Bucky screamed. I screamed. Chaos screamed.

"I usually aim for the heart," Nyx said, holding the spear in place, "But you made me sweat. And I don't like sweating. So you get to suffer as the life drains from your body. Be grateful I've left your body in one piece."

"Jo!" Bucky screamed. But I didn't look up at him. I was focused on my breathing. On what I remembered to do. Or try, at least. Finally, my head lifted right to Nyx's face. And I saw what Chaos had felt once. The maternal love she'd once felt for this woman. The way she felt for me.

"You know—you were always the most arrogant of my children,"she said."It was me breeding into your genetic line that made you this powerful. You always seem to forget that."

"Not a day of my life has gone by without you reminding me, Mother," Nyx spat.

"I tried to tell you this one was different from the others."

"Different in that she has more fight in her?"

"I was bred into her genetic line too, which makes her—your sister, you bitch."

I reached forward with all the power Wanda had taught me to wield. I wasn't like Wanda. I never had been. Because even though Beata had magic in her blood, it was faint. It was Chaos that bred into my bloodline. Chaos that woke that magic and gave me the Darkness. And while Nyx wasn't my sister in the human genetic sense of the word, we were both born from Chaos. Daughters of Darkness.

I called on that Darkness now. And I shoved it all out through the hole she'd punctured in my body, funneling Chaos directly up the spear digging into me. The pain was unlike anything I'd ever felt before. Agony in every sense of the word. From the tips of my toes to every follicle on my head.

Vision always said it was like my body was trying to contain a dying star. And one day, I'd go supernova. That's what it felt like. A supernova in my blood, vaporizing my bones and my flesh until nothing was left but Darkness and pain.

"Live, Jo,"Chaos said in my mind. Right before she was ripped out of it. Ripped out of every cell. Every bone. Leaving me hollow. And empty. And bleeding.

Nyx yanked the spear back and I dropped to the floor. Blood splattered the image of the stars, and it was so dark I couldn't tell if it was darkness or just the lack of colour in the room. She stepped back as I struggled to breathe. I held my hand over the wound in my chest.

"Sister," she said. "I should have known. They always have Darkness in them. But never with all that..."

"All that what?" I asked as the Darkness bubbled out of my throat and dripped down my chin.

"All that power. Never the ability to control it." She stood back and looked up at the spear, which now glimmered faintly with Chaos's energy. "She loves you. I can feel it. Loves you more than she ever loved me." She stepped back again, holding the spear like a precious treasure. "I hope you live, Johanna Hayes."

"As much as I wish I could tell you to burn in hell—keep doing what you're doing. Just—you know—maybe change the kill first, ask questions later policy."

Her mouth quirked up in an almost smile. But then she turned and strode away.

"Leave my prison," she demanded, waving her hand. The shadows released Bucky and Sam. Bucky was on his feet instantly, at my side before I could even drop onto the floor.

"I'm here, baby. I've got you," he said, holding his hand to the gushing wound.

"I don't feel so good," I told him.

"I know. But you're alive. You're going to be okay." I shook my head as he tried to move me so he could pick me up.

"Feels—hollow—I don't think there's enough of me left."

"There is. You're still here. You're going to be fine. We're just going to get you on the ship, get you home, let you rest, then we have a date, remember?" I shook my head and dropped onto his chest. I felt my body shake, and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't think, ask questions, or tell him what was wrong.

"She's in shock," I heard Sam say.

"Hold it to the wound," Valkyrie told him, handing something out for him to try and stop the flow of blood.

"There's too much blood."

"She's going to be fine," Bucky insisted.

"She needs the suit. The Darkness will put her into a stasis if she's in distress. She'll be comatose, but at least we'll be able to get her home."

"Do it."

Sam activated the suit manually. It poured back out of the watch and covered my body. I could feel the Darkness surging to meet the parts still inside me. Not Chaos. She was missing. Empty. But the Darkness was still there, trying to repair the damage they'd both done on their way out. We had no access to Friday outside of Earth's atmosphere. But I remembered what Liv suspected would happen. Catastrophic organ failure.

Bucky hefted me into his arms and stood. But I couldn't hold onto him. I let my body sag into the suit. Felt the empty weightlessness of my consciousness as it flooded my system and worked to shut me down.

"Stay with me, baby," he said. "I'm going to get you home."

We are nearing the end, friends.

And I think I'm going to keep this version up on another site. Possibly Ao3 or just a Proton account I'll link access to. I might also possibly just repost the chapters on like Tumblr or something. Idk yet. I'll probably also be posting the NSFW chapters because, frankly, I don't care anymore.

Also, if you're wondering, I'm not longer using Google Drive due to their AI scraping. I'm very strictly anti AI as both a writer and an artist. So I'm in the process of moving all my stuff to Proton.

That being said, I might still go back and fiddle with these chapters, beef them up, rewrite them for quality and all that. But it's not going to be my priority. So if you come back and the chapters are suddenly better written, that's why! However, I will be deleting my account shortly. As I don't see the point of keeping it going when, like, no one is on here lol. But I will finish this story here just in case.

Also, may or may not add a few of those bonus chapters and things I've kept on the sidelines.

I really want to focus more on my original fics and rewrites. So I'll post those on Wattpad and then the old stuff/fan fics over on Ao3 or whatever I choose to do. I'm going to hold off on posting the concluding chapters until I have it figured out so that I can have the proper links up for you.

I will probably also start posting the first chapter of the rewrite. I don't know if it'll be updated frequently since I'm still messing with it. But that way you have something to go back to if you're interested and you don't have to track it down.