Vormir 2014 looked exactly like Kayla's dream and Hawkeye's memories. The three women materialized at the base of the mountain.
Carol's helmet flew off as she looked around, her fists already glowing and ready to fight if she needed to. "Eyes up. We need to stay undetected until after Nat's sacrifice."
Kayla looked up, her enhanced hearing detecting a scuffle several thousand feet above them, "They are here."
"Then we need to move. We don't want to change anything from this reality." Wanda hissed and signaled the other two to press against the side of the rocks. Her long coat got caught on a jagged edge and she struggled for a moment to release it. The movement from the Scarlet Witch distracted Captain Marvel and Kayla just long enough for them to miss Natasha lunge from the side of the cliff and fall, hitting the ground with a deafening crack.
Kayla turned around with wide eyes that instantly filled with tears. Even though she knew what was about to happen, she wasn't ready to be ten feet away from the scene of her friend's demise. Carol grabbed Kayla and held her in a tight hug, not to comfort the woman, but to keep her face away from the dead assassin before them.
"She died on impact," Wanda said sadly, finally able to draw her gaze from the corpse to look up at the mountain and see a massive stream of light shoot between the two towers, and Hawkeye disappeared from where he hung on the cliff. "Clint's gone. Now's the time Kayla."
Carol released her grip on the super-soldier. Kayla turned around quickly, ready to try her luck at saving her friend. She approached Natasha and looked into her open green eyes. Her lifeless green eyes. "I can't do this." Kayla turned away, hiding her mouth behind her hand as she hyperventilated.
"You have to try. It's why we came all this way." Carol said gently, with a sense of compassion that she didn't normally offer the emotional blonde.
Kayla forced herself to look back at Natasha and knelt beside her, wincing when she felt Nat's warm blood seep through her uniform at her knee. Kayla pressed her hand to Natasha's still chest and focused-
Suddenly she was back in the Soul Realm. It was the gala again, and she was back in her long blue dress. Her stilettos were once again submerged as she approached Natasha and Gamora at the round table where they chatted. When she approached, Gamora looked impressed and Natasha annoyed.
"I thought I told you not to do this." Natasha told Kayla cooly, clenching and unclenching her fist to stay calm. "Go home."
"I'm not leaving until I'm rid of this stone and I have you alive by my side," Kayla's confidence in her plan was fading, but she put on an act just the same. Something about the ballroom and the music and the dance floor and the memories made her fall back into the habit of pretending. She'd been so real for so long she forgot that she could become whoever she wanted to be.
Gamora smiled weakly at Natasha as the redhead's demeanor went from angry to worried, "Kayla... you don't understand. It was an everlasting exchange, I will spend eternity here. Even if you could bring me back, I won't leave Gamora here alone."
Kayla looked to the green woman who shook her head, tsking at Natasha's nobility, "Perhaps you are just another pawn in a bigger plan. The stone called her here. The stone knows what it's planning. It has a mind of its own."
"What do I need to do?" Kayla asked Gamora, and the green woman just smiled sadly, her long black and red hair falling over her leather jacket.
"Ask the Stonekeeper."
Kayla was pulled back to reality, and looked up at Wanda and Carol, then looked around expectantly. "The Stonekeeper. Gamora said to ask the Stonekeeper."
"Who the hell is the Stonekeeper? How do we find him?" Carol groaned, placing her hands on her hips before she was interrupted by a deep voice behind her.
"Carol- daughter of Joseph. Kayla- daughter of Matthew. Wanda- daughter of Django. You've come to a shrine for a treasure that's already been taken... But you seem to already know that."
Carol and Wanda turned to the wraith with their hands already glowing as Kayla looked up from where knelt slowly, recognizing the voice from her dream. She took in the creature before them as he came into the light, revealing his hideous face.
Flashes of memories flooded Kayla's mind of a time long long ago and a man she knew very well. The Valkeryie. The Tesseract. The Captain.
Kayla fell onto her ass and crawled away from Natasha, away from the monster before her. "You... you're-"
The Red Skull's eyes studied the stammering blonde a moment longer as he wafted toward them. His dark eyes focused on her stomach, seeming to get a read on the child within her. His own eyes widened as his jaw slacked into a wicked smile, "...And the daughter of Steven."
"We've come to get our friend back. And to return the Soul Stone. You're the Stonekeeper aren't you? How do we get it out of her?" Carol asked, taking a step toward Red Skull as his attention left the shivering woman on the ground to the more confident, glowing blonde before him.
"The Infinity Stones have rested out of my reach for almost eighty years and now I think the one I've guarded has taken mercy on me." He sneered, looking back to Kayla as her own hands began to glow orange. She didn't get up. She couldn't feel her legs. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.
But she saw into his soul, and she saw how dark and full of hatred it was. She saw the moment the Space Stone cast him out as the Stonekeeper. The world had thought him dead, just as they had with Steve. Apparently, both of Erskine's super-soldiers survived their fate.
"Easy." Wandra growled quietly as she twisted her hands, keeping her magic alive and ready, "The stone will not go to you. Not until we get Natasha back." Kayla looked at her with panicked eyes, realizing Wanda was prepared to make a deal.
"We can't give him the stone!" Kayla yelped, finally scrambling to her feet as her heart pounded loudly in her chest, "He can't have it. He's the father of Hydra. The vindictive Red Skull- Steve thought he'd killed him. He's the reason that Steve crashed into the ice."
