A/N: Chap 24 review responses are in my forums. I hope those that had it enjoyed their holiday weekend. For those that had to work for the various, five-day long Black Fridays, bless your souls and thank you for all the deals I still couldn't afford to take advantage of.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Breakfast In Xandar
The invitation arrived just as Taylor left her room the next morning.
Denarian Garthan Saal stood in his Nova Corps uniform, with the three-star chest plate casting a low glow on the floor, as Sif reviewed the slip of omni-plas he'd given her.
"I do not understand, Denarian. Why is this invitation for Lady Telos alone?"
"Nova Prime chose not to share that with me, Lady Telos," the man said. He sounded somewhat stiff compared to the previous day. "I do understand that the invitation was to join Nova Prime for breakfast. In the meantime, I have been authorized to assign some Corps members to assist you in purchasing a craft for your journey."
Sif glanced at Taylor, and in that moment the two women's thoughts were as one. The Xandarians knew who Taylor was before. In fact, it seemed naive to think they would not, given the absence of any other sentient beings with wings and their relationship with Ahl-Agulla.
Though her chest ached from the weight of guilt, Taylor kept her chin up. "I would be honored to join Nova Prime."
Just then Gna emerged from her chambers, armored and armored. "What is happening?"
Sif stared at Saal when she said over her shoulder: "Telos has received a solo invitation to break fast with Nova Prime."
Gna glanced at each of the others before falling into an easy, yet deceptively hard smile. "I see. Perhaps it is because Nova Prime noticed that Telos bears the ancestral sword of the royal family of Vanaheim-a clear sign that she has been adopted into the Royal Family of Asgard. She is a princess among our people."
For the first time since she saw him, Saal's demeanor cracked a little. "It is indeed an honor to have her here," he managed to say with a mostly straight face.
Gna drifted to Taylor and gently touched her ears. Taylor felt the subtle dissonance of a spell. "I hear," she said softly.
"As do I," Sif confirmed. "Enjoy your meal, Telos. If all goes well, we leave this afternoon for the next leg of our journey."
The Denarian bowed and motioned with his arm for Taylor to join him. She fell in beside him, and noticed as he quickly typed a command into the vambrace of his uniform. If she strained, she could hear voices at the end of the hall whispering to stand down.
They definitely knew.
The Denarian forced himself to make small talk. "I imagine over your centuries you have visited many worlds. How would you rank Xandar among your travels?"
Taylor couldn't help her bitter smile. "It is a beautiful world, Denarian, filled with beautiful people. Your Nova Prime spoke truly when she said it is worth defending."
They left the luxurious hotel that the Nova Corps provided for them, but not through the front entrance. Xandarians had their own news and infotainment industry, and the arrival of Asgardians after four centuries was a noteworthy event that led to journalists hanging around the main entrance.
Instead, they walked down through a subterranean garage to one of the many mass transit tubes that ran through the city. A private car waited for them. As they entered, she spotted what looked like the ammunition clip for a plasma rifle laying under one of the benches. The Nova Corpsmen who waited for her on the train must have evacuated so quickly one lost their energy clip when the Denarian warned them of her connection to Asgard's royal family.
What they likely planned as an arrest was changed at the very last minute.
She chose to ignore it as the car began moving quickly without any internal inertia. Both of them knew what was happening, regardless of the fiction Saal was obliged to maintain in the face of Taylor's implied diplomatic status, and so eventually they fell into an uneasy silence.
Despite all her study of the Nova Empire, there was much about Xandar Taylor didn't know about. The transit system was one of those things. Their vacuum tube car took them not to a public terminal, but instead to a low-ceiling, broad chamber with plain, blue-gray metal walls. Only a single door awaited them across ten meters of open, empty space.
When Saal led her out, she could see dozens of carefully hidden weapons placements all around the space. They were in a bunker of some kind. Still, she continued to follow as Saal opened the single door. They walked through a narrow, claustrophobic hall. Taylor tapped one of the walls and realized the did not weave between rooms, but that the walls of the chamber itself were twelve meters thick.
The inner door opened with a hiss; pressurized air pulled at her hair as Denarian Saal led her into another low-ceilinged, round room. It did not surprise her when the Denarian quickly slipped back out and the door closed behind him.
As she walked toward the center of the room, holograms appeared. They were faceless figures, all features blurred, save for a hologram in the middle. A hologram appeared of the long, orange and tusked face of the king of Ahl-Agulla.
He spoke in his native language, which was instantly translated to Xandarian, but Taylor didn't need the translation to understand him. She remembered his language clearly.
"The devils have come, we cannot defeat them," the king said. "We shall make them pay with our blood. All I ask of my allies is that the monster who killed my son be made to pay in kind!"
