The Symmetrical Defense: Playing Red, Count Dragos

[mcr]

Previously.........

[Black Sam]

The breath-stealing trip of a thousand miles ended as quickly as it began.

Gone was the well-lit, cozy mansion in Essex, Great Britain – in its place was a dirty alley, barely lit by street lamps beyond the pathway's end. It was already dark here, but the sky was clear and chill. Wherever they were, it was definitely foreign. A quick glance at the bricks told you that; the paving stones were almost medieval. More, the sound of voices carried, distorted, around them; a foreign language mixed with the laughter of children at dinnertime and cars moving lightly through nearby streets.

Azazel, no longer hiding behind the illusion of gentleman, stepped back from Betsy, lifting the fingertips which he'd brushed against her elbow back in Essex to steal her away. With unnatural strength and agility, the red-skinned devil leapt a dozen into the air, flipping back to land in an easy crouch on the building eaves, just out of reach.

"Let's talk," he spat at Betsy with more venom than he intended. "You are more than you pretend, Lady Braddock. Does that make you friend or foe?"

He hadn't chosen their destination consciously. The memory he'd stolen of Betsy's father standing in the midst of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp sparked a memory of his own, a mission that brought him to the village of Brzezinka, Poland, which sat just beyond the most infamous of the Nazi's death camps a long time ago. The alley in which they stood was the site where he'd committed dark deeds, murders that strengthened the hand of his father against their implacable foe. If Betsy walked to the end of the alley she'd see past the nearby buildings to a darkened complex half a mile away, where a skeletal iron fence clawed at the night sky and a large sign named the place for tourists: Muzeum Auschwitz.

His anger towards her felt righteous, but confusing. He wanted to know what was going on, and the direct route seemed most appropriate. Keep her off-guard. Control the interrogation. Stay in control. This was his training, and he was very good at it.

[OurLadyWar]

Betsy's stomach pitched and just by catching her footing, she knew she was no longer in the Manor. The fine floors were replaced with pavement, she even heard her shoe heel scratch against the surface as she found her balance. The briefest touch left her elbow, causing her to look up, and see the red-faced version of the Count himself. Jumping away from her was an ideal move, because that crackling sword of hers was full blaze in her hands in an instant. An angry cry tore from her throat as she swung, the pink blade arcing where he once stood. She dropped back into a ready stance, the sword pointed at him, her hands crisscrossed and poised around the hilt.

"Says the devil with the face of a man," Elizabeth spat back in kind, hair in her face, except for the occasional flourish from deep breathing. "I should ask you the same thing! Spiriting me away like this. Take us back -- NOW!" She was definitely out of her element, and he was right: it did catch her off guard. She was clearly a young woman who required being in control of her situations and environment. He could see how flustered, angry, and out of sorts she was, even if she did try to tuck it away behind a harsh glare and grit teeth.

[Black Sam]

"Ah, so the princess is a racist against her own kind," Azazel retorted, incensed by the accusatory words he'd heard his entire life. Had his anger not burned so brightly he would have dismissed the words any other time with the same logic, but not now.

"You know that not all mutants can hide themselves? Some are born monster, or changed by our gift, enslaved. Yes, girl, call me devil, but for my own deeds and not for your pride! Why do you play the shield maiden when your true power rivals the White Queen? Tell Azazel, yes? Then perhaps I let you leave."

[OurLadyWar]

She flinched, stepping away, the tip of her blade bobbing with a tremor of self-doubt. "What... what are you talking about?" Powers to rival the White Queen? That made no sense. She was unnerved being dissected by him and his casual nicknames and accusations for her. For the better part of Brian's disappearance she had fought demons and shadows that looked much like him. There was a hair trigger in her to go defensive when he showed his true self in front of her. She knew he was trying to get under her skin, so let him keep thinking that. "And don't call me princess! You know nothing about me, so much the better." Her hands flexed around her blade, allowing her gaze a quick glance this way and that before snapping back to him. "Where are we? Where have you brought us and why? Answer me!"

