Chapter 98: Second Crescendo

He was just like The Scarlet Witch said….

"You called on me because I would know, right? I would know Cthon and his power… the Darkholds power, because it flows through me….. except it doesn't. It doesn't flow through me like the magic of many gods does through you, Bronte. It hasn't been apart of my lineage for generations. It's scarred me. Made me a target— piloted my mind more times than I'd like to admit. It's a virus more than its magic, and I only know so much because I'm the most ill. I say all this to say, young one, I can use chaos and magic born of darkness. But Cthon…. He is chaos born of darkness."

Her words rang true as his brain bounced off the walls of his bio-metal skull.

Or maybe that was just his brain ringing in general from taking a dark magic fireball to the face.

The blast knocked him off his feet and crashing through three feet of solid mountainous wall. Overhead, stone crumbled like the jaws of an earth-born beast and swallowed him.

Simile became literal action as red light flashed and the stone around him grew mouthes full of jagged fangs and bit into his skin.

He snarled, ripping and tearing his way out of the animated stone. It was like quicksand. Every bit he crushed with his head and elbow became more smaller stone golems to hold him until little pebbles gnawed on him fiendishly.

Finally he breached the stone, his only hand reaching out for the world outside.

A searing heat gripped him. Hotter than any fire he'd manipulated before his injury. It jumpstarted him in its white hot intensity before fastening around his wrist and yanking him out.

The cold winds roared as he used the flaming chain to propel himself even faster through the air

The battlefield blurred. In his speed it looked like nothing more than dead trees and boulders over puddles.

Then he stopped, crashing into one of the dead oaks. It had grown jagged limbs, soaking up blood red chaos magic from its slithering roots and branches.

His mass carried him through the twisted wood in an explosion of released magic.

"HAHAHA!…. You feeling the heat?" Ghost-Rider yelled above the wind storm

Stone made into the shape of man lumbered after him. Its movements grated on his ears and its eyes felt as deep as the tunnels housing the dead Helsing and warring Werewolves.

He cut it to pieces with claws coated in hellfire.

"Something like that…" Bronte thought before the hairs on his back stood on end.

He spun around and found a purplish red blast rocketing towards him.

Again.

He flipped out of the way, sliding over the stone battleground as the others fought against more reanimated aspects of the mountain.

"You're quite resilient." Cthon said to him, hovering above ground.

Bronte grabbed one of the wooden monsters by the arm and threw it at the evil entity.

As it soared through the air, Bronte took off, jumping through the teleporting disc Ilyana spawned in front of him.

In a blink he stepped out into cold air a dozen feet above where he once was, right behind Cthon.

He smelled like burnt oil and necrotic flesh. He smelled like sulfur and blood and herbs from a time before…..

Eyes opened in the back of Cthon's head like a grinning visage rising to the surface of a dark pond.

Bronte crashed into him, running his hellfire claws through Cthon's face.

The entity laughed and slapped Bronte with a twelve fingered hand doused in dark magic. It blew the skin and muscle clean off the left side of his face. His exposed eyeball scrambled in his skull socket as he roared in pain.

They fell towards everyone else, swinging and stabbing like animals in a frenzy.

Bronte hit the ground with Cthon on top of him.

"You hate.... not me…. But something. It tastes… delicious." Cthon said as he raised his hand. It turned into a black steel blade.

He lunged at Bronte's face with it.

Bronte leaned to the side and ripped open his throat with his elbow blade.

Instead of dark blood spraying all over him a swarm of locusts exploded from the gaping wound, blinding Bronte as they exploded with white-hot chaos magic.

"I heard the Silver Dagger was a religious man. Locusts once symbolized the wrath of a god... do you feel my wrath, boy? I think it's far greater than yp—"

"Fuck you!" Bronte spit lightning like a bullet straight through Cthon's head and took top mount.

Mend was still injured. Bronte was still hindered my his own mind.

He swung anyway. He stabbed. He bit and beat.

Cthon continued to speak with a mouth that moved like the dead, "What brought you here?….. None of you are ready. You're children….. inexperienced and unpracticed. You lost members before even reaching me. Your forces die fighting things I created on a whim eons ago... have you ever faced the apex? Or do your legs shake thinking about your eventual fall? I'll answer for you."

Bronte ripped and tore until his entire midsection was flayed open and real blood ran. The blood of the Silver Dagger beneath.

