Chapter 1

All you could remember was blinding lights, words you could not understand flooding your ears from every direction and pain burning into your skin. The next thing you recall is lying wide awake on a stiff mattress, a glimmer of light streaked across your face and a dull ache pressing into each muscle of your body.

You sat up, rubbing your face as you took in your surroundings. You were on top of a simple, plain bed in between four grey walls with one door and a tiny window near the ceiling, giving you no clues or signs as to where you were. The material of the four walls surrounding you was like nothing you had ever seen, a stark contrast to the stone and wood of your home.

You slipped out of bed, taking cautious steps towards the door, turning the handle but it didn't budge. The initial fog that had clouded your thoughts began to clear and you suddenly realised the only parts of your brain at work were the biological areas, the cyborg additions to your body completely switched off. You took another step and moved your arm, frowning, your synthetic limbs functioning as normal. You couldn't understand why the rest of your cyborg body was working but your brain wasn't.

It was a strange sensation, trying to tap into something you had always had and functioned with but being met with complete darkness. Correction – from what you remember, you had always had your cyborg brain but your memories before the age of thirteen were non-existent. You had no memory of a time when you weren't a cyborg. It was a helpless feeling, stupid even – all the knowledge and uses of your synthetic brain being completely out of your reach. It made you wonder if you'd ever been without it at all and how you had coped.

You closed your eyes, revisiting your earlier task of trying to remember where you were and why, hoping that it was somewhere in your human memory. Vague visions began to form in your mind: sprinting towards a portal, wandering the streets of a mysterious country and then… Your mind was flooded with memories by the trigger. You remembered the flashes. The noise. The pain. This place was on a world that you had been thrown into, away from all that you knew. You had left your friends, your family, and your home all behind a kaleidoscope of colours as you were plunged into the portal. You were alone and now, half of your brain had been taken from you, including the memories that would answer all your questions. You couldn't even remember why you were on this planet.

There was a sudden click and the door opened, causing you to jump. You stepped back until your back collided with the wall, the metal of your leg sending a clang through the room. Your eyes grew wide and your heartbeat seemed to halt as a woman strode into the room, holding a tray in her hands. Her eyes churned with thousands of glistening pieces of jade, her gaze burning into yours, her soft, scarlet curls falling past her shoulders. 'Who was she?' you thought, 'Was she a threat to you?'

She spoke, the noise short and tender, a slight rasp accompanying her words. You frowned; the language she spoke was unfamiliar and foreign. You searched through your memories, trying to recall if you had ever encountered the language until you were reminded that you were missing a large chunk of them. She waited a few moments, her face like a blank piece of paper with no emotion present before speaking again. You shook your head, edging away from the wall slightly, your muscles releasing a small amount of tension. This woman did not appear to be a danger to you.

You cleared your throat and spoke in your language but as expected, the redhead's expression became sceptical, confirming that she couldn't understand you either. You repeated the same sentence twice, once in Greek and then again in Latin but her face didn't falter. She tried to do the same as you, repeating herself in a different language but the words sounded even more unidentifiable this time. You shook your head. It was clear that you shared no common ground in communication.

She laughed, the sound obscurely sweet and alien to the atmosphere before she offered the tray in her hands towards you. You inspected it for the first time, the contents being a strange substance on top of what looked to be a flattened bowl, an obscure piece of cutlery next to it. You assumed it must be food and you caught onto the emptiness of your stomach, realising that you were famished. It was unwise to accept something consumable from a stranger but the risks didn't cross your mind. This woman seemed to be trustworthy – you could trust her, right? You took the tray and sat down on the bed, demolishing the meal without another thought, too hungry to consider the situation logically or process the new flavours melting on your tongue. You didn't pay the woman any attention as she watched you eat, waiting patiently for you to finish.

Once you hadn't taken your last bite, you wiped your face with the sleeve of your shirt and placed the tray next to you on the bed, your thoughts beginning to clear. Now that you had eaten, you could focus on your goal which was to figure out what was happening. You pondered for a few seconds. The woman in front of you could tell you where you were and why you were there. You felt a surge of hope until you remembered that you couldn't speak the same language so she wouldn't understand any of your questions. That left you with only one, viable solution – escaping.

