The Last Day
Talbot grabs Daisy and then flies them both up into the air. Daisy tries to quake him, but her arms feel like something is holding them in place and next thing she knows, Talbot is shooting them both back down to Earth.
Oh my God. Oh my God, Daisy panics in her mind as the street gets closer and closer.
She musters up as much strength as possible and manages to move her arm back down towards the street and fires a quake blast just barely destroying the pavement beneath her and absorbing the shockwaves from hitting the ground. However, it still feels like someone just took a sledgehammer to her face and stomach. The world is spinning and she can barely make out Talbot saying something about quaking the ground apart. And then he pulls her back to her feet.
“I need every weapon I can get in this fight,” he tells her. She can hear a touch of remorse in his voice when he says it, but then his hand turns to gravitonium and it starts to consume her.
No. No! Please don’t let this be the end! Daisy thinks.
She tries in vain to use her powers, but they don’t budge Talbot by even a millimeter.
I’m sorry, Coulson. And then there’s nothing.
A wave of sadness and vulnerability courses through Talbot almost making him collapse.
“I’m sorry-I’m sorry, Daisy,” he whispers.
He can see everything that Daisy has experienced over not just these past five years, but her entire life. All the pain, suffering, loneliness, but also the laughter, hope, and love. Something he hopes he can experience again when he proves himself to his family.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats once more. He tries to get his balance back and feels his feet bump into something. He glances down and sees Daisy’s gauntlets resting on the ground. He gives a deep sigh and bends down to pick them up.
“Something for the world and your friends to remember you by,” he says before putting them on. “They’ll remember that you were a hero.” He directs his attention back to the ground below him. He can feel the endless stream of gravitonium ripe for the picking and now it was all his to use as he saw fit; to become the Earth’s mightiest hero.
“Don’t fight me, Daisy,” he whispers hearing her voice screaming from within the gravitonium. “Don’t you tell her to shut up, Quinn!” He yells back at the other unpleasant voice in his head.
Ignore them. Complete the mission, soldier. Focus only on the mission. And he struggles to block out the voices and focus only on the gravitonium. The ground beneath him starts to shake and his smiles.
_
May races down the stairs leading Robin by the hand; Fitz not too far ahead of them.
“Mack! Mack! Please come in!” She screams into her communicator, but receives no response. “I swear if you died I am going to!…” Robin’s hand slips out of May’s. She stops running and turns back to her.
“Robin, come on, we need to move.”
“Something’s wrong,” Robin says then her eyes start to widen.
“Robin? What is it?”
“Daisy…Daisy! Daisy, no!” Robin screams and then the building starts to shake. May scoops Robin into her arms and resumes racing down the stairs alongside Fitz.
“Davis! Get the Zephyr ready to take off the second Fitz and I get on board!” She shouts into her communicator.
“Agent May! Coulson is…”
“If you aren’t in the cockpit, go there now!” She cuts Davis off. “That’s an order!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Davis weakly replies.
Coulson is dead. May knows it, but she’ll grieve about it when it’s time to grieve. Now is not the time.
“May! What about Mack!” Fitz yells.
“Do you really want me to answer that question,” May calmly replies and the quakes start to get even worse. The two of them stumble and stagger down the stairs and grab the railing to steady themselves.
“May. We don’t know…”
“You’re right, but I do know we don’t have time to check. Neither of us is good to anybody dead.”
_
The ground around Talbot comes apart like an egg being cracked open. He’s never felt such power before in his life. It honestly brings a smile to his face, but an even bigger one replaces the current smile when the gravitonium buried in the Earth surges towards him like it’s being sucked up by a vacuum. He can already feel his strength increasing by more than a hundred fold and it’s still climbing. The voices of Dr. Hall, Ian Quinn, Carl Creel, Daisy…all of them buried underneath a tidal wave’s worth of gravitonium and there’s still so much more to come.
_
Parts of the building start to collapse and Fitz looks back up the stairs, hoping for some sign of Mack sprinting down the stairs with Robin’s mother, but there’s nothing, but dust and rubble.
“Hey,” May says pulling Fitz’s head back to look at her. “You are NOT leaving Simmons a widow. Not after everything you’ve been through. This is not how your story ends.”
“…damn it.” Fitz curses and follows May down the rest of the stairs and out of the building.
_
This is so much more than I ever could’ve hoped for, Talbot thinks.
I can’t wait for my son to see me as a hero again. He’ll be so proud. He’ll be…he’ll…he…
The gravitonium starts coming in at a faster rate than when he started to absorb.
Getting a little too excited there, Talbot. Better ease up. Come on. Come on, Talbot! STOP!
The gravitonium won’t stop flowing into him. It’s not just the gravitonium beneath the city. It’s like all of the world’s gravitonium is flowing to him all at once. Traveling underneath the Earth to his location at the speed of sound. He cannot stop absorbing it and he cannot stop quaking apart the ground to make it easy for it to get to him.
“This isn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t supposed to happen,” he panics. “I’m in control! STOP!” He orders, but it’s a meaningless gesture. The ground around him begins shattering as his body starts transforming into pure gravitonium.
