AN: Alright, so this is the new version of chapter 2. Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope you hang on until the end! Enjoy, and feel free to review :)
A faint drizzle had started up during the ceremony and draped the streets in a shiny, black coating. Sparsely placed streetlamps cast an eerie yellow glow onto the crowd kneeling on the cold, damp ground. Loki's golden armour glinted menacingly in the thin light. The frigid air nipped persistently at my cheeks, but I was much more concerned with the strange draining sensation flooding my body. It didn't hurt, but the white hot throbbing that followed it certainly did.
I stumbled ahead, blind from pain. I stopped when my feet met the edge of the steps and crumpled down into a ball at the top. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for it to pass. The chilled air smacked against my face and mocked the hot tears pricking behind my eyes, threatening to spill over.
Thump. A hard whack from behind pitched me forward, nearly sending me sprawling down into the street. "Hey, watch it," I grumbled and shot a nasty glare at the fleeing red haired man. "Would it kill you to at least say excuse me?"
The man kept running down the steps but half turned his head and shouted out a "Sorry about that," over his shoulder. And then as abruptly as the searing pain began, it left. I sniffled and slowly raised my head, staring in amazement after the rude man. He shouldn't have heard me. He shouldn't have seen me. He certainly shouldn't have felt me. A thick, dense pit of dread settled in my belly. I didn't recognize him as a fellow Grimm, and other people in the crowd were reacting to him so he wasn't a soul.
Mortals could see me now.
Darius' unspoken threat was made true: I had failed the time limit and so now I was paying the price. The scene before me blurred from held in tears and my throat ached from contained sobs. The crowd of brightly dressed humans swam, and Loki became a foggy blur. I impatiently swiped the moisture from my face and swallowed past the boulder nestled in my tonsils. Now that humans could see me, I couldn't go around sobbing uncontrollably. I had appearances to keep up.
"You are meant to be ruled, to be commanded," Loki drawled, obviously enjoying every moment of dominating the crowd. But there was something strange about the scene. I screwed my eyes shut and opened them again. The foggy glow around him stayed. I rubbed my eyes. The foggy aura was growing. I lurched to my feet and took a step toward him, and then another, and another, until I was running down the white stone steps of the museum. My right boot slipped on the fourth step, but I quickly righted myself and continued thumping down.
Heidi had swirled into the same type of foggy patch the first time we met, and I was willing to bet money that that was her again. As I ran toward her, I vaguely noticed a few things at once. To begin with, an old man was standing up from the kneeling crowd. My right ankle also spasmed with every step, and my heavy bag dug into my shoulders and bounced painfully against my back with each stone step I leaped down. I didn't care about any of those things. I had to get to Heidi, and that was all that mattered.
"We will never bow down to men like you. There are always men like you, and they will always fall." The elderly man bravely replied to Loki in English.
I was at the bottom of the stairs now, close enough to hear the whispery voice of Heidi and a deeper, huskier voice coming from the mass of fog. It sounded an awful lot like Heinrich. I skidded to a halt a few paces behind Loki and the mist. The ghostly voices were carrying on a conversation that, with a jolt, I realized I couldn't understand. With another jolt, I realized I could still understand the English argument between Loki and the elderly man. That wasn't right.
The pit of dread in my stomach twisted painfully. In order to help the many diverse souls of the Realm of the Living, Grim Reapers must be able to understand what the soul is saying. As such, we were granted the power to filter their languages into our native tongue. Whatever Darius had done to me had broken my translator and left me unable to understand the German conversation. I also shouldn't have been able to understand the English argument, yet I most definitely was.
I didn't have much time to think on the why or how of things before Loki raised his staff to the elderly man. It seemed their argument was over, and Loki had won. "Look to your elder as an example," Loki spat out.
"...rau...che..." Heidi's voice murmured.
"What?" I snapped my head away from the crowd back to the fog. "Rache? What does that mean? Is that what you want? Heidi, what do you mean? What's 'rache'?" It was a German word of some sort, but it held no meaning to me.
"This is what happens when you disobey your leader!" Loki's spiteful shout drew my attention from Heidi. A loud hum throbbed in the air as his walking stick emitted an unusual sapphire glow. The end of the walking stick, which had somehow become more of a spear than a walking stick, was jabbed threateningly at the elder's face. I didn't know what it was or what it could do, but I knew it wasn't good. Before I could jump in between the old man and the maniac, a flash of blue knocked Loki back into me. Literally. Loki landed on top of me with a crash.
"Ouf," I exclaimed. The thin man was much heavier than he first appeared, and his bony elbow dug into my cheek. "Get off of me!" I shoved with all of my might and wiggled viciously to be freed from his weight. He had shot right through the patch of fog consisting of Heidi and Heinrich and I had to make sure they were all right. Regardless if I could understand them, if I could find a way to help them I might still be able to return home.
