Fic: Duel and Duality (Arrow/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., PG-13) (2/2)
Title: Duel and Duality. (Chapter 3 and Epilogue)
Author: Prochytes.
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D./Arrow.
Rating: PG-13. Angst, dark themes, and violence.
Characters/Pairing: Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz, Melinda May, Jemma Simmons (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.); Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Thea Queen, Felicity Smoak (Arrow).
Disclaimer: Marvel and the Distinguished Competition share the goodies.
Summary: The world’s greatest assassin is on the prowl in Star City. A young woman has appeared in the Glades who isn't from a remotely familiar Earth. Oliver and company must face these challenges domestic and inter-dimensional, if everyone is to get out of this alive.
Word Count: 8534.
A/N: Spoilers for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D to 4x04: “Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire” and Arrow to 4x13 “Sins of the Father”.
3. The Word in the Whirlwind.
“This rig looks different from what Cisco showed us over Skype,” said Laurel. She looked at her watch, and tried not to think about the briefs piled up in her office.
“I know,” Oliver knelt to make an adjustment. “Dr. Fitz and Dr. Simmons had to reconfigure the set-up. Daisy’s powers aren’t quite the same as his.”
“What are the differences?” asked Daisy, flinching a little as Oliver tweaked the tech-bedizened headband that she was wearing.
“Basically, he’s the scalpel; you’re the nuke. Cisco can read psychometric vibes on objects…”
“I can’t do that. Sounds useful. And very cool.”
“... but he has to push hard to move anything big. I think that you’re in front when it comes to earth-breaking.”
“So - this tiara is supposed to focus my abundance of mojo in the right direction?”
“Yes. Once it’s activated, you just have to project a vibe calibrated to what the headband is putting out. If you do it here, where you first punched through, that should snap you back to your multiversal base state, and send you home.”
Daisy looked out over the parking lot, on which a chilly light mist had descended. “Beats a pair of ruby slippers, any day.”
The labours of Fitz and Simmons had consumed another couple of days. These had seen, by the recent standards of Star City, little obvious activity on the villain front. Oliver had nevertheless felt it prudent to keep Daisy’s site of attempted departure more than adequately guarded. As well as Laurel, and Oliver himself, Thea was standing sentry over the proceedings. Speedy was trying, with indifferent success, to conceal her excitement at witnessing this particular efflorescence of Mad Science. Oliver sighed, and turned back to Daisy.
“Are you ready?”
“I was born ready. Well, emerged from a cocoon ready, technically.” Daisy squared her shoulders, and breathed deeply. “Here goes nothing.”
Daisy flipped a switch on the apparatus. She closed her eyes. Shortly thereafter, she extended her hands towards the ground. In contrast to what had happened in the cell, the quivering that now began to communicate itself to the surrounding area was barely perceptible. A few minutes passed.
“I’m not exactly an expert on these things,” said Thea, eventually, “but I’m detecting statistically significant quantities of ‘Still Here’-ness from our visitor at the moment.”
“How does it feel, Daisy?” asked Laurel.
“The strain is… considerable.” A light sweat had broken out on Daisy’s brow. “Nothing I can’t handle, but I’m feeling it. Something’s happening. But I’m not sure what it is.”
“Well, the night’s young.” Thea pointed at the sky over the twilit city. Brief blossoms of fireworks were visible in the distance, their brightness softened by the encroaching mist. “And someone’s celebrating.”
“That’s not a celebration.” Oliver frowned. “That’s a challenge.”
“A League signal?” Laurel looked warily at Oliver. “Shiva’s finally calling you out?”
“She is.” Oliver settled the quiver on his shoulders. “I have to go.”
Laurel moved to stand in front of him. “You really don’t.”
“Honour demands that Al-Sahim meet the Shiva one-on-one.”
Laurel nodded in the direction of Daisy. The young woman’s head was bowed now, her frame slightly shaking. “Morality demands that the Green Arrow not leave innocents undefended.”
“I know. That’s why I’ll contact Spartan to come with me after Shiva - since I’m not the Ra’s now, I don’t really have to play by her rules - and trust you and Speedy to watch out for Daisy while I’m elsewhere.”
Laurel smiled. “Wow. My little vigilante’s all grown-up.”
Oliver smiled back. “Took a while, didn’t it? Be safe, Canary. Look after things here until I get back.”
“Be safe, Green Arrow. Give Shiva something she doesn’t expect.”
Oliver raised a hand in salute, and loped off into the night.
About a quarter of an hour elapsed. The mist deepened, as did the furrows on Daisy’s brow. Finally, Laurel put a hand to her ear.
“Overwatch? Yeah, I’m reading you. Good thing that you worked out how to make the comms go on functioning around Daisy. What’s the problem?”
Laurel listened for a moment, frowning. Daisy watched her face.
“Something up?”
“Maybe. Spartan and the Green Arrow checked in with Overwatch. They went to the site of the fireworks; no one was there. The Arrow says that he’s heading back here.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah. From what he’s said, it doesn’t sound like it’s Shiva’s way to duck out of a fight. I wonder…” Laurel staggered as a short tremor shook the ground. “Was that you?”
