From a Witch's Perspective

Chapter Six: Boarding the Mother ship

"You could have just called."

"Well it's not like you gave me your number."

Coulson and I stood across from each other, arms crossed; eyes level… since I was standing, bootless on top of a shield security robot in what I think was the control room of the Helicarrier considering the crazy amount of computer screens.

I refused to break eye contact with him even as blood roared in my ears and my hair whipped around my face from hurling gusts of wind coming through the broken window behind us. Surrounding us were dozens of Shield personal running about trying to fix the mess that the robots made. Because I'm the victim here.

I had safely assumed that someone on this ginormous ship would see me flying up to them and send some kind of message like "Anyone know some weirdo with red hair that flies around on a broom?" on like an intercom then Coulson would raise his hand and then come tell me where to land but no.

I got shot at by lasers, repeatedly. No warning just zzzt, zzzt, zzzt. So naturally I scrambled around on my broom so that I wouldn't get shot out of the air and screamed a spell to shatter the glass at the front of the ship then tumbled inside.

Then that's when the robots happened. There is a reason why I don't do technology and those robots were exhibit A.

At least you didn't freeze Daphne, almost had a heart attack but you didn't freeze.

"What happened to your shoes?" he asked

"Your machines were dragging me by my feet and so were lost in the heat of the battle." I replied in between deep breaths to slow my heart rate and Coulson hummed in response.

"I'll take it the same could be said for your broom?"

I looked over to my shoulder to where I had been standing and had my broom ripped out of my hand and thrown against a wall. It then landed perfectly across a few keyboards with not a single splinter was out of place

To be completely honest my life will never be as put together as that broom.

"Nah It's fine." I said and waved my hand dismissively.

He hummed again with a plain expression like he's already been over and done with my shenanigans, which was so very true.

But I did think I would have sparked some kind of reaction out of the man when I broke into his space ship but he remained unfazed. I wondered briefly if the day would ever come where I surprise Phil Coulson.

Then again I hope that day is far off because I don't want to know what sort of fresh hell I broke loose for that to happen.

Once the window was finally sealed off and my hair had settled back down to its natural place, a silence fell between Coulson and me until his watch beeped. We glanced down at it simultaneously and Coulson brought it up to his face to tap on the screen. My eyebrows knitted together in confusion; because why the hell does the watch have a touch screen?

I wondered if it shot lasers too as Coulson made one final beep on his watch and turned up to look back at me.

"Fury is ready for you, grab your stuff and follow me."

I saluted him, he rolled his eyes and I grabbed my things together in a speedy fashion because I smashed through the windows, I don't want being 'late' added to the list.

The 'Helicarrier', as Coulson corrected me when I referred to it out loud as a UFO; is elaborate, as to be expected it to be I suppose. As we walked I stayed directly behind Coulson and my hands through my hair several times so it didn't look like red haired bird's nest.

That was pretty interesting to do since I would immediately slap down my hands and arms whenever Coulson moved his head and whenever we passed other agents of Shield. One of them caught me though with an amused smile and gave me discreet thumbs up so I assume I did a decent job.

Anyways, one elevator ride, five hallways and two identity confirmations later we ended up in a rather large room. It was entirely of metal (like the rest of the ship. How do these people not get lost?)There were no windows but the shield logo was engraved on the wall to the far right.

I peeked around Coulson's shoulder to look for lasers or robot coffins in the wall but instead I saw that down almost on the other side of the room were a group people. They weren't dressed in the standard blue and black like the other agents; no they were dressed in brightly colored spandex and shiny armor.

I blinked; it was the teen supers, and Nick Fury it looked like who was staring us down with his hands folded behind his back, all professional like.

As we got closer I could see Tink smirk from the bottom of his pointy helmet and say in overly deep voice "Something wicked this way comes…"

Ava aka Tiger girl casually slapped the back of his helmet.

"Ow! What it was funny…" He complained to her but she shook her head. I found myself snorting quietly at the exchange and felt slightly better about the situation.

Ah the power of cheesy jokes…

Fury cleared his throat bringing all our attention to him and turned to look at me. "Glad you could make it." He said simply and I sort of nodded in return and glanced over at my future…team mates?

I'm gonna have to get used to that term.

I really couldn't judge what Ava was feeling or thinking with her full faced mask. Now that I think about it I wondered if she had a full faced mask for that purpose.

The same went with Spider-Man but I had a feeling he'll probably be a little more forth coming?

Sam, well, Sam was still rubbing his helmet. Luke however had on a grin; the infectious kind that made you want to smile back at him which I found comforting as well. Danny was smiling as well in a softer manner gave a short bow of his head to me.

Fury spoke up again "I'll have to applaud you for the second most dramatic entrance into our Helicarrier after recruitment."

Second most dramatic? Really?

