#inumans

Written in June 2016 for Daisy’s birthday celebration. Set between the end of season 3 and the beginning of season 4. Reposting it again because it is still my favorite fanfic that I have written.

Daisy + Inhumans – Day 2

The Return of the Team

“So, what was it like?” James asked, curiously.  “You know, Attilan.”

“You’ve heard of Attilan?” Daisy asked, getting curious herself.

“Jiaying might have mentioned it once or twice,” he answered in his thick Australian accent. “She didn’t talk about it much and most of the others just assumed that it was legendary like the bogeyman in the obelisk.  Now that we’ve all seen how the obelisk worked out…” he paused to shudder violently. “Now that we’ve seen how that worked out it occured to me that Attilan is probably real too.  You got into that spaceship and took off for parts unknown, I just figured that was maybe where you went.”

“What is this Attilan?” Elena asked.

“Yeah, I’m curious too,” Joey chipped in.

“Thousands of years ago inhumans built the city of Attilan.  They have highly advanced technology but society there is very stratified by status and caste.  There is the Royal family, the Noble families, and the commoners.  

“Having a bunch of people with powers running around can obviously be very dangerous so most commoners don’t pass through the mist.  Between that and how restrictive everything is there, a lot of commoners left the city and began settling among the humans and living with them.  When the was decision to relocate the entire city to the moon, the inhumans left here on Earth were stranded.  Most of them had been living among humans for so many generations that they didn’t even know they were inhuman anymore so they didn’t miss it when it was gone.”

“So it IS real!” James cackled, rubbing his hands in glee.  “The home city of the inhumans!  So when do we get to go visit?  Pure blooded inhumans are supposed to be genetically superior to humans and I can’t wait to lay my eyes on a full blooded inhuman woman.  Everyone of them must be pretty close to perfect 10’s.”

Elena backhanded his shoulder hard and glared at him.

“Not any time soon, I’m afraid,” Daisy explained.  “If the commoners are at the bottom of the food chain in Attilan you can imagine where the half-human mix-breed descendants of commoners fit in their society.”

“Sorry if I touched a bit of a nerve there…”

“What kind of a highly advanced society still thinks like that about their own people?”  Elena interrupted.

“Doesn’t matter,” Daisy said, redirecting the conversation.  “We have a little mission that we have to carry out first.”

“I’m not sure I like the tone of your voice when you say that,” Joey muttered, eyeing her suspiciously.

“There is a great threat coming and the entire universe is at risk.”

“Oh, is that all?” Elena said sarcastically.  “Last year it was saving the entire planet, now it is saving the entire universe?  I think we are peaking too early, what can we possibly do to top that next year?”

“It does sound a bit melodramatic,” James added.

“Our little mission today isn’t about saving the universe; it’s about building trust.  There are a lot of groups that will have to work together in order to stop Thanos when he arrives and most of them have ZERO trust for each other right now.  Think of this as the ultimate trust building exercise.”

“You mean like where a bunch of corporate execs get together at some retreat and practice falling backwards and catching each other?”  Joey asked, confusion written all over his face.

“Yeah, except that we’re going to be catching Shield and they’ll be catching us.”

“Are you mental?” James exploded.  “They’ll put Joey and Elena under house arrest and they’ll stick you and me into the deepest dungeon they can find and throw away the key.”

Elena burst out in rapid fire Spanish that had Joey nodding before she finally switched to English.  

“How can you trust them after the Sokovia Accords and everything that they have done to inhumans and powered people since then.”

“I don’t trust Shield, not even a little bit.  I trust Coulson, May, and Mack.  They have to know that they can trust me so that when I tell them about Thanos they’ll believe it.  Shield is just doing what the government has told it to do so we have to convince Shield of the threat so that they can begin to work on convincing the government.”

“Does this plan come from…?” James pointed upward toward space.

“It comes from my uncle and he really knows how to put a plan together.”

Joey took a long hard look at Daisy’s face, then his expression softened. “If this is really about saving the universe, I’m in.”  

Elena looked back and forth from Joey to Daisy and then nodded.  “Me too.”

“You don’t even know yet what this little scheme will cost you,” Daisy sighed.

“Doesn’t matter, what matters is that I trust you and the universe needs saving,” Joey affirmed, “even if it doesn’t realize it yet.”  Elena nodded her agreement.

“So you’re going to make the voice of reason the bad guy?”  James glared at the other three for several moments before relenting.  “Okay, if we do this, I expect to see Attilan before I die.”

“You need to forget about Attilan!”  Elena exclaimed.  “It sounds like a very stuck up place to me.”

“It’s an important part of our heritage as inhumans, to find out who we truly are and where we came from,” he responded. Elena gave him a piercing look that made it clear she didn’t believe a word of it.  James shuffled uncomfortably, “And also, I want to see some of those genetically perfect women…”

“…and there were firedancers…” Daisy said, chuckling to herself.  The others looked at her like she was not right in the head.  “Nothing, James just reminds me a lot of someone else sometimes.”