“Maybe.” Daisy looked puzzled. “Felt…. Felt like something just came loose.”
Laurel touched her ear again. “I’ve lost Overwatch. This is unhelpful.”
“Canary,” Thea had moved the edge of the parking lot, and was peering out into the mist. “You should probably see this.”
“What is it? Daisy’s still here.” Laurel moved over to where Thea was standing. “Apart from faulty comms and one tremor, nothing’s happening.”
Laurel looked in the direction where Thea was pointing. Her jaw dropped open.
“I think,” said Thea with the careful calm that was never a good sign in a denizen of Star City, “I think that something is.”
***
Galaxied Star Cities, sleeting past. The Queen’s Gambit is accepted, declined; the game plays out in a thousand different ways. A phalanx of archers; an aria of Canaries. Distant in the void, a rosary of Kryptons clicks out its sorrows: dying because the sun explodes; dying because the core explodes; dying because, because. And then Krypton does not die, because it was never there at all.
A.R.G.U.S. is the DEO. A.R.G.U.S. is Stormwatch.
The landscape shifts. The Speed Force is sparser, now, meted out in grudging heart-beats, on the approach to the close conveners, the almost-homes. An abacus of Infinity Stones snaps back and forth. The lives of Calvin Zabo/Johnson bubble like his potions in the alembic of fates.
A.R.G.U.S. is Black Air. A.R.G.U.S. is…
***
“I’m fairly sure,” said Thea, her eyes transfixed on the vista that swirled just beyond the edge of the parking lot, “that this isn’t what happens when Cisco breaches.”
“It’s like the Green Arrow said,” Laurel was similarly unmoving, “Cisco’s the scalpel; Daisy’s the nuke. She’s dragging this entire city block through the Speed Force.”
“At least Overwatch called a fake gas leak on the area ahead of time. There’s no one on this joyriding chunk of Earth-1 but the three of u…”
Thea was still talking as light from a firework bursting on the other side of the lot threw shade and crimson across her face. She swallowed. “Shiva.”
“Uh-huh.” Laurel raised her tonfas, eyes darting.
“This was where she was always going to be. She sent Spartan and Green Arrow on a wild-goose chase.” Speedy nocked an arrow. “What do you think she wants?”
“Plenty of time to ask that once we take her down.”
“You think that we can do that? From what the Green Arrow said, she’s just as good as he is.”
“There’s three of us.”
“Two.” Daisy had buckled to one knee. Her hair was matted with sweat. “There’s two of you. If I understood FitzSimmons correctly, it would probably kill us all if I stopped channelling this before my Earth snapped into focus. And… God, the strain…” She dropped to both knees. “I’d be weak as a kitten, even if I did.”
“Hang on in there”, said Laurel. “We’ve got your back. She can call herself what she likes: Shiva; Al-Fursan; the Destroyer. She’s still only human. And she’s still going dow…”
Daisy’s head snapped up. “Say that again.”
“Huh?”
“I never heard you call her anything but ‘Shiva’. Say those other names again.”
“Al-Fursan; the Destroyer. What…?”
Daisy shuddered. “Canary, you and Speedy have to hide. Now. You’re no kind of match for what’s coming.”
“Why are you so scared of a name?”
“Not one name. That’s the point. You don’t speak Arabic, do you? The big guy does, I bet, but he wouldn’t have seen any reason to explain.” Daisy bit her lip. “My first S.O. … well, he wasn’t a lot of the things his file said he was, but he sure did know a lot of languages. He started me on a few of them, even though I never go that far. And I can tell you this: ‘Al-Fursan’ doesn’t mean ‘The Destroyer’.”
A second firework kindled on the other side of the lot. When the light guttered out, a woman was standing there - a slight, sinewy Asian woman, in early middle age. Her face was very beautiful. Her eyes were dead. Daisy sighed, as though all was lost.
“It means: ‘The Cavalry’.”
***
(A warm still day in Bahrain, untroubled by the querulous Shamal, or by a woman’s world ending, somewhere else. Laos Spain Chile Vanuatu Finland Canada Brunei. The backdrop is irrelevant; it could have happened anywhere. The backdrop is everything; it happened here.
The agent walks in; the Cavalry rides out. It could happen anywhere. It happens here.)
***
“This is one of those scary badasses who taught you?” whispered Laurel.
“The scariest.” Daisy’s eyes were locked on Shiva. “And I think this version has the brakes off.”
Laurel slumped for a moment, but stiffened her back. “Be that as it may,” she raised her voice, “Lady Shiva - Al-Fursan - you know our ways, so you know the drill. You have failed this city. Yield while you can.”
“This fight is not yours, little bird.” Shiva’s voice was deep, and slightly halting, as though rusty with disuse. When she stepped closer, Laurel could see that she was wearing a curious bracelet, bright against the sable of her clothes. “Nor yours, swift one.” She nodded at Thea.
