Chapter Text
6 AM
It was cold.
He had somehow twisted and turned so much in the night that Brann Merrick woke up with all of his covers on the floor. On a cold January morning, wearing only underwear to sleep may not have been the best decision. The sun’s rays slowly began to peek out of his blinders and blind him. Brann sat up and drowsily stumbled out of bed and into his bathroom. He stared at his shower for a moment before deciding instead to just brush his teeth. Looking into the mirror, not-so-pretty thoughts began to enter his mind.
He had short slightly greasy hair, not greasy enough for him to want to shower though, a slight light-colored stubble, and a thin face. Though it may have been mostly fast food, he ate enough to satiate himself, but for some reason, it never seemed to do much for his weight.
Walking back into his bedroom and throwing on some old, oversized slacks and a dress shirt that he was supposed to grow into once upon a time, Brann walked to his tiny fridge in his, and what could barely be called a kitchen. Inside was just a 24-pack of beer.
It was completely empty.
“Haah.”
One deep exhale later, Brann sat on a tiny couch watching the morning news and chewing on a stale piece of bread he found in his pantry, though it was more like a small cupboard. A whole lot of nothing passed through his mind as the news ran stories about biker gangs or something, Brann wasn’t really paying attention.
Instead, in the nothingness that permeated his brain, a single thought emerged.
“A vacation could be nice, to where though?”
“I want to go to Kazakhstan.”
“What?”
“Huh?”
The elevator chimed and the doors opened. As Mike walked out, he kept staring at Brann with a confused look on his face.
“Why Kazakhstan?”
Mike asked but Brann looked back, sharing the sentiment.
“Who said anything about Kazakhstan?”
“YOU DID!”
Mike, now clearly frustrated with his coworker, returned to his cubicle.
“Ok you know what, let's talk about this later I have work to do.”
Brann walked further to the back of their little office. Brann didn’t really like Mike all that much but he couldn’t have been that bad of a person since no one else was willing to talk with Brann other than him, but the more he thought about it, a trip to Kazakhstan did sound nice if not a bit familiar. The day came and went as usual, ending with Mike and Brann going out for drinks as they usually did. Neither of them had anyone to go home to so no one would bother them staying out as late as they did.
“Ok, so look man”
Mike said between drinks.
“You really gotta put yourself out there man, no one’s gonna go out with a little rat boy like you if you don’t at least try y’know!”
Brann wasn’t listening but Mike just kept talking.
“I mean it might take a little bit more effort for a guy like you but… hey, Brann… ya listening?”
Brann was looking over at the TV in the corner of the little pub they were drinking at. As it was a weeknight, the bar wasn’t close to being full, though a couple of other men in suits peppered the bar. Amber-colored walls matched the liquor in their drinks, the quiet smoky atmosphere is what made this place a favorite of Mike’s while Brann didn’t particularly care about the place, he just liked getting out of his tiny apartment. He couldn’t hear anything coming from the TV itself but he could barely make out the subtitles from where he was sitting. Something about the leader of a biker gang being on the run.
“God.”
Brann thought to himself
“I wish I was anywhere else right now, maybe somewhere in Central Asia. Kazakhstan sounds nice.”
Mike got up, clearly frustrated at Brann's lack of care in his advice.
“Alright man, here I am trying to give you nice dating tips but if you’re gonna ignore me like that then I’ll just leave.”
Brann replied, without even looking at him.
“OK, see you tomorrow.”
Mike downed his drink and left the pub in a huff. Eventually, Brann got up from the bar and went to pay.
“So here’s the bill for the two o’ ya.”
“Two of u-”
Brann looked back at his seat–
Mike left him with the bill.
The next morning Brann awoke earlier than usual, but if he went back to bed he knew he wouldn’t wake up in time for work so he just went about his day like he normally would.
Usually, he’d take the subway to work but something in him told him to walk. It was early enough that he could take the extra time to get to work. While he was a creature of habit, he didn’t care enough to disobey his gut. New York traffic was particularly bad this morning as the sidewalk congestion was worse than usual but somehow he made his way through. Passing by a small newspaper stand, Brann stopped on a whim to buy something to read on his lunch break and as he did he overheard the news chatter coming from the newspaper salesman’s radio.
“Earlier today the vicious leader of the biker gang that terrorized our city was caught and is currently being transported to a police station”
“Huh.”
Brann thought to himself.
“There’s a station near the office… but there’s no way right?”
He grabbed a random comic off the shelf and paid the vendor. As he neared the office, Brann ran into Mike after turning a corner.
