Norta, Hall of the Sun

Evangeline's POV

I stood in a corner of the prep room that was beneath the Spiral Garden waiting for Queenstrial to start. I already knew I would win, and so did the other girls. The real question was which of the other girls would marry Prince Maven.

From above I could hear the king's voice booming through the Spiral Garden as he spoke. "All of you have come to honor my son and the kingdom, and so I honor you." I rolled my eyes in annoyance, he had been talking for at least five minutes and I was starting to get impatient.

Yes, we have all come to honor your son, I thought to my self. Now shut up and start the fucking Queenstrial so that we can actually honor him! I wish Elane was here to keep me company, but since she is already betrothed to my brother, she isn't competing in Queenstrial.

"I honor your right to rule." The king continued. "The future king, the son of my son, will be of your silverblood, as he will be of mine. Who will claim their right?" How nice of the king to assume that I will give birth to a son and not a daughter.

Father was the first to answer the king's question. "I claim Queenstrial!"

The other lords who had daughters competing did the same, shouting in unison. "I claim Queenstrial!" They echoed.

"Then it has begun. Lord Provos, if you would." I could hear the Garden turning into an arena. It took less than a minute, the time it should have taken the king to give his little speech. The hum of electricity began to rise, signaling that the lightning shield was turned on, protecting the audience from any flying debris from our performances. I hear the humming stop as the lightning freezes and solidifies. At last the floor opens and Rohr rises up into the arena on a platform.

"Rohr, of House Rhambos," her family shouts, announcing her to the world. After that, the event blows by in a whirlwind, and before I know it, I'm mounting the platform for my turn. After I'm fully in the arena, I take a few seconds to let my eyes adjust to the sunlight and observe my surroundings. The arena was completely destroyed. There were scorch marks on the ground, the statues that once ringed the arena were now nothing but dust.

"Evangeline, of House Samos," Father yells. He speaks alone, and his voice echoes across the Spiral Garden.

While the other girls wore silk dresses and occasionally armor, I wore an outfit of black leather. My jacket, pants, and boots were all studded with hard iron. Other houses cheer for me with my family. I have already won their favor. I salute, two fingers to my brow, first to my family and then to the royal family. They return the gesture, it's all I need to confirm that I have already won.

"Magnetron," Father says, stating my ability though everyone already knew what it was.

I take a minute, prowling across the floor, to look for Elane. Eventually, I find her in a box with the rest of House Haven. She makes eye contact with me, a small smile playing on her lips, and nods.

I concentrate on the iron studs on my clothes, summoning them into the air around me. Then I send them rocketing away from me. They dig into the dust, the walls, and the lightning shield.

I smirk as several houses applaud me, any magnetron could have done that. With that in mind, I shift my concentration to the metal piping running far beneath the palace. Groans and clanks echo up to everyone from somewhere deep down in the structure of the Spiral Garden. I can feel the ground vibrating beneath my feet. Everyone stops what they're doing, confused and intrigued.

With an earth-shattering noise, metal pipes splinter the floor of the arena, rising up from far below. They burst through the walls, surrounding me in a twisted crown of gray and silver metal. Sparks fall from the lightning shield, I effortlessly protect myself with a scrap of metal. After that I let the metal drop, it hits the ground with a loud smash. I turn my eyes skyward to the boxes above me. I can feel the metal skeletons of the boxes and get an idea.

Slowly at first, I start to tip the boxes of the first row. I can hear the plates crashing to the ground of the boxes. Glass cups tumble over the rails and shatter on the lightning shield. I furrow my brow in concentration, directing the metal with my hand.

Suddenly I see a blur of red tumble over the rail of House Laris's box. A red servant.

Shit.

Killing someone was not what I had planned, red or silver.

The lightning shield hisses with electricity as the servant hits it. The shield does its job, lighting them up with bolts of electricity. Their uniform burns, scorched and smoking. I expect their skin to do the same thing, but instead the lightning simply glides over them. Cloth burns away, charred black by the heat, but their skin doesn't change.

Something is wrong.

The shield gives off a black smoke, starting to splinter and crack. The sparks are brighter, angrier, but weakening. The servant, a woman I realize, tries to push herself up, to get to her feet, but the shield shatters and she falls yet again.