He gave a croaky grunt when my knee hit a particularly delicate part of his anatomy, and groaned out, "Remove yourself from my person, you mortal!"
"I'm trying to!" I managed to free myself of his weight and wobbily stood. "Heidi? Are you still here? Heinrich?" I called out. The crowd had taken the opportunity to flee, and through the dim glow of the streetlamps I saw them running into nearby buildings. In the newly cleared street, a masked man stood dressed in a tight blue suit with both of his fists propped against his hips in a strange and rather unnecessary pose. Lying between us was a round blue and red shield, presumably the blue flash that knocked Loki back into the fog and me, and presumably thrown by the masked man.
"Step away from him, little lady." The strangely dressed man strode toward me, stooping to pick up his shield without missing a stride. In the distance I could hear a helicopter approaching. I ignored him and continued to swivel my neck in search for the small wisp of Heidi and Heinrich. The sooner I could locate Heidi and Heinrich was the sooner we could get away from this strangeness and get to finding a German to English dictionary.
"Ah yes, the man out of time." Loki's calm voice drifted from behind me, addressing the masked man. His low tones came from above my shoulder, so I assumed he managed to pick himself up from the heap he had formed only seconds ago. He confirmed my assumption when he menacingly strolled out from behind me and into my line of vision. Aside from his slightly rumpled inky hair, he looked completely uninjured from our tumble.
"I'm not the one out of time," the man retorted and gestured with his shield to the helicopter hovering overhead. A rather large gun trained onto Loki and I caught my eye. I nervously glanced behind me. I didn't know what else Darius stole from me as punishment, but I wouldn't have put it past him to find a way to take away my immortality. I couldn't risk being shot at.
As Loki and the masked man bantered, I saw the familiar fog lurking behind Loki. It seemed smaller than before, and more transparent. Having someone thrown through them had harmed them somehow. I scowled in frustration at the situation. I had to find a window of opportunity to signal to the fading fog to follow me and duck into one of the shops lining the street. Once we were safe, I could start my planning. I wasn't even sure if the fog could move in its current state, which put a slight damper on my idea.
"Surrender!" The masked man ordered.
"Never!" Loki spat and tightened his white knuckled grip on the spear.
"Have it your way." The man drew his arm back in preparation to throw his shield. This would have propelled Loki through the fog once again, possibly causing further damage to Heidi and Heinrich. So I did the only rational thing I could think of.
I jumped in front of Loki.
"Please stop," I pleaded, but it was too late; the man had already let go of his shield. It connected with my stomach and I doubled up in pain. The force of the shield was enough to propel me back and throw me with a dull thump at Loki's feet. My head hit the pavement with a crack and as I gasped for air, too winded to breathe, the obscure wondering of how Loki managed to keep a hold onto his spear during our fall floated to mind.
A weary sigh ruffled the air above me as Loki stepped over the curled up lump of myself and lunged for the masked man. They fought outside my line of vision, but I could hear the grunts and thuds of connecting blows. I coughed, trying to bring air into my lungs. Through streaming eyes, I could barely make out the swirling mist of Heidi and Heinrich. The harder I tried to focus on them, the more they faded until, finally, nothing remained. "No," I croaked, and then succumbed to the welcoming darkness.
I awoke to a rocking sensation, not unlike a boat.
My stomach ached and my head throbbed. 'I must have a flu,' I thought to myself. I cracked a bleary eye open and found instead of my warm bright bedroom, a cold metal wall. I also found that instead of lying in my fluffy, cozy bed, I was propped upright against a hard surface. I tried to flick a strand of my long hair away from tickling my nose but my hands were shackled together. When I shifted my feet, I found my ankles similarly bound. The hard thing I was leaning against moved when I shifted my legs. I slowly drifted my eyes upward, until they locked with cold blue eyes and a handsome face. I shot away and shrieked. The hard surface was Loki's armour, the rocking sensation was from the helicopter we were riding in, and my throbbing headache was probably a concussion.
I scooted to the far end of the hard bench and eyed Loki warily. "Oh, look, the little weird-o is awake," an arrogant male voice came from my right side. When I jerked my head to see who spoke, I was met with brain splitting pain.
"Uhg," I groaned in pain as the mystery speaker walked in front of me.
My cloudy brain couldn't make sense of what I saw. The mystery speaker had the head of an adult man, with thick, dark hair fluffed up and held in place with hair product. Clumps of hair gel glinted in the flickering overhead lights, and a faint waft of alcohol washed over me as he spoke. His tanned face led to a tanned neck, which led to a gaudy gold and red metal chest, which led to a glowing blue circle in the centre of aforementioned chest, which led to more metal body parts. I blinked in confusion. "A...a cyborg?" I mumbled aloud.
