Dancing For Demons

The Call

Perched on a wooden bench, Anastasia glanced across the street. A young woman wearing a black suit caught her eye and she studied her discreetly. The woman had a dark brown bob and a muscly, athletic body. She walked in an upright position and from the way she carried herself, Anastasia could tell she could fight. However, the woman was no match for Anastasia.
Anastasia stood up and began to covertly follow the woman. Anastasia choice of clothes made her look like a tourist and so the woman paid little attention to her. Just as she was walking past a newsagents, however, a picture of a woman caught her eye. It was Wanda's image on a newspaper. Curious, Anastasia grabbed the newspaper and crossed the road, finding another bench to sit on and read. Though she knew she was jeopardizing her mission, she had to know about that woman.
Opening the newspaper, she turned to page 23 and began to read.

After Wanda Maximoff's assistance in the battle against the evil robot, Ultron (to learn more about Ultron turn to page 25) she has been...

Confused as to who Ultron was, she tuned to page 25 and skim-read it. It was brief with little detail and so she threw the newspaper in the bin and went back to her mission, only to find she had lost her target. She swore loudly and followed in the direction she had last seen Hope Pym going, but with no luck.
Across the street, she noticed a small, shabby internet cafe. She walked in and sat down at one of their computers, ignoring the annoyed looks from the staff for not buying anything and searched for who the avengers were. Half an hour later, she had discovered that they were a group of heroes who protected the world from invasions. Then she researched Wanda Maximoff and found an old newspaper article detailing their parents death. This must have been the story Wanda had told her. There was nothing else about them, until after the battle in Sokovia when she was made an Avenger. Tragically, Anastasia discovered her brother died in the battle.
Looking at the time, Anastasia logged off the computer and left to go back to her hotel room where she was staying. She knew where Hope Pym would be tomorrow and would strike then.

She woke early the next morning in her tiny hotel room. After getting dressed and oiling her gun, Anastasia headed downstairs to eat breakfast. The hotel only had two different types of cereal and their hot breakfast was usually cold by the time it arrived, but Anastasia ate it nevertheless. She was used to bad food. Then, she grabbed her gun, some money and a knife and headed out to get a taxi.
The building the taxi dropped her off at was a sleek glass building that rose high into the skyline. Anastasia knew that Hope Pym was scheduled to attend a meeting here, after hacking her diary. She walked into the foyer and took the elevator to the 37th floor. Stepping out the elevator, she found a grill on the side of the corridor and pulled it off. She then climbed inside the air ducts and navigated through the maze. It took her a good twenty minutes, before she reached the office where Hope was due to have a meeting and once she was there, she lay flat on her belly waiting. She opened her bag and slipped out her gun, attaching a silencer to the end of it.
A few minutes later, she heard the office door open and a man walked in. He was completely bold and wore an expensive tailored suit. Hope Pym followed him in and took a seat opposite him.

Anastasia tensed her finger on the trigger, aware she had a clear shot. But just before her finger pulled the trigger fully, something stopped it. Her hand trembled and she had to put the gun down. Her palms were sweaty and clammy and her heart was racing. She didn't understand what was happening to her. Was it a stroke?
Again, she could hear the voice of the man. A mindless murderer. A mindless murderer.
She looked at the target and instead of just seeing another human, she saw a strong, independant woman who still had many years of her life left to live. Anastasia realised she couldn't shoot her. All of a sudden it just felt so wrong to do what she had been doing for the past four years. She had been mindlessly murdering anyone Hydra told her too.
Feeling claustrophobic in the tiny air duct, Anastasia retreated and followed the air ducts to the corridor she had entered from. She then ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and burst through the fire escape. The overwhelming sounds of the city hit her immediately, intensified by her enhanced hearing, and she staggered across the roof. Fresh tears sprung from her eyes as she fell to her knees. It took her a few minutes, but she was finally able to compose herself enough to think.
Never before in her life had she felt such emotions as these. Never before had she cried. Never before had she spared a target's life. It all felt completely alien to her and yet so natural and familiar.
Crawling over to the edge of the roof, she looked down onto the bustling street below. She had seen similiar scenes over the many years, but all through the scope of a gun. This made her realise for a moment how violent her life was. Hydra controlled her every move and she was sure they were watching her right now. Worse was her blindness to follow every order without question. The woman she was supposed to kill might not have done much to receive a death sentence. She was so absorbed in her thoughts and emotions that she didn't hear the helicopter approach, until it threatened to blow her off the roof.
As she turned around, a squad of soldiers jumped out of it, followed by Doctor Moreno, who took one look of her tearful eyes and picked up a radio to report into it.
"Subject is unstable and erratic. We will bring her in for analysis."
Anastasia heard those words over the thumping of the helicopter blades and they made her skin crawl. She ran towards Doctor Moreno, intent on killing him.
A set of hands dragged her back and more grabbed onto her, so she kicked back and heard the cry of a man falling off the roof. Fighting in a deadly dance of fury, all the guards were soon lying unconscious or dead.
She turned to Doctor Moreno who had climbed back in the chopper and was shouting at the pilot to leave.
She screamed loudly in frustration as the chopper rose above the the building and banked to the right. As she watched it fly away from her, she felt her hand rest on the familiar shape of a gun and fired.
The bullet flew through the air at lightning speed, smashing the helicopter window and tunnelling through the pilot's neck, killing him instantly. With no one to control the chopper, it banked forward into the nearest building and exploded. Twisted shards of metal and glass rained down on the street below. People screamed in fear. Sirens sounded in the distance.
Anastasia breathed a sigh of relief and then walked over to the fire escape door. Fourty five flights of stairs to descend down gave her plenty of time to think.

....................

It had been a stressful week at the avengers headquarters. First Cap almost died, then the killer escaped and then Natasha was abducted.
To try and forget it all, Wanda was sat in her room watching TV, when something came on the news. A helicopter had crashed into the side of a building in San Francisco. As Wanda watched, there were police interviews declaring it may have been an attack, as well as witnesses claiming to have heard a gun shot.
Depressed by the news, Wanda turned the TV off and decided to go get some food.
The tin of biscuits was empty, so she walked over to the open plan lounge and asked who ate the biscuits, where everyone was sat talking - even Steve. Before she could get a response, her phone rang. Confused, she pulled it out her pocket to check the number and saw that it was an unknown number. She answered it.
"Wanda?" the voice said.
"Who is this?"
"It's Anastasia." These words shocked her and she tried to get the team's attention. She mouthed Anastasia to them and some of them seemed to understand.
"Why are you calling me?" Wanda asked.
"I want out," the voice replied and Wanda heard a sob. "I can't do this anymore. You were right about them and now they are going to come after me. I'm sorry for what I've done. Please help me!"
Wanda thought for a moment before replying. "I will see what I can do. Call me back in thirty minutes, okay?"
She heard a yes and then the phone went dead. Wanda turned around to the team who were giving her a mixture of puzzled, shocked and amazed faces. She smiled at them and then tried to explain what Anastasia had asked.