Chapter 62: Into the Lions Den

Tuesday, December 14th 2020. Wakanda…..

It was Bronte's birthday. And the fireworks blooming to celebrate his birth were falling in reverse as the colored missiles blasted from the Wakandan Aircraft artillery. Down and down until they smashed into finely crafted earth below.

Down and down. The trend his luck had gone in over the past three years.

It had finally reached its apex….. as the Apex rose from the rubble of stone and Lupine corpses.

A ghost— still. In the face of war his face was still an ominous visage crafted from fear and memory more than physical skin and bone.

It made no sense. The plan was obvious. Bring out Sabertooth from the front to throw off Bronte. Everyone would follow him, he'd sneak in from below with his attack squad.

Why the hell couldn't they see him.

"Again!" T'Challa yelled.

The aircraft's fired again, strategic and swift. Failing to ruin the buildings from the blast shields beneath holding them strong.

The roads crumbled, forming trenches full of fur and blood.

"Aga—"

"AUGGH!!" The pilot screamed over the intercom loud enough for them all to hear.

"Pull up the camera inside the aircraft!" Bronte panicked.

T'Challa did as well as the holographic screen switched to a live feed inside the cockpit just as it was slashed out of function.

The cam switched.

"Get eyes on Rhino 1!" T'Challa commanded followed by the clouds spinning like balls of smoke as the airships twisted and redirected themselves just in time to see a massive shape ripping through the Aircraft.

Suddenly the ship was making a B-line back to Wakandan royal grounds.

"He's coming straight for us….." They all thought in some form as the aircraft abandoned its cloaked visage. Symbolic for how Romulus had given up hiding.

Didn't matter. The other pilots hawked him down in a spray of bullets centuries ahead of American design.

The ship blew up, flaming shrapnel rocketed towards their window like hellfire. Amidst the blaze a black cloak ruffled. Burning into smoking tendrils that slithered along the frame of a titan of a man. Seeing him soaring towards them from the chaos felt almost biblical. Like a reckoning of sorts with the rising waves and bloodied streets at his back.

In his massive hands he held a glowing pur—

"BOMB!"

Brontë sent everyone back with a small gust of wind. As if the suit had a Mutantion Response system, air flowed in the tight spaces between his skin and the Vibranium mesh as the accents went white.

He boosted himself towards the window, fast paced and swift song in mind. No words just a tempo. A tempo of war.

Woom….WOOM…. Woom…. WOOM!

He threw his arms out and a gust of wind ripped every loose paper— every chair and table off the ground and threw the window. Outside winds wrapped the backend of the Wakandan parlance causing a small earthquake inside.

All the blazing shrapnel and circuitry flew back into Romulus, puncturing his bomb and blowing it prematurely into himself.

A purple warp erased the sight of everything in a flash and sent the ships flanking him spinning off into buildings below while everyone inside was slammed into and through the back walls.

Luckily the engineers, scientists and emergency unit had escaped.

But not everyone still present had a healing factor.

Brontë ripped himself out of the rubble of the wall that had fallen on him.

"Ororo!….. Everybody good?!" He trailed off after finding Gentle, T'Challa and Azari using their Vibranium suits to shield their Queen while she shielded them with a focused ball of wind.

"Right…. More experience than me."

"HahahaHAHAH! He's a crazy bastard! Let's see how crazy!" Raze was already dusting himself off and sprouting wings.

"Ororo, interrupt the wave. The people of Talocan are getting too comfortable. Brontë, no matter what you do, do not target Sabretooth. Your enemy is Romulus. We'll hold everyone else off. Backup should be here soon. This happened far sooner than I imagined. But we are more ready than ever. Wakanda doesn't fall here, and neither do any of you. Bast watches. We fight."

"I didn't want to have to do this without, Laura…."

"Hesitance gets you killed. We're in a war. Do it alone if it means winning." Daken shoved her into moving.

He looked at Bronte— who was already staring back.

"You better not have forgotten anything."

A storm boomed into existence outside. A mannish wolf howl overpowered the first strike of lightning.

Brontë could hear the Lupines.

That first wave was meant to die. Part of the bait.

Didn't matter. It didn't matter how similar it all felt to that first day.

Daken once again eyeing him down. Oddly murderous. Angry. Monsters on the horizon thirsting for him.