“If you come after innocents in our town, you make it our fight,” said Thea. She fired her arrow. Shiva barely seemed to move as it passed within an inch of her head. And then…
All Hell did not break loose. It would have been less frightening if it had. Hell revealed itself in inches and fractions of a second: the moment by which Speedy’s first kick missed as their enemy walked forward; the minute movements of Shiva’s hands here and here, which sent the younger woman sprawling to the peregrine asphalt below. Laurel snarled and leapt in, tonfas spinning. Once again, it seemed that Shiva barely moved at the eye of the batoned whirl - the devil in the details. She struck: once, twice, a third time. Laurel, too, crumpled to the ground. She watched, head ringing, as Shiva walked on.
Shiva stopped in front of Daisy, who still knelt in the centre of the lot, and hunkered down to look her in the eye. Daisy gazed back, chin held high.
“Daisy Johnson. The little girl who makes the world to tremble. You came to my Earth looking for death.” Shiva cocked her head on one side. “What do you think, now that you have found her?”
“You’re not Death.” Daisy had not blinked. “I don’t know exactly how your story panned out here. What made you this. But all I’m seeing is a broken, solitary woman, who needs to believe that she’s a force of nature.”
“So speaks the Quake.”
Daisy flinched. “You know a lot about me.”
“Your coming was foretold.”
“Hmmm.” Daisy’s expression was thoughtful, as another tremor shook the lot. She looked past Shiva, locked gazes with Laurel, and laughed.
“What amuses you?”
“Just remembering something a friend said to me. You need to bear in mind, Lady Shiva, that on Earth-Whatever, it isn’t just the bad guys who understand redundancy.”
“Ah. So she is here.”
The laugh died in Daisy’s throat. “You knew?”
“Of course. I told the Black Canary that this wasn’t her fight.” Shiva turned, and moved smoothly into a defensive stance. “Did you really imagine that it was yours?”
Laurel saw a dark-clad blur streak out of the gathering night. Then she lost her tenuous grip on consciousness. The night took all.
***
“Canary? Can you hear me?”
Laurel opened her eyes to the sight of Thea’s concerned face. She tried to sit up, and then wished she hadn’t.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I was hit by a kung-fu truck.” Laurel groaned. “I think I’m seeing double.”
“You might want to hold on to that thought.”
Laurel craned to look past Thea. Her eyes widened.
The mist had gone. It was now clear that the parking lot was perched incongruously on a desolate plain. There wasn’t a Star City on Earth-Whatever. Daisy had picked a lonely place to die.
At the centre of the lot, two women were locked in unarmed combat. One of them was Shiva. The other, in face and build, could have been her twin. Laurel gasped.
“Is that…”
“May.” Daisy’s voice at Laurel’s shoulder startled her. “That’s Agent May. The woman who turned into Shiva on your Earth, and trained me on this one.” Daisy gnawed her lip, as the woman she had called May staggered for a moment, barely managing a block against Shiva’s kick. “But even May isn’t a match for that.”
“We have to help her.”
“How?” Daisy’s voice was low and without hope. “You can barely stand. That Overwatch lady didn’t have time to fix your Canary Cry. Shiva fractured Speedy’s arms. And the effort of bringing us here took everything I had. Simmons would say that I couldn’t vibe the skin off a rice pudding right now.”
“Listen to me, Daisy.” Laurel held her gaze. “Remember our bout when you first arrived? You beat me, but you still lost, because I had a home advantage. This is Earth-Whatever. We’re in your house, now. There’s something you can do. You just have to find it.”
“I don’t think… Wait. You’re right.” Daisy raised her voice: “May?”
“Kinda… busy here, Daisy,” May hissed, wincing as another punch, and another, slipped through her guard.
“May, what’s wrong with this picture?”
“Huh? I…” May turned and, in that moment, Shiva struck. A cascade of blows and desperate, flagging counters ended with May on the ground, while Shiva knelt above. Her right hand was poised, fingers claw-like, above May’s head. Laurel remembered what Oliver had said about the Leopard Strike. Shiva spoke:
“You fought well. But you are not my equal.”
“Maybe not.” May spat out blood and grinned. “But I just won, all the same.”
Shiva looked down. May’s hand was wrapped around the bracelet on her left wrist.
“The thing that was wrong with this picture. I don’t accessorize.”
“Well played.” The dead eyes, for a moment, looked enchanted. “Very well played.” Shiva bowed her head. “I remember being you. The people; the ’planes; the chains of command. Fuel gauges and compassion and constraint. They blunt you. Slow you down. The warrior must be the warrior - nothing else. Two souls in one body cannot abide.”
“I disagree,” said May. “You’re an extraordinary fighter. But you’re alone.” She nodded at Daisy. “I had someone to call the plays.”
“An insight I shall think on.” Shiva turned her gaze to the group on the edge of the lot. “My thanks to you all. Convey my apologies to Al-Sahim for my deception. He interests me, but it is not yet his time.” She looked down again. “Farewell, Agent May.”
“Farewell”, said May, “Melinda.”
Shiva smiled as May squeezed the bracelet. For a moment, her outline was limmed with blue fire. Then, she was gone. Four women only knelt on the darkling plain.
Epilogue
“Iskandar,” said Laurel. “That should have been the clue.”
“How so?” asked Thea. “These bone-pills are astonishing, Daisy. Does Agent May have any more?”
“’Fraid not. I get through them quickly.”
