Daughter Of the Beast *Wolverine/Avengers*

Chapter 34- In Which We Reach Moscow

        Note: The palace described is not an actual palace. I have however taken inspiration from Petrovsky and Terem Palaces. The character Lyrica is the creation of @lyrical_love22 and has been used with permission.

        After some time in the dark, the truck ground to a halt. People carefully moved in the dark, rustling up the smells of gasoline and rotting, decaying cardboard. The doors opened and the truck was flooded with light. We all blinked and groaned. Everett turned his head into my shoulder, and I covered my eyes with my hands. Several wary soldiers in black aimed long barreled guns at us, even though we were too weak to move. Once the blindness stopped, I found myself outside in the blazing sunlight. My legs trembled. 

        "Where are we going?" I asked quietly. I just got hit in the head for my trouble. We were in a large city. Magneto's black army trucks lined the streets, which where crawling with people and the feeling of thick terror. Golden domes crowned with crosses crested a red building trimmed out in white. More soldiers in black shoved the tide of people back to let us through. 

        Once inside the magnificent building, I was amazed. The walls were scarlet and covered with delicate gold scroll work. The golden doors at the end of this... entrance hall gaped open. Uniformed Russian guards had bled out on the freezing marble, and Magneto's black guards stood guard in their place. We continued marching in. Long windows flooded the room with the pale sunlight and illuminated the fine textured artwork. As the end of the room drew nearer, I saw Magneto lounging on a throne. 

        The Dreamwalker and Ashar stood on the right side of the throne. Ashar stared straight ahead, as if watching something in the distance. The Dreamwalker cocked her head to one side. A smile played over her lips. Her hair was now pulled smartly into a ponytail at the nape of her neck and she was wearing a child size, grey, military uniform. Ashar was wearing a larger version of the same thing. They matched. How cute. Ashar was the only one with handguns strapped to his hips though. 

        "Ah, you've arrived, Miss Logan." Magneto approached me. "We need you to track down the Russian President. He's hiding in the building somewhere. You will find him and kill him. If you do not comply, you will be simply disposed of. Now, would you like a meal?" 

        "Yes." I answered quietly. He motioned and a trembling woman scurried out with a tray. A sandwich and a bag of chips sat on it, along with a glass of milk. I paused for a moment, wary that this is all a trick. "Go on." He encouraged and I quickly ate. It's over before it's even begun and the woman scurried in, grabbed the tray, and scurried back out. 

        Magneto motioned again and a soldier brought over a black case. He knelt down and opened it. Two handguns were nestled in the egg crate foam. "Those are two Glock 30 S pistols. They each weigh almost two pounds when loaded. Each magazine carries ten bullets." He picked one up. "Like this." He picked the gun up and fired it casually at one of the guards, who dropped dead. "Keep a firm grip, but not too firm, you're far too valuable to be wandering around with broken hands from the recoil." He handed them both to me. I took them. "Now, kill that guard." He flicked his wrist at one of the many men stationed around the room. 

        Shaking, I raised the gun. I swallowed, then assumed a stance similar to his own. I screwed my face up, then fired. The gun rocked back in my hands and a bit of smoke fluttered from the muzzle. 

        "She's a natural! Just like her father." He clapped, a solitary sound. "Now, go find that Russian President! Kill him." 

        I hesitated, and he raised an eyebrow. My gaze fell and I walked out. The halls were quiet as I padded through them. I wondered where the others could be. I opened the door to a bedroom. The white bedspread was stained with dark blood, and heavy breathing came from the other side. I pulled one of the guns on, and tried to unsheathe my claws. Nothing happened. I sighed and pulled out the other gun. I held them carefully, still unsure, as I crept over to the other side. A massive pair of wings snapped open. "Get away! I will attack!" The girl spun around as I raised the gun. Her eyes widened. Mine widened too. 

        "Lyrica?" Her thin sword was pressed against my throat, and her eyes narrowed. She lowered her wings from their full-flung stance. 

        "Ruari?" I nodded and the sword lowered an inch. "What are you doing here? Magneto is here." 

        I nodded and brandished the pair of Glock handguns. "I know. He's having me hunt the Russian President and kill him." 

        The thin sword dug again into my chin. I raised my trembling arm to her temple, my finger at the trigger. 

        She ran her free hand through her red hair. "Why are you doing it?" 

        "He'll kill me if I don't. Or worse, he'll used the Dreamwalker on me." 

        "The Dreamwalker?" She asked. 

        "She- she- she makes your very nightmares come true. Again and again." I steady myself with a deep breath. 

        She frowns. "What happened to your claws?" 

        "Serum. He suppresses everyone's powers, Everett can't see the future, I can't use my claws and strength and so on. I don't know where the other are." 

        Her eyes narrowed again. "Really? You expect me to believe that." She dug the point of the sword into my flesh, and a thin trickle of blood began to pool in my collar bone. "I could kill you." I'm still shaking from the effort of continuously holding the gun to her temple. "So, you're here to kill the Russian President? You expect me to believe that? The last person I talked to... well they lied, and look what happened to them." She shifted her wings, and I get a glimpse of a mutilated body behind her. 

        "What do you want?" I ask carefully. 

        "I want to get out of here safely. I need to get to Washington DC, now. You get me out of here, and I won't kill you. Deal?" I nodded. 

        We both lowered our weapons. The charge of energy also lowered. She folded her wings against her back and cleaned the tip of her sword as we walked out. I went first. It seemed I made the first footprints on the immaculate red tiled floor. We came into a small receiving hall, where two men lay dead. Their throats were slit. Lyrica examined them. "Knife cuts, see how they're ragged? That means the person had to put a lot of pressure on the knife. If it had been a sword, it would have been straight and smooth, because of the momentum." I nodded silently and examined their badges. Secretary of State, and Secretary of the Treasury. We were on the right track. 

        Several dead bodies later, we emerged in a golden ballroom. "Duck!" Lyrica shouted as she pushed into the air. I ducked forward into a roll and came up into a crouch gun raised. My shoulder stung from the hard, unforgiving floor. A shot grazed a trail through the top of my hair. Firing blindly back, I zig-zagged through the room. More shots zoomed past me, and I fired at the dark sources. Lyrica slashed her way through the second one, and we regrouped at the center of the room. I caught my breath as I counted the bullets I had left. 

        "Good work." She said tersely. We had only walked a few steps, when she screamed and jumped backwards. I turned and fired where her line of sight was. 

        "It was just a spider." She whispered, golden eyes wide. "You didn't have to decimate it." 

        "You screamed, so I killed it." I simply stated. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and followed me across the room. I opened the doors on the other side. A small, embellished hallway led straight to a blue and white chapel. Three men were fervently praying before the altar. A priest was hurriedly reading off some text in Russian. He spotted us, and stopped, fat chin trembling in fright. I shot the man on the right, while Lyrica sprang forward and decapitated the man on the left. "Are you the President?" I asked the one remaining. 

        He nodded, and I shot him in the head. I looked at the priest, who was now crying. "Where is the way out?" He blubbered something. "Again?" I said, gun raised. 

        "H-h-h-h-h-h-heeere." He waddled over to a door and opened it. Lyrica walked out. "Thanks! Why don't you come with me?" 

        I shook my head. "Everett is still here somewhere. See yah!" 

        We smiled and waved, and that was the last I saw of her for some time.