I looked around at the others, Spider-man coughed into his fist. I raised an eyebrow at him suspiciously.

"I'm sure you all mostly know each other already but I'm going to go through with introductions," Fury continued and turned to the teen supers while holding his palm up over in my direction.

"Team, this is Daphne Dwyer, our first trainee for our little group."

I frowned a little at the definition 'trainee'. Aren't they all trainees?

"And Daphne, this is your new team, White tiger, Ava Ayala…" He gestured to Ava who waved a clawed hand.

"Nova, Sam Alexander." Tinker bell bobbed his head up and down with a 'sup?'

"Power Man, Luke Cage." Luke did the same little bob.

"Iron Fist, Danny Rand." Danny placed both of his palms together and bowed formally. Respectful kinda adorable in my personal opinion.

"And Spider-Man, Peter Parker." He gave me two cheesy thumbs up and I blinked at him. Peter Parker was Spider-Man. Oohh…

Suddenly things were making a lot of sense about the tension between him, Harry and MJ. Peter was suddenly disappearing and hanging out with his new 'friends', something he really can't avoid for certain reasons involving spandex. Not that he can just tell them that either so it appears he's blowing them off and ditching them for entirely new crowd.

Yikes. I had a feeling there was enough drama in Mr. Parker's life to pass around.

"Like to me." I thought to myself with an internal sigh. MJ's phone call displayed itself in my mind under a sign that said 'Exhibit A.'

"Over the next six months you will be working together to prove how well you function as a team and ultimately determine Daphne's placement on it." Fury went on, my eyes narrowing at his eye patch with every word he spoke.

Determine my placement on the team?! I thought I was already on it!

Spider-Man raised his hand in the air "Uh..."

Fury turned his head towards him.

"Uh yeah Nick, real quick question here, what do you mean by that exactly?" He asked and I nodded my head vigorously.

"What I'm mean is that you will show how well you can adapt to having a new member amongst you, especially one with less experience and Daphne will show if she can adapt to the idea of having a team and whether or not she has the means to improve herself and her skills."

My jaw dropped. So this was a test, seriously? I would have thought breaking into the freaking Helicarrier and trashing some security bots would have passed for some kind of 'initiation'!

A nervous smile worked onto my face as I turned to the others who were standing there in semi confusion before I reached over tap on one of Fury's arms. He turned with a raised eyebrow in question;

"Could I talk to you for a sec?" I asked quietly, the smile still plastered onto my like an uncomfortable sticker.

He turned around with me and bent forward to listen as I whispered to him "I thought you made an 'offer' for me to join this team. Like a guaranteed spot if I said yes?"

"I 'offered' you a 'chance' to be on the team." He corrected quietly with a small nod of his head as if he was just fixing his punctuation on a paper.

I swear I felt my eye twitch.

"A chance? Really because you should have added that bit to your terms and conditions forum!" I hissed and he took a deep breath and straightened back up to look at me.

"I'm sorry you feel mislead, Daphne. If you feel that this program is beyond your capabilities then you're more than free to walk away."

"I can't just walk away!" I stopped to think about that. Can't walk away? I could totally do that, I could just go back home, but at the same time there's no way. I fought for this. I said I wanted to try. Fury is giving me exactly what I wanted.

Fury stayed silent, waiting patiently for my answer which I'm actually pretty grateful for. I finally gave a short nod;

"Okay, I understand."

This is it. I had six months, six months to try.

"Good." Fury said simply and the two of us turned back around and I went back to my place by Coulson.

"Now that that's settled and there are no further questions?" He asked with one look over at the teens in costume. Nobody said a word.

"Alright then day one of your new team will be spent here in court. No missions."

There were a few groans at that whereas I would have performed an Irish jig if I were more comfortable with my surroundings. Coulson and Fury ignored them entirely and started out of… Court?

"Did he say "in court"?" I wondered out loud as I turned away from Fury and Coulson's retreating backs.

"That's what this room is. It's a training room but its nick name is Court." Danny explained

"Where you come to be 'judged'." Luke added, putting quotations in the air with his hands when he said judged.

"How lovely." I said and Sam spoke up

"So basically we gotta baby sit her until she can start walking on her own?"

I narrowed my eyes and Peter replied to him with a shrug of his shoulders "Well that's what I had to do with you Nova but you didn't hear me complain."

"Yeah right!" Sam retorted and Peter walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"As your new leader I'd like to welcome you to the team!" He said cheerfully then added in a quieter voice.

"And also ask nicely that we keep the whole Helicarrier and me swinging around town with webs a secret from MJ and Harry."

I raised an eyebrow at him because I thought that much would be obvious, how much of rookie did I look like to these guys?

"You're covered, no worries." I replied and he gave me another thumbs up.

