carol. No matter what I do, shoot her in the face. It should damage or destroy the transmitter."
"You're too close! I don't want to shoot you back in time!"
"Just do it. On the count of three." Their eyes met across the room.
"I hope you know what you're doing."
"One, two - three."
In one swift motion, Wanda surrounded herself in a protective cocoon of energy. Carol shot a photon blast at the glowing mask, and Josephine was sent flying off her feet, crashing into the wall.
The suit momentarily blazed as the surge of energy was too much for it to contain. Josephine began shrieking and Wanda could smell burning hair, smoke rising from the mask. The gloved hands flew up to the mask, the green lights flashing erratically until they switched off completely. She lay on the ground, frantically ripping off what remained of the mask, until a scrap of blackened mesh lay on the ground.
Josephine's hands covered her face, as she cried out in pain from the burn. Before anyone could stop her, Wanda's hand stretched out. A scarlet tendril of energy appeared beside Josephine's now-exposed head.
Her hands fell away from her face. There was a large burn on the left side of her face, from the photon blast, which made Carol wince with guilt. Underneath the burns, she was a woman probably in her late thirties, with unruly black hair pulled back with a band, with a few greys at her roots. What skin hadn't been burnt was pale and sallow, paper thin, straining across her sharp cheekbones.
Josephine stared at Wanda, a horrified look crossing her face. Wanda looked back with an unforgiving stare, but that was before Josephine started screaming. She frantically crawled back on her hands, staring at something nobody could see, all while screaming like a maniac.
Sam grabbed Wanda by the shoulder. "We came to free Vision, not seek revenge!" Wanda barely heard, eyes locked on the terrified woman in her grasp. When she induced these illusions, sometimes she could be in there with them, could see what they were so afraid of.
She saw no other context. She saw blood flying through the air. A horrible, almost familiar screech of an unseen monster, and a man, his screams growing weaker and weaker... that was all Wanda could allow herself to hear before she broke out of the vision, and released her hold over Josephine. The woman collapsed, gasping, as if she had been underwater for an hour.
"Wanda!" Sam shook her again, and she snapped out of it. "We need you to get this collar off him! It's smoking!"
With one last look at Josephine on the ground, Wanda crossed the distance between them. Vision's head hung slightly as if he were in pain, and she lifted his face with gentle fingertips.
"It's okay." Wanda whispered, not sure whether he would understand or not.
She moved her trembling fingers to the wicked device around his throat. Where Bucky had damaged it with his metal arm, it was malfunctioning, sparking and hissing like a serpent. Thin tendrils of smoke were rising rapidly, and the metal was no longer cold, but growing warmer. For the first time, Wanda saw a hint of emotion in his eyes. He was scared.
Trying to forget what she had just witnessed, Wanda began to concentrate, eyes fixed on the parts that connected into Vision's skin, where the metal collar connected. Her magic began moving through it.
A few screws fell to the floor. Wanda winced, watching the prongs embedded into the flesh part of his neck begin to slowly detach, leaving two small holes. She redirected a little energy, and the two holes in his skin slowly knotted back together.
She kept looking up at his eyes. Vision's expression was changing again.
"It's working!" He heard a voice through the mist.
The block was falling away. A warmth began in his head, spreading through his mind like growing olive branches. Something red, something familiar, was breaking down the walls he was imprisoned in. For the first time since that brief, confusing awakening, he could think. It was like he had been locked in another room and now the door was opening...
The metal around his throat released, but the moment it did, a series of images flashed through his mind.
Blurs of colour. Smudges of a place, a forest. A large creature he couldn't see, behind a familiar figure... and the red light in his head, was now all around him, inside him, burning through every cell in his body... and then, a green light...
The shock collar fell to the floor. The pieces of metal hit the ground moments before Vision did. His knees gave out and he crumpled to the floor in a heap, his hands holding his head, as if he was trying to protect it. He lay curled up on the floor, trembling and gasping for breath as though he couldn't breathe.
