Missiles & Magic

The voice was ebbing and flowing. Cajoling and threatening in turn. Soothing and hurting in turn.

"You have a choice. It's really all up to you. I'm just here to help you see it. Give you some... clarity. Whether you believe they will obey or not... wouldn't it be better if they didn't have to come to your aid?"

The images cut. Her security detail. Agents from past and present. Good friends, random underlings. A mix only subconscious mind holds, dredged up to the surface.

Her surroundings warped and changed. Ballrooms and conference rooms, so much good she could do...

Why was there an iron, of all things, in the dungeon-like room, none of them knew (or cared to think about too hard).

However it came in handy, when Osprey used it as a knuckle duster, knocking out the guard. In the next moment she turned it into a shield, deflecting a spell. A second after that it was a flail, taking out the last opponent.

"Who can't use an iron now, Elk?!" she muttered, a memory of certain agent's insistence of having his underwear pressed to perfection flashing across her mind.

"Now to iron out the escape plan details..."

Swan noticed some commotion around her. Someone picked her up, murmured something she couldn't quite make out, but was sure was supposed to be soothing.

The emotions - excitement, relief, but also shock, fear and thinly veiled anger - suggested it was a friend.

"Let's get you home," gravelly voice finally made it through the haze of her mind.

She started moving her legs, nodding.

Did anyone actually come for her despite Omega?

"Home," she repeated and her eyes snapped open before she could finish the thought - luckily.

It was exactly what her enemy wanted. To find her home. To destroy it.

She flipped the mirror open.

I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!

The image split in two.

A larger than life female figure, shining with impossible light of magic, her eyes seeing through the depth of time into every soul, almost demanding worship.

A woman clad with white, shrunken, but soft, her eyes gentle, voice soothing, genuine laughter tingling.

"Our chief challenge lies in identifying channels that cannot be corrupted. What do you know of other locations so far?" Hoopoe glanced over his shoulder where an old fashioned map of the world, adorned with a few pins of differing colours hung.

"We're still only working on establishing alternate incoming communications of a more complex persuasion," Wolf responded. "Omega relies on the initiative of the Headquarters rather heavily in that sense."

"Wouldn't it be easier to let them find you? If you can find a public and yet clandestine enough platform..."

"Something we never before considered using," Wolf mused. "ClockApp?"

"Do you think they can hear us? And communicate back?" Raven asked Mouse. 

"Why don't you ask me directly, Raven?" The ornament responded with a crackle of magic static. "Agent Hoopoe, Jerusalem Branch Chief."

Before any of the agents could react, the voice continued. 

"Glad to see HQ getting emergency protocols under way. Any more intel on the Omega situation would sure be welcome. I have agents in precarious positions I can't leave hanging for to long..."

"Roger that. Hoopoe. Before we go on... How secure is this channel?"

"Israeli secure, my friend."

"Right, let me get you to Wolf."

Portals were an interesting discipline. A skilled portalist or an especially opportune placement might give them very diverse properties.

"Maybe we should go 'downwards' this time. Directly to the spot where the other portal ends?" 

Osprey focused deeply, her forehead creased with worry.

"Not unless you want to land on each other."

"Better than landing on a mine," Tiger growled, ever the optimist. "I'll go first, I'll catch you."

Osprey shook her head. All of this was a bad idea.

But she didn't have any better.

So she focused, and opened portal on the ground.

"One fall coming right down."

"The Star of David looks promising," Raven suggested.

Mouse shook her head. 

"Not everything around here needs to be magic. Most definitely not useful magic."

But she took the ornament down from the tree.

"Well wishes of peace and joy to the world," she grimaced. "Israeli colleagues got the sarcasm down."

The back of her neck prickled with sense of being watched.

"Zaraza..."

Mouse's fingers quickly tapped the points of the star in a sequence. The middle lit up as a tiny selfie camera.

"Seems your non-magic-reading instincts were better than our screening," she pointed it at him. "Say 'hi!'"

Morning sun almost seemed to make her face colder than the darkness it broke through.

She could feel the wind in her hair and the rocking and jumping of the speeding boat.

She still had no idea where she was, or where were they taking her. But something in the way her mind was controlled shifted. Suddenly she could see and hear. Actual physical world snapped back into existence around her.

Probing against new boundaries gave her some unpleasant jolts. Trying to focus on what her senses provided burned her mind like the Sun the wings of the proverbial Icarus.

The crooning of the popular moralizing ballad was especially jarring to Raven.

...and what have you done?

Not enough. Never enough. And yet, there was nothing more he could do.

Another year over and new one just begun.

Began with a real bang for sure.

He shook his head as he passed through the reception area. The ridiculously large tree still gleamed with lights and sparkled with baubles from all over the world.

He stopped. Narrowed his eyes. 

"Frog, can you call Mouse here, please?"

Maybe the universal time of goodwill and its symbols could be used to make contact.