Evening!

I kinda really liked where these few chapters were going, so had to post another.

Many thanks to all those who have just joined, and to those that have reviewed, but it's currently 1030pm here and my phone died a good fifteen minutes ago so I can't check for names. You know who you are though!

Enjoy

xo

Chapter 15

Discovered

The room smelt musty, like it hadn't been opened for years, but it was obvious it had been pilfered long ago. Filing cabinets, desk draws and cupboards, all were open and empty. A few newspaper clippings were left strewn on the floor, and Lex bent down to pick one up. It was dated in the nineties, and the story spoke of the killing of a government official.

"Hmm, Nat," she whispered with a malevolent smirk. Lex let the clipping drop back to the floor before moving around the room, looking over what was left in there, which wasn't much. A pen, blank papers, an empty fish tank. She scanned the walls for any hidden safes or alcoves, but found neither.

Lex sighed, wondering if her trip was going to prove futile, when she looked out the window. She noticed a building she didn't recognise. It was positioned directly behind the dorm building, small in stature, almost like a shed. It looked out of place with the other infrastructure, like it was erected within the last few decades. She narrowed her eyes, before turning and hurrying from the room.

She hurried outside, fighting her way through piles of heavy snow and slush, before finally reaching the building to find the door was locked. She found that odd, considering the state of the rest of the facility. The door, however, was suffering from the effects of age and she kicked at it, knocking it off its hinges easily. Inside, a steel ladder lowered into the ground, to what appeared to be some kind of bunker.

"Well, this just looks ominous, doesn't it?" she murmured to herself before a slight grin crept onto her lips. She pulled the handgun she had been carrying in a holster at her hip and dropped into the hole, ignoring the ladder.

Landing at a crouch, she looked around, the bunker walls were thick concrete, and she noticed bullet holes here too. She moved down the bunker, pulling a torch from her pocket to light her way as it darkened.

The corridor wound left and right, before she finally found a large steel door which had been left partially open, an old blood stain on the front of it. Many people had died protecting this place.

She shoved it with her shoulder, forcing it to open wider and allowing her room to step inside. It appeared to be some kind of lab, reminiscent of the Siberian bunker Bucky had taken them too. She glanced around, shining her torch about the chamber, seeing similar capsules as in Siberia, all were empty and shattered, blood inside them. She couldn't help feeling slightly relieved at that, as she slipped her handgun back into her holster.

She found a power terminal close to the capsules and noticed it appeared to be on standby, after all this time. She frowned slightly, considering the panel, before touching the yellow button that flashed at her.

The chamber lit up, some sparks flying from exposed wires in the walls where things had been ripped from their ports, making her duck slightly, her hand drifting back down to her holstered hand gun.

With the lights now on, she got a better look around the chamber, putting her torch back in her pocket. The chamber set up was near identical to the one in Siberia, but this chamber had a low ceiling, obviously built after the school had been well established, and she suspected it had been used for a similar purpose to Siberia, perhaps for the future Black Widows to suffer similar fates as she was supposed to. She wondered about Natasha for a moment, as she continued to take on her surrounds. Had Natasha undertaken an enhancement? She knew little about the red head, except for her reports on The Red Room for S.H.I.E.L.D. and it's possible she had neglected to add important information about that. She noted to remember to ask her about that one day.

She heard the sound of an audio speaker kicking in and turned to find a video terminal.

"Testing ... testing ..." someone said in German.

"Audio visual is operational, General."

"Very good."

Lex walked to stand in front of the video terminal. It was a video of a doctor, it looked to be dishevelled Abraham Erskine, and he was looking nervously around at soldiers that surrounded him. One in particular was high ranking, as she recognised the golden insignias on his Nazi uniform.

"If you don't mind, doctor..."

Erskine sighed, before beginning to inject mice with some strange liquid. They watched in anticipation as the mice seemed to have no reaction at all.

There were murmurs amongst them, as they began to glare at the Dr, but then the mice gave a shrill scream, before seeming to rip themselves apart.

There were more murmurs then, and chatter amongst the German rank, while the doctor seemed slightly relieved.

The video went black, and Lex wrinkled her nose, that really hadn't helped her at all. She went to walk away when another video began.

