RETURNING HOME
Chapter 9
Showdown
Alex groaned as consciousness slowly returned to her. She winced when she opened her eyes and felt sharp pain in her head; in fact she hadn't felt like this since graduation. She forcefully opened her eyes again and found herself staring at a fluorescent light in a ceiling. She tried to sit up, but quickly realized that she had been restrained. She decided to morph out of her restraints but found out that was useless as well. She heard a voice at the door and the sound of it unlocking terrified he, but she closed her eyes and tried to appear as calm as possible. The door opened slowly and she heard someone walk in and stand next to her bed.
"You might as well open your eyes", he said while looking over her charts, "I know you're awake."
"What are you going to do to me?" She asked with a nervous tone in her voice.
"At the moment, nothing", he said looking down on her, "We're waiting on orders for that, and until we get them we just need to keep you under observation."
"Can you tell me why I've been restrained?"
"I believe I can answer that Dr. Mack"; Thomson said as he entered the room, we don't want you using your abilities."
"Restraints haven't stopped me before", Alex said.
"The restraints are for a physical assault, the crown jewel is this", he said as he pulled out his gun.
"And that is?" Alex asked coldly.
"It's something that disrupts your nervous system. There is no permanent damage, but it will keep you from using your powers for quite awhile."
"Where's Ray?"
"He's right here my dear", Thomson said as he pulled a small remote out of his pocket and turned on a monitor.
Alex felt a tear run down her cheek as she looked upon Ray strapped to an exam table.
Barbara pounded her fist against the glass in a vain attempt to break it. After a few moments she sat down on the bench that was in the cell and began to sob. Annie and George saw what she was going through and each sat down in front of her. She pulled each of them into a hug and continued to cry.
"I thought we were long past people hunting us and our children", she said through her tears.
"Me too honey, me too", he said trying to comfort her.
"What's going to happen to her?" Barbara asked.
"She'll find out what they are doing to Ray, and go completely crazy", Annie said, "And I'm afraid to see what she's capable of when she does."
Barbara looked up at her daughter, "What are you talking about?"
"I was going over my notes and scans before we left, and Alex's powers are not only stronger, they're so potent that she could continue gaining new abilities at an alarming rate."
"And if something drives her over the edge", George said.
"She could blow this whole place to kingdom come before she knows what she's doing", Annie finished.
"She wouldn't do that", Barbara said resolutely.
"If she gets angry enough, she might", George said.
"We've all seen that she has a bit of a dark side, and this would bring it out and basically put it on steroids", Annie said deadpanned.
"Would she still be Alex afterward?" Barbara asked.
Annie grimaced at the thought. She remembered when Alex was split into two, and had met her dark side personally. She didn't know if she could live with that Alex again, "She'll be Alex, but it may change her at a fundamental level."
Annie sighed as she leaned back against the glass, and touched her now very sore eye. "I just wish that there was something I could do to help."
"So do I sweetheart", Barbara said.
Alex sighed despondently as she watched Ray getting poked and prodded on the monitor that had been set up in front of her. She had never seen him so weak, and had never felt so helpless herself. She knew that she could save him if she hadn't been hit with that stupid weapon, and she knew that unless she did something her and her family were never going to get out of this alive. She pulled at her bonds one more time to no avail, and turned her head away from the screen. It made her sick to think that she could see and hear everything going on in that room, but was unable to even let him know that she was here. She began trying to force her powers to work, but the best she got was a few sparks from her fingertips. She turned her attention back to the monitor just in time to see them load Ray up on an IV of a familiar gold liquid. She screamed in rage as she felt an incredible surge of energy run through her body and broke clean through one of her bonds with a strength that she didn't even know she possessed.
Thomson looked at the director as the IV of GC-161 was fed into the arm of Ray Alvarado.
"Are you sure that the girl should see this?" Thomson asked his boss.
"I need to break her will", he responded without a hint of emotion, "If she's going to work for me I need to break her will."
"You're going to make her an agent?" Thomson asked with a surprised tone.
"Yes", the director said, "She's already been exposed to the compound, so we know it won't kill her, and her abilities will be most useful."
"So by making her watch this will"
Turn her mind into a putty that I can I can mold into what I want to be", he coldly finished.