“Some people go further than the old story that Alexander the Great dreamed of new worlds to conquer,” Laurel continued. “They say that, once he ran out of people worth fighting, he would have fought himself. Thanks to the League prophecy about Daisy, that’s exactly what Shiva managed to do.”
“She hitched a ride out of her own reality for a fight,” said Daisy. “Guess that’s why she’s the Shiva. Was I right to think that that bracelet was probably from the place you call S.T.A.R. Labs?”
“Uh-huh. My guess is that the recent break-in wasn’t Zoom this time. It was Shiva. She needed an.... anchor, I suppose. Cisco hasn’t had much luck in finding a way to open new breaches that doesn’t involve someone who can vibe or mainline the Speed Force, but I suppose he built something that could snap you back to your own universe if you were wearing it when you left. Shiva stole that, and trashed the place to cover what she had taken. It was her way home.” Laurel looked over to where May was talking (a little) and listening (a lot) to her smartphone, keeping her distance from the two planar refugees to maintain the line. “Speaking of going home… who’s this guy that just rang Agent May?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Daisy. “According to May, about three people in the whole world are meant to know that number.”
May looked up from her ’phone. “Says he’s a representative of the Kamar-Taj. The Master of the New York Sanctum, whatever that is. His people have a professional interest in dimensional incursion, apparently; Daisy’s belly-flop back into this world caught their attention. Our former Director left instructions about cooperating with them in his Toolbox.” She listened to the ’phone again. “I'm told that this will need a hair from one of you two, but ‘not the zombie’. That mean anything to you?”
Thea glared. “Honestly, you take a dip in one Lazarus Pit…”
Laurel reached under her wig, and yanked out a hair, which she handed to May.
“Thanks.” May walked away, and picked up her ’phone again. Laurel shifted uneasily.
“Daisy…”
“Yes, Laurel?”
Laurel tried to look innocent. “Who’s that?”
“Oh for God’s sake, Laurel.” Daisy rolled her eyes. “I spent the best part of a week in Star City; there was Internet; and I’m kind of like Overwatch - Felicity - when it comes to computers. How many athletic five seven-and-a-half female attorneys with a family background in law enforcement do you think there are in your town? And the Green Arrow is former millionaire playboy Oliver Queen, whose sister is currently chugging my bone-pills like there’s no tomorrow.”
“Sorry,” said Thea.
“Just leave me a couple, OK?”
“Fair enough,” said Laurel. “You’ve made your point. But what do you think of what Shiva said? That two souls can’t abide in one body?”
“Shiva wouldn’t be my first pick for a life coach.”
“Still… do you think she could be right? I’m not sure anymore - I haven't been for a while- that I can go on being a lawyer and a vigilante.”
“The intellect of man is forced to choose/ perfection of the life, or of the work.”
“Who said that?”
“Beats me.”
“She probably read it on Twitter,” said May, who seemed to be depositing Laurel’s hair at the exact centre of the displaced ground. “Daisy’s deep moments tend to max out at 140 characters.”
“Sorry if I’m speaking out of turn,” whispered Thea, “but Not-So-Evil-Yet-Still-Scary-Shiva is totally your mom.”
Daisy scowled. “Tweeted or not, I don’t believe it’s right. There’s room for more than one person in all of us. I knew a boy…”
“We’re gal-pals now?”
“I knew a boy, when I was about ten. His name was Matty. Matty wanted to be a ninja. Except on alternate days, when he wanted to be a lawyer. Eventually he decided that he wanted to be a ninja lawyer. I never did find out what happened to him. But - and this is just my opinion - I think that ‘ninja lawyer’ has a lot going for it.”
“Maybe.” Laurel continued to watch May, who had moved to the far side of the lot. “What does that mean for Quake?”
Daisy flushed. “That’s different. I… I’ve done a lot of harm, here. Being something other than Quake would just hurt more people.”
“Perhaps. But, from what Agent May told us, she and someone she calls ‘Coulson’ staked this place out for days after you vanished and they worked out what had happened. Once the vigil paid off, she took on the Up To Eleven version of herself without a second thought, to save you. Just my opinion, but I don’t think that being alone is your choice to make.”
“Our guests need to be in the centre of the lot,” May announced. “It’s time.”
“Is our caller in New York sure that this will work?” Daisy asked, as Thea and Laurel moved into position.
“He says so. Ordinarily, it would be very hard to repatriate a chunk of land this size; one of the Kamar-Taj would have to be here in person to manage it. But your repeated ram-raiding of local reality has made things a lot easier. He’s going to ’phone it in.”
“How does that work?”
“Like this.” May held her smartphone aloft. A sigil leapt from its screen, to hang lucent against the sky.
“Flatpack sorcery,” breathed Thea. “Living in the future.”
“Guess this is goodbye,” said Daisy. “Thank you. Both of you. And give my regards to the big guy.”
“Au revoir, you mean,” said Laurel. The air around began to crackle like a walk through autumn leaves. “Don’t forget that you still owe me a rematch.”
Daisy smiled, and seemed about to reply. But then the sigil erupted in waxing light, and Earth-Whatever was swept away. A thousand Earths unfurled before Laurel and Thea. One was home.
