❝ What's left to lose?
What's won is won
But it can always be undone ❞
Doctor Stephen Strange saw fourteen million six hundred and five possible futures. They lose. They fail. Thanos wins and half of the population is gone. Out of all the possible f...
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THREE YEARS LATER
"SLOPPY, SLOPPY, SLOPPY. GET UP, DO IT AGAIN"
Maalot huffed and pushed herself off the ground, not bothering to brush off the dirt off her clothes. She took a deep breath and blew the hair out of her face. She moved and got in position once again in front of the thin panels. Master Xanaii blasted air at the panels which began to spin. Maalot stared at them, each spinning one way and another. With a huff she moved forward, hands in front of her as she entered the spinning panels. She moved through them pushing against the air and her feet dragging over the ground. This is the opposite of how she's supposed to move. Her movements should be graceful, airy, flow with the movement of the panels and move direction when she meets resistance.
But Maalot is pushing through which leads to sloppiness and her smacking against the wooden panels, foot, shoulder, back, causing her to lose balance and get hit a couple more times. She would try to pick through but it would end with her flying out and landing harshly on the ground.
Maalot remained on the ground, annoyance and irritation growing each time Xanaii told her to get up and do it again.
"Sloppy. Again"
She screamed and pushed herself off the ground. "Enough!" She snapped. "We've been out here for hours! Practicing and practicing and it never ends. I've been doing everything you've told me to do–"
"And yet you're still failing!" Xanaii interrupted.
"Because you're not helping me!" Maalot shouted.
"No, it's because you want to fail!" She shouted back. "Maalot, you know how to do this, it was one of the first things you learned, but you've been growing sloppy and you force your way through! That" she pointed at the now still panels "what you've been doing there has been your worst work ever. Sloppy movements, unbalanced footwork, and the way you force your movements. You're not being patient"
"I can't do this anymore" Maalot said.
"Yes you can. You just don't want to do it anymore"
"I can't do it" she repeated more forcefully. She removed the sky blue stone from her necklace and held it in her hand. "I failed on Earth. I wasn't strong enough to stop Thanos. If I was a little bit faster, a little bit stronger we wouldn't be where we are now. Thanos is dead, the stones are gone and half the universe is dead. And this" she held the stone between her fingers "I'm not strong enough to be the guardian of the stone. Give it to Meelo, he can do it"
Xanaii sighed and shook her head. "You are one of the strongest guardians of the Stone of Ventus. I've seen it and you've proved it multiple times. And your brother may excel in multiple fields but he wasn't chosen as the guardian. You were"
Maalot let the words sink in and sighed. She looked down at the stone in her hand, the stone which grants her power to control air. Without it she has no powers. That's why whenever she's training or fighting, she wears the stone in jewelry, either in a headpiece, or necklace or bracelet, she could keep it in her pocket but having it as part of an accessory is easier. She ran her thumb over the smoothness of the stone and placed it back on her bracelet.
