Not to toot my own horn (or whatever the saying is) but I will say that I am on a roll with these chapters. I've started trying out some automatic writing techniques, cause the part of writing that usually trips me up and makes me stall is thinking about it for too long when I have to describe the location and each person's movements around the scene. So I just watch the a few seconds of the film at a time, pause it, and then quickly jot down the immediate details that come to mind. As soon as some of the boring structural bits are on the paper, it makes writing the rest of the chapter so much easier. I don't know if that makes any sense...
Anywho, this is a fuuuuuuucking dialogue-heavy chapter! Ugh, oh well.
Enjoy!
When Laurien came to, she first noticed that something hard was biting into her shoulders. She let out a slight groan as she turned on her side, her head pounding and dangerously close to a full blown migraine. Pressing a hand against the floor, her fingers felt the cold metallic bars of a grate, secured over a large light shining upwards. Laurien squinted as the light assaulted her eyes, bringing up her hand to shield her face from the brightness. Gingerly, she managed to sit up and take in her surroundings.
She was not alone. She managed to pick out Hank, Moira, Raven, and Peter's familiar figures. They were similarly lying on the ground, and slowly stirring from the depths of their unconscious states. Raven was closest to her, her eyes fluttering open and swiftly shifting back into her blonde-haired form.
They were in a small, octagonally-shaped room, with buzzing green lights bracketing the walls and basking them in its sickly hue. On one end, a long window hid shadowy shapes moving behind its glass. Laurien's mind immediately thought of a spaceship with aliens observing them. She initially wondered if something completely otherworldly had occurred, until her memory caught up with her and reminded her of the events at the mansion.
Laurien checked the others in the room again, noting that Sera was not amongst them. A slight sense of relief passed through her, as she knew that Sera would be with the children, undoubtedly experiencing a trial by fire of motherhood. The calming sensation quickly dissipated, replaced by a mixture of despair and anger when Laurien realised that Nina's fears had come true. On three separate occasions, mysterious men had come to take away her parents, and they'd at last succeeded in taking them both from her. If the past few days hadn't already thoroughly traumatised her, then this would likely be the last straw. The fiery heat of anger flared further within Laurien, swiftly overtaking the despair, as she swore that their abductors would pay a hefty price for their misdeeds.
A sudden scream and commotion on the other side of the room startled Laurien back to the present. Peter had shot to his feet, staring with wide eyes at Hank, who was now in his blue-furred form.
"What's wrong with you?" Peter sputtered, backing away sharply and almost tripping over Moira's legs. "Is that going to happen to all of us?"
Hank held his clawed hand in front of his face, groaning at what he saw. "No, I just left my meds in the house."
Laurien winced to herself as she stood up on wobbly legs, knowing that due to the explosion, it would likely be days before Hank could regain access to the medication that would bring him some semblance of normalcy.
Moira groaned as she too got to her feet, stumbling slightly as her heels got caught in the gaps of the flooring grates. "What happened? Where are we?"
When no one had an answer for her, Raven approached the window. "Hey!" She called out, waving her arm at the shadowed figures behind the glass. "Hey, jackasses!"
A voice suddenly crackled over the intercom system. "Hello, Mystique."
Though it had been fifteen since Laurien had last heard him speak in person, she knew who the voice belonged to. She'd heard his voice many times in her nightmares.
"Major Stryker." Raven greeted coldly.
"Colonel Stryker." He corrected, and though Laurien couldn't see his face properly through the window, she could hear the gloating smirk in his voice. "Careful, I wouldn't get too close to the wall if I were you. It may create some… discomfort."
They glanced at the green lights, the buzzing frequency encompassing the room. Laurien frowned to herself, and subtly attempted to reach out with her powers, but found that they didn't extend beyond the confines of the room. Evidently, the frequency was emitting a sort of force field, inhibiting their mutations.
Moira stepped forward, putting on her customary authoritative stance and tone. "I'm Moira MacTaggert. I'm a senior officer at the CIA."
"I know who you are, Agent MacTaggert." Stryker responded, seemingly unimpressed.
"You cannot keep me here in this..."
"Actually, I can." Stryker interrupted, rather rudely. "A psychic event just destroyed every nuke from here to Moscow. That event emanated from exactly where we found you. At the home of the world's most powerful psychic."