Wanda knelt beside him, half hopeful, half terrified. She touched his shoulder. "Vizh? Are you okay? Can you hear me?"
Vision's head snapped up, his eyes wide, gears in his irises spinning at a frantic speed. His confused gaze flickered erratically from Sam to Bucky to Carol, and then finally to Wanda. When they settled on her at last, his eyes filled with absolute terror.
He crawled away from her, not saying a word, but his eyes saying everything. The spark of her powers had reawakened one of the final moments - one of the most terrible moments. She had showed Vision only one memory. It was the memory of her, destroying him - with no other context.
"What did you do to me?" His voice was barely audible.
"I... I didn't..." Wanda stuttered, in shock. "Vision, I didn't..." She took a step toward him but he staggered to his feet, lurching away from her as though she were something poisonous.
"Who are you? What - what happened?" Vision was as blank of a slate as he was even with the collar. Except this time, he was very much aware, and his emotion was on overdrive. Wanda had never seen him this way - his eyes were wild, and they darted about erratically like a hare trying to escape a fox.
He looked down at the broken collar pieces on the ground, and he lifted a hand to his neck, and then again to his forehead. Then he looked at his hands, eyes widening with fear and confusion. He didn't even recognise himself. He had no idea who he was, or what he was.
The other three stood back, watching this interaction with fear and confusion. Wanda's fingers twitched slightly and glowed faintly. She had no idea what to do. She didn't know what she could possibly say to Vision.
"It's alright, just hang on, we'll get through this together -" Sam too tried to move closer but Vision retreated every step he took. "I'm Sam, this is Wanda, Bucky - is any of this familiar?"
Vision stared at Sam but didn't nod or shake his head. "I don't know you. I don't know any of you." His voice no longer cold and robotic - it was his voice again. The voice of Jarvis, but uneven in pitch and broken as he grew more confused, more afraid.
Echoes of recent months filled Vision's head. He saw people in laboratories and in high security buildings. He heard them screaming in fear and confusion. He saw himself strike them in the head with such force their skulls split. He heard the sickening crack as he twisted their heads until their necks snapped...
His hands pressed to his face, fingers digging into his scalp, as this all came back to him. "No, no, no..."
"Vision, please, we can help you. Just let me explain -" Wanda began, but Vision had turned, and he was running now, toward the wall. He disappeared into it and was gone.
Wanda heard a groan, and she looked at the wall which continued to gush with water. The wall was cracking, forming endless lines like river tributaries on a map, slowly spreading across the entire wall. There was no question about it - they had seconds to get out. The four of them turned and fled the room, racing out into the corridor. There was a tremendous crack, and the monstrous sound of tonnes of water filled the bunker.
As Wanda reached the door of the stairs, she remembered. She whirled round, where Josephine was still slumped at the door of the wall, hands covering her head. This was the last Wanda saw of her before a huge wave of water crashed into the gap between them.
For a moment she stood there in disbelief, before the screaming of the others broke her out of her daze. Wanda ran after them, as they began the terrifying race to get out of the flooding facility.
In his terrified and frantic rush to escape, he - no, his name, his name was Vision - wasn't it? Vision phased straight through the riverbed.
He was unprepared for the strong current. Vision released a shriek of fear and confusion as the water dragged him downstream. The black water surrounding him, he couldn't see, but he could feel how cold the water was, the sharp scrape of debris and roots snagging at his cape and scratching at his eyes.
Then he saw a black shape in the darkness coming toward him. A tree branch crashed into his forehead, grazing the stone.
The feel of the decaying wood scraping the jewel in his forehead was like an electric shock. An image, a purple haze flooded his mind - the tree branch was changing form, the forks and sticks turning into fingers, the main branch becoming a hand. It reached for his forehead. The underside of a purple arm obstructed most of his sight, but he did see the eyes, a pair of small, soulless eyes.
It was too much for him to process, and mental exhaustion claimed him. Vision fell unconscious as the river carried him toward the sea.