Her mind snapped awake. Panic pounded in her head, pain coursed through what little flesh she had. She tried to scream, the metal band on her head cracking and popping as she felt her skin burst. The pipes in her throat choked her, gagging her as she felt blood drip down her sizzling flesh. 

"What's happening?" "There's fire!" "The gas! The gas is burning!" "Stupid Mutants!" "BURN YOU FUCKING-" "DIE!" "It hurts..." "*sobbing*" "hahahahahaha" "Why is the suppression gas not flowing!?" "LIZARDS! LIZARDS!" "**** ****-****"

'Quiet. Just be quiet.' 

The blood on her skin was so cold. The voices were so loud. She shuddered on the table, feeling the brush of compressed gas from the cracks of the band suppressing her mind. Fire roused itself from deep in her, burning its way through her heart and veins. This time she did scream- and suddenly she felt several of the loudest voices go quiet as exhaustion started wracking her body with seizures. 

'It hurts so much. Stop. Please, just everything stop.' 

She was on her stomach. Needles in her spine. She felts minds wink out of existence and she shuddered, 'no no. Not again. It's not my fault. Please. It's not my fault!' The burning burst out of her back, causing her to scream again as her mind twisted, and her body convulsed. 

Her head pounded, sharp fragments of glass carved through her psyche, leaving burning wounds in their wake. The voices pounded from outside. She shook with sound and noise, her mind collapsing from within as she felt more and more minds die, coiling in what little remained of herself. She felt the table under her collapse, needles and metal rip away from her back, her limbless body sliding over the floor as she shook and shuddered in pain. More and more fire poured from herself into her body and out of her flesh. Her mind was coming apart, flashes of visions from other eyes strained her attention, she felt someone inhaling.

"I don't want to be alone." 

She sprung to the shivering voice- a thunderous whisper of fading desire. She clung to the sentiment, briefly seeing visions of a pool of blood and flesh, for a second she was in another body- one falling apart at the seams, bones and muscles exposed, as hunger wracked its loose form, the mind with her delusional and fading as it went to its final sleep. 

'No, please don't leave me too.' 

She tried to reach out, to pull the mind back. A cracking rang through her conscious as she screamed- the connection sundered by fire that burned through her. Briefly seeing a flare of light through the connection as her mind burned. The angry, careless, directionless power pouring through her, ripping what little was left of  her apart, reducing her further, and further, and further...

'Stop. Please. StOp.' 

 

>>> Stark Mansion

Jasmine's eyes opened and she snapped her head towards the coast, her covers sweeping off her with a gesture as she swung her legs out of bed, prosthetic arm flying through the air and snapping to her shoulder as she tilted her head, mentally tasting the 'air', black hair flicking about.

The girls chittered in the back of her mind, curious and poking the feelings flowing from Jasmine to them through their connection. Licks of fire and pain floating by on unseen wind, tingling her empathic senses. A need to go look, help, interact, stirring in her gut. She glanced to her side, phone flipping up and turning on. 'Just after 5 am, huh.' 

She stood, clad in only her panties. Drawers across the room opened and clothes flew out. A quick spell for cleaning left the remnants of the night behind, a short hover let her change her underwear and put on pants. A sports bra followed by a simple t-shirt slid on by themselves, hair raising and flicking itself out of its confines.

Deep breath. Gather mana, 2 parts Light, one Life and one Dark, two fusions, mix and focus, cast.

[Perception, Transference] : Clairvoyance 

A moment and the emotions on the wind were traced, followed to their source. A projection of surroundings filled with fire and metal briefly flickered in her mind. A limbless body burning and crying as the world disintegrated around her, out of control. Echoes of suffering and misery wafted from nearby. Of sanitized cruelty. The flames flickered, touching the projected eye- Jasmine blinked and hard canceled the spell. 'Need to work on the stability of that spell, wouldn't have lasted much longer even without flames apparently capable of burning magic hitting it.' 

Her eyes turned to the wall, absently staring past it., She frowned. 'Oscorp's stupid little island, huh? Riri's been worried about her friend who went there for an internship for a while.' She'd actually just finished the clairvoyance spell yesterday in an attempt to investigate the island at Riri's urgings. 'I need to go there. Now.' That amount of concentrated pain and misery in the air was only matched by the cult dens her teacher Maeve had her take out, and that was with the fires seemingly burning up the empathic remains...

