Memories faded little by little until even the good ones stopped feeling real, and all that remained was a quiet sadness living in her chest.
For Princess Aelsa, who never saw much of the world beyond the palace walls, this was something she would never forget.
She remembered how Alfheim always smelled like wild honey, and the warm wind that moved through the tall grass in the gardens during long afternoons.
That beautiful world died the second pirates grabbed her from the Kree Empire and threw her into the belly of a ship that smelled like burnt oil and old blood.
They locked her in a black metal casket that worked like a hungry leech, drinking magic from her veins until her bones felt as dry as old sticks.
Aelsa spent days inside that iron box while it drained her mana, crying for a mother who could not hear her across the cold stars.
Eventually, she stopped crying and let a heavy sleep take her, her body too empty and tired to keep her eyes open as the metal box continued to feed.
Finally, the loud screech of the metal lid hit like a physical blow, breaking her sleep as a sharp white light stabbed into her face with sudden, cruel heat.
For a second, a small hope flared in her heart. She thought Sir Thyren came to rescue her, or her mother sent the army to save her from the dark.
"Mother, please come."
The dream shattered when she looked up and saw five monsters standing there, their souls so dark and sharp they made pirate kidnappers look like kind people.
As a race blessed by the goddess of magic, elves were naturally gifted in mystic arts, but Aelsa was a special child who could see the true darkness of a soul.
It was for this reason she rejected the marriage proposal from a Kree prince and even saved her mother many times from assassins and hostile beings during the coronation.
The aura these people carried was enough to show they were ruthless killers, worse than anything she saw in her thirty short years.
The muscular woman with two ponytails standing near the casket was wrapped in a cloud of black and red spikes that felt like they bit into Aelsa's pale skin.
"Get out of the box, brat. I am not fishing you out of hardware crates like a piece of junk."
"I won't come out."
"I will rip those pointy ears off and feed them to you if you stay there one more second."
The woman reached out with a hand that wanted to kill, her eyes full of bloodlust that promised only pain for the little girl.
"I did not do anything wrong."
Even though Aelsa never left Alfheim, she knew of the outside world, but even the goddess's soul was not as dark as these people.
"Carliya, your lack of control is making the cargo shake, and a terrified elf is useless if she dies before we even learn why she is here."
"Shut up, old man. If she does not move, I will tip this entire casket over and see if she bounces off the deck."
After getting out of the casket, the first thing she did was try to stabilize her mana, though she knew she was no match for them.
Aelsa grabbed the edge of the metal box and tried to face the monsters with the same pride her mother used at the palace, hoping they feared the royal name.
"Go away, you filthy pirates. My mother will find you, and she will make you pay for touching a princess of the High Throne."
The muscular woman did not flinch and instead let out a loud, mean laugh that sounded like glass breaking on stone.
"Maybe I cut off your neck and send it to your mother. Let us see if she wants a war, you little weakling."
They did not care about her threats, so Aelsa did the most logical thing and tried to hide again in the darkness of the casket.
A minute later...
She heard footsteps approaching. A moment later, the lid was forced open, and a man lifted her out and dropped her onto the hard ground.
"Ouch... do not touch me."
"You are hurting yourself too much. Let us see what we can do with these injuries. The rest of you, back off."
The muscular woman and the blind old man stepped back seven steps into the hold while the man stood over her.
"Do you know any magic?"
The question felt strange, almost foolish, to a princess of a magic kingdom.
"I know many spells, like making tea, creating flower fields, and making ice cubes for drinks, and much more."
"Alright."
"I can also make little lights that float at night. Hey, what are you doi-"
She watched as the boy with red hair and blue eyes knelt beside her. At first glance, his soul was a deep hole of darkness, yet now it was wrapped in a bright emerald light that felt like the gentle pulse of a firefly.
He reached out, and a wave of green mana touched her skin, making the dark bruises and the coldness in her heart fade like morning mist under the sun.
The warmth shocked her and made her breath catch. Old legends said only ancient Primordial Elves who established royalty could use light to mend a broken body.
She felt magic stitch her skin back together, filling the empty holes the box carved into her spirit with a warmth like soft blankets and her mother's kisses.
The girl jumped forward and wrapped her arms around the man's waist, hiding her face from the terrifying woman with the red and black soul.
"Please, Sir Primordial Elf, please save me from these monsters."
