Chapter 1: Ghost in the Ruins


AN: Hi guys! I'd appreciate if you'd give this story a go even if it's kind of weird. Alternate version of AoU where von Strucker is alive, Clint has no family, and Ultron's extinction plan involves no meteors. It picks up after the movie's final battle in Sokovia, and there are some major changes to canon and several OCs. Story may be told in non-linear fashion at times. Hopefully (*crosses fingers*) this will extend into Infinity Wars. [Edited July 14, 2015]


The dust was still settling over Sokovia when von Strucker sent his necromancer into the battlefield to retrieve the bodies and see who was worth saving.

She was another one of his experiments, another one of his "miracles." Although only the Maximoffs had been recorded as successes, the Baron actually had three more aces up his sleeve, so to speak. Originally written off as failures, von Strucker was forced to reconsider when the twins turned traitors. While it was true that Wanda and Pietro had been his crowning achievement, but it would be a lie to say that the Baron's other monsters were not formidable opponents, defective as they were. No matter now, with the combined power of his three remaining creations, the Baron would have a very firm grip on Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch would soon follow her brother.

Broken figures lay amidst the rubble, some alive and bleeding from horrific injuries, some staring skywards with glassy eyes and no visible wounds. Eveline drifted through the now empty city like a ghost. Baron von Strucker could by no measure be described as a kind man, so the countless bodies of women and children from Ultron's wrath did not faze Eveline even as their terrified expressions remained, begging her for some sort of mercy that death did not give. She cared not for them, as she could do nothing to help.

Her powers could only save one, and the lucky receiver had already been chosen by the Baron. He was a fallen soldier, a playing piece of the enemy, able to move faster than the wind itself.

No wind could escape Ultron's metal monsters, Eveline discovered as she happened upon the unmoving form of Pietro Maximoff, one of the Avenger's newest warriors. His torso was riddled with bullets and some had clipped the legs that should have carried him to safety. Circular prints of red surrounded each wound, slowly growing in diameter like blooming flowers.

Though blood was still spreading through Pietro's shirt when Eveline arrived, the man once known as Quicksilver was dead. A thin film of white ash covered him, and he lay on the concrete where he had fallen, face-down, limbs awkwardly splayed.

While in the Baron's compound, Eveline had glimpsed the twins only once, but she would recognize their striking features anywhere. She looked down at the man before her.

Adidas, check. Bad blond dye job, check. Eveline's mouth twisted into a smirk. Perhaps the hair was a result of von Strucker's experimentation or maybe this superhero just had a very strange sense of fashion.

"Master?" Eveline called out, knowing that he would hear.

"Yes, he is the one," confirmed a murmur in the breeze, carrying the accented voice of von Strucker.

Eveline kneeled down next to Pietro and carefully turned him over so that he looked up. His head lolled to the side and peroxide locks fell over his closed eyes but there was no life in his hands to brush the hair out of the way.

Blood soaked through the lightweight grey material of Pietro's shirt leading Eveline to slice it off with a pocket knife, revealing the injuries that had ripped away the newest of the Avengers.

"You're liberated in death," Eveline whispered under her breath, so the Baron would not hear. "But who will avenge you?" Her slim fingers fluttered over Quicksilver's chest and the bullet holes that marred it. Dark tendrils of her magic danced around her hands but she didn't act just yet.

"Do it," hissed the wind in her ear.

Eveline closed her eyes and took a deep breath, summoning the power she had so carefully collected within her. Focussing it in her hands, she whispered a purpose to the black smoke that gathered in her fingertips. The magic understood and it emerged, slowly at first, then faster as it gained strength and momentum.

Her fingers danced over and around Pietro's wounds as inky spectral threads wove through his body. Eveline let the magic do its work, healing in ways doctors never could. Bullets were pushed out, falling to the hard ground with metallic clinks. Muscle knitted back together followed the skin over it. Quicksilver's blood stained the pale skin of both parties, but for Eveline it was only on her hands and legs, where she was kneeling in it. She paid no heed to how the white fabric of her jeans drank in the red like water as she was too immersed in her task. A few splatters of blood somehow found their way onto Eveline's face, making a mockery of the dead.

A small smile found its way to her lips as she worked on her carefully crafted masterpiece. It looked fairly simple but there was a skill to bringing back the dead that had taken Eveline several horrifying mistrials to master.


