I This First Chapter Made Me Depressed, and I'm the Author
i just goes to show these characters have minds of their own
New York City, 2011, Earth 616.7
70 years.
Ice. Cold. Fear. A promise. Fear. Cold. Ice.
How much of the world's population was over 70?
In the millions.
94 years old.
That's how old he was now.
Steve wondered how many 94 year olds there were in the world. None of the people he ever knew, that was for sure.
Bucky barely made 25.
In the early mornings, whenever he couldn't sleep, Steve ran. He ran all over New York city. When he was sick and tired of running, he walked. None of his meandering did him any good, but if there was anything worse than constantly being on the move, it was staying still. The singularly most humiliating and demoralizing moment he'd faced recently was being alone in a house where everything else outsmarted him.
Peggy would never have let that conquer her.
He'd read everything he could get a hold of. He had gone to the Modern Marvels of Tomorrow, had been the subject of the most groundbreaking human experimentation, and that title still held 7 decades later. Hell, he wasn't even 30. Now the world was telling him to play catch up, that it had fulfilled the dream of the automated future, that it had gotten "better". It withheld all of its flaws from him, just out of grasp, but Steve knew better than to trust it.
His only liaison with the rest of the world was the agent Director Fury had assigned him – agent 21, Sakuya Inomata. She was a formidable woman, simultaneously professional and cordial, quick to both laughter and anger, and extremely perceptive. She often noticed Steve struggling with something before he did. Even so, something about her set Steve on edge, something so secretive and guarded that he didn't dare ask anything about her.
It was 5 in the morning.
The sun wouldn't be up for at least an hour. There weren't many people about, but they existed in the gray spaces between history. Steve was their captain, now. He enjoyed his anonymity. He resented his violent misplacement in time. Sometimes, –
The wind picked up ominously, and Steve's senses instantly sharpened. Cloud cover began to form and all of a sudden, it was hurricane weather, as trees and street lights shivered and collapsed. The air was thin and high, and a rush of adrenaline pumped into Steve's abdomen, pushing away all of his excess melancholy. A red spot appeared high above in the clouds and descended.
At about 30 yards above Steve, she appeared out of the clouds – a woman of white. Her clothing and nebulous hair were white, and her skin was blood-drained. She hovered like the angel of death, before plummeting so quickly she was yanked from his line of sight. She fell like a meteor, complete with her own crater. Several car alarms went off. Steve went to check on her, keeping low and wary. A human body falling at such speeds and from such heights – it couldn't be pretty, but it also couldn't really resemble a human body anymore.
But ho! there she lay, splayed out in a splatter of her own blood. Steve would have thought she was dead, except her eyes focused on Steve's face.
A man ran off screaming about 'lizard apocalypse' to Steve's right.
ii but then again, I sometimes write Steve thinking 'but ho!'
3 minutes earlier; New York City, Earth 777.7
"I don't want any trouble, especially not with our spectral overlords in IDEA," Alizeh Valenteri said slowly, easing toward Noah Cohen. He was some mix of Asgardian and New Jerseyan, and apparently the two didn't mix. He'd acquired some Asgardian dark magic and the Space stone, and had a master's in aeronautical engineering. Put all together, that meant he was three seconds from completing anything between an interdimensional navigation system and a transdimensional cataclysmic force that would unleash a domino effect on any and nearby parallel dimensions. He was a delicate soul, and had it trampled so many times that he now believed himself to be the only righteous man left in the universe. He fashioned himself to be something like the Noah of biblical times, riding on the floodwaters of chaos into a new dimension, a new age.
It only took the second telling for Ali to memorize his speech word for word, and she knew she would never be the same again. He was even wearing a shirt that read 'I come in peace', the smug little bastard.
The most important thing about Cohen was that he was one of Ali's casualties. He was a university student of her estranged staying-out-of-prison-by-the-skin-of-his-teeth father's.
Riley Ricci (52) had once been a "genius". He'd dabbled in a plethora of scientific subjects, before narrowing his focus onto biophysics and biochemistry, before becoming a surgeon; had undertaken several projects too ambitious and abstract that no one understood his objective three decades later; and slowly but surely genetically engineered his nine-year-old daughter's bones to turn into a light metal alloy similar to that of nth.
This gave Ali the power of flight, which complemented her power of aerokinetic manipulation and enhanced metabolic rate, but made damn sure he never got to see her face again. It wasn't that he hadn't gone to prison – he had. He had then died, but he left behind a little gift for humanity, his last imprint upon the earth. Another Riley Ricci – a clone. As if him experimenting on his own daughter didn't scream 'GOD COMPLEX!1!' enough. This version never knew he had once had a wife or daughter, and drank cheap negroni while yelling at university students about taking back the world. He had all the ambition of his original and was constantly denied all of the resources he needed to do any of his evil little projects.
