A Hushed Sound. (MCU/Siege!verse)
Title: A Hushed Sound
Series: #1 in Only Death
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine! Characters you recognize belong to Marvel, and I've incoporated some comic back story into the movieverse.
Notes: References to rape, suicide attempts and abortion are made but not discussed at any length. Series and story titles from Pablo Neruda's "Nothing But Death." This series follows Ready For The Siege and may refer to events in it, but is probably okay to read without having read the other series first. Any questions about events in this series, just ask. :)
Summary: Natasha Romanoff refused to provide genetic material for Hel to manipulate. But there were always contingency plans in place.
Hel was tall, with spindly limbs and skin the color of bleached bone. Her hair was jet black, long and flowing freely down to the middle of her back. She wore a dress tightly fitted in the torso, velvety black fabric embroidered with iridescent runes of protection and knowledge. The skirt of the dress was made of spider's silk, also black and shot with gold and red threads, shifting its color as she moved. There was no ornamentation on it, and she wore no jewelry or crown as she walked through the bowels of her palace.
Her appearance and dress oftentimes shifted as the mood struck her, and whom she was set to meet. It wouldn't do to not be properly attired in front of important personages or visitors from other realms. That so rarely happened, though of late she had been far more social than she had been in the past.
Time and space and geography shifted in Helheim. Its borders were enclosed in gray fog, so thick that it often was difficult to see past a hundred feet or so. The fog was constant, taking on an almost tangible quality at the borders of her realm, shifting as if it had a consciousness of its own. The other constant was her palace, though its outward appearance often changed as well. The outer gate and drawbridge with its guardian gargoyles was the same, as was the throne room with her golden throne on a raised dais. The paneling and ornamentation on the pillars could change, and the doors leading in and out of the room often were hidden or changed, but the throne and dais were always the same. The labyrinth beneath the palace was another fixed item in Helheim, the heart of her realm, the seat of her power.
In the very center of the labyrinth was a massive web, tangled, sticky threads imbued with the partially absorbed bodies of the seers of every realm. So few seers were considered worthy of Valhalla, and were oftentimes seen as cursed. Hel - a predecessor, the same, her successor - had snatched them all up greedily, depositing their essences within the web. Each one had accepted their fate with equanimity, knowing before the end came that they would be continuing into eternity with the same gifts as their fractured lives. Sorcerers, shamans, witches, seers, druids, lesser gods and goddesses, and practitioners of every craft across the Nine Realms were present and accounted for in the webbing. Some had famous names: Tiresias, Cassandra, Helenus, Sybil, Iamus, Mopsus, Laocoon, Cathbadh, Morgana, Nimue, Mimir, Freyja, Heiðr, Gróa, Lagua, Visvamitra, Amairgen, Taliesin, Inyanga shamans, Vorozheia, and Yakut shamans. Some of them had been trapped within the webbing so long that their faces were no longer distinct, but merely vague shadows and indentation in the silk. Their voices were indistinct, only adding a soft fluttering sound to the stillness of the chamber; the spiders crawling along the strands to maintain and building them moved as silently as ghosts.
The seers often spoke as a single chorus when Hel requested their visions. Sometimes a single one might come in more strongly, the clear origin of the visions. But the collected power within the heart of the web was immense, both fueling and anchoring the web and the powers within Helheim. There had been no weakness when Selene began feeding upon Midgard, but it was too good an opportunity to waste. The sheer amount of magic and power bound within her body was immense, and perhaps Hel was greedy. The chorus had warned her of possible consequences, the threads of the spá too indistinct until decisions were made.
She made her decision. And the consequences came, just as predicted.
"The overload," the chorus sang out. The entire web was quivering, and that sent the spiders scurrying into the darker corners. Hel could almost make out the shivering, bound form of Selene Gallio within the heart of the web, soul trapped within the inner matrix of threads. "It comes, and you cannot suppress it, Queen Hel the Everlasting. As it was before, so it will be again."
All the rulers of Hel were named Hel. They were all the same consciousness, more or less, transformed and altered to fit the current needs of Helheim. Hel and Helheim were one and the same, different manifestations of the same thing. Perhaps they all were greedy, siphoning magic and power and souls, sometimes faster than they could accommodate them.
Which meant it was time for another Hel.
Time worked differently in Helheim compared to other realms. This current incarnation of Hel was born from the prior Hel's liaison with Loki of Asgard. Born dead after he had already left the realm, the prior Hel had obtained help from Frigga to sustain the life force of the current Hel. Loki had been unaware of the situation until relatively recently, when his machinations led Natasha Romanoff to Hel's awareness. Natasha belonged to Hel, in the sense that her gifts were particularly suited to Hel's needs, and she was comfortable with the idea of death. Raised by the Red Room, Natasha was trained to be a skilled assassin and spy, to be cold if need be, to eschew the tangled webs that relationships could be. Yet over the past few years of her time frame, those tenets loosened their hold on her. She cherished the relationships she had with friends and her lovers, cherished the memories she could identify as truly her own, and worked hard to be seen as a positive influence despite her past. Even without a philosophical ledger to balance out the horrors and good deeds of the past and present, it was still a path she set herself upon.
