Chapter Three
"Report to your stations immediately! This is not a drill! We are under attack!"
The Avengers had arrived, a day earlier than expected, but Friya had been prepared for weeks. There was nothing left for her to do, she had trained the Maximoffs, and now they had to go forward without her. It was the right path for them, while her path only came in bits and pieces. It was time.
"We are under attack! I repeat, we are under attack!"
There was chaos outside the walls, and the scurrying of HYDRA agents within, trying to dispose of as much data as possible before a breach. She was already entering the command center when von Strucker made his speech about never surrendering, but she knew that he would. He would never jeopardize his work, the twins, or Friya. He obviously had more than one contingency plan, and she also knew he would be dead before the week was out.
With a nod from von Strucker, she guided Pietro and Wanda away, "Come."
They followed her down into the lab, anxious and worried, knowing what would happen next. Friya could not bring herself to lie to them, especially Wanda. They were like the children she never had, so scared and vulnerable, filled with resentment, and desperate for vengeance. And Wanda was so much like herself, her power mimicking Friya in every way. Knowing they had mere minutes together was causing great heartache.
"Stay here, and stay hidden," Friya whispered, embracing them both. "You know what to do."
And then she was gone, faded away in wisps of light, leaving them to listen to the sounds reverberating through the castle.
Friya appeared in the snow burdened forest, ahead of the fight, clothed in her favorite white suit embroidered with vibranium and silver. An ancient diadem of silver looped around her head, encrusted with ice crystals and sapphires harvested in the fjords of Norway thousands of years ago. Her hair long haired flowed in silvery white curls, almost pulled straight from the weight, as the ends fluttered at her knees.
Traveling through the trees, down towards the battle, she hit the invisible barrier marking the limit of her boundary around the fortress. The mechanism in her neck activated, and she was sent flying backwards, shrieking, several meters before a tree intervened. The kinetic energy simmering under her skin was redirected, once she caught her breath. She focused it all into the monitoring disk, and groaned through a clenched jaw, as it burned and deactivated from the inside out.
"We've got a casualty!" someone stated, as if they were speaking into a com-device. "Are you alright?"
"It hurts," she rasped, looking up into the masked face of Captain America. She pleaded with him, her eyes sparkling with joy and pain. "I am almost free. Please."
Digging at the edges of the device with her fingernails, she felt his gloved hand touching her arm. He gently pushed her hand away, pinching the disk himself. Relaxing back into the tree, she turned her head and watched him fight to make the decision to help her or take her into custody.
"I don't plan on killing you, Captain," she coughed, flinching as the device tugged at her flesh. "I've been waiting for you."
His eyes widened for a moment, recognition washing over him, "You were there, in DC, with Bucky."
"Is that his name?" Friya replied, smiling weakly at him, the disk sizzling under her skin. "His journey, his freedom… it wasn't my time. Please."
He nodded, steeling himself, "This is probably going to hurt."
"I'm ready."
He ripped it from her in a fraction of a second, the entire device dripping blood from the tendrils. The wound in her neck was gushing, and she covered it with her hand. Cap was watching her, unsure of how to help, until she started to heal herself. Starlight and warmth spread from the tips of her fingers, down into the center of her palm, erasing the injury, as if it had never happened.
"You okay?" He asked, offering her a hand. She took it, and he pulled her up. "That must come in handy."
"Not as often as you'd think." Rubbing the spot, she laughed, genuine and sweet, "You're funny. Thank you."
"You promised not to kill me, remember?" He smirked, and she was dazzled by the sly quirk of his lips, so much so that her cheeks flushed a pale pink. "Plan on keeping your word?"
"My allegiance has never been to HYDRA," she answered, shaking off the weird reaction to him. She started walking towards the fight, flicking her wrists and conjuring two swords of crystallized starlight and ancient metals. She called back to him, "Are you coming?"