"No," The man looked slightly offended by my question, and smoothed out his well-trimmed goatee. "This is a highly specialized suit of armour- you know what, I'm not even going to explain. I should be the one asking questions here, not you." He stepped closer and narrowed his dark eyes, "Why are you helping Loki?"
"I'm not!" I protested and stared in shock at the man-who-was-not-a-cyborg.
"Then why did you protect him from Cap' over here?" He gestured to the front of the helicopter, and the man in the blue suit popped his head around the corner. A small partitioning wall between the cockpit and us hid the rest of his body, but I was almost certain he was striking another unnecessary pose. His previous blue mask was gone, revealing himself as an attractive, young, blond man. I yanked my eyes from his face and turned my attention back to the situation at hand.
"I didn't! I didn't mean to anyway," I desperately tried to explain to the metal man and the man he had called Cap', but I had a feeling I was just hurting my case more. "I was trying to protect Heidi and Heinrich. They were standing behind him," I shoved my chained hands toward Loki, "And if he fell into them again he would have hurt them more."
"There was no one standing behind him but you." Cap' spoke slowly, as if explaining to a child. He took a step away from the wall and into my line of vision. If I wasn't so confused and slightly nauseous, I would have laughed when I noticed his well-muscled arms crossed over his chest in the predicted unnecessary pose.
"Of course you couldn't see them, you're neither psychic nor a Grimm. Normal beings can't see souls." I was vaguely aware of how little sense I was making, but I was too frazzled to care.
"Grimm? Souls?" Cap' peered at me concernedly and turned to the metal man. "She hit her head pretty hard earlier; she could have a brain injury. We should get her to the medical unit as soon as we reach the ship."
"I'm a Grim Reaper; we help unrested, trapped, and lost souls," I tried and failed to make myself sound less unstable. "Heidi was an unrested soul I was helping, before the maniac," I thrust my chained hands in Loki's direction again. "Went on and murdered Heinrich!"
"Grim Reaper?" The metal man scoffed. "Aren't they supposed to wear a black robe, carry a scythe, and, oh yeah, be a skeleton?" I gazed down at my simple black jumpsuit that acted as a uniform and looked back up.
"That was the old uniform. We upgraded."
"You still aren't a skeleton, and you still don't have a scythe. But whatever, do you have a name?" The metal man was growing impatient with this train of conversation.
"I'm," I hesitated, unsure whether to tell him my real name and suffer from further mocking. "Leena." I settled with my nickname instead.
"Well, Leena, what does 'rache' mean? Is that the name of some sort of weapon? You kept saying it while you were unconscious, so don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about," The metal man crossed his arms and attempted to interrogate me. I looked up blankly at him and shifted my vision to Cap', who looked very uncomfortable with interrogating a possibly seriously injured person. I flicked my eyes over to Loki, who looked very bored and uninterested with anything going on around him.
"Those were the last words Heidi said before she disappeared with Heinrich. What does it mean? It's a German word of some sort, but what does it mean?" I asked, not really expecting an answer.
"It means 'revenge'," Cap' replied before turning to the metal man. "Look at her, Tony, she's obviously confused. We should give her time to calm down and treat her head wound. She could be brainwashed by Loki, and we need to have Romanoff analyze her before we continue this."
"Fine," Tony snapped and glared suspiciously in my direction. He raised a metal arm and pointed a finger at me. "I don't like being lied to. Remember that, Leena." He marched back to the cockpit, sparing a sneer along the way. His voice drifted back to us as he described, in loud detail, how crazy I was and how I believed myself to be a Grim Reaper. A feminine chuckle was the only reply heard from whomever he was talking to.
I spotted my bag containing the guidebook tucked neatly beneath the bench across from me. I wondered if the guidebook had any advice for what to do in one of these situations. A small smile curled my lips at the thought of what the title of the chapter would be. 'Chapter 59: What To Do When Trapped with No Powers in a Different Dimension and Kidnapped by a Heroic Blondie and a Man Who is Not a Cyborg but Really Looks like One.' It really didn't seem likely.
I allowed my mind to wander and try to make sense of this situation. Despite my lack of powers, I could still speak and understand English. If I were to be completely honest, I was even thinking in English. That was strange, almost as strange as Heidi's last words. What did she mean by 'revenge?' Did she want revenge against Loki? Revenge against Heinrich? A deep seated longing to get my hands on my guidebook made my fingers twitch. If I was lucky, it might have a section on what to do when possession is interrupted by murder. Did those souls have specific requirements to be met?
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't notice Cap' approach until he stood right in front of me. "Seems like a pretty bad lightning storm out there," Cap' remarked and sat on the bench across from Loki and me.
"Uh-huh," I absentmindedly murmured.
