House of Agon #6 'Two Queens'

Shadows danced across the courtyard of the Genome Research building. Where they passed the light retreated, darkening the area. The guards stationed in the building took notice of the absent light once only the light from the lobby illuminated the area outside. Approaching the windows they saw tall, slender figures, with elongated fingers like claws in the shadows. The light in the lobby went out and in the dark of night, like every night before not even leaves rustling in the wind were heard.

The lights came back on to reveal an empty lobby. From the outside, the lights on each floor could be seen going off and coming back on. Occasionally, a shadowy creature could be seen in the windows, but only for a moment.

"We have the Crystal."

"Good now get it here, quietly," a male voice replied.

Several holographic figures appeared to be sitting around a table in a beautifully lit glass room, surrounded by greenery.

"They have the crystal. Once we have it here we can start. But we'll need a distraction for our new queen."

"We can handle that. I just hope that house Arctilan keeps their word."

"We do keep our word and when this is all over I hope the rest of you keep yours."

The holograms of most of the figures disappeared, leaving one.

Genome Research Lab,

"The only ones who knew about the Primagen being stored here were the council and royal family, that doesn't leave a lot of suspects."

"Yes it's a short list but Crystal even as queen you can't just arrest them all, not even Black Bolt could do that on Attilan without proper evidence," Karnak said.

"You have other things to worry about anyway, leave this to me. You focus on the invaders."

Crystal teleported away leaving Karnak alone. Only for a moment though as Panacea arrived. The two stared at the now-empty case that was securing the Primagen Crystal.

"There's no need to go looking for the thieves. They don't know how to use the crystal properly, and neither do we," she said.

"The problem isn't that they can't use it, but that they stole it. On Attilan this would be near to a capital crime on Earth."

"This isn't Attilan, not yet but I am sure it will get there. Take it as a test, either they will improperly handle it and mutate due to contact with the pure crystal, or they will use it like the mists and I can study the effects."

Karnak looked at Panacea for a moment but didn't speak. Although he didn't fully agree with what she said it was also true that it was the most likely scenario. Ignoring that the two started working on increasing the security of the building to avoid repeat offenses.

The city was celebrating Crystal's ascension to the throne. Although it wasn't official yet the people still celebrated as if it were. Adults were cheerfully re-enacting the fight between Crystal and the insects with the children. Others were re-telling the history of the Inhumans focused mainly on Crystal. The celebrations continued for a long time. They danced, drank, and cheered for days and nights on end, forgetting all about the tragedy that brought about this great change.

Crystal was teleporting everywhere as she prepared defenses for the city, coordinated patrols across the planet, and surveillance of space around them. The council also started applying more pressure on her pushing the formation of an exploration team in the name of scouting now, making it harder to turn down. Secretly and unknown to the soon-to-be Queen, the Royal family and a few other people were preparing the throne room for her crowning ceremony.

The throne room was fitted with cameras and screens that showed every gathering place around the city. Black Bolt and Medusa even headed the preparation. After hearing from Luna what was happening in the city they left what they found out was the Astral Plane early.

***

Crystal's Room,

Crystal finally finding a moment's rest collapsed onto her bed. She had worked almost nonstop with the bare minimum of downtime. After a few days of nonstop work, everything was set and could operate without her direct oversight. She closed her eyes ready to rest for several days when she was awoken by a sound she became overly familiar with recently.

Her communicator which had been getting quite the workout in recent days was once again ringing. Crystal lay in her bed glaring at the flashing blue screen across the room. Crystal reluctantly got out of bed and trudged across the room.

"I swear if you say anything is wrong, I'll find a bridge and toss the problem off of it," Crystal hissed through gritted teeth.

"Well, if you could manage to toss all of the human's stupid fear and prejudice off of a bridge and take control of an increasingly hotheaded society then I'll give you whatever you want when you get back," a female voice sounded through the communicator, surprising Crystal for more than one reason.

Crystal was shocked not only by the voice of the communicator but the content of her sentence. Crystal hadn't thought of Earth beyond the surface level. With everything going on she almost forgot about it, and after years of no contact with the Nuhumans on Earth, she had started to forget about them as well. If not for being around Panacea a lot recently maybe she would have forgotten them completely. Hearing the Queen of Nuhumans Iso in the communicator she was shocked wide-awake.

