Location: The Mutant Underground
Skills:
Waverley was hovering. She hated to admit it, but she was. The moment that she saw Sunshine was safe, she didn't leave her side for the hours after. She'd feel better about it were her roommate as emotional as she was, but as it turned out, she was seemingly unshaken by the experience. Waves did her best to not seem like she was freaking out, but she was the kind of girl who held her heart on her sleeve. She was quite certain she held the MU record for most breakdowns, at least in their division of the Underground.
Eventually, when Sunshine's attention was directed away from Waverley, leaving the girl awkwardly standing at her side, she realized how weird she was being. She figured it'd probably be best for her to detach for a while. She didn't want the girl to think Waverley was just trying to be another overprotective adult trying to be some sort of mentor, because she wasn't. There was only a year's difference between the two, and Waverley knew she had a lot to learn before she was ready to teach anyone. Besides, what Sunshine needed was a friend. So Waverley sheepishly slinked back, trying to figure out where to go from there, when she saw Zarina off not too far away. She suddenly felt a pang of awkward guilt for the way she'd brushed off her offer of answers to questions that Waves found still floated about her head. So she let her feet awkwardly shuffle their way over to the younger girl, stopping a few feet away from her.
"Uh, hey Z. Sorry about earlier, with the whole...not taking you up on the questions thing. Does your offer still stand?" Waverley bashfully asked, standing just far enough away that she didn't feel like she was intruding.
Zari was just sitting off by herself when Waverly walked up, she had Mr. Jaws in her hand and a screwdriver that she was using to tinker with the robotic head. Hearing Waverly's words she glanced up slightly and shrugged her shoulders.
"I mean sure, I have nothing better to do at the moment aside from mess with Mr. Jaws," she said, setting down the robotic head and screwdriver,
"So what questions do you have?" "Oh, uh, well, there are kind of a lot," Waverley admitted, relaxing a bit as she stepped closer to the girl, having been given permission to intrude. She had to pause a moment to arrange her thoughts. They'd been through so much since meeting Zarina that Waverley didn't really have a good grasp on what Z had and hadn't revealed about herself.
"Okay, let's start simple: where are you from, and why are you still with us? I mean, if you have a family, why not be with them?" "Oh, the first isn't simple, the second part is easy. I want to go home... But I can't, not yet anyway... There's something I have to do first and people are counting on me to complete the job that I've set out to do." "Okay, I guess we can come back to that first one later," Waverley mumbled with a nod, absorbing what the girl was saying.
"And what is it you're here to do? If you don't mind me asking." "Not entirely sure yet," she said with a bit of a shrug,
"All I know is that it is really important, the details or whatever are a bit hazy." Waverley couldn't help but let out an amused snort at the nonanswer. It wasn't directed at Zarina, of course, but she couldn't help but find the practically palpable air of uncertainty that surrounded the girl a little funny. It was as if she was as much an enigma to herself as she was to the rest of them.
"Wow, um...I see. So it sounds like all this mystery that surrounds you isn't gonna be something you're able to just...explain to us. So...what can you tell us? You're half Asgardian, and you've been trained by the Valkyries...anything else lifechanging?" "I mean, there are a few other things about me that are weird," she mused slightly, seemingly debating about what to potentially tell her.
"Not sure if I want to say anything else about that though, since it is a bit complex, convoluted and confusing." "Oh, I can handle complex. I understood almost everything in Twin Peaks! ...Well, the original, anyway. The more recent one went way over my head, since they kinda let David Lynch off his leash and allowed him do whatever he wanted, so - sorry, nevermind that, point is, I'll try to understand if you want to talk about it. But if you don't that's fine too." Waverley had to cut her own rambling off, keeping herself from going into a completely unprovoked pop culture rant.
"...What's Twin Peaks?" she couldn't help but ask, before shaking her head slightly.
"Alright if you think you can handle it okay here goes... My mom and dad aren't originally from this reality, actually they are from an alternate reality in the multiverse with the designation of Earth 257, which also is where I'm from. My mother when she was born got sent through and was adopted here in this reality and my father, considering my aunt the goddess of love told him that his soul mate despite being a baby had been sent here, followed through. Eventually they ran into each other while they were assigned to the same SHIELD team. Actually the same team that they are on right now... And on October 27, 2021... I was born, and they decided to raise me in their home reality..." "...Huh..." Waverley mumbled. She went quiet for a solid minute, processing what Zarina had said. It was admittedly...a lot. But oddly enough, she believed her. After all, in the course of living with the Underground, she'd made plenty of mind-blowing discoveries she never would've believed a year ago. Eventually, she slowly nodded.
