His Little Shooting Star [2]

The Evidence Room

~~~Catherine's pov~~~

"Remind me why Dad isn't here helping us look through this stuff?" Linda asked me from across the room, where she was sorting the various random items that littered the evidence room at the TVA.

It had only been a day since Loki had found us at this past version of the TVA, and we were trying everything to get back to the present one so that we could warn Mobius and the others of what was to come.

"He's trying to gather information," I answered, examining what looked like a jar of dirt. What was that doing here? "We know you said that Miss Minutes told you she was taking you to a past TVA, but we want to be sure she wasn't messing with us. It's kind of her specialty. Did you find anything that could get us back to the present one?

"No, but I did find this weird crystal."

"Really? What's weird about it?" I asked absentmindedly, still scanning the shelves in the room, not facing her.

"I don't know. It looks familiar, but I'm sure I've never seen it before. It's blue and like six inches long."

Her words made my blood run cold, and I quickly turned to see that my five-year-old was holding a Terrigen crystal in her hands.

"Linda, I need you to put that down. Quickly." I tried to keep my voice level, but it was pretty damn hard to in this situation.

What the hell was a Terrigen crystal doing here anyway?!

Her eyes went wide, but she listened. "Okay..." She carefully tried to place it back in the box where she found it but accidentally dropped it.

Shit.

Upon impact with the hard floor, the crystal shattered, releasing the Terrigen mist in a cloud of blue dust.

My heart started hammering inside my chest, knowing what would come next if she was exposed to it. "Linda, get away from the mist now! Don't let it come near you-" My sentence was cut short as a type of liquid rock began to cover her body from her head to her toes, completely encasing her within seconds.

No, no, no. This isn't happening.

She can't turn yet! She's not ready!

"You have got to be kidding me," I murmured, burying my head in my hands before slowly walking over to her, panicking. "Okay, so, um, Linda, I'm not sure if you can hear me, but there is no need to panic. This is normal."

That's true.

"That was a Terrigen crystal. It's what turns Inhumans and gives them their abilities. And I'm definitely not freaking out."

That is not true.

I ran my hands through my hair as I paced back and forth in front of her. "It's just that I don't exactly know what's going on here. I don't remember my Inhuman transition because my mother turned me when I was a newborn, so yeah, I have no memory of that whatsoever."

This is one of those times I really wished my mom would have waited to turn me. Or at least tell someone to do it when I got old enough. I'm sure I would be of a lot more help right now if I remembered my personal experience with it.

That's when I heard a crack from the rock that surrounded her body.

I looked closer and saw that she was slowly starting to break out of the rock.

Thank God.

"Linda?" I called out softly, seeing if she could hear me.

I got no response, but a few seconds later, the rocky chrysalis fell away like it was supposed to. What was not supposed to happen, however, was Linda being unconscious when she emerged from it.