Her phone floated up to her side, messages typing out and being sent as she strode out of her room. 'I only finished my Principle a week ago, but this will be a good, practical test of it I suppose.' Her girls chittered in excitement, a small smile gracing her lips at their antics- the memory of burning and pain bringing her back to focus. 'The spell was only open for a fraction of a real second before those flames reached it. I don't think they're capable of burning through my magic while directly in my presence, but wide-spread magic is going to have problems if they're not suppressed, and I think it was covering far more than just the room that girl was in.' That girl who was emitting such pain and hurt it stirred Jasmine's blood and set her teeth on edge. 'That was likely soul pain she was feeling. Probably partially self-inflicted? Whatever those power flames are, they originate from her, but are completely out of control. I'll need to seal them if I can...' Though they'd likely destroy any magical seal relatively quickly. 'Hopefully the seal will be reinforced by the girl's own psyche calming down. I'll think about alternatives if it doesn't.'

Her phone jingled as her Dad replied. She read the text with a glance and smiled. 'Go wild, he says.' Another jingle and she snorted at his hastily retracted statement. 'Yes, Mom is always the more reasonable one. Sneaky if I can unless the situation calls for more overt actions.' The 'talk' with Pepper about her doing hero-esque activities was quite the long one... Another jingle, and another happy smile as she sent Nat details.

Nat: >> I'll follow after you shortly.

Jasmine smiled, turning her attention forward as she lightly focused.

Wield mana, all Dark, cast.

[Dark] : Quick-Storage 

A small twinge of focus and a stain of black spread through the air, then faded into a set of armor floating at her side as she strode through the halls. A small skip and she was floating forwards with her feet above the floor, the gray plate-mail disassembling and donning itself upon her, straps and connectors clicking into place, wires and cables linked up. A thrum passed through the armor as it linked up to the arc-reactor in her prosthetic, the gapless helmet shutting around her head as the inside- completely see-through from her perspective- lit up with a HUD. 

JAVIA lit up through the connection with the computer in her robotic arm, diagnostics starting to run on the suit as the A.I woke and fully integrated. "[Good morning, mistress.]"

Jasmine smiled. "Morning, Jav."

Her phone was briefly covered with a black stain, disappearing into the quick-storage spell without a trace before Jasmine let the spell fade. A moment later she quietly touched the ground again, not breaking stride. Her armor settled in with her passive mana aura, adjusting ever so slightly to be more comfortable- not quite a second skin, but a sturdy, natural carapace.

"[Prototype: Full Knight Mark two point O three is fully online. Mana saturation is at a hundred percent. What shall we do today?]” 

"Scan current surveillance for Osborn's island lab."

"[... Found a match: Several port camera's off Breezy point currently have a view of the island- which appears to be partially on fire. Emergency responders are being notified as we speak by port authorities. A few news stations are receiving notifications. The fire does not appear to be a completely normal oxygen fire according to my diagnostics.]" 

"Magical in nature, most likely. Hot enough to start normal fires as a byproduct. At least this gives us an excuse to go overt." 

"[Are we intervening in official capacity?]"

Jasmine tilted her head, then nodded "Probably. I don't think I'll be able to rescue people without being seen- and from what I could tell of the empathic background there's likely alot of people trapped; either as experimental material or slaved workforce." A frown marred her face under the helm. 'I may leave some of the people in charge to burn...' 

Javia gave a ding of acknowledgement. "[So we'll likely be giving those rumors some credence then- of the knightly woman breaking down illegal human trafficking operations and busting open the doors of cults.]” Jasmine rolled her eyes as Javia continued, "[Tony has responded that he'll get a battalion ready to help with evac work if needed.]"

"Good. we probably will. Worse comes to worse we can construct a bunker underground and tunnel out." Jasmine sighed, "I really wish I could figure out teleportation quickly... if I had a few more days..." She shook her head. "What I get for taking so long on my principle, I suppose."

"[I believe a deadpan is the appropriate response to that comment.]"

"Probably." Jasmine glanced at her reflection in the glass door; Her gunmetal armor making her look like a fantasy knight crossed with advanced robotics. A black shawl-like piece of thick fabric hung around her shoulders and a heavy pseudo skirt open at the front clung around her hips. A single ribbon of similar material hung from the back of her helmet, all pieces made from a form of flowing but extremely thick silk. Unfortunately she hadn't been able to try out and refine enchanting with her principle either- meaning the only enchantments come from her spider magic, which always worked better with silken fabric. "At least hardened silk also takes enchantments decently..." 

Shaking her head she refocused, going invisible as she stepped through the door. "Let's go."

 

>>> New York City Docks 

Natasha, popularly known as The Widow, swung over the open water, web line falling apart to dust behind her as she let gravity take hold. Invisibility wrapped around her form as she dove into the water with barely a splash- unnoticeable in the gray, stormy dawn and choppy waters.