"I see...And...how did you get here?" "My watch," she said, holding it up to her. It looked like just a completely normal watch, didn't even have a digital face or anything fancy like that really.
"Might not look like much now, but watch," Zari added, before she seemed to tap rather quickly a little rhythm on the clock face. A second later a holographic display popped up, almost like a little mini computer.
"Tada! Time traveling and reality hopping wrist watch that looks completely normal otherwise!" "Woah..." Waverley stared at aw at the device, eyes as wide and excited as a kid in a candy store. She lowered her face, taking a closer look at the thing. She let her mind float out towards it, expecting to find strange and new waves emitting from it, but instead finding relatively normal ones, the kind you might find in really any device.
"Huh...I was expecting it to be blowing up with wibbly wobbly timey wimey signals, but...it feels pretty normal," she said, her shoulders slumping a bit.
"Why would it give off strange signals or whatever?" Zari asked, a little bit confused now.
"I mean, radio wave wise this is just as normal as everything else, since time travel and reality hopping doesn't exactly leave behind radiation, at least not in the way the watch works. Any minor inconsistencies with the signals would still be in the same portion of the electromagnetic spectrum." "You're right, I dunno what I was expecting. I guess some feeling as...unfathomable as time travel," Waverley muttered, eyes still glued on the device.
"Sooo...you're a time traveler. That's cool. But you don't know...why? Like, there's no future Hitler baby you gotta kill, or a coffee shop you gotta blow up to stop it from becoming an evil omnipresent corporation? No time quest stuff like that?" "I am on a quest! Actually so in my time and reality that I grew up in, there is a place on Earth called New Asgard. Since from what I know in my reality Asgard got destroyed or something like that and so all of the Asgardians live there now... Anyway the Norns are still a thing, and they basically state prophecies and send heroes off on quests and whatnot! I only so far figured out part of the one that they gave me, so it isn't much but eh... I'll figure out the rest eventually probably..." "Oh, sick, a prophecy? That explains why you're kinda lost as to what to do next, those are always vague as hell. Maybe I can help! I read a lot of YA fantasy when I was a kid, so I think I know my shit when it comes to prophetic riddles," Waverley chirped, snapping back up and turning her attention back towards Zarina instead of the watch.
Zari shrugged slightly, before pulling out her notebook and flipping it open. Waverly could easily see that it wasn't written out in English, that much was obvious.
"Granddaughter of the faded light and dead spring flowers, To save thyself thou shall run through sand to where time begins again,Thou must beware Rome's priestess, dark and dour. Alone to perish in Genosha's glen,To Waves or Staff the world must fall, Legacy of the Wanderer, you must save us all," she recited out loud, before looking at Waverly again.
"Part of the reason when Magneto showed up and attacked the Underground or whatever, and he mentioned Genosha I was kind of interested in that... Since clearly I have to go there..." Waverley's eyes widened a bit at the mention of Genosha, letting out an audible,
"Oh shit." She absorbed the prophecy, letting it stew in her mind as she nodded her head.
"Yeah, yeah, I heard about Genosha. Havok's metalbender gal pal tried to indoctrinate me. They basically wanna make a little paradise where all mutants can live in peace, and they're willing to do anything to make that happen. But what do they have to do with your quest?" Waverley pondered, raising the tip of her thumb to her teeth and chewing on it a bit. She went onto ponder the rest of the riddle for a moment, before continuing.
"If this prophecy were in teen adventure story, this is how it'd go down: first part, time travel here, which you've already done. Then you'd discover that there's a statue of a priestess in Rome that hid a secret passage into a system of dark and dour tunnels, where you'd find...some artifact that you'd then have to bring to Genosha's glen before the world ended, which, according to the prophecy, happens because of 'waves or staff'...maybe that refers to global warming? Like the staffs of corporations throwing away our planet and the waves of the melted icecaps flooding the land? Or maybe a water wizard? I dunno, that part's kinda hazy..." Waverley's rambling trailed off, ending in a half shrug.
