Age of Darkness | Pietro Maximoff

Chapter Fifteen: Hatred Of A Minute

Music is "Galaxy" by Dan & Deryn Cullen.

Picture is Jane Levy as Glory Northern with unknown as Morgana Summers from Suburgatory.

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"Years of love have been forgot,
In the hatred of a minute."

- Edgar Allan Poe

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Chapter Fifteen

Of all the people we rescued, Vision was in the worst shape, far worse than we realized. The Next Gen. Mutants were dazed, drugged, and weak; the scientists were exhausted from work, but poor Vision. He had been tampered with. Cap said they found him strung up like a scarecrow in the center of Genosha's operations building. He had wires hooked up to him and a variety of machinery attached to him. Luckily, they were able to dismantle him without damaging him, but one thing was noticeably changed: the Mind Stone.

His power source, everything that makes Vision, Vision. The Mind Stone not only stores his memory, gives him his life, personality, and powers, but it also holds deep secrets into the Infinity Stones and the universe itself. If one were to unlock such a power, who knows what terrors Magneto could unleash upon the world.

It had been cracked.

Wanda is terrified, but is hiding her horror under a mask of anger. The rest of us are just trying to figure out what the hell Magento would do with the Mind Stone. While the X-Men are conversing with the scientists as to what they were working on for Magneto, and the Avengers are trying to fix Vision, I am walking back and forth between my team of Next Gen. Mutants.

"You guys scared the hell out of us," I say, patching up a gash on Morgana's forehead. I gently apply an anaesthetic to ease the pain and place a bandage on top.

Her big, blue eyes look up at me. "We started to think you weren't going to come for us,"she sniffs, wiping her nose with the back of her sweatshirt sleeve.

My eyes soften and I sit beside her on the bed, hugging her to me. "You should have known better. Of course we'd come."

"How did you find us?" Cole asks, standing beside us. The five of us are huddled on two beds, facing each other. Needless to say, they're still terrified. Have each other near helps them cope.

"The X-Men, actually," I reply, nodding over to Logan in the other room. "Professor X said he knew of a place called Genosha were Magneto was making an army of some sort. We weren't so great on the details, but I'm not from around here." I chuckle. "In my world, I read the comics and I knew of Genosha, it's location, it's defenses, it's purpose. I helped find you."

"Thank you," Morgana mumbles, leaning against me.

"He offered to let us join him," Katie whispers, looking into her hands. "He said we'd be free from the persecution that Stark is creating."

"Katie, he lies-"

"-He offered us a home, Glory," she says, firmly, looking up at me from the bed opposite Morgana and I. "He offered us a safe haven and a family. Do you know what happened to my family?" Tears are in her eyes.

I nod my head. "I do. I didn't want to bring it up without your consent."

"They drowned," she says, tears finally falling. "They drowned because I couldn't control my powers. I can breathe underwater, but I flooded the house... I couldn't stop..." Her fists clench and she closes her eyes.

"I thought you had a family here," I reply. "I thought we were close-"

"-Magneto promised us absolute control over our powers," Roran says, looking at Katie. "I almost took him up on his offer as well. If it weren't for Cole telling us not to..."