Oddness
When Kate woke, she didn't hurt, a fact for which she was devoutly grateful. In fact, she felt good. Better than she had in quite awhile, actually. Before A-Day. Before seeing the Helicarrier go down with Cap aboard it. Before AIM. Before all of the running and fighting. She basked in the feelings for a long moment before her mind caught up with her body and she tried to open her eyes.
"None of that. No struggling or you will hurt yourself again." A familiar hand on her brow had Kate trying to tense, but a feeling of softness, of calm wept through her and she relaxed. "I am reasonably sure you are not a spy now, but we better take this slow, since I am not sure about anything else about you. What is your name? You may call me Lotus."
Kate thought for a long moment and then her mouth opened. "Kate Bishop."
Kate jerked. She hadn't meant to speak! Was she being interrogated?
"No, no." The other was so gentle, so kind. "It is all right. You have been treated for injuries that were fairly bad. Such rapid healing takes its toll. Your body is in flux at the moment. Your mind likewise. I could interrogate you, but that would likely do permanent harm. Something I am loathe to do unless there is pressing need. You answered because I am being nice and not for any nefarious reason."
"Are you reading my mind?" Kate asked, worry trying to rise, but being submerged by the bliss that was coming from the hand on her brow.
"Not intentionally." If the other was trying to reassure her, it didn't work very well. "The bed you are lying in is a medical design, set to read your vital signs and transmit information to a medical professional. I am not, by any stretch, a medical professional, but I do know how to read the information." A sigh came form the other as Kate tried to fight past the bliss and failed again. "I am messing this up. Calm, girl. Be calm. It is all right. You are not a prisoner and I will prove it."
Kate felt the bed under her incline a bit, easing her into a sitting position. Then the hand was on her face, shifting something off her eyes? She didn't want to open her eyes, but soft light seeped past the closed eyelids and they clicked open in autonomic reflex. What met them was oddness. The woman who sat beside her bed was wrong in some way. Kate stared at the blue armor the woman wore and could not pull to mind why it was wrong. The helmet the woman wore covered her head all the way down to her face, but that wasn't the oddness. The blue light that shone where the forehead would be on a human and the almost tendrils that came off the woman's helmet…
Why was she frowning?
"What do you see?" The woman asked slowly. "From how you are reacting and how you are not reacting, you are not seeing what you are supposed to."
"I don't know." Kate said weakly, confused by all this.
"It is all right." The woman reassured her. "You are still hurt. You slammed into the water very hard and bruised a lot of yourself. You had a concussion among other things." The woman smiled and then, she wavered. Suddenly, she was a dark haired woman wearing a blue dress. Still off, but less so. "There. Better?"
"Less confusing." Kate admitted.
"Well, that is good. Right?" The woman smiled. No, that was a grin! A grin that Kate felt her own lips start to emulate.
"I guess." Kate admitted. "This doesn't make any sense."
"I know." The woman shook her head and sat back. "You are a mess, Kate Bishop. Thankfully, not beyond my paltry skill at healing, but still a mess. The major damage has been fixed, but there was a lot of bruising. To fully recover, you will be in that bed for at least another day so get used to it. As I said, you may call me Lotus. I am not sure how well you were tracking when you woke, but you seem more lucid now. The pain is gone, yes?"
"Yes." Kate heaved a sigh. "Getting hurt seems to be part and parcel to life."
"More for some than for others, but true." The woman shrugged. "Life seems to be nothing but pain occasionally. So, we do what we can, no?"
"I guess. How did I get here?" Kate asked. "The last thing I remember…" She paused as she recalled the scene in Doctor Doom's throne room. "...doesn't make any sense."
"Well, as to how you got in the bed? I put you there after I fished you out of the water you fell into." The Lotus nodded when Kate stared at her. "But that is not what you meant. I have no idea how you got into the lake that serves as this sanctuary's water source in the first place. There is no way you fell into it conventionally because it is underground."
"I don't know." Kate admitted, fear rising again, only for her fear to submerge in gentleness that felt suddenly golden.
"No!" The Lotus snapped and the gold faded. "Heal only!" Kate felt fear rise, but other was quick to reassure her. "It is all right. It is nothing you did, Kate Bishop. That bed has a mind of its own, literally."
"An AI?" Kate asked and the Lotus looked at her oddly. "Is that bad?"
"It is complicated." The Lotus replied, her eyes searching Kate's. "You don't…" She paused, clearly rethinking what she was going to say and then she spoke again. "Oh, this is very strange. I think I better explain. Fully. Then I can ask you some questions. I will not be rough, but several lives depend on me now."
"Saving lives is what people like me are supposed to do." Kate said softly and the Lotus stared at her. "Will you take my word that I will try not to cause harm?"
"That will suffice, for now." The Lotus allowed.
"Then as an Avenger, you have my word." Kate paused as the Lotus all but gawped at her. "What?"
"What is an Avenger?" The Lotus inquired, more than a little worried now. "What are you avenging?"