FINIS
Author: Prochytes.
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D./Arrow.
Rating: PG-13. Angst, dark themes, and violence.
Characters/Pairing: Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz, Melinda May, Jemma Simmons (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.); Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Thea Queen, Felicity Smoak (Arrow).
Disclaimer: Marvel and the Distinguished Competition share the goodies.
Summary: The world’s greatest assassin is on the prowl in Star City. A young woman has appeared in the Glades who isn't from a remotely familiar Earth. Oliver and company must face these challenges domestic and inter-dimensional, if everyone is to get out of this alive.
Word Count: 8534.
A/N: Spoilers for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D to 4x04: “Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire” and Arrow to 4x13 “Sins of the Father”.
3. The Word in the Whirlwind.
“This rig looks different from what Cisco showed us over Skype,” said Laurel. She looked at her watch, and tried not to think about the briefs piled up in her office.
“I know,” Oliver knelt to make an adjustment. “Dr. Fitz and Dr. Simmons had to reconfigure the set-up. Daisy’s powers aren’t quite the same as his.”
“What are the differences?” asked Daisy, flinching a little as Oliver tweaked the tech-bedizened headband that she was wearing.
“Basically, he’s the scalpel; you’re the nuke. Cisco can read psychometric vibes on objects…”
“I can’t do that. Sounds useful. And very cool.”
“... but he has to push hard to move anything big. I think that you’re in front when it comes to earth-breaking.”
“So - this tiara is supposed to focus my abundance of mojo in the right direction?”
“Yes. Once it’s activated, you just have to project a vibe calibrated to what the headband is putting out. If you do it here, where you first punched through, that should snap you back to your multiversal base state, and send you home.”
Daisy looked out over the parking lot, on which a chilly light mist had descended. “Beats a pair of ruby slippers, any day.”
The labours of Fitz and Simmons had consumed another couple of days. These had seen, by the recent standards of Star City, little obvious activity on the villain front. Oliver had nevertheless felt it prudent to keep Daisy’s site of attempted departure more than adequately guarded. As well as Laurel, and Oliver himself, Thea was standing sentry over the proceedings. Speedy was trying, with indifferent success, to conceal her excitement at witnessing this particular efflorescence of Mad Science. Oliver sighed, and turned back to Daisy.
“Are you ready?”
“I was born ready. Well, emerged from a cocoon ready, technically.” Daisy squared her shoulders, and breathed deeply. “Here goes nothing.”
Daisy flipped a switch on the apparatus. She closed her eyes. Shortly thereafter, she extended her hands towards the ground. In contrast to what had happened in the cell, the quivering that now began to communicate itself to the surrounding area was barely perceptible. A few minutes passed.
“I’m not exactly an expert on these things,” said Thea, eventually, “but I’m detecting statistically significant quantities of ‘Still Here’-ness from our visitor at the moment.”
“How does it feel, Daisy?” asked Laurel.
“The strain is… considerable.” A light sweat had broken out on Daisy’s brow. “Nothing I can’t handle, but I’m feeling it. Something’s happening. But I’m not sure what it is.”
“Well, the night’s young.” Thea pointed at the sky over the twilit city. Brief blossoms of fireworks were visible in the distance, their brightness softened by the encroaching mist. “And someone’s celebrating.”
“That’s not a celebration.” Oliver frowned. “That’s a challenge.”
“A League signal?” Laurel looked warily at Oliver. “Shiva’s finally calling you out?”
“She is.” Oliver settled the quiver on his shoulders. “I have to go.”
Laurel moved to stand in front of him. “You really don’t.”
“Honour demands that Al-Sahim meet the Shiva one-on-one.”
Laurel nodded in the direction of Daisy. The young woman’s head was bowed now, her frame slightly shaking. “Morality demands that the Green Arrow not leave innocents undefended.”
“I know. That’s why I’ll contact Spartan to come with me after Shiva - since I’m not the Ra’s now, I don’t really have to play by her rules - and trust you and Speedy to watch out for Daisy while I’m elsewhere.”
Laurel smiled. “Wow. My little vigilante’s all grown-up.”
Oliver smiled back. “Took a while, didn’t it? Be safe, Canary. Look after things here until I get back.”
“Be safe, Green Arrow. Give Shiva something she doesn’t expect.”
Oliver raised a hand in salute, and loped off into the night.
About a quarter of an hour elapsed. The mist deepened, as did the furrows on Daisy’s brow. Finally, Laurel put a hand to her ear.
“Overwatch? Yeah, I’m reading you. Good thing that you worked out how to make the comms go on functioning around Daisy. What’s the problem?”
Laurel listened for a moment, frowning. Daisy watched her face.
“Something up?”
“Maybe. Spartan and the Green Arrow checked in with Overwatch. They went to the site of the fireworks; no one was there. The Arrow says that he’s heading back here.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah. From what he’s said, it doesn’t sound like it’s Shiva’s way to duck out of a fight. I wonder…” Laurel staggered as a short tremor shook the ground. “Was that you?”
“Maybe.” Daisy looked puzzled. “Felt…. Felt like something just came loose.”
