Awakening

A/N: Pat-reon: HelloDarkness07

SECOND CHAPTER OF THE DAY!

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When consciousness first comes to me, I find myself to be very much surprised. 

I had died. Again. And I knew it. I had felt my heart losing strength, I had felt Hela's Dark Divine Magic flow through my own body, killing me one cell at a time. I had actually felt myself die, and I knew it was death, and not just unconsciousness.

I've been knocked out enough times to know the difference.

So.. how am I still alive? 

Is this a benefit of my Time Travel? I had thought that my killer being an actual Goddess of Death would have prevented me from returning from the dead. 

But it seems not. 

Not that I'm ungrateful, I'm glad I didn't just die before I even got back to my own time. I'm glad I'll have the chance to try and make a difference whenever the threats to Earth come, whenever they do.

It seems.. you cannot die before you are born, and so.. I was safely alive for at least 2000 years.

Either that, or I really did die and was reincarnated once again. 

But.. something was odd. Firstly, I was sleeping on something soft, and half of my body was covered by a sheet of cloth. Considering that when I died, I had fallen down on harsh ground, this is really odd. I keep my eyes closed, and use my other senses to take stock of the situation.

Just within a single second of smelling, I could tell that I was in a room with stone walls, with a single window which was open wide, and a wooden door that was closed. The soft thing I was laying on was a bed, and judging by the smell, the mattress was filled with feathers and hay. The bed itself was a four-poster wooden bed.

There was a desk near my head, while a single reclined chair sat near my feet. The open window was to my left, while the door was in the direction of my feet.

However, oddly enough, while I could smell every single detail within this room, I couldn't smell, or hear, anything from outside the room. Not even through the open window. I could tell it was open thanks to the wind drifting in. I also couldn't hear any thoughts from anyone other than myself.

I slowly open my eyes, and look around. The room was empty, with just the bed, desk, and chair taking space. I slowly sit up, and realise that my body was.. perfectly healed. I had thought that getting stabbed by Hela's swords, even through the Images of Ikonn spell, would have left at least some scars, but nope.

In fact, I couldn't feel any fault with my body. It was.. better than before, somehow.

I wave my hand, causing a blue light to hover above my hand, and cause it to change shapes. The light then flies towards the chair, and immediately transfigures it into a sofa that then returns back to the original form right after.

Even my control over my Magic has improved.. by a lot!

Goddamn, whatever my death gave me, I need more!

But.. why can't I sense anything from outside this room?

Closing my eyes once again, I pulse my Magic to look for Magical wards. There was just a single Ward around this room, which confirmed my suspicions of me being inside a Mage's house. I gently poke at it, to understand what it does, and get a feeling for.. isolation?

No, it just prevents those inside from spying on those outside. No hearing their conversations, no listening to thoughts, no smelling where they are. It was as if.. I was a prisoner without being restrained.

And knowing my luck.. I definitely am.

There wasn't anything preventing me from leaving the room, as far as I can tell. But my Warden was just preventing me from spying on them.

Sighing, I push my legs to the left, and get off the bed. I immediately stumble, and realise something once again. My body.. it was stronger. Not too much, but it was definitely stronger than before.

Easily getting used to the changes in my body, I walk towards the window, to wait for the room's owner to come here. I can puzzle over my.. metamorphosis.. later. 

My thoughts then go to my most recent fight, where I was humbled beyond belief. I had fought three Asgardian soldiers, and defeated them pretty easily. I had defeated seven Berserkers within a single microsecond, but that is mostly because of my Time Slower.

And so, I had thought myself ready to fight her. Or, I had thought myself competent enough to escape her.

Hela Odinsdottir. Princess of Asgard. Goddess of Death.

Never before had I been so.. outclassed in a fight. I survived against an Elder God Set and that.. tentacled demon, but one Goddess of Death managed to kill me.

How arrogant was I, to feel myself capable enough of at least escaping her by tricks? She's the daughter of Odin, she probably had contingencies in place just in case I was found harder to kill. One of them is probably what killed me.

I thought myself ready to fight Hela, believing that if Dr Strange can fight Thanos(who had four of the Infinity Stones in his possession), then I can definitely at least survive Hela. At the least, I believed myself fast enough to dodge all of her hits.