[Black Sam]

Azazel's eyes narrowed, and he let out a huff from his nostrils like a predatory cat. She was afraid of him. Good. Still, he reigned in his anger, disquieted that it had arisen so passionately.

He glanced around at her questions, as if not quite sure where they were himself.

"Poland," he answered after a pause, his voice calmer. "So that we are not interrupted."

With casual grace, he hopped down from the eaves to the edge of her reach – a quick lunge would surely impale him, but he did not shy from the threat. He stood straight, arms clasped behind his back in a pose of command, the tip of his tail flicking.

"I know some about you. More than others, but not all. You were not taught your gift, no? Discovered it by accident, honed it to sharpness?"

He gestured to her violet psi-blades. Something had changed in the tone of his voice as well, something subtle...warm. His presence changed too. Though still the very image of a devil, he no longer seemed menacing. Although Azazel himself was not a powerful psychic, he was well-trained, and he back-masked his words with telepathic honey. A strong will could shut him out, and a quick thinker could resist – if she really was a trained psychic, then he reasoned Betsy would defend against his insidious talent without effort. 

"It is obvious who Mr. Wisdom works for, but you... tell me, my dear: who sent you?"

[OurLadyWar]

"Poland?" Betsy echoed in disbelief, that familiar pitching feeling suddenly sinking into her stomach again.

As he hopped from his perch, Betsy retreated a couple steps, the pavement scratching under her feet. She did not dare look away, now that he was back on the ground again. He was fast, faster than she was, that was for sure. The blade hummed pink and crackled violet between them. Her muscles were tense, ready for anything. She knew being on the defensive with a broadsword was a good way to lose, but she was not ready to outright attack him. A part of her was reasoning that he was not with whatever demonic agency kept chasing her, just enough to keep her from going on the offensive, but the other part was still not so sure. She knew more retreating just meant an alley wall at her back, he could see her bristling. There was something cagey about her, a fight or flight that could be triggered at a moment's notice.

At the mention of her talents and gesture to her blade, her lips pursed stiffly, the gesture making her back up another step. Not much space now. "My parents taught me. Taught me and my brothers. We all presented differently. I am nothing like that White Witch we answer to." Betsy only knew Emma as a telepath, so she assumed he was implying telepathy, something she was sure she did not possess. "I honed this blade myself as I learned from them."

The implication she was working for someone seemed to rile her, not to mention the feeling of being cornered by him. From his twitching tail to his probing gaze, Elizabeth was not sure whether to cower or fight, and he could see the pendulum swinging between the two, undecided where it would land. "No one sent me, my way is my own." She had not decided to attack him, but she was through retreating as well, especially since the alley was so narrow and her options were swiftly diminishing with each step. The blade, that had slowly been slacking in her hand, suddenly popped back up in her grip, but her hands were trembling. "That-That's far enough!"

[Black Sam]

Azazel held up his empty hands in a placating gesture.

"I have not moved," he offered. She was on edge; spooked. His psychic manipulation wasn't being blocked as if she'd been trained in mental defense, but she was so ensnared in her inner turmoil that his charm was having little effect. "We can talk, or fight if you wish. Either way, I will take you back shortly."

He pursed his lips, considering. She wasn't a spy then, but her family had definitely been up to something. They'd been training her for something – perhaps she didn't know? Perhaps his reaction had been too much. If so, he hadn't won an ally today.

"I..." What was wrong with him? He was behaving foolishly. She was a child. Gifted, strong, but not the threat he had taken her for. His brush with the KGB had disturbed him more than he'd realized. "I apologize. Only recently have I escaped the company of actual devils and monsters. Just today I learned that my former masters have a spy in our midst – you and Miss Pryde are just the sort they'd send. Unless..."

His mind skipped back to the visions he'd purloined from Betsy's mind. 

Shadows surrounded her. A pink blade dispersed jagged hands and glowing eyes.

"I'll do it myself -- I'll find him."