Laurel touched her ear again. “I’ve lost Overwatch. This is unhelpful.”
“Canary,” Thea had moved the edge of the parking lot, and was peering out into the mist. “You should probably see this.”
“What is it? Daisy’s still here.” Laurel moved over to where Thea was standing. “Apart from faulty comms and one tremor, nothing’s happening.”
Laurel looked in the direction where Thea was pointing. Her jaw dropped open.
“I think,” said Thea with the careful calm that was never a good sign in a denizen of Star City, “I think that something is.”
***
Galaxied Star Cities, sleeting past. The Queen’s Gambit is accepted, declined; the game plays out in a thousand different ways. A phalanx of archers; an aria of Canaries. Distant in the void, a rosary of Kryptons clicks out its sorrows: dying because the sun explodes; dying because the core explodes; dying because, because. And then Krypton does not die, because it was never there at all.
A.R.G.U.S. is the DEO. A.R.G.U.S. is Stormwatch.
The landscape shifts. The Speed Force is sparser, now, meted out in grudging heart-beats, on the approach to the close conveners, the almost-homes. An abacus of Infinity Stones snaps back and forth. The lives of Calvin Zabo/Johnson bubble like his potions in the alembic of fates.
A.R.G.U.S. is Black Air. A.R.G.U.S. is…
***
“I’m fairly sure,” said Thea, her eyes transfixed on the vista that swirled just beyond the edge of the parking lot, “that this isn’t what happens when Cisco breaches.”
“It’s like the Green Arrow said,” Laurel was similarly unmoving, “Cisco’s the scalpel; Daisy’s the nuke. She’s dragging this entire city block through the Speed Force.”
“At least Overwatch called a fake gas leak on the area ahead of time. There’s no one on this joyriding chunk of Earth-1 but the three of u…”
Thea was still talking as light from a firework bursting on the other side of the lot threw shade and crimson across her face. She swallowed. “Shiva.”
“Uh-huh.” Laurel raised her tonfas, eyes darting.
“This was where she was always going to be. She sent Spartan and Green Arrow on a wild-goose chase.” Speedy nocked an arrow. “What do you think she wants?”
“Plenty of time to ask that once we take her down.”
“You think that we can do that? From what the Green Arrow said, she’s just as good as he is.”
“There’s three of us.”
“Two.” Daisy had buckled to one knee. Her hair was matted with sweat. “There’s two of you. If I understood FitzSimmons correctly, it would probably kill us all if I stopped channelling this before my Earth snapped into focus. And… God, the strain…” She dropped to both knees. “I’d be weak as a kitten, even if I did.”
“Hang on in there”, said Laurel. “We’ve got your back. She can call herself what she likes: Shiva; Al-Fursan; the Destroyer. She’s still only human. And she’s still going dow…”
Daisy’s head snapped up. “Say that again.”
“Huh?”
“I never heard you call her anything but ‘Shiva’. Say those other names again.”
“Al-Fursan; the Destroyer. What…?”
Daisy shuddered. “Canary, you and Speedy have to hide. Now. You’re no kind of match for what’s coming.”
“Why are you so scared of a name?”
“Not one name. That’s the point. You don’t speak Arabic, do you? The big guy does, I bet, but he wouldn’t have seen any reason to explain.” Daisy bit her lip. “My first S.O. … well, he wasn’t a lot of the things his file said he was, but he sure did know a lot of languages. He started me on a few of them, even though I never go that far. And I can tell you this: ‘Al-Fursan’ doesn’t mean ‘The Destroyer’.”
A second firework kindled on the other side of the lot. When the light guttered out, a woman was standing there - a slight, sinewy Asian woman, in early middle age. Her face was very beautiful. Her eyes were dead. Daisy sighed, as though all was lost.
“It means: ‘The Cavalry’.”
***
(A warm still day in Bahrain, untroubled by the querulous Shamal, or by a woman’s world ending, somewhere else. Laos Spain Chile Vanuatu Finland Canada Brunei. The backdrop is irrelevant; it could have happened anywhere. The backdrop is everything; it happened here.
The agent walks in; the Cavalry rides out. It could happen anywhere. It happens here.)
***
“This is one of those scary badasses who taught you?” whispered Laurel.
“The scariest.” Daisy’s eyes were locked on Shiva. “And I think this version has the brakes off.”
Laurel slumped for a moment, but stiffened her back. “Be that as it may,” she raised her voice, “Lady Shiva - Al-Fursan - you know our ways, so you know the drill. You have failed this city. Yield while you can.”
“This fight is not yours, little bird.” Shiva’s voice was deep, and slightly halting, as though rusty with disuse. When she stepped closer, Laurel could see that she was wearing a curious bracelet, bright against the sable of her clothes. “Nor yours, swift one.” She nodded at Thea.
