Revamped!
Chapter 108: All Together Part Nine
Manhattan, New York - Time Frozen
And suddenly, it was like the light had walked straight into their lives once again. The woman who was on the tip of their tongues, who made them walk on eggshells, who kept them up at night was standing right before them, looking at all of them with her gorgeous, gleaming eyes. Although they knew she was coming, the tension of their whole situation makes them feel uneasy.
Based on appearance alone, they all know that this isn't the same girl from high school.
-o-
From her glowing eyes, Sigyn can see all her friends - uniformed and armed. She recognizes them but she notices the ways they've changed. None of them matched the memory she has of them. The jeans and backpacks are now swapped for bullet-proof vests and guns. She eyes them and none of them are making any drastic movements or noise, but it's the subtle motions she notices. Everything from taking a breath, tightening grips on triggers, and even blinking come to her attention.
They're bewildered.
Then, she feels her body take over her mind. She smiles wickedly, a trait that was inherited from Loki and Amora.
She expected this but it unexpectedly makes her insides flutter: they're afraid of her.
She can't help herself but smirk as she blows them a kiss of her magic. It's a gesture of great beauty and passion. That was the start before she vanishes in her spell, reappearing closer and launching herself towards them.
Sigyn phases right through Angela, appearing right in front of the Hulk. With one hand stretched out behind her, she creates a dome that blocks out everyone else. They throw all their manpower on it but Sigyn is only focused on the green beast in front of her. A small laugh escapes her mouth as she sees her reflection in his eyes since she can barely recognize herself.
The Hulk roars at her and Sigyn roars back, erupting into laughter until she gets swiped to the side like a little bug. Sigyn rolls on her side before standing back up. She brushes herself off as if that was nothing because, in retrospect of what she's been through, it was.
"And to think we just had a moment…" Sigyn mutters before spitting on the ground.
Sigyn rolls back her shoulders as the Hulk comes charging towards her. She holds her hands out and ignited a hypnotic orb that she makes a direct hit onto the Hulk's head. It twists in her control in sync with her arm movements.
To everyone's surprise and her benefit, the Hulk shrinks back into Daniel at her command and he passes out on the ground. Sigyn brushes her hands clean before she turns around and sees every weapon pointed at her, except one specifically that she doesn't put much thought in.
They have no choice now but to fight back, which they do. Little do they know that under her cynical exterior is someone who is going through an entirely different type of fear. Fear. Fear of losing the people she loves. Fear of being controlled. Fear of the monsters in her head. Fear of not being able to say goodbye. Fear of being too late. Fear has imprisoned her all her life and she's done being told. That is why she's hurling her magic and unleashing screams, trying her best to ignore the uncontrollable triggers in her head that only remind her of what she's doing is for -
"Some things have to happen," she unwillingly tells him while her senses were clogged with tears. "There are so many possible ways that the future will unravel but they all lead to us dying."
Sigyn plays with the hem of her dress, avoiding to meet his eyes. She then finds herself looking on the ground behind him where she sees the weapon that he just threw to the ground carelessly the moment he learned something he didn't like. If only -
Sigyn tenses when she feels something flying off her, like an enormous weight from her shoulders but coming from her head. Her hands immediately go to her head and she sees the Serpent Crown that was once there fly back to everyone else on an arrow. She sees Merida catch her arrow again, taking the crown off of it.
Sigyn shakes her head. "Oh, hell…"
"Stop," Angela says, making her way towards her warily. She's weaponless. "Please … don't make us fight you. Sigyn -"
"- you don't see the evil in which you live…"
Sigyn shudders as the looming shadows make their way closer to her and she lets out a guttural cry or scream. She couldn't tell but it was likely a mix of the two. Sigyn pushes past Angela, making her way towards the Serpent Crown in Merida's hands. Merida throws the crown like a frisbee and somersaults out of the way as Sigyn lands there. Guns are being fired at her but Sigyn knows that they're only aimed to graze her, to slow her down and not kill her (as if they could do that). Mid-air, James grows back to his normal size as he catches the crown and lands back on the ground.
"You don't know what you're dealing with," Sigyn harshly tells him.
"Are you talking about yourself or this crown?" James asks her back.