The first bodies she had reanimated were nothing more than shambling corpses without soul. Their limbs moved, but their eyes were empty. They spoke, but there was no meaning to the words and no purpose to their stolen life. They understood, they were loyal, and they obeyed only the one who brought them back. The Baron had been pleased with his small group of mindlessly loyal soldiers, for as long as Eveline obeyed von Strucker, so would they.

When one of his better experiments had failed, the Baron sent for Eveline to revive it.

The body was fresh, lifeless no longer than a few minutes. A slight tinge of pink remained in the dead girl's cheeks and her skin was still warm to the touch. Eveline recognized the flaming hair to belong to Serafina, a pyromancer she'd only glimpsed and heard whispers of. By all rights, she should have still been alive and Eveline could not find a cause of death. It was the first time the sorceress let her mind delve deeper than the surface wounds to uncover a whole other world beyond this one.

Hel, as Eveline knew it, was nigh indescribable, but if she had to compare it to something it would be the endless universe. It was darkness, but not quite, for the black had a sort of luminescence that could never have existed elsewhere. Pinpricks of multi-coloured light surrounded her like ethereal smoke. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of a face but then it would shift to become nothing more than insubstantial aether. A golden palace glimmered in the distance, but it was always beyond Eveline's reach even as her power and range increased.

In Serafina's case, her soul was only inches away from where Eveline's projected consciousness had appeared. It burned with gold and red just as it had in life, and Eveline reached out for it. It held a pleasant heat and felt like nothing on Earth. Despite the horrors of the day, Eveline couldn't help but smile at the wild beauty of what the afterlife appeared to be.

A dull ache began to throb in Eveline's mind, reminding her of the job she was sent to perform. Carefully holding Serafina's spirit, Eveline turned to find her way back to her world. It was not as simple as opening her eyes, she soon discovered.

It was a winding road, dark and full of whispering shadows, yet not physical for it existed only in the mind. Serafina's soul pulsed and fought to escape the path between worlds, but Eveline only gripped it tighter.

After what seemed like hours, Eveline's eyes snapped back open. It was intangible, but she knew she held Serafina somewhere within the recesses of her mind. Unable to find another method, Eveline pressed her lips to the dead girl's and breathed true life into it. The action seemed to steal something from Eveline herself, and the necromancer passed out next to newly revived Serafina.

She awoke to a stinging slap across her cheek.

"What did you do?" hissed Dr. Bauer, one of the scientists that had worked on Eveline.

"I don't know," she shrieked, scrambling back to avoid punishment.

"The girl is mad! You brought back a monster," shouted Bauer, spittle flying from his lips as he gestured angrily to the adjacent room.

Eveline registered she was sitting on the cold concrete of the hallway outside the cells. An inferno raged in the last room, and inhuman shrieks of pain and fury echoed throughout the whole facility. Armored soldiers rushed past her with fire extinguishers and guns, the former used to put out the flames, the latter used to extinguish the source.

Serafina had not come willingly, Eveline realized. The soul had wished for death and Eveline had ripped it away from blissful nothingness.

Eveline had not brought back the monster. No, she was the monster.


A final pass over the man's heart and Eveline sent a jolt of her dark magic to restart it. A soft press of her hand to his chest – now unmarred by anything but blood without source – let her feel the steady beating of the organ beneath. His body was back.

Now for the tricky part.

Sweat had already gathered at Eveline's brow and now it trickled freely down her face as she searched for Pietro's soul in the space beyond this world. He had not been dead long so he could not have travelled far into the endless eternity where the lost resided.

Eveline found Quicksilver's consciousness easily for it was a beautiful silver and it moved as fast and sharp as his name would suggest. The sorceress called to it sweetly in a tongue that man no longer spoke. The Baron had taught her the phrase after much research into old mythology, and in the past Eveline had proven the incantation to work. The words left her mouth and were twisted into a song of sunshine and water and all the other beauties that Earth held. She made no mention of the Hell she lived in.

The silver-bright spirit followed the song willingly and Eveline had to gently push away the other souls that were drawn by the voice of one who was unlike them. Quicksilver's mind paused for a moment before Eveline grasped it and pulled it back to the realm of the living.

The way between the worlds was painful to traverse and Eveline was barely able to hold onto consciousness as her eyes snapped back open and she breathed Pietro's soul back into his body.

The ruined city spun and shifted in and out of focus. The ground grew as Eveline toppled over sideways. The last thing she saw was the rise and fall of Quicksilver's chest as he breathed once again.

"You did well, meine kleine Fürstin," came her Master's whisper.


AN: Please review! :)

meine kleine Fürstin - my little princess