“Oh, Brann. How was your night?”
Mike was still clearly frustrated from last night, at least the inflection of his voice indicated as such.
“Uh, I woke up without a hangover so alright, I guess.”
“Cool. I’ll see you at the office”
Mike walked off toward their office, Brann tried to reach out to him but soon he was out of reach.
“I should apologize to him later, I’ll just make something up and see if it works.”
He didn’t really know what he was gonna apologize for though. It‘s not like he did any wrong aside from getting lost in his thoughts but he felt bad that he was the cause of Mike’s foul mood. Brann was just trying to live his life with as little impact on others as possible.
Suddenly Brann felt something pull at him. He looked around, nothing, and yet he still felt his body be pulled away from his office. He walked off toward the direction he was pulled and walked for about 10 minutes until Brann rounded a corner to find a pair of brilliant green eyes looking up at him.
A little girl, about half his size, stood in the alleyway. Long blonde hair fell past her shoulders and the hem of a white dress went past her ankles. She looked otherworldly, almost like a lost fairy amid the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle.
The only thing in his head was confusion, why was a little girl here all alone in the middle of New York? Had she lost her parents? She wasn’t crying or anything, instead her face held a blank look but what was that pulling sensation he just felt? Being the responsible adult he pretended he was, Brann squatted down to be at eye level with the girl.
“Where are your parents? Are you lost? Wh-”
*BOOOM*
An incredibly loud echo rang across Manhattan and a massive blast of air quickly followed, knocking Brann off his feet. He looked up from the pavement to see the building where his office was off in the distance covered in flames. An explosion had destroyed the exact floor where he worked. Brann looked down at his watch, perhaps the most expensive thing he owned now broken due to the explosion but it read that it was 9:05, on any other day he’d already be at his desk, and Mike…
“Hey! Where’re you going!”
A gruff voice caught Brann’s immediate attention as a woman bolted towards him with a speed he’d never seen before.
The two locked eyes for a moment before she leaped behind him, the chain between her handcuffed hands choking Brann as they tugged at his throat. The policemen chasing after her lifted their pistols at the both of them. By no will of his own, Brann stood between this woman and the police.
“Don’t you think you should be worrying about something else right now huh?”
She yelled back at the officers. With his office in flames, guns pointed at him and being choked out, the only thing Brann could think of at this moment was how much he wished he was anywhere else right now, maybe somewhere like Kazak-
At this moment, Brann noticed two things.
The little girl who had seemingly compelled him away from his workplace was missing and someone who was standing atop a building across the street from them, staring at the burning skyscraper. Covered entirely in black leather, their long trench coat and gas mask prevented Brann from discerning anything else about them aside from the briefcase they held. Then as the skyscraper collapsed under its own weight, a massive dust cloud engulfed the area. The standoff broke as everyone ran off in the midst of this new development. The man's gas mask stood unflinchingly atop this building as the dust cloud seemed to devour everything around him.
“So this is how it proceeds, huh?”
The gas-masked individual said to themself
“It’s fitting, a small taste of hell before the end of the world.”
Brann ran and ran for as long as his legs could take him until he couldn’t run anymore
“Why the hell did you follow me!”
Brann looked up to see the woman who had taken him hostage just moments before. He fell on his back as she walked toward him
“I-I didn’t–”
“Shit, what the hell was that?”
Brann looked back to see the smoke billowing out of his former workplace and everything finally hit him. In the moment he didn’t really know how to feel. Yeah, he hated working there but nobody likes their workplace right? And yeah, he didn’t particularly like any of his coworkers but they certainly didn’t deserve to be blown up like they were.
“Guess it was pretty lucky though.”
The woman rubbed her still handcuffed wrists.
“That blast let me run off and the pigs were none the wiser.”
Brann finally got a good look at her and judging by her outfit, covered in leather from her boots to her crop-top jacket, Brann thought he had a pretty good idea of who she was. She had thin sharp eyes surrounded by long eyelashes, and long curly black hair that fell down her back just a bit past her shoulders. Brann wasn’t entirely sure why but she reminded him of a lynx.
“You’re that gang leader they caught right? Or are you just some other biker that the police rounded up today?”
“Oooh? Am I famous now? Where’d ya hear about me? Was I on TV? What picture did they use? God, I hope they didn’t use the one from the Christmas party last year.”
She jumped right into Brann’s face as her questions got faster and faster.
“Uh, I don’t know they didn’t use a picture.”
“Tch.”
