This is the second half of the other chapter that I decided to split up into two. Enjoy!
The three girls talked on about various things ranging from books to celebrities for what only felt like an hour in Laurien's head. When they were interrupted by a knock on the door, they were surprised when Hank informed them that it was time for dinner.
"What the hell?" Raven exclaimed when she glanced at the clock to see that it was half past five. "We missed lunch!"
"Well, I didn't." Hank stated simply.
"Why didn't you come find us?" Laurien asked incredulously, suddenly feeling grumpy as her stomach ached sharply with hunger from the reminder.
"I just assumed that you all fell back asleep, that was what Sean did." Hank explained as he led them out of Laurien's room, and indeed, as they passed Sean's room, he was still passed out with half of his body slumped off the bed in an awkward position that Laurien thought was impossible to ever consider the least bit comfortable.
Dinner passed without much to take away from it, as everyone seemed a little sedated as they ate the spaghetti that was brought for them by a mousy little woman who scurried away at the earliest convenience. Laurien assumed that everyone was still feeling the effects of their run in with the obnoxious CIA agent that morning. She had honestly almost forgotten about the interaction completely, but she could understand how it might have rattled the others. Eventually, the mood picked up when Sean joined them, newly risen from his bizarre slumber, and two minutes into his dinner, ended up with spaghetti coming out his nose from a spiritedly misplaced snort.
Laurien almost threw up then and there, she didn't know what it was about the nose and its functions, but it always seemed to make her want to gag. Even growing up with her siblings, whenever they had a snotty sneeze or had a runny nose, Laurien would always make herself scarce from the fear of retching. She could see blood and gore, amputations and lacerations, but the smallest bit of snot, and she was gone.
After dinner and after Sean cleaned himself up, they retired to the 'groovy' couches on the other side of the lounge, next to a newly replaced window. They drank their soft drinks to the sound of the ringing of bells from where Alex was mercilessly beating Darwin's score on the bright pinball machine.
"Come on, man. You're killing me." Darwin groaned from where he stood beside the game, his eyes every now and then glancing worriedly at the rising numbers on the board.
"Don't beat yourself up, I've had a lot of free time." Alex replied, smirking as he gained another jackpot that multiplied his score.
Laurien took another sip from her drink as she watched the game from her seat, but her concentration was diverted by a nudge from Raven as she motioned towards the window, where the man from earlier in the meeting room had just appeared with a nervous younger colleague.
"Well, look. The circus is in town." He sneered. "Hey, darlin', do your little…" He flapped his arms in an offensive imitation of Angel's wings as his companion watched on with an ashamed look on his face.
"Hey, what about you, Bigfoot?" He said as Hank got to his feet and moved towards the window. "Show us the feet, man. Come on."
Hank hit the button with a small wave to the swine as the curtains flew forwards and hid them from view.
As Hank returned to his seat, Angel slammed her cup down angrily on the coffee table between them all, her eyes filling with tears.
"They're just guys being stupid." Raven reasoned in an effort to console her.
"Guys being stupid I can handle, okay, I've handled that my whole life." Angel bit out. "But I'd rather the way some guys stare at me with my clothes off than the way these ones stare at me."
Laurien glanced down at her shoes, feeling her frustration upsetting her stomach, as she felt helpless to say anything useful to help the situation, but thankfully, Raven said it for her.
"At us." Raven added, placing a reassuring hand on Angel's arm.
Laurien took another sip from her Cola when she realized that it wasn't just the pinball machine that she could hear now, a faint slamming noise in the distance peaked her interest. She set her glass down carefully, hearing the noises getting louder and louder with each passing second, as she slowly got to her feet.
"Do you guys hear that?" She asked, her question being answered wordlessly as the others looked around for the source of the noise.
"I don't know what that is, but I don't have a good feeling about this." Darwin stated as he and Alex abandoned their game to join the rest of them who had congregated at the covered window.
Hank clicked the button that pulled the curtains back, but all they could see was the dark courtyard, looking just the same as a minute earlier. The sounds continued, and with every syllable Laurien felt further on edge, her heart pumping hard against her chest as her eyes searched for anything out of place. She almost jumped out of her skin when she felt Raven's hand clasp her wrist tightly, fear radiating off of her in big waves.
Suddenly, a flash of black fell from above, hitting the pavement with an explosion of what seemed to be red paint that splattered against the window. Raven screamed as they collectively jumped back from the glass. As they stared in shock at what had fallen, Laurien was able to spot the unmistakable features of the CIA agent who was heading Division X, and quickly realized that it wasn't paint that had splattered the window.
