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She needed magic. And it was that fact, and that alone, that stopped her from arguing with Amanda. Amanda was out of power, Topaz was nearly out. Only one of them could easily recharge out in the middle of nowhere. And unfortunately, it wasn't Amanda. "Just do me a favor and try to remember why it's bad we're about to die," was the only warning Topaz gave before reaching out and pushing into Amanda's head. The first thing she felt - and took - was anger. That wasn't much of a surprise. Amanda had been pretty clearly angry with her limitations out here since the fight had started. Below that was fear, which would have also been understandable - they were fighting an other worldly giant and not exactly winning. Hell, Topaz was afraid, and that wasn't something she admitted lightly. But it wasn't a fear of something. It was a fear for something. The difference was subtle, but Topaz had spent enough time messing with emotions to be able to identify it. It was fear for Marie-Ange, for Tandy, for Topaz - and even more fear for the two youngest being so close to SHIELD, and to Brand. She wanted them away from her. The wall of flames brightened and grew as Topaz fed the surface emotions into them, and she already knew that wasn't going to be enough. With a whispered, "Sorry," she dug deeper. And that was when she hit the grief. That was enough of a shock to actually stop Topaz for a brief moment. Of all the things she had expected to find buried in Amanda's mind, two-year-old grief certainly wasn't it. Overwhelming grief for all the people she had lost, for the mentors who were gone. Blame for the students who had died, for the ones she should have been protecting. Fear that she would screw up and get more people killed. And underneath all of that was an intense craving that Topaz wasn't sure she wanted to try and identify. She just took it all, and the flames grew taller, spreading further, successfully encircling the monster and the people fighting it. Topaz let out a shaking breath, trying to stave off the emotions from crossing her shaky shields and completely invade her mind, and stepped forward, dropping Amanda's hand and putting the blonde slightly behind her. Trying to protect her. It was gone. All of it. Amanda took a shuddering breath, trying to process that the burden of emotion she'd been carrying since the Dark Phoenix was gone. Only, that required emotions as well, and she had nothing left. Just a blank, an absence of feeling, and if she'd been able to, she would have cried with the relief. Even the nagging hunger of the addiction, long smothered and buried under duty and responsibility and denial was gone. She wondered what would happen when it came back, but it was a purely rational question, devoid of the fear that she would slip under the weight again. "Keep it up," she told Topaz tonelessly. "It looks like it's starting to weaken." |