Azazel heard her voice echo in her own mind and he saw the briefest flash of Betsy, nose bloodied and grinning with exhilaration, sitting in front of a drill instructor. His shirt bore an acronym: S.T.R.I.K.E.

His eyes hardened in suspicion once more.

"What is this 'Strike?' S.T.R.I.K.E. ..."

[OurLadyWar]

He could hear a strained breath behind her teeth, how her shoulders rose and fell with her chest, with every deep breath. The other thing he noticed was that his words were starting to land. He was breaking through a wall of sorts, one that was just as well crafted as the sword in her hands. Something about what he had been through seemed to take route in an empathy she hid from most people. It was suddenly clear that this was not just a woman against the world, this was someone who had cultivated a set of survival skills in an eco-system of loneliness. Betsy was familiar with keeping everyone not just at arm's length, but well beyond the tip of her blade. There were oceans and jungles between her and everyone else.

That deep breathing, that frantic look, finally gave way to a deeper sigh that dropped her back against the alley wall behind her. "No... I don't want to fight," she relented. The sword had not disappeared, but she had lowered its menace.

"What is this 'Strike'? S.T.R.I.K.E. ..."

Betsy's eyes narrowed. "Special Tactical Reserve for International Key Emergencies. A sister to S.H.I.E.L.D. ... I was recruited with my brother to the Psi Division. When he went missing, it was all buried in paperwork. I did not want to wait. I did not want them to train me anymore. I wanted to get him back, so I got myself discharged. I don't know if they are still searching for him or not," and suddenly an acidic tone found her, "and I don't care. I just want him back."

The sword sucked back into her hands, plunging them into the darkness of the alley, save for the ribbons of pink and violet that coursed up her arms before fading. "My search led me to the Inner Circle. They know something. About my brother. About my family and my home. If I can find out what happened, maybe I can get my family back. Such as it is."

Her gaze hardened in return. "And you? You said you escaped devils and monsters. I showed you mine, you show me yours." The request was usually more coquettish or haughty in different circumstances, here it was a hot needle.

[Black Sam]

Azazel listened silently. He believed her. He sighed and walked past Betsy to the mouth of the alley.

"Trust, then," he said. He didn't believe the words as he said them, but for some reason the next words out of his mouth – true words – were not what he intended to share. "Count Dragoș is a fiction; a surname stolen to cover my lack. I was born in the Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik in 1925, a backward village called Vartse in the Caucasus mountains. They put my mother to the flames that night and left me for dead, but the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti – the KGB – was watching, as always. They named me for the scapegoat; the one not sacrificed. I was raised in their labs and training rooms, then later in the palace of the Generalny Sekretar himself. I received the finest training with the first Spetsnaz unit in intelligence, tactics, combat, and psychic warfare. I was Russia's finest assassin, the Red Death."

Lost in thought, Azazel looked out past the nearby buildings to the Auschwitz sign half a mile away. He remembered it differently. Now it was a ghost town – then it had been full of activity. Full of suffering.

"I was last here in 1944. We learned that Himmler was to pay a visit, but it was trap. I almost died in this alley – wounded, I escaped, but I made a mistake. When I teleport, I move between worlds, and I was too weak to complete my escape. I became stuck in that other place. A hell-place. I will not speak of it, but I have only been free this past year. Before that, I believed that I was what they told me – only now, I know about mutants. I know that I am not alone."

He was thinking about Raven, but for some reason when he pictured his shape-changing love he saw Besty's face instead.

[OurLadyWar]

Elizabeth listened intently in the dark, making no move or word to interrupt him. It seemed they both had had the wrong idea about the other. After hearing his story, she could see why he was so suspicious. She even regretted some of her words, some of her actions and assumptions. After so much isolation, upheaval, and betrayal, Betsy was not sure if there was a way back to the more tender parts of herself. Yet, as she listened, she appeared to soften. Her body language, her attentiveness were all laced with compassion. Whether she knew she was doing it or not was beside the point.

She shook her head. "Such a long time," she sighed her sympathy, drawing her arms around her, cradling herself as she processed everything he had told her.

