Black Swan ▹ Marvel

SIXTEEN: ANIMATION

Daydream watched in horror as her father used his powers to conjure monsters made of organic matter and concrete. He looked extremely proud of himself as his minions started shooting at fleeing civilians frightened by his display.

"No!" she screamed as she saw a bullet hit a woman protecting her child in the back. Daydream uses her telekinesis to throw the gun out of the aggressor's grasp and slam them into a building. She uses her powers to rush the civilians to a safe place.

"Daydream, be reasonable. You know this has to happen," Roger said while conjuring more monsters for his growing army. 

"You won't win, he knows everything," Daydream told him in a vicious voice as she faces him as she stands in the high heels and trench coat she was forced to wear.

"Apprehend her," Roger told his followers. They point the barrels of their guns at the blonde as her hair blew in the wind as she picked up the gun she took from one of their own. They all start shooting at once. Daydream formed a shield using her telekinesis and walked toward them. The rounds fell to the ground as she walked calmly toward them. Daydream let out a bored sigh as she used her own weapon to gun them down one by one.

Once they're all dead Daydream calls out to her father, "come on, Dad. It's just us now."

Roger turns to her with a wicked smile on his face. As the monsters made a concrete, metal shrapnel and dirt rushed toward Ryan. With little effort she used her telekinesis to rip apart the monsters that her father brought to life. Once they're all gone it's Daydream's turn to smile.

"We are just getting started daughter," Roger said in an eerily calm voice as the monsters start to reform.

Daydream picks up the guns once again and starts shootings, but Roger quickly forms a shield which slams them against a building. The shield made of debris swings back at top speed and tries to smack the blonde girl, but she throws her body high into the air. A waiting metal rod wraps around her midsection and slams her to the ground. The rod tightens around her as Roger's monsters rush her and start slamming their fists everywhere on her body.

"See what they done to us, sweetheart," Roger said among the chaos as Daydream struggles to break free from the prison he put her in, "they've poisoned you against me, but don't worry when Hydra takes their rightful place I'll plead for leniency on your behalf."

One of his abominations start to shake when Roger notices Daydream was motionless. The monsters pauses for a moment as he walks closer to her. Her brown eyes were glazed over and her breathing was shallow. For a moment he thought she was dead until one of the monsters exploded and she regains consciousness, she was using astral projection.

The blonde uses his concern to her advantage and breaks free from her restraints. She uses the rubble from the creature and threw it at her father. She jumps to her feet and roundhouse kicks him in the stomach as the creatures made of rubble grab for her once again, but she throw herself away with her powers.

Roger had honed his powers for so long while Daydream was still so new to this. Neither were the most powerful, but Roger was years ahead in practice compared to her. Her only resort now was to hide while her father recovered from the shock.

"Come on out, Daydream," Roger said in a menacing tone of voice as Daydream tries to catch her breath and stay quiet.

Roger finds her easily and strikes her wish a piece of flying debris. Daydream is knocked back, but lands on her feet. She uses her powers to suspend herself in midair and use pieces of broken buildings and destroyed cars to form her own protective shield made of street debris around her body. 

With a flick of his wrist Roger animates more monsters made of metal and stones. Immediately they run forward and start pounding and ripping on Daydream's shields. 

Now on the defensive Daydream holds the shields as best as she can. The rage and determination bubbling in her veins fuel her powers like a flame fed on gasoline. She wasn't just Daydream, she was also Ryan. Ryan can bend, but not break unlike the rigidity of the persona Daydream she had built for herself. 

With new found confidence Daydream pushes her shields away and uses them to slam Roger into a building and tore all his creations apart that she could see. For the first time in a long time Ryan felt like a weapon in her own hand, she wasn't SHIELD's weapon, she was wasn't Roger's weapon. She was a weapon only she could control.

A smile breaks across her pale face as she felt something run through her midsection. She looks down to see a sharp metal pole skewer through her abdomen. Ryan looks back to see one of Roger's followers that she threw into a building holding the pole going through her body.  His face is dirty and bloody and his expression is smug as Ryan relaxed her body and waited for the inevitable to come for her. 

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Elizabeth lands in the middle of the desolation. For the first time in her life she didn't see New York citizens rushing down sidewalks in a hurry or hear the honking of cars in mid-day traffic. The street was war-torn and destroyed cars were everywhere. Someone powerful was here for sure. Elizabeth figured it must have been her father and sister. 

Elizabeth keeps her powers ready and her focus sharp because she never knew what her father and Hydra had up their sleeves.  

The blonde walks down the quiet ruined street looking for any signs of life until she sees someone with blonde hair identical to her laying on the ground. Elizabeth's power disappear into thin air when she realizes who it is.

Elizabeth runs toward her sister as fast as her legs can carry her and throws herself to her knees beside Ryan's crumpled form which she scoops into her arms. A breath leaves Ryan's lips as laid in her sister's arms as blood gushes from the wound in her stomach.

Ryan's pale skin now seemed translucent as she continued to suffer from blood loss. Tears spring into Elizabeth's eyes.

"You're alright, Ryan," Elizabeth tells her frantically as she presses her palms to the wound. The blood continues to ooze out between her fingers despite her efforts to stop it. 

"It's going to be okay," Ryan said in a calm voice as blood stops rushing out of her stomach. Elizabeth realized that her sister was using her powers to stop blood from leaving her body, "you have to stop Dad. I tried Beth the man he was is gone."

This was what Elizabeth had read about in Ryan's file. Her dad was turned into a brainwashed Hydra mutt when Elizabeth was eleven years old because he had inhuman DNA. 

Elizabeth lays her back on the ground and dries her watery eyes and eases Ryan onto the ground and stands. She's covered in rusty red blood and runs off to find her father. She readies her electricity when she sees his back facing her after she turns into an alley.  

"It's over, Dad,"Elizabeth yells at him. He turns and looks at his daughter walking closer with a ball of wild electricity hover above her left hand which is outstretched. 

'I know," he told her while looking into her white pupil-less eyes. The end of Roger Copper and in those moments he looked like himself, not the cruel mutt Hydra turned brainwashed him to be.  The programming they had put into his mind was failing. 

Elizabeth lets electricity relax and approaches the man who had raised her for the first eleven years of her life. For the first time in years they embrace one another. 

"It's okay," Elizabeth whispers and kept hugging her father. "You don't have to suffer anymore." 

Elizabeth squeezes her eyes shut and let a gentle wave of electricity go through her father's body. It renders him instantly unconscious and he goes limp. Elizabeth lowers Roger to the ground slowly. The nest wave she directs through his body stops his heart. 

Roger Copper was dead.