She backed off just as quickly as she closed the distance. She stared at Brann as he picked at the concrete sidewalk,
“Well… I’m gonna get going now, seeing as how now I’m a fugitive, ‘guess I have been for a while now but uhh don’t you have somewhere to be?”
Without looking up Brann responded despondently.
“Nah, the office I worked at just went up in flames.”
The biker flinched.
“Ooooooh, I probably shouldn’t have said anything, huh?”
“Yeah… probably not.”
“Uh well, I’m sorry about that and I’m sorry about taking you hostage there, I probably would’ve gotten shot if I didn’t so, uh, thanks I guess… Bye!”
The woman tried to run out of the alley but instead ran into two men who suddenly appeared at the end of the alley.
“Argh! What th-”
The men turned as if they weren’t expecting to see anyone here. They were dressed in dull brown fatigues and masks that covered most of their face. In their hands were multiple old beat-up suitcases and the gloves they wore were covered in soot and ash.
“Fuck, we’ve been spotted. Whatta we do?”
“No witnesses.”
The one closest to them reached into his shirt to pull something out but before he could, his partner behind him was flattened by an even bigger man falling from the sky.
“Whoopsie. Can’t have ya messin’ around outside your boundaries.”
This juggernaut of a man spoke with a slight accent. Covered in a pure white coat that hid his massive body. A single scar covered most of his forehead and ran down his left eye. Slicked back black hair covered his head with a few misplaced hairs on his forehead. It all happened so fast that it was only at this point that Brann realized what was happening and had finally broken out of his depressed trance as he suddenly shot up, he thought about running but his legs wouldn’t let him, today was just not his day. The man in the fatigues tried to pull out a gun but the massive man swatted his arm away with one hand and pushed the man into a wall with the other. A sickening thud filled the alley and knocked him out.
“Now sit and let the cops take care o’ ya.”
Brann watched as the woman before him dove into action, she rushed the man with arms outstretched. It seemed apparent that she had deemed him to be dangerous and moved to eliminate the threat but unfortunately for her, the man was just a bit faster. He grabbed her by the neck, stopping her in her tracks.
“W-Who th-e he- re y-ou, yo-re no-t..”
The woman could barely eke out the words.
“No one you wanna know about, lady. Turn back and go home you’re not supposed to be here… or maybe you are.”
It was evident that she was not listening to him when the woman smiled as her head began to turn purple. In a flash, her hand flew into her jacket pocket and pulled out a pocket knife. Almost immediately the man pulled his hand back from her neck but not before her knife dug itself into his forearm.
“Argh!”
Before he could pull the knife out himself, she kicked him between the legs before she pulled out her knife from his arm and went for his neck with it. The man’s fist landed on her face before she could reach him. His palm was just as big as her head. She flew backward into some trash cans as blood flowed freely from her nose. She let out a toothy smile as she tried to get up. The unknown man fell to a knee before standing back up and approaching her as he cracked his knuckles then–
*bang*
–The lid of a trash can hit him in the face, opening a gash across his brow.
He looked up to see Brann standing there like an idiot with his mouth open.
“Oh god, why did I do that?”
He thought in the split second he was allowed to before the man shoulder-checked him into a wall. Brann probably should’ve ran but he couldn’t just leave her to her fate even if she’d used him as a hostage just a few moments earlier. Perhaps it was the empathy she showed him that caused him to try to help.
“Heh, I like you!”
The woman lunged at the man with a smile on her face, plunging her knife into his thick neck. The man backed off and after stumbling around for a bit, he fell to the floor, his hand pressed against his neck as blood poured out of his neck. The woman grabbed Brann’s hand and the two ran off deeper into the back alleys.
“Did you just kill that guy?!?!”
Brann yelled as the two of them ran. The woman turned back at him and smiled.
“No, we just killed a man.”
Brann’s face somehow managed to fall even further than it was before. Eventually, the two of them ran out into an empty street. There was a thin layer of dust on everything and they could see some of the wreckage ahead of them.
“Hey, do you have any idea who that was, since clearly, he was after you? “
“Sofia.”
“Huh?”
“The name’s Sofia and clearly he was after us .”
She held out her hand. Brann did not take her up on it.
“Please stop doing that… Brann, by the way.”
She patted Brann on the back.
“I’m gonna call one of my girls to pick us up, just tell her where you live and try to forget about today, sounds good?”
“No.”
After a few minutes of fiddling with her phone, Sophia looked back to Brann.