Hel wished her well, truly. The woman had suffered far too much in her short lifespan. She deserved some measure of happiness.
By ingesting the still living physical heart of Selene Gallio while absorbing her soul into the realm, Hel had taken on far too much, too soon. She hid it from Loki and Natasha in their visits to Helheim, and travel between realms hadn't depleted enough energy. It was like an overloaded circuit, and something had to siphon off the excess.
Natasha wasn't willing to give birth to a child that Hel would someday be able to use, or abort an unwanted one. Her discomfort with raising an infant matched Hel's, so the Queen could hardly fault her on that. It was easy enough to take back the gift of a womb; Hel had energy to spare and other potential souls that could possibly do her bidding.
Time was flexible in Helheim. It was nothing and everything at once. She had other souls at her disposal, other plans that had already been set in motion.
"My Queen," the chorus sang. "Look to the Viper."
With that, Hel smiled coldly and looked into the heart of the web.
***
Aleksander Lukin had been born in the village of Kronas in the Soviet Union. His mother had been killed in a skirmish, leaving him orphaned. Vasily Karpov took him in and mentored him, teaching him that ruthlessness was the means to getting what he wanted. This sent Aleksander down the path to entering the FSB and military. Karpov trained several other up and coming young officers, including Alexei Shostakov, and his affiliation with Department X meant that he had also been involved in the Winter Soldier program. As Aleksander rose in the ranks of the Russian intelligence community, Karpov recruited him into Department X. He was in charge of many special projects, and was aware of the Red Room, Hydra, and the myriad projects only whispered about by even the most powerful men in Russia.
After Karpov's death from old age, Aleksander took over all of Department X and was the main contact point with Hydra. He was in charge of many testing protocols, sometimes using Hydra subjects and sometimes using ones provided by AIM. His favorite project was the Reanimation Chamber, where attempts were made to transfer the consciousness of subjects from one body to the next. Most of the experiments were a failure, of course, but they were done on orphan girls gathered from all over Europe. No one wanted them, so why not use them?
Eight locations had been chosen, with twelve girls assigned to each house. Most of them had some kind of combat training, though each house had a different specialty. The girls were forced to battle for head of the house, and only a single girl could be the winner. She would be the most determined and ambitious of them all, the most aggressive one and the best skilled in her form of combat. In this way, the talents could clearly be transferred by the protocols of the Reanimation Chamber if it worked.
But it didn't.
Ophelia Sarkissian was involved in Hydra's inner workings, and often served as a go between with her cousin Ekaterina, who worked with AIM. She was utterly besotted with her model girlfriend Yelena, which was irritating. Aleksander lusted after her, but the cool beauty had no eyes for men at all. Instead, Ophelia spent time with Yelena, let her run a vibranium mine, gave her lavish gifts of jewelry, clothes, art and sports cars. Yelena at least seemed to be a devoted girlfriend to her, and Aleksander held his tongue during meetings when Yelena sat with Ophelia, their heads bent closely together, conspiratorial smiles on their faces. Inwardly, he seethed with the lost opportunity this presented.
Moving quickly after Ophelia was murdered, Aleksander obtained access to her corpse. Not stopping to consider the consequences of his actions, he put probes at her temples to create a copy of her memories. Her memory was fused with that of one of the special project girls in a separate facility from the Hydra R&D labs in Villach. It was a long shot; none of the girls had ever survived the Reanimation Chamber.
This one did. That girl had different bone structure, coloring and physique, but was entirely under Aleksander's control. Her code name was Viper, as she had come from the Viper House, and defeated all the other girls in combat. Well honed instincts were fused with Ophelia's memories, but she was groggy and unaware of the particulars in the beginning. Aleksander gave her charming smiles and kept her hidden. The one success in the Reanimation Chamber, and she was all his. After the emptiness left her eyes, when he was sure that her memories of being Ophelia were solidly in place, his smiles were cold and cruel.
She was his to control as far as anyone in Department X was concerned. And if he forced himself on her repeatedly, they were all far too willing to look the other way. None were willing to challenge him to ensure her safety. He was secure in his power within the Department, and sure that there was nothing she could do to retaliate while she was locked in a windowless suite and drugged when she was too noncompliant.
All it cost him was everything.
