Chapter 7 Slayer Escapes

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.

Sunday morning, at SHIELD's Washington HQ, while all the stuff in the previous two chapters is going on.

Slayer looked around her room. It was pleasant enough, with a television and a bunch of DVDs. She grabbed a few DVD containers and began leafing through them.

They had Krull. That was good. She liked that movie. Sinister watched it practically every week.

So far, she had not been interrogated or poked, prodded, or probed at all. She began wondering what they planned on doing with her. Just as she began to move to the intercom to ask, a nurse walked in.

"Hello," he said. "You would be Lyssa."

"Yes."

"I need to take some blood samples from your arm."

Lyssa "Slayer" Summers complied. "Is that enough? Or do you need to take my vital organs as well?" She made no attempt to conceal the fact that she resented being here. She wanted very much to go back to Sinister. That would wait, for now, but that didn't mean she couldn't make it clear just how much contempt she held these people in.

"I don't think that that will be necessary."

Suddenly the nurse gasped, croaked a little, and fell forward into Slayer. She deftly pushed his body to her side. She was face-to-face with a girl a little older than she, with adamantium claws extending out of her hands.

"I was sniffing around and I discovered they had another kid here. Come on. I won't let these butchers get you."

"And you would be?"

"Don't have a name, so to speak. Call me X23."

"Well, X23, could you help me with this collar they put on me? It's so cruel!"

X23 narrowed her eyes. "Later. Let's get you out of here first."

"It would be easier if I had access to my powers."

"I don't trust you. I hate them more, but I won't just unleash your powers until I know I can trust you. Comprehende?"

"Comprehende."

X23 nodded and the two set off into the hall. "By the way," interjected X23, "the nurse shouldn't be hurt too badly."

Monday morning:

In a deserted field near Bayville, a small transport vessel containing the Eye appeared and landed. Out stepped a humanoid pterodactyl.

"Okay, Essex. I am supposed to find the girlfriend and the baby."

"Correct."

"I will." Sauron swept up into the sky and then flew towards the Institute.

Wanda and Talia were downstairs in one of the basements of the Institute. Talia was playing dress-up, while Wanda watched on and laughed at her. She was literally growing up so fast. At least without Magneto around, Wanda was able to take off her necklace and not be afraid her powers would go out of control.

Professor Xavier had been trying to teach her telepathically, but she was already physically outgrowing her mental age. Assuming that her ability to learn would be affected by how developed she was, Wanda was terrified that she would become retarded if she continued to mature so rapidly. Moreover, she couldn't be revealed to the outside world because her rapid aging would cause questions to be asked, so she had little access to kids her own age.

Unfortunately, the upstairs was not guarded so well, especially against a flying intruder. Sauron had made it in, and had incapacitated Storm, the only X-Man to run into him. He quickly hypnotized her, and got her to tell him where Wanda and Talia were. He slowly made his way down to the basement where they were playing.

"Hello, Talia," said the evil pterodactyl-man when he saw her. "Come with me!"

Wanda looked up. "No!" she screamed, realizing that this must have been the guy who had confronted Kurt in the pyramid [A/N see "The Apocalypse Effect"]. "Go away!" Blue flames appeared on her hands.

Sauron stared at her and she went limp. "You too..." his telepathic powers quickly cowed Wanda into submission.

X23 had decided to take Slayer to the Institute, where she (X23) would try to get a few things for the other girl on the premise that she needed them for herself. She figured that if she could avoid Professor X, she could find a way to cajole some of the teens at the institute to provide her with food and whatever else she might need to hide out for awhile. She would have talked to Logan, but Slayer had informed her that he was not there.

In any case, they hopped a few trains and hitched a ride or two, and reached Bayville by Monday morning. During this time, X23 managed to swipe enough food to fuel Slayer's advanced metabolism. She also noticed that the second girl had seemed wounded at first, but had healed with amazing rapidity.

"You have a healing factor, too?" asked X23.

"I don't naturally, but I have been enhanced."

"What are your natural powers?" X23 realized that she hadn't asked, although she had known that Slayer was a mutant because non-mutant children do not get stuck in that section of SHIELD HQ.

"I can shoot green optic blasts."

