Blackstone Prison

[Avenger Assembled]

August 14, 2009:

"So you see, Lyn, we live in a society still fundamentally driven by patriarchal narratives." Sharon tapped her pen against her notebook, smiling at her patient. "Take me, for example. When people here found out that I was just an innocent, naive librarian possessed by an evil Communist ghost, well, they all embraced the narrative of the helpless damsel in distress who needed some men to come along and rescue her. They were all so happy when the exorcism took, and so happy when I tearfully volunteered here at the outpatient clinic. They were so happy to have a trained psychologist around!" She put one hand piously over her heart, her jacket cut shorter than was technically regulation. But, as she'd said, it was mostly men here."I'm glad I did, Lyn. It's how you and I found each other."

Lyn leaned forward, clinging tightly to the disposable tipless ballpoint she'd been carrying around since her incarceration. "Yeah. Yeah." Her eyes were a solid, pure shade of black. Sharon thought they were lovely. "You did a nice job with the place, Sharon. But I'm no good to you," she said, shivering all over as if legions of bugs were crawling on her skin. "Not...not without..."

"Yes you are, Lyn," said Sharon, putting her hand on her friend and patient's arm, "You are good enough. And you are strong enough. Open your mind to me, and I will show you your true power." Both women had tasted the pure, sweet essence of death, and as they opened to each other the power poured out between them, filling the fractured Lyn as she reached for what had been a long-suppressed part of her for so long. She closed her eyes, her fingers spasming around the pen in her hand, the one she'd had to bite a guard to the bone to keep when they'd first brought her in and put her in the loony ward. But she wasn't crazy. And it wasn't just a pen. Not anymore.

Itsmineitsmineitsmineitsmineitsmine...and I'm me.Sister Sixtus rose off the psychiatrist's couch with a huge smile on her face, necromantic power pouring across her body as her prison togs reshaped themselves into a tightly clinging outfit that radiated death and power like a second skin. Beneath her, Marionette beamed, a matching smile on her face as she saw the woman she'd remade and empowered with manipulation, affection, and careful, precise application of the psychic gifts she'd persuaded one particular guard to underestimate, just once. And that had been enough.

"Why look at you. You're beautiful." Alarms were going off now, but it was a simple matter to extend her mind out and make sure the running guards forgot what they were doing as they approached. Eventually they'd think to come with helmets to block out her powers, but right now they weren't thinking about anything at all. "Sister Sixtus."

Sixtus turned and looked at the noise outside, a smile on her face. "Should I take them?" she asked in a hushed, reverent tone. "I can feel their souls begging for me. They would give great joy to the Necro-Kings."

"Not yet, my poppet, not yet." The two women were practically embracing now, Marionette maternal with her new best friend. "We must go from this place, so you can learn your power, and I can learn mine. They caught us by surprise once, but never again." She saw faces in her mind and marked them for demise, or worse. "We'll make a wonderful team. Show me your power, Sixtus. Take us from this place." With a high, bubbly laugh, the two women vanished together in a flash of stinking black necromantic energy that killed every house-plant in the tiny office and took a decade off the life of the psychiatrist locked in the closet.

It was going to be a beautiful night.