Throughout the Castle Schwarz, the invading werewolf pack hides. In the lounge, Cho Chang and her girlfriends lie on rugs on the floor, sharing a very pleasant illusion...
The backdoor opens. All the pack females listen, as the Masters' steps approach. Vengeance's, they know they hear...
Badilino stops, and looks around. With every noise-making step, he makes his way down to the dungeons...where the she-wolves hide behind many cauldrons of self-brewing potions.
He stands among the cauldrons. He looks here and there. His head isn't on fire...but it might as well be. The she-wolves are in big trouble, if he takes that bony chain off his neck anytime soon... But then, they could PROBABLY fend for themselves...
Behind a pillar, Ares tries to stay quiet. It's hard to stay hidden when you're wearing a plumed helmet, carrying a very long spear, and toting a round metal shield...and when you're an Olympian in general...
Agent 13 doesn't struggle to hide much. She's under one of the cauldrons. You'd think hiding would come easy for her. Alas, she's still a woman...and hence, takes to fear like rocks take to gravity when they're dropped from airplanes.
Under other cauldrons and behind other pillars, Black Widow, Cable, Nightshade, Valkyrie, Autumn Soldier, and Mockingbird also hide. As much as they'd hate to blow their cover, they're all prepared to ambush Vengeance, or avenge one another, if he gets so much as a flicker luckier than he is now...
Sersi's hiding behind an armchair in the lounge. She's so close to Cho...and yet, so far away. Above, here and there, Crimson Cowl's cowl flies around, like a magic carpet. God, Sersi sure hopes it doesn't spot any of them... But even if it did, how would it sound the alarm?
The Masters, although intimidating, sure seem to be a voiceless lot...
Risking everything, Sersi closes her eyes, and taps into the witches' shared illusion. It takes her a while to wedge herself completely inside...
At last, Sersi's in the same illusory forest as they are. There's a bronze dawn, just breaking the eastern sky. The trees and grass are tainted with a blue hue, where the grass would usually be.
Some of the grass is green. Most of the flowers are either white or blue. Some of the greenery is bronze.
House and new age music plays in the backdrop...from invisible sources. It lends a serene mood to this illusion...
Sersi looks around. She's clad in blue and bronze...rather like most of the witches here...save Parvati and Daphne. Parvati's in maroon and gold, and Daphne's in dark green and silver.
A silver serpent slithers near where Daphne's feet are...although it seems harmless enough. A litter of golden kittens stumbles around where Parvati's feet are; like furry gold nuggets. Daphne had better keep her snake away from Parvati. Rumor has it that Parvati's boggart becomes a king cobra, when she faces it...and it does mean basilisk-size...
Parvati's not muggle-born; but that's irrelevant.
Sersi turns around...and finds herself staring at herself. She looks around, expecting to see the fringes of a mirror. Across from her, her mirror double does, too...in all the opposite directions. Alas, there ARE no mirror fringes...
"What," she asks herself, "are you doing here?!"
"I," Sersi stammers, "was just asking myself that same question...literally, it seems..."
"Why...is this happening? Don't get me wrong; I've always wanted a twin, I just thought that... I thought that my dream twin would be more accommodating than...how confused you seem."
"Wait... YOU have a dream twin?! You mean... You're not me?"
"Wait... You're not me?!"
"I'm...Sersi, I... I need to talk to Cho."
Cho levitates abroad, descends, and lands near the two of them. "What's going on?" She looks back and forth, between the two Chinese-looking chicks. "And...which one of you is...Sue?"
Sue waves her arm. "I'M Sue. This imposter has just asked for you."
Sersi giggles, nervously. "Someone screwed up. They hired the same actress to play me and Sue Li!"
Sue winks, abashedly. "I'll...leave you two alone to talk." With that, Sue vanishes.
Cho fixes her hair, and faces Sersi. "Sorry about the casting glitch," she apologizes to Sersi. "I suppose the next thing we know, Dr. Minerva's going to come in, crash-landing into this shared illusion in a Starforce spaceship."
"Yeah," Sersi stammers. "Starforce is a bit, um, understaffed, at the moment..."
"Now...who are you, and what can I do for you?"