"Um… I uh…" Kate stammered, completely undone by this utter lack of recognition. "You don't know who the Avengers are?"
"No. And you are not worried about AI." Lotus seemed just as baffled by this.
"They can be good or bad, just like organic people." Kate said firmly and now, the Lotus seemed stunned. "I have known ones I trusted and ones who tried to kill me. So yeah. I am not worried about AI as much as how I got here and where here is."
"Okay." The Lotus managed after a moment. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, in the things I remember that make no sense, someone said I was becoming unstuck from my reality." Kate said slowly and the Lotus stared at her. "So, unless you are lying about not knowing who the Avengers are, which I guess is possible." She shook her head and it spun, so she stopped. "But you don't seem to be lying and I have seen some very good liars…" She made a face. "If you don't know, then I am in deep doodoo."
"Was this 'unsticking' something you planned?" The Lotus asked slowly.
"No." Kate said softly. "I used tech I really had no idea how to. What was involved or why. It worked. That was good enough for me although the background physics are fascinating."
"Physics can be." The Lotus allowed and then shook her head. "Okay. We need to talk. Really, truly talk. No one can hear us in here. I made this sanctuary to be utterly undetectable." Kate looked unsure and the Lotus scoffed. "If anyone had known where it was, it would have been destroyed long before the War ended."
"War." Kate repeated softly. "I have dropped into a war?"
"No." The Lotus reassured her. "The Old War is long over, but it devastated everything and I don't know if humanity will survive."
"Sometimes I wonder if it should." Kate said with feeling. "So much bad and no matter how we try, it just seems to get worse. Organic, synthetic, human, alien… It is all the same. Endless conflicts."
"I know that feeling." The Lotus reached out her hand and took Kate's limp one in in gentle grip. "Well, you have a lot of healing still to do and I have as many questions as you apparently do. So, let's talk."
"Let's." Kate smiled and wrapped her hand around the Lotus'.
Eight hours later
"So, Captain America didn't actually die?" The Lotus asked as Kate dabbed tears from her eyes. She had just finished discussing A-Day and its aftermath. The horrors that the Lotus had stated, the millennia long war between an evil race of golden slavemasters and their rebellious creations had been just as bad.
"We are still kind of fuzzy on the details, but apparently not." Kate used the soft cloth the Lotus had provided to wipe her face again. It cleaned itself as soon as she set it down. The Lotus had shown her true form again and Kate had accepted it. The armored form was a bit creepy, but hey, who was Kate to judge? "The team… Without Cap, it just fell apart. We all broke up and AIM took over."
"And this Advanced Idea Mechanics organization is whose tech you stole and used to teleport." The Lotus mused and Kate nodded.
"They have an idea for 'the perfect world' and of course any who dare to get in their way get stepped on, hard." Kate couldn't quite keep the hate form her tone.
"How very Orokin of them." The Lotus seemed to feel exactly the same way about people demanding she think one particular way. Odd that a former Sentient would act that way, but Kate didn't have all of the information and was pretty sure she didn't want more. "But you didn't teleport here. There is no way. This place is shielded from such."
"Maybe I hit the shield and bounced?" Kate hypothesized. "Would that have bruised me?"
"No, such an impact would have turned you to ash." The Lotus replied. "I don't know how or why you came here, but this is a good place for you to heal. I don't know much about alternate realities. The math exists of course and your presence here is not a delusion of mine or yours."
"That is not proven." Kate said quickly and cringed comically as the Lotus mock-glared at her. Funny how stern her glare could be even not seeing her eyes. "I mean, it could be."
"We have been talking for almost nine hours. Let's not start an existential debate on top of that." The Lotus heaved an all too human sigh. "As far as I can tell, and I have been searching the datastreams as best I can from here, this is real. I am real. So, since you are physically here and now…" She trailed off as Kate made a noise of agreement.
"Then I am real too." Kate mimicked the Lotus' sigh. "I will cause you problems, I bet."
"Probably." The Lotus agreed. "But I have done too much, seen too much to simply stand by and let horrors happen if I can do anything about it. I may not be human but I do not want humanity to vanish."
"Because then, what will your children do?" Kate asked and the Lotus nodded. "I have seen things like that happen and it never ends well. Such power as these Tenno wield has to be directed in some way or curtailed in some way or things will get bad."
"Power corrupts." The Lotus agreed. "And absolute power corrupts absolutely." Kate nodded. "My own power is limited for many reasons." She gave herself a shake. "How do you feel?"
"Better." Kate allowed, raising a hand and looking at it. Where as when she had woken, it had been purplish with bruises from fingers to elbow, now, her skin was a healthy pink. "If I am an extra-reality intrusion, then I may bring danger to your sanctuary. I don't want that. I should leave as soon as I can."
"You will be able to walk fairly quickly." The Lotus said as Kate tested all of her extremities and nothing as much as hurt. A faint ache was fading. "I eased the pain blockers as we talked. Any discomfort now?"
