The Séance • Marvel

Age of Ultron: Chapter 05

Fury had done as he told Steve. He contacted a few SHIELD members that he trusted and planned to get the Helicarrier and take it to the fight, but first, he needed to pick up someone. "Hill is there any hit on our missing person?" "The last location that she was seen was" she paused to read the screen, "Las Vegas, Nevada. How did she get from New York to Nevada so fast? It took the Avengers longer to find Ultron than for her to get there." "Well let's not waste any more time lets go pick her up" Fury ordered.

How Vanessa had found herself in the Caesars Palace, she had no idea. On the way to her next destination she had pickpocketed a couple of wallets and now she found herself in a tight green dress gambling. With a few good drinks in her, the girl was feeling better than ever, so she decided to try her hand in poker. The only good thing about being able to talk to the dead was you could get many angles without even moving. "All in," said the man sitting in front of her. "You got a higher hand than all of them. Go all in" said Jason, who stood behind the man reading his cards. Vanessa pushed all her chips in, "me too."

The two other men playing put down their cards and motioned they were out. "Sorry to tell you darling but you're about to lose," he said and showed her his cards. When he saw her disappointed face he begins to pull "his winnings" in. The girl tutted and shook her finger. "And I got a full house," she said with a wink. "Ring me up will ya," she told the Dealer. Her original plan had been to play a game and earn enough money to rent a car or something, but now the girls had enough to buy what she really wanted. "What are you planning? I know that face" asked Jason. "I'm going to make the voices go away."

It was however a bit harder to find someone in Las Vegas than it would be in LA. At this point Vanessa didn't really care what it was they were selling, she was willing to take anything to make the voices go away. As she made her way around the corner she bumped into someone. "Sorry" Vanessa said. When she looked up, Vanessa saw the familiar face. "What did you think we would find you?" She asked. "Hey I know you," Vanessa said. "Are you drunk?" Hill said.

She didn't wait for an answer as she pulled the girl to the exit. Vanessa was still wearing the dress from earlier but her shoes had been discarded, so she was walking barefoot to wherever they were taking her. "What? Me, drunk? No... Maybe just a little bit. But it was only to take the edge off you know? I've had a really tough week and you are not making it any better." "Shut up will you" "Oh not friendly, are you?" Only a few seconds passed before Vanessa spoke again, "Hey where are we going? And can I get some chips?" "There somebody who wants to talk to you" was all Hill said.

Vanessa slightly stumbled as she was being pulled very roughly by Hill. "Man if it's the Giorgio Armani model tell him I'll pass, but if it's anybody else tell them I'll also pass. I just want to get home and get high, you know? Plus my boss has probably fired me by now since I haven't shown up to work in the last week or so. What day is it even? It took us a lot longer to travel across the county than it should have and I blame you for that J. Then again there was that incident in New Mexico or was it Arizona? Anyway, that put us back like an extra day or so. All because you had to get me to talk right? Then again now that I think about it it was also probably a bad idea to..." Vanessa didn't get to finish as the mouth guard mask was put on her. "See that's what you get for talking so much," said Jason.

Once they boarded the Helicarrier that took her to a holding cell, this time a cylindrical one with clear walls. The only thing inside was a bed. "Fury will be coming soon to talk to you" she pushed a button and the mask fell off, "try and sober yourself up." "Ok." Hill walked out the door leaving the girl in the cell alone with her ghost best friend. It was silent for a moment then Vanessa started laughing hysterically. "What?" Asked Jason also starting to laugh. "Nothing," she said but continued to laugh. The ghost only shook his head but began laughing as well. After a few minutes, they both became silent and calm, but one look at each other and they began laughing all over again.

When Nick Fury came into the room, he saw a young woman sitting on the ground silent and a few moments later bust out laughing for no reason. "She's insane boss, I really don't think she is going to be of any use to us," said Hill. "Yeah you might be right, but I still want to make sure that there really is nothing there. Then Cap can decide what to do with her." Hill gave a short nod and left him alone with the girl.

