I was re-reading the Lunar Chronicles and came up with this idea, basically merging Skye/Daisy with Cinder. This will focus more on the AoS world than the LC one. Enjoy!
Chapter 1 – The Beginning
She had just walked out of her favorite cafe in Los Angeles when she heard a ringing sound, much like a fire alarm coming from the top floor of the decrepit brick building across the street. With her mind, she instantly searched for an access point to the building and hacked her way into the security camera footage. She found a camera observing what looked to be a laboratory with two people, a female who looked to be a scientist wearing a lab coat and an ordinary civilian, arguing over a payment issue. She watched the scene unfold through a miniature net-screen installed in the bottom-right corner of her right eye. The scientist and the civilian continued to argue back and forth, the latter clearly not happy about not getting his compensation – "Compensation for what?" the girl thought – while a glowing orange implant on his inner forearm began pulsing brighter and brighter. A black man wearing a hoodie walked through the door and tried to diffuse the argument to no avail. The scientist, seeing the orange pulsing began to back away from the first civilian, but since she was further from the door, she backed into the window. The man in the hoodie, feeling that something bad was going to happen, ran to the scientist, picking her up bridal style before crashing through the window, and not a moment too soon as the first civilian suddenly exploded, causing the camera the girl was connected to to short out and fill her net-screen with static. The man in the hoodie landed in the middle of the street, leaving an imprint on the road due to the force of impact, and gently placed the scientist down before making to leave. The girl caught a glimpse of the hooded mans face before he turned into a nearby alleyway, leaving behind a crowd of shocked bystanders. The girl stored the video recorded from the lab camera and her own eyes in her head, making a note to create a new Rising Tide post on their website later.
'Skye' was no ordinary girl. She was a Lunar, a race that lived on the moon in the tunnels and caves that ran beneath the moon's surface that were far more advanced than humans (several centuries ahead). Most Lunars were born with a gift called "Glamor", which involved manipulating the bioelectric energy of other things and could be used in a number of ways, the most common being changing appearances. 'Skye' was no ordinary Lunar either. In fact, she was Princess Selene Blackburn, the true inheritor to the Lunar throne, but was thought to be killed in an 'accident' when she was three years old. However, she did not die, and a doctor managed to find her clinging to life and put her in a suspended animation and brought her to Earth in fear that the accident was a planned assassination of the future Queen where the doctor spent eight years repairing her severe injuries, turning her into a cyborg. Skye had sustained major damage to her head, face and spine as well as the loss of her right hand and left leg, plus some internal damage to her heart. Now she was roughly 30% cyborg, not that anyone besides that doctor had known since Skye had been using her Glamor to hide her cybernetic parts from everyone since she was eleven, when she was brought out of her suspended animation. Skye was now 22 years old, living alone in her second-hand van, making a living working as a mobile mechanic and a hacker for the Rising Tide (the best hacker actually).
After that morning's chaos, Skye went for a quick jog, then went back to her van and drove into Chinatown where she pulled into a parking lot corner, pulled out a cardboard sign advertising her services and began her 'job'. Skye had a pretty good reputation in that area, many people came to her for repairs, things like car troubles, microwaves, even TVs, there wasn't really anything she couldn't fix with the right tools and materials. The net-screen also allowed her to bring up blueprints and designs and overlay them in her vision, not to mention looking up instructions and guides if needed, giving her quite an advantage on top of her experience and genius (I imagine that if Skye grew up normally, she would be pretty smart, and with her modifications, she would be even smarter). In her down time, Skye went back and analyzed the footage from earlier, running facial recognition on the individuals on the scene. While her mind was processing faces, she pulled out her laptop and transferred her eye-camera footage onto the laptop (It would pass as a phone camera), where she created a new post on the Rising Tide page, dubbing the mystery man the "Hooded Hero". An alert popped up in her field of view signaling a match for the faces. The first one, the civilian in the lab:
SAMUEL ROWE
DoB: 12/3/1980
Skye did a quick background check on him and found that her was a cashier, barely scraping by (no wonder he was upset about money), nothing suspicious, but he was dead now, so it didn't really matter. The second match came up as Raina Negga (Raina doesn't have a last name, so I put her actress's name). Raina was a biochemist, bouncing from lab to lab, always something animal related, until ending up currently at an Eco-research lab on centipedes. Skye made a mental note to look further into Raina's background. The last and most interesting to Skye was Michael (Mike) Peterson. She saw he was married a few years ago but his wife died, had a young boy, and worked at a warehouse. What Skye found interesting was a recent injury but accompanied by a large pay check, too big for any warehouse worker to receive. Skye guessed that the earlier argument about money was related to Mike Peterson's large income increase (Samuel Rowe got his centipede implant recently, say a few days, but because he was angry it led to a quick blow up. Mike on the other hand is chill so he won't blow up just yet even if he had the implant for longer, like a week or two). Thinking that she should go talk to Peterson, she looked up his address and purchase history, so she could find him tomorrow morning.
