"Come on, Markus. You're going to have to try harder than that." I pick myself up off of the ground and drop back down into a crouch, grimacing at the taste of blood. The man in front of me grins, his yellowed teeth flashing in the darkness of the room. He advances towards me, swinging the bladed staff towards me. I have to fling myself back in a backflip in order to avoid getting cut into little ribbons, and the man laughs. "Impressive, but not exactly what I'm looking for, Markus." I can't help but shiver at his tone, and the man leans forward until our faces are almost touching. I want to pull back, but know that I will be in danger of getting "accidentally" stabbed if I do. "I want you to… change." The man basically growls the last part, and my eyes widen.
I step backwards. "No." I hear two gasps from the opposite side of the room where the other twins, Pietro and Wanda, are. The man lean forwards again, his eyes glinting dangerously.
"You will do as I command you to," he says as he presses the tip of the staff's blade against my chest, "or she will pay for your insolence." The man motions to the side of the room, and my breath stutters. My sister. He's going to hurt my sister.
I snap. The HYDRA employee opens his mouth to say something before closing it sharply when I seemingly disappear. "Good," he whispers as he turns in a circle, trying to find me. I hover above him and wonder why on Earth does nobody ever look up? The man growls, and my body starts to coalesce once more. I remain hovering above him, standing atop a bit of smoke. The man comes to a sudden stop before finally looking up.
"Hey!" I smirk, waving down at him. He tries to grab onto my ankle, but I slide out of his reach. Floating on the smoke for me is what I guess skateboarding must be like for other people, except that I'm controlling the smoke with my mind. Each member of HYDRA's latest project has developed unique powers…. or at least the ones who have survived have. Mine is control over smoke.
My sister, Maia, has wings. Yes, as in actual wings. She's still trying to figure out how to fly without crashing, but she'll get there eventually. Wanda has the ability to control things with her mind and is capable of telepathy, while her twin, Pietro, has super-speed. I'm the only one who can keep up with Pietro when he's running, and that's only when I'm "skating," or floating on smoke. Therefore, we're being trained by HYDRA to act as brothers-in-arms, and Maia and Wanda are being trained to act as sisters-in-arms.
Sharp, intense pain explodes across my entire body and a thick stream of blood gushes out from a large wound on my ankle. My opponent grins up at me, a bloody dagger clutched in his hand. The smoke holding me up dissipates, and I fall to the floor of the stone castle with a silent cry. The man leans over me, the dagger in his right hand and the bladed staff in his left. One of the girls in the room screams, and I bring my hands up to try and protect myself from the fatal blow that I know is coming. The man grins again, skeletal-like, as he swings downwards with the weapons. I close my eyes and focus on breathing steadily. Breathe, Markus. Breathe. Maybe, if I calm down enough and am fast enough, I'll be able to change and get out of the path of the weapons before they kill me.
There is a sharp intake of air from above me and I snap my eyes open on instinct. The man is still standing above me, but as I watch, a thin trail of blood slips from the corner of his mouth. One of my arrows is protruding from his chest, and my mouth twists itself into a frown. I didn't shoot him, and none of the others are archers, too. The man gargles and falls to the side, revealing my savior.
Pietro Maximoff rakes long fingers back through his hair and looks down at me with ice blue eyes. He extends one of his hands out to me and helps me to my feet. My bad ankle gives out and I stumble with a barely audible gasp. Blood is practically gushing from it, and I quickly avert my eyes. I hate blood. The world swirls around me and I clamp my eyes tightly shut so I don't throw up everywhere. Everything feels weird, though, like I can't feel the ground under my feet. Oh, wait. Of course it feels weird. Someone's picked me up and is… carrying me? My eyes snap open and meet my brother-in-arms's gaze. Pietro shrugs and I feel him shift slightly. I take a deep breath, anticipating what I know will come next.
We're off like a shot, the stone hallways and corridors of the castle blurring around us as we race towards our cells. After an extraordinarily short period of time, Pietro comes to a stop in front of my cell. He kicks the cell door open with one foot before setting me down on my bed, and the not-quite-still-white sheets swiftly turn crimson. Pietro rummages around in the small dresser in the corner before finding what he's looking for and standing back up to face me. "Six inch strips, no shorter, no longer," he says as he tosses a roll of gauze to me. I manage to catch it, though the action sends brilliant sparks of pain bursting across my vision. Thankfully enough, I've always had a good feel for distances and am therefore able to follow through with my comrade's instructions without messing up, and the bed shifts as Pietro sits down next to me on it.
He peels back the form fitting leg of my grey pants, exposing my injured ankle. Of course, I choose that exact moment to look down, to see all the blood, and to promptly pass out.
My breath comes out in strangled gasps as I sit up with a start, my right ankle throbbing with pain. Another nightmare. Great. I get up off of the couch and take a tentative step forward. Stars burst across my vision, and I resort back to the method that hasn't failed me yet. It's over, Markus. It already happened. You escaped from HYDRA. You're back home with your sister, and everything's back to normal. Everything's alright. Your mind is playing tricks on you. Gradually, the pain fades and I walk over to the dresser that runs alongside one of the walls of the small room. The other walls are made of mirrors, reflecting images of me back towards me in a way that makes it appear as if I am being followed by ghosts of myself.
The door opens and Stane, one of the young ones, sticks his pale blond head through the doorway. "Markus? You're on." I run my hand backwards through my dyed hair and grab my handcuffs from the top of the dresser.
"Thanks, Stane," I say, and Stane exits the room. I follow in his footsteps, coiling my silver whip around my left forearm. We walk down a long hallway before making a sharp left turn into a much shorter hallway. This hallway ends abruptly and is intersected by a wide stage. My sister is hovering twenty feet in the air on a pair of brightly colored silks, her long wings flitting back and forth as she slowly turns. Maia sees me and grins, and the lights go black as I walk on stage. The music starts up and I feel everything slip away as I wrap my hands around the pole in the center of the stage.
My almost trance-like state is broken suddenly by harsh screams coming from the back of the nightclub. I snap my eyes open and jump down from my position on the pole, watching as all the patrons panic and attempt to run towards the exit doors. They are stopped, however, by the doors shattering into thousands of sharp slivers of metal and wood. A man stands in the midst of the decimated doors, illuminated from behind by the sun that is slowly sinking behind the emerald mountains. There's a long rifle in his right hand and his left glitters strangely in the light, almost as if it's somehow reflecting the sun.
The man surveys the room, his gaze shielded by a pair of dark goggles and his mouth covered by a black ninja-like mask. He sees me and my sister and walks towards us with the crowd parting anxiously before him. Even though everybody's stopped screaming, it almost seems worse because everybody's so quiet that I can hear the man's heavy footsteps as he comes towards us with his rifle raised. Run, I mouth to my sister, and she slides down her silks to the ground, pulls them down, and then runs for it. The man's head snaps around as she exits but to my relief he doesn't shoot. Instead he swings himself up onto the stage and faces me.