Aleksander forgot about Ophelia's cunning and inner drive. She had loved Yelena fiercely, and had no idea how or why she had died. Her memories from being dead were vague and gray, but she remembered feeling at peace. This life was something far from that, and she buried her rage deep. Aleksander forced her to marry him and "be grateful" for the attention. She swallowed down her bile along with the pills he forced on her, until he had to stop. She was pregnant with his child, and he didn't want the child to be spoiled with potential teratogenic effects. Not wanting to be kept bound as well as locked, Ophelia pretended to be cowed and properly grateful to be resurrected. It only took a month or two for him to believe her when she said she wanted to help him with his special projects.
She mutated over eight thousand of his test subjects, killing them in torturous ways. She had hoped to gain power within Department X or Hydra all over again to escape from him. It failed, but depleted most of the special projects subject matter. No one believed she was Ophelia Sarkissian, and only referred to her as Madam Viper. There was no way to escape Aleksander if they wouldn't help her, and her rage turned inward. She attempted to overdose on whatever toxic substances she could find in the labs, but that didn't work either. It killed the unborn child in a bloody wash of tissues, but only left her feeling ill.
No one else to experiment on, Aleksander started calling in Hydra staff. Most of the leadership had been brutally murdered in the same wave that followed Ophelia's first death, so there were no figures willing to stand up to Aleksander. Ophelia claimed morning sickness, even though she had miscarried, and tried again and again to overdose on poisons and toxins.
Nothing worked.
She looked up after yet another bout of dry heaves over the toilet. Thankfully, it wasn't Aleksandr. She had convinced him that her morning sickness was severe, and the kind that extended throughout the day. Fearfully afraid of her vomiting on him, he at last had left her alone. If he was here to force himself on her yet again...
But no, it was a tall woman that was deathly pale, long black hair hanging in lank strands, a dress of black and silver clinging to her skeletal frame. Ophelia thought she looked somewhat familiar, though she couldn't have said why.
"Hello, Ophelia," the woman said, her voice barely above a whisper yet easily heard.
Her only response was to keep throwing up.
"They won't kill you," the woman continued conversationally. "You're actually creating quite the tolerance for those poisons." Her lips stretched into something resembling a smile, though Ophelia felt a chill roll down her spine.
"Who are you?" she finally croaked, wiping her mouth with a bit of toilet tissue.
"I am Death, dear one," she replied. "I am Queen Hel of Helheim," she added in light of Ophelia's blank stare. Extending her hand, her smile broadened into a genuine one. "I'm sorry for what had to come to pass."
Ophelia took Hel's hand. She was impressed by how strong Hel was, effortlessly lifting her to her feet despite the spindly frame. "Why do you say that?"
"The experiments didn't work," Hel told her plainly. "You're alive because I allowed it. Because I took the empty shell that Aleksander was desecrating, imbued it with magic, and put your soul into it. Your soul had already touched magic before, and accepted it readily." She cupped Ophelia's face in her hand gently, almost like a lover's caress even as her eyes were cold and clinical. "His techniques are juvenile and flawed. But I let him think he had created something because I had need of your life restarting."
"You know what he did to me," Ophelia said, eyes tracking Hel's expression.
"I do. I'm sorry."
Ophelia thought of hitting her, of pushing her away. This body had a fighter's instinct, but Hel moved faster than she did, twisting her arm up behind her viciously. Her nails felt razor sharp, almost as if they were slicing into her forearm. Hel brought her other hand up to Ophelia's throat, those sharp nails tracing her skin.
"I have what I want. I may release you from this life, if that is what you wish. Otherwise, this body will not release your soul. You're mine now, little one. I can give you death if that is what you want. It's the least I can do as recompense."
She swallowed, pain filling her chest as she thought of these past few months she had been under Aleksander's control. "You owe me so much," she snarled finally.
"Name your price."
"I only ever wanted Yelena before," Ophelia began.
"She's dead."
Time seemed to freeze in place at Hel's dispassionate words. Ophelia knew she was making choking sounds, that the pain in her chest was exploding.
"I want Lukin to pay," Ophelia said finally. "For all the wrong he's done to me, for all he's doing now. He needs to die horribly."
"So he will," Hel replied, releasing her in an instant. Turning around, Ophelia could see that she was unruffled, as if there had been no scuffle at all. "And just to show you there are no hard feelings, I will even let you speak with Yelena. My other thrall was granted as much."
Ophelia looked at her, expression falling into a cold mask. "What do you want from me?"
"I already have it," Hel replied, smiling at her. "I cannot give you proper recompense, but a visit with Yelena and the destruction of your abuser are at least partial payment."
Hel waved her hand and time and space seemed to dissolve around them. Ophelia only noticed deep gray fog, vague outlines around her. "What the hell?" she asked, looking around her.
