Prologue
Thou who shalt cross my path shall never prosper.
Be they called the Moirai, or the Norns, or any other name, there were once three deities of immense power. They existed Beyond; there was nothing without them, yet nothing could live with them, either. Some called them the Fates. Others simply called them cruel.
Perhaps, in another life, they would never have let this story be told; wiped entirely from the record, in a world that cared for the stories of others. Would it have been a kindness, perhaps, to be never given the chance to life? To be kept from life's greatest joys, yet spared from life's greatest sorrows?
In another life, perhaps they would have chosen differently. Yet, in this life, they could not be stopped. Or, perhaps, they could not stop. It is not as if anyone had ever thought to ask them how they dealt out Fate's decisions. For that is their role, in the end. They are not Fate, no matter how often they are mistaken for it. No, they are the agents of Fate, forced to enact decisions upon which they have no influence.
It was in this life, however, that Fate forced her workers to their looms. Chaos and his stones. Thanatos and his tools. Nemesis and her flame. Eros and his bow. Hypnos and his sands. Rhea and her flowers. So many of her children remained only as misunderstood artefacts, stories that had been passed on, gone and mostly forgotten. Perhaps that is how the Greeks had given her the name Achlys, after all; how could the spirit of Fate herself be understood as anything but sadness in the face of all her loss?
* * *
"Ugh, fuck. No gas," she said, looking down at the fuel gauge. Speaking to no one, she said, "There's a house up ahead. Maybe they can help me out."
She dismounted her bike, before shaking her blonde hair out as she took off her helmet. She marched up the house, helmet in hand. "Here we go," she said.
She rapped against the door.
When nothing happened, she tried again, this time with a bit more force. "Come on, dude! I need help here! Dude, if you can't help me out, I'll need to like… call the cops, or something, see if they can help! Ugh, what do you even do when you've got a flat? Please, I want to avoid dealing with them as much as possible, can you just help me out!"
"No," a muffled voice said. "No cops."
She heard the sound of a deadbolt being undone, and soon the door swung open.
And then.
Bam.
* *
His head was throbbing as he came to consciousness.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
There was a final metal clang as the sledgehammer hit the ground.
"Who are you," the man screamed. "Untie me, now!"
She just smiled.
"What are you doing," he yelled.
"My homework," she said, clearing some of the debris away.
In the wall, she found a small box. She reached in, grabbing the cardboard. She walked over to a table, dumping the contents of the box."Oh, you have been naughty," she said, picking up a little red book.
Next to the book, there was a file. Putting the book aside, she picked up the old folder. The first page was a picture of the homeowner. Looking across the room, she smirked at the old man, hung upside down. Soaked, hanging above a pool of water.
"Ugh, don't you just hate when hot guys age poorly? Like, seriously, you had so much potential, and you look like that now? Travesty."
She paused.
"Not that it really matters. You'll be dead soon enough anyways."
"Who are you," he asked. He could feel the blood dribbling out of his mouth, down his face.
"Don't you remember me?"
She picked up the red book and the man's file and walked over to him.
"How could you forget me, Sergei."
"How do you know who I am? How do you know that name? How did you find me," he cried. "I left that life in the past!"
"Evidently not," she said, holding up the little red book.
"How do you know about that?"
She ignored his question, opening the book. "Asset survived the initial procedures, but we are hopeful that this indicates it will take to our tests well. We have a list of initial requirements handed down from the higher ups. We are hopeful that it will be Hydra's greatest weapon, and we will use it to usher in a new age under our ever-watchful control. One of the scientists on the team objected to some of the testing we've been mandated; our first test was making it terminate Williams. It lacked efficiency, and as a result, it has been given a session in the chair. It should be noted, it appears to have some mutant ability of some kind - more testing is necessary.
She smiled at him, resembling a predator far more than any human should. Letting the power that she controlled flow, growing a purple flame in her hand, she said, "I'm hurt you don't remember me."
"You… Fire, ashes, kindle, rebirth, inferno, immolation," the man said in Russian, his eyes wide.
She laughed. "I'm sorry, you didn't think that would work anymore, did you? I thought you were supposed to be one of the masterminds?"
As she finished speaking, she made eye-contact with the terrified man. Forcing her way into his mind, bringing every memory he had ever had with her to the surface. "Hail Hydra," she said, as she pulled out of his mind.
Caressing his cheek, she said, "It's a shame you never taught me what 'mercy' means, Sergei. Perhaps then I could have shown you some."m
With that, she forced his head into the basin, turned the tap on and walked away.
In the distance, she could hear him drowning, begging for help that would never come. As she stepped outside, she smiled. She walked forward several paces, before turning to face the house she'd just left. As she reached her bike, she turned the machine back on, before kicking it towards the house she'd just left.
Her eyes flashed brightly. "Boom."
The building exploded in a burst of flames as lightning struck it, the gasoline she'd poured lighting quickly. "Pity. He really should've been more careful. At least the fire's pretty, " she said, watching the blaze grow for a second.
She couldn't appreciate the view for long, however, as she knew others would be arriving soon. Little red book in hand, she turned and shook out her hair. "That was unnecessarily sexy and impractical, but that's what happens in movies, right?"
Giggling, she disappeared with a crack.
She had a list, and she'd checked it twice.
Too bad they'd all been naughty.