“Ok so, I can’t reach anyone. No service, don’t have any idea what’s that about.”
“So I’m stranded here huh? With a convicted criminal.”
“Hey, they didn’t book me so I ain’t convicted yet, shit went sideways before we got into the station.”
This did not make Brann feel any better.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
The gas-masked man stood in front of the man bleeding from his neck.
“I-I know you’re not happy with me right now but h-hear me out, Gear. She was really pretty.”
The muffled voice from the gas mask spoke again.
“Did you at least see where they’re going?”
The man pointed weakly down the alley. Gear asked–
“Will you be alright?”
The man waved him off.
“Yeah yeah, I’ve built up these muscles for years, a puny butter knife like that one won’t be enough to put me down!”
After the man’s proclamation, he let out a weak cough. Gear grabbed a water bottle from his briefcase and tossed it to the man before following a trail of footprints in the dust that followed Brann and Sophia as they walked.
Brann was the first to break the silence.
“Where are we walking to anyway?”
Sophia took a second to respond but after a little bit she let out a resounding–
“No idea! Going this way just feels right.”
Under any other circumstances Brann would’ve stopped and walked in the opposite direction but for some reason, he agreed with her. Something about the direction they were headed felt like this was where they were supposed to go, like how he felt when he met the little girl not even an hour before. Eventually, they reached a major street and found a multitude of fire trucks and police vehicles racing toward the wreckage.
“Man, do I wish I was anywhere else but here.”
Brann said to himself.
“Somewhere like-”
“Kazakhstan.”
Sophia finished Brann’s thought. Brann turned to her in disbelief.
“Huh?”
“Oh well, the past few days, I was thinking about how it might be fun to go there with the girls some time, do you have anywhere you want to go to?”
“That’s strange, I’ve been having very similar thoughts.”
“Oh, we should go sometime!”
“Wait what, no.”
People swarmed the wreckage of the office building. Police, firemen, and ordinary citizens were looking to do what they could to help but among them, one man stood out. He walked among the carnage calmly, observing the area with a silent focus. The few who noticed were struck by his beauty but he paid them no mind, this was a normal occurrence for him.
“Is this what I was here for? Just to watch?”
He bent down to close the eyes of a child who had debris land right on their skull.
“Such bloodshed and for what?”
He felt himself be pulled away from the wreckage, he knew better than to ignore this feeling after all this feeling was the same one that brought him to New York from his home in Norway. He found a young girl, cowering in an alley.
“Hi young girl, my name is Magnus. Where are your parents?”
The girl spoke in a language Magnus could not understand but he could surmise what was going on.
“Are you running from them?”
The girl nodded. Magnus outstretched his hand and she took it.
“Fate brought us here, and fate brought us together. By that logic, fate will also take us to where we’re supposed to be.”
“Monkey?”
“Monkey!”
Sophia ran toward the little monkey that suddenly showed up in front of them but it was too fast. The little man jumped, leaped off Sophia’s head, and off of Brann’s shoulder ending up behind the two of them. They both turned to look for the monkey and found him perched on the shoulders of the gas-masked man Brann had seen earlier. He was writing something in a notepad and when he finished he placed it into the briefcase that lay on the floor.
“Good job Rocket, if I can’t count on Cog then I can always count on you.”
He scratched Rocket under his chin before turning to Brann and Sophia.
“Where is she?”
Brann and Sophia looked at each other in confusion.
“If you two are who I think you are, then you must’ve encountered her somewhere around here.”
Brann didn’t know who he was talking about but he had an inkling of who it may be but chose to keep quiet. Gear sighed.
“Fine then, next question. I assume that you two are involved, so, what is the next location?”
A strange question to ask strangers but based on Brann and Sophia’s previous interaction, it mattered. Both of them instinctively knew not to answer.
“Ok then, guess we’ll do this the hard way.”
Gear picked up the briefcase and rushed Brann, Sophia took out her pocket knife and tried to get between them but Rocket jumped from Gear’s shoulder and onto Sophia’s arm where he began to gnaw on her hand.
Brann instinctively raised his arms to protect his face but Gear hit him with a single blow to his unguarded stomach, Brann doubled over in pain. After Sophia was able to get Rocket off of her hand, she began her assault on Gear but before she could get in Gear swung his briefcase at her. She ducked under it and tried to stab him but he was able to redirect her knife with his free hand.
“Rocket!”
The monkey leaped onto Gear’s free hand and readied himself on Gear’s fist. Sophia backed off in anticipation.
“Rocket punch!”