They looked up as the lights around then started flickering on and off, and jumped as they started exploding. Thomson grabbed his walkie talkie and shouted a few orders into it.
Six soldiers were outside the exam room when the door came flying at them, causing them to scramble in all direction in order to avoid being crushed by the heavy door. Once they had righted themselves, they saw a very angry looking woman with electricity arcing from what seemed like every inch of her body. She took a step through the door and the doorframe blew apart spraying debris everywhere. One hit the floor screaming from a piece of metal through his eye and another from one in the neck. Another managed to shoot her in the chest, but his victory was short lived when that area turned into a silvery substance, the bullet fell right out, and she re-solidified the area with not even so much as a drop of blood.
"What are you?" He screamed at her.
"I am the woman that Hell hath no fury like when scorned", she replied in a seething, ice cold voice that also seemed to burn with hatred, "You and your people have made a grave mistake."
She hit him with a bolt of lightning which caused him to crumple to the floor and send the other two remaining soldiers running before she could injure them as well. Alex didn't give them a second thought as she turned and walked down the hallway ripping apart anything that came near her.
The Mack family sat in their cell when they noticed the electricity beginning to act up. Annie stared up at the lights when she noticed a pattern.
"Long, long, long, space, long, long, space, short, long, long", Annie stared at the lights thoughtfully, "O-M-W, it's Alex, she's telling us that she's on her way."
"I didn't know that you knew Morse code", her father said.
"Lonely childhood", Annie replied.
"I wonder how she escaped", Barbara said just before hearing several screams, an explosion, and a gunshot."
"My guess is Alex found out what they were doing to Ray" Annie said with a slightly mischievous smirk.
George cringed as he heard a roaring sound mixed in with several small explosions, "It sounds like she's tearing the entire building down."
"She probably is. I doubt she's restraining herself, and a telekinetic and electrical backlash of that magnitude could be extreme. I wouldn't want to be in her way", Annie said.
Alex continued her trek through the corridors of the facility decimating anything around her. She saw another group of soldiers holding a perimeter at an intersection. Without flinching she launched everything around her; chairs, desks, and pieces of the walls came flying down the corridor slamming right into the group before they had even gotten a single shot off with their guns. She lifted one off the ground and brought him to her.
"Where is Ray Alvarado", she demanded in the same seething voice as earlier.
The soldier looked upon her in horror as he pointed down a hallway. As she turned away from him, he went flying into what was left of the wall. Still seething with rage she continued her destructive journey to Ray.
Hearing the commotion getting closer, the director pulled out his cell phone and entered a security key. As soon as he did the lighting became a crimson red and a computerized voice came over the speakers throughout the installation, "Warning, level red security enabled. Entry and exit now restricted to biometric access." They heard something slam hard against the door, and Thomson readied his synaptic disrupter pistol while the director slipped quietly out the other door. After a few more slams the door burst from its hinges. Thomson leveled his pistol at the door and as soon as Alex came through let off a charge at her. Alex looked at him coldly as the blast was neutralized by her own electrical field.
"Fool me once", she said coldly as she raised her arm to strike him down.
"Alex", came a muffled voice.
She looked towards the voice and saw Ray pressed up against the glass of the exam room. In the split second after she took her eyes from him Thomson bolted out the door. Without thinking Alex felt her body began to liquefy, but instead of morphing into a puddle, she felt herself concentrate her matter into her arm forming what looked like a silver hammer. She swung and with a combination of her arm and her telekinetic abilities shattered the glass. Ray jumped through the broken window and looked at Alex.
"Let's get out of here", he said.
Her voice softened a bit as she looked him in the eyes, "No, get my family and get out, I'm going to end this."
Before he could respond she blasted through the other door in the room, continuing on her path of destruction. After a few more corridors she came into what looked like a factory floor containing several vats of GC-161. She felt another surge of rage seeing that they were mass-producing this chemical. She felt a sting as a bullet pierced her flesh, but as quickly as it happened her body ejected it leaving no trace of injury. Alex looked up to see the director arming what looked like a warhead.
"This ends now", he said as he flipped the switch, "This building will blow in five minutes, and nobody but the highest level personnel are able to open the exits."
Without responding Alex let out a blast of electricity, connecting with the catwalk that the director was on, sending him falling with the warhead and most of the catwalk into a vat of the chemical. Alex turned to walk out, but came face to face with Ray and her family. When she saw that they were out she calmed down and left the rage induced trance that had gripped her.
