Chapter 71: Mutant Blood

"MMMMRRRAAAGGHHH!!!" The hulking Vampire lunged at Bronte in a blur of torn dead flesh, muscle and smoke.

Vampire's were fast. But usually they were also stick thin and annoyingly weak. Like gnats if they had a liquid carnivorous diet.

He'd never faced a Vampire on mutant steroids.

So when it's bumpy knuckled fist jammed into his face, it was…..

Refreshing.

The sound of his nose snapping and cheek ripping off was almost loud enough to overcome the crush of bricks as he flew through a wall.

He landed rolling, absorbing the impact and keeping movement because the Vampire was right on him, stomping craters into the floor where he stood. Sending shockwaves rippling through the long hallway behind them.

He bobbed and weaved as the dogs circled, barking and snapping at the undead beast.

Chaos was good. Vampires ears were like bats. Used for sight. Echolocation. And with all the dogs barking in the echoing corridors of sewage and death, Bronte was almost invisible.

The Vampire had been chasing its own echo for the last five seconds.

Brontë closed in from behind with his claws extended. He ripped through the back of its left knee. Snapping the tendons and severing the hamstring in a slashing flurry.

"AHHHCK—"

It spun around with its massive arms, ripping apart the walls and shaking the stone foundations until sewage water spurted from the holes in the ground.

Again, that speed. He took the hit like he always did.

Mend transformed Bronte's right arm into a shield and absorbed the impact, wrapping him in the Symbiote skin as they collided with the nearest wall.

"I said I got it!" Bronte growled as the Vampire pinned him to the wall.

"WE got it." Mend answered before extending and wrapping itself around the arm that held them.

From his position, parallel with the floor and a dozen feet above ground— alien appendage rooted around the Vampires arm, he only had one course of action available.

He planted his feet on its ribcage and face, and pushed as Mend pulled.

The Vampire panicked the moment its arm popped out of its socket and began flinging them about like they were a... a ragdoll.

"LET GO!"

"Answer my— questions!" Bronte managed as his back snapped and tore against the brick hallway walls.

"The fuck do I owe you?!" Its red eyes looked at him incredulously before slamming him again.

Brontë saw Daken.

Brontë saw the Vampires flock to him after he killed his own blood. A final gift from Romulus.

"You owe me everything." Bronte ripped its arm off.

The Vampire stumbled backward, returning to the Morlocks main-hall.

Brontë hit the ground as Mend. Dreaded tendrils rising from their head— sharp and violent like snakes. Like a gorgon spited by a god. Fitting.

In the shadows their marked alien skin glimmered. Rising in flare as the Vampire did the same in form.

The dogs continued to bark. He was still invisible. They, we're still invisible.

Mend held up a hand and the dogs immediately went silent, backing away from the Vampire to hide in the shadows.

Mend kept a hand up.

"Flame on…. Haha." The hand burst into flames.

The Vampire looked at him.

Mend threw the fireball like a baseball. It soared down the hallway, the speed generated winds that expanded the flame causing it to double in size before it smashed into the mutant undeads face, singing off its dark brown eyebrows and melting its bloodied lips.

"HSSAAAA!!!!" Its skin darkened and crumpled like burnt paper in places.

It spun around and tripped in its attempt to flee. Its unbalanced mass slowly began working against it.

"Bronte has questions…." Mend threw another fireball at its back.

It roared.

"If you answer the questions, it could make Bronte better….. WE can mend him…." Another.

"So answer! Or WE will place you in the eye of a firestorm and keep you alive just enough to experience the BURN!" As Mend emphasized the final words, the Symbiote snout opened, revealing endless fangs and a tongue coated in flames. To really send the imagery home, dragonoid wings unfurled from their back.

"Screw this!" The Vampire burst into smoke and fluttering bats, blowing past Mend and towards the surface with the wind.

Mend spun around, reaching for the cloud of Vampire bats.

Winds spun and centralized, causing the bats to shift and smash into eachother as they spun in the focused cyclone.

"Stop running!" Mend hissed as they pushed their hands together, causing the wind vortex holding the vampires to shrink and shred them.

Blood and tufts of fur dyed the focused air making the whole thing look like piranhas during dinner. The Vampires— all belonging to one collective conscious screeched pleadingly.

Finally, the Vampire solidified once more. This time with twisted and broken limbs— missing fingers.

