Monstrous (Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter 6

Carrying on from the flashback in the previous chapter

Previously:

"Experiment 001X59, my name is Colonel William Stryker and I have a proposition for you."

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"Oh yeah? Mr Stryker, I highly doubt you could propose anything that would interest me." Lila knew it was snarky but she also knew that this was not a good man. His demeanour screamed, "I'm not afraid to shoot you" and he gave off the feeling of someone with dark secrets. "What if I could say that if you agree to my deal, you spend three more days in here and then you never have to see this place again."

Needless to say, Stryker had peaked her interest. "What's the catch?" She was not one to beat around the bush. "You would undergo a three day procedure to enhance your mutations, and then you would work for me." Lila's first reaction was to question what kind of 'work' he could mean, then it hit her. 'Procedure to enhance your mutations.' That's what he said.

"Mr Stryker, I will not even begin to consider this offer if you do not tell me what kind of.......oh." The look on his face said it all. "You were going to use me as a weapon. Well, I can tell you, 'Mr Stryker' that I would rather spend the rest of my life in this horrible place than kill innocent people!" He smirked slightly. "Oh well, hard way it is." Lila's eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

Suddenly, realisation dawned on her as three large, slightly ape-like brutes entered her cell, the biggest carrying a tranquillizer gun. Lila was gifted with unnaturally fast reflexes and was up on the highest ledge before they could even comprehend that she had taken to the air. Unfortunately, the ledge was rather short and pressing up against the wall would not prevent them being able to shoot up at her.

The sound of rapid fire reached her ears as the man fired three successive darts at Lila. The first embedded itself into the wall directly where her head was a fraction of a second before, the second, she caught a mere inch before her right shoulder, but the third....she was not so lucky. Yanking the sleek, silver, and now empty dart from her left leg, Lila began to feel light headed.

Stumbling backwards, she caught herself on the wall. "This is impossible, she should have been out cold the moment a drop of that tranq touched her. There's enough in there to put down three rhinos!" Seethed the gun wielder. "I am not beaten so easily." Lila slurred. Stryker ordered him to hit her again, his smile turning victorious at the thought of the tremendous amount of strength and willpower it must take to fight off such a strong drug in such dangerously high quantities. ¨Yes,¨ he thought, ¨she is the one we have been waiting for. She will be perfect.¨

As the second dose of tranq made its way into her bloodstream, Lila began to sway. As her thoughts grew fogged, she believed she had never encountered a more arduous task at that moment, than to keep her eyes open. Falling forwards, Lila plummeted through the air, the short distance made the ground come up to meet her very quickly. As the ground sped towards her, her eyelids got heavier, weighed down by an unmovable force. Lila closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep just as she hit the ground.

Pain. Pain was the first comprehensible thing that Lila felt as she groggily came back into consciousness, her mind as blurred as her vision. Very quickly she realised she was strapped down to a cold, hard metal table. Despite her tremendous strength, they had learnt and built stronger restraints just for her. She looked around as much as she could, but her field of vision was severely limited due to the table, so she didn't know that Stryker was in the room. Lila focused hard and heard the sound of his breathing and heartbeat.

"Your calm and stoic exterior can only fool for so long, especially when I can hear your rapid heartbeat." She said in a monotone voice. His heartbeat sped up and Lila smirked to herself. "You may be taunting now, but in a couple of minutes you wont be." His tone was menacing and she easily picture the ugly scowl on his face. Then came the 'doctors'. That was when it started, that three day procedure that Stryker had mentioned before.

She hadn't just gone from the frying pan to the fire, she went from the frying pan to the volcano. She doesn't remember much besides agony for three days solid, but she does recall hearing the muffled voice of one of the doctors asking Stryker why they couldn't just knock her out for the procedure, and he explained that Lila's regenerative ability was directly proportionate to the length of time a foreign substance (such as anaesthetic) can stay in her body before it burns itself out of her system. They performed a multitude of procedures on her over those three days.

She wasn't exactly sure exactly what they did to her but Lila thought it was something along the lines of enhancing the x-gene of mutation and effectively making her more of a monster than she already was. After that three day procedure, they assumed she would be out of it for a while and lowered their guard. For the first time in many many years, her escape attempt was successful, and she broke free. Little did she know that Lila wasn't the first mutant to be experimented on.

A year before, Stryker had captured a mutant with petrification powers, the ability to turn things to stone. Using this power, Stryker created a serum that once injected into the bloodstream, fused onto strands of DNA. It was designed so that nothing happens unless the trigger written into the base code of the serum was activated. When activated, the serum overtakes the DNA and slowly turns you to stone from the inside out. It is a very slow and painful process.

~End of Story~

"So you see Loki, when I escaped, Stryker activated the serum in me, and now I'm turning to stone." Lila lifted up her shirt reveal that part of her midsection and down to her thighs was already crusty and grey.