Darius was doing his best to meditate away some of the stress from the past twenty-four hours. He had been on vacation with his sister and his essentially adoptive father for the last two weeks and naturally it had been a shit show right up until the previous night. They were now at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters waiting to be debriefed by his superiors. Darius sighed and felt his brow furrow in frustration when he heard the door to the briefing room open.
"What did you manage this time, Creed?" He heard Natasha Romanoff say as she approached.
"Dude… I don't even know where to begin…" He told her sighing as he opened his eyes, surprised to find her sitting on the floor with him.
"Sound's right to me!" She told him with a chuckle.
He nodded his head softly and rolled his neck a few times to alleviate it going stiff. Cracking his knuckles carefully before laying his palms face down on his knees.
"Who were those people in the woods?" He asked her, receiving a shake of the head.
"After you tell me what you were doing, I can explain that!" Natasha countered firmly.
"How far back do I need to go?" He questioned in return.
"When anyone initially noticed that something wasn't right!" She told him to which he nodded carefully.
"Well, a week ago, B woke up in the night having sleep paralysis…" He began thinking back to the night one week prior.
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Darius woke to the sound of strangled sobs coming from the other side of the tent. It was about four in the morning, and he wasn't one hundred percent awake yet. He peaked over to see Blake wide eyed and looking terrified, but still lying on her back.
"Are you ok?" He asked her as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
She darted her eyes back and forth after a moment, sobbing softly, and it clicked for him what was going on with her.
"Ah… Got it!" He thought to himself before shaking his head softly.
"Can you move anything yet?" He asked her before sitting up fully and crawling over to her side.
She darted her eyes back and forth again as if she were shaking her head. It was actually a really thorough way of communicating with him.
"Ok, deep breaths… it's ok… now start wiggling your toes!" Darius told her making her eyes go even wider.
This must have been her first time dealing with this if she wasn't sure how to pull herself out of it. He remembered the first time he experienced sleep paralysis; he had been asleep on the couch at his grandparents' house. When he woke up, he couldn't move anything but his eyes. He swore he saw a shadow of a person in the corner by the recliner across the room. He was half convinced he was dying for what felt like an eternity before he was able to wiggle his big toe.
He confided in Luke Chamberlain, the man who had been his father for his entire early life, and they sought out a cause of the episode. Turns out its incredibly common for tweens and teens to experience sleep paralysis, especially when waking on their backs.
Luke and Antoinette helped him develop a method of waking his body, after his mind was already stirring so that he could stay calm through the moment till he could move again.
"No, you can… Trust me!" He told her grabbing her hand and squeezing it.
He watched her face well up in concentration, and after a moment saw her toes begin to move just slightly back and forth. A few relieved tears fell down her face and he nodded back.
"First time?" He asked her, receiving a jerked nod in response.
She stuttered through a verbal reply as he helped her sit up.
When it seemed like she had a handle on the situation he began to crawl back to his bed.
"Yeah, you get used to it after a while!" He stated simply before yawning and lying back down to rest.
When he woke up the next morning, Blake was already outside of the tent and dressed, judging from the PJ's she had left behind on her bed.
Logan was at the fire making breakfast in a cast iron skillet that Darius guessed had came from the cabin, B was drinking tea and staring off into the distance.
Darius stretched and yawned loudly before approaching the other two.
"Glad you slept better than your sister…" Logan told him casually.
At that moment he realized Blake was staring extra hard into her mug of tea and she still looked very tired.
"You ok B?" He asked her with a look of concern.
"No… No, I'm not ok!" She told the other teen sharply, "I saw someone outside our tent last night Darius!" She added rolling her eyes.
"You were probably hallucinating…" he told her shaking his head before making himself a mug of tea.
He hadn't realized that she was unaware that it causes hallucinations sometimes.
"Why would she be hallucinating?" Logan asked as he offered his daughter a tin plate of bacon and eggs before handing one to the elder teen.
His tone was sharp, but Darius knew he was just concerned, which was fair, since they both got protective of her sometimes.
"Sleep Paralysis!" Darius explained to Logan after a taking a bite of his bacon.
"You've never told me you have sleep paralysis Kid!" Logan mentioned to Blake who shook her head firmly.
"Last night was the first time, but I know what I saw, and it was NOT a hallucination!" She told both her brother and father with a defensive tone of voice.
Logan looked over at Darius who wasn't sure how to proceed. He had never been the parent in this situation either after all.
A week went by with the family hiking through the woods, Darius and Blake fishing and swimming, and doing their version of quality time. One evening while Logan and Blake were sat by the fire, Darius stood and announced that he was going to go collect some wood. It hadn't been a bad week, but tonight things were weirdly tense, and he needed to collect his thoughts a bit.
He hadn't mentioned to B or Logan yet but earlier that day he thought he had seen someone walking through the woods. The person was trekking in a way that made it look as though they didn't want to be followed. They were red in color, clearly a mutant, and wearing dark clothing. They didn't match the description B had given him, but it was weird to think that they had both seen someone in the middle of nowhere.
