I do not own Marvel or any of its characters.
Passage
Veles walked into the enormous, empty room in silence and looked around, staring at the tiled design of the floor, walls, and ceiling.
"Where are we?" Veles asked.
"It's a training room, one used exclusively by all of us," Val explained. "It can be used for matches between all of us or can generate holographic enemies that deliver electrical shocks when they hit you."
"Sounds useful," Veles said. "So, what's first?"
"First, we're going to settle something," Daredevil said, stepping forward.
"What, with you having your hearing and me having no powers?" Veles scoffed. "Hardly fair, but I'll humor you."
He held his hand out to Val, who passed him her Time Stick as well, Veles setting both to slow Daredevil's time to one sixteenth of his normal speed instead of Pruning him. Daredevil grinned, doing the same with both of his, then lunged, swiping at Veles rapidly. Veles spun and twirled his Time Sticks, fending off Daredevil seamlessly, but fending him off was all he could do. With Daredevil's hearing, he had no blind spots, and he was fast and skilled enough to match Veles, putting Veles at a disadvantage due to their difference in perception range.
Then, finally, Daredevil knocked Veles' Time Sticks aside and lunged, stabbing at Veles. Veles released a Time Stick, turning to the side and narrowly escaping the thrust before catching Daredevil's arm and spinning, using Daredevil's momentum to pull him off balance before turning back the other way, twisting Daredevil's arm to force him to strike himself with the end of his own Time Stick. Daredevil used his other Time Stick to block the strike, but just as he did, the end of Veles' remaining Time Stick drilled into Daredevil's lower abdomen. Then, he stepped back, smirking and waiting a few seconds for the strike to wear off.
Daredevil doubled over, then sighed, straightening up and nodding. "I'll admit. You're good. Better than I was expecting."
"So are you," Veles conceded.
"Thena, shall we?" Requiem asked.
Thena nodded and borrowed Val's Time Stick before extending it and turning toward Requiem. Veles stood beside Val as both waited for the other to begin.
"Should we take bets?" Veles asked.
"Thena always wins," Val smirked. "She's the best fighter on our team."
Veles smirked, raising an eyebrow, only for his jaw to drop a moment later when Requiem lunged, only for Thena to flow around her and strike her on the side almost without anyone catching the actual strike. As Requiem's time returned to normal, she sighed, collapsing her Time Stick again as Thena returned Val's.
"Alright," Val nodded. "Unless Veles wants to challenge anyone else, we're up against Outriders today."
"Outriders?" Veles asked.
"A species that Thanos uses as his primary fighting force by the time he reaches Earth himself," Val said. "Fast, strong, savage, four arms, big teeth."
"They sound lovely," Veles smirked. "Is it okay to use our Time Sticks' blades, or would it not work?"
"No, it works," Val nodded. "Everyone ready?"
Everyone nodded, readying their Time Sticks, and a moment later, huge, black creatures with no discernable face, huge mouths lined with large fangs, four arms tipped with claws, and running on all six limbs charged toward them from all sides, shrieking. Veles glanced up, seeing a counter set to two hundred, then dropped his eyes back to the oncoming horde again as the training battle began. They all lunged, tearing into the Outriders with their Time Sticks and physical strikes. The Outriders, even as holograms, were powerful, fast, and deadly. They required several potentially fatal strikes with the Time Sticks' blades to disappear, though the Pruning end was an immediate victory. And despite Veles' best attempts, it proved all but impossible to beat them to death.
For nearly five minutes, they all struggled to fend off the freakish creatures. Veles spun around one, Pruning it before slashing another across the side, deflecting it to the ground before Pruning it, too. He ducked under one as it leapt at him, then darted forward, driving his Time Stick's blade down into another and slamming it to the ground before it could reach Val, who Pruned it for him before he turned, Pruning one chasing him.