"You really are something else aren't you?" "Hey Mad-Eye Moody, how you been?" Said Vanessa. "You're a hard person to track down you know that?" "Why? I'm not hiding, maybe your people just suck at finding me." "Do you remember that conversation we had a few years ago?" "My guy, I don't remember what I had for breakfast. Did I even have breakfast? Anyways you think I'm going to remember something that happened, what was it four, five years ago?" "Well let me refreshen your memory. It was about a little project of mine, hadn't been approving yet. But somehow you knew about it, and I want to know how?"

Vanessa closed her eyes and began to think about what he was talking about. "A friend told me about it," said Vanessa. By friend, she meant Nate. The man had a tendency to find information to extortionate people because apparently old habits die hard. "And where is this friend of yours?" Asked Fury. Vanessa turned to look over at Jason. "Where is Nate now?" She asked him. "Don't know probably watching his family or spying on someone." Vanessa turned back to Fury and said, "I don't know. We're not really that close to him, you know? He only comes around when he's bored or has nothing more interesting to do." Fury shook his head, he wasn't going to get any information out of the girl. So instead of continuing, he turned to leave. "Hey, do you think I can get some chips or some cookies?" He heard her say, but ignored her and walked out the door.

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The Avengers were still fighting Ultron's robots. They were trying to keep people safe until they figured out a way to get them all to safety. So far they had come up with nothing. Tony had a way to blow up the rock, but Steve refused until everyone was off. "Cap, these people are going nowhere. If Stark finds a way to blow this rock..." "Not till everyone's safe," said Steve. "Everyone up here versus everyone down there? There's no math there" said Natasha. "I'm not leaving this rock with one civilian on it." "I didn't say we should leave. There are worse ways to go. Where else am I going to get a view like this" said Natasha sadly.

Suddenly over the radio, a new voice was heard, "Glad you like the view, Romanoff. It's about to get better." The Helicarrier suddenly appeared, ready to transport everyone to safety. "Nice right? Pulled her out of mothballs with a couple of old friends. She's dusty, but she'll do." "Fury, you son of a bitch" said Steve. "Ooh! You kiss your mother with that mouth?" The hatch then suddenly opened and the lifeboats were moving towards the rock. "This is SHIELD?" Asked Pietro. "This is what SHIELD is supposed to be," said Steve. "This is not so bad." "Let's load them up."

Vanessa was still sitting on the cell floor about 30 minutes later. "Woah," she said as she closed her eyes because of the dizziness, "So much new death in one place. So many screams of pain." "What are you feeling?" Asked Jason. "Pain, fear, so... so cold." Even from where Jason was standing he noticed that his friend was shivering. It had been a little over a week since she had taken anything. And everything was coming back quickly. "I'll be right back. I'm going to check what is happening out there." Jason quickly walked through the halls, it was only when he stepped into the control room that he noticed just how many ghosts there were. Many of them were bloodied and crying, people who had just died. When he looked outside the window he saw a flying rock, part of a city. He hurried back to Vanessa and arrived just in time to witness how everything suddenly stopped.

Everything was suddenly motionless, Vanessa had frozen in place, the voices and screams suddenly silenced. Vanessa let out a pained scream as if all the deaths she felt were her own. Vanessa wasn't even aware how throughout her body her veins started to have a dark blue color as if something was trying to break out. But it wasn't that she was feeling people's deaths, it was that there was too much to handle all at once. Almost as if Vanessa's mind could only handle a certain amount of death before she drove herself insane.

Then everything returned to normal. The voices and screams returned, and the blue from her veins disappeared as if it had never happened. It took her a few moments to try and understand what had just happened. This had never happened before. Vanessa had a strong sensitivity to death but never had she felt a death happen as if she was living it. Why was she suddenly feeling so much? Why was she suddenly so aware of everything? There was an overload of magic that her body couldn't take it and she blacked out.