The hologram shimmered to show her fight with Augullux the Brave from the distance of an Agulla weapons nest. The directed microphone captured their words just as clearly as before. It was, she realized, the same hologram Odin played at her trial.
"It never occurred to us that Asgard, the heroes of our past, would be so crass to send the Butcher of Ahl-Agulla into our midst as an envoy." Irani Rael's high, distinctive voice was unmistakable, even if the hologram hid her features. "Ahl-Agulla had favored trade status with the Nova Empire, and a mutual defense treaty against the Kree Empire. It defied belief, and has made us question Asgard's values, when our biometric scans confirmed with 100% accuracy that you are Black Swan, Daughter of Thanos."
Taylor should have felt fear. Her heart should have been heavy with the guilt and the blood on her hands. Perhaps even some anger that she faced trial twice. And yet, that portion of her that could still feel Augullux's blood on her hands felt vindicated. It was right, and just, that Ahl-Agulla had allies fight for their memory.
She cleared her throat when the silence followed. They were at least going to give her permission to speak. What could she say? Oh. "Are you familiar with a being named Vers?"
The holograms did not move, and were likely muted, so she couldn't tell if the question had any impact until Rael answered. "We are familiar. Vers sought medical assistance from a Nova Corps outpost after fighting you. The most powerful being in the cosmos, and you almost killed her."
Though tempted to correct Rael's understanding of Vers power in scale to the cosmos, she instead shook her head. "Black Swan hurt her, but Vers won the fight. She killed Black Swan and left a remnant of her blinded and mewling on a beach near the edge of Kree space."
To illustrate, Taylor took her curls and lifted them, turning to expose the back of her neck. "She ripped out the Kree behavior modification chip that was controlling my thoughts and motivation. The microfibers suppressing my memories remained until I reached Asgard, but after Vers pulled the chip I at least regained my free will."
Turning, she let her hair drop. "Black Swan was a perverted lie. A slave and a tool to help Thanos continue his murdering. Asgard did not send me as an insult, but because they know I am not that monster."
A man spoke with a high-pitched, cultured voice. "According to Vers testimony, your skin is adamantine. How could even Thanos get such a delicate piece of technology into your mind?"
Despite herself, Taylor shuddered at the memory. "I'd just died-or close to it—when Thanos found me. Almost all the bones in my body were shattered, my internal organs liquified. My eyes were burned out of my head. Thanos showed me pictures of myself when he and the Black Order found me. I have no doubt they took advantage of an existing wound to insert their chip. My first and only memories for the first eight months of my life in this Universe was of waking up in Ebony Maw's lab, and Thanos calling me daughter. It wasn't until Mistress Eir, the master healer of Asgard, removed the last fibers of the implant that my memories were restored to me. That was when the last of Black Swan died."
Another of her judges spoke. "We have seen Vers destroy Kree destroyers and Accusers without hesitation, but she testified that she couldn't even puncture your skin. But you would have us believe that something could hurt you as bad as you describe?"
"Vers is not even close to the most powerful beings in the cosmos," Taylor said. "A celestial being from the birth of existence came to my world. It was a destroyer of stars and an eater of worlds. It came with false gifts and a false face, while its true form spanned multiple dimensions. I faced it with armor and protections so powerful I could have easily walked on the surface of a star. I bore a sword so powerful that it could make that star die instantly. I killed it, I think. I hope. But Scion was so powerful that even in his death throes he struck me hard enough to shatter the walls of creation. Odin himself told me that my quantum signature did not originate in this multiverse."
The holograms when perfectly still, likely muted as her judges spoke. Taylor remained still, her mind recalling with its perfect clarity those parts of Xandarian law she'd read. Another tract of her mind, though, began recalling the details of the Kree delegation that begged for Thanos aid against Vers. Though she wasn't there, she knew from both the Kree's implications and Augullux accusation that Thanos had worked with the Kree before.
"Nova Prime, may I ask you and your people a question?"
Though the hologram didn't move, Irani Rael answered. "You may."
"Is the Nova Empire aware that Thanos is in league with the Kree Empire?"
The hologram shifted, and suddenly Irani's vague image was replaced with live, life-like detail. "What?"
"A Kree delegation came to Thanos to beg his help in destroying Vers," Taylor said. "Among them was an accuser named Ronan, and a Starforce Commander named Yon Rogg. They implied very heavily that Thanos had assisted them before. Thanos' entire purpose is to kill half of all life in the Universe. It is a religion to him. And yet Ahl-Agulla had only 60 million citizens. I've studied them. They had their population tightly controlled and were the model of everything Thanos supposedly believed in. So why did he attack them? Why did he have his most powerful slave kill their champion and slaughter their king?"
A look of horror slowly came over Nova Prime's face. "Why would Thanos assist the Kree?"
