Chapter 75: Light up the Night

The bigger picture.

Mutants, Vampires…. And Atlanteans?

Daken was shaping up to be Romulus's ideal successor. He had his hands in many pots. But it seemed he was looking to combine his efforts more directly than Bronte could've imagined.

But at the back of his mind he felt like he should've seen it.

Either way, he listened as Klaw spoke with the Vampires.

"….youre sure you weren't followed or tracked?" The leading Vampire questioned as he stood at the edge of the docs under pale moonlight. Full Moonlight.

"I'm sure. Plus technology today is so eager to advance it has no respect for the classics. Most screening and recon technology of the modern age wouldnt see this rust bucket. And nobody wants the people of Talocan. They're….. losers." Klaw explained.

The vampires looked at eachother briefly in confusion.

"Oh come on. Does your employer tell you nothing?"

The Vampires continued their game of silence.

"Apparently…" Klaw started with a robotic giggle, "The Queen of Wakanda has a Mutant love child with one of the old Avengers— super strong. He led the war against the people of Talocan and he was so powerful he revived that island Krakoa. The one with all the Mutants. And then he just left. But storms and hurricanes ravaged the oceans for days after from a record breaking heatwave. All your water people lost crops and their homes. The weak ones died after the loss. It was hard to find a body that wasn't caught between shark teeth by now."

Brontë felt his stomach sink. Like he ate a brick … or a steel ball that was pulling his insides down into his boots. At the same time the ripples in the dark ocean water and bits of cracked ice turned into corpses. The fishes became people. Broken homes. Severed limbs. Black fir—

"What are they saying?" Ilyana put a hand to his shoulder. The shock of her cold skin stung.

Brontë swallowed and tried to center himself, "N-…. Uhhh… nothing. Small-talk."

"Bronte why do these words bother you?" Mend questioned.

"I….. I didn't know. They died after giving up. They died for no reason….."

"Alright, folks. We got our information. Get ready." Blade announced from Bronte's earpiece.

"Sounds scary." One of the Vampires said.

"Damn right. The last thing you want is someone that strong just walking around. Outside of their habitat. It's like… when you put a house cat in a neighborhood full of mice and birds."

"What?"

"Three…." Moon-Knight mumbled.

Klaw chuckled, "Nothing. Here." He pulled up the being of Talocan from a rusted chain wrapped around its ankle and tossed it onto the docs.

"Two…"

The Vampire was given a duffle bag by one of his buddies and tossed it to Klaw.

"One."

"Pleasure doing business." Klaw said.

"AHHH— Hold on!"

The Vampires hissed and spun around to face the noise. Klaw followed their gaze.

Moon-Knight stood atop a shipment container across from Ilyana and Brontë so the Vampires had their backs to them.

At his side he had a man in a black cloak covered from head to toe.

"Jack…" Bronte remembered Blade covering him earlier. Weird.

"The business in question is NOT over. I want my cut. And don't try to lie to me. I know you have another bag of cash in the trunk." Moon-Knight explained. The Full Moon at his back made his white suit and cloak fluttering in the wind look like they were glowing.

Klaw sharply looked to face the Vampires. "Why you—"

"What the hell are you talking about?" One of the Vampires questioned.

"What? You guys only looking to buy fish-people? That's fucked up…. And racist. Or not racist enough? I don't know anymore. Anyway… Why not buy Wolf-men? I heard they fetch a pretty penny…."

Moon-Knight ripped the cloak off of Jack and let the moonlight fall upon his sweating skin.

Almost immediately he began to steam and roar in pain as his joints popped and limbs extended. Bronte's mother once told him she saw Hulk transform during a fight in Manhattan. The way she described it looked exactly like what he was watching. Something grotesque and painful.

"Check him out boys!" Moon-Knight kicked Jack off the shipment container and into the Vampires.

Immediately the area lit up with muzzle flares and bullets bouncing off the metal walls as they lit up the falling man.

He hit the ground covered in holes, steam and fur. Seemingly dead. Unmoving and leaking blood.

Ilyana caught Bronte's arm.

"Where'd the white bastard go!"

"How'd he get a WereWolf!? They ain't supposed to be around here!"

"Shut up and find the one in the cloak!"

Then Jack's wounds closed. His muscles inflated like balloons if they could appear as hard as steel. The thin sheen of fur covering his skin thickened and matured into a sort of shaggy armor. His face lengthened into a canine muzzle topped by bright yellow eyes.

"Oh shit!"

The WereWolf roared loud enough to shake the waters and pounced on the closest Vampire. Before it could begin to explode into a flurry of bats, Jack bit into its neck with a sloppy crunch and removed its head. It hit the ground as black dust.

As the chaos ensued, Klaw hopped onto the docs and began moving for the section of SUV's to get his supposed full cut of money.

"Bingo." Blade whispered as if he too was waiting for Klaw to enter the docs.

Seemingly out of nowhere a ring of vibrant fire swallowed the docs rising at least a hundred feet in the air and placing them all under hellish orange light.

Something let out the most hideous laugh he'd ever heard as the WereWolf began chasing down and fighting the Vampires.

Jack was outnumbered.

As deadly as his bite was to them, the Vampires were rarely bitten. They were fast and had guns.

In pale skinned blurs they danced around the docs, keeping their distance as they rained bullets down on the beast.

"Just wait." Ilyana said.

Shortly after her words, Blade seemingly walked out of pure shadows and cut down a Vampire on a shipment container below them.

One of the smarter Vampires saw him in the distance and attempted to flee only to be caught by a flaming metal chain.