“If you come after innocents in our town, you make it our fight,” said Thea. She fired her arrow. Shiva barely seemed to move as it passed within an inch of her head. And then…
All Hell did not break loose. It would have been less frightening if it had. Hell revealed itself in inches and fractions of a second: the moment by which Speedy’s first kick missed as their enemy walked forward; the minute movements of Shiva’s hands here and here, which sent the younger woman sprawling to the peregrine asphalt below. Laurel snarled and leapt in, tonfas spinning. Once again, it seemed that Shiva barely moved at the eye of the batoned whirl - the devil in the details. She struck: once, twice, a third time. Laurel, too, crumpled to the ground. She watched, head ringing, as Shiva walked on.
Shiva stopped in front of Daisy, who still knelt in the centre of the lot, and hunkered down to look her in the eye. Daisy gazed back, chin held high.
“Daisy Johnson. The little girl who makes the world to tremble. You came to my Earth looking for death.” Shiva cocked her head on one side. “What do you think, now that you have found her?”
“You’re not Death.” Daisy had not blinked. “I don’t know exactly how your story panned out here. What made you this. But all I’m seeing is a broken, solitary woman, who needs to believe that she’s a force of nature.”
“So speaks the Quake.”
Daisy flinched. “You know a lot about me.”
“Your coming was foretold.”
“Hmmm.” Daisy’s expression was thoughtful, as another tremor shook the lot. She looked past Shiva, locked gazes with Laurel, and laughed.
“What amuses you?”
“Just remembering something a friend said to me. You need to bear in mind, Lady Shiva, that on Earth-Whatever, it isn’t just the bad guys who understand redundancy.”
“Ah. So she is here.”
The laugh died in Daisy’s throat. “You knew?”
“Of course. I told the Black Canary that this wasn’t her fight.” Shiva turned, and moved smoothly into a defensive stance. “Did you really imagine that it was yours?”
Laurel saw a dark-clad blur streak out of the gathering night. Then she lost her tenuous grip on consciousness. The night took all.
***
“Canary? Can you hear me?”
Laurel opened her eyes to the sight of Thea’s concerned face. She tried to sit up, and then wished she hadn’t.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I was hit by a kung-fu truck.” Laurel groaned. “I think I’m seeing double.”
“You might want to hold on to that thought.”
Laurel craned to look past Thea. Her eyes widened.
The mist had gone. It was now clear that the parking lot was perched incongruously on a desolate plain. There wasn’t a Star City on Earth-Whatever. Daisy had picked a lonely place to die.
At the centre of the lot, two women were locked in unarmed combat. One of them was Shiva. The other, in face and build, could have been her twin. Laurel gasped.
“Is that…”
“May.” Daisy’s voice at Laurel’s shoulder startled her. “That’s Agent May. The woman who turned into Shiva on your Earth, and trained me on this one.” Daisy gnawed her lip, as the woman she had called May staggered for a moment, barely managing a block against Shiva’s kick. “But even May isn’t a match for that.”
“We have to help her.”
“How?” Daisy’s voice was low and without hope. “You can barely stand. That Overwatch lady didn’t have time to fix your Canary Cry. Shiva fractured Speedy’s arms. And the effort of bringing us here took everything I had. Simmons would say that I couldn’t vibe the skin off a rice pudding right now.”
“Listen to me, Daisy.” Laurel held her gaze. “Remember our bout when you first arrived? You beat me, but you still lost, because I had a home advantage. This is Earth-Whatever. We’re in your house, now. There’s something you can do. You just have to find it.”
“I don’t think… Wait. You’re right.” Daisy raised her voice: “May?”
“Kinda… busy here, Daisy,” May hissed, wincing as another punch, and another, slipped through her guard.
“May, what’s wrong with this picture?”
“Huh? I…” May turned and, in that moment, Shiva struck. A cascade of blows and desperate, flagging counters ended with May on the ground, while Shiva knelt above. Her right hand was poised, fingers claw-like, above May’s head. Laurel remembered what Oliver had said about the Leopard Strike. Shiva spoke:
“You fought well. But you are not my equal.”
“Maybe not.” May spat out blood and grinned. “But I just won, all the same.”
Shiva looked down. May’s hand was wrapped around the bracelet on her left wrist.
“The thing that was wrong with this picture. I don’t accessorize.”
“Well played.” The dead eyes, for a moment, looked enchanted. “Very well played.” Shiva bowed her head. “I remember being you. The people; the ’planes; the chains of command. Fuel gauges and compassion and constraint. They blunt you. Slow you down. The warrior must be the warrior - nothing else. Two souls in one body cannot abide.”
“I disagree,” said May. “You’re an extraordinary fighter. But you’re alone.” She nodded at Daisy. “I had someone to call the plays.”
“An insight I shall think on.” Shiva turned her gaze to the group on the edge of the lot. “My thanks to you all. Convey my apologies to Al-Sahim for my deception. He interests me, but it is not yet his time.” She looked down again. “Farewell, Agent May.”
“Farewell”, said May, “Melinda.”
Shiva smiled as May squeezed the bracelet. For a moment, her outline was limmed with blue fire. Then, she was gone. Four women only knelt on the darkling plain.
Epilogue
“Iskandar,” said Laurel. “That should have been the clue.”
“How so?” asked Thea. “These bone-pills are astonishing, Daisy. Does Agent May have any more?”
“’Fraid not. I get through them quickly.”