Near them, a portal opens. Sister Voodoo steps through, and causes the portal to vanish behind her. She acknowledges Cho and Sersi. "Ah," she smiles, brushing her head with her hands. "Looks like I got in here just in time."
"How are we," Sersi asks her, "on cover?"
"We're still good," she says. "We won't likely be for much longer, though."
Cho shakes her head. "What's going on?"
Tilda suddenly appears, in her human form, from out of nowhere...having brewed a nightshade potion to get in here. Cable appears, too, via her mutant telepathy. Vision phases into the illusion, via her tangibility-control powers. Synapse appears...still keeping the hyenas sedated. Valkyrie carves a portal into the illusion with her sword, and steps in; the portal seals itself behind her.
"Well," Cho comments, "THIS is a crowd. What's the occasion?"
"It's more of an emergency, really," Valkyrie tells her. "A man you once loved is in danger. We're werewolves...and he happens to be our pack alpha."
Cho gapes. "Harry!" She looks around. "You're...all in his pack?! Is he okay?"
"No," Nightshade responds...simultaneously, with several of the other pack females. "He's been shot...by one of Bowman's arrows. It was accursed. We've been told that you know a counter-curse for it."
"Yeah, I do, but..." She looks around. "STRIKE will be back at any minute."
"They already are," Cable warns her. "However way to end this, you need to do it now."
Cho holds up her finger. "Not necessary; I'd hate to inconvenience the other girls. There's...a spellbook I'm going to need for the incantation. I'll get it, and I'll meet you all outside the wall."
"STRIKE," Vision warns her, "might try to stop you."
"I'm not afraid of them," Cho insists. "If I was, I wouldn't have risked marrying a Black." With that, Cho levitates herself...higher and higher towards the sky. Like Jesus, she reverse-dives into a cloud, and vanishes...
Back in reality, Cho wakes...but keeps her eyes squinted, in case the Masters are watching. She cracks her eyelids, and looks around.
Above her, in the vault above the lounge, Crimson Cowl's cowl flies around, like a flying carpet. Enchantress creeps around, like a green-clad slut, caressing/enchanting things as she goes along. With her powers, Lightmaster turns on all the lights in the castle, and searches everywhere... Even so, none of them seem to suspect Cho's wariness.
Trying not to cause a scene, Cho relaxes, and teleports to the room where the spellbook is in. Once there, she lights the room with a verbal chant, and browses a bookshelf for the book...
Hellcat, Hawkeye, and Medusa are hiding here. They come out of hiding. "Cho," Patsy says, "thank god! We've got to get you out of here..."
"I know what's going on," Cho insists. "I just need a spellbook..."
Cho nearly screams, as a bunch of red hair reaches upward, like a tentacle, and plucks the right book off the shelf. The scarlet hairy tentacle then offers the book to Cho.
Medusa raises her red brows, having lent Cho the hairy tentacle. "Is THIS," she asks, "the one you need?"
Spellbound (no pun intended), Cho takes the book slowly, and nods, in awe of Medusa's strange Inhuman talent. "Yes," she near-whispers. "Thank you, Miss..."
"Medusa. Queen Medusa... Or rather, FORMER Queen Medusa...of the Inhumans."
"You're Harry's queen," Cho near-whispers, "for sure..."
"Interesting thing to learn," a strange voice says.
All three of their hearts freeze, as they whirl, and confront who's joined them at the door...which they all foolishly left ajar.
Flapping her long gorgeous blonde hair like numerous gold chains, Amora interrupts them. She puts a hex on the window, so they can't get out that way.
Even so, Hawkeye draws an arrow. Hellcat hisses, and engages her cat claws, prepared for a catfight. Medusa breeds more hair, and keeps it at the ready...
"Who," Amora asks, "is this 'Harry,' and," she looks back and forth, between Medusa, Kate, and Patsy, "who are your three...High Council-unapproved guests?"
Cho freezes...like the Ugly Duckling seeing his reflection in the lake as an adult, for the first time. Or rather, like Natalie Portman, in Black Swan, whenever being confronted by Mila Kunis during an awkward moment... Cho hasn't got a clue what to do... OR what to say...which, to a Ravenclaw witch, is a VERY big deal...