Author's Note: This is it, the chapter you've all been waiting for. The chapter where you find out what happened to Pietro. To find out just read on... "I hate to say I told you so," Viper grinned smugly. "But your face is just priceless."
Warren barely heard Viper's gloating as he stared in open-mouthed horror at what he saw before him. Inside the chamber was a person - frozen in stasis - a person who he had seen mere minutes ago. Pietro Maximoff stared at a point on the opposite wall with unseeing eyes, his mouth open in a silent scream. He was clad in the ragged remains of a suit that was covered in dried blood, as was his face. Warren shook his head slowly, trying desperately to come to terms with what he was seeing. It was impossible, utterly impossible, that Pietro could be here and also outside.
"I guess you are wondering what exactly is going on here." Viper said in response to his unasked question. "So let me fill you in. For five years we have been working to make the ultimate breakthrough in genetic science. The scientist in Britain managed to clone Dolly the sheep, but we went one step further. It took a lot of work and a lot of failure, but eventually we managed to perfect human cloning!"
"No," Warren said shaking his head in disbelief. "That can't be, I mean it couldn't be…"
"Then how do you explain the presence of Pietro in here and outside? This is the original Pietro, who your good friend Wolverine delivered to us after the destruction of Genoa, and the person who you saw outside is a clone. Barring a few physical enhancements, the Pietro outside is an identical copy of the person in here."
"Why Pietro?" Warren said in a much calmer voice, though his mind was still reeling from the implications of the revelation he had just heard.
"In the last year, as our research has been coming to fruition, Pietro Maximoff has become a figurehead of international justice. I thought it would be deliciously ironic that Pietro in now our agent of anarchy and terrorism, and it is through him that the end of the world will come about.
"You've referred to your plan to destroy the world several times now, but you haven't been very specific. Care to share any details now?"
"Ah yes, this is the point where I, as the villain, tell you my master plan secure in the knowledge that you are about to die and you then somehow manage to cheat death and stop my plan. Well I'm afraid that this time it's not quite going to play out like that. You're just going to have to wait to find out my plan, sorry to disappoint you."
Lance was led to the cells by the guard that had captured him in the corridor and another one who joined them. They had descended two levels when a figure approached them, coming from the opposite direction, and Lance stopped instantly when he saw who it was - Pietro. Pietro stopped at the same time as Lance did, and studied Lance with a rather confused air.
"Do I know you?" Pietro said challengingly. Lance struggled for the right words but they refused to come - he was just such a tangle of emotions, seeing his friend again after so long and Pietro being so changed. "Well!" Pietro demanded this time angry.
"It's me Pietro… Lance," he added when Pietro seemed not to recognised him. Upon hearing his name, Pietro frowned in concentration as if he was trying desperately to remember Lance but just couldn't do it. Abruptly, Pietro turned on his heel and strode off, leaving Lance and the guards standing in the corridor, rather bemused.
"All right, let's get a move on," one of the guards said, prodding Lance hard in the back with his pistol.
Pietro made his way swiftly to the labs, where he knew Viper was currently, with Warren in attendance. Pietro didn't know what was so important about the labs, Viper had expressly forbade him from entering them and he'd never been bothered to force his way in - he'd been too busy training. But now he needed to talk to Viper urgently - that run in with the person who had claimed to be called Lance had shaken him. He could have sworn he recognised the man from somewhere, yet when he tried to think back a long way everything got particularly hazy. He had distant memories of a dark, steel room, but before that there were only very patchy memories that he could barely remember.
As he approached the entrance to the laboratories, Pietro noticed the guards stationed in the corridor murmuring into their communicators, doubtlessly informing the guards at the lab of his approach. This only heightened Pietro's suspicions - was Viper trying to hide something from him and if so, what was it? He approached the armoured lab doors, which had been left open behind Viper, although half a dozen armed and armoured elite Hydra soldiers stood guard in front of them.
The leader of the guards, a second lieutenant Pietro noticed by the insignia on his sleeve, stepped forward and cleared his throat nervously. Everyone in Hydra had seen what Pietro could do and the lieutenant was unsurprisingly nervous about accosting the new agent. "I'm sorry, but you are not authorised to proceed any further." Pietro could detect a tremor of fear in the man's voice.
"On whose authority?" Pietro snapped. He wasn't used to being denied anything by any members of Hydra. Not ones who intended to live for a long time, anyway.
"The director's," the man said, shifting his sub-machine gun around so that it hung just by his hand. Not particularly subtle, but then not many of Hydra's tactics were. Pietro grinned hungrily, almost daring the guard to make a wrong move and give him an excuse to get violent. He hadn't had any fun since the hospital in Murmansk.
"Move," Pietro growled, and the lieutenant took a step back involuntarily before he remembered that he had the advantage of numbers and drew himself up to his full height. "Move!" Pietro said louder, suddenly filled with rage. How dare this man disobey his commands? The lieutenant slowly turned around to glance at his men, then went for his gun. Pietro had moved before his hands had even touched the gun, his left hand striking out and ripping through the lieutenant's throat, tearing muscle and sinew apart in one fluid move. The other five guards grabbed their guns and opened fire, but Pietro was no longer standing where he had been a second ago. He leapt into the air and landed behind two of the guards, who he pushed forwards into the line of fire of their comrades. Pietro let out a harsh laugh as they were cut down by their friends.
One of the last two guards dropped his gun and pulled out a six inch knife, slashing wildly at Pietro. Pietro caught the blade in his hand and wrenched it from the man's grasp before turning it on its wielder, ignoring the blood the soaked his sleeve.
The last man dropped his gun and tried to flee, only to have Pietro grab him from behind and wrenched his head sideways with such power that the man's spine cracked and Pietro dropped the limp corpse. The scent of blood now filling his brain, Pietro pushed on into the lab, searching angrily for Viper. She would provide him with answers, or she would go the way of her soldiers.
Viper and Warren turned their heads suddenly as they heard the sound of gunfire. Warren glanced at Viper and saw her frowning in anger and smiled slightly. Already something was going wrong for her. Viper pulled out her communicator and spoke hurriedly into it before snapping it shut in anger. She directed her two guards to leave the lab and they hurried off, but several seconds later there were several muted screams, and then silence.
"So, what's happening?" Warren said calmly. Viper shot him a venomous look but responded anyway.
"There seems to be a slight… difficulty, but don't worry we have everything under control."
The clone Pietro suddenly burst into view, preceded by the dismembered corpse of one of the guards. He pointed at Viper, "We need to have a talk!" he said talking in a horse voice full of rage. He stopped suddenly when he noticed the real Pietro and stood open mouthed, his brain shuddering to a halt. What was going on? Why was there someone who looked exactly like him frozen in stasis? And why did he recognise this room so well?
Viper looked at Pietro who seemed to be tearing himself apart trying to sort out what was going on, and Warren saw wipe her brow surreptitiously. Warren suddenly had the feeling that this situation was about to get a lot worse very quickly.
Viper stared at Pietro and cursed violently in every language she knew. The one thing above all else that she had wanted to avoid was Pietro discovering what was in the laboratories. It could undo everything she had worked hard to build up, everything she had taught Pietro about his past so that he could pass off as a perfect copy of the real thing. And judging from his expression, all of those things were unravelling as she watched. She slowly moved her hand down to her communicator and pressed the button she'd hoped she would never have to use, and armed her last resort security system. If Pietro tried anything stupid she'd have no choice but to kill him, despite how much of a setback that would be.
Author's Note: Thank you so much for your reviews deamonrogue 13 and karakin I'm really glad you're still reviewing my story.