Her brows knit. "If there is a spy, we will need to make this," she pushed her hand back and forth between them, "look good. They have already seen us at odds, so they need to keep thinking we are at odds, whoever they might be. They will try to play us against each other. If I were one, that's what I would do, anyway," she shrugged as he turned back to her. His look was peculiar and had changed. In the dark, a red flush came to her cheeks, and she was grateful for the darkness.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

[Black Sam]

Azazel hadn't realized he was looking at her. He ignored the question.

"It could be that some members of the Club simply have ties to the KGB; strings they pull. They may be informants rather than spies. I have heard rumors about a 'Red Court,' but we will see. I will let them draw me back into their confidence, far enough to resolved unfinished business, then I will cut the head off the snake."

He watched how she was looking at him, but he couldn't tell what it meant. He didn't dare touch her mind again, lest...

"Your power," he said. "When I looked at your thoughts, you created an avatar to push me out. This indicates that there is more to your ability; something I have only seen true telepaths do. Perhaps, in your desire to forge a weapon, you focused your gift so finely that you cannot see the rest of it. The 'top of the iceberg,' as they say..."

[OurLadyWar]

She nodded to his plan, lips folded in as she let the different aspects settle. "Then, we will need to make it all look very good," she smirked. Resuming their tetchily roles against one another would clearly not be a problem. The girl had relied on various performances to get her this far, both in terms of a career and in infiltrating the Inner Circle. Surely, she could roll with what he would throw at her to keep up his end of the plan. If someone in the Inner Circle had a hand in her family's demise -- or Brian's disappearance -- as she suspected, Azazel was a boon, not a burden. Helping him would help her, and vice versa.

Her violet eyes started wide for the moment and that stern line of her mouth suddenly cracked with a wide and bright smile, accentuated by a tickled chuckle. A rare sight, indeed. "It's 'tip'. The 'tip of the iceberg'," she shifted her weight, and held one arm straight behind her back, clasped at the elbow in a more casual and demure pose. The 'avatar' had definitely thrown her off. She shook her head, trying to concentrate on the moments in her mind that they had experienced. "I don't know what you mean. I felt like I was being watched, like someone was rifling through me, and then I felt a flash. Like, a migraine only condensed into a second or two. Then, I was back and you were out. But I don't remember an 'avatar'. What did you see?"

[Black Sam]

"This is your avatar," he said, morphing into the form that had kicked him out of her mind. 

The form is powerful, daunting. Clad in violet armor, she wears curled ram horns that are crowned with the bright glare of pink butterfly wings. Azazel's voice spoke through the illusory glamour. 

"It is a manifestation of your Id – your instinct, according to pervert Freud. It is unbound by your Ego, your control. Now that you have awakened her you will see her in your dreams, hidden from your waking mind. Until the two unite – then you will discover your power."

Azazel reverted suddenly into the debonair Count Dragoș once more, flesh tone and all.

"Think about her when you meditate. I will teach you, but now we return. We have mission to prepare for. Do not tell this to your British boyfriend, yes? He is a spy."

He grinned a little as he held out his hand.

[OurLadyWar]

Azazel transforming was already remarkable enough, but to see this new figure in front of her was jaw-dropping. As he spoke to her through this powerful illusory of her avatar, Elizabeth took a lap around him, looking over her ironclad warrior id. Betsy stopped in front of him-her once more and reach a hand out as if to touch the face of this "other" of hers that Azazel had manifested. When he transformed back, her hand snapped away, held close to her chest instead.

She was about to reply to his instruction and his offer to teach her, but his next advice (and assumption) invited that obstinate swing of emotion back. Betsy planted her hands on her hips, glaring up at him. "He is not -- !" She cut herself off as he extended his hand. Betsy looked from the offer, to his grinning face, and back to his hand again. She hazarded a grin of her own, just barely, as she curled some stray pastel purple hair behind her ear. "No place like home," she muttered, and slid her hand into his grip, shutting her eyes.