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"Oh, dear."

I, a witch, was Merlin damned wandless in this bloody fucking mess.

A panic-fueled blast of magic sunk the room into darkness.

And my world swayed.

Used too much magic.

This was bad.

"Get her!!!" the woman ordered.

This was very, very bad.

'Between the eyes,' one of the bloke's egos thought.

Oh, this was so very fucking bad.

'RUN!!!' screamed the shattered one.

An ear-ringing bang and something flew through my hair. Wouldn't have been just my hair if I weren't stumbling about from the swaying world... when this place probably wasn't on a bloody boat.

'Yup. Yup. Okay. Running. Good id – Fucking ow. My nose.'

Slammed it right into something cold and so very solid. Probably metal. Better be able to block the bloody bullets the Muggle shot blindly into the dark.

A quick swipe of my face and found nothing wet. Good. No blood. Best not leave that about. Or anywhere. Ever.

'What I wouldn't give for a wand.'

Any wand.

Couldn't help but check the empty space by my leg again. Still fucking empty.

'RUN!!!'

'Right. Running. Where's the damn door?'

Didn't remember seeing a door in the couple of seconds when the lights were working.

'Shit.'

No door.

'Fuck.'

I had no other choice.

'Okay. Arms out.'

And proceeded with blind ass flailing in darkness.

Six verses one.

Backup was more than likely on its way. Better assume it was.

Me versus a facility full of Muggles.

All while wandless and having to ration out my magic with how my fingertips had a bad case of pins and needles.

Not the best of odds.

But here we were.

Though... we were in complete darkness. No windows that I saw in the room to open. Every lightbulb short-circuited with the blast of magic, along with any tech they had to see in the dark with.

And best of all?

I could see their egos.

With no light, Legilimency through eye contact was rather impossible, but through touch? I only had to latch onto a body, get skin contact and use a spark of magic.

Egos tended to hover close to their physical bodies. Though those with fanatic face had a habit of hovering around people they were recruiting or gathered around their leader.

Thus, arm flailing.

And maybe it'd help with finding a counter before my nose would. Rather not do that again.

'I can do this. I can do this. I can – Oh fucking shitting hell! How many bullets do you fucking have?!'

And what kind of idiot shoots blindly in a metal and concrete room full of his allies? Or were guns that different from spells? Pretty sure they're fucking worse.

'RUN!!!'

'Right, right, right.'

Ducking low as I could. Smaller target. Shorter target. Hopefully, the shooting asshole would keep shooting at shoulder-ish height.

Made my way towards the gun-handed ego. Taking him out first would probably be wise.

'Running. Running. Run – Bloody shut up already!'

One ego was screeching at the top of their... minds. Rattled my brain. 'AHHHHHHH!!!!'

My fingers found warmth, and a scream bounced off the walls. I latched onto the rough fabric the best I could, searching for exposed skin or trying to make some exposed skin.

Whoever I had in my grasp struggled with thrashing, punches, and so much damn screaming. Physical screaming this time. None of that professional Muggle combat stuff. Thank god.

'AHHHHHHH!!!!'

Got a punch to the chin, and that's all I needed for my Legilimency probe to connect.

'Well... you're not the trigger-happy asshole. Shit. Or the screeching shithead....'

But, it was somebody who saw me. He needed to be dealt with.

'This Muggle... spends way too much time on the computer.'

His ego screamed in text. Booped up above his head in the shape of a chat bubble. Multiple chat bubbles.

Real weird.

Could be why fanatic face hadn't deformed him yet. His ego had headphones covering his ears. The thumping music in his mind made hearing anything else impossible. No eyeholes either. His face was a rather smooth faced shaped computer screen.

Except for a nose. That was covered with a white powder with a tentacle shoved up it. Probably take a damn long while for this ego to form a mouth for fanatic face to take hold. Or maybe he'd get a rare subvariant. Fanatic fingers, for the written word fanatics.

If he never ran into me.

