Thanks for venturing into my world! This story is based mostly on the MCU, seasoned with a bit of the comics (e.g. Loki has its full range of powers), mythologies and my imagination.
Notes and warnings:
Image: designed by me with paint.
This is my first fiction story and... I wrote it originally in Spanish, my language, but I 'm try to practice my written English. So please hold on to the curiosity that brought you here and don't be scared. Sorry for any errors.
I hope you like it.
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First Part
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Before
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Before the beginning... in some forgotten corner of the universe, there was another red giant stretching out the few millennia of life it had left. It had its attention on the fifteenth planet orbiting it, Ku. In it lived the only other souls she had ever known, until now. In Ku, it was the first time they had visitors, and there was some enthusiasm in the people. But it will change when the spaceship's crewmen step on the ground.
At the same instant, almost in the other end of this existence, a misleadingly humble monk, with his bald head and his loose tunic, meditated in one of Katmandu's many temples. He was a she. The hexagonal room in which she meditated had an Ikor crystal in each wall, a small fragment of the essence of a star collected just before his death. In this way, the crystals allowed maintaining the astral form for infinite times and distances without decomposing you, although it needs years of practice to become so skillful.
Our monk was only enjoying The Himalayas, her physical body was getting goose bumps. But like one of the guardians of the Earth, she can not permit herself miss old life.
Suddenly, the cold penetrated his astral form. Burned him as well as hundreds of stringers. She returned his body and withnessed something she could never have imagined, the crystals were weeping. The almost infrasonic lament resonated in the walls, and then a glow inundate the room.
An old and powerful magic had transported her far, very far. Her citrus vestment highlights out against a beautiful lilac sky in which two ghostly planets were floating. The nearest planet had moldy green bands of different shades, and the planet in the back reminded her of our neighbor Mars. She knew it are daytime when she saw a distant sun.
She heard a drip. Its could, dense and slow note, echoed in the basaltic crevice in which she had ended up in.
Pluc!
Pluc!
She follow the sound to its source, an olive green thread running down the black hillside. She took a sample, the substance was warm and coagulated as it cooled. She brought it closer her nose and... her pupils dilated with the essence of cooper.
Run!" was the order of her hypothalamus. If she had been a mouse or a gazelle she would have obeyed, but unlike those animals she knew a duty. She has the obligation to measure the danger before returning home.
She pointes her palms to the ground and levitated toward the surface of the canyon. The humidity grew with every inch went up and the vegetation gained ground. Then, she distinguished another form among the weeds. It was not another vine, it was an arm. A languid arm hanging the edge. It was three times the size of a human arms, with three fingers ending in claws.
In the astral form one is almost undetectable, and that is why she took precautions. She pinched the air and stretched her arms out to either side, drawing her mystical weapons.
The creature was beautiful own way, humanoide and with arthropod exoskeleton with iridescent colors covering vital areas. She looked into black eyes and found no enemy. But just when she was about to let her guard down, a spear sprang from the mist and finished what had been left unfinished. Even the sound of the blade sunk into the flesh, his only consolation was that had been fast.
The dense mist dissipated revealing the assassin, a hooded man with an angular face and a greyish skin. He showed no care or emotion in removing his weapon from the cadaver, as if only it were just stump of wood. Behind him appeared another figure, femenine and very tall. Would she be a kree perhaps? Our monk couldn't be sure, the helmet and the black paint covered half her face.
None of them noticed her presence, fortunately.
"He ordered us to return," She said.
"There are still some left, I can feel them," He replied.
She moved closer to his neck and said, "Their dying star will finish the work...". He closed his eyes as he felt her breath. "and very soon."
The monk looked up to the sky only to see as the little Mars was devoured for the fury sun.
"Come on, before the explosion messes up the systems," She said, turning around. He followed shortly after.
She walked behind them and when they arrived at the spaceship she saw at least three more. A stone-looking big boy, and two women, one more machine than flesh, the other as green as the ginkgo tree on her balcony.
When the spaceship took off, the mist lifted, leaving her to see the work of a painter who only uses the colour red.