Mend slammed the Vampire into the stone floor and pounced on it, slamming a foot into its chest.

"Where the hell are you all coming from!!?"

"Hey— hey man… I don't know shit alright. I'm not even in a Coven. I just woke up like this alr—" It's massive body and booming voice didn't currently fit its shaky words.

Mend's leg electrified as its arcane markings glowed, shocking the Vampire beneath its foot until it steamed.

"AHHHHHLLRIGHT! Alright…. Heh— I was changed. There was a bunch of us. They threw us underground and made us fight for food….."

Mend looked around at the dead Morlocks.

"I…. I don't— I don't kill folks for no reason but I was so hungry. I ran. Something blew up. I hid down here— a-and up north for a few days. Then I came back…. I was tired of eating the rats. I remember seeing one of the others bit one of the Mutant things and then boom…. They had powers."

Mend brushed his chin, "Interesting…. your control groups…. No wait— what's the other one?"

"E-Expiremental groups….?"

"YES! HAHA! Thank you." Mend replied enthusiastically. "It seems you're part of many batches of experimental groups. The question is experimenting what? Mutant abilities as a whole for Vampires…. Or one special case…? Like ussss. We're a special case. Tell me, which is it?"

The Vampire brought its hands up as it lay pinned to the floor. "Oh c'mon man, how would I know that? I just woke up and this was it! I was on a three week bender before this, I'm not completely sure I'm out of it yet! Just— please."

"We need more answers…." Mend growled.

"T-that's all I go—"

Mend roared a torrent of electrical fire down onto the Vampire until it was roasted to ashen embers.

"If you can't help Bronte, we don't need you." Mend burped a plume of smoke and ran a hand through the slithering tendrils adorning their scalp, smoothing them back against in a braided style similar to Bronte.

Mend stood then, arms crossed and white eyes scanning the area.

"Perhaps we should steal some books on forensic investigation. Or break into Misty's office….. we're not doing enough like this….."

Suddenly the dogs surrounding them growled and whined.

Mend didn't hear footsteps. But they did hear fluttering— as faint as the scent of rotting corpses was strong.

Mend waited calmly as the rooms upper decks filled with Vampires.

Mend looked back at the ashes of the Vampire that was once begging for life. Irony in its purest form.

"I think this is called karma—"

"Nah, good fortune." Bronte's voice overrid the Symbiote. "Put me back in the drivers seat. Now."

The Symbiote slithered off Bronte's skin and took on the shape of his right arm once more. With a swing, he threw Mend onto the nearest dog and popped all four of his claws.

The Vampires hissed and warily eyed him, caught between hunger and fear of the unknown.

The dogs waited perfectly silent. Ready to sound off obnoxiously inside the cave-like room the second the undead descended.

Bronte's adrenaline coursed. He bit his own lip, forcing bright red blood to flow.

The Vampires went tense like dogs at the sight of a squirrel.

"Try it. I dare you. I want you to."

The Vampires pounced on him.

Brontë heard Sabertooth. He saw Daken in all their faces….

***

Seconds passed in heavy breaths and bursts of elemental magic. Blood and fang under constant audial chaos. Minutes passed in a blur.

There was something perverse about Bronte's new nightly routine.

Something intensely wrong— and evil…. And sad.

His worst enemies had become his primary motivators for living. And living for him wasn't selling out shows, learning the beauties of the world, meeting amazing people— finding love, saving the day the right way.

"It's this…." Bronte thought as he sat in a pile of Vampire ash. Calmly letting his nearly skinned frame heal. The sewers had gone so silent he could hear his muscles knit themselves back together. Even as he tapped out a tune with his knuckles on the rubble, following the tempo of blood that dripped from the ceiling.

Drip….Drop-Drip….Drip….Drop-Drip….

He sighed, back to perfect physical health.

"Bronte, I got us a new lead….." Mend said, now in the form of a slime-skinned wolf.

Brontë raised an eyebrow, "Where the hell you learn that phrase?"

"I watched Lethal Weapon last night for forty dollars."

"God damn, you got fleeced."

Mend turned his head as all confused canines do from time to time.

"You got SCAMMED." Bronte reiterated.

Mend snarled, "How could the homeless man do this to me!? When I was trying to help him pursue a fortune!! Let's go eat him."

"You helped him pursue a fortune even more than you meant to. Fuck it. But I'm about to have you flipping burgers if you keep playing with my pockets." Bronte got up and stretched.