Text bubbles of question marks and exclamation marks flew out of... where a mouth should have been and built up above his head as I morphed the back of my own ego.

In an almost practised dance, vines inspired by devil's snare, venomous tentacula and manchineel tree grew and had the computer geek all wrapped up. The thorns sawed through the ego, making it so damn easy for the vines to tear him to piece. Into tiny enough chunks for the venomous tentacular-inspired mouths to munch down and absorb.

Took barely a second to steal away all that he ever was and all he ever could be.

Most importantly, he wouldn't be able to remember me or what happened in the room. No way to dig it out of his head either. The memories no longer existed in his head. They were in mine. Couldn't go after something one didn't know about.

That was if he survived. There was a chance that I fucked up his mind enough that he wouldn't remember how to breathe without assistance.

After a wistful squeeze of my wand practically glued to my ego's hand, I tugged a little on the tether back to my mind and yanked myself out of the collapsing mindscape.

Back into the darkness.

The floor swaying like a boat in the storm.

Checked the space next to my thigh. Still fucking empty. No wand. Shiiit.

'AHHHHHHH!!!!'

'Five left....'

'Where did she go?!'

'AHHHHHHH!!!!'

'So much for going on fucking vacation to rest and recharge my magic reserves.'

'Ha!' another ego laughed. "Got you!"

'AHHHHHHH!!!!'

'Nooo, let's try escaping another bloody ass Muggle facility.'

"You dumbass! Let go of my hair already!!" the woman demanded."

'AHHHHHHH!!!!'

'That'd be fun. Woooooo –'

'RUN!!!'

'AHHHHHHH!!!!'

'Fuck. Right. Yup. Running. Yup.'

Back to the blind ass arm flailing in the direction of the gun-handed ego.

'AHHHHHHH!!!!'

'Don't get shot. Don't get shot. Don't get shot.'

Getting shot hurts.

Let's not.

'AHHHHHHH!!!!'

The next mind entered ended up being the fanatic faced woman.

Fuck.

Accidentally slapped her across the face... probably. Unless her stomach hung out. Or maybe she wore a skirt.

'Ewww. So damn gross.'

A cesspool of inky black gunk and weird ass skull octopi symbols made up her mindscape. And from the stink, she was the one behind most of the rancid animal fat smell and feel.

An unneeded flick of my ego's wand and a Bubble-Head Charm engulfed my lower face. And with a shrug, conjured up a broom so I wouldn't be standing in the gunk.

'Bloody hell, I don't want to touch you.... To take...? Or not to take...?'

The risk of catching fanatic face was so damn high just being in the same area as one. Interacting with a person with fanatic face multiplied that risk. Poking around in their mind was dumb on a good day. Absorbing their memories? That's playing Russian roulette with only one bullet removed from a fully loaded gun... mostly.

'To take...?'

Information was information, and information from a fanatic had its uses if one could sort through the piles of bullshit. The more fanatic, the more loyal, the more they're privy to. I needed to know what the hell was going on in this Muggle facility.

What the fuck did they do to that poor, shattered Muggle?

Did they manage to science out the Cruciatus Curse?

Did they science out other magicks?

'Or not to take...? Ah, fuck it.'

I'd rather have the security of knowing that whoever led these fanatics didn't have the memories of this whole shit show... and I was already in this disgusting mind.

'Might as well take.'

"HAIL HYDRA!!!!!!!" devolved into guttural sounds. Them tentacles spewing out of her mouth weren't helping much of anything.

'Yup. Should probably get this over with, huh?'

Tore her right down into itty bitty pieces. To buy myself a little more time before her memories pieced themselves together enough to turn into an active infection from within my own mind. To give myself enough time to escape this place without having to deal with her bullshit at the same time.

I spared a moment to lop off my vines. Anything to minimize the risk of an infection, however small it was.

A flick of my ego's wand set everything on fire. Helped cleanse that black rancid animal fat gunk. Just a bit of finagling to not actually burn my ego in the process.

Back into the darkness.

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