_
“This is the last day,” Robin whispers.
“Don’t say things like that. We’ll-we’ll find a way around this,” May tries to comfort her when another violent quake rocks the city. A building in the distance collapses as does another and then another, but it isn’t just that. Cars start to float off the street and then crash back down and then get lifted back up and crash again. All the rubble around them starts flying around like something out of a storm.
“May!” She hears Fitz almost cry out.
She turns and sees him floating into the air too. May grabs him with her right hand and pulls with all her might to keep him from going any higher as more buildings fall apart at the seams, getting closer to where Fitz and May stand.
_
Davis’ hands violently shake from either his fear at the city falling apart, the earthquakes, or a mixture of the two. He looks at his communicator desperately hoping for a message from May telling him she’s safe and to lift off. No such message comes.
“Davis! Get us in the air!” Piper frantically orders him rushing into the cockpit.
“No! Agent May gave me orders to wait for her! We aren’t leaving!”
“We don’t leave now, there won’t be a Shield left to protect anyone! Please, take off!” Davis looks at the controls and then his communicator again.
“Damn it!” He curses slamming his fists on the controls then looks back up and his hearts sinks. The street is collapsing. Everything being pulled into the ground below as if the world itself can’t supporting the weight of anything.
“Davis!” It’s May.
“May, thank God! Are you onboard!”
“No! Take off now!”
“But…”
“NOW! I have a plan!”
“God help me,” Davis whispers and starts to lift the Zephyr off.
_
Elena sprints past the terrified beyond belief citizens to the cargo bay of the Zephyr. The room rapidly filling up with dust and gravel from the destruction of the city. She reaches the ramp and spots Fitz, and May, carrying Robin, sprinting in the Zephyr’s direction as fast as possible. The collapsing street following them almost as if it doesn’t want them to get away.
Dios Mio. Please let this work, she silently prays as the Zephyr begins lifting off.
The second its off the ground, Elena takes a deep breath and races off the ramp into the city. She doesn’t let the stinging sensation in her eyes from the dust, or the hole in her heart from knowing that Mack must be dead if he isn’t with Fitz and May, distract her. She’s only got one chance and one heartbeat to get this right.
Almost there. If I can just reach out, she thinks, but then feels herself snapping back.
NO! Nobody else is going to die! Dios Mio, PLEASE!
She goes forward by another step, and then another, and another. Her body feeling like it might break in two from breaking the very nature of her own powers. She goes further by several more steps until she is behind the group. She puts her arms around them and feels herself snapping back at a rate faster than she’s ever experienced. She leaps up just over the ramp and lands safely in the Zephyr, exiting her speed mode and the group lands roughly in the cargo bay; the Zephyr also safe in the air.
“Thank you. Thank you,” Elena whispers to God.
_
“This isn’t right. I’m supposed to be a hero,” Talbot continues to panic. His head slowly being consumed by the gravitonium.
_
“Robin. Are you ok?” May asks while wincing from the pain of her own landing.
“We aren’t safe here,” she warns.
“I know. We’re going to the lighthouse.”
“No! We aren’t safe here. We aren’t safe anywhere.”
“I-I don’t think she means the city,” Fitz says.
“Earth…we’re not safe on…Davis! Take the Zephyr into space!”
_
“Attention everyone! Strap yourselves in or find something to hold onto!” Piper orders through the Zephyr’s comm system.
_
“I can’t hold it! I can’t-I-I can’t-I can’t fix this!” Talbot’s face is consumed by the gravitonium and he morphs into a shapeless blob that’s growing larger by the second.
_
The Zephyr climbs further and further into space. Robin holding onto May for dear life. Ftiz clinging to the seat he strapped himself into and uttering a silent prayer to himself.
_
I couldn’t fix this.
And Talbot’s gravitonium form explodes. The resulting shockwave obliterating everything in its path. Quaking apart the gravitionium beneath the Earth he was connected with; quaking apart the Earth itself.
_
The shockwave catches up with the Zephyr and knocks it completely off course; throwing it and everyone on board around like rag dolls. Tossing Coulson’s trusty Lola into the ceiling and back to the floor.
Davis has an iron, white knuckle grip on the controls. Fighting with every fiber of his being to keep the ship steady. He knew there was a reason he survived Aida’s attack on him and this was it. This was his moment and he wasn’t going to mess up. He goes to work pressing whatever buttons in the cockpit he can think of to level out the Zephyr and it takes thirty agonizing seconds, but he succeeds and pushes the ship out of the Earth’s atmosphere and into space just as another explosion occurs nearly sending the Zephyr into another chaotic spin, but this time, Davis manages to keep it together and doesn’t let up until he’s sure they are out of range of any other shockwaves that might follow.
Back in the cargo bay, May still holds Robin in her arms. Refusing to let the girl go this time like she did in Bahrain.
“We’re safe,” May whispers to Robin. "We’re safe,” she whispers again. “You saved us.” She kisses her cheek and Robin holds her even tighter.
“Um, guys. Look,” Elena say pointing out the window. Fitz and May look as well and silently gasp. 75% of the Earth; it’s gone.
To Be Continued…