The red woman lands in a pile of dust. Above us, murmurs and gasps echo through the Spiral Garden as she struggles to her feet. Her once red uniform is black now, barely holding together in a charred mess. She has brilliant wavy red hair that falls just past her shoulders and deep green eyes. Her skin tone is fairly light for a Red. She has a deadly air about her. And though she is disoriented, her expression has a serious and dangerous look to it, like she knows how to kill someone in 50 different ways. Right now, that someone might be me. As pieces of her uniform flake off the sunlight glints off something on her hip. It's a gun, I can feel its steel structure and the lead bullets loaded in the weapon. Why does a red servant have a gun?

I stare at her, wide-eyed. That shield should have killed her and yet she stands in front of me, still alive. She stares back at me suspiciously. Her eyes wander up and down my body, evaluating me. Her behavior only confuses me more, most red servants didn't act like this.

"Hi," she says suddenly.

Damn, this bitch's got guts to speak to me after she just ruined my performance.

I respond with a flurry of metal shards, all of them sharp and deadly, pointed at her heart as they rip through the air.

Her reflexes are razor-sharp as she throws up her hands, probably hoping to save herself from the worst of it.

I have zero time to prepare myself for what happens next. Instead of catching the knives I threw at her, a jet of light - no, lightning - erupts from her hands, blazing through the metal. The pieces shriek and smoke, bursting apart in the heat. I lose control of them and they fall harmlessly to the ground as the lightning blasts into the wall behind me. It leaves a smoking hole four feet wide, barely missing me.

Natasha's POV

What the fuck!

Evangeline's mouth falls open in shock. I'm sure I look the same as I stare at my hands, wondering what on earth just happened to me. High above, a hundred of the most powerful Silvers wonder the same thing. I look up to see them all peering at me, including the queen. Well so much for spying on her without getting her attention, because now I'm sure I had all of it.

Tibe leans over the edge of his box, his flaming crown silhouetted against the sky. Cori's son, Cal, is right next to him, staring down at me with wide eyes.

"Sentinels."

Tibe's voice is sharp as a razor, full of menace. I know that's my cue to run.

Before Tibe can give the guards dressed in red-orange uniforms another order, I bolt, pushing past the stunned Evangeline to slide feet first into the still-open hatch in the floor.

"Seize her!" echoes behind me as I drop into the semidarkness of the chamber below. I don't think, I just run, cueless to where I'm going. I can feel the cameras, hunting like the Sentinels not so far behind me.

If I could get outside the city I might have a chance of getting back to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ alive.

"Jacos, come in," I shout to what seems like nothing, but the mic built into my earpiece picks up on everything I say.

"Agent Romanoff?" Cori's voice comes in through my earpiece.

"I need back up," I respond. "I've got Elara's attention."

"Get out of the palace. I'll send a Quinjet to come get you."

A blast of gunfire explodes over my head as I approach the first set of stairs that I find, forcing me to drop to the floor. Two Sentinels, their uniforms the color of fire, crash through a mirror and charge at me. They're just like security guards, I tell myself. Just bumbling officers who don't know you. They don't know what you can do.

I don't know what I can do.

They expect me to run so I do the opposite, storming the pair of them. I would have pulled out my gun, but that Evangeline must have discovered it because when I reached for it, it wasn't there. The Sentinels have guns of their own. Their guns are big and powerful, but bulky. Before they can get them up to shoot, stab, or both, I drop to my knees on the smooth marble floor, sliding between the two giants. One of them shouts after me, his voice exploding another mirror in a storm of glass. A banshee. By the time they manage to change directions, I'm already off and running again.

When I find a window, it's a blessing and a curse. I skid to stop in front of a giant pane of diamondglass, looking out to the vast forest. It's right there, just on the other side, just beyond an impenetrable wall.

All right hands, now might be a good time to do your thing. Nothing happens, of course.

A blaze of heat takes by surprise. Before they can capture me, I yank my earpiece out. Throwing it to the ground, I smash it beneath my foot. I turn to see an approaching wall of red and orange and I know - the Sentinels have found me. But the wall is hot, flickering, almost solid. Fire. And coming right at me.

I turn to run but instead collide with a broad wall of black fabric. Strong arms wrap around me, holding me still when I try to squirm away. Shock him, light him up, I scream in my head. But nothing happens. The miracle isn't going to save me again. 

The heat grows, threatening to crush the air from my lungs. I survived lightning today; I don't want to press my luck with fire.