Gracefully she slid through the currents, friction control working overtime as she easily passed speeds normally used by high speed boats. The eyes of her suit glinted as they fed information to her HUD, allowing her to easily navigate the murky environment.

'Jasmine will arrive at the island well before I do.' She scanned over the information her niece sent to her, 'Extremely dangerous 'super' fire, and a similar emotional atmosphere to the various cults Maeve has taken her to dismantle.' She snorted, 'Well. We all knew Osborn was full of shit, this merely proves it. Hopefully we can finally nail him down...' Though she wouldn't get her hopes up. Norman spends far too much time greasing hands to face anything severe but public backlash, and even that will likely be mitigated with adjusted cash flow...

Nat internally shook her head and focused on swimming through the waters.

 

>>> Air space above the island

Jasmine took stock of the situation. Brilliant orange fires flitted and danced, illuminating the ocean and air in a near dome, offset from the island itself by a few hundred meters. The embankments and greenery closest were lit in a wild conflagration- smoke billowing out as dock workers and guards struggled to fight the fire. Compared to the dancing orange flames they were dirty, more natural. Even disguised by the steam of the boiling waters, the otherness of the fires was apparent- separated from gravity, flowing how it pleased irrespective of fuel, and unnaturally bright yet easy to look at.

A frown marred her face, the echoes of despair and pain tickling her senses, drifting up from beneath the boiling water. The mix of heavy emotions; a cacophony to her mind. She glanced at the dock workers and guards. 'Normal employees? Bit willfully ignorant, feels like. They're panicking, but mostly safe and not a priority.' She turned back towards the boiling ocean beneath her, 'Now, how to get to center as quickly as I can?' 

"Digging it is." She muttered, taking a breath.

Her colored mana boosted her natural telekinesis, now allowing far greater control of her environment.

A hole opened in the steam and she dropped, moving the water vapor, then the water, and a few seconds later the earth with force of effort as she dropped, the tunnel closing behind her as she moved stuff out of the way infront. The odd flames licked against her passive shell- a layer of concentrated mana around her body- and failed to go through. Her eyes narrowed at that, 'So these flames are a form of magic? The heat is from the air being forced to burn by their appearance, rather than the flames being the result of the air burning.' If it was normal fire it would at least reach her armor as a physical effect, even if it didn't do much.

She glanced at the earth around her, spotting flames briefly 'slither' out of the rock as she fell, leaving glowing lines in their wake 'Definitely magic. Not quite eldritch...?' She frowned, feeling them as their intensity increased as she grew closer to the source. 'What is this?' 

Her head snapped downward, and the earth beneath her feet gave way to industrial steel. The propulsors on her boots flared, helped with her passive telekinesis to hit the steel without a sound. With a thought the steel bent out of the way, a burst of flaming tongues quickly wiggled into the gap, lashing at everything they touched. 'They're slowed, but not stopped by steel. Actually it even seems like the flames are pausing to try and burn the steel but are having difficulties? It's more evidence that they're non-eldritch magic- but then what is this feeling?' 

Falling into the first hallway she glanced around; a large, long cavernous hallway with striped lines painted out for a roadway. 'A supply tunnel?' A truck sat to the side, melting in the quasi-flames, whatever cargo it had burning up. Her ears twitched, frowning as she tried to pay attention to the dampened sounds. She gave the remnants of colored lines, the concrete walkways, and steel beams a look, and frowned further. 'The flames are attracted to the artificial structures?' Tongues and worms of glowing fire wiggled about, ripping and eating at the concrete, plastic, metal, and paint. Far denser than the earth and water above. 

With another thought she dug further, telekinesis ripping up the ground as she confirmed her thoughts with her senses. 'The flame has anti-structural, maybe anti-artificial, properties?' She thought for a bit while ripping a hole through the floors and focusing her increasingly obfuscated senses, 'But it also burns through psychic energy and remnants... Is it imbued with an anti-civilization or anti-sentient concept?' That would be concerning, but her instinct was agreeing, leaning towards the former. 

'Luckily it seems they are nowhere near as strong as they could be. But that still leaves the question of what they are and how is that girl casting them?' Hopefully she'd find her answers soon.

After burrowing through another forty meters of stone she hit another steel backing- this time followed by heavy insulation and protective coatings. With a thought they were burrowed through.

A wave of empathic pain slammed into Jasmine's front, flames wriggling and roaring out of a lump on the floor. The room itself was in shambles- the walls and floors melting and cracking, molten slag covering the floor as a silent mental scream continued erupting from the source of the flames. 

