Unsurprisingly, the Widows didn’t know where Dreykov was based, but they pointed toward several active Widows who might.
One in particular interested than the rest.
Yelena Romanoff.
She was in Budapest wooing the son of an important dignitary and potential collaborator.
It took less than an hour to track her down, and I considered multiple avenues of approaching her before I settled on just flat-out talking to her.
She was dressed in a ravishing black dress and had just stepped outside her building when she spotted standing there. I was in an oversized shirt, jacket, and hat, and she tried not to linger, but I sensed the slight shift in stance, the slow speed up, and the tension in her muscles.
Relax,” I said. “I’m not here to fight you, Yelena Romanoff.”
She froze briefly before spinning around and reaching for her gun. It didn’t budge from her purse.
“No need to make a scene,” I said with a tight smile. “We have lots to talk about.”
Yelana’s face betrayed no emotion. “Telekinesis. That was not in the information packet. You’re a lot more interesting than you seem.”
“The purple eyes weren’t a tip?” I chuckled. “There’s a lot about that you and Dreykov don’t know.”
Her eyes widened.
“You will get nothing out of .”
“Sure, I will. Let’s take a walk. Go sowhere public where we can discuss.”
We settled in a small café, and Yelena ordered a drink for both of us in Dutch while also passing a secret code word to the waiter, telling her she was in danger. The custom was that the waiter was supposed to call the police whenever the sign was passed.
I invaded her mind with Telepathy and subtracted the loaded portion of the conversation from her mind. She stood there montarily, stumped, before she went on with her order.
“If you wanted a date, you could’ve just asked,” Yelena said, eyes lingering on the clearly confused waiter.
“I try not to make a habit of getting into compromising positions with contract assassins.”
“The false modesty is insulting,” she said. “You hold most of the power here.”
"Only most? Not all?”
She smiled. “You don’t seem like you underestimate your opponent because she's a woman.”
"Never,” I said. “So of the strongest people I've faced are won.”
"Killed, don’t you an?” she asked. “So of the strongest people you’ve killed are won.”
“Is this the part where you say you and I are not so different?”
“You kill demons and rcenaries,” she teased. “I remove obstacles in our path to progress.”
“Sounds like brainwashing to .”
"Typical Arican. Always thinking you have all the answers.”
The waitress returned with our drinks. I ignored mine. She took a sip.
“You didn't drag in here to trade banter. Why am I here?”
“The weather in Budapest, the local pastry, and your sister.”
The mirth vanished from her face. “My sister is dead.”
“Not quite,” I smiled. “She’s very much alive. And she knows you are as well. She just thinks you’re doing great in Dreykov’s care.”
“You’re lying.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but it’s got you thinking, and it has wondering why you’re so loyal to an asshole who ripped you and your sister away from the only people who loved you and trained you to kill on behalf of Russia. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was controlling you sohow. Pheromones, perhaps.”
Her brows hiked up slightly in confusion. “What are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything,” I said. “I’m saying you’ve been mind-jacked, and while I could spend the next five hours convincing you of that. I’m working on an accelerated tiline. So, I’m just going to help you.”
I raised a hand, and she kicked the table at , but it didn’t budge.
“This will hurt like a motherfucker,” I said as I entered her mind and searched for Dreykov’s influence. Finding it was easier after the ntal colonoscopy that the Alien and Lumos gave . I now had an acute understanding of how the mind operated. Add that to the newest skill upgrade, and it was gravy.
It did help that I had so experience with this procedure already.
The spies Jean captured had not been overly eager to join my crusade after I freed them of Dreykov’s influence, but I sensed Yelena would be different.
She gripped the table and spasd for five whole seconds before she snapped out of it. Blood flowed down her nose, and her eyes snapped up to , impossibly wide.
“How do you feel?”
“Fuck you,” she spat.
“Fuck you too,” I smiled back. “Your mind is the clearest it's been in decades. How do you really feel?”
She blinked. “Angry. I want to kill you for doing that to , but I want Dreykov more.”
“Enough to partner with and help bring down his entire organization?”
“What do you want with Dreykov?” she asked, wiping the blood off her nose with a napkin. We’d started to attract more attention now, but I was on it. I made sure they thought we were just another everyday couple. Passionate, but otherwise normal.
“He sent two of his people after one of my assets,” I explained. “Can’t have a wild card making moves with everything that’s been happening.”
“You know sothing I don’t?”