"At least it isn't blizzarding. That's the hardest weather to fly in," oblivious to my preoccupation, Cap' continued on with his hollow friendliness. "Pretty weird how it just started up out of the blue like this though, usually there's some warning signs." I looked around the interior again, and my eyes fell onto Loki. He looked paler than before and nervously shifted on the bench. Cap' noticed this too. "What, are you afraid of a bit of lightening?" he asked the murderous maniac.
"I'm not overly fond of what follows," Loki vaguely replied. All three of us jumped when a loud bang echoed through the helicopter.
"What was that?" I asked and desperately scrabbled behind me for a seat belt. Loki was safely strapped into his side of the bench, so I knew that these benches had to come with straps. That bang sounded like something very heavy hit the helicopter, and the stomach flipping dip of the helicopter only confirmed this. If this aircraft was going down, I wanted to be as safe as possible. Three heart-hammering seconds passed before my shackled hands met fabric, which I yanked around the left side of my torso. Another two seconds passed before I found the other half of the seat belt. My question was answered just as I clicked the two pieces together over my chest.
The door located in the rear of the helicopter was ripped open with more force than I thought possible. It detached from its hinges and flew away into the dark, stormy night. My shriek blent with the howling wind, and a large figure jumped inside. Whatever-it-was took four thundering steps inside before extending a huge arm and grabbing the front of Loki's armour. A small yank of his meaty arm was all it took to snap the seatbelt off the bench. Then, he was dragging the smaller man to the door without a single care for the fabric trailing behind him. Before leaping out of the helicopter, a single spark of lightning illuminated the hulking man's profile. Flashing eyes and a fearsome scowl marred the possibly attractive man's features. Wild blonde locks blew into Loki's face, which he craned his pale neck to avoid, without much success.
Before Cap' could rise from his seat, they were already gone. "Tony?" he called out.
"Already on it," he replied as he shot out from the cockpit with a robot head tucked under his arm. He ran to the gaping doorway before jamming the new addition to his 'specialized suit of armour' over his own head and leaping out. I shook my head. That man was a cyborg, and no one could tell me different.
Cap' stood from the bench and reached above me to snatch a parachute from the small shelf. With quick, sure hands, he strapped it onto his broad shoulders, and was nearly about to jump from the helicopter when the mysterious female voice drifted from the cockpit.
"I need help steering this thing, we're losing control." She sounded panicked, and after sending a longing look toward the gaping door, Cap' ran to help her.
With eyes wider than saucers, I stared ahead and dug my fingers desperately into the bench to prevent myself from sliding out of the helicopter. A small glance downward revealed that with every heart-stopping jolt of the aircraft, my bag dislodged a bit more from the opposite bench. Just a bit more and the bag would be close enough to kick closer. Just a bit further...one more huge bump and the bag slid across the metal floor, landing on my scuffed boots. I dug my heels into the floor with as much pressure as possible. Only when I was certain I wouldn't be dislodged the same way as the bag was did I remove my death grip on the seat and reach into the bag. It took a bit of manoeuvring with my hands cuffed together, but I finally managed to undo the bag's clasp and remove the guidebook.
I scanned the table of contents and felt a surge of panic. The book was written in my native tongue. The letters swirled and slanted and didn't make a single stroke of sense to me. Apparently Darius found the prospect of being limited to only English to be an appropriate punishment for me. I couldn't understand my language anymore, and so the book was useless to me. A lump pushed in my throat, and while I loathed to admit it, my eyes stung from more than just the whipping wind swirling in from the gaping hole. I stared down at the book in my lap and fought against the urge to sob.
As I chewed on the inside of my cheek, my concussion-fogged brain slowly noticed how similar the letters were to the English alphabet. The words looked rather similar to English words too, if I cocked my head to the left. And then, there was a word I recognized. 'Emd' was in between two other words, seemingly acting as an 'and.' It loosely resembled the spelling of the English word and I could only assume its meaning was also similar. I swallowed down the lump in my throat and franticly flipped through the book until I found a page with the words "Rewenje" and "Moydir". They looked similar to revenge and murder, so I scanned the page for more familiar words. There weren't any.
I drew in a shaky breath and carefully closed and returned the book to my bag. A single delirious idea dashed around my head. Did it really matter if I completed this assignment? Couldn't I just forget all about this and teleport back home? And so, I tried it. I mashed my eyes shut and concentrated on home. I did everything I was supposed to, but nothing happened. Of course, that was to be expected. Darius wouldn't leave a single rock unturned in making sure I was as uncomfortable as possible in my punishment.
The single delirious idea stretched and flipped into an even wilder one: I would take revenge on Loki. I would finish my job and grant Heidi peace, and perhaps if Darius fell into a fit of insane kindness he would let me return.
Now the problem arose. The man I was supposed to exact revenge against had just been, for lack of better word, kidnapped from the helicopter. Considering how high we were flying, he was probably a pancake on the cement. I had no idea how to exact revenge against a pancake, so I could only hope he had a magical jetpack strapped to his bony shoulders before falling.