*      *     *     *     *

The marauder ship touched down silently in a dry river bed less than a mile outside the borders of Area 51.  Invisible to radar and cloaked from view, it had landed undetected right next to one of the most secure military bases in the world.  Karnak’s intel had been spot on.  Daisy and her team watched as its crew of twelve disembarked and then closed the hatch making it completely invisible again.

“Mark the ship for Coulson.”

Elena flashed over and back before Daisy could blink.

“Sorry it took so long, I had to feel around for one of the landing struts to attach the tracker to.”

“Interesting way you have of apologizing and bragging at the same time,” James commented appreciatively. “I may have to try that myself.” Elena smiled.

“We need to capture all of them for questioning.  Karnak said that they had been hired indirectly by Thanos to collect some information.  They don’t look like much but I am willing to bet that they have all of the technology they need to defend themselves and get what they came after.”

James shook his head, “Sad, really, when you think about it.  The future of intelligent beings is to become nothing more than pack mules carrying the technology around so that the technology can do all the important work.”

“You talk too much,” Elena whispered.

“Has anybody thought about the irony that human-alien hybrids are about to capture a bunch of aliens who are trying to break into Area 51, of all places?” Joey asked rhetorically.

James grunted, “I usually skip the irony and go straight to sarcasm, it’s easier that way.”

The marauders did a quick sweep of their environment with several handheld devices.  One of them pointed in the general direction of Daisy’s team before pointing toward the military base.  The inhumans had left behind every piece of technology and even dressed in basic cotton clothing.  James had his chain but that would register as nothing more than a piece of scrap steel to their equipment.  It was hoped that they would appear to be nothing more than some indigenous animals to the Marauder’s equipment and at the moment that seemed to be the case. Daisy’s team watched as the pirates’ conversation got increasingly animated, several started to move back toward the ship before their leader bullied them into submission. He (She? It?) ordered the crew to get closer together and then punched several buttons on a rather large backpack attached to the back of one of the beings.  

“Okay, remember the plan. Joey, I want you to melt anything that looks like a weapon or anything that they point at us.  If it doesn’t look dangerous try not to damage it, Shield will want it.  Elena, get behind them and attack from there.  Cuff their wrists and ankles if you can.  Try not to knock them out, they aren’t human and we don’t want to kill any of them by accident.  James, get out in front of them and make the biggest distraction you can.  Use your chain ONLY if it is absolutely necessary. I’m going to hit the entire group from the side and try to knock as many off of their feet as possible.”

“My kind of distraction this close to a military base is going to draw a lot of attention from the locals.  We won’t have much time.”

“I know.  We’ll have to finish it quickly before they get here. Coulson and his team are on the way; we need to make sure that they are the ones who get their hands on the…  marauders.”  Daisy had almost said ‘aliens’ but for some reason that just sounded wrong considering that she herself was part Kree and therefore part alien.

“James, get moving, I want that distraction before they get clear of the riverbed.  We’ll wait for your signal.”

“Yes, ma’am!”  James moved off quickly while the rest of the team watched.

“If you feel the ground shaking, drop to all fours for a second or two and it’ll stop.  I may throw in some ground tremors to keep them off their feet.”  Elena and Joey both nodded.

The marauders began to shimmer and fade from sight.  

“Come on James, do it now.” Daisy whispered to herself.  It would be tougher if they couldn’t see them.  

Right on cue, rocks began flying through the air and exploding over the shimmering spot that marked the location of the pirates.  Yells of surprise and curses of pain filled the air.

Daisy led the charge over the ridge and hit the marauders with a wide angled force blast.  All of them were slammed into the far wall of the riverbed and the shimmering invisibility screen snapped off leaving all of the pirates very visible.  A few began to struggle to their feet and a second blast put them back on the ground. Joey began melting everything that looked like a weapon and Elena rushed forward and slapped cuffs on each one in less than a second.

James came running forward, “That was too easy.”

“That’s not the hard part.” Daisy replied.

They heard a distinctive whine as the ship’s engines began to warm up.  Without hesitation Daisy blasted the spot where she thought it was. The ship tipped over as it tried to launch and shot sideways into the ridge they had just been hiding behind.  The resulting impact shook the ground knocking Elena, Joey, and James off their feet.  

Joey looked up and saw Daisy still standing as if nothing had happened.  

“How were you able to stay on your feet through that?”

Daisy shrugged, “I guess because I can cause earthquakes I’m also immune to earthquakes.  It’s kind of like a sailor who has lived their whole life at sea.  It just becomes natural for them to keep their feet even during a storm.”

Sirens began to wail as vehicles came streaming out of Area 51 and racing toward the riverbed.  The Zephyr One dropped out of the sky above them even as black Shield vehicles came roaring out of the low hills behind them. The inhumans were effectively trapped between the three forces.

Daisy took a deep breath, “Now comes the hard part.”

Coulson and Mack jumped out of the lead Shield vehicle, pulled their guns and ran over to Daisy’s team while the Zephyr touched down.  The inhumans quickly found themselves surrounded by agents.  More agents poured out of the Zephyr as U.S. military vehicles arrived on the scene.

Daisy held out both wrists to Coulson, “We surrender.”