《Shadows {Book one in the Coriana Johnson series}》A Long Story

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"Ok, this is somehow gross, creepy, messed up, and kinda cool all at once,"I said as I stared at the weird, bloody skeleton laying on one of the tables in the lab.

Daisy was bent over, studying it.

"I'm not sure I would say cool," she muttered.

I shrugged.

"You got to be kidding me," Mack said as he walked up behind us. "Ward? What a pain in the butt. What? Leaving him for dead on another planet isn't enough to get rid of that guy?"

"You're looking better," Daisy said.

"Yeah? 'Cause you're not," he replied.

"Hi Mack! How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Better. You?"

"Well, I don't have a pounding headache anymore and my leg doesn't feel like it's on fire, so except for the broken arm, I feel pretty good."

"Well, we don't think he's a guy anymore," Daisy said, getting back to the original subject.

"We think Ward's body was possessed, for lack of a better word, by It, the creature..." Simmons began.

"From the other planet," Fitz finished.

"Ok, so the world is a lot weirder than I thought," I muttered.

"Get used to it," Daisy told me.

"So, he burned them or something?" Mack asked.

"Honestly, right now...." Simmons began.

"We have no idea," Fitz finished for her again. "When I was there, It knew everything that Will did, even after he was...gone."

Another brilliant showing of Fitzsimmons finishing each others sentences. They're perfect for each other.

"Which means whatever this thing is has Ward's memories, so why hasn't It come after us?" Daisy said.

"Maybe It's not interested in us," Fitz replied.

"Can't believe I'm hearing this," Mack sighed.

I raised an eyebrow.

"This is the weirdest conversation I've ever had," I said.

"Well, we know It destroyed an entire civilization over there. Who knows what It has planned here?" Simmons wondered.

"I'm still totally lost, but I'm not even going to ask anymore," I said and sighed.

"Tremors, you saw the future, right? You see anything else? Anything that might help us out?" Mack asked.

She was about to answer, but suddenly an agent walked into the lab.