You eyed the door and felt a twinge of disappointment, noticing that it had been shut and locked again while you had been distracted. You were irritated at yourself – why had you wasted such a precious opportunity? You began to tremble as your brain hit dead-end after dead-end while trying to formulate ideas. Were you really stuck there, enclosed in a room with a complete stranger? The aftertaste of your meal still lingered on your tongue, your mind jumping from one conclusion to the other. You wanted to believe that this stranger was a good person but there was no way you could know for sure. You questioned why she had freely given you food. What if she had poisoned it? You felt a stab of horror in your chest when you caught onto the fact that she could be the person who imprisoned you.

The woman noticed the anguish in your eyes and the ridges in her face softened. She approached the bed, taking a seat next to you. You angled your body away from her, observing her every move: each glimmer in her eyes, each change in her face, trying to identify her motives and predict her next movements. She gestured to herself.

"Natasha." It took a few moments before it clicked in your head that Natasha was her name. You bit down on your bottom lip, unsure as to whether you should tell her yours. It was unlikely she had even heard of it and it could be a bad idea but it wasn't like you had anything to lose if you gave it away.

"Isaroka," you said, pointing to yourself. For a brief moment, she gave you a subtle smile.

Before she could speak again, a voice cut throughout the room and your eyes darted over your surroundings. You were confused as to where it was coming from and you looked over to the door which was still firmly closed, causing you to panic even more. You felt a hand in yours and a slight squeeze. Your initial reaction was to pull away but a strange warmth trickled over your skin from the gesture before you did. Your eyes met with Natasha's again and you broke away from your thoughts for a moment, taking time to look at her properly. Your eyes wandered over her rose-tinted cheeks and her mouth that was stained with maroon, her upper lip carved into the tips of a heart. She looked to be around your age but the tiredness in her eyes made you doubt your assumption. However old she was, she was undeniably very pretty.

Natasha let go of your hand and for some reason you missed it, standing up and making her way towards the door. It opened before she could touch it and you gasped. Had she used magic to open it? You dismissed the idea. She hadn't spoken a single word so it couldn't have been a spell. She gestured for you to follow her and knowing that you didn't have a lot of other options, you decided to oblige, mentally preparing yourself for whatever waited on the other side.

Natasha disappeared from your view and you stepped through the door, bright, blue-tinged light flooding your vision. You squinted your eyes as you continued forward, your eyes adjusting to the new levels of light. You were in a new room surrounded by transparent walls that were covered in letters similar to that of Latin: numbers, strange numericals and illustrations, all of them moving and changing. Outside the walls were another three solid ones, the space between them empty.

Natasha stood opposite you, separated from you by the transparent wall between you, a man you didn't recognise stood to her left. He had no hair and a coarse, black beard, one of his eyes concealed by an eye patch, his figure draped by a long, leather jacket. He stared at you intensely, his gloved finger hovering in the air before tapping the wall, producing more letters and illustrations in front of you. A picture of you with your eyes shut appeared on the wall but before you could begin to question it, you felt your brain come to life and you were flooded with information. You closed your eyes and stumbled backwards, overloaded by the sensation of your cyborg brain turning on and all your memories returning.

It was then that all the answers you had been looking for hit you like a landslide. You remembered why you were on this planet – youhad been disowned by your community and forced to flee from their clutches. Your grief returned to you and your heart became a heavy weight in your chest like it had been before but your focus was distracted by a notification in your brain. You opened it up with your mind, new words scrawling across the screen inside your head.

English is now available. Please confirm.

English… What was that? You decided to confirm the request anyway. You were drowned in information as soon as the download was complete, thousands of new words and grammatical structures rushing into your head. A few moments later, the man spoke.

"Did the update to your cyborg system work?" You stared at him, somehow understanding every word he said even though you had no knowledge of the language he spoke. You exhaled a long breath, the jigsaw pieces slotting together. English was a language. Your heart dropped further into your stomach. If he had added a language to your brain and switched it off, what else had he tampered with? Had he put your synthetic body at risk?

"Who… who are you?" you stuttered. The man's expression didn't change and his gaze bore into you with the same intensity as before.

"The name's Fury but you'll be calling me Director from now on. Your name is Isaroka, am I correct?" You hesitated, struggling to decipher his words due to his accent.

"How do you know my name?" You instantly thought the worst, wondering if he had managed to access the sensitive information stored in your cyborg memory. Fury gestured to Natasha and the memories of your interaction came back to you, the overwhelm of the moment causing it to slip from your mind. You shook your head. "Never mind," you said, "Please tell me what's going on. I don't know where I am or why." The shaking of your hands intensified, all forms of control taken from your grasp. They could do anything to you. They could refuse to answer your questions, switch off your cyborg brain again and you would have to stand and take it. There would be nothing you could do. Fury exchanged a glance with Natasha but it was too quick for you to identify the meaning of it.

