twenty
"familial fatality"
-

"Sit down, Agent Volkov," The Director commands, unfearful of the other-worldy warrior with the capacity to kill him before the other guards can even reach their weapons.

Lusine slides into the seat on the opposite side of the expansive conference table. "Is this really necessary?" She questions, crossing her arms over her chest. For such a long-lived woman, she sure does slip into childish tendencies easily.

Unimpressed by her pouting, Fury stares her down.

"If I'm going to allow you to go on field missions, you need to quit playing your childish little games."

"Childish! I'm—"

"Yes, hundreds of years old." He reclines in his chair, folding his hands together. "Would it really kill you to start acting like it?"

Lusine's fingers coil into her palms. "I neutralised the threat, didn't I? What more could you possibly have wanted me to do?"

"Not put your partner at risk."

"Partner?" She scoffs. "I'm sure Natasha is perfectly capable of looking after herself. Besides, we got the wrong place. It was a decoy. No harm done in giving them a little taste of what's coming when we find their real hideout."

"No harm done?" He leans forward, both elbows on the glass table. Even with one eye, he peers right into her with a scalding vision. "Now they know you're on Earth. Now they know that you're a threat to them. That you are working for Shield. You really think that's not going to change anything?"

Lusine being Lusine laughs in his face.

"And you think I'm scared of them?" She sneers, her fingers unfurl and snap to grip the table's edge. "I frankly find that quite insulting, Director."

"Until further notice, you're off field missions," He simply replies, not even slightly tempted to rise to the bait she swings before him like a magicians hypnotic pocket watch. 

She rises to her feet. Her palms splay across the tabletop. The cool glass is grounding, but her surging anger is louder.

What right did he have? Just because she's on Earth doesn't mean she has to work for him or anyone. Just because she wants to be a better person doesn't mean she has to abide by Earthly laws or completely change who she is.

Lusine Volkov will always be a woman of chaos.

That chaos will just be more controlled. Directed onto those who deserve the punishment instead of ruining innocent lives for the hell of it. She might never be the hero, but she'll never be the villain again either.

"You'll regret this," She tells him, peeling her hands away from the table and forcing them to her sides.

Fury stands. "I expect you at training tomorrow morning. Don't be late," He says without much regard, leaving her simmering when he exits to attend to more pressing matters, not so much as flinching when the glass table shatters beneath the fists of the Asgardian throwing a fit.

-

-

After picking a few chips of glass from her hands, Lusine decides that the most productive way for her to handle this anger is to take it out on a punching bag.

Far more productive than allowing that swirling mass of darkness to build and build inside of her with no release until it becomes too much to hold in. Until it all comes spilling out like an inky splotch on a fresh white page. A stain against the light streak she's been working so hard to maintain.

Working herself to the bone with constant attacks and pulses of magic to carefully let off some steam, Lusine can feel the void calming inside of her. Sinking back beneath the waves to bide its time. To plot her demise. Like a sea serpent lying in wait for the next passing ship to snatch beneath the water.

When she's sure it's fallen back, she stops to rest.

Chest heaving, she lets herself relax at last. Sinking down onto the bench, illusionary magic shattered at her feet, and head hanging, shoulders slumping with exhaustion.

The magic she keeps up every single day shimmers and writhes on the floor. Taking its dying breaths. She watches it, unfeeling. What a wasteful, vain illusion to be spending her limited power on. Another mask she falsely wears while claiming she doesn't hate who she's become. That she doesn't hate herself for all she's done to date.

Lusine runs her fingertips down the scar on her cheek.

A reminder, her mother had called it.

A reminder that, no matter where she went, who she became, or whatever illusions she wears, she'll always be a monster.

The monster that will bring chaos and death wherever she may set foot.

The mother, the false queen, who thought she would be doing the universe a favour by ridding it of her own daughter.

Lusine will let people see what has been done to her. She's done hiding behind her masks, pretending to be someone she's not. If they think she's a monster, then let them. What did their opinions matter to her anyway?

She isn't of this world and, though she has tried to make it her home, it'll likely never feel like home.

Lusine stands, the final few glimmering crystals of her magic crunching beneath her bare feet and exits the training room with her head held high, bolted on with steel, carved from ivory.

She will not kneel for these people any longer.

-

-

The only reason Lusine continues to attend the training sessions with the new agents is because she doesn't want to let them down when they've only just learnt to trust and respect her.

Despite this, the week following the meeting with Director Fury drags out as if it too is bitter and she knows it'll only get worse once Steve gets back from an overseas mission. He's not going to happy with her at all, but what's done is done. Accepting that is one step towards putting the event behind her, at least.

He's due back this morning and, though she's more than prepared to hold her ground, it plays on her mind. Every time the door opens, she whips around expecting to see him standing there, arms crossed, frowning right at her.

This time, when the door opens, she once again doesn't see Steve standing there. Instead, Agent Mills slips into the room, face as grey as the gathering clouds in the skies above. Pale and ashen. Devoid of the pep and rosiness that sometimes borders on irritating.

"Nice of you to join us, Mills," Lusine quips, hoping to liven her up somewhat, but the young woman simply flashes a wan smile before joining the group partaking in self-defence drills.

Not wanting to bother herself with the personal qualms of her students, Lusine turns back to the trainee she was guiding through stronger planting stances to be able to take hits without immediately crumbling.

But the ice-cold eyes stare her down in the mirror's reflection.

"Have a rest for a moment, Agent," Lusine says, meeting the burrowing gaze, not wanting to take her eyes off it for even a second. "We can continue this tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay," He replies, shuffling away to fetch a drink.