"Can't one of the X-Men do that?"

"Yes, but red in his case. We're related."

"So you can't control yours either?" X23 motioned to the green glasses.

"No. Of course," she took the glasses off, "these are unnecessary when I have this necklace," she fingered the collar around her neck. "but they let me keep them in case the necklace's power goes out for a second. Wouldn't want my eyes to suddenly demolish a room, now, would we?"

It just so happens that Slayer and X23 reached the Institute just in time for X23 to notice a strange-looking creature hauling a teenage girl and some little blue child off of the grounds. She didn't know what was going on, but she knew that it must have been bad. With a snarl, she ran in the direction she had seen the creature going, with Slayer running behind her.

They came to a clearing where the strange dinosaur-like man was entering a weird-looking pyramid-shaped vessel.

Sauron led Wanda and Talia into the vessel. At its center, the Eye glowed menacingly.

"Soon," commented Sauron, "its power will be enough to operate these vessels remotely." For the time being, the Eye had to teleport with the vessels, making it somewhat more vulnerable to attack. Nonetheless, Sinister was less concerned with the Eye than was Apocalypse, as his plans did not absolutely require the Eye. It would speed up his enhancements, but he could duplicate its effect, he was certain. So he let Sauron use it to capture Talia and Wanda, who were vital to his plans.

Suddenly Wanda stirred. Her abilities had apparently made it more difficult for Sauron to control her, although he did not yet realize it. She noticed Sauron fiddling with the controls. She remembered vaguely being brought here and recognized the vessel as being the one that had been sighted over the pyramid in China and that had been described by Cain from in the pyramid. (Cain had gotten the best look at it.)

She used her powers to try to stop it from taking off, and then to stop it from teleporting. But she was failing, she could see that. All she could think of was Kurt, and that she loved him and wanted him to be there with her. They were in this nightmare together.

Talia was woken up by the strength of the power Wanda was emitting. Her telepathy had also given her a little bit of resistance to Sauron as well. Slowly her mind connected to Wanda's due to the overwhelming force Wanda was using to try and stop the pterodactyl-man from taking them. Then she felt it. Her mother's overwhelming desire that Kurt be here to... to help, to comfort, to hold her, anything.

Somehow, Wanda's powers managed to temporarily enhance Talia's telepathy so that she was able to link to her father.

Kurt was hearing the Red Skull drone on about the methodology of waging war, when he suddenly sat upright and screamed, "TALIA!"

Talia's telepathy should have been too weak to do this, but the combination of the power of the Eye, and of Wanda's powers, which were being used at full force, somehow allowed Talia to connect Wanda and Kurt's mind for a split second, as well as connecting her mind to two other people who were running at the vessel from the nearby woods.

At that split second, the vessel disappeared, teleporting back to Mexico. But Talia, and Wanda were thrown out of the vessel and reappeared in the room with Kurt in Castle Wulfcraft. And a spark of blue fire left as the vessel disappeared burst into a flame and consumed Slayer and X23, who were deposited in the snow outside the castle.

Wanda and Talia had been knocked unconscious.

"Well, well," cackled the Red Skull. So your girlfriend and her daughter have decided to join us? I don't know how they got here, but I know who they are. Valkyrie! Captain Axis!"

Wanda and Talia were soon collared and led away.

"Now, be good, and I'll let your filthy Gypsy girlfriend live. And maybe, just maybe, your daughter as well!" hissed the Red Skull at Kurt.

X23 and Slayer were lying unconscious in the snow. Dusk was setting in, and they would likely freeze, possibly to death if their healing powers were too slow.

An arctic wolf, snow-white, gazed at them, and then morphed into a stately pale woman, dressed all in white.

"Alpha Flight, come in Alpha Flight!" she called into the device on her right arm.

"Yes, Agent Thompson?"

"Two kids just appeared here... one of them with green shades, the other with..." she stared. X23's claws had been unsheathed. "One of them with Wolverine-like claws."

"Have you located the Red Skull?"

"Yes, he's in Castle Wulfcraft."

"Can you take the kids to safety?"

"I have just enough energy to do that."

"Then do so, and meet up with your United States counterparts in the Okenschaff Inn!"

"Agent Thompson signing out!"