But it's the smoke that's going to kill me. Thick and black and much too strong, choking me. My vision swirls, and my eyelids grow heavy. I hear footsteps, shouting, the roar of fire as the world darkens.

"I'm sorry," I hear a male's voice say. I think I'm dreaming.

____________

I'm asleep, but I can still feel her in my head, searching my memories. I know I'm screwed, and so is Cori when Elara finds my memories of her. I fear for when she finds my memories of the Red Room, that is the last place I ever want to re-visit.

However, the memories that form are not my memories, but what I had imagined Mare's past was like when I had been given my fake identity file for this mission. This is impossible. No one could lie to a whisper, and yet it came so easily, lying to Elara and feeding her false memories.

"Impossible," a voice says to me. The voice is so sharp, I fear it might crack my skull. I fall to my knees, colliding with what feels like concrete.

And then they're gone. The false memories, gone. Concrete and steel bars rise around me. A cage.

I struggle to my feet, one hand on my aching head as things come into focus. A figure stares at me from beyond the bars. A crown glitters on her head.

"I'd bow, but I might fall over," I say to Queen Elara.

She doesn't look offended. Instead, she smirks. I feel her ability radiating from her, I can hear the order to bow echoing in the air, but I can also feel the shield that my mind produces, protecting me from her deadly ability. I realize that she's already suspicious of me, and I don't need to give her more reasons to be suspicious. Reluctantly, I let her in.

A wave of nausea washes over me when I meet her eyes, and I double over again.

"That looks like a bow to me," she purrs, enjoying my pain.

I fight the urge to vomit and reach out to grab the bars. My fist clenches around cold steel. "What are you doing to me?"

"Not much of anything anymore. But this -" She reaches through the bars to touch my temple. The pain triples beneath her finger, and I fall against the bars, barely conscious enough to hold on. "This is to keep you from doing anything silly."

"Like stand on my own two feet?" I manage to spit out. I can hardly think through the pain, let alone be polite, but still I manage to hold back a stream of curses.

"Like electrocute something," she snaps.

The pain ebbs, giving me enough strength to make it to the metal bench. When I rest my head against the cool stone wall, her words sink in. Electrocute.

The memory flashes across my mind, coming back in jagged pieces. Evangeline, the lightning shield, the sparks, and me. It's not possible.

"You are not Silver. Your parents are Red, you are Red, and your blood is red," the queen murmurs, prowling before the bars of my cage. "You are a miracle, Mare Barrow, an impossibility. Something even I can't understand, and I have seen all of you."

But she hadn't seen any of me, she saw what I wanted her to see. I decide that I have to play along if I want to come out of this alive. "That was you?" I almost screech, reaching up to cradle my head again. "You were in my mind? My memories? My nightmares?"

"If you know someone's fear, you know them." She blinks at me like I'm some stupid creature. I want to slap her, how could she think I was so stupid to not know this, it was one of the many things I was taught in the Red Room. "And I had to know what it is we're dealing with."

"I am not an it."

"What you are remains to be seen. But be thankful for one thing little lightning girl," she sneers, putting her face against the bars. The nickname is like a slap in the face.

A smirk spreads arcoss my lips. I get up, despite the pain, and walk towards her. "And what would that be?" I ask, leaning towards her as I cock an eyebrow up.

"You did that in front of hundreds of Silvers, people who will ask questions, people with power," she hisses in my ear, her sickly sweet breath washing over my face. "That is the only reason you are still alive."

"You sit on a throne of lies," I snarl. She doesn't deny it. My hands clench, and I wish for the lightning again, but it doesn't come. She knows what I'm doing and laughs openly. She turns to go in a swirl of rustling silk, leaving me well and truly alone in the cell. I barely make it back to the bench, fighting the urge to throw up.

Exhaustion comes over me in waves, starting in my muscles and sinking into my bones. I am only human, and humans aren't supposed to deal with days like today. With a jolt, I realize my wrist is bare. The red band I had been given to denote my blood status when I got here this morning is gone, taken away. What could that mean? Tears sting my eyes, threatening to fall, but I will not cry. I have that much pride left.

I can fight the tears but not the questions. Not the doubt growing in my heart.

What's happening to me?

What am I?

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Author's Note:

Thank you all for the support. I own nothing but the plot, all rights go to Victoria Aveyard and the MCU.