The next morning, Skye waited at the bus stop closest to Peterson's house. It wasn't long before he walked by (with a different hoodie than yesterday) and she followed him into a breakfast bar. Skye strolled over and sat in the booth opposite to Peterson. "Hey, pretend we're talking" she whispered.
"But we ARE talking, wait, who are you?"
"Oh, I'm Skye, I saw you yesterday jump out a three-story window and save a woman. Now you've gone viral as the Hooded Hero."
"Yeah, I feel like I can finally make a difference in the world. Be a hero."
"Listen, you cannot just walk blindly into this. With great power comes a … ton of weird crap that you aren't prepared to deal with. You need to stay out of S.H.I.E.L.D's hands if you want peace."
"What's a shield?"
"It's a secret government organization, you know, secret agents in black suits and all that. I can help, I can create a new identity for you and your kid, to protect you for now."
"You have an office?"
"Well, more like a van, but I'm a pretty good hacker. Just come find me, I park in that alley for nights (*points to an alleyway halfway down the street*)."
Skye then got up and left Mike to himself and walked back to her van, preparing for a weekly podcast for the Rising Tide. She had just finished the podcast and was preparing to drive to Chinatown for work when she saw a black SUV pull up into the alley, blocking her path. Two men in black suits approached her van, one definitely older than the other. Before she could say anything, the younger agent had pulled her out of the van and pulled a bag over her head, before handcuffing her behind her back. Skye blinked as her eyes switched to X-ray mode to see though the bag and she debated whether to Glamor her way out of this, or let it play out. She decided for the latter because how often do you get kidnapped by secret agents!?
The younger agent drove the SUV around the city, taking a path to confuse the blinded passenger (even though it didn't work since Skye could see though the bag) and finally ended up at an airport, where he half dragged Skye into a reinforced holding cell. He sat Skye down on a metal chair, then undid her handcuffs and pulled off the bag over her face. Skye blinked a few times as her eyes switched back to normal vision. She sat in silence looking around the cell, her eyes scanning and processing things in her net-screen, waiting for the agents to make the first move. The walls were made of a synthetic vibranium material and she scanned the faces of the two agents in front of her, finding the older agent was Phillip Coulson and the younger one was Grant Ward. It was Coulson who started speaking first, with an apologetic face, "Sorry about that, Agent Ward here has had a bit of trouble in the past with you Rising Tide hackers. What's your name?" Skye glanced at Ward, who was glaring at her with hatred, she was startled, seeing so much darkness in his eyes. "I-It's Skye" "What is your REAL name?" Ward interjected. He was met with silence. "Enough about that, we're looking for another name, the name of this Hooded Hero" said Coulson, silencing Ward. "What makes you think I know it?" "Well, we found that the encryption from the video matched the ones from your podcasts, so we tracked you while you were live." Skye shrugged her shoulders, "Oh well, I knew that was the risk when I decided that podcasting was fun." Suddenly Ward asked, "Did you blow up the lab to draw him out?" "WHAT!? NO! I just watched the dude save the woman" "What are you after then?" "The truth. What are YOU after?" "World Peace." Ward said. A blinking orange light appeared in Skye's retina display indicating that Ward was lying. "Really?" "Just give us your man" "Then let me talk to him, not Mister-I-look-like-a-spy over here" "We'll give you some time to think," Coulson said as the two agents exited the room, locking Skye inside. While she was waiting, Skye mentally hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D databases and pulled up information on the two agents as well as those working with them. She found that Coulson was the team leader and he was in charge of Agents Ward, May, Fitz, and Simmons all of which seemed to specialize in a unique field. The door opened right then, and Coulson and Ward came back in, this time Coulson was holding a syringe of yellow liquid. "This is a new, potent truth serum, called QZT-8467", Coulson said. The orange light blinked again – a lie – Skye searched for said drug and it came out to be a delayed sleep sedative. Coulson then injected Ward with the liquid. Realizing this was a ploy to gain her trust, Skye decided to play along. After "interrogating" Ward, Skye walked out of the cell (The Cage, Ward had called it when she asked) and decided to just give them the name. Coulson was watching security footage of the warehouse where Mike had worked in and Skye saw the hooded man violently throw around his boss. "This… this isn't the guy I met. He just needs a break" "Then give him one, what have u got?" "His name is Michael Peterson" "Anything else?" "I have footage from a camera before the explosion…" "How did you get that?" "Trade secret. It's in my van, but I'll bet you guys won't be able to beat the encryption on my stuff" "Well, we will see. Wait here until the rest of my team gets back."