"So Captain America is still alive? And has a child on the way no less...Perhaps the stone would barter a deal. A soul for a soul." Red Skull offered, spreading his ghostly red fingers toward the women. He met Kayla's eyes and saw the defiance in them. It was the same defiance that Captain Rogers had when he'd fought him so many years ago. "You want to be rid of the stone. It drives you mad."
"I seek to destroy the stone, not give it away." Kayla spat back, pulling her long blond hair over her shoulder, "I'll find another way. Or I'll go mad, but I'll never give the stone to you."
"Have it your way." The Red Skull threatened and began to retreat, "It will eat away your soul until you don't even recognize who you are. What will your precious Captain America think of you then?"
At his words, Kayla hung her head, her lip quivering as Carol's eyes stayed locked on Red Skull, Wanda turned to Kayla, trying to telepathically tell her friend that they'd find a way. They always found a way. "Wait-"
Red Skull smiled wickedly before he turned back to the woman, seeing her come to his deal like a moth to a flame. "Yes?"
"Do I have the power to bring someone's soul back from the dead?"
"I don't know, why don't you try it and find out." Red Skull replied evenly, waiting patiently to see the power of the stone he could never possess. His cloak moved in the wind as his taught face watched Kayla raise her hands over Natasha Romanoff's body, and pull with all her might, bringing the woman's soul into their world.
"Natasha?" Wanda gasped, seeing the apparition of her friend standing alongside her body. "Oh God, Nat-"
"Don't do this Kayla, it's a trap!" Natasha yelped, but Kayla's golden eyes were already focused on pulling Natasha's soul back into her body. Kayla grit her teeth and strained her fingers the way Wanda always did when she focused hard on her magic. She pulled Nat back down and blasted the body with everything in her, and the Soul Stone itself began to release its grip on Kayla from the strain.
Carol and Wanda were focused on Kayla as she put everything she had into resurrecting her friend, and Carol was lucky to glimpse to the right at the just the perfect moment to see the Stonekeeper approaching Kayla from the side. "Shit!" Carol blasted Red Skull, but he reached out and grabbed onto the essence of golden smoke that hung in the air around Kayla and yanked it to himself.
Kayla quickly changed the direction of her focus and turned on Schmidt, blasting him with everything she could muster. She didn't realize that Natasha had warned her, it was a trap, and she'd fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. As Kayla tried to blast Red Skull away, he began using the Soul Stone to pull the power from her, and after moment Kayla realized she wasn't hitting him, he was pulling her. "No." She murmured as she felt the power drain from her body into the wraith. She got a hold of whatever power she still possessed as Wanda and Carol began blasting at Schmidt. Kayla growled at the monster before her as they stood chest to chest, a battle of wills, "I'm stronger than you."
"I'll take care of that!" Red Skull snarled, and grabbed onto Kayla's neck, lifting her off the ground and breaking Wanda's focus, causing her blasts to stop. Schmidt turned to Carol and used his free hand to knock her soul right out of her body, causing her to float in the air a moment before realizing what had happened. Schmidt squeezed Kayla harder, sucking out all of her strength, "You think you're so powerful now, do you?" He dropped her to the ground, power radiated from the two of them. Kayla collapsed as she reached for her neck, choking as she tried desperately to get air back in her lungs. Breathing was harder than it had been in years. Her body wasn't working as well as it should. She looked down at herself and realized her uniform was baggy, and her body was slim.
He'd sucked the super soldier serum right out of her along with the Soul Stone.
Red Skull chuckled as, to Kayla's horror, the serum from her blood worked to correct the damage his original serum had done. She watched as skin formed around his red face and bony fingers, and he found himself standing on solid ground once again. Alive again. Able to leave Vorimir again.
"You... you knew I would come. If I hadn't taken the stone it would have been Steve-" Kayla gagged out, looking up at the man as he stepped on her stomach, pushing her and her child down.
"I didn't know. But the stone did. Go home to Captain America, and show him what the Red Skull can do." He laughed, pushing hard against Kayla and knocking her into the dirt. "Tell him he's next. But not until he watches me take away everything and everyone he loves."
Suddenly, Schmidt was electrocuted and stumbled a step before Wanda was able to grab him and discard him away. She looked to see who had taken him down and saw Natasha Romanoff, her legs shaking, but her body seemingly working. "Let's get out of here."
With the Red Skull gone, Carol's soul was sucked back into her body, and she grabbed at her torso nervously, as if she needed proof to believe she was back in one piece. "Did we give the Soul Stone to a Nazi maniac?"
"Yes." Kayla whimpered, "And- and I think he might have killed my baby." She shook and cried, holding her stomach as she struggled to breathe through the tears. "I can't feel her anymore. He said it was a little girl-"
"Shhh, Kayla, you don't know that. You- you don't have enhanced senses anymore, you don't feel things as strongly anymore without the serum, it's going to take a while for you to adjust. You don't know that she's gone." Natasha knelt beside Kayla and winced, her broken neck still fractured even after Kayla bringing back her soul. Wanda worked carefully to move the bones in Natasha's neck as she comforted Kayla, hoping the two would distract each other from the pain.
"We need to go. Now." Carol told the other three women, and synched up Natasha's GPS to bring her back to their new future. "And go." They all pressed the button at the same time, except Kayla, who stayed behind for a moment, staring off into the snowy void of Vorimir, where she saw the shadow of Johann Schmidt walking toward her. She hit her own GPS and was sent hurtling back home.