Laurien glanced over at Hank, her mind thinking back to the purple infection that had overtaken Cerebro. Had that been the moment when it had happened, when Apocalypse had connected to Charles? While the obliteration of all nuclear weapons was something Laurien didn't exactly mind, especially considering all the trouble their existence had caused throughout her lifetime, the implication that humanity had lost a powerful tool to fight against this pseudo-god worried her.
"So, you're going to tell me. Where is Charles Xavier?" Stryker uttered, pausing over each word.
"It's not him you should be worried about. There's someone else." Moira countered matter-of-factly, her words sending a chill down Laurien's spine. "Someone more powerful."
"If you let us out of here, we can help you." Raven offered, staring up at Stryker.
"Do you really expect me to believe that? You can put on any face that you want, but I know who you are." He intimated coldly. "What you are."
With that, Laurien lost the last sliver of her patience. Charles and Erik were God knows where, and the World was being threatened with a cataclysmic event; yet here they were, stuck dealing with an idiot who was clearly on a power trip.
"Look, you fucking jackass," She spat out, her eyes flashing red as she approached the window. "You had better let us out of this room this very instant or the next time that I see you, that fucking smug face of yours will be inside out before you can say a goddamned word."
An almost comical silence followed her words. Stryker opened his mouth to respond, before he then seemed to think better of it and walked out of the control room.
"Holy shit, woman." Peter exclaimed with wide eyes, an amused smirk pulling at his lips.
"Hank, Stryker was there." Laurien said, her voice hushed as she moved over to where Hank stood in the room and gripped his wrist. "The night Trask's men invaded the mansion, it was Stryker who I fought with right before I got shot."
Hank's gaze darkened as the others joined them in their huddle. "Are you sure?"
She lifted her free hand and showed the scar on either side of her forearm. "It was his knife that did this."
"He was at the Paris Peace Accords as well." Raven added, her expression grave. "And in Vietnam and Washington. Seems like we can't get away from him."
"Wait, you've all met him before?" Moira interjected, her brow furrowed in confusion. "And what happened at the mansion?"
"A few years before the whole Washington debacle, some of Trask's men broke into the mansion in the pursuit of taking us for experimentation." Hank explained, shifting in Laurien's grip to take her hand properly in his, squeezing it comfortingly. "Naturally, we fought back, but Laurien was almost killed. Stryker was amongst the men who attacked us."
"He was pretty quick to distance himself from Trask after the incident in Washington and his conviction. I never quite believed his claim that he didn't know what Trask was doing." Moira frowned, crossing her arms as she considered this. "Did you report this invasion to the authorities?"
Hank scoffed. "Yeah, like we would have been taken seriously."
"I lost my unborn child because of them." Laurien muttered, her skin radiating heat as anger pulsed through her veins. "Stryker wasn't the one to pull the trigger, but he might as well have been."
Raven's eyes burned daggers as she stared up at the window to the control room. "Son of a bitch." She spat, the room then sinking into an uneasy quiet, with only the buzz of the green lasers filling their ears.
They waited for who knows how long, unsure of what to do. Stryker had not yet returned to question them any further, so they moved to their respective spots and continued to bide their time.
Laurien had since seated herself on the ground. She closed her eyes as she pinched the bridge of her nose, wishing that she still had access to her painkillers. Whatever they'd been hit with at the mansion had seemed to exacerbate her migraines.
"Hey, you know him, right?" Peter's voice made her jump slightly, turning to find him sitting at her side. When she frowned in confusion regarding who he was referring to, he pressed further. "Magneto?"
"Oh." She said, taken aback by the topic. "Yes. Erik. He's my husband."
"Ah, and I see you two have…" He said, twiddling his fingers at her ring finger. "…progressed since I last saw you."
Laurien's mouth quirked in a small smile. "Mmmhmm."
"What is he like?" Peter asked with rapt fascination. "Is he... like they say he is? Is he a... you know, bad guy?"
"What do you think of me, Peter? Am I the sort of person who would marry a bad guy?" She responded, keeping her tone light and somewhat teasing.
