Illusions (The Avengers)

15. An Evil Soul

"Jaelyn! Damn it, come on!"

"She's survived far worse, Peter, she'll be fine."

Jaelyn began to see blurred faces hovering above her, blinking several times she found that she was back aboard the ship. Peter Quill's face came back into view, and next to his the beautiful green face of Gamora.

"Quill," she groaned, pushing herself up on one elbow.

"Hey, take it easy," Peter reached out to help her to her feet, his hazel eyes worried.

Jaelyn looked up at him, finding his red leather trench coat ripped in places and his face covered in scrapes.

"What happened?" she asked him, reaching up to dab his bleeding cheek.

"Remember that guy you told me about? The creep with the silver hair?"

Panic hit Jaelyn right in the chest; after everything they'd done to keep Maro off their trail, he'd still been one step ahead of them.  The last thing she remembered was being in the museum-like place belonging to Taneleer Tivan, who had pretty much disappeared off the face of the universe according to Peter. She'd managed to get the Collector's daughter, Carina to give her the shard, but just as she was about to hand it off- boom; an explosion had practically blown the whole room apart, and that was where Jaelyn's memory stopped.

"Maro. But, did you get it?" she asked, nearly fearing the answer. After everything she'd done to get the stupid little piece of doom, she felt she deserved a win for once.

Peter's mouth formed a line, and Jaelyn felt her lungs constrict angrily.

"Maro jumped me, gave me this," he pointed to a gash on his shoulder," I barely had time to get to the ship, you were near the center of the blast, so Drax had to carry you out, and Maro had these freaky enhanced humans-"

"Inhumans," Jaelyn cut in.

"Whatever, but I hardly had enough time to get on the ship, much less grab anything," Peter said," but I did have time to grab this."

Jaelyn felt relief wash over her as he held up a small steel cube with tiny openings that allowed pulsing white light to shine through.

"Peter, I love you," she declared, taking the little cube into her slender figures.

As soon as she touched it, a sound between a growl and a purr echoed in her ears, chills erupted on her arms and a sense of dread filled her.

"Woah, uh, Jae?" Peter waved his hand in front of her eyes, causing her to blink.

She hadn't even touched the thing, and she could feel it's evil. In recent developments, they'd learned that the shards scattered across the universes were more than just parts of a weapon of mass destruction, each piece was a part of a living soul. The living soul of Jadis to be exact. Ambur had managed to move her shard to Narnia in the midst of the chaos, but it was going to be a challenge getting this piece out of the dimension after one had slipped out from under Maro's nose. He was angry and Jaelyn had learned quickly that he got what he wanted much quicker when he was angered.

In the past two months, her team had split. She and Ivy had gone against Tony's wishes and called Star-Lord and his team to help them get the shard from the Collector a couple weeks after Chloe went missing, the past month-and-a-half had consisted of dodging Maro within the far reaches of space. She'd managed to stay in-contact with Tristan, who filled her in on everything was happening while she was gone. Both Ivy and Stormy had gone up to Asgard to help deal with the nine realms catastrophe, which had settled down once Ivy had put up borders between the realms. Hive had attacked the U.N. and Bucky had broken out, which put a little less stress on her, but Chloe still hadn't been found. Tristan thought that they were getting close, but she was still missing.