Chapter 14
Charlie watched absentmindedly, as Alex was checking all the results of analysis of the chemical substance, that was in Steve, Erik, and Dean’s bloodstream. Looking serious and focused, as if she had completely forgotten Charlie’s existence in the room.
At some point, Charlie started calling her ‘Alex’ instead of her full name, the doctor didn’t really mind or comment about it, so it just stuck now, and she became ‘Alex’ instead of ‘Dr. Alexandra’ since then.
A fast friendship happened between them. Charlie didn’t need much time to be friends with anyone if she wanted, not to mention that they were both geniuses in their own way, so a fast, brilliant friendship happened, it gave both Castiel and Tony a whiplash before they left a few hours ago.
Charlie was feeling very lonely and terrified when she first came to the hospital, looking for her scattered family. She knew something was wrong when she went to the mansion to see her girlfriend like always, only to find it filled with SHIELD agents and completely empty from any mutants, not to mention the obvious trace of an explosion there.
Panicked, she rushed to the Tower to get answers, only to find it empty. None of her family was there, and no one was answering their phones. She was terrified, worried, and lonely until finally she managed to get in contact with Raven, who in short words explained what had happened to everyone.
Also mentioned that she was off the grid to keep the children safe until all this mess ended. Charlie could understand that, but she wanted to see her so badly to make sure she was really alright, but didn’t want to cause any danger to her or the children, so she made her way to the hospital instead to see her scattered family and their awful situation.
Now, a few hours later, her feelings of worry and loneliness didn’t disappear, but at least she wasn’t completely alone anymore. Tony and Castiel were fine and awake, and now she had a new female friend. She liked having another female friend.
She was pulled out of her thoughts when that female friend cursed in Spanish suddenly, looking very frustrated and annoyed.
“This is absurd!” Alex exclaimed in frustration, glaring at the report in her hands. “Something must be wrong! This is just impossible!”
“What is it?” Charlie asked, rubbing her eyes tiredly. It was a very long, worrying day, it was starting to take its toll on her.
“The experts in the lab!” Alex turned to her, pointing at the report angrily. She started cursing again in Spanish for a few seconds, before switching back to English. “They failed to analyze the chemical substance that we extracted from the patient’s skin! Claiming there were two unknown elements!”
“Two unknown elements?” Charlie repeated dumbly, a huge question mark appearing over her head. “But there are no unknown elements in this era anymore.”
“Exactly! Which proves that there is something very wrong here!” Alex resembled a very frustrated puppy to Charlie if she was being honest. The doctor was just so small and adorable, she was even shorter than Charlie, and her frustration made her look like an angry little puppy despite the situation. Charlie wanted to pat her head so badly but refrained from doing that.
“Here, let me take a look.” Charlie reached over towards the reports.
“Obviously there is something wrong with their machines,” Alex muttered, as she handed over the reports to Charlie. “Two unknown elements? How stupid!”
Charlie started to look worried and confused as she read over the reports. “But everything looks perfectly done. They checked the skin sample four times, with the best machines they have, and got the same results each time. They found out about the Truth Serum in Steve and Erik’s blood along with that other substance. As for the skin sample, it contained a mysterious chemical substance, that is made from Carbon, Phosphorus, Sodium, Nitrogen, and two unknown elements.”
“That last part is absurd! Just absurd!” Alex repeated in frustration, refusing to believe that last part. “We all know that all the elements on Earth are known and arranged perfectly in the Periodic Table!”
Charlie stared at her for a few seconds, her heart starting to pound as a scary thought came to her mind. “Wait, don’t you know what this means?!”
“It means that the people in the lab don’t know how to do their job.” Alex shook her head, a look of displeasure on her face. “They had one job!”
“Or maybe that substance didn’t come from Earth!” Charlie announced frantically, looking on the verge of panic.
“Didn’t come from what?! come on, Miss Bradbury-“
“Charlie.”
“Come on, Charlie, we can’t just jump to that conclusion just like that!” Alex shook her head with a sigh, before standing up and taking back the tablet from Charlie. “Let’s make sure first that they didn’t make a mistake and if there was something wrong with their machines.”
She started to make her way towards the door to go to the other building where all the main labs were, but Charlie gripped her arm tightly before she could move very far, sinking her nails in her arm.
“Charlie?” Alex turned towards her in confusion, not understanding her tight grip, “What is it? You want to come with me?”
“No, and you need to not go anywhere either.” Charlie breathed out in a choked voice, staring at something from the window in front of her, her eyes wide and on the verge of panic.
Alex blinked at her in confusion, before looking at what Charlie was staring at, only to gasp sharply, stumbling back, as the reports fell from her hands, forgotten.
