Stained (N.R)

Chapter 20

At first there was darkness, then the smell...

Stale, liquid like air, sticking to my ripped, dirty clothes. 

It reeked of alcohol and blood, both fresh and old. A horrifying smell of sickly sweetness and rusted iron. 

Then it was the sound, shouting, cheering, jeering... "The new runt, facing off against Smasher..... Premier debut... Will the little thing survive its first round down in the fighting ring?"

Shouts of placing bets, a push to the bruised ribs. 

I was scratching and biting at the men who held me, my body shaking. 

I was fourteen, fifteen, perhaps. 

I did not remember. 

The dim, yellow lights were all focused around the 'ring' a stage which was a few steps bigger than the average boxing ring. 

It was where men played beasts.

A man opposite me, towering over me, nearly double my height. 

He had a ugly slash scar across his bare chest, and held up his hands to the cheering of his name, spitting and laughing at me, showing his white teeth. 

The bets were rapidly rising against my favour, and a man on the side had just bought my brain. I learnt later that it meant if my opponent let them saw the brain, he would have had a handsome pay. 

The floor under me was still slippery with a thick, red liquid which could only be blood. Blood from the ring's earlier victims. 

My eyes scanned round, finding a girl who was taken here the same time as me. 

She was under a man, the highest bidder to her body. Her existence was to bring him entertainment while he watched show, like a bowl of peanuts or a packet of crisps. 

Her mouth was stuffed with a dirty cloth, her hands tied so she would not be able to hurt him. She was limp on the floor, her back rising and smacking into it involuntarily as she was ridden, trembling. Her screams muffled. 

Her gaze was loud. 

It was pleading, begging, waiting for a stranger who would assert some form of kindness. Her blue eyes caught mine and quickly fleeted away, knowing that I was no help. 

The others caught her gaze, slapping her cheek in response, laughing and looking her up and down greedily. 

She tried again and again and again to reach out, in vain. 

At last, her eyes became empty, like glass, like the eyes of a doe when its life was taken from it. A slash to the throat, choking the doe in its own blood. She, instead, was choking in despair. 

She became numb, the only voluntary motion from her were the tears, leaving a clean trail on her face, coated by dust. 

One drop....

Two...

Three....

They land on the dirty floor, disappearing, like the last of my hopes, the last of my sanity. 

My attention was snapped back to the men in front of me.

I learnt later that he was a mercenary. One with too many debts to pay. Unlike me, he was not kidnapped and tested, he came to earn some prize money here in the ring. There weren't lots of them, but they were the most dangerous kind down here. 

Unlike us who fought to please our masters and fill their purses, he fought for himself. He was used to it. These people kill you like how someone would squish a stress ball. The more blood, more gore, more screams, the more satisfying. He would rip out certain body parts of his victims too, he got extra pay for that. 

It was a rule I learnt to do. It was a way to get a blanket in the cold winter, a shower, a plate of edible food instead of stale, mud covered scraps.

I showed the Maximoff girl my memories of my past. Me ripping out intestines, cracking open heads, the brain splattering to the floor in a heap, like some wobbling, disgusting rose coloured jelly. 

The stench of the stomach as I slice my victims open, their eyes, different sized, different shaped, different coloured, begging in horror, until I stabbed them through there too. 

And the tinkling of gold coins as they entered my master's purse. Gold was the currency in here, undetected, safer than banknotes and online transactions. 

I heard a scream through my memory, a scream that should not have been there. 

I surfaced through the memory, a few steps away from the girl who cowered in fear, her eyes frozen and wide with fright, like so many of my victims. 

"Playing with mind is clever." I grabbed her by the shoulder, hoisting her up and staring her down, my fingers touching the skin of her neck,hovering over her jugular. "But playing with the mind of a madman is like running into the claws of a cat."

She shivered, screaming a name, undoubtedly her twin "Pietro... Pietro...."

Clint cursed from a floor above and then there were footsteps, racing down the stairs at inhuman speed.

"Oh, little mouse," I smirked, amused, waving at Diana who leaped into what seemed like a grey shadow, pinning the young man to the ground. "Have they not told you to avoid the scent of blood at all costs? Surely I reek of it."

A roar outside. 

"You went to the Hulk first? Clever." I smirked, tossing my remaining cards in the air. Jupiter and Pluto got my command and raced off towards the angry green man.

"If I were you, little Maximoff, I would read the mind of your robot master first, before coming to us." I pushed her away from me, dusting off my hands. "Oh, and also, stay away from Natalia, the both of you, or I will dissect you, alive."

Diana got up from the young man, who stared at me. "You are going to let us go? Just like that?"

"The both of you are too interesting to kill." I shook my head. "You are still unmolded. I want to see how you will be when you've grown." 

"How do we grow?" The girl asked, pursing her lips, the young man looked like he wanted to argue. 

"When your world is flipped upside down, inside out." I sighed. "When those you have you lose, when those who you trust betrays you, when death looms and everyone turns their backs on you. You become either a hero, or a criminal. A man with morals, or insane, mad, thirsty for blood."

"Which are you?" She asked again.

"That, you will have to find out for yourself." I replied, walking towards a familiar redhead, who sat in a daze, her eyes closed, shivering. "You better leave before the others wake. They are not as interested in you as I am."