"Because you are good people," Taylor said. "You believe in the rule of law, but balance it against the needs of your people. You are generous, kind and brave. You are an empire of heroes, and there will be a time when your principles require you to oppose Thanos directly. And so he will use the Kree to destroy you, and when they are weakened from the war, he will destroy them, and then he will move on to the next world to depopulate. You're all just tools to him."
Abruptly all of the holograms disappeared. Taylor felt the air pressure change as a door hidden behind the long hemisphere of raised desks opened. She waited for the Nova Prime to step out into the open, but froze when someone else emerged.
All her calm and the sense of peace she'd managed to maintain through the unexpected trial shattered when she saw the petite blond female in a blue, red and gold Kree Starforce uniform. Vers limped a little as she approached.
"You know, you shattered my ankle into forty pieces," the shorter woman said casually. "And just my luck, my power makes external bone-knitters not work well."
Taylor's eyes actually stung. Despite her best efforts at control, tears began to well. "Thank you."
"It's what heroes do," Vers said with a shrug.
That wasn't enough. It was not enough for all the horror of her enslavement and the crushing weight of the guilt and blood on her hands. Taylor rushed forward, ignoring the burst of photon light from Vers, and tackled the woman in a sobbing hug. "Thank you! Thank you!"
As embarrassing as it was, she just couldn't stop. In fact, it actually got worse when Vers hugged her back. "I wasn't even me," she gasped into the shorter woman's shoulder. "I couldn't stop because it wasn't even me. And now I have all these horrible memories-all this blood on my hands. But it wasn't me!"
Vers said nothing. She just let the crying fit pass. When it did, Taylor stepped back and fought against a sense of embarrassment.
"I'm sorry," she said, wiping her nose. "I haven't cried like that in years. Not even when Odin showed me what happened to me, and Eir removed the last of the implant fibers so I could remember who I was. I...I mean, they're Asgardians. Gna's like three hundred years old and calls herself a child. I'm sixteen. So, you know, no weakness…"
One blonde brow rose. "Sixteen?"
"Scion was eating my world. I didn't have time to grow up."
"Come on, kid. I'm hungry. Let's get breakfast."
"They're not going to throw me in jail?"
Vers laughed. "How long would it take you to break out of this room?"
"I can make portals now. About a second."
"Exactly. They got what they needed. Me too, for that matter. So, let's go eat."
~~Titanomachy~~
~~Titanomachy~~
The astonishing thing about the capital city of a vast interstellar Empire was that the extraordinary no longer seemed so unusual. Sitting in an outdoor cafe, under an awning for shade from the three suns above, no one looked twice at a woman in a different colored Kree Starforce uniform, or an Asgardian with wings.
"This is the closest thing to French toast I've seen in the hundred and fifty worlds I've been to," Vers said as she ate.
Speaking English, the casual reference to an earth food was done so easily that it took a moment for Taylor to realize what it meant. "You are from Earth!"
"No, I'm from Louisiana," Vers said with a smirk. "It's like earth, only more humid and with better food."
She pulled down the seal of her uniform enough to remove a small necklace. "My name is Carol Danvers. After I got zapped with Tesseract juice from an experimental light-speed engine, my dog tags were damaged. Yon Rogg saw the last half of my last name, and so I became Vers."
"And they gave you a transfusion of Kree blood that saved you from the tesseract energy that would have burned you up otherwise," Taylor guessed, remembering the woman's Kree blood during their fight.
One brow rose. "Probably, yeah. And you? Now that you have memories back?"
"I'm from another version of earth. New Hampshire. My birth name was Taylor Hebert." She took a bite of the sweetened protein-crust baked grain that really did taste like French Bread.
"Girls on your earth all have wings?"
Taylor snorted. "Do girls in Louisiana have blue blood?"
Danvers laughed. "Some do, though maybe not the way you think. All the little rich girls in Slidell thought they had blue blood." She finished her meal before pushing the plate back and looking around the brightly lit commercial district.
"The Skrulls have a little bit of a spy network going. It's pretty much their only strength right now. Word on the street is that Thanos has placed a one million unit reward for your capture and return."
"Is that a lot?"
"You could buy a brand-new Accuser warship and missile suite for that much. It's a lot. Those wings give away a lot."
Taylor suddenly understood one of her rings. "I can disguise myself once we leave."
Danvers nodded. "So, how was Fury when you last saw him?"
More clues began falling into place. "He looked tired but determined," Taylor said. "Loki of Asgard used the Tesseract to open a portal in a human city called Houston. He managed to get sixty thousand Chitauri on the ground before I flew a nuke into the Chitauri hive ship. At the time I didn't think of it, but with my memories restored I realize what a shock this will be to Earth. I'm not sure how they're doing."