As the fight dragged on, the enormous number of Outriders began to overwhelm them. Requiem went first, jumped by one as she was struggling to fend off another's brute strength. Daredevil followed close after her, swarmed by over a dozen. The other three lasted nearly another three minutes before Veles and Val were taken down together, caught by a tidal wave of Outriders. Then, Thena continued to fight alone for nearly another five minutes before winning by reaching the count of two hundred total killed. As everyone walked over to Thena, Veles shook his head.
"You're terrifying, Thena," Veles admitted.
"Thank you," Thena smiled.
"So, what's next?" Veles asked, just as they all received an alert on their TemPads.
"Next, we have a Nexus Event to deal with," Val said, picking up a reset charge next to the wall. "Shall we?"
Veles sighed as he lay in his bed, staring at his ceiling. The room was bare. It had a bed, a dresser for his clothes, and an attached bathroom. He hated this room. He'd had it decorated once, but Miss Minutes had informed him that his decorations gave away his secret, and if he didn't take it down, she'd have to take it as a sign that he wouldn't be keeping the TVA's secret, so he had taken it all down and Pruned it to destroy the evidence. Since then, he'd hated the room.
"Good morning, Veles," Miss Minutes chimed as she appeared to his left. "How'd you sleep?"
"I didn't," Veles grumbled, pushing himself up and walking to the bathroom, getting cleaned up before pulling his armor on.
As he walked into rest of the room, Miss Minutes was sitting on his dressed still.
"Do you need something?" Veles asked, pulling open the top drawer and withdrawing a pair of Asgardian Steel daggers.
They had small, oval-shaped guards, black and gold alternating stripes on the grips, a double-edged blade, and the pommel was a gold, intricately decorated ring. They were near-identical replicas of the dagger Thor had given him the time they fought the Dark Elves. The last time he'd trusted him. The beginning of the end. The only difference between that dagger and these was that these had a slightly bigger blade.
"When and where did you get those?" Miss Minutes asked.
"I made them," Veles said. "During the last mission."
Miss Minutes frowned, humming critically. "Be careful no one sees them."
"They won't," Veles assured her, concealing the daggers in a pair of hidden pockets on the front of his torso.
The belt of hiltless knife blades, effectively throwing knives, however, he hung across his chest proudly, his Time Stick in a sheath affixed to it in the back.
"Really?" Miss Minutes asked.
"What?" Veles asked. "The only people who know I exist are the Special Forces, and they all know I favor blades to my Time Stick. Plus, Gamora's Variant has her own sword, the same exact one as her Sacred Timeline version wields."
"Fair enough," Miss Minutes sighed. "At least those are less obviously Asgardian."
"That's the idea," Veles nodded. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to have breakfast before training or before a Nexus Event happens."
Miss Minutes nodded, vanishing, and Veles left his room, heading for the cafeteria he and the others in the Special Forces used, which was separated from the rest of the TVA by dozens of mechanical and electrical locations no one ever went to, and behind a locked door that no one but the Special Forces' analysts had the clearance to get through. Veles frowned at that thought. He hadn't seen his own analyst for years, and had never met the others. Most likely, the TVA had wiped their memories, and Miss Minutes worked as their analyst directly, while hiding her status as a fully-sentient artificial intelligence from the rest of the TVA.
"There you are," Val said as he walked into the cafeteria. "We thought you overslept."
"No, just arguing fashion sense with Miss Minutes," Veles said dismissively.
Val nodded. "She's pretty strict. Anyway, we got you your usual."
Veles smiled, nodding, and sat at the one and only table with the others, digging into the food Val passed him. She watched him for a moment, frowning, before finally sighing.
"Did you sleep at all?" Val asked.
"Sleep is for the weak," Veles shrugged.
"And going without makes you weak," Requiem countered. "Just sleep, Veles."
"It's not so easy as that," Veles said, the others all going silent. "Some of us happen to be prone to nightmares. Daredevil in a thong and all that."