Sigyn opens her mouth and no response comes out. She knows that he's referring to her. She raises an arm to blast her magic at him but stumbles off-balance when Emily unexpectedly jumps on her back to force her down. Emily grunts and screams as she claws her way to keep her grip on Sigyn. As her only way of escape, Sigyn phases out-of-place and Emily falls to the ground.
Sigyn doesn't reappear anywhere. Everyone else quickly catches their breaths as they regroup and Daniel comes back to consciousness. Xavier pulls him up to his feet.
"She left this behind," James says, waving the crown around.
"Don't mess around with that thing," Daniel says, grabbing the crown from him.
"She'll come back for it," Merida tells him. "The creepy crown matches the vibes coming from whatever the hell is happening."
"She doesn't have to come back," Iqadi says.
"What do you mean?" Emily questions.
"She never left."
Iqadi curls her fingers and her eyes turn opaquely white as the clouds above them darken immensely. Lightning strikes at her fingertips as she raises an arm and whips it out towards Daniel. He falls back and everyone else chokes on their breath until they see Daniel with the crown on his head raising his arm only to be crystallizing back into Sigyn. She protects herself from Iqadi's growing lightning storm with a shield of her magic as she crouches low, swatting the lightning bolts like small flies. Sigyn's -
"- eyes and your spells are bright green," the looming figure tells her.
"So?" Sigyn questions apathetically.
"A colour meaning life. Does that mean nothing to you?"
"The irony is that you're the one telling me about life, Goddess of Death."
Hela cackles until she rises back erectly as her power builds. Sigyn shoots a cyclone of her magic back at Iqadi who responds with a storm.
"Sigyn, please!" Iqadi begs. "We've made up our mind not to hurt you."
"Making up your mind means you have a choice and I don't have one!" Sigyn replies. "I never did!"
As that's being taken care of, the real Daniel comes back to reality only to see lightning and magic. For a second, his hazy mind thinks that he's still dreaming but he knows that this is his real life. Daniel turns his eyes green so he could properly see as Xavier gives him a hand to pull him up.
"Well, this is terrible," Daniel says as he observes what's in front of him.
"There's nothing wrong with being a little bit out of control as long as the situation is in control," Angela says.
"We have no control over her, that's the thing!" Emily exclaims.
"At least time is still frozen."
"Sigyn…" Xavier mutters to himself.
"If you want to get her attention, you might want to yell her name," Merida grumbles to him.
Xavier's head perks up with an idea that might work this time. "That's it! We may not have control of her, but how well I lead you guys is something I can control. Yell her name. Not Sigyn, Britney."
Everyone hesitates over the odd strategy.
"That plan is so lunatic that it may very well work," Daniel says.
"Britney!" Xavier screams.
Almost instantly, at the sound of that unfamiliar familiar name being repeated by the different voices, she lowers her arms and gets pushed over by the lightning which stops once she hits the ground. It's not the changes that will break your hearts; it's that bruising tug of familiarity. That's the thing about best friends, if she could still call them that. That's what they do. They're supposed to keep themselves in your memory to prevent you from spinning off the edge. If only that word alone could possess the power to calm her down.
It only shatters her.
For the first time since she arrived, she locks eyes with Apollo who has been standing to the side this whole time. He starts walking up to her with his axe firmly in his grip and her heart races as she tries scooting back as fast as she can.
"What have I done?" Sigyn questions to herself, her voice cracking with gasping sobs.
The longer Apollo looks at her, he only sees someone who towered him when he was down. The moment he lost his memories is slowly coming back to him and it was because of her. She was there and now that he sees her, he's livid. It feels stressful and painful to watch as she fires her magic with aggression and purpose. Something charged through his body, and he looks down to see his hands balled into fists. He only feels anger; a blinding, breathless rage. His blood boils the more he sees her displaying her unlimited power.
"The next time you see me, Apollo, you'll kill me," Sigyn told him before his mind was wiped clean at the touch of her magic. "You must fear me and then, you will hate me with a passion. And finally, you will kill me."
The closer he gets to her, he sees how terrified she's is and that's when he realizes that this is his destiny. He picks up speed, whirling his axe behind him for that extra push. Nobody can stop him now and they all try to do so with no success.
"Apollo, please!" Sigyn exclaims.
"You have done enough!" Apollo screams at her as he throws his axe directly at her.
[If you're interested, I have a new Spider-Man one-shot out called I Love Gwen Stacy].