Nope, Hela absolutely humiliated me. And she killed me, even after I managed to trick her.

Her Swordsmanship was superior to mine, vastly so, her strength was at least 10 times higher than mine, her Magic was so dense that even Dark curses just splashed by her skin, harmlessly. Even when I used Sorcery, even when my Swords negated the force behind her sword strikes, even when I struck her with her own Magical hammer twice, and tried to cut off her arm, she still won. I had nothing in my arsenal that could keep Hela down, and she showed it to me. 

And she didn't even have to use too much of her strengths to do it. She was.. is just too far outside my league.

I just wasn't ready to fight her yet, and I knew that. But I wanted to test myself against her, against someone right at the top of the Universal tiers. Someone I doubt even Thanos would manage to defeat easily.

But.. once again.. my overconfidence proved to be my undoing.

A click on the door brings my attention back to the real world, and I turn around towards the door. I then suddenly realise that I'm not wearing anything above my waist, and I was only wearing a pair of trousers below it. But well, whoever my Warden is, has definitely seen me naked, even if it was only to change my clothes. Because these were definitely not the clothes I had fought Hela in.

The door opens.fully, and in walks a woman, around 30 years old, wearing a black corset pushing her chest up, with a long black skirt flowing down her hip, and a black cloak, with the inside surface being dark blue, resting on her shoulders. Her hair was black, the same for her eyes, while her skin was fair.

Just by this once glance.. I somehow feel attached to her. As if I know her somehow, but I don't remember how. It feels as if we are.. connected. There's no other way to explain it.

Her eyes widen a bit as she sees me stand near the window, as I keep staring at her, and then she smiles widely, as if she's happy to see me awake. "You woke earlier than I thought you would, brother."

Brother? This just brings my thoughts of Re-reincarnation back to the forefront. Did I somehow really die and get reborn? Again? And did I keep my Magic and all my other gifts this time. This might explain why I'm still alright, and why this woman is calling me her brother.

But.. I can smell it. She's a Mutant, as well as a Mage. Which means.. I'm probably still in the same.. Universe that I was just in. Probably. Could be one of the other Universes in the multiverse too.

I don't want to use my Telepathy to try and gain an understanding of her mind, or her character, without her doing anything to actually antagonize me.

I hesitate a bit, wondering what is going on, and say, "I apologize.. I don't recognise you."

The woman smiles, as she walks towards the desk on my bedside, and keeps the tray she was holding on top of it. I smell chicken soup, before the woman speaking attracts my attention.

She says, "Of course you don't. We haven't met before today, brother. My name is Maya."

I frown, wondering if us being mutants is why she's calling me her brother, and say, "My name is Atharva. Why do you call me brother if we haven't met?"

The woman.. Maya, chuckles and says, "Because you are my brother, Atharva." At my dubious look, she says, "I know you are a Mage, a Sorcerer, as well as.. something else. There must be some abilities unique to you, separate from your Magic, something that comes naturally to you. I am like that. Me.. I can communicate directly with the mind, and move things without touching them. How about you?"

I raise an eyebrow at the freely given information, and say, "I heal faster than usual. And I can also do what you do, without using my Magic."

Maya smiles widely, and says, "I call people like us Mutantur. Changelings. We are very few in number, but each one of us has abilities beyond the normal, and not exactly related to Magic."

Huh, Mutantur. The Latin word for Change. 

She then points me towards the soup, and says, "Please. Drink up, you must be feeling hungry. Don't worry, all your questions will be answered."

I look at the soup in question, and with a single sniff, try and see if it is poisoned. Thankfully for me, it is not, at least with nothing of odour. I walk towards it, and touch the bowl, casting a spell to check for poisons too, and finding nothing, pick it up.

All the while, Maya just looks at me with amusement. She says, "The reason I called you brother.. is related to us being Mutantur. Have you met any more like us?"

I nod, and say, "Just one.. the last Pharaoh of Alexandria, Cleopatra VII."

At least, I have met just one in this time period. Cleopatra has been dead for 25 years now. 