There was one difference. One he held firmly. He wasn't being hunted this time.

He was flying before he knew it.

Lupines burst from the rubble in droves like rats in a plague tale. Greasy fur and blood reflected the morning sun beaming through the storm. It illuminated his path as he divebombed the wreckage.

In unison with his impact, a bolt of lightning cloaked him.

He hit the rubble, rendering it to dust in electrical shockwaves that superheated the sand to glass shards.

A handful of Lupines died. Another handful fell as he charged in a ripping slashing torrent of claw and fang.

Up so close in the battle he noticed something. Eyes hanging from mouths. Eight fingered hands clawing at his face. Hooves melded with feet.

They were deformed. Flawed.

They died so easy.

A Lupine with tiger stripes landed on his back. He sheathed his claws and reached back, ripping its head off effortlessly.

Before the next wave could get close enough he spun a tornado into existence, freezing the raindrops within into ice shards.

He threw the blizzard into the hole the Lupines vomited out of grotesquely, barely cringing at the sounds of their demise.

His eyes fell to his feet. They faintly glowed in response to the continued vibration.

"More…. Still a distract—"

His ears caught it before his eyes did. He spun around just in time to catch a mechanical tendril headed straight for his head.

Without a seconds hesitation, he grabbed hold of the object and flew into the pathway dug beneath the rode by the Lupines, dragging whatever tried to attack along.

Like a nightmarish alternate retelling of Moby Dick, they ripped through the Lupine horde effortlessly. The deformed stony and bile ridden belly of the beast.

Brontë went until the growls and whimpers of decay faded, rolling to the ground in pure darkness.

He spun as he slid across the gravel, streamlined accents of elemental boosting power glowed along his suit. Didn't matter. Stealth wasn't a factor against someone who could see in the dark. Especially with eyes as red as the man ahead.

He chuckled as he got to his feet.

The whites of his teeth flashed.

As if on a shared wavelength they both jumped, bursting out onto the road. A mile from where they once resided.

Brontë burned off the Lupine remains on his suit and hair.

His opponent let it sit on his Snow White skin and silver blonde hair. It almost made the grotesque veins bulging all over him look fully exposed.

But nothing was as nasty as his eerily large pores and the metal tendrils slithering from his wrists.

"Omega Red…"

He smiled, "…..Da. And…. What are they calling you these days? Romulus calls you The Successor. But you say…. Uhhh StormWolf, no?"

Omega Red spit on the floor. It bubbled like acid, "I say you die. Romulus put a big price on you... you have no i—"

"The fuck up." Bronte threw a lightning bolt at his face and pounced on him, running his claws through his internal organs— only barely missing from his muscle density and odd movements.

He went for the face that was little more than a pile of gore and steam when a tendril ripped through his throat from behind.

"UCK!"

Another wrapped around his neck, holding the skewer in his throat as it lifted him.

They skidded to a halt in the street, just at the edge of where it was carpet bombed. Back to the start.

Omega Red rose up to stand.

"…..Hot." He muttered before using the tendrils to bring Bronte close to his face.

He leaned in. The winds blew away the steam, revealing his mangled and burned face. Portions of bone gleamed beneath the burning meat. Small holes opened in the exposed muscle and tattered skin.

A barely visible green gas shot out.

"Cheap shot…." Omega Red commented.

"….ugh…. Word." Bronte's reply came with a smashing wave of wind that sent them both flying.

Amidst the roll, Bronte ripped his way out of the tendrils.

He found his way back to his feet facing Omega Red on the floor face down. A face that was seriously burned… and now severely broken. If not gone completely. In reverse his neck knitted itself closed with each breath growing clearer and less liquidy.

"I read your file…. Did you think I wouldn't come correct?" He spun a wind aura around himself, protecting his healing factor from the death spores.

"Romulus!"

Omega Red laughed from the ground. It looked more like he was shaking but Bronte knew better.

He rolled over. He no longer had eyelids. "You aren't…. UGHK!— ready for Romulus. Prove your might. Like many before you, you are gladiator now. We… the starved lions are hungry. Some more than othe—"

Tendrils moved to wrap his legs. On reflex he jumped—

And something came rocketing towards him overhead.

Something massive and green skinned. Something spewing fire and sweating testosterone and chemical madness.

It looked… like a Goblin.