Friya jumped into the fray, taking out guards that had watched her train the twins, had even watched over her during the times when the pieces of her mind fell out of place, and she was isolated for days, unable to recognize fantasy from reality. She spent those days, aware of the men standing vigil, but too embroiled in her own hilarity and her own insanity to fully comprehend what was happening outside her cell. In the present, she cut them down. They were still HYDRA, and they needed to be cut out like a cancer from the world.
The Captain fought near her, reporting to his teammates and keeping an eye on her, in case this was another HYDRA trick. She was incredible to watch in between tanks and soldiers firing away, like a ballerina in the snow. She would take on a group of HYDRA soldiers at one time, conjuring strange blades and sending them off to take out as many as possible, while she bent, kicked, and twirled through hand-to-hand combat with as much grace as superhumanly possible. There were times that a HYDRA fighter got close to killing her, he assumed, but the bullets would always rebound off a barrier that shimmered, the bullets ricocheting back towards their owners, killing them instantly. Her hands shone brightly, and her pale skin glowed as she fought, and it was odd, yet beautiful, in a sense, to him.
While Friya took care of some tanks, Cap lost sight of her, and suddenly was flipped, landing on his feet in another direction. There had been a blur, and then nothing. The strange woman was out of his sight, but she had not shown that kind of speed during their initial meeting in Washington. It had to be another person with abilities that had joined the fight. There was no other explanation.
"We have another enhanced in the field," he reported through his ear-com.
Friya had noticed Pietro immediately, tracking him through the woods until he left, knowing she could not show tenderness or compassion towards them from this point out, not until the tides turned. She ducked and swung her sword, cutting down another opponent as the Captain found his way back to the center of the chaos. He took down several men nearby, and talked to something in his ear, starting to feel a little out of breath.
"Stark, we really need to get in there."
Friya created an energy sphere in between her limber fingers, stretching it wide and thin, like a disc, before throwing low to the ground near another group of HYDRA soldiers, when Thor, God of Thunder, smashed it with his hammer, his lightning and her power reacting in a strange way. It spread out and disabled every soldier within a 10 meter radius, all the while producing a shrill, vibrating sound that caused Friya to flinch. It rang in her ears, making her teeth grind, and her nose start to bleed, but it ceased almost instantly, once the last remnants of electricity fizzled out.
She shook it off, while Thor spoke to the Captain.
"The Enhanced?"
"A blur," Cap responded, surveying his surroundings for any stray attackers. "All the new players we've faced, I've never seen this. In fact, I still haven't."
"I have," rasped Friya, straightening up from her crouched position. "I trained them."
Thor raised his hammer to strike her down, Cap trying to stop him, but Friya simply waved her hand and forced the hammer to the ground, "I'm not here to kill you, Asgardian. I'm finally free of HYDRA, I have no desire to go back and fight for them."
She took a moment to take a deep breath and wipe the blood from her nose, "I cannot stop them hating you, or fighting you, but I promise that I will not protect them from you. They will change their minds, eventually."
"Your allegiance is with who, then?" asked Thor, still confused on how she managed to overpower Miljonir. "Yourself?"
"She's with us," Cap interjected, turning his head to listen to a voice in his ear.
Thor responded, first," I can get Barton to the jet. The sooner we're gone, the better."
He looked at the Captain, "You and Stark secure the scepter."
"Copy that."
"Where do you need me?" asked Friya, healing her nose and sniffing without flinching. "What can I do to help?"
"Are you able to heal Barton?" asked Cap, noticing the line of marching soldiers followed by a tank. She nodded, moving out of the way. "Then go with Thor. We should be taking off once we get the scepter."
"Looks like they're lining up," said Thor, picking up the hammer.
The Captain took a knee, holding up his shield, and braced himself, "Well, they're excited."
Friya disappeared in an array of light, reappearing seconds later once they were finished, having no desire to experience the high-pitched shrillness of Miljonir again. She knew of its power, how it was forged, but she had never seen or heard or felt it in action. It a quick, sharp, piercing pain through her mind, unsettling what had taken a year to fix.
"Find the scepter," Thor reiterated to the Captain, before taking Friya by the hand and setting off to the skies...