More bodies started to fall after the first, all seemingly CIA agents, slapping the ground with bone crunching thuds, as the mutants inside the lounge watched the scene unfold in horror.
Refusing to feel helpless, Laurien lunged towards the window with a reckless idea popping into her head, but was yanked back by Raven's surprisingly strong grip around her wrist. "Let go, I can stop them before they hit the ground!" She pleaded desperately, but after another glance at the courtyard, she saw that the bodies had stopped falling and spotted the reason that Raven had pulled her back. The ominous figure that she hadn't noticed before stood unmoving under the shadow of the building. The figure stepped forward into the light, making Laurien gasp.
With skin as red as the devil, the man's piercing yellow eyes gazed at them with a toothy grin that sent chills racing down her spine. A pointed tail whipped out from behind his body that was hunched over in a predatory stance, as he seemed to feel their fear from afar, but just as quickly as he had appeared, he suddenly vanished in a puff of vapory black smoke.
Shocked by what she'd just witnessed and wondering if she'd just imagined it, she felt a sudden wave of relief when she saw multiple CIA agents charge into the courtyard with guns cocked and ready in their hands.
"Stay back!" One of them yelled to the mutants. "We're under attack!"
Her relief soon changed to fierce terror as she spotted the crimson man reappearing behind one of the agents and swiftly slitting his throat with a long bladed knife. Blood gushed out of the dying man as the other agents fired at the vanishing intruder wildly, the man soon materializing between two of them and stabbing them both in the soft flesh of their stomachs.
Raven cried out as the men collapsed to the ground lifelessly. Laurien raised a hand to her own mouth to prevent herself from doing the same, unable to drag her gaze away from where they laid dying. She was mercifully removed from her stupor when Darwin herded them into a huddle behind the couches, trying to shield them from the massacre outside the window.
A tremendous whooshing sound turned their attention to the glass on other side of the room where, to their horror, they saw a giant tornado colliding with Hank's Cerebro machine that he'd told them about yesterday. The sphere was ripped apart by the threatening winds, demolishing the building into a mess of carnage. Laurien glanced up at Hank, the distress plain in his eyes as he witnessed his life's work turned into carnage.
Meanwhile, the crimson man drew ever closer as he skillfully slaughtered all of the men outside, none of them standing a chance as he pierced through their chests with his knife and his tail.
"Come on, follow me!" Darwin yelled, ushering them all towards the door leading to the hallway. They dashed after him, sprinting down the hallway, only to be stopped by men clad in army gear telling them to get back. They tried desperately to push through them, but were loudly interrupted by a large explosion that rocked the building, nearly knocking them off their feet. The men shot down the hallway at something coming forwards through the fiery cloud that had erupted from the atrium, as Laurien pulled a frozen Raven back towards the lounge after the others.
They stumbled as they reentered the room, the tornado looming towards them on one side and the crimson man murdering everyone who got in his way on the other, Laurien felt her stomach plummet as she realized that they were completely surrounded with no place to go. She hated the feeling of helplessness eating at her as they resumed huddling by the back wall, utterly cornered by the chaos around them.
The glass on their right broke with an ear shattering crash as an agent was thrown against it by the tornado, the shattered pieces littering the carpet of the lounge, as the man's body rolled towards them before stopping with his head lolling to the side. His eyes stared lifelessly at them.
Looking around at the other side of the room, Laurien found to her horror that there were only two men left in the courtyard as the demon suddenly emerged and wrapped his tail around one of the agents' necks, holding the man in front of him to discourage the other from shooting him. The man shot, having grown tired of the game, but unfortunately hit his colleague instead. The demon vanished into his cloud of smoke and reappeared behind the other man, his knife emerging grotesquely out of his belly.
As the agent fell heavily, the red man stepped forward through the open window that had gotten shattered by stray bullets in the fight and entered into the room. To their right, the group saw that the tornado had disappeared to reveal a sharply dressed man in a shiny blue suit with long dark hair do the same.
Suddenly, a barrage of shots spewed from behind the double doors across from them, as they heard the guards' plea for mercy. "The mutants are right in there, just let us normal people go– " His voice abruptly ceased with what Laurien knew to be the unmistakable crack of a neck being snapped.
Raven whimpered quietly to Laurien's right, her grip on Laurien's wrist surely leaving purple bruises that would be visible within the next hour if they even got out of there alive. She felt something brush her other arm and turned to see Hank backing into her as the red man crept closer, when suddenly the double doors burst open, making them all jump.