"No, of course not, but…" Peter hurried to clarify. He cleared his throat, seemingly having difficulties with the words. "You know, I'm just curious, seeing as he's my father."
Laurien blinked, feeling as though she were momentarily removed from her own body while this sudden revelation seeped through her. She regarded him carefully, noting the familiar set of his jaw and structure of his cheekbones. While she couldn't remember what his mother looked like when they had briefly met her ten years ago, Laurien assumed that Peter took after her more.
"Huh." She uttered with a small exhale of breath. "Well, that makes a lot of sense now."
"Uh… How so?"
Laurien tilted her head, "It's just… Well, I did think that you looked quite familiar when I first met you, and now I know why."
"Yeah. He left my mom before I was born. When I met him ten years back, I didn't know it was him. By the time I figured it out, it was too late, you know. I didn't know where he'd gone." Peter explained, the words pouring out from him like water from a broken dam. "But then, this week I saw him on TV again. And, I came to your guys' house looking for him."
Her eyebrows raised. "You came to Dąbrowa Górnicza?"
"Yeah, nice place."
Her mind immediately began attempting to sort out the logistics of what he was telling her. Clearly, crossing into Soviet territory wasn't a problem when one was a hyperactive speedster, but crossing the Atlantic was another matter altogether. She found herself wanting to inquire if he could run on water, or if he was also capable of swimming fast, but this was evidently not the time and place.
"But by the time I got there..." Peter continued, clicking his tongue. "Late again. You know, for a guy who moves as fast as me, I always seem to be too late."
Laurien put what she hoped would be a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You're being far too hard on yourself, Peter."
"Mmm, maybe." He sighed, staring off into space.
Wanting to draw him away from his self-deprecating spiral, she then asked, "You have siblings, right?"
"Yeah. Two sisters. Wanda, my twin, is also Erik's kid." He said, perking up, completely oblivious to the fact that he'd once again thrown Laurien for a loop with this information. "Lorna, is my half-sister that my mom had with my step-dad. She's thirteen now."
Laurien opened her mouth, but struggled to form something coherent to say. For some reason, her mind went straight to how many place settings she would have to set up on the table for Thanksgiving. That is, if they ended up staying in the United States once this was all over, as well as if this entire debacle even had the possibility of turning out in their favour.
Once the news sunk in a bit more, she managed to clear her throat and said, "Well, you've got two more half-sisters to deal with now."
Peter's face lit up. "Really?"
"Yeah. There's Nina, who's eight, and then Kasia, who is only a month old."
"Sweet!"
"They were back at the mansion. I don't know if you saw them or not."
"Tiny child? Brown hair, big blue eyes?" Peter asked, raising an eyebrow.
Laurien snorted, nodding.
He remained still for a moment, before a huge goofy grin appeared on his face. "Two more sisters… And I thought I was outnumbered before."
A smile was forming on Laurien's face when suddenly a horrifically familiar voice suddenly invaded her head, echoing almost painfully in her ears.
"Hear me, inhabitants of this world."
"What was that?" Peter exclaimed, whipping his head around for the source.
"You heard that too?" Laurien asked, receiving a nod in response before the next message came thundering through.
"This is a message." The voice continued loudly, causing them all to flinch. "A message to every man, woman and mutant."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds like Charles." Moira said, holding her palms to her ears as she tried to dampen the loud voice, but without success.
"You have lost your way."
"I think it is." Raven responded, her eyes wide. "But how?"
"But I have returned. The day of reckoning, it is here. All your buildings and temples will fall. The dawn of a new era will emerge. For there is nothing you can do to stop what is coming."
"Well, that's not foreboding at all." Peter snarked from beside Laurien.
"This message is for one reason alone. To tell the strongest among you, those with the greatest power… protect those without."
They waited in silent anticipation for a moment longer, expecting more, yet no further message came.
"How was Charles doing that without Cerebro." Hank asked, looking to them all for an answer that they were incapable of giving.
"I know that voice. It's Xavier, isn't it?" Stryker's voice erupted from the intercom, causing them all to jump again as the frequency screeched. "What's going on?"
"We don't know, bro!" Peter added, throwing his arms up in exasperation.
