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Rubbing her eyes, Liz grumbled as she walked from her bunk to the helicarrier’s prison cell. Yet again, she got handed the short end of the staff and was assigned the red-eye prisoner watch shift. She grabbed a cup of coffee from the galley and made her way to her station. The stories that were floating around that day replayed through her head: apparently, her ward was the Norse god of mischief who had control of some magical staff thing. She wasn’t scarred, though. If anything, her training with Professor Xavier all those years ago taught her that fear was always in the mind and that it could be controlled just like her telepathic powers.
As she walked into the room, Liz immediately felt the prisoner’s eyes set on her. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” she asked harshly. His eyes narrowed, “Oh, you’re a feisty one, aren’t you? Maybe I should teach you a lesson.” he responded. Ignoring what he said, she made her way over to the computer station, where she pulled out a book. “Look,” she said, “neither of us want to be here, so, as long as you don’t raise too much hell, we’ll be fine, ok?” She pulled out a simple mp3 player and a pair of earbuds and proceeded to put one in. A simple acoustic song came on until it abruptly changed to a driving bass pattern. Since she hadn’t pressed the button to change the song, Liz immediately glared up at the god. A mischievous smile crossed his face as she rolled her eyes and changed the song back to the original selection. Again, the bass pattern returned, and she found that she was unable to control the device. “Dude, really?” she said to the prisoner, who was staring intently at her. “Just listen,” he replied. Through the earbud she began to hear the lyrics.
“Paranoia is in bloom, the PR, transmissions will resume. They’ll try to, push drugs that keep us all dumbed down, and hope that, we will never see the truth around.”
“I know what you are, mutant,” he snarls, “I know how they tried to ‘cure’ your gift, and I know how much you hate them for it. Help me get out of here, and you can finally have your revenge.” “Yeah, that’s all true and dandy, but, if you haven’t noticed, I work for S.H.I.E.L.D. now, and letting you free is a big no-no for us. So let me change the song back, and I’ll pretend that none of this ever happened,” she retorted with a palpable air of sarcasm surrounding it. Through the earbud, she could still make out the chorus.
“They will not force us. They will not degrade us. They will not control us. We will be victorious. So come on!”
“Ooh, but you have power. So much more power than you could comprehend. Imagine what we could do together, as king and queen of this realm. We could make every mortal tremble in fear! Nobody would dare cross us, let alone try to control our powers!” He continued, the song continuing to talk about leading a rebellion. He somehow projects a video onto the glass wall of the cell. It appeared to show the two of you in elaborate battle armor, being treated like royalty by terrified servants. For some reason, Liz still had the earbud in, causing the scene to play alongside the lyrics describing the beginning of a rebellion. By this point, she’s fed up, so she uses her powers to throw the god up against the wall. “Listen here. I am not interested in revenge. I am not interested in taking over the Earth, and, even if for some crazy reason I was, I sure as hell wouldn’t do it with you.” As she said this, she lightly pressed the panic button installed in her suit. “You. Disgust. Me.” she snarled, which elicited a satisfied grin from her prisoner. “Ah yes, but you’re still listening to the song,” he pointed out, causing the mp3 player to be thrown to the ground as 5 additional S.H.I.E.L.D. officers cam rushing in. The head officer tells her that they’ve got it covered from there, and Liz struts away, faintly hearing the last line of the song through the fallen earbud: “We will be victorious, so come on!” Dryly, she responded, “Yeah, we will be victorious. Not you, but me and S.H.I.E.L.D. So come on!” as she confidently walked out of the room.