All around him the dogs did the same, rising and yawning while others shook, loose ears flapping like wet wings.

"So what's good with this…. New lead?" Bronte questioned.

Mend barked silently as if to clear his throat, "Newly made Vampires are being grouped up and dropped off in Morlock encampments underground as experimental groups to see how they perform with different mutant abilities."

Brontë thought it over. It didn't explain the hospital bit. They wouldn't need hospitals if they had blood banks underground full of people nobody cared for.

But Mutant Vampires was horrifying on its own.

He kept walking. Kept thinking. With every step they made, Smokey vampire ash sifted off of them like special effects.

"Bronte….?" Mend trotted next to him as they headed out the way they came.

"What?"

"Why are we not rushing out to find where this batch of Vampires may have headed from?"

Brontë patted his ear, "They're gone. But if they're looking to ambush, I'm game."

"That's one of many alarming aspects of your current state of mind. I wish to help you fix it! Let's consume a meal full of protein and nutrients NOW!"

"Your therapy skills are top tier." Bronte mumbled as they exited the Morlock massacre grounds and headed towards the surface.

It took all of two minutes for Bronte and his hounds to pop out from under the manhole cover and back into the surface world.

The alleyway was dark. Well past midnight, the air was rich and littered with snowfall that adorned everything in white crystal sprinkles.

Cars rolled past flashing light into the shadows with a lively pulse. But that was all that was alive.

No people. no birds. No warmth.

Until he found himself casually listening to the click of heels.

Strong— confident steps.

Click….clack-click….click….clack-click…

He knew she would be crossing the alley and was still surprised by her.

Her skin matched the snowfall.

Pale. Almost crystalline. A golden crown of platinum blonde hair stretched out from the shadows of her black hood like strips of sunlight. Warm and rich. When cars passed by, the lights reflected and gave it a whiter more haunting edge. Suddenly, like moonlight. Cool and eerie in its brightness.

She was gone as quickly as she came.

He couldn't even hear the heels anymore as if she just teleported out of his existence.

"Eight minutes flat. That ain't good enough."

Brontë spun around, eyes up high.

He found himself looking up at a man crouching in the rails of a fire escape.

His skin was dark. Almost as dark as his shades and trench coat. As dark as his teeth were white. As dark as his sheathed blades were shiny.

He didn't smell like a Vampire but the man had fangs.

A car drifted to a stop right at the entrance into the alley.

"If this is an attempt to lock me in this alley, y'all are hilarious." Bronte didn't spare a look behind him until the sword-wielding not-vampire flipped his way up the fire escape, ran along the roofs edge and jumped down onto the cars hood.

Brontë was surprised it didn't break.

"Hijo de puta!— just because the car can transform into a satan-mobile that doesn't mean you all can just manhandle it. This is my baby."

"Shut up, Robbie." The group of people said as they exited the black muscle car.

Brontë found himself eyeing an odd bunch. Almost as odd as him and his siblings used to look.

They stood calmly a dozen feet from him, whispering.

Brontë could hear them, he just didn't care.

There it was again. That blonde hair that glimmered like beams from a midnight sun.

"Illyana…?"

"Hi, Bronte."

He was too stunned to speak. It had been four years. Outside of his siblings, Ilyana, Sam, Rahne, Bobby and very few others were the only real connections he made after awakening his Mutant gene.

He didn't plan on seeing her again.

And he didn't plan on hugging her but there she was, closer than before. Scents swirling around him like the embrace of sheets and pillows after a long day.

The second he hugged her he remembered their last.

Sabertooth really had a way of just inserting himself where he was least wanted….

Brontë brought himself back to reality, where the circus-esque line-up remained standing.

The one they called Robbie took a stick of jerky out of his leather jacket pocket and fed it to the dogs as they swarmed him, stopping only to growl at the man to the left of Robbie.

"I don't think they like Wolves." Robbie commented.

A man in a white cloak to his right replied, "Of course they don't. Wolves are complete opposites of Dogs from a social-evolutionary standpoint. It's like putting a ufc fighter in a room with a therapist and asking them both to explain humanity to an alien."

"Dude….. what?"

Brontë felt like his head was spinning.

"Illyana…."

"Yes?"

"Why are you teamed up with a klansmen?"

"I can explain all of that to you, but would you like to go for a ride first?"