Chapter 58: Reality Alter

Monday December 13th, 2020. Wakanda Training Grounds…

It had been two weeks since Bronte bonded with an Alien Life Form— one he wasn't at all compatible with, and saw their literal god... who also committed a terrorist attack on New York. Who also tried to use Bronte to take over Wakanda.

Sigh…

It had also been the same amount of time since he and his siblings found that the ocean floor was full of Vampire skulls. Vampires that weren't actually dead….

He went to bed every night hoping Shuri and her compatriots didn't find some horrible biological info within the autopsies... that were somehow taking multiple weeks to uncover?

Since then, the schedule went as per usual— aside from a few changes. He trained, learning strategy and more offensive and defensive measures in various physical combat forms. He learned about his enemy…. And his friends.

He also fought them. Repeatedly.

As he was now.

***

Slice…. Jab ….. kick…. Punch…. Gouge, even.

He dodged. Remus didn't like when he leaned into his healing factor.

"Good, good! Keep up the pace or you die." Remus said from her holographic figure in the sands.

Before she could say anymore, Daken's claws went straight for his eyes—

Brontë let him come, feeling the feint. He dropped his claws in an x over his midsection and felt his ears ring from the clang of their natural weapons.

Daken went for the guts a lot. He knew Bronte still wasn't the most adjusted to having to hold his intestines.

Brontë pushed Daken back with a gust of wind. Gentle came barreling through. The giant musclebound Black Panther swiped at him with his Vibranium claws.

"I thought we said no magic!" Gentle playfully commented.

"My fault it's a reflex sometimes."

Brontë flipped over his massive arm, landing on his shoulder that felt more like a boulder than a muscle—

"USE ALL THE MAGIC YOU WANT!" Raze tackled him off of Gentle in a blur of blue Symbiote hybrid skin.

"Don't. We practice combat here. Magic is soon." Remus added.

"Hear—d…. You." Bronte managed from the sand storm he and Raze spun up.

The two danced inside. His training partners circled around them. Brontë kept up the winds to separate them.

Just him and his alien brother in the tornado.

"Come on, bro. Let me see you work, you been sleeping all week I'm scared you fell off…" Bronte poked him as Daken often did to goad an attack.

Laura swiped inside the sand tornado in response to his voice opening three lines of red in his thickly muscled back.

"ACK— god damn."

"Hehehe….." A massive musclebound shape with hair like stalactites said.

"The bigger they are…"

Something about seeing giants. Maybe it was in the blood. Maybe it was something more mystical.

Wolverine with the Hulk. Laura with Sabertooth. Daken with Romulus. Brontë and the Wendigos.

Whatever it was he felt the way his blood pumped. If only he had some music.

Raze slammed a massive fist into the earth like a mallet from the heavens.

Brontë sidestepped the blow only to be knocked back by the aftershock that sent his sand tornado in all directions, eliminating the one on one in an instant.

"So much for falling OFF HAHA!" The giant titan Raze grumbled.

"That weak ass attack…" Bronte said as he skidded to a stop with his claws in the sands. The small grains of sand danced on his skin and clung to his dreads.

Unfortunately, the game was back on.

Laura and Gabbie pressed him in a flurry of slashes with their hands and feet. Brontë did what he could before they fell back to allow Daken to take him. The cycle went that way for minutes as Remus watched.

"Come on Bronte the Lupines are worse!"

"You calling us weak?" Laura asked as she and Bronte ran their claws through each others chest before he head butted her ten feet away.

"Weak as hell…." Remus replied. "Bronte, best way to kill a Healing Mutant?"

"Take their oxygen…." Bronte managed as he spun himself out of Raze's grip.

He then ran to create space. As he did, Remus' holographic form followed him in a series of blips and glitchy jumps.

"Or..?" Her red hair flowed with the wind despite her not actually being present. Bronte's dreads did the same.

"Remove their head— OH SHIT!" Bronte went down as Laura threw Gabbie at him like she was a feral animal.

She ripped into his face and chest before he flipped her over and body slammed her hard enough to crack the earth.

A pair of claws ripped into his back. Instead of stopping and letting everyone catch up, he kicked himself away from Daken, landing in a roll to turn and face them.

"How many Lupine Variants are there?"

Gentle tangoed with him as he fought off Gabbie and Laura here and there.

"All of them." Bronte managed in between sheathing his claws and loading up Gentles armor with heavy punches.

"Why?" Remus marked face hardened.

He kicked Gentle back towards Daken and Raze as he began to glow.

"Because the Feral Mutant Gene doesn't discriminate….." His words were cut short as a kinetic explosion shook the earth.

Finally— after three hours, the onslaught slowed.

"Wolves…. Bears ….. Sabertooth Tigers …. Lions….. It's whatever." Bronte shrugged.

Remus circled him, holding out a hand to stop his siblings and Gentle as they readied themselves for another round of combat.

"Cycle through your Elemental States. NOW! Training isn't over."

Brontë dusted off his hands and vibrated briefly as winds swirled around him. His hair went a plain shade of white along with his eyes. Less blue than usual for the Storm State.

"Name and uses?"

"Swift State…. Better speed and quickness. I need to be in high speed situations to maintain this state subconsciously….. or have fast tempo music…. Or maintain the opposite to an extreme…. Which also allows stronger— heavier wind blasts. It's easier to fly in this form.."

"Next." Remus waved it off as she circled him.

Brontë moved his lips as if he was speaking to himself and snapped his fingers.