"I am bringing you to Yelena. Normally, being alive, you would not be able to touch or speak to the dead. But I have brought you here in a way that keeps your soul anchored, and there are already spells in place to prevent your body from dying before I deem it time. You can touch and speak with Yelena freely, without fear of death."
"I don't fear death," she scoffed in response, sneering at Hel.
"And that is why you are mine, dear one."
It was such an odd response, and Ophelia nearly asked what she meant. But one of the vague shapes came closer through the fog, and as it approached, it resolved into Yelena. She was just as Ophelia remembered her, blonde hair, large eyes, a soft and almost mocking smile for her. She wore a white dress fitted in the bodice and flaring out from the waist, a strand of pearls around her neck and white low heeled shoes on her feet. Yelena grinned at the sight of Ophelia, nearly flying into her arms; it was only at that time that Ophelia noticed she didn't look like Viper any longer, but like her former self.
"You're here to visit!" Yelena cried, sounding incandescently happy. The familiar sound of her voice cheered Ophelia immeasurably.
She looked to Hel, who made a shoo'ing motion off into the distance. "You may have your privacy," Hel said regally. "Her touch won't remove your soul or negate the gift I have given you, not to worry."
Ophelia didn't see life as a gift, not anymore, but kept her mouth shut and took Yelena's hand in hers tightly. She went with her, letting Hel fade into the background. Maybe she would truly see Aleksander dead at her hands. Maybe she would take over the remnant of Hydra and reshape it according to her wishes. Maybe she could ask for Yelena to come back to life and reign at her side as she tried to come up with a life she could tolerate. She refused to dwell on what a goddess might want, and focused more on what she wanted. That was Yelena; there was time enough to worry about Hel later.
Hopefully, much later.
***
Again through the labyrinth, consciousness split between the maze and the foggy grounds above her head, out in the fields of Helheim. Doing such a thing usually involved concentration, but Hel was bursting at the seams with power and needed to vent it somehow. Complicated spells were frightfully easy, almost instantaneous, and it wasn't bleeding off enough magic.
So she stood in front of the web of seers, her spiders scuttling to the corners and out of sight. She carried a lump of misshapen, bloody flesh in her left palm, and used her right hand to peel down the bodice of her silver and black dress. Bare to the waist, Hel faced the collection of seers and let her chest swing open, ribs pulling apart the flesh as if they were merely hinged at her spine rather than tightly attached. Blood spilled out of her chest cavity, pink lungs quivering as she drew breath. Nestled between them were two hearts, one red and one black. The black heart didn't beat and wasn't connected to the rest of her body, and was noticeably larger than her own red one. It hung there suspended, a malignant thing, power pulsing inside of it.
Removing the black heart, Hel let her chest swing shut. The black heart was heavy in her hand, the weight of its power almost impossible to hold. Her own body felt lighter, easier to handle and move about in, back to her usual balance. She no longer felt in danger of bursting at the seams, and Helheim no longer seemed to riot beneath her feet.
She smashed the black heart right into the tiny lump of flesh in her left hand, fusing the masses together. The blowback was immediate and forceful, but Hel stayed on her feet. She was Helheim, Helheim was her. They were one and the same, just as Hel was always Hel, even when she clearly wasn't anymore. There was always a Queen Hel of Helheim, and there always would be for the rest of eternity.
The twisted mass of tissue floated in front Hel as she took a step back. The gaping wounds in her chest had already sealed shut, and with a simple gesture her bodice rolled up from her waist and molded back over her torso. The corset back laced itself shut, and another gesture had her hair pulled straight and then starting to coil and twist into complex braids and curls as she normally liked to have it. Perhaps Frigga had left something of herself behind in the casting that had let Hel take her first breath.
Reaching forward, Hel plunged her bloody hands into the mass of tissue and started to shape it into a child. She worked from the inside out, forming the skeleton and organs, layered on muscle and tendon, then the skin.
Opening her black eyes, the child looked directly at Hel. It was the size of a baby, but shaped more like a toddler. She lacked Selene's nature to absorb all the magic around her, but had her long black hair and black eyes. The nose looked like Ophelia's, the mouth was Lukin's. The deathly pallor indicated that she was born of death and magic as a proper Hel should.
"Hello, Mother," the child said.
Hel smiled and stroked the child's cheek. "Helena," she murmured with a smile, using the endearment all Hels had ever used for newly created daughters. She would be Helena until she was fully mature and Hel could absorbed her; previous generations, it had been the other way around, the Helena absorbing the prior Hel, making her the Hel and Queen of Helheim all over again. The current Hel had no intention of ending her reign.
"Shall we begin my lessons?" Helena asked, answering Hel's smile with a bright and open smile of her own. So far, she seemed to lack the cruelty that Hel was capable of.
There was time for her to learn it.