Finally, she found something to hold onto and let the tears fall, believing she could cry safely in his light.
.
.
.
Finding an elf with pointed ears and a complete lack of survival instinct in this world made me doubt my own eyes.
My only impressions of elven kind came from movies in my previous life, where the internet was obsessed with the idea of elves being elegant, immortal paragons of beauty who looked down on everyone else.
Lord of the Rings showed them as ruthless and graceful warriors who never missed a shot, while the Marvel dark elves were so forgettable I barely remembered how their story unfolded, and whether light elves even existed in that cinematic universe was a mystery to me.
Regardless of the source, the general consensus stayed the same, they were portrayed as a race of high-and-mighty perfectionists.
But the girl in front of me was just a timid and frightened little thing who shattered every bias I held about her species, and I wondered if calling her a child was even valid considering the massive lifespans of her race.
Purple bruises from the metal casket marked her skin, while dried blood matted her silver hair near a cut on her forehead, so I focused on healing her immediately as it was the best I could do since her mana was almost entirely drained.
The moment the green light faded, she threw her arms around my waist and soaked my shirt with tears while clinging to me in pure terror.
"I... I am Aelsa, Princess of the High Throne, and I only seek the protection of the Great One! Woobb! Hkku..."
"Glenn, Commander of Expedition and Conquest Unit A9."
Carliya was already looming over the weeping child with a look of pure disgust, as if the girl's very existence was a personal insult to the sanctity of my uniform.
"There, there."
"..Primordial elf."
I realized that having a literal fantasy trope clinging to me was a bizarrely rare experience, so I reached back and let my hand rest on her head for a small pat.
The texture of her hair was a quiet shock. It felt smoother than the finest silk and carried a strange coolness like moonlight under my palm, which made it incredibly hard to pull my hand away from something so rare and delicate.
"Get your filthy hands off him, you little brat. The Commander's body is not something for a lowly creature like you to touch with your common hands."
"Carliya, knock it off and quit threatening her. She is already half-dead from fear, and you are just being a bully."
The girl let out a sharp gasp and scrambled behind my back to hide her face from Carliya, who looked ready to kill her on the spot just for existing in my personal space.
"Why have you never done that to me, Commander, since I am the one actually doing the heavy lifting on this ship and not some stowaway?"
I stared at her in silence, wondering if she actually wanted a head pat despite not looking like the daughterly type at all.
Carliya crossed her arms and pouted with an expression that left me speechless while I tried to figure out why she was jealous of a child.
"Commander, we have an elven search party that just got clearance from Commander Moosa to enter this sector."
Solvek confirmed her identity while tapping at his datapad as the blue screen light reflected in his eyes.
Moosa was a Viltrumite royalist through and through, which meant any elven ship he allowed into our space carried a very official and very expensive reason for being there.
"They are broadcasting a wide-range search signal, and their stated motive is to recover a high-priority kidnapped princess from the High Throne."
"That puny kingdom must be truly desperate if they sent a fleet this deep into our territory just for one little thing like you."
"In my younger days, I would have.."
"Shut up."
Old man Virexa was applying harsh Viltrumite logic to the situation, but not every race could watch their children walk into the mouth of death.
"We have no choice but to leave her in the care of the Four Pirate Emperors."
It was the most reasonable path forward because by the time those people arrived, we would already be deep inside the dead zone where the elven fleet could not follow.
"Please, I want to stay and serve the Primordial Elf."
"..No."
She reached for my hand with a desperate look, and I felt her fingers trembling against my skin as she begged to stay.
"Please do not send me away to the pirates. I will be very quiet, and I can even help you wash your clothes or clean the floors if you let me stay."
"The Emperors are different from the scum who caught you, Aelsa."
"They are still pirates, and they probably have even bigger boxes for princesses, so I would much rather stay here and be your personal shadow."
"This is a warship, not a nursery."
"I can be a very small and useful part of the ship because I do not eat much, and I promise to hide under the bed whenever someone starts shooting at us."
"You are royalty, and princesses do not scrub decks. In this ship, my words are law."
"But being a princess is boring, and being a servant to a Primordial Elf is a much better job."
"..."
There was no need to make things complicated by bringing a stranger into my space, so I rejected her plea to keep the ship clear until the mission was over.
