Thanks for the review TheOnyxDragon12! J
DISCLAIMER: I own only my OC's Emmaline, Flame, Ore, Abby, Ali, & Jacob, the idea, & any poetry- NOTHING else, not even Ultimate Spider-Man or the quote(s).
Chapter 15: The Chain
"I postpone death
By living
By suffering
By error
By risking
By giving
By losing."
-Anais Nim
Flame's POV
I have a plan. That girl will die, but she will pay with more than her life. She abandoned me to my fate, and she deserves worse than death's final kiss. She has felt the warm embrace of life, and she is living life to its fullest, unafraid of the end. She believes life is a circle. Any circle can be cut. I will bind her with her own chains.
That girl has made her own family, and left those of her own blood to their fate. Now she will meet her fate.
There are many ways to die, but I have to find the worst. There are many kinds of pain, but I have to find the strongest. There are many types of friends, but I have to find the best.
I am going to find a painful, slow way of death. She doesn't deserve to go quickly, but to have the suffering long, drawn out. This was the trouble with Deadpool; he didn't hate her the way I do- the sole reason he had to kill her was money, and money isn't everything.
I slip my dagger into my belt. It is of Ore's finest workmanship, a birthday present. The blade is keen and sharp. I won't use it; this dagger is too good for her scum- it cuts cleanly, and clean cuts are the easiest to heal, the easiest to bear. If I want her to truly suffer in her final moments, then this isn't my weapon. Rather, this dagger is for my self-defense against whatever thilth dares to approach me.
Her friends must suffer too. They will have shorter deaths than she, lest she miss their final moments and find comfort in the fantasy that they may have lived. For merely befriending her, they deserve to pay with their lives. I have no mercy, and will show none to my enemies. The only people who are not my enemies are my friends, and few are friend to me.
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Emma's POV
I don't open my eyes, letting their words wash over me. I know that I'm in the infirmary, but I don't want to have to face my friends. This is turning into a living nightmare. All I want is to forget my brothers and sisters of that past life and move on- just to enjoy the life I've found hear amongst these friends. More than I want to live, though, I want my friends to be able to enjoy life, and live. If that means leaving home again, then that's what I will do.
Most of the voices gradually stop talking, fading into the distance. Eventually, the only voices I can hear are those of my teammates.
"What's wrong with her?" Ava mutters in a low voice.
"I don't know. I'm hungry, let's go eat."
"Sam!" she chides.
I feel a gentle hand brush hair off of my face. "Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will move mountains," Danny quotes softly. I hear two chairs scoot back, and footsteps leaving. After another few minutes, I hear Ava telling Danny that they could leave now- Fury said to let me rest. I don't hear Danny leave, though. At last, I sit up, and someone hands me my glasses. Danny.
Carefully, he takes my hand in his, looking me in the eyes.
"Danny…" I falter. "I- I had a dream." I swallow hard, blinking.
"It is okay. You do not have to talk about it until you are ready."
I shake my head, a lump forming in my throat. "No, Danny. It can't wait. I- I-" Taking a deep breath in, I resolve to tell him the whole story. It's time for him to know the truth. I have to tell somebody what happened. "Danny… I can't control this. I've never been able to. It's been this way as long as I can remember.
"I ran away when I was little. I knew I was putting my family in danger, so I left. Even then, I knew… I knew what I was born to do. I wandered around for a long time. Years. When I was twelve, I found a place in New York City that said they could help me. They couldn't, though, and they wiped all my memories of the place because I asked them to.
"It turned out I was asleep for a long time. Five years. After I woke up, and they'd wiped my memories, I decided to start my life over, and I did. For some reason, I never did find what I was looking for, and I was lonely. Then I found you, and… I joined S.H.I.E.L.D."
I've never told anybody this much. It still isn't the entire story, but it will do.
Danny looks at me. "What is the matter?"
"I… my siblings didn't forget me. Not the way I wanted them to. Their lives are almost as messed up as mine… And one of them hates me for leaving. She's working for… for… Dr. Doom." I can't continue; unable to meet Danny's eyes, I stare at the sheets, twisting them in my hands.
Danny lifts my chin up. "This is not your fault. You cannot control other people's choices, Emma; all you can do is choose how you respond to them," he murmurs.
How does he always know what I'm thinking, what I'm trying to say? "Danny- it is my fault. She's… not so well off. I guess… my family turned out to all be mutants… and- and- she and my brother- they're coming…" my voice drops so low that I don't think Danny can even hear me anymore. "… They're coming to kill me. You. Everybody."
Danny looks at me sadly, then embraces me. Letting go, he says, "They can try. They will not succeed."
My eyes tear up. He knows, Danny understands, but he refuses to believe that they will kill us. He knows the taste of revenge, but he doesn't know how badly my sister hates me.
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Nick questions me once he finds out that I'm awake. I don't tell him anything. Perhaps he deserves to know, maybe he doesn't, but either way, I don't trust him the way I trust Danny or Ava. Not with this kind of secret. Besides, Nick isn't stupid; he's been tracking me for years, and however many cameras and microphones I may have destroyed, he's bound to have learned plenty about me from his agents and various other means that only he knows about. Nick works for the government, and whatever he learns goes in the S.H.I.E.L.D. database, which, like any other computer, can be hacked, despite what he would prefer us to believe.
