Revamped!


Chapter 106: All Together Part Seven

Location Unknown - Time Unknown

Daniel can't believe anything that's happening to him now starting from time freezing to the skeleton attack to appearing who knows where, and now being face-to-face with Sigyn. Although all that has him shaking, it's the fact that she has the Serpent Crown on her head that has him worried the most. All he could think of is what Xavier told him when he saw Sigyn in Hel and how she looked the same but she was a different person: a broken ticking time bomb that could go off even before the seconds finished counting down. Daniel knows that he has to be careful with what he says.

"Why do you have that crown?" Daniel asks, his voice slightly trembling. "Take it off, now."

"Relax, Daniel, it's helping me," Sigyn replies eerily calm.

Daniel shakes his head slowly. "No, it won't. You're mighty and your strength alone is your crown. You don't need it."

"How do you know?"

Sigyn's head tilts a little and she squints her eyes as if she was analyzing him. Daniel hesitates on whether he already messed up. His chest heaves and his arm automatically goes in front of his chest, as if it was to protect him. That's when he realizes that the only thing he's wearing is torn-up pants. Everything else down to his glasses disappeared when he turned into his Hulk back in the city. Apart from his forced-green eyes, he's vulnerable to Sigyn at the moment.

"I don't," Daniel admits as a bit of a lie. "I don't know anything that's going on now. Are you really here? Alive?"

"For now…" Sigyn mutters.

That's an indicator to Daniel that she is, in fact, alive. The comment he got from Xavier about her being in a limbo makes sense now. She's alive but expecting death which is why she considers herself to be in-between.

"Please tell me what is going on…" Daniel softly begs. "What's happening to you?"

To his surprise, the longer Sigyn looks at him, her eyes open and tears start welling. Her expression softens and drops a little. Daniel wants to hug her now but keeps his distance.

"After I left for Asgard, I killed my mother and took all her power," Sigyn tells him. "That was the start of it all going downhill and now, everything is ending. I thought I was free from her desire to have my death prophecy come true but it turns out that she was just her playing along with the big man - or the big monster. Did she know about the man pulling the strings? I can't ask her now, can I?"

Sigyn laughs maniacally for a bit when she reached that last part, her eyes going distant. Daniel wasn't expecting to hear any of that and he feels selfish for being the queasy one now.

"...so someone else started a fire and your mother was just tending it, possibly unknowingly," Daniel says just to make sure he understands it. Sigyn nods. "But you can't let that burn you."

Sigyn's shoulders tremble a little. "Daniel, please, I don't want to hurt you."

Daniel isn't sure where this conversation is going but it's scaring him. "The only person you're hurting is yourself by calling for some monster and having that crown on your head. You'll fall deeper into someone you're not if you don't stop."

Sigyn's breathing quickens and her face reddens as she tries to hold herself together. "I can't be saved and I'm scared because we're all in danger. All that has happened is my fault because I'm trying to do what is right."

Daniel tries not to look like he wants to run off screaming. He knows that he has to try and take control of this conversation in hopes of gaining the ability to maneuver Sigyn into calming down. He holds a steady hand out towards her in hopes to put her at ease.

"No, Sigyn, you have to get over being scared of whatever you're talking about," Daniel tells her. "No one can hurt you unless you allow them to."

Sigyn lights her hands up with magic and the many rings on her fingers glow. The Serpent Crown illuminates off her magic and the winds pick up. Daniel pulls back from her, returning to the state of being scared.

"I'm doing a bad thing for a good cause," Sigyn tells him. "As much as I fear the inevitable future, it has to come."

"How can you be good to anyone if you're not good to yourself?" Daniel asks her.

"I'm trying to wake up the monster that Apollo is attempting yet unable to escape from," Sigyn says. "Believe me, Daniel, this is for the better."

"Okay… I don't know or understand what you're talking about but based on this conversation alone, you already woke up the monster inside of you."

And that's the part that broke her: the cold, hard truth. She staggers and exhales as her shoulders move up and down rapidly. Tears stream down her face and her cries are coming out in short, horrific screams. She looks around frantically. Her hands, still glowing go up to her head but instead of gripping at her hair, it goes for the crown. Sigyn wails as she falls to her knees and just breaks down crying. Daniel tries to take a step closer to her but she waves him off and he listens.

And that's what she does: cry, just cries it all out.