It was irrational to risk the focus of my unit for a girl I only knew for a few minutes, but the truth was that this specific journey did not actually matter to me at all.
Conquering a planet felt like a joke while I was still weighing my own options and wondering if I should take the first real chance I found to run away.
And what was with this Primordial Elf nonsense? She clearly misunderstood me as some legendary figure.
"Kang, get on the comms and tell that centipede Emperor to arrange every necessity for this girl. That includes a secure room, fresh food, and most importantly, protection."
"And Solvek."
"Yes, Commander."
"Inform Commander Moosa about this. He will let those elven people know."
"Consider it done."
Aelsa gave a small and respectful nod as she wiped the last of her tears from her face with the sleeve of her gown.
"I am truly grateful for your mercy."
.
.
.
In the Marvel universe, magic was closer to a parasitic trade where sorcerers acted as pipes for dimensional energies, sometimes drawing from forces that carried a hidden price while they channeled power from realms they did not own.
Even the Sorcerer Supreme was just a high-level beggar who relied on knowledge, relics, and borrowed dimensional energy, with some tapping into forbidden sources like the Dark Dimension where the power came with a cost.
The most powerful sorcerers were essentially conduits drawing from dimensions and forces beyond them for the privilege of acting as a cosmic lightning rod while pretending their fancy hand signals gave them control.
My mana was my own and functioned like an internal engine, which was why I knew Aelsa's energy was different; it felt like a predator eating her life source to survive.
I wondered if elves normally produced their own power like me because they were a magical race, but something about this girl was wrong and I lacked an answer for how I knew.
That was also the reason why this girl needed healing as soon as possible.
A few hours later, the sky filled with stars, only to be cleared by the morning sun.
The next day, I searched through the logs for mission clues, but it was a complete dead end, so I decided to learn magic instead of wasting more time.
Since Aelsa was the only person currently available who knew anything about magic, there was no choice but to seek her out in the palace quarters if I wanted to understand how her power worked.
A day of rest turned Aelsa from a shivering ghost into a girl with glowing silver hair who was practically vibrating with energy when I found her.
"...Princess, I need you to teach me how you use magic."
"..Me?.. Wait, me? You want a lesson from me? You are a Primordial elf who can heal people with a touch!"
"I will be grateful for the help and you clearly know the fundamentals better than I do."
"..."
It was funny she mentioned the touch because I could literally mend every broken body within ten meters of me without lifting a single finger if I really wanted.
She suddenly puffed out her tiny chest and pointed a finger at the ceiling while trying to look like a legendary grandmaster.
"Then I will be the best teacher in the universe and I will be very strict! Even a Lord has to learn how to grab the golden strings in the air!"
Aelsa spent the next hour making dramatic sweeping motions with her arms and making "whoosh" sounds every time she missed a string while I stood there feeling absolutely nothing.
I realized my body was built differently because I was not a conduit and, as I possessed a Doomsday template, my body was designed to adapt to energy after being attacked by it.
"I can't feel the strings so I need you to attack me with your magic instead."
"I could never do that! Hitting you would be like trying to punch the sun or the goddess herself. I don't want to hurt the person who saved me!"
"Just do it. I need to feel the impact of the mana to understand how it moves and I promise you that I can take whatever you throw at me."
She eventually gave in with a trembling sigh and manifested a beautiful glowing bow made of woven vines and cherry blossoms before pulling back a string of light toward my chest.
"Please don't die... hiyah!"
"...."
Looking at the glowing vines of her bow, I honestly expected her to go full Hashirama mode and hit me with a wooden forest, but the reality was much more colorful and a lot less lethal.
The projectile hit me and dissolved into a harmless shower of floral scent and soft glitter that didn't even leave a scratch on my uniform or trigger a response.
"What was that supposed to be?"
I looked at the glowing petals currently stuck to my boots while she beamed at me with a look of pure pride, as if she just successfully slew a dragon.
"Oh… it's my Flower Bow. It's meant to calm the heart and bring peace."
"Where's the attack!?"
"...Sorry. My mother never taught me offensive magic. We're a race of beauty, and I'm not even an adult yet."
I stood there covered in glowing petals and felt a massive headache coming on because I was trying to trigger an adaptation and this girl was just giving me a spa treatment.
Reluctantly, I shook the glowing petals off my shoulders and turned to leave because my body was built for a war-evolution, not for whatever this was supposed to be.