Stryker's jaw clenched in frustration, but before the intercom turned off, they heard someone in the background say, "Shots fire-"
Laurien frowned. "Did you hear that last bit?" She whispered to Raven, earning a nod in response.
Suddenly, a piercing alarm blared through the octagonal room, making them all flinch yet again. Laurien held her injured hand to her chest, her heart beating hard against her rib cage. She couldn't help but remind herself that this was one of the many reasons why she vehemently avoided films of the horror genre. The boys had traumatised her after making her watch Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, to the point where she'd been afraid to take a shower and would force one of them to stand guard at the bathroom door until she was finished.
A rotating yellow light illuminated the many figures within the control room. While Laurien's powers still couldn't breach the field surrounding the room, it was clear that the reason for the alarm had sent the men into a panic.
"What are they doing?" Moira muttered, grimacing at the shrillness of the alarm. "What's going on?"
"I think someone has broken in." Laurien posited, squinting up at the men in confusion. "Or perhaps broken out."
The alarm light illuminated more of Stryker's face, revealing that his usually smug expression had shifted to one of fear. He took one last look at them all, before walking out of view.
"Well, let's hope that whatever it is becomes beneficial to us." Raven added under her breath, her hands propped on her hips.
"Can I ask for some clarification on something?" Laurien asked the room in general, turning her attention away from the window for the time being. "What does this Apocalypse want with Charles? Surely, he's already gotten what he wanted by destroying the world's supply of nuclear weapons."
Hank frowned to himself. "That may have only been part one of his multi-tiered plan. He could potentially still need Charles for further stages." He hypothesised, before then turning to Moira. "Is there anything in your research that could hint to what may come next?"
Moira nodded, running a hand through her hair. "Yes, uh— well, if we are following the line of belief of Ashir En Sabah Nur, then we know that Apocalypse is a mutant who has gained many powers over his lifetime, right? It's believed that he could transfer his mind to a new host to extend his lifespan, and if the new host is a mutant, he can therefore gain their abilities."
Moira's demeanour then changed. "And considering Charles is, as Stryker said, the world's most powerful psychic, then…" She trailed off, looking up at them with wide eyes of realisation. "He may be seeking to take Charles as his newest host."
Raven cursed under her breath as the news began to sink in. "And if he's successful, there's no possible way of anyone ever hoping to oppose him."
They weren't permitted much time to process this horrific revelation, before muffled shouting erupted from above them, drawing their attention back to the window of the control room.
"Hey!" A man's voice yelled, fear clinging to every word. "Stay where you are!"
A spattering of gunfire lit up the room, before a guard was suddenly thrown against the glass with a splatter of blood. Laurien and the others rushed to tuck themselves as closely as they dared get to the wall beneath the window, hopefully hiding themselves from view of the control room.
The screams stopped abruptly, leaving only the sound of the alarm to continue to pierce through the eerie silence.
After a few moments, Peter stuck his head out from their hiding spot, peeking up the the window. "I think whatever it was is gone."
The others followed him back to the centre of their glowing green octagon, with their collective gazes glued upon the control room. A bit of movement drew their eyes to the far left side of the window. Laurien recognized the punk rock haircut and blue skin of Raven's long-lost son.
"Kurt?" Hank declared, his brow furrowed in confusion.
"What's he doing here?" Laurien asked, a part of her wondering if he had been the reason for all the screaming and bloodshed.
Kurt's mouth was moving, as he pointed toward one side of the room, though they couldn't hear a word of what he was saying.
"What?" Peter demanded. "What is he saying?"
Raven pointed at her ears, hopefully conveying to Kurt that they couldn't hear him.
Kurt nodded, before looking down and seemingly finding the intercom button.
"St-ay ah-way fr- za-" His heavily-accented voice flooded the room, though his words fluttered in and out in a jumble.
"The what?" Hank called out.
"Za do-" Kurt tried again, continuing to point. "Stay ah-way fr- ze door."
"Away from the door!" Raven exclaimed, pushing them all to the side of the room. "Get away from the door!"
"On three." Kurt's voice continued to say.
Laurien felt Hank's arms pull her and Raven in close to his chest, shielding them as best as he could while he turned his back to the door.
