Natasha realised immediately what had happened, pulled her mental shields back into place, and hit Happy with a telepathic onslaught that stopped him dead in his tracks. The two most powerful minds went head to head, while their bodies stood perfectly still, staring unblinkingly into each other’s eyes. Natasha had intended to go after JC, as the most powerful member of the Institute team, and because she ached to test herself against him; but Happy had proved himself the biggest immediate threat, so she had to kill him first. Happy caught that thought and laughed breathlessly at her.

Erik drew his Aboriginal pointing bone and stabbed it at Melody as she ran towards him. She changed direction immediately, and the tiles on the walls behind her cracked and exploded one after the other as the bone’s influence moved in an arc across them. Erik raked the pointing bone back and forth increasingly wildly, spitting out a series of baby swear-words, but Melody jumped and spun and ducked with unexpected acrobatic grace, always one step ahead of him.

JC hesitated, caught between helping his team and needing to pursue Kim. And in that moment of indecision, Natasha hit Happy with a mental blast of pure rage that rocked him back on his feet. Natasha seized the moment and threw her thoughts at the ghost of Kim, hanging on the air at the end of the corridor; and Kim screamed shrilly as streams of blue-grey ectoplasm burst out of her ghostly form, torn from her by the sheer force of Natasha’s will. The ectoplasm quickly formed itself into solid bars under Natasha’s urging, imprisoning Kim inside a spirit cage. Kim screamed again, caught between two implacable forces, both of which had power over her while she had none. But summon as it would, the unseen force could not pull Kim through bars made from her own ghostly form. The spirit cage held her.

By then, Happy had recovered, and he lashed out at Natasha with his own rage. Natasha met the attack easily. She knew all about rage and its uses. Happy quickly brought himself back under control, knowing he faced a mind easily as powerful as his own and that if he didn’t fight with all the strength and subtlety at his command, he was a dead man. He met Natasha’s cold gaze and held it, attacking her shields on a dozen different levels at once, and Natasha was forced to give him her full attention. They stood face-to-face, totally absorbed in each other, like two gun-slingers on an old Western street. There was a war going on inside their heads.