Chapter 118: Bronte, The StormWolf

"This is what Red Guardian saw…."

Winged Vampiric Sharks rose from the lakes and surrounding rivers with Talocanian Riders. From portals into the Brimstone Dimension, Vampiric Cheyaraphem riding Dragons screamed an inhuman war chant. Mutant Blood-Fiends took on their unique Morlock forms and replicated things of nightmares.

All as the sun rose, splitting the black clouds with yellow rays of brilliance.

The Vampires were untouched. Perfect. Evolved. Just as the prophecy of Varkis had promised.

They stood in hell under early morning skies. A reality unfit for the real world. But fitting all the same. Uncaring.

Brontë watched the two worlds blend in his peripherals as he blazed across the earth, chasing Daken. Gabbie flew beside him as Mend's Symbiote skin took her over.

The blue skies went dark as Storm and The Scarlet Witch advanced. Things in flight, plunged under the weight of shaped metals as Magneto brought them back to earth. The sky turned red under Cyclops' dimension crossing blast-beams.

It was hell.

And he created it.

Daken. Varkis. Lord of Night.

His massive bat-wings cut through the air and carried him ahead of Bronte at ungodly speeds. Faster than Northstar.

Brontë was as well. He reached Daken with Gabbie close behind. His hand gripping the foot of his enemy. His blood.

Daken exploded into a cloud of dark mist.

Brontë didn't lose a step, shaping the winds. Locking Daken into place only for the mists to bubble and recollect.

Tissue and fur popped, laying over metal and bone skeletal structures until a Wolf the size of a house hit the ground running.

"WHY are you running?!"

The sky lit up as Brontë called down a lightning shower.

Daken— as a massive black wolf, zig zagged across the barren wasteland of Chernobyl.

Brontë watched as he came to a halt, answering his own question.

"What?" Gabbie asked. He could hear how scared she was even with the snouted Symbiote mask deepening her voice.

"Wherever he's trying to go, I can't let him."

The next lightning strike hit him instead.

In a flash, he reappeared in front of Daken, slamming his claws into the wolf's massive head and unleashing a searing wind blast.

Fur burned as he rolled and tumbled.

From behind, Gabbie came roaring only to stumble through a cloud of smoke.

Daken reformed and landed soundlessly. Seemingly unscathed save for a dwindling scar on his forehead.

"So that's what it is….." Daken looked at Gabby. "How-"

Bronte and Gabbie sent a wave of fire at Daken. Before Daken could move, Bronte closed in on him and ripped open one of his wings.

He snarled and spun, ripping a line of red across Bronte's exposed chest before Gabbie landed on his back and breathed fire over his head.

"ENOUGH!" Spikes exploded from beneath Daken's skin, like his bones had suddenly become willfully manipulated. Only they were metal— shining, like blades.

Brontë was fast enough to dodge but Gabbie took six stabs to the chest and stumbled in the rubble. Her groans were swallowed up by the full scale war taking place in the distance.

"Did you kill Quill too, asshole?" Gabbie threw up a middle finger as she healed. Slower than usual.

"No. That was Bronte. He followed me willingly, actually. He was smart enough to see…" Daken replied as he dodged Bronte's onslaught of elementally fuzed physical attacks.

Slowly Bronte increased the heat, trying not to force Daken into his smoke state where he could heal.

"Keep him talking." Bronte told himself as the grounds shook and the skies split. "You don't need to be smart to get behind a tyrant— just scared."

Daken leaned into a stab from Bronte's claws and held his arm there.

His wings flapped a single time and suddenly they were above the clouds.

Brontë would've been glad to take the advantage if he didn't think Daken was more strategically sound than most.

What were they doing in the sky? Why? Who was up waiting for them…..

Bronte's hyper-vigilance remained as Daken let go of him.

"A savior will always look the opposite when they challenge the status quo, Bronte. You know this!"

"You killed innocent people! You killed Ra—"

"THEY killed people— THEY cut our people open and destroyed entire generations!" Daken exploded into a flurry of steel toothed bats and swarmed Bronte. "Are my actions not a response in kind?!"

His speed was unreal.

Fangs grazed his skin where the armor was no more. Claws cut his flesh. His adrenaline reduced the pains to mere pricks and stabs as he exploded in heat and pushed away the swarm.