"Get over here!" The demonic voice from before yelled and yanked the Vampire so hard it simply exploded into dust.

Brontë followed the length of the chain to its point of origin and found a flaming skeleton wearing Robbie's clothes emerge from a bait shop to their left just as it went up in flames. He grabbed the blazing heaps of wood and threw them at the gunslinging Vampires as they hopped around the docs.

In seconds it looked like hell on earth. Bright enough to blind and loud enough to deafen. Familiar. Despite the new beings and abilities, war was always the same.

"Bronte and Magik, you're on Klaw."

"Say less." Bronte stood up and jumped off the shipment container with Ilyana.

A disc of pure light opened beneath their feet and teleported them to the bridge Klaw was crossing.

Brontë reached out with his Symbiote arm. Under the glow of flames surrounding them, it stretched down the bridge's length until his hand was closing around Klaw's throat.

"ACK!" The moment his hand touched Klaw, Mend growled in pain and a sharp stinging sensation rippled through his nervous system like lightning.

Despite this, Mend held on and allowed Bronte to yank him back towards them.

Ilyana noticed his struggle and lunged in as Klaw came toward them, driving her armored knee into the— now for surely inhuman, tradesman's back.

Immediately after his spine bent and his feet came off the ground, she twisted, wrapping her arms around his neck and throwing him over Bronte.

He landed on his face back on the docs. The Vampires continued to slowly but surely die out against Blade and the others behind him.

"You Vampire hunters get weirder everyday." Klaw said as he mechanically raised his arm while the rest of his body remained still.

The speaker looking object that took the place of his hand illuminated. It shook like a speaker when a song with heavy bass started playing.

Ilyana jumped off the bridge. Brontë did the same just as an audial blast eviscerated the wooden ground.

Ilyana teleported right before hitting the water. Bronte caught the railing on the other side and swung himself into the air, soaring over Klaw until he landed behind him.

At the same time, Ilyana appeared in front of him just as he got to his feet, running her Soulsword through his stomach. Electrical sparks flew. At the same time, Brontë ran his claws through his neck from behind.

"InterestIIIIING!!!" The android erupted in high pitched screaming that caused Mend to go insane and shift shapes.

Brontë stumbled backward, twisting and rolling under the shocking pain until Ilyana teleported the android outside the ring of fire and into the water.

"Bronte! Are you ok?"

Brontë regained his focus just in time to see Ilyana squatted over him. Her golden hair danced in his face. Sweat glistened her brows as they furrowed together in concern.

"Yea— yea, I'm straight." Bronte grumbled as he got to his feet. "Mend, you good?"

"I do not appreciate high pitched sounds…." Mend whispered.

"Noted."

Brontë turned around to survey the area with Ilyana and found piles of black ash all over the docs.

Robbie, Moon-Knight and Jack stood back to back to back covered in Vampire dust and flesh wounds.

"Good pooch…" Moon-Knight itched behind the massive seven foot tall WereWolf— Jack's, ears once before it growled at him and walked away.

"You always ruin our badass moments." Robbie pinched a flame out of his hair.

"Hey! Brontë! What the hell happened?" Blade cut his way out of a shipment container with a bound Vampire that seemed to be burning from the binds.

The others parted like the seas as Blade walked across the docs. The veins in his arms bulged as he dragged along the Vampire.

"You took out more blood-suckers than this two days ago… FASTER! You got sensitive ears, slim? I heard you seizing."

"Im fine."

Blade stopped in front of him, "Just a fluke, huh?"

"Nah— just a amped android made of tech I've never seen. That means something." Bronte stepped to him. Mends own anger showing in the darkening of his arm veins and sparks on his skin.

"Be ready for surprises." Blade replied.

"I'm still standing, right?"

Blade grinned, "Right. Robbie!"

Robbie snapped his fingers and the flame dome evaporated.

Jack immediately looked up at the moon.

"Not so fast, Fido." Moon-Knight pulled a gun from his belt and fired it into the Jack's hindquarters from forty feet away.

Four darts stuck out of his leg.

He spun around and snarled before his eyes went low and he plopped down to the floor snoring.

"You're strong, Bronte. Stronger than dear old daddy—"

"I'll carry the WereWolf if you stop bringing up Wolverine." Bronte cut in.

Blade nodded to himself, "Right on, right on."

Ilyana followed him as he walked over to Jack. The sight of the humanoid beast reminded him of the one in his nightmares— himself, when Romulus activated and enflamed his Feral Mutant Gene. He shook off the encroaching shiver and hauled the beast up over his shoulders like a barbell.

Ilyana stood beside him. "Sound was never so effective against you…. What happened? Your arm?—"

"We'll talk later." Bronte cut her off before the others heard anything. He had no reason to keep Mend a secret but he also had no reason to tell them.

"Alright folks, fall in on Magik. We're out of here. Time to interrogate a Vampire."

"We'll probably need this." Moon-Knight said before picking up the dead being of Talocan.

"What about Klaw?" Robbie questioned.

"He's gone." Bronte replied, "I heard the sub leave when I was on the ground."

"What?"

"There was either another android inside the sub or he has a technical healing factor. I have to be high if I just said that." Bronte adjusted the weight of the werewolf on his shoulders.

"He doesn't matter right now. He got his money— he'll be out of the way now. We got bait. And information. We win."

Fights never felt like they were won. Even when Bronte was the last one standing. Even when he was unscathed and unbroken.

"Good work everyone. Oh and Bronte…" Blade started, "I owe you an explanation about a prophecy now, don't I?"