"What the hell is… that?" Pietro said, his voice twisted with horrified fascination. Viper watched his face carefully, trying to gauge what was going through his mind. Pietro's face had changed rapidly - originally he had looked as though he would tear himself apart from the inner struggle he was going through, but now his face was devoid of any emotion, only his eyes, which burned with rage, showed what he was feeling now.
"Pietro," Viper said in her most meek and pacifying voice. "How did you get in here?" Despite her wheedling tone, Warren could detect a steely note that indicated her displeasure at Pietro's unannounced entry.
"Stop trying to distract me!" Pietro shouted angrily at her. "Tell me what that… thing is!" Viper and Warren both took a step back at Pietro's angry outburst and Viper considered activating her security system, only the realisation of how much research and money would be lost if she did stopped her.
"Pietro," Viper took a deep breath before pressing on, "you are a clone." For a moment there was a stunned silence before Pietro let out a high-pitched laugh.
"So if you cloned me, why is my clone inside that tank?" Pietro said after he had recovered from his fit of laughter. Viper's eyes widened perceptibly and Warren frowned. The Pietro clone didn't seem to be taking the news so well.
"No Pietro, you are the clone. That person in the tank is the original Pietro…"
"No!" The Pietro clone shouted. "That's ridiculous. I'm Pietro Maximoff, not a clone!" he practically screamed. "Stop lying to me!" The Pietro clone advanced towards Viper whose hand dropped to her security device.
"Pietro, don't come any closer!" she warned but the clone ignored her, instead stepping closer to her and raising his left hand, his eyes shining with madness. Viper took a step back in fear, before pressing down the button on her security device for a second time. All of a sudden, a security door slammed down from the ceiling, sealing off the part of the lab that Viper was in from the part that Pietro was in. Warren looked at Viper in surprise and she let out a long sigh of relief.
"What just happened?" he asked.
"I've just sealed Pietro off in the exterior part of the lab with some of our earlier creations. Unfortunately, he doesn't stand a chance." Viper picked up a nearby test tube rack and hurled it against the opposite wall. "I knew that we couldn't let Pietro get in here. Dammnit, that's years of research and money wasted! If I get my hands on whoever let him in there I am going to kill them!"
Pietro knew he was in trouble as soon as the emergency wall slammed down between him and Viper, and even in his current mental state he was able to realise this. He heard several doors slide open with a hiss of pressurised gas and he looked about him, but he couldn't see where those doors were. Quickly he stripped the dead soldier at his feet of all his weapons and listened intently, trying to locate where the people that had opened the doors were.
Pietro suddenly heard the sound of someone knocking into a bench and the sound of glass test tubes shattering on the floor. Pietro whirled around to the source of the noise and opened fire, spraying the area with bullets from his machine gun. After several seconds Pietro stopped firing and watched as a figure staggered forwards. The person was slightly taller than Pietro, with blue eyes, very short dark hair and his grey coveralls were covered in a yellow, pussy looking liquid.
Anger welling up inside him, Pietro raised his pistol and fired six shots into the man's head in rapid succession. The man staggered as the bullets tore into his face, but he barely even faltered. Pietro's mouth twisted into a sneer and he picked up his machine gun and fired off an entire round into the man's torso. Entire chunks of his flesh were blown away, but the man didn't stop shambling forwards.
"What the hell are you!" Pietro swore, running forwards with the soldier's knife in his hand. He slashed down at the man's throat, tearing away another chunk of flesh. Where blood should have poured out of the man's slashed throat, a strange yellowy pus like liquid dripped down the man's coveralls. Before Pietro could react the man slammed his fist into Pietro's chest and Pietro was flung backwards into the wall, all the breath driven from his body. Despite the man's shambolic movements there was a hell of a lot of power behind his strikes.
As Pietro pulled himself to his feet, he noticed another man watching him. This man was about the same height as he was and had a plain, nondescript face. He wore a suit just like Pietro, but unlike Pietro's his suit was old and tatty looking. Pietro went for his machine gun and raised it to fire at the man, but before he could pull the trigger the man had vanished.
Pietro looked about in astonishment, wondering how anything could move faster than he could see with his enhanced vision, and at that point the man hit Pietro in the chest with a wickedly hooked and barbed knife. Pietro roared in anger and lashed out at the man, this time connecting with a punch that would have shattered a breeze block. The man took the punch as if it was nothing more than a slight tap before wrenching the knife out of Pietro in a welter of blood.
As he staggered back, clutching at his wound Pietro knew that he was in a lot more trouble than he had thought. Regaining his footing Pietro suddenly noticed something on the back of the man with the knife's neck - a small black box with a glowing red light in its centre. The man surged forwards and Pietro neatly ducked his knife lunge and while the man's guard was down Pietro reached behind him and crushed the box with his right hand. Instantly the man dropped the knife and looked about him, as if he had no idea where he was. Pietro slammed his fist into the man's chest and heard a satisfyingly wet crunching sound as the man's ribs collapsed in on themselves puncturing his heart and lungs. The man collapsed with a scream and Pietro turned to face his other assailant, who hadn't done much except for shambling forwards slightly, the pus like fluid still dripping down his coveralls.
Pietro picked up the only weapon he hadn't yet used and looked at it thoughtfully. There must be someway he could use the grenade to take out this seemingly invulnerable guy, and he thought he had a plan. Pietro launched himself forwards and drove his fist into the man's stomach, tearing a hole in his flesh. Ducking a slow flail of the man's arm, he pulled the pin out of his grenade, thrust it into the hole he'd made and dived for cover. A couple of seconds later there was a muffled explosion and the wet slap as chunks of flesh hit the walls all over the laboratory. Pietro got up from behind his cover and smiled as he saw the scattered pieces of his assailant. Now time to deal with Viper.
Pietro had turned to look at the security wall when his attention was caught again by a noise behind him. He turned to look at what his was, and his heart leapt into his mouth. A humanoid shaped figure, over seven feet tall, towered above him. Its face was grotesquely warped; it was like an ill-fitting piece of film wrapped around a skull that was obviously too large for it. Its right arm was large and knotted with muscles, but its left arm was horribly atrophied; it simply hung by its side, completely useless. A bead of saliva hung from its mouth as it gazed down at Pietro with an expression of pure malice in its eyes.
Viper and Warren both heard the sound of gunfire and then, a while later, the muffled explosion of the hand grenade. Warren glanced at Viper who smiled calmly. "Don't worry, I would have been disappointed if Pietro couldn't handle our first two experiments - he was meant to be superior in every way to them. Its our third experiment I'm interested in. We designed this clone for pure power, aggression and sheer physical toughness. I doubt Pietro has beaten the first two unscathed; he should be easy pickings for #421."
Warren nodded, thinking to himself how the best plans often don't survive contact with the enemy. Was Viper underestimating Pietro's tenacity and sheer will to win? He'd love to see the look on her face if she found out she had, only then he'd probably end up dying as well as her. Much better if he could find his way out of here before things started to get really nasty.
Author's Note: Karakin, Daemonrogue 13, I'm glad you both liked last chapter and my explanation as to what had happened to Pietro; thank you so much for your reviews! What did you think had happened to Pietro, DaemonRogue?