Immediately, Daken continued his flight. Wherever he was heading.

Bronte wasted no time in chasing and working to turn him to ash.

He flashed through the swarm in a blur of light, incinerating half-healed bats as the others spun to evade, recollecting into one giant bat that beat its wings and screamed so hard Bronte's flames went out momentarily.

The beasts taloned feet fastened around Bronte immediately and they dove.

The earth met Bronte's face in a single breath. It caved and crumbled. His skull cracked in a thousand places. But he was durable. More durable than his siblings.

He triggered the charged kinetic energy in his suit and a deepened the crater he laid in, knocking Daken off his back. He could hear Daken screech and growl as his shape shifted and fought off the blast.

"That's it. Get mad…. Get up with me." Bronte pushed himself off the floor as his wounds knitted themselves closed and his senses directed him towards Daken. The smell of blood in the air was only growing.

He retained his previous form. A bat the size of a school bus with teeth like steel swords and wings that blotted out the rising sun. Through its golden backdrop, he could see the glowing veins pulsing in the thin skin of Daken's wings. A true horror.

"Come on!" A blast of lightning accentuated his words and cut a steaming hole through Daken's wings.

"You never were very smart. Just a power sponge….. I make the finest tweak to your senses and you don't notice…. Don't even have the wherewithal to consider what it is that makes me most dangerous. What it was that made you lose that arm.."

Brontë charged Daken— stumbling in surprise at how tired he was.

Daken screeched loud enough to make his ears bleed and flew off.

Brontë moved to crawl out of his hole in the earth only for an arm to fasten around his wrist.

He spun around and came face to face with Blade.

"Easy, slim. Easy…." The Midnight Suns stood behind him. Both shocked and looking beat to hell.

Ilyana had a wicked nose bleed and a burn on her shoulder that looked a few degrees too high to Bronte's liking.

"Where... oh shit…." Bronte felt his stomach drop as he put the pieces together. Flinching all the while as the grounds shook and their allies roared in fury.

"We couldn't see them. Daken hid them from us and….. us from them." Gabbie explained.

"It was actually a fairly intelligent play. If you killed us….. hell, who am I kidding, If you killed Magik, there's a chance you wouldn't have blamed Daken. You could've just fallen into despair and all this extra work would be avoided. Too bad our resident sorceress' powers seems to be growing by the minute. Did you know she could teleport across countries?" Moon-Knight rambled.

"….."

Bronte's eyes lingered on MoonKnight's torn robes….. Jack's busted snout, healing slowly, Ghost Rider was untouched. But Magik— Ilyana.

She pushed past Blade and grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her.

"He did that for a reason, Bronte. He knows we can stop him. He's scared of us. Of you."

"Me too…." Bronte replied quietly.

Ilyana shook his shoulders, "Focus!"

Brontë shook himself off, "Yea. Ok—"

The skies went red as Cyclops eye beams marred the battlefield of Vampires in ways Bronte didn't know possible.

"That's another General." Blade said. "Two left."

"Ok. You guys go help the others. I can let loose if I'm alone with Daken. I can take him."

Ilyana looked at Bronte the same way they all did the first day he came to The Abbey.

Like it was sad how vastly he was missing something.

"What?"

"Bronte….. you can't take him alone." Ilyana said and wiped a tear as she looked at the rest of him.

For once, Bronte took a step back and looked down at himself.

Dozens of deep cuts ran red where his suit was torn. Even his stump was bleeding and torn. Mend worked overtime to fix the damage.

He wasn't healing.

"But I never saw—"

"Part of you knew. Your paranoia of Daken is your greatest strength now." Ilyana explained, "The Generals you killed in disguise— you kept their heads. Brother Voodoo was able to get some info from Morbius— their scientist. He grafted Daken's Muramasa blade to his bones."

"That's why I didn't see the blade….." Bronte thought aloud.

"I think I got your plan after you fell in on us with the fake." Ilyana started, "You were going to wear him out— just survive, until the rest of us took out the remaining Generals."

Bronte would be lying if he said that wasn't true…. At least to some degree.

He still had something in the tuck.

"But that won't work." Blade announced, "Daken doesn't want to fight you. He wants to go big."

Nick Fury's words rang in his mind like a church bell.

He didn't need them to specify.

"Do you know where he's headed or not?"

"There's six nuclear missile silo's he could be at." Blade replied.