"But this isn't a YA novel, so that's probably not at all right." "...I don't think that's what it is at all, since that doesn't make much sense to me, even less then the actual prophecy itself does... Plus how would something like that effect me? Since no offense, but I didn't grow up in this reality, I grew up in a different one. So it clearly has to do with me saving my own existence and maybe this reality too. So unless something like that gets screwed up in the next few months, then I'm still going to be born and actually exist..." "Yeah, that's fair...sorry for rambling, I forgot how much I missed teen lit," she said with a snort, before her expression softened a bit.
"Well, if it makes you feel better, I think you're safe. We had our own run-in with time travel. Long story short, Jack went back and did the hanky panky with some woman, had a daughter, came back, and found out Sunshine was that daughter. Now, I'm not a scientist, but I think the fact that Sunshine existed before Jack went back means that, like, time's kinda set in stone or something." "...That's a bit odd... But that's completely different, time is fluid and constantly changing, one little ripple could change everything and I could just not exist. Like say I don't succeed or whatever and it results in my mom dying okay? Think about it. It's not the time paradox that is concerning, it's me failing somehow and then if either of my parents die or whatever I might not even be born in the first place. Since with that situation, it only would have mattered if Jack had died before he time traveled back in time, because of stuff. It's a bit confusing but no, I am not safe just because I'm here now." "Maybe, I guess. Either way, I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry," Waverley replied with a noncommittal shrug. She'd assumed that the fact that Sunshine hadn't just blipped into being after Jack went back in time meant that time was stagnant. But perhaps the laws of time were everchanging, that they might be set in stone at parts and wobbly at others, like an old, rickety bridge. Or perhaps the rules were simply different for Zarina, since she came from another reality. She didn't dwell on it for long; if shows like time travel media taught her anything, it was that time was unknowable, so she quickly shrugged it off.
"Sorry I couldn't be of more help with your Timequest. Maybe if we ever catch a fucking break, we can rope the rest of the Underground in on it too." "...Actually can we just not tell anyone else? I'd prefer it to be kept quiet... I told Veil partially about it, but that's about it..." Zari responded. Truthfully she didn't really want to tell too many people with regards to it, mentioning that she was from the future or anything. One, it got to be a bit confusing, and two it wasn't something she felt like everyone should know.
Waverley's eyebrows popped a little in surprise, but she quickly gave a nod.
"Sure, of course. Consider my lips sealed," she said, before straightening up, looking like she was preparing to leave Zarina to her own devices, quite literally in the case of the young gadgeteer.
"Well, thanks for trusting me enough to talk about your Timequest, it's certainly been...enlightening. I should probably head back to Sunshi-" Waverley stopped midsentence, and the lightbulb going off in her head was practically visible behind her eyes.
"Actually...there's been something I've been wanting to try, as sort of a gift to the Underground, and I think you might be able to help me with it, if you've got a little extra time on your hands." "Depends on what it is, I might be able to help, what is it?" "I don't know if you've been told what we usually do when shit isn't, y'know, constantly hitting the fan, but usually we help mutants find a life for themselves away from the bigotry that seems to be sown into the soil of this country," Waverley began, chewing on her lip as she tried to work out how exactly to explain this to Zarina.
"We're happy to do it, and we all know how important it is, but...the trouble is that we never really get to see the fruits of our labors. So...I was thinking we could try to change that. Between the two of us, I think we could set up some sort of video call with some of the mutant's we've helped along the way. Just to...just to remind everyone that what we do is worth doing." "Huh, doesn't sound like it would be too hard... I mean we'd need a TV or something like one that we could probably set up so that everyone could you know, see the screen... But other then that we should be fine with it. Sounds like it might be a bit of fun, and a challenge maybe." Waverley immediately perked up at Zarina agreeing to help her, her lips splitting into a wide grin and hopping to her feet in excitement.
"I mean, we don't need a flat screen or anything. Even just a laptop would work if people crowded around it, and I'm sure we have one around somewhere. C'mon, we've got work to do." Waverley chirped, holding out a hand to help the younger girl up. With that they were off, the pair of them hyperfocused on their newfound task and what they'd have to do to complete it.
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