"Testing," Dr Erskine whispered. Lex looked back at the screen, furrowing her brow. Erskine looked scared.

"I fear, that something terrible will happen soon. My early stage formula has been taken. It was not completed yet, I had not been able to remove the chemical component that overrides the natural reaction to pain and heightens all aspects of strength and endurance in an emotional state. I fear the worst, if used on the wrong person it could bring about a catastrophic reaction, if they even survived the first five minutes." Lex narrowed her eyes.

"There are rumours of war again, and I fear whomever has stolen my serum has only ill intentions. I can only hope their chosen subject is either of weak mind, and the formula destroys them, or is of strong mind with a good heart, I can only see this being how they can survive. Either way, I fear the worst for them."

Silence reigned again for a moment before the next video played. It was her. She was forced to sit on her bed while a needle was forced into the base of her neck. She was completely compliant to the adults around her, who said nothing to her as the liquid was drained from the needle. The slimey man stared down at her.

She felt a familiar sting in her neck, as she stared at the video, even though she was alone. She hadn't been aware that they were filming her, nor that they were filming her transformation as the video changed to show her writhing in pain in a small room that she recognised so well as a quarantine room in The Red Room Academy. The screams were haunting.

Lex couldn't help but notice how small she was before, as she continued to watch herself. The slimy man appeared again in the next clip, looking her over as she now stood in front of him in nothing but her undergarments, noticeably taller and bigger, her face completely void of any emotion and staring dead ahead, as he leered at her body. This had to be the man who stole the formula from Erskine.

She took a quick photo on her phone just as the slimy man turned around to speak to Madame B, a snarl of a smirk on his lips as he nodded towards her.

The video cut again, plunging the screen to darkness, and she stood staring at the terminal as the memories of the week after her injection lingered in her mind. The pain had been unspeakable, she could never describe it if she tried, yet she had endured. Dr Erskine's words lingered on her mind.

I can only hope their chosen subject is either of weak mind and the formula destroys them, or is of strong mind with a good heart, I can only see this being how they can survive.

Was it possible? Could she, who had murdered so many people in cold blood and craved revenge for so long, actually have a good heart? What sick joke would that be?

She needed to find the slimey looking man. She considered what to do next and then reached for the video terminal, looking to eject the video and take it with her. The one good thing about living through the turn of the century was watching the technology change and actually knowing how to use things many in the modern age forgot existed.

She pushed the button, but nothing happened. She frowned, before pushing open the door to the video player.

It was empty.

Part of Lex was freaking out. The other part, the highly trained weapon in her, was telling her to ignore everything aside from the information she now had, how she got it, wasn't important, she had what she needed.

She left the bunker in a hurry, not looking back. She was mildly concerned with what she might see if she did.

As she approached the gate, she saw someone standing there, her footsteps immediately slowing and her hand reaching for her handgun holstered at her thigh.

It looked to be a young girl, maybe a teen, and Lex was immediately on edge, her memories of The Red Room making her wary. After seeing the equipment in the underground chamber, she was expecting anything.

"What are you doing in there? Don't you know it's off limits?" she asked in Russian.

"I was curious," Lex replied, analysing the girl's features as she got closer. She was dressed in gum boots, a thick jacket that looked well worn over a woollen dress. She had a grey beanie on over her golden coloured hair that was braided on either side of her head, framing her pretty European features. She was dressed a lot like the farmers she had come past on her way to the academy, but she wasn't letting her guard down.

"Well you shouldn't be, this is a place of darkness and misery, get out before it falls down on you," the girl implored, motioning for Lex to come out.

"I'm admiring the architecture." Lex stopped under the covered entrance way and pretended to be admiring the mouldings around the eves.

"Nobody admires this place. Don't you know what it is?" Lex looked at her expectantly, not moving any closer. "They trained killers here. Spies, for the Soviets."

"That's just stories for tourism, surely," Lex replied with a slight laugh, being careful to not convey any recognition of the truth, her hand easing away from her side.

"No, it's true, my father said that one time the Americans even attacked them here and men died."

Lex raised her eyebrows, intrigued by the girl's story, knowing well enough herself, that it was true. "How would he know that?"

"There were explosions, and he saw the American soldiers in their trucks as they left."

