ROARA
"Loki?" I looked at the man in the glass cell. I tilted my head. "Why is he here?"
"He came in search of us, wanted to tear us down. He didn't want you to achieve the full amount of power you could possess if you came to us, he wanted it for himself. So we captured him and we've kept him here." Simon pulled away from me, more memories entering my mind, and walked over to a control panel. "Do you want to speak to him?"
"Can I?" I asked. He was a God, that much I knew now. A God. Damn. Look at him in that cell, like some pitiful creature in a hunting trap.
"Sure baby." I heard a button being pressed. "He can hear us now."
I tilted my head the other way, frowning. My hand still on the glass I began to walk around the circular cell and as I did so the man turned to watch me, never taking his eyes off me.
"Is this what you wanted?" I asked him. "To be powerless?"
"Don't do this." The man replied, his voice low and smooth, with a hint of darkness to it.
"Don't do what? Obtain the power you wanted." I laughed and shook my head. "You're pathetic."
"Pathetic? Really?" He shook his head. "You're out of your mind."
"Am I?" I giggled and then stopped just as abruptly as I'd started. "Or am I finally seeing sense."
"Please-" he cut himself off as though astonished by the word that had left his lips, "please." He said again with a resolve to his voice that he would, indeed, use that word. "Don't do this."
"Look at you begging before me." I looked him up and down in disgust. "Is this what you have come to? A God pleading like this?" I crossed my arms. "At least you have the decency to look ashamed."
"I'm only ashamed I couldn't save you from this." He spat.
"You're lying." I took a step towards the glass. "You're ashamed that you were outwitted, that you're trapped like a fox caught by the tail. You're ashamed that this is what you've been reduced to."
He looked me up and down. "What game are you playing Roara? What do you want me to say?"
"I'm not playing a game." I lifted a finger on my right hand, increasing the temperature. "Are you?"
"Of course I am." He followed me as I began to pace around his cell again. "I'm always playing a game, you know that."
"Then why do you lose?" I stopped in my walk. "If you've been playing this long you should know how to win by now? And yet you are there, and I am here." I could see the heat beginning to make him uncomfortable. "You don't like heat, do you?"
"I'm a frost giant Ro, you know that." I hadn't, but I did now, and he wasn't going to know any different.
I laughed. "Alright then." I lowered my finger, bringing the temperature back down. That was a good trick to know.
"Was this your plan all along? Get us vulnerable, get us to trust you, pretend like you were completely helpless and then betray us all?"
I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. "It was never the plan, something better just happened to come along."
"How's your boyfriend over there." He gestured to Simon. "Pretty, but a little young, even for your tastes."
I glanced at Simon, as more information about Loki made its way into my brain. "I don't have a boyfriend." I replied coldly.
"You don't have one. Ah, yes, so you're just using him like you've used every other man in your life."
"How's your Mother?" I shot back, turning my head to face him. "You don't have one, because oh yeah, she's dead."
He walked up to the glass, staring me in the eye, searching desperately for something that he couldn't find. "I don't even know you anymore." He whispered.
"You never did." I replied.
I turned and as I did I heard him shout, "You're going to regret this!"
I stopped, mid-stride. I walked over to the cell, looking him up and down. I could see my reflection in the glass, my eyes glowing green, my expression of ice. I felt small leafy branches twine up my wrists and around my head, making a crown of leaves and thorns and flowers. I was leaving scorch marks on the floor with every step. Wind was blowing around me and as I looked into the glass I saw my skin shine as though I was covered in a light morning dew.
"Do you want to say that again?" I asked him calmly.
"Roara, listen to me," he pressed his hands against the glass as though trying to reach me, "if you do this now, if you fight the people you called your friends, you will regret it. I can forgive you, I already do. But they may not."
"Then I'll kill them all," I snarled, "and I'll have their bodies stuffed and mounted on my walls so I can laugh at their shocked expressions every day."
"Roara." He took a step back lifting his hands off the glass. He was no longer looking pleading, no longer looking angry, just tired and sad. "You're starting to scare me."
"GOOD!" I screamed, banging on the glass with a wood covered fist. I licked my lips. "You should be scared of me. You should be fucking terrified of me."
He muttered something, but I couldn't hear it. I had already turned on my heels and walked out of the room, Simon following me.
I was still breathing hard as the lift doors closed. I was so angry, I thought I might explode. They had all underestimated me, and it had gone on for far too long. I was faster and stronger than regular humans, I could mimic powers, I had control over all of the elements, I had control over people's actions, I held death in the palm of my hand. Yet they continued to treat me like I was one of them, less than them even. Hiding me away for months, using me as bait, telling me what I could and couldn't do. They had no idea what I could do. But they would soon find out.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. "You know, when I first came to the Ascendency, they didn't believe in me either. Because I couldn't use the powers I absorbed, they felt I was useless to them. They had no idea what I could accomplish, and look at me now. They'd be nothing without me. Trust me, people will come to realise just how powerful you are."
