Victoria is on her knees, she feels dizzy from the journey. She doesn´t know where she is but still feels where Charles tried to grab her arm before Azazel took her. She looks around and notices the light wooden floor. Just now she feels the floor moving, no, the whole building. But it is no building, she realizes she must be on a ship. And it´s terrifyingly dark on the ocean.
A hand roughly grabs her and pulls her to her feet. When she looks up she meets the cold eyes of Sebastian Shaw smirking at her. The hand that just pulled her up belongs to Azazel, she was really scared of the red-skinned man.
"So, now that we are finally alone. Why don´t we just sit down and have a nice little chat without your boyfriend interrupting? Please." Shaw indicates a bench and pushes her to sit down. He sits next to her facing her with a nasty smile.
"Me and you. We could own the world. The people would kneel for us. Be my queen."
"What if I don´t want to be your queen?"
"Oh I see. You´d rather be Xavier´s queen, am I right? Did he tell you how special you are? Did he promise to take you in and be there for you?"
Victoria just looks to the ground.
"See, I could take you in. I can be there for you. More than that. I can give you the world. Our powers combined will make us invincible."
"What do you want with my powers?"
"I can absorb energy. You can give energy. See where I´m going with this?"
"You want to harvest my energy to overpower the world?"
"If you say it like that it sounds so unromantic. I want you to give me your energy by your own free will. But just to make your decision easier: If you don´t, I will actually just harvest it from you. And it might hurt," he winks at her, "so what do you prefer? Are you a romantic or are you into pain?"
She is at the verge of tears but fights them. She doesn´t want to show weakness, Instead she leans in closer, not breaking eye contact with Shaw. His smile fades away and he leans in, too. When her lips are nearly touching his ear she whispers: "Fuck you." Then she leans back looking at him provocatively.
He starts smiling again, grinning actually.
"Oh, so you like to play?" he strokes her chin and cheeks with one of his fingers. "I like that. But be warned: I always win." With a snap Azazel is by his side.
"Take her downstairs."
Azazel grabs Victoria by the shoulder.
"I´ll be generous and give you time to change your mind."
With those words Azazel and Victoria vanish from the deck in a swirl. She falls to her knees again, opening her eyes in a darkened room. Azazel doesn´t even look at her before vanishing into thin air again.
Victoria crawls through the dark until she reaches the wall. She then follows it to the left until she reaches the corner of the room, where she sits down and tries to calm and sort her thoughts. Her surrounding is pitch black but after a while her eyes accustom to the dark and she can make out some shapes and outlines. At least there was no one else in the room. She sees what seems to be a sofa in front of the opposite wall and the outlines of a door but nothing else. She decides to stay in her corner as far away from the door as possible.
She closes her eyes again and tries to hear something. There are a few muffled voices above her but she can´t understand what they are saying for they are too far away.
"Well, how am I going to get out of here?" she whispers to herself taking a few deep breathes.
She rests her head on the wall behind her. What would Charles do? She thinks.
While thinking of him his bright blue eyes pop up in front of her inner eye. He is smiling at her and she tries to reach out to touch his lips. She wants to kiss him again so badly. It´s unbelievable she only met him a few days ago. Then the image of his butt comes to her mind and she starts grinning.
Look at me, grinning like an idiot while being held hostage by a psychopath. Well done, Victoria. Now, what do I do? What would he tell me to do?
If I could only ask him. How far does his telepathy reach? Would he be able to hear me? I´m sure he already tried. But I didn´t feel anything. Why am I able to block him anyways? No one else seems capable of that. I´d love to have that power. What good are mine? I can´t even use them against Shaw or he´ll just absorb it and use it on me.
Charles! Charles, where are you?
I´m here.
Victoria jumps to her feet. Looking around in the dark but she is still alone.
Charles?
I´m here. I can hear you. We will get you.
I´m on a ship. I don´t know where.
I know. We are on our way.
Suddenly there is a loud bang. The ship seems so sway more than ever. Another bang and Victoria falls to the ground. She panics, runs towards the door and tries to melt her way through the lock. It works, the metal starts to glow under her touch and finally gives way.
She steps outside, instinctively turns right and runs. She reaches a staircase and ascends it quickly. After two more staircases she is finally outside again but the ship is rocking hard and something seems to attack it. She screams when she sees huge metal chains rising next to the ship like tentacles of a giant squid. But she can also make out another ship approaching so she decides to jump of the rail into the deep, dark water.
When she reached the surface again Victoria starts swimming as fast as she can, keeping her body warm with her powers. But seconds later she hears a horrible, ear-splitting sound behind her. Looking back she sees the chains tying themselves around the ship, ripping it in two.
She keeps swimming but starts to feel the pull of the sinking ship. She stops keeping herself warm to use all the energy she has to get away from the ship. She struggles and fights the waves until she finally moves away from the death trap. But it cost her a lot of energy and she is just too exhausted and too cold to move any longer. So she just floats in the water barley keeping consciousness.
Victoria! Where are you?
Charles. Even in her thoughts she can´t manage more than a faint whisper.
Please Charles. Help.
Where are you? Victoria? VICTORIA?!
She´s too exhausted to answer and passes out.