"Of course," Hel replied. "We begin now."
The End
Series: #1 in Only Death
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine! Characters you recognize belong to Marvel, and I've incoporated some comic back story into the movieverse.
Notes: References to rape, suicide attempts and abortion are made but not discussed at any length. Series and story titles from Pablo Neruda's "Nothing But Death." This series follows Ready For The Siege and may refer to events in it, but is probably okay to read without having read the other series first. Any questions about events in this series, just ask. :)
Summary: Natasha Romanoff refused to provide genetic material for Hel to manipulate. But there were always contingency plans in place.
Hel was tall, with spindly limbs and skin the color of bleached bone. Her hair was jet black, long and flowing freely down to the middle of her back. She wore a dress tightly fitted in the torso, velvety black fabric embroidered with iridescent runes of protection and knowledge. The skirt of the dress was made of spider's silk, also black and shot with gold and red threads, shifting its color as she moved. There was no ornamentation on it, and she wore no jewelry or crown as she walked through the bowels of her palace.
Her appearance and dress oftentimes shifted as the mood struck her, and whom she was set to meet. It wouldn't do to not be properly attired in front of important personages or visitors from other realms. That so rarely happened, though of late she had been far more social than she had been in the past.
Time and space and geography shifted in Helheim. Its borders were enclosed in gray fog, so thick that it often was difficult to see past a hundred feet or so. The fog was constant, taking on an almost tangible quality at the borders of her realm, shifting as if it had a consciousness of its own. The other constant was her palace, though its outward appearance often changed as well. The outer gate and drawbridge with its guardian gargoyles was the same, as was the throne room with her golden throne on a raised dais. The paneling and ornamentation on the pillars could change, and the doors leading in and out of the room often were hidden or changed, but the throne and dais were always the same. The labyrinth beneath the palace was another fixed item in Helheim, the heart of her realm, the seat of her power.
In the very center of the labyrinth was a massive web, tangled, sticky threads imbued with the partially absorbed bodies of the seers of every realm. So few seers were considered worthy of Valhalla, and were oftentimes seen as cursed. Hel - a predecessor, the same, her successor - had snatched them all up greedily, depositing their essences within the web. Each one had accepted their fate with equanimity, knowing before the end came that they would be continuing into eternity with the same gifts as their fractured lives. Sorcerers, shamans, witches, seers, druids, lesser gods and goddesses, and practitioners of every craft across the Nine Realms were present and accounted for in the webbing. Some had famous names: Tiresias, Cassandra, Helenus, Sybil, Iamus, Mopsus, Laocoon, Cathbadh, Morgana, Nimue, Mimir, Freyja, Heiðr, Gróa, Lagua, Visvamitra, Amairgen, Taliesin, Inyanga shamans, Vorozheia, and Yakut shamans. Some of them had been trapped within the webbing so long that their faces were no longer distinct, but merely vague shadows and indentation in the silk. Their voices were indistinct, only adding a soft fluttering sound to the stillness of the chamber; the spiders crawling along the strands to maintain and building them moved as silently as ghosts.
The seers often spoke as a single chorus when Hel requested their visions. Sometimes a single one might come in more strongly, the clear origin of the visions. But the collected power within the heart of the web was immense, both fueling and anchoring the web and the powers within Helheim. There had been no weakness when Selene began feeding upon Midgard, but it was too good an opportunity to waste. The sheer amount of magic and power bound within her body was immense, and perhaps Hel was greedy. The chorus had warned her of possible consequences, the threads of the spá too indistinct until decisions were made.
She made her decision. And the consequences came, just as predicted.
"The overload," the chorus sang out. The entire web was quivering, and that sent the spiders scurrying into the darker corners. Hel could almost make out the shivering, bound form of Selene Gallio within the heart of the web, soul trapped within the inner matrix of threads. "It comes, and you cannot suppress it, Queen Hel the Everlasting. As it was before, so it will be again."
All the rulers of Hel were named Hel. They were all the same consciousness, more or less, transformed and altered to fit the current needs of Helheim. Hel and Helheim were one and the same, different manifestations of the same thing. Perhaps they all were greedy, siphoning magic and power and souls, sometimes faster than they could accommodate them.
Which meant it was time for another Hel.
Time worked differently in Helheim compared to other realms. This current incarnation of Hel was born from the prior Hel's liaison with Loki of Asgard. Born dead after he had already left the realm, the prior Hel had obtained help from Frigga to sustain the life force of the current Hel. Loki had been unaware of the situation until relatively recently, when his machinations led Natasha Romanoff to Hel's awareness. Natasha belonged to Hel, in the sense that her gifts were particularly suited to Hel's needs, and she was comfortable with the idea of death. Raised by the Red Room, Natasha was trained to be a skilled assassin and spy, to be cold if need be, to eschew the tangled webs that relationships could be. Yet over the past few years of her time frame, those tenets loosened their hold on her. She cherished the relationships she had with friends and her lovers, cherished the memories she could identify as truly her own, and worked hard to be seen as a positive influence despite her past. Even without a philosophical ledger to balance out the horrors and good deeds of the past and present, it was still a path she set herself upon.
