What Rises From The Ashes

another strange morning

 > Zoe Pov <

I woke up to the sound of my alarm going off. I groaned as i reached over to hit the snooze button. Opening my eyes slowly not used to the light that was pouring through my bedroom window, slowly i sat up in bed while rubbing my eyes trying to get rid of the sleepiness. I got out of bed and made my way over to my window and looked out. To anyone it would have looked like a beautiful morning in a little cottage in the woods but then again most people they would have questions about the blue barrier surrounding the house. I thought back to when me and the girls first got here... the day we thought it was all over.

(Flashback)

We had done everything we could to stop this from happening. everything we had done was all in vain now, we made sure people got their happy endings, we gave them the lives they always wanted. The families they always wanted...but they kept on pushing us to give them even more. the four of us were brought together by the phoenix force to correct their mistakes in the multiverse, one world at a time. and up until now everything was going perfect or as perfect as it could, Wanda had her brother, husband and kids, stark was alive and watching Morgan grow up, rogers was retired with Sharon. finally living a life without a war. thor had his brother and parents back, sure they still had some problems but it was the best they had ever been. natasha had her sister and was helping free the other widows from the red room...we did all of that and more but it was never enough for them. they wanted to know more about the multiverse, how it came to be, how different the worlds were but most importantly how to travel to the other earths. Dr Strange asked Shannon for help, he had seen the things she could do when the four of us intervened at the battle of wakanda. she had sent them to a pocket dimension while we took care of thanos and his army. strange new she could do even more but she said no "the multiverse is too unstable for you to be trying to create breaches to other worlds, you saw what it did in Hong Kong when the dark dimension was seeping in" strange sighed " it will be different this time, we'll be doing this to explore and help other worlds. we'll be able to help our own too!. think about it, they might have cures for cancer and all the horrible things that plague the world" shannon looked at him knowing something was going to come of this whether she helped or not " strange I'll say this once...leave the multiverse alone, be happy with the life you have here. don't throw it away for something that you don't understand" she opened a portal and went through it. strange watched as the portal closed, thinking about what she had told him.but deep inside he couldn't let this go, so he recruited others that had the same desire to explore the multiverse. tony stark, loki, Bruce banner, and Wanda. they started trying to open small breaches into other worlds, the majority of them failed. that was until strange came in possession of the darkhold. using its power they managed to open a breach into the multiverse. they watched in disbelief as the breach opened but the happiness of that moment quickly faded as they watched it tear into a rift growing bigger by the second. they tried to stop it and close it off but it was already too late, they watched in horror as the tear kept growing and splitting into more tears and soon that wasn't the only thing they had to worry about. the other worlds villains started coming through some were easier to handle then others but some...some there was no hope for. that brings us to that faithful day, the day we gave our lives for the multiverse. it was an all out war, the kind you don't see an end to, one you don't think you'll walk away from. after hours of fighting there was only one choice left. we had to use every ounce of power in us to close the tears, in doing so it would kill us but that's what we were brought together to do, save the multiverse. across what was once new yorks beautiful central park was now a war zone filled with heroes and villains fighting to kill each other. in the very middle of it all was the four of us, huddled together in a barrier mai was barely holding together kira looked at us, we all looked half dead from trying to win the war " you know, after all these years i didn't think this is the way i would die". mai looked at her sister perplexed " how did you think it would end?". kira smiled " i figured i would go down swinging to protect your ass". mai let out a small laugh as she looked at her sister the reality of what we were about to do setting in. i saw tears starting to form in her eyes. i reached out and held her hand " we'll all be here together, family doesn't leave each other behind. its all of us together or not at all". shannon smiled slightly at that. those words had been a pack we always made to each other, a promise that either way we would always be together, dead or alive. mai nodded and we all moved closer together, taking each others hands as we started to focus all the energy and power we had into the middle of us. it felt like we were tearing out our own hearts, it was complete and utter agony that no matter how hard i try...i couldn't describe it. we were so deafened by the pain we hadn't know we were screaming, the kink of screams that send chills down your spine, that you'll always hear when you try to fall asleep. we were in that state for five minutes, feeling like our bodies were being torn apart as the energy in the middle of us grew bigger and bigger. it soon en-composed us and once it had, it exploded shattering the barrier that had protected us. the explosion had sent waves of energy and light throughout the city. the heroes of that world shielded their eyes and tried to hunker down from the blast. the light slowly faded as the energy dissipated. they opened their eyes slowly and saw...nothing. there was no fighting, no villains. no destroyed buildings, no war, but most importantly there were no tears in the multiverse. strange looked out at the once fallen heroes standing up, alive and breathing. "h-how...that's impossible" he flew into the air and saw everything was back to normal for miles. the only thing out of place was piles of ashes in the middle of central park