Chapter 19
She didn't just lose her hand. She had lost the scars too. The many bite marks that painted her arm had disappeared in the healing process. It made her wonder what else Elixir had fixed within her person.
Losing her hand should have been a more traumatizing experience, but having lost her head two minutes ago puts things in perspective. She still wanted it back though. And the only person capable of giving it back she was about to bury. After considering her options she found the path forward simple. She buried the man. No hand was worth letting him have another shot at whatever he did. With every massive handful of dirt she poured over him she felt a little more at ease. Marking his prison with an imprint of her hand.
For the first time in days, she felt good. Like she was in control of something for once. A feeling she couldn't help but punctuate with a deep sigh of relief. That's when she felt it, the inhale. A tight pressure in her chest. In her lungs. Like a finger gently pulling on the trigger of a gun. She stopped immediately. Holding her breath waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. Whatever was happening was waiting for her. Her fears and anxieties begged her to let the breath go. But an emotion stronger than those took over. Ego, and the sheer desire to see where this was going. She took a deeper breath and pulled the trigger.
A great eruption of steam launched from her mouth. It left her so eager that no closing or covering of the mouth could contain it, with speed that threatened to take her teeth. She felt like a dragon vomiting wet fire across the cold forest.
She exhaled for so long that she became dizzy. The whole event drained her in every sense of the word. The tree she tried to hold onto for balance felt bigger with each passing second until she could no longer wrap her hand around it. So she settled for a branch, and when that branch rose too far above her she settled on a lower branch until that branch rose above her. This went on until she was leaning on the bottom of the trunk for balance. Coughing up little wisps of hot vapor.
It was no longer cold. Her release had left the chilly Christmas morning a hot muggy mess with notes of burned wood. The branches she so desperately held onto fell around her scorched by her essence. Only the flashlight left on the ground gently burning through the dark fog gave her any sense of direction.
She went for it but was filled with regret. She balded the forest. Wood and metal pressed into the earth in a vaguely human outline. And in some of those pressings, she found bodies. Jono, Elliot, Chudame, and the pink-haired man. They were all mangled by her arrival in different ways. Elliott now had a different type of portal in his chest thanks to a branch he was thrown into. The pink-haired man was twisted with lower and upper halves facing the wrong way. Chudame was crushed into a fine pulp with blood soaking through most of his clothes. Jono got the worst of it. His chest was missing as if something raked across his body and took what it could. Or maybe it was like that before? It was hard to remember but either way, it was truly horrific.
Staring at these that she gathered gave her an uneasy but familiar feeling. Or perhaps it was the lack of that feeling that bothered her. That these deaths don't mean anything. That even without Elixir there were methods of dodging death.
As if on queue the flame relit itself. The cursed lavender candle shined dimly through the mist guiding her eyes to its resting place. Her hand was still clutching it gently between two large but proportionally sized fingers. Her giant hand showed no sign that it had been cut off or had suffered any trauma, and any signs that it had been removed had been healed over. Kenna looked at her giant appendage and then back to her small wrist stump. "Fuck," she said quietly to herself.
She placed her nub against the upscaled hand where it normally would attach, hoping it would simply reattach itself and return to its normal size. It did not. Somehow, the comparison made her feel even more anxious like a part of her was set loose, a part she couldn't control.
"Hey, you?" she said addressing the candle as if it was a person. "I just want to say thank you for keeping me alive. That was nice of you. Can you do me another favor and fix my hand?" The candle had nothing to say. "Okay, how do you work? Like, you had no problem keeping me alive and setting Layla or whoever that was on fire. Why be coy now?" It didn't exchange words but moments. And with each moment it gave to her the more she understood—an understanding she was never meant to have. "Oh," she said to herself.
She placed her nub up against her hand again. This time the whole thing went up in lavender flames, but Kenna never flinched. She seemed amused but not surprised watching the fire perform its careful work. When the flames died her hand was reattached as if it had never left. Even as the act finished she still exchanged moments. Only the pain in her feet broke her fixation.
She had stepped on her inhibitor. A reminder that she was wearing nothing on her feet, wrist, or any other part of her body. The thought didn't bother her as much as it should have, but it was getting cold again and there just so happened to be four individuals nearby who no longer needed the warmth of their clothes.
Elliot wouldn't need his cargo pants filled with tin foil. Neither would the pink-haired man need his pink shirt decorated with an elaborate omega symbol. And while there wasn't much left unsoiled on Chudame his steel-toed boots were clean enough. Jono was the last she desecrated. His coat, while torn, was thick and warm. Kenna had stolen clothes before, but this was different. This was from the dead. It felt wrong. However, she knew how to fix this feeling.