Another reason that I don't want to admit to Nick is that I really don't have much more control than I did a few months ago, but I have far more power. My hands are buzzing at this very moment, and I don't know how to make it stop. I'm afraid that he'll ban me from leaving the Tricarrier- that would mean no more Central Park, no more dates with Danny, no more college, no more freedom. I've spent so much of my life in fear, and I'm tired of this responsibility. I just want to be an average eighteen year old girl.
Being average, though- that wouldn't suit me. I wouldn't know what to do. My entire life has been spent in extremes. I'm tired of living in black and white; I want some color. I want to go places, I want to travel the world. I want to mess around with my friends, I want to spend time with Danny. I want to help people, I want to be a hero.
I want. Such an unfamiliar, foreign phrase to my tongue. I wish I could taste those words, let them tumble from my lips, for everyone to see. So that these people could see that there's a person behind this name, a life behind those powers. I have dreams that I haven't dared to think before, but look at me now.
I have friends. Ava, Luke, Peter, Sam, and Danny. Danny's more than a friend, though. They're my family, but Danny's closer to me than any of them. My friends are perfectly imperfect, wrong in all the right ways, weird in all the great places.
Sometimes, little notions run through my mind that I don't dare to think about. I do want some things in life, and I have wishes and dreams that don't involve my mutation in the least. I've accepted that I'll always be Emmaline Carlson, the girl with the uncontrollable mutation, but 'always' isn't 'forever', because there isn't any 'forever' in 'life'. Things can change. My mutation could be controllable. I could get a job, do the things I love. I can get married someday, and have a husband and kids. If I have friends like this, friends who accept me for who I am, who help me as I try to help them, I can do anything. I can give it my best shot. I can live.
That's the thing; I want to live. Everybody who I've ever went to for help, though, has warned me. This power can't be controlled for very long. I have a predetermined destiny, and I hate that. I'm tired of being the best I can about this. If I know that there's only two final results that can come of my life, destruction of everything or death of me, then there isn't a real choice. Not really.
I know that I have to die, but so does everybody. I would like to think that I'll know when I'm ready, when it's time to let go. Before then, though, I want to live a life. Maybe if I kept isolating myself like I did for years, then I would survive far longer, but that wouldn't be living, merely existing. I want to live, have experiences like any other person. If that means death coming sooner, then so be it.
Nick can't stop me from living. Nor can that girl who used to be my sister, Flame, or that brother who once was mine, Ore. Those aren't the people I knew, and they aren't my family anymore. They are my past, not my present, and never my future.
As I stand up to leave, I resolve to live. I'm tired of these rules that should extend my 'life', but prevent me from actually living. Taking a deep breath in, I walk outside and greet the world with a small half-smile.
Or, as it turns out, walk into Sam. He starts abruptly, then says, "Woa- you're out already? That was fast."
I roll my eyes playfully at him, grinning. "Where's everybody?"
"Uh… I don't know?"
As it turns out, Ava is reviewing her notes, Danny is meditating, Peter is doing who-knows-what at his house, and Sam and Luke are playing video games (Sam was fetching batteries when I ran into him). I sit down next to Ava, and we quiz each other on what we have in our notes.
"Can't you guys have any fun?" Sam asks us as he squints angrily at the television, watching his character being blown up.
"Yes!" Luke pumps his fist. "Finally beat you!"
"Just this once! And I wasn't paying attention- Ava distracted me! I demand a rematch," Sam protests. Luke laughs good naturedly, and they play again.
Suddenly, our coms start going off. Mission time! We hastily change, then set off to go fight. It turns out that Doc Ock sent some robots to collect samples from Stark Industries. You'd think that rich Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, would have it all under control.
You'd think.
As it turns out, Mr. Stark is on vacation in Italy and can't be bothered to come back and save his fancy equipment- or at least that's the way Ava puts it. Typically, she's the only one who read the folder that we always get when we go on a mission, to read on the way.
The robots aren't actually too hard to blow up. Danny and Luke smash seven of them, and Ava manages to slice three with her claws. I concentrate, and slowly, the ones closest to me start shutting down. Buzzing with energy, I make the ones by Sam blow up. Sam casts a glare in my direction, then shoots a few more robots. Peter arrives just as we're finishing up.
"What took you, Web-Head?" Ava demands.
"Oh, um, nothing. Just, I was busy with MJ…" Peter trails off.
Sam gasps obnoxiously. "You were on a date!" If I could see underneath Peter's mask, I know he would be blushing.
"N-No-"
"Can it, Bug Breath. We get it already. Just don't do it again, okay?" Ava says, rolling her eyes. She mouths to me, 'Boys'. I giggle.
"What is that..?" Luke asks, stammering. Everybody else whirls around.
No. This can't be happening. I'm doomed.
J Hope you enjoyed! (If it seemed a little unclear at points, it was supposed to be.) Thanks for reading!
-FFS