A/N: So this got… Dark. Huh. And not updated for a while. My bad. But yeah, this chapter is a little darker than I like writing, but I kind of needed to tear them down a good bit before we can do some Phoenix-style rising-from-the-ashes. My apologies if that's not what you're expecting. I've italicized the rather gross squicky torture part where it's more descriptive, so you can skip it of you want.

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Lance woke up confused, he didn't remember falling asleep...

And then of course there was the fact that he was lying on his back in some sort of cell. As he pushed himself into a sitting position he took in more of the room: he was sitting on the bottom bunk of a bed that probably mirrored the one across from it, there was a heavy looking door to his right and the most boring wall ever to his left.

The door opened to reveal a tall blonde woman in a black leather bodysuit that showed a rather impressive amount of cleavage.

"Avalanche. Welcome. I'm Regan Wyngarde" she smiled at him, "I apologize for the abruptness of your coming here, but it WAS necessary. The MRD was closing in and we couldn't risk your capture."

Lance raised an eyebrow, "this isn't a capture?" he enquired mildly.

She smiled, a bit too brightly and unsteadily to be of any comfort to him, "not at all my friend, not at all, you're being... Recruited, of a fashion."

"Recruited for what?" he asked.

"In the wake of the recent Mutant massacre," she explained, "my... Employer has need of people with a certain skill set, as it were, your skill set to be exact."

Lance was bewildered, "MY skill set? Lady, I'm a high school dropout. What possible skills could I have that you'd need?"

"We've done our research, Mr. Alvers, and it's you we need. You did excellent work for both Mr.

Lensherr and Ms. Darkholme, that's what brought you to our attention."

"So you need an enforcer. Sorry. Not happening." he made for the door before he paused, looking back, "I'm not a prisoner?"

She shook her head with a slow, predatory smile, "No. However, I implore you to reconsider, after all, if you leave, who'll look after Miss Grey?"

Lance froze, "You have Jean?" he confirmed.

She nooded, smirking, "Would you like to see her?"

He jumped at the chance and was led down a maze of hallways and up a short flight of stairs to an observation room, where Jean's red hair spread in a sort of firey halo across the gurney she appeared to be sleeping on. A blonde woman dressed all in white stood over the head of the bed, the fingertips of one hand touching her forehead.

"If I want to just take her and go?" he asked, already knowing the answer deep in his gut.

Regan frowned at him, "I'm afraid we can't let Miss Grey leave us. She's far too valuable to our employer."

"And if I want to leave without her?"

Regan smiled, leaning forward to press an intercom button, "Emma, darling," she spoke to the other blonde, "he's not cooperating."

She hadn't even finished speaking when Jean's brilliant green eyes flashed open and she started screaming, one long, uninterrupted, wordless scream as her body writhed on the table, spasming from the psychic attack.

"Stop!" Lance yelled, "Stop! Stop! I'll cooperate! I'll do whatever you want! Just stop hurting her! Please!"

Regan smiled, "I'd hoped you'd see reason."

"What are you doing to her?" he asked, brushing his fingers over the glass.

"Reeducating her." the blonde supplied, "she needs to be adjusted to suit our purposes. If you'll follow me."

He glanced over his shoulder frequently as he was led away, but Jean didn't scream again.

Regan led him down more hallways and up several more flights of stairs, to the end of a nicer hallway than the ones downstairs and a pair of mahogany double doors, which she knocked on and poked her head in, speaking softly with whoever was inside, before holding the door open and grinning crazily,

"The Doctor will see you now."

Nathanial Essex didn't LOOK like a scary man, he was on the shorter side, entirely too pale, and the jewel in his forehead was just weird; but over the last three months Lance had learned that the exact opposite could be true: the man known as Mr. Sinister was a terrifying man indeed.

Lance didn't have a clue why he was sent on his first few missions with the Marauders; only that he was sent to incapacitate and retrieve several different mutants: a young man who could manipulate electricity named Bradley; a blonde girl who could change her skin to different materials; a pretty, petite Asian girl who could possess people. At first he was under the impression that they were more people for Essex to recruit for his future plans (which, as far as Lance could figure, were the usual "mutant superiority/take over the world variety"), but he began to suspect other ends when he never saw any of them again. So when he'd been sent to fetch a younger girl, maybe thirteen, with fluttery bug-like wings, named Pixie, he followed Regan and Emma after he turned her over to them.

They placed the girl on a gurney, strapped her wrists and ankles down and wheeled her further downstairs, to a surgical theatre much like the one he'd seen Jean in, where Essex was waiting.

The man waited for the two women to leave before he unclasped Pixie's wrists, turned her face down and restrapped her. He cut her shirt down the back using medical scissors and examined the juncture of her wings to her back intently, feeling around first with his fingers before picking up a scalpel and cutting in just to one side of her wings. Pixie first made a soft, pained noise, which quickly escalated to a shriek of pain when she realized what was going on. Lance found himself unable to look away, watching blood well from the cut with a sick sort of fascination.

He eventually made his way back to his assigned room, but only after Sinister had carefully, methodically, cut away the skin around the wings and revealed their fusion to Pixie's spine. He had forced himself to watch (it was his fault she was there at all and he WOULD watch every second of it) as Sinister produced a pair of heavy-duty wire cutters and he fought back the urge to bring down the entire complex (Jean, think of Jeannie) as Sinister severed the spinal cord above and below the wings, removing them entirely. Pixie's screams, which had persisted during the entire, horrific surgery, cut off abruptly, as she choked wetly for a moment before the room was silent but for the slow, steady drip of her blood onto the tile floor.

Lance had sprinted back to his room before standing, panting with his back pressed to the door for several moments. His breathing slowed to a more normal rhythm momentarily, until his brain replayed for him the wet, slurping noises of flesh being cut from bone and he had to sprit for his bathroom to vomit.

Now he was sitting on his bathroom floor, back pressed to the wall, sobbing and choking, and trying not to puke again.

Finally he took a deep breath, stuffed down his emotions and stood, washing his mouth and face, he looked at himself in the mirror, at dead brown eyes that would never un-see this tragic day, and forced himself to think of Jean, "I swear to you Jeannie, I promise I will get us out of here if it's the last thing I do."