THE GIFTED

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 21

THIRD PERSON POV

"Lydia, we've discussed this over a hundred times. You can't just..." Steve is cut off by Fury's cold voice, who had let Lydia explain the entire plan to both the remaining avengers along with the seven mates she had in the room. 

Of course, she had left out all the death talk, but Steve and Nat had been the two who heard her plan originally. 

"Captain, she can. She's been working on controlling it for years, and with the added balance of her mates it simply decreases the probability of..." 

"Of what, Director?" Owen interrupts, crossing his arms as he stares down the man with an eyepatch. 

Lydia groans, slamming her head onto the desk. It had nearly killed her trying to convince North, and even then he wasn't convinced, he was just agreeing until his brother's got here to back up his decision. 

"It simply decreases the probability of death," Natasha snaps from her chair, glaring at Lydia who was still face down on the table, pouting obvious on the small part of her face that was visible. 

"Regardless of that," Brandon interjects, laying a hand on Lydia's shoulder, who simply groaned in resignation, "Lydia's plan is nearly fool proof. We have two reasons that we are going back." 

"So she can mimic the powers of the infinity stones," Steve interjects, "Five more of them. Have you all forgotten that it took her nearly four years to perfect the one infinity stone?" 

Lydia leans up, biting her lip, "I won't be perfecting them, Steve. I won't even train with them."

"Then what do you..." Steve trails off as his angry face fades, "You're going to channel all of the power through you and use yourself as a vessel for the snap, arent you?" 

Clearing her throat, Lydia nods, making Barton let out a shout and throw the cup of coffee that was in his hand across the room, splattering it across the wall. 

"What is so wrong with being vessel?" Raven asks, glaring at everyone, excluding Lydia. He was not happy that North let her run away, and he was not happy with the attitude that everyone had about this topic, especially because he didn't understand. 

Of course, none of her mates, excluding North and Brandon, understood exactly what was going on, besides the rough plan that they had just been told by Lydia. No one knew exactly what happened to cause the snap, all they knew was that the Avengers had failed to protect them like they should have and half the universal population had disappeared. 

The plan she had given them was simple enough, she was going to bend time and all eight of them, her seven mates, and herself would go back through time. They would be chasing after five separate glowing stones, Lydia had to get within five feet of the stones in order for her to mimic the powers. 

She didn't have enough power to teleport them to each individual spot in time to copy the stones individually, which meant she would be teleporting them to nearly exactly four years prior in the middle of the epic battle that went down that the Avengers lost. 

After she acquired the power she would then transport them back into the future, into their own time. From there they would reverse the snap with the power of the six infinity stones. 

And that was the gist of the plan she had given them, purposefully leaving out some of the more important details such as how she was going to reverse the snap. 

"What she purposefully didn't mention, boys, is that there is only one vessel in the world strong enough to control the power of the six stones, and it's currently in outer space as nothing more than dust because the big purple asshole who did this destroyed it and the stones." 

"Then how the fuck is she going to reverse it or use all six stones or what-the-fuck-ever?" Gabriel snaps, crossing his arms at his spot next to Raven. One could assume that the two of them were closer than he and Luke had ever been, circumstances bringing them together like never before. 

"Because even though she's not strong enough to do it, she's going to, and because of that she'll die." Axel says from his spot against the wall, not taking his eyes off of Lydia who blinked at him in a slight hesitation. 

"Absolutely not." Nathan snaps, glaring at the other red-head with fury in his eyes, "Are you out of your ever-loving mind? I swear to God you get crazier as the days go by!" 

"There is a probability that she wouldn't die," North growls, glaring at his once brother with his own anger growing. She might have been making a dumb decision, but he would absolutely not allow a man, mate of hers or not, to talk to her like that. Because in the end, it was her decision. 

"And what is that probability Mr. Taylor?" Owen asks, resorting to formalities once again as he straightens his purple tie. 

"It's North, Owen," Lydia corrects, receiving an eyebrow raise and slight tilt of his lips. 

"Fine, North, what is the probability that you've been given?" 

"She has a survival chance of 36%, with a success rate of 98%." Fury interjects, trying to reign control over the room that was slowly becoming more intense. Barton and Steve were both staring the girl down, the heat in their eyes steadily growing. 

"She only had a survival rate of 5% two years ago, what happened?" Natasha asks, leaving forward with her own eyebrow raised curiously. 

"Lydia thinks that her future self went back to the past and acquired the remaining seven members of her mated groups, and brought them to the future to use as a channel. Similar to what Rocket said Star-Lord did with the one infinity stone. It is probably because not only are they all mated, but she also possesses the DNA characteristics of a supernatural entity, meaning that her body will be able to store the power long enough for her to connect with her mates and let it flow through all of them." 

"So she stores the power, which will slowly be killing her, and then when they get back to the present she uses her mates as an extended version of the vessel to make the snap happen?" Nat asks again, confusion rising in her, she didn't understand exactly how that would increase the chances of survival.

"They wouldn't be vessels, they would be sharing their life-force with her through the mate bond, giving her enough time to direct the full powers within her towards the intention." Steve clarifies, receiving a nod from Fury and Lydia, one of which looking extremely vulnerable.

"So not only are you going back to gather the powers of the stone, but you're going back to gather the rest of your mates?"