The Widow's Daughter: Flashback (Sequel to the Widow's Daughter)

Chapter Two

There are many reactions that come to mind at seeing your long-lost triplet sister whom you didn't remember you had until a grand total of three seconds ago. Crying is an option. So is shrieking in joy, embracing her, and demanding to know what in the name of Thor's hammer was going on.

Instead, I screamed.

I screamed and squealed and thrashed against my bindings until the multicoloured Sakaar guards threw their hands over their ears. I wailed like a toddler, like an angry baby, like a hungry goat missing its mother: because in a strange sense, that was what I was. 

"Holy Asgard, Kira, SHUT UP!" came Holly's ear-splitting yell as I continued my relentless shrieking. "It's me! It's me, Holly! Your sister!"

If anything, her words made my screeching even louder. It was only once she'd rushed to my side and untied me did I calm down, my yelling reduced to harsh pants and laboured breathing.

"Hells, Kira, one minute in and you're already ruining my life," my sister muttered, looking at me like I was insane. Her green eyes were wide and concerned. "You look terrible, by the way. Must've had a rough year."

A... rough year?

My palms were clammy in Holly's as she helped me up and out of the chair, and I almost collapsed into her arms. The room spun around me, a dizzying array of colours and flashes of light. 

"Where," I croaked. "Where. Am. I."

Holly laughed. "Did you not listen to the introduction just then? We're on Sakaar, of course!"

I swallowed. My throat was dry and rough, and my tongue scraped over the roof of my mouth like sandpaper. "Why... Why are we on Sakaar?"

My sister didn't answer straight away. She took my arm and led me over to a massive window, where an alien view greeted me - sand dunes and moons of differing sizes. We weren't on earth anymore, that was for sure.

"Why are we on Sakaar? Well, that is a question, isn't it."

"Yes. I just asked you. What are we doing here?"

Holly sighed, and it was then that I truly looked at her. Although she was smiling, there was something tainted about her, something haunting in the way her skin stretched over her face. She looked different, spoke differently. The Holly I remembered... or at least, the me of the past remembered... that Holly was gone.

"The reason that I am here on Sakaar is probably very different to the reason you are here on Sakaar," responded Holly, slinging an arm around my bony shoulders. "I am here because I have been destined with a Glorious Purpose: one far more beneficial than that of the measly Avengers down on earth, for sure. "

She snorted as if she'd just told the funniest joke in the world. I looked at her strangely. "Avengers?"

"Oh, right, sorry," she said. "Your brain's still adjusting from the intense spiralling in the space-time continuum you've experienced. It may take a while, but are you sure you don't remember the Avengers? I mean, you are an Avenger. Surely you remember yourself."

I shook my head slowly. "Only snippets."

"The Avengers? A.K.A the Infatuated Heroes Society? The Useless Pricks Regiment? The Confederacy of Egotistical Bootlickers?" Holly's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Our - your - big happy family?"

"I... I remember... There was a muscly man named Steve?"

Holly sighed and patted my shoulder comfortingly. "Golly. If he's all you can remember your brain's still got a lot of adjusting to do." She sniffed. "Well. Back to the explanation: I am here on Sakaar because the universe has very big plans for me. Plans bigger than that of the silly Avengers, that was for sure. Don't get me wrong: the Avengers were nice for a while, all love and happiness and 'field trips with mummy, disarming nuclear missiles.' But it soon became shown to me that I was destined for something a tad - greater - than being the forgotten triplet in a band of money-loaded heroes."

I snorted, gazing out over the sand-swept planet. "And Sakaar is where you figured you'd discover your so-called greatness? It's a pile of rubbish. The Game Master in the tunnel said it himself - it's a place for unwanted things."

"Which is exactly why it's perfect for me!" Holly laughed, swinging me around gleefully. "Let's say, back on earth, after you and the Salvatores and I saved Ireland from certain doom, I was a tad bitter. Nobody liked me. I had no friends, and I knew that you only put up with me because I was your sister."

"That's not true," I muttered.

"Well, whatever you believed, I had had enough of it," Holly continued. "I was offered a deal of sorts. An apprenticeship. A - a what do you call it - an internship with somebody far greater than the Avengers could offer. A god."

A sudden memory flashed into my mind. It was of a man - a great bearded man who carried a hammer. He had eaten Pop-Tarts, and watched Stranger Things with me. He had been a god, but I had loved him like an uncle.

"But... the Avengers could offer a god," I countered. "Uncle Thor."

"Close," grinned Holly. "But not quite. This certain god has a great deal more charm and I found that he and I were one and the same. We have the same motives. The same backstory. The same -" she clicked her fingers, and a spark of green flame danced in her palm before snuffing out. "- Abilities."

My head was spinning, whether with dizziness or confusion or a mixture of both, I didn't know. I could barely remember my own name, let alone all of this information that this strange new version of Holly was bombarding me with.

 "So... Who is this so-called god?" I asked. "And why isn't he here? Why can you suddenly do that green-glowy thing? What is your Glorious Purpose? And where are the Avengers now?"

Holly laughed slowly. Her eyes flashed a viridescent green. "I've been Apprenticed to the God of Mischief for a year now," she said, "He is not here because he has business elsewhere. After disposing of the Game Master I am now the ruler of Sakaar, soon to be the entire universe once I've laid out my plans right. And the Avengers?"

As she spoke, an image of a smiling red-haired woman flashed into my brain. Natasha, she'd been called. I had loved her, once... I wondered if she still loved me. 

"Kira, dear sister. The Avengers are dead."

Author's Note: HAHAHAHA yes, you guessed right! This is also now a Loki fanfiction. Our favourite God of Mischief has corrupted this story and is turning it into something much stranger than originally anticipated. Surprise?