Picking Up The Pieces

32. Another Day, Another Destiny

I just need a small victory
A silver line to get me by
I just need a win, a neon sign
An arrow shot, a tunnel light

Small Victory by Transviolet (Atlantis Playlist)

   I had no idea where I was before I hit the ground hard, letting out a groan. I shakily lifted my head from the dirt to see Ego's skeletal form walk towards me. "I offered you a place to stay, Isabel!" he yelled at me, sending a tendril to pick me up and slam me back into the ground. "You have more power than you could ever use! More gifts than you can ever waste in your puny lifetime!" Another tendril picked me up, but instead of slamming me again, it brought me closer to Ego. I could see every minute detail of his body being recreated slowly, and it was disgusting. "You've been a pain in my side since you walked on me!"

"Than how come you haven't killed me?" I wheezed out, blood and grime coating my face from his constant bashings. He smiled evilly, and his form changed into something other than the body he had been using to represent himself.

"I need you to finish what I've started," he told me, taking the form of my father. It was terrifying; Ego looked exactly like him. The only difference was the rage in his eyes. "We're a team, aren't we?"

"Get out of my head," I hissed, and Ego changed into a younger form. My sister.

"This is for the greater good, trust me," she said to me, and I screamed out as a light tendril stabbed through my back. It hurt so much, burning my insides while taking power out of me. "Everything will be as it must me."

"I said get out," I ordered Ego before crying out as two tendrils went through my legs.

"You've been reading mine for so long now, it's just time to repay the favor," my sister chastised me. "I closed my eyes in agony, and two hands cupped my face in a loving gesture. I opened my eyes to see Peter Parker smiling gingerly at me.

"Peter..."

"I told you you're a hero," he told me, and a needle-like tendril shot through my arm. "You're gonna help so many people by doing this." A few tears fell down my face, and Peter wiped it away. "I love you, Belle." I closed my eyes to concentrate before opening them fast, and everything had a bluish tint.

"You aren't my Peter," I snarled back, and I thrust my metal arm forward and shot boiling water at him. Ego stumbled back with a yell of pain, turning back into his true self and clutching the area of his newly formed body I had just destroyed. All of his tendrils released me as they went to healing him."You aren't my Peter!"

Ego threw a punch at me, which I caught with my metal hand. I kneed the Celestial in the stomach, destroying his ribcage. As I pulled my leg back, Ego suddenly grew ten feet and punched me down into the ground. I took one of my knives out of my boot using a water whip, and the whip set to work on it's own as it cut of Ego's fist.

I rolled out of the way as Ego tried to step on me, and my water whip came flying back to me with my knife. "And you aren't hurting any more of my friends!" I yelled at him, and I leapt off the ground onto Ego's knee, pushing off again and stabbing the Celestial through the skull. That's when I realize there's another knife there. As Ego's form fell to the ground, destroyed, I picked up both the knives and turned around to see Nebula with her arm still outstretched.

"Are you alright?" she asked me, and I handed her knife back to her.

"Shaken, but peachy," I responded. "You?"

"Shake, but peachy," she repeated, and I nodded. I looked over her shoulder, expecting Gamora to be either beside or behind her. "She's on the Quadrant." An aero rig is placed in my palm. "Like we should be."