An hour later, a second SUV pulls up to the plane and the rest of the teams gets onboard and they gathered in the command center. "Good guy, bad breaks" Coulson says to the team, pulling up the background information on Mike. "So, how did he get powers?" May asks. "Centipede" says Skye. The room is silent. "Wait, S.H.I.E.L.D has so many resources, and they don't know about Centipede? Wow! Well, as far as I can tell, Centipede is trying to create another Captain America and they are paying some hefty cash for volunteers. The strength part worked, just look at Mike here, but I think the serum is super unstable. I have video proof of it, I just need my equipment back." "Interesting. Well, you were right. We couldn't crack your encryption, so can you give us the video?" "Sure, but I also geo-locked it to that alleyway since I wasn't expecting, you know, a government abduction." "Fine, May will drive you back, then send Fitz the video. Also, someone go wake up Ward." Coulson said, retreating to his office.
On the drive back, Skye read through the background of the team members. Fitz and Simmons were relatively simple, both had been in the S.H.I.E.L.D science academy and were partners and best in the class, being the youngest graduates so far. Ward was interesting, he got top marks in his operations, but all his previous records indicated that he preferred to work alone, so why did he join Coulson's team? Agent May was another interesting case, she had been one of the best specialists in the field, but suddenly transferred to office work a few years back, Skye wondered why. They arrived at the alley and Skye went to work, with May standing guard outside the sliding door. Skye called Fitz, "Hey, how do you want me to send the video" "Give me a sec, I'll give you an address" While Skye was waiting, she was sorely tempted to just hack into the planes mainframe and upload the video footage, but she doubted that the team would be happy about that. Instead she began putting her most valuable items into a storage compartment in her left leg: Back up USBs, microchips, her Lunar ID chip with the tracking disabled, as well as a picture of her mother and the doctor that saved her life. Fitz sent her the address to upload the video and they prepared to drive back to the plane. Suddenly, Mike Peterson appeared, jumping down from the roof into the alley, carrying his son on his back. In one motion, he landed on the ground and threw May into the nearby wall, causing her to fall unconscious. "What are you doing Mike?" "Saving you from those black suits. This is my son Ace. You told me that you could help us, and I need that right now."
Back on the plane, Coulson, Ward, Fitz, and Simmons was watching the video Skye had sent them. "Seems that those two are arguing about monetary compensation, looks like he volunteered and didn't get paid yet." "That thing on his arm, its pulsing. It seems to react to his anger." "That lady is backing away like she knows what's about to happen." They all watched as the man exploded, and the other two jumped out of the window to safety. "Wait, rewind that and put it in slow motion… It seems like the blast originated from the thing on his arm… It looks a lot like… a centipede!" "Looking at the phone footage, you can somewhat see an orange glow from inside Peterson's sleeve. We need to get to him before he goes down in flames. Fitzsimons, can you build something to stabilize him? We wouldn't want any casualties. It's getting late, we'll deal with this in the morning. Goodnight." Coulson said, turning away. He was concerned that May hadn't come back yet, from the last report, they were preparing to return. He pulled out his phone and dialed May's number. The ringing of her phone woke her, she groaned as she picked up the call. "Uhhgg" "Are you alright May? What happened?" "Mike showed up just as we were leaving. He took Skye. My head hurts like hell, can you come pick me up? I don't feel like running all the way back." "Sure, I'll be right there, we'll talk later. You had me worried." "Oh, we're going to have a LONG talk after this."