Elliot woke up. His death was undone, but his body was still broken. He tried to speak but found it difficult with a hole in his chest. "Yeah sucks doesn't it," said Kenna, "Just talk slowly so I can read your lips."
"GIVE-HIM-BACK," Elliot mouthed deliberately. Kenna turned him back off immediately. Even with all the clarity the candle provided she wasn't sure what that was about. When she tried again she was not met with words but fingers.
Skinny black digits sprouted from his mouth trailed by an oily arm. It clawed the ground dragging Elliot's corpse through dirt towards Kenna. She tried turning him off again. Another arm sprouted. She tried setting it on fire, for every arm that burned two more took its place. Even with this newfound clarity, she was already beyond her depth. Too much too soon.
One especially long arm sprouted from his mouth to grab her. Quick and strong it wrapped itself around her with its greasy hold. The rotting hand pawed at her mouth trying to separate her lips. Finding the candle lacking she grabbed the inhibitor to try and fight it off. It wasn't working but nothing was. She wanted to go home. To return to her world. So home is where the candle took her. Leaving the corpse spider Elliot had become with nothing in its grasp but sickly sweet flames.
Even though she had traveled like this before she had never driven. Ilyana's method while dramatic always felt practiced. As if one was taking a demonic elevator. When Kenna beckoned the candle it took her piece by piece. It was painless, but it felt akin to being eaten. And after being completely eaten she was spat out in a familiar place. A bed, her bed, the bed specially placed there for her comfort. She was home.
The bed itself was nothing special bought as a wooden mass-produced product, but what was neatly fitted across it was one of Kenna's prized possessions. Kenna was sitting on a massive grey weighted blanket. It was too big to take with her reasonably and after what happened to the rest of her possessions she was glad she didn't.
The ceiling was not as pleasing to see again. It was a story of mistakes and experimentation. Holes and patched holes remained from the time she refused to let go of a more normal shower routine. Neither was the urine-stained carpet. A war that she lost with a very determined pet. It had gotten so bad she simply got used to the smell.
Anything else in the room could only be described as banjo-deco. Pictures, prizes, and the cherry on top were elaborate hand-carved crown molding with musical notes. Things she simply was too lazy to take down. It was a mess, but so was the rest of the house.
There was no power. A consequence of her knocking over the transformer. There was no water. Shutoff after they figured out what she could do with it. There was no wall. An obstacle in the path of her confrontation. Old wounds reopened. Memories of a mom who called Shield out of fear and a dad who told her not to go quietly. Of a Shield agent she tried to break. Of a surrender to herself and others.
It was kind of a bummer, but it was home. While checking the weathered rustic pantry for food that wasn't bad or stolen she thought about how much time she'd need to wait out her problems. She figured there was a threshold between having the school sort it out and having SHIELD hunt her down. A day maybe?
"Meow," said the cat.
"Hey, kitty?" said Kenna confused. This cat looked like her family's cat. The tag even read "Meow Meow," which was the name of their family cat. "What are you doing here buddy?" The cat pranced to her room. "Ugh, really? Still?"
"Kenna?" asked Kenna's mom.
"Mom!?" asked Kenna.
"What are you doing here?"
"It's Christmas," said Kenna not lying.
"Well, welcome home. Sorry for not decorating."
"Do you still live here?"
"No, I'm renting right now."
"So what are you doing here?"
"Grabbing stuff," said Kenna's mom breaking eye contact.
"Really? Cause it looks like you're letting Meow Meow piss in my room," said Kenna.
"To be fair I thought you wouldn't be using it anymore."
"That's still messed up. Like, you drove out here to let a cat soil my room."
"Yeah, but she really likes it. And she's miserable otherwise."
"As long as Meow Meow is happy I guess."
"How's the school?"
"It's alright, how's the work?"
"It's alright. What's that in your hand?"
"It's a candle."
"No, the other hand."
"That's my inhibitor."
"I assume it's to inhibit you?"
"Yup."
"I assume you need to be wearing it for it to work?"
"Yup."
"Huh, interesting."
"It's Christmas."
"Perhaps you should put it on?" said Kenna's mom. At this point, Kenna realized that while as wearable as her clothes were they did contain some blood on them.
"It's not what it looks like," said Kenna.
"Sure. Why don't you tell me more."
"Fuck, you've been stalling me."
"And how does that make you feel?"
"Bad, like the last time."
"Maybe we can avoid paralyzing people this time? Please?" Kenna didn't want to stick around for the inevitable swarm of drones or caravan of angry Shield agents. However, she felt it was too soon to go back to school and the impression she got from Shield was that they'd find her almost anywhere if they were looking for her.
