The two guards came to a halt outside a featureless metal door, and gestured for Lance to do the same. One of the guards began to enter a code into the electronic lock when suddenly his partner touched a hand to his communication device in his ear. A few seconds later he grabbed his partner and muttered to him in a low voice. "We've got a serious problem! Reports are coming in that say that damn clone has been slaughtering its way through our men… shit!" The man heard more information and Lance actually caught what he was saying now. "Unconfirmed reports are coming in that the madam director has been killed!"
The other guard's jaw dropped a few centimetres, his shock palpable. "What do we do now?" he asked in a very high-pitched, nervous voice.
"What do you think we do now?" his comrade snapped. "We've got to get out of here." The guard pulled a pistol from its holster and checked the magazine.
"What are you going to do?" the other guard asked nervously.
"We can't take his with us," the guard gestured at Lance. "And we can't just leave him here." He levelled his pistol at Lance and narrowed one eye. Lance felt beads of sweat run down the back of his neck and wondered how exactly he would get out of this one.
"Wait!" the other guard graved his companion's arm and pulled his aim away from Lance. "We don't need to kill him."
"Why the hell not?" The other guard shook off his hand and glared at him angrily.
"Let's just put him in there." the guard jerked his thumb at the cell door. "It'll save time and we've got to get out of here."" The guard's eyes flicked from side-to-side as if he expected an attack to come at any time. His companion looked torn between killing Lance anyway and doing what his friend suggested. Eventually he nodded.
"Get on it then!" The other guard finished opening the door and shoved Pietro inside. The room was small and dimly lit by tube lights set into the ceiling. The room had one other occupant, which Lance recognised as the person he would least like to see.
Wolverine sat up slowly when Lance entered his cell. He looked Lance up and down before nodding to him. "So who the hell are you?" Logan's voice was harsh and guttural and Lance wasn't surprised, seeing the wounds that covered his body.
"Lance Alvers, agent of Excalibur," he said automatically. Logan looked singularly unimpressed and leaned back down on the floor again.
"I assume you're here to rescue Pietro?" Logan said softly after a few seconds. Lance nodded and Logan grinned humourlessly. "Join the club pal."
"You came here to rescue Pietro?" Lance asked, perplexed as to why a heartless mercenary would try to come and rescue his friend. Logan nodded, his humourless smile still in place.
"I was the one who gave Pietro over to Hydra and allowed them to create their new weapon. They tried to double-cross me, so I came to get revenge. Quite fitting really that I should end up almost dead in a prison cell." Lance wasn't quite sure how to respond to this. After several seconds Lance spoke again.
"So you brought Pietro here?"
"Yep, I took him from the escape pod from Genoa and brought him to these people…"
"Why the hell did you do that!" Lance said angrily, taking an aggressive step forward. Logan's harsh laugh discarded into a coughing spasm, which ended with him coughing up blood.
"I did it because they offered me a lot of money," Logan said simply when his coughing spasm had passed. Lance shook his head in disgust and turned his back on Logan.
"You really are mercenary scum!" Lance said venomously after a brief silence. Logan smiled at Lance's back.
"We all have to earn some money Lance. You might not agree with my methods, but you can hardly talk. Your life is dedicated to destroying the people your country sees as an enemy. I'm not proud of what I did, but I've got live with it. All I can do is try and undo my mistakes."
Pietro stood before the stasis chamber, staring in horrified fascination. Warren held his breath in anticipation, staring at Viper's dead body lying at Pietro's feet. He prayed that Pietro wouldn't suddenly turn on him - he was under no illusions that he was safe here. However, after a couple of seconds Pietro turned on his heel and strode out of the laboratory. Warren counted to ten before standing up and dusting himself off as best he could. He wasn't completely sure what he was going to do, but as long as he was alive he still had options.
As he passed by Viper's lifeless corpse he stopped and looked down into her wide eyes that stared vacantly up at the ceiling. Warren hadn't been impressed by Viper in the very brief time he'd known her - aside from the fact that she'd tried to have him killed, she'd also come across as a frankly insane psychopath, but Warren wasn't sure that anyone deserved to die like she had. He knelt down next to her and carefully close her lifeless eyes before leaving the lab.
Pietro stalked through the base, bloodlust raging around his head. He ran into two soldiers standing in the hall and before they knew what was happening he'd grabbed one of them by the arm and ripped it out of their socket. The man cried out in pain and Pietro silenced him by chopping him in the neck. The next guard fumbled with his machine gun, but Pietro had already got the dead man's gun in his hands and opened fire, spraying the corridor with bullets. The other guard convulsed and fell to the floor bleeding from numerous wounds.
Pietro strode on, heading for the heart of Hydra's organisation where he knew the last remaining challenge would be. Reaching the sealed door to the control room he wondered briefly how he would get into the room before the door slid open. Pietro strode in, heedless of who was inside. The control room was surprisingly deserted, except for one man who stood opposite Pietro smiling at him. The man was taller than Pietro, with a strangely glowing red targeted over his right eye and wore a flowing black cloak.
"I wondered when you were going to show up Pietro. You always did think so much of yourself, I knew you wouldn't be able to avoid showing up to fight me here. And that's going to be your downfall."
"You always talked a lot bigger than you could act Gauntlet!" Pietro sneered. The bloodlust and rage that was filling his mind drove all the pain he should have been feeling out of him, replacing it with an overwhelming urge to destroy Gauntlet. With a cry of rage Pietro launched himself at Gauntlet, extending his leg in a flying kick. Gauntlet shifted into a fighting stance and caught Pietro's leg in both hands, pivoting on his feet and throwing Pietro across the room into a control panel.
Pietro pulled himself to his feet with a great effort, a lot of his will to fight having been drained by that violent throw. Gauntlet could see his reluctance to fight and smiled. "I knew that you didn't have the will to put up a good fight."
"Screw you, Gauntlet! I'm going to rip you into dozens of pieces. You are going to wish that you had never met me by the time I'm through with you!" Pietro took a more cautious approach this time and Gauntlet and Pietro circled each other for several seconds before Gauntlet launched a blistering offensive. He threw vicious kicks and punches, some of which Pietro blocked, most of which he didn't. Though Gauntlet's attacks lacked the strength of Pietro's they made it up through technique.
Finally Pietro broke through Gauntlet's incessant attacks and hit Gauntlet with a punch to the sternum, which hurled Gauntlet across the room, slamming into a computer bank that shattered into hundreds of pieces. Gauntlet moaned in pain at the fragments of computer that had penetrated his skin, then let out a gasp of horror when the lights in the room suddenly went off. Pietro moved to stand over him and smiled down at him. "Not so great in reality are you Gauntlet, but then I've always been far greater than you could ever hope to be!"
"Do you realise what you've just destroyed. This thing controls all the power systems in this base. Nothing is operating any more!" Gauntlet sounded almost hysterical, but Pietro ignored him and pulled him to his feet.
"I'm going to enjoy this." Pietro pulled back his fist and drove it with all his force into Gauntlet's throat. Gauntlet's neck snapped with an audible crack and his head lolled at a strange angle. Pietro dropped yet another corpse and a sudden thought struck him. They'd captured Wolverine earlier. Now there would be a real challenge.
Author's Note: Thank you so much for your reviews DaemonRogue 13 and Karakin, they are greatly appreciated!