"Only an ache that is fading as we speak." Kate smiled. "Thank you. I feel a lot better."
"Physically, anyway." The Lotus made a face that Kate shared. "Outside of this sanctuary it is all still chaos. Humans adapt to almost any environment and there will be pockets of humanity left, even without the tech that so many took for granted." Kate looked away and the Lotus growled. "I didn't have a choice! They were enslaving my children!"
"I wasn't there." Kate said quietly. "I may be young, but I have seen far too much of what happens when people rush to judgment. I have feelings and they are conflicted right now. Fighting is something I am good at, but that doesn't mean I have to like the aftermath."
"Tales of adventure or glory in war rarely, if ever, speak of the messes left behind." The Lotus wasn't looking at Kate, she was seeing something only she could. "The broken lives and souls who have to try and clean up what they can. If they can." Then she jerked. "What the-?"
"Lotus?" Kate inquired as the blue armored woman morphed back into more human seeming.
"Someone just threw a rock into the entrance of the cave that leads to this sanctuary." The Lotus said slowly. Then she jerked and was that fear on her visible face? "No! Not now!"
"Lotus?" Kate was stunned as the Lotus rose from where she had been sitting for almost nine hours and ran from the room! Kate was bare moments after her, barely realizing that she wore a golden gown of some kind that seemed fit for a hospital and nothing more.
The small facility seemed hushed. It was easy to see the direction the Lotus had gone, human forms cowering by the walls. Kate ignored those to follow the sound of running feet in front of her She had no weapons, no gear and it didn't matter. She was an Avenger and lives were at stake. She waved to the humans who gawked at her, motioning them to get back as she followed the Lotus. She came to a sudden stop at a rack on one wall. A weapon's rack, it held several weapons of various kinds and other empty spaces that had clearly recently held weapons. But it was the golden bow that hung on the far right that drew her eyes. It was oblong, oddly shaped and curved almost in shields on limbs both top and bottom, but just looking at it, it was powerful!
Kate's attention as pulled from the beauty in front of her as a voice sounded form ahead, but the words were unclear. What came next was quite clear.
"GET OUT!" The Lotus' voice wasn't quite a scream. "You are not welcome here!"
Kate reached out to the bow, but it wasn't hers! If the Lotus was half of the planner she seemed then taking the weapon and the arrows that Kate saw underneath it would likely trigger alarms. Something exploded nearby and Kate was in motion before her mind caught up with the fact that the bow had no string. Somehow, picking up the bow had the quiver teleport to her back and she was in motion again even as screams came from ahead. Humans screams.
"LEAVE THEM ALONE!" This time, the Lotus did scream and then there was thunderous detonation.
Kate ran into a larger room that was filled to capacity. Six humans lay around the room. Stunned or worse? Some were clutching weapons that looked far less refined than her bow. The little boy holding the pistol in a deathgrip tugged at Kate's heartstrings, but all that paled with one glance at the furious forms on the other side of the room.
The Lotus was in human seeming, her gown billowed out behind her as she hefted two long, straight swords in a grip that looked negligent but wasn't. Kate was a fencer herself. Just looking at the furious blue gowned lady's grip on her swords, Kate could tell that she never wanted to fight this being hand to hand. Kate didn't have a chance against her.
But what she was facing was horror made into humanoid forms. These had to be warframes like the Lotus had described, but far prettier than Kate had imagined from the Lotus's stark descriptions.
Four golden meal forms stood just inside the entrance. All of them were focused on the Lotus, which was smart of them. In form, they seemed vaguely human. Enough to seem male and female, anyway. Each had two legs, two arms and a head. But these were clearly made of metal and each hefted different weapons. The largest male form held a massive two handed sword that Thor or Hercules might have been able to fight with. No one else in Kate's experience would have been able to easily. One of the female forms held a three bladed saw in one hand and a small pistol in the other. The other two held rifle like weapons aimed at the Lotus. They looked oddly skeletal, almost ornate, but clearly functional as well.
"You are not welcome here, Tenno." The Lotus was calmer, but only just as she took a long, slow step forward. Looking at her was like watching one of Clint's samurai movies! She was willing, ready to die if needed to win! "Leave."
You will come with us. That voice was not aloud. Kate had heard telepathy before, but this wasn't that.
"I don't think she wants to." Kate said mildly as she stepped into the scene, aware that her ridiculous gown was flapping, but ignored that to bring the bow up. Se was only slightly surprised when a string of energy formed under her fingers as she drew an arrow form her quiver and nocked it. "Funny how I thought it was customary to ask invitation to enter private dwellings. Barging in was rude."
"This isn't your fight, Kate." The Lotus snapped, her swords not moving at all.
"I beg to differ." Kate drew back, took careful aim and waited. There was no strain on her arms! She could hold this aim all day. She could learn to like this!
Then the warframes moved and it was all fire and fury.