“Haven’t you been paying attention to the news?” I asked. “Demons raining down in New York, seismic activity in the North Pole. Mutants being hunted. Vigilantes popping up worldwide. There’s a reckoning coming, and I'm the only one that can save us.”
“Quite the ego on you, but that doesn’t answer my question,” Yelena said deadpan and a smirk crept up my face.
“The demons are coming soon, and as aweso as I am, I need people to fight with . People with potential. Your Widows uniquely qualify. They will be well compensated for their efforts, of course. In addition to unshackling their minds.”
“You want to turn us into your own personal army?”
“Only for a short while,” I said, “and when our business is done, they walk away with a fat check and sothing they want more than Dreykov's head on a spike.”
Yelana’s breath hitched.
“A chance to be whole.”
---
“So, this is headquarters?” I said, looking down at a fortress hidden in the Siberian tundra. The snowy wind whipped all around us. Yelena stood beside , staring through her binoculars, wrapped in several layers. “I expected sothing…bigger.”
“It’s an in between station,” Yelena explained. “Dreykov said sothing about a flying fortress in a eting a few months back.”
“Kinda disappointed that I don’t get to take it apart,” I said idly as I summoned one of the many Infernal Steel Katanas I’ve made over the months.
“Could you take a few steps back, please?” I said as my hand began to heat up. Yelena did as asked and watched with a deep fascination as I poured fire into the blade, turning it dull Red. I kept it in the air with Telekinesis while I summoned a chisel and began to etch runes onto its side. When I was satisfied with the markings, I poured magic into it, giving the runes life.
The runes lit up with a dull purple as an Aegis of Protection seal took hold. Heat rapidly sapped out of the runes when I stopped channeling Nether fire into it.
I tossed Yelena the blade, and she caught it gingerly and inspected the writing.“What do the strange writings do?”
“Think fast!” I said as I summoned Ivory and fired a shot at her. She raised her blade to block it, manifesting a purple protective barrier around her.
“Does that answer your question?”
She lowered her guard as I disappeared the gun and looked at the shimring runes at the side of the blade.
“What were those words?”
“Magic,” I said. “Everything I do is. And there’s a whole lot more where that ca from. Try to rember that when you see your sister.”
I switched out my casual wear for my Twilight Devourer Skinsuit. “Now, let’s get this over with.”
The shift was imdiate. One mont, we were standing outside of the fortress. The next, we were in a long hallway. Several floors below Dreykov’s office.
The alarms went off imdiately. Gas pumped out of pipes, mutant dampeners whirred to life, and dozens of Widows ran down the hall. They were dressed in black clothes and had masks on their faces. A Gust from each hand sent the gas and the Widows flying. Yelena created a bubble around herself and held it to keep the sleeping gas away, and I telekinetically ripped the breathing masks from each of the widow’s mouths so they got a mouthful of knock-out gas.
In seconds, they were incapacitated, and I stemd the flow by twisting the pipes that carried them in.
“Okay. I’m not doing this on every floor. We’re cutting through,” I said.
“What do you an?” Yelena asked, to which I pointed my hand upwards while gathering Nether Fire at their tip.
I activated Burst, releasing a beam of concentrated fire that burned a hole through multiple floors, giving up a clear path to Dreykov’s floor.
“That,” I finally answered, floating upward with Telekinesis. “You coming?”
She offered her hand, and I floated her up with . Several widows tried to rush us on the way up. All of them were ignored.
We arrived at Dreykov’s office in seconds, and outside of it stood several Widows decked in an upgraded version of Klaue’s armor.
The dampeners ca up as soon as they saw us, and they opened fire. The bullets bounced off my body armor while Yelena raised her shield to block the gunfire. I got to work imdiately, accelerating.
I grabbed the first widow by the throat, ripped out the core of her armor, and tossed it at an incoming group. Gunfire focused on Yelena to avoid friendly fire, which gave even more room to move. Five seconds later, all of the Widows were on the floor, weighed down by their dead armor.
A Wind blade blew through the reinforced tal doors of Dreykov’s office, and we ca face to face with a potbellied man in his early forties with little more than a scowl going for him.
“I'm a bit disappointed, if I'm being honest,” I said. “The big, bad Dreykov, I was expecting sothing, not just this.”
"Dante Sparda, I presu,” he said. “Your reputation precedes you.”
"So does yours,” I said, “so I know you're already cooking up so hair-brained sche. Where's the controlling device you're using to keep the Widows in check?”
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