"Director Coulson would like to see you in his office ... all of you," he said.

~~~~~~~~

"Malick has given new meaning to the term 'hostile takeover.' What he did at Transia Corp was brutal, even for him. They must have something he needs," Coulson said to us after we had all assembled in his office, the picture of that creepy dude whose name was apparently Ward, or whatever he was now.

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"If we can figure out what it is..." May began.

"It'll lead us to Ward," Mack said, completing her thought.

"This is not Ward," Coulson said with certainty.

"Sure is creepy like Ward," Daisy muttered.

"Ward's dead. I saw it happen," Fitz said.

"There's a lot of overlap between the two companies, but only Transia has a subsidiary dabbling in the agrochemical field," Coulson said.

"GT Agrochemical. Does what?" Daisy asked.

"GMOs, pesticides, ruining the global food supply," Simmons replied.

"Minutes after the takeover, a paramilitary force took control of that branch, started moving equipment out," Coulson informed us.

"Zephyr is wheels up in 20. The Quinjet will peel off mid-flight," May said.

"We're splitting up?" I asked.

"Lincoln and Daisy have a stop to make in the Badlands," Coulson said.

"There, uh...there was this Inhuman in Afterlife. He might have answers about whatever is possessing Ward. It's a long story," Lincoln said. "I'll explain on the way," he added quickly as Daisy gave him a definitely unhappy look.

"We're in the dark, but right now, Ward and this thing...they're not afraid to take what they want or kill who they want. So what's our advantage?" Coulson asked.

"None," I muttered.

"They're not afraid," Mack said.

I raised an eyebrow.

I turned to Coulson as the team left his office.

"Where do you want me sir?" I asked.

"Go with Daisy and Lincoln. There shouldn't be too much trouble there," he replied.

"Thanks," I said and smiled.

I turned and walked out.

I looked around, wondering where Daisy was. I saw Lincoln walking down the hallway, so I followed him, assuming he knew where to go, because I didn't.

I caught up to him.

"Hey Lincoln! Where are you going?" I asked.

"Looking for Daisy. Have you seen her?" he asked me.

"No. Maybe she's already on the Quinjet," I replied.

He nodded.

"Ok, I'll check there," He said and turned around to head towards the hangar.

"Do you mind if I go with you?" I asked. "I was looking for her too."

He shrugged.

"Sure."

We walked into the hangar and entered the Zypher 1. We went into the Quinjet and spotted Daisy. We walked over to her.

"Hi Daisy!" I said. She looked up.

"Where did you go?" Lincoln asked.

"Trying to understand how we've been searching the globe for months and you never bothered to mention another Afterlife Inhuman," Daisy said, and I detected frustration in her voice.

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"Am I invisible?" I muttered. Sometimes I hated being the one who had only been here for a little while. Apparently I wasn't allowed to be included in all conversations, and I usually had no idea WHAT THE HECK PEOPLE WERE TALKING ABOUT. Sorry, I'm venting.

Anyway, the two of them continued to talk, still acting as if I was invisible.

"Potential Inhuman. He was never given powers. And until we saw Ward's corpse walking around, I was pretty sure he was crazy town. I wasn't trying to keep anything from you," Lincoln said.

"So don't. He's in South Dakota?" Daisy said.

"Off the grid. His name's James. He's a demolitions expert. Australian. Former mercenary. Few weeks after I got there, Jiaying caught him breaking into her private archives and banished him."

I flinched at the mention of her.

"What was he doing in there?" Daisy asked.

"Stealing, mostly. He made a big scene, ranting about the second coming of some ancient Inhuman who could raise the dead.

"Huh. Well, something tells me he won't be jumping at the chance to help us," Daisy muttered.

"What, you don't think a crazy, rambling, secluded, thieving, demolitions expert will want to help us? Whatever gave you that idea?" I said sarcastically.

"He was pretty bitter, not getting powers. We'll need to be careful and keep our eyes open," Lincoln said.

"Ok then. Make that a crazy, rambling, secluded, thieving, jealous demolitions expert," I said.

Daisy rolled her eyes.

I shrugged.

"I'm just telling the truth."

Lincoln sighed.

"We're taking off soon," He said and sat down on one of the seats, and I did too.

All of us remained silent for a bit as the Zypher took off.

Eventually, I broke the silence.

"So...I was just wondering...I know we still have a little while before we arrive so...I know that you said, Daisy, that you would explain everything about what in the world is going on. So....would now be a good time?" I asked.

Daisy shrugged.

"Sure," She replied.

"Thanks," I said and sat up.

"Well," She began, "I guess I need to tell you the whole story, from the beginning. Before I joined SHEILD, I was a hacker, and I worked for a group called the Rising Tide. SHEILD found me, brought me in, and eventually they let me join them.

"Grant Ward was one of the members of our team then. Me and him- became close. But then, I discovered he was working for an organization which had been inside SHIELD, Hydra.

"Eventually he was captured, but eventually he escaped when he was being transferred. He rejoined Hydra, but this time it was for his own agenda.

"We had been searching for an alien city, which we had basically a blueprint of since Coulson, well- he had been carving some of it on walls because of a drug which had been given to him- sorry, this is the nutshell version of things.

"We were tracking down the city, when I was captured by Hydra who took me to Cal. But Ward helped me escape, and I shot him. He survived though. I went down into the alien city to try and stop a woman who was trying to activate what we thought was a weapon.

"She did activate it, but it turned out not to be a weapon. I learned later that it was called a diviner, and it awakened my Inhuman genes."

Recognition showed on my face.

"Diviner. That's a word I've only heard about a million times," I muttered.

"Because of Cal," I explained.

Daisy nodded and continued.

"Anyways, you remember all the stuff I told you that happened with Jiaying."

I nodded.

"Well, after all of that, we had this thing, called The Monolith, in our possession. One day, Simmons got sucked into it, but after a while, Fitz was able to discover what it was. It was a portal, to a planet called Maveth.

"Fitz brought Simmons back from the planet, and the Monolith was destroyed. Kind of.

"It turned out, long ago, Hydra had taken rectangular chunks out of it, so they could still go to the planet. They wanted to go to the planet to bring back some ancient Inhuman.

"Well, some Hydra agents, including Ward, went to the planet, as well as Coulson and Fitz. Ward was killed on the planet, by Coulson. We think that the Inhuman is what's "possessing" Ward's body, so to speak," she finished.

I blinked rapidly, processing all of the information.

"Wow. That's a lot of stuff. I've got no idea if I'll remember it all but- wow," I said.

Daisy nodded.

"Yeah. And that was the nutshell version," She said.

"I would hate to see what the long version was like," I commented.

We sat in silence for a little longer, talking every once in a while.

Finally, we landed and I watched as the ramp opened.

"Are you both ready?" Daisy asked.

Lincoln and I nodded.

"Then lets go."

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