"Ja Rule is better than Fifty you bandwagon fu—" Raze's words were cut short as a spark exploded from Bronte's snapping fingers and his hair went up in flames.

The white of his dreads lined the core like a glowing skeleton within the flame.

"Hotter." Remus commented, "All of us can heal past this heat with ease. Stop going light, you're fighting literal gods these days."

Brontë closed his eyes to focus. To feel the music.

His skin felt tight. His ears rang. His bones glowed orange from beneath his skin, allowing for a horrific sight.

"That's better…. That's good. Continue."

"Fire Form. Better for combat involving myself and….. too many others if we being real. Also provides a defensive shell and direct cancel to healers. Laura also said something about Sentinels..?"

"Forget that. Next."

Brontë inhaled and opened up his hands as if he was about to fall into a brief yoga session. The flames vanished as it began to rain. All the water flowed and focused on Bronte until he was covered in raindrops that moved on his skin like insects.

"Sea Skin."

Remus raised an eyebrow at him, "That's the name you came up with…?"

"It's hard right?"

"…..No!"

Brontë waved her off.

"Uses. Go."

"Better in water... Ororo told me I could learn to stay under water indefinitely with this…." A collection of raindrops traveled up his skin and sat over his mouth like a face mask.

The construct waved and wiggled before breaking.

"Dammit."

"Next!"

The water froze, giving him a sort of studded crystalline armor along his arms and face.

"Sub Zero."

"COOORNY!" Gabbie of all people, yelled. As if she didn't read Twilight frequently.

"I think you're mad because you got body slammed, sis." Raze whispered.

"Take it back."

"I take it back."

Riveting dialogue. Brontë stopped smiling as Remus watched him.

"Ice Armor. Obviously defensive at its base."

Remus nodded. "You're faster at cycling than you were last week. Still takes you seconds too long— but I can't fault progress."

Sometimes her hybrid accent was impossible to understand. So Bronte nodded anyway.

"These are all good. To think…. Someone like Wolverine with such magic— but Romulus won't be taken down with one form. Not when he has an army of variety acquired over ages of ascension and slaughter."

"So what's the move?"

"Combine them."

"That's Storm-State at its best."

Remus shook her head, "No it's not. You're missing two Elements when you use Storm State more often than not."

"….. that's real." Bronte thought on her words.

"The fire is good….. but it's not as quickly destructive as the Lightning…. Which isn't as movement beneficial as the wind…. And so on."

Brontë understood her that time.

"That's the magic training you're going to work on. Ororo will attend those sessions— she's just been out for some reason this week. But when she returns….." Remus held a hand out to him to speak.

"Work on combining elemental forms. Got you."

Remus nodded and waved the others over.

They all surrounded the hologram Warrior.

"Good work these last two weeks— and even before that. You're learning your weaknesses…. Some of you are growing stronger along the way. But you're relaxing. Don't. It's an impossible ask. A stupid ask. But sometimes that's the world. Stupid. Childish and unrealistic even in darkness. That's our current scenario, we're preparing to go to war with an egomaniacal supremacist man child. He's dangerous because as much as he is cunning like the wolf, he's also emotionally unpredictable."

Daken nodded as if she was speaking the purest truth.

"He once tried to kill me when we were children because I didn't wear a dress he liked."

"What an androgynous PIG!" Raze said as he leaned forward, wrapping his arms around Bronte and Gabbie.

"You mean misogynist…. And I think you should tackle the incest undertones before that…." Gabbie added— sounding so much like Laura.

He looked at her, taking notice of how tall she'd gotten…? She was at his shoulder. To think when they first met she was barely a teen.

"What?" Gabbie said once she caught him staring.

"Raze looked between them and chuckled, "Incest undertones RAHHH—"

"So dumb…" Bronte shook his head.

"I say all this to say, expect what you've never seen. Expect the laws of your world to not apply on that day." Remus brought the conversation back.

They all nodded.

"I end your training with a question."

They all focused.

"If Romulus….. if he had something— a weapon say, a gun. Or a spear. Something made from a precious Old World metal—"

"Adamantium?" Laura cut in.

"Nope." Remus added, "Something else. Something that nullified your healing factors…."

Brontë heard someone audibly gulp.

"Daken are you sweating!?" Raze commented.

"Shut the hell up, you mouthy popsicle."

Brontë couldn't help but feel the discomfort in the air.

"Let's say he had a weapon that could do that. Think about what you'd do. Think about what you'd do if any of you had that. Even one of your own…."

Brontë couldn't help but notice how Remus only eyeballed Daken when he started to eyeball the floor.

"What the hell is happening?" Bronte thought for a moment.

"Dismissed." Remus fizzled out of existence, leaving only the Wakanda hologram tech beads in the sand.

Gentle picked them up, "Anyone else starving…?"

They all quietly nodded and headed back to base. Brontë couldn't help but notice the way Daken held his blade in his sheath. So often he even forgot it was there. He only ever used it against the Lupines. Every other time it just blended in with the rest of him. Was that because of his powers…? Something he did deliberately?

"Yo d—"

His words were cut short as something hit the ground behind him. Following their ominous talk with Remus, everyone faced the sound ready for war.

Ororo regarded them with an awkward smile that so easily humanized the queen.

The two people behind her on the other hand. They didn't look interested in the concept of humanizing.

They held their heads high and their noses higher. Both wore opposing colors. Red and blue.

"The rest of you can head back." Ororo said, "Bronte, id like you to stay."

Brontë sized up the new entrants.

Ororo faced them.

"Wanda, Pietro, Id like you to meet my son, Bronte."