Early the next morning, Fitz and Simmons were still working on a stabilizing agent that would keep Mike from combusting when the computer started beeping, signaling a hack. Fitz rushed over, trying to stop the hacker from getting in, but to no avail. "I can't stop this! Oh no, why does this happen now!?" Coulson walked into the lab at that moment, looking at the computer screen. "Those look like coordinates." After a moment's thought he continued, "It's Skye. She's still with Mike, and she's telling us where." "Get that stabilizer ready," Coulson said as he went to get May and Ward, "I think we'll be needing it."
The team followed the coordinates to the parking lot in front of the central subway station, where they saw the familiar sight of Skye's old van. Inside, Skye was busy on her laptop creating a new identity for Mike Peterson and Ace, having erased all their personal information a few hours prior. Her mind was hacked into the plane mainframe, sending her coordinates to the team. She closed her eyes for a moment and felt the bioelectricity all around her. She immediately felt the familiar energy of Coulson as he slowly approached the van. Mike decided to look out the window in the same moment, and cursed under his breath (not loud enough for Ace to hear) "How'd they find us?" He asked as he grabbed Ace and Skye, kicking the door open with enough force to send it flying at the approaching agents, and dragged them into the subway station. Inside, Skye looked for ways to get out of her situation and decided to use her Glamor and make Mike attack a nearby group of men, giving her a distraction to get out.
Mike quickly dealt with the gang and saw Skye running for the stairs, and he gave chase. Just as he caught up to her upon reaching the upper balcony, he heard the cocking of a shotgun behind him. Before his brain could process anything, he instinctively (or so he thought) jumped in front of Skye to block the shot, the impact propelling him off the balcony and causing him to fall back to the first floor.
There had been a third party that had followed Mike Peterson that night and they also took part in the subway station fiasco. A small group of henchmen disguised as police officers ran into the building after the trio and chasing Mike as he ran up the stairs.
Skye ran up the stairs looking for a spot to wait for the whole ordeal to blow over. She looked back and saw Mike right behind her with four armed men close behind. She saw the lead officer pump his shotgun and instantly took control over Mike's body, using him as a shield. The blast knocked Mike over the railing and onto the floor below. Skye felt a pang of guilt, until she saw Mike get up, indicating that he was alive, but she had four other threats to take care of. Taking control of the four men in front of her, she was about to make them shoot themselves when she felt another person come in from the window, Agent May. *Holster your weapons. Pretend to fight* Skye ordered the men instead and with little resistance, Skye and May knocked the men out. Looking down to the ground floor, Skye saw Coulson attempting to talk Mike down. "I know there's poison in your system," she heard Coulson say, "You already know, that the last guy who wore one of those implants exploded." "You think this is what's killing me?" Mike asked, raising his arm and pointing to the centipede implant, "No, it's the fact that people all over are getting pushed down by people stronger than them. They say it's enough to be a MAN, but we could be better than man, we could be GODS." Skye ran down the stairs and stopped in front of Mike, "Just calm down Mike. Having a gift doesn't make you better than man, its what you do with it that matters" Skye reached out to his mind, calming him, reassuring him. *You can be a hero, Mike. But you need to calm down first* "I could be a hero," Mike whispered. Coulson smiled, then looked to Ward who was holding the stabilizing serum in a long-distance delivery gun. Mike's veins began to glow, and the centipede implant started pulsing, indicating that it was about to blow. Coulson gave the signal to Ward, who shot Mike in the chest with the stabilizer, knocking Mike unconscious. Skye quickly took control of the conscious' of all the bystanders in the station *Forget what happened here, continue your day like normal* The team packed up, got everyone into the SUVs and drove back to the plane. Later, Coulson and Skye (since she spent the most time with Ace) took Ace to his aunt's farm. "I told Ace that his father was going to come back… he will, right?" "Yes, I hope so," Coulson said, getting into his car (Lola). Suddenly, the comm sounded. Coulson answered, and Ward's voice came through the speaker, "Sir, we have an 0-8-4 reported in Peru" "What does that mean?" Skye asked. "Well, you have 10 minutes to decide if you really want to know," Coulson replied as he switched the car into flight mode, "The tide is rising." In answer, Skye just laughed.
AN: Please review, I have a plan for this story, but all input is appreciated!