Chapter 2
Angel clutched nervously onto Dr Amsel's arm as the pair flowed through groups of chatting, laughing, drinking guests at the museum's gala.
Dr Amsel, as it turned out, was a well-known and respected person who everyone was desperate to speak to. As he spoke to many guests about things that were beyond Angel's understanding, the girl stood awkwardly behind him and fidgeted anxiously.
She found it hard to talk to people, if one word was spoken to her ears she would either, reply awkwardly or just freeze with shock. Angel gazed around the golden hall with apprehension. She wished to be back in her room full of comfort and books, where her and her imagination could run away together. Here she was being eaten by meekness.
Angel quickly muttered where she was going in her Father's ear and made a temporary escape to the ladies room.
Luckily it was empty and Angel was once at peace with her troubled thoughts, the shadow of her dream had invaded her thoughts all day, yet she tried to do as her Father said and not ponder on it too much.
At least she felt calm enough to think. For the first time in a while, Angel took a good look at her reflection in the shiny mirror opposite her. She had some make-up on, making her look elegant and almost refined. Her long hair, which reached down to the bottom of her spine like a waterfall, was curled into bouncy ringlets, embedded in her shiny locks was a silver bejewelled hair pin in the shape of a crescent moon. The pretty dress she was found in looked like something out of a fairy story. It was a bronze- gold, with swirly silver embroidery, cut off on the shoulder.
Angel soon became less anxious, but still terribly nervous about going back to the party, but her Father wanted her here and she wanted to make him happy, even if it caused her discomfort.
The girl crept out of the restroom, just in time to find that people were gathering around Dr Amsel, who was stood near a microphone and already talking.
Angel lifted her layers of skirt and nimbly shuffled into the midsts of the huddled guests. Dr Amsel still spotted her and chastised her with a smile and a wink. Angel listened to her Father detailed vocabulary which, in her slight childlike mind, was rather difficult to understand, but a wide smile rested on her lips at listening to Father's cleverness. She wished she was as wise.
A blur of black and green, even a small hint of blue, appeared and vanished in the corner of the girl's eyes. In confusion, Angel turned to where the blur was, only to see an empty balcony. She tried to shake it off, yet her heart was refusing to keep quiet, almost as if it was warning her. She began to burn under a strange invisible pressure that made her feel like she was suffocating.
Angel was so deep inside herself that she was trembling with shock when a man was suddenly knocked to the ground with a loud wack. The crowd stifled a turned in fear at the intruder who caused this disruption. Angel grew stiff as terror electrocuted her small frame. Her nightmare was true... he had found her... but how? He wasn't real, surely?
Angel thoughts were soon proved terribly wrong.
The shadow from her dreams stalked over to her Father, grabbed the older man roughly by the scruff of his neck. Angel shot forward in horror, screaming for her Father, but as arms held her back she could do nothing, not even her desperate screams could stop the raven haired intruder from dragging her Father to the middle of the room, flipping him violently over the marble table, landing on his back with an echoing smack.
Angel's screams were ripped ferociously from her throat as she struggled to pull free from the stranger's arms that were tackling her to the ground.
The intruder proceeded to take a strange device out of his blazer pocket that quickly glowed blue and began to spin. The man mercilessly stabbed the device into the old man's eye socket.
"NOOO!" Her only hope and shelter was destroyed. Tears streamed down the poor girl's white face, denying that her Father had just been slaughtered by a figment of her insanity.
Screaming guests ran for their lives and Angel was abandoned on the floor as violent heart-wrenching sobs shook her like an earthquake. In the midst of all the chaos, a pale hand held her wrist tight and lifted her onto her feet.
Angel's shattered mind was brought back into the present when icy fingertips lingered on her face. Angel's eyes grew wide with horror.
"Why do you weep? Are you not pleased for us to be reunited once more?" Said the green-eyed murderer with a mocking smirk, looking pleased to have ruined the life of an already-broken girl.