At the same moment, Tony’s voice came from Charlie’s watch, yelling frantically: “Charlie! Alex! Increase security in the main labs! Stop anyone from going there! Keep the results of everything you found in a safe place until Cas and I come to you! Do you hear me? Girls! Do you hear me?!”
They both could hear him just fine, but his warning was sadly very delayed. It was too late for them to do what he said.
Because they were currently staring at the building of the main labs, as fire raged from its windows. The entire building was on fire, and there was no way anyone inside it managed to survive that fire.
“Oh God! Oh, God!!” Alex exclaimed, coming out of her shock, as she and Charlie rushed towards the window to see what the hell was happening outside.
Security was rushing frantically towards the burning building, yelling and screaming at people to stay away, evacuating everyone in the hospital yard to get them away from the fire.
However, in the middle of all that chaos and panic, the two women’s eyes caught a certain man walking in the middle of the panicking people. An overly tall man, walking in weird calmness despite the situation in the opposite direction of everyone around them. In fact, he was walking towards the main building. Towards them.
Their hearts banged loudly in their chests as they followed the man with their eyes, and fear started to overcome them both.
“No, no, no! Steve! Erik! Dean!” Charlie yelled frantically, not focusing on what would happen to her if that man came here, her main focus was on her family members, lying in their beds, unable to protect themselves. “We need to keep him away from here!”
Alex opened the window wide, and pointed towards the tall man, then shouted at the top of her lungs “Stop that man! He is responsible for all of this! Stop him!”
Her scream was so loud and powerful that it got the attention of all the security men who turned towards the man she was pointing at, who in turn turned to face them as well.
Charlie and Alex let out a sharp gasp when the man pulled out his strange-looking gun.
Then the fireballs were fired.
Three fireballs took out three security guards without missing a beat, throwing them from their place, to land prone several feet away, fire burning on their chests and faces.
Just as fast, all the security guards raised their own guns toward the man and started to rain fire at him with all they had. However, the man just took all their bullets, without even moving an inch.
The bullets would just hit his body and reflect away violently without scratching him as if he were wearing powerful armor.
At the same time, he was shooting his fireballs with abandon, taking out more and more security guards, who decided to start shooting at his head, figuring he was wearing strong bulletproof armor on his body.
But the result of that was terrifying.
Because the bullets also just hit his head and reflected off it like they did with his body.
But the artificial skin that surrounded his face, couldn’t handle that.
It got ripped off and slipped away.
Revealing his true face.
His very not human face.
A green face, covered with scales, with no nose. Its eyes were the same as snakes, red as blood.
After seeing that face, the entire scene froze for a moment, as everyone stared at that horrifying face, fear spreading through their bodies.
The creature broke the silence to fire another fireball, killing another guard, which successfully pushed the others to move as well and returned to shooting the creature, raining on it with their bullets, but a sense of desperation washed over them, as they started to retreat, having no hope to kill that invincible creature.
Then suddenly, Iron Man showed up.
He appeared out of nowhere, and he flew at blinding speed toward the creature, as he blasted his repulsor at it, managing to rip the creature from its place, making it fly until it hit the side of the burning building crashing to it.
But the creature had just stood up from that hit, raising its gun to shoot Iron Man, who just flew to the side fast, revealing a speeding car behind him, driven by Castiel, who drove the car at crazy, manic speed towards the creature.
The creature shot the fireball at the car, then with high speed and efficiency, Castiel abandoned the car, pushing himself out of it, to get caught by Tony and fly back with him, as the car got hit by the fireball exploding it, as it kept moving at crazy speed towards the creature.
The burning car crashed into the creature right into the side of the building and another explosion happened.
An explosion so powerful, that it shook the entire hospital, that both Charlie and Alex lost their balance and fell to the floor from the force of it.
As Alex was helping Charlie to stand back up, the redhead’s eyes caught the blue light that emerged momentarily from down the hall in the special care section, before disappearing just as fast.
“No. No, it can’t be!” Charlie screamed in panic, as she shot to her feet and ran towards the special care rooms, faintly hearing Alex’s footsteps as she rushed behind her.
There was a doctor and three nurses lying on the floor, a black smoking circle on each of their chests from where they got hit. Alex’s sharp gasp tore at Charlie’s heart as the poor doctor saw her dead colleagues scattered on the floor like that.
Down at the end of the corridor, a man in regular clothes was pushing a strange-looking weapon in his jacket as he took a turn toward the emergency stairs.
With all her panic fear and worry, Charlie crashed inside Steve’s room. “Oh God, what if-“
She didn’t finish the sentence as she stood there staring at Steve’s body on the bed with wide eyes, her nerves couldn’t handle all that anymore, before letting out a panicked scream.