The waves of fire and worms riggled against her passive aura, the air around her burning in their presence. Jasmine squinted her eyes, her normal passive mental senses being drowned out and twisted by the ambient pain and magic fire. 'Hopefully this won't hurt you further, but I can barely see what I'm doing.' It was far worse than when she first cast clairvoyance, meaning she was on a timer. 

She took a breath, her suit and Javia feeding her proper air. 

Wield mana. All Dark. Cast.

[Dark] : Restrict

Her mana pulsed outwards, concepts reinforced by her will and actualized. The flames sputtered in indignation as the ones outside the blob's immediate vicinity were cut off from the source, that which weren't stifled and muted- now curling sluggishly and revealing the girl underneath.

Gentle orange waves danced across the charred torso, blood seeping out of cracks in the ash that used to be the girl's skin- glowing in the light of the slowly wriggling fires. Her face was a mix of cracked ash and molten wax- expression and features unrecognizable, all orifices melted shut.

Jasmine's active psychic senses locked onto her, investigating with only minor interference from the flames, A frown on the teenagers face. She felt the girl react to her psychic probing, desperation trying to grab onto her psychic energy as thin, waning tendrils. Jasmine let part of her mind connect, flinching, but ignoring the pain arcing across the mental connection. The girl was beyond the point of being able to form structures like words- a jumble of emotions, pain, fear, loneliness, desperation, despair, agony, and sucking grief slamming into Jasmine's mind. 

"Don't worry. I'm here. You're not alone. I will help you." With her words she sent determination, protectiveness, and warmth of embrace.

The fires were wriggilling under the girl's flesh, and they attempted to cross the mental connection as well, failing to disrupt or shake Jasmine's will. 'They definitely originate from this girl, and depend partially on her for power, but not entirely.' She carefully and quickly traced the flames in the broken body, kneeling next to the girl and carefully placing an armored hand on her shoulder- the molten floor ignored. 'It's not a bloodline artifact, I can't find anything in her physical or meta-physical flesh.' Interestingly, the girl had traces of eldritch nature, in a pattern that marked her as a mutant. 'But the flames are definitely not eldritch.' Though they did, interestingly, seem to be keeping the girl alive in her state- despite her innards being in just as bad condition, if not worse than her exterior.

She turned her attention to the mental connection, giving the girl a brief warning before widening it and sending her senses across to the girls splintered, near catatonic mind. 

Jasmine closed her eyes to focus further on the mental non-imagery. Worms of fire squirmed between the connections and structures, rampaging and distorting the mess of non-geometric mental schema. Memories burned as Jasmine scoured the place, reinforcing important nodes and dampening the flames with force of will as she passed, tendrils of psychic energy poking and prodding the sore and charred structures, easing them from their stiff and brittle state with waves and waters of calm and empathy. 

'Her mind is even further influenced by eldritch. These changes may actually be the only reason she's even somewhat still alive. Allowing her mind far more plasticity and resistance to foreign energies than normal.' Meaning her mutant powers were likely heavily mind focused. Jasmine furrowed her brows, slipping her own tendrils further in.

The girl's mind shuddered and twisted, inviting her probes deeper in a desperation. The worms grew in intensity, the mental domain growing cluttered and warped- connections breaking and reforming and curling around... A feather? Fire? Plant? Crystal? Jasmine quickly organized what she was looking at. 'It's very similar to an artifact or parasite that only exists in the mind, but magical in nature and not completely alive. It seems to have organically fused with her due to the eldritch changes- becoming part of her despite being foreign originally. Removing it would likely be very bad.' She examined the twisted mental patterns. 'It seems to have originally bonded to her normal emotional channels, but the damage of trauma and stress has caused it to grow sporadically and collide with other failing mental patterns- feeding it energy uncontrollably. Thus, rather than her growing to control it gradually, it has started activating on its own; and since it's primarily a mental artifact, its eruption further damaged the surrounding mind and amplified the issue.' 

She gathered her mana and took a deep, steadying breath. 'Well. Let's do what I can.' 

Four colors of mana danced to her whim, fusing into two then backing her telepathy.

Life and Light, fuse to Perception.

Dark and Metal, fuse to Severance.

She didn't have time to create spells to further amplify the power and concepts- luckily she could get away with simply reinforcing said concepts on her telepathy, imbuing her psychic energy with her magic. 