The sight of the blood sent him back to Wakanda. Back to Krakoa—

Cthon fired a torrent of purple fire straight into Bronte's face. Copying his own previous attack as the skies darkened and clouds swelled.

Bronte grabbed the throat of Cthon, unrelenting in his assault even as his entire face burned away and the muscled melted off superheated skull and bone.

He could hear Ilyana scream. Blade said something to her. Bronte's ears went. He crushed Cthon's throat with his hand.

"Enough." Cthon touched the ground and a red pulse of energy rippled through the cold earth. Turning stone to black ocean waters in an instant. Turning the stone and wood creatures to massive red eyed serpents with tentacle manes covered in barbs.

They moved like horrors beyond human comprehension. Slithering and twisting beneath the waves in bubbling blurs. Screaming in audial waves so unique it distorted everyone's vision and made them sick.

Ghost-Rider went wild with his hellfire chain, striking at the surrounding terrors in steaming flashes of light.

Blade kept above the waves, slashing and stabbing at every movement. Sometimes sinking and rising again bloody.

Ilyana spawned a teleporting disc. The largest she'd ever managed, attempting to swallow the small ocean atop the mountain while Jack— now a Werewolf under full moon rays chased the beasts.

Bronte sank.

In the icy depths he knitted himself together, absent of air. Absent of power.

Cthon hovered paralel to him. They sank deeper. Deeper than everyone. Deeper then the tunnels. Past the Werewolves clawing and tearing apart the Vampiric animals. Past Abraham Van Helsings missing dead body.

"The owner of this body studied you. He had an obsession. He thought you were a sign of the end times….. You've ended the lives of hundreds. You're complicit in thousands. You parade around with your heroes but you hold chaos. Like me. You're a killer…. Yet you feel sorry. Feel guilt. Like the religious zealot I pilot, you are a hypocrite. Must be why your magic won't work even as you die…."

Bronte hit the bottom.

Literally? Metaphorically?

He didn't know. He didn't have enough oxygen in his brain to differentiate like that.

Or maybe he did.

He could feel. He could hear.

He could hear enough to laugh beneath the waves.

He could feel enough to sense his own urge to speak. Like he was back in class. Mr Smith intent on knowing his take on today's discussion. On how he viewed the world. Societies dilemmas. His own….

He could practically see the discussion title on the white board written in old chalk.

Morality, Nuance and Self Actualization.

He stared into Cthon's eyes. Ribbons of human flesh dangled in the waters where Bronte ripped him apart. Him and the psycho within. Human. Still wrong. Still justified. Still a joke.

He didn't need to write a dissertation or have some world bending realization it was always right there in his face. In Oshtur's words. In Ilyana's ideas. In his mother's kind eyes.

"Actions ain't intention….. and I'm not about to let YOU…. tell me who I am. You're a dark god…. You feed on shit like this. Like me….. I have to be more. I'm done lacking."

His silent staring contest with the dark god ended as his eyes shut and the pain of drowning slowly eased into the calm of dying.

He faded. Listening to the thunder in the distance grow near. Listening to the beat. Listening to the storm.

It came to him as a simple 808 drumline. The first drumline he'd learned. The first bit of rhythm he'd shown through his foray into music.

Beginning again.

Boom….. boom—boom….. Boom…. boom-boom .....

The aftershock rattling through the earth was like the crash of a cymbal. He felt it in his bones…. rippling up his spine and make his fingers tingle.

"Curious…." Cthon muttered beneath the waves. He spun around, listening to his serpents cries as Ilyana teleported everyone out of the waters. Out from beneath the glowing thunder clouds and heavy hail shower.

Lightning fell as it always did.

In a flash.

The bright white consumed them. Turning the waters into an electrified hurricane. Ripping through the deep sea nightmare serpents. Ripping through Cthon. Soaking into Bronte at the bottom of the liquified mountain.

It supercharged him in heart and soul. Bringing him back to the living. Bringing him back into himself. Bringing him to the beat of his own drum.

He opened his eyes, hovering in a black expanse. Stars watched him like eyes all around. Earth spun below. So far away. All his problems. All his goals. Everything. Separated. Allowing him to focus on one thing at a time.

He held Cthon by the arm. The dark god raged as the expanse of space sucked the air from his vessels lungs.