"One… Two…"
Before Kurt could get to three, the door to the room blasted apart, sending chunks of metal and concrete flying across the enclosed area. As the dust settled, they all turned and saw a large hole burned into the door. They wasted no time in escaping through the opening, and as soon as she left the room, Laurien instantly felt the reach of her powers expand exponentially. They filed into a barren hallway and immediately stumbled upon two figures waiting for them; Jean and Scott.
"Holy shit, it's a party!" Peter hooted when he noticed them.
"We know where the Professor is." Jean stated, and Laurien realised that this was the first time she'd heard the girl speak. Her voice was low and slightly gravelly, yet pleasant.
"Where?"
"Cairo."
Hank frowned. "How do you know?"
"He told me during his message." Jean revealed simply.
"And I think we might have a way out of here." Scott added.
Raven raised her eyebrows. "Well, you've been busy."
"We had... a little help." Scott responded, seeming rather unsettled. He shook his head, ridding himself of a thought. "Let's go."
They followed him down the hallway at a run. As they dashed past an adjoining hallway, she stopped short when she caught a glimpse of multiple prone bodies littering the floor. Icy liquid shot through her veins as she noticed how blood spattered the concrete walls.
"Did you all have anything to do with that?" She gasped out, sensing the other adults' shock as they too witnessed the carnage.
"Uh, we made a new friend." Scott admitted sheepishly. "It's safe to say that the people here are not very well liked by their test subjects."
With a last look at the scene in the hallway, Laurien and the others continued to follow Scott as he guided them to the supposed exit, dearly looking forward to being far away from this place.
"Watch out!" Scott warned, only a split second before Kurt suddenly manifested out of thin air in front of Peter.
"Ah, Jesus!" Peter yelped, nearly tumbling over as he tried to avoid colliding into Kurt.
"Oh, sorry." Kurt apologised, joining them as they ran.
"This way!" Scott called out, guiding them down another adjoining hallway.
Soon they came to a stop before a large door. Laurien quickly disengaged the lock with her powers, allowing the door to rise up and reveal a large aeroplane hangar that seemed to extend for miles.
Raven approached the sleek jet that was parked closest to them, before turning to look back at the rest of the group. "Hey, Hank. Do you think you can fly this thing?"
Hank shrugged, sizing up the impressive jet. "Yeah, I can figure it out."
"Hey, guys." Scott drew their attention to three large boxes. With a press of a button, the shutters opened to reveal several strange outfits. "Flight suits." He announced, holding one of the suits against the front of his body as though he were gauging whether or not it would fit him.
While they all got dressed in these new suits, a nostalgic pang blossomed in Laurien's heart as she recalled a similar scene from over twenty years ago. When they had opened the mysterious box marked with a large X in Hank's lab and uncovered their yellow and blue suits, a feeling of foreboding had gripped her then too. Despite the uneasy sensation, Laurien couldn't help but smile to herself, remembering how she'd thought that they'd all looked quite smart once they were suited up. In comparison, these darker suits felt rather futuristic and sterile, making part of Laurien long for the security of their original uniforms.
Once they were all ready, Raven herded them onto the ship. "Well, you've got your warplane." She told Hank, as she fell into step with him and Laurien while they ascended the ramp into the plane. "Let's go to war."
Hank huffed a short laugh. "This certainly brings back memories." He commented, evidently reminiscing like Laurien had been.
A slight smirk pulled at Laurien's lips as she gave him an encouraging pat on the back. "Just don't crash it this time, hmm?"
Hank rolled his eyes. "That happened only one time, and you never let me forget it."
Well, now Laurien knows about Peter being Erik's son! Don't worry, I'm actually going to do something with that plot point, unlike what the films did... I swear, at the end of Apocalypse, Peter says that he'll tell Erik one day, and then ten years later in Dark Phoenix, if I recall correctly, he still hasn't told him. I'll admit, I haven't seen Dark Phoenix completely since first seeing it in theatres, but I feel like I would remember that.
I've loved reading your reviews! It genuinely fills me with such joy, and it's nice to talk to people. I don't get out all that much anymore. Gas is stupidly expensive again.
Anywho, please leave a review, as I will definitely respond if you've got Private Messaging enabled! Hope you enjoyed this newest chapter!