Chapter 8 Pietro and Slayer
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Marvel, except for my original characters, of course. But if Marvel wants to use them, they can. Feel free to post this, or any other Glaivester fic, anywhere, but please notify me so I can brag about it.
A/N: The reason I have been able to post a chapter or so every day was because I waited to post the story until I had most of it written out. I would have posted it all at once, as I did with the previous stories, but I discovered that doing so means that your story is not on the first two pages for more than a day, if at all. So I've posted a chapter a day for about a week. The point is, after the next chapter (the last one for this story), I may take a week or more to post the next story in the series. This story, you should realize, is like part one of a two-parter. So don't expect everything to be resolved at the end.
King-Cold: Juggernaut only impregnated Ms. Dexter in late August/early September. Sinister has not yet been able to speed up the maturation of the fetus, so the baby is still waiting to be born].
Witch-Uk: Thank you for reviewing. I hope you get to update soon, as well.
Pietro Maximoff had followed Kurt to Larson's woods once he realized that he recognized the spot to which Kurt was heading. He managed to evade capture and kept following the large blonde woman who was carrying Kurt.
He was surprised to be alive, to tell the truth. When Sinister had originally captured him in the Himalayas, he had thought that he would be killed for sure. Apparently Sinister had planned to do a more thorough interrogation later to see if he could find out anything useful, and when the X-Men had attacked, he had simply been left behind by Sinister. But he wasn't one to question good fortune.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone, Sinister had managed to discover the location of the Red Skull via the internet. He had looked for chat rooms with the name "Zimalover" in them, remembering that to be the screen handle of one of his contacts, a Baron Zemo, the son of the infamous Nazi Baron Zemo. He had discovered that there were a bunch of conversations between him and a "99 Luftballoons," and had concluded the man in question to be none other than the Red Skull. So he had sent Slayer to track him down and to see what he was up to.
A twelve-year-old girl (ten really, but she looked twelve) who had landed near to the Red Skull's hideout, a cave that had been converted into a laboratory/living space by the Skull's allies long ago, and which had been updated occasionally. She saw the German Amazon walk into an entrance carrying Kurt and began debating with herself what to do.
She finally decided that she ought to do is to find a way in and then to see if she could capture Kurt herself. Kurt would be almost as good to capture as Talia. Sinister could always hold him for ransom or try to breed him with other mutants to create stranger and more powerful mutations.
Pietro for his part scooted in as the door began to close after Valkyrie.
She was fast, but not as fast as he was, and he managed to run down the hallway and get hidden in a corner at the near end of a large laboratory-like room before anyone could see him.
Hiding in a corner, he overheard the Red Skull talking to a man in Chinese. He had no idea what they were talking about. Kurt had been taken to another room, and Pietro wasn't certain that he could move around the room easily without being noticed. So he let Kurt be taken out of his line-of-sight.
Meanwhile, Slayer began to pick at the door lock, which was, strangely enough, entirely mechanical. No computers to fool with, she'd just pick the lock with some paperclips she had with her.
Pietro noticed that Mystique was rather groggy. He began considering his options for freeing her, and decided right then and there to wait for the rest of the X-Men to pick up on the homing device he had taken.
"So, any more surprises?" asked Mystique to the Red Skull. "So far, your allies are Upload, Valkyrie, Exchange, and your man in China, Pocket. Three allies here, one abroad. Anyone else I should know about?"
"Would I tell you if there were?" Suddenly the Red Skull looked at her almost fondly. "You know, you are very attractive. It doesn't have to be like this, with the cages. If, if you trusted me more, I could..."
"No. Don't ever touch me again."
"That may not be an option. Not if we are to produce the fine specimens that I know you to be capable of producing. Kurt needs more full brothers and sisters."
"I will kill you first. Or myself. Or I will find some way to insure that I can never have children again."
"Like you did to your son?"
"What?" Mystique was shocked.
"Your son. Your other son. I know about how you abused Graydon. Made him feel worthless and then injected him with a disease so he would not pollute the gene pool with his inferior genes. Much like I would have done had I had a child with a woman I found out to be a Jew."
Mystique winced. She had always thought herself better than this war criminal. I mean, at least her hatred had reason, right? Wild-types hated mutants passionately. And unless taught their place, they would oppress them. It was kill or be killed. Her actions were much more in tune with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising than with Kristalnacht. And yet, the uprisers had not tried to wipe out large numbers of German civilians or to abuse German kids. They had merely defended themselves against those who would destroy them. Was she as much of a monster as the man sitting across the room from her?
"It's a pity, really. Sabertooth is not entirely a pureblooded Norseman, but his other genes come form similar nearly-supreme races. Graydon Creed would have made a fine addition to my followers, had his hatred not been erroneously directed against those with superior genes instead of against inferior races. Maybe he can be salvaged."
Suddenly an alarm sounded.
"Der teufel! [A/N "The devil!" Any of you read Tintin? It's Dr. Muller's favorite curse in the three stories in which he appears]" said the Red Skull. "Someone is trying to pick the lock outside."
Slayer had given up all hope of the stealth approach and simply blasted the door with her eyes. She walked into the corridor.
The Red Skull had, fortunately, been prepared for just such a contingency. He had so far revealed three mutant henchman/allies working inside the base, Upload, Valkyrie, and Exchange, in addition to his mutant friends abroad, of whom only one, Pocket, was known. But he had one last card to play.