Cohen was impressionable, and his flair of theatrics was specifically the Ricci brand.
Ali hated the Ricci brand of theatrics.
Peter was on the wall behind Cohen as Ali kept his attention focused on her, and was scoping out the machinery. Peter hadn't graduated from Empire State Uni in Biophysics for nothing. That meant he was a bona fide geek, whereas Ali's fourth grade baking powder volcano never went off. Whatever his qualifications (or lack thereof), Ali trusted him to get the device shut off and retrieve the Space stone while Ali ran decoy. Wanda and Vision were also somewhere in the building, making sure that it was only Peter, Ali, and Cohen in the final boss stage. He'd somehow hired Kree mercenaries and they packed a punch, even against the power android-witch couple.
As of right now, Ali's job was the easiest.
"How'd you even get the Space stone, anyway?" Ali asked, and Cohen was off again. She suppressed a sigh. Honestly, Cohen was crazy, but he was barely out of school – maybe three or four years older than her. If he had met a less embittered, loud-mouthed professor, he might have gotten somewhere. If he didn't have such a massive inferiority complex linked to his daddy issues, he might have gotten somewhere. As it was, she'd have to lock him up in max security. She might even have to hand him over to IDEA, as he was a potential transdimensional terrorist.
Peter had been less sympathetic to his plight.
"Dude, are you kidding?" he'd snorted as they suited up before the mission. "Aeronautical engineering? So cool! Gets all the girls. He could've been a rockstar."
"Uh-huh," Ali (a girl) had said skeptically as she slipped on her mask.
Cohen said something, and Ali snapped to.
"Take me with you?" she repeated incredulously.
"You're obviously a higher evolved life form – the flight, the air manipulation. I could use a general like you wherever my new dynasty is to unfurl," he said, seriously.
Ali could hear Peter's derisive laughter in her head. After the mission was finished, he wouldn't even be able to draw breath – slumped up against a wall while the strength left his knees. He had once laughed at her for 10 minutes straight. The particular incident that got his funny bone a-tickling was her going into the sewers to track down some Mole Man who was terrorizing the Queens sewer systems.
It had gone a little something like: "You," – snort – "fly" – wheeze – "and" – uncontrollable laughter, accompanied by the occasional spasm – "Mole Man!" – anguished sobbing.
Ali had left him choking on his own laughter and gone to take her third shower.
Presently, Peter gave her the ok sign from behind Cohen – he'd retrieved the stone and was now retreating back up the wall.
"Look, Noah, I'd love to come visit you down at the Raft, you know, under 24-hour surveillance solitary confinement, but the thing is," Ali half-shouted over his monologue, "I've got a boyfriend already, sorry."
"So be it," Cohen said coldly. "But don't blame me when the forces of this universe devour you and there is no escape. Did you really think that I'd just leave the Space stone in plain sight?"
"We're big dreamers," Peter quipped helpfully from up in the rafters, and there was a sprinkling of blue powder as he crushed the fake crystal in his fist. Ali swore under her breath and blasted air at Cohen. It caught him in the chest and sent him flying into the wall, while Ali flew over to the machine. She scanned the screen for anything to work with – it was all gibberish. Frustrated, she aimed at the big red light and let loose a blast of air. The machinery didn't budge, and she was pushed across the floor, but she kept on.
This was their Plan Z – Cohen had Ricci theatrics, and he really couldn't help himself when it came to big red lights, which meant that it was probably real important. Ali generally had good instincts, so she kept on. The glass cracked, and she gritted her teeth, pushing forward.
"No!" Cohen screamed from somewhere behind her. She could hear him struggling with Peter behind her. He must have gotten a shot of Kree war-juice as it sounded like he was putting up a decent fight. "I will be the pilgrim – the destroyer – the conqueror!"
Ali glanced over her shoulder to see Peter shoot a web at Cohen's mouth, shutting him up.
The light wavered, the glass shattered, and the room was suffocated in red. Ali felt herself suspended in the air by some unseen power, held against her will for the count of three seconds. She vibrated as if someone was shaking her very fast, very hard. Ali grit her teeth and screwed her eyes up - her brain was going to pop - Peter's eyes widened behind his mask.
Then she was flung out of her body.
Author's Notes: Well, it's my third rewrite, and I like it better than the other ones.
It starts out a bit slow, but I'll try to pick up the pace. Let me know if you liked it, hated it, didn't feel anything from it. Also, any and all joke ideas are readily welcome. Actually, all feedback (hopefully about the story) is welcome.