Hel wished her well, truly. The woman had suffered far too much in her short lifespan. She deserved some measure of happiness.
By ingesting the still living physical heart of Selene Gallio while absorbing her soul into the realm, Hel had taken on far too much, too soon. She hid it from Loki and Natasha in their visits to Helheim, and travel between realms hadn't depleted enough energy. It was like an overloaded circuit, and something had to siphon off the excess.
Natasha wasn't willing to give birth to a child that Hel would someday be able to use, or abort an unwanted one. Her discomfort with raising an infant matched Hel's, so the Queen could hardly fault her on that. It was easy enough to take back the gift of a womb; Hel had energy to spare and other potential souls that could possibly do her bidding.
Time was flexible in Helheim. It was nothing and everything at once. She had other souls at her disposal, other plans that had already been set in motion.
"My Queen," the chorus sang. "Look to the Viper."
With that, Hel smiled coldly and looked into the heart of the web.
***
Aleksander Lukin had been born in the village of Kronas in the Soviet Union. His mother had been killed in a skirmish, leaving him orphaned. Vasily Karpov took him in and mentored him, teaching him that ruthlessness was the means to getting what he wanted. This sent Aleksander down the path to entering the FSB and military. Karpov trained several other up and coming young officers, including Alexei Shostakov, and his affiliation with Department X meant that he had also been involved in the Winter Soldier program. As Aleksander rose in the ranks of the Russian intelligence community, Karpov recruited him into Department X. He was in charge of many special projects, and was aware of the Red Room, Hydra, and the myriad projects only whispered about by even the most powerful men in Russia.
After Karpov's death from old age, Aleksander took over all of Department X and was the main contact point with Hydra. He was in charge of many testing protocols, sometimes using Hydra subjects and sometimes using ones provided by AIM. His favorite project was the Reanimation Chamber, where attempts were made to transfer the consciousness of subjects from one body to the next. Most of the experiments were a failure, of course, but they were done on orphan girls gathered from all over Europe. No one wanted them, so why not use them?
Eight locations had been chosen, with twelve girls assigned to each house. Most of them had some kind of combat training, though each house had a different specialty. The girls were forced to battle for head of the house, and only a single girl could be the winner. She would be the most determined and ambitious of them all, the most aggressive one and the best skilled in her form of combat. In this way, the talents could clearly be transferred by the protocols of the Reanimation Chamber if it worked.
But it didn't.
Ophelia Sarkissian was involved in Hydra's inner workings, and often served as a go between with her cousin Ekaterina, who worked with AIM. She was utterly besotted with her model girlfriend Yelena, which was irritating. Aleksander lusted after her, but the cool beauty had no eyes for men at all. Instead, Ophelia spent time with Yelena, let her run a vibranium mine, gave her lavish gifts of jewelry, clothes, art and sports cars. Yelena at least seemed to be a devoted girlfriend to her, and Aleksander held his tongue during meetings when Yelena sat with Ophelia, their heads bent closely together, conspiratorial smiles on their faces. Inwardly, he seethed with the lost opportunity this presented.
Moving quickly after Ophelia was murdered, Aleksander obtained access to her corpse. Not stopping to consider the consequences of his actions, he put probes at her temples to create a copy of her memories. Her memory was fused with that of one of the special project girls in a separate facility from the Hydra R&D labs in Villach. It was a long shot; none of the girls had ever survived the Reanimation Chamber.
This one did. That girl had different bone structure, coloring and physique, but was entirely under Aleksander's control. Her code name was Viper, as she had come from the Viper House, and defeated all the other girls in combat. Well honed instincts were fused with Ophelia's memories, but she was groggy and unaware of the particulars in the beginning. Aleksander gave her charming smiles and kept her hidden. The one success in the Reanimation Chamber, and she was all his. After the emptiness left her eyes, when he was sure that her memories of being Ophelia were solidly in place, his smiles were cold and cruel.
She was his to control as far as anyone in Department X was concerned. And if he forced himself on her repeatedly, they were all far too willing to look the other way. None were willing to challenge him to ensure her safety. He was secure in his power within the Department, and sure that there was nothing she could do to retaliate while she was locked in a windowless suite and drugged when she was too noncompliant.
All it cost him was everything.