"Wait, where are you going?"
Her small hand snagged my sleeve as she puffed out her chest to look intimidating, making me wonder if she realized that bothering a Viltrumite was a gamble with her own life.
"Training is over, Princess."
"It's not over since you haven't paid the tuition!"
She stomped her foot and demanded a payment from me like a greedy goblin looking for a hoard of gold.
"A teacher's time is very expensive and I gave you my best Flower Bow move!"
"...."
She demanded red sweet-buns for her magic lessons, so I dragged her to the galley just to shut her up with a mountain of sugar.
Only if she even knew those buns were processed from the meat of disgusting space frogs harvested in the colonies.
"Fine, but if I buy you food, will you stop calling yourself a master?"
"I'll think about it while I'm eating!"
A few days passed while we finished our final preparations for the long journey through the Dead Zone.
Our stay on Draxil was a success because we understood that the path forward was just a maze meant to filter out the cowards who couldn't read the stars.
That was not an arrogant statement but rather the reality of this sector, since the only person to ever cross the Dead Zone was a veteran navigator.
This meant most of the mission would depend on how big of a mess Solvek landed us in, which was something only time would tell.
Draxil felt joyous as we prepared to leave, and even the commoners who were previously afraid of us came to wave with enthusiasm.
Part of that was because I healed many people here recently, since I developed a strange hobby for mending broken things.
The four Pirate Emperors gathered at the docking bay like a line of nervous servants waiting for a pardon while Aelsa stood near the ship with tears in her eyes.
I reached out and let my hand rest on her head for a moment, noting that Carliya actually kept her hands relaxed for once while watching the girl.
"It was an honor for the Inovia to-"
The emperors started another hour-long speech, so I cut them off to say what was necessary before the ramp closed.
"If I come back and find this girl crying because of something you did, I will peel the crust off this entire planet."
"Wow... you would really break a whole planet for me? Thank you, Lord Primordial Elf!"
The emperors turned a shade of gray that shouldn't be biologically possible, nodding their heads like terrified children.
It was the expected reaction when standing in the presence of a Viltrumite, and I wondered for a second if I was actually starting to take pride in that heritage.
"In my prime, I burned worlds like these just for the fun of it, so you bastards better listen to the Commander or I will show you why the stars used to scream my name!"
Virexa bragged loudly while slamming his cane into the metal floor to make them jump, looking like a fossil that still possessed enough fire to scorch the world.
"Actually, these guys were almost too easy to rob, but at least the Gadget Emperor provided some decent scrap for the engines."
Kang was not yawning for once and stood with his arms crossed while looking at the horizon with a hungry gaze that reminded me he was still a soldier.
"Commander, look at the hull because I broke the encryption on the phase-shifters and integrated Kree cooling baffles into the main drive!"
Solvek practically bounced toward me with the grin of a man who actually achieved the impossible by fusing alien junk into stubborn Viltrumite alloy.
The ship now looked like a beast of war with thick armor plates and massive thrusters that radiated a dangerous, heavy vibration through the dock.
"Commander, I prepared a look that truly reflects your standing, and I hope you find it worthy of your presence."
I leaned in closer and saw a giant skull with crossbones painted on the hull, realizing Carliya spent her resting hours on this instead of sleeping.
"You really went over the top with this one, Carliya, but I suppose having our own flag makes things a bit more interesting."
"What about my contributions, Commander?"
Virexa wanted praise too, though other than bragging without limit, he contributed nothing I could actually name.
I couldn't even get mad at the lack of discipline because the arrogance of that pirate flag suited us perfectly as we boarded the beast.
"Let us do what we are best at and kill every obstacle until we reach our goal."
"Understood, Commander Glenn."
The engines roared with a frequency that vibrated through my bones and signaled the end of our rest while the ramp sealed shut.
The ship tore away from the dock with a sudden surge of power to leave the orbit of Draxil behind and head back into the endless dark.
.
.
.
While Glenn and his crew headed toward the dead zone with hearts bold enough to face something that could kill Viltrumites, the elven search party faced an existential crisis that dwarfed any battlefield they ever knew.
Sir Thyren and his elite warriors survived a thousand blood-soaked campaigns, yet they were now adrift in a corner of the universe that was unapologetically unhinged.