"Sorry Crystal, I don't mean to complain to you. I was trying to call the Queen and get some advice," Iso sighed.

"Well that would be now, we tried something new, I was voted in, now I get to do all the work and she gets to sleep for days. Why would anyone want this job," Crystal replied.

"Congratulations, one more member of the No Sleep Club. How are things over there? I didn't even think you I would reach anyone it's been years since you all left."

"Things have been going too well over here and just as we were starting to worry, we got an alien attack. Then there's Luna's powers getting stronger, and a council of idiots that are probably going to try going through Terragenesis. How are things back on Earth?"

"Well since you left all the Inhumans on Earth gathered on New Attilan, and that was going fine for a while. But then the Mutants made a whole nation for themselves on an Island they call Krakoa, that's when everything started going downhill. Recently the Humans and Governments have been so afraid that we would do the same, that they forgot New Attilan always was its own territory. We've been dealing with attacks and sanctions from the Humans and people here are starting to get angry. Some are demanding retaliation, others are hoping we could leave Earth and go rebuild Arctilan."

"You guys should stay on Earth, New Attilan survived because you were surrounded by heroes known to be troublesome. Keeping things peaceful won't be easy, we've tried it before and still ended up coming to blows with the Humans. They don't make it easy to reach peaceful solutions with them and might force you into a fight. If it comes to it protect yourself and your people, when we settle things here I'll try to get Swain and a few others out to you."

"So 'hold the line', thanks Crystal gotta go duty calls. Good luck with the Queen thing it won't be easy."

Iso ended the call leaving Crystal to the silence of her room and a glimpse of her very near future.

Crystal woke up and discovered that she had overslept. It was already noon and no one had called, knocked, or even set off an alarm. She hurriedly got dressed and teleported to the Council Hall. To her surprise she found the room empty, usually, she would already be under a barrage of complaints from the moment she begins to materialize. She then teleported to Panacea's lab where again she found it empty. She repeated this several times finding even the city seemed to be much quieter than usual.

Eventually, she teleported to the Throneroom where she hoped to find Gorgon or Karnak. Once she materialized in full she was quickly enveloped and restrained by something red. Before she could figure out what was happening, it had disappeared or rather retracted back to her sister.

Now able to look around the room she found the entire Royal Family was there, as well as Panacea, the royal guard formed by Gorgon, and a few Council representatives.

"What's going on?"

"Crowning," a surprising voice sounded.

Crystal whipped her head around so fast that she nearly spun around. To her utter shock, Black Bolt was standing nearby and noticeable below the throne holding a crown. She was stunned and remained frozen in place. Although she was aware she would be Queen she wasn't ready for this. Medusa nudged her forward, prompting her to keep walking.

Crystal mindlessly walked forward until she stood before Black Bolt. He stared down at her with a gaze usually reserved for those soon to have the displeasure of hearing him speak. Crystal held her breath as she stood before the very intimidating figure of the Midnight King. Black Bolt raised the crown in his hands and placed it on Crystal's head before stepping aside, opening the way to the throne.

Crystal took that as her queue to approach the throne. She arrived at it and turned around to face the room. Black Bolt was the first one to take a knee. Crystal was unaware that the room had been fitted with cameras and everyone from all across the planet was watching this event. Everyone in the room followed Black Bolt and took a knee, officially recognizing Crystal as the new Queen.

The cameras were turned off and Black Bolt rose to his feet and approached the still stunned Crystal. Placing his hand on her shoulder he stared intently at her. The others in the room started to become uncomfortable as not everyone understood what was going on. Finally, Black Bolt removed his hand and Crystal shed a tear before staring at him with flames in her eyes.

"Why didn't you tell us about this, any of it at all," Crystal snapped, surprising everyone.

"Did she know?"

Black Bolt shook his head and pointed to himself, then Crystal, then the throne.

"Secrets for the rulers only, then why doesn't she know."

Black Bolt shook his head and placed a hand on his heart. Crystal understood and said nothing more.

The mood changed abruptly after that and a more festive feeling drowned the heavy mood from moments before. Starting with Medusa congratulating her sister, cheers erupted all over the city and the festive mood like an infection spread across the planet.

Location Unknown,

"Are we the last ones?"

"Yes. Start the process, we'll take our rightful place as rulers, as the Council always should've been."

Thick white mists filled the room shrouding the two figures speaking.