"I'm fast enough. Are you?" Ilyana questioned Bronte.

If she did her usual teasing smile only shared in their times of solitude, he would've thought she was teasing— trying to be funny again. But her face was as hard as her brothers steel skin.

She was asking if he had anymore fight in him.

"Girl, open the damn portal." Bronte huffed and threw Mend back onto Gabbie.

Ghost Rider snorted steam and cracked his literally exposed knuckles, "Let's goo!!"

The portal bloomed.

Brontë was the first in.

He stumbled out to a building interior that looked a lot like what Chernobyl would've become had it not…. Well, you know.

It was modern. Dark metal frameworks and steel spotless walkways. Electrical flashes and hazard signs split up the dark and surrounded a hole in the floor where a massive missile sat in cold silence.

"Empty." Moon-Knight said as Jack sniffed around.

"Not a good sign." Blade replied.

"Not the right sign either." Bronte's skin itched in anticipation. "Take us to the next one."

They teleported again.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

Again.

N—

Bronte stumbled into the next silo. Like all the others dark metal frameworks and signage welcomed him.

This time a new smell followed.

Blood. And fear…

He followed it to the sight of a blindfolded woman hanging from a railing of the upper floor. She was covered in bruises and…. Familiar?

"Ruth?" Ilyana said as she entered.

"He's coming!" She yelled from a raspy throat.

The whole silo shook as Daken barged in with a beat of his massive wings.

The wind gust torn up the metal walkways and stairs, sending jagged metal their way.

Brontë caught the winds and twisted them, throwing the metal back at Daken inches before it could reach them.

Daken assumed his more human form and dodged the shrapnel blast in a series of body-flickering movements.

"Spread out. Even if his senses are magnified, his mind is split across all his followers." A voice entered their minds.

Brontë knew it was Ruth. He recognized her. Daken's ex from the Xavier Institute days. He didn't take the time to question her. He didn't have the time. And Gabbie already got the jump on him twice.

Suddenly Bronte was alone.

"Let's go for three."

Daken didn't attack. He remained still.

"Your powers are growing, Magik. Not the Sorcery either, your Mutant power…. Which was arguably your weakest for some time. That usually only happens when we're close to death. Did my brother hit you with a few too many strays?"

Brontë snarl—

"Don't be an animal. Use your brain. He's trying to goad you— to get you away from the missile." Ruth noted telepathically.

Brontë collected himself and replied to Daken, "You should be more focused on what you got going on."

"I'm focused. I'm in a hundred places on a hundred battlegrounds. Still, focused... if you were, you'd be with me."

"Let's be real….. You don't want me with you. Or else you wouldn't be trying to kill me."

"I CANT risk your refusal to reason. God dammit, think, Bronte!" Daken continued his slow walk to him. "What comes after this? Everything goes back to normal? Do you think that?"

Bronte's eyes flashed to the nuke behind him. "Are you trying to make sure we can't do that?"

"For us theres no difference! That's what I'm trying to tell you! And that…." Daken referred to the nuke, "Has nothing to do with you….. until it has everything to do with all of us."

"That sounds like suicide." Bronte felt the room grow cold.

"Worse." Ruth replied, "He's going to frame all Mutants by saying we are behind the nuke being sent to China in protest of their anti-Mutant laws and harsh treatment. A large portion of Russia is under Vampire control. He's planning to spark a nuclear fallout between all world leading powers. China will attack the USA, where the most outspoken mutants are. The USA will return whatever it can. The world will reset. Daken thinks that's our last chance to get a fair footing."

Daken stood across from him. No more than twenty feet away. He was unrecognizable. A dark titan of fury and rage and sorrow.

Either of them could deliver a deadly blow in a blink. They could also set off the nuke. It was funny. In a morbid way. Their relationship was always like the room they occupied. The stakes they stood on together.

A tight shared space— a relation, where things could go nuclear at any singular moment. From the day they met. To their last…

"Ruth…. This is why you're up there." Daken spat, as if he too could read their minds.

"No. I'm up here because I won't tell you how this ends."

"Im confident in myself."

"First mistake."

Spirals of smoke rose from Daken's shoulder—

Before anything more could happen, Ghost Rider's chain flew from above and wrapped around Daken's throat.