Lex was dubious, but finally moved towards the gate, as the teen stepped back and let her climb out. "And what are you doing here?" she asked her as she climbed out the same way she had come in.

"I heard your dogs howling a few minutes ago and came to investigate," she answered, motioning to the dogs. They were all sitting looking towards them, their ears upright and alert.

"Ah, naughty dogs."

"They can sense the death in the air here, it makes them nervous."

Lex frowned. This farmer's girl was certainly into her mystic beliefs. "Well, I find it hard to believe such a place could exist."

"Why? Men in iron suits who can fly, exist. Men who fought in the great wars live and fight today having barely aged a day. Why is it hard to believe women were trained to kill people here?"

Lex glanced sideways at the girl before beginning to walk towards the dog's camp, she was very clever for a farmer's girl. "I suppose you have a good point there." She pursed her lips together as the girl walked with her. "Tell me then, do you know why this place closed down?"

The girl glanced sideways at her, having to look up slightly, as Lex was much taller than her. "Why? I don't think the reason much matters, just that it's good it's gone. Sometimes it's best just to move on."

"As true as that is, I'm sure, I'm intrigued as to why it was here in the first place but also as to what happened to close it down."

"My father says that it was started to train orphans to be spies and assassins for the Soviets, prior to the world wars. Then, they wanted to make special soldiers using experiments. It all went bad in the nineties when Belarus claimed their independence at the fall of the USSR. Belarusians felt that the Soviets had been trying to remove their culture from the country, and they knew this facility was Russian run. It was a bloody fight, many people died, mostly Belarusians at the hands of the women here, some girls were younger than me. And then after, men in suits came and cleaned everything up."

Lex stopped at the edge of her camp, looking back at the girl. "Suits? Did your father say who they were."

She shook her head. "No, he said that some had a strange skull insignia on them, but the farmers and villagers just kept to themselves. The people just wanted to forget about this place, it has many horrible secrets. We are glad it's gone, and glad the world has moved on. It doesn't define us. Our past shouldn't define us, only what we want to be, should define us." Lex raised her eyes brows at the girl as she looked back to the academy. "So much Death and despair was caused by this place."

Lex narrowed her eyes as a icy cold wind blew across the field. HYDRA had to have sent a clean up crew, it would make sense, considering everything she had read after the 2014 incident. She turned to scratch the head of the lead dog of her sled dog team, whose eyes were intently fixed on the teen who stood behind her. "Well, it's definitely an interesting story, but like I said, I find it all very hard to..." she trailed off as she turned around to find the girl was gone.

All four dogs howled loudly from their seated positions, as Lex looked around across the fields surrounding the academy. There was no one in sight, not a building within miles, nor trees, nowhere for the girl to hide. Yet, where had she gone?

Lex stood motionless, her heart rate beginning to rise slowly, as she looked at the ground where the girl had been standing to see a bright blue flower sprouting from a plant that looked very out of place in the current snowy environment.

She stared at it for a moment, it looked very familiar. She stooped down to look at it, before reaching out to touch it, unsure if it was real or not. "I know these..." As she touched the bright blue flower petals, there was an onslaught of memories in her head.

Flashback

Her mother, a beautiful woman of slight build with soft golden blonde hair, playing in a park with her and holding the flower up to a young Alexia, who tried to reach for it.

A vase full of blue flowers on a window sill.

Walking through the park holding her mother's hand and looking at garden beds full of the flowers. Her mother's lifeless face, lying beside a broken vase with blue flowers lying all around her.

Lex fell backwards in shock, shuffling back from the plant quickly until she ran into one of the dogs, who barked in her ear and jumped sideways. She looked around in bewilderment, as the dog and another close at hand began to assault her face sympathetically.

She fought them off of her, getting back to her feet unsteadily as her head was now throbbing from the onslaught, still staring at the plant.

"Royal Bluebell," she murmured, looking at the flower again. She stepped forward and pulled it up from the ground. They had been her mother's favourite flower and only found in one place in Australia. She was thoughtful for a moment before looking around the snowy fields again. "How did it get here?"

The wind swirled around her, the dogs howling again as she looked back down at the flower in her hand.

UUUHHHHH... yes. That is all...

xo

Krayzee