During her years on guard she had seen hundreds of wars and had even taken sides of them, but what she had in front was not a war, it was an extermination. Adults and childrens alike, all of them sown on the same fields where harvested their food, only they would not flourish.
She looked up to the sky again and then understood why she was there. The star had brought forward her death in desperate attempt to avenge them, but damned has managed to escape. Now she couldn't longer hold back, she would go supernova and consume her own childrens. That's why she secure a witness.
"I am so sorry," She said to the astro with sincerity.
"You can have all my ikor, if a exchange you do what I couldn't," the star said. As a mystical teacher, She can understand the language of the stars, a simple frequency for science.
"I can't, it would bring the fight to my planet. I'm really sorry," the monk said.
"They will reach every corner if no one stops them," the star said. Her words startled her, for she knew they were true as soon as she said them. "Please..." the star begged, "at least take the survivors with you."
She saw figures approaching timidly. They were childrens, though taller than a human child. she sighed in surrender. Giving asylum to aliens is always risky, but she couldn't abandon them.
"Fine, I'll take them with me. I'm doing this in good faith, so I don't want your ikor," the monk said.
"I won't need it anymore, but you will."
She stretched her arm towards them, but before she can react the star exploded. And everything went dark.
"Ancient One..." she heard in the distance, "Ancient One," they called back.
Finally opened her eyes. Two of her students had reunited his spirit with her body, but her ears were still whistling.
Looked of the children around her, and her heart was knotted up.
"Are you well Ancient One?". She turned to Mordo and took a moment to smile.
"I guess I overdid it," she said.
"Gave us a scare," Wong said, her other student.
"I apologize for that," She said, sitting up unperturbed.
"Are you Sure?" Mordo insisted.
"I am very sure."
She greeted her students and went out into the corridors with leisurely pace. Already in her room, she contemplated the ginkgo tree whose breaches overlooked the balcony. Her friend had given in to her, the only person in what confided once sometime, but had been centuries of that. She was not very good with botanical arts, but she was trying very hard. She had given him ordinary care, nothing of magic, to remind that life was a delicate balance and that she was only a simple human.
She opened her hand and looked at the crystals in her palm. She closed her eyes and sighed, remembering the promise she had not kept, one more. She also thought she should meet her friend soon, or with whoever had replace her, with her and with the rest of the Ancients. Because any chess board requires more than one piece.
...
April 2011 (nine years later).
A quarter moon peeked out of the purple sky. It was dark in the city of Chicago. The days were getting longer and hot, the temperatura was comfortable at that time of the day.
Not far from the Douglass Park, there a Catholic reform school, just in front of the church. A tan colored, old and low budget building designated for the leftovers of the foster care system. Half of the childrens had one their parents in prison. There were fourteen girls and seventeen boys under the care of six or seven nuns.
At the moment the corridors were empty, everyone was getting ready for bed. Nun Camille was stationed in the doorframe of the last of the rooms, where the children under eleven slept. When everyone had finished their prayers she turned off the light, closed he door and left. Her footsteps echoed down in the corridor farther and farther away.
He waited for everyone to fall asleep, which usually took ten or fifteen minutes. He counted in his head since he had no watch and there was no clock in the room either.
He was finally alone. He uncovered himself and sat on the bed, the floor was cold but he liked the tingling in his feet. Trying not made too much noise, he reached under the bed and pulled out the book he had tied with string. He walked to the west window and turned its lock. He bit his lips as the metal squeaked. He turned to see if he had woken anyone up. Nothing, all well.
He opened the window and sat on the edge with one leg dangling over the patio. He looked up to the sky in search of his companion and just then the clouds parted to let its blue light pass through, the moon seemed accompany gladly every night.
"Legends the world" was the title he had got at that time. Was Spanish but it was not a problem for him, he had passed though more countries than calendars. So he knew several languages, and now he was learning American English.
He slid his finger down the side until he found the page marker, a dry oak left, and he opened the book where he had been left. Then immersed himself in the stories of fierce Vikings and their archaic gods.
Thank you for reading this far.
