The Valiant (The Seventh Avenger)

Chapter 57

"Get back to the quinjet, we got what we need," Natasha says, knocking me out of my trance. I can't believe it, what that person... that creature was. I give Wanda a helping hand and pull her up, she looks over me fearfully.

"That creature was not a friend of Hydra," she says through gritted teeth, "they started firing at us, it only defended itself before you came down as if it was waiting for you, then it started to speak in the weird tongue. Which I take you understood it."

I look down at my wrist, the sensation of burning went down but it continues to tingle. My fingers brush over it, feeling the swelling go down from my body adjusting to the new design on my wrist. We walk through the woods, a half in triumph and half in thought of the new enemy we seem to have made. More like I have made.

"So you understood it?" She asks after a few minutes of walking. I feel my head nod. "What did it say?"

"I didn't understand all of it, just one part," I lie. "It said 'two days' which I don't really know what that means."

Our thoughts were interrupted by Sam's voice coming on through the comms.

"We need to hurry, a distress signal was released and we don't know to who it was to," he says. Wanda and I glance at each other. She gives me a look telling me we will continue this conversation later. We burst into a sprint, the woods fiil with giggles and screeches when we throw handfuls of sticks at each other. I leap over a log and fall a little behind her, my body responds with a pulse off the ground and I soar through the air. My eyes close as the wind blows in my face, I wish every moment felt like this, this peaceful. My eyes open again and I land, automatically pumping my legs to keep going to the ship. The steel glints from the moonlight through the brush up ahead and I hear a groan from behind me. Wanda must be a few paces back. My feet clink up the ramp and I sit down, taking in heavy breaths as Wanda jogs in before punching me in the shoulder and sitting down. Natasha and Steve come in followed by Sam landing and the hatch closes.

My fingers continue to rub at the design now engraved into my skin and I feel a sensation that hasn't been felt in a very long time. A chill runs up and down my back as my body adjusts to all these changes happening, to the new flow of energy pumping in my veins to the confusion and questions spinning around in my mind.

'What is that on your wrist?' Wanda's voice echoes in my mind. Another chill shoots up my back.

'I don't know, the last time I saw it was two months ago when I was inside my mind," I echo back. My fingers won't stop rubbing up and down it, it just feels weird and unnatural for it to be there right now.

'What do you mean?'

I explain to her about my visitations to the Attolian afterlife whenever I get knocked out and how a certain design had always appeared when I went there. And how it is different this time.

I continue to look down at my wrist and a hand wraps around it and pulls it towards them. My heart leaps out of my chest and I look up to see Natasha staring at me with cold eyes.

"When did you get this?" She asks with a snarl. I look over at Wanda but she doesn't look at me. I pull my wrist back when I realize what she thinking.

"This isn't a tattoo," I almost shout, there's no way I'm going to get in trouble for something that wasn't my doing.

"Then what is that?" Steve asks coming up to me with his arms crossed. I try not to shrink down so I stand up and look as intimidating as I could. I put the design up so they all could see it.

"This isn't a tattoo, it's a symbol from my home. I've only seen it in dreams or in... in the times I went to the Attolian afterlife." They both give me a look and I begin to explain almost everything. I leave out the fact that that creature is after me.