The Legacy of Meisal Mendadaughter~ Avengers fanfiction

A Desperate Act

See if you can spot the ASOUE reference!

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Meisal's blood ran cold and her muscles tensed as Htic walked in. She expected him to be flanked with guards, but he was alone. She considered shooting him, but then decided that it would be unwise to do so with an injured Loki lying behind her.

"Htic," she hissed through gritted teeth, "I would have expected a coward like you to stay hidden behind your ever- loyal guards."

"Oh, well, you know I can't resist a bit of fun every now and then," the boy replied, shrugging nonchalantly. He raised his eyebrows and nodded to Loki, who was still lying on the floor, his face pale and his eyes wide with fear. "I see you saved your brother from quite and unfortunate death," Htic remarked. As if on cue, the platform within the box that Loki had been standing on mere seconds ago opened with a whoosh. Loki let out a fearful whimper. Meisal reached down and gently touched a hand to his hair, murmuring soothingly. Htic laughed.

"I honestly can't believe you're so loyal to each other," he snorted, "I mean-- you meet and find out that you're related in what, twenty seconds? Then this pathetic weasel gets taken and you're ready and willing to risk everything to find him?" Htic shook his head pityingly. "It fills me with such doubt it Fsanian. That's why I killed him, you know-- that old fool didn't have a clue what he was doing when he took you in, and I needed him to step out of my way if I was going to undo the damage that you caused."

"It makes me proud to think I caused damage to this whole hellish place," Meisal replied sourly. "And I, quite frankly, don't give a damn if you want authority or power or respect. It's no one's place to play judge, jury and executioner with other people's lives, and people have to be free to make mistakes and disobey orders and fail on their own. It's not up to you to decide who lives and who dies, to pick and choose who's worthy of life and who isn't. And every time someone tries to play God with life, they lose."

"You," Htic laughed, "sound like your mother."

"My-- what?" Meisal paused, taken aback by the sudden callback. "My mother? Menda?"

"Yes, Menda," Htic smiled, an eerie, disconcerting sight. "That annoyingly selfless bitch. I hated her-- that's why she had to go."

"You--" Meisal's mind reeled, her heart thundering. You sound like your mother. Annoying selfess bitch. That's why she had to go.

Hurry. Go. Run.

They're coming!

Who's coming, mother?

A pause.

Frost giants.

Another pause.

I can help, mother--

No, Meisal. Run. Hide. You cannot fight.

Menda pushed her into an underground hole, told her to wait until someone came to get her, told her that if no one came there was a tunnel she could escape through. Meisal shook her head, crying, telling her mother that she wanted to fight. Menda ignored her, closed the top off, ran away. Meisal waited for hours. She listened to the screams and cries, she held her breath every time footsteps sounded overhead or bits of dirt fluttered from the ceiling to the ground like dying moths.

And then. Silence. Meisal waited, no one came. She was about to crawl through the tunnel when the roof opened and a hideous alien knelt there, telling her to get up. Meisal went. She saw the state of the town she had grown up in, she saw the destroyed buildings, saw the bloodied corpses, saw the ruin and chaos. She ran through the rubble, screaming her mother's name.

Then she saw it. Bloodied and broken, her mother's corpse pinned up against the wall with a rusty sword, a river of crimson blood streaming from her chest. Her skin pale and bloodless, her eyes wide and empty, her limbs hanging limp and lifeless. 

And written above in blood, Menda's blood, was a name.

Laufey.

But Laufey hadn't killed her. Laufey hadn't been there.

Htic had done it.

But Meisal hadn't known it then. She turned to the ugly alien and asked him his name.

Fsanian, he said.

Would you like to be my child?

Meisal surged forwards with a scream of rage. "YOU MURDERER!" She bellowed as she collided with Htic, knocking him over and sending him sprawling under her weight. "YOU KILLED MY MOTHER! YOU KILLED ASH!"

Htic tried to push Meisal off of himself, laughing wheezily, like a madman with a throat infection, but she was too strong. He gasped breathlessly as Meisal pressed her knee into his chest, reaching for her blaster and aiming it right at his head. She stared furiously into his eyes-- the eyes of a killer.

I'm not going to let him get away this time.

This time, he's going to pay for his crimes.

Meisal pushed the gun right against Htic's forehead, pressing it in as hard as she could, not even flinching as he moaned his pain, his skin going pale. He deserves this, she thought, he deserves death more than anyone in the world..

But then she remembered her own words.

I, quite frankly, don't give a damn if you want authority or power or respect.

It's no one's place to play judge, jury and executioner with other people's lives.

It's not up to you to decide who lives and who dies, to pick and choose who's worthy of life and who isn't. 

And every time someone tries to play God with life, they lose.

What gave her the right to kill Htic? Why should he be restricted to laws while she could kill without remorse? Because he was evil? But this isn't justice.

I'm just fighting evil with evil, fighting fire with fire.

And the whole world's going to go up in smoke.

Meisal suddenly felt a sharp pain in her calf, and she realized, to her horror and dismay, that while she was distracted with her own controversial thoughts, Htic had stabbed her in the leg. She hissed in pain and was about to try and rip the knife from his hands when he stabbed her again, this time in the arm, which caused her to let go of the blaster and collapse. Htic rolled out from under her, grabbed the blaster, and aimed it right at Loki, who was crawling across the floor to try and help Meisal.

"Freeze," Htic ordered, narrowing his eyes at Loki, who stared back at Htic in terror. Meisal rose shakily to her feet, trying to ignore the burning pain in her arm and calf as she thought of a plan. Loki was in immediate danger, and he was her first priority.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps from the hallway and heard two familiar voices-- Thor and Gamora. Loki's features brightened with relief, but Meisal knew that this was not good. Htic would shoot Loki the second Thor ran in, and Meisal couldn't let that happen.

So she did the only thing that she could think of.

She launched herself at Htic, angling herself just right, and propelled both himself and her into the bottomless box and out into open space.