Deadly Attachment

Chapter 25

- the heart replays what the mind can't delete. 

My head spun, and blood was warm and sticky on my face. The battle had only begun ten minutes ago, and I was already drenched in human blood. I spat a bit that had gotten past my lips, and grit my teeth. It tasted metallic.

Two Hydra soldiers rushed at me. I ducked away from the first's punch and placed the thought in their heads that I was the two of them. They began to attack each other, and I chuckled at the weak minds in front of me.

A Doom minion raised his hand to blast me and almost succeeded, but Lucia had cut off his head. I grinned at her in thanks. It was nice to be fighting alongside my friends once again. 

"Oi, Katya!" Nadeem called out. I raised my head to look up at him and saw Amar was using wings made of water to carry him. "I'm headed for the big man, see you there, yea?" I gave him a salute, before turning to look back at the surplus of Doom minions, and Hydra soldiers.

Lucia was at my side, slaying each one that stepped in her way. "Katya, darling! We have to get to Amar and Nadeem. They will need our help with this Doctor Doom fellow." Lucia gripped my hand, and we were racing to our other companions.

They seemed to be handling their own, though. It was just as Nadeem had planned, and it was working quite nicely until Doom shocked Nadeem's demon sword out of his hands and into the sky.

In the next moment, his sword was in the hands of someone flying, and two blasts of blue light hit Doom in the chest, sending him sprawling backward.

I laughed, wiping the blood from my face when Nova appeared. "Nice of you to drop by!" I shouted up at him.

"Thought you could use a little help!" He called back down to me while burning a dozen Hydra soldiers where they stood.

Motivated by the confidence Nova brought, I placed a strong thought of failure in Doom's head, and watched in pleasure as his mind accepted it. It seemed like he was thinking of failure as well because it wasn't very hard for him to accept. 

I reached my hand out to Nova, and he snatched me into the air. "Fly me above Doom. Do the Avengers know you're here?" I asked, assuming that Natasha's request for New Warriors went through.

"They have no idea, and I am so going to get in trouble for it." Nova flew me in Doom's direction. "They have a tracking device on my helmet for safety, they've probably been notified of my disappearance by now."

"Where's the demon sword?" I asked, and Nova handed it to me.

He seemed hesitant as he neared Doom. "Are you sure about this?" He asked.

"Not at all." I heaved a breath. "Don't look so worried. I won't die from this, but it's definitely going to hurt." I tried to laugh, but it came out mangled and scary. "Ready?" I yelled over the noise of battle.

"Am I ready?" He scoffed. "The real question is: Are you ready?"

I held the sword facing downward and took a second to find where Lucia, Nadeem, and Amar were distracting Doom. This isn't originally how we planned, but it was going to work. It had to work. It had better work, or I'd have just wasted a lot of me on this.

"Drop me," I commanded, and Nova did as he was asked. I placed both hands on the sword, thrusting it downward at Doom, who was preparing to deliver what could be a finishing blow to Amar. Look up, I demanded of him, with my voice shouting in his mind. His eyes hesitantly looked at the sky, and I pressed the point of the sword through the eyepiece just as his hands went up to blast me with electricity. He succeeded in getting a final blast in before I split him in half.

My entire world went dark, with the occasional burst of lightning under my eyelids whenever my body shook, which was every second or two. I don't think I have ever felt this kind of pain before. Not by electricity, at least.

I saw parts of my past in flashes with the lightning. My falling, my wings being ripped from my back, and me becoming a half-human half-angel. Next memories were of my makeshift family. The one I loved being killed, and the rest following. Afterwards were my years in exile. Creating the safehouses around the world. Living in each for at least ten years. Cue my time with the Avengers. First meeting Natasha, our first kiss. Her smile. Peter's mangled body. Andrea Raven Stark's laugh. The young supers. 

I suddenly screamed, another large surge of electricity coursing through my veins. I couldn't hear anything. I only heard my own heartbeat, and even that seemed to be sped up a hundred times faster than it should.

I had never feared death, but as I lay here helpless, now random memories coursing through my eyelids as though they were projected on a screen, I was terrified of death. If this is what it was like, I was glad I was immortal. But I also thought death would be easier than this pain. This horrible pain that will not go away.

I seemed to be made of pain, and the pain was made of me. We were one; pain and I. I wanted death. No, I craved death. It has never looked as appealing as it does now.