Maya smiles, and says, "As I said, not many people like us exist." Shaking her head, she says, "Even amongst Mutantur.. there exists a group of extraordinary people. These Mutantur are powerful even beyond the normal Mutantur, but they have a few things in common. They are all unaging, they are all unkillable, and they all have a connection with the others of their kind. Kind of like how you feel a connection with me, despite never having met me before."

I raise both my eyebrows, having stopped drinking the soup to listen to her explanation, and ask, "We're.. one of these.. special Mutantur then?"

Maya nods, and says, "We call ourselves Externals. We aren't many, numbering around 20 right now, but all of us felt you joining our ranks two hours ago."

Two hours? I healed from getting killed by Hela in two hours?! Goddamn! That's way faster than I had expected.

Wait.

"Felt me? And join your ranks? What does that mean exactly?" I ask, once again drinking the hot soup, sip by sip.

Maya says, "Us Externals.. we were all once normal Mutantur. We may have been stronger than others, but we were just Mutantur. But then, something happens, something that happened to you two hours ago, that took us from Mutantur.. to Externals. We all had our First Deaths, just like you had yours recently."

I shake my head, all this making my head spin around, and say, "Look.. I have a special situation, because of which I won't be able to die at all for at least the next 2000 years. I died, yes, but I was resurrected because of that, not because of me being.. an External."

I know what an External is, of course I do! I wasn't much of a comic book reader in my past life, but I did read the fandom articles a lot of times. And since Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur, was the one Marvel character that scared me the most, even before I got here, I read his article multiple times. And he was known as an External, I know that.

I don't know much about Externals, only that they're all immortal, can't die, have different powers, and that Apocalypse is the leader of them or something.

And I, while a mutant, only got this second chance at life- or third chance, funnily enough- because of my Time Travel. Even a Killing Curse wouldn't work on me right now, I know that. I've already confirmed that! Theoretically, but still.

Granted, I thought that Hela's Death Magic would actually work, but still. Time Travel! Not External.

Maya just chuckles, and asks, "You think you are the first Mutantur to die and be resurrected because of a special situation? No, brother dear, there have been countless Mutantur that died, were naturally resurrected, and who were not Externals. You.. however, you are an External. I can feel it. Touch my mind, brother, and tell me you can't feel it too."

I feel her own mind connecting with mine, and before I can throw her out, I feel it. I feel the connection, now amplified. We are definitely the same, she is not lying.

"Do not worry, brother. This is not something to be afraid of." Maya whispers, as I feel her hug me, while her mind retreats.

It is only then that I realise that I was hyperventilating, everything that has happened making me anxious. First Hela, and now this. I'm an External? I belong to the same subcategory of Mutants as the fucking Apocalypse?

It takes a few seconds for me to calm down, but when I do, Maya immediately hands me the bowl of soup once again and says, "Drink." 

I take a sip, and then ask, "What does it all mean? Being an External?"

I don't want to find out that we're all sworn to work for Apocalypse or something like that.

Maya just shrugs, and asks, "Why does it have to mean anything? You were a Mutantur before, now you're an External. That's it. Your.. change.. doesn't bring with it any duties, or responsibilities."

I just look at her, and ask, "And what? The other Externals will just let me live my life peacefully? Will you?"

Maya nods, but then pauses. She says, "While I can't say the same for all of us, most Externals would rather just live our own lives without interference. We would rather that you don't interfere in any of our goals and ambitions, and we won't interfere in yours. Some.. however.. would likely try to recruit you in their own schemes."

I nod, taking that explanation for what it is worth, and then ask, "How did you find out where to find me? And why did you come find me?"

The smile on Maya's face widens, as she says, "I am, as I said, a Mage and a Sorceress. One of the many talents that I have cultivated over the years is a talent for Divining the Future. I Saw your First Death happen five months ago, and I knew exactly where it would happen, and when. Alas, I needed to wait until you actually had your First Death to approach you. Coincidentally, your First Death happened just beyond the mountain from my castle, which I am really thankful for."

"First Death?" I ask, taking it all in and remembering her mentioning the term once before. I had already expected something weird, but never in my life did I believe I would say the words 'First Death' and not mean the time I was reborn as who I am now.