She had already called upon the candle to move her but had not yet given it a place to go. Even as the flames traveled up her arm she debated. The ocean? No, things weren't that bad. The witch had mentioned Layla Miller. Before Layla tried to kill Kenna she had been missing for a while. That could be worth looking into.
The painless experience turned painful. The flames burned. She screamed. The candle was struggling. Wherever she was going neither the place nor candle wanted her there. Her mom watched in horror as her mutant daughter immolated herself in front of her until nothing remained.
The process traded - comfort for pain, cold for hot, and home for a holding cell. A bright shade of yellow stung the eyes. She was surrounded by six walls made up of hexagons within hexagons that somehow all had "Property of AIM" on every hexagon but somehow were legible at every angle. The almost kaleidoscope effect of this was only interrupted by the stain of its single occupant sitting against a wall.
She wore a straight jacket that was also yellow, but it was such a different shade of yellow that it made her stand out in the yellow madness of her cell. The only identifying feature written on her article of clothing was another "Property of AIM". Kenna wanted to say this was Layla Miller, but she was different. She was older and much more weathered like a before-and-after picture of someone kidnapped for years with eyes that faced Kenna but weren't looking at her.
"Layla?" asked Kenna. Layla did not acknowledge Kenna's existence whatsoever. "Where are we?" If it wasn't for the occasional breath Kenna could have sworn she was addressing a corpse. "Okay," Kenna said doing the situational math, "This looks bad, let's get you out of here." Kenna didn't want to go back, but her problems seemed minuscule compared to Layla's vacant expression.
Kenna tried to invoke the candle but was only found lavender sparks. "Uh oh," she said to herself. "Layla, do you have a match or some kind of fire-based mutation? I never really caught what your thing was." Layla sighed a tortuous sigh. "That's fine! It's fine! We don't need the candle to get home. We can just uh," Kenna looked around the option-less room, "Uh." There very much was nothing in the room other than themselves and what they were wearing. "Well, crap."
Layla began to rein in her thousand-yard. The very act caused her anguish. "Just let me die," said Layla weakly with tears in her eyes.
"Whoa now, it's not that bad. We can get through this. I actually have some experience in breaking out of situations like this. We simply need to find a sink or toilet or something so I can do my thing," Kenna looked around again to remind herself that there was a whole lot of nothing like that, " Or at the very least the X-men will find us eventually. It's happened to me like twice-ish now."
"You're not real," said Layla. Kenna poked herself.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sorry, I know you think you're real but you're not. They created you to get information out of me."
"Oh fuck," said Kenna entertaining the idea.
"I'm really sorry. You probably have all the memories of whoever you are."
"I"m Kenna Knox. We've met before. It was okay to meet you."
"That's what I'm saying. You think you've met me before but you haven't. You are not her. And I don't know why they keep sending these things to torture me. I've told them everything."
"I think you're confused. I am real, I am a mutant, I got to a school for mutants, my best friend is a fish-bug person, an avatar of vengeance tried to kill me, you but not you killed me and I died but didn't recently, and I got here through the use of a magic candle," Kenna soaked those words in like the sponge she is, "You know when I say it all out loud. It does sound ridiculous."
"Again, I'm very sorry."
"Actually, I'm very relieved. Kenna's life sounds like a hot mess and I really don't want to be any part of it."
"That's different."
"What?"
"All of your predecessors never accepted they were fake."
"Maybe I'm built differently to lure you into a false sense of trust?"
"Maybe, but why would you tell me that?"
"I don't know. I didn't build me! Get off my back!" Layla started to chuckle but thought better, "What?" asked Kenna.
"Sorry, I haven't talked to anything in a while," said Layla.
"When was the last time they sent someone like me in?"
"I lost track. It has to have been years ago now."
"Years!? Kenna saw you roughly five months ago?"
"We're in the negative zone. Time passes differently depending on how far you are away from the nexus."
"Fuck so, fuck," said Kenna.
"The X-men aren't coming. They may not even know I'm gone. But that hasn't stopped AIM from playing out a few rescue attempts. Looking back it was charming to think there was hope."
"So you're telling me we have escape? By ourselves?"
"No, I'm telling you there is no escape. And any plan you try to sell to me will be designed to fail."
"At least that's on theme for Kenna. So what now? What's the plan?" asked Kenna.
"Wait till they judge that my usefulness outweighs the resources needed to keep me here and then die," said Layla.
"Rough, you know any stories to pass the time."
"You really can't help yourself can you?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm bored! If I'm going to be here for years I want to spend some of it at least talking."
"I could always try to kill you. Between us, you're the only one that can die here."
"You wanna bet," said Kenna.