"I don't need them to realise." I replied. "I need them to feel the strength of my power, first hand."
"And they will." Simon assured me.
We boarded the helicopter in silence, Gunn by our side. I was clenching and unclenching my fists, tendrils of water and flame creeping up my forearm. I pulled the crown of flowers and thorns from my head and turned it around in my hands. It was beautiful in a terrifying way, and I supposed in a sense it was like me. I put it in a storage box underneath my seat. Gunn was looking at my hands nervously, eyes fixed on the way that the water and fire would cross over one another as they twined around my wrists.
"You'll want this," Simon passed a hooded black cloak to me, "it's my own creation. People won't be able to use their abilities on you when you wear it, if it's something like mind-reading from Wanda or affecting you medically like young Miss Stark. Of course it won't protect you from external things like light distortion or energy blasts, but I doubt you'll need added protection from those."
I moved my sword to be on my back and threw the cloak around my shoulders and fastened it together. It was a light material, soft around my bare shoulders and legs.
"We're nearly there." Gunn said, peering out the window.
"I thought Hong Kong was hours from England?" I asked.
"It is normally, but with this technology from Cog," Gunn tapped the side of the chopper, "time is rarely an issue."
I stood and pulled the hood over my head and face. "I suppose it's show time then."
"We've not landed yet." Gunn pointed out.
I shrugged and swiped a hand in the air. The helicopter door slid open, wind rushing into the small space as we flew. I casually walked forward and off the helicopter.
I could feel myself dropping at an incredible speed, my cloak billowing, the trees coming close and closer. I spread my arms out like wings, my feathers were the sky, the wind coming to my call. I could feel the air take a hold of me, wrapping itself around me, pulling me upwards. The wind had always been my friend, the empty space between land and space was in reality so very full. A memory snagged on a branch in my mind. The feeling of leaping between buildings, the joy and peace it had brought. This was similar, but with more control.
I rose, surveying the landscape. In the distance I saw the prison complex, and beyond an old manor house which felt familiar. My mission was at the prison though. That was all I needed to think about. I ran through the air, my feet landing on what felt like solid ground, and when I had built up enough momentum I jumped.
I shot through the air, the wind whipping at my face, the smell of the countryside filling my nose. I could hear shouts below, and waved a hand through the breeze, creating a wall of air that would slowly close in on anyone inside the wood. I took one glance, and saw a grey and red figure with wide metallic wings gliding over the top of the forest far below me.
I came to a stop on the outskirts of the forest, my cloak over my face, my eyes fixed on the scene in front of me. A dark skinned girl with a visor over her face and short curly hair dressed in combat trousers, a crop top and leather jacket was talking to the red and grey figure I'd seen flying above the treetops. The girl had a bloody bandage around her upper chest and another around her right bicep. Another girl was speaking with them, a redhead. There were people walking towards them from the tree-line in varying degrees of wounded. Once they were stood together they kept glancing towards me.
"Hey asshole!" A man in a red and gold metal suit began to walk towards me. I knew who he was. He was Iron Man, Tony Stark. Walking beside him was a blonde man in a dark blue suit with a star on his chest, a round shield on his back. This was Captain America, Steve Rogers.
"It's not halloween yet Skyrim, so what's with the cloak?" The metal man shouted again.
The dark skinned girl ran up to them, talking quietly to them, gesturing forcefully with her hands.
"WANNA TAKE THE HOOD DOWN?" Iron Man shouted again. "It's too hot out here for an Assassin's Creed cosplay."
The three paused and began to talk amongst themselves as the man with wings ran up to them from the group behind.
The girl with the visor began to walk slowly towards me. She was muscular, built for heavy lifting, and walked with the confidence of someone who was born to be at the front of a crowd rather than in the middle of one.
She stopped not far from me and pulled her visor off, placing it at her feet. "Hi." She said. "My name's Ali, I just want to apologise for my Uncle's behaviour, he's like that with everyone, it's really not personal."
It's personal to me. I knew who she was. Alina Stark. We had once been close. I no longer cared for her. She continued talking while I considered her, her weaknesses, her strengths, her fighting style.
Her change in tone brought me back to what she was saying. "You took my best friend from me." She took in a shaky breath, her entire body trembling with anger. "You took Roara Woodson away from me. For that you're going to pay. For that I'm not going to stop until you're all ashes or I am dead." She took a step towards me. "Do you understand what I am saying? I will decimate you."
I lifted my hood, revealing my face. The look of shock and horror on her face filled me with such sweet happiness and satisfaction that a part of me felt I could leave right then and there. But I was still hungry. I still wanted more.
I drew my sword, pulling it from it's sheath on my back, and swung it around in my hand a few times, getting familiar with the weight and the balance of it again.
She could never defeat me. But it might be quite entertaining to watch her efforts.
"Then decimate me Alina Stark." I purred. "I want to see what you can do."