“Wha-?”
He threw a haymaker that was nowhere near Sophia but Rocket used the momentum to launch himself off of Gear and punch Sophia with his little monkey fists knocking her to the ground.
Gear, this stoic mystery man who’s spent this entire time slowly and methodically approaching Sophia and Brann whom they could both tell was on a different level than them, just shouted out an attack name as if he were some kind of cartoon character. Needless to say, it caught them both off guard.
“Did you just- AAH!”
Brann tried to get up again but Rocket immediately jumped from Sophia onto Brann where he began to scratch and claw on his face.
Gear closed the distance between himself and Sophia in an instant. Sophia once again went for Gear’s neck. Gear clicked his boots together, a blade popped out of the sole of his boot, he swayed back and kicked her in the stomach. His blade plunged into her stomach and her knife hit nothing. Sophia staggered back and fell to the ground. Gear retracted the blade in his boot and took out a gun from his coat.
“Talk.”
“Fuck you.”
Gear scoffed.
He stomped on Sophia’s wound, she screamed out in pain. Rocket stopped his attack on Brann but stayed at the ready.
“You do know I only need one of you alive right?”
Gear cocked his pistol. Brann could feel his chest tighten, was he just gonna lay her and watch Sophia get her brains blown out?
“Once more”
Gear began again.
“What is the next location?”
Sophia spat at Gear. Her spit hit and dripped down the glass of his gas mask.
“It's your funeral lad-.”
“Kazakhstan!”
Brann yelled out. Gear turned to him, clearly processing Brann’s outburst.
“Hmm.”
Gear pondered to himself.
“Oh, I see. Interesting.”
That was all he said before putting his gun down. For a second they all remained still before Gear raised his gun back up to Sophia’s face.
“Well, it’s not like I believe in fate anyway.”
For a while now, police sirens could be heard in the distance approaching them and now, 5 squad cars passed the alley. They agitated the layers of soot and dust covering everything around them. As they passed, Gear put down his gun and waited for them to pass.Brann saw an opportunity. He grabbed Rocket and threw him at Gear. The little man panicked in mid-air and latched onto Gear’s head, obscuring his vision for a second. Brann got up and ran to Sophia, dragging her into the street. By the time Gear was able to calm Rocket down and get him off his face, Brann and Sophia had crossed the threshold. The dust cloud made by the passing police cars served as a thin curtain obscuring their position. Perhaps he could’ve found a way to follow them, maybe their footsteps carved out in the dust or the blood trail left by Sophia’s wound but he had already gotten what he came here for.
“Tch. No matter, maybe I’ll see them again in Kazakhstan, after all, as the time nears they won’t be able to resist the draw.”
“Oh god, what do I do?”
Brann was in full panic mode as he tried to give Sophia first aid. Her breath was ragged as she tried to talk him through it.
“Y-You got anything to stop the bleeding?”
Brann stopped for a moment and reached into his back pocket, pulling out a bunch of comics.
“That’ll work, I-I guess.”
She took her belt off, placed the comics on her wound, and wrapped the belt around it as tight as she could. They kept walking after they patched her up as Sophia guided Brann to a dingy little bar in some back alley ran by a friend of hers.Sophia called ahead of time as they headed over, according to her as long as they hid there, one of her girls would find them. After some time and actual first aid from the owner, a group of girls all looking to be in their mid-twenties entered the bar.
“Hey! Over here!”
Sophia exclaimed to the group entering.
“Boss!”
The girls rushed over, one of them pulled out a knife from her jacket and put it to Brann’s neck.
“You did this, ya punk?”
“Hold it, Clarissa, he’s cool. He saved me earlier”
Clarissa begrudgingly put her knife away. One of the other girls kept pestering Sophia,
“How’d you get away? We thought they got you dead to rights!”
“You know I’ve got the devil’s luck when it comes to outrunning the pigs.”
Sophia let out a devilish smile before continuing.
“Hey, I gotta favor to ask. Could one of you take Brann back to his apartment? I kinda promised to help him out.”
All the girls looked very annoyed at this idea but they couldn’t refuse their boss.
“See ya later Brann!”
–Was the last thing Brann heard as he walked out of the bar and onto one of the girl's bikes. Brann thought he heard one of the girls say “Man, I was kinda looking forward to day drinking.” under her breath.
As he got on her bike, he soon found himself back in his dingy apartment, Brann checked his alarm clock. 11:45. He tried to sort through everything he went through in the past 3 and a half hours and all he could say was
“What the fuck.”