"I'd say go for it, but you're not programmed to harm me." Kenna threw the candle at her. The thick solid glass bounced off Layla's skull ringing her bell with a pain she hadn't felt in a very long time.
"Holy shit! I'm so sorry! You said I wasn't programmed to hurt you!" said a flustered Kenna.
"That's also different," said Layla as fascinated as she was hurt.
"What does that mean!?" asked Kenna.
"AIM is either experimenting with a more direct method of torture for me."
"No! I won't be a part of this!"
"Or you're real."
"Oh! Oh," said Kenna entertaining the possibility that she might be the real Kenna like she originally assumed.
"You said that candle was magic?" asked Layla.
"Yeah, but it's not working anymore."
"Let me smell it." Kenna picked up the candle and brought it to her nose so Layla could take a sniff. Her eyes widened with new life and curiosity.
"It's just lavender," said Kenna.
"It's magic."
"So I'm the real Kenna?"
"It's appearing that way."
"Yay," said Kenna embarrassed.
"This doesn't make sense. AIM has been using a T.E.T.H.E.R field in conjunction with the negative zone to mitigate my chaos rebound effect. It should have prevented you from popping in here or using anything that warps reality."
"Of course," said Kenna sarcastically, "But I did. I also remember hurting more than usual."
"That could be a sign that the T.E.T.H.E.R field is weakening."
"If that was the case why can't I use the candle to go back?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's because of your proximity to the T.E.T.H.E.R field generator. Maybe it's because it's messing with your cognitive ability to control the candle. Maybe there isn't enough wax. What else do you have on you?" Layla said with gradually increasing intensity.
"Uh, My inhibitor and a pants full of tin foil."
"Your inhibitor, what does it do exactly? Is it electronic?" Kenna scrutinized her personalized accessory.
"It doesn't look like it. I guess they didn't want to risk it running out of power. It cuts into me to prevent me from growing."
"Did Forge make it? What is it made out of?"
"He did! I don't know," Kenna scratched her head, "Wait! She said this one was made out of some sort of adamantium!"
"Do everything I say as quickly as you possibly can." Layla in a calm tempo walked Kenna through shaping the tin foil into basic mechanical tools. Using what little power they could coax out of the weakened candle they made their flimsy tools more abrasive so they could take the inhibitor apart.
"How do you know how to do this?" asked Kenna.
"I'm familiar with Forge's work," said Layla. It was not easy taking the inhibitor apart. Forge had built it with his own brand of proprietary tools and techniques, so even taking it apart would be dangerous.
"Now this is important. If you let go of that part the tension of the wire will release and kill us both," said Layla.
"Don't tempt me," said Kenna high on magic candle fumes frustrated with the careful work. Eventually, their efforts paid off. The inhibitor was broken down into its basic parts. An incredibly long but thin metal braided metal belt was harvested among other parts such as plating and locking mechanisms. "Okay, how do we use this?"
"Hold it with the outer plating for protection and strike the wall like it's the sharpest whip you've ever used," said Kayla. Kenna slapped the wall with it. "You have to hit it harder than that. You need to stress the braid hard enough that the barbs deploy." Kenna tried again throwing her arm back for more momentum. It cleanly cut through the wall.
Both of them cheered at their victory, but it was premature. The modular nature of the wall corrected itself replacing and filling the damaged hexagons like skin healing a wound. Kenna flogged the wall hoping she could cut faster than it could fix itself. It was taking great effort, but she progressively made a hole barely big enough to jump through. With not much time to think about it, she went for it.
Guilt followed her through. It's not like she wasn't planning on getting Layla out, but she never told her that. She was afraid Layla thought she simply abandoned her. That fear quickly left and was replaced by a new one. The lights were flashing red. Bodies of what looked like those funny hazmat people she saw in Manhattan littered the bright yellow hallway. Their suites were punctured in bad places by metal nails in hand-shaped patterns. Something horrible was happening. She cautiously stumbled towards what could pass for a highly advanced window.
The building she was in was tall, at least a hundred feet. And outside of it was pure chaos. A futuristic city under a sky on fire besieged by flaming bugs without number. Giant lumbering mechs fought melting love-craftian centipede-esque nightmares while great towers that toed the line between science and magic hummed with indifference. It was so overwhelming that she had forgotten about the bodies and nearly ignored the footsteps behind her. She lashed out with her improvised adamantium whip and almost caught another funny-looking hazmat guy in the face.
"Kenna! Where have you been?" asked the third party.
"What!?" Kenna asked scared and confused.
"Don't you recognize me, sister?" the third part asked in an Australian accent as their hazmat trappings morphed into a darker fleshier skin that matched Kenna's, "It is I Xenna," Elizabeth announced dramatically.