Maya nods, and says, "Every External is first a normal Mutantur. It is only when he first dies and resurrects that he is known as an External. After the First Death, the External becomes Immortal, unaging, and Unkillable. You might still die, but you will only stay dead if the ones who kill you are yourself, other Externals, Gods, or those far above us. Other than that, any time you die, you will always be resurrected."

This.. is something I had believed to be something unique to Apocalypse. Although, it could be the fact that I'm not in the comic universe that changed this fact.

She then says, "When you had your First Death, it sent a Psionic signal to all the Externals that a new sibling was going to be born. And they all would have felt it happen, and would have tried to approach you. Some would have tried to kill you and steal your powers, others would have tried to enslave you into their own employ."

"And you?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.

I don't think she's a danger to me.. yet. Maybe she's going to fatten me up or the Magical equivalent of it, make me stronger before sucking my powers dry. But until then, I know she wants me alive. Otherwise, she wouldn't have even bothered with explanations.

Maya shrugs, and says, "Nothing convoluted, I assure you. I just hadn't witnessed any Resurrection in person yet, and you gave me that opportunity. I also wanted to prevent you being forced to work for any of my.. our siblings. Siblings, they might be, but Externals won't hesitate to kill one another if it benefits them."

That's.. not entirely unexpected.

"There must be something.. beyond just curiosity." I say, and stare at her.

Maya smiles, and says, "Maybe if your stay here goes well, I will tell you. For now, eat up, and rest. I will tell you the rest later."

And with that, she leaves the room, leaving me to my loneliness once again. As soon as she leaves, I put the bowl on the table, and focus on my connection to my swords. Finding it, I first summon Glamdring to my hands, and let out a breath of relief. I had dropped the sword soon after Hela's Magic had begun working on killing me. Thank God it's safe.

I then focus on Nowhere, and summon something else from there. A simple ring, made of Magic silver. It just has a magnificent ability. 

As soon as I wear it and point my palm towards the wall, a glowing orange portal forms in the air, leading to the place I had fought Hela in.

So.. I am not a prisoner. I could leave if I want to. And I do want to. But.. I'm also curious about this Maya, and I still have a lot of questions for her.

Waving my hand, I whisper, "Accio Prati Kavach."

With a whoosh, multiple pieces of broken Magical Gold fly through the portal, towards me, and I store them in Nowhere. I'll fix the armour later, I'm too attached not to do it. But for now, I'll eat, and rest.

I have a sister to talk to later.

---

External. A subcategory of Mutants that are all Immortal, and almost unkillable. The only way for an External to die, is by the hands of another External, a God(or even a Divine weapon), a Demon Lord(or a weapon of that tier), and those high above us in the Cosmic Hierarchy, like Celestials, Cosmic Gods, Elder Gods, and probably everyone that considers even Asgardians as mortals.

I should have died by Hela's hands, by that logic, right?

Well, yeah, but no. 

The thing is.. no one can stop an External from being born. No one can stop an External from resurrecting after his First Death.

Or so Maya had said.

But I doubt the Cosmic Entities will have any trouble in keeping me dead if they want to keep me dead.

Another fact I have recently learned, is that there's no way to know which Mutant is going to become an External and which won't. Not all long-living mutants become Externals, and not all Externals were already long-living before they Ascended.

Most Externals have singular powers(not counting their Immortality of course), but there are some that have more than one. I and Maya had Telepathy and Telekinesis in common, and where I had my Healing factor and Language Adaptability, Maya had Pyrokinesis and something else that she hadn't told me about yet.

Apocalypse.. well, his list is a little too big to mention, even from what I remember from Essex's memories.

I have stayed with Maya for a week now, and I have come to trust her a bit. Not too much, but at least I wasn't suspicious of her motives anymore. She genuinely didn't want to take advantage of me, or suck my powers dry.

During these days, I haven't left her castle too much. Mostly it was to walk around her gardens, or when I want to visit the forest. As I had initially deduced, I wasn't a prisoner here. 

But.. I also didn't want to go out there so soon, and bring Asgard's attention to Sanctuary. 