Lusine stomach flips when the icy eyes grow a grin to match on the face of the student she'd grown to care for dearly. She spins to face the deer turned wolf, pushing away the fear and replacing it with an unrivalled stoicism.

When the door opens once more, that fear comes rushing back in when both women's heads snap to see the newcomer. That fear takes hold when Olea greets the room with a warm smile, unaware of the being amongst them.

At her entrance, two more of the agents turn towards her, mouths grinning wide, hands twitching to make the kill.

Lusine can smell the anticipation in the air. Hear the thrum of their heartbeat as their plan falls into place around her.

When Mills summons her dagger, so does Lusine.

The first launches with deadly precision, though that precision didn't account for Florian who, to his credit, pushes Olea so that the blade lodges in her shoulder rather than her heart. They both tumble to the floor, him already reaching to yank the dagger free when Lusine's own blade sticks into Mills' back, having flown without a hint of hesitation.

She staggers forwards but doesn't fall.

"So," she spits out, slowly turning towards Lusine, her illusion slipping away to reveal the cousin she'd prayed would never return, "this is where you've been hiding?"

The trainees cling to the edges of the room, pressing against the wall as they fumble through their training to figure out what to do, but none of their training covers what to do when the enemy of your tutor turns up to assassinate her.

"Hiding?" Lusine forces out a laugh. "Oh, Cathal, you always were the slower sister, weren't you?"

The void wakes inside her. Rumbling as it yawns and rises to its feet, more than happy to expend itself to end this threat. Lusine summons her spear, fingers curling tight around its staff and basking in the familiarity.

"You two handle my cousin and the boy," She snaps to the other two agents and they nod obediently, their illusions fading away to reveal two men Lusine had likely trained herself. "I'll handle this one."

Her hands blaze with white power, glistening like ice, but she pulls twin blades from her back. The blades illuminate with that icy white magic under her touch.

Cathal manages to grin wider. "Where you have lost, I have only gained," She announces, beginning to walk towards her, swaggering as if she's already won.

"You forget yourself," Lusine says, eyes flickering to black, body shuddering with the influx of power suddenly rushing through her bloodstream as if a dam has been broken and floodwaters are now overcoming all that has been built.

But she doesn't think there'll ever be a better time than this to completely let go.

To bring Cathal Kella to and end on this day will make it all worth it, no matter what anyone else thinks.

"Everyone, get out!" She hears Olea cry over the roaring in her head.

When Cathal gets close enough to make the first jab at her, Lusine blocks her and brings the other end of the spear up to block the second sword when it comes swinging for her torso. She shoves her backwards, sending her stumbling, but still she doesn't fall.

Deciding that being defensive isn't going to get her anywhere, Lusine surges forth.

Although Cathal blocks both of her attacks with the spear she'd tried to slice across her guts, she isn't anticipating a third attack. Lusine brings her knee up and whacks it solidly into her middle, doubling her over.

Taking advantage of her cousin's winded state, Lusine drops her spear and leaps on her, pushing her backwards. When her back connects with the ground, Lusine has forced her down so firmly that the dagger already lodged in her back sinks all the way through, its tip protruding through her chest.

With Cathal restrained beneath her, she takes the woman's face in both of her hands.

The grin she'd worn so proudly is now gone and has been replaced by fear. True fear as the cousin she knows wants to see her six feet under hovers above her, deciding her fate.

"You are a traitor to the Volkovs. You follow a false queen. You've tried to kill me multiple times. You tried to kill Loki. You came here today to kill me and two of the few people I have left in the world who I care about," Lusine hisses, the fury and hatred in her eyes burning black as night amongst the void that has been brought to the forefront.

When Cathal tries to push her off, Lusine slams her skull into the floor with enough force to send her vision blurring.

"All of these reasons for me to kill you right here, right now." Lusine's thumbs brush tauntingly across her cheeks. "And no reasons for me to spare you as I have done every single time we've fought before this day."

To her credit, Cathal doesn't go back on her words and plead for her life. She glares up at the woman who has bested her once again.

"Lusine!"

Her grip on the enemy tightens when she looks up to see Steve standing there, breathing hard. He must've come just at the right time to help Florian, who now holds Olea up.

"Is that who you've betrayed your family for? A human?" Cathal laughs as best she can beneath the crushing vice around her skull. At her words, Lusine's eyes snap down to her again, as feral as the lone wolf. "We are above them and yet you lower yourself to him, to this world. You are their dog, their bitch. They chain you to this place when you could've been so much more. If only you'd stayed in Asgard. If only you'd chosen Loki instead of turning weak like them. You could've been our Queen, but you failed us and only your mother could fix what you ruined."

Done with listening, Lusine brings her fist hard across her face and takes sickening joy in the crunch of bones cracking beneath her knuckles.

By the time an extremely dazed Cathal's head rolls back towards her, Lusine has summoned another dagger.

"I suggest you choose your next words wisely because they're the last you'll ever speak," She tells her, settling the tip of the blade above her heart, not an inch of remorse to be seen on her face.

"Lusine, you don't have to—"

"Yes, I do!" Her free hand slams down over Cathal's throat to hold her down as she looks up to meet Steve's pleading look.

"Your human is right," Cathal croaks out, a bloody smile bubbling on her mouth. "You really don't have to murder more of your family."

To Steve's horror, Lusine pushes the dagger in. The movement is slow and calculated, only letting the blade in half an inch.

"I didn't want Lycus to die. I was out of control," Lusine says, unblinking as Cathal writhes beneath her. "I've come a long way since then. I'm in control now, cousin, isn't that amazing?" She shoves the blade in with a grunt, slicing right through the pumping heart. "And I want you to die."

END OF PART ONE

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2414 words
8.9.19

this sets so much up for part 2 and i'm excited to crush these characters even more !