'First, let's separate the artifact from the channels it's over feeding on.' Perception thrummed in many tendrils, poking about and finding points which could be cut and pulled apart by others imbued with Severance, careful not to cut or break too much. 'Thankfully Maeve had me practicing a crap ton of psychic interactions.' Otherwise, with the sheer power of her emotions, mind, and therefore psychic energy, she would treat other minds the same way Godzilla would treat a china shop. 'And that this girl's mind is far more plastic than normal definitely helps.' She winced as she accidentally brushed and broke a wrong connection with Severance. 

Eventually the artifact was mostly untangled, if still burning. The flames luckily dying out and slowly ceasing to rampage- but not entirely gone due to the emotional circuits still feeding into it- the girls raw pain coming into the artifact in a constant, blinding stream. 'If I completely seal this then I may not be able to keep her alive, nevermind taking it out.' Jasmine frowned. The flames, despite utterly destroying the girl, also kept her alive somehow. Or at least living. She'd have to try to examine the conceptual makeup of the fires at some point, preferably in a situation where they weren't messing with her senses. 

Jasmine turned her eyes to the girl's body, the orange waves faded and missing, the room now darker; lit only by the molten but cooling metal and stone. Carefully Jasmine imbued a portion of her telekinesis with another form of fused mana, gently lifting the girl from the solidifying floor. Through the mental connection she felt the girl growing used to the pain, the stream feeding the artifact slightly weakening as her consciousness started teetering to collapse. 

"Don't go completely out yet." Jasmine sent more emotions and encouragement over, holding the girl's mind afloat. 'I don't have time. I need to get her into a state where she is alive but no longer in pain.' She sighed and focused, 'Time to try and jerry rig a spell.' 

She unfortunately didn't have a healing spell capable of reversing the damage- the girl's body was broken and destroyed on a fundamental level, the basic structures of her physical and meta-physical flesh burned, warped, and disintegrated. 'A spell to try and grow her body anew is too risky without thorough testing, I'd more likely create a tumor ball that dies shortly.' Jasmine further examined what she had to work with. 

'I'll have to go with a form of puppetry and mimikry. Convince the body to work properly as a stop gap, fill in the missing pieces and fully heal her later if I can.' Her mind spun through possibilities and she slowly and thoroughly gathered a large amount of mana. 'I can't afford to be efficient with this. I'll have to use brute force and quantity to make up for it.' She memorized the bits and pieces that remained of the girl's meta-physical body, using her own as a reference to try and fill in the gaps. She used her physical flesh to form a basis- a platform for the rest of the spell to work off of. She left holes and vents purposely in the spell- letting directed chaos work to fill in gaps while constraining it from going too wild. She molded hooks and binds to tie the girl together, alongside a healthy amount of Dark mana to act as glue. She made links to the girls mind, hooking them into the spell as she constructed it, holding the various forms of whirling mana in place as she called and imbued them.

Water and Life, fuse to Flesh.

Light and Life, fuse to Perception. 

Water and Light, fuse to Grace.

Dark and Water, fuse to Abyss.

Dark and Light, fuse to Transference.

Pure Dark. Pure Life.

With a core of Dark and Life, fused to Undeath. 

[Eight-Fold Spell] : Living Doll 

 

 

In World Detail Explanation :

Telekinesis! A staple. Of any super-natural and above fiction. Or at least I view it as such. One of the most basic psychic powers of all time- terrifying when mastered!

Sorta.

In this universe telekinesis/telepathy is the mental equivalent of just moving your body, barely supernatural. Infact, most people use TK unconsciously on small scales when focused, giving them just slightly more grip or traction, moving themselves with just a tiny bit more force, preventing some dirt or dust sticking to their skin, or pulling air currents ever so slightly in their favor. 

The problem is conceptual reinforcement- which is where magic comes in. Telekinesis, like simple martial arts (non-supernaturally boosted), does not have concepts imbued in it. It's a natural force- excess mental energies from normal day to day life not losing the influence of the originator. This means it's comparatively easy to break or fail in any competition against actual supernatural forces- even when boosted to a ridiculous degree by a stupidly strong mind. 

But like simple martial arts, it can be imbued with concepts, like crushing, cutting, pushing, etc. It just needs an actual expenditure of energy to do so- like martial artists ki, normal mana, or refined psychic energy. Once boosted by these, it becomes much more powerful- but its still not something like a spell- the conceptual focus and therefore 'strength' of it is limited- like say; breathing normally but efficiently compared to breathe, a technique to temporarily enchant oneself. 

This is why telekinesis has, generally, a subtle rather than overt impact in high-level fights. It's far from useless- just ask anyone who has been disarmed and needs their weapon back, or wants to grab something just out of reach for leverage, but it's generally not the ultimate tool