Memories
Balancing
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She glowed silver and snarled.
"I order you to leave this world Skrull. For I am the Dragon."
There was a sudden scurrying in the general opposite direction from Tora. She glanced over her shoulder at the X-Men and Avengers.
"I am here little people. Do not fear."
She turned back to the cowering Skrulls.
"I shall turn your gods to dust and your world to stone. I am the Librarian and I know all."
Waves rippled around her and for a second, it looked like Tora was the insubstantial one, that Dragon was the true being. But that was impossible? Wasn't it?
But there was only so far she was prepared to go, and when it came to it, she failed to do what was needed and plunged them all into the reign of darkness. All because she couldn't kill a Skrull named Veranke.
"She really needed to sort out her moral priorities. Not killing Veranke, killing all the-"
"Ah. We agreed, no spoilers until later."
"Did we?"
"Well, this is my realm after all. I make the rules."
She sighed, then changed channels, knowing the others were looking at her.
"I can't tell the future. All I get are annoying buzzes and right now my head feels like it's about to explode. It's not nice and all I know is that something big is in the works. Which any idiot right now could work out by turning the stupid TV on."
"Most people like Osborn."
"Most people are stupid. Even most the people here. Don't take it personally. Almost everyone is. I just have all this knowledge stuffed up into my head and I can't let it out."
"Tora…"
"And if I don't let it out then something like a rift in space will happen."
"What?"
"Knowledge equals power and power equals force times distance squared divided by time. Simple physics."
"Er… I don't think that's the same kind of power…"
She sighed.
"I can't remember anymore. There are so many memories that aren't mine. All the memories of all of you. Your memories are something you know, therefore knowledge, therefore Dragon, therefore me. And you wonder why I have a headache."
She pressed her fingers to her temples, eyes half closed.
"It's like I'm deep underwater, and the pressure is weighing down on me and soon I'll be crushed. But I won't go into the submarine or swim back up because I'm too stubborn. And Dragon tries, it really does but every now and then something slips through and I suddenly know something that none of the races so far are advanced enough to know, even the Celestials. And that causes me to lose my grip and I slip through the currents of realities."
"Do you need time off?"
"Right now, we can't afford to have me off the team. I take point most often. I leave, our whole strategy is blown out the water –BOOM! We can't set up a new group dynamic for the alpha team within the time Osborn will give us."
"You think he'll attack?"
"After what he did to the Avengers? I know he'll attack."
"You really aren't doing a Dragon thing, are you? You're just being Tora right now and knowing far more than you should."
"I was taught to read how people think. Osborn will go after everyone who ever threatened him. Spider-Man will be in real danger, the Avengers will almost certainly get attacked, the Punisher, because he's a real and present threat to Osborn's power and life. Tony is already on the run, Cap –James is in hiding with the Secret Avengers, Pym's already in hiding with members of the Young Avengers. And Heaven alone knows where Bruce is. Well, Heaven and me. Osborn won't target the FF because he can't get them for anything and Reed makes sure they have the best lawyers. It's the street heroes who I'm scared for. Northstar, Daz, keep aware when on the streets. Don't do anything he could turn into a reason to attack the X-Men. The worst bit is, we won't be arrested. We'll be disappeared."
"I hate to say it, but I sort of wish we had Etana here. You know. To get rid of Osborn."
"SUNSPOT!"
"It's true! She killed people! We all turned a blind eye to it! But she killed people! It was what she was!"
"And so am I."
Logan was glaring at the young Brazilian.
"I kill people. It's what I do. I'm a solider, a spy, a killer. And I've killed people who were innocent. She never did."
Roberto looked down, slightly shame-faced.
"She still murdered people."
Tora was suddenly standing up, eyes flashing dangerously.
"Dr Mengle? Heard of him? The Angel of Death in Auschwitz? Etana dealt with him, in a way that no court could ever do. The courts were tied by human rights. Etana killed him, but she did it quickly. She turned up at midnight, called him by his real name and beheaded him. She didn't taunt him, torture him, hurt him in any other way. She gave him a fast and painless death with a sword that couldn't hurt an innocent. The innocents that he killed. If he had gone to court it would have been long and drawn out and he'd have lived every day knowing he was one day closer to the day of his death. Jack the Ripper? Left bleeding in a backstreet in London after his last murder and he would have struck again. You would have left him to kill again and again until the authorities caught him? Or how about a man who ordered the murder of sixty children to a demon, in order to save his own soul? Then offering herself in place of the children? You call that murder? I call that doing what most people haven't the guts to do."
"You don't do it!"
"I…" She hesitated. "I do not kill because of what I could be. I would do it, but if I killed one person for a good reason, then I'd kill again, for a good reason, then I'd kill for not such a good reason and finally I'd end up killing someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I would become the very thing we fight. Etana was more than I was. She was always in control. She took no pleasure in killing, and I would end up enjoying it. The blood on my hands would feel…right. So that's why I don't kill. I'm a predator Sunspot. I'm designed for hunting down weaker prey and tearing them to shreds. And killing once would release the animal. Do you want to be the one running from the baying animal who wants to taste blood in her mouth, have gore on her arms? If so, then point me towards a worthy candidate."
She got up and gestured. The silvery-grey cat leapt up from Karma's lap and padded after her, glaring Sunspot.
"Come on Jeanne. We still have that move to work out."
Water flowed about the cat and the silver-grey tiger padded out of the door, silver-blue eyes staring at the others as if she hated them all.
"Well… She never put it quite so…bluntly to me."
"She needed to make a point. She needed to show them that Etana always did what she had to, not what she wanted to do."
"Is there a difference?"
"Look Death, you don't understand. You aren't human. And never was."
She was swearing at the radio, spitting out words older than the Earth.
"Mar das backeral sa cri aos akls hars kald measrwe!"
"What's she saying?"
"I don't want to know."
"Stupid, stupid, stupid! All those stupid, stupid people, who wouldn't know a real threat if it bit them on the backside!
"Did she just say what I thought she said?"
"And then, they moan when we accidentally blow up stuff!"
"-Norman Osborn told the press that his new agency HAMMER would 'fix the mess that SHIELD made under the leadership of Anthony Sta-"
Tora withdrew her claws from the radio and whipped round.
"What?"
She stormed out of the room in a flash of red hair and black dressing gown, leaving Logan and Hank blinking.
"Did she come in from the shower, just to smash our radio?"
"Is it just me, or was she slightly imbalanced?"
"I think she was always insane, but it was the worst kind of insanity, one so strong and cunning it meant no one, not even her realised exactly how mad she was. It was so clever, hiding as sanity, the madness swirling under the veneer, so well-hidden even she couldn't sense it."
"Are you calling her insane?"
"How else do you think she survived with Dragon in her head all those years, whilst dancing through realities, knowing things no mortal should?"
"Well, you knew her best. I still haven't had the pleasure of meeting her in a professional aspect. Unlike you Phoenix. How many times did we meet?"
"Sixty-seven in total. Normally I was killed in an incredibly painful way. Actually, you were responsible for a lot of my deaths."
The host shrugged.
"It's sort of in my job description. And you were Dark Phoenix those times. The advert pretty much said 'must be prepared to deal with Phoenix going gaga'."
Phoenix leant over and hit the back of the head, so silvery-grey hair flew out over the water.
"I hate you!"
A.N. Anyone spot the Discworld in-joke?