A large, blond man walked out of a side room. He had on a uniform like Captain America's but all red, with large circles of white on the chest, with swastikas in them.
"I have perfected the secret to Project Rebirth!" he cackled. "I can now create superhuman soldiers who do not age, nor do they suffer the same cellular breakdown as my nemesis! Meet Hauptmann Deutschland!"
"Captain Germany? But Germany long ago rejected you!" screamed Mystique.
"When they realized what I offer, they will come begging for the Fourth Reich to begin! Or else they will die!"
Slayer stepped into the laboratory, and aimed at the Red Skull.
Hauptmann Deutschland jumped in front of the Red Skull and took the shot. It knocked him back a little, but he was mostly unhurt.
"Did I mention that I have improved on the original formula? This one is impervious to bullets, and to your laser blasts! And he has an adamantium shield to deal with everything else!" Indeed, the shield had the swastika motif, in some sort of twisted attempt to adapt the Captain America motif to the Nazi flag.
"Very original!" spat out Mystique. "You can only ape your enemies, Johann?"
The Red Skull laughed, and he looked at Upload. "Transfer all data to the beta site computer. Now. Then meet me in Kurt's room!"
Valkyrie rushed in and grabbed the cage with Dr. Chamberlain, dragging it into the far hallway (opposite the hallway leading outside to the entrance).
"You don't seem confident that you'll defeat me," said Slayer to Hauptmann Deutschland. "You are retreating."
Hauptmann Deutschland just smiled at her. She took off her goggles and opened her eyes on him. The full concussive force of the blasts threw him back into the computers, which began to smoke.
"Damn!" hollered Upload. He looked at the screen "Transfer 60% complete." He had to make certain that Slayer didn't destroy the computers before everything was uploaded. He took out a gun from his belt and shot at her.
Slayer's right shoulder burst in a spurt of blood. The next shot was aimed at her heart. Then suddenly, Upload didn't have his gun anymore.
Quick as a wink, Hauptmann Deutschland reached out and caught Pietro by the leg. "Dirty Gypsy!"
"Transfer 80% complete," displayed the screen. Pietro, thinking quickly, put the gun to the man's eye and pulled the trigger.
Bulletproof the man may have been under normal conditions, but that would not save him from a point-blank range shot to the eye. Hauptmann Deutschland grabbed his left eye and doubled over in pain. "Transfer 90% complete."
Pietro raced over to the computer, only to be thrown back by Valkyrie. "No, you don't."
Slayer got up and was about to fire when Deutschland got up and oushed his shield in front of her face. She opened her eyes all the way, but optic blasts do not hurt adamantium, although it was rapidly pushed away from her.
"Transfer 100% complete."
"Come on!" shouted the Red Skull's voice. "We're off to get Zemo! Get Mystique if you can!"
Hauptmann Deutschland jogged to Mystique's cage, but Pietro got their first. He had taken the keys off of Upload's belt, and after dodging Valkyrie for a few seconds, managed to reach the cage and unlock it. He grabbed away Deutschland's shield, allowing Slayer to pummel him with green optic blasts.
"Leave her! We'll get her back later!" hollered the Skull's voice.
Valkyrie, Upload, and Hauptmann Deutschland ran into the far hallway and joined the Red Skull, Dr. Chamberlain, Kurt Wagner, and Exchange. Pietro made it to the door just in time to see them all touch Kurt's body and to teleport away.
He heard a large helicopter take off. Then he realized that the cave was set to self-destruct. He ran to the main lab, grabbing Slayer and transporting her outside, and then going back in to similarly rescue Mystique.
Just then the X-Heli came into view. A large, four-rotor helicopter rose out of the nearby woods. It had Nazi markings on it. A tremendous laser blast hit the X-Heli, and caused it to crash land.
Pietro was going to get Slayer to blast the helicopter, but she was unconscious, the bullet to the shoulder finally getting to her. The helicopter itself rose higher and higher, and displaying unnatural speed, disappeared into the distance. How it could move so fast was anyone's guess. Just then, the woods near the entrance to the secret base exploded, destroying the entire underground structure.
Pietro quickly picked Slayer up, ran to the X-Men, who had gotten ourt of the X-Heli unharmed, and then ran back to retrieve Mystique.
"We gotta find them!" hollered Pietro. "They have Kurt!"
"No." Professor X suddenly looked very pained. "We cannot right now. We need a plan. The Red Skull has too many allies, and with Apocalypse on the loose and Sinister after Talia, we can't just run off to find him. We have to figure out a way to stop all of them."
"We will go and find him ourselves," said Magneto, with Wolverine nodding in ascent. Magneto lifted them both off of the ground. "We will report back later." They left in the direction of the Red Skull's helicopter.
"I can help with Sinister," stated Pietro, pointing at Slayer. "She was there. She helped to rescue Mystique and nearly rescued Kurt. Maybe she can tell us where Sinister is."
"Not willingly," said Mystique. "She is still loyal to Sinister, and probably wanted to rescue Kurt for his sake. I... I have to agree with Xavier. We need to come up with a plan. The Red Skull won't hurt Kurt. He is his son."
So they went back to the mansion have Thanksgiving Dinner, and to plot their vengeance.