The Three Elements #3 (The Avengers)

Chapter 2: Beautiful

I don’t remember when I had gone to sleep but I do remember the sharp jolt of metal smash against my head. Hands grabbed me and half pulled half carried me over pavement and my high-heeled feet scraped over freezing cold metal. It seemed forever as Mystique twisted me and jeered me in all sorts of directions it was as though we were searching for the middle of a maze. I constantly stumbled and fell as I trudged along in my sparkly heels and I heard the rip of thread more than once from my dress. That’s when my thoughts drifted back to the party at Stark Tower. Where was Tony? Was everyone ok? Was anyone killed?

‘If I didn’t know better I would have thought you didn’t want to be here’ I heard Mystique’s slithery voice in my ear, she shoved me forward and I fell to the ground the bag still over my head. With my hands now free I wreathed at the bag and I eventually got it off. My eyes were met with blinding sterile light. I blinked and stars clouded my vision and I stared down at the floor and the floor was like that of a hospital. My hands shook and I felt a wave of nausea run through me. I opened my mouth and tried to vomit but I only retched and I felt like I wasn’t going to breathe in again. Finally breath reached me, but it was cold and foul tasting.

I stood up and inhaled the aroma of mildew and earth. I looked around and the room was huge just like the top floor of Stark Tower. Most of the place was filled with huge computers and large screens filled with letters and numbers, some of it I knew from Tony’s physics classes, others I converted as jibberish. I shifted my feet a little and looked around more. The ceiling was higher than some trees in Central Park and behind me I saw threes cylinder shaped cages, only big enough for a person to crouch and turn around in a circle. One of the cages was empty and open the other two were occupied.

The girl in the middle cell had bark brown hair, her eyes ringed and dark and her skin had a slight tinge of brown and green. I couldn’t tell if she was wearing any clothes because vines of evergreen ivy were blossoming from her feet up her willowy arms and up to curl around her shoulders and neck. She wasn’t looking at me, but however pressed up against the glass, breathing out of her mouth heavily like she was struggling for breath.

The boy on the far right had grey eyes and deep ocean blue hair that dripped water at the ends. He was covered in leather and was sitting down at the bottom of the cage. He was looking at me with curiosity and something like menace or darkness. I saw him as his fingers wriggled and a pool of water began to rise on his palm. I took a step towards him, but was stopped by an invisible wall.

‘Don’t even dream of escaping Naveen Stark’ Magneto’s voice came from behind me. He stood there still and he looked at me as though I was an algebraic equation impossible to dismantle.

‘Why must I ask twice?’ I croaked, ‘What do you want from me?’. Magneto said nothing just raised his hand and I was flung back and smashed into the cage and the glass folded back and melted so that I was enclosed.

‘Why must I say twice?’ Magneto mimicked, ‘You have something I want’ with this he flicked a switch and I was shown up on the big screen. It was me and Enchantress.

‘You are something very special Priestess’ Magneto began as I watched the footage. ‘From no fault of your own and for some unexplainable reason your Egyptian powers have diminished and have left you with this’ he stopped and I watched as the girl on the screen was engulfed with violet flames. I splayed my hand out like I usually did when I wanted metal to form, but nothing came. I thought invisible and disappear. But nothing happened. The image continued to move and it was when I had blacked out. I remembered when Steve had picked me up. But however the image continued and showed Steve unable to grab me. I fell through his hands like I was a veil or a spirit. I do not remember that.

‘How did you get that?’ I said and balled my hand into a fist.

‘I have no shortage of spies Miss Stark’ he looked at my hands and gave a petty frown, ‘now, now, don’t get angry’ he approached the glass cage and his hand filtered through the glass and grabbed my wrist.

I tried to wreathe out of his grasp. He hardly flinched as he held my arm and from his pocket pulled out a syringe. I pulled and pulled and tried to twist free but I had nowhere to go anyway. Before I could scream he jabbed the syringe into the crook of my elbow. A jab of numb pain flicked through my arm up to my shoulder and down to my fingertips. I watched unable to do anything as he drained my scarlet red blood. He lifted away and I slumped down on the floor of the cage. I saw the girl covered in ivy vines look to me and her face was unreadable.

I looked away and saw Mystique saunter in looking like the cat that got the cream.

‘You might be able to move through walls but nothing’s going to get out of those cells’ she beamed, as I tried to push my palm through the thick glass.

‘Not even Nightcrawler or Azazel can get out of there’ she then retrieved the vile of blood from Magneto and implanted it into a slot by one of the computers. My blood drained away into the machine and then a blue and grey image came up on the screen. It was me as a hologram with a brief profile. Mystique pressed a button and the whole room lit up in blue light and holograms. It looked like Tony’s armoury. But this time the main focus wasn’t the Mark 43, this time it was me, various images of my childhood and my abilities, my anatomy flicked through the space around us and I was horrified. It was like my life story all in one room. I clenched my teeth and felt rage boil up in me and I felt warmth spread through my hands and up my arms to my face.

Purple flame flicked onto the glass of my cage and I was ready to kill them both.

‘Oh look, ugly is having a tanty’ Magneto left and Mystique was quick to follow. ‘Sleep tight Ugly, don’t let the demons bite’ her cackle drifted away and then the lights were switched off and the blue light disappeared and I was plunged into darkness.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to destroy something I wanted to turn Hulk.

‘I don’t think you’re ugly’ a gentle voice sounded through the oblivion. I didn’t know which way was up, it was so dark.

‘Infact I think you are very beautiful’ the girl whispered. I didn’t really know what to say.

‘Um, thank you’ I whispered back into the darkness. This was all that was said. I heard my stomach growl and bile rose in my mouth. I swallowed the urge to vomit and listened to the heavy breathing of the girl and my shallow breaths. I was sure I would never sleep again. I was sure I was never going to get out. But somehow I drifted into exhausted sleep.