Skye POV
[New York, St. Wilfred School] [July, 2006 — Hell's Kitchen]
It was the kind of place you'd expect God to avoid.
A rusted gate creaked open like a warning. The smell of mildew, old stone, and cheap disinfectant lingered like a bad memory. The building that dared call itself a school stood like a relic of regret—St. Wilfred School. Located in the pockmarked gut of Hell's Kitchen, it wore its theology like a mask, hoping no one would notice the rot underneath.
Inside, the same daily sermon ended.
"You shall be strong and unafraid, your suffering forgotten..."
As the priest droned on, most students looked like they'd rather face Hell than another scripture. The final, half-hearted "Amen" came like a sigh from the graves of their attention spans.
In the southeast corner of the room sat a girl whose silence had gravity.
Skye, wasn't one for socializing. Her platinum blonde hair caught the light like a halo, but her expression had more bite than blessing. She was all sharp edges: almond-shaped eyes with green irises, sculpted cheekbones, a presence that said do not approach unless you're offering silence or sarcasm.
"Skye! Come on, let's go eat!"
The cheerful voice of the girl behind her was met with an icy glance.
"Ok."
They gathered their books and walked off.
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Hell's Kitchen was many things. Safe wasn't one of them.
Later that evening, she found herself cutting through one of the narrow alleys that spidered off Ninth Avenue. She preferred them. Fewer eyes. Fewer questions.
But this time, she wasn't alone.
The sound of grunts, fists, and flesh hitting metal yanked her out of her thoughts. She slipped behind a dumpster, her breath shallow, her body tight with instinct.
Two men were already dead. Or close enough. Blood pooled beneath them in slow, syrupy spirals. A third tried crawling away, whimpering something about payment. A fourth kicked him back down with all the ceremony of squashing a bug.
Gunfire erupted.
And something inside her snapped.
A sudden migraine gripped her skull like a vice. Her knees buckled.
And then—
the alley vanished.
[FLASHBACK]
Marble floors. High ceilings. The scent of blood and roses.
A woman stood at the center of a black-and-white checkered room, blade in hand, red heels soaked in crimson. A queen chess piece tattooed on her shoulder, blood drops trailing beneath it like jewelry.
"Never start a war unless you've already won it in your head," she whispered to the man gasping beneath her boot.
She slit his throat like she was drawing a line on paper.
[Back to Present]
Skye clawed at her temple. Her breath ragged. Eyes wide.
Who was that?
The flashes were like knives in her skull. Elegant suits. Silenced pistols. Orphanages cloaked in shadows. A laugh—hers, but not.
Two days passed. The migraines didn't.
The school noticed her pallor. Her teachers called it stress. She called it hell.
Then, one evening after class, she didn't make it back to her rented room.
She stepped off the curb without realizing it. The world was a blur. Horns blared. Tires screamed.
A car braked inches from her legs.
But Skye was already unconscious.
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[ Hospital Room, Metro General Hospital ] [ Hours Later ]
The beeping of machines greeted her first.
Then white ceilings. IV drips. The sterile chill of hospital air.
And then—
Memory.
Not just of the alley. Of everything.
[FLASHBACK: Seraphina D'Angelo]
"The Queen of the Underworld doesn't play games. She ends them."
She held court in shadows. Her empire was built on secrets and sharpened truths. Elegance was her armor, charm her poison. And death? Death was her signature.
Contingency plans lined her mind like arsenals. Her orphan initiatives ran like clockwork, designed to protect long after her reign ended. Because even villains like her wanted something good to last.
Her butler had died in her arms, old and frail. The only soul she ever trusted.
After that, love was recreational.
Flings with women who caught her eye. Trust, though? That was currency she no longer exchanged.
[Back to Present]
The steady beeping of a heart monitor filled the dim hospital room. Sterile white walls. A half-empty IV bag. Faint scent of antiseptic. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like an irritating fly.
Skye's fingers twitched.
Her eyes fluttered open—glassy and unfocused. She blinked once. Twice.
And then the dam broke.
Memories hit her like a storm surge—violent, chaotic, impossible. Faces she hadn't seen in years. A woman with blood-red hair and a voice like silk soaked in venom. A room with shattered glass. Screams. Laughter. A throne made of shadows and whispered threats. A city kneeling beneath her heel.