"You're in the headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D., a special law enforcement dedicated to making the world a safer place," he explained, "Twelve hours ago, the authorities received numerous reports of a person in possession of supernatural abilities roaming the streets of New York City. We were called in to capture you and we brought you here. From our investigations, you are nowhere to be found on our global databases. So, let me ask you this. Who exactly are you?" You shook your head, not understanding the majority of what he had just said. Special law enforcement? New York City?

You looked down at your hands, knowing that by 'supernatural abilities', he meant the fire powers that you had gained two days beforehand. They were the reason you had been forced to run for your life and use the portal which had taken you to this planet. Yet again, it was the cause of your troubles, landing you in the facility of an espionage organisation. But perhaps this misfortune wasn't all that cursed. You moved your fingers, heat building on the tips of your skin until there was a flame in the palm of your hand. You raised your arm and shot it straight towards the wall, aiming away from where the two strangers stood but it vanished into thin air as soon as the flame hit it. Fury's expression darkened.

"You can't escape, so don't try to," he snapped. The little hope you had crumbled away, leaving you to be consumed by your disappointment. It had been your Mother's idea to escape through the portal. She thought it would save your life but perhaps it was for nothing. You would die here instead – billions of light years away from the ones you loved. Though, you couldn't be sure that they loved you back anymore.

You looked over to Natasha whose expression was just like before – calm and composed with no traces of emotion. She looked even younger than before now you were a fair distance away from her eyes; what was she doing here? Surely this wasn't the place for a young person, dealing with dangerous people.

You sighed. There was no reason for you to lie to these people. It was a practice you were strictly against and the outcome would be the same either way.

"What planet is this?" you asked. Fury waited a few moments, considering your question before answering.

"Earth. What planet do you come from?" Your jaw dropped. Earth? You could've ended up on any inhabited planet in the Universe, yet this was the one the portal had taken you to. Earth was the planet your part of the Universe despised; the place that was forbidden to know about three planets, one of them being yours. You swallowed hard. How were you supposed to tell them who you were if it was guaranteed they wouldn't know? How were you supposed to tell them when they were forbidden to know?

"How… How many inhabited planets do you know of?" you questioned. Fury tapped the wall in front of him, typing in a few words before the result stretched out onto the screen.

"Earth has no records of any other planet that can support life besides our own." This new piece of information caused your mind to whir with questions.

"So why do you trust me? Why do you believe that I come from another planet?" Fury chucked a little, his gaze falling to your hands.

"You can create fire with your bare hands, Isaroka. Why wouldn't I believe you?" He had a good point but his believability was still suspicious. You took a step towards him, glancing over at Natasha who was observing you, still not letting on to how she was feeling. You tried to appear more confident despite your anxiety-riddled interior, straightening your figure.

"Why are you keeping me?" you said. He tapped the wall between you and dismissed all the words and numbers, leaving just the see-through screen between you.

"As I mentioned before, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mission is to keep the world safe. Letting a cyborg with fire powers walk freely through the streets of a highly-populated City is a threat to that mission," he said, "I will only ask you this once. Are you going to answer my questions?"

Your heart seemed to crack in your chest. So that's what you were here – a danger. You opened your mouth, wanting to answer his questions, wishing you could prove his allegations wrong. You weren't dangerous, not to this planet, not to anyone. You had been given the ability to speak an Earthen language, meaning you had a chance to figure out what to do next. You could have a life here; this could be your second chance.

But you couldn't answer his questions. Earth was forbidden to know about your origins and if even a small piece of information reached the rulers of this planet, the records buried and burnt describing the three planets could be discovered. That would be breaking the agreement laid down by the four planets after the Great War and threaten centuries of Universal peace. The risk was too great.

"No," I answered.

"Fine," he said, "You shall return to your cell. Perhaps you'll be ready to cooperate tomorrow." The light radiating from the ceiling dimmed and the room was plunged into darkness, the outlines of Natasha and Fury becoming hazy. You could only just make out her face and for a fleeting moment, you expected her to say something, to understand you. It wasn't your fault you couldn't say anything.

She turned her back on you, ignoring your pleading eyes. You didn't even get a chance to look at her again before she was gone, leaving you alone.