They couldn't see Maya's castle, that much was certain. Otherwise I would have had Asgard's army already after me. So I was thankful for the little bit of respite that I'm getting. My thoughts did go towards the Elves every once in a while. I did check on them through Scrying, since it was the only thing I could do right now.

They were safe, Sanctuary wasn't attacked even once, but I was still wary of approaching them. I will have to satiate myself by just Scrying on them.

Currently, Maya and I were sitting in her garden, watching the birds fly around. I had just finished my tale about how I actually came to die when she found me. I told her about Hela.

Maya nods, once I finish my tale, and says, "Asgardians.. now that is a Pantheon I've already encountered. Around 3000 years ago, their King Bor came to me, to ask me to join him in his War against the Dark Elves. He asked the other Sorcerers too, I believe, and some other extraordinary people."

"Did you join?" I ask, already expecting what the answer is.

Maya scoffs, and says, "I am no one's soldier. If I had joined, Bor had promised to make me a Goddess, but if I become a Goddess, then I want it to be on my own terms. Not because some higher power felt indebted to me. I even met his sons that day, the current King of Asgard is one of them I suppose."

I then ask, "What's your story then? You never did tell me how you came to become the woman you are now."

Maya smiles, looking at me knowingly, and asks, "You've been holding that question in for a long time, haven't you?"

I just shrug with a smile, and say, "Can you blame me? I died, woke up in a stranger's house, and that stranger insisted on calling me her brother. I would be an idiot if I didn't suspect you even a little."

Maya chuckles, and says, "That you would have been. And I am thankful you are not. Idiotic Externals don't live long. They get themselves killed, repeatedly, until someone who can actually keep them dead does it."

She then shakes her head, sighs, and says, "As for my story.. it is a long one, and not entirely a happy one."

I put my hand on hers, feeling a bit stupid, and say, "You can refuse to tell me if you don't feel like it."

Maya smiles gratefully, and says, "No, you deserve to know exactly whose house you're living in, brother. But.. I do insist that you let me finish my tale before passing judgment."

I look at her, wondering what kind of life she has lived. I know she must have done some immoral crimes, you can't live thousands of years and not do any crimes. Even I have been a sort of criminal, and I'm just 75!

Huh, I'm 75. Goddamn.

"I was born in a village ruled by Mages, a long, long time ago. I don't know exactly how many centuries, how many thousands of years it has been, but I do remember that Atlantis had already fallen, and Man was just beginning to start villages. My Father received a Vision before I was to be born, showing him his own Death, and the complete decimation of our village, both of it by my hands. He had originally believed it to be just a dream, but when my mother, a girl of just 14, showed my newborn form to him, he realised that his Vision was true." Maya begins, already making me scowl in her stead.

A self- fulfilling prophecy, even without listening to the rest of the story I can tell that much.

Maya says, "So, believing it to be the fault of my mother's side of the family, he and his fellow villagers gathered my mother's entire village, all 100 people living in it, and forced them to sacrifice themselves, hoping to kill me with a Ritual. He had tried killing me himself first, but my Magic always defended me from his attacks. And even if it had failed to kill me, the Ritual would have weakened my Soul enough that I won't live beyond 100 years of age. One year for every soul sacrificed.

"After that Ritualistic sacrifice, my Magic was.. weakened, a lot. Believing his plan to be successful, he let me live with him, forcing me to be the maid to his new family, the caretaker to his children, and when his wife died during childbirth.. he forced me into his own bed, which led to the birth of two more children. I lived with him for 25 years, but then.. something happened.

"I had wandered into the forest, gone too far while gathering mushrooms for dinner. And there.. I was attacked by an animal. The animal was large, around as tall as I am now, and it could breathe fire. While trying to defend myself from it.. I awakened my Mutantur gifts."

Right, telepathy and Telekinesis.

"I used those gifts to kill the animal, and then.. followed the sound of thoughts back home. When I met my father once again, however, I.. saw his memories. I saw what he had done. The Ritual, my mother's sacrifice, the attempts on my life.. everything. I got.. angry, and I did something else. I held him by the neck.. and I sucked every last drop of his Life Force into myself, killing him, and turning his body to dust. Then.. when all of his Memories settled down into my own mind, I realised that the entirety of our village was in on it. And so.. I destroyed it. I killed everyone, and sucked all of their Life into myself."