Aleksander forgot about Ophelia's cunning and inner drive. She had loved Yelena fiercely, and had no idea how or why she had died. Her memories from being dead were vague and gray, but she remembered feeling at peace. This life was something far from that, and she buried her rage deep. Aleksander forced her to marry him and "be grateful" for the attention. She swallowed down her bile along with the pills he forced on her, until he had to stop. She was pregnant with his child, and he didn't want the child to be spoiled with potential teratogenic effects. Not wanting to be kept bound as well as locked, Ophelia pretended to be cowed and properly grateful to be resurrected. It only took a month or two for him to believe her when she said she wanted to help him with his special projects.
She mutated over eight thousand of his test subjects, killing them in torturous ways. She had hoped to gain power within Department X or Hydra all over again to escape from him. It failed, but depleted most of the special projects subject matter. No one believed she was Ophelia Sarkissian, and only referred to her as Madam Viper. There was no way to escape Aleksander if they wouldn't help her, and her rage turned inward. She attempted to overdose on whatever toxic substances she could find in the labs, but that didn't work either. It killed the unborn child in a bloody wash of tissues, but only left her feeling ill.
No one else to experiment on, Aleksander started calling in Hydra staff. Most of the leadership had been brutally murdered in the same wave that followed Ophelia's first death, so there were no figures willing to stand up to Aleksander. Ophelia claimed morning sickness, even though she had miscarried, and tried again and again to overdose on poisons and toxins.
Nothing worked.
She looked up after yet another bout of dry heaves over the toilet. Thankfully, it wasn't Aleksandr. She had convinced him that her morning sickness was severe, and the kind that extended throughout the day. Fearfully afraid of her vomiting on him, he at last had left her alone. If he was here to force himself on her yet again...
But no, it was a tall woman that was deathly pale, long black hair hanging in lank strands, a dress of black and silver clinging to her skeletal frame. Ophelia thought she looked somewhat familiar, though she couldn't have said why.
"Hello, Ophelia," the woman said, her voice barely above a whisper yet easily heard.
Her only response was to keep throwing up.
"They won't kill you," the woman continued conversationally. "You're actually creating quite the tolerance for those poisons." Her lips stretched into something resembling a smile, though Ophelia felt a chill roll down her spine.
"Who are you?" she finally croaked, wiping her mouth with a bit of toilet tissue.
"I am Death, dear one," she replied. "I am Queen Hel of Helheim," she added in light of Ophelia's blank stare. Extending her hand, her smile broadened into a genuine one. "I'm sorry for what had to come to pass."
Ophelia took Hel's hand. She was impressed by how strong Hel was, effortlessly lifting her to her feet despite the spindly frame. "Why do you say that?"
"The experiments didn't work," Hel told her plainly. "You're alive because I allowed it. Because I took the empty shell that Aleksander was desecrating, imbued it with magic, and put your soul into it. Your soul had already touched magic before, and accepted it readily." She cupped Ophelia's face in her hand gently, almost like a lover's caress even as her eyes were cold and clinical. "His techniques are juvenile and flawed. But I let him think he had created something because I had need of your life restarting."
"You know what he did to me," Ophelia said, eyes tracking Hel's expression.
"I do. I'm sorry."
Ophelia thought of hitting her, of pushing her away. This body had a fighter's instinct, but Hel moved faster than she did, twisting her arm up behind her viciously. Her nails felt razor sharp, almost as if they were slicing into her forearm. Hel brought her other hand up to Ophelia's throat, those sharp nails tracing her skin.
"I have what I want. I may release you from this life, if that is what you wish. Otherwise, this body will not release your soul. You're mine now, little one. I can give you death if that is what you want. It's the least I can do as recompense."
She swallowed, pain filling her chest as she thought of these past few months she had been under Aleksander's control. "You owe me so much," she snarled finally.
"Name your price."
"I only ever wanted Yelena before," Ophelia began.
"She's dead."
Time seemed to freeze in place at Hel's dispassionate words. Ophelia knew she was making choking sounds, that the pain in her chest was exploding.
"I want Lukin to pay," Ophelia said finally. "For all the wrong he's done to me, for all he's doing now. He needs to die horribly."
"So he will," Hel replied, releasing her in an instant. Turning around, Ophelia could see that she was unruffled, as if there had been no scuffle at all. "And just to show you there are no hard feelings, I will even let you speak with Yelena. My other thrall was granted as much."
Ophelia looked at her, expression falling into a cold mask. "What do you want from me?"
"I already have it," Hel replied, smiling at her. "I cannot give you proper recompense, but a visit with Yelena and the destruction of your abuser are at least partial payment."
Hel waved her hand and time and space seemed to dissolve around them. Ophelia only noticed deep gray fog, vague outlines around her. "What the hell?" she asked, looking around her.