Sometimes, problems are too deep for words and it's sometimes like those when you need your friends the most because every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. The cold warmth of his words melt and chill at something inside of her, that shell of protection that she formed over herself. Daniel watches her intently, his eyes seeking hers, but she can't bring herself to look at him because that numbness, that shield was the only thing that kept her going, that kept her from shattering to pieces.

Sigyn wipes at her eyes and takes a breath. Her eyes lock with Daniel and his heart stops. She lights up one of her hands and points it at him.

"I'm getting you out of here," she tells him with a sudden hardness in her voice. "Apollo has two monsters to kill now…"

-o-

Manhattan - Time Frozen

Angela looks up from her current battle and is relieved to see Xavier and Emily coming in for two reasons: one, they're both alive and two, they need more help on their end in terms of the growing number of skeletons showing up out of that seemingly endless portal.

"Oh, thank god," Angela breathes out. "Where's Daniel?"

Emily and Xavier shrug and they insert themselves into the fight against the skeletons, bashing them into each other and using their weapons against them. Angela along with the others need a more detailed answer.

"He vanished on me," Emily responds as she blasts some skeletons to pieces. "I'm running a scan on the planet for him now and I'm not picking up anything."

The others glance at Xavier to see if Emily was being serious about her statement.

"I still have no idea what the hell is happening or where Daniel is but all we can do is kill all these skeletons before they get out of our control," Xavier tells them.

"Right," Angela states. "We'll just kill the already-dead. Good plan."

Xavier rolls his eyes as Angela laughs to herself. He takes his shield and throws it, slicing many of them right through their spines. Angela catches the shield and bashes it right through a skeleton. She holds it up to avoid a sword decapitating her. Angela grunts in defence as she kicks right through the calf and the entire skeleton crumples before her. She picks up the sword with one hand as she throws the shield back at Xavier with the other.

"These undead dead things fight better than I do," Emily comments.

"No argument there…" Merida mutters.

Merida considers Emily lucky that she has a suit of armour that can do all the fighting for her. She points her loaded bow at Emily and Emily just stares at her. Merida fires and the arrow zips right past Emily's head and blows up a group of skeletons behind her. Emily shoots Merida a smile and the redhead glares at her.

"I was supposed to return to Wakanda tomorrow," Iqadi tells them as she summons lightning and fires it.

"Call in dead!" James exclaims.

James fires his bioelectricity blasts as rapid as a machine gun right below the portal. The others look and think to join in to slow down whatever's oncoming. Emily blasts straight through the arc reactor in her suit's chest as Iqadi and Apollo summon lighting. All of them are aimed at the portal. Meanwhile, Angela, Xavier, and Merida continue getting rid of the skeletons that are still on the streets and those that manage to survive making it through the portal.

"What is on the other side of the portal?" Iqadi asks.

"I'm assuming Hel," Xavier responds. "I saw these skeletons there when I was with Sigyn. It's Hela's fleet."

Apollo lowers his axe as he thinks about what Xavier said. He doesn't understand why the name Hela and the realm Hel bring shivers down his spine, especially since he's heard the other's say it before, but it helps explain why he thought these skeletons looked familiar, despite him not knowing anything substantial for his missing memories. The only thought that crosses his mind is that before he came to Midgard, he was in Hel and he had a conversation with Hela that -

"Apollo!"

"I'm just a boy whose destiny is greater than he could ever be…" He mutters automatically, not knowing why he said that.

Caught off guard, a skeleton charges at him with a battle axe like his. It aims for Apollo's right and before Apollo could defend himself from the lethal chop, an unfamiliar white forcefield emits from him and blasts forwards, obliterating every skeleton in sight. His friends suddenly have to defend themselves from the unknown, the skeletons from the portal even pausing for a bit as they observe whatever is happening.

Once it calmed down, everyone else lowers their arms and weapons, staring right at Apollo and wondering what the hell that was. It reminds them of Sigyn's forcefield that would come when she was about to die in a situation fate didn't want her to. It saved her, in a way, which meant only one thing for Apollo.

"I have a destiny…" Apollo mutters just as a fresh fleet of skeletons come pouring like rainfall once again. He looks right up at them and squints a little. "I have a task to complete and my place to perish isn't here…"


[For those of you Bucky x Natasha or Winter Widow shippers, I have published a new novella dedicated to them called His and Hers Scars. Go check it out if you'd like to].