Chaos couldn't create memories from nothing. She could tap into my own memories. She could manipulate my subconscious to make me recall things. Make me see what she wanted me to see. Sometimes, it worked to my advantage. A conversation, Bucky called it. And he hadn't been wrong. She'd answered questions. But whether or not those questions were answered honestly, I couldn't determine.

Whoever's memory I was seeing now, it wasn't my own. I felt adrift in space, yet solid and at the mercy of gravity all at once. I could feel a floor beneath my feet. But stars and darkness as far as the eye could see.

Until I realized the stars were walls. Some strange superimposed image like a night sky projected onto a green screen. The floor was so glossy it looked like water, reflecting the sky above, giving the illusion of drifting through space.

"Is this what she showed you?"Chaos asked. I turned to face her. Or what I expected to be her. I thought I'd see her as I always did, Beata's face. The soft, gentle warmth of a mother. Instead, I was looking at myself. Or at least some variation of me.

My hair was darker. Black, like liquid night that dripped over my shoulders and faded into the gown made of shadow. My form was lean. Less emaciated and built for power rather than a Vessel. It was the same face I saw every day in the mirror, except my skin shimmered like moonlight, and my eyes were solid black.

"Is this what you saw?"she repeated.

"What is this?" I asked. She got the answer to her question without me having to answer. Her lips, my lips, quirked up into a partial smile.

"This is power,"she said."What you could be."

"What you could be if I let you win, you mean?"

"No—what you could be if you realized your potential."

"You can't show me things that aren't real."

"This is very real. This is who you really are on the inside, Johanna. Or it's what you could be if you weren't so goddamn soft."

"You used me. You lied to me."

"I expand. That's all I know how to do."

"You expand by killing."

"I told you how I feed."

"You tried to kill Bucky."

"Bucky wanted to save your life. I gave him a way to do it."

"You would have consumed him and ended up right back in me." She thought about that momentarily and made a face I probably made a thousand times.

"True,"she decided."But I was in his head. He was willing to die for you. And after sifting through his memories—I can't say I blame him. You'd want to die, too, if you saw the horrors he's seen. Not to mention all he's done. He would have made you powerful."

"What do you want from me? From us?"

"I've already told you. I want to go home."

"To that other part of you? The part floating in the void?" She smirked again. There were no irises for me to see exactly where she was looking. But I knew she was looking at me, seeing through a lens of Darkness. But this was just an illusion. She was using the Darkness to conjure it. And the Darkness was mine.

"In a manner of speaking," she decided. Then she shrugged."I may as well tell you. You're dying anyway. It's not like you have much fight left in you. Especially not now that I've taken Bucky out of the picture. It's a pity I couldn't get my hands on the other Avengers. The green one would have been,"she took a deep breath,"delicious."

"Tell me."

"The void is where I'm from. Where I came into consciousness. I am nothing more than raw Chaos energy. Chaos magic. I gained sentience, and I learned to expand. To grow. I learned, very young in my life, that I could grow when I found a Vessel capable of holding me. Through that Vessel, I found my food source. Other lifeforms. I consumed them until I outgrew my Vessel and then moved on to the next."

"But the Vessel had to be specific."

"Yes, someone with a predisposition for magic. They're called many things in many different worlds. Your people call them witches."I startled at that word. Like it was nothing more than a fantasy. She smiled as if she saw the train of my thoughts."You've seen aliens in the flesh, but witches throw you off? Really?"

"Shut up. I've never done magic before."

"Because you were too weak to notice it. You have magic in your blood, but it was almost bred out of your bloodline through generations of breeding with weaker mortals. I woke it up. I gave you back your power."

"So you could use me."

"They gave you to me like a gift, wrapped up and tied with a bow. It's not my fault I do what's in my nature. I told you Chaos was a god of destruction as much as a god of life. Everything is give and take, you know that."

"So you give me my power, but you take my life."

"You were my best shot at getting what I want."

"Which is?"

"Home. The other piece of me."

"Not in the void."

"Not anymore, no. That part of me has been imprisoned. My Vessels have never been powerful enough to free me. But you have something my other Vessels never have."

"Power." She laughed, scoffed more like it.

"Don't be so vain. Your power pales in comparison to someone like Wanda. And trust me—I would have loved to get my hands on her. But she's shielded and warded, unlike anything I've ever seen. And you—you're weaker, but you have enough power to keep me contained to yourself. You're a prison for me too."I nodded, tucking that information away for later.

"So what do I have that other Vessels lacked?"

"Access to tremendous power. You have access to the Avengers. Gods and monsters. You may not be strong enough to free me, but they are. And all I have to do is convince them that freeing me is for the greater good."

"And you plan to use me to manipulate them?"

"That's the plan."

"And you actually think I'll let you?"

"I think that you're dying. And the weaker you get, the less control over your own power you have. You can't even keep control of your own body, Jo."

"Bucky's learning to tell the difference between us."

She smiled and gestured to herself in all her Dark Witch glory. The flowing gown of living darkness, the liquid black hair, moon-pale skin, and shimmering black eyes. But then she snapped her fingers, and it was all gone. Now, I was seeing a memory of myself as I really was. The thin, emaciated version of me who was slowly dying. My eyes and hair the right shades of brown. The innocent eyes my mother used to tell me were so pretty. But they were sunken. My hair flat and lackluster.

"Bucky felt the uncanny valley because I made him see it,"she said, using my voice in the exact speech pattern and tone."I've been playing with him for weeks, pushing the limits of his ability to see through me. Do you know how often he had conversations with what he thought was you? How many times I was able to convince him I was you? You know—it's almost funny that every kiss you've ever shared with him has been with me right there. But not the other way around."I clenched my fists, and she smiled."Jealous, Jo?"

"Don't be ridiculous. He hates you more than I do. And that was before you tried to kill him."

"How far do you think I can get him to go? I can make him believe I'm gone. That you're free. Fuck him and breed him all I want. Make as many perfect little Vessels as I want. A little army of enhanced witches. I bet I could get myself free of prison with them. Imagine the power I could drain from them."

I flung myself at her without another thought. I knew it wasn't real. A dream. An illusion, I didn't know. I didn't care that she wasn't really a solid thing. I didn't care if I punched my own face. Just as long as she shut up.

I woke to the sound of her laughter, still echoing in my head.