The others all laughed convincingly, but he could tell it was for Miss Minutes, more than for him. They all recognized what his nightmares really were. So, no one questioned it further. Once everyone was finished eating, they headed to the training room. This time, as he had every training session during the last few weeks, Veles made the rounds of facing all of the others. He beat Daredevil, as he always did, though by only a narrow margin without his powers, he and beat Requiem a bit easier, Thena absolutely demolished him, as always, and he and Val continued their one for one competition, trading the lead back and forth every few rounds. He was faster and more flexible, but she was stronger, so their matches were always close.
Once they'd finished a long assortment of one-on-one matches, they moved on to paired matches. Thena could be paired with anyone and win because she was so skilled that she carried whatever pair she was in. Daredevil and Requiem were a deadly team, but Veles and Val were a perfect pair. If they ganged up on Thena, they could go toe-to-toe with her for longer than any other team, even if not beat her, and they could easily defeat Requiem and Daredevil. On the other hand, Val and Requiem were a terrible team, due to their dominant personalities clashing, and Veles and Daredevil were a decent team, but their coordination left a bit to be desired, since Daredevil's heightened perception led him to try and cover Veles' blindspots, only for it to make him accidentally get in Veles' way, making them a decent team only in the sense that if they were in a two-on-two match, they could separate the other team and trust the other to handle their individual opponent. If they tried to fight one opponent together, they ended up getting in each other's way, and the same was true for during army simulations when they were facing many more than them, when they again failed to coordinate well enough to cover each other without getting in each other's way. And the worst two teams, by far, were Val paired with Daredevil and Veles paired with Requiem. In both cases, something unidentifiable threw them off to the point of it being a hazard. At one point, Requiem and Veles had been getting in each other's way so badly that both had lost their temper and had tried to fight each other.
Once training was finished for the day, they got lunch, then went to their lounge to relax and rest, waiting for a Nexus Event for them to handle. However, By the time they headed to bed, there hadn't been any. The next few days were much the same before something finally came up. A Nexus Event involving Ultron successfully dropping his homemade meteor, wiping all life off of the Earth. However, the Avengers had been close, so only a handful of Ultron bodies remained, and they were able to wipe them out quickly before resetting the branch and returning to the TVA. The next day, the Nexus Event was a zombie apocalypse that had infected all of Sakaar, courtesy of a bacteria on a meteor that hit the planet instead of being destroyed in a wormhole apparently called the Devil's Anus. The day after that, it was an Eternal like Thena by the name of Ikaris that was too good at killing, resulting in a Nexus Event when he wiped out the other Eternals. Then it was Captain America being captured and brainwashed by Hydra into Hydra Supreme. Then it was T'Challa, Wakanda's king and defender, the Black Panther, losing to his cousin, Erik Killmonger, in a duel. After that was a Loki Variant that was the rape child of Thanos, who had the Power and Space Stones when they arrived. Then it was Thanos himself, except that instead of a genocidal humanitarian trying to bring balance, he was indiscriminately massacring entire civilizations as part of a pact with the female representation of Death where the murders were payments for twenty-four hours of being allowed to court and have sex with Death. Then there was a branch where Thanos had died and was replaced by one of his generals, Corvus Glaive, who simply wanted to slaughter people.
No two Nexus Events were ever the same, and nearly all of them involved Veles and the others battling an army. But it was busy work, and it provided Veles with something he'd nearly lost after the failure of his own timeline. A reason to live. After what he'd lost, what he'd ruined. He enjoyed having busy work. It was the only time his past, his choices, didn't haunt him.
"Veles! Pay attention!"
Veles grunted in pain as Daredevil slammed his knee into Veles' gut. Veles staggered backward, then ducked under Daredevil's Time Stick, driving his own into Daredevil's chest, finally ending what had turned into a twenty minute sparring match while Veles was hyperfixating on his past.
"Are you okay?" Val asked.
"I'm fine," Veles said. "He didn't hit me too hard."
"That's not what I meant," Val said. "You've been distracted for days."
"I'm fine," Veles said.
Val shook her head. "Go sleep. We'll come and get you for any Nexus Events, but you're not going to be training until you've rested."
Veles sighed, nodding, and walked back to his room. He wouldn't be able to sleep. His dreams wouldn't allow him to.
Leave a review.