She then pauses, chuckles, and says, "The Ritual.. the one where my father and his people sacrificed 100 people to weaken my soul, did as promised. It weakened my soul, but my Magic.. it adapted. It gave me the ability to absorb Life Energy from people, animals, and even Gods if I manage to touch them, to lengthen my own life. It also allows me to transfer the Life force to other beings, and even plants, if I want to, but I don't do it much."

I hold her hand, to show her that I am not afraid of her sucking my life dry. If she wanted to do it, she could have done it before telling me she could do it. I then ask, "What happened to your children?"

Maya shakes her head, and says, "I gave them to others to raise, changed the memories of all involved to forget me completely."

I nod, accepting that. I knew that she could have said 'I killed them' and I would have understood it. I won't condone it, but I understood. They're the product of her own father's rape on her. She couldn't have seen them as if they were children, without remembering her father.

Maya then says, "I kept on travelling the world after that, sucking people dry if they attacked me, or if I felt like I needed it. I didn't need to do it too often, just twice every century or so. But.. it seems someone found it too much. A Sorcerer.. a man named Cul-Gath found me, deemed me too dangerous to live, and fought me. I was just a Mage and a Mutantur then, and after a lengthy battle that took five hours, he killed me. I had my First Death then."

"When I woke up, I was angry once again. I was doing it all just to live. I didn't purposefully go out looking for lives to end, I only sucked Life when I needed it to live, or when someone was too heinous to let live. So, I tracked Cul-Gath down, and I killed him, sucking his life into myself too. And so.. I became a Sorcerer."

She then turns her head towards me, and I notice that while she looks sad, she did not shed a single tear. But who can blame her? By her own admission, she has been alive for at least 15,000 years. That's a long fucking time.

She says, "I have been travelling the world since then, wandering around, meeting different people. I met Garbha-Hsien, the only other External with an age similar to mine, 8,000 years ago, during the Convergence. I met En Sabah Nur, the so-called Apocalypse, soon after he began his rule of Egypt 3000 years ago. I have been called a Queen, Priestess, Demoness, and was even mistaken as a Goddess once. I have had children, grandchildren, and each and every one of them died, with their descendants still living all around the world. But this place we are in.. this has been the one place I always returned to. This.. brother.. is my story. Are you satisfied?"

I look at her, look at the hunger for family that she has on her face. She has had children die on her, that.. is not something even I can take lightly. I understand now why she sought me out. She needs family, one that will survive the ravages of time. And I, an External, am just that.

Nodding, I smile at her, and say, "I have a story of my own, if you want to hear. But my story is a tad bit more unbelievable..."

Maya is.. a human being. She has faults, and she has made mistakes, many of them. But where my mistakes led to my own death, funnily enough, hers led to the death of many others.

But, she is not a bad person. She might even become like an actual sister to me someday. But till then, I will be a friend to her.

---

A/N: Mason still hasn't forgotten his fight with Hela, he's just not overthinking it for once. 

Btw.. Tada! External! Which one of you saw this coming? Be honest, because this was planned ever since Mason came to the past.

Now, does the character Maya feel familiar? Or at least, her story and abilities. If yes, then you're not wrong. There is a canon Marvel comics character, who is not named Maya, and yes she is the one calling Mason Onii-chan.

I will not have her say that name of hers yet, not until the future time starts, probably. But, I might mention her true name in the A/Ns if sufficient people already know who she is.

Another thing.. for those who didn't like Mason getting killed by Hela, well it was obvious he wasn't going to win. It's Hela!

But Mason also couldn't flee, because he would have been followed by Hela, Heimdall, Odin, and the entire Asgardian army for what he's done(supposedly). So, his plan was to fake his death and return to his home and cast even more extensive wards around his home.

Alas, Hela's Dark Magic was stronger than he expected, and it followed his true body even when a Sorcery created body was the one to get stabbed. 

Any questions? No? Okay. Glad you understand.

Thank you for your support! Tata!