Beautiful Ruins

Chapter 46

"Should I go in the back, you go in the front?" Clover asks me once we approach the building. I have no idea, splitting up usually isn't ideal but if we want one of us to distract Magneto then we sort of need to split up.

I glance up, noticing a broken window on the fourth floor, I don't remember seeing that last night. It doesn't necessarily mean Magneto is here; anybody could have broken it. I feel like Magneto is the type of person who might want to kill us in the same room that we killed Mystique as some sort of weird, poetic justice – we didn't physically kill Mystique but Scarlett did it so we could escape so I know Magneto will hold us responsible as well.

"Is that blood?" Clover asks, noticing a few red circles leading towards the door. She kneels down to the ground, touching it. She glances at her finger and sees that it's red, she glances up at me in confusion. Somebody was just hurt here; the blood hasn't dried yet.

I glance around, looking for any signs of Magneto or even just anyone. I can't see any signs of movement in the apartment windows and there's nobody behind us. If Magneto did just hurt someone here, where would he have gone?

"Do you think someone beat us here?" Clover asks, I hadn't considered the possibility of the blood being Magneto's, I can't imagine there's many people who would be willing to try and take Magneto down, the whole world knows how powerful he is.

I glance around, there must be someone around here. The whole street shows no signs of life or activity and it's starting to freak me out – this isn't normal, I've never encountered a completely abandoned street.

"I was hoping you'd show up" a voice behind us says. I whirl around and my eyes widen as I see Magneto, there's no turning back now. "You didn't think there'd be repercussions for killing my sister?"

"We don't really give a shit about your stupid, pathetic sister" Clover replies, her eyes narrowing. I inwardly sigh, does Clover think riling him up is a good idea? There's at least a fifty percent chance that this will end badly for us, the last thing we need is Magneto getting mad and deciding to drag out our deaths.

"Why are you here, Storm?" Magneto asks, ignoring Clover and turning to face me. Despite his neutral tone, I can see the anger and hatred in his eyes, I resist the urge to remind him that is all his fault, he's the one who gave me powers and then lied to me so I'd do whatever he wanted, how did he think it would end?

"To kill you" I answer honestly, not wanting to engage in conversation with him. He wants to kill us, and we want to kill him, we may as well just get on with it. "You're not going to keep turning kids into killers if we have anything to say about it."

Fire immediately encircles Magneto and I see Clover pulling out some kind of weird, wooden weapon. I duck, seeing a long metal stick coming towards me. It circles back and I quickly jump over it. I lower the fire, seeing Clover ready to attack.

Clover runs towards Magneto, striking him across the face with her weapon, I think it's supposed to be a bat. Magneto curses, I quickly grab the metal stick as it heads towards Clover. I'm not letting him hurt Clover again.

I head towards them, focusing on Magneto. Vines emerge, pinning him to the ground as Clover continues to attack him. My heart flickers as I realise this is way too easy, this is almost like some kind of distraction.

"Clover, I don't think that's Magneto" I say, grabbing Clover's hand as she prepares to strike him again. I see a necklace and snatch it off, I've seen this before and even considered using it once or twice. I blink as suddenly a random girl is in front of us, she looks around our age, possibly a little older. All at once she completely disappears, I blink. What the hell?

Clover cries out as a piece of metal hits her, wrapping itself around her body, trying to suffocate her. I turn around, Magneto is about a hundred metres away from us. I run towards him, pushing him down. I quickly glance behind me, seeing the metal fall to the ground.

Clover is right behind me; she punches Magneto in the face and strikes him with her bat. Magneto grabs the bat, forcing it out of the Clover's hands. He swipes Clover's legs from underneath her and she falls to the ground.

The piece of metal hits me, knocking me to the ground. Vines pull the piece of metal away from me and I stand up, I gasp as I see Magneto pulling a knife from Clover's thigh. My heart sounds pounding, no. I race towards the two, vines quickly grab the knife, and it goes flying. Clover grabs her bat and hits Magneto over the head, she then hits him a second time.

I wait for Magneto to move, he doesn't. I step forward, his eyes are closed, and his nose is bleeding. I think Clover knocked him out, his chest is rising and falling so he's not dead. My eyes widen as I see a circle of blood on Clover's top.

"Clover" I say, kneeling down beside her. There's a stab wound on her lower stomach and one on her thigh; we need to go home now. "You'll be okay" I say, I pull off my jumper, tying it around her thigh. Clover pulls off her jacket and holds it over her stomach.

I help Clover up, walking towards the plane. Tony and Bruce will be able to help Clover, we just need to get home as fast as possible, once we're on the plane I can call Tony and he'll probably be able to come and find us.

"I'm so sorry" I say, I shouldn't have encouraged this. Clover's hurt now because I came with her to do this, I put her life in danger.

"It's fine" Clover says, wincing with every step we take. "Trust me, I've had worse injuries." Is that supposed to reassure me? I glance back, Magneto is still lying motionlessly on the ground. Clover leans heavily into my embrace as we get closer to the plane, she's not saying anything.

We get up onto the plane and Clover slumps into one of the seats. She winces as she begins to type in the address to Stark towers. "Let me do it, just tell me how" I say, I follow Clover's instructions and we're ready for take-off. I turn the location back on, hoping this will bring Tony and Bruce to us, Clover needs help fast.

I turn around, my heart freezing as I see Magneto limping towards us, oh no. He can control metal, this isn't good. Clover needs to get back now before she bleeds to death, my heart sinks as I realise there's only one way to get Clover home.

"I'm sorry" I say, before grabbing a handcuff and handcuffing Clover's wrist to the chair. I run to the controls, pressing the take-off button and jumping out of the plane before the door shuts.

I shove Magneto down to the ground, the plane rises and begins to fly away, I just have to distract him long enough for the plane to get out of sight. I punch him, he cries out as his nose continues to bleed even more. Magneto shoves me off him and stands up, I glance up, the plane is almost out of sight.

"Did you really think you could win?" Magneto asks me. His lips curve into a cruel, sadistic smile. "I know everything about you." I don't care if he kills me, the main thing that matters is that Clover is safe. Fire emerges from my fingertips, and I shoot a fireball at Magneto, he ducks just in time, it passes over his head. The piece of metal slams into me, causing me to fly back and land on the ground with a thud, I cry out as my head slams against the ground.

I need to get up, to fight Magneto, but my head is pounding, and my body isn't listening to me. Magneto walks over, kneeling down beside me. "Unfortunately, I've invested too much into you to just kill you" he says, I feel a sharp prick in my shoulder and see Magneto holding an empty syringe. I try to stand up, but my legs buckle underneath me, and I collapse back onto the ground.

"What do you want?" I ask Magneto, it's an effort to talk, the sedative is already taking effect, making my entire body feel too heavy to move.

"We'll talk when you wake up, you're coming with me" Magneto says. I try once more to get up, but my body doesn't move. My eyelids slowly close and everything turns black.

*Author's Note* Storm cares so much for everyone around her, but not at all for herself.