The smell of his skin burning was as putrid as the sinking feeling in Bronte's stomach. Either way, he swung. A blast of wind knocked Daken off his feet as he struggled to shift shapes against the hellfire chain.

Ghost Rider planted his feet on the railing above and yanked the chain, causing Daken to spin around the upper floor walkway and rise up off the ground.

"HAHAH!!! Ring around the rosey for assholes! You like that, puto?!" Ghost Rider joked.

Daken twisted himself as his throat burned out of existence and ran his claws through the railing in a flurry of movements.

In a flash the whole railing collapsed and Daken spun out of the binds as Ghost Rider fell.

Before he could hit the ground a portal opened at his feet and Daken was gone.

Brontë took the chance and cut Ruth down before diving into the portal.

Next, he landed on Daken spitting flames and ripping into his chest in a distant forest.

Daken choked on his own blood and charred skin as he kicked Bronte off.

As he got to his feet a blur of darkness slid between them, opening a gash in Daken's stomach that healed even slower than the burns. Blade's weaponry seemed as valuble as always.

Gabbie rose from the ground where she was camoflauged and grabbed Daken by the leg, slamming him into the floor repeatedly before his wings began to swat at her.

Bronte panicked and tackled him out of her grip. He was once again in the air as Daken kicked him off.

Daken flew after him, unbothered by the binds Moon-Knight wrapped his legs with. tackling The Vampire lord pressed on, tackling Bronte through four tree's before Bronte angrily spun him around and threw Daken through another.

He hit the ground like a ragdoll and rolled into a river.

Bronte held out his only hand to the waters and froze it with Daken inside.

A series of lightning bolts lit up the frozen river with Daken inside.

He came out half healed and full of holes but no worse for wear where it counted.

Jack— the massive werewolf, descended from the trees and clamped his jaws down on Daken's healing throat.

Ghost Rider's chain caught his right hand. Mend's extending limbs caught his left.

They were doing it. He was—

Daken's body exploded with spikes.

One went straight through Jack's head.

The beast whimpered and his jaws unlocked. Brontë blinked and saw Rahne in Sabertooth's arms.

Daken saw something terrifying in his own right as he looked to Bronte.

He dashed backward with a bat of his wings after dropping Jack.

The whole of the Midnight Suns took the wind blast on the chin, rolling and breaking through jagged tree stumps and mounds of dirt. He could hear their bones snap.

Brontë was deceptively heavy. And in a rage.

He was in Daken's face before the winds ended.

They fought like they were back at the Xavier Institute. All claw and fang and ferocity.

Brontë fought on his toes, tearing at the already opened wounds where he could to keep Daken wounded. Daken worked to land a blow that mattered with his Muramasa metal claws.

He was fast. But more importantly, he was like water. The way he dodged and ducked into seamless attacks….

Brontë swatted at his eyes, blinding him enough to go for the throat.

Daken evaded with a backflip and landed in a slide, covering himself in his wings.

Bronte pressed him from the front, stabbing through the wings.

Daken did the same.

Bad gamble.

Bronte spit blood onto his wings.

"Fuck…"

Daken opened his wings and lifted him by the throat.

He could hear Ilyana scream in the distance.

"Here she comes….."

"WAI—"

Daken stabbed him again, puncturing his guts. Behind him, Gabbie healed the others. Mend forced her vision to stay focused on them and not the mutilation of her brother. He'd have to thank his cousin Symbiote for that. He'd have to….

Ilyana's portal opened right beside Daken. The moment she stepped out he threw Bronte and lunged for her.

Bronte rolled in the dead grass as his blood ran like the rivers around him. The rest of the Midnight suns, still injured— save for Ghost Rider, we're still healing.

In the distance, Daken held Ilyana by the throat with her SoulSword in his hands.

"Robbie…." Bronte pleaded, "Save her!"

The Ghost Rider stood unmoving. "He... I can't.... He's losing his soul."

Daken keeled over suddenly, still holding Ilyana.

Ghost Rider took a step.

"Don't!…." Daken raised the SoulSword to her throat.

"AHHHH!" Daken's eyes went black and a horn jutted out of his forehead.

Bronte knew that look. Even as he grew impossibly tired. Even as Mend worked to heal him fast enough.

Even though Daken didn't have The Darkhold, he had its magic flowing through him.

"It's Cthon…" Bronte mumbled. "He's giving him power."