That night Lunar went to her room feeling pathetic, she hadn’t been put under Stryker’s complete control, thankfully, but he had given her a lot more work to do to make up for her taking so long in the fight. It had worn her out to say the least and now she felt like she could barely stay awake, the only reason she didn’t just collapse on her way to her room was because of the fear of Stryker finding her in her sleep and putting her under his control, he’d threatened her enough with it recently to make her believe he was going to try at the next mistake she made. That’s when an idea came to her mind and she went to find Cyclops.
“Stand guard here and don’t move, don’t speak, and only wake me up if Styker’s coming got it?” Lunar asked after leading the blank faced mutant to the door.
Cyclops nodded and continued to stare down the hallway but this time with more purpose now that he’d received a command. Lunar went into her room and shut the door before setting her alarm to go off in two hours so she could make sure Cyclops stayed under her control. She placed the mind control serum in the drawer on the nightstand though just incase her sleeping self decided to thrash around again. Finally she let out a faint sigh as she got to fall asleep.
The outdoors was bright with afternoon sunlight, Lunar’s younger self smiled as she ran around the school playground with her friends. They laughed as they ran until they ran into three familiar looking girls who sneered down at them. Lunar’s friends saw them first and quickly ran off leaving Lunar in plain sight of their bullies.
“Well look who we have here.” The leader of the trio, the one who was a spoiled brat, grinned maliciously. “If it isn’t little ‘My parents are too poor to keep the house’.”
The other girls laughed while Lunar glared at her. “How did you find out about that?”
“Oh, I have my ways… Daddy knows everything about everyone in this town.” She blinked innocently. “You know, I’m surprised they haven’t sent you to live in a foster home yet.”
“Shut up!” Lunar growled, feeling as if something inside her was fighting to get free. “They would never do that!”
The girl turned to her friends. “Oh, the poor thing… doesn’t even know she’s practically an orphan.”
Lunar couldn’t remember what happened next, a red haze filled her sight and people started screaming, when it cleared she found her three bullies bloodied and brutally torn apart at her feet. Claw and teeth marks riddled their bodies and when she looked down she saw her hands were covered in blood and her nails were still slightly clawed. Realization hit Lunar and she turned towards her friends to see their eyes wide in fear, seeing this she did the one thing she could do; she ran off in the opposite direction of the school and her home. She didn’t stop running until she was far away and too tired to take another step. Horror of what she’d done had finally settled in and she curled up under a tree holding her head, she felt her animal side coming out again and tried to fight it off but it was useless, Lunar let out a howl filled of pain and longing, longing to be normal, longing to go back in time and change what she’d done. But of course she couldn’t, she had to get far away, so far that no one would find her, a place that no one would get hurt because of the bloodthirsty creature she’d become. Lunar stood there panting for a few more moments before finally taking off again; not seeing the man and mutant who’d seen her.
Lunar sat up as she heard a door close and turned to see Cyclops walking towards her, remembering the wound he gave her earlier in their fight she scooted backwards and ended up falling to the floor. She let out a yelp as she landed on her bandaged shoulder before remembering her instructions for him and getting back up.
“Is Stryker coming?” She asked.
“Stryker…?” Cyclops blinked in confusion and Lunar glanced towards her alarm clock to find it destroyed. She looked towards the clock on the wall behind her and found the reason he was acting so confused; the serum had worn off and now was barely keeping him under their complete obedience.
“Yes…” Lunar moved slowly to get around him. “I told you to wake me up if you saw him coming. Now is he?”
Cyclops glanced at the door then back at her, recognition flashed across his features and he tensed up before relaxing again, still fighting to connect what he remembered and saw to his actions. “N-no… I didn’t see anyone…?”
That didn’t make Lunar feel any better and she began to slowly let her teeth and nails shift into their animal like form. She managed to get the serum out of the drawer and cautiously started walking towards him. “Then you should still be at your station.”
“There was a scream… I don’t know why… I felt like I needed to see what happened.” Cyclops rubbed his head as he tried to concentrate.