"From what my people tell me? The invasion sent a seismic shockwave around the world," Danvers said. "It's also what made me give you the benefit of the doubt. You may very well have saved the Earth."
"Again."
Carol snorted. "Right. Not sure it's something we want to keep track of."
"How many times have you saved Earth?"
"Oh, just the once."
Taylor nodded. "I could see why you wouldn't want to keep score, then."
"Watch it, buster!" Danvers wagged a finger. "You're not so old I can't put you over my knee and spank you."
"The wings would make it awkward. You're very short."
Danvers rolled her eyes, even as she laughed. "Now I know you're not evil. Bad guys are too pompous to make such god-awful jokes."
"It's true. I just don't see Thanos making dad jokes."
Carol waved the vambrace of her uniform over a scanner in the table to pay for their meal and then stood. She offered her hand, and Taylor accepted it gratefully.
"It was an honor to get to meet you, Carol Danvers," Taylor said.
"Same here, Taylor Hebert. I have a feeling we'll see each other again."
"I hope so."
The people of Xandar saw many things-a woman bursting into light and shooting into the air was not one of them. While citizens pointed and stared in amazement, Taylor found herself smiling into the sky at her fellow Earth exile.
She considered launching into the air herself, but though Buri taught her to fly again, she could only fly as fast as a very large bird. The space port was over a hundred kilometers away, and there was a nearby vac tube car that could get her there in six minutes.
Instead, passing between columns that obscured her from the many eyes around her, she rubbed her thumb against the obsidian ring she wore on her left middle finger and cast the illusion spell. The woman who appeared after the columns looked like the mortal Taylor Hebert-no symbols, no wings. She wore the loose, comfortable clothing that was the style around them. A bright green blouse and flowing white slacks.
The illusion she cast was not one that had to be maintained; which also meant she had to consciously remove it when she arrived at the spaceport. The two Nova corpsmen waiting just inside the door stiffened to attention when she entered the bright, cavernous travel hub.
"Gentlemen," she said with a nod.
She did not blame them for their caution. It was doubtful they knew the details of Taylor's short "trial". Only that she was the Butcher of Ahl-Agulla but for unknown reasons was allowed to go free. Though they made no move to stop her, they did fall in behind as an escort. That rankled at first, until she remembered Carol's warning about the bounty.
The escort saddened her in a way, because she would very much have loved to tour the spaceport. It was filled with shops and aliens and odd smells. Holograms displayed various products in the open air above, while various peoples united or parted all around. She knew, however, that she would never truly be welcome here. Even if Nova Prima acknowledged her innocence, the fact was that her face and her wings were indelibily tied to a genocide of the Nova Empire's allies.
She found Sif and Gna on a private tarmac away from the main star cruiser landing cradles. Unlike the football-field sized carriers that took civilians to their various destinations around the empire, this tarmac was lined with smaller private vessels. One in particular sat in the middle of the tarmac waiting. It was painted a shining blue and silver color, with swept-back wings and a hawk-like prow that held the cockpit.
As ships went it was not very large, but it would do for their purpose. Sif walked down a narrow boarding ramp that opened underneath the cockpit. "Lady Telos," she said with a nod and a glance back at the two Corpsmen following. "Is all well?"
"Yes, Lady Sif," Taylor said. "I had the honor of meeting someone who did me a great favor. We shared breakfast."
Sif seemed to understand. "Very good. We took the liberty of stowing your gear. Gentlemen, please extend Asgard's thanks to Nova Prime."
The corpsmen nodded sharply but left without a word.
Gna waited at the top of the ramp, her spear held at the ready. "All is well?" she asked.
"All is well," Taylor assured her friend. "They did take me to face Black Swan's crimes. The trial had a similar outcome to my trial at Asgard."
Sif walked up the ramp behind them. "You handled yourself well, Telos. But child...it is not weakness to share pain. We will not judge you."
Taylor's cheeks reddened. "The spell? You heard?"
"I needed to ensure you were not endangered, otherwise I would not have listened. This Vers seems to be an honorable warrior."
Taylor shrugged. "She had me beaten. She could fly and control inertia, and that made the difference. But instead of killing me, she freed me. I'll always owe her a debt for that."
Rather than say anything else, Sif just gripped her shoulder in silent camaraderie.
Gna grinned. "Come! They gave us a fine toy to play with. Shall I fly?"
Sif rolled her eyes. "Do I need to remind you of the last time you tried flying?"
"That tower was not there when I looked before! It was a trick, I'm sure of it."
Taylor couldn't help but laugh. "I need to hear this, I think."
"No!" Gna said quickly. "It's fine. Sif can fly, we don't need to talk about it."
Sif stepped past them into the narrow cockpit. "It is important that our young companion learn the dangers of flying," she told them sanctimoniously. "Or in your case, flying into stone towers."