Luke walked up with Danny in tow; still smiling and held out his hand which I blinked uncertainly before understanding that it was meant to be a low five. I slapped my hand down on top of his and he frowned,

"What was that? Shorty you're not gonna last here if you can't give out a better five than that." He teased and I responded by trying to smack his hand into the floor.

It was ineffective; it was like trying to hit a brick. My hand was cursing me out.

He laughed though and said "Much better."

I beamed up at him and turned to Danny who was grinning back at me and held up his own hand and high fived him. Then I high fived Peter, carefully since I didn't know how the whole web shooter worked and I bet it was hard to get off if there was a malfunction. Then Sam came over and it was a high five festival oddly enough.

But it quickly turned into a competition for who could hit the hardest. It turned out to be Sam by the way, thanks to the energy beam that came from his hands. He tried to beam into Peter but he jumped out of the way and shot a web sticking one of Sam's palms to his helmet.

"Okay!" Ava yelled before it could get anymore out control.

"It was self defense!" Peter claimed loudly, holding his arms up in the air as Sam grunted trying to get to detach his hand from his head.

She sighed in a way that made me think that this sort of thing happened often. Poor tiger.

"Let's just get started on the training? You know the actual reason why we're here?"

The boys seemed to snap to attention.

"Tiger's right. I think the first thing to do is start with your powers, Daphne." Peter said and turned to look at me. I stood there, wide eyed like an owl.

"You don't have very much training in combat so you'll really have to rely on your… magic…" He said slowly and I had to wonder if the man of spiders here really believed I had magic.

Even though he saw my mad skills with the chair and the roof.

We have a skeptic in our midst…

"So I say we start, you go against one of us for now just to see what you got so far." He concluded and my stomach sank. That sliver of doubt was whispering in my ear that I could be at home with my cat and a good book but I stomped in into the imaginary ground of my brain.

I took what I felt like was a battle stance (awkward half-crouch) and tapped my hat earring and popped it onto my head. I didn't really feel scared like I was with frightful four, probably because I knew that behind the suits they were teenagers like me or because they seemed more human. Before midtown I've had had to defend myself against a few of those.

"Alright! So who wants to go?" He asked and turned to his fellow team mates. Sam who had been working his hand free finally achieved his goal and his hand shot straight up from his helmet.

"Nova! Thanks for volunteering!" Peter said cheerfully and the armored fairy glared at him.

"Yeah, yeah." He grumbled and walked over to stand a few feet away from me.

"No turning me into a frog." He called out and I snorted "I'm more of a snail kind of gal."

"Alright, ready, set…"

He shot up into the air and aimed his hand directly at my feet.

"ACK!" I threw myself to the side.

"NOVA." People yelled but I seriously have had enough of this crap. I was lying on my side and whipped my head up to glare at Sam. I quickly pulled myself up to my knees and threw out my hand. I narrowed my eyes at the loose threads around his ankles and closed my fist tight. They wrapped themselves around his feet.

"What the heck?" I heard him say as he realized something was holding him. I grinned wickedly at his confusion and swiped my hand across to the floor. He yelped as he was suddenly dragged in a diagonal line to the ground.

There was a chorus of 'Ooo's from our audience. I got to my feet, my eyes staying glued to Nova's bright gold helmet as I wracked my brain for spells but only came up "I just did that omg".

It didn't take him long to get back up, he was clearly annoyed to my satisfaction and hovered up again. I was waiting for another beam but he surprised me instead by just flying straight towards me. He was predicting my dodge, right when I was going to jump out of the way he ended up knocking me back to the ground as I was in midair.

"Well this is only slightly embarrassing." I thought to myself as I looked up to see him flying past me and towards the ceiling leaving a blue arch in his wake.

"Shield, shield I wish I had a shield." I started talking to myself as my blood pounded in my ears. I wished I had a shield at shield.

"No that joke is terrible…" I said to myself again. I can't make a force field or if I can I have no idea how and he's moving way too fast for me to grab him like I did earlier. Panic was setting in as Nova started coming back. I wish I had a way to block him, I knew how to make objects solid, it would be similar to what I did with the cafeteria roof but I have nothing to hold in front of him! … Or maybe I do?

I pulled myself up and thrust my hands out in front of me again before I began to murmur under my breath.

I was pulling the strands again only this time the spell made them evident, and I began to weave a wall out of them with my hands. The last thing I saw from Nova was him suddenly throwing his arms over his head as he flew straight into the magical wall that suddenly manifested between us.

I squeaked loudly again because I wasn't prepared for him to hit it so hard, it was like getting a mental punch to the face. Nova dropped like a dead fly and I flopped over onto my back as the wall came undone instantly.

I stared upwards in shock. Nova was groaning somewhere on the ground but I barely hear him over the roaring in my ears.

"That…totally worked…"I said in disbelief to the ceiling.