Death was a regular event in this sector, a constant and grinding force of nature that cared nothing for the ancient lineage of elves.
The pride of a long-lived species kept them from losing their minds, allowing them to stand their ground even as the void outside began to curdle into something foul.
"Sir Thyren, an encrypted broadcast just ripped through our local subspace from one of the Pirate Emperors!"
The lead honor guard looked up from the tactical console with a face that finally found its light.
"They found her, for the bio-scan attached to the message is an exact match for Aelsa."
Thyren felt a tremor run through his hands as he remembered placing the first wooden practice blade in her small palms.
He remembered her laughter when she could barely lift it.
He wasn't just her protector, for he was the man who promised the High Throne that her spark would never be extinguished.
"Goddess, I thank the Great Mother for her mercy... I thought my little student was lost to the dark."
He straightened his back and regained the iron authority of a High Knight as he looked at the crew.
"Plot a course for Draxil and push the engines to their absolute limit, because I will not keep her waiting."
The bridge was alive with hope for a single heartbeat before the stars outside began to blink out like dying candles.
A sickening silence smothered the ship as a great black curtain seemed to be drawn over the entire universe.
Something was wrong.
"Contact, we have massive interference on the long-range sensors!"
"You need to see this, Sir Knight!"
The Kree pilot slammed his hands onto the flight controls in panic.
"The stars are disappearing, and the light is actually being swallowed by something in the vacuum with us!"
Outside the viewports, the velvet black of space began to thicken into an oily sludge that wrapped around the hull like a shroud.
The ship groaned as the metal was squeezed by massive invisible hands while screams started in the lower decks.
These were not the shouts of warriors in battle, but short bursts of men being silenced before they could draw breath.
Thyren's breath hitched as his mana flared on instinct, yet the light felt dim, as if something was drinking it.
"Protect....form the circle!"
"It is in the walls, so get back!"
"My eyes, I cannot see the light anymore!"
"Goddess, please forgive us!"
A signal for the lost princess arrived, bringing a brief surge of joy before the bridge turned into a slaughterhouse where severed heads dropped every second.
Thousands of dark beings surrounded the ship, starting a one-sided killing spree that tore through high-elven armor and magic charms like wet paper.
"By the Light of the High Throne, we—"
The scream ended in a wet gurgle as a black tendril punched through a visor and liquidated a skull into a dark red mist.
Sir Thyren felt the weight of helplessness as his magic struggled against a strength he could not match despite his centuries of training.
These strange creatures could liquefy themselves to negate his strikes, only to harden a second later and attack him with full bone-crushing force.
Regardless of the loss, he drew his blade again as his mana flared with a desperate light, managing to cut down a few shadows.
For a fleeting second, the light pushed them back.
Then the darkness swallowed it whole.
The shadows parted.
A pressure heavier than the Queen settled over the bridge.
The lion-headed warrior entered with a casual stride, twin axes gripped in hands capable of crushing hardened metal into scrap.
He swung with a brutality that turned both shadows and honor guards into a slurry of shredded meat and bone.
The beast walked toward the console where a pink-skinned Kree pilot sat paralyzed over controls that no longer held any meaning.
The warrior reached out with a grunt of boredom and gripped the Kree's head, popping it like a dry seed across the tactical map.
"Face me, for I am the First Blade and the protector of the lineage!"
The warrior paused, his golden eyes shifting toward the knight with a look of disappointment and predatory boredom.
"Oh, so you claim you are stronger?"
Thyren launched a mana-infused strike that should level a fortress, but the warrior caught the blade in his bare palm.
The metal opened a wound, but it was not enough to make the monster flinch as he tossed the broken steel aside.
"I traveled across the void for a struggle that would make my blood sing, but I find only decorated cattle waiting for the bolt."
"What a disgrace."
His axe moved at intense speed, shearing through the legs of the last two standing warriors until they were forced to crawl in the blood.
Thyren felt a heavy boot slam into his chest, pinning him to the floor as the warrior leaned down with a mane matted in gore.
"It is not your time yet, for the King in Black has already acquired the bodies he needs for his grand design."
"Live well, little insect."
The lion warrior turned his back and walked away, leaving the knight kneeling in a silent graveyard of discarded pride.
Thyren wished he could kill the monster, but he lacked the capability to even stand up from the lake of his kin's blood.
.
.
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(End Of The Chapter)