"I am bringing you to Yelena. Normally, being alive, you would not be able to touch or speak to the dead. But I have brought you here in a way that keeps your soul anchored, and there are already spells in place to prevent your body from dying before I deem it time. You can touch and speak with Yelena freely, without fear of death."
"I don't fear death," she scoffed in response, sneering at Hel.
"And that is why you are mine, dear one."
It was such an odd response, and Ophelia nearly asked what she meant. But one of the vague shapes came closer through the fog, and as it approached, it resolved into Yelena. She was just as Ophelia remembered her, blonde hair, large eyes, a soft and almost mocking smile for her. She wore a white dress fitted in the bodice and flaring out from the waist, a strand of pearls around her neck and white low heeled shoes on her feet. Yelena grinned at the sight of Ophelia, nearly flying into her arms; it was only at that time that Ophelia noticed she didn't look like Viper any longer, but like her former self.
"You're here to visit!" Yelena cried, sounding incandescently happy. The familiar sound of her voice cheered Ophelia immeasurably.
She looked to Hel, who made a shoo'ing motion off into the distance. "You may have your privacy," Hel said regally. "Her touch won't remove your soul or negate the gift I have given you, not to worry."
Ophelia didn't see life as a gift, not anymore, but kept her mouth shut and took Yelena's hand in hers tightly. She went with her, letting Hel fade into the background. Maybe she would truly see Aleksander dead at her hands. Maybe she would take over the remnant of Hydra and reshape it according to her wishes. Maybe she could ask for Yelena to come back to life and reign at her side as she tried to come up with a life she could tolerate. She refused to dwell on what a goddess might want, and focused more on what she wanted. That was Yelena; there was time enough to worry about Hel later.
Hopefully, much later.
***
Again through the labyrinth, consciousness split between the maze and the foggy grounds above her head, out in the fields of Helheim. Doing such a thing usually involved concentration, but Hel was bursting at the seams with power and needed to vent it somehow. Complicated spells were frightfully easy, almost instantaneous, and it wasn't bleeding off enough magic.
So she stood in front of the web of seers, her spiders scuttling to the corners and out of sight. She carried a lump of misshapen, bloody flesh in her left palm, and used her right hand to peel down the bodice of her silver and black dress. Bare to the waist, Hel faced the collection of seers and let her chest swing open, ribs pulling apart the flesh as if they were merely hinged at her spine rather than tightly attached. Blood spilled out of her chest cavity, pink lungs quivering as she drew breath. Nestled between them were two hearts, one red and one black. The black heart didn't beat and wasn't connected to the rest of her body, and was noticeably larger than her own red one. It hung there suspended, a malignant thing, power pulsing inside of it.
Removing the black heart, Hel let her chest swing shut. The black heart was heavy in her hand, the weight of its power almost impossible to hold. Her own body felt lighter, easier to handle and move about in, back to her usual balance. She no longer felt in danger of bursting at the seams, and Helheim no longer seemed to riot beneath her feet.
She smashed the black heart right into the tiny lump of flesh in her left hand, fusing the masses together. The blowback was immediate and forceful, but Hel stayed on her feet. She was Helheim, Helheim was her. They were one and the same, just as Hel was always Hel, even when she clearly wasn't anymore. There was always a Queen Hel of Helheim, and there always would be for the rest of eternity.
The twisted mass of tissue floated in front Hel as she took a step back. The gaping wounds in her chest had already sealed shut, and with a simple gesture her bodice rolled up from her waist and molded back over her torso. The corset back laced itself shut, and another gesture had her hair pulled straight and then starting to coil and twist into complex braids and curls as she normally liked to have it. Perhaps Frigga had left something of herself behind in the casting that had let Hel take her first breath.
Reaching forward, Hel plunged her bloody hands into the mass of tissue and started to shape it into a child. She worked from the inside out, forming the skeleton and organs, layered on muscle and tendon, then the skin.
Opening her black eyes, the child looked directly at Hel. It was the size of a baby, but shaped more like a toddler. She lacked Selene's nature to absorb all the magic around her, but had her long black hair and black eyes. The nose looked like Ophelia's, the mouth was Lukin's. The deathly pallor indicated that she was born of death and magic as a proper Hel should.
"Hello, Mother," the child said.
Hel smiled and stroked the child's cheek. "Helena," she murmured with a smile, using the endearment all Hels had ever used for newly created daughters. She would be Helena until she was fully mature and Hel could absorbed her; previous generations, it had been the other way around, the Helena absorbing the prior Hel, making her the Hel and Queen of Helheim all over again. The current Hel had no intention of ending her reign.
"Shall we begin my lessons?" Helena asked, answering Hel's smile with a bright and open smile of her own. So far, she seemed to lack the cruelty that Hel was capable of.
There was time for her to learn it.
"Of course," Hel replied. "We begin now."
The End