There was clapping and turned my head towards the others who started walking over and remembered that they were there.

"You held up good rookie! Your mystical hand waving is strong." Peter said and I slowly brought my head to look between my boots at Sam who already on his feet and rotating his shoulders.

Refusing to be the damsel again I forced myself to sit up but placed a hand over my fore head in an attempt to hold back a sudden wave of nausea.

"You're gonna have to find a way to hit the brakes when you're flying man." I heard Luke tease and looked up to see him chuckling at Nova who waved him off with an 'Ugh whatever.'

"Okay well that went well." I sighed internally with relief and turned around to grab my hat that fell off my head in my descent and got up.

"The method of magic that you used it quite unique." Danny commented. My eyes shot up to him and wondered how it was Danny was so used to magic. Then again now that I think about it Danny's glowing hand wasn't man made…

"Yeah sorry I'm still holding out for you having some kind of psychokinesis." Parker said and folded his arms. I snorted and shrugged my shoulders "It's all in the hand waving, bro."

"Did you just call her a psycho?" Sam asked.

I turned to Ava who heaved a sigh and replied "Psychokinesis is moving objects without touching them."

I blinked at the definition; it sounded similar to my ties with magic but shook head and spoke up explaining out loud;

"It's not mental… well no I guess it is actually but my ability is being able to directly manipulate the magic in this world. Different people have different methods to using magic, some of its mental, some of it is through some kind of object or objects, some of it are through words, some is pretty mundane…" I rambled but stopped at vacant like expressions from the others.

I rubbed my hands nervously; I'm really not the best at the job to explaining one of the most complicated things in the universe.

"It's hard to explain and honestly half the time it confuses me too but…"

I turned to Danny "Remember when you said magic is woven throughout the universe? Well you're pretty much right. I can sorta see strands of it and use them." I explained and glanced over at Sam "That's how I pulled you down earlier"

"I got taken down by invisible strings? Like some kind of puppet?" He asked in disbelief while Danny nodded his head "Interesting."

"What about the wall? We couldn't see you pull Nova down but we saw the wall." Luke asked with a tilt of his head.

"Yeah okay that was weird. I used a spell there like I did at the cafeteria but I kinda… made the wall out of the strands? And then used the spell to make it… solid?"

"Are you asking us or telling us?" Ava said and folded her own arms.

I blushed sheepishly and looked towards the ground with a shrug of my shoulders. At this point it did sound kind of silly even to me.

"The strands can be used by anyone who can manipulate magic. The difference for me is that I can actually see it."

"And that's how you knew Wizard wasn't a real Wizard? You couldn't see him using magic?" Peter asked thoughtfully. I simply nodded "That and the gadgets kinda gave it away." I smiled softly.

"Hmm… Well if you say so." He said and shrugged his shoulders. Freaking skeptics.

He then clapped his gloved hands together and said "Alright break time is over!" while the others started gathering around.

What. Break? When did that happen?

"How're feeling Daphne?" He asked and I stared blankly at him. I was hot in the face but my nausea subsided so I chirped "Fine!" like an idiot. I should have backed down when I had the chance.

"Good because I think it's best you go up against the rest of us individually before we start on our regular routine."

…This wasn't their regular routine? Are they trying to kill me?

My horror must have shown on my face because suddenly I felt a pat on shoulder and turned to see Danny smiling reassuringly "You've began your journey on the path of enlightenment, Daphne. Your mind has already opened to new ways of strength."

"SCORE." I mentally punched the air with my fist completely forgetting my previous dismay. This was one of the very few benefits of an easily distracted mind.

Parker brought me back to reality though.

"White tiger?" He turned to Ava who nodded once and started walking to the middle of the room where Sam and I were fighting.

Oh. Shiz.

"So uh… how long do you guys usually…do this?" I asked Peter, putting off my impending doom for as long as possible.

"Usually a few hours, don't worry you only cry yourself to sleep for the first couple of weeks before you get used to it." He said.

"Ready when you are!" Ava called out to me.

"Right." I barely smothered my whimper and started over to my place a few feet from her.

So this chapter turned out to be longer than I expected and I wasn't even done with it! Seriously I had to cut this chapter in half!

Couple things I wanna cover in this note. One of them being how much this chapter focuses on Daphne. Honestly guys I try to avoid being clique like focusing everything on my own character (Even though the name is through a witch's perspective hahaha) but I felt this was needed, I'm gonna have to talk about her eventually if that makes sense?

Also I'm sorry if Daphne feels mary-sue ish? I really hope you guys aren't getting that impression. I try hard to make sure she doesn't turn out that way and I don't think she is…? Let me know what you all think :)

Other than that I hope you guys are doing well and fending off the harsh winter (If the winter is harsh for you, if not then count yourself very lucky) and I hope to see you guys again soon in the chapter!