Seraphina D'Angelo remembered everything.
A flood of memories surged through her mind. The Queen of the Underworld, they used to call her. And now? Now she was an eighteen-year-old orphan named Skye, waking up in a hospital bed with no allies, no empire, and no goddamn clue what the hell was going on.
Panic was her first reaction. That made sense. You don't go from ruling underground syndicates and brokering arms deals with warlords to... Latin hymns and high school lunches.
But Seraphina didn't panic for long. Queens don't. They calculate.
She pressed a hand to her head. The migraine had dulled into a background hum. Her lips parted, voice hoarse.
"Fuck."
Elegant as ever.
The nurse outside called a doctor, but Seraphina didn't hear them. She was spiraling.
Her family. Her real family. Gone. Again. In both lives, they were unreachable. And this time? She wouldn't even get the closure of vengeance. No crime lords to stab in the throat. No empires to reclaim. Just... a second chance.
She sank deeper into the mattress, eyes distant.
She had cried once. Just once. After burying her family. She didn't cry anymore.
But right now, there was a cold emptiness inside her that threatened to swallow her whole. Not because she was scared of death—she had danced with it, seduced it, made it kneel. No. This time, she feared the unknown.
And then came the real shock.
Stark Industries. Oscorp. Captain Rogers.
This world wasn't hers. It wasn't even Earth, not as she knew it. This was Marvel Earth.
Marvel.
She was in the Marvel Universe.
Where Norse gods drank coffee in diners and green rage monsters destroyed cities on bad days.
Where men flew in iron suits, and spiders bit teenagers into demi-gods.
It was bigger. Wilder. More dangerous than the world she came from.
Seraphina D'Angelo had ruled that old world with fear and elegance. But here? She was just another name on a hospital chart.
She closed her eyes again.
"I'm not building another empire," she muttered to herself. "No revenge. No obligation. No ghosts. I'll live this second life… as me."
Not Seraphina the Queen.
Not Skye the foster ghost.
Just… her.
But fate, as always, had a wicked sense of humor.
Because she wasn't just Skye.
She was Daisy Johnson.
Quake.
Shockwave Girl.
And in this universe, that meant something.
She sat up, careful not to rip the IV out. Her brain—still reeling, still rebooting—began to calculate. Organize. Plan. It's what she did best.
Daisy Johnson. The name had resurfaced in the old, dusty library. A birth certificate. A name rejected by the her former self. She just not like the name given to her by her parents because they were not present in her life. But the paperwork didn't lie.
Daisy Johnson was an Inhuman. Not a mutant. Not a science experiment. A product of alien evolution.
Her powers didn't come from puberty or trauma. They needed alien tech—Terrigen Crystals.
The Kree Empire had created the crystals to awaken latent abilities in genetically engineered humans. The process was called Terrigenesis. And it worked only on people like her.
Usually, they lived hidden. Their powers dormant. Until the right catalyst activated their potential.
The Moon? Sure, the original stash was hidden in Attilan, the Inhuman city on the lunar surface.
But some crystals remained on Earth.
And S.H.I.E.L.D. had them.
Between sneaking into the Moon or infiltrating a top-secret government agency, the latter seemed more achievable. Slightly.
"Terrigen Crystals..." she whispered.
She rubbed her temples, thoughts colliding.
This body had no combat experience. No muscle memory. No assassin's instincts. Just a stun gun and elite-level hacking skills.
Well. She'd worked with less before.
Back then, her tools were poison, blades, and persuasion. Now? Servers, botnets, encryption, digital warfare.
Different battlefield. Same war.
And the clock was ticking. It was 2006. Which meant Iron Man was still two years away. The Avengers? Nothing more than whispers and classified files.
Which meant opportunity.
Before the gods descended and aliens blew up Manhattan, she had time.
Time to learn.
Time to prepare.
Time to rise.
Because in this universe, being gifted didn't guarantee survival. It marked you for elimination.
If she was going to live, truly live, in this chaotic, comic-book nightmare...
Then she needed power.
Not for dominance.
Not for vengeance.
But to protect this strange, second chance.
To protect herself.
"Well," she muttered, looking at her reflection in the mirror, "at least I still look hot."
Narcissism bubbled up. It was that or scream.
Her lips curled into a slow, dangerous smile.
"Hell's Kitchen just got a new devil."
To be continued...
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