“Some people go further than the old story that Alexander the Great dreamed of new worlds to conquer,” Laurel continued. “They say that, once he ran out of people worth fighting, he would have fought himself. Thanks to the League prophecy about Daisy, that’s exactly what Shiva managed to do.”
“She hitched a ride out of her own reality for a fight,” said Daisy. “Guess that’s why she’s the Shiva. Was I right to think that that bracelet was probably from the place you call S.T.A.R. Labs?”
“Uh-huh. My guess is that the recent break-in wasn’t Zoom this time. It was Shiva. She needed an.... anchor, I suppose. Cisco hasn’t had much luck in finding a way to open new breaches that doesn’t involve someone who can vibe or mainline the Speed Force, but I suppose he built something that could snap you back to your own universe if you were wearing it when you left. Shiva stole that, and trashed the place to cover what she had taken. It was her way home.” Laurel looked over to where May was talking (a little) and listening (a lot) to her smartphone, keeping her distance from the two planar refugees to maintain the line. “Speaking of going home… who’s this guy that just rang Agent May?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Daisy. “According to May, about three people in the whole world are meant to know that number.”
May looked up from her ’phone. “Says he’s a representative of the Kamar-Taj. The Master of the New York Sanctum, whatever that is. His people have a professional interest in dimensional incursion, apparently; Daisy’s belly-flop back into this world caught their attention. Our former Director left instructions about cooperating with them in his Toolbox.” She listened to the ’phone again. “I'm told that this will need a hair from one of you two, but ‘not the zombie’. That mean anything to you?”
Thea glared. “Honestly, you take a dip in one Lazarus Pit…”
Laurel reached under her wig, and yanked out a hair, which she handed to May.
“Thanks.” May walked away, and picked up her ’phone again. Laurel shifted uneasily.
“Daisy…”
“Yes, Laurel?”
Laurel tried to look innocent. “Who’s that?”
“Oh for God’s sake, Laurel.” Daisy rolled her eyes. “I spent the best part of a week in Star City; there was Internet; and I’m kind of like Overwatch - Felicity - when it comes to computers. How many athletic five seven-and-a-half female attorneys with a family background in law enforcement do you think there are in your town? And the Green Arrow is former millionaire playboy Oliver Queen, whose sister is currently chugging my bone-pills like there’s no tomorrow.”
“Sorry,” said Thea.
“Just leave me a couple, OK?”
“Fair enough,” said Laurel. “You’ve made your point. But what do you think of what Shiva said? That two souls can’t abide in one body?”
“Shiva wouldn’t be my first pick for a life coach.”
“Still… do you think she could be right? I’m not sure anymore - I haven't been for a while- that I can go on being a lawyer and a vigilante.”
“The intellect of man is forced to choose/ perfection of the life, or of the work.”
“Who said that?”
“Beats me.”
“She probably read it on Twitter,” said May, who seemed to be depositing Laurel’s hair at the exact centre of the displaced ground. “Daisy’s deep moments tend to max out at 140 characters.”
“Sorry if I’m speaking out of turn,” whispered Thea, “but Not-So-Evil-Yet-Still-Scary-Shiva is totally your mom.”
Daisy scowled. “Tweeted or not, I don’t believe it’s right. There’s room for more than one person in all of us. I knew a boy…”
“We’re gal-pals now?”
“I knew a boy, when I was about ten. His name was Matty. Matty wanted to be a ninja. Except on alternate days, when he wanted to be a lawyer. Eventually he decided that he wanted to be a ninja lawyer. I never did find out what happened to him. But - and this is just my opinion - I think that ‘ninja lawyer’ has a lot going for it.”
“Maybe.” Laurel continued to watch May, who had moved to the far side of the lot. “What does that mean for Quake?”
Daisy flushed. “That’s different. I… I’ve done a lot of harm, here. Being something other than Quake would just hurt more people.”
“Perhaps. But, from what Agent May told us, she and someone she calls ‘Coulson’ staked this place out for days after you vanished and they worked out what had happened. Once the vigil paid off, she took on the Up To Eleven version of herself without a second thought, to save you. Just my opinion, but I don’t think that being alone is your choice to make.”
“Our guests need to be in the centre of the lot,” May announced. “It’s time.”
“Is our caller in New York sure that this will work?” Daisy asked, as Thea and Laurel moved into position.
“He says so. Ordinarily, it would be very hard to repatriate a chunk of land this size; one of the Kamar-Taj would have to be here in person to manage it. But your repeated ram-raiding of local reality has made things a lot easier. He’s going to ’phone it in.”
“How does that work?”
“Like this.” May held her smartphone aloft. A sigil leapt from its screen, to hang lucent against the sky.
“Flatpack sorcery,” breathed Thea. “Living in the future.”
“Guess this is goodbye,” said Daisy. “Thank you. Both of you. And give my regards to the big guy.”
“Au revoir, you mean,” said Laurel. The air around began to crackle like a walk through autumn leaves. “Don’t forget that you still owe me a rematch.”
Daisy smiled, and seemed about to reply. But then the sigil erupted in waxing light, and Earth-Whatever was swept away. A thousand Earths unfurled before Laurel and Thea. One was home.
FINIS