The tables had never turned so quickly.

The dark god swung at him. His many fingered hands and chaos magic infused fists crumbled against his elemental aura.

His cargo pants and coat burned away, revealing his old StormWulf Vibranium suit beneath. Torn. Damaged. Unmasked and incomplete….. but present all the same. Sparks of lightning danced on his skin. The hail melted into a reflective liquid sheen that shrouded him. Droplets rose and spun with the winds twisting around him. His hair glowed like the stars, sending off sparks of flame like comets in orbit.

Cthon's fury relented. He regarded Bronte casually in a sudden acceptance of defeat or possible remembrance of a trump card.

"What changed, boy?"

Bronte could feel the pressure in the absent absent air change. He could feel magic swell. Dark matter. The very fabric of the black expanse being shaped into a knife trained on him.

"That's my business." Bronte front kicked him deep into space. Towards their greatest star and all its blinding heat.

Cthon's casual facade melted away as he grew closer, flipping and twisting into a massive snarling wraith made of spacial fabric and historical trauma with devilish horns the size of towers and eyes like firestorms.

"REEAAAGGHHH!!!! WHEN I GET BACK TO EARTH IM—"

Bronte's missing arm reformed. Made of lightning and flame given shape by wind. The nerve endings glimmered like circuits on a beatpad. He knew the keys to play to get his desired result.

He aimed his elemental appendage and fired.

The largest arc of lightning he'd ever seen ripped across space and crashed into the eldritch entity.

He poured all the magic he had into it until Cthon was crashing into the sun and the black mass was evaporated by pure unfiltered solar power.

Sparks and fissures rippled across the black in shades of purple, orange and red. It was like fireworks.

Then it was over.

Bronte remained.

He looked down at the clouds hovering over earth. He dove, flying like a bullet, reaching out for the bubbling energy.

As he flew closer to the thunderclouds, a blast of lightning rose up in reverse and hit him.

In a blink and crash of thunder he was back on the mountain. Solid ground welcomed him.

"Please tell me the sun flare was you and not another global emergency on the way…" MoonKnight said.

He didn't notice it from space. But the night was interrupted.

Stripes of sunlight scattered across the sky sent sporadic rays of light to earth. Pockets of warmth everywhere. It was weirdly beautif—

Ilyana crashed into him. She smelled like ocean water and blood. Her demon form was in full swing. All the dark and chaos magic must've been infectious to her in a way it wasn't to everyone else.

"Are you ok?" Bronte asked.

Blade laughed.

"Don't ask me that."

"What the—"

"YOU just threw an Elder god into the sun. Are YOU ok?!" Ilyana held him with clawed fingers.

"Yea, I'm solid... I got my magic back." Bronte replied.

"You fixed your mind…."

"All it took was almost dying three different times." Robbie replied, "And I thought my powers sucked. Estoy bendecido."

Ilyana grabbed Bronte's face and made him look at her as her human form slowly returned. "What were you thinking?"

Bronte's exhaustion set in somewhere behind her brown eyes and black lipstick. "I'm thinking about….. getting the hell out of here with that book. Giving it to the Doc, and then inviting you over to my place again."

Ilyana's cheeks reddened, "I meant what were you thinking to get your magic back, Bronte."

"Oh…."

"So are y'all getting a room or going exhibitionist style?" Blade questioned.

"Don't give them ideas." MoonKnight replied.

Jack agreed with an exhausted grunt.

Out of nowhere the hatch they came in from flew open.

Everyone was on their feet and ready for round two against whoever as the figure stepped out.

He wore nothing but a pair of black slacks and dress shoes, leaving his chiseled upper body exposed to the intense cold. A black mask covered his entire head marked by nothing but a full moon disc on his forehead. His eyes glowed behind the black cloth.

He carried two injured werewolves on his shoulders and was covered in cuts.

Bronte's nostrils flared, "….. Abe?"

"My name is not Abe. I am Wolf Moon, Right hand of Khonshu….. and you have interrupted the nigh—"

Before Abe could accuse Bronte of destroying the night with his solar flares, he collapsed.

All tenseness in the air faded and a voice spoke in Bronte's mind.

"Congratulations, unc! I knew you could do it. You have mended what's been broken…..WOOHOO! LETS CELEBRATE WITH CHOCOLATE AND LOUD MUSIC!"