A man, wearing what seemed to be a helmet of some sorts, sauntered into the room. He approached them with a look in his eyes that Laurien could only describe as some warped version of pride, before he turned to the red man.
"Where's the telepath?" He asked in a deep gravelly voice that seemed to echo off the walls of the lounge.
"Not here." The red man growled.
"Too bad." He said lightly. "Well, at least I can take this silly thing off." He removed the helmet and quickly handed it off to the man in the blue suit.
"Good evening, my name is Sebastian Shaw." He greeted as if he were the host at a bloody dinner party. "And I am not here to hurt you."
Laurien found herself severely doubting that last statement, despite his deceivingly charming smile. She'd met men like him before, charismatic men who had a way with words and a great knowledge of how to manipulate someone by only using those means.
"Freeze." An obviously late and foolish CIA agent shouted from the courtyard.
Shaw barely turned his head in acknowledgment, keeping his eyes on the mutants. "Azazel."
Azazel vanished, slaying the man and reappearing, all in a matter of seconds, making it very clear to them to not try anything in his presence.
"My friends," Shaw continued as if nothing happened. "There's a revolution coming. When mankind discovers who we are, what we can do. Each of us will face a choice. Be enslaved, or rise up to rule."
He strolled closer to the terrified group, still smiling. "Choose freely, but know that if you are not with us, then by definition, you are against us." His face then turned serious, his eyes meeting Laurien's. "So you can stay, fight for the people who hate and fear you, or you can join me, and live like kings." His eyes shifted to Angel. "And queens."
He held out his hand to her, and to Laurien's dismay, Angel took it amid a collective cry from the rest of them.
"Angel." Raven called as Shaw led Angel away from the others.
"Are you kidding me?" Sean exclaimed from the back.
Angel turned to them, pain and resolve filling her dark brown eyes. "Come on. We don't belong here, and that's nothing to be ashamed of."
Laurien stared after her, numbness creeping through her chest and up to her throat as Angel stepped over the sill of the shattered window. She barely even heard Raven as she said in a quiet murmur, "We have to do something."
Darwin turned to Alex, grasping his arm and whispering something in his ear before Alex shook his head and roughly shoved him back.
"Stop, I'm coming with you." Darwin called, rapidly striding towards Shaw and the line of other mutants.
"Good choice, so tell me about your mutation." Shaw asked, a grin returning to his smug face.
"Well, I adapt to survive." Darwin shrugged. "So I guess I'm coming with you."
Shaw smirked. "I like that." He clapped Darwin on the back as he joined their ranks.
Before they could get too comfortable, Darwin yelled "Alex!" He grabbed Angel, pulling her to the side as he covered her with his speedily changing form of hardened rock.
"Get out!" Alex screamed at the remaining mutants behind him, they dashed to the double doors as his bright red rings were sent spinning out towards Shaw. As she ran, Laurien noticed that something was different. The beams didn't cut through the intruders, like they had the statue, but they seemed to hover and slowly disappear into Shaw's outstretched hands.
He greeted Alex with a sly grin. "Protecting your fellow mutants, that's a noble gesture." He flexed his fingers, feeling the power within them. "Feels good."
Darwin lunged at him, his fist at the ready, but Shaw effortlessly blocked it with his own. As she stopped running, Laurien thought that she was hallucinating as she could have sworn that Shaw's hand grew in size, as if it had absorbed the blow.
Darwin stared wide-eyed at the man who then grabbed him by the chin. "Adapt to this." Shaw whispered, forcing a small orb of glowing light into Darwin's mouth, before letting him go and suddenly vanishing in a wisp of smoke along with the others.
Laurien slowly walked forwards, her eyes fixed on Darwin as she came up to where Alex was frozen, both of them barely noticing that the other was there. Darwin morphed, body changing desperately as it struggled futilely to adjust to the foreign body that was traveling down his throat. He almost seemed to realize it the same moment they did, as he raised his hand towards them, his eyes pleading, as his body glowed in a wave of energy overtook him. Laurien felt her breath hitch with her intake of air, as the light disappeared, and along with it, Darwin.
Gah, every time I watch this scene in the movie, it gets sadder with every viewing. Wish we could have seen Darwin's character develop more before they abruptly killed him off. Anyway, school is starting soon, so the chapters might not come as fast as they used to. I love reading your reviews and replying to them, so please review!