"The building's going to explode", she said quietly.
"Come on we need to find a way out", her father said as he put a hand on her shoulder.
The spent the next couple minutes running back to the only entrance that Alex knew where was, but when they reached their destination they were met with Thomson pointing a gun at them.
"You're not going anywhere", he said.
"You idiot", Ray yelled at him, "The building's going to blow, we need to get out."
"The only way you get out is in chains or bags", he said as he fired a shot off at Ray.
Alex shot out a bolt of energy dissipating Thomson blast, and his eyes widened as she willed her hand to become a blade. "I have a feeling that your handprint will open this door", she said with a smirk, "Whether or not it's attached to your arm."
Alex's family looked at her in disbelief; they had never seen her act so coldly. Barbara still had trouble believing that all the damage they had seen was caused by her youngest daughter. Thomson looked into her cold stare and finally realized that he had lost. He raised his hand to the scanner, releasing the lock on the door. As the Mack family ran from the building Ray punched him square in the jaw knocking him out. George rushed back and helped Ray get him clear of the building. Just as they got to the outside of the perimeter, the bomb went off, and the building collapsed into a heap of rubble and fire. George Tied up Thomson using some twine that he grabbed while helping Ray get him out of the building as everybody else watched the destruction. Alex looked Ray in the eye and pulled his ring off of her finger and handed it back to him.
"I did some bad things in there, and if you're not sure whether or not you can stay with me, I would understand."
"Alex", he said cupping her dirty face in his hand, "I know you did what you did to save us, and for no other reason. Nothing in this world would make me happier than to be with someone that I can really call my hero."
Alex closed her eyes as tears threatened to flow. When she opened them, she looked at the ring, "I think you were in the middle of something, when we were so rudely interrupted."
Ray placed the ring on her finger and pulled her in close. Once their foreheads were touching he said, "I love you more than anything in this world. Would you honor me by becoming my wife?"
Alex made no effort to hide her tears as she began nodding her head, "Yes", she said before pulling him into a kiss. The kiss was broken as Ray fell to the ground unconscious. George and Annie rush up to them and gasped to see that Ray was beginning to morph.
"We have to get him to the plant", George said.
"How?" Annie replied, "We're in the middle of nowhere without a vehicle.
"What about one of those?" Barbara asked, pointing to a couple vans parked on the perimeter undamaged by the explosion.
Once they got Ray and Thomson into the van George started fumbling around the front.
"What are you doing?" Barbara asked.
"looking for keys", George said, clearly frustrated.
"Jesus Dad, let me do it", Alex said while sending a spark from her finger into the ignition of the van, causing the engine to turn over immediately and George to nod before putting the van in gear and pulling out of the ruined facility.
Several hours later Alex arrived back at the plant from taking her mother home. Thomson had been secured in a holding cell under armed guard, and Nicole. She went back into the lab that Annie and George were in, and took her place at a microscope, where she could really help Ray.
"It's unstable", the girls heard their father say, "They made an unstable batch, and now it's breaking down at the cellular level."
"How can we fix it?" Alex asked.
"A dose of genuine GC-161", Annie said somberly.
"There has to be another way", Alex said, her voice beginning to tremble.
"I'm afraid not", George said, "It's either that, or when their compound breaks down it will take him with it."
Alex grunted slightly, "Fine, let's get this over with."
Annie walked over to the far wall as George entered a command on the computer, causing a hidden panel to open. Annie pulled a canister out and bring it over to Ray, who was only vaguely human. Annie opened the canister and slowly poured the contents onto Rays form. After a few minutes Ray solidified and opened his eyes.
"Ray", Alex practically yelped as she threw her arms around him.
"Hey Al", he responded.
"So he's going to be ok?" Alex asked looking at her father.
"We'll have to keep an eye on him to be sure, but for right now he is."
"Can we go home?" She asked.
"I think that's a very good idea, Nicole and the police can handle Thomson. Let's go home and get some rest."
The four of them walked out of the plant just as the sun began to rise. Alex pulled herself closer to Ray, ready to face the dawning of a new day.
A/N: The next and last chapter will most likely be short since it's more like an epilogue than an actual chapter. Please read and Review.