Darius was staring off into space thinking about the strange occurrences of the last two weeks when the sound of a woman screaming cut through the woods. He looked up in the direction of the sound and peered onward, hoping to catch a glimpse of something through the trees. Moments later the sound of six gunshots came from the same direction making him jump slightly.
He darted forward, after he got his bearings again, looking for signs of trouble as he ran. He stopped by a tree and splayed his nails before sharpening one side on a tree. Six more shots went off before he saw two figures in the trees ahead. One was rapidly appearing and disappearing but not like he had ever seen before.
A few seconds went by before he heard footsteps behind him, a moment later he heard Logan speak.
"You heard it too then!" Logan stated as they both approached Darius.
"It was close enough I could see running in the trees up ahead…" Darius responded receiving a nod from Blake before Logan spoke again.
"Any signs that they're like us…" Logan questioned the other gruffly.
"Hard to say… but one of them was like appearing and then disappearing…" Darius told him making Logan look over.
"Teleporter?" Logan asked to which Darius shook his head.
"No… not exactly…" He told the man, seeing his sister nod out of the corner of his eye.
"Like a mix between super speed and teleporting?" She questioned with him nodding silently, "There's probably two of them here then…" She added with Logan stating simple agreement.
Darius began to question her reasoning but changed his mind after a moment. He had better just ask her later. The three of them continued to scan the tree line for a moment before he noticed B pointing forward from where they stood.
He and Logan proceeded to follow behind her for a few minutes until they broke the tree line. The scene before them was horrendous, bodies of men, women, and several children lay bloodied on the ground. Several of them had taken shots to the head and face. The youngest couldn't have been more than three years old.
Darius went pale and swayed at the sight before him. To his right, he could hear Logan taking his feelings about the situation out on the foliage. Somewhere to his left Blake was busy tossing her dinner back up.
"I need to call in S.H.I.E.L.D." Darius began to say before the three heard a chuckle behind them.
They all turned sharply and saw a woman with dark steely blue hair and a sharp steel colored eye. She was surrounded by four mutants in red light uniforms. One had a teen-age girl in a tight grip, the girl was sobbing silently behind the gag they had placed on her, tears pouring from her eyes.
"Do you now?" the Red Light woman called to him with a laugh.
Darius sharply bared his nails as he gestured around them and called back to her.
"Why would you do this… for god's sake, children… Innocents!" Darius called to her gesturing to the bodies of the three dead young ones, "What cause does this possibly help!" He shouted, seeing the woman chuckle again.
"We are the Red Light on Humanity; we will pave the road for mutant superiority in the blood of all the transgressors who stand in our way… mutant and human alike!" She called before raising her hand palm up and snapping her fingers.
Palm filling with fire she cackled as she threw the flame hard onto the teen. The girl screamed loudly through her gag and fell to the ground, writhing in the dirt through the flames.
The woman smirked again before gesturing quickly for her associates to deal with the three family members.
Darius heard Logan shout as he pounced at the Red Light mutant who charged toward him. He swiped at the eyes of the one who had charged him, thoroughly blinding him, before tossing him to the ground. He turned and saw that Logan had stabbed one in the stomach and Blake slashed at another's throat. When Darius turned again, he saw the last two Red Lights disappearing through some kind of portal.
Darius ran to the girl, as she was still trying to put out the flames, he did his best to help her snuff out the fire himself.
"It's ok… You'll be ok!" Darius told her as the last of the flames were squashed.
"Go call Fury!" Blake told him as she ran over to check the girl, "I'll stay with her!" She added as Darius pulled his phone from his pocket and stepped away.
When he was a decent distance away from the girl, he dialed a number and tapped his fingers in a repetitive motion as he waited for someone to pick up.
"Captain Rogers… I don't even know how to explain but we are gonna need a medic airlift from my location and whatever authorities would handle something like this…" He began to explain the best he could to his supervisor.
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When he finished, he looked up at Natasha who looked surprisingly sympathetic. He sighed heavily and looked away for a minute, before turning back, shaking his head.
"Is the girl… did she…" Darius began not sure how to even ask the question.
"You did the best you could Darius… but no, they lost her on the life flight and weren't able to get her stable again…" Natasha told him, he slammed his fist on the ground in response.
"Why did they go after them… was it random?" Darius asked the older agent who shook her head.
"They were members of an anti-government, anti-mutant, anti-gay, and anti-military church…" Natasha elaborated to which he nodded calmly.
"Phillips, right?" He asked in return, to which she nodded back.
"Yeah, the girl was his granddaughter, and the rest were family members on a church retreat!" She explained, "He wasn't there though…" She continued after a moment.
"Is it bad that all I can think is 'Never go on vacation again…' or what…" He asked her to which she smirked.
"You have to go again… how else would we find the next disaster!" She told him with a chuckle and a soft tussle to the shoulder.
"Gee… thanks Romanoff!" He told her as she stood and nodded before exiting the room.
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So that was the whole situation from Darius's perspective… hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see you next week!
-Lonelybelovid