Angel made a desperate dash to escape but the killer's grip on her wrist held her in place and soon dragged her behind him in the direction of the fleeing guests. Angel struggled under the murderer's grip, she didn't care if she broke her arm, but all her efforts were useless. The man's attire started to glow and transform into foreign armour, on his head glowed a tall horned helmet, so sharp that Angel thought she would get cut by just looking at it. In the man's hand, a deadly looking staff appeared, embedded with an alien blue crystal.
The Armoured man was unfazed by Angel's weak attempt of clawing free and continued to stroll calmly through the chaos. A police siren drew nearer and nearer the warrior and his captive, without a moment's hesitation, the warrior raised his golden staff, causing a blue laser-light to blast through the air and flipping the car over and landing with a crash behind them.
"Kneel before me." A voice echoed. Clones of the Warrior appeared suddenly, blocking people's way of escape. More chaos!
"I said. KNEEEL!"
The crowd fearfully obeyed and sunk down cowardly. Still holding her by the wrist painfully, the warrior yanked Angel forward to look at him. "They kneel for you, my queen. Just as I always promised."
What? For her? Before Angel could comprehend what he said, the warrior let go of her sore wrist and stepped through the kneeling crowd with dark confidence.
"Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation."
Angel took this opportunity to turn and creep away, but not even a step was taken before Angel came face to face with an exact copy of the warrior, stopping her in her tracks.
"The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power. For identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."
"Not to men like you." The defiant voice came from an old German gentleman, standing alone.
"There are no men like me."
"There are always men like you."
"Look towards your elder people. Let him be an example." The warrior raised his golden staff and shot a blue burning laser at the defenceless man, but in the blink of an eye, a mash of blue, red and white fell from the sky, deflecting the laser back to knock the warrior to the ground.
"You know the last time I was in Germany, and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing." Said an oddly dressed man who now stood there proudly, holding a circular shield.
"The soldier!" The warrior stated, slowly standing back up."The man out of time."
"I'm not the one who's out of time."
"LOKI. DROP THE WEAPON AND STAND DOWN." A voice boomed from the sky as a strange aircraft mysteriously appeared. Instead of doing what the voice asked however, the warrior for a third time blasted a blue laser at the aircraft that narrowly avoided it.
Chaos seemed to erupt once more. The fearsome clones vanished, allowing the terrified citizens to flee. Angel followed suit and sprinted away.
The girl's shoes let go of her feet and her neat hair was tousled in the wind as she sped back to the tragic scene that soon lay before her.
Angel's praying, hoping and wishing was now meaningless. The once alive man now lay still on the cold marble slab; the right side of his face was gushing red with blood as it oozed out of the twisted mangled flesh of his eye socket and dripped onto the marble.
Angel was near gagging at the gruesome sight. Grief filled her despairing heart as her shaking hands clutched onto her Father's jacket in denial. Her never ending tears splashed onto the still body.
"Wake up." She whispered, shaking the man gently. "Please!" Her desperate cry echoed. All her comfort and shelter was gone. Nothing could bring it back.
"Don't leave me alone."
A light touch on the sobbing girl's shoulder pulled her from her isolated grief.
"It's ok. No one is going to hurt you." An expressionless red-haired woman now stood before Angel. Serious and firm.
"I'm afraid you are going to have to come with us."
"What have I done?" Angel panicked through her tears.
"Nothing Miss Amsel. We just need to take a few questions." The woman reassured.
Angel turned back to her Father, hyperventilating violently as tears continued to stream down her face.
"We'll take care of the body." The woman said as she draped a thin blanket over the girl's shaking shoulders. Angel let herself be pulled away, after she whispered a quite goodbye and planted one last kiss onto her Father's clean cheek.
Only a few moments ago was she smiling with her Father, now she was alone in the world, being lead by strangers into an aircraft and seated opposite the figment of her mind that caused all this to happen, ruined all she had.
Nothing would be the same...
Disclaimer- I do not own Marvel.