Lunar took his distraction to unscrew the top off the serum and tilted his head down so she could reach the spot on his neck. He tensed up and Lunar realized a second too late before being crushed against the wall. She managed to close the vial and throw it towards her trash, which was luckily filled with paper to keep it from breaking, before clawing at Cyclops’ face, causing him to flinch back.
“Stand down!” Lunar commanded and watched as he hesitated to keep attacking. “Now!”
“…No…” Cyclops grabbed his head again and glared at her.
Lunar got free and ran towards the trash, right before she could reach it though a laser blast shot in front of her hand barely missing it. She let out a growl and fully transformed into a wolf before turning and attacking him, Cyclops fell from the unexpected weight and Lunar lunged at his throat. Luckily for him, he managed to bring up his arm and saved himself from the killing bite, Lunar growled in frustration as she seemed to fail again in fighting him before backing off to attack from a different angle. She never got the chance, footsteps caused both of them to freeze and turn towards the door, a knock came a moment later and Lunar risked going back into human form.
“What?” She snapped.
Stryker came in and looked at Cyclops in surprise along with the blood running down his arm. “What is going on in here?”
“Training.” Lunar replied quickly before cursing under her breath.
“Right… Well you should be sleeping we have places to be tomorrow.”
Cyclops made a motion to attack Stryker with his mutation, hatred filling his gaze but was stopped by Lunar digging her wolf-like claws into his spine. “Sorry Stryker…”
“I’ve been hearing that a lot from you lately.” He sighed and shook his head. “Why do the best mutants always seem to be the ones who become the ones who fail first? Perhaps you’re usefulness is ending…”
With that Stryker made his exit and Lunar let out a breath of relief before getting punched in the stomach and pinned down again. Her vision blurred for a moment before taking in the red tint of Cyclops’ glasses, she was close enough to even see the red glowing from his eyes and for a strange reason, she felt peaceful. Maybe this would be a better way to die than at the hands of her boss… at this range death would at least be quick.
“Finish it.” Lunar growled at him. “You know you want to kill me.”
“No.” Cyclops spat back. “You’re not worth it.”
He started to back off and Lunar lurched up and grabbed his throat. “Come on use your anger! Do it!”
Lunar let out another hiss of pain as she was shot in the shoulder with his laser eyes and released her grip on his throat. Cyclops stood back up and glared at her as she got up and back into a wall. Lunar’s thoughts continued to race through her mind before she finally felt something inside her head snap, she gave him a half-hearted look of hatred before breaking down. “Kill me! Just do it before Stryker does! It would be out of mercy! Just let me die!”
Cyclops hesitated in his next attack as a piece of his memory he’d tried to keep buried rose up, he’d heard something like this before, in that tone of voice, and when he had been taken as Stryker’s prisoner to be experimented on. He couldn’t see anything as his old glasses had been taken and his eyes blindfolded but her could still hear the doctors running around nearby as other worked on taking samples of his blood. “Stryker we can’t save her!”… “Keep trying! She could be our next salvation, as long as we make her cooperate.” Screams filled the air and he turned in that direction instinctively though all he saw was darkness, somewhere nearby someone was begging to be killed, to just have the pain end, each time the cries would be weaker until they faded out all together. He really hoped that wouldn’t be him after all this… Another needle was stuck into him and he winced. “Sir, she’s… gone.” A gunshot went off and Cyclops flinched. “You, clean up this mess and start shocking!” A nervous sounding person answered from nearby. “Yes Stryker… Right away!” Stryker’s voice sounded to his left. “And when her heart starts again… be sure to tell me. I want her to ‘meet’ my son.”
Cyclops was snapped out of his memories by the sound of a body falling to the floor, he focused back on Lunar to find her slowly closing her eyes while continuing to try putting pressure on her shoulder wound. That’s when two different things made a connection in his mind; this was the same person who he’d heard screaming and now she was most likely under the influence of Stryker’s son without her knowledge. She was completely innocent… for the most part, if that were true.
“Stay awake.” He felt her flinch as he moved her hand to examine her shoulder. Cyclops got up and found some spar gauze in a drawer before going back over and tightly wrapping the injury. By the time he was finished Lunar was passed out, he would have to question her another time about her past, he carried her carefully to her bed before leaving. Now he had to go find the professor and escape before Stryker did something worse to them.